2025 NFL Week 9 Recap: Allen vs. Mahomes, NFC North Drama, Seahawks the Best in the NFC?

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to NFL Daily, where we don't know what to think about the number one seeds in each conference. I'm Greg Rosenthal here in the Chris Westling podcast studio. I'm joined by Patrick Claybon and Jordan Rodriege. Nick Shook coming up later on the show, and he's going to talk about one of those one seeds.

00:00:23
Speaker 2: That fell the Green Bay Packers.

00:00:25
Speaker 1: I feel like some of these Sundays it's just like move it forward Sunday, It's like a four or five yard run on first and ten. This was not one of those Sundays. I feel like we had big time teams losing. We had JJ McCarthy re entering the picture like we just a lot happened.

00:00:41
Speaker 3: It was fun.

00:00:42
Speaker 4: I mean everything comparative to last week was just awesome. As awesome as last week was, Don't get me wrong, Like the unexpected happened in so many of these games, and I love it.

00:00:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, last week was the third quarter, first drive interception, returning deep into your own territory. This at this game this week was like the defensive line stepping in, got to stop on booth and gold, get the old moBack on your side.

00:01:08
Speaker 1: It was a lot of good defensive snops, including in the game of the day. So the Bills Chiefs was not the best game of the day. Ultimately, when Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes are playing near the peak of their powers and their teams are relevant, which they always are, they're going to lead the show. And ultimately I thought what happened today in the AFC was really interesting. Let's talk about the top of the AFC to start this show, and let's start in Buffalo.

00:01:32
Speaker 6: Five on the plate clock, Mahomes and the shotgun on third and eleven.

00:01:37
Speaker 2: Play clocked down to one.

00:01:38
Speaker 6: Here's the snap pressure coming Mahomes. He's it down the field looking for Worthy. It's picked off by.

00:01:46
Speaker 7: Maxwell Hairston at the Buffalo thirty two yard line. The rookie with a takeaway Joey Bosa got the pressure and it led to an arm punk by Mahome and Harston champed out under it and picked it off.

00:02:04
Speaker 4: Oo.

00:02:05
Speaker 1: Maxwell Hairston has he just changed the Yes, entire Bills defense in the last couple of weeks, picks off Patrick Mahomes late. The defense prevents Patrick Mahomes from a hail Mary try and the Bills win with a nice combined effort between the offense and the defense. That was Chris Brown on w g R capping just a magical weekend for Eric Roberts, hardcore Dodgers slash Bills fan, Austin Roberts, his son only knows Dodgers World Championships, and Josh Allen as the Bills quarterback. Fantastic game to me, Patrick, because I don't think there was anything lucky about it. In fact, there were some unlucky aspects to it for the Bills, including more injuries for them. It was just a game where they looked better up in terms of their running game and their pass rush then the Kansas City Chiefs, and frankly like by the end, it almost felt that the Chiefs were lucky to still even be in this. Yeah.

00:03:08
Speaker 5: Consistently throughout the game, Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes were trying to game out what Sean McDermott's defense was doing to scheme them up. There was a play that we discussed extensively in the first half where the Chiefs have a goal to go opportunity wind up kicking a field goal, but they run the Xavier Worthy on the play that the Philadelphia Eagles were doomed to stop in the Super Bowl running motion coming in and going back out, and the Chiefs had a man look that appeared to be man turns out of his own. So Xavier Worthy was running directly into defender and Patrick Mahomes had nowhere to go with the ball. That was a consistent thing, and the problem with this Chief's defense was having guys have yards after the catch, yards after contact, yards after catch over expectation all negative. Rashi Rice negative eleven yards, Travis Kelsey negative four, Hollywood negative three, Kareem Hunt negative one.

00:04:03
Speaker 8: Xavier' Worthy, Juju Smith, Schuster all negative. Yes.

00:04:07
Speaker 5: The only theory I have, Greg is guys are out of position, they're uncomfortable. Maxwell Harrison comes in and suddenly this defense has folks where they want to be, where they can make plays. And the Chiefs their limitations here, of which are few, I think in terms of route runners who can get open and separate when there is no Andy Reid masterminding and Patrick Mahomes creating after the snap, they're kind of limited in that compantity.

00:04:36
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:04:36
Speaker 1: Patrick Mahomes completes under fifty percent of his passes in this game, and a lot of them that he did complete he was fifteen for thirty four, were holding the ball forever and just trying to make magic that only he can make. And I did think Harston sticking with Xavier Worthy, who only gets three catches on seven targets a couple down the field was huge. I thought Joey Bosa and Greg Russeau in the pass rush were really good.

00:05:01
Speaker 2: And Cole Bishop shows up.

00:05:04
Speaker 1: I mean, all the problems that we talked about, including the run defense for the Bills defense really wasn't there. And if nothing else, Man Sean McDermott, he knows how to fix things during the buy and he knows how to make it uncomfortable on this Chief's offense, specifically in the regular season, but really has done a good job well.

00:05:18
Speaker 4: I think one of the things that Sean McDermott has showed so well, especially in this game, is taking advantage of where there are weak spots, whether it's due to injury in this case, very much so for the Chiefs, taking advantage of those potential soft spots or those weaknesses when he's devising his defensive game plan. And to your point on Maxwell Harrison, if you don't have a player who can switch between man and zone coverage as well as Maxwell Harrison can, then Sean McDermott can't run the stickier types of coverages and move a player even though he's playing a zone for the most part, behind that one player who's moving around. He likes to do these things to try to take away or leverage different areas of the field, and I thought that he had a really outstanding plan to coach around some of theies we've seen and also take advantage of where the Chiefs are banged up. They're banged up along their offensive line. Okay, they hit Patrick Mahomes fifteen times, three sacks, but fifteen hits and the pressure was there. They also are missing Isaiah Pacheco. Okay, well, the Bills have been one of the worst run defenses in the league one hundred and forty one rushing yards per game allowed over the entire season on average, just seventy nine today and forty nine to Kareem Hunt alone. The way that they could take advantage of where the Chiefs are down players or missing guys was really really good game planning in my opinion.

00:06:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the running game is a perfect thing to look at because the Chiefs were effective enough running the ball today, like the success rate was about the same for two teams, but the Bills do it at volume, and they do it early in the game, and James Cook was going right up the middle quite a bit early in the game between the tackles where they're good. Josh Allen only has three incompletions. I wouldn't say it's been a bad Josh Allen year at all, but I'd say the last three or four weeks it hasn't been him at his very best. And this was him totally under control over ten yards per attempt. Dalton Kincaid is getting wide open. Good job scheming him open, and he's looking faster. He's third on the team and tight end snaps. Even today he played behind Knocks and Spencer Hawes, and yet they're getting him the ball a lot six for one oh one. So I was just, if you're that much better up front, and the Chiefs did not have a great pass rush today, you're gonna win this game.

00:07:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, And you kind of see some of the same issues for both teams, except the Bills offensive line better healthier, Jawan Taylor left the game at a certain point. Then the Chiefs lose another Lineman where they have to finish the game. I believe it was suem A Taylor left. John Taylor played a lot of this game too.

00:07:40
Speaker 1: Everyone was like going in and out, but yeah, they are not one hundred percent in just Simons still not back for them, and.

00:07:45
Speaker 5: So like you get the dichotomy where it's kind of like the season where the average air yard per attempt for Josh Allen's four point six yards, but he didn't have to do much because they could be so dominant on the ground, whereas Kansas City if things if things aren't working, it's just kind of hope ball. And like they get a weird fourth and seventeen conversion that ultimately leads to a score, which is the reason the game finishes up at twenty eight twenty one. But other than that, like nothing long sustained in terms of success. And they were also three of thirteen on third down.

00:08:19
Speaker 1: That's crazy, but them being able to hit a fourth and seventeen, that's why you go for the fourth.

00:08:25
Speaker 3: I loved this conversation back and forth in the news.

00:08:27
Speaker 2: You're the Kansas City Chiefs.

00:08:29
Speaker 1: I thought you're in you Reid, you found fourth down religion and they decide to kick a field goal after failing on the goal line right at the end of the half. And it was a half where they were pretty consistently outplayed down twenty one to ten, and then suddenly they hit a big play down the field. That one was to Thornton right and you know, to Hollywood Brown and he comes up like a yard short of scoring the touchdown. And it was one of those situations where the Bills kind of they know you're gonna with only one time out, probably run on the first play they stop it only Kareem Hunt gets stopped and then two unsuccessful pass plays of which you talked about, but you got Patrick. You just got to take a chance because later in the game you're going fourth and seventeen. You're going fourth and fourth and by the way, you hit them both.

00:09:11
Speaker 5: And also the guy who makes that decision is the guy who calls the plays. And I think there's a little bit of survivorship bias in the way we look at the fourth down situation, because the teams that are going for it on fourth down either have to go for it on fourth down to try to win the game or stay in the game, or they are confident in a play call that allows them to go for it and successfully execute the fourth down conversion where you don't really see a lot of fourth downs when the play caller and the coach both saying, Hey, I don't think we got it here.

00:09:37
Speaker 8: I think we should kick the ball and get three points.

00:09:39
Speaker 1: And so that I think fans effect, and yeah, Pacheck go's out and they have the buye week he can get healthy like he I think they need to trade for a running back more than anything. To me, Pachecko is not a plus starter at this point. Kareem Hunt is not. I think he's probably playing better than Pacheco is right now, and I think that is a position that they could improve in the next couple of days.

00:09:59
Speaker 3: So I think the Bills have to be buyers too.

00:10:01
Speaker 4: It's so sad, you know, Michael Hoyt being out with what Sean McDermott said postgames and Achilles not really stinks. Obviously, he missed the first six games as well with that suspension.

00:10:10
Speaker 3: He was really showing up for them.

00:10:11
Speaker 4: He was popping making some splash plays and they needed a player at his position who could play on the outside and on the inside. So if they're not by if they weren't buyers already, especially on along that defensive liner pass rush. I feel like they should be, maybe even more so than I know that. The buzz is that they want a receiver Da da da da dah. Like I do think that this defense could still improve, so you don't have to coach so dramatically around the deficiencies.

00:10:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the thing is they've been out like they've been much better pass rushing since the buy It's only been two weeks, but they've just looked like a different team. Joey Bosa in this game had ten pressures according to PFF, two sacks, three quarterback kits. The NFL is going to record it differently, but in terms of pressure, he was consistent. So was consistent. Great complete game from the Buffalo Bills. They get to six and two, and here are the Chiefs, even though I think they're playing better, some of their shortcomings here not much of a pass rush, the running game, eh. Four losses. It is going to be hard to catch up to try to get that one seed this year in the AFC. It's it's not out of bounds, but it's going to be out of their hands.

00:11:17
Speaker 2: At this point.

00:11:17
Speaker 1: The Bills with a two game lead and the tiebreaker. All right, let's stay in the AFC. It was not the Bills on top in the conference going into today. It was the Indianapolis Colts. Big test for them in Pittsburgh.

00:11:31
Speaker 9: Colts moving crisply to the line of scrimmage under three minutes remaining here in the fourth quarter, they get everybody in place at the two fifty. Marcus Jones gets a snap back to pass, looking pressure coming throws and is intercepted.

00:11:44
Speaker 10: Joey Porter Junior, first.

00:11:47
Speaker 11: Interception of the season at the forty yard line.

00:11:50
Speaker 9: Of the Steelers.

00:11:51
Speaker 2: As the Steelers.

00:11:52
Speaker 9: Now with another turnover, how many macs one for the other.

00:11:56
Speaker 7: Thumb six on the day?

00:12:00
Speaker 2: Outrageous.

00:12:01
Speaker 1: The Indianapolis Colts came in too Sunday and yes, we're one game away from being halfway through this season with four turnovers.

00:12:11
Speaker 2: They had six today, five.

00:12:14
Speaker 1: Of them at the hands of Danny Dimes.

00:12:19
Speaker 2: YEA, A couple, we're bad luck, a couple we're bad plays.

