NFL Week 11 Preview!!

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The Heat the Call podcast

are thinking about getting that earring, but are worried you'll laugh.

Tough.

Tough decision to make there, Mark, and I hope you make the right one, because I think what you should do ultimately is go with your heart and not what you think people will say.

I mean, look.

There's a lot of projection on this show.

A, I've got a terrible cold, so I apologize to the listener.

But like, the idea that I'm going to march out of here after the show and get an earring is

fiction.

It's a fictional novel.

Like,

I won't be doing that.

Just to let you know, can we clear that up?

It is the week 11 preview of Heed the Call with Dan Hansis and Mark Zessler.

And if it is the Thursday preview show, that means we have esteemed regs here: Jordan Rodrigue and Money Mike Dugar from the Athletic.

Money Mike back from his honeymoon on Jamaica.

And we learned before the show: this man does not swim.

This man is afraid of heights.

This man is afraid of so many things.

So, what did you actually do when you were on the island, Mike?

I got my first massage.

That was great.

It also put in perspective how weird Deshaun Watson is, man.

But also,

I laid by the Infinity Pool

and

I watched some illegal streams of sports because I am an addict.

And there were some good games last week.

And then I just really just spent a lot of time with my wife, which is great.

We have conflicting schedules

and a one and a half year old.

So just the time for us to do nothing was perhaps better than any excursion event we could have booked, just because we don't get a ton of time just to be husband and wife or mom and dad a lot of the time.

So that was that was great.

Very much much needed and then look at this I'm right back at work look at it and we missed you last week

and we can't wait to get back on the the gambling tip with money mike later in today's episode we didn't gamble last week because of no money

Jordan might have had something vaguely

vaguely gambling a nugget maybe am I am I correct Jordan was there something in some type of

Some type of money Mike fill-in last week or am I mistaken?

No, I don't even know what the words he uses are when he talks about gambling.

I did hear, actually, Mike, I have to ask you, true or false, I heard a rumor you did pick out a single shark tooth earring for Mark in the gift shop on your way back.

I tried.

They didn't have any, Mark.

I like the idea of you going on your honeymoon and buying me a gift.

That feels unlikely.

But at one point, like it was after the election, we sort of said, like, hey, would you mind if we came down to Jamaica and joined you?

And you were like, yeah, come on.

Just like honeymoons are the last

life situation where you want like random guys and friends to come hang out with you.

So like I, while I appreciated the response, I didn't find it to be accurate.

You didn't really want us to come hang out with you and your wife on your honeymoon, I'd imagine.

Well, I think it would have been a great time and a nice day.

We were traveling on election day.

So like just some community would have been nice on that Tuesday while we were traveling.

I'm sure a lot of people probably can attest to that.

We were like stuck in Newark for a day too on election day because of a canceled flight.

So we definitely could have used some company as we just shuffled into the Newark airport Marriott

for a night.

And if you do want to know

Mark's real-time thoughts on the election, check out the iDream and Red newsletter.

I don't know why you, but this is our product.

You continue to pound this ridiculous, another false narrative out of left field that is taking away from our Patreon products.

So, you know, no, Mark, it's out of right field.

Oh, that's good.

That's good.

That's exactly.

I can tell this is going to be a good app.

All right.

Good week.

A great week.

There are games this week that fascinate me and really

I think is going to teach us a lot about the upper echelon of the league as we head toward the home stretches.

As Mike Francesa famously said, the season doesn't begin until after Thanksgiving.

Well, we're getting close to Thanksgiving, and these games I think will really set the table on that front.

So let's dig in.

Week 11, heating that call.

Oh, by the way, great job.

Shout out

to

Dave Damashek,

who joined us on the Wednesday show for our Thanksgiving.

It was kind of like a draft of a Thanksgiving table.

And then who is it, Justin, who put together an artistic rendering of the table?

That would be Twitter user Kiwi Bill in Oz at NZ T I G E R I N

that just rolls off the tongue that rolls that's how you brand yourself that just rolls up the tongue and uh money mike you should know that uh jameis winston will say grace at our thanksgiving oh that's a good choice that is a although i see mike irvin at the table i believe he'd be good yeah that would be i mean you want to talk about 1 a and 1 b in terms of delivering the the grace at dinner that is that is two excellent choices right there yeah Yeah, and well, we have Mike there mostly because we're losing recipes and

he's going to make sure that

we keep those intact.

You know, I don't know, Jordan, Mike, not Mike Dugar, Mike Irvin had that take about we're losing recipes.

You're a woman, you're a feminist, I know.

I don't know that for sure, but I can make you a feminist.

An assumption?

What do you think about Michael Irvin's take about we're losing recipes?

That's a that he

that's like a popular phrase, is it not?

I don't know.

I think it's a popular phrase.

You know,

I don't really understand the question.

Do you understand my question, Mark?

You want to help me out with this one?

Well, yeah, I think what Mike, and I don't speak for Mike, but what Mike I think is suggesting is that Mike Irvin or Mike Dugar?

No, Mike.

No one never called him Mike Irvin before, by the way.

Mike Dugar almost bought me

a tooth earring, so of course I'm not speaking from Mike DeGar.

But

the idea that Michael Irvin was bringing up, I believe, and you can tell me, Dan, if you think I'm wrong because you're the authority, but that as we've become more

less 1950s-like, let me put it that way, that like the idea that if you're of a certain gender that you were raised to learn how to cook 15 to 60 different types of meals, that that's gone away.

I appreciate that.

I was teeing you up there, Jordan, because I thought it was perhaps a misogynistic take by the Playmaker.

I wouldn't have taken it down.

No, no, I think

that's a popular phrase that he said.

I think Harrison Butter at the table

with Mike Irvin.

You invited no women to your Thanksgiving table, which I did clock.

But also,

just so we're clear, Dan was just asking me to get in the kitchen and look for said recipes.

So just wanted to make sure everyone heard that.

Okay, that's one way to look at it,

but I was hoisted on my own petard there.

Let's be honest.

Let's just dig into it.

Yeah, you guys.

Because I've got to dig myself out.

And now let's dig into the games.

We'll start with the primetime affairs.

And

one of the games that I cannot wait to watch.

Unbelievable.

The Cincinnati Bengals travel to SoFi Stadium to face the Los Angeles Chargers.

And

listen, it's do or die time for the Bengals.

And I feel like we've said that before.

And they've had games,

Jordan, that have kept their heads above water and

put them in position to kind of really dive full-on back into the AFC playoff mix.

And then they take a step back.

And many times a season, it's been in a very painful manner.

And multiple times a season against the Ravens, that painful step back occurs.

So here we go again.

The Bengals in a wide open wildcard race in the AFC.

But this will not be any layup for them because the chargers have been arguably the best defense in football certainly i think the most consistent week to week um and if the if jim harbaugh and company could cook something up to um neutralize that uh offensive attack for the bengals they may be cooked this season yeah jesse minter has done so much with so uh relatively little i think on that defense to build it back up and yes you know khalil mack is still playing at a high level and

they have playmakers and all of that.

But the ways that they are such a sound defense are all the ways in which the Bengals try to attack you and perhaps potentially can't against this Chargers defense.

Particularly, you know, Jamar Chase leading the NFL and yards after the catch per next-gen stats.

Well, he'll now face this Chargers' defense that's allowing the second fewest yards after the catch per catch in the NFL.

Those types of little things, they're like foils of each each other in so many ways up and down the field.

And I haven't doubted the Bengals' ability to score this season.

We've seen that.

Joe Burrow has played some phenomenal football.

But at this point in the season, the Chargers, led by Justin Herbert, who's playing some of the best quarterback, some of the best football for any quarterback in the league right now, they're reaching the apex of their powers at the right time.

This is like that slow burn Jim Harbaugh team that suddenly suffocates you and you can't understand what just happened.

And like, this is what could happen to the point where after this game, you might start to hear, because it is actually in a window where people will be watching the Chargers, whereas other games this year have not had that,

that you might see Justin Herbert start to overtake Joe Burrow in the conversation about who is playing the best football in the league right now in that quarterback conversation.

Other guys obviously are ahead in the MVP race, but Justin Herbert might walk himself into that after this game.

Yeah, I think like if you look at Justin Herbert, like

this is not something that I expected in the offseason under Jim Harbaugh, but he is the fifth highest rate of deep passing percentage.

Like he's

this is working.

And Quentin Johnston,

who had been a problematic wide receiver earlier in his career, has been open more than all but five other wide receivers in the league, wide open.

So that's working.

I would say this about the Chargers.

Like in the terms of it being an island game, they've beaten Bryce Young, Bo Nicks, Spencer Rattler, Jameis Winston, Will Levis, and Gardner Minshew.

And so here's your chance to suddenly, I think, emerge as something different on the national stage.

And I really can't, before this season, think of a time, Dan, that when we covered football where the Chargers really beat someone up and really massacred them into the turf.

And they've been a soft team for like as long as soft has been a word in the human language to me.

And so I want to see them go out and bloody someone and a real opponent.

For me, you could end the Cincinnati Bengals season right now.

You could end it.

I argued for them to be forked, and I think this is the chance where that could happen.

Will it?

I don't know.

But this is a team that can do weird things.

They're a weird team, and I kind of think the Chargers could become a national story if they win this game in an island scenario.

They could use a little bit of juice, the Chargers.

And

there's a number of reasons why

they seem to lack juice.

And I'm not saying that even matters because it really only matters if you win or lose.

they've won six of their nine games so far this season and they're set up really well for this game.

But the type of ball that they play doesn't exactly scream for prime time windows and

highlight reels.

Like, for instance, you have Justin Herbert, who played another, like Jordan said, another great game on Sunday.

He threw just 18 passes.

So he's making them count, but the offense obviously is

designed in a way where you're just not going to get that Dan Fouts or early Herbert type production.

Let's hear from Herbert.

Here's the other part of it.

I want Justin Herbert, and I'll throw it to you off this money, Mike.

I want Justin Herbert to give me some juice himself.

I want Justin Herbert to like be the LA quarterback.

I don't know if it's in him, and here's a little, and check this out on YouTube especially.

Here's a look behind after their latest win after they beat the Titans of Jim Harbaugh almost imploring Justin Herbert to be more interesting to mix results.

Justin, just talk to us, man.

Say something.

Say something.

Say it.

I've got so much to say and so little time to say it.

Great job, everybody.

Mike,

give me like a first take, hot take, how that clip tells us why Justin Herbert will never be a champion.

No.

I actually enjoy.

I like the,

I guess, juxtaposition, I guess, between some guys who just like won't shut up, like Micah Parsons, versus guys who just have nothing to say, like almost in the NBA, where you get like the Kawhi Leonards and the Tim Duncans

versus the Draymond Greens or the Patrick Beverlys, the guys with podcasts during the year, and the guys who would just shudder at the idea at being on a podcast during their season.

So I actually like that from Herbo.

And I think it's.

Football is completely different than basketball.

Sorry.

Oh, man.

That's a hilarious drop.

I enjoyed that from him.

