The Ringer NFL Show - Which Teams Can Win the Super Bowl?

Episode Date: November 10, 2021

Kevin is joined by PFF’s Diante Lee and The Ringer’s Steven Ruiz to discuss the current Super Bowl contenders from each division and pick their Super Bowl winners. Host: Kevin Clark  Guests: Steven Ruiz and Diante Lee Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, this is Warren Sharp, NFL analyst over at Sharp Football Analysis. I want to welcome you to The Ringer Gambling Show. Join me on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays each week during the NFL season with guests Chris Vernon, Ben Solac, and Joe House to guide you through the NFL betting landscape. We'll be talking spreads, game totals, parlays, player props, futures, and much, much more. Be sure to follow the Ringer Gambling Show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringer NFL show. podcast network. I'm Kevin Carr, joined

today by two of the smarter people in football. It is my colleague, Stephen Ruey, Stephen, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing good. And making his Ringer podcast debut, Pro Football Focuses Deonté Lee. Deonté, what's going on? Thank you for having me. I've told Stephen a bunch of times it has been my goal

to conquer all of the group chats podcast, so I'm glad I can finally check this one off. I didn't know that. I independently invited you for a couple of reasons. Number one is you got on my radar last year. I mentioned you on the Bill Smith podcast in February because I think you wrote the best breakdown of Todd Bulls and Wendy to the Patrick Mahomes last year, the day after I think, and I was doing my research for that

pod and I came across it and I thought it was awesome. And then your pod work in the months following that with Seth Belina, who we've had on a couple weeks ago, who is a friend of the show, has been extraordinary. And I think that you are one of the people who in the last year has impressed me more than basically anybody who wasn't on my radar this time last year. And I think the ability to break down complicated things in a simple way is really, really hard to do. It's really easy to talk about leverage. It's harder to explain kind of what that means to someone who doesn't watch the NFL more than three hours every Sunday. So I usually impressed me and you're much better than Stephen Ruiz, is what I would say.

That's fair. Can I take like 0.05% of the credit for Deontay writing more? Because I was part of the effort to bully him into writing more. And it's bigger than 0.05%. It was like, I appreciate. A lot of separate DMs saying, you can get off your ass. I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to go ahead and not give Stephen any credit. All right.

So let's, we're doing the question we're going to answer today is how many teams going to the Super Bowl? And we do this about twice a year. We do it before the season. Danny Kelly is no longer invited on this show because he named like 20 teams before the year. You can't do that. You can't be, you can't give me the Falcons. You can't do it.

Okay. and it's an exercise that I think is important because we kind of understand not just who the contenders are, but why they're the contenders and also who has the highest ceiling. I mean, like, there are teams right now who can make the playoffs but have no shot of winning the Super Bowl. There are teams right now who are not in line to make the playoffs but can make the Super Bowl. And that's why I think it's so interesting. Let's get numbers first. Stephen, how many teams do you have winning the Super Bowl?

I'm maxing out at five. Wow. Should I name them? Not yet, not yet. Deonté, what about you? So, not too differently from Stephen. I actually broke mine up into tears. I have five that I think that can really...

You're broken into tears. My kind of guy. I think that there are five teams that are serious, serious contenders, and then there are another three below them that I think you can make a legitimate argument for having a pathway to winning a Super Bowl. So I've got eight in total, and then, you know, I think we'll kind of get into it.

There's a lot of kind of weirdness within these tiers because a lot of these teams are in the same conference. Sure. The answer is 11. F.I. The answer is 11. And Stephen, I can't wait to debate you about this. You're basically, you're Danny Kelly. You're the Danny Kelly of this episode. I'm the Danny Kelly

of this episode, yeah, but I'm still, I have still far fewer. I mean, listen, if we invited Danny Kelly on and he's busy writing great stuff, he's busy with his fantasy football podcast, which is great, he would name all 32 teams. He would have expanded it. He would have watched nine weeks of football and expanded it. All right, so let's

it into it. Let's do it by division. And I think that's the easiest way to go here and that way we don't miss anybody from there. Okay. The AFC East. Steven, give me your team. Team or teams? I have the bills. They're my fifth team.

Okay. And I... Okay. I don't know. I feel like everyone just you know, kind of took this team being an elite team for granted, just based on that the first two months of the season when they haven't played anyone. but if you watch this team and you watch the film, like the offense is shaky in ways that are concerning to me. Like Josh Allen has seen the regression that we expected.

We all expected regression. We didn't expect him to do what he did last year. But his regression has come in the weirdest areas. Like he's worse in a clean pocket this year that he was compared to last year. Way worse. And he's actually better under pressure, which doesn't make any sense. But when you watch him, it kind of does make sense

because he looks like 2019 Josh Allen in some areas. And one of those areas is his footwork, his accuracy. I don't think it's as bad as it was when he was coming out of Wyoming, but it's certainly regressed. Because last year he was one of the most accurate quarterbacks in the league. And maybe we should have realized, hey, this guy hasn't been accurate in his whole life. Maybe this one year was a fluke. And maybe this isn't going to happen going forward.

And so far this season, he looks more like the Josh Allen we saw before 2020. Deonti. My AFC's team is also, yeah, it's one team and it's just a. Buffalo bills. And I think that, you know, Stephen kind of honing in on the Josh Allen discourse is what's interesting to me because I do think that they have a pathway to being a Super Bowl contending team, but it's not going to be because of Josh Allen, in my opinion. It's going to be because of what they have in their secondary and the fact that they've

been able to generate some kind of pass rush defensively. The last few weeks, I think that they've done a lot to get their young rushers and Apenesa and Greg Russo involved. That's helped Jerry Hughes a lot. And then I think that they probably have the best starting five of defensive backs in the NFL so far this year between Hyde, Foyer, Trey White, Johnson, and Levi Wallace. It's one of the best combinations of skill sets and what they do from a scheme perspective is also really impressive to me. So if they're going to be a contending team, it's actually probably not going to be because of Josh Allen. And if they're not, it's probably going to be because Josh Allen does something to lose them games that they can win.

Okay, let's fight. I have the bills. I also have the New England Patriots. Oh, man. So there's a couple things here. Number one, just baseline. They're 10th in offense and fourth in defense in terms of points. Okay.

That just the most basic kind of rudimentary point, they're good on both sides of the ball. Okay, I know that's basic and all that stuff, but I just wanted to get that out. But I want to go a little deeper here. So the number of games that are one-score games, I think it's higher than ever. The number of games where there's been a lead change in the fourth quarter, I think, is higher than ever.

