The Ringer NFL Show - Week 16 Recap: The Bills Make a Statement, the Texans Upset the Chargers, and How Good are the Bengals and Colts?

Episode Date: December 27, 2021

Kevin, Nora, and Steven begin the podcast by dissecting the Buffalo Bills’ impressive win over the Patriots and how it changes the narrative for both teams heading into the playoffs. Next, they discuss the Texans’ upset win over the Chargers (13:28) and the Bengals’ decisive victory over a depleted Ravens team that is past the point of no return (23:00). Then they discuss how the Bengals (29:00) and Colts (37:19) look within the AFC playoff picture, answer listener questions (44:46), and much more. Hosts: Kevin Clark, Nora Princiotti, and Steven Ruiz Producer: Arjuna Ramgopal Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody. I'm JJ John G. And I'm Jason Gough, and if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire. I'm bringing the rain from the Big Apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm reping Shottown with my new show The Full Go on All Things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction to the local teams and guests. Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines.

So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I am Kevin Carr. Join tonight on an NFL Sunday, but no or what's going on. Not much, Kevin. Had a very merry Christmas, a lot of very happy holidays, and really excited to chat with you tonight.

I ate so much that I'm worried. I don't know the next time I'm going to have regular meals. It just sort of like throws you off your routine for a solid week plus. Yeah, like midweek I'll do the normal breakfast, lunch, dinner thing. But it's touch and go. Stephen Ruiz is here. Ben Soak is off this week. Be glad there's no Ben here, Stephen?

Yeah, actually, I took him out. He's not coming back. He's off. He'll be back. Soon, we have a lot to get to. There was a Saturday that taught us a lot about a lot of things. We will get to that. But we will start with the Bills making a statement

against New England Patriots. This is a 3321 game. This was probably one of the best things the Bills could have possibly done. The reaction to the first loss was insane. The AFC East now, let's go through the playoffs scenarios actually here, because the AFC East now goes through New England, they're nine and six. They have the four seed.

Cincinnati took control of the three seed, Tennessee, the second seed. Kansas City still has the first seed. And just to close loop in that wild card right now, Indianapolis, fifth, Patriot sixth, and Baltimore, who got spanked on Sunday is seventh. That just kind of tells you how weird AFC is right now that Baltimore could lose and still control it pending the Monday night result. So Stephen Ruiz, this Patriots game, what'd you think? For me, it made me cross the Patriots off my list of Super Bowl contenders.

Oh! Really, really early Ruizan's sound effect drop. Wow! I was ready to say this was the second best team in the AFC three weeks ago. I think they're a tier two team now, and I'm not willing to hear any arguments about them possibly winning the Super Bowl. I don't care anymore. I'm done. Like the Belichick thing, I think it plays, and I think the only reason this wasn't like an embarrassing blowout was Belichick is so good at gaming.

the system and like stealing inches that opponents give up in keeping games close. Well, and he got aggressive today. He did. He finally got aggressive. He finally trusted his offense to get, pick up what, like a yard. And I don't know. It seemed like watching this game that it was two different caliber of teams. Like the gap between these teams was evident watching them on the field today. Okay. I want to kind of unpack that here a lot, but I want to get Norris take before we get into that so then we can all get on the record about where we stand on these two teams and then go from there. think it's more meaningful. I found myself more noticing what Buffalo was able to do sort of

than what the Patriots weren't able to do, right? Because I think the way that we'd looked at New England had been so tied up in, well, yeah, Mac is not exactly the spitting image of the most explosive ideal quarterback that you could ever dream up. But they're solid, they're well coached, and the results kind of speak for themselves, right? Like, it's not a huge shock to me to see the Patriots come back to Earth a little bit. The surprise to me is how Buffalo played because I think, you know, fair or not, I think they had gotten a little bit of the moniker of being a little bit of a soft team. And they played that game.

So, you know, Josh Allen was fantastic. Definitely a good Josh Allen game. But they were also working. middle of the field, running the ball effectively. They were sort of tough against the Patriots in the way that the terrible weather game is hard to draw a lot of conclusions from, right? But that game felt like the Patriots went and punched them in the mouth and they didn't really have an effective counter.

And I thought it was pretty impressive how they were able to sort of not rely on finesse. and Allen was really good. They withstood New England trying to get back in it late in the game. I mean, McDermott was also super aggressive. Both coaches were going forward on fourth down pretty consistently. So I think, I mean, if you're the Patriots, the biggest hit that you've taken is that you were the number one seed two weeks ago and now you're the sixth seed, right? Practically, that's a huge loss. I don't think that the team that was in the number one seed.

and the team that is now in the number 60 seems all that dramatically different. Buffalo, though, I think really surprised me in a positive way. Okay. Stephen, I want to unpack your take that you're crossing off the New England Patriots. So Mack Jones had one of his worst days ever. 43% completion percentage is the lowest of the year. His previous low was against Chargers on Halloween. Last week, you know, Mike Reese made reference to this and a couple of people did too.

Last week, the new hard knocks came out, in-season hardnogs. And in it, the Colts basically said they wanted Mac Jones to have the ball in his hands. And they said, they actually praised Mac Jones. I don't know if kind of they had final say on what got out. But they said he's unbelievable. He gets rid of the ball like Tom Brady. He's great, but he's a rookie. And you want to get, you want to get him anxious and you want to get people on his face.

And it wasn't, it was kind of milk toast. But their game plan was to let Mac Jones do the work. And he couldn't do it. And you saw that again today a little bit. There was some deception. They went at Hunter Henry. Leslie Fraser did a great job. Where are you right now, Stephen, on Mack Jones?

