Is this real?
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
57 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Sep 24, 2026
Published
Thu, September 24, 2026
21
Player insights
20
Players mentioned
Topics
Justin HerbertBo MeltonBryce YoungChris BrooksChristian WatsonD.J. MooreDalton KincaidDalton SchultzDarren WallerDJ TurnerJalen CokerJayden ReedJordan LoveJosh Allen
Player analysis
Player insights
Bo Melton
NegativeUsage30:41
Bill Barnwell expresses concern that Bo Melton is already seeing meaningful snaps on offense for the Packers, indicating a lack of depth at receiver.
Insight pageBryce Young
PositiveRole5:35
Bill Barnwell notes that Bryce Young has shown improved processing speed and a better understanding of how to find space in the pocket, which are critical for his survival given his physical limitations. While Barnwell remains cautious about calling him a top-five passer, he believes Young is demonstrating a viable path to being a long-term answer at quarterback, supported by a more aggressive offensive scheme under play-caller Brad Idzik that has increased deep-ball attempts to 19.4%.
Insight pageChris Brooks
NegativeUsage31:48
Bill Barnwell notes that Chris Brooks is being utilized as a pass-protection specialist at running back for the Packers.
Insight pageChristian Watson
NegativeInjury32:51
Bill Barnwell notes that the Packers' offense relies on Christian Watson staying healthy, which is a significant concern given his history.
Insight pageD.J. Moore
NegativeRole53:42
Bill Barnwell notes that DJ Moore is being integrated more into the Bills' offense, contributing to the team's improved downfield passing approach.
Insight pageDalton Kincaid
PositiveUsage52:21
Dalton Kincaid is a key factor in the Bills' offensive success, currently ranking second in yards per route run behind only Jaxon Smith-Njigba; his increased snap share and role as a mismatch weapon are driving the offense.
Insight pageDalton Schultz
NegativeProjection22:23
Bill Barnwell questions whether Dalton Schultz is effectively functioning as a 'Trey McBride 2.0' in the current offensive scheme.
Insight pageDarren Waller
PositiveUsage15:04
Bill Barnwell highlights a specific touchdown pass from Bryce Young to Darren Waller as evidence of Young's improved processing, noting that Young identified the open window two steps before Waller broke, demonstrating high-level anticipation.
Insight pageDJ Turner
PositiveBreakout23:17
Bill Barnwell notes that DJ Turner is taking the expected leap in performance and looks very good, though he acknowledges the competition level has been favorable.
Insight pageJalen Coker
PositiveUsage8:45
Bill Barnwell highlights Jalen Coker as a key development in the Panthers' offense, noting that he has emerged as the second or even primary receiver in some situations, which has helped improve the overall infrastructure surrounding Bryce Young.
Insight pageJayden Reed
NegativeInjury29:51
Bill Barnwell notes that Jayden Reed's injury significantly impacts the Packers' 11 personnel grouping and overall receiver depth.
Insight pageJordan Love
NegativeInjury33:06
Bill Barnwell notes that Jordan Love has a history of missing time, which adds to the uncertainty surrounding the Packers' offensive outlook.
Insight pageJosh Allen
PositiveBreakout51:32
Bill Barnwell believes Josh Allen is primed for an all-time season due to structural changes in the Bills' offense, including a 10% increase in play-action rate and a more cohesive run-pass scheme.
Insight pageJosh Jacobs
NegativeUsage31:37
Bill Barnwell notes that Josh Jacobs is missing time, and while he is an effective interior runner, he has been hampered by fumbling issues that impact his EPA.
Insight pageJustin Herbert
NegativeProjection39:58
Bill Barnwell notes that the Chargers' offense, centered around Justin Herbert, has failed to produce the expected fireworks, leading to a disappointing start to the season.
Insight pageNegativeProjection41:17
Bill Barnwell notes that while Herbert is making mistakes and getting sped up, he is not the sole problem in a broken Chargers offense; he lacks the elite ability to elevate a mediocre situation, but it is too early to make this a referendum on his career.
Insight pageLadd McConkey
NegativeInjury46:26
Bill Barnwell highlights that Justin Herbert has an 8.5 QBR without Ladd McConkey on the field, emphasizing the impact of his absence on the Chargers' passing game.
Insight pageLuke Musgrave
NegativeInjury29:02
Bill Barnwell notes that the Packers' inability to run 12 personnel is partly due to Luke Musgrave being banged up.
Insight pageMark Redman
PositiveRole29:18
Bill Barnwell suggests that Mark Redman is a capable blocker and could be a useful part of the Packers' tight end rotation alongside Tucker Kraft.
Insight pageMarShawn Lloyd
NegativeUsage31:45
Bill Barnwell notes that Marshawn Lloyd is taking snaps at running back for the Packers due to the absence of Josh Jacobs.
Insight pageTucker Kraft
PositiveBreakout29:18
Bill Barnwell praises Tucker Kraft as an incredible player who serves as the anchor for the Packers' tight end group.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00Welcome to The Athletic Football Show brought to you by the US Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card.
0:05I'm Robert Mays. Every year, two weeks into the season, we like to have a show in the middle of the week where we play Is This Real?
0:13We have two games worth of evidence for these teams.
0:16That's still probably not enough to know definitively how the NFL season is going to play out.
0:21But we like to do this. Two weeks into the year, some of the things that have surprised us, both good and
0:28bad in the NFL, is this stuff real? We always like to do this with Bill Barnwell, my buddy from ESPN.
0:34That is who joined us today. We dug into the Panthers offense, which you haven't really talked about, the Packers, the Bills,
0:40the Chargers, a lot of fun conversations here. Let's get to all of it with Bill Barnwell right now.
0:46Playing a little game today that I always like to play two weeks into the season.
0:51But, Barnwell, I think we did this last year.
0:53Do we do this two years ago? Is this the third straight year we've done this or was this last year?
1:00We've been doing Is This Real since we were children.
1:03That's what I'm saying. But I was trying to think of how many years in a row we've done it.
1:09I think it's a lot of years in a row, isn't it?
1:12Two weeks into the season? It feels like a tradition at this point.
1:16We are always in one form or another doing Is This Real, whether it's as strictly as a podcast topic or whether
1:22it's just kind of testing little things in season.
1:25I feel like that is a constant back and forth between us.
1:29It's a fun game to play two weeks in because the question is super relevant for pretty much every single team in the league.
1:36I will say, and I preface this, I think on Sunday night when we were talking about the fact that we were going to do this this week.
1:44A lot of times you have a team that did the same thing two weeks in a row.
1:49And we ask, is this real two weeks into the season?
1:53There was such a swift change for so many teams from week one to week two that I think the pool of
1:59potential candidates for Is This Real this year might be a little smaller than normal.
2:03But we still have enough stuff to dive into today.
2:06We could do a different show, which is I Don't Want It to Be Real.
2:11And we could do a lot of stuff after we saw in week two.
2:15Yeah, you and I both riding high after week one with watching our teams and the young quarterbacks and then we're in a very different place now.
2:23At least mine gets to come back. Yeah, all we're really enduring is one week of case Keenum and a bunch of memes.
2:30You're enduring a season without your team starting quarterback.
2:32Yeah, there was a lot of the reaping sewing tweet that that was me on Monday night.
2:37Good thing I didn't pick the Giants to make the playoffs.
