The Ringer NFL Show - Week 7 Recap: Lions Beat the Vikings, Chiefs Outmuscle the 49ers, and More

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Sheil, Steven, and Diante return to discuss, debate, and share their expert takes on some of the biggest games from Sunday’s NFL slate. Lions-Vikings (1:20) Chiefs-Niners (11:27) Packers-Texans (26:08) Next, they plant their flags on a few hot-button storylines from around the weekend action. How bad is the Jets’ future? (35:18) The Deshaun Watson injury (40:07) Should the Raiders trade Maxx Crosby? (48:08) Finally, they survey the league and offer superlatives and awards to the players, coaches, and teams who made newsworthy contributions to the Week 7 headlines (54:26). 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 Supervision: Conor Nevins, Arjuna Ramgopal. and Daniel Comer  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, what's up? It's Ryan Rosillo. I'm the host of the Ryan Rissillo show on The Ringer and Spotify. We're a sports podcast. We sprinkling some other stuff. But here's the thing about our podcast. We work in sports and we still like sports. I know. Crazy, right? But we also like to balance it out a little bit. If I've read a book that I really like, we'll have the author on. We have people from the biggest TV shows, some of the biggest people in movies, writers, actors, all of it. And, of course, at the end of every single episode, 20 to 30 minutes on life advice, which is something. times great, and sometimes it isn't. But it's always worth listening to. So make sure you listen and follow the Ryan Rusillo show on Spotify.

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capati here. Welcome if you're watching on Bandul TV or if you're listening on Spotify, joined by my friend Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee. Ruiz, we're all in the same room. It's incredible. Maybe we should fight. Maybe we got to tell you.

You mentioned throwing some stuff off the table. Who knows where these arguments will lead to, Deonti? I'm ready to bring back up, Kyler Murray and Brock Freddie today. I think this will be a good week for us to finally hash this out. Who knows? There were some blowouts in week seven. There were some close games in week seven. There will be some narratives shaping after week seven. As we know, we're going to talk about the three biggest games,

what we learned from them to start out here. First one, Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings comes down to the end. Lions win that game, 31, 29. Ruiz, what did we learn about the Vikings and Sam Donald and Brian Flores or the Lions and Ben Johnson and Jared Gough. What was kind of your big takeaway from this game? Yeah, I think this game was about Jared Gough and what he did under pressure. He was pressured on over half of his dropbacks in this game.

We've seen him have success against Brian Flores. We talked about that on the Friday show. But in those games last year, those two games, it was like the ideal environment for a Jared Gough game. This was not. This is an environment he struggles against, and he thrived. He averaged nearly 15 yards per attempt under pressure in this game. So it's not like Flores wasn't getting pressure.

He was just getting beat. Yeah, it was a, it was a, impressive problem. I mean, my thing with the Lions, I'm just like, they're the best team in the NFC right now. Partially because of that, you know, the run game. I like the way this game moved, Deonté, where it started out, it's Rocky, you're going,

uh-oh, like Ruiz mentioned on Fridays, is this going to be one of those Jared golf games? Then they come back, and I feel like it gets, you know, they don't get enough credit, but four straight touchdown drives against that Vikings' defense to do that was incredible. So I think the lines are the best team in the

NFC right now. I'm with you, and the thing that I think I was maybe most encouraged by it was that they were able to find success multiple ways, right? And I think that that was what we talked about a lot for the Friday show is that the one thing that Brian Flores is going to do, it's force you in the uncomfortable situations and make you have to change the way you play specifically to attack this defense. And I thought that Geragoff did a really good job of that. First of all, in the play action game, I thought he did a good job of being conservative, taking the checkdowns when guys were bailing out in zone coverage and allowing his running backs, allowing his tight ends to go get him yards after the catch. And then I think that he

didn't panic in those third down pure dropback situations where Brian Flores is really loading up the line of scrimmage with potential blitzers, whether they're dropping or whether they're bringing guys from unconventional spots. I thought that he was smart with knowing when to take his chances downfield. We saw some good throws in the seam till I'm on Ross St. Brown. We saw him not be afraid to work the middle of the field, period, against these mixes of looks, whether it was playing quarters or cover two or just straight man or a zero look. I thought that he was confident in all of his answers. And I think that speaks not only to Ben Johnson, who I know deserves a lot of credit for this, but like you said, to Jared Gough for knowing how to execute against this defense when he's

not in an ideal situation, not up by two scores, and not playing in a game script that's most favorable to him. I thought the long touchdown pass to Amman Ross St. Brown was like the best illustration of the development of Jared Gough. He kind of had a sidestep of free rusher or just pressure right in his lap to make that throw all the way downfield. It reminds me of the fourth down against the 49ers in the energy title game where he kind of has to move to the side and that makes him miss the throw ends up being dropped because it's a tough, tough catch. I don't know if Jared Gough from last year makes that throw that he made to St. Brown in this game. Well, and if you take it all the way back to what it looked like when the Rams lost a Super Bowl in 2018 to the Patriots,

he's obviously not that quarterback. And there's a lot of conversation to be had about how much distance he has to make up to get into the top tier of quarterbacks. But what I think we saw today and what we saw really over the last 20 plus games, the regular season from him, is that he's a quarterback does good enough to be in these situations and he can deliver. You may not be able to count on it as consistently as those tier one quarterbacks that we all know and are easy to identify. But I think that he's shown that there's probably a bigger gap between he and the rest of the quarterbacks that are not in tier one than there is between him and those tier one quarterbacks. And you should feel really good about that if you're the lines right now.

I do think, like the difference between him and the top quarterbacks is the ability to extend and make plays under pressure. But behind that offensive line in this offense, he doesn't really have to do that to the extent that those players do. He doesn't have to be Josh Allen or Mahomes. And he's averaging 11 yards per attempt under pressure this year. So he's doing it. He's doing what those top quarterbacks do, even though it's manufactured. How many games are we going to have where it's like third quarter?

Jared golf is 16 for 16. Right. It's like, what? 16. Now, there was some sacks mixed in there. But, I mean, he finishes this game, 22 for 25 for 280 yards, four touchdowns. I thought that last drive was a great sort of summation of all the things. you're talking about. They're running the ball. They schemed up a beautiful play to Jamir Gibbs.

Jared Gough is making tough throws. So if you're the lions, you got to feel good. I mean, they faced a lot of adversity. Like even when they're kicking out there, I'm like, oh, yeah, I forgot they lost their kicker in the summer. They lose Aidan Hutchinson. They've had different guys be injured. And here they are, they just keep moving on. And if you can put together that offensive performance against that defense, and we've seen what that defense is not against the Niners and the Texans and some other team. So it's not like they haven't been tested. Just a really impressive performance from the Lions. What about the Vikings, Ruiz? Do you look at them differently? Do you think, you know, what's the difference between what you thought about the Vikings on Friday versus

what you think about the Vikings now? I don't know if it changed that much. I think we've seen that this defense isn't like, isn't going to just beat everyone it comes across. It's not going to be the number one defense probably. I don't think they have the talent to be the number one defense. They've been carried by scheme so far. And when you come into a game against an offensive coordinator like Ben Johnson, you're going to lose some of those battles. But I did think the Lions' defense looked good without Aiden Hutchinson. Like, it wasn't the greatest performance, but it was an average performance. And that's all they need right now with the way the offense is playing.

I do think, Darnel, you see, you saw both sides of Darnold in this game. You saw the high-level throw, the downfield throw to Addison. I can see the devil in the angel in his head right now. He's like, do I want to do this right now? That's why he prefaced it with all the good stuff with the Vikings, because you know he wants to come back. I bring up a party later, so I need to save some energy. Sorry, go to interrupt. But no, that's always going to be the question mark with this team.

Like, what else are you going to question on it? You're not going to question the play calling with O'Connell. You're not going to question the receiving core with Jefferson and now Addison making a big play. The run game, Aaron Jones looks fantastic, looked fantastic again in this game, had that first touchdown. I mean, Darnold has to be the question mark. There's a reason why they drafted a quarterback in the first round. I know Darnel wasn't on the roster yet, but if they really believed in Darnold, they wouldn't have drafted a quarterback. And ultimately, this offense moves a ball okay.

I just think in those high leverage situations, especially in the second half, to the point that we're having about quarterback playing tough situations, you saw all the ways that Donald could have made a difference if he was a ceiling-raising quarterback and what he has to resort to because he's not. I do think that it was a little bit too easy in the second half for Detroit to really play sticky coverage on Justin Jefferson, on Jordan Addison, and put Donor in the uncomfortable situations where now he has to extend. and you see that he can't always extend, get his feet reset,

and then push the ball downfield. He's not always going to make a guy miss and then go get 10 to 12 yards on a scramble when he finds air. And those opportunities were there because you know Detroit's going to play a lot of man coverage. So I do think you should probably feel okay if you're a Vikings fan. Obviously, when you zoom out and think about preseason expectations versus where they stand presently, but even in a game like this against a team that you know is a top-in contender,

you can go punch for punch with the team like that. I do just think that you got a clear look in those third down and obvious passing situations in the fourth quarter when you know that you have to drive the length of the field, that there are just going to be some limitations with Darnold. And it does put a little bit more stress on Kevin O'Connell. You should probably just feel okay because you have probably one of the five best play callers in the NFL. And I think if they landed in the situation again, they'll probably be able to play step for step with just about anybody in the league if they needed to.