00:12:21
Speaker 1: It was as bad, but more than anything, I give the Pittsburgh Steelers credit. I also give Rob King and Max Stark's credit on WDVE with that call. Steelers win twenty seven to twenty in a game where they were up by three scores in the second half give up a couple scores late to make it look closer. But I've been asking for Alex high Smith, Cam Hayward, TJ. Watt just show up and like be the badasses that you are. And I think them beating the tackles on the Colts today, specifically Bernard Ryman and Braden Smith, was so important to this victory. And we can get into what they did differently schematically, but I do think it was just like their best players showed up and were better than the Colt's best players.

00:13:09
Speaker 4: Well, we have to get into it schematically, because that's not the only thing that was the difference here. Part of the huge difference is that a hugely emphatic man to man coverage team played more zone and sent more pressure, specifically out of his own looks, and it's unscouted for them, so meaning that the Indianapolis Colts did not have a bunch of data or film on what that would look like from the Steelers coming in, and you could see that it confused Daniel Jones at certain times.

00:13:36
Speaker 3: You could see that it changed.

00:13:37
Speaker 4: The way that the receivers were trying to run their routes the way that they were trying to scheme open space.

00:13:41
Speaker 3: That was very clear too.

00:13:43
Speaker 4: So I think, you know, credit to Mike Tomlin because he has been so rigid and not wanting and inflexible, not wanting to change the things that he does or the things that he likes to do. So it's not only that you're winning upfront the way that these guys are supposed to do, the way we expect them to do, the way we've been lamenting that they haven't over time. But it's also that they mixed up some of their coverages and they changed things in specific situations to where they could afford to make these plays on the ball and capitalize on mistakes.

00:14:09
Speaker 1: And the way they talked about it was and this is always a code word when things aren't going well, we simplified it, like we didn't do as much.

00:14:15
Speaker 3: Does he thinks playing zone is the for you?

00:14:17
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:14:17
Speaker 3: And it wasn't zone for dummies, that's what he thinks zone is.

00:14:21
Speaker 1: Right in the end, like you look at the numbers and it wasn't much different. It's like, you know, they were a relatively heavy man team and they went ten percent down, but I think it was in key situation, and they said, I think a big part of it was because Kyle dugger was on the field. Kyle Duggar got a game ball. He played every snap today, seventy eight snaps, and they said he had just tried trying to learn this even that was part of it. Was they were almost trying to simplify for him. And they play a lot of single high safety today and so the real goal here is to stop Jonathan Taylor. And it was Jonathan Taylor's worst day of the season. Make Daniel Jones beat them trust in the pass rush. And yet they put Jalen Ramsey at free safety the whole day too. He literally was he was just etyz people stayed at the same position and they were awesome. And like, the Steelers offense deserves credit for just not messing it up. But they got out gained by like one hundred and forty yards today they had two hundred and three. It was this was the kind of the Steelers team that I expected to see all season, which is badass defense and the offense just don't mess it up.

00:15:20
Speaker 2: That's what they did.

00:15:21
Speaker 5: And we've seen the Steelers team earlier this season when the New England Patriots, who are the team with the second best record in the in the AFC, went up against the Pittsborog Steelers turned the ball over five times. They actually the Steelers got out gained three sixty nine to two oh three, and today it was three sixty five to two twenty five in favor of the Colts on the yardage, but in terms of the picture for Daniel Jones, because there were plays like the watch Strip sack where Warren was open, but there was that split second of hesitation as as Daniel Jones is looking down at the coverage and doesn't see TJ. Watt six feet away from him with the bend able to reach for the ball and get it out. It's like shades of metlifetimes in terms of, you know, giving the ball up. But it wasn't like consistent ultimate failure. It was just every time the Colts had a major opportunity, the ball was going the other way to the Steelers. And that's not like the Colts coughing it up. I think the Steelers made plays on every single one of those game. Yeah, probably the best Peyton Wilson game that we've seen all season long.

00:16:25
Speaker 1: Peyton Wilson with the interception tips a pass at the line of scrimmage. That's where there was some bad luck here. And Daniel Jones I don't really fault him for the Alex Highsmith stripsack. That to me was just like a great defensive play that's on his blind side, very.

00:16:39
Speaker 2: Quick pressure there.

00:16:40
Speaker 1: But he did have kind of a groaner where he gets to his second read late on a throw over the middle early. And this is after playing like a great first couple of drives, and then that TJ. Watt stripsack really turned everything around. Let's listen to Mike Tomlin who was feisty after the game talking about his five and three Steelers.

00:17:00
Speaker 12: Line between drink and wine and squashing grapes. In this business. That's football. At this level, it's a limited number of plays or sequences that can really change the trajectory of an outcome with still the same group that's stunk it up last week. That's football.

00:17:18
Speaker 3: See.

00:17:18
Speaker 4: I like that he said that because that's exactly the point that I was making earlier. Greg is like, it's not like they dramatically overhauled their entire system and scheme. They had a new player joined the group and yes, okay, you can use the word simplify for some of the things that perhaps they translated to him as he was picking up that the playbook conceptually. But also they picked their situations and he said, there's a finite number of plays you can make through the course of a game. Well, they picked their spots better schematically with which to send some of that pressure and some of those mixed coverage looks that they did deploy. I think, keep lean into that, keep going with that. Do these things act like Kyle Dugger is joining the team every single week, honestly, like it worked.

00:18:00
Speaker 1: Good pickup, Yeah, they got they got him if you missed it in a trade, a late round pickswap and just the dudes showed up. And it was funny watching the Colts defensive plan. They blitzed on forty one percent of their snaps and they had a ten percent pressure rate. Because Aaron Rodgers, he went like everything you've seen about him this year went to an extreme level because he took some pressures early. Their offense did not look good early in the game, and the rest of the game he decided, I'm getting rid of the ball, i am not getting hit they did not have much of a run game today. Jalen Warren held under two yards per carry. But Rogers, Yeah, but he did. He did score two touchdowns and.

00:18:39
Speaker 8: That's two scores.

00:18:39
Speaker 1: That's the thing about the Steelers. They're a great red zone team on both sides of the ball. That has basically been the key to their season. And they did capitalize in the red zone at least early in this game. He had a time to throw a two point one today, which is just outrageous and averaging two point seven air yards, so almost all of his yards were after the catch. And it's a lot of Dardo and Friarmouth and John new Smith and they're they're in multiple tight ends like fifty percent of the time, three tight ends like thirty five percent of the time. Like it is just it's some heavy, big boy football that Jordan Rodrigue loves.

00:19:13
Speaker 5: There was there was a rollout before the first Jalen Warren touchdown where twenty ten Aaron Rodgers is in the end zone discount double checking, and there was so much grass and I'm like, oh.

00:19:25
Speaker 8: Rogers is back the grass.

00:19:27
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.

00:19:28
Speaker 5: The gap closed almost instantly, and uh, it's it's a sign that you know, Aaron Rodgers is my age out there trying.

00:19:34
Speaker 1: But yeah, he has like that that one moment of hesitation. He's like, am I gonna? Am I really gonna do this? And I'm like, your only chance is to just go for it. But I think he was smart to not really go for it. He was topped out, Yeah, because there was there was two why nough But like if he had like like a thrown his body in there, but there were two defenders there, and uh, you know, discretion the better.

00:19:55
Speaker 2: Part of valor there.

00:19:56
Speaker 1: The Steelers winning the division right now, I think the Raven see this result in there, like hmm, we thought that might be a loss f five and three, And yes, the Colts fall to seven and two. They're going to Berlin next week. They're still a top the AFC. But you mentioned who's right behind him. Let's go to Foxborough.

00:20:13
Speaker 2: He has Jakes in the left slot. It's a third down with the five snap and Drake he throws.

00:20:17
Speaker 13: It to the left for Hunter Henry.

00:20:18
Speaker 14: He's opening to the.

00:20:19
Speaker 10: First sideline and he's slidesing downs.

00:20:21
Speaker 8: At the corning.

00:20:22
Speaker 15: The painters able to set up a bit of a rough player Water Henry.

00:20:26
Speaker 16: He's able to get wide open Drake May Finshi.

00:20:29
Speaker 2: Catch a ball game. Oh, they wouldn't even let so lock in on the call. I like it.

00:20:34
Speaker 1: Eric's feeling frisky the Dodgers parade on Monday. You're not getting in his show, Bob Sochi wb Z twenty four to twenty three. We've had a lot of games like that, Jordan, where they need Drake May or the offense to get one or two first downs at the end of the game. And even after letting the Falcons back into this one, they get the job done in the end.

00:20:58
Speaker 4: Yeah, and Drake May and Hunter Henry needed that. They needed to make that play badly, not just to ice out the game, but because after a really strong start by Drake May two touchdowns, super clean game, he only had three incompletions, he started turning the ball over. He turned the ball over twice. The Falcons scored ten points off of his turnovers, and then the Patriots basically just had to hold off of Falcons comeback because they only scored three second half points. But as we know, whenever they are given the chance to falcon, the Falcons will falcon. And at the end of the game, Parker Romo misses an extra point that would have tied the game. After the two teams traded really sloppy possessions, Drake May got a last chance to close it out with that conversion, and that is ultimately what sealed the game. It was real touch and go there for a minute, but they got it done.

00:21:44
Speaker 2: I didn't think that.

00:21:45
Speaker 1: My worst take, and I've had so many of the preseason, would be that the Patriots were making a mistake keeping their rookie Andy Borgallis, who's been money, and getting rid of Parker Romo, who supposedly beat him in the camp competition.

00:21:58
Speaker 2: But you know why they.

00:21:58
Speaker 1: Didn't because Mike Rabel know things we don't. You know, he just has the magic sauce.

00:22:03
Speaker 2: Apparently.

00:22:04
Speaker 4: It's incredible. It's incredible what they're doing. And I will say, you see the score, and you see the second half of the offense for what New England was doing or not doing, and you see the Falcons start to surge. The Patriots looked like the better team through most of this game Atlanta. They only had they only had four carries for Jon Robinson for twenty yards. Fifteen of those yards came on one carry. By the way, I'm clocking this they're only under center run play or any play from under center of the game goes for fifteen yards. It's his longest run of the game. And Michael Penix had two touchdowns but really only one full good.

00:22:41
Speaker 2: First half drive with three total touchdowns right to London.

00:22:44
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, but I'm talking about the first half, like I mentioned, so in the first half he only had two touchdowns and really only one full good drive. It was fifty three yards and five plays, and that was on the third possession of the game. They really couldn't move the ball much at all in the first half. They capitalized from the six yard line off of a takeaway or one of the first the early Drake made turnovers and that was what really was helping them stay in this game. That and the fact that every time Michael Pennix threw it to Drake London, who had a hat trick today, he was making something insane happen. Let's hear his third touchdown of the game.

00:23:17
Speaker 15: Sales London a pitch to the right, voting to the left. We're going to get his own coverage Robinson with Pennix.

00:23:25
Speaker 16: Here's the staff. They bring five again, they'll throw it for London.

00:23:28
Speaker 11: He did, he hang on, he did touchdown Atlanta.

00:23:35
Speaker 8: Oh, this is an unbelievable is done it again?

00:23:39
Speaker 3: It's just insane. It's just insane, and it was.

00:23:42
Speaker 4: It was really Drake London go up and make a play and otherwise just extremely disjointed from the Falcons offense. And it wasn't you know, the Patriots had really a really solid run defense. Again, they had not up until this game, had not allowed a single rusher to go over fifty yards the entire season. But this just was another example of the Falcons doing just enough in spurts and way negative plays, negative drives, not enough in others. The two rookies on the defensive side were a bright spot, Jalen Walker and James Pierce Junior. They combined to force that Drake may fumble stripsack that James Pierce picked up and ran to the six yard line. Other than that, I mean, they the Patriots really outplayed them. And again the box score doesn't really show it, but in every phase the Patriots just really had it more consistently than the Falcons did.

