The Ringer NFL Show - Week 8 Recap: 49ers Survive the Cowboys, the Jayden Daniels Hail Mary, and More

Episode Date: October 28, 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. Cowboys-49ers (1:54) Bears-Commanders (11:58) Jets-Patriots (23:19) Ravens-Browns (29:56) Colts-Texans (35:10) Eagles-Bengals (42:12) Bills-Seahawks (47:25) Saints-Chargers (51:50) They then survey the league and offer superlatives and awards to the players, coaches, and teams who made newsworthy contributions to the Week 8 headlines (1:01:36). 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

What's up, guys, your boy Johnny Bananas here. The Challenge Season 40 Battle of the Eras is finally upon us. I'll be covering every episode with all your favorite challengers on my podcast, death taxes, and bananas on the Ringer Reality TV podcast feed, and on the brand new Ringer Reality TV YouTube channel where you can find full video episodes all season long. So buckle up. Come along with me as we see who will be crowned winner of the Challenge

Season 40 Battle of the Eras. Follow Ringer Reality TV on Spotify and subscribe to us on YouTube. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with my friends. Deonté Lee and Stephen Ruiz Week 8 in the books. We're going to get to some big storyline,

some big games, some fun endings. And then we'll plant our flags and hand out some awards as well. Deontay, how we doing? I'm doing well, man. Obviously, not in that sexy a studio setup as we were last Sunday. when we were all able to come together and review the games.

But glad to be back home. I'm sure you guys all feel the same. And this was a weird week of NFL football, maybe not as exciting as some of the other weeks that we've covered. But we had a lot of good matchups regardless. Ruiz, we got a fun ending to one game. We got a little Sunday night drama. Did it deliver for you?

Yeah. And that first slate, that early slate, Scott Hansen during the witching hour, that was magnificent. Hansen totally rose to the moment. And I think there were six games in that first eight game window that were decided by five points or less. And I think we got four game winning scores in the final minutes of games, led by James Winston, who we'll talk about later. As expected, led by James Winston, weekend, an upset win over the Baltimore Ravens.

All right, let's get to it. Let's get to some big matchups from Sunday. We're going to start with the Sunday night game. Cowboys, 49ers. looks like the 49ers are in full control. Cowboys come back, make it interesting in the fourth quarter, but San Francisco escapes with a 30-24 victory. My take from this game, and I don't know if it's going to surprise you guys or not,

I think the Niners should feel really good about where they're at right now. You know, they come into this game, and they did a lot of the things we've talked about. Like, why are they making it so hard? Why aren't they doing the old Shanahan stuff? Well, in this game, 469 yards, just 4% of Brock Purdy's throws were into tight windows. This was Kyle Shanahan scheming it up saying, even though I don't have everybody here, we're going to move the football, we're going to create explosives. And now they're in a situation where they're four and four going into their buy week,

probably potentially getting Christian McCaffrey back after the buy. And no one's run away in the NFC West right now. It's a three-way tie for first place at four and four. So for all the ups and downs and it's been a roller coaster ride going back to the summer with this football team. And I've wondered 400 times on this show. This is classic Super Bowl hangover season, Deontay. I think they've got to be feeling pretty good about this.

And they're in the mix of Super Bowl contenders in the NFC. I mean, this was the second shortest time to throw and tied for the lowest air yards for attempt for Brock Purdy so far this year. To me, I think that the story, if you're looking at San Francisco's offenses, Kyle Shanahan finally taking the keys back, right? Finally snatching the steering wheel back and starting to push some of those easy buttons again. You saw a lot more of, those behind the line of scrimmage that were effective in this game.

You saw a lot of slants, getting guys a ball on the move, really Debo, Samuel and George Kittle, you know, I would say probably be in the most obvious examples. And then I think we saw something from Grendo that maybe they had a little bit more pop in the backfield than we may have thought or that Kyle Shanahan may have given Garendo credit for as a backup running back. I think that this offense now has kind of found that it can change gears a little bit. And I think you should feel really good about how well they look between the second in the third quarter once they stopped hunting explosives as aggressively as they did to open the game. Yeah, we talked about their struggles against man coverage this season. They average 1.25 EPA per

play on 10 plays against man coverage. They average 18 yards per dropback against man coverage in this game. So, I mean, it was one week only, and they didn't score a touchdown outside of that third quarter where they win 21 to nothing and put the game away almost. But for one week only, they've solved their biggest issue on offense so far. That's the issue that Kyle Shannon was talking about last week. And like Shield said, they kind of went back to their old tricks in order to solve it. And once they get all their guys back, it's easier to beat man coverage when you have Christian McCaffrey and Debo Samuel and George Kittle, who looked phenomenal today. Ricky Pearsall has started, you know, getting more reps. So I just feel like they're in a nice place, like you

guys said, with different options. I don't know the exact way Kyle Shanahan wants to play because they've had some weird games that they, you know, just the style of play, the play calls their game plans going in through the first eight weeks of the season. But this felt like them getting back to their roots. And I think they're just going to be able to do that more after their buy week. So 49ers in good shape. You know who's not in good shape? The Dallas Cowboys. Oh my goodness. They, you know, they come out like you mentioned Ruiz. Third quarter, it just looks like, all right, this game is a blowout. They get a couple scoring drives in the fourth quarter and make it closer. But they're now three and four on the season. They're two games behind the Eagles. They're two and a half

games behind the commanders. Ready for this? In the NFC, there are two teams with the worst point differential than the Dallas Cowboys, two the Giants and the Panthers. That's not how we talk about the Cowboys generally in that conversation with the Giants and Panthers. So I don't know, Ruiz, is this season? Is it like over?

Is it curtains? Or do you think there's hope? Are there solutions to the problems that ail this team or is this just not their year? No, I think it's over. I think it's over at this point. This is going to be a tough wildcard race. You look at the three spots right now. It's Green Bay at 6 and 2, Minnesota at 5 and 2, and Philadelphia at 5 and 2.

Dallas isn't catching those teams. And like you said, they are not playing good football. It's not just like a misleading record. And we kind of talked about this on the Friday show. They also had problems against man coverage. They did not solve their problems against man coverage in this game. And obviously the issues on the defensive side of the ball with Mike Zimmer's defense, they couldn't do the one thing that every other team has said.

had success against this 49ers team. I think I said on Friday, this is the game where we kind of figure out if Zimmer is really cooked. And I would say right now, looking back on the Sunday night game, this defense is cooked. And the offense doesn't look much better. Yeah, they don't, I mean, defensively, it's just, there's not a lot of talent. And like you said, Mike Zimmer has not shown that he's still a more with less coach. He was back in the day. I'll give him credit. You know, those Vikings teams, Mike Zimmer has put together a lot of great defenses in the NFL, but he doesn't have it right now. And offensive. defensively, Deontay, what are you, you know, Dak Prescott, I mean, the numbers are terrible.

He is right now 29th in dropback success rate. And so it's like he combined the way he's playing with the lack of talent, with the unimaginative scheme. Is this just what it's going to look like the rest of the year? I think so. Well, I would say, I don't know if it's going to look as bad as it maybe has against the Steelers as it did against the Steelers at times. And then throughout the game today against the 49ers.

But this is a lot of what we talked about in the preview show, is that these matchups have kind of played out pretty predictably for Dak Prescott against his defense because San Francisco is comfortable sitting in those two deep shells, not allowing them to get those manufactured deep shots to C.D. Lamb and really forcing this offense to have to dink and dunk. And if there's one thing that this team has proven, and I don't know if it exists with every defense of Dak Prescott's faces, but for whatever reason, them forcing Dak to play that dink and dunk style of ball kind of forces him to take chances that I think are uncharacteristic, even as a guy who will pull. put the ball in harms away from time to time, that deep throw that was picked off by that

middle of field safety, like, that's just an objectively bad ball. And the same for the floated pass that got picked off up to sideline. Those are two passes that are just poor quality for any quarterback, especially for one that we regard as highly as Dak Prescott. But you can just see him pressing in these situations because it's so clear that he's not going to get any support from the run game. Outside of CD Lamb, there's nobody who can create before or after the catch, whether it's separation or yards after the catch.

And I think that for him, when you've got Nick Bosa bearing down on you and an offensive line that's not really creating any movement or giving you much comfort in the pocket, it makes it really hard for you to play A-plus style of ball. In San Francisco, I think, just kind of has a bead on what Mike McCarthy likes to do offensively, and they don't really allow this team to play with the kind of rhythm that they need to in order to be effective on that end of the ball. It was a fragile build, I think, more than we gave it credit for last year.

Like, the tight window throws that Dax throwing into this year. That was the case last year. He was just really good at it. And there is something off with them. I think Chris Collins, where it said it on the broadcast, and you've seen it all season long, his accuracy isn't what it once was. When it was one of the better or more accurate arms in the NFL,

now he's missing those tight window throws. And without them, this offense just isn't sustainable. The run game isn't there. The explosives in the run game aren't there. And outside of targets to C.D. Lamb, the explosiveness in the past game isn't there. Mike McCarthy doesn't look like he has answers. Outside of last year, I mean, you can really,

go back a decade now or maybe like seven years where a McCarthy offense has really struggled to generate open looks for its quarterback. And we've seen two different styles of quarterback compete in this offense. We've seen Dak Prescott, who's way different from Aaron Rogers, but they both have had the same issues finding open receivers in this scheme. What is Jerry Jones thinking when he hears like you mentioned, because Chris Collinsworth was calling it out that his accuracy isn't what it was last year. He also said it's movement. You know, he said he just doesn't move the way. he used to and you just paid him, you know, made him the highest paid player in the history of the NFL. Like is this the start of a decline for Dak Prescott? Is this a, hey, blow it up

and get a coach in there. Who knows what he's doing and he can look a lot better next season? Because I heard the same thing from Compsworth. It was kind of uncharacteristic. I thought to hear that on a broadcast. And I just wonder when Jerry Jones watches that back or I don't think He has the earbuds in, you know, in the box there. But I'm sure those comments are going to get to him what he thinks when he hears that, Ruiz. I'm not sure I agree with the movement stuff. I think you've just seen him go up against some tough pass rushes. This has been like a tough schedule of defenses they face.

