The Ringer NFL Show - Week 9 Recap: Falcons Defeat the Cowboys, Ravens Dominate the Broncos, and More

Episode Date: November 4, 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-Falcons (2:28) Broncos-Ravens (11:13) Jaguars-Eagles (22:27) Lions-Packers (32:22) Rams-Seahawks (38:17) Chargers-Browns (46:30) They then survey the league and offer superlatives and awards to the players, coaches, and teams who made newsworthy contributions to the Week 9 headlines (52:19). 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 everybody, Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe, and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get you. your podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media. That's at Ringer NBA and check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of podcasting

read on the Ringer NBA YouTube channel. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Kapati here with my friends, Deontay Lee and Stephen Ruiz. Good to have you watching on Fandual TV or listening on Spotify. Week 9 in the books. We're going to talk about it. Lessons we learned. Awards we want to hand out. where we want to plan our flags. We're going to do it all. Ruiz, how we feel in? I'm feeling good. It was a bit of a disappointing slate of games after last year, last week's like thriller,

especially in that early slate. But I do think there was a lot to glean from this week in this slate of games, even if the games weren't too exciting. Deonti told us that he, Larry, he feels clarity. You don't need to rewatch the rest of the season. You feel like everything you saw today, everything clarified for you in that, in that, as my daughter would say, big brain of yours. 1,000 percent.

I mean, I'm always just looking for teams I don't have to. take seriously anymore because it makes my Sunday viewing experience so much better. And this week, I think, will go a long way to helping me discard some teams. But to Stephen's point, like, Scott Hansen was trying to sell the witching hour thing so hard this week after last week. And what we ended with was a Patriots Titans overtime game that was very eventful in the end. So, yeah, we definitely didn't get what we got out of week eight, but we still have

some interesting football to talk about nonetheless. Yeah, Scott was definitely chasing that dopamine high from last week. And I can't blame it. It was a thrilling witching hour, but it was impossible to live up to you. And these games definitely did not live up to that hype. But I'm impressed by Diante, nine weeks. That's all you need in the NFL season. And he knows what's going to happen. He doesn't need to watch. I love it. Let's see. Let's see what his takes are. Let's see what all hour takes are. We're going to start with Sunday lessons. What did we learn? We each picked out one thing we learned this week. And I'm starting us off. I learned that it is officially time to bury the 2024,

Dallas Cowboys not to go full like Stephen A. Smith here. I don't have a cowboy hat to put on or anything like that in my apartment. But they're dead. I mean, this was an abomination of a loss. So if you watch the box score, you say, oh, they lost 27, 21 to the Falcons. That looks respectable. It was not respectable. They looked like the worst coach team in the NFL today.

I'm talking about like stuff you've seen from the Raiders this year, stuff you've seen from the Jets this year. That's the category. And don't worry, I've got some examples for you guys that I wrote down as I was watching. So early on, they're facing a fourth and one. They waste a timeout. They come out of the timeout. They call a jet sweep to CD Lamb. Get stuff for a loss, turnover on downs.

That's one. Then the Falcons face a fourth and three. Cowboys aren't ready to defend the play, so they waste another timeout. They come out of the timeout and they can't get lined up correctly. Darnell Mooney, touchdown, as wide open as you'll see a wide receiver. in the NFL. That's another one. They have a delay of game and a false start in the red zone. They had one of the worst fake punts you will ever see. Like this is like if they called me out of the stands and we're like, she'll drop a little, you know, fake punt for us. Okay. Throw that guy out there.

Oh, he's covered. Oh, well, incomplete. Turnover on downs. And then maybe my favorite. They had a 12 men in the huddle penalty with Dalvin Cook, Dalvin Cook on fourth and one that made it fourth and six. There were others that I missed, but that's just a little outline of some of the things I saw on my TV screen. And I didn't even mention, by the way, Dak Prescott injures his hamstring in this game doesn't finish the game. C.D. Lamb has a shoulder injury in this game. And so I sat back at the end of that game and I say, you know what? This era is over. The previous three seasons, you could have talked me into this team. They were a good regular season team. They won 12 games each year. But last offseason, Jerry, you mismanaged the roster. And now you're having a lot of

having some bad injury luck and your coach is bringing nothing to the table. It is Curtin' Ruiz on the 2024 Dallas Cowboys. See you next year. Yeah, thanks for finally joining me in week five when I had this date when I was ready to bury this team. But nothing has changed. And it's getting depressing to watch. This team is not fun to watch. I feel bad that Tom Brady was subjected to this team for like four out of the first five games of his announcing career.

Tom's doing okay. Tom's doing it. Yeah, he is doing it. I mean, the game didn't get any better for him this week. It wasn't like watching Detroit and the Packers play was any better. But yeah, it's just getting

hard to watch. The offense is just laboring. The run game was better today, but it's nothing where you're going to be optimistic about it being better going forward. And the passing game still looks so hard. Every completion is contested, and it only goes for like seven yards.

Even the punter has a, the punter's the only person in the NFL with a higher tight window throw rate than Dak Prescott now after he threw that contested ball in the fake punt, which like you said, one of the worst drawn-up fake punts I've seen.

It wasn't creative at all. It was a go-ball. It was a 50-50 go-ball outside the numbers. It was a tough-back. It was amazing. I didn't even know. And it was so funny, they said during the broadcast, they're like, you can't have pass interference on that because the guy's like trying to.

I'm like, I didn't even know that, but why they should know that? Like, why would you design a play to the gunner on punt coverage when the guy can just blast them and it doesn't even matter? Unbelievable. Poor special teams coordinator. You know, I feel bad for the special team's coordinator because I'm sure he has a bunch of great fake punt designs, but everything about that fake punt felt like Mike McCarthy saying,

hey, in my offense, I just don't one-on-one bolts on the perimeter and make my receiver go win. Why wouldn't that work for our punter and our gunner? Did you see Mike McCarthy spike the surface tablet? The only spiking going on for any Cowboys offensive member on Sunday. But, like, I wonder what he was looking at. Because, like, what you see on that surface tablet is the snapshot right before the snap and then like a second or two after the snap,

So, like, what is he seeing that made him spike that tablet? Is he seeing like, oh, a slant flat combination? The look was there, and Dak didn't throw it. We could have got seven yards on that. It's just very funny to watch his team from afar. I'm happy I'm not the one that has to root for it. I'm happy I'm not the one that has to pay all these people that are involved in it. Yeah, Deonté, it's funny because Ruiz brings that up, and I was wondering the same thing.

And I feel like it was a good insight into like what coaching is because Greg Olson, who always does a great job announcing the games, he was like, that's not a bad bad play call. If this guy blocks this guy, then, you know, I could understand why he would call that and the play would work. But then Olson got to the second half and he's like, the attention to detail on this team is atrocious on like a play to play basis where guys don't know who to block or what their job is. And that's another aspect of coaching that's like harder to quantify where we watch a game on Sunday. And we, you know, we can look at all. We can make fun of the special teams play call, for example. I can make fun of the clock mismanagement, which I am probably my favorite

time, but stuff like what's happening during the week to put these players in position to succeed so that when we do call this play on a Sunday, it looks good. That stuff's not there either for this Cowboys team. One thousand percent. And I guess the most confounding factor and all of that is that it's not like Mike McCarthy is known for running the most complex offensive scheme. Right. Like there's a way in which I can excuse some of the things that were going wrong for Dallas's defense because I think over the last couple weeks we're starting to see Mike Zimmer get into I'm just throwing everything I can at the problem mode, right? Where you've got, you're bringing seven, eight guys just to hope to get an unblocked

rusher and maybe disrupt, you know, Kirk Cousins. You're trying to throw these different man coverage looks. You're trying to load up the box. I saw a couple like six one fronts, which is not usually a thing for him. I think he's more of a bare front guy than using that kind of like four down type front thing the way that we would see from a Vic Fangio. So I can excuse some of the things that are happening defensively because they're downbodies and they clearly have a talent disadvantage even when they are healthy.

and I think that Mike Zimmer is trying to find solutions. To your point with Mike McCarthy and the offensive side, and I think that this existed in Green Bay as well, which is why Aaron Rogers was running such a pared down version of that offense before Mike McCarthy lost that job, is that because the attention of detail is not there, because they're not versatile, because they're not multiple in the way that you need to be in the modern NFL,

what you land with are teams that are just sitting on everything you do well, and if you're not going to be at that Sean McVey, Kevin O'Connell, Kyle Shanahan, level of detail and finding those little intricacies and nuances and what you do simply in order to find different advantages based on what defenses are trying to do to you, you get a Falcons defense that is causing your offense problems. And this Falcons defense hasn't been able to generate pass rush on a week-by-week basis at all. It didn't look like a problem today. They haven't really been able to play Titan coverage in a way that you would want to see a playoff team play. And they had no problem getting and throwing windows for Dak Prescott today. So to me it's just like top to bottom.

You just look at how this team comes into a game must win games. For the last three weeks, these have been must win opportunities. And you continue to walk away from the feeling like Dallas is the worst coach team. They were less prepared for high leverage situations and they have less answers for their superstar players than who they're playing against. And that just can't be the case for a team that is not that does not have a new head coach, does not have a new quarterback, does not have a new staff period outside of Mike Zimmer running this defense. This just shouldn't be a problem anymore. and the fact that it continues to be, I think, really paints a picture of why this team can't be taken seriously. Yeah, it's a great point contrasting them to the Falcons today because the Falcons look like a very well-coached team.

And we can talk about what's their ceiling, actually, but you can't really make the argument that they're not getting everything out of the talent that they have. I mean, Rahim Morris with that defense, it's not a very talented defense. And like you said, they were on everything that the Cowboys were trying to do today. And Kirk Cousins, for all the offseason talk there, their offense has played well. They're just getting, they're not overthinking it. Bejan Robinson touched the ball, like 12 out of the first 16 plays. It's like, all right, that seems like a good idea. They're going up and down the field.

