The Ringer NFL Show - Week 6 Recap: Lions Dismantle the Cowboys, Ravens Beat the Commanders, and More

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Sheil, Steven, and Diante return to discuss, debate, and share their expert takes on the biggest games and story lines from Sunday’s NFL action. Lions-Cowboys (1:14) Ravens-Commanders (21:02) Browns-Eagles (32:56) Bucs-Saints (40:04) Jaguars-Bears (44:09) They then survey the league and offer superlatives and awards to the players, coaches, and teams who made newsworthy contributions to the Week 6 headlines (51:32). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee Producers: Chris Sutton, Tucker Tashjian, and Mark Panik Production Assistance: Daniel Comer Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Kiera Givens Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Brian Curtis from The Ringer, and I want to tell you about the Press Box podcast. The Press Box is a podcast for anybody who likes news, whether it's about sports or politics or pop culture, and wants to understand how that news really gets made. We have new shows every Monday and Thursday. We have long interviews with everyone from John Crackhour to Joe Buck. Your social media feeds are bursting with information every day. Let us help you sort it out. Join us.

on the press box. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show Shield Capati here with Deontay Lee and Stephen Ruiz. If you're watching on Fandul TV, thanks for joining us. If you're listening on Spotify, welcome to the week six show. A lot happened, guys, but I think we're going to do some temperature checks because there were two highlight games, some temperature check games going into the weekend, Cowboys Lions and Ravens Commanders. So we're going to start with those.

Sound good? Let's do it. Let's get to it. All right. So let's begin in Dallas because this is, I mean, this was the biggest story of the weekend. Now, the game was one thing. Lions completely outclassed the Cowboys, not close, 47 to 9, not a competitive game. But if you're a Lions fan, the excitement that you should be feeling from this victory is muted because Aiden Hutchinson suffers a serious leg injury, broke his left tibia in the third.

third quarter of that game had surgery immediately in Dallas. It was a gruesome injury. They didn't show the replays on TV. You could see it on the player's faces, one of those type deals, which is always tough. So first of all, feel for Aidan Hutchinson was having an awesome season and now presumably faces a long road to recovery. Not only physically, these things can be mentally, psychologically, emotionally, very taxing. So hopefully surgery goes well and he gets on that road to recovery. We'll find out more details later this week. But Deonti, moving to the lion's side of this, I mean, they've looked great the last two weeks. They've looked like a Super Bowl contender, but now you look at it and you say, man, you lost your best pass rusher. What do you think this means for them

based on what we know right now in terms of what this team might look like going forward? Their Super Bowl hopes, whether they can withstand that. A lot of things to get to after this Hutchinson injury. For sure. And I would say that at watching, that play out in real time and then just thinking about it as the rest of the game went on. I guess I was of two minds. The first thing is thinking about, as you said, just thinking about Aidan Hutchinson and where this season was going for him. Leading the league in sacks up to this point, leading the league in pressures and

QB hits up to this point. By any metric, basically, you could look at and say he's been no worse, even by eye testing, maybe the fifth best pass rusher in the NFL. And I would say the metric support that he's in the top three, if not number one, you know, based on how you measure these things. So that's the first thing, right? And I think that for him, and this is something that I've been critical of, I know that people who pay attention to the defensive side of the ball

have brought this up early in his career. I think that the first few years of his career, he was able to kind of get hot in certain games and rack up maybe three and a half, four sacks in one game, finish a season with eight or nine, and you're having questions, you know, and you're maybe asking about where he lands in the greater picture of difference making pass rushers.

This season, though, there was nothing to doubt. The guy from week one had been one of the best pass rushers in the league. So you hate to see a campaign that could have possibly ended, not only with playoff wins, but with him getting some personal accolades as potentially being a defensive player of the year, you feel for him from that perspective.

And then when you think about his role within this team, we spent so much of the offseason talking about the investments made on the back end to try to play more man coverage, you know, talking about trying to develop these young linebackers, trying to find help on the defensive interior to help them not only stop the run better, but get after the passer from the interior. And all of those things, whether we acknowledged it verbally or not, all of these things were underpinned with the assumption that Aidan Hutchinson would be available.

Because he's really the guy that I think makes his defense go, or at least the concept of what will make this defense a high-level playoff contending, Super Bowl contending type of unit. All of that kind of leaned on this guy embodying what. that Aaron Glenn, Dennis Allen's style of defense is built upon, which is having a big, high motor pass rusher. And that's exactly what he's been up to this point. So for them not to have them available, I guess I'm, I don't know where I want to put them now in the hierarchy of NFC contenders. You know, I need to, obviously we need to get some data points in the future,

but I'm kind of curious to see just for me and then I want to hear from you guys as well as to where you think things land for Detroit coming off of this amazing victory, but obviously probably about as bad as you can feel coming off of a marquee signature win. Yeah, I think it's tough because the last two games, they have 42 points, they have 47 points. So they're averaging around 45 points per game over the last two games. And you can't expect that to continue. You can't expect them to roll up 40 points every week. They're going up against a Brian Flores defense next week with Jared Gough in his history against

Brian Flores. So that's going to be difficult to bank on. But earlier in the year, when the offense was kind of struggling, and Goff got off to a slow start, this defense left. led by Hutchinson really carried the team. Like in that Bucks game, when I think that's the game he had the five sacks. I don't think that that win happens without Aiden Hutchins.

I don't think they're competitive in that game without Aiden Hutchin kind of willing them back into it. So I think their ceiling is dramatically different when they're not on their A game on offense. Now that margin for error for the offense, which is already kind of low because this was, what, a mediocre defense with Hutchinson in there. Now the margin for error is even thinner.

If they're not putting up 30 or even 40 points a game against like the top competition, they're going to be in shootouts. They're not going to win these games as comfortably as they have been the last couple weeks. Yeah, it's just not a deep group. You know, you look at it. He has seven and a half sacks. No one else has more than two and a half sacks. They took a flyer on Marcus Davenport in the offseason.

He's out for the year. Any kind of thing you look at with their pass rush, it's, I don't want to say it's completely a one-man show, but it's pretty much as close to a one-man show as you can get to. So to me, it's about like, can they reach a level of competency? You know, I can easily envision a scenario where they lose in the playoffs and you're a lion's fan and you're lamenting the fact that, man, if we had Aiden Hutchinson in this game, at the same time, Lions fans, I'm going to give you some optimism because this NFC's wide open.

I still think they have as good of a chance as any team in the NFC to get to the Super Bowl. With the way this offense is playing right now, I mean, like the first couple weeks, the numbers were good, but you're like, it doesn't look exactly like last season. These last two weeks, I mean, they're going up and down the field with these where Ben Johnson's getting bored in like the third quarter of these games. Like, all right, what should I call now? What should it? What play that we practice, you know, with like two minutes left to practice on Friday when we were joking around? You want to just go ahead and try that here? So I think they've still got a great chance to get to the Super Bowl. I think it's a team that needs to look at the trade market, you know, leading up to the deadline. I don't have a specific name. I'll tell you, is there a Hassan Redick move to the Lions here? I don't know.

what kind of shape is on Reddick's in, but when I'm looking at it, I was like, well, what pass rushers might be available? I mean, I can see Dan Campbell just bringing him in, putting his arm around him, saying they didn't want you, we want you, we need you. And all of a sudden, he's out there because you can say whatever he want about Redick, he has just been as consistent a pass rusher as there has been in the NFL over the last four or five seasons. I feel like Ruiz, they need to make some type of move. And I think they're going to make some type of move. I would be surprised if they were just like,

this is our group, no big deal, because their window is right now. The problem is like, those guys are hard to find. That's why you have to draft those guys in the top five. That's why, like, Detroit went after Hutchinson when they got him. That's why the 49ers kind of built their defense, the way they built their defense with all those top 10 picks on the defensive line. So I don't know if there's a guy available outside of Reddick, but I agree with you.

They need something. This is a year that they need to capitalize on because you don't know, you know, golf's extension kicks in. It's going to get harder. to maintain this roster, maintain the young pieces on the defense, the guys they've hit on with the draft the last couple of years. So yeah, I would sell out if I have to. I would take the cues from the Rams. Obviously, Brad Holmes was in that front office before. He knows what an aggressive approach in the front office looks like. So I think he'll be comfortable doing that.

We've seen this team build aggressively over the off season. So I wouldn't be surprised if they do pull off a move. They definitely need one now. And the in-season trades, these aren't times when you're trading like first rounders or multiple first rounders. Remember, you mentioned the Rams. When they traded for Von Miller, I think they gave up like a second and a third. And that was like, whoa, this is a crazy amount to give up right now. So if you're talking about the next tier, like you don't, obviously if you get a star, that's awesome. But I think they just need someone or maybe multiple people that can help them generate enough of a pass rush so that they can play defense the way they want to play defense so that they can be competent, mediocre,

Elite offense, mediocre defense. That was their recipe before. It takes a hit without Aiden Hutchinson. Now, what can you do to get as close as you can to that? I think that's their question going forward. And Aaron Glenn can be a little unhinged with his pressures at times. Like, he gets a little reckless with his calls on third down when he's trying to generate pressure. And now that he's going to feel more pressure to generate pressure, we could see some pretty funky blitzes.