You're looking at historic stats as far as what happens in the last two minutes of games. It's situational football league. Like this is, if there's ever been a situational football league, it's been 2021 season. Teams are so bunched up together. There are not a bunch of elite teams in either conference, frankly. Everybody has flaws. Who is the king? of situational football.

Who's the guy on January 13th that you do not want to see with six minutes to God? Remember talking, I talked to Johnny Stramson, about this actually yesterday on this New York, New York pod, but I remember, and everybody said, everybody, you think, and Deontay, you do coaching, so you know this. Everyone thinks it's a given that everybody practices situational football and all that stuff. It's actually pretty rare to be able to master that stuff and install that stuff. Everyone, there's a lot of teams where they're just trying to keep their head above water,

and they're not really doing the third and fourth layer of situation of football. when you talk to guys in the Patriots, it is a different class. It is a different class of situational football, and that's why they're so good at this stuff. That's why they always know what to do with 40 seconds off. That's why they make very few game planning mistakes. I understand Tom Brady's not there. But Bill Belichick is still one of the top 10 biggest advantages you can have in the sport. And so that's why I think when you have talent on both sides of the ball, and they do, when we have Bill Belichick, there's at least a chance.

This is about pathways. and I think there's a pathway. Stephen Rouris. Yeah, I agree with most of what you say. The problem is... Just to be clear, just to be clear, the bills, I had the bills as a much higher percentage chance

in the Patriots. I'm just saying the Patriots, there's a path. And I do think Belichick has kind of been underrated in the last two years, and it's... He has been.

Like, people were talking about how he was a fraud. And I think it speaks to what you're talking about with situational football. It's so hard to, really evaluate the Brady Belichick discourse through raw numbers, like looking at

the Patriots defensive ranks through the years because Belichick is obviously a defensive guy. I don't think Belichick cares. When he says stats are for losers, I think he actually means it and it makes a lot of sense. He's trying to get into situational situation. That's too many situations. But you know what I'm saying.

He runs like a bend, don't break defense when he has to, because he just wants to get to the red zone. He knows he's coached guys up to win in those situations. same on third down, same in all the different types of situations. And I think that having that in the playoffs is going to be valuable. My problem is Mac Jones. And I know he's looked fine.

He hasn't made mistakes. He's been good in the ways we expected him to be good. But when you watch that film, the man hasn't made a play in like a month. And he only made like one or two plays in the first month. If you look at just completions, he has the third most failed completions. Those are plays that result in negative EPA in the league. He's completing a lot of passes, but a lot of these passes aren't actually helping the offense.

When you look at successful completions, him and Trevor Lawrence are basically neck and neck. And no one's thinking Trevor Lawrence can lead the Jaguars through Super Bowl. It's the most important position, and they have a rookie at it. I just don't see how this ends in the Super Bowl. Deontiate thoughts? So my thing with the Patriots is I would not put them in the same class of them having a legitimate pathway. but if you want to talk about like the ultimate coaching platitude team, like that's the Patriots, the team you don't want to see late in the season.

Like this is the exact kind of team that would play a team like the bill that's probably more talented and should win, but they win all the situational stuff. They have the good third down defense day. They're able to run the ball on a team like this. So they're one of those sleeper picks to we may look up and say, hey, how are they in the division around? How are they in the conference championship game? Because they went on the road and beat teams that we thought were better than

them, but I don't see a pathway because of Mac Jones. While he's been fine for a rookie quarterback, I don't think that what we've seen from him is enough to say, that's a guy who's going to win in late January. And here's, that's not who he is. And here's one thing about the situational aspect of it. If you look at Matt Jones' red zone numbers, which I think is where the arm strength stuff comes up because you need to pierce tight windows down there, you need to throw the hell out of the ball.

They are very bad. He's not good in the red zone. And if you look at him against man coverage, where you also need that. arm strength to be tight coverage. He's also very bad at that. It's really just been zone coverage that he's killed. I think at the playoffs, you're going to see a lot more man coverage because you're playing talented teams that have the players to play that kind of coverage.

That's an interesting point. It's a great point. I just think that they have, all you knew for me to buy into the Patriots stuffing of path is the pieces. And I just think the pieces of there. And I think that's why I know it's almost cliche at this point because I used to say, I used to joke on this podcast, matter what happened, the Patriot's going to the Super Bowl, well, guess what happened after that?

They would win the Super Bowl or they would get to the Super Bowl. And everybody would get mad at me and they go, oh, Clark is always talking about the Patriots. Or blah, blah, blah, yeah, cool. And then they would win the Super Bowl. So, cool, that's why I used to talk about them. If you just keep making the Super Bowl win and Super Bowl, I'll talk about you like that too. You're a franchise. Like, that's my advice to you. Do that.

All right. AFC North. This one to me is pretty interesting. Deontay? AFC North for me, this is probably the tightest in terms of that I think aren't real, real contenders yet, but again, you can make the argument. And the two teams I have are the Ravens and the Browns. The Ravens, I think, because of their quarterback, you can make the argument. It should be in the legit contender kind of tier.

But what this defense has not been in comparison to what we are used to seeing from a Wink Martindale defense is kind of, you know, set up a red flag for me. And it's a lot of just their blitz is crapping out. Like, they're able to get a lot of pressure. their top five and getting QB hits and, you know, being able to scheme up unblocked pressure, but they can't cover. And that's where all those injuries that they've had in their defensive backfield has really kind of come to roost.

You know, so they're only allowing, they're allowing less than 60% of completions, but over half of those completions are going for personalers or touchdowns. And they're giving up a ton of explosive plays. And what I'm seeing from them is a lot of teams just match protecting and taking shots because what you don't want to do against that defense, because they're always pressing and playing man, is trying to force a wall into tight windows. They can take that away all day.

But if you leave everybody in a protect and you take those shots down the field, they're just absolutely torching teams with that. And I think that they're going to end up in a situation like the bills, and I'm sure we'll get to the Chiefs as well later on where you're asking your quarterback to do everything for your offense.

And that to me, again, it's just not a recipe for being a true contending team right now. The Ravens are not a top 20 defense. And I kind of think because they're the Ravens and because they have linked Martindale and they've got the pieces that they've had in the past, I think we just assume they have an elite defense. They don't.

