The Ringer NFL Show - What to Watch for in Week 2 (Ep. 141)

Episode Date: September 15, 2017

The Ringer’s Kevin Clark and Robert Mays preview Week 2 in the NFL, including their favorite matchups (03:30), who could be the worst team in the league (25:00), and a new ceiling for the Jaguars (29:00). Then, Michael Lombardi joins to explain the underwhelming offense in Cincinnati (36:30), and Danny Kelly chimes in to praise the Chargers' defensive schemes (52:00). Finally, Robert and Kevin end the show predicting next week's biggest headlines (61:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's The Ringer NFL show. I'm Kevin Clark. I'm here with my friend Robert May's. Good news NFL fans. Direct TV has expanded NFL Sunday ticket this season. If you live in an apartment or an enrolled college student, you can now get an NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite. Robert, that's big news because there's a lot of ugly football early in this season. There's a lot of ugly football. I am one of those people who cannot get a satellite. So I'm very pleased this is an option. And I'm taking advantage of it. And if I happen to be a Bengals fan and didn't want to watch my team ever, I wouldn't have to. Didn't have much of a choice last night. That's a good point. I mean, when it's the only game, we can't escape it any other way. But if it's not the only game and it's Sunday, this is how you do it. To see if you're eligible, go online to NFL Sundayticket.tv and use promo code Ringer at checkout to save 15%. We're also brought to you by mybooky.ag.

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Play, you win, you get paid. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Kark. I'm joined by Robert Mays. Robert, we waited eight months. We got football. We got Andy Dalton, Deshaun Watson. Are you regretting your decision to become a football observer?

Sort of, yeah. That was about as ugly as it could possibly be. And I figured that would happen. I actually tweeted during the day. It wasn't the hottest take, but it was setting up to be terrible. You had two really bad offensive lines, maybe the two worst from week one. The Texans had all the tight ends hurt. A lot of competition for that.

That's true. Yeah, it's a heated debate, but they're right in the conversation. The Texans had no tight ends. The first play of the game was hilarious. They came out with seven offensive linemen, none of whom was very good. I mean, it's the entire situation was bound to produce some awfulness, and it did. Beautiful symmetry that the Texan said seven offensive linemen and the game ended with Andy Dalton throwing a pass to his center. Oh, God.

A lateral. It was amazing. What a game. Even by Thursday night standing. it was brutal. It's, we've talked a lot about it all week. The general issue is that,

you know, people were talking about this this morning, some of the NFL writers, and we've talked about this before, that basically because the lack of practice time, September is always going to be ugly and parts of October are always going to be ugly for the good teams.

We saw the Packers and the Seahawks last week and it looked pretty disjointed. So for the bad teams, ooh, buddy. I hope it gets better. I assume it will. It's just, man, I don't know where either of these teams are going this year.

I actually have a pretty good idea. The Texans look really bad and the Bengals look even worse. And I didn't assume either of these teams would be a playoff team. I thought they would look a tiny bit more competent than this and I was just dead wrong. I think a lot of people did think the Texans had a chance just because they made the playoffs last year with Brock Osweiler and they had that defense. But I just think that they're too far gone. Yeah, they were on the outside for me as I did my whatever rankings, but it's still worse than I even thought it was going to be. Okay.

So as always, we'll be here every Friday to get you set for this weekend. full-sighted games. I mean, some real good games. We'll get to those in a second. And we'll be back on Tuesdays all season long to break down the week that was looking back. We'll have our colleague Danny Kelly joining us later. We're going to geek out on some things. And our in-house general manager, Mike Lombardi is going to be here as well. But for now, let's get things going with our favorite four. That's our favorite four matchups the weekend. Robert, go ahead. Hit me with your matchup of the week. I mean, rematch up the NOSC championship game from last year in Atlanta where it was, but we're

going to be in a new building. This one's fun. For the closed Chick-fil-A. For the closed Chick-fil-A, people are going to just be walking by it and savoring it so much. They're going to be like, yes, I know what Chick-fil-A tastes like. I'm so sad that I can't have it. That's how I was this morning when I didn't have time to go get it. I think that this is going to be a fun one. I mean, two offenses that we assume would be pretty good.

Green Bay played Seattle last week. We talked about this. It didn't look as good as they will the rest of the year. I mean, there's a chance that Seattle is the best defense in football. So I don't think the version of the Packers we saw last Sunday is the one we're going to see going forward. I like the Falcons defense. I still don't think they're going to be able to slow down Green Bay fully. I think the Packers are going to look pretty good.

And this is a good test for Atlanta's offense again. I talked about this and what I wrote on Monday. They went three and out six times against the Bears after going three and out 24 times last season. They're stopping go right now. And I feel like Green Bay's defense, even though they're playing a team that barely has an offensive line, still look pretty good. And I think this is going to be a really good test. If Atlanta struggles again, then I think, we find out a lot about each side of the ball in that situation in that case.

I totally agree with you. I didn't like what I saw from the Falcons last week. And this would be a great test. Bears defense is better than you give credit for though, man. Mike Daniels, it's not, Robert, let's clarify something. It's not that I don't give them enough credit in Chicago. It's I don't care about the bears. That's fair.

I don't want anything to do. I don't want a good observation on the bears because any time spent on the bears is making my life worse. Hey, I get you. Trust me, it's made my life worse for about a decade. So, I mean, I just generally think it's very interesting to me. Mike Daniels against that interior offensive line. You know, we've talked all offseason about how everyone is sort of sleeping in a weird way on the Falcons. And that no one cares that they probably should have won the Super Bowl last year.

Everyone moved on. You know, Carolina is a trend of your pick. This would be a massive, you know, it's a cliche, but it would be a massive statement game to go out there and win, you know, have a classic kind of 2016 Falcons performance, put up 35 points. I am as intrigued. There's an intriguing, more intriguing matchup for me that's coming next. But if this is for any other week, this would be my favorite matchup of the week as I cannot wait to see what these teams are going to like in 2016. Because again, we have no idea after week one.

I mean, there's nothing. There are no conclusions really you can draw from last week with Seattle and Green Bay. It's exactly what we talked about. Both of those teams are going to start slow. You know, they'll probably be three and two next month. And then they'll both finish 12 and four or whatever. But I mean, Atlanta versus Green Bay, it's, it's a, as good as it gets.

And we're two weeks into the season that gives us an early chance to see what's different about these teams from where they were last January. That's interesting. So West Schweitzer is the guy that struggled for Atlanta last week. The Falcons will be well to do to get him away from Mike Daniels whenever they can, just by formation. Because every time Mike Daniels gets to go against him, it's going to be really ugly. The other thing I thought was interesting.

We talked a lot about Kevin King and what the Packers were going to do in the secondary. Kentrell Bryce got the third most snaps for them last week. They cut Lederius Gunter, who at one point was a contributor for them. So we talked about this a little bit just coming into the season, previewing the Packers. But what they like to do in the secondary is just throw bodies at the problem. It doesn't matter who they are as long as they can have a lot of guys. And they use their third safety as their sixth defensive or fifth defensive back last week, which I thought was interesting.

So is that going to be something they keep doing? Is that going to work for them? Just tough to keep in mind. Yeah. All right. My game of the week, the game I hinted out a second ago, New England at New Orleans. Yeah. I was at the game.

I was covering the game the last time in 2013 that these guys had an absolutely classic matchup and that was the game if you don't remember that produced the amazing Rob Ryan exasperation gift. Do you know what I'm talking about? Was that the Kenroll? The Kenroll Tompkins one. Yeah, Campbell Tompkins throw that. That was in my top 10 Brady throws and I think over the last year. It was amazing.

