And now Move the Sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.
What's up everybody?
Welcome to Move the Sticks, DJ, Bucky Rhett with you on a Monday, as we're looking back at a man, what crazy weekend of NFL games. There's some weeks where you kind of go, Okay, what are the top three games we need to get to and there's other weeks where they kind of write the script itself here and that's what we have.
Great to see you boys here. Buck, where are you at there?
Looks like you're posing for a picture at Owens Owens Mills or whatever they call that placed back in the day.
What was the name of that?
You go get your professional or not always Mills Mills, Olin Mills, thank you.
Yeah, I mean like I am still in Jacksonville.
I'm on my way back, but this is the backdrop in the lobby of the hotel at the Business Center and they just so happen to have this, like I mean, yeah, like a nice little backdrop.
Looks might need to add this at the ouse.
Yeah, I feel think that's where that picture from like the Jack step Brothers was was taken their Rhett, you know what I mean that looks like I need and Biselli to cozy up and take a pick there. Uh ratt, Hey, let's get out of the way. Congrats, who's your still rolling? Still undefeated? Uh, you're still.
Wrong at the point where we're just getting it out of the way. Now, we're just getting it out of the way at the top of the show.
Now a reality thing.
Let's just stay sing ten, just keeps rolling here. Okay, So yeah, it's all good.
It's impressive, it's impressive. All right, Let's let's start things off here. First game. Look, there's only one place to start, and that was the number one pick, the number two pick, Jade and Caleb. A game that was maybe one of us entertaining finishes of a game we've seen, not just this year but in quite some time. Crazy ending. We'll get to the ending of this game won by the Commanders eighteen to fifteen.
But before we do.
That, uh Buck, lead us off and followim up here. Just take away on the two guys. I mean, that's what the price of admission was for those two quarterbacks.
What you see from them, I mean, this is exactly what you want when you when you when you pick a quarterback that high you're hoping that they delivered the kind of performances both of these guys are able to deliver. I think it's easy to talk about Jayden Daniels and the legend that continues to grow in Washington, like the excitement over him won the decision that he wanted.
To play, he wanted to take the ball despite the ribs and those things like he's like, no, I'm playing. I'm gonna make this happen. I'm gonna do it.
He does it without like what left tackles out, He has some other people out.
He just continues to make plays.
And then look, man, this dude has ribs, but he's running the ball. It's just such a stark contrast to some of the other quarterbacks that we see, I e.
Anthony Richardson.
I think it's just it's just crazy that this guy is as good as he is. I look, I underestimated how good he would be in the pros.
He's everything and beyond.
Yeah, I think that is that is certainly one of the big takeaways here from not only this game, but this season, as you said, eight games in now for the Commanders leading the NFC East.
Okay, I think on.
The other side for Caleb Williams. You know, this was went down and led what many thought was going to be a game winning drive at the end of the game. So I don't leave this game feeling any different about Caleb. I leave this game thinking, man, number one and number two pick overall so far feel like home runs for both these teams, and that's kind of where I'm at on that one. I would also just say quickly on the Commander's second pick in this draft, played his best
game as a pro. Johnny Newton was all over the place on the interior defensive line for the Washington Commanders. I thought, by far had his best game of the season. Eight pressures, got his first sack. The quickness and get off reminded me of the due that we saw at Illinois that was so difficult to deal with on the interior.
He looks a little smaller in there, but man, I'm telling.
You, sometimes I he'll delay a little bit and then it's like he hits the turbo button and like he is pushing the center back on top of the quarterback so quickly.
Man, he's got that.
He's got that quickness when he wants to get off liket he wins. He wins right now, and so there was a couple of times where you put the center on roller skates right back into Kayleb Williams. So I'm impressed with with really all that we saw from from some of the young players in this game.
Yeah, it was.
It was fun to go through the tape this morning, starting with Jaden. First of all, there was four drops in this game. So look at how good the stats look at the end of the game. We'll get to the hill marry in just a little bit. But all the poise that we've seen all year long was there. The opportunistic play making with his legs when he needed
to get out of trouble, that was there. And I'm just I'm watching this game and I'm sitting here thinking, we all know Adam Peters, and you look at the skill position players that they accumulated in San Francisco during his time there with John Lynch, and I'm like, this is the ground floor like that. If you're excited right now as a Washington fan, be even more excited. This is going to be the worst group that he plays with probably for you know, least in there's five seven
years Adam Peter's going to add pieces here. They're going to get more dynamic players. Terry mclaurin's awesome, but he's gonna have some help here coming shortly as the continue to build out this roster. So absolutely as good as advertised for Jad and Daniels.
Caleb.
I had heard from a lot of people, you know, just that had watched the game. I hadn't seen it, so I had to watch it on tape this morning. The thought was, okay, Caleb was too amped up, and then he settled down, and then he played well, obviously in the fourth quarter on those two big drives. Late and watching the tape, I thought, more so than like nerves, I thought he was tentative early in the game, like he did not want to make a mistake. He did not want to cost his team, he did not want
to turn the ball over. There's an example early. I think it's the first pass of the game. They have one of those little swing screens set up. They're unable to cut the defensive end. It's still a throw because they're blocked out in the perimeter. He's got to get it up and over the defensive end and drop it down and then you probably have a pretty nice little play. I think was second and ten at that point in time.
But he's sitting there thinking, I'm not going to throw a pick to this defensive end this early in game.
I'm not going to do it. Holds the ball takes a sack.
