The Ringer NFL Show - Week 4 Recap: The Eagles Are in First Place, the Texans Are Dead, and Listener Questions | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti discuss the Philadelphia Eagles moving into first place in the NFC East (5:07), and the Dallas Cowboys losing again despite another big performance from Dak Prescott (11:31). Then they pick their Week 4 winners and losers (45:43) and answer a few listener questions (01:23:21).  Host: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined by Nora Prince Yida to break down the Dallas Cowboys, Buffalo Bills, Tampa Buccaneers, Philadelphia Eagles, and much more. Before we get started, I want to tell you about the Ringer NFL show Feed, which has great shows all week. On Tuesday, Ryan Chazier gives his player perspective with Cole Wright. Wednesday, Chris Vernon and Warren Sharp, break down all the action, loved having Warren on the feed. Thursday, I'm back, and Warren and Joe House on Friday for Gambling Talk. Before we get to our episode, let's hear from our sponsors. Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm.

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State Farm is there. Sunday Night Ring or NFL show, Noah Princeati. How would you describe what we just saw between Sam and Sprintzbo, out here? Oh my. It's poor taste. I just got, so we're doing listener questions we do every week. And I just got a question that said, for the next five years, we'd rather have Carson Wentz or C.J. Becker. So that's where Eagles fans are right now. You know what? You know how I would describe that? That was some Thursday-ass Sunday night football.

That was Thursday night escaping and finding a Sunday night game. That's what, hey, it's what injuries will do to you. How was your Sunday? My Sunday was pretty good. I think now we'll talk about this later. Maybe if we're going to look, look each other in the eye, honestly. We could have used a Patriots Chiefs game today.

Could have been a little. Patriots Chiefs game out of our control, out of everyone's control. That's most days, right? I could take a Patriots Chiefs Day. Random Wednesday. Could have had one. I will say this. I will say this.

So Dan O'Olofsky, our buddy here, over at ESPN, a friend of the show. He tweeted about, tweeted this morning that now that he watches football a day and it's his job, he realizes how much he eats. and he says about every nine seconds, he has a bite of food. And that got me to examine my own snacking habits on Sunday. And now I'm just, I'm on tilt. Like, I've never felt more targeted on a tweet. And now I'm thinking of my eating habits.

I basically realized today that I'm Tom Hardy's character in Venom. I'm Venom. I'm just constantly just going to the kitchen and just getting something else and just, things I don't even like. Things I even like. I'm just like, this sounds like a snack. So nine, every nine seconds. That's, that's very even.

paced. That was his phrasing. I don't know. I haven't timed myself. You think you're over or under? Nine seconds per bite? I don't know. I mean, it depends what game I'm watching.

I mean, with the Eagles and the Niners, I'll eat whatever's put in front of me. The funny thing is, from a former beat writer's perspective, I've never eaten less on Sundays. See, that's interesting to me because the food in the press box is plentiful. Yeah, and you just graze all day. It's not, you know, it's not like I'm going through a line and heaping up a plate of whatever they're serving. It's just that you get there at, you know, sometimes you get there at 9 a.m.

and you leave at 8 p.m. And just the entire time, you're like nibbling on weird. Like the one that would always kill me was they would have peanut Eminem's in Buffalo. And I never want to know how many peanut Eminems I've consumed in Buffalo, New York. Like, it would, I would have to leave society. I don't, I don't want you to know that number. I don't want me to know that number. No, thank you.

So I'm like, it's a completely different experience. I was once, I ate so many waffles in a press box in Philadelphia that an assistant coach that I know who was not with the Eagles said something to me. Oh, that's brutal. That's really brutal. Actually, they were with the Eagles. Excuse me. It was a different.

Yeah, it was worth the Eagles. Not commonly associated with the Eagles, but an Eagle assistant coach. It was Pat Shermer. Okay. Let's move on to the games. Let's start with the Eagles. So let's just briefly get into this because we're going to, we were going to start with the Cowboys here.

And then we found out that they are no longer the first place team in the NFC East. The team that punted to tie last week is now the first place team because they have one win and one tie. This division is a disaster. I understand the Niners losing to them that both of these teams. This was the rare game. where both of these teams should have been embarrassed if they lost at certain points during this game. Okay.

And the fact that I, by the way, I thought the Niners were going to convert that last play, which kind of fills in the ground there. I thought it was going to just fall right into Kittles chest. That's just, that's just the Eagles to me. Like when the ball's up in the air and it's got 40 yards to go until there's a touchdown,

I just assume whatever needs to happen that's going to screw the Eagles is going to happen. Not just the Eagles 2020 season for me. After all the injuries, after all the bad breaks, and then obviously the luck they haven't created for themselves, by the way, with a lot of their missteps. But I don't know what I just saw. And I don't know what conclusions to draw.

I guess that's the NFC East in general right now. Again, it's just get a couple wins and see what happens. We did the exercise last week on what the least amount of wins you could have for a division winner is. And we got a lot of interesting answers. It seems to be around three or four. I think these teams will clear it. But this is when you're looking at,

the NFC East race and there's not a lot of good teams. These are the type of wins that you need to collect in order to host a playoff game. Nora, what do you think of this game? So question for you. Which roster do you think is more talented with the injuries that they have right now? Which of these two teams did you think had more talent? Well, I think it's the Niners only because they got back a bunch of injured guys tonight. Now, how healthy were they?

George Kittle has been banged up all year. Devo Samuel has been banged up all year. those skill position guys for the Eagles are are still out. The defense for the Niners is going to miss Bosa all year. As far as Blue Chip prospects or Blue Chip players, obviously the Eagles have Fletcher Cox who's healthy. The Niners still have talent along the defensive line, even with Bosa out. So listen, both of these teams still have a little bit of strength, but it's not nearly the depth that we thought in July. What's your answer?

So I was thinking about this, I was sort of interrogating my feelings about this during the game because default. That's the type of game where you interrogate everything about your life. Makes you just, the questions just keep coming and the more answers you think you have, you just get more questions. But so the default would be the Eagles, right, because they're playing with their starting quarterback. And in the NFL, that's almost always going to be true, right?

but the place we are with Carson Wentz is such that I was starting to lean Niners although I do think that it kind of seems like the game script for this was like you saw early on the Eagles just like don't have their shit together I wish I could put that more gracefully

but they just like and the Niners and like the Niners have their shit extremely together. Now, they don't have most of their good players, but that only lasts for so long, right? And then it did seem like later in the game, there just felt some moments to me where I was like, okay, well, first of all, we see the collapse of Nick Mullins. And it's like, this is what happens when you get decimated by injuries and you don't have any of your players. That was one of the worst picksticks I've ever seen. Worse than Tom Brady. Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say, It was Tom Brady-esque.

It was the man known for throwing pick sixes across the NFL. No, that was way worse than anything he's done anytime in the last six games, in which Tom Brady's had four pick sixes. But yeah, this was not good. I would say that when we say the Niners are more talented, when I say the Niners more talented, it's also a Kyle Shanahan take where I don't think that the loss of Jimmy Garoppolo is insurmountable in this situation.

I think it's insurmountable if it's a long term injury. and you're talking about the NFC West and you're talking about competing with the Seahawks and the Rams and all that stuff. But when you're just trying to beat a depleted Eagles team, I think you could do it with backups plus Kyle Shane and Anne's play calling. So I don't, I expected the Niners to win this game.

I think Riley McAtee are one of our editors said in Slack that that game did not deserve a great ending like we got. But it was dramatic. It was interesting. And I still don't know anything about these teams. 538 has. So this. The Seahawks in the Niners Division are four and O.

They've got a 57% chance to win that division. This was before this game. So I think they were presuming that the Cowboys would be in first. But before this game, the Cowboys, 1 and 3, had a 61% chance to win the NFC East. And now that'll have shifted now. But it won't have shifted in basic dynamic, which is just that this division is a dumpster fire. And I wish if the winner finishes below 500, I feel like we should have some sort of trapdoor.

