The Ringer NFL Show - Week 4 Recap: Ravens Dominate the Bills, Vikings Defeat the Packers, and More

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Sheil, Steven, and Diante return to discuss, debate, and share their expert takes on the biggest games and story lines of Sunday’s NFL action. Bills-Ravens (1:48) Vikings-Packers (9:44) Texans-Jaguars (22:55) Chiefs-Chargers (32:17) Bears-Rams (40:16) Commanders-Cardinals (45:16) They then survey the league and offer superlatives and awards to the players, coaches, and teams who made newsworthy contributions to the Week 4 headlines (53:39). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee Producers: Chris Sutton and Tucker Tashjian Production Assistance: Daniel Comer Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Kiera Givens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, y'all. Sirot Sohi from The Ringer here, and I wanted to let you guys know about a new show that I'm hosting. The Ringer WNBA show. We're going to be talking about all the biggest personalities, breaking down and analyzing the latest happenings that make the W so fascinating, featuring some of the best guests and experts from around the league. Tap in with us on the brand new Ringer WNBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with Deonté Lee. And Stephen Ruiz, if you're listening or watching on Fanduil TV, welcome. If you're listening on Spotify, welcome week four in the books. Not quite a quarter of the season. We can't say that yet.

But some narratives took shape, I feel like, this weekend, Deante, you know, some stuff. Now you're saying I got four games worth to look at. I can start saying what I want to say about the way this season's going to go. 100%. And this for me was probably like my biggest sicko. type of viewing experience. I was saying before we jumped on, had my personal laptop, work laptop up. They had different games on, had the full multi-view up on the main TV. So my ADHD was 100% satisfied through the day.

At one point, during the second half of the first window of games, I was quad-boxed on two different screens. I had all had games up. It was very, it was a sicko moment for me too. That's a young man's game. I don't even go down those streets anymore, you know? Some things you don't even try at my age, and that would be one of them. But I was tuned into the Sunday night game. We thought we got to get a classic. The bills don't get blown out. The Ravens have their kind of have their backs against the wall. But what happens? The Ravens come out and they crush the Buffalo Bills. We're going to start with our big takeaways. And my big takeaway is that that's the Ravens team

we expected to see. I don't think many teams in the NFL have that type of performance in their back where they can come out against a Bill's team who had not lost a regular season game by more than six points in the last three seasons. And they come out and they just, everything's working. Derek Henry runs for 199 yards. Lamar Jackson's doing what he needs to do. But I would say most impressive was that, and what I learned the most was about that Ravens defense. When you hold Josh Allen and that Bill's offense to one touchdown to 10 points to 12 first downs, their fewest first downs in a game in the last five years, that really caught my attention. So, Raifens have had kind of an unsettled start to their season, Ruiz. But now, after week four, it's like, no, no, this is kind of

the team we were expecting to see, and they're going to be in the mix the rest of the way. I'm fully convinced that that Raiders game was fake. It didn't happen. It was a deep fake. Someone edited it. It was Photoshop. I don't care. I didn't watch any of it, and I refused to believe that it happened. This was what it was supposed to look like coming into the offseason, especially with Derek Henry. I don't know if it was supposed to look like 190 99 yards and 270 total rushing yards for the team.

But the idea was to bring in Derek Henry and take some of that playmaking burden and some of that attention off of Lamar Jackson who had been the main source of explosive plays both in the run game and the past game coming into this year. Not anymore. Not anymore. Derek Henry is leading the NFL in rushing by about 35 yards.

And Lamar Jackson is ninth in rushing. These two are on pace to combine for 3,300 and six yards. Wow. Oh my God. They've combined for 700 yards over the first four weeks. It's insane. And like you said, we finally saw the version of the defense that we saw all throughout last

season. It wasn't just that Josh Allen struggled. It was how he struggled. Like, he had to hold onto the ball for a long time, which makes you believe, like, of course, we have to watch the film to know what was happening downfield, but it makes you believe that receivers weren't getting open. And that had been the problem with the Ravens defense. The run defense had been good.

the past coverage, especially when in manned coverage, wasn't sticking tight to routes. But if you watched the film, you're like, all right, it's just a matter of time. They're going to clear this up. And we saw it tonight. And this looked like the best football team in the NFL right now. It was definitely the most impressive performance of the season so far. Yeah, I think I agree with that, Deonti. And when you look at what they did defensively, you know, early on, they're giving up some explosive plays.

But to Ruiz's point, that really stuck out to me because so much of the conversation about these two quarterbacks. When we talk about them on this show, I feel like our conversations are, did he have to be Superman tonight or did he not have to be Superman tonight? We know they can be. They can put the cape on and all of a sudden it's like, wow, how did they win that game? Because the quarterback was incredible. Previously, the first three weeks of the season, we were talking about, hey, Josh Allen, he hasn't had to just put the whole team on his back. Stuff is within structure. He looks comfortable. It's efficient. In this game, though, he was holding the football, eight quarterback hits by the Baltimore Ravens,

even the one touchdown they scored, he's falling out of bounds and Chuck's won 50 yards, which we enjoy watching, but that's not how you want to live. So what did you think, Deonté Moore tells us more about the Bill's offense or the Ravens defense, that type of game? I say the Ravens defense,

and it's funny because early in the game, I was kind of concerned, right? Like I felt like, you know, you could tell that Baltimore was playing pretty soft in coverage, trying to just play like take away explosives, make him play more underneath. and what we had seen from Josh Allen over the last couple weeks had led me to believe that he can beat a defense just as well

being forced to play that game as being able to play bombs away. But I think you saw as the game went on and the more that Buffalo was trying to pry that defense open to find explosives, especially once the game script got away from them and took away the opportunities to run the ball and really play dink and dunk offense, that's really where I thought you saw Baltimore be at its best defensively because it was playing so well on the back end.

not allowing them to just push the ball down the field. And I think that that speaks to what this secondary is like and why we have spent so much time talking about, even with the loss of Mike McDonald, why they could be pretty stable on a week-by-week basis. When you think about the guys that they can move around, whether there's Marlon Humphrey inside and outside, you see Kyle Hamilton in the slot at times, deep and others.

Marcus Williams looks healthy and good, you know, when he's on the field. Nate Wiggins, a rookie, has been a really good contributor for them early in the season. They have so many pieces that they can use in coverage. And I think that that's kind of allowed their pass rush to develop slowly. And we got to see that in the second half. Adafioi Owe was starting to make a much bigger impact. You saw Namdi Madabike really pushing the pocket and making him uncomfortable when he did have to hold the ball. So I just think that to Steven's point, this is a team that we thought we were going to see.

And I think if you take the fourth quarter, really from like the halfway point in the third quarter, through the end of the game against the Raiders out of the picture, I would say that they've been the best team, one of the best teams in the league from wire to wire in the NFL. They've just caught some bad breaks with penalties and turnover luck. I think for the first time, we got to see them not have boneheaded penalties really derail drives and them not have silly turnovers outside of Lamar's fumble on that scramble. And when you get those things and you have the run game and you're not making mistakes, you get to see what this team is supposed to be.

And that's the team that can really kind of change gears on you, pound you on offense, and be able to take away explosive plays defensively. I thought we agreed the Raiders game didn't happen. We don't have to exclude the third. It didn't happen. Okay? NFL's eye up. Let's just agree.

Never speak about that game for the rest of the year. But I know we're going to spend this time lavishing praise on the Ravens, which we should do. I just want to talk about that Josh Allen throw when he was on the sideline to Shakir. Just ridiculous. He's a ridiculous player. I don't care if they lost this game. This game has done nothing to derail my take that he's been the best quarterback in the NFL so far this season. He just ran into a great defense and a great defensive performance.

performance in a game script, like Deonte said, that really works against you as a quarterback and works in the favor of a defense like Baltimore. Yeah, I don't have big concerns about the Buffalo Bills after this game. I think the Ravens played pretty much, except for like Deonté mentioned, that Lamar Jackson fumble, they played near their like a plus game. You ran into him on that night. And we'll say if it's two or three weeks and we're saying, hey, he's holding the ball and wait, he's going back to having to be Superman. And maybe the supporting cast isn't as good. Then I'll have that conversation. I'm not going to have it after one game. I mean, their longest run tonight was eight yards. They've been running the football really well. Some things didn't go their way. And, you know, Derek Henry, not fun. 24 times Derek Henry.

And it wasn't just Derek Henry. I mean, they were blocking their butts off. We've talked about their offensive line before. And they were just Patrick Ricard, Mark Andrews even on that first long run. They were taking guys out on the bill. So I think these are going to be two teams that are there towards the end of the season. That Bill's defense was making. a lot of business decisions with number 22 running in the open field.

And I can't blame them. Hey, it's a long season. Yeah. He's kind of been like a bully for this Buffalo team throughout his career over the last couple years. He's had a big, like I remember that that stiff arm, I think, on Josh Norman, where he basically bounced them off the ground like a basketball. And I think the Ravens might have seen those performance and that might have inspired them

to bring him in because they've had issues. As we covered on the Friday show, they've had issues against this defense and running the football against this defense. Did not look like it on Sunday night. Yeah, Derek Henry's had so many moments for someone who hasn't been in the Super Bowl. He's had a lot of moments against these top tier AFC teams over the years. I mean, he went to Baltimore and threw a jump pass and upset. Maybe the best version we've seen on that Ravens team.