They're blocking stuff up. They know when a zero blitz is coming. I mean, all those things, they were ready for it. It just shows up when you watch the games. And that's not the case with this Cowboys team that is now three and five with a minus 54 point differential. And listen, like they might get guys healthier on defense, but now you have injuries on offense. They're not good enough to string together a bunch of.

wins and even make the playoffs. I think we're ready to start talking about who's the coach going to be. Who wants to coach for Jerry Jones, given the way he's managed this roster last off-season and beyond. I mean, I'm sure people are going to be sick of it who are like, why does everyone always talk about the Cowboys? But that's about to be a very relevant discussion about who's coaching this football team next season. All right. Ruiz, what did you learn in week nine in the NFL? All right. I'm taking my lesson from the Ravens 41 to 10 destruction of this Broncos defense that I think we all hyped up and we all had a lot of reason to believe was legit coming into this game. And I'm not giving up on the idea that they are legit, but I'm all in on this Ravens offense.

And I know it's very easy to question their performance in the regular season because we've seen them do this before. We've seen them fall flat on their faces in the playoffs after having these big regular seasons. But this year, it's different. I'm declaring that it's different. And that's the lesson I learned on Sunday because let me just go back to the discussion we had on Friday where we talked about this Broncos defense being good against every. whether you win under center or you went in shotgun, whether it was early downs, it was late downs.

They were good at defending all of those situations. And I assumed that they would be able to make the Ravens play left-handed. They didn't make them play left-handed. And if they did make them play left-handed, the Ravens made like a freaking hook shot with their left-hand. It was easy for the Ravens' offense to move the ball, no matter what they did. They went under center and they ran the ball with Derek Henry. They went in the gun and they ran the ball with them. Or Lamar Jackson got out of the pocket and scrambled.

or he made a pass downfield. They got under center around play action, and the guys were wide open 20 yards down field. Every time the CBS broadcast cut down field after Lamar threw it, all you saw was a Ravens defender with no Broncos around him, just running an open grass. It was fun to watch. And I think that multifaceted attack and the fact that the Ravens can do all these different things

is going to serve them well in January. We saw last January when they played the Chiefs, the run game disappeared. Todd Munkin went away from it immediately. when they didn't have success early on. The passing game, the Chiefs just were able to sit on the passing game, and the Ravens didn't really have a plan B. This year they have a plan B, they have a plan C, they have a plan D,

and they're doing all this stuff at a high level. Let me read off the ranks. These are splits between under center and shotgun. They're third in yards per play under center, first in shotgun. There's second in EPA per play and second in shotgun. Third in success rate, fourth in shotgun, fifth in explosive play rate under center, and first in shotgun. third in EPA per pass under center and first in shotgun,

third in EPA per run under center, and third in shotgun. They can do everything, and they can do it on early downs, and they can do it on late downs. They are top five in basically every offensive split you can come up with. And when a team can operate like that on the offensive side of the ball, I just don't know how you slow it down, not even with a great game plan because they can go do so many different things. One defense that I think could handle this offense

is the Kansas City Chiefs because of the respect I have for Steve Bagnola. I think we all have the same level of respect for him. But even in that week one game, Lamar was moving the ball up and down the field. And if Isaiah likely gets a toe down, they probably go to overtime. And I would assume Baltimore, which had the momentum in the game, wins that game. The only thing separating the Chiefs in Baltimore for me right now are the standings. Obviously, the Chiefs haven't lost the game yet. But in terms of just the quality of performance, there isn't a team close to Baltimore right now,

especially on offense. And I know they gave that game away to Cleveland last week. But those games happen. And the highs we've seen from this team are, they outweigh the lows we've seen from this team. And we haven't seen many this year. I would say this is the first week for me where I left the Ravens game feeling like the issues that I have with this defense is really more about me needing to reframe my expectations. Because the way that this offense is playing, I don't think that their baseline that they have to cross is nearly as high as it's been in years past. You know, I made a tweet earlier today that was basically referring to,

to this Ravens offense is like the old Shanahan offense, and I actually think I have that wrong. To me, it feels almost like a marriage between 2018, Sean McVeigh, and 2021, Sean McVe in a lot of ways. Yeah, that's a good couple. What do you mean by that? Meaning that when they want to go under center and get into 12 personnel,

or get into 21, or just put bigger bodies on the field, they have such a versatile menu of runs because of who Derek Henry is as a downhill runner that you, and you got to see that. I think that when we talk about the Vikings defense, example, right? And you talk about how much they blitz. The way you beat that team is by getting under center and beating them with downhill runs, right? With the runs that you can't defend or that work against any front and any blitz. And that's what today was. It was a lot of outside zone. It was a lot of off tackle runs. You know, you try to maybe get a couple like binbacker counter looks,

but for the most part, you know you were attacking the edge. And I thought they did a great job of neutralizing what Denver likes to do to create explosive defense, right? To create havoc, those TFLs and those sacks by bringing in condensed splits and using. Pat Ricard is a fullback to kind of clean up any trash that does leak through the interior. And then if that didn't work and they found themselves in these high leverage or obvious past situations, you can now get into that 11, 12 or 10 personnel, you know, kind of spread out look. And now you can allow Lamar Jackson to work the middle of the field with guys like Zay Flowers, with guys like Isaiah likely. Even with Rashop Bateman not being very productive today,

obviously having Patrick Zartan on the other side has a bit of an influence on that. the fact that they are able to change gears in that way means that you have to defend them so specifically in a way that really doesn't exist with many other offenses, right? Because they can run the ball so effectively, because Lamar Jackson can be a participant in the run game. They can set up play action pass like Stephen was saying, both under center and in the gun.

And when they are in pure dropback situations, this is some of the best pocket management that we've seen from Lamar Jackson. And that means now that the entire field is open, basically from the beginning of the snap until he lets go with the ball, because it's so difficult to cause him any discomfort or to throw a look at him that he's not prepared to find the answer to. And I think that that second quarter into the third quarter of them just peppering the middle of the field over and over and over again

was a great encapsulation of why Baltimore is such a machine offensively and why even if this defense has not proven enough to buy everybody's confidence, that I just don't think that that threshold is as high because of how well they can move the ball on the other end. It's such an interesting point because in the past it's been like the Ravens can win in all these different ways. special teams, defense, offense, and have they transitioned to, well, the offense can kind of just get, their offense might be the most reliable unit of any unit in the NFL. I mean, even, again, that Brown, the games they've lost, the offense still showed up. I don't think any version of this Ravens offense in previous years, even when he was winning MVP's felt this reliable, this sustainable to all the points you guys made. I mean, there is no make,

I don't even know what making them left hand, making them play left hand it means anymore because they They just, they have answers to anything you want to do for them. I mean, we haven't even mentioned Lamar's numbers. That tells you how much is just like, another Lamar week. The ball doesn't hit the ground with this team. He's 16 for 19 for 280 yards to your point. Deont, every time you look up, these aren't dinking and dunking. I mean, he is chucking the ball.

He averes 14.7 yards per reception and through three incompletions, three touchdown. He took the one sack early, knocked him out of field goal range. And I'm like, all right, maybe the, you know, maybe the Broncos, that was it. Broncos didn't get another sack the entire game. This was the third best offensive performance by any team all season based on success rate. Again, to Ruiz's initial point, this is going up against the defense that had been playing at a top five level all season long. Granted, not against this level of competition, but still,

Ravens had nine possessions, five touchdowns, two field goals, and two punts. So, yeah, I think it's a great point that this version of the Ravens, and you're right, they got to do it in the playoffs. I'm sure there are other fans yelling, who cares? Let's see, and I understand, but it does feel different. I definitely agree with that. Yeah, and like this offensive performance was powered by the run game for the most part, but you could really feel how helpless Denver was in passing situations when they had to figure out

how to rush Lamar Jackson. At the beginning, it was just like three-man rush, and they were giving them time, and he was taking the time, and he was picking them apart. Then they send the Blitz, and he just lost a perfect pass to Justice Hill for a touchdown, and you're like, or I don't know if it went for a touchdown, but it went for a deep completion. And you're just like, what do we do against? We blitz them.

He beats us. We don't blitz them. He beats us. We only rush four. He beats us. There's literally nothing you could do against this offense right now. I'm not saying that's going to be the case in January. I think a team like Kansas City still matches up very well with them.

But every other team, every other defense, I don't know what they do against these guys. They're unplayable at the moment. There's no plan to stop them. There's no blueprint when they can do everything. I mean, Steven said, how do you make the team play left-handed? The answer is that left-handed for them is going under center and handing the ball off to Derek Henry.

Whoops. And if that's plan B, if that's plan B for the offense that you're facing, chances are you're going to lose or you're not going to win enough snaps to really make this offense uncomfortable. Yeah, no, it's well said. They've looked amazing.

I thought the Broncos offensively, like early on, they had a chance to keep at least like the first half close there. They had a couple failed, fourth down conversions. They had an interception that was, but then what stood out was that like you can't afford that because the Ravens just scored on every they scored on four straight offensive possession so it's like the margin for error is so slim where I think if you play this game out a hundred times it's at least closer like in the

third quarter than it was today most weeks I think the Broncos offense showed some things early in that game well I was like all right they're they're moving the ball here but if you're not that good offensively and if you make even a couple errors and you don't have a defense that can stop the Ravens which you guys have pointed out, no one has shown that yet. Then you're going to end up looking at the score at the end of the day, and you lose by 31 points to this football team. So, yeah, they've got some of the bozo losses on their resume. I think most of those are due to defense and special teams.

Again, I think even in those losses, the offense is the thing that they can just rely on week in and week out. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We find out what Deonté learned in week nine. Get ready to tackle the NFL action with Fandul America's number one sportsbook because right now, new customers can bet $5 to get $150 in bonus bets if you win. The Fandual Sportsbook app gives you everything you need to place live bets on the NFL all in one place. I've got the bucks with the points on Monday night.