Yeah, I don't feel much differently about them because I, you know, I think we've probably been on a similar wave length with Darnold, he's playing way better than I thought he was going to play this year. I will admit that. I didn't think he even had this ceiling in him. And they had the ball with what, 416 left where it's like, do not give Detroit the ball back here. And they run it twice. And then it's Arnold on third down and they have to punt it back to the lines. But I'll tell you what, that Vikings defense, I mean, forget scheme and just the way they play is so, I mean, their relentlessness in trying to take the ball away on every single play in every situation. off in a big, I mean, it flipped the game in this game when they, when Josh Mattelis

knocks it out of David Montgomery's hands. And it's just, I was just thinking that as I'm watching them. I'm like, they're giving up touchdown drives, but I'm just like, no defense in the NFL plays like this. I love this. That's going to keep them in every game. No, and they bounce back in the second half. Detroit was marching up and down the field in the first half. And you thought, oh, well, they lost, like Flores lost the game player anymore. And I don't know if he's going to be able to adjust. And it looks like a 40-point game for Detroit. But that didn't happen in the second half. They stopped him in the second half. Golf has that one drive. drive late, but I would still feel optimistic about this defense going forward, even if it's not

going to be that number one EPA defense in the league, still going to be top 10, top five. Yeah, that battle between those two was fun because early on, Flores was getting to golf and then the Lions figured it out. And then like you said, the Vikings come back. So I think it did live up to the hype in that way. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We got other games to talk about Packers, Texans, Chiefs 49ers. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Van Duel, America's number one sportsbook because right now new customers can bet $5 and get 300 in bonus bets if you win. The Fandual Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL all in one place. Monday night, maybe Cardinals with the points.

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as non-mithdrawable bonus bets, which expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply I see terms at sportsbook. Fanduel.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-halsh.com. Super Bowl rematch, Deontay. Chiefs 40-9ers.

Kind of ended up being a bit of a snoozer. Chiefs win that game. 28-18, 49ers have some injuries. Purdy doesn't play well. What did we learn from this? We've seen this, and this is not just this game. I think this has been over weeks now with the 49ers. It's the shrinking margin for error

week over week. And then this week, when you lose Brandon Ayyuk, midgame to what, you know, or seeing that the 49ers fear is an ACL injury will obviously see as things continue to develop going into this week. But you start looking at some of the bodies that they just don't have available to them. And it's landing them in a situation, A, by necessity, because of just who is and isn't available. And B, by choice by Kyle Shanahan, where now Brock Pretty is this quarterback that has to drop back in all these pure dropback situations and has to solve all these problems for this offense. And I just don't know,

I don't know if it's fair to him as a quarterback, and he's not playing well. I don't want to take this as Brock Purdy is being failed by Kyle Shanahan, but I do think that there needs to be a more even distribution of the scheme opening things up for Purdy and Purdy having opportunities to extend on other situations and push the ball down the field. Because right now I just feel like they are playing this boom or bust style of offense that doesn't fit the personnel that they have because of their whole complement of offensive playmakers isn't available. so you're not getting the best version of what you could out of this game. And I think that's a large part of why this game was such a dud,

at least from San Francisco's point of view. To your point, Purdy has thrown for over 30 attempts in every game this year, only five times last year. He's already passed that number in seven games. That says it all right there. And I think Shanahan is almost overcompensating for the loss of Christian McCaffrey, and he's almost lost his way and forgot why this offense has been so good. It's the run game.

And they're not a run first team. right now. They're a pass-first team, and like you said, it's exposed Purdy's weaknesses. Well, that's the question is why are they playing this way? Because they're playing the way the Niners have not played before. They're not using play action. They're not lining up under center. Their Purdy's passes are going further than any other quarterback downfield. The tight window throws. Tight window throws. All the stuff we've talked about Kyle Shanahan forever that, hey, if you play into Kyle Shanahan offense, you get X, Y, and Z, you're not really getting those right now. Is it? And so, like, some of it is definitely Purdy when he's

scrambling and running around. But that's not everything. Some of those things I just mentioned are structurally by the person designing and calling the offense. So I don't know, Ruiz. Why do you think this is the style of offense we're seeing the season? I don't know. There was some talk before the Christian McCaffrey injury that they would be more of a dropback team this year.

Like some of the beat reporters reported it during training camp. So maybe this was the plan all along. I don't know. Maybe they want to put Purdy to the test and see the full measure of Purdy's skill set because they do have to pay him next year if they're going to pay him. So maybe this is what they want to see. I don't know. The way his brain is wired, he's like, how am I winning this game this weekend?

He'd be like, John Lynch, shut up. I don't care about. I'm not testing this for any other reason. Yeah, but the things you've seen are like the things we gave pretty credit for last year. And I'm using the Royal Wee. I didn't give him credit for these things at all. I fought these things to the nail. But the timing.

It's not there. He's holding on the ball longer than Justin Fields was holding onto the ball. The accuracy. He missed so many throws in this game. The decision making. All of that has gone out the window. I think it's proof that Shanahan's offense was, you know, kind of elevating him. But right now it's holding him back.

I would agree with that. And I think that you can see him pressing, especially when you can tell the game was tight, right? In those high leverage situations, missing that throw that turns into an interception on that corner route, that to me as a quarterback that's pressing. Because you should be able to make that throw as a quarter, as an NFL quarterback, 99 times out of 100, not knowing that your receiver is going to break short because he's getting man coverage and sailing the ball. that's a quarterback to me that I think in that moment was thinking a little bit bigger than what you should be asking a quarterback like Purdy to be thinking in those moments. And then obviously once Brandon Ayuk went down, and this is prior to, they just weren't getting any separation from their receivers either.

And if you know you're going to get a lot of tight man coverage, you know that you're going to have an opportunity to run the ball, even if it's not going to be an outside zone run that pops for 25, right? I do wonder if maybe because the explosive runs are not as readily available for this team, if Kyle Shanahan is losing confidence in it, because one thing that we've known from this offense is they were as good at generating explosive runs as most teams were at generating explosive passes. And that has obviously not been on the table in the same way. But I don't think the defenses have shown them enough to bring him out of that world.

So that's probably the thing that I'm most kind of I'm most hung up by when I watched this offense is you see the third quarter when Kyle Shanahan finally decides, okay, we know we're not beating this team deep downfield. It's time to get under center and run some 21 personnel zone. And Jordan Mason looks great. And then again, now it feels like you build a little bit of rhythm with that. And it almost like he takes that as an opportunity to say,

okay, Brock, go ahead and get back in the gun and try to push a ball downfield. And we have just not seen that consistently work enough to me to justify changing their entire offensive approach. But I think the main problem, though, is red zone. Because he talks about that. Like if you listen to the commentators who are talking to him in the production meetings, they're saying, oh, yeah, he's talking about how hard it is in the red zone without Christian McCaffrey. In the open field, maybe he's overcompetating thinking, well, we're not going to score when we into the red zone because they've settled for a lot of field goals.

We better get a 40-yard touchdown. And the best way to do that is to throw the football, or at least that's what he thinks right now. All right, I'm going to fall into the trap. Somehow I have become the proud. I don't know when it happened. I don't know if you guys like drugged me or something and all of a sudden I woke up one day.

You got on the podcast with me. Everybody's the pretty guy. You're right. I think that is what happened. That was easily solvable. All right, I will say this, though. He didn't play well today. There's no doubt about it.

If Dak Prescott or Justin Herbert or name another quarterback, you know, you choose, didn't have their first, second and third wide receivers and their running back and had a bad game like that, what would you be? Would you be leading off a podcast saying they played poorly, they stunk, they met all their weaknesses were exposed or would it be? Well, they had some things working against them. Well, luckily, we don't have to use a hypothetical with Justin Herbert. He's dealt with these conditions like the last four years. And it's never looked like this. It never looks like this. Okay. They were. second in passing DVOA coming into the game. This is one, literally second in the entire NFL in passing DVOA with no McCaffrey with the injuries. And so this is a one game thing. I actually, I actually don't think he's played great the previous two weeks either, even though the numbers looked good. But overall, this has not been like a complete disaster of an offense. No, that's fair, but it is a Shanahan offense. And we have a high bar for Shanahan. So even if we're criticizing him, the offense is still better than 90% of the offense is out there. And it's

definitely better than a Greg Roman offense or a Mike McCarthy offense. Greg Roman watching this going, what did I do to you guys? I used to like the show and now I'm just catching this track. You know what's funny? It's it. Sitting next to you obviously, knowing, knowing my interest in the Eagles and you covering the Eagles for us at the Ringer, this feels so much like how we would have been talking about Philadelphia last year if their record was a little bit more indicative of how they were playing on a week-by-week basis, where you can look and see like, hey, this is probably still going to be by DVOA, by success rate, by EPA, one of the eight to ten best offenses in the league, almost. sight unseen because you have a high-level play caller, because you have a competent quarterback, and at least if some of the pieces are healthy offensively, you've probably got enough to threaten defenses deep downfield or be able to pound the rock when you need to. But you watch the game, and if you know how to watch a game and how Kyle Shanahan likes to call a game or what we think of with the Kyle Shanahan offense, it looks pretty clear that

things are disjointed right now. And I don't know where that connection point is because it feels so clearly like there is a divide between the way they thought they were going to run offense when Christian McAfroo is on this roster and when he's not available, it looks almost like they haven't spent any time on the old maybe Jimmy G style of play where you do get into more heavy personnel sets, more of your, you know, what we see in Miami, that 2.2 seconds, get to your back foot and you're just throwing the ball in the middle of the field. And that's not to guarantee that that would work. We talked about on the Friday show that Steve Spagnola does a great job of taking away

stress on his linebackers and safeties in that intermediate area in the middle of the field. But I think that when you know the run game is working, when you start to catch a rhythm in the run game, you want to be able to have that to at least force defenses to honor it. I don't know if there was really any point where they went play action. And it felt like Kansas City was in a position where they had to honor the run to be able to pry open those throwing windows. Yeah. I mean, the most interesting, I can get to the place where it's like, Purdy is not playing well. Purdy's scrambling too much.