I do think last week was a good

flashback to the whatever draft had Sewell and Chase in it because both of them kind of kicked ass in their island games.

And I think the Chargers every week that Herbert doesn't die is like a good kind of pushback to that same situation with neighbors and Joe Alt in this draft.

I feel like neither team could have probably gone wrong.

But like you just see what kicking ass at offensive line does.

And I bring that up because when you watch the Chargers, me and the seven other people that do on a weekly basis, I think it was only four of us when they were on ESPN Plus against the Cardinals a few weeks ago.

Yeah, no, it really is.

When you watch them, sometimes you do feel bad for Justin.

Like, he just throws passes of consequence to just the most random cats every week.

Like, last week, I think he threw like the best ball of his life, and it hit Will Disley in the hands.

You know, he was, I think they lost to the Cardinals.

He threw like a double move to Simmy Faco or however you say that guy's name.

It's like, you should not be throwing passes of consequence to to some of these cats, and he does, and they're dimes every week.

And I really am happy that they're getting this primetime game.

I believe it got flexed in the primetime, too.

I really want the world to see, win or lose, what Herbo is dealing with sometimes when he drops back.

I'm a big lightning lad, McConkey guy, but pretty much everyone else, I'm just praying they catch these wonderful passes from Justin.

And I actually do love the Chargers in this one to get the Bengals forked next week.

I think they'll be done after that.

There we go.

Dan, I would say that I appreciate

while Money Mike is unfurling his soliloquy that our producer Justin is like openly smoking a nicotine device.

I don't know what's happening there, but it's happening right here on our air.

But you know what?

I go back to that clip.

Well, now, Justin, you're going to have, because

my co-host brought that up, you're going to have to give us a slow-motion, instant replay of you taking a puff of the peace pipe over there.

Okay, Dan, whatever my job requires, I shall do.

Jordan, wrap this up before we move.

Yeah, two things.

One, passes of consequence would be a sick-ass band name.

Two,

funky trend, noted by Mike and I's colleague Larry Holder, who does great work.

The Chargers are 6-0 when they score over 20 points, and they're 0-3 when they don't reach 20 points.

But also, they haven't scored outside 20 points.

So it's a really interesting, like weird trend for them.

But yeah, score over 20.

They're probably going to win.

And let's see if T.

Higgins is playing this game.

He's up in the air, but perhaps trending towards returning to the lineup.

And that makes a big difference for the Bengals, too.

Not ready to quit on Cincinnati.

I think they find a way in this game.

In the other prime time game, we have the Houston Texans.

Man,

where we thought of the Houston Texans in week one, Sesdog, to where they are now at number 13 in our power rankings, which is, of course, the Twilight Zone.

Hard to make any sense of them.

And the quarterback, you know, the quarterback's struggling.

And it's not just him.

There are other elements of this team that that are struggling, obviously, including the blocking up front and the injuries in terms of his targets.

But he's also making plays that are not what you expect from a player that has shown so much so early in his career.

So he's in a slump, and he's got to bail out of it and pick this team up.

Perfect matchup here.

You go to Dallas.

The Cowboys are the worst home team in football.

They are on pace, honestly, and I don't have any data to back this up, but I don't need it because I know

they're on pace to be the worst home team in the history of professional football.

They lose by like 20 to 40 points almost every game in their building.

They're winless there.

And Cooper Rush or Trey Lance or some combination thereof will be the quarterback tandem.

So if the Texans want to get right in this Texas showdown, here it is right now.

And if they don't, major, major red flag for the Houston Texans.

Well, that would be a flowing red flag if they can't handle their business here.

I mean, I think part of it is for CJ Stroud, like

you are a young quarterback and you played so well last year.

So the expectations were mountainous.

Like, I'm thinking, like, this could be one of a top-five quarterback, but then suddenly Nico Collins is ripped away from you.

Stephon Diggs is ripped away from you.

You lost Joe Mixon for a bunch of time.

You get Collins back in this game.

I want to see what the tangible difference is

for this offense.

Secondly, though, like to come away from that loss to the Lions, like this is a young team, young coaching staff.

They're newly formed.

Like, how do you respond to that utter collapse?

Because I think the story of the of the texans is a little bit more their defense than their offense like they lead the nfl in past defenses and interceptions over the last four weeks they they take the ball away and you're walking into a perfect situation in dallas with a crumbled destroyed um i think infighting cowboys team if you can't go and what's what's sweeter than being the houston texans and going into dallas and beating jerry jones and his little nepo baby up in that booth and taking them down on national television and getting your season

back on the level.

And so I think we find out who they are, but if they ever were to lose this game, you are right.

That's a disaster.

They won't.

They will win.

Yeah, the Texans defense should wrap this up very, very nicely and put a bow on it in front of Jerry Jones and family and family and family and family and family.

And, you know, Mark, that's a great point that you brought up because the Texan secondary,

again, we're talking about a team that is a foil of the other, of the opposite side.

Texan secondary is allowing the third fewest yards of separation per route in the NFL.

Well, who is the worst separating team in the NFL right now, the Dallas Cowboys?

So this past defense, Daniel Hunter is just everywhere up front.

The first half against Panay Sewell, some of the moves that he put on, the best offensive lineman or one of them in this league

was just astounding to watch.

And I want to go back to CJ Stroud too, because this is as contextual a step back as we've possibly seen in a while for a quarterback.

Because it's not just that they're failing to protect him and he's missing his pass catchers, but I do think that Bobby Sloick deserves some of the heat as well.

And Chris Sims went on Kevin Clark's show earlier this week and talked about the importance, and he's absolutely correct, the importance of how protection is not just guys blocking guys, especially a slide protection team, which means multiple bodies are sliding left to right into different blocks and then isolating another blocker on one side for a mathematical advantage.

That means you're not just dude blocking dude, right?

You're moving the math around.

And the Texans have been figured out in this phase.

And Chris Sims did a great job breaking it down, so I won't reiterate what he said, but he basically is saying this scheme is letting down the protection as well.

And so getting all of that fixed, this is the perfect opportunity to do this, to get things right and to actually start to build the pieces back up, get healthy and learn some lessons.

We wanted to see the Texans learn some lessons and face some adversity this year.

And now they are.

So what will they do with it?

I'm not a trench warfare guy,

Mike, but I saw that as well, that breakdown of what ails the offense.

And in part,

it's defenses adjusting, knowing what the Texans like to do, how they like to pull their offensive line in one direction and leave their tackle on an island, and then defense is adjusting and throwing everything out of whack.

So now it's time for, yes, like

your opponent and the league is zagged, and now you got to zig again.

And Sloic, like his head coaching, we talked about Connor Orr is putting out his future head coaches

article this week.

It's out now.

Check it out.

Slowic better adjust right now or he's really going to ding himself if he wants one of the big chairs.

Yeah, he is in the cover photo of that article.

Just so.

Very nice.

Yeah, I had a

fun phone call with my homie DJ.

Bianime covers the Texans for ESPN.

We were talking about all of that stuff.

We were going over some film stuff.

We're really just nerding out.

Like I really came back from honeymoon and got right back to nerding.

And I think, yes, Sloic is the guy I'm focusing on when I watch the Texans because he just looks like, and I see something similar happening in Seattle.

He just looks like a coordinator who just hasn't done this very long.

And that's okay.

But you got to remember, these defensive coordinators get paid too.

And once you put something on tape, good or bad these guys will find that weak spot and it's just hard to hide bad interior line play you know there's only so much you can do to hide guys who stink up front the texans shuffled their guys i think this last week and it didn't really matter much joe mixon ran it 25 times for like five yards or something you know um and that's why they melted down in the second half too so i'm really looking at slowick like teams are just disrespecting him with their plans.

They're just like, we know what you're going to do and we know your guys can't run routes.

Teams are just going press man and Tank Dell disappears.

Like, his press man cut ups in film room every week must be just awful.

Like, he must be getting cooked.

And so, I put a lot of that on the players, too, but also OC, man.

You got to figure it out.

Uh, he was a hot name in the hiring cycle last year, but like, this year, it's kind of showing the advantage of time on task.

So, I feel like him versus some of these defensive coordinators, he's been getting his butt whooped and it's impacting everybody else.

So, I don't know if this is a good get-right game because the Cowboys defense isn't very good, but like, Zimmer is a vet, right?

So, like, there is some advantage to that.

You know, coordinator matchups matter quite a bit, and I feel like that's low-key been one of the most important stories of this season so far.

Dallas is so down bad if the Texans get beat in this game, it could be full-on collapse time in Houston.

So, keep an eye on it.

All right, before we move on to games, we cannot wait to watch a reminder that the NBA season is in full swing, and Underdog has tons of fun ways to get

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audience only.

What was that, Mark?

I was doing an ad read.

Was that an ad like, I mean, Underdog, you know, like they're our employer, and so they're saying, please, you know, diligently unfurl like two or three ad reads during this.

Like, does that count?

That seemed like a not only is a charade being made of me, but um, of the product itself.

So concerning.

You are, you do seem to be more focused on like how you come off as in this, Mark, versus the ad itself.

A little main character syndrome there, Mark.

Okay, well, true, yeah, okay.

All right, let's get to it.

The games we can't wait to watch.

And, Mark, good job.

Apparently, you got into the dock early this week.

Hell yeah.

Jordan, at this point, now is writing notes.

Almost, I can't tell if she's mocking you

in the dock or she's legitimately proud of you.

Jordan, do you want to read it?

Do you have it in front of you?

Um, I don't have okay.

I'll read it.

It says, Mark, I want to be proud of you, but be honest, M Dash, did Justin put your initials in here, JR?

Uh, because you, you grabbed Ravens at Steelers, which is the matchup of the week.

Uh, kudos to you, sir.

No, I like, um, I know I diligently, uh, in a professional manner, jumped into the documentary.

I don't know, Dan, you, in an atypical fashion, didn't even, you know, Justin had to ask you this morning to totally forgot, yeah, pick a game.

But what happened there?

Just bad job by me.

Just a bad job by me.

And

I can, I'll take the heat.

I'll take the heat.

Well, we're a team.

I was proud.

I was proud, but also slightly suspicious because there was a point earlier this year where you were in the dock early, but it wasn't actually you.

You were directing Justin to put your initials on the game.

So I just, I'm just, I was just, you know, checking out the market.

That's open for ripe critique.

I get, I understand that.

This was a different situation.

It does feel like Jordan just has her eyes on you at all times, Mark, you know, in a way that,

I don't know, it's almost like she's your legal guardian on some level or your life coach.

You know what I mean?

I need both.

That's a dark thought.

I need both.

I did pick Raven.

Do you want me to talk about Ravens at Steelers?

Yeah, we should probably talk about the football game, yeah.

I wrote a little, because so this is such a treasure.

We just had Shaq on our show, and like he kind of got me amped up for this.

So I wrote a little thing about how I feel about this matchup.

Now, of course, course, the Ravens were the Browns.

And so it's always sort of weird for me that this exists at all.

But here's what I think.

Like imagine if you had a big, like, old aunt.