Oh, no, I kind of like it. That's how we get the Beast Quake game. That team was under 500. Just saying, things happen. Also, television needs an AFC East team. If they don't care if it's a crappy Cowboys team, I was talking on a television executive once. And he told me that basically it takes half of a year

for anyone to realize if anybody's good or bad, like nationally. So, like, that's why people were like, this Niners Eagles game, this isn't going to rate. All the guys are out. And I'm like, dude, America, the vast majority of casual fans just are really amped for this Eagles, Niners game. Then they turn it on and like, where's Jim and Garoppel? The distance in knowledge between, like, the 40 million people who watch night football and, like, the core of fans who just want to watch the Cowboys, the Eagles, the Giants,

that kind of thing. There's a reason NFC East team. are always on television. That's what I'll say about that. So they'll take six and ten, they'll take seven and nine. Now, speaking of the NFC East, the reason we started with that game

is because we're flowing into the more interesting NFC East game, which is the Dallas Cowboys getting absolutely decimated by the Cleveland Browns in a very strange game in which they had the capability to win that game late

because it was, again, one of the strangest games of the year. The Dallas Cowboys at one way, looked like they were running away with the division because I didn't know if anybody else is going to get to one win besides Washington football team who I am not a huge fan of. Maybe we'll get to that a little bit later. But this team who had so much buzz in the beginning of the season, so much buzz in March, so much buzz the moment they hired Mike McCarthy, wow, their roster, so good, back Prescott's great,

defense is looking okay, skill position guys everywhere. The draft CD Lamb. This is a bad football team. Nora, your first takeaway. So, DAC is on pace to throw for 6,760 yards, which would be an NFL record. No, no, no, no. It would be an NFL record by about 1,200 yards. It's unbelievable.

And he has passed for more yards in four games with 1,690 than any player in NFL history through this point. He's had three straight games of at least 450 yards. it is impressive for a team to be able to lose when their quarterback does that. Well, not only do those kinds of stats not happen for passers very often, if that's happening, the team is probably winning since that's the most important position on the field. So this is almost impressive. And obviously their offense is not perfect.

They've had a lot of issues with turnovers. That is not the problem. And the problem is the defense. They've allowed 146 points through four games. And today they allowed nearly 50 to the Cleveland Browns, who are looking a little frisgier than maybe we thought they might after their first game. But do not necessarily have that kind of output week to week. So I would still think that the Cowboys, I have a little bit more.

faith in the Cowboys than I do in the Eagles still. I don't know. I don't even want to think about it. I don't want to choose any of them. I don't want, right. It's, it's such a, it's such a tire fire that I can't even. Do you remember week 17 last year where we're just looking at one team as Jason Garrett? We think they're supposed to be better than they actually are. Turns out they're just a bad team. The other team is an injury ward, Philadelphia Eagles. And the Eagles squeak it out in the last two weeks of the season. And I feel like when you have bad, there's a reason these teams are bad. They stay bad. they stay bad and then they just do bad things until the end of the year and one team gets to be less bad.

So making predictions on that to me feels a little bit premature unless one of these teams magically solves it. Now, the question is do the Dallas Cowboys solve it? I don't know the answer to it. I'm not totally optimistic. I still think they have their roster talent. But at this point, it's becoming Brian Curtis made this point earlier today on Twitter. It's becoming an autumn tradition that the Cowboys are not as good as we thought they were going to be, but the division is winnable. of those optimists, right?

Hope is not a strategy, right? That's a big thing around football. Hope is not a strategy. And hoping that the Eagles don't get to seven or eight wins is a much worse idea than building a competent football team with a good coaching staff, a good defense of coordinator, all that stuff. There are a million things you can talk about with this game. When I thought about this game, when I was watching this game today, I was thinking

the winner of this game will probably be a little bit overrated because a lot of people watching that game, even though it wasn't national, it was a very intriguing game. The winner of this game will become really overrated or a little bit overrated, and the loser will have a million takes thrown their way. Just to just buried under takes, takes under takes under takes under takes and take wake and what happened, went up happening was almost perfect for it because there's the DAC contract conversation, which is now basically just eating itself. I can't even do it right now. But also, DAC wasn't perfect at all. Dak made some really bad passes. He made some really bad mistakes.

Some of which he didn't even pay for is the funny thing. Some of which he didn't even pay for. I mean, there were some picks off of hands. I mean, this was not a vintage performance, okay? But he deserved better and he has deserved better throughout his career, quite frankly, whether that's with plays or whatever. But it's not like, this is not, you know,

Russell Wilson being tied down by, by Pete Carroll or anything like that. This is this is not a let Dak Cook situation. This was that he played a good game with with huge volume numbers and he made mistakes. They, as you pointed out, he kind of got away with a little bit. But on the defensive side of the ball, the Browns rush for 307 yards. Most, obviously, the most rush yards allowed in the history of the Dallas Cowboys franchise. The points they've given up, 38 straight and three straight games.

Andrew Sillianna says that's the most since they were founded in 1960. Not what you want, as a friend Mallory Rubin would say. And they got just beaten up in phases of the game by the Cleveland Browns. This was not a fluke. The Cleveland Browns, their offensive line, which they've done a great job of building. Wyatt Teller, Jedrick Willis, obviously, Betonio, Treader, signing Conklin. That's a pretty good offensive line. there's a reason that they were able to play bully ball today.

And all of the flyers they took on the D-line and all that stuff, it just didn't seem to work. Jalen Smith appears to be a liability. Odell Beckham, by the way, O'Dell Beckham now has as many touchdowns as the New York Giants franchise. So let's check in on that trade. Okay.

But I just feel like this Dallas Cowboys team is going to struggle against average teams all year. I think that the Cleveland Browns are firmly in the mix for the seventh spot maybe in the AFC, but this is not some super team. I'm going to get into Baker Mayfield a bit in a second, but Mike Nolan, what are we doing? Mike Nolan, according to Charles Robinson, is so close or so beloved by Mike McCarthy that if people are calling for his firing, that McCarthy will, quote, stand on the table for him. By the way, why do people in football just constantly stand on tables metaphorically?

How did that start? Why do people in any, I mean, who was the first person to try to get their point across by climbing atop a table? I don't know. I feel like in draft rooms you're supposed to pound on a table, not stand on a table. Yeah, not stand on it. Actually, standing on it, I would question that person's judgment. That would not make me more inclined to do what they wanted. Maybe PFF taught Mike McCarthy to stand on tables.

Maybe PFF taught Mike McCarthy not to instill run defund. defense because run defense typically does not matter, but it matters when you give up over 300 rushing yards. A couple other low lights, Cowboys rookie Terrence Steel was bench because Miles Garrett embarrassed him, quite frankly, although I will say Brandon Knight did a nice job in relief. So I think that I saw some takes today that were like, well, Jason Garrett wasn't the problem. I thought that's pretty simplistic. I think maybe there's more of an organizational problem. Again, at one and three and the chance for a playoff spot in the weirdest season of all time, let's not go crazy here burying the Dallas Cowboys.

I'm just saying there's a reason you go out and hire Mike McCarthy. It's because you think your roster is really good and good enough to where a veteran coach gets you over the hump. I'm not seeing it, nor am I seeing the type of roster that elicit such a move. I think that there may be a little further than we think. This is not a top NFC team at all. And I will say in regards to Prescott, but this is kind of league-wide as well. So as you said, Prescott is on pace for the most yards in history by about 1,000 yards, maybe a little more. And I'm starting to look at this.

Like, and this is not just Prescott. This is a bunch of guys over the NFL. This is the Big 12 now. This is what the Big 12 was five, six, seven years ago. The Big 12, quite frankly, Patrick Mahomes played in. And Kevin Sefer had a great story of. about the offensive explosion last week and attributed in large part to the lack of holding penalties across the league. But coming into this week, teams were averaging 25 offensive points per game.

That's 16% higher than last year and 22% higher than any time in the last two decades, the average of the last two decades. And if you know anything about scoring over the past since 2011 to the last nine years, scoring has just gone up almost every single year. There's, I mean, passing efficiency has gone up. Touchdowns have gone up. I think the most touchdowns in history happened the last three weeks, something like that. Teams are just more efficient at punching the ball in the end zone, kicking less field goals, all this stuff. But when you have more points with that comes increased pressure on the quarterbacks.

And I think a lot about something Daniel Jeremiah said two years ago when Mahomes exploded. They did a podcast basically like, why did they, why do we miss on the homes? Why did Bucky Brooks and Daniel Jeremiah miss on the homes? And the point that Jeremiah made, it stuck with me, which is that when he was in the Big 12, Mahomes made mistakes because he had to, because he knew that Texas Tech was going to go out there and be in a 60 to 50 game and that he had to force the ball into every situation and he would press. He was pressing all the time because he was putting the team on his back. And I'm starting to feel like league-wide, this is not just DAC, I'm starting to feel like in these shootouts and you see more and more and more of them.

There's going to be a lot of quarterbacks who are going to make. make mistakes or are not going to be equipped to play a different game because the scoring is going to get higher and higher and higher. And it's going to be big 12. And that means defenses have to play a different brand where it's not just about, it's not everyone's going to be the Colts here who will talk about later, who are going to keep everyone to 11 points. You're going to have to win games where you give up 35 points.

I mean, the Eagles Patriots Super Bowl was the future. I mean, Lincoln Riley told me, he said, when I watch that game, that was a big 12 game to me. And I'm starting to think that everything. is morphing more towards that and it always has been with the RPO's and the spread and all that stuff.

