The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Week 3 Recap With Chris Long | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

Russillo and two-time Super Bowl champion Chris Long break down Week 3 of the NFL, including the legitimacy of the Bills, the Rams going 3-0, Baker Mayfield’s Sunday, Daniel Jones and the Giants, Antonio Brown’s goodbye, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NFL week three Chris Long Ryan Russillo on the Ryan Russillo podcast from the ringer we have a million things to go over so let's do it maybe even a little story time too as well and as always the podcast is brought to you by our great friends not good we're getting to the great friendship zone now. A Belvedere produced in one of the world's longest running distilleries. Belvedere vodka is the world's finest all natural vodka. Part of a 600 year Polish vodka making tradition. Belvedere is made with 100% Polska rye pure water and no additives.

And look, what can I tell you? They go down smooth. Even if the people that you're around aren't smooth. I know they want me to tell a story. I just don't know if I can tell that story right now. I shared it with Chris earlier. That seems like, let's just put it this way. When somebody says, hey, what do you have?

I go, would you like a Belvedere and soda? And they're like, why don't you put, instead of soda water, use more booze to put in there as a mixer? And I'm like, okay, my man is on one. So remember to always drink responsibly. No calories, though. No calories in that whole concoction. None whatsoever.

Where do you want to start, my man? Do you want to start 3-0 teams? I feel like you're the biggest Colts fan now. I love the Colts, bro. Love them. You do. Love Frank. Love Jac the Colts, bro. Love them. You do! Love Frank. Love Jacoby. T.Y. Hilton.

How do you not love that guy? Mack. Quentin Nelson. Yeah, I'd love to talk. We'll get to them, but yeah, 3-0 is fine. We can start. Let's do the thing where we overreact or pick Super Bowl winners based on who's 3-0.

Okay. Bill's Cowboys. That's my pick. Oh, yeah. You slid that one. My man, Spam Newton. That's what I'm calling Josh Allen now. What's his nickname?

Spam Newton. Why? He's like an offshoot of Cam Newton, but he looks a little different. Okay. The Bills defense right now, I don't know. Is this where we want to start? Do we start Bills? I mean, Bills fans are excited.

They got New England coming in. They're 3-0. If they were a college football team that had a good ranking, we'd say, well, your non-conference was terrible. You played the Jets, the Giants, and Cincinnati. But this was the number two defense in the NFL last year, and they picked it right up. And we can get into the stats that they're not as good as other defenses, but their offense isn't really putting them in great situations. So their defense is actually in an... You could argue they're the best considering the situations they're put in,

but I'm not going to do 30 minutes on the bills. No, nobody wants to hear 30 minutes. I don't even think people in Buffalo want to hear 30 minutes on the bills. But the hype is, I don't know if it's warranted, but it's real. They're going to be throwing elderly people through tables in that parking lot. They're going to be throwing children through tables. They're going to be setting stuff on fire. This is the best thing for viral tailgating videos since ever.

So as long as Josh Allen can keep it going, I don't know if they're relevant in the Super Bowl conversation, but they're going to be a tough out in most weeks they play because of that defense you mentioned. Last year, they were really good at keeping plays in front of them defensively, not spectacular. No ace rusher, although I really like Jerry Hughes, and they spread their production out across the board there.

So interesting team from a tailgating perspective for sure. Okay, so then on the other side, Dallas, are you stronger on what you think about Dallas? Because if we're applying the Buffalo schedule, and all this stuff is the same. For anybody that goes, hey, New England's 3-0, you guys talk them all up, and hey, look at San Francisco, and you go, well, wait a minute.

How do you not know the answer to the question of how those two things are different based on what preconceived notions we have about those teams? But if we're still skeptical about Buffalo because of the schedule, then what do you do with Dallas despite those numbers knowing they played the Giants, the Redskins, and the Dolphins? Well, I think Dallas and the Pats are real and obviously the Chiefs. You look at the other undefeated teams, there may be different echelons below, but I would say you're most certain about the Pats, the Chiefs, and the Cowboys. The Packers are a team with such an upside, man. Like we've talked

about, the last time they had a defense like this, a top 10 defense, and I love everything they've done in the offseason, getting the backs that they did the defensive backs uh that they did in that draft in that Davenport trade essentially with New Orleans um that was big the Smith brothers 2.0 shout out to Alden Smith and Justin Smith um and now they've got two edge rushers who can apply pressure consistently I love what they've done in the offseason. LaFleur seems to be a nice upgrade, honestly, as far as working with Aaron Rodgers for now. They need to do a better job adjusting in the second half.

I think they've started fast and kind of tapered off, but I think they're for real. And then, obviously, you've got the Rams and the Niners in the NFC West, and we can get to that. What do you think about the Packers? The defense is definitely for real. I don't think there's really any doubt to that. I was most impressed with the Vikings game than it was Denver,

although I had maybe a little bit more respect for Denver losing the way they did, and then they have to go out to Green Bay and they're competing. But the Vikings game was the one where it felt like Aaron Rodgers started looking like the Aaron Rodgers who you sit there and go, okay, they're up 14-0. I have this other theory too that when you're up 14-0, and this is different because Green Bay shouldn't be dismissive of Minnesota, but I feel like I see this with the good team that we all expect to win

when they go up 14-0. This game is so hard that being up 14 nothing quickly can actually screw your team up because you work all week you've got to run into another dude that's why I never get mad at people celebrating sacks because okay how about you run into a 300 pound human 60 times and then get to the goal once like yes you're you should be allowed to celebrate because the other time I'm gonna act like an asshole right right um so when i think about the way green bay's come out in the minnesota game and it just it all has to look like rogers although there was one play in that game apparently like where la flora was trying to get rogers to do something rogers still was like whatever i'm doing my own

thing and there was like a sideline screen grab video of it where la flora looked like what are you doing but that's just part of the meter where's the panic meter the panic meter between their relationship it's low now it's like a one right now out of 10 or 100 out of 10 so rogers needs one touchdown pass to pass fran tarkenden for the ninth most in NFL history. So just an interesting stat there. And then additionally in that game, the Broncos don't have a sack or a takeaway so far this year. I'm sorry, Chris, but I feel like that Tarkenden thing is something you came across. You're like, I got to get this in today.

Pretty much. Okay. I thought it was interesting. I'm sorry. Are you like, hey like hey dude don't knock my prep let me let me use my prep the way i need to use it well i had it written down you know i'm just like fuck it i gotta fire that one off and we could get to the nfc west which i i think you know you got two three and oh teams and they're way different right in the perception

everybody expects the rams to be uh contenders this year. I think Cooper Cupps giving them a big boost offensively. I mean, they're a team that can find different ways to beat people. Goff nor Gurley were spectacular last night on the road, and they find ways to win. Their pass rush is better this year. Their defense is playing pretty solid. but the Niners are really interesting to me right I mean the most misleading game yesterday was the San Francisco Pittsburgh game which was hideous but it ends up a one score game and the Niners kicked their ass 26 first downs to 11 out gained them 436 to 239 time possession 36 minutes to 23 So the Niners are 3-0, and their next seven games, they play two teams with winning records.

I mean, they could go on a little run here, and they don't even have to be good. It could get interesting, not in that division, but from a standpoint of vying for a wild card spot. I'm not sure they're at the level of beating the Rams with regularity, but with Seattle kind of looking pedestrian, who knows? Let's stay on the Rams because they were the primetime game last night. Yes, they're a 3-0 team, but if you've watched them the entire time,

whether it's Breeze getting hurt in week two in that Saints game, I'm not saying they weren't going to win it or anything like that but um I you know the Rams part of this is because they were in the Super Bowl I think we want to see them dominant at times where we want to see golf offensively get back to what at one point was like an MVP discussion thing here with golf and maybe we've raised our expectations too high for him for McVay for the team in general offensively get back to what at one point was like an MVP discussion thing here with Goff, and maybe we've raised our expectations too high for him, for McVay, for the team in general, and yes, they're 3-0, but it hasn't looked as impressive. Is that fair?

It has not, but I will say that when you talk to people out there, that Cooper Cup thing cannot be underestimated. When it seemed like nobody else can get open and the offense is sputtering, he's a really nice security blanket. And they had bad games last year too. That's the ebb and flow of it. I mean, when you look at Jared Goff as not necessarily an elite quarterback, he's somebody that in the right system, because that's kind of the discussion around him, can win you a lot of games. I don't worry about them. I honestly don't. I worry about Todd and them managing things with him from a rep standpoint, but they've done that pretty well so far this year. They haven't had to lean heavily on him.

Donald was a lot of fun to watch again last night. Can I do something here where it's maybe irresponsible question of the week? I love it. It's something I don't think necessarily, but if I wanted to go get in front of everybody else on a TV show

if I were producing it, and do something and be like, hey, I'm going to do a little far and away Tom Cruise and plant my flag in this one before anybody else gets here. And that's not a subliminal because that could apply to so many TV personalities right now. Right. And

far and away. Did you ever see far and away? No. Is that Tom Cruise movie? Yeah. You would have liked that reference a lot more. I don't really watch Tom Cruise movies. I'm probably going probably gonna watch top gun though because our boy let's name drop him miles teller is gonna be in that movie oh i thought you were gonna say gardner minshu was gonna be in the new top gun but uh no he's he's probably gonna have mono by then have to sit that one out isn't that crazy the guy you'd most expect to have mono doesn't have it.

