September 15, 2025 • 51 mins
Former NFL scout John Middlekauff is LIVE breaking down Week 2 of the 2025 NFL season, kicking off with Sunday Night Football matchup between the Atlanta Falcons and the Minnesota Vikings. John reacts to Vikings QB JJ McCarthy abysmal performance, and is unsure if he has what it takes to be a long term starter in the NFL.
Next, John reacts to Caleb Williams & the Chicago Bears struggling vs. the Detroit Lions in head coach Ben Johnson's return to Detroit, as well as the amount of responsibility that general manager Ryan Poles holds for building this Bears team.
John then reacts to the thrilling NFC East matchup between Dak Prescott & the Dallas Cowboys & Russell Wilson & the New York Giants. John then reacts to news of Cincinnati Bengals QB Joe Burrow suffering a turf toe injury, which could potentially jeopardize his season.
Next, John reacts to the Super Bowl rematch in which Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley & the Philadelphia Eagles defeated Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, & the Kansas City Chiefs.John wraps up by debating whether preseason rankings in college football still hold substance with the new College Football Playoff format with the 12 teams.
04:52 - Falcons-Vikings
18:55 - Bears-Lions
29:43 - Giants-Cowboys
36:22 - Bengals QB Joe Burrow turf toe injury
40:23 - Eagles-Chiefs
47:12 - College Football preseason rankings are overrated
Follow John on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for the latest.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. What is going on everybody? John, It'll got
three Now podcast? How are you doing? Hopefully better than
(00:22):
JJ McCarthy, who had a big week because he had
a baby, but then had an awful Sunday night game.
He was atrocious at home against Atlanta, who gets a
big win even though Michael Pennocks and their offense didn't
score many points. The Atlanta Falcons win twenty two to six.
And we go live on our YouTube page after Thursday night,
(00:43):
Sunday night, and Monday night. So make sure you subscribe
because we're going live and that's we'll play what I
just did and uh yeah, some other stuff that happened. Obviously,
you know, Joe Burrow has severe turf toe. He might
be out basically the whole season. Not ideal if you're
a Bengals fan, given that your season would be over.
And yeah, Chiefs are zeroing to the Cowboys Giants plage,
(01:07):
I don't know, one of the most entertaining ending of
a game you'll ever see. The fourth quarter of the overtime.
It was just it was it was fantastic. There's no
other way to say it. And then the Bears, I mean,
it's full of the franchise time. I don't know about that,
(01:28):
but they got thoroughly embarrassed by the Detroit Lions. And yeah,
so the game plan will be we have podcasts all
week of a podcast after the games tomorrow doubleheader, which
I don't love, but you know, what are you gonna
do complain about two football games? Could be worse? Could
we have none? And we'll have a podcast out as
(01:49):
well as a mail bag on there as well, So
at John Middlecoff, fire in those dms to get your
questions answered here on the show. And other than that,
you guys know the drills. So before we dive in,
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Let's dive in to what we just witnessed because that
(02:53):
was terrible. I mean that that was an awful Sunday
night game. Mike Tarico had a little subtle flex when
he was talking about Bijon Robinson, who wanted to be
known as Bijon, and then it was Bijon is like,
what's going on? Just call him by the name that
everyone's been calling him. He's like, Hey, twenty million people
watch this game, right, It's the number one television show
(03:14):
in America, Sunday Night Football, and we just witnessed field
goal after field goal after field goal. Now listen. Last
week was impressive because JJ McCarthy had never played an
NFL game. He was on the road against the division
rival and had played like complete you know what through
three quarters. I mean it not only looked awful, every
(03:37):
single human alive was thinking, what are they going to
do a quarterback? Would they trade for Kirk Cousins? Who
is even available? This is not gonna be a functional player.
And then he goes on in the fourth quarter. He
throws for a couple of touchdowns, he runs for a touchdown,
and it's just awesome, like the heartbeat of the team,
and was just making throws, was making plays like it
(03:59):
looked like a high level quarterback play. And then you
get a home game. Now, listen, this week, I'm not
giving the guy a pass, but I've never had a baby,
got one coming here in a couple months. Probably threw
off his week a little bit, but still the expectations
played at home, Skull Like, my expectations were pretty high. Now,
was I expecting Jared Goff five touchdowns? No? But did
(04:20):
I think I would get some version of not the
guy we saw early in the Bears game, and just
the capable player, a guy that could distribute the ball,
maybe throw a touchdown or two and lead Minnesota to
I don't want to say an easy wins. The NFL.
But I expected Minnesota win because I expected JJ McCarthy
to build off what we just witnessed, and it was
the opposite. He was atrocious. I mean he was terrible.
(04:42):
We have now eight quarters of film and a body
of work and evidence on JJ McCarthy, and seven of
those he has been one of the worst quarterbacks in
the NFL, like legitimately terrible, and tonight he had multiple
spots to fite how bad he was playing. Again to
(05:02):
just kind of flip the switch. He skipped one of
Jefferson on a long third down they had to punt.
He had nailer that clearly was a scheme played by
Kevin O'Connell against the slot corner wide open, and as
Collins were said, just put a little air under it.
He tried to throw like a rope and he overthrew
him by five six yards. It wasn't even close. And
(05:24):
then every single time you're like, okay, this is his moment.
Now sometimes he's getting peppered his backup left tackles in
there school who comes from the forty nine ers, who's
a not a good player. But the reality is, and
I'm guilty of this too, is I nitpicked these backups.
The drop off in the NFL with offensive linemen from
starters to backups is as wide as the Grand Canyon.
(05:46):
There is not a position in the NFL where you
go from starter to backup where the gap is wider
right now than offensive lineman, partly because the supply and
demand guys coming into this league has come at like
a outweighed version of Defensive linemen have been flowing into
this league the last five or six years, and offensive
(06:07):
linemen simply have not. So when you get these guys,
you gotta make quick decisions. You need your coach to
scheme around it. And anytime you put these guys in
a one on one situation, your quarterback is gonna be
compromised and he's gonna have to play smart and clearly,
JJ it felt like it again was just swimming a
little bit, and I think they tried to run the ball,
they tried to settle them down. But the NFL, like
(06:30):
just football in general and college, two comes down to
a couple of big spots, and it's usually third and long,
and third and long in the NFL is like third
and seven, third and eight, third nine doesn't have to
be like third and twenty. It's a passing situation where
you have to drop back and there's a decent chance
even if you have a Justin Jefferson, he might get
double covered. So you're gonna have to work through your progressions.
(06:51):
There's gonna be shit flying around you because you're gonna
have a couple offensive linemen in the game that probably
aren't that good. They're gonna be a pass rush. You're
gonna have to slide and you're gonna need to make
some pass especially when you do get some protection and
you can step in the throw. You got to hit
it like one hundred percent of the time. This is
not like, this is the NFL and that's the reality.
And tonight JJ was atrocious, Like it felt like he
(07:14):
had no control over the ball. He's throwing them low,
he's throwing them high. He threw an awful pick. His
accuracy is really concerning. Now, obviously that moment in the
fourth quarter happened, but the other seven quarters have been
pretty concerning. This team's really good. They got players that
they're going to get back. Obviously they had some more injuries,
(07:36):
you know, leading into this game from last week, but
like their coaching staff's really good. Brian Flores is good.
We know O'Connell's good. But there comes to a point
where it's third and eight in your quarterback, whether it's
Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or JJ McCarthy, the out
route is open and you could either hit it or
you can't. Like there's a production based business, it's very
(07:58):
black and white, like there's not much middle ground, and
it's pretty evident, at least through two games, like he
is not comfortable doing that. Balls are just missing left
and right, which I just think I gave him a
ton of credit for mental toughness. He showed it last
week the moxie, but tonight there was just like I
don't need mental toughness, I just need you to complete
the fucking pass. And he couldn't do it like you
(08:20):
saw it by the end of the game. They have
an incredible home field environment. You could argue like the
best environments in football are really in college, like the
top three or four, right LSU. I mean, Tennessee looks
pretty elite. Penn State at nights, pretty awesome. Oregon. There's
a couple in the NFL that I would call collegiate
(08:41):
Kansas City, Buffalo, Seattle. When it's on. It's definitely Minnesota,
and they just were deflated as the game went on.
It's like, what are you supposed to do? You're keeping
your fingers crossed, You're rooting for this guy seems like
a great young guy, but it's like, we need something here, buddy,
and it's not like Atlanta was doing it. I'm a
huge Michael Pennix fan, and part of the reason I
(09:03):
love Michael Pennix is he used to just throw bombs.
It would just be in college he dropped back Rome McMillan, Polk.
He would just push the ball down the field. And
now you're watching him and listen, it's not he's just
running the plays there, Colin a lot of Dagon and Duncan.
Now luckily they got Bejon Robinson, who is clearly as
talented of a player as there is in the NFL.
(09:26):
I mean, he is a freak show. But like, that's
not really the most fun team to watch I've seen
two weeks now with Atlanta Falcons. If you had to rank, like,
you know, teams one through thirty two of who you
would want to consume, they would be near the bottom.
And I would have assumed after last week Minnesota would
have been itching its way back near the top. But
(09:48):
after watching it to night like they got a lot
of coaching to do now, I don't know what you
really coach up with a player that's just struggling to
hit basic routes. I mean they have you know, b
Jhon Robinson's clearly one of the most talented players, and
he's really tonight he showed like I am an elite player.
(10:08):
The Vikings have, pound for pound any position, one of,
if not the best player in the NFL in Justin
Jefferson and even collins Worth mentioned tonight like, listen, he's
a good guy, he's a great team player. But the
end of the day, wide receivers get frustrated when the
quarterback play is shitty, and tonight had to be a
night where it's like, what is happening? I mean, how
(10:31):
is this going on the defense? And this is where
like when a defense plays at a really high level
that eventually they can break when you don't get it done.
I thought this happened last week to the Bears. If
I saw any person being like, oh the defense let
him down, I think you're a yahoo. I think you
have no clue what you're talking about. The defense was
excellent for the Bears last week. By the end of
(10:52):
the game, the offense was so terrible that they just
ran out of gas. And tonight I felt like had
a moment like Minnesota's like what else can we do? Guys,
Brian floores in the unit's like, hey, can we get
a little help over here? And Justin Jefferson's gotta be like,
not my problem. I'm getting open. This kid doesn't know
where he's throwing it. The offensive line can't block Jordan
Mason's running his ass off, which he was still in
(11:13):
the Niners. He looks fantastic. But big picture after last week,
and this is this is the great part about the NFL.