The 49ers, I know their defense hasn't like lit the world on fire. But we know with Bosa that pass rush can disrupt a quarterback. Aidan Hutchinson, they played him two weeks ago before his injury. So the Lions rush was a lot better. The Steelers obviously have a good rush. The Ravens can get after the quarterback as well. And we know the Browns can get after the quarterback, even though that was a bad game for Cleveland in week one.

So I think it just looked like he's moving a little slower in comparison for the past rushes he's playing because he's playing fast past rushes. But the accuracy point is definitely there. He's not hitting the throws he was hitting last year. And that was the lifeblood of this offense. And it's not there anymore. So the offense is dying. And by the way, someone remind Jerry Jones that when Dak Prescott is throwing a go ball

to Gavante Terpen. with the game on the line that you could have done some stuff in the off season, Jerry. I know you re-signed CD and you re-signed DAC and oh, everything was fine and you're an entertainment product. You had moves you could have made if you would have been wiser with your spending, with your salary cap flexibility where that's not what this game is coming down to partially in the fourth quarter. So it's a mess there. This season's going just about as bad as you could expect. It is a long season. You get Micah Parsons back maybe here in a couple weeks and they can be, I think, a competitive team or surprise some teams in the second half of the season,

but it's hard to get to the point where you view them as a real contender there in the NFC. All right, we get to the most exciting ending of the day, maybe the most exciting ending in the season. I'll have to think about that, but it's certainly up there. Caleb Williams, Jade and Daniels, some parts of the game were a little boring. And then in the fourth quarter, all of a sudden, it explodes. I'll tell you what I was thinking, Ruiz. Let's thank the football guys that Daniel Snyder doesn't get to enjoy the Jaden Daniels experience.

You know, that is a win for all of us that he is no longer the owner of the team as they're entering this new era. But I don't know. Your takeaways, you can go in a number of different directions with this game. What's it out to you? I think it was the loss that the Chicago coaching staff has to take for this. I feel like they have to wear this loss more than anybody. I know Tyreek Stevenson did not have the best end-of-game situation. situational awareness. I think he was celebrating or taunting the fans while the ball was being

stabbed for the Hail Mary. And then it seemed like Noah Brown was his guy and he kind of left him to go try to get an interception or bat the ball down. If he was trying to bat the ball down, it did not work. It ended up ricocheting right to and wide open Noah Brown. But still, I don't think that play should have mattered. I feel like this Bears team, whether it's Shane Waldron calling the handoff to the backup center and getting very, very predictable results. If you had asked me, like, what's the worst that can happen? We're going to hand it off to our backup center in a key situation down near the goal line with the game on the line.

I'll go, maybe a fumbled handoff, and that's exactly what happened. It didn't even seem like they were close to handing the ball off correctly. I don't know. It didn't look like they had practiced this play before. It was very bad. It was a red flag for me for the entire coaching staff, as was the failure. failure to bat the ball down, the failure to have a guy on Noah Brown, so he wasn't just standing there wide open in case the ball bounces to him. And then I think you could argue with some other decisions that had less stakes.

Like in the first half, I think he could have challenged a third and one play. They don't challenge the spot. It was an iffy spot. I don't know if they would have gotten it, but it would have at least given them time to discuss the fourth down play call. They didn't end up doing that. They end up forcing a bubble screen to DJ more that gets just blown up behind the line of scrimmage. and they turned the ball over there. There were some other issues, too.

I thought Shane Waldjian was a little bit too cute with his play calling. If you just ignore the bad handoff to the backup center, even outside of that, there were some short yardage play calls that I didn't agree with. So I would start there. But if I'm a Bears fan, as bad as this loss was to stomach, what Caleb Williams showed in the fourth quarter and how he was impressing Tony Romo in the booth, the Tony Roma was ooh-in-and-on in the booth all fourth quarter long, I think you have to be happy because that was not a good start to a game.

And he was not deterred by that. And he played his best football in crunch time against a Washington defense that I thought played really well and put him under pressure constantly. What did you think, Deontay? If we're looking at it from a big picture perspective, I think there were so many things that came up in this game that were a microcosm of both these were good quarterback seasons. Right. Like you saw a lot of what Cliff Kingsbury is able to do to help Jaden Daniels with bubble screens, with RPO's, and guys creating after the catch. And then on the flip side of that, and this is something that I know I've talked about, and it sounds like nitpicking when they're putting up 35, 38, 40 points in a given week. But I think

what you saw from Chicago's defense in response was a commitment to playing tight coverage on basically all downs and really forcing Jaden Daniels to have to deal with discomfort in the pocket. You know, I thought they were very smart with their pass-rest discipline in the second half specifically, really making that, really making him have to work around a late fifth rusher or not just running out of the back door of the pocket and allowing him to escape quickly to extend plays and push the ball down the field. And then on the other side, you look at Caleb Williams. And I think that Stephen kind of hit the nail on the head, you can maybe count like

on two or three fingers the amount of times where you look at a play call and say, wow, Shane Waldron just made it really easy on his rookie quarterback, right? Even in a play action bootleg game and, you know, in the dropback game, trying to work the middle of the field or trying to find easy one-on-ones. There are so many situations throughout the game where you just got to leave it disappointed. And Caleb definitely kind of shares in his responsibility with that as well. He made some plays worse, especially in the first half, bailing out of pockets, you know, trying to do too much. I think that we're seeing all the ways in which being an improviser for him can be harmful within the structure of this offense.

But I don't know if he's being helped on the other side of that either. And that's like not even interfacing with some of the worst play calls of the day. Obviously, you have the fumbled handoff. you have the horrible execution in a hellmerry situation. Like my blood is boiling for so many reasons from this game, from Chicago's perspective. But I think if you're both teams, you should feel good. Obviously, Washington, not only do you get the win, but I think you saw a really tough, kind of gritty performance from your quarterback dealing with the rib injury.

And like you even said, from Caleb Williams, you saw a great fourth quarter. You started handling pressure much better, really delivering the ball and tight coverage and anticipating guys coming open. But yeah, I think that it's weird to, walk away from a game feeling like Dan Quinn and Cliff Kingsbury are clearly the better coaches on the sideline, but that's how it felt, I think, if you're evaluating what we saw on Sunday. I really hated the decision to only rush three after Daniels on the Hail Mary. It's easy to say this in hindsight. And then not only just rush three, but they also have a spy.

I didn't quite understand the reason to have a spy when obviously Daniels isn't going to scramble for 50 yards. I get, you don't want him to hold on to the ball. But the spy didn't really stop that from happening. held on to the ball before throwing it 12 seconds. It was the longest Hail Mary in recorded history, according to Next Gen stats since 2016. It's how far their numbers go back. So whatever the strategy was, it didn't really work. And you gave them so much time.

You gave the receiver so much time to get down there. I always prefer an all-out blitz on a Hail Mary. Give me one of those. I like how Todd Bulls does it. That's what Todd Bulls would do. Jim Schwartz also is a fan of the, listen, I agree with what you guys are saying about the, I mean, Shane Waldron. It was comical.

Honestly, put him back on fraud watch. That was pathetic. You know, one thing, like, you always need your friends to look out for you. Like, if you're going to wear a weird shirt or something, and, like, they make fun of you. And then you don't do it because you're like, all right, I need other opinions. Who are the friends who should have been making fun of Shane Waldron in practice on Wednesday when you're trying to install that play into the game, a handoff to a backup offensive lineman when you're on the one-yard line?

Like, how does that get through the whole game plan process? And they have a great short-jordage back. Yeah. Rochon Johnson is a great short yardage back. They've been very successful when goal-line situations handing the ball off to the actual running back. I don't understand why you would get cute there. You're also making the run play a 10-on-11 run play because you don't have that extra blocker you're wasting with the back behind the fullback in the eye. When you go through the layers of this decision, what had to happen to get to this point? It's mind-boggling that an NFL team could do this. And maybe if he does score, we're probably celebrating this. But I don't know.

I think the process was bad. It wasn't sound process. Who was looking at the game plan? It was like, you know what this needs more of? David Kramer, Jr. We need to get him some touches. That's what I'm saying. You need a coach.

The hell no, we're not doing that coach. Once a week, veto power. If someone suggests something stupid, the hell no, we're not doing that coach can say, we're not, nope, we're not doing that. As soon as that gets introduced, we're not doing that. What's your second best option? And that would fix all of this. They need that on the bear.

So I agree with you guys there. I blame the lines for this. They're the only ones that can pull off these. No, when they do it, it's beautiful. No, no, no, no. If it works, it's fun. They're setting an unrealistic standard for the rest of the of these teams. All these other teams don't have Penae Sewell.

He should be the only, him and Trent Williams should be the only offensive linemen that get to be on the receiving end of trick plays or whatever you want to call them. I don't know what to call that. The only person they tricked was Matt Iber Fluse himself. Yeah, they tricked themselves on that when I agree with that. I agree that Caleb Williams finished strong.

He was terrible for three quarters in this game. I mean, he was so jittery and uncomfortable and inaccurate and spinning around in his pocket presence was terrible in this game. He finished his 10 for 24 for 131 yards. But the biggest story of this game is that Jane and Daniels added another chapter to his legend. I mean, he's through week eight now and he throws out game winning Hail Mary after playing

with a rib injury where I didn't think he was even going to play in this game. He throws for 32 yards. He runs for 52 yards. They have 481 yards of offense against a very good Chicago Bears defense. And if you're a Washington fan, you're just like, Sundays are amazing this year. Every game. I mean, I remember that Monday night game. He's just like adding stuff week after week after week. And he looks comfortable. He just looks very comfortable back there operating the offense. Romo was calling that out, going through his progressions, knowing where his answers are. And I like his instincts too. Like he has the Mahomes thing where he runs near the sideline. Now, sometimes he takes a big hit, but he kind of knows right where the first down marker is and

when he needs to get out of balance. So even when it's a little rocky at times for him, like I thought they were very close to blowing the bears out in this game. I mean, yeah, this. Zachard touchdown that he couldn't come down with. You had another touchdown called back because of a penalty. So the final points, I feel like, and the Hail Mary, don't reflect just how well they played. So commanders are six and two, and in first place in the NFC East, they would be the two seat in the NFC if the season ended today. And to your point, Ruiz, I mean, their defense has played a lot better here in the last two or three weeks. So I'm with you.

