The Ringer NFL Show - Week 3 Recap: Dolphins Atop the AFC, Jags' Statement Win, Lamar’s Stellar Play, and More | The Ringer NFL Recap Show

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

Nora, Ben, and Steven start by discussing how the Dolphins knocked off the Bills at home to go atop the AFC (1:10). Then, Nora and Steven go through their winners and losers, which included the Ravens, Buccaneers, Commanders, Jags, and much more (23:52). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Guest: Ben Solak Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, my name is Kevin Clark. I'm the host of a new football podcast called Slow Newsday. I want to tell you about it. On Mondays, Lindsay Jones and I will recap the weekend in football that was, as well as look ahead to what's next. On Wednesday, the normal Slow Newsday, the thing you've been watching for years, current players, current coaches, current analysts talking about the football world. And on Friday, it's a wild card. Could be some college football. Could be more pro stuff. It's a video podcast so you can watch it on Spotify or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Follow on Spotify. It's Slow Newsday. Sunday recap show week three Sunday is in the books.

I'm Nora Prytziati. I am joined as always on these wonderful Sunday nights by Stephen Ruiz. Hello, Stephen. How you doing? I'm doing well. How are you? Thank you for asking. I'm doing just fine,

even though we just watched an absolutely abominable Sunday night football game. You don't have to lie. You don't have to lie. I would never lie on this podcast. I would never lie to you, Stephen, nor would I lie to Benjamin Solac, who's here for the headline section,

as always. Ben, we're going to start with Dolphins Bills. And you were just telling us before we started recording that you've watched this game over two times. You're going to have to explain how that works to me. And that you have absolutely no idea

how the Dolphins won this game, which they did 21 to 19. Yes. So the Buffalo Bills played the Dolphins this past Sunday. The Buffalo Bills had 497 total yards of offense, which for those you counting at home, is a lot.

They had Fortune 97 to the Dolphins, 20012. They had 31 first downs to the Dolphins 15. They held the ball for 40 minutes and 40 seconds to the Dolphins 19 minutes and 20 seconds. Generally in the NFL, the team that does better on offense, scores more points and thereby wins.

That was not the case in this game. Dolphins win 21 to 19. That disparity is rarely seen at the NFL level and even more rarely seen in the hands of the losing team. Stathhead, which I'm very bad at Stathhead, but I got Stathhead to tell me this. Team with over 450 total yards and over 40 minutes of time of possession, with the opposing team under 250 total yards,

were 37, 1, and 2 across the entire history of NFL football. The only two teams to lose with 450 yards and 40 minutes time of possession were in 1996 and 1986. I have not seen in my lifetime. I was born in 97. My lifetime, a team outgain an opposing team 450 to 250 and hold the ball for two-thirds of the game and lose. This is a statistical anomaly. It's an astounding win for the Miami Dolphins.

Stephen, do we need to kick Ben off the podcast for bragging about how young he is now? Yeah, and he said way too many numbers there. I lost track. But beyond that, beyond like the statistical anomaly that this was, you had all these injuries for the bills. You had Mitch Morris out. I think Mitch Morris, like, I don't think Mitch Morris is an elite center by any means, but his absence had a real effect on this game because we saw two fumbled snaps.

And I think both snaps cost the bills points. One happened in the red zone early in the first quarter. One happened just a just a classic Josh Allen moment. There was like a bobbled snap. It was kind of hard to see from the broadcast angle. But Josh Allen at the end of the half, I think there was three seconds left, picks up the ball, decides to. throw like a smoke screen.

I guess you would call it to Stefan Diggs. Wasn't expecting it at all. It was nearly picked six. He still caught it though. Incredible play. He still caught it. Incredibly, the Dolphins quarterback didn't catch it. And then they run out of time, no field goal.

Just those are the moments for me. Like you watch Josh Allen play this game. One of the best quarterback performances I have ever seen. Unbelievable Josh Allen game. But there are four plays where he just, his brain just turns off. And those are the plays where I'm like, I can't call him the best quarterback in the league yet. And I can't even have that discussion unless he cleans these up.

And one of them may have cost the bills a game when he just dirts a throw to a wide open receiver on fourth down with two minutes left. I mean, that's how they lost the game. Just those moments, those four moments where Alan kind of messed up. And the only reason they were in the game was because he was amazing. But he did kind of cost him the game. It's insane because, like, and they weren't even turnovers.

usually when a team dominates another team the time of possession it's because they're holding the ball on offense generating a ton of yards and they turn the ball over the defense picks up a ton of yards

and then the opposing offense scores pretty quickly so not that many yards not that much time in possession but points are on the board like in the two games that teams have lost previously with this disparity there was six turnovers and four turnovers

the bills had one turnover right and then they had a turnover on downs and the fourth and goal where it just slipped like I watched it nine times trying to figure out if the ball was tipped or what, but just dirt's the football like Stephen said. Besides that, there's just the one turnover.

It's incredible that Miami was hanging in this game the way they did and then scored in the moments they needed to to eke out, like, what could be a season-defining win? They are number one in the AFC. They are undefeated. They're number one in the AFC East to win over a division arrival. This is enormous repercussions for the rest of the season on a week three win that they, like, totally snuck by with.

Well, okay, so the bills only lost a turnover battle by one other than turning it over on downs, but they did. They missed a field goal. They also gave up the opportunity that could have been points at the end of the first half. And obviously, there was a sequence at the end of the game where they didn't spike it in time because McKenzie couldn't get out of bounds, which led to something that I want to make sure we talk about, which was Ken Dorsey losing his God darn mind. in the booth and going Tom Brady on a Microsoft Surface tablet until some brilliant Bill Stafford. Like, this is the greatest thing. This is the best situational awareness I saw in all of week three.

Sticks his hand in front of the camera so we can't see anything else. Like, that guy, whoever he is, I hope someday there's some documentary about, you know, when they do the Josh Allen 30 for 30, I hope somehow we find out who that dude was. for now he deserves a raise. He is, he is my idol. Ben. You said you're going to do a Ken Dorsey impression at one point on this pot. I'm not going to make you do that. No, when you got, when you toss me off, when you're like, all right, leave now. We're doing the rest of the pot. I'm just going to pick up my keyboard. Launch it. If you watch the Dorsey clip, which I have many times, he really, he goes to the headset slam. The headset bounces. He goes to re-grab the headset, can't grab it,

throws his hat, but that's not like a great feeling. The hat's too light, right? Like, It's not enough of an, right? It doesn't give you like, umph. And then so he goes to grab his play sheet and slams that into the desk several times. And that's appropriate because that play sheet was the one that led to you having first and 10 with 30 seconds left three yards outside of field goal range. And you ain't call speed out, brother. Let's get into field goal range before we start risking some of this Isaiah McKinsey nonsense. It made me think of if you are Microsoft, are you happy?

with this partnership. And I don't know who gets what amount of money. I don't care. So leave that out of it. On the one hand, I know what a Microsoft Surface tablet is. And I don't think I would know what it was otherwise. On the other hand,

the only thing I know about the Microsoft Surface tablet is that it is routinely slammed onto the ground by various NFL personnel. Have you ever met anyone with a Microsoft Surface tablet? No. of the NFL. No, no one has one. No one has ever had it. But there's a good marketing opportunity here. I would enjoy a series of commercials of a Microsoft Surface tablet on a therapist's couch just like tearfully going through and being like, it wasn't, it wasn't me. I didn't do it.