He's getting too in love with that. I don't understand the Shanahan aspect of it, why the structure of the offense, if anything, you would think with the injuries, you would lean more into, hey, we got to make his life easier and do, you know, be more methodical and not push the ball downfield. So it's like a big story. I mean, is this the year from hell for the 49ers? When you were mentioning the Eagles, I'm like, I still think, I'm not giving up on the 49ers. Like you said, when we're in December, we're probably going to be like, yeah, they're

probably going to make the playoffs, but stuff does keep adding up. And now with this IUC injury, who knows if it is an ACL or not what this is going to look like. And this feels like rock bottom in terms of like the injury luck. Yeah. Like they were missing their top three receivers. And their fourth guy, Ricky Pearsall, before this season got shot. Yeah. This is the first game back from getting shot.

Yeah. The season from hell, this, I think we need a stronger term. I know. Think of all the things that have happened. It really is a lot. Other side of the ball. Oh, um, jeez. 10 point wind.

Underdogs on the road, undefeated. Here we go. I mean, Deontia, are we? Do we get too bored with this team? Should we have led the show with the Chiefs just went on the road in a Super Bowl rematch and won by 10? No, because this didn't look like a good Chiefs game, like, at all. And I think we were all sitting together in the same row here in the studio, watching the game. And I think I looked over to Shield and I said,

there's no way you could have convinced me that this 49ers defense could hold Patrick Mahomes to less than 200 yards passing. And it doesn't really feel like they have any chance at controlling this game. And that was just clear, basically, from the second quarter on, that they had no control of this game in spite of the fact that this defense played over its heads, I would say, based on the guys that are missing, them not having Drey Greenlaw, you don't have Javon Hargraves anymore,

Telenow Fuanga is on IR again. They are missing a lot of bodies, and they're really kind of constricted in how they can play, especially up against the quarterback that they know they have to respect, and I thought they did really well, you know, and I think that if they'd maybe gotten a little bit more out of their offense without the Brock Pretty turnovers, the flow of the game maybe goes differently.

But to answer your question directly, No, I don't think that this is time to say, hey, our bad as a podcast, and that the Chiefs are playing better than we're giving them credit for. They're playing poorly, and they continue to win. I do think that that just speaks to, and I said this week one when they beat Baltimore, they just have this uncanny knack to know exactly when they need a play. And this is maybe specific to Patrick Mahomes more than anybody else in that roster. He always knows how to get seven when his team needs six,

13 when his team needs 11, getting into the end zone, when it looks like everything is covered. I don't know what you're supposed to do when you play well and this guy continues to get them out of bad situations. No, we put Andy Reed on fraud watch a couple of weeks. Well, I did. I don't want to rope you guys into that take because that's a good. No, I'm with you on that.

But it didn't get any better in this game. I saw Carson Wentz in the Red Zone on my TV today. The fourth and one punt fake, you have the best player in the world and you take him off the field. When you need a yard. When you need one yard near midfield, you're just overthinking things. And I think that's been a theme

for the last year and a half. Some of these red zone plays, I know they're fun to watch, especially when they pull them off, but even going back to last year, they left a lot of meat on the bone because they were trying these crazy plays in the red zone when you don't need to do that,

when you have Patrick Mahomes. I mean, their explosive offense was a me call Hardman end around, a me call Hardman jet sweep. And that was not what we were sold coming into the year. We thought that they were making a reinvestment in adding dynamic playmaking to the outside.

Obviously not having Hollywood Brown does change the dynamic of that depth chart, But I don't know if it was going to be any different even if he was available. Xavier Worthy, I think outside of like the gadget plays has really been more of a non-factor. And they've really been trying to lean on Travis Kelsey in Rishie Rice's absence. And even that hasn't really come up as well as you might expect. So I don't have a great explanation for how it is that this team continues to put up 24 or more points on a week-by-week basis. But they keep doing it because they have the best quarterback that several.

Yeah, I do wonder how we're thinking if Mahomes hits that shot to Worthy where he's open and gets behind the defense. I don't quite remember how that. drive ended, they might have gotten points anyway, but we haven't seen those explicit plays. I think it was an intersection drive actually because it was a weird, yeah, back to back. Worst case possible, yeah, but we haven't seen those plays enough. And going

back to 2021, it's been an issue and Mahomes kind of overcame it in 2022, and I don't think defense has quite realized how limited they were in the past game once Tyree Kill left. They saw a lot of man coverage in 2022. Defenses have gone back to that

soft zone shell, and they can't beat it. And they don't have a guy that can beat it anymore in the receiving court. They don't have Kelsey playing like the best tight end ever. Right. The best 16 for 27, 154 yard to interception game I've seen. I mean, he makes the plays at the end there. But yeah, this was not a, hey, the offense is working at a highlight. Because their previous game, I mean, when they played the Saints, that was, the offense was moving at a high level. Now, we look at that Saints defense, and maybe it's not that hard to do that against the same. That's the difference between the two quarterbacks in this game. And the offense isn't working for either of them, but one is still

keeping the offensive float and keeping the team in the wind column. And the other one is kind of, I do think Purdy is doing admirable. Like, where would this team be without his scrambles? Oh, where would they be? Hold on. Rewan the tape. Wait a minute. What is that? Yeah, these info, I wouldn't believe it. I would have thought someone overtook Ruiz's body. That means an insult is coming very soon. No, I don't need to make any insults. Tom Brady was doing it enough in his own way. Yeah, he really was going after him. I agree with that. He was yeah. And I mean, most of it was warranted. It wasn't like a play where it's like, why is he being hard on him? Usually it was a bad play by Purdy when he said it, but it will be

interesting to monitor that throughout the season. Who is he going after? Because the Lions game, I mean, he was over the moon with Ben Johnson when he did that game. Dak Prescott, I feel like he's been a little up and down, but probably more complimentary than not complimentary. So yeah, it doesn't take much to, uh, to see what Tom Brady things. So, uh, Niners fall, three and four and the Chiefs improved to six and oh. All right. Take another break. We come back. We talk Packers, Texans. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. Packers Texans, the quarterback, C.J. Stroud, Jordan Love, not exactly the shootout high level, which guy would you rather have for 10 years. It doesn't matter. You'll

win Super Bowls with either of them type matchup. Maybe we envisioned. But Ruiz, what did you think about this game? Texans offense doesn't play. well, Packers are kind of shooting themselves in the foot over and over again, but they come back and get the victory at the end. No, I think the story is Houston's offense and how bad it's been. It's not even in this game alone. It's all season. They're 20th in EPA.

They're behind the Panthers in success rate. The Carolina Panthers who started Bryce Young for two games. Unacceptable, especially with the expectations that were raised for this team coming into the season. And I'm not going to blame CJ Stroud for it because when you watch the games, you're like, oh, he's doing his best. He's playing brilliant football. I totally agree. And I'm sure, I don't know if this will be the week where C.J. Strad will start to take some of those. Oh, look at the number. But it's not C.J. I don't know how you watch them and think it's C.J. Now, the run game got going to going to go going to go. The run game got going to go in the little bit today. But Deont, you pointed this out if it was last week or the week before. But all summer, I was saying, the Texants are going to be good because their offensive line got crushed with injuries last year. And they're going to be, they have to be healthier this year. And that's going to be, well, their offensive line isn't playing great. The play calling. I mean, that's crazy. 20th in EP.

PA per drive and I think 27th in success rate for a quarterback who's playing at this level. And now it's getting a little late. Like we were doing this after two weeks, but now it's after week seven. 1,000 percent. And they have not been able to put together a week where they can protect the quarterback as well as they run the ball and vice versa. I think it's odd to me that and I don't want to believe. And this is not to say that Joe Mixon isn't a good football player.

But the absence of Joe Mixon was not the reason why they couldn't move the ball when he was gone. Right. And I don't know if anything as special is happening now that he's back. I don't see many clips where he's shaking guys in a gap like Bijon Robinson and creating, right? Like, so it's just, it's something that it's almost like inexplicable in some ways. And then you see the kind of pressure, especially today that C.J. Stroud was under, I mean, Green Bay was basically just throwing the same looks at them over and over. Just loading up the line of scrimmage, running some kind of twist game. And this offensive line just could not pick it up, whether it was a simulated pressure, an actual blitz, dropping guys out.

It continues to just be pressure basically right up the NT. or so quickly on the edges that C.J. Stroud can't do what we've really come to expect from him, which is like making a guy, making a guy miss, stepping up or resetting his feet and then getting the ball out into the intermediate area or checking it down for yards after the catch. This offensive line is just not playing viable football right now. And to your point about all the conversations that we've had up to this point, I spent all summer in the beginning of this year talking about Bobby Soick Fraud Watch, Bobby Soek Fraud Watch.

You're right. And there is a lot of time. And there's a lot of time to spend talking about some of the, the issues that he has as a play caller, and that definitely popped up today. But I don't know what kind of plays you're supposed to call if an offensive line can't keep your guy upright for more than two seconds. And there was a lot of problems with that with them in obvious passing downs. And that doesn't allow Stroud to do the magic that we expect to see from them in those obvious passing. He's been doing that all year. Like the early down offense has been bad all year.

And his brilliance on third down has kind of kept that offensive float. It didn't happen today. He averaged negative. 0.7 yards per play per dropback on third down. negative 0.7 and he was pressured to 83% of the time on third down. Like that's a failure of the protection,

the play calling. I do think, I do think Sloics share some of the blame for the offensive line issues. There are things you can do to mitigate that. Yeah.

