The Ringer NFL Show - Week 5 Recap: Dak Prescott's Injury, Quinn and Dimitroff Fired, and COVID's Schedule Shake-up

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

Nora and Kevin discuss the devastating ankle injury of Dak Prescott and what it means for the Cowboys going forward (02:41). Also, a major change in Atlanta with the firing of Dan Quinn and Thomas Dimitroff; Nora and Kevin break down what the Falcons can do to salvage an already rocky season opening (17:34). They also talk about the significant schedule changes due to COVID outbreaks across teams and the growing problem it's causing for the NFL (29:25). Lastly, they share their Winners and Losers (37:33). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined tonight on a special Sunday night edition by Noel Parenciotti of the Ringer. Norah, how are you? I'm doing pretty well, Kevin. How is your birthday? My birthday was very good. Thank you. I got all of the birthday festivities out of the way on Friday and then early Saturday so I could watch Miami play Clemson because I had talked myself into it being a competitive game.

It was not. I don't know why I did that. And I probably should have just had all the festivities during that game. This is my take. But you know what, from what I know about you in Miami, just the ability to watch that game and to have that be a part of your birthday was present enough. Clemson's pretty good. I don't know if college football is caught on there. But boy, Clemson's a good team.

This is just a college football podcast now. Yeah. The 13 games a year that I watch all Miami games, that's where I glean all of my college and football. This is my favorite sport in the world. Now I just watch 13 games a year and I get all my. all my college football takes from those games until February when it comes to combine time. Yeah. So we were actually just talking about this offline. But I'm trying to encourage Kevin to just become like a college football analyst, but have all of his analysis built only based on

how players perform against Miami. And I think it would go really well. So I saw Trevor Lawrence play for an entire game. And I wasn't like, wow. And I wasn't like this guy is going to be the greatest player I've ever seen. And I know he's a much better prospect than what he showed on Saturday because he wasn't asked to do all that much because they were just beating up Miami the entire time. But if that was my entire gimmick, if I was just like, well, he didn't make all the throws against Miami because they were up too much because Etienne scored every time he touched the ball or he threw a bunch of kind of screen passes or whatever, that would be a great gimmick. And I would just sit there and every pick, I would just say how they do against Miami.

And if they didn't play against Miami, I'd have no opinion of it. I love it. We got something here, Norm. We got something here. Lakers won the championship. Anything there? So I didn't see any of it. I saw LeBron's.

Needed it. I just want my respect. But, you know, football man. So I'm glad we got that all out of the way because there was a lot of football, a lot. The Falcons clean house. The Browns are good. The Seahawks had their, I guess I was going to say incredible comeback, but it's a Seahawksy comeback. So, Seahawksy.

It's just, I mean, when they got the ball back after a failed fourth and inches with the Vikings, I said, well, this is going to happen. So we'll get to that. But we start with Dak Prescott. And one of the most heartbreaking injuries in recent football history, Dak Prescott in his game against the Giants was carted off and has been diagnosed with a compound fracture and a dislocation of his right ankle. He had surgery on Sunday night. It went very well per a source to talk to Adam Schaefter. this sucks, Nora.

It really sucks. It was really sad. Today was, for some reason, all of the sort of emotions that you feel watching football, like I was feeling it today. Even like, or watching Russell Wilson execute that last drive,

you know, people talk about being on the edge of your seat, I was literally on the edge of my couch. Like I felt myself shift my weight forward and was like, what am I doing here? That was one where you feel, you know, you want to cry. Like, you look at his face and as he's getting carted off the field, start to see tweets pouring in from around the league. You see his teammates looking horrified.

You see, you know, he had both a current coach and a former coach on both sidelines in that game. And you see sort of the horror, but also the compassion that they feel for him. And it was really brutal. And for some reason, I don't know what the, the, the. this sort of alchemy of storylines that came up today was where things just felt sort of like real and raw and emotional in a weird way because we're all just like sitting on our couch watching games that don't really matter in certain ways. But obviously you see something like that and you see how meaningful and how horrible it can be and how life changing

when something like that happens to a player. So it was, I mean, we've joked about how he was on pace to shatter the passing record by just comically large margins. Obviously, Doc was playing incredibly well, and there's all sorts of football angles to it, but just you really feel for the person, and that would be the case with anyone. But I think we certainly saw that there's a lot of people who care about him think he's a really incredible person, and it's just, it's not fun. It's not fun to watch, and can't even imagine what it must be like to, go through. There's a lot to unpack here, obviously, but let's start with the human side of it,

because when you see Jason Garrett coming to the middle of the field and you see all of the tweets and you see the way that both teams reacted, you understand the respect that Dak Prescott has in the NFL among players who he's only, you know, he's only met at offseason events or whatever or only interact with a couple of times, he's that kind of guy where pretty much he pulls at 100% within the NFL, within the greater football world. And we got to see that, unfortunately, at the wrong time today. But it's obviously something that is beyond a doubt at this point. I would say that the NFL has a problem in so much that we move on from injuries very, very

quickly. And I was thinking about this as I was watching it. Seth Wickersham made a similar point about it that the moving on just happens too quickly. And there's a next man up mentality that I think a lot of times does the player a disservice where it's just okay, plug and play. Let's move on. I remember being at a Giants practice years ago, I mean, like maybe six, seven, eight years ago. Tom Coughlin was the coach. And this rookie clearly blew out his knee. And it was, you know, whatever it was, you know, second week of practice or whatever.

undrafted guy. Obviously, his career, his life was going to change because of it. And they kind of just moved the drill over like 10 feet. And they just kept going. I'm sure you've seen this before. And there's just this, you know, okay, we got to move on. This guy, this guy can deal with this life-changing injury over here. We'll just do our thing, right?

And I kind of feel like with an injury like this, it makes us stop and process it all. and makes it, I guess, a little more real about how injuries can affect lives, teams, the, just how it makes a little more real as far as how injuries can affect lives and teams and just the way people process all of this because this is a life-changing injury for Prescott. This is a guy who bet on himself. This is a guy who now faces a long climb back. We don't have a diagnosis and a timetable as far as what he's going to look like for, so that again, three to one.

We don't know a timetable for when he's going to return, but obviously this is not a short-term injury, and there's a lot that comes along with this. Nora, from a long-term impact, you think what here? One of the reasons I think it kind of hits you so hard is that we've actually been talking about Jack Prescott's long-term future for a couple years now, right? And in a much less serious way and with a set of factors that don't include things like how his body's going to work in mobility and the mental stress of recovering from a serious injury and things that really matter in that way.

But he's playing on the franchise tag this year. It's been something that we've gotten used to talking about, whether or not they're going to reach a long-term deal to keep him the Cowboys quarterback for a very long time and now there's added uncertainty to that, right? Jerry Jones, I think, said in a statement, something like,

he said, we have no doubt that he will return to the position of leadership and purpose that he brings to our team, which those are words. I don't really know what they mean. I think it means, I think it means he wants to bring him back.

I think it means, frankly, that Jerry Jones likes Stack Prescott very much and no one really knows how this is going to turn out, right? I think it means that someone asked Jerry Jones for a statement and that's what he gave and no one really wanted to say, can you clarify? Because

the statement did not say a lot, but I also understand there's so many unknowable things right now about this particular injury, about the future, about, I mean, there's just a lot that goes on here. And I think that the way this was going to go from a negotiation standpoint, it was

frankly turning a little bit ugly over the past two years and I think that Dax contract was the biggest flashpoint in Dallas and basically with any quarterback contract in the NFL right now because everybody else has been taken care of

except for Prescott. He was the only quarterback playing at a high level who could conceivably have reached free agency and that's why this becomes frankly from a future standpoint just so unknowable. And now I think something that's important to sort of contextualize here is that I think there's a tendency to, you know, it's in some ways easier to talk about the finances here than the big picture because there's all of the, like we were just talking about the sort of emotional weight of it and the, you know, none of us are doctors. Like all of that is very hazy and murky right now in terms of how this is going to impact DAC. At least when we talk about contracts, there's some, you know, you know, you.

you can do the math, you can add it up, you can make it make sense in a way that some of this stuff may eventually make sense, but we just don't know yet. I do think it's important to contextualize like, Dax's not crying being carted off the field because he's thinking, oh, I just lost money. You know, that's not what's going through a person's head at that point. And the other thing is that, yes, there's a, there's a possibility that down the line he will not have as much leverage in a negotiation because he will have injury questions. We see that happened to quarterbacks all the time. We, you know, in a different way, we saw it happen to Cam Newton this offseason.

That said, Dak Prescott, assuming his recovery goes relatively well, I would believe that he would still be an appealing quarterback to a lot of NFL teams. For the Cowboys. For the Cowboys or for a lot of teams. the easiest route forward for the Cowboys is get DiPrescott healthy and when you can run it back. We don't know when that can be. We don't know if that's a year from now. We don't know if that's longer or shorter.

