The Ringer NFL Show - Week 18 Recap: Dolphins and Seahawks Are in the Playoffs, Packers Miss Out, and Texans Lose the No. 1 Pick | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

Nora and Steven are joined by Ben Solak to discuss how the wild-card races in each conference shook out on Sunday. They start with the Lions playing spoiler and eliminating the Packers from playoff contention. Then, they discuss the Seahawks winning in overtime over the Rams, and Seattle's upcoming playoff rematch against the Niners. Then, in the AFC they talk about the Dolphins getting into the playoffs by beating the Jets, which eliminated the Patriots and Steelers (21:08). After that, Nora and Steven run through their winners and losers for the final week of the regular season, including the Jaguars, Texans, Cowboys, and more (34:34). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Guest: Ben Solak Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, this is Rob Harvilla from 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, the world's greatest loopy and perverse and inaccurately named music nostalgia podcast. We're doing 90 songs now because there's too many songs. Pearl Jam, JZ, Jewel, YouTube, Cher, Hootie. These are just some of the names people yell at me on the internet because we're back. More great songs, more rad special guests, more loopy perversity. Join us once more on 60 Songs That Explain the 90s every Wednesday on Spotify. NFL Sunday recap show week 18 Sunday is in the books the playoff picture is set I'm nor Pinciotti I am here as always with benjamin solek and stephen ruse stephen happy final regular season football Sunday to you and to the seahawks and the dolphins who are in not a good Sunday for the packers lions patriots and

Steelers, who all fell short, had a chance to make the playoffs, did not get in. But a very good Sunday, I think, for us and for you. Am I correct in that, Stephen? That's right. Gino Smith will be starting a playoff game, as we all predicted before the season started. I could not be more happy for the man. Seahawks single season passing leader. That's right.

Is that correct? 17, 17. 17 games. No, no, we don't acknowledge the longer season when it fits our, our priors and our player preferences. Yes, that's right. Benjamin Selleck is here. We won't kick him off. So the Lions needed the Seahawks to lose. They beat the Rams in overtime, which meant that Detroit was playing to put Seattle into the playoffs. Dan Campbell looked to the Packers, said, if we're not in, you're not either.

The Lions fourth and one passed from Jared Gough over the middle of DJ Chark ends up ending it after some cool trickeration on second. second and 17. Really, really fun game. A lot of unforced errors, particularly on the Packers side of this. Ben,

what did you think about Lions Packers? I firstly thought that it was, you know, a lot of people expected, but I thought it was really cool the Lions came out and and really, really played the game with a lot of energy

and with classic, you know, Dan Campbell Panash. There was a great, like Dan Campbell's in-game interview is always awesome because he like actually thinks about the questions.

and then answers them instead of just being like, coachism, coachism, word, coachism. And he was asked like, you know, your defense's gotten a couple stops. Like, you know, it's out of the first quarter. You guys are kind of out here. You started out. Like, what's the motivation like?

Like, now that you're in it, what's the motivation like? And he was like, well, we don't want them to go. And he pointed to the Packers sideline. He was like, it's like, it's called Spade of Spade. I don't want them to win this game. We don't want them to win this game. We're not going to playoffs. The Packers better not go either.

And they got that job done. I dislike you. Yeah. And listen. They do. And we all know it and just say it. And then that's that, that,

it was the motivation for, for how they played. I thought that you saw the issues in the Packers offense that made them the team that needed week 18 to get into the playoffs, that made them a team that I didn't think was going to be too scary if they got into the playoffs. Aaron Rogers, Matt LaFleur, like the names mean a lot.

Offensively, they've certainly gone better. They certainly right at the ship, but they still just don't have a lot of a punch, right? They had an explosive play to Christian Watson that got them into touchdown range, but other than living off that one Watson explosive, and those have been very hard to find for the Packers' offense this year,

they actually had a really good Watson game in terms of stretching the field and getting that downfit aspect that they've needed. They weren't successful picking up short yardage gains running the football. They weren't successful in the red zone. They had to kick a lot of field goals. They had the turnover to Aaron Jones when they got in the red zone. They weren't able to finish their drives. They lacked red zone efficiency.

They lacked that scalpel precision that they often have with Devante Adams in terms of punching it. If they could have gotten seven instead of three, they won the scheme handling. They weren't able to do that. And then you also saw the weaknesses on the line. We're like, the lines pass rush is certainly better than it was earlier in the season. Rogers not managing the pocket super well, Yash Nyman losing on the outside, and Rogers doesn't have the mobility to solve that problem. So this Packers offense had holes in it, right?

It had weaknesses to it. And to me, that didn't make them a very scary NFC team, even as they climbed out of four and eight. Lions were able to expose that because they knew what they were looking for. Lions played them twice, beat them twice, and kept them to a very low point totals both times. Goodos to Aaron Glenn for kind of knowing the pressure points to hit. This felt like the same Packers team we saw last year, except for they lost their two superstars, one of them being Devante Adams, the other one being a superstar version of Aaron Rogers, which, like you said, we didn't see the out-of-structure stuff.

He wasn't hitting throws, and I'm talking about all year long, that he normally hits with that precision. So I feel like that's the biggest difference between this team and what they were supposed to be, and the ideal, after they traded Devante in order to restock the defense and kind of improve the rest of the roster around him and not be so top-heavy. We didn't see any of that. And I think it falls on the front office in part, not just Aaron Rogers, not just the coaching staff, not just Joe Barry. The front office didn't do the best job of improving the offense after Devante Adams provided them with these extra resources.

Yeah, the first five trips in the Lions territory, I think they had no touchdowns. That was also an issue the first time they played them this year. Ben mentioned the short yard and stuff. I mean, there was just a little bit of everything going wrong, right? Like, you're running jet sweeps to Alan Lazard on fourth and inches. My favorite play in the league this year. Every single team saw- You didn't mean about that, Ben.

I was proud of you. Every single team saw the Rams run this with Cooper Cup and the Knights of Depot Samuel, like constantly in shortyarded situations last year and be successful. And they were like, we can do this. And it turns out edge defenders also watch film. And they're like, man, every time there's a jet motion guy and they're under center. he gets the ball. If he slows down, he's pushing the quarterback sneak.

But if he's moving, he gets it. And they just wait for him. It's a very funny play that defensive keyed in on, and offenses just don't care to keep running it. It's an extra funny play when, now I'm not saying I'm in favor of it in either case. Wouldn't Christian Watson be a better person to do that? No offense to Alan Lazard.

But like... That's, see, that's the chess game. No, that's Lazard moving. Now, Watson, they'll never give it to him. him and it turns out like, yeah, you will. We know you will. This is the only longer running. It's fine.

It's fine. If Mason Crosby has the field goal that doinks forward off the crossbar for the miss, lines missed a field goal too. And then, yeah, I mean, Roger is, he made some throws. He had a few deep balls to Watson that were really pretty, but definitely missed some, unless he was targeting Kirby Joseph. All of those seemed like. they were right on the money. And then you have

some of the extracurriculars, right? Rassau Douglas has the penalty that shortens the field goal for the Lions. And then Quay Walker just like loses his brain and gets ejected for shoving a trainer and the penalty sets up a lion's touchdown. Yeah, I got up to get my third blondeie of the evening. And when I sat back down, Quay Walker was out of the game. It happened in a flash. I know I had to like go on Twitter and like figure back out. It was a very confusing. seizure. I'm surprised by the answer. Yeah. Devante Wyatt like provided backup against the,

the big mean lion's trainer that was tormenting Quay Walker. It's stuff happens, I guess, but just like what with that much on the line or even without it, what could possibly for the second time this season possess someone or him specifically to just like, don't shove people. We know this. We know this about what you're supposed to do and what you're not supposed to do. So anyway, I'm with both of you that a lot of the issues for the Packers were things that they've shown over the course of the season, but even by those standards, I found this a particularly messy game, especially when you're going up

against the Lions team that was able to make, and they've, they've done this all year, but they were able to make quite a bit out of a Jared Goff game where for large portions of the contest. It looked like when he would throw the football, we got my boyfriend's brother and sister-in-law this like automated toy for their puppy where it's like a ball that moves on its own, but it's really terrible and really herky jerky and doesn't work very well. And like that is what it looked like when the football started to move. It was just, you know, a little left, a little to the right. It's going up and down and all around. So I think if you, If you'd shown me this game and said one of these teams is playing for their own chance to go to the playoffs and the other one isn't.