00:24:34
Speaker 5: And it's a consistent thing that we've talked about for weeks now about this game and how they are executing this offense for the Atlanta Falcons, where I think we can just get rid of the game against the Dolphins where when Kirk Cousins was playing that in hindsight was just gonna go left regardless. But we see where John Robinson's getting ten targets for just fifty yards other than Drake London and a couple of Kyle Pitts catches that really nothing available, and it's just Drake London a lot of times late in the plays and Michael Pennix Junior kind of collaborating to freestyle stuff like the one fade touchdown to Drake London, he catches the ball on the other shoulder on a fade ball, just having to like, I don't know what the original call was there in terms of the offense, because like it's a fade that he's catching on the inside just because he's got that significant size advantage of over most people. But you look at the way that the Falcons are operating, and so much doesn't make sense. Yeah, and despite all that, they're a Parker Romo extra point, and again, like who's to say they stop the Patriots And Drake May doesn't get a Bori Gallas field goal to win the game. But it's another one of these situations where this team could have easily won this football game despite all the problems that they have on both sides of the balls.

00:25:50
Speaker 3: Well, it really was for the Patriots.

00:25:51
Speaker 4: It really was as simple as the turnovers, because they were moving the ball really well, but they just turned it over between the second and third quarters and they just Drake May just doesn't hasn't really done that. I mean, he has played mostly just really clean football. He's pushed the ball, he has not been afraid to make really good throws. There were a couple early in the game that were absolutely sick. I was turning to Greg and being like, I don't think you're actually making enough of a big.

00:26:14
Speaker 8: Deal about it.

00:26:15
Speaker 2: I think I think so.

00:26:17
Speaker 1: I mean, if I've almost been afraid to make too big of a yea, I think you'll be judged. Drake May becoming like a top five type of quarterback this season is one of the biggest stories in the NFL this season.

00:26:28
Speaker 2: But I do I'm not surprised.

00:26:29
Speaker 1: To me he's gonna have some higher variance games because he does take chances. It's been crazy how clean everything has been, so games like this don't surprise me.

00:26:38
Speaker 2: I think there will be more games like this.

00:26:39
Speaker 1: And to be fair, their offense has almost never put together full games. It's always one terrible it's always like one really quiet half and then they turn it on.

00:26:48
Speaker 2: It's usually the second half. This time they kind of reversed it.

00:26:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was definitely the inverse of it. I think credit to the defense because they did make enough plays on there and to just stop a ton of like consistency and it was a lot of stop start, stop start and then throw the ball in a gotta have it moment to Drake London. This was a Michael Pennock's game that was kind of confusing. So he had a fourth and four on that drive and of course he goes to Drake London and of course Drake London converts it and then it sets up a touchdown. But then when they're trying to close out the game, and to be fair, both offenses traded sloppy possessions when we were trying to close out the game. It's a confusion. There's an intentional grounding penalty that you know. Rahee Morris said after the game the Patriots caused because they were clapping with the cadence because they had scouted out the cadence. Now, I went back and I looked at the ALL twenty two like what was available on NFL Plus, and I cannot see a single player clapping. So I'm not really sure if it was coming from the sideline or where it was coming from, or what prompted Rahee Morris to say that. But they definitely messed up the snap cadence and the timing. Michael Penix had to dirt the ball. It was called intentional grounding. It totally took them out of the ability to continue the drive and maybe even tried for another field goal.

00:28:02
Speaker 3: It just was sloppy.

00:28:03
Speaker 4: There's like one or two really great moments per game and then the rest of it is so sloppy.

00:28:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was one that I was having a conversation with you, Patrick. I think people should go for fourth and long a little longer. They decided to punt it away instead of going for a fourth and twenty. They don't get the ball back. I know it's either way. It's a low percentage play, but I would go for fourth and twenty. That's not what the Patriots would rather. You punt the ball away in that situation, Christian Gonzalez left this game. He did say afterwards that he was checked for a concussion, I believe, and he could have come back into the game.

00:28:35
Speaker 2: All right.

00:28:35
Speaker 1: So the Patriots, they are still the second seed in the AFC, and that that's kind of the top of it right now.

00:28:43
Speaker 2: Before we take a break.

00:28:44
Speaker 1: Actually, though, let's talk about the other biggest story of this Sunday.

00:28:48
Speaker 2: It was the return of JJ McCarthy. It was glorious.

00:28:52
Speaker 17: A first down wins the game for you. JJ McCarthy shotgun third and five from his own twenty eight twenty seven to twenty four Minutnnesota Detroit with one time out remaining, snap four man Rush McCarthy throwing right Naylor and.

00:29:08
Speaker 18: He cotage yes at the forty six yard line.

00:29:14
Speaker 11: That's a sixteen yard grab by Jalen Naylor and all.

00:29:19
Speaker 17: You Lions lovers here at forteen oh, you can head home.

00:29:24
Speaker 8: I love it.

00:29:26
Speaker 1: I love everything about it. I love Paul Allen on k f AN. I love that they got the matchup of Jalen Naylor on Arthur Malette on a third and five and that JJ McCarthy had the confidence to go after it back shoulder, perfect ball, Naylor ices the game. They hold on to beat the Detroit Lions twenty seven to twenty four. Patrick, give us your big picture of view of what kind of day JJ McCarthy had.

00:30:00
Speaker 5: It sums it up on Paul Allen's call, because it's been a while since we've seen JJ McCarthy, justin James McCarthy back in our lives since week two.

00:30:09
Speaker 8: It was Carson Wentz and we didn't hear.

00:30:10
Speaker 5: That that sauce, that spice from Paul Allen saying Lions fans go home and enjoyed the rest of that Detroit has to offer, because.

00:30:19
Speaker 8: It's that's the ballgame.

00:30:20
Speaker 5: To sum it up, where there's Jordan Addison, there's Justin Jefferson, who dealt with some cramps in the game. They're lined up three wide on the right side. They both won crossers and that was the second target of the day for Jalen Naylor. One was an interception on a ball that McCarthy actually missed, was a little bit behind. Terry on Ardold got his first career interception on that one, but he throws that back shoulder to Jalen Naylor to ice the game. The confidence to go with that, and it wasn't just welcome back JJ McCarthy was welcome back Brian Flores in a vintage of Vikings defense performance where they made timely plays where the Lions probably didn't have their best pitches. I know, Dan Campbell, you know, acknowledged that sometimes things just go the other way, you know, But it was a rough game for Lions, standards for them. The guys in Purple, though, had a lot to say about that. Jamior Gibbs David Montgomery both combined sixty five yards on the ground. Sustained success wasn't there for the Lions. I'm on Ross Saint Brown had some drops then he normally converts. But the way the game started. On fourth down, it's fourth and four. Dan Campbell being Dan Campbell, goes for it. Sam Laporter catches the ball at the ten, muscles his way into the end zone with some help from Khalif Raymond to go in there. But JJ McCarthy comes right back down the field. Some nice runs from Aaron Jones, who they're glad to get back because they look the ground game was great, but Aaron Jones would leave with a shoulder later on in this game, McCarthy hits Justin Jefferson for a fade ball, one handed snag from JJ where we've seen he and Meek Robertson go at it since seven on seven camps in Louisiana. Amik got the better of him in that Week eighteen game last year, but Justin Jefferson showed his dominance there. And the closing sequence where the Lions do get a touchdown on a ball to Jamison Williams where the Stripes thought he stepped out of bounds but JMO stayed in extended at the pylon for six but they left too much time. They get the ball to JJ McCarthy and he goes down, burns the clock out and a solid division win for the Minnesota Vikings. In the overwrought JJ McCarthy conversation for a week, Greg.

00:32:28
Speaker 2: It feels so different. You forget a week.

00:32:30
Speaker 1: This is I think a season changing type of win because it was two starts. JJ's all that matters, and it's just a start towards everything that they want, and this division is suddenly very close. All four teams got a chance here and they're four and four, but to knock off the Lions and to do it in this way. You mentioned the defense eleven QB hits on golf, ten tackles for lost, five sacks, and then the running game they are successful in half their runs, doubling the success rate of the Lions who couldn't run the ball at all. And maybe maybe it is all from that confidence from the quarterback. Let's actually look at uh JJ McCarthy's arrival. If you're if you're watching us on YouTube, we appreciate you all, and uh like subscribe, do the thing and just watch how awkward this is. He's coming in, you know, with his work shirt that that symbolizes that he's a working man. He sees the dude Tom Pelisaro gets a fist bump and then KOs gets it. I really just wanted to show this partly for the shirt, but I was like, hey, we're we're work.

00:33:34
Speaker 2: We're coming here to work.

00:33:35
Speaker 1: I guess it's a Michigan Wolverine thing, so it's a callback to that. But but then giving Peliser, he had no idea I think in that moment who Tom Piliser was and just was like, I guess I better give the fist bump, or maybe he did.

00:33:46
Speaker 2: And Pelisara's on the team.

00:33:47
Speaker 5: I don't know, it's it's the key and Peel sketch with the President depths like fully fully executed there, like a full on depth on one side and then fist bumps for Tom p and he goes to see his head coach.

00:33:59
Speaker 1: And I wanted to throw that in there because that's JJ arriving, and then this is him arriving in the locker room after the game. I just liked that they were all waiting for him like a groom at like a wedding or something.

00:34:23
Speaker 2: That was amazing.

00:34:24
Speaker 3: That's cool. I loved that Kevin O'Connell.

00:34:27
Speaker 4: These little things that build confidence for a quarterback, and we have such a small sample size for JJ McCarthy, but I think there were so many moments in this game where it was this mutual ability to not only build confidence with what you're calling for this quarterback, but also the team doing what the plan was initially when they decided they were going to go with JJ McCarthy, which was get what they could out of a better running game, lift the floor there, really play very very good attacking, solid defense, absolutely seven percent pressure rate on Jared Goff attacking defense at one point with only one down In between these two plays, you saw Javon Hargrave get into the backfield for a tackle for loss in the run game. Then you saw Harrison Smith bat down a Jared Goff pass when coming off the edge on a blitz. That was the Brian Flores experience in a nutshell today and it was back and they needed to be because this was what they wanted for JJ McCarthy, not just to give him like a level runway, to continue to stack days together, to get more experience to play football, and then to lift the entire floor around him if things didn't necessarily go his way, and I thought for the most part they did go his way. As a passer, he made some excellent throws today and I loved that Kevin O'Connell put it in his hands to ice out the game, to try to make that difficult, level, low probability throw outside shoulder to Jalen Naylor on the perimeter to ice out the game. All of these things together in combination, really go such a long way for a quarterback that is trying to actually be in the NFL and put positive games together.

00:36:03
Speaker 5: And I think we saw the glimpses of why you can be hopeful and believe because I had openly wondered, I'm s having this conversation with Greg, like where's the place that JJ McCarthy excels, like athletically, how do we evaluate him? And I was skeptical there and Greg Rosenthal's like, no, JJ's an athlete. He showed it today on that touchdown run where Jack Campbell has gotten everything in his vicinity, puts a move on Jack Campbell at the five and then it looks like Brian Branch is gonna smash him at the pylon and he evades that just enough to go in standing up where you can see like you get JJ McCarthy out on the edge. That is an athlete making plays where I'm in.

00:36:40
Speaker 1: That was the moment where I was like, that was not happening over the last time Carson wentz five or six weeks, two guys, and like, I don't think you can overstate like the Flora's game plan because Eric Wilson, their linebacker, had five quick pressures today, don't I just counted up. They had sixteen quick pressures, which is under two and a half seconds as a team, which is as might be the highest that I've seen all season. And it's close to being up there, and just percentage wise. JJ McCarthy actually was pressured at a higher rate, but that's partly because he was holding onto the ball a lot. But the Lions also got a million quick pressures too. So this was a game where both offensive lines were losing in terms of the passing game. And for the Vikings to come out on top in a matchup that Dan Campbell has owned, I think it's a really big statement win in the middle of this season.

00:37:28
Speaker 5: And there's gonna be more shuffling up front for the Lions. Christian Hockey got carted off in the order. Dan Campbell says he was going to be out for some time there, so so more changes up front for the Lions where.

00:37:39
Speaker 8: They just started getting people back up front. Now it's back to the shuffle.

00:37:44
Speaker 1: So the Vikings, they don't forget about us in this NFC North race. We will get to the Packers a little later with Shookie in the show. But yeah, Lions fall to six and two and let's take a break and on the other side, we will go to our favorite weekly segment. Yes it's the Cincinnati Bengals defense helps to create the game of the year.

00:38:07
Speaker 2: Of the week again.