I have no idea. When I first, any quarterback injury, any serious quarterback injury would cause ripple effects throughout the entire NFL. Like the kind of guidepost for this is the Teddy Bridgewater knee injury, which set off a butterfly effect that is almost incalculable. I mean, that's Sam Bradford, that's Carson Wendstarts starting, Nick Foles, I mean, Case Keenum.

I mean, without the Teddy Bridgewater injury, the entire NFL is much, much different right now, especially in the NFC. But with Prescott, they've got Andy Dalton now. I think you plug him in for as long as needed and then just hope Prescott gets healthy.

Maybe you franchise tag him again. Maybe that's a solution. And just see where you are. I don't think the Cowboys going into the draft or trying to sign some stopgap to your free agent. I just don't think that's a very good idea. I think Dak Prescott's the kind of guy who you know, he has so much going for him that you know that when he's healthy, he's going to perform. You know, I saw a lot of tweets today. They were like, well, you just saw the Alex Smith come back. You know, that should be an inspiration. And I understand that. I don't necessarily. I'm not here to compare injuries. Alex Smith's looked awful. Obviously, we saw the ESPN

docu series. But when I look at that, I don't see, and I am inspired by how hard Alex Smith worked, and we will get to that. But I also see a part of it is the Alex Smith story is just that it really sucks to get injured. And I know that that's not exactly the best analysis in the world, but it is grueling. And the rehab process is unbelievable. And it's as mental as it is physical. I've talked to a lot of players who say, just the trust you have to put in yourself

when you're, when you are out for six or eight months and you're first putting any weight at all on whatever it is that you broke. I mean, it's unlike anything they've ever experienced in some cases. So it's going to be grueling for Doc Prescott. But the good news is,

is I think he's the kind of guy who can get back to where he, was quite easily once the physical part kind of gets there for him. I guess this becomes a football story now. This team has Andy Dalton now a quarterback. They beat the Giants today. They're in a, and I know this is going to just be recycled every week, but they're in a very winnable division. This team already had a ceiling this year because it was Dak Prescott and a bad defense. And we saw why Dak had to put up those numbers. The ceiling gets lowered. But I don't know. necessarily think that this is a season ender for me just because I didn't think having seen them

for four weeks, they could win the Super Bowl. Now I still don't think they can win the Super Bowl. I always thought NFC East champion was the ceiling and I still feel that way. I do too. I spent a while this afternoon or this evening sort of looking at their outlook, looking at the Eagles outlook, because I think I'll speak for myself. I don't think the Washington football team or the New York Giants are going to win this division, winnable as it may be. The Eagles obviously still have their starting quarterback, but I don't think Carson once has played at a high enough level to use that as the deciding factor between them and the Andy Dalton Cowboys, and they just have so many, so many injuries.

I still think talent wins out at a certain point, and I think the Cowboys still overall have have a more talented roster with, you know, they're probably going to have to rely on Zee Gelliot a lot more, which is actually a little bit tough because they're not built the way that they were a few years ago where they had a really dominant offensive line. They have great receivers. But they're not built in quite the same way to just like pound the football, which generally that's great, right? But you go down your starting quarterback. Sometimes it is nice to be able to rely on that. And I think they will to an extent. But it'll probably depend more on the ability of Dalton, who he's not, he's not going to win you Super Bowl. But I do

think Andy Dalton's, I don't know, I'm probably a little higher on Andy Dalton than most people are, whether he can, I don't even know what that means. I've been, I've been famously high on this podcast or Andy Dalton. We don't need to revisit that. We definitely don't. But they still, you know, C.D. Lambs played so well. The talent that they have, I guess I would still pick them to win the division and edge out the Eagles. I just don't know what that means at this point. You know, there's things they can do, right? Like if they turn the ball over less frequently, if the defense is even slightly better, that can edge them there. But, you know, 2020 NFC East champion, I just don't know what that gets you. Yeah, I'm going to get to a playoff spot and some t-shirts or whatever in the weirdest year of all time. Maybe just take it and move on and try to build something next year. But I don't, again, at 1 p.m. today, before this game started, I didn't have high expectations for the Cowboys. And I still don't.

I think DAC was the, DAC and that wide receiving core was the shining light. And now it's Andy Dahl and that receiving core. And I just think the defense was just not championship. chip caliber. The line, as you said, is just not what it was. So my expectations have changed, but they weren't that high to begin with. So it's, uh, this is as upsetting an injury as I've seen in a number of years, um, just as far as the, the season and, you know, Jack betting on himself. I mean, this is, this, again, there's a reason I started out with this sucks because it very much does. We're going to switch gears here, but we're not exactly getting

to the happy part of the show. the Atlanta Falcons of cleaned house. This was, in some ways, well-deserved. Tom Dimitrov and Dan Quinn both fired at the same time.

This comes less than a week after Bill O'Brien was fired as GM and coach of the Texans. Teams are doing this early. Nora, do you agree? Yeah, well, I mean,

both Quinn and Dimitrov actually, I think, are, they're not bad people to have involved in your organization, in particular, Demitrov.

I think is a really smart guy. I think Dimitrov can be a GM somewhere. I think Dan Quinn should be a very good defensive coordinator. Sports jobs are weird, right? Like, it's a weird industry where you can get fired and just recycled into a different situation, different organization. And sometimes that actually works. Now, sometimes it's bad and it keeps people who aren't good at their jobs employed in high-level positions.

but this is one where, like, they just seem so cursed. It's just gone so wrong there. And there are some things that aren't just, like, you know, why did they raid that mummy's tomb? Like, I think the final straw here was probably the Dan Quinn's defensive coach whose defenses have been really bad for a long time. And at a certain point, it's tough to come back from that, right? But I don't think that either one of those guys is like,

oh, get them out of there. they're terrible. I think it had just become a really bad and like weird, bad toxic situation. So I don't mind doing it. Like, there was a little bit of discussion about the Texans thing, which I would be curious to hear what you thought about, actually, where the timing was questioned just because it was like, well, what's it going to do for you for the rest of the season, right? Like, do you have a better, is Romeo Cornell, like, really going to do this for you and what's this going mean for the rest of the year. My thought was just, if this isn't it, like, move on and figure it out. And I don't know if that's sort of overly messy or flippant or like unconsidered. But if this isn't

who they were going to go forward with, I just, you know, their own five. Like, let's get the show on the road. I agree with you. This was heading towards an inevitable conclusion. And I think that getting it over with now is fine. It was reported on Sunday right after the game. By the way, they lost to the Panthers on Sunday, which is not. That's something that gets you fired, okay. Even though the Panthers are okay. But it was reported right after the game.

I kind of like the Panthers, by the way. That the firing was going to happen in 24, 48 hours. A couple of things to unpack. As you said, the Falcons had an awful defense. They were allowing 7.6 yards per play, worse in the NFL. they're just, it's a very, if you're the defensive guy and that's what's happening, then maybe you should just try to do that or something else.

Their offensive rank got worse almost every year since 2016. That was him Kyle Shanahan ran the show. This was a team that essentially after they blew a 28 to 3 lead made a bunch of bad decisions. They replaced Kyle Shanahan. Obviously, Shanahan was going to leave. He was just an OC who was waiting at his job. He goes to San Francisco. go, that was something that was happening even before they, that had essentially been agreed to before they even played the Super Bowl. So he leaves. And then Dirk Cutter is their office coordinator or now, that's not going to get you anything. So they go from one of the best play callers in the league to Dirk Cutter, Mike Malarky was on staff at one point. Steve Sarkisian was on staff at one point. I just didn't like the decisions they made as far as just kind of, this did not become the innovative breeding ground it could have. And I think that's, I think that's on Quinn. I think

win for as good of a defensive coach as he was at times. He never got the pass rush going. They threw resources at problems and never solved them. Their offensive line, you know, Chris Lindstrom, they took in the first round, didn't really solve much. I just don't think they ever recovered from that loss. And this is something I talked about this with Ron Rivera last year, about Ron Rivera, where when he talks about the Super Bowl still, he talks about it as if he's playing. in the game still. And as if he's sitting there in San Francisco and they're making those mistakes against Denver and he can recount them and it's almost like he's staring at them, right? And I think when you lose the Super Bowl, it stays with you forever. And I think it takes

a toll that is probably overlooked. And the Falcons try to address this right after that game. They went on the media blitz in the months after that. They went to New York, I think, to do a couple interviews just to get it out of the way. I remember being in Atlanta that August. So what, six months after? And when I would go up to a player or a coach or whomever, I remember some of the folks saying, some of the PR folks saying, you know, hey, you're not going to ask about the Super Bowl, are you? and it was kind of like they just,

they were a lot more, I don't know, rattled by it than you would think. And I understand that's probably traumatic in a football sense to lose when it's 28 to 3, but there was a real hangover, and I'm not sure that ever left. You know, Seth Wickersham made the point that maybe Quinn's best coaching job was the year after because that team did make the playoffs. But I think from a franchise standpoint, there's no coming back from 28 to 3.