10 seconds left in the game. Yeah. Brady beats New Orleans. There's a couple of things. Now, first of all, just from a historical perspective, Tom Brady against Drew Brees. I don't see a scenario in which they play again. So enjoy it while it lasts. enjoy two completely horseshit defenses that are going to allow both of these quarterbacks to have just a throwback game. Like, I want this game to be 45 to 44.

That's in play, man. It's in play. On the turf, I absolutely think we can see that. I cannot wait for this. It's over under on this. Keep talking about. I'm going to find out what that is. You can look it up.

Okay, aside from that, aside from just the aesthetic beauty of what we're going to see on Sunday, I'm intrigued because we're about to find out who the Patriots. rates are. I mean, there's two ways to look at it. Okay. If they go 0 and 2, is their season over? No, because we've seen this before. We've seen this a million times and the Patriots are going to recover and they're going to win the AFC East. I don't see they're a final, as I call them, they're a final destination team, right? It's no matter what happens, they're going to go win at least 10 games and win the division. I don't see anybody else. Maybe the dolphins get in that range, but I think playing 16th straight weeks is weird. I just don't, I don't know what to expect from the dolphins. We'll see you on Sunday. Having said that, the Patriots, I mean, if they give up like 50 to Drew Brees, that's when you start to panic about the defense a little bit, man. I just don't know. Stefan Gilmore and Malcolm Bell, they're supposed to be the shutdown corner team. I haven't, I haven't seen that. Now they're going against an offense that, I mean, first of all, did you see what Adrian Peterson's doing? It was always going to be a disaster. I have no idea what

anybody is surprised about this. You're bringing in a Hall of Fame, a generational talent at the back end of his career on a team with a glut at that position with a coach that is not necessarily the most forgiving or understanding man in the world. If you don't know, Adrian Peterson said on Friday, I didn't sign up for nine snaps. And then he kind of backtracked a little bit. He's like, yeah, game situation dictated it, but it's not going to go well. It's going to go horribly. You know why?

Because Adrian Peterson is the worst running back on the Saints. I mean, yeah. I mean, we've been talking about this for a couple of weeks. There's a reason that a lot of smart teams, including the Patriots, kicked the tires and Adrian Peterson and passed on him. And so I just, so my confusion comes with the Saints with,

you're already confusing everybody and pissing off Mark Ingram with your weird usage of Mark Ingram. Then you draft Alvin Kamara. Rewarded for his excellent season last year by having his team sign Adrian Peterson. And draft Alvin Kamara. Which is okay.

Because Carra is going to be the secondary option. Then he signed Peterson. Even those nine snaps is insane. It's like Mark Ingraham is better. You already have two running backs. You don't need this many. It's a redundancy. The whole thing makes no sense.

And it's not exactly like the freaking saints are flush with salary caps base. It was always dumb. And it's even dumber now. Yeah. By the way, speaking of New England, Jacoby Preset is starting on Sunday. Jesus. For the Indianapolis Colts.

The overrunder is 56, by the way, which seems about right and maybe not high enough. Pound the over on our sponsor, my bookie. So I like, I mean, I think New England's going to be able to move the ball on the Saints. Anybody really can. I feel like Minnesota still looked good last week, even against that mirror, but the Saints defense is still bad. The two things I'm worried about for New England's defense among just period. One, doesn't look like High Tower is going to play.

Nope. So the same way that Kareem Hunt and whoever else lit those guys up last week, what are they going to do against Kamara. I mean, if Alvin Kamar is one thing, it's shifty, and now they have to deal with that. And I don't know if Kyle Van Nuoy and David Harris

are going to be up to that. Two, the one problem, I mean, the biggest problem is, I'm sorry, I just want to clarify. David Harris is not up for it.

No, okay, just thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I've been watching the tape. The other thing, the one problem that the Saints

offense is really going to have right now is the fact that's streaf and arms that are hurt. So you have left, rookie left tackle, who? acquitted himself fine against Minnesota. And then you have a backup guard. Now is your right tackle.

You know who can't take advantage of that? The Patriots. Cassius Marsh and whoever else is rushing the edge for them. Those aren't the guys that are going to hurt you in that situation. So again, we're just looking at a dozen factors here. They're going to lead to the scoreboard exploding. Yeah. I mean, I think this has the potential, like a game of the year potential.

Yeah, which I hope it is. I mean, after all the bullshit we've had to do it over the last week, I also think that in 2017, there's another option, which is the game of the year was last night's Bengals, Texan's game. That that was as good as it gets. I'm just walking into a lake, if that's the case. It's over for me. All right. What's your next game?

I love Minnesota, Pittsburgh. I just feel like this is a really, I mean, not the opposite of what we just talked about, but a good offense defense matchup. And the way Minnesota's offense looked in week one, again, I know against the same. But even on the other side of the ball, it's kind of intriguing to me because Pittsburgh's defense looked okay. So I think it's just going to be a fun one. I think these are two really good teams going at it. This is another situation where I don't know what, you know, you go against Cleveland in week one. I don't know what the Steelers are.

I still have faith in the Steelers. I mean, I know. I'm just saying I don't know what the 2017 Steelers look like because I just didn't. There's a couple of teams. I just don't know what they look like. The Packers are one of them because it was such a weird disjointed game against. Seattle against the best defense in league. Obviously, who have Tampa Bay and Miami,

who literally haven't seen. I think both of those teams are intriguing to me. I think before the season I picked Tampa Bay to go deep in the playoffs. They haven't played a game yet. The quarterback for the Dolphins, right? Yeah, they're going to get to eight wins. It's going to be great.

Yeah, it's going to be awesome. At Pittsburgh is another one, just because Cleveland is just a wash to me. Minnesota, you go, I mean, you go against, go against New Orleans defense. And they get to go against NFL defense this week, so that's intriguing as far as matchups go.

I know, and we talked about this and I still think Minnesota looked good, even if it was Yeah, of course they did. I mean, Bradford just is putting the ball on the money. I thought digs looked excellent. I mean, just contested catches. I mean, that's the thing that was impressive to me. Even with guys on them, they were making stuff happen. I thought Delvin Cook was impressive.

I still think, I know it's tough against the Saints. I know that. But I still feel like Minnesota's offense might be okay if that line stays healthy. We talked about that going into the season. and no one's excited about Riley Reef and Mike Remmers, but they're real NFL players, and that's an upgrade. I wrote about that this week.

I'm excited about Mike Remmers. I know you are, but I'm a line geek. I wrote about this with Bradford and how he was going deep. I mean, he threw nine balls, 20 yards down the field last year after doing about 38 of them or so for the entire season in 2016.

I mean, and that's a product of him having time to do it. And Diggs being healthy and them being at full strength. I just, I want to say, see it. And I want to see it against the Pittsburgh defense that I know it was Cleveland, but they really beat up Cleveland's offensive line. I know Kaiser's prone to holding it, which is going to help like that's just going to escalate pressure, but I still feel like

that matchup is worth watching to me. Can Minnesota's offensive line hold up against a better defensive front to it might not play? So there's a lot of factors here I'm looking forward to. I think both of these teams are good and I like just them sizing each other up here. Are you all in on T. J. Watt? I just think he's a really talented player. I mean, we knew coming in, he was an athletic marvel, and he showed that. The numbers last week were a little bit misleading. His sacks came deep in the down.