00:38:14
Speaker 19: Bears cannot stop the clock with a timeout.

00:38:17
Speaker 8: Bring there.

00:38:18
Speaker 19: Those safeties are back deep, but Unja motions left.

00:38:22
Speaker 8: They're blitzing.

00:38:22
Speaker 19: It's picked up Caleb Crose middle of the field, love and catch breaks away the thirty love the twenty gul the ten buil an end zone touchdown Bears Colston Lovelin on a throw by kayleb. Williams HiT's a fifty eight yard strike to the Michigan rookie had his second touchdown today. He outran the Bengals here in the jungle. The Bears have the lead again.

00:38:48
Speaker 1: Jeff Zoniak on w mv P man fourth quarter, three touchdowns after the two minute warning only in Cincinnati, forty seven to forty two. Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson breathe a sigh of relief and yeah, Jeff Joniak on WMVP is loving every minute of it, and Bengals fans are thinking, how did that happen?

00:39:22
Speaker 2: Again?

00:39:22
Speaker 4: The Fungals for the Bengals, whoopsies. A game that featured all offense and very very little defense, including eight lead changes, also got as weird as it did thanks to two massive special teams plays. First, the game opened with a kickoff return for a touchdown. I'm the very first play by Charlie Jones of the Bengals that kicked off scoring score again and again and again and again. They would then late in the game, an on side kick during the Bengals double digit fourth quarter comeback got accidentally kicked by Daniel Hardy, a Bears player on the cover team, even though it was short of the distance it needed to travel, which was recovered by the Bengals, which set up there go ahead touchdown to make the score forty two to forty one. But Caleb william and Colston Lovelin, who had caught his first touchdown of his NFL career earlier in the game, connected on that fifty eight yard touchdown, sending Bengals defenders pinballing off of each other and lost in coverage. And once again it was the Bengals defense letting down the offense in a wild one with just twenty five seconds left in regulation.

00:40:33
Speaker 1: I know you have some stats. There are just so many ridiculous stats when it comes to the Bengals defense. So many of these.

00:40:43
Speaker 3: I have weird facts.

00:40:44
Speaker 1: Go for what you were, Okay, yeah, So many of these plays seem to include Genostone.

00:40:48
Speaker 2: Not to pick on just one guy.

00:40:50
Speaker 1: But it's just like they're at a point where they have multiple problems and they just have no one to put in for him. But yeah, some of my stats were their first team to allow five hundred yards, thirty eight points and create no takeaways in a two game span. Ever, that's just Super Bowl since the merger Super Bowl. Ever, they're also the first team since the sixty six Giants to score thirty eight points or more in back to back games and not win any of them. And then if you go through and this is from Jake Liscow who does LOCKEDWN, Bengals some of the worst EPA P play numbers of the last twenty five years. This is out of eight hundred different defenses. They're the second worst overall, worse than defensive success rate, worse than points per game, and bottom two to four in basically any other statue like this is a historically bad defense.

00:41:44
Speaker 2: But the Bears.

00:41:45
Speaker 1: I give them credit for taking advantage because that's what you gotta do against historically bad defense, especially when your defense is a little leaky late in the game.

00:41:51
Speaker 4: Well, the cracks are starting to show, so first and foremost, I want to hear from Chase Brown about that Bengals defense letting down once again the offense because we'll get to the weird us of the rest of the game. But here is Chase Brown, a grumpy Chase Brown after the game.

00:42:04
Speaker 20: We just got to play complimentary football, like we put the ball in the end zone and go up a point at the end, finish the game, like what was ending? Like that's it, Like that's that's like, that's what we need to do. Just end the game, like make them, make them get us the ball back, let us fold a twenty two victory, and let's end the game.

00:42:22
Speaker 8: That's how that's like, that's how I feel.

00:42:24
Speaker 4: He's not wrong, actually, because they had the offense more than gave what it could and like I said, came back from a double digit deficit, and especially Joe Flacco playing on this shoulder injury and still slinging the ball down the field, he got a huge game out of t Higgins. Higgs got banged up at the end of the game and left the game at the very end, but before that he had two touchdowns, both completely insane unreal gravity defying rules of physics on adhering to catches that just did not make any sense.

00:42:56
Speaker 3: And it happened twice, and so this is the whole This is the whole thing.

00:43:00
Speaker 4: They had everything set up to even continue to like, if they had more time, if they got the ball back even after the Colston Lovelin touchdown, who knows what could have happened. This offense was scoring all day long for the Bengals against.

00:43:14
Speaker 3: The Bears defense.

00:43:15
Speaker 4: It really was whoever gets the ball last is gonna win this game.

00:43:18
Speaker 1: They scored too fast. I thought that immediately, which is crazy.

00:43:21
Speaker 5: Well, I think in hindsight, because we see, you know, a quarterback nearing his forties playing in game where he's out at ac joint sprain. We weren't sure. Zach Taylor said it was fifty to fifty, but Joe wants to play.

00:43:34
Speaker 2: He said he couldn't lift his arm over his head during the week.

00:43:37
Speaker 5: And we saw it on the Hail Mary where I think probably perhaps some pharmaceuticals had started to work well.

00:43:42
Speaker 4: Aditi said he got a shot right before the game and then maybe had to have one at halftime too.

00:43:46
Speaker 3: Yikes, And so.

00:43:47
Speaker 5: Like there was that working in the Bears favor. Also, t Higgins wasn't in the game for that hill. Mary I would have assumed if t Higgins was still able to play after what he did against the Bears defense, he probably comes down with whatever ball Joe Flacco was able to get down near or close to the end zone, and maybe he gets in where the Bears got a few gifts in that not just from the Bengals defense on the day, who missed fifteen tackles. By the way, they allowed one hundred and thirty five yards after miss tackles, including thirty plus the Coleston Lovelin on the play that winds up being the game winner. But there were so many circumstances where Cincinnati could have won this game.

00:44:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, just add four hundred Joe Flacco.

00:44:30
Speaker 1: I feel like the defense is ruining what is He's having the Super Bowl playoff run right now and they're not even winning games. Four hundred and seventy yards in four touchdowns. But the Bears offense was better for most of the Manong Guy goes for one to seventy six, Brown goes for another thirty seven, like everything was worked. Dj Moore at a seventeen yard touchdown run. Caleb was effective running the ball like they were dominant in terms of their offensive performance.

00:44:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was something strange about that I'll get to in a minute, but basically, bottom line is we're gonna have to start calling Kyle manung guy Kyle mcnung dude, because it is a big time freaking football player, and it's it's tough for DeAndre Swift that he's out. Obviously, Ben Johnson really likes to have two running backs. And then Britton Brown comes in and runs for a couple explosives and a touchdown and he's like the third reserve guy. So it's like this run game is really what actually is the above average borderline elite area right now of what this Bears offensive attack is going to be, because it was really kind of strange.

00:45:27
Speaker 3: Otherwise, the passing game once again.

00:45:30
Speaker 4: Was start stop, start stop, really great, positive, big time throw is being made, followed by a lot of sort of scrambling around and guys aren't open down the field. To the Bengals credit on defense, but then some hesitation from Caleb Williams on whether to run or not made some awesome plays. But what really stood out is how Ben Johnson seemed to try to want to coach around that, like Caleb Williams had two receptions, including a touchdown. He ran four trick plays, one called back for penalty. Trick plays counted for seventeen of the Bears points today. They were running all kinds of different types of things, and I wonder if it's if it's something where they're they're trying to jolt their rhythm out of themselves a little bit. They're trying to get out of their own heads and have some fun perhaps, or maybe they just need to disrupt their own rhythm. I don't know, but whatever it was, the execution was good other than one that got called back from penalty. It seems like this is a team that really kind of thrives a little bit more when they're doing sort of fun things like that on the unscripted drives, which is really interesting to me because I don't think that's necessarily sustainable, but maybe it's what they do to try to just figure out how to work on stuff together a little bit better in the passing game, and it certainly worked today. Caleb Williams caught a pass for a first down from Tyson Bagent, the backup quarterback. For God's sakes, I mean, it just it was like what is happening here today?

00:46:49
Speaker 5: They go two quarterback offense and Caleb gets a touchdown on the Philly Special, where you wonder like the Bears are having success only when it's weird, like only when it's a trick play, or when Calee will be spinning around six times and throwing on the run and going on these galloping runs where you know the Bears thrive in the absurd.

00:47:07
Speaker 1: They are an absurd organization the Bengals right now. And this is if it if it was any other organization, I would think that this is the profile of a season that gets a coach fired. They are three and six and they just don't have answers on on defense, they go into their by they just keep losing these close games that they could at least kept them alive. The Bears get to five and three, and we will stay in the a NFC and talk about a team that's trying to stay alive in the playoff race too. Yes, it's the the go go forty nine ers at.

00:47:49
Speaker 21: This bigger.

00:48:00
Speaker 2: Bull.

00:48:04
Speaker 1: That's Nester Rosario and Kweibna twelve eighty am Brian Robinson part of a great rushing attack against the Giants, and yeah, sure every team has a great rushing attack against the Giants, but it was a get right game for this forty nine Ers offense, especially on the ground where they get one hundred and fifty nine yards thirty four to twenty four. Patrick, what impressed you the most out of what the forty nine Ers did today, Well, they got.

00:48:33
Speaker 5: The ball back in the hands of Christian McCaffrey extensively. After really doing not too much in terms of volume for CMC and a loss to the Houston Texans. They got him the ball twenty eight tomes on the ground for one hundred and six yards and a touchdown. He also ran more routes than anyone. He had six catches for sixty seven yards and a score. Also fifty three yards on the ground for Brian Robinson Junior, which also kind of mitigated the passer from the league's leading sack artist for a time from Brian Burns. But the forty nine Ers defense also made plays that they didn't against CJ. Shroud and the Texans, including a turnover opportunity at the end of the first half where Jackson Dart was holding on for the ball for way too long. Cleveland Ferrell took it outside rush like he's six yards into the end zone and Jackson Dart steps up as if there's nobody back there. Farrell probably could have swiped for the ball, but he was just so excited to get a sack opportunity he hit him from behind. They would ultimately the forty nine ers would get the ball back with a scoring opportunity. But then comes Brian Burns where they could have just taken a ten point lead into the half, but Kyle Shanahana had mac Jones throwing Burns one got a handle the ball, The ball pops out, goes to Abdul Carter, whether or not you want to call it a whether it was a pass or a fumble. Either way, the ball never hit the ground, but Graham Gono would miss the kick, so it ultimately wouldn't matter, and then the Giants would go on to finish the game five of twelve of third down, I'll throw it down. Jackson Dart was three of eight of passes over ten or more air yards, contrasted with mccorcyl Jones going now seen of twenty four greg completing all but one of his passes over ten or more air yards or is this. You know, the forty nine Ers offense looked like a fully operational squad today.

00:50:17
Speaker 1: It's not even like a story at this point. Every week when you find out rock Perties not back, they're just like, okay, go go win more bonus money.

00:50:24
Speaker 2: Matt Max Jones.

00:50:25
Speaker 1: Baby wait oh did that actually happen? Or are we like there's a digitally creator is a weird like thing going on.

00:50:33
Speaker 2: I have a couple more of just QB's names being saying this season. Here's this one Matthew Stuffer, and then and then we have Colleen with this one Daniel Jones.

00:50:44
Speaker 1: It's just something I've flagged and I'm kind of I know what we're gonna get out of Patrick.

00:50:48
Speaker 2: At some point, we need more of this. I want it dropped liberally.

00:50:51
Speaker 3: I want operatic things. I want I want some I.

00:50:55
Speaker 1: Needed that after like a Daniel Jones interception today that would have been amazing.

00:51:00
Speaker 2: This I've been pressed by this forty nine Ers team.

00:51:03
Speaker 1: It is crazy, though, to see CMC get another thirty three touches.

00:51:07
Speaker 2: It's just I don't know, I can't. It seemed like.

00:51:10
Speaker 5: They were trying to give him a week of Okay, we're going up against an offense that can't really do too much and Houston maybe Christian like it's going to be a little bit easier today, and then they lost, so it's like, all right, to hell with all that.