There's later on in the game everybody shows the throw with Keenan Allen where the ball kind of sails on him. He didn't on a couple of these screens. I don't think he really trusts the receivers that are in position to block, Like, hey, if you know, if I throw this ball and they don't secure this block, this could something bad could happen. So I thought I saw a lot of that with him, some tentativeness and not wanting
to make a mistake. I saw him turning down some opportunities down the field and taking off and trying to run. And then I thought, as it got late where it was got to have it time. I thought he threw caution to the wind. He has the huge throw from in the pocket where he gets drilled. I thought that was you know that that's who he needs to be.
So if I'm in that coaching staff, I'm saying, hey, man, we're gonna you're gonna turn the ball over, You're gonna make some mistakes, but we drafted you to be you, and that's the aggressive version of you and bucket, you know. I I think that's it's a good thing that he's conscious of it, that he's aware of it. Hey, protect the football. We have a great defense. Don't don't screw
it up. But I still think you got to let Caleb kind of be Caleb, and I think that was the difference between early in the game and what we saw on the fourth quarter.
Yeah, I think he should be encouraged to kind of toe the line, see where his boundaries are, like try to eliminate I would say, like the bonehead mistakes, but like push the envelope a little bit, because what you don't want to do is take someone who is as talented as he is, who really made his living at the collegiate level with improvisational plays, and say, hey, we want to put you in a box and make you
a robot. That's not why they drafted him. And so because he is so talented, he is so gifted, he just has to understand when and where. I think for me, it's all about situational awareness, understanding when you can push the envelope understanding when.
You need a dollar back.
If he masters that part of it, which is called game management, look, he would be everything that we thought he could be.
In more, we got to get to the end of the game here, rhet I'll tee you up first, your thoughts, the hail Mary.
We provide credit.
We'll blanket the credit early for Jaden Daniels buying all kinds of time and just launching an absolute gem of a ball there and Noel Brown being in the right spot. We've covered the I think that's pretty easy for everybody to understand and see and explain. Let's focus on the other side of the ball. What's your takeaway at the Chicago into this thing, because there.
Were three phases of it, and that was the first phase, right with Jane Daniels beying the time. The second phase was what in the world was going on with Tyreek Stevenson twenty nine And we know he was going back and forth with Terry McLaurin and all that john all game long, and it continued and it was obviously a
problem there at the end. So I talked to actually spent the morning on NFL Radio on Serius sexm and was talking with Logan Ryan Right, two times Super Bowl champion defensive back the Patriots, Bucks Titans, all that, and he went through and laid out the entire plan as Bill Belichick would have taught it, right, and it was called rebound, That's what he said.
The play was called right where you had one guy that was designated as the jumper for the defense. Right, you rush for, you drop seven.
You've got one guy designated as the jumper, the other four guys are trying to box out the other receivers, and then you have a guy defending a deflection in front of the mess and behind the mess.
The Bears had none of that all.
They had two guys that were kind of shadowing a commander's receiver that was in front of the goal line, in front of the mass that was jumping up to get the ball, and then obviously nobody on Noah Brown behind. But they had five guys going up for the same jump ball.
This will play Bucky.
That is practiced at least once a week in practice, right, it's every team every week, and they go through all of the procedures.
Here. This was just an epic fail. An epic fail.
And I have I mean I have zero I mean I have zero doubt that this was not the way that Matt Eberfors coaches is play right. So from your perspective, I mean, for my percent, that's what I saw. What did What did you see on that?
Well?
One, I saw Tederick Stevens and not being focused because he's still jing with the crowd while the play is underway. And then what you talk about, I think Logan Ryan gives a good point. It is a hard play to defend only in terms of like the positioning and trying to judge the ball. So I do think it's great that Bill Belichick said only one guy, only one guy gets to jump. Everybody else find a man box him out,
just like basketball, and you have to practice it. The thing is, you can't practice it in full speed, but you certainly can get into position and talk about it. It's one of the things that's always scary about the Hill Mary situation is people just leaving their responsibilities and ball watching and like it's mesmerizing and Tyreek goes from off the side to in the middle of it. He tips it and remember we always talk about it, down it right down.
He tips it.
Right up and lands in the hands of Noah Brown like just an unbelievable play.
But DJ, here's the other coach got on that too, right, because once that ball is tipped, if there's a guy on Noah Brown, you could just tackle him to the ground because there is no more pass interfere after the ball is tipped. So's there's a bunch of stuff there.
Yeah, I have an interesting take on what happened to play before, and I'll get to that, But I want to first of all, blame this loss on video games. I'm one hundred percent blaming this loss on video games because Ret's a little younger than us, Buck, But I guarantee you Bucky had the same childhood I did. That We didn't sit inside and play video games. We went outside in the street with all of our friends in the neighborhood and we played three Flies Up. These kids
are sitting here playing video games. They didn't grow up playing three flies up like we did. And we did it for hours and hours.
And hours and hours.
I guarantee if you ask everybody on defense, if you said, what's three flies up, they won't even know what it is.
It's a generational thing.
They don't know. They don't know.
Yeah, I also play consoles.
Also blame the guys they didn't play multiple sports who don't understand how to judge a fly ball, so they're drifting and fading away. They don't understand, like how to track it in the air. All those things are to be done. And Matt uber Flus was so mad. He was so instanced when they asked him, do you practice you practice to hill Mary? I know he's like, yes, but I can't execute it for him. I can only
put him in a position. I can't tell them to catch it and knock it down and all this other stuff. But man, that is a tough way to go out.
