The Ringer NFL Show - Week 4 Recap: Brady Wins in His Return to New England, Cardinals Move to 4-0, and Rookie Quarterbacks Impress

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Kevin and Nora are joined by Ben Solak to discuss Tom Brady’s victory in his return to Foxborough. Then they talk about some other major results in Week 4 such as the Cardinals beating the Rams, the Cowboys staying hot, and much more. Then Kevin and Nora are joined by Steven Ruiz to take a deep look into the Baltimore Ravens' road win over the Denver Broncos. Lastly Kevin and Nora wrap up by answering some listener questions. Hosts: 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

What's up everybody? I'm JJ John D. Stramski. 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 Ringar NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. Sports are awesome. I'm joined my Nora Princeati and Ben Solac after the buck's last second doink-aided win over the New England Patriots. Nora, what's going on? That was the loudest doink I've ever heard.

Unbelievable doink. Unbelievable doink. I didn't hear the doink. Was it quite an explosive going? You got to go back and listen for the doink. That was a doink heard around the world. Tons to get to. We have some Cowboys hype.

I'll be doing most of it. Nora tries to hype up the Panthers defense within it. Dispacable. All right. Let's let the people listen for themselves later on. We have Kyla Marie hype. We have some reasons on why the Ravens beat the Broncos, the Packers. Obviously, the big win over the Steelers.

But we will start with what we just saw before. we started this, which is Bucks 19, Patriot 17. This is the game that we all wanted. I don't know if we all expected it. We all had different expectations coming into this game. Nora, what did you learn? Well, I just learned that Bill Belichick was asked postgame what it was like going against Tom Brady and he goes, we went against Tom Brady every day and practice defensively.

Oh, just another day. Just another day for big day. In his production meetings, apparently, he said to Chris Collinsworth and Al Michaels, Well, it's really upsetting that this is being portrayed as anything other than positive. He left the team. He doesn't play for the team anymore. He left the team and there was just like so much beef. Like, I remember being in Denver once and Alex Guerrero like drove away from this like weird

Marriott that the Patriots were staying at in a like a loaned Aston Martin because of Brady's partnership with them. Yeah. As just like a screw you because he was banned from traveling with the team at that point. So he was there on his own and staying in a separate hotel. And it's just like, dude, you got beef. It's okay. There's weird.

There are books. As Chris Collins were said, there are books. Okay. Back to the matter at hand. What did we learn? Well, first of all, that was a great game. Like, can we just revel in that for a second? Yes, we can.

Because I think, like, I get it. people have Patriots fatigue. They've got Tom Brady fatigue, whatever it is. But like, isn't there something to be said for communally watching something that a lot of people are going to talk about for a long time, right? Like, doesn't that get you a little excited when you're just, it's a close game? I don't know that we all necessarily thought it was going to be that close. And it just feels like, okay, this is, I can, I can see this coming up 15 years from now or whatever. Like, there's going to be some conversation about, oh, that, right? regular season game where Tom Brady went back to New England.

Like, remember how loud that doink was? Do you remember when they kicked at the end? Yeah. I just really, that was fun. I mean, the discussion that I want to get into here is sort of how we view, we'll get it in the buck, certainly, but how we view sort of how Belichick's view on the Patriots seems like right now, because I think you can kind of call it either way. But big picture, like, that was just a lot of fun.

I have history with the Patriots. I love watching them. There's a lot of intrigue just sort of when you know the ins and outs of it a little bit. But that was very cool. Okay. So completely agree with you.

That was amazing. I was nervous, even though I had no dog in that fight, I was snacking a lot. I had a lot of fruit snacks, strawberry fruit snacks. I had like four can't of the game. Yeah.

Welchers or Mots. Whatever my wife got. I'm just, I'm a plug and play guy is what I would say about that. I respect it. I respect it. Next snack up. neck snack. What's your favorite color?

Strawberry or cherry, the most important snack is the next snack. But a couple of things that we learned about Belichick tonight and how we've used it. First of all, Jacobi Myers had more deep attempts than Mack Jones, which is probably important there. Mac Jones at one point tied the franchise record with Tom Brady with 19 straight completions. That was fantastic. And then also, I thought it was interesting. We had talked earlier in the week about what this defense was going to look like.

the Patriots defense against Tom Brady. And what we thought was going to happen was that there'd be a lot of looks because nobody's better at diagnosing play calls than Tom Brady. And they were going to give them something that not only Brady's never seen, but maybe the Patriot never done before just because you just had to keep giving Brady new things. A, we got that. B, according to next gen stats, the Patriot shadowed the top receivers throughout the first half. So Mike Evans had J.C. Jackson on every route in the first half.

Brown against Jonathan Jones, Godwin against Jalen Mills. So they kept to a routine. Ben Solac, what did you learn tonight? Big picture? I think the biggest takeaway for me is I know there's been a tension between how much is the way that the Patriots passing game looks a result of Back Jones and how much of it is a result of Josh McDaniels. Who deserves like the credit and who deserves the fault in terms of a passing attack that

is highly efficient, but generally is very close to the line of scrimmage, right? Mac Jones in this game had an A dot of 5.2. He attempted one pass further than 15 yards down the field. It was intercepted. It is a very, I don't want to say death by 1,000 paper cuts because we had a listener DME and say I say that too much, but it's a very death by 1,000 favorite cuts offense. My impression is that a lot of that is the way that Mac plays. You see that they have opportunities downfield to test one-on-one coverage.

It's just not what he's interested in. He's used to having those bigger downfield windows. he prefers to take the quick, shallow route and let the yak receivers, let the yak tight ends, let the yak running backs do their job. And there's nothing wrong with that. But you saw them struggle to move the ball early and then really settle into some longer scoring drives late. They had the drive that got into scoring territory. They decided to punt on.

They had another field goal. They obviously had the drive that ended the game. Like, they were getting the ball down the field. My experience was that McDaniel was doing a really, really good job, just getting Mac into screens. Getting Mac into, all right, quick back. release. If this is what you want, I'm going to get it to you. We're going to be able to stay ahead of the sticks and move the ball down the field. That's a difficult way to play ball. Even when you've got a defense that's as lacking for defense of back personnel as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were,

even when that defense's going to be as simple in zone coverage as the buckingers were, that's still hard to do. It takes a smart, decisive, willing quarterback and it takes a really, really good play caller, always like three steps ahead on the chess board. So my biggest takeaway is that McDaniels has a thumb on the pulse for what Mac needs. Now, would you like for this offense to get the ball down the field more? Yes. Unfortunately, it feels like the main thing they need is like better receivers to do that. And they just spent a lot of money getting past catchers.

But also, Mac needs to start becoming comfortable with the idea of, all right, if I've got contested one-on-one and there's no safety help, that's NFL open down the field. I need to start finding some explosives. Would you guys have kicked at the end? No, that was my next question. No. this is the question Nora because I want to get to the bucks here in a second but this is my question to you

12 years ago bill bellichick had a Sunday night we're at a fourth down that essentially he could have won the game and he changed the entire conversation by going forward not getting it tonight with a different team with different quarterback with different offense he didn't do it is bill bellichick a coward thank you for that phrasing Kevin that means a question incredibly easy to answer in a nuanced and helpful way yeah and also also it's a it's a it's a yes or not going to allow you to say anything but yes or no. I'm kidding. Go ahead. Is Bill Belichick a coward? No. Did Bill Belichick blink at the end there? I kind of think yeah. And I get, look, they didn't have a run that produced a positive EPA all

night. Like I get the trepidation to go for it. But the thing about Nick Folk, first of all, it's pouring out there. But second of all, they don't kick Nick Folk over 50 yards. Like they just don't do it. He's been there three years. basically, so he's three for four. But the important part is that they just don't have him do it very much. I was so surprised when they kicked there. Just because to me that felt like, look, the whole book on your kicker and Bill pays attention to special teams, right?

Like he knows what Nick Folk's game is like. And Nick Fult's a pretty good kicker. He's been really steady for them. But the whole thing has been, all right, we're just going to stay within his game. We're not going to try to have him attempt really long kicks. It's going to work out most of the time. They've brought guys in in training camp,

these guys with like really big legs. They always end up going back to kind of steady eddy. But you feel like what's built into that is this understanding that, okay, when it's going to be 56 yards in the rain, like we're not doing it. And so I thought it was really, really surprising and an interesting kind of flip side to what Ben,

was talking about where, yeah, they know that there are some limitations to this offense and they're figuring out how to make the best out of it. I think overall, you're really encouraged by that performance. That said, on a couple of the, there was a third down screen where they could have, I'm trying to think of when it was, but it just seemed like on the, on the field goal drive when they ended up kicking. There were a couple times when it just felt like they were pulling back a little bit and saying like, I don't know if I fully trust what Mack Jones is going to do here or what the offense as a whole is going to do here, right?

Because they hadn't been running the ball effectively. Bucks did a really good job of stopping them there. And I think the end of the game is the most telling in terms of that because I just was really, really surprised they didn't go for it. I don't kick that. I go for it. Model-wise, because I feel like that's where the framework for these decision comes. Next Gen Stats model has it as a go situation.

Win percentage of Go, 34.7%. Win percentage of field goal attempt, 24.3. A difference of 10% win percentage is extremely big when it comes like these decisions. Can I say something funny? ESPN is the opposite. ESPN has a fuel goal. Their model takes weather into account.

Next Gen stats, which I asked Keegan Abdu there. Thank you to Keegan. Seth Walder of ESPN tweets out their model. Win% Go, 35%, win% kick, 42%. So it's 7% in the other direction. And as Seth says in that, they don't account for rain in their model. So, you know, heuristics have to be involved, right?