And he continues to punish me. It's like in the background, like in his thoughts, you're just playing over just like Ken Norsey and Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers just dude spiking tablets, just a horribly dark commercial run for Microsoft Surface tablets. I would enjoy that. Ben, you can't give this stuff away for free. Right. It's good content, baby.

Coming to the ringer NFL video of YouTube channel soon. Sorry, absolutely losing my mind. Today was such a good day for memes. We haven't even gotten to the fact that there was a butt punt in this game. Trent Sherfield took a punt in the dairy air, I suppose. That's probably something I wish I hadn't said on there. Just an unbelievable game for. weird stuff happening.

I just think like we're talking about the injuries. There are a lot of things that I feel like I saw people saying about this game where it's like, well, if they play this game in Orchard Park in December, which is when they have the second Dolphins Bills game, the bills are going to win every time. It's so hot, whatever. It's not just that. It's all the stuff that we just talked about with the flukiness and how much better their offense was. It's all the stuff with the injuries where, you know, if they have even one of

Jordan Poyer or Micah Hyde who's done for the season, so that's not going to happen, but just like one starting safety so that we don't have Jaquan Johnson and Demar Hamlin, whose names I hope I'm not mispronouncing, but I honestly cannot tell you if I am. If any of that stuff is different, and then obviously they're down two starting corners too. And then Christian Benford got banged up later in the game, like there was one point in the third quarter when the bills were out 10 starters. If any one of those things is different, Buffalo wins this game like nine times out of 10. So do either of you look at this and go like there's something, and I'm not saying that this

is like a bad thing for Miami. I still think that they're showing that they can win in different ways and it's much more impressive than I thought they would be at this point in the season. But is there anything here that gives you like genuine concern over the bill? I would say the secondary, the safety play was definitely bad. And I think it ended up costing them the game. And we now know that Michael Hyde is not coming back. So it's not like something we could just write off as a one week problem.

Even if they had Poirer, though, right? Like it's not everything, but just having more experience back there, I think you've talked a lot, Stephen, on shows about how much their defense relies on communication, being able to pass guys off. Like you just can't even come close to replicating that with a bunch of guys who just are not normally out there with them. So I have trouble taking really much in terms of concern over the bills at all from this. It was just a weird, weird, weird, very interesting game. Here is my one concern.

And I had this after the, it wasn't a real concern going into this week, but I did want to see how they played against a team that could jam them at the line of skirmish and play tight coverage. and they didn't fare well against man coverage today. For all their success on offense, Allen averaged just 4.5 yards per dropback against man. He averaged minus 0.2 EPA per play with a 39% success rate. So I think there is still a question mark

if this team can beat really good, talented defenses. And I do think part of the game plan, especially in the second half, was to play a bend but don't break style of offense. I think they realize if we keep Blitz and Allen, he's just going to tear us up. He had a 70% success rate versus cover zero, 100% completion rate. But I think they learned their lesson.

And this has been a theme throughout the season so far for the Dolphins. They're flipping all the right switches that coaching staff is in the second half. And they're winning games in the second half because of it. Yeah, my biggest, like, long-term arc takeaway is Dolphins defense in terms of, I love the way they came out in the first half where they were like any passing down we get. It's the Lamar game plan. Seven on the ball. We're coming.

Someone's free. we're going to hit you and we're going to play man coverage in the back end and we're going to make you beat us. And then Buffalo did, right? Buffalo scored 19 points in this game. They had 14 points with 13 minutes left in the second quarter. This was like, oh, Buffalo's blowing another team's doors off. Ho-hum.

And Miami sat down and said, okay, we're going to let's press the big red button. We're going to start putting on seven on the line and dropping them all into coverage. Yep. Right. And now we're going to come with four. We're going to put an intermediate to deep curtain on you. And all of a sudden, Devin Singletary's got 11 targets in this game. And nine catches, 70 yards, one touchdown.

The bills have nicely under Ken Dorsey and Josh Allen figured out how to be this underneath passing team. You had James Cook with critical catches. You had like the Singletary third and 10, right? Like they have figured out how to use their backs, but you're now forcing Buffalo to become a team that holds the ball for 40 minutes. That has to take these long methodical drives down the field instead of their just want the Gabe Davis shot, want the Gabe Davis shot, want the Gabe Davis shot, and they don't have it. You're making them a more manageable, you know, beast to wrangle when you force. them to be a little bit more methodical. So I like what the Dolphins did defensively,

schematically changing in this game. And they have really good personnel, great safety is to kind of change the way they do things. And then offensively, every, I think this is, you know, it's,

like I wanted to say every week I watch them, it's been three weeks. But every week I watch them, I'm continually more impressed by the way that they're just, they're scheming up so much deep stuff for a quarterback that I would have told you before this season is not capable of sustaining a deep passing offense.

Tua is, Two had a quality game. He was 13 for 18. He took a bad sack. It wasn't like, you know, Josh Allen was clearly the better quarterback in this game. But Tua played well in the sense that he trusts the way this offense works, and he triggers fast, man.

He commits to execute, like being the point guard of this offense. He is Steve gnashing it in every sense of the comparison. We're like, all right, the ball's got to be out, then the ball is out. There is no hesitation on him. He is a very quick trigger, which is what this offense needs to be like so vertical stretch so fast so on top of you right now that's what gets you to like they had second and 23 they're down by three they go to run a draw like let's get it back a little bit let's get to like third and 15 it gets bottled up at the line third and 22 in the fourth quarter yeah we got cover two

and it's okay Tyreek against cover two like technically this isn't open decision falls out like it's just I have speed I have a talented guy and that's a safety making his first career start go like Tua's ability to just point and shoot, point and shoot. Like whenever we talk about the Shanahan offense, we talk about how the coordinators kind of like run the quarterbacks, right? They kind of like are from the sideline, you know, pulling the marionette strings.

Tua is an agent of McDaniel. He executes the offense the way it's the postbook on the chalkboard. And that makes these high leverage third down explosive plays work. And you have a three and O Dolphin team. So credits of them on both sides of the ball. Coaching staff's doing great. You're talking about the throw to waddle on third and 22 or was there a separate. On the depost, excuse me, waddle on the deep post.

Listen, it's like 17 and it's 10 and they're both pulling fast. It's terrible. Do it all the time. But they don't win the game if they don't have. That's why I wanted to make sure we're on the same page because they don't win the game if they don't get that. And again, that's that he's working sort of the intermediate deep middle where we just haven't seen to unlock that before. So I agree even though, you know, we're not seeing the same types of explosive numbers and ridiculous record setting stats. As last week, obviously still looked like a step forward.

obviously he went out for a couple plays after falling and hitting his head at the end of the second quarter and looking super wobbly. Team says he has a head injury, comes back, apparently passes the concussion protocol. The NFLPA asked for a review of how the protocol ended up being enforced on that because, you know, I think everybody saw it to a kind of like stagger. normally in the protocol, that's that's one of the symptoms where they say like, if you're exhibiting that, if you're exhibiting that kind of wobbliness, like, you're done unless the independent doctor says, here is a different reason that doesn't have to do with the brain injury why you're doing that. Apparently, the dolphins are saying that that he's had a back injury and that's what was going

on. Obviously, that's something that bears watching because that was a scary moment. moment, but he obviously went back and was still able to play. This game was sort of brutal just in terms of, okay, too, it gets hurt. Alan bangs his hand. Obviously, the heat was a huge deal. Everybody just looked like, I don't know if you guys saw it after the game ended. There were just players like collapsing onto the field.