2:41That would have been a stupid thing. Did you really do that?
2:44I did. Oh, wow. Well, why would you ever do that?
2:47Well, where's the potential upside in doing that? Well, I'm foolish is what it boils down to.
2:52We do have some candidates for Is This Real?
2:55And the exercise is as simple as the format.
2:58I mean, we're going to ask, is this real for something that we've seen?
3:02It sounds like you being Bob Barker explaining a game on The Price is Right.
3:06It's a very simple game. We're going to take a topic from the first two weeks of the NFL season.
3:12We're going to ask, is this real? And we're going to try to figure it out.
3:17Let's start with one of the motivations for wanting to do the show this week on top of it being an annual tradition.
3:24But the first one that came to mind, a conversation we haven't really had on this feed.
3:29They played the Falcons on Sunday night. We talked mostly about the Bears offense coming out of week one, but something I
3:35was very excited to dive into today. Bryce Young, the Carolina Panthers two weeks into the season, fifth in EPA per drop back.
3:42The four teams ahead of them. Niners, Bills, Cowboys, all predictable coming into the year.
3:47All thought those would be good offenses. Number four, the Seattle Seahawks and Drew Locke.
3:51So we made that one probably isn't worth the conversation because Sam Donald is going to be back.
3:56But the Panthers are firmly fifth in those rankings right now.
4:00Bryce Young has been the most productive. He's been over a two game stretch probably over the course of his entire career.
4:06Been extremely fun to watch. So let's do it.
4:09Bryce Young's emergence, Bryce Young's ascendance, Bryce Young start to this season.
4:12Is this real? I have absolutely no idea. This is the one I am least confident about.
4:17This is the one where, where I, I kept looking at it and saying to myself, I'm, I'm, I'm really unsure.
4:23And I think so let's talk through that. What are your competing thoughts on both sides that are kind of pulling you in different directions here?
4:31Well, normally after 1500 pass attempts in the NFL, guys are usually pretty settled.
4:35They don't make dramatic leaps, although it happens. And, and the guy I was thinking about, and there are different kinds of
4:42quarterbacks, but it's that same kind of question of could this guy take this kind of leap at this point of his
4:48career after we believe him to be something is Andy Dalton.
4:51That year with the Bengals. I think it was 20.
4:54Interesting. 15. Yeah. It's 2015. Yeah. 2015. And that was a scenario where if you look back, that Bengals team had a
5:01really great infrastructure on offense, great offensive line, a bunch of talented receivers.
5:05They were healthy for most of the year, good running game.
5:08And I'm sort of wondering, like, when I think about Bryce Young, the quarterback, I don't think he suddenly developed skills he didn't have previously.
5:15But were we either really not appreciating how bad some of the infrastructure was or has it improved dramatically?
5:21And I think you could make a little bit of a case for both, especially now that we have a healthy Jalen
5:28Coker kind of being the second or really the primary receiver in some ways in that offense.
5:33I think the circumstances have improved, certainly from where it was early in his career.
5:37I think when you look at year one under Frank Reich and just how much of a disaster that offensive line was,
5:43I think we do have some lingering effects of people watching him that season and being unable to forget how bad he was.
5:50But even when you move beyond that, it's been inconsistent at best.
5:54And if you look at the career long stats, bad at worst, they are bad career long statistics for the most part for Bryce Young.
6:01And I tried to do my best in going back and rewatching.
6:05I watched all 80 of his past attempts from the first two games to prepare for this.
6:10I was like, I was like, I want to know how much I actually feel about this.
6:15And I tried to do my best to just divorce myself from what we had seen from Bryce Young and what I had thought of Bryce Young previously.
6:23And you said something interesting that I sort of disagree with.
6:26And it's at the root of my relative optimism about this.
6:30I do think that he is displaying some skills that we have not seen from him previously.
6:35And it's in this one specific area. Bryce Young, and this cuts both ways.
6:39This is both why it could be real and why it can't be real.
6:43Bryce Young's path to success is extremely narrow because of what his physical profile and physical skill set looks like.
6:49We've always known that. It was always going to be hard for him to thread the needle to be a productive quarterback in the NFL given his limitations.
6:57But in order to do it, I think he was going to have to figure out how he needed to play and survive in the NFL.
7:05He was going to have to get a sense of that.
7:08And if you watch the first couple games, I think there are two areas where he has started to or maybe fully
7:14figured out how he can survive in the league.
7:17One is where and how he has to find space for himself.
7:21And if you watch a lot of the stuff he was doing, especially in the Bears game, off schedule, extending plays, getting
7:27out of the pocket, figuring out where those lanes are, where those escape hatches are, the timing he needs to play with
7:34to get there, how fast he needs to find them.
7:37I was very impressed by his ability to do that.
7:40Those are the overt examples. There are other smaller examples where either the Panthers or Bryce are finding a little bit of
7:46space for him in the pocket, play action, moving the pocket.
7:49The 55-yarder he hits to Leggett in the Falcons game, you see him slide in the pocket to his left just a
7:56little bit to give him enough space to really uncork that throw.
7:59In order for him to survive, he needs a master, like a master's level understanding of how and where to find and access that space.
8:07And I think that has been the best it's ever been through two games.
8:11And the other area is how fast he's seeing things, period.
8:14How fast the ball is coming out. Because beyond the frame, his arm just isn't great.
8:19He can really push the ball downfield. He's actually a decent downfield passer.
8:23But he doesn't drive the ball to the intermediate areas of the field.
8:26You know, 40-year-old Aaron Rodgers can still loft a ball.
8:29But that, like, you know, that drive that we saw with Caleb Williams throwing those endbreakers in week one, that is not in Aaron Rodgers' locker.
8:37I don't think it's in Bryce Young's locker. Again, his ability to push the ball down the field, which we'll get to,
8:44I think is he can do that. But the drive and the ball outside the numbers.
8:48There was one throw against the Falcons where he hit, like, a deep outbreaker from the opposite hash that was pretty good.
8:55But how quickly he has to make those decisions in order to make those throws viable, he has to do it instantaneously.
9:01And I do think that's happening more and more.
9:04On the same drive where he hits the 55-yarder to Leggett, the touchdown he throws to Darren Waller on that drive is a sweet play.
9:11And he sees that thing come open two steps before Waller's out of his break.
9:16The ball comes out. It's a touchdown. And so I think when you take those two things together, his ability to understand
9:22how he needs to find space and how fast he's processing and how fast the ball needs to come out based on
9:29who he is, I'm getting to a place where I'm like, okay, is that enough?
9:33Like, those two things connected and those two things together, is that enough for him to be a viable long-term answer at quarterback?
9:40And I don't know if I'm all the way there yet, but I do think that it is a starting point for something that's potentially exciting.
9:48Yeah, I don't disagree with anything you're saying, and I see the logic in what you're saying.
9:53But I do think it gets back to my sort of initial question of, like, is this a new skill or are
9:59we, you know, could it be a situation where the game is slowed down a little bit for Bryce Young?
10:05That kind of classic cliche. And so maybe he does feel like he has a better sense of what the timing is
10:12and how narrow those windows are and when to throw accurately and when to get the ball out quickly.
10:17I also wonder, and this is not to be disrespectful of my co-host, but is the fact that he played the Bears
10:24and the Falcons without their top two pass rushers and with AJ Terrell leaving the game, does that increase the margin for error?
