The Ringer NFL Show - Week 8 Recap: The Steelers Are Undefeated, the Chargers Blow Another Lead, and Tua’s Debut Victory | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

Kevin and Nora discuss the Pittsburgh Steelers' impressive win over the Baltimore Ravens to remain undefeated (2:30). Then they pick their Week 8 winners and losers, including a discussion about wheth...er the Miami Dolphins starting Tua Tagovailoa was the right call (24:18). After that they answer a couple listener questions and give their clickbait headline of the week (56:50).  Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 It is the Ringer NFL show part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Carr. Great show. Norprinciotti joins me to discuss the Steelers as one of football's best teams. Lamar Jackson struggling again against Pittsburgh, Sunday night football, to his debut, and much more. Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show and the Ringer podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm at a surprisingly great rate. That's like drafting a player that becomes an all pro, the real deal.
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Starting point is 00:00:47 When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Riner Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. Join the other line by Nora Prince of Yiding All. What's going on, buddy? Not much, Kevin. Great rivalry week. Yes, rivalry week, Steelers, Ravens, capping it off.
Starting point is 00:01:09 A lot of great rivalries. It really was good and a lot of fighting. Cowboys Eagles, in theory, is a great rivalry, has been a great rivalry. Now it is something. It may one day resume being a great rivalry. Seahawks 49ers, Chargers, Broncos, all sorts of games to get to. I do want to get to the biggest rivalry in football, Nora, which is Adam Gase against the Jets. he loses a game to the Kansas Chiefs and says,
Starting point is 00:01:36 I'm doing this job to win not to go out and get my face stomped in. I have some tough news. If his goal was not to get his face stomped in, mission not exactly accomplished right now, Nora. Yeah, not quite. That actually, it's funny. We talked about this and we were like, well, let's talk about the gase comments.
Starting point is 00:01:53 And I didn't realize you were going to that one. I actually thought you were going to when he said that when they get their starters healthy, which they'll have soon. It'll help stretch the field a little bit. They're getting hot at the right time, I think is what you're trying to say. They're getting hot right at the very time. They have had 300 yards in a single game this season. Adam Gays has more losses by at least 20 points than total wins as the Jets head coach.
Starting point is 00:02:16 But I'm sure that when you get Jamison Crowder and Brashad Perriman, you'll be fine. All right. Let's get to actual good football. The Steelers played the Ravens on Sunday. This was one of the most physical, one of the most exciting. one of the games where I think we learned most about football and what contenders look like in 2020. The Steelers win 28, 24.
Starting point is 00:02:34 There's a lot to get to in this game. Obviously, if Loisstein catches that pass or there's a late penalty or any number of things go a different way. This is a very different narrative coming out of this game. But as it's currently constructed, the narrative coming out of this game as Lamar continues to be short in big games,
Starting point is 00:02:51 that the Steelers, the last and defeated team in the NFL look like they're among the NFL's elite. And that, quite frankly, the Steelers have Lamar Jackson's number. In two starts against the Steelers, he didn't play at the end of the last season when the Ravens had a playoff berth tied up. I was actually at that game. The game that Robert Griffin started, it was not a game to watch.
Starting point is 00:03:10 But in two starts against the Steelers, he has three past touchdowns, five interceptions. Against everybody else, he has 50 touchdowns and eight interceptions. At some point, we start to talk about Lamar Jackson versus the Steelers and wonder what this looks like going forward. Obviously they play again on Thanksgiving. Ryan Chaser was on this podcast last week and said he'd rather have, from a Seawist protective, he'd rather shine on that day than this day because this is a rivalry. They'll probably see again in January. But I look at this and I start to think, okay, well, he struggled against the Chiefs.
Starting point is 00:03:42 He obviously struggled against the Titans in the playoffs. And I'm thinking about the commonality here. I don't necessarily think it's a big game problem. I think that, and this conversation starts to eat itself at some point, but I think it's a smart defense problem. And I think that that's with every quarterback. And every quarterback tends to struggle. It almost reminds me a little bit of the old Tom Brady narrative,
Starting point is 00:04:00 which is, oh, well, if you have got four team where four players can rush Tom Brady and then everybody can drop back, if you have success, you can get them with four. Well, that's true of everybody. Like the narrative with Lamar Jackson right now is that good defenses can put a stop to him. Well, what quarterback isn't that true for? And I think there's a lot to unpack more of what you learn on Sunday. Well, I'm curious just based on what you said, what constitutes a smart defense, right? because in that Chiefs game,
Starting point is 00:04:28 we saw and actually faulted them a little bit for going to the run exclusively too quickly. And this was different, right? They were completely able to run on Pittsburgh, which entered the game with the number two run defense in the NFL. So that was not a given. But it seemed like the Steelers just said, okay, if you want to be one dimensional,
Starting point is 00:04:49 go be one dimensional. And it didn't seem like an accident that ultimately game on the line comes down to one pass play and the Steelers defend it and they win the game. So it's not necessarily one facet that seems to be shutting them down. So I guess I'm curious just when you say that that smart defenses seem to be having their number a little bit. What do you think that is? Because the way some of these games have played out has been a little bit different. Right.
Starting point is 00:05:18 So I'm more speaking about the narrative as far as what we're looking at what we're talking about. and the big game stuff. And I'm saying it's not necessarily as real as it appears. Now, there's a couple of things here. Danilovsky came out and said, you know, Greg Roman dominated the first half using zone read and then never ran it in the second half. And I think that that was part of the problem in the Kansas City game as well, where they kind of lost their identity a little bit, chasing something.
Starting point is 00:05:44 And now the Steelers played awful in stretches during these games. I mean, this was, to say that this was a perfect game is a little bit of, of a reach. Okay. Sean Chil and Gentile from the Athletic had this. He said, the Steelers had seven snaps in the first half that resulted in positive yardage that didn't end in a bubble.
Starting point is 00:06:04 I'm like, so this is, this was not some blowout. And again, there's so many different things where we could have talked about this narrative being completely different. But for me, this comes down to the Steelers being as good at building their roster right now as
Starting point is 00:06:18 the Ravens. Now, because the Ravens do it a different way, because they get so much value for the fifth round picks, mid-round picks and they're able to find value from anywhere. We talk about Eric Dacostomore, but Kevin Colbert is just as good at building a team because you look at 53-man roster right now, and there's talent on every, on every single level. I mean, and make-up that's patch of trade was amazing. The ability to lose a player like Devin Bush and have Robert Splain come in,
Starting point is 00:06:40 score a touchdown this week. Last week, he puts that huge hit on Derek Henry. The ability of that front seven with Bud Dupree and T.J. Watt and having that speed. And I just, you know, Isaiah Bugs to come in and make a huge play. in the second half. This was to me as big a team building win for the Steelers and proof of how good they are as a franchise as much as a on-field victory. And so I don't necessarily know if we learned anything about Lamar Jackson today that I didn't know already. He had four turnovers. This was not a good day for him. He's had those sort of struggles before. He needs to be more consistent. What I learned
Starting point is 00:07:15 today is that the Steelers are probably the second best team in the NFL. And I feel like we probably should have seen this coming. I feel like I didn't learn something about Lamar, but maybe cemented something a little bit. And it's not necessarily specific only to Lamar, but I do think that we're collecting a pretty good sample size where their offense can be incredibly explosive, but what they're trying to do is have some sort of explosive passing game built off of the strength of their run game. But they don't seem to have good enough safety valves to get out of play. when they're not going exactly how they want them to. And it seems like Hollywood Brown was not happy having one catch on two targets in this game,
Starting point is 00:08:01 which is a little bit ironic to me because before this game, yeah, he had an angry tweet. But it was interesting when I saw that because before this game, he'd never had fewer than six targets in a game. And I would identify the bigger issue for the Ravens being that they don't get good support from their other receivers. And, you know, Willie Sneed had a good game today, but that doesn't always happen. And Sneed, Boykin, Duvernay, they don't always do enough. None of them are averaging more than 25 receiving yards per game.