I think I'd have guessed the other way. So even though some of this stuff has been brewing in Green Bay, disappointing for them, I think certainly. Yeah, you got like the predictable Jared Doffin cold weather game where like you said, it looked like he couldn't throw the football. If that was a baseball game, the umpire would have came out and checked his hands for like foreign substances. He was throwing like a knuckle ball all game long. And they even started throwing the ball like an obvious passing situation. The Lions, like on third and medium to long, they were running the ball and having success. It was insane that they were able to get away with that style of play when it was so obvious that Gough didn't have it.

And when we've seen golf teams in the past when he doesn't have it, it's usually a loss. It's rarely a win. And they were able to get 20 points out of it. Yeah. That one drive the Lions had where they were like, list all of the weird ways we know how to get DeAndre Swift for the football behind the line of scrimmage was very indicative of the head coaching case for offensive coordinator ben jonson very indicative of where they were kind of got to with that with jared golf at that point of the game where they just

didn't super trust him to hang around in the pocket didn't super trust him to deliver the ball accurately short let alone intermediately and further down the field uh this lions man this lion's rebuild i love it i love it so much i love the way they've done it i love the emphasis on the draft i love the way they built up the wide receiver room with different bodies. I love that they cycle through their defensive backs. They've got like a ton of youth there and guys who can play inside and out and versatility. I like, you know, the James Houston just like won a job. They just let guys win jobs.

There's so much to like about this rebuilt. The hay is not in the barn, man. Like, this offseason for the Lions is one of the most important off seasons a team has had in a couple years, man. I really truly believe that. Not like, like there have been like bigger name teams, is a bigger name, you know, stars leaving, coming back in and out, whatever. There's been larger, like, single dominoes. But in terms of how Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell have built this,

which I really think has just been top-notch. You look at some of the impatient rebuilds, the high free agency spending, they have been patient, they have been diligent, they have a culture, they have a system, they have gone through ups and downs, and they've landed at a really, really nice spot. There, you got one jewel on top, and it's Brad Holmes accepting that Jared Goff is not the guy.

It's Brad Holmes accepting that. In 2016, he took a dude with the first overall pick. and he's a five quarterback, he's a solid NFL quarterback, but he is not a Super Bowl champion. He is not a like 10-year franchise quarterback. They got to get somebody else in the building. They're going to have money and draft picks. So if somebody, free agent or trade is available,

they can go get him. Go put a more in a Lions jersey, baby. But if they not do that, you have a solid quarterback class coming up. You have to, you cannot Chris Ballard yourself. You cannot colts this. You've got it right. You've got the young players. They're on cheap contracts.

this is the final step. And this lion team could be really good for a long time. I really leave that for a long time. Actual good Lions football reliably. If they just get this last piece right, I can't wait to watch it. Maybe they should call up the Rams and offer Jared Gough for Stafford. Don't know because of sweetener, maybe.

Sean's leaving. He's done. Send it back. Stephen floated the Lamar idea, which obviously there's a lot of variables there, but floated the Lamar idea on the island. And I like it more and more by the day. Particularly because look, okay, this is going to be a very odd and interesting offseason for Green Bay.

Now, Aaron Rogers has sort of made that true for several years running. So probably a little bit of sort of same old, same old with, is he going to retire? Is he going to go to hold out on them? Are they going to have to think about planning for the future? Obviously, he has a lot of financial incentives to not do that. but this was disappointing, clearly. So you don't know what's going to happen there. Minnesota wins the division, but looks like a house of cards.

And the bears are arrow pointing up, certainly, and have a lot of resources, but unproven there. So to your point, Ben, about, and now, I don't think in that situation when you've proven that you can get, to a place where you're fighting for a playoff spot just as is. I don't think that there's a lot of reason to force it. You don't want to get in a situation where you're just like throwing money at a problem and or draft picks and not thinking carefully about whether or not that's a real potential upgrade. And I think I think more about that through the draft just because it's such a

crap shoot and I do really think that there's a window right now, but they could seize this thing. So even though it's a bummer to not see this Lions team in the playoffs, I can't imagine that most people their big picture aren't, aren't pretty thrilled about the direction of that team with what happens with Ben Johnson in this offseason being sort of a big looming question mark. But other than that, a lot of happy vibes. Okay, so that's Lions Packers. That means that the NFC playoffs, so we've got 49er Seahawks, that's going to be on Saturday. That's the early game on Saturday.

Then on Sunday, it's Giants Vikings. That's the afternoon game, 430 Eastern. And then on Monday, Cowboys Bucks. 49ers Seahawks since we're getting Gino in the playoffs because of this result. Steven, that's your guy. What do you think about that matchup? It's a bad matchup for Seattle. We've seen this offensive line.

Yeah, I'm not going to even pretend like I'm not going to this is where it ends. But yeah, the offensive line regression, I think, has been the big thing with this offense over the last two months. And we've seen Gino try to work around it. We've seen him, I think, forced the issue too much. He threw two more interceptions today. He could have had a third.

And we saw in this, the first 49ers matchup, or the second 49ers matchup where he almost threw a pick in the end zone. Because he was dealing with so much pressure and trying to get rid of the ball quickly, I think that's going to be the case in this matchup. And I really don't see any avenue for Seattle winning this. They have a mismatch at like basically every position, every major facet of the game, run game, pass game. It's a mismatch.

The 49ers are the best team in the NFC right now, in my opinion. Ooh, Ben. I don't know why I'm saying this to you. Like it's not something that you say, like weekend and I've been picking the Niners to keep to the NFC for a while, baby. We're chilling. Yeah, the Niners are a tough matchup for everybody. When you can dominate with the front and then you can take away a variety of routes with a variety of players.

You can stop the run with one less body than everybody else needs to stop the run. Yeah, you're just a tough matchup period. And then they have so many mismatch guys, right? Like Cato has had such a nice resurgence with Brock Purdy. Debo is healthy and back and they're using him on running game stuff. Iuke has been an unbelievable outside receiver this year. Oh, Christian McCaffrey is just like running real receiver. Like, like, they put Christian McAfee in the outside and they run all of the routes.

It's, it's shameless. It's, it's obnoxious that they put him out there and just don't. He's a full receiver. It's unbelievable. They, yeah. The Brock Purdy 49ers offense averages 33 points a game. As one does. Stephen, did you see the, do you see the Gino Smith tweet, hence deleted from, oh, no, it's not deleted.

It's still out here. from after the game. Yeah. He's going to watch the tape and he's going to get better. Right. Funny thing is I'll be way better with a full off season

to focus on improvements from actual game reps, but that can wait, go lions. That's cope. I don't like that. Compete. No, no,

no, no. I can be better. Full game rep. Trying to establish yourself for the off season, get the contract. Focus. Playoff time.

Disappointed. No, no. That was pre-cope because he expected a golf disaster class and he was almost right. That's why he did take. It was pre-cope. No,

cope later. Don't go pre-cope. game, go up afterward. He saw Jared Gough wearing two gloves and he was like, we are cooked. We are in trouble. That's a, that's a shot across the bow, right? Like, commit to me. I'm going to be so much better next year.