And the quarterback, the young quarterback, I'd least expect to have it, is sidelined with an enlarged spleen right now. Do you have mono survivor on your bio? Yeah, no. I am a mono survivor. That's why, yeah, it might be worth bringing some awareness to it. Think about how much mono is probably in Jacksonville.

I haven't thought about that. So why do you think Jacksonville has a higher concentration of mono than other NFL cities? Guaranteed. In that pool alone, there's a bunch of mono. Yeah, when I see that pool at Jacksonville, I see a bunch of divorces that would cost me a beach house. I see a terrible engineering misstep, and that is that they left the side, like a glass side, so you could see the consistency of the water, right? Because

you can see that pool from the side, right? Yeah, I think you can. You're right. Yeah, and it always looks like it could be a little clearer. Is that what you're getting at? It could always be a little clearer. It's a little bit filmy. I don't know if they went like they didn't do the chlorine thing

and they went like saltwater, which would be ill-advised. You got to just zap that thing with chlorine. Over, under on turds in that pool in one season. I'm setting it at four. Really? Wow, you went there. I don't know. I mean, that's a pretty aggressive move, man.

Is it? Yeah, I think it is. Offense sputters a little bit. It's a little hot. what do you do when you get out of that pool is there a locker room no i'm gonna guess they've had seasons where there's been zero i i think you're being way too loose with the the the person that's like yeah i'm cool with this so you're taking the under all right prop bet it get stanford steve on here all right we'll prop bet it okay so now that we've talked about, hey, you're not going to get mono,

but your hair is going to turn green at our pool with the new chlorine blasting of it. Here's the irresponsible question of the week. Is there any chance Baker isn't good? Do you want to go first? Yeah, why don't I go first? Because I've been thinking about it. My first instinct would be, no, that's a ridiculous question to ask this soon in to the guy's career. And I think there's a very big difference where when I watch him,

when he gets the ball out quickly, it's incredible. Like when he's, when he knows and he's on time and all that stuff, like it's, it's really impressive. So that's why the Browns wanted him one. That's why other teams,

I know for a fact, you know, other teams were interested in him. So even though it seemed like, wait a minute, Baker Mayfield's going to go ahead at all these other guys, other teams actually did like him. So this wasn't some rogue thing by Dorsey in the Browns. So I think it's irresponsible to ask right now, but they haven't looked good. They haven't looked good. And I don't know if that's Baker, if it's a combination of all the stuff they're doing. I'll just leave it with this before you take it over.

But like Warren Sharp, who had the routes that he was showing, and then I commented on it the other night, when they were way backed up, and it was a third and seven, they send two guys out to the right side on go routes where they're basically right next to each other. Then the other route on the left side is a deep post, and you're like, what are you guys doing? You're all backed up, and you have to get all these guys down the field,

and that means Baker's going to be back there the whole time and it seems like he's two completely different quarterbacks when it's on time versus him despite his mobility freelancing and holding on to the football longer. You think you got a case of coordinator face down by Lake Erie there? Kitchens?

Is it Lake Erie? Then of course, you know Wiley came out today, the former offensive line coach, and there was a piece in Cleveland this morning being like, Kitchens didn't do any of this stuff. It was all BFC. Porter's on speed dial. I mean, sometimes you got to blow the whistle. But I guess for me, it's an interesting conversation because they've seemingly done the easy stuff to surround him with the right pieces. They're receiving core, the tight end they have,

their splash moves, and the way he came on late last year set kind of unrealistic expectations for what this team could do this year and we all fell victim to that the expectations one way or another i don't know about all of us but the baker wins you look at him so far the jets twice baltimore with flacco atlanta cincy twice carolina and denver and That's from Carrington Harrison, somebody I follow on Twitter. There aren't a ton of great wins, but I think Baker is a hell of a thrower. What you don't do is you get rid of your best offensive lineman. Baker's not the

tallest guy. Your O-line's struggling. He's better when he's on schedule. There's plenty of figures that support that. His average snap to throw is 3.06 seconds, which is towards the bottom of the league. It's up from 2.9 last year. There's a ton of metrics that say if he gets the ball out quickly, for instance, 74% completion rate when he throws within 2.5 and it drops to 55 after 2.5. So I think being on schedule is big for them. You want to compare them maybe to like

a Chicago if you're lazy because with the RPOs and the timing throws, you'd say they're similar, but the big difference is there. The situations are flipped. The quarterback's much better in Cleveland, in Baker, over Trubisky, and the offensive line is much better in Chicago over Cleveland's. It's like if you're grading him, it's incomplete because he's always bailing out of the back of the pocket because there's pressure up the middle all the time. They haven't invested in the O-line the way they have in some of the splash moves. So I think he's a good quarterback. And I think if they actually get that situation under control up front, you'll see him be able to settle a lot more and throw with timing.

Yeah, I'm on that side of the argument. That's why we were calling it the irresponsible question of the week. Yeah, no doubt. So there you go. All right, which direction do you want to go now? of the week. Yeah. No doubt.

So there you go. All right. Which direction do you want to go now? Well, I mean, we could start with my favorite new team not ending in E-A-G-L-E-S. Well, the Colts. Take it away. Yeah. Can we call that the Dougie P coaching tree?

Frank Wright? Absolutely. He's my pick for early pick for coach of the year. Everything with Andrew Luck and look at the way Jacoby's look. Consider this. If they found another franchise quarterback or the Colts fans who booed Andrew Luck, some of them. The luckiest in football. I mean, they've had three franchise quarterbacks if this guy hits. ABC, no lag time in Manning, Luck, and now maybe Brissette,

who started off, I think, hitting his first 16 receivers yesterday and including nine for nine in 96 and a touchdown on his first nine. Yeah, for 16. Mack is special out of the backfield. And they were up 20-3 at the half. On the other side of it, we can talk about the Falcons, but man, you've got to be impressed with Indy. They look real to me.

I mean, they're a team that's always going to be in it. They kept Jacoby clean all day. And when are we going to start talking about Quentin Nelson as being one of the best five football players in the league? I mean, I guess some people might be already, but you almost talk about that conversation, quarterbacks and non-quarterbacks. And I've talked a lot about Aaron Donald. Are we talking about Quentin enough as possibly being relative to the drop-off to the number two guard in the league, the best player in the league?

Did you ever have to go up against him? Yeah, I had to play him last year. Yeah, you feel it when he pulls. He's got a Steve Hutchinson dome. I remember playing Steve Hutchinson and just thinking, holy shit, this guy's head is fucking huge. I don't know if they measure that at the combine, but that helmet, it's massive,

and it's just a guy who can come to balance and play with such strength in positions where other guys would be out of control and his hands are heavy. And he plays with the right amount of nasty. You see he caught Melvin Ingram on that spin that kind of went viral. He's a guy that like, you know, last night you tweeted about AD.

I'd love to just have an ISO cam on cue as well. That would be awesome if we started doing head measurements at the combine be like i don't know he's i don't know like a seven eighth and what's his new air but is that seven five ace and new era didn't you cheat at the combine i did that's good recall did you ever share this i've talked about it um so basically i mean i had a good vert i mean i jumped 34 um not bad for being a bit pastier um but i put some some kleenex in uh in my glove like a little bit in the tip you know i tried to put that on after i measured because they make you stand up

and reach as high as you can obviously that's your baseline. Then I went off in the corner and put some Kleenex in my glove. I walked back up. Extra long fingertip gloves. Yeah, so I could reach higher. They caught me. A little gamesmanship, right? Never hurt anybody. It's not like I have to jump that high or that much playing in the NFL. Did you cheat on anything else or no? playing in the NFL. So, yeah. What else? Did you cheat on anything else or no? I never cheated.

I never cheated myself, Ryan. What did you do on the bench press? The bench press? Oh, yeah, I did. So, when it came to bench, you got a good memory. When it comes to bench, I've never been a big bencher.

And I kind of hurt my thumb in the bowl game, but I use that as an excuse why I couldn't bench. No, but you still did. All of us do it. Like, I'm tight today. It's usually a different matter. Yeah, I was like, man, my thumb is just... I might have benched 8, 10 times at 225. I don't know. But it would have been a big red flag, and I would have probably plummeted to the middle of the first where I belonged.

But, uh, but still, I mean, shit, I never, I never bench press anybody once on the field and, you know, I think that shit's overrated. But on the other side, what do you think of Atlanta? Cause I mean, we're, we've, we've kind of let Indy dominate this whole discussion. So, okay. I always like Atlanta because I like Matt Ryan. All these teams that we're talking about here, sifting through these seven 3-0 teams, half of them are going to have devastating levels of injuries.

