The Ringer NFL Show - Week 3 Recap: Another Chiefs Loss, Packers’ Comeback Win, and Rookie QB Struggles

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

Kevin and Nora are joined by Benjamin Solak to discuss the biggest games of the day, including the Chargers beating the Chiefs, the Rams’ impressive win over the Bucs, and more (2:45). Then Kevin and Nora are joined by Steven Ruiz to talk about what happened in Justin Fields’s disastrous first start in a loss to the Browns (1:13:20). Then Kevin and Nora wrap up with a listener question about the Seattle Seahawks after their disappointing loss to the Minnesota Vikings. Host: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guests: Benjamin Solak and Steven Ruiz Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines. So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. It is the ring NFL show. Part of the Ringer podcast Network. I'm Kevin Carr. Great show tonight. The Packers beat the San Francisco 49ers in a classic on Sunday night football.

Stephen Ruiz joins later to break down the Justin Fields debut and much more. We're joined by Nora Prenciotti. Nora, what's going on? Kevin, I'm going to do inside baseball here for a second. I'm so amped because we got to watch Ben Solac watch the end of the first half of Sunday night football. like two minutes behind where our TVs were. And we knew he had plus 550, Trey Lansing to score a touchdown.

We all knew that Trey Lans had scored a touchdown. We watched Ben get the good news in real time. And it was wonderful. It was just, we love joy on this podcast. And to get to see not only a touchdown scored, but an eruption of joyous cackling from one Benjamin Szilak, feels like a harbinger of a good pod to come.

So I'm pretty amped. Ben, how does it feel to win a best? A bet on this Sunday. Yeah, it feels new. I'm reticent to admit this. Please listen to the ringer gambling show on Wednesdays. But I've had a rough couple rough back-to-back weeks in terms of Sunday.

And so, Trailands plus $5.50 to score. That one does feel good. Next time, if we could just have the Raiders cover and regulation instead of screwing around and let the dolphins back into it, that'd be swell. Thank you very much. All right. Big show today.

Super Bowl participants washed, guys. Sure. Sure. So I have a really easy job tonight, which is I'll just say the score and I'll go, is it time to panic for every team in the league, for every team in the league. I can just do it. Should we be pressing the panic button? So this is going to be pretty easy.

On the New York Jets? It actually is panic time for the New York Jets. But obviously. I don't know if pressing the panic button on the Titanic would have really helped. But a lot to get to, obviously, aside from the Super Bowl teams. We had Justin Tucker, getting the longest field go of all time to beat the Lions, Senate and I football, Packers, Niners,

dolphins, raiders, the Broncos are undefeated. The Jets are not. And there's just a lot of football to get to. We will start, unironically with, is it time to panic in Kansas City? Chargers 30, Chiefs 24. The Chiefs are now in last place in the AFC West. That is almost meaningless.

But what is not meaningless is that the Chargers looked really good at Arrowhead today. Patrick Mahomes was not sharp. he had two picks. Justin Herbert, 26 of 38, 28, 281 yards. He made the throws he needed to. There were, it was not perfect, but there were some just huge time throws.

Mahomes has now thrown interceptions to back-to-back weeks for the first time since 2019. He had thrown in the month of September, 38 straight touchdowns. He did the thing where he went behind by two scores and he did not come back. Previously, so in the last four instances, three of them were to Tom Brady.

he was 0 and 3 against Tom Brady in those scenarios, but he usually comes back. Ben Solac, Herbert, bit of the Prince we were promised here in the AFC West. What'd you think? Yeah, right. The refrain that Stephen Ruiz, our buddy, he's going to be on the show later,

keeps saying is, like, it's obnoxious that he just stopped, he doesn't miss throws. It was like when we first started watching Mahomes Dawn, it's not a one-to-one comparison, but Mahomes played well, and you were like, oh, holy smokes, and then he just never stopped. And you were like, well, eventually he'll stop. And then he just never stopped.

You're like, okay, well, he's going to stop in the playoffs, and he just never stopped. And Herbert, we're only a couple weeks in. But in year two, it's like, okay, when is he going to start missing receivers? Like, that's what humans do, and he just isn't. And so the consistency with which he's delivering is still unbelievable. They still have him as a relatively shallow passer. Like, when the chief started to come back into that game, on first and 10 from the 25, Joe Lombardi dialed up a flea flicker, tight end screen.

And I wanted to murder someone because Justin Herbert can, throw it 50 yards on a rope. Like there's no need for this. So they still have him throwing shallow. He's still checking out to Austin Eklickler very quickly. So the A-DOT is still pretty low. And I think that they still need to open up this passing game more. But a Herbert can play mistake-free football for a really shocking level, not just for a

second-year quarterback, but for a guy who at Oregon, like, was not playing mistake-free football. So it's a very, very interesting evolution. If he keeps it up, he's going to be one of the most dangerous passers' consensus by the time the season's over. So statement went for him, yet another statement game for him. He looks like the real deal, all that in a bag of chips. Okay. So the chiefs had a chance to win this game. We can get to the end of game sequence here in a second here, but they did turn it all over four times. Mahomes had two pretty bad interceptions. Clyde Edwards-Hiller had a pretty bad fumble,

but this was a sloppy, sloppy game for the chiefs. Nora, basic talk radio, like Monday morning chat show question, are you worried about the chiefs? Okay. So panic button chiefs, unpressed. Panic button Chiefs Chiefs defense Inevitability Immortality

Right pressed Right like Well hold on Hold on Hold on Did you feel I mean like

As I said Right after the Super Bowl Right Like I think we all viewed Mahomes and the chiefs Is just some sort of John Wick Who can get at

Any situation With the pencil Right And then we saw them Get their ass kicked In the Super Bowl And we said Okay well

The offensive line Need to be there They need a little bit A little bit of help Mahomes is not inevitable So you actually kind of had reset that button since the Super Bowl?

Kevin, you did a podcast like two weeks ago titled, Can Anybody Beat the Chiefs? I also didn't pick them to win the Super Bowl. Nor did I. However, I think it's fair to say that consensus still rests that they are above the rest, particularly in the division. I think that one thing that we saw that I think is interesting is that we've had this conversation, right, where we've said,

on offense, they're going to be great. One of the questions is, is the defense just middle of the pack or is it actually bad? But then the other one is, are they built on offense to withstand any sort of injury, any sort of test to some of the top playmakers? Luckily, they've still got Hill. They've still got Kelsey. But I think we saw for a good chunk of this game, sort of a different version of that, because let's just take a moment and shout out, Derwin, James. that guy's good at football. Healthy and good.

Healthy and good. Fun to watch. Because he's like one of the only players in the entire league who can actually cover Travis Kelsey effectively one-on-one. And Kelsey was pretty good in this game. Finished 7 of 11 for 104 yards. But 50 of them, maybe 50 plus, about half of them came on the drive when Derwin went out. And to me that's really interesting because right, like the chiefs are not going to have four

for turnovers in most games. That's just not going to be repeated on a regular basis. And if they don't have that, they probably win this game. But if you're looking for, okay, is this just totally a fluke or did we see something that is in some ways replicable? I think the answer is that for most teams, no, it's not. But for some of the cream of the crop, some of the upper tier playoff teams, particularly those with secondary players who have some ability to take at least,

one of those two top playmakers, not entirely out of the game, but really limit them, then yes, I think you can make the Chiefs offensively limited enough so that the weaknesses on defense come through and they're actually,

there is a pathway to beating them. So are they still among the absolute best teams in football? Absolutely. Do I still think picking them to win the Super Bowl is like probably the smart, reasonable thing to do? Absolutely. But is there a way?

is it like, do I have that thing in the back of my mind where it's like, oh, God, seriously, I have to come up with a reason why they might not win. Like, there were times last year where that felt just stupid. And it was like, it's so boring to just say that they're going to win everything. And obviously they didn't. But I think that's a little bit different, which by the way, is good. It's exciting. It's interesting.

The defense was disappointing. I mean, the biggest chunk of the game that mattered was in the fourth quarter. There was a 43-yard pass to Mike Williams. And he was wide open. I was watching the dots a little bit earlier before Sorensen brought him down. there were some 50-50 calls here. The past interference right at the end was controversial. Obviously, this game, I mean, first of all,

there was a bit of chaos here at the end. Mahomes got the ball back with 214. Everybody said, oh, you look pretty much time he threw a pick. Everyone thought then when Herbert drove down the field, they would just run the clock out and said they scored a touchdown with 32 seconds off. They couldn't end up, the chiefs couldn't do anything with it. But the big play for me was the fourth down sequence where they go from fourth and four to fourth and nine on a false start.

Staley still goes for it. He finds a way, Ben, as a head coach, and obviously when we have Herbert DeKeehanelan, that helps with a lot of things. But as a head coach, is Staley ahead of the curve for where you thought he would be as far as decision-making,

as far as game management, when you see a game like this. Right. I don't know how to answer that, man. I'm still reeling over that entire process. I remember when we talked about the decision to go with that Lamar, fourth and one game on the line. and I said that you're just so terrified of that guy on the other sideline

that it's like drives you to straights, you know what I mean? Like it twists your heart, how you're just fearful of what that dude can do. Well, it's got Brandon Stanley so afraid that on fourth and four he lines up to go for it. And he gets fourth and nine. And usually the penalty, like a lot of coaches take that as like, you know, wisdom from the gods. Like don't go for this.

And after the penalty, they'll run the punty team out. Yeah, exactly. And no, he was like, yeah, we're going to go for this. And we're going to throw a back shoulder to Jalen Gite.

in the fool man that's stones and a half uh i i suppose he's ahead of the curve uh i imagine that we'll see you know like obviously this is a a already a data point pointing towards this being the correct decision because the charges end up picking up that first down and moving the ball forward and whatever um but i don't know how many people are going to be able to catch up with that even in we're facing the homes games let alone we're facing regular people games yeah um i mean this was this was a statement any reed went to the game uh he fell ill after the game went to the hospital um obviously good thoughts for him um but this is an interesting division now nor we're going to get to a couple of other these teams but are you thinking about the a fc west is in play now in play yes again

the chiefs uh the chiefs get to play on a on a downfield slope right so is one and two too too much for them to overcome. Absolutely not. I would not, again, the panic button is, is unpressed here. But the chargers are really, really, really good, right? Like, to me, this is not, we always talking about the math problem that eventually pops up when, when you're talking about the playoff race. They're not in that territory. This is a team that's going to destroy a lot of teams throughout the course of the season. They're going to be just fine in terms of the numbers. They have the Eagles next week, and then they have the bills to follow in the week. So I think they tremendous get right opportunity.