Just being like, I need to sit down right now. Yes. He was such a muffin. It was so sad. It was so sad, Josh. I was just like, I need a place to put my head. It's 90 degrees and 80% humidity. Obviously, it will be a little bit different when they play in Buffalo in December.

I don't know why they couldn't have just switched those games, but I don't need the schedule. So we can have the weather conversations, baby. It's for handicappers like me. Go ahead and make our little bets. I love some. I will say, like, Tua. not concussed. If true, great news. Don't want players to have concussions. Agree. Back injury, scary. Like, that's, back injury is not a good thing to have in week three.

The thing about back injuries is that they kind of tend to hang around. And if I have a concern with this Dolphins offense right now, it's that a lot of small people take a lot of big hits. When you live with this play action, we're going to, you know, run play action off split zone, play action off pullers. We're constantly trying to widen this pocket and have guys blocking from different angles to slow pass rushes because our offensive line is in that talented period. Three or four times a game, someone's going to get through and mail your quarterback. And then, all right, we're going to throw all this intermediate stuff, all this crossing stuff

to Tyreek and Jaylen Waddle. Tyreek and Jaylen Wad are not big dudes. And when you throw over the middle of the field, you get punished. That's how NFL teams discourage you from throwing middle of the field. That's how they force drops in the middle of the field, forcing completion. They hit you. So week two, week three, the sports cars are. looking great, right? It's all speed. It's all sleek. It's awesome. I'm very curious to see what

this Dolphins offense looks like as the season goes on and hits begin to accrue and soft tissue injuries started to come up and joint issues started to come up and kind of what that looks like long term because it's got this smash mouth idea to it where it's like constantly straining you with speed, right? River Carcraft is catching touchdowns. Trent Shurfield's here. Like we just have all these small little guys just zipping around. But when Knicks and injuries start to accumulate, that's where you know, a grain of sand gets in the match of these wheels here. And I'm worried about this offense long term for that reason. And that's one of the concerns about building with two unique players like Waddle and

Hill who you're not going to be able to find another receiver that matches their, their speed. I will say I did die laughing when I learned Trent Sherfield was on the Dolphins this week. So I was like, it's, it's as if you could get a knock off Waddle. Like there's another small, quick guy. Get him in here. As long as the Shanahan tree is coaching, he'll always have a job. Trent Sherfield will have a home.

Yes, he'll have a... Did you guys see his tweet? Whom tweet? Trent Sherfield. No. He tweeted, my cheeks have a big W tatted on them. So, you know, the best... Charmin's tweeting at him?

Right. Now he's got a job for life as long as the most prevalent coaching tree in the modern NFL is doing its thing. And he's got an incoming charm and sponsorship. Pretty good to be Trent Sherfield. Yeah. Trent learning well from Dan Rolowski, also a hero of the meme week, to just turn into the skid. Lean into the bit, baby. You are on national television.

An unfortunate thing happened to you in the end zone? You gotta run with it. I feel like between Sanchez tweeting about the butt fumble and the butt play and then Orlovsky being freed from by Jimmy Garoppolo for stepping out of the back of the end zone, it's like all of the everybody's getting out of like bad NFL play purgatory this week it's really beautiful i'm happy for everybody carson wents his time is coming yeah nine sacks for carson a decade from now some other quarterback's going to throw like a left-handed interception in overtime he's going to be free all right ben anything else before you you um throw your playbook on the ground and

leave us is it ken dorsey time all right yes i just i don't my dog is sleep sleeping outside. I don't want to disrupt my dog. That was incredibly powerful in an audio medium. I can't hear you saying through my headphones, but bye, everyone. Bye, Ben. Thank you. We need to overlay that audio on to the Condorci video. Maybe we could like simulcast them. Yes.

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Stephen, why don't you kick us off? My first winner is Lamar Jackson, who I think announced himself as one of the early MVP favorites. And I think he needed that performance that the Ravens were going to come away with this win. They ended up winning 37 to 26 to move to 2 and 1. Jackson had four touchdowns through the air, 100 yards and another touchdown on the ground.

But any time the Ravens made a play on offense, Lamar Jackson was involved. And it usually involved him evading a pass rush that was, I would say was relentless, maybe against the Ravens overmatch line. They lose Patrick McCarie, who was filling in for an injured Ronnie Stanley. They are now down to their fourth string left tackle.

And he did not have a good game. I think his name is Fa'a Lele. Daniel Falulele. Yeah, he gave up two sacks to Dietrich Wise. And it wasn't even like Wise did like a pass rush move. He kind of just like jogged past him. And there was no bend. There was no like Rick move.

It was just basically walking past the left tackle. But Lamar Jackson, made it work anyway. It was a comprehensive performance. And I think the biggest standout thing is the Patriots tried to blitz them a couple times. And this has been the go-to strategy for defenses over the last couple of years. Just blitz the hell out of Lamar Jackson.

We saw it against Miami on that Thursday night game last year. It didn't work. Lamar went three for three against the blitz. 100% success rate. 1.8 EPA per play on those plays. And the Patriots stopped blitzing them. And I think that's like the one box Lamar had to check. could he exploit defenses that wanted to be aggressive and wanted to get after him?

And so far through three weeks, the answer is yes. Yeah, I mean, he's leading the NFL and EPA versus the Blitz this season, right? So like you just said, if there was one box that Lamar Jackson needed to check, that was definitely it. And the fact that, you know, this game looked so messy while it was being played. like it didn't look like a game in which the Ravens offense was going to get close to 40 points. Part of that is because they have this injury stack at left tackle, which is a big deal. You know, you hope that Ronnie Stanley is able to work back at some point and that kind of solves the problem. But Fulali, I think is like, he's one of the biggest players in the NFL.

He's not really ready to be in that spot. And it's not, you know, look, everybody's got to execute. It's, I guess, in some levels, it is his fault. but a guy like Dietrich Wise is going to be able to get around him because he's just like, he's huge. He's not built to move around like that. So he doesn't make sense in the position that he's in. And I think Harbaugh said that Makari like just has some sort of sprain.

So you hope that that's not super significant and that they don't continue to be in that situation. But what it led to is, is the Ravens offense looked like it was kind of constantly getting blown up, except then Lamar would just fix it, right? And that is kind of what he has done any time they have needed him to just, like, produce something this entire season so far. He's got the second highest averaged up the target in the league while also averaging 9.3 yards per carry.

He had another 100 plus game on the ground today. He's making an MVP case, I think pretty clearly because he's doing the things that we've always known that he was spectacular at. and also doing all of the things that people have questioned whether or not he could do. And what you end up getting, particularly as, you know, it makes it so that he can, he's getting all the production from Duvonne. Also, Mark Andrews today was really, really good. It's not just that he's found a way to have the downfield connection with Duvonne

looking like a genuine number one receiver. When that's not working, it seems like he can turn to Andrews. So there are so many different buttons that this offense can press that it's simultaneously really exciting, but also maybe a little bit frustrating that we're looking at them and going like, okay, if there's one thing that gets in their path this season, it's injuries. And it feels like that is already a factor, which just sort of stinks. I hope it doesn't continue to over the course of season. But I'm with you. I think he's the leader for MVP so far. Yeah.