That interception was just a Kaiser. I mean, he was the intended receiver on that one. But he still had to go up for it. I mean, that's still a level of athleticism to get that ball. I mean, that was the guy is going to be, I mean, here's the thing about JJ wasn't very good as a rookie. I mean, he was fine, but it was a lot of effort plays. You don't really know how to play that position early. I think that the Von Miller, Alden Smith crew just misled us.

I mean, think about how many sacks Cleo Mac had as a rookie. It's like five. Yep. He was a very good player. Look at Vic Beasley with 4.5 to 15 in one year. It's the gap there is very small. And I think that wide looking as good as he did in week one is encouraging. I think his upside is incredibly high.

But he wasn't as good as the number of show, but I still think he's going to be an impactful guy for them all season. The one guy I was impressed with the most on that defense. He only played two plays was Stefan to it. Yep. He blew into the backfield and made Kazer throw it away on the first down and then had a tackle for lost three yards deep in the back field on second down and almost tore his biceps on that play and didn't get it back in the game. I just think all the way around, which Yvonne Hargrave, that defense in the front seven is stacked. Yeah. And I think they have a chance to be really fun.

There's a reason that when we did the leap show over the summer, we talked about positional units and I predicted that the Steelers pass rush was going to take a huge leap forward. I love Hargrave. I love T.J. Watt. The Tuit thing, I mean, if this is, if Tewitt is, is out for a long time, and I don't think it's as serious. He might play on Sunday. Yeah. Initially, people thought it was a super serious injury. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Based on how good he looked. He got that extension. People were like, eh, why? And then he comes out a day after signing it and blows up the first two plays. So you have Tuit out there. Bud Dupree is still banged up. I'm getting sad for Bud Dupree because I thought he was, I thought he was a Vic Beasley-Taliener talent at one point. He's never had a chance to really settle into the position because he's never played for an extended time.

We talk about it. It's more nuanced than people think. And if you don't have experience, it's tough to just get dropped in and play well. Well, also, I just think you get a lot. I'm talking to Dan Quinn about this when we're talking about just player development. You know, if you don't make that leap from year one to year two, and if you don't have the opportunity, if you're banged up, the leap that Beasley made, the leap that Watt made. If you don't do the year one to year two leap, it gets real hard because after the second year, those gains become very, very, very small. So it's, you know, I think that he still has talent, but at some point you got to get on the field and show me something.

It's also an interesting conversation with a quarterback's coach about a guy who bounced back after a bad rookie season. I'm writing about it for next week. Just the idea of sustained lack of confidence and how problematic it is. And if you can't get out of that rut after half a bad season, a full bad season, and it takes a year, two years, two and a half years, that's when you really just start to. get broken emotionally and mentally and just not be able to get over certain humps. And I think that we've seen that all the time. And it's problematic for guys that just can't stay on the field when they're young. Speaking of great quarterbacks, here comes Trevor Simeon.

It's my second matchup of the week. This is a fun one. I mean, it has a chance to be. Dallas at Denver. So I think we know who Dallas is. I think we found out. And I think that as long as Ezekiel Elliott stays on the field and plays 16 games, we're looking at them as the runaway

NFC East favored. It was kind of incredible how much to the degree we knew what Dallas was. Like they were just exactly paint by numbers. It's actually really interesting to me because, you know, the offensive line is actually, you know, is solid. They're there. They are what we thought they were.

Collins looked really good. I mean, he was always talented. It was a matter of continuity to me and they looked really good. I mean, they have a chance to be better than they were last year. Yeah. And so football is an extremely simple game and I think that as long as you can win. That's true.

It is true. I mean, and as long as you have the offensive line. Why are there so many bad teams then? No, because there's no good offensive line and there's no good quarterbacks. And there's no good, there's barely any good running backs.

And by the way, Dallas has all three of those things. Yeah, that's a good point. I guess the Broncos do too. Five things to win. Well, I mean,

they don't have a quarter. Denver has Trevor Simeon playing quarterback. After last week, that looks just fine. Just fine. Is that the word? Is that the phrase? If the Broncos can play like they did on Monday night,

I will be more than willing to sit down with a fully cooked meal of crow. That's fine with me because I, I picked them to make the playoffs. I did not. I thought they would be bad. You picked San Diego. I like San Diego. And I,

looking at what Denver's offense did, mostly up front, to not let Bosa and Ingram Ruin that game where they would have a year ago. And then Simeon kind of stepping in and playing well the way that he did, if that offense can be to that level, I think the defense is still good enough to take them somewhere. But I just had no faith in what the offense can be. and I'm more than willing to admit that I'm wrong.

It's hard coming into the season to project a leap like that when you see so many moving parts in the coaching staff, everything else. He was seventh round pick, beating out a guy you traded up for. But if it falls into place, then their defense is definitely still good enough to make them relevant. It's interesting to me because with Denver, the reason I pick them is the same reason I pick the Giants, which is they have a lot of talent on defense.

I believe in defensive talent. I know we talk a little bit about defensive regression and DVO, way and all that. And I just sort of believe if you have a couple of good pass rushers and you have a good secondary that you're going to win some games. And I think in the AFC this year, the bottom half of the conference is so weird. I think Denver's just going to be

able to squeak out nine or ten wins just based on their defense. And then that's all you need. And so that was the reason I picked them. And I'm standing by. And also, I feel like I know so much about the Broncos because I watched a game in which Rex Ryan broadcast.

He seemed really into it. it, right? He seemed like he was having such a great time. What was that? I have no idea. He could not have been less interested in being there. Well, he just seems so nervous. And what we talked about, I know, which I guess I would be too. I mean, I can't blame the guy, but his Rex

right never been nervous in front of a camera. But also, like, who cares? Like, you're going to be here for one year and you're going to be defensive coordinator for the Colts next year when whoever the hell their head coach is. God, that would be a slap. And he did. Him and Chuck Pagano are really good friends. I, aren't. Why would they

be. They coached in the same staff for like a long time. Oh, in Baltimore? Baltimore. Yeah. Everybody's friends and everybody else in the NFL. And yet they continue to take each other's jobs. But we're talking about regression with the Broncos. To me, it wasn't as if this defense is going to be bad.

My concern was you go from the best defense in the league to say the fourth or fifth best. And they didn't exactly destroy San Diego. God damn it. The Chargers. They didn't destroy the Chargers. Say it. And they did destroy San Diego.

The mayor basically was like, yeah, we didn't. really care about the Chargers. Yeah, apparently I don't either because they're still San Diego to me. So they didn't, the Chargers were fine offensively. I mean, they were stopping go. The running game wasn't very good. But Rivers was fine. And I think even if they're the fourth best defense in the league, I thought the offense

would be so bad that that was a recipe to not make a playoff team. But the offense looked fine. The offense looked pretty good. So if they can be league average and you have the fifth best defense, that's a potential playoff team. And I just didn't see that combination of ingredients. I just didn't predict that. And I'm again, more than willing to admit that I was wrong if this keeps going.

Rex Ryan and Czech Bagana overlap for one year. Okay. I thought it was longer than that. Everyone has coached on the Ravens defensive staff at some point. So it's hard to actually pick, you know, pinpoint who was there when. It's like one of those super groups, like broken social scene or something. That's so true, though. Every single head coach has stints on the Ravens defensive staff.

Yeah. And they also, all the good coaches are former defensive backs coaches, something no one ever talks about. Belichick, Carol, John Harbaugh. Well, I think a lot of the play callers were for wide receivers, which is interesting to me. McVe, Shanahan, and McDaniels never played quarterback,

which I think is really interesting. I don't know. I was thinking about that last year. You know, you know, the big thing that a lot of coaches talk about has special teams coaches should all be head coaches.