I guess it's going to be more. Right, but then they have a huge test. I know that is true. That is true. That is 100% true. They're going to clown the Eagles. But then that is a huge, huge test against the Bills. I think it's going to tell us a lot.

And the Bills had their get right game against that Washington defense today. Allen at one point had as many touchdowns he had incompletions. Do two get rights make a Bill's Chiefs game? I hope so. That was a solid joke, guys. Come on. I like, no, I liked it. I enjoyed it.

It was good. Yeah, I, I do think that. By the way, Ben Solek had plus 550 bet that Nora was going to tell a joke that only she was going to laugh at. No, if that's minus 550 on the books, brother. Yeah. That is an airtight bet if I've ever heard one of my entire life. Oh, no.

No, so I think, right, I do think the charges are legit. I do think that it's an open conversation, especially with the chiefs with the divisional loss. Obviously, the Raiders and the Broncos have their leads. We're going to talk about them a little bit later. the thing that impressed me most with the Chargers was that it felt like they were underperforming relative to talent on both sides of the ball. You know what I mean?

Like, eeked out against Washington, close game against Dallas. They had another touchdown taken off the board because of an illegal shift. You know what I mean? The situational football is still lacking. But if Staley's that guy, if he's the dude,

then this first game against Mahomes was going to be critical. And I think that Nora's point about Derwin is so important. Chris Vass or Coach Vass on Twitter who's the chief resource for defensive football on Twitter has something he calls the Dionne Principle which is where they would play Dion Sanders

man to man on your best guy and then double team your second guy right and the cases with Travis Kelsey and Tyreek Hill that with Derwin we can take away Travis Kelsey and that lets us double Tyree Kill right and that's what other teams don't have and the fact that Staley was able to get that access that and hold the chiefs to 24 points

indicates to me he's that dude So even as we figure out situational football, even as we mature as a team, we figure out the downfield passing game. We grow charges altogether. This was to me like a big box check for Staley in terms of like if we're going to contend in the division, we need to have an answer to Mahomes. We hired this guy to be that answer. First test is passed.

That's a big deal. Second test is figuring out how to stop getting the illegal shift penalty. What was that? What was the deal with that? They had a fullback playing H-back, right? And he does, you know, like it's a nice little goal line package and whatnot. but you have to understand, right, it's your situational football

where that little stuff is so lacking for a young team, a new team, a lot of new guys in, a lot of personnel groupings they run, like that's, that's going to happen early in the season. So iron all that out, and we're talking about legit playoff team

come December. If they overcome the chiefs and the illegal shift. That's it. The two greatest enemies. They've circled both of those on their schedule. We were getting reader questions

or listener questions, and some of them, a handful of were like, are the chiefs bored? or are they going to turn it on later in the year? And it's like, no, man, this is not the chiefs playing with their food or not being locked in. Like, this is them being a little bit sloppy and losing a game to a team they really want to beat because now emotionally, the Chargers have some sort of psychic edge. You look angry.

I'm going to oversimplify for a second. Please do. The Chiefs had four turnovers. Very, very hard to win a football game. Three of them is like inside the Chargers 35, too, like three in scoring range. Yes. Playing a defense that has unique capabilities to shut down their top two playmakers. like we were just talking about.

It makes sense that they're a little bit limited on offense because of those factors. That aside, their defense has given up touchdowns on 12 of 13 opponent trips into the red zone. They're not bored. They just can't stop anyone. Right. Right. Right.

No, I just think that sometimes when a good team loses fan bases struggle for answers or just general fans, and I just think that right now what we're seeing is the chargers are really freaking good and the chiefs make some sense. stupid mistakes. Okay. Let's go to the other half of the Super Bowl. Rams 34, Bucks 24. This was a big game on a big stage before the Bucks play the Patriots next week. Matthew Stafford, 27 of 38, 334 yards. Tom Brady, 41, 55, 432 yards. The Bucks could not stop anybody. They have some real problems at cornerback that they need to address their injuries and through some other factors.

I got a listener question that would seem to be earnest. That was, are we sure Patrick Mahomes is still better than Matthew Stafford? That's where we're at right now with the narrative. I can assure you we, Patrick Holmes is still better than Matthew Stafford. Just to quickly answer that. Asked it answered. Yeah, asked an answer very quickly. But in the same way that the Chargers made a statement, the Rams made a statement.

Nora, would you think? Well, so I think that there's going to be a lot of time to talk. as we should about how the buck's secondary match matched up with what Stafford was doing down the field and all the Rams pass catchers. They're obviously, they were missing Sean Murphy bunting and then they lost Jemaldine. So they were undermanned there. Richard Sherman has been linked as a possibility. Right.

And they just restructured Marpet to free up some space if they want to make a move there. So clearly that's something that's on their mind as they figure out how to at least tied themselves over until some of those guys. get healthier. Nobody could run with Deshaun Jackson. We saw that. All that stuff was great. Going to be a lot of time to talk about the explosive offense in LA.

I think that something we shouldn't let get lost here is that the Rams controlled both lines of scrimmage here really, really dominantly. So Matt Stapper didn't get sacked until the fourth quarter, particularly because of Aaron Donald on the defensive side, this is typical, but he got so much interior pressure on Brady, which historically has always been the kind that bothers him the most. And what impressed me most about this game was just how dominant they were on both sides of the line. And I think that's something that, you know, it's kind of easy to miss, but when they're playing another really good team, you start to notice those little edges. I think that's going to serve them

incredibly well as they go through the rest of the season and potentially, you know, if these two teams need to meet up with each other again, because frankly, that was, where I expected this game to seem a little bit more evenly matched. And it really just did not. I mean, that Buck's offensive line is typically a pretty good group. And they looked totally overmatched. So that was the biggest surprise to me. And that was the thing that made me sort of feel like, okay, we actually should take this seriously as a reshuffling of who the powerhouse is in the division. I'm going to say something funny here. Like something that I find funny about my process. We'll be the judge of that. No, no, no. This is, it's not how ha ha funny. It's like, it's like,

New Yorker cartoon funny. For me, in the same way that I'm like, well, you can't judge the Chiefs in anything other than Sunday. Like, the way that the Bucks played last year,

where they looked absolutely lost for times and they just figured it out, actually is still a little more in my brain than how I think about the Chiefs. And what I mean by that is like, Carlton Davis was bad on Sunday, but Carlton Davis was bad for stretches during the season last year and they figured it out.

Dee Delaney couldn't keep up with Cooper Cup today. They just looked sloppy. and they looked like they were overmatched in some areas of the game, but I also just believe in their ability to get better when they need to. So I was surprised by this a little bit. I thought they'd have a better showing, but I'm in no way pressing the proverbial panic button. Ben, what did you think about this game?

Yeah, I think that your biggest concern right now, let's put it this way, your biggest concern walking into the season if you were a Bucks fan was, okay, well, there's no way we can be as healthy last year as we were this year. And then you immediately sustained multiple corner injuries, And guess what? A lot harder to run that Todd Bulls defense when you can't confidently play behind it.

You know what I mean? Like he wants to send five, he wants to send six. You need your defensive back field to be playing well. They're not right now. And so this is what you expected. Like,

I think it's like Brady doesn't look worse. The offense is still hitting the buttons that they hit last year when they improved in terms of pre-snap motion and play action and finding that balance between left-twitch Ariens and Brady. They did get into that.

They didn't really get into a deficit early, but I think they probably got pass happier earlier than they wanted to. They're definitely a team that still believes you have to run the ball well to set up play action. And because of how they run play action, like they don't boot Brady, right?

It's not the rollout boot action stuff. It's play pass. We were pulling a guy and he's dropping back into the pocket. It is nice to actually have the running game working because you do want to come downhill at team. So I know like nerds like you don't need to run the ball. But I understand why the bucks really feel like they need it and they couldn't run the ball early.

And so there's like little problems. there, but I don't think there's anything that's lasting. This Rams team is pretty good. Their defense, I thought, really played much better than they had the first two weeks of the season. I think if they met again, I think the Bucks would have a lot better answers. Antonio Brown, obviously on the field would help them as well. So we'll see if they get there.

But I think, yeah, I think Tampa overall, you feel fine. Typically, Tom Brady as leading rusher is not a good sign. Historically. Mack Jones was the Patriots winning rusher today. Also not a good sign. Not good. Deshawn Jackson ninth career touchdown of 75 yards or more Ben-Solak.

The floor is yours to appreciate Deshawn Jackson. Yeah, I watched Miracle in the New Medal lands like 85 times just during the Bucks. I started rewatching again. Today? Yeah, and I just started re-watching all Deshawn Eagles highlights. I saw the Vic touchdown against Washington, and then I put Miracle in the New Medal that's back on.

It's just... What if Tom Coughlin's reddest faces? Yeah. You always forget that the camera cuts to him just screaming. What did I tell you? advocate punter. Just no interest in shaking Andy Reid's hand at all. Just finding the punter and yelling at him.

But it's right. It's a guy with number six and a mullet. We'll check back in on that one. But Sean McVeigh had a quote about getting Deshaun more involved and getting him more snaps. It's on me to figure that out. And he's made this whole presentation of Matt Stafford is unlocking me. Matt Stafford is unlocking our offense. Matt Stafford is the solution to everything.

And then in that in that whole conversation, right, was, and I need to get Deshaun more involved. And you can see the connection there between bringing in Deshawn Jackson, drafting through to Atwell. They clearly had this idea for this downfield component. And what's really cool is they're already putting the layers on the layers. Deshawn's big touchdown catch was he fakes that dig on the backside and then hits the go. You couldn't even fake the dig with Goff because Gophe doesn't throw the dig.

Stafford throws the dig. So now you can run the dig and go. You know what I mean? Like it's week three and they're already on level two. Touching strays. Listen. That's going to happen a lot. Jared Gough better buckle up.