You don't want to, don't want to mess around with this franchise tag stuff and then find out. It is, but you got to send that after the liner's loss. You got to send that a later time. You can't be scheduling sending that too early. I don't like how hot Gino came out. You know what, Ben, you were, you were thrown out anti-Gino, propaganda from the moment you reminded us that it was a 17 game season. That's right.

I don't know why you're bringing us like your negative energy to the pilot. That was a callback to the pre show. I will not be villainized for that. I was doing a quote. You are not in Gino Nation. No. Yeah. I think it's a I do.

I think it's a tough for matchup of the Seahawks. I will say of the three teams that would maybe walk into seven seed, Packers, lions and Seahawks, Seahawks are the best shot to beat the Niners. And that's just because they know them. It's a third game that they play. And I, I say a lot that it's really hard. hard to beat a team three times. And then people send me the one piece that I think Chase Stewart did

in 2019 where it's like, actually, it's not hard to beat a team three times, most of the time it happens. And that's because the team that won the first two games is usually better. It's like that, like, I understand that like, you know, win loss, yes, like you can beat a team a third time. It's just when you know a team, when you know their DNA, when you know what they've done and how they've adjusted, it starts to narrow that gap. So I will say, like, if there's a seven seed in the NFSI that does have a shot to beat the Niners, I would pick the Seahawks over the field. and that's what we got. So we'll see if we get frisky.

Ben, that's an incredibly specific internet feedback cycle. Yeah, it is. I cannot tell you the number of people, but actually, when teams play a third time, usually the team won the first two won. I'm like, yeah, because they won the first two. Like, I get overall, they're winning more often. It's just about familiarize, familiar opponents.

I actually believe that this straw man that Ben has created is, like, beating him in this hypothetical argument. Like, you're presenting information that proves, you wrong. But anyway, I got emails about it. People are fired up. I don't know. I don't doubt. I don't doubt that this happened, but it's just you're saying, you know, the 2019 Chase Stewart article about how it's hard to beat it. I got it six times last week. The famous one we all know about. But we saw this kind of play out in the Thursday night game, the second game between these teams where it looked like the 49ers

were just going to run away with it after the first half. And they're like, the Seahawks kind of just turned it into a slop fest and the game got competitive at the end. So I can see what been saying. I think like that's the avenue is being having a good game playing because you know that team so well. What I will say is the four running back sets from the first game. None those no more that doesn't count. No, no, no, never again. There's something to or it's like we all kind of had the spiny sense that the Seahawks Rams game, which had no business being as competitive as it was, was just sort of somehow going to be weird like that. And 49er Seahawks has the same kind of potential. right? Like all of those division

matchups, particularly those NFC West games for some cosmic reason, like have they find a way? I have some real doubt that against this 49ers team, which again is insane that this is how we talk about them

because they are on their third quarterback. They have had two season ending quarterback injuries. There is no football team that should be able to come back from that smoothly, much less be maybe even the Super Bowl favorite for a conference. And yet here we are. But, you know, there's, I would feel like there was, if this game had somehow ended up as,

as one of the night games, there would be more potential for just strange stuff happening. I think because they tucked it at 4.30, it'll probably play out the way that everybody expects it. But who knows. All right. Let's do a little AFC. So I don't think we need to talk too much about the Dolphins, Jets. result other than coupled with the Patriots loss, it means that the dolphins are the seven seed

in the AFC. So they will play the bills at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Chargers Jags is on Saturday for is the AFC matchup on Saturday. Then Ravens Bengals is the night game on Sunday. Obviously the big thing up in the year for. or Dolphins Bills is if Tua comes back, I haven't seen anything to indicate either way what's happening there. If he's fine, which is just a really hard thing to speculate about,

obviously we've seen this Dolphins team beat this Bills team. If he is not, I don't really think that there's much of a chance that this is a contest. the bills got a lot of help from special teams, particularly Naim Hines, scoring to kick return touchdowns against the Patriots. But that doesn't feel like a particularly compelling matchup there. Does anybody disagree? No. I mean, if two of plays, I think there's a chance that we see a repeat of the game that,

that happened in, what, 16? But that seems like a long shot at this point. And yeah, it's just hard to. We still haven't seen like this Dolphins offense play with a backup for 60 minutes. So I don't even know like how to predict what the ceiling would be if Teddy Bridgewater does come back from the pinky injury. It's so hard to predict. So for me that that game, that matchup just comes down to two has to play. And if he doesn't, the bills should win easily.

I will say the bills drawing that matchup again, I think is meaningful just because again, divisional opponent, third time seeing them, like everything we talked about with nine or Seahawks. We have a few divisional, you know, looks in this wildcard round, but also because the Dolphins offense makes you run, makes you run around, makes you run around a lot. The bills have played that offense a lot recently and obviously didn't secure the AFC buy, right?

And like that whole situation, all the logistics nonwithstanding. Buffalo's been playing a lot of football, a lot of, they've had to play a lot of football, and then they've had like a lot of emotions. This has been a crazy month for just the Buffalo bills over. all, you know, the snow and the travel and then Dermar Hamlin and the cancellation of the game and the divisional opponents and they just, the bills are just, I have, I have no idea how to calibrate to Buffalo right now. I don't think Buffalo is going to come out flat because I think

that the bills are, are going to rally around DeMar Hamlin. You saw that today and, and their special teams performance was incredible. But I, I don't know how to calibrate to Buffalo. And this dolphin's offense can get on top of you. So this is a weird, this is a weird game. This has weirdness potential. anything on so it's the end of the road for the Steelers who beat the Browns, but obviously needed both the Dolphins and the Patriots to lose, which didn't happen. And then the Patriots, I mean, sort of, it's not what's killed them all season, which has been the offense, but special teams being one of these things that's sort of characteristic of Belichick coached teams,

uh, proving killer in a win and in game for them, I think is a little bit emblem. of this season where it's just the stuff that they've always hung their hat on. It was all pretty bad. And I didn't think they were going to win this game. I don't think that team would have been particularly threatening in the playoffs if they've made it. But it was just another entry into things that the Patriots are usually good at where they were very bad at them in a high profile situation. anything, Ben, about how this, this AFC playoff picture shaped up with those results that

interests you. I think in the same, it said the same thing for this, this NFC race, but like, if I got to pick the seven seed, I would have picked the dolphins just for like chaos and craziness. Man, how fun it would be to be on this pot right now. I should be screaming about Mike Tomlin, but I actually am quite happy we don't have to do the Steelers in the playoffs and kind of pretend that's the thing for like the third season in a row. Patriots, same thing, same thing, right?

like oh, Bill Belichick, like, you know, gritty, you know, game planning. But it's like there's just, there's not enough firepower there. No, they're bad. Yeah, right, exactly. So it's okay. We're allowed to say it. Yeah. So we got that dolphin's team.

The Dolphine team is in there. I think like they do have a shot to make a run. It's a narrow, narrow road, much narrower than I once believed. But they still do have that that chance. I'm jacked up for this Bengals, Ravens game, man. I mean, the Ravens are, the Ravens had Anthony Brown out there. and they were knocking on the door. Like, they never, they never, like, got close.

But, like, Baltimore and Cincinnati are not fans of each other in usual context. And because of the way this AFC playoff situation struck out, got Joe Mixon pulling a penny out of his glove and flipping it in the end zone, man. I mean, these teams are pissed at one another. And the fact of that we get the draw on, it's going to be in Cincinnati. So there's no, like, coin flip drama and everything. It's just Lamar potentially coming back. This defense is playing so much better down the stretch.

