The Around the NFL podcast is fresh out of sunny drops. Well repopulate people, we need you.
From the Chris Westling podcast studio. It's Around the NFL. I am Dan Hansis. I have heroes here, Greg Rosenthal, Mark Sessler. It is the flagship show, Sunday Night Edition.
Week four and an interesting week.
It was, gentlemen, it's Woodshed Week in the NFL. I remember, like we used to try to come up with themes or NFL Primetime would do that. It's like it's comeback week. It's crazy, this got jacked up. And I'm just looking at the scores here and it was a lot of teams taken to the woodshed.
Oh wood shot of I like that wood shed.
I've been scanning like the like the last couple of minutes, like the last three weeks prior, and there have been a surplus of blowouts.
What about the boat race regalia?
I like that.
Yeah, maybe we were due for a correction because all last season, all we have heard how it was the closest margin of error in NFL history, the most close games in NFL history, and the NFL is really pumping that up. I was thinking, like, isn't that just kind of a little random.
I don't know.
It seemed it seemed like every just saying.
But even this week, you games that like end up like you think they're over and it's like, no, they're not. But they you know, we're destined to go a fifth quarter on two or three of these every week.
This guy gets it.
I would Mark, I would like to get going with the show because we've got a bunch of games to get to. But Mark, but Greg had woodshed week, I had the boat race for Galia.
H.
Bomb drops Sunday Part four?
Okay, very Mark answer, Bomb Drop Sunday Part four. By the way, we might have to drop a bomb behind the glass? Can we bring in Eric real quick? You know we love Roberts's Robert. He does unbelievable work behind the glass. I try, but I did it. There were some snitches out there on Twitter that over the past week that let me know that there were no bongos in week three.
Ooh, no bongos.
You said you want to get to the show, and you dropped this bomb right away.
Well this is important.
I don't know how much of a curtain we want to pull back, but we had to do a little reset last week and it was intended for the Dolphins the game. It was the first highlight of the show. I was thrown off. I will take the al on that one. You know what, I'm sorry.
Not necessary, it's just important. If this show doesn't have bongos, it has no need to exist.
I know.
So this makes this is one of the most important bongo shows in the history of the Sunday flagship show.
Who gets double bongos? Essential? You get credited for two bongos?
You gotta get it right.
It's like skins competition and golf. All right, Let's get to the action. Let's start with the game that everyone had circled. The game with the supposedly unstoppable Dolphins offense heading to Orchard Park to take on Oh.
Eric Roberts's Buffalo Bills. Would the Bills be ready to play? Oh? Yes, they were. First player to fourth quarter.
Three receivers left Cook in the backfield to the right of Allen.
The shotgun handoff fakes to Cook keeper by Allen, and.
He's gonna sail into the end.
Zone an eleven.
Yard touchdown run on the quarterback keeper.
Oh the Bill's running away. Now up twenty seven with an extra point pending.
My own you know that was with fourteen minutes to play in the fourth quarter. Humble pie for the Dolphins, served up by Josh Allen, who threw four touchdown passes and ran for a score, and the Bills handed Miami it's first lost, a forty eight to twenty win in front of a delirious sold out crowd there in Western New York.
Gregy.
This was the first overall pick in our draft on Thursday for a reason. It's the game everybody wanted to see. How come it turned into one sided blowout.
Sometimes blowouts are entertaining, and a team like the Bills put on a show and you can have your seventy point offense and you can have all the fastest players in the league according to net extend stats, but there's only one Josh Allen.
That's it.
It's one of the all time Josh Allen games. M I just thought the way he started this game. On the very first drive, there was a play where Vic Fangio calls a blitz and it was a perfectly time blitz free rusher off the edge, and Alan just backpedals, back pedals, back pedals, as if it's not even there and he hits an opposite hash throw to Stefan Diggs for the first down seventeen yards Like it was nothing. I was like, Wow, that's an amazing play. Has a
dart for a touchdown. Later, fast forward a couple drives, They've already scored two touchdowns their first two drives.
His ability to scramble and.
Just continue to buy time by time by time in the pocket before finding Digs for Diggs's first touchdown. Diggs ends up going six for one twenty and three.
To me, was just like money performance.
It was just like Josh Allen in a nutshell. He can beat you in structure, he can beat you out of structure. He had four passing touchdowns, only four incompletions. Everything it was great about Josh Allen's performance, even that rushing touchdown, just like the decision making and the way that he made this Dolphins defense, which has been disappointing in general. I would say through three weeks, almost embarrassed forty eight points. As you heard through about three quarters in a minute.
It's kind of crazy where we were like a fortnight ago or you know, two weeks ago with Josh Allen. A lot of the talk was where is Josh Allen that we knew, Like he's up and down. You're gonna get the good version, the bad version. That Jets game soiled everyone's impression of him. He has been absolutely pristine
for three weeks in a row. But I am justice impressed with their defense because you know, I also feel this brushback against the Dolphins now, where like last week is like this aberration, like they're still there's still like a centerpiece in the AFC. To me, they've had they've lost three straight to the Bills. They've had their problems, but you take away a chance fifty five yard run. They were completely bottled up on the ground for the
most part. And I'm really concerned at times about the back end of their defense and what to them today. And I think there's this thing with two where it's like I don't always want to question too it because he's been awesome, but it's kind of like this was a game where he seemed a little less comfortable about like getting the ball out immediately to his first read, and like if you cause some problems there, like I
don't know this thing. This operation did not work. As if someone told me the score might be reversed Like a couple of days ago, I'd been like, the Dolphins will be the absolute talk of Pro football, and instead it's a massive comeback down to earth game.
And I think that's why it's okay to take some air out of the balloon here, because as impressive as destroying a bad Denver team is and a middling Patriots team and they nice win against the Chargers in Week one on.
The road, here's like a real test.
This is the one where it's like, okay, and it doesn't mean they can't get off the mat, but you want to see the Dolphins go up to Buffalo and really, if not win, I put up a fight, and Greg, I you know, this is a game I'm looking forward to watching in full. But the defense, it has been covered over obviously because the offense has been so great. Big Fangio defenses are known to take time to come together.
So just a reminder, like when the offense isn't clicking and it hasn't been full clicking for two games here at A four and the other two have been out of this world, that the defense is gonna have to make strides or they're gonna have these bumps in the road along the way right.
I mean, the Bills scored a touchdown on virtually every possession until until the start until like their their eighth drive or ninth drive in the middle of the fourth quarter. But the Bills defense made more plays. I thought Two have played a strong game overall. But they did some things to disrupt the timing, as you mentioned, to send aggressively rushers after to A and sort of not worry so much. Very different than the Patriots, who I think
the Patriots were in total prevent mode. Let's just not let them score seventy on us. The Bills came after them, and it works sometimes and it didn't work others. And I think two actually played pretty well. But Terrell Bernard's making plays week after week.
Oh, he was a great less.
He prevented to A going to his first read on one play that ended up being I believe that was his interception or maybe it was a fumble. Greg Russeau, day Kwon Jones, Leonard Floyd, Sean Mcdermot's different than Leslie Frazier. He is coming after defenses. They've been very aggressive and it was impressive today. They're better up front on both sides of the ball. I think this year than they've ever been, which is scary. Under McDermott. Their offensive line
also playing well. I know the rushing yards don't standout, but in short yarded situations they're now just handing the ball off er in the red zone and they're getting touchdowns or they're getting first downs with their running back.
Yeah.
With Alan playing at this level last three weeks and you could argue he's playing better than any quarterback in the league. After that ugly Week one against the Jets, the Bills start to look terrifying. Mike McDaniel, Dolphins coach, you never can get him in the show.
We will.
Oh, you have just fun to hear him talk. He's just one of those dudes. He was handing out flowers to the opponent after the loss.
First off, I think the Buffalo Bills proved why they are are the the team that you know that our whole division is trying to beat. They've you know, wanted for how many years in a row?
Now, I mean he's not wrong many. I think it's been three maybe four years in a row. Not all good news, guys. Before we move on, Tredavious White very important piece of that secondary for Buffalo kind of a heart, heart and soul piece of the defense suffers what appears to be a serious Achilles injury. Let's hear from Sean McDermott, who did not paint an optimistic picture.
They're obviously still evaluating. Yeah, I mean, he's been through a lot, and sometimes you wonder, right, why things like that happen twice? You know, you know to someone, I'm not saying what.
It is, what it is.
I'm just saying, like, you know, you just you just wonder why, because you watch him how hard he's worked to give back.
It was really disappointing. He was he was so frustrated, distraught, slammed his helmet through his helmet immediately pounded his fist against the ground.
You kind of knew.
And as great as this performance was by the Bills, I still left the game thing and the most important part of the game was they lost Tredevious White. Looks like it's going to be Achilles for the season. In Toronto, Armstead, the left tackle for the Dolphins, could barely walk off the field and left with a knee injury. Those are two of the lynchpins of both of those two teams, and I don't think it was a coincidence that Miami's offense kind of started falling apart the minute Armstead left.
So both those injuries that happened last year when Armstead was not in there like their splits the way they looked completely different.
One other note, Tamar Hamlin was active in this game after his near death experience on the field last year's first time being active for the Bills. He played mostly special teams with Jordan Poyer out of the lineup.
That is a cool thing.
So all around, other than the Trenavius White injury, great stuff for Buffalo. Now three and one, tied with the Dolphins atop the AFC East. Let us keep moving, a gentleman, let us head to Indy. I call this the Frisky Bowl. Rams cults two of the most fun teams to watch so far this year. And nobody was talking about these teams in that way on September first, And that's why football's fun.
Let's get to it.
Stafford ready calls for the snap.
Here comes the rush.
He throws white side alone, hits Pookah.
At the five, a walk off winter Pooka nakula in over time, Nakuah Matanda.
It means no worries for the rest of today. It's a problem.
Free Rams victory. Whoa ja going the distance with that?
Oh yeah, there we go. Everybody's on fire, including Roberts behind the glass.
I love this is this JB. Long going into his John Sterling area. He's just gonna cats phrases for everybody else.
Sounds like it.
Unbelievable finish for the La Rams. I find these types of wins to be the best types. When you have the game in hand, you let it all slip away, and then you recover and somehow find a way. And that's what Matthew Stafford and the Rams did in a overtime victory over the Colts on the road, final score twenty nine to twenty three. When Stafford connected to Puka Nakua, it's a star in overtime coverage bus.
There tough, tough beat for the Colts d in that spot.
This is a game that the Rams were up twenty three zip I believe in the third quarter. And then what made this such a fun game, boys, is you saw everything that's kind of excited about this Rams team, how functional the offense is, how good, straight up good this offense is. When Matthew Stafford is healthy and protected, and Sean mcvay's calling the place like and and it's just like everything kind of works and and then you
saw what happens. Why people are excited about this Colts team because Anthony Richardson then took over and led the team on three scoring drives to tie the game up late in regulation, and uh.
We keptitting the two as well.
It was just so impressive. He is such a great playmaker. Richardson already one of the best playmakers in the league. And mark the Matthew Stafford, who I think we all like him a lot and and respect him, and he's kind of had a great career. Got the ring and now this is kind of the epilogue and what's been a long run. He bangs up his hip late in this game. He could barely move and yet he leads that team in overtime, culminated with the Nakua touchdown pass.
What a huge win for the Rams on the road.
Yeah, the hip injury concerning obviously, he's had hip issues in years past. He's of the age where you know, we saw what happened to him last year. The body started to deconstruct if the season went along, and it's like, you know, I spent this whole offseason suspicious of why the Rams had this immensely young offense with Matthew Stafford sitting in there, like it felt a little disjointed, but
not now. It's like that I have to give Sean McVay like and less neat in the whole situation, like a lot of credit because a guy like Puka Nakua, who sounded like some name you'd make up, like a couple months ago to non college fans, thirty nine catches the best start by any rookie in NFL history. They seemed like when Cooper Cup was lost that the whole operation was gonna sink, and you might have a Rams
team that wins three games. And I pointed to another team in Pittsburgh saying, look at how they're putting an offense together that are all young together and growing and they're a lost shit. But it's the Rams all along, Like had these young guys who are the opposite of household names a month ago, and they're really fun to watch.
And it's like this kind of to your point, Dan, like.
