The Ringer NFL Show - Week 15 Recap: The Bills Hold Off the Lions, the Eagles Return to Form, and More

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Sheil, Steven, and Diante return to discuss, debate, and share their expert takes on their favorite games from the Sunday NFL slate. Bills-Lions (1:45) Steelers-Eagles (16:03) Packers-Seahawks (23:41) Then, they break down the AFC wild-card race and play Content, Contender, Pretender (39:47) with potential AFC playoff teams. To close the show, they survey the league and offer superlatives and awards to the players, coaches, and teams who made newsworthy contributions to the Week 15 headlines (1:00:00). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee Producers: Chris Sutton, T Cruz, Tucker Tashjian, and Mark Panik Production Supervision: Conor Nevins, Arjuna Ramgopal, and Daniel Comer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and get ready for the McShay show on the ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with Deontay Lee and Stephen Ruiz. Good to have you watching on Fandual TV or listening on Spotify. Week 15. Can't believe I'm saying that. Week 15 is in the books. Only three more weeks left. We had a possible Super Bowl preview. We had a battle in Pennsylvania. We had a weird Sunday night game and everything in between. We're going to hit on all of them. You know how we get started. it here with our lessons from the week. Stephen Ruiz, start us off.

What do you got? All right. This might be an overreaction, but I don't care. It's an overreaction Sunday when we have all these great games. If I'm making my pick of the offensive coordinator candidates for a head coaching job, give me Joe Brady over Ben Johnson after what I saw on Sunday. And after what I've seen all season long, I mean, Joe Brady, when you compare the offensive numbers, like the EPA, they're right there, the points scored.

They're right there with Detroit. but Joe Brady is working around an offensive line. It's not a bad offensive line by any mean, but it's not the elite offensive line and the skeleton key to do whatever you want that Ben Johnson enjoys in Detroit. And we haven't really seen Ben Johnson outside of that environment yet. We've only seen him for a couple years as Detroit's offensive coordinator. But no, this game I thought was about Josh Allen being a star and then Joe Brady putting these players in positions.

We talked about this on the Friday show, but putting these players, these playmakers in position to dominate their matchups. And we talked about the man coverage plan that they were going to have to have because you have to have a man coverage plan whenever you go up against Detroit. And I don't know if I've seen a better game plan all season long than the one I saw it of Brady. Like the use of Ty Johnson as that mismatch nightmare against that banged up linebacker core that Detroit has right now. And Detroit, my God, all of these injuries. It has to stop at some point. They lose Aleem McNeil, the defensive tackle.

They lose Carlton Davis. Dan Campbell said after the game that he thinks both are season-ending injuries. So those are two huge blows to them to add to obviously like Aidan Hutchinson's out. But I thought that Joe Brady really preyed on that and really exploited that talent deficiency they had. Because Detroit does like to match up. If you match up with guys and you're short-handed, it's going to be easy to pick apart. But I thought Joe Brady did a very good job of finding those matchups and setting them up. Like the fourth and two to Ty Johnson, the little pick route where he motions him out to the slot to give Josh Allen the man's own tail.

and then he sets up the pick play perfectly. So it's one yard within the line of scrimmage. So it is legal to free up Johnson. And then the play out of the backfield where he runs like little wheel route out of the backfield against Quana Alexander. Just two masterful plays. The run game, which was built around Josh Allen. We talked about the under center run game in the preview show. And they barely even use it.

They use Josh Allen as an option quarterback today. And it really worked. And then like the red zone creativity, the little shovel pass to Khalil Shakir to kind of put the game away. Just a master class performance. by him and like check every box you want to see out of an offensive coordinator and a head coaching candidate. You know, Sheel, I think you said this on the preview show that Josh Allen is like elevated himself to the level of like you touched the him of his quarterback cloth and now you get to be

a head coach and I think that we kind of mix up how much of this is Josh Allen versus the structure of the offense. I think that I think that my takeaway from this game was a little bit more about Josh Allen than it was about Joe Brady. And to me, so much of this, I think just centers around the fact that when Josh Allen doesn't want to be sacked, he can't be sacked. If he doesn't want to be pressured, he can't be pressured. This was the most dropbacks that ended up outside the pocket.

Some of that's bootlegs. But a lot of that is Josh Allen being able to break, contain on free rushers, on unblocked pressure in muddy pockets and be able to extend. Obviously, you get that frozen rope to Keon Coleman. I think it was up the right sideline where he just. points to the guy, hey, go up field another 15 yards. I'm going to pin this to your chest. I mean, the ball is in the air for like two and a half seconds going like 60 yards downfield. So to me, I think this was more just about an absolute masterclass from Josh Allen and how to deal with tight pressure from a defense, how to deal with breaking down pockets, being able to create outside of structure and then knowing when to just take what's in the structure of the offense, knowing when to just pepper them with checkdowns, knowing how to get the ball out into the flat, knowing how to throw with.

accuracy outside the numbers and in the middle of the field. He did everything, right? If there's an MVP case, MVP case game for him, it's not the one in the snow against the 49ers. It's this game because of what he can do against the defense that is throwing as much as it can at him. And obviously the injuries were a piece of why Buffalo is so effective. But Josh Allen basically rendered any answers that Aaron Glenn could have had moot pretty

early in this game. Yeah, I agree. I would agree that Joe Brady did a nice job today. I don't go nearly as far as Ruiz did and saying he's showing. own me more than Ben Johnson has or anything like that. Like I try to put another quarterback in this game, in this ecosystem. And I think there are quarterbacks who could have done some nice things, to your point. They had a great plan for man coverage and there are other quarterbacks who could make some of

those throws. But man, Josh Allen, this has become the year of Josh Allen. Like the only question now is, does he get it done in the playoffs? Does he get to his first Super Bowl? But so far in this game, I'm with you, Deontay, this had it all. the physical attributes and the physical toolkit of this guy that is on display week in and week out. I mean, he throws for 362 yards, two touchdowns to your point. No sacks, no turnovers, runs for 68 yards.

I mean, the Lions needed like one stop in the fourth quarter of this game. They got a couple field goals, but they couldn't get that. Bill's had 559 yards in this game. 28 first downs. The last two weeks, I even, going back to that Rams game. These have been like two of the top 20 performances by any offense in a game this entire season.

And so you're seeing this Bill's offense right now statistically. I didn't think this was possible. Is better than any other Bill's offense that Josh Allen has quarterback. So I guess that's a feather in the cap of your argument there, Ruiz, that this is the best version even with Josh Allen. But man, the guy, this just feels like it's happening for him right now. and it's not it's narrative it's stats it's film it's sitting on your couch on the sunday um the guy looks like the best player in the NFL right now no no he's insane and this was an insane performance but

they average 8.2 yards per play as a team they had a 54% success rate on the ground they average 0.27 EPA poor run that's not even counting the the passing plays like this was a total performance from them like Josh Allen was out of his mind but it wasn't like he was carrying the team on his back in this game like everyone else did part. The offensive line did their part. James Cook was amazing. That touchdown run he had was crazy where they try to tackle him by his locks. Kahlil Shakir made plays. Obviously, Ty Johnson made plays. I just thought it was a fantastic performance all around. Like Dalton Kincaid had a couple plays. Just 11 players on the same page, an offensive coordinator who's just humming and then a quarterback

who just can't be stopped right now. Like these deep throws, we talked about it on Friday, these deep throws, they're like, it's like there's a magnet in the football. They're like sticking to the receiver's chest. They have no choice but to catch these passes and they're tight windows. It catches them. He's a bunch of those. It catches them balls. Yeah, it definitely does.

And then he had the chess pass. The play didn't even count, but I don't care. That's one of the coolest plays ever. I'm with like, you remember when Patrick Holmes? I think it was last year when he was like, that ref just like Rob Kelsey of a Hall of Fame play. I was going to go, that's what I'm saying. I thought Mahomes was a dork for saying that last year, but I felt the same way after that play was called back.

Yeah, Bill's have to be feeling great here. I mean, we'll see. You mentioned Mahomes. Mahomes has the ankle injury. Chiefs win. You know, they're going to have a tough time catching the Chiefs in the regular season because, you know, they're two games back here. So that's still unlikely, but they have the confidence where they can really go anywhere.

It looks like this team can go anywhere in the AFC and win. And they're the favorites right now. If you look at Fanduil, I believe, to come out of the AFC is the Buffalo Bills. Deonté, the other side of this, how do you view this game for the Detroit Lions? I just tweeted out that they had 28 plays of 10 plus yards in this game. That's tied for the most by any team in a game in the last 25 season. So they were in this. It kind of lived up to the hype, high scoring.

But as Ruiz mentioned, they have some injuries now, too. How do you feel about this loss if you're a lion's fan? I have two thoughts. A, one of the conversations that we had in the preview show was trying to suss out what Jared Gough would be like when he was far behind in the game script. And I actually thought that he handled himself pretty well. There were some misses in the second and third quarter that were very kind of reminiscent of old golf, muddy pockets, taking some pressure on the interior, not able to drive the ball. And you kind of saw some issues in the passing game. But I thought on the whole, for chasing two scores for most of this game up until that kind of mad dash in the fourth quarter, I thought that he threw the ball really well.

He continued to push it down field. He wasn't dissuaded by the zone shells that Buffalo was throwing at him, which I thought was encouraging, right? That lets me know that this offense still has an ability to score when it's not dominating the game script in the way that it has over the last four or five weeks. And that part is nice. And I wanted to make sure I started with that take because on the back end of it and it sucks because this team has had such a good season. There comes a point in time where the injuries kind of start to become an eliminating factor for you or something that you have to consider for why a team can't contend for a Super Bowl. And I'm just watching Detroit's Front 7 get caved in snap after snap after snap in the run

game. I mean, Buffalo had its way getting explosives there. The times that they couldn't like manufacture unblocked pressure with a twist or a stun or trying to draw something up. I thought that there really wasn't much there of terms of pass rush. And that was before Lee McNeil got hurt. And then he's hurt. And you just start going through the list of guys that they're missing.

And I know that Dan Campbell is optimistic. that if they can just get to the playoffs, Anzolone might be back. Maybe you get Aiden Hutchinson back by the NFC championship game if you make it that far. But you start talking about season-ending injuries for your second best corner, for your best interior pass rush.