And I don't know if this secondary is going to be able to handle those assignments. Because in the past, Detroit's kind of had issues when trying to play that style. And I think the thing about it is, and the reason why you really feel bad about Aidan Hutchinson suffering this injury is that this was one of the first data points that I think we had up until that Hutchinson industry where you could look and say, hey, they can actually play just like rush forward defense and a lot of man coverage. And against a quarterback that just lit up man coverage a week ago, you were plastered to guys and you forced multiple turnovers today. It didn't come at the cost of stopping the run. Obviously, Dallas has had issues running the ball on everybody in any defensive scheme. but the fact that you were able to take what you saw on tape from Dallas last Sunday night and you show up in a primetime game and you're able to really lock this offense down and

cause them problems. Again, where not for the injury, we would probably be having this conversation more so from the lens of how much distance is there between Detroit and the next team instead of, well, how, you know, how small are these margins between Detroit and everybody else in the NFC that's vying for those top two seeds. Yeah, no doubt about it. They still got a shot. They're still among those contenders, like you said, but they've, you know, their season took a little bit of a turn this afternoon.

Again, it sucked. You're a fan. You're like, that's as fun of a game as you can have. You're just going up and down the field. They're showing shots of Jerry Jones being sad in the box. You're like, this is why. Yeah, I know, it was his birthday. I know.

You're like, this is why, you know, for all the disappointment that sports fandom brings, it's afternoons like this that make it awesome. And then all of a sudden in the third quarter. So, again, hopefully Hutchinson recovers. but we'll get more details on that injury this week. All right, the other team that played in that game. I mean... Did they show them for this one? Did they show?

I don't know. It looks like a completely fraudulent team. The Dallas Cowboys, we had this conversation last week where Deonté and I said, hey, the NFC's kind of wide open. Who knows? They could go on a heater and be in the mix. And Ruiz said, what are you nuts? They got no chance to be in the mix.

Ruiz, you looked pretty smart today because that Cowboys team, looked like a complete disaster. No, and I think we all have this game pegged on the Friday show, the preview show. We were like, this is like the worst possible matchup for this Cowboys' offense and the type of issues they're having, and you saw it. I was kind of a week behind on my prediction that Dak Prescott would throw an interception right over the middle of the field

to a safety against the Steelers. It happened against the lines. Brian Branch got that pick and returned it for a touchdown. But, I mean, the fact that you could predict these blowouts and then they come true, that's the saddest part from the Cowboys' perspective. and that's the part that makes you lose all hope in this team and what this team can be down the stretch. Even if they get Michael Parsons back and the Marcus Lawrence back,

obviously that's going to make things easier on defense, but they look so far away. And that's just on the defensive side. On the offensive side, I don't know what the answer is to these problems. Because I think it's personnel-based. I think it's scheme-based. I don't think Dak Prescott's playing his best football.

I think he's doing his best considering the circumstances, but he's missing more throws than we're used to seeing with him. And those throws are turning into interceptions. We talked about this a couple weeks ago. It's kind of like the inverse of his luck on tight window throws last year. Now those throws are turning into picks like they did in 2022, and we're seeing the same type of season. I don't know how you rebound from this.

I'm sure they'll play better down the stretch. They'll look passable by the time December rolls around. This is a division that's wide open. They're not out of it by any means. But they have a negative 42 point differential at this point. Here's a list of teams in the NFC that have a worst point differential. the Carolina Panthers and the Rams. That's it. That's the end of the list.

The Giants have a better one. The Eagles, for all their problems, have a way better one at minus six. This team looks terrible, and there are no stats that suggest it's going to get better. The only thing that will make it better is Parsons coming back and Lawrence coming back. I mean, to me, and this is a conversation we've had about the Bengals, and I think that this has just been borne out over this season when we talk about these teams and whether or not their contenders or pretenders, it is so clear that if you only have one way to win, it's just not good enough this year in the league.

Yes. And the Cowboys are like maybe the perfect example of a team that only has had one pathway to being competitive. And you're playing against a Detroit team that can beat you several ways. And they were basically put them all on display today. They were able to run the ball when they wanted to. Jared Goff again was extremely efficient in the passing game. They have the scheme advantage, the coaching advantage.

And, you know, I think that when you put all those things together, that confluence of events, you can just see the strain on everything that. Jack Prescott's doing in the pocket. He can't afford to get pressure because he can't trust that any receiver that's not C.D. Lamb can go get the separation. He needs to get the ball out of his hands quickly. He can't rely on a run game. You know, like when I think about, I always think about the Cowboys in comparison to other contenders in the league.

And when I think about the Chiefs and how much we've complained about Kansas City, the one thing that we can all say for certain is that they have answers. It might be an uninspiring answer, but they would have a way if you're seeing all this man coverage to be able to loosen up receivers, whether we like the targets that these guys are getting or not. You know, watching other teams around the league, I think the same things are true. When you watch the Cowboys, it's so clear that Detroit just felt like, hey, they might get us on a couple 10 to 15 yard completions, but we know all their stuff.

It's not going to change. You know who they want to target and when they want to target them. You know who they trust in what situation. And you know that the run game's not a threat. And even for a defensive backfield that's had its struggles this year, you could just see the confidence in how they played. And I would say, like, outside of like a handful of like design, motion and a crosser and mesh concepts when they were able to get guys loose, you didn't see many guys open down the field for Dallas today. And that's just emblematic

to the way they've built this team and how obvious some of these holes are. Yeah, I mean, the defensive side of it weekend, it's pretty simple. Like they're injured and they don't have the guys. And I thought Mike Zimmero maybe would be a guy who could do more with less. It doesn't look like he's able to do that right now and they're getting killed. The offensive part of this, to me, is probably the more interesting discussion because they had a lot of these same things in place last year and the offense was a top 10 offense by every efficiency metric you want to look at. Now, the run game was a little bit, you know, it was a little bit better. You had Tony Pollard. You could look at the secondary and tertiary receivers. You had Brandon Cooks and Michael Gallup.

They weren't the best, you know, second and third wide receivers in the NFL, but they were more competent. And now you kind of mix it all together where the scheme is uninspiring. Like you guys said, Dak Prescott just attempts more hard throws than any quarterback in the NFL. I think he's been more mistake prone this year, whether that's him feeling like he has to do everything because they have no run game. I don't know. But I think it's pretty clear he's not playing as well as he was last season. And then, you know, you look at the supporting cast. You add all those things together. This offense, this was the second worst offensive performance by any team in a game this season. They didn't score a touchdown. Like, that's unacceptable for Dak, Prescott, and C.D. Lamb, I don't care if you

throw any other nine guys out there or eight got eight nine, nine guys out there, uh, with them on offense. And who the coach is, you should be able to score a couple touchdowns. And it's the lions. This isn't a juggernaut of a defense. Prescott right now is 26th in drop back success rate. Like this is a, this offense, I don't think it's just like, it's almost nearing like, wait, is it completely broken, not just struggling. Like they're going to have good games against bad defenses, but overall, if you're a Cowboys fan, what you've seen in the first six weeks of the season has to be very, very concerning.

Especially when you watch what Ben Johnson did on the other side line, comparing those two offenses. Like, they were just, like the Detroit, like you said, in the second half, they were just pulling off bits. They were doing joke, play calls for fun. They were in a hooking ladder to an offensive tackle. I mean, that's so embarrassed. I know.

If you're Mike McCarthy, you have to walk across the sideline and fight Dan Campbell at that point. That's the only way to save face. I don't know how Jerry sits back and watches that. They have the buy this week. So that's always like, you know, the red zone area for coaches on the hot seat. And then after that, a Sunday night or at San Francisco, we know how those games go for Dallas. That could be a national embarrassment for them.

And if they lose that game, if Jerry doesn't make a move at this point, I'm questioning him. Like, what are you doing? Wake up. Well, and the thing is that we know that he's not willing to make those types of moves. Otherwise, this move probably would have been made last spring or last winter. when it was clear that Dallas was out of gas and that they did not have any answers, and they've rolled out the exact same approach. And now that we do have injuries on the defensive side,

there's nowhere for Mike McCarthy's issues to hide right now. You can try to put this off on Mike Zimmer all you want, and I do think that there are some issues, even when healthy, that they have to sort out. But it's very clear that at this point now, Mike McCarthy is failing his quarterback very similarly to how people felt like he was letting Aaron Rogers down in his prime in Green Bay. and this is the third time he's hired a defensive coordinator and the third time he's opted for a veteran one that many people would say are probably past their prime.