Buckle up your chin strap, buddy, because you're getting it this year. Every time there's a Stafford, a Stafford segment. I love how quickly the chemistry is developed with Cooper Cup. I think it's incredible to see how Cups come back from that injury and be so dynamic all over the field. It's wild to me this team just like doesn't need to use Robert Woods.

How? It's Robert Woods. And they just like, this is a third, fourth option. Crazy. Not only was it Matt Dodge. That was Matt Dodge's last career NFL game. He was a rookie.

He was a rookie draft pick, and that was just it for him. So there we go. All right. Also catching strays. Matt Dodge is trying to have a nice Monday morning somewhere. Sorry, buddy. All right. Let's get to our first superlative.

It's the Aaron Rogers' back award. It goes to Aaron Rogers. So the Packers just won a classic. This told me a lot about both teams. Jimmy Gropolo. I believe this scientific word for it, played like an idiot for parts of this game. And it's going to be a pretty hot button issue all week

as far as whether or not Trey Lance is ready to go. Because Ben, I don't know. If Trey Lance is ready to go, I don't know how much justification there is for keeping old Jimmy G there to throw the ball into the ground or do whatever he's doing right now. There was such a good moment where they were putting together that should have been, could have been game winning drive.

And Chris Collinsworth was like, it's just incredible. Like they draft the backup and like, you know, Jimmy's not long for the starting job, but look at the drive he's putting together. It's incredible. Da, da, da, da, da.

And then they come out of the break and Garoppolo tries to throw a pick on first and 10 inside the 30. And Collins was like, whoa. He's like, whoa, what was that? Whoa. It's like, he's been doing that all game, Christopher.

Like, you just got like, you know, like, it's nice they're moving the ball down the field. But yeah, Jimmy is, so he's, he just is what he is. We just know. Like everything Jimmy just did in this game where he scored 28 points against the Packers is what he's already done in the Shanahan

offense multiple times and they drafted a quarterback at number three because you can be okay with this but it's not a winning formula over the course of a season. So yeah, once Lance is ready, man, it's time because you're going to get some of the boneheaded plays still, the same way with Garoppolo spiking the ball to his own feet and then pointing at it as if the ball is a receiver. But you're going to get much more explosive plays as well. Okay. So I want to get to the Is Trillance ready question a little bit later. So Garoppolo goes 20, of 40 for two touchdowns, one interception. Rogers, 23 or 33, 261. Two touchdowns, no interceptions.

Devante Adams, 132 yards, including some of the biggest catches in the game. George Kiddell tried his damnedest to win this game. Kyle Dushik also had some great plays in the passing game late. Nora, the Packers, all the way back. Well, Aaron Rogers is quoting Moneyball on television. He just said, how can you not be romantic about football, man? So I think that's all the way back. What was in is in Moneyball?

They said baseball. Yeah. Hmm. Hmm. I can, I can not be romantic about baseball pretty easily, actually. Oh, I routinely am not. Yeah. Okay.

So obviously, I don't want to overanalyze a game that obviously could have gone in so many different directions. And there's the scenario here where we're talking about the one and two Packers and, and it's, you know, crisis mode would have been, it would have been, it would have been. in the is the time to panic in Green Bay question that we asked for a bunch of other questions. That that is totally conceivable. But the Packers won. Did this teach you anything about the Niners tonight to teach you about what they need to do going forward and what they do a quarterback?

Well, if we're talking about the Traylands question, I mean, we just had this conversation about Jimmy is what he is, right? And we have enough of a sample size more than enough to know that. So does Kyle Shanahan. Right. So I'm going to trust them that if Jimmy's still playing, that's for a reason. So this loss by no means says to me, like, turn it over to Tray Lance. Clearly, after not using him in a week two, like they put them in there for a few snaps and are happy to do that, happy to have that change of pace.

I don't think that there's anything that, you know, it's just sort of a race against the clock, right? Because we know Jimmy's limitations. They're the same ones that made the Niners want to go up and be able to drive. draft Lance in the first place. And now it's just a matter of how quickly can he be ready to the point where he's an actual on the field

snap in, snap out upgrade. Because if he's not playing more, I trust that that's the right decision. Right? Like there's probably some infrastructures in the NFL where I might say like, this is ridiculous. You know, see

week one Chicago Bears entries under. but this one, I'm going to assume that this is just sort of their best effort, right? And getting got by Aaron Rogers, marching down the field for a game-winning drive, it's not that there's no shame in that, but there are certainly, it's not exactly something that's never happened to a worthy opponent before. So I don't really think that losing this game sort of changes the trajectory of when they turn it over to Lanz.

Ben, one thing I like doing is asking really broad questions that you weren't prepared for. Just pigeonhole you to a take that you probably don't want to make. Rank the NFC contenders for me right now. After a big, big day of NFC contention jockeying, I guess you could say. Your top tier is, I think, box rams, the two teams that we saw play. I think then the next tier down is Green Bay, Seattle. Or no, not Seattle.

Get them out of there. It's probably... Get them out of there. It's probably... It's probably Bucks, Rams, step down in Seattle, and that's where I'm at. And then, like,

that third tier is Niners, Seahawks. Seahawks are tough to trust because the defense is all over the place. It is absurd watching this team try to field 11 players who all know what the other one is doing against NFL offenses.

Just ridiculous. And then the Niners, I don't trust the quarterback that they've got. And if they put Lance in there, I think that, like I said, they can become more explosive. But you are talking about a rookie, very limited starts in the playoffs. So to me, I think box Rams, you're two clear contenders.

And then the Packers, I saw this as a step back. Defense played better, impressed by what they were able to do in the running game against, obviously like a banged-up San Francisco backfield. But still, usually San Francisco could just run on anybody. And Green Bay is rushing defense, which really seemed like it was going to be a liability early, steadied themselves a little bit against the Lions, then steadied themselves again against a good rushing attack in San Francisco. go. So if they can lean on that,

Eric Stokes starting to play a little bit better, defense can get good down the stretch. That leaves them still a contender for me. So do you think the Rams are the best team the NFC right now? They have the win against the Bucks. I would say, like, if they play that 100 times, it probably splits. Like, I don't think they're definitively ahead of the Bucks. I talked a little bit

at the top about the Bucks injuries and the secondary and hope that they can get healthier. But obviously, them coming right off the win probably it does give them a little bit of an edge. I'm still a little concerned about that past defense as well. What does Trey Lance need to do to be ready? You watch so much quarterback film. Like what is the step there?

Yeah, so your primary concern with what you saw in the preseason was an unwillingness to trigger on open receivers, right? Garapolo tonight missed open receivers. Guys nowhere near him. Mohammed's going to go die for a catch that probably should have been called back on review, right? But at least he's triggering, right? And that's what Garoppola has always been. It's been quick release, quick eyes.

I understand how it's supposed to look, and if I see it all fire. And then at times, it'll be a super tight window. Maybe we should not throw it there, and he'll still be quick to trigger. Lance, we would see pulling the ball down on open targets.

That will never fly for Shanahan, right? So you have to have confidence that when I open them up for you, you're going to be able to knock him down, right? That's, I think, the number one hurdle. I don't think the playbook's too complex for him because you can really dumb this playbook down, just run bare bones and be successful.

And I don't think the game is, is, like, too fast for him. I think there's just some indecision, there's some uncertainty in what he's seeing. Nora's point that, you know, if they're still sit in him, then we probably, there's still something in there, and we should trust that. I do agree with that up to the water's edge. I brought this up before. I don't like love Kyle Shanahan as a talent evaluator. Like, Trey Sermon, who was his third round figure running back, was the guy who got defaulted the carries tonight and didn't look too good.

Joe Williams was that third round pick beforehand, you know what I mean? I'm not the biggest Brandon Iuke fan in the world. Jalen Hurd was the second round pick. He tends to be a little bit idyllic in the talent that he brings in. And when the rubber meets the road, he's like, oh, shoot, like, we got to, like, deal with all this. You know what I mean? Right. And then he discards guys really quickly.

Yeah, right. And he gets very mad. Dante Pedis in the doghouse and Brandon Iyuk in the doghouse. And so I do think that there's a chance that the Niners are objectively better with Lance, but Shanahan doesn't want to like deal with that yet because he thinks he can get Lance like a much better place than he is whereas the reality might just be put him out there let him make his mistakes and grow with it. So I at this point, I just, the camera cuts to him after a Garapolo second and 10 sack and you're just like this guy looks like he hates his life. Like just put Lance in. Like let's just get this process started a little bit.

So to me, I think that he should be going at at this point. I don't see the utility in waiting. I completely agree. I mean, Jimmy Gropolo is clear to me that Kyle Shanahan just can't take this anymore, but doesn't seem to have many options. Nora, Packers, anything you learned about them tonight? This is a little silly, but if there were any questions about whether or not Rogers is bought in or if his mind somewhere else, I mean, that guy looks excited to be doing what he's doing.

That week one thing looks pretty weird. Yeah. Sometimes, you know when weird things often tend to happen in football? week one. Yeah. In Jacksonville. It's funny because, so James Jones is on our Tuesday show, and I really enjoy that show. It's him and Ryan Chazier and Jason Gough.

And I listened to the show the first week because I wanted specifically to hear what he had to say, because he obviously played with Rogers. He knows Rogers. James Jones broke the story of Rogers' most recent extension, all that stuff. They talk. And so I was interested to see his analysis because I wanted like, oh, what were they doing to the receivers and all that stuff. And Jim Jones, like, you know, sometimes there's games where you just roll up and you're just like, wow, we just don't have it.

This sucks. Vives are off. Yeah. The vibes are macular. And initially, I was kind of like, is that it? And then I was like, wait a second, maybe, maybe that's actually the best explanation of all. It's just like, sometimes you just get to Jacksonville and you run a couple of plays and just like, man, this is just not. I mean, the same way any of us, you know, we're good at, like, you know, media stuff.

And sometimes you're just like, oh, man, I got to grind this one out. And if you're playing another NFL team, luckily we're not when we're just running a damn blog. Thank God for that. They'll make you pay. So the week one, maybe it's just one of these weird blips on the radar. And the other thing is the whole, like, good coaching staff customer rig game plan, right? Like, I think Rogers had a quote. It might have been on McAfee's show, I can't recall, where he was like, we thought they'd do

anything but zone blitz. You know what they did? The zone blitzed a lot. They were just like, we just didn't have the answer for that. We weren't ready. You know what I mean? Yeah.