If you're a Bears fan, there was a scenario where you're like, oh man, Caleb Williams didn't show up. He looks terrible in this game against Jaden Daniels. He finished strong until they took the ball out of his hands and tried to hand it to the backup linemen there. All right. We'll take a break. We come back and we're going to talk about who had the worst Sunday back on the Ringer NFL show. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandul, America's number one sports book because right now new customers can bet $5 and get $150 in both.

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Who do we want to laugh at? Who do we want to make fun of? Ruiz, lead us off. Who do you got? I'm going to go with the team that lost to Jacoby Brissette, who had to replace Drake May after he took a helmet-to-helmet shot.

I think what makes this game worse from a Jets perspective is the fact that they played really well on offense. They played one of their more complete games on offense in terms of EPA in terms of the success rate. They outgained the Patriots by two yards per play. They had the higher EPA, the higher

success rate. They had a positive EPA in both the ground game and the past game. So the firing of Robert Sala clearly hasn't worked. They've given up 62 points to Russell Wilson and Jacoby were said over the last two games. The defense has been the reason they've lost these games. But the move away from Nathanielackett

has Yulet the results that they wanted when they made the shift. And they've really leaned into the Aaron Rogers aspects of the offense. They have a 91% shotgun rate since the firing. So for the last three weeks. They are third in, no, no, they are fourth in explosive play rate. They are 10th in EPA per play since then. So the offense has kind of turned around. But now the defense is the problem. And we're at the point, what are they, two and six now. We're at the point where it's too late. Even if this offense does rebound, even if it does play like the top 10 offense, which I think is, it's sealing. I don't think it's going to

going to be any better than that. I don't think they're going to be able to make up enough ground in the AFC East. I don't think they're going to be able to make enough ground in the wildcard race. And there's still a tremendous amount of pressure on a quarterback on the wrong side of 40 who's coming off a major Achilles injury. If the defense can't get better, I don't know how the defense is going to get better. The secondary has regressed. The past rush has been a question mark all season long. It hasn't gotten any better over the last couple of weeks since Solis firing. So I don't know where this team goes from here. I mean, I guess they can hang a banner for, hey, we might finish with the top 10 offense over the second half of the season. We finally figured out the Aaron Rogers'

offense, but that's as much as they're going to get this season. I mean, Woody Johnson has egg on his face here. I mean, just look at his comments. And again, I'm not like Robert Sala with Vince Lombardi and how dare you fire him. I understand firing Robert Sala. But look at what Woody Johnson said at the time, that this team is too talented and we cannot reach our potential with Robert Sala, so we're going to a new coach. You have since lost three games in a row. They have not won a game since that firing. And to your point, Ruiz, the defense has taken a step back, in my opinion, which was predictable

because not only are you losing Robert Sala, but you're taking the defensive coordinator and Jeff Albrecht and making him the head coach. And now he's got to manage stuff and he didn't do a great job managing stuff today either. There was some Aaron Rogers yelling at the sideline here today. So, yeah, it feels like if some. Didn't they burn all three timeouts, like, early in the first half? Oh, yeah, that was one of my favorite graphics of the day. Let me see here.

Yes, there was a graphic that came up on the broadcast that said, Jets, three timeouts, four penalties, one missed extra point. With 1345 left in the second quarter, this is what they had. They also took a delay of game before the two-point conversion that would have stretched to lead to seven, and that set up the game-winning drive. And then they also had the most cowardly fourth-in-one decision of, of the week, I would say. Yes.

It was fourth and less than a yard from the 10-yard line or the 11-yard line. And they go for a 29-yard field goal instead of trying to punch it in for six. I just, I don't get it. When you're a team that's so desperate and you need these explosive plays, you need these, I don't want to bring up the momentum thing from this past week. But I do think you need those moments to turn the season around. They're just not getting them. They're not even trying for them.

Yeah, they've lost five in a row, Deonté. and this, I mean, I don't, two and six, it feels over, right? I mean, seven, what are they going to go? Eight and one, seven and two, they're not good enough to do that. And they've lost teams, they've lost games that they have no business losing. You can't lose games like this. You can't lose a Broncos game. You've burnt up all, all of the margin for error.

You burnt up basically before you even fired your head coach in the first place. And then you went and doubled down and tried to bring in a high level receiver. And I will say to Steven's point, this is the most comfortable. I think we've seen Aaron Rogers look at in New York up to this point. We saw it pushing the ball down the field much more effectively. Some of the accuracy issues that we had seen over the last two to three weeks we really didn't see today. I thought that he worked the middle of the field well. He took his chances up to seem pretty well when those presented themselves too.

And the running game looked a little bit more stable and healthy than it had in weeks prior. And I think that maybe the mark of an unsurious team is one that just cannot play complimentary football to save its life. and that has been the story for these three weeks and these three losses in a row. Something has gone wrong for this team, whether it's the defense giving up big plays. You know, that's basically been the story for the last couple of weeks now. This coverage unit has been banged up. And even when they were healthy, you could start to see some of the signs of slippage. Losing games like this just makes it clear that, like you said,

Woody Johnson has 100% misunderstood what this team needed in order to be its best. That's not to say that Robert Sala would have been, undefeated over this stretch that they've been losing all these games, but they've clearly done nothing but take a step back defensively, and that was supposed to be the bedrock of this team, and all they really needed Aaron Rogers to do was be a ceiling razor, and now what we're looking at is a 40-plus-year-old quarterback coming off in Achilles that has to be a superhero.

And that's never been a recipe for success. It's been five weeks since this team beat New England, the team had played on Sunday by 21 points. It looks like a worse team. It looks like a far worse football team. That team was two and one at the time. Now they're two and six. And the issues go beyond even the defense and the offense.

The special teams really let them down today. I mean, you could add in the two-point play, the delay of game into the special teams. But also, Greg Zerlain misses a 44-yard field goal. He misses an extra point. Those points proved costly in a game that ended up being decided by three points. Yeah, they're one and four and one score games. It's interesting to think about in the off season, if they would have just switched the offensive coordinator

and been able to come up with some resolution there and started the season with someone other than Nathaniel Hackett, what does this look like? I don't know, maybe they win a couple of those games and we're not saying their season is cooked. Again, they're not getting blown out. It's not like they're a disaster, but my goodness, two and six is too deep of a hole to dig out of.

Deonti, what do you got? Who had the worst Sunday, in your opinion? If we're being objective, I think the Titans had the worst Sunday. But if you want to talk about the team that had maybe the most disappointing output on Sunday. I would say it's Baltimore, especially on the defensive end.

As a defensive coordinator, I 100% believe in like dropped interception karma. I think when you drop picks, you were just inviting the worst possible place to happen after the fact, just emotionally. And again, not bringing up momentum, but I do think that there is something

to deflating a team. You obviously saw the Kyle Hamilton like three opportunities at securing the same interception and he drops that that would have ended the game. and then they go with the zero blitz and Eddie Jackson got burnt. This was probably Eddie Jackson's worst game of his NFL career.

I would say, like, there were issues with him in coverage throughout the day. But to me, this is something that I've kind of tried to dance around, maybe waiting for a better result to kind of show me what things could be on the other side. But we have now looked at two consecutive months of this team just playing very poor footballing coverage, especially in the middle of the field. Right now, Baltimore is the last in defensive EPA on passes thrown between the numbers. and they have the second highest explosive play rate allowed on those throws. You can't win a championship that way.

And this is not a team that's had a lot of turnover in its back seven, right? Like obviously you lose you Davey and Clowny. And I do think there maybe is a little bit of an argument to them needing a little bit of extra help with their pass rush. You do see the pressure numbers look okay. But if you're watching on a down-and-down basis, I don't know how many high-quality pass-rush reps they get off the edge. Usually it's either Matabike killing somebody on the interior or you get a traffic. Travis Jones kind of pocket push. But to me, I think that what you're seeing is a team that has really invested all of its energy

in loading up the spine of this defense to stop the run. And when they're doing that, there's nobody better in the league. When you look at the combination of Trent Simpson, Roquant Smith, and Kyle Hamilton, when they're a nickel, all playing close to the line of scrimmers blowing up the run game, that looks great. I think that it has come at the cost of them giving up some easy throwing windows, easier throwing windows in the middle of the field. and when you add the missed opportunities in terms of drop picks and not getting off the field on third downs, I think even when they've blitzed, they've had problems getting off the field

and getting pressure on quarterbacks. It has just been like a categorical failure in a lot of ways for Zach Orr. And that's not to say he's a bad play caller because you can look at their splits and see, okay, they're playing too high shells, they're giving zone coverage looks. I think they're playing man coverage in situations that call for it.

They're just losing, you know. And when you're looking at an offense, starting his backup quarterback in James Winston and is fresh off of trading, Amari Cooper, who was their number one receiver, being able to have the kind of ease that the Browns did in the passing game, it's hard to me to see how many other contenders that lost had a worse output than Baltimore's defense did on Sunday.

Yeah, it wasn't a bad game from Lamar Jackson. Usually when this team loses, it's because Lamar Jackson is off. But he averaged over seven yards per dropback in this game, had a success rate over 50%, average 0.1 EPA per play. those are very solid numbers. Those are Pro Bowl level numbers. But I don't know how many times I've looked up this season and I've seen a wide receiver just running wide open

in Baltimore's defensive secondary. It's happened too many times. And we're in week eight now. That was understandable or more understandable in the first month of the season. You have a first year defensive coordinator. You're trying to install. You have a different guy in the headset calling the plays.

I think that does matter. But I think we're starting to see that where they're missing Mike McDonald the most is that solidarity in the secondary. This team isn't passing off routes like it used to. We're seeing way more mistakes. We're seeing guys run into each other in coverage and free receivers wide open. It's like the polar opposite of what we saw from this defense last year when it was the best defense in the NFL, especially that stat in between the numbers defending the past.