Lamar Jackson, and his improvement is carrying this team right now. And that's the reason that they're six and two, frankly. And you made the point about how they're able to scheme up stuff, but they can't cover. I think this Ravens team can win the Super Bowl. I'm completely in on them. In fact, I mean, if you just look at the flaws in the AFC, I might actually put them with the highest percentage to win the AFC. I'm not sure yet. That's not what this exercise is, but I love this Ravens team.

Actually, let's get to Stephen. Do you have the same teams? I don't have the brown. I don't have the brown. either. Okay. So Deontze, I'm sorry, Deontay, give us your Browns take and then you can argue Steve. So the Browns to me, it all comes down to is Baker going to be the guy who was last Sunday or is he going to be the guy who's been over the course of this season and oftentimes what's his help you see? Right. Like, that's what it comes down to. They have every other piece you could

possibly ask for to be a contending team. They have a dominant, one of the most ridiculously dominant run games in the league. They have maybe my favorite back in Nick Chubb in the league. And they have all the pieces defensively to do what they want. want to do, which is play a bunch of man and just rush forward. You can't ask for much better. In terms of a recipe, we have seen that exact recipe when Super Bowl is year over, year over year, or at least contend. But it all comes down to their quarterback having to grow up and make big boy

throws in those key situations. Because what's going to happen is teams are going to just start loading the box and playing man. And that's when he's got to be able to beat teams with his arm. And I just have concerns about what that looks like. I haven't seen enough of it yet to say that he will be the reason why they win. but he would definitely be the reason that they don't. Cool.

Stephen, your thoughts on that? I feel like we'd save a lot of time and energy on this Baker-Mayfield debate. And I'm going to pull a film guy card. If we just watch the games. Like even on Sunday, and Baker played well, and after the game,

people were like, oh, Baker's back, O'Dell's gone. Like, look at the game script on Sunday. It was set up perfectly for Baker-Mayfield. These are the type of games. We already know he could play well. This proves nothing to me. This doesn't change my take on Baker Mayfield.

When he can't lead on the run game, when he's not gifted a big lead because turnovers by the other team, can he be a dropback passer? And there's no evidence on his film from 2018 to 2021 that he can be. And you have to be that type of quarterback in the playoffs. I just don't see it with him. And even in his good games, in his good games when he's like playing well in that straight dropback game,

you could still see the weaknesses. Like he still panics in the pocket. If his first reeds not open, his feet just start pitter-pattering all over the place. And that's why he's so inaccurate when he's going to his second and third breeds. That's a big reason why he had to disconnect with O'Dell Beckham. Until Baker takes that next step, and I don't know if it's ever going to come,

I just can't put the Browns in that conversation. Because the defense, while it's very good and it has the pieces to be even better than it has been, I don't see it as being that elite, you know, 2015 Broncos type defense, which I think it has to be with what the offense is and how inconsistent it's been. I completely agree. I want to go back to the Ravens here for a second. And so for me, by the way, I'll actually quickly address this Brown saying. When a quarterback is a partially torn labor room and we don't know how that's going to progress over the season and that's the biggest question mark and Baker was already the biggest question mark. I love this Brownston. I love

this organization. I love S defansky. I love the defense. I love Nick Chub as we talk. talked about, I love everything about this team. But when your question mark was already the quarterback, and then the quarterback has one of the toughest injuries to play with anywhere, like that to me is limiting. That to me lowers your ceiling so much. With Lamar, I want to quickly talk about its improvement because I think that, I think Trent Dilper was on, Rissillo on Monday and was talking about this. And I think it doesn't get enough attention. is how much he, everyone keeps talking about, okay, before the season we had the incredibly dumb narrative

of the league is figured out Lamar, or that he can't do this and he can't do that and he can't do this and he can't do that. And what keeps happening is that keeps being true and then Lamar keeps getting better and answering those questions. I'm intrigued to see what happens next off season when we have all this data

that shows you on right now on intermediate passes, okay, Lamar Jackson, to the left side of the field intermediate, at 75% completion percentage. Over the middle of the field, intermediate, 71% completion percentage, 81% on the right side of the field. That's a small sample size, it's 9 of 11.

But he is absolutely finding holes in defenses. He's making those throws that people said he couldn't make. That to me is why I think the Ravens are probably going to be the AFC Super Bowl participant. That's just my take. All right, let's get to the AFC South. Deontae? AFC South for me,

I don't know if I have it. team. It's okay if you don't. Don't do it. No, Stephen knows that I'm not going to do that. I don't know why I mentioned it. It would be the team we'd all think it would be if they actually had their best player.

And the Titans and the team that I would have had as contenders, and I have them as, I have them my fake good tier. And it has a bunch of asteris just because they don't have Derek Henry. I would have probably not made the argument that they were contenders anyways, even with them. But without them, they definitely, they don't have enough offense without him. I think to be able to win. And their defense definitely is not always going to be what it was against Sunday night.

Now, for telling me, you're going to get essentially two pick sixes in, you know, a minute and a half's time, you know, then of course, any team from one of those circumstances, but I don't see it. I would not be surprised if they kind of bottom out over the next month because they have a tough schedule. And then we may see them barely scraping into the wild card and then getting bounced from there. You know who's a tough, you know who had a tough schedule the last four weeks?

the Tennessee Titans. Now, it's not going forward to H. I'm on top schedule. They just beat the Rams, the Colts, the Chiefs, and the Bills. Before that, the Jaguars, the Red Hot Jaguars. And I think that they're, I think they're 7 and 2.

The defense is getting better. They've held their opponents under 350 yards the past three weeks. I think you have to include them on a list of teams they've won the Super Bowl. And I actually think, I have huge respect for Derek Henry, but if they just start airing it out,

kind of like what Stephen when we've talked about Ben Solac, if they actually, instead of saying let's sign Adrian Peterson and try to replicate Derek Henry, if they become a past first team, that could actually help them a little bit fill up that gap easier without Henry. So they're on my list.

Stephen, where are you in the Titans? I don't have them on my list of teams that can win the Super Bowl. I don't think I had them on there with Henry, but here's bulletin for material. Here's my concern with the Derek Henry list, Titans offense.

It's really my concern with Ryan Tannehill, who I think is a French top 10 quarterback. I think he's good. I think we could say he's good. And the last two years haven't been a fluke. He's been aided by the scheme and Derek Henry and whatever, but he's a good quarterback. His issue is when the picture changes right after the snap, I think he's always a beat or too late. And that's what is holding him back from being a truly elite quarterback, being the type of quarterback who produces top five EPA numbers every year. and the problem with Henry being gone is teams don't have to load up the box.

