The Ringer NFL Show - Which Fan Bases Are Most Excited After Week 3? Plus, Josh Allen Is Outplaying Patrick Mahomes.

Episode Date: September 25, 2024

Jayden Daniels is outperforming expectations, and Josh Allen is playing the best football of his career. These are some of the claims in this week’s breakdown of four quarterbacks, in which Sheil Kapadia and Steven Ruiz tell you the QB whose Week 3 tape was better than their stats indicated, the QB whose tape was worse than stats indicated, the best Week 3 QB, and also the “most honorable” QB. But before that, Nora Princiotti and Sheil tell you about the four teams whose fan bases are likely very excited about their prospects heading into Week 4. CHAPTERS: Washington’s surprising start (00:00) Buffalo’s red-hot offense (10:34) Seattle’s quiet 3-0 record (19:22) Minnesota’s coaching staff (24:56) Honorable mentions (28:20) Will Levis’s tape (33:32) Jayden Daniels expectations (40:56) Josh Allen’s incredible performances (47:28) Matthew Stafford’s perseverance (52:45) 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, Nora Princiotti, and Steven Ruiz Producer: Troy Farkas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A restaurant's best dishes tell stories. Their flavors embed themselves in our memory like song lyrics or lines from a movie. So much so that a little slice of a restaurant's story can become part of our own. I'm Danny Chow and this is ShiftMeal, a new video podcast from The Ringer where we're sharing a bite and chopping it up with chefs and restaurant people during their off hours. All episodes of Shift Meal are out now on Ringer food. Welcome to the Ringer, NFL Chef. Shiel Kapati here. Fun show today, the mid-week show.

Nora Prenciotti joins me first. We're talking which fan bases should be happiest after three weeks. See, I'm not negative. We're talking about happy fan bases. And then Stephen Ruiz will jump on to talk quarterbacks. He's got some guys he wants to highlight going into week four. Nora Preciati, how we doing? I'm doing so well, Shiel.

And I do. I like that you went with positivity on this show. I was thinking as I logged on here to our little Riverside setup, our fabulous producer, Troy, said, how you doing? No complaints. And I said, yeah, actually, no what I think about it. No complaints from, I don't really have any complaints either. And he said, that's how we like our podcasters. Chipper, optimistic. And I was thinking, hmm, I don't know if that sounds like me most of the time. So thrilled, thrilled that we're keeping it happy talking about some of these. teams that should be excited about what they've seen for a couple of weeks so far this season. I'm excited about it. Yeah, that's right. Sometimes we just come on here and we're just like ripping coach, quarterback, offensive, I love to complain.

I love to complain. Right. There's nothing wrong with that and we will continue to do that. But sometimes you got to switch it up. Variety is the spice of life. And so the question, the big question is very simple. Which fan basis should be the happiest or are the happy? after three weeks of the NFL season.

The season kind of just started, but we got three weeks of data, three weeks of games here. There have been some surprises. What's fluky? What's not? Nora, lead us off. What team tops your list here?

At the risk of being a prisoner to a little bit of recency bias here, because we're recording this on Tuesday night, you probably, like I did, She'll spent your Monday watching the Monday night doublehead. But I have to go with the command. First on my list as well. Because it's one thing to be excited about an unexpected hot start to a season, right?

It's great to be three and oh. It's great to be, you know, feeling good about where you are, closing in on a month into the year, just thinking about the season as a self-contained thing. But to feel like you can have a little bit of confidence that you might have gotten a guy at quarterback, particularly when in, It is someone like Jaden Daniels who I would think, and you should tell me if you agree with this or not, I think of the top three guys. Now, obviously, Jaden ends up going before Drake May. But I feel like that was a team-specific move because the way that I understood where the league was and where I felt like I was and where I think a lot of analysts were, were that he was the one of the top three quarterback prospects, who felt a little bit like the shakiest proposition.

Now, Drake May, obviously, comes in pretty raw and experienced, but there's sort of like a pro-style prototype there where I think with Jaden Daniels, you had a lot of questions about, is the running going to translate? Is the stuff that he did well in college just really going to be passable at the NFL? level. And for those reasons, I felt like he was the one when they selected him where I was

white knuckling it the most. And three weeks, it's a small sample size. But this dude looks like he can play. It looks like he can play against NFL defenses. It looks like the formula with a great run game, keeping him involved, and then play action and deep shots, which was the formula for him in college, it is working for Washington so far. And if you had told me before this season started, even if I was higher on Jaden Daniels going to the season, if you had told me that the Washington commanders were going to have the most efficient chain moving highest success rate offense in the league, three games into the year, I would have said, what planet are you on?

So for the results right now, but also just for the thrill of feeling like maybe just maybe this is going to work out and you got the guy, I think Washington has to be number one. Yeah, I'm usually the person who's like, pumped the brakes. Everyone's settled down. It's only one game. That was an electric performance. That was like the most electric performance of the entire season so far. I was just watching that like, I think maybe a star has just arrived. in the NFL. I mean, he was incredible in that game. 21 for 23 on Monday night football. 91.3%. It's crazy.

91. Completion percentage for quarterbacks, I think, is probably one of the top stats that people use in misleading, leading ways. That's like the lies, damn lies in statistics category of quarterback evaluation. At a certain point, though, you have to say like, this means something. 91.3. Yeah, especially when you're watching it. And one of the 21 completions is game on the line, fourth quarter, guys aren't lined up correctly, blitz is coming from your right side, pressure. Terry McLaren's not even near where he's eventually going to be. He looks up and the ball

just lands in his hands to essentially clinch the game, maybe end the Bengal season. I mean, they're 0- and 3 there. And so I just watched that game. I mean, 13 straight possessions over two games, the commanders have not punted, and they have not turned the football over. And they had no margin for error in that game Monday night. I mean, the Bengals were going up and down the field. They had one missed field goal in that game. That's the other thing. If Jade and Daniels just had like that one rookie mistake, that one fumble, that one interception, maybe his accuracy is off on a third down stamp, they probably lose that game.

And I kept waiting for it because, you know, me, might be a guy who picked the Bengals to win the Super Bowl. I'm like, all right, come on. It's a nice, cute little Jane and Daniels performance, but the Bengals are going to win this game right now. It never came. And so I think if you're a commander's fan and it's like you had the ownership change and then like you said, with rookie quarterbacks, you never know. Like I liked Daniels more than May. I argued with that. You were a Daniels guy.