Nate Ticey, the athletics and the numbers to me, when they've had Roquan on the field, man, they've been like a top five defense by EPA for play. And with Lamar up to week 12, they were top five offense by EPA per play. The Ravens are not pretty. The way they built it is dumb. Greg Roman is a problem. But when

Lamar's on the field, when Roquan's on the field, this thing works. It's a duct tape shit, but it works. And Lou and Rueu, Big Lou, has always been so good against Lamar. Mike McDonald's been really good against Bengals so far this year. Like, this Bengals Ravens game,

I think it's going to be, if I had to pick one game this week to watch, I'd pick that one. I think it's a lot of fun. And do you think, I mean, obviously there's a lot more juice if Lamar's playing,

but do you think that matchup still has juice if Lamar does not play? Absolutely not. If Lamar does not play, there's no point. Get the Ravens out. Put the Patriots in, man. I don't know.

I can't when there's no Lamar on this team. I need them. And I'm assuming he's going to play. I'm assuming he's going to play him. I'm assuming he's going to be healthy, but he also missed like 15 straight practices. So we'll see. There was a, I was going to bring this up with Stephen later, but somebody on the internet, and I'm sorry that I'm forgetting your name and not crediting you properly, but you're

very smart and good at chopping up video. Posted a time lapse of how Harba has talked about Lamar's status and availability and potential return over the last several weeks. And it's not fun to watch. It's not a good time because it starts off. and he goes, oh, it's days to weeks. And then the next one is weeks. And then it goes to sometime before the end of the season.

And then it goes to, I'm not sure. And then it goes to, I'm not going to talk about that. We love that. So it doesn't make you feel great. But they're in the playoffs. If there's any sort of, you know, I am not at all to insinuate that this is a motivation issue. but that's when teams and players do absolutely everything possible to get in there.

I just, I didn't like watching that video. It didn't make me happy. But I agree. As long as he's in there, that's an exciting one. Steven, what's your favorite matchup? Jack's Chargers, of course. The one with the two godlike quarterbacks. And I really think this game comes down to which quarterback lives up to their billing

as like these generational arms. I watched the film of the last game during the four o'clock games because the four o'clock games were so bad. But I was watching the film and it struck me like how much the charters were able to put things on Trevor Lawrence. But he just made the throw at time after time. And then that was the game where Justin Herbert had just like cracked his ribs against the chiefs the week before and he was visibly off.

It was like very obvious. He still made like a couple of those social media throws. but he was missing the throws that Trevor was making. I think both teams are going to have a similar game plan. It's going to come down to that again. So whichever quarterback makes the throws is going to win that game. Yeah. The game losing mistake that will end up happening in the fourth quarter of this game,

I don't know which team, but one of them will do it, will be infuriating. No, matter what, I will not leave this game with a nice taste in my mouth. I will be angry. No, it's going to be a lose-lose for me. one of these quarterbacks is going to quote unquote choke in this game and it's going to be terrible. Well, I'm pretty sure we're going to be potting after that. So I'm looking forward to it. Ben, we're going to let you go.

Stephen and I'll do winners and losers before we do that. Not much of an Eagles check in. I know you were potting with shield, but, you know, not a meaningless game for Philadelphia, but playing against the Giants' backups. I did want to ask you one thing. I saw online on Twitter. that in the winning locker room, they were playing Mr. Brightside as the first, as the first song upon the triumphant return.

What do you think about that choice? I, I'm trying to figure out, I'm trying to list eagles in my head who would have made that decision. And it's like, maybe Jason Kelsey. I was hoping you would go. And Nick Siriani, I was like, that's it. I don't know who got the ox and how they got it, but that's a surprising choice to me.

I hope it's Kelsey. I like that. If it's Siriani, the coach shouldn't get the ox court. Give it up. Hand it to a player. Come on. There's precedent for this where if you go to,

if you're like listening to training camp playlists, sometimes they will toggle. They'll play like, just like future for a while. And then all of a sudden just like sneak a Bon Jovi in there. Listen. You know that there was some coaching input. Lane Johnson's been an eagle for a decade.

All right, don't worry. We know about the sneaking in of the country music. It occurs. This is an important thing for Lane. Now, Siriani was, the Pander King was smoking the cigars and dapping people up. That was the reports that I saw coming out for Nick Siriani there. He knows he knows where his bread's buttered. But no, yeah, Eagles, listen, they're taking off next week.

Maybe I'll take off next week. First round by, you know what I'm saying? That's what we do when we compete for the entire season. We come out a high level. we just didn't take a week off. Also, shout out Davis Webb. I feel like we've referenced Davis Webb like three times on this pod this season and you finally got a chance to play. I think I think Ben just said he's not showing up to the pod next week.

Yeah, first round by. I cannot get Davis Webb's name, correct? I either call him Joe Webb or David Webb because I don't think Davis is a real first name. We'll have Davis Webb on instead of Solac next week. Well, according to Charles Davis, He's like a generational football mind. He follows me on Twitter, so I can confirm that. He knows ball.

Wow. This is an extremely pro-Davis web podcast. The truth comes out. All right. Thank you so much, Ben. See you next week. Or maybe not. We'll see.

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Stephen, who is your first winner? The AFC South champion Jacksonville Jaguars, they beat the Titans 20 to 16. And I think they're winners, even though it was an ugly game because that was like the game you expected the Titans to have to play to win the game. And halfway through it, it felt like, oh, here come the Titans. They're going to muck it up. They're going to make it ugly. They're going to slop it up and win another one.

but in the end, the defense makes the difference. And like we've seen two straight weeks where Trevor hasn't been at his best. He missed some throws. Maybe not as bad as Troy Aikman made his performance out to be on Saturday night. But Trevor does need to be better going up against the Chargers. I think the Chargers, I think they're the better team. And I think they're going to put the onus on Trevor to be that generational quarterback. And if he's not, this team's going to go home.

I'm still concerned about the defensive coordinator. I know they tightened things up in the second half, but that first half, they really allowed like Josh Dobbs to look like a competent quarterback. And this is a guy that wasn't on a team a month ago. So that's my one concern. Like going up against the Josh Dobb Titans is one thing.

Going up against Justin Herbert or Joe Burrow or Josh Allen, that's my concern with this team. That defensive coaching staff, I know Doug is going to have, Doug Peterson's going to have them with the right plan to attack this Chargers defense. We saw that in the first game. But we need to see more out of this. defense coordinator and Trevor, honestly.

I mean, some encouraging signs from that game, though. And then particularly special teams was really good for them, my thought. Jamal Agnew, especially 31.3 yards per kick return. I also had a 22-yard punt return, and then Logan Cook, going to throw some punter stats at you, but he had four inside the 20 and three inside the 10. That'll help you, right? Particularly in this upcoming matchup with the Chargers where, okay, yes,

you have a quarterback who can drive them down the field in one or two plays with relative ease, but you don't have an offensive system that allows them to do that all the time. And often they're dinking and dunking their way down. So if you make the field really long, great. I'm excited for that game. I don't, I'm with you that like someone's going to be annoying. Somebody's going to be just infuriating because even though this was not like, given the, given the long history.

of the Jaguars. It's great that they won the division. They made the playoffs, qualifies as a super successful season. The Peterson higher looks good. It looks like they're on the path. Trevor looked great. For the number of throws, and I'm not saying that it was like 15 of these, but he still probably had like five or eight throws in that game that were just so pretty

and so perfect. And then the overall product is just not that great. Like, yeah, they somehow find a way to have like a deity at quarterback and have most of their offensive plays be just like kind of bad. So it's because they like they all their plays are called in like a 20 yard box because they don't really have that receiver yet who can who can stretch the field. And then when you look at like Trevor's passing map during the season like there's a line at the 20 yard line where he just doesn't throw past it. And I think until they unlock that part of the field this offense like you said it's going to be easier to defend them it's going to be easier

to force Trevor to make these tight window throws that are high risk but not necessarily high reward like you're like the payoff is like a 15 yard gain rather than a 30 yard gain downfield so that that's my one concern because you play a chargers team who like for all the complaints you might have about staley's defense the one thing they do well is they put a roof on the the offense they really make it hard to throw it over their heads. So that's why I think this is a game where if Trevor is not on it, if he's not playing his A plus game, it's going to be a tough, tough go of it for this offense. Although in a weird way, like the Jaguars put a roof over their own heads anyway.

