The Ringer NFL Show - Week 2 Recap: Another Pats-Seahawks Classic, Injuries, and Bad Coaching | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti discuss the 'Sunday Night Football' thriller between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots (4:37), then they discuss the slew of injuries (23:03). After that they pick their Week 2 winners and losers (48:03), answer some listener questions (01:25:26), and more. Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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you want the real deal like a good neighbor, state farm is there. Today's episode is brought to you by Heineken. Heineken's original lager is made with pure malt and their famous A-east, which makes Heineken an all-season all-the-time kind of beer. I love Heineken. I've been drinking it for a long time. My family, that's their drink of choice as well. Sports has been back for a number of months, and I really enjoy drinking Heineken while

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Pretty well, Kevin. That was a pretty fun Sunday day football game there. So I'm kind of been a good place. This was it. This was it, Chief. This was the week, the chaos that we saw happening for the, for the past eight months. It happened on Sunday in week two.

This was the real week one. This was the real week one. I can't believe you just called me chief. That's what football does to us. That's what football does to you. It's not what football does to me. But what football does to me right now, we all react in different ways.

You know what? And I support you. I support you through that because of it. But yeah, football, was really fun today. What, uh, how, how was your viewing experience since last week you were just trying to get the hang of watching a million games at once? This was a tough day to follow football. This was just a million things happening at once. Yeah, this was wild. Uh, I did remember to feed myself.

So that was a plus. Uh, fantastic. We're making progress already. Yep. Um, the early, we'll talk about all this stuff later. A lot of not fun injury news was. kind of the downer side of the day. But as that morning or like 1 p.m. slate of games was going and there was just so much happening. That was one where I felt myself like I would start to look at my phone just to try to keep up with the news and then be like, what? Everything's happening.

So once we got to the afternoon games and Sunday night football, it was just cool to be able to kind of relax into it. But I don't know. What about you? Today was the day that, again, it was hard to keep up with everything. I mean, like, this was something we're going to get to a little bit later when we talk about the injury news. But this was absolute chaos. And we're going to do our best to touch almost every game because this, there was a lot.

So we're going to get into the Sunday night game we just saw. We're going to get into the slew of injuries. Slew is really only said when you're talking about injuries, right? No one ever says slew in any other. in any other way. It's like how people don't call, you only call old people spry. Yeah.

I don't call old people spry. All right. So then we have the Cowboys, the Vikings, the Lions, the Jets, the Titans, Rams,

million other teams, the Eagles briefly. We got a lot on the docket. Before we get started, I do want to briefly mention how good the NFL show feed is going to be this week and every week during the regular season.

Ryan Shazer and Cole Wright will be back on Tuesday to do their play. Eocentric storylines. I thought Ryan's insights were absolutely awesome last week. I really enjoyed that podcast. Warren Sharp and Chris Vernon are here on Wednesday. We're back on Thursday, a couple of guests.

And then Friday is Warren and one of my favorites, Joe House. Obviously, Warren is a legend. That's why he's been on the show a million times. And we're so happy to have him. And he's been delivering the good so far. So let's start with what we just saw. The Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots tend to play classics. And I didn't know how this one was trending, but it's pretty obvious that both teams are coming out of this 3530 Seattle Seahawks win tonight.

Feeling pretty good. Number one thing you learned, Nora. I learned that the Patriots can ask Cam to throw and that he's got that. So he's 30 of 44. geez, I'm just, I wrote these down frantically just being like, oh my gosh, we just saw kind of a classic game and I'm so excited to talk about and you kind of don't process almost. But 397 yards touchdown interception. He and Julian Edelman just had it working. And we saw them in week one look pretty good. I think we were both encouraged by that game. But they were mostly just having him run and work the quick passes. And, they kept things pretty simple. In this game, they opened it up.

And I don't think there's a lot of shame in losing a last second game to the Seahawks on the road if that means anything anymore. So I would say really encouraging for the Patriots passing offense. I do want to say, because you mentioned the road thing where

that matters, this game could have used a crowd. This was one of the games where I'm sitting there and saying, man, this would have been an unbelievable atmosphere, not just the 12s, but the Patriots fans who would have traveled. That would have been a highlight of the early season so far. Even without a crowd, it was obviously a highlight of the early season so far. But a couple of things, sir.

In fact, a lot of thanks here. But we'll start with this. Russell Wilson is the second player ever to pass for five touchdowns against Bill Belichick, the first one, Drew Brees, 11 years ago. Russell Wilson has never gotten an MVP vote. That's been driven into the ground. Chris Collinsworth lost his vote because he sent his vote for Russell Wilson in late last year. I am actually in favor of Chris Collinsworth getting his vote back. But I think that

this is the type of performance in prime time that gets the early season buzz. Now, the early season MVP is like the early season, Heisman, there's always September Heisman. It's always like E.J. Emmanuel goes four and O and O'O. And we're saying, uh-oh, here comes, here we go. And I, you know, this is a long season. And I remember last year, midway through the season or a little after, maybe it was in November talking about the MVP race between Lamar Jackson and Russell Wilson. At that point, it seemed like the narrative was fairly close. And then obviously Jackson pulled away and it was unanimous, again, because Chris Collins didn't get his voting on time.

But I think that if I'm the Seahawks right now, I'm feeling a hell of a lot better. As good as the Patriots probably feel with that performance being one yard short, I'm feeling amazing right now about A, the philosophy that Pete Carroll seems to have right now, which is he's changed. There's no way old Pete would throw as often as he did, would continue to go back to throwing after, you know, even the picksticks. I joked that, you know, after that pick six with McCordy to start off the game,

that, you know, this is going to be two more decades of Pete building through the run. He went back to the pass. You have the, with one yard to go to steal the game, he takes a deep shot down the field to lock it. I feel like the philosophy is there. They're actually going to let Russ Cook, which I think if you're a Seahawks fan, you should be really encouraged by.

And then the defensive stand at the end. I thought it was fascinating. At the end of the game, Next Gen Stats said this, that that was the fifth time in that game that the Patriots had seven offensive linemen on the field. The four previous plays were all successful, including three touchdowns.

And that was, it was to be expected that the Patriots could bully you and Camero could score a touchdown. whether that was with the great design with the kind of the fake run slash pass. Right. Or with a run, right? But L.J. Collier and Hill, they just blew up the play.

And that was just, that was just execution. So I'm feeling really good about the Seahawks. When you consider the 49ers injuries and sort of their bad luck right now, I am, I'm considerably higher on the Seahawks as an NFC contender than I was at the beginning of this day. Is there anything? Did Pete Carroll meet someone over the summer who changed his life? And how did we get here? I think he got cyber bullied.

He got cyber. He read his mention. Yeah. Wow. I think he may have. We did a ringer podcast for a while. So he's around. He's in the internet space.

He's a little more online. But I've always said this. And this is something that we've talked about. I talked about this podcast a bunch. Pete is incredibly in tune with what everybody says. saying. So it's not like he just one day, like, Googled Pete Carroll in like July and was like, wow, people really think I should pass the ball more. I really do think that Russell Wilson has earned his way into Pete Carroll changing his philosophy. Will that last for, for 18 more weeks until

the Super Bowl? I don't know. But it looks like something is happening here. And I think that, you know, going back to sort of his performance tonight, his 38-yard touchdown to David Moore, had a 6% completion probability, which basically means it should not have been completed. It was the second most improbable completion since 2018, so the last three years, okay? Wilson is now responsible for two of the three most improbable completions in that period. Ryan Tannahill and AJ Brown had another.

And Russell Wilson, D.K. McCaff, have had five completions since last year where he had a less than 25% chance to complete it. Okay. this is he just does things quarterbacks are not supposed to do. And I think that I know if it is probably a really bad sign for that franchise, if it took eight years for Pete Carroll to trust Russell Wilson. But I think there's something there now.

And whatever was happening before, it seems to be cycling out a little bit. We hope. Brian at one point, Chris Collins would have said Brian Schottenheimer was the MVP of this game, which took me by surprise a little bit. But I, I'm feeling very good about, by the Seattle Seahawks.

Now, another stat for you. The pass to Mecca, that pass was the first touchdown that Stefan Gilmore is allowed in coverage as the nearest defender over the last two seasons. Now, I think that's a bit of a misnomer because that John Brown touchdown in Buffalo last year where Gilmore got shaken out of his boots. That technically, I guess Gilmore was not the nearest defender. But Gilmore had previously led the NFL in 104 targets without allowing a touchdown since the start of last year.

So when you saw this Metcalf Gilmore battle, what did you think? Well, one, they were a little, someone was a little upset about something. Those two were going at it. I thought that the Patriots are not going to have as good of a defense this year as they did last year. After the opt outs, it was impossible. Also, defenses regress. King of the opt outs, Kevin Clark. Love it.