10:31And I think that's kind of the phrase I always come back to with Bryce Young is just the margin for error is so small.
10:38And that kind of speaks to your point about, like, he has to hit those windows because, yes, he can create out of structure.
10:45Yes, he can improvise. But it is so much harder to do that when you are not a freak athlete, when you
10:52are not a threat to, you know, run away from people all that often, when you're more agile than fast.
10:57And so I do think there is that possibility that the game is shut down.
11:02But I also think, you know, you're going to have a lot of margin for error playing those two defenses in the
11:08current situations they're facing, especially, you know, in the Falcons game playing from ahead for most of the contest.
11:14I agree. And I think it's his ability to find space and his ability to maneuver around the pocket.
11:20When that pocket is condensing, it's going to be really hard for him.
11:23In a way, it's not for bigger quarterbacks. And I'm not trying to make this a, this is what an NFL quarterback
11:30is and this is what an NFL quarterback is not by making this comparison.
11:34But I literally just went back and rewatched the Chargers game.
11:37And when you're watching Justin Herbert, even when under pressure, guys can be hanging on him and the ball can still come off.
11:44That's what you're talking about with margin for error.
11:47That doesn't exist with Bryce. Like, when the pocket condenses, I think life is going to be really hard for him.
11:53He needs clear space, clear escape routes, or the ball needs to come out immediately.
11:57And so that's kind of what I mean when I said the path is really narrow.
12:02And so I don't know where I land either.
12:05When I'm saying, is this real? I think I, this is where I stick with it.
12:09I don't think they're a top five passing offense.
12:12Like, I don't think that's real. But I think I'm in a place where this is the start of me believing in him as their multi-year answer.
12:20Like, if he can continue to play at this level or even a step or two back from this, I want to
12:27see what he can continue to do and what he could continue to do next year.
12:31And I think that, to me, is probably a win for both the Panthers and Bryce Young.
12:36Is them thinking, this is a real viable option for us at quarterback.
12:40The offense has been great. The rest of the team is the areas where they've struggled over the first couple weeks.
12:46I mean, the bear, obviously the defense against the bears.
12:49And so I think that's where I land with it, where I don't know if their top 10 offense real.
12:55But he has shown me enough where I am looking forward to seeing what he can do over the rest of the season.
13:02And that wasn't a guarantee coming into the year that I would be like, oh, man, I can't wait to see what Bryce Young does with his 2026.
13:10But that's where I am right now. Yeah, I agree on that.
13:14I think what's real, what we could say for sure is he has a path to access maybe a level of upside
13:20we did not necessarily think was plausible in years past.
13:23I know nothing about golf. So please excuse me if this metaphor is terrible.
13:27But like, this is like the, you know, the golfer who has like a five handicap who shoots five under par one day.
13:34And like they've never shot par before. And certainly they're five under par.
13:38And you're like, I could do that. Like, like I have that in me.
13:42Like if everything is perfect, I have that kind of performance in me.
13:46Maybe I can't shoot 67 every day, but maybe I can, if I keep performing and I keep improving, maybe I can get closer to that.
13:54Maybe I am really a par golfer. Maybe I am really a one under handicap.
13:58Like, I feel like that's the sort of opening that you have with Bryce Young now that maybe wasn't there before.
14:04We saw big games, but even two big games in a row and two games in a row where he looked as impressive as he's looked.
14:12Pretty rare, if not unprecedented for Bryce Young. There are two other big picture things I think are worth mentioning before we
14:19move on in terms of why it might feel and look different this year than it has in years past.
14:24Just the play caller is different, right? I mean, Brad Idzik is calling plays for them this year.
14:30And I will say. We have not talked about how weird it is that Brad Idzik is the play caller for the Carolina Panthers.
14:37Just in terms of because of who his dad is?
14:40Yes. Yeah. It's the way that it's like, it's like cat guy GM, offensive coordinator.
14:44Just a weird combo. I mean, he's an exciting young coach in the league.
14:48And he's been with Canales at multiple different stops.
14:51And credit to Joe Person, who does a fantastic job covering the Panthers for us at The Athletic.
14:56When we were talking during training camp, he said there are people in Bryce's camp that, not that there was anything nefarious
15:03going on, but that believed Canales was putting limiters on him in how they were running the offense.
15:08And that bears out in the numbers. If you look at it last year, 9.4% of the Panthers pass attempts went 20 plus yards downfield last season.
15:16That was 31st in the NFL. This year, through two games, it's 19.4%, which is the second highest rate in the NFL.
15:23And so they really have opened up the offense for him and his ability to push the ball downfield.
15:28They've really gotten a lot of positive returns on that.
15:31And I think you see him playing with a certain confidence, quickness, how fast he's seeing things.
15:36I think that was the other argument for Brad taking over play calling is that you have somebody now that is your
15:43primary play caller, the voice in your ear that is with you every step of the way throughout these meetings over the course of the week.
15:50It is truly like a day-to-day partnership where I think you can really instill a level of confidence in each other that
15:57maybe you can't when your canal is parachuting in at the end of the process because you're having to do all this other stuff as the head coach.
16:05And so based on what we've seen from the first couple of games and just how locked in that pair seems to
16:12be and what they need from one another, I do think that it has made an appreciable difference in what we have
16:18seen from Bryce Young two games into this season.
16:21Yeah, I would also, to your point, like the idea of let's hunt explosives, let's use the entire field makes a lot
16:27of sense when you have a quarterback who, you know, isn't necessarily built to access the intermediate range all that well over the middle of the field.
16:35Like so many offices want to attack and exploit that area and Bryce Young can do that here and there, but that's
16:42not ideally what you want your 5'10 quarterback doing.
16:44Like, it's a perfect example. There's a play in the second half, I think, I believe in the second half of the
16:51Falcons game where they're, and they did this very well consistently with T-Mac where he's running kind of these like big circus
16:57routes back into the whole area and cover two.
17:00And they run one in the second half. Bryce does a fantastic job of peeking at the route in the flat, holding
17:07down the flat defender just enough, getting his shoulders back turned and then hitting that whole shot to T-Mac.
17:12And those are the areas of the field where he can consistently attack because of the receivers he has, because of the way that he plays the game.
17:20And, but it always comes back to your point.
17:23It's still somewhat narrow in what he is able to do at a high level.
17:28And is that enough? The ability to find space, the ability to attack outside the numbers, and his ability to play fast.
17:34Is that enough altogether to make him viable in the long term?
17:38Coming into the season, I would have had my doubts, but after seeing it in practice over the first two weeks, I kind of think it might be.
17:46Like, I'm excited to see what he can do because I really enjoyed watching what he was over the first two weeks of the year.
17:53All right. Let's get to our next one here.
17:56The Cincinnati Bengals defense, after being just an absolute abomination last season, has looked considerably better through two weeks.
18:02Two games into the year, the Bengals are seventh in defensive DVOA.
18:05They're fourth in run defense DVOA. So, after two games, the Cincinnati Bengals defense, is this real?
18:10Well, I need more to believe. It's been so bad for so long that I need more than two weeks.
18:16And when I look at what they've done on a weekly basis, I can make excuses.
18:21And that's unfair because the Bengals deserve a lot of credit for the things I'm about to make excuses for.
18:27But I can still make excuses. So, week one, of course, the Bucs fumble four times.