That was their thing, was taking away the middle of the field, and they just can't do it right now. Yeah, they're five and three. You mentioned it. first downs, 401 yards of offense, both season highs. Ravens did have some injuries at corner in this game. And per the athletic, Marcus Williams was bench, did not start this game, was a, quote, personnel decision according to John Harbaugh that they want to keep internal. So some weird stuff maybe happening with the personnel there in the secondary. What a weird season. The Ravens have, for much of this season, so far it looks like the best team in the NFL,

but now they have losses to the Raiders and the Browns on their ledger here. So they have not lost a game by more than a touchdown. I still think they're obviously among the best teams in the NFL. However, you start looking at like playoff seating and, you know, what's your path going to look like to get to a Super Bowl? And now you're 5 and 3, whereas a team like the Kansas City Chiefs is 7 and 0. So, yeah, you don't want to lose those games to inferior opponents. All right.

If I'm being objective, too, I mean, the Jets had the worst weekend. Again, you give it up a 70-yard drive to Jacoby Percette with the game on the line and like no margin for error in your season. That's the worst. What was our first? Yeah, who had the worst Sunday. Who had the worst Sunday? There are a lot of candidates on this one. There are a lot of candidates.

All right. I'm going to go with, and I actually don't think he did have the worst, but he's on the list, Anthony Richardson for this. he was 10 for 32 for 175 yards and five sacks. And key moment in this game, end of the first half, Colts have the ball at their own five yard line with the minute left. The game's tied. 10.10. Second down, Anthony Richardson nearly gets picked.

Third down. They put the ball back in his hands. He does get picked this time. Texan score a touchdown. They go up 1710. And this one went back and forth. The Texas were trying to give this. game away. You know, they had a fumble late in the game where the Colts have one final attempt

to be able to drive and kick a field goal and they're not able to do anything with it there. And so the Texans hold on for the victory. But there was more, I don't know if you guys saw this aspect of it. And I really don't know what to make of it. So I want your take. But this is per Stephen Holder of ESPN. In the third quarter, Richardson took himself out of the game because he was tired. Third and goal from the 23. Joe Flacco comes in, hands the ball off. I'm legitimately not trying to be a jerk.

Like, I fatigue very easily. Like, if I had to play, I would be coming out all the time. I just don't remember ever hearing a quarterback taking himself out of the game because he was tired. Ruiz, how much do we make of this? This is being overblown. If you saw the play, you would understand why he needed to come out of the game. He had to throw like a 300-pound man off of his back with just his upper.

body at one point. And then he ran like another 50 yards, not like total. Like I think when he ran around, if you account for his path. I mean, it was third and 23. They weren't going to score anyway. They gave up anyway with the surrender play call. I don't have any problem with it. Anyone complaining about it is just, I don't think they were paying attention to the game and what happened before he took himself out. It was the smartest play for him at the time. That play was defensible to me for the reasons that Stephen laid out. I also think that we really only care about it because of the way the box score looks. If he had 300 yards in two touchdowns with no picks and was running around and you had that

play and he needed a breather, I think that people would be a little bit more sympathetic towards that. But to your point, Shil, I think I looked up. I had it on my multi-view. I think I flashed my eyes in that corner of the screen at some point in the first half. And he was like 2 of 13 for like 83 yards or something like that because he had the early big touchdown to Josh Downs in this game. But you just see, and this is something that I've really been noting and has been honestly getting worse on a week by week basis.

But some of these bad misses that you're seeing on early downs when he's still operating within structure, when the pockets are clean, it would be one thing if he was playing CJ Stroudball where there's always a body in his face and he's got a side step somebody or he's got to work an awkward arm angle to try to get the ball into a tight window. That's not always the case for Anthony Richardson. A lot of this is just off his back foot, standing tall in the pocket, it's got a good throwing lane, and the ball is just sailing, right? And landing with the cameraman out on the outer edges of the sideline. And that's just not, to me, it's just inexcusable to me for the kind of quarterback that we've been talking about. I want to be optimistic, but I do think for now we kind of have to separate any comparisons to Josh Allen, any comparisons to Cam Newton, some of these other big-bodied, very athletic quarterbacks. because I don't think that any of them really had this kind of prolonged accuracy issue outside of Josh Allen early in his career.

And I think that at that point in time, if we were going to be honest about Josh Allen, then it looked like a non-viable quarterback. So maybe something radical happens to change his accuracy. But as it stands right now, that accuracy is 100% the reason why Indianapolis is not at the top of the AFC South because they've had a lot of opportunities to stack up wins that they haven't had an opportunity to either because Richardson has been hurt or when he's been in the game, we've seen issues with him in the passing attack. I do think on Sunday, though, the completion percentage thing was a little misleading.

Like, they had like five to seven drops in this game. He was under pressure. You said he's had accuracy issues in a clean pocket, which I do agree with. But today, it was like he was playing like CJ Stroud. He was pressured on over 45% of his dropbacks. Combined that with the drops and an A dot of over 15, which he controls, to be fair. He's the one that decides to throw the ball downfield all game long. but it makes more sense that you completed only woes at 31% of his passes.

I mean, I think you saw in this game, especially in the second half, he averaged 0.15 EPA per dropback in the second half. So he was a much better player. He also ran for 35 yards. He had four runs of over 10 yards in this game. You could see why Shane Steichen is sticking with him. And like the accuracy is obviously an issue. The misses are very, very ugly.

I don't think we saw too many of them in this game, actually. I thought he was under duress and I thought it was understandable that he incomplete is at, I don't know, two-thirds of his passes. But we have seen other quarterbacks go through this. You mentioned Josh Allen. Josh Allen was completing only 65% of his checkdowns, just checkdowns over the first two years of his career. So he did have accuracy issues on par with this.

It wasn't that bad because they weren't asking him to throw 18 yards downfield all the time. I mean, it doesn't look good. It doesn't look good. I'm not selling my stock yet. I'm thinking about selling it, but it doesn't look good right now. But I do think this performance in a vacuum was a little more understandable compared to the ugly ones we've seen out of him from the past couple of weeks.

I am coping, though. I would admit that freely. I was going to say, he threw 22 incompletion. Some of them, there had to be a good percentage of them that were bad. But I think it is interesting, the types of throws he's attempting. Like you mentioned sort of how far they go downfield. 41% of his throws today were into tight windows. Again, that was 4% for Brock Purdy. So is this like, I don't know, is it just his decision making? Is it can they do stuff? You know, Shane Stike and everyone was putting him in the Hall of Fame before the season started. Can you get through to your, like, can we get some more layups for the quarterback?

Or can we get through to him to, hey, you don't need to be chucking in that far downfield on every single attempt here. I mean, right now he's completing 44% of his passes on the season. Since 2000, there's been 826 quarterbacks. He ranks 823rd in completion percentage ahead of a campaign. Keeley Smith, Josh Freeman, and Derek Anderson. And that's on the season. It's just when the ball's hitting the ground that much, it doesn't matter if you're throwing, you know,

550-yard passes every game. It's just going to be impossible to sustain here. I'm still, let's see more. It's like, again, rookie. He's not a rookie, but he's theoretically, or as I look at him, he is a rookie, given how little football he's played. It's only 22.

Still the youngest starting quarterback in the NFL. Didn't play a lot in college. It doesn't start a word than what looks like. Yeah. So we'll see what it does. But it was not a good Sunday for Anthony Richardson. All right, we take a break. We come back and we plant our flags.

All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show this segment. We plant our flag. Some kind of take we have after watching football all day long. I'll lead us off. The Bengals are still making the playoffs. They're still making the playoffs. They had a bad loss today to the Eagles. You can listen to more about that.

on the ringers Philly special, but they lost 37-17. Defense couldn't get a stop. They didn't have T. Higgins. Orlando Brown, their left tackle was out the second half. So why do I think they can still make the playoffs? Joe Burrow, especially in the first half and really for three quarters of this game, was outstanding. I mean, they only scored 17 points, but they only had seven possessions. The first drive they had, he is escaping sacks.

He's avoiding pressure. He's creating explosive plays out of nowhere. like some of the quarterbacks we've talked about before, where is it getting schemed up or are they doing it? This was him doing it. And I just believe if you get a quarterback and I think he's played it like a top five or six level for most of the season and the statistics back that up, basically any metric you look at, most of the time you make the playoffs unless you have like one of the most unlucky seasons of all time or unless everything else just completely sucks for you. So the wildcard teams right now are the Broncos, the Ravens, and the Chargers. I think

the Ravens are going to get in, you know, but, you know, Broncos and Chargers, chargers maybe you can put ahead of them too. Are the Broncos going to stay there? The Bengals still have a shot at this. I'm looking at their upcoming schedule. They can win some of these games. It looks bad now, but I'm not giving up my Bengal stock. Deontes, this cope for me. It's 1,000% cope. It's definitely cope. He said, usually you make the playoffs with that unless you have bad luck. What if you have one of the worst defenses in the NFL? Usually you miss the playoffs when you have one of those, too. And a bad running game.

I was going to say the running game was awful today. This is actually a game that I plan on coming back to a little bit later on in the show. But I do think that Joe Burrell, again, to your point, has been playing excellent football in the pocket. Like, it's so it's undoubtable to me, especially when you think relative to what's happening around him in terms of not having a running game, the issues that they have up front when guys are not available, this defense and all the issues and putting them behind the eight ball. Joe Borough has to do so much within this offense just to get them from down to down without completely falling apart. I think that today was a little bit better than the box score and I think the scoreboard would suggest for them. Like you said, they didn't have very many opportunities with the ball.

I thought Philadelphia did a good job of managing the game. It really striking when the opportunity was there, right? They don't get that late fourth and one to Jemar Chase. Cooper DeGee makes a great tackle and then they're basically able to put the game away. After that, you know, they get the big shot. You know, Philadelphia gets a big shot to go up a couple scores with that touchdown pass to Devonte Smith. And that game was basically over then because you knew that Cincinnati would have to play perfectly or force turnovers in order to get themselves back in the game. So I do think that they'll be okay.

