Ravens-Saints MNF Recap + Top 6 "Bummers" this season

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Speaker 1: That's a looking to throw and he does. He's gotten touched down, looking like way way clock and what hand down? Touchdown Drake. Here's Drake in for the touchdown. A second of the night turn all the lives. Here comes goot Man. That was Joe buck singing sort of and Troy Aikman laughing and uh. A bunch of Ravens scoring in a twenty seven to thirteen victory for the Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night football in the super Dome. A convincing performance that should send a chill down the spine of the rest of the a f C. The Ravens look that good, of course, um, Greg Rosenthal. Every Monday Night we bring in a special guest to talk about the game, and this week it's Jordan rod Reeg of the Athlete it Could. You may know as a rams uh beat reporter, but she's got a great football mind about any game. So let's give you some more fun teams. Jordan's who needs the Rams. I know you've been up for twenty hours. Did this game keep you awake? You know? Were you into it? I actually think you did me like a huge solid here, Greg, I mean I got to watch a really good run game for the first time quite a while, So this is good. This was very very good for me personally. It was it was medicinal in a way, you know, like just the catharsis of getting to see, you know, the ball moving down the field on the ground was great. Yeah, tough. Yeah, well, maybe talk a little Rams late in the show. We're gonna do six bummers from the two season kind of on her that Rams running game in their offense in general. But it wasn't a bummer watching this Ravens running game. How fun are they to watch? For Lamar to just show up in the Superdome, a place you know he's never played before, may not play again for eight years or something, and just kind of put on one of the individual performance showcases that remind you, oh, yeah, we should appreciate Lamar Jackson because any game that you watch can turn into a game like this. You might look at the box score and see twelve or two, one thirty three through the air and a touchdown and eighty two yards on the ground and think, okay, that's that's a typical solid Lamar Jackson game. But the way he did it just like had me jumping out of my seat just making the Saints defensive players look unathletic. And it's so rare for an NFL player to make other professionals look athletic. But it was one of those Lamar Jackson nights where you had to watch it to really understand. Almost their entire offense felt like it was, you know, coming out of him escaping Saints tackles. Yeah, and they kept changing the contact points. They have all these positionless players. I love watching this group and I don't get to watch a lot of Ravens games. I don't get to watch a lot of non Rams games unless I were super dedicated and slept way less than I already do. Um just being a beat writer, that's kind of the life. You're on a plane, you're at the facility, you're covering the team that you cover. I get such a joy out of watching what this group does in the game, because again, they're using essentially positionless players, from the quarterback to what they're asking the running backs to do, to this piccard guy who I'm serious. I'm like, oh, where did that guy go to school? And Ricard Ricord Patrick Ricard, Yes, yeah, And I'm like, where did that guys go, I'm like, of course he went to Maine, right, he went to U Maine, and of course you know you're gonna get a pounds. You know. It's just cool, like just watching some of the layers and the contours that they create and the conflict that they put these defensive players in the Saints defense is no slouch really, and for the Ravens to be able to accomplish this and do it in such a way that you almost felt like they were constricting very very slowly some of the ways of ball control, especially with the way they opened that third quarter, and it was like the slow constriction and all of a sudden that that third and long run that Lamar had up the left side where he like parted Moses right like people, he like parted his own tackle out of the way, and it just that was when you really felt like, Okay, this is it's very slow and all at once kind of probably is like the hypothermia feels like I would say, wow, that is really well said. I um, I hope like you are cool with this extra work you're saying. You know, I know you normally don't have to cover a Monday night game or you flew back. It didn't occur to me that I should have picked the game where you you want to you weren't flying back from the East Coast that day. I hope you're cool with the extra work. And they do make it interesting, and that's one of the reasons I love the Ravens. And to your point, like the game felt out of reach after that first drive in the second half, they go into halftime up fourteen three. They only have four drives, I believe on offense, and the first half it was a typical Ravens game where they're kind of sucking the life out of the game and it's just a field goal drive to start the second half, but it's six and a half minutes long to make it seventeen three. At that point, with the yards that they seemed to be able to get in the running game whenever they really wanted it, it felt like the game was over and yet they have It's a tough matchup against the Saints on paper, and they just put defenders in so much conflict. A guy like Pete Werner, who's had to me a Pro Bowl type of season, was a little lost tonight. Marcus May and Tyrone Matthew. The two safeties