But I also liked Bryce Young. So let's be clear. This is not maybe, you know, sticking my chest out. When I was thinking about it, I was going back in my head, going, she was a Daniel's guy. Like, good for him. Yeah, but I mean, you'd never. know with rookie quarterbacks. I don't know. When you looked at this season coming in and you looked at the rookie quarterbacks, I know I was like, hey, Caleb Williams is in the best position to

succeed. And I was like, oh, that commander's team with that offensive line and Cliff Kingsbury and that supporting cast, it's not going to even as someone who liked Jaden Dales. I'm like, it's not going to happen. And it's only three games. But holy cow, that offense is operating well. Well, I'm glad you mentioned the offensive line because that's the other thing. I mean, I'm sitting there watching like Sam Cosme displace 300-pound defensive tackles going like, what's going on here? What about like? And you know what? Sometimes these Cliff Kingsbury offenses, we have seen it.

Many times we've seen it when he was in college. We've seen it when he's been in the NFL. A hot start is not always something that carries through. And, you know, I think that's a worthy reason for maybe pumping the brakes a little bit. the flip side of that, though, is just that these are things that I haven't seen commanders, players, units, offensive units do in years. I mean, if you're Terry McLaurant and you catch that pass, you must just be thinking, like, I've waited my whole life for a moment like this, for all of the bad offenses

and bad quarterbacking that he's had to deal with and be a part of. I mean, and for the fans even more, like this, again, it's only three weeks, that one game kind of makes me feel like this is off to being the most fun season they've had since RG3. Yeah, which they'd probably be like,

hey, stop talking about us because we know how that one ended. But I'm with you. I mean, just from a fun perspective, from a, hey, go into a season with no expectations. Anytime you have a rookie quarterback as a fan, it is a fun season

because you're like, hey, it's something new, this new character in our lives. Maybe he'll be the savior and he'll be our guy for the next 10, 12, 15 years. I'm not saying all of that. Yes, he's going to be awesome. But in terms of a start to a season, first three games and a moment on Monday night football

where that, well, I'm sure every Washington fan can tell you about times. They've just been embarrassed in that spot year in and year out and they're showing pictures of Dan Snyder and you don't even want to be on national TV. And so you weren't sure what this season was going to bring. And now you just had to wake up on Tuesday morning just as a great. excited as you've ever been as a Washington fan. And I'm glad you brought, like, Terry McLaren didn't do much in the first two games. I mean, even in this game, they're going to like Zach Ertz.

So listen, Zachert has been a great player in the NFL, but like key fourth downs, they're going to Zachers. The offensive line is still not great. Like, these are imperfect circumstances that he's operating under. And he looks like he knows what he's doing. And it's just little stuff. Like, they had that play where there was a defender in the backfield and he kind of juked him and the guys on the ground.

And he picked up a first down. just a very, very exciting stuff if you are a Washington commanders fan. So there you go. I think that's right. That was the first team I wrote down. I'm like, that was the first thing. As I'm watching that game, I'm like, their fans have to be over the moon right now. So I think that's a good one to lead us off with.

All right, I'll go next. Let's see if you have the same team number two on your list or not. I've got the Buffalo Bills fans as second. And it's only three games and it's weird because the bar for them is like Super Bowl, many of these seasons. But this season, I was just like, this is a reset year. If things go well, maybe they win 10 or 11 games, losing the divisional round, but then you rebuild the roster in the offseason, and it looks good. But they're 3-0. They're plus 64 point differential. They've got the best offense in the NFL, according to DVOA. Josh Allen is probably the MVP.

And again, this comes in a year when you lost Stefan Diggs, Gabe Davis, Jordan Poyer, Micahy, Tradavius White, all those things. And so I think if you're a Bill's fan and you went into the season thinking, all right, we have Josh Allen. We're always going to have a chance. Well, now it's like a little bit more than that when the league looks a little bit wide open. So I had Bill's fans as number two on my list. Only reason I didn't is because I just knew that I knew you were going to go there.

I knew we needed to go there. I put them down as if somehow we get through this exercise without having talked about the bills. I'm going to need to be ready to talk about them because we just got to make sure that that gets in here because I think that's absolutely right. Josh Allen is playing better football than anyone else I've seen put on a jersey so far this fall. For all the talk that we're hearing about the challenges that, you know, too high defenses and the way that defenses are responding to this generation of quarterbacks are posing for. offenses that we consider elite. The one where it just feels like someone forgot to tell them is the Buffalo Bills.

I mean, Josh Allen, he's been clean with the football. He hasn't been mistake prone in the ways that, you know, sometimes we've seen him have seasons get derailed in the past. And I feel like you and I both have spent a lot of time saying, look, it's going to come back down to earth. Look, they're too good on a down-to-down basis for it to continue, falling apart this way. And again, I don't want to jigs it.

I don't want to jigs it because when this offense is so good, they're so fun to watch. So I hope it continues for that alone. But it does feel a little bit like so much of that positive regression that felt like, come on, it's got to come. It's got to come. People were off the scent a little bit. You know, you worry about the receiver group. You worry about what does it look like without digs.

But now you're seeing, I think, Josh Allen feels sort of at liberty to be a distributor, at liberty to go with the football wherever he wants to go, you know, Keon Coleman's just going to continue getting better and better and better. And it just seems like when everybody got off the scent a little bit, maybe something clicked there. But that's not to say that they haven't actually been an offense quite a bit like this for a long time. It just seems like it's coming together and it's fun to see. So I'm glad you put them on there.

I think they absolutely are one of the fan bases, one of the teams that should be feeling the best right now. I just knew we were going to get there. And I felt like I shouldn't pick both teams that won the Monday night games. So I went in a different direction, just for variety's sake. Yeah. I mean, the thing you said there about it feels like they're short. it like he's just distributing the ball and putting it where, you know, placing it where it's supposed to go and spreading it around. It's like you and I have both covered teams and sometimes

like you can kind of tell when a coach or a G. or someone's trying to like convince you of something and you're just sitting there like, you know, nodding your head, but in your head you're like give me a break. That's sort of what the bills, you know, this offseason, like you could, you could have told, I'm sure someone in the bill's organization was telling somebody that, all right, listen, Stefan Diggs did a great job, but now Josh Allen's going to be able to play loose. Like if someone from their organization told me that, I would have been like, yeah, okay, good luck, not having like a great wide receiver. Let's see what it looks like.