I think it's really hard. And I think that's why when you look at, you know, what we're talking about here, right, is that we think that both of these guys are better than some of the mistakes that have caused the Falcons to lose games in ridiculous fashion lately. And now that's actually not saying that much. But it feels worth the recent. set. Now, I think where you get into trouble is it's a little bit hard to figure out where they should go, right? So, one, they're on five right now. Over the cap plus than $25 million. Over the cap next season, if it's $175 million. They have Matt Ryan through 20. Part of that is because they do

have talent. They do have Julio Jones and Matt Ryan. And that's one of the things, you know, there's a little salary cap quirk where no two players who have won this Super Bowl have ever accounted for more than I think 22% of the salary cap. And Ryan and Julio were going to blow past that, had they just held on. But they were so top-heavy that they basically broke all of the rules of the Super Bowl champion. Right. Because they have some good players that have been with them for a long time, at least in

part because of this, they always have one of the oldest rosters in the league, too. So when I say that it's tricky, I'm not saying that it's terrible. There are some really good pieces, particularly the quarterback. But it's tricky because there's not a totally clear path forward. You know, there's no, you don't want to tear it down. But they also clearly have a lot of needs. They're going to have a pretty bad record. It does seem like, you know, so right now they haven't named an interim coach.

They have Raheim Morris. They have dirt cutter. Rich McKay is running the football upside for now. I do think that the clearest area, or you can say, okay, they could get better just by switching this one thing around is there are some pretty obvious play calling upgrades that it seems like they could make. I mean, they're in the bottom of the league in their use of motion and an early down passing. And it's like, those are things that just do them. Everybody should do them. We know this by now. What do you have to lose? So that's one where I'm like, you can try that out.

I think the roster questions, I think the salary cap questions, like those are a little bit trickier to figure out what should the timeline be, what types of moves, you know, should they be looking at themselves as a year away from being a contender? Is it longer than that? Is it actually, they think that, you know, if you have a good quarterback, it takes very little. That to me is very uncertain. I do think, though, that some of the ways that they're organizing their offense, you can change that tomorrow. So, you know, we'll see what the rest of the season looks like, and then we'll see further down the line. It's a great point. That's a great point.

I think there's some easy fixes there. When you have Matt Ryan and Julio and some of those pieces, there are some easy fixes there. I'm glad you brought that up. You know, Matt Chernoff, who's a radio guy down there in Atlanta, pointed out essentially that Dan Quinn has had at least a three-game losing streak every year since 2015. Okay. And in some of those cases, it's five or six. Right now, obviously, it was five and that ended his career.

It was six last year, six in 2015. And I just think they got into these funks, and it's funny that obviously it happened in the Super Bowl and they gave up four straight touchdowns. But I think they got in these funks and they couldn't get out of them. And I'm not really sure what that is. And again, it goes back to the sort of psyche thing. I don't know if Dan Quinn, if you just look at the raw stats here and look at some of the situations they found themselves in, I'm not sure if Dan Quinn was great at getting guys into different mindsets. And I just don't, I don't know. I mean, again, good guy, you know, in my time around him, he seemed like you had a firm handle on things.

But when you have that much of a paper trail as head coach, everyone pretty much knows who you are. And I think of this, this had become stale. I guess that that's the point here. This had become stale. Now, Jason Lock and Four reported that Arthur Blank was impressed by Terrell Austin, who's now a assistant for the Steelers. My guess would be, and this is uneducated right now, my guess would be they try to get an offensive guy in there to maximize the last years of Matt Ryan's career. He's in his mid-30s down. I think he's 35 this year.

Maybe that's an Arthur Smith. Maybe that's an Eric Bienemy, although there's other reports that Bianami might be interested or Houston might be interested in him. That might be a better fit. But whatever the case, I think there's a good job. The cap space thing scares me if I'm a GM right now. but I think there's talent here to work with if I'm a coach. Yeah, I mean, also the other thing is that there's a lot of teams in salary cap trouble. Yes.

If the cap does go down to 175. There's a scenario which they're all in trouble. Yeah. So we should just, we should couch that with being 25 million over the cap next season does not mean, well, I guess in some ways it means what it's always meant. But relative to everybody else's situation, it's not quite as dire, I guess. Misery loves company. maybe.

Yes. Yes, 100%. All right. Let's get to the... Can I just wait. Hold on. Hold on. Before we move on,

I just want to throw out some love for the Carolina Panthers. Robbie Anderson may not know what their mascot's name is, but I think that offense looks great. And I stand Matt Ruhl and his smock. And I just wanted to say that. Break down the smock for me. I can't. I actually would mean to like figure out what that is.

And so if somebody has a lot of like Matt Rul history under their belly, and wants to hit me up. My DMs are open. But I like the smock. I think it's good luck. I will briefly flick at the schedule changes that happened on Sunday. There's a lot of them. Broncos at Patriots will now be played next Sunday.

Chiefs at Bills is going to be on October 19th instead of October 15th. Then there's a bunch of changes later in the week, later in the season, rather. Jets at Dolphins moves to week six from week 10. Jets at Chargers. moves from week six to 11. Three more Chargers games get moved, one Jaguars game, one game against the Dolphins. Dolphins have two games move,

one against the Chargers and one against the Broncos. My worry here, Nora, is that this is not in any way final. And this is going to keep happening. And all of the successful moves so far, the NFL schedule makers are enacting, will just be all for not when one more team tests positive. Well, so there's two things going on, right? One is that they're playing an increasingly complicated game of Tetris with the schedule,

and it's now impacted. They have to add weeks. They have to add weeks to the season. So far, they've been reluctant to do that. I don't know if that's because they kind of want to save that as the card that, you know, the rip cord that they can pull when they need to. But the other thing that's happening is that there are at least some teams, the Patriots are certainly one of them, that are starting.

to feel pretty uncomfortable with the way that some of the protocols have been going down and some of the decisions the league is made about playing games. I think in particular, it's become clear that the Patriots didn't love the fact that a couple days after their quarterback who'd been in contact with 20 members of their organization tested positive. They were asked to fly to Kansas City and play a game. So I think we're starting to see this kind of dichotomy between the league really focusing on the enforcement of protocols and players starting to say things like, you know, even Melvin Gordon tweeting, like, I know we didn't just practice a full week and then they canceled our game. So it's not just coming from the COVID side of things, right? It's coming from by week sort of being switched around and changed with very little notice.

but I don't necessarily think that it's a coincidence that the league had said that they were going to try to get that Patriots Broncos game played Monday and then some of that displeasure started to become more and more vocal and then all of a sudden it was pushed. And I wonder if we're going to start seeing more of that from other teams and if that's going to impact, you know, at what point we see a week 18 or just this all gets messier and messier?

It's a phenomenal thought. It's a phenomenal thought. I think that it's both. I think that it will get messier, and I think we will see Week 18. It's not like anyone's going anywhere. Nobody has plans. Nobody has plans.

It's fine. The teams don't have plans. Tampa doesn't have plans. The stadium doesn't have plans. They can be as flexible as they need to be. The stadium has a hold, essentially, for the Super Bowl, I think, for three weeks after. But even if you needed to move it past three weeks, what's Tampa going to say?

Oh, I'm sorry. No, we're actually, we actually don't want to do this. We've got a, we've got some arena football. We want to, we need the hotels for that. Like, I just don't understand what there'd be. I think that you don't need three weeks, but it'd be nice to have two weeks because, again, you don't want to cause another health crisis on a different front by having these guys all banged up and injured. because they played, you know, 16 games and 17 weeks on uneven rest or they didn't have

practice, so they weren't able to use their treatment, treatments properly inside NFL facilities because, you know, they played on Tuesday or whatever. I just think that this trying to jam a square peg in a round toll, which the NFL is right now, is really concerning for me. And I think you just add two weeks of the season, let everybody heal up. And I know that creates competitive inequity in the sense that, okay, maybe if some teams fly through and play the 16 game in 17 weeks, they get extra extra rest or whatever, I don't care.

Like, as long as everybody's healthy and as long as there are, it is played safely from a COVID standpoint and from just a physical football injury risk standpoint, I think you're going to be able to handle some competitive inequities. Okay. Like, if the bucks make the playoffs and, you know, they didn't have any interruptions and they have to play a team in the wildcard round that did. I think you build in as many fail safes as possible to where it feels normal when that happens and that both teams are rested.