We can only say can't overreact. No, we just literally
just react to the games. So last week you went, hey,
the way this game ended, I'm bullsh on Minnesota. Now
I go back to like, I don't know, I'm a
little concerned because the quarterback play is not trustworthy. So
(11:37):
even if they get a bunch of these guys back
from injury, there's no disputing their roster minus the quarterback
top to bottom is excellent, and once they get their
left tackle back, their offensive line should be better though
they lost their center tonight. Their skill positions are really good.
They get Jordan Addison back, They got a lot of
firepower defensively, Their scheme and coaching is as good as
any in the NFL. You know, if Turner who had
(11:59):
a made a play tonight, Now granted it was like
more of an effort play, but still like you just
get good front four five play right depending they bring
a lot of guys because Flores is a pretty aggressive coordinator.
Second year is solid, and you go there, this should
be one of the better teams in the NFL, But
you cannot be one of the better teams in modern
day football, Like there is no more such thing as
(12:22):
the eighty five Bears or the two thousand Ravens, right
that those teams are never going to exist. Where it's
like ahur quarterback was. You know, Jim McMahon's a famous guy,
but they were known for defense in a running game.
And I just think the days of a team just
like yeah, we just our quarterback didn't matter are done.
Same thing in college, if your quarterback play, your team
(12:43):
has to be elite. For your quarterback play to be average,
for your team to be good. But if your team's elite,
your quarterback play has to be above average, then you're good.
But you don't get by which is like, eh, quarterback
play was below average. And listen, this is the hard
part about I say this all the time about instituting
a young player on a team with high expectations, because
(13:04):
you don't get this nineteen ninety seven or nineteen ninety
two or even like two thousand and six. We get
to take a deep breath, We get to ease our
way in the Packers situation with Jordan Love and Aaron
Rodgers are complete outliers and they definitely don't happen anymore. Right, So,
if you're a young player, you play for as great
as Russell Wilson was today and he played his best game,
(13:24):
and what feels like in like a decade, like people
are not gonna want to see him for long. It's like,
well it might as well for losing games put in
the young player and the pressure from ownership, the impact
that the fans have on them, which you know kind
of seems its way down to the coaching staff and
the front office is very evident by the moves that
we see consistently in the NFL and JJ McCarthy, like,
(13:47):
the expectations for this team are to be good, and
it is really really difficult, especially even in their division.
Look how hard they like it took them to beat
the Chicago Bears, who clearly might be one of the
worst teams in the league. So I think, if you're
Kevin O'Connell, you got to stay the right things and
be positive. But man, it's a little concerning. And this
(14:08):
was always my concern with JJ McCarthy was obviously in
terms of intangible stuff, the metal, toughness, the moxie he
proved a week ago, like, he's got some shit to him.
So I'm not questioning any of the intangible stuff. His
teammates like him and stuff, which is awesome, but sometimes
we like spend a lot of time on that and
(14:28):
I'm guilty of that too. But on the field, tangibles
like accuracy, like just throwing from the pocket. Is he
comfortable doing that right? Like ultimately, Michael Pennix, well, I
think a lot of people if you're not a diehard
college football fan, if you're just watching Michael Pennock, you're
like middle coff. You like this guy, what's his deal?
He's barely throw him for like one hundred and forty yards,
(14:48):
Like this is the guy you thought was gonna be
a really good pro. Well see, yeah, his great attribute
is his deep ball. He is an elite deep ball
thrower and he doesn't throw deep balls with this team
because they don't have deep ball. You know, wide receivers.
They got Pits who is a tight end, but he's
a wide receiver running slants. They got h what's his name,
who's their other wide receiver number number five, who's a
(15:11):
big bodied wide receiver going over the middle running deep ends,
like is a physical Drake Drake London. So it's like
the body types they have are not Tyreek killing is prime.
If Tyrek Killing his prime for Michael Pennix, that would translate.
But when you look at this team, that's not really
the way it works. And like Zach Robinson, the offensive coordinator,
(15:35):
I think it's fair to say, like is he that good?
I don't know, but taking nothing away, big win for
the Falcons made JJ McCarthy look terrible, and uh yeah,
we got two one on one teams. I would say this,
I don't like the Falcons moving forward, Like I don't
think they're that good and I think Minnesota in theory
can be good, but their quarterback play leaves me greatly concerned.
(16:00):
Now that we got four more quarters, So we got
eight and like I said, there's one positive one and
the other seven it'd be Listen, sometimes you just get
off to a slow start. It's pro sports. It's really hard.
It happens in every sport. Steph Curry could start this
year with like seven straight games of poor shooting from
three point range, right, it happens. But when this is
(16:22):
the only evidence I have of you in the NFL,
like I got eight quarters and most of it's really bad,
it's hard to not be concerned, especially when you go
you got really good skill around him. So I just
think that's the headline. It's like, is JJ McCarthy any good?
Like that's what that was what I wrote down like
midway through the fourth quarter. I do not have the
answer to that. And right now, if you're a betting man,
(16:44):
you'd have to go like, we got some problems, and
I would imagine Minnesota fans are are a little worried.
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(18:22):
let's dive into the Bears because I saw this. I
saw this tweet that I thought was fascinating because obviously
the Bears got ruined the night against or earlier today.
It's been a long day. It's been a long really
a couple of weeks here football, but we got to
get back in the dialed in here. I think the
(18:44):
expectations for the Bears consistently have been really off. Right.
Last year, people were picking them to like compete for
the NFC Championship. It's like, what are we talking about?
And then this year, because they got Ben Johnson, a
lot of people are like, Okay, well, I'm not gonna
get ahead of my but they're gonna make the playoffs. Like, no, guys,
they're the Chicago Bears. And last week the Lions right
(19:08):
played an awful game against Green Bay, and my initial
thought was like, listen, I think green Bay is pretty good.
Clearly they're even better than we thought. And then we
saw them on Thursday night, like, no, green Bay's elite.
This might be the best defense in the league. And
obviously offensively they're awesome. They had a lot, a lot
of I would say, like revenge for them against the Lions.
(19:32):
That was a bigger game for the Packers week one
than it was the Lions. Lions swept them both times
last year. They went oh into against them, but they
were also terrible in their division. So they open up
at home at Lambeau. It was a massive game for
Green Bay and they came out swinging and obviously they
parlayed it again Thursday night. They looked fantastic, but it
was like are the Lions bad. It's like, and listen,
(19:54):
you got two new coordinators. You never quite know, but
watching them to day, it's like, no, they it's you know,
bringing some guys along with the offensive line. But they
still got elite players at countless positions. Brian Branch, Aiden Hutchinson, Sewell,
Saint Brown, Golf, Laporta Gibbs. Oh yeah, Jamison Williams. The
(20:16):
guy runs like a four to one forty. Like they
got high end skill. And here's the other thing. In
twenty twenty five, this is not the Lions I grew
up on. They had Barry Sanders and nothing really else.
And the Lions throughout the entire Internet era were a
poverty franchise. They just always lost. I mean, they have
been kind of the running joke for just poorly run franchises,
(20:39):
not in the NFL but all of sports. Well that
changed a couple of years ago. Why they got a
high level GM and an impressive head coach. But they
are starting to pick really good players. Like you look
at their roster. It's not perfect, no one's comparing them
to like the Seven Pats, not claiming they're the best
roster of all time, but they have really, really impactful
(21:02):
players at countless positions on both sides of the ball.
They are a well put together organization. And then I
look at the Bears, and this tweet is, you know,
they get Ben Johnson, but they still got the same GM.
They still got Ryan Poles, who somehow, after the embarrassment
of the last couple of years, got a contract extension.
(21:23):
And Eric Lambert who put out that Ryan Poles has
now drafted thirty four players and twenty six of them
have played more than one season. None have made the
Pro Bowl. He is the only GM in franchise history
to have that honor. At the moment, he's three and
seventeen against the NFC North and he's fifteen and thirty
(21:46):
eight overall. He has objectively been a horrendous general manager. Now,
I would say this, the mccaskeys are not a good
ownership group. They feel, I don't know, the archaic, something
of the past and have really struggled with the modernization
of the National Football League. Look at Kevin Warren. Who
(22:09):
know a few people that are in Big ten circles.
He was kind of a laughingstock when it came to
running the Big Ten. They couldn't wait once he left
to the I mean depending on who you talk to,
did he kind of get forced out? However, no one
was sad to see him go. But because of they
are a weak ownership. He basically runs the entire franchise.
(22:30):
The head coach, the GM. They answer to him, which
makes some sense. In Green Bay when you got Murphy
or ed Policy and those guys have a lot of juice,
the owner doesn't exist. Well. The mccaskeys have owned the
family forever, Yet this guy can come right in. It
shows you everything you need to know about this operation.
It's pretty low level. But at the end of the day,
(22:52):
he's not picking the players and he's not running the place.
And I said this last year, and I will reiterate
this after the Art of That came out. Just because
Caleb Williams had a ton of media hype doesn't mean
that should impact him. Do you know the amount of scouts,
GMS college directors I talk to that say when they
(23:17):
watch games on TV, they try to turn down the
sound because they don't want to hear the commentators talking
about certain stuff because a lot of times it's just
about hype. It's just about stuff that you and I
would be talking about. You know why, because that's not
their job. Hype in football means nothing. You could be
the greatest prospect of all time, that's all we heard
(23:37):
about arch Manning, and then eventually you gotta play, so
that hype is meaningless. Once we see you play games,
You're either good or you're not. You either have talent
or you don't. You either are improving or you're getting worse.
And I'm not trying to shit on arch Manning. Maybe
his shoulders really hurt, but every time I watch him
play I go, I just don't see a very good
(23:58):
football player, and I hope shoulder shirt. It's that difficult
to watch him throw the ball. And when I watched
the Bears, this is like hype hype pipe, Caleb hype
hype pipe. Even though he had won the Heisman Trophy,
it felt like a no brainer from the outside noise
outside of football to take Caleb Williams. If you would
(24:18):
have tweeted a year ago leading into the draft of like,
I don't think Caleb Williams is gonna be a good
NFL player, the ratio of people on the Internet shitting
on your take would have basically been one hundred percent.
You would have been called the village fucking idiot. You
know nothing about football, don't quit your Jay job, stop
(24:41):
ever commenting having a thought or an opinion on the sport.
Yet a year later, universally we all go the guy
stinks he can't play well. You know whose job it
is to not worry about Twitter ratios or what people
are gonna say online. It's the general manager. I ever
forget because I've known him for a while and I
(25:02):
remember watching the reaction to Adam Peters bring everyone to
top golf it was like, what is he doing? How
could he be doing this? And I would imagine I
have never asked him this. He probably had pretty high
thoughts of Jaden Daniels before he did the top Golf experiment.