18:31Tampa lost those four fumbles to Cincinnati. Cincinnati forced the four fumbles.
18:35They deserve some credit for that. But, I mean, the Bucs were about to score a touchdown on one of those drives.
18:41They scored a defensive touchdown off a fumble. It just—I want to give them some credit for forcing the takeaway, but you know what I'm going to say.
18:50Like, you're going to recover half the fumbles in your game.
18:53So, I just—it's weird to say, like, I want to see them force more punts in that scenario.
18:58Like, I'm punishing them. But there's a little bit of, like, 25 Bears defense here, right?
19:03Like, where you're like, okay, we know you can't do that every week.
19:07And the Bears kind of did do it every week.
19:10But that's a concern there. And then week two, they were awesome against the run.
19:14They honestly freaked Amico Ryans out. Like, he made one of the worst fourth-down decisions you will ever see in the modern NFL.
19:21I still can't believe it happened. I still can't believe it.
19:24But it's so funny because I was writing about it this week, and I was on the Texans' website.
19:30And after week one, Nick Casario was like, yeah, you know, like, we're running the ball more effectively.
19:35I think Amico is really going to be confident in our ability to go forward on fourth and short.
19:41Hindsight's 20-20, but I was like, oh boy. It took one experience with Dexter Lawrence for that all to go down the toilet.
19:48Nope. Nope. So, and like, they deserve credit. Like, Dexter Lawrence is a really good run defender.
19:53They have made major additions up front. They should be better.
19:56Against the run. But I've also seen the Texans be awful running the football for several years, and that is not a one-time thing.
20:03So, I'm sort of like piecing together each week.
20:06I'm like, well, like, this is kind of what drove them, and I don't know if they can do that.
20:11That's unfair, though, because they deserve credit for stopping the run.
20:15They deserve credit for forcing the fumbles. The thing that I want to ask you about, the thing that I feel like
20:21I have the most skepticism about, is they are blitzing at the lowest rate of football, which I'm not surprised by, and
20:28they have the fifth highest pressure rate of any team in the NFL.
20:32Do you think they can keep that up? I think that sort of gap would be hard to do over the course of the season.
20:39I think the front is real. That's what I will say.
20:42I think the front is real. And it obviously starts with what Dexter Lawrence can do.
20:47We've seen that. I mean, what he did on Sunday.
20:50It's the most you can impact a game without a sack.
20:53I don't know if he had one, but just what he did against the run in that game is the most you
21:00can possibly impact the game as a nose tackle.
21:02He was incredible. But it's not just him. Like, every single one of these guys has gotten in the mix in some way.
21:09Cassius Howell playing the role that they're asking him to play.
21:12It's perfectly suited for it. He's been really productive.
21:15Jonathan Allen has been a great inside complimentary pass rusher.
21:18Really surprised how well he's played so far. Really, really good complimentary interior pass rusher.
21:22And again, it's exactly what they need him to do.
21:25Mafei, like the entire combination of skill sets has looked great.
21:29And I think the returns on that, I believe that to be real.
21:32Do I think that they'll be able to be a top five pressure team while blitzing at the lowest rate in the league?
21:39Maybe not. I will say. I think a lot of their simulated stuff is good.
21:44And I think a lot of their pressure plan stuff has been good.
21:47Even some of the zero stuff that they're doing.
21:50They're like a top eight-ish cover zero team so far this year.
21:54And a lot of the things they're doing dropping out of that, playing zone behind it, forcing people to make really quick decisions.
22:00I think the rush and coverage in those moments has looked good.
22:04So I actually do believe the pass rush and the run defense from simply the front is something you'll be able to
22:10count on for the rest of the year. It's some of the other stuff where I need to see a little bit more as we keep going here.
22:19Like what? Middle of the field, spine defense. Like the spine of the defense, pass defense.
22:23You don't think Dalton Schultz is like Trey McBride 2.0?
22:26You just watch it happen, and it's not surprising.
22:29I think the linebackers will be better than they were a year ago.
22:33It'd be hard for them to be worse. But I still think, as I watch this team, the three players that come
22:39to mind, really four, I think it's just the entire second and third level spine of the defense.
22:45Jordan Battles made some nice plays near the line of scrimmage.
22:48But when you look at some of the plays where they're asking him to trigger downhill, there's been a lot of space
22:54and a lot of air in that area specifically over their first couple games.
22:59You saw it against the Bucs, and the numbers could be even worse.
23:02I mean, Kate Otten dropped a seam ball that he probably should have caught.
23:07That, to me, seems like the area where you'll be able to get after this team.
23:11The corners on the outside and the front, I feel really good about.
23:15I think that Dax Hill is playing well. DJ Turner is taking the leap we all kind of hoped he would take.
23:22He looks really, really good, even though it helps when it's Xavier Hutchinson and not Nico Collins.
23:27But I do believe in that stuff. I just think the spine of the defense, middle of the field pass defense, that's
23:33where I still need to see a little bit more.
23:36They're 18th in pass defense success rate through two games.
23:39Like, that's not bad. But I think the run defense and what we saw from them against the Texans maybe is masking
23:46the true quality of what they've been like down to down for the first two weeks in that specific area.
23:51What I do believe, and this is not really something I've had to see so far this year, but over the course
23:58of the season, is that they're not going to allow us many explosives as they did last year.
24:03Because they were the worst tackling team in football, and it really was not close.
24:08And a lot of the people who were responsible for that, Geno Stone, are no longer part of the organization.
24:14And so, like, that is one of those things where it was such an outlier last year.
24:19Like, I think they had, like, 30 more missed tackles than anybody else in the league or something crazy.
24:24Such an outlier that, like, you're going to make the moves to fix it.
24:28There's going to be year-to-year variance. And you're not going to allow as many explosives as a result.
24:34It wasn't like they got beat over the top here and there, but it wasn't like those plays where, oh, we're just
24:40getting people running by us in zone coverage. It was, oh, you're hitting a 14-yard dig and it's turning into a 40-yard
24:47gain because we take terrible angles or we run into each other or we just ankle tackle or we try to, you know, hit stick you and fail.
24:55And Brian Cook has been a really solid tackler with the Chiefs.
24:59You know, I think the front makes them better because quarterbacks are going to have less time to throw.
25:04You're going to have to force the ball into tighter windows.
25:07You're not going to have those huge sort of swaths to throw into.
25:11Like, I think, you know, there's like a holistic thing happening, some of which is just sheer regression to the mean from what happened a year ago.
25:19And some of which is just that front making everyone's life a lot easier.
25:23Yeah, I also just think that, and I don't have the numbers on it.
25:27I'd be curious what they actually look like. Last year, they just had to play so many heavy boxes because of their
25:34inability to stop the run that that also can lead to more explosives.
25:38Because you just have more guys crowded toward the line of scrimmage.
25:41Like, it's counterintuitive that you would give up fewer explosive runs if you're playing with too high, but that's actually true.
25:48Like, you probably will be doing some of that.
25:50So I just looked it up. This shouldn't be surprising at all.
25:54Who do you think is playing with the highest light box rate in the NFL two weeks into the season?
26:00I would guess the Philadelphia Eagles. They are second.
26:02It is the Cincinnati Bengals, 65.8% of plays according to NextGen.
26:06So playing with this many light boxes and playing with more too high structures, all that kind of stuff, I think that
26:12also is going to limit the amount of explosive runs that you're going to see.