And speaking of injuries, Justin Houston left this game with, I think it was a groin injury. Calais Campbell went down, but he returned. It just feels like this team is cursed. For the last two years, it's like anything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. They finally get J.K. Dobbins back, but he didn't have much of an impact outside of a few first downs. The one play that stood out to me was Lamar's. I think it might have been his second passing touchdown. It was to Devin Duvonney in the back of the end zone, the back corner.

That was his second read. That was him going from the front side of the concept to the left, all the way to the back side, and throwing just a touch pass over the defense. defender right only where Duverna could catch it. I think he's taking another step as a pocket passer. I think things look easier for him as a runner. He had 107 yards on 11 carries today. And I don't even know if he ever sprinted. I don't even know if he ever ran full speed. He's just like gliding through defenses right now. It's amazing to watch him like kind of hone all this ability and get comfortable just beating players with minimal effort. And he did that against the Patriots

today. And I don't even think it was like a bad game plan by Bill Belichick. Like Belichick took away Rashad Bateman. I think they were bracketing him. It's hard to tell without the All-22. But on the replays, it looked like they were doubling him. And the Raven still had answers for it. Lamar Jackson had answers for it. And he's really the only only answer they have right now. The running game is not working. The offensive line isn't good. The receiving court is overachieving to a certain point. But still, Devin Duvonne is his best receiver. His only reliably productive receiver. And it doesn't matter. They're scoring a lot of points. They should be three and no right now. They're one bad fourth quarter away from being having the best record in the

AFC. But Lamar Jackson, everything you've seen from him so far has to encourage you as a Ravens fan. What did you think about the Patriots in this game? They obviously lost Mack Jones, who looked like he was in a lot of pain coming off the field. And I guess he's going to get MRIs tomorrow on what's probably some sort of high ankle sprain. So they might be turning things over to Brian Hoyer for a little bit, which is a bit of a scary thought. Yeah. Good Lord.

But it's, I don't want to, I don't want to like come up with, uh, diagnoses off of, of photos. And Mac is a very expressive person, I would say.

But the photos after the game, he looked like he was in a lot of pain. But apparently the x-rays came back negative. So maybe there's no like structural bone damage. Yeah, well, so he got x-rays, and the x-rays were negative, which, like, is a factually accurate thing to tweet for those who are tweeting it. What that means is that he didn't break his ankle. I think people read that and they go, oh, he's fine. He could have damage to a tendon or a ligament that wouldn't show up on an x-ray.

And as you said, he looked to be in an extreme amount of pain. So I don't think that, like, my understanding is that there is concern among Patriots people right now. now that they're going to miss him for some amount of time. It was before the injury, it was a weird game for Mack. It was like Bizarro Mack Jones. He was being aggressive. He's making plays with his legs. But those plays, which you want to see for Mac Jones,

and he was throwing over the middle of the field, it kind of shows off the dilemma with him. It's like, yes, he was aggressive and he tried to make plays, but it came at the cost of three interceptions, and it could have easily have been four if Patrick Queen holds on to that interception in the end zone. And so it's kind of like, yes, it's good to see him be aggressive, but does he have the physical talent to actually play like that at the NFL level?

And that's always been the concern with him going back to before the draft. Yeah, it was a strange game for them. They did finally get Defonte Parker going. He had five catches, 156 yards. So I guess if you're the Patriots, that's the biggest thing that you take away and go. Few we got that working. But weird game. Speaking of weird games, Stephen, I need your help.

We kind of sketch these things out, you know, the winners and losers, what we're going to cover before Sunday night football. And we wanted to leave a spot for it. You know, it's a big game. Broncos 49ers. And I said, oh, don't worry, I'll find a winner from the Sunday night football game. Good luck. And now I don't know what to do. Dan Orlovsky, Trey Lance is another option.

obviously Jimmy G is not a threat to his long-term grasp on the starting job. Okay, okay. Nobody that played in the game is a winner. And I don't think anyone who watched the game is a winner either. Definitely not. I do not feel like a winner. I feel like a loser. Yeah, I mean, if I had to find someone, the Broncos defense looks impressive.

It's hard to give so many flowers when you're going against Jimmy Garvey. who doesn't know where the back of the end zone is and might not know where he is at any given moment. But they held San Francisco to 10 points. They forced three big turnovers. They're tied for first in the AFC West somehow. They're two and one. It's not perfect, obviously, but it's hard to look at the last three games of Broncos football and put it all together and think like, oh, they would be in that position. So Evereaux is coordinating what looks like an interesting defense so far. If I had to pick a winner, I guess I would go there other than the Danerolovskies of the

world. Yeah. I would say that is the one like silver lining. And the fact that they've won those two games, it buys them a little more time. And that's what this team needs right now for the offense is just to find themselves. And they need more time. but now they have this like margin for error in an aFC west where you weren't expecting to have one they have no business being two and one right now but it doesn't matter they are

and the defense is playing well enough to keep them in games long enough for russell wilson to figure it out and that formula always seemed to work work in seattle and it's working so far at least in the win loss column it's not working on paper and statistically well but it takes some heat off the off the quarterback also particularly off of of Hackett, even though he now has more help in the booth, still went over two on challenges. They made what most of the models think was a pretty bad decision to punch on fourth and inches, early in the fourth down 10.5. There was a win probability bot that said they, I guess the bot didn't say it.

But statistically, the Broncos have only gotten one out of seven calls correctly when the numbers said that going would increase their win probability by at least 2%. So that's still not going great. But like you said, it just kind of, look, winning cures a lot. So they at least get to spend another week focusing on trying to fix the issues without feeling like everybody's breathing down their necks. So they can be a winner. They're not as much of a winner as Dan Rolovsky or. Mark Sanchez for getting out of the bad play purgatory, but no, it still counts. They are two and oh when getting booed at home this season.

So that's a good, there's a next gen stat for you. That's some stats for me. So if they get booed, like if Nathaniel Hackett plans on doing this again, and I'm gesturing to like everything when I say this, they might get booed again next week and that means the win. Gestures wildly. All right. Give me a loser.

My first loser is going to be the chiefs who lost to the Colts in a game that I, like we said about the Dolphins Bills game, I still don't know how the Chiefs lost this game, but they lose 20 to 17. Patrick Mahomes and Eric B. enemy seemed to be getting into it before halftime after an uneven performance in the first half of the offense, and it didn't get any better.

They were just talking, though. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm sure. They were just talking. Just having a chat. I always separate my friends when they're just talking. We have to do it with you and Ben all the time. Yes, right, right. We in bed, fight.

famously all the time. But here's my concern about the Chiefs, and here's why I'm calling them a loser. They were playing Gus Bradley today. And famously, Gus Bradley has been the cure-all for any Chiefs problem. It's the get-right game. And here's the thing that we talked about last year,

about the Chief struggles with explosive plays because it's too high, and they couldn't be too high, and this year was going to be different because they were going to run the ball, and they weren't going to see as much too high. That has actually been true. and yet the explosive play still haven't come.

Patrick Mahomes has completed two passes over 20 air yards this season. No, three passes. Two were like amazing throws to well-covered receivers on deep overs. And the other one was the long touchdown pass on Thursday night where Mahomes kind of broke the pocket and the tight end got open on a double move deep. But that's it. And the chargers and the Colts have mostly played one high this year. And the chief still don't have an answer.

So so far after three games, you have to say that Tyree Kills winning the breakup so far. Ouch. He's not fighting with Mike McDaniel. And he just tweeted out today that number one is different. He was like he's dunking on people. He's taking victory laps with two. Tyree Kills winning. All right.