But it's his job to try to remove his biases
(25:23):
and the way he's leaning to just let the process
play out. So why would you not do your due
diligence on every single person? And he did that and
he ended up getting Jayden Daniels, but he didn't just go,
you know what, I know for a fact in February
in March that Jaden Daniels the best player. I don't
care what anyone thinks, and I'm doing it. And it
(25:45):
was easy to do that with Caleb because universally on
the Internet and the fan base, everyone's going to give
you a thumbs up. Yet now everyone's giving you a
thumbs down because the guy can't play. But you didn't
do any due diligence on anyone else. And I'm not
even factoring in Tyler Dunn's article about the way the
meetings went. I'm just because again that's obviously coaches talking.
(26:08):
There's a lot of different, you know, irons in the
fire a lot of different variables of opinions. It is
an objective fact that he brought one quarterback in during
the draft process, which is insane and clearly and I
saw someone I don't want to. I apologize for not
giving credit on this because this is not my take.
(26:29):
I'm stealing this on the internet. That basically Ben Johnson
is a director. If he was a movie director, he
not only writes out the script, but he directs that
script perfectly when the camera is on. He does not
want you, like Leonardo DiCaprio, whoever the actor may be,
to ad lib. He wants you to do exactly what
(26:52):
is on the paper for your lines. And Caleb Williams
doesn't memorize the lines. He just ad libs. And sometimes
it's really good, but most of the time it's not.
And meshing those two things together will never work. And
it clearly is not working. And I didn't think it
was gonna work. It's way worse than I thought. But
(27:14):
it's not even all Caleb Ben Johnson. It starts at
the top, Ryan Poles, the organization. I mean, there's just
they are an embarrassment. They really are. And if I
hear one more time about all this talent, Like I'm
watching them. The Lions have a lot of talent, and
they beat the shit out of these guys. It honestly
(27:34):
wasn't even a fair fight. Game was kind of close
for a minute until it wasn't. And I just think
there's a rot, there's a negativity. There's obviously an intensity
because it's Chicago, but I like, it's gonna be hard
to overcome for Ben Johnson, even if he picks his
quarterback one day. The situation that is that he signed
(27:59):
up for and people have DM me, you know it,
is there a chance that he regrets the decision a
year ago? And I've said over and over I don't
know the guy personally, but talking to people that knew
him personally felt that he was just a little on
the fence about how ready he was a year ago.
But you can't tell me. He lays in his bed,
(28:20):
which I would imagine he's not sleeping much because of
what just has been transpiring these last couple of weeks,
and doesn't think, you know, even if I wasn't ready,
I got news for you. Most human beings aren't ready
when they get big opportunities, right, Sometimes you just get
thrown into the deep end, and you just kind of
got to learn to swim. I would say most people
(28:41):
in any competitive industry, despite how much experience may be
needed for that spot, probably have a little less than ideal,
especially younger people in coaching. That he can't regret the
decision that he made by shunning the Washington Commanders and
coaching Jayden Daniels and working with Adam Peters and Josh Harris,
(29:02):
an organization that is just dramatically more buttoned up than
this shit show in Chicago. The Dallas Giants game, what
a what a fun experience? You know, sometimes you do
this long enough, you kind of get jaded and can
get nagative sometimes on given days, like all these games
are terrible. I was even telling myself that this morning.
It's like, ah, that's kind of a boring morning. This
(29:23):
isn't great. Hell, I was saying that definitely on Saturday,
like this is not that fun. And then that game
breaks out and just a little throwback, and I'm guilty
of this. Like I've talked a lot of shit about
Russ Wilson. I think he's kind of weird, and obviously
he's not a very good player anymore. Until today, and
he was just throwing bombs and they were catching bombs,
(29:44):
and they were scoring points left and right. I don't
care if Dallas couldn't cover me and you. It was
enjoyable to watch Russ just sling that pill as high
as humanly possible in the air and have it land
in Malik Neighbors's hands and score touch like that was
really really fun. But when Dallas tied up the game.
You know, one thing I learned from a schematic standpoint
(30:08):
that I will never forget is I work with Lewis Riddick,
who's now on ESPN, and Lewis when he was a player,
Lewis was a really good college player at Pitt and
then you know, played in the NFL for I think
six or seven years. Well for a couple of those
years he played in Cleveland and Nick Saban was the
defensive coordinator and Bill Belichick was the defensive He was
(30:30):
a head coach, and he used to hammer this home
because he was taught this back then. Is listen, in
zone defense, right, you're not just covering a man, You're
covering space. So in football, there are specific landmarks if
you are a linebacker and you're in a zone defense
against especially in a situation where they are going to
pass the ball down the field, you get a certain
(30:52):
amount of depth and you get to a spot on
the field ten yards back, three yards over, whatever it
may be given that specific defense. And on the play
that Dak Prescott hit Ferguson to get them into field
goal range, which somehow for this kicker is like the
fifty yard line, there was a lying backer in the
middle of the field and he probably did exactly what
(31:13):
the defensive coordinator told him to be seven steps back,
two steps over. Be a player. Well, it's like that's
being a robot. Sometimes in football you gotta go throw
back to like when you were at recess or when
you were in high school, and just play the game.
You know that you just sitting there killing turf is
(31:34):
completely worthless, and there is a tight end a couple
yards to your left. Do you know what you might
want to do? Maybe leave your spot, show some instincts
and just make a play Instead, everyone just dropped to
their landmarks, stood there like this, and Ferguson caught the
ball and landed like the forty eight or forty nine
yard line, and it gave them and put them in
(31:56):
position to kick a game winning field goal that would
have been good for like eighty yards. But to me, defensively,
I'm as like as willing as anyone to just completely
shit on coaches first over the players. That's on the player.
Like at the end of the day, there gets to
a point, especially situational football, where it's like you gotta
(32:19):
have some basic understanding of like I probably need to
cheat over a yard or two and just use some
of my instincts in a game I've probably been playing
since I was six, seven, eight years old, even well
before PATS. When you're just running around, there has to
be some sort of feel, and I thought that is
where the game was lost. Obviously there was a lot
(32:42):
of craziness after that. In overtime. Both teams got the
ball I felt like ten times each, But that play
is like, how does that happen? And I think everyone's
going to crush the defensive coordinator. There are moments in
a game on defense when you're talking about space where
the guy has to just make a play or just
put himself in a position to make a play. If
(33:04):
I'm just standing there because we have gone over this
since the offseason or for the last couple of years,
OTA's training camp the season, OTA's training camp the season.
This is where I'm supposed to be. I know I
won't get in trouble. I don't know until the guy
is right next to you catching the ball and you're
just standing there. It was pretty embarrassing. And then obviously
(33:25):
I do think it's pretty crazy that throughout most of
my life, I feel like a fifty yard field goal,
maybe up to fifty five was viewed as a really
really long field goal. I feel like, consistently, and maybe
stats aren't on my side, we have seen guys consistently
hit field goals from well into the high fifties and
(33:48):
into the early sixties, and a lot of times when
they make these, either game winners or game tires, from
sixty yards or fifty seven yards, it feels like they
have six seven, eight yards to spare. I mean, part
of the powerful thing about the Cowboys game time kick
is it probably would have been good. I saw some
people putting seventy maybe seventy five yards. It's crazy how
(34:11):
strong the guy's leg were. It had like first an
initial fade, then a hook, like it had like six
different bullflights in the air because it had so far
to travel, one of the more just crazier kicks. Here's
the thing, too, is when they got him into quote
unquote his range, I think sixty four yards, there's not
(34:32):
a soul that thought he was gonna miss it, and
then he just drilled it. It was incredible to watch
and listen. You know, Brian Schottenneimer easy guy to make
fun of coming into the season, He had no business
being the job. No one else would have hired him,
and all those things are true. No one else was
gonna hire Bridon Schottenneimer to be their offensive coordinator, let
alone their head coach. But I'd say through two weeks
(34:53):
he's the play caller. The offense looks really good, looks
really explosive. George Pickens is not an easy guy to coach. Right.
Some balls he attacks, some balls he just watches. Sometimes
he blocks, sometimes he doesn't. But he's making a lot
of plays for him He's listen, jerrys are some credit
on this one too. It's only two weeks. We got
a long way to go, but he's he's made a
(35:16):
lot of plays and had a huge influence on just
balancing out this offense. Because one thing when he's got
Ceedee Lamb, who's an excellent player. If you don't have
anyone else, like any team you know worth their salt.
Could you know Georgia could put together a defense to
slow down one NFL wide receiver. Well, if I got
two guys, I can only cheat so much. And clearly
(35:38):
Brian Schottenheimer and Dak Prescott are doing a really good
job of slinging that pill around. I think the Bengals
are done their next four games Area, Denver, Lions, Green Bay.
(36:03):
You know by all reports that Joe Burrow has a
severe case. Obviously there are different cases of turf toe.
Whatever Brock Purdy has is like two to five weeks.
And you know, there were some reports today that Perdy
are probably gonna miss next week as well. But I
would imagine that I'd be a little stunned if Perdy's
not back the week after that. But his the severity
(36:25):
of his turf toe is not Burroughs, and Burrow's turf
toe is the one where you need surgery potentially. Now
he's trying to get second opinions. But if he gets
surgery and it's a three plus month situation, like his
season's over, the Bengals season is over, and they invested.
They paid t Higgins. Obviously they figured out financially how
(36:50):
to keep Tray around and not trade him all because
of Joe Burrow and you remove him. And I told
Coward this, I never thought in a million years Jake
Browning would be make one year in the NFL. I
was stunned when he made it through a training camp
and was kept on on practice squads. He's obviously a
(37:10):
serviceable player. He has improved as much as any human
being from college to where he's at now as I've
ever seen. I thought he was a fringe college starter.
I know he won a lot of games in college.
I always thought it was crazy that he could win
games in college. He was unloaded teams, good coaching. But
he's a different player now. But the drop off from
Joe Burrow to Jake Browning is just is pretty big.
(37:34):
And we've seen this before. When Burrow gets hurt, they
fall apart. There's just you can't lose one of the
best players in the league. I mean, think about the
start of the season. We don't think their defense is
very good, and we were like, well, if Burke could
have a similar season to last year and throw forty three,
forty four, forty five touchdowns, maybe they could compete to
(37:57):
be the seventh seed. Well, that's gone running through whatever
three interceptions day now, granted he threw two touchdowns, he
also had the game winning touchdown. So they got Jamar
Chase T Higgins. I mean, they got weapons. But your
season ends before it even starts. I can't even imagine
being a Bengal fan if it does become official this
week that he's got to get the surgery and he's
(38:20):
out for three months aka the year. Your season just ends.
And that's the brutal part about football is other positions
can go down. You could have offensive lineman break a leg,
you could have your stud pass rusher tearor his ACL
but your season doesn't end the moment your quarterback goes down,
(38:41):
especially when it's one of the best quarterbacks in the league.