Yeah. I mean, that's because because the reason is, right, well, Harbaugh is also defensive backs coach. He was both those things. And that's why he's, he's a good coach. But also the special teams coaches,

they have to come up with a new game plan every week because they're dealt. They're only given a certain amount of players and they have to adapt to it every week. Whereas an offense, you know, if you're Kyle Shanahan, what were you actually doing last year? I know what he was doing. But I'm just saying you have your given talent,

whereas special teams coaches have to adapt every week. I'm talking to a couple of guys about Dave Tobin and how he has never gotten head coach and job and should. Just the level of specification and the level of we're going to tweak this this way. He was apparently very, very good at it, which again, head coach is. So I think that's a really good point. The way it was put to me was special

teams coaches have a crisis every single week. Yep. And it's just so specified because you're doing an offense and defense more or less is the same thing. You've 11 guys. You can line them up different ways. But think about being a special teams coach. Field goal punt, punt return, kickoff return are four completely distinct approaches. And you're doing 11 guys on each of those. It's 44 different positions, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. This is why my top head coaching candidate is Packer's special teams coach Ron Zuck. I'm sure every Illinois fan and every Florida fan would be thrilled to get you say that. Moving on from our favorite matchups, every Friday, Robert and I are going to have our own short feature segments.

Mine involves informed hot takes. You know, it was funny. Lombardi and I did a video the other day and he kept talking about this. Just the idea of it is a take, but it's not a hot take. There's a huge difference. And I go back to the paraphrasing of George Costanza. It's not a hot take if you believe it. So here is the take, I actually believe.

The Giants without Odo Beckham, if this is a serious injury, if this really is, he's out for another month. And who knows? I mean, Odo Becum, he said it was a six to eight week injury. It's been about a month, but he also floated. It could be 12 weeks. I'm not really sure what's going on. The Giants.

I don't O'De Beckham have a chance to be one of the worst teams in the NFL. You're not going to get any disagreement from me. Because I didn't think they'd be very good with him. I thought they could be a playoff team if he plays 16 games. And I didn't know how injured he was when I picked them to join Dallas in the playoffs in that division. It didn't matter to me. Odell Beckham extended Elon Manning's career in a way will never fully appreciate. My concern with them coming into this season was even with Beckham that we were projecting on offense with Ingram, with Marshall.

because we were assuming that Eli was still okay. And I have no reason to believe that he's still okay. I just don't think he's a very good quarterback right now or anymore. And even with Beckham, I think their offense was probably going to stagnate way too often the same way it did last year. And again, it's really hard to be that good on defense two years in a row. Whatever talent you have,

it's really hard to consistently be that great. And if they take a slight step back and the offense doesn't do anything, even with Beckham, then what are they going to be? They're going to be really mediocre. And I think really mediocre without your best player, you're not far off. It's pretty damn bad. So I bought in on the Beckham thing and the Ingram thing.

I mean, Marshall clearly, this is a Lombardi thing, just doesn't know what he's doing. Like he doesn't, he was lining up. Why are they using him that way? Well, the chucking deep balls to play a Marshall doesn't make sense. The theory is he doesn't understand the playbook. And so he has no idea what's going on. Well, it's a thick playbook. Have you seen it?

The cheesecake menu playbook. Yes, that's right. It's a lot of plays to learn. We'll get to that later. So generally, I think that I bought into Beckham because we've talked about this before. It is such a, not a watered down league, but so many teams are so flawed. And I don't think there's 12 playoff teams per conference in the traditional sense this year. So I think that there are one star units.

And we talked about this a couple days ago. I just believe that players like Odo Beckham, players like David Johnson when he's healthy, those guys can get you to a certain point. The Raiders' defense of Kulamak, those guys can get you to a certain point, and then you just need competence the other side of the ball on your playoff team. And so I thought that Beckham was one of these guys who could carry an entire unit without them that offense is horrendous. And if he doesn't come back, it's going to, I mean, if he didn't play a game this year,

they win like four games. Yeah, and I just think that if that's the case, then they were never that good to begin with. I don't know. I think he's a transcendent superstar. Sure. But I don't think any transcendent superstar is that important that doesn't play quarterback. They are not that good to begin with

if they win four games without him. Yeah, I mean, it's a moot point because he'll come back in a month and they'll be one and three. They'll win six games. And they'll win six games. It would be great. And I'll get to play it straight down the middle. Well, if he was healthy, it'll be great.

Hey, you're not new with this, man. You've done this twice before. This is not my first. rodeo. All right. I've been in rodeo too. It's a rodeo. This is all,

this is, it's a few of 30 rock jokes. Just in memoriam of it going off Netflix, but I'll leave it. Do you have any other 30 rock takes? I mean, I have plenty of 30 rock jokes, but we don't have time for that right now.

We have to move on. We'd be here for a long time. Well, okay. Well, after this next segment, you might want to hit circle back. I'll give as many as you want.

Circle back. All right. There's so many things look forward to each weekend, Robert. We're going to look at some of the biggest matchups and storylines. we need you to tell us what we're missing.

When we look at this weekend, what are we missing? I feel like this one's, again, right in what you just said, not in the marquee games, but still just full of interesting tidbits that I will definitely be watching, especially after what we saw in week one. And I feel like the Jaguars, again, it's hard to judge yourself against what the Texans are right now, but their formula was fascinating, especially after the offseason that they had. They go get for net fourth overall. They draft Cam Robinson.

the left in the second round. He's now their left tackle. They want to be physical. They want to run the ball. And they ran it independent of situation more often than any team in the league in week one. And that's after throwing it more often than any other team in the league except New Orleans last year. It's a massive departure. And I think teams understand that going in.

Fernette ran against eight or more guys in the box on 57.69% of his carries in week one. It's highest rate in the league. It wasn't particularly close. think we're going to see that a lot. Mercedes Lewis played 100% of the snaps against the Texans. You never see that with a tight end. They're like not even trying to be deceptive. It's like, we're going to sit here and do this all game.

And I think watching how often they do that effectively and not even, again, I don't think Fernette's going to run for net, four net, if I got yelled at about that on Twitter yesterday, I think four net's going to run for 4.5 yards of carry. I think it's going to be efficiency wise, a tough sledding because of how much. many guys he has to deal with. But is it enough? Can it be 26 for 102 in order to give them something offensively? And I think watching that against the Titans front seven that didn't play very well against

Oakland is something that I'm curious to see. Other thing on the other side of the ground. You could have sold me that Mercedes Lewis has been off the Jaguars for three years. Oh, he does block now. That's what he does. He's the blocking tight end. And then they had another guy, Koyak, play 42% of the snows. They are going to, it's going to be heavy in Jacksonville.

They are not trying to fool you in any way. So on the other side of the ball, I think is one of the more fascinating matchups of week two. Jacksonville's front seven dominated that game against Houston, but those corners are damn good. I mean, they really gave DeAndre Hopkins problems. So you have Boyet and Jalen Ramsey going against a Titans receiving court that, in my opinion, week one, looked awesome. I mean, Richard Matthews made a couple really difficult catches. Corey Davis might be the truth, dude.