Starting point is 00:08:34 And Lamar, if you couple that with some of his struggles against the Blitz, and we saw them going against one of the most blitz happy teams in the NFL and the Steelers. And then that was sort of the Chiefs game plan against them as well. That's not necessarily what the, the, chiefs do every game to the same extent that the Steelers do, but that was their game plan for the Ravens. I think those two things, just him not being able to dissect that necessarily in the same way that some of the other young quarterbacks that we see being really good at that are plus the lack of some of those intermediate safety valve guys being really effective.
Starting point is 00:09:12 I do think that when they're playing good defenses, they can kind of pick their poison. and if they're good enough so that it doesn't totally stop them, and if they're balanced enough like the Steelers are, where you don't have to have Rothesberger making a ton of explosive plays, but he can just not turn the ball over, average seven yards per attempt, and keep it moving, that's a pretty decent formula when you're playing a good team.
Starting point is 00:09:43 So it comes back to what we were talking about at the top of this conversation where it's not a Steelers problem. a Chiefs problem. It's just that they have a weakness. And smart teams are going to figure that out. So that to me is a little bit stronger than I've felt after the Chiefs game, certainly, after their playoff losses. It's starting to feel like something that differentiates them from the Steelers from the absolute top of the AFC in a way that even last week, frankly, I don't know that I would have said quite so concretely. Sure. So again, gets into the broader Lamar narrative.
Starting point is 00:10:21 So he was hit nine times on Sunday. He threw into tight windows about 20% of the time. This was, Kalyn Jones had a nice little breakdown of this on the ringer on Sunday. They made him play a game he doesn't normally play. Third lowest yards per carry output, 4.1 yards per attempt.
Starting point is 00:10:38 Again, if he, if that run, the touchdown run that was called back for a hold stands, we're having a very different conversation today. So it's a little bit different. But I think that there's just, again, he probably has a bit of a steward's problem because his steers are talented and fast and can make a place. And I feel like that would be true of any quarterback to play the Steelers right now.
Starting point is 00:10:58 And now Ronnie Stanley being out for the year is massive. He has an ankle injury. And that's the kind of injury where that probably has to change the way they play on some parts of the field just because of how big of a deal Ronnie Stanley was. He sent that huge extension this week for almost $100 million. And they like to play bully ball. And the way that they're getting, the way that they're getting, the way they get guys off the ball in the running game. I mean, really, I mean, last year, I remember talking to Paul Alexander about this, the longtime line coach. We did a piece on it.
Starting point is 00:11:29 And they really only gave you a four or five or six runs. And they just beat the crap out of guys with it. And obviously, they did the different looks and mixed it up and all that stuff. But when you bring in someone for Ronnie Stanley, that just changes things. Now, this was as positive a performance as you could possibly have from the Steelers, defense against Lamar Jackson. Even the little stuff like Alex Highsmith playing on the outside, allowing them to do some mentioning things over the middle of the field, even with Bud Dupree and T.J. Watt.
Starting point is 00:11:55 Vince Williams remains a game wrecker. Isaiah Bugs, who I talked about earlier, came in, did not play well in the first half, and then made one of the plays of the game on a fourth and three. If you were feeling good about the Steelers tonight, you're going to feel really good about him the next three weeks because you've got to look at the schedule. Cowboys on November 8th, Bengals on November 15th, Jaguars in the 22nd. biggest game is on November 26th against the Baltimore Ravens. We need to start talking about this team among the AFC's elite,
Starting point is 00:12:24 and we need to start talking and wondering whether or not this team can get the number one seed in the AFC because it looks pretty good. Nora, what do you think? I think they absolutely are. They're pretty much a lock to win their division. I know that's a little bit silly to say at this point, but they're already two games up with the tiebreaker. I think they have that balance that we talked about.
Starting point is 00:12:45 you know, in a game this close, there's always a player or two that can go the other way and you can say maybe if something had been different, we might be having a different conversation. I would push back on that a little bit just because the Ravens were coming off a buy. They're at home. The Steelers were coming off an incredibly physical game against Tennessee. So there were a lot of situational. And didn't get a real buy. And didn't get a real buy. And did not get a real buy. And we'll not get a real buy because of the Titans fiasco. So factoring into this is that situationally, there were a lot of things that, I think favored Baltimore in this.
Starting point is 00:13:19 And it's a close game, certainly. But if the Ravens had won, there are situations where we wouldn't necessarily be saying, oh, the Steelers were frauds. They weren't who we thought they were. I think this is a really good team. I think they could, it's just going to be a matter of record with the chiefs, right?
Starting point is 00:13:39 I think either one of them could get it. And at this point, you always say this, but it starts to be a math problem at a certain point. And with the schedule that they have left, I almost wonder if thinking off the top of my head, I might even pick them to be the one seed at this point. I probably would too.
Starting point is 00:14:01 When you play a first place schedule like the chiefs are, there's obviously disadvantages. They play the bucks. They play the red hot dolphins. So we'll get to in a second. The chiefs play the Raiders, obviously they already lost too. And then the Saints and then the Chargers.
Starting point is 00:14:13 teams where, you'd pick the chiefs, but you just don't know. But I think that we for so long saw this as Ravens Chiefs, Ravens Chiefs, Ravens, who's going to win on January 20th or whatever it is. And that equation changes now. And I think that if the Ravens and Stewart's played 10 times, I would go 5 in 5 at this point. And I did not believe that until this afternoon. This is just a fast physical football team. You know, Kevin Colbert, again, has just done a masterful job to assembling talent.
Starting point is 00:14:42 And there's just, you know, I think I learned so much about this team last year that I was expecting them to be really good this year. Just having, eking out those wins when they had some of the worst quarterback play in football. And then even, I know this is a little thing, but even to see the Instagram live stuff after the game where, you know, Juju and all these guys are going live. And it seems like a good vibe around this team. And that seems to be normal of Pittsburgh teams. And I just kind of like the directions this franchise is going in right now. And I think I thought it was interesting, Ben Rothsberger said after the game that he was calling most of the plays in the second half
Starting point is 00:15:17 because he says essentially that, you know, he's always played backyard football and this was quote this in its truest form. And I think there's something to be said for what Pittsburgh does is like, this works and they're going to be flexible and they're going to say, okay, Ben playing playground football is what works. Let's just do that. And, you know, Juju was on point. The line was on point.
