NFL Week 11 Recap!!

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The Heed the Call Podcast.

Oh, I don't know, Jim.

Welcome to Heed the Call.

The flagship program Sunday night.

Breaking down every game from Sunday,

from the early kickoff to SNF and everything in between.

And I'm Dan Hansis and Mark Sessler.

I'm very concerned about Tony Romo based on what we just heard there.

I am too.

Well, yes.

And what a well-placed comment from Jason Zumwalt there, our friend, because this was, I woke up early and logged on to the athletic, and there was like a massive feature article about how the executives at CBS treasured and felt about the fact that they had Chiefs at Bills today on CBS and just you knew like I just knew that most of my day would be spent listening to Tony Romo do things like we just heard and you've got to just you know you shoulder into it and you just you have to love it Connor I'm not an intravenous drug user but like the feeling that Tony Romo must get when he knows he's about to call a big Mahomes game I mean pump that into my veins if it's out there on the market.

Yeah, that makes one of us, but you're right.

I mean, I think it's.

I don't know what anybody wants.

Like, I still love Tony Romo.

We all know I'm a throwback guy, believe in the magic, and we'll get into it later on, but he knows exactly what's going on, and I value that as a consumer of the product.

He does not annoy me.

There you go.

I think there was a Sessler text on the thread today that Tony Romo is tedious.

Well, no.

No, hold on.

Can I say one thing?

Like, it was a goal of mine.

Not really.

We kind of got to get going.

But yes, give us something.

Okay, well, it was a goal of mine to not complain about the whole

Tony Romo situation today at all.

And then it just, at one point, the bow broke, and I had to write one little line.

And it's not how I feel.

I find him an amiable individual.

Like, you were trying not to text it, but you just couldn't not get the vowels.

Well, that's how most of my texts.

I can't not say say

that's most of my communication with people in general is like don't say it don't say it don't say it i said it i just said it

i've been there buddy all right let's get into it because yes there was a certain level of gravitas uh that filtered into the nfl today and it's it's be primarily because of the two games we're going to talk about to get going today and yes let's start with the game that went down in orchard park the big showdown between the titans of buffalo and the champions of Kansas City.

Get us going.

Connor Orr.

Orchard Park McDonald's, 1 a.m.

Bill's head coach Sean McDermott walks to the register and orders a medium number two quarter pounder with a Diet Dr.

Pepper.

The acne-ridden teen at the register looks up from his dead-inside haze and stands at attention.

Yes, Coach McDermott, he says, and congratulations on the 30-21 victory over the Chiefs.

For a moment, only silence, the low hum of the soft-served machine.

Hey, kid, McDermott says as the server turns around.

From now on, when I come in here, you call me Big Daddy McDermott.

And make that medium a large and heat up one of those f ⁇ ing apple pies.

The Bills of all teams broke up Kansas City's undefeated season.

Josh Allen was a menace on the ground.

Buffalo's defense forced an early turnover.

And yes, Big Daddy McDermott went for it on fourth and two when it called for it the most, keeping the ball out of Mahomes's hands and delivering a W.

Yes, and that's it.

That's what we've been talking about for weeks as people have gotten more and more and more angry, Connor, about Oh, the Chiefs get all the breaks and why does the game always go their way?

And speaking of Romo, he did a great job and he underlined it several times: that if you want to beat the Chiefs, you can't expect to back into a win at the end.

You can't expect to get lucky or a field goal to go wide right or the Chiefs to miss a tackle that they usually make.

No, you got to go win the goddamn game.

And that's why I absolutely loved the decision on fourth and two to go for it.

And I thought it was just poetic on top of it, Connor, that not only does Josh Allen reward the faith of his head coach, not only does he pick up the first, he rumbles all the way into the end zone and sends that building into hysterics.

It was a really, really great moment for a Bills team that suddenly is in the driver's seat, obviously,

for either the first or second seed.

And maybe now the path is not the arrowhead invitational, as our friend Money Mike Dugar always says.

The path could be with just one game separating these teams through Western New York if this breaks a certain way.

So a massive win by the Bills and a great show of stepping up when it matters most and putting your foot on the throat of the Chiefs, which so many teams are either unwilling or too afraid to even try.

Yes, I loved both the macro and the micro.

Like, so the decision to go for it was awesome, and the call was awesome, too.

And so, I actually looked it up.

I have a visual aid here.

I have the played right here.

It's in a book called Trends in Offensive Football by Dan Casey.

It's really good.

You should buy it.

This is a play called Mesh Traffic or something like that.

He's old school.

He's got a paperback in his hand as he explains the play concept yeah um so it's this play the concept is either called mesh traffic or mesh flow and what i love about it is all you're doing is chiefs are awesome at tackling in space they have all these great read and react players and what you're doing is you're bunching a bunch of wide receivers and tight ends and running backs at the line and you're saying you got to cover all these people so deal with it and these guys are so good they're so assignment focused that they're sticking to their guys all of a sudden when you turn around josh allen's just running down the field like a racehorse no one can stop him.

And there's so many awesome things about that play.

Like Deion Dawkins coming back in from an injury, comes back in, handles this guy.

You have a guard on a second-round pick from a year ago on the Bills offensive line, handling Chris Jones by himself and throwing a key block on that play.

Like, this is an exorcism of a game from Buffalo, and I loved every minute of it.

Isn't it psychological, too, for Buffalo?

Because now you're a game back of essentially hosting the entire playoffs in Western New York.

I thought it was also a confirmation because a year ago at this time, we were dealing with a Bills team that had, they were in a weird place.

The coach had made, had been, you know, it had been reported that the coach had made strange 9-11 typey comments.

And, you know,

but you had moved on from your offensive coordinator.

Your star wide receiver is not getting along with your quarterback, and we kind of know it.

There's weird rumors out there about that.

A year later, it's for me the confirmation of moving on from Ken Dorsey to make Joe Brady your offensive coordinator.

And today, you don't have to come out of this game with a narrative of like, wait, we should have done this.

We're the Bills.

We should have been ourselves.

No, Josh Allen leads you on the ground with 55 yards and a touchdown off 12 carries.

He is the, and we call the Chiefs inevitable.

He is the inevitable factor for the Buffalo Bills.

That's how the game ends.

It's how it should have ended.

It's halftime.

It's pitch black, dark in western New York when Sean McDermott's doing his post-halftime interview.

You could kind of just feel it.

And I think this was a big, this was one of the biggest regular season wins for the Bills.

You could also say, look, go do it again in two and a half months, or none of this matters.

But you've got guys like Khalil Shakir stepping up and being a complete alpha wide receiver out there and creating total trauma.

I think it was a major step in the AFC in a jumbled melee of teams at the top of the AFC.

Yeah, it's time to like, we don't have to worry about the Chiefs,

do the Bills have enough weapons?

They do.

They're even short, obviously,

Kincaid in this game, and they're missing, obviously, the first-round pick, wide receiver, Coleman, and they still find ways to make it happen.

It all obviously drives through Allen.

And yeah, you make a good point.

It's like, I agree.

I said that on Thursday, that I thought this would be huge from a confidence standpoint for Buffalo as it feels like almost inevitable that these teams will see each other again.

But it is important to remember that the Bills have also won four straight regular season matchups against the Chiefs, but it's January that's always vexed them and finding a way in that.

But I don't know.

It just something feels a little bit different right now.

And they've won six straight Buffalo, and they're closing in, obviously, on the AFC East title.

They play in the worst division of football, but this is not a team that's just feasting on a bad division.

They could beat anyone.

And on the Chiefs side, Connor.

You know, they fall to 9-1, obviously,

and

they had won 15 straight, including the playoffs.

Their last loss was December 17th, 2023, so exactly 11 months ago.

I don't see any cause for panic, but yeah, like if you keep on playing these games and you keep on going into halftime, trailing as they've done almost every game this year, when you catch a team that is near your level or at your level talent-wise, that is the recipe to get picked off.

They just need to be better, and they don't quite have it all together, even with the record that they have this season.

They were winning games in such miraculous fashion for such a long period of time that you forget how excellent they were and also how much of an outlier it was.

Like, this is the first first time that a team has scored 30 points on them since the Super Bowl.

And it's just crazy that they've been able to play this well when down at touchdown.

I forget what Mahomes' record was when down at touchdown going into the fourth quarter.

It's something unbelievable.

You know, all these little outlier occurrences that don't happen.

Okay, so you have a little bit of a redirect here, but I think the things that are pressing for Kansas City were obvious in this game, too.

They still need some help on the offensive line.

Mahomes was under pressure for a lot of this game.

They're still having trouble pressuring the quarterback.

We saw them, I think it was four quarterback hits on Josh Allen, which is not nearly enough to be able to get him off his rhythm.

And so, and Mahomes is missing some guys.

I mean, you know, he's missing Xavier Worthy on some of these big shot plays that can absolutely decapitate an opponent.

And so.

Worthy's got to get a second foot down on that one deep shot.

But even that, Mahomes led him too far to the sideline.

It should have been a completion or a touchdown.

Yeah.

And those are the things that you combine together.

You know, it's too simplistic to say that this is the game that they learn what they can and they can't get away with.

But I do think it was a nice

defining line game for them to be like, okay, this is how much better we really have to be.

Yeah.

And I like that.

Again, Buffalo,

incredible job by

because the game seemed to be going the way of Kansas City, even after the Buffalo Bills appeared to be in control when they go up 23 to 14 on that touchdown pass to Curtis Samuel, because the Chiefs wake up and and I'm watching this game with my cousin Mike, who's in town.

And it's like, watch, there's no way Mahomes doesn't make this a one-score game.

And bang, bang, bang, 10 plays, 70 yards.

They make it 23-21.

But for the Bills then to match and go right back down the field, 12 plays, 70 yards, ending with that dramatic Allen touchdown, it's just something to keep an eye on here that the Bills just made an announcement that the Kansas City Chiefs, it's not going to be an easy road back to the Super Bowl.

Here's Josh Allen after the game with Tracy Wilson.

Josh, that 26-yard touchdown run, are you kidding me?

Take me through that aggressive mindset on the call, and then you get a series to score that touchdown.

Yeah, you know, appreciate Coach McDermott for trusting the offense going out there.

We had a man play.

They dropped out into zone.

They had something good for it.

I'm just trying to make a play, help our team win a football game.

You know, some things we want to clean up, some throws I wish I had back, but, you know, we're going into the bye week 9-2.

We'll take it.

Man, Mark, I wish that guy was my quarterback.

Well, right.

I mean,

the cynical part of me is that I...

Are you kidding me?

Can I finish one sentence without Justin dropping some sort of psychological LSD sound drop?

Like,

I'm told, like, this is the biggest sporting event of my life.

Like, how about my team does this?