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Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. Fandul.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. All right, we're back. Deontay, what do you got? What did you learn in week nine? I know I'm going to regret every bit of this.

I know that I am. So excited. In the conversation that I've had about Green Bay lately about them being like one of those high ceiling. teams that you have to take seriously, the more I watch Philadelphia, I think that they fit in the same category. And the more I watch them, I've watched them play over the last month, the more I see them basically being on an equal footing with Green Bay as a high ceiling team because of what Vic Fangio has done defensively. Again, we just talked about Denver and level

of competition, and that's certainly a piece of this. They've had the benefit of seeing Cincinnati without T. Higgins that definitely put a clamp down on Cincinnati's offense. Obviously, today against Jacksonville, no Gabe Davis, no Christian. Christian Kirk's out for the season. So they're throwing to a lot of guys that probably wouldn't be on the field otherwise. But I love seeing the fact that this defense now has reached a threshold where all Philadelphia really needs is a handful of plays. And I think that what we've seen over the last month is that when Jalen Hertz is not a mess

in terms of turning the ball over and taking terrible sacks, he gives this team just enough to get them over the hump. And I think that because of the explosive potential that they have at the wide receiver position and definitely at running back, that they've just done a really good job of pulling the necessary levers, I think, to control games offensively. And that's ultimately why they won this game, even though it looked like things might go off the rails to end the third quarter with that fumble return right after a Trevor Lawrence score. I just think that they have some of the necessary factors that you need to be considered

a serious NFC contender, even if there is a sizable gap right now between them and Detroit. and I would probably argue between Detroit and everybody else in the conference as it stands right now. Yeah, the formula is probably different than maybe what someone would have anticipated before the season because their defense is playing really well over the last month of the season. Now they haven't been tested by great quarterbacks. They've got Lamar and Jane and Daniels and Matthew Stafford on the schedule in the next month. So let's see about that. But their cornerback play has been good.

And you're right. Offensively, it's just like it just feels like a matter of time in every game before Sequin Barclay is going to rip off a 40-yard run before AJ Brown's going to come down with a contested catch. And then AJ Brown goes out today. And Devante Smith makes like one of the best catches of the season, a one-hander in the end zone where somehow he gets his feet in. So when you have that many playmakers, it's like a very different sort of team building. Like it's just rare to have that many guys who can go off for a 40-yard play when you most need them. I mean, Devante Smith had like 78 yards on one possession when the game was literally hanging in the balance.

They were up 22-16 there. So I felt that way last week after they beat the Bengals. I was like, I need to rethink this team. Maybe they can get there. Today I'm back to Ruiz being like, this is a weird team. I don't really know what to make of them. Maybe they do have that ceiling in a wide open NFC. But I probably am taking a slight step back from where I was a week ago.

Yeah, yeah. This is definitely a little bit of cope on Deontes part, the Eagles fan. But he's a West Coast Eagles fan, so he's a little more optimistic, the pessimistic East Coast fan and Shield. not letting them do that. Oh, I'm not a fair. I'm team content, my friend. I don't know if I agree with the point about Philly's ceiling, just because I don't think we've seen their

ceiling yet. I think what we've seen over the last couple weeks is that their floor is still tremendously high. We've seen them beat up on bad teams. We know they can beat up on bad teams. I don't think we're really going to know anything about this team, anything significant, until this stretch that starts in two weeks. The Cowboys still presents some

type of test because it's a rivalry. It's in Dallas. You know they're going to be up for that game. I think they have a chance at least keeping that game close. It's a six and a half line to open. So Vegas doesn't feel like the Cowboys have much of a chance. But I do think that game will be relatively competitive. But after that, they get Washington, they go to L.A. to take on Stafford and the Rams, and then they go to Baltimore to take on Lamar and the Ravens.

After that, three-game stretch, if you come out of that with two wins, then I'm with Deonté. I think this is one of the higher ceiling teams in the NFC, and I think in a wide-open NFC where really Detroit looks like the only contender of the bunch, I think they have a chance to go on a run. I mean, you pull off one upset or someone else. else upsets Detroit, and that's very possible with Jared Gough as the quarterback and the issues on defense that we've seen, then Philly could be right back in the Super Bowl, like they were two years ago. But I haven't seen that Super Bowl level team yet, and I don't think we're going to see it until this stretch coming up.

But it's, what are we? We're 26 minutes into this podcast, and we haven't mentioned the fact that Sequan Barkley hurtled a defender backwards. I've never, like, I've never seen anything like that. The most insane football play I've ever seen in my life. It was like straight out of a Marvel movie. How? How do you know where the guy, it was a clean, he cleared him cleanly. How?

When you can't even see him? How do you come up with the idea? What was going through his mind where he's like, you know what? I'm going to do to beat this guy? I'm going to hurdle. And I know that his back is, or my back is to him. But guess what? It's just going to work out.

And it did. I couldn't do that over like a kid. It would be one thing if it was like totally open field, right? But he's in traffic fresh off of spinning off of a guy. So like you probably only get a millisecond. to even register that there's another defender in tackling range of you and to decide to jump backwards and a note to lift your leg so that way that guy doesn't get. I mean, the launch angle that that Jags defender was at probably catches 99% of people

who are trying to jump in that situation. That Saquan basically has enough just pure hops like to just go off two feet from almost a standstill position and clear this guy. I don't know how you, what even category of play you put that in. That goes right up there with like the Reggie Bush. ball behind the back punt return or run down the sideline when he was at USC for a touchdown. Like it's going to be, I think, in the all-time pantheon of running backs making ridiculous plays. They should have gotten three points for that.

Just a free three points. Like some judge, some sky judge whistles down to the rep and he's like, give the Eagles three points because they just did the coolest thing I've ever seen on a football field. Now you see why I'm getting running back pills this season. You watch Sequin Barkley, you watched Derek Henry, the guys we just talked about. And I'm like, wait a minute. Is everything the nerds have been telling me over the last decade? Has it all been alive?

Because I don't know where the guy had 30 touches for 199 yards today, you know, in a game that they won by one possession. And like that has happened time and time again this season. So it is interesting. They've had a big change in the way they play. Since their by week, they're like the most run heavy team in the NFL on early downs. They had 38 runs today on first and second down. And finally, they're doing some of the.

under center play action off of it. They hit a big shot play today to Devante Smith. So I think Ruiz, your point is right. It's kind of like, I know in August, I'm like, all right, what's this Kellymour and Vic Fangio scheme going to look like? And then I watched the first month of the season. I'm like, not impressed. And now it's like, oh, okay, wait, they are still adding.

Maybe it's layer by layer week by week. And that is going to be a fun stretch, especially we'll talk about the Rams in the next segment. But the way the Rams are playing, the way the Ravens are playing, and the way the commanders are playing. There's something that's very interesting to me coming in, that was very interesting to me coming into this week, which was Lane Johnson kind of owning that like, yeah, we kind of had to pull Kellynne Moore and Nick Seriani to the side and be like,

hey, this offensive line and this run game is what's going to win football games for us, more or less, right? It wasn't said in those exact terms, but there were some kind of hints that like, hey, we want to play behind this offensive line, which I think, to your point, shield is a little antithetical to what we heard about what Jalen Hertz wanted from this offense, right? Which is like, oh, I want a more sophisticated dropback game where I get to work the middle of the field and I want to have more control at the line of scrimmage to adjust things. And I think that there are like, there are some elements of that. I think that it's probably

more superficial than it is significant in this offense. But I do think that it speaks well of Kellam Moore and probably of Nick Seriani as well, who has taken a lot of criticism that they were able to come out of that Bucks game basically and say, hey, we have got to rethink the way that we are asking Jalen Hertz to win games for us. And I think the answer for them has just been less of Jalen Hertz having to be in pure dropback situations. And if he is going to be, it's going to be off of play action or it's going to be these vertical looks.

And I think that for them, this is just a winning formula as long as Sequin Barclay as producing at this level and this defense is playing how it is. To what Stephen is saying, over this next month, if you're caught it late in the second half against a Matt Stafford that's been on fire in the way that he's been over the last two to three weeks, you're not probably going to be able to ask Sequin Barclay to lean to be the force that wins the game. But I do think as long as they are in control of the game script, it does so much to protect this quarterback and this offense from some of the negative plays that we were seeing to start this year. And for now, at least, I think that that gives them enough

for you to feel good about their Super Bowl chances, even if they aren't necessarily as good as Detroit is in their own conference. I mean, even if they do fall behind in the game, I feel like you could just dump it off to Sequin. It's not handoffs, but you could replicate that safe, basically an extended handoff to him and still get explosive plays out of it. That's how explosive he's been this season. I would argue that he's been the most valuable signing of the offseason

outside of Kirk Cousins, who's a quarterback, and that's way different. But I can't think of another signing that has impacted his team this much. Like Derek Henry has an argument, but Lamar Jackson's there, and I think Lamar is doing most of the heavy lifting with that offense. Nothing against Derek Henry. But like, Sequin has stepped into this very talented offense, and it's hard to say that he hasn't been the best player and the most impressive player of the bunch so far.

Yeah, AJ Brown goes down with an injury, a knee injury in this game. So we'll see what that looks like. Their offense has looked a lot different when he's been out of the lineup. All right, take a break. We come back and we start to plant some of our flags from week nine. All right.

We are back on the Ringer NFL show. I'm going to start us off, planning my flag. You mentioned one of the teams, Deonti. I'm saying the eventual NFC Super Bowl representative played at Lambeau Field today. It's going to be one of those teams. So you can have your Eagles and you can have your Niners. And if you think the Falcons are a cute little story, go ahead. I think it's going to be the Packers or the Lions.