But I just think that there might be a different brand of football for a lot of teams this year. Overs this year, I saw this week. Ben Fox had it. Early games this week, the overs were 6-1-1.

So not even, Vegas can't even set the overs high enough for them to come through. And teams are scoring it unprecedented rate. Now I just, so I'm starting to think when I see a game like Cowboys Browns,

even though Baker-Payfield has like, 160 yards or something. The math in that, I had to check because I was like, how is this possible? I'm just, I'm wondering if this is going to be as unlike anything we've ever seen. Because 2011 was unlike anything we've ever seen. And this seems to be even more than 2011 because they didn't practice. Defense are flat footed.

There's no holding penalties, all this stuff. I think we might see different brand of football. Well, and so the holding, the lack of holding penalties is a big part of it. But the other thing that I feel like I've seen a lot of is that. that aggressiveness contributes to scoring for both teams, right? Because you, you know, if you're going for a fourth down, either you convert and it leads to scoring or you don't and your opponent has a short field and they're more likely to score.

There's also some of just the general messiness and that combined with these quarterbacks who like you're saying feel the weight of their teams on their shoulders and are also just playing really well, where, for instance, in the Cowboys game, they turned the ball over on back-to-back plays, and both of those led to points for the Browns. That was the second week in a row that that had happened for Dallas. So there are all of, you know, it's not just the holding penalties and it's also not just schematics that are leading to more scoring, there's also the way that that couples, which is interesting because I think we think of those things as like smart and competent ways to play football.

But the thing that's sort of funny is that you combine it with the nobody practiced, nobody like for instance, I don't think that the cowboys are going to do that every week, right? Like they're minus seven turnover differential right now. I don't think that their defense has the ability to create a lot of takeaways. but like I think that they could probably figure out a way to stop putting the ball in the ground so much on offense. But. David Helman,

David Helman from the Dallas Cowboys.com had this that basically, so they've punted 11 times in 50 possessions and they've turned the ball over nine times. So they've almost turned the ball over as much as they've punted. That is the Dallas Cowboys brand right now. It is unhinged. Unhinged is really the perfect word for it. But situations like that, And I think some of that is just that the Cowboys are unhinged right now.

But I do think that some of it is that this offseason was hard. You couple that with teams that are playing more aggressively, with scoring that's up in general with a pretty high level of quarterback play across the board. And by the way, that goes down to the bottom of the league, right? Because you've got quarterbacks on bad teams like Minchu or Matt Ryan or Matt Stafford or whatever you want to call it. They can put a ton of points. They can put a ton of. tons of points. And all of a sudden, all of these things are coming together. And it's creating

it's creating these scoring numbers. But in a case like the Cowboys, it's really interesting, right? Because some of it's fixable. And like I said, I think the turnover thing is at least partially fixable. But it does make you think you can't expect to be playing completely different. types of games, right? Like, you got to figure out how to win games that have this sort of script, this kind of offensive output. 100%. 100%.

And if you have a crappy defense, you're going to be playing games in which there's a lot of crappy defense. That's just sort of how this works. But on the other, you're going to also be facing some crappy defenses, right? Like I actually... No, but they have a high... They have a capable offense.

Right. That's... We're in agreement here. And that was going to be my point is that I... In some ways, I don't think that that's... that's better than the alternative for them. Because there's going to be a lot of games in the league as a whole that follow that mold. And right now, you know, the Cowboys are a watermelon kick away from not having a win. So it's not as if they've shown us that they can win those games.

But I can see it happening because of DAC because of the talent. And that's at least a better situation than us sitting here and saying, saying, well, they have to figure out ways to not give up 49 points because in some ways, I think that's less likely. Yeah, that's, it's a great point. It's a great point. And I think that I'm intrigued to see where the Cowboys go from here and how they even address this, because I don't think it's just Mike Nolan. I think it's personnel as well. I do want to give some props to Miles Garrett, who was just an absolute force today. As I said, he got somebody benched, which is always the mark of of talent.

And then I also just Kevin Stefansky. I mean, like Baker Mayfield is a game manager right now. He found a way to get Jarvis Landry some touches as a quarterback. O'Dell Beckham scores. And this is it for me, this is a mark of a good offensive play caller is there was a problem getting Beckham the ball. And this is basically true since he got there in Cleveland. And instead of saying, well, this just isn't working.

We're going to phase them out. They got creative. They got him that back breaking touchdown on the reverse, which put the game away. They got Jarvis Landry's best friend to throw a touchdown to him. Very nice. Friend, friend goals. And then they, they obviously, you know, he had the third touchdown as well, which was Mayfield. And I think that for me, Stefansky is breathe a new life in this organization.

And I'm impressed to see it. Do I do. But I think that the Browns are an AFC contender, no. But this was a good, complete game to see. again, their defense wilted in the second half and let the Cowboys back in, I think, with 24 straight points in the second

half, but this was encouraging to me. Where do you put the Browns right now, Nora? Well, it sure as hell win the NFC East. They, yes. They would run away with it. They would run away with it. The Browns, so the Browns have an adult in the room,

which is really sort of satisfying and calming. I love these brown stats where it's like they're now, they're three and one for the first time since 2001. And they snapped a seven game road losing streak, which is like, oh, just not great times in Cleveland. But they had an identity in this game, right? Like their offensive line is playing really well.

And Chubb goes out early and they're still able to have a really good day running the ball. Yeah. That's, some of that's the line, some of that scheme. But it was impressive to see. And it's also, I think. a credit to the play calling and the coaching because that doesn't happen if you don't trust the line, if you don't trust the team and you flip out and panic and go away from it, right? And there were times like they had the ball, let me think, it must have been right before halftime. They were going to

get the ball out of halftime and their last possession before. He just worked the clock. He didn't let the Cowboys get the ball back. They ended up settling for a field goal, but they didn't give up points going the other way. And then they get the ball back on the other side and they end up scoring. And I just saw that sequence as like that is a wins above Freddie Kitchen sequence. Yes. Right. Yes. Because it comes from an understanding of your personnel. It comes from playing to their strengths, right? Not just some sort of weird what I want to do thing. And, And it's not unhinged. It's just confident.

And sometimes confidence is like the most satisfying thing to witness. And so I think that's kind of where the Browns are. And if you have the star power and the personnel that they have and you have players like O'Dell who, you know, next gen stats said that he had a less than 1% touchdown probability on that end around where he scored, and he ended up scoring because he's O'Dell Beckham. So competence with that roster is not a bad place to be. Now, let's see if it can last. And they're in a really tough division, obviously.

But it's just so soothing to see someone know what they're doing. It's a great point because I don't think it's just competence after Freddie Kitchens. I think it's just competence in general in Cleveland. Totally. Because you made the point about Windsor Freddie Kitchens. but, I mean, Freddie Kitchens would have, like, accidentally burned three timeouts, like, not getting into play call in and then somehow punt it or something. I don't even, Lord knows, it would have been some rulebook controversy.

I couldn't even imagine what Freddie Kitchens would have done that sequence. They certainly wouldn't have gone into Dallas and one like that. By the way, they asked him, they asked Baker Mayfield after the game if this felt like Baltimore last year, which was early in the season last year where they had a similar win. And Baker said nothing this year feels like last year. And that's a good thing. And that's exactly to your point, which is,

There's a little more confidence here. That's all. All right. Let's switch gears. There was not, as you talked about, a Patriots Chiefs game on Sunday. It will be played, we think, as of now, at 705 Eastern Time on Monday night. This is the first real week where the NFL's had to reckon with this virus. Obviously, training camp went off essentially without a hitch.

There were positives at the beginning of camp, a handful. at the beginning weeks, maybe first two weeks. And then it was pretty much nothing. At one point in late August, the COVID-19 list was down to one name. They had done a pretty nice job at handling it in the early part of the season. So I think over the last week, there's been a reminder that the virus is still here from the NFL. And it's been chaotic from a scheduling standpoint, chaotic from a human standpoint, and obviously the health and safety of the players and the coaches and the family.

ways is obviously the most important thing. But as we look at the next couple of weeks of football, this is going to matter from a competitive standpoint. And we've known that for a long time, that this would not be a fair season. Godell said it at the beginning of training camp to Peter King. I mean, this is, there's going to be some weirdness here. Nora, when you saw that this game, the team you've covered, the New England Patriots wasn't happening, your thoughts went where? I just wonder, well, so when I saw that it wasn't happening on Sunday, I thought that made all the sense of the world, right? Sure. And we don't know what will end up happening with the Patriots and the Chiefs in terms of if they will end up having a situation like the Titans do right now where they got more and more positive test results as, you know, you got to three, four, five days after they'd all traveled together. or if this will be a situation like has happened.