Is this a Mac Jones take? Is this a Patriots take? Is this a Belichick take? Part of the thing for me is that I was interested in see this year because I like seeing the idea that Belichick is a mortal coach. What I mean by that is that he doesn't have the best quarterback of all time. Last year was just completely kind of a washout. And now he has a pretty good team.

he's still the best coach for all time let's see how that goes um but coming into this game he was three and oh all time in december january games against teams in the afc east where the winner went ahead he doesn't lose these games he lost that today what is this take from you let's unpack it no it's a mac jones take it's a mac jones is a rookie take it's the same thing the cults were saying and josh allen is just the perfect foil for a quarterback like mac jones and why you don't want to take one in the first round the plays he created it was i don't even think josh allen was that good within the structure of the offense. He missed a number of wide open throws when he was actually playing quarterback. But when he got outside the pocket and created, that's when he did most of his

damage. And the bills gave Mack Jones opportunities to do similar things. He just refused to do it. There was one play. I think it was in the second quarter where Jones was going through his progressions. No one was open. They basically ran like a flood concept where all the receivers ran to one side of the field. And the whole left side was vacated. And he threw a checkdown. And Charles Davis, the CBS commentator kind of praised him for not vacating the pocket because other young quarterbacks would do that. But I was thinking, is that a good thing that a team could leave one side of the field wide open and your quarterback's not going to run 10, 15 yards? I think that's just a comment on how much easier it is to defend a quarterback like

Mack Jones in this day and age. Whereas you look at on the other side of the ball, the things the Patriots had to do to account for Josh Allen's mobility really limited them on the coverage side of things. They couldn't have that extra man in the middle of the field, which they usually employ when they're playing man coverage. And Josh Allen, like Nora said, was working the middle of the field all game long. And I think that's a big reason why, because he's so mobile and he forces you to do these other things. And it limits what Belichick can do as a defensive mastermind. And I think that's why he has so many issues against mobile quarterbacks throughout his career as a coach. Josh Allen also had an extreme amount of

time to throw. I think the average time to throw is 3.34 seconds in this game, which is fairly unbelievable. I do think you take a slight bit away about the caliber of the Patriots defense from that just because, again, they're a good team, but they're a good team that had been playing statistically in some ways, like one of the best defenses in football. And if you look at the personnel, I think maybe you end up with some questions about whether or not that's real. and if they're going against the bills in Josh Allen and they're letting him have 3.34 seconds to throw, I think it's what Stephen said.

It's the challenge of defending a mobile quarterback. It also maybe gives you a little bit of worry about if that defense is sort of coming back down to earth. But it is the thing that they don't have with Mack. And I think the challenge is because I think Mac Jones has been overall really, really impressive this season. But you can say for the first time all year, I think, for the last two games, actually less so in this game because I think their defense was really struggling.

But you could say that he played a large role in why they lost for the last two games. And I don't think that that had been true at any other point in the season. I mean, I would go as far as to say he is the reason why they lost. I think the defensive game plan was purposeful. Like they wanted Josh Allen to hold the ball. I mean, that's what we've been talking about with the bill's offense all season. It's like teams are not blitzing Josh Allen. They're playing coverage.

They're making them hold on to the ball and forcing them to go through his progression. Because I think he's better at that now in year, what is this year four, year three. But it's still not his strength. And I really think that that's what Belichick was doing. I think he realized I'm not going to be able to win this game or get them off the field in between the 20s. But get to the red zone and we could play, we could drop eight into coverage and force him to throw in a the tight windows and that's how we win this game. The problem is Josh Allen is a magician at times and he made all these crazy plays in

the red zone and that was the difference between them, would they lose by 13 and then playing a close game. Well, and he was seven of 12 for 100 yards and a touchdown on dropbacks where he had more than four seconds to throw. Right. So it's interesting that you think that that was, was their game plan on purpose. And maybe it was and maybe the assumption was just he will not be able to make them pay for and sometimes you're wrong about that, right?

Sometimes you make that gamble and you lose. Can we flip us around? Are the bills a tier one team, Stephen? Yeah, I think so. I mean, the Patriots were the one team you were worried about matchup-wise because the Patriots could run them over. I guess the Colts you could put them in the same category. But the fact that they were able to beat the Patriots and they did so comfortably,

like I'm willing, I think they match up with the Chiefs just fine. I don't think that's going to be a problem. We saw in the early season matchup. I know the Chiefs are way different. You don't think that's going to be a problem? That's kind of hand wavy. I mean like a problem in terms of matchup. Like that's not a matchup you worry about.

It's a matchup because the chiefs are really good. But how we match up X's and O's-wise, I don't think it's a problem. Those two teams want to play the same game. They both want to win a shootout. Well, they better not be. They've built their entire team to play the Chiefs. Right, exactly. They built the whole plane out of beating the Chiefs.

I am kind of surprised. Like two weeks ago, I wrote that the Patriots were the worst matchup for the bills. And then two weeks later, they make me look like an idiot. And they handled them just fine. Like, I have fewer concerns about the bills than I, did two weeks ago. It's also kind of just a weird season and everybody has been up and down and there are 16 teams in the NFL who are still in contention to make the playoffs, which is the most in 15 years. And at some point, I'm starting to just like withhold judgment on some of these games. Like just a

couple weeks ago, it looked like there were people in the league saying to me, oh my God, Belichick is in Sean McDermott's head. Okay. Fast forward, what, three weeks, four weeks. And now, that was me. I said that. I thought it was real. I still kind of think it was real. We had, you know, Mike Tannenbaum was on this podcast. We had a long talk about that. You talked about it. Like, this was supposed to be like some psychic cosmic thing that Sean McDermott was spooked by Bill Belichick and his three passes game plan. And there are, I don't know, like, now that's just been totally reversed.

So maybe at some point, just a weird year, everybody's out with COVID, everybody's injured. And it's like, I don't know. You think Bill spooked? Did you see Bill after the game was asked about his New Year's resolution? Did not want to answer that? He seems pretty locked in. not watched that clip. I like, I saw the setup for the clip in the premise and I can't bring myself to watch that. I'm sorry. It's like too cringy. I saw that it happened. I have not pressed play on

the video because I can't bring myself to do it. It's like me eating a regular meal. I'm thinking about it, but I just can't bring myself to do it at this, at this. What did you eat on Christmas, by the way? I had a lot of jumbaya. I had a huge, huge, huge piece of cheesecake. Huge piece of cheesecake. Actually, I'm not kidding. That sounds like an incredible. I have a I haven't been able to eat today either, but that was just because I watched Carson Wentz play football on Saturday. Don't try to screw around with the game order, Stephen, the sanctity of the game order. I didn't know if we were going to bring up the Christmas meal thing again, so I had to shoot my shot while I had a chance. All right.