The Lions just continue to pass every single test. They can win in so many different ways. They're now seven and one coming off a last season. disappointment. I keep thinking about when Dan Campbell told the team, you were probably never going to get back here. And now they're seven and one and they lead the NFL in point differential at plus one. They go in the rain and another one of those Jared golf graphics. It's just every week. Jared golf has completed. Jared golf is 12 for 12 in the first half here. You saw one of those again today. So I'm just so impressed by their coaching staff. I'm so impressed by their offensive line, their physicality, their run game and the way they continue to play.

And then the Packers, I don't think this is like that bad of a loss for the Packers. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people will be annoyed by us talking about the Packers even more. But I'm not close to giving up on this team. I mean, they had a bunch of drops in this game. Jordan Love had the horrible interception. I get it. He's had a lot of those this season.

I still think he's going to be okay. And there's going to be a stretch in November or December where we're saying, no, he's playing like one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL here. And he's got to get healthy. They've got the biweek coming up. He was obviously playing with the groin injury here. I just like these two teams the best out of any teams in the NFC. Again, 49ers, Eagles, Falcons, those are probably the other ones in the conversation.

But Ruiz, these coaches to me also give them a big edge over some of these other teams. Yeah, I'm with you. I think this was like from the start, no matter how it went, a game where the weather is going to have this much of an impact is always going to be a game. You can kind of dismiss, especially two months from now when these teams will be playing different styles of football maybe in the playoffs. But I'm not giving up on the Packers either. I thought Jordan Love was clearly affected by the injury. I thought even though the Packers haven't needed much help dropping footballs,

they dropped a lot of footballs, as you mentioned. And they just couldn't really get Detroit out of that early down offense mode, where we talked about this on the Friday show, the difference between the Packers' defense when they're facing teams that can run the ball, when they get under center, and there's the threat of the play action pass, the threat of the run. they haven't performed so well. And then when they get teams into obvious dropback passing situations, that's kind of when

they thrive. That's when they've gotten the turnovers. They never really happened in this game. The one thing I would push back against what you said was that Detroit has passed every test. I don't know if we've seen Detroit have to play that style of game yet, and I want to see what it looks like when they do. But the fact that they haven't through nine weeks is a testament to how deep this team is and how good the coaching staff is and how well Jared Gough is playing and how dominant that

offensive line is and how good these running backs are. Like, I feel like that's been the thing that hasn't gotten enough credit. Like, Jemir Gibbs, his EPA numbers are out of this world. It's like MVP-style passing numbers from him in terms of efficiency. And then David Montgomery, I know he doesn't generate those explosive gains like Gibbs does, but he keeps this offense on track. And he does the dirty work. He does like the undercentered dirty work that Jemir Gibbs doesn't get asked to do,

which kind of hurts his efficiency in the long run. But they're just, they have. so many buttons they can push on offense. The one thing I want to know is, will Jameson Williams get on the field? Will he stay on the field? Will he be that reliable, deep target outside of St. Brown? Because they are kind of siloed in that regard in the past game. Like when it's third down, you know where they're going with the football.

It's going to go to St. Brown. He's probably going to catch the ball, so there's not much you can do about it. But I do think they need a more explosive threat on the outside. And they've obviously been looking for one. They wanted Jameson Williams to be that guy. He hasn't been so far, at least not consistently. But until they do, that's the one question mark I have with this team and the passing game. I would say, like, coming into this game, I think it was clear that this was an early down football game

in the sense of whether or not Green Bay was going to be able to hang with Detroit was going to be about them winning, forcing havoc on defense on early downs to try to get those obvious passing situations, and then being able to lean on Jordan Love to be able to create offense for them on early downs. and I think that the weather was just too much of an impact on this game to allow Green Bay to play the style of football that they wanted to. And when you just look at, to Stephen's point, how multiple, how easy it is for them to change gears between trying to pound you with David Montgomery in the run game versus trying to design these explosive opportunities for Jemir Gibbs.

And we just talked about this similarly to the Eagles, is that there are so many ways for Ben Johnson to just decide, hey, I don't need Jared golf to have very much influence on the game right now, and that does not come at the cost of our effectiveness on offense. And I think that as long as Detroit can play that way, we're going to continue to see them be the end-to-end wire-to-wire best team in the NFC right now. And I don't think that this reflects negatively on Green Bay because they lost in the way that I think we probably all expected them to if they were going to lose this game. But I do think that for them, this is probably a pretty revelatory moment for them in terms of looking at where they stand next to the top team in this conference and the fact that they do have to find something

on early downs in the passing game that is going to be a little bit more sustainable from Jordan Love. Yeah, the interceptions are, you know, I keep being like, all right, give me another week, give me another week. And the next week, I'm like, oh, no, he did it again. But I just think give me the whole season. And then I'll see where he stands with that. Maybe it's sort of like a Josh Alleny type where you have some turnovers, but you're doing

enough to make up for those. I mean, that type of playstyle could work for the Packers, but I don't know if Matt Lafleur is going to be buying into that theory or not here. All right, Ruiz, where are you planning your flag? All right. I'm going to Los Angeles where I'm planning my flag on the Rams. They're going to win the NFC West. That's my prediction. Win the NFC West. I'm planning that right now. And I know I was ready to give up on this team. I think we all were a couple weeks ago. But the past couple of games have just reinvigorated the offense for me. Obviously, they get Nukuabweb to get cut back.

Nakua had to leave the game early against Seattle because of a punch, apparently. It didn't look like much of a punch. It looked like more of an aggressive shove to the face. But I believe the league office chined in

and said, no, we got to get Nakua out of here. We got to ruin this game. Let's get, no one wants to watch Nakua. No one tuned in to watch that game. And I think we got a similar situation in the Lions Packers game where Brian Branch gets ejected from the game after the league office calls the receiving crew

there in Green Bay. When did this become a thing? Why did we let the league office call into games and get players ejected? Do we need more refs ruining games? I don't think so. But luckily, the Rams were able to overcome the nonsensical ejection of Nakuwa. And I think we saw in the second half, especially this passing game, come alive. Matthew Stafford, a perfectly thrown ball in the overtime.

Like, I know DeMarcus Robinson had made a fantastic one-handed catch, but I don't think you could throw a ball better than that. And you just see the high ceiling of this offense when Matthews, Matthew Stafford is cooking and Cooper Cup is cooking. And when Naku is out there and the running game is going with Williams. And if that offensive line gets a little bit healthier, Sean McVeigh is going to have this offense humming. But what I saw the defensive line in the past rush

and what we've seen throughout the year, which is kind of surprising after they lost the greatest defensive tackle of all time, is really what has me optimistic about this team. Like the rookies, I didn't think Fiskin and Verser were going to just come in and replace it. It doesn't happen. You were right, because normally that does not happen. And they just have, like Braden Fitz looked like Aaron Donald today. I think he had three sacks against Seattle.

First made a couple of plays that like he has been all year. But if that pass rush gets going, that's going to make that secondary, which I still have question marks about, even though it played well today and made a couple of plays on Gino Smith. But if you get some synergy between those two parts of the offense or defense, I think this could be a league average unit. And the ceiling of this offense is best offense in the NFL, in my opinion, when, you When Stafford has been out there and Williams has been out there and the two receivers have been out there, they've been maybe the best offense in the NFL by the numbers.

So I'm really excited to see how that kind of works itself out over the second half of this season. But in terms of offensive and defensive balance and where these teams have to grow, like I think the Rams have the highest ceiling out of any of these teams in the division, which is saying something about a San Francisco team that I still think can make a run. The coolest thing sometimes about watching the Rams and they're in this mode, right? They're down to possessions to start the half. And this is similar to what you see in basketball, right, where the point guard just says, hey, nothing else is working. I'm going to my two-man game with the guy I trust. And you just got to see that, right?

And I'm just going to pick out whoever I think the weakest defender. I'm going to bring you up to the top of the key. And we're just going to pick on this defense that way. And I think that so much of this second half was that between Stafford and Cup. And that opens up those opportunities to get the border to Marcus Robinson outside the numbers or for him to push a ball downfield in general. And when you have that and defenses have to respect that, that does open up running lanes for Kyron Williams.

And we've seen that over the last two weeks because it was a similar story between Stafford and Nakua working that two-man game and forcing so much respect out of that Vikings defense that you were able to get Kyron Williams a ball downhill into some lighter boxes or into some favorable looks. I just love the way that they can get into whatever offense they need to to win. And you just saw to end the fourth.

quarter and then obviously that overtime drive to walk it off. I mean, it's hard to, it's hard to think of a list longer than five guys of people who are playing quarterback at a higher level than Matthew Stafford is right now. All right. We just talked about a bunch of different NFC teams. Let's do a little exercise. All right. Let's pretend that we have to come up with a big board for our NFC teams that we think are going to get to the Super Bowl. Let's make it five each year, a little impromptu. So your five, teams, if you had to stack them, you feel best about to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. I'm going to go first because I'm throwing, you know, I was at least thinking about it in my head

30 seconds ago. So I got a little bit of a head start over you guys. My top five, because we talked about all these teams again, I think I had the Lions one. I got the Packers 2. It would be funny, though, if I went back on the take I just had two minutes ago. I'm not going to do that. Lions first, Packers 2. I think that I still have the 49ers 3, which might be different from you guys. I'm going to go with the Eagles at number 4. You might have sold me with that Rams take a little bit.

What the heck? I'm with you. I'm going to go with the Rams at 5. This is one of the best coaching jobs in the NFL this season. I think I said it after like week one or two that. This is an infrastructure team. Stafford, McVeigh. you can revolve all the other parts around them,

which they pretty much had to do with the different offensive linemen, different pass catchers, and now they're getting healthy. So it's like efficient offense plus pass rush, plus good coach, veteran, good quarterback. There's a lot of things there to like that would be in like a recipe of, can you get to the Super Bowl in a wide open NFC? So there you go.