Like, the human has to make the decision. And obviously the rain feels like it makes it even more so. To go on top of Norah's point, Mac Jones, I said, like, oh, the depths of target is too shallow, you know what I mean? It's only five yards of target and that push the ball down the field. It's fourth and three. If it was fourth and eight, I'm worried. I don't like Mac in that situation.

I love my situation. I feel very confident that Mac's going to make the quick, decisive, correct read, and pick up five yards. That's what he's been doing all game. I'm shocked that they did not want to put them in that situation. Even if you hit it, 54 seconds, bucks with two timeouts, you're only up by a field goal. Like, I don't even like that too much either.

You know, even how Brady's been playing. So to me, that's a clear go-for-it situation. They had that and also, at the end of the second quarter, they decided to punt on a fourth and two. They took a delay of game penalty and then punted it, and the bucks left their defense out in the field when the punting team was there, because they were like, that's not real, right? Brady gets that ball back within two minutes, scores a field goal.

It goes in half, seven, six, and obviously ends up winning the game by two. Two suboptimal decisions by like next-gen stats models for Belichick in terms of kicking, punting, attempting out of fourth down, whatever. It's a little bit of a get with the times here. You know what I mean? Teams are going for it on fourth down now. You got to catch up and get left behind. He started and he can't do it anymore. Yeah.

For what it's worth, he's given his press conference right now and was just asked if there was any consideration of going for it. And he said, not really. I would take that with green assault. But given where Belichick is emotionally right now, I won't believe anything he says. Is there anything, Nora, about the pageantry of the night that surprised you? I mean, so Brady did not come out before the game

and he did his sort of long line of handshakes and hugs after the game. Anything just in the stadium with Brady, with Belichick, with Steve Belichick, who was making strange faces all night, who seemed to be living in the moment. anything about the night surprise before we get to the buck side. Well, Brady had a little bit of a rough go of it. And maybe we'll talk about how much of a factor the weather was.

But what interested me was that he was, he was missing high a lot in the first half. And it kind of reminded me of sometimes you'll see rookie quarterbacks, like making their first couple of starts. Should we throw him in the rookie roundup later? We did. We ended up talking about that in a different context. But you're just so amped, right?

Like you've got adrenaline coursing through your veins and those misses tend to just be like you don't realize how much you're putting on the ball. At least that's how I've always heard people talking about it. And I wonder if he had a little bit of that going on because you couldn't really, he and Bill had the world's shortest hug after the game. Obviously, they did the big video. There's signs everywhere. The crowd cheered him. There's a lot going on there. He had the talk and the hug with Robert Kraft and the stuff.

stadium before. I've got to imagine that even for somebody like Tom Brady, that's a little bit of a weird experience to come back and like, you know, you see ticket people that maybe haven't thought of in a year, but you go, oh my God, I just recognize all of these faces. Like, there's just no way that even for someone that focused, it wasn't affecting him on some level. Now, whether or not that actually translated into the physical and if that had anything to do with why he was particularly erratic early in that way, I don't know, but it at least made me wonder. if the emotion affected him a little bit. Was it similar to what it's like when you go back to Gillette now?

Yes, exactly. You just see everybody. Oh, yeah. That vending machine that the smart food would always get stuck in brings a tear to the eye. The coffee, the Dunkin' Donuts, K-cups. All right. Actually, don't knock the Dunkin' Donuts, K-cups. Those are solid.

We've had many a great conversation making those K-cups before we were co-workers. Um, okay, Ben. So we'll start about the box here for a second. So Sean Murphy Bunting already an injury. Uh, Carlton Davis goes out tonight. Anton Winfield leaves the game with a concussion. Uh, they feasted on Richard Sherman. I believe the stat, let me get that up here.

Uh, I believe that they did not have an incompletion. Maybe during the game, but at least in the first half against Richard Sherman. Up, it's seven of seven for 74 yards. Uh, when Richard Sherman is the nearest defender and DPI panel, according to Mike Greece over the course of the game. Any red flags here with the bucks or all the things considered with the injuries, with the emotions, this was a good win for them. Yeah, Sherman Dunn luck, like he's physically up to speed.

I don't want to say he's out of shape. I think he kept himself in shape. And I think that he knew he could get his number called as a free agent. I think he can get there. I think, like, you know, you get your sea legs back under you. But it was very clear early. You know, I mean, like you got Patriots offensive assistant watching that game from the booth going, yeah, he ain't moving the way corner should move.

We got to keep, you know, we throw the ball back shoulder on him, throw out cuts on him. He's just not to be able to break on it. And so I'm not, yeah. So I'm not surprised that that was the move. And you saw them start to blitz him a little bit late, which what do you do when you don't trust a guy in coverage? We blitz them. And so, right, and that's a reasonable expectation for a mid-30s quarterback who was

signed during the week. You know what I mean? That's no problem. And Sherman's a smart corner. So he's going to be able to get away with that as I think he gets physically up to speed. This was, as always, the concern with the Bucks. The concern was they were the healthiest team in the league last year. Something's got to give. And in this case, it's the defensive backfield. Losing Jason Pierre-Paul, obviously for this game makes it tough. Their

pass rush is a little bit lacking. Right now, it's who can clean up a beat of a bowl rush tonight. It was Joe Tryon Shaiinka. Congrats to him. But really, it's if Vaya's getting into the pocket quickly enough right now, they're able to move the quarterback off his spot and they're able to clean up work off that. So, yeah, I don't think it's any lasting concerns. I don't think there's anything schematically is wrong. I mean, Bowles was getting free rushes. He was causing problems for Mac. It's just a matter of when that ball's coming out under two seconds because you have to sit and cover three. There's not much your pass rush can do. So I'm not overall, all concerned

with that. The buck's target distribution, I think it's something that's a little bit more finicky for me. If you tell me it's shadowed receivers in the first half and Jalen Mills is the one on Chris Godwin, that's where my football's going. Chris Godwin didn't start getting looks until a two-minute drill. That to me is surprising. I think that there's a a lot of mouths to feed problem right now or it's just figuring out where you like your guys in which spots and which route distribution. Good problem to have,

but still a little bit of a problem. Overall, no major concerns, right? Tough win, got it out. I mean, Brady said it after the game. He was like, this was an ugly game. We were really bad in the red zone. It was raining. I was missing.

I got good teammates. You know what I mean? That's very much the case. Made some critical plays. Levante David Pass break up on 3 and 3. Like they got the little stuff done to sneak out with it. North, the Bucks, show you anything tonight? Or is this kind of what you expected?

I think given the circumstances It's kind of what you expect, right? Like they're banged up. I think if it hadn't been pouring, I would have expected them to seem a little bit more in control start to finish. But it was really gross out there. And I think sometimes that's an easy thing to underrate.

That was a hard environment to play in. I do think it seemed like some of the stuff the Patriots were doing defensively. Like it at least gave them a little bit of pause. Look, think this is a game plan that's that's been in the works for a while. So I think you factor that in. You factor in some of the guys that they're missing. You factor in, okay, they're trying to get Sherman up to speed. Obviously, he's not quite ready to do what they're asking him to do initially. It kind of, it starts to make sense. I thought they were going to win a little bit more

handily than this, but I think given the circumstances, it doesn't make me feel sort of worse about their long-term prospects. Yeah. My main thing in terms of like takeaways. Like I've just talked about like learning about Josh Josh McDaniels and Mac. Matt Juden's a different cat. Yep. Holy smokes. Right. I was looking up something else and I found that he was like top in pass rush win rate or excuse me top and pass rush productivity from PFF top in win rate against opposing offense to tackles for PFF. Josh Uche is also right there.

He's number two. And I was like, is Matt Judon really playing that well. Watchback with Matt Judon. Okay, that's nice. And then he's going up against Tristan Werbs and Donovan Smith. That boy's physical. the way he wins with strength is it's just so it's so bella chicken and it's so awesome he's just a bit bully and he's wearing number nine

and baggy red sleeves it's just a good luck so a lot of money thrown into this free agency class a lot of debate about it but Matt Judon they got that one right he's working out the best yeah that this I was going to say is that we have to actually separate judan from the other signings because I think

that everybody saw this as and I think crafts quote right afterwards we saw an inefficiency where we could go out and spend money when nobody else had it because the cap was down. And we had all this cap space, blah, blah, blah. And, like, I think they overpaid on a bunch of guys. But Matthew Drew Don was the guy. Like, that is a normal Patriots run of the mill, like, great signing.

And I, I think he was their first one, too, like, which doesn't actually matter. But it was like, they got that guy. And they knew that he would fit for what they needed. Sure. And overall, it was just a really quick, they knew who they wanted across the board, right? Like, so many of them were Drew Rosenhaus clients. like it was all sort of set in motion. One thing about Judon, when he was with the Ravens,

I mean, the Ravens in general, people in England used to always talk about like, okay, there's a lot of teams that are kind of scared of the Patriots where they'll just do weird stuff. The Ravens were never one of them. That was always a game where it was like, they are not going to be intimidated just because of, you know, the colors on the jerseys. And it was funny, Judon was one of the guys this week who was like, stop talking about Tom Brady.

I do not care. this was not, I'm deeply paraphrasing and also my tone could not possibly be more different from Matt Judans, but he was really, really, really over the Brady line of questioning. And he just seems like he's like one of those dudes. I got to imagine they're really happy with that signing.