You're already going to be missing linebackers. You might not get Aiden Hutchinson back, right? This is still a long shot that they're talking about for him to be able to play in the postseason. At a certain point, you just kind of have to face the fact that they just might not have the bodies that you need. And this was probably been the case for the last couple weeks. I just think that coming out of the,

this game and then you think about the fact that Green Bay move the ball at will in spite of all the issues with game script that they were having in that Thursday night game and you really have to start asking some questions about whether or not Aaron Glenn's going to have the horses he needs to be able to win NFC playoff games. They're going to have to change the way they play. Like they signed all these guys. They brought in Carlton Davis with the goal of playing more man covers. Like Carlton Davis said that. He's like they brought me into lock, lock shit down is the exact quote he used. And now that he's not there, like I don't know how you can continue live in man coverage. I mean,

Aaron Glenn tried against the bills and it just did not work at all. Josh Allen average over 11 yards per attempt against man. He had a 78% completion rate. And I know he was tearing up zone too, but he was better against man than he was against zone in this game. And I mean, I don't know. This isn't a championship level defense at the moment. It's not, it's totally due to rotten injury luck.

But especially with in conjunction with how Philly looked and how they looked against a defense that kind of tries to play. a similar way, especially on the coverage side of things. And now Detroit's not going to be able to really play that way. I feel like the matchup with Philadelphia has me more worried, are just as worried about their Super Bowl chances as the injuries at this point. Yeah, they need to have like some individualized defensive game plans in the playoffs. But at some point, like we can say that.

But at some point, you know, these games come down to one-on-one matchups and can you pressure the quarterback and can you stop the run and the injuries are just taking a toll on this line scene? But I'm with you, Deontay. Like we kind of wanted to see this type of game script for the Lions. And they scored touchdowns on their final four possessions of the game. Like they were, you know, they showed up in the second half and gave themselves a chance, even though they couldn't get over the hump. All right, Ruiz, I got to circle back because as we've been talking about this,

I've been considering your first statement. So do you think Joe Brady could take this lion's offense and have it be as good? And do you think if Ben Johnson took over this Bill's offense, it would be worse? because I do not. I don't think it would be as good the Lions offense. Okay. But I don't think Ben Johnson would coordinate a better offense

than what Joe Brady is coordinating now. But that's like also besides the point. I feel like a head coaching job. The play calling aspect of it is so overrated. We've seen many of these play calling geniuses on both sides of the ball finally get a head job. And that kind of gets in their way. And by all accounts,

Ben Johnson is kind of a quiet guy. And some people don't really see him as like head coaching material. like he's not that raw, raw guy that Dan Campbell type. Whereas I think Joe Brady seems to get along with his players. And I've seen him, like, he obviously got fired in Carolina. I thought Matt Ruhl made him a scapegoat. Like he was like, the guy wasn't running the ball enough. And he was running the ball plenty in this game.

But when you look at those game plans and what he did with those rosters, I thought he did a fantastic job of coordinating that offense and getting some good play out of Sam Darnold. Christian McCaffrey goes down and the offense kind of falls apart. But we've seen that happen in San Francisco with literally the best play caller of maybe all time in Kyle Shanahan. And then Joe Brady coordinated one of the best offense, or he didn't coordinate,

but he was calling the, I think he was the past game coordinator for one of the best offenses in the history of college football. Obviously, he's working with a lot of talent. They had some talent. I'm with you on the, yeah, I'm with you on the play calling. I don't know enough about either guys like just leadership skills or anything like that to say whether they would be good or not.

So we'll see, though, like we said, listen, if you're a quarter, Yeah, if you can get close to the great quarterbacks, you're going to get those interviews at least, and then you just got to sell a few people in the room. I will say doing it with Jared Gough is way more impressive than doing it with Josh. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. Because, I mean, yeah, all your, like the gap,

you probably say a bigger gap between Josh Allen and Jared Gough than probably anybody I know. So for him to be doing this with, for Ben Johnson to be doing this with Jared Gough and for Joe Brady to be doing it with Josh Allen, that's why I could, I can't understand. why you're saying what you're saying. But that offensive line turns Jared Gawtham to the type of player who can hang with

Josh Allen. Okay. So I don't know. It's a good take. Listen, this week, you know, what week is it?

15. We got to come up with something. I was leading the show. I had it come out strong. That's right. You got to come in hot. My lesson is that the Philadelphia Eagles had the best Sunday of any team in the NFL. And this goes to what Ruiz just mentioned.

So first of all, they played the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tumultuous week. This thing could have gone in a bunch of different directions. If they come out, they're not completing passes, they're not getting AJ Brown the football. I know what that stadium's like after a couple three and outs in the first quarter. It could have got real interesting in Philly. It didn't.

I thought Jalen Hertz played one of his best games of the season. And it really comes down to what we've talked about before. When the ball comes out in rhythm and you take the easy throws and you're not holding it and risking a sack and trying to scramble, then this offense can be efficient and explosive. I mean, AJ Brown on a slant is like a 20-yard. play every time. It's crazy. Every time he catches one of those, he takes off. And so that's what they did. They came out. They were throwing the football, taking those easy throws. Hertz goes nine for nine to start the game. And then they end the game. I don't know that I've ever seen this with a 21 play,

88 yard drive that takes over 10 minutes off the clock. That's a service academy shit. I was like 21 plays. Do I need? Am I looking at the wrong column here? 21. plays to end the game. So anyway, they win the game. They beat the Steelers. Now they're 12 and two tied with the Lions. And really this goes to what Ruiz was saying is that they're relatively healthy right now and the Lions are getting banged up on defense. And so you now have an opportunity to potentially catch the Lions for that one seed depending on what happens in the final three games of the season. I really do think it matters in a big way whether that Eagle's Lions potential game is in Philly or if it's in Detroit here. Obviously, the Vikings are still

in the mix here too at 11 and 2. But in terms of outcomes for the Eagles, Deontay, going into this weekend, there were some that could have been like, oh no, this isn't good. It's happening again. What happened last year? And for it to happen this way, I think they had the best Sunday of any NFL team. For sure. And I mean, the issue to me had less to do with what they were going to see on the back end versus just you've got to deal with T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith. And I thought, But based on the way that Jalen Hertz had been playing in the pocket over the last two to three weeks, seeing a pass rush unit like Pittsburgh was about as bad as it could get from a matchup perspective. Could you have guys that can win one-on-ones, that can make pockets uncomfortable?

You have one of the best finishers that I've maybe ever seen in T.J. Watt. So I thought that today was going to be awful from that perspective. And there were definitely some ups and down still. But to me, the biggest thing that Jalen Hertz had to prove, quote, unquote, was not to be Tua or be Jared Gough. be some mass, you know, some whiz of throwing the ball between, within two and a half seconds. It was just not turning down the throws that we know make this offense this offense. That's all it took. And I thought that today and you saw it early, there was clearly a concerted effort that,

hey, if we give AJ Brown that slant, that five-yard en route and he's got the guy on his back, there's nothing else to think about. Throw the football. Give them a shot. If you've got him one-on-one with Joey Porter out on the boundary, put the ball up. even if it's an incompletion, just take the chance. And I thought that them doing that early was exactly what this offense needed because it forced Pittsburgh to make some difficult choices between when they wanted to play

man and zone. And I thought that once they were able to loosen up the defense, you instantly saw the value of Devonte Smith in this offense. Now he gets to work in the intermediate areas. He gets to work underneath. And I thought that really more so than the throws to AJ Brown, those were the throws that mattered most to me, was that every time Devonte Smith presented himself in the middle of the field or there was an overrout sitting right over the ball as a checkdown running drags

or shallow crossers whatever the case may be him working over the middle of the field and jalen finding him being very intentional about getting him the ball in space and allowing him to create that's the kind of balance they can strike in the passing game that does make this offense impossible to deal with because they were able to move the ball while saquan barkley was clearly disengaged for a lot of the game and i didn't look to see exactly what it is that he's dealing with it looked like he took a helmet to the thigh I don't know if that's a bone bruise. I don't know if it's a contusion, whatever the case may be. But he was clearly uncomfortable after taking that him from Mika Fitzpatrick.

So with him not being in the back field and not being the best version of himself once he came back into the game, this offense looked great in the drawback game. And that's exactly what Philadelphia needed to show. And now I feel like I'm back on the boat in terms of thinking of them as the best team in the NFC, at least right now. Ruiz, where are you with that conversation? I'm still on Green Bay. I mean, did you see Green Bay tonight? I feel like, but I've said for the last couple weeks, I think Green Bay beats Philadelphia,

but I think Philadelphia beats Detroit and I think Detroit beats the Packers. Now, I may have to reassess that after the injuries that Detroit have suffered. Obviously, that was a close game before Detroit just lost their last two guys, Davis and McNeil. So I'm still sticking with the Packers, but no, this was a very convincing performance against a defense that's like the ultimate litmus test for championship contending offenses. Like they held the Ravens who, for my money, when they're rolling, like they were today with Lamar Jackson, throwing five touchdowns, the best offense

and the hardest offense to defend in the NFL because of that quarterback. But the Steelers held them to their worst performance of the season. And then for the Eagles to be able to not only win the game like they won it, but to dominate it in the fashion that they did in the second half, only two possessions for the Steelers in the second half. And that last 10-minute drive,

how mad do you think Mike Tomlin was watching that on the sideline? How jealous do you think he was? He's like, that is my bit. You stole my bit. It's like the soldier boy, me, where he's like, word for word, bar for bar. He stole his whole flow. Yeah, he stole his whole flow. But to be able to do that to this team, to the bully team is insane.

I've never seen the Steelers get bullied like that over a 30 minute half. And that's what this was. And then Jalen Hertz obviously, I mean, just throw the ball to A.J. Brown. We've been saying it all year. Just throw the ball to A.J. Brown and good things happen. And I agree with Deontes point. I thought the more encouraging throws were the throws to Devante Smith. He found him in rhythm.