Love leaning on that. As an analysis point because I'm just so terrified of going against Bill Belichick otherwise. I'm going to get you like a cane and just write it was the opt-outs on it. It was the opt-outs. The Patriots were going 14 and 2 without the opt-outs. Go ahead. So their pass rush in particular is weaker. They were able to manufacture it to an extent last year,

but it doesn't seem like they can get a lot of pressure. And that's going to make life harder on that secondary that regardless is very good. but one, encouraging to see Carol and Schottenheimer still going for it when they are playing a defense that has a good back half

and the willingness to keep going at a guy like Gilmore and to see Metcalf having success against them. I mean, I don't know what beyond just normal football player jawing at each other's stuff was happening when they were sort of

getting into it together. But you don't see Stefan Gilmore get, have guys catching pass. passes against him. You don't see that happened to Stefan Gilmore very often. It happened to him once he got worked by AJ Brown in a Titans game a couple years ago. And

I had this working theory that he had a really bad cold because he was sort of sniffling and sneezing a lot after. And that's either sort of homerism or just it never happened. So it felt like there had to be some

other reason. I don't think that there's another reason here. I think that the Seahawks passing offense is being allowed to live up to its potential, and it's incredibly good. So they were still playing a good defense, even if it's not as great as it was, and really encouraging for them, too, although I also think encouraging for the Patriots offense. A couple more things to address here. Number one, the play designs with Cam Newton, they are what we thought they were.

I mean, when he signed in June, we knew they were going to have some fun and they're having fun. And I loved, love, love, love that play design at the goal line. Cam Newton at the goal line. And let's unpack this for a second. Let's unpack this for a second. Cam Newton at the goal line is worth the money they paid. And then Cam Newton for the rest of the 99 yards is just free money for the Patriots. Okay.

He is so good all over the field. But from a one yard, and I know the irony is they lost a game on a one yard play. But that little kind of fake pass thing that. cut it to 20, 28, 23. I mean, that's, that's why you get Cam Newton. That's why you have Bill Belichick, because those sort of, of designs. And so over the course of the season, I think you're going to see incredible red zone efficiency just because they know it.

And again, I already mentioned how often they go with those big packages. So it's going to be really interesting to see over 16 games, just, just how efficient they can get down there. And I, again, kudos to the Seahawks for blowing up that last play because I thought it was amazing. Jamal Adams, by the way, speaking of the Seahawks defense, just in another incredible game. blew up that Rex Burkhead pass that basically kept the Patriots from trying to score on the drive prior to the one they blew up at the goal line. So the Seahawks, again, one thing I liked was their energy.

You know, this is something where in the broadcast talked about it a couple of times where they create their own energy. It reminds me a little bit. Actually, Joe Buck and I talk about this on Solniews Day. At the Champions League final, when Byron Munich played Paris. In the second half, Byron decided to just start getting. loud in an empty stadium. And I do really, and the people who are on the ground there, like the Sondervors and stuff, for saying it really did have something to do with something. You know, just guys waving towels or, you know, hitting their hands against the glass or whatever.

And I do think there's something to that. And so the fact that this stuff created their own energy, as the broadcast said, is interesting to me. So I, I like this team. And the one thing they have to get better at is their pass rush. Again, kudos to them for blowing up this play. but Newton had all the time in the world to pass. They just, they did not do a good job up front tonight. And that somehow they've got to figure out a way to get better if they're going to get into the elite of the NFL. But right now, I feel like both teams probably come out of this feeling like it was a little bit of a win. The energy thing is a really big deal.

I was, because I did some reporting on sort of the week one quality of play stuff last week. And the biggest thing that surprised me and I didn't get to lean in. into it a ton in the piece because it was sort of extraneous because it's not, you know, that's not fumbles. That's not, you know, penalties and other kinds of screw ups. But everybody that I talked to, so Sean McVeigh said it, Cliff Kingsbury said it, some other people, everyone mentioned it's really hard to create your own juice. And there's always stuff like that where if just one word like juice comes up, people independently say it, it always jog something in my brain. And everyone was talking about juice.

So that seems like a real thing where, and how could it not be, where if you're in a basically empty stadium and there's this weird baseline, fuzzy, fake crowd noise and that's it. And most players are saying that it's really quiet. That's a big deal. If you're in a game that's coming down to a wire and you got to make a goal end stop and to be able to sort of get, get yourselves hyped up, that could. be a big thing that maybe we hadn't thought about or just that is going to have actual impacts in ways that might be surprising. But I don't know if it's just because Pete Carroll,

I think this is about John Schneider too. Like both of those guys seem like they could start a crossfit gym together. And I would be like, yeah, okay. I get it. Like they're just so, how many shots of espresso did you have this morning that maybe it kind of trickles down. And that's a little, that's a nice thing that they've got going for it. Would you join a crossfit gym found about those guys. No, I wouldn't join any CrossFit gym, but, but I would be happy for them. I would wish them success. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure they're great on it. All right. I want to get angry for a second. If you're an owner, if you're an owner and you've got a quarterback that's anything less than great, let's say, great. So, you know, maybe 14th or below in the NFL.

first thing I'm doing tomorrow, sending an email, maybe a passive-aggressive text message, depending on how comfortable I am with the coach and the GM. CC both of the same time and just say, why didn't we extend a contract offered a Cam Newton? Because as we all know, only one team offered a contract to the now New England Patriots star, and it was the New England Patriots. So what I want to know is what was the thought process behind not even calling and saying, hey, we'd love to give you a backup money, for instance, because no team did that. And if you're the Chicago Bears, if you're the, right now the Denver Broncos, for instance,

we'll get to the injuries in a second here, even if you think Drew Locke is the future. He's not playing right now. Every team should have at least called about Cam Newton. Every team should have at least offered him a backup role. And one of the excuses was, aside from the injury stuff, we don't know he's healthy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which I'll obviously turn out to be. fake. One of it was, well, you don't want to bring in a big, a big name quarterback, big personality, because he might take attention away or confidence away from the starter. What does that even mean?

It means your starter's not a good starter. It means your starter's not cut out for his job. If you cannot take the presence of another quarterback who has had success in your locker room, you are not equipped to be an NFL star. Like, I don't, I'm sorry. Like there's something to the mental toughness side here. And if you're just, if you're 24 and you go, if they sign Cam Newton, I'm just going to collapse my career. I'm just going to shut it down if they sign Cam Newton. Like what I just don't understand the thought process behind it. Anyway, anyway, there's a long way of saying, if I'm an owner, I want to know how this happened.

I want a detailed explanation for how we got to a point where everybody in the front office said we're not even going to inquire about this. because right now it looks pathetic. It looks pathetic. If you're a team that doesn't have a great quarterback and you didn't offer a contract to Kim Newton. And apparently there's a lot of them. If the answer you get to that email is it was the COVID off season and we don't know his health.

What do you do? You're blowing the whole thing up. You're firing the GM. I'm just going to yell. I'm just going to yell a little bit and say, guys. I'm going to say, guys. That's actually how I get angry. You're just going to say guys.

No, that's how I get. I go, guys. And then we move on. but they know what that means. But I just think that there's, there should be a reckoning when a bunch of teams make that dumb of a decision. And I'm,

again, I'm not saying anybody should be fired, nor am I saying that Cam Newton would have looked like this for every team. If he was a backup, he creates value, either as depth for not a lot of money, or having packages for him.

What NFL team right now, except for teams with great, great quarterbacks wouldn't want Cam Newton in the red zone right now for $5 million, $6 million, $7 million, which he ended up signing for. It was a one-year deal worth up to $7 million in the best-case scenario. In the best-case scenario.

The absolute best-case scenario. And by the way, that money doesn't go on this year's cap. Right. Because the incentives are not likely to be earned because he didn't, whatever. We don't need to get into the specifics, but it's cheap. The worst-case scenario for the Patriots,

was they signed him for cheap? What was it? 3.5 base money? No, the base was one point. The base is the minimum. Good, good. So you get him for 1.5. The worst case scenario is you go your separate way

at the end of the season. Everybody, everybody has had a fine time, right? I actually think even technically the base was somehow under the minimum because it was only guaranteed, you know, if he made the roster, it would go to the minimum. So they literally could have, it was, the sunk cost was a million bucks. The base salary, the cap hit is 1.13.

Okay. Per game, active bonus is 43,000. So that's 700,000 total. It gets you up to around 2 million. And then you start going up and up and up. But the point I'm trying to make is that this was a no risk proposition for the Patriots. You could have gone your separate ways for almost no money. Best case scenario is he's amazing.

you sign him to a long-term deal. Medium case scenario is you have to franchise tag him or your franchise tag him and trade him if he doesn't want to stay, whatever. But there's no nightmare scenario. There was never a disaster scenario. And if you're a team trying to do smart things, those are the kind of things you want to do.

And the fact that teams didn't do it should be embarrassing for a lot of people. All right. Guys. Guys. Guys. All right. Injuries.

Another reason to yell. Adam Schefter, well, I mean, this is just bad luck. Adam Schaefter said he couldn't remember a Sunday like this. This was brutal. I mean, the 1 p.m. window, 10 a.m. on the West Coast, I mean, it was just like they were piling up. I mean, one of the Broncos players who they lost Drew Locke for for up to six weeks, potentially as short as two or three. I said, quote, they're dropping like flies. And I know that sounds flipping, but like that's kind of where we're at now.