Best player on the field tonight, man. I don't disagree. Okay, the Patriots have the Texans next week, so that's a get right game. And the dolphins play the bucks. So interesting, interesting game there. I'm intrigued to see it. As two people who've spent some time, not, not, you know, weeks, but some time with

Steve Belichick, you thought what about his star turn? You know, I think something sort of defy, defy explanation. That one I'm going to leave as one of the great mysteries of the galaxy is what exactly Steve Belichick was doing with his mouth on the sidelines. He was feeling it. I will tell you, I'm looking. can at a little website called Twitter.com. And I'm seeing

the Patriots trending. I'm seeing Tom Brady trending. I'm seeing the Buccaneers trending. I'm seeing Mac Jones trending. I am not seeing Bill Belichick trending. I am seeing Steve Belichick trending. So is this possibly a successful attempt to take the attention

off of his father? By making weird faces? I don't know, man. You know, we're going to get through this. podcast about a conspiracy theory. I just want to start here. Did Bill Belichick have children so that 30 years into it?

Yeah. He knew Tom was going to leave. And he knew that one night he wanted to not trend on Twitter. By the way, he's doing a great job of trending on Twitter. He just entered, according to Albert Breyer and other people, he entered the Bucks locker room. My stance

and Steve Belichick is this. If I had to do anything in a national football league game, if I'd like be the who runs around with the ball to give us to the rest, the facial expressions I would make under such stress would be immortalized forever. So when you're the defensive coordinator, working for your dad,

trying to stop the quarterback, his quarterback for 22 years, who he definitely is not mad that he left and doesn't care about winning this game, yada, yada, yada, yada. I would also be making weird facial expressions. So, Steve, I get you, man. It's a tough job. I have an awful...

The NFL once suspected that the Patriots were, like, having one of their website guys videotape the Bengals to get an unfair advantage. So it's not the weirdest conspiracy theory that's been planted about the Belichick family. Well, now they just see a bunch of empty sets and Joe Burrow just carving them up if they did that, if they filmed the Bengals.

I cannot believe you got Bengals process. Boom. They nearly lost the Jags. Just trying to get that process. Boom. All right. Time for our first superlative. It's the Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, award for making the leap as a young quarterback.

And right now, as of early October, I'm giving it to Kyla Murray. Cardinals 37, Rams 20. This is a big deal, guys. This is a really, really big deal. And there's a lot to unpack. But I want to start with you, Ben, Soak. Woo, buddy. Yeah.

If you can take 3rd and 16 and go, listen, if nothing opens downfield, our quarterback will just pick it up for us. You have officially ascended to a tier of just invulnerability on offense. Right? And that's where they are. Cliff, like, I just, I resent Cliff a little bit. Because he just sitting there on the sideline, wearing

his sunglasses indoors, looking a hell of fine, and just like, listen, I can't call anything. Kyler's going to be cool. Like, Kyle's going to be good. He called it, whatever. He called a very well-timed tight end screen, up 13. And I was like, boom, there you go. That's, that's the cliff play. That's the cliff,

feather in the cap. Great play call. great design, good job, Cliff. Everything else about the Cardinals offense is, it's Kyler and friends, you know what I mean? like Roddy Hudson's obviously been great for them. Chase Edmonds, man. A.J. Green comeback catch? Right.

A.J. Green. Officially back. Contested down the field, right? He looks spryer. I guess he couldn't have looked less spry. Okay. This is Kyler Murray. That's the magic of Kyler Murray.

Let's not declare anybody back here. Let's declare Kyla Murray good. I don't know. No, it's 2014 again. Now, my big question is simply this. And I was telling you in the pre-show that I want to go back and I want to watch Kyler's beginning of his 2020. Sure.

Because he had that surge in early 2020 in the MVP odds. He had a really nice start to the season. And then things petered out. The thing is that, like, to me that's just regression. To me, that's just chaos. because there's no like, oh, they figure out the Cardinals offense. There's nothing to figure out here. It is backyard football.

The one thing I would say to figure out is stop blitzing him because it doesn't work. But other than that, it's kind of just making up as they go. So I don't think it's like a figure out thing. I think it's just it regresses thing. But again, this seems like an even better start to 2021 than he had in 2020. And kudos to him because it's amazing how well he's able to play in chaos. Yep. Did not go down the field often, but when he did he connected.

7% of his passes were completed according to PFF and Z. Zero, zero turnover worthy plays on the afternoon. I just loved everything I saw. You know, I don't know how to Photoshop, but I was actually trying to figure out a way to, you know, remember the Cliff nice house photo? I was hoping to maybe put him with his feet up in SoFi Stadium, another nice piece of real estate because Cliff Kingsbury now owns that as well.

I have been on the Cowell Murray bandwagon for a while. And I'm not, listen, he's the first overall pick in the draft. I'm not inventing Kyler Murray here as a thing. Hot take. What we're seeing right now is kind of special. So first of all, the Rams defensive line was pretty quiet today. 13 pressures in the game, according to PFF, not good. Aaron Donald basically shut out, created two pressures on 37 pass snaps.

Wow. A lot of that was Kyler. Every single offensive lineman for the Cardinals allowed a pressure at one point, but Kyler was able to just escape that. This is, we're, we're, I think, Ben, that we're kind of seeing a leap here a little bit. Nora, was this a, you know, let me back up here for a second. Because I was looking at early October last year and week five last year was when the Raiders beat the Chiefs and carved up the Chiefs defense.

Everybody said, here come the Raiders. It's time to worry about the Chiefs. So I don't want to overreact to one week. But when you see a team like the Rams go down like this in an NFC West that we all thought was going to be special outside of the Cardinals, what do this game do to your belief in that division? Well, the Cardinals are really good. I think these are the two front runners, right? And that's, that's fairly well established at this point. They'll have the rest of the season to kind of duke it out. The nice thing for the Cardinals, just because the Rams, I feel like we

have a better sense of who they are, even if you were expecting them to win this game, right? We've talked about some of their vulnerabilities on defense, particularly, you know, when you get past, okay, what's Ramsey doing? What's Donald doing? Hopkins, obviously, didn't go off in this game. And I'd actually, I want to rewatch and see exactly how much those two were matched up together because it was kind of hard to see at points.

Early, it was like very little. Ramsey played the slot more in this game. 72% of his time. Yeah. The last time he was, he played in the slot this much was week one of 2016. So a while ago. But there were some highlight plays

where those two were really battling. Yes. So that was interesting to me. And then obviously they were effective at neutralizing Donald, which is mostly Kyler. that to me makes sense for the Rams. I think the question of whether or not the Cardinals, like, are this juggernaut. And if this is sort of a repeat of their hot start last year, if it's more sustainable,

the good news is that we're going to find out, right? Because they have the 49ers, they've got the Browns, then they've got the Texans, and they've got the Packers, and then the Niners again. And then the Panthers, who obviously lost today, but have looked, you know, moderately spicy on D. And then the Seahawks. So they're in that division, right? And they're going to be tested.

I think Kyler, look, it is good to be Cliff, right? He just lines everybody up in the same spot. Kyler, go work your magic, go have fun out there. So I'll be here. He'll be here. Run game coordinator two weeks ago. Who? You should just start handing out orange places.

Did I? Was that Ruiz? I think that might have been. That feels like a Stephen thing. Somebody did. It was Ruiz. The editorial voices is young cast. We all did.

We all did. Okay. So that it was definitively Stephen Ruiz. I just want you to know that. Okay. It was a good. It was a great take. I agree with it.

This doesn't make Cliff a good coach. It means he's the coach of Kyler Murray. Yes. That's the only thing that's been established. He's the coach on the sideline while Kyler Murray does amazing things. Cooper Cup targeted 13 times in this game. Matthew Stafford bad game. Just weird throws.

High throws. It was a flat game. And maybe that was that was just beating the bucks last week and it being emotional and them thinking they made it. I don't know. Again, you cannot extrapolate October games into a full season, but this was just a flat, sloppy game.

Yeah, I was DMing my buddy, Derek Klasson of Football Outsiders, and being like, yeah, like, what are the car was doing? Like, what's this? Like, this happening? Stafford, this, ever that. And he just responded,

Matt Stafford, weirdly inconsistent game. I'm stunned. And I reminded me like, oh, that's right. Like, we know what this guy is. We saw him in Detroit. There are games. They're just like, what are you doing? And that was one of these.

Okay. We're not worried about Stafford. We're bringing Stafford into the not worried category. Are we, starting to scratch our chins about the Rams defense. Yeah, I'm there. And I was there a little bit before the Bucks game, and I was expecting the Bucks game to be worse,

and they played better. And I was like, ah, we're fine. And then you see this, you're like, no. They have, there's two issues. Number one, all right, it's the brain of say the defense, so it's zone match stuff, okay? That requires a lot of continuity. It requires a lot of chemistry in the defense of backfield.

And when you lose Troy Hill and John Johnson, you start to get breaks in that chemistry, right? Ramsey playing majority slot now instead of playing majority outside. That's going to change the literal chemistry. It's going to change the dynamic. And all of this, like when coaches talk about his own match, they talk about like guys are on a string. You know what I mean?

Everyone has to react. Everybody has to move to one another. And so there's that lack of continuity that affects things. And then there's also Darius Williams was excellent in 2020. He's taking a big step back. Troy Hill is gone. They have David Long in the field. He's just not the sort of player you'd like for him to be.

And so they have a corner depth problem. and then they have a defensive backfield continuity problem. And it means there's a lot more space. There's a lot more contested wins. It's a lot harder to get off the field. They got Andrew buried. Nora, take us home. Well, do you guys think the Ramsey thing?

I just want to go back to that for a second. With them moving him around all over the place, this is going to sound a little bit silly. Do we think that's a good idea? Because he's played great, right? He's Jill and Ramsey. I just keep having this question, particularly in this game. And it's not like Hopkins went off like crazy.