on the Saints, who have struggled for most of the year, didn't know what to do. And the Saints have been known for their run defense, and they just couldn't stop them. The Ravens end up with a hundred and eighty eight yards on the ground and whenever they needed a play or early, let's say, Rickard, you know, converts a short yardage and then they have Jackson well Lamar doing a read option for about five yards on another third down. It just feels like those plays are there whenever they wanted. And oh, by the way, he can create when he does drop back to pass, and it looks like the pass rushes all over them. When you're saying position less players though on the offense, what do you mean there? The way that they basically make the receivers and the tight ends and the fullback certainly too, all do are all such an active part of the running game? You mean, yeah, and you don't know what's going to happen, pre stet because like you said, he can pass so well, and what I loved, and you were like, oh, I don't I hope you don't mind. The Actually, the second I see this guy run a quarterback sweep, I mean, come on, like and then throws the ball because he's got the he's got the dB and conflict. Like you can, I freeze framed on it. This is how much of a kick I got out of just seeing what they were doing. Like, I went and found the clip on on Twitter and I just started freeze framing it to see at what point does the dB realize he's made a grave? You know, he's yeah, and sort of like flashback record scratch, freeze frame moment where he flips around and and honestly, I don't blame the Saints defend. This is a good defense. But the thing is is there's not much you can do when there's you know, three to seven options that can happen um post snap with out of the same look pre snap, you know, when they're aligning the full back and then they've got the running back and then they've got Lamar and all of these guys. You know, Drake can catch a pass or the full you know, the fullback is probably gonna lead block, but he can get some of these motions going. And you know, even the tackles, I mean, you see the tackles pulling away the heck over. I mean, it's it's crazy some of the things that they can do and the complexity in this run game, and it's really, um it's really remarkable to see it kind of clicking together. And a great example of that is that is that quarterback sweet because then from from then on out, because of course you're crashing the edge down and you're trying to get him, you know, out of bounds ahead of that that even at minimum that first down conversion marker, right, and so the second that the defender pulls down toward Lamar to try to okay, maybe I can up this guy, then he's just letting the ball go float into the end zone like so effortless. And then every single time he moves even or even like twitches his shoulders one side to the other when he's taking the hand off, you're thinking about it. And if you hesitate, when you can do that many things post snap out of the same pre snap looks, then you die in this league. And it's just it's really interesting to watch. They sort of have taken these guys and they've they've made them, like I said, into positionless players, but they're maximizing what they can do out of these looks and and really when they look like I loved what they did on the on the ESPN broadcast when they were sort of doing that aerial view and showing some of the lanes that they were creating and and some of the highlighting some of the things that they were able to the contours they were able to even manufacture on short runs. You really kind of understand the complexity of what this thing is. And can you tell I've been missing watching a run game? GG, Yes, I can, and I love it, And I'm so happy I have you on because you have such a great mind for the xs and ohs, and I think the way that you just gribed it helps illuminate how difficult they are to prepare for for an NFC opponent. I do think about this that in the division, you know, they see the Ravens twice a year, and Greg Roman, their offensive coordinator, takes some grief because their passing game necessarily isn't as developed because they spend so many times, so much time adding all these running plays. And as Troy Aikman was explaining their like option running plays and now that they drafted Tyler Linderbaum, who was more of a zone player in college. They've added some of those elements which they didn't even had in the past. So they're always adding to the running game and everything builds off of that. And that's awesome, And I think you can only do so much on offense. But in a week like this where you don't have Mark Andrews and you're all pro tight end, you're not getting Rashad Bateman back for the rest of the year. Troy Aikman was calling Devin DuVernay their number one receiver right now. That should be a major problem against a good d fence. In the year two, Isaiah Likely who you who was the rookie tight end who caught that beautiful touchdown pass on the quarterback sweep led the team in receiving with twenty four yards. That should be a problem. And yet they find different ways to win. And I like that there are enough ways in the NFL that you can be different, Like you could you cover a Sean McVeigh offense, And yes, there's been all these off shoots and you've done a good job covering all the different off shoots, But isn't nice to not have just another Sean McVeigh off shoot like that there's one team out there led by a one of one player who who to me is the you know, the greatest running quarterback