To get into a hole where you've kind of given up your lead, and it could break certain teams and certain other coach teams that aren't coached to this degree and without a Matthew Stafford under center.
Like they didn't.
I mean, they almost lost it, but it's like, I'm so impressed they didn't get stuck in that hole.
I'm glad you said that, because Mark I was texting with Jordan Rodrigue, our friend at the Athletic who comes the Rams. I texted her when they were up twenty three zip and then or she texted me and reminded me of something we had some fun with over the summer, the T shirt that Sean McVay had printed up and it's set on the back. And yes, it was wordy and some of the syntax was a little shaky. Capitalization
was weird. Yeah, some of that there was an Amber sand involved and in grammatical problems.
But the most important thing was the message mentally and physically tough players who are smart and love to compete. Watch that game. There's the T shirt.
If you're watching this on YouTube, watch that game and tell me that does not describe Gregy, the Rams team that we watched here in it.
You don't want to overrate a week four win, they got the Eagles coming in next week. But to me, when the Colts got the ball back and the Rams had given up a twenty three to nothing lead, and the Rams had also just given the ball back with under two minutes to go, had chosen not to go for it on fourth down or anything, and Anthony Richardson gets the ball back, I'm thinking, like, this Rams season
is on the brink a little bit right here. If they give up a twenty three point lead and they got the Eagles coming in next week, And there's already talking Los Angeles among reporters that you believe like Jordan that like, okay, if they get to the trade deadline and the you know, they'll have decisions to make if their record sideways. And there's a nice throw by Richardson on third down that Quinton Lake, you know, breaks up and it looked like he had gotten beat on the play.
He fights back to it. They get into overtime, they have that terrific offensive drive and they can survive and get through this quarter two and two, and even if they lose to the Eagles, they'll have a chance to win some games after. And it's like that's how you stack a season up is like surviving moments like that and getting to a point where they won't be sellers at the trade though.
Can I ask your question, Den's like, I watched as much as I could of this, especially just when it started to turn into what it was, and Anthony Richardson on a weekly basis, there's these moments where he's like, this is the best athlete on the field, like he's marvelous and on the ground he's so dangerous, and yet there aren't other quarterbacks in the league going eleven for twenty five.
Yeah, so this was a game where the box score, at least the completion percentage doesn't match the level of play, because even at one point it was something it was way worse.
It was like five for fourteen or five for fifty.
He's produced these things like this before.
You know, it didn't feel like to me like he was playing poorly. It was just everything was really out of sync for the Colts for the better part of two and a half quarters.
But when he turned it.
On, I just the highest compliment I could pay the guys when they were down eight late in the fourth quarter and they had already kind of made inroads and scored twice already. It just felt like there was no way this guy wasn't going to do it, which is, you know, there's not many guys that are like that, and like Richardson with his ability to do it all is really I know, with all due respect to CJ. Shroud,
who's off to an amazing start himself. Like, when this season is over, if Richardson stays healthy, he's gonna win Offensive Rookie of the Year because this is gonna be an every week thing where he is making plays and he's going to electrify the buildings.
Take Texas fans won't like that, and I.
Said respect to Stroud, but I think Richardson is box office on a level that that's why Ers wanted him. And like, just like we were putting down the Rams as a team not to take seriously in the summer, the Colts kind of from Afar looked a bit of like a clown show the way it was run last year and all the drama around Jonathan Taylor and man, no, they lost this game, but I think both of these teams they might not be in the super Bowl, but I think they're going to be hanging around. They remained
bolt to me very frisky. Now with a caveat as let's here for Matt Stafford. I hope this guy's hips okay, because we do not want to see a limp in Matthew Stafford. Let's listen to what he had to say about his injury and how it affected him. It sounded a little worrisome.
The hardest part was just it was kind of just shutting down the leg a little bit right where you feel like you can step and you push and normal leg and then step and push and not normally. Just the muscles were kind of shutting down, but just kept going. No, it was just going to be one of those things that was, you know, pain slash function. As long as I could keep it warm on the sideline and keep the function going, I was going to try to stay in there.
So bird's eye view not the first thing I'd want to hear from my quarterback.
He does say he'll be out there next week.
That's good in what in what capacity? To heat Chelsea? Yeah, and it does.
Anthony Richardson got out of this game one piece, which is also a first in his NFL career. All right, let's now move to yes. With all due respect CJ. Stroud is off to.
I mean, Stroud is the rookie of the year right now, just say and it's not I'm projecting.
Yeah, no, that's fair.
I think that would be.
I would go sandwiches with you if Stroud continue to do what heat that's fair done.
And for Richardson like completion percent, that's nice, but yards pretentp matters a lot more. And he had about yeah, eight yards per attempt and six or seven big time plays in there, so you'll take that trade.
He's fun, he's exciting, he's special, interesting, Okay. Now, c J.
Stroud also you could explain him in that manner. And here's what happened in Houston today.
Third and seven from the Texans forty eight. Stroud shotgun motor in the backfield with him.
CJ gets to snap, CJ throwing downfield.
And pop by Nico twenty five twenty Blake.
Tib tackle fifteen ten five rock and roll touchdown kuston.
C J.
Stroud with more third down magic to the end zone.
Mark Vandermier with a call Texans Radio. I always forget that he does the rock and roll thing. There's something like a wholesome uncle vibe about that from Vandermier.
Now they haven't rock and rolled in a while, and that's it's you know, it's bringing it back.
Rookie CJ.
Stroud had another big time showing on Sunday.
He threw for over three hundred yards two.
Touchdowns and the and the Texans welcome to the boat race for Galia where you get the bomb drops in the woodshed thirty to six over the Steelers. Now we welcome in a man that he drops bombs on every local Jimmy steps into just with what he's putting up. And he doesn't and he doesn't just work on the beach muscles because he's a Midwest grinder.
Nick, how are you?
I'm fantastic, guys. I don't know if I dropping bombs sounds destructive?
Yeah, you are destructive in the gym. It must discuss to you, Nick before. I don't want to get off here. But when you see those guys a little twig legs in the big biceps and they got they got the beach muscles, but they're not strong men like you.
You're repulsed by that, aren't you.
They're not doing compound movements, they're skipping leg day. It's all about the glamour muscles. Yeah, yeah, disgusted, absolutely revolted.
How do you feel about the three of us when you take a look at how we're appearing here in the middle of in the early October.
No comment, You all look great? Okay, well it's been on the show. Yeah, shookey Stroud again, what are you seeing?
I mean, he looks fantastic. He looks so Going into this draft, with this draft class, I was kind of confused by the consensus that surrounded Bryce Young because everyone thought he's the far and away number one answer here, he's got everything, blah blah blah.
It was great.
But what I saw in CJ. Stroud is somebody who gave you the best chance to win if you played them right away. What you're going to do with most of those guys that you draft there because of his accuracy x accuracy has been fantastic the last two games. That touchdown passed and then highlight that you just rolled. I mean he threw that in the perfect spot not only for Nico Collins to make the catch, but to
catch and run down the sideline for a touchdown. He's done that a number of times in his last couple of games. Even in this first game he did that a few times. He's very settled in and a huge tip of the cap to offensive coordinator Bobby Slok, who is doing everything right with CJ.
Stroud.
He's taking advantage of all of his strengths. He's scheming the offense around them. They got a lot of young talent over there that's all kind of making some plays there. And he looks very comfortable and I think that's the most important part. He is not sped up by the game. He's playing really good football right now.
Now.
Slowik is one of the more interesting stories because he's got a PFF background and he was under Shanahan for a bit in San Francisco. Hasn't like called plays like this before, which you hear the narrative about it takes a couple of years to you even figure out situationally what you're doing. But he's done so much with these young players, and I think like his fingerprints are all over Stroud.
Yeah, you're right. The background is the whole Shanahan tree, and that's what we're seeing first and foremost is a coach who knows how to adapt to the strengths of his player and to where they're just sliding right in and being very calm. Surprised even myself and I thought very highly of Stroud coming out of Ohio State, that he was going to be the guy that could go win you games the quickest in the NFL. Maybe not
the highest seeling. I think the highest seeling belongs to Anthony Richardson, but he was gonna be a guy that can step in and win games. Even I'm surprised by his performance in the first month the season, where fifty percent if not more, of his games had been so encouraging that when Greg says, you know, he's the rookie of the year right now offensively, you have to agree that's.
Not even close. Well, i'd be a pro bowler.
It's four yeames in, but just at this point, I mean, they're boat racing the Jags. They're boat racing the Steelers. And the thing he's been best at, I think is dealing with pressure. He hasn't been sacked in the last two weeks, and Laramie Tunzel's out again today. Most of their offensive line is out there playing the Steelers and he's not making negative plays.
It's so impressive.
What was up with the Steelers defense here today, and what was up with Mike Tomlin Punton on fourth and two down twenty three to six in the fourth quarter. I mean, that is something that I know drives Steelers fans crazy. But Mike Tomlin is like an all time like I'm going to give up on the game and punch.
Yeah, it's a guy.
It drives me crt.
That's a that's a message to his guys. We came out flat, we got knocked in the mouth. We don't deserve to still compete in this game. You guys didn't give enough effort. We played like crap, and now we're going to pay for it. Let's get back on the bus, go to the plane and go back to Pitt.
That's like one of those and I do it now with my own children, and it happened to me when I was a kid. Sometimes the parental punishment doesn't make any sense, and it's like this isn't really thought out, but the parent doesn't want to They don't want to
give any ground on it at any level. Let's listen shooky to Tomlin, who obviously you know they come off two game winning streak here, but this this is now another grizzly performance by the offense especially, and he was hinting at could there be changes.
Mike says, yes, changes regarding hell yeah, we got to make some changes, man. That was that was That was an ugly product we put out there today. And so we're not going to do the same things and and hope for a different outcome. What those changes are, man, we'll put together a plan. Uh, in preparation.
The biggest change shook would be the quarterback position, and you have a Kenny Pickett who has not played well this year, but he goes out with a knee injury that we don't know the severity right now. Mitch Trubisky could be on the field for them, but there's a lot of mounting criticism around Matt Canada as well their play caller. How do you see that breakdown in terms of the struggles.
Yeah, I think that Pickett has not taken the step forward that you expect from him. The offensive line hasn't done him a lot of favors. Matt Canada has not done him a lot of favors with his play calling. The knee injury to me looked kind of bad. It's not encouraging. So you might not see him for a little bit. But more importantly than anything, it doesn't matter who you put back there in quarterback unless you've got
God himself playing quarterback. It's going to be really hard to overcome some of the situations that Matt Canada puts them in. You know, last year and the year before it was their offensive line is not good enough for them to establish the ground game well.
Now.
The play calling itself is just so disjointed that every time I look at a play with Kenny Pickett dropping back to pass, it feels like it's third and thirteen and he's got no shot because they don't hold up well enough for him to sit back there. He doesn't look comfortable, he's pretty skittish, and when he does throw passes, they're usually contested passes that he expects George Pickens to
make superhero plays on. So I'm not confident in this offense at all, and it's really annoying because they have talent. It's just not working right now, and I think a lot of it has to do with the offense.
I do think God would probably pull off like a higher passer rating than what we saw from Pickett today. But your two leading receivers are running backs, so neither one of them have more than thirty two yards. It's like, I guess I can't find a team. I'm more disappointed in after what I thought we'd be seeing in the growth and development I thought we'd be seeing in Pittsburgh.
It's like, I don't know why Canada was retained. I think that was a surprise to begin with, But it's like, how much longer do you keep Matt Canada?
Well, it depends on how you feel the potential of this team really is for this year, because I think if you can't replace an offensive cordinaor in the middle of season and see an instant turnaround, so I think you're kind of stuck to a degree with what you got.
That's how Canada got the job, though he did take over in the middle of the season, and I think he had a decent little run if I remember, and then they ended up keeping the job. If God was the quarterback, though, you know he would keep Deonte Johnson healthy. Pratt Firemouth left in this game early with an injury, so things are things are kind of snowball that year.
Why does God keep coming on?
I don't know, he said he said God would not be.
Able to go only God.
The Theology Podcast. Yeah, Jesu Louis.
Jogged over and just heals.
Deonta Texans are a real thing. Now they're in the mix. They're in the playoff mix. The AFC South is kind of fun.