They don't have to, you know, defend the run first and foremost against them. And they can do more of that disguise stuff. They can do more exotic fronts. They can do more blitzes. They can, you know, rotate their safeties. And I think you're going to see Tanna Hill make a few more mistakes than he has in the past. And that will be the difference with a defense that I think can dominate a game if the defensive line dominates the game.

But against teams that have the offensive line that can handle that type of pressure, I think that secondary is going to get exploited. And that's going to happen in the place because you're playing the best teams in the week. I just think that saying the Titans, excluded the Titans from this list, just positions the AFC to be a better conference and it actually is.

I think the AFC is an incredibly flawed, incomplete conference that any team that A is in the playoffs has at least a chance, as long as it's not a complete tire fire, you don't have an injured quarterback. But then B, I just, this is going to be, if Jeffrey Simmons,

takes over two games in January, that's enough to win. One great, if you do one thing great in January in this conference, you can get somewhere is just my take on just the entire AFC in general. That's why my list is a little longer than yours. I think that's true right now, but like in two months, I think that might be a little different. I'm assuming that the chiefs are good. But, but, okay, you guys, okay, whoa, wait.

So, I'm sorry, go ahead. We could table that discussion for when we talk about. Yeah, no, no, there's the reason I stop you. Yeah, because you were about to step on the toes of our next division here. The AFC West. So it's interesting, Stephen, you said you're assuming things will look different in two months because there are two teams in this division who have the capability to change the entire narrative around the AFC.

I'll start with you, Deonti. Who's on your list from this division? I don't really have a contender right now, but that also has an asterisk. And it's just Kansas City. Like for all the issues that they've had defensively, I still think that this offense is going to be able to bail them out more times than not. I'm really not comfortable eliminating them from contention yet. And I think that once I think things kind of regress a little bit for this

office, because they've had some awful turnover luck throughout the year. I think their offensive line has been better than I think it's gotten some credit for. They do have some issues just because of how young they are, but I do think they've played relatively well. And at the end of the day, like, all this, all they're missing is just getting back to those explosive plays. And I, I'm, again, I'm just not comfortable saying that defenses have solved keeping all of these four three running wide receivers and the most talented arm that we have in the NFL from generating explosive plays. I just think that they maybe need to adjust their approach a little bit.

Not the chargers. Not the chargers. No. I don't think that they do enough. It's another case of a quarterback being asked to do more than he should. And I love Justin Herbert. and I think that he's plenty capable. Like, none of the data would tell you that he's struggling with what they're asking him to do.

But I think that they just lose control of the flow of the game too often. Like, that's what I, you should not be struggling going to the end of games with a team like Philadelphia, if you're a contending team. And a lot of that is the inability to control the game up front. They don't have the kind of play in the trenches they need offensively or defensively in order to run the football to set up like play action and get, you know, these manufactured open down to. throws that you would see for a quarterback like a Baker Mayfield.

I think that they're asking Herbert to do a little bit too much of creating offense with his arm, and they don't necessarily have these burner receivers either. There are just moments in games where it seems like they have to work entirely too hard for as talented as they are offensively to be able to generate yardage. And then this run defense for them has been an issue all year. And I can't imagine that a defense that struggles to stop the run like this can actually contend in January. Ruiz, AFC West.

Yeah, I don't have the charges on there. And it's for all the reasons that Deontes just laid out. Okay. And if you watch their games and you watch their losses, it's basically they win when Justin Herbert is perfect. And they lose. And I'm not exaggerating when I say perfect. Like, go watch Sunday's film.

That's the best quarterback in the world right now. I don't care what anyone else says. And when he's not perfect, they lose. Like, that's the split. And it's because Joe Lombardi, like, why does Joe Lombardi? like why does Joe Lombardi get a chance? Oh, we'll get to that in a second. We'll get that in a second, but can't he be perfect three games in a row?

Is it capable? I mean, if we're talking, if it's an argument of capability, yeah, he's capable. But again, like, and this is something that Seth and I talk about all the time in the podcast. It's like degree of difficulty. Are we always going to have to ask our quarterback to have to be perfect? Like, does everything have to look like last Sunday? Especially as you start playing more good teams later in the year and the summer. stakes get higher later in the year because all we're going to see from them are more

team that just run the ball right at them over and over and over again and shrink the game and force Herbert to have to be perfect because there aren't even going to be enough opportunities for them to have a margin for error. And I just don't think they have enough margin for error to be considered contenders right now. What do we usually say when like a quarterback that we know is talent, a young quarterback is struggling? We're usually like, oh, the office coordinator isn't doing the right things for him. Like this isn't the right type of offense.

You could say all those things about Justin Herbert and the Chargers offense. the thing is he's still really freaking good. He's overcome this offense that is not built for me. It's built for weak-armed Drew Brees, quite frankly. Like, they don't take deep shots down the field. They take, their deep shots are like a 15-yard deep out. Right. And Justin Herbert can complete those passes because he's a free.

The good news is Lombardi as an O.C. has had Matthew Stafford and Justin Herbert and has tried to put him in this offense. It's amazing. What a genius. I love pointing out. the fact that Joe Lombardi got ran out of Detroit, and he was replaced by Jim Bob Cooter,

whose name is Jim Bob Cooter. And the thing is, for that, like, first two months of Jim Bob Cooter's time as Lions O'C., like everyone hailed him as, like, some genius. That was great. And it's really just, he was, like, better than Joe Lombardt. And now we're getting it again.

So what I'm saying is Chargers hired Jim Bob Cooter. Deontate, my point about the Chargers is that, I agree with you about the quarterback playing perfect and how that's not a strategy. That's my whole thing. No one ever wins a Super Bowl or wins consistently because they drafts the great quarterback. That's the start, right?

That's not the end. That's the start. And then you figure out what to do with that quarterback. You build around him. You get the OC, you get the play calling. You maximize. You get him a protection. You follow the kind of the Josh Allen method

that I wrote about a couple months ago where it's okay, this is in stages, right? You maximize it. That's the whole whole thing about rookie quarterbacks. But that doesn't preclude the Chargers from getting lucky and having an elite quarterback play elite for three straight weeks, right? And that's the path we've seen in the past from some of these teams that get hot in January. So I think that it's, it can, both things can be true.