Starting point is 00:15:36 I just think that there's, there's something going on here with Pittsburgh. I'm pretty impressed. As far as a team helping its stock from, what I thought about them in August until now. Even though I picked them to make the playoffs, I can't imagine a team impressing me more than the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2020. Again, especially you consider the fact that they had the game plan for the Titans twice.
Starting point is 00:15:53 I thought that was like a weird, like maybe that helped them, the ability to game plan for a team twice and then one game gets canceled all that stuff. But they didn't have full buy week. And I know, you know, Joe Burrow was asked, what's he going to do on his biweek this week? And he said absolutely nothing. And I think that's probably the vibe of most players in the NFL. But still, to not know your own.
Starting point is 00:16:11 run and buy and do a full week of practice is essentially, that really wrecks with you. And their ability to just overcome that. And it's, I love the Steelers team. Mike Tomlin definitely gets the most hindsight coach of the year awards. And this, this might be another one.
Starting point is 00:16:29 And every year he had Antonio Brown on the team. Totally. And now just slightly below that is having the screwed up by week. We're going to move on from this, but I love this from CBS. The Ravens are the first team since at least 1950 to outrush an opponent by 200 yards and outpassed them by any mountain lose. So if this was, again, you look at the box score, you're not expecting this result. Well, we talked about how much the Steelers blitz and what that does to Lamar.
Starting point is 00:16:59 And I don't know that you necessarily saw it a ton this game in the same way that we saw it in the Chiefs game just because he wasn't, they were running the ball so much. That kind of obscures the effect of it a little bit. where you did see it was the turnovers. And that was really what this was about was that he was so flustered and at a certain point that I think was just too much for them. So it was interesting. I felt like that was the biggest matchup going into this game. And then midway through just because they were running so much, you hadn't quite seen it.
Starting point is 00:17:31 But I think that's where it showed up the most. All right. Quickly, we talked about the Gulf widening and the AFC North. Let's start with the Browns here for a second. they play a very strange game. Wind, what, 40 miles per hour, something like that. They alludes to the Las Vegas Raiders 16 to 6. What do we learn?
Starting point is 00:17:50 A wintry mix is what I heard the weather report was. November 1st, a little too early for that. We had snow in Boston a couple days ago. We had like four inches of snow. This is not. This is not right. I loved it. I loved it. I love winter. So I'm kind of throwing this out a little bit.
Starting point is 00:18:05 The Browns are five and three. The Raiders are four and three. Both them will be in the thick of it for the last. wild card spot. You saw some of those, it looked like slider pitches, some of those field goals out there. Very strange game. Browns couldn't really do it. Couldn't get off the field.
Starting point is 00:18:20 But I don't know. Are we ready to throw out the Browns are better with that OBJ theory? I mean, throw it out on the pot. I mean, throw the narrative in the trash can. Yeah. I think the only reason that we're not ready to do that is because we already put it in the trash can. We didn't even really accept that. We just, we pulled up a, like, a tennis racket and hit it back to from whence it came.
Starting point is 00:18:45 I'm with you that this is a weird game. I don't totally know what to make of it beyond just feeling like the fact that the Browns couldn't really run the ball is an issue because that's the one thing that you would expect to hold up in a game like this. Beyond that, if they'd been better in the red zone, they could have won. and Baker's probably going to get a lot of heat because he's going to get a lot of heat whenever they lose, but they had drops.
Starting point is 00:19:15 Landry had that touchdown called back. I just, can we say thank you next and make our judgments in the future? Did you know that before Tua today, through a touchdown, that Travis Landry was the last left-handed quarterback to throw a touchdown? That's incredible. I was just blown away by that.
Starting point is 00:19:36 All right. The Browns have a buy. I think that this confirms what we already knew, which is that the AFC North is a two-wrest race, and the Browns are not involved in it. That's fine. I never expect them to be. Congratulations to the Browns for being,
Starting point is 00:19:47 as long as Miles Garrett is healthy, congratulations of the Browns for still being in the next of the wild card. So I think it's a tough loss, again, from a math perspective, but it's, it's, I didn't, I'm not, you know, canceling them or anything like that. All right, before we get to Sunday night football,
Starting point is 00:20:03 Avery Williamson, linebacker goes from the Jets and Steelers. It's very nice of them to go from winless to undefeated in, what, three hours? Yeah, it's very exciting. Big, big day. Yeah, and, you know, fine to get some value for the Jets. Not a lot. Fifth round pick and seventh rounder goes to the Steelers. So, you know, basically a pick swap.
Starting point is 00:20:26 Steers get some depth. Good trade. All right, let's get to Sunday Night Football. You know, when we talk about Lamar Jackson or Ben Rothesberger, were essentially picking nits because if you want to talk about actual bad quarterback play and not just for stretches of the game,
Starting point is 00:20:42 not just a handful of mistakes, sustained and thorough bad quarterback play, you go to the NFC East. Nora, the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys, 23 to 9, Carson Wentz, 123 yards, Bendonucci in his debut 180 yards. Not a good football game.
Starting point is 00:20:59 Chris Ryan, our beloved colleague at the ringer, sums it up by saying, I felt myself getting dumber by watching this game. I feel like we're all kind of there. Nor, would you think? So I don't want to say mean things because I think. Should we stop the segment then? I'm just going to say some things that I thought were fun.
Starting point is 00:21:19 One, I'm happy for. A wildcat offense? Yeah. I'm happy for Ben Danucci. This is a big moment regardless of the results. I'm sure his family is very proud of him. Two, probably the most valuable and effective player for the Cowboys. boys was Greg Zerline. And it reminded me of the Rams All or Nothing season from several years ago when
Starting point is 00:21:43 John Fassell was their special teams coordinator. Yes. And he did this thing called Dojo Fridays, if I remember correctly, where on Fridays he would like wear a headband and maybe bang a gong to signify that the week of practice had gone well. And it struck me as incredibly odd. And I hadn't thought that in years, but I remembered it seeing him on the sidelines. I also think it is very funny on Twitter when Mike McCartney, who's an agent, gets mistaken for Mike McCarthy. So this is my version of if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. And I'm trying to have something to say here.