00:51:22
Speaker 1: It's you, buddy, he has the most scrimmage yards of anyone. Can you guess since when through nine weeks who had just like a monster yards from scrimmage season, Todd Gurley, Think about it. It's right in front of your face here since Christian McCaffrey in twenty nineteen. You know that's not fair his monster Panthers season. Although Dalvin Cook also had more yards at this point in the season, but it's like the most touches at this point through this part of the season of anyone in forty nine Ers history. Unfortunately, they did have more injury problems. Mikel Williams, their first round pick, had an ACL injury. Just when you like can't think it can get any worse for them upfront, they lose their next best edge rusher edge player in Mikeel Williams, which is really disappointing this team.

00:52:12
Speaker 4: They have to be buyers at the deadline, and it's hard because it's they really made it clear that they were just going to roll with a young and ascending group of guys they wanted to develop, and they were hoping to have you know, Nick Bosa healthy to help bring that group along and all of this, and Michael Williams has played well like he's grown up very quickly and has had to and they've been able to move him around a lot too.

00:52:36
Speaker 3: So that's not only the.

00:52:37
Speaker 4: Part of it that's tough that he's hurt, but also that it's multiple positions depending on the situation that he's playing for them, and that is tough because I feel like this team didn't want to necessarily push in on using resources because this was a little bit of a sprint rebuild, especially on the defensive side for them, But now they might have to because they're too good. They're winning too many games they could actually make a push, so they need more guys on the defensive side.

00:53:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be it'll be a tricky one.

00:53:06
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised about anything that they would do in the next couple of days, and ultimately most teams on balance aren't going to do as much as you expect. We do have a couple Eagles trades to talk about by the way we're going to wrap up all the trading that's been happening in transactions with Shook on the Monday Night recap. But let's listen to Brian Dable, who Look, they've had a lot of injuries. The defense, especially the run defense, is terrible. It's not all on his quarterback, his offense, but they are two and seven for the third straight year under Brian Dable. Here is an interaction that I've only heard described from Jordan, and I can't wait to hear it for the first time.

00:53:48
Speaker 2: Are those are those tiers of emotion or is that just.

00:53:52
Speaker 12: Who's here?

00:53:54
Speaker 18: Are Is that what?

00:53:56
Speaker 8: I'm sorry to hear what you're saying.

00:53:57
Speaker 2: Walked in here.

00:53:57
Speaker 10: It looks like there are tears coming out of your eyes.

00:54:00
Speaker 8: No, that's just all No, No, it wasn't tears.

00:54:06
Speaker 5: What There's zero redness in Brian Dabel's eyes there at that point, like it could be a vizing commercial.

00:54:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, And to me, that feels more like, shouldn't you be crying right now?

00:54:18
Speaker 2: Yeah? You gotta be. You gotta be sure if someone was crying, I don't.

00:54:22
Speaker 8: Know what a bizarre interaction he.

00:54:25
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna give dable to win here. I mean, his eyes are twinkling a little, but he did not look like a man who had just emoted much of anything other than.

00:54:35
Speaker 3: No, he's clearly dead in side.

00:54:36
Speaker 1: See the I mean, he's got a lot of emotions, but I don't think he.

00:54:40
Speaker 2: Was crying scale.

00:54:42
Speaker 8: That's jovial. They just lost.

00:54:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, weird.

00:54:48
Speaker 3: Listen.

00:54:49
Speaker 4: I feel like if you I always trust to beat reporters. Okay, so if if whoever asked that question saw him saw a man cry, then you saw a man cry, all right, now, that man can did not, I said, tears, that's within his right.

00:55:02
Speaker 3: I'm always just like a feel your feelings, girlly.

00:55:04
Speaker 1: Though he did respond in a way that you would respond if you had been crying.

00:55:08
Speaker 2: Oh wait what?

00:55:09
Speaker 8: Oh me?

00:55:10
Speaker 2: He literally asked who is crying? And then he was like, I.

00:55:13
Speaker 1: Didn't hear you. Well, we'll break this down further.

00:55:16
Speaker 3: Like that, I didn't hear you.

00:55:17
Speaker 4: As a classic, I need a second to think about what I want to respond to this.

00:55:21
Speaker 5: I think he was so shocked by the absurdity of the sequence that he was legitian.

00:55:27
Speaker 3: Was I crying and I just blocked out this.

00:55:29
Speaker 2: Team is this team is dead? It's unfortunate.

00:55:33
Speaker 1: We're back to like Wandell Robinson getting eleven targets for forty six yards, or back to Jackson darts like the leading rusher. Even the defensive wine isn't doing anything back Jones has a you know, he's getting rid of the ball so quickly.

00:55:45
Speaker 3: This is how bad it's gotten.

00:55:46
Speaker 4: My dear friend Charlotte Carroll, who covers the Giants, did not ask that question. Covers the Giants for the athletic Wayward camera Man's like accidentally smacked her in the head with his camera outside of a scrum. Today's big ice pack got the selfie of the big ice pack on her head. That's how bad it's gotten in the meadow lands. That's where we're at it. They're taking out the reporters.

00:56:09
Speaker 2: At this time.

00:56:11
Speaker 1: It's just too familiar. Unfortunately, losing becoming familiar to the New Orleans Saints as well. Although they haven't had a season quite like this in a long time, the Rams nically haven't had a season quite like this in a long time either. A fast start for the hometown team here right across the street.

00:56:30
Speaker 2: Tied end right into the boundary.

00:56:32
Speaker 9: Three receivers left from that group Nikoua in motion out to snap play action.

00:56:35
Speaker 17: Stafford on platform, sets the laces and drives one.

00:56:39
Speaker 18: Down the right sideline cut by Nakula. Touch down away he knocks over the pylon on a dazzling darts from Matthew Stafford thirty nine yards in La smashing the easy button.

00:56:57
Speaker 10: Three touchdowns on the board in the first half.

00:56:59
Speaker 22: Let's just Afford strikes again.

00:57:01
Speaker 9: Welcome back pookin.

00:57:03
Speaker 1: The kuah ooh, smashing the easy button, jab long with the good stuff on k SPN.

00:57:09
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll call it the year candidate Rams roll thirty four to ten.

00:57:15
Speaker 1: It was a great weekend for the uh the Rams Dodgers.

00:57:20
Speaker 2: Lover in your life, like my wife.

00:57:22
Speaker 1: Emmica, tell me, Jordan, what you found most interesting in a completely one sided.

00:57:28
Speaker 2: Game that I guess we could have seen coming.

00:57:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, good point, we did, Yes, we did.

00:57:34
Speaker 1: I spent the whole morning thinking we had picked the Packers as our survivor and that we had lost.

00:57:39
Speaker 4: Well, Greg, I could tell you what I found most interesting about this absolute tail whooping at the hands of the La Rams.

00:57:49
Speaker 3: But why tell you when I could tell you in a poem?

00:57:52
Speaker 2: Oh wow, A Matthew.

00:57:55
Speaker 4: Stafford no look dig a touchdown pass to Big Rig Higgs. Heavy personnel at a statistical high, a field goal unit that inspires deep size, a defense that is a pass rushing bazooka.

00:58:09
Speaker 3: Can we please, at.

00:58:10
Speaker 4: All costs protect Puka Nikua. And that's what happened today in the Rams game.

00:58:15
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, very good. That's how you know it was a blowout. Jordan had time.

00:58:21
Speaker 3: To write a whole poem.

00:58:23
Speaker 2: Write a poem.

00:58:25
Speaker 20: Yeah.

00:58:26
Speaker 2: Pokin Akua left.

00:58:27
Speaker 1: The game with a chest injury after completing the most common play in the Sean McVay playbook, fourth and one sweep, fourth and one sweep to his rugged wide receiver. Which it's hard to say, like, oh I put him at risk in this game. It was fairly early in the game.

00:58:44
Speaker 2: I mean, that's it is. What Pukinikua does is play content.

00:58:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's like the that's the we are going to convert this play all year for them, So I don't have any issue with the play call there. But yeah, I want to talk about the heavy personnel. The Rams were thirteen personnel per next Gen I'm thirty five seventy seven offensive plays and they had a fifty one percent success rate four touchdowns out of this personnel grouping. All four of their tight ends at different points were activated, including the rookie Terrence Ferguson, who made some big plays. This is exactly what they want to show that they can do if they're just trying to close a game immediately out of the gate, which they knew they could do against this sort of woebegone Saints team, and they wanted to try to do this. Take all the teeth out of any sort of defensive scheme that Seaw mcfay's former colleague Brandon Staley might have been trying to cook up against them. Just none of that was even a They was not feasible for the Saints out of the gate because they mashed them out of thirteen personnel all game. It's like this is a multiple team in the best way, because this is a November multiple team. It's not just the sort of style points team that we've seen in the past from the rams, like this is a heavy, run it up, your you know what team. Right now, they're a great team.

00:59:59
Speaker 2: Trying not to get beat there. George, I know, go up.

01:00:02
Speaker 3: I'm always so worried about that.

01:00:04
Speaker 1: You found out, Yeah, it can't it can't go in. You can say it, but it can't go It can't be going in and.

01:00:12
Speaker 23: It was going up, so like, yeah, so that that would get you beaved one hundred percent of the time where you know, we can't even say the name of the ideal segment there because it would lead to a beef Eric I to have to do any more excess work.

01:00:24
Speaker 8: But the start for Tyler Shuck.

01:00:28
Speaker 5: Look good in spots where you know, things got protected up and Shuck was able to find both Chris o'lave and Rashid Shahid offers some big completions, a nice, relatively nice Juwan Johnson game, but it was just there's a talent disparity. You know, the touch over matched in multiple spots where this game was was over early, and despite that, Matthew Stafford was taking steps four minutes to go for some reason.

01:00:54
Speaker 8: I don't know why, but.

01:00:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a while where it sad. Saints were getting a lot of pats on the back for you know, if you watch them every week, they're like they're actually looking pretty competitive in everything, and then now that's that's gone.

01:01:05
Speaker 8: This is the least composing.

01:01:06
Speaker 4: That was your Jordan impression. I feel like you could have given it more effort, like.

01:01:09
Speaker 2: We've also, I've said that in a million time.

01:01:11
Speaker 1: I feel like every person that covers football has kind of made that point this year.

01:01:14
Speaker 2: Unfortunately it hasn't been true. The last couple of weeks.

01:01:17
Speaker 4: Tyler Shock did make a couple of good throws, but they could not do anything consistently. They made some really strange calls. They had Taysom Hill in shotgun on the fourth and goal, uh so basically saying to the entire world, Hey, the quarterback's going to run it, and then they put him in the gun further away from the goal line than maybe he should be in that play. I do want to actually shout out because I've been talking about the Rams secondary, particularly on the perimeter, as really one of the few weaknesses that this defense has had. And I'm really impressed with Emmanuel Forbes and how he's developed. And I remember last season when Emmanuel Forbes got to the Rams as a late season acquisition after a really bad experience with the Commanders, and I was walking over to the locker room and Aubrey Pleasant, the DB's coach, came out of the cafeteria era area, and I said Hey, what do you think about Emmanuel Forbes? And he stopped and he looked at me and he smiled, and he goes just watch. They were so confident in him finally putting all of this together, and they need him to do it with a Kello Witherspoon out and Darius Williams banged up. He had three pass deflections and interception in the fourth quarter. But to me, most impressive because he is a narrowly built man, right, and so his third down hit on Taysom Hill in space where you have to come down and crash like they always want their perimeter corners to do.

01:02:31
Speaker 3: He had a great game.

01:02:31
Speaker 4: So I just wanted to give him a little kudos because I've been pretty hard on that ram secondary over the last several weeks.

01:02:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, the luxury.

01:02:37
Speaker 1: They didn't even play Roger McCreery at cornerback in this game. He did play on special teams. So they just acquired via trade because they didn't need to. And they only had forty total snaps on defense, so they'll be nice and fresh for next week. You said they're built for late in the season. That's what I was referring to at the beginning, saying we haven't seen Rams seasons like this because they've so often been having to catch up after a slow start. But they're six and two, that's the first n win of the year, and yet they prevent the Saints from running the ball at all. The Saints had a seven percent success rate while the Rams ran for one hundred and seventy one yards. You do not see that very often. Let's stick in Los Angeles and talk about the team on the road today, the Chargers trying to get another victory.