It kind of is working that way. Like he is playing, he seems free. There's like not that tension around the team. At least it feels like when you watch them on TV. And listen, maybe we might get to a December game or a November game or a playoff game. And we could be sitting right here going, all right, yeah, it looked good for a while, but that was a game where they needed that one guy to win one-on-one. That could eventually happen. But through three games, Khalil Shakir looks awesome. You mentioned Keon Coleman,

James Cook, Dalton Kincaid. It sort of feels like they have enough guys to spread the ball around. And the stats, like, it's only a three-game sample, but this is like in terms of EPA per drive or whatever metric you want to look like. This is the best, the offense, if they kept this, you know, kept scoring at this rate or operating at this rate, it would be. the best offense they've ever had with Josh Allen, which is wild when you think of some of those teams we've talked about before. So the offense looks great. And then maybe even more impressively, it's what they're doing on defense where Matt Milano gets injured. You lose all those veterans. It's like, oh, how are they going to piece this thing together? And their defense is held up

well also. These are sixth and seventh rounders and UDFAs. And Damar Hamlin bless his heart, who, you know, medically left this earth for a couple of seconds. and we all watched it. Vaughn Miller for like 15 snaps a game is just like ready to be shot out of a cannon. It's fun to watch a team or a unit that's been sort of pieced together and doesn't feel like they were sort of front running

into the season. But I also wonder if there's something to that for the bills because one thing I think we've talked about in the past and I have really felt has been true with this team is that they've just, you know, they've been through a lot. They had the just sort of, the just sort of traumatizing loss to the chiefs.

I don't mean to be sort of jokey about Hamlin because that was also real trauma that they went through. They've had these sort of disappointing years after disappointing years. And I think when we talk about Allen in particular, they're always, we always talk about how they're trying to coach him to not play hero ball. And it seems like part of that might be that he does kind of feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. And I think that team kind of feels the weight of the world on their shoulders.

They have all those expectations. It's gone worse than expected so many years in a row. And I do wonder if there's something to coming into the season with a little bit of that alleviated that's opened things up for them. Yeah. They've been playing at a very high level through the first three weeks of the season. Again, they're a tricky one because it's very different than the commanders where the commanders just have a fun season. or Jade and Daniels plays well. That's a win for them.

The bills, at some point, the expectations will probably get back to that level where it's like, all right, maybe this is our year and we're going to win, get to the Super Bowl and break through and win the Super Bowl. But they've got a great, great shot at it, it looks like, just with the way the league has been shaping up so far. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We got some other teams to get to that should be happy their fan bases through the first

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What else do you got? Who else is on your list? Fan bases that should be the happiest after three weeks. I've got the Seahawks who feel like, you know, the quietest 3 and O in the NFL. I mean... Totally agree. I wrote down like the same thing. They're just sort of sneaky like, oh, yeah, we're 3 and O post Pete Carroll, no big deal.

She knows who's like an MVP candidate. I haven't heard a peep about it. I mean, I guess that's why we have a podcast, but it is sort of strange. And maybe, look, there's one major caveat here, which is that one of the big reasons that this team has come out hot is that right now they lead the league in passing defense by EPA. They have the best passing defense in the league by EPA. That's happened while they've faced Bo Nix, Jacoby Brissette, and Skyline. Taylor Thompson at quarterback. So big, bright, flashing caveat banner, I think that's going to come down to Earth a little

bit. But I do think they're piecing together something defensively in particular. It seems like the front can be really good, especially if Boe-Mafé, who's currently fifth in pass rush win rate and has just looked really, really solid to start the season. if he's developing into a real kind of star and they have a piece at past Russia there where Mike McDonald can actually count on him to win most matchups that he's going to be put into,

it starts to be something that they can really work with on a consistent basis, right? Because the interior is super solid. Byron Murphy looks really good. He's added to that. And you figure that with a, a defensive head coach, someone who really understands

how to go up against modern NFL offenses, in particular, the Shanahan and McVeigh offenses that they have to deal with in the division. You know, they can get around the secondary. They can maybe not end up

top five defense, but end up middle of the pack or better over the course of the season. And if you couple that with Gino continuing to play the way that he's played, plus a three-o start in the division? you're in business.

I mean, none of these other NFC West teams are looking particularly scary right now. And I don't know that the Seahawks weren't expected to be a bad team. But I don't know that you go into this season feeling like, oh man, like we could host a playoff game. And right now, I think that seems like a super reasonable expectation. Yeah, I think the concern always, you know, Pete Carroll had mostly very good seasons and I think was an. excellent head coach. But as it sort of started getting a little bumpy, I think the question was, like, be careful what you wish for. You know, you move on from him and hire someone else. And the Seahawks had a lot of bad years pre Pete Carroll, pre Mike Holmgren before that. And so it's like,

you're probably going to take a step back. But they're 3 and O, you mentioned it. Their defense is playing well. The Mike McDonald type in terms of like defensive coach and just like smart seems like a normal type of person, you know, type head coach has lived up to the hype. Like when he, when clips of Mike McDonald get surf surfaced on my social media feeds, I'm like, oh, I want to hear what he says. And a lot of times he's explaining stuff, not in like a paranoid NFL coach way. He's like, this is why I made this decision on fourth down or whatever. And it's like, why is he being so normal? What's what's going on here? He hasn't been given the memo about NFL head coaches. But you mentioned it. Big test for them. Week four, Monday night football.

at the Detroit Lions because so far, Bo Nix, Skyler Thompson, Jacoby Berstead, all that's nice. You won all three games. You got to win the games you're supposed to. But now it's sort of like a measuring stick game in the NFC. I mean, if they go to Detroit and I don't even know that they need to win the game, but if that's like a toss-up game that comes down to the end of the fourth quarter, I think it's going to be fair to raise our level of expectations or think about what this team's ceiling could be there. So that's going to be really fun. And then you mentioned it, Gino Smith.

You know, like last year, it was like, oh, is the scheme helping him? We're hurting him. And now, like, Shane Waldron's in Chicago. And it's like, all right. They look pretty good now. He's eighth in passing success rate. Their run game hasn't been that good, but he's still performing well. And then you have the Niners piece of it.

They're one and two with all these injuries. And you're three and oh. So it's all of a sudden, like, even I think I was high on the Seahawks coming into the season, but I didn't have him winning the division. And now it's like, all right, we might need to reset our expectations for this team. So they're in good hands. It looks like with the head coach, they've got some pieces on defense and the quarterback's playing well.