The Chargers are not maximizing Justin Herbert, but Justin Herbert is good enough to erase some of those mistakes in January with a few hot games in a row. That's just my take on the Chargers. I think that's fair. Again, you can sell me on the argument and it's not like, you know, there are two games back at the division. I mean, basically all those teams are all standing on top of each other right now.

So I can see a hot month and they end up leading the division. But in terms of like trying to stretch that out and looking at what they would look like against a team like the bill, we've seen what they look like against the Ravens. I don't have enough data to go off of and I don't have enough film to go off of to make me think that if they play the Ravens again in a divisional game, that it will look anything different at all from what it looked like when they played the last time. the charges and the chiefs in this division are the only two teams with the negative point differential. Really amazing.

Steven, you wanted to make a chief's point? Yeah, I think the problem, and I wrote about this today, there's two problems. One, I do think teams are doing a better job of taking away those crossing routes by Tyree Kiel. That was like what the whole passing game was built around the last couple of years.

I had the numbers, but I lost them. But, like, plays where there's a crossing route, their EPA is down by, like, 0.25. It's like down to zero. It was like 0.3 last year. Now it's like down to zero. So teams are doing that. They're taking away those plays.

And then Travis Kelsey, I think he might be on a, on washed watch. Oh. Okay. Teams are holding that. They are holding the shit out of them. I will say that. Okay. But he cannot beat man coverage this year.

I will say it's nothing like how it was last season. Yeah, last season. He can run that little option route that they run when they put him on the backside of trips. And he was getting open every single time. And if he wasn't getting open, it was because they were doubling him, and Tyreek over the top was open. Now they're taking over that route over the top, they're taking away the option route by Kelsey, and they don't have another receiver that can win. So if they sign Odell Beckham, which apparently that's one of the finalists to get him,

I think that changes a lot for this team. And we could see the 2018 version of this offense, which I think was the most explosive version. Yeah, I will say the Kelsey point is actually really interesting one, and it's something I've noticed, especially, in contrast to what it looked like last year. Because last season, what I was basically saying is that they had two top five wide receivers, not a top five wide receiver and a top five tight in. They had two top five wide receivers because of what Kelsey could do when he was split out

as a single receiver in winning a one-on-one coverage situation. And that's just not there. And when you have teams that are basically bracketing Tyree Killers across the field, and you also can't get your all-world, what's supposed to be your all-world tight-in open underneath, they don't have another change up off of that. The entire offense is built off of creating conflict on those things, and everything else for them was basically like RPO's or Mahomes having to extend and find one of those

twitchy-wide receivers give down the field. They haven't had anything else to build off of that. And Seth Galena made a good point in his article about the Chiefs this week. Seth Galena, who quite famously said Justin Herbert can't play football. So you know he knows what's wrong about. It sounds like you guys are saying that too. You don't have the chargers on your list. I don't know.

You got you and Seth, you guys are all in the same boat in my mind. Herbert guys. This was the, they did not split, isolate him on the backside of trips this last game. So maybe the chief coaches are starting to realize they don't have that chess piece they used to have.

That might be an acknowledgement that, you know, maybe Kelsey's not what he used to be. Maybe he's just her. Who knows? True. And if they are able to get Odell, then that to me,

that opens up a whole different conversation about what this offense can do to fix itself. Steven, you started to make a point a couple of minutes ago, and I wanted to get everything in before you made it, which is that you think in two months, the AFC is going to look a little different one month or whatever. Who's the team you think is going to, when we're entering January 3rd or whatever? Who's the team you think is going to be the favorite? I'm sticking with the cheese.

It's like you with the Patriots. Like, I'm going to stick with them until they're eliminated. Like, it could be week 18 and they could be 5 and 11 or whatever. Yeah. And I'm still picking them to win the Super Bowl. I don't care. Well, the seventh season is. You know, five wins might get you the seven season.

I don't know. Right. I haven't looked into it. So no one, by the way, I just want to go on record. No one had any thoughts about the Raiders or the Broncos, right? Certainly not. They're not one. No, none of those scenes.

It was kind of. Just checking because. Did you see Vic Fangio after the Cowboys game say like, oh, yeah, nobody knew how to play the Cowboys. That's why they were doing so well. All they did was play cover one. They just played man. There's not even like they didn't.

Exactly. And a lot of that was just like Dallas having like their worst day on third down on offense and defense that they've had all year. Like if you're going to tell me that you're going to run up the score because they can't catch all of a sudden. Okay. You heard it here first. You heard it here first. Vangio's a fraud. I was actually going to say we've really made, we do a leap show every year when we talk about who's making the leap as far as, oh, this guy got better at passing.

This guy, you know, this guy became a late running back. Vic Fangio shit talker is not somebody I expected to make the leap. between this and his feud with Harbaugh. Like, I kind of, this is a new Vic fan year. Yeah, like, he's like, like his job is under fire. So I don't think he cares at this point. He's going to be at D.C. somewhere.

He's going to crush next year. He's going to win a Super Bowl. So I do have one last AFC question of opposed to you, Kevin, and please. So of the five teams that I would say are probably on that dividing line in the AFC between like the bills, the Browns, the Titans, the Colts, and then the Patriots I'll throw in for kind of. How would you rank those?

as far as the teams that have the closest pathways from the Super Bowl. The Colts are out. The Colts are out. I would say so as well. It's the, I think the bills are number one for me. So what,

repeat the, so you went, you had Bill's Browns, Colts. Bill's Browns, Colts, Titans and Patriots. Wait, let's, let's remove the bills from that. Because I feel like they are kind of been.

So the Browns, Colts, Titans, and Patriots. I would go, Titans, Patriots, Browns, and then the Colts eliminated. Colch is out. Stephen?

I think I would go Browns first than Patriots. I would probably say the Browns are up top as well. But I don't, I think that they're interchangeable. I don't have to take any issue

with Kevin's rankings. All right. NFC. Even All right, NFC, NFC East, Stephen. I'm sticking with the Cowboys.

Yeah. I think Dak Press dot is playing like an elite quarterback. Dan Quinn has that defense playing in over its head. I don't think this is going to be sustainable. Trayvon Diggs is not going to intercept a pass every week. But it's playing like Dan Quinn defense. He hasn't not intercepted a pass every week. That's a good point.