Those are My Five Lions, Packers, Niners, Eagles, Rams. All right, who wants to go? I'm with you with the top two is Detroit and Green Bay. That's one and two. I've got Philly right behind them, San Francisco after that, and then Atlanta's my fifth with the Rams right in that same. Interesting. I think you could probably flip a coin in other direction.

I think that I probably just feel a little bit better about Atlanta's top-in talent defensively than I do about Los Angeles's. But I would acknowledge, of course, that the quarterback play that Los Angeles can get out of Stafford is much better than what Atlanta can get out of Kirk Cousins. Well, the Falcons have the easy schedule and they're six and three. So if you care about like not having it. to win on the road or potentially getting a buy or home field,

then that would be the case for them as well. All right, Ruiz, who do you got? I'm going to go Detroit first. I'll go Green Bay second, but the gap between those two teams isn't very wide for me. I had Green Bay like last week. And then I'll put San Francisco in third, and I'll put the Rams and fourth,

and I don't want to pick a fifth team. You guys can just pick one for me. I don't care. No other team is, the Rams aren't winning the Super Bowl either. It's one of those three teams that's going to the Super Bowl. Yeah, sorry, get to the Super Bowl. The Rams aren't getting to the Super Bowl either.

One of those three teams, teams that I named at the top is making the Super Bowl for the NFC. And I don't believe in any of these other teams. And the only reason I would put the Rams on this list is because they have dynamic quarterback play. I, Kirk Cousins is playing well. And I'm not going to take anything away from him.

Actually, I am. He can't move. I'm sorry, and if you can't move, he can't win in January. You have to have a dual threat quarterback, or not a dual-treat quarterback, but a quarterback that can move around to win a Super Bowl these days. And they don't have one. Stafford isn't the best mover, but he does create offense in his own way. creates offense with his sidearm throws and his no look passes and just his toughness in the pocket,

which Kirk Cousins doesn't have at this point because he just can't afford to have it or he'll get killed. I don't think the Eagles have it in Jalen Hertz, even though they have the most talent on offense. Oh, in Washington, it's just too much too soon for them. They're just too young. And I don't think that defense is up to where Dan Quinn is going to get them eventually, not that I think Dan Quinn is some elite defensive coach. But it's just a little too early for them. But I would almost feel comfortable taking them over the Eagles at this point.

honestly. Statistically, the commanders have a great, I mean, they're seven and two, and they have a plus 74 point differential. Now I'm rethinking about whether I should. I've been driving the Jaden Daniels train all season long day. I'm going to steal it from you. I know. It's more, yeah, defensively.

I know they've played better at the last four or five weeks. I just need to see more before I actually trust it. But I don't know. Offensively, they're pretty interesting. Deonti, I wish I had Ruiz is confident. You allow him to make five and he doesn't even want the fifth because he's so confident that it's going to be one of the first four. unbelievable.

Couldn't be me. Deontay, what do you got? There's nothing worse at having to come back to the table and admit to a friend that they were right and you were wrong. But Stephen Ruiz is right. Justin Herbert does have to be in the MVP

conversation with all he's playing right now. Stop. Stop in. Thank you. And that's not even where I'm planning my flag. I'm planning my flag on the fact that if there is one team in the AFC to bank on winning a road playoff game, right now for me is the Chargers

because of where Herbert is at as a quarterback right now. I think that this was probably the first week where you really got to feel what a healthy Herbert playing aggressively looks like in this offense. And we're still talking about an offense that lacks elite playmaking on the perimeter. But so much of this is just him working tight windows when he needs to. I actually thought the design of the offense and the passing game was probably better than it's been at any other point in the year. They had a lot of. Greg Roman pills?

Blink twice if Greg Roman has you under some type of surveillance. This has become a pro Greg Roman podcast. Two verse one. Yeah, I'm outnumbered here. I would say, I don't know if I would say this is a pro Greg Roman podcast. I think this is a pro-chargers offense podcast right now. But I think that- It's a pro-Justin Herbert.

And I think that what we're really seeing, and it's funny because I never thought I would think this way about Justin Herbert is playing in an offense that asks you to take chances outside the numbers, I think has probably liberated him a little bit to push the ball. And I think that that's also allowing him to play some of his best football. You know, obviously you get the busted coverage or Quentin Johnson gets behind everybody. There was another one in the red zone or high red zone where there was a busted coverage on a double move. But I think that speaks to just how much respect he gets and how hard it is to play man coverage against a guy like Justin Herbert who can work tight windows who's always anticipating. You saw the Browns really try to figure

out what concepts they were getting and we're trying to sit on things. And that opened the door for the charges to really kind of get those design shots in the scenes and outside the numbers. And if this is the way that Justin Herbert's going to be playing, I can't believe I do feel this way. While there's absolutely no way, they're going to win the division, I do think that this team is as dangerous as any in the AFC amongst the non-contenders. And I would not want to see a team that has a quarterback this good with defense as good

as Los Angeles has been and an ability to pop explosive runs every once in a while. Yeah, that's sort of the thing with this team is the way they're playing defense, that's really what is raising the level of this team, especially in the postseason. They're number one in EPA allowed on defense. And then you have a quarterback who, like, over the last month, you could argue, he's playing the best quarterback of anybody in the NFL right now. I don't think you can argue he's playing better than Lamar Jackson. Come on. No, no, that would be a tough argument to make. But I think he's playing as well as Lamar over the last four weeks.

I would say he's right with Josh Allen as number two right now. probably what I would say. Okay, that's a better way I put it. She feels right. I'm wrong. Like Lamar Jackson and then a gap and then Justin Herbert and then everybody else below him and Allen. But like DeAndi said, the version of Justin Herbert that this has unlocked reminds me of

the first year Justin Herbert, who is way more ambitious as a passer, way more willing to push the ball downfield, more willing to hold onto the ball and not go to his checkdown. And I think we're seeing that with his talent, that's enough to elevate a passing game. They just needed to unlock this thing in his brain. that told him not to follow the play to a tee, and we're seeing this offense thrive right now, especially on early downs. The one thing I'm concerned about is the Greg Roman of it all,

because we saw in the second half, like in the first half, Justin Herbert hit his passing over under in the first half, 250 yards in the first half. And then they just take their foot off the brakes in the second half, and the Browns aren't good enough to take advantage of that, but the Cardinals were, like when the charges were going on that game-winning drive against Arizona,

for a field goal and only going up like one or two points because they stopped putting the ball in Justin Herbert's hand. Once they got in the field goal range, they started running the football. This was kind of the same situation just over the full width of the game. And it happened in the second half. And they could have let a better team get back into the game. So I'm still a little worried about Greg Roman, but with the way Justin Herbert is playing right now. I mean, he's throwing the ball like Zeus. Like that's what he looks like.

He looks like he's throwing lightning bolts down the field. He looks like he's the biggest man on. the field at all times and like he's playing against like eighth graders basically that's how big he looks on the field right now let the record show that i said justin herbert is playing well i just said he wasn't a top five MVP candidate so far this season i mean i just want to clarify listen for everybody you know everybody out there i will say with this chargers team i'm not quite where you are dionte i think they're getting everything they can out of this group and this this coaching staff the way they're playing right now. And I don't want to say they need to do it against great competition because they

kind of don't. They have one of the easiest schedules in the NFL work. If they beat all the teams they're supposed to beat, they should make the playoffs. But it is when you look at who they've beaten so far, four of the five wins have been against two win teams, including this Browns team. They did have a nice win over the Broncos, but that's their best win so far this season. So they've got some teams coming up that don't necessarily have defenses that should challenge. Like if you think that, hey, Justin, this is going to continue and he's going to play awesome. I mean, it's the Bengals, the Ravens, the Falcons, like, those are teams that you can definitely move the football on.

But in terms of overall, are you still winning games at this rate? Yeah, I want to see what that looks like. And then, of course, they've still got the Chiefs on their schedule as well. But they're in a great spot. Five and three. And they've still got the Titans, the Patriots, and the Raiders on their schedule. So, like, if you're asking them to get to nine or 10 wins, that seems very doable with the way this season has started so far. All right. We will be right back to hand out some week nine awards.

All right. We're back on the Ringer NFL show. It is time to hand out some awards. And today's awards and superlatives are presented by State Farm when it comes to football season. Some things are just better together like chips and dip or your favorite jersey and your lucky pregame ritual. You know what else is better together? Bundling your home and auto insurance with the personal price plan from State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Now we hand out some awards. Things could go together, might not go together. Deontay, lead us off. What do you got? So my first appellative is he got that dog in him award. I'm giving that to Gino Smith for the game tying drive inside the two-minute drill against the Rams. You take a Bradenfifist sack

backed up, right? So you're inside your own, inside your own 20. It might have been inside their own 15. It's second and forever and you turn them around and throw like an A plus plus ball, not just outside the numbers, but basically on like the sideline tick marks that land right in the bread basket to move the chains. You follow that up with the scramble to move the chains again. And then on fourth and five, you throw one of the best over the shoulder balls right in the Jackson Smith and Jigman's bread basket, just to turn around and then convert a touchdown. I believe the very next play in the back of the end zone on another high degree of difficulty ball. the Seahawks don't walk away winning this game. They're not able to convert a fourth and short.

And over time and the Rams just march right down field and you get that incredible play that Stephen was talking about from Matt Stafford to DeMarcus Robinson. But so much about that into game situation was exactly why Ruiz and all of us have been talking about Gino Smith being in the conversation as like a top eight, if not better quarterback this season because he just does some high degree of difficulty stuff that not everybody in the league can do. No, and he had like a couple of interceptions in this one, a couple of red zone interceptions that held Seattle back. But he was fighting against an offensive line that just refused to give him protection. And that's been the case it feels like for the last two years, really, until they figure out this pass protection unit and then getting a more consistent run game, they barely run the ball with Ryan Grubb, that offensive coordinator.