Starting point is 00:22:27 And those were the things that I enjoyed. So Rodney McLeod returns one of the dumbest touchdowns I've seen in a long time. Like truly idiotic. Ben Danucci fumbles the ball. It gets kicked around. An offensive lineman from the Cowboys kicks it backwards and then it becomes a half a length of the football field touchdown. This was pretty much what, if you expected anything different from this game, that's on you. okay the only point i guess you could make is that we see what the cowboys are when they get any
Starting point is 00:23:05 dalton back they don't be that much better we know what the washington football team is although they have a little better defense some of the other teams and we know what the giants are there daniel jones falling down in the open field so i think i made the comparison to everyone trying to dunk on an eight-foot hoop on friday's column about the cowboys i think that the eagles will be able to do this this is my analysis they are competent enough relative to other teams. They are not competent relative to the average NFL team, but they are competent enough relative to NFC East
Starting point is 00:23:34 teams to win this division. That is all. They will host a playoff game. They will not win it. There's nothing beyond that. If you're an Eagles fan, don't try, don't get excited about anything else. Going to win the NFC East. Get a hat. Get a T-shirt.
Starting point is 00:23:50 I have a feeling that you get to seven wins. 2020 NFC East hat then becomes like an ironic thing, you know, in Philly. We'd get Chris Ryan one, get any Greenwald one. And yeah, it'll be good. Nothing else. Incredible vintage item.
Starting point is 00:24:05 Incredible vintage item. There is no, no expectation beyond that. And quite frankly, I'm happy to be able to do this because I was worried that I wasn't to be able to draw that conclusion out of this game tonight. But that's it. All right. Let's get to winners and losers. Miami Dolphins.
Starting point is 00:24:21 A big win over the Los Angeles Rams in Tua's debut. I was surprised by it. I didn't see this level of dominance. We shouldn't be surprised by anything the dolphins have done this year. They dismantled the Niners. They're vaguely hot. They made this quarterback change in a really strange time. What did you learn?
Starting point is 00:24:41 Vagely hot is hilarious. Well, they were dominant everywhere except on offense, right? Tua didn't look good. I hate to be a hater, but this is what I want to talk about right now. I don't think it was the right decision to start him. and Brian Flores is a lot smarter than me, but I think we're looking at some kind of iffy process here. I had a hunch, just a hunch,
Starting point is 00:25:06 that because their original bio was supposed to be in week 11, they were maybe thinking about starting Tua after that. And then when that got switched because of COVID scheduling, they thought, well, maybe we'd rather still have the extra week of preparation before sticking him in there. Then Jay Glazer went and backed it up with what I believe was actually, reporting. So shout out Jay for helping us out there so we can talk about this with a little bit more backing. But I don't think it worked out very well. And we've seen how competitive they can be. And I wonder
Starting point is 00:25:39 what it means for them going forward because if he's not ready and we saw how well Ryan Fitzpatrick was playing, I actually wonder if a team that could conceivably be a wildcard team is really hurting themselves by doing this. And I don't understand why you'd want your rookie quarterback to start opposite Aaron Donald in his first start after recovering from a brutal, brutal injury. And I know too as a special player, but he just
Starting point is 00:26:06 didn't look ready. And I know they won and they shut down Jared Gough and they had a great game plan. But I don't think that it can excuse what seems like a bit of bad process to me. So sorry to start it off with all a eight in the winter section. but a bad process call okay all right so first of all there's a number of things number one he becomes the first you can't even get through the sentence no i there's a lot
Starting point is 00:26:35 i can't get through so he becomes the first uh rookie quarterback to win his first start with few other 100 passing yards in 20 attempts since donna McNabb in 1999 landy baller uh so he has what 93 passing yards in his debut uh he's a 22nd quarterback to start since Dan Marino retired. And hopefully, hopefully for a long time, he'll be the last. This was a dominant performance from the Dolphins. And I think that you're encouraged, if you're Brian Flores tonight or you're Chris Greer or you're Stephen Ross, if you're Chan Galey right now, I'm sure kind of echoing your
Starting point is 00:27:09 point that there are questions whether or not this was the right time. But I think, you know, Jeff Darlington brought this up. If the team can win and support the quarterback, then I think it's an okay decision. And you start to grow with two and you start to go from there. I don't think their expectations this year were to win the Super Bowl. They have all these picks. And it was written this week that the fact they have all these picks kind of alleviate some of the pressure on their expectations this year and what they do. And they can build on this.
Starting point is 00:27:35 And so I think I've never, listen, Patrick Mahomes was given the greatest system and situation of all time when he was a rookie. He learned behind Alex Smith. He was given a personal quarterback coach, essentially, in Mike Capka. he learned under Matt Nagy. Andy Reid was obviously there telling him telling him all the stuff when he was a rookie. But that's not going to be everybody. And Brian Flores is not going to necessarily build the same system.
Starting point is 00:28:01 And I think we look at the Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rogers of the world. And they said, well, they sat. But did anybody ever get worse because they played immediately unless it was through injury? Like there's some guys I think that they get the yips and, you know, they get so much that their career ends. I think David Carr is probably one of those guys. But as long as you can keep him generally upright. And again, there's questions about the Dolphins' Elphins of Line.
Starting point is 00:28:22 Our buddy Minacombs gotten a bit of a... Ted Karas, like, called her out for some reason, and then Mina Kames has proven completely correct. Ted Karas was, like, my favorite patriot I ever covered. He's a delightful human being. So he seems like a very nice person. Huge fan of the office. Is he now?
Starting point is 00:28:43 Him and Kirk Cousins. We need to get a pod together. Okay, so... long as he can stay healthy, as long as the dolphins can keep him healthy, I think he tried to play him. If it got into a situation where he's getting hit on every play, obviously we sell the strip sack on the first play and all that stuff. But if that just keeps happening, then you put Ryan Fitzpatrick back in there and you start again. But as long as he can stay healthy and they can keep him up right, I would get him as much playing time as
Starting point is 00:29:10 possible because you're not playing for 2020. You're not playing for 2020. You're probably not even playing for 2021. You're getting these picks in and you're trying to build a dynasty, sustainable dynasty. That's the reason you take a step back and you get all these picks and you trade Laramie tonsil and you trade, Mike Fitzpatrick and all this stuff is you're trying to accumulate assets, right? Sam Henke, that's the whole deal, okay? And they put a timetable when I talked to them of two to three years on this thing.
Starting point is 00:29:37 And I think that it's on track. And I think getting to a reps right now is fine. I'm not offended by it. I'm sad for Ryan Fitzpatrick, all that stuff. But I understand why you would do it. from a ram's perspective. Wait, hold on. Can I say why I am offended by it, deeply offended? I'm just kidding. I'm not offended.
Starting point is 00:29:56 But here's what I would say to that, which is that it's not about Tua. I think Tua is okay in this situation. I think the reps probably, they will probably do him some good, although the idea of Aeron Donald versus Eric Flowers makes me very terrified. They got through that and it's okay. And I don't think it's going to do him harm. He's alive. praise be.
Starting point is 00:30:22 What I do think is that this is a team that when people talked about them tanking and when they had a really bad record in the first half of the season last year and then got a little frisky in December, this is a team that has like recoiled at the idea of losing games on purpose. And they're not trying to lose with two up. It was bad last year. If Ryan Fitzpatrick gives them a better chance to win, I don't like that they're going.