Actually, it's a little bit frisky, shooky.
Let's head to Philadelphia where we had a game that went right down to the end.
It is a fifty four yard attempt.
These kickers hold well, this kicker, yeah, but he's not a.
Top five is there?
You go there? Eagles win.
The Eagles win, lights out Johnson with those fourth field goal of the.
Time MM, Jake Elliott, Yeah, you get past the velvet ropes come on in. Buddy kicks four field goals, including the fifty four yarder piped it to lift the Eagles were to thirty four to thirty one win over the Commanders.
They are four and zero for the second straight year.
Elliott also kicked forty one, forty seven, and thirty six before the last one. The Eagles fans go nuts and Jalen Hurts shooky and the passing game. This is progress on Sunday right in a game that was closer than maybe some people thought it would be.
Yeah, typically Cap with the piped it reference to Jay Feely, which is also a double reference at this point in this show. So we've got multiple layers going on. But Jalen hurts Man fantastic. First time that we really saw this passing offense completely open up.
This season.
It's been a bit of a struggle. They've had to rely on the ground game, but they did not have to, you know, lean too much on DeAndre Swift in this game. But it was It was a really fun battle. I think on both sides. You know, it told me a lot about Washington, but I was excited to see the Eagles blow it and then bounce back and find a way to win it with a long field goal. They still have some minor issues, but they're a fun watches. Escially when Hur's thrown around like this.
Give me some Sam Howell recap here, because the seat to see Howell survive in an offensive shootout, you expect more out of the Commander's defense. So, you know, credit to the Eagles offense for putting it on them today, but you don't expect the Commander's offense to kind of be going toe for toe and give them that lead early in this game.
Yeah, they had a ten point lead early on. I'm thinking, man, they goett to run away with this? Is this going to be one of those games where Sam Houses forget about last week, for get my four ugly interceptions against Buffalo. They don't matter because I'm winning the game of the division this week and I'm doing it my way. They did blow that lead, but what they did even better
was come back. I mean, down to the final play of regulation, there's one second adjusted to two seconds left in the clock.
He sits back there, cool.
As a cucumber, delivers a strike to the right side, game tying touchdown on a drive that for a little bit. You know, when they got in the Eagles territory inside, like the forty, looked like they were just gonna flat out run out of time. I mean even the broadcast it's like they're taking too long.
They got to go.
They got two plays out of the final ten seconds, maybe three plays, yeah, three, and we're able to score on the last one. Kid comes up in the clutch. You know, he's gonna have some issues, some warts early on in his career, but he's a gamer. He's a gamer. With some ability, and he's really really fun to watch, even though they lost this game.
I think he's had been sacked twenty four times, and I mean, I know a lot of that is on him. It's the line, it's the whole thing that has to be corrected at some point. I was so glad to see the Eagles pull this out, though, because like AJ Brown nine catches for one hundred and seventy five yard and two touchdowns, and it's like, you're right, this just shows you the power and the versatility of this offense.
But he had at the penalty, the taunting penalty after that score, and it's like, I don't think if that happens, and you can argue whether that was deserved or not. If that penalty does not happen, like Washington probably runs out of time and doesn't get close enough to do what they needed to do at the end there, And it's like he would have played quietly this goat role when he's like an absolutely epic hero in this contest.
Yeah, but you know what, I gave him a pass for that because the taunting was so brief, happened live in the thoughts.
I don't think it was a shaky call go for two.
And looked at him a little bit closely as he was running.
Yes, I don't like that, go for two, Go for two? Ron.
You know what all of Lincoln Financial Field was sweating yes about and hoping that you didn't do Ron rivera go for.
T where's the river boat?
Where it is retired?
Is get back on? Well?
Maybe because of the boat race for Galia was booked up the waterway. It's gonna get out there, all right, Shooky, We're gonna let you off the hook.
Here. You can get on the boat so you don't have to talk about the Browns. Yikes. Thank you sir as always, and we'll see you next Sunday.
I was so merciful, guys.
I appreciate you.
Yeah later, All right, let's take a break and then we will move on. All right, welcome back. It is time now for the Sunday Drive, presented by the first ever Toyota Grand Highlander. Let's head to Big d where cowboys were big Mad.
After an ugly week three showing.
Second and ten, Jones is back plenty of times, rolls right, bottled up, throws back to that intercept down plea house, Hello House, House, it's made.
Duran, Hello, house, that's our guy for Doran Blan.
Wow, that's our dude.
Damn God, Brad Sham the sham god with the call, Duran Blan returned one of his two picks to the house untouched. Leyton vander ash also scooped up a fumble on a mac Jones uh sack ran it back for a score in the Cowboys hammer the Patriots thirty eight to three.
Interesting, boys, U, Greg mac Jones doesn't finish this game.
Uh, And there's going to be a ground swell of people saying he's the reason why they got destroyed in this game.
One of them is that is that fair?
Do you do you think the cow the Patriots are heading towards something here with their one time first round pick.
Well, if if we're talking about that, we do have Belichick on mac Jones out of the game, right, Like we.
Have a show where we could hear from Mike McDaniel and Bill Bell.
Yeah, let's just hear him about mac Jones.
The games on the.
Led the decision to take mac out at three forty one remaining in.
The third quarter.
I think there's any point leaving him in the game.
Will be starting next week against the Saints.
Yeah, just so there's no point leaving him in the game, Mike in grace.
I mean, yeah, do you think considered taking like jud out on the other side or got.
Him in the ribs no effect? Yeah, I mean put something some effect.
It's about ten agins the answer.
So Bill was he.
No, I said there was no point in leaving him out there, so I took him out.
That pause, by the way that you heard, that pregnant pause was Bill in his mind trying to figure out if he could make Mike Reese disappear under the mess pike and not be connected to it.
I mean, he's that's happened to other people connected with wellots before.
Mike might be the leader in the clubhouse, is the best beat writer out there in the game right now in terms of longevity and quality.
Hey, you don't build under to the mess Pike unless Bill Belichick respects you.
But he's been there twenty years so he can ask those tough questions. And he does plan to start him next week. He did make it clear in that press conference. He did say yes, once pressed on it, you know, if Mac is going to start. But this is the worst possible game in all ways. For the Patriots, mac Jones mentally crumbled after a couple of pretty good drives. I thought to start the game where they get a field goal and then they turn it over on downs.
He is so unathletic, and you try to look past that because he has other things that you know in theory can make up for that. But let's look at how they turned it over on downs. They do the tush push right, and it was blocked up pretty well. But mac Jones just sort of just like falls forward. There was no defenders there, like he could have run forward.
They don't get it, and then the whole rest of the game it turns into this Mac Jones like I'm going to try to play hero ball and panicking and really reminded me of a year ago where he's throwing the ball across his body. Dron Bland almost had two pick six. Dron Plain is a great player, by the way, or a great young player, promising five picks as a rookie last year. He didn't get a lot of pop replacing treyvon Dick. So that's great for the Cowboys. We'll
get to the good part of the Cowboys. It's just so many bad decisions, and then by the end middle of the third quarter, why you had to take him out even on plays that were perfectly blocked. Mack was completely freaking out and kind of not throwing it to open receivers and then doing crazy things, and so he's mentally collapsing. You have no explosive element to your offense. And then, as you heard from Mike Grease, Matt Judah, their best defensive player gets hurt in the fourth quarter
of a total blowout. The way the teammates were talking after the game, it sounded like it could be a long term injury. They're reporting it as a biceps injury, so that's probably a torn biceps in. Christian Gonzalez, their defensive rookie of the month for September in the NFL, left very early with what appeared to be a serious shoulder injury. So everything that could go wrong did. It was a humbling day for the Patriots.
The worst loss of Belichick's head.
Coaching career twenty four seasons, and Pats fans will remember the other one. It was the season open against Buffalo in two thousand and three thirty one zip.
Even worse than any Browns loss. Ye had to throw up.
Those Browns teams did not get blown out.
And the difference is like that, what did that two thousand and three team do? Greg? They won the season, they won the super Bowl. But everything feels different. Obviously everything is different.
He's not there anymore, but in general that the ship feels like it's it's swaying a little bit. And I thought, and I I, you know, this is not me being a bitter jetspin, but I've seen the face, that face that a quarterback makes when he's had a terrible day and he's still going back out on the field. I think Belichick made the right move to get him out of that game because they showed him on the sideline and you could.
Tell he was he had no answers.
Capitulated on some level.
And I thought he played really well the first three weeks, but he today was a lot in him.
And we're gonna disagree on that because I don't see the same level playing Mac Jones, even though he has made throws this season at times, I just don't. I don't think he's special or even or even maybe average.
And I'm wondering, as we and we could talk about this down the line, but that Mac Jones mark becomes like, if if this season goes where it might be going for New England, that Mac Jones is a sacrificial lamb after this, it's not Belichick and they get to start over, and he gets to start over with a QB and gets one last chance with this team.
I don't think that would be totally unfair other than the fact that, like Bill Belichick scouted and picked this player. So it's not entirely on mac Jones. Last year it was, you know, complete freebie because you you had a you know, chaos in the coaching situation. On offense, you've got Bill O'Brien and Greg. I just don't see the player that you see when it comes to mac Jones. I'm not saying that you think he's some great guy, but.
I just think he can be average. But in their offensive line has been so bad.
You're gonna be average.
You're going to float in another world in the AFC or in the NFC, right and this is a team right now that when I watch them on offense, it's like your selling point was Ramandro Stevenson flat lining, Like this isn't this is an offense from like nineteen ninety one. There's there's defensive strengths, but like you're not, You're this is not a modern day twenty twenty three offense.
No, they're They allowed the Cowboys and we can get to the Cowboys now like to sit on these short routes. And Bland was asked about it by our old colleague Mike already after the game, about city on these routes, and he's just like, hey, look that's what we saw in film. And so what he's saying is they can't push the ball down the field. Mac Jones doesn't have the arm or athleticism to make extra plays down the field. And then, more importantly to me, and this is completely
on Belichick. The whole team is on Belichick. And I don't think Belichick will survive this season. Unless they win eight or nine games, I think he'll be fired. I also think it's a long way from saying they won't win eight or nine games. It's early, it's one in three, But I think I think Kraft will get rid of him if it goes south. He put this entire team together. They have no explosive players right now. Those are all his players.
The juju signing, it's going to continue to build up as another thing to point to. He just doesn't have athleticism itself, it seems when he's trying to come out of these routes.
It's it's ugly and the cowboys.
Like I said on Thursday, Bett, if this is a big time team, you take that ugly Cardinals loss and you take it out on a middling team in your building. It's exactly what they did, which is why I was so surprised that.
I'm waiting for those rain clouds.
There are l's that the rain Maker has taken over years, and then there are capital l's.
This is uh, this is a big one.
This is a big one. You know, somebody's daughter isn't getting braces.
No, too bad for her.
Somebody's son isn't going to promm.
Hey, yeah, you gotta play the long game. But you gotta take the l's when they come.
How much does prom cost?
Oh, the toilet doesn't work. Now you got to go outside because Greg picked with his.
Heart and not his head than before I thought I was with the head.
You know, you guys got to accept this and you got to move on when you've taken and now this this poor credit.
It puts a lot of pressure on the rain Maker. Now mark for the next one, because he's got a as a showman. He's got to come out and say, I know I let you down. This one is my guarantee. Yeah, double double this up.
Or you completely forget about it for like five more weeks until in the middle of the show, like, oh I haven't done a rain Maker? Is that you still have that drop erics like one second before doing bad job by me. I do want to just give some props to Dak who I mentioned going into this game. This might be a tough matchup for him. Oh my god, he's ghosts. He played so well. You know, they're nine to one in their last ten games after a loss,
averaging thirty three points. This is a team that bounces back. His decision making. His passes were on point. I think he was seven for nine on throws that were at least ten yards down the field. A lot of these were right in the bucket. And I know the Patriots are down three or four of their top cornerbacks, but they were great throws. Gallup's been playing much better these last couple weeks. A lot of Jake Ferguson is a real tight and they have a lot of positives.
So they had that one bad game, but a lot of positives.
For deck the Cowboys next Sunday Night, forty nine Ers Week.
New Game of the Year, New Game of the Year.
Well, so you have to go, you have to go go.
