The Ringer NFL Show - Week 5 Recap: Bills Beat the Chiefs, Green Bay’s Crazy OT Win Over Cincinnati, and Lance and the 49ers Fall to the Cardinals

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

Kevin and Nora are joined by Benjamin Solak, and they begin by discussing the Buffalo Bills’ statement win on the road over the Kansas City Chiefs (2:45). Then they discuss the Packers’ wild overtime win over the Bengals, Detroit’s heartbreaking loss to Minnesota, and much more (26:40). Then Kevin and Nora are joined by Steven Ruiz, and they go through Trey Lance’s first start in a loss to the still undefeated Arizona Cardinals (1:19:12). Lastly, Kevin and Nora answer a listener question (1:28:30). Host: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guests: Benjamin Solak and Steven Ruiz Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

So whether you're uptown, downtown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant. Make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined tonight by Norris, what's going on? About 15 hours of football. That's what's going on, Kevin. Oh, holy smoke. Ben Solac.

Ben Solac. It's hour 15. How you doing, bud? I miss the Jets Falcons. I don't know. Participates. This was just a little extra on top for me with the long half-time delay. I was fully expecting a Ravens 49er Super Bowl.

Chiefs walk out of the long delay. They've recreated offense as we know it. There's a whole new playbook they built for fun in the locker room. Not what we got. Spoiler alert. Did she jump ahead? What just happened here? I'll be honest.

I feel like most people watch the game. I know, but we're getting to it. By the way, I wouldn't say you missed Jets Falcons. Right. Wasn't like going on there. I was thankfully asking.

You declined to participate. we are not sending our best and brightest to London. This has got to be addressed somehow. But what are you going to do? I feel strongly it is not to be addressed. They love football over there and they'll take, they will take our jets, our falcons. I think our jaguars are going over there.

And they will take it. So, you know, that's a, that's a market that will accept the jaguars. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. I think, I don't know. That's a different, maybe that's a midweek show. Who are we going to send a longer? Your huddled falcons. Sure.

So what a Sunday. According to ESPN, this is the first time in history, I think, or at least since they moved the extra points back, which I would assume means all time, because it wouldn't have happened before that. There were double digit missed field goals and double digit missed extra points on one Sunday. A chaotic week of football. Davis Mills. becomes a second rookie quarterback ever to throw three or more touchdown pass against Bill Belichick.

The first was Russell Wilson. Weird stuff happened, but we will start with Bill's 38, Chiefs 20. Wow. Ben, you're up at the Chief's defense this week. Let's start there. Yeah. I'm at Panic Button place with the Chiefs. I'm there.

We're pressing it. We're pressing it. Yeah, I should say that side of the football. exclusive. The Chief scored 20 points in this game and usually the Chiefs score more. They were averaging 33.5 points per game so far this year. They were picking up a first down, I want to say, on like 40% of their plays, some ungodly number. Like they were just a threshing machine. It was disgusting. They were jokingly, you know, the Chiefs were two and two before this game and it was kind of like, oh, is the blueprint been figured out? And it's like, yeah, the blueprint is,

have them turn the ball for a turn the ball over four times like they did against the chargers. Ha ha ha ha ha. And then they did that again. They turned the ball over four times against the bills. Once on special teams, then three times on offense. So overall, it's, okay, they got to stop with the stupid turnovers. There's some little adjustments to make on offense. That side of the ball is fine.

But even if that side of the ball remains at this extremely high level of the efficiency that we've seen and they're able to erase the turnovers, this defense is abysmal. It's just bad. You can't be putting these players out in the field in terms of the second and third level players that they've got and expect to be able to sustain coverage with just no pass rush present. And this is the non-Christ Jones game.

So it's really no pass-rush present. And Chris Jones absent for this game. He was a dominating force against the bills last year, both in the regular season, end of the post season. They have no horses behind him. So they're not able to pressure Josh Allen. You got Daniel Sorensen, Chase, and Dawson, Knox, Cross. the field for like eight seconds.

And then Allen's able to take the field and extended. He's able to create plays outside of structure. And you're getting these big throws down the field with guys like him and with Rashad Fenton, because Charverius Ward is out, guys like Nick Bolton being attacked with the running back passing game is a big part of their game. We could be running game going after those linebackers. The weak spots in the Chiefs defense are very, very apparent. And there is no schematic solution.

There's no, let's just hide our linebackers and safeties. You don't get to do that. That doesn't exist. And so teams are going to continue to target 56, 49, 54, put up 30 points and tell the chiefs to beat him in a shootout. And even if the chiefs do that enough to make it in the playoffs, which I think they will because they're the chiefs, then you got to win four games in a row in the winner doing that, not a tenable approach. So I'm at panic button mode with the chief's defense. I do not see a solution on our horizon. They're going to be climbing an uphill battle every single game.

We're going to get to the bills part of this in a second. And I want to just talk about Chris Jones here for a second because I think Daniel Jeremiah calls them jinga pieces sometimes where you remove a guy and you get to see everything else fall down. Chris Jones is a pretty big jinga piece right now when you watch just the total lack of pass rush on Sunday night. It was astounding, as you said. There were a couple of things to note here. Obviously, everyone's going to talk just from a narrative standpoint about the rough in the passer penalty that then extended the drive, that then Josh Allen was able to make the leap. which was incredible on the literal leap. He already made the figurative leap.

But they were already down to touchdowns. And this was already getting with them a little bit. Nora, panic button activated. Yeah, well, let's go big picture here. They're last in the AFC West. Yeah. They would be, you know, there are three games behind the bills, but also more critically behind the Chargers.

It's not too early to be looking at this just in terms of how the math works out and go, okay. So I think we trust because of who the quarterback is, because of how good the offense is, because of their track record, because of the head coach. Chief should be able to make a playoff push. But that's more likely than not as a wild card. That's really difficult, right?

I mean, we've talked about the Bill's Chiefs game that determined the location of the AFC championship game. And obviously it feels like that was a significant enough factor. So you start to, just pile on, okay, already asking Mahomes and the offense to make up for one of the worst, if not the worst defense in the NFL. Now you're going to be asking them to do that on the road in the playoffs. And you look at all these other teams, right, that are just more balanced better at this point. And this is a team that set its bar incredibly high. Is that fair? It's sort of

irrelevant whether or not that's fair or not. If the panic button is, is this a worse Chief's team than we've seen in several years? Like if that merits hitting the panic button, hit it. Oh, okay. So, Ben, we've sat here for three years. And any time the Chiefs show any weakness at all, we say, eh, that's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. And at some point, it's not fine.

And at some point, these, you know, there were a couple of games earlier in the season where it's like, okay, well, without a fun. without, you know, Lamar getting that port down or whatever, this goes differently, but this is concerning. Help me out here. The Chief's defense, aside from obviously getting Chris Jones back, improves how. Brother. All right. I mean, I would imagine that it's about Spagnolo getting real wacky with blitzes.

When you can't win with personnel on defense, win with chaos, you're either going to score quick on us or we're going to get a turnover and we're going to try to live on that edge. Tough edge to live on. That's where I say you got to be able to do that four times in a row in the winter. That's where you're in trouble. But they've been, you know, I think there are ninth in a blitz rate coming into this game if memory serves. And so you can ramp that up.

You can get more aggressive. When you have bad coverage players, send them. You know what I mean? You send them on Blitz. You take them out of that coverage role. And I think cornerback-wise, Ligerius Sneed, Traverius Ward, and Rashadenton, it's not horrible. Taron Matthew, Juan Thornton Hill.

We can cover with those guys. So you can get some good coverage reps out of that group. I think you can. It's the way that the linebacker core does not generate an edge whatsoever. You saw such a heavy running back target script. That was not an accident. The Eagles were doing this in the weeks before. The charges were doing this.

We're going to ask your linebackers to come up and tackle in space because we're confident we can turn three-yard gains into six-yard gains, four-yard gains and eight-yard gains. and now we can stay ahead of the sticks on you, right? Chris Collinsworth kept on talking about how excited it was to see Spags in a third and long, because that's when the Blitz has come, stay out of third and long. And you don't got to worry now about these exotic packages, right? Because they're not sound against the run.

So you can go full tilt on chaos, and that might be your best move. But the reality is that the major investments made on defense in the Brett Beach era had been, you know, extension for Chris Jones. that feels good. Turan Matthew, that feels good. Juan Thornehill was a big pick, and he's been talented when he's been on the field, but injury's been a problem.

The trade for Frank Clark is a massive Achilles heel right now for this team. And then they have not made subsequent moves along the defensive front to account for that. They, in a league where you have to get after the passer, they do not. And accordingly, every other remaining point feels moot. There's no wins in the trenches for the chiefs on defense,

And that means you're fighting so far behind on a negative and snap. It's futile in a sense. I like Spaggs in certain spots, right? Like he's a really good coordinator to come up with a specific game plan. Like I think of the primetime game where they beat the Ravens last year. I remember being really impressed by, okay, you've got this explosive offense to deal with. You're coming up with. You're creating chaos.

You're doing all this stuff. You're figuring out ways to attack this one problem. And it was really interesting. It was really creative. They clearly weren't ready for it. I don't know if that's your guy when you're thinking about, okay, we have to just like steady the ship for a few months at a time. Right? Because to your point, Ben, like chaos theory over and over and over again on a week in, week out basis, that's really tough.

Yeah. Ben wants to just get so, he wants to hire Rex. Ryan 2006. Let's do it. Everybody. Just bring everybody. I think they should do the Panthers thing and just every, like, their next draft has to be just like all defensive players. But there's, there's an interesting like corollary here, which should kind of transition it to the other side of the ball.

The Bills did not blitz Mahomes. The lowest blitz rate games we've seen this year have been Saints against Rogers, Steelers against Allen, bills against Mahomes. The Ravens wasn't like super low blitz. rate in terms of league-wide scale, but for them was extremely low blitz rate against Mahomes. The emerging meta that we're seeing in defense is when we face the elite quarterbacks, we do not send pressure. We can't do it. They're too smart. You go and you watch what the Panthers try to do against Dak, diced them up. The recognition is too good. The ball gets out too

quick. You got receivers sight adjust and nonsense, man. You got them calling out blitzes, the changing routes on the fly. Allen's a truck. Mahomes can scan. Ragers can move around. We cannot blitz these guys and succeed. So we're going to rush four. And we saw how much the bills have poured into that defensive line. We saw how big that rotation was up front. We're going to rush three.

