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Week 2 Recap: Bengals, Saints, Broncos score big wins on weird Sunday

STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.

1 hr 39 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 21, 2026
Published
Mon, September 21, 2026
36
Player insights
33
Players mentioned
Topics
C.J. StroudJa'Marr ChaseSkyy MooreBaker MayfieldBo NixBreece HallBrian Thomas Jr.Caleb WilliamsCam WardChris OlaveDenzel BostonDerrick HenryDeVonta SmithDontayvion Wicks
Player analysis

Player insights

36

Baker Mayfield

NegativeUsage74:48

Baker Mayfield is struggling with pocket movement, showing a tendency to bail and play 'all or nothing' football rather than maneuvering within the pocket. His efficiency as a drop-back passer is poor, with a 29.6% success rate on non-play action passes.

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Bo Nix

PositiveProjection30:23

Bo Nix showed significant improvement in aggressiveness and downfield passing, with a 9.2 air yards per attempt average. The source highlights his arm talent and ability to make high-level throws outside the numbers and into the middle of the field.

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Breece Hall

PositiveUsage59:09

Breece Hall recorded a significant catch late in the game, though the Jets' subsequent offensive execution, including a botched pitch, hindered their momentum.

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Brian Thomas Jr.

NegativeUsage28:12

Brian Thomas Jr. had a frustrating performance, specifically failing to haul in a critical catch in the fourth quarter that was deemed a must-catch opportunity.

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C.J. Stroud

PositiveProjection22:55

Despite the team's 0-2 start and offensive line concerns, the source maintains that C.J. Stroud has played well through the first two weeks.

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NegativeProjection27:03

Stroud played well and was mostly excellent in the loss to the Bengals, but his production was hampered by the Texans' inability to run the ball and several drops by his receivers against tight coverage.

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Caleb Williams

NegativeInjury62:55

Caleb Williams suffered a hamstring injury that caused significant concern, though initial reports suggest it may not be a grade three strain. His status remains uncertain pending further imaging.

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Cam Ward

PositiveProjection55:48

Cam Ward showed signs of life against the Eagles, recording the third-highest EPA per dropback of his career. His performance included effective scrambling and a more functional run game, providing relief for Titans fans.

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Chris Olave

PositiveUsage43:24

Chris Olave is playing at an elite level, serving as a focal point for Tyler Shuck. His route running, ability to beat quarters coverage, and physical play against Marlon Humphrey to keep drives alive were highlighted as standout performances.

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Denzel Boston

PositiveBreakout73:08

Denzel Boston made an impressive play, spinning out of three defenders, which served as a catalyst for the Browns' offensive success against the Buccaneers.

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Derrick Henry

PositiveUsage39:24

Despite a 60% rushing success rate, the Ravens moved away from Derrick Henry in the second half, a decision attributed to the play-caller losing the feel of the game as the Ravens faced penalties and negative game script.

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DeVonta Smith

PositiveUsage50:25

DeVonta Smith is being featured as a true number one receiver, displaying preternatural talent and productivity. His ability to make contested catches and deep comebacks makes him a candidate for 1,400-1,500 yards if this usage continues.

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Dontayvion Wicks

PositiveUsage52:36

Dontayvion Wicks is being utilized on high-leverage third-down plays, including a notable third-and-12 conversion where he demonstrated improved timing and rhythm with Jalen Hurts.

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Ja'Marr Chase

PositiveUsage21:33

Ja'Marr Chase is described as a 'force of nature' who consistently delivers in high-leverage moments, with the source emphasizing his ability to make incredible plays when opportunities arise.

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PositiveProjection23:39

Chase is described as a special, elite talent whose body control and ability to find space on extended plays are unmatched. His performance against the Texans, including a spectacular touchdown catch, is highlighted as a 'Pantheon' level moment.

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Jalen Hurts

PositiveUsage49:06

Jalen Hurts delivered a phenomenal performance against the Titans, showing vintage ability on outbreakers while also demonstrating a new willingness to attack the middle of the field. He is effectively extending plays and carrying the offense despite a struggling run game.

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Jayden Daniels

NegativeInjury66:05

Jayden Daniels suffered a dislocated elbow on a non-contact play, which is expected to sideline him for an extended period and significantly impact the Commanders' season.

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Jayden Reed

NegativeInjury60:57

Jaden Reed sustained an injury during the game, adding to the Packers' mounting injury concerns on a short week.

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Joe Burrow

PositiveProjection22:14

Burrow displayed his signature 'magic' in Week 2, particularly on extended plays and under pressure. Despite the offense not yet hitting its full stride, Burrow's ability to create plays—such as the flip to Samaje Perine and the touchdown to Ja'Marr Chase—was the deciding factor in the Bengals' win.

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Josh Allen

NegativeProjection21:27

The source compares Josh Allen's status as a 'force of nature' to Ja'Marr Chase, noting that both players are singular talents capable of making game-changing plays.

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Juwan Johnson

PositiveUsage44:58

Juwan Johnson is a reliable target for Tyler Shuck on high-leverage downs, notably making a key play on a third-and-six completion while Shuck was under heavy pressure.

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Kenneth Walker III

PositiveUsage11:45

Despite the focus on the Chiefs' passing game, Kenneth Walker remained highly productive, serving as a key component of the offense's success in Week 2.

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Lamar Jackson

NegativeUsage36:07

Lamar Jackson faced pressure from the Saints' blitz-heavy defense, leading to some frustrating moments and a critical third-down interception.

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Laquon Treadwell

PositiveRole11:58

Treadwell is playing a meaningful role for the Chiefs, making a significant impact play in Week 2. The source notes he is well-liked in the building, which has helped him sustain his career.

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Luther Burden

NegativeUsage71:22

Luther Burden was targeted on a short route late in the game but was tackled by James Pierre, preventing him from getting to the sideline to stop the clock.

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Marcus Mariota

NegativeRole67:01

With Jayden Daniels injured, the Commanders are expected to turn to Marcus Mariota as their starting quarterback.

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Nico Collins

NegativeInjury22:14

Nico Collins is dealing with a hamstring injury, which the source identifies as a major factor in the Texans' inconsistent offensive performance. Availability is now a growing concern.

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Parker Washington

PositiveUsage29:03

Parker Washington was a reliable target for Trevor Lawrence during the two-minute drive before halftime, recording an 11-yard completion.

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Patrick Mahomes

PositiveProjection4:05

Mahomes looked like his elite self against the Colts, showing high accuracy down the field and driving the offense effectively throughout the game. The source notes this was his most accurate performance downfield in a long time, contrasting with his hit-or-miss outing in Week 1.

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Samaje Perine

PositiveUsage22:19

Perine was the recipient of a crucial Joe Burrow 'magic' play on third-and-seven, converting a difficult situation into a first down during the Bengals' win.

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Saquon Barkley

NegativeInjury54:26

Saquon Barkley suffered an injury during the game against the Titans, which is a situation that needs to be monitored moving forward.

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Skyy Moore

PositiveUsage57:59

Skyy Moore was instrumental in the Packers' win, recording 208 return yards compared to the Packers' 199 total yards of offense; his return ability repeatedly put the team in scoring position.

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PositiveUsage57:59

Skyy Moore was instrumental in the Packers' win over the Jets due to his exceptional performance as a returner, putting the team in scoring position multiple times.

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Trevor Lawrence

NegativeUsage24:26

Trevor Lawrence struggled against the Broncos' defensive schemes, particularly in the second half where he threw an interception after being toyed with by complex zone looks.

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Tyquan Thornton

PositiveRole8:33

Thornton is emerging as a vital piece of the Chiefs' offense, specifically in the deep-threat role that has been lacking. The source highlights his unique combination of size and speed, noting that he is the only receiver on the roster who is both tall and fast, making him a reliable target for Mahomes on deep shots.

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Xavier Worthy

NegativeUsage9:50

The source notes that Xavier Worthy has seen very little production early in the season, leading to the increased importance of Tyquan Thornton in the Chiefs' passing attack.