That's right. Another thing is in that first matchup, they ran like with power concepts and they ran with James Robinson. And James Robinson was like a big part of that gameplay and a big part of that offense early on when these teams played and he's gone and that element is kind of gone and I wonder if they're able to even replicate the game plan that works so well against this team in the in the first matchup I don't I think you can pretty much throw that film out because like I said, Herbert was hurt, Keenan Allen was out, Joey Bosa goes out in like the first or second quarter. It was just a

different Chargers team. So I don't know how much we can learn from that, but the Jaguar's team we've seen over the last two weeks. We've kind of seen two defenses that have been struggling that the Titans' defense has been good overall, but over the last month or so, they haven't been that great. And then the Texans of all teams really gave this offense some problems because they preyed on that inability

to stretch the field. And I think the charters are built to do exactly that. Titans are going to have a really interesting offseason. They're at a point where they'd have an 18 million dead cap hit if they wanted to move on from Tann Hill. I think like 9 million for Henry.

Either one of those, you could split it up if they moved on after June 1st. So you could spread those out in ways that are still significant, but by no means sort of crippling. They fire John Robinson. They have a developmental prospect and maliquitous, but we just went through this last couple of weeks where it became clear that they don't want to play him. Just a lot of, they did at the beginning of the season, like it was clear that they were entering the sort of. like, okay, we're going to try to rebuild, not on the fly, but stay somewhat competitive while also taking a step back and going, okay, we need to revamp our assets here, which I was supportive

of, but we're a season later now. And, you know, that's all fine and good. And they seem like they had a decent pick in Berks, but there are definitely more questions here than we had. And offseason ago. So it'll be very interesting to see what they do. Yeah, the Robinson firing. I think that's what makes the offseason so interesting because it's not a continuation of the foundation for rebuild that they laid last year with the

AJ Brown trade and some of their other moves. And Rabel doesn't strike me as a coach who is going to be willing to tank or even take a step back. He might be, he might be clamoring for Tanna Hill to come back and give him a chance to, like if you're basing it on this season,

they didn't really have a good offense in terms of skill players. The defense got banged up. The offensive line wasn't good all year long. They had some trouble running the ball, even with Derek Henry back there and running the play action stuff. And they were still competitive. And if you're Mike Rable and you see that and you saw everything that went wrong with this team and the injury luck, you could convince yourself that, hey, if we get a little

more luck and we have our quarterback back for a full season that we can win this division, is that good for the long-term vision of the team? I don't know, but that's the problem when you hand over the reins to a head coach who isn't going to be willing to take a step back. And I don't know what they do with the GM. Do they give Mike Rable personnel power? That's a big question. I think that will dictate the direction of the team. Yes. It's just interesting because it seemed like, again, it seemed like they were trying to retool and find a way to add and cut back on. some of their expenditures by, you know, letting E.J. Brown go and, and, um, doing the deals with Tanna Hill and Henry in the way that they did them. Now, they're also just not really in a position where they could totally retool quickly, right? Like, they're going to be drafting middle of the pack. It's not crippling to deal with an $18 million dead cap hit for a

quarterback or to spread it out over a couple years if you wanted to. But I, one, I don't really think that they would want to. And two, that's still money that's counting against your cap. So if you're going to go sign someone, then what you're allocating a quarterback is really, really significant, probably. If that's really, really significant and you're dealing with someone, whether it's Tanna Hill or somebody else who needs a good situation around them, well, all of a sudden you're looking at this roster that needs some help and has some holes.

And you don't have all that much left to fill. them unless you absolutely nail a draft class is the fastest way to do that, but we don't even know who's making those picks. If that only goes, say that goes okay, then you're in the cycle of spinning your wheels, which if you're Vrabel, you might be supportive of some of those moves because I agree with you, he would hate the idea of tanking and hate the idea of sort of signing up to coach a bad team. but if you don't do that, it's very hard to reset. So it made a lot of sense for them to sort of try to jumpstart that process last

off season since it hasn't totally gotten them where in a direction where it seems clear where they're going, especially having let go of the general manager who started that. and maybe in part because of one of the core moves with Brown that that fit into that pattern. It's just like it could really, I don't feel like I have a sense of where they're going, except for the fact that they don't really have a clear cut way of going and revamping their roster in a quick way. I do kind of wonder if like the fact that it's the Jaguars that kind of knocked them off this perch changes the math a little bit in the off season. Like if it was a Colts team that was still starting Matt Ryan that beat you, it's you're not worried about that team going forward. But the Jaguars are a rising star and they have this superstar quarterback who's just getting started.

They have a good coaching staff and they got a good head coach and Doug Peterson. So I think that kind of raises the bar for this team. You can't really just be like, oh, if we bring back this team and things go right this time, we're going to win the AFC South. The AFC South isn't as winnable as it was in the past now that you have this team that I think is going to be a legitimate contender, playoff contender at least for the next five years at least. But it's then again, like they are in that sort of murky middle, right? Where it's, okay, if you need to compete with Lawrence, then what was the pick they got in the AJ Brown?

Middle of the first round, like 18 maybe. If you have the 18th pick and wherever they are picking, also middle of the pack, do you try to package those and go up and draft someone? Do you, is there anyone you have the confidence that that guy's going to be better than Tannahill right off the bat? And if you don't do that, then are you going out in free agency and trying to find someone when you're still paying for Tannahill? That seems shaky. you could use the first round picks to try to package for a veteran via trade. But again, there's some really attractive landing spots for those quarterbacks this

offseason. And I don't know how far up there Tennessee is, even though, you know, the track record is pretty good. They're pretty stable. I think players like playing for fable generally. But the uncertainty in the front office adds an element. And the roster is just, I don't think, quite as good as some of these places, like a Detroit, the Jets. So the 49ers could even be in that mix. So it's, it's, it's, they seem like they're in that murky middle, which can be a tough spot to be.

One of those contenders for to be a quarterback landing spot or maybe not, we'll see, is my first winner. The 49ers blew out the. the David Blow Cardinals, we don't need to get too much into that. The question that I have for you, they've wrapped up the two seed. I don't think that he will get it. But this game made me wonder

if Kyle Shanahan should be coached the year. Yeah, why not? Because we talked about it a little bit with Ben. It's just, I know their roster is maybe the best in football overall, you know, absent the quarterback position. And that obviously has a huge

amount to do with what's going on here. But they lost the guy that they spent their whole off season planning to be their QB1 in September. QB2 goes down in December. It's January and we think that they're a Super Bowl contender. Like, I can't think of a situation when that happens. It's just not supposed to be how the game works. It's two quarterback driven.

And now Kyle Shanahan's offense in particular has been the most. successful, you know, in the modern NFL of making the quarterback sort of a moot point. So they are uniquely positioned to deal with this challenge. Still, it is still a challenge that just would would be so crippling to almost any organization. And they wrap up the two seed. They've, I mentioned this up top, but they've averaged over 33 points per game in the six games with Brock Purdy. Brock Purdy gets pulled in their game before Justin Herbert comes out of his. Like they have dealt with such a hard situation and made it look so easy that I just think that you cannot tell the story of this 49ers team and how successful they've been without coaching being just a massive, massive point of it.