Last thing. I tease it real quick.
I was talking to rich Eisen about this morning, which was and I posted it on social media because end of the half, they were in the same hill Mary situation at the end of half. So they're at the Chicago forty nine eight seconds left and Chicago plays a defense where they protect the sidelines and bucket.
Even though you've seen this a million times, lane on the secator, yes, you take that a light.
So they took that away because they knew fifteen yards gets them in field goal range.
They could still throw the hill mary.
But understanding they probably with the time with eight seconds, they're going to try and get closer to getting field goal range. They're at the ball at the thirty five, the Washington thirty five. There's six seconds left. That's still plenty of time to be able to get the ball down the field.
Little bit.
They don't play this. They got everybody down the field. There's nobody protecting the sidelines. It's the easiest fifteen yards to put them in position to make the hail mary throw. And I'm like, I just didn't understand with the situations being so similar, why would you have a different approach end of half than you had at the end of the game.
That didn't make any sense to me.
It doesn't make any sense.
And it's unfortunate that they had to learn our hard lesson, But it's one that I bet you from the rest of his career, Tyrick Stevenson will learn how to play the haile Mary.
You don't have to worry about him goofing off with the crowd and.
Not being focus and locked in, you would hope, because it costs his team a game.
Yeah, no, luck, we could spend we could spend thirty more minutes on this game, but crazy crazy finished. Positive note, both these teams have their franchise quarterbacks and they're both going to be competitive, good football teams for the next decade. So that was fun to see. Baltimore Cleveland. Biggest surprise of the day reht and that result.
Yeah, because the guy who was the emergency third quarterback last week ended up starting and have a gem of a game. We got good Jamis Winston on this day for the Cleveland Browns. So here's a couple of things. The Browns coming into this game had never had more than five explosive passing plays in a game this season. Fifteen plus passing yards is where we'll go on the
categorization of that. And the five the game where they had five was the week before in which Shaun Watson didn't play the whole game and you had dtr and Jamis come in.
Before that, it was never more than four.
They had ten explosive plays in the passing game here, doubling their previous season high. It also led the league this week, and it was you know, also keeping in mind they shipped to Marty Cooper out, this was you know, this was Elijah Moore, this was David Nijoku, and so I thought that that was really big that Jamis was opening up the capabilities of this offense.
Also, average depth of target three yards deeper.
That's a big difference than it had been for much of this season. And Jamis time to throw quicker than any quarterback for any for any Browns game this season.
Two point four to four seconds.
Ball was coming out of his hands, so he's seeing it, he's pushing the ball down the field, and he's executing it right there. I thought that was huge for this Browns offense. And man, he was able to keep the ball out of the hands of the Ravens, which you know, you were always kind of waiting for that other shoot to drop.
But I thought that was.
A big time performance from Jameis Winston in this one. Obviously, none bigger on the explosive side than the thirty eight yarder for the game winner.
Yeah, let me put this in some perspective here.
Only two other quarterbacks went for three hundred and three passing touchdowns in a win in his first start of a season on a team that was five games below five hundred. That's John staffa not familiar of the sixty six Dolphins and Lend Dickey know the name seventy three Oilers. Yeah, so that's that's rare company there for what he accomplished.
But I'll get it to you this way, Buck, if you did a lineup right, if we were to just say, okay, we're going to try and pick out the quarterback here, which one is not like the other in terms of how they play. If you just put on the tape and you watched historically over their career, the way that Jamis Winston plays football, the way Joe Flacco plays football, the way Deshaun Watson plays football, there's a reason why these other two guys have had success in this system.
This is and I'm not here to back Deshaun Watson, but everybody's talked about Deshaun Watson's ability. This is not a fit. It was not a fit from the beginning. It did not work. This is not the right quarterback style of play for this offense. Then they tried to change the offense to fit him. Well, that didn't work. At the end of the day, this offense runs best
with a statue esque pure pocket passer. Get the ball out of your hand, that's what Joe Flacco is and as we can see, that's what Jameis Winston is is even more than that.
Let's break it down to it is teams that are good running teams. The passing game should be a vertical based passing game. And what you have in Joe Flacco and Jamis Winston guys that want to push the ball down the field. Because if you're throwing off action, deeper developing routes, you're looking for the home run shot against one on one coverage. Jameis Winston, Joe Flacco, they take that.
With Deshaun Watson, that's not his game. Dejean Watson is more of a West Coast offensive system, something that is not dink and dump, but something that's more ball control. Jameis Winston is going to push the ball down the field, now, no risky, no biscuit. There're gonna be more turnovers that happen, But as you said, the reward more explosive plays, ten explosive plays in the passing game. With Nick Chubb coming back, the running game like it is a better fit for
how the Browns want to play. When you have a guy that wants to push it down the field.
James's favorite checkdown is a deep post.
Oh, there's no checkout. We're not taking checkdowns. Yeah, you're right.
Hey, you're gonna push it out the field. By the way, Ratt, hitch you on this first and we'll go around. But yeah, are we panicking yet?
Like, I haven't seen the Ravens play bad defense like this in a long time. Man, they stay on defense right now.
Yeah, it was definitely popped up.