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Full transcript

Episode Transcript

1,276
0:00Welcome to The Athletic Football Show presented by the US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card.
0:04I'm Robert Mays. We got a jam packed show today.
0:07Not gonna waste any time. We had so much to dig into terrible losses by the Browns and Chargers, really impressive wins
0:13by the Bengals and Broncos, some WTF moments with quarterback injuries that really put a damper on the entire day.
0:19We dug into all of it from week two in the NFL with me, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman.
0:24Let's get to it right now. Just a chaotic day of NFL football.
0:28There's so much I feel like we have to sort through.
0:31A lot of bad. It was an ugly day.
0:33It was gross here in Chicago. That's how I woke up this morning is just spitting rain and a lot of the
0:39football in the early slate followed suit. There's a lot of gross football in the early part of the day, which we will get into.
0:46But the day finishes up with a thrilling Sunday night game.
0:50We're going to talk about this game in depth during the hangover tomorrow.
0:53So we will go back through the entire thing.
0:56But we have to talk about the way that that game ended.
0:59We're sitting there as the Colts are weighing this fourth and eighth decision.
1:03I think your gut, Dave, was that you have to go for this.
1:06You can't give Patrick Mahomes the ball back. I was a little bit more torn just because fourth and eighth, three minutes.
1:12You have the timeout. If you get a stop, theoretically, you can win the game.
1:17It's not like I think the Saints in week one where who had there was another overtime game where I was like, just go for it.
1:24Just try to win the game. You're not. You go for the Saints at the like, it was regulation, but it was like the last.
1:31Yes. And so like I, there are moments where I could understand saying, let's just try to win the game.
1:37It was overtime. My brain's not. My brain's fried, but there was a game in week one where who cares if you
1:43tie the game, just try to win it. It doesn't matter if you lose.
1:47In this one, I was, I understood both sides of it, but you were pretty firmly in the camp that they should have gone for.
1:54You know, what's funny is, so I'm sitting there and it's fourth and eight and you saw Shane Steichen come onto the screen.
2:00You could see him in the background, like telling them, get away, don't snap this ball.
2:05And I was just so disappointed by it because you look at it and like times running out, like there's three minutes left.
2:11And I was thinking like, okay, if you kick this field goal, what are the odds that you see the ball again,
2:17either because the Chiefs go win the game or you just get the ball back with not that much time.
2:23And you said like it made sense in a vacuum.
2:26You were like, well, there's enough time that you get the ball back and you get one last shot to win the game.
2:32And I was like, yeah, I guess that makes sense.
2:35And then as soon as I remembered when I saw Patrick Mahomes jog on the field, I was like, wait, no, it's that guy.
2:41It's Patrick Mahomes. You're not going to get it back from Patrick Mahomes.
2:45And lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. Well, he looked like Patrick Mahomes this game.
2:50Like he looked, it's not like, honestly, if they had played the offensive game and like passing performance that they did in
2:56week one, then I might be a little bit more willing to be like, okay, let's play for the tie.
3:01Let's, let's see if we can get a stop.
3:04The Chiefs were one of the best offenses that we saw today.
3:07Like they were driving all game and kind of doing what they wanted.
3:11So I fourth and eight is scary and it's a lot.
3:14And I think in almost every other circumstance, I would be like, I don't know if converting a fourth and eight gives
3:20you a better chance than just like getting the field goal tie in the game, hoping you make the stop with the
3:26way that the Chiefs offense was playing. I honestly do feel like that might've been your better chance.
3:31I think that's probably right. I saw the fourth and eight and the three minutes left.
3:36I'm like, you can't go for this. Eight is a lot of yardage.
3:39If you can get a stop for, but I think you have to ask yourself the question, are you more likely to
3:46get a fourth and eight on one play or stop Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense in that situation?
3:51And if they're even slightly close, if there is, if they're neck and neck, do you choose to say, I want to
3:57lose the game with the ball in my hands?
4:00That's the choice that I'm going to make. And I think that as I think more about it and kind of revisit
4:06it, that's probably where I land where it's like, I'd rather just lose going down swinging rather than giving him the ball one last time.
4:13Even if fourth and eight seems like a crazy decision.
4:16The other thing that I, sorry, Derek, that just, I wanted to mention too, cause I was, we we've talked about this
4:22in the summer and ironically, um, Braden Smith took this kick out, but like in this day and age, you're starting these
4:28possessions north of the 30 yard line. Most of the time.
4:31Anyway, the Chiefs started at their own 32. Rashard Smith.
4:34Rashard. Braden Smith. That was like, I don't know how Braden Smith plays in it.
4:38Braden Smith. I mean, hell of a kick return by Braden Smith.
4:41My brain is like misfiring right now. Yes. Rashard Smith.
4:44So if you're starting on the 32 and it's Patrick Mahone, like it's just, it's not that hard anymore to get in position for a field goal.
4:52And if a fourth and eight is a long distance to get, and I understand why that's scary, but I think I'd rather go down that way.
4:59My biggest issue with what happened is probably them running the ball on first and 10 and then on second and long
5:05and putting themselves in a situation where it was third and long and then getting behind the eight ball to make it that fourth and eight.
5:13My favorite part about this game is that somehow Laquan Threadwell and Tyquan Thornton are important at work in 2026.
5:18Tyquan Thornton is like a real important part of the Colts, of the Chiefs offense.
5:22Like that, that throw that they completed. I didn't look it up in real time because I was preparing for the other
5:29games that we were going to talk about. I guarantee you it's been a while since they've had a deep completion in
5:35a big moment like that, that far down the field.
5:38I mean, that's the area of the offense that has really been lagging over the last couple of years is their inability to push the ball downfield.
5:45It hasn't been where Mahomes is best. They haven't really had a guy that can do that.
5:50It's not surprising to me based on some of the flashes he showed last year and how little we've gotten out of
5:56Xavier Worthy that it really does seem like Tyquan Thornton is going to matter for the Chiefs offense over the course of this season in that exact role.
6:04He's the only guy who's both fast and tall in the offense.
6:07Like, you know, Travis Kelsey's big and like Rasheed Rice is not a small guy, but like Xavier Worthy small and he's
6:13fast, but he doesn't have that blend of both.
6:16Thornton is a little bit skinny for six to but the fact that you can just like lay that ball out for
6:22him and he can go up and get it.
6:25I thought was super impressive. I'll also say I think Mahomes is deep all over the last like two ish years has been pretty scattershot.
6:32I think he's had a tendency to like because he doesn't trust these guys to overthrow the ball a little bit and
6:38just miss long and be like, well, if they can't run under it, we're just going to be incomplete here.
6:43But I thought he was he was nails today.
6:46Like that was probably the most accurate. He's looked specifically down the field.
6:49I think in quite a long time. It was really exciting to watch the passing game look like that a week after
6:56it was kind of hit or miss against against the Broncos.
6:59I mean, it was not humming the in the first time we saw my homes back and to see them move the
7:05ball through the air the way that they did and see still have Kenneth Walker be as productive as he was a
7:11really good second act by the Chiefs offense, which again, we will dig into tomorrow.
7:15I don't want to spend too much time on this game.
7:18I will say I'm so glad that they called that.
7:21They said Laquan Treadwell was down because I would be so hard with Laquan Treadwell.
7:25His his journey to this point. I mean, the man has been cut over and over and over again.
7:31And if they had lost that game because he fumbled after making the biggest play he's made.
7:35Maybe in his entire NFL career, it would have been pretty heartbreaking.
7:39Maybe the most way they did. Maybe the most impactful.
7:42I agree. He's one of my OG draft crushes.
7:44I thought I thought he was baby Des Bryant.
7:47I thought he was going to set the league on fire.
7:50And I'm so proud of him for carving out like an 11 year career, even if it didn't look like I thought it would.
7:56People seem to really like him, too. He's very well liked in the building.
8:00Like that's part of why I think he stuck around.
8:03And so I'm glad that the game ended not on that.
8:06I'm glad that that would have made me sad.
8:09It's a funny footnote instead of being the Laquan Treadwell fumble game.
8:12Let's talk about the rest of the games that happened today.
8:15I'll be honest with you. We at the end of the afternoon games every single week, we all get together and we
8:21try to figure out what we're going to talk about on this show.
8:25And there are weeks where it's clean. We know exactly what the first conversation is going to be.
8:30We know exactly what attention is going to be.
8:32We know exactly what the is going to be.
8:35And we sat there today and probably had the longest meeting I can remember us having about how we were going to
8:41sort out the show because of how weird the day was.
8:44And what we landed on the first game we wanted to talk about, because I think you can make an argument and
8:50we can even debate this if you want to.
8:53What was the most impressive, impactful win of the game?
8:56What was the one that you feel like had lasting impact that said the most?
9:00And the game that we landed on is the Cincinnati Bengals beating the Houston Texans.
9:04The Cincinnati Bengals were almost boring in the sense that like they just won this game comfortably on the road and it wasn't the prettiest performance.
9:11And Houston is now 0-2 for I think the third time in the last four years.
9:16We'll see exactly what they're working with as the season goes along.
9:19But and again, even in another loss, this is still a very impressive defense that made life very difficult on the Bengals.
9:25And they went down there and got a very undramatic win.
9:28And I told you this either in the waning minutes of this game or after it was over.
9:33We spend so much time talking about what these teams are doing during the offseason and the stories that they tell themselves
9:40about who they're going to be and why the trades they swung or the draft picks they made are going to matter
9:46and what it's going to make them look like.
9:48And some of that shit has already aged terribly.
9:51But the Cincinnati Bengals are like living the best case scenario of what you could have hoped for for their offseason and
9:57what it was supposed to make them look like.
10:00Like they look exactly like you daydreamed about if you were hoping for a big Bengals season.
10:04I would argue that the offense hasn't even found its stride.
10:07It hasn't. And that they're 2-0 and you have to feel really good about that.
10:12Yeah, and that's what stuck out to me about this game.
10:15Even in the moment when you're watching the Bengals play today, the fact that the offense can they played against the Texans defense.
10:21The Texans defense is good as hell. The Texans if you look at the down to down metrics, which we'll talk about
10:27in a second, the Texans defense was fine in this game.
10:30We had some fantastic, incredible moments from Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase to win the Bengals this game and put up the amount of points that they needed.
10:38But down to down, the Bengals in this game against the Texans, 35.6% offensive success rate, negative 0.15 EPA per play.
10:44Okay. There have been three games in Joe Burrow's tenure where that has happened.
10:48They have hit those two marks and won the football game.
10:51The first one was in 2024 against the Browns when Dorian Thompson Robinson had 24 pass attempts in a game where Deshaun Watson got hurt.
10:58The second one, excuse me, that was the second one.
11:01The first one was a week 18 game in 2022 against Anthony Brown when he was the quarterback for the Ravens.
11:07So we've got Dorian Thompson Robinson, Dorian Thompson Robinson and Anthony Brown were the quarterbacks in the two other games.
11:12The Bengals have won when their offense has had this little production.
11:16And that's not even a criticism of the offense.
11:18It's incredible that they can play like this against a really good defense, not be humming and still have the Bengals win
11:24the game comfortably because of what their defense did in this game.
11:28Derek. I mean, especially to I was after week one, I admit like they played a good run defense game against Tampa for the most part.
11:35But I was like, this is still a lot of new pieces.
11:38Like it's week one. You never know. Like, I want to see it again.
11:42And I think we still have some question marks about like how real was what Houston did running the ball in their first week.
11:49Dexter Lawrence, especially in this game, was insane. But they they really gave the Texans issues and everything that they were doing.
11:55But I think what was part of the saving grace of Houston last week when they were running the ball is they
12:01had a couple of these short yardage plays that were able to get them and can continue to extend their drives.
12:07Cincinnati was dominant in short yardage in this game, and it even kind of scared them off of it.
12:12They had in the middle of that. Yeah. Yes.
12:15In the middle of the second quarter, they went into jumbo and had a fourth and inches where they actually run away from the six offensive linemen.
12:23And Dexter Lawrence is so fast to get into the backfield.
12:26Like Evan Brown should probably be helping his guard a little bit more and just kind of leaves Keelan Rutledge out to dry.
12:32He's not able to get there. It ends up being a loss.
12:35And then the next time they end up in a similar situation, it's fourth and one in the middle of the third quarter.
12:42They choose not to go for it. And then they miss the 58 yard field goal by they miss it short, which
12:48is like a little bit of extra salt in the wound.
12:51And so obviously they lost the game by more than three points, but it was just like that kind of impact their
12:57run defense had on the game, which I don't know the last time I've been able to say that about about a Cincinnati Bengals defense.
13:04Okay, but you can also take that a step further.
13:07They miss that field goal, the 58 yarder where D'Amico Ryans was clearly spooked by the short yardage failure earlier in the game.
13:13It's an indefensible choice. Like it's a completely indefensible choice.
13:16The idea that, well, we haven't been able to move the ball in short yardage.
13:20And so now we have to go for, we have to kick a 58 yard field goal on fourth and one is just horrendous process.
13:27A few snaps. Independent of anything else. A few snaps after that.
13:31So they missed the field goal to stay down 10 to three.
13:34Third and seven on that drive is when Joe Burrow pulls out his Joe Burrow magic.
13:39He's in the grasp of the defensive tackle and flips it out to Samajay Pirine for the conversion.
13:44Incredible play. And it's, it's peak Joe Burrow. And then a handful of snaps after that, he finds Jamar Chase for the
13:50second touchdown, which again is peak Joe Burrow escaping from Will Anderson and getting out of the pocket and directing traffic.
13:56And just, I mean, looking like Joe Burrow at his very best, like Joe and Jamar had two or three really special moments.
14:02And, and that's the difference in this game. Like Jamar Chase said F you twice and Joe Burrow a handful of times.
14:08And it comes like right after this missed field goal.
14:11And with what the Bengals were doing defensively, you go down 17-3 in the second half of this game.