of all time. I don't think that's any question. An he passed Steve Young now for fifth all time, and it's gonna be number one soon enough. That there's a team that can do things a little differently, and they can do it because they've built their personnel around Lamar Jackson. Yeah, it's I think it's cool. It's like one of the most traditionalist statements in football is that you create A plus plays for your A plus play airs. And the thing is is those are just happening on the ground in a way that is sort of mind bending for defenses especially. I mean, you think about it, Greg, We talked about this, and you guys talk about on the show all the time about the philosophical shift in the league. So many things are dictated towards the passing game right now. Isn't just so perfect that this dominant like multiple run heavy team that's doing all kinds of crazy stuff and even as added, like you said, some of that outside zone stuff, some of that like layer developing down field kind of blocking scheme and and that's something that is just starting to find its fullest form, and it happens to be at the perfect time that everything else is shifting toward, and even the personnel that's coming into this league is shifting towards. How can you defend the past? And I think it's it's really interesting. It's sort of catalytic in a sense. It's it's happening in its own small world obviously, but the ripple effects from what they can create, like I said, just getting the ball in A plus situations to their A plus players, no matter how it happens. And I think there's something kind of cool and like, um, I don't know if this is the right word, but like anarchistic about it a little bit, where they're kind of like, we don't really care, we're there while everyone else is zagging. And I think that the Patriots have done a good job with that over the years of trying to either be ahead or not worry about the league trends, because you're ultimately at an advantage if you're playing counter to that. I think that's why they were effective relatively running so much power last year with the rookie quarterback against all these light boxes. But The Ravens were very intentional this offseason after a year where they really tried to spread it out and work on their passing game, they intended to be this sort of team this year. They made their offseason moves, uh with being a twenty eighteen m Lawmar Jackson m v P year or was that nineteen Lamar Jackson m VP year type of team, and it's working. And the thing I like about the NFL season is it's so long that the Ravens are completely different than where they were in September. They were a mess in their running game traditional running game or whatever this is in September. It took them three or four weeks to get going. They were also a mess on defense, giving up big plays in September. With a new defensive coordinator, you know, we're gonna get to the Saints and we're not gonna do fifty minutes on this game. I know, I know we could were pretty deep into it, but I do just want to quickly give the Ravens defense some flowers before we move on. They've just improved so much over the last four or five weeks. Like I said, they started the season so poorly, but they've added players as they've gone. Justin Houston, who missed three games this season, is now up to I think eight or nine sacks on the year, had an interception tonight, the third active sack uh leader in the NFL right now. To see him have a night like this was incredible. And then Roquan Smith added to the mix like was great in terms of stopping the run. And to me, they're pretty good at every level and they are a totally different defense. If you've watched them week to week, um, which I know you don't have a chance to do. If you just tune in right now, you'd say this is a perfect Ravens team running in defense because I think at every level of the defense they have playmakers and they don't have any huge weaknesses, and they're a veteran team. Well, I think this was exactly what you need to try to do to stop a Saints team that actually I happen to agree with some of your takes over the last several weeks and into the season, like the Saints are frisky, like you, you got to keep an eye out for them, and and I think, but I mean, honestly, I do give the credit. I mean, this this all like we said, all of the conflict that you're being put in as defenders in this regard, like it's almost like what are you gonna do? You gotta just pick the way you're gonna lose essentially against a run game like this. But the in terms of what the Ravens are able to do stopping the run, I mean I did when I was doing some of the background work before this, it was like in run defense dv O A, and they were allowing a lot of like um initial yards after contact and they were just not looking like they were, you know, doing the job. But if you want to go ball control on the other side the way that they did, especially opening that third quarter, you have to stop up the run and you have to try to rattle the quarterback on the other side, and you have to try to get them to just take big pieces out of the air um and they did that. By the time I had this, you know, I haven't written down. By the time the Ravens are up twenty seven to six UM, they were out rushing the Saints a hundred and sixty two yards to forty seven yards. And this you know, this Saints team like they can run the ball right so it was really I think when you kind of going back to what I said before, you get into your your A plus plan and then you can have more flexibility, more