But that's just the cynical...

personal version of me.

It's like, my team's never in this game.

I've got to find a way to manufacture this excitement as a 51-year-old man.

I didn't mean...

Well, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to traumatize you and send you.

I was just more, I was looking to just celebrate Josh Allen there.

But yes, one day, Mark, you'll get.

That is fair.

And I, like, again, my spirit all day is, like, I don't want to get in the way of what was one of the, it's the biggest regular season game of the year, and it is a huge moment for the Buffalo Bills.

And I don't say that cynically.

It's just that I know as a person, like, I don't walk around eating like birthday cake all day long, you know?

I have no idea what you're talking about.

all right let's head to pittsburgh with just engraver

do you guys ever find yourself longing for the memories of yesteryear sometimes in a world full of change we just need one constant in our lives to feel sane something reliable something you can count on like Ravens Steelers.

It's the AFC North.

It's old school punch you in the mouth football.

It's a brawl, a defensive struggle.

It's exactly what you thought it would be in the most comforting way.

Not as comforting for Ravens fans.

Baltimore turned the ball over three times.

Justin Tucker missed two makeable field goals.

Chris Boswell drilled six kicks for Pittsburgh, including a 57-yarder.

And the Steelers knocked off the Ravens without scoring a touchdown, winning 18 to 16.

Man, how weird is it?

And this was exactly the game that you kind of expected from these two teams.

And shout out to the Steelers for continuing to just exceed expectations this year.

But yeah, the kicker game, it was impossible not to notice Boswell just hitting everything, including bombs from well beyond 50.

And Tucker in a game that was decided by three points, you know, two points missing two makeable field goals.

And that's officially, we were talking about Mark that on Thursday, like teams that are held hostage a little bit when the kicker has a great track record because you can't just bail on it.

You can't bail on Justin Tucker, but at the same time, he's having clearly his worst season of his career, and the Ravens are going to need him to win these close games down the stretch.

Well, yeah, I mean, like, Justin Tucker for a decade has just been like the guy that you know is going to seal a win four or five times with his legs.

Literally, the first couple minutes.

The greatest that's ever played the position.

So it's quite a head scratcher that he's been in decline this year.

No, it's a stunner.

And like, it's, I mean, of course, it's going to happen, though, to a human at some point, but it's not fun to watch.

I think, though, this game was proof of concept of what this year's Steelers team is.

And you were right, Dan, that earlier on in the season, you're like, they're not that fun to watch necessarily.

It's not maybe your, not everyone's style of the sport, but I don't know.

They laid a hurt on them today, and I thought it started right away with the Derrick Henry fumble.

It's like this was the difference maker, because the Ravens have had a real tough time in Lamar Jackson against the Steelers.

But Derrick Henry could come in and run for 140, and everything's changed.

And instead, you force a turnover early, and you get enough from your own offense, and they just hassled him.

It was a complete, total Steelers game.

And I have to take the Steelers very seriously at this point.

And I look at the Ravens, and it's like, look, I'm back in this place where

you need to beat the teams in your own division.

Drop a hammer, stick a hammer through their head, and you can't.

You lost to the Browns a couple weeks ago, which is inexcusable.

And this is your true foe, and you fell again today.

So don't, don't, I don't need to linger wondering who you are until you prove it.

All right, let Connor, before we throw it to you,

can we throw up a tweet that we came across during the game?

And I don't want to, this is not meant to trigger the Lamar me because I know you guys get very sensitive and

claim some type of bias or worse whenever you point out that Lamar Jackson is not always playing at the highest level in the biggest spots.

But this was a big spot and he did not have a very good game today.

And this tweet from Nick Wright, as long as he's not playing the Chiefs, the Steelers, or in the playoffs, Lamar is as good as any QB ever.

Unfortunately, in those spots, so that's

in those spots.

He's 4-12 with a 75-passer rating and more turnovers than touchdowns.

So,

again, you could cherry-pick stats there, and there probably are ways to frame it much differently than that.

But, you know, at some point, perception can seem like reality.

And yeah, Lamar and the Ravens offense laid a bit of an egg in this game when they needed to be better.

And that's true, though, I think, of a lot of quarterbacks, right?

I mean, like Ben Rothesberger tended to not play well against like the early 2000s Ravens.

Like, there's always that team that sticks in your craw.

You know, I think it's just, you know, I don't know.

But the playoffs thing to me would be more concerning than that, right?

Yeah, it's fair.

And he didn't get a ton of help today either.

I mean, you mentioned the Derrick Henry fumble caused by Nick Herbig, his first game back since I think week five.

And

the Steelers do this to a lot of teams is, you know, a lot of Ravens fans may come out of this game feeling better or worse.

I don't know, depending on your perception of it, that like, oh, we beat ourselves today.

Like, we turned it over so many times.

We missed so many kicks.

But that's what the Steelers do to you.

They make you turn it over.

They make you beat yourself and make mistakes.

And that's why they play such a winning brand of football under Mike Tomlin.

Like Patrick Queen ripping the ball out of Isaiah Likely's arms right before halftime and diving on top of it is Patrick Queen making a play.

And, you know, it's not luck.

I mean, sometimes the way a fumble bounces can be lucky, but Patrick Queen rips the ball out and is the first person to know where it is and dive on it.

That's not luck.

That's good defense and forcing your opponent to make a mistake.

So I think that's just what makes the Steelers so hard to to beat: you can come out of it saying, like, oh, we just need to play better and not beat ourselves.

But it's really hard to do that against Pittsburgh.

Yeah, there were three turnovers by Baltimore, and you mentioned the great play before halftime by Queen.

There was also that interception where Pittsburgh linebacker Peyton Wilson just ripped the ball away from running back Justice Hill.

It was, I thought, a good pass by Lamar, and Wilson just wanted more, ripped it away.

That ended a streak of 161 passes without an interception for Jackson.

And they turned both of the fumbles in this game into points.

And that's what they've just done all season long, Pittsburgh.

Yeah, they don't play the most

exciting brand of football, and Russell Wilson had one of the worst interceptions you'll see in this game.

Do you have that tweet?

Because I loved it.

They flashed a replay of Arthur Smith, the OC, the Steelers on the sideline.

Russell Wilson does this incredible.

They're up 15-10 midway through the fourth quarter.

Wilson looks vintage, spinning away from the pressure in the red zone, gets into an open space and then floats floats one.

And immediately, it's like, why is he floating it?

And it's pulled down.

And Arthur Smith, you can see, is like, yeah!

Please check us out on YouTube.

So, yeah, the offense for Pittsburgh wasn't perfect, but they did enough, and they had a kicker that was nails.

And in these type of battles, that got it done.

Just, yeah, pure Pittsburgh, classic AFC North battle here.

And to add to this, this is a Mike Tomlin masterclass for two reasons.

The first, he is a classy guy, but he made Patrick Queen a pregame captain, which he almost never does with just like random guys.

And Patrick McQueen was like

cawing all week about how the Ravens didn't sign him to a contract.

He was an animal in that game.

But at the end of this game, he calls a timeout when John Harbaugh isn't expecting it and basically forces the Ravens to reveal the jump pass that they're running for the two-point conversion.

And then they have to go to their B play on that.

And then after they stop that two-point conversion, you could see before the second second play, Isaiah likely and Nelson Agler are like fighting with one another.

They're totally discombobulated.

That whole side of the line blows up and they lose it.

And then he uses other timeouts when he gets the ball back to call a timeout to force Baltimore to show their A defense.

Then he throws Justin Fields in.

Then he takes him out.

Then he puts him back in.

Mike Tomlin won that game for them at the end of the game by weaponizing absolutely everything at his disposal.

And I would say that use of Justin Fields was kind of what I thought we'd see more of in other games and other situations, but it was he had one where he didn't convert, but he was very, it was a very effective concept today.

So, right, I think Tomlin, who's been dinged over the years for not, by Steelers fans, for not being quite the strategic coach they want, like, that is a great example of the timeout today where he made a difference, and like he understands the Ravens better than anyone.

Yeah, and the two-point conversion was a disaster on the Ravens front.

Like, it looked like Lamar was looking to throw to somebody, and you had Isaiah likely blocking, and a a receiver, I can't remember Nelson Agler, maybe blocking too.

And it was like, one of you guys is supposed to be in a route here, I think.

And Tomlin even said after the game, we got Lamar moving to his left, and he's not as good moving to his left.

So that was like part of the defensive plan, too, was to force him that direction if he was going to get out of the pocket.

So, Masterclass, Tomlin, Masterclass.

And

they are now,

let's see,

they get the Ravens again.

We got a rematch in looks like week 16, but the Steelers are now two games clear in the AFC North.

They have a two-game lead on,

or a one-and-a-half-game lead.

They're 8-2.

The Ravens are 7-4 as we go down the stretch now.

So a huge one for Pittsburgh.

We'll give the last word to Mike Tomlin, who neatly summed up the nature of this game.

Mike, if somebody had said to you before the game, you'd beat the Ravens without scoring a touchdown, what would your reaction have been?

Steelers, Ravens.

Dan, was I so off on Thursday when I described this as like a drunken aunt beating up on her own niece?

Like, everyone's like, oh, it's too much, it's too much, I can't handle it, it's not right.

It's like, that's what this is.

And I, like, I, we've all been watching this.

Yes, we're, you know,

you were saying, correct me if I'm wrong, that these are two very physical teams.

And yeah,

it can get nasty.

Right.

And it's it's the AFC North, the Titans of the AFC North just pounding on each other.

Absolutely.

Now, that was a four-minute monologue on two women savagely beating each other on a hillside.

You could understand why, even if I understood generally where you were, that it also was a little bit discombobulating at the same time.

Well,

I think it hit with a certain sensibility.

If someone that understands the rivalry, it's like, oh, yeah, that's what it is.

And like, I think Mike Tomlin would have you know, appreciated it.

Absolutely.

Possibly.

Yes.

Probably walking around eating birthday cake, if I could follow that one.

What's so confusing about that?

I'm saying, like, I don't, as a football fan, I don't get to eat cake and have nice things.

I get it.

I got you.

All right, let's move on up next.

We head to the Bay Area Sest Dog, where another rivalry game, Seahawks Niners.

According to the Associated Press, Kyle Shanahan spent Saturday evening at a spirit cooking ceremony where three humans were sacrificed to the demigods.

One day later, Shanahan learns that the Deep Occult cannot save him as Geno Smith blasts through San Francisco's front for a 13-yard touchdown with mere seconds left.

Who are these Niners?

On a day when the hero appeared to be Rising Figure, the Rising Figure of Jawan Jennings, a monster performance, it was instead Jackson Smith and Jigba who glowed down the stretch and Geno Smith executing the game-winning march with deadly calm.