I mean, that's, I think we've had that discussion before where it's almost like the test for offensive coordinators. Now there's only so much

you can do, but we've seen some guys around the NFL be able to like, well, that's not, you know, it's not the greatest

five guys, but the offense still works and they come up with answers to help the quarterback. I mean, 55 net yards passing, 10 for 21 for 86 yards and four sacks for C.J. Stroud. I don't know.

I think unacceptable is the word we continue to use. And I will continue to say that because this Texans team, the record is still very good. They're 5 and 2. They have a plus 6 point differential. Their defense has played well for most of the season. It's just like the part of the offense. And Nico Collins has been out,

but we're finding out, like, without Nico Collins, they have even fewer answers. So I agree. That was the biggest story from this game. But I will give the Packers credit. I thought this was maybe their best defensive performance of the season. There were times in that game where I was like, all right, sorry, Jeff Affle. I've ripped you pretty relentlessly and not believed in you all season long.

But Ruiz, what do you miss? This Packers team is like a roller. Every game is a roller coaster. I don't know. They try to give away that game. That would have been a heartbreaking loss. And Jordan Love played his role in that. You said it wasn't that type of game we were expecting from the quarterbacks.

But Jordan Love tried. He tried to have one of those games. He was pushing the ball down field as he has been all year long. Sometimes those throws get pulled off and they look great. Other times you throw a Quinn Ewer's interception like he did on the first interception. It was like the same exact interception Uers through against Georgia. I don't know what to think about Jordan Love right now. Like I'm still very high on him, but I mean this version of him.

I think in a year or two he's going to be that top five quarterback. But right now for this season, sometimes he looks like that top five quarterback. Sometimes he looks like a, you know, top 20 quarterback instead. Is he bored? Is he bored sometimes? It's almost like when you're playing a little cousin or something in bed and you're like, I'll play with my left hand or something. I mean, everything he's doing, it seems like, Deonte, he's trying to make the degree of difficulty.

And when it works, I'm just like, wow, I don't know who else in the league could make that throw. But it seems like you don't have to go to that as often as he goes to that. It's so funny when you contrast his style of play with the offensive setup because Matt LaFleur does not strike me as the, hey, I want to live and die. on every dropback type of play caller, right? And even, I mean, and this is on both sides of the ball. Jeff Hathley is like that very old school, four three from that Legion of Boom Tree.

We're going to play a lot of zone coverage, mix up the looks, maybe throw you a little something special on third down. But these are two, these are both coaches on both sides of the ball that are very much like process oriented, right? So to see this team, basically only be good on defense

when they're getting sacks and turnovers, and that was a big piece of today, obviously more with sacks and turnovers for C.J. Stroud, up against that coverage unit. And then looking at Jordan Love, and I think that even on the interceptions that he threw, I'm with you, a lot of that is like,

okay, I see exactly what you were trying to do. Just maybe not that, maybe not right now. Right. And I think that because he gets away with it, it does embolden him to take more chances. And for the most part, I think that it works within that offense. And I like the fact that he plays that way

because it does give some very talented playmakers for them an opportunity to go make plays. But I don't think that this team really wants to play high-ceiling football the way that they've been playing right now. But this is very emblematic of their season today's results. And I think that even when they are playing high risk, high reward football, they're so talented that they can get themselves out of trouble. And that's what we've been seeing for them.

And it's probably the reason why I regard them so highly, even though the results on a down-and-down basis can be all over the place. It's very funny that a team that started Malik Willis in two games, like the quarterback that's like, whoa, calm down, buddy is Jordan Love and not Malik. But it's like love is trying to complete side missions in a video game. It's like, yeah, complete a whole shot against cover two or you don't get XP in this game. Hasie, maybe he's been hanging out with Brett Farr.

Maybe he's... Hopefully not. Maybe he's team content. I mean, there's not... I don't know that there's a quarterback was more entertaining than him right now. Because on any given drop bag, you're like, he's not, isn't going to be a checkdown.

You know, he's going to let this rip 30 yards downfield regardless of... They had that they're driving for the game-winning field goal and I think it was a zero blitz, so I understand it. But he chucked it to the end of it. for Dantamian Wicks. I was like, oh my gosh, this guy has no off button. But like Deonti said, it makes sense when you see the coverage and what he's going for.

He's just such an ambitious passer. That's a word. That's a word. One thousand percent. Wordsman. You can't. You can't. My vocabulary is not very good.

But he is an ambitious. He's the most ambitious passer in the NFL in a world of checkdowns and take what the defense gives you. His mindset is, I can make this throw. I'm going to try it. We need more. those quarterbacks. I agree. I totally agree. I totally stop shaming Anthony Richardson. He's the next one. I think this, I think the turnovers are going to get cut down. And I think by the time we get to Thanksgiving or so, we're going to

be like Packers are right there with the lines. The highs are too high. And we've seen a stretch last year where he was doing more of the wow and less of the, I don't know if you want to do that throws. You know, unless something inside of him changed, we know he's capable of doing that. And I think we're going to see it down the road. I think the thing we may have under indexed is how bad the defensive coordinator has been in Green Bay for the last couple of years. Joe Barry has never coordinated a defense that's finished like top 25 and points scored. So he's love is playing with the mindset that Joe Barry is still my defensive coordinator. That's what it seems like.

Yeah. But he doesn't need to. I like that that's a good theory too. Yeah, their defense did play well in this game. All right. Those were the three big matchups from Week 7. Was a week seven? Yes.

Week 7. This segment, we plant out. Our flags can be anything. Anything we saw today, anything we're looking at going forward. Deontae, lead us off. What are you planning your flag on? So this is coming off of the Sunday night football game that just ended before we started recording. Also a good one for team content. It was entertaining if nothing else. 1,000 percent. And the flag that I'm planning here is that we won't know just how bad this is for the Jets until 2026 or 2027 when we zoom out and look at the whole scope of this, assuming that this season continues on the trajectory that it is right now. There's a chance. chance that we look up and see a team that is bereft of depth and talent in the same ways that we

talk about Cincinnati, the same way that we talk about Dallas, because they've lost a net of two second round picks in the Rogers trade, give up another mid-round pick to acquire Devante Adams. You fire a head coach, whether or not he was good enough, I think is kind of besides the point, but when you look at that in the grand scheme of things and you add in whiffing on Zach Wilson, you look at every draft outside of the Sauce Gardner one, I mean, and there are several misses at key positions that show up when Ashton Davis goes down. It shows up when you're looking like, okay, both starting safeties

that were coming into the game are not available. And you were already missing guys at that position ahead of time. The DBSs that they've missed on, that shows up there. I do think that Breeze Hall obviously has been a big hit for them.

Sauce Gardner, you don't have to say much about. Everybody can turn on the tape and see how important he's been for them. But the offensive line talent has been such an issue for them. You think about Mackay Beckton, who's an eagle now, outside of like Elijah Vera Tucker,

maybe Joe Tipman when he's healthy and playing at his best you can look at as a serviceable starter. They have so many holes across this roster that when it's all set and done, if this team does not turn this around immediately and finds a way to contend in the AFC, you're going to look at acquiring Aaron Rogers for two years of being a drift.

You lose a head coach in the midst of that. And now as the dead money starts to accumulate, if Rogers does retire ahead of the end of his contract, if you have to do something with Devante Adams' deal, to try to smooth out money in the future, you might be looking at a team that is going to be a drift for much longer than just the next couple of years.

And we're going to look back and wonder whether or not this team set itself backwards in pursuit of something that was probably full-hearted to begin. We all blame Aaron Rogers for all their problems, but Joe Douglas is at the heart of all this, going back to the Zach Wilson dream. And we don't spend enough time talking about how much his decisions have been an issue for this team.

And how many resources he's poured into this roster and how bad it is right now. Like he inherited, it wasn't a good situation. Like the team wasn't in a good spot, but the salary cap wasn't a good spot, and they had draft picks to use, and he's wasted most of them. What do they have to show for it?

What does Romaine Johnson giving this team? I know he's on IR right now, but prior to, we're talking about 10 sacks over two plus some seasons, right? And not really showing that he's carved out a role as a starter. You take a flyer on Will McDonald early in the draft when he's draft eligible. He hasn't provided enough for you.

There's just so many different ways you can look at this and say, I understand you're trying to get premium position talent. There is just, an element of it that is just like a dice roll or a coin flip. Some guys hit, some guys don't. But the more you zoom out and you look at how he's treated top 100 picks and what he has or hasn't gotten out of them, this is a team that's basically in the same position that the Saints are in a lot of ways where you've got some good top-in talent, not enough depth.

You look at Dallas in the same situation, a lot of top-in talent, not enough depth. And now you're relying on a 40-plus-year-old quarterback to be perfect in ways that he has not demonstrated that he can be coming off in Achilles injury. Yeah, I think your points are good one. I mean, you're in addition to the other stuff, you're just trading for Devante Adams and Hassan Redick. These aren't, you're not trading first round picks or multiple first round picks, but you are giving up draft capital where when you're trying to build a deeper roster down the road.

I kind of go both ways because I was making the argument when they traded for Aaron Rogers that I like this roster and they have young talent. So I can't go back and say the talent stunk on the roster. I feel like there were two phases. There was the pre-Aaron Rogers where they were trying to build the roster the right way. But I agree with you. I mean, they would have so much draft capital. then everyone would fawn over their drafts.

It's like, yeah, if you have like three picks in the top 40, I would hope you would get some good players there. And they did get some good players, to be fair. I mean, they've got Sauce Gardner and Quinn and Williams and Greece Hall and Garrett Wilson. Like, these are good players, but you're right. You look at it overall, and it's not, I think I probably just overrated it, that if you put an average quarterback in there, it's going to look good.