All right, Ruiz, Sam Darnold and the Vikings go to Green Bay. Jordan Love plays and the Vikings just jump all over them and win that game, 31, 29. What did you see? What a strange game. This score is both misleading and not misleading. The Vikings blew this game out, and it wasn't super competitive. I know the Packers just stormed back and almost got it back into it, but it never felt like the Vikings were going to lose this game.

But if you go back to the first quarter, this game really swung on two dropped passes. There was a drop on third down. It was kind of a bad throw by Jordan Levin. There was a drop of a Sam Darnel pick that preceded the opening drive touchdown. If you reverse the results of those plays, I don't know. Maybe it goes in Green Bay's favor. Maybe they're the team that get out ahead 28 to nothing and the Vikings have to come back. But I think my main takeaway is that out of all of the people involved in the Vikings this year,

that could be picked as their MVP, whether it's a coach or a player. It could be Kevin O'Connell. It could be Brian Flores, could be Sam Darnold. Justin Jefferson's still the heart and soul of this team. He's still the best player on the team. he's still what this offense is built out of. And we saw how the gravity affected Green Bay's defense early on, where they were throwing a bunch of double teams on obvious passing situations.

And that was opening things up for Addison elsewhere on the field. And that's how the Vikings scored the first two points or first two touchdowns. They had huge plays where Jefferson's getting doubled or getting extra attention and another receiver makes a play. And then you saw the Packers adjust in the second half and they started taking away those extra bodies. And that's when Jefferson came up with two. remarkable catches. His touchdown catch is one of the greatest displays of concentration I've ever seen. Like the ball ricochets off his shoulder pad, off the Packer's shoulder pad, the Packers' defender's

shoulder pad, and then he catches it with his right hand, with one hand, he pins it against his chest. And this all happens in maybe 0.5 seconds, these four ricochets, like a double doink off of the pads of the players. And it's an amazing catch. And then he seals the game with the catch. I think it was on third and 11 where I don't know how he got those two feet down, but you saw both ends of his skill set. You saw the physical contested catch, and then you saw the acrobatic sprawling catch. And then throughout the game,

you just see him doing everything else he does well. He's a great route runner. He can make those 50-50 catches. He can make those acrobatic catches. He could beat double teams. He can beat single teams. He's good against band. He's good against zone.

He's like the ultimate weapon and the ultimate receiver. And I think if you take him off this team, the story totally changed with this offense. And as we've talked about before, you never want the coach or the offensive coordinator where it's like, why isn't a player like that getting the ball? And you never really have to worry about that with the Viking. So their coaching staff, I mean, obviously it's Jefferson's talent, but their coaching staff deserves credit to.

He had six for 85 and a touchdown on eight targets in this game. And like you said, they were doing things to take him away. But you can't, you know, you can't make it easy for the opponent to just take a guy like that away. So Deontay, the Vikings jumped out in this game, 28-0, with about six minutes left in the second quarter. The Packers come storming back. Packers had 465 yards of offense, but had four turnovers. What else did you see in this game? What stood out to you? I mean, to me, a lot of this, this comes back to game script. Again, I think that really, this was, and we talked about this in the Friday show, this was always going to be a rough

opportunity for Jordan left to have to walk back into, you know, a starting opportunity in the league of seeing Brian Flores. And then I think you saw early in the game, they landed in a lot of second and 11th, second and 12s, third and 15th, third and 20s. And I mean, you're just not going to succeed against Brian Flores under those circumstances. And then when you have those poor bounces of the ball, a throw behind the receiver in the second quarter to your point talking about when the game got away turns into a big interception. And that just about felt like it sealed the game. And that's not the only one of its kind. But ultimately, and this comes back

to what Stephen was saying, I mean, my biggest takeaway echoes his sentiments, you know, for all to talk about two high defenses and, you know, wide receivers being a premium position and et cetera, et cetera, about the policing game, it's so rare to come across guys that have legitimate gravity on the perimeter. And when I was

watching Justin Jefferson, that's one of the few guys that's like got Steph Curry level gravity because Jordan Edison is able to step right into, right back into a starting role and you get him targeted, you know, targeted opportunities in the red zone. You're able to find him deep downfield. And all of that is only possible because of what Kevin O'Connell and Justin Jefferson are able to do within this offense. Outside of that, I mean, the second half got really weird on the Packers in, you know, they were able to kind of pop some of the

explosive plays that they couldn't get at all in the first half. But, you know, to Stevens point, I think that the final is probably misleading if we're talking about the flow of the game by the time the Packers got it together. they were clearly, Minnesota was clearly one good possession away at all times from putting the game away. I will say this about Jordan Love. I know he threw three picks. It was very Favesque. But that's how your quarterback should play when you're down 28 to nothing. You should be willing to put the ball in harm's way. You should be making those yolo throws. Like the only reason they were able to get back in it was because Jordan Love was so reckless with his decision making when throwing down field. Like it's honestly commendable. And like there are other things that could have swung this game. Their kicker misses two field goals.

And they're not like super long field goals either. It's like 39 yards and 47 yards. They could have easily made those. That totally changes this game. So, I mean, I'm not too depressed if I'm a Packers fan after this one. I know the start was bad, but I thought Jordan Love came into his own as the game went on. And I think the other positive thing to take away from this is that knee injury, even though it was clearly bothering Love, it didn't prevent him from being a downfield explosive passer like we've seen with other quarterbacks.

In Cincinnati, we've seen Joe Burrow really take a hit when he's taking a lower body injury. We've seen it affect the Chargers passing game with Justin Herbert nursing a high ankle sprain. But with Jordan Love, it still seems like deep passes are still on the menu in Green Bay. I would have loved to see Malik Willis in this game go up against Brian Flores, but I think it would have been ugly, especially if they fell behind her. This feels like a good spot for like, what is real check here, okay? because the Minnesota Vikings are 4-0. They have beaten in three straight weeks, the San Francisco 49ers,

the Houston Texans, and the Green Bay Packers, three teams that could all potentially be playoff teams. Kevin O'Connell, Brian Flores, incredible coaching job. The Packers are two and two, but to your point, Jordan Love came back, maybe wasn't 100%, but threw for 389 yards and four touchdowns against Brian Flores. That's not nothing.

I know, like you said, he had to just take chances, but it was only sacked once. That's an encouraging sign. They survived without him. They're still in the mix. So Ruiz, look into the crystal ball. Like, do you believe that the Vikings are close to this team? Like, is this a team that is going to win the NFC North, potentially, I guess, compete for the one seat in the NFC? We got to say that.

They're 4 and 0. Or do you believe more in the Packers as that type of team to win the division? Yeah, it's hard to answer just because they have this big margin of error to work with. And I want to believe in this Vikings team. Like, I love Kevin O'Connell. I love Justin Jefferson. I like this run game. I love Brian Flores.

He's my favorite defensive coordinator in the NFL. But the quarterback is still the quarterback. And Sam Darnold showed once again, he still got that bozo in him. And he nearly threw away the game in this one. And they had a 28-point league. What did he do in this one? He threw a pick and he fumbled in the fourth quarter to let the Vikings. get back and he almost do an interception, as I mentioned, on the first drive that would have taken

points off the board again. I think when he gets into one of these moments, he's going to show who he's been and who he will be going forward in his career. I'm not totally buying the turnaround. I'm just not. You're leading Packers. I can tell by the tone. Yeah. Okay. So you're leading Packers because I think they have the coaching staff to match Minnesota's coaching staff, not necessarily on the defensive side. I would take Brian Flores over halfway every day of the week. but Matt LaFleur is probably better than Kevin O'Connell at this point. It's arguably close. The difference is one team has Jordan Love and the other one has Sam Darnold.

So I'm going to go with Jordan Love, the more talented quarterback and the more trustworthy quarterback, which is odd to say about a guy who I just compared to Brett Farb who just threw three touch sets. All right, Deontay, I just keep waiting. I've been like, all right, this is going to be the week. Sam Darnold is he goes 20 for 28. Yes, he had a couple turdovers, but he was making sense. some nice throws in this game at 275 yards, three touchdowns. I haven't gotten fully on board. I've been Mr. Packer since the preseason. And so I'm not going to jump now, although I'm just very

impressed with what the Vikings have done so far. Where are you with these two teams? I would say they're legitimately good, just not four and oh good. And to Stephen's point, they've bought themselves a nice amount of margin for error. When Sam Darnold does turn back into the Sam Drono, we've known him to be over the last half decade plus. as a starting quarterback. But when you look at some of the things that would maybe not be so stable, right? And I think a lot of that for Minnesota is on the defensive side of the ball. For, you know, as many turnovers as they're forced.