Well, we'll have to see about that. But I guess I can't argue with you. The Gus Bradley thing is just like it is so, it's just like, it's just like, that he's still doing that. The freaking Seahawks were like, you know what? No, we're not doing this anymore. Gus Bradley is just in Indianapolis being like,

nope, I'm going to do my thing. I think the issue is that they didn't, they couldn't run against it. They're running backs picked up just one first down in the entire game. And it feels like there should have been more. They are in terms of explosiveness for them. But they were constantly in bad situations

because the fact that they could not run the ball at all was ruining their production early downs. So it still seemed like there were a few. Like I didn't think that I didn't watch this game and feel like I'm shocked that the Chiefs didn't win and couldn't do anything. But Mahomes felt a lot of pressure. And I think that in combination with the fact that they just were not, they were not moving it on the ground and they were still trying to particularly on.

early downs just made them a little bit stagnant. They also, this has a little bit of the bills thing, right? Like Skymore really struggled on punt return, which is something that he's learning to do. He didn't do in college. Amadola missed a field goal and an extra point kick. There's still Harrison Buckker is still dealing with an ankle injury. They fumble a punt. There's the failed fake field goal, which I would love to say five times fast.

And then obviously the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on critical. Jones that probably cost them the game. There's five minutes left. Matt Ryan gets sacked on third down by Nick Bolton. He and Jones also, you know, just having a conversation and gets flagged for what the referee said after the game was using, quote, abusive language towards an opponent. No one will say what was said. Jones just said that he didn't say anything horrendous.

So it's up to us to imagine, I suppose. We need like a chart, like the Tom Herman P chart. Like what is horrendous to Chris Jones? I feel like it was a big day for cryptic. I don't think we need this. For cryptic. I want to go on record as saying I do not think we need this. Oh, no.

Nor do I think we want it. It was a big day for cryptic trash talking today. Like Patrick Queen said like Mac Jones was talking trash to them. And it seemed like it on the broadcast. And then we have the Chris Jones thing. But I have a theory on the, the running back thing. Okay.

I think Andy Reid's love of like backs that are useful in the passing game prevents them from ever having a good run game. Because let me say something about Clyde Edward Tiller. The man has no vision. Patrick Mahomes was literally pointing out holes. It happened like multiple times during the game. He's like, please, there's a hole right there, man. And he just wouldn't take it.

But I think that's like Reed likes receiving backs. He liked Brian Westbrook back in Philadelphia. He likes backs. that's why they drafted CEH because he, what he did in the past game for LSU. And they're just not good at running the football. And that's a problem. Defense is a lot easier when you know what the offense is going to do.

And I think that's the problem for the chiefs. They just keep getting in situations where they have to pass, like you said earlier. And it becomes so much easier, especially if you don't have to worry about Tyree Kill running a 4-240 down the field. Yeah, well, and they're not, I still think with, Mahomes, a decent offensive line, the number of quality receivers they have. If they kind of tried to do some billsy stuff and throw just a lot, maybe that works better. It's just the combination of they're struggling with it and they still seem reasonably

committed to it for who they are. Like the chiefs are never going to be a run first offense. It would be malpractice. but they're still making that a substantial part of the game, even when it's just going nowhere. Maybe part of that is they know what they're going to see defensively from a Gus Bradley unit. And they think they can take advantage in certain ways.

And it takes a while to make the adjustments. But I still think like the chiefs are the chiefs. If that continues to be a problem, they should just go away from it. Like you have Patrick Mahomes. Yeah, and the funny thing about how much they ran on early downs today, I mean, it was still like, I think it was like 65% pass, but it was still higher for what the chiefs usually are, is that you don't have to run to get Gus Bradley into single high. The man is going to play it. He doesn't, like, it doesn't matter.

He's going to play. So that just makes the play calling even more questionable. So we're team Holmes on the argument with the, with B enemy before the half? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Okay. Sined with Pat. We're signing with Pat.

All right. My first loser is TB12, either himself or you can take that as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who scored 12 points in a 14 to 12 loss to the Packers. The Bucks still haven't scored a touchdown in a first half this season. They and the New York football giants are the two football teams who own. that high honor. And they were missing. Yeah, you know, it's good company to be in. Missing Donovan Smith, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin,

Julio Jones. So I'm not here to say that this is a representative performance of what the bucks are going to be. The same major issue has been the thing the entire way, which is that they're not healthy. And also that Brady clearly doesn't trust the offensive line. But the reason that they are a loser is that on top of all of that, they were just so incredibly messy in this game.

You've got Brasad Paraman running the wrong routes. The screen game was completely disjointed. Nobody's blocking their guy. I think they had two that were just totally blown up. Brady had an 18-yard scramble called back for a holding penalty, which is just like that doesn't happen. That happens like once a season. It's not fair.

You can't deny him that. He was so happy when he got to a thousand rushing yards after like 20 years in the NFL. So you can't, you can't just be negating 18 yards crambles from TB12. And then the biggest one is they come back from the dead for one drive at the end of the game and then lose when there's a delay of game penalty on the two point conversion and then they don't convert. So if there's good news, it's that the defense is awesome and that their division is not good and they have a pretty solid cushion there. But I don't like what's happening with. this offense, even despite the injuries, because they just do not seem like they're on the same

page. It doesn't seem like there's clear decision making. The two point conversion situation was really, really troubling because that's the type of thing. You know you're down eight, right? Like, you know you need that. And whether it's from what's going on on the sideline or in the booth or whether it's Brady getting everybody lined up. Like everyone involved in that should know better, right? Like it's just not the type of thing that is typical from Brady. And if you're the coaching staff, you have to know the situation. So you can solve some of the personnel issues when they get,

get some of the receivers back. So I don't know what the timeline is for Julio, who's apparently dealing with PCL stuff, which sounds not great. But the fact that they were so disjointed was the thing that made me think, like, man, that's not quite as automatic effects as just getting somebody back in the lineup. Yeah, I think the problem where the offensive line comes into a bigger factor is in the run game. They just can't run the ball right now. And that's such a big part of their offense is getting that duo run going. And that's how they get all their explosive plays off play action. And when you can't run,

usually in theory, according to the nerds, that's not supposed to affect play action. But the Bucks coaching staff seems to think that they need to set up the run in order to run that stuff. So even if it doesn't matter, it affects it if you don't call it. Yeah. If they think that's the case, then it does affect them that they can't run. And like last week I saw them, they start running from shotgun, which is something they rarely do. And that's when you know they're desperate. When they start running these runs that aren't the base part of their offense, it's clear that they don't have answers. And I don't know if even when the receivers come back, if that solves the issue. Because they've, they've had Mike Evans for, I guess it was a game and a half and they still were having problems hitting over the middle of the field and that's where they lived last year. That's where they lived the last two years. And if you can't access that part of the field,

I don't know how the offense works because now you're asking a 45-year-old who is still very capable of making tough throws, but you're asking them to make them more often and to do so under pressure behind a bad offensive line. And I think that's when you start to see Brady's age. When there's not space and time in the pocket

and he kind of has to throw off his back foot or throw on the move, that's when you see the arm look a little weaker. And I think we're going to see more of those throws this year. And it's really up to this coaching staff to figure out a plan B and figure out a substitute for that run game that's not working. And I'm not sure Byron Leftwich is capable of doing that. We haven't really seen him face adversity as a coordinator yet.