He found him out of struck. Devante Smith, I think is one of the more underrated receivers in the league. And it was kind of underrated that he was also complaining about the passing offense last week in the postgame locker room. I know AJ Brown stole the headlines because of the Brandon Graham soundbite. And obviously, AJ Brown was the one that got recorded saying the offense. But apparently Devante Smith wasn't happy either. So to see those two guys kind of, you know, have good games again, to know that this

dropback passing game is still capable of doing this against the right matchup. And this was a good matchup. If they didn't do it against this defense, I love to play cover one man and leave those wide receivers on an island outside, then I would have been concerned. But this was like the complete opposite of that. This was the most encouraging performance

I've seen out of this team all year long. It was the first time we've seen them gets a top 10 defense by DBOA, as you pointed out on Friday. Yeah, only team, only defense, only top 10 defense they'll face the entire season. They have had by far the easiest schedule of opposing defenses all year.

And then on the other side of the ball, You mentioned it. The Steelers had two possessions. The Steelers ran 11 offensive plays in the second half, tied for the fewest of any team in the last 10 season. They had a nausea Harris fumble, and then Mike Tomlin punts on like 4th and 7 near midfield when they're down. Two touchdowns, he's thinking, we'll get the ball back, never got the ball back. 11 offensive plays the entire second half.

They had 163 yards of offense. The 10 lowest yardish totals in the NFL this season, have come against Vic Fangio's defense for the Eagles. So a good Sunday for the Philadelphia Eagles. We'll hit on the Pittsburgh Steelers side of it in a little bit here. Deontay, what do you got? What lesson did you learn? I think that Green Bay really just stamped itself as a team that you have to consider

to make the Super Bowl with how they played. And I think that this was the exact kind of game they needed to have coming off of the loss to Detroit last Thursday. And we talked about it in the preview show, right? This was going to be a variance game for both teams. We know that Gino Smith usually operates really well against the Blitz, and Green Bay likes to get very creative up front on that end. And then on the opposite side, you know that Jordan Love wants to hunt for explosive plays.

And Mike McDonald's entire defensive system is predicated on not allowing quarterbacks to get to that. And I just thought that Green Bay dominated both facets to that from start to finish. And I think that if you're a Seahawks fan, there's a lot of apology you can get to, right? You get the Gino Smith injury in the third quarter that effectively ended the game from there because you knew Sam Howell wasn't going to give them a whole lot. But I just thought that Green Bay getting out to that fast start, being able to move the ball on the ground just enough to force Seattle to have to honor it. And then you got to see Jordan Love do what he does best,

aggressively seeking out throws outside the numbers, taking those deep shots down the field when they're available. To me, this is the exact kind of football game that Green Bay wants to play. And I think that Stephen said it best. If they saw Philadelphia again, I think they can beat Philly. I just think that maybe Detroit has their number a little bit on the other side of the ball because of what Ben Johnson can design in the running game and the play action game. But as long as Jordan, as long as Jordan Love can get the football, you should feel

pretty good as a Packers fan that he can get you to the end zone. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. I think for a while now in the NFC, I've been looking at these three teams, Lions, Packers, and Eagles, it's going to be one of those teams. Getting to the Super Bowl, Vikings fans, I understand you're playing well, you're 11 and 2. I don't quite put you in the same class, but I might look stupid about that down the road. But yeah, his Packers offense comes out against the Seahawks defense that had been on fire the last month. And five of the first six possessions, two touchdowns, three field goals there. And then their pass rush gets going as well. Ruiz, did they show you anything else tonight or just kind of an affirmation of what we've been seeing for most of the season? I think it's mostly just

an affirmation just because, you know, Sam Howell comes into this game. And like his numbers, I think that was, it's obviously. You know what I was thinking when Sam Halle came in. I'm like, Ruiz is the happiest man in the world to see Sam Howell play like this. Now, obviously didn't want to see Gino Smith go down with the injury, but I do think it was a good illustration of how how flawed this offense is. Sam Howell's numbers, he averaged 0.26 yards per dropback. What is it? What is? I think that's what is that's less than a foot per dropback. It's like about nine inches per drop back. Minus. 0.79 EPA per dropback with a, a 10% success rate on the evening.

Like just totally, like the offense couldn't literally couldn't move the ball at all without, without Gino Smith back there. And this has looked like a top 10 borderline top 10 offense all season long when he's back there, at least top 10 passing game. And it was maybe one of the worst performances we've seen from a quarterback, at least for a half from Sam Hal on this one. But no, I think this performance is about Jordan Love and like what just a heater he's been on.

I think I called it like a month ago. That was one of my good calls of the. season. I think on the midweek show, Sheila, I said, I just think Jordan Love is about to explode. Since week 11, he's third in EPA per dropback. Only Josh Allen and Jared Gough are ahead of him. Wow. He's averaging 9.3 yards per dropback over that span. That's the highest in the NFL. And if you look at his overall numbers on the season, he's now reached his EPA average from last season, 0.12. That's what he averaged last year. He's averaging it this year. But his yards per dropback has increased by over a yard. His success rate has increased by three percentage points.

He is big game hunting, but he's been more solid down to down than I think we've given him credit for, especially over the last month. And the only quarterback's playing better than him right now, I think are Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson. That's the list. Maybe in Joe Burrow. I put Joe Burrow in there. But that's a list. And Jordan Love isn't really turning the ball over as much as he was. And Joe Burrow even had three turnovers today. So maybe I would put love ahead of them. But when you have a quarterback playing like this and you have a defense that's playing solid, I don't know how good they're going to be.

I don't know if they're like a top 10 unit. But they're my favorite for the Super Bowl for a reason. It starts with number 10. You know, I don't want to be, I don't, not the general front of you here. I don't want to necessarily be anti-Geno because I do think that what Stephen is saying about the comparison at least, if there was any narrative or conversation to be had about what Sam Howell could be within this offense versus Gino-Smith. that was clearly put to bed today.

But I will say, like, if you just look at Seattle's offense through three quarters, which is when Gino got hurt and compared it to through three quarters the rest of the year, it was the second lowest success rate of the season for them. The highest sack rate allowed for them, the worst EPA per dropback versus pressure for them this year. And I think that that end of the half, the interception that he threw was like a really big encapsulation A of the problems that this offense has when Gino was not, you know, making magic for them.

And then B, just what Green Base is. seeks to do defensively. You have the drop pick when they went to like a rolled cover two where you know, you clearly could tell that Gino just did not see the rotation happening at all. Just flings the ball out there. It's a dropped interception. The very next play, I think it was a cover zero pressure or a five-man pressure where they're playing man.

And you know, just heaves the ball out to the to the corner pylon. And it's funny in watching those two throws, the first name I thought about was exactly who we talked about in the preview show and it's deck Prescott when he's trapping when he's chasing two scores. And it turns into I got to make something. happen, right? Especially when you're taking pressure. And I think that that's reflective of for all the things that we get, all the credit we gave Ryan Grub over the last couple weeks when this offense got hot, especially finding things in the run game that worked for them. The protection plan tonight,

I thought was one of the worst that they've had this year, at least one of the worst that they've had in a little while. They clearly had no answer for the mug looked. They didn't have any answer for the simulated pressures and creepers that Green Bay threw at them on passing downs. I thought the offensive line looked about as bad as it has this year, at least in a long, in a little while last few weeks or so. But to me, I just think that Seattle's offense just kind of showed you who they are. And it's not that this is the only thing that they are, because we've seen what it was over the last three, four weeks where they were moving the ball really well when Gino is healthy. But that's more of a Gino thing than it ever was a Ryan Grub thing. And I think the same thing

existed with the last regime as well. And I'm just looking for what this team can do to try to lift the floor around him a little bit because for averaging five yards per carry on the ground and I thought that he was able to connect with DK Metcalf, so much of it didn't matter because they just didn't have a good enough plan to get themselves out of bad situations where they were in second and obvious and third and obvious passing situations. I want to soft launch a take. Like I know that the offensive tackle positions are seen as the most valuable and they're the ones that get paid the most.

But for my money, I feel like I would start building an offensive line around the interior. think Seattle is like the perfect illustration of that. I know their young tackles have been in and out of the lineup and have been inconsistent. But the main problem when you watch them play is pressure up the middle. When you have a quarterback who can move around and can make plays out of structure, but it's not something he like majors in and he's not one of the best in the league. I think you need to have that that solid pocket where he can kind of work the pocket, step up, slide if he has to. But when he can't do that, like the offense just isn't viable at all. And I think it's the same problem that Dallas gets into. You made the Dack Prescott comparison when they fall into these games

and they get pressure up the middle. They can't do, Dack Prescott can't do anything about it. I think that's what separates these like tier two quarterbacks from the elite guys, from the guys like Josh Allen who's going to be good no matter what the environment is around him. Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes. But like a Dach Prescott and Gino Smith, these like tier two guys, if they don't have protection or the offense just is flawed in some way, like they have a fatal flaw. with the run game, then it's going to be hard for them to elevate that kind of roster. So I think there's like very obvious spots that Seattle could address in the offseason to kind of make things easier on Gino Smith like Deontes talking about.

But it's going to have to start with the interior of that offensive line. That's been the problem for the last three years. And it hasn't been addressed yet. You flip it around and you look at Green Bay's offensive line on the interior. And that was a big part of why Jordan Love is able to attack aggressively down the field. I mean, I think, you know, maybe it will change as PFF continues. to update it, but looking at true media before we got on the show today, they only had one registered pressure. And it definitely felt like that watching the game for Green Bay's

offensive line. I mean, we talked a lot about Leonard Williams being a difference maker. We talked a lot about that past for us, kind of starting to figure out who's going to play what role and how to maximize what they wanted to get out of their front seven in terms of just applying pressure to quarterbacks. And there was none of that on Sunday night. And I think that that's a big credit to, a big credit to what Green Bay is done in terms of drafting and developing guys and taking that best five approach and being able to move guys around, you can definitely see the value of that in these kinds of games. And then on the other side, like Stephen was saying, I think it's very revelatory if you're John Schneider and a Seahawks brass to be looking at a

young team like that that you probably are aspiring to get your roster to and looking and saying that like it's not just landing tackles. It's about building an entire infrastructure using the offensive line as a way to say, hey, this is how we build a healthy offensive infrastructure, as we're not going to allow ourselves to have weaknesses on the interior or just across the board. That's going to be a big thing for them going forward. The insane thing to me is like it's very obvious what the weakness is with this offense, but the scheme, Ryan Grubb's scheme, like puts so much pressure on this offensive line. Like there's so much five out where it's only five people in the block and five eligible

out in the route. They're not using a lot of max pro. Like in this game and like bear in mind like past protection counts are kind of iffy because like you have the chip block and you don't know how to count that. But according to PFF, 88% of their dropbacks tonight were five out. So just five offensive line, basically empty protection. And they had zero dropbacks with max protection. So that like zero those like block it up, play action fake, take a deep shot down field where you're helping the offensive line out a lot.