I think that they're only second to Green Bay in interception rate so far this year. I think they're top 10 and sack rate. So these are things that you would say like, hey, on a week-by-week basis, variants will probably tell you this will even out. You might not be as successful, even given the fact that they blitz a bunch. But you think about the fact that they're winning and still giving up explosive plays. right. So if they found a way to be successful despite giving up, you know, 20 plus yard completions at about an 8% rate, which is top 10 allowed in the league or bottom 10 allowed

in the league, and they've still looked good defensively. To me, that tells me that this is just more kind of locked into who they are identity-wise and less about them just kind of ride in the lightning on a week-by-week basis, right? I think that if turnover luck kind of goes the opposite way on the offensive end, you'll see things maybe kind of even back out. But for the part, what they're doing and how they've been successful feels sustainable to me. The run game feels sustainable to me. Getting the ball to Justin Jefferson on early downs has been sustainable for them for as long as he's been a biking.

And I don't plan on that. I don't imagine that changing. And I'm sure that they don't plan on it changing. And having Jordan Addison back healthy, I think kind of evens out the roles with this wide receiver room, getting Jalen Naylor more as a wide receiver three and not having to rely on him when Addison is, excuse me, when Jefferson is being double team. So while I don't think they're contenders because of who's starting at Quarling, quarterback for them. I think it would also be foolish to ignore what they've accomplished over the last

two to three weeks and say that they're not a good team. I would say that they are good, just maybe not really four and oh good the way that we would conceive of an undefeated team at this stage in a year. Yeah, I think the one thing you have to buy is not only the infrastructure of the offense and the coaching staff. It's how good this defense is. That's the one thing I'm not really going to question because, especially in a playoff environment where it's like heavily game planned, we are attacking the specific things you do. We're not trying to a staff a program and a way of playing defense throughout a 17-week season, we are focusing on what you do.

I trust Brian Flores to at least give the offense a chance, even if Sam Darnold has a meltdown game in the playoffs. I think they'll have a chance in every game they play in the playoffs. I do think their demise will be authored by the quarterback, though. Oh, my gosh. I just picture the Vikings fans, listen to us, four, no, we got the most impressive resume in the NFC. Vikings fans know better than anybody how this ends.

Sam Darnold, 4-0 in London, going to face off against his former team, the New York Jets in Week 5. What a story from the early season. All right, we'll take a break. Come back, get to one more big takeaway. What a great NFL weekend that was. And Fandals giving you another chance to start the season with a big return on America's number one sportsbook. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets. guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet on tonight's game. I like the unders on Jared

Gough and I like the Seahawks and the points. You can take my advice or you can do whatever you want. Just visit Fandul.com slash Ringer NFL to make every moment more this season. Fandul, an official sports book partner of the NFL. Must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. bonus issued as non-mustrawable bonus bets, which expires seven days after receipt, restrictions apply see terms at sportsbook.fandul.com.

Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-hapel.com. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. We got a coach on the hot seat. It sounds like, based on the post-game presser, we got maybe an offense that found its way. I'm not sure. Deante Texans come back, beat the Jacksonville Jaguars,

24-20. What did you see in this game? What's your big takeaway? Here's how I would frame it. I think that despite Jacksonville really being within reach and having the lead for a lot of this game, it never really felt like they were in control of it. And I think that ultimately comes down to the difference in a quarterback that's talented and is in the right system versus one that is being failed by everything around him and building bad habits as a result of that. And it was just painted so clearly to me in the second half with all the the opportunities that Jacksonville had to put this game away and them allowing Houston to just hang around, hang around, take the lead, go back and forth, and then ultimately outlast them to

end the game. And I think that you can look at the data and it would support what I'm saying here. C.J. Shroud was top 10 in EPA and in success rate as a passer today. Trevor Lawrence, 14th and 19th. And I would say this was probably one of the better games that he's had this year. This is probably the most complete game that Jacksonville has played this year. But you look at some of the underlying statistics, especially how they perform, how these two quarterbacks performed under pressure. And you can kind of see one guy who's built in the right habits and one that has built a lot of scar tissue over the years. This was Trevor Lawrence's fifth worst performance by EPA when he was pressured today. And he didn't throw any interceptions. So that's to say that there's

not a lot of high variance stuff that's working against him. This is just him missing throws, taking sacks and can't take sack situations, being bad on third down. again, you know, not connecting with open receivers deep down field. And then you look at Stroud on the other end, and it's like a masterclass in sack avoidance, a master class and getting the ball to guys when it needs to be there, being accurate at all three levels of the field in and out of the pocket. And I'm just watching these diversion paths with two guys that I thought would be battling back and forth for this division.

And I think you get to see exactly why despite Houston struggles this year, why they still look good and are in the AFC hunt in Jacksonville looking like their season is over and their head coach is probably going to have to update the LinkedIn by the end of the year. Maybe not the LinkedIn, maybe just the who wants to go on a golf trip, I would think, just from having covered Doug Peterson, I think after this thing ends, I don't know that he's going to need to update the resume and want to get, want to do this again. I think he might be good, you know, working on the short game a little bit. Golf, listen, that's a good life.

I would mind that life. It looks like his mind's already on the 18th screen right now. It may be. Watching them coach these games on the side. I was going to say, if you watch the second half, it looked like a team coached by a guy that is thinking nothing more about the 16th hole that he blew last week. He was also thinking about throwing his players under the bus after this one, which I kind of agree with him in this game.

How so? What was the kind of context of it? Well, he says that the play caller, he was referencing Press Taylor, who's been a maligned offensive coordinator for the last couple years. he said, well, we can't go out there and make the plays for the players. So he threw the players under the bus. I kind of agree with him on this one. Deonté alluded to, Trevor Lawrence missed a couple of big opportunities on downfield

throws. If those throws happened, who knows how this game looks? They got down to the red zone. They were running the ball well. They just couldn't finish off drives. And I think a lot of the players had issues executing in those situations. I don't think the play call was necessarily the root of the problem. But that doesn't explain the first three weeks of this.

season when the play calls weren't so good. And these players not developing, especially Trevor Lawrence, reflects poorly on the coaching staff. So, I mean, I guess it's a valid criticism, but it's also a criticism on himself. Yeah. I mean, that's why Doug Peterson was brought there to, hey, coach the quarterback, have the quarterback develop. If nothing else happened, and just he was not even top five, but just keep improving

year over year, I think that would have been considered some type of victory where then you could say, all right, do we need to replace Peterson still with someone who can get us over the top. And Trevor Lawrence, I mean, it's wild. You know, and I believe Deonté, when he said this might have been one of his better performances of the season. And then I look at the box score and it's 18 for 33 for 169 yards. I mean, he, on the season, he's completing 53% of his passes and averaging six yards

per attempt. That's not quite Bryce Young territory, but like you don't have to scroll up. You don't have to scroll down to get to Bryce Young. You know, it's going to be, even if you've got a real small monitor there. Even if you're on your phone, that name's going to be next to it. So this couldn't have gone any worse, Deonté, the way this season is gone. I mean, Sheel, and I'm guilty of this. I know Stephen's probably been guilty of this, too.

We have a lot of colleagues that can be guilty of this. I don't want to couch this with Trevor Lawrence anymore. We watched one of his draft peers, Zach Wilson, get absolutely set on fire for stuff like, for performances like this today. I'm saying this is one of his better performances, and it's not really a compliment. You can't miss. these double moves deep down the field when you have a middle of field safety beat. You can't have these sailed passes outside the numbers.

At a certain point, man, like enough has to be enough. I like the guy. He's talented. I think everybody here was all part of the consensus that believed that he was going to be not only the number one overall pick, but a guy that could take a franchise like Jacksonville and help turn it around. And to this point, no matter where I would like to diagnose the blame, we're not seeing a guy who is making any progress within this offense. And we're now multiple years now of working with Doug Peterson.

And in a lot of ways, I would say he's regressing. His response to pressure looks like a guy who doesn't believe that he has the answers anymore. We're not seeing him scramble as effectively as we did last year when he was healthy. I actually thought that was one of the better parts of his game last year was being able to take off in two years ago as well. And when the accuracy starts dipping the way that it is, it almost feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way where things have gone bad. So now he has to press. He presses. and things don't get better.

And now you're just kind of down this rabbit hole of the bad turning worse and the worst turning into, you know, unviable situations. So I do think that Doug Peterson and Prestiller have a lot of criticism that's rightfully so thrown in their direction. But for all of us who have been Trevor Lawrence believers over the years, I do think it's time for us to maybe confront the fact that we're dealing with a very talented quarterback. And wherever the scar tissue came from, at the end of the day, it's on him to be able to

dig his way through it. And we just have not seen it. And if anything, I would say, is getting worse right. The one thing I would push back against is the misses we're starting to see over the last two weeks. We didn't see pre-injury last year and we didn't really see the year before that. This is a new development. There was no way to calibrate for Trevor Lawrence for getting how to complete a pass downfield coming into this season. And I'm inclined to believe that there's been a lack of development there and it's a coaching issue.

Like we've seen him make these throws before. accuracy wasn't an issue at Clemson. So I don't know. I'm inclined to believe that are you bringing a new coach, a good coaching staff that this is easily fixable and that the Jaguars aren't going to be stuck with a bad contract for the next four or five years or however long his contract lasts. I don't know.