We all know the outcome. It's over and they have
no chance. If Burrow has to which I don't think.
People are just like I don't see how he avoids it.
We saw as he was walking off the field the
clip kind of went viral as he was walking semi
normal and then all of a sudden I would imagine
(39:01):
the pain in his foot. He could barely walk and
he had to basically be escorted back in the locker room.
And I saw someone saying, don't they have a little
John Deer? Don't they have the little the cart where
you put injured players in. Wouldn't you want to buy
a cart? Which I don't know. My guess is twenty
(39:22):
grand max for a guy that you just gave a
I think like three hundred million dollars to instead of
making him put weight on his turf toe. But of
course they're cheap, and they're offensive line. You know, you
invest in these wide receivers, you invest in pass rushers,
which I'm not against, but when you can't block for
(39:44):
a quarterback who is a pocket quarterback, you don't. This
is what do you think is going to be the
outcome here? And Yeah, sad day to be a Bengal fan.
Not much else that hasn't been said about the Chiefs
for zero to two, I think for the first time
to twenty fourteen, which was Andy's second year in the league,
(40:06):
for the Chiefs, I don't know. Man, I thought they
threw the kitchen sink at him. That's as good as
they can play given this team. Their defense was awesome.
They were, you know, controlling Jalen Hurts. The passing game
for the Eagles was nothing. Mahomes was making some plays
and I thought, if they score a touchdown on that
(40:27):
drive that goes off Travis Kelsey's hands, I thought they
were gonna win the game. And it was like they
were gonna pull this thing. It was gonna be ugly,
it was gonna be like, this is championship hert this
is championship character. And it just bounced right off Kelsey's hands,
and that was the game. Like, honestly, it could have
(40:47):
even ended harder if if the left tackle can't run
somehow like a linebacker and tackled the dB down the sideline.
But your margin, Ferrera, when you play in these crazy
close games and they are playing in games that look
especially today, that look exactly like last year, you're gonna
lose some of them. And they won them all last
year and they lost it today. But I don't know
(41:11):
what they're supposed to do. Worthy is not healthy. Where
she Rice is suspended like that is their explosion on offense. Hollywood.
Brown actually is making some plays, and I think the
tough part about today is I thought Travis looked pretty good.
He had the sweet play where he stiff armed Dejeene.
He made a couple other huge plays on third down.
(41:32):
I think one was even on was it fourth down?
Where he ran like a route that had three different breaks.
He like did an out route, an in route, or
he ran in, he ran out and it's like six
different jukes. It's like Allen Iverson crossed you over and
then crossed you over again. But that play and listen,
everyone was tweeting like he's washed. It's like, I don't know,
(41:53):
they were just the timing was a little off. But
that was a devastating moment for the Chiefs and they
got lucky that Denver lost. That someone has to lose tomorrow.
Do you know what's crazy? Is there as a decent
chance I mean the Raiders are at home, that the
Raiders are in first place and the Chiefs are in
(42:15):
last place. I bet there's a decent chance that that
has not happened at any point since Andy Reid has
been in Kansas City. Now, the Raiders haven't been in
first place in general very often, but probably the one
year with Derek Carr where he broke his ankle. They
had a really good team and they were competing to
(42:35):
win the division that year. But overall they have they've
been really bad. And if they go to it's early.
But the Raiders have a chance to go to to
zero and have a two game lead on the Kansasity Chiefs.
I want out writing Kansas City off, but this was
inevitable that they're just gonna have a season that some
of these breaks aren't going to go their way and
(42:57):
maybe they go ten and seven. Obviously defensively they're still
really good. Physically, that game was just was brutal. I mean,
guys were getting crushed. That was a game on the
line of scrimmage, like you better buckle your chin strap
and let's face it, Like the elephant in the room
is Eagles are two and zero. Their passing game does
not look good. And I know how Philly works. I've
(43:19):
been there. I follow the team really closely ever since
I've left. It's an intense environment. Now you go on
the road, you beat a team that has won the
AFC five in the last six years. That's a good win.
You don't apologize and like your stats should have been better.
The clip going viral of Chris Jones and saying you
didn't even have one hundred yards and Jalen saying we
(43:41):
won the game. And this is the thing I respect
about Jalen is like sometimes he just finds a way.
He had to play today on an all out blitz
and Spags brings it. I mean, he always has kind
of what he's known for, where Jalen just gets destroyed
and waited till the last possible second. The difference of
you know, Jalen in theory should be this scrambling quarterback.
(44:01):
You watch a guy like Caleb, He's always taking off
for his life. Jalen will sit in there, throw this
great go route in a one on one situation against
what I thought was like a pro Bowl level guy
against McDuffie who doesn't even look DeVante Smith makes a
great play and that was that felt like a dagger
at that moment. But Jalen stats do not look great.
And listen, he's not gonna be on a weekend week
(44:22):
out basis, you know, slinging that thing like he's Josh
Allen or Lamar Jackson. He's not gonna put up those
type stats. He did no chance. Like the game, Herbert
had a week ago. That's not really Jalen's game, but
he does make some winning plays Throughoute that you kind
of like, gotta be a little football nerdy, but he
deserves some respect, you know. And I think the Eagles,
(44:43):
the way they're built, their physicality, Uh, defensively, they're just
gonna be Will coached with Fangio. Obviously, Saquon busts some
big runs as the game went. Offensive line, they're just
so big and physical. Clearly on the one Tush push,
they had a couple of guys jump off sides. I've
said this over and over. I hate the to pH.
I fucking hate it. Not because I don't think they
(45:04):
should be able to do it. It's in the rules.
Any team could do it, and you see teams in
college and definitely in the pros kind of try. But
the thing that makes the Eagles so strong is their
quarterbacks so powerful. Most quarterbacks are a little higher, they don't
get as low. They just don't have the push. And
the thing that separates the Eagles isn't just their powerful,
good offensive line. It's their quarterback can squat like all
(45:27):
of Kansas City and that that makes that play for them.
But it is a boring play to watch because if
they go into it on third and one, even if
you're able to somewhat neutralize it once, it never fails
two times in a row. It feels like an inevitability
in a sport that is completely not inevitable. I mean,
it's a sport that on any given moment, anything can
(45:51):
happen in every game, every player. You just never know.
A guy can throw a pick, I got a trip,
I gotta get a first down, I got a bus eighty.
With that play, you just feels like, no the outcome,
that's my issue with the play. But they do it,
and they do it to perfection. And even Brady, who
I think is so much better than last year, like
dramatically better. I mean dramatically better. Honestly, I thought he
(46:14):
was borderline unlistenable last year. I'm not calling him John
Madden yet, but he's He's just solid, like it was
an easy listen. I think he's relaxed a lot, maybe
just which is understandable. He's got a year under his belt,
just kind of comfortable in the role, and just I
thought this is a much easier listen in twenty twenty five.
(46:35):
So it shose you you know, you get get ten years,
three hundred and seventy five million dollars. It might take
you a year, but he'd be good at it. And
we'll end on this. In the NFL, you know, people
do power rankings and depending on what show or podcasts
you listen to, people ranked teams. None of that actually
means anything, right, you either make the playoffs or you
(46:58):
don't make the playoffs. You either are the one seed
if you win the division, or the two or three
or four. Your record determines where you go. And it's
very very basic, how you make the playoffs, how you
win the division? Like it's very black and white. Yet
in college it's always been people vote, And we got
these different rankings the AP, the coach's poll that one
(47:20):
chick went viral last week. They basically said, like, I
don't even give a shit. I just throw some teams.
I know that other people will balance it out. I
was thinking, like, why are we even doing polls? How
does this exist? I get because it's still a subjective
formula to create the playoffs in college? Why do we
(47:40):
do preseason polls anymore? With the transfer portal, we have
no clue who's good and who's bad in terms of like,
we know that Clemson is not going to go zero
to twelve, you would think, But last year I saw
Florida State, who the previous year had won thirteen games,
and if it wasn't for their quarterback snapping his leg
would have been in the final four, and who knows,
(48:01):
could have won the national championship. The following year won
two games, and everyone like, Clem's gonna be really good.
Clem's gonna be really good. What if they're not. It
happens in the NFL all the time, like this team's
gonna be good or maybe not. We do not need
preseason rankings because that really jades the way like in
football we think the Vikings are gonna be good. I
(48:22):
think they're gonna be good. But if you told me, hey,
JJ's debacle and they go seven and ten, it's not unrealistic.
And in college football, these preseason rankings dictate the way
we look at these teams like Notre Dame. They've played
Miami in Texas, A and M. Miami could be the
best team in the country and A and M worst case,
(48:44):
probably winning nine games and if it goes perfectly for him,
maybe they'd go ten and two, eleven and one. I mean,
if you told me they were in the SEC championship game,
wouldn't be that surprised. But coming into the seasons, like, hey,
they were in the National championship last year, be there again? Why?
I don't know. I mean they lost their quarterback, they
lost other players of the draft. They have a bunch
(49:04):
of young players coming up the pipe. Maybe they're ready
to go, maybe they're not. You just never know. We
saw this with Texas and arch manding. It's like, hey,
Texas completely loaded except the quarterback, who might not be good.
And now with twelve teams, I just think preseason rankings,
we should just throw them in the trash. They should
(49:24):
not exist. You could tell me after September maybe we
could do, you know, top twenty five. But even then,
the last couple weeks. You know what I did yesterday,
I was like, you know what, I'm gonna go play golf.
Why because I looked around and it's just a bunch
of big time teams playing nobody's It's like, this is
a terrible product. That there were two good games. I
(49:45):
thought that, like you couldn't miss Georgia Tennessee and Notre
Dame Texas, A and M, and it was a lot
of Texas first Utah. It's like, how are we still
playing these games? How do these games still exist? They're unwatchable?
How am I suppose to even if you are kicking
the Indiana who made the playoffs last year, just played
(50:06):
Indiana State, the school Larry Bird went to beat him
seventy three to nothing. What am I supposed to make
of that game? What's more impressive Indiana winning that game
or Notre Dame losing at home to text A and M.
I think we all know, like if Notre Dame played
Indiana ten times, I think Notre Dame would beat them
nine times. But we gotta do these preseason rankings and
(50:28):
they're higher, they're lower. It's like, I just think we
gotta find a better way to not go into the
season with a bias. And there's no way to get
around that. When you have a four in front of
your name or a twenty in front of your name,
it's like you actually might if you're the twenty, you
could be the fifteen, Like Miami, Miami could be good.