And yeah, and I mean obviously, you know, missing their their top two corners I think is a big deal here too, on a game like this. But I mean, like we had You might remember last time we heard from Elijah Moore in a Cleveland Browns uniform. I mean he shows up today, Nidjoku comes up, you know, and shows up with that pro Bowl type talent that we saw from him, and I mean, yeah, it is alarming.
I think Kyle Hamilton again was all over the place.
And look, he probably dropped an interception right that might have ended the game before the Tillman touchdown.
So I mean, they it could have been a little bit different.
But I would say for this team to realize it's full potential, there's got to be some some changes to what they're doing over there on the defensive side.
Well, they actually knew that they needed to add something to it. They bring Dan Peace in to Dan Pece comes over to be like a mentor because Zachary Or is a first time defensive play caller and he's doing it for a team that is known for their defense, which is a lot of pressure. And if they don't fix the defense, like they're limited. The offense can take them so far, but they can't deal with the heavyweights
in the AFC if they don't play great defense. We're seeing that and the fact that they lose the game against the Cleveland Browns, that's.
Just sound the a large.
We saw Marcus Williams get benched in the game. They talked about the coverage issues in those things. Yeah, I'm worried about Baltimore because we've always been able to count the defense showing up, but now the defense isn't showing up.
So that's that's problematic.
By the way, jamis on that near pick, ifs and should and would have could as don't mean anything so.
Small man, as we say, long foul ball, long foul.
Ball, next pitch is all the matters, all right, We'll see what happens with the Ravens. I wouldn't surprised too the trade deadline approaching, they'll do something like the They.
Will be aggressive. I would be shocked if they aren't.
They have a history of going out trying to fix some words here, so we'll see what they do, all right. We don't even spend as long a time on this one. Buck San Francisco Dallas weird game like it just looked like it was over and with San Francisco firmly in control, and then Seedee Lamb got going a little bit. Dallas came back and made it a ballgame, but still not enough.
Yeah, still not enough.
It's weird, man, because I feel like the Cowboys are overmatched every time they step onto the field against the top.
Team, and this kind of played out like that.
I thought it was interesting listening to the call where they talked about the nine and just felt like they could wear the Cowboys down and they would beat them down and eventually they would crack.
And that's kind of what took place.
And that has been the thing that has hurt them against some of the top teams in the NFC. They just don't have the staying power to go for sixty four minutes for the Cowboys. I think Mike McCarthy would try and build off of this performance because they did fight back. They got back in and had a chance, you know, to make it happen in the tilted in their favor.
We couldn't do it, but you have to admired to fight.
I just don't know if there's enough on this roster to give them a chance to get into the postseason.
Yeah, this is tough.
I mean, this is a team that's really failing in two major categories that are conduced to team success running the football and stop in the run. And we've talked about it. I feel like for the last couple of weeks here with the Niners or with the cut with the Cowboys, rather the run defense is bad.
It's just that that's all there is to it.
I mean we're talking about I know, it's the scheme here with with what since, with what San Francisco wants to do. But you know, Isaac Garrindo came in and again it just looks like another one of those backs that steps in and find success for San Francisco. The Cowboys have allowed sixty eight first downs this year on the ground that is at the very bottom of the league. Minnesota, for comparison, is tops in the league in that category, and they've allowed twenty three.
That is a huge gap.
Like you are getting gashed on the ground when you're giving up chain moving plays like that on the ground, and look the they're on the field too long and they're you know, they're just getting beat up front. I don't think they have an if they're in the interior, like Lynvald Joseph Mazzi Smith, I don't feel like the answer is there up front, and they can't run the ball on offense, so like it's just that that to me, no matter how I mean, Ceede Lamb might go for two hundred yards.
Next week and they still might lose.
Like it's just it just feels like the formula that they have that they've been showing right here is just it's not available for them to find consistent wins.
Well, I can finish it up on this thought.
With Dallas Cowboys, there's only one thing they need to do, and they will fix the run game, and it's it's it's pretty simple. It probably costs a lot of money, but they need to go buy a DeLorean because if they can go back in time about seven years, the fact that they have Mozekil Elliott and Dalvin Cook, I mean, this run game would be would be pretty dynamic and good.
Shoot twenty seven years ago, twenty eighteen, let's go.
Yeah, But I don't know.
I haven't seen many Deloreans for sale lately, so that's going to be a challenge. But this is something that was easy a club easily predicted. We talked about it, we harped on it at the draft with all the running backs that were like, Alie, it's got to be something you can do here. This is not a position where you age gracefully and they are dependent on older running backs.
That is not ideal.
So tough loss for the Dallas Cowboys, big win for the Niners. They climb back to four and four, and we're going to cruise to Detroit, which I don't know if that's ever been done before. We're gonna go to Detroit where the Lions absolutely beat the stuffing out of the Tennessee Titans. I mean, I'm sure this is the question that's going to be asked on every talk show.
I don't want to go there because it's pretty silly, but I mean, I know they've got one loss, but how do this How do you say this isn't the best team in the NFL based off what the Lions look like right now?
Buck, I'll give you that one first.
Yeah.
No, what's interesting is listening to Dan Campbell's comments after the game, where we talked about, hey, guys, those are great performance, but we know we didn't play our best, and so the good thing is we can improve without playing our best.
Look at the Lions. The Lions don't have a glenaring weakness.
We can talk about the pass rush without eight and Hudgson and do they have enough to comple it together? But when you look at the entire roster, offensive line is rock solid, playmakers, good lower on the perimeter of the passing game.
Quarterback is the franchise quarterback.