It happened with the Falcons recently where there's an isolated case and it's an isolated case. It feels different because those positives popped up after and to an extent during the outbreak in Tennessee. So I think we've all sort of shifted our frame of mind about how potentially significant of an issue this is. but we don't know which one of those outcomes or if it's somewhere in between this will end up being. That said, my first thought when they said that they weren't going to play the game on Sunday and that it would probably be Monday or Tuesday

was how I felt when they originally said that they were going to try to move the Titan Steelers game back just a couple days, which is, well, what they're telling us is that the game's not going to take place on Sunday. And we don't really know when it will be. There are allusions to various options on the schedule, but we don't know until we know and we don't know right now. Now that it's, at least at this point, I mean, it's late Sunday night.

It seems like they're moving towards playing it on Monday. Without overreacting, I just wonder why. Because from what we know about the incubation period of the virus, it doesn't seem like they could have full confidence that players who are currently testing negative won't eventually become positive, which could potentially take place, you know,

say before they come back from Kansas City. And in that context, especially when you read about things that the Patriots are doing, like they're taking two planes and they're putting all of the players, and staff who've been close contacts of Cam Newton on one plane and everybody else on another. It just makes me wonder what the cost benefit is when the potential cost is a Titan situation where, I mean, at this point, I think they're hoping that their next game against the bills

goes off as scheduled, but it's not a guarantee. And particularly, even when you think of it from the league's perspective, I mean, Patriots chiefs with Brian Hoyer starting a quarterback is not as exciting of a property as Patriots chiefs with Cam Newton starting a quarterback. So what's telling to me is just that it seems like a really big deal to consider the possibility of adding a week 18 or further shuffling the schedule. And I guess I'm a little bit surprised by that just because it's, seems like a much more graceful solution that doesn't encompass as much risk. But I don't, I mean, it could turn out to be fine. I'm, I'm less chastising here than I am just a little confused

because I, I wondered why they chose to do it that way. Okay. A couple of great points in there. One thing I want to start with is the fact that the NFL needs to be very, very careful that it doesn't take one health and safety problem and solve it by creating another health and safety problem, which is the amount of rest of these guys get. And that's been a problem for a long time with a game where I don't know, and it's been hinted at before, but these guys need every single hour they can get, every single hour of rest between games. And the chiefs are playing three games about 11 days, I think. And I saw Andrew Brandt correctly say that competitive inequities are going to be the norm,

not the exception. So you're going to have teams like the chiefs who are just who get the short end of the stick. I just worry in a year where injuries are already prevalent, we led the show or Coastal had the show with them a couple weeks ago, just how many have just piled up very, very quickly with star players. And so the scheduling aspect to me gets a little bit hairy in that regard. And I think that the NFL at some point needs to look at. pushing everything back, whether that's get, I would, I would prefer to keep the Super Bowl by week.

I prefer to have just more by weeks in general, maybe add two weeks of the season, figure out a way, because you look at the Titans right now. Okay. And Adam Schaefter reported on Sunday morning, he said with the Titans having positive tests on six straight days, the soonest the Titans could open their facility would be Wednesday. But they would be consecutive clear days of testing before that happens. So, Nora, you know how NFL, you know, NFL weeks work. And opening up on Wednesday is not enough preparation and treatment and all that stuff for a Sunday game. And now I just, this could be, if it wrecks two straight games, I'm not totally sure what the NFL does from the scheduling standpoint. If they keep the same rigidity they have, I think you have to start looking outside the box.

if the Titans lose two weeks of games here. So I actually think Tennessee could open up on Wednesday and be fine, right? Because they can do, you know, your typical. It's not ideal. It's not ideal. It's not the way that you normally. If they can open up a Wednesday, they definitely will play on Sunday. I'm just saying from it's two weeks of chaos for them.

And that's a fairly standard. I mean, it's different now that this was basically their biweek, even though it was a very different sort of biweek, than how a team would normally handle that schedule, right? But generally, when a team plays on Sunday, they come back, players do treatment, they watch a lot of film, they have meetings on Monday, they can do all those things via Zoom. I believe players who have injuries there, as long as they're persistently testing negative, they are allowed to go see training stuff.

So they can do most of that. Then Tuesday is generally an off day. and then so if you can get back in Wednesday, I think that's okay. I actually think that that's less of an issue than what the chiefs could potentially have to do, which is play Sunday night, excuse me, Monday night,

and then play Sunday afternoon, and then play the following Thursday. That's brutal. And I don't know, you know, I certainly don't know where the NFLPA would fall on that this year, just because everyone's a rational thinker and can look at the circumstances and go, okay, not everything's going to be perfect. And we're going to have to just accept some things that we wouldn't normally accept.

But normally they would not accept that. That would never fly on a typical schedule to be playing three games in that condensed period of time. So that to me, especially when you're talking about the chiefs. And now the NFL is obviously not going to treat one team different. than another, but you're talking about potentially the best team in the league in unsafe circumstances. And if that goes badly,

you don't want to be feeling some the clarity of hindsight when it comes to, God forbid, Patrick Mahomes' team. We're definitely in agreement there. And there's the reality to this. And you just brought it up, which is, these are all good teams. that we're talking about.

Right. These are the Patriots and the Chiefs, but also the Titans are undefeated. They had to scrap their games with the Steelers who were also undefeated. Next week they play the Bills who are undefeated. And then the week after that, the Bills play the Chiefs. I mean, this is the competitive inequities we were talking about. Like, this is it. It is the AFC, whether that's the one seed or whatever, is being determined in large part

by how this all plays out when things get rescheduled. And I think, and I know this isn't fair to anyone. And I think the NFL agrees. And I think the NFLPA kind of, obviously they're protecting the health of the players. And that's the most important thing. But from a competitive standpoint, I think that the NFL is more concerned with getting everything to the finish line than one team getting the short end of the stick. And I think that's just the reality of 2020. I'm talking about from a competitive standpoint, not a health standpoint.

Yep. Yeah. I mean, I think there's kind of no other way to look at them having the option to have Cam Newton Mahomes and saying, nope, we'd rather preserve something closer to the schedule. And if it takes Brian Hoyer Mahomes, then it takes Brian Hoyer Mahomes. Yep. I just think, by the way, I mean, the Titans are not, we talked about Wednesday being the best case scenario. The Titans are not guaranteed that. They still need, they still need two days of consecutive clear testing.

So this is far from a guarantee when the Titans can reopen and then we'll figure out what that schedule looks like going forward. All right, we've got Josh Allen, Brady, Justin Herbert, but first let's take a quick break. It's where we're winners. Who's your first one? So my first winner, and hopefully they will be able to play the Titans in a normal fashion, but the Buffalo Bills, you are 4-0.

And so they beat the Raiders 30 to 23. And we've spent a lot of time talking about how much better Josh Allen's gotten and how lovely their offense looks, how great of a job. Brian Dable's gone. But I want to talk about this. So Tim Graham and the Athletic had this. And it's like the greatest thing that I've ever seen. So Sean McDermott.

Really loves John Gruden. Has really looked up to John Gruden for a long time. Interesting. Okay. And so in 2001, he was on the Eagle Stab under Andy Reed. And he tacked a quote, this is from Tim's piece, a newspaper centerfold poster of John Gruden onto the back of his office door. Here's a quote. Here's a quote from Sean McDermott. I slept in my office quite a bit.

So the first person I saw when I woke up was John Gruden. It forced me to get up pretty early. Wow. It's a good nugget from our friend Tim Graham. I think that's fantastic. You couldn't even say the student becomes the master because there's not even a student situation here. It's just a poster staring at the student. Yeah.

So a couple things that I want to unpack here. And one is the relationship, the idolization of John Gruden by Sean McDermott. But also, why was John Gruden on a newspaper center for? poster. Like, is that a thing that people used to do? Yeah. So, like, old newspaper previews and stuff, they would just used to have, like, huge newspaper, like, preview sessions.

So you could just, like, pull a John Gruden out of there and tack it up on your wall. Absolutely. Absolutely. I used to have them in my room when I was, like, five and six years old. I would just have boxes of the, of the preview. And it would be full page photos of, like, the big people of the year. I go before this was a lot of, like, so it was a lot of, like, Charlie Wood. ward and like it was that because it was it was Orlando so you're looking at more college your

spruyers your bobby bowens oh they have like your you're fred taylor's yeah the like with the jaguars and stuff like that they i mean there weren't a lot of bucks bucks were very good when i was a young youngster um so you know you're your your dam merino's that that whole crew um now were you timing was young kevin clark timing his wake-ups i was to to fred taylor photos i was not i wasn't even a Gator fan, but or a Jackard fan. I, I would have it just so I could read the writing. And I would be like, oh, this is good. Yeah, it's good.