Do you guys say aunt or aunt?

That's a very

parent.

I say aunt.

I don't know.

Is anyone different?

I say aunt.

I think I usually go auntie now that I think of it.

Auntie.

Auntie is out there in the culture, too.

Mark, I know you're an aunt guy, which always throws me off.

I do say aunt.

Like, I'd say both.

But well, let's say you imagine you have a big old aunt or aunt.

Aunt Ginny, okay?

Or auntie, but let's say it's Aunt Ginny, okay?

And she comes around the front yard.

You're in the middle of the country somewhere.

And she comes around one Sunday morning.

She's super hammered.

Super hammered.

Okay.

Her big arms coming out of her overalls.

Her hands are muddy.

She's dropping F-bombs and her trauma-filled nucleus is shining.

And she comes right up on your porch.

What?

Is this woman Zaftig?

Yeah, is she Zaftig?

Yeah, we'll get to that.

She definitely is.

She's dropping F-bombs.

You know, she's all over the place.

She's hammered.

And she comes right up onto your porch and she takes Cousin Velma by the ponytail and rips her onto the yellow grass and starts kicking her ass, repeated kicks to the belly and chin.

Aunt Ginny is wildly amped on brown liquor and just won't stop pounding away at Cousin Velma.

But then Velma rolls her big body out of the attack and manages to grab Aunt Ginny by the back pocket of her overalls.

And Ginny, being super hammered, she has shaky footing and she comes tumbling down this massive mountain of flesh and blood.

And Cousin Velma starts unleashing fists on the face of Aunt Ginny.

Unholy blows to the visage of a

230-pound angry dame who showed up muddy and drunk to the yard.

And a gang of teenage boys on their bicycles ride up to cheer it on.

Hit that big lady, one boy yells at Cousin Velma.

She's a big old broad.

You better keep swinging, says another.

Yeah, that woman's a real big one, the third teen says to the others.

America is a beautiful place where all this can happen, and this is how I feel visually about the Ravens at Steelers.

That's really all I have to say about this game.

Like, this is what these teams are.

They're just like two relatives beating each other up in a yard.

Jordan, you want to unpack that for us?

I don't think I have the

time in the day to fully unpack that.

I something,

Mark, I'm really sorry for whatever happened to you with some morbidly obese Midwestern woman in your past.

But it seems like there's some things to talk about there, you know?

Yeah, I'm stunned, guys.

I mean, you jumped into the document and teed us up in a totally bizarre way.

So I'm going to try to steer it to a football conversation that

here we go.

Here we go.

And

I don't want to step on it because I have a fearless prediction that ties into this game.

But Lamar Jackson, Mike, has historically

not done very well against Mike Tomlin.

A lot of people are talking about that.

And if there's one season

where Lamar Jackson could be, you know, Tomlin proof or anything proof, it might be this season.

What do you think about this matchup?

Or are the Steelers on such a heater right now that it won't matter?

No, I definitely think uh, it matters to be a good game, uh, by the way.

Uh, I'm happy for Russ

that he's getting a chance to uh show what he can do in that.

That's a good question, Mike.

Like, honestly, like

you know Russ as well as anyone, uh, like, well, anyone in the on the beat or whatever.

I don't know, I'm sure Sierra knows him better, for instance, differently

than futures, son, but like cue the gym dance music.

Yeah.

But

like, how do you, do you see a difference even from a distance?

Like, do you think Russ has been humbled?

Do you think he's any different than he was?

Do you think this is surprising him that he's had this renaissance?

Like, what's your Russ take on like this little Renaissance?

Russaissance right now.

Russaissance is great.

I don't, I haven't been around him enough or talked to enough people around him to know if he's been humbled per se.

I do think he's smart enough to realize that he does not, he doesn't have the same benefit of the doubt that he had in Seattle, right?

There's not posters of him hosting a Lombardi in the Stillers building like there is, you know, that's not the,

where they, what do they play, Hinesfield or something?

Like, that's not sure.

Oh, yeah, whatever it's called now.

Yeah, that's not the house that Russ built, so to speak, the way Lumen Field kind of is, you know, and I think he's smart enough, I don't know if Humble's the word, to realize that and know that, like, hey, man, you got to be one of the dudes and you got to perform.

Like, it's a what have you done for me lately building for him?

Not like Seattle's like, oh, look at what I've, what I've done.

Seattle literally has video boards right now that loop all day showing highlights of Russell Wilson's era of football.

And the Steelers don't have that.

And Russ is still playing the same way.

You know, I don't think his plays suggest any level of humility.

He still holds the ball probably longer than he should, but he still also has that superpower, which is why I never really questioned why Mike Tomlin benched Justin Phillips for Russell Wilson.

It's very simple.

He throws the ball better.

He's the quarterback.

You throw the ball better, I'm going to put you in there.

And you see that every freaking Sunday when he throws a moon ball, and it's often the difference maker in the game somehow um so I am happy for him because I do think he was playing his way out of the Hall of Fame uh in his post-Seattle years uh very rapidly it felt like now I feel like this is a legacy saving season as long as he just didn't stink for the rest of his career I do think he can be known as one of the best uh in the history of football i.e being in the in the hall of fame uh i actually still like the ravens uh in this one largely because of what um i feel like it was very necessary for marlon humphrey to kind of go on that little spiel last week where he was like yeah we're winning but we kind of suck on my side of the ball.

Uh, and we've got to fix that.

And that's a level of self-awareness I feel like teams don't often express publicly, but it's necessary.

We can see when you stink, even when you win.

Like, it's very clear.

The Texans are a good example of that.

They got negative point differential.

So, I do think this is probably going to be a get-right

game for the Ravens defense, hopefully, as long as they just limit the number of moon balls they give up.

Because that really is how Russ is killing teams.

Ain't nothing new.

I mean, it needs to be.

It's like Kyle Hamilton is also, he had an ankle injury last week, and I think that is huge to see if he plays or not.

Mike Sando's ears are ringing because we've mentioned him multiple times, but he had an article this week on the athletic about, I like this, it was the QB Betrayal Index.

And it's like Lamar Jackson he had as his number one quarterback, but he had the Ravens defense and special teams as

his 32nd ranked.

you know, collective unit.

And so you're trying to win games if you're Lamar Jackson with a defense that's betrayed betrayed you.

And if this team ever fell in, you know, over the course of less than a month to the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers, I mean, it changes for me the way I think about the Ravens.

It's like it brings up old suspicions about no matter how well Lamar is playing, like as a team, are we to take you seriously in the AFC as like a top one or two operation?

I think it's so, yeah, that's the Ravens have allowed the third most passing EPA in the NFL so far this season.

They are concerning on that level, and I don't see them getting better.

You can see that they'll have some fixes down the stretch, but I haven't seen them getting better in that regard.

And Russell Wilson, I want to go back to one of Mike's points that he made.

Russell Wilson also is veteran enough and savvy to win in the margins in these close games, to

make the clutch throw like he did last week, but also to fool the rookie defensive lineman on the hard count to ice out the game.

Those little things are going to start to be really, really important as the Steelers continue down the stretch.

Even if Russell Wilson doesn't sustain the level of play and

play as well as he has been the last couple of weeks, understanding how to win in the margins like that with those little veteran tricks that quarterbacks do, I think is going to be really important.

And forgive me if this was already said, but when both the Ravens and Steelers have played each other and they've met with 500 records or better, the Steelers are 4-0 in those contests.

So, this is a big, big matchup and a big test for a Ravens team that needs to fix its defense, but also looks like an absolute juggernaut on offense.

And a Steelers team that's about as complete as any Steelers team we've seen of the last couple of years.

It's a great matchup.

And I'm not saying that Russell Wilson is the 2017 Russell Wilson at this point, but doesn't he kind of have the look again, or maybe just the way he's carrying himself, or maybe the way that ball is, you know, soaring those moon balls?

He is third in air yards per attempt, just about 10 yards since week seven.

And his 0.19 EPA per dropback, that is on pace to be his best since 2015, when he was regarded as one of the best young quarterbacks in football.

So everything is working.

It was a brilliant move by the Pittsburgh organization to bring him in and then play it the way they did.

Even early on,

when he's banged up,

they bided their time and then they got him in the place where he was ready to play, and he's become an impact player.

So big-time showdown.

Love it.

Where are we at on the power rankings on this one?

Because I love it.

The number three Ravens against the number seven Steelers.

Let's do it.

And big spot for Iran Eagle and Charles Davis.

Yummy.

All right.

Shall we take a break before we move on?

Yeah, it's a luxurious break.

We'll just hang out for 15 to 20.

Yeah, how are you feeling, Mark?

I have a devastating cold.

I will not remember any of this show, I'm sure.

I am noting it now, Jordan,

since you said that, always marks Wednesday off days.

You never know.

So far, what we have

on the docket, there was some Star Wars fan fiction that went up on social media.

There was whatever that was just now, the setup to this game, haircut and a airborne illness.

That's what we got so far.

Is it lost on what I was sort of calling the Steelers versus Ravens like just a bloody in-house battle where these two people know each other really well.

They've got issues and they just come and fight in a front yard in the middle of America.

Like, I think that's

tangible.

I track it.

I just, I got hung up on like two women savagely beating the shit out of each other.

It's like schoolboys cheered it on.

I guess

I couldn't track it at a certain point.

I was just, I mean, maybe that, as you're a great writer, Mark, maybe it was just so compelling

the words that it just took me away from the game entirely.

You know what I mean?

It was beautifully vivid, Mark.

That's what I feel.

It was grotesque, but also

I couldn't turn my ears away.

It's just like when you think about football, like in the middle of the night, just in your head, it was like, that's how I feel about these opponents.

And I've always felt that way.

That checks out.

Mark in the middle of the night is thinking about two large Midwestern women beating the shit out of each other.

Absolutely.

Mark Wednesday's.

Gotta love it.

Markula.

Listen, Mike, this time last week, you were laying on a beach, getting a a massage, and now this is where you are.

Yeah, how much better is this?

Hey,

I enjoyed that, Mark.

I enjoyed the family

analogy there with that matchup.

George Pickens does remind me of just that badass little cousin in the family.

So I do think that that fits.

Someone also tweeted that Lamar Jackson plays like everyone on the other team is his nephew.

I saw that.

That was great.

Yeah, that's a great description of how.

So there's some family elements, Mark.

I got you.

I'm with you.

The two aunties and the overalls with the fat arms, I'm not sure, but the family part.

I think the play that came to mind,

I saw that tweet too, the one where he was flushed out of the pocket and then he kind of threw a jump shot, touchdown pass, and then held his hands up and it was like a three-ball.

It's like,

yeah, that's what you do on Thanksgiving when you're just absolutely destroying your nephews.

Like that, that's the level he's playing at.

Can he keep it up against a great Pittsburgh defense on the road?

That's a game.

All right, let's take a break and then we'll continue to roll through week 11.

All right, so while we're wrapping up that Steelers Ravens preview, I gotta say, I'm really looking forward to this game and building a pick'em entry on Underdog.