Toe to toe with the Niners, and like, you can't have another flat performance.
Well, I believe it, talk about it. I know you.
I know you believe in them, and like I, I I have fair historical reason to be suspicious that they'll win twelve games and then go flat again.
That's the past. This is now.
It's literally a week ago.
They look they're not gonna go They're not gonna go seventeen, and oh.
Every team's gonna have you just I we'll see, we'll see.
So now you're out on the Cowboy I thought you were in this year.
No, oh okay, I'm in on the Niners.
But it's like, I like what happened last week kind of reconfirmed just suspicions about Dallas.
It's an NFL, it's an NFL game, and today's happened did that?
I I love what they did today.
It's like things happen. I trust them to do it about twelve times. Then January will come.
I'll just say this where nobody's underdog?
Damn right, Zaddie and I see you bones fossil little trick, two point conversion.
Dan Quinn doing his thing. What a staff, What a team.
They were up twenty eight three at half time, and dan Quinn was like, not today, not this time.
Team of eighten the Cowboys smart, you're gonna probably get super Bowl two weeks of Super Bowl nonsense with them if if it goes your way, so that'll be enough for me.
It would be great.
And that was the Sunday Drive presented by Toyota. Let's go places learn more at toyota dot com. Slash Grand Highlander. All Right, you know who might not be playing in the Super Bowl this year?
The Bengals. Things are going bad. Let's head to Nashville. Tannehill under center.
You handle that well? That was a very humbly what can you do? And that it's hard to be more wrong about anything than I was.
Hell, God, Dad, Titan Grace. That's the word.
Henry, I should say, is the man who rolls it through all that food.
But just freak me out.
Cincinnati was more lost than me.
Whoa my keep again? More Grace owned it turned it into beauty. That's magic. Titans Radio, the Titans Listen. There are teams that are difficult to figure out in this league, many of them. Actually, The Titans have been all over the map so far. And this week, this Sunday, it was the best version of the Titans. Ryan Tannehill throws for two forty and a touchdown. Dereck Henry looks like Dereck Henry again, even with that jump past TD throw, which I love.
And they trounced the Bengals twenty seven to three in Nashville.
Quite a performance for Tennessee all the way around. They only had ninety four yards of offense last week against Cleveland, and they scored twenty seven straight points in this game. Mark And like, I think it's it's a credit to Tennessee. But that's not what people and I know are Buddy Grave Digger and Titans fans are gonna say.
Everybody should be focusing.
On what the Titans can do when they are, you know, in their bag. But everyone is obviously going to focus on Cincinnati being completely lost at sea on both sides, of the ball in this game, but especially on offense, where once again you had a limited Burrow unable to do anything in this offense going nowhere fast.
Two things are happening because Grave Digger and Titans fans are correct because as hot and cold as they are when they're hot, and they appear under the mic Rabel leadership the way that they have in the past, I watched a team that was like more physical than Cincinnati, that beat them up all over the place, that nullified their pass rush when they have a weak offensive line.
Oh yeah, did they win? Henry threw that lob?
Did that not come after a timeout where like they saw Henry lined up in a direct snap situation on the Playboff Course, they go back and they kind of collect themselves and then Henry just throws the snout.
He swears on the next play.
It was very vrable and I'll give him credit, and I'll give Tim Kelly credit there o. C who they had, they cooked up some good stuff in this game where they head to the goal line and it's Jeffrey Simmons, a tickle monster serving as the up back with Derrick Henry back, and he's like holy s A and they and they call time out and then you know what Rabel does. It sends the same setup on the field, They run the same play and they're like, we don't care about you being able to recalibrate yourselves.
You're still not going to stop this, and they did not.
And that It's like Louis and Arumo has been a bright spot when they when they've tried to get through these games, and I think he's a great coordinator, but coaching in general with the Bengals, to have this last year's ugly start, this year's start, it certainly ties to the body of Joe Burrow. He's struggling. He took us some terrible hits in this game today and at one point I saw him kind of coming off to the sideline and testing his arm elbow. He got just it's you.
You're not going to get out of this if your quarterback's not healthy. And it's not the only problem on this team right now.
Right That's the thing that gets me and why I wasn't over the moon about the Monday night victory. That was a nice night. It was like a championship effort to get through that gutty, But in this game, they got almost doubled up in total yardage four hundred to two eleven. They didn't have a single play over seventeen yards on offense. That's been consistent. Their offense has been bad all four games, including against the Rams, one of the most defensive challenge teams in the league, and they've
struggled in that game. And it's mostly about Burrow, but the offensive line has not looked good, and they didn't look good when Burrow was moving a little better the first couple of weeks.
So there's a lot going on with this team.
Yeah, and I mean I've said it on Thursday.
Still feel this way, and you can now say, well, they don't have this ability to do this.
Got to sit down the quarterback this.
I know you're one in three and you're probably under the belief if we sit the quarterback down, our season's over. But you can't keep sending him out like this. In addition to it being just sad to watch, it's ineffective and move Okay, no he can't. He's not moving at all. Everything again is out of the shotgun. There is, so everything is out of his hands immediately, and Tennessee.
Just like we thought was gonna be a pro.
It was a problem because the offensive line was getting beat and once that pass rusher was on top of him, he's taken some nasty shots.
So you could.
Survive on Monday Night with that game plan against a lesser team or a lesser defense, But in this game, that's a taste of what's going to continue to happen until he gets hurt and he's either going to pop the calf again or it's gonna be a different injury like we saw almost happen in this game, and who knows how he's gonna feel when he wakes up. So I think it's high pass time that you need to sit this guy down. Your season's already on the ropes.
You kind of stop pretending if you're Zach Taylor. And I think Zach Taylor deserves blame for this as well, because you're not seeing and a lot of Bengals fans are pointing to Taylor is the number one problem.
Oh, I got some spice Rack text to read off.
I still think that's understandable, But it's crazy to me that people don't just say, well, Joe Burrow is forty percent or thirty percent. How do you not say that's the problem. You could say it's the play caller, and maybe there is some route here where they call a different type of game that makes them more effective. I just don't see it with at quarterback. I don't think there is a path to competency on offense with the way this guy is.
They can't dominate people on the ground the way that they were a couple of seasons ago. Alongside his play, t Higgins gets lost to cracked ribs.
I think it is.
I mean, it's like the house is starting to burn around you, and it's like the whole AFC North is a bit of a shamble save for one team right now.
Right meanwhile the AFC South, and we'll get to I guess the last team here, but I think do we have a four way tie at two and two? They're all a little frisky with some some frisky wins.
But yeah, spice Rack, you know what.
Wes is great, great friend who is a Bengals fan and is always never believed in Zach Taylor kind of like me, just points out opening drive eleven plays down to the one.
What do they do?
They kick an eighteen yard field goal two minutes ago in the first half down, seventeen, fourth and three, what do they do? They punt the ball into the end zone for a touchback. Cowardly dip Blank's.
That's what he wrote.
What he says, and he says if he had a charming personality that like the players liked, he'd under like he could have get behind that.
But he's also kind of a zero there.
He said, he was like, give me Steve Mariucci, at least that people just like, you know, at least like a like one.
Yeah, I'm sure Bengalsons would be cool of mooch on this.
Well, I think he meant back.
I think he's saying back in the day, he's saying like, Okay, maybe you don't have like you're not the x'es and o's guy, but at least being the guy everyone connect Because if I.
Fear to say, like give me three you know, foundational anchors of the Zach personality, I could come up with that. I mean, you went to the super Bowl, that's all I know about you.
And on the other side, you got a guy in Rabel who you lose one week twenty seven three and the next week you come back win twenty seven three.
That's kind of a Rabel type of team.
They lost nine of their last ten and you still believed in them.
When you have success like the Bengals have had the last two years, and Cincinnati fans have gotten a taste of that, this has been a very hard crash back to earth.
Expectations are hard. That's why I think the staying at the top is so hard.
The rain Maker knows a little bit about that. What do you mean, well, after what happened?
I mean, oh, one, you know, it's one game, but not to the people that you know how to.
Hey, if they're.
Following my picks on game debut, they're riding to the top and.
Firty place there. I don't know. If you get Kyle Shanahan on this sideline, tends to thing.
A lot of people out there are very focused on you.
Guys just said people are losing their house. Well, that's true, you're gonna get there. You know, anyone that knows you got a.
Probably the ghosting on your rain Maker predictions.
I'm I didn't say anything about a house. I mentioned little buck tooth Susie Q. You know she'll stay that way. Die alogue get them in visible line at least, you know, Uh, yes, and you mentioned t Higgins suffered some type of rib injury and potentially I saw I think Lorio say that he is facing perhaps an absence of weeks.
Yikes. Okay uh.
Speaking of yikes, the Cleveland Browns had to play without Deshaan Watson, and they learned that that is difficult business.
The shotgun three receives bunch to the right. Jackson takes the snap, steps up, throws it complete. Andrews has out of the ten five touch down Ravens and with five fifty six left to play in Cleveland, the Hayes.
In the barn. Ooh, six minutes to play. Sand Dusky drops.
The Hayes in the barn for the Ravens, who go to Cleveland and spank the Browns twenty eight to three, who, as they said, played without Deshaun Watson, who was scratched. He warmed up on the field before the game, but shoulder injury kept him out of the game. They put the rookie in, and the rookie and the offense, the rookie being Dorian Thompson Robinson unable to move the ball. Mark Sessler. This is a humbler for the Browns. I
imagine who you know. We came off a week of talking about their defense and against a hated rival.
A bit of a no show. It looks like in your own building.
This game was over a lot earlier than with six minutes to go. It's the kind of loss where I can understand that you've got Dorian Thompson Robinson in their fifth round pick who looked absolutely and utterly lost against a veteran Ravens defense.
Cool, I get it.
I didn't expect them to necessarily even have such chance to compete. If he didn't look good, I hoped he would. It was the opposite. You don't have Nick Chubb. Like after halftime, they had ten yards rushing and they can't. They just couldn't get anything going on that side of the ball. Of the ball and the Baltimore Ravens. My one thought was like, not unlike a jet situation if you had a quarterback in there that needed a lot
of support and was going to struggle. You've got this defense that we've been talking about for three plus weeks. And the Ravens started a little bit slowly, and I thought, this is Cleveland's doorway into a potential upset, and you get Watson back and you keep going.
You have a bye week next week. They got walked over.
I mean, it was kind of bizarre to watch because you did lose Adarius Smith for a bit, Miles Garrett got banged up late, but in general, this was the defense from these other weeks, led by Jim Schwartz. And it was Mark Andrews rumbling for thirty six yards on a catch, which at one point was their biggest play kind of early on. But then Justice Hill gets going with a fifteen yard run, a seven yard run, Melvin
Gordon gashes them for a twenty two yearard run. There suddenly up with the Lamar Jackson touchdown fourteen to three, and you sense the game was over because they were getting hotter and hotter and walking through Cleveland's defense in a way that it looked like the last twenty years. And so I'm a little mystified because this is a Ravens team missing all sorts of star players and supporting cast, and they put it to Cleveland. And it isn't simply
on the quarterback. The defense didn't Altimore. It was without two wide receivers.
They're starting left tackle, they're starting right tackle, went out and Greggie the Lamarmie. This is another good one for the Lamarmy now because he steps in with the team on the road against a punishing defense under manned. He scores four touchdowns, two on the ground, two through the air. And that's what a superstar quarterback.
Does, just so efficient. Nineteen throws for one hundred and eighty six yards, so in only four incompletions. You're playing this defense that we've heard a lot about. I'm always wary of teams that are mostly about the defense in the year twenty twenty three, because I read this article once.
It's always stuck with me.
That by far the most predictive thing in terms of who has a good defense, it's just the schedule you played, like the correlation is so strong of just like, and it's not everything. The Browns stomped bad offensive lines more than other teams were stomping bad offensive lines. But still, by far, the best correlation to the defensive rankings are who has played the worst offenses, who's played the easiest schedule?
And now they played a professional offense one missing a lot of players, like five starters on offense alone and four or five on defense. It was crazy how many cornerbacks, two of their their starting pass rushers. The Ravens were missing, and you have to give them a lot of credit because I think that's what twenty twenty three is about.