Well, in a sign a great, great newspaper. So the bills won today. Yeah. They were, they did so many impressive things that I don't know where to begin. I'll start here. Josh Allen 2434. He, one of the things that is amazing to me is how aggressive this. team is. And I was actually, I had this in my notes before I heard it, but Tony Dungey made the

same point on Saturday in America, Saturday in America, that that's, if you want to close out a game, you can run the ball. Sure, go ahead, you know, play the conservative thing. Devin Singleton is a very, very good back. But they like to be aggressive. And I think that's this week thing because of how they've let teams. And Albert Brewer made the point, they try to step on the neck of the Raiders because they let the Rams in last week. And they haven't done the best job of closing out games. And so now they're going to Stefan Diggs down the field. Now they're going to continue to pass.

They're going to trust Josh Allen. And this is something we talked about last week where I said, you know, so many people talk now about how when you watch this offense, so much of it's built on trust and trusting not only Josh Allen, but Josh Allen trusting where Diggs is going to be or John Brown's going to be, the ability for John Brown to make that catch at the goal line, which was not a touchdown. I mean, that shows you that there's a,

confidence in this offense and an urgency to this offense that I found really amazing. And now you have Josh Norman playing really, really well. He had the peanut punch today with the with with the turnover. I thought that this was just a total total team performance. Ed Oliver made a huge play. Nice to see him playing like an elite defensive tackle because I think that that that comes and goes. And he blew up a play that was huge. And so when I look at When they went for it on fourth and one, when they were on fourth and one, yep, yep.

And when I look at this team, I just, I see a lot of talent. And I just, I just like it. There's, there's not much to say. The Cole Beasley catch.

I mean, guys are selling out. There's a, there's like a, yes, this is a, this team, this is the trust fall thing you were talking about. Last week.

They love, they love each other. Well, you know what? So here's, here's the thing that, I think has been interesting that guys up there have been saying is that, you know, we've all, we've all watched the roller coaster that is Josh Allen go do his thing up there. And we've focused on the improvements he's made as a passer. But he's always had that physicality and the ability to run.

And part of that is that he is willing to take some punishment. And from my perspective, sometimes it freaks me out. Like, Josh, protect yourself. But I think you hear from those guys, there is something where they respond to it. And there's a rallying thing that that is happening up there. And I think it's, you know, the type of intangible thing that it's hard to really describe. But I think everybody who's been watching them has probably seen it. And you see Cole Beasley just be like, fine. I'm going to jump on top of two defenders and totally sell out and just see what

happens. And I would venture to guess that part of that is that he wants to do that for Josh Allen. So on top of the world, my guy is. So I think that the fact that Allen has improved and worked hard. And the fact there were so many questions swirling around him is kind of endeared him to the locker room, I guess you could say. I mean, those guys love Josh Allen. I love Josh Allen. And I think that that's just a testament, quite frankly, to I, I think that a receivers love being put in position to succeed so even i mean that that that's that's pretty much the bottom line for receivers they just want the ball and they want to have big yardage and josh allen's giving them that but then as you said the toughness aspect of it um the improvement

aspect of it which again i i think is is is you know just important as far as if you're john brown you've seen year over year um over the past for what 20 games how how much better josh allen has gotten. So I think that there's just a lot there. And I think that this team genuinely, genuinely loves each other. I think that's important. Now, how much they love each other? Well, the next four weeks, that's going to be tested. They got the Titans. They have the Chiefs. Then they have the Jets. That's a win. Then they have the Patriots. Then they have the Seahawks. This is not going to be an easy ride. And the fact they've beaten the Rams, I think, is important. Because they have the Rams are a solid team. but for me, the Jets, the dolphins, the Raiders,

these are not nailed on playoff teams for me. And so the Josh Allen experience as we're just good vibes only right now. We're just good vibes only for Josh Allen. And I think that there's going to be some real adversity. But the good news is, is that I've seen some interesting stuff from Josh Allen and adversity, and I think that he is better equipped to handle it this year. Well, the other good news is their defense is playing a little bit better, it seems like. Yes.

It's great to see all of our contributing. They're just a better team, yeah. They're a better team. Plus, plus Sean McDermott is going to be in a great mood, defeating his idol. Great mood. Having defeated his, yeah. And Brian Daibel, I mean, I'm excited about this Bill's team. And I will, it is way too early to say anything about anything except to say that Stirling the Chiefs of the best team the EFC by a wide margin.

still, everyone got mad at me for saying the Ravens. They're still the best team in the second best team in the AFC. I still believe that to be true. I just, in a couple of weeks, I'm going to figure out whether or not I think there's any other AFC teams that can climb into that AFC championship game tier for me. After Monday night, obviously, I'm a little bit shook with the Ravens, but I just still think everything's a little too early to sort of recalibrate, but I will say that I've just been really, really impressed with this Bill's team.

And this is now the fact that we just do this weekly, we do it, we do it, love letter of the bills is probably indicative of a lot of things. All right, bucks chargers. So our winner here, normally we say a winner and then we do the backside, we do the loser or whatever. In my opinion, the winner of the bucks charges game is everyone. So the bucks win this game. Tom Brady overcomes 70 point deficit. It overcomes an early pick six in the first quarter. Brousarian says, had this been last year, we would have gotten our ass beat by 20. I was a quote from Brouserians.

Bruce Ariens. Yeah, he's good. But I'm glad he's not in my life. Just to put you on blast constantly? Yeah, just like, that's a level of bluntness that I respect. But there's power and terror in that level of DGAF. Do you want me to do it? Do you want me to just start calling you and just be like that what, what are we doing?

What are we doing with it? It's a little early for you to be watching Netflix. actually yeah i could maybe it might put me in my place if i just became like the patent manning of the nfl of the nfl beat at the ringer and just started calling like dna kelly and just being like i this i i loved every every word of this blog until the 11th paragraph what are we doing here dk it has to be really specific though yeah yeah yeah yeah i think you could make that work i think you'll workshop it we'll workshop it all right so pointing that tom brady wins the game,

Justin Herbert shows enough to where he is also a winner. I was hugely impressed. Obviously, this is a very strange experience over the past two weeks for Justin Herbert, three weeks. And I don't really, I think he was a good quarterback

from the circumstances he was put in. And after this game, I think he is just a good quarterback period. Nora, what did you see? Well, speaking of, Bruce Aaron's telling it like it is. He said that he went up to Anthony Lynn after the game and said, you've got a great one in Herbert.

And he said, for a rookie to make plays like that, you know they're special. And as discussed, Bruce Ariens has no time for saying anything that's not how he feels. So you know that's from the heart. Herbert was 20. He's not going to do the Belichick thing where everybody he plays is the greatest player in the history of football.

The greatest player who's ever lived. No, I don't think. I don't think that's really his jam. But Herbert, 2025 for 290, three touchdowns. He had a pick. He's really impressive. I mean, he had that, the really long touchdown to Guyton where they were sending an all-out blitz. And he was just like, nope, going to step up here and throw the ball and let's go.

And it was really impressive. I mean, I didn't watch a ton of him in college, so kind of blind, blind with the Justin Herbert experience. But he looks so calm. There's rookie mistakes, of course. But he's going to have some time, it seems like, to work out the kinks. Because as bad as I feel for Terad Taylor, like, I don't, are they going to, I don't think they're going to go back to him.

Like, that's just not, that's not what happens in these. situations if the rookie's playing this well. It's definitely not what happens. And as you said, the throws were unbelievable. There were just different throws, too. I mean, there was the back shoulder throw in the end zone. There was the 72-yarder that was thrown against a blitz while backpedaling. It's 53-yarder.

He's the only quarterback in football to have over two, over one, excuse me, 50-yard touchdown pass. no other quarterback has, has more than one. He has two just today, which should show you something. And they lose Austin Neckler. They overcome that. I thought this was great. Roto World had this, that all of Herbert three touchdowns went to undrafted players.

And I think there's something there's as far as creating something out of nothing. As you said, Ariens just raved about him after the game. But I looked a little bit at Herbert scouting reports coming out of Oregon. right as he was emerging today. And I found him pretty interesting. So a lot of the stuff was kind of weird scouting pseudoscience, a lot about his hesitancy and how he wouldn't, you know,

he didn't want to trust his big arm. And I'm not seeing that a lot. And I wonder if, I don't know, maybe maybe something about just the circumstances being thrown in has let him cut it loose. I didn't, again, I'm like you.

I didn't watch the cutups. I saw a lot of him and I watched a lot of him, but I didn't. sit there studying all of his throws like some of the draft gurus do. But I wonder if the circumstances have just let him let it rip, quite frankly. Jeff Schwartz basically said that Oregon didn't let him use his legs or his mobility. He was taking a lot of hits and he was, he was getting, he had good pocket presence, good poise. I kind of liked what he was doing back there, just as far as his movement goes. And Schwartz's point, and by the way, Shorts went to Oregon.

