Cooper rush with Daell to his left, punch formation white after motion rush in trouble, strip shock, Who's got it?
It's still loose? Touch it, pick it up.
Here's Barnett on the lawn.
Twenty fifteen, ten five touchdown scoop score Derek Barnett.
Derek Barnett does it all, causes the force fumble, waits for his teammate to force another fumble, then picks up the ball, goes into the end zone. You know, a weird night in Dallas. They're all weird lately. Texans win thirty four to ten. That was Mark VanderMeer of Kilt little andre Ware in the booth as well, A fittingly ugly but kind of fun touchdown on a night that was just ugly. It wasn't fun at all for the Dallas Cowboys, but it was much needed for the Texans.
And I'm joined by my friend Nick Schuok. I need you with me to make sense of this Monday night and make it entertaining for the listeners.
Uh well, I'll tell you this.
I felt massive relief when Jalen Peatree flew in out of nowhere and knocked that ball out of Tyler Guiton's hands, freeing it for Derek Barnett to recover Scoop and score for the decisive touchdown. Because in that moment, I realized the Cowboys, who are not a good football team and especially in this state, no longer have a chance of making this game interesting. It's not that I don't want to see an interesting game, It's that I don't want to see a very obviously fraudulent team have a chance
through four quarters in a game like that. So good on the Texans for getting that job done. They I got some concerns about them, though, Greg, And I'm sure we'll get into that here momentarily.
Yeah, now, let's just get into it. So that that touchdown happened with about twelve minutes to go in the game. It made the game twenty seven to ten. You see the final score thirty four to ten, you think blowout, blow up, Cooper Rush and this Cowboys offense. Ultimately, they weren't going to win this game. I don't you play it ten times. I think they would have lost all ten times.
Yeah.
That said, the yardage ends up being close in this game, and it was closer than it needed to be. In fact, it was a one score game before Mike McCarthy actually took points off the board after Brandon Aubrey hits a sixty four yard field goal late in the third early fourth, like when that drive was happening and it was going to be twenty to thirteen. Instead, McCarthy understandably takes the points off the board. They try to score a touchdown, they don't go anywhere, and Cooper Rush tries to turn
the ball over a couple times. The Texans finally stopped them, but at that point it's still a one score game, and I'm just thinking, and I'm texting with other people who love CJ. Straw and I'm watching this game, and I'm thinking, like, is this offense just not gonna come together?
Because for them to look so disjointed in CJ. Stroud, to look so inconsistent on a night against the Cowboys where it just was all laid out for you, it does make you wonder if it might not just happen for this team despite the being seven and four and having a couple winnable games coming up.
Yeah, it's a perplexing situation because when you look at them based on record, you're like, oh, well, this is a good team. This is a team that's going to be contending and probably make the playoffs because they're in a bad division. But and when you watch the first play of the game, you see Nico Collins take a screen down the left side of the field for a touchdown.
It gets wiped out by a penalty.
But if you watch them over four quarters, you kind of get to understand who the Texans are, which is a bit of an enigma because at times, like in the first half against Detroit the week prior, they looked explosive.
CJ.
Stroud's dealing, he's got time to throw, he's got that quick release, he gets the ball out on time, on target, and then you go to this week and it's like, where is that? Where is the rhythm of this offense? I'm done yearning for last year because I know it's not going to happen with this team. It starts with the offensive line. They have not protected him well all year.
They didn't protect him well at times tonight. I mean, you let a free rusher through the a gap, but a third down where you just got to immediately dirt the ball and give up possession. That's concerning. Even with Micah Parsons on the field. That's he's not blowing up the game to the point where that you know, I'm sitting back and watching this line thinking he's the problem.
They're the problem.
And I honestly think, and this is not a knock on Bobby Slow because I think he's got a tough job right now. They their offensive line issues I think have like messed with his flow, like his ability to call plays in games. There's a third and short situation where they hurry up and try to sneak a playoff right, and it's a quick pass to the sideline, a tank Dell. It's inaccurate, it's incoplete, and then they punt on the next play. If you're gonna do that, are you going
forward on fourth down? Like I know, I'm getting in the weeds here a little bit, but it speaks to the disjointed nature of the Texans, who at times look broken offensively. And that's concerning considering they're probably gonna win this division.
No, I think that was a great sequence to point out, Nick, because I'm with you, that was the sign of a totally discombobulated offense. They punt at that point too. There was a couple of times in this game actually, where after failing on fourth down early in the game where CJ. Stroud was intercepted, they decided to be aggressive. It was when they were up seven to nothing and they go for on a fourth and two, fourth and three, and Stroud just throws a curious pass where it looked like
he had Nico Collins for the touchdown. Troy Aikman was dumbfounded at first. I thought maybe it was a miscommunication. He thinks Nico cowns kind of sit down. But it's pretty clearly, you know, an inbreaking route and Nico had certainly had the right read because it was gonna be a touchdown, and Stroud just misses him. And there were three or fourth throws like that in the night where I think of Stroud's accuracy as being what's most special about him, and he's just missing guys and he's out
of rhythm. I think that's the right word for it. And they're talking up that their offensive line. This is the second straight week they've had this same group for the first time in a while, and they do think this is their best five and maybe they will get some cohesion. You mentioned that first play of the game. That was Laramie Tunzell, who that's the first play of the game. You know you've practiced that a million times,
and he made it easy. He's a legal man downfield, and maybe they wouldn't have had the touchdown if he wasn't downfield. He did get the block on that play. We'll never know. Nico Collins certainly looks one hundred percent healthy. That is a great sign, and he absolutely helped them out tonight. But Laramie Tunzel's like the worst great player in the NFL, you know what I mean. Like he's an All Pro multiple times, but he screws up this offense so many times. And there's so many moments of
this game where they're just disjointed. They're wide receivers and their tight ends they can't block in the running game very well. And that's the difference between them and some of these other Shanahan McVeigh tree type of teams. They draft and develop guys on the outside in terms of their wide receivers and tight ends who can block. The Texans can't. So I know we're sounding very negative, but I think it's because we see the potential of this team.