14:16It kind of felt like that was all she wrote.
14:19The play that on that extended play where Chase scores the touchdown after the play to Pirine.
14:24Chase's ability to feel those like zone defenders on that play and take that, take his path just a little bit more vertical to find that space.
14:32It just, what a special, incredible football player. And it doesn't even hold a candle to the other touchdown that he scored.
14:38Like I, I don't even know how to process it just because it's, it's unlike other great catches that are like Pantheon type moments.
14:44But this is where Jamar Chase is at his best.
14:47The body control that he is able to put on display in moments like this, where he, the idea that he can
14:53throttle down, adjust to that ball and somehow get both of those feet in bounds.
14:58I mean, it's one of the best catches I've ever seen.
15:01Like it's probably in the top 10 to 15 that I've ever seen in my entire life.
15:05It's not a one handed catch in the way that we talk about some of these other ones, but the body control
15:12on that play while running full speed is just absolutely insane.
15:15And so those plays are going to happen. Yes.
15:17With this team. When you have Jamar Chase and when you have Joe Burrow, those plays are going to happen.
15:23The question is, can you do enough on the other side of the ball to make three or four of them enough?
15:29And that was the case today for the Bengals.
15:31And we have not seen a team like that in a while.
15:35That we've not seen a version, this version of that team in a while.
15:39To build on the point you made with your stat about success rate, since they drafted Joe Burrow, the Bengals are eight
15:45and 32 when they scored 20 points or less.
15:47And this is only the second time in that stretch that they have scored 20 points or less and won by multiple scores.
15:54And the other, the other one was one of the most heinous games I can remember.
15:58They beat the 2024 Giants 17 to seven in a game that like nobody, nobody wanted to be a part of.
16:04And so to comfortably beat what I still absolutely think is a pretty good Texans team, even if they're 0-2.
16:10It's uncharted territory for the Bengals. We're not used to getting these sorts of performances from them.
16:15The other thing I want to shout out with this Bengals defense as a whole, and I know that they were playing
16:21against like mostly backup players for the Houston Texans.
16:23And I actually thought CJ Stroud was mostly excellent in this game.
16:27But the way that the DBs were just blocking out the sun, especially every time that they were playing man coverage, like
16:33I thought on some of their zone stuff, like CJ Stroud was seeing it well.
16:37And he was able to move the ball down the field.
16:40Didn't amount to many points because obviously they couldn't run the ball whatsoever.
16:44I think they had one successful run in the first half, like it was pretty bad for Houston, but passing the ball, they were fine.
16:51But on every single one on one contested ball, it felt like a Bengals DB was just getting his hand over over
16:57the wide receivers back or he was able to just contest it just enough to make it a drop.
17:02And there were I don't know if I went back and counted them probably four or five balls that like CJ Stroud
17:08put right where you have to against tight coverage and his receivers just weren't able to bring it in.
17:14And so it was just I thought a really impressive performance from the Bengals DBs to be able to like finish a
17:20lot of those plays and maybe against Nico Collins.
17:22You don't do that that many times. But the fact that I think when you go into these games where it's like
17:28we have the advantage as DBs, we should shut them out.
17:32And they completely shut them out in all those one on one scenarios.
17:35I was impressed. Yeah, there was a stretch. I mean, there was I can't remember when the play happened, but there was
17:41a they try to throw a slant with DJ Turner.
17:44I can't remember which receiver it was. And he said, I think it was Wayne.
17:48It was Wayne. That's right. Stroud's holding it. He's holding it.
17:51He's holding it. And he pins it on Wayne and he just isn't able to bring it in because it's good coverage.
17:58That play jumped out. And the one that really jumped out.
18:01And this to me is the sign of a defense that's playing well when you're really marrying the Russian coverage together.
18:06There was a play. Let me find it in my notes here because I want to get this right.
18:12It was early in the third quarter. It was third and 10.
18:15The Bengals were in a cover zero look. They ended up dropping a couple of guys out, but it was a heavy, heavy pressure look.
18:22And the thought is he's going to have to get rid of this ball quick.
18:26Stroud long corks it quickly. And Dax Hill comes down from that cover zero look as the ball is coming out and gets the PBU.
18:33And watching those things happen in concert with one another when the Russian coverage is working together.
18:38That happened a lot for the Bengals today. I mean, all three levels of the defense played extremely well.
18:43But the run defense is what really stuck out.
18:46I just want to go over a couple numbers from what this performance was from the Bengals run defense and the Texans rushing offense.
18:53Per next gen, 13.3% rushing success rate for the Texans in this game.
18:5613.3%. Okay. The Bengals or the Texans had eight runs into light boxes in this game.
19:01Montgomery had five carries or excuse me. Marks had five carries for seven yards.
19:05Montgomery had three carries for five yards. So on their runs into light boxes, the two running backs for the Texans in
19:11this game had eight carries for 12 yards. Dexter Lawrence is a really impactful player.
19:15The idea was if you trade for this man, he is truly a run defense upon himself.
19:20And I think and I even I liked the Dexter Lawrence trade, but I still think that there was fair idea to
19:26look at him and be like, well, the linebackers aren't very good.
19:29And they weren't very good in New York and they could not stop the run either.
19:34But I do think that there's like an overall defensive difference in that in New York, the DBs just weren't good enough to scare you on passing downs.
19:42Whereas I think the Bengals are allowed to get away with certain stuff because their guys can actually cover and like they
19:48don't have to a lot of resources in the same way that New York was having to do.
19:53And it wasn't just Dexter Lawrence. I mean, the play that TJ Slayton makes on that short yardage play where he just dumps.
19:59Trent Brown was incredibly impressive. Jonathan Allen had multiple really nice plays in this game.
20:03Jordan Battle comes downhill for a run stuff at some point in this game.
20:07The other stat that I think is really telling and funny about just the way that the NFL works and being so
20:14week to week and how we don't know anything early in the season.
20:17So the Bengals had the second highest stuff rate among all games in the NFL so far in this game per next gen.
20:24The Bengals defense did. Number one was the Bills against the Lions on Thursday night.
20:28The same Bills defense that the Texans ran the ball pretty well against last week.
20:32There's no way to know jack shit two weeks into this season.
20:35Like we know absolutely nothing. And the same Lions offense that ran all over the Saints week one and were like the best rushing offense in football.
20:43None of this shit makes any sense until like Halloween.
20:46It feels like. I'll say this. I'm worried about.
20:48I am. I am worried about the way the Texans ran the ball in this game because it felt like way too much like last year.
20:56The short yardage stuff, any zone run, they were just getting dumped on the backside.
21:00I think part of it is that Wyatt Teller played Fred Ingram in this game, which may not seem like a huge deal.
21:06Ed Ingram is a much better run blocker at this point in his career than Wyatt Teller is.
21:11You felt that over the course of this game.
21:14But overall, I think even if you average out the two performances we've seen from the Texans offense, what they did today
21:20against the Bengals, even if the Bengals front is playing well, that's going to worry me.
21:24I still am not really worried about the Texans defense.
21:27I said this about Josh Allen coming into the season where I said the only real player that he reminded me of
21:33and just how much of a force of nature he could be over the course of an NFL game is Jamar Chase.
21:39Like in two weeks, they played against these two force of nature players that made like five or six incredible plays over the course of the game.
21:47And that's not going to happen every single week.
21:50Like at their positions, though, they are singular forces in any given moment.
21:53D'Amico Ryan said it after the game that Jamar Chase like came in and delivered.
21:57He was like, this is life in the NFL.
22:00Like you make you get two or three opportunities to make a play in a game like this and you have to answer the bell.
22:07And he I mean, he was kind of calling out his own guys saying like, where are where are our playmakers to my to D'Amico?
22:14I would say he's hurt with a hamstring injury and that is a big part of why the Texans offense, I think,
22:20looked as as hit and miss as it did.
22:23But still, like the Bengals, I don't want to say they weren't great, but like it's like five moments where they just had 35 percent success.
22:30They were not moving the ball consistently. Anderson and Hunter Brown was getting barbecued in this Anderson and Hunter word.
22:35We're giving them fits and it took all of Joe and Jamar Chase being that good to make the difference in a game that they won by 13.
22:43Like I'm really I'm not very worried about the Texans, even if they are own to.
22:48But it's an 0 and 2 start where you're always threading a little bit of a needle with how good you needed your offense to be.
22:55And even if I do think Stroud has played pretty well over these first couple of weeks, enough concerns about the state
23:01of the offensive line in the run game coming off of what last season looked like that I don't think that part should be ignored.
23:08And unfortunately, I'm past the point of just counting on Nico Collins's availability.
23:12Like I want him back as quickly as possible, but that is becoming a trend.
23:16All right, let's get to a few other performances today that really stuck out.
23:20It's time for You Have My Attention. Gentlemen, now you have my attention.
23:24After putting up what I thought was probably the most disappointing performance in week one, the Denver Broncos came back and had
23:30arguably the most impressive performance in the NFL right there with what the Bengals did in week two.
23:35The Broncos knock off the Jags 20 to 13, a significantly more impressive day from their offense than what we saw in week one.
23:42The Denver Broncos beating a Jags team that looks really, really good in week one.
23:46You firmly have our attention. I'm breathing the biggest sigh of relief right now.
23:50Like they were because of the wind's pool. Not even the wind's pool.
23:53I've pushed so many chips in on Denver. I just, and I don't need all of it to hit, but I just
23:59didn't want them to look as abysmal as they did on Monday night.
24:03And honestly, halfway through the first half of this game, I was like, oh no, it wasn't an aberration.
24:08They just suck. And so them pulling out of the nosedive was, uh, I was feeling much better by the end of the day.
24:15It felt like on both offense and defense, they just found such a different gear.
24:19Like I thought in the second half, some of what they were doing to Trevor Lawrence and to the passing offense, I thought was incredible.
24:26Like the interception that Trevor Lawrence throws down the left side, like Denver's in this blitz look and they've got everybody on
24:32the line of scrimmage and they pop off into Tampa too.
24:36And so Trevor thinks, okay, I've got my guy on the left side running down.
24:40He's going to be in the hole, but because there's no other immediate threat there holding the cover to corner down, Riley
24:46Moss just like runs up and runs under it.
24:48And so I thought them toying with him that way was really impressive.
24:52And then it felt like, especially on their last couple of drives, they were doing a lot of, like, I remember there
24:58was one play where they had Jaquan McMillan run across the field with emotion and look like they're going to be man.
25:04They pop out into this zone. Look, Trevor double clutches and almost throws another interception.
25:09They were just doing stuff like that more consistently and more successfully in the second half.
25:13They weren't playing much man in the second half.
25:16I think it was like 20 percentage man in the second half.
25:19It was a lot of zone that play really stuck out as well, where McMillan at just McMillan and Riley Moss period.
25:25Yes. Played extremely well in this game. Like the other corners, PS2 also had his moments.
25:30There was a couple one, the couple that stood out where he's just there.
25:33The play on where they try to get strange on like the little angle route in the third quarter where he widens
25:40a little bit to break it back in. Sertan never moves.
25:43He's just sitting there the entire time. And he didn't have like the PBUs and the splash plays that Moss and McMillan did in this game.
25:50But you just watch how steady of a presence he is.
25:53And that trio of corners overall in this game, I just thought played extremely well.
25:57But where this was one to me for the Broncos and it to me, that's what this is.
26:02It's such a contrast from what we were talking about coming out of week one.
26:06They whipped ass up front on both sides of the ball in this game.
26:10They dominated on both sides of the ball in a way that they kind of got pushed around in week one.
26:16And that when we talked about it in real time, it was just disappointing.
26:20Like when you have invested this much and the identity of your team is what you can do in pass protection on
26:26offense and what you can do getting after the quarterback on defense.
26:30And you do none of them. It's like, well, what are you supposed to be?
26:34And to watch them bounce back Denver in the way that they did on both sides of the ball today.
26:40That to me is what was so encouraging for the Jags.
26:4319.4% pressure rate per next gen in this game, despite blitzing on 45% of dropbacks.
26:47It's a non-starter. It's going to be really hard to even have a passable defensive performance under those circumstances.
26:52And on the other side of the ball, the Broncos had a 45.2% pressure rate.
26:56And you felt that. I mean, Pregnant looked really good in week one.
27:00Harrison looked really good in week one. You felt how young Pregnant was in this game.
27:04You saw Ezra Cleveland struggle in this game. They're not going to play the Broncos every week, but some of the concerns
27:11we had about this group in pass protection showed up against Denver in a way that it did not show up against Cleveland last week.
27:18And not even just against the Stars. There was one play that Anton Harrison got like run over by Q Robinson, who
27:24was one of the backup guys for this Denver team.
27:27And so, I mean, obviously, Denver's even backups are like pretty impressive relative to the rest of the league.
27:32But it was a day where like they really struggled to protect the quarterback the way that they want to, which was
27:38kind of always, even though I'm still very high on what this Jags offense can be like, that's always what this is
27:44going to look like when it doesn't go right.
27:47It's the run game starts to fall away just a little bit.
27:50And then it's like we're in a little too many pure pass situations than we want to be.
27:55And we can't protect it, especially against some of these fronts that really do like to blitz you and bring pressure, like a Vance Joseph style of team.
28:03I just think overall, the physicality from the Jags offense wasn't where it needs to be if they're going to be a
28:09team that sticks around until the end. Up front, you felt that.
28:12And then Brian Thomas Jr. just continues to be frustrating in some of those moments.
28:17That ball that he doesn't pull in with like 1030 left in the fourth quarter, like that ball has to be caught.
28:23That ball is on him. You are not getting a lot of opportunities in this game offensively in the second half because