That's a great place to be. You know what I don't like if I'm the Niners. Just don't like one of my star players going to Germany for medical treatment. Never. I just don't like it. I don't want you to need your passport to go to the doctor. Doesn't make me feel good about the health situation. No, it was, yeah, it was the Bill Simmons joke for like two decades.

and now it's an, you know, when it's an actual headline for one of your most important offensive players and it's not a joke in like a text thread, that's not a great sign. Then they lose J. Von Hargraves. So, yeah, that 49er team, I think they'll, they're not going to go away. They're still going to be in the mix, but the door is open maybe more so than we previously thought with them. All right. Seattle Seahawks deserve to be on the list.

All right, I've got two more, but really only one more that I feel like we need to talk about. So I'll get to them and then you can tell me if we're missing any. it's got to be the Minnesota Vikings. So I've always had this sports fan belief that the best seasons are when you go in with no expectations and the team you root for surprises you. They don't have to win the championship. It's just like you go in being like, yeah, I'm not sure about this season.

And then all of a sudden you look up and they're playing well and you like the coach and you like some of the players. And you're like, this is a fun experience for, you know, it's so rare. that a team actually like gives you, you know, rewards you for putting all this time and money and energy into rooting for them. And that's the type of season the Vikings are getting right now. They're 3 and 0. They've got a plus 55 point differential. We talked about the Seahawks wins, not that impressive. The Vikings have beat the 49ers and the Texans in back-to-back week. Like that's probably as impressive a resume as you can have for a team right now. So defensively,

I'm buying it. Brian Flores, their first in DVOA. I can't believe what he's doing with this roster for this second year in a row. It's really, really impressive. There are some good players. We wouldn't look at that and go, this is like a top five, top 10 unit in terms of talent. No way. So that's coaching. Offensively, I have been a darnal doubter. I still need to see more. I'm so I'm not trying to throw, you know, right on your parade. I just need to see more in terms of Kenney. Don't put me in the darnal time. That was speaking to the general Vikings fan listening. Not you.

He looks decisive. I'll give him that. And I think that's coaching is that he looks like he knows what he wants to do back there. I worry about the negative plays over a larger sample just because of what we've seen from him in the past. So we'll see. But at the very least, if you're a Vikings fan, you're like, our head coach seems awesome. Our defensive coordinator seems awesome. We have a quarterback in J.J. McCarthy who's not even playing this year.

like I kind of like where our team is at. So Vikings have to be on this thing. I totally agree. I think the coaching staff is really the thing that would make me feel the best right now if I were a Vikings fan because it's super fun to, as you said, come into a season without expectations and suddenly find your team winning some games. It's fun when it's happening with someone like Sam Darnold. Like all of that gives you something really exciting to root for.

The flip side of that is, you know, I don't think Sam Darnold is, really part of the long-term plan for the Vikings. But the reason you can feel so good about that is on both sides of the ball, the head coach managing the offense and your defensive coordinator both seem like they pass the more with less test with flying colors and are some of the best in the league. So that's got to feel pretty good. other teams that that I put down as possible to talk about, I think the Steelers got to be feeling pretty good.

Yeah, they were the other team on my list that I wasn't sure if we were going to get to. They have to be. They're undefeated. You do have the specter of like Mike Tomlin still won't be normal about naming a starting quarterback, but it's fine. You're three and oh, like, just enjoy it. And then the other two, maybe you can pick which one. of these you like more or tell me if I'm just crazy.

But I think Saints fans and Packers fans for different reasons. But both of those teams, I think the fan bases should be feeling pretty good right now. Saints, for sort of the reasons you laid out with Minnesota, come into a season, not really one with big expectations. And yes, lose to the Eagles. Offense takes a step back. Some worries there about, you know, crashing back down to Earth. than if Derek Carr is really going to be able to continue it

at the pace that he was on for the first couple of weeks. But still, I think on the whole, much better results through the first chunk of the season than you were expecting. And then Green Bay, I mean, again, with the coaching staff, you've just got to feel like the guy who's running the team there is capable of turning, you know, water into wine and any quarterback who walks through the door

into a really viable offense. and particularly with Jordan Love's injury, not seeming super serious, and they'll be back on track relatively soon. Like, that's got to be a fun one, too, to feel like you were dealt to blow and then not really miss a beat. Yeah, those are all good choices.

There's no doubt about it. The Steelers, the defense looks great. I kind of have fields in that Darnold category where, like, let me see a little bit more. I need a bigger sample. He only has one turnover through three games. He's never done anything like that previously in his career, so I need to see a little bit more. But at least they're kind of like, if you're a Steelers fan, you're like, all right, we're kind of fun and relevant and entertaining.

And this feels better than the Kenny Pickett era or the end of the Ben Rathelsberger era. So I'm with you there for sure. The Saints are a tricky one. Like there is a chance a month from now we're going to be like, remember when everyone thought the Saints might be good two weeks into the – Now, I'm not saying that's definitely going to be the case. Saints fans, calm down. You know, maybe that's not going to be the case. But they kind of hated their team going into the season and didn't expect anything.

And it started out well. And they only lost one game. They're still two and one. You're not going to be dealing with Vigangio every week. Yeah, I wonder, like what's how much of that it's going to last. I mean, they were so good the first two weeks. And then last week it was like that kind of looked more like what we were expecting going into the season.

So I think they're going to hang around for sure. I just wonder what like Saints fans. think if their bubble got burst after that game last week. The Packers, it's like the Packers fans have lived a charmed life, really, just going, you know, from Aaron Rogers to Jordan Love. And now you have this coach who can just take Malik Willis for a seventh round pick or whatever it was two weeks before the season and run an efficient offense and win two games without Jordan Love. So yes, they should be happy most years. But when you have, you have a lot of it. But when you have that coach. And yeah, I'm like a cliche of my, or a caricature of myself with the more with

less stuff. But man, when your coach can do that with a quarterback and you could still stay competitive, you just want to sign that guy to like a lifetime contract. He's gotten the most out of, it feels like every ounce of that roster every year. And they haven't had the big playoff success. We know he hasn't won a Super Bowl. But that's like, those are small sort of random samples. When you look at the bigger picture and what Matt LaFleur is done, he's been one of the best coach. in the NFL for a long time now. And now this kind of just adds to his resume what he's done so far this season.