Two is like who can win when you're missing so many players because it just seems like injuries are destroying half the teams in the league, and the Browns, for instance, at least in terms of their running game, just haven't been able to like survive that injury.
Well, they weren't like they weren't built to be just around defense either. They're in that situation now because you lost maybe the running back in this league game is I guess what I'm thinking, But they were sitting ducks in this I mean, you talk about like teams you're playing in offenses, you're playing like the Ravens walked into a great situation today. So it's like we could go and over and flate who they are because they've been as inconsistent versus expectations on offense as Anyonoe.
Three first half touchdowns and I know they got a couple extra possessions, so maybe that is the difference.
But three on.
Nine, like nine drives under ten yards, It just and they looked like it, and there were massive turnovers, and you know dtr is like lost on the field out there and like whipping like they were having them throw these crazy deep passes. And then you got like who's helping them? You got Elije more like doing this one play that I think is the worst play I've seen all season where he takes an end around and instead of realizing it's a loss, like continues to figure eight
backwards and takes a twenty yard loss. And it's like, that's not how you help a fifth round rookie quarterback that found out minutes before the game he was going to start.
Is it weird that?
So the Browns they had at last drive obviously where it didn't mean anything. They picked up fifty three yards the eight one hundred and thirteen yards going into that last drive. It's just me or we're seeing this every week with multiple Like there's just like a lot of offenses that are totally no showing throughout the league. Maybe it's maybe it's just how I feel it rather than reality.
I mean, you're feeling it a lot with your offense, right, But but I would say in general, every week, cover three of these two or three of these early games in the late ones, like how many haves and we're like a veteran that you trust it has like forty seven yards pass or.
Like yeah, a team xas ninety eight yards heading into their final possessions just like.
Hmm, it's woodshad uh woodhead sign week talking about woods shed Week, bomb drops, Sunday.
Four four, Part four, all fourth week. All of that happened.
They've been happening on a weekly basis. If you look all of.
That happened and you know, yes, the Ravens have quietly had one of the best first quarters in the NFL, not just because they're three and one, okay, but because they get this division win. Here, what are they in the Have they won a couple of division games?
Haven't they?
Right now?
Because they beat the Bengals, So they're there's two and now in the division. The Bengals are a mess. The Browns will see the Steelers are a mess. It's been a nice you know that division looked nice going into the Suitabul start.
Yes, I mean other than the the injuries, which obviously to the running back position and the wide receiver.
Here's the thing they're getting most of those guys back.
Yes, we'll not be fun.
No not JK.
Dobbins.
And we'll see where Miles Garrett is at Mark. He had a boot on after this game.
He took a he wrapped up lamar on a play and I was surprised they showed the replay more than once because I was like, Oh, I think Lyles Garrett's out for the year and like and he's walking around because a foot injury apparently. But I'm with you, Greg, like I think that you the Ravens are still a team in progress. But the other three teams have like glowing red flags right.
Now, also also glowing No, that's terrible. Did Ginger man? Uh No?
David and Jok who set his face on fire with a fire pit this weekend, which is wild because I've done things like that in the past.
When you got that, you got the shut up, Greg. We're not taking it out of the show, Greg and a panic trying to get.
Our not I'm just I'm just reacting, honestly in the moment where I've never said we would.
Here's the thing. You turn that propane tank on and you're using the starter. The starter never works. So I'll tell you what I juke. I probably did went to get the the lighter thing, yeah, the little handle thing yet but meanwhile the propane gas has been rumbling sure for you know, Greg get upwards of sixty seconds perhaps, and then when it finally lights, it's it's like Oppenheimer.
Well he owned it.
I love that he showed up to the stadium with a mask on and he ends up leading the team with six catches in forty six yards.
So you know I left that and showed up Mark.
He's I mean I it was a gutsy performance, all things considered.
I've always liked that in Joco. I don't know why. So get well soon, son? All right, here we go, son? What uh?
Let us move on two London? Shall we go to London. Let's get on the plane and go to London.
Falcon on the move here how gear the running back straight drop netball.
Can pick off day quiet fifty forty five forty there's along the.
Touch taxon pick.
Six for Darius.
Williams, God Save the King remix.
Key Change? Is this the song?
Remix Queen?
I don't think we have the rights? Is this the song?
I didn't think so, but I but it's British Yeah, No, it's not about is.
This this is what I've been using for our London stuff?
But which is that?
But now we're getting know Yes, yeah, we're just a bunch of dumb American We don't know the long version.
We don't claim to know.
You know what, how about this England little radio edit from the National Anthem.
Then we'll see you in a couple of weeks and we'll talk about it personal. Frank Franzie with the call. Who Darius Williams.
With the pick six one of several bad throws from Desmond Ritter who struggles continued as the Jaguars cruise to a twenty three to seven win in their adopted hometown secondary hometown of London, England.
So that game is at Wembley's.
Dating will be at the Hot tadi in a couple of weeks and we can't wait. Calvin Ridley also had a touchdown in this game and his I guess quasi revenge game against the Falcons and Greg, we'll start with the Jaguars here, kind of a tough team to figure
out this season. I'm not watching this game and my takeaway is, Wow, Jacksonville is they're a team that really takes seriously in the AFC right now, But they took care of business here against offense in Atlanta that just doesn't have it together right now.
No, it was a survive in advance game that started off really promising for the Jaguars, and I like that about it.
The first three drives.
They were ahead one hundred and forty six to eleven yards after the first three drives, and then you started to see the Jags offense that we've seen the rest of the year, which is really stuck in mud and jet and Lawrence getting rid of the ball too quickly because they don't really trust the offensive line. His average up of target is at the very bottom of the league, but he's been playing well. They really made an effort to de emphasize Calvin Ridley and to emphasize Christian Kirk
and Evan Ingram. Twenty targets for those two early and often only two for Ridley. They got the touchdown on a busted coverage and Ridley was wide open for that touchdown. They had almost no big plays other than that, and so I'm still a little concerned about their offense. But in terms of a survive in advance moment, I do think their defense has looked better than I expected this season. Overall,
it's definitely a good run defense. And if you're a good run defense, the Falcons don't have anything to do because they can't do anything. And even Bijon got off, I mean, b Seon, why did he go for one hundred and thirty seven yards with scrimmage?
And even then it's like the Falcons couldn't do anything.
A lot of that came too late.
I mean, like I closely watched the beginning of this game and started to lose hope with each drive. They have a nine yard three and out the Falcons, they have a one yard three and out, They have a six play drive that goes six yards. The terrible pick six rider comes back from that, like who are you?
Does next play?
Next play? Another pick?
And it's like, we don't need to focus on the on the ground game entirely if you're a defense, if this team is going to just completely implode while Jacksonville, because I like, kind of I'm not that impressed with Jacksonville's offense this year compared to like what they were towards down the stretch last year. I do think that
Lawrence is not the reason for that. Uh, but the Falcons doing this are not going to beat anyone, and like, like you know, I mean early on in the season, watching what they could do on the ground, I kind of thought, like the lack of like faith through.
Ritter in the air.
You can get by, you can beat up some teams and do it in an old school way, and it's like you can't hide them.
You can't hide them.
It's worse than I ever imagine.
We mentioned so far with Pittsburgh's offense, like trying to run a nineteen ninety one was it Pittsburgh New England, New England's offense, Like that's the thing.
You can't really do it.
You can't just say just give it to Bijon and give it to Algier and then defense gets stopped.
You can't hide a quarterback.
And I think Arthur Smith is I think he knows it, but he's doing that thing that head coaches do where everyone else knows it, and he probably knows it too, but the words he's choosing to use with the media make you feel like he doesn't know it. And even if he does know it, it's not like a good look because he's letting people think that he doesn't know it. Let's listen to Arthur Smith on his thoughts on the offense and whether he has the right players in place to succeed.
They're asking about the quarterback.
Everybody's gonna be frustrated after a loss. But when you have the right guys in the right mindset that I understand, like, hey, let's not let them get early momentum. You know, make the play on the sack, don't let a bus the coverage. You know, gotta leak out uncover. You know, those are things that you look at in reality. I mean, I think, if you've got the wrong guys, it's easy to splinter and ride the roller coaster.
But we got the right guys in there.
And he sounds defeated to me in that situation. But you have Taylor Heinekey.
Well that's the thing. And this is the other thing he did that got it. Because I have not been an Arthur Smith fan this year either. I just don't like the way this offense is being run. And at halftime, you know, he comes out and does you know, talks to CBS or wherever the game was played. Who was were they on ESPN? No, ESPN plus, ESPN plus and he makes a point, we're not even thinking about making a change, And Greg, I saw your tweet and I
agreed with it one hundred percent. That was a perfect Taylor Heinekey spot to go in there see if he can get hot and go steal a game because Jacksonville was kind of asking to give it away.
It felt like right, And to Ritter's credit, he played better for a minute coming out a halftime. They had the touchdown Drave right out a halftime, and then they drove down the field, but then the inconsistencies popped up and it's like he doesn't want to hurt Ridder's confidence, but Ridder's play is hurting Ridder's confidence. Ritter throwing up a moon ball to open maccollins that could have been
in a third interception. He really could have had two more, and then going over to the sideline and trying to high five maccollins for some reason, and Matt Collins like stands up in his face.
Is like the camera cut away.
I wish they had seen the rest of that interaction because it's like the players know he is not playing confident. The one thing he did last year was avoid big mistakes. And this year it's all big mistakes, but with no playmaking to make up for it, their defense has been better. Bijon has been as advertised, he was electric in this game. Made a lot of great plays throughout, but it's like a running back's only gott to do so much.
Josh Allen for the Jaguars was massive in this I mean, I feel like he's a player that sort of comes and goes, but he completely destroyed Atlanta's offense. And I don't know, I don't know what you do. What do you say to your fan base, but especially to your own locker room. We're seeing this happen with a couple teams where it's like the quarterback decision making process to get you to the point where this guy's starting for you creates a total fractured locker room. Falcons players seem
to be frustrated and you clearly have a guy. We don't think Taylor Huneck's perfect, but he's a bit of an adventure and when it gets going, like there's a lot to like and it's like this is like, I think I agree with Arthur Smith. The one thing, there are a lot of the right people here. This is a pretty interesting roster, but the most important piece is failing you in life.
That's that's why I didn't love the quote because everyone knows there's a lot of gun I totally agree, and it's like, I know you're trying to hide from what the big situation here is. But he's got to be careful because if he if he gets stays, it's like in Vegas, like you made a bad bet.
Potentially here I think it's a bad bet with Ridder.
If you stay with this bad bet and you double down, you're gonna get cleaned out and guess.
What, You're gonna lose your job. Well, he's just get you wouldn't realize reality with Ridder.
And I know it's still only week four, but there's so much evidence here that this guy is not the guy.
Or Yeah, he's just thinking when is the right time to do this? He didn't think it was halftime. Hearing the way his voice sounded yeah, actually made me think like, oh, maybe maybe it would happen to like, because who knows Ridder is capable. I think of playing better at some point than this. Maybe it's after getting benched for Heineke for a little while. You are two and two in a bad division, So I get it. It's still early, but it's getting it just it's just everyone.
Can see it, all right, let's uh.
We got to mention at least shout out to the Toy Story broadcast, who made my son Walker as happy as I think I've ever seen him watching anything.
He could not have really loved it more.
I think kids love watching video games in general, like they just like watching two different people play Madden, and so I think this was kind of like that, except it was like an actual game that was going on. And I know there were some some little airs like the first touchdown they dropped it on the Toy Story broadcast or whatever, but the announcer said that he caught it. But I was sort of blown away in the little that I watched it, and more importantly, like he was
like a kid on Christmas. And I was texted with a couple other parents that enjoyed it as well, so like, why not try it?
It's fun?
So I watched that really closely. It was not for adults, well no, So my thing is if if I'm hearing the children are enjoying it, like okay, case closed. There were some technical difficulties but that it was the trial run essentially with it. There was a moment that I thought was interesting. They had like this claw that was basically dropping the football down. Yeah, like in spots. Yeah, they grabbed, Like at one point they grabbed a player and like yanked him away.
There was some hanky stuff going on.
I think there's a great drinking game attached to this because they mentioned Andy's room like four or five times in the first room that they kept like making it clear for people walking by, We're in Andy's room playing this game in his room.