Defensively, yes, eight hutsons in a shell, but you got a bunch of hard working, blue collar guys on the front line.
Secondary, you've upgraded. I mean, they have it all.
And then when you go to the kicking game where a lot of people don't pay attention, they really improve that and become explosive in dead area. They check off the boxes in every category when it comes to being the championship.
Team, way do they great point and just doing a little quick tabulation on this front, Kire golf has thrown it was just a three six seven. We're talking about thirteen incompletions in the last four games. And answer you Anthony Richardson at twenty two in this one game for the Colts, which I know we'll get to in just a little bit, but golf has been so and the fact that he threw for eighty five yards in this game and they won by what if thirty five plus
points is incredible. Now you talked about defense offense, We talked about that a lot here with with the Detroit Lions on both sides of the ball, with the third side of the ball showed up in a big way for the Lions. Here Khalif Raymond a little bit of a revenge game. Former Tennessee Titan has probably the best punt return game we've seen from any player this season.
Should have had two long punt return touchdowns, ends up with this ninety yard er on your screen right now, and then comes back and has the next score on offense for the Lions. Like I mean, when this dude is impacting the game that way, combined with all the other top tier talent that they have.
Yes, DJ, the Lions are the best team in football.
I'm gonna give you the ab c's and I'll go to D the level D on the Lions here because this is what it is when you watch them. They are aggressive, they are balanced, they are creative, and they are dynamic. That is ABC and it's every single week where you see all facets of that approach and I don't know that any other team has that. I know the Chiefs are undefeated. A Chiefs defense is no joke. They're outstanding. You're starting to see Mahomes kind of get
a little bit more going with the passing game. But they are not as dynamic. They are not as explosive as the Detroit Lions are. And the Detroit Lions, I think are better up front along the offensive line. So when we're looking at you know, big picture and what could be a showdown looming, a Super Bowl showdown looming based off.
Just the eye test.
And I'm reluctant to say it because anytime I ever say, you know, somebody looks better than the Chiefs, the Chiefs inevitably going to go on and win the Super Bowl and they should still be that favorite. But just who's who's the most impressive right now? I would say the Detroit Lions buck have been. You know, they've been the NFL's most impressive team.
I mean they're impressive because you know, it's funny were talking about the Cowboys in the previous segment.
And they don't have an identity, like based.
On their formula for success doesn't really matter the personnel than those things.
Detroit.
I feel like Detroit their roster matches the grit and the toughness of the city, which has been touted by Dan Campbell and Bray Holmes. They have really built this team in the image of the city and they're going to blue collar people to sleep and their physicality, their toughness, the.
Way they can overwhelm you with forsa finess. They have a roster.
Man, if we were playing a video game, this is a team that I would pick up the sticks and play.
Yeah.
No, it's impressive there what they accomplished. We didn't spend much time talking about the Tennessee Titans, but at one and six they didn't earn it to be honest with you, they didn't earn the discussion time there on what.
Was rolled wrong with them.
They get a long ways to go, and I think you'll continue to see them sell off pieces and try and work towards the future.
There buck your game, green Bay Jacksonville.
You know, like, here's the thing. I'm gonna take the Green Bay part of it.
DJ coaching matters, And it is amazing to watch Malie Willis play for the Green Bay Packers after watching him play for a couple of years in Tennessee. Jordan Love gets heart, goes out, Malie Willis comes in, and their offense explodes.
Run game, Josh Jacobs put it.
On the bag, made a couple of plays, but then it was Malik making plays, you know, being able to kind of connect on a few throws and showcasing his running ability and scrambling and all of that.
His confidence is completely intact. And this version of Elie Willis looks like the.
Version that people were trying to project when he was in the draft and they were talking about him being a first round pick.
Man.
Yeah, for Green Bay, that's quite a luxury to have. As I know, they're thankful that Jordan Love seems to have escaped a big injury with the groin. I kind of thought it was the knee the way he was moving around on that thing earlier coming back to haunt him a little bit. But yeah, I mean Josh Jacobs goes for one hundred and twenty seven yards certainly helps Malik Willis's cause there in the second half utilized craft again.
Those young receivers continue to show.
Up and then look on the on the flip side for the Jaguars, man, it just took took too long to get rolling in this one, it felt like. And now they they're dealing with, you know, more injuries, right, Brian Thomas Junior went out of the game, so you know, you as him and Kirk whoa Now, yeah, Christian Kirk obviously with what looked like, you know, a shoulder collar bone of some sort. Man, that's gosh, you're just losing targets here for a team that can't afford to DJ.
Yeah, and there goes also a trade chip too, if you were, you know, entertaining the thought of potentially trading Christian Kirk, that's out the window once he's done the shelf. Now, so I hate to see that for him. Look, Green Bay, there's still some flaws there, but I'm telling you they are young on defense and they fly around. They're fun to watch. Just how much speed they've collected on that side of the ball. Eddrin Cooper, we talked about him
last week. He continues to make her splash plays. He is a good player. He's going to be fun to watch, a big a big piece of their defense. So big win there for the Green Bay Packers. From the game Bucky was at to the game, I wo is that Saints Chargers. Look, the Saints are not good. Shuffled quarterbacks around. Jake Haner got in there and made some plays and some throws late.
Chris o'lave.
If we're gonna say trade targets, and I don't think they will trade Chris Alabbe, but if you're looking at the receivers, the names that have at least been mentioned, and seeing him live and in person, that'd be the top of my list.