He had four catches for 67 yards. on some level isn't like a shutdown outside corner always going to be more valuable than that like Swiss Army Knife dude? Or do you guys feel like he's sort of doing more? No, I think Ben, Ben's going to make the point that the shutdown corner is more important. I would say this. And I know this is the dumbest thing in the world. But I watch a lot, I watch a lot of college football. And I remember when Jalen Ramsey was doing as many things as possible, I just remember thinking, Jesus Christ, this guy's a nightmare.

And I understand the NFL level. It's a little bit different. But I think you can, I think a shutdown. cornerback is extremely valuable at the NFL level, but I also see trying to experiment and saying, what if we did this a little bit? Ben, take it away. Yeah, firstly, don't tell me what I'm going to say.

Don't put words in my mouth. I don't know who you think you are. Secondly, a shut down, secondly, secondly, a shutdown corner is more valuable. Right, that's the thing. I was only going off the noise you made. No, that's the thing is, it has jumped the sharks.

I agree. It is good to move around your most dynamic defensive piece. The thing about Ramsey is like, oh, he's a shutdown corner. He's also like a vicious run defender. And when you can get that guy as the nickel, he's going to be in the run fit.

And that's super valuable to you. But he is playing more, before this game, he had played the majority of his snaps, not the plurality, the majority of his snaps in the slot. And now after this game, it's going to be an even increasing margin. That's good.

I understand why it's helpful to your structure. I understand why it's nice that he can do that. At the end of the day, you want him to line up against D.K. Metcalfe. You want him to line up against Deontra Hopkins be able to take those players away on key downs. And like, Darius Williams, losing a contested bowl to AJ Green,

you're going to have to live with that. Ramsey can't take that away. Gary Swims has to cover somebody, but yes, this to me has jumped to the shark a little bit. It's a good change-up. It should not be the bread of butter. I would say this.

The Florida State went from Jalen Ramsey over the middle of the field doing everything to Derwin James over the middle of doing everything and now they're the worst team in the nation. So no way. Only Florida team to win a game last weekend, I'm pretty sure. Losing to Jack State. I didn't hear that.

Okay, we're moving on. Nora for a proletive. All right. So I am handing the 2021 Executive of the Year award to Aaron Rogers. Packers win, 2717. Visionary. Against the Steelers. Although I'm going to negate my own argument here. I am handing Aaron Rogers this award for training for Randall Cobb, five catches, 69 yards, two touchdowns.

Everything coming up Rogers, making those great personnel moves in the offseason, knew what he needed, knew what the missing link was there in Green Bay. However, if he has any competition, I like to think that it might be coming from within his own building. Because if I were Brian Gutakunst watching the Pittsburgh Steelers right now, I would be saying to myself, and you're mad at me for wanting a succession plan? How dare anyone take issue with what I have done while watching the corpse of Ben Rafflesberger attempt to orchestrate.

Steelers offense that just, I mean, we buried them last week. I don't quite know what to add to that. Barrier the last season. Ben Rathlisberger is now the only quarterback in the last 20 seasons. This is according to ESPN stats and info, to lose yardage on multiple

fourth down completions in the same season because they ran again the dump off pass to Harris that we talked about last week when Tomlin was like, well, we're out of plays. I don't know what to do. And now we're just doing it again.

So I don't know what to say. We've buried him so many times. It's like a horror movie except the villain never comes back. Like there's just nothing. Like Michael Myers is not coming back and we're just sitting there. Okay. Matt Canada came out over the weekend at a week and said, we're just going to keep on trucking. We're going to do exactly what we do. And my God, he was right. He was not lying about that one. There. still doing exactly what they did.

Ben, were you surprised at the volume of behind the line of scrimmage passes when they needed to get a yard? No? No, not surprised by anything anymore. You know what I mean? Like, it's, uh, again, like, I won't defend Matt Canada here. I don't find him a very defensive offensive offensive coordinator. However, I understand the rock and a hard place between which he's stuck.

There's only so much you can do with a quarterback as limited and obstinate as Rathusberger is limited. I can't do X, Y, and Z. Obstant, I refuse to do A, B, and C. I won't go under center. I won't run play action, right? There's, you only have so many pitches. The only thing I want to know is, did Mike Tomlin know that the camera caught him winking at Aaron Rogers in the middle of the game?

Executive of the year 2022 is Mike Tomlin for tampering. Well, Jujs was trying to force a trade at the deadline. That's all. I want to see just how bad this can get. I loved Rogers and Tomlin just trade and sups. Yeah. I love that.

They remind, if you guys ever seen the Shaq Greg Popovich thing like that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't talk about it. Yeah,

where he, Greg Popovich sent a hack a shack in as a joke and then they just kind of laugh at each other. That's just two dudes. It's just dudes being dudes right there. Just two football guys having a nice time. Trying to, trying to get together in 2020.

I want to talk about Aaron Rogers here for a second. So he came out and said that, the Steelers tried to take way Devante Adams. When Adams was single cover, he threw it to him. but mostly that created opportunities for, for Randall Cobb. Nine touchdowns, zero interceptions,

since the week one debacle, nor Princiotti's Aaron Rogers back. Aaron Rogers is back. Yeah. And look, okay, am I a little bit in jest about the Randall Cobb thing? Yes,

absolutely. However, if there's one thing that was a little bit of an issue for this Packers offense, is that they clearly have a number one, right? So if you take away Adams, you're kind of wondering what's left. Now,

I'm not saying that they have any other world, beaters there, but they're using Aaron Jones as a receiver a little bit, except for the fact that he can't hold on to the football. I think that's nice. If Cobb, if they just have that sort of established rapport, if that's going well, it's good for them to have other options. They're not going to have another Devante Adams, but you can see what happens when against a very good defense,

if he's getting a lot of the bulk of the attention, it opens things up for other guys. Not rocket science, but that's a really well-constructed offense. I think that's really good for them to just have guys that he can go to that Rogers feels good about going to because that's obviously with him, that's a big deal, right, that he likes who he's throwing to. The thing you want in

like your receiving core is I think it's Daniel Jeremiah which I'm like the basketball team. You want guys who throw different roles, right? Like Marquez-Beld of Scaling is a valuable player to have, but he is explosive but inconsistent. Alan Lazzard's a very valuable receiver to have because of his blocking ability, which I know it sounds stupid, but it's really important for like that offense.

Cobb is Eddie steady, right? He's possession receiver. You're not going to be two touchdowns every single. single week. Though, if Rogers wants to feed Cobb Red Zone targets to justify the trade, I'm 100% behind that and would like to see just how many he can. But they have a variety of guys, right? And so when you're down, Marcus Vald's Scantling time. When you're winning a possession game against a dull offense like the Steelers, Randall Cobbott time. What point guard has Ben Rothesburg like? Oh. My first thought was, uh, was Bibby, but that's because he's a lot bigger now than he was back

then. Oh, wow. Hmm. Okay, we're going to move on. Why? Yeah, somebody's dad. All right, we're moving on here to Ben Soax's first superlative. Yeah, my first superlative is, you know, it's everything fine. There's nothing to see here, right? That gift of the guy in front of the burning building.

Though I suppose the building's not really burning. The rookie quarterbacks are okay, guys. We're fine. You know, it was five days ago that we had the rookie quarterbacks are one and ten graphic on Thursday night football, right? The only rookie quarterback with the win is Mack Jones who beat Zach Wilson, so rookie quarterback had to win. then Trevor Lawrence came out and in a loss

had his best game in the season against Cincinnati Bengals. Unbelievable out of structure throws which was always an underappreciated part of Lawrence's play just because he was so good in structure at Clemson. It was so RPO first read heavy that he was able to stay in structure a lot. The stuff

that he was doing up against the sideline, the deep bomb to Leviska, like that's just silly. And it's a reminder that he has one of the top NFL arms and he has throw in the move ability. Justin Fields gets his second start against the Detroit Lions. Matt Nagy gives away play calling in the dead of night doesn't tell anyone competitive advantage baby head coach Matt Nagy. And Bill Laser walks out with just a gorgeous game plan,

right? We're going to be underwent. And he tried to not tell anybody after the game either. Yes. He just gave word salad until he finally admitted that all those good plays weren't his. It's Belichekian subterfuge. Yeah. It's like when you were a teenager and your parents like have irrefutable evidence that you did something wrong and you're just saying words out. loud, hoping that some of them get strung together into an excuse, right? You're just just throwing stuff at the wall to see wood sticks. Laser comes out of the great game plan. Fields gets, I want to say, 5,000 more downfield opportunities than he got against the

Browns in large part because past protection was better, and he couldn't miss. I mean, intermediate and deep, he was absolutely gorgeous to me. That's the best game a rookie has played yet this year was Fields against the Lions. I know it's the Lions defense, I know whatever, but we'll see how it goes. And then Zach Wilson gets his first win against the Tennessee Titans. I liked his game a lot more live than when I watched it back. He remains really late. He's late because at BYU, he had bigger windows, so he could get away with it.

He's late because rookies are usually late because of NFL speed. He's late because he pats the ball before every single throw, and that's getting really annoying, and somebody needs to clean that up. So there's a lot of reasons why he's late, and that means, you know, there were balls that could have been jumped, could have been picked off. They were tasks that should have been easy completions that died in the dirt because the nose of the ball was spinning. So he had to release really quick because he's, late to the throw, but then he hits a 55-yard bond with Corey Davis out of structure.