I think it was Mike Nolan was his first defense. That was a disaster in year one if you remember that. Then obviously Gus, I almost said Gus Bradley. Sorry, I do not mean to offend Dan Quinn that much to that degree. But Dan Quinn, obviously they had like a top five defense, but they had their issues in high leverage situations in the playoffs against the best teams. And that's when you want to win.

if you're going to win the Super Bowl, obviously. And then now the Mike Zimmer hire, I know there's been injuries, but even when those guys were in there and looked a little shaky. So whether it's the offense, the design of the offense and how that looks, or it's his decisions to hire these defensive minds that are kind of past their best. It doesn't look good for him all around. An NFC East team that might be regretting, keeping its head coach? Well, we may have more on that later in the show.

All right, let's take a break. We come back. We talk about the other highlight. temperature check game of the week. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandul America's number one sportsbook because right now new customers can bet $5 and get 300 in bonus bets if you win. The Fandul Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL all in one place.

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Ravens Commanders in week six, what do you mean? You all have to have eyes. on that game. Ravens win this football game, 30 to 23. I want to start with Baltimore. And, you know, I can get a start at with the temperature check here. I think this is the best Lamar Jackson has ever played, which is a crazy thing to say about a guy who's won two MVPs. I think he's easily the MVP of the league through six weeks. I wouldn't, I wouldn't think twice if I don't get a ballot. Someone want to get me a ballot. If I had a ballot, I had Lamar on there. One, I mean, what they did today, and I know it's the commander's defense, they're stringing together 90-yard drives like, you know, it's like it's a Wednesday practice or something. I mean, he could not miss

today. They had eight possessions. They scored on six of them. They had 28 first down, 484 yards. He's just dicing opponents up from the pocket, 20 for 26 for 323 yards. I mean, this Ravens offense, like, if you were thinking the moves they've, made over the last two seasons here. Todd Munkin was one of them. And then Derek Henry, this offseason. If you were thinking of like the best case scenario, I think you pretty much saw that today where teams do not want to tackle Derek Henry. As the game goes on, go watch those commanders defenders. He has 132 yards. Zay Flowers was terrific in this game. Rashad Bateman had big catches in this game. Mark Andrews looked more like Mark Andrews in this

game. Finally, like it's all coming together. Lamar Jackson right now is third in EPA per pass play. And he's eighth in the entire NFL in rushing yards. These are silly numbers. And it's so funny thinking back to when they were 0 and 2. Now it's like this season could have be going any better for them specifically offensively. So I think just, you know, I don't want to get bored with like how well Lamar Jackson is playing, Deonté, because what he did today. And the margin fair wasn't great.

We'll get to the commanders in a minute. But like if they aren't as sharp as they were today offensively, they might lose that game. but they just, every time the commanders had something, they came back and had a scoring drive. The best piece of it to me watching Lamar the last two weeks is, against Cincinnati, you saw in response to pressure looks very well, exotic looks very well. Washington didn't throw exotic looks at them as much as just a lot of tight coverage, right?

And to me, my biggest question mark for this offense is, is there going to be an answer with getting guys open downfield when you don't have a go-to ex-receiver type that goes out and wins on the boundary? when you see teams that want to play tight coverage. And today was a great step in the right direction. Obviously, the commander secondary isn't going to inspire a lot of confidence in relation to the rest of the league. But I do like the fact that Rashad Bateman was able to get loose in a way that,

you know, earlier in the year, I was texting buddies of mine like, hey, man, what's it going to take for this thing to work between Bateman and Lamar? Right. And I think that now we're starting to see some hints at what he can be as that X receiver. You see Zayflowers working in the middle. of the field. And I think that Todd Monkin at this stage now has a different level of confidence and understanding at what Lamar does well in the pocket. And you really see them leaning on the things that he does best, which is working the middle of field from the pocket. He has always been

underrated, I think, in that facet of his game throughout his career. And this was another great opportunity for people to watch what he can do when he's in full command. And like you said, this year has probably been the best that I've ever seen him play. And it would be hard to be better than he was in 2019. He's on pace for 4,300 passing yards and 1,100 rush yards. We've never seen numbers like that. We've never seen numbers like that. If he doesn't win MVP, it's because we're tired of voting for him for MVP.

It would be his third MVP in like his last four fully healthy seasons, I think. Maybe his last three fully healthy seasons. He wins MVP every time he plays a full season. And like this, the one concern is still the offensive line because we saw what that did to the team over the first two weeks and we saw it against teams that can capitalize on those issues. We haven't really seen them play another team like that. So, like, I don't know what's going to happen when this offense isn't playing on the front foot like it did today in Washington. Like you said, Shield, like, it did whatever it wanted.

Just marched down the field. The only time I really lost the ball was when they couldn't hold on to it. Mark Andrews, a ball bounces off his hands, gets intercepted. There was a botched snap that kind of killed the drive and made them settle for three. But other than that, up and down the field, they average over three points per possession, just nine drives in this one. and they get 30 points off it, just one total turnover for the entire game. This was like a well-played game on both sides of the ball, and that's what stood out to me,

which is how competitive this game was in a rivalry that we really don't have any memories from, even though there should be more hate, because there's certainly a lot of hate between the Washington and Baltimore sports fans. I've been around in my whole life. There's definitely some resentment there. And I think over the next decade, we could see this rivalry kind of take off if these two quarterbacks or what we think they will be. Obviously, Lamar is already there. But Jaden Daniels, I thought this was maybe his most impressive and meaningful performance to date. Yeah, speak on that because I was going to take it there next.

So go ahead, expand on that. He was 20 for 35 for 269 yards and two touchdowns. I think I agree with you, but I want to hear what you have to say about it first. Yeah, yeah. We talked about this last week. We hadn't really seen the offense play left-handed yet. We hadn't seen a defense take away their early down stuff and forced them to play on third and long. And that happened in this game.

The commanders couldn't run the football. They had zero explosive plays in the run game for the first time all year. They had a 0% success rate running the ball in the red zone, which, you know, stalls out a bunch of drives. They couldn't run, and they were forcing Jadenials to play from the pocket. He only had four scrambles in this game. It was his lowest scramble rate all season long. And the past game was still productive, at least when they weren't pressured. Like Daniels had his worst game under pressure in this one because the Ravens were able to keep them in the

pocket. But he moved the ball. Whenever Washington needed him to make a throw, he made the throw. The throw was on target. It gave the receiver a chance. I think he completed nearly 70% of his passes for the fourth time this season. And it felt like he could have completed more because every throw gave his receiver a chance. It was a good performance. I know it's a tough loss for Washington. And you really wanted that like signature win for the program. But God, I would be feeling really good about this game. I would not be feeling good about that defense though. because the Ravens just like did the same thing over and over again. I don't know how many in breaking routes the Ravens caught in this game,

but it just seemed like the middle of the field was a free-for-all. And Dan Quinn, like never adjusted. Like it's hard to adjust when it's Derek Henry and Lamar Jackson in the backfield. But you got to do something, man. Yeah, that's how I almost give everybody like a Mulligan against the Ravens. I don't know what the right answer is, especially with their person. I'm with you. Try different stuff.

But have Chris Jones. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You have guys up front who can just dominate. that's one. But man, I'm with you with Jaden Daniels. I thought he was fantastic in this game.

Like he's, they ran 18 times for 52 yards. So you couldn't run the ball. You're playing from behind. You're facing a team that if you like make mistakes, they're just going to run away with it. Your defense couldn't get a stop. And they're just in that game the entire time going back and forth. I thought he was he making throws on the move. He's making high degree of difficulty throws. He's a really smart player. Like he had a he had he like dirted the ball. I think was the end of the first half, I want to say, and Romo had a good call out. Like, with the clock where it is right now, the guy was wide open, but he's like, you complete that pass and all of a sudden you have to use a timeout where time is ticking. Like he, he seems to be processing, knowing game situation

really, really quickly. I'm with you. I wrote the same thing down. I would feel great after this loss if I was a commander's fan. Like, wait, our quarterback can do that on the road against the team that's playing as well as any team in the NFL right now. And look at, I mean, I just look at the box score every week. And this is no shade to any of these players. But yes, Terry McClaren is a very good wide receiver. The other leading target getters for the Washington commanders, Noah Brown, Zach Ertz, Austin Eccler, Olamadee, Zakias. These were all players who were available for very low, reasonable salaries this offseason. This is who he's working with. And he's first in the NFL in EPA per pass play. Last two weeks, he goes up against Jim Schwartz and then this Ravens' defense.

and the game Deonté has not looked like, you know, it doesn't look like stuff's moving too fast for him. It doesn't look like the stage is too big for him. He just, I hate to use the cliches of like calm and poise, but man, I get excited every time I've watched him this season. A couple of weeks ago when you were saying like, hey, if this keeps up, Jane Downs has got to be in the MVP conversation and we were offering pushback. A lot of that was because I wanted to see how he would react when game script was not in his favor, when the down and distance situations was not in his favor. and I'm blown away that we did not see any bad habits crop up. The fact that he has been as good with his ball security as he's been under pressure has probably been the biggest revelation to this point.