Starting point is 00:30:49 back on that, particularly if the plan originally was to give him a little bit, when I say him, I mean Tua, a little bit more time to prepare. And then because they got thrown for a loop because of the scheduling, rushed it. I just think that you should stick to what the original plan was unless he is absolutely proving you wrong in practice. And then even then, because I think we've heard various reports out of Florida that he's looked really good. But I just think that if your original starting quarterback is playing so well, I don't like the idea of benching him. And if they're going to do it, you kind of want to see it go super well. And I would just argue that, like, for instance, Tua is a lefty, as we've discussed. So he likes to roll out to his left so he's not throwing across
Starting point is 00:31:44 his body. And the Rams blitzed him a lot from the right side to take away those throws. That's going to happen to him. And that's one of those things that I think is an early test, right? Of are they prepared for it? Is he ready for it? You can excuse a lot in a first start, especially after what he's been through. But I didn't think that he looked very good handling that. And I just wonder, which we're never going to know the answer to, but I wonder if that would have changed with even a couple more weeks. And I also wonder what the other players who their stats matter, their contracts matter, all of those situations matter, what they think of that. Particularly with how good, their defense, their specialty, like everything else was so good. It just, it really, I don't know why it really
Starting point is 00:32:33 rubbed me the wrong way. And I love to, but. Whoa. I will say, moving this debate aside, Christian Wilkins, Manuel Ogba, Van Ginkle gets a touchdown. Like, these, this defense, is it's got some talent there. And I know that someone today said that was probably one of their best outside editions this year. And I'm inclined to agree. And so I just think that the talent is here.
Starting point is 00:32:58 And I think that they can beat almost anybody going forward. Now, a couple of people are trying to call for them to win the AFC East. I just don't think it's happening, especially after Sunday. I still think the bills just from a talent perspective, a math perspective, and a maturity perspective are probably a little bit better.
Starting point is 00:33:13 but I think you're looking at 2021 for them to actually compete. I think that starts by giving him the start now, Nora. Much to your chagrin. I am seriously chagrined. I did think the Rams helped them out a little bit. And the Dolphins defense is really impressive. It's the way that they blitz from the secondary, they had a ton of zero blitzes that Gough just really couldn't adapt to.
Starting point is 00:33:39 Yeah. Michael Brocker said he'd never seen that kind of pressure before. which is kind of crazy because he plays with Aeronald. It's a different kind of pressure, but still. Yeah, he's playing a lot of football. I did think, though, that, I mean, so one thing we know about Jared Goff is that he's one of the most variable quarterbacks in football when he's clean versus when he's pressure. That's one way to put it. That's a nice way to say it.
Starting point is 00:34:03 And here's the thing is that Sean McVeigh had him throw 61 times in this game when he apparently pulls running backs like out of thin air and the dolphins just can't. stop the run. So I didn't really understand that. I'm all the credit to the Dolphins defense for dialing up pressure and all the different ways that they were able to do it and really confusing him. But I did think that the Rams kind of played into their hand there when they could have just tried to run the ball a little bit more. I'm really backseat coaching this game. I don't know why, but that was what I felt. All right. AFC East, Buffalo Bills beat the New England Patriots. At some point, we have to stop talking about the Patriots because they are who we thought they were the last three weeks. They're just not going to get better.
Starting point is 00:34:47 We've had different viewpoints on the Patriots and at no point do we think they could win the division. But we thought they'd probably be better than this. Cam Newton fumbles on a game tying or game winning drive right at the end. He's turning the ball over an alarming rate. He says that he's the reason and his ability to hold onto the ball with the reason they keep losing the games. I'm inclined to agree. This is not a good football team. and the Buffalo Bills did not play perfect game,
Starting point is 00:35:11 but they won. What did we learn? It was weird because one of the things in New England that's been going around as people have tried to diagnose what the issue is, is there was the perception of a mechanical issue with Cam, where he wasn't throwing accurately to his right. And it had to do with his plan. And then most of his completions were to the right today.
Starting point is 00:35:32 It was like when Michael Jordan, they said he couldn't play defense and then he won defensive player of the year. It's like that except he was still. don't he was, except Cam Newton was still bad, except Cam Newton was still bad. Yeah, the mechanical thing, the funny thing was the mechanics, Twitter couldn't even agree on what the mechanical problem was,
Starting point is 00:35:47 but it's a bad sign for Cam Newton. It was like, some people were like, well, his feet or misaligned, and the people were like, well, his shoulders, as I was, listen, if people can't agree, if everything's wrong with your mechanics, uh-oh. He was also throwing a, not a single receiver who was drafted in any draft.
Starting point is 00:36:05 And I just, I think where we are with the Patriots, is that when we were talking to Ryan Chazier for the pod last week, he had the only good Patriots take I've heard all year, which is that they're not winning because they're bad. They're bad. We keep looking for reasons for them to be good, and it turns out they don't have very much talent, and the coaching that makes a huge difference when it's equal amounts of talent
Starting point is 00:36:26 does not matter when there's massive disparities in it. Oops. Funny how that works. Oops. All right. Bills, again, fine. nothing nothing to write home about Josh Allen
Starting point is 00:36:40 Yeah sure You know I think this was the first Win in Buffalo Against the Patriots in 2011 Which was a wild year I will say Not to get away from this too much
Starting point is 00:36:55 But I would say that this is the kind of game Where I wish that they had fans Like I wish that they had Again in a perfect world 80,000 fans Where Bill's fans could really have enjoyed this and you know just Josh Allen running to the end zone spike in the ball which you did it today on that rushing touchdown like there was some there was some moments there because I remember that 2011 game and it was amazing and hopefully hopefully next year everything will be back normal that's all get the tables someday get the table I haven't looked into this there are tables coming out in like homes and stuff right I'm sure private tables I'll I have some goodwill with with Bill's Mafia at Twitter right now because I did a feature on Josh Allen. I'll ask him. I'll ask my buddies.
Starting point is 00:37:38 We'll get that out there. All right, quickly, Joe Burrow, who beat Tennessee Titans. And I don't want to keep saying it was a weird game. Maybe it was just a weird Sunday. But Joe Burrow beats Tennessee Titans. I liked what I saw from Joe Burrow in particular in a game where they had, I think, four backup offensive linemen where Carlos Dunlap requested a trade midweek by posting real estate
Starting point is 00:38:05 listing and got it. John Ross requested a trade as well. I mean, it seemed pretty chaotic. Everything seemed to be trending in the wrong direction. Joe Broo played well, and then by the way, the Tennessee Titans helped them out by being complete non-events. What do we think about this one? I'm
Starting point is 00:38:21 kind of going to throw away the Titans' offense from this one. I just thought Tanna Hill was super erratic, but their inability to pressure quarterbacks is becoming a significant issue. when you can't sack Joe Burrow,
Starting point is 00:38:37 who's been getting hit left and right and is playing behind an offensive line that's missing four starters. 249 yards, 106 rating. One backup per bedroom in Carlos Dunlapse, now vacant house. Is the one,
Starting point is 00:38:53 I don't know if it's, it's, it might have been furnished. Well, no, he said, he said it could have been furnished. He said you could take,
Starting point is 00:38:59 well, I'm not worried about the, I was, I was just speaking to the quantity of bedrooms. I don't, they can sit on the floor. Yeah. I meant the, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:39:08 I don't know. We'd have nobody, nobody I know about it from what I understand. None of the PFF guys in Cincinnati bought it. These only people I know in Cincinnati. All right. So then for all we know, it is a vacant home that's being populated by a horde of backup Bengals offensive linemen. That's my theory. So I can't get over this, okay?