And you're like, holy Moses, this is why we drafted the kid. You know what I mean? Like they won that game on the back of three explosive plays and then a pass interference. That's not tenable. That won't happen every week. But they caught a bad Titans defense with a lot of injuries on offense and they were able to gut that out. So the win, confidence building. The deep passes, very confidence building. And it was Wilson's best game. So, oh, and then, Traylands went in for the second. Jimmy Gropolo, strange his calf. He looked super duper jumpy. He just looked really uncomfortable. First action.

He was seeing ghosts. He had a nice drive there in garbage time. Debo Samuel touchdown. Not good for him. But in general, those rookies who we've seen have starts, who we've been worried about, and obviously we talked Mac Jones at the top, those rookies played better this week four.

Now they're settling in. It's still a really good quarterback class. I think everybody should be happy with what they bought come out of the draft. Yeah. So Garapolo did not play in the second half, as we know. So he said he hopes it's just a couple of weeks for something. Oh, wow.

Seems, yeah, so it seems like Lance will get more opportunities going forward. I really liked the highs of Zach Wilson today. And that's kind of we expected, almost like what we were talking about Ben with Trevor Lawrence a couple weeks ago, where we just want to see, we know we're going to see a bunch of mistakes that just sort of hot with these work. We also want to see that the high ceiling. And I saw that today from Wilson. I loved it. Nor, when you look at the rookie quarterbacks, what stood out who impressed you? Well, it's just, this is a week that really made me think about like, it's week four, right?

And I think sometimes it's like the season starts and you just dive right in and everything feels like it's going a million miles an hour. And we're drawing all these conclusions and so excited to see everything. These guys haven't had very long. Right. And I was thinking about it watching Lawrence, right? Because it had been so rough. And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, he's turning the corner. He's figuring it out. Like, right. This is what we expected to be seeing. And I think the thing is just like these guys, a lot of them are not in amazing situations, whether that's because of the. the teams that they're on or like even look even for the 49ers in lances case like shanahan was really really really sure to point out after the game he said the game plan was not built for him like four times like it just seemed like all he wanted to do was make also also called him a number two quarterback just so everybody knows he's not one any he's not one has to be weird why do the coaches have to be so weird all the time Kyle Shanahan could not hate half of his roster more it's really amazing. It's really amazing

that Kyle Shanahan is either like this is my guy or I just the people forget Kyle Shanahan is a sub 500 head coach. Wow. Do people forget that?

I think enough people forget it that it feels worthy of mentioning here. Are you feeling of Brandon I was right? Seattle Seahawks. Are they, are the Sears reeling? They were reeling. They lost back-to-back games

to the Titans of the Vikings. Okay. Yeah. No, I mean, it's week four. Guys, it's, yes, it's week four. Like, I think we all need to take a chill pill with the rookie quarterbacks and maybe just generally.

Like, I think it would be good for us. But that was my takeaway with them. It's just like, we need to give these guys a little bit more time to cook because most of them are not in amazing situations either because, like with Lance, the circumstances with which he got in. Unless we think it's a giant conspiracy and Shanahan just wanted to get him in there. But I have a feeling it wasn't because I don't think Jimmy would be on board with that. So next week, Zach Wilson has the Falcons. Seems like a good confidence. Good next step there.

The Bears have the Raiders. The Tray Lance has the Cardinals. So that is interesting to me. And the reeling Seahawks have the Rams on Thursday night. I'm worried about that, Ben. And now are the Rams reeling? They had, there were, like, votes from the defense that they, like, didn't know what the play calls were.

I feel confident. No, and I publicly commented on that, and I said that that is, this is what they do. I don't know. It felt different, but maybe it's not. The Seahawks are only reeling when things are quiet.

Yeah. That's when, that's when disaster truly strikes. I'll say this right now, a week out. A week to game plan for Lance against that Cardinals rushing defense, which is abysmal,

could get like real funky. We could see one of those like 23 to 13 wins where San Francisco holds the ball for like 40 minutes sort of things, which I would extremely vibe with. Though they probably don't have the secondary to do that. Either way,

I think San Francisco runs the ball all over Arizona next week. Trevor Lawrence has the Titans. Oh, baby. Yeah. Reeling Titans. Nah, Titans are just bad. All right.

I'm giving the Aaron Rogers was right about Mike McCarthy award to the Dallas Cowboys and Kellan Moore and everything good I saw today. So let's back up here. The Dallas Cowboys. are legit.

The Dallas Cowboys are going to win the NFC East. I cannot believe because we picked the week that the Cowboys sent the weird tweet that I temporarily talked myself out of the Cowboys being very, very good. It was Jerry Jones all of a sudden calling the Texas Rangers about Dak's shoulder. And I said, guys, I don't know about this one. And then Dak seems to be totally fine. Not only that, the entire Cowboys defense is rejuvenated. Turns out Mike Nolan was one of the worst coaches in history, and Dan Quinn is not.

Whether or not Dan Quinn's actually a good defensive coordinator is a separate issue. He's much better than Mike Nolan. So they beat the previously undefeated Carolina Panthers 36 to 28. Doc Prescott, 12 to 22 for 188 188 yards for touchdowns. Zekelly 843 yards and a touchdown. Trayvon Diggs, 44% completion percentage to interception 37 passer rating allowed. He now leads the NFL in interceptions. Ball Hawk rate.

I don't know what that is, but the NFL keeps you as a stat and target EPA negative 24. Beyond that, Osa Odigizua. Yeah, what? Has, I think he had six pressures today.

Seven quarterback hits through four games, this stat via Bobby Belt. That's three more than any Cowboys defensive tackle had in 2020. Ben, the Cowboys built their entire draft around defense, it worked. Yeah.

I'm still a little suspicious in general. I think two things are true about Trubon Diggs. I think he's better than he was last year. I also think that a lot of this interception stuff feels fishy. You know, Devontes with falling down last week. Sure. Interceptions can be also just be a function of people throwing to you. Yeah.

Fishing in the sense that like interceptions are definitely the more sticky of the turnover. like fumbles are like very random. Interceptions are a little bit less random. But I think people put a lot more. But still random. Wait, yeah, behind them than I think that they deserve. Regardless, Diggs clearly playing well. And yeah, that front, especially with DeMarcos Lawrence out,

it is impressive how successful they're being. I know before the game, the rookie leaders in pressure were Michael Parsons and Osa Deguza de Guzua among all teams. And so that, right, absolutely, is giving you what you need. That's how you're going to have to win. If you have a Dan Quinn defense, you're going to have to win with pressure up front. all that's delightful. To me, the story is,

we saw Dallas walk out against Tampa Bay throw the ball like crazy, right? And it was still like enough neutral downs because they were close. We were like, oh, the Cowboys are going to be super pass happy this year. And then they've come out in the last three games and been on run heavy scripts.

And they were really good against Tampa and they were really good against the other defense that run heavy script. The Carolina defense was very tough to run on for a lot of teams previously. Dallas said, we're just going to be bigger than you. And they were able to do it successfully.

has slimmed down, but has retained his tackle-breaking strength. There is no better running back in the lead than taking a three-yard run and making it a five-yard run than Zeke. Even Nick Chub, even Derek Henry, he finishes through contact at such an unbelievable rate,

which keeps you ahead of the sticks, and then they're folding Pollardin as well. They can be whatever they want on offense. Prescott is smart enough to get them into the right looks, and they have a deep stable at running back, obviously a deep stable at receiver, and then freaking Dalton Schultz is like the fifth best head end of the league right now.

Like, they have everything that they need to just respond to defense. Fifth best or first best. What's that? Belton Schultz, fifth best or first best? I said fifth best. It was just kind of off the cut. No, I'm correcting you. By the way, Goldstein had half a second, two pressures generated today.

Yeah, and he missed most of camp, too, and he was a good player coming out Iowa. So this Cowboys offense to me is the story for Dallas through four games. They can just evolve. They can just adjust and adapt. They can be whatever they need to be relative to what they're getting. It's tough to see a defense. fully taking them away at this point. And so if Dallas is able to score 30 consistently

and that defense continues to get timely turnovers and timely pressures, I agree, very difficult team to be. I just wanted the Cowboys defense to be good enough. And that's what this is. This is not ever going to be a top two defense here or anything like that. But they're going to score points. Deck presseout's going to put up a hell of a lot of passing yards

at most weeks. And they just need to create turnovers and be a good modern defense. It's an extremely similar story to what's happening in Las Vegas, right? Las Vegas is explosive in his passing game, but it's we had some talent on defense. We had a defense coordinator trying to do a lot, be multiple.

Let's bring in a cover three guy. It's going to have our guys line up and play. And we don't need to be elite. Floor raiser. We got to be fine and let our offense carry us the rest of the way. Let's raise the floor. Nora, hype up the Cowboys with me. Well, I'll do it by hyping up the Panthers, sort of.

Because I think. This has been an interesting back door. Oh, my God. She took Cowboys hype and turned into Panthers hype. Well, I want to hear it. So is I think the Panthers defense. is for real, at least for real in terms of being a lot of first gear than we were necessarily expecting to start the season. I saw more of this game, I should say, in the first half when it was closer than towards the end.

But those guys are fast as heck. Like everybody on the defense just looks like they're absolutely lit on fire. And so really my takeaway was, especially later in the game when the Cowboys really took control is, yeah, like Ben said, they're able to win in multiple different styles. and this is just a really, really, really good offense. To bring it home, let's not listen to tweets that much again. Well, that's true. Listen. Wait, what was that about?

The Cowboys, the shoulder tweet. It's not a reason to panic, Kevin. It's not a reason to worry. They told us. Oh, I thought you meant everybody's tweets. I'm ready to, I'm ready to trash everybody's tweets. I agree with that. Okay, so here's the reason I wanted you to have with the Cowboys, Nora.