So he's kind of a, he's informed here on top of everything else. But he said he didn't have a lot of pro talent around him, unlike the other first round picks last year. So I think it's, he's an interesting prospect. He's exceeded my expectations. One of the scouting reports I saw from Walter Football said that, and I don't know a ton about every single draft guru.

Obviously I know who the top guys are, but I was reading them all. Walter Football had, one of his weaknesses was there were concerns about his sheltered upbringing. What? What are we doing? That's no good. We've got to stop doing that nonsense.

I don't love it. I don't love it. That's all. No, thank you. That's a past. Also, I just, I'm not totally sure some feel how to sheltered upbringing. What does that mean? What does that even mean?

Yeah. What kind of upbringing did Peyton Manning have? Sheltered. I would imagine so. All right. Let's move on from this. Yeah, well, so hold on. Let's just quickly.

In general, yes, all winners in this game, except for O.J. Howard, one bummer. He heard his Achilles, Aaron sounded after the game like that wasn't looking great. And he could potentially be out for the season. Bucks offense has plenty of weapons, but they were starting to do some really cool stuff. I know they talked a lot during training camp and over the offseason about how they really wanted to use.

12 and 13 personnel more and, you know, they're not in Bears territory in terms of tight end usage, but they're up there. Nobody's embarrassed. You know what they say. If you have two quarterbacks, you have no quarterbacks, and if you have 100 tight ends, you have 100 tight ends. You continue to have 100 tight ends, yes.

But they did. They ran the touchdown Brady through to Howard was really cool, because they had him and Brate both in line, and they both ran verticals out of that, which was just a really cool design. And I watched that and thought, oh, I would be so curious to see if they could do that more

and what kind of wrinkle that could add for the offense. And then, of course, he gets hurt. So that's kind of a bummer. I don't think that it will be a huge, huge issue for them. They were playing without Godwin today. They've got plenty of guys. but still, it had been cool to see Howard, obviously, who hadn't been used as much years prior,

start getting in a groove with Brady and injuries stink. So we're all winners except for the injured. Quickly, Rob Ginkowski has not gotten over 50 yards in a game yet. When does that change? Or does it change? It'll probably, he'll be good for one, you know, 38 yards. touchdown at some point and then I'll have a couple other chunk plays in the game.

In the Super Bowl. Yeah, exactly. In the Super Bowl is what it changes. But he's not he does not look good to me. He looks so stiff. Yeah. Now, did you having obviously been around to him for a long time, did you expect much of him coming into the season? Um, I was hopeful just because a happy gronk

is a fun gronk to watch. I was sort of I was more worried that his body would just kind of like break down somehow and it doesn't seem like that's what's happening. It just seems like he's not, he doesn't have it anymore. And if that, I wish Grunk,

all the success in the world and all the happiness, but frankly, if that leads to him just not playing as much and chilling out and making $10 million bucks and hanging out with his friend Tom Brady and being on a good team, I'm okay with that for Grong. Yeah.

It's all good. Again, I'm with you. He'll make some plays at some point, but it's all, he's going to the hall of fan, no matter what. All right, Indianapolis Colts. Wow.

I think Zach Kiefer put it the best. He covers the Colts for the athletic. He said, imagine Andrew Luck with this Colts defense. And I've been thinking about that ever since he said it. So over the last three games, they have seven interceptions, 29 points given up. This is the best defense football full stop. DeForest Buckner crushing it,

Justin took over the game at times. This is the fact that Philip Rivers has not been what we thought he was through four games, sort of separate from this. The fact that in week one, Gardner Minchu put up some big numbers in this defense gets more mystifying each and every week. And it led you to a take that Gardner Minchu was crushing it. I really bought it.

You might need to take. I really, really, really bought it. But, I mean, they're just giving up, what, 234 yards during the past three games. I mean, this is, this is it. And this is kind of what we talked about early in the season, early in training. in camp where we said there will there will be some early season wonkiness and there will be you know minchu lights you up for one week and then for the next three which are the best defensive football so i think this is a defense coming into their own and this is a defense that is going to to

win a division well said de force buggner looks great for them which is not surprising because he's a great player but just really that's a good addition i one one point about that when i think about chris ballard is one of the best jams in football I think about just the fact that he and John Lynch made a trade that really helped both teams, quite frankly, which is that DeForest Bruckner goes to Indy. Samansko gets to use its money elsewhere. The Niners get a first round pick, which is they then sent to Tampa Bay at some point. And so I think that there's, I think when good teams make deals, it's usually for a reason. I think DeForest Buckner is absolutely what this team needed.

good business from both sides. I'm all in. All right, Joe Burrow, your winner. Last winner. Yeah. Bengals, beat jacks, 3325. This is like another sort of brownsy type team history stat. First time since weeks four and five in 2018,

but the Bengals have gone two weeks without losing. Now, that's not back-to-back wins. That's just without losing. Um, but Burrow, he's the first rookie quarterback in NFL history to throw for at least 300 yards and three consecutive games. He looks great. We don't need to go over there sort of prognosis as a team because they're not there yet, but they're not supposed to be there. And that's about as good as can be expected. I think I love Joe Burrow.

Like, I think I'm buying all of the Joe Burrough stock I could possibly have. That's it. He tweeted winning is fun after the game. Winning is fun. I wish like, I don't get, I, I, I can't as a journalist like, be like, oh, I, I, I'm a fan of whatever team. And I kind of wish I was like, like, there was a Bengals fan path for me. Like, I wish like I lived in Cincinnati.

I wish I was one of these pro football focus guys who were lived in Cincinnati. I could just walk across the stadium, watch Joe grow for 30 years. Honorary winner is the PFF guys who get to be around. Who get to watch it. They get, they're, they're, they're, the Bengals practice facilities are right outside their door. They can watch it from from there. Oh, that's great. which yeah which is the practice although they're probably quite paranoid about that when I was when I was in college the saints practiced on uh at my university Miami campus and I stopped to watch them for like five seconds oh no what in my parking garage so there's a parking garage and I my car was legitimately there was right there and so I'm going to my car and I was like well there's the saints they're about to play in the Super Bowl I'm going to them out and then as soon as I stopped someone threatened me with

with arrest. Do you know who? Oh, no, no. It was like a security guy. They had one every single floor. Yeah, yeah. All right. So did not get arrested.

Let's do some losers. So this is almost an end joke at this point. And there's nothing really to do about it. We have rounded up the bad coaches in sport for the past four weeks. And you probably know who those coaches are if you have not been listening to the show. if an alien came down and was told to guess who the bad coaches were, they'd probably figure them out pretty quickly. Adam Gase is one, Matt Patricia is one, Bill O'Brien is one.

Dan Quinn is not one because he's playing on Monday night. But none of these coaches have found a way to get out of the bad coaches round up. They are perpetual losers and will remain so until further notice. Adam Gase, we're going to leave aside because he played a few nights ago. But boy, does Adam Gase deserve to be in the bad coach? coaches round up. We'll start with Matt Patricia. So he says after the game, quote, when I came to Detroit, there was a lot of work to do. That's what we're trying to do. Matt Patricia inherited a team that Jim Caldwell had some pretty good seasons with. And there was not a lot of work to do,

unless the work was to ruin the franchise in which case he has done a lot of work with that. The only good thing he's done is Matthew Stafford's doing the team. He didn't have some some weird feud with him and sent him out of town. But who knows? There's still time. There's still time. By the way, at this point, that's, that's an upset. That's an upset. Yeah.

It truly is. Lions have now lost six consecutive games in which they've led by 10 or more points. Longest streak NFL history per ESPN. This is bad. Nora? So there's no shame in losing to the Saints when Drew Breeze has like a pretty good day. And the Drew Breeze downfield passing siren is, I would say, not activated fully. but it is maybe faintly emitting some form of light and noise.

The man in charge, like he's no lighthouse keeper of sounding the alarm, he's been awoken. He slept on a very small, you know, he slept on a cot. Like a cot. One little sheet. Yeah, yeah. And someone has said, sir, it's time to be on alert. He's like in period garb and he's holding a match up to a candle and saying, yeah.

But Drew Bree's had a negative completion percentage over expectation on passes of 10 plus air yards through first three games, but he was plus 22 today. So just, you know, again, the can't the flame is nearing the wick. And that's all I'm willing to say. Back to Matt Patricia. I don't even want to go back to Matt Patricia. Back to Matt Patricia. Sorry. That was.