Outside of a bad interception against Cleveland last week, I mean, even being under pressure today, knowing that you've got a lot of zone coverage, a lot of changing looks on the back end, the fact that he did stay poised, played calm, played as quickly as he could, trying to move to his progressions. I thought that for as little scrambling as he did see,

I thought that he was wise with how he managed the pocket and tried to avoid making bad situations worse. I have nothing negative to say about him. I think if there's one thing to note, and this is something that I've been kind of looking at since week two when they really started heating up, this is the number one offense and passing EPA in the open field. And for people who don't understand field zones,

that's basically like from the minus 11 to the plus 25, right, is what you would consider the open field. They're the number one offensive passing EPA in that situation. But once you get into the red zone, they're 21st in EPA per dropback, 21st to completion percentage at 51%, and their 19th in success rate in the passing game at 40%. I don't think that that's totally a reflection on Daniels. I think that that speaks to some of the things that Stephen called out on our Friday show about this offense giving them a lot of easy buttons when you've got the whole field in front of you

and some of Cliff Kingsbury's issues that come up when teams are, able to play a little bit tighter when you're going to see a little bit more pressure. Seems they're going to play a little bit more aggressively. But I do think for Daniels, and this is something to look at that I'm interested to see how he responds to over this middle stretch of the season is, how does he use his legs in those situations? Because Washington did leave some points on the field today against Baltimore. There's a field goal that they have to take early where you were driving.

You had an opportunity to get six. You miss out there. The fact that they couldn't run the ball this week, you could really feel. it in those tight spaces when you get into the red zone and you're trying to back Baltimore off of you. So I am interested to see how this offense grows from there, but specific to Jay and Daniels, I mean, outside of that one little note, man, there's really not much to complain about in his game right now. And I would say he's pretty clearly the rookie of the year, unless something significant happens before the end of October. He did take some hits today, which, you know, I thought

he's actually done a much better job of that than I was anticipating based on what we saw at LSU last year, but yeah, this was a game where, I mean, early on, Kyle Hamilton, you know, when they were running that bootlegging, Kyle Hamilton was right there and drilled him and he completed the past, completing the past, good. Those kinds of hits, obviously, you know, that was just one example. There were some other ones, too, but yeah, if you're a commander's fan, you are having an exciting, exciting season. All right, we'll take a break. We come back and we will plant our flags. What are we planning our flags on after week six? We'll get to that in a minute.

All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. I'll start us off. Where are we planting our flag? For new listeners, this is what we do in the second segment. Just have a take after what you saw. My take, I'm going to keep it real predictable. The Nick Siriani era is over. And you're saying, what are you talking about?

I didn't really have eyes on that game. I thought the Eagles won that game. No, they won the game. They beat the Browns 20 to 16. after the game, Nick Siriani is just, having gesturing to fans behind. They're playing a home game, mind you. He's gesturing to fans behind the Eagles bench.

You don't know exactly what he said, but it was kind of like, what are you going to say now? We won the game type of interaction, which in of and of itself, it's like, come on, man, you got to grow up. You went over this last year.

You know what the owner doesn't approve of this type of behavior. You have that. Then he has what could only be described. as one of the more bizarre press conferences I've seen from an Eagles head coach in my lifetime. And I do not say that lightly. I mean, he was all over the place in this press conference saying a few different things. Like one, he said he made the play call on a third and one sack at the end of the first half that kind of shifted the game.

Now, for those who don't know, Kellynne Moore is the offensive coordinator and the play caller. Siriani has been stripped of all his duties with the offense. but I guess in that moment, he felt like he wanted to make the play call. Then he volunteers information that he made a defensive play call with Vic Fangio as your defensive coordinator. He said, again, Siriani volunteered this information that he made a call on defense that did not work out. Another point in the press conference, he was asked about some red zone possession.

And he said he had his head down on a third and eight so he didn't really see it. And he doesn't know why he does that, but he did that. Listen, I don't, I don't. What else are you supposed to be looking at in a football game as a head football coach? A head football who's not calling supposed to be calling offensive plays or defensive plays. I don't know. I don't know what you're supposed to be looking at. But, you know, the fact of the matter is this was just some kind of boring October win that you have in the course of a season where you say, hey, it wasn't pretty.

But a win is a win. You're three and two. You're coming off your by. You're just staying in the mix. but from the time the clock hit zero to when that press conference ended, Nick Siriani became the story again. It's been almost every week this season. He is making himself the story.

A lot of times it's with in-game decision stuff. This is what happened afterwards. So my previous stance was that the Eagles were going to have kind of a ho-hum season. It wasn't going to be good enough and he was going to be fired after the season. I really don't know now if he's going to last this season. If this is what you're looking like coming out of the season, of the buy and you're already having these issues, even after the team wins. I can't imagine ownership is looking at this saying, we feel confident that he's going to be our leader of the

future. So Deonti, I know you were plugged in to some of this. I feel like you were budding your tongue there. You just wanted to yell at four different moments as I was talking. But this is like it feels like a new low in what has been a season of lows for the head coach. We have to look at a pattern of behavior because this isn't just an isolated incident, right? You go back to the Falcons game on Monday night. have an opportunity to put that game away. You come out and you try to push the ball on a third down instead of running it to allow the clock to run and put yourself in a better position to kick a field goal or go for it on a fourth and shorter, presumably, obviously assuming that Sequin Barkle would gain yards there. You come back to next week against New Orleans.

I think they had a tush push failure that he said that he made the call on. And now you have this instance, and it's not just what you said. there's also chirping at Denzel Ward and Greg Newsom. For reasons that are still unknown to me, you have the face in the crowd and giving them the what for after a nail-biting kind of win over a team that we think is probably about as a drift as there is in the NFL in Cleveland right now. And then I guess my favorite part about it is a pregame,

he comes in with the shaved head, neon red flag. We're already talking about a guy that is probably not in the best place. right now mentally and emotionally. And then I think if there's one thing I will give him credit for after this just disaster of managing the sideline, something by the way that the team owner has already flagged as an issue and something that is not his favorite characteristic in his head coach right now, instead of facing any of those tough questions and just saying like, hey, here's the exact process.

He's dodging things. And then the best part about it is he brings all his kids to the presser as like, hey, man, you know, got my meat shields with me. You wouldn't want to hurt my feelings when I'm sitting here in front of my baby boys. You wouldn't want to hurt me now, would you? So to me, and I think you said this, I know we joked about it before the show talking about coaches getting fired

after a winning effort. But man, I just don't know if you're Jeffrey Lurie and you're Howie Roseman and you're meeting at the start of this week talking about the outlook for this team, how can you say that your head coach has the answers? When it is so clear to me that he is struggling to do the things that he has been. been tasked to do, which is pretty simple.

It's just managing the game and making sure that this team is executing the way that it needs to be. And you can look at it, whether it's game management by analytics, you can look at the way that they've managed this roster. You can look at their usage of guys or the lack thereof. And the results that we're seeing are just not inspiring enough. And this just feels like different means to the same end as last season when this team was winning close games.

And everybody who understood what they were looking at was saying that. this is a paper tiger and this team feels like a paper tiger again, which you should never feel that way when you have a guy like AJ Brown or Sequin Barclay or this offensive line in your employ. So I don't know how they continue on with this guy. I'm just imagining Siriani just like shaping his head and never breaking high contact with the reflection in the mirror as he was doing it, just like a sad, the saddest haircut you can imagine. I'm ready to see Big Dom coach this team at this point. I mean, it can't be any worse. Even this game, like it was the game that we kind of predicted The game plan should be just throw it up to those superstar receivers you have on the outside and like hope it works a couple times and then you score.

And that's exactly what happened. Like, AJ Brown is the is the coach of this team basically. MVP, coach, whatever you want to say. You save them in multiple instances today. So it's as weird and as bad a feeling as you can have about a three and two team in the NFL, I think, unless I'm forgetting somebody. All right. I feel like both coaches in this game were like, man, I'm glad I'm not that guy. That guy, right?

At least I don't have it as bad as that guy. And I don't know if either one of them is telling the truth in that situation. Well, listen, Deontay and I have speculated that maybe one guy might become the other guy next season. Listen, just plant that away depending on how these two seasons go. Kevin Sopansky, Philadelphia native. All right, Ruiz, what do you got? What are you planning your flag on this week? This is not going to come to as a surprise to anybody on this podcast or anybody.

listening to, but I've seen enough of Derek Carr. Like, I don't need to see any more Derek Carr starts this year. The Saints are two and four. They've lost four games in a row. Spencer Radler made his first start today. And while they ended up getting blown out by the Bucks, I thought Rattler looked like he belonged in the NFL. Like, he belonged as a starter.

Like, if he would have told me this was a first round rookie quarterback and is making his first start against, you know, playoff competition. And Todd Bowles isn't the easiest assignment. I know he has his lows with this defense. But when Todd Bowles is like pitching on it, he's on a heater, really hard to play against them.

And I thought Rattler really competed for the first, about three quarters of the game. And then the wheels fell off. And he threw some ugly picks. He made some dumb plays. But at the same time, that's almost endearing when, like, you're comparing him to Derek Carr, who we complain, doesn't do enough of that when the team is down. Like, when the chips are down, he just kind of folds. The one thing I'll say about Rattler in this game, he didn't fold. He kept trying.