Trojers Texans. You have before, Stephen. All right. I've been labeled like a Justin Herbert defender this year, and it's going to come off as that today. but Justin Herbert didn't play bad today and anyone questioning his his game today did I don't think they watch the game my thing with the Chargers if they could just tackle and I know like tackling is a fundamental part of the game Stephen can I stop you right there can you just tell people what happened before launching in your defense of Justin Herbert yeah the so the Texans the Texans lost are the Texans beat the Chargers which was surprising obviously they beat the Chargers by 12 points why why is it surprising? interesting, Stephen. Because Davis Mills was starting for the Texans, and Davis Mills is not a good quarterback. And Davis Mills tore the Chargers pass defense up. Rex Burkhead had a comeback game for the ages. He was running all over them. He looked like Jonathan Taylor. They could not tackle him. They were completing passes to receivers I have never heard of, and I get paid to cover this league. And I like to think I know most of the players in it. It was a wholly embarrassing game for the Chargers organization. And I think it might keep them out of the play. playoffs, but I'm not going to crucify Brandon Staley over this game. I know like that's the hot thing to do because everyone fell in love with his press conferences and they, and I feel like

there's like pushback against the Brandon Staley love now and everyone's looking for reasons to criticize them. And the defense has been bad and it's been worse than it was last year and Brandon Staley was supposed to be this defensive genius who was changing the NFL and that hasn't happened. But I'm not sure what you can do when your team just can't tackle. It's like the most fundamental part of the game of football is you have to tackle the other team and they just can't do it. And that's the reason why this Chargers team isn't a tier one team. That's the only thing holding them back in my opinion. Just so everybody knows, when Stephen is talking about the backlash to the Staley Love Fest, he's talking about me because I make fun of Brandon's

daily constantly in our calls, in our group chats, all of that stuff. My take is not that Brandon Staley cannot be a great coach in the NFL. I think he is. I think he will be one day. My take is simply that based off of a handful, based off his defense in Los Angeles, which was very good, we thought a certain thing, but then his press conferences were so good that the media fell in love with him very,

very quickly, and the results haven't yet caught up with it. That's my staley take. I'm just going to out it because I haven't said it before publicly. I can do a deeper dive. I'm a Baran Staley fan, but we can relax a little bit. Nora, what do you think about this game?

Well, so the receiver, I think, Stephen is referring to is maybe Brevin Jordan. Is that who we're talking about? I love a Brevin Jordan moment. He went to Miami. Yeah, that's what I wanted. I wanted to see if Kevin had Brevin Jordan takes.

I mean, he's really good. We shouldn't besmirch him on this podcast. All right. There will be no besmirching of Brevin Jordan. Yeah, here's the thing. You got to learn to tackle. And I just don't think that one can be a playoff team and allow the Texans to score 41 points on your defense.

I mean, that's a great point. I think sometimes we just got to have some standards. You know, I really want to love the Chargers, but this is a bridge too far. I will admit to something since we're admitting the things that we say offline on this podcast. I texted our entire Ringer NFL group thread in the middle of this game and genuinely asked, is there any chance that Davis Mills is actually good? And I was told no. And I think that's probably the reasonable, the reasonable, the reason that's,

reasonable stance. But here is my question. If you are Houston and you don't have another quarterback option, there's nobody, you know, you don't like anybody in the draft, you're still, Watson is obviously a whole mess. Do you think about giving him some run next year and just seeing, do it a little bit more? Is he their starter next season? Okay. So I actually didn't wake up Sunday thinking we're going to do Davis Mill.

is the future discussion. Yeah, but then the Texans beat the Chargers and scored 41 points. Then he was Davis Mills. Davis Mills in his bag. He outplayed Herbert. He outduled him. He outduled him. He shoehorned himself into the best young quarterback's discussion.

Okay, so the answer is yes. And what Davis Mills does is he gets you in a situation where you can roll with him at the beginning of next year, even if you draft a quarterback, right? Like there's not an urgency. and he can compete next year. Because he doesn't suck. He's like pretty efficient. He doesn't suck. It looks like Davis Mills, who by the way was QB1 in 2017 in recruiting. I was going to that list earlier today. It is a weird, weird, weird list. But I think that he's going to have an NFL career. I think that that's pretty much. I mean, he's got the neck. He's got the neck of

Mike Lennon. He can see he can probably convert some nice third downs because of that. But I think that he gives you a luxury of not being totally screwed next year and having to go out and sign Ryan Fitzpatrick or any of these sort of tier C list quarterbacks who cost $10 million for some reason. You don't have to go and do that. Davis Mills can go and play quarterback for your week one. That's what it allows you to do. Ah, yes, the luxury of Davis Mills.

Some guy who can throw the ball. Do you know how many of few guys can just throw the ball? It's great. He threw a couple good go routes today. And that's the thing. Like he didn't do anything impressive from like a process standpoint. Like he never like stood in the pocket and like went through his progressions. it was just like one read and I got the ball out and he did that well my problem is like you

I think you start to get fans to invest in Davis Mills and then it becomes just a tiny bit harder to move on let's say he's just good enough but clearly not a guy you want to extend past the rookie contract and then you get in that situation where you're almost in like a baker brown situation obviously they didn't invest the number one overall pick but I think it just gets dicey I don't know I would not. So like the Browns have made the playoffs and stuff. They made the playoffs once. I just want to say, I just want to say after all the losses, after all the depressing

ends of the season, the frustration this year, I don't think there's going to be a sadder moment for Browns fans than you comping Baker Mayfield of Davis Mills right now. And worrying that Davis Mills is winning the hearts and minds of Houstonian. That is such a tough moment. It was the floor for Davis Mills. You know how like a guy runs a fast 40 time at the combine and they're like, oh, it didn't show up on film the speed didn't show up on film yeah davis mills his neck it shows up on film like it plays you watch the game and you see like yeah that's davis mills like as as an identifying trait

or are you saying that he you know he's like a great sneaker no like identifying davis mills on the field like you just see him and you're like oh that guy that's davis mills you're not doing that based on the fact that he's the dude in the texans uniform who's lining up behind the center do you know how hard it is to name Texans just by watching their game. They have like a different team every week. Okay, but he plays quarterback. Barely. Kevin got Brevin Jordan.

I do sometimes, Stephen, to be fair, oftentimes I'll see like a roto world graphic, and I think that they photoshop his neck a little bit, and it's, they didn't. You're saying he has a system neck. All right, let's get back to the question to hand. We can't do too much neck talk here. All right, so Justin Herbert threw short of the stakes 57% of the time.