26:16I agree. And that's crazy. And the defense of Lawrence goes a long way in making that happen.
26:22You are afforded a lot more flexibility when you have a great nose tackle to do that stuff, as the Eagles can
26:28attest to with Jordan Davis and with Jalen Carter playing next to him.
26:32I think the question is, like, what is real?
26:35Is real—are the Bengals a top-eight defense? No, probably not.
26:38Are they sort of like the, oh, if they could just be average defense?
26:42Yeah, I think that's totally within the realm of possibility from what we've seen through two weeks.
26:47Yeah, if they finished as, like, the 12th best defense in the league by DVOA because of how good the front is, that wouldn't necessarily surprise me.
26:55I still have my questions about what it's going to look like over the course of the entire season because I do think they have relative weaknesses.
27:03And I did a video about this earlier this week, and Derek and I talked about it on the hangover.
27:09I do think you're going to see the teams that have issues in coverage in the spine of the defense this year
27:15because of how many teams are playing under center and how much under center play action that we're seeing.
27:21The conflict that you're putting on those second-level defenders just because of the way people are playing right now through two games
27:27and what I assume people continue to do for the rest of the year, I do think we'll feel that.
27:33And I unfortunately think the Bengals will be one of those teams.
27:37I don't think the linebackers are going to be a disaster, but I do think that is the relative weakness of the defense so far.
27:44And I think we'll see more of it in games where teams aren't finishing with a 10% rushing success rate.
27:50Yeah, and I think with teams leaning into bigger personnel groupings, more 21, more 12, especially more 13, that's begging opposing defenses to match with base.
27:58And so I think teams are just going to have more linebackers on the field than they would have two or three
28:04years ago just because you're going to want to try to stop those bigger personnel groupings.
28:09All right, let's take our first quick break and then come back and chat about a unit that's been struggling two weeks into the year.
28:16We're two games in, and the Green Bay Packers are currently 30th in offensive success rate.
28:21The teams behind them are the Pittsburgh Steelers, which there's something beautiful about that, and the Miami Dolphins.
28:26So a lot of carry over there. We got Jeff Halfley in Miami.
28:30We got Aaron Rodgers in Pittsburgh. The Packers are sitting at 30th.
28:34The Packers offense being a decidedly below average hard to watch unit.
28:37Is this real after two games? Have you seen what their offensive line looks like?
28:42I have. Yeah, that makes me think yes. If not 30th, below average seems entirely plausible to me.
28:47It is, there's like a fundamentally broken thing about all the things that Matt LeFleur wants to do and the pieces he actually has to work with.
28:55So just to start, they are not a team that can lean heavily into multi-tied-up personnel groupings because Luke Musgraves had him definitely.
29:02They signed Johnnie Smith right before the year, and he's been on the field, but the confidence and comfort they have in
29:08running 12, which they would normally be happy to do, they cannot do.
29:12I honestly think with more time on task, I believe that the combination of Kraft and Mark Redman might be okay.
29:18Because I think Redman is a capable blocker. The idea of Johnnie Smith being a part of this, that I don't really care about.
29:25But Redman and Kraft, I do think that that combination of guys is something that they could work with moving forward.
29:32This is a real NBA Jam thing where it's like you have one superstar and you're just going to play as that
29:38guy in NBA Jam and you're going to let the computer play as the other guy who's nowhere near as good.
29:44Tucker Kraft and anybody is probably an okay combination because Tucker Kraft is incredible.
29:49But I see your point. Jayden Riggs gets hurt.
29:51So now your 11 personnel grouping is down, you know, a sort of difficult to replace receiver.
29:56Say you've got Williams that's on IR. And then that's where the thinness at receiver that they didn't have in previous years immediately shows up.
30:04Where last year you could lose a receiver for an extended period of time and say, well, we got six of them.
30:10They're all kind of the same, but we've got a lot of them.
30:14This year they didn't. There's no receivers in the banana stand for the Packers right now.
30:19They are not there anymore. They weren't all the same, but there was a replacement for each of them.
30:24Yes. That would have worked out. I mean, they're all of similar quality.
30:28Like, yeah, we just throw one more out there and we'll probably be fine.
30:32That is not the case with this current group.
30:35No, that is not the case. Bo Melton has seen snaps on offense already, which is concerning to me.
30:41And then the offensive line. And before the year, this was a concern.
30:44Just looking at their backups on the offensive line, not even considering that Jordan Morgan was moving to left tackle on a permanent basis.
30:51I think he had one career start at left tackle before the start of the season.
30:56And he had not looked great, frankly, playing elsewhere on the line before this year.
31:01They were starting Jacob Monk at right guard. Zach Bacoweli was coming off of an injury and sadly now has another injury.
31:07He's torn his patella. He's done for the year.
31:10Aaron Banks was banged up in year one with the Packers.
31:13He's missed. He missed week one and left the game in week two.
31:17I mean, you're looking at. And this is like the Packers thing.
31:20Young players. I get it. Like, you're not looking at first and second round picks in a lot of cases taking over these spots.
31:27You're looking at day three picks. You're looking at UFAs.
31:30You're looking at practice squad guys who are already taking meaningful snaps and projected to take meaningful snaps moving forward for the Packers.
31:37And you have no Josh Jacobs. And for whatever qualms I have about Josh Jacobs in terms of his EPA because of his fumbling issues.
31:45Josh Jacobs is a very effective interior runner. You have Marshawn Lloyd and Caleb Johnson taking those snaps.
31:50You have Chris Brooks, who's a pass pro guy, taking snaps and running back.
31:54And you're still running the ball at one of the highest rates on neutral downs and early game scripts, even though you are last in the NFL.
32:02I believe in success rate, if not EPA per play, running the football on design runs.
32:07This is broken. And I don't really know how you fix it because the personnel is not there to really find a way to make it all work.
32:15I'm not quite as down on it as you are.
32:18I think it's for this reason. I think that last week against the Jets, I feel similarly about the Packers game against
32:24the Jets as I do about the Bears game against the Vikings last week.
32:29Obviously, the quality of defense is different, but it's a messy game in a rainstorm.
32:33And there are just so many correctable mistakes when you watch it happen from offenses that have so much built up equity that have looked better than this.
32:41And that's kind of how I felt about the Packers game last week.
32:45Like the amount of missed assignments in the run game and Christian Watson and just like guys not being blocked.
32:51That's not a talent issue. Like, I think that's a continuity issue.
32:55That's a backup offensive lineman issue. That type of stuff in a weather game when you have this many injuries, a lot of that to me feels correctable.
33:03And I do think the combination of LeFleur, Jordan Love, you still have Watson and Golden.
33:08I think if they can just get some level of continuity with whoever the five guys are going to be, I think
33:14it'll look significantly less sloppy than it did against the Jets last week, even if there are a lot of personnel concerns.
33:21So my question, I think my hesitation here is not about the floor.
33:24I think the floor is much, much higher than what we've seen from them.
33:29What we saw from them last week, what we've seen from the first two weeks.
33:33I think my bigger concern with what you're talking about with all the offensive linemen out, all the injuries, is that the
33:39ceiling for this offense probably just isn't nearly as high as it's been over the last couple of years.
33:45So now are we talking about a team that's like 17th, 18th in every offensive efficiency metric rather than what we've gotten used to with them?
33:53That feels like kind of where I sit with it.