That's why, in a way, I love the the masculinity of football if that's still okay to say today i hope so hope no one does uh i mean it's an alpha male sport whatever you want to slice that right but it's not toxic yeah i don't want to be toxic about it thank you it's just the fact that who you are week one is not who you're going to be week 17 and you got to figure it out okay and whether it's a quarterback injury which we can get to some of the quarterback turnover because i did some of these numbers or just you know certain guys you're losing in atlanta lost so many guys whether it was the offensive line or the middle of their defense where you go this is actually a real excuse um

you know because i don't like when people say like oh injuries aren't an excuse well actually sometimes it's overwhelming it's an excuse but then then I watch Atlanta again, and I still kind of fall for it a little bit with them. And then they're getting back into that game. And I'm like, here we go. And then Neil goes out where I've had this love affair with Gators safeties going all the way back to Reggie Nelson, who was awesome in college, was probably not what you thought he'd be, but still was okay. And then Elam, who i thought was going to be awesome wasn't and now neil who's been a stud i can't get enough of those florida safeties and now he's hurt and i'd imagine it's probably going to be a disappointing disappointing year in atlanta

again even though i yeah and didn't they throw the flag on him for throwing his helmet yeah after he blew out his achilles yeah it's fucking absurd dude absurd, dude. I mean, I hope he gets well. I mean, it's just that's been a lot of bad breaks for him. And with Atlanta, I mean, you got to do more rushing the passer. They had half a sack yesterday. Jacoby was clean. They've only got four on the year as a team. Most of them came in that Eagles game.

And listen, the Falcons are the most penalized team in the league, I think. They had 16 for 128 yesterday. I think they had 35 for 264 through three weeks. You can't win that way. They're dealing with new coordinators on both sides of the ball. Quinn's got to own this, right? There's nobody to say, and I like Quinn a lot, but there's nobody to say, well, it's on this guy or that guy. I mean, you made the changes. Um, that's a lot of stuff being in flux. The saving grace is if Atlanta can decide to play with any consistency, you know, two of the three best quarterbacks in the division are out. You would think the division would be there for the taking, but two of their first three games in Atlanta, they have been off schedule. They've been down early. That just doesn't – that's not the formula for them. They got Freeman going yesterday, but if you're down early,

that's not how they want to play. Listen, Julio made some circus. He made a circus catch in the end zone. Went for eight for 128. A lot of fun to watch. Matt made some nice throws. You like Matt, but that's not the formula to win. I hate to overshadow or disrespect the Falcons here, but they're one and two.

The Colts look relatively real. Okay, but we could also do this too. We're looking at this after week six going, hey, Atlanta ran into three playoff teams the first three weeks. No doubt about it, but until they start playing better, I can't talk about them. They have everything going for them in that division, and they can't seem to just play with consistency. Within a game, over three games, again, two new coordinators, that's a big deal, and the penalties are bad. and Quinn was there for part of the time. I believe they were one of the most penalized teams in the league

and they were a real outlier as far as being able to withstand that type of undisciplined play. You can't quite do it. The roster's not the same down there. So one of the more entertaining games to watch yesterday, another was Rivers dueling it out with Watson. And I know you liked that Rivers meme yesterday that Big Cat tweeted. Well, it's unbelievable.

It's unbelievable that you would sit there and say, it's like wrestling writers do the Chargers script every year. And they go, hey, so here's the deal. You're going to be up around six minutes. The fourth quarter, you're going to be down again. You're going to have these two possessions. The offensive line is going to be tired. You're going to be running around like you're getting chased by a rattlesnake in the sun.

You're just going to start throwing it. Sometimes it's going to work and sometimes it isn't. But you have to do it every Sunday for the last five years of career, and for whatever reason, your game's always going to be the last one on also. And it's still going to be light out all the time, which is totally disorienting to me. It's like I got the Sunday scaries. I call them the gremlins.

Everybody gets them on Sundays in one way or another. But they're just starting to set in, and then you just watch the Chargers kind of implode a little bit and it just makes you more anxious. Yeah, it's not settling. You're hoping for like, can I just get a 28-10 here, start in the fourth quarter,

game's over, maybe I can go outside a little bit, run to the corner store and grab some supplies. And it's like, no, no, no. We need you in an angst-filled seat matching the angst of Phillip Rivers last few years

and it's always the game that's on at the end i can't believe how consistently it happens because it does well i'm going to tell you what yesterday here's here was the problem and the interesting conversation and this is not like i want to get to houston because deshaun was fucking awesome um but when it comes to la good good job not saying San Diego. Pat myself on the back there. Well done. They had five carries for 12 yards in the third quarter.

They're up 17-7 at the half. The conversation about Melvin Gordon starts to rear its ugly head again. I mean, the first two weeks we talked about, well, it looks like they're getting production elsewhere, right? So the trade value, the perceived trade value goes down, but that doesn't mean that his value to the chargers goes down and as you looked at it yesterday they have a lead you need to be able to control the clock you could sure use them uh they're going to be more games like this down the road this this year i don't know where they're at

with that situation but they certainly look like they could have used him yesterday. Rivers had them right there in a position to win at the end, converting on third and very long, and then a bad drop by Benjamin at the goal line that would have tied the game up. Again, misfortune for him, but Deshaun was great. He really was. Yeah, he's kind of in that. I don't want to put him in the Mahomes category

because Mahomes feels like, and we'll get to this Baltimore-KC thing here in a second, but it is very close in that there's just plays being made by him with, I don't know if the basketball player analogy works, but it's just hard to do stuff. It's a baseball thing, dude. He looks like he's throwing a baseball. I mean, it's like watching Ozzie Guillen play catch.

If you like baseball, it's mystifying to watch this dude play catch. Or it was maybe somebody else. I'm not a big baseball guy, but you watch some of these middle infielders turn double plays, just toss the ball around. Mahomes, that's how he looks out there. I mean, he's got the control of a baseball on a football. That's true. But I also think he does stuff, especially because of that offensive line, although he's got a really nice group of receivers, he does stuff that feels like it's on his own.

And this is a very tough sport to do stuff consistently every week that feels like it's on his own. And this is a very tough sport to do stuff consistently every week where you're doing it on his own. And again, I'm not talking about talent drop-off. I'm talking about his creativity to make stuff work when it looks like it. Obviously, that's part of it. He's so used to have to running around now that he's as good as anybody making stuff up out of nothing. I mean, yeah, he does make everybody around him a little bit better. I mean, that group offensively at different times has not been special, and he can go on runs. I mean, last year he went on a really scary run when we had a big lead over them

and we almost blew it at the link, and he was just shaking people off. I missed the sack. Mike Bennett missed the sack. I think three people missed the sack in one play, and he throws a 50-yard bomb. He did that yesterday. He shook off Ingram to throw a touchdown. It looks to me like Houston, at least in the short term,

is getting a lot out of those pieces they got from Miami because Deshaun looked really comfortable yesterday, 135 rating. He hit tight ends for 119 yards on eight catches and three touchdowns. Kenny Stills went for over 80 yards. And Hopkins, who might be the best receiver in the league, or one of them, he didn't even have to go off yesterday. I mean, I think he had about 60 yards receiving. Yeah, Watson's special.

He really is. But I do want to throw this into the hat. The guy nobody talks about is Keenan Allen. How the hell do we not talk about Keenan Allen more? We're talking about every receiver on the field, but not Keenan Allen. He's got 29 receptions on 42 targets for 404, he's got 29 receptions on 42 targets for 404 with eight going for over 20 yards they're all they're all league bests he's averaging 134 yards a game it's best in league by 20 yards i mean how do we not what it's because he plays in la which you think would be a big market but it's not a the chargers are not a big football market team and if he played anywhere else we'd be talking about him like you know maybe not jul else, we'd be talking about him like, maybe not Julio, but we'd be talking about him like OBJ and we talk about him like Hopkins and we talk about him like all these receivers, Mike Thomas. Why are we not talking about Keenan Allen?

Yeah, Keenan never gets mentioned in that group. And the first thing I thought was, how many games does he miss? He really just missed games in 2016 where he only played in one. But every other year, 14 games, 14 games, 16, 16. All right, so I think maybe it was 15 and 16 because he missed half the season, 15. He missed basically 15 games in 16. But when I look at the Chargers receiving depth, when everybody's right with Williams, when everybody's healthy, you're like, these guys are studs. But Allen probably deserves to be brought up more. I mean, this is year three, they're in Los Angeles. So you can't just make

this out to be, oh, he's stuck in San Diego. Although to be the Chargers in Los Angeles is kind of like- But even so, yeah, they're like sixth fiddle in LA. I mean, it just doesn't, Oh, yeah. They're sixth fiddle in LA. Like you said, everybody's watching their games when they're ready to call it a night or get to the Sunday night football game every Sunday. I think it's unfortunate because Keenan Allen, to me, is one of the most underrated players in the league, if that's possible. It's certainly one of my favorite to watch uh but as far as uh as houston deshaun was concerned he's the fourth fastest player to reach 50 passing touchdowns in the super bowl era between marino and stafford so we don't know what the fuck that means but i mean it's an interesting stat um i think he's he's reaped the benefits of having a left tackle he can depend on.