28:29of what the Broncos are doing to you. And for that to fall incomplete when you only have a couple of scattered
28:35moments that you have to take advantage of. Again, I just think overall, they got pushed around on that side of the
28:41ball in a way that they did not against the Browns.
28:44And in a way the Broncos did not do last week against the Chiefs.
28:48The funny thing is, though, and some of the physicality I would agree with, but like the execution was still there up until like Trevor threw that interception.
28:56Like he was he was dialed in. Yeah, he was.
28:59He absolutely was. The two minute drive to get the field goal before half.
29:03He threw three straight completions. He had like an 11 yard curl to Parker Washington, a short little dig in cut to BTJ.
29:09And then he had an 18 yard little post where he like sat it down right.
29:14He basically had to sit down to catch the ball.
29:17Just he was just ripping incredible throws like one after the other.
29:20And then he talked about it after the game.
29:22Football players, big, big believers in momentum. And like he talked about like from the interception, Denver goes and scores right after that.
29:29And he said it just felt like it snowballed away from them.
29:32And you could feel it like you could. It just felt like a completely different team after two, three minutes into the
29:38third quarter than what we saw up to that point.
29:41On offense for the Broncos, the play, the one play I want to talk about before we get into just the overall quality of the offense.
29:48Did you guys see what Quinn Miners did? Yeah.
29:51On that Jonah Coleman run late in the fourth quarter.
29:54If we're talking about Ross Tucker, like singled it out and was like, look how freaking cool this is.
29:59I didn't realize that. I saw Washington in real time.
30:02I mean, he just absolutely buries a guy on the Jonah Coleman run with like three minutes left in the fourth quarter.
30:08And again, that's just the type of stuff we didn't see enough of last week against the Chiefs.
30:13And it was fun to watch that group up front play like that.
30:17But to me, the other just huge difference in what the Broncos offense felt like is we go from a game where
30:23they refuse to push the ball downfield whatsoever to a game where they seem more than comfortable doing it.
30:28And just think about how different the offense felt because of that.
30:32Last week, 3.8 air yards per attempt. 21% of their throws went to the sticks in week one for Denver.
30:37Today, 9.2 air yards per attempt. 45% of those throws.
30:40Go to the sticks. And I had there was a couple throws that Bo Nix made in this game.
30:45We could talk about it. That are a couple of my favorite plays he has ever made that I've ever seen him make as an NFL quarterback.
30:53Like their willingness to be more aggressive and to push the ball and get Jalen Waddell involved along with the quality that we saw up front.
31:00It just was such a different feeling version of the Broncos offense against a very good Jags defense.
31:05Well, and this is what I thought the passing offense should look like with Bo Nix.
31:10And I do think part of like them attacking the sticks a little bit more and being willing to throw down the
31:16field is what you mentioned with the pressure rate.
31:18Like I just thought they protected him better. And so he gets a lot a little bit more comfortable doing that.
31:24But like the first big post that he throws to Waddell, it's like this little gun bootleg to the right.
31:30And he just sets up and just chucks it like he can do that.
31:34Like he's he has a very talented arm. I thought there were a handful of other circumstances where they were booting him
31:40and rolling him and sprinting him out of the pocket, which they had a lot of success doing that last season.
31:46And then I thought in this game, too, there were three or four like really impressive outside the numbers, like deep outbreakers,
31:52cuts, overs, all that sort of stuff. Those are some of his best throws is to make those deep throws outside the
31:58numbers because he does have the arm for it.
32:01And so if he feels like he's protected and he feels like he can make those throws, he obviously has the arm talent to do it.
32:08I think getting him to do it on every single game is going to be difficult.
32:12But this game, he was that he played really, really well.
32:15The drive for them to tie the game at 13 was beautiful.
32:19It starts with like a big completion to Atkins with like 26 seconds left in the third quarter.
32:24So why why looks to the left? They run play action.
32:27Jerry and Jones get sucked inside a little bit.
32:29They throw the big corner out to Atkins on the same drive.
32:33The throw he has to Waddle with the Jags brought a blitz.
32:36And it's I think it's Branson Combs dropping and Waddle has not cleared him yet coming over the middle of the field.
32:42And he lets that thing rip before he sees it.
32:45And again, I haven't watched every throw Bo Nix has ever had in his entire career.
32:50I watched that play and I think that is my favorite throw I have ever seen him make.
32:55It's to the middle of the field. It requires a little bit of trust.
32:58It requires some aggression. And you just don't see that all the time from him.
33:03And so to see that version of him and play with that sort of confidence and anticipation and aggressiveness, we just didn't see that in week one.
33:10And I think we're going to need to see it for this to be the sort of team they want to be this year.
33:17You know what else I noticed on that throw?
33:19Pass protection from the back. Yeah. Much better. RJ Harvey did not play in this game.
33:24I wonder. I think it was Beatty. It was really nice moments in pass protection, which, you know, like the Broncos have
33:30spent big draft picks on a couple of running backs.
33:33But if Tyler Bidet gives you the better chance at Bo making throws like that, I wonder what that's going to look like.
33:39There's one play, even though the Broncos played exceptionally well on offense, especially in the second half.
33:44And I don't even mean this to shit on Bo Nix.
33:47I actually didn't even really think that this was his fault necessarily.
33:51I thought it was a great play by the Jaguars.
33:53The interception that Jordan Lewis gets in the end zone is an unbelievable play.
33:57Like they're basically playing cover zero, like zone cover zero.
34:00And they're trying to run that like double China where you get to.
34:04They actually start breaking them out towards the flat and then they break them back in.
34:08But they're trying to get those in cuts so that they can throw the corner over it.
34:13Jordan Lewis is the like middle of the three DBs.
34:16And he kind of just lets the underneath guy go and then floats on top of it.
34:20And that to me is like he's either freelancing or this is like a really impressive zone adjustment that they've made where
34:27two and three are going to be like, hey, one of us is going to play in.
34:31One of us is going to play out. And for him to float under that, like whether that's coaching, whether that's him
34:38going freelance, like I don't even put that on the quarterback.
34:41Like you throw that ball every time. And the DB just made an exceptional play.
34:45Two guys I want to shout out on the Broncos defense before we leave.
34:49Zach Allen got both of these guards. There was a one, there was one series where he had two wins in succession
34:55against both of them to torpedo the series. And the other guy that I love when we have players that have super
35:01specific skill sets and they work in a certain defense, they might not work everywhere.
35:05Justin Starnott is just perfect for the way that this team wants to play.
35:09Like, I don't know what he would be if you put him in another situation where he wasn't blitzing all the time
35:15and he wasn't just playing downhill all the time, but he had so they were firing those linebackers in this game, Derek.
35:21Like they were coming downhill on run plays and making plays in the backfield because of it.
35:26Starnott had a couple of those. He always shows up as a blitzer and on stunts.
35:31He's just so, I mean, he's like a battering ram, like just like the space he creates for other people.
35:36And so both Zach Allen and Starnott. And again, when this defense is playing well, it's guys like that that you feel over the course of the game.
35:44And I think you felt both of those guys today.
35:47Well, and specifically with Starnott, what did we say about what this passing offense might do to them?
35:52It's that if the Jaguars have their way and get what they want, they're going to throw over these linebackers and throw
35:58over the middle and all that stuff. Well, if we're just firing them and replacing them with somebody else, you've kind of solved the problem.
36:05And so I think that them doing that so effectively, that's how you end up winning a game like this.
36:11I thought that that was really impressive. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break.
36:16Let's get to our next one here. The New Orleans Saints, a week after nearly beating the Lions in overtime, go into
36:22Baltimore and beat the Ravens and really show a lot on offense yet again with a young quarterback that meets the moment yet again.
36:29The New Orleans Saints, one on one, we're on the cusp of being two and oh, you guys officially have our attention.
36:35What a fun team. Fun team. Fun. What a fun couple of fourth quarters here the last couple of weeks with, you
36:41know, rallying against the Lions and what I mean, this game was it was before halftime that they kicked the field goal going into the break.
36:48But like from 14 to three to winning this game 24-17, I don't know where I want to start because obviously like when Tyler.
36:55Weird game. Yes. Like when Tyler Shuck did what he did, you want to start there.
36:59But also I was so impressed by Brandon Saleh's defense in particularly in the second half and what they were able to do against Lamar Jackson.
37:07If you look at the numbers overall, the Ravens actually moved the ball pretty consistently in this game.
37:12It was a lot of just weird shooting yourself in the foot moments combined with the Saints defense making enough plays to win the game.
37:19I don't want to discredit what they did. But there were some really frustrating moments from the Ravens in this game, like
37:25multiple screens that turn into negative plays because Henry can't get out cleanly and they just get totally blown up.
37:31And then obviously the biggest play of the game is Lamar takes that shot to Chris Moore on third and one.
37:36Yes. Which probably doesn't need to happen if he hangs on that for another second.
37:41I think it was Bateman coming open on like the deep outbreaker.
37:44And so that choice and then not choosing to go for it on fourth and one.
37:48That's a little bit of a that's a that's a turning point moment in the game.
37:53But there were several just frustrating second down plays specifically in the second half for the Ravens that ultimately did them in.
37:59I'm glad you brought up the third and one.
38:02And I agree with you. Like I many things the Ravens could have done differently.
38:06But what a fun play by Kool-Aid McKinstry. Yeah.
38:08To poke that thing out. Like a really good recovery by him on that play.
38:12Quincy Riley had his own PBU in this game like that.
38:16This defense I do think has some juice to it.
38:18Like I do think that this is going to be a defense after the way they played in the second half of
38:25last year over the course of the year. That's going to be a solid unit.
38:29And speaking of firing linebackers, I mean, you know, Caden Ellis is going to do that.
38:33But Caden Ellis and Pete Werner both were like Brandon Staley.
38:36I think they combined for like five pressures and a sack on Lamar.
38:40This is going to be a blitz team. That's why they signed Caden Ellis in free agency because they're going to be
38:46at their best when they're sending a lot of pressure.
38:49And they did in this game. I think they finished.
38:52So the Saints in this game finished with a 44% blitz rate and a 44% pressure rate.
38:56And that doesn't even account for some of the simulators that they sent.
39:00I mean, the amount of times that we have second level defenders coming toward the quarterback for the Saints defense, that is
39:06going to be a fixture of what this team is defensively this year.
39:10I think the drive that kind of actually explains everything that we were just talking about.
39:14It was late in the third quarter. The I forget exactly what happened on the play, but the or maybe it was
39:21just a false start, but the Ravens end up in first and 15.
39:24They call a screen to Derek Henry that loses three yards.
39:27So now it's second and 18. Then they fire Pete Werner at Derek Henry in pass protection.
39:32He gives it up and now it's third and 25.
39:35And obviously the drive is over. And it just the entire second half felt like that stuff like that for the Baltimore Ravens.
39:41I do think. I'm a little bit worried about the defense, actually.
39:45I don't think that they played all that well in this game.
39:48I think that they were just a lot of situations, especially late in this game where you felt the Ravens did not have wide receiver talent anymore.
39:55And I really I think the Ravens should have kept running the ball.
39:59Yeah, I do think part of the reason they didn't is some of the shooting your foot ending up in first and 15, all this stuff.
40:06But they had they were like a 60 percent rushing success rate in this game.
40:11They were forgot about Derek Henry in the second half of this game.
40:14That's totally fair to say. Didn't it feel like a young play caller kind of just like having one of those moments,
40:20like just lost the feel of the game a little bit?
40:23And again, I think he's going to be really good at this.
40:27And like the design of the offense is phenomenal.
40:29But that's just going to happen to younger play callers where just like game starts to slip away.
40:34Weird stuff is happening. You're getting some of these penalties.
40:37The offense on the other side is starting to make you score points and stuff like that just starts to fall away.
40:43Yeah, I think that's fair. I still have a relative level, like a reasonable level of confidence in the Saints defense overall,
40:50because I do think that they if you look at it like their ability to bow up against the run in some
40:56big moments in this game, they were still able to do that.
40:59Like the biggest play their run defense made in the entire game.
41:02There's a second and three in the fourth quarter set up that third and one throw where Kobe wouldn't makes a really
41:09nice play to kind of shove that thing back inside.
41:11It's a two yard game. They set up the third and one and that the game kind of changes there.
41:17But I just think that the combination of what they can do as a pressure team, Chase Young, again, having multiple really standout moments in this game.
41:24I think the Ravens are going to be a good offense over the course of this season.
41:29But I think that both of those things can be true.
41:32I think that we can acknowledge the fact that the Ravens are going to be really good on offense, that Declan Doyle
41:38had some moments he probably wants back in this game.
41:41The Saints defense down to down did not play great.
41:44But over the course of the season, I think they're probably going to be OK.
41:48I think that's where I land with it overall.
41:51I think the past defense, I agree with that.
41:53The run defense, I want to see more. It's two weeks in a row now where they've gotten shish kebobbed by these teams.
42:00Like, I think, where did I have the number?
42:0264% of the Ravens run gained at least five yards.
42:05Not even just like successful run, five yards. Like, they were popping them for a lot of this game.
42:10I do think the past defense will be good.
42:13But the run defense, I'm a little scared. I hear you.
42:16And I know that Zay Flowers and Jacoby Lane are hurt.
42:19But the Ravens were like eight and a half point favorites in this game.
42:23Like, this, I mean, this was supposed to be a comfortable win for Baltimore.
42:27And it looked like it was going to be up until early third quarter, midway, like late third quarter.
42:32And so, I mean, even if it wasn't perfect, I think the Saints defense was gritty and impressive and rose to the
42:38occasion, especially considering what the Baltimore offense looked like last week.
42:41And that's exactly what I would say about the Saints offense and their quarterback.