And I think we're seeing it now. It's just so hard to tell. Even with what I was talking about with the sequence at the end, it's just like when there's a quarterback like a Brady, a Rogers, even I think we're dealing with some of this with Russell Wilson, right? Like those guys who have control over the offenses and are empowered to make so many decisions. It's just very hard to tell who's in charge here, who's doing what. And then the thing with Brady is like, I just cannot figure out how he and that offense can play a game where they just look completely dead.

And then for one drive, it's just like, oh, I can do this whenever. ever I want. And I don't want it. Like if they, I wonder if that would have been the big narrative if they'd actually found a way to win this game. Like, never count Tom Brady out. And there was part of me that was bracing for that and going like, dude, he's, he's trying to score 14 points here.

We can't. This is not exactly the 07 Patriots that we're talking about. But somehow he's just able, like I don't have an explanation for it. It's just he flips the switch and then all of a sudden they're like in the red zone. And that and that's why you don't want to count this team out because the defense is so good. And if you give Tom Brady that many chances, he's going to eventually cash in like he did. Obviously they don't get the two point conversion. But I do think like I it was kind of doom and gloom what I just said about the bucks offense.

But I do think there's too much talent for this to fail. And the NFC, it doesn't look strong at the top. Like I don't see a team that I'm really afraid of it. if I'm the bucks. I can't wait for them to lose seven to three to the Jimmy Gropolo 49ers in the playoffs. It's going to be great. It's going to be horrible. No, that's Aaron Rogers job.

Don't take that from Aaron Rogers. I'm very sorry. I'm sorry, Aaron. You can have it. It's your honor. All right. Do I owe you a winner? Absolutely.

All right. So we wanted to lead the winners and losers section with this game. But I wanted to not get overly excited about my two large adult sons playing against each other. I'm talking, of course, about Trevor Lawrence and Justin Herbert. And obviously, Trevor Lawrence came away with the big win on this one. The Jagu's win, 28 to 10. And in a game that I don't think Justin Herbert should have played in, he managed to make a few generational throws, no big deal,

just what Justin Herbert does with broken ribs or whatever he has. But he was clearly affected. I've never seen Justin Herbert miss throws the way he missed. throws against the Jaguars. And I'm not too concerned with this result for the Chargers because everyone was hurt. They lost Bosa. They lost Slater during the game. Before the game, they didn't have J.C. Jackson.

They didn't have Keenan Allen. They didn't have Corey Lindley. Herbert was obviously limited. It was just the curse chargers. It was a schedule loss. It was an injury loss. I really don't think this is a game where I'm taking anything away from it. But for the Jaguars.

that was that's the type of wins you want to see from a team that you expect to compete for a playoff spot and right now I think the Jaguars look like the best team in the AFC South and it's because they're coaching staff they arguably have the best coaching staff in the afc South right now and that's a far cry from having the worst coaching staff in maybe the history of the league and I think we're seeing the value of coaching with this team have you seen beyond coaching have you seen that Trent Balkei apology for a have begun to circulate on the internet? Yes, yes.

And do people need to start backtracking against their, from their takes on Christian Kirk? This is always, this was always my take. Christian Kirk can play. He might not be worth 20 million, but he can play.

And I'm not faulting him for not being his best self under Cliff Kingsbury. Yeah. Yeah. Nor should we fault anyone. It is funny. I mean, look, I'm not,

I'm not ready to sign any forms. I'm not ready to put anything in writing. But I will say with a competent, more than competent coaching staff and a quarterback who's apparently hitting his stride, you do start to go, oh, yeah, there's some benefit to picking in the top five of the draft every year for forever. Because Josh Allen is absolutely wrecking opposing quarterbacks. He had a career high eight pressures in this game. And obviously, look, we had the Storm Norton alert go off for the Chargers after Slater went out.

But particularly now that there's just a little bit more depth on that defensive line, he's really able to thrive. He's trailing only Miles Garrett with 15 QB pressures overall. Tyson Campbell's starting to have what looks like it could be a really exciting. exciting season. Obviously, Kirk's doing well. Zay Jones had a really productive game. You just start to go like, okay, yes, maybe some of the free agents were overpaid for, but they're still quality players. And then there's a lot of, there's a lot of high end talent on this team. And I agree with you. They should absolutely be the favorite in the AFC South.

We haven't really even talked that much about how Trevor Lawrence is playing because I thought the most impressive thing about this was something that we talked about when you put yourself on Trevor Lawrence top 10 quarterback island, which is that he hasn't always done the easy stuff. But then here, he's got a career low, 2.39 seconds to throw. That's from next gen stats. Throws, um, completes 19 of 23 passes for 162 yards and a touchdown on just the quick stuff. Anything under 2.5 seconds to throw. So he's already halfway. to his rookie year touchdown total. He's thrown six touchdowns.

This is exactly what you want to see. Because again, we weren't questioning the really elite, like, subtle pocket movement and avoiding pressure stuff. We were just, we just wanted him to make the layups. And there are a lot of really great things that you can take from the Jags out of this game, despite the Chargers injuries. But I think the best one is like you just see this performance from Trevor Lawrence that I think is, exactly what they would have wanted. Yeah.

And if you look at his passing map, he's still pushing the ball downfield while getting the ball out quickly. And that was like the balancing act I was worried about. I was worried the offense, which I do think forces the quarterback to get rid of the ball quickly. We've seen that with other teams

from this coaching staff. Frank Reich has always been like a quick passing team. The Eagles were under Peterson, but he's still pushing the ball downfield. And that's so tough for a young quarterback. to not just be able to like flip the switch and go, oh, I'm going straight to my checkdown.

I think Trevor Lawrence is just really processing things quickly. He's not giving up after like the first two receivers are covered and going straight to his checkdown. He's going to his third receiver. He's going to his fourth receiver and he's doing it like in an instant. He's the closest thing in terms of processing that I've seen to Justin Herbert from the young guys. And that was not supposed to be his thing. Like he played in a in a very college offense at Clemson

that didn't ask him to process quickly and he's picked it up in two years. I feel like this guy is going to be, I mean, I said he was going to be a top 10 quarterback. I think by next year we're talking about top five. I really think his progression is going to go that quickly, especially with his coaching staff. And winning this game by 28 points,

I really think it's a statement for them, no matter what the injuries were for the Chargers, because you could very easily have let them hang around in this game. But the Jaguars just, like, ran them off the field. It was not a competitive, game at all. And that's what good coaching staffs do. They take care of business on the road. And the Jaguars did that.

And they're two and one. First place in the AFC South. I don't think there's another team in this division that can really even compete with them because their defensive line how active it is and how bad the other offensive lines in this division are. They have a big advantage in the trenches.

And they have the best quarterback in the division. So when you're watching this game, were you was it delight? Like what was Stephen Ries's emotional state experiencing this? It was tough. It was tough. I felt like one of those parents who watches their two kids play against each other. We needed to get you a split jersey.

Yeah, I wanted the split jersey. Yeah, it was bad. The ringer needs to step up. Yeah. But it was sad because you didn't see Herbert at his best. And it was so obvious just because he's so physically imposing usually. and he's so precise and none of that was there.

And he took so many hits that he just didn't need to take. This was a three possession game in the fourth quarter and he kept playing. Like I don't care. Brandon Staley said after the game that he wanted to be out there with his teammates. Okay. I don't, who cares?