The Niners tumbled to five and five with pass-rushing Trumper Nick Bosa giggling on the sideline.

Big boy George Kittle in street clothes to the 10th seed in the NFC.

This was the first Seattle contest that made me think the Mike McDonald defense is beginning to show.

The first Niners contest that really made me think this team is snake bit.

It won't end well.

Spirit cooking dinners won't save you this time.

You're running out of time, San Francisco.

Seahawks 20, Niners 17 in a disturbing turn of events.

Yeah, I mean, well, depending on your perspective, right?

But I'm with you.

Well, the Seattle thing I'm still in a hold on, but I look forward to kind of really digging in and watching this game because you needed to see some signs of progress from this McDonald defense, which has been on balance, not very good.

But yeah, we talked about this going into this game, Mark.

Like, it's time for for the San Francisco 49ers to go.

And the fact that they can't go, and now they have Christian McCaffrey back,

and yeah, they are beat up, but who is not beat up?

The fact that they're at home against a Seattle team that's been very up and down, and you can't find a way, and you get beat in the final minutes.

And, you know, they flash cut there to Nick Bose on the sideline looking solemn.

And then you see Gino, and good for Geno, who's who's who's got away with the moment, interviewed after the game, saying, like, yeah, I like the ball in my hands.

I like being spotlight on me when the game's on the line.

Yeah, dude, he was a dog, and he found a way to get it done.

So I'm really left wondering where the 49ers fit in in the NFC.

And when we do our power rankings this week, it's like, I can no longer just keep giving the 49ers the benefit of the doubt because they have been an average team this year.

Yeah, I mean,

they were missing guys.

They've been missing guys game after game, different individuals, but I don't see a special offense that has that next level and ability to destroy right now.

Not like we'll talk about the Lions, for instance.

It's like I just see a team that is going to probably waltz into win your division first.

Let's see that.

But like, you get into a wild card situation, and I could see them being whacked.

Like, there's just not a lot of room for error right now.

And, you know, McCaffrey is McCaffrey, but he wasn't especially...

He's not incredibly special at the moment.

Like, I think Duan Jennings was their best player today.

And that's not where you want to be in week 11 if you're the Niners.

Like, it's a good thing for him, and they've developed him well, and he's an interesting wide receiver, but they found a way to let Geno Smith and the offense back into this.

Like, that was concerning to me, too.

And I think it really did change when Bosa left the game.

It changed a lot.

And you could see on his face.

He got, he's had, well, he was, you know, he was questionable for the game to begin with with, I think, a hip injury and left at one point.

And then everything started to fall apart.

And we saw this with Smith and Jigba like a week ago, where like,

this is a player who can put up 100 a week.

And Gino and him just have a connection.

And then Geno just waltzed into the end zone

to end the game.

And it's like, what happened here?

And honestly, this is the one season where Kyle Shanahan looks about 15 years older to me.

He looks, he suddenly has salt and pepper hair, a salt and pepper beard, and like he just looks old.

And I think it's been the kind of campaign that when it's over and they're not going to win the Super Bowl this year like it's aged everyone a little bit and where are we we'll find out but like this is not a special Niners team at the moment

Jackson Smith and Jigba is

turning into a potential star he might be the best slot receiver in the NFL right now and so if you look you know there's been a lot of inconsistency around the Seahawks this year but that guy has been consistently awesome this year and there is you know when you put him into this mix with Kenneth Walker, who they can't seem to get him going this year, but he is a talented running back with DK Metcalf, with Tyler Walker, Lockett still there, and then Geno Smith and Geno's penchant for the dramatics and him being a good quarterback in his own right.

If McDonald can kind of get this team under control on defense and just get them merely to average, yeah, at five and five, there's no reason to think that they can't claim one of these playoff spots or even the NFC West, which again is wide open with San Francisco's struggles.

struggles.

Yeah, they remind me a lot of the Buccaneers, right?

Where the shell of the roster is there.

And then it's just like little tweaks over time, maybe the emergence of one or two of these early drafted players or your mid-round players.

And all of a sudden, it just kind of pushes it over the top and you win two or three of these big games and you start rolling into the playoffs.

You know, this receiving core is deadly, and Gino's a veteran quarterback.

So I think it just takes time.

Mike McDonald's defense is always kind of based on

prior knowledge, you know, what they did last week, and then they're going to show you that plus something else.

And so if they can get a couple of these good games rolling here, I think that defense is going to turn lights out as well.

Who the Niners got next?

I've got to dig in on this team now.

They are mysterious.

That's one word.

They're mediocre.

All right, they have, they're at Green Bay at Buffalo.

Next two weeks.

This was a big loss.

This was a big loss, and it is gut check time.

And yeah, he might be totally Gray Shanahan a fortnight from now.

All right, let's keep moving.

Up next, we head to

Detroit.

Oh, yeah.

Ah, the mighty lion, known for centuries as the king of the jungle.

I actually have no idea how long they've been known as that, but centuries seems like a safe marker.

Anyway, this majestic beast has earned that nickname for a reason.

Lions are apex predators with unparalleled strength and authority.

The lion knows nothing but the hunt and the lion does not play with its food.

The lion does not care what it kills or whom it orphans.

The lion is nature's perfect machine and when you're in its sights, do not expect mercy, for that is not in the lion's nature.

So go ahead and get mad that Detroit's lions scored on every drive Sunday, savaging a shadow of jaguars that looked more like wheezing zebras, feasting on the flesh of their prey until all that was left was bone and ligament.

This is the the nature of the lion.

To judge its behavior is to cast aspersions on the reality of life itself.

Lions 52.

Weezing zebra's six.

Fire Doug Peterson.

Oh man.

Justin, you got eyes on this.

I mean,

yeah,

they, I saw some tweets, like, but everybody loves the lion, so it wasn't a lot of criticism, but it was more like, man, the lions don't let up.

Even when they're up 28 they're gonna keep going after you and yes that is the nature of the lion and i think it i think more teams should be as ruthless as the lion uh because we're not trying to make friends here we're trying to bite kneecaps and we see teams overcome deficits and it's because teams start playing not to lose instead of just like if it worked in the first two quarters and you're scoring points and stopping the other team keep going until the game ends and i also saw some tweets that were like oh ben johnson's auditioning for this head coaching job running the hook and ladder up however many points they were up when that happened.

And there's not a whole lot to say about this game, except that the Lions are just a well-oiled machine, and they're going to attack all your weaknesses and make you feel like you should be playing in a different league than they are because they are so dominant.

Just dominant.

Yeah, they had another big injury on their defense, too, here, Justin.

This would be the one downside from Sunday.

Alex Anzalone.

Yes.

I was teeing you up.

Yes, he's going to be out.

It looks like four to six weeks or so.

That's definitely going to hurt their linebacking room.

But, you know, this team is, they lost Aiden Hutchinson and is next man up, and they keep on trucking.

And if there's one team that I don't worry that much about with the culture that Dan Campbell's built and that next man up mentality, I think it's the Lions.

I mean, they outgained Jacksonville by over 400 yards today.

It's the biggest disparity in like 35, 40 years, something like that.

It was just an ass kicking.

Like, what else can you say?

Doug Peterson is out of answers, and I don't know if he ever had any, but man,

let's hear from Doug.

We got to hear from Doug, who, again, and we're not piling on because we know Doug's gone.

The only question now is: like,

you know, do the cons wait until the second week in January, or is it happened by the time you listen to this show?

Let's let's listen in.

You know what?

I can't, I can't control that.

And, and, um,

you know, listen,

I've been around this league a long time.

And,

you know, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen, obviously.

But at the same time, I still have a job to do, and that's to, you know,

get ready for, you know, a good division opponent here in two weeks.

I'm not even going to check who that is.

Whoever it is, it doesn't matter.

What Doug says doesn't matter, unfortunately.

And, Mark,

this is a Detroit team that, yeah, you hear about, oh, they've scored on every possession in the first half.

This team scored a touchdown on seven consecutive offensive drives, and they're also one of the best teams ever so far at home this year.

They're outscoring their opponents 188 to 89 at home this season.

Best in the league, obviously.

That's plus 99.

Well, I also think like when you get these teams that grow up quickly and suddenly are like a true Super Bowl threat and a threat to win it and win multiple Super Bowls, like how do you bounce back from a game if you're Jared Goff from what happened last week where you, to me, that was an aberration.

You go throw five interceptions and tonight, or today, he comes out and he's 24 for 29 for 412 yards and four touchdowns.

And you've got Amon Rossi Brown catching 161 yards off 11 targets.

Jamison Williams, who's a huge factor down the stretch.

They just don't really have any sort of Achilles heel or weakness on offense.

And I love the idea of bouncing back from a mistake-filled appearance from a week ago to this.

And, you know, for the Jaguars, real quick, like

your owner called it the best Jaguars team he'd ever seen, and you just suffered the worst Jaguars loss in the history of a short-run Jaguars franchise by a team that, like, we talked about the Niners, like the Lions know how to flex their muscles and create utter havoc and destruction.

And I just think their ceiling right now is pretty incredible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anzalone is not just an impact player for them.

He's also a team captain.

So they're losing important pieces on that defense.

But Aaron Glenn showed they made adjustments when they lost

Hutchinson, and now they'll have to do it again.

I just did some quick math, always dangerous for the Zuzzer, but the Jacksonville Jaguars, like this time last year, were 8-3.

They've played exactly a full season since, 3-14.

Finished 1-5 last year, and they're 2-9 this year.

And,

man, you know, Mac Jones is playing quarterback the last two weeks, so this is as bad as it gets, obviously.

But, yeah, what's this?

What do you got here?

What are you flashing up on me?

Is he flashing a scoregami on his uzzzer?

Dan's looking at the game.

You know, scorigami, they're very interesting when this happens.

Six

has never happened before.

Let's read this tweet.

By the way, some loser runs a Twitter account called score NFL underscore score of a gami.

Go get a girlfriend, dude.

How about this?

That's scorigami.

It's the 1088th unique final score.

What's so unique about something that has 1,088?

How about this?

Here's my take, Mark, on Scorigami, now that you got me going.

Yeah.

Can we, I'll be totally in on Scorigami when we get down to the last 10 scores ever.

And then I'm all about it.

When do we get there?

When is the end of this magical rainbow?

Bad marketing by them to point out that it's the 1,000th plus time it's happened.

It's like

bad marketing.

Like, don't, don't make something.

when you're pitching something, to your point of go get a girlfriend, like, if you're pitching something, don't just try to be as common as possible.

I do think Scorigami, that was actually a massive corporation, Dan.

It's not one person, it is a massive corporation.

It's also the 1088th unique score.

It's the first time ever that this score has happened.

That's the whole point of Skoragami.

It's 52 to 60.

There is no point to Scorigami.