So that's what it felt like that I mean really when when I think when the Anthony bar injury happened and we had already been in Slack talking about like 10 other injuries like what is happening here? So the Niners were hardest hit. Nick Bosa carted off. We think it's an ACL injury, which obviously takes him out for the season. Solomon Thomas carted off with the knee injury. Kalin Jones, by the way, did a very admirable write up of this and just even just listing

all the injured players was was a heroic undertaking. Like Robert Caro spent decades. reporting on Lynn Baines Johnson for his like thousands of page biography of them and Kalin Jones basically to put that amount of work and he's documenting the the injuries on Sunday so Rahe Moester who scored an 80-yard touchdown on the first play of scrimmage ruled out a half-time Sequin Barclay may have torn his ACL that hasn't been confirmed yet Paris Campbell Colts breakout candidate had a nice week last week he was carted off the field league hooker it had the fear

there. He's a starting safe for the Colts. The fear there is he had an Achilles injury. And let's start the list here. Here are the players that did not return. Okay. So Drew Locke, as we said, out for up to six weeks, but as little as two or three, he's definitely going to miss time. Jeffress was going to replace him. Anthony Barr did not return, Vikings linebacker. Byron Jones didn't return with the groin injury. The dolphins play on Thursday against Jacksonville. So the presumption would be, we don't know the severity of it, but obviously in a short week that doesn't look good. Devante Adams did not return after suffering a hamstring injury.

Again, they were kind of in cruise control mode. So who knows if there's going to be any serious. We'll find out more on Monday. Cam Acres, rib injury didn't return. Rams running back. Falcons right tackle Caleb McGarry suffered a knee injury. There's probably more confirmation on that. We're obviously going to get the Falcons in a second.

Christian McCaffrey injured his ankle and didn't return. Obviously, again, huge range of variants there. Coral and Sutton had their leg injury. Rashad Perriman had an ankle injury. and Trad Taylor had a chest injury that kept him out of the game. And then Tavon Young, the very talented but off injured nickelback for the Baltimore Ravens is out for the year. It appears. Okay.

Anything else? All right. So when you look at, I hope not. So when you, and Bruce Arvin, by the way, obviously, in the game we just watched. Yeah. All right. So this is a very long list. and I want to pick your brain.

When you think about the way this Sunday, from an injury standpoint, will shape the NFL season going forward, what stands out? The big one is that the 49ers, I think, could get taken down by this. And by the way, the 49ers were six from the bottom in football outsiders adjusted games lost from injuries last season, and they still went to the Super Bowl. So it's not as if this is a team that hasn't shown. an ability to overcome injuries in the past. But beyond Garoppolo being the one where if that turns out to be a particularly bad high ankle

sprain, if that takes a long time, obviously we know what it means when an NFL team loses its quarterback, right? That's not good. I will say, though, that the thing that I was thinking about the most, just wondering what the potential for domino effect here is and thinking about the rest of their season is that, that the way their defensive line has been hit, that to me is what's toughest for them to overcome. Absolutely.

Because that's just, so they got pressure on quarterbacks on 28.7% of drawbacks last year, which was second most, just being the Steelers. And they play so much zone defense on the back, which they're able to do one, because they were getting good, good quarterback play from guys like Richard Sherman,

but mostly because they get all of that pressure. pressure. That goes away. This defense just isn't what we're used to it being. And it's not as if we've been looking at Garoppolo and thinking, this is a guy who can elevate everyone around him to a degree that they can overcome things like that. So it's a little bit odd to be looking at a team that has been so good, so recently and did so even when they had bad injury luck. And to look at them and go, oh, well, you have a relatively easy start to the schedule, but this could be a series of debilitating injuries. But one, it's just too many. You know, they already, Sherman is out. They were already- George Kittles got a knee.

Debo-O-Samuel. D-4. Like, it's just too many. And it's weird to say the dam is breaking in week two, but I kind of think that it is. I, what do you think that they would need to do to, I mean, just have everyone miraculously recover. I don't know what it is. Jalen Hurd, Weston Richburg on Pupp. At some point, so the reason I picked the 49ers to return to the Super Bowl is I felt that they had the best roster in the NFC and the best coaching staff probably, at least up there.

And that's why I rubber-stamped their return. At some point, they get so injured where that's no longer true about the roster standpoint. The coaching will will remain stable. But at some point, you lose enough guys for this season and you don't have George Kittle at full speed and who the heck knows. Again, I don't know anything. It seemed he wasn't practicing last week. It seemed like there was some optimism he might play on Sunday. So I don't know about the future. But and maybe on that turf, by the way, we'll get to this in a second. Yeah. He might be hesitant for it to bring him back so quickly. but at some point you lose a Nick Bosa, you trade to Forrest Buckner, so you don't have the depth you had last year on the defensive line.

Solomon Thomas is out. I know they drafted Kinlaw. I know that they, again, they, I really like their coach. They have Armstrongstead. Yeah, their ability to scheme guys up, Armstead, very upset about the turf. But their ability to scheme guys up, I think is important. But at some point, they just don't have the best roster anymore in the NFC. And I'm getting to that point right now.

it's too, kind of too soon to figure out who I, who I like in the NFC right now. But if I'm picking the playoffs again right now, I'm definitely not picking the Niners after this to make, to make the Super Bowl. Now, back to the turf. So they play the Jets and trust me, we got some Adam Gays takes later. We'll get to that game. They play the Jets and basically the entire team says the turf stinks and we shouldn't be playing on this.

They play the Giants next week. there's real concern on the 49er side about playing another game on this turf, nor are your thoughts. Well, so it's new turf. So they put new turf in MetLife this year. The old turf had been there since 2013. The Giants and the Jets, they skirmished on it, I presume, before the season started. The Giants were there against. Yeah, they were at MetLife.

Although Zach Banner tore is ACL in that game, so it's not as if there weren't injuries in that. But it is it is new turf. It has not had a preseason played on it. I don't know a lot about new turf, but I assume that with less time to work out issues with it, things like this could be more common. I know Shanahan after the game said, I don't know exactly why it happened.

As far as the feeling that was on the sidelines, I know that's as many knee injuries and ankle stuff and people getting caught on a turf as I've ever been a part of. From what I saw, the other team did too. I know our players talked about it the entire game, just how sticky the turf was. So the NFL has to inspect turf. The teams are in charge of maintaining it and making it playable. But the NFL does come in before, I think it's like 72 hours at least before every game

so that they can see how hard or soft and sticky or whatever other adjectives apply to turf. It is and make sure that it's safe. What's that funny? I just don't know how to describe turf. No, no, no, no. I'm just not a turf aficionado. You know way more about it than I do. Don't, please don't try to make a pun at a turf.

Turfishingato. Okay. Oh, boy. I warned you. You really, you teed me up. Come on. I had to take it. But so Mike Floreo of pro football talk reported that the NFL is planning to do an extra

look at the MetLife turf in between this game and that, which I think you would have to. apparently there were no complaints from the Jets about it, but Floreo also reported via a jet source, we were too busy getting our faces kicked in to worry about the turf. So just wanted to throw a little little Jets perspective into this turf drama. Good to hear from the Jets on that one. Yeah, great, great, great to check in. Great to check in with the Jets there. Players were already worried about injuries this season because of how the offseason was changed.

I know the NFLPA over the summer was citing the numbers from early in the season after the lockout year where they said there were especially soft tissue. Yeah. Especially soft tissue. Overall, a 25% increase in injuries, 44% more hamstring injuries, twice as many Achilles injuries.

And they were expecting and they used this as as a point to argue when they were talking to the NFL about how the restart was going to happen and whether or not there should be preseason games and all that. stuff that they thought it was going to be worse this year because at least during the lockout, everybody could train normally. And I think we were having a conversation maybe on last week's pod about reporting how guys were training themselves and resorting to pushing cars up driveways and all that stuff in the off season. Like, it wasn't normal. So I don't know if this is that. I don't know if this is turf, but potentially it's a combination. And, And I haven't, you know, I've covered the NFL for four years. I certainly haven't felt like there's been a game like that.

But if someone like Adam Schaefter is saying that this just feels unprecedented in how brutal it was, it really stands out. And it's just kind of sucky to see this happen to a lot of teams. And especially when guys start talking about the turf stuff, like, and you feel like maybe it could have been prevented in some way. It's just kind of a bummer. Yep. Uh, two things. He's number one, when Bill Belichick was asked whether or not he considered taking another time out late in the game after the Edelman catch. He just sat there in silence.

Do you miss that? Do you miss just the silent? Just electing just to not say pass on a question. I'm not going to answer that. Just staring. And the added element here is instead of staring at a reporter, he's just staring at a webcam. He's staring at a camera. Oh, man.

he's he the other day there was one about if he'd ever experienced an environment like the fanless stadiums and he just deadpaned and said practice and it's just I kind of do miss it frankly it was it was always good for a laugh yeah well he's uh he's in midseason form uh the other part is that i missed that Jim Everett had five touchdowns against the 1988 giant's so the only Breeze and Wilson threw five touchdowns against him as a head coach, but as a DC, Jim Everett torched him. So there you go. Good for a Jim Everett.

I want to get back to the injuries in general. The turf stuff, I'm keeping an eye on it. I think that the NFL will, I think that the PA should get extremely involved in this because I think that, and this is something like Zach Banner, right, in particular, where like Zach Bander's life changed on Monday. And what we need to find out as far as contract status, as far as playing status, like all that stuff, right,

at the Metalands. And what the PA needs to find out, what the NFL needs to find out, is whether or not that was just bad luck or there's an actual turf problem. And these guys are losing huge chunks of their career to that. And so that's just, that's the concern.