That's all. And by the way, so I, and we'll finish this up and then we can stop talking about COVID, but I did an interview with an epidemiologist at Harvard for a piece about what's been going on with the outbreak in Tennessee and other positive cases recently. And what he explained to me, which made a lot of things make better sense, was basically, if there's contact with someone who tests positive, there's no way that you can be absolutely certain that you didn't have spread unless you wait 14 days. Now, I think we both know that that's, that would be really tough. That will not be happening. That will not be happening.

It's out of the question. What you can also do if you are testing really frequently. you can wait instead of the maximum incubation period, you can wait the average, which is five days. And if you're testing everybody, no, you're not ensuring yourself like perfect certainty that you will never spread it to anybody else, but you are really, really, really, really reducing risk in a very significant way. The difference between waiting two or three days, which is what they've done in some of these cases, and five days, it really shouldn't be that significant. like that that should be doable.

So it's in some ways confusing to me why it hasn't been done yet. But maybe that's where a week 18 or plus comes into play. But I imagine we got to be close to that. If this doesn't get better, they have to do a playoff bubble. If it keeps happening

where there's a weekly interruption or there's a weekly game that has to move to Tuesday or whatever and that doesn't get better, everybody, we're all going to Phoenix or whatever. They can play indoor. Baseball did it. It's fine. No one is enjoying the baseball playoffs any less because all the games are in San Diego or whatever. That's all. You love San Diego. I do. I'm a huge San Diego guy. I've spent about five days there my entire life. I'm a stand for San Diego. I've never been. So that's very nice. And you probably never will because there's not an NFL team there. Yeah, I'll never go. They moved that to Carson. I guess they play in whatever. I mean, I could go to San Diego just for me.

Well, that's not. Why would you do that? For a non. If the chargers aren't there. You can go to a Chargers practice in Orange County and then drive down. I'm going to use that for like everything that I don't want to do in my life for forever now. Like somebody asked me to go to a dinner. I don't want to go to.

The Chargers aren't going to be there. So what's the point? I've never been to Portland for similar reasons. There's no NFL team. And I've just never been able to get around to Portland. Portland, Oregon or Portland, Maine? Yeah. I've been to Portland, Maine.

Portland, Maine is lovely. But I don't know when I can get to Portland, Oregon, because they just don't, you end up in city sort of incidentally when you cover the NFL. It's like you wouldn't be in Detroit otherwise. You wouldn't be in Charlotte otherwise. But Portland does not have an NFL team. And so I've never been. That's all. Okay.

Well, maybe one of these days. All right. Before we get to our winners and the Cleveland Browns, first, a quick break. Cleveland Browns. Cleveland Browns. wow, so they beat the Indianapolis Colts, they are four and one. This was a matchup

of some AFC teams that I'm ready to hype. And I came into this thinking this was going to be, even though I picked the Browns to make the playoffs, I love the Browns as a franchise, a lot of the steps they've made. We came into this saying the Colts defense is elite.

Statistically, they were just pouncing on everybody they played. I didn't have high expectations for this Browns team. Miles Garrett took over this game. And we got to see how deep this roster is. We got to see how good of a job. Andrew Barry has done building on previous eras of team building there. Kevin Stavansy is a very good coach. I am in on this Browns team.

They're four and one before I get to my analysis. Nora, what stood out? I think I want to start us doing a segment where we just name the Kevin Stifansky is a competent adult and professional. professional football coach, like, act of the week. And this week... It took...

Kevin Stefansky has five wins. Okay? Excuse me. I'm sorry. Kevin Stefansky has four wins in five games. Hugh Jackson had four wins in 40 games.

And that's not... That's not all talent. That is not all talent. We can sit here and say, he had an NFL roster and he won four times in 40 games. Tough scene.

No, it's actually... It's in some ways it's not the opposite of talent, right? But it's like the foundation that the talent has to use all of its talent upon, right? So Kevin Stavansky is a competent adult and professional football coach act of the week is that the Browns had two penalties. Like when do the Cleveland Browns have two penalties? So like- It's unbelievable. It is night and day professionalism he's brought to that, that organization.

And by the way, so Philip Rivers is making all these mistakes. He's imploding. it's a good sign that the Browns can capitalize on the implosions of others. Like, let those teams implode, okay? That's not, Brown's football is too implode. And now other teams are imploding towards them and the Browns are accepting it. That's what I enjoy about this current run of Brown's success, okay? It's not just that Miles Garrett is dominating the game.

It's not just that I like some of these guys like Ronnie Harrison or obviously, Anzel Ward is playing incredibly well early in the season. But it's that they are just capitalizing on other teams and competence. And there's something to that. It's the art of war. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Yes. That's sung Sue for you.

It's also Kevin Stavansky. Philip Irves having a meltdown all day today. And the Browns let it happen. There's something there. So the CBS broadcast said this that Miles Garrett created, has created eight turnovers off of his pressures in five games. I mean, this is it. This is why we spent the last two years saying he's a defensive player of the year.

This is why some of us on this podcast, you picked him to win this year, right? Yes. I picked him to win last year. So let's just all, if you know, if you combine those two. You can't, you can't come on Miles Garrett Island with me. I can't. I will say, however, he finished a day with five pressures, coining next-gen stats.

he's now done that for four consecutive games. The only players to have done that in this era are Aaron Donald and Vaughn Miller. He's an elite company. And this is just, he's a game rocker. And he's not an Aaron Donald's level because nobody is, but he's right behind that. Zach Jackson of the athletic said that on some plays in the fourth quarter, the Colts had three blockers on him. Like, this is pure dominance.

And you put him in front of a defense, which is just getting more mature, that doesn't really have significant holes like they have had. On the offensive side of the ball, Baker Mayfield's making plays because he's in front of a, or behind a very good offensive line, which was almost non-existent last year, even though they, Miles Teller, Miles Teller, Jesus. Even though Wyatt Teller had a calf injury, highest-graded offensive lineman in the NFL, didn't return today. That's something to watch for.

This team is four and one for the first time since Bill Belichick was the head coach and Nick Sabin was a defensive coordinator. This is progress. Yeah. It's so funny. It's like they stop being in third and 26 all the time

and all of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, Odell Beckham really good. And that's the story of France. But it shows you, this basic competence shows you the fact that before this, they couldn't find a way to make O'Dell Beckham a factor. They couldn't find a way to keep Baker Mayfield upright.

Dan Rolovsky was talking today about Baker Mayfield's pocket presence compared to Drew Brees. This is 2018 Baker. And I know Freddie was involved in that and all that stuff. But when you maximize Baker, this is what it looks like. I think that Baker is not ever going to be the superstar we thought he was coming off of that 2018 season. I think that's too far gone.

I think the expectations on him were probably a little bit unfair, and part of that was the media. Part of that was just his success that year and that small sample size. But I think he can be a really good NFL quarterback when he's surrounded with the right cast. I know that's true of most people, but I'm just starting to see it now, and I'm starting to see Kevin Stefanski and the offensive line and those skill guys. I'm starting to see that all come together. Last time the Brown scored 30 points in four-stroke games, 1968.

Yikes. I'm like, this is, this is, we're getting somewhere with this. That's like, okay, so that Kevin Stavansky is a competent adult and a good football coach moment of the week. Plus also the, the Browns haven't been good in a very long time stat of the week. Like, those are recurring Browns bits. Yeah, I mean, and it was just, you know, Philip Rivers dropping into his own end zone, taking a safety on an intent. intentional grounding. I'm like,

that used to be the Browns. That used to be like, you know, the Tom Freeman book, didn't it used to be us? Like the Browns must be looking at this and saying, didn't we used to be the team

that was making uncharacteristic mistakes? And let's switch this real quick to the Colts because I love this Colts roster. I love this organization. I like the signing of Philip Rivers beforehand. But right now he's killing this team. And this, by the way,

they're still going to make the playoffs, all that stuff. but I was thinking of the Colts as a sneaky a FC contender to get in that sort of zone where maybe they're right behind the bills or something like that and right now Rivers is making way too many mistakes. Yeah, I think, so I always had,

I had some skepticism about, and I'm with you on the overall roster and the way that organizations run, and I don't necessarily think it was a bad move for them to try and get him, but, you know, it's just a combination of his age and his history of making risky throws. There was a weird, there was a weird narrative on Twitter today that he wasn't an upgrade over

Brissette. I'm not sure about that. I need to see a little bit more. And also something we've talked about a million times, which is this is going to take some time. You don't have a full training camp. You don't have a full OTAs. A little bit like Brady down in Tampa, although Brady's obviously a much better player and

always has been. There's some, there's some, there's a learning curve that doesn't exist in any other season except this one. I think that's fair. I think that's fair. I just this season, right, if it was going to go the way the Colts wanted it to, it was going to depend on last year for Rivers being an outlier and him regressing back up to a quarterback that he's been in the past, right?