42:45What he did in the second half of this game.
42:48In the second half, per next gen, Tyler Shuck, 15 of 19 for 150 yards, 54.5% success rate, .33 EPA per dropback.
42:54And, I mean, you just watch how he was doing it.
42:57I was so impressed in both of those touchdown drives in the second half.
43:01Third and five on the first one, simulated pressure.
43:04He hits Olave sitting in the hook, like the safety having to come down from depth.
43:08He has to make that decision really quickly, gets the ball out.
43:12The touchdown to Olave on that drive is a beautiful design.
43:15He comes in motion and then he runs the big post back behind it.
43:19It's like a perfect quarters beater in that situation.
43:21Shuck rips that ball for a touchdown. The next drive, they get the ball back.
43:25Olave, by the way, Olave looks f***ing crazy. Like, he just looks so good.
43:29And the touchdown is potentially an example of that.
43:32But the one that really jumps out to me, on their game-winning touchdown drive, he pushes vertical against Wiggins and then throttles
43:38back down on a deep comeback for a 15-yard chunk.
43:41Third and six. Shuck gets the ball quickly to Valle to set up a fourth and one.
43:46They get Wiggins lost on a bunch with five minutes left.
43:49The play that Olave makes on third and two on that final drive, the physical catch that he makes against Marlon Humphrey
43:55in the left flat to keep that drive alive was incredibly impressive.
43:58And then the third and six completion to Juwan Johnson that gets them down the field.
44:03I mean, Trey Hendrickson is coming untouched on that play.
44:05Tyler Shuck stands in, stares down the barrel of the gun, gets drilled, and delivers that ball to Juwan Johnson, who makes
44:12the play and takes it down inside like the 10-yard line.
44:15But, I mean, just consistently, you talk about rising to the moment and just a gritty performance.
44:19For the second week in a row, when they needed him to make a bunch of nails throws, Tyler Shuck did it again.
44:26Tyler Shuck threw a pass on 10 third downs in this game.
44:29He completed nine of the 10 passes and converted seven of the 10 third downs.
44:33And one of the non-conversions was the one you just mentioned, the five-yard completion to Valle that set up a fourth and short.
44:40So that's not a third down conversion, but it's pretty damn good.
44:43I mean, like he was unstoppable on the money downs in this game.
44:47The offense I buy. Like, he looks even better than he did.
44:50He looks like just a better version of what he was last year.
44:54And I think part of what has been so impressive to me with him is just how quickly the ball comes out.
45:00And like how clean and obvious the way that he operates is.
45:03Like, it's just there are some quarterbacks that you watch and you don't feel like they have a consistent process with the way that they're doing things.
45:11I feel like Shuck, if you gave me a snapshot at any point in the down, I could tell you what he's
45:17going to do because he just like he just plays the game in such a consistent way.
45:22And then on top, I think that part you could have sold me on, like coming out of college, coming off his rookie year, all that stuff.
45:29I'm shocked at how dynamic he is. Like, like you said, willing to just stare down the barrel of the gun.
45:35I think when he his ability to make plays is funny.
45:38I posted this on Blue Sky. I think when he's like getting off the blocks, he's not that impressive of an athlete.
45:45But once the first guy misses or once he steps up into space and starts moving and accelerating the way he sees
45:51downfield, the throws that he's willing to make, I think he's a much more impressive playmaker than I thought.
45:56There was one play in the second quarter where he like scoots up into his right and finds a lot of it like 20 yards down the field.
46:04And just I didn't know how much of that we were going to get from him.
46:08And so the fact that we're getting that and he is handling what is a pure drop back offense, honestly, that puts
46:14a lot on his shoulders to replace blitzes and throw hot and all this stuff.
46:19And other than the first half of last week against the Lions, I think he's done it very, very well.
46:24So he's an interesting athlete. He's not twitchy in the short area, but his he's good in a straight line.
46:30Like he's explosive enough in a straight line. And when he gets out into space, he can make plays out of structure.
46:36And so it's just like a weird combination of stuff where he is athletic, but in a very specific way.
46:42He's like you, you have to push him down the hill.
46:45And then once he gets pushed down the hill and he's accelerated, he can just snowball and start making things happen.
46:51But you got to push him and nudge him down.
46:53You saw Anthony Weaver called him a poor man's Josh Allen heading into the game.
46:58And Chuck, you know, he had a fun little comment afterward about that getting him fired up for the game and him
47:04appreciating the spirit of it, I guess. But I mean, if the shoe fits right.
47:08I, again, for the second straight week, just very impressed by what he was doing on some of those really high leverage
47:14plays in the second half of a very close game.
47:17I think it's worth noting, too, the Saints lost Kelvin Banks pretty early in this game.
47:21And so for Chuck to perform and for Kellen Moore to mitigate that, you know, they were giving him a lot of help.
47:28There were a lot of chips. He usually had a back or a tight end.
47:32Awesome Richard stepped in. But to get that performance without a left tackle that, you know, a very promising left tackle, because
47:38when I heard that news, I was like, oh, no, Tyler Shuck is screwed.
47:42Like Baltimore is going to just pick on that all day long.
47:45And they were able to avoid it. Another one of those frustrating early seasons Raven losses, which, you know, they seem to have one every single year.
47:53They're frustrating, but I think not something to be overly concerned about is where I land on it.
47:58I just think the Saints are going to be a really plucky team over the course of the season.
48:03We have one more entry here into you have my attention, and I think this speaks to the weirdness of the day.
48:09Both the Packers and Eagles. You had my attention at the end of those games in a way that I didn't necessarily expect.
48:16I didn't think you'd be having my attention against the Jets and Titans late in those games, but they did because they were close.
48:23And I feel like we should talk about both of them.
48:26Where do you want to start? Which of these games stood out to you the most?
48:30Probably Packers. Excuse me. No, probably Eagles-Titans, honestly. Just because I, A, I thought based on the way the Titans played last
48:36week, I thought even a flawed Eagles team would make pretty quick work of that.
48:41And then the end of the game was just incredibly entertaining between, you know, the Nick Sirianni gaffe that gave the Titans an extra down.
48:48And TyJ Spears converts from 23 yards out, even with Robert Sala, like not even trying to pick up a first down.
48:54And then Robert Sala immediately just going back to that very conservative well and deciding that a field goal is going to
49:00be good enough to beat the Eagles. And for all the hell that he catches, sometimes deservingly so, Jalen Hurts was phenomenal
49:06getting them down the field for that game-winning touchdown.
49:09Like just two or three just badass throws. Like, I mean, the one that got him down near the goal line to Devontae Smith was just absolutely awesome.
49:16And so, like, the two-minute drill in this game was riveting and very fun to watch, even if I didn't see it coming.
49:23He had two of those very similar sorts of concepts where they're like a short outbreaker underneath and then the corner out behind it.
49:30And he just throws those corner outs beautifully. Like, that to me is the best throw that he makes, and he made several of them in this game.
49:37I think on the final drive, he hits one to Wicks on the right side and then comes back to Devontae Smith on the left side.
49:45But Devontae Smith was phenomenal in this game. I mean, just when everything he brings to the table, it's cool to watch him get these sorts of opportunities.
49:52The play he makes on that ball, he has to go get it.
49:56He had a deep comeback where he, like, comes back to the ball.
50:00He just, you just, it's cool to see him featured as the number one receiver and the best receiver in an offense
50:06because it's just such a reminder of just how preternaturally talented Devontae Smith is.
50:10Like, it just, he's the most productive college receiver we've ever seen.
50:13And you just see the little tiny things. He does incredibly well at the position.
50:17And so many of those were on display in this game.
50:20I mean, we always say it, but like him and T Higgins for a long time, we're like, you're not a number two because you're a number two.
50:28You're just a number two because you had to be.
50:31And so to get him to be able to do that, I think is, is really incredible.
50:36I'm so glad you brought up all the outbreakers that he threw because I think that that's when Jalen Hurts has been
50:42at his best in any other previous iteration of this offense.
50:45It's outbreakers that he's thrown, sale routes, corner routes, just like anything deep and breaking outside of the numbers.
50:50And so I think in that sense, you got like vintage Jalen Hurts.
50:54I also think we got like a different version of him than we usually see, which is that this was only one
51:00of four games in Hurts's career with more than 10 throws between the numbers beyond five yards.
51:05It's one of only four times in his entire career that he's done that.
51:09And it's not just that he was throwing that area of the field and willing to do it the way that he
51:15was hanging in the pocket and just like willing to hang in there and wait for that throw to come.
51:21That's just not something that we had always got in previous versions of the offense, like even when they were really good in 24.
51:27That's just not really what he did. And so whether or not this is a flash in the pan or if that's
51:34something he can continue to do, we'll see. But that was the vision for the offense is that you could get that
51:40out of him on top of some of the other vintage throws that we got from him outside the numbers.
51:45So if they can continue to get a little bit of both worlds from him in that sense, and Devonta Smith is
51:51going to play like a receiver who can get like 14, 1500 yards.
51:55OK, we can we can start to sell myself.
51:58I would 100 percent agree. I think that's exactly where I would land with this, where it's the it's the blend that you want to see.
52:05It's all of those things happening together to throw that.
52:08So when I was at training camp and we were talking about this, the idea of him trying to access the middle
52:14of the field more and how this offense could push him to do that.
52:18The argument was, well, the way that we're playing and what we're asking him to do with his feet and the timing
52:24we're asking him to play with his feet are going to take him to those throws.
52:28And you hear that. And that's a cool thing to hear on like August 10th.
52:33And you're like, all right, how is that actually going to play out?
52:36The dagger he hits to Wicks with like 12 minutes left in the first quarter.
52:40It's third and 12. And you watch this play unfold.
52:43And he has one hitch to the left, two hitches back to the middle on the on the end breaker.
52:49And he throws it on that second hitch to Wicks on that dagger.
52:52And he completes it for a huge chunk gain.
52:55It's like, how many times have you ever seen him do that, Derek?
52:59Not nearly enough. It felt like I watched it.
53:01You got him at two hands. I mean, like it just doesn't happen.
53:05It felt like I watched. It felt like I watched half of the throws that he's made his entire career of that kind in this game.
53:12Yes. And that's probably an over exaggeration. But like it truly felt like I don't know how many times I've really seen him make that throw.
53:19Watching him do that in rhythm. And then the other element of it that is Jalen Hurts at his best is him making plays, extending plays.
53:27It's just buying enough time with his feet to make explosive plays happen.
53:30He had a 14 yard completion on third and eight to Makai Lemon early in the game where he just it's a
53:36slightly off schedule play where he's buying himself just a little bit of space.
53:40And then the Devante Smith touchdown is that where he's escaping out to his right.
53:44He's keeping his eyes downfield and he's making an explosive play.
53:48And so I just think on so many levels, the first pick, it's a bad play that you want back.
53:53The second pick, he's getting hit as he throws that ball.
53:56Jeffrey Simmons just toasts Cam Juergens on that play.
53:59And that's why that ball is under thrown. And he had him.
54:02Yeah, he had him. And that's, I mean, that's the Jalen Hurts isn't under throwing a lot of deep balls.
54:08Like that is, that's one thing he does extremely well.
54:11And so watching that ball get so badly under thrown as a product of him getting hit.
54:15That to me, if I were trying to pinpoint the area of concern I have about the Eagles offense, is that the
54:21offensive line still in its current state with Juergens moving over and just the lack of run game again, they had a
54:2833% offensive success rate in this game. I know Saquon Barkley was out for a good chunk of it, but 32 carries for 89 yards.
54:35Like, and I think it even speaks to how impressive that Hurts performance is.
54:39The fact that for the second straight week, he's really had to do the heavy lifting for this offense.
54:44And I think that's a really encouraging place to be just for his performance.
54:48Overall, as an Eagles fan watching this, it's not the offense that you were promised at its best because the run game hasn't been clicking so far.
54:55But for the second straight week, I thought you, I think you have to be really happy with how Hurts played.
55:01Yeah, it's definitely like in the noon window when everything's going on and you're checking over to see if Philly is pulling away and they're not.
55:08And then all of a sudden they're trailing. It's very easy to like that.
55:12What's wrong with the Eagles? What's wrong with the Eagles?
55:15What is going on? For the second straight week, it felt like that.
55:19But in reality, he played well for the second straight week.
55:22Not to say it was good. And Saquon, I mean, Saquon got hurt in this game.
55:26That's something to monitor. The offensive line continues to not look impressive.
55:30But just going back and watching Jalen Hurts, I was nowhere near as discouraged by this as in the moment.
55:35I was like, holy shit, are they going to lose to the Titans?
55:39Like, what's going on? I don't think it was that bad.
55:42And part of the reason that they almost lost to the Titans is that the Titans offense showed some life in this game.
55:48We had some really nice moments from Cam Ward in this game, which is.
55:52Who knows what this will look like over the course of the season?
55:56If you're a Titans fan, after the way that week one looked and after the way that last year looked, having this
56:02offense and him show some signs of life has to be such a relief.
56:06Who knows how long it'll last, but I would be incredibly relieved if I were a Titans fan watching the way that they played today.
56:13It was the third highest EPA per drop back of his career in one of, I think, only five games that was at average or better.
56:20And so, like, it was a genuinely nice performance.
56:23And I thought that I think part of that, too, is like the run game kind of worked a little bit at spurts in this game for them.
56:31And it was able to allow them to, like, just not be in a million third and eights or feel like they
56:37had to rely on the screen game to get things going.
56:40Like, I thought Cam Ward did really make a handful of really impressive plays.
56:44And so he even even as a runner, like there was he had the scramble out to his left in the end
56:50zone that gets him like in where he just gets over the pylon.
56:54So I thought the fact that he looked the way that he did against the Eagles defense that.
56:59I think has not been quite as good as I wanted them to be out of the gates, but still think will
57:05be one of the best eight defenses by the end of the season.
57:09I think that it was like a pretty encouraging performance.