We're going to rush three. Patriots right now are leading the league and drop eight, rush three. We're going to rush three, drop, rush three, rush four, drop seven, drop eight. We're going to make you be patient. Chiefs had a beautiful 17 play drive that got into the low red zone of the first drive. and then they could not find that again. And that's because it's very hard for very good quarterbacks to be very patient and to be very risk-averse.

And especially, like, philosophically, you're watching Travis Kelsey run clear-out routes to open Miko Hardman underneath. And you're like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my entire. Wait, it's Miko Hartman. Like, stop it. Tyree Kill, Travis Kelsey.

This offense is bad. You're looking at it with the same face that Travis Kelsey had on the sideline, just like dead stare. Right. You're wondering, like, at one point, like, Hartman had six targets to Hills three. And you're like, what is happening here? And it's, we're usually running hill deep.

And we're running hard and shallow. And that's how we've approached this because we've been able to go get those windows. Well, we're going to borrow the Brandon Staley term because it's a really good term. And for understanding where we are right now in like the defensive philosophy, we're going to build a roof on top of you. And we're going to tell you to throw the ball underneath. And so for the chiefs who have nothing going for them on defense right now, blitz, great chaos, do something. You're going to get positive regression. You're going to get a fumbling, interception. That's the stop you need. Great. But for defenses who have personnel, for defenses who have smart coordinators,

and I will have a good defensive line, right now when you face the elite quarterbacks in the NFL, you do not blitz them. You try to get pressure with four. And if you don't get sacks, it's all right. It's a pressure rate of 12 percent. It's okay because you're going to make them run 13 play drives to score on you. And they do not want to be like that right now. Yep.

And it's really interesting. I've heard Chris Stam's talk about this, where he thinks that even quarterbacks now, even in a younger age, it's almost like a 10,000 hour theory, where they've seen so much football that, and more than generations previously, you know, seven on sevens or whatever, where they're just quicker at diagnosing at an early age. And maybe it took till age 32 to get the understanding some of these guys have a 24. And so blitzing just isn't the same.

Disguising things just isn't the same. These guys can diagnose very, very, very quickly. All right, let's go to the other side of the ball here and talk about the bills. Josh Allen is a legit MVP candidate. There's other MVP candidates who have emerged. I'm going to get to those guys a little bit later. But this was a statement. So Brandon Beena told me in August that one of the reasons they went out and drafted the first two past pressures they did, including Greg Rousseau, who had a interception today, was because they watched the tape of the Chiefs game and the AFC title in the ATS championship game and said, we got to get better at getting Emma Holmes.

And that's mission accomplished. I think there was an emotional kind of, I think there was an energy towards this game that was in Buffalo for the past nine months. They really wanted to win this game. I don't want to sound like Chris Collinsworth here, but they really, really wanted to win this game. They've been thinking about this game for a long time and they've game planned for it and they've changed their personnel because of it. This was a statement. Nora, the Buffalo Bills. Yeah.

Well, it's that plan coming together, right? I mean, they did something really similar defensively to what the Ravens did in a similar situation, right? Like, this is the hump that you're trying to get over. And it's that cover two, trust your horses up front to be able to create some pressure without getting a lot of extra help. And it worked. And that's got to be really, really satisfying for them. And you can see the adjustments that come getting multiple shots at this team. and then also over offseason and off season,

making changes to your roster to try to be able to do it. I mean, I think Josh Allen was their leading rusher, which seemed really interesting just because the Chiefs run defense, I mean, even in prior seasons when the defense as a whole hasn't been quite so abysmal, that's been a huge weakness for them. The bills do not run the ball very much, but it seemed like they were very intent on, okay, you know who we've got? We've got Josh Allen.

And that guy is big and that guy can move. So we're going to use them like this. We're going to gash them where they're sensitive. You could see the progression of playing this team, re-upping in the off season with the impetus of we have to be able to beat the chiefs. We have to be able to play with the chiefs. And it's really, really fascinating to watch it all come together. Obviously, it does not happen if Josh Allen is not playing well enough. but the difference is the context around him.

Right. And I think that you have to keep in mind that those moves were made with the specific intent of being able to do this. Hey, Ben. So we try to keep this podcast. I would say around 90 minutes on Sunday nights. We can go a little longer on big days like today where a lot happened. Okay.

But I need you to not take the next 90 minutes I want about to say. But I do want you to talk about it. Do not take 90 minutes after I ask this question. No idea why I'm being warned like this. I'm not known to go along. Talk about Dawson Knox. Good ball player, man. Listen.

Okay. On the Wednesday gambling show of Warren Sharp, everybody should subscribe. It's a good show. We talked about what the bills should be looking at, and it was QB run, and it was the tight end, Dawson Knox. And it was really nice to see that come to fruition.

Right. As Nora mentioned, Josh Allen is the leader. They're involved in the QB run game. That's great. Knox is just a really good athlete. And the problem that, the bills had in week one against the Steelers was they were living all these four open formations,

these empty formations. And the Steelers were saying, all right, like we know you're protecting with five. We're going to screw with you. You can't chip. Can't leave somebody in. Like, you're telling us what you're doing.

You have to be able to put a tight end out on the field and at least lie and say, oh, we might chip and then you don't have to. But like at least you're going to make them think about it. At least you're going to slow that process down. So Knox started to get more snaps, week two, week through, week four, because they needed to condense these formations a little bit.

And then it turns out he's big, fast, strong and can catch. And that's always helpful. Nora's speaking to the point of the bills being built to beat the chiefs, right? We kind of talked about this approach before. The more I look at how their team is built, the more attracted they become to me as a playoff contender because they're so deep, right? So Dawson Knox was the guy today, three receptions, which was tied for the most among bill receivers, 117 yards by far the most.

He had four targets. so did Zach Moss. Manuel Sanders had five targets. Stefan Dix had five targets. Cole Beasley didn't do Jack in this game. And there was a game two weeks ago where Col Bezzi had like 100 yards. They are extremely deep at pass catcher. And then on the other side of the ball, they're extremely deep at pass rusher.

Those guys are going to be fresh come January. You're going to be able to beat defense as a lot of different ways, a lot of different bodies. So for Dawson Knox, it was this group's linebacking corps is what we want to take advantage of. Let's get the big guy down the field. Let's make their safeties and linebackers run with him. every single week you get to change that approach because they've got depth and that really, really translates into the playoffs.

And so the bills are well positioned, get some home games in Buffalo, let's play in the snow, let's make you play our brand of football. But Cody Ford's on the bench right now. They got a lot of depth at some important spots. They're going to be able to survive injury and they're going to be able to come at you

in a lot of different ways. Nora, it's time. Right, the AFC contenders. Oh, my God. I'm going Chargers, Bill. then probably the Ravens, then I'm still going to go, I think then pure talent,

I go Chiefs. Is there anyone else I care? Oh, Browns. Yeah, so I'm going bills number one. I'm going bills number one because of not only what I just saw, the track record of Brian Dable, Sean McDermott, the roster, I've seen them win big games,

and we just saw that they can go into Arrowhead and win a pretty good one and not make a whole lot of mistakes. Ben, help me out here. Yeah, I feel very similarly. Right now, if you put the bills and the chargers out in a field together, I'd be very close for me. I might lean chargers on that one, but we're talking about a January game. That's where I got a lot of faith in what Buffalo went through last year, what Buffalo's been building towards, it's been a multi-year arc for them. They have a really good coaching staff. Chargers are still young. Browns are still young. You know what I mean? I think that I really like how the Browns have looked. I like the way the Browns played.

against the Chargers. I think the Browns could be that top three, top two team by the time we get there, but again, it's a young team in the playoffs. So to me, the most trustworthy AFC contender. Right now,

it's between the bills and the Chargers. I probably edge the bills. I will say the quarterback in L.A. is better. He's more consistently better than the quarterback in Buffalo. And that's a reality. It's going to be tough for Bill's fans to swallow, but it is reality moving forward. No,

it's interesting. But I agree with you about the arc part of it, where it just feels like the bills are in a better part of their cycle. in 2021. I mean, that was something I talked to Josh Allen about a couple weeks ago. You said,

you know, the first year that they started building, so this was the year after his rookie year, they beefed up the line, then they beefed up the skill guys, and now they're in a year where they have chemistry all over the place, and they've brought a lot of guys back,

and they've added. And it just seemed, his phrase was it was go time, and you kind of feel like this is the year that they're going to peak. Yeah. So that's, I think it's,

I think the A.S. is going to be way more fascinating than we thought because we thought this was going to be the Chiefs and everybody else. And it's kind of becoming everybody else and a big old salad bowl, everybody else than the Chiefs. And Zach Wilson,

the Jets, all the way at the bottom. Imagine how pissed the Ravens are going to be when they like slug through a tough AFC North schedule, sneak out at 12 and 5, third seed, home playoff game, and it's packed up.

Patrick Holmes. Come on, man. Like, what did we do to deserve this? All right. So, Clyde, Edward Taylor, obviously left the game. He has a knee injury severity. Not known. Andy Reid said. He said that Travis Kelsey had a stinger. I mean, this is, this is just, by the way, Tyree Kale has a knee injury, but obviously that we don't know what that means. Probably not. We'll see what happens. I don't know. No one's reported it's serious or anything like that, but Andy Reid said it's post-camp prize comments. All right. Joe Tune also fractured his hand. Yeah, fractured hand.

Yep. Oh, no. So here's your upcoming schedule for the Chiefs. Football team next week. Titans the week after. The Giants November 1st, Packers, November 7th. Listen, I'm not going to say that they need to win these three games, but it'd be real nice because they probably should.

Like, if they're the team we think they are, they have to win these three games. Yeah, just don't. Like we're already we're already hitting the panic button after five games. If they lose to the football team, the Titans and the Giants and they've got Patrick Mahomes a quarterback,

like that's not acceptable. Yeah. And I think right, avoid the four turnovers. And here we are. You know what I mean? Like I think the offense has got some fat to trim that will make them blow out some of these bad teams.

Defense, like, I think it's going to be similar games to the Eagle game we saw where it's like, all right, the Chiefs ran for $5 billion yards. Patrick Mahomes through five touchdowns, the greatest offense ever. Also, the defense gave up like 35 points,

but it didn't matter because look at this. This is Mahomes, you know what I mean? This is the Chiefs. But they right now, by win percentage, have the second most difficult remaining strength of schedule overall. Part of that's being in the AFC West right now and any kind of the opponents they've got there. But Kansas City's, you know,

and then get, like it's a nice easy stretch here to write the ship, but it's not easy all the way down the road. It's a tough schedule. This is, these early season losses are top. It makes a tough road to hoe. That said, the football team defense only has, I think, like a passing interest in tackling. That should be a nice little opportunity. I notice that the Titans have the bills next and obviously they have the chiefs in two weeks.