That's like not his job. Yeah. No. Just Numer probably wants a lot of things that are not good ideas. Make Chase Daniel earn some money. Just the fact that he didn't play, like how did he get out of this?

again. That man is the king of time theft. Yeah, it really is. I wonder if this is the most. I would love to see a list of like the situations in which Chase Daniel didn't play, where there's the best argument that he should have had to get in there and earn some of his money. But, you know, we have no choice but to, but to Stan a getting the bag king. All right. I'll give you another winner. The Minnesota Vikings, who came back to beat the lions, ended up winning. 28 to 24 after trailing by 10 points with a little over 10 minutes to go.

They were just okay, I think overall. There were some issues defensively with Lions receivers just getting a lot of separation. And then you had sort of a classic Kurt Cousins game where the final stat line looks fine, but he was really, really pressure sensitive. But why I want them to be a winner here is because I thought it was super encouraging to see them be more aggressive under Kevin O'Connell, which is a big reason that they ended up winning this game. they went for a fourth and six in the second quarter, which they converted on a cousin's pass to Adam Thielen and eventually wound up scoring a touchdown on that drive.

And then they wound up getting the ball late in the fourth quarter down by three with a minute, 10 left. And I just really liked how aggressive they were in that situation going for the touchdown instead of being conservative and trying to get a field goal and tie it. it's something that I think if you watched prior Vikings teams, you sort of like want to freeze up and get scared in any situation like that because it's like, oh, no, they're going to get so conservative here. Just very refreshing to see them do that. They ended up pulling out the comeback because of that aggressiveness. It seems like everybody's feeling pretty good in that organization just in terms of the

players liking the new coaching staff and feeling like they're invested in learning the system. I think that is ultimately more positive than any sort of thing that, you know, X's thing that happened on the field in this game. You could look at something like Kirk targeting KJ. Osborne, which he did quite a bit because Justin Jefferson was just blanketed by Okuda, who like the grim Reaper meme of the guys he's drawn in coverage from Devante Smith to Terry McLauran to Jefferson. in today, no one has made an impact in those games. It's just unbelievable.

That's great. Dalvin Cook was working pretty well before he hurt his shoulder in the third quarter, which is apparently a dislocation issue that shouldn't be that big of a deal, although, gosh, the number of things where we say, like, here's this horrible injury that apparently shouldn't be that big of a deal because football is sort of staggering. But overall, I just thought the aggressiveness was a real positive for the Vikings. Yeah. And I think having a game where you score 28 points and you win against a team that was

beating you by two scores going into the fourth where Jefferson doesn't have a big game, like you said, is very encouraging. And getting Davenka going, I know the injury is going to throw wrenching things, but getting that run game going and not getting the best game out of Kirk Cousins and it doesn't matter, you still score enough points to win against a pretty good offense. Like, that's different from what we've seen from a Mike Zimmer team in the past. And I think that's what you wanted. That's why you made the change, even though Mike Zimmer is probably, what, a top 15

coach usually when things are going well, but they just needed a fresh start. And I think the fresh start is paying dividends early. And I don't think that they're two in one right now if Mike Zimmer is still the coach, even though there are still some concerns about the other side of the ball on D. defense. We saw the coverage bus last week against Philadelphia. They had some trouble defending Jared Goff of all people this week. Jerich Goff is playing well. I should give him credit of all people. How dare you? I know. That was so rude unnecessarily. He played well today. The interception at the end of the game was whatever, but outside of that, I think he played better

than Kirk Cousins. You're so bitter. I am. You can't even say something nice about Jared Cops. Yeah, I have to couch it. But it's like, it just feels like this is. not a game the Vikings usually win. This is not a game they would win over the last two years. And they won it. And it's got to feel good for them. And I think Kevin O'Connell's done a great job through three games. It's sort of proof of concept for what they wanted the season of eight. Yeah. Okay, loser time. Yeah, I have a loser. And as much as it pains me to say this, Carson Wentz is a loser in his revenge game against the Eagles. He was sacked nine times. Shattered. I'm sure just shattered. I'm just shattered. You are to be saying this.

As much as it hurt for me to insult Jericho off there. But nine sacks, six of them, I think, in the first quarter. At a certain point in the third quarter, with like three minutes left, they had negative passing yards. And the Eagles had like 300 plus. Yes. And I have to say, bravo to Carson Wentz, who has turned this ability to make the worst play possible into an art form.

There was a play today against the Eagles where now I'm forgetting who had the sack. I think it was Derek Barnett or someone had it. All they did was stick their arm out and they just kept it there for like two seconds. And Carson Wentz, his throwing motion went into the arm and fumbled. Like the guy didn't even attempt to strip him. Carson Wentz self-stripped himself.

And it was a fumble and it was just, it was Carson Wentz's masterpiece today. And I predicted before this game. Like people were like, oh, maybe the commanders might get up and play for their teammate. No. No teammate wants to play harder for Carson Wentz. And we saw that today.

The teammates, they were playing harder, whereas former teammates in Philadelphia, they really wanted to win this game. And they did. And Carson Wentz, I mean, I don't know what you expected. I don't, I don't know what the commanders expected when they traded for him, but this is what they should have expected. Do you ever see those videos of dogs that are like irrationally scared of an object, like a dog that's really, really scared of a tape recorder? So you just put, or like a tape measure, so if you just put a tape measure sort of near its face, It, like, barks at it and kind of backs up and jumps around a little bit and hops and gets into a defensive posture.

I feel like that's how you're describing Carson once when sensing pressure or maybe just a human limb pointed in his direction. It's almost the opposite. He's, like, drawn toward, he's like magnetized. I must go into the light. Yes, he's, yes, that's what he is. He is a bug going into a fly. going into a fly zaffer. That's what it is, the bright light. There was a play, a sack where the pocket was just like wide open. And he like hitched up into the one guy that could sack him.

It just ran into the sack. That was totally avoidable. He has taken the art of taking a sack to the next level. It's, it's really amazing to watch. He's the funniest player in the NFL. He's the funniest player to watch. Our guy, Shield Kabatia, tweeted, I think he pulled this from true media and PFF, that all of us, he's the funny. that happened when the Eagles defensive line was was not really blitzing, seven of those nine sacks came without blitzing, which is tied for the most sacks with a four-man rush in a regular season game in the past three years. It is not as if Philadelphia was expending a lot of resources to get after Carson Wentz. They were just saying, well, we'll hang out here. We'll rush four and just

let you work your magic. And it was happening. I think Washington, and I actually don't disagree with this philosophy, it seems like what they want to do is just live with Carson, die with Carson. Again, I like it better than the alternative, which is what the Colts often tried to do, where they just tried to minimize his mistakes and then he threw an interception on a shovel pass. Like, the potential is just always there. There's no minimizing it. That said, the die by Carson part of that is real. And if their choice is to say, okay, we have some of these explosive playmakers on offense and we're just going to try to get him to get the ball to them and hope that we can live in this high variance world, but at least reap the best of the benefits that he has to offer.