That guy played, and he had two really impressive plays. And that's only playing, he played 66% of the snaps, which was 11 fewer than Matthews. I assume that'll flip eventually or they're going to go with three wide receivers more. And I think that's an interesting kind of cat and mouse game to watch in this one. Puzzlezny played eight snaps for Houston or for Jacksonville last week against Houston. Colvin was on the field, their slot corner for 90% of the plays. Is Tennessee going to try to get Puzzlesne on the field more and go heavy? Are they going to try to get Davis on the field more and just consider?

seed that we're going to go against your corners. I think those two position groups, Jacksonville's corners against the Titans wide receivers, it's a good one. And it's one we thought might be good when you considered all the resources the Titans threw at their receiving core. But I think through week one, it looks how they wanted to look. They struggled more because of their running game, weirdly enough, than how well they threw the ball. Did what you saw on Sunday change your idea about the ceiling of the Jaguars with Blake Bordel's a quarterback. Yes. And I think that the ceiling is still very defined.

What was the ceiling going into Sunday and what is it now? My ceiling going into Sunday was like seven wins. And now it's nine wins. If they had gone with their previous just style offensively, it would have been lower than seven wins to me. If they put the ball in Bordel's hands and said, we're going to let you sling it 35 times, then it's fewer than seven games.

It's five to me, maybe. but now it drastically changes because you're not letting him lose the game. I still think it's hard to be more than a 500 team when your quarterback throws 20 times a game because he's terrible. But I do think that they can be in every single one because that defense might be one of the best two or three in the league. And if they play like that every week, again, it's tough with Houston. But it's the signings, right?

I mean, we saw this with the Giants last year. It's tough to shell out money and get return on a lot. investment in the open market. But when you do, it makes all the difference. And through one week, that's the best pass-rishing game, Callias Campbell's ever had. And boy, it looked excellent. So if you can get the most from those guys after signing those huge deals and you add it to Dante Fowler playing well, Yonik and Gokkeye having the two quickest sacks of the week and looking like he might be very much for real. And there are just a lot of pieces over there. And if you can combine that with not throwing interceptions, then I think that your ceiling is still defined, but it's much higher than I thought it was.

Dante Fowler surprised me a little bit. Me too. I mean, he was garbage last season when he was on the field. So did I. So, and if he can just be the third best guy on that defensive line, damn. I mean, that is a talented dude to be your number three option. Do you watch the video with me and Jason Concepcion or Concepcion and tries to remember Blake Bordle's name? He was the perfect guy to use in the first one. It's just there's the perfect one. If anyone saw it. If anyone saw it, there were like maybe five more attempts from Jason to get Blake Portle's name right. And it didn't happen for him. To be fair, what reason does Jason Concepcion have to know Blake Portals's name?

I think he had Bubbubbles at one point. Bubbles is fair. We should just call him bubbles from now on. It was inspired. It was phenomenal. I really enjoyed Jason Concepcion talking football. It'll be a really fun series. And we're looking forward to it.

You can watch it on my Twitter page. All right. The video series is called Slow NFL Newsday. It's very good content. Robert, as you know, like most guys, I hate shopping, but I guess there's now a really easy way to get clothes. It's called Bombfell. Yeah, Bonfell is an online personal styling service

that helps men find the right clothes for them. They actually sent me some stuff earlier this month. I got an amazing gray button down and these blue Ben-Stermin khakis that are just fantastic. And the cool thing is, the best thing is, there are no actual fees to work with them. It costs nothing to sign up and get it. this input. That sounds pretty simple and straightforward. All you have to do is complete a questionnaire

and a dedicated personal stylist will handpick pieces specifically for you, Robert. It's perfect because they really do based on the options you can choose. I mean, it's the type of clothes you want, it's certain brands that you like. They're able to tailor it to a specific endpoint that fits you, that looks like you. And once you viewed your selections, you'll 48 hours to either make any changes you want or you can cancel it all together. You're totally in control. And you only, pay for the clothes that you keep, which makes sense because it wouldn't be that cool if you had to pay for ones that you didn't like. You have the option of receiving clothes once every one, two or three months. And Bonfell keeps you looking good all the time. We've negotiated with them

to get our listeners a special offer of $25 off your first purchase when you go to bonfell.com slash NFL. That's bombfell.com, spell b-o-m-f-e-l-com.com slash NFL. Bomfell, open and clothes. Like clothes that you wear, get it? Yeah, I get it. There we go. Good job, buddy. All right, it's time to welcome in our in-house ringer GM Michael Lombardi.

Welcome to the show, Mike. Hello, Kevin. Hi, Robert. Hey, buddy. Good to see you. Not see you, but hear you. There you can't see you. I can see them.

I'm a lucky man. You've got to keep your eye on a couple of interesting games this week, and we're calling them intrasquod scrimmages. Explain what you mean by that, Mike. Well, I think when you look at the schedule, it's kind of an interesting schedule. because when you take, there's four games that have kind of a cross-pollination of the team. Sure.

Kansas City is playing Philadelphia in Kansas City. So that's really an inter-squad game for Kansas City. They've played against the Eagles' offense since they had training since they had OTA days. And the Eagles have played against Kansas City's offense since they've had OTA days. So it's kind of the familiarity between the two teams is really good. Washington travels to the Los Angeles ramps once again. The Sean McBay, Jay Gruden offense is the same. So Wade Phillips has practiced against this the whole time.

Greg Mniewski has practiced against this the whole time. So it's going to be interesting to see. And for me, it's always about what the way teams score quickly and effectively is they have adjustments to the adjustments. And when you know what the adjustment is, then you can figure it out. And these two teams have an advantage. And then you have these other minor battles. So you have Carolina and Buffalo, Buffalo going down there where Sean McDermott's defense is in Buffalo. and Carolina's defense is Sean McDermott's defense,

so there's familiarity there. And then we have the Bruce Ariens, Chuck Pagano, reunion in Indianapolis. So for me, those are the four games that kind of have a lot of intrigue in terms of everybody knowing what each other's going to do and how to play it. From a defensive standpoint, how many points is that worth? When you know what the system's going to be,

I know it comes down to talent and all that, but I mean, is that a significant difference or is just a little bit of a difference? I think it is a significant difference. Now, the coach is no going in. Like, let's just take an example. Last week, Baltimore played Cincinnati. Baltimore knew if they got into a certain formation in empty, and they flex the tight end,

that Gunther's check to that, the Cincinnati defense coordinator, Paul Gunther, would be a total blitz. So they did it. And they caught them on a big pass, and Macklin scored a touchdown. Those are the kind of things that happen when you know the other team's defense or offense really well.

Now, what happens when you play these kind of games, they change a little bit. You know, way to know what the tendencies is for the offense. So Gruden's going to have to shift and change a little bit. But eventually it's going to come down to how well you play and how well effectively you could execute. But to me, those are the intriguing factors of the game. Didn't you think that, I mean, I thought this a little bit,

it might have just been specific choices based on matchup last week. But it felt like Philly and Kansas City both went against their tendencies that they kind of established last year. I mean, they threw the ball deeper a little bit. I mean, how do you kind of break out of those things? I mean, what would you see from a guy like Andy Reid to say, well, they might think I'm going to do this. This is actually what I'm going to be.

Well, a couple of the big plays against the Patriots. Patriots just blow the coverage. They won the Tyree Kill, especially. At some point, you know, that's Tyree Kill. You know, we got to cover him and they didn't. And the big run, they were just in a front that they had a hard time. I think where Philly did a great job last week was last year, Carson Wentz was horrible on third down. I mean, his quarterback rating on third down was disastrous.