Neither is Matthew Stafford. Neither is Matt Stafford. Nor is Matt. Nor does Matt Patricia, nor does that. And nobody wants to go back to Matt Patricia. But here we are. So I don't know what you do. I would like to announce that, and I didn't know this until some people pointed out on Twitter today,

the Falcons and the Lions play in week seven. Oh, no. The Falcons, by the way, so this is amazing. So the NFL had this. The 2020 Lions joined 2011 Vikings the only team to lose three of their first four games holding double-digit leads. Okay. Three of their first four, okay? The Vikings started 0-4.

bad stats all round the falcons tomorrow night monday night can join both of these teams both those teams they are in position if they blow a double-digit lead they will join the 2020 lines having said that i think it's so dire with the falcons right now because they have the super bowl because they have even bigger leads it is so dire right now that if the falcons blow a double-digit lead on monday i think it's time for dan quinn to not coach the team anymore i want to get them like a puppy. We need we need like a

The lions or the falcons or both? The Falcons, no the Falcons. The lions like it's the tortured aspect is a little bit less concerning to me. It's just embarrassing and they should be embarrassed. The Falcons like I'm a little bit like, are you okay? And I wish they had a dog.

Also the Falcons give you enough, have given them fans enough hope to where it's a little more sad. Like I know some lions fans and they're just kind of like, yeah, this is us. And Falcons fans are like, hey, Falcons fans like a month ago, we're like, hey, think we win 10 games. Well, I also don't think that Dan Quinn or Matt Ryan or anybody, like, they're not coming out here and saying, well, when I came here, there was a lot of work to do and we're

doing the work. Like, I think there's an acknowledgement there that something is terribly wrong and they don't quite know what it is. Otherwise, they would fix it. And that's not a great situation. but it's a different one than when I came to Detroit, there was a lot of work to do. You know, we joke around about the Patriots

and figuring out who's responsible for what. Has anyone ever clearly been less responsible for anything the Matt Patricia is for the Patriot's success? Wow. Probably, no. Probably not. I mean. Eric Mangini, maybe. Yeah, maybe. That's a good. That's a possibility. Brian Flores coaches circles around Matt Patricia. Oh, yeah. as far as D.C.s go.

As far as Patriots, D.C.s goes. Go. Circles and circles and circles. And it's not a, it's no coincidence that there's a, you know, a little bit less consternation about, oh, what coaches is he bringing with him and going to, you know, and part of that's being in the division. But no way. Speaking of which, should we talk about Bill O'Brien? Let's do this Bill O'Brien thing.

All right. So the texts are just like. Let's do it quickly. Yeah. I'm angry, though. So you can talk as long as you want about Bill O'Brien. You just don't want to do it. You have, you have the floor.

I have some things to say, but we have to say it only because he's O and four and things just keep getting worse. If there was some sort of stagnation with Bill O'Brien, we could just lose this Godforsaken segment. You have the floor. But here's the thing is that honestly, we're not going to have to do this that much more because they're done. There's only, so they're O and four. They lost the O and three bowl to the Vikings. Only one team has started 0 and 4 and made the playoffs. That's the 1992 chargers.

I just don't think that the 2020 Texans are going to be the second. And it's stunning that they've been able to do this because finding a franchise quarterback is one of the hardest problems to solve in all of sports. And they did it. And nevertheless, they have made mistakes in where they throw resources. They've thrown tons of them at the offensive line and they haven't been able to make that into a strength. They've just taken away assets for the passing offense. There are play calling issues now that I didn't really expect would be as much of an issue, right? Things that used to not be a problem have down as developed into being a problem.

Things that we used to say, hey, look, GM Bill O'Brien has mismanaged the roster, but at least he's not going to run three times in a row on first and goal with David Johnson and not give Deshawn Watson a chance until it's fourth down, for instance, just to pick a random sequence of events I don't know where from. So they're done.

We don't really need to deal with this team anymore in terms of a football relevance perspective this year, but we should understand how remarkable it is that they've been able to do that because when you have a quarterback that good, that should actually be hard. They've done the hard part. And they can't do the easy stuff.

and they're failing at the easy things in just spectacular fashion. And it's not fair to Watson. We've talked about that, but it's just that. So here's why I'm talking about Bill O'Brien. Number one, there are reports that he's taking over playcalling again. How many more jobs can our men get?

How many jobs can he, how many roles? And also he gave up play calls. So he's promoting and demoting and promoting himself. I mean, this is unbelievable to me at this point. The Vikings are not a good team. they had a COVID scare before the game.

They got their inactive's in 10 minutes late because of it. They had a, quote, starter on the team, what a false positive. Starting players, plural, had false positives just for the game. Other players were inconclusive.

Field Yates had this. The Texans are spending $25, $25 million in cash on the roster this season. More than any other team in the roster, they owe first and second round picks, the dolphins, which we've talked about. there's no there's no path here except to Sean Watson becomes otherworldly and he's trying

but it's not there. As far as I'm concerned, all of this has led to Sean Watson to be out of a conversation he should be in, which is to be one of the best quarterbacks in football. I'm sorry, he is one of the best quarterbacks. I'm saying if we're ranking the top three quarterbacks in football right now, he's not in that discussion. For me right now, there's five. six, seven names that you could rank in the top three, obviously with Mahomes being number one.

And then you start arguing after that way, that's Russell Wilson, whether that's Aaron Rogers, there's probably some Bill's Mafia people who'd like to mention someone else. Lamar Jackson is pretty much the most dynamic player still. And we sell that today where he just casually ran 50 yards. I will say, Lamar Jackson's ability to just start running and just get a touchdown seemingly whenever he wants to against a bad defense is one of the favorite. things. It's just amazing how it reminds me of, I once saw Paul McCartney play a concert and he would play like four, he would play like his new stuff and everybody like this sucks. And then he would play

like a Beatles song just to get the crowd back on his side. And it's like when you have the ability to do that, right? Like that must be ultimate power. And when Lamar Jackson looks at a bad defense, and he's probably just like this linebacker, I'd like to make him look like he's a high school linebacker. I'm going to play, hey, Jude. I'm going to play a little song called Can't Buy Me Love right now. That's the Lamar Jackson experience. Anyway, after and off, he did not play Hey Jude against Kansas City Chiefs last week, but he got back to his Lamar Jackson ways.

Anyway, point being, for me, the Bill O'Brien thing is, it's not even funny anymore. I saw a thing today, I saw photo. There weren't, I mean, there's barely any fans anywhere in the stands in any stadium across the country. there were enough fans to where I saw a photo of a handful of guys holding a big banner that said, fire Bill O'Brien. It was today. I checked and made sure it was today.

And it's like they led in like a thousand people or whatever, 10,000 people and you somehow still led to a fan rally for your firing. That can't be good. Just based on statistics here, based on probability. Rivers McCown, a really good follow had a cut up of all the David Johnson first down runs. and they were just awful. I mean, I hate it.

J.G. Watson, quote, I control what I can control, which is in all time, like, I don't know, ask somebody else. Hate it. Let's move on to the Cardinals before I get all bummed out here. Well, the Cardinals are also kind of a bummer.

You were very excited about them. A little better. I mean, this is less of a bummer. So give us a Cardinals take before I get into mine. well, they're bad at defense is the main Cardinals take. They lost 31, 21 to the Panthers. They were missing Buda Baker, which could have some marginal impact, but they're just, they're not getting impact plays.

I mean, Chandler Jones hasn't had a sack since week one. And the Panthers are not a team that's going to be super competitive this year. And they were putting together drive after drive that was methodical. and they were basically able to do whatever they wanted. They had five scoring drives of 60 yards or longer. Robbie Anderson all of a sudden was carving up defenses and cooking and looking really good with Bridgewater. And there are so many fun things about the Cardinals offense, although I do think that they've taken a little bit of a step back in the last couple of weeks, which may be just a product of us having overhyped them a little bit.

but on the defensive side, they just can't, you know, they're not playing with much of a margin for error and they're losing the teams that aren't great teams. Texas said 13,000 fans today and a handful of them wanted to fire bill of Brian. Okay, so you made some great points there. I don't have actually anything much different from the points you were making. I think that the difference between the Cardinals and a team that's just exciting on paper is that we've seen it, and that's what makes it so maddening, that I don't know what Vance Joseph is doing.

I don't know what the Isaiah Simmons pick looks like right now. Mike Renner made the point that it's sort of ironic they were playing the Panthers this week because Jeremy Chin is what we thought Isaiah Simmons was going to be. Simmons just hasn't been able to play the role and the dynamic, be the dynamic force. We thought he was going to be early. And I don't know if that's a him thing. I know that's a coaching thing, but we'll find out over the course of the year. Kyler, I mean, just shockingly inefficient. And this is, I actually kind of just enjoyed the idea that, and this is kind of a funny,

we make fun of pass the rating. I certainly make fun of pass rating all the time thing. He had 116 rating today. hit 133 yards. We just happened to have three touchdowns, 24 completion of 31 attempts. I don't know. I mean, I'm just, I'm not,

one of the reasons where we continue to throw the Cardinals in the loser's section we did last week two, now they're two and two, is that we had such high expectations. I'm wearing a clown suit because I thought that this team was going to be four and O and maybe five and one, something like that. When we started going through the schedule, I thought Kyler was going to take a huge, huge, huge step forward over the last couple of games.