Well, it doesn't look good. They're two and five. They've done everything this year. They've fired their head coach. They've changed their play caller. They've traded for Devante Adam. What am I missing? There's probably like three other things I'm missing.

And you just went out and got embarrassed to Russell Wilson and the Steelers, 37 to 15 on Sunday night football. Now you're two and five. Like you don't have a next move. What's your next move? Hassan Reddick's coming in. Great. I mean,

that's the other thing. You know, the edge rusher situation for them. That used to be a strength. That's not a strength anymore. You were mentioning the draft picks they wasted. So I think it's a good point. Yeah,

this season probably isn't going to be what they thought it was going to be. And they're not going to kind of realize, well, all right, we went all in. why did we go all in? But again, as I've said before, when ownership has wanted to do this a certain way, and then you're the GM and you're trying to keep your job, I mean, you can just add it all up the way bad organizations stay bad. So the New York Jets, everybody, there you go. All right,

Ruiz, what are you planning your flag on? All right, I've been workshopping this tape behind the scenes. I've been dreading, putting it out in public because I don't know how you guys are going to react to this. All right, here's the take. I'm planning my flag. The Deshawn Watson contract, that was a bad move by the Browns. That's the take. That's what I got Bearing, brave, ambitious Yeah, I thought he was about to set us up with

All right, everyone's saying that's the worst contract I was waiting on the heart left, I was like, is this? I'm like, where's he going with the? No, I think we have to talk about this injury in this game. Just a way to talk about Deshaunuch. Yeah, because he goes out, he gets booed or cheered.

I don't even know where the fans booing, were they cheering, I think they were cheering for the injury. Miles Garrett is complaining after the game about it. He's saying, Deshaun Watson, has been a model citizen who's done everything right for most of his pro career. Most of his pro career.

Most of his doing some heavy lifting there. But I think it just speaks to how toxic this whole situation is outside of Deshaun Watson, the ownership, the fans who kind of cheered him on early on. They were supporting him in a way. Defense mode. Not all of them, to be fair. To be fair, there were some fans that were like, I'm done with this team. I'm not rooting for this team anymore.

But people were showing up to the game in jerseys and signs that were making light of his situation. And the only reason they kind of turn on him is he was bad at football. He was very bad at football. And the funny thing is, all right, it's not really funny, but the guy that's coming in now, James Winston, you would think James Winston is coming in and replacing him. It's not like he's going to make it easier to feel better about this team.

James Winston has his own issues off the field. No doubt. The whole situation and everything around it, the football's bad. The money's bad. The trade was bad. Everything about it, I don't know how you come back from this. Like, Jimmy Haslam should be forced to sell the team based on this alone. It's an all-timer. I mean, really, I think when they're, you know,

talking about football 30, 50 years from now, hey, what was the worst trade of all time? What was the worst, you know, you could even say worst contract of all time. This is going to get, has to get brought up in every single conversation. They went all in. They thought, you know what? All right, there's backlash now. But like, this is a young, it's hard to get a young quarterback who's play about. Once he plays well, everyone will forget about that. Don't, like, we'll take the backlash for a year. Don't worry about it. And then he never played well. and now look at yourselves. You got a bad roster.

You have no way to get out of the worst contract in the entire NFL. He's injured now with the Achilles. I don't know what his future holds for them, what their plans are. And now everyone's probably going to get fired. And then you're going to start over and you're the Browns and you're starting over again. So it is, you know, not today, but previous to today, like before the injury, I was like, they're kind of getting what they deserved. You know, they went to a place with that contract.

No other team. even the most... Think of how desperate these teams are in the NFL. No team was willing to go there with the contract and it was so transparent that one day he's not interested in playing for Cleveland. Contract guaranteed. Cleveland sounds great.

And that's what you had to do to get him and now look where you are. The two words that I was just thinking about as he was being carted off the field was just complicated and uncomfortable and I think that that really encapsulates the relationship that the organization and the fans have had with Watson and I guess all of us as NFL fans

have had with this situation with Watson and Cleveland. I think to your point about not only is this bad in NFL history, not only is this bad in sports history, there is something just like so painfully ironic about it happening to an organization that has had such horrible luck with quarterbacks to begin with that we can make a legitimate argument that this is as bad as they have ever handled a quarterback situation, whether it's acquiring a guy, drafting a guy, trying to develop a player, the contracts they've handed out to quarterbacks,

this one might go down as the worst in Brown's history, and they've got quite a litany of bad quarterback situations. And then to your point about Miles Garrett chastising the fans, James Whiston, chastising the fans about how they feel about Deshaun Watson. It's complicating to me, and I think this is something that we've talked about on the show and certainly stuff that we've talked about away from the podcast about just like how nobody can be honest about the situation,

because it was so clear they were never going to bench them. It was so clear that they weren't really, nobody was really in a position to critique him publicly in a way that was not also going to draw the spotlight of all the off-the-field stuff that was going to be discussed as well as his poor play. And we're looking at a guy who played less than 40% of the games while he was in that uniform. This era may be over. And even if he comes back, I can't imagine that this does not get worse by magnitudes that we have not seen because now you're talking about a guy who was already bad, already had health issues, and is now coming off to torn Achilles that is going to be owed

$160 million over the next two years, even if you cut them, that's dead cap that's going to be going up against your cap situation going forward and you've traded away draft capital to acquire them as well. There's just so many different ways where if you're a Browns fan, even if you were on the quote-unquote right side of how to feel about this,

how do you not have the most complicated relationship with your team? And what would it take for you to feel better about this situation? And I don't know if there's an easy answer or if there's an answer at all for that. This team went one in 31 over two seasons and somehow this season feels worse.

This is worse. This is worse. This feels worse than the Hugh Jackson area. And like the common denominator is Jimmy Hasam. That is honestly my plant the flag take is he should be forced to sell the team. And like we've seen like Jerry Richardson was forced to sell the team. Dan Snyder really wasn't but he was kind of, you know, encouraged to sell the team. I think they could do a similar thing. Who would be mad about that?

The owners wouldn't? He just set that precedent by giving him a fully guaranteed contract. Well, what would the grounds be for like why? he has, because those guys had, you know. See, and ultimately that to back to the point of nobody really ever wanting to face with some of the difficulties like I'm talking about Deshaun Watson, because just as a NFL community, people haven't spent enough time, I think really being out on Front Street publicly, nationally, and really specifically within Cleveland, facing what he has been dealing with off the field with the sexual misconduct allegations. I don't know if you could come up with the grounds to really pressure the guy to get another. thing I was thinking is that now, like, I'm surprised it hasn't started yet, but now the leaks will start where, well, you know, Kevin Stefansky didn't really want. Oh, Andrew Barry didn't want to do it. Oh, the owner, you know, no Andrew Barry came to, and now

everyone's going to try to get out of it, but he's ultimately the guy who, he's the only one who can determine whether he stays or not. But this isn't his first, like, controversy. Yes. They had a GM suspended for, for, like, talking on the phone. Oh, so we have business mispractice. It's an accumulation, and we talk about protecting the shield. like the Browns might be the worst thing about the NFL's reputation right now. Although I will say this about the Watson thing is that they are the ones

who ultimately landed him, but go look at the list. I mean, if you could do a little truth serum with every team, go look at the Philadelphia Eagles who if Deshawn Watson was interested. Talk about a what if moment for that franchise. If he was interested in playing

for the Eagles that offseason, what they might have, the homework they did. We know the Falcons, the Saints. I mean, I can't even remember all the teams. I mean, it was a lot of teams who were willing to just brush everything under the rug and say they didn't want to pay the guaranteed money. That was the final step that the Brown stuck.

But everything else, they were willing to do that. So, yeah, it's, I don't know that he ever plays a game for them again. Because if they're looking, I mean, the Achilles, this is like one of the most serious injuries, an NFL player can go through. And he was already playing as the worst quarterback in the NFL. Like, what is the point? You're going to have to just eat the money. At some point, he's going to rehab. He'll try to come back with another team.

It might not be next year. It might be the year after. But one of the most bizarre careers probably the last, what, 20, 30 years. All right, my flag plant. The seeds for this were planted in a Deonté Lee podcast in August. I don't even remember what the actual topic was. But we were talking about, you know, surprises. What could surprise us this season?

And he said, you know what? The Las Vegas Raiders, I'm looking at a guy on their roster. I wonder if he could get traded. I'm going, oh, Devante Adams. Yeah. He said, no, not Devante Adams. Max Crosby. And I said, all right, listen,

it's good for content. I like the conversation. They're not trading Max Crosby. Here's where I'm planning my flag. They got to look seriously into trading Max Crosby right now. Yeah. So they had a ho-hum game.

It didn't really mean. They played the Rams. They played a relatively tough. They lost by what, five points or whatever it is. Gardner Minchew comes in for Aidan O'Connell who gets injured. And you're just watching this team going.

Like, what is the point of this team? Where are we doing? What is your plan here? With Tom Brady as your new owner? I'm looking at what their options are, and they actually have a very intriguing option, which would be to, you know, not announce publicly, but they don't link it to Schefter, whoever you want to leak it to, that Max Crosby is available at the right price and see what calls come in. Because we've seen in the past that elite defensive players in their late 20s, he's 27 years old,

can in some cases net you two first round picks. And if I'm the Raiders and I have an opportunity to turn Max Crosby into two first round picks right now, As much as I normally say, do not trade young players at premium positions who are awesome, this is like their only move is to get those picks and start rebuilding and try to come up with the plan to land a quarterback because Max Crosby's great, but we've seen it throughout his career. It doesn't matter that much for your team success if your quarterback sucks. So I don't know if they're going to think outside the box and do that, but I legitimately think this is something they need to do right now because teams get desperate in season.