The kid from toy story that was the stand.
Yeah, yeah, and so like they I think they said Andy's room by the time I left to come here in the third mid third quarter, about one hundred and seventy five times.
Well, yes, I kept seeing I saw one tweet that was like, why are they explaining how to get first down to me? Like, I'm a six year old. It's for six year olds. Stop watching the adults either don't lose the game.
By the way, I learned the game as well from the game. Yeah, I think that's also people counterpoint. Kids have terrible taste. I mean, have you ever watched Blippy? That guy's a terrorist.
It's a strong counter heard this.
I have you ever watched like Mike my son Jack when he was little, We just watch garbage trucks like doing their round. Oh we had that too, like for an hour. Yeah, it's terrible programming.
And so they're gonna kids are gonna say, I like this, but it doesn't mean it's any good. I like Connor Orr wrote a hit piece for a s I he did. I love where.
Connor war his heads at right now as a as a writer and as a as a journalist, because he picks and chooses his hot takes and they come in blue Flame, Blue Flame. He came after a big Pixar and you gotta it's commendable.
Greg.
You may not agree with him, I definitely don't. One of his worst takes like who is it hurting? It's like, what could what is the downside to any of this? It's just like a second screen on an ESPN Plus game.
Well it was a bit of a tougher game to find it's on ESPN Plus that not every single person piece.
Or that's the whole point.
But that's why I think some people were complaining like they have.
But if you have ESPN plus you have that game if you can watch the regular game, watch the game.
If you have it.
Yeah, like not Everyone's but toy.
Story is not available unless you have that.
It is a sick, cruel world. When Blippy is a millionaire.
I don't even know. I've never heard of Blippy and I gotta I'm so happy.
Well from another angle, Creating insanely bizarre content for children that will get them obsessed and addicted as an adult is a smart move.
A twisted, twisted myth of a man. All right, let's uh, by the way, the Jaguar stay in London. They'll be playing at the Hot Toddy against the Bills next week. Let's head to the Big Bowl bottom now.
Now the forty nine ers up twenty one to sixteen.
Look for a two score lead. McCaffrey's already got three touchdowns.
They put him into a pistol behind Perty. This guy he's always right, three or left.
They're giving a McCaffrey off the left side.
One, two, three, four touchdown.
See see that vision again, Pop, I'm telling you because they had a defender in the backfield and cmc puts his right foot in the ground and just pop.
To the edge.
My goodness, Christian McCaffrey, I know they haven't won in a while, the Niners, the big one.
Well, I am hot, damn.
I'm envious of that fan base because it feels like there's a lot of fun to root for this team, who once again, like when we did the Thursday night recap mark.
With their Giants game, it's like they don't even.
Really need to step on the accelerator to take care of business against a lot of these teams in the league, just like they did on Sunday thirty five, sixteen over the Cardinals, who did their best to hang around in
this game, but ultimately it really was no contest. Brock Purty twenty of twenty one with a touchdown passing and a rushing TD and yes, Christian McCaffrey, who you may have passed on on and your fantasy Drea, I think I did maybe twice, had four touchdowns in this game and is really in peak form.
Mark the Niners. They're in control right now.
They It just it looks so easy, And I know that's sort of a staple of the Shanahan offense from like the quarterback angle, that you've got these guys running wide open they're perfectly put together on offense from a skill position angle, we know that, but you have players playing at the very best because I think to your point about the fantasy Christian McCaffrey thing is like when he's there, he's available, he's great, and he's there for five games and then he's gone for it's like you
know what you're gonna get.
He's stayed healthy with them. They use them all over the place.
It's the four touchdowns, it's twenty seven touches for one hundred and seventy seven yards. He's scored in thirteen straight games for them, which snapped a.
Jerry Rice record.
You've got Brandon Au getting better and better and better every week, like Deebo Samuel.
He's a little banged up superstar. Some people are saying, heading I think he has a chance.
Well, I'd get on that train because I think the chance is occurring right now. I mean his one hundred and forty eight yards off six catches are like, I mean, it's just like he can do everything. He's such an incredible receiver, so strong and like also it's Brock Party making. I think we look at Brock Party sometimes you're like, well, he's accurate, but is he special? Does he have special
arm talent? Like he made some really special throws in this game, really accurate and like I he opened thirteen for thirteen, which which makes sense if you go twenty for twenty one, but that also snapped like to a game in the game consecutive completion streak that Steve Young said. It's like these old heroes are being vested in a more modern day offense and type situation by this star
riddled offense. And it's like the Cardinals, honestly, like mate, that four touchdowns in the fourth touchdown by McCaffrey mattered because the score looks not as close as it was for part of this It was another performance for the Cardinals. Kind of Cardinals, and they're well coached and like you got these guys wondering why are they still hanging around in this game. Michael Wilson their rookie. I thought he
looks great. He's third, third round out of Stamford, Like he's someone they have Josh Dobbs for the fact that he's not the future, there probably is like a top two or three backup for the next as many amount of years. With the way he's played over the last couple of weeks, so they kind of gave him a test on defense a little bit. But the Niners offense, like at every turn, keep breaking you, and it keeps
happening with different people each time. And you've got a quarterback that's come out of nowhere half a season ago and looks incredible.
I mean, they only got to five third downs to forty nine ers.
That's just so easy.
They had thirty first downs, and the Cardinals offense, to your point, Gate gave him everything they could handle. It's twenty one to sixteen. Going to the fourth. Part of the reason it's close, it is because these were long drives that the Cardinals are going on. Like their average per play was pretty solid. They could run the ball like their offense is risky. But that's why the forty nine ers have been the best team so far is one of their sides can dominate in a given week
or in a given quarter. Any player on either side could dominate. It doesn't need to be the same side every time. Brock Purdy I think played poorly against the Giants. Definitely not well like I would say that was a he got away with some throat It was like a c game and they walked away with it. But then he could come out and play an a game and the offense walks away with it.
Yeah, and I think this tells the story, and we talked about it. I think we use the analogy to swingers about the bear that has these claws in the teeth and he doesn't always knowing to use him or he doesn't need to use him. But then when they decide the bear decides to use the claws, bad things happen to the bunny.
Once the and credit to the Cardinals.
Eleven plays ninety nine ninety nine yards, Josh Dobbs leads them, and all of a sudden, it's twenty one to sixteen, as we said, and the Niners don't panic.
They get the ball back.
They go eight for seventy five boom, touchdown twenty eight to sixteen.
Then they force a punt.
Then they go back down the field fourteen for seventy seven boom, and it's thirty five sixteen.
Good night, nurse.
So it's kind of like if you if you decide to bow up and challenge them, good for you, and it shows that you're a team of the backbone. But when they decide to get serious against these middle tier teams in below, it's just no contest. And that's one of the signs of a truly great team. And I cannot wait to see them against another in my opinion, great team Cowboys.
Now I'm with you because it's like to your point of like, yeah, they were challenged score wise at one point in this, but their drive chart and these are long drives. The Niners touchdown touchdown, touchdown a one play end of half situation. They're only punt then touchdown, touchdown. Game over that that does not happen that often. That is a not a lot of drives. Essentially six six drives, and you scored touchdowns on five of them. That is outrageous.
And oh, by the way, like Deeba Samuel, you know, barely did anything because he's playing hurt. It's like you get a one catch kittle game and you still put up five touchdowns and six drives.
Easy, easy, easy, Let's take a break and then finish it out.
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All right, we're back. Let's head across the sidewalk where the.
Charges did battle with that Raiders and now a first in goal.
O'Connell on a fourth and ten complete said, what a game going? Do is right?
Throwing do his right?
Intercepto a Sunday Samuel intercepts it, it slides down.
He might have been able to take that.
To the house and third change, but we'll take the interception. We'll take interception.
But he could have kept going absolutely.
It's it's a bit of a unusual tactic to be a cornerback who says, now I'm good on the one hundred yard pick six, even though it actually would have been helpful of the team, not even strategic.
I think he thought the game. I think he thought there was like thirty seconds left. It just felt like that it was two thirty with the you.
Know who's going to be really annoyed with himself tonight. That's Sante Samuel, Yeah, because that's what you live for. But you know what, he still did make the key play in the game, and that was the great Matt money Smith on the call.
Then some other guy chimed in unnecessarily.
As the Chargers get three touchdowns from Justin Herbert and yes, that huge interception and a beautiful Herbert deep ball to ice this thing, because they did need to hit a third and long after the Samuel will step out to
actually run out the clock. And they did, beating the Raiders twenty four seventeen, a bizarre game in which you know, only the Chargers like Khalil Mack had six sacks in this game and like the end of the third court one sack away from Derek Thomas and he still almost lost the game.
And that's what the Chargers do. And yet here we are, Greg.
What what what what?
I can't do it live anywhere. I don't want to hear it.
On the missing Mike Williams, Austin Eckler, Derwin, James am I missing somebody.
These are Joey Bosa, Joey other arm buddy.
I don't care.
And I know Aidan O'Connell's playing in this game, not Jimmy Garoppolo, but a good win for the Chargers, who are finding away two weeks in a row after finding a way to give it away in their first two weeks.
Yeah, take care of business.
Game that you make interesting despite having a twenty four to seven halftime lead, because you.
Are the Chargers.
But I gotta give Staley credit, I guess, for just sticking to his guns with the fourth down decision. Late in the game, they decide to go for it on fourth and one. I think it was on their own thirty four, Dan was it with three point thirty to go, and they're up by a touchdown. And it's not like last week where they're going against Kirk Cousins. They're going against Aiden O'Connell and a first down doesn't quite win the game, but it gets you pretty close to it.
And they go for fourth.
Down and one again on their own thirty four, and they set up Aiden O'Connell to do it.
Maybe it's Staley is playing chess.
Definitely not he's.
Letting his defense, which has gotten all this grief, be the heroes every week.
Well, here's the thing, Like this is the QB sneak.
Justin Herbert threw an interception in this game and he went to make a tackle and please don't do this.
Star quarterbacks, just get out of the way.
And he gets I think, and we'll learn more about it, but I think he gets his It's pretty gnarley.
He gets his finger.
I believed Eric Roberts, our producer, knows all about these gnarley finger injuries, caught in the face mask or the ear hole or something, and it does damage to his non throwing hand, maybe his middle finger or his ring finger.
So to me, it was a crazy play call if you're going to go for it there and you don't have Austin Eckler and your franchise quarterback has a splint and all sorts of like gauze around one of his fingers, and he's at a shotgun to the point where you're kneeling at the end of the game at a shotgun, like, I don't know if I'm running a QB sneak there, if I don't have something in my bag that doesn't involve Justin Herbert with a gnarly mangled finger trying to
get a yard, I'm not calling that play. But This is the beauty of the Brandon Staley experience, the madness of it all.
Yeah, if you look back last year, I mean, there were real questions if Herbert should have been in the game after he banged up his ribs and all that business. It's like they kept him in that situation too.
Let's hear from Brandon Staley said Herbert was not coming out of this game.
Yeah, I mean, he wasn't coming out. It was one of those things where he was going back in and he has that look, I'm going back in, I'm good, and you know, again just to show that toughness to the team. We really talked about that going into this game being a division game, and he surely showed it. And when your franchise quarterback, you know, and bodies all that, you know, everyone else jumps along.
He said after the game, Herbert that it was just it was but a flesh wound, little ref little uh, little ref And then they were like, was it actually just a flesh woman? He was like, no, that was just using the quote.
I mean, it was it.
Well, it looked like it was like severe like maybe severely jammed or we don't know at this point, but like he had the splint on the finger initially, like with what was like a mummy's hand and wrapped towels, and then he came out like the next drive with the splint hanging around like a glove.
And that's like a weird You're like, hey, Donald Parham, six foot seven tight end, can we borrow your glove? Like he had this strange glove that wigh too much end on it. Meanwhile, like, yeah, the Raiders starting eight o O'Connell. At least they made the right decision there. I would have been killing them if they had started Brian Hoyer. Did we see anything out of mister O'Connell.
No, he looked very much like a young quarterback. And Josh McDaniels. I mean he had they have first and goal in the before the Samuel interception and he forces a ball that it's just a terrible pass where he didn't read the defense the way he needed to in a huge spot in the game.
He's not protecting the football.