I had this team in the conference championship before the season. Yeah, and I'm actually not out of hope yet, how about you, only because I've watched enough NFL seasons to know sometimes if you just hang around and hang around, and you have good players and the schedule's easy enough, sometimes it really can click at the very last second, like it's possible.
Yeah, well, that's the key, because at seven and four, you have a little bit of leeway. You're not in a good division, so you can kind of work out the kinks. I'm getting impatient because they've spent so much time not working out the kinks. But the idea of continuity with that offensive line and this potentially being their
best five, that does encourage me. I like to compare them to another team that I still have hoping that's in a much worse spot, and that's the Cincinnati Bengals, who we talked about last night, who have the inverse of their record at this point and need to basically win out to have a shot. The Texans aren't there. They have a little bit of breathing room to figure it out. But I also need them to prove it to me to a degree, because like we talked, you
just talked about how they don't block the run. Well, Joe Mixon still goes for a hundred and yards on twenty carries and scores three rushing touchdowns. Like he's been fantastic for most of the season, especially when he's been healthy, and yet that's overcoming some struggles up front. So the potential is there. It's just you have these remaining seven weeks to figure it out. Are you going to figure it out? Because the glimpses we've seen it, we just need to see it over four quarters for me to
truly believe. I had them in the Super Bowl, Greg, I know it was going out on the limb a little bit. I had Lions Texans in the Super Bowl. I would love to see that, But right now I don't quite believe in.
Having it's having I mean, I'm saying I'm holding out hope. I just have seen too much of NFL football where it can just surprisingly come together at the end for them. Maybe that's winning a playoff game or two. You just never know. I'm feeling great by the way. I went back to look at my predictions today, and man, I'm feeling great about those conference championships. I have Lions over Eagles. That's pretty good. And then I have Bills over Texans.
Don't feel good about the Texans, but I do like my MVP, Josh Bill. Bill's winning the Super Bowl stack right now, feeling good. So you never know, let's go.
Okay, you're on a heater.
This was a game that look like we talked about this last night, We thought it was going to be a blot, right. This is a game where if you're actually of that caliber as the Texans, you prove it in a matchup like this, and they didn't. I mean they did, but they didn't.
So defense, did you know they're not totally healthy upfront, Will Anderson, They've they've been missing pieces there. Derek Stingley was fantastic covering Ceed Lamb tonight, so it gives him some credit. Seventeen routes run on Stingley by Lamb, two catches, nineteen yards, three pass breakups and an interception. He was fantastic. I think he's been a little up and down this year actually for a guy who he thoughts is going to be a super duper star. Mix Agan Mixon is
a top five running back right now. Twenty two touches for one hundred and fifty three one hundred and fifty three yards excuse me, and three touchdowns, and you're right, it's not getting blocked up very well. I looked at the end of the game at the success rate because I I just was wondering he's running so well. There were a few runs where he got three yards and it should have been negative two, or he got seven and it should have been one. And it makes sense
when you look at his runs. He had a forty percent success rate, which is solid. It's not amazing, it's not as good as the numbers would indicate. But he also got stuffed, which means a negative run or at the line of scrimmage four times, which that's a lot like good running games don't have that happen. And you see that week after week with him. So that's disappointing and that that's the offensive line, and that's the part
where it's hard to imagine them getting it fixed. And it feels especially annoying tonight because you know they're going against a team that, yes, they're totally different with Michael Parsons back, it's obvious, but there's still not a good run defense, like they should be able to run better against this team.
I will say, despite everything that we just said about the offensive line, their struggles throughout this season, I do give a big typical Captain Casario for jumping all over the idea that Joe Mixon's available for a seventh round pick. I mean, what a steal. He doesn't have a long life ahead of him. He's approaching thirty. He's gonna be
twenty nine in the summer. But man, for the position they're in right now, where they have money to spend in roster spots to occupy, what a move man that's paid off and he droves for them.
Yeah, he's a pro bowler. I'm trying to think of AFC all pro. Well, there isn't such a thing, so I don't know what I'm talking about. It All pro is gonna be tough for Mixing to pull off. But daneil Hunter in this game had two sacks, nine pressures, three quick hits. And yes it's all coming against the Cowboys, but it just points out who the players are. I do worry a little bit about Mixing because with the Bengals, his issue was he would always start off the season
running so hard. I think no one runs harder on a per run basis, especially for a guy that's been in the league this long, But he just would wear down physically and not be healthy by the end of the year. With the He had a little injury early this season. So the key for him is just to stay healthy. And yeah, I mentioned Nico Collins. We haven't really done like the stats. He ends up four for fifty four, but he had thirty seven yards after the catch.
Looked explosive. That was really important. Takedow made a couple of plays. He makes more sense a little further down the order. John Metchi looks like he's kind of developing into a nice third receiver. He also had a nice tackle on a fake punt. That's how you know the Cowboys were desperate. They called a fake punt and threw it short of the sticks on their very first possession, Bones fossil, you know, going nuts and Mike McCarthy did not look happy after the game. Yes, in the first
three possessions alone, here's what happened. You had the touchdown that was almost eighty yards called back by penalty. You had the CJ. Stroud interception, You had the fake punt disaster by the Texans. Like that is how we started this game, I mean by the Cowboys.
Rather, we knew, we knew we were in for a weird night, and we got a weird night. It Luckily it ended as it should have with the Texans running away with it.
But all right, I forgot. I forgot. Cooper rushed through an interception the very next the very next drive as well, So like that, and.
Kaitlyn Bulleck dropped one that could have been another interception.
Should we talk a little bit about the Cowboys, Yeah, we have to. They have trailed all their home games by at least seventeen points. They have been outscored in their five home games, most of those with Dak Prescott by one hundred and eighteen points. Oh, that is the third largest point differential in NFL history for your first five home games. So if you're a Cowboys season ticket holder that's gone to each one of those games, you have seen the third worst performance by a home team
in NFL history. I mean we're talking about like the winless Brown We're talking about like the Bucks with McKay, like we're talking about all the worst teams in history. This Cowboys team at home is as bad as any of them. I mean, they get a Cavante Turpin sixty four yard touchdown where he has the fastest time next Gen stats all season for a ball carrier. So you got one highlight in this game. But Cooper Rush is
all over the place. He throws the ball fifty five times and he was sacked at at least five, So that's like sixty drop ecks in the game, and they got seven more games.