He couldn't make plays. And his quarterback, and he played on third down against the Redskins really well. I mean, he made a ton of plays. And I think that that was how you have to look at the game and how to adjust the game. And Ken City now sees what Wence wants to do on third down and how he applies their offense. They have to make their adjustments to what he does. Hard thing about playing Wence is it's hard to tackle this guy. I mean, this guy's Big Ben, really.

I mean, he's become a hard guy to tackle and he makes loose plays. To me, I want to keep him in the pocket, make him beat me from the pocket on third down, make him have to throw the ball, not let him run around and get guys open. Are you worried at all about Washington's offense after what they show of basketball? Washington as a complete team. I mean, there's an instinct that I would say, you know, I would think that they should come out here and really beat the Rams. The Rams are a nice story, but the Rams aren't a good team. I mean, let's be real honest. I mean, Gough looked like he was great, but Gough was never under any pressure. And if you put pressure on Gough,

everybody in the league knows he's got to speed up his game. Can he do that? That remains to be seen. But Washington, to me, and Kevin and I talked about this a little bit, they were a team this summer that was more interested in getting their team healthy to the first game than they were prepared for the first game. And I think That's what really affected them, and they haven't looked very good. I mean, last week they averaged, last week they couldn't move the ball effectively. They had plays on the tape to make against the Eagles, and whether it was prior drop of the ball, whether it was cousins not throwing it accurately, it wasn't very good. Do you think that cousins value, I mean, how tied in this season for his contract?

If he has a mediocre season, what's his market after this year? I think it's still going to be good. I mean, look, we watched Andy Dalton last night. I mean, how bad can you play? Now, I was hard on Andy Dalton, but I think that Cincinnati offense is really bad. I think Cincinnati has to wonder about, you know, does they're doing the right, they just run a bunch of plays. So to answer your question, Kevin, I think that as long as Kyle Shanahan's out there looking for a quarterback, I think Kirk Cousin's market's fairly safe. Plus, look, he's made enough money.

What does he care? He needs to go the right place if they don't sign them. And what's the alternative for Washington? Where are they going? They don't have any leverage either. I think they were trying to hype up Nate Sudfield. month ago. He's not even on the team anymore. I know. And they know Colt McCoy can't be a starter. I mean, they talk about a team with really bad planning. I mean, this is an interesting

conversation. The Redskins, everything they do, when Pelichick and I were in Cleveland, we used to have this motto, there were two teams that we always, if they agreed with us on a player, we should reevaluate the player because we figure we must be wrong. And if the Redskins, if you agree with anything they're doing, you better reevaluate it because typically they ain't making very good decisions. Who are the two teams? I can't tell you. Oh, come on. I can't tell it. It was 20 years ago.

I know, but I can't tell you. That's disappointing. I'm so excited. I'll save it for a, but truly, we had a rule. If team A or B likes this player and we're after this player, we're never going. We need a retreat. I think the Cousins-Dolton thing is an interesting comparison. It's one I've made before, and I feel like the Shanaan thing is an interesting wrinkle to throw into that.

Dalton looked really good when the infrastructure of that offense was conducive to him looking really good. Cousins was the same way. So now you lose that with Dalton because Hugh's gone. Their offensive lines is terrible. but with cousins, even if it takes a step back this year, if he goes and plays with Shanahan again, who will inevitably put him in advantageous situations, then it flips back the other way.

So it's just kind of those things where it's about finding a quarterback you know you can succeed with based on the infrastructure you can give him. Right. I completely agree. To me, watching the Bengal game, they just run plays. They don't have a real system of offense. He's taken, I mean, Ken Sanbiz, he's taken a little bit of what Hugh did, a little bit with this guy,

and it's just a series of plays instead of really systematically attacking the defense. I mean, you got the best receiver in football on the outside, and you can't find a way to get him the ball. He's getting pissed now. It was interesting to me. Yeah, they said that AJ Green was as angry as he's ever been last night. He's not that guy.

I agree with him. I mean, you know, this Joe Mixing guy, I wasn't supportive of him getting drafted because of the off-the-field incidents. However, that being said, this is a really talented player. And they got Bernard. I mean, this is a really good offense. And I know where you're saying, Robert, about the offensive line, But you can, look, that offensive line in Atlanta wasn't great last year either,

and they kind of manufactured points for it. There are ways you can overcome it, but it's harder. The Bengals are the best team in the NFL last year running run-pass options. And that's a trend that is still growing and the Chiefs running into perfection. But if you have that horseshit offensive line, there's nothing you can do. There's nothing you can do. You never get control of the game. That's the real problem.

And Dalton, when he gets down the red area, it looks like they have no design on what they want to try to accomplish. They just run the same plays. I mean, he got picked off by Mosley last week in the same coverage he got picked off by Mosley the year before. And he still doesn't know. Like, sometimes I wonder, does this guy, last night,

didn't it look like two rookies were playing? Yep. Yep. And he's the first guy, Dalton's first guy in six years to have zero touchdowns and more than four interceptions in his first two games.

It's amazing. Even the Tyler Iper thing, that was their best Red Zone weapon for years. He's just a very good, he's a very good understanding spacing within that area of the field, where at least he was in a well-designed offense. His incompletion on the sideline was,

a perfect example of how they don't know what they're doing down there. Why would you take a guy who's so good at manipulating open space if you put him in the slot and put him literally against the sideline when he can't do anything with it? It's just a bad use of resource. The Bengals have scored nine points in the first two games, according to the NFL. That's the fewest since the one and 15 Rams team eight years ago. Boom. Wow. And you know, it's funny. I look at that Alex Erickson guy. He's not even like they drafted Tyler Boyd in the second round from Pittsburgh. They put Erickson on the field last night. If Erickson was in New England, he would be the next West Walker.

He would be the next Danny Amadola. You could just see it last night. And they don't even find a way to get him the ball. Was Boyd a healthy scratch last night? Marvin Lewis kind of said there was maybe a hamstring, but I mean, he said it was a late developing hamstring, which sounds like a healthy scratch to me. Yeah, that's what I kind of thought. But anyway, that being said, I mean, look, they have too many weapons to not score touchdowns.

I mean, I'm not saying they should be the St. Louis Rams of the 2000 era, but I mean, they should score some points. I mean, they have enough weapons to score points. I mean, we've seen that a couple times in the last week, though, teams that threw the resources of weapons in the offseason hoping that could overcome either quarterback deficiency or deficiencies up front. And with the Giants and the Bengals, it's falling flat so far. Well, I think the giants, I think the conversation that nobody wants to have is how good is Eli? I mean, I think that's the thing. We had it earlier today. I think that's the conversation. You know, you guys talk about it. It's right there. It's the elephant in the room. Nobody wants to

address it in New York media. Everybody just thinks that, The savior, O'Dell is coming back. But, you know, O'Dell was on the field last year when they averaged 19 points a game. Right. I mean, when are we going to really take on the conversation that Eli gets rid of the ball way too soon and he doesn't want to get hit? Odell saved Eli. I mean, it would have gotten real ugly. I mean, 19 points a game with O'Dall on the field, could you freak it?

We're going to see it. We're about to see what happens without O'Dell. Right. And look, Eric Flowers deserves a lot of the blame and so does the right tackle Bobby Hart. I mean, there's a lot of blame to go around. And so does Ben McAdoo. but, I mean, the reality here is Eli's got to make some throws up the field. I mean, that part of it, and then they bring in, I mean, their run blocking was problematic last year.