(50:48):
What if Miami's just the best team in the league,
but they had a preseason ranking that kind of jades
the way you think about them. But if there are
no preseason rankings, you'd be like, God, Miami the best
team in the league, in the country, right. I said
this about the Packers coming in people, I kind of
like the Packers. Then they got Micah, you'd been like, God,
they're They're definitely one of the six, seven, eight best teams.
After two weeks, you'd be like, they're the number one
team in the country. But we don't do that in
(51:09):
the NFL. You know why, kids doesn't fucking matter. We
got three or four more months of football. Same thing
with college football. It's September fourteenth. We got a long
way to go. I just think these top twenty fives.
I get it. It's fun. It leads to debate. Everyone's
arguing over it. Mean nothing right now, mean literally nothing. Audios,
good night, Talk to everyone soon. The volume
The volume. What is going on everybody? John, It'll got
three Now podcast? How are you doing? Hopefully better than
(00:22):
JJ McCarthy, who had a big week because he had
a baby, but then had an awful Sunday night game.
He was atrocious at home against Atlanta, who gets a
big win even though Michael Pennocks and their offense didn't
score many points. The Atlanta Falcons win twenty two to six.
And we go live on our YouTube page after Thursday night,
(00:43):
Sunday night, and Monday night. So make sure you subscribe
because we're going live and that's we'll play what I
just did and uh yeah, some other stuff that happened. Obviously,
you know, Joe Burrow has severe turf toe. He might
be out basically the whole season. Not ideal if you're
a Bengals fan, given that your season would be over.
And yeah, Chiefs are zeroing to the Cowboys Giants plage,
(01:07):
I don't know, one of the most entertaining ending of
a game you'll ever see. The fourth quarter of the overtime.
It was just it was it was fantastic. There's no
other way to say it. And then the Bears, I mean,
it's full of the franchise time. I don't know about that,
(01:28):
but they got thoroughly embarrassed by the Detroit Lions. And yeah,
so the game plan will be we have podcasts all
week of a podcast after the games tomorrow doubleheader, which
I don't love, but you know, what are you gonna
do complain about two football games? Could be worse? Could
we have none? And we'll have a podcast out as
(01:49):
well as a mail bag on there as well, So
at John Middlecoff, fire in those dms to get your
questions answered here on the show. And other than that,
you guys know the drills. So before we dive in,
here's what I gotta say. You guys know, my friends,
my partners in the official ticketing app of this podcast,
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(02:10):
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Let's dive in to what we just witnessed because that
(02:53):
was terrible. I mean that that was an awful Sunday
night game. Mike Tarico had a little subtle flex when
he was talking about Bijon Robinson, who wanted to be
known as Bijon, and then it was Bijon is like,
what's going on? Just call him by the name that
everyone's been calling him. He's like, Hey, twenty million people
watch this game, right, It's the number one television show
(03:14):
in America, Sunday Night Football, and we just witnessed field
goal after field goal after field goal. Now listen. Last
week was impressive because JJ McCarthy had never played an
NFL game. He was on the road against the division
rival and had played like complete you know what through
three quarters. I mean it not only looked awful, every
(03:37):
single human alive was thinking, what are they going to
do a quarterback? Would they trade for Kirk Cousins? Who
is even available? This is not gonna be a functional player.
And then he goes on in the fourth quarter. He
throws for a couple of touchdowns, he runs for a touchdown,
and it's just awesome, like the heartbeat of the team,
and was just making throws, was making plays like it
(03:59):
looked like a high level quarterback play. And then you
get a home game. Now, listen, this week, I'm not
giving the guy a pass, but I've never had a baby,
got one coming here in a couple months. Probably threw
off his week a little bit, but still the expectations
played at home, Skull Like, my expectations were pretty high. Now,
was I expecting Jared Goff five touchdowns? No? But did
(04:20):
I think I would get some version of not the
guy we saw early in the Bears game, and just
the capable player, a guy that could distribute the ball,
maybe throw a touchdown or two and lead Minnesota to
I don't want to say an easy wins. The NFL.
But I expected Minnesota win because I expected JJ McCarthy
to build off what we just witnessed, and it was
the opposite. He was atrocious. I mean he was terrible.
(04:42):
We have now eight quarters of film and a body
of work and evidence on JJ McCarthy, and seven of
those he has been one of the worst quarterbacks in
the NFL, like legitimately terrible, and tonight he had multiple
spots to fite how bad he was playing. Again to
(05:02):
just kind of flip the switch. He skipped one of
Jefferson on a long third down they had to punt.
He had nailer that clearly was a scheme played by
Kevin O'Connell against the slot corner wide open, and as
Collins were said, just put a little air under it.
He tried to throw like a rope and he overthrew
him by five six yards. It wasn't even close. And
(05:24):
then every single time you're like, okay, this is his moment.
Now sometimes he's getting peppered his backup left tackles in
there school who comes from the forty nine ers, who's
a not a good player. But the reality is, and
I'm guilty of this too, is I nitpicked these backups.
The drop off in the NFL with offensive linemen from
starters to backups is as wide as the Grand Canyon.
(05:46):
There is not a position in the NFL where you
go from starter to backup where the gap is wider
right now than offensive lineman, partly because the supply and
demand guys coming into this league has come at like
a outweighed version of Defensive linemen have been flowing into
this league the last five or six years, and offensive
(06:07):
linemen simply have not. So when you get these guys,
you gotta make quick decisions. You need your coach to
scheme around it. And anytime you put these guys in
a one on one situation, your quarterback is gonna be
compromised and he's gonna have to play smart and clearly,
JJ it felt like it again was just swimming a
little bit, and I think they tried to run the ball,
they tried to settle them down. But the NFL, like
(06:30):
just football in general and college, two comes down to
a couple of big spots, and it's usually third and long,
and third and long in the NFL is like third
and seven, third and eight, third nine doesn't have to
be like third and twenty. It's a passing situation where
you have to drop back and there's a decent chance
even if you have a Justin Jefferson, he might get
double covered. So you're gonna have to work through your progressions.
(06:51):
There's gonna be shit flying around you because you're gonna
have a couple offensive linemen in the game that probably
aren't that good. They're gonna be a pass rush. You're
gonna have to slide and you're gonna need to make
some pass especially when you do get some protection and
you can step in the throw. You got to hit
it like one hundred percent of the time. This is
not like, this is the NFL and that's the reality.
And tonight JJ was atrocious, Like it felt like he
(07:14):
had no control over the ball. He's throwing them low,
he's throwing them high. He threw an awful pick. His
accuracy is really concerning. Now, obviously that moment in the
fourth quarter happened, but the other seven quarters have been
pretty concerning. This team's really good. They got players that
they're going to get back. Obviously they had some more injuries,
(07:36):
you know, leading into this game from last week, but
like their coaching staff's really good. Brian Flores is good.
We know O'Connell's good. But there comes to a point
where it's third and eight in your quarterback, whether it's
Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or JJ McCarthy, the out
route is open and you could either hit it or
you can't. Like there's a production based business, it's very
(07:58):
black and white, like there's not much middle ground, and
it's pretty evident, at least through two games, like he
is not comfortable doing that. Balls are just missing left
and right, which I just think I gave him a
ton of credit for mental toughness. He showed it last
week the moxie, but tonight there was just like I
don't need mental toughness, I just need you to complete
the fucking pass. And he couldn't do it like you
(08:20):
saw it by the end of the game. They have
an incredible home field environment. You could argue like the
best environments in football are really in college, like the
top three or four, right LSU. I mean, Tennessee looks
pretty elite. Penn State at nights, pretty awesome. Oregon. There's
a couple in the NFL that I would call collegiate
(08:41):
Kansas City, Buffalo, Seattle. When it's on. It's definitely Minnesota,
and they just were deflated as the game went on.
It's like, what are you supposed to do? You're keeping
your fingers crossed, You're rooting for this guy seems like
a great young guy, but it's like, we need something here, buddy,
and it's not like Atlanta was doing it. I'm a
huge Michael Pennix fan, and part of the reason I
(09:03):
love Michael Pennix is he used to just throw bombs.
It would just be in college he dropped back Rome McMillan, Polk.
He would just push the ball down the field. And
now you're watching him and listen, it's not he's just
running the plays there, Colin a lot of Dagon and Duncan.
Now luckily they got Bejon Robinson, who is clearly as
talented of a player as there is in the NFL.
(09:26):
I mean, he is a freak show. But like, that's
not really the most fun team to watch I've seen
two weeks now with Atlanta Falcons. If you had to rank, like,
you know, teams one through thirty two of who you
would want to consume, they would be near the bottom.
And I would have assumed after last week Minnesota would
have been itching its way back near the top. But
(09:48):
after watching it to night like they got a lot
of coaching to do now, I don't know what you
really coach up with a player that's just struggling to
hit basic routes. I mean they have you know, b
Jhon Robinson's clearly one of the most talented players, and
he's really tonight he showed like I am an elite player.
(10:08):
The Vikings have, pound for pound any position, one of,
if not the best player in the NFL in Justin
Jefferson and even collins Worth mentioned tonight like, listen, he's
a good guy, he's a great team player. But the
end of the day, wide receivers get frustrated when the
quarterback play is shitty, and tonight had to be a
night where it's like, what is happening? I mean, how
(10:31):
is this going on the defense? And this is where
like when a defense plays at a really high level
that eventually they can break when you don't get it done.
I thought this happened last week to the Bears. If
I saw any person being like, oh the defense let
him down, I think you're a yahoo. I think you
have no clue what you're talking about. The defense was
excellent for the Bears last week. By the end of
(10:52):
the game, the offense was so terrible that they just
ran out of gas. And tonight I felt like had
a moment like Minnesota's like what else can we do? Guys,
Brian floores in the unit's like, hey, can we get
a little help over here? And Justin Jefferson's gotta be like,
not my problem. I'm getting open. This kid doesn't know
where he's throwing it. The offensive line can't block Jordan
Mason's running his ass off, which he was still in
(11:13):
the Niners. He looks fantastic. But big picture after last week,
and this is this is the great part about the NFL.
We can only say can't overreact. No, we just literally
just react to the games. So last week you went, hey,
the way this game ended, I'm bullsh on Minnesota. Now
I go back to like, I don't know, I'm a
little concerned because the quarterback play is not trustworthy. So
(11:37):
even if they get a bunch of these guys back
from injury, there's no disputing their roster minus the quarterback
top to bottom is excellent, and once they get their
left tackle back, their offensive line should be better though
they lost their center tonight. Their skill positions are really good.
They get Jordan Addison back, They got a lot of
firepower defensively, Their scheme and coaching is as good as
any in the NFL. You know, if Turner who had
(11:59):
a made a play tonight, Now granted it was like
more of an effort play, but still like you just
get good front four five play right depending they bring
a lot of guys because Flores is a pretty aggressive coordinator.