But Dancuin has a plane. Trust the science, Stephen. Sorry, I'm not a stat nerd. But yeah, I think Dan Quinn has the defense playing like Dan Quinn defense is supposed to work. Like this looks like the Falcons defense down the stretch of that 2016 season. They're playing fast. They're creating havoc. And when you have that with this offense that typically Sunday notwithstanding has answers for any type of way you want to play them,

I think that's perfect for the playoffs where it really comes down to week-to-week game plan and how you match up with other teams. They can match up with any team. And I think that defense matches up with any team. I don't know if their defense is going to be dominant and hold a team under like 20 points, but they won't have to. If they can just create one or two turnovers, the offense can do the rest. It's kind of like that 2010 Saints team that had, I think the defense was okay, but they just created a bunch of havoc, and that helped them win a Super Bowl,

because obviously the offense was great. Do youante, I take it this is the one team division for you? Yeah, and it's not even close. And sneakily, and I can't believe I'm saying this, and Ben Solac is absolutely going to excommunicate me as an Eagles fan, but I actually think Cowboys might be my Super Bowl pick out of the NFC this year. You know Mike McCarthy's still the coacher. I know.

In my mind, I'm saying that Dan Quinn and Kellynne Moore are actually coaches, and Mike McCarthy is just the guy who's signing paychecks and shaking hands in the locker room. But to me, a lot of it does come down to Dak Prescott, like I was saying earlier, with the Broncos game. If what is required to dominate them and them having the worst third down performance of their year, essentially, on offense and defense,

then I'm really confident about who they are as a team. We'll see about the status of Blake Jarwin as a tight end, and I think that what they've done with their tight ends is the reason why I like what they are offensively so much because they can get into these heavier personnel packages and be a downhill run team. Then they can spread you out, and they've got two legitimate number one wide receivers

and C.D. Lamb and Amari Cooper. They're able to get explosive plays out of the run game and past game. And like Stephen was saying about the defense, they've been able to look a lot like those Atlanta teams where it's all about pass rush and then playing tight coverage. And they've been doing that as well as anybody in the league. The turnover luck is one thing, but it does seem sustainable because they're not allowing a lot of open targets.

They're not giving up a bunch of explosive plays down the field. The run defense is the run defense, but I don't think that they're concerned about that because they know they can score. You know, I think that there are, approach to defense is, hey, we're getting, on most days, 24 to 28 points from our office. All we've got to do is take the ball away when teams pass and get after the quarterback. And they've been doing that well. And they're still waiting on their best pass rush to get healthy.

All right. So I want to make one more point. I agree with everything you guys have said. I think Dallas has a real good chance to make the Super Bowl. The one thing we're not talking up about is there's only one of the best advantage you can have in January. The best, bar none, statistically, vibes-wise, whatever, there is one massive advantageance to buy. There's only one of those this year for each conference. And if I'm Dallas, I'm feeling real good about playing the Washington football team twice,

the New York Giants again, the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 18. They do play the Cardinals in Week 17, which is a really interesting, could be if... That could be for the one seed. Yes. However, the Cardinals have a lot of good teams to go through because that division is a good team every single week. When Russell Wilson comes back, even that Seahawks team's out of content, and that's a damn good football team.

So I'm thinking about the Cowboys from a bi perspective. That could be really, really important to me. NFC North. NFC. North for me, I'm so, I don't know what to make as a Packers because everything is telling me to like them, and I don't know why I don't want to say

that they have a very clear path to the Super Bowl. And I think it's actually probably just the context of the NFC, like you were saying. one of these teams is going to have to play on the road to get there. And I don't know if, because all of these teams have been so good, I don't know if I can pick a team to have to take a trip on the road in the NFC title game and get to the Super Bowl. And I think that odd team up may be the Packers.

But they have all the elements that you need. You still have a great quarterback. You know, I won't even broach the topic of what has been the last week and a half. Wait, wait, what happened? I don't know. I don't know. I saw a headline. I don't know. I really follow it. Yeah, I saw some headline about him wearing a hoodie that that was promoting.

Yeah, the rise of the Skywalker hoodie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all the news that we've gotten out of green Bay for the last week. He's got non-mainstream views on Star Wars. Yeah, non-mainstream. It's a critical thing. I do think that they have all the elements again. Like, one of the things that's been interesting to me, separating from the offense is how different they've been defensively now with Joe,

Gary. Like the issue they had with Mike Fetton was that they were just they played so small. Teams were just able to bully them defensively so much. And I think this year they've gone like in the entire like a diametric opposite type of way where they're playing huge guys. All our guys up front weigh like 270 or more pounds and they're still able to like crush the pocket and get after the passer. And a lot of that has been because of what Rashona Gary has been this year. I think that that's been a huge developmental fine for them for a guy that was drafted coming off an injury. It wasn't the most productive at Michigan before he got to the league. So that's been a big deal for them. They're still waiting on the Darius Smith to be healthy and available for them.

And hopefully that happens soon. And he's able to be productive because they've got all the pieces up front to be another one of these teams where, and we know we're going to score because he got a great quarterback. We've got a great wired receiver. And they quietly have a really good run game. And all it's about for us is getting after the quarterback. And I like their corners as well between Eric Stokes and Jaira Alexander. So they've got all the pieces. I just don't know if they can go on the road and win a game to get to the suit.

So wait, are they on your list or not? They are on my list. I just don't know. All right. I just want to make sure because you really, you really muddy the waters there. It's a complete coin. That is a one NFC team.

I think that I have is a legit contender that I'm the most unsure about right now. Stephen? I'm going to regret saying this, but I'm leaving them off my list. Even though they have Aaron Rogers, who I still think is one of the, best quarterback.

Oh my goodness. I'm leaving them off my list, though. And my issue is that there's still enough holes in the defense that good offenses will be able to isolate and exploit. And I think a big deal is Jayette Alexander coming back.

I don't know what the timetable is for his injury, but I'm pretty sure. I don't know if he's ever, if he's going to come back. And if he does come back, I don't know if he's going to be 100%. Right. Kevin King is still an issue.

I think second corner, cornerback spot is an issue in general. I think Eric Stokes just got hurt and he was a rookie anyway. But I will say this. The big difference for me, at least in that front is Devonje Campbell, who I think has been one of the underrated pickups this year. It's a lot easier to play defense when you have a linebacker that knows where he's going and can get there in a hurry, which the Packers haven't had in a long, long time. I think that's a big difference. But my issue is the defense is going to get exploited in the playoffs by at least one of these teams in the NFC. Like the Bucks are going to find a way to exploit that defense. The Cowboys are going to find a way to exploit that defense.