I will say if you look at just the rest of the AFC if you're Cincinnati, you should probably feel like, all right, we're still in the hunt. But if we're trying to judge them up against some of the teams that they want to be in the conversation with, I don't think they're close right now because that defense. in the run game is such a barrier to them competing with the buffaloes, with the Baltimore's, even with the team like Pittsburgh. I don't know how they can face off against a Pittsburgh team and feel like they can move the ball well enough and keep Pittsburgh from scoring the 19 points that they need to win that kind of football game if they were at a match up as well. So I don't like where they are in terms of just like the health of the team and how they play on a week-by-week basis. But if you're looking at the AFC, I think that they're still alive, even if I do think that you're

coping a little bit with your playoff take. I do think over the next couple weeks, though it gets a little bit tricky. They get a game against the Raiders, and I think they should win that game. Hopefully, they win that game, hopefully for Shields' sake. But after that, they get the Ravens and the Chargers. Those are two very important games for them in the wildcar race. And both are on the road. They are going to have to beat both of those teams on the road.

And if they don't, I think we're going to have to revisit this discussion. I know they have one of the easier schedules in the NFL, especially after their by week, which comes after that stretch against the Chargers and Ravens. but they can't afford to lose. Their margin for error is done. I know we've been saying that for a couple of weeks now, but now I mean it. I finally mean it.

They have no margin for error. And just to put a number on that run game and how bad it was on Sunday, an 11% success rate, second lowest in a game this season. Yeah. And they had one of the, I think a bottom 10 defensive performance, if you look at EPA per drive based on what the Eagles offense did to them as well.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but they're three and five. I'm going to be having two weeks from now, we're going to say, well, no, now their margin for error is actually after they lose to the ravens, no, no, they can still lose one more. Until you can't lose any more, you do still have a little bit of margin of error there. Their playoff probability dropped below 50% after this loss. So, it's no longer a coin flip. It's no longer a coin flip for them. Yeah, it was actually minus odds going into this weekend, which was surprising. So they got it right where they want to be. They don't like playing, you know, they don't want to be favorites. Bax against the wall. Deonté, what do you

got. So I'm so glad that Stephen kind of soft-launched my take for me on Friday about the Bills, because that's what I'm leaning on here. If you watch the Bill Seahawks game, I think you just watch the best offense in the NFL for the rest of the season. I think that when you see the balance that they're able to play with,

there's something to have, I'll get to the passing game, but there's like a very kind of similar to the Chief's effect of their run game. I think it's different because the Chiefs are so RPO and spread base that they're able to kind of manufacture some favorable box looks where Buffalo they want to get multiple tight ends on the field.

They're going to get very condensed sets. They're going to invite those eight-man boxes, but that interior of the offensive line when it's playing well is so good at creating movement at the line of scrimmage that James Cook doesn't have to work very hard for his yardage. When Ray Davis was starting back when James Cook was out, he didn't have to work very hard to find rushing lanes. All those guys have to do is just kind of plow behind those guys

for five, six yards at a time. And they will pop the eventual 10 to 15-yard run, especially against a team like Seattle that we know is just kind of want to allow those types of plays. But then you take that and you add that in with the way that Josh Allen has been playing the last two weeks. And I think that now that we've seen these last two performances, whether you want to credit Amari Cooper or them just getting better pass protection, whatever the case may be, if you remove those two losses to Baltimore and to Houston,

this is still the number one offense on passes by EPA in the NFL. And I think that now that they do have Amari Cooper, you see a little bit more freedom from a guy like Keon Coleman because he doesn't have to be asked to be a bona fide ex and I think you're seeing that route tree start to expand a little bit. You saw him, you know, get some manufactured yak touches in the screen game and that looked pretty good for them today. They were able to get him on a slot fade or he was just able to go win over the top.

Obviously, you get the touchdown on the fade ball over another huge corner, right? And Tariq Wulin, where he's just able to sky over that guy. And that to me, I think, is the perfect kind of encapsulation of what this bill's offense wants to be able to do with its wide receivers. The same thing has happened with Khalil Shakir, now that he's back in the lineup. This is something that I noted in the last two weeks is that having Amari Cooper allows Shakir to kind of toggle between field stretcher in the seams and a yak guy. And you got to see both against Seattle's secondary today, work in the middle of the field,

being able to create after the catch in the screen game or RPO game as well. And when Josh Allen has all these different options that he can kind of pick his mismatches with, you see a really you probably see one of the best pure passers that we'll see in the modern era and this is without amari cooper having an explosive an explosively productive game i think was one catch for three yards but just his presence alone allows him to move the ball around i think in a way that's a closer that's a little bit closer reflection of what they want this offense to look like yeah and you would only expect him to get better as the season goes on like i know he had a big first game so it's kind of disappointing that he had a quiet second game but i would expect him by december to be

fully on board with this passing game and with Josh Allen. And we already talked about how complimentary he is to that receiving court, the guys they had in place in Khalil Shakir. Then obviously, Coleman, who had, like you said, had that great touchdown pass over Tariq Wollan, where almost like Wollin gave him his props after, after he got Mossed by him. They, like, I think they dapped each other up.

It was a cool moment. I mean, I'm sure if you're Tariq Wullen, how many times in your life has somebody just gone over the top of you with that kind of ease? It probably hasn't happened that often. Yeah, the only other person I've seen physically dominate a player like Tyreek Willen is the quarterback for the bills. And I think we're going to see his best ball over the second half. I think Lamar is still obviously the favorite for MVP.

But I think if you're not looking at betting odds, I do think Josh Allen has the best chance of catching him eventually. I'm looking at these AFC East standings for the first time tonight. Bills are six and two. Every other team has two wins in the AFC East right now. two and five, Patriots two and six, and Jets, two and six. Bills are a plus 84 point differential on the season second to only the Detroit Lion. So sometimes a season sneaks up on you kind of comes out of nowhere and you're contending. I mean, I think we all thought, hey, they're going to be a playoff team here.

But things are shaping up nicely for the Buffalo Bills, especially with that Amari Cooper edition. They got Miami coming to Buffalo next week, so they could essentially put the division away by week nine. There you go. All right, Ruiz, where are you planting your flag? I think Justin Herbert is a top five MVP candidate this year. I know the county numbers aren't there, but when you watch this guy play, we all watched on Monday what he did with that no-name receiving court and tried to drag the charges to a win against the Cardinals, despite Greg Roman trying his best to lose that game for them.

But this game on Sunday, he averaged over eight yards per dropback while having 75% of his attempts come on third downs, our obvious passing situations, which I think is second and long and third and more than medium. And he's just not making mistakes in this offense. I know there aren't a ton of high-level explosive passing plays, but the ones they do get are almost all based on his talent and his otherworldly ability to throw a football and to do it while under pressure. He's only being sacked on 7% of his dropbacks. If you've watched that offensive line, it's one of the worst offensive lines in the league in terms of pass protection this year. It seems like every time, he drops back, it's immediate pressure in his face and he has to ward off an unblocked pass

rusher to get a pass off just to get a checkdown off. And then today he had, you know, the Charters get their one explosive run to pad the numbers every week. This time it was Justin Herbert. He finally chipped in with one. He had like a 50-yard run where he just outran the entire defense. So I'm going to say Justin Herbert, I don't know if it ends like this, but right now, if I was filling out of MVP ballot, he would be fifth on my list. Deante, I'm speechless. Do you? You want to Do you want to take this one or do I need? They're four and three. Let me just throw this out there.

Top five. Listen, there's an argument that he's playing better than the numbers are showing. And I understand what you're saying. Top five MVP candidate is crazy. They're not in the top half of the league in any offensive category. How can you be like if you replaced him with somebody else? I mean, there's only so far they can fall here. They have a playoff spot right now.

If the playoffs started today, they would be in the playoffs. They have a playoff spot because their defense gives up like eight points a game. Their defense hasn't given up more than two. 20 points in any game this season. I mean, again, I know you're saying the stats don't tell everything, but I mean, he's below 20 in success rate in EPA per play. Their offense passing DVOA ranks 17th. They're not even sniffing the top 10 in any of this.

And I'm not blaming him. League average is amazing to me. League average pass game with this, with a great Roman calling the plays in this receiving court, where they miss Quentin Johnson. Like, they can't survive without Quentin Johnson. is that's an amazing feat. Like, where's the bar?

I think we have to adjust for expectations. Do we not? Okay, but there are other quarterbacks doing more who are not in like, name them. In great situations. I mean, I don't know. Did Josh Allen have the best supporting cast until he got Amari Cooper? Well, he didn't get Amari Cooper.

We just spent the last segment celebrating his supporting cast. Yeah, he had three. But even before that, I mean, if you would have gone through the fur, that was two a week ago. And Josh Allen was one of the people on the list. Okay, let me, let me name my MVP candidate. Okay. Lamar Jackson. Yeah.

Josh Allen. Yeah. I'll just throw Jane and Daniels in there to get, to get on your good side. Yeah, I mean, he kind of has to be at this stage now. And then I don't know where to go next. Where do you go next? You're forgetting one certain player, I would say, whose team is undefeated. Mahomes?

Yeah. Come on. If you switch Justin Herbert and Patrick Mahomes right now, you're telling me that the chiefs are 7 and 0 and that the Chargers are worse than 4 and 3. That's crazy. I think you had the same record. I don't know. What? Seriously?

Yeah, 100%. I'm just like, this is great for me because as Stephen was just like spelling out this take, I think Sheila and I were doing the exact same thing. I saw you kind of lean back and look at the other monitor. I had the same thought. I was like, oh, I like to let Stephen cook when he's got to take like this. But I was like, all right, let me look at this box score and pull up true media really quick because there's just no way that this take can stand.

Yeah, because we're just looking at box scores. Let's watch the games. How about we watch the games? I will say like over the last two weeks, the thing that I've liked about the Chargers' offense is that they are putting more of the game in Herbert's hands. That part I do enjoy, and you're seeing the fruits of those labors in the passing game, especially in the first half of games where they're getting him his volume in terms of dropbacks and allowing him to use that quick passing game.

It's funny because it's clearly being done just to loosen up the box a little bit so they can come back to the run game later. I think that's a lot of the fullback targets, tight-in targets. There's a lot of checkdowns. I think just try to make, just to try to capture linebackers' eyes. But I do think Justin Herbert has been playing well. I think the better framing for this argument might be there's a short list of quarterbacks that can step into this situation and even get this offense to be 20th, 20th,

20th to 22nd in success rate in EPA in the passing game. But he's not a top five MVP candidate right now. It's not that he's playing poorly. He's definitely not doing a single thing to take away from what they're trying to do offensively. And I think that as he's gotten healthier over the years, over the weeks, I should say, you're starting to see a better version of Justin Herbert every time we get to Sunday. but that's not a top five MVP candidate.