You're not only helping them out with the extra numbers and in protection, but you're helping it out with the play fake. And this is one of the teams that is just majoring in pure dropback. So you're not only putting pressure on Gino Smith to perform in this environment, but you're putting so much pressure on the weakest part of your offense and maybe the weakest part of your team. Yeah. Yeah, it's been underwhelming. Their offensive scheme, and I think you guys are saying that in many different ways.

But I agree. I was very interested to see what Grub was going to bring to this offense, to the NFL. And I sit here as we go into the final three weeks of the season, pretty underwhelmed. To your point, yeah, I think they're using play action at well below a league average rate. And it's like, we judge a lot. of these coordinators. It's great when you have the great offensive line. Who are the ones who can kind of coach around that? It almost feels like a prerequisite that you need to be able to do that for a

lot of these organizations. And they have not been able to do that. And then your point, Deonté, with the Packers, I mean, love, in addition to the offensive line in the scheme, love is so good at avoiding sacks. I mean, he has that superpower as much as maybe any quarterback in the NFL, just his internal clock. He's so calm back there. And then he just seems to know when he needs to either move or get rid of the football, even if he's taking a hit. So nice night for the Packers, not a nice night for the Seahawks. As we record this, we don't know the extent of Gino Smith's injury, but let's do a little, before we move on to the next segment, a little NFC West check in here,

because we change our minds on this, or at least I do, every week. We got the Rams at 8 and 6 after their win on Thursday night over the Niners. We got the Seahawks at 8 and 6. We got the Cardinals at 7 and 7 and the Niners at 6 and 8. Deontay, are we leaning Rams now going into the final three weeks, or is there another team that has your attention? I don't want to say I'm leaning in any one direction. I just feel that the logical choice right now is the Rams if you look at the schedule.

They've got the Jets. They should be able to beat the Jets. You have the Cardinals at home, and then you're at home for the season finale. when you see Seattle again and you've already got a game up on them, right? And you were able to beat them on the road. So I think if we're playing the schedule game, you're leaning Seahawks. I've just been so impressed with Mike McDonald and what this run has been like down the stretch. I don't want to use this one game as anything definitive for this team because I genuinely

think that Green Bay is in the conversation as one of the six best teams in the NFL. I don't want to act like they're just any old, you know, eight, nine win team that they just faced off against. That's one of the best offenses that exists in the league and one of the best, one of the better high variance defenses that are in the league. So I am still leaning Seahawks if I actually had to pick a lean, but I think that, you know, if you're going with what your, what your mind tells you logically, it should probably be the Rams right now. Ruiz, where you at? Yeah, I'm sticking with the Rams. I think that was my pick last time we did this. I'm going to stick with them. And it's, I'm only more confident in it after Gino Smith went down. And then just the way that

the Seahawks offense looked. I know it's a lot. I know it's a lot. a tough opponent. I agree. I think the Packers are maybe the fourth best team in the NFL right now. You can make the argument for it. So I don't want to judge them off this loss, especially with Dino going down and Sam Howell having to play so much. And then they lost the turnover battle. But with the way the ramps have been playing of late, they're just like Matthew Stafford is fifth in EPA per dropback since week 11, that range I gave you on Jordan Love. So they've been playing at a high level. I know the Thursday game was ugly, but there was rain. It was an ugly weather. I'm not going to hold that against them. And they pull out a win against them.

an opponent that can be tough in theory. So yeah, I think the Rams are the hottest team in the division right now. And on paper, they probably have the high ceiling just because of that offense when it's healthy. All right. I'm going to show a little loyalty to the Seahawks and give them one more week. But I don't feel great about it. Mike McDonald tells reporters about Gino Smith's knee. This is via Brady Henderson of ESPN.

Structurally, it looks like it's okay. Smith will get tests done on Monday. unclear now whether or not he will have to miss time. They got the Vikings to next week. Not a good team to have to see if you got a bummed out. Or a bad offense. Oh my God. Sam Howell against Brian Flores.

That could be, that could set an NFL record for sacks taken in that game. All right. We'll see. Hopefully Gino Smith is healthy and able to go. Because I thought they needed to get one of these two against the Packers or the Viking. So they lose one,

but they're still right there. with the Los Angeles Rams. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandul, America's number one sportsbook, because right now, new customers can bet $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if you win. The Fandul Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL all in one place. I like the Vikings a little bit on Monday night. You can go with that. You can go with something else.

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content, contender, or disruptor? We are looking at the AFC wildcard teams. The picture got a little clearer. today with the Broncos beating the Colts here. But here are the definition. So content is they're happy to be there. They're going to be one and done, but they're happy to be there in the playoffs. Contender, watch out.

Sometimes the wildcard teams can go on a run and get to the Super Bowl. Disruptor means, sorry, maybe they can win a game. If, you know, feeling really frisky, if everything goes right, maybe two. So not real contenders, but they're also not going to be one and done. Those are the definitions. Here's what it looks like in the standings right now. So right now we've got the Baltimore Ravens with the first wild card spot. However, and you guys correct me if I'm wrong, I think we sort of believe that that's going to be the Pittsburgh Steelers and that the Baltimore Ravens are going to be first in the AFC North.

Do we agree on that? Yeah, it will be six days from now. They'll be in first place. And they play on Saturday. All right. All right. So we're going to talk about the Steelers. We're going to talk about the Chargers.

And we're going to talk about the Broncos. But let's start with the Broncos because Broncos have that game against the Colts today. That was three quarters in. You're thinking, watch out. The Colts could pull off the upset. They're right in this thing. Things fall apart for the Colts. Broncos have a couple of, like, some of the highest leverage plays of the entire weekend.

They get a couple of them in a row. And they outscore the Colts, 21-0 in the 4th. quarter there. Ruiz, we can start with you. Your thoughts on Denver today or whether you view them as content, contender, or disruptor now that they've pretty much, not 100%, but they are in a great spot here in the AFC wildcard picture. They're content. They're just happy to be here. I don't think they're a disruptor. I think their track record against good quality teams speaks for itself. And I thought this game was honestly a game that kind of got outplayed for the first three quarters and then they blew it open in the fourth quarter thanks to just a handful of just boneheaded

mistakes starting with Jonathan Taylor dropping the football on a touchdown that would have made it a two-scored game and probably put the game out of reach because of how bad Denver's offense was in this game. A lot of their points were generated because of turnovers, whether it was Michael Pittman fumbling or the Jonathan Taylor fumble or Anthony Richardson throwing picks or A.D. Mitchell, I don't even know what to call that. The picked off lateral, the pick six. lateral to Nick Bonita. I see Deontes' face as a defensive coach. Deonti, you're like, if my OC did that to me in a tight game,

I can only imagine the smoke that would be coming out of your ears. But the reason why sometimes you need to coach from the box. Sometimes you can't be standing next to your peers in those situations, out of fear for what you might do if something goes wrong. But yeah, this was not like a very convincing performance for either side. It obviously wasn't one for Indianapolis, who has a 15% chance of making the playoffs, but that doesn't look like a scenario

that's going to be realistic going forward. But the Broncos, yeah, they're just a year ahead. I don't know how else to put it. I thought this was a setback for Bo Nix. He had a couple of ugly throws, a couple of ugly interceptions. The first one, I don't know what he was looking at. It was very Will Levis-coded.

The second one was very Anthony Richardson coded. It was like the same exact interception that Anthony Richardson had thrown earlier in the game. But, yeah, I mean, these were two bad teams, not bad teams, but mediocre teams squaring off. And it looked like it. Yeah, the Colts out gained the Broncos 310 yards to 193 yards. Broncos had 121 net passing yards.

But to your point, I mean, imagine losing your playoff folks because Jonathan Taylor drops the ball right before the goal line. I mean, I don't want to be reductive with it, Deonté, but I'm with Ruiz. At that point in the game, if they score there, I think, they win the game. They were in control. It felt like and that obviously would have been seven points on the board. And then to go to that for the double pass that gets picked six, man, they really had an

opportunity that they let slip away today. And that's to the benefit of the Broncos. I don't think you should call that double pass if not for the drop, if not for the drop would be touchdown from Jonathan Taylor. To me, that smacked of a team of a coaching staff that might have felt like, oh, man, we might have just given away our opportunity to really pry open this door. for us to make the playoffs and now we're searching for answers, especially as our quarterback and this is not the first time this has happened,

has cooled off in the second half. I thought that, you know, we kind of joked about it, that Anthony Richardson would not know what side Patrick Chetan was on on at least one of these throws and it was going to end up in an interception. And we got exactly that. We got exactly that in the fourth quarter of this football game.

But to Steven's point, to the same thing you were saying, Sheal, I mean, you get the long punt return, you get a pick six on a double. pass. Like you get the one-on-one ball to Cortland Sutton that basically put the game away

in the fourth quarter. Like they have, and the same thing happened in the Brown's game on Monday night earlier this week or last week. So often with this team, they're playing bad teams or playing flawed teams and they end up winning the variance game because Sean Payton has his team. And Vance Joseph has his team just a little bit more prepared than their opponent. And that's credit to them for being able to get ahead of schedule. like Stephen said, I thought that this might be a competitive team in 2026 or 2025.

I didn't expect them to be here on the first year of Bo Nix's rookie deal. So that's definitely a credit to what they've been able to get out of this team from a coaching perspective. But now they're content. They're going to run into a Baltimore or you're going to run into a Baltimore. You're going to run into a Buffalo in the first round. And they're just going to get wiped off to face of the earth, I think, against a competent quarterback and a team that is not as liable to beat themselves as some of the teams they've been. seeing down the stretch this year. I'm content too with a little caveat.