He was making plays outside of the pocket. He was throwing down field, throwing it into tight windows. And I thought he did a good job of like executing Clint Kubiak's offense early on in the game, like doing the play action, the boot stuff. He was competent in that area. And now that the season seems to be over, obviously Carr is going to miss the next couple games. So Rattler's going to get a chance anyway. I just if they're like two and six, two and seven, what's the point of going back to Carr? You know that's not the future in New Orleans.

And maybe there's an outside chance that Rattler is. I think he's shown enough to at least, you know, warn a chance. The point that you made about him looking like a first, like a guy that they maybe took a chance. chance on in the first round is the exact note that I had, especially towards the end of the first half, right, when you kind of started heating up in the dropback game, not just with the play action passes, but being able to create space in the pocket, being able to get outside the pocket or outside of structure, you see the armed talent really flashed in those moments. And I think that that was what was able to keep this team in the game. I think that this

was probably going to be a big Saints loss no matter what. In the second that Tampa Bay kind of reclaimed their hold of the game in the third quarter, you could see that New Orleans didn't have enough answers to stay within reach. But I think for the most part, man, you come away from this. If you're Spencer Rattler, if you're that offensive staff, feeling like, hey, you know, if we're going to have these offensive line issues and guys are going to be in and out of the lineup and we're going to be missing a tackle here, a guard here, our center is nicked and bruised up. You probably want a quarterback like Rattler running this thing because he never folded in terms

of pushing the ball down the field. He was looking to be aggressive at every turn, even when it did not play out well. And I think that for that reason alone, you should probably look at, like, like Stephen said, if things aren't looking great at the end of October, just roll. Just keep it rolling with this young guy. Give him an opportunity to prove that he can give you something. And if not, this was probably just going to be a lost quarterback room no matter what. Yeah, they're two and four on the season now.

Like you mentioned, Ruiz, it seems like only yesterday. We were talking about the, you know, saints getting off to a hot start. But Rattler goes 22 for 40 for 243 yards, a touchdown. two interceptions, five sacks. I mean, we have to remember what, you know, rookie quarterbacks generally look like that. Like that is a respectable line for a rookie quarterback making his first career start.

Yeah, down 17, nothing to start the game. So negative game script, the whole game, basically. Exactly. Yeah, then they scored 27 points in the second quarter. They had four consecutive drives where they scored two were short, short drives, but they put together two long drives there in the second quarter. And then you mentioned it in the second half. I mean, their defense couldn't get a stop.

They're giving up 51 points, but you score 27. So enough there to like sometimes you just got to pass the like, oh, this could be really, really, really, really, really bad test. And it feels like he at least he passed that test and maybe more with this start. So anytime you have a young quarterback adds a little juice, I think juice is the word, Derek Carver or Spencer, you know, new blood and Spencer Rattler versus Old Blood and Derek Carr, which option is going to give your season. a little more juice if you're a Saints fan. I think it's obviously got to be Spencer Rattler. Deontay, what do you got? You know, I'm really glad that we did all the Jaden Daniels talk early,

so that way all the commander fans can be pleased with, you know, me kind of giving my praises in that direction. Because the flag that I'm planting here is, rookie of the year or not, the way that Caleb Williams is playing the quarterback position right now gives the Chicago Bears a legitimate shot to contend for the NFC. And I think that today was a great opportunity. I think to show the growth between what we saw in September and what we're seeing now.

One of two of the things that he's really struggled with up to this point in the year has been taking sacks that he didn't need to take and forcing the ball in ways that he didn't need to against tight coverage. And if there's one thing that we know about Ryan Nelson is that he likes to play man and he wants to use big bodies up front to try to make the quarterback uncomfortable. And I think that Caleb Williams handled himself probably his best that he has all game, even if the numbers as far as yardage does not reflect that. I thought that he was great in the red zone against tight man coverage. That's where you can really see the changing of arm agals,

the ability to extend and get away from pressure, being able to force the ball up the sideline or in the seams, versus a closing defender. And then I think in the open field, what you saw was some sack avoidance that we didn't see earlier in the year. And a lot of that comes back to being decisive, knowing when to tuck the ball and run. I thought we saw some really good Caleb Williams scrambles.

And I think that now that they've got a little bit more complimentary football happening around him in terms of building on this run game, having Keenan and Allen healthy to give him another outlet to get the ball out quickly to, we're starting to see the Chicago Bears team that we maybe, you know, kind of talked about potentially being a sleeper in the NFC. That's exactly what this team looks like right now. And basically since the end of that Texans game, we've been looking at a quarterback operating on a pretty high level. I feel like so much of the talk, especially before the draft and over the first couple weeks when he struggled, is about how he extends plays and holds onto the ball. But the thing that's been most impressive to me, especially over the last couple weeks, is how quickly from the moment he decides to make a throw to the moment it gets to the receiver's hands, how quick that is. It's like an instant. I think that that's the thing that stood out is his quick game accuracy, not only like where he's placing the ball, but how quickly he's getting the ball there and the pace he puts on the ball. that's true armed talent.

There are quarterbacks in this league that can throw a bullet, but they have to put their whole body into it, and they sacrifice precision to get the ball there in a hurry. I think Baker Mayfield is probably the best example out of anybody. Kirk Cousins is another person who, you know, gets off his center line and his head is going to the side because he's putting so much in the throws just to get it out to the sidel. But not with Caleb.

Like, it's there in an instant. It's like, you remember those like old thing? I don't know. They might still have them, but like the drive-through ATMs at the bank where like they have a little capsule that goes up the tube and shoots back to the bank tell. That's like how he throws the football and delivers the football in the quick game. It's amazing to watch.

Caleb Williams was in 23 for 29, 226 yards. But I think the more important question we have to make an executive decision on here, is Shane Waldron off a fraud watch after this game or not yet? I thought this was a, I'll give my take. I thought this was a nice combination of Caleb Williams playing really well, them scheming up some nice stuff offensively. And then the defense, I mean, their defense was. down some other, you know, good players, and you wouldn't have known it from that performance.

Like that, that is a defense that just shows up week after week after week, and it just seems really tough to play against that defense. So I'm with you, Deonti, that this felt like a complete sort of game that they had been searching for this season. And really, you could make the case that it's been back-to-back weeks here. This offensive performance, based on EPA per drive, was not only the best offensive performance by any team in week six, the bear's best offensive performance since 2018. So if you're a Bears fan looking to get excited about Caleb Williams, this is his what? Fifth game, it's week six of his rookie season, and it's better than you've, anything

you've produced in the last five seasons. That's pretty exciting. But come on, Diarte, Walter, Walter was pretty good today, right? Ruiz was shaking his head. I'm not going to say that he's a good play caller now, but I will say he's off a fraud watch because we're starting to see more Romo Dense getting, getting targets in the middle of the field. And if there's one reason not to take him off Rod Watch, it's the fact that it required getting Keenan Allen back at this age for him to kind of suss out how to deploy his collection

of receivers. But I do think that now that he has his full complement of guys, and we've seen breakouts from DJ Moore that lets you know, like, okay, Shane Waldron does understand how to get a dynamic athlete like DJ Moore, the ball on the move. You see Roma Dunes, they work in the middle of the field, working the ball in tight windows, you know, and giving him some ball, winning opportunities on the perimeter as well. And then having Keenan Allen as that kind of third down, third and short, quick outlet. You know, we saw that fourth and three late in the game for them to seal it to speak to

what Stevens bringing up with Caleb Williams' velocity. He's able to pin that ball on a guy like Keenan Allen. And they're really not, for all the issues that you might have with Keenan Allen's athleticism, there are not a lot of guys in the league that are better at making like a contested hands catch on a ball with that kind of velocity than Keenan. And I think that from Walton's perspective, it's got to get. give him some relief to know that he has that available to him and that you have a rookie quarterback who understands how to use the guys that are that are playing around him on the perimeter.

This is a good Colcomit game as well. So like I said, I think that in terms of complimentary football, they found something in the run game the last two weeks. These have definitely been some softer fronts that they've been running into, basically from the Colts game on. But I do think that they're finding some things for DeAndre Swift and Roshan Johnson. and now that you're seeing Caleb Williams really tamped down on the negative plays, you're starting to see a football team that can beat you in multiple ways,

which is something that we've been harping on this show. This is one of those teams that I think is starting to show that they're capable of winning games more so than just, hey, getting to the quarterback on the defensive end, forcing turnovers the ways that they have been this year. They can run the ball a little bit, and I think that they're spreading the love in the passing game in a way that should be really, really encouraging if you're a Bears fan. Yeah, the level of competition is the reason I was kind of, of hesitant to take them off a fraud watch.

But now that I'm looking at their schedule coming up, I'm rescinding my skepticism. They get Dan Quinn after a buy. They get the Cardinals defense. I've already been on record with my feelings on the Cardinals defense, which didn't look any better today against the Packers. And then they get the Patriots defense that just almost gave up 50 points to Bobby Sloick. Another Fraud Watch member.