freedom to go ball control on the other side, which they very much did right. Houston's playing out of his mind. It's such a Ravens thing. I mean, Justin Houston, who was signed to a deal and was good for them last year and then no one wanted him again, and I think he sat around in free agency. I'll find out while while we're talking here, but it felt like it was like August or so. The Rams could have had him for nothing. They needed an addresser, everyone needs an d dresher, and yet Dustin Houston was sitting out there. And the Ravens just have a way of coaching up and knowing how to use these type of guys. Clais Campbell had a really nice game returning from an injury. Mattabuk has been great, and uh their cornerback too, of Humphrey and Peters. It's just all coming together and they have a cake schedule the rest of the way. When they put up that graphic of their next four games on the telecast, and I see that they have a buy here coming off of a kind of their mini buy after a TNF game, and then coming back they have Carolina, Jacksonville, Denver, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and then finishing with Cincinnati. I know that was a lot of teams I just threwout you, but you know what, it wasn't a lot of good teams other than Cleveland and Cincinnati, and Cleveland is a stretch. They'll have Deshaun Watson back there. Those are bad teams. And the Ravens are set up at six and three as a team who have led by at least ten points in all nine other games this year. Jordan's they're only the fifth team in the Super Bowl era of which they that's true, which is preposterous. So you're thinking like, that's some of the great teams of the last, uh, you know, thirty fifty years in terms of how they started the season. Obviously, the Ravens haven't been good at closing games. We'll have to see how that goes when they play good teams. But they're not gonna have many good teams, and so that's that's why they're so set up. They just feel like a very solid number three in the a f C. If not right there with with the Bills and the Chiefs, when you're just kind of projecting forward, because to me, it'd be hard for them not to win the division. Sorry Bengals fans. Well, its later in the years you go and you're getting in some cold weather and all kinds of stuff, and you know, we can pretend it's not a factor. But trying to defend a run game like this, and trying to defend a team that can, like I said, just eat away at you and go into like hypothermic mode and the ball control and what they do, that's that's really tough. And that's the hypothermia thing again. It's like, you know, I would imagine I've never thankfully uh suffered from this. Try it, yeah, just so you know, just just an experiment. Yeah. But it's like the way that they were picking away with some of those four five eight yard runs. It was like happening very slowly in that drive and you could sense they were building to something. You were sort of seeing the other side going a little bit numb, starting to turn a little bit blue, and then all of a sudden, Lamar breaks off that long third third down run. Um sort of a dagger and then everything is darkness after that. So I think that that was kind of That's kind of how I would describe I love it. You're getting dark and you're getting deep, and they are the perfect team for this season. I keep thinking about this, and you mentioned it how it's a different NFL year right now. It's a little more defense, it's a little more running. I'll get to that when I get to the Bummers later in the episode. And they're built for that, you know, I I the Jets are like a lesser version of them, but the Jets are sort of built for this season that differences. You know, one is Lamar Jackson at quarterback and and one has an improving defense and the coaching staffs that that's been there, and they were getting a little tight in the fourth quarter, even though there was no reason to like. Lamar Jackson got as upset as I've ever seen him with uh the center not you know, Spike, You're giving him the ball on time and the plays weren't coming in and he wasn't happy with the time out and he spiked the ball at one point in him and Ronnie Stanley or a giant And if that's Kyler Murray and you're like, oh, is this something, but it's not because it's Lamar Jackson and he's just fired up and you know how his teammates feel about him. And then later in the fourth quarter, Marcus Peters, who struggle who failed to help push out Jawan Johnson on the sideline on a late, kind of meaningless touchdown for the Saints, gets into a giant match with John Harbaugh on the sideline. So the Ravens, even even when they're winning big, there's just like tension in the fourth quarter. Maybe that's because of all these these blowing leads there. They make it fun though, they like made it watchable. If I was gonna make you watch a Monday night blowout, this was the one. Yeah, I was. I was happy to watch it. I loved that moment too. There was like this very very ample pause as the broadcasters they were watching Marcus Peters and John Harbaugh have their discussion, and then all of a sudden, one of them goes, you know, John Harbaugh is a young sixty And I was like, that's what you say right now? Like this, It was amazing, It was incredible that. So it was it was that and Morgen Moses laying a block in the first quarter or a second quarter. I think it was laying a block on the edge and wagging his finger at the guy he just like threw into the ground. Um, there's some there's some spice to this raven team. And I think that's why