Shook, I know, And that's what I wrote in what we learned. You can check out on NFL dot com. Where do they go from here? Like this is it's not Yeah, he looked better than he did the week before because he was completely ineffective in his first start. Cooper Rush was But you don't want to ever ask Cooper Rush to drop back, to throw fifty five or drop back sixty times in a game and think that you're gonna win. There's no support in the running game.
Even the game situation didn't really call for it until essentially the fourth quarter for them to be throwing that much, yet that's where they found them. And also to add on to that stat that you listed, it gets even worse. They've trailed by twenty plus points at home in six straight games dating back to the Super wild Card weekend lost to the Packers.
That's where everything kind of fell apart.
They had a quiet offseason and now they're paying the price for it with seven weeks left to go.
It's one of the most depressing seasons I can remember. There was a play when when they were driving, and that was after they took the three points off the board, and they're trying to really make this a game. At
that point, it's a ten point game. You get a touchdown there, it's down to three late third, early fourth quarter, and on the fourth down play, Troy Aikman just with disdain in his voice, looking at the route that Ceedee Lamb and the tight end was it wasn't Ferguson right because he left with a concussion, and he just said, he just said, I don't know what's going on over here, knowing like just with the stage, I don't know what's going on over here, like someone messed up. They should
not be in the same place. And then here comes Mingo. He's actually doing a good job for his quarterback, but Cooper Rush just throws it over his head and Troy Aikman, they were trying to put a good face on this game for a while, and by the end he was just like he was sick of that his Cowboys are this embarrassing.
He even commented on the fact that the Cowboys fans had made a mass exodus out of eighteenth He's stadium by the fourth quarter. He goes, the amount of red in this stadium is kind of overwhelming, Like, wow, they, you know, trying to spin it like Texans fans traveled. No Cowboys fans left because they that's.
True, But the Texans fans were loud as hell in the first quarter when Scout hit that touchdown. I should have mentioned after, you know, the penalty that called back the long touchdown, they still went down the field and had a great drive. It was the one drive all night where you thought, ooh, we're gonna get the Texans, like the perfect play calls mixing ends up getting a forty five yard touchdown. Hell, let's listen to one of the better moments of the night.
At the forty five yard of Dallas first and ten handoff, Mixon starts white, cuts back left, has room thirty twenty five twenty fifteen ten five rock and roll touchdown Joe Mixon forty five your TV run Monday Night.
Mixon love that Monday Night mixic and he ends up with three touchdowns on the night, So he lived up to that name. Yeah, the tech the Cowboys are going to be in primetime. I was going to have this conversation later as part of the news, but let's have it now, all right. The Bengals and Cowboys are slated for a Week sixteen primetime game and they cannot be flexed. Do you know why they cannot be flexed week sixteen?
It's not a Monday Night or is it.
It is a Week fourteen game. It's Troy and Joe again. It's in just a few weeks. They cannot flex it because it's the Simpsons watch along game. I don't know if you've seen anything about this. Oh it was a toy story last year.
It's the Simpsons now.
It's the Simpsons now, and all the pre production work that goes into that, including the voiceovers and everything, like, they're putting too much work into that. They're not doing that on the fly. They're doing that work right now. So we got to keep Bengals Cowboys in primetime on Monday Night football.
Well, I think we'll all come away with the same thing, the same feeling and quote Bart Simpsons, Bart Simpson in that moment eat my shorts.
Oh there you go. It's funny though, because ESPN they wouldn't flex the Cowboys out anyways. They would be like, oh, yeah, we can't do it because it's the Simpsons, but they don't want to do it anyways because it's the Cowboys and they get the ratings at least for the first half of these games. I do think they'll get flexed out in Week sixteen. That's a Tampa Bay Dallas game, so I don't think that one is going to be on the schedule, But yes, that Bengals game will stay there.
We'll talk a little bit more about flex in a second. Just a couple of final thoughts of this game. Did you happen to see the commercial where it's a part of the Salute to Service initiative that they let you know, servicemen play against Michael Parsons on Madden and they put it up on the JumboTron in Jerry World. And do you know where I'm going with this?
Go ahead?
Did you see the score of the game.
Yes, it was fifty to seven.
It was fifty to seven. Michael Parsons put it on this dude. You gotta honor this man by getting putting on fifty to seven. And they tried to fake us out by showing Michael Parsons all upset about a play that happened. First of all, great job by Parsons that he was that upset that he even gave up points to this bum. If you're gonna have a serviceman play Madden on the big board in Jerry world, let's get one that can compete a little bit.
All right, let's get three. Let's get someone that can compete one on a jumbo tron.
Was a childhood dream of mine because I saw cecis a Bathia do it at Progressive Field back in the day. So good on the serviceman for being able to do that with Michah Parsons too. That is the type of competitor Micah Parsons is that he was upset that he gave up any points, and that's exactly why he put fifty on him.
And three actually three a.
This reminds me of when Cardil Jones, the former Ohio state quarterback, went to a hospital and played Madden against the kid and destroyed him even worse.
And three B.
I played against the best Madden player on the planet for a story a couple of years ago. His name is Henry Leverett. He's won like six Madden Bowls. Nice kid, and he dominated me by about the same margin.
So I know how that feel.
That's the best one in the world. And yeah, I hear you. Let's just pick a guy that that can compete a little better, that's all. Yeah, I mean Madden, it was a knight of no mercy. Parsons like body slammed Robert Woods at the end of this game. Uh, let's actually look at the tweet that the Texans out towards the Cowboys, and they said look out below with a big fat L on it, and then showed the piece of metal roof that fell from the Texans stadium.