I would be optimistic still as a Jaguars fan because I have the quarterback in place. It's so obvious to see that this coaching staff is just not up to this job. And it's been seven years since, Doug Peterson has led a team to more than 10 wins in the season. It's been a long time since 2017. And it doesn't start with Trevor.

I feel like Trevor is way at the bottom of the list of concerns with this team right now. I wouldn't say way at the bottom. I think it's a failure all around. I agree with you. I mean, you can look at personnel as well. Usually if a quarterback is at a certain level, the floor of 53% completions in six yards per attempt. I mean, I don't know.

I know there are examples. I'm sure we can think of examples, but kind of how low it's gotten this year. And think of the issues you guys are describing. Issues under pressure, accuracy, decision making. Like, there's a lot there. And we all see it. We all know that there's talent somewhere in there. But he has been in the NFL for four years.

I know we don't like quarterback wins, but this is wild. They have not won a game that Trevor Lawrence has started. They've lost nine straight games that Trevor Lawrence has started. Last time they won a game that Trevor Lawrence has started. he started with November 26th, 2023. So yes, I think, I mean, Peterson was asked after the game about his job security, and I don't think he liked the question, but 0 and 4 is 0 and 4. I mean, we all know where this is going, and Shod Khan might already have his next coach

picked out, as Ruiz told us before. Maybe it's just Bill Belichick might already have a little house or a little condo picked out right next to the facility where he can go and get a, head start. But yeah, they are having a nightmare season and that continues. All right, we'll take a break. We're going to come back. We're going to plant some flags after four weeks of the 2024 season. All right, we're back on the ringer NFL shard. So here's the exercise. Very simple. Plain your flag on something. Based on what you saw today, based on what you've seen over the first four weeks of the season, it can be game specific, team specific, whatever. We don't

really have rules for this. We kind of just thought about it right before. We've recorded the show, but it's going to be fun. Ruiz, start us off. What are you planting your flag on? I'm planting my flag on the Chiefs not having a top 10 offense. Oh, no. More Chiefs, slander. Yeah, more Chiefslander.

I know they won. I know Travis Kelsey had his breakout game. He had 85 yards or whatever it was on... 89. 89. I don't want to short him any yards. God knows he needs every yard he can get this season. But we saw Rashie Rice go out with an injury.

Ironically, it was Patrick Mahomes, who accidentally collided with his knee that caused the injury. But now I'm totally concerned. Because I know we had this breakout from Kelsey, but if Rashid Rice isn't playing, and apparently the fear is a torn ACL according to Adam Schaeftor. Yeah, the Athletic had that. Oh, okay, Adam Schaefter too.

Yep, yeah, fear is a torn ACL. It didn't look good. I mean, it was a weird, like you said, it's a weird play interception. And as soon as it happened, even the announcers and his teammates, it seemed like, uh-oh, this might not be good. No, but he had effectively replaced Kelsey as that reliable

target over the middle when Kelsey was, you know, looked slow down over the first couple of weeks. And then at the end of last year, into the playoffs, and now that they don't have that, I don't know where they go with this receiving corps. Isaiah Pacheco is out seemingly indefinitely. Hollywood Brown has an injury that's going to be long term.

Xavier Worthy made a big touchdown catch today, a 54-yarder. He made a big third-down catch later in the game. But it's just splash plays with him for right now. We don't see him as that route runner who's going to be physical over the middle. He's a very small receiver. If anything, it's going to be very hard. It's going to be harder for him now that

Rishie Rice is out of the picture. So I don't know where the passing game goes from here. And they're running their offense through this Carson Steel guy on early downs. How is that going to last? I don't know. At a certain point, you need talent. And we've talked about Andy Reid. I'm

still not seeing him call plays that unlock easy buttons for Mahomes in this offense. I'm not seeing a guy flashing wide open over the middle. even the passes to Kelsey took some touch. He had to layer it over the second level of the defense. The worthy touchdown was a go ball for all intents and purposes. He had to make a perfect throw 60 yards down field.

It's nothing easy right now. And the only receiver that got targets in this game outside of Worthy was Justin Watson. So you can't run an offense with Justin Watson being your second viable receiver on the roster. We didn't see a target for Juju Smith-Schuster. Sky Moore didn't get a target. None of those wide receivers, those ancillary guys have stepped up this year with Rice out. Where does the passing game go from here? We were worrying about it last week.

Now it's even worse. This is last year all over again. I mean, and they won the Super Bowl. They still won the Super Bowl last year. But I just remember at the end of that thinking they're not going to do this again. And, you know, part of it is bad luck. Rishi Rice. I mean, he was playing really well.

if Kelsey's coming on and Worthy's developing, you could talk yourself into, hey, this is going to look a lot different by Thanksgiving. But if Rice is out, I mean, yeah, you look at the box score, it's Travis Kelsey, it's Xavier Worthy, it's Noah Gray, it's Justin Watson. These are the guys getting traffic. I mean, getting targets. Again, it looks very similar to last year. And then their defense is lights out. The Chargers couldn't do a thing. They get 12 first downs in the entire game.

I know the Chargers were banged up, but the Chief still had that to lean on with their defense. Deante, I think it's more with this group and the rest of the season. It's more on the personnel, if you're going to ding, read for it. To me, it's more the players on the field. Like, I don't know how many, it's not a great group to be able to scheme up a lot of stuff with, in my opinion. What do you think? Is there enough to work with here where, hey, if you are a great offensive coach, you can make it work, or is it just like, these are the guys you're left with figured out like last year.

It might not always look pretty. Can I just add one piece of key information, before Deonti answers. He has Patrick Mahomes. Yes. And he picks the players, too. Yeah, but he also has Patrick Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes, all things are possible.

Don't give me the wide receiver personnel is bad. And Rishie Rice just got injured this week. This has been a problem going on three years now. I'm with you, dude. Honestly, I love the fact that you said it's about having Patrick Mahomes. Because if this was basketball and you had LeBron James and you were running a Princeton offense, I would call you a bozo for it. I don't care about the back cuts.

I don't care about your beautiful RPO's and your bubble screens. I don't care about the slide routes. I don't care about the checkdowns and all these yak opportunities because this is something that's existed for the last two years. They are once again one of the better teams in terms of yards after catch. I obviously expect that to change with Rashid Rice's injury because he has been their yak guy over the last two years. But now without him, what are you going to do to make this offense viable?

Because the one thing that Rashid Rice gave them was enough cover to protect Travis Kelsey from having to take on a heavy workload in the regular season. You can't do that now. There is nobody that's going to take Rashi Rice's targets and at least make them as productive as it was for them. He was their ISO, maybe not an ISO receiver in the sense of lining up as an X, lining up as an isolated tight-in the way that Travis Kelsey did, and winning on these difficult routes crossing the middle of the field.

But he was, you know, choice routes, you know, something on the move against linebackers, against safeties because he could work from the slot. they don't have a guy that's a natural fit for that. Even if Xavier Worthy does continue to be an explosive play threat, to Stephen's point, so much of it is going to be gadgety. It's going to be double moves. It's going to be flea flickers. It's going to be end rounds like we saw week one.

It's going to take much more work than it's worse on a week-by-week basis to try to get a guy like that open. And on the run game, from a run-game perspective, the success rate is fine. And again, this existed last season, where all the people who were, you know, supportive of the Chiefs were pointing to success rate, pointing to things that are more sustainable on a down and down basis. And there's nothing wrong with them on a down and down basis.

This is just not just as it boring. I think it's a misuse of the quarterback that they have. And it's unimaginative. And I just want to see a little bit more imagination and offense. And it feels weird having to ask that of Andy Reed, who is the guy that we know loves nothing more than getting on the whiteboard and drawing up the best ways to get guys open. I should say the chiefs are four now. So this is going to look great.

Fourth and success rate, like Deonte said. But listen, this is the aisle we're shopping in. I don't know. Does that make sense? You know what I'm talking about. It's talking about the chiefs. It's different than talking about other teams. Exactly.

The bar is higher with them. But this is going to look great in their pre-super Bowl. Nobody believe in this montage. So you're welcome for that. Social media real. 100%. I don't want to take anything from Kareem Hunt. I said that they were running the offense to Carson's Steel.

They're actually running it through Kareem Hunt. Like it's 2018 all over again, which is it much better. I mean, that when Mahomes just, you know, winds up and that bomb to Worthy, it just, that, that almost, because you're just like, this is what, this is what could be, you know, 54 yards. He just play action, gets back there, chucks it, lands right in Worthy's hands. So, yeah, a little bit more of that. They're four, no, they're going to win a lot of games because they're well-rounded, special teams, defense, Mahomes. It's just, it is an interesting question.

What style of offense do we see them have? Have you looked at their schedule to the point of it not matter? Look at their schedule. They see two good teams between now and Thanksgiving. They have the 49ers in a couple weeks, and they have the bills the week before Thanksgiving week. This team is going to be 10 and 2, 9 and 1 by the time we get there. And I'm probably still going to be complaining, and they're going to be running away with the one seat in the AFC. That's right.