Coach of the year, you, I don't think that this is, I don't think it fits the normal narrative for that award, but I just think that I think it should. Let's, yeah, let's raise the bar for the coach of the year award. No more wild card coaches. Let's give it to like teams that are actually dominant. And it's not just that they've had three different quarterbacks. The offense has gotten better with each quarterback injury. Like it got better with Jimmy and then it's gotten better with Brock Purdy. Now obviously the supporting cast has evolved since then. And I, I go better with Christian McCaffrey. This is how good Kyle is. He made that mid-season trade for a running back. Like everyone agreed it was too expensive for the 49ers, and you should not be trading those assets for a running back. And it would have been so easy to bring on a player like Christian McCaffrey,

who's very talented. But I do think he's a unique talent. It's kind of hard to get the most out of them. Like, it's hard to put him in the passing game and have him run receiver routes from the slots. the slot and then have them in this power run game. But it's all worked. And it's,

it's raised the floor for that offense. Just being able to line them out in the slot, have him run like an option route against a linebacker. He's going to win every time. It makes things so much easier for Brock Purdy, who doesn't have to read things out. That's what I think, that's the difference between this team and the team

that we saw last year that Jimmy G couldn't bring to the Super Bowl is it's almost too good to fail. It doesn't matter if Brock doesn't have a good game because there's so many buttons for Kyle to push and they're so easy for Brock to execute. It also eliminates the look like the issue for them has over the last few years when they've not been good has just been health. And like Debo came back today and it was like, oh yeah, Debo's back.

I forgot he was gone. So stacked. That shouldn't happen. He's Debo Samuel. That shouldn't be possible. But when you're dealing with a team that's had a lot of injury. history and then you know, Christian McCaffrey obviously provided that huge boost after the trade, but is someone who carries a lot of injury risk. And it really mitigates that because

not only do they have so many of those buttons within a game, but if somebody gets hurt, it's just, it's okay. And that's really, really valuable when you try to go on a playoff run and everybody's tired and everybody's played a lot of football. Like there was that stat about they're the first team in history where every, team that's played them, uh, loses the next game. And like, that's just a it, this team is amazing. This Brock Purdy quarterbacked football team is amazing. And I think on that basis, Kyle Shanahan should at least be a strong coach of the year candidate. Yeah, I agree. They've won 10 in a row. They haven't lost since they started three and four. He figured things out on the fly and they

get better each and every week. It's, it's an amazing coaching job. And I would argue that maybe if you get pass like the top eight quarterbacks, I would take Kyle over the next guys. Like he's a top 10 quarterback on his own. And I think you can make the argument that he's the most valuable coach in the NFL right now. I don't know if Andy Reid could do this with Brock Bertie. I really don't think he could. We should make him try. I would love to see that. Every coach should get a chance. That should be a pro ball. Yeah. Brock Purdy should get passed around team to team. And he plays for a different team every week and we see how good he is. And whoever does the best with him wins Coach of the Year.

All right. Speaking of Coach of the Year, who's your first loser? That was snarky. Not Coach of the Year, Brandon Staley, who decided that he would treat this meaningless game like it was the most important game of the season. Brandon Saly is a coach that doesn't play his starters. Like Justin Herbert has never played a rep in preseason. And he played into the fourth quarter of this game, or at least deep into the third quarter. Mike Williams leaves the game with a back injury.

We don't know the specifics yet, but X-rays were negative. Joey Bosa got hurt at one point, but I think he was fine. He apparently had back spasms. Yes. He also couldn't walk to the bus, but he apparently has back spasms. And apparently he'll be fought. Staley said he could have returned to the game, although he couldn't even return to the locker room without help.

He needed. Daniel Pover reported that he needed to be helped from the locker room to the bus. He could not walk there on his own, but apparently could have reentered the football game. This was insane. Here's the most embarrassing part. They lost the game. They tried to win this game that they didn't need to win and they played their starters. They risked their health and they lost the game anyway.

So if this was like a Tom Coughlin playing his starters to try to spoil the Patriots undefeated season type thing, or you try to build momentum, it didn't work. It's the opposite of building momentum. You lost to the Russell Wilson Broncos. but if I was trying to defend Brandon Staley for this, here would be my defense. This is a team that has been banged up all year. They have not played together.

Yeah. That would be an argument against playing them, but I will say like they need to play, they need reps together. They need to play together. These guys haven't played together. Joey Bosa hasn't played with his defensive line. He hasn't played with Khalil Mack for more than three games.

Their receiving court needs to get its timing with Herbert. That's the only excuse I would make. It's still a bad one. one. He should have, he should have at least benched them after the first quarter. I could see like wanting to keep them fresh or whatever are in a rhythm. But beyond that, it's just needlessly dumb. I don't think the receiving court needs time with Justin Herbert. I think the receiving court needs Mike Williams, who they score 23.6 offensive points per game with in games that he plays, an average 5.42 yards per play, as opposed to the 18.5 offensive points per game and the 4.5 offensive

points per game and the 4.8 yards per play that they average in games that he does not play. Also, you're the Chargers. What about the entire reason history of this franchise would tell you to tempt fate? This is insane. I called psychics like two years ago to try to get them to explain this team's injury history. I called like the Long Island medium. Don't mess around with unnecessary risk taking if like some jackass blogger has called a medium to explain why you're always hurt. That's a that should be a rule. Keenan Allen was out there with Chase Daniel in the fourth quarter. He'd like Chase Daniel threw a bubble screen and the commentator was shocked that Keenan Allen was still in the game. Like he the commentator thought it was DeAndre Carter and it was

Keenan Allen. Keenan Allen is 30 years old and he's got the hamstrings of a 50 year old. Did you ever make like an arts and crafts class like the guitar out of the old tissue box where you like put the rubber bands around it oh yeah yeah yeah yeah that's like that's what Keenan Allen's hamstrings are made out of right now

they are two Kleenex boxes with rubber bands tying them together and he was playing in the fourth quarter with Chase Daniel also if you're gonna have this there are so many infuriating things about this but Keenan Allen is playing in the fourth quarter with Chase Daniel. And then at the end of the game, he didn't use all the timeouts

because he was just like, well, whatever, we're going to lose. It doesn't matter. The game doesn't matter. If the game doesn't matter then, can the game just not matter from the beginning so that we don't have to watch Mike Williams and Joey Bosa,

who apparently is fine, both get helped off the field? That would be nice. I would have enjoyed that more than this Chargers experience. Chargers Jaguars could be so good, but it could also be so bad. No, it's going to be 16 to 17 and everyone's going to be mad. Everyone who watched it.

All right. The Broncos question mark. Russ? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No. No. Not going to entertain it.

No. Broncos country riding? Maybe. Trotting? A light trot. No. 28 points per game in the last two games since they fired Hackett. Yeah, but I don't think.

this is sustainable. Are you going to continue to run Russell Wilson on zone read? Like they, they ran the Russell Wilson offense and it started to work. They would have done this all season long. The offense would have looked fine, I guess. But I think it just goes to show that there isn't an ideal way to build this offense that is going to lead to results that get you to a spot where you're competing with Patrick Mahomes. That's true. But that's true of most teams. That's a tough. I mean, I get that that's the metric that the Broncos chose for themselves, but it's still a tough one. He completed 13 passes. I think we've seen enough to know that there were some moments when I felt bad for Nathaniel Hackett.

And maybe I still do as a fellow human, but it was just like, God, so many things are wrong there. You don't even know if is this the right scapegoat. You just, it's too expensive to move on from the quarterback so the coach gets it. This is a fairly clear indictment. these last two weeks. So I guess they can feel good about that decision. Yeah. Speaking of coaches,

uh, so my next loser is the Texans. The Texans, the rare loser who won their game. They won 32 to 31 after a successful two point conversion, uh, by Davis Mills to Jordan Atkins after a fourth and 20 touchdown. And on that basis,

won the game, finish the season 3.13 and 1, and lost the number one pick on 4th and 20 in week 18. Roger Sherman, our wonderful colleague, tweeted this out. They are the only team with two 4th and 10 or more conversions in the same game this year. And they did it on a week 18 fourth quarter drive, the same drive, to lose the number one overall pick. A team that needs a quarterback did this. Levy Smith's parting, parting gift or perhaps gift to the Bears, who now after losing are in position for the number one, get the number one overall pick.