Starting point is 00:39:28 This is from Joe Rex Road. This, the Titans are on pace to destroy the alt-examination. record for a third down percentage allowed. 62.5%. Nobody on record has ever been about 50%. So the Titans cannot get off the field worse, more
Starting point is 00:39:47 than any team in history. They are elite at not getting off the field on third down. That's what they do. That's what happens when you don't get after the quarterback. That's what happens when you just have a generally bad defense. And I, from an organization that I
Starting point is 00:40:03 like so much, just for, I think they're a smart, organization with a really good defensive coach Mike Frable and John Robinson, who I've praised a lot on this podcast as a guy who could identify physical players. I am shocked that they can't. You know, the Vic Beasley signing was a disaster. The clowning signing wasn't all that good. There is no excuse. For as much as we praised John, Joe Burrow and all this stuff, there is no excuse to lose this game. It's awful. I don't know. You can lose like this against the Steelers. That's fine. That's accepted. You can't lose this game against the Bengals. Can't do it. All right. Next. It's loser.
Starting point is 00:40:36 Speaking of bad defenses, listen, run defense doesn't have to matter. You can have a bad run defense to have a great team. The Green Bay Packers are testing that theory. Dalvin Cook surpasses 200 yards from scrimmage
Starting point is 00:40:49 and four touchdowns, four touchdowns against the Packers at Landboa Field. First, Viking to score four touchdowns since Ahmad Rashad. In 20 years, in 20 years, Dalvin Cook can be playing golf on television
Starting point is 00:41:04 with whatever NBA stars at his peak at that point. What's the ball? What's the younger ball who's going to be the first overall picking this draft? Lamello. Lamello Ball and Dalvin Cook are going to be doing a walk and talk golf
Starting point is 00:41:19 and review in 2035. Awful tackling. Rob Domotsky has them. He said that they touched Cook in the backfield 12 times. They gained 4.3 yards per rush on those plays, so 52 yards. This is, they're not
Starting point is 00:41:37 creating turnovers. This is a fatal flaw, potentially fatal flaw. If teams can just run on the Packers all day, again, this does not have to matter. But when you're this bad, it absolutely matters. If we have an elongated conversation about the value of run defense right now, I will walk into the sea. And I think you probably feel the same way. The damn Packers forced us to have this conversation.
Starting point is 00:42:04 They should not, we should not be having this conversation. and Dalvin Cook made us do it. We should be, you know, it's funny because people were saying, so before the game or after the game, Aaron Rogers says, well, you know, a wide receiver would be good at the trade deadline. If I'm Brian Gutenkins from Matt Lofler, the only thing I'm worrying about the next 48 hours is fixing this fatal flaw to the point that
Starting point is 00:42:24 another weapon for Aaron Rogers might go by the wayside. And it really should, frankly. And this is the thing that's tough about it, right? Which is that run defense doesn't matter until it matters. It's not something that you want to put a lot of resources into. I think that is true. But then all of a sudden, when it matters, if you're playing a game in the slop, if you're playing Dalvin Cook on a really good day, if you are the chiefs getting stopped from going to the Super Bowl because you have to play a Patriots team that can run the ball and basically do nothing else,
Starting point is 00:42:58 then all of a sudden it matters. And in some ways, the Packers are lucky that they know that it matters for them right now while they still have time to make a move and try to fix it. But the problem is then you get forced into the situation where it, where nine times out of 10 or eight times out of 10 or whatever it is, you don't want to devote a lot of resources to that. But since the trade deadline's in a couple days, you kind of have to choose whether or not you're going to do that. And I think at this point, because of how good their offense is, they don't want to waste this opportunity.
Starting point is 00:43:28 And I think that they should go for it and try to get someone. But this is the situation that gets. at the heart of what people are talking about when they debate running back value and run defense value until I, as discussed, want to walk into the sea. But it's also the situation the Packers are in. So I'm curious to see what they do at the deadline. I absolutely think that they should try to upgrade there rather than get Rogers support on offense because the offense is fine.
Starting point is 00:43:59 But run defense is not. I just don't know what you do. You know, Mike Petten, I think, has been a pretty good defense coordinator over his career. And I have faith that he's going to fix this. But listen, guess who's next on the schedule? The 49ers. And guess what they did with the run game against the Green Bay Packers? They destroyed them last year to the point that everybody had almost written off the Packers competing this year for the NFC
Starting point is 00:44:27 because of how much the 49ers pushed them around in their two meetings. Luckily, that reversed itself. We have higher expectations for the Packers now. I actually think the Packers are a better team than the 49ers. But if the Packers have these sort of weaknesses going into SF, they're going to get bullied off the ball. So they've got the 49ers this week, Jaguars next week, which is a different deal,
Starting point is 00:44:49 Colts, Bears, Eagles. I don't know. I mean, I worry when a team sees red like this with a team, and they say, okay, we can attack this, and we can just do one thing over and over again. I think that's when you start to get in trouble. And so whatever it is to fix it, they've got to do it. All right, let's talk about the bear staying in the NFC North a little bit.
Starting point is 00:45:10 So they lose a game 26 to 23. There's a lot to get to. First of all, I did not expect a should they start Mitch Trubes. Should they put in Mitch Trubiskey debate? Did not see that coming. Nick Fulz goes 28 to 41 for 272 yards, two touchdowns and interception. Drew Breeze, 280 yards, two touchdowns. Alvin Kamara does his.
Starting point is 00:45:31 thing. I think this game is going to be remembered unfairly because the Saints are now 5 and 2 and the Bears are 5 and 3. Both teams will make the playoffs. This game is going to be remembered for the slap fight. Was that a slap fight or was that, see, I was hoping you would actually break this down for me because I think you tweeted something about how that all, that whole altercation had a lot of Florida energy as a soft Northeastern girl. Tell me what happened because I would call that a punch, not a slap. So it looked like. like Wims sort of
Starting point is 00:46:04 people were saying he grabbed a almost he tried to grab a chain but I don't that doesn't look like it looks like he's he kind of touched his chest and then he punched him
Starting point is 00:46:13 and then they kind of looked at each other for a second they punched him again okay and I sort of thought I thought he kind of tapped him on the shoulder just to be like hey you I'm about to punch you
Starting point is 00:46:24 in the helmet I don't know yeah that that part unless we're miced up which even if we're miced up they will burn that footage and we will never see it. But I think that, first of all,
Starting point is 00:46:36 I was not surprised when Wims was revealed to me to be from Florida, from Jacksonville. Gardner Johnson is also from Florida. Janoris Jenkins, who was breaking up the fight and was kind of the first man in there. He's also from Florida. I actually covered a game he played in high school. This had some Florida energy to it.