33:56I have real concerns about their ability to run the football.
33:59Yeah, that's fair. That's real. And their pass rate over expectation on first down, on first and 10, is negative 17.8%.
34:05They are leaning heavily into the run on early downs.
34:08And that to me is the concern because like I understand why you want to protect Jordan Love.
34:13I understand why you want to run the football.
34:16But you're not good at it. That's the problem.
34:19If you're in second and 11, the argument of we want to take a play off the offensive line, we don't want
34:25to make them drop back 50 times. Well, now you're – how much harder you're making the second down play by running
34:32it on first down negates the fact that you made the first down play easier.
34:36Yes. It does lead to not having continuity when they're running concepts.
34:40And that is the stuff that concerns me because I don't know that this offense has the ability to stay on schedule very often.
34:47Now, they have the ability to create explosives because they have Jordan Love and he's a big game hunter.
34:52And they'll hit their big shots because they have big game hunter receivers.
34:56But like you're also counting on Christian Watson to be healthy for the entire season.
35:01Like that to me also seems scary. It's not like even – like Aaron Banks might not be healthy over the rest of the year.
35:08If he is, great. But like there's just – we're already down so much.
35:12And I'm just not confident that even the pieces that are left – Jordan Love has missed time over the course of his pro career.
35:20I just – it feels like things are already falling apart.
35:23And I know that sometimes you can correct the ship and sometimes there are things, like you said, the rain that could impact things.
35:30But sometimes you keep sliding down because you can't stay healthy, because the line is backed up.
35:35And you get like a 2022 Rams season. Or is it 2022 or 23 or 23?
35:40It was 22. Yeah, it was 22. 22. And I was not expecting that before the year.
35:45I think that's a really good comparison to point out as a worst-case scenario.
35:49The idea that you could just be dealing with a 2022 Rams season.
35:53And to me, why I think that's really good is – well, Stafford got hurt for – how many games did Stafford play in 22?
36:00Stafford played nine games, I believe. Nine games in 22.
36:03So that's part of it. So I don't think – if Love plays 15 games, I don't think you're looking at that sort of outcome.
36:10But we have a play caller in McVay that has as much inherent faith as you could possibly have, and the bottom fell out.
36:17And so that to me is why this is a good comparison.
36:21Here's – this will be my parting thought before we move on to the next thing.
36:26I am worried I'm not panicking yet in terms of how bad it could get.
36:30But I want to see what it looks like, not in the rain, when they don't lose multiple offensive linemen in the middle of the game.
36:38Maybe they'll just lose multiple offensive linemen in the middle of the game every game for the rest of the season.
36:44But – I hope not. I do think that – all right.
36:48We know these are the five guys that we're working with.
36:51And if you look at the way they were running the ball in that game, and Justice Muscata pointed this out, and
36:57I think that it's a really good observation. And it struck me when I was going back to rewatch it.
37:03So a lot of those gap scheme runs look significantly better than the zone stuff that they were trying to do.
37:09And so can you lean into some of those gap scheme runs?
37:13Can you still be explosive in the passing game?
37:16Can you get to an acceptable level of play, even with some backups in there, if you have the same five guys for an extended period of time?
37:24That's wishful thinking. I think that they're going to be hard-pressed to make this all come together.
37:29That's why I am worried about it. I want to see one more week not in the rain, not in a burn-the-tape
37:35sort of situation before I totally panic about where they are.
37:39I would also point out that Matt LaFleur built a coherent offense, a successful offense with Malikul as a quarterback, which is something I would not have expected.
37:47So this man might deserve some benefit of the doubt as well.
37:51It's hard for me to throw dirt on them this early.
37:54Again, I mean, you can have really bad games as a good offensive play caller with a good offense.
37:59Ben Johnson and the Bears were not good last week.
38:02I don't think that means they'll continue to not be good.
38:06Of course. I think that sometimes you just have shitty weeks, and I think last week was a really shitty week.
38:12When you combine it with the injuries, though, that's where it starts to get concerning.
38:16And I'm willing to concede that, but I'm not all the way there yet.
38:20I'm not arguing Matt LaFleur is a bad coach or they have a bad scheme with their… Why do you hate Matt LaFleur, Bill Barba?
38:28Because he wears the same vest every game, and I feel like he's a tech bro secretly masquerading as an NFL coach.
38:34He's jealous of the eyebrows, which we all are.
38:37It's totally fun. Sure. Speaking of tech bros masquerading as NFL coaches, let's talk about the Los Angeles Chargers.
38:42The Chargers are 29th in EPA per play so far this season.
38:46They are 0-2. It feels like their season is kind of on life support.
38:50I assume you've looked at this, but for people that don't know, have you looked at the Chargers schedule over the next six weeks?
38:57No. Who are they playing? Bills, Seahawks, Broncos, Chiefs, Rams, Texans.
39:01Oh. Those are the next six games for the Chargers.
39:03Yeah. I don't think… I think you left out the seventh game.
39:07I think the seventh game is against the Ravens, no?
39:10Let me see. I somehow got lost on the schedule page.
39:13Yes. Yes, they play the Ravens after that. The Ravens game wasn't up.
39:17I had to expand the menu to see the Ravens games.
39:20You left the Ravens game out of the schedule.
39:23That part is tough, but we can talk about that.
39:26But the Chargers look like a mess. Again, they're 29th in EPA per play on offense.
39:31The Chargers being just an absolute shit show, especially on offense, is this real?
39:35I was going to ask you… Yes. The answer is yes.
39:38I was going to ask you, is it more concerning through two weeks that the offense is bad or that the defense
39:45is 26th in total QBR having played the Cardinals and the Raiders?
39:48Which is worse? I think the offense is worse.
39:51Which is more concerning to you? I think the offense is more concerning.
39:55Because that's the big bet you made. The big bet you made is that Mike McDaniel plus Justin Herbert equals fireworks, and
40:01that is not what has happened so far. Yeah, of course that was the bet.
40:05And the logic still holds, but have you watched this Chargers offense closely?
40:09Have you looked at their run game over the first two weeks?
40:13I went back and re-watched today. It looks like first day of camp stuff.
40:17And not first day of pro camp stuff. It looks like first day of high school stuff.
40:22Like, guys are… There's, like, Mack Wilson's running scot-free into the backfield to make tackle attempts.
40:27You're having guys get slipped so easily in the interior of the line.
40:31Like, it is… It's not always… It's not just one thing.
40:34It's just, like, a series of, like… You guys don't have a remotely competent run game.
40:39And that's, like, the bare minimum of, like, okay, you know, maybe the drop-back passing game for McDaniel isn't, you know, totally moderately.
40:45But, like, I at least trust that their run game is going to be consistent.
40:50It looks completely broken. But that's the problem. That's the problem.
40:53Is that… And we probably should have been… And I'm guilty of this.
40:57Because I think that in a lot of ways, the conversations about… F*** it.
41:01I'm going to do this. Okay? The conversations about the Chargers coming into the year are similar to the conversations that we've
41:07had about Justin Herbert for a long time. And I don't think this discussion has to be a referendum on Justin Herbert,
41:14but we should talk about how he's been playing.
41:17Okay? They're aesthetic conversations. And I think the… Like, there are some of the appeal to the Mike McDaniel offense is an aesthetic appeal.
41:24And when you look at the overall, like, EPA per play numbers and everything else when Tua was out there, they were always very good.