And everybody should be very vigilant, but there's not a whole lot to say other than that. Okay, Drew Locke. You've written about this. This was a extremely hyped Broncos team that dissipated a little bit when Von Miller was rolled off of the season a couple of weeks ago. But Drew Locke gets a right shoulder injury. He's out up to six weeks. What does this do to the Broncos chances? Did you have anything going for them before this? And what does Jeff Driscoll mean for this team? Oh, man. What does Jeff Driscoll mean? There's a lot to unpack there. I think the main thing is that it slows their development, right?

When I wrote about them, the big thing that I kept landing on was that they have a lot of interesting component parts, but I felt the hype was premature, at least. And the interesting thing about the way that they were building is that the Broncos have had a couple really solid seeming draft classes after five plus years of really not having any. So you couple that with Locke, who was not purely responsible for their strong end to the season last year because wins are not a quarterback stat. And some of those wins had a lot more to do with Brandon McManus hitting 50 plus yard field goals than it did with him playing super well.

But it was encouraging. It was especially encouraging that he has some. mobility. It's just interesting to see, you know, the, the tall statue fanaticism that's defined a lot of their quarterbacks recently fade away. And you look at Locke, who can make some things happen outside the pocket. I think the Patrick Mahomes comparisons are a little bit ridiculous, frankly, but I guess I see the argument. And you think in this offense... Wait, Mahomes comparisons to who? To Locke. who was making that?

The Broncos hype people. You make it sound that they have an actual hype team that just like runs into the stadium. They do. They're the people who compare. You know, there's a lot of buzz about Drew Locke looking, making throws like Patrick Mahomes. Okay, but drill down. Like what was the hype? The hype was, oh, Drew Locke can run around a little bit.

So he's like Patrick Mahomes. And that's why it was ridiculous. The Broncos hype was extremely ridiculous. I agree with that. And I think that that was a couple things. Number one is that whenever a young quarterback shows flashes of anything, they immediately get overhyped. We're going to overhype a deep quarterback.

Yeah, exactly. We're going to overhype a young quarterback a little later in this episode. But I think that with Locke, yeah, I think that the expectations became so disconnected from reality in the sense that we all thought, I thought he was a decent young quarterback, a good young quarterback who had the chance to develop into a good quarterback, a solid starter for for a few years, right? But I didn't think he was ready to win 10, 11, 12 games of that roster this year. I didn't think he was going to be, I didn't think it was going to be the next guy to win the MVP in his second year. Like that, no, that that part was ridiculous.

And I'm not totally sure that happened. I'm not, I just one day I woke up and all the Broncos fans were talking like that. And I just, I don't know what happened. So then the cost here, right? It's, yes. Sure. The cost between Miller and Drew Locke is that they get to be overhyped next summer. They get to be overhyped next summer when they could,

they could maybe have been accurately hyped next summer, right? Like the difference between them winning five games and eight games this year. Like who, you know, unless you're a diehard Broncos fan, who really cares? But the development time with Jerry Judy and KJ Hamler, that's a real loss. That's what the real loss is. It's not that Jeff Driscoll has to go out there for, you know, three to six weeks and you probably have a couple more losses than you would normally.

That may not even be true. I have to look up what their schedule is. But it's just the development that I think is the biggest. 100%. I agree with you. I also think in some of these cases, again, injuries are always horrifying and they ruin guys' careers in some cases. and all that stuff.

And that's not going to be the case for Locke. It's not going to be the case for most of the Niners guys we're talking about. But what I will say is that when a team starts to lose guys, a lost season creeps in. And then all of a sudden you get in some cases, you end up in a better spot because you get a better draft pick and then the rebuild gets helped. You know, I mean,

I think that in a weird way, I don't think anybody that day, Jimmy Garaplo got hurt two years ago would anticipate that they would get the second overall pick. They'd get Nick Bosa, who was a defensive player, your candidate until he got hurt today. But I mean, sometimes a extra season of being in the doldrums,

getting a top five, top 10 pick and actually accelerate the rebuild in a weird way. So I don't have no idea which teams that might happen to with injuries. I'm just saying sometimes that's a byproduct. Last thing, Sequin Bark with the Giants. This is a guy who for as much as we just sit here and debate over running back value, whatever, something we certainly are not going to do today. This is a guy who's had in 29 career games. He's had 2,900 yards from scrimmage.

There was some debate this week. It was a weird Tiki Barber feud where he said, or one side of the feud. He's Barbara said he's probably not an every down back or it might not be. And Barclay just kind of sidestep that. That was about like pass blocking or something weird. Yeah, it was weird. But he still had value in the passing game. I saw that he was a dynamic player and the Giants are worse off.

not having him. And this, I don't know how it changes Daniel Jones's development. Um, I don't know how it changes the giant season this year. Uh, they, they've started out, oh and two, very, very strange and awkward loss to the bears. They could have easily won it. Uh, made Mitch Rubikski look competent for large stretches. By the way, Mr. Trubisky, two games in a row, looking a little feisty. We'll get, maybe, maybe that's a midweek topic, but, uh, two games in a row, but not eight quarters in a row. not a there there have been times in two games in a row where he's looked a little bit feisty yeah that's all you can ask for yeah uh anyway uh yeah i wasn't expecting big things out of the giants this year but i guess it just confirms it by the way again they have the niners next week so it's kind of the

injury bowl yeah they have they put dion lewis in for saiquan that's obviously dion lewis is a good player he's not saquine barclay he's not of saquine barclay's type or of saiquan barkley's skill level unfun. It was also this, they've had, they've had some, uh, it was the first game Daniel Jones had played where he had Barclay, Sterling Shepard, Evan and Grum, Darius Slate, and Golden Tate together. Sterling Sheper got hurt too. Yep. So, uh, things are going great. The Giants have the Niners, the Rams, and the Cowboys the next three weeks. So, uh, oh, it's a learning experience. Fail forward fast. Now it's time for the State Farm, surprisingly, a great segment of the week.

Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm at a surprisingly great rate. That's like Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals starting 2 and O. State Farm agents provide personal service

so you can customize your insurance to fit your needs like a GM putting together their very own roster. You need a team that supports you and State Farm's got a great one. In addition to agents, the award-winning mobile app

helps manage coverage, pay bills, file claims, and more. With a great price and even greater service, State Farm goes from strength to strength. Nora. The Arizona Cardinals are two and out. Kyla Murray looks damn good. He was the first overall pick a year ago,

but it looks like he is really maybe a top 10 quarterback at this point. Nora, what do you think? I think that the timeline seems to have sped up for them a little bit, right? And the coolest thing that we've seen watching Kyler Murray these last two weeks is just that he has a legitimate superpower in his escapeability and his ability to avoid hits. And I thought that the expectation, for this Arizona Cardinals team should have been maybe a little bit lower.

I know we talked about Kyler as maybe a potential MVP candidate, but I didn't feel like they would have the win loss record that usually correlates with that, mainly because I wasn't confident that their offensive line could protect him well enough to make this offense function as I think we know that a version of it can. But he is so good at avoiding hits that I think we've seen him be able to, use his athleticism, use his ability to throw on the run, use his field vision, to have them up and running in a way that is surprising to me and is really cool because I think we're seeing a version of everything that they can do maybe earlier than we expected. And I do feel like after

a couple of weeks, he's legitimately in that MVP conversation. Absolutely. And you say the timeline line has changed is exactly right. Because when I look at second year quarterbacks in the NFL, Patrick Mahomes obviously took a leap towards MVP status. Lamar Jackson won the MVP in his second year. And when I thought about Kailor Murray potentially stepping into those shoes, I thought, well, maybe the Cardinals just aren't good enough. The infrastructure isn't there.

But through two weeks, we've already saw the value of Dandre Hopkins who they got in the offseason. Huge. Kenyon Drake had 86 yards on some. Sunday. Life Fitzgerald is still there. Andy Isabelle is playing well. And so I'm not ready to say that the Cardinals are as good as the chiefs were

certainly two years ago or certainly the Ravens were last year. But I'm saying they're better than I thought they were. And that's recalibrating my expectations for Kyle and Murray this year. I thought he played like an MVP, but might not be in that conversation. I think he's there. And I think that a 2 and 0, again, I don't expect them to be a Super Bowl favorite or anything like that, but definitely you have to start thinking playoffs when you see this team through two weeks having beaten the defending NFC champion Niners, also a division

rival, and now Washington on Sunday. Choose insurance. It always brings its A game when you want the real deal like a good neighbor state farm is there. All right guys, we got Cowboys talk right after this, but let's see a quick break. Hey guys, footlong season is at subway. They make it easy to make a good call on food. So here's a segment called Bad Call Good Call. We'll take a look at some of the good and bad plays from last week. Here it is. This week's bad call, the Dallas Cowboys attempting two fake punts in their game against Atlanta Falcons, got them down big early. Luckily, they were able to climb back, but boy, that really put it up against. The good call, how about in the same game? An onside kick from the Dallas Cowboys that covered a few yards before the 10-yard

marker, meaning that the Cowboys couldn't touch it. It rolls over the line. The Cowboys, Cowboys pounced on it, the Falcons players never react to it. It's possible for one team to have a good call and a bad call in the same week. Another example of a bad call from last week, how about me eating too many wings on Sunday? Not exactly my greatest decision. So this week, why not make a good call instead? Like a chicken terriaki from Subway. Another good call?