What if I didn't? Well, you didn't. So you didn't. I liked it. No, I did. Kind of. All right. But wait.

Hold on. Hold on. We're taking, no, we're taking a left turn. Take a left turn. I think that we've seen Mike McCarthy blow enough decisions over the past couple of weeks. We know who the ace on the coaching staff is.

Can we bang the drum? Either of you join me in hyping up Kellyn Moore for head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 2020. No. Be a head coach of my Chicago Bears. Go Justin Fields. But wait. Wait, wait, wait, let me ask you a Chicago Bears. If, Ben, if you are Chicago Bears, if you were the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, would you support that?

Or is it just a pro Justin Fields? Yeah, if I was the honor of the Dallas Cowboys, I would support that. I'd also look myself long hard on the mirror and go, Mike McCarthy, the last 18 months, what were you thinking? I thought you're going to say you would look yourself long hard in the mirror and be like, why I'm on this podcast right now. There's a lot of things. I think I'm going to go to my yacht. There's a lot of things. I look, yeah, yeah.

I know, I very much believe that the best coach on that staff is Kellyn Moore. I will say we do in general, underappreciate my opinion, veteran presence is on coaching staffs, especially across the lulls and the swells of the season. And it is nice to have a young guy like Moore paired with McCarthy and Quinn, both of whom are like, you know, established guys in locker rooms. I think that is good. But with that said, yeah, Kellan Moore should be that coach. I mean, you can just hire, like,

you just hire Cam Cameron as an associate head coach if you want some veteran presence, you know? Yeah, or? I'm not unleashing that take. Mic McCarthy. What about Dan Quinn? Dan Quinn is like, as veteran guy. Yeah.

Quinn, like, he's there. Players love Quinn, you know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. So I think that's a good situation for more to see how it's done. And like, hopefully he's watching more Quinn than McCarthy. But still, like, get the veteran. and reps in there. I think I'm going to do an entire Cowboys hype podcast on Wednesday.

That'd be really fun. I'd tune in. Thank you, Ben. Nor is not invited. Nora's not invited because it's not fit. It could be a Panthers defense show on Thursday. Yeah, you can go somewhere else to do your Panthers hype show, Nora. Okay.

Sir Per and I will have a lovely time without either one of you. Robbie Anderson. Robbie Anderson, Sir Per, Nora and I will be joining everybody on Thursday. guest with Mallory Rubin and we don't need you guys. A Panthers Moral Victory podcast. Ben, what's your next superlative? All right.

So my next superlative is the you lied to a superlative. This is the bad superlative. And it goes out mostly to the New Orleans Saints offense. James Winston. Five touchdowns. Flawless execution in the first game against the Green Bay Packers. And we were like, man, LASIC James, friend of the pod. Top storyline coming out of a week one.

Fred from the Meanwhile the storyline that perhaps we should have taken away from that was how heavy on early downs

the New Orleans Saints were running the football because that has remained their model across the course of the last few weeks and we know in general

that that's just not the model that you'd like to follow you'd like to be able to be explosive on early downs you'd like to be able to throw the ball early downs and stay ahead of the sticks

against the giants a team that less we forget Patrick Graham their divets coordinator said at the at the top of the season, we don't know how to play run defense yet. Like that was a quote he gave in prep a week one. He was like, yeah, our guys aren't ready to play run defense. Well, the Saints ran the ball on 35 of potential 53 early downs. And they ran it

with a 49% success rate, which is like decent, but it's not that great. They had a positive EPA, 0.02, which again is like solid for running the football, but it's not incredible. Once again, James was an extremely low passing attempt player. He had 23 passing attempts. he has not crested 25 passing attempts yet in a game this season. And he was efficient. 17 for 23, 226 yards, and a touchdown. He took no sacks through no picks. It was fine.

But the offense lacks the ability to score quickly. They have to score on long drives. It has to be Alvin Camara and dump-offs. It has to be screens to the tight end. They got an explosive gain to Marcus Callowite, and then he immediately was hurt and he left the field. They got Taysam Hill involved in the Red Zone package again, which is usually Sean Payton's,

I don't know what to do, answer to the problems on offense, right? We get Tasteman involved. So this Saints offense is very afraid of giving the keys to Winston, which is not where you want to be with your quarterback. And that gives them they had control of this game. It was

21 to 10 halfway through the fourth quarter. And the Giants got a couple really, really nice plays. Sequin Barclay, by the way, is back and looks awesome, which is very few players more fun to watch in the league in Saquoan Barkley. But the same type of control. of this game. Give us your list. Give us your quick list.

Players are, okay. I mean, it's like Lamar Baham's at the top. Sequin's up there. Henry's up there. It's Keenan Allen. Granc is really, really fun to watch. Defensively, Derwin, Chandler Jones really fun to watch. Garret's really, really fun to watch. Oh, uh, uh, uh, what's the name?

Lavante David. Lavante David is so fun to watch. Shaq Thompson's becoming one of these guys. Um, Norm mentioned him earlier, linebacker for the Panthers, dude just flies. I have no idea how he's not broken at this point of the season. He is everywhere. Jeremy Chin also on that defense. But anyway, Ben, you're invited on the Thursday podcast now. Thank you. 21 to 10. Panthers party. It's called Panthers party. It should have been a Saints win, but they also should have had more points on that board. And the Giants said, we're just going to throw the ball, Pauls, and the D by the rest of the game and see how it goes. And they were able to win it in overtime.

So the Saints drop an unnecessary game. They're two and two, but they don't feel like a very scared football team. They feel like a team that greatly lacks identity on offense. That's not true. They have an identity, it's not a good one, on offense. And then on defense,

they're still recovering from some of the departures that they had in for agency this season. So you lied to us, New Orleans. It looked like it could be real against Green Bay. And in general, I just don't think it is. Nor, as our LASIC-Jamus expert, take it away. Well, they did the TASM, throws the ball thing a couple

times, which just makes me nervous. Just makes me nervous about how everybody's feeling. I don't know. I mean, James was fine, right? Like, he hasn't thrown an interception in three of four games as the same starter. Probably on the whole, that's better than you would hope, right? Eight out of six in this game.

Wow, okay. He's very cautious, yeah. I think that, like, the beast has been maybe tamed a little bit too much. in some ways. Like I wonder if they're going to the flip side where it's like, James don't screw up, James don't screw up, James don't screw up.

And then it's like, as Ben said, they're sort of not finding something to really like press the gas pedal other than just big shot plays. I just got to find something that's sustainable enough to not do the Tassum throws the ball thing. Like more than once. Once per game I'll let you get away with.

Once we're doing like two, three passes, like just, It just, it makes me nervous. We got a bunch of reader, listener questions. I always say reader questions. We got a bunch of listener questions

from Giants fans. We're saying, hey, it's Daniel Jones good. Is this Daniel Jones, is he back? Either of you want to take this in any direction. Daniel Jones is like not back or not, Daniel Jones is the same. Daniel Jones, when he doesn't turn the ball over, Daniel Jones is like very good.

Right. But that's one of his core tenants is fumbling. It's one of his things. That's the problem. Yeah, it was never the, good plays he failed to make, it was the bad plays he made. It was the way he shot himself in the foot, right? So as long as Jones continues to not shoot himself in the foot,

it is acceptable quarterbacking. It's something amazing, but it'll get the job done. You win a couple games with that. But quarterbacks have habits. Quarterbacks fall back on how they play. You know what I mean? I'm happy that he has yet to fumble the football. I think he's lost one fumble so far this year.

It hasn't really thrown, I think he's thrown one pick as well. great love it awesome show me it for 16 games and let's sign you to a second contract and i'm just not sure we get that all the way there not 17 james daniel jones yeah just 16 no week 18 daniel jones second contract is kind of a scary phrase for me uh nora last apparelive all right so i'm delivering um the kevin stefansky revenge game trophy to kevin stanke's brown yeah Yeah. Congrats, Kevin. Mainly because, all right, so Browns win 14 to 7 against the Vikings.

I don't want to totally poo-poo this game because I think the Browns defense was like legit, very good and has been very good lately and is cool and exciting. However, I would say that this was a concerning Baker-Mayfield game is how I would put this. Baker's quote after the game, he was 15 of 33. He said, I don't know what the hell that. that was, which I guess is good, right? Because if he can't identify the problem, it would indicate on some level that it kind of came out of nowhere.

But that was just overthrow after over. I mean, he could have overthrown the Kremlin, I think. Ooh, I like that. Oh, wow. Thanks, guys. Wow. I worry that it was like it's sort of, I'm trying to decide if I think this is random enough where we,

can just be like, okay, Baker's been super accurate to start the season, right? His completion percentage has been really, really high. Some of that is scheme. Some of that is Stefanski just making things easy for him. Stifansky took some of the blame for the offense after this saying that he needed to call a better game and get guys open. They were open. The ball was sailing many, many yards over their heads on a regular basis.

I think I ultimately feel like it's not worth sort of like panic. over in terms of whether or not Baker is just going to keep doing this because it was weird. Like it was a sort of startling result. That said, it was a little too close to some of the bad tendencies we see with him when we do see him struggle. That it just made me go like, ooh, ooh, don't love that. I don't know. Ben, what did you think? Right. The way I'd characterize it is we didn't see any poor throw, poor decision, poor pocket process from Baker that we had never seen before.

it's just he took all of the bad plays he usually makes across the course of like a month and just put them all in one game. One. You know what I mean? Just very high density. And listen, Mike Zimmer will do that to you.

Yep. He'll give you every look in the book and then something else on top. And so on some of those plays where like he's in the pocket and he's just bouncing around there's no idea where the rushers coming from is no idea where the space is going to develop.