And let's qualify this. Okay, Austin Neckler was out. Mike Williams was out. Joey Boza was out on the defensive end. Derwin James had a hamstring injury. So he was banged up. And I don't know, man. I guess the question is, where does Herbert go from here?

And how do they get back on track? And is this a backdoor Joe Lombardi sucks take? No, I don't think it's a Joe Lombardi thing. Honestly, I think sometimes you just lose to the Texans. It was just one of those games where everything came together. Brother, I don't think that's true. Have you seen the Texans? The Bill's lost to the Jaguars.

and we were just talking about them as a Super Bowl contender like five minutes ago. To the Urban Meyer coached Jaguars. Urban was building something and then kicked Josh Lamb. Herbert actually played like an amazing game outside of the pick six. Like he had a 70% success rate on 44 dropbacks, which is amazing. Like Patrick Mahomes leads the league in success rate at 53.5% and he had a 70% success rate today. Herbert was fine, but part of your team has to play defense. They gave up 40 points to the Texans.

This is true, but Joey Bosa was out and he's the only. player worth anything on that defensive line. And like that that was the issue. They couldn't pressure Davis Mills and Joey Bosa will be back. Durbin James will be back. Like Mike Williams will be back. I really don't think this is it looks bad, but I think they'll be fine. Like I don't think this makes me question how the charges will play next week is what I'm saying. It was a one off game. Look, when you're playing Davis Mills, it's the same as any other great quarterback like Tom Brady. You just got to be able to get pressure consistently with four and then load up. on the back end and try to slow him down.

I just want to know if there's any performance that Steven could be like, I don't know, Herbert didn't have it today. Yeah, he played a bad game like three weeks ago against the Vikings. That was his only bad game. And I would love to criticize Justin Herbert. Like I thought he was gonna be a bad quarterback

before the draft. This is not me like clinging to like old takes. I thought Justin Herbert was gonna be bad. He's one of the best quarterbacks in the league and he's looked like it all year long. Well, except for that game against the Vikings. Why don't you just update your take and say your initial take was vindicated?

Next game, Ravens 21, Bengals, 41. Couple of things to know about this game. First of all, 11 practice squad players for the Ravens. This was a total skeleton crew. I have the numbers in front of me. I think on the season, on the season, the Ravens were without their top five cornerbacks for this game. I'll just go through the Ravens secondary here, okay?

Kevin, Seymour, allowed seven of eight targets. Chuck Clark, three of three targets. Darrell Worley, six of seven, Tavon Young, four of five, Tony Jefferson, two of three, Brandon Stevens, three of three. Not a sterling day for the Ravens secondary. And that led to Joe Burrow,

having 525 yards, I believe the fourth most in history, came close to Norman Van Brockland's yardage record all time. He has 941 passing yards against Baltimore this year. That is the all-time record for most against one team in a single season.

They ran it up today. And that was something that so a couple things here to unpack number one is that Wink Martindale, the Ravensince coordinator during the week, made a comment that basically Joe Burrow, let's not put him in a gold jacket yet, which is

objectively the correct take. Like what I don't even understand part of this is we've learned some last dance, all this stuff, these guys, any athlete is going to find motivation. So I understand why Joe Burrow would be pissed off about it and he seemed to, he said he basically thought about that as he was going for yard 525 throwing deep.

But I actually side with Winkmartindale here. Burrough said after the game that he wasn't supposed to go deep at the end. He decided to. He was told not to scramble. He did. He said, quote, I knew I wasn't supposed to do it, but we went out there and did it anyway. Kind of shrug, gave a little Jordan shrug. This is a good Bengals team.

They have control of the division right now. The Ravens, we went over this last week, as admirable as they've played over the last couple of weeks with injuries, down to a third string quarterback, with all the practice squad guys. This was never going to work. This game went exactly how it was supposed to go. Stephen, what did you think? I'm putting a wink Martindale on fraud watch.

Can I put him on fraud watch? Oh, no. And it has nothing to do with the borough on it. Did I not? It just listed the secondary. Dude, are you like this in your personal life? No, I'm not. I'm not at all.

I'm like the opposite. I love it. This is why. The Ravens have had a lot of injuries as Kevin went through. They've lost Marcus P. Peters they've lost marlin humphrey i think anthony avery got heard in this game at one point why do they keep blitzing these quarterbacks you have no cornerbacks and he keeps playing the same type of defense that he's been playing in past years where he had an all-star secondary like try another defense

and that's why i'm calling him a that's why i'm putting him on fraud watch if you can only coach defense in one way and you can't play conservatively if you have to because of personnel i'm i'm going to call you a fraud and i'm questioning his his his his credit as a head coaching candidate. I am amazed at your ability to just cancel people left and right at a truly record-breaking clip, Stephen. Listen, if me, you and Kevin were playing cornerback for the Ravens, and we're like four injuries from having to play cornerback for the Ravens, and he kept calling blitzes, we would be

on the sideline and be like, come on, guy, can you give us some safety help? Like, I need some safety help. I run a 5-7-40. I definitely don't even run a 5-7-40. I don't know. My 40 time would be moving on. I don't either. That was optimistic. Yeah. It's a bummer that the Ravens, I think, are past the point of no return, right?

Like, they still have the seventh seed pending the dolphins. Pending the dolphins, I don't think, seems like a great bet at this point, unfortunately. And it is in some ways a miracle that they'd hung in there as long as they did. But it just felt like the dam was kind of breaking. They've got no players left. They're the most injured team in football. And sometimes you get too hurt, right? Like this is the thing that ends up defining December and January most seasons.

And it's a little bit less interesting to talk about, right? But they just have too many injuries. I think 11 practice squad players is at least one practice squad player too many. Yeah, they started a quarterback today who couldn't start for the Jets. I think that sums up their season. And they got hurt in like the worst ways possible. Like they're a running team and all their running backs got hurt. Lamar Jackson got hurt.

Like I said, they're a pressure heavy team. that plays cover zero on the back end and all of their corners got hurt. It was like the worst injuries possible. You think the Ravens want to make the playoffs at this point? Because I would not want to be in the playoffs. I almost always am team. Like no matter what it for draft, whatever, don't care. You want to make the playoffs.

I think if it is barely recognizable as your actual team, it's great for those guys. Like the guys that get to play get a lot out of it. But it also becomes an injury risk. What do you actually? They're going to the Sun Bowl. Like what just happened here? What is this losing mentality?