And to answer your question about when we get to the last 10,

there's numbers.

It's infinite.

I mean, unless you're talking about the team.

So

points a team can score.

If it's infinite, what are we doing here?

He's making a good point.

You're starting to change what I used to thought was an enjoyable aspect to final score.

All right, let's take a break and then we'll roll on.

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You know, Dan, we had a softball team for years, and I touted myself as the manager, and it's because I couldn't see anything.

Yeah.

So it's like, who wants to put me at the plate?

So it's like, time, it's like, I'm an adult.

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Mark, I get it.

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All right, we are back.

Week 11, the flagship program.

Let's head to the Midwest with the con man.

In high school, my Latin teacher told me that hell was a place full of water that when you drank it, it only made you thirstier.

Then again, that crazy old woman didn't know shit about the 2024 Chicago Bears.

Appearing as if they were finally free from Satan's grasp, the Bears lined up for a game-winning field goal at the Packer 28 yard line with time expiring.

Their new offensive coordinator had piloted, arguably, the best Caleb Williams game plan we'd seen all year against a good defense.

Their franchise quarterback looked incredibly comfortable and led a legacy drive against a division rival to get them here at this point.

Their red zone defense was tough, and then the kick was blocked, smacked away by some packer defensive lineman like it was a young roadie mouthing off to neil diamond in the 1970s packers win 2019 you want to know what hell is like mrs chambers darkness that shuts out the light yeah okay see i like that because that leaves it open to interpretation what that means but

did you go to catholic school i didn't no so you had a you had a teacher at a public institution

telling you with authority that hell had

a body of water that only made you thirstier.

It seems out of hand.

And it only made it, and then food that you ate it, and it only made you hungrier.

Yeah.

That was her take on.

I think it was Latin, so we were reading a lot of like

there's some sort of crossover there between like mythology and

all that stuff.

It does remind me of my favorite, and this is high praise, my favorite Simpsons bit ever is one of the Halloween specials.

And Homer makes a deal with the devil.

As long as he doesn't finish this donut, this forbidden donut in the refrigerator, he won't be doomed to hell.

And of course, Homer eats most of the donut and thinks he outsmarts the devil, but then he wakes up in the middle of the night and sleepwalks and eats the rest of the donut.

He gets cast down to the underworld and it cuts to a door with a signage on the door,

Hell's Ironic Punishment Division.

And then it's Homer strapped into a chair, and then this, like, the school being like, so you like donuts?

Well, here's all all the donuts you could ever have.

And there's like thousands and thousands.

And Homer eats all the donuts.

And

he just, they run out of donuts in hell for Homer.

So Miss Chambers probably would have a take on that.

Anyway, back to the.

This comes minutes after Dan, during our break, said we need to be shorter on these next few games.

Go ahead, Connor.

That sounds like a heartbreaker for the Bears in a huge spot in their season.

Yeah.

And again, I mean, this was, so Caleb Williams' snap to throw time went from like three seconds to like 2.01, and it was for a time the fastest average snap to throw time

of any quarterback all season.

He was getting rid of the ball.

They got the running game going.

They had a long touchdown from DeAndre Swift.

And so this was utterly heartbreaking.

I mean,

they were tough against the Packers in the red zone, forced a turnover on downs.

They picked off Jordan Love in the red zone.

This was the Matt Eberflus game.

Everything was perfect to this point.

I guess guess the only thing that you could have questioned him on, he did kick the ball on second down.

So, would you have tried to get a little bit closer?

But it didn't matter.

It was from like the 26-yard line, you know?

Yeah, I think we have Ibruf Luce on that decision because when things go wrong, obviously that's going to lead to the second guessing.

Here's Ibrif Luce on

why he made that decision.

We felt good in terms of where the tick line was.

The wind was on a factor today,

and Cairo's made a bunch of those kicks

inside of that range.

And we feel confident in Cairo and confident in our operation there.

Again, I got to look at the tape.

I don't know exactly what happened in terms of the block, but I feel good about where that was.

So

how did, before we get to the Packers side, a little bit more on the Bears, Caleb Williams, they kind of hit rock bottom leading, obviously, to the dismissal of the offensive coordinator.

He looked better today in this game?

Much better.

And Thomas Brown, who was the interim offensive coordinator, was also the interim offensive coordinator with Carolina.

And he was an assistant head coach under Sean McVay.

And after that season, when he went from LA to Carolina, had actually interviewed for a couple of head coaching jobs, which is, you know, kind of unprecedented, known as a kind of a master of the run game, got them going a little bit, and it really did look like a different Bears team.

And the big thing here was Caleb Williams using his legs by far his best rushing game of the season too.

They incorporated a lot of zone read, which I know Caleb said he didn't really want to do, but Ibra Flues was rolling.

Like they were going for it on fourth and one, fourth and two, fourth and three throughout the whole game.

Caleb Williams is picking it up on the ground, and everybody kind of got jacked.

You know, this was the first time I saw this offense like really together, throwing big crushing blocks.

Like it just, it seemed to be an overall, like a really positive vibe.

And there was a story this week that, you know, Caleb Williams stood up in front of the entire team.

and apologized for his part of having Shane Waldron, which we get it.

Probably people weren't totally devastated that he was out of the mix, but you know, accountability for someone losing their job, for his part of that.

And like, there is, I know there were whispers that, like, this stupid Tyler Bajan thing that people, some people want him to start, but like, Caleb Williams has, like, won over a lot of this team.

So I think the most important thing is, like, good, if you've got a functional play caller in there in Thomas Brown, and you can close, forget the playoff idea of it, but just the idea of like Caleb Williams having a functional second half of this season and going into the offseason reconstructed in a good way because I was kind of worried where we'd be with him just in a month if it stayed the way it was.

And then on the other side of this, Connor, so

you know, the NFC North is wild.

You have, obviously, two teams

in Detroit and Minnesota that win almost every week.

So the Packers getting this win, surviving, they move to seven and three, and they stay in the mix to win the division.

And you get a big game from Christian Watson here.

How did Jordan Love look on the the other side with the quarterback he's still off and on and what's so interesting about the packers like to me this was a josh jacobs game the packers were hammering the bears um with what's called like a duo concept so you kind of you double a guy's up front and then you leave a running back one-on-one with like a smaller defender in the secondary and so he was just demolishing guys and even though it was like 70 some rushing yards it felt like a lot more and he did a really good job receiving too but jordan love is is off and on and what's interesting about this team is if you were betting long-term right they're one of of the worst red zone scoring teams in the NFL.

They're second in the NFL in drops, right?

You would have to assume that all this stuff gets better.

And if it gets even marginally better by the time that they're around the playoffs, like they're going to be scoring like 40 points a game.

You know what I mean?

And if their bad luck is all a result of like, you know, a couple bad games here and there, some outlier performances, like there's a lot of room for this team to grow.

And they're winning a lot of games when they just really don't play well.

Packers 49ers next week.

Two Two teams that are you're trying to

figure out where they fit in in the Super Bowl conversation.

So that is

going to be a good one.

All right, let's move on.

Let's head to the Meadowlands.

All right, everyone can put away their pitchforks and silence their amber alerts because Anthony Richardson has been found.

The former first-round pick made his return to the lineup for the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday in northern New Jersey, and he looked like a player who, and don't get mad at me, Twitter Echo Chamber, perhaps benefited from a fortnight to clear his head and hit the reset button.

Richardson also benefited by playing the New York Jets, who in addition to all their well-documented shortcomings on offense, now feature one of the worst defenses in football.

Richardson led Indianapolis on two touchdown drives in the final minutes, and a last-gasp final possession by Aaron Rodgers, and the Jets' offense was a tragic comedy.

Final score, Colts 28, Jest 27.

Colts needed it.

I think they go to Detroit or they play the Lions next week.

So

to find a way in this game, a game that they were up 13-0 late in the second quarter, they gave up a touchdown at the end of the first half, and then at the beginning of the third quarter after a fumble.

And it looks like the Jets are going to find a way.

And it's very interesting

that this game featured the exact same scenario, almost to like the time and yardage and the differential in score as we saw with the Bills and the Chiefs today.

So, the Jets, in the final minutes of the game, there are about three, four minutes to go.

The Jets are up two points.

They were up eight, and then they gave up a touchdown drive to Richardson.

We're going to get into Richardson,

but they missed the two-point conversion.

So, the Jets hold a two-point lead.

They take the ball downfield.

They drive into Indianapolis Territory, and they're facing a fourth and two,

and the Jets have a decision.

After they just watch their defense lay down and give up a score, they could go for it and try to seal the game with their offense and their Hall of Fame quarterback behind center, or you can kick a field goal.

Not just that, you could go to the line on fourth and two, let the play clock run down.

Call one of your final timeouts, and then bring out your kicker and kick the field goal.

And now you're up five.

So, like, the Bills had a chance to do the same thing: go up five, and then hope the defense would hold against Mahomes.

They went for the juggular, they were rewarded.

The Jets put the game in the hands of their defense.

It felt like a mistake in the moment, but they have a bad coaching staff.

And then, and then they have a defense that is cratered.

And what does Anthony Richardson and the Colts do?

They go straight down the field.

I believe it was, it took just five plays or six plays to go 70 yards for the touchdown and go-ahead extra point

for the final score of 28-27.

So, another collapse by the Jets defense, and Anthony Richardson definitely made strides in this game.

His box scores may be a little better, guys, than his actual performance.

The Jets defense had many breakdowns as they do every week, and a lot of the big completions came on just wide-open coverage busts.

But he hit those throws, Connor, and he's missed so many of those throws, and that led to his benching in favor of Joe Flacco.

So, he hit the throws, and Shane Steichen, I thought, did a better job of letting Richardson use his legs to make plays both near the goal line and in traditional run situations.

It just felt like a more cohesive game plan, and the young quarterback was able to execute it.

So progress on that front.

Yeah, and you can correct me if I'm wrong because I was eyeing this game on cable, which was great.

And

it felt to me more like with Anthony Richardson at the beginning of the year, it was hyper aggressive, hyper-vertical, hyper-explosive.

This felt to me a lot like what Shane Steichen first had success with Jalen Hurts doing, right?

Like some of the completions were a lot more manageable.

They were drawn up to have, you know, short to medium range throws, and then you layer in the bigger stuff later on.

It felt to me more like, okay, let's start back from square one, and then let's build up to the quarterback that we know you can be.

Yeah.

No, it was, it was definitely, it felt simplified.

It felt, and it really did.

The timing was well because the Jets are such a mess defensively right now.

And, you know, I've been saying this all season.

Sauce Gardner

has been a liability for this team.

And he got burned multiple times in this game, including a coverage bust on the last drive that led to a long

Alec Pierce reception that set up the game winner where he

passed off the receiver to the safety and put the safety alone on an island where he just didn't play it right.