Super Bowl favorites, but that won't stop us. All right. Deonté, what do you got? All right. I'm planning my flag on my take that the Bears are prime for a big surge and that Caleb Williams is going to overtake. the rookie of the year race when he faces off with the commanders on October 27. Wow. What did Caleb Williams do today?

I would say it's all about the second half. So he had the best second half by all quarterbacks. If you look at success rate and EPA per dropback, this is something I was texting with Stephen about as the game was going on earlier today, just saying like you could just feel the momentum in every decision he was making. It wasn't about explosive offense. It was about doing the boring stuff much better than he had in the first three weeks of the year. It was about not taking silly sacks, you know, not put it in the ball in harm's way.

And when you take that out of his game, and this was something that was really not, in the scouting report, this was not something that was a concern what we had seen over the last two weeks with the crazy turnovers, at least in terms of interceptions, right? We're not seeing strip sacks. We were seeing him put the ball in harm's way down the field, which is not a part of his game. And now that that's been eliminated, you get a viable passing offense. And when you have that in addition to what they've been defensively, which has quietly been like, one of the best at, you know, performing in high leverage, high variance situations.

Top five on third down, if you look at EPA and success rate, we've top 10 in the red zone. And when you put those things together and you're able to keep teams from putting together explosive plays, from finishing drives with touchdowns, they're able to get pressure out of their defensive interior and some of their secondary pass rushers in ways that I was really concerned about coming into the year. They have a really good combination of the pieces that they need to be successful on a week-by-week basis. All they really needed was for their rookie quarterback to not actively be in the way of success.

And now that he's starting to clean up some of his play, we're starting to see more of the team that I think we were excited to talk about coming into the season. So your confidence level in the Shane Waldron of it all, shall we say? I did not mention that man. I noticed you didn't mention that. That's why I'm bringing him out. I noticed you didn't mention Shane Waldron.

You didn't mention the offensive line. like I know Caleb Williams, hey, third highest success rate of any quarterback this week. So the box score is not going to wow you, 17 for 23 for 157. But the success rate, that kind of speaks to exactly what you were saying. These weren't just checkdowns that aren't doing anything. They were moving the football and he was making good decisions, even if they weren't the most exciting decisions. However, is what they did sustainable with that OC and with that offensive line

and everything else around Caleb Williams the rest of the way. don't know if they'll run the ball as well, week by week the way that they did in the second half. I think that might be a little specific to the Rams and some of their struggles in their front seven. But it was nice to see that they could do what's obvious, knowing that they want to play with wider edges, knowing that they want to play with lighter boxes and give you a lot of soft zones and try to bring safeties into the run fit as the snap is happening. You've got to attack that with downhill runs. And we finally got to see DeAndre Swift get out on the perimeter and find some yardage.

We were able to see them get downhill at times and get some explosive plays. They were able to run in short yardage situations in a way that they hadn't earlier in the year as well. So I do think that maybe that won't be as good, but to the point that I'm making, any and all gains in that department makes it better for Caleb Williams.

And you see the defense has played well, and now that Caleb Williams isn't in his own way. I don't think that this is a team that's going to be at the top of the NFC North by Thanksgiving. But I do think that they will clearly be in the wildcard race and one of the better teams in the NFC. And like I said, when they see the commanders on October 27th, I think that we'll get, we'll probably be seeing Caleb Williams at the best that we have up to this point in the year. I think the key number from this game isn't just that success rate, 57.7.

It's that in conjunction with the pressure rate. He was under pressure 42% of the time today and mitigated that pressure so well, didn't make mistakes, didn't put the ball in harm's way, and found completions repeatedly. I think we've seen him get better and better each and every week. He's gotten better from quarter to quarter from half to half. I would be so ecstatic if I was embarrassed fans right now. Because this is what it looks like. There's nothing fake about his performance today.

Like he's doing quarterback things in the pocket, not in easy situations, not in like wide open pockets where they schemed it up. There's a wide open guy running downfield. He's had some of those opportunities and missed them, especially on these out and ups. He missed a couple of more out and ups today. I don't know, maybe just stop calling those plays, Shane Waldron, never call an out and up again.

But otherwise, like, he looks the part of a franchise quarterback in the pocket. All right. Well, I'm glad that Caleb Williams is making some progress. I like Caleb Williams. I think the Bears are going to be in the mix for a playoff berth, but he's not winning offense. The offensive rookie of the year is pretty much over with the way Jaden Daniels is playing. Not only is Dan and Daniels is going to win that, but the commanders are winning. the NFC East. That's what I'm playing my flag on. This team, just six days after, winning Monday

night football, goes to Arizona and stomps the Arizona Cardinals 42 to 14. They are three and one. The Cowboys, we all watched them on Thursday night. That wasn't the most impressive performance I've ever seen. The Eagles, did anyone watch the Eagles today? Do you know that Vic Fangio's defense is performing worse than the Matt Patricia defense last year based on on EPA per drive? Did you know that? Because it was ugly. 12 for 13. Baker Mayfield starts the game today and that's over. And then I'm looking at this guy, Jade and Daniels, 26 for 30, 233 yards. They had nine possessions. They scored on seven of them. Last three games, they've had 22 offensive possessions, and they've found points on 20 of them. One punt and one interception in a three-game stretch.

The guy is playing fantastic. He's making good decisions. He's accurate within like the short and intermediate game. He's not missing throws. He missed one throw. It was an interception and it really stood out because he hasn't missed those all season long. Then he's making high level throws in this game. He's using his legs when he needs to.

I don't think he took massive hits today, which is obviously the concern along with the Cliff Kingsbury post-Hlloween slide. I know that's that's on my radar too. But I don't know. I believe my eyes, what I'm saying with, I know they're not going to be this good, this offense, but Jaden Daniels, for a rookie to be doing this, completing 82% of his passes, averaging 8.5 yards per attempt. By the way, look at their box score. Everybody complaining about who your quarterback's throwing to?

Yeah, they got Terry McLaren. Then it's Olamadee Zakias, Noah Brown, Zach Ertz, and Luke McCaffrey. That's who he's throwing the football too. All right, so Ruiz, you let out an audible gathers. I don't know how I would describe that when I came away with my take. Are you, is that because you're not buying this? Is that because you have family who are Washington fans and you don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt?

What's going on here? It's a little bit of everything. A little column A, little column B. And what I said was, oh, brother. Because can we watch them play a real team? I'm sorry, Joe Burroughs, Bengals don't count as a real team at this point. They were struggling to put away the Panthers today. Oh, what?

The Los Angeles Rams have the 85 Bears defense all of a sudden. you judge it by who they're playing. They're killing these teams. 42 points. It was they didn't have to squeak by the... I thought the Cardinals were the hipster team. And all the hipsters were telling them, oh, my God, the Cardinals, what they do defensively,

they are reinventing football. Three safeties. Oh, my. Listen, the performance isn't going to be there, but oh my God, this scheme is incredible. And Drew Petzig, the greatest bald coordinator. That was you. They couldn't even keep up with them.

That part was me. not blowing out these teams, first of all. This, today they did. Yeah, today they did. They beat the Bengals by five points. They beat Daniel Jones's Giants by three points two weeks ago. It was only two weeks ago. It was his second NFL start.

He's getting better every week. I do agree. This was his best game. I kind of questioned his performance against the Bengals and said it was based on two good go balls. He shot me up this week. This was a comprehensive performance for not only him, but Cliff Kingsbury. Jesus.

Talk about reaching deep into your bag. I mean, the run game was just beautifully called. The passing game was so easy for Daniels, and that's not to take anything away from his performance because he helped set that up with his legs. This was a great offensive performance, but I've seen this movie before. I've seen Cliff Kingsbury.

I'm sorry, I'm familiar with your gate. I know how this ends. There's an expiration date, and it's coming in the next two weeks. They play the Browns defense next week, and they go to Baltimore the week after that. Let's check it in two weeks, how optimistic you are about these predictions.

That's a bad job by me. You got a time to take better. I hadn't looked at their schedule. Probably should have waited. Maybe I should have waited. Listen, they can look bad in those two games. That's okay. Four good games and two bad games against great defenses.

Then I'll go back to the Olamadezakiya's thing. I already got my excuses ready. Guess what? After that week, they played the playoff down Carolina Panthers. You're Carolina Panthers. There we go. Back on track. Five and two.

I don't know. I'm looking at these NFC. East team, Tiante, and none of them are that impressive and the commanders are easily the most fun watch and have been the best offense to the first four weeks of the season. I think that's undeniable.

I mean, he's clearly the second best quarterback in the NFC east through the first four weeks of the season to me behind Dak Prescott. That was second best. This is where you got to separate yourself from the EPA numbers. Oh, no. Dex Prescott, I would say

has been a little bit better. Oh, my gosh. But here's what I will say. Jada Daniels over, Dak Prescott is a hipster takes. Through the first four weeks of the season, who's played better? What are we talking about?

Don't make me feel like I'm the weird person. The team doesn't punt. And I'm the weird person for saying he's been better. Give me a break. For a month, I've been trying to figure out how I can instigate a little, an incident between the two of you.