So I don't know. They could go on a run here. And in a month when they played the Packers in mid-November, I think that could be a huge game. I wouldn't be surprised if the bears are, what are they? Seven and two if they win those three games. They can be in the hunt for the NFC North coming in going into November. That NFC North is wild right now.

I mean, Vikings are undefeated. Lions looked fantastic. Packers looked really good today. They're in last place. The Packers are in last place with a top 10 defense of the top 10 offense by EPA. Yeah. And they look awesome today. They blew the Cardinals out.

So NFC North, a lot to be determined. in the weeks ahead, but nice win, complete win for the Chicago Bears in London. All right, we'll be back in a minute to hand out some awards. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. It is awards time. I'm excited. I feel like we're going to have some good ones today. You know, we hit on some key games, but we didn't get to all of them.

This is the portion of the show. We can hand out award superlatives for anything we want. Most of mine just don't make sense at all, but that's okay. It's just a way to get a takeoff where you need to get a takeoff where you need to get takeoff. All right, Ruiz, start us off. What do you got? What's your first award? For a second straight week, I'm giving the Patriots the look, I get it award. Last week I gave it to him for holding Drake May out. And then obviously they went against that in name of the starter a couple days later. But now that I've seen him play in this mess of a Patriots offense, I get it now.

I get why they replaced Jacoby Brissette with him. He made this offense look viable for the first time in a few weeks. And he threw three touchdowns against the Texans. And on an offense that's very overmatched, Jacoby Brissette had two touch. all season long. So he's already passed him a touchdown bass in one game against the toughest competition, arguably, to date. And if you could survive and look decent and look like you belong, like I said about Spencer Radler against that defensive line and that pass rush and that defensive coordinator, then, yeah, you might as well start the rest of the year.

And we don't need to see any more Jacoby percent. There you go. Drake Maytime. He was 20 for 33, 243 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions, four sack. So, yeah, I mean, that... He didn't completely beat the Sam Darry. Arnold allegations. I will say that. He looked a little darnoldish in this game at times. Remind the people, what are the Sam Donald allegations? You know, overthrowing passes running into sacks, a couple of bad interceptions. But no, he settled into this game and he looked a lot more comfortable in the second half. And once he got into a rhythm, the offense, like I said,

looked viable. When's the last time a Patriots passing game has looked viable? Yeah, it has not looked viable all season long. And again, it gives you your Patriots fan, give you some juice for the rest of the season. At least you get to watch your rookie quarterback. All right, Deonte, what do you got? What's your first award? I've got one from the same game from the opposite side. This is the Deonté was right all along award, and I'm giving this to Will Anderson because I had to hear so many times throughout the draft process for him. How is he going to generate pressure?

He's not a bender. He doesn't do this. He doesn't do that. This was another opportunity for me to really drive the point home that right now, I just think these high motor guys, these high motor pass rushers are the ones who were seeing win on a down-and-down basis. I think that obviously there are some things as far as like work ethic with him and just twitchiness and how he gets out of his stance. It's a little bit unique to him. But at the end of the day, this guy isn't winning with the kind of pass rush moves that you're going to see, you know, clip together and put together for an edit for some pass rush specialist coach, you know, to try to replicate with his high school and college level kids. This is just a guy who knows how to win.

And you saw that today. I would say the Houston all the way across the board, they had barely clearly picked out. the fish and it was a new england's right tackle today we saw just about everybody get a quarterback hit who lined up across from new england's right tackle today and that's obviously been an issue for them throughout the year but i think that if you look at not just today but just this this season so far throughout the first six weeks uh will anderson has been i think the outside of maybe derrick singly has been the linchpin of houston's defense and he's playing about as well as anybody in the league on that side of the ball it's block destruction that's what i would call he just

destroys blocks. It doesn't matter how it gets it done. And like it applies to the run game and the passing game. And I think like having those two guys on the edges and Daniel Hunter also, it raises the ceiling for this defense so much higher than it was last year. What a box score for Will Anderson. Eight tackles, six solo, three sacks, four tackles for loss, a pass defended and three quarterback hits. Just filled up every category there. Because when you were describing that, Deonti, I was thinking, all right, well, I don't have an award. I don't know if you guys have an award for T.J. Watt. I don't have an award for T.J. Watt, but that's like a similar, you know, even when he was coming out, it's like, what's the best version of it? It might be kind of cheap T.J. Wattish. And T.J. Watt was just dominating that game. His box score doesn't look quite as good as well. But he just had a ridiculous forced fumble when that game was actually competitive. And the Raiders were driving. And he's having a phenomenal season as well. So there you go. Some love for Will Anderson and a little love for T.J. Watt. All right, my first award.

The put the PBR Away Award, PBR Away Award, goes to Jaguar's defensive coordinator, Ryan Nielsen. The hipsters have loved this guy, you know, for two years. Ryan Nielsen, oh my gosh, you know, I know their metrics aren't good, but you got to see what Ryan Nielsen is doing with the Falcons. Oh, he's replacing Mike Caldwell in Jacksonville. It's going to be an upgrade.

He's even got the mustache. He's playing into the hipster bit with that mustache. He's got, he's been growing up. all season long. But the problem is, this defense is Garbanzo beans. I know they don't have a lot of players. I know they've had injuries. This defense stinks.

They had the worst defensive performance of the week in both EPA per drive and success rate on the season. They are 31st in EPA per drive. I say, Nielsen, you got to shave the stash until the defense starts playing better. You can't have the stash and be the stash guy on the sidelines, not in the booths. So the cameras keep going to him. And it's just like Ronald Darby just got called for his seventh, you know, penalty on this drive. Is anyone coaching this team? What is happening with this defense?

So, Ryan Nielsen, no PBRs, no flannels for you. Andre Sisko said after the game, it felt like the team quit. Oh, did he really? I didn't see that. He said, you could see a lot from my perch. He said, I'm the last line of the defense. You could feel when a defense has given up. And early on in the first half, it felt like there was a whole lot of quitting, was quote.

And then in the press conference, Doug Peterson's like, I'll say one thing about our guys, they never quit. And then his safety is starting safeties in the other room going, yeah, we quit in the second quarter. Yeah, I could tell. Yeah, even when it's obvious that a team is quitting, a player never says that the team actually quit. So that is not a good sign as the Jaguars prepare for yet another London game against the Patriots next week. All right, Ruiz, what do you got? What's your next award?

All right, I'm going to give Dennis Allen the worst timeout of the week award. And honestly, this time out didn't really end up hurt. hurting the Saints because they ended up getting blown out by the bucks. But the bucks are up by 10 points. They're driving. They're on the four yard line, four yards away from a touchdown. It's first and goal. The Saints have 12 men on the field. And for some reason, Dennis Allen decides he wants to call a timeout to prevent the 12 men on the field penalty, which would have cost them two yards. They're down by double digits in the fourth quarter needing every timeout they can get. And he's burned one to save two yards. That is horrible. I don't understand it. That's the

worst time out of the week. That's the worst time out of the season. He has a history of those moves. Yeah, he is not. I would not say he's among the best game managers in the NFL. So I like that one quite a bit. You know, I had one from that. Do you have one from that game? Deonti, otherwise I got one from that game that I'll just follow up.

No, that's all you. Should we be taking them more seriously a word? The Tampa Bay Bucks. I don't know. You guys tell me they had 594 yards of offense today. Most by any team in a game this season. And I feel like we fluctuate on Liam Cohen kind of weekend and week out. But I would say overall, it's been an upgrade and it's been a pretty good experience.

So the Bucks right now, I mean, they look like a very good team. I mean, the game they lost last week was against the Falcons where, you know, they're in control of that game late and they kind of blow it there. But overall, Tampa Bay is four and two with a plus 37 point differential. you know, if you're not an NFC North team, that's really good in the NFC. So Ruiz, what do you think? This version of the Tampa Bay buck, should we be taking them more

seriously? I have an award for Liam Cohen. I'm going to give him the, all right, I see where this is going and I'm going to nip it in the bud right now award. Because Baker Mayfield almost blew this game in the second quarter. They're up by 17 and then he throws three interceptions in the second quarter alone and lets the Saints get back into it and take a leap. He almost

do a fourth on the two-minute drill at the end of the half. In the second half, Liam Cohen said, yeah, you're not losing this game, Baker. They run for 220 yards in the second half alone. 220 yards. They finished with 277. Baker in the second half through six passes. He was five for six.