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Simply choose higher or lower on player projections, and you can win up to 1,000 times your entry.

I don't want to spoil anything.

I'm not the spoiling kind.

But I'm looking at some of the lowers for this Ravens offense.

I just don't think Lamar is going higher than 234 and a half passing yards.

Don't see it.

So anyway, scan the QR code on your screen to download the Underdog app and sign up with the code HTC and receive up to $1,000 in bonus cash for our U.S.

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All right, we are back.

And by the way, Justin, if you want to jump back in.

I want to say earlier in the show,

it was mentioned that you had been taking a puff on your peace pipe.

And I think it would be fair to you to tell the audience that that's not, you're not taking drugs during the show.

And also,

correct me if I'm mistaken, but you're trying to kick a nicotine habit or a cigarette smoking habit.

Is that why you're mid-show doing that?

And if so,

I'll apologize on behalf of Mark, quite frankly.

Yes, that is mostly accurate.

Technically, nicotine is a drug.

So to say I'm not doing any drugs.

I'm not doing any illicit drugs.

And yeah, I'm trying to kick the habit.

And I'm aware of when I'm going to be on screen or off-screen because I control that in the edit.

So if I think I'm going to be off-screen while we're recording,

maybe I'll puff a little.

I don't need to be called out.

And I'll queue you up on this one, Mark.

So you're saying that was a little unfair by the sess dog

when you were off, Kim.

Okay, Mark.

Some things behind the curtain.

We know we like to open the kimono on this show, but some things don't have to be open.

Mark?

I mean,

this is a person with tremendous issues.

And so, you know, it's a long season and we're working through it.

I'll just leave it at that.

All right, we have another absolute banger to get to, and Jordan jumped into the docking.

Justin is on acid right now.

Go ahead, Jordan.

Okay, you guys, I'm trying something new this time, so stay with me, okay?

Number two, Kansas City at.

If this is two fat women beating the shit out of each other, I'm going to be very upset.

Yeah, Mark really stole my lead there.

So

that's exactly the direction I was also going to go.

This is a little bit of a

Cesslerian tribute, though.

Very nice.

Number two, Kansas City Chiefs at number four, Buffalo Bills.

This is the Nance Romo-Wolfson game, 4.25 p.m.

Eastern on CBS.

Guys,

we have arrived at the point of the NFL season where two types of actually relevant teams exist.

The teams that are like the pleasant, artful, and organized box seats at the Hollywood Bowl.

And the teams that are for the full MFL concert, dead stumbling in the wash pit with no regard for human life.

You throw yourself at the writhing throng of bodies that the sound screams through your veins.

You see God and the devil standing together, beckoning you onward as you're squeezed into near asphyxiation by the music and the sheer force of the crowd.

You feel no pain, no fear, only the roaring chorus, shredding guitars, and pounding drums.

The undefeated Kansas City Chiefs will play the ferocious Buffalo Bills on Sunday.

And two glorious mosh pit teams are en route to an exquisite, brutal collision.

Thank you.

Whoa.

I like that's a great rejoinder to the Money Mike Sting Penalty Drop.

I mean, these are the two sides of rock.

We have the extremes.

I love it, Jordan.

And yeah, so explain who is who in this setup.

They're both mosh pit teams.

Yeah, they're both mosh pit teams.

And this is going to be so much fun.

The Chiefs keep finding ways to win that are absolutely ridiculous.

The Bills, similar to what I said about the Charges earlier, they're starting to reach the apex of their powers.

Even when Josh Allen is throwing interceptions, this is a team that's also understanding how to win.

And Josh Allen is playing quietly some of the best football of his career.

And you just can't ever count out the Chiefs.

This Bills offense going against the Chiefs defense

and this Kansas City Chiefs offense really testing the limits of this Bills' defense, especially with the two new defensive tackles.

Kansas City might be without a stable left tackle.

Wanya Morris got hurt and Kingsley

Suamataya earlier this season was really struggling and will struggle against Greg Rousseau.

It's just there's these little matchups and these really cool head-on collisions in every single part of this game.

And this is going to be a big one, guys, determining, I think, the trajectory of a couple of these teams to collide again at the end of the season.

I'm glad you brought up Greg Rousseau because week after week after week, he is a star first-team all-pro level player.

And exactly, like when we talked about

if there are people, and I think Mark, you and I are two of those people that had doubts about the Bills entering this season, that maybe

the Bills of the last few years missed their window, and then this would be a team to take a step back and maybe somebody else would rise in the AFC East, which clearly has not happened.

What they did need was someone to internally to rise and what Rousseau has done to that defense and the havoc that he causes and the play.

He's like the Josh Allen of their defense and he lifts all boats.

It's been, I think, an underrated aspect of what's been a tremendous season so far.

It's, we are, you can tell the show is rounding into shape.

We're in a total mind meld.

I have in red lettering in my notes here, I have a prophecy, colon, Greg Rousseau ends this game.

He leads the NFL with 33 splash plays

and tackles for loss with eight.

He's been a total revelation for them.

And I do feel like there's something about the NFL regular season.

It's like some version of the Chiefs, Bills, and Bengals are playing each other every week, it feels like.

I feel like we've seen this matchup so many times.

And the Chiefs,

part of me is like, I'm leaning into the concept of the Chiefs just winning games they shouldn't for like 12 years in a row.

And I kind of like, all right, I give up.

Like, you're going to do it time after time.

But I think this is where it ends.

I think the Bills, now they've got issues at wide receiver.

I don't know if Amari Cooper will play.

You don't have Keon Coleman right now.

I think that's a problem.

Kincaid is not.

extremely healthy at the moment.

So you're a little shorthanded, but it comes down to Sean McDermott and the Buffalo Bills defense.

I really think Greg Rousseau ends this game.

That is my prediction.

Yeah, we still don't know if Dalton Kincaid is going to be able to play.

He hurt his knee in the game last week.

And it's interesting because, but you can see that Joe Brady and Josh Allen and this Bills offense, they can shape-shift in different ways because without Keon Coleman and Amari Cooper being limited with the wrist,

they shifted into more 12 personnel, so two tight ends.

But then Kincaid got hurt.

And so then they shifted back into 11 personnel with sort of the depleted receiving core that they had.

So this is a team that can find different ways to shape-shift on offense despite having limited personnel.

Against the Chiefs defense, that'll be extremely tough.

Chris Jones, this just sort of smells like a Chris Jones is going to do something unbelievable kind of game at some point.

But Mark, I agree with you.

You are so right that you might as well be an issue of I Dream and Red the newsletter.

And

I think that Greg Rousseau could potentially just absolutely destroy the issues that they're having, that the Chiefs are having at left tackle, because the guy who was starting for you, who replaced the initial starter, the rookie,

is dealing with a bone bruise.

And so he might play, but what version of him will you see?

And then Kingsley Sua Mataya was just not faring well at all.

And this is a game that's ripe for that type of pressure and those types of splash plays.

It's also in Buffalo, which makes a huge huge significant difference to me.

I'm fully convinced that at some point in

Patrick Levon Mahomes' life, like he made a deal with some higher power to just like, hey, man.

I don't care what happens to everyone else in my family.

Just make sure I'm successful.

I feel like he has sacrificed the people around him because how do they, they win in just the most like, it's not random because it's regular football stuff, but like, man, they are really winning by the skin of their teeth.

It feels like I do.

I am one of the the people, though.

It feels like I'm in a rare club every week when I listen to Chiefs analysis.

I do feel like how they're winning is sustainable because, like,

their line is generally okay when healthy.

Spags is just a madman.

I think I mentioned before, he's like the real version of what Brian Flores was looking like as like the coordinator boogeyman from hell.

I do think Andy Reid is just a psycho in a good way.

And then, yeah, Patrick's deal with the devil, I feel like is going to, like, it'll run out eventually.

But right now, man, those guys are just, those guys are killers.

I don't think it matters where they play.

They can shape-shift too.

I think Buffalo can as well, but like, so can, so can Andy.

I think the Chiefs, man, it's gonna another Arrowhead invitation that we're looking at in the postseason.

And it really feels like every team in the AFC had to just build their

offseason plan.

Like, all right, what happens if we go to Arrowhead in January?

Can we win?

You know, I don't really see anyone being able to do that.

Like, even if they drop this one, that doesn't change change my mind.

And yeah, Patrick Mahomes, man, absolute killer.

Like, just so I mentioned, I don't feel bad for him like I do when I watch Herbo because his pass catchers are better.

But like, it does feel like the degree of difficulty on this season because of the injuries has been a little higher.

And his numbers are down, the raw ones, at least, because of that.

But he's still balling.

He's still a game pass or NFL pro must-watch on Mondays.

Maybe not number one, but he's up there every Monday because he's making some throws and making some plays every week.

You're like, damn, this dude, he's still the king.

I'm glad that you said that

because it's always good to a reminder that Mahomes, what we're watching, is arguably the best player ever at the position or certainly on the short list in his prime.

And keep that in mind.

And I get it.

Listen, I'm a guy that was on the ground floor for every bit of misery of

the Patriots dynasty.

And it got to the point where you're just hitting out and you're like, how do they keep on catching all these breaks?

But the Chiefs are not lucky.

The Chiefs have one of the greatest quarterbacks ever, they have one of the best head coaches ever, they have arguably the best defensive coordinator, they have dogs on both sides of the ball.

And because they've been in so many close games, both in the regular season and in January, and in February, they almost always win the crucible moments in big spots, and other teams just can't close them out.

That is not luck, that's just what makes the Chiefs the Chiefs.

However, the Bills have to seize this moment.

Huge psychological impact, I think, this game.

Homefield advantage, you mentioned the Arrowhead Invitational.

If they can win this game, they're a game back of the Chiefs and they would hold the tiebreaker.

So you just need the Chiefs to stumble once, and it could go through Western New York.

And also, if you can win this game, I feel like the Bills will feel a lot different about when, to me, the inevitable happens when these teams meet again in January.

If you could beat them now, you could tell yourself we're going to beat them again.

So I can't wait to watch this game.

That's that could be the game of the year, and I think they're going to play once more, and that will be exciting too.

Justin.

Let's close this out with an amazing stat about Patrick Mahomes as the starter of the Chiefs.

The Chiefs under Mahomes have been underdogs 14 times.

They are underdogs to Buffalo on Sunday, two-point underdogs, 15th game of Mahomes' career as the starter of the Monday.

Before you give the data, I'm going to guess they have never lost in this scenario.

They have lost, but they have a a pretty dang good record the chiefs are 11 and three straight up as the underdog and 12 1 and 1 against the spread so i would not bet against patrick mahomes do not do not all right two mosh pit teams i love it can't wait getting after it getting after it big time oh that jordan's intro reminds me i need to i should tell a story when we're done recording of what i think about when i hear that music it goes back to my years when i was a janitor in pullman washington during college.

Oh my God.

That sounds like a Patreon special.

Yes, it does.

Money Mike, the janitor years.

All right, let's move.

Speaking of Money Mike Dugar, what is the game you cannot wait to watch?