01:03:22
Speaker 22: Here he is, Herbert takes the toss, rolls to his right looking for a Conkey, and.

01:03:27
Speaker 11: Herbert in the eisode held in fact touchdown Chargers Justin Herbert's first rushing touchdown of the season, the thirteenth of his career, and a little bit of history here, dj he is now tied Hall of Fame quarterback John Adel for the most such performances in Charger history.

01:03:51
Speaker 22: The twelfth time he's thrown hand rushed for one.

01:03:55
Speaker 1: Absolute style by Justin Herbert.

01:03:59
Speaker 2: He's out how when he did that slide.

01:04:03
Speaker 1: I thought of you immediately, Jordan, just how he's been just throwing like a little extra and we could have run that highlight a little extra and given Daniel Jeremiah some love, but no, Eric just shut him down. We do have a forties and free agents. With DJ coming up later this week, maybe we'll talk Chargers. They win twenty seven to twenty in a game that probably shouldn't have been as close. Herbert throws a pick six right off the bat to Mary d k who has a chance, I think to be the All Pro returner this year. Great kick returner, and today he had a punt return touchdown, gets fourteen points on the board for the Titans, but the Chargers win anyways, and that slide touchdown for Herbert, to me just shows what this game was all about. It was a ninety nine yard drive after they stuffed the Titans over and over on the goal line, and that's not a defense that you think is going to be able to do that, but they were just tougher than the tight and stuff him a couple times. And on that ninety nine yard drive, Herbert at one point decides to try to pick up a first down by taking on head first a defensive end and falling forward a solid four like yards like he got the leverage on the defensive end of the Titans and picked up twelve or thirteen yards. He had a one hundred percent success rate running the ball today, eight for eight, one hundred percent until his kneel down at the very end of the game. And as part of that ninety nine yard drive also a third and four where he just completes an absolutely beautiful back shoulder throw down the field to Quinton Johnston. So to me, this was, hey, Herbo, just just go and like destroy mode, and that is how we will win a game where unfortunately, the injury to Joe allt to me, just hangs over this team.

01:05:49
Speaker 10: Now.

01:05:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so it's going to have to be more of Herbo playing destructo ball, getting out on the edge and having those run plays where you know you're glad to see Quentin Johnston and get back on the end zone actually get another catch because he got shut out last week and I believe the week before that as well.

01:06:08
Speaker 8: But it's the.

01:06:09
Speaker 5: Injuries are mounting on the offensive line, and they already have been coming into the season where you know they've they've already made the adjustments and now you've got to make an adjustment with the adjustments.

01:06:21
Speaker 1: So he Joe alt was carted off the field with an ankle injury, which is being reported as a high ankle sprain, but it sounds like this could be one that requires surgery more serious. He already, you know, missed so much time. They also lost their starting right tackle today, Bobby Hart. Earlier in the game, Herbert was under so much pressure even before Alt left, and I'm thinking, man like, even against the Titans, and it wasn't like him holding the ball. It was Dramont Jones and I forget who the other rusher was was just dominating with quick pressures. They had like seven in the first quarter and a half. And I'm thinking this is not sustainable. But also it was kind of fun to watch. It was kind of an incredible Herbert performance. When you go back to watch.

01:07:01
Speaker 4: This, yeah, I like it, and I hate it for him, right because you know that this is not sustainable, especially towards the postseason. You know he is not in his later years. He's just entering his prime in my opinion. But you still want to avoid him having to take those hits. You still want to avoid putting him in these crazy stressful situations. This is a team that when it has it all together, and when Joe All especially is such a huge difference maker on the field. When they're playing the type of football they want to play, it is legitimately gorgeous in like a fear inspiring way because of a who the quarterback is and be the things they can do on the ground and in their blocking surface, and it just it it seems unfair, honestly, because it's like they have you see that the theory and the ideation and what they're capable of, and it's not their it's not even their fault that this just keeps happening to them.

01:07:55
Speaker 1: I was saying for so long, like every win they get before Joe out comes back is going to cet out double. And now we're in a position where we don't know when he's going to be back. So this was a pyrrhic victory. They get to six and three. It was important to pocket it, and they did it on a day where like, you know, Herbert's time to throw, he's holding onto the ball forever. He's taken a lot of sacks, but he's also throwing the ball down to the field and making awesome plays. And your guy Trey Harris, he's got he's got a little shit to him. Big play where he runs over and carries three Titans defenders to pick up a big first down late. I also just have to ask Mike McCoy, their interim head coach, why are you doing so many direct snaps to your running backs? I think they went oh for five on it today. Kim Ward is athletic, Kim Word is good, your regular running game is good. Taji Spears looks awesome today. And Tony Pollard's over five yards per carry. And for whatever reason, in every big spot of this game, they did a direct snap to the running back and I think it went oh for four or five.

01:08:53
Speaker 2: I it was just it was driving me crazy.

01:08:56
Speaker 1: Uh sorry to the Titans one and eight to here there Matt mney Smith called, just for the hell of it, that Quentin Johnston catch is on the borderline to me, a throw of the year. It's probably not there, but it was just so beautiful. I wanted it to be part of this show.

01:09:11
Speaker 22: To Herbert, they rushed four standing tall to the end, Sol looking for que touchdown.

01:09:21
Speaker 11: Hugers twenty yards, Herbert to Johnston for Q his sixth touchdown of the season for Herbert is eighteenth.

01:09:32
Speaker 2: Love that man.

01:09:33
Speaker 3: Brilliant.

01:09:33
Speaker 2: It was a fun game. This was fun.

01:09:36
Speaker 1: This is the part of the show where I say goodbye to you guys, and then we welcome in Nick Zook.

01:09:41
Speaker 2: What are you gonna do tonight, Jordan watch more football? Okay, yes, that's.

01:09:45
Speaker 8: A good watch some football.

01:09:48
Speaker 5: Also gonna finalize the conversation, ohts on wins?

01:09:54
Speaker 2: What atis by a pro?

01:09:57
Speaker 1: We'll be back after the break to yes about the biggest upset on this.

01:10:02
Speaker 24: Sete Fitzgerald hit the game winner against Dallas from thirty three. Heret lambeau from forty nine for the win. Chanson the snap, Martin the hoole. Fitzgerald drives the leg, the kick is up.

01:10:23
Speaker 2: It is good.

01:10:26
Speaker 24: Ryan Fitzgerald delivers and Carolina silences lambeau Field.

01:10:34
Speaker 2: Oo the Panthers.

01:10:37
Speaker 1: They looked at my prediction of thirty three to eleven for this.

01:10:40
Speaker 2: Game and they stuck it in my ear.

01:10:44
Speaker 1: That was a Nie Shroff on WRFX. Maybe the two biggest upsets of the year, Shook have both taken place at lambeau Field. I should have checked this. Very similar scores. This one was sixteen to thirteen Panthers. About a month and a half after the Browns stunned the Packers and he had knocked them out of the one seed in the NFC. How did this happen?

01:11:13
Speaker 10: Well, that Brown's one was in Cleveland, but that's neither here nor there.

01:11:17
Speaker 25: The big part about this is the fact that the Packers wasted so many opportunities and the Panthers capitalized. And Rico Daddle proved himself as the superior back in the Panthers backfield, and he carried the ball twenty five times for one hundred and thirty yards and two touchdowns, and he paced this offense and Bryce Jong only had to complete eleven passes, and their defense played phenomenally in the biggest spots. And everybody's gonna paint this as the Packers playing with their food and you know, committing a number of unforgivable mistakes and football crimes. And that's all fine, But let's give the Panthers some credit because they battled their tails off. They got waxed last week by the Buffalo Bills. They had every reason in the world to get on the plane this week and lay down again.

01:12:00
Speaker 10: The Packers. They did the exact opposite and come away victorious.

01:12:02
Speaker 2: I mean, and they did it.

01:12:04
Speaker 1: And this is I'm really going to be leaning on you here because I only saw very little of this game, but they did it in a day that you know, Bryce Young ends up with like one hundred yards and a total growner of an interception, And it really shows a couple things. How their running game is, you know, it travels, and it's when it's rolling, one of the best in the league. And that the defensive improvement, even if it's not going to be every week, is real to the point where they could even have a game like this. How did the Packers only end up with thirteen points in this game?

01:12:39
Speaker 25: Well, they fubbled away their first possession on a very impressive promising an impressive drive, then they settle for a field goal in their next two trips into Panthers territory, and essentially they wasted some opportunities to put touchdowns on the board because they couldn't convert. And you have to give credit to the Panthers defense for stading tall in those situations. But it's not like the Packers couldn't move the football. They just couldn't finish drives. And whether it was some mystifying play calling the turnover early or the fourth down in which it's fourth and eight and they're feeling a little desperate and nobody's open and the Panthers are playing fantastic coverage all the way through the scrabble drill, Jordan Love holds on the ball for eleven and a half seconds before he gets rid of it like.

01:13:16
Speaker 10: This, this is what happened, Like, yeah, the Panthers. The Packers let the Panthers stay in the game early.

01:13:21
Speaker 25: They did kind of play with their food in the first half, and that's fine. But when the second half arrived, they realized, oh, this is we can't just flip a switch. We can't do what we did against Pittsburgh. This this competition that we're facing today is a little bit tougher. The Panthers brought the fight to the Packers. The Packers kind of took the field as if, all right, well we're playing Carolina, will be fine, and they were not fine.

01:13:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, the success rate, you know, dropping back to pass only forty four percent, which is not great for them. Jordan Love does not get a touchdown in this game, twenty six or thirty seven, two hundred and seventy three yards. And you mentioned that play, which which was symbolic of the day. Let's let's listen to it because it was a journey.

01:14:00
Speaker 15: Fourth down at eight, here we go with the Carolina thirteen. Loving the shotgun, Wilson to his left, three receivers right, muskrat tight end, left side of the line, snap to Love. Love scrambles to his right, looking at by time, still looking. Strambles back the other way. Love on the run, still looking Watson right side.

01:14:22
Speaker 8: Of the end zone.

01:14:23
Speaker 2: It's trucked in the end zone incomplete. I think we got to put that on Worse Throw of the Year nominee.

01:14:30
Speaker 25: Now he throws it and I'm thinking, like, there's gotta be someone there, and then the camera pans and I'm like, there's nobody there.

01:14:34
Speaker 1: Well, he's pointing, and I'd have to go watch the dots. He's pointing for the receiver to run at that angle. There is a receiver at the back of the end zone there. I think he might I think he might have gone out of bounds, and so he knew he was done anyway. So he's thinking the receiver is gonna maybe go try to win a jump ball there.

01:14:55
Speaker 2: But it's absolutely rough. We're throwing. Put it on the list there.

01:15:00
Speaker 25: I gotta give a shout out to the Panthers defense pursuing Jordan Love on that play Nick Gorton in particular, because I watch him go left and I'm watching this lab and I'm like, get at from Scrton, you're there, You're this type of player, and then he changes direction and goes left and I'm like, okay, so Gorton's lost. Oh wait, they're scorting again. Sixty seven point six yards traveled on that play.

01:15:18
Speaker 2: Wow, that is absolutely nuts.

01:15:21
Speaker 1: And yeah, he only ends up with two pressures on the day, but they do get four from Tshaun Wharton right after I kind of called him out during the week as not having a great season as a free agent pickup. And on the other side, the Packers only get a couple of quick pressures in large part I would assume because Bryce Song's getting rid of the ball quickly and they're just running the.

01:15:41
Speaker 25: Ball yep, yep, and Avantoni man Rico Daddle has the difference between the running game with Chuba Hubbard versus Rico Daddles night and day. Like, I can't believe that it took Dave Canalis this long to commit to Rico Daddle, who outouched Hubbard I think was twenty seven to five. That is your offense. That's what you should be doubt Ole runs with such violence and burst.

01:16:03
Speaker 10: This should be your lead back.

01:16:05
Speaker 25: And he can pace the offense and keep them in games like he did today.