Getting a free footlong when you buy two of participating restaurants. All right, guys, let's make some good calls this week. Order and pay contact free in the Subway app for quick and easy pickup on delivery or game day or any day. It's footlong season and subway. Eat fresh, freshly prepared in front of you. Let's get to winners and losers and our most unlikely winner of the day. It's the Dallas Cowboys.

Hey, hey. Wow. So it's a 40 to 39 win that might be the strangest game I've seen in a long time. couple of good nuggets from this one. This is according to ESPN. Teams were 1,875 and 6 when leading by 15 or more in the final five minutes over the past 20 seasons. Well, now there's been seven losses in the final five minutes because I don't know how to phrase this exactly. It was a total, listen, it was a total team.

team collapse. But the special teams collapse in particular was notable. So Greg Zerloin does a Zerloin. I just turn him into a mistake. Greg Zerlein does a kick that I've never seen before. I almost wish we had Roger Sherman on here to break down the onside mechanics of it all. But he essentially just rolls the ball like a putt, like a bowling ball, just rolls it towards 10 yards in front of them. And by the way, he said that he and Johnny Hecker used to practice that. Like, that's not like a, we just whipped it up. So, I don't

know what that means, but. That's preparation. Anyway, so they hover the ball 10 yards in front of them. The Falcons just don't jump on it. It appears, and this has been confirmed by reports, they did not know they could just jump on it.

Ben Kotweka, who I think you probably covered with the Washington football team, is a special team's coach. He's well thought of in the league. I covered him a little tiny bit. when he was an assistant special teams coach with the jets. This was just a total collapse. I mean, there's nothing else say but that from the Falcons end. With the Cowboys, they lost three of their four fumbles in the first quarter.

They go down 20 points early. Ezekiel Elliott just was making mistakes all over the place. The fake punts were just a disaster. I mean, I think that there was a. real scenario here in which we're just absolutely murdering the Dallas Cowboys in questioning their their credentials to compete this season. And everything changes. I was encouraged enough by individual performances to say that this this Cowboys team is still maybe the team we thought they were. Dak Prescott basically had a historic game with three rushing

touchdowns and 300 pass yards. He had that all in the second half. So I'm coming out of this. Jeff Schultz from the athletic who covers the Falcons said that Dan Quinn is is now Mike Smith 2.0. I'm coming out of this with much lower on the Falcons, probably the same as I was with the Cowboys. What do you think coming out of this game? I'm a little nervous about the Cowboys. I get what you're saying in terms of not wanting to.

First of all, the game was just insane. My general feeling on this is that I discounted the Cowboys all offseason because I thought it was going to take time for teams to jail, right? And like, oh, Mike McCarthy can install his culture. If you're having weird mistake-prone games in September, maybe it's a byproduct of that. And now all of a sudden you're getting a win in a game you probably should have lost.

I'm okay with it. Yeah. If you're getting a win, if you lose three fumbles and win a game, even that in and of itself, and there's 12 other bizarre things that happen that we could talk about it. That's fair.

Dak made some good plays here. I thought CD Lamb looked great. He had his first 100-yard game. I just, they didn't look prepared early. I don't know. Three Fumbles is weird. You almost wonder like what's what's going on. Is it, is there some sort of, is it humid? Um, but I thought they looked really sloppy. The fake punts. What is with the, I mean, if I were an owner, my guys, guys rant would be reserved for like, what are we doing with the fake punts? We got to say. I'm for, it's a half measure. It's a half measure. People want to go for

four downs, but they're too afraid to just put the quarterback out there. Just go for. Just go for the fourth down. Just go. Just do that. Go. Let it rip. Just do that. Don't do this. Mike McCarthy needs to go back to PFF. He needs to me with George and Eric again. They didn't teach it. They didn't get to the part about not fumbling at PFF. George and Eric did not tell you to do two fake punt tries in your own territory, Mike McCarthy. He's like getting to that point of the movie where it's supposed to be like the girl takes off her glasses and ha, she's beautiful. But it's like, nope. Surprise. It's Mike McCart. McCarthy.

Surprise. It's Jason Garrett. Yeah, it's been Jason Garrett all along. So, yeah, I mean, I just, this was miraculous. And I think, by the way, the Falcons are like the only team in the NFL that's ever able to recover onside kicks. And they just, they got a little taste of their own medicine. Michael Hervin said he was writing his eulogy for the Cowboys and put eulogy in all caps and

was on his last paragraph. And I kind of feel a little, I feel a little bit upset that we didn't get. Yeah. Michael Irvin's eulogy for the 2020 Cowboys. I would pay to read that. Yeah. So again, not a lot of thoughts on actually what this game means long term, except to say that I think that it might be the end for Dan Quinn,

and we're going to get to that in the coach a segment in a second. But from a Cowboys perspective, it's a net negative. It's a net neutral. After last week, you simply could not lose this game. They didn't. I'm not going to hold it against them that they had this. this weird adventure. Next week, they have the Seattle Seahawks,

and I'll probably learn a lot more about them in a game that's not just totally chaotic. And they've got Seahawks, Browns, Giants, Cardinals. And they should have a pretty good record after this so long as they stop fumbling, stop faking punts, and just generally getting gear. I think the Rams can be pretty good to the point that I'm not discouraged about that loss, having seen them what they did today. So, yeah, whatever. The Cowboys are the Cowboys.

That still remains true. All right. Still playing weird games. All right. Who's your winner? Justin Herbert. So what a day for Justin Herbert. This is wild.

For the record, Justin Herbert was already one of my winners for the day. And then we found out how truly insane his Sunday was. So here's what happens. Trod Taylor has chest pains. He finds out from Anthony Lynn after the coin toss that Taylor, has to go to the hospital and he's starting against the chiefs. So we're talking about seconds before this game starts. I mean, first of all, like, if that happened to me, I would just run away from the stadium.

Like, I don't want to be matched up with the Kansas City Chiefs at any point. Ever. You're 12. Ever. Like, never. Just never, ever at anything. I don't want to, I don't want to know. It's a no for me.

If I woke up that morning, cozy. in bed thinking, you know what I don't have to do today? I don't have to go toe to toe with the Kansas City Chiefs. And then you told me I did. We'd have a problem. So one, props to Justin Herbert just for for getting through the day. But he actually got through the day really well. So he was 22 of 33, 311 yards, a touchdown, an interception. He had a couple rookie moments. He had a, his interception was not great. He threw in a double coverage. And there was a snap in the red zone where he faked it to the wrong side. And Austin Neckler was like sort of diving into nothing. But again, he didn't know that he was starting an NFL game this morning. He is a rookie. There was no preseason.

There was barely an off season. And he found out he was starting after the coin toss. So I think we should be willing to forgive those things. And we should pay more attention to the fact that there was a throw he made to Keenan Allen, who was double covered, but there was a space for it. And he put that ball exactly where it needed to be. It was a ballsy throw. He looked confident. He was scrambling a little bit. And that game went to overtime. He went to overtime against the chiefs. And, you know, Mahomes didn't have his best day. They've, the chargers, they're pretty good when they defend them. I'm always sort of like waiting for it.

Yeah. The physical. They physical. Gus, Gus Bradley. Yeah. It's really good at playing strangely good at playing elite certainly league quarterbacks really well.

Like he obviously, they beat Lamar Jackson in that playoff game two years ago. They play Mahomes tough. I mean, Gus Bradley overall has been hit and miss as a DC. And I've certainly as a head coach more, actually just just missed. but I feel like sometimes he's able to rise to the occasion with certain interesting game plans.

Yeah. And so it's interesting. I mean, they, you know, they play all that cover three. They try to get pressure from their front four. It was kind of working in terms of taking away the most electric parts of Patrick Mahomes's abilities. But it's just tough when like he can have an off day and then he can just take off and pick up a third and 20 by scrambling. and it's just unfair. I don't know how you,

I don't know what you do there. Yeah. So as you said, so the Chiefs win 23, 20 and overtime. Mahomes has 3002 yards with two touchdowns. I think that the overarching point

with any Chiefs game is that in 90% of them, the only thing that matters is the one team as Patrick Mahomes. And that was true on Sunday. Like that was it. I mean, he could just make the throws when he wants.

And that's, unfortunately for Justin Herbert, there just wasn't much he could do. But I think that the Chargers might have something because I think that we've thought about this roster, this Chargers roster a lot. Shil Kapati made this point a couple weeks ago and he was here that maybe the charges moved on a year too early from Phillip Rivers because this roster might be ready to compete. I think that neither Taylor nor Herbert can get you to the playoffs this year.

But Herbert really excealed my expectations. He was tough. Completely. He was moving really well. They were doing nice things with him, just moving the pocket, rolling out. I thought that the big hit he took on his first touchdown was pretty encouraging to me, just as far as, you know, he's not, he's not Josh Allen slash. I mean, listen, there's some quarterbacks who can take some big hits.

We saw that with Josh Allen today. Obviously, Cam Newton has been doing it for over a decade now and might be the best quarterback in recent memory at doling out punishment. But I just, I don't know. I mean, I did not, when this game started today, and I saw the Herbert was in, and obviously, Tarrad Taylor was going to see something really, really serious. He had to go to the hospital for it. We're not really sure what that chest injury looks like and how long he might be out.