The game I cannot wait to watch is one that I will be getting paid to watch.

Very nice.

I hate picking the Seahawks sometimes, but like

the slate wasn't that great, to be honest.

Seahawks at 49ers is my game I can't wait to watch.

The Seahawks are number 19 in the power rankings of record.

The Niners are number eight, maybe a little low.

Now I think about it.

Might have to be a bad one.

What about 19 for Seahawks?

What do you think?

You think that's fair where they are right now?

Yeah, Seahawks aren't very good.

I mean, me and Jordan just watched it.

Well, I guess Jordan has watched another game since, but we were just in Seattle watching them.

It was very clear which team was better.

The Seahawks are really good at just like finding ways to not be good enough.

They're like the opposite of the Chiefs.

The Chiefs kind of create their own luck.

I think that's kind of what you were getting at, Dan.

And the Seahawks kind of create their own bad luck.

They're just undisciplined.

They're third in the league in offensive penalties, I think, top five in total penalties.

They're like third in penalty EPA, which basically measures the impact of those penalties.

So it's not as just they're getting a lot of flags because some don't matter, like a delay a game before a punt, for instance.

But like a holding that negates a touchdown is way worse.

You know, the Seahawks are doing more of the latter, and it's just hard for me to believe in an undisciplined team in that regard, one that doesn't have an identity on either side of the ball.

But this is like a biv, the Seahawks are very much like the Bengals, I think.

Like you're a loss away from getting forked, I feel like.

I don't know if mathematically how you guys would go about the forking of the Seahawks if they lost, but they already have, according to our athletic projection model, only like a 6% chance of making the playoffs, 3% chance of winning the division, which is probably the path to making the playoffs because of how good the NFC North is.

how many wildcard teams they're projected to send.

So if they lose this game, the Seahawks would be 4-6.

They'd be 1-5 in the conference.

They'd be 0-3 in the division, having been swept by the 49ers.

So yeah,

this is it.

Just like the Bengals game is, this is it for the Seahawks.

You're kind of done if you lose this.

Now you got me thinking that we should have forked the Seahawks when we had the chance.

We had our final fork committee convening yesterday or on Wednesday.

Yeah, they have to win this game.

And I don't know if they do win this game because, Mark, I think, you know, I was trying to figure out my fearless predictions because I'm on a losing streak.

And one of the ones I had in mind that I shied away from because maybe it wasn't quite fearless enough is that CMC came back and played well in his first game back.

I think he goes nuts in this game against Seattle's defense and goes for a buck fifty and two scores.

And I think you're going to get one of the talking points coming out of week 11 is, uh-oh, here are the 49ers.

And the Seahawks are just catching them at the wrong time.

Well, I think the Seahawks Seahawks always seem to be, to me, catching the Niners at the wrong time.

It doesn't seem like they match up well with this particular team.

And, you know, Mike, you're the subject matter expert on the Seahawks, but I see a team that struggles to stop the run.

And so having CMC back in there right now, specifically against the Seattle linebacker group and George Kittle throw him into that mix too, you're right.

I think this is a time where it's like, Are we going to look at the Niners differently over the next couple of weeks where it's like they're getting healthier?

It's so, it's a huge development that Ricky Pirasol played the way he did last week.

Like, I just, I just kind of see more weapons coming into view.

It is important that DK Metcalf, it sounds like he'll play.

He was a full participant in Wednesday's practice.

Like, I like having him back, but

they're going to hang around in every game.

Like, Seattle feels like they just keep,

they make these games interesting, but I don't like the matchup against the Niners.

I can't get out of my mind.

I think it was a Thursday night game late in the year, in December, two years ago, when the Niners just hammered them physically.

And I

don't, I just think this is, this team's kind of half baked and half there.

And it's year one of a new coaching regime.

They seem like a new coaching regime.

They just seem new.

And you're going up against a very experienced team.

And so I'm all over the Niners in this one.

Dan, I had a question.

I've been meaning, actually, meaning to ask you this for a while.

Is there, like, what's the opposite of the kicker club?

Is there a a place that's the opposite?

Genuine question.

Is there a place that is the opposite of the kicker club?

Is it like a room and it just you open the door?

So like a skid row type vibe for kickers?

Is that what you mean?

Like or like you, it's just like an empty room with like white walls and you open the door and it's just Debo Samuel sitting there staring at you.

So like a like a saw scenario where saw meets a

an insane asylum or something?

Is that what

I haven't thought about it because I as I've remarked many times in the show, I have much empathy for kickers and how difficult their job is.

So I would never want to put them in that place.

And quite frankly, shame on you for making their lives even more dreadful,

Jordan.

So no, I don't have anything like that in my mind.

Jake Moody is knocking on the door over there, though, if such a place does exist.

I mean, that's tough.

I agree with you guys, though.

This is like one of those games where you just think, I mentioned last week the 49ers, you know, it's like walking into a cave in like some fantasy movie and you you suddenly an eye opens at the end of the cave and it's like this giant behemoth that's just been lurking under the surface ready to rear its head like that's what's happening i think you can always kind of count on the 49ers for that they did look disheveled sloppy um and and just like undisciplined in several factions last week but this is the 49ers and they're a wagon and they know how to be one when it counts

all right

Let's move on.

The game I can't wait to watch.

I was last in the dock.

So I can't say that.

Dan, can you actually, can you actually, because sometimes you just get kind of hosed if you pick fourth in this late in the year when the slate's a little shaky.

Like, can you actually not wait to watch?

Can you actually not wait to see this game?

Yeah, no, I can say that I can't wait to watch it.

I can wait.

So there is some built-in dishonesty, but like the mechanics of the show dictate I must have one.

And I did go with the Packers number 10 in the power rankings, traveling to Soldier Field to face the Bears, number 22 in our power rankings.

And, you know, I do think it's a compelling game.

I think there's a lot to keep an eye on here.

Shane Waldron, speaking of Money Mike and his Seahawks ties, the former OC of Seattle, now the former OC of Chicago.

And I saw you comment on this on Twitter, Mike.

You know, the Bears, usually...

Typically, when a man loses his job, you know, there's a level of,

speaking of empathy, empathy for that man, and

you say the right things, and you let the week play out, and the news cycle play out, and you transition, even if you didn't think very highly of him or what his potential was to lead the team in terms of structure of their attack.

However, you heard multiple players on the Bears speak into microphones about Shane Waldron's failings, veteran wide receiver Keenan Allen.

Here's what he said:

I would say, just probably he was too nice of a guy.

Oof, I've had girls say that to me before.

Not good.

Never good.

I think during OTA's training camp, he kind of fell into a trap of letting things go.

Oof, not holding people accountable.

Oof.

Obviously, those things lead to a slippery slope.

So, well,

Dan, I think the great thing that you did there, you sounded like Keenan Allen.

Like, you really

dove into your thespian angle there.

So, well done.

Is that true?

Okay.

I would, I would not think that that would be we would have a connection there, but that's cool.

Not my intention.

But anyway, so Waldron's out

and who is in?

They have Thomas Brown play calling out for Chicago.

And we see if it will make a difference.

And I think, obviously, the Packers are a favorite here, even though they're on the road.

But Mike, you have a Chicago team that I think it's more than the play caller.

I think the quarterback has to play better.

Obviously, there has to be

more ingenuity on the offensive side of things.

But I don't think it's going to be a magic potion here getting rid of Waldron.

But I guess you can't disagree with the move at this point either.

It's a bit of a Hail Mary for their season.

Yeah, I kind of felt bad for Shane.

He's just getting shit on all week.

DJ Moore shit on him as well.

I think Travis Homer, one of their running backs, is a former Seahawk player.

So he's been with Shane in both spots.

I think he was a little nicer, but also didn't refute any of the things that DJ and Keenan said.

Shane, I knew this when they hired him.

I went on like a couple Bears podcasts or something and kind of was like, yeah, guys, Shane's cool, but like, there's going to be some days where his family should not go to school and not listen to the radio because he's just that type of coordinator where some days are just going to be bad.

And it's going to be very clear that he was the problem.

And Bears fans found that out very fast, like before Halloween, fast.

So yeah, but I felt bad for him because I personally could not find anyone either on the record or off to say things as like damaging as Keenan.

And DJ just let fly this week.

Even off the record guys were saying some stuff that he wasn't that good, but it wasn't like that.

Like DJ Moore was basically like, yeah, he didn't even make adjustments until halftime.

It's like, whoa, damn, man, that's pretty cold.

But I'm, dad, I don't think this game is like NBA League pass

worthy.

I actually think it'll be kind of decent.

I don't think the Bears are a total dumpster fire.

I just do think they needed a different play caller.

I thought that in January.

I think that now.

So I actually think this should be a good game.

I like the Packers, but I feel like Caleb

and those weapons and being at home, I think they got a chance to make this competitive in a division that's just been really good this year.

Well, they have to try to, you know, hassle Jordan Love, who I just, I love watching Jordan Love play football.

He has some incredibly high-level play, but also this season, he's pretty affected by the Blitz.

He's last in EPA per drop back against the Blitz, according to True Media.

He's turned the ball over when pressured specifically with extra pass rushers.

So Matty Rufflus, you know, kind of quietly lost.

He's in ass saving mode right now.

And so, I think he will try to play a more, maybe more aggressive ball hawking defense like we saw at the beginning of the year.

Not having Jaquan Brisker really hurts them.

That's a scary situation.

He's still out.

He's missed the five games now, and he'll be out for a fifth straight game with the concussion and the concussion protocol.

That's scary, but this was a solid defense.

They just need some help as well from their offense.

Now, I covered Thomas Brown in Los Angeles, and you heard that

the players, even at the beginning of the year, were talking about how they wanted to be coached harder by Shane Waldron.

And clearly, that was not something that they received if their comments are like this.

You are not going to be able to

interrupt you, but like as someone who covers teams, what does that mean when coaches, when players say we want to be coached harder?

Well, to me, that means usually when I hear that, that means that they want somebody who is going to really push them, not necessarily to get in their faces and to be aggressive, but to really push them on the details, to point out mistakes and issue fixable corrections, but to talk through problems in a very high energy, fast-paced way that's assertive.

Someone who comes, walks into a room and knows their stuff and is going to tell you exactly what the plan is.

And you can talk about the plan, but they know that that plan will work and they are going to be adamant on sticking to the little details.

I will tell you, you're not going to have an issue about wanting to be be coached harder by Thomas Brown.

Like he is somebody who, in covering him, this is why Sean McVay loved having him in the building.

He is someone who is a stickler for those types of details.

He is very, very honest.

He's going to tell you exactly how he thinks you're playing and what you guys can do to fix it.

Now, he's got...

some problems in terms of the the issues that they're having right now.

The offensive line is an issue.

The receivers are actually, if you go and you watch some of the all 22, they're having some issues getting open.

That also, you know, layered route concepts was an issue.

It's like certain times receivers are running the exact same pattern, just like stacked over the top of each other.

That's not very helpful for the quarterback.

So that's going to be an issue.