And Kenny Stills is a totally underrated acquisition for them as well. Yeah, Stills adds to it, fuller, healthy. So it's not like he's not working without receivers. It's just, okay, there's games, especially the way it started, that Eagles game, or excuse me, the Saints game, where you go, all right, how is this guy going to be able to stay healthy? And since that one was his own slot for that Saints game, the rest of the country was kind of like, man, this stuff still happened with him.

Let's do the Giants here because it probably took too long. We probably should have gotten this thing in before. Daniel Jones, I know you have all the history written down, but it's just a classic. Twitter went one way. Let's face it. New York fans in attendance at drafts are not great evaluators of talent. Prazingis Kid is some of my least favorite content of all time.

I'm not telling you I thought Daniel Jones was going to be good, but I know when it comes to the NFL draft, 95% of the people that have an opinion on it have never watched any of these kids play in college. It's just the way it works. The NFL draft is so funny to me that you can read about some defensive tackle who played at Mississippi State and then be convinced as a fan that you have to have him when you've never even seen him take a snap. And then if he's supposed to go where your mock pick is on all the stuff that you've seen online, and then they end up taking the safety from Cal that you didn't know as much about, you just assume the pick sucked. So that's summarizing reaction to the draft in general

because almost everybody does it that way except for the people that work at it or watch a lot of college football or knew who Gardner Minshew was more than two weeks ago. So the Jones thing was, I think, more... I don't even know if it was as anti-Jones, Chris, as it was anti-Gettleman because at that point, everybody thought

Gettleman was just this clown show running an NFL team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And today he's the smartest guy in the room, which people will say, you know, caveat being, yeah, but you shipped OBJ. Okay. I mean, okay. I could argue. I could argue.

I don't want to start a shit storm, but, know maybe daniel jones is is just fine um i do think when you look at it he just he looks he looks comfortable maybe too comfortable at times you know two fumbles yesterday uh but man this guy is mobile bro and i'm seeing a lot of low-key fast commentary on my feet that offend you offend you? Yeah, coding. 19.5 miles per hour though on 7-yard touchdown run. Only QBs to run faster are Kyler and Lamar this year. The guy's athletic and he

moves well in the pocket. You could see it right away. I think a lot of times I discount preseason because it's just so different. Like I said yesterday, I want to get on this Daniel Jones hype train, and I said that for the record in the first quarter. Because sometimes you just got to see a guy get out there for a couple series and see how comfortable he looks.

Okay, but did you like him? You liked him out of Duke, didn't you? I did like him, but I didn't want to – part of me, I don't want to do this, but I'll say it. I mean, I did like him, but I didn't have the balls know part of me I don't want to do this but I'll say it I mean I did like him I didn't have the balls to say I liked him out loud I mean you know I'm starting my career in the media the first wagon I want to hitch myself to is is uh is the most polarizing pick in the NFL drafts um but listen if he's good enough for Cutcliffe he's kind of good enough for me

he sure does move well in the pocket he looks comfortable distributing the football he threw some nice balls yesterday and the first third and nine he's got pressure he ends up

converting that third and nine and I think all year the Giants were 0 for they were 0 for 12 on third and seven plus you know Daniel Jones 1-0 when he's down 18 Manning 0-44 I mean you see all these stats but like they matter and then

the ultimate like where did they come up with this shit stat that I think is actually valid is that quarterbacks who had 300 plus yards, two passing touchdowns, two rushing touchdowns, and a fourth quarter comeback are Young, Culpepper, Newton, Breeze, Rodgers, and Jones. Are you buying that stat or do you hate it? Are you buying that stat or do you hate it? I don't like comparing what's happened in the last couple years production-wise to previous years. I mean, everybody does the Manning thing. I mean, there's so many different – I feel like it's a little like Kevin Bacon where you can look at the start of any young quarterback's career and be like,

well, look at how it matches up with Manning. Look at how it does this. You didn't like Hollow Man? Hollow Man man hollow man yeah no i never saw it give me a quick pitch what was there's not much to see get it oh next up is that what the movie poster says is that an actual movie yeah he's fucking invisible bro hollow man how do i not know this movie well because you didn't know kevin bacon was in it because he's he's um he's invisible all right we're gonna have to research this we got it yeah it's a 2000 film 2000 film hollow man 28 on rotten tomatoes it's about a brilliant scientist who discovered

a way to make matter invisible. Hmm. This is what gives me hope is when somebody's like, how's the screenplay writing going? I'm like, you see some of the shit people say yes to? Yeah.

I would think you should be able to break into that business. Oh, wait. I remember did have Rona Mitra. Oh, wait, I remember this. Yeah. Yeah, Rona Mitra's in this film who is a childhood crush. Who is that? Elizabeth Shue?

What are we talking about here? Rona Mitra. She was the supporting actress in this film. I want to check her out. She could be my neighbor, Chris. She could be. I mean, you live among the stars. I know.

She was born in London. This is probably when it started. All the English people getting our best roles. Yeah, she got Hollow Man and it was over from there. Oh, she's still working. She's going to be in Squadron 42, the video game. No, I'm just saying. I mean, you know know like yeah it's hollow

man's a tough one um we were talking about daniel jones i don't think daniel jones is hollow man i don't think he's kevin bacon i think daniel jones is a guy that you're gonna be happy with for a long time there and i'm ready to die on that hill so you's it. You're on it right now. One game was enough for you. The pushback would be the people that actually did study draft picks, their argument was Daniel Jones was not an

efficient quarterback at Duke. There's not really much of a track record for guys like, hey, the guy that was inefficient there, now you're going to go be efficient on Sundays. It was the first game. It first game like you can get better and develop you know everybody is really willing to accept the fact that lamar has developed why can't daniel jones develop i mean i you know you look at lamar from college to year one to year two, it's been a process. And I think with Daniel Jones, it could be a process too.

But I like what I see. And you're going to figure out a lot more about Daniel Jones the next three weeks. So I might hold my take. But we've got the Redskins, the Vikings, and the Patriots. Those are three pretty solid defenses, the latter two being the big tests. So we'll see. I mean, I enjoyed watching him yesterday.

You know, Eli has been really classy. He did look legitimately happy for him. I don't think he's a great actor. So if he wasn't happy. I want to shout out Shaq Barrett though 8 sacks in 3 games the Bucks

most people don't even know who he is liked him since Denver Denver doesn't have any sacks now Shaq Barrett I can't imagine how hard it would be to be fake happy when you've been benched

and the other guy wins that's going to be one of the toughest things to do like you can even see it in bledsoe a little bit when brady's slapping his pads being like we did it we did it and drew's like yeah dude sweet like i haven't heard it actually and uh but he's done well bledsoe's done well with that for two decades so i mean if he's acting happy he's doing a hell of a job maybe he should get the hollow man the hollow man bring him back i'm not saying he's been faking it for 20 years i'm just saying that in that moment there's no way as an athlete as a competitor as somebody where you're going i'm just as pumped to have been sitting here and being supportive i mean bledsoe was losing

his mind when he got drafted he he, yeah. I mean, listen. Listen, you root for people. I've had situations like that in my career where you see a guy draft or you see something happen

roster-wise and you're like, well, that's kind of the end of me. That's bad news for me. But you got to be able to try to separate the personal part of it and not be a hater because like the last thing you want to be is ever a hater and so you almost go into like overdrive trying to root for the person or bring them along and uh and yeah i just think if you're legitimately happy for somebody it'll it'll come out and if and if you're not people can tell and i think eli eli's probably happy for the kid i think part of eli might be relieved that this is all over okay all right yeah i'm not saying eli's fake i'm just saying that that's that's still it's hard to still be i'm not saying none of this is genuine or anything like that

but it just the human nature part of it it would be really hard to sit there and go oh yeah yeah like this is this is sweet was there ever a vet who was like i don't care who your daddy was but i'm not impressed one of my my first one of my best friends in the world is james hall and and he was a objectively a better football player than me when I got drafted my first year, for sure. And he was older. He was way older. And he was somebody who, like, I think in general was just like, I'm not talking to rookies. It had nothing to do with that. But by my second and third year, all those vets who, you know, Leonard Little, you know, Fred Robbins later on, you know, different guys, Jay Hall, Leroy Glover.

It's hard to tell when you're a rookie whether they're just busting your balls because you're a rookie or if they don't want you to do well. I think it's a thin line and it's hard to figure out. But what I've figured out is that all those vets who were kind of assholes to me the first year or treated me like I really need to earn my way. It was the best thing for me and um they're all still my buddies so in my experience i never had somebody who was and i tried to pay that back like like later in my career i'm i'm um i'm in germany getting stem cell to try to extend my career uh after philly signed me and uh because the time change i have to go to bed i heard they probably aren't going to try to extend my career after Philly signed me.