What a picture, by the way, that someone caught apparently or they superimposed this, I don't even know, yes, but before the game they opened the roof and a huge piece of metal fell. I'm almost surprised that Texans sent this out, not because they're putting that l on the Cowboys. This is a real rivalry. Props to those Texans fans
enjoy this win. By the way, your team want to combine like six games over two seasons, and two years later you got a couple of nimrods like us honking that they didn't look good enough while they're beating the Cowboys thirty four to ten in Dallas to get to a seven and four record. You've been through it. Enjoy these moments, like, don't worry about us, but the fact that they're making fun of this. Texans are making fun
of the Cowboys for their building the fall apart. It's kind of funny because if that metal had hit some dude on the or woman on the sideline, like I don't know, like we could have like a decapitation or something. That thing thing looked scary.
I mean it was floppy sheet metal. I don't think it had a lot of weight to it.
But it was good on the Texans for taking two pieces of sheet metal making it into an l that's great social media work out of their.
Team's real That's true, it wasn't the real thing, but that's excellent. Okay, you're saying floppy sheet metal wouldn't hurt you, but from that high up with the velocity, I guess it was kind of swinging back and forth with like a leaf. But like, I don't know, maybe I'm stupid. Like a football, if it hit you from that far up would hurt like hell.
I mean, Gronk once caught a pass dropped out of a helicopter and he was perfectly fine.
Yeah you're paying attention. But I'm just saying, if that that's true, hits you in the head. My last thought on this game is just I'll remember the facial expressions in this game Stroud's face after he threw that first interception. I already was worried that, like, oh man, this he's in his head a little bit, because after that, I don't know if he totally got out of it. He was so mad, so just frustrated already after that first interception.
But the glare that Ceedee Lamb gave Cooper Rush after Cooper Rush threw behind him on a second down play was I would say withering. It was withering. The very next play, by the way, Cooper Rush throws a go ball that wasn't open at all to Ceedee Lamb almost to apologize, and Ceedee Lamb has to have an offensive pass interference and that like knocks him out of field goal range, like that is the type of night it was.
But the Cowboys offensive players on the sideline, They're like, I can't believe we got to play with this dude for another few weeks or a guy that's apparently worse than this dude Trey Lance, Like what are you thinking if you're Trey Lance right now?
I mean, it's a humbling moment for him. I got a text that it was like, is Trey Lance really that bad that he can't replace him? I'm like, yeah, you can.
We will find out. We will find out he will. He will be playing Titans Texans next week. Texan's got to play better. I said, this is a perfect schedule for them because they can beat up on the bad teams, get to nine and four, and then the tougher part of their schedule comes. They have Miami, they have Kansas City, they have some tough games down the stretch. But you gotta play better, like even the Titans. I'm not counting that as a w necessarily.
No, I would agree. The Titans can be a frisky bunch. Their defense is not as good as I think people thought they were earlier in the season. But if Will Levi is gonna played turnover free football. It could get interesting. They made an interesting over the weekend this past weekend, so we'll see. Uh, Texans do have to start to find a rhythm though maybe this is the first step.
Yes, I hope so, and yeah that that post by schedule. If they can get past Titans Jaguars the next two weeks, they'd be nine and four at that point, about the three seed most likely in the AFC. And then you have a bye, then you have Dolphins at Chiefs Ravens your next three games after that. So they are gonna be a big part of the story. And I'm glad. I believe in you.
C J.
Stroud. I believe we're gonna make this show. Sing, Nick Schuck. We're gonna take a quick break. We're gonna do some news. We're gonna hand out our Captain Morgan Captains of the Week, and then we're gonna say goodbye. And reached right after this break back on NFL Daily, we got some jaunty music. We don't have some jaunty news here. Let's let's get over the obvious story was coming. We've been waiting for it for a week. Giants fans were waiting for it
all season. A couple seasons, Daniel Jones will no longer be the starting quarterback of the New York Giants. It would be a big upset. I think if he ever plays for the New York Giants again, he's not only benched, he's gonna be the third string quarterback. Drew lock will be the backup. We talked about this, We put this out in the ether on the preview show a couple of weeks ago. We said, just put in Tommy DeVito just for Thanksgiving, give it, Give that to us. That'll
be better than Drew Locke. And we're not just getting him for Thanksgiving. We're getting them in week twelve and then five days after that. Yes, against these Cowboys on Thanksgiving.
Nick.
Yeah, Tommy Cutletz. He was the source of inspiration and in otherwise dark season for the Giants.
Last year.
He was so big. He got a I think it was a pasta sauce ad. His agent dresses in pinstripe suits and fedoras. He became a sensation on the internet. That's kind of almost all that he's worth. He did have a few nice performances, but at this point the Giants are just well, you know to keep it in the Italian theme to throw from get at the wall and seeing with sticks, and they know that Daniel Jones doesn't stick, so why not go to Cutlets and have
Drew Lock as your backup. Drew Lock, by the way, did not look good in his appearances with the Giants this year, so no, he.
He was so bad that I don't really buy the conspiracy theory that Florio's thrown out there, that like, hey, it's some red meat for your fans because they just will be entertained and they like Tommy Cutlets that and it's just to make them happy, keep them interested, and also increase their chances of losing games and trying to get a high seed. First of all, Daniel Jones is doing a perfectly good job losing games on his own. Drew Locke would do a perfectly good job of that too.
I just think there Brian Dabeles not into Drew Lock. I think Brian Dabele is absolutely in job saving mode here yep, and that it might not be his choice to bench Daniel Jones, although it is obviously time. It was obvious to everyone, including to him. I just think he truly believes Tommy DeVito gives them a better chance to win. And in the off chance that they're all there next year, Drew Lock's not going to be on
this team. There's a chance Tommy DeVito's on this team as like a backup or even a third stringer again, and they want to do it. I truly believe they just think he gives them a better chance to win games. They are two and eight. They play the Bucks this week and then at the Cowboys and the Saints. So that's a pretty forgiving schedule of opposing defenses relatively, But man, two and eight Giants, it feels so late, so early
for these teams. Nick. There's so many of these two win teams like the Cowboys that, like this Giants team has seven more games to play, and we're talking Tommy DeVito already.