Levy Smith was fired after like an hour ago during Sunday night football. So they didn't even wait until the McNairas didn't even wait until Black Monday. They just said, thanks. the coaching situation, the coaching carousel in Houston remains so chaotic and disastrous. I think they accomplished a rare feat, even though, you know, Levy Smith seems like a cool guy, but it was pretty clear in that hiring process that some people weren't too high on going there. That was something that I've talked about on pods before, and you hear left and right from people in the league being like all 32 of these jobs are awesome jobs. It seemed pretty clear to me that in that situation, that job seemed a little

less awesome. And I can't imagine that it's going to seem even any more awesome after this. The Bears now have Justin Fields, the most cap space of any team going into this offseason, a one and seven record and one score games this year, plus the number one pick in the draft, which given the fact that they have fields probably means that they're going to try to start a bidding war for that. Maybe that means that the Texans might try to be a part of that bidding war and get into the position that that they could have been in if they just failed on a two point conversion or on either of two fourth and ten or more conversions on one fourth quarter drive. But this was just hysterical. This was a hysterical sequence of events. And I,

I guess I feel bad for Lovie Smith, for losing his job, even. though I think the writing was on the wall for that. I don't feel bad for the Texans organization. No. This is very funny. Can we just recap the last five games of the Texan season? Like they obviously gave away the first round, the first overall pick,

but they've been trying to do that for the past month. They nearly be trying so hard. They almost beat the Cowboys. They had the Cowboys like dead to rights. They lost that game by four points. They brought the Chiefs to overtime the next game. They beat the Titans who needed a win to make the playoffs. They get blown out by the Jaguars.

we don't need to count that one. And then they pull this upset off. They almost finished the season like four and one on a on a hot streak. For the purposes of this argument, the blowout to the Titans is the 17th game that we're eliminating. So that all the stats. That's right. It was in week 17.

But let me submit, like this is a second straight year. We've seen the coaching staff kind of get more out of the talent that's on the roster. And then they have any business doing. Like Cully had a great year. overachieved last year he gets fired. Lovie Smith was his DC. He gets promoted.

I would argue that they were playing pretty good football down the stretch. Like I said, they took the chiefs to overtime and then he gets fired. Like, why would anyone want to coach this team? There is no incentive to coaching this team. It's going to be hard for them to find a guy willing to take the job. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's like another one and done situation. Well, they have one guy who I think wants to take. the job. His name is Josh McCown.

So can't wait to see whatever they scheduled their first meeting with Josh McCown. Godspeed. God bless you. All right. Next winner. My next winner is the Bengals who avoided a coin toss and they beat the Ravens 27 to 16. It was

not a good showing for Cincinnati, especially on offense. They kind of got gifted this game by Anthony Brown who was forced to start because Tyler Huntley was injured. Of course, Lamar Jackson hasn't played in a month and over a month. Anthony Brown had this no business starting an NFL game. Anyone who watched him at Oregon last year,

I don't know, even though if he had business starting a PAC 12 game last year, much less an NFL game with the division, I guess, on the line, or a home playoff game on the line. But I have questions about this Bengals team, but I'm not sure the Ravens are the team that's going to exploit the problems that they might have.

And I think that the fact that we're playing, these teams are playing back-to-back, kind of helps the Bengals, because we've seen this offense in Joe Burrow in particular kind of figure things out. The more he sees the defense, I think, the better prepared he is to attack it. And having played them for 60 minutes, a tough game where the Ravens threw everything they had at them, especially on defense, I think he's going to prepare them for the wildcard game. And if Lamar Jackson doesn't play, even if Lamar does play, it's going to be hard for this Ravens team to keep up with this team that just has so much firepower.

And now an extra week of game film against this specific opponent. Yeah, I'm with you. We talked about the Lamar thing, which I worry about a little bit. The only thing for the Bengals, Alex Kappa seemed like he had a pretty decent injury. He was in some post-game photos with his knee and lower leg in some sort of like aircast or rap and on one of those little scooter things. So that given that the combination of offensive line improvement and Burroughs evolution and eliminating some of the sacks has been so critical in how they have adjusted over the course of the year, that's definitely something to watch. Not so much. I think it's more been about Burrow, but you just worry when a team has made so much progress in an area like that.

having one cog in the system, and he's one of their better linemen, go out. It just makes me a little bit nervous that that could be significant for them. But I agree with you, especially with the uncertainty at quarterback for Baltimore. I think that's more of a long-term, just what's the ceiling on their playoff run question than it is for this. Well, now if Lamar plays, if Lamar plays, that becomes a bigger concern. And they just lost Lyle Colin. now we talked about that right side of the offensive line and how much it needed to improve over the off season. Now they're running it back with the same duo, the same offensive line.

And that's concerned, especially now because the running game, it's been like three straight weeks or four straight weeks where they haven't been able to run the ball. And during the middle of the year, they kind of figured things out by running RPO's. Ironically, the first game where they started doing it was against Baltimore. And now we've seen defenses adjust in Cincinnati at he doesn't have an answer. They don't have another answer. They're under center run game still isn't working. And now we're kind of seeing this Bengals team enter the playoffs the same way they

entered the playoffs last year where they're putting so much on Joe Burrow. Now there's offensive line concerns. There's no run game. And it's on Burrow to create these plays. And we saw him create a lot of plays out of structure in this game where the Ravens had him in the pocket. They could have sacked him. He escapes, turns it into a positive play.

And that's probably what won since he this game. but the margin for error has to be bigger when you go up against the chiefs or the bills or even a team like the Chargers. Totally. The good news is that that was about as much as was on Joe Burroughs played last, last playoffs, and they did go to the Super Bowl. Not so sure it's replicable, but we'll find out. Last appellative, we're only doing six.

We're going to talk about Sean McVey a little bit afterwards because there's been a lot of news there, but we're doing six because we're trying to hit just the relevant games. But last one for me, a loser. It's the Cowboys. Lost kind of a dreary game to the eliminated commanders. And this was a really concerning

game for their offense. Dak had a career low 37.8% completion percentage. And it was just everything that we've talked about in terms of what is, what goes wrong for that offense, totally magnified.

So he goes, over 10 on tight window throws and the fact that they just don't have, they don't get good separation from the receivers was so clearly on display. He's now thrown a pick in seven straight games, but again, like over 10 into tight windows, you just see him having to force it over and over again. And now you don't get to 37% completion rate without a lot of people messing up. And I don't think that throwing the pick to Kendall Fuller immediately after almost throwing the pick to Kendall Fuller on the exact same play before was a great decision. But it's a really sour note for that offense to go into this game against the Bucks with because, look, they've played.

And this is this is more for the defense, but they're coming off of three games against Gardner, Monshu, Josh Dobbs, and Sam Hal, who. looked pretty good on a number of throws, but it's Sam Howell. And now they're going to play Tom Brady. So I don't know that it like vastly alters what I think about them big picture just because it was an extreme reflection of things that we already know to be true about Dallas. But it doesn't make you feel good about them heading into the playoffs. Not that the bucks feel all that much better, but they didn't seem like they were necessarily trying to win in the same way.

So kind of a downer for Dallas. Yeah, I thought Jason Garrett, of all people, brought up a good point on the NBC pregame show where he, where he's pointing out how their struggles on natural turf. And obviously, Washington is notoriously, has just a terrible field. But it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense for a team that on offense relies on timing.

And like you said, they don't create a lot of separation. So when you don't have proper footing, it's even harder to create that separation. And DAC is already throwing a lot of tight window throws. It becomes even harder when coverage is tighter. Then on the other side of the ball, the get off for the pass rush. Right. They want to be so disrupted that way. It's so hard to do that.