Anthony Lynn, by the way, said that Taylor is the starter once he gets healthy, but that, obviously, if you go to the hospital, that might take a little bit. All right. So next week, the Chargers have the Panthers, then the Bucks, then the Saints and the Jets. So in the next four weeks, there are two really easy games and two really hard games. So there's nothing really to draw from there. Lynn said that Taylor will be the starter when he returns. Do you believe him?

I don't know if I believe. I mean, he said if he's 100% ready to go, he's our starter. And my immediate question was like, is he going to be 99% next week? Is that what we're going to, you know? Or weeks from now. I mean, like, it could be a serious injury that you could kind of just say that. And it never, you don't have to address it for another month or two. I think that if you had the option and, you know, if Taylor wasn't blowing you away in practice or whatever,

I think you probably do go to, to the rookie. And I just, I feel, I feel pretty encouraged about Herbert now. And I feel a little better about his long-term prospects. Again, I think that we can overreact to everything. We've seen, I mean, for God's sakes, it was not, they weren't playing. defending champions, but remember Daniel Jones's debut last year, we had to do 20 minutes off the top about it. We had to take our medicine because he was so good and we had made so much fun of him and all that stuff. Danny Dimes. Danny Dimes does not look like somebody we should be apologizing

for for making fun of. So I think that this stuff, especially when you can't game plan for a quarterback, this stuff can get a little bit out of whack. But I think from a, from just a, I guess it's a moxie standpoint, I like what Herbert did. Now, If we're calling Justin Herbert a winner, I would like to address one loser, which is Anthony Lynn, for giving the ball back on a fourth and one willingly to Patrick Mahomes in a sudden death situation. Not good. Very, very, very bad idea. Harrison Butker made three game winning field goals. Only one of them counted.

There was one false start, moved back five yards, and it gets iced. This was a wild game. Again, this is almost a cousin in a very different world of the Seahawks. Patriots game where both teams should actually come out feeling pretty good about themselves. Yeah, we don't, we don't have moral victories in the NFL. But if you were- Here on the ringer NFL show, we have moral victories. Okay, I don't know if I subscribe to that, but if we were to come up with one,

taking the chiefs to overtime when you didn't know you were going to be starting. Yes. Yes. It's a good candidate. It's a good candidate. So I guess, I guess he can be a, yes, he's a moral victor in the ringer NFL show winners and losers. Absolutely. All right. Josh Allen. Hey, my guy. That's yours, isn't it? Is that yours? Is it your winner? Oh, yeah. Get off my corner. Take the lead. Take the lead. So Josh Allen, 417 yards, four touchdowns, both career highs. Josh Allen has had back to back 300 plus yard games. Let me just find this. So this is this is per

pro football reference. He has joined, I'm like laughing as I say this. I love this. He has joined Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Patrick Moe. Sorry, I can't do it. Oh, God. As the only quarterbacks in NFL history to throw for at least 700 yards and six touchdowns without an interception in the first two weeks of a season. And you can hear how hard I'm laughing right now. It's not because this is the most unfathomable thing in the world, right? Like Josh Allen was my Dark Horse MVP pick. And I think multiple people on this podcast the last four months have picked him to win the MVP or at least be in the conversation.

Right. Danny Kelly. And I think that he, true. And I think that he is in, he is in just like a really, really well constructed offense for his skill set and just in general. So it's not unfathomable. But just the relationship between Josh Allen and. the city of Buffalo and Bill's Twitter and analytics people and football.

Like it is a rich text. So there is something very charming and funny about this. Josh Allen start to the season for me. However, I do think that that this game, so they beat the Dolphins, uh, 31, 28. Bill's defense, actually, they were, they were missing some guys, but they didn't have their typically excellent kind of performance. performance here and Josh Allen had to go win the game and he did. And he completed eight passes over 20 yards downfield.

Sifon Diggs, that connection looks great. Diggs had eight receptions, 153 yards. Don't trade your star receiver is maybe one thing that we've learned through. Just don't do it. Don't do it. I guess I want to mean Odell, Odell might be the. O'Dell has an exact question just yet. Yes.

Yes. In 2020. Yeah, in 2020. Small sample size. Yes, absolutely. Just don't do it, especially if he's, if he's like a little mad at you, maybe find a way to work it out. Because otherwise he's going to be catching 47-yard passes from Josh Allen. So Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Patrick Moehm's, Josh Allen.

You heard it here on the ringer NFL show. Kevin, what say you? So Josh Allen, and this is something I've discussed. oftentimes of the past two years. I adore, and maybe even three years. I adore what the bills have done from the team-building perspective. My hesitancy has always been with Josh Allen and the ceiling there and the floor there, quite frankly.

And those are two very, very, very different things that I feel like change from game to game, from season to season, et cetera. What Josh Allen has done in the last two weeks, while it hasn't erased those questions, has made me rethink everything I've felt. thought about the bills in 2020. Do I think that they can get on the Chiefs Ravens level? No, I don't just because I think those two teams are the best teams in the NFL. But I think that every time I see Josh Allen have a two-game stretch freeze over 700 yards,

and he has six touchdowns and no interceptions, I start to wonder if I should be thinking about that sort of thing. That's not for me. That's not going to happen until Halloween. But just as far as me rethinking the. entire pecking order or whatever. And now if a team starts 0 and 8 or, you know, if the Ravens just, you know, lose five games in a row,

maybe we've had that discussion early. But I'm not ready to change the hierarchy right now. Okay. I'm just going to give it a little time. But what Josh Allen's doing is really quite remarkable. And he really is getting better, not just season to season, but almost week to week. I mean, the strength is still there.

Some of the things that made him who he is are obviously still there, an integral part of his game. Joe Basaglia, who covers the bills for the athletic, said that in his 11 years on the beat, this is the best performance you seen by our quarterback on the bills. And you start to think about it. And with most teams, that would be maybe that's hyperbole, maybe you're just caught up in the moment with, you know,

more franchised, but then you start to think about it. And you're like, well, wait a second, what else is there? What else is there in the last 11 years? And going back further, most of the records that Josh Allen is breaking or tying, set by Drew Bledsoe, who had some pretty interesting volume stats years ago. He's the first Bills player. Josh Allen is the first Bills player to have 400 passing yards, four touchdowns,

no interceptions in a game. So every single week, Josh Allen's doing something that surprises me. We already knew that was going to happen as far as excitement goes, but I'm getting excited and it's all good from Josh Allen. And that's not something I anticipated at this point. Kudos to Brandon Bean, Sean McDermit, Brian Dables, Stefan Diggs, the offensive line. Everybody takes a village to raise an elite quarterback.

And I think that Josh Allen is a, is extremely surprised to me. All right, let's move on. The Rams. To an L. McVeigh is back, baby. You feeling it? Yeah, I kind of am. And I did not think that they would be particularly good, especially.

I've been very impressed with their offensive line through two games. but I'm well that was it that was in last year that was it that was the whole thing it was the offensive line starts to collapse and then the running game starts to collapse Todd girl he doesn't want to be there anymore and then the whole thing and then it's Kyle Shanahan steals his flat bill energy and and then the whole thing starts to crumble flat bill energy that's incredible and and now it's just swing in the opposite direction the day after the super bowl last year I was with Danny Cow I'm sitting in the hotel and uh sick as a Doug. And for some reason, I decided to put a poll out saying, would you rather have Kyle Shanahan

or Sean McVay. And the reason I did this was because I wanted to see where public opinion was because it had swung so far from where it was the year prior. And it was like 93% said Kyle Shanahan over Shaw McVeigh. And I feel like after an injury riddled season with the Niners this year, that if I had that poll again in February of 2021, I'm not saying it would be 93 to 7 or whatever it was a year ago, but I am saying it might swing back towards Sean McVeigh. And those two coaches who are the two best young coaches in football might just keep swinging back and back and back and back. So the Rams, we should say where we're talking about this because the Rams beat the Eagles

today. And the Eagles at some point, again, I used injuries as a crutch to not pick them to make the playoffs. And I still think that's a huge part of this. but they're also just, they're kind of bad right now. They lost 37 and 19 today. Carson Wentz was not very good. Again, they've been injured, but at some point,

Carson Wentz throw a touchdown pass. I had two interceptions today. Zero touchdowns, two interceptions, 242 yards on the day. This is just, this is just now what the Eagles team needs to be right now. The Rams, on the other hand, rolling golf out, giving him tons of options, just throwing guys open.

Tyler Higbee is just on fire. I mean, he had five catches, 54 yards, three touchdowns. There's just an efficient tight end right now. He's putting up numbers not seen since Antonio Gates, actually, at the tight end position as far as just catch percentage of touchdowns. And so it's, it's, I'm feeling this Rams team, especially when you consider that Niners are not what they thought they were. I still think that NFC West,

The NFC West is still very competitive, which is different than I thought it was going to be. It's if the Cardinals are better than we thought, the Rams are better than we thought, and the Seahawks may be better than we thought after tonight. So I feel like this is just, this is something interesting. Derelle Henderson, 121 all purpose yards. Again, three touchdowns for Tower Higbee. Robert Woods had a nice game. Jared Goff at one point, had 13 consecutive completions.

This is, this is a little feisty team. Yeah, and it's not as if golf has started lighting the world on fire. It's funny. I mean, it's kind of unfair, the degree to which he and Wentz will be coupled when we're talking about this game. And Prescott. Sure. And just in general, but you look at, you know, he's rolling out there using play action. He's starting 13 of 13.