And he's never, he's always seems to be at his best when, when something's gone wrong, when someone's hurt, when someone's out of a lineup, you saw him do it a couple seasons ago when they were dealing with,

you know, all the stuff with David Bakhtiari and they had injuries on the offensive line. Always had a plan for that. When they've had, you know, when they lose Adams, right?

like he is able to piece together a new receiving core and have it be, you know, they stumbled a little bit. But in general, they've figured that out. Like, he always seems to know what to do when one of the top players goes down. You think it's going to make a big impact. And then he finds a way around it. And I just think that's so impressive. Yeah, I forgot about the wide receiver thing. You're right.

They trade Devante Adams. And then all of a sudden they have guys on their rookie contracts and they're spreading the ball around and the offense is still operating. at a high level. So the Packers are a good one to flag here as well. All right. I think we hit all the big ones. Maybe you're a happy fan out there and say you should have talked about. Yeah, no one else should be happy. You should all just be like, why are we wasting our time with this football team? They're just going to disappoint us or fall short of expectations. But the teams we mentioned, you're allowed to be happy for now. And we could do the same exercise next week and we could totally just flip the teams we're talking about. That's what happens early in the season. But this was a good

exercise to gauge the state of the NFL three weeks in. Thank you to Nora Princeati for joining me. We'll take a break. We'll come back with Stephen Ruiz. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capati here joined by Stephen Ruiz. Ruiz, you had a good idea for how we should shape this quarterback segment every week so that we're not grasping for straws every week. Explain to the people what we're going to do, at least until we get bored with it and decide we want to do something else maybe in a couple weeks. Yeah, this could change any week from here on now. But no, the plan is to cover four quarterbacks. The first quarterback we're going to cover someone who's taped this week was a little bit better than the box score implies. We're going to cover someone

on the opposite end of the spectrum, someone whose tape was a little worse than the box score implies. And then we're going to give out some awards. We're going to give out a performance of the week for a quarterback who played the best. And then we're going to give out the most honorable performance of the week. Now, this person doesn't always have to win. And a lot of the times they might be a loser. But as long as this person is, you know, dealing with pressure in the pocket, he's hanging in there, he's throwing downfield, he's not dinking and dunking. He's not throwing bubble screens. That guy is going to get recognized on this podcast and he's going to get rewarded on this podcast. Now, I don't know who you picked for that this week. I do feel like I'm going to

end up naming the honorable award, the Hipser Award at some point. So listen, yeah, we'll see how it evolves as we go. So yeah, these are all Ruiz's choices. I'm going to say, all right, bounce back and forth. Do I agree? You're trying to separate yourself from these takes as much as possible. Well, I just didn't take the time to pick these things for my own. Maybe I will do that in the future. Who knows?

This segment will evolve. But start us off. I heard whose tape was better than the box score indicated this week. I'm going to go with Will Levis. He's a quarterback that can catch it a lot of heat for these turnovers and rightfully so because some of these turnovers look like slapstick turnovers. He's like a physical comedian on the football field at times. but you ignore those one or two plays per game,

and I know you should not ignore those. I made the same mistake with James Winston earlier in his career. Do not ignore those. But if you can just look past them, maybe, there's a lot to work with here. He's got a strong arm. I think he's got a little more accuracy than he's probably given credit for. I think he's a better decision maker when he's like in terms of reading out

of play, processing, going from one to two to three, and then following the design of the play. I think he's like a supercharged system quarterback. he's someone that can run an offense like a Baker Mayfield, but then he has the prototypical size, the prototypical arm, and he can run with the football. So I think there's something there. He just needs a little bit more seasoning.

But this game against the Packers, there were a couple high-level throws where we talk so much about the impact of too high on passing games, how they've kind of neutered the passing game and guys are dinking and dunking all over the place, not making those second-level throws and third-level throws. But he's doing that. Like, he's throwing into tight windows,

and that takes some anticipation. And it takes some knowledge of the game and how coverages work. And then it takes some accuracy and some arm talent. So he's checking all those boxes. And then the one box he's not checking is just not turning over the ball. But to me, like, I don't know about you. I'd rather have a guy that can do all the stuff that you can't teach and then have his weaknesses in the coachable areas.

Like these coaches are getting paid millions of dollars. Brian Callahan can throw a fit on the sideline all he wants. He can throw his hat. He can throw his play call sheet. But those mistakes reflect on you. You're the coach. And if you're not coaching those out of him, then I mean, you're partially to blame. I can't put it all on him.

I totally agree on Callahan. I kind of went halfway with a take on him like last week. But I'm just like, the guy's in his, you know, all right, I know he played last year. But this is like a young quarterback. And I don't mind it in the heat of the moment. Well, I mean, I kind of mind it because it's just like, you know, the team is going to follow us where the personality of the head coach. But then even in the press conference to kind of crush the guy, we all saw it,

same mistake at last last week. like whatever happened to like he's a young quarterback, he knows he can't be doing that, but, you know, we're in this together. I got to do a better job putting him. I'm not telling you to lie, but there's like a way to say, I don't know, it rubbed me the wrong way. I said it last week because Dan Campbell made a different mistake, you know, with his field goal kicking unit. And he just put it all on himself. And not to go overboard with this, but like, I do think that's what I would like the head coach to do.

If I'm like an owner or president of an organization. And so that did rub me the wrong way. with Cal. And it's funny, you mentioned we're going to talk about Levis today when we were messaging earlier, but I didn't know what category it was going to be for. Right. So his box score this week, 26 for 34, 260 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions. And what's interesting about this, and it kind of reflects what you were saying, is that he was 27th among all the week three starters in EPA per pass play. But he was 13th in success rate. Like that means that, you know, that's just every time you drop back and it's a pass play is.

Is it a positive play for the offense or a negative play for the offense? So it doesn't differentiate between a 50-yard touchdown and like a 10-yard completion on third and nine. Those are both successful plays. But that would tell you that on a down-to-down basis, just what was happening, it wasn't a complete train wreck for Will Leveson. Even on the season, he's 29th in EPA per pass play. Again, that takes into account the turnovers that are killing him. But he's 22nd in success rate, which, you know, you're not going to throw a parade for that. but that's better than like a lot of course that's better than the texans have been with cj strout so far this year so

i i'll be honest i haven't been grinding the will levice film like you have but the statistics kind of back up though what you're saying there yeah and there are a couple of high level throws like he had a throw on third down where uh the packers are in like a cover two defense they have three linebackers kind of playing zone over the middle of the field and he has like a hook in between one of those are two of those linebackers and he throws it with anticipation he throws it on time He throws it as soon as he hits his back foot for first down to move the change. And those aren't plays you typically see out of like the bozo quarterbacks. You don't see those anticipatory throws. And I think that's one thing he does have in his game.