And their defense is so built around being able to pressure the quarterback and affect the pocket. When they can't do that, we start to see quarterbacks give them problems. Like even against, like you said, against Sam Howell, the commanders moved the ball just fine. There was some situational problems for them and some turnovers in the red zone, but they moved the ball just fine. And against Tom Brady,

it's going to look a lot better. And the, the bucks play on natural grass. Right. I think this matchup could be a little more interesting than maybe it might seem on paper just because of that one factor. Totally.

Yeah, the bucks play on natural grass. Is there anybody else in the NFL? see San Francisco. San Francisco. All of the top teams do. Philadelphia does too. Not great. I thought that was a good point too.

I was like embarrassed to it. It was like the first, this is me, but it was the like first thing that Jason Garrett has said in that role. I was like, oh, that's a good point. But credit where it's due. He said it again at halftime.

So you knew he knew he had one. He was like, you knew he had something good. You know what? Good for you, Jason Garrett. one and four in those situations so far this season, definitely something to watch. I mentioned this, but Sam, Sam Howell, very pretty throw to Terry McCloran, probably 60 air yards in stride, down the sideline, very much looking forward to an entire

offseason's worth of Washington area talk radio fodder, which I'm sure you are as a D.C. resident yourself, Stephen. Yeah, they're going to talk to themselves into him. It's so funny how every quarterback that's played for Washington, Washington this year has been the same exact quarterback. Like if they throw a pretty deep ball, it makes the offense like work a little better. But they love to scramble. They hate the pocket and they love to throw red zone turnovers. That's hysterical. All right.

I think that is our final winner, our final regular season winners and losers of 2022, 2023, we're going to, I can't call our last segment in Good Conscious, the non-headlines story of the week, because I think this is going to make a lot of headlines. But there's a lot of news about Sean McVeigh thinking about taking a break, maybe going to TV, maybe retiring, potentially leaving the Rams in some way, shape, or form. After their loss today, he said, he said a bunch of stuff about this, but one of the main quotes was, I'm here right now, which made me very nervous because we know how that went for Jared Gough. And Jake Laser reported that, to his knowledge, there are more people inside the Rams building

who think he's going to leave than who think he's going to stay. Obviously, I think a lot of this has to do with sort of his mindset and how much he puts into coaching and how much it just sort of affects his ability to, to, to, to, live a normal life outside of his professional life. So clearly there's a lot that's going into it. And it'll be something to watch doesn't seem like anything is even close to decided. But what would your thought be on just this Rams off season and going into

2023, not even necessarily without McFay, but just like with that kind of uncertainty and the cloud over? who's going to coach the team. I think it probably makes it easier to rebuild. I don't think you're going to do that if Sean McVeigh is still the head coach. I don't think McVeigh, I don't think it would make sense with the coach like McVe because I do think he's capable of a bring a team that doesn't have the most talent to playoff contention.

But if he does walk away from the Rams, which I personally think he should, he pours too much into this to like stick around for the next three years because it's going to get ugly for this team. And I think like the only solution are the only way to. to prevent it getting ugly for the next three years is just to get real ugly next year. It just totally strip things down to like their bare parts and start over. And I mean, even if I'm like in the front office, if I'm less need, I'm thinking about following Shaw McVeigh on the way out.

I don't know why I would stick around. We won a Super Bowl. The cap is basically destroyed. It's going to take a while to turn this thing around. You leave some horror in your wake. Aaron Donald isn't getting any better or anything. any younger. And he was talking about retirement last year, although that could have been a contract thing.

Cooper Cup, he's coming off a major injury. He's got a lot of tread on his tires, even though he's like a younger player. You've run all the fourth down jet sweeps to Cooper Cup that you're going to run. That's not going to work. You saw it didn't work in the Packers game. That's done. Give up. Start over.

Like go to Monday night football. Go to the Broncos. See the one to save Russell Wilson? I don't know. Just get out of L.A. Get away from that situation. Yeah, I mean, look, the question would be, would he want to be in a situation, like, would he want to be sort of like hopping from situation to situation where a team is building and behaving the way that the Rams have,

but just is on the pretty part of that cycle, right? Because if you, like, there's no, there's a lot of evidence in today's NFL that it makes sense for teams to follow. what the Rams have done in building their teams. What there's not a lot of is evidence that you can do that without some major lean years. Now, the good years might be totally worth it. And the Rams would say that 10 times over. They won a Super Bowl. Great.

But if you are going to trade all your picks for players and extend everybody and pay everybody, the bills are going to come due and then all of a sudden it's not going to be as pretty. I have no good. If he doesn't, he's got the leverage, right? Like he's a, he's a great coach. He's got a really proven track record. There's tons of TV stations that would be banging down the door to hire him. So he's got the leverage.

And if he doesn't want to be a part of that, more power to him. But it does, when you're thinking about a landing spot, it's going to be hard to find a team that's going to be in that Super Bowl window all the time. Especially if you want to be as aggressive as the Rams have been. What I do if I'm him is like, go into TV and then I look at Andy Reid's age every single day and just wait because that that clock is ticking. Andy Reid's not going to be coaching in like five years. He's one of the oldest coaches in the NFL. That's like he's going to retire someday. And if I'm McVeigh, I just bide my time and just wait

for that golden ticket, which is Mahomes. You're in Super Bowl contention every single year. And the margin for error is so big. The front office can just screw up. And it doesn't matter because Mahomes is so good. Mahomes and McVeigh, that would be, that would be special. That would be really interesting. That's not a bad idea. And Mike Floreo reported that, um, indeed and not wanting to be part of a rebuild is a big piece of, of the decision process. Um, I don't know that this is, this is different.

It's just sort of taking a different angle on it. Uh, Jordan Roderick for the athletic wrote, wrote sort of everything that she knows about what's going on in that building right now. And she wrote that McVeigh is deciding. whether or not he wants to coach or take a break after a 5-11 season, he is referred to as a professional failure and that has clearly taken a toll on his psychological well-being. So I don't think that that's necessarily like, screw you losers.

I don't want to be here. I think he's just looking at it and going, oh, we're losing double-digit games. And I am not doing well. How does this get better? and in Jordan's piece, there was a lot about how the Rams are trying to talk through various ways that they could support him and try to make the position a more sustainable one for him. And, you know, I have no idea what is part of those conversations and what some ideas that are getting thrown around in there would be. It's hard to think of how you do that, particularly when you're dealing with someone like McVeigh, who is obsessive about his work. so I just don't.

I don't think it's a I don't think it's going to work out like McVeigh is so good because of that attention to detail. I don't know if McVeigh is McVeigh without that work. And I think the thing he realized this year is he doesn't want to coach a loser anymore. There was so much talk in the off season about now that he had won the Super Bowl that like this weight had been lifted and he didn't have to like pour his heart and soul into the job any longer. But that wasn't the case. And I think he kind of realized. because that it like that Super Bowl is already banked. It's already been won and that there's another Super Bowl to win.

And I think that challenge is always, it's always going to draw the most effort out of him. I don't think like having a more sustainable approach is going to work out. Well, definitely something to watch. And then you mentioned the waiting out Andy Reid thing. Another thing Jordan said was that if he did leave, it would be more likely as far as she knows to be a, I'm taking a break as opposed to I'm retired. I'm never coming back. Although obviously, even if he did that, he could change his mind.

But something to follow. It'll be a big offseason story for sure, depending on how long they take and kind of figuring those things out. But in the meantime, we've got playoffs. There will be tons and tons of coverage, setting up wildcard weekend on Bringer.com. this week and we will be back. Not totally sure the playoff show schedule, but we'll be covering everything.

This has been the Ringer NFL show, Sunday recap show. I'm Nora Pinciotti. He's Stephen Ruiz. Thank you, as always, to Isaiah Blakely for production on this episode and to Arjuna Ramgapal and Connor Evans for additional production superbishop.