Like, they might get Lamar Jackson back for the playoffs, and then they can at least compete in the game. If they get some guys back, they're not going to have 11 practice squad guys in mid-January, but they have a chance. This is not, like, the Trubisky Bears playing on Nickelodeon. They're worse than the Bears were at this point in the playoffs. Like, Chubisky.

No, I, okay. No, when they, when they're down to the third string quarterback, but Lamar, you don't know this about Lamar. You could have you don't have Tyler Huntley. It's fine. I mean, you're right. in the sense that they hung in there against Green Bay. Their team is gone.

The guys that they wanted to play football for the Ravens are no longer playing football for the Ravens. They're all hurt. I think that if Lamar is able to go in any way, they're still dangerous. I can't rule anything out. The last couple of Lamar Jackson games that we got on tape would beg to differ.

They're going to whatever bowl they had in Frisco, where they just, oh, they're going to get a swag bag. Great. What an experience for the kid. At least they get a gift bag. What are they getting for losing to Ryan Tannahill on national TV? You play to win the game is my take on this. All right. Let's flip this around.

So the Bengals are good. Trey Hendrickson generated seven pressures. He leads the NFL in pressures now. Hand up. I was wrong about Trey Hendrickson. They basically did a straight swap for Carl Lawson. We don't really understand how Lawson would have fit with the Jets because he was out for the season. But I didn't see Hendrickson as some sort of great value signing.

Totally wrong on that. doubly wrong because he's an Orlando guy. I feel bad about that one. Stephen, Bengals, good. Yeah, I mean, Joe Burrow is, I think he's ahead of schedule, which is surprising since he did injury his knee last year. I mean, he has gotten up to speed NFL-wise. That was my big concern with him.

I thought he was the best player in that draft. I thought he was the clear number one pick. But my concern was that it's going to take him a while to become the smartest guy on the field like he was at LSU that last year. But he's there already. It's year two, and he's already there. having missed half the season, at this point, it's just, is Zach Taylor going to mess them up? They have laid eggs throughout the season, and there's still a chance that they blow this division,

if they lose next week and the week after that to the Browns and week 18. But the team is good. I mean, they're one of the most talented teams in the AFC. Joe Burrow is a quarterback who can actually play quarterback. It doesn't rely on these schematic crutches that other younger quarterbacks do. I mean, I think they can play with anybody. I would not be surprised if they keep that game against the championship. Chiefs next week close. Remembering that he had 525 yards, again, fourth most in history. Burrow,

according to PFF, also had a 88.86% adjustment completion percentage, which is the second highest figure this season. So he not only threw the ball all over the place, he was successful, obviously, on every level of the field. He was 2.05 on deep passes, over 20 yards, but still connected on that. He was comfortable with Jamar Chase and T. Higgins. This offense just seems like it's running exactly as designed. Nora, how good can this Bengals team be? I'm trying to decide if I honest to goodness think that they could hang in a game with Kansas City right now. And I kind of think they could.

Honestly, I'm not joking. I think there's a tier of ASU teams where anybody can beat anybody else. So you would put the Chiefs and the Bengals in the same tier? I think there's probably five teams on that tier. The Colts are on that tier. I don't know if I think they're squarely underdogs to Kansas City right now, just because, I mean, Burrow is incredible, played an incredible game, incredible decision-making, just a smart, smart, smart quarterback.

There are very few young quarterbacks who I would want more than Joe Burrow to start an organization with. But the explosives hinge a little bit more on the playmakers. Like, find me a receiver other than Jamar Chase, who has just a one-to-one, they go as he goes, if he has three bad drops that offense stagnates, if he has an incredible game and is just mossing people, they're incredible. I think they're a little bit reliant on those guys

to give them the explosives that a team like, say, Kansas City, yes, they have that because of their playmakers, but they also specifically have that because of the quarterback. And I think the Bengals are underdogs because of that. T. Higgins said nice games in two of the last three. Yeah, no, I get it. What I'll say, but by the way, Stephen, I think the chiefs are going to win the EFC.

I've been saying that for weeks. I've also said the Bengals are going to be good for basically the entire year. So, I mean, those two takes can coexist. I was on them earlier than anybody, but I also think that the Chiefs are probably going to waltz into the Super Bowl. I'm just saying that I don't think that there is, I wouldn't be surprised if the Colts beat the Chiefs. I wouldn't be surprised if the Bengals beat the Chiefs. This sort of thing happens in January, especially in what I think, if last year was the weirdest year of all time, this is the second weirdest year of all time. Whether that's COVID, I mean, listen, we have no.

no idea what January is going to look like. None. And that's why I wouldn't be surprised on any of this stuff. I mean, the damn, the damn Texans just beat the Chargers. Davis Mills out dual Justin Herbert. My issue with the Bengals is their range of outcomes is too wide for me. And I think part of that is the kind of player Burrow is. Burrow is not a coward. Like, he's going to make tough throws. He's going to hang in the pocket. But sometimes that leads to high turnover games, which is a big reason why he led the NFL and interceptions coming into this week. And when you have to win four games in January to make a deep playoff run, I don't see that happening. I think they're going to run into a team like the bills, I think, would give them a lot of

problems because they're not a team that has to play unsound on the back end, like the Ravens who do blitz a lot. The bills can get after the quarterback and still play cover two zone. And I think that's the team that will give the Bengals problems. And I think you can put the chiefs in that category too. And those are the two best teams in the AFC to me. I think they're alone in tier one, and I would definitely put the bangles and Colts in that second tier below them. I don't know, man. I don't know if I'm ready for a tier's discussion right now.

We only have like 30 minutes more on this podcast. I do agree with you, though. There's more overlap between the tiers this year than any other year I can remember. I agree. I think there's only two tiers in the playoffs. On the ASC side. The NFC is a totally different deal. I just think that there's teams that can hang with the chiefs and teams they can't.

And we have a pretty clear idea what that looks like. You're always ready for a tiers discussion. Come on. I just don't know when this could do rail a whole week. Doesn't it always? It sure does. Colts? Yeah.

All right. So this game was obviously from Saturday, but Indianapolis 22, Cardinals 16. Cardinals continue their slump. I found it really interesting that Frank Wright gave the game ball after this game to Chris Ballard. And for listeners of this podcast, It's probably fairly clear. I have a consistent organizational crush on the Colts. Like I just think that they make solid decisions.