I mean, like right now they would go to, and I know we all said, we agree this is going to change, but in case it doesn't, they will go to Pittsburgh right now in the first round if the season ended today. I think they could win that game. I don't think that is a big spread in that game. The Broncos right now, their defense is first an EPA per drive in the entire NFL. So to your point, I know it's a little like up and down, and that doesn't take into account opponents, but it's a difference.

you're facing the Steelers, like I kind of like their chances to be a little frisky against the Steelers in that spot. Now, if they were to move up to the five spot, which again is unlikely, but going to Houston, I mean, I don't, I don't view Houston or Pittsburgh, I think are getable in the first round in a one-off game. You don't think so. This is, you would bet on Bowden. I wouldn't bet on. No, no, no, no, I didn't say we'd bet on. I just said there. I guess you could say there's a credible argument to be made in both those in both what would this spread be? It would be like what,

three and a half, four and a half something? Yeah. The Steelers aren't going to beat themselves and the Broncos are opponents beating themselves merchants or at least they have been for the past couple of weeks. So I don't know.

And I mean, as bad as Houston has looked, especially on offense, Domeco Ryan's against that offense would be a mismatch. I don't know. I really, I think the team that they could beat and it's impossible to set up this matchup

is the Chargers. That's the only team I can see them beating in this playoff field right now. Yeah, like I said, I mean, they're credible. They're credible, right? I don't want to, I don't want to totally discount what this run has been for them in the second half of the season, basically since that Ravens loss for them. They've been playing pretty good football.

The issue is just that we have not had it stamped with them beating a quality football team. Maybe I feel differently if the field goal doesn't get blocked against Kansas City, because you would just have a different data point, right? And I don't want to be that arbitrary. and unfair to Denver because they played excellently in that game as well. It's just a matter of so much of this is Bo Nix being able to operate in like the most comfortable scenarios possible for a rookie quarterback because things are happening on schedule. When it's not on schedule, he's able to just heave the ball up to Cortland Sutton,

you know, or they'll have a screen that goes for a big yardage. And they've been winning the variance game on defense. And to me, at this point now, there's maybe enough of a data point, enough data points to say that this is just, working for Vance Joseph this season. And maybe there's not going to be regression coming because of just how effective they've been with blitzing and playing man

and applying pressure in spite of not having a number one pass rusher in this unit. So to me, I don't want to totally discredit them. It's just a matter of you see CJ Stroud and D'Amico Ryan. There's no way I think that you're going to beat that team. You see Mike Tomlin and the Steelers defense, I don't think there's any way that they can beat that team. And we've already seen what it looked like against Baltimore. And there's absolutely no way that they're going to do anything with,

Allen if they had to see them in a 2-7 matchup. So I'm I'm content with them just being content in this in this exercise. They also just got outplayed by the Colts at home. I mean, maybe not outplayed. Maybe outplayed's a little strong. But they got outplayed for three quarters against the Colts who weren't playing good football themselves. I don't say I think the Broncos might look in the mirror and see a picture of the Steelers.

I don't know. There's some similarities, I think, there are between. those two teams. So they're at the Chargers, at the Bengals, home versus the Chiefs. Now the Broncos lost to the Steelers earlier this season. So they would lose the tie break if those two teams finished with the same record. Steelers are 10 and four. Broncos are nine and five right now. All right. So we're at content. Listen, content's a good place to be Broncos fans. I mean, you crushed your preseason win total. You're going to the playoffs with a rookie quarterback. This season has exceeded all expectations for the Denver Broncos. Next team, and I want to get your, I don't

if you guys had eyes on this game or how closely, because I did not, but the Chargers take on the bucks and get smoked. 40 to 17, give up 506 yards of offense? Jesse Minter, what happened here? Deonti, I know I think you were messaging us a little bit about this game. What happened to the Chargers? How do we feel about the Chargers after this game? Content, contender, or disruptor?

I think the charges are content because we've been looking at the ceiling for this defense maybe over the last month or so. And I think that we're really just, at least I have come to the realization that there's not enough juice in the back seven, I think, to handle a truly high octane offense. And that's all that this was. This was Baker Mayfield. Even when he's pressured, he did make a couple mistakes today. But for the most part, he was able to pick on the mismatches that he wanted, especially in the middle of the field. And when you're dealing with the Jesse Mentor defense that we've seen, that does not want to give up explosive plays that wants to crowd the middle of the field and force you to either win outside the numbers or have to deal with uncomfortable pockets, holding the ball waiting for windows to come open. The Bucks really didn't have any issues with that, especially in the second half.

I mean, they totally burden this defense up in the third or fourth quarters just by being efficient in the passing game. I'm not there with the Chargers defensively anymore. And we know what the issues have been with this offense throughout the season. Yeah, and it looked like Justin Herbert retweaked his ankle injury. He got rolled up in a sack and like Taylor Heineke came in. So yeah, I'm with Deante here. And I think the main problem was they couldn't cover Mike Evans. Like every time I looked up at this game, Mike Evans was catching a ball over the middle

and just like bouncing off of chargers, defenders. And I think Deontay has it spot on. They don't have the dudes in the secondary. When you don't have the dudes and then they're not getting pressure on Baker Mayfield because of all the things Liam Cohen's doing to set that up. And then Baker Mayfield, I know, yeah, he overcame some mistakes. But once he started rolling, like they couldn't stop them at all. And this just looked like the team that we expected to see before the season.

I mean, I obviously think this is like the worst they've looked all year. And that doesn't really, that's not really a good illustration of who they are as a team. But if Justin Herbert is going to be hobbling and he started missing throws after the ankle, it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough. Yeah, they hadn't lost a game by more than seven points. since week three to the Steelers and they lose 40 to 17 to the Tampa Bay Bucks. I'll still give the same caveat if they're going to Houston or if they're going to Pittsburgh in the first round with Jim Harbaugh. And if Justin Herbert is healthy, I'll at least think it's a little bit interesting.

You don't think so. I just don't see it. You guys think more of those teams than I do. The ceiling on this passing game. I don't even know if it's that as much as just the ceiling on the passing game for Los Angeles is so low. It takes so much work and investment for them. to get any positive results out of it. And as I said, if the defense starts taking any step back, then it really just opens up

how flawed this roster is. And they're very similar to Denver in that respect, right? Like I think that way ahead of schedule for this team in terms of expectations, I did not think the first half of the year was going to look like this for them. And I think that they've shown that they're at least competent enough to be able to hang with some of the better teams in the NFL. I just think that if you have an offense that's explosive enough to be able to push the ball and force them to have to keep pace.

You just saw on Sunday that this offense is just not equipped to do that at all. Even if Justin Herbert is healthy and now that his ankle is really bothering him, I don't trust them to be able to score enough to be able to beat a true playoff team. And we talked about the passing defense and the struggles they had. They gave up 223 yards on the ground too. On the ground, yeah. Bucky Irvin goes for 117. Rashad White had 64.

So this was an all-around concerning performance for the defense. And then obviously with Justin Herbert, limping off the field. it's a concern for the whole franchise. So Brandon's Daily Tribute Night, that's all. Sorry, that was me. That was uncalled for. All right. Last team on here, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And I want to ask you this, Ruiz. Let's start with you, because they go at the Ravens, Chiefs, and Bengals. They are 10 and 4 right now. What is the final record for the Pittsburgh Steelers? And you already told us you don't think they're winning the AFC North? So my question is like, how bad does this get? Because they had 10 first downs today in this. They didn't have a first down on their first five possessions.

And we already mentioned the defensive stuff at the top of the show. So do you feel like this is just a slight little step back and they'll still be competitive down the stretch? Or is there a possibility that they're going into the playoffs? They clinched, I've already clenched to birth that they're going into the playoffs on like a big losing streak. I think it was a step back, but it was a bad matchup for that offense. And the fact that they didn't touch the ball in the second half, I think really like skews the number. numbers against them. Final record, I think they're losing on Saturday to Baltimore. I think they have a chance to beat Kansas City, especially with Patrick Mahomes, you know, struggling with the high

ankle sprain. I think that will still be an injury two weeks from now. And Patrick Mahomes, three straight games with the negative EPA. Over the last three games, three weeks, he's 24th in EPA per dropback and 19th in success rate. Like this offense was already playing bad. The passing game was already playing poorly over the last three weeks. And now you throw all. And ankle injury on top of that and the offensive line issues. I think the Steelers match up well with them on the defensive side. As long as Russell Wilson doesn't make mistakes against a Chiefs past defense, I know they had a great game today with the six turnovers. I think they have a chance of upsetting them. And then week 18 is always weird. The Bengals could be resting starters. They could put Joe Burrow

on ice. Depends on their playoff situation. So I can see them winning 11, 12 games still. But I expect that to be the last of their wins for the rest of the season. I don't. don't think they're going to win a playoff game unless they get matched up with like denver somehow if they win the division uh i don't i just don't think they're going to be able to score with anybody else oh no so dante we're still going to have to have people telling me about the mike tomlin hasn't won a playoff game and since 2016 and then i'm going to have to pull out the list of all the quarterbacks he's played with over that span and remind them that most coaches would have gone four and 13 most of these years so be thankful and then i'm all right and i guess that all right at least i know

how much at least I can plan for January for myself here. But here's one thing I will say. I will not count out Mike Tomlin in any situation. Like on paper, I don't think they could beat any of these teams, but weird things happen and weird things have happened with this team. They already beat the Ravens once. So maybe they can pull it off again.

If they do and they have a home playoff game, right now how the standings are set up, they would be getting Denver in the first round. And I think they win that game. Dei, what do you think? I've got the misdrupter just because of, I think just like the institutional, competence just across the board.

It's hard to have watched what they've looked like at different points in the year, especially defensively and just feel like that's going, that's not going to play a factor against contending teams in the NFL. I actually think that I could give you, we could all give a much clearer answer on this question after they play Kansas City, right? Like if we're having this conversation after the game against the Chiefs, we could probably speak very clearly and candidly about exactly where this team lands within the AFC landscape.