That just hasn't been true. So I don't know what the solution is, but I don't love what I've seen in the last two except the Cardinals. I just thought this team was going to be not, you know, ASC West contenders, but I thought they were, I thought they were a team that would be capable of beating the Panthers. By the way, hat tip to the Panthers. Hat tip to Teddy Bridgewater, who his job with the Saints last year earned him that great contract. and all that stuff. But the ability for him, what I saw today,

where he was using his legs, that was really fun to see. Still scoot. Still scoot. 270s passing yards, 276 passing yards, two touchdowns, but the ability to break ankles, I enjoyed that.

Anything else in the Cardinals? No. Let's do questions. Let's do it. All right. So first question from Dave Quillo, can we find a mask that John Gruden will wear?

for an entire game. So this has been a league-wide thing where some coaches just, some of them have the Frank Reich face shield. Frank Reich is not wearing a hat but yet has a face shield. It is an incredible look. It's a lot of luck.

I want to get, I want to get that going. John Gruden, is there a face mask he would wear for an entire game? What about a Chuckie mask? So that's a great call. That is a great call.

I was thinking the same that would have to be something branded. So you either do it with Chucky or you do, you let him sell a sponsorship on it, like a Corona or one of his many, one of his many sponsorship deals. I think that's the path forward. I think that's a path forward for probably a lot of coaches, is just let them or personalize it. Shout out to a lot of the coaches, though, who largely I thought were way better today. Yeah, because the NFL started threatening to take away draft pitch.

Sure. But you know what? Whatever it takes still glad to see it. The other thing that you could do with John Gruden is you could attach the mask to the visor. Oh, wow. You could make it so that you can't. Tell them it's there. It's a package deal. It's screwed on with a Phillipshead screwdriver. Just don't give them access to a screwdriver during from one to four p.m. Yeah. This is great stuff. Yeah. So I think those are our options.

All right. Second question is from Jorreen. Which players are listening to the radio about their own narrative. So this is a question that is an offshoot of a Carson-W-W-W-S discussion that happened on Sunday night football. Essentially, there was a rant about Philadelphia radio. Zach Berman from the Athletic said that he once asked Carson-W-W-W-W-W-P or the fanatic. The answer is worship music or a sermon podcast, perhaps an audio book. Okay.

Well. So that's our wensnugget. So as far as a quarterback who listens to talk radio, what's your answer? What about Philip Rivers? So that's a great one. Isn't Tom Brady on record is listening to some of those stations? Not to my knowledge. I think he's much more.

made reference to. Now, he knows those guys because he goes on the shows. Right. I know he calls into that stuff. Yeah. I don't think. But he's not ever like, well, I was just listening and just have a point about your Bruins coverage. If he has, I've, I've missed it.

What's he, what's he listening to in the car? What's Tom Brady listening to in the car? When he's in Boston or wherever. I think he's, I think he, um, maybe a little bit of an audio book guy. Oh. to the radio sometimes, but I can also see him, I think he's a big, and this is just based off of when he's done like the Tom versus Time stuff, a lot of footage of him having phone calls on speakerphone while driving.

That's a big thing. You know, this is before my time, but it was certainly, and then certainly before your time, is that the big thing before he kind of shut it down with media is that if you needed him, he would call you on his way home. That's how you get like 20 minutes with him. So he's just talking to Dan Pompeii or something for 20 minutes in 2002. Yeah. But I just looked at up.

Tom Brady's favorite band is Coldplay. Yeah. Tough fun. I think, so my answer is that NFL stars don't listen to talk radio as much as they name search on Twitter. Well, that's, so that's why this discussion was hysterical, right? Because the whole tenor, it was so cute. It's like the idea that for these guys to be sort of like aware of the narrative. around themselves.

They're like picking up a newspaper, turning the radio dial out. Like the average NFL player is like 26. Like they're just looking at Instagram and Twitter. Like that's, that's how this stuff gets to them. But that's why Rivers, right? Because he's a little bit older.

He also like dad vibes go with the radio, I think. Like my dad listens to the radio. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that too. Any stars jump out is name searching on Twitter? There's two in particular to jump out. Tyrone Matthew definitely searches himself.

Oh, see, I'm not in, I'm not in Matthew, Twitter, sort of speak. He's really good. And I don't mean, and he's not like. Michael Thomas, Michael Thomas is a big one. Okay. Yeah. And then, and then I don't think you name, but one person who will respond often to media members. I actually would love it is Richard Sherman.

Yes. Yeah. He's up. He's in the weeds. And I really, I wrote something last year in January. about his contract and how much of a bargain it was and how good it was for him to be on the stage. And someone started talking about how his contract wasn't good or was favorable to the team or whatever. And like three people started arguing about it.

And the fourth person just came in and it was Richard Sherman. And I was like, oh, this is this is helpful for everybody, I think. Add something. Yeah, to have the actual man to defend his contract. I thought that was honestly, like I think that. Twitter discourse and NFL discourse can be helped usually by someone like Richard Sherman just like being going to be like, hey, here's what you guys need to know. I really enjoyed it. Anyway, last question. Who is your favorite guy from Adam Benjamin? Who's your favorite guy that got

cut that is playing well through this season? Example, Josh Norman. What's yours? So, man, after today, Norman's probably the one who's at least on a single game made the most impact. it's my initial thought was mohammed sinew which is funny because it shows you how much of a like Kyle shanahan patina of excellence gets applied to anyone because in my head i was like yeah no mohammed sinu definitely had like four catches for 48 yards in that game uh he had one catch for nine yards one catch for nine yards i'm looking right now yeah so it's not mohammed sanu but maybe i mean adrian peterson maybe yeah i assume agent pearson it's you know it's not it's not joe flack It's not Joe Flacco. That's true.

Cam Newton would be number one. But then number number two, I think. And someone, someone I've been impressed by is Xavier Rhodes. Because when you look at this, this indie defense, Rockieson, Kenny Moore, Xavier Rhodes, like this secondary is Julian Blackman to seal the, to seal the win today. like this is a really frisky defense and I think that there's there's a lot there and getting performance like that at Xavier Road is really impressive to me all right what's

too much quick bait okay so I want to I don't want to joke around too much with with COVID stuff but what I do think it's going to be is that someone is going to get a little accusatory about protocols and violations and we're going to get something a little ridiculous this out of that. So what if we, I will say the funniest possible story would be there being a scandal out of who's on what plane for the Patriots.

Like, why isn't, why isn't so-and-so on this plane? Why, he didn't get a close contact with Cam Newton? Why is, why is Cam Newton not meeting with the entire team? It would be,

that's why, that's why, it would be, McKeel Harry. That's what old school columnists, like, at 1986, they would just write that piece. They would just be like,

Kim Newton is not a good leader because not, because everybody's not on the COVID plane. Oh, that's so tough. They would just write that piece. Now, now we've evolved past that. And I'm so happy we have. I'm glad we have as well. Hot take culture is very,

very different than that particular piece. As far as the actual clickbait tomorrow, I think it's going to be Dallas Cowboysie. It's not going to be, it's not going to be, New England Patriotsie. I actually think that I'm in agreement with you in so much that the COVID discussion

could evolve a little bit as far as protocols and who's taking what seriously and all that stuff. But I don't, I think that's, that's if there's another team where there's a clear outbreak. I think a good example of that would have been if there's something happened with the Raiders last week where the Raiders have that charity outing,

everybody saw it and there weren't masks and all that stuff. They get a fine. If there had been something there, I think that's when you see that new cycle. I think that, um, As far as the Titans go, there's sort of conflicting reports about that. The NFL and the NFLPA is looking into it. But I think that there's, it's interesting how that's going to develop. I don't think we're going to see anything with regards to that or the paths, but we'll

just see what happens. I think it's going to be Cowboys, Dak Prescott, Mike McCarthy, was Mike McCarthy ever better than Jason Garrett? That whole new cycle. I think that's, that's where we're looking. That's the genre we're looking if you're going to exclude COVID from this narrative. I'm looking to write it. Write a Dak Prescott contract talk.

Does an Eagles win do enough to avoid a Jalen Hertz clickbait cycle? Yes. Okay. Yes. I think I think so. Although, again, I'm not in Philly. I'm not. There's a lot of Philly people.

I can't tell who's joking and who's not. I've lost the ability to understand with the Eagles specifically who's doing a bit. that applies on the field and off the field. And on phase. What is Doug Peterson doing? Is this a bit? Absolutely. Oh, well.

All right. Nora, this was fun, buddy. This was lovely, Kevin. All right. Talk to you this week. Adios. This has been the Ringer NFL show and the Rerner Podcast now.