The Titans are kind of in hell. They have the bills next week. The chiefs the week after, and they have the Colts and the Rams. Yeah. Two of those games in prime time. Not what you want. Welcome to the Thunder Dome. That team lost to the Jets last week.

This is not good. This is not good. At least they have the Jaguars again. December 12th. Houston Texans, AFC North champions. How are the Houston Texans going to win the AFC North? At AFC South.

Don't worry about it. That'll be really impressive. Listen, they needed to win that game, man. That was a gimmy. Davis Mills, rookie quarterback beat Bill Belichick. Davis Mills outperforms Mac Jones.

Josh McDaniels wishes they didn't pass. on Davis Mills. And then he got upstage right, Mike Glennon. Ben, the rookie quarterback class is so chaotic right now. I want to put this to you. If you redrafted right now on October 10th at 1 a.m. Eastern time, where does Davis Mills go? Oh, six.

He probably goes higher than beginning of the third round, which people had a potential thing. But no, right now, I think you're drafting Lawrence won, no question. You're drafted. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Fields, Mac, Wilson, Lance, Davis Mills. Lawrence's draft stock doesn't take a hit because according to Urban Meyer,

he's never attempted a quarterback sneak. And then Lawrence immediately gave a quote five minutes later. I was like, yeah, I can quarterback sneak. I've done it before. I can do that. I've done that. It's fine. It's a long way of saying things are going well.

Not the message we were trying to get across there. All right. So Davis Mills would definitely be like a second. round thick now. So, congrats to Davis Mills for increasing his stock. All right, let's give out some super relatives. I'll start. Let's give the Oh my God award to the Browns Chargers game. Actually, let me rephrase that. Let's give the Wilder

Fury 3 award to the Browns and the Chargers. I've already lost. People, it's a boxing reference. Ben and I watched it. Yeah, we get it. We're cool. Yeah, we're cool. Boxing. Anytime you can throw in boxing. It's super cool. Young, young kids love boxing. All right. So, so, it's just two people punching each other in the head for a while and entertaining us until there was a winner.

Oh, like Cadarius Tony. Like Cadarius Tony. Also a wilder fury throwback. So the Chargers beat the Browns in an incredible game. Justin Herbert 398 yards, five touchdowns. Herbert continues to be nails on late downs. This seems sustainable. He now is, he was 8 of 13 on passes, 185 yards in touchdown. According to the NFL on third and fourth down, he is by a mile the best quarterback on third and down this season. This is what we're seeing every week now from the Chargers. It's Keenan Allen getting open. It's Mike Williams getting open. Mike Williams is awesome today. This was, if you didn't know, two really smart coaches, two really smart teams, making

good decisions. A couple things to unpack. Number one is that there was a pass interference called on AJ Green, the Browns defensive back that was kind of crappy and probably swung a huge drive. And if that doesn't happen, it's a really different conversation right now. But I kind of liked what I saw from both of these teams. At one point, the chargers were trying not to score and the Browns threw them into the end zone, which is just great clock management, just solid clock management from the Cleveland Browns. And Stephansky and Staley were two of the best young coaches in football, Justin Herbert's a legitimate MVP candidate. And here's this. The Browns, they are the first team in history to score 40 points with no turnovers and lose. Before this,

before this, the teams that did this were 463.0. That's pretty good. It's a big sample size. The chargers were going to have to reverse this. Took a lot of luck, but it happened. Nora, wow. Yeah, wow. That's like very anti-chargersy.

These Los Angeles chargers just like mounting fourth quarter comebacks while other teams become the first ones to lose. What is the Browns? It is the Browns. the Browns who were, you know, the other team. So this is, this is bad juju on both sides historically. I suppose. I suppose. Um, I loved this. I don't know if you guys saw this, but so Austin Eccler after the game said that Roshan Slater, uh, told the running backs, like, presumably during the game to stop chipping because he'd rather take on Miles Garrett or whoever he was facing from the Brown's

pass rush one on one, which like, I'm not sure that happened just because that's not really were Sean Slater's job. Yeah. But I just love that idea. And I do think that like seriously, we've talked about the upgrades the Chargers made on their offensive line as a storyline to watch this season, just as they try to go sort of from good to great.

It really does seem like it's been paying off. I was a little surprised by how much Garrett was lining up opposite Slater. I kind of wondered if they were going to have them try to, you know, get a little Storm Norton going. which happened, but he was mostly going up with, with Slater. And that worked out pretty well for the Chargers. Everybody was moving ball.

So things are looking up. Yeah. And no, and too Norris point about chipping, it's actually cool because I think a lot of people think, yeah, you provide chip help, help out your tackles, really good edges, whatever. But some tackles, and I would guess this is kind of the case with Slater just because of how he plays,

prefer not to have the chip. And the reason is because when you're like Slater, you're in a deep vertical set, you're trying to frame that edge, you're trying to respond to what he does. Slater's a very flexible, responsive sort of offensive sort of offensive offensive, he wants to take you where you want to go. Well, you're planning on him coming at you a certain way.

You're seeing how he's setting up that move. And then all of a sudden, Austin Echler comes around the corner, bumps into him, and now Miles Garris is going somewhere else. That was not the plan. And so for what you'll have in the discourse of the game is saying, all right, if Garrett knows the chip's coming and he's just waiting for the chip and then he's going to play off of it, let's just get rid of the chip. Let me just frame him.

Let me just work with him and know where he's going to be all taking where he wants to go. Herbert's going to move in the pocket. it, we're going to be okay. So there's times where, uh, right, a tackles getting chips and it's not helping him. It's helping the edge reset angles and change positioning. And so getting rid of it can actually be advantageous in that way. Well, also, again, it's just I, I'm taking this with a grand assault because truly that is not Roshan Slater's job. Like, pretty sure the coordinator's telling Austin Neckler whether or not he's supposed to chip or not, but still, it's a fun moment.

So other side of the ball, the Brown's offensive line, according to PFF, had no sacks allowed and only three pressures. Really good job by them. Ben, I take it. You were impressed by both teams. What did you come away thinking about both these teams in the larger context of AFC contention? Yeah, on the Friday show, and we were previewing this, I was really trying to get a Browns pick off. And Stephen just wanted to let me do it. And thank God for that, because the charges end up pulling this out. But my concern was that- That's why we separate you on this show. Yeah, it's a good call. We want you both to flourish. We just, well, we just pick her otherwise. The Browns obviously move everybody up front, right?

This is not distinct to the Chargers, but the Chargers run defense has been the issue. Brandon Say is going to play with Lightbox. That's the philosophy. That's the approach. But they don't have the horses up front to get that done the way they did when he was with the other L.A. team and he was with the Rams.

I mean, it was a good old-fashioned buttwhip for four quarters. They were moving the ball with impunity. And really, I think there's a lot of vision right now on that penultimate drive for the Browns. They're up by one. They get the ball on their own 14-yard line, and it's Kareem Hunt for three downs. And they got to second and nine,

and they passed it, and they got to third and nine, and then they went for the draw play. And people don't really like that setup. You really would have liked to have said, we're going to go Nick Chub, 13 personnel, and just push you guys down the field. Like, that's where the Browns should have been able to salt that game away, and they weren't.

So they really had the running game going for so, so long, and it failed them really at that last critical moment. It's more concerning that Baker-Mayfield does not understand how to run a two-minute draw whatsoever. That's the bigger problem. But that drive is frustrating. So you were able to run the ball. You were so dominant. Even in this high scoring, like they were like 40 points score to the fourth quarter or something,

you were doing it with the running game. They had a drive that went screen, run, run, run, run, a 75-yard touchdown. Like that's dominance. But then they didn't get it where they wanted it. So you feel great about this is the sort of a way Cleveland wants to be able to play these teams and win these games. light boxes, light players, we are going to bully you. They've got to be able to finish the job. And that's something a young team has to learn.

Brown struggled against playoff teams last year. Something that they got to figure out of the course of this season is, how are we going to beat these really good teams in the final margins of the fourth quarter? Yeah, and I agree. And the Chargers have to do the same thing. And that's why I was impressive they were able to do this, is that both of these teams, not only these teams have a million years of playoff experience, even though the Browns won a playoff game last year in a weird year.

Nora, same question. AFC contention changes for you how after this Sunday? I don't know how much it changes, really, but I think the Chargers are just reinforcing what we said about them, which is just like, this is a legit team. They can win a bunch of ways. They're pretty balanced. They also don't seem to be cursed anymore.

It's crazy. It's crazy that they have an amazing coach, an amazing quarterback, an amazing roster. And I'm just like, yeah, I don't know. Like any other team might be like, this team is like going to make the AFC championship game. I will say, right? I think the thing that keeps holding me back is that I have,

not loved how Joe Lombardi has gone about early down play calling and play action play calling for the second consecutive week. They were positive EPA on early downs. They were 35 passes to 18 runs. Some of those are called RPO's, but still, we like that. We got to keep doing this. Justin Herbert A.D. out of nine. We like that. We got to keep doing this. These are the buttons to hit. I think it could be a little bit of a different game if you have Greg Newsom in there. I think those miscommunications where they heard the Brown's secondary. But more early down passes, more pushing the ball down the field. Let the Bronco block, Justin Herbert, comply.

So if they keep on this trend, which I think we thought they would, because Brandon Staley's a smart coach, he understands the numbers. He gives his amazing quotes in the media and we all lose our minds. I think we thought they were going to get better. Keep getting better like this, and I'll buy all the way in. Okay. So Nora, it's just a Nervyn MVP candidate. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, that's it. I mean, it's him, it's Kyler, it's a couple other folks. And like this is this is real. This is real. Ben, I have one more question for you about Herbert. So we talked a couple weeks ago,

but whether or not the third down, fourth down, stuff was sustainable. And I'm of the opinion statistically that sometimes that regresses, but then I think about a really tall dude who's six foot six can hang in the pocket. And I'm just like, oh, wait,

it just makes sense that he can just bang it in there on third down. Is this more sustainable for him than other people? So like, I want to give a cheating answer. I want to say anecdotally, yes. But statistically, no, because regression is regression, right? It is the inevitable trend of things back to the average. At some point, he's going to get worse just by the laws of nature.