So you know that I would actually like to watch kind of watch it again on game pass just to see O'Connell's performance again. But I didn't come out of it thinking and maybe this was Josh McDaniels wants to see enough where he could roll with this kid and start developing someone other than Garoppolo, but ultimately.
He made too many mistakes for them to win a game on the road.
This is the second week in a row, and I'm trying. I'm searching and trying to figure out beyond his coordinator pedigree under Bill Belichick with the Patriots, what makes Josh McDaniels special versus the opposite? It is special and what we saw last week crazy decision. This time around he does not challenge what would have been absolutely called a touchdown. And it's like you lost this game by a touchdown with the Devonte Adams singing.
Like why not, Well, they scored, they scored on that drive. I know they did.
I know they did, I know they did so but here's the thing, Like, what is the process in that situation? Like you have to go to the number one best player on your team and say, you know you scored, I'll challenge it. Why isn't someone up in the booth saying absolutely challenges every one of us watching it knew was a touchdown, and he doesn't take the time to make the correct decision. They scored. But it's like another example of like what are we doing here?
And we also found out this weekend that Chandler Jones is no longer with the Raiders, which.
Was I did not see that. I saw he got arrested.
Yeah, like this is all.
A sad story and we don't know what it's going to mean for the rest of his career. But yeah, he was arrested after violating a domestic violence temporary protective order and then later on Friday night, a little bit of a news dump they cut him and just everything that you've seen through social media and stuff, if you've ever had someone around you that suffered like a mental breakdown, which I don't know, it's consistent with that sort of behavior,
and it's just it's tough to see. But his career is going to be changed, and they're going to go after his money now. So they can say that they're all praying for him, which is what they said in their statement, but it's you know, lawyers are getting involved now and they're going to try to take away his money and.
It's a business, yeah, and that's sometimes it's an ugly business. And yeah, I want to give a little credit before we move on to the Raiders defense, because you held Justin Herbert to one hundred and sixty seven yards passing. He hit on the big throw twenty yard throw to ice the game. But before that, the Chargers had at less than one hundred yards of total offense in the final two quarters of that game, which allowed the Raiders
to get back into it. And if not for the interception, I think this is one of those games that was going overtime and then who knows what happens, and yet it did not.
Four straight insane Chargers game down.
It's like, I don't know, they just played a script so much like all four of their games this season have been totally bonked.
Forty four straight.
I mean, they're entertaining as long as you're not a Chargers fan, because that the anxiety of it all is off the charts, all right. The Saints, uh, they were supposed to play without Derek Carran on Sunday. Dark Carr plays with a jacked up shoulder and it did not go well for the QB or his team.
Third down a goal from the five draw play draw play, dropping Baker Mayfield looking to his left, now back to his right, looking over the metal then.
All that time, where's the pass rush the angel? It's a diving right out the goal line.
It's gonna be a touchdown, Tampa Bay touchdown TAMA and Devin.
Tompkins has the catch shot at the goal line. Love it change with the call?
W f us Baker's back, baby Oh. Three touchdown passes for the Bucks and despite yes, a surprise return for Derek Carr, the Saints offense did nothing. In Alvin Kamara's debut twenty six nine, the Bucks win on the road. Mark Baker was back in this one good Baker twenty five thirty two, two forty six. What I mean, how does car And we know Carr is a tough dude, but you gotta you gotta know when not to play. Like did he look like a guy with a sprained
ac joint? Like how do you play with that and be effective?
Give him like a lot of credit for for going out there, and it surprised me that he was just like you and like, uh, the whole offense looked completely unhinged. I mean, he he did look affected. It's not the same way that I watched Burrow and feel that I'm seeing the physical effect. It wasn't like he was win seen in pain left and right. But to your point, because we talked about this, were one of the weirdest stats in this game is like Alvin McCarty, Alvin Kamara
had thirteen catches for thirty three yards. They had nothing going on through the air.
Hit me with another rosie. Wow, Wow what what wait? Say that sat again?
Thirteen catches for thirty three yards.
That's not no. You got this professional podcast.
You got to get the status, right, Mark, that's actually had no like that, that is that's exactly what happened.
And they like Chris alave he had one Chris Alavey had one catch for four yards.
I just it was. It was a terrible performance.
I give a lot of the credit though, to the Bucks defense, guys like Vitave with two sacks today, Shaq Barrett shutting down the run, Antoine Winfield had a really nice third down breakup. They kept ending drives card fifty yards at half. This like we keep seeing this every week, they're saying. And you get Baker Mayfield playing. I was trying to think, like what game has he played?
Right?
He looked better to me, and I can think of maybe the playoff win over the Steelers with Cleve when a couple of his early performances, like in twenty eighteen when he was like no one knew that Rams game last, there's that that was like, so he'll do this when he's good. He's like seeing the field really well and like that play right there, it's like he could have
forced to throw earlier. He had a lot of time to throw in the replay that we came in with and made a really spot on throw and I thought that he used today and he's been doing this week after week two big down, big third down conversions with his legs.
And then he had another one where he had a run.
That basically set up a field goal that put them up seventeen to six and kind of separated this game. And that's when it started to end for them. And I just think, like, you know, Mike Evans left and the before that's before the third quarter with a hamstring injury. You take out the one weapon that like he's really like been in chemistry with and it didn't really seem to change much. He just found new guys and I don't know if this is a Baker you get. They're
alone atop the NFC South at three and one. I don't know if I can take them for real, but they outclassed the Saints.
It's a great sign. This morning I was feeling pretty dangerous.
It's a great sign that Baker had his come down to Earth game on Monday night and then it didn't spiral, and then Baker disappeared for like.
Right, And it wasn't a crazy bad right, it was just it.
Wasn't brutal by any stretch. And let's listen, we've seen enough that that's coming. There will be times where he does have uh funks, but maybe, just maybe he's in the right division with the right schedule where there's gonna be more good than bad this season.
Well, I thought all off season that the Saints were trying to genetically engineer the roster to win this division, like nine to eight, ten and seven, like have a defense that can you know, be special enough against these offenses. But maybe, But that's what I mean. The Bucks are
kind of taking that. And that's why I said at the beginning of the show, I'm always wary of the defense first teams, because Saints fans were convinced this defense was special and in twenty twenty three, in the end, like your defense probably isn't that special, Like it's solid, It's gonna be solid, but it's not gonna be special enough. It's gonna come down to your offense. And their offense with Derek Carr looks a lot like their offense with Andy Dawn. In fact, it's worse in a lot of
ways because of their offensive line. And I know Car's injury was a big factor here. He had three point four yards per attempt. They said it wasn't after the game, but it probably probably was. But their offensive line has been a mess all four weeks, and the passing game has been disjointed all four weeks, like before cards injury too, So I don't think you can just put it only on the Car injury.
All right, Let's head to the a pair of loser goes home matches, starting with a showdown between the Vikings and Panthers and Charlotte.
Two receivers left, Adam Thielen the outside receiver now joined by another, so three left and one to the right, Bryce Young facing a blitzing Harrison Smith and the ball games.
Adam picked up by d Jay Wanham lost touchdown. D J Oneham's first national football League touchdown has tied the game at bir Jane.
Best in the business, Paul Allen, KFA N Yeah, you know, it's a bit of a cliche in the business, but sometimes National Football.
League just hits harder than the NFL.
You're right, Harrison Smith had three sacks, including that sack that's set up the scoop and score by DJ Wanham, and the Vikings overcome a slow start to beat the Panthers twenty one thirteen, their first win of the season.
The Panthers, oh and fourth end.
My goodness, Mark Sessler, you had previously on the Thursday show locked up the Saints to take care of bag right for about twelve minutes. Very wise, you pivot out to the Vikings. I pivot out to the Vikings. The West Brothers pivot in to the Vikings, and we all go home happy. That's the big story of.
This, that's right.
Your your lock would.
Be I had a double run, I had a double win. I had a double win. Yeah.
I mean, when you can lock up and owen three team on the road, you've got to do it. And that's what we did. And it looks really.
I locked up two three teams in a way and got two dubs out of it. That's how history will remember me.
Yeah, it was shaky though.
I was really concerned about for all of us early on, Like you got this version of Kirk Cousins and there have been a lot of turnovers. Kurt that whole offense right out of the gate on the first drive, third and goal, bad pass, Sam Franklin jumps, the route, goes ninety nine yards for a pick six. Cousins had another bad pick later that set up a big long field goal before half for the Panthers. So it was like,
when is this Vikings offense? The reason I picked him was was like, even in these losses, they've been productive and Justin Jefferson had a big game today, but it took them a while to get out of it. But the Harrison Smith thing, and I'm glad that he was like on that replay because Harrison Smith showed me a lot about Bryce Young, who I think is struggling to
see the field. He's behind a bad offensive line, but in two of his three sacks he came out of nowhere with a certain type of speed that I think at the college level, Bryce Young escapes and makes a play and not here not here, And it's just like, I like, we've talked about two other rookie quarterbacks that are vying for offensive Rookie of the Year, and I don't love what's around Bryce Young right now.
He'll make a play here and.
There, but it's just like we're four weeks in and I'm not really seeing it.
I'm just not really seeing it.
Like their offense, they got a good performance by a defense that basically set up ten points for them, and that's a lot for like a defense that's pretty banged up, and Bryce Young and the offense could do nothing with it. There was a really big chance in this game. With seven twenty to go in the fourth quarter, They're down twenty one to thirteen the Panthers and Bryce Young had a chance to drive them and make a couple of
plays here and there. But he and by the way, he was sixteen for sixteen in the second half, And when that stat popped up, I was like, wait, what, it doesn't look like it to me at all.
It just didn't look like it to me at all. Why.
I guess there was just a lot of checkdowns.
Yeah, it's just not big, big throw.
Because they also went punt catastrophic fumble being out negative nine and then punt.
They ate one hundred and twenty one yards after it.
But Harrison Ford, Harrison Ford, Harrison Smith was a huge reason for that in the past rush of the Vikings in general, which under Brian Flores, I know, they were the worst defense in the league last year. There's certainly just responding to his teaching and who he is, and they made tight like life really tough for Bryce Shung. I'm be a little concerned about the journey of the rookie season at this point.
And I think Greg you made the point earlier, like, yes, progress for the defense, but again, the opponent really helps make defenses look better as well, and Carolina just doesn't seem like it's happening right now. Frank Reich had a kind of a said postgame press conference where he said, you know, I know we're the team with the first round, first overall pick, but we're not.
We don't view ourselves as this like big project.
We want to have results now, and yet they're zero and four and obviously they're deep into a rebuild now.
Well, he's sick of taking else.
I mean, there's been a lot he lost a bunch of straight games before getting fired in Indianapolis, and now four straight here and I think you heard on the Paul Allen call. That was the sound of an announcer who's also a big Vikings fan who wants this team to be relevant, feeling like, oh, that is a season saving play. Maybe by want them because their offense isn't getting anything done. Their defense scored a touch on Now our defense answered, and it would have been lights out
for the Vikings at zero to four. And who knows what happens from here, but at least he got a little wife at one.
All right, let's head to the other loser goes home. Match thirty one to twenty eight.
Denver third and thirteen bearers from Chicago forty seven, thirty eight seconds to go, no timeouts, three to the left, single receiver right fields, tries to draw the Broncos off side. They bring the house, feels in the pocket, throws a ball that is.
In complete out of dennerceptic intercept Kareem Jackson, and this.
One is gonna be the Broncos first win of the year. Denver only has two interceptions in four games.
Kareem has both.
Of them, but this one is huge because it is sealed the Broncos first victory of the year.
That's Dave Logan on the call for ko A.
Justin Fields started out incredibly on Sunday with one of the best first halfs you'll see really ever, in dominating getting the Bears out to a huge lead over the Broncos.
But to Denver's credit, they came.
Roaring back in the second half, outscoring Chicago twenty four to seven, and they steal it thirty one to twenty eight at a soldier field that sounded like a tomb there.