Second year is solid, and you go there, this should
be one of the better teams in the NFL, But
you cannot be one of the better teams in modern
day football, Like there is no more such thing as
(12:22):
the eighty five Bears or the two thousand Ravens, right
that those teams are never going to exist. Where it's
like ahur quarterback was. You know, Jim McMahon's a famous guy,
but they were known for defense in a running game.
And I just think the days of a team just
like yeah, we just our quarterback didn't matter are done.
Same thing in college, if your quarterback play, your team
(12:43):
has to be elite. For your quarterback play to be average,
for your team to be good. But if your team's elite,
your quarterback play has to be above average, then you're good.
But you don't get by which is like, eh, quarterback
play was below average. And listen, this is the hard
part about I say this all the time about instituting
a young player on a team with high expectations, because
(13:04):
you don't get this nineteen ninety seven or nineteen ninety
two or even like two thousand and six. We get
to take a deep breath, We get to ease our
way in the Packers situation with Jordan Love and Aaron
Rodgers are complete outliers and they definitely don't happen anymore. Right, So,
if you're a young player, you play for as great
as Russell Wilson was today and he played his best game,
(13:24):
and what feels like in like a decade, like people
are not gonna want to see him for long. It's like,
well it might as well for losing games put in
the young player and the pressure from ownership, the impact
that the fans have on them, which you know kind
of seems its way down to the coaching staff and
the front office is very evident by the moves that
we see consistently in the NFL and JJ McCarthy, like,
(13:47):
the expectations for this team are to be good, and
it is really really difficult, especially even in their division.
Look how hard they like it took them to beat
the Chicago Bears, who clearly might be one of the
worst teams in the league. So I think, if you're
Kevin O'Connell, you got to stay the right things and
be positive. But man, it's a little concerning. And this
(14:08):
was always my concern with JJ McCarthy was obviously in
terms of intangible stuff, the metal, toughness, the moxie he
proved a week ago, like, he's got some shit to him.
So I'm not questioning any of the intangible stuff. His
teammates like him and stuff, which is awesome, but sometimes
we like spend a lot of time on that and
(14:28):
I'm guilty of that too. But on the field, tangibles
like accuracy, like just throwing from the pocket. Is he
comfortable doing that right? Like ultimately, Michael Pennix, well, I
think a lot of people if you're not a diehard
college football fan, if you're just watching Michael Pennock, you're
like middle coff. You like this guy, what's his deal?
He's barely throw him for like one hundred and forty yards,
(14:48):
Like this is the guy you thought was gonna be
a really good pro. Well see, yeah, his great attribute
is his deep ball. He is an elite deep ball
thrower and he doesn't throw deep balls with this team
because they don't have deep ball. You know, wide receivers.
They got Pits who is a tight end, but he's
a wide receiver running slants. They got h what's his name,
who's their other wide receiver number number five, who's a
(15:11):
big bodied wide receiver going over the middle running deep ends,
like is a physical Drake Drake London. So it's like
the body types they have are not Tyreek killing is prime.
If Tyrek Killing his prime for Michael Pennix, that would translate.
But when you look at this team, that's not really
the way it works. And like Zach Robinson, the offensive coordinator,
(15:35):
I think it's fair to say, like is he that good?
I don't know, but taking nothing away, big win for
the Falcons made JJ McCarthy look terrible, and uh yeah,
we got two one on one teams. I would say this,
I don't like the Falcons moving forward, Like I don't
think they're that good and I think Minnesota in theory
can be good, but their quarterback play leaves me greatly concerned.
(16:00):
Now that we got four more quarters, So we got
eight and like I said, there's one positive one and
the other seven it'd be Listen, sometimes you just get
off to a slow start. It's pro sports. It's really hard.
It happens in every sport. Steph Curry could start this
year with like seven straight games of poor shooting from
three point range, right, it happens. But when this is
(16:22):
the only evidence I have of you in the NFL,
like I got eight quarters and most of it's really bad,
it's hard to not be concerned, especially when you go
you got really good skill around him. So I just
think that's the headline. It's like, is JJ McCarthy any good?
Like that's what that was what I wrote down like
midway through the fourth quarter. I do not have the
answer to that. And right now, if you're a betting man,
(16:44):
you'd have to go like, we got some problems, and
I would imagine Minnesota fans are are a little worried.
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(18:22):
let's dive into the Bears because I saw this. I
saw this tweet that I thought was fascinating because obviously
the Bears got ruined the night against or earlier today.
It's been a long day. It's been a long really
a couple of weeks here football, but we got to
get back in the dialed in here. I think the
(18:44):
expectations for the Bears consistently have been really off. Right.
Last year, people were picking them to like compete for
the NFC Championship. It's like, what are we talking about?
And then this year, because they got Ben Johnson, a
lot of people are like, Okay, well, I'm not gonna
get ahead of my but they're gonna make the playoffs. Like, no, guys,
they're the Chicago Bears. And last week the Lions right
(19:08):
played an awful game against Green Bay, and my initial
thought was like, listen, I think green Bay is pretty good.
Clearly they're even better than we thought. And then we
saw them on Thursday night, like, no, green Bay's elite.
This might be the best defense in the league. And
obviously offensively they're awesome. They had a lot, a lot
of I would say, like revenge for them against the Lions.
(19:32):
That was a bigger game for the Packers week one
than it was the Lions. Lions swept them both times
last year. They went oh into against them, but they
were also terrible in their division. So they open up
at home at Lambeau. It was a massive game for
Green Bay and they came out swinging and obviously they
parlayed it again Thursday night. They looked fantastic, but it
was like are the Lions bad. It's like, and listen,
(19:54):
you got two new coordinators. You never quite know, but
watching them to day, it's like, no, they it's you know,
bringing some guys along with the offensive line. But they
still got elite players at countless positions. Brian Branch, Aiden Hutchinson, Sewell,
Saint Brown, Golf, Laporta Gibbs. Oh yeah, Jamison Williams. The
(20:16):
guy runs like a four to one forty. Like they
got high end skill. And here's the other thing. In
twenty twenty five, this is not the Lions I grew
up on. They had Barry Sanders and nothing really else.
And the Lions throughout the entire Internet era were a
poverty franchise. They just always lost. I mean, they have
been kind of the running joke for just poorly run franchises,
(20:39):
not in the NFL but all of sports. Well that
changed a couple of years ago. Why they got a
high level GM and an impressive head coach. But they
are starting to pick really good players. Like you look
at their roster. It's not perfect, no one's comparing them
to like the Seven Pats, not claiming they're the best
roster of all time, but they have really, really impactful
(21:02):
players at countless positions on both sides of the ball.
They are a well put together organization. And then I
look at the Bears, and this tweet is, you know,
they get Ben Johnson, but they still got the same GM.
They still got Ryan Poles, who somehow, after the embarrassment
of the last couple of years, got a contract extension.
(21:23):
And Eric Lambert who put out that Ryan Poles has
now drafted thirty four players and twenty six of them
have played more than one season. None have made the
Pro Bowl. He is the only GM in franchise history
to have that honor. At the moment, he's three and
seventeen against the NFC North and he's fifteen and thirty
(21:46):
eight overall. He has objectively been a horrendous general manager. Now,
I would say this, the mccaskeys are not a good
ownership group. They feel, I don't know, the archaic, something
of the past and have really struggled with the modernization
of the National Football League. Look at Kevin Warren. Who
(22:09):
know a few people that are in Big ten circles.
He was kind of a laughingstock when it came to
running the Big Ten. They couldn't wait once he left
to the I mean depending on who you talk to,
did he kind of get forced out? However, no one
was sad to see him go. But because of they
are a weak ownership. He basically runs the entire franchise.
(22:30):
The head coach, the GM. They answer to him, which
makes some sense. In Green Bay when you got Murphy
or ed Policy and those guys have a lot of juice,
the owner doesn't exist. Well. The mccaskeys have owned the
family forever, Yet this guy can come right in. It
shows you everything you need to know about this operation.
It's pretty low level. But at the end of the day,
(22:52):
he's not picking the players and he's not running the place.
And I said this last year, and I will reiterate
this after the Art of That came out. Just because
Caleb Williams had a ton of media hype doesn't mean
that should impact him. Do you know the amount of scouts,
GMS college directors I talk to that say when they
(23:17):
watch games on TV, they try to turn down the
sound because they don't want to hear the commentators talking
about certain stuff because a lot of times it's just
about hype. It's just about stuff that you and I
would be talking about. You know why, because that's not
their job. Hype in football means nothing. You could be
the greatest prospect of all time, that's all we heard
(23:37):
about arch Manning, and then eventually you gotta play, so
that hype is meaningless. Once we see you play games,
You're either good or you're not. You either have talent
or you don't. You either are improving or you're getting worse.
And I'm not trying to shit on arch Manning. Maybe
his shoulders really hurt, but every time I watch him
play I go, I just don't see a very good
(23:58):
football player, and I hope shoulder shirt. It's that difficult
to watch him throw the ball. And when I watched
the Bears, this is like hype hype pipe, Caleb hype
hype pipe. Even though he had won the Heisman Trophy,
it felt like a no brainer from the outside noise
outside of football to take Caleb Williams. If you would
(24:18):
have tweeted a year ago leading into the draft of like,
I don't think Caleb Williams is gonna be a good
NFL player, the ratio of people on the Internet shitting
on your take would have basically been one hundred percent.
You would have been called the village fucking idiot. You
know nothing about football, don't quit your Jay job, stop
(24:41):
ever commenting having a thought or an opinion on the sport.
Yet a year later, universally we all go the guy
stinks he can't play well. You know whose job it
is to not worry about Twitter ratios or what people
are gonna say online. It's the general manager. I ever
forget because I've known him for a while and I
(25:02):
remember watching the reaction to Adam Peters bring everyone to
top golf it was like, what is he doing? How
could he be doing this? And I would imagine I
have never asked him this. He probably had pretty high
thoughts of Jaden Daniels before he did the top Golf experiment.
But it's his job to try to remove his biases
(25:23):
and the way he's leaning to just let the process
play out. So why would you not do your due
diligence on every single person? And he did that and
he ended up getting Jayden Daniels, but he didn't just go,
you know what, I know for a fact in February
in March that Jaden Daniels the best player. I don't
care what anyone thinks, and I'm doing it. And it
(25:45):
was easy to do that with Caleb because universally on
the Internet and the fan base, everyone's going to give
you a thumbs up. Yet now everyone's giving you a
thumbs down because the guy can't play. But you didn't
do any due diligence on anyone else. And I'm not
even factoring in Tyler Dunn's article about the way the
meetings went. I'm just because again that's obviously coaches talking.