And if you look at, we're talking about all of these games, half of them teams were without half a dozen guys that they normally rely on, right? Because of injuries, because of COVID, whatever it is. But Arizona obviously is a team with problems right now, but the Colts still were able to take a step, towards making the playoffs on the road without nine starters by halftime because of injuries and because the players in the COVID list. They ended up without four out of five starting offensive linemen.

They were missing Darius Leonard, Quentin Nelson, a bunch of other guys on defense, Carrie Willis. Wence was not awesome for the majority of this game and then just pulled it out at the end. And I think, and we'll talk about the Cardinals in a bit, but I think, think it makes a lot of sense that they looked at that result and felt like the reason they were able to win that game was because of their depth. And I think in this year in particular, that is the type of thing that can take a team with a quarterback like Wentz, who is up and down to put it nicely and let them maybe make a run in the playoffs. Let them at least be the type of team

where, you know, Kevin, you were hinting at this a couple of minutes ago. I would have not expect them to be the chiefs. I would firmly expect them to be significant underdogs in that game, right? But if they are playing anyone in that sort of murky second tier, I think they could give the Bengals a heck of a game. I think they could give the bills, clearly, obviously, a really good game. And it is hard to get over the fact that the quarterback does not like fully, fully, fully inspire you. But I think in just about every area, the Colts have been really, really impressive. this season. And I think I have moved a little bit from feeling like, that's awesome. You did such a good job. You should be rewarded with a trip to the playoffs to feeling like, you know what?

Maybe. They can win a game. They can win a couple games. Like, I'm really curious to see it, just because I don't think that they have matchup problems because they can win in a bunch of different ways when they are healthy. And I think they're well coached and I think they have depth. And there's worse formulas right now when everybody's missing half their team. This is a pro-Christ Ballard podcast. And it started, I think you set the tone when Andrew Luck retired and there were no excuses made whatsoever. And you're coming from a regime, there were Ryan Grigson regime where they had Andrew Luck and there were still somehow excuses, right? Like that was, that's it's night and day from that.

And you kind of wish if you could play it out a million times, Chris Ballard was the GM for Andrew Luck. Things go very, very, very differently. You wish you could be in that alternate reality. Having said that, I had a really interesting moment. on Saturday night, on Christmas night, where I was texting with the cult people in the league, and a handful of them, we were talking about the Colts,

and a couple of them were just saying, on the other, whether it was an NFC team saying, you know, thank God we don't have to play them, or as an AFC person saying, who, I hope somebody else deals with them.

And it's funny because you hear this cliche of like, this is the team nobody wants to play. And it's always like a six seed. And some good team is like, yeah, okay, like we'll play that team. We're all set there.

Yeah, fine, who cares. And the Colts are legitimately the team nobody wants to play. I have not heard anybody say, sign me up for the Colts, baby. They play hard. They have depth. I think that the Wence thing is kind of funny to me. If you look at just the last couple, I mean, he had 225 yards yesterday, 57 yards the week before that, 158 yards a week before that. He doesn't have to play well for them to win. And that to me is the most dangerous. type of team right now. They don't go as their quarterback goes,

which is a pretty rare thing in the modern NFL. They play defense. They compete hard, and all Wentz has to do is not screwed up. Now, that can be a tall task over four straight games, but they are a legitimate threat. Well, and if there was any game when they were not going to be able to,

when they needed him to do something, it was going to be one where they were without four out of five linemen. Taylor still got plenty in this, but it was mostly because he, had that 43-yard run early on in the game. Beyond that, I mean, he was not getting help up front, right? And it ended up being okay because the Cardinals, who will get to have plenty of issues on their own, whence really only needed to get it together and do some stuff in the

fourth quarter. But I do think that under normal circumstances, when they do have better blocking. Just like you said, Kevin, they don't need him to do that at all times. And it's a good place to be. I think the Colts are the team that we all thought the Patriots were three weeks ago. I think this is a team that could win the Super Bowl. I could, let's say Carson Wentz like blacks out over the course of January and has just turns the clock back to 2017. I think this team can play with anybody. And it's just because of how they test the discipline of the opponent on both sides of the ball. The way they play defense is perfect for the modern NFL. They're going to play zone defense. You're going to have to put together 10, 11, 12 play drives to score on them. And then if

you get in third and long, that's when they start doing crazy stuff up front and they get after the quarterback. And then on offense, they do so well at still creating big plays without asking the quarterback to do anything at all that I think it's sustainable even with a questionable quarterback. Winston Wentz played one of the worst games I've watched this week on Saturday, and it didn't matter. And I think it's a testament to Frank Reich as a coach. This isn't like a legacy thing or like how great he's been as a coach. But I think right now you can make the argument that he's one of the five best coaches in the NFL with how he's kept this team together. And then the Ballard thing, I guess I got to praise Ballard, too.

The DeForest Buckner trade last year, and that was criticized by a lot of analytics people because you don't trade first round picks for defensive players. but that was one of the best moves of the last two off seasons. It might be the best. And what made it so good was the contract they signed him to after that. Like they had a ton of cap space and they leveraged it. They gave him a roster bonus instead of a signing bonus because a roster bonus doesn't pro rate over the course of a deal. So now his cap hits for like the next like three years are like 17 million,

which is a steal for one of the best defensive tackles in the NFL. It's just amazing GMing in roster management. and the fact that they've stayed afloat without a quarterback. This is like the post-super Bowl Broncos with Elway where he just kept getting quarterback wrong. I don't think the Colts have got it wrong, but they haven't found a quarterback and it hasn't mattered. They've been a good team every year.

The difference between the post-manning Broncos is that the Colts did everything else right, whereas the Broncos just kept screwing up all sorts of positions. And they're like, they're a Jacoby-Berset injury away from like four straight playoff appearances. Like two years ago, they were going to make the playoffs. Jacobi didn't get hurt. So it's a good take that the Colts. are who we thought the Patriots could be. It's also who I think the Browns thought they could be,

and they're just not. Just thrown that take out there. I mean, this is really good football team, and I'm intrigued to see how this develops of the course of the next couple of weeks, especially with Wentz. Are the Cardinals on Fraud Watch, Stephen Ruiz? Oh, yeah, we have to put him on Fraud Watch.