What I think you're going to see from Thomas Brown in order to like assert and to really, you know, put some teeth back into this offense to help the quarterback, to protect the line, to protect and get the receivers resettled and like resituated and different concepts and a little bit more of the creative pre-snap and at snap stuff.

you're probably going to see him establish the run.

One thing with his background as a running backs coach that he is going to, I know he's a past game specialist there, but one thing as a running backs, former running backs coach that he is going to want to do is establish the run and get physical.

And I think if they can do that, this will be really, really good for that team and for that building dynamic.

I love that answer because it's like, I want to know what, you know, you go and change the coordinator.

and the play caller, like, well, what's actually changing about the offense?

Like, it's not a new playbook, so you've got to come at it from a different angle.

It could be somewhat of a new playbook, but you know, like if you're if you're Thomas Brown, you were in Carolina a year ago dealing with the meltdown of Bryce Young, and now you're here with Caleb Williams, who, outside of Deshaun Watson, statistically, analytically, has been the worst deep thrower in the league.

And we talked about Caleb Williams walking into the best situation of any of the rookie quarterbacks in terms of the pieces around.

And it's not translating.

And for me, part of it is like

from a more global angle, because Matt Eberflues could be fired in weeks.

We don't know.

Like, probably after the season.

It just seems like a stirring example of why you don't get a defensive.

It's tough for defensive coordinators to get head coaching jobs.

And I think this is an example of that because, like, who's in charge of this?

You're flipping through play callers.

Your rookie quarterback, which is essentially the beating heart of the future of this organization, is hearing whispers that the team wanted, players on the team wanted Tyson Bajant to start now, that they were ready to have Caleb Williams sit.

And so it is a very chaotic time.

And I don't think that Thomas Brown,

I love the personality note on him, and that does help, and that's what they want.

But you're going to ask someone to come in and change everything.

I think this game is a must-watch for how does it change in the next couple of weeks?

How does it change?

Because you've got the future of the organization sitting in the balance and your quarterback who is getting beat up week after week behind a terrible offensive line.

That's not just fixable with a play caller.

Caleb Williams, to that point, he has not thrown a touchdown pass since week six.

We're entering week 11.

He is 32nd in completion percentage, 33rd in sack percentage,

which is partially, obviously, on the line, but partially on the quarterback.

And his

last three games, negative EPA every game.

So he's been in the tank.

It's Bryce Young bad, you know, last year.

And it's,

we don't, we're not talking about that.

It's Waldron that takes the fall and Iberflu's taking the heat.

And now Caleb Williams, if he doesn't turn things around, it's going to be on him.

So big game for the number one overall pick, but comes with the territory.

You got the, you got the number one pick.

Now you got to step up.

All right, let's take a break and then we jump in the gravy boat.

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Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

See, Money Mike, it might have been cool being in Jamaica getting a couple's massage, but

probably pretty cool to hear that again.

Oh, no, I got a really bad back.

That's kind of how it sounded when she hit that part during the massage.

That was great.

And like I said, that was my first ever massage, man.

And I fly a lot.

So, yeah, that was

much needed.

Was it couples or did you have your own area?

No, it was couples.

I actually tried to, I really wanted to get them separate so I could actually not get a massage and go leave the resort and try to get her a birthday gift because by the time this drops, it'll be my wife's 30th birthday.

But they were couples massages.

So I was like, damn.

All right, we got to do it together.

It's too suspicious so yeah we did it uh right right next to each other and i found a birthday gift later but uh yeah great man or woman on the massage for you

uh was it i think yeah it was a woman it was a woman yeah i may have had my eyes closed chill you had to ask yourself

you weren't sure you weren't sure he knew well because they put you face down in the little towel thing and then i had i brought my bluetooth speaker in there because i listen to music with everything that i do and i just had that thing cranked to one of my playlists and i was just like totally zoned out uh you had like uh hairy Robin Williams knuckles dragging across your back.

No, thankfully Robin Williams getting killed.

Well, he's.

Did you also pick up Mark's shark tooth earring while you were out getting a gift for

that's why he couldn't.

He had to do the couples himself.

Even in the, I was in like the fancy designer stores and everything yesterday looking for my wife's gift and Mark nothing.

They had nothing for you.

I'm sorry.

I looked.

I spent like an hour and I was late picking up my daughter yesterday because I was looking for gifts for you and my wife yesterday.

I think your intentions

are pure.

Your intentions are pure, and I really respect it.

You know what I have my eye on for you, Mark, for Christmas?

I can only imagine.

I'm going to get you the Ferrari hat with the driving gloves.

Well, go do that.

All right, here we go.

Gravy boat.

Justin, go.

All right, first up in the gravy boat, Falcons at Broncos.

Two teams fighting for playoff positioning in separate conferences.

This is the last game we have to talk about today that doesn't feature at least one forked team, if not two forked teams.

Both of these teams are coming off of late-game, missed field goal-induced losses from a week ago.

Their season could very well depend on how they respond.

Yeah, I've been selling the Falcons short at times this season, and then they find a way.

This will be a tough challenge at Mile High against the Broncos team that I know they're coming off two losses in their gut check games, but obviously very nearly stole one from the Chiefs, or really the Chiefs stole it from them with the block field goal.

So, with Bo Nicks continuing to thrive, I like the Broncos in this game.

You know what else?

I like this sound from Raheem Morris.

Young Way Ku has had a tough season and is coming off a brutal game where he had three misses.

But

Mr.

Youngery himself, Raheem, said, I'm not thinking of moving away from this guy.

And football maybe isn't so different than basketball.

I got Steph Curry on my team, and he's having a slump right now or a slump in that day.

I'm not moving on from Steph because he missed some threes the same way they shouldn't have moved on from his other light-skinned buddy.

But

his other light-skinned buddy,

Clay Thompson ref in a big spot.

Oh, that was great sound.

Oh, that was great.

Nice little light-skinned reference.

Ring is awesome.

Yeah, I love that.

You know, you guys didn't talk about gambling last week.

It doesn't sound like very much.

But

gambling kind of...

Well, it's

the

gambling dehumanizes the players a little bit, and I feel like

there's nothing we can really do about that.

But last week was a really great example.

If you just Twitter searched or Google search, Young Wei Ku yesterday or last week, oh boy, it was bad.

It was bus Falcons fans too, but it was a lot of people who had bread on that young man's leg and he let them down.

I hope he bounced, I hope he took a mental health break last week and hits like three field goals this week in Denver.

Yeah, I do too.

He is a great kicker.

He's just going through it right now and I'm with

Morris on everything he said there, including Clay Thompson should have stayed with the Warriors.

All right, let's move on to Miami.

Next, Steph did beat Clay like 24 hours after Morris said that.

All right, next game, Raiders at Dolphins.

Yeah, but like they're at all time pairing.

They are.

And Clay, maybe he's a reduced player with all the injuries, but sometimes you just want to see guys play their whole career together.

And here, and here's Justin, the Mavericks fan.

He's, you know, doing this.

While we're on this topic, quietly, I wanted to shout out Mike Dugar here because

that was your Kawhi to Justin Herbert comp, just personality-wise, I think was quietly like one of the best comps I've ever heard in that regard.

So very nice.

Man, it's a big NBA episode.

Yeah.

All right, Justin, here we go.

Play NBA pick'em entries on Underdog.

Okay, Raiders at Dolphins.

Coming off a huge Monday night victory and now facing a winnable game at home.

Can the Dolphins take care of business, keep themselves in the hunt, and find success in November and December?

On the other side, Antonio Pierce has once again named Gardner Minshew his starting quarterback.

But I am wondering if this is just so that he gives himself another opportunity to bench him.

Yes, that's what I'm looking forward to now.

Antonio Pierce is a terrible head coach.

God bless him.

A great linebacker.

Going to be a good defensive coordinator for somebody next year.

Not a good head coach.

And I think he's going to bench Gardner Minshew a minimum.

I'm going to put the over-under two and a half more times.

Let's listen to Pierce naming Gardner the starter yet again.

Listen, when we brought in Gardner, we expected, obviously, the play that we had seen in the past.

And, you know, at some point, you got to give a guy confidence.

And

there's some turmoils and other things that have taken place where we made decisions to either put him on a bench or go with another quarterback.

But this week, I felt like Gardner gives us the best opportunity to move forward.

And he has every opportunity to go out there and help us get to a win.

All right.

Yeah, give the guy confidence by benching him over and over again.

That'll do.

No, he's like, at some point, you have to give him confidence.

I would try to do it before Thanksgiving, typically, when I'm the coach, but yeah, just my, that's just me.

Yeah, it's not a coincidence.

It's not a coincidence that Gardner's played like his worst ball of his life with the Raiders.

He was never this bad in Jacksonville.

He was never this bad in Philly, briefly.

And he was never this bad in Indianapolis.

He wasn't good necessarily in those stops, but he was never this.

And I don't think it's a coincidence that they're playing musical chairs over there with quarterback.

You know, Antonio Pierce might pick Justin to be quarterback in two weeks for all we know.

Man, he doesn't know what he's doing over there with the most important position on the damn team.

Justin would not pass the drug test, but let's start there.

Yeah, sometimes you have,

there are, you know, correlation between your life and an NFL player's life.

And it's like, yeah, when your boss, you could tell your boss doesn't believe in you or

he makes decisions that seem to undermine what you see as like your potential.

It makes your job harder.

Like, it can go one of two ways.

You could either stick it up the guy's ass, which I've done, or you can lose all confidence and then just be, you know, you essentially get run.

I knew that was happening.

But I think Gardner Minshew is a guy that probably could use that encouragement, and he has not gotten it in Vegas.

On the Dolphins side of things, Mark, I think you tried to fork the Dolphins on Wednesday, one of your unpopular picks.

If they don't beat the Raiders at home, I don't know what to say.

They're favored by seven here.

No, this has to happen for them.

I did try to fork them and the Bengals and was soundly rejected by the other individuals on the show.

Another Antonio Pierce note, and I get where he's coming from here.

It's not really a critique.

It's just interesting where we are.

He was the coach that came out and basically said on the Tua front that he said, I'll be honest, I'd tell him to retire after he was concussed.

was lobbying for Tua to be out of the league and gone.

And now,

he may be the reason that Antonio Pierce is soon out of the league in terms of his current position.

One thing about Gardner Minshew, it's like, to your point, Mike, about him playing better in other places, this is one of the worst rushing teams of all time in terms of EPA per rush.

Through 10 weeks of the season, in the past 25 seasons, they rank 798th out of 798 rushing teams.

And so when you've gone into the campaign with a shaky quarterback situation and you're playing musical chairs, like it's the environment.

And Antonio Pierce has done nothing and has no answers for what's happening around Gardner Minshew.

Yeah, Gardner Minshew could be a replacement level quarterback or even better,

but he needs to be surrounded with the right environment.

And this has just been a bad marriage.

Next.

Next, Vikings at Titans.

Sam Darnold is looking to bounce back after a terrible performance a week ago, but in one where his elite defense stepped up and had his back,

he will have a chance to bounce back here against a team than the Titans that is potentially going to be without their top three cornerbacks.