I would flip a two for Chris Olave all day. I would happily part with.
The second round pick for him, and especially looking at the draft up ahead. I haven't got deep into it yet, but talking to a lot of folks not as top end heavy at the wide receiver position, so give even more reason if you're looking for a weapon. Chris Alave could be one of those guys, but only eight points two of those on a safety on a bad punt snap. So Chargers defense is number one scoring defense in the NFL. That number is going to go down after what they
held the Saints too in this game. Rock solid on that side of the ball. But the big takeaway from me rhtt is, you know this is a team that, even though they haven't run it effectively, always felt like, man, if you're going to commit to the run as much as they do and run it as much as they do, you have to pay that off with some chunk plays down the field. And whether they were successful running the ball or not, they hadn't been able to get big
explosive plays, and they did in this game. Lad McConkie had one hundred yard game. He got vertical down the field. Josh Palmer got vertical down the field. Even Jalen Rager made the best catch of his NFL career on a deep ball down the field, and it was like, okay,
you can see the vision. I know the Saints stink on defense too, So I don't want to get it carried away here, but this is the vision of what it looks like is be able to pay off these runs ret and be able to capitalize with some chunk plays.
Yeah when you go through and you're looking at McConkie, you know, had the sixty yard er right, Palmer with the forty five yard or even if the recept even if like the volume right isn't up there. In terms of you know, completions and receptions from a lot of these guys, that's it. They're meaningful and they're impactful, and I think that's what we saw with McConkie. You know, I was super happy to see him get this career game right. Six catches on, six targets and two tuddies too.
You know, just a big time performance for a guy that you know, was one of our favorites on path to the draft coming out this year and has really started to kind of come into his own here now that some of that injury stuff is behind it.
Yeah, really big performance for lad mccocky. But I think this is it.
We talked about it with the Browns run game, vertical passing game, strong run game.
Got to take it down to field with Justin Herbert.
You can see he has the arm talentent to really fit into this type of system. It's a matter do they have enough playmakers, but the playmakers are minimized because the running games affectiveness. Ors's defense is to play one on one. That's why you're seeing these teams take advantage of it. When you got ring game, good quarterback, vertical passing.
Game, yeah, no question there, big win the Chargers again. The schedule sets up for them. They go to Cleveland this week, so those two vertical passing games. But he's talking about we'll see them both on display. Looking forward to being out there.
Go ahead, right, I mean, we're not going to shout out Matt Locke for a sack interception in this game.
I know, and a reception? How about that?
Well?
I told Harba, I told coach Harpall a couple of weeks ago that he's sponsible for every scout uh being responsible for working out defensive tackles as fullbacks at every pro day from here.
To the time.
Good luck.
That's a little later flight, thanks, get a little later flight after those pro days, you guys spend a little extra time in those D line and see if they can catch h Buck. Atlanta Tampa Bay. This is a division, is kind of a funky division. But it's a big win here for the Atlanta Falcons as they get to five and three the Bucks they fall to four and four in a game where they didn't have any of their receivers.
Well more importantly, they break out the broom like if you're able to get get get them up out of here. And so Nattie went to sweep. You're talking about being able to win to tabreak and all those things.
Uh.
The Atlanta Falcons are funny because they really rally behind kirku. Kirk Cousins has them going. He's been hot, he's playing well for them. This is kind of what Raheem Morris and those guys were hoping for when they made the move to give Kirk Cousins the bag to be their starting quarterback.
Man. Can they play Todd Bowles's defense every week?
Shoot?
I mean they're gonna close.
They started this month with just an absolute gem of a performance on a Thursday night, and they're going to end this month with a sweep of the Bucks. And like, think about how much this game means he Yeah, it was great to see Kyle Pitts make two touchdown grabs right and get into the end zone a couple of times from Kirk, who was on fire in this game. How I mean like they have now swept the team that is by far the most viable contender to challenge them.
At the top of the division.
So if it's even remotely close coming down to it, the Falcons own that the important tie breakers in this thing. So I think this game was was huge for Kirk Cousins and the Falcons. And then look, I think for Baker and the Bucks, some real fight there. To be without god Win, to be without Mike Evans, I think you saw a bona fide weapon emerging. Kate otten right two touchdowns in this game, caught nine of ten targets and went for Dan near one hundred yards. It's happened
to be National tight end Day. So showed up in a big way. And I think that something that you can build on as you move forward here if you're the Bucks and hopefully you get Chris, you get Mike Evans back here soon.
Yeah.
Again, huge for the Atlanta Falcons to be able to pick up both those wins against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and I.
Think this the NFC is better than the AFC. I think that the field is loaded.
I don't know how much confidence I have the Falcons to get in the tournament and do a lot of damage and won a bunch of ball games. But when you're trying with a new setup, you've got a young coaching staff here, you want to see, you know, some good steps be taken. Man, they're in a great position to go ahead and compete to win this thing. So win the division and then kind of lift off from there, and nobody's talking about, you know, Pennix Kirk Cousins and
did you pay Kirk too much? Did you draft Penix when you shouldn't have? You win the division and everything's great. So they're a very good spot there, very good spot there, no question. All right, let's get to the AFC East here with Man, there's a lot of different ways we can go on this one. The Jets go to New England and lose. They fall to two and six. Drake May, who was playing well before getting hurt, he goes out. Jacoby Brissette comes in and leads a comeback there for
the New England Patriots. Buck, This is a I mean, I don't know, I don't know how much this provides for New England. I guess it lessens a little bit of the outside criticism, some of the friendly fire, the Bill Belichick friendly fire maybe ceases to exist for a week here, but man devastating from from a Jets standpoint, Yeah, look, it's over so gay.