Everything looks well set up for him. And some of what's happening with the Eagles is on Wentz, certainly. But it doesn't seem like he has those easy completions. is available to him in the same way. And then even, you know, Higbee is such a big part of this game for the Rams. On defense, they had some young guys, Darius Williams and Troy Hill, who's kind of like their star role. Both of those guys had picks.

And I just feel like we haven't had one of those, we're two games since the season, but we haven't had a lot of moments with the Eagles lately where we've been saying things like, oh, hey, that guy. Yeah. that guy. Like I wasn't thinking about that guy. He just made a play. And at a certain point, it's how's the player performing,

but it's also the context. And it seemed like you could see two really different contexts on, on either side of the field in that game. So good to be the Rams. All right. You got one more. I do. And it is the Tennessee Titans.

Yes. So, yeah. And they gave up 480 yards of offense to the, Jags, but I'm going to, I'm going to chalk that up to Minchu mania and just move right on past it and say that Ryan Daniel threw four touchdowns. He was four for four in the red zone. That was such a huge part of why they were successful last season. And their first game, you know, they're two and oh, but they were a little shaky in week one. And just to see that, I felt like the Titans are back. And we've said this a bunch of times. And we've said this a bunch of times.

they are not necessarily going to be everything that they were. Tannehill, especially last season, he's not going to be Mahomes or Mahomesian in his stats. But it was enough to tell me that it's okay. And week one, I thought they looked

a little bit more discombobulated. So I thought it was an encouraging game for them. So this might be my early nugget of the year. So this is Toronto Davenport, talked to Roger Saffold, who said that, when Ryan Tanna Hill had the 18-yard touchdown pass to Adam Humphreys in the fourth quarter,

he got blasted, okay? And he got up and he yelled and won. Negative of the year. I kind of like that, that swagger from mine tan Hill. So more importantly, Cory Davis, I feel like there's some something happening there. This is a guy who was a first round pick a couple of years ago. I never really got it all together. Maybe there's some health problems, but I just feel like if they get him, AJ Brown was out on Sunday. If they get Corey Davis going, I think that the offense is just that more dynamic. Listen, we're going to figure out where this win is in the pecking order in a couple weeks when we see more of the Jaguars.

Obviously, they had that great week one. But I think beating the Jaguars right now is a legitimate accomplishment. And I like myself in the Titans. Just because you just said that, I just said Stefan Gilmore got, torched by AJ Brown. I meant Corey Davis, which is why it was so weird that I assumed he was sick.

Anyway. Losers. Losers. Bad coaches. So we're going to do this together because we both want to combine these losers. It's coaches who are either on the hot seat or seem to be trending towards the hot seat.

Some of them will get fired. Some of them will not. Okay. The ones who will get fired closer to now than others are the lions and the jets, then the Falcons, and then probably not even on the hot seat yet, and we'll explain this in a second, is the Houston Texans, okay, the low-bye.

So first of all, the first coach fired thing is always strange because so much of it depends on ownership, so much of it depends on whether or not a coach, you send out a couple feelers, and coaches say, yeah, I'd take that job, you fire your guy, you start that process now. I mean, it's all backroom stuff, and predicting it is really hard.

to do. But you kind of know who's going to lose their job. Okay. So Matt Patricia should lose his job. Adam Gates definitely should lose his job. And Dan Quinn, I mean, Sunday seemed like performance by a type of guys are going to lose his job. So the Niners had historically bad injury luck last two weeks, and they absolutely destroyed the Jets. The Jets had no chance against a team that every time they took a Snap was losing a contributor for this season. The Jets allowed a 55-yard run on 3rd and 31. Okay. That's fireable.

Emmanuel Ocho said that the Jets lost to the 49ers JV team, which is a good way to It's true. Gase has bad relationships with players. He's ruined Sam Darnold. If Sam Donald had anything, had any prospects of becoming a franchise quarterback at the end of this year, that is no longer. the case. The CEO, Woody Johnson's brother, called him a brilliant offensive mind four days ago and he comes out and does this. I'm not even sure what Johnson was thinking four days ago,

but I certainly can't think that now. Adam Gaye says that, quote, we need to get better fast. Let me give you some advice on how that could happen. You could not be the coach anymore. Yep. And then they got to fix that turf. And they got to fix the turf. Matt Patricia. pro football talks to the first team ever to lose four straight games with a double digit lead Michael david smith continues to point out that jim caldwell was nine and seven and got fired matrician's now nine 24 and one total he's got to win a tenth game just he's got to win a tenth game john neo uh said for the last four lions coaches who 34 games rod marinelli 10 wins jim schwartz ten wins jim caldwell 19 wins matt patricia nine

Can we just bring back Jim Caldwell? Yeah. We're actually going to have that question later on the show who should be the next Lions coach. But the reason we're grouping the Texans in, I'm not even going to address the Falcons. I mean, everybody saw this today. How was that a 2% chance of winning in the fourth quarter? We're getting there.

We're getting there with Van Quinn. The reason I have the Texans in here, again, I don't think Bill O'Brien's going to be fired this year unless they go like 0.16, even then they might say, you know, it's COVID off season. What I am saying is this. So they start with Patrick Mahomes, obviously. Then they have Lamar Jackson. Next week they have Ben Rathesburger and the Steelers,

who as we talked about beat the Denver Broncos. Then they have the Vikings. We'll see how that goes. Jaguars, Titans, Packers. I mean, this is just not ever going to get much better for them. They have the Jaguars and the Browns soft. Then they have the Patriots. And I just feel like they have a real good shot at starting 0.3.

The Vikings game is probably a toss-up because the Vikings. is they're not world beaters, but nor are the Texans. And I just feel like starting with Mahomes and Jackson was a recipe for disaster. I don't think for the NFL should let John Dr. Hopkins pick the schedule. I think that was a bad idea. But if you were to design a schedule to get Bill O'Brien on the hot seat, it would start with Mahomes and Jackson. And I just don't see things getting any better for the Texans.

And so, again, I don't think Bill O'Brien will be on the hot seat this year. I'm just saying they might be bad this year and then we're talking about it going into next season. Well, here's the thing is that in a lot of analogous situation. So you would say they should talk to their general manager about that. Yeah. And you see how the sort of a closed loop situation. I will say this. I thought it was interesting.

The NFL said this, the Deshaun Watson's only lost by 14 in his NFL career twice, both times against Lamar Jackson. So there you go. Maybe it just, Maybe just a Jackson thing. Dan Graziano actually said that the idea that Quinn's going to be first coach fired is a little misguided, that Arthur Blank is really close with him.

And there's been a lot of, there's a lot of patience that's been shown there. But that even if he's not back for 2021, they'll probably give him the chance to finish out something and just at least get to the end of the season. All right. You're loser. So just to wrap up the teams that didn't look so great, the Vikings, I think, are in a different category than the bad coaches because I think Mike Zimmer is a very good coach. Sure. I don't really understand what's happening with that organization right now because I thought they were going to be pretty good. They lost 28, 11 to the Colts.

Kirk Cousins, 11 of 26, 1113 yards, no touchdowns, three interceptions. It's not what you want. So Cousins finished with a 15.9 rating, okay? Now, here's the important part of this, is that that 15.9 rating was a massive upgrade over what it was for most of the game. At the end of the third quarter, towards the end of the third quarter,

had a rating of 0.0.0. Just a disaster. Minnesota's 0.2 for the first time since 2013. They've lost five of the last six games, going back to last year's playoffs. The fact they beat the Saints becomes more and more miraculous us every time I look at that score. And I think Kirk Cousins, Kirk Cousins is a product of his

surroundings, okay? If he's got good receivers, if he's got a good offensive line, if he's got good play calling, he can be a pretty good quarterback. We've seen that. We've seen that in Minnesota we saw it last year. So I'm not ready to call anything as it relates to Kirk Cousins. They re-signed him. They gave him a lot of money. He will continue to be the starting quarterback. And I think he can do a decent job at it. It's just he's not going to overcome circumstances. And that's the important thing to remember about it. Listen, there are five or six or seven guys like that in the NFL.

They all make tons of money. They're never going to overcome their circumstances, but they can win the 11 games if the circumstances are right. Right now for the Minnesota Vikings, the circumstances do not feel right. Kirk Cousins is making some awful plays. Awful. You don't get to 0.0 rating unless you're just actively being aggressively awful.

Do you know, like, I think if you just throw every pass and spike it into the ground. Yeah. It's like 39 is the rating. Yeah. And meanwhile, Kirk Cousins is at zero until late in the third quarter. So this is just, this is, is, is awful. It was, Courtney Cronin said there is his last is, his, is statistically his worst performance as a Viking, which shouldn't be much of a surprise. Worst games since in Minnesota since Brad Johnson.

Oh. Just. Oh. You don't like. It's not good. Since Brad Johnson? In 2006. Oh, I know.

It doesn't make you happy. But so when you're talking about cousins being a product of his circumstances, there's kind of two things there, right? There's, has this team misunderstood where it's roster is, right? Do they not have the right idea about whether or not they're in the, in the window? And he seemed to be really forcing it to Thielen.

only had three catches for 31 yards, but I think it had eight targets. And it just didn't seem like Cousins was interested in distributing the ball. One thing that had been weird about last week, Kirk Cousins' numbers off play action are generally some of the best in the NFL. They're fantastic. And I think they used play action like once or just a couple times last week. It was very rare.