That's something we see from quarterback's facing Zimmer often. Missing Old Beckham Jr. in open space is just like, all right, this is the sort of stuff we need to get. We need the layups. And Baker can be very, when he's good, he's good, when he's bad, he's bad. He can get very much in, in ruts, right?

He's a momentum guy a little bit. So I'm not overly concerned that we're going to get this Baker game over and over and over. My major takeaway from the Browns against the Vikings and even a little bit in their previous games, I remember you guys in the preseason trying to really hype me up on this defense and me being like, no, no, I want to see it.

Yeah. Yeah. I can play. a little bit. Oh, man. Grant the outfit looks good. Troy Hill looks good. Denzo Ward looks real good. Jeremiah Wissu Coromoh, the rookie linebacker,

absolute nutcase, love him. Defensive line can eat. Joe Woods has got the dogs barking. So if we keep this up, yeah, we're a real team in the AFC. We can punch with the big guys. And so young Cleveland Brown's defense

early in the season, deliberate on what was built. Exciting to see. Nora and I would never steer you wrong. Never. I would definitely steer you wrong. Cowboys freak out. I was really excited.

I was really excited about the Jaguars this season, guys. Yeah, someone, someone, like I thought they might win eight years. Kevin, remember when you pick the Falcons to make the wild card? Yeah, I'm sorry. Is the wild card clinched by anybody? It's a fair point.

It's a fair point. Cordell Patterson, bring them home, baby. Yeah, I saw it coming. Patterson. Patterson. Three touchdown Corderole game. RB one. The Falcons pick for me was mostly that

I didn't think there were seven good NFC teams. And now people were asking me, I think this is actually not a bad point. I wish you got some Western questions about this. Are just four NFC West teams going to make the playoffs? That would be good. It would be good for football. It would be good for the playoffs. Yes.

Good for football. No, Carolina, maybe. It would be great if the whole division made the playoffs. It would be embarrassing for the rest of the divisions. Just imagine, like, you know, Seattle Seahawks. You know, just like, and they're like, oh, playoff streak of making the playoffs. Also, they were fourth in the division this year. Like, to me, that's a hilarious little nugget.

I'd like it. At large bids. I'd like it. Like the cool kids table. All right. That's it for superlatives. Time for Ruiz. Ruizans.

Bye, Ben. We'll see you this week. Bye, cab. Bye, yeah. How are you doing the season? Excited to show up on both the Cowboys and the Panthers High podcasts. You're not invited to the Cowboys one. I didn't like the enthusiasm and the hype.

See on Thursday, Ben. Bye, no. All right, it's time for Ruizans. Why our weekly breakdown. I don't know why I'd do the old Monday night football theme. I guess the current one before big segment, but I'm excited about this one. Okay, so it's Broncos and Ravens.

One of the more interesting games of the week, because there was a lot of Broncos hype. We were starting to wonder if we should pay attention to them. Teddy Bridgewater had some of the best stats in the league. he didn't finish the game. What did you see and what were your big takeaways, Stephen Ruiz? I think my big takeaway was that first half from Teddy. We don't know when Teddy's going to come back.

No. But I think that kind of showed the ceiling on this Broncos offense. The Ravens played a lot of manned coverage. They blitzed a lot as they are wont to do. And Teddy just couldn't make plays. And I think that's what teams are going to do going forward. you play man coverage, you force the quarterback to make plays and make throws in the tight windows. Teddy didn't want to do it.

Drew Locke, I don't even think he could do it if he wanted to. So I think this game, I know, there's no shame in losing to the Ravens and losing to Lamar Jackson when he's playing as well as he did. But I do, I would have concern if I was a Broncos fan coming from this game. So he's out of the concussion. Again, we don't know when he's going to be back. Is this Broncos team good, Stephen? It is a good team. It's good around its quarterback.

And when Teddy Bridgewater is in there and not playing a defense as aggressive as the Ravens, I think it is a, like a good team, not quite a great team. But with Drew Locke in there, I just don't see. I don't even know if this is a playoff team. And I wonder how long he's going to have to play. Spoiler alert, it is not a playoff team with Drew Locke. Like, let me answer that for you. Let me step in right now and tell you that.

Nora, handicap the AFC West for me because the Kansas City Chiefs, are two and two after four weeks, and the two teams leading the division, one of them being the Broncos, the Raiders played tomorrow night, are less talented. Help me handicap that race. So the Broncos are the worst team in the division.

Yes, that's what I was looking for. Yes. But that's not that spicy. Like the other three teams are, okay, two of them are very good. The Chiefs and the Chargers are very good. And the Raiders are... it's a little tough given the division,

but they are a playoff caliber team, right? They're a team with a good offense and a stable defense. I don't think that you can say the problem with the Broncos is that they're a team with a stable defense. I think particularly one of the biggest things for them is how good von Miller's looked so far this season. But they're a team of a stable defense and a just sort of pretty good, okay offense, depending on who's playing quarterback, which is now a question, right? And probably not a long-term question,

but we don't know. And I don't think, like you're playing with one hand behind your back, basically, especially in this division and just in the modern NFL when you're more reliant on defense and offense. And I would say because I trust the other three offenses in this division,

somewhere between more and way more, they're number four. There's no shame in that, though. These are good teams. I think they're shame in being worse than the Raiders. Why do we trust the Raiders? I feel like we do this every year. The Raiders are a playoff team in October,

and then by November, they are no longer a playoff team. I think that there's not a, I don't think there's a lot of evidence that either of these teams are very good, but I certainly wouldn't confidently predict that the Raiders are any better than the Broncos. I think the Raiders are getting better quarterback play. I agree with that.

But that's right now. Raiders defense is fake, though. I think what we've seen out of it so far, I don't think we're going to get this high level. I don't, well, I don't know that those two things mean the same thing, right? Like, they've had some really superlative play for the first month of the season,

but I do think that that thing is like stable in a way that it has not been in seasons past when they've gotten out to a good start and then fall off a cliff. I tend to agree with that. Stephen, who's going to win this division? Oh, the cheese are going to win it. I feel like we discounting.

how insane Patrick Mahomes has been this year. Like he's on pace to do better than his 2018 season. Nobody cares. No one cares. No one cares. He threw five touchdown. He threw one touchdown underhanded. He threw one shovel touchdown.

He threw one side-armed. He threw one fade away. And he didn't even get a video on the NFL's YouTube page. He didn't get a highlight video. You know who did? Daniel Jones. I do think there are some YouTube clips of Patrick Mahomes. Yeah.

He's out there. If you want to find some. No, but the NFL. didn't give him his own highlight video today. And they gave Daniel Jones one. Can't he get one? Can't DJ get one? Danny Dimes. Can we give him one YouTube video? Exactly one? Daniel Jones didn't turn the ball over. It's like a supernova.

Exactly. That's true. A super cut of him just not dropping the football every time he gets touched. Hey, let's talk about the Ravens here for a second. Yeah, hey. Let's talk about the Ravens here for a second. All the way back. No, because their run game still isn't back to where it was in 2019. And that's why I thought this performance by Lamar was so impressive because you're going against Fangio, who's known as this defensive wizard, and he totally shut down the run game. Lamar only ran six times himself, and he still had one of his more efficient games by EPA passing the ball. He did miss a few throws, which may, I mean, I'm even more encouraged because it wasn't his best game, but he still produced like a top quarterback, which I think. think he is. Can I talk about

Drew Locke? I just want to talk about Jewelaw. I mean, sure. Because I want to yell at the people who in August when they made this decision to go with Teddy Bridgewater, who said, oh, this is boring. Drew Lock's the more entertaining. What's entertaining about Drew Locke? Have any of

these people actually watch Drewlock play? Because I think the idea of Drewlock, this gunslinger who throws the ball downfield makes dumb decision sometimes. It's kind of like James. That's not actually who he is. He's a guy who gets the snap. Gets happy feet in the pocket, takes a sack or throws an inaccurate pass. They didn't cross midfield for like his first four drives.

There was nothing fun about this. Teddy Bridgewater is a more fun quarterback. And Teddy Bridgewater is one of the more boring quarterbacks in the league. Has any player in professional sports ever benefited more from being caught on camera rapping for like eight seconds than Drew Locke? No. No. I feel like young Gizi has done, he's done a lot for,

for Drew Locke and Jay Billis. I feel like Jay Billis and Drew Locke should be like connected somehow because they're both feeding off the power of Young Jeezy. Jay Billis does it by tweeting out Young Jeezy lyrics. Drewlock does it by masking his bad play with rapping. Who's done more for Drew Locke? Young Jeezy or Cortland Sutton? Oh, Young Jeezy.

Cortland Sutton hasn't actually like helped Drew Locke. Done that much for Drew Locke is a terrible quarterback. I do want to say when I pitched this segment, I did outline. whether or not Young Jeezy or Cortland Sutton had a bigger impact on the Broncos. That was the arguments we were trying to get into. I'm worried that this take is going to be, you know, it's going to be all over all the podcasts. First take tomorrow. One could argue that Young Jeezy actually set back the Broncos franchise by coming out with that song,

Drewlock learned it, learned the lyrics, lip synced it, and now everyone thought he was like a decent quarterback and they didn't draft Justin Fields because of it. This has been the, that's the number one Ruizzen. folks can't get that analysis anywhere else anything else in this game that we need to know steve no it's the raven's receiving core is still bad and still conspiring against lamar jackson i swear lamar jackson would be a top five passer which is a normal receiving court but these guys every third down they go out of their way to drop passes they're leaving hollywood brown open like rondo with a three point line they're just like he can't hurt us if he's 20 yards

behind us it's all good man he weighs a hundred 140 pounds. Like, we don't need to be concerned. Stephen Ruiz. See you next week, buddy. Thanks for having me. All right. Listener question.