And it's one reason why I feel like coaches love to coach him up. Like I did an interview with Liam Cohen last year and he was discussing about the guy and just talking about how like super, play action is his superpower and he follows the scheme and he's going to do exactly what you coach of him. His problems really, when it comes to mistakes, that is, his problem. really aren't in structure. It's, I'm trying to do too much. Like, the play is dead. It's broken, and I'm trying to make a play. I'm trying to flip the ball out to a checkdown who isn't there or who's covered. I'm trying to throw it out of bounds to avoid a sack. And then you end up making a mistake. I mean, I don't know if you're ever going to be able to coach that out of him,

but I don't think you have to alter his game in terms of instructure play to eradicate them. I think it's a separate thing. And I think that's easier to kind of coach up rather than like a player like James Winston, for instance, who made a lot of his mistakes in structure. he misread the defense or he didn't expect a linebacker to drop into this, this zone and he threw it to him early. Levis doesn't really have those mistakes right now in his film. Yeah, he took eight sacks in that game. And that's really what stands out with when you're just kind of looking at the numbers is he's been sacked on almost 14% of his dropbacks, which is the highest rate in the NFL and the sort of pressure to sack numbers, that pro football focus charts, those are pretty bad too.

Where like you said, the pressures, it's like either the ball's got to come out. Can you avoid the negative plays? It seems like that's going to be his biggest challenge here going forward. So there you go. Will Levis, maybe not as bad. We're not saying he's going to the Hall of Fame, but maybe not as bad as his head coach would have you think here through three weeks of the season. All right.

Next one would be the tape was not as good as the box score showed. What do we got? Okay. I know this is the first time we're doing this, but I'm already cheating a little bit because I just wanted to talk about Jaden Daniels. So I'm going to pick Jaden Reynolds for this. And I don't think, I think that's a very high bar for him because considering his, his box score, his box score made him look like he played the best quarterback game we've seen of the last couple of years.

I will say this, though. I don't think his performance is as meaningful as I think people have made it out to be in terms of like who he was viewed as a prospect and who he's going to be in the NFL. And what I mean by that is like, what were his strengths as a prospect? Throwing the deep ball, throwing the outside perimeter deep ball, and then running the football. and then being super accurate and quick game. I think he showed all of those talents against Cincinnati on Monday night. I didn't really see anything else, though.

The two deep balls, those are the highlights. We're all tweeting out. Those are the highlights. We're all going, oh, my God, what a throw. I can't believe you through it. I'm a guy who, I'm not impressed by go balls. I'll just say that. I think go balls are, they don't require the processing

that I think a more impressive throw will take. And it's all about time, and it's not really an arm strength thing. I will say this, he does throw a very good go ball, but I want to see the rest of the passing game kind of flourish. I don't think he's gotten a chance under Cliff Kingsbury, but you're still seeing when you do watch a tape, when there are guys open over the middle, he's turning those guys down more often than not.

And I think in order for him to evolve into more than what he is right now and involve into a franchise quarterback and evolve into an elite quarterback, he's going to have to attack the middle of the field. And I don't think we've seen that yet through three weeks, and I don't think we necessarily saw it against Cincinnati. We talked about Jaden Daniels in the first part of the show with Nora. I'm just picturing a commanders fan after that performance, tuning in to their favorite NFL podcast and being like,

no, I must have misheard what the category was going to be. Although it'll be for you're right. If we're looking at it just by definition, could the performance ever be as good as 21 for 23 for 254 yards, two touchdowns, amazing throw at the end? to Terry McLaren. They've scored on 13 straight possessions. I mean, I just, I, so I think what you're saying is you have a type of what you want to see from a quarterback. And when you're describing it, like, all right, I want to see the processing. I want to see them attack the middle of the field. I could easily say, look at what the

scheme asked him to do on Monday night. It's impossible to play. It's really impossible to play better than that. I mean, I'm with you. A go ball doesn't mean you're like processing in this, but downfield touch matters when you have a blitzer coming from the right side and you've got to get rid of that ball before the guy's open. And Terry McLaurin, it's not like he toasted the guy. He looks up in the end zone and the ball lands in his hands. I mean, they had no margin for error in that game. If he made one rookie mistake, if they punted once, if they turned the football over once,

they lose the game. And so I, like, I probably value the traits he had in college more than you do. You probably value the other traits that you mentioned more than I do. I just think there's different ways to play quarterback. And yes, at some point, you're going to. have to attack the middle of the field more. You know, maybe there are some,

there are obviously some turn downs on his film. But in his third NFL start to be doing that, I also love the quick game accuracy. Like I don't brush, because if you have the deep ball accuracy and you had the quick game accuracy, and you can run, and just in terms of avoiding the negative place,

he's taking sacks, but they don't turn the football over. Like, to me, that's a lot to work with to be a good NFL quarterback. And so, I don't know. I was really impressed. I honestly, I took a lot of meaning from.

I was like, this guy looks like he's ready for the moment. And I understand Cliff's offenses early in the season. And I'm not saying it's going to look like that every week. There'll be bumps in the road. There'll be defensive coordinators who take some of those things away. But I'm very excited about this guy after that start. So we're on different sides there. No, no.

I would be excited about it if I was a Washington fan because I think what he has proven is that those strengths in college have translated. There are other guys who have come into the league where their strengths do not translate. Price Young is the perfect example of it. Like none of that playmaking, none of the processing, none of the leadership of the offense from the line of scrimmage, none of that showed up. With Jaden Daniels, I think he's proven one thing. He's not going to be a bust. Like this is not going to, he's not going to come crashing down to earth because he does have that deep ball, which puts tremendous stress on a defense, especially when you have good receivers you can go up and get it like Terry McLaurin. And then the quick game accuracy, I think is the most important piece.

And we've seen an offense, this offense that he's in, I think it is very limited. But it does highlight those strengths because you're not. going to attack the middle of the field in a cliff offense, as you alluded to. The one thing is, we have seen open guys over the middle, and he hasn't attacked that. So it's not so much like, oh, pump the brakes, Jaden Daniels isn't this good. It's more so, like, that performance was just like a great illustration of his strengths. And we saw the best of his strengths. We still haven't seen really anything to make us conclude that his weaknesses have been figured out since college. And I think his weaknesses are the thing that kind of gives you pause as a prospect. Like,

are hyping him up as a prospect and predicting that he will become like an elite quarterback one day. I think what he's proven so far is that he's not going to be a terrible, terrible quarterback in this league. And I don't think any other rookie so far has proven that. And you can put Caleb on that list too. Yeah, the big knock on him. Well, there were a few coming into the NFL. One of them was pressure to sack, right? I was looking that up before we recorded.