And I watched Bart Scott do some breakdown of coverage of

the way he handled handled the play was all wrong and put the team in a bad situation.

So you have Sauce Gardner.

The secondary has not been as good as expected.

They've had breakdowns all along all three levels of their defense this season.

And on offense, I got to say,

it's a turn mark that has built up some juice in recent years, quiet quitting.

I really think that Aaron Rodgers is quiet quitting on the season.

That man has zero interest in holding on to the football and taking a hit.

So the offense now over the last two weeks, and Connor, you sent out a tweet that really backed that up

on our thread today.

He will get rid of that ball immediately.

And his pass protection isn't great, but it's clear he has now given up on letting plays develop and he's just trying to save his body.

Aaron Rodgers, according to Rich Samini, is one of six on passes thrown more than 10 yards downfield over the last two weeks.

Prior to that, Rodgers was completing 46% of such passes.

It is the first time in Rodgers' career that he has failed to complete two such passes in consecutive starts.

That is a man that cannot move anymore and does not want to take hits because he's hurting and it's not fun to watch.

And it's quite frustrating as a Jets fan.

Well, the house is crumbling.

Like the idea that he...

The house has crumbled.

House crumbled.

The idea that you even verbalize that you want to keep playing for the Jets for multiple more years, like

don't say that.

Also, don't say most of the stuff you say, but don't say that, And we don't need it.

And the idea that we continue on this journey with this cast of characters, like, my most far-reaching thought about the Jets when I was also, I wasn't eyeing this on cable, Connor, but on through actual, like, the internet, I was watching this game.

But, like,

this sounds crazy, and I know no one will agree.

It's just like, cut Rogers.

Fire the interim head coach, bring someone else in, and just end this season in total rogue fashion.

Like, just end everything now.

But But they won't.

My problem is,

I disagree with that in just one sense, right?

Like,

we can talk about all this stuff, big picture stuff, and we have, right, about the narrative of it.

But I think the thing that bothered me the most was after they got waxed by the Cardinals, Jeff Ulbricht did a tackling presentation, and then Sauce Gardner came out and said that we didn't need one.

Like, they did a whole focus on tackling during the week of practice, and Sauce Gardner comes out and says, Well, we're veteran players, we know how to tackle.

No, you don't.

And Jeff Ulbrick, like, you could say what you want about, like, he's a clown.

He's an, you know, whatever, whatever.

He played linebacker in the NFL for like 12 years.

He's a really good NFL player.

And if he wasn't roped into this mess, he would probably be a head coach somewhere else.

And you could at least learn how to tackle from one of the best tackling players of like the 2000s.

Like, so at least just do something, right?

Like, do something to make yourself better.

And it's not like this is attitude that, like, we're better.

This whole idea, we're better than our collective piece.

No, you're not.

I mean, that's why you're two and eight or whatever it is.

I don't know.

You're three and eight now.

And yeah, the Jets failed to get a first down until their sixth possession of this game.

And Sauce Gardner, I'll end on this.

Mark, we were there in Vegas when they drafted Gardner in the first round, and he came and he sat with us.

And I'll never forget

as, you know, playing the part of the Jets fan with his heart on his sleeve, saying to Sauce Gardner, hey, Sauce, like, you know, we really need you, man.

Like, these have been, it's been a pretty rough ride the last 10 years or so.

And Sauce kind of shut me down.

I think he might even cut me off.

And he's like, I don't care about any of that.

This is all new now.

And it just so,

I don't know, it's ghoulish to see how all these guys just get sucked into

the vortex of just black and doom and bleakness.

And I could just picture it now.

Now we're going to hear Sauce in the offseason wants out, and he'll get traded to Denver or wherever the fuck and end up being an all-pro again.

Just mark my words.

It's just the cycle of it all.

So Sauce said he doesn't care about any of that stuff.

He's going to change the culture.

I don't see Sauce changing the culture.

I don't see anything about the Jets' culture that is worth saving right now.

So, another bummer.

Congratulations to Anthony Richardson.

I'm glad you're back on track, kid.

You're an exciting player to watch.

Let's move to Foxborough, where Mark Sessler was watching the little Rams Pats Super Bowl rematch.

Have you ever shock-woken out of a dream on your couch midway through a major sporting event?

It's suddenly the second quarter and you've drooled all over the pillow.

Don't say no, we've all done it.

The Rams did it today, matted hair and lost on offense.

But then Matthew Stafford and his fellow footballers awoke after a sleepy first quarter.

Touchdowns to Cooper Cup and Puka Nakua, the latter who gave up his body to register a score, barely able to breathe after.

Then after halftime, Matthew Stafford comes out firing, off-platform sexiness, ripping a beauty ball to Cooper Cup, and it's 21-10, la-la-land.

Then tight end Colby Parkinson catching a score that seemingly buries the Patriots in a grave not far from where those missing white ball boys are.

On the catch, Parkinson takes out a female stadium worker.

It's not an easy world we live in.

And despite all this, the Patriots are in this game until the end.

And a question comes to mind during this enjoyable duel.

Is Drake May the next massive thing in the NFL?

He threw the game-ending pick.

This happens to a young player, but May can move.

It's a massive development in the AFC East that he's a visually enticing feast.

We've been watching quarterbacks for decades, and I see something built of bronze and gold and fire.

But today was Matthew Stafford's Day.

Rams 28, Patriots 22.

Did you call them white ball boys?

By the racial component.

Well, just don't know why it matters, but they're.

I mean, I would just assume like with their background.

Do we even know that?

I'm adding facts to that.

Well, someone else might not.

What if it's a new listener?

I'm just saying, like, do you know the family tree of those dead boys?

You could assume they were white dead ball boys, but like, yes, they were.

Daddy Chill.

All right.

Well,

other thoughts on this game, Mark?

So that's a big, obviously a good get-right game for the Rams after the frustration of Monday night.

So in a short week, you go on the road and you fly across country and you find a way to get it done.

And Stafford, yeah, like Stafford still has these games in him, right?

Mark, 18 for 27, 295, 11 yards per attempt, four touchdowns, no picks.

And this is kind of what we thought it was going to be going into the year where Puka and Cooper both have big, big moments in this game, and

they score points, which hasn't always been easy this season.

You know, when I go and read what Jordan Rodrigue writes about the Rams, one thing she's hit on is that this offense has been, they tend to be really hot and cold, but they've really been cold out of the gate early on.

They have been outscored by 50 points in the first quarter this season, worst in the NFL of any team, and it really looked like it, but then they awoken.

When they wake up and they start to be what they are, it's like Stafford, to me, looks like one of the best quarterbacks we've seen in years.

And he's really good at just like kind of improvising and playing in a way that's just like he's completely in a comfort zone and that's what happened today and like there was a you know I I just feel also we're gonna find out that almost no one around him is that healthy like Cooper Cup played well but like Puka landed did the thing where he like he land on the football today and I was like did he break his ribs because I think he just lost he came he still played after so I thought maybe he just like lost his breath or something but he looked damaged to me but when you've got all those guys on the field you can see it with the Rams it's just that it really comes and goes.

It really comes and goes.

And my note on the Patriots is more just that

I think they've got, I don't care what their record is, they've got more reason for hope than most of these other teams.

Like Drake May to me, you can just see it on certain plays.

I'm like, this is going to be a factor and a problem and a nuisance for other AFC teams for years to come.

Which is not what you want to hear as a Jets fan.

Well, I heard that about Mac Jones, too, but yeah.

This is not.

I'm not judging.

I have to watch Drake May more, but yeah, I'm just saying, yeah, he is definitely flashed, absolutely.

And you could deal with being 3-8 when you have a rookie quarterback that's clearly developing.

And if you're a Patriots fan, that's like, okay, we're going in the right direction now, even if it's not going to end with January football, you know?

He's more Josh Allen than he is Mac Jones.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, and that would not be good news.

Do I need more bad news, Mark?

What else?

Well, I'm not trying to issue bad news.

The Patriots are back.

Is that what you're trying to put on my plate now?

Not yet, but they're, but they've found the one piece.

They found the one piece.

They're one draft away.

They're one draft away if this kid really does develop.

So, yeah, that's where we're going.

Okay, let's take a break and then we will roll on.

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All right, we're back.

Great digger, take us to Nashville, baby.

It was a purple and gold takeover.

Vikings fans packed into Nissan Stadium on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, turning a road trip to Nashville into a home atmosphere.

And the next time we're going to be able to do that.

Now, we root for the best teams.

I'll tell you what, this podcast knows what

we're doing.

Underdog, baby.

Where was I?

On a beautiful Sunday atmosphere, the Vikings took care of business for the quote-unquote home crowd, getting after the quarterback and limiting mistakes just enough to pull out another win and complete a sweep of the AFC South.

Sam Darnold was terrific, navigating pressure like a seasoned pro, delivering strikes down the field and accounting for three total touchdowns while the defense stifled a bad Tennessee offense.

And Minnesota wins their third straight game, this one 23-13

over the Titans.

And now I need to say,

this game was not without

controversy.

Yeah, go ahead.

Look, I'm not blaming the Rev.

I'm not blaming the Reps guy.

I'm not going to blame the Reps for the Titans losing this game.

I'll just say it's controversial.

Like, this is a little bit tainted win for the Vikings because the officiating in this game was brutal.

It was horrible.

Not just saying this as a Titans fan, which I obviously am, but this was all over social media when Titan safety Mike Brown flagged for unnecessary roughness on a fourth and goal play that should have given the Titans the ball back, but it didn't because it was penalized and the Vikings walk in the end zone from less than a yard out on the next play.

It was not unnecessary roughness.

It was a completely legal play, shoulder to the chest, dislodging the ball.

Whatever.

I'm not going to go on and on about it.

There were a few other horrible calls in this game.

Titans got flagged for that illegal formation thing where the right tackle is too far off the line of scrimmage, like over and over again.

One of them erased a 51-yard touchdown.

There was an illegal contact that erased a strip sack

that Sam Darnold got back on top of, but it was third and 11.

Sack, Jeffrey Simmons, Titans would have got the ball back down 16-10 with five minutes to play in the third quarter.

Just a huge moment in the game to call a pretty questionable illegal contact.

All that said, the Vikings outplayed the Titans in this game.

They bested them in first downs 24 to 11 just to show like how well one team was moving the ball compared to the other.

Titans ran for 33 total rushing yards.

18 of those came from Will Levis, 1.7 yards per carry.

They sacked Levis five times.

So they outplayed the Titans handily, but

it was a brutal game to watch as a Titans fan, not even caring about wins or losses, just like caring about the players as people who put in a whole week of hard work, go out there and make good plays, and look up and you see Laundrie on the field almost every time.