And because the time change, I have to go to bed. I heard they probably aren't going to draft anybody, but you never know. And I'm thinking to myself like, okay, I'm in Philly. I'm going to have this nice role carved out. And I wake up at 3 a.m. to just check my phone because the draft has been happening. And my phone, there's like 65 text messages like, well, damn, bro, they just drafted a dn in the first round um and then i couldn't sleep

the rest of the night i was just really flustered um but it turned out me and derrick barnett became like best buddies and we we won a super bowl together and we rushed together you know there was a way i mean it just worked out and he's still one of my better friends that I've played with the past couple of years. You never know. I bet Eli and Daniel have a nice relationship for a long time. I have a story that I want to add to that, but it's not about a pro athlete. I'm going to get a ruling on it from you. I also have this really interesting stuff that I've picked up from around the NFL on the phone about Belichick and the Antonio Brown thing and sifting through all the uncertainty there. And we still have to do this quarterback thing. And we still haven't talked about Lamar against Mahomes, who from now

on, when anybody texts me like, what game are you watching? It's going to be Kansas City. It's always going to be Kansas City. When Kansas City's on, that's who I'm watching because it's that much fun. Right. Okay. So I'm going to tell you the story about that off of the rookie thing. But before we do that, I want to tell you about our good friends at Hotel Tonight. Hotel Tonight partners with awesome hotels to help them sell their unsold rooms, which means you get incredible deals on cool, top-rated boutique hotels. Their name is Hotel Tonight, but you can actually book in advance, which is great. Whether you're a planner or a procrastinator,

instead of having to scroll through endless lists of hotels, Hotel Tonight shows you the best deals at hotels you'll actually want to stay at. It's perfect for weekend getaways, big vacations, staycations, road trips, business trips, and more. I just used it the other day, booking my trip to Oxford, Mississippi for LSU Ole Miss. And I'm just telling you, I'm glad I have the Hotel Tonight app on my phone because finding a hotel in Oxford for that weekend isn't really easy.

And we got to drive all the way in from Memphis for that one. So we're trying to put that trip together now. And with Hotel Tonight's special daily drop feature, you choose a major city and unlock an extra amazing deal just for you. This isn't script. This is it. I have it. I look. Hey, I'm in New York.

Okay, I need a hotel later tonight. Whoa, the daily drop. I slide the thing and then whatever was already discounted hotel with this feature, they give you this 15 minute window to see if you want to book it. And sometimes it's incredible how much you save. So there you go. That's off script because I just thought it was easier to describe it that way. You get one daily deal per person and once unlocked, the offer lasts, as I said, only

15 minutes. So it's like a fun game where you have to book quickly.'s not available in all destinations but some of their best deals are available via daily drop whether you're searching for tonight or for a few weeks away daily drop is an awesome way to save big on a great hotel visit hoteltonight.com just download the app to unlock a getaway today okay a couple years ago a bunch of friends and I from Vermont, we rented out, well, from school, from UVM, we rented out a house outside of Augusta and I got badges through ESPN. I think that's when the layoffs were about to happen. And there was a real debate there for like six weeks of whether or not I was going to get whacked. And so they may have just

felt bad for me. That day I may have been on the, the day I got my master's passes, Chris might've been a day where I was on the he's done list. And they gave me four passes to like three of the days. Cause I said, I actually don't want Sunday. Cause I want to be able to get out of there. Um, and then they gave me the, the double legal badges, which is the best setup ever. You drive your car and they park it for you. They pull in. And we were like the cool guys because we weren't a hundred and it was an unbelievable trip. And so there were some other guys around that we were friends with. And then some guys that we had gone to school with, but we're just older and you know how it

is. The turnover is the turnover. So there was a dude coming by that had been a senior when we were all freshmen who was in our fraternity and honestly he wasn't like one of those guys that was hazing you know just he was off campus he was a really nice guy but one of my friends that was my year i go we should we should screw with one of these guys like let's figure out a way to fuck with one of them and just see how long we can go with it because this is uh i'm sure you're shocked to hear i have a buddy named sully so so then i go what are we gonna do we're like all right here's what we're gonna do like since now i'm i'm bigger than i than i was when i was a

freshman up in vermont running around with my patagonia vest and game hat um nice nice i'm gonna right right like hey is that is that an awesome fanny pack there no no no this is my book bag um there was a dude we were like all right what we're gonna do is i'm gonna pretend that he did something in 1993 when he was hazing us actually would have been 94 because we had to carry it over um i'm gonna just i'm gonna be real standoffish to him when he shows up to our house and i'm just gonna carry it for like an hour and then you pull him aside and be like i don't know really priscilla was a little vague about it but you did something to him in 94 and he's never let it go so what happened so like i just didn't talk to him i kind of gave him like a like

a brush off handshake thing and then like stood in front of him blocked his view and then i was like hey does anybody need a beer and i went upstairs and i grabbed three and didn't get him one and then walked away and then my buddy sully after an hour was like hey just so you know like was still still pissed at you about something he wouldn't really get into it but does he does he still think that yeah we carried it out for like an hour and then it was just sort of exhausting and i felt bad because i was like i'm ruining what's what's a really good time here with all of our friends around so why are you doing this this unrelated on the masters you can't have your phone right

no and it's great i mean you go through a 30 minute anxiety thing of thinking you've lost it every two minutes or that it's on like like because to me i was so afraid of my phone going off in like a belichick meeting i used to turn the phone off and i put it out in the hallway at hotels like on the ground like most people turn their phone off and they just put it in their pocket. There's nothing worse than your phone going off during a meeting. I would think that the feeling of your phone going off at the Masters is like 10 Belichick meetings. Because you're gone, bro. You're never coming

back. you're an asshole let alone if it's in a backswing that that has to be just a petrifying have you have you seen anybody on their phone there is that is that like legit oh it's totally legit yeah no you you can't you can't bring it in so part of the hosting things that they have like that's the way to do it if you can pull it off is if you go there then you also want the hosting thing because you can go in and out of the facility and you go back over, have a couple of beers, you can have some lunch, but the concessions there are really, really cheap, so you could do it that way. But you don't bring your phone in. And I told a few people, I remember there was one girl I was talking to and she was like,

oh, whatever. She's like, I would have just snuck it in. She's like, I would have just... I'm like, no, you don't understand. you would have pulled it out and started taking pictures and then everybody been like what are you doing like you're not supposed to have it you know what's great about it it's kind of nice because then it's you know eight hours of walking the course oh it's liberating it's it's in technique it's incredibly liberating like i've been doing it more and more like if i go down to the beach or if i go out to a dinner i'm turning it off now and it's something i'm trying to do more of. And I'm really thrilled about it.

I try not to spend all day. I want to get a flip phone just for that reason. You think there's a flip phone? Like, are you thinking about getting back in a Nokia position? Yeah, I want like the one that like goes whack when it closes, you know? Maybe a Motorola, one of the old school ones? Yeah, just the old school ones. It doesn't have any of these stupid apps that make me so... I mean, Twitter's bad for your health.

Instagram is bad for your health. Glancing at your phone all day is bad for your health. You know, one time actually on topic before we move on, and this is really a long tangent, but I had a chameleon ringer in college that went off in a large auditorium at like one of the 100 level classes that's awesome and it was in my backpack and i i fumbled around for a solid three minutes it felt like i think it was riding dirty it had to be riding dirty right if you had a different chameleon air download i may respect it more but at the same time you know how many people in that room thought you were awesome

and then there's a lot of people they were probably sucked cool kid i'm surprised it wasn't a mike jones i was a big mike jones fan speaking of houston are you kidding me yeah i was a mike jones fan in college um i absolutely loved mike jones i mean 281-330-8004 who else made a whole a phone number is there a more famous phone number besides uh 8 6 7 5 3 0 9 no i guess it has to be number two to that, but I don't want it to be. But as I'm pulling it up now, I mean, I loved Mike Jones.

Loved Mike Jones. And this story is from... Who is Mike Jones? Wait a minute. Who is Mike Jones was the album in 2000. Yeah, it was a real... The whole thing was about Mike Jones. His friends I'd heard called him a narcissist,

and he was like, what the fuck? What did you think I was doing? What do you think I get in the game for? Well, it was a nice gimmick. And the song, track three, Flossin', featuring Big Mo. Classic. You know what else was great about the mike jones thing was that i think the terps

had a basketball player around that time yeah mike jones and yeah so he's 10 years he's your age he's from dorchester by the way uh and every time every time mike jones scored that maryland student section which is incredible be would be like, Mike Jones. They should have just said who. And the funniest thing was when I had Mike Jones playing, I think back in like 06, my dad heard the album and was like, who is that? And I'm like, it's Mike Jones. He's like, Mike Jones is rapping now? Because there was a Mike Jones. Mike Jones is the guy who had the tackle in the Super Bowl with the Titans and the Rams.

And the Rams, yeah. That was Mike Jones. And my dad thought Mike Jones had launched a second career for about 12 seconds. So shout out to Mike Jones. He's a lot older now. I don't know how old Mike Jones is now. I'm going to send you this link.

Millionaire 39. This is on the fly research and reporting, but apparently there was a story. And shout out to the Terp Mike Jones for going to Thayer Academy. But what's up McGurk? This article is from 2015 and the headline is that Mike Jones

wants his phone number back. He wants to just actually have it and just see who's calling? Yeah, I'm going to read from the story here and then we'll get to Lamar versus Mahomes. And this Patriot stuff, it's going to be the most important thing we might say today,

but I'm just, I'm saving it for the end. Okay. Let's see. Mike Jones became famous, notoriously rapped his phone number out loud over the brilliant organ-driven beat for back then.