He's 21st, which I sort of feel like if he can hover around there. That's a win. Yeah, that's a win with the way he plays. It's like you just didn't want him to be 30 seconds. So he still is taking a lot of sacks. There's no doubt about that, but he is making plays with his legs. And yet, the way the offense is designed, I mean, one of the other reasons I'm so impressed is like, this is not a great situation.

I mean, the offensive line isn't good. Yes, he's got Terry McLaren, but look at who else they're targeting on that team. And so for him to do that so far, I mean, he's third in EPA per pass play. He's second to Josh Allen in success rate. I understand the numbers don't tell. It's a small sample in the number. numbers aren't going to tell you everything. But I don't know. I've really liked what I've seen from him so far. You're right. I do agree that there's going to be times where he's going to have to play

differently than he played Monday night. I think that's what you're trying to say. That formula brought way, but won't work week in and week out throughout the course of his season. But as a starting point through three weeks here, I'm pretty impressed with Jane and Daniel. So, all right, we got to two. Tape better tape. Where's best quarterback of the week? I like this one. Who do you got? I'm going with Josh Allen. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'm in all of Josh Allen right now. Like that performance yesterday, I didn't think I'd be questioning Patrick Mahomes' reign as the best quarterback in the NFL.

But, like, on the field, in terms of skills and what we're seeing from them over the first month, Josh Allen is playing better football than Patrick Mahomes is. And I think right now going in, like, if I had to pick a quarterback for Sunday, I'm not sure I wouldn't pick Josh Allen over Patrick Mahomes right now. Wow. Now, obviously, we can't just ignore the first like five years of their careers. We can't ignore the rings. We can't ignore the resume.

We can't ignore what Patrick Mahomes is done in January. So I'm not saying that Josh Allen's a better quarterback. But the Josh Allen we're seeing and the Josh Allen we saw on Monday night against the Jacksonville Jaguars has a chance to be the best quarterback in the NFL. And it has nothing to do with Patrick Mahomes regressing. It's all about the progress Josh Allen has made. The big mistakes with him are the big issues with him that we've had over the last couple of years is decision making, accuracy. And I would say like adherence to the structure of the offense. And sometimes he abandons it a little too early.

We haven't seen any of that through three weeks. He's throwing on time. He's commanding the offense at the line of scrimmage. He's not missing throws. He's not putting the ball in harm's way. The one mistake he made was in the first game against Arizona, where he holds on the ball a little bit too long, tries to exit the pocket and ends up fumbling the football.

Outside of that, there aren't a lot of turnover-worthy throws on his tape, but there are a lot of big-time throws. So he's been able to find a balance between being aggressive and not turning the ball over. And then on top of that, it's the same thing as Will Levis, but at a much larger scale and a much more impressive feat, how he's defeating two high coverages. He's not doing the Dink and Dunducting.

He's throwing it even further downfield. And I think that earns him a couple extra points of credit. And like, I don't even think it was close this week. He was far in a way the best quarterback. Yeah, against the Jaguar's defense that had played pretty well the first two weeks of the season. I know they had some injuries, but I'm with you. It's just hard to imagine.

Imagine a quarterback playing better than he played on Monday night. And again, from like a narrative perspective, you look at the supporting pieces. I think we both, I remember talking. We both like Khalil Shakir coming into the season. But again, this isn't, you know, it's not like Devante Adams or Justin Jefferson or someone. It's Khalil Shakir, Kian Coleman has the disciplinary issue. And then he comes into the game, James Cook. It's just like everything seems to be working.

Like you said, it's yes, he can do the creative stuff, but the stuff instructure, the stuff that was schemed up. that was really impressive. If you look at it right now, they're first in passing DVOA, and the difference between them and number two is the same as the difference between number two and number 18. That's my favorite type of stat.

That's my favorite type of stat. Yeah, they're operating at like a level above. This would be, and again, it's three games, so I'm not saying they're going to sustain this for the whole season. But if they did, this would be the best Bill's offense we've ever seen. And like, who would have thought that was even in the range of possibilities coming into the season. I absolutely did not. So yeah, he leads every statistical category. He passes the eye test, in structure, out of structure. The other thing I was looking at was the pressure

to sacrate, which I just mentioned previously. He's at 6.9% this season, which is the best in the NFL, and that's just like such a superpower where it's not that exciting to talk about because he has many other superpowers. But last year, he was at 10%, and that was the best in the NFL. And now he's at an even lower rate than he was last year. So yeah, he's playing awesome. It's crazy. He's filling in the gaps in his game while strengthening the things that were already strength. It's not something we typically see it. And the leap he's taken over the off season, if this continues, I mean, it's only been three weeks. I want to see it for a couple more weeks before I think about taking Mahomes off of that number one spot in the rankings.

But if it continues like this, I really think he's going to get that spot at some point this season. And look, the Jacksonville game, the way they play defense, I don't even think they played that poorly on defense per se. Like, I think they were trying to stay tight to routes and man coverage. But Josh Allen can get outside of the pocket. And if you have your backs turn to the pocket, he can just kill you. Like, he's going to take off for 20 yards or he's going to hold on to the ball like we see in the red zone and find a guy in the back of the end zone and then like effortlessly throw it on time and on target, just a lightning bolt. I don't know what you do with that. It's indefensible when he's playing at that level. And I'm not sure there are other

quarterbacks like that in the league right now. It's like he's taking the best of what Lamar Jackson does and taking the best of what Patrick Mahomes does and kind of mix them together. Now, I'm not saying he's better than those two guys combined. I think he's a little worse at each of those things than him, but he does it at such a high level that, I mean, it's one of the most impressive skill sets in the league. It's one of the most impressive quarterback skill sets we've ever seen on any level. Yeah, no, he has been out. It's been one of the stories, really, one of the biggest stories. And I remember us doing a preview show and it was like, this is one of the things we're most looking forward to watching. What can he do with that supporting cast? Like,

can he lift them? How high can he lift this group of players with Stefan Diggs and they lose their center and they lose Gabe? Like, it's a totally different group. And so far through three weeks, it has been very, very impressive. All right. Your last one. The honor. Define this one again, the most honorable quarterback of the weekend. Yeah, this is a guy that, uh, Someone who's throwing down field, who's eluding pressure in the pocket, who's not just having everything schemed up for him. It's not play action. It's not screen passes. It's not that.