To quarterback everything you wanted, and they've gotten worse.
If I had a coach and everything, and they're just in a free for all, and I just don't know how you fix them.
You know, you bring her Son Reddick back.
I mean, like you're trying to do everything and you still can't get it going.
And the crazy thing.
Is this office is as bad, if not worse in the office when Zach Wilson was running it. I mean did not sco at any points, no explosive plays.
It's just a hodgepodge of nothingness.
And they're gonna have a tough time like continue defeated because you knew that the Patriots. If the Patriots can stymy them, anybody's gonna stymy them going forward.
They're just not explosive enough to be able to wing games.
Yeah, I mean listening to Aaron Rodgers, you know, after the game talk about you know, it's fundamentals like.
Week eight talking about you know, we're talking about fundamentals.
We're talking about he's talking about play calls coming into the sidelines, so about not getting out of huddle quick enough, talking.
About substitution errors. No, I guess that's part. I guess that's part of it.
You know, when you're changing staff, right, and you're changing you know, responsibilities within the staff, and you do have some moving pieces. But I mean this that is discovered. First, it was last week. It was not having the juice, not having the energy, didn't feel like it were up of the game. Now we're talking about you know what sounds like fairly rudimentary stuff, you know, day one stuff, right, Personnel groupings, you're talking about, you know, operation with play
calls and getting out of the huddle. I mean, I'm wondering here, and I know the answer is no, because they play New York and Aaron Rodgers is there and there's always going to be a microphone.
But it's at this point do the Jets just kind of fade off into the ether here? I mean, at some point they.
Have to why we're gonna keep putting the more TV, the on every prime chide.
Like what, huh, we don't need to keep seeing this product.
Yeah, I don't know.
Look, my thing is just it's just different. And I know people appreciate the honesty. And there's no other quarterback that has the platform that Aaron has on a weekly basis. I just it's so odd to me not to just see the quarterback just own everything. You own everything. I just everybody, every quarterback that I've ever seen or been around, or it'd be great quarterback that you've ever followed, fuck have you.
I don't remember that, at least publicly.
I mean, it's one thing if you're in a meeting and like, hey on details, like coaches, we got to get plays in on time, you know, we got to we got to be where we need to be. We're lining up wrong, just simple stuff that can't happen. And then even in that setting, the players will take you know, the quarterback will take responsibility. And I've done this, this and this, and you know what, I'm sick of the
way I'm playing and I'm going to be better. But I've just never seen it where the quarterback publicly doesn't take one hundred percent ownership. Fuck am I am? I remembering incorrectly here. You played with some Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Now do you remember that.
DJ the quarterback owns everything publicly. Privately he lays into everybody, But publicly, hey.
Man, that's on me. I can do a better job. Yeada, YadA, YadA.
But but passing blame and doing that thing, it doesn't work. But I'm telling you, man, under pressure, your true colors come out.
The leadership or lack the shows up.
And he has not been a good leader during this crisis that the Jets are in the midst of.
It feels to me just like someone who's getting to the end of his career and is not coming to grips with it, you know what I mean.
And defensively they're not as good.
My theory on the defense, and then we'll move on the last thought here, But my theory on the defense is they had the feeling of we have to be so dialed in and so locked in and so perfect, like you can't exhale. That's the way they've played defense the last few years, and they've been excellent at it, and they've known what the bar was for them to keep their team in football games, and they and they delivered, And I honestly think, and it's probably just subconscious, but Okay,
we've got a Hall of Fame quarterback. Now he's got all these MVPs, Like, we can exhale a little bit. We don't have to be so locked in because it's exhausting to be locked in to play at a high level like that every week. And I think they kind of lost a little bit of their edge. And oh, by the way, they're not getting it what they thought
they were going to get from the offense. So now you've got an offense it's still as bad as it's really been, and you've got a defense that, under the assumption they wouldn't have to do everything, is not as good as they used to be. So long story longer, it's a it's a mess. It's a mess there, Yeah, yeah, all right, Arizona in Miami. I was excited to see the cutups in this game of Marvin Harrison Junior having a big game as they beat the Miami dolfense.
Buck.
I'll get to you on that one first, but it was nice seeing Marvin Harrison on runaway routes like, he's not a curl comeback, work back to the quarterback, route runner. That's not who he is. He is an on the move guy. He is overs, he is slants, he is digs. It's run after catch like that's what he is. Everything's on the move, and he's a great player. It's it's that's why. It was just kind of baffling to me how they were deploying them over the last few weeks.
And lo and behold they get him on the movie as a big day and they go on a ball game.
Yeah, kind of crazy how that is, right, Like, they get him on the move, they treat him and put him in the right situation and allow him to have success. And well, look, we talked about it because on paths to the draft, we frequently talk about operating instructions. Sometimes it takes teams a little bit to figure out how to operate their top picks. And I'm just glad that
the Cardinals figured it out. This is a talented player, is a big body player, a number one receiver, and they got him the ball and you saw the impact that he had on the game.
Yeah, I thought that was obviously important for the Cardinals.
Trade.