And at his age, switching teams and with some shaky results early, I'm, not super encouraged. But I mean, I don't think that, I think that he is an upgrade over Brissette as well. But I just, it has me a little worried just because of that combination of factors. Here's the good news. Next week, the Bengals,

two weeks. They have the buy in two weeks and then the Lions. So the Colts, all their problems will be solved until November 8th when they play the Ravens, at which point we'll see where they're at. The Browns have the Steelers next week. Now that's a game.

That's juicy. Now it's time for the State Farm's surprisingly great segment of the week. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm at a surprisingly great rate. That's like Chase Claypool scoring four touchdowns for the Pittsburgh Steelers and their win over the Philadelphia Eagle. State Farm agents provide personalized service so that you can customize your insurance to fit your needs like a GM putting together their very own roster. You need a team that supports you, and State Farm's got a great one.

In addition to agents, the award-winning mobile app helps manage coverage, pay bills, file claims, and more. With a great price and even greater service, State Farm goes from strength to strength. Nora, Chase Claypool is the latest in what seems like hundreds of great Steelers' receivers. It's less than that, but not by much. Chase Claypool beats the Philadelphia Eagles. What do you think? Yeah, so it's like they just keep drawing them out of thin. air, right? So Claypool set a franchise record for touchdowns in a game by a rookie, which is

impressive, right, because they've had that long line of exceptional receivers. I thought that he was great. I mean, when he was matched up on a linebacker, that's a favorable matchup, and he took advantage. But he was also super impressive in his own right. And, you know, I think we both think pretty highly of what the Steelers defense can do when it's playing its best, but they didn't have a great day to day, and he just gave them what they needed to still be able to pull it out, and they're looking really good. When you're 6'4, 229 pounds as he was entering the NFL, he had unbelievable measurables. There's a lot to work with. He's from Notre Dame. I think that they understand in Pittsburgh what traits to look for, and athleticism is one of those. If you have Ben Rothesburg,

he's going to get you the ball. As you said, they were able to. who take advantage of some very strange matchups in Philadelphia threw with them. Linebackers, I mean, Jim Schwartz did not have his finest hour on Sunday. So I think that this is a star-is-born situation. Like, I think this is repeatable. I think the defense are not going to know

what to do with Claypool. I think that this offense, you know, they got Ray Ray Ray and McLeod involved on Sunday. Obviously, they are always going to have a nice little depth chart, a wide receiver. I think this offense kind of bailed out the defense on Sunday. Sunday, the defense will continue to get better as the season progresses.

But I think this is a legitimate AFC North contender, and Chase Claypool's emergence is a big part of that. Yeah, it's funny. We just keep going on down the line, right? And it's like, well, what happens when the older receiver becomes the number one? But then they just find another one. And then it's like a conveyor belt. So I think they've got to be pretty happy.

Yeah, you know, I've talked to Kevin Colbert, the Steelers GM about this in the past. And I said, what do you do the other teams don't? Because a lot of teams, the Patriots are one of them. They just can't find steel guys. And the Steelers find them on trees. And Colbert basically says that it's the infrastructure. They don't do anything crazy. I think they do enjoy players who return kicks in college is one of the traits they look for.

I think there's some dynamic potential there with those guys. But I think that they just like getting these guys in the system. they feel like they call good plays for them and whatever it is, teams need to steal it because the Steelers are only going to get better. I still believe in that defense. They're struggling right now. They'll get better.

You pair that with the offense and guys like Claypool getting better that young receiving court, Deontay Johnson's another guy who's going to come along. I think that's a real, real intriguing AFC North contender. Choose insurance that always brings its A game. When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor,

state farmers there. last winner Derek Carr outplays Patrick Mahomes yikes you know what Derek Carr said afterwards he said I've had a lot of sad walks up that ramp yes I saw that I thought that was a great earnest quote you know it's funny I said I've said this in a bunch of podcasts over the past couple of months

but when he went to the black hole when I was there for the last Raiders game in Oakland he knew he was going to get booed and he just sort of walked over there anyway, and they booed him and they threw stuff at him and kids gave him the finger or whatever it was. And then afterwards he said, why'd you do that?

And he was like, well, I wanted to give my respects. I have been booed a bunch. Like, he's very, it's funny because the book on him is he takes things very personally, but I think he's pretty comfortable in his own skin.

I think he's pretty honest with himself about this sort of stuff. So yeah, he understands what's happened to him in Kansas City before. This was not that. I thought it was a remarkable upset. You know, Mahomes' numbers in October have not nearly been as good as they have been in September. I thought that was a quirk. But for whatever reason, this is a little bit of a regression day for him.

Kind of an off week. It happens. We have Mahomes. His standards are such that if he makes five, six, seven amazing throws over the course of an afternoon, we think it's not good enough. If you look at the eye test, he's still there. This is kind of an off day for him. Let's get into the Raiders, who I think are kind of a frisky little

AFC playoff contender here. Yeah. So Carr was 22, 31, 347 yards, three touchdowns. I think what made a huge difference. So they got Trent Brown and Henry Ruggs back. And so Brown in particular, I think, makes a huge difference, right? Because while what was most impressive about what they did was that they got a deep passing game, which I think is like a major critique of them for not having,

they got that going. They had such a solid foundation of being able to possess the ball, move the ball on the ground, which is like that's sort of an old school approach that doesn't always work, but I actually think it is really important against the chiefs. I've certainly seen it work for the Patriots, just being able to keep the ball away from them. And I thought that they just looked really complete on offense.

and in particular, it just seemed like having Brown put them in a much, much better situation to just be consistently moving the ball. Okay, so here's what I liked about it. First of all, they were aggressive, and that's not always the case with Gruden and Carr. Right. A lot of that, a lot of that was Ruggs. He had a 72-yard touchdown catch, obviously. I thought it was interesting after the game, Gruden said of Ruggs, quote,

I didn't bring him in here to run hitch routes. And I think that... Which is like, that's such a diss from Grud. Like, only John would say that. No, I mean, it's not a diss of rugs. I'm just saying like, oh, yeah, right. Maybe a car, maybe a little bit of car. But I think that generally, that's a good thing.

If you're a Raiders fan, you like that quote. He also said he's going to take the, that rugs will take the pressure off of Darren Waller. This is just going to open up lanes for Derrick Carr. And I think the more aggressive they get, the better. And I think Gruden actually made fun of Pro Football Focus a little bit, um, as far as, as just critiquing how aggressive or unaggressive he's been. And I think it's a smart play here to just open up this game with Ruggs, try to hit a couple home runs.

They did it. Rugs had a 46-yard contested catch on Sunday. Rugs is a damn good player. And I think when I start to think you mentioned Trent Brown coming back into this game, I think that when you look at this setup here and this offense and all the young guys and I think Mike Mayack's a really good GM. I think there's some real buzz here. And I think that as for, I would like, by the way, for Las Vegas fans to be able to see this.

I think it'd be really fun to have a team in Las Vegas where you're rebuilding the black hole and all that stuff. But I think that generally for me, I'm starting to think of this Raiders team as a playoff team. By the way, just to loop back, I don't think Gruden was like dissing Carr by saying that. I think he was dissing hitch routes. which I just think is like very fun. That's like a fun, like, that's a fun John Gruden being like, no, thank you.

I love that. Gruden v. Hitch Routes. Yeah, I love that. That's the feud. The rivalry is back on. But yeah, so I thought their defense, I would mostly chalk this up to just

as good as they are, Mahomes and the chiefs are entitled to an off day once in a while. I mean, it ended a 13-game winning streak for them. Yeah. I'm not too worried. It is not time to sound the alarm in Kansas City, okay? But I do think, you know, so they didn't have Lee Collins, they didn't have Moherst,

they didn't have Damon Arnett. It was an encouraging performance for that defense, which, you know, that's their weak link, certainly. I don't know. I don't know that I'm ready to say that I think that, you know, they've turned the corner defensively and all of a sudden that's going to be a really sturdy group. I don't feel confident in that, but it's still encouraging,

and they certainly have a playoff caliber offense, right? Like, I don't know how, I don't know how it'll shake out just because I'm not ready to trust the defense, even though they just had a good game against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, but it was a step in the right direction. I'll say that at least. I think we'll know in the next three weeks, okay? I don't have the Raiders in the Brown zone here.