And the Vikings also get to take on a quarterback on the other side of the field who has struggled with turnovers as a Titans fan.

I'm very wary that this could be an absolute bloodbath.

It could go the other way too.

Now, I'm glad you pointed out that they're having injury issues, but Darnold has been very mistake prone in recent weeks, and especially in the worst place on the field, Jordan, he's been mistake-prone in the red zone.

Last week, it was kind of a...

apocalypse in terms of trying to force it to Justin Jefferson with disastrous results.

So I think this is a big game for Darnold.

I think it's a big game for the Vikings in terms of how we see them.

Do they get back, get healthy against a bad Titans team, or do they struggle on the road?

And then you really start to ask questions about what their ceiling actually is.

Yeah, we knew this was coming at some point.

There was going to be some struggles probably after the first eight games or so with Sam Darnold.

It's just a pattern he had shown in the past, even after...

positive starts.

What I think was really important about the way that they constructed not just this team, but sort of the scheme and the dynamics of the offense around him.

And then also the way that the defense, especially last week, stepped up and just basically won the game for them.

You know, I think that this is a floor-raising situation where you knew he was going to kind of flirt with the floor a little bit at a certain point through the season.

And how high can you actually raise that floor to make sure that it's not an absolute catastrophe when it happens?

The injuries are concerning, but you know, I just think that Minnesota just has felt like

a playoff-destined team, a team of, you know, just this,

you know, like unchecked optimism and belief in itself and each other.

And they sort of have struggled.

They've hit their adversity.

And I think that this is this Titans team is a team against whom, you know, they start to pick those little

shakiness up and start to roll again.

Will Levis played pretty well last week, but now he's got another big assignment here against Flores and the Vikings.

Let's see if he could stack something.

This is his really last audition for any chance at a future in Tennessee.

Next.

Next, Colts at Jets in one of the strangest sagas of the season.

Anthony Richardson is back as the starting quarterback for Indianapolis.

They need a win to stay in the playoff hunt after narrowly avoiding a forking on Wednesday, but the Jets are favored in this game as New York tries to find a way to salvage any type of meaning from this nightmare season.

See, again, this feeds into

my disconnect with the football cognacente.

Like, why is it weird?

What did you call it, a weird saga?

Strangest saga.

Just the fact that it's like, he's not ready to play, so we're going to let him sit.

Oh, but two weeks later, he's ready to play suddenly.

No, it's not necessarily even that.

It's like, okay, the young quarterback sucked.

So they went to the old quarterback who's had success in recent years.

Didn't quite work out.

So now they're turning back to the young quarterback.

I think it all checks out.

Am I crazy?

Like, doesn't that make sense?

I think it makes them like, and I have been as pro Shane Steichen as I am about almost any coach in that division or in the AFC.

And it's like, they suddenly look like they don't have a great plan.

Like, they just don't.

And it's like...

Why do you have to stay with Joe Flacco for the rest of the year?

Just because you turned to him.

You don't have to, but like, whatever your reasoning was, I think to Justin's point, whatever your reasoning was to sit this is like the eighth rookie quarterback there's like a whole list quarterbacks all around the league getting benched and then brought back in it's like it just seems unfocused and whatever your reasoning was to sit richardson well why now a fortnight later are we circling the wagons and saying all of that has been proven unnecessary And

I'm with, I'm sorry, guys.

I'm with Dan on this one.

I don't think this is weird.

I think the quarterback who you want to be the key to your franchise didn't get enough time to actually get developmental reps in the offseason because he was dealing with an injury.

And so he wasn't getting the training with the biomechanics specialist that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Josh Allen used as well to kind of get.

to playing to throwing the ball better and more efficiently, didn't get that time.

You don't have that time when you're in an NFL building because nobody in that building is actually keyed in on development.

It's all game planning and situational mastery and being a quarterback in the NFL instead of actually developing as a thrower.

That quarterback played awful.

He was benched.

The quarterback you brought in to try to play better was awful.

He effectively has now been benched.

You don't have anybody else.

It's just, it's like when we talked about Stefanski and the Browns, we're like, man, doesn't this guy know football at all?

Can't he see how terrible this product is?

Well, similar with Shane Steichen.

He knows what bad football looks like and what good football looks like.

I just don't think that you're in a position.

position to keep playing the guy who is also awful.

Like, it's just, to me, this actually makes sense

It's not weird.

It turns into like a mental health break in the biome,

what did you call it?

Biomechanics?

Is that what you said?

Yeah, biomechanics is a study of becoming a more efficient thrower.

Yeah, that's good too.

It gives them a blow.

Ideally, Flacco plays better.

They win the games.

And then you could decide whether you want that break to last longer.

I don't know.

Mike, where do you come down on it?

I do think there's value in, there's nothing wrong with adjusting in the face of new information, information, just generally as just a principle.

Now, with the quarterback,

the new information has to be like pretty solid for you to adjust because he's the most important player on the field.

I do think it was a little weird for, only thing weird about it for me was Steichen just saying, Joe's our guy for the rest of the season, no matter what, which I think you say like, that's what I was going to say.

Like,

not even a week and a half ago, four days ago, he said, until I say otherwise, Flacco is the starter, which I guess he's saying otherwise.

But why would you say that that on Sunday instead of just doing the coach, we'll evaluate.

We're going to evaluate.

And I'd add also that.

Like, what happened for me?

What happened biomechanically in the last like eight days?

Like, I understand the question.

No,

don't mistake me.

That's an off-season training program that he didn't get to have.

Like, don't mistake my point there.

This is like, again, I think it's what Mike said, adjusting in light of new information.

And I didn't take it as rest of the season when he said until I say otherwise.

It just meant until I say otherwise.

I mean, I just, I don't know.

Maybe I'm just like totally missing this because I just didn't think it was strange that he changed his mind again when the quarterback he sent in for the rookie was also playing atrociously.

All right.

We're all on the same page.

Well, we're all on different pages, but we all think we're right, and that's very important.

And the only thing we'll say about the Jets is that Aaron Rodgers, in one of his things, probably on McAfee, said that he's he wants he wants to play next year, and I just don't know where he fits in there.

Probably what would happen here is Rodgers will sign with, I don't know, the Colts, and then he'll be an MVP candidate next year.

Probably what will end up happening, but I don't think a path, there's a path forward with the Jets and Aaron Rodgers.

I think it's time for the Jets to say uncle on this failed experiment.

All right, next.

Aaron Rodgers also cited a fake made-up Twitter stat on McAfee, which was hilarious.

Okay, next: Jaguars at Lions.

Children, look away.

This could get ugly.

Yeah, Jordan,

in 30 seconds or less,

give us a preview of this game, Jordan.

Touchdowns, touchdowns, touchdowns.

Jared Goff rebounds from five rebounds from five interceptions last week.

Brian Branch is a badass.

The Darius Smith maybe plays this week.

He's always really strong in the backstretch of the season.

I'm assuming the Jaguars are forked.

I believe they've been forked a long time ago.

Detroit bounces back in a big way.

Jared Goff bounces back in a big way.

The Lions keep rolling.

And Mac Jones is not, is, I think, QBing again.

I think Trevor Lawrence are going to hold out for another week, which, yeah, the spread here is minus 14.

If that's not the highest of the season, Mike,

it's close.

And

yeah, this could be gnarly for Kevin Harlan.

Was I yelling earlier, guys?

I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to yell earlier if I was.

No, you yell whenever you want.

Yes, you can yell away.

Michael Irvin yelled.

He was saying we're losing recipes.

Yeah, right before you told me to get back in the kitchen, Dan.

Exactly.

Exactly.

All right, let's move next to,

yeah, let's swim in that gravy boat.

It's really lumpy down here.

All right, this one's for Jordan.

Rams at Patriots.

Feels like a bad matchup for Drake May, a defensive front that appears to be getting better every week against a struggling offensive line, rookie quarterback, looking to bounce back and potentially take out some of the frustrations of last week's loss on this poor Patriots team that is coming off of a stretch where they've won two of their last three games.

Yeah, I've loved watching this defense grow up on the ground floor.

The little details that they've put in, they've attacked the defense and just basically developmentally.

layer by layer.

They didn't do sweeping changes or adjustments.

They did, okay, in weeks two and three, let's and four, let's think about specifically the D line and how we can get those guys better.

Then they attacked the secondary.

How can we get those guys better?

And how can we structurally change what we're doing to maximize the personnel we do have?

And then the middle of the field has started to come along in the last couple of weeks, particularly Omar Spates emerging as a young blossoming playmaker for this team, Christian Roseboom, coming off the best game of his career.

The Rams offense,

I think, is reason for extreme concern.

They're not doing anything well.

They're not playing well up front at all.

They completely overthought their offensive line decision making when they did get guys back and healthy.

They took out the two guys on the interior that were playing well as replacements, and then they threw in the two guys who returned, who are great players, but perhaps the timing was really wrong to do that when you had such continuity for the first time all season.

Matthew Stafford did not play well last week.

You kind of can see when the defenses like Miami's take away the middle of the field, what the issues are here with this passing game.

They have not run the ball well.

They look

slow and tired.

And

the thing about New England's defense that could present to be like pretty problematic for the Rams this week is that they're fifth and limiting points allowed, 17.3 per game.

And they're getting the quarterback to the ground when they get pressure.

The Rams have struggled to score in the first halves of games all season.

They haven't scored a touchdown in the first quarter of eight, in eight of nine games, and they've been completely shut out in five of their first quarters this season.

This is a really struggling offense right now.

And, you know, this one has potential upset written on it for me.

You got the Rams favored by five.

Christian Gonzalez is, you know, a young star at cornerback, so you figure he's going to neutralize potentially

either Nakua or Cup.

And then, and then what did the Rams fall back on?

I guess I was really spooked, Jordan, by that Rams performance on offense.

I hated, I talked about it on the Monday night show.

I hated the way McVay played it strategically.

And then, yeah, they did just look a little slow and old and not good.

Not good.

It's crazy, too, because the defense is young and talented and they're playing their asses off.

And it's almost making the offense look older and worse because they're playing so well unexpectedly on defense and they have so much energy and so much cohesiveness.

And a lot of it is they were less injured than the offense was opening the year.

But it just this does not look like the Rams offense to me.

One last dip.

Even with everybody back, they don't look, they look like a shadow of their former self.

Rough.

One last dip.

One last dip in the gravy boat.

Browns at Saints.

Brown.

Somehow the Browns slipped through unnoticed during our latest convening of the fork committee.

But fear not, Browns fans, because this was merely an oversight.

Unless am I

stepping out of my I nominated the Browns two weeks ago, was shot down.

I got Sessler getting all over me because I thought the Cowboys could beat the Falcons in a game, and he vetoes his Browns and and then nominates the Bengals twice.

I mean, what a disgrace, Mark.

Answer for yourself.

Well, you are part of the disgrace.

Like, the Cowboys thing is

ridiculous.

No, no, no, no.

And you're trying to say,

I nominated the Browns.