(26:08):
There's a lot of different, you know, irons in the
fire a lot of different variables of opinions. It is
an objective fact that he brought one quarterback in during
the draft process, which is insane and clearly and I
saw someone I don't want to. I apologize for not
giving credit on this because this is not my take.
(26:29):
I'm stealing this on the internet. That basically Ben Johnson
is a director. If he was a movie director, he
not only writes out the script, but he directs that
script perfectly when the camera is on. He does not
want you, like Leonardo DiCaprio, whoever the actor may be,
to ad lib. He wants you to do exactly what
(26:52):
is on the paper for your lines. And Caleb Williams
doesn't memorize the lines. He just ad libs. And sometimes
it's really good, but most of the time it's not.
And meshing those two things together will never work. And
it clearly is not working. And I didn't think it
was gonna work. It's way worse than I thought. But
(27:14):
it's not even all Caleb Ben Johnson. It starts at
the top, Ryan Poles, the organization. I mean, there's just
they are an embarrassment. They really are. And if I
hear one more time about all this talent, Like I'm
watching them. The Lions have a lot of talent, and
they beat the shit out of these guys. It honestly
(27:34):
wasn't even a fair fight. Game was kind of close
for a minute until it wasn't. And I just think
there's a rot, there's a negativity. There's obviously an intensity
because it's Chicago, but I like, it's gonna be hard
to overcome for Ben Johnson, even if he picks his
quarterback one day. The situation that is that he signed
(27:59):
up for and people have DM me, you know it,
is there a chance that he regrets the decision a
year ago? And I've said over and over I don't
know the guy personally, but talking to people that knew
him personally felt that he was just a little on
the fence about how ready he was a year ago.
But you can't tell me. He lays in his bed,
(28:20):
which I would imagine he's not sleeping much because of
what just has been transpiring these last couple of weeks,
and doesn't think, you know, even if I wasn't ready,
I got news for you. Most human beings aren't ready
when they get big opportunities, right, Sometimes you just get
thrown into the deep end, and you just kind of
got to learn to swim. I would say most people
(28:41):
in any competitive industry, despite how much experience may be
needed for that spot, probably have a little less than ideal,
especially younger people in coaching. That he can't regret the
decision that he made by shunning the Washington Commanders and
coaching Jayden Daniels and working with Adam Peters and Josh Harris,
(29:02):
an organization that is just dramatically more buttoned up than
this shit show in Chicago. The Dallas Giants game, what
a what a fun experience? You know, sometimes you do
this long enough, you kind of get jaded and can
get nagative sometimes on given days, like all these games
are terrible. I was even telling myself that this morning.
It's like, ah, that's kind of a boring morning. This
(29:23):
isn't great. Hell, I was saying that definitely on Saturday,
like this is not that fun. And then that game
breaks out and just a little throwback, and I'm guilty
of this. Like I've talked a lot of shit about
Russ Wilson. I think he's kind of weird, and obviously
he's not a very good player anymore. Until today, and
he was just throwing bombs and they were catching bombs,
(29:44):
and they were scoring points left and right. I don't
care if Dallas couldn't cover me and you. It was
enjoyable to watch Russ just sling that pill as high
as humanly possible in the air and have it land
in Malik Neighbors's hands and score touch like that was
really really fun. But when Dallas tied up the game.
You know, one thing I learned from a schematic standpoint
(30:08):
that I will never forget is I work with Lewis Riddick,
who's now on ESPN, and Lewis when he was a player,
Lewis was a really good college player at Pitt and
then you know, played in the NFL for I think
six or seven years. Well for a couple of those
years he played in Cleveland and Nick Saban was the
defensive coordinator and Bill Belichick was the defensive He was
(30:30):
a head coach, and he used to hammer this home
because he was taught this back then. Is listen, in
zone defense, right, you're not just covering a man, You're
covering space. So in football, there are specific landmarks if
you are a linebacker and you're in a zone defense
against especially in a situation where they are going to
pass the ball down the field, you get a certain
(30:52):
amount of depth and you get to a spot on
the field ten yards back, three yards over, whatever it
may be given that specific defense. And on the play
that Dak Prescott hit Ferguson to get them into field
goal range, which somehow for this kicker is like the
fifty yard line, there was a lying backer in the
middle of the field and he probably did exactly what
(31:13):
the defensive coordinator told him to be seven steps back,
two steps over. Be a player. Well, it's like that's
being a robot. Sometimes in football you gotta go throw
back to like when you were at recess or when
you were in high school, and just play the game.
You know that you just sitting there killing turf is
(31:34):
completely worthless, and there is a tight end a couple
yards to your left. Do you know what you might
want to do? Maybe leave your spot, show some instincts
and just make a play Instead, everyone just dropped to
their landmarks, stood there like this, and Ferguson caught the
ball and landed like the forty eight or forty nine
yard line, and it gave them and put them in
(31:56):
position to kick a game winning field goal that would
have been good for like eighty yards. But to me, defensively,
I'm as like as willing as anyone to just completely
shit on coaches first over the players. That's on the player.
Like at the end of the day, there gets to
a point, especially situational football, where it's like you gotta
(32:19):
have some basic understanding of like I probably need to
cheat over a yard or two and just use some
of my instincts in a game I've probably been playing
since I was six, seven, eight years old, even well
before PATS. When you're just running around, there has to
be some sort of feel, and I thought that is
where the game was lost. Obviously there was a lot
(32:42):
of craziness after that. In overtime. Both teams got the
ball I felt like ten times each, But that play
is like, how does that happen? And I think everyone's
going to crush the defensive coordinator. There are moments in
a game on defense when you're talking about space where
the guy has to just make a play or just
put himself in a position to make a play. If
(33:04):
I'm just standing there because we have gone over this
since the offseason or for the last couple of years,
OTA's training camp the season, OTA's training camp the season.
This is where I'm supposed to be. I know I
won't get in trouble. I don't know until the guy
is right next to you catching the ball and you're
just standing there. It was pretty embarrassing. And then obviously
(33:25):
I do think it's pretty crazy that throughout most of
my life, I feel like a fifty yard field goal,
maybe up to fifty five was viewed as a really
really long field goal. I feel like, consistently, and maybe
stats aren't on my side, we have seen guys consistently
hit field goals from well into the high fifties and
(33:48):
into the early sixties, and a lot of times when
they make these, either game winners or game tires, from
sixty yards or fifty seven yards, it feels like they
have six seven, eight yards to spare. I mean, part
of the powerful thing about the Cowboys game time kick
is it probably would have been good. I saw some
people putting seventy maybe seventy five yards. It's crazy how
(34:11):
strong the guy's leg were. It had like first an
initial fade, then a hook, like it had like six
different bullflights in the air because it had so far
to travel, one of the more just crazier kicks. Here's
the thing, too, is when they got him into quote
unquote his range, I think sixty four yards, there's not
(34:32):
a soul that thought he was gonna miss it, and
then he just drilled it. It was incredible to watch
and listen. You know, Brian Schottenneimer easy guy to make
fun of coming into the season, He had no business
being the job. No one else would have hired him,
and all those things are true. No one else was
gonna hire Bridon Schottenneimer to be their offensive coordinator, let
alone their head coach. But I'd say through two weeks
(34:53):
he's the play caller. The offense looks really good, looks
really explosive. George Pickens is not an easy guy to coach. Right.
Some balls he attacks, some balls he just watches. Sometimes
he blocks, sometimes he doesn't. But he's making a lot
of plays for him He's listen, jerrys are some credit
on this one too. It's only two weeks. We got
a long way to go, but he's he's made a
(35:16):
lot of plays and had a huge influence on just
balancing out this offense. Because one thing when he's got
Ceedee Lamb, who's an excellent player. If you don't have
anyone else, like any team you know worth their salt.
Could you know Georgia could put together a defense to
slow down one NFL wide receiver. Well, if I got
two guys, I can only cheat so much. And clearly
(35:38):
Brian Schottenheimer and Dak Prescott are doing a really good
job of slinging that pill around. I think the Bengals
are done their next four games Area, Denver, Lions, Green Bay.
(36:03):
You know by all reports that Joe Burrow has a
severe case. Obviously there are different cases of turf toe.
Whatever Brock Purdy has is like two to five weeks.
And you know, there were some reports today that Perdy
are probably gonna miss next week as well. But I
would imagine that I'd be a little stunned if Perdy's
not back the week after that. But his the severity
(36:25):
of his turf toe is not Burroughs, and Burrow's turf
toe is the one where you need surgery potentially. Now
he's trying to get second opinions. But if he gets
surgery and it's a three plus month situation, like his
season's over, the Bengals season is over, and they invested.
They paid t Higgins. Obviously they figured out financially how
(36:50):
to keep Tray around and not trade him all because
of Joe Burrow and you remove him. And I told
Coward this, I never thought in a million years Jake
Browning would be make one year in the NFL. I
was stunned when he made it through a training camp
and was kept on on practice squads. He's obviously a
(37:10):
serviceable player. He has improved as much as any human
being from college to where he's at now as I've
ever seen. I thought he was a fringe college starter.
I know he won a lot of games in college.
I always thought it was crazy that he could win
games in college. He was unloaded teams, good coaching. But
he's a different player now. But the drop off from
Joe Burrow to Jake Browning is just is pretty big.
(37:34):
And we've seen this before. When Burrow gets hurt, they
fall apart. There's just you can't lose one of the
best players in the league. I mean, think about the
start of the season. We don't think their defense is
very good, and we were like, well, if Burke could
have a similar season to last year and throw forty three,
forty four, forty five touchdowns, maybe they could compete to
(37:57):
be the seventh seed. Well, that's gone running through whatever
three interceptions day now, granted he threw two touchdowns, he
also had the game winning touchdown. So they got Jamar
Chase T Higgins. I mean, they got weapons. But your
season ends before it even starts. I can't even imagine
being a Bengal fan if it does become official this
week that he's got to get the surgery and he's
(38:20):
out for three months aka the year. Your season just ends.
And that's the brutal part about football is other positions
can go down. You could have offensive lineman break a leg,
you could have your stud pass rusher tearor his ACL
but your season doesn't end the moment your quarterback goes down,
(38:41):
especially when it's one of the best quarterbacks in the league.
We all know the outcome. It's over and they have
no chance. If Burrow has to which I don't think.
People are just like I don't see how he avoids it.
We saw as he was walking off the field the
clip kind of went viral as he was walking semi
normal and then all of a sudden I would imagine
(39:01):
the pain in his foot. He could barely walk and
he had to basically be escorted back in the locker room.