I think right now I still consider them a disruptor because of the defense, but I will say on the other end, in their last five games, four of them have been sub 40% in terms of passing success rate. Like I think that the Cincinnati game definitely helps the statistics because they were able to get a lot of yards after the catch. You're able to be explosive basically from start to finish in that game. But outside of that, I mean, the moon balls really haven't been connecting as often. A big part of that is obviously George Pickens missing with the hamstring injury. I'm not sure exactly what the timeline is going to be for his return. They definitely need him back. I mean, you could just look at the replays anytime they zoomed out and you could see the entire back seven for Philadelphia. I mean, there's just nowhere to go with the ball oftentimes for Russell Wilson. And this is not a guy who is very precise in terms of accuracy at this stage in his career anyway. I just think that they're going to be able to grind teams down for the most part. Even in this game, I thought that they acquitted themselves well for how explosive Philadelphia was in the passing game. in the first half. And as long as you've got T.J. Watt and that run defense and what they've gotten out of that

back in with how versatile their defensive backs have been when they're healthy. I do trust this team if they have to play a Houston, even if they have to play a Baltimore, they play a style of football or at Kansas City. They play a style of football that is a bother for a lot of the best teams in the AFC. Buffalo is probably the only team I would look at in the AFC right now and feel like they've just shown themselves to be maybe immune to some of the things that Pittsburgh likes to do defensively to grind teams to a halt. Yeah, I'll go disruptor too, because if they drop out here, they're going to be the five

seed going to Houston and who knows? I'm picking Pittsburgh and that situation. I have 180 yards today. I guess the Dolphins, now that Texans defense is legit, but, you know, if you're going back and forth in a game, those are the games the Steelers like to play. I mean, you're right, Deontay, like the Eagles, if you looked at the box score, we're killing them, but they got a, the Steelers got a takeaway on. special teams. They got a T.J. Watt

punch out of Jalen Hertz. And they were driving in the third quarter before Naji Harris fumbles and really like potentially making it a game and he just fumbled a pitch that was unforced. So they just, they find a way to just be in a lot of these games. So I like that with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

All right. So those are the AFC wildcard teams. Hopefully they bring some excitement. We want some upsets. I mean, other than the bills, everybody looks beatable. in the AFC. But yes, we'll see how these matchups shape up

in the weeks ahead. All right. We are back on the Ringer NFL show. Time for some awards. Some superlatives. Deante, start us off. What do you got?

I think my first one, I hate starting off negatively, but my first one is the, You're Not That Guy Pal award, and I'm giving this one to Mike McDaniel. I've crossed the Rubicon now with the record versus teams that are above 500.

I've definitely crossed the Ruvacan in the him versus more competent coaches and how those games usually play out in terms of how prepared his opponents look versus how prepared his team looks. I've 1,000% crossed my threshold in the difference in physicality between his team and his opponents. And I just think that at the core of it is obviously Tuauaua, who is just not given this offense much of anything. I think that they are out of answers when you're talking about,

them playing up against the better teams in the NFL. And I've given Tua a lot of credit. I've given this offense, a lot of credit for being able to get the ball out of his hands early, even if it's behind the line of scrimmage and allowing guys to go get easy yards that are available to them. Playing up against a Houston team that does not allow you to live in those worlds because of how fast they pursue to the ball, how aggressive they want to be in coverage. It was very clear that they did not have an answer if it wasn't going to be bubble screens and Jano Smith, the yak opportunities for them to be able to move the football.

and Tua had an awful game, but just in general, you're just looking at a Houston team that knows how to play in those situations against good football teams. I've never seen Miami look the way that Houston's defense looked, at least, up against a playoff quality offense, and that's how I consider Miami. And to me, I'm just looking at Mike McDaniel and trying to figure out whether or not any of this is going to change, whether or not it's inherent to just the roster that they have built. And if so, then he's just not the guy to fix the issues that they have. So I'm kind of out, not just on Miami, but the Mike McDaniel tenure as head coach of the Dolphins at this stage.

Oh, damn. That's crazy. Like, I don't know, man. Two was terrible. I don't know what you're supposed to do around that. And like they had both their own. Look, man, the play calls are cool. Like, the play designs are cool.

I like it. I like the RPO's. I like the little bootleg slide route out. You're such a defensive coordinator. Like, I like the dig route. I like the little rap routes and dig routes off a play action. Like, all that's sweet. But come on, man.

Like, when are you going to beat a good football team? No, I do think that's a good point. We're past the point where this is a narrative. It's not a narrative anymore. It's the truth. Yeah, it's a pattern. It's just what they are. They're a team that I don't think they match up well with defenses,

especially defenses that are able to take away what they do. They can't play left-handed. No pun intended there on Tua. But like I do think McDaniel deserve some credit for changing up the offense and finding something that did work to work around the clear deficiencies on the offensive line by going to this short passing game. they had nothing on offense. Even before Tua got hurt, at the beginning of the year,

they really had nothing on offense because teams were taken away their A game, and he found a plan B, but Houston took away the plan B today with coverage disguises, and I thought they were really good against those short passes, rally into the football, not a huge surprise that they were able to do that. But now, for me, this game just fell on too.

I just thought this was the worst of him. Like, we saw the predetermination on the interception, the first interception. We saw the armed talent. questions on the other interceptions. We saw him struggle to make plays out of, uh, outside of the pocket when he was moved off his spot. He had one throw on the run that I thought was like, one of the worst throws he's made all year where he's throwing on the run and he like throws it at the receiver's feet, like maybe three yards in front of him. It was, it was a, it was a bad game.

And then he also had the play where he dives head first into a hit. Oh, that was on a play that was negated by a holding call anyway. Like it's just a guy who's making the same mistakes. Like I know to what puts up the numbers, but this is the same, we see the same performance. It's all the time. Whether it's a good game against a bad team or a bad game against a good team, they all look the same. And like all of his highlights look the same. There's a reason why that is because he's very good at like a handful of things. And to Mike McDaniel's credit, they've really hammered those things and he's gotten really good at him to give Tua some credit.

But you have to be able to do more as a player. And like it's obvious that they know that. Like there was so much talk about him becoming more of a threat outside of structure, becoming faster, losing weight in the off season. So obviously there's been a discussion about the. these criticisms, which we've had for him for the last couple of years, and it hasn't gotten better. It hasn't improved. He's the same quarterback he was two years ago. My first one is same game, same team,

and it's defining image by a coach, Mike McDaniel, because every time I looked at this game, my guy was hunched over with his hands on his knees, staring at the ground for all of the reasons you guys just outlined. I mean, the Dolphins in this game, 224 total yards. You mentioned it to three intercept. They scored 12 points against the Houston Texans. So, yeah, I'm probably somewhere in between what both you guys are saying.

I agree. I mean, Deante, it's like, yeah, every year, it's like if they're playing at home in October, all right, I think they're going to put up 35 points. But it's just been, I mean, last year, they had one of the worst point differentials in the entire NFL against playoff teams. They come out, they talk tough about the narrative, oh, in the cold. And then what did we see a few weeks ago when they have to go to Lambert? They can't play in the cold.

So it's hard to take them seriously. I don't know what the best outcome is here. I like, as you guys were speaking, I'm like, we rip a lot of offensive coordinators. Maybe we just get Mike McDaniel, offensive coordinator for one of these other teams. That might be the best outcome. There you go. Just trade them. Yeah, because Houston, by the way, I don't know if you guys have anything on, do you have an award for Houston or now?

No. Okay. So I just want to point out. Yeah. 181 total yards and 12 first downs in this game. We said on the preview show, I was yelling. Show me something. Slowick, please tell me you did something at the buy.

Let me read one of those stories you visited with a coach who used to be in the CFL, whatever, or coaches D3. And you got these great ideas and you're going to bring them back. Nope, 181 yards, 12 first downs. Feel exactly the same way about the Texans as I did before this game. It's starting to get to the point now where I'm going to start looking at Dameco Rines and saying, I'm like, all right, buddy, the story on you as a head coach. now is about to become tied to whether or not you're willing to make difficult decisions about your offense.

Like, I don't know, I don't know what the argument would be now to bring a guy back who not only has had the same issues in terms of the run game, the management of early downs from year one to year two. But now it looks like if you don't have the super friends at receiver, you don't have anything for, anything for this offense to get the most out of C.J. Stroud. And Stroud is obviously not the difference maker in year two that he wasn't. in year one. I don't know if I would say took a step back, but he definitely did not make any linear progression forward as a quarterback, but so much of this is tied to a scheme that continues

to tie a hand behind his back, especially in passing down situation. So now it's going to get to the point where in January, if the Texans get bounced early, you know, where they look bad on offense the rest of the way, we've got to start asking questions about whether or not D'Amico Rines is going to be willing to make the move necessary. to improve and maximize this window he has with the quarterback on a rookie deal. Where do you think the Houston Texans offense ranks in offensive success rate right now? This is just for the listeners who don't, it's just, is it a positive play or not when you call a play? So like a 12-yard completion is the same as a 50-yard completion,

but it's just the consistency of positive plays. Where do you think they rank? I won't cheat. I'm going to guess 26th. 30th in the NFL ahead of the Colts and the Browns. The New York Giants are producing a positive. positive play at a higher rate than the Houston Texans, the Tennessee Titans, the Las Vegas Raiders, the Carolina Panthers. That is unacceptable. I don't care. I'm sorry. I don't care what

personnel issues. Yeah. Like that that is you can't have a quarterback who's good and I think he's good. And I agree with you. It might not look the same as last year, but he's good and still be looking like that. So Texans, you're still on my list. All right. Ruiz, what do you got? I'm going to go with the you're still my MVP award. I'm going to give that to Lamar Jackson. I mean, everyone keeps saying that Josh Allen has been the best player in the NFL. Have you guys lost your minds? Have you seen Lamar Jackson this year?