To me, like, we're getting closer and closer to that Saints game being a throwaway. I very much agree. I, like, settled in during the second half

against the Lions, played a really good game. I thought pole to pole against the Niners. Zedarius Smith, let's get him back healthy. The continued issues of like, our past the game is Devante

and occasionally Mark has ball to scaling. Those still exist. They existed last. year and like they're really good. So I think we're getting closer and closer to being able to say for both Washington and also for the bills who had their big weird one week one game. We've moved on. We've grown from this.

All right. Rogers had zero time out 37 seconds left and it won the game. Nora, talk radio question. Mahomes or Rogers in that spot? Who would you rather have? Mahomes. I just think he can do, he can do more, he can do more different things, but. Tough one.

I have a question. How matter we that Kyle Ushik scored versus how matter we that... Well, so we have a different... Right. So this also happened in the Chargers game and ended up not mattering, where the Justin Herbert called,

audibled into a pass instead of running out the clock. Anyway, what are we going to say? So it's, right, Kyle Ushik breaks a couple tackles and scores, leaving 37 seconds left on the clock. That play and the play previous, they had snapped at the ball with 12 seconds and 13 seconds. I believe in both instances on a running play clock. Or excuse me, a running game clock.

So obviously, like, number one, coaching point from Kyle Shannon should be, like, let's bring this clock down. We have all three timeouts. We have total control of the clock right now. Grapelow, veteran quarterback. Even if he's not told that, should understand that.

We have all three timeouts. Let's bring this clock down, whatever. I, some people are mad at Eustech. I don't know. If you're a fullback and you have a chance to catch a touchdown, which I know he's like already caught some before because it's got a used check, but still. Yeah, you go score it.

They blame the other guys. So I'm happy for Kyle. I'm with you. I'm with you. So this exact, not the exact same scenario, but the clock thing, less than a minute left, happened in with the chargers. And part of that was they didn't, you know, the wind is swirling, all that stuff. We saw, you know, five seconds after William scored, they missed the extra point because

of everything that was going on. So it ended up being a good decision. I think if you let, if you leave offensive players to their own devices, they will try to score touchdown. That's just how they're wired. Ben's so like your first operative. Yeah. So this is my bad award.

That was kind of a good award. It's a little bit confusing. It is the Nick Foles award for Miami Dolphins' backup quarterbacks against Las Vegas Raiders last year, Ryan Fitzpatrick, this year, Jacoby Reset. Because this is the second time that a Tua absent Miami Dolphins offense has looked oddly better than when Tua's in there. And that's a conversation that obviously.

Obviously, Miami's trying to, you know, walk on eggshells around a little bit. You know, they obviously looked at the quarterback market this past off season, walking with two as our starter. We're not going to leave Fitzpatrick in the building. We're going to let him go somewhere else. Bring in Brissette. Everybody likes Brissette, but it's okay. He's not like Fitzpatrick, right?

And early on, he wasn't. You know what I mean? The Dolphins scored 14 points early. They had the pick six. And then the Raiders went for it on a fourth down just inside their own territory. They're in the 34-yard line. Didn't get it. And then Miami gets a quick score.

They're up 14-0. And then they didn't score any points for a very long time. And probably you can imagine that coaching staff in the way they're built and said, we're going to try to sit on this ball. We're going to try to maintain this league. We're going to win with some defense. Raiders obviously a pretty good offense. They're able to get back ahead by multiple scores.

And Miami's like, right, we've got to score some points. And Will Fuller's back. And Devonte Parker's still solid. Jalen Waddle looks good as a rookie. And guess what? Jacoby Preset can hang back there a little bit. He did a great job evading pressure. Really impressive because Preset's usually a very high sack number player.

He did a good job under duress, moving around to the pocket, extending plays. And then all of a sudden that arm straining, Brissette's got himself a little can in there. He's able to hit some tight windows in the intermediate area, and he's able to push the ball down the field. I mean, he was slinging the rock a little bit. You don't get that with Tua. J.C. Jackson said it. We knew once we got two off script, we'd get a pick off him. You know what I mean?

Like, that's the book on that player. And so, well, I wouldn't go so far as to say the offense looked clearly better. That was the case with Fitzpatrick in 2020. The Dolphins got this game back. 2828 tied it up, or excuse me, 25, 25 tied it up, and then they lose 3128 in overtime. But they got this thing back because when they needed to score points down multiple scores, they had the quarterback to do it. And they don't have that guy when the starter's in.

And that's a point of concern for a Dolphins team that's now 1 and 2. They've lost the bills, 35-0 in two his absence. But then once they had a week to game plan for Brissette, they're able to hang with a solid Raiders team that's playing really well. Miami once again they're kind of back where they were they're a good team they got a lot of good pieces

they could make the playoffs quarterback's the biggest question mark and that's not where you wanted to be when you were coming into the season with the whole shit built around two the whole plan built around to it's a top spot to be in right now here's I like here's I like about this

Raiders fans will complain if they win like two games in a row they will complain endlessly that we're not talking about enough enough about them so they're three and oh they look really good Derek Carr has thrown for 1,200 yards. I believe there's only three.

Ruggs looked the best today that I've seen him in the NFL ever. Only three quarterbacks in history have thrown for more yards than first three games. And because it's the 17th game that puts Derek Carr on track for the most passing yards of all time. But what I like about it is that Raiders fans

are going to get so mad at you, Ben, for focusing on the dolphins, not the Raiders. That's what I like about that segment. They're just going to come. They're going to at you. They're coming at you, buddy. The Las Vegas Raiders are the first team in a long time.

Siciliano had the exact tweet, I don't remember the time frame, to start the season 3 and against three teams who had at least 10 wins last season. Yes. Yes. Sick. Awesome. I'm very happy. They won two of those games in overtime. Here's the thing about overtime wins. Not a consistent way to win football. And they let the dolphins all the way back in this thing when they didn't eat and so I like it. I'm not fully buying it yet. I believe since overtime was instituted the second team in history to win two or the first three games in overtime and win the third game as well. Nora, are the Raiders good? Well, let me suck up to the Raiders fans for a second because their offense has been pretty good.

Clear dividing lines here on this podcast. Go ahead. Yeah. I am your friend, Raiders fans at Ben Salak or whatever you're trying to handle it. Raider. Raider Nora. She's going to the black hole. That actually sounds kind of fun. I've never been to Vegas. But the Raiders offense has been good for a couple years now. They've gotten consistently better since John Gruden has been there. And Derek Carr has gotten consistently better since John Gruden has been there. And that's actually not, I just don't worry about that with them.

Are they necessarily going to be the chiefs? No, but they're solid. Do I think that the defense will be as good as it has been through three games through this entire season? Maybe not. But we just had yet another game. And I'm with Ben that Brissette did a pretty good job. of taking the pressure and avoiding it turning into big sack numbers.

But Gawkeh and Crosby were still really, really good in this game. Gawkeye had five pressures. Crosby had six. You're starting to get a decent enough sample size that says that this defense, it might not be great. But the difference between where they were last season and great includes a lot of space that they could occupy where it would really, really, really, really. materially help the Raiders.

So I believe in them at this point being significantly improved. And an offense that's similar to last year's group with a significantly improved defense, even if that just puts them middle of the pack defensively, that's a good team. Ben, you wrote this week on the ringer.com, where we all work, about how the Raiders defense is part of the reason

that this is happening. What did you find in your research and what do you think now? Because, I mean, I think that there's numbers out there that basically say that Derek Carr, has always been making some pretty big time throws and has had this level of play before over the past couple of years in the Gruden era,

but it's never been matched with the consistency of the side of the ball. And I'm curious what you found when you started to dig into it. Yeah, so the name in the game, right for the Raiders was a lot of offense. Defense was pretty poor. They ranked 28th in defensive DVOA last year,

which they would have been like the fifth worst defense in the last six or seven years to make the playoffs, right? So that was what was clearly a hold of the back. Gus Bradley gives them a higher floor, right? His defensive DVOA rating over the course of his career as a defense coordinator and head coach, generally better. But it's very conditional on who he has. Like when he was in Seattle with very good players, it was good.

And then when he was with the charges. Right, with Seattle, with Jacksonville, when he had, you know, like Miles Jack and Kevin Smith and Jaila Ramsey, AJ Bowie and Clayas Campbell, everybody playing outside of their minds. Good defense. That's because they're very much a lineup and play defense. They put four on the line of scrimmage,

and they rush those four. They put one deep safety and two corners outside and they play cover three. They're not here to lie to you. And so the question you ask yourself is, how good is the Raiders' defensive personnel? Because Gus Bradley's not going to elevate and he's not going to let them fall below that.

He's going to give them high, floor, low ceiling. And the Raiders' defensive personnel is good. It's fine. Corner, they're probably overachieving a little bit right now. Trayvon Mullen's playing really well. That's nice to see. Linebacker, okay, we got KJ Wright, Denzel Perriman.

They know the system. Max Crosby's leading the league in pressures. I don't know if that's going to stay up. Yen Gokway's on like a career pace. I don't know if that's going to stay up. So it's a question of how how much do you believe in this defensive personnel? I think they're good enough to be average and average is good enough to get the Raiders into the playoffs. But are they going to continue leading the league and pressures while also being last in the league and blitz rate?

No, that's going to go away. That's unsustainable. So I think they end up a league average defense. I think they end up a playoff team. Nora, next. A proletive. All right. So I'm going to start on the positive side.

I'm giving the Life Imitates Art Award for a team taking on the personality of its quarterback to the New Orleans Saints who beat the Patriots. No, no. 28 to 13. And I need to start. This is actually not going to be a point centered around James Winston, but I need to get this out of the way. James through the most Jamis touchdown I've ever seen in my entire life. Please describe it to the audience.

So he's getting tackled to the ground. Like, he has been wrapped up and is in the process of falling to the ground. And he just chucks it up into the end zone. James has no idea what is in front of him. I've watched this several times. The only thing I can conceive being in his plane of vision is just like the sky. Because it's an open air stadium. He's got to be looking up.