With that said, there is a freedom that comes with knowing that your defensive court, or excuse me, your head coach will let you go for it on fourth down that, in my opinion, makes third down easier. Herbert knows they're not playing a field possession game. Right. We ain't, we, oh, I got to make sure I don't, you know, I take. a sack. Like, all right, if I take a sack, whatever, screw it. Like, I'm going to get another shot here on the next drive, and it's going to be a third and five, and I'm going to, you know,

scramble for three yards. They're going to give me fourth and two. Like, there is a very much so I have an extra life. I have a one-up Mario mushroom in my back pocket that I'm going to be able to get whenever. So I can play a little free on these late downs, and I can be aggressive, throw in the fact that he's playing outside as God-given mind. And now you got yourself a really good late-down quarterback. So I think, no, like regression will come for him. That's not to say he will crater. That's not to say, like, they will just, it will just all evaporate. You can be really good situational football late down team throughout the year, right? You think about like the 2017 Eagles. They had Frank Reich's just whole job was third downs. Like, we're going

to be really good situationally. Yeah. So you can keep that riding. But at some point, yeah, you just, you miss the throws of your hitting right now, get a little pressure, injury, whatever. Regression will come because that's the laws of numbers. Herbert's good quarterback. So he's going to stay good on third downs altogether. Nora next to proletive. All right. So usually we break these up into kind of good categories and bad categories. I want to talk with a Packers Bengals game.

Yeah. Which I guess I'd lean more bad than good here. I've got my good one in my back pocket for later in this conversation. More than anything, I want to call this game just weird. First, let's get just a little piece of news out of the way, which was that after this game, Joe Burrow was taken to the hospital. to be evaluated for a throat contusion. Nobody on the Bengals seemed to,

like they'd all talk to him after the game and said everything seemed fine. That's a weird one. Actually, I think I saw that Jeremiah Ousu, Coromoa also is being evaluated for a throat contusion. This is like when the Colts had two players

could have the same exact injury, like the five to 12 week foot injury. Now we have two throat contusion injuries in the same day. And Quinn Nelson had to say. Yeah. You just, just the same exact injury befalls two people on the same day.

Yeah, and both in Ohio. Very odd. But hope those guys are okay. Beyond that, the weirdest thing about this game was that it was the only game since 1970 with five missed potential go-ahead field goals in the fourth quarter and overtime. So Mason Crosby had made 27 straight kicks and then missed three in a row. And then the Bengals kicker thought he made one. jumped into somebody's arms celebrated,

realizes he didn't make it. Everybody's got to be like, oh, oh, awkward. Oops. So this was just a strange game overall. Obviously, this almost ended in a tie. It sort of would have been more fitting. It should have. It should have ended up.

It should have ended in a tie. Yeah. I think there's some, like, there's some cosmic logbook that has this game down as a tie. But the, the Packers went 25. It's written in the stars. The Packers win, at least for our purposes, 25, 22. I guess my question for you guys is, look, since week one, the Packers have been winning,

they look fine. Like, my takeaway from this game for them was basically just like, it's good to have Aaron Rogers and Devante Adams, but it was a little bit of a weird game for them because a very, very odd Aaron Rogers under Lefleur performance, where he was. just like feeding Adams on these long developing routes, which is totally not what they've been doing lately, right? Like it's usually just quick, short, move the ball. Adams had 60% of the team's passing yards.

His target share of the season has been 37%. So there's just a little bit like, and I think their point differential might be like plus one or something this far into the season. So there's part of me that feels like, okay, they have the injuries on the offensive line. the defense is shaky. They're just trying to get to the point during the season

where some of those hurt guys come back and they can kind of start clicking. There are other parts of me that feel like I might be turning a blind eye to some issues here just because I'm used to seeing Aaron Rogers be really good in really big games. What do you guys think about that? I'll take it first.

So I was just looking at PFF and they said that he had the most completions where he held the ball for over 2.6 seconds. and he has in any other game under the floor. And it's exactly what you said. It was Devante Adams 11 and 16 for his targets. And he was just amazing today. I don't know. This was such a weird game.

I mean, the sequence there that almost led to the tie was one of the grimmest circumstances I've ever seen in my entire life. I have it in front of me and I'll just read it off to you. So 753 to go, the Bengals started to drive the ends in a touchdown. That was the last good thing to happen in this game for anybody. From there, a missed Packersfield. goal, a missed Bengals field goal, a Miss Packers' field goal, a Miss Packers' field goal, a Missed Bankers' field goal, a missed Packers' field goal. That's the last thing you see before you die,

okay? And so for me, for me, this, I was frustrated, hugely frustrated at the coaching in this game. The playing for field goals, you get what you deserve. Zach Taylor would not stop smiling. Every, like, they miss the third field goal because Zach he's grinning. It's like, I'll want to give you a noogie. I think that he was trying to do like a stuff happens kind of thing, but I just think you can't display that type of cowardice and play it off like it's just you, oh, sorry, it's in the hands of the fates now.

No, it's in your hands. It's like the end of No Country for Old Ben. Now, you've got the coin, but it's you. You're the person who's doing this. Okay, Zach Taylor. Like, this isn't up to just, oh, it's luck of the draw. It's luck of the kicks. No, dude.

It's you playing for the field goals. And so for me, I just, I was really disappointed. in the end of game situations. As far as your Packers point, Nora, I totally agree. The Packers should have won this game easier. Mason Crosby had a shocker. But sometimes weird stuff happens over the course season. I mentioned to hear Ben Solex's viewpoint on both of these things.

Yeah, Packers' Offits' lines got to get settled. I think that's going to help them get into the game that they want to get into because that quick passing game is very much so. Let's package a run with a pass and let Rogers get the line of scrimmage and make stuff happen. And you want to live in that when you're confident, your offensive line can be effective in the running game. And the overarching numbers look good. 22 carries for 133 yards at six yards per carry. But Aaron Jones got half of his yardage on one run in overtime. AJ Delon got half of his yardage on one run. Other than that, they had some explosives. They're really inefficient. So then

that puts you in these long and lates without Marcus Vald of Scaleling, who's your ideal field stretcher. This team isn't, this team isn't well built for long and late's anyway in terms of the receiving core. And then without ball to scantling, it gets even worse. So then you're right. You're kind of playing the Devante Adams game. So the Packers are still like with all the injury and with, you know, the way they looked against the Saints, they're still like figuring out the identity here a little bit,

which is weird to say of like coming off of an MVP season quarterback, same head coach, same play caller, largely the same weapons around him. But they're there in a bit of a discovery phase right now. I don't think they know exactly what they want to be, at least behind this offensive line. And I think we'll see things smooth out as they start to get a little bit healthier. The Bengals know exactly what they want to be, and it's just extremely painful to watch.

Joe Burrow just getting... Is it to get Burrow hurt? Is that their mission? They've all come together? They really, really, really flirting with disaster. Absolutely. And the thing is, like, so many catch-all statistics make the Bengals' offensive line look like it's like fine because the ball gets out so quickly.

It's like, oh, and sack rate and past rush win rate, yada, yada, yada. But then you watch them and you're like, I don't know who that dude is on the Packers. and he keeps getting in the backfield. Like, this is not good. We got a problem here. And then, right, it's that quick pass-a-game. And then it's Burrow relying on Jamar Chase.

And the way that Chase is dominating, the way that Chase is creating explosives, the way that he's winning the ball downfield for a rookie is absurd. And like, when Chase Claypool was doing this last year, we were like, yeah, he's like, 6'5-240. Chase's like 6'1-200. You know what I mean? Like, he's not even supposed to be built to be doing this.

So they really, I mean, they made a bold investment with Chase, it's paying off for them. Burrow has a ton of trust in him. That's been the saving grace of this passing game thus far. It's hard to not feel like the Bengals are a house of cards. It's hard to not feel like they're living on variants and they're going to catch a tough one coming through. They get the Lions next week. And then all of a sudden, it's like a couple games against the Ravens, a couple games against the Browns, 49ers, the Chargers. Like, they get a lot of good teams. So this is a, this was a game that stealing, stealing this win for the Bengals would have been really, really big. Disappointed that the coaching staff going to get that done.

Bengals called fraudulent on Kevin Clark's birthday. No, I know. I was just going to say, Ben said, oh, it's really hard to not call it a house of cards. Here's one path not calling it a house of cards. It's if you've been for six weeks saying that they're really good. And you're just kind of dug in. You just sort of dug in. Oh, I called him a nine-win team before the season.

And we're kind of on track for that. In the 17 game era, we're kind of on track for that. By the way, our buddy Anthony Tresh, I assume is your buddy, right then? I say that sometimes. Never met him. Okay. Seems like a nice guy. Yeah, he's our buddy.

He's our buddy. He's collectively our buddy. If you're friends with one of us, you're friends with all of us. That's how I use our buddy system on this podcast. Most yards by a rookie receiver in the first five weeks since PFF started starting, Jamar Chase is number one with 261. That is 40 more than AJ Green, who's number two. Justin Jefferson, number three, Deshaun Jackson, number four.

Jamar Chase is really, really good. That's it. House of cards. It would be nice if they just had some other answers other than rookie wide receiver who's played great and the quarterback knows that he can beat press coverage. They know each other really well.

You run a vertical route and try to make something extreme happen. Like that's lovely. It's lovely. It's truly lovely. You love that for him? You love that for Jamar Chase? Yeah. I love that for Jamar Chase.

I love that for the Bengals. I love that for Joe Burrow, would love like a second dancer, maybe a third. Sure. I will declare Jamar Chase to be the worst practice player of all time since he couldn't catch a pass and would just like fall down every time. And then when there's an actual game happening, he breaks AJ Green's record. All right. Like eating defensive bags for lunch.

Next superlative. All right. So this is my good superlative of the week. It's the Matt Nagy extension superlative. It belongs to Matt Nagy. The Chicago Bears, three. And two big win of the Los Vegas. Penn in hand. Pen in hand for that deal.

The reason it's the Matt Nagy Extension Award is because the Bears are 3 and 2. We very easily forget that this is Matt Nagy's fourth year coaching the Bears. He's yet to have a losing season. They're 12 and 4, 8, 8, 8, and 8. So the record looks good. This is how they've done it under

Matt Nagy somehow. Like, the offense is painful. There's drives where you're like what on God's green earth are attempting here. But that defense, man, and I own apology. I made a lot of jokes at Duke Shelley's expense. Oh, Sixth round picks aren't a corner. Duke Shelley can play a little bit.

Kindleville, Dirk, can play a little bit. Roquan Smith's outside of his mind. These lights out. They paid Robert Quinn too much money, but Robert Quinn is still very good. Khalil Mack is playing back in some 2017, 2018 levels. Did I already say Roquan? Roquan's nuts. DeAndre Houston Carson had interception.