I'm so glad that this is Jaden Daniels that's doing this. I know. Somehow I've become the Jaden Daniels. It started on the Mimmy pod, to be honest. That's okay. Well, here's the thing, here's the thing to me that has been, that has been just most stark. It's been his response to pressure the last two weeks. That's been something that I couldn't have, I couldn't have anticipated.

I don't know if it's going to last. I don't know how sticky that is. I think that they've been able to find a lot of explosive plays and he's been able to scramble. The scrambling piece of it is probably never going to leave from his game. I would say the pocket management part of it, seeing him flip the ball to a running back as a pocket's closing it. That tells me that, okay, like he's in a good rhythm. And I think that that's maybe the biggest thing that we've seen over the last two weeks is that he's clearly catching a rhythm within this offense. We will see, to Stevens point, what it looks like as we get deeper into the season, gets about the midseason mark.

You know, Cliff Kingsbury does run, I would say, a simplified passing game. But one of the reasons why they've been able to protect Jaden Daniels in a lot of ways on early downs is because this run game has been much better than I think anybody could have expected, given the offensive line and given their running back rotation. And this is something that Cliff Kingsbury does deserve a lot of credit for. This goes back to his time in Arizona. He's always done a really good job at evolving his tight ends to create multiple looks, using the threat of the quarterback in the run game to even out the numbers and use a lot of misdirection to get to the edge, to be able to get downhill. Even though they're not always motioning a ton, they're not giving you a lot of things that you haven't seen before.

It is just the usage of their personnel and how willing they are to get into heavy sets to be able to move, guys close to the line of scrimmaging within the core of the formation. That part should keep up. I do think you're going to see more of what you saw with that interception today of him just throwing the ball in the middle of the field in the way that he just does not need to. He doesn't have much reason to or accuracy may be a little bit off and that might bring him back down to earth. But I will give you credit on this take shield. He has played so much better under duress than I ever would have imagined. I just need to see him replicate that over the next two to three weeks when he sees a little bit better quality defenses. Just to be clear,

What's the tank? What did you plant your flag on? The commanders are winning the NFC. 30 second ranked defense by EPA, by the way. I can't believe you had to hype up the Cardinals to get that point across because we know damn well that you don't believe in the Cardinals. Listen, the defense actually did play well today. I will say that.

The commanders' defense easily had their best game. This is playing your flag after four weeks. This is part of the fun of the exercise. Maybe Cliff went to Thailand, found something. How do you extend? I can have success for two months. I can never extend it. Somebody here.

Help me. Maybe you found someone. You don't know. You don't know what Cliff was up to last offseason. But, man, commanders have been fun to watch here, and they were fun to watch again today. All right. Thanks to everyone for watching on Fandual TV. For more, check us out on Spotify or at Ringer NFL on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast.

For those listening, we will be back in a minute to hand out some week four awards. All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. I feel alive, you know. It's just been a while. It's been yelling at some, you know, people on a mic at 1 a.m. by myself with the windows open, with people walking their dogs or whatever outside, being like, what is this man doing?

So this is good. It feels energized. And now we're getting to the awards portion of the program, where we just hand out some awards, some superlatives, basically a way for us to just get off some more takes about what we saw today. Ruiz, don't you start us on? I'm going to start us off with the beginning of the end award, and it's going to the Jets and the relationship between Robert Sala and Aaron Rogers. I don't know if you saw

after the game, but there was a little misunderstanding between the two. And I'm going to blame Jets media for kind of instigating a little bit. The Jets had five false starts in this game in this game against the Broncos, and the 10-9 loss against the Broncos. An ugly loss to Bo Nix, who only three for 60 yards had negative nine yards at halftime. The Jets found a way to lose came. But he was asked about the pre-snap penalties and Robert Sullivan suggested, oh, maybe we're not good enough to handle the pre-snap cadence stuff. Because obviously Aaron Rogers uses that as a weapon. He's used it throughout his career. He's used it as a weapon this season. We saw it in week one on the Alan Lazard touchdown against the 49ers. And then Aaron Rogers was asked about that comment.

And Aaron Rogers was like, well, yeah, that's one way to fix it. I guess he was alluding to not doing the cadence stuff anymore. But the other one is just the whole. those players accountable, which I felt was a dig at the coaching staff for apparently not holding these players accountable. But really, Sala never suggested they should stop doing the cadence stuff. He was just like, it was kind of stream of consciousness.

And he was like, oh, maybe it's that. And then he kind of caught himself and was like, well, we haven't really had any pre-snap procedural issues before this game. So I don't know. And Rogers didn't get that context. So I think there's going to be an awkward conversation between Robert Sala and Aaron Rogers

in the locker room after this little post-game press conference situation. But the vibes all around aren't great, even on the field. This was one of the uglier games we've seen not only during the Aaron Rogers era, but during the Robert Sala era where we've seen a lot of bad quarterbacking. And I wouldn't put it all on Rogers.

They didn't have a great run game. They didn't have answers for the blitz. But the thing that stood out to me was Aaron Rogers still can't move. And I think teams are going to watch that film. They're going to see that the Broncos blitzes of six or more rushers, and they're going to decide, this guy can't elude this pressure. He can't make plays under this pressure. He averaged 1.9 yards per play against six or more rushers in this game.

Wow. So that's not going to go away. I think it's a copycat league. They're going to see that a bunch, and I wonder how Rogers deals with that. And if it looks ugly on the field, it's going to get ugly off the field, too. 24 for 42, 2225 yards, averages 5.4 yards per attempt, takes five sacks. I mean, it's so, because the last time we saw Aaron Rogers, I was like, I was basically like, Aaron Rogers is back.

Holy cow, he looks incredible against the Patriots, but the Broncos are just blitzing at this crazy rate that no other team in the NFL is blitzing at. And yeah, even that last play at the end there, you know, they blitz, and he takes a sack. on fourth down there. So, all right, so some wires were crossed with the meet. Well, listen, that's what the reporters. They take what Salah said. Then you ask Rogers about what Salas said.

He could ask for clarification if he wants to, you know? Someone could give it to him. But, yeah, not an encouraging game for the New York Jets who lose 10. What a weird, this might be the weird box score of the week, huh? 10-9 Broncos. The Broncos had 12 first downs. and 186 yards in this. This Bo Nix, Deante, I'll be, I didn't have eyes on this game,

but Bo Nix was 12 for 25 for 60 yards. And the Broncos won this game. Was this in one of your quad boxes or no? Sheal, I know I'm relatively new to the ringer here. It's only been a couple months. But I would like to believe that you know me a little bit better than that. I'm never watching a rainy mess of a game where Bo Nix is one of the starting quarterbacks. I will say I did kind of peek in and out of this, right? I did peek in and out of this game.

I think he probably got about half of his passing production on one throw up the scene today. And like the first two quarters of the game were just like some of the worst quarterback. And you can see, you can definitely tell he struggles with inclement weather. Ball was just flopping right out of his hands, couldn't finish his throws. It was wobbly, way outside of the frame of receivers. I do want to come back briefly to what Stephen was talking about with that little kind of dust up or maybe misunderstanding between Roberts Hall and Aaron Rogers. I think the best thing

about that is that it pokes at a very specific insecurity of Aaron Rogers, which is the insinuation that he's not competent and smart enough to do things his own way. I don't think you get that reaction out of Rogers if he challenges accuracy or what he's doing

in terms of like arm angles or leaving the pocket too early or anything like that. The idea that you would challenge him with how he likes to operate great pre-snap, which has been a thing now for basically every offensive play caller that he's had going back to Mike McCarthy. That was just like a very, I don't think it was intended that way from Robert Sala, but it clearly pushed the exact right button for Aaron Rogers to get him to react. Now, that's Rogers' thing. Like the pre-snap cadence, that's his thing, drawing teams off sides, you know, the aggressive hard count.

If he doesn't have that, then what does he have left? Nathaniel Hackett? Not escaping pressure. I can tell you that much. He looked awful against pressure today. Yeah, I was going to say, insulting his cadence. That's probably like insulting one of my children. I mean, that's all we've heard about.

Aaron Rogers for a long, long time. Not going to hat off the head. Yeah. There you go. All right, Deonté, what do you got? What's your award? All right. This is a very contrived superlative here, but we're going to call this.

The guy that's bringing a wreck and ball to Mount Rushmore, and this is Fred Warner today, who, like, as I was watching him, like, I just kept. The interception, obviously, I think, was a big flashpoint play. And we talked about his interception and force fumble against Minnesota as well. But when you see him get a pick like that, if you understand what the offense is trying to do, that passing concept that he got an interception on is tailor-made to eliminate the middle-linebacker from being in the throwing window. They ran a dagger concept, which means you've got a deep crossing route. They had two deep crossing routes.

So you're trying to pull the weak side safety out of the picture and the middle-linebacker out of the picture. It's the exact kind of coverage that you want to run it against because I think San Francisco is running cover two or Tampa 2 to it. So you've got as much stress on this coverage as possible. And you get the crosser coming across Fred's face and he gives you the bait that he's taking it. And he clearly knows where you want to go. He knows the dig is coming and you see him fall off on it. And then that's where you get to see him apply his rare length and athletic ability at this position to go snag that ball out the air, get up off the ground and go get a pick six. and watching that play in particular

just gave me shades of Luke Keekeekley at his best where you just knew he could not be fooled by anything an offense was doing. It didn't matter motions. It didn't matter if you put a receiver in the slot. That was a little uncharacteristic for your offense.