I mean, D'Andre Hopkins should get some MVP votes. I'm just going to say that, because him going out has just totally derailed the offense. And it's not surprising at all. I think like a month ago, everyone was questioning whether this was sustainable because they were having so much success on third downs on both sides of the ball. And that tends to be flaky as the year goes along. And their luck has turned on third downs and we've seen the result.

And I think it brings up, this is why people question Cliff Kingsbury coming into the season. And I don't know if there's a coach that gets punished immediately for his bad fourth down decisions quite like Cliff does. Like every time they elect not to go for it on fourth and short, kicker misses it every single time. And he still hasn't learned. There's a lot of piling on cliff going on. And it's almost to the point where it's just like,

it's not necessarily wrong, but it is maybe less interesting than it used to be. But I just can't let this go. The final drive before, I mean, they tried for the onside kick that they didn't get, the insistence on just like short, horizontal dink and dunk that you need to, take up three minutes and 34 seconds over the course of 16 plays when you need to score twice

and then end up kicking a field goal on third and 10 because otherwise you're going to run out of time. I don't think that we can let this go. Clearly there's an issue on the field. Kyler had his lowest yards per attempt of the season this week that I think is a direct response to the fact that they lose Hopkins. The offense just becomes more horizontal. without someone who can stretch the field, I think they will have consistent difficulty recreating

what they'd been able to do earlier in the season. Like, that shouldn't be a mystery. But then when you combine that with the conservatism and the play calling and just the baffling clock management, I feel like they were already on fraud watch, is I guess what I'm saying. And if you go into a game on fraud watch and this is what happens, I don't know what the response is. But it's just very upsetting to me. Wow. Fraud Watch is crowded. It is. It gets crowded in December. I'm not going to lie. It gets crowded every December. Through to the NFC really quickly. So playoffs, the clinched teams, Packers obviously NFC North, Cowboys, NFC East, Buccaneers, NFC South,

playoff berths for the Rams and the Cardinals. As we speak right now, the Eagles have the 7th seed, the Niners have the 6 seed. The Packers are the by team as of now. So we have our first listener question. And it's near and dear to Stephen Ruiz's heart. There's a lot we can say about Matt Rule right now. But I think our Jack here has a good question here. Do I have any, do I have an illegal recourse if I'm forced to endure another season of the Rule Darnold combo? So you twin the Matt Rule is coming back report with the Joe Judge is coming back report. And we have two very upset franchises right now.

I want to get to both of these coaches with both of you guys, but Stephen, you have the floor on Matt Ruhl. You're a Panthers fan. You're not a Matt Ruhl fan. You're not a Sam Darnold fan. You are aware right now. I think the Panthers have to ask themselves a very simple question. Can you envision Matt Ruhle winning a Super Bowl?

I just can't envision it. I had the same question about Bill O'Brien when he was the Texans coach. You can apply this to any coach, and I just can't envision it happening. And there's been nothing. He says it's working. That's what he claimed. in his press conference today. He said a lot more than that.

I'd love for you to take us through that. He said, I believe it is a thousand percent working. Not 100 percent, a thousand percent working. He's an analytics guy. I know no one can see it, and I apologize. I like that he's apologizing that you can't see that it's working. As I tell our team all the time, it took Jay-Z seven years. He had to start his own agency to become an overnight sensation.

It takes time. What is he talking about? I don't know, because Jay-Z started his agency like a decade ago, and he's been mega-famous for like 25 years. It's a nonsense thing to say. And the fact that he's... Also, also, he... Seven years is the end of his contract.

Is he trying to get an extension by comparing himself to Jay-Z? I 100% guarantee... Actually, I... A thousand percent guarantee. If you went through Matt Ruhl's Google search, he was like looking... He was searching for things that it took seven years to build. And Jay-Z came up first.

Like, that's seven years. He said that specifically. And I'm going to tell you, if you gave him seven years, I don't think they would make the playoffs once. They are used, they used a quarterback rotation today. Like, he's treating this like a college football team. I've never seen this in the NFL, and he's doing it.

But with all that said, I think keeping Joe judges an even worse decision. They're both terrible decisions made by owners who don't want to admit their mistake. What does it say about the Giants that these were the two top candidates for their, they would have struck out either way. I don't know. Nora, where are you on this? The Panthers thing, they don't have a quarterback. I think the problem is that they have no idea who should play quarterback for the team.

And I'm sure they're trying like hell to figure it out. But the last three attempts have not gone well. And the list of things that have been from the outside evident that Matt Rule has done in a positive direction is very short. I also think it is hard to really, really say when they just have not gotten that position right. and clearly it's a number one, right? I just don't think we'll know, honestly. And the thing about the Jay-Z thing is that besides it being a little silly, you don't get seven years.

And I just don't think that these are questions that we can answer until they figure out the quarterback thing and so far not so good on that front. It's two separate things. You can get seven years if you show yourself worthy of seven years. The problem is Matt Rule is not showing us. himself to be worthy of three years. Well, right, you don't get seven years to prove yourself, is what I'm saying. There's a sliding scale.

If they were just like nine win team, eight win team, fine, dude, keep installing your system, whatever. We're not going to fire you. Maybe you even get, you know, hire a GM or whatever. All that BS that NFL teams do when they're doubling down on the mistakes. But you certainly don't get seven years to learn on the job. And it looks right now, like Matt Rule and Joe Judge are the type of guys who are learning how to be an NFL head coach on the fly.

In Rule's case, he was he was. college coach that maybe didn't grasp even though he'd worked in NFL before the realities of all of the NFL game. In Judge's case, he was an assistant who had many cases people thought that, or many opinions people thought got over-promoted. These are just guys who were not equipped to be NFL-ed coaches and they're not going to turn this around. The only problem is I don't know who you're going to get because the people who made the mistake to hire these people are the same people making this again. The only thing the Giants can't do and they might is double down on Joe Judge and say, let's get this guy a GM who he's comfortable with and all that stuff.