57:11The other team that won ugly and we didn't expect it to be that close near the end was the Green Bay
57:17Packers who pull out a win over the New York Jets in, I would say, messier fashion.
57:22Yeah. Than what we got from the Eagles. This required a lot of nonsense for the Packers to win this game in a bunch of different ways.
57:30I've got some silly numbers if you want to put one on it.
57:33Here's what I got. In the last 25 years, there are three games in which a team has committed at least 14
57:40penalties and put five fumbles on the ground. So not lost them, but put the ball on the ground.
57:45It's an 07 loss by the Bears. That sounds right.
57:48A 2016, right? A 2016 win by the Miami Dolphins and this game by the Packers.
57:5214 penalties and five fumbles on the ground. They really only honestly won this game in large part because Skymore was insane as a returner.
57:59Like he made multiple like put them into scoring position returns like that probably saved them.
58:04And otherwise, I don't know if they win this game.
58:06Real monkeys paw situation with the Packers. We're going to give you decent special teams now, but your offense has to struggle in this way.
58:13If it's going to happen, you have to make a trade off.
58:17I don't think they win this game without Skymore's 63 yarder.
58:20He outgained them, by the way. Skymore had like 208 return yards and the Packers offense at 199 yards of offense.
58:26I mean, just a couple of moments from the Jets in this game.
58:29The overall competency level from the Jets is so much better than it was last year.
58:34But so many just frustrating gaffes down the stretch that allowed the Packers to win this game.
58:39The one that ultimately didn't come back to bite them, but was completely indefensible in the moment.
58:43Aaron Glenn not calling timeout with 51 seconds left and allowing the Packers to get a free Hail Mary.
58:49That didn't end up mattering. But even as it was happening, I said the moment that play ended, I was like, we're not going to call timeout there.
58:57You were on top of it immediately. You had 51 seconds left.
59:00And what were they going to do? They weren't going to use that time.
59:04And so giving them a free roll Hail Mary and then the stretch after that big Brees Hall catch where the Jets
59:10botched that pitch that goes for a huge loss.
59:13And then Cooper gets home on a sack. And then on the next drive, they end up not going for it on
59:19the fourth and one and kicking the field goal and allowing the Packers to get back into the game.
59:24Skymore, some very sketchy decision making from the Jets and just some self-inflicted wounds.
59:28And a defensive front that really did keep the Packers in this game.
59:32The pride of Barrington High School, Lucas Van Ness, career day.
59:35Brother. Against Armand Membu, by the way. Like, not hollow stats.
59:38That was pretty eye-popping. If I was looking for a real positive takeaway from this game, that's probably where I'd start.
59:44Nine pressures. Lucas Van Ness made the game-winning play.
59:46The game-winning play. Like, the fourth and one stop on that, like, inside zone.
59:50He ends the game. Nine pressures, five quick pressures, a sack and a half, and the game-winning play on fourth and one.
59:56That's pretty dang good for a guy that, is this year four for him?
60:00Like, we've been saying every year, it's like, oh, is this going to be the breakout?
60:05Is this going to be the breakout? And you saw, like, sprinkles of it at the end of last year.
60:10But so much was wrong with the Packers defense that was like, is this really going to materialize to anything?
60:16And through two weeks, he's been really, really good.
60:18Other small, like, when is this guy going to break out ever?
60:22Robert, I'm sure you noticed this. The Jets seem to really like A.D.
60:25Mitchell down the field. Like, they really seem to want to target him.
60:29And, like, I was kind of impressed with some of the plays that he made.
60:33I'm not going to lie. I don't know what to make of this game and really just what to make of the Packers two weeks into the season.
60:41Like, what should we think about the Green Bay Packers right now?
60:44Well, let's start here. Because, honestly, like... I'm worried.
60:47For the... I mean, how could you not be having watched these two weeks?
60:51But burying the lead a little bit, I mean, it doesn't reflect how the Packers managed to overcome and win this game.
60:57But they lost... All right. Jaden Reed is tough, too.
61:00Obviously, they lose Jaden Reed. But they lost Zach Bacobuwele, Aaron Banks, and Donovan Jennings all got hurt in this game.
61:06And I don't know... We don't know the severity of those yet.
61:09I do know Zach Bacobuwele was put in an aircast.
61:12And Matt LaFleur already confirmed after the game that he's going to miss some time.
61:16I don't know the timetable for sure. But he sure as hell isn't going to be available for the next game.
61:22Because do you know when that is? Thursday night.
61:24So you're on a short week dealing with an offensive line that had three guys go down today.
61:29What? Against the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night. One of three straight primetime games by the Atlanta Falcons.
61:34We are not going to talk about that game.
61:37Yes. Three straight primetime games for the Atlanta Falcons.
61:39Who's responsible for that? Take it up with the league.
61:42Thankfully, at least, I assume Penix will be playing.
61:45We're not going to talk about that game in depth.
61:48One guy who... Minnie, you have my attention. Devin Lloyd was insane.
61:51Yeah. In that game today. Absolutely insane. His second...
61:53It's funny. He had two interceptions, including the pick six.
61:56The second interception that leads to the pick six is a deflected ball that he picks off and takes back.
62:02But then he had a deflection that led to an interception.
62:05So you add it all together. That's two very real picks with a pick six.
62:09He had a sack. He had a handful of TFLs.
62:12He was absolutely everywhere in this game for the Panthers.
62:15And so I at least wanted to mention that, even if we're not going to dig into it.
62:20Because right now, I'm sorry for Panthers fans. Cooper Rush Falcons games are off the table.
62:24I'm not doing this until we have a different quarterback and a different offensive situation for the Falcons.
62:29Those are asterisks until we play some real teams.
62:32But Devin Lloyd, that's why you signed the linebacker with tree trunks for us.
62:36I mean, you felt... You felt all 6'5 of Devin Lloyd over the course of this game in every single way he impacted it.
62:42All right. We've been putting it off for long enough.
62:45Let's get to what the f***. What the f***?
62:48The Bears season, it sounds like it's going to be okay in terms of the actual severity of the injury compared to what it could have been.
62:55But you guys should have been in this room when the Caleb Williams thing happened.
62:59You don't want to have been in this room.
63:02I mean, it's just the idea... Because for a moment, when you thought it was an Achilles and you thought the season
63:08was over, the idea that two weeks into the year, this Bears season could just potentially be done.
63:13I was going through it. It's just the worst feeling you can have as an NFL fan with a team that...
63:19I don't know how good they'll be. But you...
63:22I woke up this morning wanting to watch them play.
63:24And the idea that that's taken away from you one week into the season is just awful.
63:29And then it happened to the f***ing commanders. Like, I just cannot believe that the top two picks in that draft, young,
63:35exciting quarterbacks, we lose them for an indeterminate amount of time, both of them, two weeks into the season.
63:41And both of these fan bases now have to endure whatever that looks like.
63:45Devastating, horrific, impactful quarterback injuries two weeks into the year.
63:47What the f***? It puts a pall over an entire NFL Sunday.
63:51And like in both windows. Yeah, because Jaden right after Caleb.
63:54And I mean, do we... Have we heard anything definitive about Caleb other...
63:57Like the Bears said it was a hamstring? Imaging tomorrow.
64:00And so, I mean, it sounds like if he...
64:03If it was a grade three, he wouldn't have been able to even walk.
64:07And he was walking. And Mike Florio came out today and said it didn't seem that bad.
64:11And for anyone, the only... The unacceptable follow-up to this will be people looking at how he reacted and him getting carted
64:18off and being like, oh, it was only a grade one hamstring strain.
64:21This guy got the s*** kicked out of him for 17 straight games two years ago.
64:26Don't say a f***ing word to me about how tough this dude is.
64:29Not to mention... Don't say a word to me.
64:32Also, until you do that yourself, I'm not going to put myself in my shoes and be like, oh, this guy's being
64:38weak because he only had a grade one. He was clearly frustrated because he thought he had a devastating injury.
64:44In addition to... They could have still won that game.
64:46In addition to the pain, he... On that cart, he thought his season was over.
64:51He had the towel over his head. And to be clear, maybe it still is.
64:55I don't know. Because I just... And I'm not trying to...
64:58I'm not trying to be a pessimist or s*** on anybody's happiness.
65:01I have memories of like people saying bullet dodged the day before imaging and then the news is worse than you thought.
65:07Yeah. That has happened plenty of times. And hopefully that is not the case.
65:11But you're not out of the woods with this thing yet.
65:14And so... But it's absolutely devastating. And I guess maybe...
65:17You certainly feel it hard in a room full of Chicago Bears fans, by the way.
65:22Derek, I needed you here, man. I needed you here because there were...
65:25There were... I feel like the screams would have been as horrifying as like the scream of like Poseidon's son in the Odyssey.
65:32That's kind of what I'm imagining. It was... It's a good reference.
65:35There were four people in the room who like were devastated.
65:38We're just catatonic. Didn't want to talk. It was...
65:41Like... And I just... What do you say? Like I didn't know how to move on with the day where I'm like...
65:47Like five minutes later, I was like, holy s***.
65:49Did you see that catch? And everybody just glared at me.
65:52Like you're still watching football? What are you talking about?
65:55It was brutal. It's... I don't know what you do with that one.
65:59Or... I mean, obviously this is not a Commander's show necessarily, but like the Jaden Daniels one, I would feel the same way.
66:05The fact that... That one we know. I mean, he dislocated his elbow.
66:09How much is he... How long is he going to be out?
66:12I mean, that torpedoes their season probably. And it's like the same injury is what scares me too.
66:17And like it was basically like non-contact where he just like kind of slips and like ends up popping it when he hits the ground.
66:24Like that, that to me is like, it is really, really scary.
66:28Hopefully Caleb's okay. But like Jaden, we know like this is probably going to be a while.
66:32Yeah. I mean, and then again, it just, if you're a Commander's fan, it just completely changes the entire complexion of what...
66:39And it's, it was hard. I'm sure you're sitting there watching that game even before he gets hurt.
66:44And you're probably seeing the writing on the wall a little bit with what the season's going to look like and this coaching staff and all of that.
66:52But it doesn't make it any easier when it comes to your weekly experience watching your team.
66:56I was going to say... Yet again, we're going to get 10 games of Marcus Mariota.
67:01The Commanders could be ass and Jaden Daniels can still be a fun player to watch.
67:05100%. We're, we're not enthused by week two of the Dallas defense.
67:09I know they won comfortably, but we are not enthused by what the Cowboys did.
67:13So it, maybe it wouldn't look that good every week, but the way Jaden Daniels was playing leading up to halftime, you
67:19can be excited to turn that on and watch your team's favorite What he was doing with his legs was insane.
67:25And plus you get the added benefit of like loving Jaden and just absolving him of all blame for the organization.
67:31And now that's on hold. And watching the Commanders is probably going to be a lot more tragic here over the time that he's out.
67:38I don't want this entire conversation about the Bears-Vikings game to be about Caleb Williams getting hurt because we should spend a
67:44little bit of time talking about what the Vikings did to the Chicago Bears in this game.
67:49That was a, a pantsing in terms of how much Brian Flores controlled that game.
67:53That was, I, the weather was awful, right? Like let's acknowledge the fact that it was disgusting outside.
67:58That to me was the sloppiest, potentially worst coach game I have seen from Ben Johnson in his two years since he's been the Bears coach.
68:05Like the Vikings controlled that entire side of the ball.
68:08Everything the Bears were trying to do in the passing game was either sped up or off schedule.
68:13The entire game. Like the Vikings dictated every single snap.
68:16It seemed like that was happening when the Bears dropped back.
68:19They ran the ball fine and penalties and just overall sloppiness really came back to hurt them.
68:24But when they dropped back to pass in this game, they were scrambling literally and figuratively for four straight quarters.
68:29And that is a credit to what Brian Flores did yet again.
68:33It was everything like this was, I believe the second lowest rushing success rate of Ben Johnson's tenure.
68:38Now with the Chicago Bears, number one was week one last year against Brian Flores.
68:42And so we, we kind of came into this week being like, you're saving grace against the defense like this is like,
68:48can you run them out of it? And they pretty much had the one good drive, I think directly out of the
68:54half where they were able to run the ball and otherwise were terrible on the ground.
68:59And so it was a lot of, we have to make a lot of plays through the air.
69:04And like, I think the one that like puts a point on everything that the defense was able to do to them
69:10in the passing game with some of their blitzes, with some of their looks, the third and 12 interception, I think that,
69:16that Caleb Williams throws, they come out in like a pressure look.
69:19And so they've got a lot of people up front and they drop a lot of people to the field, which is
69:25what a lot of offenses are going to do, especially like Ben Johnson does like to do this is take that crosser
69:32from the short side of the field and run him into the field and say, Hey, if the throw pass, the sticks
69:38isn't open, you can spit it to this guy.
69:40And he has so much room to work with to get us the first down.
69:44But the way they drop their players out, like that was never going to be there.
69:49And so Caleb's got to go make a play.
69:51He overthrows it. He throws the interception. And it was just stuff like that, that Brian Flores was able to do to them really for four quarters.
69:59Like you said, it felt like almost all of Caleb's best plays were a lot of stuff that was like out of
70:05structure and him having to make like a really impressive play.
70:08I mean, I think one of the only instructor plays they made in the entire game is the single chunk completion he had to Loveland.
70:15And that got called back because of an illegal formation penalty, which that was the entire game.
70:20Every single time there was a positive play, there was some sort of penalty.
70:24There was some sort of flub. The overall just total sloppiness with the operational stuff, the penalties.
70:29And then, I mean, Sam Rauch had a day he would love to forget.
70:33I mean, I typically don't play this game, but he catches that ball inside the goal line that Caleb play never even happens.
70:39And he missed the block on the block field goal.
70:42He dropped the pass earlier in this game. Like he had a nightmarish day in what was a nightmarish game overall for the Bears offense.
70:49Garrett Bradbury as well. Oh my God. In the preseason about downgrading at center.
70:53Even if it was a smart move, the way in which they acquired Garrett Bradbury, like I had worries about just transitioning from Drew Dahlman to Bradbury seamlessly.
71:01And it did not look great against this defense, which by the way, this is not Garrett Bradbury's fault necessarily.
71:06But do you know who leads the NFL in pressures?