This is just a really good quarterback making a bad offense functional. What could he be doing more? Like, what could he be doing better? Throwing for more than 125 yards in a game. Okay, he doesn't control that. I mean, individually, what could he be more accurate? I mean, he does get the ball on every dropback.

What do you mean? He doesn't control it. I understand what Steve is saying, saying that a quarterback has no influence over his own passing yards. He had an injury. I mean, yeah, I agree. The past three weeks,

I would say he's playing very well. But we're talking about the entire scope of the season. He started this season with an injury. He threw for 144, 140, 130, 125, and 179 yards this season. It is not realistic for me. Joe Burrow is more of an MVP candidate than Justin Herbert right now. 100%. 100%.

No doubt. I said Joe Burrow is more of an MVP candidate right now than Justin Herbert. Okay, okay. If we switch those to the Bengals record would 100% be better. Based on what? Because he's not throwing away the first game. He's not throwing away the Ravens game. I'm not with you on this one, Stephen.

I think you got to, you're on the quarterback island with this one. Okay. You guys are bringing up Patrick Mahomes. We were complained about Patrick Mahomes' play call, and he has Andy Reid in his receiving court. If he woke up with Justin Herbert's supporting cast, if he woke up and had to run plays that Greg Roman was calling. Patrick Mahomes?

How well you make me feel like, I'm the crazy one here? He's not having his best season, but come on. Give me a break. They could be four. We need to start watching. I know the Chargers offense is hard to watch, but you watch that. This guy does not make mistakes. Like, he's made like five bad plays all season long.

Like, that's not even an exaggeration. Find me six bad Justin Herbert plays and I'll Venmo you $10 right now. That's fine. But if you put Patrick, if you put those other quarterbacks you mentioned in that, I mean, it's just, he hasn't been asked to do a lot. I agree with that. Until like the last three weeks, like Deontes said, he's now finally being asked to pass the football. He hasn't been asked to do a lot. He's been asked to do everything.

He's the only part of the... They barely throw the football. He throws for 125 yards, 130 yards, and 144 yards. They're barely dropping back. He's dropping back 18 times in a game. They're running the football 45 times. Yeah, this is why he barely throws the football.

Because they call a bad run on first down. They call an even worse run on second down. And they go, hey, it's third and 10. We have terrible pass protection. And none of these guys are getting open, mind you. Please bail us out. And most of the time, he is. He has a positive EPA on passing downs.

He has the highest of any quarterback who has started every game. He had, 63% of his passes have come on in obvious passing situations. There's not another quarterback who started full time within five percentage points of him. He has played on hard mode. He has taken 7% of, or sacks on 7% of his dropbacks despite getting pressured insanely quick. Like, I don't know how you could play better quarterback. I don't know how you could elevate an offense more. He's elevating it from the depths of hell.

So yeah, it's only getting 10 feet off the ground. But that's amazing. I'm the guy who's always making cross-sport analogies. I understand what you're saying about how well he's playing. Sometimes a pitcher can throw his ass off, but if he's got a losing record, he's not winning the Cy Young. Even if his defense is failing him,

even if the guys at bat are failing them, if you're losing games, you don't win the Sai One. You don't win the Cy Young. Yeah, but you finish in the top five. I would say that you're in the conversation to just being one of the most valuable pitchers. I think that's the same with Justin Herbert, you know?

That's the question. It's a Jacob de Grom type season. That's my baseball analogies are way out of date. So I don't even know if that. I remember he had a year with like a low ERA but didn't win a lot of games. Third and fourth down, Justin Herbert's dropback success rate ranks 25th in the NFL. Check the EPA. I mean, I don't know.

That doesn't speak to me. Success rate. It's boot. Yeah. It's third death. I like this is great. I'm like, step. EPA, he ranks.

Let me see. I'm scrolling. No, he's not very high. Was he up high here? Let me see. He's 23. What are we talking about here? Steven's got the goalpost doing a TikTok dance right now.

Third and how they're moving. I'm doing obvious passing downs. True media. Second and median plus, third and long. All right. I don't know what that means. Obvious passing downs. All right.

He must be doing great on second. I think he's done. This isn't even an anti-herber take. See, now you're back in here. A pro-German take. That was a great plant my flag. You know, mine was a little weak. Yours, we got to talk in.

I'm the only one on this show. that's still in Southern California. I'm the one who's going to have to answer for this. Just give it time. Just give it time. They didn't believe it when I said James Winston was better than Baker Mayfield. And look what happened. Well, we thought you said to Sean Watson.

And we did it. We did agree with that one for sure. All right. That was awesome. I like it. Add it a little spice to the plant your flag. We will be back in a minute to hand out some awards. All right.

We're back on the Ringer NFL show. It is awards time. I feel like I've used some of my awards. I might just reuse them in this conversation, but Deontay, get us started. What do you got? You know, some people say that the acronym of the NFL stands for Not For Long, and that's what I'm giving out here. My Not For Long award is for Brian Callahan as the head coach of the Tennessee Titans.

I try not to attribute all player mistakes to bad coaching, but would you give up a 72-yard kick return, then a 90-yard-punt return touchdown, a 64-yard-punt return, That was called back, I think, because of a block in the back. And then a 40, I didn't know, the 44-yard return. I'm sorry, I'm mixing up returns. There's so many to keep track. You had a 44-yard.

Kalip Raymond had a 44-yarder called back because of a block in the back, had a 64-yarder and then a 90-yard for a touchdown. And Kalil Dorsey had a 72-yard kick return. Calvin Ridley lost a fumble. I think Shoghesea-Mal Conquo lost the fumble today. They had two awful Mason Rudolph picks. And this is something that we've said over the last couple of weeks because we've had games where the Titans have been involved.

You watch that team, and I'm waiting to see something, anything at all, that looks like Brian Callahan has his thumb on the pulse of what's going to work for a team that is clearly limited at the quarterbacking position, but has played pretty decently and it should have a functional roster. Otherwise, I think that this is one of the few teams that is clearly getting less with more, even though this is not a perfect situation to walk into as a year one head coach. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Adams family looks around and says, we got to be able to do better than what we just got after we spent all this money

bringing in vets on this roster. I feel like the other like red flag is what's happening in Cincinnati where the offense. I mean, I would say it is better, obviously, because Joe Burrow didn't play last year. But this is the most solid, I would say it's been over the last couple of years. They haven't fallen off when they lost their offensive coordinator. That's what Callahan has been for the last couple of years. I also have a award to give out from this game. I'm going to give it to the lines for the strangest 50 Burger in the history.

of scoring 50 points. They only had two explosive plays in this game. Jared Gough averaged 2.7 yards per dropback. This wasn't some like offensive fire show. Jared Gough, his A-DOT was like three in this game. They were scoring because of the punt return. I think they finished the game with four passing touchdowns and less than 70 total passing yards

because of the sacks that Gough took. Yeah, he lost 33 yards to sacks. So they ended with like 58 net passing yards. There's never been a game where a team has had. three or fewer explosive plays and scored 52 points. They scored or 50 points. They had two explosive plays and did it. There's never been a game where a quarterback

had less than five yards per dropback and they scored 50 points. Like I said, 2.7 yards per drop back. This was one of the weirdest 50 point games ever, but I think it suits this team so perfectly. And it just shows, like, even if the quarterback isn't playing well, they're so deep, especially on offense

with their ways they can score. They have this run game that they can use in any emergency. it just shows how well-rounded this team is. And I think we saw the best of their defense this week, but that doesn't really say much because they're going up against a non-NFL starter and Mason Rudolph. Yeah, this didn't make the TV, one of the TVs over here.

And I'm looking at this box score for the first time. This is crazy. The Titans had 416 yards of offense. The Lions had 225. To your point, the Lions had 61 total passing yards here from Jared Gough, Hendon Hooker and David Montgomery. Jared golf was 12 for 15 for 85 yards, and they scored 52 points. I did catch a graphic at halftime where the Lions had nine passing yards and 35 points.

That might legitimately never happen again in our lifetimes in an NFL game. Yeah, there was one point where they had negative nine passing yards because of the sacks, and they had 14 points on the board in the first quarter. It was a very unique game, I would say. And David Montgomery might have been the best quarterback on the field for the Lions. He's the only one that didn't incomplete a pass. You think Will Levis is loving this? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, he's like, you know, all right, I didn't play great. But I'm in my second year and you were, you know, dropping F bombs on me and in the media, saying how much I sucked. And now I'm injured. And you just gave up 52 points to the Detroit Lions. How you like me now, Callahan?

That's how I would feel if I were Will Levis. You should have heard to leave Raymond after the game, like how excited he was to play. in this game. You wouldn't think a wide receiver, I know he had the punt returns, but you wouldn't think a wide receiver would be excited to play a game where they finished with like 50 net passing yards. But he was really excited about them playing just balanced football. He was complimenting the defense. He was complimenting the special teams, which he was a part of, and the ability to just punch it in in the red zone. They had five red zone trips, and they scored on all five. There you go. Shout out to Lyon Special Teams coach Dave Fipp, who I once wrote a very, very long

feature about back in my beat writing days. All right, I'm going to give the good bad team award to the Seattle Seahawks. This is a Bill Simmons invention for many years ago. It basically is the team that kind of lets you know who you are. If you beat the Seahawks, you're probably not always, but probably like a pretty good team. If you lose to the Seahawks, we don't have to take you seriously. So again, it doesn't hold true every week, but I feel like it kind of fits with them this year. You know, last week they go to Atlanta, they beat the Falcons. Today, they get smoked by the Buffalo Bills. A very weird game where early on they had a botched snap. in the red zone. Then Gino Smith gets his foot stepped on by the center in the red zone there.