Starting point is 00:46:55 And I don't know what the actual story is and we'll find out. But those sort of, there's only two fights in Florida. Okay. The first is like the weird, terrible technique sucker punch, which is what we saw in this game. And it didn't even matter because Johnson-Garner-Johnson was wearing a helmet. And that's another kind of hallmark of Florida is that it doesn't even make any sense what you're doing.
Starting point is 00:47:15 And the other Florida fight is just two dudes who were just talking about fighting for like 30 minutes, nobody ever fights. And so you either go one or the other. This was absolutely the former. And it was just some good Florida energy. I've seen this. I've seen this at many, like a, you know, a tiki bar in Key Largo. Why does Chaunty Gardner Johnson keep getting punched? So he's been punched now by...
Starting point is 00:47:41 Did he get in a fight with Michael Thomas? Michael Thomas. And now with whims, I don't know. I also, I will never get over players punching players in the helmet. First of all, don't punch people. Punching is not nice. We all went to kindergarten. to punch someone in a helmet is a variation on one of what I believe to be the stupidest acts routinely performed by mostly men.
Starting point is 00:48:09 I don't mean to gender stereotype here, but humans, which is the wall punch, the helmet punch, the punching a solid object that can cause much more damage to you than you can cause to it. and the NFL. Hockey players do that too. Just a bunch of the helmet. Yeah, but they're like hockey players are like, they're so wrapped up that I almost put that in a different category. But you're right. You're right.
Starting point is 00:48:38 It was not a productive fight. It was not a productive fight for anybody. Also, Wims was like celebrating afterwards like he'd won something. I don't know. This was this, I've seen this. I've seen this fight so many times in downtown Orlando. What a sentence that is. A guy starts a fight kind of losing.
Starting point is 00:48:55 it and then just goes around celebrating it. I've probably been, I've probably broken up those fights. I've probably broken up those fights. You were the Genores Jenkins. Yeah, I've caught a few in my day. Just innocent bystander. All right, from the game perspective,
Starting point is 00:49:12 I don't know, surprised at anything? Not really. It seemed like there was some good foals in there, right? But we get that with him. And then there was some bad foals, which you also get. It's a good Alan Robinson. Yeah, I feel bad for Alan Robinson.
Starting point is 00:49:30 I wish Alan Robinson could live a different life than the one that he's living right now. I did think that the clamoring for Mitch is sort of funny because different does not necessarily mean better guys. That's all I would say to the wonderful people of Chicago. I want to ask about Alan Robinson real quick because we've got a reader question that we're not going to get to,
Starting point is 00:49:52 but I want to bring it up. It's from a guy named Norm. he said, how many times would you have to randomize a grouping of five quarterbacks to find a worse group than the ones Alan Robinson is caught from? So it's Blake Bordell's Mitch Chibisky, Chase Daniel, Chad Henney, and Brian Walters, I don't know who that is. I don't know who Brian Walters is. I think the answer is probably what?
Starting point is 00:50:13 What's the pool of quarterbacks? Brian Walters is a former Jaguars quarterback who played in 2015 and 2016. He's in the practice squad for a little bit. I don't know who this is. Sorry to this man. I don't know who Brian Walters is. Brian Walters, come on the ringer NFL show. I'm sure he's a very nice person, but I just don't know who he is.
Starting point is 00:50:33 This seems like, I don't know if, man, I guess you could add Nathan Peterman in there. He played with Hackenberg in college. Well, so the answer depends on what the pool is, right? Like who qualifies as a quarterback? Is it current, quarterback's currently on rosters? because I kind of think the answer to that would be one, two? Not a lot. I'm looking into something that is very important here.
Starting point is 00:51:01 It appears that Brian Walters, the former Jaguar as a wide receiver. What is what was going on with the Jaguars in his throw? He threw one pass in his entire career in 2015. That's just why I didn't know who he was. And it was to Alan Robinson. He was not the quarterback. Yeah, he was to Alan Robinson. And it was not his lifetime QBR is 1.9.
Starting point is 00:51:21 Tough one. Still better than... I don't say something. 1.9 is pretty good. That's right there in the middle of there for Alan Robinson quarterbacks. All right, before we move on, let's get a quick break. Businesses have had to be flexible this year, from working remotely to pivoting their business models
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Starting point is 00:52:31 R-I-N-G-E-R-N-F-L. Let ZipRecruiter take hiring off your plate so you can focus on growing your business. Go to zip recruiter.com slash ringer NFL. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. All right. Honorable mentions, Isaiah, let's go. Let's do this. We're not going to screw this up. Nora, are you ready for this? We're not going to screw this up. Now I'm scared. All right. First, Colts first Lions. Norr, go. So I'm a little bit of a cold skeptic, but they scored 41 points. Very impressive. The only thing I would say is that I think this was a particularly good matchup for their offense. They use their tight ends. They use their running backs. They're so important to them less so than the receivers.
Starting point is 00:53:15 And the lions are so bad against 12 and 22. They just are addicted to man coverage and don't prioritize the right things. So not to throw cold water, but I just want to see them do it against a different defense. How many wins do you think the lines have to win this year for me to start praising a win over Matt Patricia? Like if they get to like seven wins later in the year and a team beats Matt Patricia, am I excited about that? You could be excited.
Starting point is 00:53:42 We'd be excited for like Matt Stavert. Yeah, I guess. Chargers are sprangos. Boy, the Chargers are still the Chargers, huh? So Matt Patricia is addicted to man coverage. The chargers are addicted to blowing 16 plus point leads is what we. That's the situation. Drew Locke, three touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
Starting point is 00:54:06 Not since Peyton has somebody done that. Yeah, and then he tried to doggie. He did try to doggie. I will say this. I like Drew Locke's like Moxie and Grit and all that stuff significantly more than I like him. as just an overall passer. I don't know what that, I don't know what his destiny is.
Starting point is 00:54:24 I don't think he's ever going to be a great quarterback, but I like him in these sort of fun situations. He's got the chance to be a more fun quarterback than a great quarterback. Does that make sense? And we live for it. Seahawks versus 49ers. Seahawks get a little bit of pressure on the quarterback on 38% of their dropbacks.
Starting point is 00:54:43 That's her best pressure percentage since week 6th, 2018, according to ESPN. Nora, anything there. So it's interesting that we think the, the packers are kind of screwed defending the run against them because the Seahawks were actually kind of no yeah wow oh almost got that point we'll never know we'll never know we will never know what your Seahawks pack this point was darn it uh right really 52 rushing yards the Seahawks the 49ers the Niners against the Seahawks mm-hmm so we can I think we kind of categorize
Starting point is 00:55:18 the Seahawks and the Packers together a little bit because they of great offenses and terrible defenses. And I'm just saying that I still think the Packers are going to not have a fun time defending the 49ers run game, but it was at least encouraging that Seattle had some semblance
Starting point is 00:55:37 of run defense. Yeah, that's good. And Bobby Wagner. All of every single phrase I said in that like went up at the end because I'm like, I don't trust these people. Because you thought we were going to cut you off
Starting point is 00:55:46 because you disrespected the honorable mentions structure? Disrespected the timer. I like Bobby Wagner's underrated Twitter, which comes out on days like this. All right. Fan questions. Question number one. First of Will Cooper.