Remember a few years ago, the Rams were willing to give up two first. round picks for Brian Burns. Crosby's 27. He's under contract for the next two years at a pretty reasonable rate for a player of his stature. He plays almost every snap. I mean, he's ridiculously productive. If you're a contending team, you might say this is our time to take a swing. So Max Crosby has to be on the trade block basically by the time this podcast ends. I didn't want to bring up Brian Burns because he's several degrees better than Burns was in Carolina to me. Burns was on a rookie contract. And that is another. the complicating factor as well.

But to me, when you look at how the Panthers handled that situation, ultimately they had to be faced with the fact that they had a young centerpiece talent that they could not utilize to the best of his ability and that he would be more valuable to them as a trade chip than he would be on the roster. And by the time they finally accepted that, the value wasn't anywhere near what it could have been if they had struck when they knew interest was high. I'm not saying that this is necessarily the best management of the roster in 2024. That's where I'm with you on.

Even though I did give you that take at that point, and the season has kind of played out in the way that I laid out at that time, I'm not saying that it's the best thing to get wins now or the best things to get wins in 2025. But if you know you're going to need a quarterback, which they do, I don't really know how much longer you can look at Antonio Pierce as a head coach and say that he's the answer there. So this might actually be one of the few opportunities

that an organization gets to have a clean break and not be at a deficit in terms of its cap situation. in terms of its draft capital. You can actually look clear-headedly at the field. Maybe if you're able to get out ahead of this, you can start to compete for the top head coaching candidates. You can go clear house with the GM as well and think about who the best roster managers are that are available.

This is a clean opportunity, I think, for them because they don't really, they are not saddled with the same kind of baggage that a lot of other bad teams can be in these situations where you can maybe float Max Crosby, even if you don't get two, if you were able to get a one plus another top 100 pick, which I think is what we were discussing at that time. That would be a boon for this organization

when we know that they're going to be shopping for a quarterback in the near future. And we have seen teams trade two first round picks in season. The Rams did it. They didn't do it for Burns, but they did it for Jalen Ramsey in 2019. And that made a huge difference for that team. That definitely made a huge difference.

So did trading a first for Vaughn Miller a year later, or two years later. As a football fan, I just want to see Crosby trade. I want to see him in the playoffs, playing in big games. He deserves to play meaningful football. Great, totally. Yeah, it's not that he's just like one of the most productive defense events.

It's how he plays the game and the motor never stops. He's just a fun player. He just blows up run plays. It's run plays. It's rushing the passer. He's a phenomenal player who I think would make a difference for a team like Detroit. He would be an upgrade over Aiden Hutchinson. He's a better player than Aiden Hutchinson.

And then you have both those guys for the next two or three years. And then you can resign them if you want to. I mean, you're trying to win right now a team like that. But the reason why I would advocate for this trade where I might not do it in other situations, I don't think you should trade your best players when you have nothing else to root for when the fan base doesn't. But it's not like they're just a quarterback away.

This team is a lot of pieces away. They're not going to be able to solve this by the time that Crosby is still in his prime, I don't think. So I think you have to be realistic about the timeline, especially with Tom Brady coming in, I feel like that's going to usher in a new era

for the team. I think they're going to start doing things differently. You would think, like, why else would Brady agree to join if he's not going to have some say? Clearly, Mark Davis's mind. He thinks that he's going to draft a quarterback and Tom Brady's going to turn him into another time.

Maybe he'll wait until the sixth round to draft him. I don't know. But yeah, this team has a far ways to go. And I think you're doing right by Max Crosby, like, trading them. Now, you were early on the Bill Belichick Jaguars. Is there any Bill Belichick Brady Raiders smoke? Imagine Belichick having Brady as his boss? I can't see that.

No, no way. I think Alex Guerrero has a better chance of becoming the Raiders next head coach. All right. Well, maybe they'll do that. We'll see. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned it's Brock Bowers. That's it. It's it. I mean, that's pretty good, though.

Yeah, it's been him and Max Crosby. That's been it. And that is not enough to win in the league. And it's so clear that this team does not have what it needs to win right now. Accumulate resources. You're going to be bad this season. You get a first round pick, maybe two first round picks. And now you have three first round picks. And think about how you're going to go about getting a quarterback and then everything else to Ruiz's point. So we'll be back in a moment with some awards. All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. It is awards time how we finish every show. You can take them in any direction we want. Deante, you want to do the honors and lead us off?

What do you got? So my first superlative, probably not the best, but I'm giving the, got that Quitinum award to the Saints defense after that effort that we saw on Thursday night against the Broncos. And really, it's really less about just the defense now. And similar to the conversation we had about the Jets, right? I think that what we're seeing over the last month with the Saints kind of lays bare everything that's going wrong for this organization since that

ridiculous 2017 draft and the fact that they haven't been able to find new young talent to be able to kind of supplant the guys as they age and leave and you can feel like oh this team never replaced trey hendrickson after he left this team didn't replace alexander lonie to play alongside to mario davis after he left marcus williams isn't here anymore it's tyrant matthew in an aging safety core. And Marshall-Latimore is not the same singular shut-down corner piece on a night-in, night-out basis that we thought that he was at his prime. And that's fine because he's aged and he spent a lot of time being that kind of number one corner

and he still does play well. But you start to look at just kind of like the attrition of the roster up front at skill positions and then on offense, while it may have been better if for Shishaheed wasn't suffering a season-ending injury and Chris Halev wasn't out. but you're watching them on a down-and-down basis. And for as much as I like to see Spencer Rattler get a shot, it's so clear that there's nothing there with that offense anymore. Offensive line is hurt.

You're missing skill position guys. And this offense was not really built to have any kind of roster attrition or anybody be missing, especially along the offensive line. And it just does not look like a team that feels very inspired by its head coach to go out and play maybe beyond their usual capabilities. It feels like the walls are closing in on Mickey Loomis with this like chaotic style of team-building. It's like we're watching. You call it chaotic. I just call it bad.

I mean, that's another way. Because like you said, that 2017 draft really saved that team. They were just stagnant at that point. And it seemed like they needed to move on from both Drew Brie's and Sean Payton. Then they draft like three all pros in one draft. And everything is better after that. But the roster management remained the same. And next year, I think they only have a few players that can really help them save money if they get rid of them.

And you're still getting rid of talent at the end of the day. it's never good when you have to cut a player to save money. I know people celebrate that you opened up some cap space, but it's usually the result of bad roster management. It almost feels like a mob movie where the feds are closing in on the guy. The black and white montage at the end. It might be time to go off to Mexico or something. Change the idea of Mickey.

You got to go somewhere. I mean, their defense had they been able to kind of hang their hat on this throughout this whole process where it's like, eh, the offense, they haven't figured out. The defense has still had a high floor for most of those years, but that's not happening this season, like you mentioned, and to just watch that defense play the way they have the last couple weeks. The last six quarters have been some of the NFL's worst.

Yeah, and I've defended, like, I'm like Dennis Allen, terrible coach, but very good defensive coach, but when the defense starts playing like that. And Ruiz, he had, you know, you gave him the award, I think last week for best timeout of the week. I don't know if you saw his this week at the end of the first half. He called... The worst timeout.

This was the worst. I want to record. Yeah, the best. No, no, no, no, no. Do not have to hand it to it. No, worst time out of the week. Yeah, worst time out of the week. He called a time out and then took a knee at the end of the first half.

What? I don't like people who waste my time. That is a life rule. Don't waste my time, okay? Yeah, I don't need that. And this is why defensive coordinators don't get considered for heck coach and go out of course anymore. I do have to blame you for wasting your own time by watching that game, by the way.

You opted into that game. I think I had a multi-screen going on. Was there baseball on that night? I don't know. Yeah, you're probably right. I was. I didn't watch the end. I watched till, that was half time, I said.

I wasn't watching TV. And it was only on prime, so you paid for it too. That's a sad part. I paid for it too and I didn't even watch it. There you go. Gotta get my monies worth. All right, that's the Saints Ruiz. What are you got?

What's your first award? I'm going to give an award to Stefan Diggs, Jair, Alexander, Xavier McKinney for the trash talk, old school trash talk. I feel like this league isn't what it used to be in that regard. We always, you know, we over penalized players. We overfine players for doing that. But, no, Sevant Diggs got in, I don't know what to call it. an altercation with the entire side line, the entire Green Bay sideline.

And then after the game, he was asked about why it happened. He said he heard some chirping before the game, which he was lying about that. He was like, I don't know who was, dude, somebody was chirping. That's a very Jordan-esque. I took that person. Yeah, heard some chirping. No, he's had this rivalry with Jair Alexander going back to his time with the Vikings. This is like a year-long thing.

And I think it got rekindled in a game between the Packers and the bills a couple of years ago. So, no, he was looking for a fight in this one. But after the game, this was the best quote. He said, I'm never the bigger person. I'm not letting shit go. Bravo. From a fellow TIRP grad, I've never been prouder of a fellow tier. Yeah, that's beautifully said.

That's going to live on for a very, very long time. I'm with you. Yeah, you almost, you're kind of veering into a nice old man take with me. All these guys hang out and they train together in the off season. Come on, whatever, the old school. I hate that guy. He's wearing the other uniform. And cornerback wide receiver is always like a good.

That's always the best one. Josh Norman, Odell Beckham. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Bring it back. I'm with you. Absolutely. All right. I'm going to give my last laugh award to Mike Tomlin. This is basically going to be called the Mike Tomlin award. I mean, the guy changes from Justin Fields to Russell Wilson. If you saw it, if there was anybody out there who was like, this is a great idea. You know, I'm all for it. Tom knows what he's doing here. I didn't see them in the content space. I know I wasn't saying that. Although we were at least saying Justin Fields isn't playing that well. So I feel like we covered ourselves there. They go out. They have 400. Listen, I know the There was some flukiness to the game.