I have the big question. And then I have two separate ones. I'm going to ask the fake questions first. Number one, who would you want this from Sam Bart? Who would you want to be a Rodney Harrison-style umbrella holder? You, Kevin. I thought that. That would be the most efficient thing is we hold it.

One of us is on television. The other person holds the other's umbrella. Yeah. That'd be nice. think we'd make a great team. I agree with, I agree with that. That's called true friendship. Alan asks, why aren't, so he, I had earlier tweeted the same thing I said earlier in this podcast about maybe Kellynne Moore should just be the coach to Cowboys and we should not let, you know, we, we as a league should not let a smart office of coordinator out the door, whether

that's Kyle Shanahan, whether that's Kellynne Moore, whether that's a couple of other instances, you know, where we say, oh, we're going to keep this guy and then the office coordinator goes somewhere else and balls out. Kevin Stefanski might have. end up being one day another example of that. Why aren't more NFL front offices is willing to promote the smarter guy? Probably because that's the way they've always done it and that's how most NFL teams make decisions.

Yeah, that's about right. I mean, I just always encourage people. The NFL, yes, there's a lot of money being thrown around. It's a workplace. Think about your own workplaces. You know, maybe you think some things get chosen the right way, Things don't. I think there's a lot of institutions in Los Estados Unitos where, you know, there's some questionable stuff.

People don't always make the right call. I will say this. That's one of the best points you can make is that it's a workplace and think about your own workplace. Because I hear these stories sometimes about some random teams. It has nothing to do with this question ahead. And it'll be like, oh, this guy, you know, like hasn't shown up to work. It was like, this linebacker's coach actually just like wasn't around for two weeks. And it's like, uh, okay.

But then you remember, it's like, it's just a weird place and they make decisions. I'm speaking in generalities, I'm just saying these sort of places can be incredibly screwed up sometimes because sometimes workplaces are screwed up. It's also like, honestly, take your own workplace and then have like eight people come in and ask some of the decision makers questions like four times a week and just put it all on television. Yeah. We get Twitter DMs. We get Twitter DMs being like, are you ready to apologize for your take? No, not really. All right, this is the real question.

It's from a guy who his handle is, his display name is Russian bot, which is a pretty good bit, but his handle is Drew M. When do we start asking hard questions about the dolphin shaky rebuild? This is a very, very good question. You and I have both been in the camp

that the dolphins were making really good strides, and now they're not. Now, Jacoby Brissette is the quarterback, Tua has been hurt the last couple of weeks. He's on injured reserve. Eventually he'll come back. But the last three weeks after the winning against the patrons on September 12th, they've lost to the bills by 35 points, lost to the Raiders by three points,

and then today lost to the Colts by 10 points. Are you worried? I'm worried. Me too. Because I think the process has had to do with the collection of high-value draft capital, right? Which is great. That's great process. I don't think there's any.

question about that. I still believe in the choices they've made to accrue all that stuff. But then, okay, so let's go from 2019, they take Christian Wilkins, then 2020, Tua, Austin Jackson, no egg binogany, then this year, Waddle, Jalen Phillips. We'll see how many those guys turn into blue chippers. Obviously, they've still got got picks to make. the biggest thing is the quarterback, right? Because if you don't get it right there, they can take another swing because they're not done with those picks, but it just doesn't feel yet like they are hitting on blue chip guys.

And good process is good process. We commend it. But if you don't turn it into good results, I mean, it's a moral victory ultimately. I don't think it's that they're doing things. It's barely even that. Like a moral victory,

at least at least with the moral victory you can spin it forward and say okay we have something to build on like if you just don't start winning games eventually sometimes down the road you get fired and you just don't have anything to show for I mean like the quarterback so here's the funny thing about it Nora

is like everyone's like oh well this shows you what happens you can do everything right but you don't have the quarterback well they actually haven't even done everything right but they've done more good things than bad and they've played the process right but they some of the draft picks have been shaky. And then the big question, obviously, is the quarterback. I think, and you're starting

to see some of the South Florida media now kind of make the declaration, oh, oh, they shouldn't have drafted for Tua. They should have drafted Justin Herbert. I didn't see much of a path for Tua to be better than Justin Herbert in 2021. I thought that that was pretty much settled going into this year. And now when you look at Herbert throwing perfect passes every time he drops back versus Tuo can't stay healthy, even when he's on the field, they have to make certain concessions for him and all that stuff. It's not looking good. Can you win with Tua? Sure.

But you have to have everything else go right. And I just don't think they're the type of roster right now, the type of team, the type of offensive coordinator. I mean, I think you saw some of the South Florida media is really getting mad at the dual offensive coordinator situation. And as much as I can joke about, about Godsey and the, you know, the sanctity of ACC football in their mid-2000s. Like that, that's not, that's not a thing right now.

This is pretty bad. And I don't necessarily think you can, I think the Dolphins. are in part a victim of how good things looked a couple of years ago, where they looked completely lost against the Ravens in September 2019. And then they started to get better and better and better. One games they shouldn't have beat the Eagles, beat Patriots at one point. And then people said, oh, this is happening right now. And maybe the timeline was longer than we thought.

I'm of the theory that rebuilds can't even take that long because it's just how A, injuries, B, how rookie contracts work, all that. stuff. But I don't know. I don't know what's going on with the dolphins right now. I'm disappointed. They have the Bucks next week. They have a loser leaves town game against the Jaguars on October 17th. And let me make, be clear, I don't mean like, you know, obviously neither of those teams are going to make the playoffs. But whoever loses that game, I'm just never speaking about ever again. We'll see. I say, can we keep that team? Is that game in London? Is that game in London? It's a 9.30 a.m. game. We're shipping Jaguars dolphins to London.

Grow the game. Are you joking? Wow. Maybe we should do like a little, little sort of breakfast at Wimbledon kind of situation. This is Urban's only way forward as he stays in England and tries to do a Ted Lassar stick with like Charging. Can I, can I give you, can I give you some space here? Is it that Urban would be a terrible Ted Lassow? Um, I think Urban's like the opposite of Ted Lassow.

But on the Dolphins, remember when, remember when Gruden and the Raiders won that, Sloan Award for the Kulalak trade because they got so much draft capital for it. And then Gruden tried to trade for Kala Mak again? Yeah, because they didn't pick good players. Yeah. The dolphins are kind of having that situation, but just with like much better PR and better reputation.

So it's like taking longer for them to get called out for it. But like, by the way, the dolphins were good last year. The dolphins are like, this is also like, so okay, hold on a second. The dolphins are pretty. well run, there are smart, good people in charge there. I think what's important here is like, football is a very random game. Draft selection in particular as an element of football is a very, very, very random game. Like, I was pretty, I was probably more skeptical of Tua than most.

And like, that was not because I saw things or new things that other people didn't. It was just because the thing that I kept thinking about was like, a lot of, yes, it's one thing to say, like, this guy was one of the best college quarterbacks I've ever seen. These things go wrong in the NFL, like, all the time. And there's a real tendency to kind of, like, we take the outcomes and then try to find patterns that fit the outcomes that have happened because it makes us happy and it makes us feel like we understand stuff.

It's entirely possible that, like, a good regime can be in place running a team, screw up a bunch of high draft picks, and then all of a sudden it kind of resets the direction of the franchise. I know it's a little late here, and I'm getting a bit fatalistic about this, but like, that can happen, and it can be not an indictment

of the people who were involved in such a clear way as it seems. That's all I'm saying. But it's just like, I don't know that you're getting another Laramie-Tunzel trade situation as a bailout. if this doesn't, you know, if they don't start to get some results from those people. Now, by the way, those players are really young.

You can't even do a Larameteran situation because the timeline doesn't match up anymore. Like, you only get a small window where you can do that necessarily. I mean, you can do the Patriots long game thing where you're training channel or drones when it gets expensive and that sort of thing. Right. But you also, you have to be working from it. You have to be good at some point. Yeah, exactly, a position of strength, which they don't have right now.

Yeah. I mean, one or two mistakes can doom a process. We've seen that in the past. Anything else, buddy? This was really fun. This is like a, this week of football, I mean, there were some very good games here, but it gave me next week the slate doesn't look like all that appetizing, but today gave me hope that it'll end up being sneaky, spicy,

because, like, the games were just fun today. It's my birthday next Sunday. Kevin. So it's going to be big. It's going to be big for me. It's going to be... We're going to have a party. It's going to be bucks, bucks dolphins in anticipation of the London game.

So it'll be very good. All right. This has been the Regan a podcast network. Next up on this feed is Tuesday, Ryan, Jazeer, James Jones, and Jason Goff. Jason is the host of the full goer, our new Chicago podcast. I'll be back on Wednesday to talk about a big picture NFL topic. I believe in the middle of this podcast, I decided it was going to be on the Cowboys and barring any unforeseen circumstances, it will be.

Nora will be back on Thursday with Mallory. Do you know what you're going to talk about? Panthers. Panthers. Friday show, Ben and Stephen alongside my buddy, Kaylin Jones, previewing Week 5 action. Also, Kaylin Jones has a number of really good features that you should check out. He's been killing it lately.

This show will be back next Sunday and every Sunday breaking down all the Sunday action for the entire NFL season. Slow News Day has a below. loved media figure on this week that I'm really, really, really excited about going to break out the quarter zip for that one. Thank you to Nora, Ben, and Stephen. Thank you to production assistant Isaiah Blakely for production on this episode with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramkevold. He's been to our NFL show on The Ringer Podcast Network.