you see some of these moments like that is they're they're figuring out where to funnel all of it, right, They're channeling all of it, and they're gonna have to because, you know, sustain This is a I think this is a sustainable way to play football. What I loved. Um, I was thinking about this today. I wrote in my notes, look at these old guys go right, because just in Houston and it's Calais Campbell. You know, Cali asked Campbell was my first ever professional football interview as an intern running quotes for the Cardinals. And he was there and what a nice human, terrifying probably to play against. And and you saw that a couple of times. But it's just watching, like I said, these guys when you're talking about closing games, these defensive players, like especially on that defensive line, they're sort of figuring it out. They're starting to figure out um, how to show up in these big moments. Those those third down sacks were so crucial in stopping any of the Saints momentum um. And you know, let alone what they did against the run tonight. Yeah, I loved Mike McDonald blitzing a little more in this game than they have been this season, and they were really well timed. And you mentioned it with with the veterans, like, yeah, Clais Campbell is one of the largest humans I've ever seen. He might he must have made you feel small. He certainly makes everyone feel small. And I almost when I've heard him speak, and I think I did ask him some questions. I remember when he was part of the Carnals Super Bowl team and I was covering that team that week when they played, uh, the Steelers in the Super Bowl. Was that he has such a low register. And I find this watching shock on inside the NBA, that the base is so deep that I I kind of can't understand what he's saying sometimes, like my ears don't go that low, you know what I mean, It's like it's too low. He would be ranked very high. If I had a Cadence rankings of defensive lineman, he would be great. And if he was a quarterback with a nice you know bass cadence, Oh, I'd love to hear at Klais Campbell cadence. I mean I would run the other direction probably because again, like probably terrifying to play against him. But just like I said, it's just he just got a like a warm presence. And when I see him running around out there, because like you know, guys they start to get up there in years and sometimes you forget, you know, hey, they're they're still moving people around, and you know, you just see him and he just does not look like he's aged and it's fantastic. You know, you probably feel like he's got that big connectivity within the locker room, like he's like ANFL Man of the Year. Yeah, he's an NFL Man of the Year type of guy. And I love this team. I don't need an excuse to love a Lamar Jackson team, but man, the way they're coming together in the schedule, I think they're gonna be in it quickly. On the Saints and they bummed me out. I can't believe I picked the Saints to win this game. I had it. I had the Ravens actually initially and then when I saw when Andrews and Edwards were out, I just I lost my mind and I picked um with with my heart not my head. They're just a poorly coached team, I think overall, if you've watched them week to week, and there was an exception last week, but turnovers, penalties, pre snap mistakes, just sloppiness. It's really been a part of their DNA throughout the course of the season. I think they got beat by a better team tonight, but there wasn't a lot of fight out of that defense, especially, and I know they got worn down, but I think you saw the limitations of of Andy Dalton playing well. He had been playing well until tonight. And they're in the NFC South, so they're only one game out of first and their fans don't want to hear it, but they're they're just gonna be dragged along in this season and continue to matter. The fans have, you know, this fatalist thing of just wanting to give up on it all, but they won't. It's not gonna happen in the NFC South because I don't think the Bucks or anyone is running away with it. So it's just gonna be trying to fix these issues, and in Dennis aullend to me, hasn't shown the ability to fix their mistakes. They had one great week where they shut out the Raiders, and other than that, they they're pretty similar week to week. Yeah, I mean, I think you see sparks from time to time. I mean, especially what I really liked about this game is there was an emphasis on two positions in particular that like don't get a lot of love and modern team building, and that's running back and inside linebacker. And I thought it was really from both times from both teams. I thought it was really really fun watching the inside linebackers go and and really again, I think part of this is to be in conflict that much, especially when the contact point of how they're running the ball is changing on you from snap to snap. So sometimes it's hitting the d lineman. Sometimes they're changing the contact point directly to the linebackers. Sometimes they're changing it to the second level almost immediately with some of their blocking concepts in the quarterback. And I think that it's just a bad matchup, Like I have no doubt I'm going to watch a close game in a couple of weeks in New Orleans against you know ram Saints, um, if you know, it's like kind of dreading it frankly, because like that that'll be that'll be messy and that'll be sloppy. Yeah, the Saints have the capability to blow a team out like the Raiders too, like they did. They they have good players, um, but I've just watched enough of them this year