It didn't matter if you ran play action. He just was able to diagnose everything. And I think that Fred Warner is in that type of space as a player is really a shame that we're seeing this from him while he's probably surrounded by the worst supporting cast defensively. he's had in his career there, at least as long as he has been the guy as middle linebacker,

but he is clearly at the peak of his powers. And I think that by the time this contract is up for him, we're going to have to have some real conversations about where he lands in the hierarchy of linebackers all time. I think all the soccer fans listening, remember Gary Neville saying David Louise plays like a middle schooler, is controlling him with a video game controller in the stands. I would say the same thing about Fred Warner, but I mean as a compliment. He plays like someone is playing Madden and has like that 30,000 foot view and can control him and knows what routes are being run behind him. Like DeAte said, you can't fool him. And he's been a master at robbing these routes for the last couple of years, these route

concepts that are aimed to attack the linebackers and zone coverage. And he just never wavers against him. He always makes the right decision seemingly. And this is his best. best season yet. Like right now, I know it's very early, but I think he's the leader in defensive player of the year. And if he's not, who's been a more impactful defensive player this year so far? I can't name one. Yeah, I mean, there'll be guys with pass rush numbers. There's always going to be that. But the gap between him and everyone else, it just feels like, you know, for us to be in sort of a forum where no one can agree on anything in, you know, the space of, and that's part of the fun of the NFL analysis. But I don't think, like,

If you ran into someone and they were not like Fred Warner's awesome, he's the best linebacker in the NFL, you would immediately just dismiss their credibility about everything else. Who else can you really say that about? I mean, Mahomes, Justin Jefferson, you know, there might be like five people in the NFL. You can say that about. So, Niners dominate 30 to 13 over the Patriots. They are two and two on the season. And I guess Drake may watch maybe now begins a little bit for the Patriots. I haven't looked at their.

I got their schedule here. They've got the dolphins next week. It might not be the worst spot to put them in there. So we'll see what the Patriots end up doing. I got to go back to back with my awards here because they're kind of linked. So my first one is, now I was stuck watching Eagles box in the early window. And I'm like, all these close games. And I'm watching the Garbanzo games.

So I got a lot of Tom Brady today. That's a little hint. Most awkward news break. I've ever heard, not just at the 20-24 NFL season. Tom Brady, where he just, he has some cards and he's like, yeah, I decided to bring these to work today.

It's like, all right, this is weird. He's like, these were my 18 reasons for signing with the Tampa Bay box. Like, I guess he was making some pros cons list and he had these pieces of paper and he brought him. But then he says, yeah, the Chicago Bears were really a serious suitor

when I was a free agent and I thought seriously, I was seriously considering signing with them. It's like something that I didn't know. I don't think anyone knew this. I actually think he was for the first time. Maybe, you know, Woj leaves the space. He's thinking, this is my world now.

I can go dominate. And he reveals that when he signed with the Tampa Bay Bucks, the Bears were an under-the-rad team that was trying to sign him, and he seriously considered them. So it was awkward. I don't know when they, it seemed like at some point they decided, day. If it's a blowout, we can talk about this. But Ruiz, that's kind of an interesting what-if, right?

Yeah, I was trying to think back to like 2019, the last year before he left for Tampa Bay and what the situation was with the Bears. They did go 8 and 8, which was better than the Bucks, who went 7 and 9 that year before Brady went. And they lost two playoff games, or two games in week 15 and week 16. So they might have made the playoffs if they got better quarterback play out of, I'm guessing Mitch Trubisky was the quarterback back then, maybe Andy Dalton. I don't know. So maybe it does make sense. But I don't know. So maybe it does make sense. know how that would have looked in Chicago. A 45-year-old quarterback throwing in that wind.

I don't know. I think he made the right decision, Deontay. Yeah, I think this was maybe a matter of Chicago was going to give me all the particulars on the contract that I was asking for when I started shopping myself. And then when I ultimately looked at the pros and cons list, I pulled out the wide receiver depth chart in Tampa Bay and I compared it to the wide receiver depth chart in Chicago. And it probably wasn't much of a debate anymore. Yeah.

It is funny because when he was going through the pros and cons, he's like, of course, Sal, So, hey, he didn't hide it. I was like right away. So maybe that's how the bears got in there. All right. So that's the first award. And then second award, so he got the most awkward news break. He also gets the most awkward beef because Tom Brady just went after Baker Mayfield

during this broadcast. That's my kind of hate. That was my kind of hate today. Yeah, that's my kind of broadcasting. So during the week, I guess Mayfield said something about how the Bucks, when he arrived, just wanted him to be himself because everyone was kind of stressed out from the Brady years. So again, this was obviously pre-planned.

They showed the Mayfield quote on the screen. And then Brady has this. It's so obvious that he like practiced this and was like, should I say there? Should I say this? And he says he thought stress was not having Super Bowl rings. And that if he wanted to have fun, he would take his kids to Disneyland. And this went on. We know that's not true, Tom.

We know that's not true. If you wanted to have fun, you would report back to training camp. That's how you, that's your idea of fun. Exactly. So it was weird. It was pre-planned. And meanwhile, Baker Mayfield is just on fire. He's carving up the Eagles defense.

He's not even breaking a sweat. He's like 12 for 13. And I don't know. I didn't jot down every Brady comment. But I swear Brady didn't compliment one of his throws as they're going up 24-0. She's like Chris Godwin, one of the best teammates I've ever had. Mike Evans, incredible receiver. And then Jalen Hertz makes one throw.

And he goes, that's an A plus throw from Jail-Hurts. Meanwhile, Mayfield can't miss, can't throw an incompletion. So awkward beef. I saw that he gave him some weird Fox Award at the end of the broadcast, apparently. But he did not take kindly to that dig for Mayfield. Good. It's starting to seem like Tom Brady isn't a fan of these system quarterbacks. I think he's tired of being lumped in with them his whole career.

Because every time you bring up the system quarterback, you're like, well, Tom Brady was a system quarterback. Who says that? Who are these? Who's saying Tom Brady's a system quarterback? quarterback. Not that he's a system quarterback, but every quarterback plays in a system. Like Tom Brady would just, you know, he would throw short, he wouldn't be throwing downfield all the time,

even though that's not really true. And I think, I think Tom is fighting a back against those allegations, and I think he's taking it out on the NFL's system quarterbacks around the league. He doesn't believe in these guys. Tom's a real quarterback. He did real quarterbacking. He didn't do this play action, quick passes out to the flat crap that Baker Mayfield's

up to this year. I just love him taking so much umbrage in this as though we don't have eyes and did not see how clearly miserable everybody in Tampa Bay was in 2022. We don't have to tell these lies. Like, everybody was ready for the Tom Brady experience to be over. Respectfully, the man embodied my wife left me for an entire year. It was about as bummed out a human being as I have ever seen going into a football season. And I think I would like to say that based on the way that they played throughout that year, and obviously injuries played a part in 2022 as well. But looking at the way they played throughout that year, that looked like a lot of people who were just ready for it to be over.

Can we rename the award you gave them to the My Wife Left Me Award? Yeah. Okay. That's official. I had forgotten about that season. You're right. They were a bunch of Mizorabs that season. That was a tough watch.

All right. Ruiz, you got anything else for us? Yeah, I got an award for Darry. Carr, the I know what you are award. And it finally came out. I remember talking about his play under pressure the first two weeks. First two weeks, he averaged 1.3 EPA per drop back against pressure. He was averaging 18 yards per drop back against pressure. Last two weeks, negative 0.33 EPA per play and two yards per per play went under pressure. This was his first game today. They lost to the Falcons 26 to 24. The Saints did. This was his first game in negative EPA. And it just goes to show, quarterbacks don't

change their stripes. If you're bad under pressure, it takes more than two games to prove that you aren't. And Derek Carr, the last two weeks has been the Derek Carr that we all know and love, that we all know and hate to watch. He's been that quarterback for the last two weeks. And I'm taking

back all the nice things I said about the Saints' offense over those first two weeks. And I'm also handing out a different award to Sam Darnold, and it's called the Your Next Award. Your Time's Coming. Oh, my God. That was actually, I was watching the ESPN programming and Teddy Bruskey called, he said this was going to be the Cindy Lopper game for Sam Darnold where he was going to show his true.

He didn't. Sam Darnold might have to clap back like Tom Brady did. He did try. Yeah, it wasn't for lack of effort. There you go. Derek Carr and the Saints yet. Go down to the Falcons. Falcons, one of three teams that did not score an offensive touchdown in week four.

and they come away with the victory, 26-24 over the New Orleans Saints. All right, Deontay, what do you got? All right, my next one is the All-grown-up Award, and I'm giving that to Justin Fields this week, who looks like he might actually be turning into a real viable quarterback. Tell me about this. I had no eyes on this. The box score looked good.