It worked to remarkable success. According to the blog Hip Hop Overload, Jones' breakout success meant thousands of calls a day and a $ thousand dollar phone bill and he says he we gotta get an update on this um he says jones is in the process of fighting with sprint to retain his number oh my goodness nothing like nothing like ponying up on lawyer fees to file suit or is he filing a suit or is he just fighting with sprint like what what

kind of fight is that something tells me that might have been a bill and i'm not trying to call another man's fico score out here but if you but you were spending speaking of houston rappers you you are pretty tight with one right who me yeah riff raff bro jody high roller the jody high roller sway in the morning five fingers of death that's what they call it right yeah i've seen it i used to listen to it all the time so i'm i'm just i hate if i get anything wrong especially with with other stuff but would you consider yourself i guess it's a little bit older, but his whole, I can't tell if this is going to be the worst riff ever, or then he kind of saves himself a few times,

and then he screws up at the end. He's like, ah, go home fishing. It's unbelievable. Yeah, that is an amazing freestyle. But yeah, I mean, shout out to jody hyrule i don't know when when was that video because i saw him in concert yeah he's jacked now bro this dude is on like this dude is on the juice yeah he's on the good stuff i don't know what he's that that's not celery juice

because he was enormous when i saw him um in hermosa not that long ago where it was arguably one of the weirdest concerts i'd ever been to he was eating pizza with wings like on the stage and then got up there did like four maybe songs four and a half was huge wasn't super into it diamond diamond diamond gonna glisten peace out the back door and then in this video he looks he looks like me in junior high yeah he's a little deflated there but the freestyle was largely i chuckled i watched it like six or seven times hey i'm gonna try mike jones right now real quick let's see what happens can we go this article is three years old track three no i'm gonna try to call him right now is

what i'm saying oh you're gonna call him right now is what I'm saying. Oh, you're going to call him? Well, this is weird. I got some music. This sounds like I'm on hold, but it went right to it. All right, I'm going to get out of there. Okay, back to football. That was long. That was a long tangent. Yeah. Okay, like I said before, and I want to do a deeper quarterback thing here

before we go, but when I watch Lamar this week, I'm watching the same way. When Baker first starts playing I'm like okay how good is he really going to be because at one point it felt like Baker was going to be the biggest star in the NFL and a lot of that is the hype of Cleveland and that he looked good and they turned this offense around but now that you know it hasn't been as good as it well Bob Wiley calling out everybody saying it was Greg Williams with the defense and PZ was the guy that called all the plays and kitchens fired everyone you know I don't know it's easy to believe that

stuff when teams don't look as good as they're losing. You have Daniel Jones do his thing and all these different things, and Lamar start his career the way he did last year with wins, but then look, I thought, like a much better quarterback these first two weeks, like MVP-level kind of stuff if Mahomes wasn't around. And then yesterday, I felt like guys that are watching the All-22 have access to this will know better than me, but it looked like there was a lot of drop coverage.

They were giving him the underneath throws, and Lamar was really struggling with some of those. And he made two throws that were ridiculous decisions that actually worked out, one at the goal line, one at the left pylon. And then he had a couple runs that worked out. But I don't know if that was a, hey, we have a couple weeks on this new version of Lamar and this is how we're going to defend him. Or maybe, you know, look, you're trying to go toe-to-toe with Mahomes and

Lamar will be right back to who he was in week four that he was week one and two. I'm consistently trying to find out what I think is actually real at this quarterback position because of all the turnover, because of the production for youth guys and, I should just say young guys, that was a stupid way of saying it,

but the youth, the youth, I, you know, there's just a lot there that I, I feel like I'm left on these Sundays kind of shrugging going. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't, I don't know what this is or what this new piece of information tells me about a guy's career. Well, if you know, if, if we're talking about in general quarterback play right now, there's a reason they protect quarterbacks.

I know we hate the roughing the passer calls and me as a defensive lineman, I hate them. But try watching a slate of Sunday football right now with a solid bit oflier and less provocative to look at, but this game was not an example of that to me, even though it wasn't a tight ball game per se until towards the end. I think when you look at this game and if you're Baltimore, the takeaway is that you feel pretty good because you go to Arrowhead, which is one of the toughest places to play in the league. It's home to probably the second odds-on favorite to get into the Super Bowl in Kansas City. And you end up just short with multiple opportunities to get stops towards the

end and forcing an ensuing possible game-tying or game-winning drive for Lamar Jackson, who looked much more human in Week 3, and that's fine. I mean, there was going to be that moment that Pace couldn't keep up. I think when you look at his development from Year 1 to Year 2 that we've talked about before, it's going to be interesting to see his development from Week three to week 16, 17 this year and into the playoffs because if you're walking away from this game, you feel pretty good. Lamar wasn't his best, and he still had him right there. And gosh, Ingram was maybe the biggest pickup

and the biggest loss for a team offensively in the league, or one of them, because he's going to affect how the Saints play football this year and he's going to really positively affect how Baltimore plays football. I think he's going to be much more relevant down the stretch than people anticipated because Baltimore is better than people anticipated with Greg Roman. Gosh, they were 5-13 on third down. They weren't even that good on third down. They were good on fourth down. That Snead catch was unbelievable. You mentioned some of those acrobatic catches and the throws that were just like, fuck it, I'm just tossing this ball up.

But I feel good if I'm Baltimore. I actually don't feel like I lost. I mean, there's no such thing as moral victories in this league, and I know that's not the way Baltimore is going to talk about it, but you're getting on that plane. That is not a bad plane ride home. There's just a bigger thing there. And I'm glad you brought up like Ingram and all that stuff

because with all of these teams throwing it all over the place, which I get, and I used to always think the dumbest thing in the world was, hey, let's run it right up the middle I formation against two huge D tackles. The football that we grew up watching and you go, or that you were out there actually playing in, you're like, why would you do that? The D line is so amped. The linebackers are so amped. Why would you hand it off right up the middle in the first play and just get it? And it gets stuffed every day, every freaking game. Why would you even bother wasting that kind of

play? And I'm wondering if there'll be some sort of counter shift or if we're already seeing it when the wing went a little bit with Baltimore, the Colts didn't run it well this past week, but they ran it really well the first two weeks where you may have teams go, hey, you know what we're going to do? We're actually going to start running it in some of these other situations because they're playing so small defensively. They have safeties in, they have six defensive backs. I don't know. It's just something I'm thinking about. One of the big reasons we won a Super Bowl in 17 was the run game. I mean, we threw the ball all around the yard in the Super Bowl,

but it was the fact that we could run at will with LeGarrette and Jay and Sproles and Clement. I mean, that backfield was loaded and you could do a little bit of everything. I think the power running, though, that's gone away that you're talking about, I mean, it's for sure. It's a theme offensively

that it's gone the way of the dinosaur, bro. I mean, when I got in the league, it was counter, power, big tight ends. There's no more algae crumplers, bro. That San Francisco offensive line we used to play twice a year was huge, and they were built to run the ball downhill with Frank Gore. You saw the league change in just a decade. It's completely different. I do think there could be a little bit of an overcorrection, and some people might at some point here get back to valuing the running back position and running the ball with authority. But when you kind of melt that, and it's ironic we're talking about San Francisco because Greg Roman was the guy in San Francisco, and now he's the guy who did a great job with Cap. He's doing a great job with Lamar, and Lamar deserves credit.

But when you mold those two factors, which is you've got an athletic quarterback who can make plays with his arm and his legs, and you're capable of pounding the football, it's going to be an interesting thing to see how they play in November and December because that's going to lend itself to success. Because I went through it since the start, week one of 2018, that turnover from that point to now is 16 different quarterbacks. And if you want to go back like a year before that,

we're talking about two-thirds of that position has turned over in less than 36 months. And when I look at Darnold last year starting off against Detroit, you're like, okay, the Jets got a guy. You think about Goff, Pete Goff, what that's meant. And not that he's the fourth highest paid quarterback on average salary. Look, Dak's going to end up being paid higher than him

because his deal will be more recent. Maybe Dak ends up being the third highest paid quarterback. Does that mean he's the third best? No, but he's looked like a guy that you go, okay, this is ridiculous. You've seen Wentz production, whether it's Jacoby Brissett now, Lamar's first couple weeks.