We know the line isn't good. And they use their first round pick on a tight end that can't block anybody. He's not a tight end. That's the thing. He's a wide receiver. I mean, when he's in the game, everybody knows he's either going to get the ball, but he's not blocking anybody. I mean, if he's in their game and he's the only legit tight end, then they're in 10 personnel, they're not in 11. I mean, that was what I said when they drafted him.

I mean, he's a mismatch player, but you've got to have a tight end. It's got to be a completely set up offense. Those guys are hard to find. Those guys are hard to incorporate into your game plan each week. I think you referred to him as a play indicator. You just know exactly what play they're going to run once you see where he lines up. Exactly. And that's what happens to, like, I like Tariq Cohen of your bears, Robert, because he's in the game.

He looks like he can pass protect. So you can run your offense through him. When you can't run an offense through the back or the tight end, then the back. than like the Saints last week. Peterson's in the game. He's getting the ball. Okay, Kamara's in the game. It's probably screen, draw something.

Ingram's in the game. They can run their whole offense. And that's what really the defense is looking at. Indicators. And when players can give you that indicator, they've got an advantage. My matter of fact, Adrian Peterson is never in the game.

Nine plays. And he's already complaining. They're the only team that wanted to sign him, and now he's turning on them. And he's turned on them. We talked about this last year, Mike, but it's about being able to play with those indicators, right?

When you have Lagart Blunt in the game and you just play action past teams to death because they assume you're just going to run the ball. Right. I mean, and that's, you know, and look, Ingram's a good, I don't, not disputing Ingram's talent. I'm saying it is to me, he's a mismatch receiver. He's like having Anquan Bolden. You know, the other thing I thought last night, I'd like to hear your guys commentary on that.

I mean, Hopkins is a really good receiver. Is he $16 million a year? Like, he looks like if he doesn't push off, he can't get open. Robert? I think that he's going to have a, I love. DeAndre Hopkins, but I think that he's going to have a problem with a quarterback who can't put the ball in open space. If he has to play with a quarterback that has to throw to an open person, we're going to have an issue. Because he's not open very often.

He's just good at body control. And the type of quarterback you need to make that guy useful is hard to find. I think this, my opinion, $16 million for a guy that's not open all the time is a little bit of an overpayment. Yeah, I can understand that. I mean, to me, when I watched him, if I'm a receiver, if I'm Beckham and you gave Hopkins 16, million, I'm worth 25 because I'm going to get open. He might be worth that, actually. AJ Green's going to get open.

I mean, just Hopkins is a nice, to me, he's a nice receiver that this never has, unless he pushes off, and when is he open? The good news is he's with the NFL referees. He can push you off whenever he wants. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, he gets away with it. All the time. Mike, thank you so much for joining us.

Appreciate you. Thanks, guys. Talk to it later. Coming up, we have Danny Kelly joining us to nerd out in a couple of games. You might not be excited for, but he is. will be once you hear this. We're also going to talk about some storylines that will be huge next week after all the week one action shakes out.

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If we want to relive Adrian Peterson's nine snaps. Well, it's so nice because with a condensed version, you can just blow through games the day after if you want to. Just get a sense of what it was like, just kind of the rhythms of it when you can't watch everything all at once on Sunday. And then later in the week, when they throw up the coaches tape, if you really want to dig in to why teams succeeded and why they failed, this is the only way to do it.

Whatever your favorite game is, NFL game passes got it. I mean, there were so much. many things we had to parse through Robert. Are the Seahawks that good with that offensive line? You can just watch every snap and figure it out. You can see Russell Wilson under just insane amounts of pressure that he should never be under. Again, they should have these games in 45 minutes, but with offenses that bad, I think they might not get to 45. You're going to be able to do it a little bit less. I mean, if you want to watch, I think you're going to want to watch a very, very short version of the Bengals Texans. Anyway, they've got it. Full

game replays, condensed, action-packed games that are 45 minutes long. Or short. order. You can do whatever you need to do. Best of all, you can kick off the 2017 NFL season with a free NFL game pass trial. Sign up now at NFL.com slash the ringer. That's NFL.com slash the ringer. Now let's welcome our good friend, the ringer.com's own Danny, Danny, we're geeking out with you, buddy. How you been? I've been great, you guys. How are you guys doing? I mean, I'm fine. I'm not feeling super great. I feel like I'm hung over from watching that game last night. Other than that, I feel awesome. Danny, Kevin O'Connor sent me a LinkedIn invitation, just like you today.

It is 100% clear he doesn't listen to this show because otherwise he wouldn't have when he heard me roast you for sending me a LinkedIn invitation. He must have the same LinkedIn habits as I do once a year. What? What is a LinkedIn habit? Sign in once a year. And then like find your friends and update your work status. That is a weird interest of years.

I have no interest in. But how about a weird football interest of years that from the, this week. Dan is going to fill us out on some things that only he sees heading into week two. Like LinkedIn.

Like LinkedIn. He's scouring in LinkedIn. He's making connections, reading weird business leadership posts from people he's never met. Your first pick is going to be played in a soccer stadium, Danny. Hit us.

Yeah, so I want to talk about this Chargers defensive line because that was a really fun, I mean, that was the fun part about Monday night football, I guess. Maybe the only part that was fun. That game was incredibly fun.

Well, the fourth quarter was really fun. I'll say that. For people who stayed up and watched it anyway, because it was, I mean, it was a slog for the first couple quarters, I feel like, kind of on the same level as a lot of these games have been. So, yeah, I,

looking at Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram on that defensive line, these guys have a potential to be maybe one of the top pass rushing sort of duos in the NFL this year. And going against my, Miami this week is going to be an interesting one because there's a lot of question marks on that Miami offensive line right now. Kind of some change happening there. Can't also play left tackle?

I mean, there's a big deal. That's what happens in Jay Cutler's your quarterback. Don't I know it? And so, I mean, you're looking at Jake Cutler behind that line who has struggled with pressure in the past and has been prone to meltdowns maze. You know a little bit about that.

Just a tad. So that massive right now is. because he's watched Jake Cutler because he himself melts down. It's a combination of the two. I know what it's like to struggle under pressure. So I like that matchup a lot and I think, you know,

Mays, you mentioned it on Twitter, I think during the game. It was like they were lining up Bosa next to Ingram and they were kind of flip-floping them. Bosa basically lined up everywhere. It was like three tech, five tech, you know, rushing from outside. You know, it was just really exciting

how they were using them. And, you know, so they're in that that four three defense now. so it's a little bit different, but it was really fun to watch them kind of play off of each other, do some, you know, pass rush games together and all that. So that's what I'm going to be watching in that game. It's a fun one. I was a little disappointed in how the Chargers looked just in terms of the end result,

but I do think that with a little time as they settle into those schemes, the talent is there. I mean, I certainly haven't walked away from how good I thought they would be. And that was my favorite part of the entire roster. I think those two, you said one of them, Danny. I think by season's end, they absolutely could be the best one, just pure edge, you know, not the front four, we have Seattle, we have Philly, everything else. But just two guys coming off the edge together, they, in my mind, by the end of the season, could be right at the top of the list. I think we're still underrating Bosa.

Bosa. I think so, too. This is a stat that Pro Football focuses, Nathan Yonke, has been kind of updating as we go along. But he's got 63 pressures in his first 13 NFL games. And that's the most for any defender over their first 13 games over the last 12 years, which is how long they've been tracking the stats. So I pick him to win defense player of the year. So I mean, I think he's going to be a monster. But I mean, also Ingram was better than I feel like I remember.