71:09Dallas Turner. That's right. Yeah. He was phenomenal in this game.
71:12He was electric in this game. I want to give one more shout out to the Vikings defense.
71:17James Pierre on the second, I think it was the second to last play of the game.
71:22Tyson Bajan, who was in the quarterback at this point in the game, throws like a little five, six yard route to
71:28Luther Burden on the right hand side. And by this point, the Bears are trying to drive and they have no timeouts.
71:34James Pierre, like Luther Burden almost slips out of this tackle to where he would have been able to get to the sideline.
71:41They can stop the clock. They can kind of take a breather for a second.
71:45But James Pierre, like as Burden is slipping out, grabs him by the shoulder pads and rips him down, keeps him down,
71:51forces him to go fast when they probably didn't think they were going to have to.
71:55And Bajan just like chucks ones up to the end zone after that.
71:59Like that was a, it's kind of a hidden play because obviously the very end of the game is a more explosive play.
72:06But that was like, if he does not make that tackle, I think the Bears have a significantly better chance at actually
72:12like getting into the end zone there at the end.
72:14All right, before we move on, let's take one more quick break.
72:18Let's get to a couple more traditional WTF games.
72:20The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lose to the Cleveland Browns 23 to 19, drop to 0 and 2 on the season.
72:26We'll dig into the details of this, but Tampa Bay Buccaneers, what the f*** was that?
72:30I mean, very, in addition to like their form, just like what the f*** was a two and a half hour weather delay?
72:37Just disgusting on every level. This game ended in a monsoon while the late games were in the second half.
72:42Here's the stat that I will throw out that I think is just very telling for what this game and this moment feels like for the Bucs.
72:50Deshaun Watson, 0.25 EPA per dropback, 52.8% dropback success rate.
72:53Both the best numbers he has put up as a starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns.
72:57That's just a gut punch of a stat. And one of the more embarrassing parts to me, he wasn't even really pushing the ball down the field.
73:05Like he hit one to Denzel Boston. That was really impressive.
73:08And he makes the like spinning out of three people insane play by Denzel Boston.
73:12Crazy. Other than that, it was like it was a lot of like short passes, check down screens.
73:17Like it was a lot of Tampa Bay not being able to tackle the way that they wanted to.
73:23I think that was what was more concerning to me.
73:25They can't tackle and it's insane is is Alex Anzalone through two games having like the worst opening stretch with a new team in recent memory.
73:33Like it has been a disastrous couple of weeks for him.
73:36Like, I mean, he missed tackles in the Bengals game.
73:38He missed multiple tackles in this game. And really the Boston play like opened this whole thing up.
73:44Like the Bucs didn't look good, but they looked like they were in control.
73:47The Browns had one explosive play in the entire first half of this game.
73:51They finished. It was the one completion of Fannin, right?
73:54Yeah. Like it was like 10 minutes off in the first quarter.
73:57They finished with seven on the day and like virtually all of it came after the Boston play.
74:03And that's a that's like a 15 or 16 yard gain.
74:06And like it's a great play. But like the I mean, the Browns still have work to do if one of three
74:12guys just gets him on the ground and not to take credit away from Denzel Boston.
74:16But Alex Anzalone is making a lot of money to make that tackle in addition to Tykee Smith and Antoine Winfield.
74:22And it just felt like it all fell apart after that.
74:25And like it not not that there were all these like crazy explosive plays, but the Browns just started moving the ball
74:31in chunks not long after that play. Letting Deshaun Watson and that offense have the best game he's had in Cleveland is
74:38a low moment for the Todd Bowles era, I think.
74:40But to me, the more concerning part of this is just what the offense continues to look like and the way the Baker Mayfield continues to play.
74:48I. It will talk about this a little bit when we talk about the Chargers.
74:52The skittishness in the pocket. And it's not even skittishness.
74:55The way that I would describe it is his pocket movement right now.
74:59Baker's and Justin Herbert a little bit, too. It's all or nothing.
75:02There is no subtle movements. Anytime there's like a flash of color, the ball is getting pulled down and we're in like frantic play extension mode.
75:09There is no trying to maneuver around that space and find completions.
75:13And it just makes it for the entire it makes it difficult for the entire offense to function.
75:18The hold that Barton gets. Late in the game.
75:20Is in part a product of Baker just bailing from the pocket on that play.
75:24It's hard to play offensive line when your quarterback is going to play like that.
75:28And watching him just go into that mode over and over and over again.
75:32The Bucks had a couple of nice moments. As a passing offense in this game.
75:37Almost every single one of them was off of play action when they were wadding it up and giving him a ton
75:43of space to make a defined throw before the play even started.
75:46On non-play action passes in this game, Baker Mayfield was 11 of 22 for 72 yards.
75:51He had a 29.6% success rate and averaged negative 0.28 EPA per drop back.
75:54Like every consistently when they ask him to be and have asked him to be a drop back passer.
76:00This is the product that you're getting. And it just makes everything else on the offense look worse.
76:05And I don't really know what you do about it.
76:08He is pressing like you just feel like like you said it is all or nothing.
76:12Like if he did not play so all or nothing against Cincinnati, I think that they probably win that game.
76:18If he doesn't do that in this game, they probably win this game.
76:21I think even on the very last drive, like after the weather day, after the weather delay, when they come back, it's
76:28I think like a third and 11 and they're like near the red zone in the red zone.
76:33And so I know on third and 11, you probably want to attack the sticks in most cases.
76:38But like given the game situation, you're OK with just taking some of the yards.
76:42You're going to go for it on fourth down every time anyway.
76:45And so it's third down on that drive and they're in empty and the defense is showing six rushers.
76:50So like you're not necessarily going to throw hot.
76:53They're probably going to drop somebody off, but you should be thinking about it.
76:57And he's got a quick throw, a quick slant to Ted Hurst to the left hand side if he wants it.
77:03Maybe it only gets you eight yards, but you get to fourth and four.
77:07You can maybe keep going. He doesn't take it.
77:09He holds on to the ball and it's like a dead play.
77:13And I think he either I think he like tries to scramble out to his right and he gets like one yard
77:19on the scramble and now it's fourth and 11 and then he overthrows like Buka in the end zone.
77:24It's just like you felt more moments like that from him.
77:27And like even when at his best, he has games like this sometimes.
77:31But the fact that out of the two games that we've seen this season, he has been like that 100 percent of snaps.
77:37It's pretty concerning to me. It's funny. Like Baker's been bad.
77:40I'm not arguing that point. I'm way more concerned about what the Deshaun Watson was able to do to the Buccaneers defense in this game.
77:47Like the useful context here. My morning started by waking up.
77:50Still being mad about LSU losing to Ole Miss and opening social media and all of the reports like Ian Rapoport and
77:57Mary Kay Cabot, who's been tied into the Browns forever, are like, yeah, so the Browns are thinking about benching Deshaun when
78:03they get back from this road trip. They soft launched the bench before the game and they had a best game of tenure with the team.
78:10They were so, the Browns themselves were so confident that he was going to play poorly, that they were pre-benching him in the media.
78:17And he went out and played like that and scored, what did they score?
78:2123 points? Scoring 23 points in Tampa. And the Bucs' biggest free agency addition was Alex Anzalone.
78:25They spent money there. They've drafted so many young players.
78:28They have tried to revamp this defense after so many of the Super Bowl guys left town.
78:33And it just doesn't look good enough. And like last week, you could wave some of that off by the turnover margin, getting things out of whack.
78:40But if Deshaun Watson is having career games against you in 2026, that is damning.
78:45Even if, I mean, like I said, no, Baker is not good, but that is really troubling.
78:49I had my concerns about the viability of this regime by the end of this season.
78:54Like I felt like we might be coming to the end.
78:57Even as somebody who was relatively pessimistic about this, I couldn't have imagined this sort of start where you have a game
79:03like this and the offense looking this out of sorts.
79:06Like this is worse than I even could have imagined, even as somebody that was relatively down on this team coming into the year.
79:13Yeah. I, given all the stocks I bought of them, I'm a little bit concerned, but this is the bet I've made for myself.
79:19They are still in the NFC South and with the upstart New Orleans Saints.
79:23Thank you for making me feel good. Hey, and Bryce Young played his nuclear Atlanta game today.
79:28So maybe it won't be as easy as we think, but it's still a preferable place to be compared to some other divisions.
79:34Can I trot out my pet theory about Baker Mayfield?
79:37That's going to tie us into the Justin Herbert game we're about to talk about.
79:41Please. Let's hear it. The way that those guys succeeded at times last year for Baker early in the season, for Justin
79:48Herbert late in the season, when them pulling the ripcord and really tapping into their scrambling ability and trying to create plays
79:54over and over and over again, it leading to the positives it did for both of those offenses last year.
79:59I think it's broken them. Like not irreparably, but I think that it has harmed them in terms of how they are playing the position.
80:06Because Baker, that's what he looks like. And we'll talk about, let's get, let's get into it.
80:11The Chargers get beat up by the Raiders in this game and look completely out of sorts again on offense.
80:17Los Angeles Chargers, what the f***? And again, that's how I feel about this.
80:21Like I, it's probably too simple of an explanation, but when you watch what both of these guys look like in the
80:27pocket, and again, that all or nothing feel to what they're trying to do, it's just, we'll talk about the Niners game at the end of this.
80:34Like you watch what, watch what I know they're playing against the Dolphins, but you watch what a quarterback that like has command in the pocket looks like.
80:42And then you watch Justin Herbert and Baker Mayfield right now.
80:45And it's just an ocean between those two things.
80:48It's hard to watch. It's really, it's like disappointing.
80:50I don't think it's unfounded though. Like I have in my notes here, like verbatim, maybe this can change, but Justin Herbert
80:56isn't playing as fast and confident as usual. Like he just does not feel like he is playing in the pocket the way that he normally does.
81:04And I think last year that was like you're mentioning, I think early in the year, like Justin Herbert had command of
81:10the offense and the offensive line falls apart. He's got to run all around and do all this scrambling stuff.
81:16By the end of last season, he did not seem super confident.
81:19And so I think some of that has carried over into having to learn a new offense.
81:24And I do think that like, I think that's the other thing I want to talk about.
81:29Mike McDaniel, I do think is good at this.
81:31And there are still some things that they're, that they were doing that like looks good.
81:36And there were a handful of plays that they opened up in this game and receivers drop it or Herbert misses a throw, whatever.
81:42But I do think that one thing that like, as I've watched this unfold now, some of the Tua stuff worked in
81:49Miami, not just because Tua would throw it, but because even if they weren't obviously open, they would make a play.
81:54Vlad McConkie doesn't do that. Quentin Johnston doesn't do that.
81:57Like these receivers don't do that in the way that Tyree Kill.
82:01And then even to a lesser extent, like Jalen Waddell could do where like space was there, even if it really wasn't.
82:07And so one, you have the space not really being there because I don't think they're consistently separating at a super high level right now.
82:14And you have a quarterback who's learning a new offense and like doesn't necessarily trust those tight windows right now because throwing
82:20them in the way that you have to throw them in this offense.
82:24And it's not the whole offense, the way it was with Tua, but it's still there.
82:28And I think that there's just been a little bit of like a things are not clicking the way that we hoped
82:34they would part to this on top of what you mentioned, where I think some of last year, like kind of has
82:40maybe broken Justin Herbert's brain just a little bit.
82:43It's really important to point out that these are new offensive systems and new offensive coordinators and new play callers.
82:48I think we should give teams grace that are in these situations.
82:52We've seen it take a little while with new staffs.
82:55This happens. It can take a month. It can take five weeks.
82:58The problem is both the Bucs and the Chargers look so much like offenses that have new offensive coordinators and new play callers.
83:04And in both of their cases, and they're sitting at 0-2, these are teams that are supposed to make the playoffs that
83:11I think see themselves as playoff teams. Even if we should give them a little bit of time to figure this out,
83:17they don't have time to figure this out. The Chargers especially.
83:20The Chargers especially. They've got to play soon. The whole goal for the Chargers was to win these games to give yourself cushion for what's coming.
83:27I'm sure you've probably seen the graphics going around of what is up next for the Chargers at Bills, at Seahawks, Broncos, at Chiefs.
83:34And even after their bye week, it doesn't let up.
83:37It's at Rams, Texans, at Ravens after that. They don't have a manageable looking game on the schedule until roughly Thanksgiving.
83:42So have fun with all that. And they'll find a way to win one of those games if I had to guess.
83:49I'm not saying they're going to go 0-4. But this was the chunk of the schedule where you could make a little
83:55bit of hay for yourself so you had some room for error.
83:58However, here's what I'll say about this. The fact that the offense looks a little bit uneven and a little bit unsettled,
84:04you can imagine that with a new offensive coordinator, new offensive system, all that stuff.
84:08And it's a little bit of everything. I do not think Justin Herbert is playing well.
84:13But I also think that so many other aspects of the offense, it's like clown car shit.
84:18Some of the stuff that they're doing is just hilarious.
84:21The first drive, Herbert puts a perfect ball on Brennan Thompson.
84:24He just drops it on a crosser. 3-27 left in the first quarter.
84:27Tron Johnson comes completely unblocked off play action, puts them into a third down.
84:31On the next play, Njoku bobbles it right into the hands of a defensive player.
84:35This team over the course of the game had six unblocked pressures that they allowed.
84:40They allowed a 26% overall quick pressure rate per next gen.
84:43You have two false starts by Joe All in a row.
84:46A ball hits... In their own end zone, by the way.
84:49In their own end zone. He gets two false starts in a row.
84:52You have a ball hit a player going in motion on a third and one, which happened in this game.
84:58Just a horrendous O'Marrion Hampton fumble in the fourth quarter.
85:01Herbert fumbles while trying to get out of pressure early in the fourth quarter.
85:05I mean, it's just a comedy of errors. And again, you can excuse some of that with the offense maybe a little bit.
85:11But my thing with this is, isn't the whole premise of having Jim Harbaugh be your head coach is that you're supposed to do this shit right?