Kyle Allen looked really good with Carolina yesterday. Minshew now all of a sudden people are hot on. I mean, I just – my first instinct is instead of saying, oh, wow, that's all these awesome young QBs, and it's the numbers, it's the officiating, we've been over this stuff all over again, but there's been some real peaks and valleys with these guys where when Daniel Jones has the game he had against Tampa, I can't help but just go, okay, that's awesome. Maybe it works out, but get back to me in a month at the very least, and then I still got to see next year. I don't want to say stubborn, but

it's a lot of turnover with young guys showing these blips as if they've solved quarterback problems when the reality is half of them probably are still going to get replaced in two years. Well, I mean, we've been looking down the barrel of this thing for years now. I remember a few years ago thinking, you know, as you're waiting for the bottom to fall out on Drew Brees, on Ben, on Tom, on Phillip, on Eli. You've got this whole crop of quarterbacks who will be historically relevant for a long time, and they're all hitting 40 around the same time. And you thought, what's that turnover going to look like? Is it going to be really clear, be is it going to be really clear or is it going to be gradual is it going to this could be the year that you look back at and say

everything changed as far as quarterback play or um the product on the field before it corrects itself over a couple years could be a little bit different the styles are going to be different and and the faces are going to be different i think people look back at this year and say, you know, this is the year we saw. Phillips had enough, you know, Sunday afternoons of agony and disappointment. You know, Eli's finally benched. You know, Tom, who knows? But Drew has a thumb surgery, which is not something that's easy for him to come back and rehab during the

season and be at his best and bends out for the year. So, I mean, all this turnover, it is hard to pinpoint because young guys can look really good one week and poor the next. So I think skepticism is okay on, you know,

on your end, but some of the product is ugly, man. I mean, it's just, I can, I was sitting around watching games yesterday like, this is ugly. I get why they protect quarterbacks.

I really do. Yeah, we're already talking about seven guys being replaced because I was – I always go through the conference depth chart and who's replaced who and all that kind of stuff. But it's a good point that you bring that if we've been looking at this staring analogy that you use where it's, okay, Bree injury how many more years brady how many more years ban out eli benched rivers how much longer like maybe we're having this mass amount of turnover um because we have maybe it'll be 24 months where we're missing out on five or six guys that we just

named within 24 months but hey all of those guys were out of the league at the exact same time, dude, at the same time. I think we'll look back and say that. And I think it'll be interesting to see that how the NFL, I don't want to say like fixes the game, but we all know they slant the, you know, the calls and the rules offensively. How will they continue to do that? While also adapting to the changing style of quarterback play. I mean, like, because the product at the end of the day is the most important.

I mean, San Francisco might be 3-0, but they turn the ball over five times, and Mason Rudolph against Jimmy G is not something people are tuning into. And there were some games yesterday where Seattle still got their franchise quarterback, but Teddy's starting. It's a different-looking game,. It's less fun to watch, even as a defensive player. I love defensive football. What I don't like is sloppy offensive football. You saw some overcorrection on the holding penalties. Everybody's talking about Tom tweeted about ridiculous penalties. He might have a lot to gain if they call less, call less holding with his O-line. But people are like flags for holding were down by 50% this week after a huge

spike in emphasis and execution on officiating on the part of officials. So I think you'll see a lot more rules and some things being called a lot more liberally to slant to offenses during this transition period. So what did you think of the Brady tweet? Do you think he was doing it like strategically?

Do you think Tom does this? I mean like you know where I am on Tom. I am huge Tom fan and I think Tom really is sending some of these tweets. I really do believe that. Do you think he sent that tweet? I do.

I just thought he was screwing around. I thought he was making fun of the whole thing. Part of this is you go, hey, if it wasn't for you and the Kansas City injury in 2008, this leg flag doesn't even exist. So, I mean, Tom has gotten plenty of flags. But for someone then, I think he was just screwing around, being like everybody complains all the time. I don't think he was doing this going, okay, if I send this.

No, I don't think so either. I'm joking. I mean, ironically, he could have a lot to gain from, I mean, with the group Dante dante's with scar has to work with up in new england who obviously if anybody can handle some of that turnover and change it's him and they do a terrific job of hitting the curveball i have to talk about new england now for 30 seconds because um new england twitter is very critical of the fact that i don't give new england enough love. I agree with him.

Hashtag, what about the Pats? What about the Pats? They're awesome. I talk about the Pats every week. I love Tom Brady. He's one of my favorite players of all time. But yeah, when he tweets that the penalties are ridiculous, I don't know if it's a coincidence or if the league saw the same thing, but it wouldn't be the worst thing if they let some of the holding penalties go up in Foxborough because that O-line is the only blind spot that team has this year.

Now, I'm not betting against them by any means because I think Scar can handle it. I thought he was going to tweet, why does rent count against the team salary cap? You didn't see a lot of Tom Brady's... How did that play with Antonio Brown? Like, hey, dude, I know you got cut today, but we'll give you a couple days, but I don't want to have to evict you.

Oh, yeah, in his house. Yeah. That is interesting. Remember remember everybody thought it was hilarious they're posting pictures together and this is like really good content and it's like yeah you're actually you're off the team now what if great what if antonio brown's like hey we're still good though for me to like crash here till end of the year right just a couple more months just a couple just just till next year um not sure i don't know if it's one of those things i'm like a late checkout guy me too like i and are you do you go to the desk when you check out

well you know i used to never i the weird thing was i felt like i was doing something wrong when i would just never check out on time so that i didn't want to have to have that verbal transaction with the front desk but but then i started looking at the bill like two days later I'd get the bill emailed to me and go what are all these charges like hotel up charging making up you watched hollow man three times what's that you watched hollow man three times I didn't watch hollow man three times um no I mean like I sneak past the desk i really don't feel like i really my stay was great uh bill looks good yes i ordered a turkey burger at 11 o'clock like that's about it so i don't know if there was like a late checkout deal at tom's house or like he just kind of like

walked out without saying goodbye or avoided the front desk but um yeah that's an interesting combo can i give you a little bit of a like a newsy thing here on antonio brown so yeah go go ahead adam chef uh brian rossolo i i was talking to a couple different people to check on this and when i saw the language for the patriots and you know, they cut him and they were so smart, they staggered the bonus payment to the 23rd, which is today. So it's okay. They knew, so they didn't have to pay him. So the way it worked was that he had these two bonus payments, one that was due on or

by today, and then another one in March, and that it was a pretty standard contract the way they handled it. But from what I heard is that Belichick just did this completely on his own. And as I've mentioned before in this podcast, that Bill likes Rosenhaus based on all the people I've talked to, and that Drew is somebody that NFL teams, despite the drama and the histrionics and him going on TV and saying all those things, that behind the scenes, he's a guy that wants to work and get deals done. He doesn't need every single last dollar. He wants to make sure his players get taken care of. And that's not always the same for all agents, which I'm sure you can attest to. And if you have any stories on that, feel free to

jump in after this. So that when Brown was up, Rosenhaus calls Bill, hey, let's figure this thing out. Bill's like done. But then Belichick didn't consult anybody else, just did it. And I'm not even knocking Bill or the Patriots or signing Brown before we had these new pieces of information here. You know, I just, I'm not big on this world where if it's only a, he said, she said not taking sides, but when it's just that, and that's the only information we have, I'm just not comfortable saying, Hey, this guy shouldn't play or this guy shouldn't get another chance. Now, granted, his texts and some of the stuff since then, it's pretty overwhelming that he's at best unhinged. It were something else that I'm probably not comfortable saying in this format. Yeah, I mean, the speculation, by the way, on that is insane. So many Twitter doctors, we have no idea what's going on. Right, because everybody's just like, okay, well, that's the weird out now for football people when you act crazy. Brain damage. Everybody has brain damage.

Yeah. Okay. You know what? You also could just be a terrible guy. You could also just be a dumb human being, but I'm not even comfortable saying that kind of stuff unless you've interacted with somebody a little bit more. So back to the beginning of this deal, apparently Bill didn't talk to anybody else, didn't talk to anybody else about how he structured the deal and treated Brown like he was just a normal guy that was a high profile free agent. So instead of doing a roster bonus, hey, let's just call it 750, call it a million a week when you're on the 46 man and ready to go to make sure that you're invested in this whole thing, that's how it should have been treated. And other people around the league were like, man, that's a really weird way of doing this. And that's apparently what Bill

just did. Bill got with Drew, trusted Drew, and just went ahead and gave him this deal. So now you can say, okay, well, wait a minute. Has Baran been paid any of this money? Some people thought he was at least on or by today. I checked with somebody in New England. They said, no, he hasn't seen any of that dough. But if you look at the CBA, despite it feeling like players never get anything in the negotiations with owners, when it comes to civil complaints, And I'm not comfortable in a world where when it's a civil complaint, I'm just not comfortable

saying you shouldn't be allowed to do anything unless we have Ray Rice kind of evidence that if it's a civil complaint and the contract says the bonus is due today and the next bonus is due in March, that it's still very much in favor of the player and that's what Brown's going to fight. So Brown can send out all the nasty tweets or we can see the report from Schefter that Kraft is never going to pay Antonio Brown a dime because he sent out a tweet about the massage parlor. None of that's relevant.