Obviously, the records are different, but I'd be disappointed at this point if the Browns don't make the playoffs. With the Raiders, I'm cautiously optimistic. The next three weeks, the Raiders have the Buccaneers, then they have the Browns, then they have the Chargers. I think we'll know a lot more about this Raiders team, again, on November 8th. And I think that, you know, I think that with John Gruden here, I'm a little bit of excited to see him. By the way, the Raiders were okay last year. They were so good at it to do a slow news day, basically apologizing for some of my Gruden takes, which probably a little premature because most of the takes held up anyway. But I think that I want to see John Gruden in a playoff

on. I want to see him given quotes. I want to see Derek Carr. I want to see Derek Carr try to prove his long-term answer. I mean, there are so many things. You know, Bruce Grady Kowski's on this podcast last week. He said that every quarterback that John Gruden has, doesn't matter who he is wants to date, not marry. And for Derek Carr, a guy who's gotten a lot of criticism, a lot of it warranted, I'm intrigued to see how this season develops. And I'm intrigued to see, again, fans would have added an extra element to it and actually having those fans in there to sort of react everything he does.

But I'm intrigued to see the 2020 Raiders. They're on my watch list right now. They are on, I do a red zone ranking every year between Carr and. and Ruggs and Josh Jacobs and Darren Waller, this is a team that, if they're on Red Zone, I'm locked in. All right. So if we see John Gruden, like, pulled Derek Carr's parents aside

and have a serious conversation with them, then maybe we'll know what's going on. I will say this. This is a Gruden, Andy Reid Nugget. I tweeted this years ago, whenever Gruden first returned, that I once saw John Gruden standing in a hallway and Andy Reid

This is in Orlando with the owner's meetings Andy Reid's walking by a big Tommy Bahama shirt and Andy Reid's does the tap on the shoulder walk the other way thing Gruden does not react

Whoa Does not react Ice cold And Reed's doing like He's getting ready to laugh Nothing from Gruden Doesn't even look that direction My

Is Andy Reid upset? I think he was fine with it But I think that he, I think that the Gruden probably gets tapped on the shoulder a lot, is my, is my general viewpoint. Like as a, Hey,

John Gruden, talk to me. Yeah, people, people taking photos, whatever. I don't remember who he was talking to, but I do remember that it was just a total no-sell.

Back to football real quick, as much I'd like to do the broader discussion on the tapping on the shoulder thing. Clyde Edwards, Hilaire. Okay, this is via PFF. Week one, 25 carry.

seven forced mistackles. Since then, weeks two through five, 56 carries nine forced mistackles. Don't know what that is. This has not been the role that I saw coming in week one.

And so it's interesting to see as someone who predicted with almost no confidence, he'd win the offensive rookie of the year. Now that's pretty much been replaced if it's not going to a quarterback back with Chase Claypool. But I don't know. There's something there.

I'm intrigued to see what they do to work in the offense. Again, I'm kind of just throwing this entire chief performance out. Just we'll figure it out. I mean, kind of a weird week for them, okay? Like, we as a football, we as a football punditry should just take a week off from evaluating the chiefs, maybe. They've got the bills next week. So I think that's, I think that's right.

because the way the Patriots played them because the Patriots had a good day against them defensively and the way the Patriots played them by putting extra defenders in the flats was really interesting and I wanted to see if other defenses would sort of replicate that

and I actually don't think that the Raiders did that and there's personnel explanations for that there's scheme explanations for that whatever but the chief just had a lot of things go wrong in this. And sometimes when you have a team that you trust and they have one of those games where just, you know, penalties, drops, like, blown assignments, whatever, and it all starts to snowball, I think that's when you can throw it out. So I'm, I would be less confident in saying that if it was like the Raiders had done what the Patriots had success doing. And now all of a sudden, you know,

there's not going to be, the cheese are too talented for there to be like a formula to beat them. that just doesn't exist. But there are things you can do to slow them down, right? And if we were starting to see that develop, that to me would be more telling than just like they had a bad day. It happens. Yes. I'm intrigued to see what this.

I keep saying I'm intrigued by saying because I am intrigued. I'm a genuinely intrigued person. We need to get you like a monocle. I'm intrigued by this. I'm so intrigued. This Bill's Chiefs game, which now we know when the date is, that's important to me. because I keep saying that no one's on the Chiefs level

and if there was a team that would be the Ravens and Bill's fans keep saying, what about the bills on this hypothetical level? I'm not saying the who wins this game next week is going to be my AFC championship pick or whatever. I think the Chiefs are still going to win it no matter what unless it's 40 or nothing, no one can talk.

But I want to see if the bills can hang. That's all. And I think they can. I think it's going to be a close game just because of the Bill's defense, the Chief's defense, quite frankly, what they do with Josh Allen. It'll be, it's one of my,

my games to watch. I'm glad that it's now on the schedule in an appropriate fashion. All right, let's get to losers. One huge loser, Jimmy Garoppel. The San Francisco 49ers made a move at quarterback. So Garoppel returns from a high ankle sprain. It lasts

about a quarter and a half. The Dolphins win 43 to 17. Ryan Fitzpatrick is all the way back. Tua's going to be on the bench for a handful more weeks. And by the way, does anyone just shut up people who are calling for the backup quarterback more thoroughly and in a funnier way than Ryan Fitzpatrick? No, absolutely. No. No, he's, I mean, as long as there. Tua is going to be a superstar. Tua is going to be a star. I love Tua.

Everyone starts calling for Tua. And Ryan Fitzpatrick beats the defending NFC champion by 26 points. That's hilarious. No, as long as there are, as long as there are still backup quarterbacks and highly touted rookie quarterbacks who are awaiting their turn to be kept at bay, like Ryan Fitzpatrick will outlast, outlast us cockroaches will be the only survivors roaming the earth, but Ryan Fitzpatrick will still be there just like making some rookie wait his turn. I don't know. Ryan Fitzpatrick has impeded my ability to speak English, but no, he's. he's very impressive. Trevor Lawrence, wherever Trevor Lawrence is next year,

too will be the starter next year in Miami. Ryan Fitzpatrick is going to show up. He's just going to be there and he'll be the starter. And he's going to be like unbuttoning his shirt and wearing patterns. Yep. It's the Fitzger way. All right. So we can talk about the dolphins a little bit in a second, but the story here is that the Niners are a bit of a mess. Get to Garoppolo here, but I, you know, Chris Biederman, who covers the team, pointed this out. And I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,

co-signed this point that a lot of the 49ers problems are explained away by injuries, obviously along the defensive line and the secondary, all that stuff. But the offensive line is not an issue that's explained away by any of those things. It's been bad. And obviously, you know, if you have a retirement of someone like Joe Staley, that that's one thing. But this is a team right now that I thought would be significantly better with Grapa. and his passes, there's been a lot of talk about,

anytime you have a lower body injury, it can become very dangerous for a quarterback any single time because you're pushing off, your sailing passes, that's a big thing about ankle, ankle injuries. I think Barnwell made that point today on Twitter as well. But I think this was more than that.

I think that the Jim and Garoppolo is just off generally. So C.J. Bethard comes in. He goes 9 of 18 for 94 yards and touchdown. That's considered a success, unbelievably. when Garapolo had no touchdowns, two interceptions, and a pass a rating of 15. So Bethardt improved on that.

This was just an annihilation. And for a team that I thought was on another level in the NFC, I was just shocked by it. And for a team that I thought was going to be able to play bully ball all year, I'm just not seeing anything right now. Garopolo was getting hit a lot. There was a play where Jerome Baker basically just came through without being touched and put them on the ground.

This is not a good football team right now. And I think that we were all impressed with their ability to go into New York and beat the Giants and the Jets. We see now that they're 0 and 10 and that anybody could basically do that. And I've already revoked my preseason pick that they were going to be the NFC champions. But at this point right now, I don't have much confidence in their ability to beat average football team. Yeah, I think the biggest thing that we've learned here, right, is just that the Jets and the Giants are really not good. Really bad. Really bad. Like maybe. I mean, and it really, look, not to be glib about this, because while you're right, you can't explain away everything with injuries.

Although I do think there's something going on, right, where if Garoppolo's mobility is limited, he can't help evade oncoming rushers. And so then he's immobile back there. I'm saying that you, Garoppolo's injury can partly explain Garoppel's performance. I'm saying the offensive line is the problem right now, and that's not banged up. Yeah, but there's, I mean, I think that's, there's definitely truth to that, but there's also situations where it's like, okay, so Trent Williams is getting called for holding because Garoppolo's not able to move to step up in the same way. Like, there's a little bit of, I just think that there's a lot that you can attribute to injuries here. And it is kind of a bummer because this team could have been really good. And I think at this point, I mean, I just saw a lot of them seem to be using the word embarrassing when they were talking to their B crew after the game on Zoom.