He had four quarterback hits, one and a half sacks. He was just kind of everywhere. His spin move showed up. I mean, he looked, he looked really, really good. So, yeah, those both of those guys. People gawked at that or people balked at that deal. I didn't. I think that sacks do not tell a story with that guy.

He's impacting game constantly. And he deserved the contract that he got. even if his production necessarily hasn't lined up with it in the normal stat sheet. I mean, he doesn't need long arms if he's sacking a guy with his ass. That's right. That's exactly right. That's a good thing to move on from. Danny, your second game includes one really bad team and one maybe good team that I picked

to win the Super Bowl. Yeah, so I'm a little convinced. Well, this kind of goes beyond the Seahawks, but I'm convinced the Seahawks kryptonite is in good interior. defenders in terms of their like offensive line. It just destroys everything they try to do on offense, I feel like. And last week we saw it with Mike Daniels. This week, we're going to see what the 49ers can do. Obviously, you know, they're a defense that's going through a transition and, you know,

they're changing schemes and a lot of guys are moving around. But I saw this staff from PFF too, which was DeForest Buckner had the best pass rush productivity of any interior defender last year or last week, even better than Mike Daniels. And that was, that makes me worried about the Seahawks offense again. I know it's a better matchup for them in terms of they're at home and they're playing a team that didn't look very good in week one. But I just worried that that interior pressure is just going to ruin what they want to do again. And, you know, so I was going to ask you guys what you thought about.

A lot of people here in Seattle are talking about how the Seahawks need to go up tempo, no huddle, kind of try and get Wilson into a rhythm that goes kind of against their philosophy. But in the last couple of years, they've been really, really good when they go to like a two-minute office. offense where Wilson can just kind of get into it, hurry things up, spread the field out, and sort of look to as different weapons and run a little bit. So I wanted to get your guys's take on, you know, whether you think that's a doable thing or if they should just kind of stick to what they've done the last couple of years in terms of slow things down and go heavy. I hadn't thought about that. Robert, what do you think?

That was the best version of Wilson that we've seen, Danny. I mean, was that over that eight-game stretch when they really opened it up. And I thought you touched on this. Yeah. And you touched on this in what you wrote this week. And the tweet from Brian Baldinger, who, by the way, You should fire, if you like football, you should follow Brian Baldinger on Twitter. Absolutely. What's Baldy got on Twitter? His Twitter is awesome. No, no.

What is this specific tweet you're talking about? So he's talking about just when they go heavy and max protect as a way to combat the offensive line problems and how that just begets more issues offensively. Because even if Wilson has time, there's really nowhere to go with the ball downfield because it's not as if they're bringing more guys. They're still dropping eight and you have two guys in routes. you're not going to be successful with those two guys unless they're both Antonio Brown.

So that's the Seattle's problem is that they react to one problem by creating another one for themselves and that's how you get stagnant and terrible on offense. Baldi retweeting a lot of compliments. That's fine with me. When he does film stuff, I'm interested in it.

I don't know if you agree, Danny. I like his Twitter. Oh, absolutely. And that tweet, he did break down the problems with Max Protect. And that's actually, I just followed him because I had been missing out on all that. but he has a lot of other really good stuff too where he kind of looks at the tape and talks about it.

And I don't even mind people who retweet compliments at this point. It's all balance. If you bring stuff I want, I'm okay with confidence. Guys, I got to be honest with you, I'm going to pay. Kind of have a heavy volume of this. It's a heavy volume. I never noticed it because I never noticed when people retweet things. I just, I don't look at who retweeted it.

So it's okay with me. Yeah. But anyway, so that's kind of what's going on in Seattle right now. He tweeted a plagiarized version of an article I wrote yesterday. good. That sounds great. It was great. It was very good. The internet's a very good place. Anyway, all right, Danny. I mean, I don't know what to tell you, buddy. I think it's going to be problematic again. The one thing I'll say about DeForest Buckner is this was one of those questions we had about the 49ers, right? They had all those first round defensive alignment. The guy

that bumped inside, is he going to be able to transition to that? And for the Niners this year, it's all about incremental enjoyment. Like, is this thing better than we thought it was going to be? and Buckner looking like that is a nice start. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that they still have, you know, issues in their secondary. And when they lost Ruben Foster, I think that was a big deal for them because he was looking amazing for the first little bit that he was playing. So good. Yeah.

I mean, I don't think the Seahawks are going to lose. I'll say that. But I think it's just going to these interior defenders are such a problem. It's a 14 point spread, Danny Kelly. What do you see? Is it really? Yeah. Oh, I'm going, I'm going.

I don't think the. cover that. I think it's going to be, I think it'll be a closer game. I mean, every Seahawks game is close. Like, there's so rare that they actually blow anyone out. Plus the Cioxx do this September thing where they just go two and two. They slow play it all every year. Why are they

still good at peaking in December, Danny? I've been intrigued by this because the Patriots are going to do the same thing. What's their deal? I don't know. I mean, I've honestly wondered about that specifically for a couple years now because Pete Carroll talks about how even in, you know, at USC for whatever, how many 10 years he was there,

they had like a very specific plan in order to peak in like November and December. It's harder in college football because you can't lose in September. Right. So you can't go four and four. I think they, I think they do have a specific plan though that like helps them do that. Whether that means like they save some of their schemes for later in the year or what. Like, but it's it really bugs a hell of the people here because they start slow.

But by the end of the year, you kind of forget about all of that. Yeah. I mean, everybody forgets the same thing with the Patriots. Danny, thanks for joining us. All right. Thanks for having me on, guys. Thanks, Danny. Okay. The last thing we're going to do on this Friday show heading into week two is let you know what we'll be talking about with next week's biggest headlines after all the action shakes out. Robert, on Monday, what are you going to talk about?

This one's simple to me. I just think with Atlanta not looking great against the bears last week with them very possibly losing on Sunday. I mean, I think I would pick Green Bay. I just think we're going to get a lot of Super Bowl hangover talk. They're going to be a lot of 23 or 28 to 3 shots in the broadcast or just in the, TV coverage over the next week when in reality we probably should have expected this. They were about the team I thought they would be on Sunday. They absolutely could be that team and lose to Green Bay.

None of this is surprising. I don't think it has anything to do with 28 to 3 or Super Bowl hangovers. I just think it has something to do with how good and how well positioned that team was a year ago. Patriots overreaction is coming on Monday. Speaking of the Super Bowl, no matter what happens on Sunday, If Drew Breeze scores 45 points in that defense, it's going to be the end of the Patriots dynasty. If they win 24 to 10, it's going to be the Patriots are going to win the Super Bowl. The one thing I want to preach is do not overreact to the Patriots this early in the season.

As we just talked about with Danny, they're designed a peak in January and February. Don't worry about it. Belichick is working things out. Belichick wants something very revealing, which is he basically don't have your roster set until October. You're churning through it. He had that line a couple days ago when they were talking about guys making the team. And he was saying, you know, there was a lot of the team. they were saying, how do you congratulate guys?

And he was saying, you know, you can't really congratulate guys because the roster turn in September is so significant. He sees it as a work in progress until about mid-season. So please, whatever you see on Sunday, enjoy the game because it's going to be just beautiful football, but don't read too much into it. As a man who once buried the Patriots after that Chief's game, I can wholeheartedly agree with you.

Yeah, I mean, just don't do it. Nope. Don't do it, kids. Never write the move. That's it for today. We'll be back on Tuesday with our Patriots overreactions, I'm sure, from all the weekend action from week two. As always, thanks for listening to Ringr NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. Appreciate it, guys.

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