01:16:08
Speaker 1: Well, it's a bad job by me not mentioning until now that Tucker Craft left this game with a potential torn acl because that moving forward is the biggest deal. Like, yeah, it's not great for the Packers to take this second loss. Remember they have the tie as well. But that's the guy when we're talking about, well, do the Packers really have like a guy who can can change how you're going to play them. Yeah, Christian Watson offers something that other players on that team doesn't, and he had a fifty yard plus catch today, But Kraft is the guy.

01:16:41
Speaker 25: And there's also the issue that when Craft is out of the mix, Jordan Love trusts Christian Watson a little bit too much. He threw a pass into triple coverage that got picked off today, trying to go deep to Christian Watson like they were in a game where they were trying to earn the shot, play, create the big play, force the big play, And I worry without Craft in the mix, Watson's involvement, like love, cannot rely on him heavily too much if Craft is not in the mix. So they're gonna have to kind of recalibrate if they don't have Craft available the rest of the year.

01:17:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is an absolute bummer, a killer. And there's still atop the division by half a game over Detroit. But they're letting Chicago back in, They're letting Minnesota back in, and I do think that lowers the ceiling just a little bit. And I'm not like that shocked because to quote Walker Rosenthal, my son, if Jordan was here, she'd be should be marking, marking it down. I asked what he thought of the Packers' uniforms today and he said, it looks like my poop to Houston.

01:17:48
Speaker 21: Denver three for four on two point conversions. Nix is under center, Sutton wide left. Here comes Pat Bryant in motion from right to left. Now he goes back, Sutton pumps, rolls the ball to the end zone.

01:18:01
Speaker 14: Catch, two point conversion is good. That's Troy Franklin with the catch. Kaylin Bullock on the coverage. I said, we've seen it before with this Broncos offense and Bon Knicks at the helm. They've got a little bit of magic to them in the fourth quarter, and we've seen it early.

01:18:22
Speaker 1: We have seen it. That was Dave Logan on KOA. You know, it's a weird game when we go with a two point conversion to tie it at fifteen as the highlight. But it was my choice, you know, tick of these chip shot field goals to win it. We've heard it once, We've heard a thousand times, and I think the two point conversion tells the story here, Shook because they've hit so many of them this year, literally two point conversions that mattered in getting wins. That's now five to one score win for the Broncos. He've been in these tight games and even when Bonnicks is struggling, they just fine enough to win it at the end, eighteen to fifteen, the Broncos get it done.

01:18:58
Speaker 10: Yeah.

01:18:58
Speaker 25: This is a game that was very icative of the way the Broncos offense is operated for most of the season, save for their performance against the Cowboys last week, in that they did not find a rhythm until it really mattered in the fourth quarter, and they were very much a quick strike offense. Like the fact that they were even in this game in halftime, because you go into halftime they're trailing twelve to seven. They've possessed the ball for like seven and a half minutes. That's how badly they were out possessed by Houston in the first half. So they didn't have opportunities, But they also didn't opportunities because they weren't giving themselves any because they weren't sustaining drives. But when they did score, it was a quick pass to Courtland Sutton down the side, and it was actually a series of passes in which Nick shows off his arm and it ends up in the hands of Sutton. They score again in the second half, passed to RJ. Harvey and a wheel rout out of the backfield. He burns Henry Tote and gets in the end zone for a touchdown. Like they didn't need to have the ball that long because they can do this. It's also that they were in a war of attrition in the fourth quarter. They forced like five straight punts from the Texans, and it looked like the Broncos were not going to come close to taking the lead in this game. We were headed for overtime until Nicks dialed up the fourth quarter Magic had a long scrambled, I had one more scrambled.

01:20:06
Speaker 8: JK.

01:20:06
Speaker 10: Dobbins with a long run, You hit the chip.

01:20:08
Speaker 25: Shot field goal, you win the game that you thought, Yeah, I don't even know if there's ever going to be a resolution to this game.

01:20:12
Speaker 10: That is who the Broncos are.

01:20:13
Speaker 25: They don't win pretty, but they still win and they always do it in the fourth quarter.

01:20:17
Speaker 1: That is outrageous. Six straight punts to end the game for the Texans in the end in a game where I'm counting it and I think they had fifteen drives and it's just outrageous and it's so disappointing because they started the game looking better and I know they were long drives and that end up with field goal attempts, you know, taking seven and a half minutes off the clock and then another eight play drive where they get the field goal.

01:20:43
Speaker 2: But they look better when CJ. Stroud was in the game. But c J.

01:20:46
Speaker 1: Stroud Leaves was tested for a concussion, did not come back. His mom did send out, you know, an Instagram post later so that CJ is good and he's smiling, So you hope it's not something that's like a long term problem. But they're obviously not going to win many games with Davis Mills at quarterback, and it's just disappointing because this defense is playing its heart out week after week and they're three and five.

01:21:12
Speaker 25: Yeah yeah, Kalin Bulloch made a nice interception deep, you know, playing essentially playing center field. They did everything that they should defensively to keep the Texans in the game and give them a chance to win.

01:21:21
Speaker 10: But again, I.

01:21:22
Speaker 25: Had horrors and visions of Week two, the loss to Tampa Bay, where you're on the goal line and you're trying to slam it into a brick wall and you can't get in the end zone. They did that again twice. They did it two handoffs Nick Chubb, one to British Brooks. Then you get flagged for a false start ursery, the rookie gets flagged for a false start.

01:21:38
Speaker 10: You end up settling for a field goal. You get back down there later.

01:21:40
Speaker 25: Davis Mills is in a quarterback, has one of the worst quarterbacksneak attempts I've seen all season, although I saw a worst one last week in a different game.

01:21:48
Speaker 10: And again they settled for a field goal. They missed a field goal like it was just the.

01:21:52
Speaker 25: Kymi Fairborne Fairburans kicks that went in barely went in today. They it's such a challenge with this offense, and it is so it's just an an injustice to this defense, like you said, because the defense is so good. Yeah, I may keep them in these games, and they're just not going to be able to do enough to keep them in there without CG.

01:22:07
Speaker 1: I mean, the best offense for the Broncos passes out of the backfield to Harvey, who leads them in receiving. At one point, bo Nicks I wrote this down was seven for nineteen for eighty one yards. But when it's money time, he gets the scramble lay, he hits a third and eleven pass lay. Like it just keeps happening this way despite the inefficiency. Six targets for Courtland sutten, he catches one, ten targets for Troy Franklin, he catches four, and the Broncos don't really care because they just keep.

01:22:38
Speaker 2: Catching W's seven and two.

01:22:41
Speaker 1: And with the Chiefs loss, you know, a couple games ahead of Kansas City. I know, I know the Chargers are only one back, but I think they're loving that they're two games up on the Chargers and I'm not crossing off the Texans at three and five, but they need CG. Stroud to get back healthy, and they got to figure out how to get a yard when they absolutely need it. You know who else doesn't get a yard when they need it? The Las Vegas Raiders, or to be more specific, at the end of this game, two yards.

01:23:08
Speaker 16: Here we go from the two yard line to two point converge out of town. Gino Smith drops, looks, looks.

01:23:13
Speaker 2: Looks, pump fake.

01:23:14
Speaker 18: Five, look down, look down, hook down.

01:23:19
Speaker 2: Come on, Hevilton, knock it down.

01:23:21
Speaker 26: It's so good to Jaguars win it so Jeff warts witted?

01:23:25
Speaker 2: How good is that?

01:23:27
Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about. Frank Franzi, You've gotta have a game winning play. Let's give us some energy. Let's have a voice crack. Good job by the spotter in that radio booth, unless it was Frank picking that up quickly, getting Devon Hamilton's name out really quickly, identifying, because man, I swear Devon Hamilton must be three hundred and twenty pounds, but it felt like he was in the air forever. He's just a tall man because he was his hands were up for like four seconds.

01:23:53
Speaker 2: I was like, Gino, don't you do? You see him? But it's not to be.

01:23:57
Speaker 1: The Jaguars win a crazy game thirty to twenty nine. It was nine to six entering the fourth quarter, and the game ended overtime.

01:24:05
Speaker 2: Thirty to twenty nine.

01:24:07
Speaker 1: Both Gino Smith and Trevor Lawrence, who've taken a lot of slings and arrows this year, had about six straight legacy drives where they ended in touchdowns. Unfortunately, Gino needed a two point or two to end it. Pete Carroll thankfully didn't want the tie. What do you even make of this game and the Jaguars escaping and now five and three on the season, What.

01:24:29
Speaker 10: Do I make of it?

01:24:30
Speaker 25: I think the Jaguars demonstrated that you can, in fact, kee contributions from absolutely everybody and win a one point game on the road, a game that you did nothing in the first half except Trevor threw a pick.

01:24:42
Speaker 10: In the end zone to Isaiah Poulam.

01:24:44
Speaker 25: Now, and yet Cam Little hits a sixty eight yard field goal, by the way, NFL new record longest field goal to give you three points going into half. A little bit of life, right, and then you come out of halftime and you go I believe you go field goal, touchdown, touchdown, goal, touchdown the rest of the game. And they needed every single one of those scorers to keep pace with the Raiders offense that suddenly found a way to move the football itself when they go field goal, touchdown, touchdown, end of the of regulation, touchdown. Thirteen points scored in overtime, most points ever scored in overtime, first time both teams have scored a touchdown in overtime with these new rules. This was a game that was sleepy and was suddenly wide awake and just rolling on energy drinks through the fourth quarter and overtime. And when it comes to the Jaguars like they traves etn really ran the ball well, facial Tooton ran the ball, you know, aggressively, especially getting to the end zone in the second half. Parker Washington was there to make all these catches underneath, you know, just no matter where he was, his hands were great.

01:25:44
Speaker 10: He was very consistent.

01:25:45
Speaker 25: Brian Thomas Junior not a big factor in this game, but catches a huge pass in the fourth quarter to get the Jags in field goal range.

01:25:52
Speaker 10: For Little to hit that field goal.

01:25:53
Speaker 25: Logan cooked, the punter has to take a low snap and recover the low snap just in time for Kim Little to hit the game tying field goal. Complete contributions from everybody offense, special teams, a little bit of defense.

01:26:05
Speaker 10: They come away with the one.

01:26:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're back to MESSI fun for this Jaguars team. Now, Brian tapis junior and ankle injury. He did return, Did he finish the game?

01:26:14
Speaker 2: Do you know?

01:26:15
Speaker 21: Did?

01:26:15
Speaker 10: He returned and made that catch?

01:26:16
Speaker 25: But then after that there was basically no like real contributions from him.

01:26:21
Speaker 1: So Parker Washington is their wide receiver one in this game. Look, they did not have much of a pass rush on Gino Smith, who throws four touchdowns and has two hundred and eighty four yards, and whenever he needed to play late he got it and they almost all were to brock Bowers.

01:26:37
Speaker 2: What a difference.

01:26:38
Speaker 1: Brock Bowers makes a healthy brock Bowers twelve for one to twenty seven and three touchdowns, and on that last touchdown that he had not not the one in overtime, rather the one at the end of regulation. And yet they scored with under two minutes to go to take the lead by three man.

01:26:55
Speaker 2: The juice that he has.

01:26:56
Speaker 1: I just don't know if I've seen a tight end run as fast on the field as Rock Bowers.

01:27:03
Speaker 2: He just is so smooth. It's great.

01:27:05
Speaker 1: I know there's been faster forty times, like Vernon Davis or whoever. But like on the field, he he is just different. Unfortunately, like that, that was their whole offense was him and Genti, who was pretty good out of the backfield too.

01:27:18
Speaker 2: They don't have a running game. I mentioned.

01:27:20
Speaker 1: The Raiders just could not get the ball in on the goal line early and they end up settling for a field goal from like the one yard line or something. It's just, man, they make just enough mistakes and then they just give you a little bit of hope. I thought Gino was gonna pull.

01:27:35
Speaker 2: One out here.

01:27:36
Speaker 25: Yeah, but it was still really nice to see them actually put points on the board with Rock Bowers back in the mix. Like that's how depressing this offense was without him. Ninety five sol of yards and that thirty one or other thing lost to the Chiefs. They go into the Bie week, they come out, Bowers is back, he finally looks healthy for the first time since Week one, and suddenly they can score again. Now it took him just to get to the second half to really be able to score. But they still did, and it at least gives you like a bit of evidence Gino's really.