This is the flip side of that. And again, I don't hate the philosophy, but it's just like, if you're going to do it, you have to be willing to stare this in the face and go, this is what can happen. And this is the scary proposition with like having, I think what you're saying, like, they're having Carson which is chuck a downfield. And if you thought, I'd rather you throw an interception 60 yards downfield rather than like five yards downfield like you were doing with the Colts. But then Carson Wentz has to hold on to the ball for more than three seconds. And that's when things get a little scary for the coaching staff as we saw today. Speaking of scary. So another thing that we saw in this game was Devonte Smith, totally

catching fire 169 yards in a touchdown. A lot of that came before half time. I forget how much, but over over, well over 100 yards. He's starting to show that he can really make plays in traffic over the middle, win at the catch point, not just do stuff on the outside going down the sidelines. It's, it's the best of, I think, what people felt he could be coming out of college going into the NFL. It's really, really cool, not only to see it start to really work, but also work when he's part of that stack with A.J. Brown because that is a scary duo of top receivers. And I think the combination of what that offense can be and then a defensive line, which, you know, yes, they're going against Carson, Winston, Washington. But that D-line is legit. Eagles are playing really good football. Yeah, and the scary thing is like Jalen Hertz goes 22 for 35, 340 yards, 3 touch ends, no interceptions, 85.9 QBR.

And he didn't even play well today. Like, there were ball placement issues. And it didn't matter because the receiver is just, they catch everything. They catch everything. The offensive line is so good. It doesn't matter if Jalen Hertz is kind of antsy in the pocket sometimes. There's such a margin for error. And I think he provides that for the play caller just because he's such a good runner.

And they're always going to have a productive run game because, of him, which obviously affects what the defense can do. They play a lot of single high. That makes things easier for Hertz in the passing game. There's like a give and take with it. But the way this offense is playing, like it's almost quarterback proof. And with Jalen Hurts playing well, this offense is just going to take another step. And they were top 10 in DVOA last year.

I would not be surprised at the end of the year, top five. All right. Last loser of the day. We lost Vegas Raiders lost 24 to 22 to the Titans. another failed two-point conversion. They are the NFL's only O and three team. There have been seven teams since the merger

that I've started O'N3 and made the playoffs. Obviously, the math changes slightly now that there's another game in the season, but they're also in a pretty tough division in the AFC West. That's a very significant hole to climb out of. More than that, Devante Adams wasn't involved for the second straight week. I think you're starting to see some personnel decision-making

from Josh McDaniels that that's looking a little shaky and questionable, particularly they're doing a lot of stuff with like seven offensive linemen combinations. That line is bad. They ranked coming into the game, I think 26th and past block win rate. So I get it. You're trying to do something. But pressure was still a big issue in this game. And he's supposed to be a really good offensive coach.

I think he's been that at times in the past. but this was the second straight game where even though it was the Titans defensive game plan to take Adams and Waller away and not let those guys beat them, they succeeded in that. Those guys were sort of non-factors for the second game in a row. And Josh McDaniels was hired for a lot of reasons, but one of them was to be able to scheme up an offense where their best players could thrive. And it's not happening. And they have lost these games.

kind of on the margins, right? Like they have a minus 13 point differential through three games, which is not a lot. And that's been the message there that, okay, look, the record is bad, but we've been competitive. I just think that first of all, it's just really hard to come back from. But it also looks a little worse when you start to consider that their competition in those three games, the Titans, Cardinals, and the Chargers, who I consider the Chargers a good team. but all three of those teams are one and two. And their only win is against the Raiders.

So you start to hear that message of, well, don't worry, it's we've been competitive. If we just clean up a little bit here, a little bit there, things are going to get right quickly. My response to that at this point is competitive against who. So, you know, I don't know if we're, I don't really want to be in the business of canceling a team in week three. but I don't think this season is off to a start that can be sort of fixed at this point. I, on the other hand, have no problem canceling this team after week three. It's over. I'm sorry, it's over.

And I think the biggest concern is beyond the O and three record. And like you said, it's a minus 13 point differential. It's a little fluky. It's a little unlucky. But Devante Adams not doing more. And I get that they're trying to take him away. and the Chargers bracketed him a lot. I think last week the Cardinals did too.

The Titans probably did it this week. I haven't checked the All-22 yet. But it's not like the Packers opponents weren't trying to take away Devante Adams. He was the only receiver on the team. The theory was that he would have more protection with Darren Waller and Renfro around, but it's not happening.

And I think that's where you see the difference between two Hall of Fame quarterbacks, according to Devante Adams. The difference between Derek, Carr and Aaron Rogers. Aaron Rogers was going to give Devante Adams a chance no matter what the coverage looked like. That's why Devante Adams always got the ball on third down no matter what the defense did,

even if they bracketed him. And Derek Carr's not going to give him those chances. And he hasn't so far. And I don't think it's in his nature to become more aggressive like that. So I don't know how this works out, especially with that offensive line, because the one thing that Josh McDaniels has always struggled to coach around, was a bad offensive line in New England. They always had that when the,

when the Patriots offense really struggled, it was because the offensive line was so bad. And he was able to overcome a weaker receiving court. He was able to overcome running games that didn't work. He was able to overcome Tom Brady showing his age at some points during like 2019, 2016. But an offensive line was one thing he could not coach around.

And this might be the worst offensive line in the NFL. I can always count on you to for an early Kinsom, You never let us down. All right. We're going to close with the non-headlined story of the week, which is that the NFL and JZ and Rock Nation announced that Rihanna is headlining the Super Bowl halftime show. Stephen, are you excited? Yes.

There was probably like four people they could have gotten to get me excited and she was one of them. I got to see this about Jay-Z. He's done a good job at picking halftime. he's done a really good job. The shows have been good. They've been really good. I have no notes.

Rihanna is honestly, look, like there was a rumor that I ended up not being true that Taylor Schiff was going to be the halftime show. I think it, I think all I need to say about how good I think this choice is is that I'm not even mad. I'm not even mad that that's not true. I might even be,

I, Rihanna, I just miss, I miss music Rihanna in my life. We've got a lot of Fenty Beauty, a lot of Fenty underwear Rihanna in our lives. I'm glad we're going to get some music Rihanna back. 14 number one hits. Like, come on.

But this is important for another reason. This means that a group of football media credentialed to cover the Super Bowl are, if everybody does what they normally do, going to get a chance to ask Rihanna questions at a press conference, in support of the Super Bowl halftime show, which to me means that somebody will finally get the chance to ask Rihanna about why she referenced

the 68 Jets in Wild Thoughts, one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in either football or music. If nobody else does it, I certainly well. I know where I'll be on the Wednesday before the Super Bowl, apparently. but Rihanna headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, I think, is fantastic. She'll put on a great show.

I almost might be more excited about the opportunity for someone to just go like, what? What are you big Joe Namath girl? Right. We need to ask her if she's a big Joe Namath fan. I want to know how much she knows about the 68 Jets. Who do they beat? Can you imagine if she just starts like rattling off stats?

That would be amazing. That would be amazing. Like Cardi B has a song where she references like some old like WWE guy from the 80s like Jimmy Fly Snooka. How does she know him? Like I need to question these rappers about these obscure references. There's a lot of them. Well, we'll get a chance with Riri and for that we can all be happy. All right, Stephen.

Thank you so much. This has been just yet another lovely Sunday. Top 10 Trevor Island. It's getting packed, man. It's getting packed. It's getting packed. It's getting packed. real estate prices going up.

This has been the Ringer NFL show. Thank you to Stephen and Ben for joining us. Thank you for listening. Next up on the feed tomorrow, we'll have Sheel and Ben with extra point taken, their deep dive of week three. Then it'll be power rankers with Jason Gough and Austin Gale on Tuesday. I'll be back on Wednesday with the island.

Sheal will be back Thursday with The Scramble. And then the Ringer NFL preview show with Danny Hypitz, Ben and Stephen will preview week four on Friday. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for production on this episode and to Arjuna Ramgapal for additional production supervision.