Do you think this coaching staff definitely survives in Tennessee?

I think if they keep playing like they played the last couple games, like wins and losses are whatever, but the team showed improvement, I think, over the last two games.

Will Levis, I think, played his best game definitely of the season, maybe as a Titan.

His debut game was clearly an outlier at this point against the falcons last season but it was up there with that level of game the interception that you see in the box score was like desperation you're down by two scores at the end of the game just trying to make something happen so i'm not holding that against him at all he still holds the ball too long too often but it's getting better and his processing is getting better he was under pressure a lot in this game made a lot of good decisions quickly and got rid of the ball i was encouraged by that so if that progress continues then i definitely think Brian Callahan and company get another season.

But I don't want to talk too much about the Titans because let's be real, the Titans are are not a factor this year.

And I'll just back up what you were saying because I get that frustration when you're having a long season and you're an underdog and your stadium's filled with the other fans.

And then

two Vikings touchdown drives are extended by penalties and you end up getting flagged 13 times for 91 yards compared to three for 35 yards for your team.

That all sucks.

So I'm sorry that you have to deal with that, Justin.

It sucks.

And we're going to talk about the Browns getting their ass whipped in a little bit too.

So that's just the way it is when you're one of the have-nots.

Life doesn't seem fair.

But, you know, one thing I do have to hold on to is Sam Darnold, a guy that I've always admired and thought highly of.

And this was, I said on Thursday, Mark, I thought this was an important game for Darnold, who's been shaky the last few weeks.

So I know it's the Titans, but to play clean football and threw two touchdown passes, ran for another, silenced any of the critics.

My mentions were very quiet about, you know, mocking my fandom of Darnold this week.

So he must have played much better.

So the Vikings need Darnold to play at a high level because that division obviously is a dogfight.

I love seeing someone like Sam Darnold bounce back, not unlike some of these other quarterbacks I've talked about.

They're 8-2.

They sit in the fifth playoff spot right now, and they would be higher if it was not just done by divisions.

If anyone said Sam Darnold was going to take the Vikings to an 8-2 notch,

none of us would say that's anything but a massive achievement for

a player that's been through so much controversy.

So

for me, I thought it was a huge performance.

He had one pass to Jordan Addison that was just beautiful today, too.

He can throw the ball

in he's there's nothing, there's no questioning his talent and his talent as a thrower.

Like he's special when he wants to be.

So it's just decision making.

And he had a number of good throws today, like the one to Addison you're talking about, really good decision-making.

But to me, the biggest indicator of like progress in his development as a quarterback was the under pressure stuff.

Because I remember back on that Monday night football, the infamous Monday Night Football game, however many years ago, when he was seeing ghosts.

And in this game,

there was a lot of Titans fans tweeting, like, man, if the Titans got credit for almost sacking the quarterback, they'd be the best team in the league.

It was like so many times he was under pressure.

It looked like the Titans were about to sack him, and he would get out of it and make a great decision and a great throw.

And I think that's the biggest encouragement for Vikings fans who, you know, you probably only have Darnold for one year if everything goes according to the Vikings plans.

But to think you can do something with that one year, I feel like Vikings fans should be very hopeful.

Another redhead that got better looking with a beard, Sessler.

Well, we talked about that, and I think Andy Dalton and Sam Darnold both fit into that category, but like strikingly better looking.

So I think part of it is let's clean up the hair situation.

Let's get a little facial hair.

You talked about age being a part of that.

Yeah, I think the gingers listening to the show right now, maybe some encouragement.

If you're a younger ginger and maybe things haven't gone your way in the love department,

just hang in there because, yeah,

a little bit of age in the face, some wrinkles, some definition in the lines, and then you put in a beard and all of a sudden you don't look so boyish anymore.

You know what I mean?

So hang in there.

It gets better.

Connor?

I'm going to give another visual.

Connor, South Beach, banana hammock.

Just living life.

Okay, now take away the beach and the banana hammock.

And it's just Connor talking about a football game that was played in South Beach.

All right.

Could have a banana hammock.

You never know.

Around the holidays, some families gather together to decorate trees, sing carols, or cook large dinners.

North Turner and his whole family, Scott, Helen, Daisy, Slim, Dot, Hayes, Ansel, Warren, DeAndre, and Carl, they all gather together in the Raiders' offensive coaches booth to try and generate points by a quarterback who looks like his Reddit handle is vegan QAnon.

But Gardner Minshew wasn't storming the Capitol or end zones on Sunday in a 34-19 loss to the Miami Dolphins.

In the grand scheme of things, this game will be more easily forgettable than the birth date of your third child, three touchdowns for two at Tagaloa.

You know, like this is a big John U.

Smith game.

I don't know if anybody really wants to talk about this, but like, yeah, I mean, the Dolphins got back on track.

good

you know that's why mark and i have stopped at two children because the the third one that just seems like a lot more data to have to retain you know it's

not

you get the you get the look at the pharmacist so one of my kids was born on the 24th and one of them was born on the 25th of a month and they ask you for the birth date at the pharmacist and you're like and you just throw out one of the two and then you get a condescending look and you're like come on you're like you know

i'm gonna eventually get there.

You know, on that place, I would get them.

Yeah.

You know, you have to wear a white coat and you could judge me.

It's weird, too, that the pharmacists I find at CVS, like if you go there, they look like the people who often get arrested for stealing the pills, you know?

And it's just like,

at least like I am, I'm like, you shouldn't.

Anyway.

Not the CVS pharmacists that listen to our show, though.

No, no, no, no, no.

Those are the ones.

They're wonderful.

They're the classy types.

This game, Connor, what jumped out to you?

So

one thing that was sort of very interesting, and then I'll get into the fact that Tua did look better.

It was kind of one of those free Tyreek Hill games again where he was just like running around through the secondary, getting balls, a lot of fun.

Again, Johnny Smith was cracked open for a lot of big plays in this one.

But there was an instance where there was a face mask in this game.

And then, like, remember how that happened in the Vikings-Rams game?

Yes.

We hear nothing of it, and then it just disappears.

In this game, there was a face mask, and then, like, literally 40 seconds later, a flag comes in, and it was a face mask of consequence in this game.

And so, it was very interesting to see.

And the referees did a pool report, and they were just saying, oh, well, the time that it took was just the two officials trying to confer and see if they saw what they thought they saw.

They denied any replay assignments.

Let's just be honest.

But it's just like, yeah, I mean, I think like the NFL figured out.

It's like, you know, people are kind of getting pissed now that we're not calling these face mask penalties.

So good.

I mean, that's, that's a positive thing, you know?

All right.

That is positive.

Brock Bowers was also bananas in this game, too.

Yeah, he is obviously everything the Raiders could have hoped for.

13 for 126 on 16 targets.

So one of the best young prospects to come along at the tight end position in a long time.

And for the Dolphins, yeah, this is,

you know, November 17th.

Yes, we track it because this history is instructive and the Dolphins always suck when it gets cold.

So the clock's ticking.

This game's in Miami,

but they have, yeah, 353 yards.

They're moving in the right direction here.

Maybe

not the explosions that you expected entering the season, but yeah, having a huge Tyreek Hill game, that was overdue.

So

baby steps.

Tyreek Hill, 61 yards on seven catches.

It's a long of 18, but it's the visual, right?

Like there were struggles to get him open in some of the previous games.

I think teams are having a little bit more success jamming him at the line.

This time he kind of got a little bit more free.

And I will say this one thing that kind of blew my mind that doesn't make me want to close the door on the Dolphins altogether.

Jalen Ramsey at the end of this game, again, I mean, they're up by multiple scores.

This game is over.

And he is flying down the field to shoulder tackle somebody to knock him out of bounds before the Raiders get a first down.

And then later on in that drive, like flying again to tackle someone to keep him in bounds as if this game was coming down to like a final field goal.

And so, I do think there's some fight left in this team.

Like, there is a little bit of scrap going on.

And I don't know if that was the team that unforks itself and sort of winds its way back into playoff contention, it wouldn't surprise me.

This was a forked one.

This was also like a

we didn't fork the Dolphins.

This game had four drives in the first half combined.

Well, there was like a little end of the half thing, but like you don't, you see that like twice a season.

Like, that, this is an unusual time to get, like I was monitoring that.

That's a good sign for Miami that they can unspool these like double-digit long drives, I think.

Yes.

How come nobody told me there's a guy in the Dolphins named Storm Duck?

Nobody told me that.

Like that's got to be something.

Gravedigger, that's got to be something that gets on my, you got to put that on the Zuzzers radar.

Noted for future.

I've been wondering why I've been kind of sticking up for the Dolphins this year, and I keep on saying I think they can get back into the playoff hunt.

And I had no idea why, but it was because there's a man named Storm Duck patrolling the secondary of the Miami Dolphins.

Hell yeah.

He'll quack this guy.

Nice.

All right.

Up next, we head to

the mile-high city.

That's Denver.

Ooh, Jaunty.

Damn, you know how many people, myself included, were secretly or not so secretly looking forward to the Sean Payton era in Denver going up in absolute flames?

Oh, the press conferences.

Can you imagine?

All that arrogance spoiling into bitterness and finger-pointing and perhaps murder.

Okay, probably not murder.

But Sean Payton as the subject of a really salacious Friday night dateline doesn't seem overly far-fetched.

Why would a man risk everything to destroy a New Jersey-based Sports Illustrated reporter?

Well,

the reality is that year two of the Broncos' Peyton reboot is going beautifully with the standout play of rookie quarterback Bo Nicks in Sunday's 38-6 pacing of the Falcons, once again reaffirming Peyton's football mind while pointing Denver back in the direction of the playoffs, a place they have not been since their victory in Super Bowl 50.

Man,

there is something cooking here now.

And the Falcons have kind of struck me all season as posers.

and I think they're getting found out a little bit in spots now as they drop to six and five after winning a bunch of those games early this season.

They got carved up by this Denver offense, and you really got to credit

Josh Norris, who obviously is awesome here at Underdog, sent out a tweet.

So Knicks goes 28 of 33 in this game.

So rookie quarterback.

28 of 33 for 307 yards and four touchdowns.

And

Josh added that Peyton's game plan included a 4.1 A dot for Knicks.

A dot is average depth of target.

So just really the offense, just a good spread, a good variety, really making the whole field available for the quarterback and putting the opposing defense obviously in a very difficult position because they don't know where to focus.

Like I was talking about the Jets and how their average depth of target is always near the sticks are in, and defenses can sit on that.

Well, Peyton is really setting this up well for his rookie quarterback

to thrive.

And the Broncos' offensive line, that's the other massively important part, obviously, when you have a young quarterback, can the line protect and let the kid go through his progressions and not develop bad habits?