Then you just have Joe Judge all the way down. I mean, the one common theme throughout the Panthers, how they've operated as an organization since David Tepper has taken over has just been impatience. They've tried to cut corners every offseason. And I get the quarterback point. But when we know that the moves they make at quarterback are a mistake before the season even plays out, like everyone questioned why they signed Teddy Bridgewater to the deal that they signed him to when they were apparently rebuilding everyone questioned them picking up sam darnell's fifth year

they're on the books for sam darnell for 18 million dollars next year overpaying cam newton when they had no other bidders in pain like i i was obviously happy about the cam newton thing but that was just because i wanted to watch cam newton play football on the panthers uniform again but it was still a dumb move when it happened like it they framed it as a win now move and they haven't won since it's exhausting it's i can't point to one good thing that matt rule has done since he's taken over the team is off than it was when he took over. It's worse off than it was at this time last year. They're regressing. They're not getting any better. They're further away than they were a year ago. And there's no direction. All right. Moving on. Matthew Ruskin asks,

what is the realistic plan for the Browns to improve a quarterback next year? Stephen? I mean, I think you have to make a move for a veteran quarterback. I don't think the Browns are in a position to try it again with a rookie and try to build up another quarterback. I would be fine if they gave Baker Mayfield another year, but I think you need to bring in a legitimate competition, not Case Keenum, like a Jimmy G caliber quarterback. Ooh, Jimmy G. Okay. So, Nora, where are you going with this before we start the discussion?

The question, I mean, look, if it's an upgrade, I guess you try to get, see if Russell Wilson might come on over, maybe. My answer to what I think they will do is let Mayfield play out his fifth year and use the tag because it is the non-committal solution that allows them to stay within their price rate. Can I play devil's advocate? What if he's bad again and they have a roster and a coaching staff that's equipped to win and Baker Mayfield is still the reason they will lose games? Then they will lose games because of Baker Mayfield and people will be upset. He's on a fifth year option. There's no plan going forward.

Unbelievably, the same, I'm looking at the free agents for 2022. It's just the same people every single year. So first of all, let's take Ben Rothensberger out of the equation. Fitzpatrick Dalton, Foles, Cam, Tyrod Taylor, James Winston, Jacoby Brissette, Teddy Bridgewater, Marcus Marriotta, Joe Flacco, Mitchell, Trubesky, Tim Boyle, Blaine, Gabbardt, Chad, Henney. It's just the same group of people available every single offseason. It's unbelievable. Well, but I disagree with you that there's no plan. The plan seems to be, because there's been reporting, I believe, from Dan Grasiano over the course of season, they have numbers at which they're comfortable with Baker. When that team stays relatively healthy and gets a couple things breaking their way, that is a playoff team with Baker Mayfield. It doesn't seem like they're particularly eager to just toss it out and start fresh.

Do you think that the numbers they are comfortable with, they are no longer comfortable with? I just watching them. So the reporting midseason from Dan, I believe, was that they were comfortable mid-30s for him. That is a good chunk higher than what the average would be if you just go fifth your option and then one tag. obviously it bumps up if you're if you're doing two tags. I think that the last couple of weeks could have pushed the comfort level down a little bit. But if you were starting, like I don't know that I would be comfortable with mid-30s, right? So if we're pushing down a little bit below that, then I think you're in the range. I also just don't, I think that it's really, really, really hard

to get yourself to the point where as an organization you're going to say, you know what? Yeah. We're just moving on and starting fresh. We're going to add another name to the Browns quarterback's jersey. Like that organization has baggage with this as well. And it's a smart team. I don't think that they will give that undue weight when they're considering their options. But you just said it. It's the same cast of characters that you got to choose from if you are going to go out and try to find an upgrade.

And Jimmy's a good idea. I sort of joke about Russ just because, like, Russ is fun to joke about. At the same time, you make the call. You make the call and you sell the fact that it's a forward-thinking organization with good players. And you see if you can do it. I think barring, barring the, they're not slam dunks in terms of how it'll all work out, but the things where it's self-evident why you would want to make that move. I don't know. I get the, I get the impulse to be afraid to move on. It is probably the type of thing

that gets organizations in trouble, but I don't think that that makes it completely, you know, sometimes I think we treat it like it's not understandable. And I think it's pretty understandable. I get where a team signing a lucrative extension is coming from always. Having said that, the question was, how do they improve it quarterback? And I think the question is,

does Baker Mayfield help them there? And I don't know. I mean, so first of all, I agree with Ruiz. I would go with whichever quarterback becomes expendable, whether that's Jimmy G, whether that's a team we're not thinking about, takes a quarterback in the top 15. In the same way a year ago,

we didn't know that Tray Lance was going to be of the Niners. That kind of situation. At some point, I agree with you, Nora, that I would not even talk extension with Baker. I would make sure I utilize the fifth-year option, use the tag. If it's going to be expensive, it's going to be expensive. if it's going to cost me $40 million, fine. I'd rather do that and have the flexibility than spend $160 million on Baker Mayfield.

I think there's no way you give Baker Mayfield an extension this offseason. I don't know how you could do that. I don't know what it would look like. And I think this is an offseason where they have to throw everything at the law. The expiration date on this roster is ticking. It's hard to build a sustainable winner through a defense. And that's basically what they are at this point in an offensive line. Those are like weak-linked systems.

if you lose one major piece, the whole thing comes tumbling down. Like next year might be the last year of their window with this roster. I think they should be calling the Falcons and finding out if they can pay some, if the Falcons will pay some of Matt Ryan's contract or if they can pay for some of it. I think they should call the Vikings about Kirk Cousins. I think Jimmy G is a good third option. I actually think, I think Jimmy G. in Baker Mayfield, as pocket quarterbacks have a lot of similarities,

the big difference is Baker can create outside the pocket, but that gets them into trouble a lot because he's not the scrambler he seems to think he is in his mind Jimmy G you don't have to worry about that he's going to stay in the pocket and run the offense I can't envision them going into next year with Baker Mayfield as the guy and without question I agree anything else guys football team looks good I think Dallas might be the second best team in the NFC I think they have surpassed Tampa Bay now that the Chris Godwin injury has happened and I think they're the one team that could beat the Packers in the playoffs in Lambo Well, and Dak looks healthy again.

Right, exactly. He looks like he can move around. That's good. That's good stuff. He's also playing a team that are taking swings to each other on the sideline. So we might have to put a pin

in the Dallas performance tonight. It's a shame they're bringing their own benches didn't work. Maybe it's like Matt Rui. We need to feel like a whole pot episode to Benchgate, but we don't have time. It's like Matt Rooley. You have to bring your own benches for seven years.

And then it really kicks in. Thank you to Chris Sutton for obstruction help with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramkepoil. This has been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.