I was like, what's going on with the Steelers and Justin Fields today? I will say, like, there was a moment. There was definitely a moment where I thought it was all going to go bad. I'm sure Steven saw the play. It's late, late in a half. I think he's trying to get away from pressure. He bails out, does a typical Justin Fields thing instead of just throwing the ball away and a boarding the down.

He tries to reverse field, loses his footing, and fumbles the ball. And this is a key situation where you have a giveaway. And I'm just looking and I'm like, oh, I know Mike Tomlin just can't wait to get in the press conference and just beat him down about protecting the football. And to his credit, he came right back from that and got right back to playing on schedule being accurate with the ball. I think that we're starting to see more and more now of him taking chances outside the

numbers when he gets one-on-one coverage. And they were converting a lot of those today. They probably score and they probably win this game, if not for the George Pickens fumble in the red zone. But they have been driving basically all game. And that's without really having much of a run game with Najee Harrison there. They basically had to bitch him in lieu of Cordarelle Patterson for them to get anything in between the tackles today.

So I really liked what I saw from Justin Fields in and out of the. the pocket. Again, this is another game where outside of that sack strip, you don't really see him panicking under pressure. He's still standing tall in the pocket, delivering the ball in the middle of the field and being very smart with his decision making and much more accurate than we saw the last two years in Chicago. I'm very, very encouraged by what I'm seeing. And I think that based off of what I saw today, this actually might be a pretty sticky performance for him going forward. Yeah, I think one of the big factors too was that he scrambled this week. And he hadn't been scrambling, or scrambling effectively the first couple of weeks, and he did scramble.

I know the Steelers ended up losing this game, but I would be encouraged for the same reasons that Deontes said. And maybe the fact that they've finally given up on Harris as the focal point of the run game, I think they should lean into more field stuff. And Cordero Patterson. I think Zaire Franklin tweeted after the game, he was like, he called Harris Soft and said 84 runs way better than he does. So maybe making this switch will add another element to the Steelers' offense that they've

been lacking in an element that we all expected them to have. We expected an Arthur Smith offense to be able to run the football, especially one with this quarterback at the helm. Maybe we see that going forward. And if that's the case, this could end up as a blip in the Steelers season. I still think they have a chance of making the playoffs. I don't think they're going to win the AMC North, especially with what Baltimore looked like on Sunday night. But the wild card is still very much in play. Yeah, it's so weird because their first loss, but probably their most encouraging performance, if you're just zooming out and saying, what can this season be?

Justin Fields goes 22 for 34 for 312 yards, 9.2 yards per attempt. I mean, that's just like, we haven't seen many box scores like that from Justin Fields from his time in the NFL. And to your point, Ruiz 10 carries for 55 yards and two touchdowns. Anthony Richardson leaves this game for the Colts

with a hip injury and Joe Flacco comes in. And I think Jonathan Taylor had an ankle injury. in this game as well as the Colts are now two and two. They get the victory, 27, 24, but some injury stuff for them to figure out going forward. All right. I'm up. I got one more.

The I'm not quite ready to use the Undertaker GIF Award goes to my Cincinnati Bengals. They beat the Panthers, 3424. But my goodness, this was a tight game. This was 31, 24, with four minutes. left. Joe Burrow threw an interception. It was a weird play where he and Jamar Chee was a scramble drill and just he was expecting Jamar Chase to do one thing and Jamar Chase did another thing. So initially it was like, what are you doing? And then

they showed the replayed. You could kind of understand why he threw that interception. But they were able to get the, get the stops and kick a field goal. Just that defense is still that defense. And Andy Dalton was having a good game for most of this. He missed the throw here and there. But the Panthers offense looked, again, way more competent than it had at any point with Bryce Young. And there really was a chance. Miles Sanders, like, broke a run in this game. I'm like, oh, my gosh, what is going on in this game? There was a chance that they blew it. And I think the Bengals now faced the Ravens next week with the Ravens playing like they did today. So that running game against what I've seen from this Bengals defense is a scary proposition. Yeah, that's

one o'clock game next week. Bengals host the Ravens. Offense has looked like the offense has looked. I mean, it's actually been a very consistent. It's not the most explosive version they've ever had, but Jamar Chase had an incredible catch and run. T. Higgins looked good in this game. They got contributions from Yoshavos and Chase Brown.

They're running the ball well. They're third in offensive success rate for the season. So the offense can move the football, but digging that hole and seeing that defense, we all know. I don't know how to use a giff anyway. Like if I, even if I wanted to use the Undertaker GIF, I would have to text someone and say, how do I use this in a tweet?

I don't think I've ever used a GIF in a tweet, but I don't even need to send those messages along anymore. I can just be an old man and not use one. You need a help with a GIF? It's an image. I know how to text the Giff. I don't think I know how to tweet the Giff. Ruiz looks as disappointed in me as he was proud of Tom Brady for ripping Baker-Mayfield.

That's as proud as I've seen Ruiz, and this is as disappointed as he's been. I don't even know how to respond. I can't even fathom the problem you're having from getting from step A to step B. It's one of the more simple things you can do. Maybe next week. We need to talk out of the show. The next week, if the Bengals beat the Ravens. I have a take that.

I think this is performative old man behavior. No, you can search. Deiate, you could search my tweets. I've never used a GIF. In any, in text I have, I've never used one in a tweet. He wishes he could. He just hasn't been able to. I'm sure I could.

All right. If the Bengals, I'm not going to do it now. I was about to do it next week. If the Bengals win, live on the show, I'm tweeting out a gift. There you go. Something to look forward to next week. All right. Those are all my awards.

Do you guys have any more? I've got one more. No, I'm all out. I do not have any awards for the Browns and Raiders game. And that's exactly where mine is at. And this is the Get Your House Appraised Award going to Kevin Stapansky. And honestly, and this is not his, this is not his fault. But if you look at how Deshaun Watson performed today,

this was probably one of his better performances on the whole. And it was still a train wreck in so many ways, especially in the fourth quarter when they needed him to get the ball where he needed to get it to. Obviously, they lose seven points wide open, Amari Cooper throw comes back for a hold. That was a huge play. They definitely were deflated the rest of the way. But just going through Deshaunct,

John Watson's game log and looking at how he's performed when he's been pressured throughout his stint with the Browns. This would be his fifth best by EPA, and it's still heavily in the negative and clearly not viable enough for them to be able to get away with what they need to while this running game has struggled the way that it has. And I'm sure, and one of the reasons why I'm giving us to Kevin Safansky, because I can't imagine anything more depressing for him than watching this team just run into a brick wall, snap after snap after snap, the ground in a game where you should be able to get something going because they were able to stuff what the Raiders have been trying to do with the run game all year long. And this is something that I think might end up getting in the way for Antonio Pierce in the future as well. But I just don't see how they're going to create a viable offensive identity around what they've got right now. If this is as good as it's going to get for Deshaun Watson and if we're looking at how he's

performed the last two years, this is about as good as he can play. Yeah, it's kind of wild. I hadn't looked at his box square. I felt the same way you did. I was like this one wasn't totally on Watson. He actually made. made some nice, I mean, that would have been an 82-yard touchdown if they didn't get the hold on the center. The interception bounced off of Amari Cooper. And I was like, I did. And he's 24 for 32 for 176 yards. 5.5 yards per attempt, took three sacks in this game.

You mentioned it. Jerome Ford had the one big run towards the end. Other than that, they couldn't do anything. There was a point where Deshaun Watson was kind of going at it with the right tackle to Juan Jones for a blown assignment. And, you know, to some degree I get it. Deshawn Watson has been beat up pretty good this season. On the other hand, he doesn't make life easy for those offensive linemen either. So I like that one.

So Kevin Skips Defansky put the house on the market in Cleveland. And Deonti, you know where Kevin Stefansky is from, don't you? I'm saying this for a reason. Everything I'm saying is for a reason. Okay. I'm sure, you know, if he ever spends some time on YouTube and looks at the highlights around the league, I'm sure he's going to see some Sequin Barkley wriggling throughs in the second half against Tampa Bay and says, hey man, I missed the days when I can rely on my offensive line to create some space

and I had a running back that can create space where there was none. Wouldn't that be nice to have that and an A.J. Brown? I'm just saying, man. I can throw my phone with no gif on it over there and it's going to land not too far away from where Kevin Stepansky grew up. And, you know, analytics, forward thinking coach from the area, you know, got some of the roots. Does it want player personnel control? So that kind of fits what the front office in Philadelphia is asking for.

Yeah, we'll listen to your game management. I don't know. All right, we're playing some seats. Has experience working around a bad quarterback contract. I've slipped out in there. Listen, I'm just the way things are going, it wouldn't be the biggest shocker in the world. All right, we'll finish on that one. Thank you to Deonté Lee and Stephen Ruiz.

Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision. by Conner Evans, Arjuna Ramgapal, and our friend Dan Comer, who's with us right now. We'll be back later this week on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-G-Hourr. Or visit RG-Help.com.

Call 1-888-789-7777. Or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MD gambling help.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline MA.m.m.m.m.m. Or call 800, 32750 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-8778-8, Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y in New York.