So like it could have gone either way early on. Then as Deontes said, when he talked about the bills, the bills kind of just ran away with it here. But the Seahawks have lost to the Lions, 49ers, and the bills all by double digit. So those are like three legit Super Bowl contending teams. And it's so clear that the Seahawks, in my opinion, cannot compete with those teams in the NFL. But once you get to like the mediocre or hey, they're kind of good teams, they can win some of those games. So there you go. That's how I'm viewing this Seattle Seahawks team. Deontay, what do you think?

Is that where you are with them as well? I would say like, yeah, if I was going to walk this out all the way with the Bill Simmons kind of NBA-ish analogy, like this is like a team that just has that ridiculous kind of helo-centric point guard, right, who can go out and get you 40. But there's just not enough around him. Like he's got to have hot shooting. from everybody else around them in order for them to be competitive. That's exactly how this team plays. The loss of D.K. Metcalf for this week was felt significantly

because Buffalo just didn't have to respect anything happening 15 to 20 yards down the field. And this offense really isn't built to try to dink and dunk. They need the most aggressive version of Gino Smith available to them. And they obviously don't have that without having D.K. Metcalfe. And you could just see them sitting on all the screens, sitting on quick game. they weren't able to get to a play action game where they could really push a ball down the field because they didn't have enough of a threatening deep downfield passing game to get the light boxes to run the ball into to set up those play action passes. So just like I think to your point, right, this is a team that I expect on a week by week basis that they're playing a sub 500 team.

Like if the Seahawks are playing the Jets, I expect them to have their way with the Jets with the way the Jets are playing. But if they're playing a team like the Texans, if the Texans are the kind of team that you want that you think that they are, you expect the Texans to be able to handle business against a team like that. Like, right? Like, I would expect Philadelphia to handle business against a team like that if they're the kind of team that they say that they are. Right. So I think that that probably bodes well for you and Stephen because I think both of you guys

coming into this year had Seattle as like a fringe playoff team. And I had them just on the other side of this. I think that right now things probably shape up pretty well for them, despite some of the injuries that they've had to deal with on a week-by-week basis. But yeah, I think things are okay even if they can't, even if they're ceiling, it's probably a lot lower than the other playoff teams

in this conversation. Ruiz, how are you feeling about that? We both had the Seahawks in the playoffs. That NFC West standings are kind of nuts. Cardinals, Niners and Seahawks are all four and four. Rams lurking at three and four, getting healthy off a very impressive win Thursday night.

Like if I let you do a redo right now and pick another team to make the playoffs, would you do that or do you feel kind of good about the Seahawks getting in? I still feel good. I think once the schedule gets a little bit easier, maybe they play the Cardinals twice, they play the Jets, they play the Rams in the final.

That will be a big game that could be for a wild card spot. I still think they, if they're healthy, they're a better team. I think their offensive line is going to get healthier. We've seen their front seven

just get ravaged over the last couple of weeks. So I do think this team has a higher ceiling in the second half, but yeah, I agree with the award. I do think the Cardinals have something to say about that award, though. I think they're the other team

where it's like, we're the limitless test. If you beat us, you're serious. If you lose to us, we can't take you seriously. But we'll see. They play in week 12. So they can fight over it on the field. Yeah, the Cardinals certainly fit in there as well. All right, Deonté, what's your next one?

My next one is I love being right award, and I'm giving that to Deontay Lee. Congratulations. For being right about Will Anderson Jr. Coming into the NFL. Like, I had to bat away so many arguments from people talking about like, oh, is not enough of a pure pass rusher. Oh, you know, the production dipped after the record setting year before he was draft eligible. And it was just one of those things that's so clear that, like, if you watch football and you know defensive line, you watch that guy and you know,

that's a guy. And I think that you're starting to see just how much of a game wrecking presence that he is, especially playing for D'Amico Ryan's. Right now, he's first in the league in TFL's, and that was something that was going to be the case, basically no matter who he played for. he's such a unique force as a run stopper, right? It's very like Khalil Mack-esque, where the way that he sets edges and how disruptive he can be from the edge, right, you think Kalil-Mack,

you think of Max Crosby, some of the best edge setting, run-defending defensive linemen that we've had in the modern era. I think he fits right in that mold, and this has been the year where the past rushing has really popped, right? He's third in the league with seven and a half sacks.

He's sixth right now in total pressures in the NFL, and he's also got that closing quality, I don't think that everything of pass rushing is quantifiable, but you do like to know this is something that separates Chris Jones from a lot of other defensive tackles, right? Is that in third down, obvious passing situations in the postseason, you know when that guy puts his hand in the dirt, he's going to find a way to get to the quarterback.

You're seeing that at a much higher rate this year for Will Anderson. Obviously, you close the game against the Colts today with that long looping pass rush path to get into Anthony Richardson's way that ends up forcing a strip sack that he recovers or that he's in on the recovery for. I think Daniel Hunter picked it up, but he forced to fumble. I think that you're just seeing that kind of one-man wrecking crew force that he is for this defensive line. So yeah, I'll definitely put this being right trophy right next to all the rest of the stuff I've won throughout my competitive life.

I can see like week 13. We're all beaten down. We're just rotating. Everyone is the I love being right award point to, you know, hey, here's what we're at. You know, we did a little confidence boost. I love that one. I feel like that one was simmering a couple of weeks ago. You kind of had a little Will Anderson take, but you didn't go all in on it.

So, yeah, he is a awesome, awesome player. Texans, I mean, Texans, one of the weirdest teams in the NFL, 6 and 2. But just every game is coming down to the end. They are a plus 9 on the season, which ranks 15. But hey, they're piling up those wins. Ruiz, what do you got? What's next? I'm going to give Travis Kelsey the congrats your late career Jason Witt now award.

He finally ended his touchdown draft. He gets a touchdown drop. He gets a touchdown against the Raiders. He also catches nine passes for 90 yards. But do the math on that. That's nine yards per reception. And for the season, he has at 8.8 yards per reception. If you compare his stats through seven games to last year through seven games when we were

all concerned about Kelsey and him being washed up, him dealing with an injured ankle, he wasn't playing nearly as much. He's played 88% of the snaps, the passing snaps. Last year at this time, it was 64%. Last year, he had 54 receptions for 583 yards and four touchdowns in limited work. This year, it's 38 for 335 and one touchdown. He's getting more routes and we're getting far less out of him. Even when he catches the ball, it's going for 8.8 yards per attempt.

Like, that's not great. And I know he got back on the board with a, with a, touchdown. But I think this offense, if it's going to hit the highs it hit in the playoffs last year, he has to look more like the Travis Kelsey from 2022 and not 2023 during the regular season. And that's what he's looked like so far. So is this like, do you still believe that's in there for him? Like if his workload decreases and he can stay fresh for the playoffs, he can get back to being that guy? I mean, do they have that luxury? They might have that luxury. They're undefeated. It just doesn't look at like it right now. Like, he's not breaking the task.

he used to break after the catch. I think that's where you've really seen him fall off. He's not getting the production after the catch. And he's obviously not catching passes as far downfield as he once was. Now, I do think bringing in DeAndre Hopkins could take some of that pressure off of him. And maybe we do see a rejuvenation over the second half or in the playoffs, which is when they would want that to happen. But right now, it doesn't look great.

Yeah, I think from a narrative perspective, when you're a tight end that's not pushing the ball down the field, you need to have a name like Todd Heap or Heath Miller that all the fans can just shout from the sideline where you're just, you know, when you need nine yards and that guy gets 9.1 yards because that definitely is where he's at in his career. I don't think Kelsey rolls off the tongue from the crowd in the same way that Heath, we should roll out the crowd from Steelers fans when he would turn the third and seven into a first and 10. But I'm right there with Stephen, right? Like the thing that we should be so unique about Travis Kelsey is that he could catch a ball standing, And those first two strides coming after the catch were wide receiver-esque.

And that's how he was able to generate so many yards after the catch. And guys would bounce off of them, right? Safeties could not tackle him in one-on-one situations, not only because he's bigger than those guys, but he used to be shifting. You don't see that kind of shiftingness anymore. I think that that's had a big influence on the way that they need to use him now, the way they're able to use him now because you don't see him isolated as often as an X. And if he is, it's almost always like a decoy route because they're trying to set something up

with a mesh pattern and maybe he's trying to pick like an Xavier worthy to get open. I think that the acquisition of DeAndre Hopkins is also an acknowledgement of the fact that this guy can't just go win downfield the way that we need him to. They need to have multiple options if they're going to play that kind of ball on third down. I think that things were good for this offense this week, not that it's the highest bar to clear playing up against the Raiders, but I think that for them to continue to be as successful as they are, The recipe seems pretty clear to me to use the RPO and running game to try to manage early downs and then just get one inch past the sticks, basically on every conversion down. And that seems to just be a winning formula because Patrick Mahomes is so good at his job.

I don't think that it really has anything to do with Kelsey or Hopkins, even though he is going to be a help for this team or any of the other supporting cast. This is all about Patrick Mahomes basically being perfect on third downs. It's easy to kind of hand-wave these issues too because they are 7-0, but they are now 5-0. in one possession games after another tight game against a bad Raiders team. Can I see Desmond Ritter on my screen at some point today? They were just showing him on the sideline, I think. Yeah, I don't know why. I cut that too.

He got a couple snaps. I think they had a run or something designed for him. But yeah, there's an alternate universe that's not much different from this one, where the chiefs are like four and three and we're wondering why the offense isn't doing well or we're questioning them in the same way we were questioning them last year. I think just a little close game luck is the difference between the conversations we're having now and the conversations we were having at the same point in 2023. Yeah, the one score game now that, yeah, they were up.

They were up the two touchdowns and then the Raiders scored at the end there. But man, just Kelsey right now, 25 tight ends have run at least 150 routes. Where do you think he ranks in yards after the catch per reception? I'll say bottom third. Yeah, if he's not last, I've got a thing. He's bottom three, bottom four. There's some slow tight ends out there, Deonté. I mean, come on.

He's 20. No, he's 21st. So, yeah, it's exactly what you're saying. That's, listen, old guys get old. You know, it doesn't work like it used to. He's 35 years old. Most guys aren't playing still at this point in their career. So it was going to come out.