So still, they had 409 yards of offense. They beat the Jets 37, 15. This team is in line for a playoff berth with this Garbonzo Bean's team. And Mike Tomlin's doing it again somehow. So he's got to, you know, he's just got, I picture him right now because we watched Sunday night. He's sitting in some room, probably smoking a cigar, just laughing to himself. Maybe he has his, I don't know. But Mike Tom, I don't know how he does it year and in and year.

I know Russ didn't like the world. on fire in this game, but that's what I expected to see in Denver last year when he got to play with Sean Payton. And the fact that it's happening with Mike Tomlin, who's not like hailed as some ex and nose guy. Obviously, Arthur Smith is actually the offensive coordinator there. But you're right, man. This guy just wins football games. Never had a losing season. I don't know how you complain about that. I know the Steelers fans have high expectations. But part of those high expectations are because Tomlin won he was Super Bowl, not too low. Like I guess it was 15 years ago at this point. But man, it's a Super Bowl.

I feel like that should buy you 15 years, especially when you don't have any losing seasons. And they haven't had good quarterback play going back to what, 2020? Like Ben Rothesburg, those last two years, he was terrible. He was unviable, especially that last year when he was just checking it down in like 1.5 seconds. And they're sixth over the last, I think, four years in win percentage. It's, yeah, I mean, the thing,

because then people say, oh, he hasn't won a playoff game since this year. I'm like, look at his quarterbacks. An average coach with these quarterbacks is not sniffing 500. They're like 4 and 13, and you're complaining about not getting a playoff win with washed Ben Rothelsberger and Kenny Pickett. And who else is it? Mason Rudolph and Mitchell Chubisky? Like, give me a break here. Against Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, by the way.

It's crazy. And on top of that, I do want to say, like, to Mike Tomlin's credit, he was saddled with Matt Canada after it was the offensive coordinator at the University of Pitt and beats Clemson. that very much feels like an ownership move saying like, we don't want to let the guy that's right in our backyard go. And then we know with Kenny Pickett, I think that there was a lot of, we had a shot with Marino, we didn't get Marino.

We're not letting the next high profile pick quarterback. Such a funny comparison. You know, and I think that he's kind of had to work through just having bad quarterback play, bad offensive coordinator play. But to the point of Russell Wilson, I think when I was writing about it,

this was basically the takeaway that I had and it kind of played out exactly the way that I thought it would when I was writing about it going into this weekend, which is that I think that there are a lot of immaterial differences. I think between Wilson and Fields, when you look at their style of play, especially within this offense, but the one thing that Wilson does have

that we just did not see from Fields was that willingness to push a ball 20, 25, 30 yards down the field and give George Pickens an opportunity to go make a play, give Pat Friarmoot an opportunity to go make a play down the sideline. That's a huge difference in a game like this. That's what allowed them to go on that 31 unanswered, point run, when it looked like they were losing control of the game down 15-6 before the half, it's just the fact that you give guys a chance to make a play.

I don't expect a ball to bounce off the back of a defensive back's hand, and then Landon George Pickens' hands every week. But I do think that within this offense, it's a good process to make a defense have to honor the fact that you will take those one-on-one chances down the field. And outside of like comeback routes and curls and stick routes, you weren't seeing that from fields, even outside the numbers, which is where we know he wants to throw the ball the most. I thought Collinsworth made a good point about the types of passes he makes and how that helps George Pickens in particular. He puts touch on the ball. Yes. And for a jump ball receiver,

you need that. You can't catch jump balls when it's a line drive. And Justin Fields, for all his improvement this year, it hasn't been enough. One, and two, it hasn't changed the way that he throws the football. And that's always what I thought about Justin Fields for the last couple years is he doesn't have more than one pitch. And I know he's a dynamic talent. He's not a dynamic thrower. I would put him in the same category as Jalen Hertz who is a runner, but not much of a thrower on the run. And you see that with Justin Fields. He's almost a little, I wouldn't say

mechanical or robotic, but he doesn't have that fluidity you see from the other top quarterbacks who are dual threats. Yeah, I like how you phrased to give the guys a chance because it doesn't mean it has to be perfect, but it's like, like you said, the touch where some of those fields downfield passes, it's just like it doesn't, you have no chance if you're the receiver. So And they're not a good enough offense, I think, to be methodical stringed together. So they need that explosive element to be in some of these games and then you count on your defense a little bit.

I think the one area where maybe we discount it, Mike Tomlin, is that the guy knows what it takes to win football games. And if he decided that Russell Wilson gives them the best chance to win a football game, maybe we should have been like, oh, yeah, you probably deserve the benefit of the doubt in that regard. You won like nine games with Duck Hodges. I would say let's remember that next time, but we'll probably just rip the coach. Yeah, we'll forget next time. All right, Deante, what do you got? So my next one is the I'm sick of both of your shit award. Oh, to me and Ruiz?

All right, let's go. We're in person. Yeah, I'm ready for this. Whether it's been on the podcast or in the power rankings, I've had a week where I've been like, okay, maybe I can't take Seattle seriously. And then they do something that just completely wipes that off my face. And then the next week it'll be, okay, now I'm ready to take Atlanta seriously. And then something happens to them.

And we just talked on Friday where I said, hey, I know they're playing some of the worst NFL defenses so far, but it looks like they've got their touch distribution in order. Kirk Cousins is playing efficient and effectively protecting the football and not taking a bunch of sacks. And then I get to this game and it's immediately made uncompetitive in the second half by a strip sack by Seattle. I think that on the other end for them for Atlanta defensively, even though they got good pressure numbers, good QB hit numbers, you could tell that Gino Smith had no concern about that secondary, about anything that was happening with that defense. by far his highest air yards per attempt. The only one over 10, and he was at almost like 13 yards per attempt.

So that goes to show you just what he thought of this defense. They were able to get connected with D.K. Metcalfe deep downfield. Obviously, he's carted off with the injury later in the game. You hope that things come out well for him so that way this offense can continue its rhythm. Because when it's rolling, it looks as good as any in the league. And there's a reason why Gino Smith was an NFL's league leader in passing coming into this week. But I'm sick of it with both of them. I'm out on both.

I don't care. I'm discarding these results. I don't, I'm not going to take anything to happen with them seriously until we get, until we get past like Thanksgiving weekend and then we can maybe look at the standings

and see where things stand. But I keep saying I won't know anything about these teams until the end. And this game looks like more of the same for me. I'm with you in spirit, but I can't give up on Gino. And today was a classic Gino game. And if Jordan Love is the most ambitious pastor,

Gino's number two on that list. And he's kind of close to Jordan Love. I think there's a large gap between how those two operate and how the rest of the league operate. I'd throw Josh Allen in there as well. But yeah, today, just him like evading pressure in the pocket. I know there wasn't much pressure to evade, but when there was, he was evading pressure,

stepping up in the pockets, everything that you expect a quarterback to do to help out his offensive line. And he did it while making throws downfield. Really pushing the ball downfield. It's a good commentary on kind of state of the NFC. I think you like the Lions. We talked about the Packers.

You know, where are you with everybody else? Honestly, it's the NFC North and then I really don't care what else is happening in the UFC right now. Yeah, no, that's a good point. Like the NFC East champion, I wouldn't be afraid to play them on wildcard weekend. And the doors open for the Seahawks if they, I mean, I think there's... First place. I'll say first place in the NFC West right now. There shouldn't be some ups and down.

Doors still be open for the Falcons regardless, you know, when we get Thanksgiving. So we'll see what we see there. All right. Ruiz, what do you got? What's next? I'm going to award the head coach of the New York Giants job to Cliff Kingsbury. after today. Oh.

I think Cliff is getting the head coaching job. I don't know if you guys are ready for that, but Cliff is returning to head coaching next year after today. And especially if we don't see

Jane and Daniels played next week. I don't know, I don't think Dan Quinn had an update on his status. Ribs injury. Yeah. And then I think that's the extent. Jane and Daniels'

mom did tweet out that he was fine. So you have it straight from the source. In the fantasy doctors get to diagnose from the sideline. I mean, she probably has a better trigger than that. Exactly. No doubt.

She's been dealing with his, you know, think of all the illnesses and ailments. She's been dealing, she knows when her son is good or not. He's been undersized all his life. He'll bounce back on a rib injury. That was not his first rib injury.

I guarantee you that. But no, like Marcus Marriota comes in. And I haven't seen Marcus Marriota play football like that since he was at Oregon, winning a Heisman. For sure. And it looked like the same offense we saw with Jaden Daniels. Like RPO's on early downs to protect the quarterback from making mistakes. When things do break down, the quarterback isn't expected to mitigate that pressure in the

pocket. He's expected to get outside the pocket and create. And Mariota did it. I don't think he's going to be able to sustain this like Jaden Daniels was, because Marriota's never been an overly accurate quarterback. And Jaden Daniels, I think that's his superpower right now outside of the mobility. But for one week, at least, the offense put up 40 points. It was against a bad defense.

But if we do see Mariotta come out and do this again, I think Cliff Kingsbury is going to re-earn that QB whisper badge that he had. I don't want to disagree with you because of the production, right? Offensive coordinator, putting up a bunch of y' our success rate, EPA, all that looks good. I'm sure that he's going to be on short list. I would just tell you from personal experience last week, came away with some takeaways after the Falcons played the Panthers defense.

I'm going to caution you against doing the same. Yeah, and I've seen Marcus Mario to play. Give me three games of him and we will not be having the same conversation. But I think the good thing is he won't play again. We get that one game. I know. I know. It's bad for my takes.