Like, Jean Desai's got these guys playing. The book on Desai was he was extremely high energy and he was extremely aggressive. Like he will he likes to like work with the dudes. He's going to get these guys up and ready to play. This bears defense is fast. I mean, they, they rallied the ball. They hit you. They got some tackling problems. They got some youth problems and this communication problems. But this front will beat you up and this lineback course really, really good. And so now all of a sudden in Chicago, over the last four weeks, uh, they've given up 14 to the lions previous to this game. They had a nine points given up to the Raiders this week. They had 26 points given up to the Browns,

but that was the nine sat game. There was 13 after three. quarters. Browns possessed the ball for 40 minutes. And they gave up 17 to the Bengals. So since week one against the Rams where they kind of walked into, we don't know what Matt Stafford offense is going to, holy smokes Matt Stafford offense is insane. Week one of the Rams, this defense has been really, really solid. This is how Matt Nagy has been winning games down the stretch. Now, Packers, Buccaneers, Niners, then Steelers, and then Ravens.

Defense is going to get tested. Young guys are going to get picked on. I don't think this super holds up. But Fields is playing pretty nicely mistake-free football as a rookie. His is one interception over the last three games. There's a tipped ball with the line of scrimmage. They're running the ball well behind that patchwork offensive line. When you're bad offensive line, it's always good to run the football,

let them come off the ball, let him be physical, let him dictate. Lost Dave Montgomery, Khalil Herbert stepped right in. Looked tremendous in this game. They've got the old chiefs backup, Damien Williams. They're playing good football. And so all in all for Chicago, mistake-free on offense, sit on you on defense, win some ugly games. So what got Matt Nagy this job for the last couple years?

Feels like it's going to get Matt Nagy to keep his job after this season as well. Norprinciotti, five weeks in, it's early, but it looks like it's trending towards some job preservation in Chicago. Is this good news? Aye, aye, I don't know. Probably not. It's probably not. Here's a thought that went through my head that I was like, I shouldn't say that.

But now I'm just going to do it. Do you think Matt Nagy ever looks at Kyle Shanahan and it's just like, screw you? It's like every winning season after winning season, everybody thinks I'm a dud. It's probably right. I just think, I think, decide all that in a bag of chip. The real deal. Yeah, he's got them playing super well. Yeah, they need better personnel, but what he's doing right now in the back, the back end without like top personnel,

Jaylon Johnson, I didn't mention him explaining really well. I think decides the real deal. And so I think, like I said, I think this offense, or excuse me, this defense gets punched in the face here a little bit against some really good offenses. But if the bears are floating around 800 again, flowing around the play a picture again by the end of the season, I won't be surprised. And we have no reason to think that Bill lasers are still calling the plays, right? Oh, yeah. There were a couple. So I did not see very much of this game, but there were a couple times when you just see Ney looking down at the play sheet a little too much, a little more than he'd be comfortable.

No, no, no, no. it's because he's going to hang the play sheet on his wall. We've seen that. And he's just thinking about where it would go. Yeah. He's the only thing he does now with those plays sheets. Yeah. It's the only thing he does with the play sheets now.

He doesn't call plays anymore. He just hangs them on his wall. And so he's probably just thinking like, she's going to go by the door, is going to go by the window, that kind of thing. He's just looking at the thing that says BU. Yeah, exactly. All right.

So Justin Fields, like you said, mistake free football, eight of eight between under 10 yards. So he's just making an easy throws. I want to talk about the Raiders here for a second because, this has not been good the last couple of weeks, Ben. What's going on with the Raiders?

So this was the expected kind of defensive regression in the sense that Max Crosby and Yannick and Gokwe were producing pressures at an exorbitant rate. And while Max Crosby and Yannick and Gokwe are good players, we didn't expect them to keep that up. Meanwhile, Gus Bradley, he's a likable defensive coordinator. I understand why teams like to bring him in. I understand why players like to bring him in.

He says, we're going to line up and play. These are going to be our rules. We're going to go after it. That lets a defense play fast. The problem is you also know what you can get from it. You know what I mean? Like the Chargers, Chargers had like all these tight end seam targets on Monday Night Football.

It's just like what you do against cover three. You know what I mean? Gus Bradley has not an answer for this for a while. The answer has been like Bobby Wagner. KJ. You're right. Be fast. Like you can't.

You know what I mean? It's Denzel Perryman right now. It's Nick Watowski. Like we're going to be able to pick on that. So it's a defense that has legible, known responses. That's just we're like, lying on their front floor to be dominant. And in this game, when, like, Fields was straight, drop back pass, yeah, like Max Crosby

and Yannick and Gopper were eating. But we've figured out ways to get around that. So this defense was going to take a step back. You're more concerned with what's happening offensively. Derek Carr had a really rough day. I'm looking right now eight out of nine, which for current Derek Carr, like, whoo, we're pushing the ball down the field. But the EPA per play was my was negative 0.2.

He was under pressure constantly. He took three sacks. They wanted to continue pushing the ball down the field. but they weren't able to find it against this build or roof on you defense. And now Carr is not really getting back to that quick game facilitation. They couldn't rely on the running game the way they wanted to. And so they started relying, I think, too much on the explosives. And it came back to bite them.

Got to find a happy balance somewhere. Did the Bears just use the Joey Bosa Derek Carr Scouting Report? So it's funny because Khalil Mack, Kalil Mack sacked Carr, but he sacked him like really not like gently, but it wasn't like punishing. It was like, it was like, tackle. And it's like, oh, because they're friends. We were kind of like, hey. We got to hit him because that's what breaks him.

Joey Bustas told me so. Joey Bosa said. Yeah. Listen to Joey, guys. All right. So my next, my next apparelative is Dan Campbell is building something. I don't know what the Vikings are doing award goes to the Minnesota Vikings and the Detroit Lions. They're going to split this because I don't know if anybody can feel good coming out of this.

The Detroit Lions are not 0 and 5 and they've lost a handful of games in absolutely heartbreaking fashion. There's a universe, and trust me, you don't want to be in that universe, but there's a universe right now where Dan Campbell is riding high, and he is just, you know, kind of riding a, what would that look like if he was riding high? He'd be flying. He'd be flying. He'd be flying. He'd be flying.

Very tight, very tight metal band shirts, I think, would be happening. He'd have, he'd have, his facial hair would just look unbelievable. But right now he's 0 and 5, and he cried today because they lost 1917. Greg Joseph hit a 54-yard field goal. Crazy fourth quarter, so I'll just do it right now. So Joseph hits a 55-yard field goal with four minutes left for the Vikings. The Lions then score 10 straight points, and then the Vikings score with no time left on the clock. I don't think this is the worst thing in the world if the lions are building some sort of culture.

That it's tough on everybody. They fail forward fast, as Cam Cameron and Tom House like to say. and then they get a nice draft that can get to go and get a nice quarterback. I don't think that's a terrible thing. But at some point, they do need to win because this is getting awful. They lost today on a 54-yard field goal. They lost to the longest field goal in history against the Ravens. This is pretty bad.

To be honest with you, I'm not surprised that Dan Campbell cried at the press conference. I've spent some time with him. I kind of saw him get emotional adjacent in that time. And that's him, and that's real. And that's something, you know, when I spend some time with him, I knew that he was going to be, he was going to wear his emotions on his sleeve. And that's a good thing. And eventually that's going to win him games.

But right now they're going through it. And everybody knew the lions are going to be bad this year, but this is it. The Vikings, meanwhile, should not have been in this. They should not have had to hit a 54-yard field goal to win this game. A very strange celebration at the end where Mike Zimmer and Kirk Cousins got so excited that they maybe ended up hating each other in the middle of it. I'm not really sure what happened. Nora, can you describe that for me?

Well, it looked as though it started as Kurt going over to sort of celebrate, like, Dap Zimmer up kind of, he did it maybe a little bit too enthusiastically. And then Zimmer started to reciprocate, but then it sort of seemed like they were shoving each other. Tough one. Tough way out of a win. Ben, I don't know what to take from this game. Can you help me? it's it's the fact that this was like exactly what the idea was supposed to be for the lions so we've scored a field goal we've got it within seven there's two minutes left this is exactly how we want it to be we're we're gonna we get our our defense out they're going to get a stop for us jalen reeves maybin lineback or young guy who's like been thrust into more playing times they let jamey collins go we're going to develop the youth like this was the plan creates the fumble we get the

ball back go for we get we go for two in regulation we're going to be gutsy we're going to be Dan Campbell. We score like this was the whole plan. And then Kirk Cousin just marches down the field, game winning field goal. On a day in which nobody could hit an extra point, the Vikings hit a 50 plus yard field goal. And that's just, it hits you right in the gut, right?

It just sucks. I continue to love watching the Lions play. I love the way Anthony Lynn's calling offense. DeAndre Swift, T.J. Hawkinson, they've got some real people. Like, there's a lot to like about watching the Lions play. You just have to turn it off. before the heartbreak comes.

They're going to continue to be like seven, eight point dogs. They're going to continue to cover and be close to the end of games. This is what it means, like, have to develop a winning culture. It's just you got to start winning games that when you get that 49 seconds left, you're up by one. That defensive back field goes out in the field. They've been here before. They've lived in these situations.

They've won these situations. They have confidence. Right now, nobody in Detroit has that. So it's all about getting over that first time, getting that first win, generating a little momentum, a second win, a third win, and that's how you start to develop that culture. All the confidence in the world, Dan Campbell does it. Love watching the sausage get made.

It's just heartbreaking there at the end. Well, they got to do it eventually. Yeah. But it really, really, really could be worse. Like, first of all, I don't know how anybody who doesn't have a heart made of stone can watch Dan Campbell and not feel like, okay, yeah, there's a lot more to being a good football coach than just having emotion and connecting with people. But it still matters for something.

I don't know how you see him talk and care and don't feel compelled by it in some way. Also, if you think that just losing every game is as bad as it can be, I would ask that anyone who feels that way turn their direction towards Jacksonville, Florida, like a winless team can be in a lot worse of a position right now. Urban Meyer, after everything bad that happens, like one bad play, and Urban Meyer is like Deonti Wilder after the 11th round. just like completely battered on the sideline. I have no idea what you were saying.

You can imagine what he looks like. Just bad things are happening. Everyone knows what the Irvid Lean is. Just bad things are happening. I have to say, so as I said, I'm in the bag for Dan Campbell. And I'm going to get to the Vikings here for a second. But when I went to that story, my whole thing was like, I'm not going to compare him to Ted Lassow.