41:31But for the run game specifically, there are cracks if you wanted to find them.
41:36And you go back and you look at the numbers for the last couple years with the Dolphins.
41:41The Dolphins' run game last season… How much do we hear about the Dolphins' run game this offseason?
41:46The Vikings were going to run it. The Bears were going to steal some of it.
41:51The Chargers were going to run it. So many people were chasing the Dolphins' run game.
41:56They were 31st in stuff rate last year. The Dolphins' run game was 31st.
42:00The Chargers, through two games, are 31st in the percentage of their runs that are getting hit in the backfield per next-gen.
42:06The Dolphins' run game was boom-bust. They were getting hit in the backfield a lot.
42:11They were getting stuffed a lot. But they were extremely explosive.
42:14We have the same run game here with no boom.
42:17It's all bust. And so that's the problem. If you're not going to be explosive, you can't live with this high-variant stuff
42:23that comes from all of the different moving pieces that they're trotting out in the run game.
42:28The number that jumped out to me that is just wild, from condensed formations through two games, the Chargers have lost 24 EPA on runs.
42:3624 in two games. That's three touchdowns. They've only played two games.
42:39How is that even possible? That's like a full win.
42:42That's like the Chargers have lost a full game just by being so bad on condensed design runs.
42:48Oh my God. They have run the fifth most of them in the league.
42:52And only the Browns have been worse on EPA in a period of play on condensed formation runs.
42:57And so it just speaks to how fundamentally broken so many things about the offense are.
43:02Like if you're going to be that inconsistent without being explosive on the ground, if you're going to have so many negative
43:08plays, and then you combine that with all of the mistakes in the passing game.
43:13I mean, putting the ball on the ground, fumbles hitting guys going in motion.
43:17Guys deflecting passes that should be caught by teammates.
43:20This to me is like a perfect encapsulation of like what it is like to watch the Chargers offense right now.
43:26One drive ends with the Njoku pick where it hits him in the hands and he throws it to a defensive player.
43:32The next drive, it's a third and long. Herbert throws a missile to McConkie on third and long.
43:38He runs an incredible route. Ball is on time.
43:40It's beautiful. They follow that up. The next play, no one blocks Quay Walker on the edge.
43:45Just no one blocks him. And it's a negative run.
43:48Right after that, they bring the nickel. Herbert gets hit.
43:51He still is somehow able to get the ball to Hampton on a check down for a chunk.
43:56So those are three plays in a row. You have the missile shot.
44:00You have a misplay. And then you have Herbert throwing a check down with somebody hanging on him for a positive play.
44:07I'm not absolving it. He is not playing well.
44:09He's making plenty of mistakes. He's getting sped up a little bit.
44:13But there are just so many other things happening with this offense where, like you said, it's a little bit of everything.
44:19And that's why it's hard to figure out exactly how you fix this.
44:23I do think if the schedule was not what it is, if this next seven games didn't look the way that it
44:30does, part of me would be willing to say, new play caller, intricate offense, a little bit more time.
44:35Do they come out on the other side of this?
44:38And I think in terms of like logic and reason, I still do believe that to an extent.
44:44But when you're playing these next seven games, you couldn't lose to the Cardinals and Raiders.
44:48I thought when you said new play caller, you were arguing that they should fire Mike McDaniel and replace him with someone else to call plays.
44:56And I didn't think that was a terrible idea.
44:59Oh, come on. Come on. It's two games. It's two games.
45:02We've seen this. We see this all the time.
45:05We see this all the time. Yes. We see this all the time where the Bears and Jags were a nightmare last
45:11year at the start of the season. The Jags specifically.
45:14Think about how many mistakes. I remember Trevor yelling at me.
45:17I'm calling. Think about how many mistakes the Jags are making.
45:21This shit happens all the time. I think it's just a combination of the collective hype that everyone bought into this summer
45:27about what this pairing would look like. The fact that the defense has been bad and it's led to them losing games on top of it.
45:35And the fact that they are staring down the gauntlet with this schedule.
45:39And I think that's why this makes it worse.
45:41Yes. I will say, and this is totally not like me.
45:45It is completely numerically unrelated. Seeing them get hit in the mouth in the fourth quarter of games where something goes like
45:51the block punt in week one that led to a touchdown.
45:54That's the shit that's unacceptable. Yeah. Well, it's not that it's unacceptable, but their response to it is a mess.
46:00They turn the ball over on the next drive.
46:03It looks like facing adversity, they just completely collapse in the fourth quarter of these games.
46:08And we haven't even talked about the defense. And that's the part that concerns me most is that even if you were
46:14going to say the offense is going to have growing pains, which it could, even if you were going to say they
46:21need Ladd McConkie and Justin Herbert has an 8.5 QBR without Ladd McConkie on the field so far this season.
46:26Like all those things could be true to me.
46:29But the defense was going to be the thing that was going to be stable.
46:34The defense was going to be the thing that at least if they had hiccups, their defense was going to carry them
46:40to wins over the Raiders and the Cardinals. Their defense does not look good.
46:44They are not getting a pass rush. They're 30th in the NFL in pressure rate.
46:49And they are 30th in the NFL in pressure rate having played Jacoby Brissett and Kirk Cousins.
46:54Those are two dudes who are eminently sackable. I like them both.
46:57They're both good players. They are both statues. That is the thing that really concerns me because if the defense is not even average, the season's over.
47:05Like the offense might get fixed or get better as the year goes along.
47:09But I think we've established, by the way, also they have no tight ends anymore.
47:14Charlie Polar and David Njoku are both on IR.
47:16So even if you wanted to be a big heavy personnel team, unless you have Alec Ingold playing tight end next week,
47:23like your entire offense has to evolve on the fly, which the other offense wasn't working.
47:28And the way a new offense would be any better.
47:31So it's just it feels broken in a way that I find so difficult to believe they can fix on both sides
47:37of the ball, especially now that they're playing the toughest schedule in recent memory over the next seven weeks.
47:43Yeah, I agree. I mean, the defense being what it is, that if that was going to happen, you were going to have absolutely no shot this year.
47:51The offense was going to have to be spectacular from day one.
47:54And I think we probably should have anticipated them taking a little bit of time to figure out some of the kinks.
48:01I don't think it was going to be this bad.
48:04The last thing I want to say, just about the Herbert stuff, I do think on Sunday night we were pretty harsh about the way that he played.
48:12Going back and rewatching the game, it was not as bad as I thought it was in real time.
48:18I do think that he is taking off from clean pockets.
48:21The overall timing and decision making just isn't optimized right now.
48:24That's what I would say. I mean, that play where he takes off and gets wrapped up as he has an incompletion
48:31to his right, that was the play that was sticking in my mind when I was saying that he looked a little bit gun shy in the pocket.
48:39That wasn't happening as often as I thought. I was more focusing on the negatives in real time.
48:44There are still five, six, seven plays in this game that are fantastic plays.
48:49But I don't want to be in a place with him where we're over, we're waiting that stuff, we're waiting that stuff too much.
48:56Like that, because we can do that. Where we look at the five or six incredible plays and it's like, oh man, no, he played well.
49:03The all 60 plays matter. And even though I don't think there are many like catastrophic mistakes in the way that he
49:10was playing, I think that in the same way that there are five or six spectacular throws on that tape, a couple
49:16of which were dropped, by the way, there's also five or six plays where you don't love the decision.