to know that it's not consistent there. They've had so many injuries so of the Ravens. Um. But you could you could feel it tonight when they lost Eric McCoy their their Pro Bowl center that it was already over and then it got really over. And that could be a major problem for them because you're moving Caesar Ruiz to center, where he did not play well as a rookie, and then you're messing with the protections and Andy Dalton then has more to do. And Ruise had been playing better until this game, but both him and Ramchek had a rough night. And they've got Chris Lava, who would be my pick as the offensive rookie there. I know Kenneth Walker is the favorite in Vegas right now, and and Damian Pierce I think is the second favorite. But I watch a Lava and I think this guy is a number one right now, and he's a rookie and he can run routes with anyone. And if he was on if he was on the Dolphins, let's say right now, he'd be putting up Jalen Wattle type type numbers. Oh, I absolutely agree. And he just it's just smooth, right, like the way that he just goes in and out of his brakes and his cuts and the way he changes direction and all of a sudden he's downfield and it's like, you know, this guy just like opened a space time portal and all of a sudden, there he is, and you totally lost track of him. And against veteran guys like Peters and Humphrey, he's he does it every week. I mentioned him on the show last week and he went five for sixty and I was like, if you just in the box scores five for sixty, but if you watched it, you can just he reminds me of Marvin Harrison a little bit. I mean, he is a really high level receiver that I don't know, like what the ceiling is, but he's already there where he's I have no question he's going to have a really incredible career. I I couldn't help but notice on my Twitter timeline that because I was doing the Channel five coverage in the UK for Monday Night Football, that Sean Payton was on the Manning cast during this, and I just thought, man, this is very Saints right now. You know, Peyton Manning and Sean Payton are talking about it, and Sean Payton makes some joke that like, hey, me and Lamar are both free agents next year, which is like, would be tampering if he is a coach of a team. Oh but wait, he is kind of a coach of a team. He quit on the Saints with multiple years left on a huge guaranteed contract that he that he had a renegotiated over and over with the Saints. And I don't know, man, it rubs me the wrong way a little bit because he's not a free agent and the Saints are gonna get compensation in theory for him, except that his best friend is the GM of the Saints, Mickey Loomis. I don't know, but you know he loves it. You just know he loves it. He loves it. Right, He's gonna get paid and it's all gonna work out fine. But at least someone, because everyone else in the media is best friends with John Payton, should point out that like he essentially quit on the team with a ton of and he deserves to retire, but he's not retiring. He's using it as a leverage play to come back next year. And he's going on while his team is getting absolutely hammered in the Superdome. He was there at practice, by the way, two weeks ago, which blew my mind. He was in the facility just hanging out, and then that's the week they win by shutout. It's just like, it's it's all too much, it's messy. I just had to point out that that was, like how you really feel, Greg, I don't even know. I don't know how I feel, but I am just like noting this and I'm just saying, like, the Saints don't have to let you coach anywhere man or or they could ask for a first you know, a couple of first round picks. Let's see if anyone would give that up. All Right, that was a bummer way to uh end the game. Talk Saints don't Saints fans don't want to hear any more about that. We're gonna go over quickly. Uh, six bummers from the season. I'm gonna throw out six, but I wanted you to start with your bummer, Jordan's before we get out of here. Oh, pressures on. Now, I have to make sure that it's it's a good a good one. I don't want to take gears. Yeah, I don't want to take gears. I'm gonna run through mind quickly, but I want to hear what yours is. So I'm working on this theory and it's a little bit like a bunch of yard on a on a chalkboard right now that's pinned up in various directions, um, and I'm just gesturing to it wildly. But I think that the RAMS are currently navigating through um, a hell of their own creation. And in part you know, we saw what happened at the trade deadline, and it's kind of like the Rams did not create uh A, more efficient picks for players market, but they certainly, Um, I don't even know if inspired motivated more active picks for players. That and a lot of other factors as you've talked about a lot, including on the trade Tsunami episode, and I think, um, so there's that right, So now there they've done they've done this thing first, or they've done it in such high frequency first, and now they're working with less capital and a more efficient market. So you're navigating that part of things, and then you're looking to at some of the things that they've done schematically that have sort of helped motivate the space that this league is in right now, especially on defense and in the particular way that it caps passing plays. And then you look at their own roster and they are completely in equipped to actually combat the direction that defenses are now playing high frequency passing attack teams UM, and it's kind of if you're them, it's kind of a bummer because you know it's happening in