And Denver's offensive line

absolutely manhandled a terrible front seven at Atlanta that hasn't been able to generate pressure at all this season.

So this turned into an absolute pasting, a game that was never in doubt.

And, Mark,

I just,

you got to hand it to the Broncos, who are six and five and in the back end of a muddy AFC wildcard picture.

I have no reason to think, especially with at Raiders, home Browns, home Colts in the next three weeks, that the Broncos cannot position themselves in a very good position to get back to playoff football.

I think, especially when they're playing a team that can't really create pressure, and the Falcons today had one sack on 35 dropbacks for Bo Nix and a season-low pressure rate.

And we already know that that's not their skill, that that sets up someone like Bo Nix to thrive.

And you're right, because I wrote down to myself, like, wait, are they just going to quietly win a playoff game?

And like, is Sean Payton, to the annoyance of many,

like, who cover the sport, like a coach of the year?

candidate just because of what he's doing here.

That might be a little rich because there's other people in that mix, but like there is this sort of like,

oh, we get it.

We've had bad run-ins with Sean Payton.

He's slightly annoying to at least someone adjacent to us, if not us.

And then like here.

We have a lot of stories, both internally and externally, that point to Sean Payton perhaps being just a general nightmare.

But what is Coach of the Year?

Because

he inherited...

a soup and a mess and a stew of sort of problematic issues starting with the whole Russell Wilson thing.

And like, we're a year plus in and we're in a better place.

And like, I, I,

it's all narrative driven, but I do think they make the playoffs and their defense is nasty.

And they can, if you're getting this play from Bo Nix, like, I don't know.

Yeah, you could win a playoff game.

The one interesting thing to me is that Bo Nix was always viewed as a high floor, low ceiling prospect when he came out of the draft.

And it was, okay, you know, you can draft this guy and he might be decent in year one, but what does that look like in year two, three, four, five, six?

He sort of flipped a script on that for me where where I'm looking at him and saying if he develops on schedule with a quarterback like Sean Payton, who kind of coaches the whole quarterback and is not just necessarily like running a system, like he could end up being like one of these guys that plays nine, 10 years in the NFL, has a really good career, you know, and I don't know.

My opinion has changed on him.

Yeah, and how it started and how it's going now.

Nick's...

did not have a touchdown pass in his first three games of the year.

It started off very in a difficult manner.

The schedule wasn't kind to him.

He had zero touchdowns, four interceptions through three games.

He's now got 13 touchdowns in the last seven games, nine over the last four.

And he is

had three games with at least 73% completion rate over the last four weeks.

That data is from Jeff Legwald of ESPN.

And you have this great quote from superstar cornerback Patrick Slertain, the second.

Yeah, he's him.

I told him, man, you're trying to win MVP.

He's not even looking like offensive year.

It looks like MVP right now.

But, man, this just goes, it's a testament to him.

I mean, he puts the work in.

Yeah, so

he has this team buying in.

And again, to Peyton's credit,

he's never developed a quarterback from scratch

in his NFL career.

Obviously, the way things went with New Orleans once he had, you know, him and Breeze came in together, this is his first chance.

And like Connor said, this is a 12th overall pick, not one of the first three or four.

What was he, the third or the fourth quarterback taken in this draft?

Fourth.

Fifth.

Fifth quarterback.

So

not a slam dunk by any metric.

And here he is playing as well as any rookie quarterback right now.

So arrow pointing up for the Denver Broncos with a very favorable schedule ahead.

And then as far as the Falcons go.

Yeah, this is a game that you just, this is a bury the ball game for Atlanta.

And I just wonder,

you know, how the rest of this season plays out.

Because if you remember, Mark, early in the season, they were surviving on guts and guile and some miracles.

And this game shows you how when things go badly with this team,

it can get really ugly.

They're just, they're in the pack.

I struggle to take them very seriously, steps forward, but

this is concerning.

This is a concerning result because

you talk about the ceiling floor.

Like they just got

their doors blown off.

So I struggle in a bad division to take the Falcons as like a real contender, looking around at the rest of the NFC.

No.

And I don't understand.

Raheem Morris is not, you know,

he's had some moments, obviously, this season where you could get excited about him.

And, you know, a way he built up his career when he went to Los Angeles after the firing in Tampa.

All that is good.

But I don't understand how a team that's now well-known is unable to get to the quarterback.

They did not, they sent four or fewer pass rushers on all of Nick's 21 21 first-half dropbacks.

They had just three pressures during that time as the game was just getting away from them.

Like, you have to

week after week.

Right.

If you don't have the dogs, you got to get creative and you got to find other ways to do it or things like this can happen.

So, yeah, dispiriting to say the least

for Atlanta on Sunday.

You want to put a bow on that one, Connor?

Well, I was just going to say, I mean, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers over the next three weeks now have the Giants, the Panthers, and the Raiders.

So, this is the absolute worst time for the Falcons to be cratering, and I think they're going to get bypassed.

Tampa Bay is going to get healthy and they're going to start rolling over people again.

All right.

Well, there's another team in the NSC South to keep an eye on.

Mark, let's talk about them New Allen Saints and Mr.

Riz.

Darren Rizzi takes the pink security clearance elevator in Saints headquarters down to bunker four, 900 feet below the earth.

A waitress lands immediately with a lo-cal beer and a massive plate of General Sow's chicken.

Is there anything else I can bring you, Master?

I want cut-ups on every Taysom Hill snap from the past four seasons.

Right away, Master.

Sky Rizzi absorbs 35mm film.

He pounds Chinese food.

The waitress brings a second beer.

This is the goddamn guy, the beating heart, he says to nobody.

We're going to use his body in all sorts of ways.

Cut to the fourth quarter of Sunday's destruction of the once tangible Cleveland Browns.

Taysom Hill blasts for a 33-yard touchdown, then destroys Miles Garrett's defense with a 75-yard scoring run.

This was Taysom Hill in full bloom.

Seven carries, 138 yards, and three scores on the ground.

Eight receptions, 50 more yards, a loss fumble, an interception, a 42-yard kick return, an 18-yard pass.

Coach Rizzi tells an empty bunker.

Jameis Winston can light up a Baptist church in Baton Rouge.

We get that.

But I'm doing what the last coach refused to do, unleashing the most hard-to-categorized football player in the NFC, Saints 35, Browns 14.

Did you say we're going to use his body in all sorts of ways?

There's always like a,

or there's like a, there's a creep mark toward like a penthouse forum in some of your setups.

The waitress calling Rizzy master.

There's just a lot of cooking.

There's a lot cooking.

That's a deep bunker underneath the sink.

You got a problem with sex.

You're addicted to sex?

Sex addiction or something?

No.

There's a deep question

underneath.

James Winston, I believe.

Building, is what I'm saying.

Like, that's a secret compound.

But I said we're going to use his body in all sorts of ways.

I think that's correct.

Like, he was used

as much as any football player we know of is used.

And, like,

he,

I think they should have done this all year long.

And it is interesting.

I think we have a comment from Darren Rizzi who mentioned like, oh, yeah, like this is what we wanted to go back to, that he did spend time to do this.

This up.

Darren, I'm kidding about Red Grains, but I mean, can you put it into perspective, just how rare it is for a player to do what he's been doing in his career?

Yeah, I mean, listen, 30-something years of coaching, and it's hard to compare him to somebody that I've coached or coached against or watched.

Listen, the guy had a 42-yard kickoff return.

He threw two passes today.

I know one of them wants to have back.

He's catching, but he had 10 targets and he's got seven rushes and he's got a fourth down run for a touchdown.

It's like, you know, what can't this guy do?

He's our personal protector on our punt team.

And so there's just so many jobs and he's so valuable.

So it's hard to, you know, his, I say Red Grange because I don't even know who else to say because,

I mean, can you guys think of anybody?

I can't.

And so, you know, like I said,

I'm glad he's on our team.

Chuck Bignerick.

I mean, who the guys in the locker don't even know that I mean, they don't know who Ray Grange is either, though.

So, well, I feel like if you use, because Taysom Hill is not a young man, Taysom Hill, I think, is

approaching his mid-30s.

He's 34.

Like, he'll be in the ICU if they use him this much in every game.

But, like,

let's just give the man his flowers because this has to be one of the most unlikely individual performances,

if not the most unlikely individual performance we'd seen, we'll see all year, just dominating in multiple facets of the game.

And that's great.

They were not ready for him.

They did ask him after about the Red Grange comparison, and I'm not poking fun at him at all because I don't think he's alone, but he had no idea who Red Grange was.

But I think that speaks to how unusual the comp is.

Like, there isn't someone else doing this.

And the Jim Schwartz Browns defense, which I think has just been overrated coming into this season it's just it's been they've been not been put in a good position with their own offense but

this didn't carry from last season to now and like they were completely beguiled by him it was pretty enjoyable to watch even as a browns fan because like this football player it's just like watching like someone dominate a high school football contest he was pretty i can't wait until I can't wait till Taysom Hill's in the ring of honor one day for the Saints.

He's just going to do this another five to eight years, and eventually he'll be just, it's undeniable.

Yeah, but the coach we just talked about, Sean Payton, was more right than wrong.

Yeah.

I think they just

really de-emphasized in this season.

I know he was hurt for a little bit too, but like

this seems to just be who they are.

Lean into it.

Rich Basace will always be my favorite interim head coach.

Mike Singletary is pretty up there.

He literally took his pants off in the middle of a game once to make a point to his players.

Dan Campbell, people forget Dan Campbell was was an interim coach.

I don't think Mike Tomlin was an interim coach, but I could be wrong about that.

No, that was about

taking his pants off.

Equals.

But Rizzy, man, he's got a chance to be an all-timer.

Maybe he'll keep the job.

That'd be cool.

That's the thing, right?

If you're Gail Benson, if you're Mickey Loomis, you've got to be like, this is cool, but it needs to stop because,

you know, Antonio Pierce is showing us what this movie looks like next year and like halfway through the season next year it's gonna be an absolute disaster a lot of yards for the Browns mark but they got their asses blown out in the fourth quarter so I guess it was a bad day overall well I would say

they Winston the one thing about the Jameis Winston experience is he's extremely he seems comfortably he's extremely aggressive downfield and he has created an awakening for some of those wide receivers that I thought none of them would be on the team next year, but it didn't, you know, that's just part and parcel of what they like.

This is a bad football team.

And

I looked at Kevin Stafanski at one point, and I watched his post-game presser, and you can see the frustration,

the ire, the irritation that he's not in a good place right now.

So I kind of wonder what's going to, I wonder if this team just gets blown up.

Man, it might just get blown up.

They're two and eight.

That's been a tough year.

You know, the one good thing is we do get Jameis Winston sound.

He's mic'd up at all times.

He is a disciple walking the earth.