I think you're right. He will be this season for him will ultimately be judged by what can he give them during a Super Bowl run. Will he still have those clutch moments? And what kind of shape is he in once they get to that? That's a lot of targets. I mean, you got 12, targets today, 10 catches in this football game. Yeah, I think ideally, to Ruiz's point,

you don't want to be using him that much in week eight. So we'll see if that changes as D'Andre Hopkins gets incorporated more here. All right, I'm up. Now, he can't keep getting away with this award goes to Matt LaFleur. Again, I feel like we give him award every week. He deserves it. Jordan Love leaves the game with a groin injury. Malik Willis comes in. They go 80 yards down the field for a touchdown. Now, a lot of that was running the football, but who cares? I don't care how you get it. Good, smart. Run the football if you're able to do it.

And then the game tied at 27, 113 left. The play that all the, all the Shanahan tree, right? This is just their go-to. It felt for a while there. Like it just, there were like 10 plays a week where someone was just calling leak, you know, with the tight end faking like they're blocking, throwback play. And it worked every single time.

I feel like it doesn't get used as often. But they used it with Jade and Daniels, wide open, 51 yards and they go down the field. And then Josh Jacobs has a nice run. They're trying to let him score. He doesn't score. So just a well-coached team, they win that football game against the Jacksonville Jaguars and they improve to six and two. So we'll see what the deal is here with Jordan Love's injury. But just, I just don't think there's a lot of coaches where the backup comes in in that situation. It's like a 13-10 game and you end up scoring 30 points and driving for the game-winning field goal with 1-13 left. So shout out once again to

Matt LaFleur. Best coach in the NFL. Yeah. I mean, would he be the coach of the year right now? I'm trying to think. With Minnesota taking a couple losses, I think that you probably, you can at least make the argument that he's no worse than tied for first right now. Tomlin's got to be up there, right? Also, Minnesota's like 20th in offensive EPA. I think we've like taken that hot start and kind of still giving KOC credit for it. They've kind of falling off. Well, that's one. Do you give him credit for higher? Brian Flores or not when anyone in the NFL could have. You know, like putting together your staff.

That's part of it. But he hired him last year. We're going to reward him this year. You're right. I don't know. I don't know how it works. But I would give it to Matt LaFlor. I think he's done the most impressive job and he's done it with two separate different

quarterbacks. His ability to just toggle the offense on the fly has been amazing. Yeah. It's been incredible. All right. You guys got any more, Deonti? I mean, mine is brief. This one is, I see the vision.

I'm giving that to Big Fangio this week, really over the last few weeks now. Obviously, keeping teams off the scoreboard as much as he has, as often as he has, over the last few weeks has been impressive. Joe Burrow had 5.4 air yards per completion, was his average as his third lowest so far this year. So while Burrell was really good today, I would say on a down-and-down basis, I thought the Big Fangio had a really good plan for really making, trying to constrict the field as much as possible and forcing them to have to play underneath.

And trusting the fact that Mike Gisickey wasn't going to be the guy that beat them. keeping a roof over this defense as much as possible and forcing him to jump to dump the ball off. And the other thing, you know, and this is, if you were an Eagles fan, I think obviously you have an outside hope that maybe Vic Fangio is this huge ceiling razor. But I think the most reasonable expectation coming into the year is he was going to get to a baseline where bad or predictable offenses were not going to have their best performance of the season against his defense. And that's been accomplished now. And because it's been accomplished for all the offense's issues with trying to find something that looks a little bit closer to where you would expect the NFL average to be for a team with this much talent, and especially in the drop-back passing game. But because this defense has been up to, I think, a passable level, they are able to play this kind of boom and bust style offensively in the passing game because their magic number right now to be in contention to win has been lowered by the fact that their defense is playing better. So all you need are, you know, a couple one-on-one boss at AJ Brown,

or you get that deep shot this Sunday to Devante Smith in the end zone. You get that big Saquan Barkley run when it's available. That's a winning formula for this team right now, even if they are not playing the healthiest brand of football offensively. Yeah, we kind of talked about the Fangio defense and whether if it is real, this would be the game where they prove it. And they did it by, like you said, they limited the explosive plays. I know Higgins wasn't out there, but Chase was.

And the only time they really had big plays in the passing game, for the most part, Joe Burrow was moving outside of the pocket, extending the play. It wasn't like a typical defensive coverage play. So I think this was a good test for him to pass. And I think he did pass it while we talked about putting a roof over the passing game while holding the run game to lower, like I said, the 11% success rate. That's one of the lowest marks in the NFL this year. So all around.

They've given up two touchdowns in their last three games against obviously the Browns and Giants are not great offenses. But now, like you said, you face the Bengals. And the Eagles offense today looked better than it has probably since the Super Bowl season. Seven possessions, four touchdowns, two field goals and one punt in that game. Another Ringer-Filly special plug here if you want to hear more about that game in the Eagles performance. All right, Ruiz, you got any other awards for us? Yeah, last week I gave the Giants 2025. coaching job to Cliff Kingsbury. This week, I'm giving their quarterbacking job to James

Winston after the performance we saw against Baltimore on Sunday, which carried over from his cameo performance against the Bengals last week where I thought he, one of the most impressive stretches of play from a quarterback to season at the end of that Bengals game. But today against the Ravens, I know we've talked about the Ravens defensive issues, especially in coverage, but James was making throws deep into his progression. He was making throws deep outside of the numbers. He was moving around in the pocket. He is a quarter. He is a quarterback who can do a viable impression of a franchise quarterback. And we haven't seen him play a lot of football over the last couple of years.

If he is able to bring down that interception number, and I know he tested it today, he shouldn't throw in a couple of interceptions. But if he could do that while still pushing the ball downfield and creating these big plays, I do think he has another chance at starting in this league. He did play well for the Saints before he tore his ACL, and that kind of ended his career in New Orleans. So I wonder if he will get a chance, and I'm looking at the places around the league who might need a quarterback.

I think the Giants are one of them. I could be one of them. The next year starter for the New York Giants is going to be Sam Darnel. That's where he's going to be back home in New York. I don't think the James Swenson is a starter for the Giants, for a lot of reasons that we don't necessarily have to get into today. But I don't think that James Winston is on the Mars family's radar as a potential starting quarterback. Talk about a bozo off.

I pick up between Sam Darnold and James Winston. Has Sam Arnold ever looked better than James Winston throughout his career? It would be my question. No, the answer to that, that's not. Not even close. What a James Winston versus Daniel Jones? Do you think there's a big difference in their skill sets? If you're just looking at the passing game, I think James Winston is clearly a better quarterback than him.

I think he's more accurate. I think he has a better. I think he works the pocket better. I think he reads defenses better. I don't think he makes decisions necessarily better, but that's not a strong suit for Daniel Jones. It never really has been. 300. I mean, if nothing else, I mean, they get Deshawn Watson.

out of there and James Winston starts and they set season highs in basically every offensive category for the season. So there you go. The only other one I had funniest graphics. So I had that Jets one, which was three, again, three timeouts, four penalties, one missed extra point with 1345 left in the second quarter. The other funniest graphic award goes to the Jacksonville Jaguars who had 17 yards on offense and 35 penalty yards at one point. So you done, That's not exactly what you're going there. It looked like it's looked for most of the season, although they did come back.

They had a nice drive there at the end and tied it. Again, that defense, that Jaguar's defense, it hasn't been everything, all Trevor Lawrence and Doug Peterson, although Doug Peterson hired the defensive coordinator, so he's got to take heat for that. But it's just been one of the worst defenses in the NFL. Like, how do you not? I mean, Malik Willis is in the game and you let him complete that pass

to win it. So Doug Peterson, returns to Philadelphia next week. Will that be his last game as an NFL head coach? We will see. All right. Those are all my awards. Anything? Any closing comments?

Did we miss anything? I got one more award. My last one is going to my mom for the, do you know what day it is award? My mom called me back to back at about, I would say around 6.50 p.m. Eastern Time. She's a commander's fan. And I was like, I was really worried.

I was like, why is my mom calling me, like, like back to back. So I call her back. The reason she called me was to ask me where I would rank Jaden Daniels and whether he was close to Patrick Mahomes. And she was flabbergasted when I said no. Mama Reese, team content. I like it.

Love it. I liked it. And then she was like, well, he's at least top five, right? And I was like, top 20, top 15. And she was five dozen. Don't let her down easy. Give her the same takes that you would give on the podcast. Oh, how dare you?

That's where he's ranked in the quarterback rankings. But anyway, no less than two minutes after I hang up the phone and I'm like, I'm just like, what is she doing? I'm writing the winners and losers column. I'm on deadline. I'm stressing out. I got to prepare for the pot and she's calling me about that. Two minutes later, Jaden Daniels throws the Hill Mary for the interception. So I look like an idiot. She was probably watching that. She doesn't care if it was deflected. She's like, this guy just threw the best pass I've seen in the last 10 years. What is my son now? That's amazing. Oh, I thought she called after the Hail Mary. I didn't realize, okay, that was before the Hill Mary. So she saw it

coming. She sounded pretty bummed out. He scored the touchdown, the go-ahead touchdown as I was on the phone with her, the Chicago did I mean. I love it. Team content. I need to know Mama Reese's quarterback rankings going forward now. Listen. We've got to get some cross-checks on Stevens' work.

Yeah. She's not happy with my placement of Daniels. Tell her someone else on the show you, you know, host has been gassing up Jaden Daniels all season long. It's not a Cliff Kingsbury show. It's a Jaden Daniels show over that. I still can't believe he played. I thought for sure he was not going to play in this.

I was all ready for. my Marcus Marioota rip job for this, for this podcast, and I didn't even get to do it. But it would have been bad. If Mariotta played, I think it would have been bad going up against that pressure. It was also fun to watch She and Daniels throw that Hail Mary as well. All right, that'll wrap up the awards portion of our show. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz and Deonté Lee. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor Nevins, Arjuna Ram Gopal, Dan Comer, and Tucker. She John, we appreciate everybody helping us out. We will be back for the midweek show. And then, of course, we'll be back again to preview week nine. Who knows? Maybe we'll get some trades this week. There could even be some emergency pods in your feet. Appreciate everyone listening. Don't forget. You can watch the whole show on the Ringer NFL YouTube channel. We'll talk to you soon.

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