And if our biggest takeaway from a team that still has a really good infrastructure and if they're helping, healthy still has a lot of talent is just that the Jets and the Giants are really bad. Like, that's a bummer, and it's a loss for all of us who love watching football. But I don't know how much more there is to unpack besides they just got decimated by injuries because while there are healthier units, like the offensive line, it's just, I mean, that's a shorter list, right, than the ones that have been really hit. 100%. 100%. And I think this, after kind of the turf in the Meadowlands swallowed this team whole,

I did not have a ton of expectations. I just didn't think they'd be losing by 26 points to the Miami Dolphins. And I think, I'm starting to think that this is saying more about the dolphins that I initially anticipated. When I was first watching this game, I was thinking, I think a lot of times we look at these Fitz performances and we just kind of, oh, fits got high. He's in a contract year. Let's joke about it. But I think this Dolphins team is pretty good. I mentioned Baker earlier. I mean, like, I'll tell you a story.

I was there last December. And Jerome Baker said that there are so many guys just cycling through the franchise that he would look over to a guy in the middle of a game. And he didn't, he was meeting him for the first time. Like, honestly, like, oh, this guy. Right. And that's not happening this year. They're not doing anything like that.

They know who their core is. We were talking about offensive line. without Austin Jackson. They had to start Robert Hunt, who's a second round pick, rookie right tackle. Then they moved Jesse Davis so he could make his first career start at left tackle.

So I think that there was some adaptability issues there, and I liked what they did. This is just awesome. And this is a young team. It's funny because when I taught to Chris Greer, the GM, he mentioned San Francisco as a team that he was looking at,

when he was looking at blueprints. And I think when I hear about that, that means it's not a Brown-style five, six, seven-year rebuild. It's a Niners-style two-to-three-year rebuilt because that's what the Niners did. And they took a step back with the Grappalo injury two years ago and ended up getting Bosa. So I am watching this Dolphins team

as kind of an elevated version of what they were last year, which is they can win a bunch of games that they shouldn't, but they're not going to win too many. They get a more high draft pick. They get the Texans pick. And I don't know, 2021 is looking pretty good. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I mean, you saw when the tank discussion was going on there, right?

And this always happens to an extent. But they had like a visceral dislike of that narrative that I think, speaks to kind of what the goals are and also just, you know, there's like a lot of NFL coaches are super competitive. It's kind of part of the job description. But Brian Flores is a super competitive guy who I don't think would have really enjoyed sitting around and losing a ton of games and not caring. So it doesn't surprise me that they're on a reasonably fast track there. Now, obviously, the biggest piece of it is when does two of us? a play, when to a play is how does to a play.

What does he look like? Right. For as much as we know about Ryan Fitzpatrick's ability to push that off, it's still more impactful for the dolphin's future. It needs to happen at some point. As funny as it is for Fitz to hold him off, you do need to actually start at something. It's like the SpongeBob like three hours later. Like Ryan Fitzpatrick's still here.

All right. Now that we're at SpongeBob. That's our, that's our Dolbin's. I kind of feel like I, I kind of feel like I, there's a generational gap. I feel like I was a year too old for SpongeBob. Okay. That's not a generation. No, well, no, it's one.

No, I feel like maybe I was like at the tail end of the pre- SpongeBob. Like, I've never seen an episode of SpongeBob all my life. Okay. All right. Interesting. I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about it. I've seen the memes and that's it.

You know the memes. No, I've seen the memes, but I've just, I've seen nothing, like, I don't know who anybody is except for a SpongeBob. Okay, so he's this little square guy, lives in a pineapple under the sea. Yeah. I've got that part. I've got that part down. All right. Let's move on. Let's cancel the Vikings. Let's do the Vikings here. So let's break down what we just saw on Sunday night. One of the weirdest games of the year, but it's a Seahawks game. So as we discussed earlier,

It's just instead of saying weird, we can just say Seahawksy. The Vikings have every chance to win this game. And instead, they lose 2726 on a 4th and 10 D.K. Metcalf touchdown. The Vikings are now 1 and 4. They were an inch away from being 2 and 3. I had some expectations for the Vikings this year. I no longer have them. What did you think?

Yeah, it was like they played, they actually played their best top. of football all year, right? And then first they undid it in about two minutes, which was the Metcalfe touchdown, Cousins throws an interception, and then, what was it? Carson goes for a touchdown.

Yeah. Then the Seahawks, Seahawk all over the place, and the Vikings claw back. And then we just have chaos. And in some ways, Like, you can almost just chalk up the ending to Russell Wilson being a wizard and Seahawksiness. But if you focus just on the earlier parts of the game, like, they put themselves in a really

good position. And obviously, you know, cook going out doesn't help. But they let them back in just instantly. And I don't think that enough is going right for them that if they can't have kind of the discipline to get some momentum when things go right, like when they are able to get pressure on an opponent, which was a big difference in this game, then they just don't seem trustworthy. Yeah, that is a perfect way to put it. There's not a lot of trust here. So the runs here were spectacular. The Vikings start off with a 13-0 run ends with a field goal with 10 seconds left

in the half. The Seahawks score 21 straight points, and then the Vikings go on another run, get up to 26, 21, and then obviously the Vikings, it was the unpleasantness to end the game. By the way, it was a six-yard touchdown pass, not a 10-yard touchdown pass. I added four yards just to let the legend grow. Pad the stats? Yeah, pad the stats. With the Seahawks, I've sort of written off drawing conclusions from these sort of games. We know what these guys do. I'm not even, to be honest, to be honest, team. And I think that the more I keep going here, the more I think that these guys and Green Bay

are a cut of both of everyone else in the NFC. There's a couple of conversations I've had where I wanted to put Tampa Bay in that mix, and then they play like they did last Thursday. So it's, I come away from this feeling the exact same way I felt going into it with Seattle, which is their one of the two best teams of the NFC. I just, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I can't, if you stare at this game, it just stares back, right? Like, I, I just didn't, I don't know, I, I didn't know what I expected and then I got something that I probably should have expected. Okay, that's, that's the way to put it when you're watching the Seahawks in, in these sort of games. I was totally riveted by the ending.

Like, yeah, I guess I've seen iterations of it before from Wilson, but I was like sitting on my couch just, you know, gripping a pillow. being like, oh my God, he's going to do it, or is he not going to do it, or is he going to do it? And then for a second, the broadcast just goes to a panoramic view of Seattle and, like, the space needle. And I was totally, like, pulled out of the moment and just started, like, I was sitting there and I just started laughing. And it was like, we are having such a Seahawks moment right now and you're going to, like, show me the space needle.

And I just, I had a real moment with the space needle there. What I'm saying is the Seahawks are driving. driving me insane. That's true. And there's a lot of people like that, join the club. So ESPN had this, and I can't stop thinking about it.

Russell Wilson has 30 game-winning drives since his debut in 2012. Who does that pass for most in the NFL? Do you know? Sorry, say that again? Have you seen this already? So he has 30 game-winning drives since he made his debut in 2012,

most in the NFL. Who did he pass for that? Is it Rogers? It is not Rogers. It is Matthew Stafford. Do you know why it's Matthew Stafford? Because Matthew Stafford's behind a lot. Because he plays for a much worse team.

And this just sort of says it all about Russell Wilson over the past eight years is he's been put in situations where he has to play like Matthew Stafford. That's so brutal. I don't love it. Same ESPN stat. This is the 14th win by the Seahawks and started last year. season in a one possession game. No other team has more than 10.

Now, again, one possession games are supposed to be luck and all that stuff. I think Wilson, I think Wilson gets put in position to win these games and does. And I understand that that's not necessarily sticky from one year to the next. I'm just saying Russell Wilson is a badass and don't put him in the same situation that Matthew Stafford is. Matthew Stafford is in these situations because he doesn't have anybody around him and he has bad coaching. Seahawks coaches are better.

and they shouldn't act like bad coaches. That's all. Matthew Stafford doesn't have booth shoddy. Yeah. Again, I don't want to make this to let Russ Cook thing. I'm just saying this is an eight-year pattern. And this is where we are now where he had to pass Matthew Stafford for this. It's gotten so much better.

I commend everybody on taking a step forward this year with the aggressiveness. I'm just saying this is where Russell Wilson is in his career. He's taking a step forward. All right, let's quickly do reader questions. Because we had so much news, we're only going to do one of them. We got the same question about five times. One of them is from Joreen Blocura. One of them is from a guy named Gort. It's a catchy name. Hi, Gort. Love it. One guy named Bobby here. The same question, which is, is it too early to worry about Joe Burrow and what he's going

through in Cincinnati? So Joe Burrow sacked seven times. The Ravens really, really get after him. who apparently had a bit of a feud with in college, sent him to the turf pretty hard, resulting in a fumble. Yeah, the Ravens got after it. For Joe Burroughs long-term health, you worried it all when you watch this kind of stuff? Well, I don't mean to sound sort of flippant here because I, of course, don't enjoy seeing Joe Bro get hit a ton,

and I do think right now it's a little concerning because they're having him pass a ton, and, you know, he could get hurt, because anybody could get hurt. Joe Burroughs on the Bengals because the Bengals were really bad. That's right. So I don't necessarily...