He has no idea who he is throwing to. As it happens, he was throwing to Marquez Callaway, who was covered very tightly in the end zone. And yet somehow catches it. for a touchdown. And it was just the most, I mean, quintessentially, James is in the sense that either the play starts and you're sure it's going to be a disaster and it works out really well, as was the case here,

or it's the opposite, right? And this, I mean, elevated the practice to an art form. And I didn't want that to be left unsaid. Beyond that, though, I think the thing that's encouraging for the Saints here is that this wasn't a James win. He was 13 of 21 for 128 yards, two touchdowns. played well, didn't have to do a whole ton. Mostly their defense, particularly the secondary, was really, really, really good here.

The score is more lopsided than it would have been if they hadn't had a pick six and another pick that was returned inside the 10. That kind of made a difference, pretty big difference in the game in two plays. But they got Marshall and Lattimore back. He was great. Malcolm Jenkins had the pick six and was fantastic. The tight ends for the Patriots just haven't been able to get anything going and that continued. Um, DeMario Davis was great. Yeah.

The Patriots were making a point to throw it deeper down the field, which is something that Mac Jones really hadn't done the first couple of weeks. Couldn't do it effectively. No. This is ultimately a better winning formula for the Saints all season long than just like, James occasionally do surprisingly amazing things. So seeing them win in a way that feels a little bit more solid, a little bit more replicable, um, I thought that was.

was a big deal for them. There's two types of no look throws. There's the Mahomes no look and the Fitzpatrick no look. And James is measuring in the Fitzpatrick style. This is the Fitzpatrick style of no look. Probably the first time a quarterback's ever thrown a touchdown and then got chastised by his head coach on the sideline. Without a doubt.

Without a doubt. So Belichick was asked about Mac Jones's interceptions. The reporter said, what did you see on those interceptions? Belichick said, quote, probably the same thing. You saw a pretty bad day. So he was 9 of 11 for 88. yards and shorter throws in the first half. And he started one of eight on downfield throws for 17 passing yards.

He, I feel like this was just a little bit of a step back. Ben, what did you see from Mac Jones? Right. As I very rudely reminded Nora last podcast, Mac Jones did not attempt to pass more than 10 yards down the field or accepted one, I think it was, right, in that we two game, which is just to say that they're very much using Mac Jones as a point card. They're using him as a facilitator, right? It's an attempt to get everything done on the chalkboard and then just

implement it on the field. It becomes difficult when defenses can really just match you up on personnel, right? Jets couldn't do it. The Saints a little bit better in defensive personnel, especially as the Jets couldn't do it? The, uh, especially as that Saints, uh, defense backfield now has gotten a little bit healthier. Uh, they're able to match up nicely.

You know what I mean? Kendrick Boren was a good day out of the slot, but outside of they can't do much. They're really struggling to get the tight ends working as well. we were kind of hoping that they'd be a deep play pass team as Mac enjoyed at Alabama with those heavy sets. They haven't really gone to unlock that yet. And so to me, this wasn't so much Mac played worse so much as it is if this is all they got out of Mac in week one and week two, just play a better defense. And it makes it a little bit hard to get it done. They're also having trouble on the line, which is surprising because part of it is that they don't have Trent Brown, but that had been a team

strength from last year and seemed like it should have been going into this year. I was frankly surprised that they had him throwing down the field a little bit more. I mean, part of it is just the game script. But that tends to be the type of thing that just like becomes a big deal in the media and then they keep doing what they're doing. He didn't really have the protection to be attempting that. And obviously it did not go very well. I was surprised that they even veered away from that like just be the point guard.

Don't try to do too much. It's okay to be boring. No, they try. They definitely tried. At the end of the day, 30 of 51. three interceptions, you know, he had some, some okay throws as the time, as the, as the day went on, but looking at his passing chart, wasn't anything special, especially deep. So, yeah, it was a bad day overall for rookies and we're going to get to that, maybe contextually a little bit. But let's get to my next superlative. And it's something I really want to talk about because this was, I think, I think this was the game of the day. I think this was the game of the day. And it was one of the plays of the season, strangely. And it was something that I've been waiting for since 2017 when I wrote a very long story about. this. It's Ravens 19, Lions 17. And there's a lot to unpack. And the Ravens should not have won this game for a number of reasons. And there's a lot of Lions fans who are really,

really upset right now. And I feel your pain. The delay of game, which should have made, so let's back up there. Justin Tucker made a 66-yard game winning fuel goal as time expired. His previous long was 61 yards. Obviously, this shadow. by a few yards, the longest field goal in history. That should not have happened. Before that play, there was a delay of game that was uncalled, so it should have been either a 71-yard field goal or Hail Mary. Before that, Lamar Jackson converted a fourth and 19 on that drive.

Classic. And this was an uneven, choppy game where the Ravens probably deserve to lose. Hollywood Brown had some more strange plays. He had just a really, really, really bad drop that could have been a touchdown. this comes down to Justin Tucker's value. This comes down to the Ravens understanding end-of-game situations and knowing that they've had a guy who since he's been there has wanted to kick 70-yard field goals.

And he's tried. He's tried. In some situations, he's tried. But it's never been like this. And I went to Baltimore four years ago because he had talked about this. And they basically had made it a mission to make the longest field goal in the history of football. And I met with not only Justin, but the punter and the holder and the and the long snapper and the special teams coach and all these guys.

And this was an art for them. And they knew exactly the scenario where it would have happened and would need to be warmer than colder. So it couldn't have been later in the season. It would have to be end of game. And you would have to have something in place to guard against the return. That was always what they were nervous about, which is funny because Matt Prater today also tried the longest little goal in history.

And it became the longest touchdown in history and the Jaguars ran it back in the Cardinals Jaguars game. But this was amazing. This was a game changer. Ben Solac, you wrote on the ringer.com today that Justin Tucker may be better football than Patrick Mahomes is.

What'd you find? Yeah. Why not? Well, it was just great because next gen stats put out a graphic showing Justin Tucker's field goal percentage over expectation,

which is just shout out next gen stats for tracking this. And his is like, Tucker's is like 18%. You know what I mean? Like his, for the attempts, the kicks that he attempts,

he attempts is 18% better chance of hitting them. than the average kicker. And Mahomes is CPOE. Completion percentage of expectation is like four. And that doesn't matter because, like, he's attempting such difficult throws that it's like stupid.

It's not real. But I was like, oh, like this over expectation infographic would suggest that Justin Tucker is four times better, yada, yada, yada, yada.

So then I just wrote an idiot piece for fun and gave it to Riley and he let me put it up. But it's a reminder that... God bless the internet. It's a reminder that we see a quarterback take 45 dropbacks. We see 32 different quarterbacks do it. and it gives us a paradigm for saying that quarterback is breaking the world in a way that no other quarterbacks are. Kickers, we see occasionally. And usually we get up to go get chips because we

wanted it to be a touchdown and it wasn't. And it's easy to forget how Tucker's bending space and time the same way Mahomes is. Not the same way, but the same way in the sense that what he does at his peak level is so beyond that which other people are doing at the peak level that it's crazy. Like, it's fourth and 19. The Ravens have a point one percent. chance to win this game according to ESPN. They pick up the fourth and 19, but Sammy Watkins like forgets to go out of bounds. And so they're in like a scramble drill to go get this ball snapped at the lion's 48 yard line. And once they spike it, like, okay, we're in fuel rage. That's on that. That's that. That's, no other team has that luxury. And it's shout out to

Justin Tucker because he gives them that and he gave them that win. It was also an insane Lamar game too. So they have Lamar and Justin Tucker. They're never going to lose. There's something we need to talk about here. Okay. There's a lot we need to talk about. Okay. We need to talk about. Okay. We need to talk about the lion's piece in this guys because because the lions are never going to win a game but kevin you mentioned that um jess and tucker's prior longest kick was was 61 yards that was in 2013 against the lions all at ford field to beat them yeah justin tucker also broke the the um prior record of 63 yards which was by tom dempsey in 1970 to beat the lions I believe by the same score,

but I'm not mistaken. Oh, wow. I believe that. I mean, first of all, every game was 19 to 17 and 1970. That was a shootout back then. That was like Ram's Chiefs in 1970. Just ending on a long field.

I mean, that had to have been pretty exciting. I feel like the balls were all lumpy then, too. Like that... He also had a, this is, he also had a deformed foot. You're familiar with Mr. Tom Dempsey.

Yeah? Special cleat. Oh, yeah. Special cleat. Yeah. Special cleat. Special cleat. Yeah.

So, I mean, it was a different time back then. It was a different time back then. All right. Shout out Tom Dempsey. The lions are cursed. The Vikings got in, have beef with the ghost that makes you miss game winning field goals. The lions have beef with the ghost that has game winning field goals go against you.

Like, it's just a tough scene. So I'm reading, I was reading the quotes from Justin about this, this quest. And it was really funny because there's a tension over the whole, the whole thing, which is that Tucker really wanted to do this and he was waiting for this moment because his special teams coach is basically just like, we're not going to do this because I think it's cool. It has to be there's only one situation.

And this was a situation. And Tucker actually said in the interview, I was actually rereading it tonight, he said, you know, I don't care where the kicks are from as long as we're helping them win. As long as I'm helping the team win. But, he said,

but I think the possibility that I can do this gives us an advantage. And so that I think this is like, this is such a cool special teams dork thing for them. Harbaugh was special teams coach. I mean, the only person who would have enjoyed this more is Bill Belichick. And it's just a shame that he's had to watch Mack Jones instead today. He's going to watch it somewhere. He's going to enjoy it.

He's going to see a little crow hop be like, I always knew. That's what you need it for that extra power. It's like when you tell yourself, you're not going to like scroll through an X's Instagram or like someone you envy his Instagram page. And then, like, in the dead of night, you're like, all right, I'm going to see what they're up to. I don't have this again. Thanks, Ben. Sorry.

I was going to laugh for you. I'm going to let that hang out there. I'm going to let that hang there for a while. Our listeners will understand. Are either of you guys, because, let's be honest, the Ravens should not have won this game for, like, a number of reasons. There were not a lot of paths to Ravens victories. They almost lost the Lions today. Either of you guys worried about what you saw.