I'm not going to compare anybody to Ted Lassow. Ted Lassow comparisons are done. Everybody spent the entire summer comparing everybody to Ted Lassow. And then I spoke to the Tidens coach who worked with him in my me. And I said, okay, who's there now, the tight-end coach of the lines now. And I was like, what motivates you? And he was like, I could not stand myself, looking at myself in the mirror if I disappointed Dan Campbell, right? And like, I kind of think that the guys who like are like operate in the same way. And so it's Dan Campbell feeling bad for them, them feeling

bad for Dan Campbell. And so like eventually this, this will move in a better direction. Um, But right now, I think it's really, really, really hard to lose games like this. And I think that for the culture, so the next couple of games they have, they have Cincinnati next week, interesting one. They could win that game. They have the Rams the next week. I don't think they can win that game. Philadelphia the week after. Pittsburgh, after the buy on November 14th.

So they've got a couple of maybe vaguely toss up games if they play really well. But they got to win some games. Ben, anything with the Vikings here? I refuse to do this with Minnesota. I simply can't. Minnesota, Cincinnati, well under my umbrella of unacceptable football teams that I refuse to treat seriously. Minnesota was a field goal away from beating the Cardinals and needed a field goal to beat the lions. You are not real.

I don't believe it. Nora, are you engaging with the Vikings this year since Ben's not? I'm engaging with wondering who would win in a fight between Zimmer and cousins. And I think I've got Zimmer. It is Mike Zimmer. Yeah. Kirk Cousins is a professional athlete. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't dispute. No, the answer is Zimmer. I'm just saying. There's no path for Cousins to win that. Mike Zimmer is a junkyard cat.

That's easy dub. Unbelievable. All right. Next superlative, Nora. All right. So I'm giving the, I think the, Cowboys are really good,

even though we're talking about this within the context of them beating the Giants who lost every player on their roster and played Mike Lennon Award. That's what I'm calling this. The Cowboys 4-1. We'll workshop that name. I'm so curious to hear what the content of Vista Perlative is.

What a teaser. It's really going to detour from here. Just sort of burying the lead. So the Cowboys win 4420. I just against the Giants. The Giants lose, um,

Stakein Barclay leaves with an ankle injury. Daniel Jones leaves with a concussion. Kenny Galday leaves with a knee injury. Then, um, Cadarius Tony, who looked great, uh,

got ejected for trying to punch a helmet. This is the thing that baffles me every single time people do it. Why would you punch a helmet? It's very firm. He kind of missed, which was probably good. Because if you really make contact with that thing, like that the outcome spectrum is not great to really bad.

Um, regardless, the Cowboys, we talked about the multiple ways where they can just run over you. Dak can pick it apart down the field on offense. I really do. I have come to believe Kevin, you had such a great conversation on, on this feed about the Cowboys earlier this week. I really do see them as, you know, one of the absolute NFC contenders and a real juggernaut. Diggs had another pick. So that's one, at least one in the first. first five games.

He's got six so far. Just a really, really impressive team that I now feel like I have a lot of confidence in. Diggs family backyard football must have been unbelievable. Do you see the DAC quote about how Diggs was asking to, like, play with the receivers? Like, he wants to, like, work out with the wide outs. Well, because he has, like, unfulfilled dreams of being a receiver. Yeah, he was a wideout in Bama, and then they switched him the corner. And Dak was like, no.

And then Dak was like, he has six scientists and five games. I might have to let him. But it's not like he needs to work on his hands. So I guess he's doing whatever he's doing now is keep doing with Trondi. Because I would not have called this. Yeah. I'm giving Joe Judge the Ben McAdoo Award

for being exactly like Ben McAdoo. Joe Judge. Joe Judge walking out to that scrum, the first scrum, not the second scrum. The big fight of the Cadarius Tony Punch. Just like my grandma, we were being too rowdy in the yard. Just like hands on his hips,

like waving as, his play sheet, just kind of irate. It's like, this is ridiculous. What a waste of my time. Like, he's going to go and do anything. You know, like the refs, like jumping on the pile. And he's just there, like, tutting from afar. I greatly appreciated it.

Kevin, did we, am I having deja vu? Or did we at one point on this podcast to have a conversation about how, like, punching helmets is like, only men punch walls? Sure. So, so actually, we had this debate. We talked about this last, last season during the Saints Bears fight. And we were talking about. Florida and someone helpfully tweeted at me that Cadarious Tony is also from the University of

Florida he's we grew up in Alabama but but but he's from Florida um and so it's possible and listen I've punched a lot of stupid things in my life it's possible it's just sort of you learn this in the state of Florida it's part of our education system when you're coming up um I want to briefly talk about this because I think the Daniel Jones uh concussion in fact he wasn't able to play full game today is really disappointing um so I none of us have on the Sunday night show have talked about Daniel Jones really at all. Like we laughed a little bit at when he fumbled the, I believe in week one,

because that was his thing for the first couple of years. He was in the NFL. And he's cut down on the turnovers. And I don't think he turned into Mahomes or anything, but he was doing some really nice work as far as eliminating the huge mistakes that he was making. And if he doesn't turn the ball over, he's a solid NFL quarterback.

And so I actually was going to spend some time digging into Jones tonight. And then the fact that he, goes on the, uh, the, the, the, the,

the, the bootleg gets hurt. Um, that's a real shame. And I hope that he can get back there, because I kind of like the steps that he was, he was taking. Um,

I'm joking about, you know, the judge McAdoo thing, but, you know, obviously it's, it's, it's,

it's, it's, they're going in the wrong direction. A, Ben? Yeah, I think that, I mean,

we got to acknowledge, Jones started this game 0 for six. Uh, at one point, he had three total completions. They were all to Kedariostone, which where I how I do not know what developmental process went into eliciting this Cadarious Tony game. He went 10 catches for 189 yards.

He had a carry for seven yards. He looked unbelievable in space. He looked like he was running a full route tree. This is exactly what you drafted. I don't know where it was during camp or where it was in the first few games. But whatever you can do to continue developing this, please do. But Jones was shaky throwing the football to start this game. And I think that in general, there are times where Jones has these really high quality

counting stat games and he can string two or three together. We've seen this even happen before. And it's been a, it's been a, oh, if he cuts down on the turnovers, this would be great. And this year was, oh, he has cut down on the turnover. So it's great. We have not seen him sustain that level of play against top opponents or across the course of the season. So he's a tough guy to believe in in that regard.

He's, I think, streaky at best. I, I'm going to agree with you. What I'm disappointed in is we don't get to see a big. sample size for and obviously the most important thing is his health but this on the football side of it if he's out for an extent of a period of time it's going to be tough for the giants to evaluate what they have going forward in a year where i would say everybody's jobs are on the line not just david getlemans but coach and quarterback too and if and when he comes back we don't know the availability of saquine barclay who went out with a national ankle sprain kenny golladay who went out

in the beginning of this game as well sterling shepherd wasn't available for this game Giants have an injury bug at their skill position, something that they certainly couldn't afford in the short term if they had aspirations to, you know, kind of put this thing together and finish the season strong. But also, yeah, long term makes it a lot more difficult to evaluate and to know what you've got. So I agree. It's a tough beat for Daniel Jones. It was a scary injury. I hope he's okay. Hey, Nora, I want to ask you, where would you rank the Cowboys among Tier 1 and FC teams?

Well, let's see. I think it's tough to figure out where to put the bucks right now just because they're so banged up. But I think they're kind of step below. Well, and then we're dealing with kind of like how we feel about the Rams right now, right? But they're in they're in that upper tier for me. I mean, I think that's it. Like I have a little bit more faith in, I would say, where I think. I think the bucks will be by the end of the season.

But they're in that top, you know, four or five, five team mix. Cowboys versus Cardinals right now. That was good. I was thinking about that. Oh, so I. Neutral field. Neutral field. We're playing at the citrus bowl in Orlando for some reason.

Man, why do I want to take the Cowboys here? Because the Cowboys are better. Yeah. The Cowboys are better. We're a three for three, right? Cowboys. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah. The thing that freaks me out is defense. defensively right now. They're living on interior penetration, which is great and turnovers, right? And so we expect turnovers to progress. And the thing is right now, their past rush is coming from like Osa Degazua and Michael Parsons and like Dorn's Armstrong. And it's like, all right, cool, but it's similar to the Yenik and Gawkeley-Max Crosby thing. We didn't really expect this from you guys. So I don't know how much we believe third round rookie Osa Degazua is going to continue to be a leader among rookies in pressures generated. So I don't know how much the defensive success is

sustainable. With that said, Holy smokes. I mean, DAC is just offensive how good he is. It's just irritating. You shouldn't be able to be... He's top target. It's Dalton Schultz.

It's just unbelievable. We've got C.D. Lamb and Amarkey Cooper. Cedric Wilson looks great this year. Tony Palmer's getting involved in the offense. I can have anybody I want whenever I want. The command he has is just filled... There's nothing you can do. Monday to Saturday.

Prep on the shop. We're going to take away this, take away that. Press cuts are going to make you wrong. It's just a... You just survive. against Dallas for as long as you can. And then with the way they're running the football, no team is running like wide zone right now

better than the Kellynmore Dallas Cowboys. It's sick. Yeah. And you know what? Their line was a little worrisome just because that had been such a strength in the years past and they're getting older there, particularly in the running game.

Like they're blocking really well. Yeah. And they just look powerful. Yeah. Ben, I have a question. I'm going to make you do something. We're doing a coach's draft right now,

but there's only two selections available. Mike McCarthy and Cliff Kingsbury. Oh, sweet, Moses. Cliff? I think. I think you just... I mean, I think you just made a mistake. I'm going to say something that I don't like.

I do think because we are attracted to this idea of the young, innovative offensive coordinator, we put a little bit too much, too many eggs in the Kellanmore Basque in terms of how this offense works. A lot of the basic nuts and bolts, are McCarthy, Rogers-era McCarthy offense, right? And so, like, he did kind of lay the foundation. So maybe for that reason, I take McCarthy with that set. I think if it was just McCarthy offense and not more, it'd be abysmal.

So, you know. Can we do one more thing? Can we do what you guys did with Cowboys Cardinals, with Cowboys Packers? Cowboys would run the ball all over that team. I think right now the Cowboys would win on a neutral field. Yeah. the ability of the Cowboys,

if a team wants to like drop seven play zone too high and try to put an umbrella on DAC, their ability to just, they're running with an unbelievable variety of concepts from a great variety of formations with good personnel. And then they can go play action shot because Shultz and Jarwin can both play.