Four of them were behind the line of scrimmage. On those four plays, they average 20 yards per play. That's a good offensive coordinator right there. That's an old Sean McVeigh. I'm not letting Jericho do a thing in this game type coordinator. That's some Jimmy G. and Kyle Shanning type coordinating right there. I like the framing of this question because to me I do want to believe when I watch them on a week-by-week basis right? This is one of the few teams in the league where I feel like I'm not watching,

I'm not always watching them beginning to end, but when I do check in, I'm like, man, these guys are moving the ball. Yeah, me too. Same exact same thing. I 100% agree. Because Goddard looks great right now. It looks like they're finding something in the run game. And I think that this is something Stevens brought up with Sam Donald, right? I think that Sam Donald has been the ringer NFL quarterback of the guy that has that bozo in him. I don't know if there are many guys who have more of that bozo in them than Baker Mayfield, especially when he gets pressured. So the fact that they've been able to move the ball

in spite of Baker Mayfield having bad games, I would say, in at least half of their six. So far this year, I think speaks really well to what they've got in terms of an offensive play caller in Liam Cohen. Baker Mayfield is like the Todd Bulls of quarterbacks to me. Like the highs are so high and you can talk yourself into like this guy being a top 10 guy. Like when the Bucks defense is going good, it looks like you can't score a point on it.

I remember that Bucks are the Chief Super Bowl when they just completely dominated Andy Reed in that offense. But the lows are really low. And you saw the lows in this game and the highs with Baker Mayfield. And it's just so hard to trust a quarterback like that. And like as optimistic as I am about Liam Cohen going forward, we haven't seen it for a full year yet. What's going to happen if defenses adjust and take away what they're doing right now, which is a lot of throws behind the line of scrimmage? It's almost like as impressive as that 49ers offense last.

Last year when Brock Ferdie was averaging like nine yards per attempt on throws beyond the line of scrimmage, Baker is right there this year. And we gave Kyle Shanahan all the flowers in the world last year. And he was working with a team of all-stars. I mean, Tampa Bay's roster is very good, but it's nowhere close to what they had in San Francisco last year. And it looks just as good. But what happens when they have to go to a plan B and maybe Baker struggling? And they can't run the football as well as they did. They can't run for 200 yards in the second half.

Then I'll have my questions about the ceiling of this team. Yeah, Mayfield's average pass is going 5.6 area yards past the line of scrimmage, and they have a top seven or eight offense based on the metrics you look at. All right, so the fact that I started that conversation with, should we be taking them more seriously? And it led to, should he be in the running for got that bozo in him, quarterback of the show? I think that probably answers our question there.

All right. Deonti, what do you got? My next one, I feel like this is when I flagged on the Friday show as well. My I can't watch this anymore. Award goes to Bo Nix and this Broncos passing offense. This is not, I brought up the fact that he's like the worst in terms of passing EPA. Even when you remove sacks, even when you remove interceptions, he is still the worst. And he put up another master class of bad quarterbacking in the first half of Sunday's game against the Chargers,

three for 10, 22 yards, and an interception, which would be the worst for most quarterbacks in this league so far, if not for the fact that he once completed seven passes for negative seven yards a couple of weeks ago against the Jets defense. He's by far the worst in terms of passing EPA in the first half in the league, and he's 38th out of the 42 quarterbacks that have played this year in success rate on first half dropbacks. So, I mean, it's just, it's not tenable. You can't compete this way. he clearly does not eat he has no he has no interest in trying to push the ball down the field he does not want to work the ball in the tight windows if he does it's usually one of those chuck and duck hey i'm just flinging the ball 40 yards downfield and hoping that court and sudden comes down with it types of throws and you just can't run offense this way and i can't watch this anymore i'm not i'm not the guy that is always here ready to slam quarterbacks but this is one where i can't pretend i can't pretend and sean peyton can't can't make me, and I can't believe that we allowed him to get through the offseason without

ridiculing him on every single podcast for saying he felt as strongly about Bo Nix as he did about Patrick Holmes. I am that guy that comes in and bash his quarterbacks, but I'm going to give Bo Nix a little bit of defense here. Wow. This is the most unexpected Ringer NFL moment of 2024. Let's go. I'm excited. It happens. But I mean, this is what the Sean Payton offense has looked like no matter who his quarterback has been over the last couple of years. And yes, he's had some very flawed quarterbacks and some quarterbacks who are very willing to play this punchless style of offense, going to Russell Wilson, Tassum Hill before him, Teddy Bridgewater. These aren't like the most ambitious quarterbacks in terms of throwing downfield. But at a certain point, you have to

look at the common denominator. And it's been Sean Payne for five years, at least now. And sure, Bo Nix wasn't willing to push it downfield very much at Oregon, but you would hope coaching would help that and would give him the confidence to throw down field. And we haven't seen it at all. I don't see the benefit Sean Payton is providing with his rookie quarterback right now. And he's supposed to be the QB whisper. To that point about coaching, when Bo Nix was at Oregon, he did not have a sack problem.

He did not have issues with drifting into pressure the way that he is now. He was not, for as risk of versus he was at Oregon, I also thought that when the structure of the offense gave him an opportunity to attack a one on one or to push the ball downfield off of play action. That was part of the reason why people were asking whether or not he would be viable as a pro was because he had flashed that over his last two seasons at Oregon. There's just none of that right now in Denver. I don't know what kind of coaching he's receiving,

but it is clear that he does not trust whatever is happening deeper than 10 yards in the past progression unless it's Cortland Sutton within a one by one. And right now he's just not pushing the ball accurately and confidently enough, even in those situations to convert, you know, when he does see those in his past progression. So it's not viable. It's not like they have many other options to go to. So I expect to see more bad Bowenick's quarterbacking with this offense.

But it's clear that there is nothing that Denver can do to stay competitive this way. And it's really a shame because that defense has been playing so much better than I think I would have expected coming into the year. And I do think that they could have maybe snuck their way around being a seven to ten to eight and nine football team with the way they've been playing defense if they had any level of competency in the passing game right. I do resent Denver for those two garbage time touchdowns, which cost me a perfect week in our picks. I would have went three and no, but no, Bo Nix had a lead two touchdown drives at the end of the game or whatever it was. Yeah, I mean, and what you said, Deonté about the Broncos defense, I mean, all the graphics about rookie quarterbacks and their records this week. It's like, Vance Joseph has been saving Sean Payton through the first five weeks of the season. I mean, you didn't need to go deep into the metrics to figure out how they were winning games.

Their defense was the reason they were winning games. it had very little or nothing to do with their offense. And so then when your defense doesn't play as well, and the charges were able to move the football a little bit on them, well, now your offense needs to do more and your offense couldn't do anything, just 17 first downs on the day there. All right.

My next one. The coaching master class of the week, and we've given him love before, but I think he deserves it today, goes to Matt LaFleur. If you watch this Packers Cardinals game, I mean, talk about no, resistance from a defense. You know, the Packers had nine real possessions, and they punted once in this

game. 27 first downs, 437 yards. So we know LaFleur is a good offensive play caller. We gave him love, you know, Darlane Malik Willis was in there for two weeks. But a nice reminder that being a head coach is more than just calling plays. And Romeo Dobbs was back in this game. He gets a couple touchdowns, you know, incorporate him. All right, he seems a little bit happier now with the two touchdowns. The defense played well. The special teams played well. I thought this was by far Green Bay's most complete win in the season. This is the team that I was like, all right, I picked this team to go to the Super Bowl. They looked like it today. Now, I was going to predict in my, plant my flag that they're going to go on a run. Their upcoming schedule is not easy. So they're going to have some

measuring stick games, some fun games that I'm looking forward to seeing starting, I think, next week against the Houston Texans. But they've got to be thrilled with where they're at right now. Four and two, If you were wondering, what's he going to look like when he comes back healthy? He's still not taking sacks. He's still making high-level throws. And then he just throws up a prayer. And Romeo Dobbs comes down with it for the touchdown. So it's like all the different elements that you would hope to see from a Packers team came together today.

The Cardinals were able to take away the run game for the Packers. They were able to take away the middle of the field for the most part. And Jordan Love still averaged 0.5 EPA per pass. But this was a team that was forced to play left-handed, like we said. And they were one of the few teams that was able to. to do it and able to do it at such a high level that the game wasn't even competitive for most of the game. So, yeah, I'm really excited about this Packard's team and where it's going, especially after what we saw last year, where it was in the first half of the season, where it was at the end

of the season. And the reason why you're so optimistic that they are going to get better is that the floor. Like, the floor is a top five coach in this league. And like I said last week, I might take them over everyone else in the league at this point. Yeah, no, he's done a fantastic job for the first six weeks. I've got one more unsurious one. This one is called. the Find Some Greener Grass Award, and I am giving that to Max Crosby after the shove of Mike Caldwell coming off the field. What happened? I missed this.

Tell me what happened. I think this is towards the end of the game. Max Crosby is coming off the field, you know, kind of dapping players up as he's getting to the sideline. Mike Caldwell, who is Jackson Bill's former defensive coordinator. Now I think the linebackers coach and run game coordinator for the Raiders tries to give him like that embrace, and it was very similar to the Aaron Rogers, Robert Sala, embrace where the coach thought he was going to get a nice little, hey, man, it's all okay.