your own building, and you would think that you would see that coming. UM. This sort of underworld that they've helped to manufacture now is UM is something that they're navigating through schematically and philosophically. That was that was kind of mind blowing. You're right. It reminds me a little bit of how hard it was for the Patriots. And they did it because they had Tom Brady, but their defense was terrible for many of those years. That's why they didn't, you know, in the early tents of like not only their coaches getting stolen from everyone and their personnel guys who had similar ideas and wanting similar players. But then they're running similar schemes and other teams are using similar wayte to get uh players, and it's like all these little advantages that you had that added up to a lot are no longer nearly as big because everyone's doing your stuff. And especially for the Rams, it hurts because they just don't have answers offensively. I mean, they are an extreme bummer to watch play football on offense. The running game, as you mentioned, is kind of the start of it, but the passing games in inequal bummer. And uh, it's a bummer in my house, Jordan's I'm not there on Sundays, but my daughter Ellis makes a Rams shrine every week on this couch with all these paraphernalia and stuff. And it's tough. Uh, you know, it's tough. It's it's tough right watching this Rams offense. I mean, no one's gonna cry for Rams fans after they won for the Super Bowl. But it's just like it's about as uninspiring as it gets right now, and it doesn't feel like there's a lot of hope to get out of it either. Part of the thing, too, is like they were a team that they didn't just like go catalyst by catalyst over a sequence of years, like as you see sometimes in this league, Like they did everything all at once, and they did it just as the cap sprang back out, just as the new cb A was negotiated, just as teams started this sort of next generation wave not only of young quarterbacks but also of young personnel decision makers and um, you know, maybe a little bit more of a modernized philosophy. And so now when you are you know, sort of in the middle and operating out of those all those catalysts at once internally as a team, then all of a sudden, things start to happen a lot quicker than maybe you realize. And I think that's kind of where they're caught right now, is they they're pretty good generally at navigating like the shifts of the league, um, philosophically and schematically. But it all happened really really, really really fast, like over the course of a couple of months, um, and not over years as we've sort of seen these things and to do. And now teams are already countering, especially the defensive stuff. Teams are are already countering, Um, you know the best ways to pick away at that at that shell defense and some of those you know, cover six concepts that that they like to run. You know that the Fangio Staley right there. I think it's been lost because everyone looks at the offensive coaches that are all around the league, and most of them are struggling. But the Rams, the Fangio and the Brandon Staley defense that just is everywhere and kind of uh given a little hypothermia in a bad way to a lot of offenses around the league. Yeah, comes comes from the Rams in large part, and it's not making this season more fun to watch. So that that's one of my bummers. Is just like the passing game being down so hard, and it's because of these defenses in part making it harder to move down the field and making them really earn it. But now now that I say it is creating the opportunity for different types of teams like the Ravens and Jets and everything to pop up and be successful. So maybe I shouldn't be so basic, but I am a basic bitch. Ultimately, I don't know, can I even say that. I don't know in that context. I think I think I can. It's like, I like, points, did you hear something? Oh yeah, I didn't. I'm a little confused about what I heard. It just seemed like you can say that in that context that is too straight Monday Night recaps. The guest has jumped in. This is the best recurring bit um that will almost undoubtedly not continue that next week. I can't believe you did it, Jordan. You just made my entire like you guys don't even know JD. You're you're knocking out of the park. You're like quick analysis. And the way that you can understand not only the gameplay tonight, but the league trends is why everyone should read. Uh, Jordan's at the Athletic and the pile after RAMS games And maybe those are becoming a bummer for you. I hope not, because you're really good at analyzing it in the moment. That's something I could never do the night of a game. I you know, that's just a really hard skill is to write right after the game. But it's even harder to write about complex sort of schematic ideas of what happened in that game right after the game. I don't know anyone who's doing it better than you. You're doing an amazing job. So that's that is not a bummer. It's why I'm really happy I had you on. Um, the passing game is a bummer quickly, the rest of my bummers is um that Still. I'm still not over the p J. Walker the whole thing, justin that, you know, one of the great plays in NFL history that he was not rewarded, and then the next week he goes three for ten with two interceptions, possibly ending his career as a starter in the NFL. I'm not over that. I picked him up in fantasy just because of that bomb that he threw, and then he had negative three points this week, so that was fun. Yeah, I I uh, I'm sorry. I