And it was strange, given that that's just been such a staple of, offenses that he's thrived in. Then they come out this week and, and they had a, their first drive was good and they had some nice play action boots and they ended up settling for a field goal. And then the rest was downhill as an understatement. And so I, I wonder if there's a little bit of a misunderstanding there about how the pieces on the roster fit together or if it's just that they're not asking for the right things or if it's an execution issue. Or, I bet it's a little bit of all three,

but I picked them to win that division. And even if the Packers weren't playing as well as they are, I think that would be looking pretty shaky right now because it just seems like so much is out of whack there. And that defense, I think we expected to take some time. But I thought that the offense would be able to counteract that a little bit. I'm with you.

One of my best friends is a long-time bartender in Tallahassee and said that all the NFL, all of the ex-NFL guys would come in. And Brad Johnson was by far the best hang. Well, then he's got that going for him. He does that. And he won a Super Bowl. He won a Super Bowl. So there we are with the Vikings.

Kirk Cousins. Right. So he had a really bad game in 2006. And he's a good hang. So, you know, we can move on. Got some reader questions after this. But first, a quick break. Today's episode is brought to you by Hynegan.

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whatever your style, and drink responsibly. Let us get to the reader questions. Number one, will the NFC East winner have a better record than the fourth place team in the NFC West,

Nora? Yeah. Right, the math has to work out that way because they all have to play each other. So let's call... What if that's the Niners? What if it's just a totally lost season? And that the answer is,

guess, but only because the Niners just kind of opt out. It's crazy that. Unsubscribe from this season. It's crazy that I'm literally hearing you say that and going like, yeah, that's probably going to happen. No, I mean, if Jimmy Garoppolo, we already saw what that looks like. And then all the advantages that they have that made the better team last year outside of quarterback health are also slowly going away, whether that's Nick Bosa,

Richard Sherman playing out of his mind, all of some Richard Sherman's hurt, George Kittles got a knee thing. Remember, if things start to go. South, they're going to give these guys more time to recover. And then all of a sudden, it's, uh, right. Right. I mean, so, yeah, Rahim Moster can't run for an 80-yard touchdown if he's not on the field, right? Like, there are a lot of great things about the 49ers, but if they're not there, they don't count.

By the way, the question is from Dave Street at D Street 14. And I think what he's, I think what Dave is going for is, is there going to be like an 8-8 fourth place team in the NFC West? And, yeah, that seems. I think it's possible, but I think someone's going to accidentally win 10 games or nine games in the NFCEs. That's a good question, good thought experiment. All right, Jeff Hancock wants to know who's the next Lions coach. I think this is interesting. I don't think it's going to be Jim Caldwell.

I'm mostly joking about this. I think that it should be a quarterback-friendly guy. You know, I did a story a couple years ago at Matthew Stafford to Dan Orlovsky for a while. And he said, you know, imagine what Stafford would look like with the Sean McVeigh or a Kyle Shanahan or an Andy Reid. And I think the closest you're going to get on the open market this year would be Eric B. Enemy. Yeah. That's, I mean, he should have, he should have gotten more opportunities anyway. So that's, and then you're getting into, so we're assuming that if they make a move, they go interim for the rest of the season and then do it in the off season. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that,

I think they should, I don't know what the, how the forwards feel about firing Patricia in season or whatever. Some owners don't want to do it or whatever. I don't, I can't, again, can't predict that. But what I will say is that he's, there's no reason to keep him. There's no reason to keep. I don't know, but Bob Quinn, they can, maybe they can divorce those results from his, his moves or whatever, keep him around, whatever. But I think you bring in a Kansas City type model and just hope for the best. Now, if you're Eric B. enemy, do you take that job? I don't know. I mean, that seems like, it seems like they haven't exactly left you a full cupboard here. You're probably going to have better opportunities this year, I would say, just because you're going to,

again, have another year on your resume of helping build one of the best offenses in NFL history. So, but I just think it's an intriguing option. If you're not going to get the enemy, I think you probably go to the college game and try to get some innovative scheme, guys. What about is it too early to be hyping up Arthur Smith? It is not too early. I don't think it's too early. I think he's definitely, I definitely, I think he's definitely going to be in the mix this year, especially after Sunday.

All right. Last question, more philosophical. Adam Smith, does the NFL have a three-point revolution coming, something everyone is technically already doing, but someone is going to come in and say, let's just always do this and change how the game is played. The answer is yes, but Nora, start. Yeah, someone's just, I mean, one of these days, it's either going to be, I don't know which will come first,

but it'll either be every fourth and five or under teams are going to go for, or there's going to be an offense that just throws it on every snap. Like we just saw Joe Burrow throw the ball 60 times, you know, someone is going to take that to its extreme at some point. Yes. So I think that it's a little bit of both there. I do think that we're going to, in 10, 15 years, look back on teams that we're punting on fourth and one and saying, why are you getting?

giving up the ball in the same way, just story a couple years ago, I know I'm talking to Neil Horan's being a pro football focus for this. And I said, like, what is, what is the bunt of football? And what I mean by that is like money, money ball, like the first thing that went was like, we're giving up outs for no reason, right? And New Orleans was just giving up possession. You win with possession. And again, time possession is overrated, all that stuff. But if you can keep drives alive, do it. And you can do that with really efficient fourth and two, fourth and three, fourth and four plays. And I think that that's

what's going to happen. And as quarterbacks get more efficient, as they get more mobile and can scramble across the board. And you know, I just think that we're going to look back on the Sarah football and laugh, even though we consider it you know, kind of innovative when a team goes forward and fourth down.

Now it's going to be nothing in 10, 15 years. And then this is a big thing for our colleague Warren Sharp passing on first down. I think that you will just have much more passing on first down and the running game will be, I don't think the running game will ever go away. And I think that there's certain principles of the run game and the blocking and,

you know, jumbo packages and all that. I think that stuff matters. I also think that part of the, the reason this has to be kind of deeply philosophical is because the pendulum swings so much. Like, oh, well, defenses get small. So now you run jumbo packages at them,

but then throw out of heavy, all that stuff, right? And so I think that that's how, that's just sort of how football works is something happens. Defense is react and then the offense has changed it up. But I think that the throwing and the fourth downs are the two things that will at some point be completely reversed. All right. Tomorrow's clickbait.

Nora. I think we're going to start seeing some hints that the Lincoln Riley's of the world are getting some calls. Yeah. I'm in agreement with that. I think that what's the Chiron? The Chiron is it's going to say. I feel like the problem right now is there's no buzzy, like the teams that I mentioned. I guess the Jets, the Jets would be number one, right?

No, that's what I was going to say is it's going to be like Jets reportedly interested in Lincoln Riley. And then maybe, maybe it snowballs a little bit and maybe we're trying to. in some, some private flights and seeing if anyone's heading to Oklahoma and just putting some feelers out there. I feel like that that's going to start this week. I feel like the private, like the feelers, that might be, that might be like October 15th or something like that. We'll see how the college season develops. I think we're going to see really funny. And again, I did it a little bit earlier, but I was also, it's not second guessing because I wrote it at the time and said at the time. But I think we're going to see really funny Monday morning quarterbacking about Cam Newton.

Like basically anyone who didn't have, basically any team that didn't have Mahomes or Lamar Jackson, people are just going to kill them for not signing Cam Newton. And I can't wait to see it. I think the best, like, I think the Niners. I think you're going to see people being like, why didn't the, I saw it today. People like, why didn't the Niners go sign Cam Newton? Well, you know, they made the Super Bowl nine months ago. Like, I'm as big at Cam Newton fan as anybody. But I just thought that was really, that was kind of funny.

Again, it would have been amazing. Back to my point, it would have been amazing at the Niners sign to Camden. Right. What if they had? If they had them right now and Jimmy Groppel had this high ankle injury and they had Camdood, and that'd be amazing.

I'm just saying it wasn't, you know, for them, I kind of understand the point. But again, for a million bucks. For a million bucks, they should have signed them. But I'm, they've built a good roster. I'm not ready to. They're low down on the blame list. I'm not going to fire John Lynch for this.

If Jed York doesn't yell at John Lynch for this, I'm going to give him a pass on this. It seems like a bit of a law season. Not gearing up to dish out some guys to send the email to send the email. All right, Nora Prince, Yaddy. Kevin Clark. You got Tuesdays, Ryan Shazier, player-centric perspective. I'm really excited to hear. He's on with Cole Wright.

Obviously, Warren Sharp, Chris Vernon on our Wednesdays. We're back on Thursdays. And then Warren and Joe House on Friday. Stack line up this week on the NFL show, part of the other podcast network. All right, guys, we made some bad calls and some good calls this week, but remember, it's footlong season at Subway, so let's try to keep them mainly good, okay? You can start by grabbing a delicious, freshly prepared footlong with all your favorite toppings and order ahead in the Subway app for contact-free ordering and payment to make pickup or delivery quick

and easy. So forget about that fried, greasy food, and grab a tasty footlong on game day or any day because it's foot-long season at Subway. Eat fresh, freshly prepared in front of you.