Your favorite little team, you said, no, they're going to be great with Jameis Winston.

And then you have the gall to get on me about the Cowboys and then not take your medicine about your beloved Brownies.

No, my gall.

No doubt.

No doubt about it.

No doubt about it.

My gall was well placed on the Cowboys front.

I will say that when I refused to fork the Browns, it was after they beat the Ravens and with competent quarterback play outside of like, you know, 18 potential interceptions that were dropped, I get that.

But like, I, had we, it was an oversight.

It was a governmental oversight.

Justin's right.

Had we brought them up this week on the show, there's no way I would have argued for the Browns not to be forked.

They are cooked.

And to add insult to injury, this is what really annoys me spiritually about the Browns right now: is that Nick Chubb, the beating heart of the team, since he's returned, ranks last in the NFL in EPA per rush.

Now, this is someone that I thought had the spirit of Jim Brown in him.

And, like, I want to see, I think for me, it's like, if you're a Browns fan, it's like, what's up with this specific player?

I don't care about wins or losses at this point.

I'd rather they get a high draft pick and take a quarterback than try to squeak out meaningless victories in November and December.

Go find out what's up with Nick Chubb, get your draft pick.

And then the problem is you're playing Sky Rizzy and the Saints.

And so who knows what's happened?

They probably will win.

That's what's the most annoying thing.

I'm looking forward to more Rizzi.

And I think here's

the best thing.

That's my nickname for him.

Sky Rizzi, baby.

This will make you feel better, perhaps, Mark, that it is already

staring us right in the face

that next July, there will be glowing write-ups in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Athletic and

NFL.com about Nick Chubb saying, I finally feel like I'm back to myself and a lot of flowery pros about him having a huge season in 2025.

Just this year is we're going to be, he'll view this as, you know, it was tough this year.

It was coming back from the injury.

I couldn't trust my knee yet.

That's all coming.

We've been down this road.

You're right.

Correct.

Maybe it's true, though hopefully it's a trope that turns out to be great because nick chubb is a lot of fun to watch all right uh let's roll right into it uh

hit the money mic drop

all right how many how many am i giving today

well we like we like either the um the Greg Olson three-legged parlay or the modified Olson, which is five legs, which is more like

yeah, the modified Olson is more like the total recall woman at the bar scenario.

Or it's a bit of a mutant, but a hot one.

All right, I'm going to go with the

modified, Greg, which I love.

Let's do all game spreads.

No player props.

Let's go Packers Money Line, Rams Money Line,

Texan Spread,

Charger Spread,

and Chiefs Money Line.

Is that five?

Yeah, I think that's five.

Yep, let's go with that.

My favorite of all those is a Charger spread.

Actually, Chiefs Money Line, too.

I think both of those teams are legit and are going to get big wins this week.

And for people that are not experts in this field like yourself, Mike, what does money line mean exactly?

Oh, sorry, yes.

I will gladly explain for everyone, including Jordan.

I know you.

Yes.

The money line just means I'm taking that team to win the game outright.

Doesn't matter about the point.

Why don't they just say that?

That's cool.

This doesn't sound as cool, Jordan.

Why not call it?

The degenerates like it to be a little like Mr.

Smith.

The weird thing about betting is that the money line has nothing to do with the point line.

If you pick a team straight, that means you are taking the points.

But if you take a team straight up, that means you're taking the money line again.

The lingo is, I think, intentionally.

So Justin has a gambling issue as well, along with the other stuff we've discussed today.

Nicotine, gambling, winning.

Also, you have to just put money in there somewhere.

You're dealing with addicts.

You have to.

I heard this one specific drop in my head as Mark was talking.

I don't know if Justin's going to play it.

Well, stay tuned.

You'll have to find out.

All right.

There you go.

Let's go into our fearless predictions.

Let's see how we did last week.

All right.

Money Mike, who did it in absentia.

This week will feature at least three two-point conversion tries.

Is that fearless?

Listen, you were on your honeymoon.

We're not going to get after you, but you got it.

How many were there?

In the first game of the week, there were two.

Baltimore and Cincinnati each tried one.

Then we went the entire Sunday without another one until Detroit on Sunday night football.

Very good.

And so we finished with three?

We finished with three, exactly.

We finished exactly three.

So it was, yeah, man, you had to go out of limb a little bit, you know.

And I don't know if Justin read the whole thing.

It was in the spirit of those teams that there were three games last, the week before that every team had a chance to go for two at the end of the game.

I think Justin's Titans were one of them,

or they were in one of those games.

Rams were one of those teams as well.

They all had a chance to go for two.

Instead, kick the PAT to go into overtime.

So, in the spirit of those three games, that's how I came with the number three on two points.

Gotcha.

That was what that wasn't just an arbitrary selection of a number.

Very nice.

And you're four and six now, which leads everyone.

Gravedigger.

Christian McCaffrey goes for a hat-trick in his return, three total touchdowns.

He did go over 100 yards and played well for the Niners, but did not find the end zone.

The Zuzzer.

Now, I actually,

I actually,

to punish myself, once again, as Mark hides from his Browns failure, I embraced it.

I said, I'm actually going to punish myself for keeping the Cowboys alive with an impossible Fearless prediction.

Cooper Rush, two touchdowns.

Jonathan Mingo makes a bingo.

Nope.

And Dallas wins.

None of those happened.

In fact, Jonathan Mingo wasn't even active.

So I don't know.

I don't know.

I need to get a...

I think I'm on a

six-game losing streak in this.

I'm going to get serious this week.

Jordan Rodrigue, commanders get three takeaways versus the Steelers.

The Commanders got how many?

Two.

Well, there were two turnovers,

but there were three combined turnovers between the two teams, so I didn't quite get there.

Sorry about that.

And the Cess Dog, this one was great.

We get a 400-yard passer and a 200-yard receiver.

You got that on Thursday night football from Burrow and Chase.

Yeah, I just like walked around my house naked for like two hours after that.

Like it was like, I'm on fire.

And it wasn't even Wednesday.

It's beautiful.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

All right.

Our fearless predictions this week.

Mark, since you have the hot hand, what's yours?

Well, okay, so I know this is going to get

critiqued and it's like, oh, you know, you don't, it's not in the spirit of the sport, like blah, blah, blah.

Good sign.

No, but when Nostradamus, and if you go back and read like what Nostradamus predicted, like, it wasn't like, hey, a bunch of people are going to smile.

It's like a lot of good stuff's going to happen and a lot of bad stuff, too.

And so this is negative based.

I don't wish this on anyone, but I am predicting that we lose a starting quarterback for the rest of the season this week.

Oh, gross.

I know you wouldn't like it, but

I'm not rooting for it.

In fact, I am.

I don't get that.

I hope I don't get it correct.

You're rooting to win your fearless predictions, though.

Aren't you?

Or do you not care about the trophy?

I mean, some integrity.

One way or the other.

You're kind of

Justin.

How about you?

This is

to make it clear.

So your prediction of something that you want to have happen this week is there's a quarterback that suffers a season-ending injury?

It's not that I want it to happen.

The prediction is simply that I think I'll get it correct.

What if it's like a Dak Prescott situation where he tears his hamstring off the bone, but they don't announce that he's out for the year?

It's just that this guy's status is unclear.

Just to make that clear, I don't think that counts.

No,

I think to make it more fearless

is that we know.

We know.

But how about we know by the time

we have the, we know by the time we have the show this next week.

Like that's fair, right?

But also if a team just misplaces their quarterback, like, oh, we don't know where he is.

We lost him.

Like, because the wording is we lose the quarterback.

I don't know where he just wanders.

Unsupervised.

All right.

How about you, Jordan?

He needs to keep weighing in on this subject matter.

He kind of owed you one there, Mark.

Mine is four quarterbacks will throw three or more interceptions in a game this week.

So still quarterback struggles, but I'm certainly not wishing anyone personal harm or injury.

Okay, good.

Yeah,

that's just play on the field.

And they could bounce back from that.

They're not in traction or otherwise seeing their career and livelihood flash before their eyes.

You know, yeah, wives, girlfriends not watching in tears from the stands,

rushing down to the locker room to check

outside of the x-ray room.

Because it's not just sinking down the wall in a state of despondence in tears, waiting for their personality.

Not everything that happens on our planet is, you know,

flowers and green grass.

Mike, how about you?

To Justin's point, I do think that if there was a quarterback to just get misplaced, it probably would be Aaron Rodgers.

I don't think that's completely out of the question.

If he just disappeared and popped up on the Trump administration as like the director of some made-up government agency, that would not surprise me at this point.

My week 11 fearless prediction.

You could kind of tell by the games that we went through and the gravy boat, we got a lot of blowout potential this week.

So I'm leaning in to that.

I think there will be at least three games in which a team wins by at least 20 points in week 11.

So at least three real old-fashioned beat-em-down this week.

All right.

I like that.

And I keep on meaning to do the money, Mike thing where you leave yourself a little bit of grace.

You know, you say three things will happen and then you have the whole league, but I keep on locking in on one thing

and it's hurting me.

And maybe next week I'll get smart about it.

But this week, I will say as a Mike Tomlin is on a heater.

And I think he's going to continue his mastery.

of the head coaching profession and Lamar Jackson, who will be held under 200 yards passing and 50 yards on the ground.

So very quiet Lamar game.

Hope not.

Shout out to Jaden Daniels.

And hopefully he stays healthy and everybody is safe and has a really

joyful day.

Not for Mark.

That would be a disappointment because that would be one less quarterback who could be hideously injured.

Well, look, I'm trying to get out of here.

I'm getting out of the pursuit of a trophy.

I'm trying to get out of the basement here.

And so you have to be, you know, you have to be authentic and honest in your predictions.

And that's what came to me.

That's what came to my mind.

Jordan, thank you very much.

Mike, thank you very much.

That's fine.

Oh, shit.

I did it again.

Oh, man.

It's the worst.

It's real.

I hope you don't see this as a sign of disrespect, Justin.

It's just the mechanics of the show.

And

sometimes I forget.

Watching the clock and everything else.

Yeah.

Gravedigger.

At least one game in week 11 will finish with zero touchdowns.

No scoring.

Nobody gets into the end zone.

Right.

There were a handful of games last week that only had one touchdown.

Let's take it up a notch this week.

No touchdowns in a game.

Sounds like Rams Patriots to me.

We got any weather games?

You know, that helps a lot when that happens.

You know, maybe a little too early for some weather havoc, but

maybe not.

Maybe, Mark, maybe it'll be a violent storm somewhere, and that will really help Justin.

I would love to see that.

We need that.

It's that time of year.

Something weather-wise weather-wise that's very chaotic.

All right, everybody, thank you so much for checking out the week 11 preview.

We will be back with two episodes

this day.

You're listening to the preview.

Thursday night, we have the recap of Eagles Commanders.

Friday morning, if you're on the Patreon, get on the Patreon.

It's fun.

Patreon.com slash heed the call.

We'll do our draft for Sunday.

And then, of course, the flagship program where we recap every game we just previewed closes things things out.

Until next time, heed the call.

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