None of that's relevant because if the language says, you owe me this much and it's not a hidden injury that the player or an agent lied about, it's just simply a civil, not criminal complaint, there's still a chance he gets that money, and that money's going to be on the cap books for the next year, and excuse me, this year and next year, and there's an argument to be made, and this isn't an anti-bill thing, even though it was a horrible look what he did

with Dana Jacobson. I don't understand why he keeps pulling off this thing like where he's some tough guy. It may have been a really reckless and stupid contract structure where he just did it on his own. So there you go. Yeah. I mean, the whole thing has been curious to me. I mean, it just goes to show that even in the face of evidence that this might not be a great move, and I don't know what they knew or what they didn't know but even with everything that was happening leading up coaches feel like they can get it done they can change players they can work

around the problems at hand and and even Bill's not immune to being in a bad spot and maybe it's self-inflicted so I've been one to kind of look at that situation from a contractual standpoint and see kind of like what it looks like when the smoke clears, not so much how it looks now, but your point is, I mean, if that information is true, I mean, it's going to be a blunder for sure. And at the end of the day, it just goes to show, coaches like Bill or some of the class of the NFL

when it comes to managing players or making things work, sometimes gambles don't pay off. And at the end of it, I don't know. What I'd be really interested to see is how this all played in the locker room in New England. I have't know. I'd be interested. What I'd be really interested to see is how this all played in the locker room in New England. I have no idea. You know, it's like a vault up there, but I can't imagine that people don't have their

opinions and maybe they'll come out in time. What's the biggest distraction story you've ever had to deal with? Uh, when Jules started getting hot and everybody was asking about how jewels started glowing up, you know, uh, nah, I don't know. I've always been one. I I've never been distracted by anything because I think it's pretty simple. I just show up and do my job. And if I have to be like that New England, uh, truism there, I just show up and do my job. But, um, you know, if you have to sit in open locker room for 30 minutes and get asked questions about somebody else, I think sometimes that gets overblown.

Reporters can't stay in there any longer anyways. There might be more reporters at your locker, but you can just stay in the bathroom. I can stay in the training room. There's been plenty of times where I didn't feel like talking to media and the media, I respect they have to do their jobs, but sometimes there's days you just don't want to be in there. And that's not mean, obviously we went through the media firestorm that went with drafting a gay player in St. Louis, which to me was not a big deal. I mean, can the guy play football or not? I don't care.

Let's judge people by the merit of their play. But even the media who's acting like they agree with that mindset are trying to drive a wedge or trying to make something out of something that's not there. I mean, like our locker room was ready for that to happen. I mean, it didn't affect the chemistry of the team at all, but the way the media shows up to your building every day, you would think the media had an issue with it, not the team. So a lot of times distractions, they're not created by the players at all or the coaches at all. It're just, it just is what it is. And so as players, it depends on the guy. I'm sure quarterbacks feel a certain way,

defensive ends feel a certain way. I can disappear and go in another part of the building during open locker room. Can I ask you, was Sam good enough to play in the NFL? He wasn't good enough to make the Rams roster. I don't know about anywhere else. The thing people don't understand about the Michael thing, and I wish Michael well, and I think if you ask Mike,

our D-line room treated Mike like any other rookie. And that's because to us he was. I mean, it just doesn't matter. I think Mike was in the deepest D- line room in the league at that point. We had, in my opinion, the best D line in the league. Um, our backups were really good. I wouldn't even call them backups. Uh, we rotated, uh, ends and he happened to be in the same draft class as Ethan Westbrooks,

who was having a great, a great, uh, training camp and, uh having a great training camp and great preseason games. He just was the odd man out. There was nothing to it there. Listen, Mike was a really productive college player and had a nice preseason when you look at sacks, but at the end of the day, he wasn't good enough to play for the rams i can only speak to that yeah that's that's fair now of course now of course everybody says he was getting blackballed or we cut him because of that that's ridiculous uh he wasn't getting blackballed anybody that says that is is um is pushing an agenda and i feel really yeah i mean because because there was. There was nobody more

like we had one conversation about it and that was it. Hey guys, this guy's a rookie like anybody else. There's going to be a lot of media in here trying to divide us and there's going to be a lot of media trying to make it seem like he's not and that's where the distraction comes in.

A lot of times it's not internal at all. It's what the media does. I thought everybody handled that pretty well. Yeah. I remember what you said because I asked you about it. I thought it was really impressive. It was a while ago before peak friendship. I'm going to remind you what you said if you don't mind because I think we're fine. Go ahead. I think as a leader of the team- I don't mind, because I think we're fine. Go ahead. I think as a leader of the team- Because I don't remember. No, as a leader of the team, you pulled everybody aside. It was probably your defensive guy,

so I doubt you were addressing the entire team. Maybe you were, because I just know how bracketed everything can be. But you basically said like, hey, somebody at some point is probably going to screw up with this thing. Somebody's going to say the wrong thing. Somebody's going to invite all sorts of negativity and speculation, whatever. We're not going to be that team that does that. We're going to be the team that handles this the right way, and we're not going to be the team that fucks this up. Yeah, because at the end of the day,

as evidenced by a player recently coming out of the closet, end of the day i mean as evidenced by a player recently coming out of the closet i mean like there have been uh players of all sexual orientations in the league for a long time and uh they just haven't been vocal about it and you know um from here on out like if we screw this up you know as a locker room there's going to be somebody that's going to have a hard time on a personal level an emotional level and and also from a business standpoint that might be a guy. Forget the fact that you care about people and doing the right thing. Do you want a guy to help you win games or not? Because that's all it's about.

Down the line, there's going to be a team that there might be a player who's not so comfortable. there's going to be a team that, you know, there might be a player who's not so comfortable. And, and if we handle this the right way, um, we have an opportunity to do something good here. And, uh, the media makes it really hard. The media tries to, to drive a wedge and, and, uh, and get guys to say the wrong things because the media and TV media, especially, uh, would like nothing more than for a guy to say something inappropriate or something that leads you to believe there is some resentment for what Mike or any of those players that go through that bring to the table from a football or in the locker room standpoint.

Yeah. So I do want to shout out one guy who's probably the most unlucky guy in the league, and that's Josh Rosen, who had a nice day yesterday for the Dolphins. Week one and two, respectively, they gained 200 yards and 184 yards in total. And week three, 216 yards in the first half. So pretty excited for him. Man, the deck's been loaded against him, and you can't imagine a guy,

you talk about guys that like had to handle things the right way with, you know, Arizona drafting Kyler. You know, immediately it's his replacement. People are critical of him for unfollowing the Cardinals. That's a guy who's got his heart broken a few times. I don't know.

Chances are, the way Miami looks, they're not playing to have him as the quarterback of the future, but he's a mentally tough guy. He's resilient. I think he'll try to play his way into having decent trade value and hopefully end up on a winner next year or a team that's more complete than Miami. So shout out to Josh Rosen. Yeah, that's going to be brutal. It's going to be pretty tough. But I don't know. When you start doing the, hey, this is the start of

the career, and then you go, hey, a lot of stories, they don't have great endings when this is the beginning. I want to shout out somebody a little different for a different reason i'm going to shout out oj simpson um do you know how hard it is to commit a double murder that basically all of us feel like he committed except for a bunch of jurors that were tired and wanted to go home um to commit double murder and then somehow years later be even more unlikable because of your tweets well that's a fucking tough one to pull off and oj pulled it off and it and it proves once again that when you talk about your fantasy lineup no i think this proves people get more upset with that than actually murdering people so i mean no nobody cares about the fantasy lineup i mean somebody asked me like

who's filming these videos? That's what I want to know. Who's this tech guy? And are they all like one take? They feel like one take. And he had one where he was basically saying, I hope AB in a civil suit understands and maybe his lawyers didn't help him out, but

you know, this sucks because I had AB, I had Andrew Luck and now my some other receiver got hurt so now my receivers aren't going to be as good alright talk to you soon it's

unbelievable that that guy don't worry we'll be talking soon I will be tweeting soon I just wanted you to hear these team names Don't worry, we'll be talking soon. I will be tweeting soon. I just wanted you to hear these team names. I wanted you to hear these team names before we go, just in case you wanted. The Dolphins' 117-point point differential is the only two teams that have been worse in NFL history.

The Louisville Breck at minus 134 in 1922. And the Rochester Jeffersons at minus 122 in 1923. I'd never heard of these fucking teams. Rochester, I don't know what happened up there. But there was a time where Rochester, New Yorkork was the place you wanted to be and it may have been the late aughts early 20s but their throwback jerseys the jeffs are incredible really and if your name was jeff yeah if your name is jeff like you gotta you gotta find a way to to get one of these it just says the jeffs it's i'm taking a picture of it right now

i'm sending it to you this is fire oh yeah they're they're super cool yeah you probably should throw one because i i feel like you're wearing that jordan barons t-shirt too much just why i am i'm not a guy who's afraid to repeat t-shirts like i yeah i know it's it's not an effort it's not an effort to be every man I just am everyman bro you keep that everyman content coming at Joel91 and we got some other stuff coming from Chris soon big announcements I've seen

some of it already it is incredible you should be proud and I can't wait for you to share it with everybody so thank you buddy we'll talk soon probably in 20 minutes sounds good okay that'll do it for us this week make sure you subscribe and download and rate, review the whole deal. The Ryan Masolo Podcast here at The Ringer. Summer is almost over, but that doesn't mean vacation has to end.

Nothing like a nice little late September getaway, early October. With Hotel Tonight's Daily Drop feature, you can save money on a spontaneous trip. In most cities, use Daily Drop to unlock a special deal. And once unlocked, you'll have 15 minutes to book. You can unlock a new deal just for you every day, whether you're searching for tonight or a few weeks away. Daily Drop is an awesome way to stay big.

Visit Hoteltonight.com or download the app to unlock a getaway today. you