And I don't know if they have enough firepower on offense to match those teams. If Odell comes to Green Bay, that changes the discussion. But until that happens, I'm leaving them off my list. I don't think it's fair, actually. I don't think it's fair. I think the Packers are really good. And I think that the Rogers thing, the last couple weeks, kind of separate from, that's separate from what's going to happen in January. they have a lot of top end talent and I think that they have as good a chance as the Cowboys and the Rams and some of the other

pivotal or excuse me pinnacle NFC teams and so yeah go ahead do you think they need that one seat to make the Super Bowl I say 100% I would say they're the one team that I think so too I think so too but I also think that I'm going to favor whoever gets that one seat right so yes I think the NFC has three or four teams

that are really good and any separation from them is going to be pivotal. Any separation between those is going to be pivotal. That means home games. That means the buy. That means injury luck.

And so that's why I put the Packers in that group and then once you're in that group it's just going to come down to what's going on on January 15th. So I don't, they're on my list. They're extremely on my list.

They couldn't be more on my list. I left them off my list because I said five at the beginning of the show if I included them, it would have been six. All right, NFC South. This probably is not much of a debate. Deonti? It's the bucks, and they're honest.

It's the most boring and great team in the NFL. Nobody's even talking about them. Right. I haven't even watched them in like a month. I mean, what is it to say? Tom Brady's still Tom Brady. They still have a really good defense. Like, I don't know what analysis there is to take that we haven't already made.

The only thing that, to me, that's been interesting at all has been the fact that they're kind of a different. different offense in terms of identity. Like they don't run the football anymore, basically. That to me has been interesting. I know that not having drunk at 100% definitely affects that. Antonio, although I don't really understand it because it's not like they have bad

tight ends playing behind them. They just don't use them the same ways. Yeah, Antonio Brown is another factor as well. And they basically turned into, you know, an offense, not exactly like the Rams, but they're a lot like that in terms of the fact that they're playing their whole offense out of one personnel package. really relying on their quarterback to make everything happen for them.

And they just happen to have the greatest quarterback to have lived. But yeah, I mean, it's boring. What do you want me to say? They get after the passer. They stop the run better than basically everybody in the NFL. And they have a great quarterback and a great rider receiver room. They'll be in the conversation. And we can kind of follow this up, I think, at the end of the year and see how close they

are to being like a Super Bowl type of lock team. Bruce Ariens, by the way, St. Antonio Brown is still in a walking group. That was as of yesterday. probably not coming back anytime soon so any changes in the offense. I only get to throw to Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. Yeah, exactly. I'm shedding real tears for Tom Brady.

Hey, Aaron Rogers would complain about that for four months if you only had Chris Godwin of Mike Evans. I'm sorry, I only have Devonte Adams and David Bacchiari and all these guys and a great offensive line. I'm so, they won't do anything to help me. This is my last dance. Stephen, NFC? South. Yeah, the bucks are on.

I totally forgot what I was just about to say but oh I think the one thing is injuries is the one concern because this is a veteran team. It's a lot of old guys who are lying on in key spots. But I also think it's like impossible to discount how important that run defense is although I think we do it because we tend to not care about the run game because you know that passing matters. It's the only thing that matters. Stopping the pass, passing the ball.

But that run defense it's unlike any other run defense in the league right now. Yeah. And it allows them to get to that funky stuff they do on third down because you just can't run on them. You can't pick up easy yards. So you're in second and long and you're in third and long all game long. And I think if you go back and watch those Packers games from last year, that was the main issue. And I don't think anything's changed.

So they're going to give some teams some problems. The one team that I think can compete with them based on talent and scheme is the Cowboys. those are the top two teams for me in the conference because of that. Yeah. We'll have to get to the NSC West here in a second, and we can sort of unpack that. But I will say with the bucks in particular, the fact that the Saints and even the Falcons are just,

I mean, the Saints are 5 and 3, the Falcons are 4 and 4. With the health thing, I don't know how many of their starters they're going to be able to rest in week 16, 17, 18, if the Saints keep winning. That's something to think about. And that's, again,

something to think about when we talk about the Cowboys getting in the buy and all that stuff. There's just factors about divisions that kind of changed the calculus in December that help and hurt different teams. All right, NFC West, Deonti. To me, here, I know.

I know. I'm so much speech for this. It's the rails. That's the one team I'm going to there. Whoa, okay. Okay. All right. I'm going to warn you right now, Deontay. Cardinals fans are angrier than you think. I know. I did not give the,

On Sunday night, on Sunday night, I gave props to Colt McCoy and James Connor for beating the Niners. And I didn't mention the Cardinal defense. I got so many tweets in DM saying, you do not respect the Cardinals defense. And I was like, okay, all right, we're going to be good. We did an entire Cardinals themed episode three weeks ago. You're going to be fine, Arizona. Anyway, make Arizona Cardinals fans mad. So it's not to say that they're not a good team, but this, to me,

just reeks of a team that's a great story in the regular season and then loses the first playoff game that they have like i just can't buy into the defense that's really what it comes down to all of it all of this is it's just so much variance to it they're horrible stopping to run they just want to get a bunch of tFL so they blitz like crazy people and hope that they can just make a tackle in the backfield because if it gets past the line of scrimmage they're in big trouble not having j jay watt hurts a lot because that was basically their only good run defender um this year so now they have to invest even more resources into stopping the run. Their coverage stuff is good.

It's not to say that they don't do anything well defensively. Like they have a lot of athletes and what they have with their linebackers allows them to do a lot of weird stuff coverage-wise that they can get you into obvious passing downs. But everything on first and second down is a big concern for me. And offensively, you know, a lot of this stuff, I don't even know how to categorize what they do on office because so much of it is just, hey, I'm going to call a play and then just give it to Kyler and tell him to figure it out.

along the way. I do think that this past week was probably the best called game that we've seen from Cliff because you actually got to look at what his offense looks like when you don't just have a guy who has to go create it all for himself, basically. So I do think they've made strides. But when it's in comparison to a team like Tampa, a team like the Rams, you know, a team like the Cowboys, I don't see enough of, they don't have enough different ways to win, in my opinion, to be considered a real contender right now. Wow. Stephen? Here's my take on the clip thing.

I understand the criticisms of the passing game. I think some of those were valid, like him not using motion, and keeping D'Andre Hopkins to the same time of the field, every snap. I think that was valid. But they didn't have like a complete receiving court for the first two years. They had Christian Kirk playing outside.