49:22Like he probably could have taken the crosser there rather than the check down.
49:26He probably moved a little bit too fast through the progression on that play.
49:30I think it's just a lack of comfort and a lack of trust with what he's being asked to do within the offense, which is understandable.
49:38It's a new offense. You're two weeks into it.
49:40So I think he has some culpability in what this whole thing has looked like.
49:45I don't think that the first two games of the season have to be a referendum on Justin Herbert, the player, in
49:51a way that a lot of people are trying to make it out to be.
49:56He is not the problem and he is not the solution, unfortunately.
49:59That's right. And I think that quarterbacks, almost no quarterback is capable of being the solution in this bad of a situation.
50:06But the guys that we talk about as the best quarterbacks in the league, the true special MVP level difference making players,
50:12they can be the solution even when things are really, really bad.
50:16And I think that is justifiably some people's frustration in the way that others talk about Justin Herbert is he has talked
50:22about as one of these quarterbacks that can be the solution.
50:26And he often is not. And so I want to be clear about this.
50:30I am open to changing the conversation that we've had about Justin Herbert over the last few years.
50:35I just don't think he's playing quite bad enough for us to fully be changing that conversation two games into the year.
50:42That's what I will say. Yeah. I land on, I truly believe Justin Herbert could be an MVP with the appropriate amount of help.
50:49But I do think whether it's his propensity for taking sacks, his ability to get heated up, the occasional miss, I do
50:55think that he does not have that same ability to elevate what is a mediocre situation typically around him, let alone the
51:02disaster that's been around him the first few weeks of the year.
51:05I don't think he has that Mahomes, Alan Jackson ability to pull that off.
51:09And I think we've had several years now where he has not been able to do that consistently and nobody, I mean,
51:16I don't know, maybe Josh Allen could do it, but I don't think anybody could consistently drag this caliber of a disaster
51:22offense to adequacy, especially against the schedule that's about to come.
51:26Before we move on, let's take another quick break.
51:28Our last one here, we can run through this very quickly.
51:32Josh Allen is off to a nuclear start. White just absolutely insane.
51:35Do we think that the all-time season Josh Allen seems primed for is real?
51:39I mean, yes, because we know Josh Allen has that upside, right?
51:43Like, it's not like Josh Allen has to get to, like with Bryce Young, we talked about him getting to a level he had not been to previously.
51:51Josh Allen has been able to get to that level.
51:54It's just really hard for anyone to get to that level for 17 games.
51:58My concern is always, is he going to get banged up along the way?
52:02Like last year, he broke his foot late in the year and just played through it.
52:07You know, he is, it's either taking any of the rushing load off of him, really.
52:12He's still, every sneak, every situation, they're comfortable running him.
52:15I guess the thing I wonder, beyond the injury, like around him, what has improved, it's the Dalton Kincaid factor, right?
52:21It's that idea of, you know, even if you have, even if he's not going to average four plus yards per route
52:27run like he's run so far this year, he was a super efficient route runner running 50% of the snaps for the Bills.
52:34If he's going to be a 70% of the snap guy and he's really effective doing that, like that's a fundamental difference
52:41maker for the Bills, especially against Mann, which is where Allen has struggled over the past couple of seasons.
52:46You look at the numbers. So, so far this season, Dalton Kincaid is behind only Jackson Smith and Jigba in yards per route run.
52:53You might look at that and say, well, that's unsustainable, right?
52:57There's no way. Last year, Dalton Kincaid finished behind only Jackson Smith and Jigba and Puka Nakua in yards per route run.
53:03This is solely about how often he was on the field and in the role they're asking him to play, too.
53:09I think he has like out of 13 personnel specifically as 17 air yards per target so far this year.
53:15Overall, it's like 13, which some of that is the one play against the Texans doing some heavy lifting.
53:21But when you look at a good play to have in your locker, though, to say, hey, I can moss Derek Stingley.
53:27Not a lot of tight ends can do that.
53:30Yeah, he has right now his air yards per target on the season is just ahead of Jalen Waddell and Brian Thomas Jr.
53:37Oh, sure. Which is totally normal. And so I do think the Kincaid factor is part of this.
53:42Getting DJ more into the fold. Even we like I know he's not the most important element of this.
53:48Josh Palmer was hurt last year. Having Josh Palmer as your third receiver now when he wasn't even on the field last year does make a difference.
53:56That stuff all matters. The most important thing, in my opinion, is the structural changes within the offense.
54:01Like them getting to a place. The Bills last year were a heavy under center team because they like to run the ball a lot.
54:08They ran the ball from under center 75% of the time last year.
54:1275% of the time. Their play action rate has jumped 10 percentage points in the first two weeks from where it was last season.
54:19This should be a team that has a dominant or at least like engine worthy under center run game.
54:25That you build these complimentary intermediate and deep play action shots off.
54:28And that's not really what they had been over the last couple of years despite what the run game looked like.
54:35And so seeing them morph into this where they have a run and pass game that are perfectly tied together.
54:41It's led to a more downfield approach to the passing game overall.
54:44You have Kincaid. You have DJ Moore. And you still have Josh Allen.
54:48I don't know if it'll be a historic season in the way that it has started where we're talking about like all time numbers.
54:55I think that even with a step and a half back they could comfortably be the best offense in the league.
55:01Like I do believe that a version of this is going to be real.
55:05I mean it's totally plausible. Like it is not something that I need to see a different level from Josh Allen to prove it.
55:12It's not something where I've only seen it for two games.
55:16Like it is completely plausible to me. And so the question is just can he sustain it?
55:21Can he stay healthy? Can Dalton Kincaid by the way stay healthy?
55:24Someone who has struggled to do that. But if you get that dream scenario or everyone's on the field for 17 games,
55:31yes, Josh Allen has a top eight historical season in him.
55:34I don't think anyone needs to be convinced of that.
55:37Yeah, but that would be it. That would be what would be different is that is it going to be like a all time season?
55:44And I think that right now based on what I've seen so far, that shouldn't be off the table because the changes in the offense are real.
55:52Like what they're trying to do is materially different enough that I believe the outcome and the results can be materially different.
55:59And this has nothing to do with the playoffs.
56:01I don't I don't give a shit about that.
56:04No, no, we'll talk about that in January. Exactly.
56:07Four and a half yards before first contact so far this year.
56:10It's nice to be a part of the Bill's offense.
56:13All right. That is all we've got for the 2026 version of Is This Real?
56:18Bill Barnwell, always appreciate it, sir. Where can people check out all of the wonderful work that you were doing for the worldwide leader over there?
56:25It's on ESPN.com. You can check it out. I'm sure it's on the app, on the website, the Bill Barnwell Show podcast,
56:32which is also on YouTube, the usual places. But thank you so much, Vince.
56:36Good to talk to you, buddy. That's all we got for today.
56:40We'll be back tomorrow with the week three preview and a little Falcons Packers recap.
56:44That is a Thursday night game. We get the Falcons on Thursday night in primetime.
56:48Really, really good stuff. And a Packers team, we were just panicking about the state of their offense.
56:54It's going to be a great, going to be an old school classic Thursday night matchup tomorrow on Amazon.
56:59That's all we got for today. Appreciate you guys listening.
57:02We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in.
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57:10If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating.
57:14We'll see you next time.