It's just going to be so hard for Gino. We're going to see more of these performances where when you're watching the game, he's playing well. he was averaging 10 yards per attempt, but the interceptions were holding this team back. But when you put that playmaking pressure on a quarterback, those mistakes are bound to come eventually. And we saw it in Seattle today. And it costs them the game. I feel like I have to speak for the audience and the listeners right now who are going, or are we giving too much credit to a quarterback who threw, like you mentioned,

three interceptions, two in the red zone and took seven sacks. Would we be giving other quarterbacks this benefit of it out, even if they had a leaky offensive line on a given Sunday where we were handing them awards and talking about how well they played. I don't know if we would, but Gino Smith hasn't done this all year. This was like really the first time he's looked bad. In his worst game, so to speak, he averaged 10 yards per attempt again

and led one of the most impressive two-minute drills I've seen all season long. So if this is his ceiling, then if I was a Seattle fan, I'd be happy. And I would not be complaining about Gino Smith. I'd be complaining about this front office and this coaching staff, which has had two years to put a good offense around him while he's not making a lot of money and he's severely underpaid and they haven't been able to do it. Yeah, Shiel, I mean, so much of the story that we're talking about right now with the Seahawks offense sounds exactly like what you would have said eight years ago when you're covering the scene. It's true.

It's true. It's why keep his quarterback upright. The quarterback is playing like a top 10 player in the league and they can't protect him and they can't run the ball well enough to keep him out of these high leverage situations and these obvious past situations. But Juno Smith has been rising to the occasion. I do think that eventually we've kind of got to look at John Schneider in this front office and the decision makers and try to figure out what it's going to take to get something a little bit more sustainable so your quarterback's not getting lit up and having to play perfect football so often. Listen, I like Gino Smith, but when I'm picturing the listeners to this fine program yelling at their phones and their Apple car plays or wherever they're listening, I say, Sheila, you got to bring up that topic because they're yelling about it. Let's address it now so we don't have to wait for the next show here. Yeah, Ruiz said they've had two years to, you know, figure they've had like,

wait longer than that. They've had 10 years, 12 years, whatever it is. And it's just like, how does your quarterback get sacked seven times in a game? It's just, it's so clear watching them that it's like if they could protect the quarterback, who knows what this offensive ceiling could be? And they just can't protect the quarterback. So we're not going to find out probably until next year, if that. All right, Ruiz, what do you got?

Do you know who else wishes they have? had some insurance on their car. Speaking of State Farm, the New Orleans Saints. I'm going to give, I'm going to talk about the Saints, but I'm going to give the award to Michael Thomas, who went on an all-time Twitter rant about Derek Carr. Tell me about this, because I just saw the headline, but I did not like here, watch the rant. What was he yelling about?

It was clearly deeply personal to Michael Thomas, and I think he had a bit of an axe to grind. He was, he made mention of Derek Carr possibly saying that he was jealous of Chris Olave, emerging as the number one receiver last year, and that having to do. do with his dismissal from the team. And then he went on to give the scouting report that I think all of us have given on Derek Carr at some point in our careers covering this league. When he gets hit, he gets scared and he panics and he just throws the ball away. And it's something he does.

And it's something that Michael Thomas quacked and he tweeted about. So I'm going to give Michael Thomas the you know ball award for doing that. But I mean, I don't know if there's a more bleak situation in the NFL right now. I mean, they just lost to the Panthers. You remember how good we felt after that week one game when they won by 37 points? Now, fast forward two months, Derek Carr is getting outplayed by Bryce Young. He's getting tweeted at by Michael Thomas. Chris Olavi's brother was tweeting that it's not worth it.

Like, Chris Olavi suffered his second concussion today. And I think someone tweeted at him, it's time to have that discussion about whether this is worth it. And then Chris Olavay's brother responded, well, not New Orleans. It's not worth it, which good luck with that. Good luck dealing with that, Saints fans. But, I mean, it all goes back to how this team has been managed. and how the salary cap has been managed and they get stuck in these situations where you're restructuring contracts that you don't really necessarily want to be a part of anymore. And they just restructured Derek Carr to save, I believe it was like $28 million in cap space this off season because they had to, not because they wanted to.

And now his cap hit next year is $50 million. The dead cap number is $50 million as well. They're not going to be able to get out of this contract next year because they don't have the financial flexibility to do that. They can't eat a big cap hit like we've seen other teams do with their quarterback like Philly did with Carson Wentz. So they're stuck with Derek Carr another year and they're stuck with more of these tweets and more of this derision in the locker room. I don't know. It's not getting better in New Orleans. And I think it might even get worse next year.

And Derek Carr is really like the perfect illustration of it right now. But he's not the root of the problem. Maybe this is rock bottom. I mean, you lose to that Panthers team and Bryce Young in a week where you're getting your starting quarterback back and you still. can't beat them. Yeah, I mean, they're just like I had a, I remember when we were talking in the offseason, and I'm like, I'm putting a moratorium on talking about the saints. They just bore me. They're irrelevant. They're not going anywhere. They're stuck with, you know, all these terrible decisions that they made. And then they won the first two games. And I had to inch back a little bit, but now I can just go back to that.

Yeah, they're not an interesting team. They stink. The only interesting thing is going to be, when do they fire? Dennis Allen, who do they hire? That's not going to fix all their issues, but maybe they are they going to have some type of plan going forward on how to rebuild this team? But like you said, they've made all of these decisions to get to like nine wins every year that I don't know that they've got a real plan in them here even if this goes really, really badly. So we shall see. This season is like the opposite of that 2017 season. That was the season when they drafted all those guys, Kamara, Michael Thomas, I'm forgetting someone. Marcus Latimore, I think Marcus Williams as well.

And that kind of- Andrewson, I think, was in that class. directed what had been like a dormant, I want to say power in the NFC with Sean Payton and Drew Breeze. They started that season, oh, and two. And it was like, oh, this is over. This is like more of the same from what we've seen in the past couple of years. And then they go on a run. They almost make it to the NFC title game. They lose on the Minneapolis miracle in that game. But this year, they start out two and oh. They're scoring 45 points a game. They're blowing everybody out. They blow out Dallas. And then they haven't won a game since then. And it's very clear that this is the

And this is more of the same. And this team is locked in this, this mediocrity for the next couple of years, probably. Yeah, not good. All right. My first award is the now what award. And this goes to you, Jim Mersey, Shane Steichen, whoever else with the Indianapolis Colt, because you made your big move last week. And now you just had your worst offensive performance of this season based on EPA per drive.

Remember all those games for Anthony Richardson might have only been completing nine or ten passes? This game was worse. than those this loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday night football. You lose 21, 13. Your one touchdown came on defense. You had nine possessions. You scored two field goals here. And I just like, we still don't know. There's been no transparency. There's been no good. Just here's the actual explanation of why we made this move. Joe Flacco goes 16 for 27, 179 yards, takes three sacks, throws an interception in this football game. I know that Vikings defense is good. So, maybe that's all it is and you'll stick with Joe Flacco, but I don't think you're the team you

thought you were going to be when you made this quarterback move and maybe you had visions of, hey, we actually can make a run and make the playoffs. No, you can't. Your team isn't good enough. And this offensive performance was pretty much the worst case scenario to a fan base who's wondering, why did you make a quarterback switch from the guy we took fourth overall? And you make the move and you can't even score a touchdown in the game. So I don't know what your next move is. I don't know who's making the move. Ersei, Stuyken, Ballard, whoever. But this is, did not go according to plan for the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night. So there you go. No, they also had their lowest success rate on the ground in this game, which is not surprising

to anybody who has been paying attention to how that run game works. It's wholly based around Anthony Richardson and the gravity he commands because of he could pull the ball and he can run for 15 or 20 yards. And he's been their most consistent source of explosive plays. And once that went out the window, the whole thing kind of just combust it. And you usually, you usually, say Minnesota's defense is good and they have been good, but over the past couple of weeks, they haven't been. They've been playing poorly, and this was a get-right game for them, and it was a get-right game because the Colts basically handed it to them. This team hasn't been able to run the football when Anthony Richardson isn't on the field or isn't a threat because they're in the

gun. And that's how the game manifested. And when you get into a drop-back passing game against a Brian Flores defense, this is what tends to happen. And I'm not surprised that this was the worst offensive performance of their season so far. Because Andy Richardson hasn't been that bad. I know the film at times has looked ugly with these misses, but he hasn't been this bad. He hasn't been Joe Flacco bad, which isn't saying much. Well, the offense hasn't been as bad. We can say that definitively with the numbers.

I watched the Dolphins game. I don't know if I would say that he's never been that. I watched a Packers game. I don't know if I would say he's never been this bad. I will say it was never this sad of a football game. That's because there was multiple times. watching Joe Flacco fumble around in the pocket just before flipping a ball out of guy's feet

where I was just watching the game go to commercial break thinking to myself, why am I watching this? There's so many things I could be doing right now. This could be quality time with my son. I could be talking to you guys about what we're going to do with the podcast and here I am watching Joe Flacco

do the same thing that he's been doing for basically the last half decade as a backup quarterback and I can't believe that there was a team out there that believe that this was going to inspire different results. So I am with Stephen on that point that, like, I don't know what you thought was going to come out of this, especially against the Brian Flores defense. But this was probably the worst game from Sam Darnold

outside of that Jets game in London. And they never really felt like they had an opportunity to win this game once they score. Once a biking score to tie this game up, it basically felt like, oh yeah, they'll get the stops they need to go ahead and take a lead, even if it's a 10-7 win. And it was pretty clear that Joe Flacko had nothing to keep pace

with Minnesota once they started scoring in the second half. It's kind of funny that this move backfired harder than hiring Jeff Saturday out of nowhere to be the interim coach. At least they won their next game when they did that. They didn't turn around to have their worst performance. They got the new coach bump, yeah. Maybe they need Jeff Saturday and Joe Flacco. And Joe Flacco.