Yeah, and and the schedule, like you just mentioned, you know, there's some workuple defenses, but it doesn't really lighten up all that much. But again, this is an example of what you just said, which is job saving mode. And he's going to a guy that he has experience with. You know, he's at least seen him perform capably enough to lead them to victory or at least exciting finishes in his time as a starter in a time of need for them.
So that's why he's going there.
But it is going to be a painful, and it feels kind of more like there are more of these teams in these situations than the years past. Maybe it's just recency bias. Now this painful November to December were a lot of these teams who are not only watching the draft board, they're like, all right, where are we landing this week?
Because we know we have no hope. It's kind of crazy.
Okay, So I'm glad he brought that up because it was something I wanted to talk about during the Monday Night recap. But it just fits well here. This was the first primetime game I think of the season with a truly dead team, and I should have just gone and looked back at the last couple of weeks. I'm sure there was one team that There's been teams that we know weren't doing anything like many of these Giants games. But the difference is now we're getting close to Thanksgiving.
You see the number of losses that are on there, We're getting to like the mathematically impossible. We're just playing out the string portion of the season, and this was the first prime tame games were really hit to me that like, oh, their season's over, over, over, but there's going to be a lot more because of all these two and three win teams that are out there, and it's bad for the product. And like, your Browns are in primetime.
I just saw that Week thirteen, and that's just Week thirteen.
It's four times coming up the rest of the season. They are in primetime this week against the Steelers, so at least it's like a team that's relevant that they're facing. There are a handful of other games you can flex out of Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, and now Thursday Night Football. There's a Browns Bengals Week sixteen Thursday Night Football that I think could be did we have we ever had a Thursday night Football flex? But that
one could be flexed out. And there are a number of games, but it's unavoidable on some level, Like there's a Saints Packers Monday Night Football that we might have to watch the Saints in prime time. There's a Raiders Falcons Monday Night Football, and there's a Brown's Broncos Monday Night Football in week thirteen. Now they can only flex Thursday Night football twice down the stretch, but Monday Night Football they can as much as they want, So keep
an eye on Tuesday. I am curious how active they're going to be flexing these games Brown's Broncos. Is that flexworthy to get the Browns off our screens when they're scheduled to be there four times in the next few weeks. They actually would have to make a decision on that on Tuesday or maybe Wednesday, So we'll find out early if they're starting to flex some of these Monday and Thursday night games. They really haven't done that in the pass much. In the Thursday night flex, that's a new thing.
Yeah, I'm looking at some of the candidates here for that week and it does get a little ugly, like the prime to the Sunday night games between the Niners and Bills that week, which is gonna be nice because the Niners are gonna have the backs against the wall to a degree, but we also know who the Niners are.
Eagles Ravens.
In the late window on Sunday, maybe we get a little bit of a swap there and then another swap to get the Browns out of the late window there, and there are possibilities, There are opportunities, but it's gonna become a bit of a puzzle making exercise.
Just going to watch in those games get protected. There are different games that are protected. I wouldn't be surprised if Eagles Ravens for instance, is protected. For instance on the Bengals, but not everything's protected in the Bengals Cowboys week there was a Cardinal Seahawks game, which now is just a better game that they can't move into that spot and those that's a game that wouldn't have been protected.
So just something to watch this week. If we can get the Browns out for Week thirteen, we would thank you, because two weeks from tonight, Nick, if that doesn't happen, we're doing Browns Broncos and the brown The Broncos are relevant. At least you got one relevant team you need at least one. There's gonna be a lot of games like that this week. For instance, there is not a single game on Sunday, Nick, between two teams with a winning record.
Oh god, oh oh wow, you're right. Oh, it's like a murderer's row of unbalanced match.
It's just unbalanced and there. Look, the NFC West teams are interesting, and we got a rams Engles game that's interesting. We have a forty nine ers Packers game that's interesting. We have a Cardinals game that that's Seahawks game that's interesting. So there's some interesting games. I don't want to totally poop on the schedule, but yes, no, no game between two teams with the winning record coming up this week. Just one last thing, Like the Giants stay bad because
they don't stay aligned and they don't self scout. We've been over. We've talked about Daniel Jones enough. We don't need to, I think, go into much depth. But the original sin here was giving him that contract in the first place and not understanding the player that you had. And I really felt like Dabel never fully bought into it either, and they didn't draft him. Gettleman drafted him. So was Shane and Dabel totally in on him or was it ownership forcing it on him and then getting
the emotions of it, And now ownership is sane. We're standing behind Shane and Dabel and they're really putting it out there strong that they're doing it, and I believe it because I don't think this has been Dabel's fault. And yet I think if they lose at a certain level, he's going to be the one to go, and that they keep Shane because Jones wasn't his quarterback, but he was the one who actually did sign him to this
awful contract, and that goes up to ownership. And then if they do fire Dable but not Shane, then it's like they didn't come in at the same time. And this is just how bad organizations stay bad. I'm sick of talking about Daniel Jones. It's really not his fault. He his level was obvious. He should be someone's bridge quarterback or backup, not making forty million, and then everyone
wouldn't hate him. And oh, by the way, he's coming back from a major injury and he just doesn't even look as good as he looked previous to those injuries. He's got back issues.
Yeah, it's it's two elements that the Giants are paying the price for. First, they're paying the price for their success in their first year with Brian Dable because that gave everybody the false hope that Daniel Jones could be the guy. But if you look at him statistically, the numbers were not great. It's that they won with scheme and players around him playing well and Jones doing enough, but it also came in a contract time where he had to make a decision, and they made that decision.
And we found a lot of teams in this situation, even the Jaguars, you know, a different situation but had to pay Trevor Lawrence.
Now because different.