I mean, it's simply the Ravens, the need to solve wide receiver was clear. They spent a first and a third at the position in the draft, and they brought in a free agent and Sammy Watkins. Watkins is continuing to be what Watkins has always been, which is like a good weapon, but he's inconsistent, he's unreliable. They need to get Bateman back on the field. Tyler Wallace hasn't really gotten snaps. Their third round pick because Mark Andrews struggles massively with drops, especially

in high leverage situations, and Markey's Brown struggles massively with drops in high leverage situations. And then Brown's also, he's not like a as much of a yak getter as you'd hope because he's so diminutive of a frame. And so they knew they needed to address wide receiver. And the main issue, like I said, it was a crazy Lamar game. Lamar was done dudes up. And he just could not buy a catch from Watkins from Brown or from Andrews. Like they, their past catcher situation is as bad as anybody else is in the league. They're barely holding on a two and one. They need Bainment to be back and be good like tomorrow. I was going to say, you know, normally we wouldn't say, well, they just beat the chiefs six days ago.

There was no time to panic. But then I remember that the chiefs were also washed. So maybe this whole thing is a house of cards. Maybe the Broncos are the only good team and let's get to them. Yeah, this is my good award, which is the we haven't beaten a team with a win yet award, which I just find. Who could that possibly go to? I just think that's awesome.

I think it's so cool that the Broncos are 3 and O. And they face the O and 3 Giants who just lost to the Falcons. It's like the old Bill Snyder, Kansas State teams. You just played a bunch of Division 1 in Sacramento State. Listen, we're 3-0. DVOA, we look awesome. Our defense is averaging like

nine points surrender to game or something. So they beat the Giants in week one, Giants are I won three. They beat the Jags in week two, Jagsler hour in three. And then in their home opener, they shut up the Jets and they won 26 to nothing.

And the thing, the reason why I want to put them here in the good column, and it's a little tongue-in-cheek, obviously, because as I say, they haven't beaten anyone with a winning record. But the reason I want to put them here

is because I really like what I see on film. Teddy's aggressive. he's willing to push the ball down the field. That offensive line, you know, had some young players take a step forward in Dalton Reisner and get a Bowles. You wanted to check and see if that was going to continue to be the case. That level of play was going to stay.

And it does. Defense looks ferocious. I mean, the Bradley Chub absence is going to hurt, but Von Miller looks fully back. That's delightful. The corner depth is great. Patrick Certain looks amazing. On film, everything's great. I believe this Broncos team has some teeth.

I just, did you just beat three, oh, and three teams? And so I don't know how far I'm willing to go. go on that. You know what I mean? They get the Ravens and they get them at home, which is great because mile high in September is usually a really big advantage in terms of your conditioning and your adjustment to the thin air and so on and so forth. So they get a Ravens team at home, which has

some very clear weaknesses. Cortland Sutton looks like he's coming back along nicely. Tim Patrick's playing well so that the Jerry Judy absence shouldn't be too limiting. They should be able to throw the ball on the Ravens. They should be able to pour some points on the Ravens. I think they have a chance to beat the Ravens right now. They opened as a minus one, so it's a small favorite.

I think they'll close right around to pick them. beat them and we'll start treating you seriously because you do have to beat a team that's won a game in order to get that treatment. But I will say I generally love what I'm seeing on film from the Broncos. It's just they need an actual opponent. They need someone who's going to punch back and they haven't gotten that yet. And that's going to be an important team for them to respond to. So Baltimore comes in. I think Baltimore wins it. But even if the Broncos lose a tight game, they'll add a lot to their legitimacy. So shout out to them, you know, handling business against the bad team. Shout out against the Jets. They were fully dominant. That's awesome.

But now comes rubber hit in the road when the Ravens come to down. Nora, do you want to talk about the Broncos maybe being good? Do you want to talk about the Jets being just an absolute disaster? I don't want to talk it. The Jets thing is sad. You could pass on just the whole game. Quinn and Williams? Quinn and Williams.

Quinn and looks awesome. I love Quinn and Williams. I could name three other Jets defenders, but Quinnin looks great. Ben, we've been doing this for a year. Like, Quinn and Williams is just not enough to turn. this frown upside down. It is, I mean, I guess you can say it, Ben. You don't understand the Jets fans in our orbit, in our lives who don't want anything to do

with this team. They assume the worst. My mom is a Jets fan, so I grew up with it. They're not only assuming the worst, they're getting the worst. I mean, I do have a question for you guys. Do you think Zach Wilson took the coaching to heart and does this qualify as a boring game? A boring game? Uh, yeah.

I think that's a more boring game. I would like to point this out. So ESPN put out a stat after the game that the Jets had three first half points in their first three games at Z. So three total points. And that just ties the franchise record. It's so bad.

What are we doing here, guys? You think you'd have total ownership of that record if you score three points to three games. It's worse than the rookie quarterbacks who threw four interceptions right off the bat. It's not good. Do you see the Greg Van Rotter quote as well? I didn't know.

He's one of the offensive alignment for the Jets. On the pressure, Zach Wilson faced today, quote, he's got to learn, this is the NFL, you've got to get the ball out, you can't hold onto it and try to make a play and throw it deep down field. And we've got to protect him better. It starts with us up front.

Not wrong. Not wrong. That sentence sure didn't start with you up front, Greg. Not incorrect in terms of the fact. The message, however, feels distinct. It feels like this is worth mentioning that I believe, I saw a headline that John Mera apparently like kicked a trash can over today. I threw that in the chat.

Thanks for clicking on it. The state of New York football is not good. Giants haven't had a winning record since 2015, I think. Let's ask largely. The Giants, they were good in 2016. Remember? Remember that? Was it 2016?

is a McAdoe Renaissance. So I, Nora, asked Alex Smith about that stat on Tuesday because remember the stat was that the top five picks, the four. Yeah, it's slow newsday. Yeah, guys who had zero touchdowns and four interceptions, the last four,

three of them were Jets and Alex Smith. So I was like, Alex, give me some advice on how to bounce back from that because he obviously he had the best career of any of those guys, obviously, probably because he didn't play for the Jets. But I expect him to be like, you know what?

just like, pull your head down, go through it, don't read the media. Instead, he was like, yeah, that was one of the worst nights in my life. It took me years to get over it. I still haven't gotten over it. Still think about it all the time. And then he got into a bit about how he wishes he had stayed in school longer. So that might be what's going through Zach Wilson's mind and not necessarily like, we're going to grind this out.

I mean, I actually expected a little, some, Alex Smith is an amazing analyst. I'm glad he gave me that honesty. But that's actually closer to what's going through any rookie's mind. when they struggle rather than just like, you know, get knocked down 20 times, get up 21. Like that, that's actually like harder to do than like, oh my God, I wish I was not in a situation. We take a reader question. Would you rather play quarterback right now for the Bears of the Jets? And I say pass.

I have thoughts about the Bears game plan, but that's Stevens thing and I won't touch it. Oh, wow. Tough one. Tough one for you, buddy. Good thing you have a midweek podcast. Yeah, I'm very happy to bite my tongue for like four. 48 hours and then. Nora, quickly, are the Broncos any good?

They're decent. I think they're decent. I think this is like exactly. I mean, if it's, if they're not playing the Jets, the score is different, right? But Teddy, only five passes when 10 plus yards down the field,

um, but still really efficient. 12 of his 19 completions were for first downs. That's like a very Teddy Bridgewater situation. Yep. I think they're a good team. I don't think that they're winning the Super Bowl, but I think they're a good team.

So the Alex Smith interview. It's on my Twitter. It's on Slowner's day. It was good. He's really. good. He turns out he's a delightful person and he should be on every television show. All right, Nora, last affirmative. All right. So this is my not so happy one. I'm calling it on the bright side. It's good if you have Najee Harris in a PPR League award. It goes to the Pittsburgh Steelers,

who I have some worries about because to me, so they lose to the Bengals 24 to 10. They're one and two. And they just look like an offense that they don't have another pitch to throw. So Roth Berger, he finishes 38 to 58 for 318 yards, a touchdown, two interceptions. He's getting the ball out in 2.28 seconds. 32 of the 38 completions were within 10 yards. So everything is just, I mean, he can't go down field. And we've known this, but it's, it is rising to such a level where I just don't know what they do to try to fix it. And here is the moment that sort of represented this better than anything that I've ever seen. So they have a fourth and ten in the red zone.

And Ben throws a swing pass to Harris that gets blown up. Tomlin's asked about it after the game. And he says, we had, quote, we had fired all of our bullets at that juncture in terms of some of our play selection. Right. That doesn't surprise me at all. they don't have anything in the book. They don't have anything in the book to do. They don't have anything else that they can go to.

And so the thing that I'm curious about to you guys, and I mean this genuinely. I'm not trying to be snarky here. The situation is that their backups are Mason Rudolph and Dwayne Haskins. Right? So my big picture point here is I just don't know what you do to fix this. What backup quarterback? Like what is the line where you would feel like,

okay, bench Ben. Like the other guy is probably going to be better. So the problem in my mind is not necessarily going all in on Ben Rothsburg. We've seen, we've seen franchises do this in the past and it's fine. The problem, part of the phrase all in, is that it means you have no plan beyond it.

And not having nothing, and I think that the Mink of Fitzpatrick trade year, when they won with Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges, and they grind it out a really good season. I think impressed everybody as far as the culture goes, as far as Mike Tomlin goes, as far as the defense goes, all of that stuff. But they may be learned the wrong lessons from it. They actually need a good quarterback.

I'm sorry that Pittsburgh Stewart's team seem to be the only team that doesn't understand this. Please have a plan beyond a quarterback who has ice packs on every limb as much as he possibly can. Like, we knew he was done. There was a Jason Lock and Forer report on Sunday morning that said, oh, well, you know what? Steelers are starting to realize might be the end for Ben Rompisberger. Did the Steelers facility just get internet on Saturday? Did they fight the game pass? Were they waiting for the game pass for the All 22?

Did they not have it? They didn't see any tape. They were just waiting around. It's so glitchy now. I guess that's fair. They're just hitting refresh. Is that what we're doing here? Like, I just don't understand how an entire organization can have their heads.

in the sand like this and not get a backup. So I just think that they're stuck now. I mean, they're not going to go out and try to get Philip Rivers out of retirement. He told Sam Farmer before the season that he would come back if it was the right situation. Not anything. This is the right situation. Ben is a big force in that organization.