And there's a certain amount of Bengalsiness and there's some legitimacy to the organizational weirdness there and their reluctance to spend a lot of money on a lot of things that I think can affect the players who play there. The state of the roster, like to me, that's a chicken or...

the egg thing, right, with he was the first overall pick. So I think people like Duke Tobin are trustworthy enough. I'm not super concerned about it, except really more in the immediate sense, right? Like, I'm concerned about the situation that he's in right now. I don't think that anybody should have, like, huge red flags about their ability to build around him in the future. Does that make sense? A hundred percent. I'm worried about him from a health standpoint that's getting hit too hard and being out for the rest of the year or whatever, not developing. I think he's going to, we've seen a lot of young quarterbacks take a lot of hits and not everybody ends up like David Carr where their career gets shortened or where he starts

seeing ghosts, so to speak. He's not going to become Sam Donald. I think he's much better than that. I think it's going to be a process. You know, we saw today, AJ Green just had no interest in making a tackle on an interception. I think that there's going to need to be a little bit of a culture shift there in Cincinnati, a little bit more of an offensive line shift. But I think Burroughs capable of it. I will say, in these situations,

I think we gloss over it so much because these guys are getting paid or they're more famous or whatever, watching them every Sunday. But I remember covering the University of Miami or just being around that team when I was a student there, and a bunch of highly-touted recruits

came in in, in 2008. And they ended up not being very good. But they were, I think we were the number one or two class in the country for recruiting that year. And Miami got their ass kicked as they normally did in some game. I think we lost a Clemson. So it was 08 or 09. And I remember one of the reporters there was talking about the mental state that the players had to be in because they hadn't lost games since they were in middle school or even before that maybe. They hadn't lost games. They played three games a day in Optimist, right?

And all of a sudden you go from that to you can't even beat North Carolina or you know, you can't even, you're going toe to toe to with Virginia or whatever. And I think that that's, I think if you're Joe Burrow right now, you were on top of the football world last year and everyone saw how confident you were and you built a worldview around being a total badass, one that was. well-deserved and you're smoking cigars after winning a national championship. You're one of the most famous people that we've had in college football for the last decade. And now your old teammate who may or may not like you has slammed you to the turf and is playing for one of the AFC's best teams, right?

As you said, he's there because he because the Bengals are bad last year and he's supposed to lift them up. I think that will happen. I just think this is a really, really tough year for the Bengals. And I like what I've seen. I've seen a performance that has been as good as expected. It's just going to be grueling, man. And this is not, you know, there was a story this morning from CBS. The Bengals aren't even taking COVID that seriously because they're, you know, there's an unorthodox franchise that doesn't have a normal NFL facility.

Like the Bengals are. a different deal, man. This is not playing for the dolphins or, you know, even the Raiders now in Vegas. The Bengals are a different organization and it's going to take a lot for Joe Burrow to overcome all of that, but the good news is I think

if anybody can do it, it's him. Totally agree. All right, tomorrow's clickbait. Nora. Can the NFL move into the NBA bubble now that basketball's over? In Orlando? Yeah, let's go. It's empty. The golf courses are empty there.

that all the JJ Redick and those guys are playing at. They don't have football fields, but, you know. Yes, they do. They don't have enough. They have so many. Oh, my God. How dare you impugn Disney's Wild World of Sports, which has like 10.

It's where they have the Pro Bowl practices. They had Buck training. They had Buck's training camp for years. Okay. So this is actually, this is incredible, because this is where we reveal my understanding of, Florida and also of amusement parks is basically zero. I constructed this whole clickbait idea based off the idea that it was just like physically

impossible. No, it's very possible. Maybe this is just true. They have, not only do they have them, but the NFL has used them on multiple occasions for multiple things. So that's where when they do the Pro Bowl in Orlando, it's at Disney. Well, no, the game is downtown, but the practice and stuff are all. I thought it had its own whole little thing.

How many football fields are at Disney World? Total, I don't know, probably six or seven. Then you have the baseball fields that can easily be converted. You could convert that. We have a baseball stadium there that used to have the Braves, but now the Braves don't do spring training there. There's no minor league team there. It's not even a state league team there anymore.

And so I think we can just make that another football field. You're looking at eight or nine. This was all a ruse to just get you to talk about, like, Orlando infrastructure. I know a lot about it. I know a lot about the football fields, the various fields of play across Orlando. Okay, so their prior tenant is leaving now. Let's make it happen. And if I can just slide on in.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's make it happen. I want to see that on, like, the CBS Chiron. We're making it happen. All right. My quick bait is, I actually. She already saw this today, and so it's not even tomorrow's clickbait. I saw it today, which is who are the 49ers going to trade for?

Who are they going to trade for? I also saw this with the Cowboys. I think they're going to trade for no one. Yeah. Because they have a hugely expensive quarterback on the roster who they generally believe in. And then they have backups who have at least played before. It's not like they're probably going to give Jimmy Garoppolo multiple chances to lose his job. Yeah, but in click and we're operating.

No, no, no, I know. I know. I know. No, no, no. Okay. So here are the two, the two big ones that I've seen the last 24 hours. Number one, should the 49ers trade for Matt Ryan? A little bit of the Kyle Shanahan reigning.

Yeah. Sam Darnold. Oh, I saw that one too. Yeah. That's like free Sam. I hope that happens. Sorry, Jimmy. I don't think either of them will happen.

but I kind of like that. And I also think that there will be, unfortunately, for the clickbait complex, Andy Dalton is too good of a quarterback to lead to those sort of rumors. Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah. But if Jimmy Graspl is going to bottom out,

let's just make up some rumors. Let's go. Yeah, that makes the 49ers our rumor team. I do. I have a friend, my friend Sam Parker, is a big, 49ers fan and texted me in the middle of that game.

And I was watching Red Zone. So I just knew immediately that Jimmy had thrown a pick, even though it wasn't on that game. Because he texted me something like, take him back. We'll give you a second round pick. And I was like, I don't even cover the Patriots anymore. I am not affiliated with that organization.

I can't help you. Let me ask you, though. I was thinking about this today. So let's say Cam continues on his assent. when it gets back to the field and it becomes hugely expensive next year. Okay? Is there any scenario once Jimmy Groplo returns to know what? Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. If, you know, if it would be, it would have to seem worthwhile to the Patriots to get someone that they could lock up at a reasonable rate for longer, right? Because they could franchise Cam if they wanted to. So, like, what would. have to happen would be... But that would take over 30 million hours. Over 30 million.

But like... Right. It's still one year, you know? It might be worth it. It might be worth it. Yeah. So what I'm saying is the sweet spot is it being better to take Jimmy at whatever rate and number of years they could get him for versus Cam for a lot of money.

money, but also him having merited a lot of money. Right? So, like, that's a little bit of a tricky spot to find, but it could happen. It's not another question. Bill will do anything. He will do anything. If it's, like, good value. I like that we pretend that he's not signing for the league minimum and rehabilitating

his career and winning 12 games. Cam? No. Grappolo. Oh. Yeah. It'll be fun. It'll be great.

All right. Anything else? I really appreciate how much I've learned about both Disney World. The one in Orlando is Disney World. Disney World. Disneyland is in California. I've never been. I've never been to Disneyland.

But you've been to Disney World. Yeah. Okay. Many times. Many, many times. I don't know. Sometimes people who are from the place. I will say.

like don't do the thing. It's not really like that with Disney. I will say that when you get older, when you get to be a teenager, for instance, Universal is more of the place, is more of the place to go hang out. Yeah.

Especially the parks. Especially the cool kids go. But you're not going to go to the Magic Kingdom. You're not going to go to the Magic Kingdom when you're 16. The only reason, the only thing I would do, aside from going to sporting events at Wild World of Sports when I needed to,

At Disney, they had the House of Blues, and I was a big house of blues guy. Lots of punk bands playing there when I was 15. When I was little, I was actually kind of not, like I was not a Disney kid. I was supposed to mostly just watch PBS was my content diet. I think we may have had very different childhoods. But I also wasn't in Orlando. I feel like my preferences would have been molded by availability. I'm not acting like I just went to like the King Kong ride at Universal after school every day.

I'm just saying like, you'd go like once a year and when you're really young, you would go to Magic Kingdom and when you got older, you'd go to Universal. And see how well it worked out for you because you are now here and you're able to course correct me and say, in fact, there are lots of football fields at Disney. There's so many. And the box practice there and John Gruden would give them. all these crazy press conferences right next to the field house where they now play the NBA bubble. Is Orlando close to Tampa? Okay, we got to stop. It's about like 80 minutes, but also Disney's West.

And so you're looking at 70 minutes, maybe, something like that, 65 minutes. Yeah, it's close. We got to stop doing Florida geography. Otherwise, we'll be here all day. All right. This has been the Ranganafell Show and the Ringo Podcast Network.