He's a slot receiver. I was playing in the slot. And that's thanks to A.J. Green. And now that they have this complete core, I think you're seeing the passing game. There's a little more volume to it. And there's a little more to it. I think it's better than it has been. And Cliff has one thing he hasn't gotten enough credit for it, is that run game.

Yes. I think it's the most creative run game in the league. I think it's what we all expected Kyle Shanahan's run game to look like this year. If they played Craig Lance, I think it's even better. I believe you tried to demote Cliff Kingsbury to run game coordinator earlier this year. I was wrong. I'm an idiot. I'm taking it back.

I'm allowed to do this. No, don't backtrack, Stephen. Double down. No, I'm backtracking. I think, and I think Cliff, one thing that hasn't really been covered it, I think Cliff is not making the egregious mistakes in terms of game management that he used to make. Big time. And that's a big deal for them because they were losing a lot of close games because of those

coaching decisions. Now they're winning those close games. And then Rodney Hudson's addition to the offensive line, I think that's helped out protections. Their protection system was like college level in the first two years of the Cliff era. now it looks a little more like the pro-level, and they're killing blitzes this year. But I agree with Deonté about the defense.

It is just based on havoc, and then they just lost one of the players that created the most havoc for that team, JJ Watt, who on some snaps, he was just guessing. Like, he was getting in a different gap than he was supposed to be. Like, there was one rep I saw where

there is a defensive tackle in the A-gap, and at the last second, JJ Watchezes goes over, and he's in the A-gap with that defensive tack, and he blows up the play. It works. They, like, gave them the freedom to do that. I think if you're not getting those tackle for losses on early downs, it hurts what they can do on third down. They're not going to be able to send those crazy blitzes.

They're not even sending blitzing on third down. They're sending a lot of simulated pressures. They're blitzing on early downs. They actually blitz more on early downs than they do on third down, which is atypical. Like, you don't see that anywhere else in the week. And I think they're not going to be able to play this way going forward. Interesting.

Okay, real quick on the Rams. Where do you guys put them in kind of the sort of Mount Rushmore up there with the Cowboys and Deontay and I think well with Packers, for instance? And just sort of the top NFC, the Bucks, the top NFC teams, where are the Rams right now for you, Deontay? I would say, I mean, again, this is boring say, but I kind of think it's a four-way tie in a lot of ways. And it's just going to come down to where your position in terms of seeds and then who's matched up with who. The reason why I'm so comfortable with the Cowboys is because of the way they match up with teams like Stephen was describing.

Same with Tampa Bay. Like I'm very comfortable with those teams because I think they can play multiple styles of football. The Rams, I think, are right there. I just, the only concerns I have is what kind of fit them in the ass on Sunday night, which is their interior offensive line and not being able to control the game, getting behind, and then really having to lean so heavily on their passing game.

And that's been a Sean McVay thing for his entire tenure as a head coach, right? Like when they're in control of the flow of the game, they always look like the best team in the NFL. Their defense is always going to be at or near the top in the NFL. You know, we'll see, you know, what they look like once they get Von Miller on the active roster. I think that's going to add another layer to who they are defensively. But, yeah, I mean, it's all going to come down to can Matthew Stafford not have games where as he's being slung around, he throws the ball into the lap of the linebacker. And, you know, do you not throw another pick six right after that?

And then as far as their interior linemen, like, protecting them so that you're not in third and eight, third, and nine where teams can get into these exotic pressure looks and really kind of pick and twist the way the Tennessee did to get after them. That's all it's going to come down to for me. Let Matthew Stafford play his game. If he wants to throw pick six is out of the end zone, you just let him, let him install his system, Deont. Stephen, where are the Rams for you? I'm going to walk back something I said during that. I'm already walking back. I said, I said the Cowboys.

You did not get a mid-pod mulligan. I will. I'm taking it. Okay. Forcing the issue. I think the Rams could also match up with the Bucks. I said the Cowboys were the one team. I think the Rams, Sean McVeigh, he could do it.

The one reason why I'm worried about that potential match and I know the Rams already beat the Bucks this year. If the Bucks secondary gets healthy, I think they have the tools to do what Tennessee did to the Rams on Sunday. I think they have the tools to do what Arizona did when they beat the Rams. I know a lot of people just chalked that up to Stafford missing throws. The reason he was missing throws is he had people in his lap all game long,

and there was a lot of tight coverage by the Farnas. I think the Bucks can replicate that game plan. We saw it in the Super Bowl. When they're at full strength, they're going to be able to do that. So I would put, if I had a tier of them, it would be Bucks Cowboys in that first tier, Rams in that second tier, and those three teams make up the top tier of that NFC. I got tiers within tiers, inception tiers. I love that.

All right, we're out of time very quickly. Deontes, Super Bowl pick. So my NFC representative, like I said, it would be the Dallas Cowboys. My AFC representative would be the Baltimore Raven, and I would probably take the Cowboys to win the Super Bowl in that match up. Steven? Ravens over bucks. Packers over Ravens. Come on, man. Let's go to Marr's Super Bowl.

I almost switched it because, but then I, I picked the Packers before the season. I'm going to stick with it. Packers over Ravens. I'm sticking with mine, too. I'm not happy about picking the Cowboys because I want Lamar to get the MVP championship combination. That would be so great for my narrative. we're just all rooting for our narratives that's all we're doing that's all we're doing uh dante lee i have an agenda dante lee check him out on pro football focus and the too high podcast with set

colina stephen ruis our colleague he'll be back on friday with kaelin jones and then so like it on sunday i'm just going to say this now we got a dm yesterday i got a dm yesterday from a guy who didn't want to put it out there because he was worried it was too joky who said that your segment should be called Rui Lewis and the News. Yeah. I agree with that guy's take that he should have kept it in the DM because that's terrible. And honestly, if I was him, I would resent you for putting that out there. I didn't say his name.

I thought it was pretty funny. No, it's bad. No, it's bad. I mean, it's obviously a terrible, like, pun. But, you know, that's the name of the segment now. You're not stopping 13. reasons why. I don't know why we're trying. Well, I mean,

number 13 doesn't really have anything to do with it. I guess the word Lewis doesn't either. No, yeah, Hugh Lewis has nothing to do with the podcast either. This has been the Bringerenfell Show on the Ringer Podcast Network. Thank you to Stefan Anderson for for construction help with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramkepo. Next up on this, Nora and Mal on Thursday.

I think they're doing some sort of mid-season awards. Can't wait to listen to it. See you on.