And Ben's done a lot of good things. I'm not here to underrate Ben Rothesburg. He has done very, very good things to our franchise. And things can get way worse after him. But right now, they've got a defense that, in theory, when everybody's healthy, can win games. And they don't have a quarterback who can. They don't have an officer coordinator who gels at all. Like, I'm not even sure Ben Rothsberger has even met Matt Canada at this point.

Ben, what do you think? I always, whenever we talk about Rothersberger, I always think you're tossing to me. But you never are. You're just saying Ben because you're talking about Rothesburger. Yeah, I'm talking about the guy, the hugely famous quarterback. It throws me off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your knees work.

Yeah. Actually, I got a bad left knee, but it's not. I go over to that now. You do? Yeah. The thing with Rothesburger in Pittsburgh is it's such a, it's, it's like the exemplar of when we say like you either have a quarterback or you don't. And the way, if you don't have a quarterback, it just drastically limits what you can do

offensively. Like, I don't want to like unnecessarily pick on the Vikings, but like we always talk about Kurt Cousins is this kind of like middle tier quarterback that like is fine and analytically looks good, but like he just limits what you can do on offense. It's hard to see because like they put up 35 points sometimes. like the offense works and whatever. With Rafflesberger, it's very clear, like that you're just so limited in terms of what he can do, where he can get the ball and how he wants to get it there, that offense is fake.

It doesn't exist. There's just no way to actually move the ball down the field. You get to fourth and ten, you're like, all right, we've called all seven plays that we have 18 times. It's week three, by the way. Like, yes, there's a limited number of plays that you like in that situation, but in a normal functioning offense with a normal functioning quarterback, like you're not running into this situation in week three. Yeah, and so when you have that guy who like has been good enough lately to win some games and you have a good defense, but he's not, he's actually, he's not the guy. He's clearly not like the dude. Well, then you're only spending a third round pick on Mason Rudolph and you're only bringing in an ex first round pick and Dwayne Haskins. And you're not doing the necessary things to Kevin, as you say, make the plan B to bring along the next stage, right? That's why like when the Niners traded up for Lance with Gropolo in hand, we were like, holy smokes. Like they're making it very clear. Like they are moving forward to plan B.

Right. You also limit your options if you go all in in one year. Like, are there where they're going to pick Sam Howell 19th next year and they're going to, right, they're going to suck with him. Like I, that's it. The more years you look and evaluate the quarterback position, I mean, like, we all make fun of the Eagles, but they're evaluating in the quarterback position all the time. And like everybody kind of, it's become a meme a little bit, but they're thinking about it. Like, Mahomes was drafted when Alex Smith was a pretty entrenched starter. Remember that? And so I just think that the more, you know, It's funny, but not to quote Thomas Dimitrov was on the pod last week,

but what I remember him saying, that one of the reasons you sign a quarterback like Matt Ryan to an extension is because when you don't have a quarterback in the building and it's uncertainty about a quarterback, you feel it in the building because everyone's like, am I going to lose my job in like six months because you don't have a quarterback? And I think that the only thing worse than not having a quarterback is knowing that for the next 13 weeks,

you're committed to a bad quarterback. And there's nothing you can do. It's why we call it that. And that Ben Rothesberger is too big defense. fail. No, you know, shots at his physique. But, Nashi Harris with 103. Yeah.

We're going to have positivity. PPR. Hey, the Bengals are back. Two and one. A little buzz. Bangles process. The main thing that you notice there is T.J. Watts gone. And the Steelers get no sacks and no pressures on a

team that gives up a lot of sacks and a lot of pressures. And this is kind of going back to that Bill's game. And Oh, like defensively they dominated. Like, holy smokes, the Steelers can just ride this defense forever. That was a custom rig plan. That was,

we've had three months to plan for the bills. Now, you lose your star player and you had some corner guys depart, you know what I mean? You're a little bit, you know, you brought in Joe Schoberts

to try to short up linebacker, you know what I mean? Like, they're not as complete of a defense as week one told us. You lose Watt and you just don't have any pitches left. Like, that's really, really tough. So hopefully Watt gets back and healthy. He looks unbelievable this year.

But the Steelers defense, good? Not carry that offense forever. good. Jamar Chase can definitely catch. Yes, that's true. Turns out the preseason narratives are wrong on him. I had boots on the ground in Cincinnati. I saw this whole thing coming. Ben, you have to leave.

Stephen Ruiz is coming on. Talk about Justin Fields. You have 10 seconds to give us your bear's take, and then you can expand on him. Thank you, Kevin. See you Friday. How are you going, guys? Bye, Ben. Bye, Nora. All right, now it's time for Ruiz's rips. A little backstory here.

When I came up with this segment, when we were putting together the show for this year, literally, and everybody who was around then can attest to this, literally I was like, you know, I think that the most important thing is to have Stephen just lock in on one thing because what happens when Justin Fields makes his first start in week three and something else is a bigger deal, and we're just going to have him locking on Justin Fields.

I had no idea that was literally going to become the 100% truth. It's exactly what happened. It's week three. Ruiz is here to lock in on Justin Fields. My hypothetical scenario to justify the segment has come true. And it was bad. It was a bad performance by Justin Fields. That part I did not see.

Stephen Ruiz. Give us a rip. You're a visionary. You know it was not a visionary. Matt Nagy. Not a visionary. I was solid. I was like before I came on to the pod,

I spent the last 10 minutes trying to convince myself not to say something horrible about Matt Nag. Like, I don't want to say anything that's going to get me fired. Don't get sued. Don't get sued. Right. I don't want to get sued. Yeah.

My take is that Matt Nagy should be fine by the NFL. That's the- specific offense. All of them. You heard of them. Yeah. All of them. Well, no, no, no.

No, I want you to play this out for me. Like, what is this like a class action thing among fans? where having been subjected to the bear's offense. Conduct, conduct detrimental to the league. To football. To football. To Justin Fields' life, his safety. No, but let me explain why.

And I feel like the last sack, he got sack nine times, lost 67 yards. Yep. His 29 dropbacks produced one net yard, one. Yep. And I think the last sack like sums up the game. and the game plan and why it was bad by Nagy. He, so he calls a five-step drop from the gun, which, you know, when you take a five-step drop from the gun, you're going to be back like 11 yards.

So basically you're asking Jason Peters to block Miles Garrett. It's basically a race to the quarterback, a race to the spot. Miles, he didn't even get a hand on him. And Miles Garrett just goes around him and sacks him. And it happened over and over and over again. Like you're relying on Jason Peters. You're keeping him on an island, not giving him a lot of help. A lot of five-man pass protection.

calls. Not a lot of movement passes, not a lot of bootlegs, not a lot of runs, even though it was 13 to 3 going into the fourth quarter. So it wasn't like some crazy blowout, although it did feel like it. But David Montgomery got 10 touches. He was the only running back that touched the ball. He got 10 carries. Like, there was no tactics to help fields out. They didn't try to make it easy on them. They try to make it as hard as possible. They ran the Andy Dalton offense, which is an indictment of the game plan to me. Why are you running the same offense for Justin Fields that you run for Andy Dalton? So there's a lot to get to. We got a listener question

that I quite liked. I think the answer is no, but I'll just throw it out here. It's from that. You have the world's top 100 Madden players calling players plays for the Bears today. What percentage of them get more yards than Matt Nagy? Uh, 37. All right. So knowing what Fields does well, what changes need to be made for next week? I think they need to do what they did for Mitch late last year.

It was like in December, he finally realized like, oh, maybe if I run like this Shanahan style of offense, a lot of play action, a lot of handing the ball off. If I run that for Mitch, he doesn't have to think too much. He could just make throws like it's going to make his job easier. I think you have to do that with field. and not because he has limitations in that regard, although he does hold onto the ball a fair amount. But your offensive line stinks. You can't block anybody.

Like I said, he holds onto the ball a little bit. Like you're asking for him to get hit and hit and hit. And that's what happened. Obviously, they're not going to play Miles Garrett and Genevian Clowny every week. But it's not going to get much better, the pass protection. So I think the best way to slow down the pass rush, if you don't have an offensive line, is call out of play action and run the ball a lot.

that's the only way I think it works. Miles Garrett set the Brown's record with four and a half sacks today. Not good. Now, let's kind of divorce fields from the Negey play calling and some of the mistakes around him. This was not a perfect game by him by any means. What specific mistakes did he make just in a vacuum? He only got a chance to throw the ball 20 times

and it was all short stuff. Like he wasn't pushing it downfield. But I think it was like holding the ball too long and scrambling and trying to make plays that weren't there. But honestly, I don't think he played poorly from like a decision standpoint or even like an accuracy standpoint. He just didn't have a chance. Like no quarterback is surviving that or playing well. It looked like Mahomes in the Super Bowl. Obviously Fields isn't Mahomes.

And he can't throw 30-yard passes while he's like parallel to the ground. but I just don't see how any quarterback wins like that. And we saw like worst rookie performances. Even this, like, Zach Wilson's game was way worse than what Fields did, in my opinion. So I don't think it was that bad for Fields. All of the rookie quarterbacks are winless,

except Mac who beat another rookie. And they threw like seven combined interceptions today. I feel like these guys are going to throw, Mac has three and I think he has the least amount of interceptions. Yeah, he had three today, yeah. Good Lord. This is not good. Are these guys, is this just a bad, you know, bad situation these guys are going into?

I mean, obviously, Belichick is, that's stable infrastructure normally. But like, could you put your finger on this at all, Stephen, about why these guys have been this bad? They're in crappy situations, honestly. Like, Fields doesn't have a chance. Wilson doesn't have a chance. Mack Jones has, like you said, a good coaching staff, but it's not like the Patriots offense is built for a quarterback like him, one. and it wasn't good for the quarterbacks.

Like Cam New and obviously struggled Tom Brady the year before that. Tom Brady looked washed because the offense was so bad around him. So even Mac who gets the coach and stuff. I mean, Mac hadn't thrown a pick when he was averaging, you know, the death of target was like 4.5 and then 6.7 or something. And then this game when they have him try to throw it down the field against a better secondary, then it changes. Right?

So it's just, I mean, to your point, when these guys, or in situations that are not ideal either based on what teams that they're a part of or who they're facing, it's happening across the board. Stephen, our boss, Bill Simmons had, Josh McDaniels having an F-minus minus season so far this year. You concur.