I'm sure Jim Mersey suggested that at some point and maybe someone may force him to compromise and not do both those things. I do like Deontay, you did like sort of spark. I do feel like next week I'm going to. to do like a don't waste my time award too. Because I think everybody has that moment at some point on Sunday where like this team's wasting my time. I could be doing something else more meaningful with my life right now. But I didn't. All right, Deontay, what do you got? What's your next award? So my next award is a chariot's a fire award. I don't know if you guys know what song that is.

That's the slow motion running piano playing in the background. I'm giving that to Drake May for that overtime interception to Armani Hooker because you could just see as he was uncoorned. working that ball. They was like, oh, I got the look I wanted. There's no safety in the middle of the field. I'm just going to lay this out for Kisham Butte. We're going to get a walk-off touchdown right here. And the ball just hangs and hangs. And it's just one of those things like, I don't know how you guys receive the game. But there are these times you just see as the, as the camera pans out wider, you can see the disaster that's impending. And it was like as they showed more of the field and you got to see Armani Hooker coming. You're like, oh, God, this game is over. This game is over. I'm

just waiting for the ball to land in this guy's hand. So I give Drake May his credit for that, that amazing play at the end of regulation, making guys miss holding the ball for like 15 seconds before finding Remandre Stevenson to tie this thing up. But I definitely think that he got, he felt a little hotter than he actually was. It thought that that double move was about to end the football game and left that out. So I'm giving the Charity to Fire Award to Drake May this week. I'm still not giving up on Drake May, but I've said it all along. He's got a little too much Arnold in them for me. And it's, it pops out every once in a while. But I, I'm, the highs are still very high. And as long as we're seeing those, I'm feeling good about this. Yeah, 29 for 41, 260 yards,

ran for 95 yards in this football game. Had that, yeah, had that great drive at the end of regulation. At first, I'm like, before that play, I was like, they should just go for two if they score a touchdown. Like, who cares? What do you have to lose? And then after the way that play unfolded, I'm like, Drake May will be tapping out if they were going for two. Jacoby Brissette, get in here. Then we would have seen another quarterback having a tap out if that was the case. All right, Ruiz, what do you got? I'm going to give Matt Iberfluse the leaning into the Bid Award.

I don't know if you guys saw this, but the bears were in another end of half situation. Not a lot of time left. Their opponents at midfield, and they give up another touchdown. This time may have been even more set because it was a surrender draw from the Cardinals that they take for, I think, like 55 yards for a touchdown. And the Bears weren't even really close to ever tackling the running back. Yes, that was a worst part of it. It was untouched on a surrender draw.

DeMercado, 53 yards. And it wasn't even like a quick hitting one. It was like a long developing one that hit outside of the tackles and they were pulling, there were blockers pulling. There were tells where the ball was going. And the Bears' defense didn't seem very interested in going to the football. and they scored a touchdown there. But, I mean, at this point, looking back on the Hail Mary,

I have to look back at it worse than I did a week ago because it's just going to compound, especially with Tyree Stevenson, benching and not reacting well to the benching. And then you see the performance today, which was kind of listless, and you see them give up that long touchdown before the half. And, like, I'm at the point where I'm saying,

can Iber Fluse win this locker room over again? I'm not sure that's the case. And two weeks ago, it looked like this team was headed, in the right direction. Iber Fluse was going to save his job, and then one Hail Mary later, and it looks like all that progress has just been wiped away. I thought about putting Iber Fluse in one of my first plant your flag or even,

you got to be very nervous if you are in Chicago. Maybe not if you're a Bears fan and you want him gone, I guess, but I'm with you. I watched that game going, this is the way you're responding after losing on a Hail Mary last week? Like, they got smoked in this game, 29-9 to the Cardinals had their backup quarterback in in the fourth quarter in this game. The Cardinals haven't beaten teams by more than a field goal for most of the season.

And so to come out and do that. And now you lost back-to-back games. And you mentioned it having that meltdown at the end of the first half. They've got the Patriots next week. I'm just going to read out the rest of their opponents this season because they may have the hardest schedule in the NFL. So after the Patriots, they've got Packers, Vikings, lions, lions. Niners, Vikings, Lions, Seahawks, Packers. There's not a, I mean, they're going to be underdogs, I think, in maybe all of those games,

except for this one against the New England Patriots. And just what you're seeing with their coaching staff, offensively, you thought, hey, maybe they figured some stuff out. And then now you're like, well, maybe it was just the Jaguars and the Panthers. And they haven't figured anything out because it kind of looks like it did earlier in the season. And now you have some of this stuff happening where you're going to. can't even lean on the defense. All right, Deonti, I got a lot of concerns about this Bears team right now.

I'm with you. I wish I had Shane Walsh's contact information so I could reach out and ask what we have to do to get all these Keenan Allen targets to go to literally anybody else instead. Right now, I am tired of looking at second and long and third and long, and Keenan Allen is running around 10 to 15 yards deep and not really even having an opportunity to get to it. He's got 16 targets on passes of 10 or more air yards, and only five of those has been receptions for 80 yards. So we're talking about a guy who's not getting the ball down the field. They continue to run him down the field, and it's not producing anything for this offense.

And this was a great Roma Dunezay Day. So I think that for them, and this is not to say it's going to fix everything, because it just seems like they spring a leak every time they play a team with the real pulse. That shows you why this team is probably just not ready to contend in the NFC North. But when you have that much heat behind one receiver, it just boggles my mind that this offense struggles to build upon any successes that it has in the ground game and through the air. I don't know how exactly I want to distribute the blame in that because Caleb still does own a little bit of that.

We still see some scattershot accuracy. We still see some issues from managing the pocket. But to me, I just watch so often when they're in dropback situations waiting for a concept that actually gets a guy open. And I just don't think we see enough of that from Shane Waldron as a play caller. And if you know you're not getting that and your rookie quarterback is struggling to be a ceiling razor for them, then that to me just looks like guys who are in over their heads and they probably just need some fresh blood in the building.

I think in that week 16 game when Detroit comes to Chicago, they should have like a pregame presentation dedicated to Ben Johnson. They should have like Photoshop. A montage. Photoshop of him and like Bears gear. like do set up like a photo booth like the college recruits do where it's like rotating maybe uh Ryan Pace is down there celebrating with him like Brian Kelly was with that one recruit I don't know just pull out all the stops because if Ben Johnson isn't the head coach of this team by next year I'm

I'm gonna write a strongly worded letter to how it's all this is where artificial intelligence can really help us out because what they really need to do is create some sort of AI video where you can show Ben Johnson throwing some putting together some kind of trick play that lands with a I know right target down the field because that's a pretty big athletic guy. Like maybe you show them that and that might be enough of a draw to say, hey, I can run all the penesimal plays for that right tackle and that should work out just as well as what I'm doing in Detroit. But yeah, they've got to pull out all the stops to get an actual good play caller

and good leader of this organization because it just doesn't look like that's Matt Eber Fluse right now. Yeah. And it's another team where we talked about the Seahawks with the offensive line in Chicago and with a young quarterback that makes me, you know, he got, six times today. And I do feel like there are times where he's trying to figure out how to manage the pocket with this pressure.

I mean, he's got a bottom five pressure to sack rate for all quarterbacks this season. And that was an issue for him last year in college. But you were thinking, all right, well, if he has a better offensive line in the NFL, he's been good at that before. But, yeah, some concerns in Chicago with the way things have gone here the past couple week. Sorry. My next one is the wait. What did that graphic say award? And this is nominees. You guys get to vote. Okay. These are three that caught my attention today. Number one, Raiders outscored 46 to 6 in the final two minutes of the first half this season. Not great. That one popped up during the Raiders

loss this afternoon. Number two, Daniel Jones, four for six, zero yards TD. That popped up during in the Giants Commanders game. Those were his stats for the first half of that game. Zero yard, four for six for zero yards. And then the third one, Sequin Barkley, colon 70 yards, Jacksonville Jaguars, colon, 32 yards. That was with 32, two minutes, 30 seconds left in the first half. Ruiz, which one of those graphics that cut my attention today do you like the most? I like the zero yard, zero passing yards for Daniel Jones.

Because I think I saw that graphic too. I think there was another graphic that was, I think it said it was the first time it had ever happened where a quarterback had not only zero yards passing out the half, but also one touchdown. So an amazing fee for Daniel Jones, who did throw, the one touchdown he threw was a dime. I have to say that. The one in the back of the end zone over the defender. So, you know, keep on trucking Daniel Jones. Maybe in four years it'll be that quarterback that Dave Gettleman thought he was drafted in the first round. Danny Dimes.

There you go. Yeah, there was another one with Jones that just, it didn't. say four for six zero yards. It just said four for six comma TD. And then it, because he had zero. Oh, that's gross. That's nice. And it had yards. And I'm like, that one doesn't have yards on it. Why doesn't have yards? Did someone in the graphics department mess up? No, there were just none. There were no yards. Deontay, what do you think? Yeah, no, I'm with Stephen. The, the, the, the, the, Daniel Jones home was great because it also like, in combination with that in the broadcast, they mentioned the however many days it's been since Daniel Jones let a touchdown drive in Metal Land. And I

think they finally got that first quarter touchdown drives that they were looking for. But no, I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of, you know, the production companies putting together these montage of everything that's going wrong with this Giants offense because it gives us something to root for if you are watching a Giants game. The offense wasn't that bad this week, though. Like, if you look at the EPA and the success rate, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't zero yards in the first half bad. I think they've got some going with the run game involving the quarterback, but that's all they

got going for them. They had two two-point tries where Daniel Jones, I don't think actually there were past plays, but he didn't get a pass-off in either of them, and they flashed right to Brian Davall on the sideline. I thought there was a chance there for physical altercation. I thought looking at Brian Davall's face after each of those plays. And real quick, on the Raiders one that I mentioned, we got Raiders breaking news in that the Raiders are firing offensive coordinator, Luke Getzzi, along with quarterback's coach, and

an offensive line coach. So Ruiz, now, like, they should be good, I would think. Now they make those changes. I would, we talked about some sleeper teams earlier. I would imagine this would fix everything. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you get someone in there that can cook with Gardner Menshoe, and they'll turn this around in no time.