And I saw someone saying, don't they have a little
John Deer? Don't they have the little the cart where
you put injured players in. Wouldn't you want to buy
a cart? Which I don't know. My guess is twenty
(39:22):
grand max for a guy that you just gave a
I think like three hundred million dollars to instead of
making him put weight on his turf toe. But of
course they're cheap, and they're offensive line. You know, you
invest in these wide receivers, you invest in pass rushers,
which I'm not against, but when you can't block for
(39:44):
a quarterback who is a pocket quarterback, you don't. This
is what do you think is going to be the
outcome here? And Yeah, sad day to be a Bengal fan.
Not much else that hasn't been said about the Chiefs
for zero to two, I think for the first time
to twenty fourteen, which was Andy's second year in the league,
(40:06):
for the Chiefs, I don't know. Man, I thought they
threw the kitchen sink at him. That's as good as
they can play given this team. Their defense was awesome.
They were, you know, controlling Jalen Hurts. The passing game
for the Eagles was nothing. Mahomes was making some plays
and I thought, if they score a touchdown on that
(40:27):
drive that goes off Travis Kelsey's hands, I thought they
were gonna win the game. And it was like they
were gonna pull this thing. It was gonna be ugly,
it was gonna be like, this is championship hert this
is championship character. And it just bounced right off Kelsey's hands,
and that was the game. Like, honestly, it could have
(40:47):
even ended harder if if the left tackle can't run
somehow like a linebacker and tackled the dB down the sideline.
But your margin, Ferrera, when you play in these crazy
close games and they are playing in games that look
especially today, that look exactly like last year, you're gonna
lose some of them. And they won them all last
year and they lost it today. But I don't know
(41:11):
what they're supposed to do. Worthy is not healthy. Where
she Rice is suspended like that is their explosion on offense. Hollywood.
Brown actually is making some plays, and I think the
tough part about today is I thought Travis looked pretty good.
He had the sweet play where he stiff armed Dejeene.
He made a couple other huge plays on third down.
(41:32):
I think one was even on was it fourth down?
Where he ran like a route that had three different breaks.
He like did an out route, an in route, or
he ran in, he ran out and it's like six
different jukes. It's like Allen Iverson crossed you over and
then crossed you over again. But that play and listen,
everyone was tweeting like he's washed. It's like, I don't know,
(41:53):
they were just the timing was a little off. But
that was a devastating moment for the Chiefs and they
got lucky that Denver lost. That someone has to lose tomorrow.
Do you know what's crazy? Is there as a decent
chance I mean the Raiders are at home, that the
Raiders are in first place and the Chiefs are in
(42:15):
last place. I bet there's a decent chance that that
has not happened at any point since Andy Reid has
been in Kansas City. Now, the Raiders haven't been in
first place in general very often, but probably the one
year with Derek Carr where he broke his ankle. They
had a really good team and they were competing to
(42:35):
win the division that year. But overall they have they've
been really bad. And if they go to it's early.
But the Raiders have a chance to go to to
zero and have a two game lead on the Kansasity Chiefs.
I want out writing Kansas City off, but this was
inevitable that they're just gonna have a season that some
of these breaks aren't going to go their way and
(42:57):
maybe they go ten and seven. Obviously defensively they're still
really good. Physically, that game was just was brutal. I mean,
guys were getting crushed. That was a game on the
line of scrimmage, like you better buckle your chin strap
and let's face it, Like the elephant in the room
is Eagles are two and zero. Their passing game does
not look good. And I know how Philly works. I've
(43:19):
been there. I follow the team really closely ever since
I've left. It's an intense environment. Now you go on
the road, you beat a team that has won the
AFC five in the last six years. That's a good win.
You don't apologize and like your stats should have been better.
The clip going viral of Chris Jones and saying you
didn't even have one hundred yards and Jalen saying we
(43:41):
won the game. And this is the thing I respect
about Jalen is like sometimes he just finds a way.
He had to play today on an all out blitz
and Spags brings it. I mean, he always has kind
of what he's known for, where Jalen just gets destroyed
and waited till the last possible second. The difference of
you know, Jalen in theory should be this scrambling quarterback.
(44:01):
You watch a guy like Caleb, He's always taking off
for his life. Jalen will sit in there, throw this
great go route in a one on one situation against
what I thought was like a pro Bowl level guy
against McDuffie who doesn't even look DeVante Smith makes a
great play and that was that felt like a dagger
at that moment. But Jalen stats do not look great.
And listen, he's not gonna be on a weekend week
(44:22):
out basis, you know, slinging that thing like he's Josh
Allen or Lamar Jackson. He's not gonna put up those
type stats. He did no chance. Like the game, Herbert
had a week ago. That's not really Jalen's game, but
he does make some winning plays Throughoute that you kind
of like, gotta be a little football nerdy, but he
deserves some respect, you know. And I think the Eagles,
(44:43):
the way they're built, their physicality, Uh, defensively, they're just
gonna be Will coached with Fangio. Obviously, Saquon busts some
big runs as the game went. Offensive line, they're just
so big and physical. Clearly on the one Tush push,
they had a couple of guys jump off sides. I've
said this over and over. I hate the to pH.
I fucking hate it. Not because I don't think they
(45:04):
should be able to do it. It's in the rules.
Any team could do it, and you see teams in
college and definitely in the pros kind of try. But
the thing that makes the Eagles so strong is their
quarterbacks so powerful. Most quarterbacks are a little higher, they don't
get as low. They just don't have the push. And
the thing that separates the Eagles isn't just their powerful,
good offensive line. It's their quarterback can squat like all
(45:27):
of Kansas City and that that makes that play for them.
But it is a boring play to watch because if
they go into it on third and one, even if
you're able to somewhat neutralize it once, it never fails
two times in a row. It feels like an inevitability
in a sport that is completely not inevitable. I mean,
it's a sport that on any given moment, anything can
(45:51):
happen in every game, every player. You just never know.
A guy can throw a pick, I got a trip,
I gotta get a first down, I got a bus eighty.
With that play, you just feels like, no the outcome,
that's my issue with the play. But they do it,
and they do it to perfection. And even Brady, who
I think is so much better than last year, like
dramatically better. I mean dramatically better. Honestly, I thought he
(46:14):
was borderline unlistenable last year. I'm not calling him John
Madden yet, but he's He's just solid, like it was
an easy listen. I think he's relaxed a lot, maybe
just which is understandable. He's got a year under his belt,
just kind of comfortable in the role, and just I
thought this is a much easier listen in twenty twenty five.
(46:35):
So it shose you you know, you get get ten years,
three hundred and seventy five million dollars. It might take
you a year, but he'd be good at it. And
we'll end on this. In the NFL, you know, people
do power rankings and depending on what show or podcasts
you listen to, people ranked teams. None of that actually
means anything, right, you either make the playoffs or you
(46:58):
don't make the playoffs. You either are the one seed
if you win the division, or the two or three
or four. Your record determines where you go. And it's
very very basic, how you make the playoffs, how you
win the division? Like it's very black and white. Yet
in college it's always been people vote, And we got
these different rankings the AP, the coach's poll that one
(47:20):
chick went viral last week. They basically said, like, I
don't even give a shit. I just throw some teams.
I know that other people will balance it out. I
was thinking, like, why are we even doing polls? How
does this exist? I get because it's still a subjective
formula to create the playoffs in college? Why do we
(47:40):
do preseason polls anymore? With the transfer portal, we have
no clue who's good and who's bad in terms of like,
we know that Clemson is not going to go zero
to twelve, you would think, But last year I saw
Florida State, who the previous year had won thirteen games,
and if it wasn't for their quarterback snapping his leg
would have been in the final four, and who knows,
(48:01):
could have won the national championship. The following year won
two games, and everyone like, Clem's gonna be really good.
Clem's gonna be really good. What if they're not. It
happens in the NFL all the time, like this team's
gonna be good or maybe not. We do not need
preseason rankings because that really jades the way like in
football we think the Vikings are gonna be good. I
(48:22):
think they're gonna be good. But if you told me, hey,
JJ's debacle and they go seven and ten, it's not unrealistic.
And in college football, these preseason rankings dictate the way
we look at these teams like Notre Dame. They've played
Miami in Texas, A and M. Miami could be the
best team in the country and A and M worst case,
(48:44):
probably winning nine games and if it goes perfectly for him,
maybe they'd go ten and two, eleven and one. I mean,
if you told me they were in the SEC championship game,
wouldn't be that surprised. But coming into the seasons, like, hey,
they were in the National championship last year, be there again? Why?
I don't know. I mean they lost their quarterback, they
lost other players of the draft. They have a bunch
(49:04):
of young players coming up the pipe. Maybe they're ready
to go, maybe they're not. You just never know. We
saw this with Texas and arch manding. It's like, hey,
Texas completely loaded except the quarterback, who might not be good.
And now with twelve teams, I just think preseason rankings,
we should just throw them in the trash. They should
(49:24):
not exist. You could tell me after September maybe we
could do, you know, top twenty five. But even then,
the last couple weeks. You know what I did yesterday,
I was like, you know what, I'm gonna go play golf.
Why because I looked around and it's just a bunch
of big time teams playing nobody's It's like, this is
a terrible product. That there were two good games. I
(49:45):
thought that, like you couldn't miss Georgia Tennessee and Notre
Dame Texas, A and M, and it was a lot
of Texas first Utah. It's like, how are we still
playing these games? How do these games still exist? They're unwatchable?
How am I suppose to even if you are kicking
the Indiana who made the playoffs last year, just played
(50:06):
Indiana State, the school Larry Bird went to beat him
seventy three to nothing. What am I supposed to make
of that game? What's more impressive Indiana winning that game
or Notre Dame losing at home to text A and M.
I think we all know, like if Notre Dame played
Indiana ten times, I think Notre Dame would beat them
nine times. But we gotta do these preseason rankings and
(50:28):
they're higher, they're lower. It's like, I just think we
gotta find a better way to not go into the
season with a bias. And there's no way to get
around that. When you have a four in front of
your name or a twenty in front of your name,
it's like you actually might if you're the twenty, you
could be the fifteen, Like Miami, Miami could be good.
(50:48):
What if Miami's just the best team in the league,
but they had a preseason ranking that kind of jades
the way you think about them. But if there are
no preseason rankings, you'd be like, God, Miami the best
team in the league, in the country, right. I said
this about the Packers coming in people, I kind of
like the Packers. Then they got Micah, you'd been like, God,
they're They're definitely one of the six, seven, eight best teams.
After two weeks, you'd be like, they're the number one
team in the country. But we don't do that in
(51:09):
the NFL. You know why, kids doesn't fucking matter. We
got three or four more months of football. Same thing
with college football. It's September fourteenth. We got a long
way to go. I just think these top twenty fives.
I get it. It's fun. It leads to debate. Everyone's
arguing over it. Mean nothing right now, mean literally nothing. Audios,
good night, Talk to everyone soon. The volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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