Noah Browns are blocking receiver. He's great. And then they get him on like ghost screen stuff. Like they've got everything in the bag. So to me, like the Packers, they'd run the ball. Cardinals run the ball all over them. And then just make Dak be.

perfect on third downs because what he's doing. It's unbelievable. All right. Last superlative, Ben Solock. Yeah. So this is my, my bad superlative, which I have as Damn Sarnold, which is not a really great title, but I liked it. It was fun. Sam Donald had one interception through three weeks of the season. The Panthers were three and O. Then he caught

the Cowboys defense and the Eagles defense. Both of them without Christian McCaffrey. He's thrown five intersections. The Panthers have lost both of those games. Now, the Panthers defense was really the engine of this team early on. We knew that they ran into the Cowboys offense. They weren't really able to slow them down. So it's not that Donald's interceptions were the reason that they lost that game.

And you can make the same or a similar case for this Eagles game. The defense was great. But the Panthers had control of this game. They were up by five late in the fourth quarter, three and out. They went to punt it with four minutes left and it got blocked. We're covered at the 27. Eagle score touchdown on the short field. Donald throws an interception on the ensuing two-minute drive, Eagles win the game.

So if special teams executes, we're not talking about this three-interception Sam-Donald game is the reason why the Panthers lost. With that set, they had some good Donald early. It was very much so the scheme carrying the quarterback. We saw from Donald's time with the Jets that if he had man coverage and he had time, he could dice that up. He was willing to make aggressive throws against man. And so Joe Brady's good O.C. He was giving him isolation.

DJ Morgan's man coverage. We're going to throw this slant. He's going to catch a run. We're going to get Robbie Anderson isolated one-on-one. And they weren't really connecting with Robbie, but they were stretched in the field, right? Like they were doing the good stuff to carry him with scheme. McCaffrey gives you such a nice margin for error because, oh, stuff gets covered up. Oh, quarterback's panicking.

There's a little bit of pressure. I'm going to dump the ball off to arguably the best receiving back in the world. And he's going to get us the second and six. We'll be able to stay ahead of the sticks. we don't need Donald to be aggressive. We don't need Donald to make throws down the field. Well, we get to this game against the Eagles. He had three picks.

One was a zone drop. Darius Lay baited him into a throw. Now, a veteran quarterback, which Donald is at this point in his career, should have known not to make that throw. That's a good play by a good corner. And Darius Lay makes a nice catch interception. The other two were straight misfires

is what Donald has looked like. Been in the pocket for a little bit, waiting for an intermediate route to develop. I'm a little bit jumpy. I'm a little bit uncertain. I'm just going to fire this thing. It's going to be inaccurate. It's going to land right into an Eagles defender's lap.

And particularly the outbreaking route that Stephen Nelson picked off to seal the game, ball's late. Again, if you're a veteran quarterback, you should understand that that ball needs to be out or we are not throwing it because if it is out late, it is intercepted. So these are the, this is fourth year of Darnold. We should not be making these mistakes. But Tiger don't really change the stripes.

And the thing that I always come back to is quarterbacks have habits. Donald is a young guy. Oh, the Panthers got him and he's still 24, 23 or whatever he was. He has a lot of starts. He has a lot of reps. Don't matter how young you are when you have played this much. You have habits. And Donald has a really bad habit of throwing bad picks when he gets jumpy in the pocket.

When he gets uncertain. And that Eagles defensive line was ripping apart of Panthers' offensive line that always felt like they were overperforming early in the season. So for me, we're going to get Stefan Gilmore back. In trade, we're not really going to get him back. We've had him. So we're going to get Stefan Gilman. more. That's going to be sick. A.J. Bouye was

not available for this game. He's going to help us out. All that's awesome. I think that this Panthers defense can and will continue to be pretty gnarly. Darnold has to be not a problem and they have to win on defense to succeed. Very difficult model. When Donald has games like this, the Eagles

offense was abysmal. They were trying to lose the game. Donald would not let them. So, Darnold was the Achilles heel there by the end of it all. Panthers are three and two. Still a lot that you like to build on, but man, they could be stuck quarterback purgatory if they get nine wins this year want to go another year with darnold that could get real ugly nor do you want to cancel the panthers no i don't i don't want to cancel

the panthers that would not be fun for me i'm declining comment on this sam darnell is like you know the the the tictock sound that's like i'm not going to do it i'm not going to do it pause no i don't know that ticot sound yeah i don't have ticot here's a list of ticot sounds i know boom all right well i'll tell you guys what's not at ticot sound is any of the boxing references. More than fair. Well, one thing is for 90-year-olds and one thing is for 20-year-olds.

I let the listener decide which one is which. We have any other thoughts about Eagles Panthers or mostly just Barb's cast. Yeah, I was like, wow, that was, okay, so I think that we all saw this coming with the Panthers. I think we also saw this coming with Donald.

And listen, I think that the Panthers are going through, and as a team, frankly, they've exceeded my expectations already just the way they've looked. Sam Donald was a flyer. They didn't invest their franchise in this. They can still go get a quarterback in draft this after this year. Stefan Gilmore is a good example of, you know, if he lives in a frequency, they get a fifth round comp. These are low-risk flyers in a year where they didn't have high expectations, a vaguely new general manager.

I don't really, I think that this is a building year for the Panthers. And so I'm not going to be disappointed in them for this sort of thing. I want to ask you, Ben, real quick, because we're kind of figuring out who the work teams and football are. The Lions are one of those teams, a couple of other of these teams. With Spencer Rattler, who before the season, we're talking about being number one pick, he's not in a picture anymore since he might not no longer be the starter. What does that number one pick look like right now?

Looks like Kvon, Tivodeau, Edge out of Oregon. But if the lion's at the first overall pick, what happens? Cool, brother. I mean, at this point, right, you're talking about Tiberto. You're talking about Kyle Hamilton, the kid out of Notre Dame. The quarterbacks who are going to be in that conversation, as of right now, it would look, like Matt Corral out of Ole Miss, having a good season. Malik Willis, who's that wildcard out of liberty. But it is a scary quarterback class.

Someone's going to go around one because someone goes around one. those are the rules. We ain't going to E.J. Manuel this thing. But it's not a desirable class to have that early pick. The veteran quarterback market apparently could get really fun. You know what I mean? Rogers and Russell Wilson and what have you. But it is really, really scary up top at the quarterback position.

For a team like, you know, we're looking at Carolina. They're probably going to win a few games. For a team like the Eagles, their head coach is terrified of their quarterback. I mean, the Eagles call plays. Like, they don't even know what the quarterback can do. They had a red zone drive where it was wide receiver screen, running back screen. They ran mirrored smash and then just hope that Jalen Hertz would make a play afterward. It is they want him making no decisions in the red zone, no choices, no middle of the field throws, no tight windows.

Like, they clearly do not trust him as a thrower. There is no light on the horizon in terms of an incoming rookie class like we had last year we had in 2018. Well, there'll be multiple options. They'll fall out of the top 10. That is not happening this year. No way, no how. Wow. That's extremely disheartening for a bunch of bad fan bases, bad teams fan bases right now. The defensive class is sick. So if you like Defenders, 2022 is the year for you. However, no one really likes that. We all want quarterback. So then we'll see you next Sunday, buddy.

Oh, thanks for having me on, guys. All right. Stephen Ruiz is here for the weekly Ruizans. What's going on, buddy? Not much. I'm a little mad that you made me. watch Cliff Kingsbury coach again. It feels like every week I have to watch him coach because of you. Coach with a K. We just had a coach draft where there are only

two available options and was Mike McCarthy and Cliff Kingsbury. Who went number one overall? Ben Zolak was the only person drafting and he picked Cliff Kingsbury. I think he picked wrong. I think that if we redraft, if we do a redraft looking back on it,

might flip that, but who am I? Who am I? All right, too early for redraft. You know? He does see McCarthy's house. Takes three years to evaluate. All right.

I saw something in this game I've never seen before, which is Chandler Jones was getting held, and he could have sacked Trey Lance, but instead he peeled out of the pocket to yell at the ref for a holding penalty, which I have never seen before. He got the holding penalty, but we just innovated in complaining to the referee.

I mean, I think he believed. that he was being held. He trusted himself. He trusted his years of football experience, knowing when a holding call should be made. And, you know, hats off to him. Yep. Congratulations to Chandler Jones has drawn that penalty. All right. So, uh, Kyle and Murray is that dude. We knew that already. Uh, but Tray Lance, not there yet. Uh, what did you see Steve? Well, the Cardinals did not believe that Tray Lance was there. And do you know how I know that? Because they didn't, they played three DBSs on 20.

20% of their snaps. Three, that's goal line defense against the 49ers offense in the open field. He played on 20% of their snaps. And here's my thing. Here's my message to Kyle. If you're going to commit to this Tray Lance run game thing, can you please take Kyle use check off the field? Like I know you paid a lot for him and I know you love the idea of having a fullback,

but it just doesn't work because this is how teams are going to play you when you have a fullback on the field. and that kind of negates the advantage you have of having a running quarterback where you get that 11th man, the defense has to account for in the run game. They're not really getting that because their teams are playing nine men and in the box. Getting Rathusbergered? Essentially. All right. Tell us what quarterback run game would work for Lance and kind of what the ideal situation looks like for him.

So I think like the model, at least for this like heavy formation option run game, is Baltimore, right? Because they're doing it and they're doing it well. But here's the thing. Lamar Jackson is one of the fastest human beings that has ever played football. And he can run around linebackers. And Trey Lance doesn't necessarily run around linebackers. He is very fast. But against Isaiah

Simmons, he's not that fast. And I think that's the issue. So if you spread things out and put some nickel and like force them to put some defensive backs out on the field so they can cover wide receivers, those are players that Trey Lance can run over. He's not going to run over NFL linebackers.

All right. Let's talk about, we were joking earlier about how Matt Nagy probably looks at Kyle Shanahan and says like, come on. Really? Like this, I keep making the playoffs and no one seems to care. But I want to talk about the ceiling for the Samson 49ers team. Having watched them, having studied them, what are we looking at with the 20-21 Niners if this is it? Maybe the 2020 Patriots with better PR. Yikes. Oh, no. Oh, no. Wow, a year away from getting picked apart by Davis-Bills. Oh, my God. I don't know who Mack Jones in this scenario is. It might be Jimmy G. No, it might not be that bad because the defense is better. Kevin has his hands like over his face right now,

except like pressing into his eye sockets really tightly as if he just does not want to see the light of day anymore. I'm trying to rip my eyes outside of an excuse to just get out of this segment. here's another one here's another here's another here's another here's another comparison this the 2021 saints if tasem had been named the starter okay oh my god stephen this is this is where we're going to have a bit of a debate here do you think this is permanent or do you think that okay so when does trayland start to get better uh a month okay i mean he wasn't playing for a reason we knew what he wasn't going to play early on. If you saw him in preseason, this was what he was.