Starting point is 00:56:03 What are the Jets waiting for? It's incredibly philosophical. A meteor? I think we know the answer to that. I don't think they're particularly trying to win games, is what I would say to that. So you now agree with the Sean Fantasy take that they are,
Starting point is 00:56:22 they are tanking on purpose. I think that they thought that there was a chance this year. With Sam Darnold being a little bit into his career, maybe there'd be something here. And I just think once they saw it, they were like, we can't, we can't risk a three-game winning streak here. There is nothing.
Starting point is 00:56:38 There is no win or like locker room excitement or whatever it is worth losing Trevor Lawrence. Nothing. Don't be short-sighted on this. I think that's, I think that's right. but what the Jets are waiting for is to have paid Adam Gase more of the money that they owe him so that less of it will be paid to him while he is no longer under their employment and offering of his services.
Starting point is 00:57:02 It's sunk cost at this point. It's bad. And I don't think, I think that even if you get the first, even if he does the Elon Manning thing and he's just like, we're not, I'm not going to play for the Jets, having the first overall pick and the ability to trade out of it, if it happened, if it happened, if, they were in the Chargers spot. I think that that's worth more. And you can obviously, you know, trade down to three and get Justin Field to Tray Lancer.
Starting point is 00:57:30 Zach Wilson, who's getting a little bit of buzz here on the runner NFL show in the last three weeks? All right. Second question. This is from Trickson. Is it nature or nurture with Anthony Lynn? Trent Johnson also just said Anthony Lynn, which got to the heart of the matter.
Starting point is 00:57:47 So, there's a lot of here. Is it nature or nurture? Like why they're a disaster all the time, yet somehow encouraging? The Chargers have blown in the last four games leads of 17, 17, 16, and 21. John Ewing. They won one of those games, though. They did. John Ewing, a PR data guy, or a betting data guy, said that, so in the last,
Starting point is 00:58:17 12 years, their record in once were games is awful. Awful. And since 2015, they've only had a winning record in once four games once. They've had three wins, three wins, three wins, six wins, then two wins and one win. Okay.
Starting point is 00:58:35 Awful. One in five this year. Two and nine last year. I don't know if it's bad luck. I don't know if it's bad conditioning. You know, you and I have both explored just the idea that the Patriots always you know they have such good conditioning and they run all these hills and all that shit that there's they have some edge in in minute 59 of a 60 minute game all that stuff i don't know
Starting point is 00:58:56 what it is something's wrong and i think that there's you know there's thousands of reasons that a team wins a game on a given week and the chargers seem to not have a large chunk of those embedded in their in their their structural DNA okay and i don't know what the problem is i don't they seem to have the talent they do have the talent like tom telusco has picked good players Anthony Lynn seems like a good coach. They get the talent to get this far and be up in these games. That's not easy. And then the inability to keep it, it's maddening.
Starting point is 00:59:26 So there has to be something there. I wish I knew more about football to diagnose it. If I had to guess it be some mixture of conservative coaching and conditioning. That would be my guess. Just from what I know about the opposite, which is that aggressive play calling and conditioning helps you win those games late. But I'm not smart to figure that. out because quite frankly no one's smart enough to figure this out.
Starting point is 00:59:51 I do remember when the Chargers were considered a potential landing spot for Tom Brady. Yeah. One thing you would hear from, one thing you would hear from people as a caveat was just, yes, he's got California ties. Yes, they have a good roster, but don't discount the fact that they're cheap in a lot of areas of the organization and the air travel and some of the facilities and being second fiddle in their home stadium and playing in a soccer stadium and all of that stuff I do think there is a collective toll that we don't necessarily talk about all that often and the ways in which
Starting point is 01:00:38 they've lost are so bizarre and ridiculous and go beyond any one thing. I think it's fair at this point if they felt like Anthony Lynn, it's, it's been weird, but maybe let's just try shuffling the deck a little bit. It would be fair for them to try almost anything at this point, but I don't think it's primarily coaching. I think there are some organizational failures. So he was emotional after the press, in his press conference after the game, he said, what do you want to do? Go hire new players. Go get new coaches the middle of the season, you can't do that. This is what we have. We're going to have to figure this shit out right now. You know, you could get new players and new coaching middle of the season, Anthony.
Starting point is 01:01:28 Yeah, you maybe don't want to bring that one up. Yeah, don't, don't bring that one up. Don't bring that one up. All right. Clickbait headlines tomorrow. Nora, what do you got? The Dobbins should bench Tua and go back to Ryan Fitzpatrick. You canceling Tua is my favorite thing in the world. Everybody else at this website. Everybody else on this website is so excited about Tua and you're ready to trade them for back up for one of the Bears 11 tight ends. I'm going to like bribe one of our producers to go back into the trades episode that we did and instead of me saying Ryan Fitzpatrick should be traded to the Cowboys, I think Tua should be traded to the Cowboys. Just get him out of here. He's not healthy. You're on this the whole time. I'm just kidding. I love him. Just not right now. No, you can't. It's over.
Starting point is 01:02:15 It's over. You've pulled the plug on the experiment and I hear you. All right. It's like the most likable person in the world. I think that I can talk about Tua or me? I'm talking about Tua. Mm. Mm. All right.
Starting point is 01:02:31 So my clickbait, I think that there's probably going to be a lot of discussion off of another J. Gwazer report on Sunday, which is that Antonio Brown is living once again at Tom Brady's house, as he was last year. And that confirming an early report that. that Tony Robbins was one of the middlemen here and tried to get Antonio Brown going the right direction. There's no evidence that he's going in the right direction. I've written this. We've talked about this. I've talked about Peter King on Snow News Day.
Starting point is 01:02:59 I don't know what to say exactly, except to say there's going to be a lot of discussion about this particular narrative going into Sunday night football next week against the New Orleans Saints, which will be Antonio Brown's debut. I don't know what Brady's living situation is exactly. I think they're out of Jeter's house, but the only thing this makes me think other than this is a bad idea is in recent history,
Starting point is 01:03:23 they've gravitated towards rather open floor plans. And I just would love to know what Giselle thinks. I have no comment on that. This has been the Ringanafell Show. This has been the Ringar NFL show and Ringar Podcast Network. I'll be back on Tuesday for a trade deadline breakdown. Ryan and Cole will be with you on Thursday. The regular shows with Warren, Joe House, and Chris Vernon taking you through the rest of the week.
Starting point is 01:03:51 All of them great shows, all of them worth the list. It's going to be a ton of news this week. This has been the Ring NFL show and they're a podcast network.

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