Like, I get that Josh Allen is the MVP favorite. They have a better record. But Lamar Jackson has been the best player in the NFL. And I don't even think it's particularly close. He's first in EPA per dropback, first in yards per dropback. He's leading quarterbacks in rushing yards by nearly 100 yards by himself. He doesn't take sacks. He doesn't throw interceptions.

only Justin Herbert has a lower interception rate. Like everything that Josh Allen is doing, Lamar Jackson is doing it, and he's done it all year long. He's been more consistent. And oh, yeah, he beat Josh Allen head-to-head. And it wasn't even close in that game. Like, I don't understand why Lamar Jackson is out of the MVP conversation. I know he's second in odds, but Josh Allen's like minus 900 right now.

And it just makes no sense to me. There's two games separating them in the standings. And Lamar Jackson has a head-to-head win over him. This was one of my superlatives too. And Stephen just covered all my points. that there's really not much else to add, man. You can't act like this guy's not still playing at the exact same level he was when the Ravens looked like they had a chance to maybe contend for the one seed in the

AFC. Like he's playing like the best football player in the NFL right now. There's really not much of a debate for it outside of Josh Allen at his absolute best. And I would argue that Lamar just looked like this more often than we've seen Josh Allen play this way. I think this is more of just the timing and the schedule thing. If you flipped it and Josh Allen was playing this way in October and Lamar was playing in December the way he was playing in October, we will be having an inverse conversation probably. But right now I just feel like Lamar Jackson's kind of getting shuffled to the side to spend a lot more to spend a lot more time talking about Josh Allen, which is fine.

It's merited. But if you're watching the Ravens on a weekly basis, that's the best player in football, whether or not he wins the award. I think it is close. I mean, I would disagree that it's not close. I think if you put Josh Allen on that Ravens team, I do think you're getting very similar results that you're getting right now with Lamar Jackson. They've both been fantastic. You're right.

There is a statistical case for Lamar Jackson. And I will agree that it comes down to the stupid formula. Why do we got to do the stupid formula that you have one seat or the two seed? The quarterback of that team has to win the MVP. I mean, it could have gotten really weird this year. Like if the bills lost a couple more games and, you know, if the Steelers like jump them, then who would you be given the MVP to with the formula?

So I do agree with that. I wouldn't, you know, I think it's, you know, let's, yeah, the final three games play out here. You are right. They went head to head and the Ravens crushed them. So I do think if there's a tiebreaker, that probably should be it. But I don't know.

I think Allen is right there. I think they're both on the same tier for me. But we made this point in the midweek show. Like Josh Allen, like the overall numbers and the vibes are better. but like when you like drill down into the numbers, he's like basically playing the same as he did last year. Where on the other side, which is still MVP level, I'm not trying to take anything away from me. He may, he had an argument for winning it last year. But Lamar Jackson is way better than he was last year.

He's playing better football than he was last year. The turnover worthy plays our way down. The big time throws our way up. Just watching him. He looks like a different quarterback. Like he made the leap as a processor and accuracy guy. The pocket management has been the thing that stood out to me the most. I don't know.

I don't think it's been that close. to be honest with you. And I think if you drill down into the numbers, it's easy to make that argument. You could make the case that this is the best bills, the best offense the bills have ever had was Josh Allen. So even if we think some of the other numbers are consistent, that this is the best the entire group has performed.

And he is responsible for everything with the entire group. So there's probably, come on. I mean, for, I listen, Joe, Joe Brady, give me a break. James Cook is good. I don't like, he's good. Kaleel Shikir, is good.

Like they have good players. Derek Henry's good. He's not carrying. Zay Flowers is good. I agree. I agree. Yeah. They both have good teas.

Let's not do like they're carrying the team on their back thing. I didn't do that in Lamar Jackson. You were just giving it. Yeah. I love this. When did I say that Lamar Jackson was carrying the Ravens on his back? Oh, no, but you,

I thought you were going to position by position. So I was just playing along. I don't know. Who would you rather? What supporting cast would you rather have? Offensive coordinator included. I'd rather. Oh.

I'd rather have Buffalo. I'd rather have Buffalo. I don't know about that. Do you think Joe Brady's better than Todd Munkin, definitely? No, but I think that the bill's offensive line is better than Baltimore's. And I trust, I trust, I think I trust Joe Brady in a big, big game compared to Munkin. I've seen a-wow. We've seen Munkin, forget about the run game.

You know what I will say? I like Zay Flowers. Rashad Baitman had a great day today. I think if you gave Lamar Jackson, Kionn, Coleman, Amari Cooper, and Khalil Shakir, as his three wide receivers, we would see some ungodly production in the passing game if he had legitimate ball winners and real yak threats and not the guys you have to design up so much for. So I'm definitely leaning in Buffalo when we talk about supporting cast. So do you think if you replaced Josh Allen with this version of Lamar Jackson that the bill's

offense would be performing better than it's performing right now with Josh Allen? I think so. I disagree. I totally disagree. I think they have a better record. because they would have won the week two game or whatever week it was. Well, he would have beat himself or he would have been, no,

when they wouldn't head to head. He would be Josh Allen with the rapids. I have Joel following. I don't think that I disagree that there's much of a difference, but that's why. Lamar Jackson deserves his credit for beating down one of the worst teams in the NFL today, the New York Giants.

All right, what's now? Hey, their offensive success rate is better than he. That was. I had to get it in there. That was a good one. Someone had to mention they were 16 and a half point favorites.

Okay. So I'm not good. This isn't the week I'm going to get. For the season, I agree. The body of work has been fantastic. By the way, Jackson hit your predatory rushing total line. Now it's predatory. The guy who said that we could set the line wherever we wanted to.

Now it's predatory. You said it's 17 yards over the actual line. We didn't know what it was. You're going to take that over a fan duel. You're going to take that over fan duel, not with us. All right. I have best description by an announcer. This is a quick one.

Mike Tariko. I'm giving him Tariko a lot. lot of love on this pod. What's going on here? Be granted of the Italians. Call, he called the Packer's attempt to draw the Seahawks off sides. He just goes, completely fraudulent, which I enjoyed. I would like to just adopt that. Coaches are obsessed with this. I understand. I'm not saying it's a bad idea. It's fourth and three. You want to get out there. It works sometimes. But I do feel like coaches are obsessed with this. And so I like when they go out there, they don't.

go for it. They try to draw them. They don't draw them. Just call it. I want every announcer to yell completely fraudulent. So there you go. That's all I got. All right. Deante, we don't have to spend more time on that. I told you it was a bad one. All right. I've got some, I've got a few actually. So we'll see how many of you guys. Empty them out because I don't have anymore. All right. Yeah, I've got three left. The first one is going to be the shady Brady call of the week. I think that as the as the Steelers Eagles game is going on, they're bringing up the fact that the Bucks are just absolutely just walking the charges off the field, running the charges off the field, talking about how good of a season the Bucks are having and how this run is kind of put

them back in control of the NFC South and just get Brady saying, yeah, man, you know, the defense has been playing a little bit better. They've got the run game. They fix the offensive line. There's a lot of pieces in place. Mike Evans is playing pretty well. And I'm just sitting here listening like, okay, you put the Baker compliment here. Okay, not here.

Maybe you'll put the Baker compliment here. Okay, not here either. and he finishes up the point, and you could kind of get, you kind of heard that little bit of silence from a play by play guy. I forget who else he was sharing the call with. I was like, oh, he's really never going to say anything positive about Baker. Now that Baker made that comment earlier in the year about bringing joy into the situation and people actually being happy to show up to work now that he's playing quarterback. So I got a good, a good kick out of that. The next one was going to be the one last rider.

Well, real quick, yeah, this is making him look bad because the bucks are now. in line to win what back-to-back NFC South titles without him? Oh, my God. That doesn't make him look bad. He won a Super Bowl. Hey, man. Baker's playing well.

I don't know what to tell you. Baker's playing well. Mike Evans does look happy. I don't know. Baker threw a pick and he tried to throw another one. He did play well after that. Third and offensive success rate in the passing game, man. It's hard to argue.

Jack merchant. Jack merchant. It's refreshing. Finally, we don't give all the credit to a quarterback for a team playing well. I have a superlative for Jalen Hertz. I'm going to give him the stat patting award. I don't know if you saw this. When he was taking his kneels, I've never seen this before.

But he was like stepping forward to take his kneels so he didn't lose rushing yards. Someone mentioned this to me. I didn't notice it live. I need to watch the replay. Yeah, go back and watch it. I'm surprised the Steelers like tolerating didn't do like a Greg Shiano rushing the kneel thing because that's exactly what he was doing. There's no other explanation for it.

I've never seen a quarterback take a kneel and step forward before he did it. All right. I got to watch that. You know, someone else did mention that to me. Listen, maybe he's got some incentive or something. He's team CTC. I'm saying, good job out of you. Jail and start the trend.

Why should you take those losses? That's a good point, too. I mean, I don't think they actually count against. I don't know if they count against. No, they kind of against Russia's attempts, though, is the thing. Like I was looking up on true media. They don't have them as Russian times, but they do lose the yardage, which is... They lose a yardage.

Kind of weird to me. And then I have a superlative for Dan Campbell. If you don't love me at my worst, you can't love me at my strongest award. Because everyone's going against him. They love it when he's going forward on fourth down, but he does the onside kick with 10 minutes left. They're down by 10. Mack Hollins recovers it, returns it to the three-yard line. It makes it look like a much worse decision.

And Dan Campbell, to his credit, was like, ah, yeah, in hindsight, I shouldn't have done it after they returned it to the three-yard line. but they couldn't stop them on defense. Buffalo was marching up and down the field. Josh Allen was averaging 11 yards per attempt. The running game was averaging like six yards per attempt. You have to do something in that case. And I think that was the right move. And it was a good bounce by Jake Bates,

but they weren't able to recover it. And it was an unfortunate return. But I didn't hate the decision. I don't know why everyone's something at it, Dan Campbell after that. Look, I'm typically, uh, go ahead. No, I was going to say, I'm typically Mr. like, your defense are professionals too get a stop but after i see my three technique go down my corner goes down this guy is marching up and down the field against us there's nothing that we can do defensively

to stop the guy why would i give him access to the football again if i have enough control to try to get another possession out of this i want to try to get back in the game as early as possible and the off and their offenses was finally kind of catching fire late in the third going into the fourth so that was a good time i think if you were going to take a chance to try to take one. To the extent that you believe in momentum, I do think that just rhythmically, it made a lot of sense for them to try to go chase another possession as early as possible. Like you said, it's just unfortunate that the bounce does not land in your hands. Mac Hollins basically gets a free runway up the sideline to get to the three-yard line. But to me, I don't think the return of

the onside kick makes it a bad decision. I think it's just an unintended consequence of being aggressive in that moment. I guess the idea is there's 12 minutes left. You're down 38, 20, So you're already down 10. It's a two possession game. If you can hold them to a field goal, it's still a two possession game and you don't, and you still have more time on the clock. Whereas if you kick it away,

like you said, maybe you get a stop, but the way the game was going, they weren't getting a stop. And now you run the risk of them taking off seven minutes off the clock. And then it's still being a two possession game. So I like when they coaches are just sort of like, I don't know.