But you find yourself between a rock and a hard place with quarterbacks specifically, and the Giants because they came off of that sneaky good year where they won a playoff game, then suddenly had to make a decision that they probably were never prepared to make. But it's also the of being a quarterback focused league in that if
you don't have one, you don't have a chance. So you take a swing on a guy in the first round like Daniel Jones out of Duke and think, well, maybe he's got the upside because the physicals are there, but the rest of it was never there In hindsight's twenty twenty, sure, but.
They had him for four years in the building. That's what gets me about the organization. Yeah, and the only reason they were successful that year was because Dable limited his weaknesses he basically coached around him. He just had him dinking and Duncan for most of that season and then caught a little fire with an easy schedule against bad defense, and that's what I mean. They started believing their own hype. And even then he wasn't really pushing
the ball down the field. What was interesting and promising about Daniel Jones in the first couple of years of his career, when he was in a much worse situation, was he actually did make big time throws. He got that nickname Danny Dimes because even though he wasn't a good decision maker, he was a little bit of a slow processor maybe getting through his reads and stuff, he would he would throw it. He was aggressive and he made some nice plays, some nice throws, and that led
to variants. I was much more interested in that version of Danny Dimes. And then it all caved in on him. Everything was bad. He clearly can't lift up a bad team. Dable comes in and coaches around him and gets him to not take any chances. He hasn't taken any chances in three or four years now. He's like injury prone. But how can you if you can't evaluate a guy
that was in your building for four years. It's all because I think John Mara, their owner, thought he was a nice guy, like, oh, this is the guy that could marry your daughter.
Like that's oh, that's a sin that's always going to hurt your franchise. You don't sign guys because they're nice guys. You sign hm because they're That's.
Why they drafted him. They're like that. He reminds me of Eli manning'schise. He'sy a draft pick actually because you need quarterbacks.
That's not morant.
They somehow got Dexter Lawrence with seventeenth pick. The sin is not just moving on to three, you know, drafting another guy two three years later. Okay, that is the last Daniel Jones Giants conversation. We will ever have an NFL Daily, I promise the listeners, Well, we'll have that conversation, but we won't like revisit at all. We got to remember this Nick, you know, text me on that day.
We won't revisit all. We'll talk about what's next for Daniel Jones, what's next for the Giants in that moment, but we will not revisit the original sin.
Okay, let's move right.
Not a lot of injury news today, which was really good. I was like, hey, it's a light day. Oh, that means there's not a lot of injuries. There's also not trade rumors anymore, but there were some. DJ Turner, who was starting at cornerback for the Bengals, had stepped in and actually was playing pretty well for them, is believed to have a fractured collar bone. Or that is really tough news. That's from Ian Rappaport. So Cam Taylor Britt, who's been in and out of their lineup, it will
be back in their lineup. Gabe Davis is also out for the season. He has only thirty five yards. I looked in his last four games. That was a free agent signing that has really not worked out for them. And the reason I wanted to stop here for a second is you know who announced that gave Davis is out for the season. Can you guess it wasn't Rapaport?
Was it Gabe Davis?
No?
No, it was an important figure in that organization. It was his coach Nick Shook.
Oh well that's why would I guess that? Of course, but I don't things.
Maybe wouldn't get it. On Monday, Doug Peterson had a press conference Monday where he's talking about Gabe Davis's injury, like, are they just busy? What is happening? Are they not firing him? Just to get back at the people that kind of said he was gonna get fired, and then everyone started saying they're they're poorly run. I don't know, or is it just gonna happen later in the week like the Daniel Jones benching, you know, a week later
during their bye week. I just I just was really surprised Doug Peterson was out there doing that press conference because if they do fire him later in the spy, it's like, why did you just make him go? Do that just be decisive?
Well, we haven't checked off the most important box on the path to a Doug Peterson firing, which is showing up on a Monday morning radio show and telling the host that he's pissed off.
That is very true. The other injury news that came out on Mondayfanu Melafanu of the Lions, who they were hoping would give a nice jolt to their secondary not that they need another great safety, but they do like playing three safeties, and he made big plays for them down the stretch last year. He was one of their better defensive backs. At the end of last season, he had an injury. He's been out all season essentially, and then just got hurt again. Is going to be out
for a while. According to Dan Campbell, nick Bosa will be evaluated throughout the week. I think that's a really important injury to watch because that defense just does not have enough juice without Nick Bosa. You could see the drop off after he got hurt against the Seahawks on Sunday, and then John Harbaugh said he is going to monitor Roquan Smith's hamstring injury. Which injury Nick Bosa or Roquan Smith would concern you more as a fan of those teams, because they're both pretty huge.
They're both pretty huge, Yeah, they're They're both massive. Those are key players in both of those defenses. I would lean Bosa because the pass rush disappeared after he left. That was a big reason why they lost that game, was because he disappeared and the pass rush disappeared. I'm also concerned about the nature of the injury. I'm not a Twitter doctor, but he was grabbing at his hip and his side and it looked pretty debilitating. Which makes
me worry that it's a multi week thing. We'll see obviously, it's you know, we're a monitor for a week right now, but we'll see whereas Roquan you can kind of cover up because so many teams play sub packages. Now, he's obviously a massive part of that defense, but they do have talent around them. I feel a little bit better about the Ravens chances than I do about the Niners without Nick Bosa.
Yeah, it's you couldn't pick wrong there because they're both just huge. Smith I believe, never missed the game. This makes me wonder if he's been struggling with a hamstring injury all year, because he hasn't looked as explosive, and yet when he went out in that game, they immediately started targeting Darnault Washington over the middle of the field and started making some plays. And I think it's a pretty big drop off, and that defense is already having
its issues. I think if you take Rokewen Smith out of it, that would be a big problem. So something to keep an eye on this week. We already talked flex, but we did not talk Christmas Day. Nick Schook Beyonce Texans. Let's go We're getting Beyonce on Netflix. You know, we need the streaming to work, but we're getting Beyonce in our hometown of Houston. That's next level. Like you think at CBS and Dallas goes big on Thanksgiving. They always
have a pretty good musical act for Thanksgiving halftime. You get Creed, you get someone out there. I'm so good we're going. We're going Beyonce on Christmas. That sets an incredibly high bar for the future of Christmas programming and kind of lets you know, like Netflix is not messing around. Maybe they're they're spending some of that Tyson money on Beyonce. Like, imagine how much it must cost to get Beyonce to play your halftime show.