I don't want to put it on McDaniels. Like, I thought last year he did the most that he could with that roster. And I think it's kind of the same thing this time around. I just don't think he has the horses to run the type of offense you need to run with Mack Jones. Like, you don't have the receivers.

to do it. I tend to agree. You have 30 seconds strand up Ben Ralthusberger. All right. Ben Rathesberger is one of the five worst quarterbacks in the NFL right now. He is the problem. He is the whole problem. Everything about the team, I know the offensive line isn't good. He makes it worse. I know the receivers drop a lot of passes. He makes them worse. The running game is bad. And it's probably because he doesn't want to be under center. And that's why the play action is also bad.

Like he is holding this team back. They need to, like, they should bench him. I'm going to come out and say it. Play Dwayne Haskins. Stephen, can I ask you. Okay. Dwayne Haskins can be your answer if that is really your answer. But can you name me one other backup quarterback, like league-wide,

who you would bench Ben Rothensburg for? Like, what's the line? Uh, like I feel like Andy Dalton, even though he's not a backup, is an upgrade. over Ben Rathesberger in 2021. It's a tough scene. Am I wrong, though? Did you see the one pass where he just fell down?

He wasn't pressured at all. He's an old man. That's what they do. It's like we're at the point where when Ben falls, I'm like concerned a little bit. Like he should have a life alert. It does, you expect it to sound like an old creaking redwood falling in the forest?

Oh, no. Oh no. Life alert Rathesberger. Oh, God. this is terrible. You're almost 30, Stephen. You'll get there, buddy. I don't know what wants to.

Why we don't want to watch this? Like, Ben, just hanging up. You've won two rings. He didn't want to. He held them hostage. And now we have to watch it. He's making like $30 million a year. And the thing is like five years ago,

he always like hinted at retirement. He's like, oh, maybe I'll hang it up. Like, no, now. No, no. He was like, maybe I don't have it anymore. And then he would just throw four touchdowns the next week and just limp around throwing darts. And then now he doesn't do that.

And then when they extend T.J. Watt, he would say things like, this is why I restructured my contract was to free up. Dude, what a selfless guy. So you wouldn't get cut. What's his cap hit this year? Kirk Cousins and Russell Wilson played today. And they were the two highest contracts in the league, or two highest cap hits in a league today.

And it showed that two great quarterbacks. worth every single penny. Ben Rothesberger's cap hit is $26 million. Oh, that was him taking a pay cut? Yeah, they did the restructure, gosh, did the restructure take $9 million off the cap? It's not great. He's the sixth highest paid quarterback in the NFL.

Gropolo makes more. Matt Ryan makes more. Listen, quarterback contracts are all bad. But this one's particularly bad. But have you noticed that he stopped hinting at retirement? Because if he did it today, everyone would be like, yes, do it. Please do it. Like, we're not going to.

Wouldn't it be funny if he tried to come back? Next year? Yeah. Wouldn't it be funny if he was just like, I'm all in. I'm in the best shape of my life. I'm just, I'm ready to rock in 2022. He said that during training camp. Yes, it would.

Well, no, I know. I know. I know what he was doing. Stephen? No. He's lying. He's not in the best. shape of his life.

He was lying to the people. It was a lie. It was a huge lie. It was a huge lie. It was a huge, huge lie that he was in the best shape of his life. This explains everything. Yeah. So, all right, anything else on Justin Fields do you miss, bud?

No, but I really don't think it was his, he didn't have a chance. And I don't even think he played poorly. I wouldn't put any of it on him. It's all the coaching staff. Any of it? No, honestly. Like, I couldn't find a play where I was like, that was a bad play, like a bad throw or bad decision.

Like he shouldn't have done that. But there was like five plays that you could actually evaluate. May I contribute the Matt Nagy postgame quote of you almost can't even make it up? It's that bad. Like you shouldn't be saying that if you're the coach, by the way. Like it's a great, it's a great quote. But you're in charge of it. There also was a camera angle that got Andy Dalton mouthing or I guess he would have been saying it out loud.

But it looked like he was mouthing it. you could just see him on the camera going, the offense just isn't working from the sideline. Yeah, that could have been the whole 13 reasons-wise. 13 reasons why could have just been the offense not working. You know what? I'm all I want, this is the bar I want the Bears to clear for the rest of the year.

I want a segment that doesn't just end with all of us sighing and not knowing where to go from here because we're talking about the Bears. And we're not going to get there. We're not going to get there in 17 weeks. in two weeks. I'm going to be clamoring for Andy Dalton. Yeah, for the other team.

All sorts of people are good on the other side. Okay, well, you wanted something ever been to sigh about the bears. And I gave me. Yeah, you started naming people who don't play for the bears. That's an easy game to play. Justin Herbert? My house care. It's looking up for the bears.

Justin Herbert had a great game. I went to a Jason Isbell concert last time. I enjoyed that. You see, you could do this all day. Anything outside. My grandma turned 90. Happy birthday. What's her name?

Barbara. Barbara, happy birthday, Barbara. But see, all of these things exist outside of the Bears universe. That's fine. Actually, my grandmother's from Barrington, Illinois. So she's probably pretty upset about it. Do you think if Barbara called the place today,

they would have more than one net passing yard? Oh, yeah. She would have called at least one boot action. Well, I actually think. So, like, if you put in someone who doesn't know about playing, let's not go to down far on this path, Justin Fields would just call his own place. Yeah, that would be better.

If it was just gibberish, right? So it might end up being a net win. All right, we've ended on what happens if Nora's nine-year-old grandma Barbara is calling the plays. So that means we've reached the end of Ruiz's rips. Thank you, buddy. See you next week. Can't wait.

Happy birthday, Grandma. We don't have time for hurry up tonight. We'll get to the games. Any team we miss tonight, we'll get to new week. There's a lot going on. And we've also shouted out the bills. Josh Allen had the amazing game. They're all the way back.

and our reader question will focus on the Cionics. St. Joe is the current version of Pete Carroll, a bad head coach. We have also a number of questions about firing Pete Carroll, about firing the defensive staff in mass. We have a lot, I would say, aside from Matt Nagy, where the questions were answered in Ruiz's razors,

I would say that mad Seahawks fans asking questions here about how to fix this would be number one. Nora, you have the floor. Help me. So, the answer in my heart is no. I will say I'm struggling for data points to back this up. I mean, you know, Pete Carroll is a very accomplished NFL head coach. Ultimately, the Seahawks have been a good team for a long time. They have a solid infrastructure.

They have, you know, the most valuable asset in Russell Wilson. things haven't been great, but I just like his attitude. I feel like I would play hard for Pete Carroll if you were my coach. Okay. That's a reason. That's a reason. Okay. I'm a Pete Carroll defender.

So this question is like very hard for me. Sure. Okay. So the Vikings, the Vikings beat the Seahawks 30 to 17. The Vikings played a very good game. Kirk had 323 yards. Kirk Cousins played a very good game.

Three touchdowns, no interception. Justin Jefferson 118 yards. This is, they were on the verge of a law season. And I think that there were a couple of teams had controversies in training camp where it looked like things are going off the rails. And then if you start 0 and 3, you're off the rails. You're not just a team.

It seems like you're off the rails. You're a team that's off the rails. The Vikings avoided that today. The Seahawks are also one and two. In a division that has the Rams who look like they might be the NFC's best team right now. in a division where the Niners are still really good, and in an division where the Cardinals,

and this is the math problem we talk about all the time, they're three and O, and I don't care if they're better than the Seahawks right now, they're three and O. And at some point, you have to win more games than to make the playoffs. So I think that Pete Carroll is not a bad coach. I think that they have the talent to win. I think that the, as Ben alluded to earlier in this podcast,

the defense right now just has no idea what it's doing. Well, and a couple players on the, team gave comments that basically were like, we were outschemed on defense, which I, you know, okay. Do you assign that to Ken Norton? Do you sign that to Pete Carroll? Like, I don't know. Has any team over the past decade said post game, we were out schemed more than the Seattle

Seahawks? It's all they do. That's all they do. Absolutely. They lose games and then they, they, someone turns out on a tape recorder and they go, well, you know, I feel like we could have, we could have had a little better. We were out scheme today. I feel like we could have done a little bit more.

I mean, it's the same. The Seahawks been playing the same game for nine years. The fans just get mad at wins and then happy at losses, except this one. And then they just complain about getting out-schemed. And I don't know. Pete Carroll is a good coach. And he makes dumb mistakes sometimes. And I understand.

I mean, we have a lot of Seahawks fans in our lives. Mina Kimes has talked about this. Danny Kelly has talked about this. And I think that you have to understand that Pete Carroll, is not a good kind of modern football coach. He's not Brandon Staley. He's not Sean McVeigh, but he is a good football coach.

Maybe he's not the type of coach that we necessarily understand why they're good because we subscribe to certain metrics or whatever. Like, this is bigger than our small brains comprehending the modern game. I like Pete Carroll. I think he's going to be fine. That's my take. Pete Carroll might not be the guy that I would want to, you know,

get everything schemed up exactly how you want it, incorporate a new offensive coordinator, modernize things on defense, get the most out of your personnel. However, he is the guy who when Russell Wilson was unhappy was able to take that and go, hey, we're going to get you Gabe Jackson.

Is that going to be okay? And then it was fine. I just want him to win games. We're not going to hire him to host the Ringer gambling show. I just want him to win. That's what he's doing. Yeah, they win games. All right.

Yeah, they've won one game this year. That's the problem. Be it, Carol's a good coach. They'll win. All right, next up with the Morg NFL show, feed this Tuesday is our players podcast. I just talked about earlier in the podcast, Ryan Shazier, James Jones, and New Ringer podcast host of the full go, Jason Gough. I'll be back on Wednesday. We're going to be talking about, spoiler alert, Tom Brady versus the New England Patriots this Sunday.

Nora will be back on Thursday with Mallory Rubin. Malau Rubin is also coming on Slow Newsday. Tuesday. Friday show will be Ben Solac and Stephen Ruiz alongside Kaelin Jones previewing the week for action. This show will be back next Sunday and every Sunday, breaking down all the Sunday action for the entire NFL season.

Thank you, Nora, Ben, and Stephen. Thank you to a production assistant, Isaiah Blakely for production on this episode with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ram Cappole. It's been the Renfell show on the Ringer podcast network.