Let's listen to Jameis before we take a break and head to Sunday Night Football.

The beautiful thing about today is it doesn't matter what happened in the past, and no one really cares about the future.

Reality are, we are what we are.

But where are we trying to go?

What are we willing to do to be the best that we can be today?

I'm with you.

I got your back.

So be thinking.

Actually, don't think.

Be the best that you can be today together.

All right, man.

Let's go.

Connor, how about we think a little bit?

I don't.

I honestly have no idea what that means.

It makes me feel good.

It makes me feel like

if you're like Joel Battonio and you're just like, I'm going to, you know, it's just, I put my body on the line for this absolute clown organization.

But one, and you mentioned blowing it up.

And I, you know, I don't know.

Like, this is just an interesting thought that I've had.

Mike Vrabel is from Ohio.

Ohio people love Ohio coaches.

If you were going to blow it up, would you consider, just think about this for a second, because you just signed Kevin Stefanski to an extension, but if you let him go, another team would almost certainly sign him to be a head coach.

And so you wouldn't have to pay a lot of money because there'd be contractual offsets.

And you could

upgrade Vrabel to the head coaching chair, who's had a relationship with Deshaun Watson from when he was in Houston.

I don't know.

I'm just saying, like, if you were going to blow it up, is that an interesting way that you might want to try it?

Just something to think about.

I read this morning that Vrabel from Diana Rossini on the Athletic that, you know, just kind of talking backwater, like as the coaching searches start to heat up, that Vrabel, and this, maybe Justin would disagree with this, but he is the

outside of Belichick, the hottest name right now.

That people just find him to be one of these cultural coaches that creates culture, not unlike some of these other guys.

And so if you're the Browns and you let that guy walk off your staff, like if he's maybe the best coach in your building, it gives you something to think about.

I'm with you.

Yeah, remains to be seen, by the way, if Belichick is going to be the hottest name.

He wasn't the hottest name last year.

Well, just in terms of name, quality

Q rating,

name brand above.

I can't wait to see how big Jameis Winston's super church is going to be.

Oh, massive.

I mean, there's going to be, I cannot wait, and maybe we could finance this.

Maybe this could be a heed the call's first foray into television production.

It's like a righteous gemstones type reality show,

just following every day of the Winston family and all the scandals and,

you know, curing people, the blind,

swindling millions in insurance schemes, all the fun stuff that will go on.

I just can't wait.

It seems like the natural next step for our show to go helm that production.

Like, if that's what you're saying, that's what we just go do next, yes.

All right, let's take a break and then send it to football.

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More like Monday morning if you're Connor Orr on the East Coast right now.

What a game that was.

I would say like on a what a week 11 is just packed with some incredible confrontations.

And this one was so critical for the Cincinnati Bengals.

And

try as they might, they were not able to win this against the Chargers.

But man, they showed why we believed that they were a playoff team coming into the season while they're very special.

Like, Joe Burrow and their top-heavy core of wide receivers, they can play with anyone.

They just can't win these games, Connor.

Like, this came down.

This was a harrowing loss for the Cincinnati Bengals who fall tonight 34-27 to the Chargers of Los Angeles at SoFi.

Connor, your thoughts on what just went down?

This is like a surface-level take, I'll admit, but like there were so many, like, the diametric opposite body language that you would see from both of these teams.

Like when Evan McPherson missed one of his like 800 field goals, there was, you know,

Trey Hendrickson on the sideline and then just like giving a thumbs down and then like rolling his eyes and putting his helmet back on or Jamar Chase being like very demonstrative.

And, you know, meanwhile, on the other side, it's just like all these Chargers guys made catastrophic mistakes.

Lad McConkey had a drop.

You know, Justin Herbert was overthrowing some balls.

And there was just this, let's keep rolling vibe to him.

And eventually the last team that kind of hangs on wins.

And the Bengals kind of, you know, not that you give up, but it's like that bad emotion, that bad body language, all that.

It just snowballs.

And then you get rolled over by J.K.

Dobbins on the final possession.

Dan had some family stuff going on, so we're happy to close out the episode.

Is this the end of the Cincinnati Bengals?

They still seem like an incredibly powerful team to me, and it's just that they fell apart here.

They did all they could, and the Chargers could not get out of their own way in the second half.

And it made me think: is this every other Chargers game we've ever watched in our entire lives on prime time?

And then that final drive, they do what they need to do to seal it.

I thought that,

by and large, the Bengals had one of their best defensive games of the year, which is pretty stunning given that that's been their weak spot in the second half.

Especially in the second half, yeah.

And it wasn't until the Chargers were able to, they pulled that double move with mcconkey after mike hilton had almost picked one um that really got them really kind of broke the back of the the bengals defense but i mean this is a game that was just completely lost you know on the heels of bad kicking and if you look at so many of these promising teams that have started the season and have absolutely just been pile driven by bad kickers you know the giants started the season in a lot of games with kicking issues the jets started a season in a lot of games with kicking issues this is just another one of these teams that you know you get, you can get yourself to the doorstep, and then it just all seems to fall apart when your kicker can't make dependable field goals.

Yeah, like Evan McPherson, who as a rookie was so promising.

A revelation, yeah.

Right.

He's got

he's missed a PAT.

He's missed two field goals inside the 50 in the season and gone three of seven after tonight from 50 plus.

And that absolutely was a massive difference this evening.

It's just, it feels like a wonderful team being flushed away because this, the Bengals could beat anyone, any of these teams we talked about today, but it's just not happening.

I think like you get, it's kind of a lesson with these slow starts that they've had years after years, like in a row.

And it's like, you can't do that at this point.

And these losses pile up.

And for the Chargers, like, I, I'm with you a little bit on the body language thing because I thought Justin Herbert, they kept cutting to him this evening in the second half as the Bengals.

I just thought like if the NFL is fixed, if you want to argue for it, that this absolutely was a whole setup where the Bengals win this game and we'd get this mass, like, it would have equaled their biggest comeback in franchise history, I believe.

And you've got Justin Herbert looking like he's smelling a fart on the sideline the whole second part of the game.

And then he goes and does it at the very end.

And like, Lad McConkey, a couple huge drops, but he really came through.

And it was like the difference between these two quarterbacks to some degree outside of the running game is that you've got Burroughs surrounded by these two incredible, and T.

Higgins made such a difference, like two incredible receivers around him.

And you've got Justin Herbert with very young players trying to figure out how to survive in the NFL.

And it's like he had this incredible start, nine for 10, and I think he was like six for whatever down the stretch.

It really almost fell apart entirely.

It would have been a cataclysmic loss, but like they're...

They got it done, and that matters.

But

I really feel like we've lost.

If the Bengals are not to survive this, we've lost a team that could beat almost anyone in the AFC on the right day.

And this is why you're going to see this offseason when there's new carousel, people are going to hire new coaches.

There's going to be such a focus on toughness throughout the roster.

And it's the difference between what the Bengals are building or had built and what the Chargers are building.

And to your point, right?

Bengals have a lot of great skill position players, but there's no interior, right?

And the Chargers don't have very many skill position players, but they have like

a 600-pound ginger fullback that's just going to assault anyone who gets near Justin Herbert.

You know, there's like a toughness to this team that's just going to punish people.

And Cincinnati doesn't have that.

It's all on Burrow.

We even saw in that second to last pass of the game, it's basically a hopeless Hail Mary situation.

He's getting plastered, just taking hit after hit.

And the Chargers have largely taken that away from Justin Herbert, taken it off his plate, and it makes life better.

Yeah, and so the Bengals fall to 4-7.

They go into their bye.

They come out, and they've got the Pittsburgh Steelers in week 13.

And then the Steelers again later on this season, they've got the Broncos.

They've also got the Browns, the Cowboys, and Titans.

I just don't know how you climb out of this.

I don't know, like, Justin or Connor, do either of you believe at this point that they climb out of this and become the final wildcard team?

You have seven losses, so how many more are we saying they can absorb and still survive?

I feel like we've been saying the Bengals' margin for error is super razor thin for like a month now and for a month continue to they continue to drop games but at the same time you know the broncos like how good do we think the broncos are are we going to keep questioning them and they're going to keep proving us wrong maybe so um the colts you know i don't believe in the colts the dolphins have to deal with the cold weather dolphins and prove to us that they can actually be successful late in the season So if those are the three teams standing between the Bengals and a playoff spot, I'm not necessarily counting them out just yet.

Like, they're still, is it weird to say I still think they're a good team?

And you are what your record says you are, I guess, on some level.

But again, if McPherson makes that kick, we're having a different conversation right now.

The last kick, not the other ones.

See, you have the Chiefs at 9-1, you have the Bills at 9-2, the Steelers at 8-2, the Texans at 6-4, and the Chargers at 7-3.

Those are your top six teams.

You know, you would need something pretty catastrophic to go wrong at the the very bottom here.

And Houston, you know, I mean, Houston, that's a divisional thing, so they're going to get their way in or the, you know, the Colts maybe.

But like, you're going to need something catastrophic to go wrong for a team like the Chargers that you couldn't beat tonight.

I mean, those are the teams that are hanging around in the back end of the AFC.

It's a really good conference.

Yeah, I just, I think it's a little too late for it all.

But it is kind of hard to watch them go because they are incredible to watch.

Joe Burrow,

it's like he's like an Archie Manning-like MVP candidate on a team with a ridiculous record at this moment.

So it's like, I don't know what else he can do.

And I watch his visage and his face on the sideline, and he seems frustrated and irritated, and he should be.

And here we are.

And like, we're in November, and it's like you've run out of runway to keep losing these games.

An incredible Sunday night contest.

It went very late, Connor.

I give you hero status to be up at what is now 12.07 a.m.

I don't know what your family thinks about that at this point, but kudos to you.

There was a couple weeks ago where we were all sleeping, like my office is in the basement, and we had to move everything downstairs.

And so everyone was sleeping in the basement.

And I was doing this show, and it was another one of the nights where it went super late.

And like, my kids were literally like sleeping on the other side of the floor, you know, on the other side of the door for my office.

And I'm like, whooping about, you know, like CD lamb.

and like just, you know, just like, you know, my wife's like, what's going on here?

Like, what is our life?

It's not normal, you know?

It is good.

It's a blue ribbon for you.

Well, I guess we should say goodnight.

Week 11 is wrapped.

We'll see everyone again tomorrow night, Monday Night Football, and then we will be back, as usual, multiple times this week with all sorts of episodes, our Patreon episode as well with Connor.

Again, our draft.

After we see Connor on our Wednesday episode, which is always a the joy, and we're getting closer and closer to the Christmas special with Connor, just a couple more weeks away.

Let's go.

All right, everyone.

You go to bed now.

We're going to bed.

You go to bed.

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