As somebody who is admittedly going to see Creed on Friday night in Cleveland, very fired up about Beyonce hosts doing the halftime show in a game involving the Houston Texans, her hometown of Houston. Now, Greg, I bring this to you real quick, just for some levity, some fun favorite Beyonce song.
Of all time, Go.
You Go, because now I forget like the names of Mine.
Is going to be off.
The eponymous surprise released album of twenty thirteen. I think it was rocket great track on that album. Okay, Love on Top also good.
I mean, I'm clearly not like that huge a Beyonce fan. And yeah, I listened to Lemonade like NonStop all that year. Like Lemonade, Lemonade is my I would say, I would say, hold up, maybe it might be my favorite.
All right, all right, awesome, there we go.
No cowboy going to get buried for that, that choice, Sorr.
I'm sorry, I love it.
I'm an old man. You know who else is an old man? Amari Cooper, at least in football years. He is in Buffalo. Sometimes the transitions don't work, and he is loving life in Buffalo. Let's listen to some comments he had after their big win against the Chiefs.
First time in a long time that I've actually actually felt joy, you know, from from winning this game, from you know, just the way we played, from having so many guys on the team who you know, are playmakers, and they come up and they show up when they're when their number is called, uh, you know, collectively as a group, it's just amazing.
You know, a lot of the guys here.
It's just kind of a from place to Buffalo here some of the other places I've been to, so a lot of the guy it's a tight knit group. I would say a lot of the guys go out together, they hang around each other at twenty four to seven, and it truly shows up on the field.
It truly does. That was deep. That's the first time he's felt joy in a long time playing football. I'm just thinking, like Joe Flacco might be watching something and be like, I thought we had some fun last year.
Bro.
Yeah, first off, I can relate to Mari, But secondly, hello, do you remember playing with Joe Flaco and making the play? I know you got blown out in the playoffs, but I mean that was a pretty magical run. I understand you were a little upset with Dallas by the time he left, and the Raiders experience was pretty rough by the time they got rid of there.
But hey, man, Joe Flacco catching stray? So what's going on here?
Well, I don't know about Joe. Maybe it was more. Look, I don't think it's been fun. It's one of the reasons why right off the bat, before I even saw what Deshaun Watson looked like. Again, as a professional, I question that pickup, not just for like the morality of it, but that the entire rest of the organization are they having fun right now? Like going through that first off season?
And I don't mean like right now, I mean even that first off season when they made the trade, Like was that experience fun up to the moment that he even got to play football? Because it seemed miserable for everyone in that entire building and it obviously, you know,
didn't get any better when he did start playing. And so maybe that's informing what Cooper's talking about of just like with what was going on organizationally, Like, yeah, I just can't imagine that even when Flacco was playing like it maybe it just wasn't the best vibes in the in the world. But I just I just thought it was cool too that like he was just being honest
and vulnerable in that moment. It was like, yeah, I mean, maybe he doesn't really feel much joy playing football all the time, because he seems like a player player that needs to be enjoying himself and confident to have a good time, because you kind of see it when he's not having a good time.
He's a stowic guy.
And he also played with five different starting quarterbacks last year, so I think the turnstile that was the quarterback position probably contributed to that as well, which obviously Deshaun Watson had a hand in. There's also a strange amount of like unnecessary pressure in Cleveland for a small market regarding only the Browns, and he probably felt that, especially as their season unraveled quickly this year.
Hmmm. I mean, I feel like people are just gonna gonna get on me for the whole Beyonce thing. You know, Hey, you know what you already shot shot And yet that was like that was the song I was. I think it's just like not a song that you remember like the name of for some reason. All Night is a banger too, but a different kind of banger, you know, but but definitely a banger off of that jumping off the joy thing. I'm putting you on the spot here the first time that he's felt joy in a while.
Our first episode of NFL Daily, it was with Jordan rod Reeg and Patrick Claybon. That was our topic, what were looking forward to in the twenty twenty four season. What's gonna give us joy? Like, what's bringing us joy? Just to think about? So I'm gonna put you on the spot. If you want me to go first, I can. If you want some time to think about it. What's what's been bringing you some joy in the twenty twenty four season. I'll go first because I was ready for this.
Ye well, first of all, like it hasn't been a while, hopefully that's coming across to the listeners. I'm really enjoying this season. You know, I enjoy every season anytime that I'm not connected to the game and it happens, life, job, whatever it is. I've found over the years as I got older that the key for me is to go back.
And it's so freaking corny to just like watching the actual like whenever I get further away from actually just watching the tape that to be a dork, but like watching during the week and drilling down on what I find interesting, like emotionally or intellectually, like then that's where
I find the love. That's that's where it comes from. Hell, last week, I just had a lot going on, not like it was stressing me out, but I just was taking off my usual preparation and I came into that preview show last week being like, oh man, I didn't get into the tape as early in the week as I normally do, and I felt it I missed it. I didn't have as much joy talking about the games because I didn't have that basis so I always have it, so it's not hard for me to go back and
find like, when's the most recent joy. Hell that Sunday was pretty joyous to have that Gino Smith run right after that Drake May performance, followed by the way that Josh Allen run happened, and Chris Rose is on the desk right next to me waiting to start his post game show and we're watching it and just screaming and knowing that's a moment we're gonna remember at the end of the season live like that's what I absolutely live for.
But I also been feeling joy on these Monday nights with you, Nick and obviously throughout NFL daily, but just speaking about this show in particular, like some are better
than others. I think that's true of games, it's true of performances, but a lot of times I've come out of that these Monday nights and they've been really good games for the most part on Monday nights, and I've thought like, oh, we kind of nailed that, like, oh, I hit all the things I wanted to see or oh that was surprising, and I leave feeling here like this is good. This is what I wanted NFL Daily to be. I think we're getting somewhere. I think it's
getting better. And it's almost like hard for me to go to sleep afterwards, because it's what I've been working for for twenty years to do stuff like this. I was doing it when we were around the NFL, and I still really appreciate it and love it now. So that's some of my long winded reasons for joy of the twenty twenty four season. Now, is this show going to reach that level of some of those high games. Sometimes you can only get to where the game gets to.