Okay. So like what specifically does he need to get better? I know it looked ugly, but when you look at him, where does the improvement need to come? If you're Kyle Shanahan, you're drilling what into him on Monday? All right. I have two, two areas. In the passing game, I think he's too anxious to start scrambling. And we saw this on the first interception where he had, I forget who he targeted, but he had him open initially. And then he starts to scramble. And then he, he realized, oh, I have an open guy, and then he throws it and air mails it and he throws a pick. That happened a lot. It didn't always end up in an interception, obviously, but he never looked sure of himself.

So I think Kyle has to realize that and cater his play calling. So Lance isn't necessarily thinking too much and trying to get rid of the ball, like just obvious reads where, you know, we're calling play action, throw this over out. If it's not open, take off and run. I think once they get back going, the passing game will be good enough. And then in the run game, I don't know, it seems like Lance is in between two worlds where he has this instinct to run over guys like he did in college. And then he probably hears Kyle in the back of his head saying, get down, be safe, avoid hits. And you can kind of see that when he's running the ball.

I think as the game went on on Sunday, he got more confident about it. And he was just running downhill and they started to move the ball better. But that was an issue early on. I want to distance myself from these questions. So we got a lot of reader questions, listener questions. I'm going to try and reader questions the rest of my life and we're just going to deal with it. Okay? We got a lot of listener questions.

And a handful of them were when do we start to dig into the offensive genius label for Kyle Shanahan? I'm not ready to do it. But are you starting to interrogate that label a little bit as you see these struggles or is that reputation still deserved, which is the side I come down on. No, I think it's still deserved. I think Kyle is still very good. And you could see the plays that he was designing the theory there. I mean, I think the play calls made sense.

It's just the execution wasn't there. And that falls on Lance for the most part, especially in the passing game. But I mean, Kyle still has to learn how to call plays for Lance. He wasn't planning on doing it this soon. And I think, I mean, it's been, what, nine years since that season with RG3 and things have changed in his offense and in football. So I think he has to, you know, get accustomed to calling plays for Lance

and realize what he can and can get away, can't get away with. That's going to take some time. He's also, I mean, look, we this, we had this conversation before the draft when it seemed like a possibility they would take Mack Jones. Like Kyle Shanahan is, is, I think he deserves that reputation. I think he's an incredible play card. I agree. He's an incredible designer of offenses.

He does tend to. to like these quarterbacks who are kind of maybe limited but finished products. And he's broken away from that in coaching up Trey Lance. And it makes some sense to me that it's a little bit rougher around the edges, not just on the part of Lance being raw and young, but Shanahan figuring out exactly how to get the best out of someone who isn't going to be, and this is largely a good thing, who isn't going to be Kirk Cousins Jimmy Garoppolo and kind of,

you know what you are getting all the time. All right. I do want to have a bonus pick on one thing, which is that as someone who went all in on the 2020 Patriots, I tried to give them a good PR. They just, the 2020 Patriots failed to deliver on my, my attempts to give them good PR.

Same. After September, the whole thing was, the whole thing was cooked. Same. I was right here with you. The Kevin Clark bounce. I tried. Bill tried.

You tried, Steven. Another outlet. You know what it was? It was Cam getting COVID in week three. I mean, there's only so much we could do with that. That was the sliding doors of modern football. People wouldn't make fun of me going on on Cam Newton had had that all not happened. Also, him just for getting out of my quarterback for large stretches of the season. Other than that, though. Can you believe 31 other teams passed on Cam Newton? Well, I've been saying the same thing about Davis Mills now. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. All right. Personnel. Personnel departments need to be in scramble mode about Davis Mills.

When does that discussion start, by the way? When do we start asking whether the Patriots regret passing on Davis Mills? Literally never. I'm logging off of this podcast. Steven, thanks, buddy. Thanks for having me. All right, time for listener question. We got some great ones. We got some real great ones. We got, we're settling in, Nora, to this situation where a lot of fan bases are just saying the name of their team with a question mark, like lions, question mark, Vikings question mark,

Jets, question mark. I know what they mean, which is sad. For instance, Bob writes in and says, why do they still have the Jaguars, which we also get from producer Isaiah. But an interesting question from Kevin Seamus, who wins first, the Jaguars or the Lions? I'm going to take the Lions.

I think they've got some good juju. I don't think it's quite as well constructed of a, The roster is not quite so ready, but like, think about, think about the dolphins two years ago where they had such a bad start, but it seemed like they believed that they were going to make progress. And then towards the end of the year, they get a little, little spicy. I think the lions have better potential for that than the Jaguars do. The argument for the Jaguars, right, would just be Trevor Lawrence has a great game at some point. But I think their schedule is pretty tough because I think they're devaluing. division games are loaded at the end.

So let's do schedule talk real quick. So first of all the lions are a better team. They have a worst quarterback. They have Dan Campbell is going to be a better NFL coach than Urban Meyer. Urban Meyer has the capability to be a better NFL coach,

but he seems, but he also seems uninterested in being an NFL coach. Tough quality. Urban Meyer, I think doesn't want to, I don't think Urban Meyer wants to be there. Brian Curtis, on the midweek pod made the best point about this where he said that sometimes people are just telling you they don't want to do the job they're just without saying explicitly i don't want to be here

they're just telling you they don't want to be here um and i think we're getting into that mode with urban so here's literally left the team that's correct um okay so next week in london dolphins jags then the seahawks i got to say gino smith seahawks not a bad shout Just put a pin in that for a second. Bill's Colts, Niners, Falcons. Interesting. Rams, Titans. Titans just will lose to anybody.

Texans, but they already lost two. Jets the week after that, Patriots Colts. So they will win a game. The Jaguars will win a game. They will probably win two games, if I were to guess. but the lions should have won two games already. They have a better culture. They want to win.

Dan Campbell is feeling it right now. And they have, okay, Bengals, Rams, I don't know. They're going to beat, they might beat the Eagles. Then they have the Steelers and who the hell knows how that situation will devolve by November 14th. Browns, Bears, Vikings, Broncos, Cardinals, Falcons, Seahawks, Packers. There's some wins in. The Lions will win first. Yeah.

I think that's right. The bigger question, I think the bigger question is who's going to win more games in 2022. And I think it's, I mean, I guess it depends who the head coach is of the Jaguars. And who depends who the quarterback of the Lions is. Depends if Trevor Lawrence just decides to stay in London. See, that is thinking outside the box. What if he pulls a, I'm not flying back with the team, but instead of staying and going

to a gastro pub in suburban Ohio, he just stays and lives in, Chelsea. He just moved. He just moved. Yeah, that'd be very nice. I could, I think he would like it. Yeah. What if, what if the con family,

the only way to save this, everybody loves Ted Lassow, what if Urban Meyer became the manager of Fulham? I for one and doors. You all say, you all say you love Ted Lassow. Here's, here's Ted Lassow. It's Urban Meyer managing Fulham.

I think Urban Meyer and Ted Lassow have approximately nothing. in common in terms of coaching philosophy. So I'm not positive that it would go off quite the same way. But I appreciate that you're just throwing ideas at the problem, Kevin. There are no bad ideas. We're just spitballing. Can I spitball something else for you before we close the show out?

Should they fire Irvin Meyer? That's actually not where I was going to go. But it is an interesting thought. What I was going to say is that it happens to be your birthday. And well, it was my birthday until there was a weather delay. That's true, until there was a weather delay. And now it is an hour and 12 minutes after your birthday expired. But nevertheless, I'm going to ask producer Isaiah to roll the tape because we've got a little something prepared for you.

Oh, my God. Yo, yo, yo, Kevin Clark, it's your boy house. Hey, Kevin. It's Danny Heifitz. It's Nora. Danny Kelly. Mal. Hey, this is Craig Horace. Roebeck.

And it's Ryan Chazier. This is Caitlin Jones. It's Ben. Brian Curtis here. Hello, Kevin. Stephen Ruiz here from 13 Ruiz and Zwei. You are the Bengals process of podcasters, my favorite Goober, and someone I'm so grateful for on a daily basis.

I hope that you were celebrating by treating yourself to a new lightweight jacket. You may not have realized this at the time, but last month I actually got you a birthday present. I convinced Florida State's defense coordinator to call cover one in a Hail Mary situation. So I hope you appreciated that present. Look, Kev, how about this? Go buy yourself a head-to-to-to-nike golf outfit. My present to you is I'm willing to play golf with you while you're wearing the full Nike garb.

My favorite thing about Kevin Clark is definitely his underrated expertise of all things high school football in Florida. And just generally, he's underappreciating enthusiasm for the world college football. It's probably ready. Kevin, thanks to our jobs, I've probably spent more time speaking with you at midnight or later via Zoom than anyone in the world. I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll always remember you as the guy who didn't have enough time for me at 2018 Eagles Camp. You know, one of the best things about my job at the ringer is that Kevin Clark and I shared an office. And every day, Kevin made sure to give me an update on all the.

stuff he was doing at work. Well, the pandemic has changed things. We no longer go to an office, but don't worry. Kevin still updates me on all the stuff he's doing by sending me a constant stream of text messages. Happy birthday, Kevin. We know that life is full of chicanes, but as every turn comes out onto the horizon, there's always a chance to pass someone else in your business. Happy birthday, buddy. Happy birthday, bud. Happy birthday, Kevin. You're the best. Casey, happy birthday.

Happy birthday. Happy birthday, buddy. I just want to wish your wonderful birthday, and I just hope you have a great day. Happy birthday, my man, hope all as well. Hope you have a happy birthday. Happy birthday, many happy returns. Happy birthday, Kevin.

I love you, buddy. Cheers to you, and congrats on being worn during late jacket season. It's so nice. Happy birthday. Happy belated birthday. Thank you, Nora. This is, I'm so happy.

This is the, this is the, this is the, most effort we've ever put into anything on the ringer NFL show. Yeah, let's never do it again. Thank you. I'm truly touched. I love everybody I work with, except, you know, I, you know, Curtis taking a shot of how many texts I sent them, you know. That was a tough scene.

Good news is it's mostly just media gossip. All right. Everybody you just heard will be on this feed this week. Next up on this feed is the Players Show, James Jones, Ryan Chazier, and Jason Gough. I'll be back on Wednesday with the topic TBD. Nora and Mao, both in that, in that little montage, we'll be back on Thursday, Kaelin, Ben, and Stephen Ruiz.

We'll be back on Friday evening, one of my favorite shows, new shows that have come up this year with some really young talent that I really enjoy. This has been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.