Let Tom Brady coach the quarterbacks and call the plays. You know, you can't criticize other play calling on the broadcast. That's actually where I'm going with my next one. Okay, go ahead. It's the rule breaking of work, because Tom Brady apparently doesn't give a shit about these rules that have been laid out to him because he was going to town on Jordan Love. Apparently he's not allowed to criticize players. He's not allowed to criticize team because he's the part owner of the Raiders. But over the past couple of weeks, he's been critical

of Brock Birdie. He was critical that made waves. I think John Lynch ended up responding to it at one point. He was really? I didn't see that. Yeah, he was going to town on Jordan Love with his decision making and how he was holding the ball and some of his throws. Although, I mean, it was pouring rain. he had a bad groin. It's understandable why Jordan Love struggle. And also it's like Jordan Love's not going to play quarterback the way you played quarterback, too. That also kind of gets on my, you know, under my skin a little bit. Yeah, because he was praising Derek Goff, which I guess Goff deserves the praise because

he hasn't thrown into incompletion in like a month. But he was praising the fact that he doesn't have physical ability, but he processes the game so well. And he doesn't have to move around because he gets rid of the ball. He's just, he was basically hyping himself up in how he used to play. quarterback rather than actually speaking about how the position has evolved over the last couple years. No, then he was also doing the most annoying old guy thing where you, it's, oh, they don't, they don't develop, they can't process because they don't develop them because things go wrong and then you go to the transfer portal. I'm like, get off my TV screen and he'll be switching to another

game here. He did blame the transfer portal. Can we get that rule instituted by the NFL? Tom Brady's not allowed to talk about the transfer portal or anything or complain about NIL. The transfer portal has been a for what, like a couple of years now, it's probably affected the development of quarterbacks for maybe three years at best. That's not the reason why. I doubt that he even knows how the transfer portal works. I can't imagine that Tom Brady is spending much time

thinking about college football. Also, also, this is a take that I have no way of proven. Tom Brady went to college in this era. He would have transferred from Michigan and for good reason. If he was in the same situation... He was a thousand percent would have transferred to Michigan. And Lloyd Carr was like, you know,

taking him off the field and putting him back on and doing that whole thing. He would have transferred. I guarantee you. Yeah. No, I like that. Yeah, let's get owners get together. Tom Brady, in addition to not being able to criticize refs, other teams, other players. I don't need to hear him talk about the transfer portal either there. All right, Deontay, you got any other awards for us here? I've got a couple. I'm going to start off with the Read the Room Award, a.k.a. Take off the pajama pants and put on your big boy pants award to Jermaine Burton of the Bengals,

who was a healthy and active this week after apparently missing the Saturday walkthrough for a home game when you know that the number two receiver is not playing and you were saying on Monday or Tuesday that you felt like if you were on the football field you would be making the same kind of plays

that Andre Yosevas and some of the other receivers on this team are making you couldn't make the walkthrough like I don't know I like this this is Coach Deontay Ruiz coming out I love this. This is personal too with the pajamas That's a high school thing.

No, 1,000 percent. I do understand, like, trying to have some grace for guys who come into the league, you know, especially when there are, like, whispers about, like, oh, you know, this guy's personality or we have, you know, the amorphous character concerns and work ethic stuff and all that, right? Like, because sometimes a change of scenery is what you need to get a different outcome from a guy. But to me, for Jermaine Burton, like, you know that that's the book on you.

A, you can't miss a walkthrough. You can't miss a walkthrough when you know you're going to be a key piece of the game plan. And you can't show up to the game the next day in your pajama pants in a hoodie looking like you are wholly unprepared to even be in the building. I don't know. It's just the optics are bad and the behavior is probably worse. I did see some statements from Zach Taylor after the game. Some comments basically saying like, hey, you know, this is just kind of what it's got to be for Germain to learn what it's like to be

a pro and we think his best days are ahead of them and kind of paying at the lip service, I guess that you need to to make sure that this doesn't become a long-term issue. I guess my message is just for Jermaine Burton, like, grow up, dude, be on time. You're a professional now. Like, I don't want, I don't know. I guess I just don't have, I don't have much in a way of sympathy for people who can't figure it out on whatever stop this is in your career when you know what the book is on you and how people are talking about you behind closed doors.

And to really polish off the Gen Z look, he was just transfixed on his phone the whole time he was walking into the building with his pajama face. I was just going to say, I just looked at it. I didn't know anything about this door and I just clicked on it. And yeah, it looks like when I'm picking up, you know, when you're at a middle school function or so this is how everybody's looking, pajama pants staring at their phone. Yeah, he said after the game that like, you know, it's baby steps to be coming to pro in like one of the obstacles, for instance, was just getting out of the bed of the morning. Now, as someone who doesn't really have to work until like, 11 a.m. most days, maybe I'm not in position to criticize them for this, but come on, man. Like Deonti said, the game was at home. You can't miss a walkthrough at home. Like, come on. Come on. Was that Cincinnati night life,

keeping them out late the night before or something? Yeah, no, that's not good. Bengals still dropped 41, though, still alive. Got to mention that four and five, Joe Burrow was awesome. Again, today had the one. I'm the Bengals guy now, though. I stole that from no. Not giving it up. I was going to say,

I think I'm going to find a way to shoe horn myself into being a Bengals believer the longer that this goes on. And I'm going to try to position Sheel as a Bengals doubter before we get to December. We're going to turn it around. We're going to have the Bangalorian on them. I will grease the palms of our many producers. I do have a

I've got one more and then I'm done, Shield. This one is a hell, the hell in your DMs award. I am giving that to Jalen Wattle for losing 24 yards on the final play of the game. I don't remember exactly what the prop line was on two was passing yardage or Jalen Wattles receiving

yardage. But whatever it was, I think that they ended up under because of that play. I have no idea where he was going. I don't know what the game plan was for him the lateral. I think he missed a couple of teammates that would have been an opportunity to get rid of the ball before Greg Russo tangled him up and took him down. But I cannot imagine all the FF underscore whatever usernames that are going to be blowing him up about how they blew about how he blew their same game parlay lines. Two catches. His box scores, two catches for minus four yards and a touchdown and a long of 12. So yeah, he'd think he'd lost some yards on that last one there. So hopefully, be nice to Jill and Waddle. All right, he was trying to make a play there. I'll finish us off

with a few here then. The Dan Comer stat of the week award. I'm just dealing this from our slack. All seven intra-division NFC South games this year have now hit the over. Dan Comer, tells us, no, I didn't fact check this. So I'm stealing from you, Ruiz. Like, you steal the stat from the guy, but you credit the guy. And if it's wrong, blame him, not me. But that's kind of crazy. No, no, it is kind of crazy. But like, if you watch the Saints Panthers game, this isn't the result of good offensive football. This is the result of terrible defense and just sloppy play all around. It's not an award to be, or an accolade to be proud of. And I don't think anyone in the NFC South is proud about what they're putting out on the field outside of Atlanta right now.

Yeah, this is very much a big, 12-pack-12 football where you get a lot of points. You get close games don't necessarily equal good games. High-scoring games don't necessarily equal good games. I think there's a lot of that happening in the NFC South right now. Well, I'm going to give Bryce Young an award. The feel-good moment of the day. Bryce Young winning a football game.

You know, I continue to say he seems like a genuinely likable guy. I'd like to watch Bryce Young when he was playing at Alabama. He was a very good football player. Panthers beat the Saints, 23, 22, 16 for 26, 171 yards. he seemed legitimately excited at the end of that game. So good for him, as we say, this team's season's over. It doesn't matter. You know, for him, it mattered.

He got to play again. He started. They won. So good for Bryce Young, that one. And we'll end it with one more feel-good one. The best athlete at the Ringer Award goes to our coworker. I don't know if you saw this. Lindsay Jones.

Did you see this? NFL editor Lindsay Jones ran the NYC marathon, said a personal record by 14 minutes. That's a baller. And her first time under four hours. And when I hear that, well, if you're first time under four hours, means you've ran other marathons that have been over four hours. So that's impressive also.

So as you can tell, it means she has run more than one marathon, which to me feels like outrageous behavior. But congratulations to our colleague. So there you go. Yeah, that's very impressive. I don't think either of us, like all of us three combined have the endurance to complete that. Oh, no chance. No chance.

You would have to get, for me to be involved, they would probably have to be 13 of us, I think, for me to be able to contribute in any way. How long is a marathon? 26.2. 26.2. Oh, yeah. We would need, you said 13? Yeah, I think it would take the whole ringer NFL staff to get me to agree. I think I could give you two on a good day. I need notice to get the hammies warm and stretched, but I could maybe give you two.

I'm not getting that too. I'm sorry. If there's a time limit, I'm not going to. Yeah, no, no time limit. We just have to, like I used to have to do in gym class, TMB, tried my best. You know, that's that. We don't have to get down the exact time there. All right. Those are the awards. Today's awards and superlatives were presented by State Farm. The Personal Price Plan lets you call the plays so you can choose the right coverage at a price that's right for you. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, state. Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state, coverage options, and selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts, and savings, and eligibility vary by state. All right, that'll do it. For this episode of the Ringar NFL show, thank you to Deonté Lee. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor and Evan's Arjuna Ramgapal and Dan Comer. Thank you to Tucker Ta-Shee-John as well. We will be back later this week after the trade deadline on Tuesday talking

about that, maybe even handing out some mid-season award. So stay tuned for that show. Appreciate everyone listening. Talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gampler or visit RG-Help.com. Call 1-888-789. 777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline, ma.org or call 800, 32750 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y in New York.