I don't know if this game let us get to our very best, but I think we've done well with what we were given.
Nick, Yeah, I would agree. I would say I've found joy and two things short term and long term. Short term the turnaround of the Washington Commanders and watching all these Commanders fans who have been not in hiding but just not proud to talk about their team. Suddenly they find a reason to believe again. And turn on the TV every Sunday and watch their young quarterback and their exciting team that may be overachieving based in terms of
roster strength, but is a really fun watch in most weeks. Grant, they've had a couple of tough games recently, but they're still a very fun watch because of Jade and Daniels. So I really enjoy watching those people find happiness, much like I watched Browns fans around me last year enjoy their run of the playoffs. Because when a football team is succeeding, it's really fun to be in that community and watch everybody get on board and rally around it.
Because there's there's so many things that divide this country right now, but at the same time, we can all rally around a sports team in a special moment. I experienced that with the Guardians this year as well in the Cavs fifteen to now. But I would say the joy that I found in football because you're right, the
grind every week is long. Getting QB index done. It takes a lot of work from Sunday to Tuesday night, but I always get it done, and sometimes you lose it when you're grinding through games and everything else it takes until you step back, like you said, to really enjoy football. But there are moments. Sometimes it's watching Geno Smith scramble for a touchdown in the final fifteen seconds of a game. Sometimes it's somebody getting blasted on a
condensed game the next day. But the joy I find the most is as soon as we are done here, I get up and I feel invigorated.
I feel fulfilled doing this podcast with you.
I've always been very grateful that you know, you brought me into this group, you brought me into NFL media a decade ago, and I love doing this show and I can't wait to continue doing it for however long we go, because it's been last and I thank you for it.
Well, that is very nice, Nick, It's been really cool. Like I wasn't planning to have like a mid season check up on how NFL Daily's going, but it is the coolest to have this group of people, and it's obviously different than around the NFL, but to have you and Steve and Colleen and Jordan and Patrick, that's just it's just part of the mix and get to know them in a different way, like more regularly and just sometimes life changes and it's been it's been a beautiful thing.
And yeah, it's very nice of you Nick Shook ten years ago. Yeah.
Bro, the only thing I missed now is not being out there with you guys. That I missed the camaraderie the newsroom and being in studio.
But that is part of it. I do like, I do like going into the office. We've gone on too long. I feel like I had one more thing I had to say, but I'll remember it after the show. And it really wasn't that important anyways. You know what, it's not as important as it's not as important as the Captain Morgan Players of the Week. It's time for Captain Morgan's Captain's Corner, presented by Captain Morgan. I'll let you start this week. We're going to mix it up, all right.
As much as I am a known hater, self professed hater, especially on yesterday's show, Taysom Hill is my Captain's Corner pick of the week because I mean, my god, he carried that offense to a victory. He's breaking tackles left and right, He's putting Browns defenders in the Superdome turf. He goes for a career high one hundred and thirty eight rushing yards. He tied his career high with three rushing touchdowns.
It was a day for what is he?
Thirty four years old? The thirty four year old had his moment in the sun after grinding in a number of different positions for years. He is the guy who ends up on the roster is number fifty three and works his way up the ladder to the point where no matter the regime change, he's still on the team and he comes through in a big spot. So you are my captain of the week, Taysom Hill.
Yeah, the pride of Indiana football who's having a moment right now and gets mentioned every week by Joe Buck on Monday Night Football undefeated. Shout out to Rhet Lewis too.
Yeah, big Indiana, big Hoosier.
Who's your crowd? Former wide receiver, didn't know that about rep for a little while. I'm going somewhere different for captain's corner. But man like, I feel like we've we've gone pretty heavy on Saints or ex Saints in this case, I am going to show you some a clip of Jamis Winston hugging all of his teammates after the game. What got me about this clip was there was a
huge line of Saints coaches and players. First it's Taysom Hill and to Mario Davis, and it goes on and on, and you could see there's some different New Orleans staff and they're all just waiting and there's all just so much love for the four years that they spend with Jamis Winston. And it's so damn genuine. And it's every different section of the team too. It's offensive lineman's defensive linemen,
it's special teams, it's it's linebackers. Like to Mario Davis, the leader of the team, you can tell it's personnel that you know, I don't know who they are, that's just behind the scenes for the Saints. And it goes on and on like that video could have been like five minutes long, and it just shows you, you know, he's a backup, he's a number one overall pick that maybe it didn't all work out like he wanted it to in Tampa, but life's about more than that. And
it's pretty cool. How many people love hit them some Jameis Winston. How many lives I have a feeling that he's impacted and people that love to be around him.
So that is a W.
That is eating the W.
Yeah, there we go.
It's important to impact people's lives positively and clearly Jamis has done that even with all the pre game By the way, Greg his pregame speeches on network television have been hilarious, like fantastic stuff the last few weeks. I very much suggest you tune in for those. But great to see him love by so many people.
That was the Captain's Corner presented by Captain Morgan. It's delicious and crisp, perfect for your game day with friends. Spice it up. Visit Captain Morgan dot com to find a Captain near you. Please drink responsibly. You know, I'm trying to improve as a host. For instance, I should have told you about the whole question about asking you about the joy. Yeah, I should have told you that ahead of time. We want to get better, we need to be better. No, it is we are better. We
are getting better. I mean Jamis Winston. He's bringing joy all around the New Orleans countryside. If I had really thought about that, I was going to eat a W. I should have practiced it because it's just like, well, that was disturbing this is awkward. My fingers are like dripping now, I don't know if that's the right way to end this show.
Oh well, you know when your fingers are dripping, Football's back. I don't know.