85:19You're supposed to be a team that does the details right?
85:22Isn't that the entire specter of what a head coach like Jim Harbaugh is supposed to be?
85:27So what are the Chargers supposed to be in this current iteration?
85:30Because they are none of those things. That's the part that is most frustrating to me.
85:34Like the if you told me like, hey, this Chargers pass catching group isn't going to be as impressive as you want.
85:41All right. I mean, like I could have bought that.
85:43It's a group that's like just not super, super talented.
85:46And so like the drops are frustrating and bad.
85:49But like that's just going to happen with groups that are kind of mediocre.
85:53The two false starts by who is supposed to be like your star tackle in their own end zone is frustrating.
85:58And then like you said, the play where they have a receiver in motion and they snap in the ball.
86:04It's because I don't know if they were late getting the play in or late changing the play, whatever it was.
86:10But like they had to snap because otherwise they were going to get a delay of game.
86:15The fact that their operation looked as not put together as it did.
86:18And like you said, O'Marrion Hampton just not protecting the football when he's running straight up the middle.
86:23It's just like that is the stuff that I didn't even think about with this team, because like you said, like it's a Jim Harbaugh team.
86:31Like, why would that be an issue? And the fact that it has been consistently an issue through two games is really concerning.
86:37They fumbled six times in this game. They miraculously only lost one.
86:40It was not pouring rain in Los Angeles. It's a dome.
86:44Yeah, it's not quite a dome. It's actually it's enough.
86:46It's enough of a dome. It's dome adjacent. Also.
86:49So you guys mentioned all and what a rough day for him.
86:52The Chargers O-line in totality got flagged six times in this game and Slater got a holding call.
86:57So you're too. We're not even talking about the interior, which everybody is so worried about.
87:02The tackles, which are supposed to be the good part of this thing, got flagged five times today.
87:07They don't do anything well. What is the best thing about the Los Angeles Chargers right now?
87:12You can't even say Justin Herbert right now. No.
87:14You can't even say. Which normally you could when it was going poorly.
87:18That's my point. You could say he will have some games.
87:21And today I'm not. No way. I'm not doing that today.
87:24Here's the thing that's most worrying to me. In the Jim Harbaugh era, you could count on them to play really good, sound, disciplined, put together defense.
87:31Not right now. Not right now. We're giving up chunk touchdowns to Trey Tucker right now.
87:36And I don't want to make this all about the Chargers.
87:39The Raiders deserve credit for being a put together enough operation on offense to take advantage of this team.
87:44Like the Raiders are doing. Yes. The Raiders are doing so many of the right things in year one of a new
87:50staff as the Chargers do so many of the wrong things with carryover from the defensive system, from the language, everything, and just a new offensive play caller.
87:58Like I don't, this isn't a let's shit on the Chargers, let's not talk about the Raiders at all thing.
88:04The Raiders deserve a lot of credit for being a good enough team and a put together enough team this early in
88:10the season to take advantage of what the Chargers are right now.
88:13Maybe the Chargers just had a hard time dealing with the Raiders home crowd.
88:17That's another element of this. Tough day. They travel a few hours to get there.
88:21They travel, buddy. They travel down the street. LA is, LA is Raider territory.
88:25You know what's, you know what's upsetting to me or frustrating to me?
88:29I think two different, two different fronts. One, again, I think the Raiders defensive plan in this game was better than what the Chargers had.
88:36Which like that's, that's a worrying place to be if you were a team that has hung its hat on defense over
88:42the last couple of years under Jim Harbaugh. And you know what the other part of it is?
88:47Again, we're like, this is football guy stuff, right?
88:50We're supposed to be tough. We're supposed to be like milk drinking guys over here on the Jim Harbaugh team.
88:55Watching Kobe White go up and snatch that ball for that touchdown and you getting pushed around by this Raiders team and
89:02them wanting and rising to those moments more than you are.
89:05Again, what are you? What are you, what is your calling card?
89:08What are you supposed to be? I'm glad you bring up that throw because that throw is not open at any point.
89:14And Kirk just says, I'm going to throw it because it's the throw that is supposed to be thrown on this play.
89:20I don't really care if it's actually open or not.
89:23I'm going to give him a chance. And that's like, what's it?
89:26Yeah. Cody White, who was what their fourth, fifth wide receiver on a wide receiver.
89:31Darik Young had that dynamic. Big play. All of, uh, all of Kubiak's guys that he brought over from Seattle.
89:36Yeah. That lack of receiving talent doesn't seem to be affecting the Raiders.
89:40No, not a problem for them. And like, honestly, I just said that Kirk threw up like he threw it even when it wasn't open.
89:47I think he looks good. And like the interception that he threw in this game, Jalen Ayler just, or maybe it was Trey Tucker.
89:54One of them just falls down. Like it was going to be a good throw and he just, it just ends up
90:00going to the, to the defensive back. Cause the guy falls, but like Kirk looked good in this game.
90:05I thought picked them apart. Like the run game.
90:08I thought looked decent. There was, there was a lead play that they ran to the left-hand side where the fullback just
90:14like nukes the linebacker in the hole. And to your point, like that's what you're supposed to be.
90:19Your linebacker is supposed to kill him and take him out.
90:22The way that Kobe Dean played in this game, like where, where's, where's that?
90:26Where's he? Kobe Dean was awesome today. He was phenomenal.
90:29He was really good last week too. He's been, that's another one where like they've gotten what they've paid for.
90:34I think with those linebackers credit to the Raiders and whatever the opposite of credit is to the start that the Chargers have had.
90:41All right, before we get out of here, let's talk about what made us feel romantic about football in week two.
90:47I mean, this thing was a thing of beauty.
90:49I know that it was against the dolphins. My God, did I have a blast spinning back through that Niners game.
90:55And the way that that passing game looked. Just to put a point on it before we dig into some of the details.
91:02The Niners in this game finished with an 80% passing success rate per next gen.
91:068-0. I don't care. I don't care who you're playing.
91:09You'd be playing Kent State. Putting up an 80% passing success rate is going to be pretty impressive.
91:14That has happened one other time in the next gen era, which goes back to 2016.
91:1810 years. We're on 11 seasons of next gen.
91:21We have two games with an 80% passing success rate.
91:23The other one? The Niners in 2023. I was going to say, is it also Kyle Shanahan?
91:28The Niners in 2023, week four against the Cardinals.
91:31And that's telling to me. Because this version of the Niners offense that we've seen through two weeks, they are humming in
91:37a way that we have seen from the best versions of this Niners offense.
91:41And some of it is the skill position talent and what you're bringing to the table with those guys.
91:46Kittle had some really nice moments in this game.
91:49We got vertical Kyle Juszczyk catches in this game, which was phenomenal.
91:52Hell yeah, we did. Mike Evans made a couple big plays, CMC as a receiver.
91:56But the promise of this version of the offense and what is potentially so cool about it is that you have all
92:02of the schematic, schemed up designer stuff that Kyle Shanahan is going to bring you.
92:07But Purdy, what he can do as a creator and off schedule, that was always the thing that could take this offense
92:13to a slightly different gear from the moment that he took over.
92:16And you saw every single bit of that in this game.
92:19There were four or five moments that he has as like an improv player playing outside of the pocket.
92:24The improv play makes it. Mike Evans spinning away from pressure.
92:27He had multiple great plays with his legs when they were up 7-3.
92:31Just incredible pocket movement. He fires a missile to Demarcus Robinson.
92:34The play he makes with like 3.50 left in the third quarter, they fake toss boot to the right.
92:40He boots back to the left side. There's an unblocked player coming on the boot.
92:44He pumps and makes the guy jump. Buys a little bit of time to his left and just rips a ball that
92:50Evans on a crosser coming across the field. Piss missile.
92:53He was, again, all caveats about the Dolphins. I completely understand that.
92:56Brock Purdy was phenomenal in this game. He was incredibly good.
92:59I love that. It's still the NFL. It's still the NFL.
93:02To do it at this level, it is still the NFL.
93:05He was 20 of 22. He was 20 of 22.
93:08His two incompletions. One was a Debo drop that hit him in the hands.
93:12And the other one, there was an unblocked player and he got an intentional grounding.
93:16Those were the two incompletions. So he didn't throw a real one.
93:20That's kind of crazy. In the next-gen era is one of 10 performances where a quarterback attempted at least 20 passes and
93:26finished with an EPA per drop back of 1.0 or better.
93:29And it's actually Brock Purdy's second game doing it.
93:31Lamar Jackson's done it twice. Jared Goff's done it twice.
93:34Drake May. Ben Roethlisberger. Not something you see very often.
93:37And we've seen plenty of blowouts in the NFL.
93:39I don't give a shit who it was. And I love that point that when you watch the Niners and they're really
93:46humming, it's so satisfying because you can just see the mechanics of the offense.
93:50And even in real time, you don't even have to go back and watch all 22.
93:54You can see it happening on the broadcast where the choreography is just amazing.
93:58You're just like, oh, that block opens that up and this motion is doing that and this guy is pulling that guy down.
94:04And that's why all of these throws are wide ass open.
94:07And just when you start to not be impressed by the quarterback, because that, you know, Purdy and other San Francisco quarterbacks
94:14have caught in a lot of hate because it's like, well, yeah, George Kittle's just wide ass open on this dig for the fifth time today.
94:21The minute you start to feel that way, he does that shit with Mike Evans on the fake toss.
94:26That throw was insane. And he's such a good athlete.
94:29I know his touchdown with his feet today wasn't anything impressive, but you have that element that he brings to it where
94:35he can get an explosive run and score a touchdown for you if the play does break down.
94:40He's just he's so good, dude. And I like I I will readily admit I didn't appreciate him quickly because so much
94:46of it was the other players on that. I did not.
94:49I did not either. But I've he's he's so high up on the list of guys.
94:54I love to watch 26 years old. He like that is what he that like he is.
94:59He's getting better and he was already pretty darn good.
95:01Well, and that's what I appreciate most about it.
95:04When he first came onto the scene, they could do more drop back stuff because of him.
95:09But I think the value really was that he was more willing to throw the ball down the field, even if he
95:15wasn't great at it than Jimmy ever was. And he could make plays outside of the pocket.
95:20Yeah. But the longer he's in the offense, the less that he needs to do that stuff because he's gotten so much
95:26better at the just spit the ball out, find the right throw, stay on time stuff.
95:30But it not in the same way that Jimmy was doing where it was like you throw the first or second read
95:36and then you go or you or you just, you know, you take the sack, whatever you're going to do.
95:42You're not going to go because you're Jimmy Garoppolo.
95:45But pretty has a little bit more to him.
95:47And so I think that like he's finally kind of met both of the perfect worlds.
95:52It feels like the other funny thing I want to talk about with this team.
95:56I know it's only two weeks and I know that we're going to have to be hanging on for the whole season with them.
96:02But we went into last year with the Rams being like, what does Stafford's back look like?
96:07Can Devontae Adams still really do this at this age?
96:10Is the offensive line really going to hold up the way you want it to?
96:14And at least through two weeks, it's like, well, shit, George Kittle looks like most of himself.
96:19Mike Evans has been phenomenal for them. CMC looks like he has juice back, like all of the things that you would
96:25have wanted for the most part, shriveling going down obviously sucks.
96:28But all of the older guys that you had some questions about, Trent Williams even looks incredible.
96:33It's like, OK, the fact that they look like they are playing 85th percentile or better football for all of them is
96:39like, OK, if they can continue to do that for the rest of the season, it's wheels.
96:44And even Evans did get dinged up in this game.
96:47But Shanahan said immediately after that, he would have come back.
96:50He's just chronically dinged up. I'm not I'm not getting worried about that anymore.
96:54We were 96 minutes into this. There's probably a table conversation to be had about the Bengals and the Niners at some
97:00point in the next couple of weeks. I haven't thought about the table.
97:03Well, again, it's they're worthwhile discussions to be had.
97:06I think we revisit them maybe after one more week just for space reasons.
97:10But also, I just might maybe want to see a little bit more.
97:14But the Bengals and the Niners, after the way that they've looked through two weeks and the reasons they've looked as good
97:20as they have, both of them deserve some consideration.
97:22We'll sit with that. The last play I want to bring up that I don't know if you watch this, Derek, but watch it back.
97:29The chunk play to Kittle off of the play action is maybe my favorite just schematic play from week two that I saw Kittles on the back.
97:37Was it where him and the other player almost run into each other and like, but they both could catch the pass.
97:43Kittles on the backside of a zone run going to the right.
97:46Right. And he comes back and runs like a backside dig off play action.
97:50But it's like the timing of it and the way that the play unfolds, that makes me feel romantic about football.
97:56Like that is what the San Francisco 49ers are at their best, where you have a tight end on the left side
98:02of the formation on the left hash goes, they run a play action.
98:06He runs all the way back. And essentially the timing of it is like a backside dig and back into that space.
98:12And just like the design of it, everything about it is like, holy shit, this thing is fun to watch while it's humming.
98:18And through two games, it is the most, it is the most rhythmic offense that you can possibly design.
98:24It's beautiful. And when you have a quarterback that is operating it like this again, 61% offensive success rate through two games
98:30for this team, pretty damn good start for the San Francisco 49ers.
98:33Yeah. It's worth saying, yes, it was the Miami Dolphins.
98:36They did this to the Rams 10 days ago.
98:39Like, it's not like we don't have evidence that they're pretty freaking good.
98:42But incredible day in what was an ugly day overall in a lot of ways in the NFL.
98:47And that's why we wanted to spit, wanted to sit and spend a little bit of time with it.
98:53That is all we've got for today are three games tomorrow on the hangover.
98:57Colts Chiefs, Seahawks Cardinals, which we wanted to save that one because we wanted to spend a little bit more time with it.
99:03And Pat Steelers. We've not talked about the Steelers at all.
99:06They played another really ugly game offensively. Those are the three games we're going to dig into tomorrow.
99:11Sorry, we didn't have time to hit them and a lot of other stuff that we wanted to dig into tonight.
99:17That is all we've got for today. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening.
99:20We'll talk to you very soon.

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