I know you're playing hard out there, a hug. And Max Crosby gives him a full force, two-handed shove to get the guy off of him. Obviously, he comes back after the game, tweets, hey, Mike Caldwell is one of the best guys in the league. You're making something out of nothing. And that might be how he actually feels. But if I'm Max Crosby, I might be calling my agent and saying, hey, how desperate is Detroit to replace that edge rusher? Oh, I like that. I like that.

A first, because you're getting, if Max Crosby is getting a first in a trade, you're the Raiders, you're going nowhere, you're going to trade Devante Adams. I mean, I would want to hold on to Max Crosby probably. I mean, he's still so young and he's so productive and he's awesome, but I would answer the phone and find out at least. You got to take the call. Yeah. It'd be funny if he came out, like, after saying in the summer, like, hey, if you guys don't

sign attorney peers, I demand a trade. If he says, if you guys don't fire, my demanded trade, just completely flips on. Yeah, I'm seeing these quotes about Mike Caldwell is a great dude and all that. What a six weeks for pushing your, you know, for pushing a coach in a celebration on the sideline. What a trend to monitor here. Now, I was thinking when I was thinking about who the Lions could trade for because Deonti, you brought this up in the summer. I remember you surprised me on a pod where you were like, Max Crossby.

I'm like, what? Max Crosby can't get traded. He just demanded that Antonio Fierce be the head coach. But as Ruiz said, here we are six weeks in. So who knows? But all right, I like that one. Ruiz, what do you got? What's your last one?

I'm going to give the clutch punter award to Rigobberto Sanchez from the Colts. I don't know if you guys saw this dagger of a punt to put the Titans away, but 22 seconds left. They're on the 40-yard line, their own 40-yard line. He nails a punt on the three-yard line. Not only does he get down, but no, it goes out of bounds. It's a coffin corner. So I looked up these punts.

I wanted to see how many of these dagger punts have happened. My criteria was, last minute of the game, you're up by only one possession, and it has to be down within the three-yard line. Can't be returned. You can't return in and try to like relateral the ball, and then you tackle them. It's only happened 16 times since 2000 for True Media. So this is not something that happens a lot. And only three times since 2000, has it gone out of bounds?

Has it been a coffin corner style kick? So Sanchez, it literally made some history. and you were talking about filling out an MVP ballot earlier, don't forget about this moment when you fill out your MVP ballots. What a, what a punting award. Is this our first punting award? Have we had a punting award before? No, we haven't. And one more fact. What a show.

A 57-yard punt is the longest of any of these little dagger punts since 2000. So it was literally the best one that we've ever seen since the turn of the century. So bravo to Sanchez. What I'm taking for this is for all the time that Stephen spins on quarterbacks, he's really got a defensive coordinator's heart because he's talking about end-to-game puns. to put the game away. That's a man who understands real ball. I thought you were thinking maybe we do some punter rankings.

Oh, hell no. You got the puntilletics Twitter account? I got my hands full of Aiden O'Connell. I'm not doing... You're the punter. All right. Speaking of having a defensive coordinator's heart, this is my last one.

And the award is the trend that needs to be adopted by every OC immediately. We talked about this before. But when you're blowing out the opponent, try to get the big boys a touchdown. This is what Ben Johnson, was doing today. He said, who want Taylor Decker, Penes Sewell, who wants a touchdown? Just calling all kinds of nonsense to try to get these guys a score. Great way to keep me invested in a blowout.

I want to keep watching because I want to see if those guys are going to get a touchdown. So Ben Johnson has been on fire, you know, following up last season, turning down the commanders and other job offers and then coming back and now looking at this lion's offense, that's one of the best in the NFL. But to your point about Ruiz, maybe having a defensive coordinator Soul. I feel like Ben Johnson might because have you, I don't know if you guys have noticed this. He looks mad and crank, cranky every game on the sideline. Like even today, I'm looking at him. I'm like, your team is going up and down the field. Why does this guy look so upset? And I'm like, maybe he's got a defensive coordinator soul. And that's why he's not going to be,

he's not going to be sitting there smiling and like doing celebrations with the player. So maybe he's the defensive coordinator. That really should have been my award. I finally got to it at the end of this show, award for the defensive coordinator's offensive coordinator goes to Ben Johnson. Deontes is our resident defensive coordinator. What do you make of this? I love it. And I think that this is fitting because this is also a guy who, for all the bells and whistles that we talk about in the passing game that he brings to the table, the thing that I love about him most is that he understands. I got big body movers up front. So when it's time to move some bodies, I know what I need to do. And the thing that I loved about them most, you know, and this is probably something.

That's more anecdotal than about like any analytics or stats. But a big concern of mine is always hot offensive coordinator knows he's probably going to get the head coaching gig that he's after. And now he spends the season before he gets that gig trying to be too fancy. I'm going to show you how perfect that can be of a quarterback whisper. And I do think there was maybe a little bit of that to open the year. And then you get some really bad Jared golf turnovers. And they come out of that Bucks game saying, you know what? We're running the football.

Hey, Jared. You remember how you used to check the ball down in 2017 and 2018? And you've got a lot of yards after the catch that way. Let's go back to some of that. And I think that that's been a big reason why we've seen them look so efficient in the passing game over the last couple weeks. I would say especially against Seattle, but even this Sunday, him getting the ball out of his hands quickly and underneath has allowed them to get some hidden yardage. And I think that that's helped set up the rest of their game. So yeah, Ben Johnson's definitely got a defensive coordinator's heart. And I'm just going to claim him off the fact that he's one of the best play callers.

in the league, and we don't get to spend enough time talking about, you know, the guys who do well and whether or not they share any lineage with our defensive brethren. So we'll claim them if nobody else will. You runs the ball. You're ready. He runs the ball. Then once the lead is in hand, then he starts breaking out the give me the bad calls, that where I call him the resume calls. Like, all right, who's watching? Which owner's watching? Your coordinator's not doing this. And he's right. I was on like an Eagles thread where it's like, yeah, your coordinator's not doing what Ben Johnson's doing right now. I'm sure, like Ruiz said, I'm sure Cowboys fans are watching that going, hey, why can't

we do some of that stuff? So he's been very effective. If you're an Eagles fan, you're asking a question of whether or not your offensive coordinator is actually in control of the offense because it definitely doesn't look any different than it has the last three years. And you're also asking, what is it going to take to maybe get Ben Johnson, you know, where does he like to golf? What does he like to do in his free time for 2025?

All right. That was my last one. You guys got any more? You're good. one. It's not really an award, but I'm putting someone on a watch list for an award, and that's the one had done an award, and I put in Brian Callahan, the Titans

coach on this one. Just early, an early look. I'm just playing in my flag a little bit here. I talked about him kind of berating Will Levis over the first couple of weeks, how bad of a look that was. If you don't want that guy committing those mistakes, how about you coach him up? Is that too much to ask? But he had

a bad pun at the end of this game against the Colts. He lost the Joe Flacco. And then Calvin Ridley is is talking trash about your play calling or about getting the ball and an expletive laden ran after the game. Oh, I miss this. It seems like a loose ship. It just seems like a loose ship.

I don't know. And Will Levis is still turning over the ball. This is not what you want to see. You kind of brought this guy in to get the most out of Will Levis, who's like a play action under center guy, but he's still making the same mistakes. He was making in week one. He throws away the game at the end here,

floating up into interception towards Calvin Ridley. It doesn't look good. The passing game doesn't look good. That's all I say. The defense, I think, has done its part. and Brian Callahan, you would think doesn't really have a hand in that as an offensive-minded coach. I didn't realize this because it was on in the midst of a bunch of the other early slate games. Calvin really didn't get a single reception.

We got a lot of targets, though. His only touch of the game was, I think, a jet sweep that he took for nine yards. If I'm Calvin Ridley, I'm probably got a little bit something to say as well, especially for a guy who's coming from Cincinnati and you would think would understand and how to get the ball to dynamic playmakers on the perimeter. That is a red flag when you're best, when you can't find a way to get your best pass catch of the ball. You know, we talk about that with Kevin O'Connell.

It's like, you're never watching a Vikings game. Like, oh, man, defense is just taking Justin Jefferson away. I know Calvin Ridley's not Justin Jefferson, but you get the point. I love this one. I feel like we're the only content space that was ripping Brian Callahan for his behavior towards Will Levis, because the turnovers were so absurd. but still, you're a new coach.

You know, why don't you get the backing of your players a little bit and stick up for them a little bit? You're trying to build a culture and now you got Ridley going off in week six and the bad game management. I think this is a great call. Without even having watched this game yet, I'm on board. Brian Callahan, you're on one and done watch. I love it.

All right. So there you go. Good one, good positive one to end on there. Brian Callahan. How many people did we fire tonight? We're fired. people, pension people. Listen, it's week six. It's getting, it's getting late here. We're a third of the third of the way through the season. It's not, you know, the sample sizes are getting bigger. All right.

Thank you to Deontay Lee. And Stephen Ruiz, thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopol and our friend, Dan Comer. We will be back later this week on the Ringer NFL show. Everyone have a good week. We'll talk to you soon. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-G-Help.com or visit RG-8-8-8-8-9-777.7. Or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here.

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