Like, this guy is doing real 400-level quarterbacking. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose. But they put their best out there. They left it all on the field. They were honorable, okay? And I'm giving this to Matthew Stafford for his performance against the 49ers. Now, this is kind of like a retroactive award.

I'm also giving him credit for that week one performance because that's really what inspired this. this category for me, was that performance on Sunday night against the Lions where he's facing pressure on every other dropback and he's throwing sidearm, he's throwing into tight windows, he's anticipating, he's throwing early to avoid the rush. He's been doing it all season, and he did it again on Sunday against San Francisco. It was one of the most fun performances to watch on tape that I can remember over the last couple years, like four or five high-level throws, and then a couple others where he's the only quarterback who can make them. There was a throw. I think it was 2-2-at-well. It was on like a third and eight early in the game.

he has to reset in the pocket. He can't fully reset and turn his body to throw the backside dig to 2-2 at well because he's looking front side. He's looking to his left and 2-2's coming from his right. And he doesn't need to. He just kind of twist his hips and then throws a sidearm throw, all arm, and just throws it right on the money 15 yards downfield, hits them in stride. Those are the types of throws that allow him to kind of hang with the top quarterbacks of the league

right now who have this like extra gear they can turn to with the athleticism. They can run and they can throw outside the pocket. Matthew Stafford can't do that. But he figures out other ways to do that. Those guys extend time. Matthew Stafford almost slows down time for himself because he's able to move defenders out of windows with his eyes. He's able to throw sidearm around the pass rush.

He doesn't have to wait for it to clear itself. And then he has an arm that makes up for any time he's late. Like it doesn't matter if he's late because he's going to get the ball there. So he's my honorable performance of the week. But it's really like a lifetime achievement award. I think in future weeks this will be the category where I'm probably pushing back the most being like, oh, give me a break. That guy didn't play that well just because, you know, the hipsters love him and he's on the group, Chad, and everyone's saying, look at this throw. But I don't disagree with the Matthew Stafford one. I mean, here's who he was targeting also in this game. Two, two at well, Colby Parkinson, Demarcus Robinson, Tyler Johnson, Jordan Whittington, and Kyron Williams, the back. And I didn't even mention their offensive. line injuries. I mean, like, if you just pull up the snap counts for this Rams offense and, you know, to show your favorite diehard NFL fan friend the names and be like, what can you

tell me about this player? You're not going to know a lot about these players. And he's still in that game. I mean, I have a hard time separating like the McVeigh staffer thing because I think it's a very fun partnership where it's like, all right, these guys have sort of seen it all and know what they have to do. And hey, it's this week. Here's what we have to work with. Here's who we're playing. But yeah, 16 for 25, 221 yards and a touchdown. It was the eighth best performance of the week in terms of EPA per pass play. And again, when you look at the circumstances and who he's working with,

he's been great so far this season. And you kind of hope the Rams stay relevant because it would kind of suck if they were like 6 and 11, 7 and 10. And this could be, you never know with Stafford at his age and with his injuries. At any point, it could be the last time we see this version of him. And that would kind of stink if he's not playing irrelevant games late into the season. Yeah, it almost looked like that two years ago when he had the back injury and he went out, I think it was like in October or something. We never really saw him for the rest of the year.

It was very concerning that we wouldn't see this level of play from him again. But we have. And honestly, I think he's a better player than he was when they won the Super Bowl. I think he's kind of sharp in his process. He's not making as many mistakes. He's not throwing as many 50-50 balls. That feels like the biggest thing because even that season, I remember doing pods every week. And I'm like, is he going to be able to get through an entire play out?

run without some of those mistakes and interceptions because he likes to take chances. That's part of the fun. But it does feel I don't have numbers, but anecdotally, like there are fewer and fewer of those throws every week. And I think, like, his degree of difficulty is a little bit harder. Beyond the personnel, the personnel obviously makes things harder because he doesn't have the offensive line. He doesn't have the receivers right now.

But the play calling is also harder. Like, Sean McVeigh doesn't have the offensive line to get under center and run outside zone over and over and over again and then call a bunch of play action passes, which make things easier on the quarterback, they're playing basically the equivalent of ISO ball in the NBA. Like, they're lining up, Stafford's getting in the gun, and they're just dropping back and pass, and he's reading it out. So it's a real high-level degree of difficulty, and he's making it look so easy. Like, you watch that game on Sunday, and you're not thinking, oh, my God, this guy has no help around him, even though that is the case. Any other quarterback, I think,

melts under that sort of environment, and he did it. He just, you know, he just kept chugging along. And it wasn't like he was getting a ton of scheme help. Like a lot of the time she had to go to the second and third read in his progression and move in the pocket and move around the pressure to make something happen. And he did almost every time he needed to. Yeah. Well, one of the most impressive wins, and not only the weekend, but probably the first three weeks, I mean, they have been an 11 personnel team.

They hadn't played a snap of 12 personnel the first two weeks of the season. And then this game, because of the injuries, they played 12 personnel like 40% of the time. And again, they still put together, in your words, in honorable. offensive performance and they come out and they win the game and they kind of keep their season alive. I know it's only week three, but oh and three with the injuries they've had in the margin of error being that slim and what you're probably getting from that defense on a week to week basis, it would have been a tough hole to dig out of. All right, I think this worked well. Yeah, now that I know what it is, I feel like in future weeks I'm going to, you know, come armed and

we'll get into it a little bit with some more arguments. I probably agreed too much a little bit with the ones today, but I wasn't, I still getting a feel for the actual. premise of the exercise. I'll give me more to work with going forward. I'm going to tap into my hipster friend. Jane and Daniels. I'm still thinking about the Jane and Daniels one. I'm like, oh, my good.

What? Seriously? I said I cheated on that one. I didn't say it was the tape that was worse than it looked. I said it was the most misleading. Just because I think, like, my whole thing is if I've seen a quarterback succeed in that way before, my opinion isn't changing on him. It's just, you know, strengthened a little bit.

All right. There you go. We'll finish on that note. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to Nora Prince. I appreciate Troy Farkas producing this show. Additional production and supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ram Gapal. Ruiz will be back with me and Deonté Lee later in the week. These weeks just fly by.

It's like, yeah, we preview in week four. It's like week three just ended. We're ready to preview week four. Big storylines, picks, all that fun stuff. So stay tuned for that. And check us out on YouTube at Ringer NFL. All right. We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show.

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