mean yeah, my son picked up done to Form and and DG Moore and I told him not to play either. He played them both and he lost because of it. But that was that. That was the play of the year and it was totally ruined. So that was a bummer. Uh. The Jags not being really a part of this season, uh, and I don't think they're going to be if you look at their schedule in the next handful of weeks. They play the Chiefs this week, the Ravens after that. Uh. They also have the Titans and the Cowboys coming up, So that's four their next five games. I just thought the Jaguars would be part of this season, and it's a bummer to me, I know, not to you, justin that they're not. Mac Jones is a total bummer. One of the worst quarterbacks in the league. I'm shocked by it, but at this point you gotta face facts that that's where it's been. And then Kyler Murray's passing. It's just a bummer to me. Just the station to station. I I threw a lot out there. We gotta go soon, Jordan. But if any of those just struck your fancy, I know, you know you're gonna be getting ready for a Kyler game soon. Right. That's their opponent the Rams this week, am I right? They host They host the Cardinals this week, and I'm kind of interested in seeing, like which version of this team that they do get and which version of the Rams you're going to see. You know, they kind of they put it together earlier this season in Spurts against the Cardinals. Can Makers was running the ball pretty well that game. They were getting some of the play action going. That's the other thing that's interesting to me. And I won't go on a rant here because I know it's it's late for everybody, and you've been like working, actually working all day. So they're running like they're running like some of their twenty nineteen offense. You know, they went all like they went all the drop in to drop back and like, hey, we don't need play action. We're gonna still get the league explosives a ep A just by dropping back and throwing at the heck down field. So but now they're like, you know, no, like holy dependent on the run again, and it's the way teams are playing them, of course, and and some of that zone stuck going back to basics. It's crazy how things cycle back around anyway. So that's what the Cardinals begged for. He I think he literally went to he does the announcing for the game. I think he literally went to the coaches and told them to do that. I'm sure they and I don't know if they listened to Marius, but maybe they do. They should. He's brilliant, so and he's great at what he does and so is our pal JB. So. But yeah, I think I'm interested to see what they're gonna like, which version of themselves either team is going to be, and I feel like this is one that could get very, very sloppy in a real hurry. Um. The Rams defense is playing well. Um, some like fifty two passes by Brady without allowing a touchdown and then a complete catastrophe in the final seconds there on Sunday. Um, But it's the overall they're playing well. They play the Cardinals well, um, So there's no mystery. I don't think the Cardinals are really up and down, and I don't think they're like a different team week to week. They're one of the most consistent teams that that yards for attempt average from Kyler is going to be between five and six. There's gonna be very few explosive plays. It's gonna be the same thing as it always is. And sometimes Kyler will make magic with his legs. He's doing that more and maybe you'll hit a player too deeper to Hopkins. They didn't last week. But it's it's a station to station bummer of an offense. It is not a bummer to have you on Jordan's uh, you killed it. I Um, I feel bad. I'll try to have you on next time when you're not on, uh, you know, after a flight, but I would love to have you. Uh. This was fun. No, this was great. I mean I've been since you guys launched this, I've been like, oh, I hope he asked me to be on. Like I was like, oh, I hope he asked me to be on. I Like I said before, I look to you guys. I listened to all your all your shows. I'm in traffic a lot, driving back and forth to and from various football facilities in the southern California region, and you guys keep you company. I laugh a lot. Uh. I love all the drops, especially the one of the guy going like or whatever that one is. Every single time it gets me so. UM. I appreciate what you guys do. It really was great to be on, um, and I was stoked to be on with You're sorry. That one's for you. That's Arsen Wells, by the way, and if if you want to look it up, you can find it on Twitter. One of our enterprising listeners saw where that original clip came from. All right, Jordan also been posted on Reddit like six times in the last really, okay, I try not to dive into the reddit. That's one step every every single time, Like I'll be in the car, I'll like, I cannot be taking a sip of coffee because it's serious. I mean you heard, I like choked out a laugh now because it gets me as cool as I try to keep it here professional as I try to keep it on your show here, Greg I, it does get me every single time. You're you're too nice and um I I hope for you that the Rams give you some um entertaining football down the stretch, something to write about. Stay in the mix, stay interesting, that's all we look for. Uh, stay interested through these eighteen weeks. All right, Jordan, you you are too kind. I can't wait to have you again. This was a ton of fun on Tuesday, and I talk some colts. Well, there's a lot of stuff about their special guest for Jackon is going to be there until then. Keep the call.