Well, they were frothily booing the hell out of Matt Iberflus for some fourth down decisions, and then certainly as the game ended, the shot of Fields just staring blankly on the bench while the Booze were just cascading down was tough to take because, ouch it, it was such a bad luck game for him. He played so well. It wasn't a perfect first half, it was a perfect three quarters. At the end of three quarters, he was twenty three for twenty four for two hundred and eighty
five yards in four touchdowns. That one incompletion was a hail Mary attempt. And I know, and I know people will say, well, it is the Broncos. The Broncos are disasters, and I get it, but there were some absolute dimes in this game by him against the Blitz under pressure. There was him going through Reids and getting the ball out on time.
He really was really impressive.
And then the Bears defense shows up and I put this a little more on eber flos to the defense. It's twenty eight to seven at that point, they gave up a long touchdown drive. The Bears finally don't have a good drive. They go three and now, but you know it happens. They give up another long touchdown drive. Then then Fields has it. You want to settle the game down and this is where your heart started to
break for him. His next two possessions were he holds onto the ball too long, kind of a classic Fields thing. Jonathan Cooper, his friend who was going to exchange jerseys with after the audume I think they were roommates, sack fumble, they return it thirty five yards to tie. Cooper returns it and then it's like, okay, man, everything's on you right now.
He goes, you know, can you answer it?
You go on this long drive, you get all the way down the field in scoring position to take the lead in uber flues instead of kicking the field goal to take the lead would have been I think about
a forty yard are pretty short forty two. Decides to go for it on fourth down, Snotfield, who had a great drive, He hands it off, they get stuffed, Broncos tack on a field goal, and then on the final drive for fields that it's that interception where Coolcomet said after the game it was a miscommunication where they were thinking one guy was going to run the route, and it was just like, man, you feel for this dude after such a great start to have a total disaster of an ending.
And credit the Broncos and Sean Payton.
They're down twenty eight to seven late in the third quarter and they are the laughing stock of the league after a seventy to twenty last week. So there's obviously some fight in that in that on that roster to be able to do what they did here.
At greg game.
And I don't know Russell Wilson did he did he ball out here late in this game? How did they manage to pull off a very unlikely comeback?
He played well, making short throws and Julia McLoughlin is a player I don't I don't know what his sizes, but yeah, he can move. Like he had seven catch seven rushes for seventy two yards. I think they're afraid of using him too much because he's so small. In three catches for thirty two yards, there was a lot of run after the catch, like, not many big plays. Mims had his like weekly big play. But yeah, their offense has been pretty efficient in general. Nothing that blows your sock.
Wilson's box score is stellar.
I mean, I look at good yea. I mean it's guy.
Just look at his counting numbers this year. He's having a good year.
Yes, not exactly like he's not old Russ, but he's, like we said on Thursday, not the problem.
If they had a good defense and their offense is playing well enough to win. They lost Javonte Williams to a hip injury in this game pretty early. That's partly why McLoughlin h ended up playing so much. But the way it ended it just did still feel like Bart's were the story because you had eber Flu's answered questions about Chase Claypool, who was a healthy scratch and he was saying he was saying that that it was Claypool's
decision to stay home. He didn't show up for the game, But then the team released a statement that was counter to what Iberflu said that they actually told them to stay home. And my read of the situation is they're trying to trade him, and they're trying to not make him look like a bad guy.
But it's like too late.
You're too many bear statements this year that go against what guy it is.
It's a weekly drama and they and he he's the second player to publicly critique the coaching And like, I guess my thing is, you've got this young general manager that is here to rebuild the team. It's obviously a just looking not going well right now. He picked Ebrafluse, But in any other environment, I wouldn't be surprised that like Eberflus was dismissed like tomorrow, like this has gone about as poorly as possible.
I don't know who you'd replay.
I think he was a health of these guys because he criticized the I don't but I don't mean no idea.
In the Claypool thing, it's like the fourth down decision today, but overall the Eberflus experience that it's been terrible.
Regan pointed out, well, they also just had a part ways with their DC, So who is even the guy that goes into that spot and you kind of need that. It's not great. Yeah, none of it's great. All right, Okay, one more game.
McKinnon is the running back for the right of Mahomes on third don and eight.
Now they flare him out.
They're gonna throw it.
Here, McKinnon, Are Mahomes stepped up? He's at the ten angle at the five. Mahomes goes down at the two, slanting on his hip McKinnon style like Super Bowl fifty seven. As Mahomes goes down at the two and should effect in the game, gaining nine yards on third down and eight.
The call from Mitch Holds Chiefs radio, all right, I'm gonna be professional here or do my best because that should not have ever happened. Okay, because minutes earlier, third and twenty, a generous holding call unsauced Gardner kept a chief S drive alive that ended with Mahomes's slide there for the first down that allowed the Chiefs to run out the rest of the clock and edged the New York Jets twenty three to twenty at the Meadowlands in front of Taylor.
Swift and the world.
The Chiefs jumped out to a seventeen to nothing lead after the first quarter. The Jets came roaring back behind surprisingly sound play from Zach Wilson, but the Jets offense petered out in the second half after an opening touchdown, and the Chiefs made the big plays down the st and yes, got some big calls as well.
Yeah, that call was unfortunate because you wanted to see Zach Wilson, who had played an up and down game, but there were definitely ups. There were more ups than we've seen out of him in a long time. You wanted to see him down six get that chance in a big spot. Their defense had been holding the fort so well after it was seventeen nothing, but after they do make that penalty, It's just like, how many times am I going to see Patrick Mahomes win win a game with his legs They showed I think he had
rushed for eleven first downs before those last two. That was before he ran for the third and twenty three twenty five yard play, And that's the one that's gonna stick with me a little bit because it reminded you so much of the Super Bowl. And he ends up sliding down on that play where there was also a penalty by the Jets to pick up twenty five yards, and it's just like, if he doesn't kill you one way, he's going to kill you another.
Even on a night where he made some big miss.
They referenced the Super Bowl and it's like, I go back to the James Bradbury defensive call that was so pivotal in that game last February, and mahomes on his feet and just thought, the Jets defense, this is kind of like everything you would have hoped for from the Jets for five to six of the way when you lost Aaron Rodgers, that Zach Wilson would start to become
this guy. And like there was one hopeful thing I thought at the end of this that all his teammates were coming up to him and they recognized the every put it in that fumble that was like the one little Zach Wilson asked thing that took away from a really superb night and what could have just been like these games come down to these one these little moments and this should have had it just fel like it should have.
Been a completely different story.
But you are dealing with the Chiefs, who in that final quarter ate up seven minutes and twenty three seconds on a field goal drive, and then seven minutes and twenty four seconds to end the game on that final flag ridden march, and it's like, that's what they do, that's what they do in these games. And it's like they made they made Mahomes uncomfortable. Early in this game, he threw one of his worst interceptions, like Travis Kelsey, vanished for thirty three minutes.
It was all there until that holding call.
So at the end of the game, in the final seconds after the Mahomes slide, Robert Salah gets flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct and then they run the rest of the clock. And I kind of wish we could hear his press conference right now, because I understand why he's so hot. This has been an extremely, extremely heartbreaking season for everyone associated with the Jets, with everything that happened with Rogers.
Even though Aaron Rodgers is in the building and he's telling him what's the stark He plans to be back this season, but you're one and three and one in three is what it is, and you're in a lot of trouble right now with some more tough games coming up on your schedule after Denver next week. But the reason he's so fired up and so upset, First of all, yes, was there contact on that play the third and twenty with Sauce. Yeah, there was some contact, but it was
both ways. It is definitely not a does not to me rise to the level of taking the flag out and make a game changing Oh oh, by the way, the result of that play was an interception by Patrick Mahomes. So not only do you wave off a third and twenty and turn into a first down, you wave off Patrick Mahomes' third interception that sets up the Jets with the ball with I guess what about three minutes to play down a.
Theory on that he threw the flag so late it almost was like he saw it, he wasn't maybe gonna call it. Then there's an interception and he's like, well, I guess I better call it, and.
Maybe that is listen, which actually find job.
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here and say that the Jets got booned because Patrick McK mahomes is Patrick Mahomes and the refs have to watch out for Mahomes.
Although I.
Mean to say that that impacted the interception, which it did on some level, but should they have called it, I don't know.
But yeah, the reason why Saul is probably gonna get fined in his postgame presser on top of what happened at the end is because he knows what it took for this team to be down seventeen to nothing, to fight back the way they did, to be kind of kicked and spit on after everything that's gone down and feel like you have a chance to save your season,
and it felt like it got ripped out of their hands. Now, I'll say this as terrible as that ending was anti climactic, and we know what Zach Wilson is and what he's not, the chances that he goes down the field and wins that game very slim. However, it would have been fun to see what would have happened like that, and that's
what you kind of you lose in this game. But the Jets had when the game got to twenty twenty, after they get the touchdown and the two point conversion on a great drive by Wilson where he made some big throws and then a great scramble on the two point conversion. They had the ball twice, once near midfield after a I believe in Mahomes pick and did nothing with it, and then again after a long breeze haul
run set them up in Chiefs territory twenty twenty. They then go one, two, three and punt and that was really it for their opportunities to win this game. So it was there for them beyond what you might kind of take out of this game, and they just weren't ready to step up and grab it.
And that's frustrating as well.
There are these like little moments like the Breese Hall run, which to me looked like this is going to be a touchdown run and changed this thing, And there was a great tackle by Brian Cook, a plus tackle. I mean, this is the kind of game where if the Jets were at a different point in their season and had a better record, you could be like, this is positive, we can take a lot away from it, but it's like, what else needs to happen to this organization in this
team this season? Like it was a backbreaking kind of loss that like I wish I could see Zach Wilson in a final drive because the way he threw the balls, like Alan Lazarre tonight and others, like some of his throws, we just haven't seen that from Zach Wilson on a consistent basis. He played his best game and maybe it would have been a different story.
It was good pass protection, I thought from the Jets, and maybe that's why they were so tempted to go so pass heavy, But the better running team won the ball. When you were talking about Pajetco, I'm thinking the Chiefs don't win this game without Pajetco, not just the long touchdown, but the way he was breaking tackles, how he can grind down defense is late in clock, like the Chiefs haven't always had that, and they were absolutely the like tougher,
better running team. And when they had the ball the Jets those two times to potentially go ahead, when the defense is just flying at that point, they're getting stop after stopt after stopping Mahomes, they went really passive. He was basically pass every single down. Maybe one Dalvin Cook run in there for a couple of yards, and that that's a lot to put on Zach Wilson. To me, it's like they need to have a running game and
a defense. Tonight they had a defense was good enough, and you got it improved.
Zach Wilson. I think he's slowly getting better. That gives you a.
Little defensive line has been a lot better, right, I got a run was better. The pass protection I thought was excellent for much of this game, which you know, the quarterback playing well when the pass protection better. There's a correlation there. My last thoughts on this game that again, extremely frustrating, because you find a way to steal this game,
and your season just feels totally different. And you got Denver coming up and all of a sudden, maybe you're like, hmm, okay, maybe we can hang around, and then the Rogers talk, and it still feels something like there's something here. One in three feels totally different. But I'm just like, as a Jets fan, I'm I talked about it all week. I felt really ominous vibes about this game, and I thought it was going to be an utter humiliation for the fan base, and I felt really bad.
I told my brother not to go to.
The game, and it was seventeen nothing he didn't go to the game.
This is seventeen nothing in the first quarter, very quickly, and the fact that they fought back made it a game, had a lot of energy in that building. It's a small victory for me, but just the fact that they were not horrifically embarrassed in primetime and it wasn't just this Taylor swift and the Jets suck.
Isn't that funny.
I'll take a little bit of a w there, but that's the only one I can take. I hate how the game ended, and and that's it. I can't say much.
The one thing I'd say, I don't need to say much more.
That's it.
One little ray of hope is that this is like a two year journey with Aaron Rodgers, this whole coming back this season.
We'll see.
But it's like it's important that this team stays together and like doesn't completely sail away, and that the coaching staff shows who they can be. And this game result frustrating as can be, but it's kind of by like Thursday or Friday. You can take some positives from it. There is a lot there's a long way to go, and like I see a team that is not given up on their coach.
I agree, well, we'll see what happens. A lot of football left, a lot of season left.
Good stuff Today Sunday, Thank you to Eric and Randy behind the Glass.
Thank you to you the listener.
Monday, we'll have our NFL Plus Game of the Week and another podcast tomorrow night, Monday Night Football and news catch up till then
Heed the Call.