01:28:01
Speaker 2: Not that bad.

01:28:01
Speaker 25: It's just that they don't really have any options and they can't run the ball. And now that you get brock Bowers back in the mix, at least things get a little entertaining.

01:28:09
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say that Geno's back quite yet. Not a lot of pass rush for the Jaguars, which I think is a concern. Geno also had one groaner of an interception, which he does basically every week. So not much pass rush for the Jaguars. And yeah, if you look at the win probability chart for this game, it was just awesome. It was like a seismograph of a giant earthquake or just a horrible lide detector test. Once you got in like past halftime, it was absolutely outrageous as they just answered touchdown for touchdown, and we should mention a little history was made.

01:28:47
Speaker 2: Let's listen to the call of yeah, Cam Little.

01:28:50
Speaker 1: Setting the all time record in a game they only one by one. The longest field goal ever now belongs to Cam Little.

01:28:58
Speaker 16: So here we go a sixty eight yarder from the left hash kind of a hold from Logan Cook, Logan puts it down, Cam Little kicks it up. The sixty eight yard field.

01:29:09
Speaker 2: Goal is good.

01:29:14
Speaker 13: Drill from sixty eight the yards for the last play and a half, how good is that? Cam Little from sixty eight yards?

01:29:25
Speaker 2: Can we've reached the hall.

01:29:28
Speaker 1: Hey, this season very much does not end today. Someone could pass Cam Little before the end. He Cam Little could pass Cam Little before the end of the season because that thing was good from seventy three. You can put Trey Tucker back there. He's not returning anything. That thing's going through the uprights. But if the season did end today, took the Jacksonville Jaguars would be in the playoffs at five and three over the Kansas City Chiefs.

01:29:49
Speaker 2: So there's something to be happy. It's a race.

01:29:51
Speaker 25: It's a race to the playoffs for the Jaguars, and much like the space race, we also have a kicking race going on. Now. Don't don't think that this is gonna be last time somebody tries to break that record.

01:30:00
Speaker 1: The Raiders fall to two and six, you can cross them out, and unfortunately, I think you can cross out the home team on Sunday Night Football two to Sunday Night.

01:30:10
Speaker 10: Donald slows things down.

01:30:13
Speaker 8: Ball at the forty yard line of Seattle. Play fake to Walker. Donald's gonna roll.

01:30:18
Speaker 16: He's got his man.

01:30:19
Speaker 26: It's why breaks your tackle going down the far sidelunch he could go.

01:30:23
Speaker 2: He is in for a touchdown.

01:30:26
Speaker 26: Seahawks sixty yards and the Seahawks twenty seven nothing over Washington on Sunday Night Football.

01:30:37
Speaker 1: Holy Catfish, it's one of our favorites. Steve Rayball on k I r Oh and Man. The Seahawks put it on the Commanders on Sunday Night Football thirty eight to fourteen. That was part of a dizzying second quarter where the Seahawks went from seven to nothing to twenty eight nothing in the span of about five minutes. They had two touchdowns at one point eleven seconds apart. And I've said it a lot on this program. I think the Seattle Seahawks are the best team in the NFC. We'll see if they make the Super Bowl, but they're one of the big contenders.

01:31:19
Speaker 2: Thirty eight to fourteen. They win to get to six and two. Unfortunately, Shook.

01:31:25
Speaker 1: The biggest story in this game is Commander related, and it's Jaydeen Daniels suffering an elbow injury in the fourth quarter of that game, thirty eight to seven. It did not look good, to put it mildly. We're taping this immediately after the game, so we don't have official word, but we won't expect to see Jayden and Daniels anytime soon. And I think it's absolutely fair to wonder why was he in thirty in the game, down thirty eight to seven in the fourth quarter.

01:31:54
Speaker 25: It's especially fair to wonder that given all the injury issues that they're already dealing with. They are already very thin on both sides of the ball at multiple positions. They lost you know, they don't have Terry mccluurin, they lost Luke McCaffrey tonight. You can keep going down the list. It's a long one. So that makes me think, yeah, why was he out there? But I can also see the side of it in which you're trying to, you know, get something going, put something good together because it was such a lopsided game. You'd like just a little bit of momentum taking it forward, because you know, we're still this halfway through the season.

01:32:26
Speaker 10: But I agree, and hindsight's twenty twenty, so we can all be.

01:32:29
Speaker 1: Like, first we were in there watching and if you go and look, I saw, like Charles McDonald, a couple other people were questioning it even before that. We were talking about it in the theater here, like why is he in that game to start the drive? And one of the reasons why is because he was not protecting himself.

01:32:47
Speaker 2: He was getting hit a lot.

01:32:49
Speaker 1: And it was one of my big takeaways from this game is his eye level came down in the second half of the game, maybe really throughout where if that first read wasn't there, he was looking around little panicked, and he was often getting out of the grasp of Seahawks defenders and then gaining like three yards and taking hits and going up the middle and just out of the grass. And he ends up running ten times in this game for fifty one yards, and that play it's like a it's an RPO, you know, near the goal line.

01:33:21
Speaker 2: That's not a play call. That's protecting your guy.

01:33:23
Speaker 1: And I just hate that they're so careful with these players in training camp and then the preseason and then you're down thirty eight to seven. I say it, no matter who's the quarterback, much less Jaydon Daniels who's had the injuries, and so I don't think I'm just guessing the result.

01:33:38
Speaker 2: It's just frustrating. I think that was the lowest.

01:33:41
Speaker 1: That was the worst moment of the season, because they're a crossedoff team now because of it, and they're just you know, you just hate it for the young man who's now had three different big injuries this season, and it's gonna be gonna be a lot less fun watching this Commanders team the rest of the year.

01:33:57
Speaker 2: It's gonna be Mariota at quarterback.

01:34:00
Speaker 10: Yeah, you know, it's probably the worst four quarters.

01:34:02
Speaker 25: Any team's experienced all season if you think about it, just the lopsided result, the way that they were dominated, you know, by the Seahawks on both sides of the ball, and then you lose your star quarterback, a guy who's already miss multiple games with multiple injuries. I just it really can't get much worse than that. You could see the look of despair on his teammates faces, whether it's zach ertz Adebo.

01:34:19
Speaker 10: Samuel or even Dan Quinn just realizing.

01:34:21
Speaker 25: Oh my god, this already bad situation in what was supposed to be such a promising exciting season has just gotten infinitely worse because we've lost our best player possibly for the season.

01:34:32
Speaker 10: Not good. Not good.

01:34:33
Speaker 1: Okay, let's spin it back to the Seahawks, because I do love watching this team play. This uniform matchup was ten out of ten. Love the Seahawks uniforms. Love the Washington old school get up. So that was fantastic. And Sam freaking Darnold shows up and I know the Commanders defense isn't great, but he was sixteen for sixteen at one point with four touchdowns. I mean, that's just it's one of the best first halfs you can possibly have, and he's getting protected. And that's not to take anything away from him. Charles Cross is playing great. Abe Lucas is playing great. There's some plays where he just sees the matchup and he gets the ball out so fast. The Jackson Smith and Jigba who had eight catches for one hundred and twenty nine yards, almost all of them in the first half, and Tory Horton has a couple of great moves, ends up with a couple touchdowns. Kenneth Walker gets it going. Just this team to me is the best so far. I'm not saying they're the most likely to win the Super Bowl, but the best team I've seen so far this season because I think they can be so explosive on either side of the ball. Best defense in the league, I think, top to bottom, and the explosion in terms of the passing game tonight was there to be hold.

01:35:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:35:53
Speaker 25: And we've watched Sam Darnold, you know, fund success and thrive in this offense all season, and we've talked about how he fits the style of what you know, Clint Kobat wants to do with this offense, which is why it's such a perfect marriage, and how he's you know, power helping Jackson Smith and Jigmicket off to the hottest start. I believe that you said you've ever could ever remember for a receiver in the first.

01:36:11
Speaker 2: Half, yeah, which is probably like Getty ahead of myself. They're worse every week.

01:36:16
Speaker 10: He's one hundred plus yards, I know.

01:36:17
Speaker 1: But then you think about it and like Calvin Johnson once had a half season, like Antonio Browns had his runs. But either way, he is clearly the best receiver in the league this year, and and it's it's just incredible.

01:36:29
Speaker 5: Yeah.

01:36:29
Speaker 25: But you know what the cool thing about this team is is how their defense is kind of evolved as we've gone week by week. They went from a team that was okay, you can see the potential there and you obviously have the defensive mind of Mike McDonald, but there were some you know, missing parts where riek Oulan wasn't playing well and they were going to replace some of Josh job and and you know things that needed to be a juster rever. Now they've become this like aggressive blitzing defense and they can cometch.

01:36:52
Speaker 10: You from a number of different ways.

01:36:53
Speaker 25: They had a pressure rate that was north of fifty five percent tonight on Jayden Daniels, and it was because not just because they're good at getting after the passer, but the way that they scheme up these blitzes to where he might try to adjust the protection or something, and next thing you know, you've got a guy swooping around on a stunt, or a linebacker or a dB coming through an open lane free rusher and you had no idea he was going to be coming from that direction. That's what really makes them so impressive because they have the personnel, they have the defensive mind to scheme them up right, and the offense is working so well, my only question Greg, can they because they love to build out of you know, under center, a little bit of play action stuff like that, can they run the ball consistently enough for it to travel? Getting way ahead of myself in the postseason because they're going to get there.

01:37:36
Speaker 8: Yeah, but can they be great? Part?

01:37:38
Speaker 1: Well, it hasn't been great. Even tonight. It wasn't It wasn't perfect. I think that's that's fair to point out. But when you have seven different players with at least three pressures, I mean that is incredible. Yeah, and nick emm and Worrie is just turned into this just great chess piece that they're using. And it was terrific to see Devin Witherspoon out there making some big run stop.

01:37:58
Speaker 2: So this is a wagon.

01:38:00
Speaker 1: I've been surprised to see that like boy Mafe and Reek Willen might be available on the trade market really why. I know they might not be part of the long term future, but unless you're trading player for player, we'll see the Seahawks this is a year to push because they've got some older players on their defense.

01:38:17
Speaker 2: Take advantage while you can't.

01:38:19
Speaker 1: Washington is a good reminder that you never know what's gonna happen next season, and I think we can cross them off three and six. All right, let's talk about tomorrow night. Just quickly, me and you little Cardinals, little cowboys. We're gonna be live on YouTube. We want all the NFL Daily listeners who are with us to the end of the recap show come join us in the chat because we're gonna talk about that game. But we're also going to talk about the trade deadline. Deals will start to happen on Monday, so I think we'll have a lot to already talk about, and we'll talk about maybe what's gonna be ahead. We're gonna have a special trade deadline show on Tuesday. We'll talk a little bit about Chris Career. The Dolphins fired their general manager since we last taped. I think that's a bigger deal than people even realize, a total sea change from the last two decade. I regretted that I forgot to mention by the way Travis Hunter went to injured reserve, that was a big problem for the Jaguars. Will they make a move perhaps at wide receiver Jalen Wattle could now be available because they got rid of the GM in Miami, and you saw with the national reports today. Some interesting names are out there, including the BTJ.

01:39:29
Speaker 2: Stuff just keeps.

01:39:30
Speaker 1: Happening, Jay R Alexander already went to Philadelphia. By the way, We've had some interesting moves and yeah, we'll talk about it then. Looking forward to Senia Chookie, go go watch some more games.

01:39:40
Speaker 25: Okay, yeah, we got we got taped to grind and we got news to get through Tomorrow it's gonna be a wild one.

01:39:44
Speaker 2: Okay, let's go for Jordan Rodrigue.

01:39:48
Speaker 1: I mean, who know who knew she was going to be the poet laureate of NFL Daily. Great job there, Yeah, I guess if I was going to pick someone who would be here. She did a great job with that. Patrick was awesome as always. Yeah, the injuries stink, but man, we had a fun Sunday. We will see you on Monday night.