McBride obviously went off as well with a massive day. Those two guys. Man, that could be fun to watch for the next few years with Kyler Murray and company and where they can most of the time get that run game going.
The other piece of it is obviously to a tungo by.
Lowe's return, right, And I think you saw that not only did that unlock some things in what they wanted to do to get Tyreek kill the football and that the run game was back or the Miami Dolphins.
And I think that was such a big deal.
And obviously the impact of having Tua back having to make some of those decisions, having the threat of what he can do through the air, it really unlocked Devin h Devon h Chan who went for ninety seven yards in this one, caught a bunch of balls too, and then Moster gets into the end zone. Couple like that's starting to get more like it.
You know, do they have enough time?
Right?
Do the Dolphins have enough time to make up what they lost over the course of the last month or so with two out so certainly good to see. I think they're going to start kind of making their way back on that positive trend.
Line here.
Yeah, no, it definitely looked different in a good way for the Miami Dolphins offensively. RTT go back to you on this one, Indy Houston, and there we can hit the Anthony Richardson thing if you want to start there where they go moving forward. They're a four and four team right now, Houston six and two, not playing their best football, but finding ways to win ball games.
Yeah.
I mean, if you're the the Bears, maybe you maybe you take a page out of the Texans playbook on the hail Mary attempt at the end, right, they put the three defensive linemen left of the center to force Anthony Richardson out to his left because they didn't want him throw him right. And then they bring a guy essentially kind of trapped him right, and then they bring one of the three loop him all the way around. There was nowhere to go. He didn't even get to
throw off, and the game was over. Ball came out Will Anderson jumps on it. And that's a way to prevent the Tyreek Stevenson piece of the play all the way down the field right, just sack the dang guy before he even gets the ball off. So you know that's something and look, I mean the Texans formula is clear. It's Joe Mixon, Stefan Diggs goes down in this game, waiting to see what happens there. That's tough because Nico Collins is out, has been out. Hopefully he's on the way back.
I mean.
Anthony Richardson thing now, I mean there's a there's GFF has a stat right, the adjusted completion percentage, because right now the regular one is bad. Right, it's thirty two percent, ten out of thirty two on the day. The adjusted completion percentage, which accounts for overthrows, tips, you know, throw not overthrows, throwaways, tips, drops, but it's only forty four percent. It did not get that much better. So that is
still horribly short of winning football. And Sintsteiken said today when asked if they were evaluating Anthony Richardson, they're evaluating everything, which is kind of like the non answer answer.
Well, that tells you start next week, is what that tells you?
Right, what tells you?
Okay, I've never I've never said we're gonna take a tap look at this, and it's ended up being, you know what, much better than we thought, much better than we thought.
That's not usually how that works.
And then the tap out thing, I don't buck.
I don't know them well man, like you can't just don't know.
There's certain things that quarterbacks can't do. The quarterback can that willingly take himself.
I've never seen it before, never seen one.
But this isn't not high school at any level, not even in high school.
When you're the starting quarterback, you're staying the game.
You call a different play, call a running play, call something that's not you run it truck, don't. The quarterback does not tap himself out like that is the craziest thing that I've ever seen it. Now, I'll say this because I wrote a thing in the notebook about and they need to send Anthony Richardson down for his own good. He's dead last in completion percentage, passer rating, all of these things. And if you're going to develop him, there's nothing wrong with having.
Him sit down for a year or two, let him develop on the practice fuel.
But this team, as a head coach, you owt to your team to give them the best chance to win. He is not the best quarterback on their roster. They need to put Joe Flecco in continue to develop him. And maybe he turns out. But what you can't do is let Anthony Richardson be the albatross that holds the coach back and do that.
Yeah, I.
Mean you take him off the field like the guy hadn't played five games in a row.
You know.
I just I don't know how he's gonna get any better. And yeah, but it's clear I agree with you. It's clearly Joe Flaham, like, that's the answer.
I was just thinking of it.
Okay, say that you're just so exhausted, like I can't I can't catch my breath enough to literally take a snap. I was like, if you gave it a multiple choice, no multiple choice, multiple choice options here, buck, you're ready. Number one, you just flat out call a timeout and you come over to the coach and say about I can't catch my breath. I had to call timeout. That's that's a okay, b I pretend that I can't get the play call on my headset, something's malfunction in my helmet.
I put my I put.
My hand over my ears, and I just go, I got to call a time out. And you come over there and sat and I just couldn't understand you. That's option two, Option three. As Buck said, I'm just going to change the plays. I'm just calling a running play. I gotta catch my breath, you know, and apologize to the coaches later. Option four is you tap out of a game like there's no no quarterback I've ever heard of in my life that faced with those choices, would choose option four.
Option four, Option four hundred.
There's yeah, I appreciate the honesty. I appreciate the honesty, but that is not sure. That is that is not make.
An injury option. That's another option we can get. We can keep forever. I thought he was hurt. I thought he was hurt. I thought he was hurt again. And then I've seen this man.
Whoa, that's crazy.
Yeah, that was not that was not great. So we'll see what happens. I anticipated it'll be Jill Flacco there. I'll be shocked if if it isn't, maybe by the time you're listening to this or watching this, that is that is already the case.
Hey, this is a this is a fun show.
We've got a couple of good saucy nugs in there, raise rets, Indiana Hoosiers, you know, the usual, so as well as some wild usual.
Yeah, there you go.
All that's gonna do it for. I appreciate you guys hanging. We'll see you next time. Right here on, move the sticks.
M