No one. I can't imagine another coach like thinking that way. So I do like sort of the outside of the box thinking. And yeah, Matt Collins, like, tipped it to himself and took off for 38 yards. That's like, that's not the most likely outcome from that. If they just recover it and then, you know, if they drive and score a touchdown,

then you didn't take too much time off the clock. Or if you hold them to a field goal, now it kind of worked out exactly how you were hoping it would work out, I guess. And we just saw a team put together a 10-minute drive to close out a game on the same Sunday. Like so 10 minutes is like, honestly not that long in the grand scheme of things,

especially when you're chasing the game like that. Yeah. I was surprised. I didn't totally get it, but I like it. I'm with you. What is it? I love him at his weakest. Love him at his strongest. What was the award? If you don't love me at my weakest, then you can't love me at my strongest. All right. I love you at your weakest, Dan Campbell. Don't do what everyone else does. Do you want to deal. All right, Deonti, I cut you off before you had your final ones there. It's all good. We do not have to spend any time on the first one of these. It's the one last ride award. I'm giving it to Aaron Rogers and Devante Adams for being able to connect a few times. And way that was very reminiscent of the you know when they were at green bay especially when mat lefleur took over and it was very clear that devaute ados is going to be the target machine in that offense you got to see a little bit of that him being moved around working in the slot you know stretching the field vertically in the middle of the field and outside the numbers on comeback routes on those outbreakers i thought that they looked really sharp in the passing game but they also played the jag so i don't know what there really is to take from that game long term

The second one and the one that I'm more serious about is the Bullying Works Award. I'm giving this one to Vic Fangio for bullying Nick Siriani into getting them to do more fully padded practices, more live reps during the week. You can see the dividends that it's paying for them defensively. One of my favorite stats that we have on True Media is a failed tackle to total tackle ratio, which helps you kind of measure how well teams are tackling on a snap-to-snap basis. The Eagles have the second lowest rate behind the Buccaneers. which to me tells me that they're tackling really well in space and you don't need a data point to see that. You can just turn on the film and see Cooper DeGine making a tackle outside, you know, out in the seams, you know, when there's a yak opportunity. And that looks good.

You have Chauncey Carter Johnson, who we know is one of the better tacklers in the NFL. I think he's taking a step back from a coverage perspective, but he'll still show up in the box to make tackles. Reed Blankenship is one of the better tackling safeties in the NFL. And then you start talking about the development of the guys in the trenches. Jordan Davis playing much better. I say this to Ben Solac every week. I cannot believe that Nolan Smith is playing, you know, winning football on a week-to-week basis right now. I can't believe that they can get anything out of Jalick's Hunt who was playing safety not that long ago at his football career and is now on the edge.

You look at Nacobo Be Dean and the steps forward that he's made as an inside linebacker, especially this week. You could just see the tempo that he was playing with, the pace he was playing with. He was on a lot of Pittsburgh stuff in the running game, even if he wasn't. making the play. You can see that the process was good. And then maybe the story of this defense this year has been Zach Bond, right, who was not even signed to play offball linebacker. He was signed with the idea that he could be a rotational edge guy. They find a role for him. And he's basically been the skeleton key in this defense. He can because he can do so much. He can be, you know, he can be that six guy down on the line of scrimmage when they want to get

into those six one fronts. He's covered really well. He tackles out of space really well. I think that our buddy E.J. Smith, I know you have on Philly Special pretty often has talked about, you know, them embracing being more physical in practice. And I think that that's really showed up for them in the running game, one of the best by EPA defending the run and by run stuff rate. I think that all those reasons are exactly why the Eagles should be taken seriously as a Super Bowl contender because they have done a really good job at winning up front and they've been one of the best tackling teams in the league. Yeah, Fangio was complaining about the practice schedule. I think the first day he was introduced to the Philadelphia media. So he got something there. He brought it up on the way out of Miami too.

I think he kind of made mention to that of like, hey, man, you know, I'm a defensive coach. I like to practice. But our offense doesn't really like to practice. I don't know how we get better for not practicing. Yeah, no, it's paying off for them. All right. Last one I had, I forgot about this one.

Best two lines in a box score here. Bengals Titans. Combined for 26 penalties for 223 yards. That's line one. And combined for 10 turnovers, four by the Bengals, six by the Titans. Bengals beat the Titans. 37, 27.

In this game. So there you go. I think the announcer said it. Or maybe it was Scott Hansen. Like, why is this game still on? Let me explain. There have been 25 penalties and 10 turnovers in this. this game and it got up to 26 there. All right. Did we miss anything? Yeah, I got I got one more and it's

I'm selling my stock and it's on Will Levis. I didn't have much Will Levis stock to begin with. I was holding out some hope but now this game I'm with you. He turned it over four times and it was like a different variety of turnover every time. I actually think his first interception. I'm putting that on the coaching staff just a horribly designed play where you have like a little return route underneath like a little out route and whenever a man coverage defender who isn't covering the primary target intercepts the pass. I think it's on the play design and not the quarterback on that one. But all of the rest of the turnovers were just terrible. A bad pool on an option play that he ends up fumbling. The last interception, I think it was the Gino Stone where they have like, I think that

most teams call it like a Yankee concept. They have like a deep post and a crosser underneath it and you read the free safety. The free safety bites down on the crosser, you throw the post. If he drops the back on the post, you throw the crosser. Gino's like clearly is making a B-line for the crosser and the post is going to be open and then Will Levesh just throws it anyway. Like those are rookie mistakes that he's still making and he got benched for Mason Rudolph in this game. Callahan after the game, the Titans coach wouldn't commit to either way, whether he was benching him or not.

But it was basically like the same statement that Stiking gave right before you benched Anthony Richardson. Like we're going to review the tape. We're going to see if there are correctable mistakes, then we're going to move on from there. I mean, either way, they're going to be looking for a quarterback in the offseason. but at the same time, I've sold my stock on this one Bozo quarterback, but another one emerges. Spencer Rattler got back into the game, almost led the Saints back. They fail on the two-point conversion to beat Washington.

But Rattler looked good, and I still have no idea why he was benched the first time he was bench because he was playing well in that game. The adventure for Jake Hainer. Hainer, oh my God, this performance was so bad. I feel like they're tanking. You cannot hide the fact that you're tanking if you're playing this guy. I didn't want to give them this superlative because they did almost come back. I was watching the first half of Jake Hainer playing quarterback,

and I was like, man, if you were trying to do a shadow tank operation, this is about as good a way to do this as possible because Jake Hainer does not even look like a rosterable NFL quarterback back there right now. It looks like a fan won a contest to come down from the stands and get to play. He couldn't even get a pass off. Exactly. That was, yeah. Like, forget about completing it, just, you know, the ball releasing from his hand.

What did you think of that last Radler, Ratler 2-point try? Did he have a chance to come? catch that that juan johnson i mean threw a fireball but like it wasn't broken up i feel like no yeah i don't think you need it to throw the ball that hard i'm generally anti sprint out into the boundary on two-point plays i'm never a fan of that like the only quarterback i see get away with that all the time is patrick mahomes who's just like the best at um you know awkward arm angles and and maintaining his accuracy i feel like that's the only reason why that works and andy reeds probably the best at drawing up pick plays in the NFL.

But yeah, no, I hate the sprint out. And I don't think if you have Spencer Rattler playing a quarterback that he understands when to throw a change up instead of a four-seem, which probably makes it that much worse of a play call because you know your quarterback's not going to take anything off of it. Hey, don't play Rattler. It wasn't his fault. He played valiantly. Oh, wait, I just thought of another one.

When you mentioned Mahomes, I was thinking how he sometimes will, like, tiptoe by the sideline. So most entertaining play in a game you should never watch. is the Mac Jones scrambles today. Did anybody have eyes on me? I didn't see this. Yeah, I watched it. You had to.

He runs to the sideline, okay? And then he stops with his toes, not out of bounds yet, trying to entice the defender to hit him, but the defender held off. And so he was not able to draw the penalty. And then he had another one where he scrambled and he's doing all kinds of these hands, hand motions. What was going on with Mac Jones?

You know what it was. It was the uniforms. They were wearing their throwback, like the 90s throwback uniforms. And even Mac Jones, who has like a terrible quarterback aesthetic, like how he, like, wears his pads and stuff. Even he looked good today. So maybe he was feeling himself. You look good. Maybe.

You play good. Maybe they paid good. He seemed like nobody's paying. But you still got paid. Maybe he's just enjoying. Yeah. Collecting a paycheck. Playing in these games that don't matter.

Life is good. Yeah. But Jaguars, please just go back to those uniforms full time. It's such an hobbyist. just go back. If they do that, the all black is so boring. It will fix everything, too.

They'll start winning as soon as they do it. It worked for the bucks. They won a Super Bowl. They went back to their early 2000s uniforms. They won a Super Bowl immediately. Tom Brady helped a little bit, but it was the uniforms. Great one to end on.

Jaguar's changed the uniforms, get your franchise, back in order. All right. Thank you to Deontalee. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. Appreciate Tucker to Shee John, holding us out today.

for Christopher Sutton. Thank you, Tucker. Additional production supervision by Connor Nevins, Arjuna Ramgapal, and of course, our friend Dan Comer. We will be back later this week. Everyone have a good one. Thanks for listening to the ringer in an NFL show. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler, or visit RG-hash-help.com.

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