He did it with Mario, he did it with Marioo to, and I think the fact you look at Cliff Kingsbury's track record, I don't know how much credit he deserves for this, but he's had a hit in the development of a lot of great quarterbacks in the NFL right now. He coached Patrick Mahomes.

Okay, but if it wasn't, it, wouldn't it be if it was a better coach coaching Patrick Mahomes in college, then maybe he would have gone first overall? How does Patrick Mahomes, that's a mark on his record? That's a question you should have asked Arizona in 2019, they still gave him a job after he got fired from Texas Tech.

I think Stephen's looking at this wrong. He is projecting success for Clifford. Kingsbury. The real winner here is Marcus Mariotta because this game might get him another year of NFL salary. Yeah. I mean, I really don't know how Marcus Marriota has a job right now because considering how it ended in Atlanta, I would think that- And now he wouldn't put something on tape. You know, put something on tape. But if Marcus Marriota can abandon his team, like literally leave his team and get a backup job the next year and then get another backup job, I think Cliff Kingsbury can re-earn a head coaching job in this league. Because everyone is enamored with

quarterbacks and coaches who can coach quarterbacks. And Cliff Kingsbury, like, I don't think John Mayer is watching the Texas Tech tape. He's not watching the USC tape with Caleb there and being like, oh, this guy wasn't actually helping these guys out. He just goes, oh, he coached all these guys that I know are good at quarterback. I want a good quarterback. Maybe I should hire him. Now that I think about it between Dan Quinn, Cliff Kingsbury, Marcus Mariotta, they put

together a team of guys who have a reputation of being a good hang. You don't hear about people being angry at any of the people involved. Although I was just laughing when you were mentioning the Mario da thing. That was the best production editing of any documentary ever where he just like stopped. They're like, he left the team. Wait, what do you mean? The Netflix documentary? Let's go to Mahomes in Kansas City.

Yeah, you remember Patrick Mahomes? Just watch him. Forget about Marcus Marriota. But no, Dan Quinn is like cursed by his own offensive coordinator hires. Like I feel like he might be one of the greatest offensive coordinator hires ever. Cliff this year. Kyle Shanahan in 2015 and then Sarkeesian

who's leading the number one team but not anymore but no I wonder if Jane Daniels continues like this and the defense continues to well I guess they're playing better now but if they go back to how they were playing earlier in the year I wonder if Washington thinks before Cliff leaves

hey should we make a change here? They won't happen yeah that's always a conversation but I feel like you never can actually do that The only time it ever happened was Tampa Bay with Dirk Cutter when they moved on from Louis Smith and it didn't work out. I wouldn't do it either. That was awful. But yeah, I don't think they should do it.

But I wonder if you should have the conversation because like what does this team look like if the offense does take a step back? Well, I will channel my Ruiz and be like, let's let's let the second half of the season play out before we actually worry about that. But it's a good segue into mine, which is my throw your phone into the River Award goes to Joe Shea. the Giants. G-M-O my guy was just letting the cameras in. Just literally having a conversation, he's here. John Mera, the owner of the teams over there going, I really would not like to see him go to Philadelphia.

All right, yeah, we'll say. It was obvious. The owner wanted Saquan Barclay to stay a giant, Joe Shane. And I didn't think Joe Shane was wrong about this, by the way. I was like, we have a lot of holes. I don't know if we should pay Saquan Berkeley that money. Let's build other parts of the roster. Well, at MetLife Stadium,

this afternoon. Sequin Barclay goes off for 17 yards on 17 carries. The Eagles offense did nothing on their three possessions. Second quarter, Sequin Barclay, a little pin pull scheme, 51 yarder. He's got 350-yard runs already this season. He had three carries of over 35 yards in this game. He was lowering his shoulder. He looked incredible. He looked like the best player in the league, honestly, where you're like, how does anyone not have a running back like this? And so if you're Joe Shane, You don't want to be having that conversation with the owner today when your team is two and five, when Daniel Jones got pulled for Drew Locke in this football game and it seems like another lost season. So you turn it off, throw it in the river, whatever you need to do.

Don't take the call, Joe. Teachable moment for Joe Shane trying to, you know, walkers into the content space and hard knocks. You never marry yourself to a take. Listen, it's not for everyone this content game, you know? Not everyone can do it. It looks easy. In every scene that he could fit it in, he wanted to let you know that he knew what a running back value actually was, it was Sequan Barclay was and wasn't worth, and he was willing to plant his flag behind

that. And now every week, basically, I'm looking at either Seyquan Barclay or Derek Henry, if not Seyquan Barclay being maybe the best non-quarterback player in the league so far. That's the worst part of this. It's not the first time, or it won't be the last time, that an NFL team lets a star player walk and regrets it. But it is the first time that HBO documented this move. You can't hide. You can't leak the Schefter that I wanted to keep him, but, you know, so you can't do that. Hard knocks, I'm about to make the dumbest move of my career. It's incredible. You're right. You're so right.

Every scene with him, he was saying like, well, at age 27, well, we'll go here. But it wasn't just one scene. This is literally the focus of like almost every episode. All the promotional materials, all the videos, all the commercials are like, oh, yeah, they're getting rid of Seekwan. Our buddy Bowulf was having a really good time posting those stills from the hard knocks about Joe Shane saying, oh, we're out. You know, I'm not taking this guy back. The deal wasn't that big. It wasn't. Yeah, you're right.

I don't think they were that far off from what the Giants were willing. And what they ultimately paid Devon Singletary, I think, was within competing range of what Sequan Barclay was asking for in the first place. Yeah, they still paid Devin Singletary a lot of money. It's not like they went. You got to go one extreme or the other. You don't want to live in that middle ground. All right, do you guys have any more awards for us or should I? That's all I got.

You're good? I'm good. All right, I'm going to finish us off with a couple more. The award for the weirdest obsession. Now, you guys were working as you were watching the Sunday night football. But did you hear Chris Collinsworth with the Beanie Babies tonight? No, I missed this. I mean, Beanie Bishop, the Steelers defensive back had a terrific game.

Every time they mention him, he starts talking about Beanie Babies. He remembers going to the airport and digging through the Collinsworth. What is happening here? My man, it's a weird obsession with the Beanie Babies. Ruiz looks frightened. I like that. I'll move on. I didn't hear that.

I'm glad I didn't hear it. Next one. All right. Last one. The Eat Your Almond's award goes to everyone who's ripping Patriots coach, Gerad May. Now, I know Deonte knows this. Ruiz, the background here is my mom believes that you eat almonds. It improves your memory. Whether there's scientific backing for this or not, I don't know.

But every time I can't remember something, I said, I should, you know, I should have eaten my almonds. Yeah, so I mentioned that quite often. And so Gerard Mayo, I feel like is getting crushed. And listen, the Patriots played terribly. They got embarrassed in London. But I hear a lot of, and I don't know the people are saying it outright, but it's like, this doesn't look like a, you know, a Patriots coach team or a Belichick coach team. Did not everybody forget what the Patriots looked like last year?

That's what they looked like. Not totally. Their defense was good. I understand that. That was the one differentiating factor from Belichick. But like the special teams touchdown, the Patriots were 28th in special teams DVOA last year. They had stupid penalties.

They looked like a dumb team week in and week out. And so I don't know if Gerard Mayo is going to be good or not, but like he's in his sixth game and I feel a lot of revisionist history. So everyone each element's remember. what the Patriots looked like last year. It's always funny when you land in these positions in the middle of the season where everybody acts like they didn't know what the preseason expectations were for this team.

Everybody walked in saying that this team was at best, the 30th best roster in the league. And at worst, maybe the worst in the league. And that's exactly what they look like. And I think if anything, you should be encouraged coming out of the last two weeks. Because at least it looks like the rookie quarterback that you spent all this time trying to develop can play and can play in a way that might actually lift the ceiling of this team once you actually surround him with some guys that can help him out. And it's not like Mayo was raising expectations before the year.

He was very blunt about it. Very clear. The entire organization has been clear since they hired him. This is a rebuilding year, and it's going to take some time. And like you said, like the players dictate how the team is playing. And the players are still largely the same. And they were handpicked by Bill Belichick in his front office. It's going to take some time to turn over the roster and get it playing like Mayo wants it to play.

But like you said, I feel like his handle. of the May situation has been perfect so far. It seems like it. Yeah, that's a good point. He didn't drop him in there early when Jacoby Brissette was getting beat up. He kind of used Jacoby Preset as a crash test dummy to see how good this environment was. And the offense is working for May. Like, he looks very comfortable reading things out.

You could see them repeating concepts that I would believe that he's comfortable with and he's gone to them and like, I like to run this stuff. And they're just spamming those concepts and it's working for him. And he's playing well without having a good run game. or any good or any help from his dealings, which I think probably speaks highly to where he's at right now mentally and his comfort working within this offense. Yeah, it hasn't been a disaster.

There was a chance where it was going to be, wow, the pressure's getting to him. He's developing bad habits. He gets injured or, oh, my slow getting up. And that hasn't happened. You've seen the flashes. And like, it's a good point, Ruiz. I mean, there was so much talk about how are they going to handle this quarterback situation.

I don't know what the right answer was or wasn't, but the way they actually handled it seems like it's going to be okay. to develop this guy for the rest of the season, and then you see what you have in 2025. So eat those almonds. Don't be giving me your Gerard Mayo takes. All right, that's going to do it for this episode of the Ringer NFL show. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz.

Thank you to Deontay Lee. Appreciate Christopher Sutton producing additional production supervision by Connor and Evans, Arjuna Ramigofal. We've got a bunch of people helping us out here. Dan Comer, Tucker, Tashijan. So we appreciate everyone helping us out. We will be back later this week with. another episode. Thanks for listening.

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