NFL Week 9 Recap!!

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The Heat the Call podcast

can also reverse leapfrog over you.

We just don't wanna!

Exactly.

We holster our athleticism

because otherwise you would feel terrible because we do everything else so well.

Sure, that makes sense.

Dan Hans is here with Mark Sessler, Connor Orr, the gravedigger, Justin Graver.

Heat in that call Sunday, the flagship program, week nine.

Sus Dog,

this is like the midway point of the season now.

This is the week nine flagship show.

Let's go, baby.

Yeah, this is a, you know, it's the perfect midway point on a couple of levels.

We just forked a bunch of teams during the week, the four of us, and I think that we were proven very correct in some cases and incorrect in others.

There are right now 12 teams with two or three wins.

It's a weird year.

I don't feel like that's how it normally is at this point.

There could be more in the middle of the pack, but there's a bunch of junk, and some of the junk got whacked today.

With authority.

With authority.

With authority.

But even though, even then, Mark,

there's some team that you're certain about, one of the teams you're alluding to, that's going to stick it right up your old keester down the line.

Well, my predictions are landing at about a 12% success rate, so certainly I'm incorrect about something.

And Connor Orr, he could have flown across the country without a plane after nailing his Thursday night prediction.

So I know he has no concerns about anything being wrong on Sunday in terms of his prognostications.

Hell no.

I was right about the goddamn Cowboys, too.

But let's, you know, we'll save that for later.

All right.

Yes, that will come later.

But first, we start where we must: a showdown in the NFC North between two Titans and perhaps a preview of the NFC title game, Talambo.

We live in a world where the Detroit Lions just might be the best team in professional football.

Think about that for a moment.

In these times of uncertainty, when you're being bombarded every moment by campaign invective and the factory is shutting down and your wife left you and took the dog with her for good measure, the Detroit Lions stand proud as a reminder of what can be good and true in this cruel world.

The Lions finally played their first outdoor game on Sunday, and the football gods cranked up the difficulty level to legend level with rain and swirling winds at Lambeau.

So consider it that much more impressive that the Lions made the host Packers look like the team that wanted nothing to do with the elements in a 24-14 win for the Road Warriors that further cements Detroit's place atop the NFC hierarchy.

Boys, I love watching this team.

They are just always ready to play, and they do what the best teams do.

They raise their game in crucible moments.

On Sunday, there were two fourth-down conversions that turned into touchdowns, and the play of the game came from Kirby Joseph, who's picked six of Jordan Love in the final minute of the first half, turned Lambeau into a funeral home, and set Detroit

on course for its seventh win in eight tries.

Just a lot of fun to watch in a team, Mark, that just plays with so much confidence and belief that they're going to win in almost every week this season.

That's exactly what they've done.

There's just so many

team-building experiments happening all around the league, and we get it, that most of them fail.

Or at best, they succeed briefly and then fail.

And you've got to start over.

And the Lions are just the polar opposite.

And I'd start with the fact that the Goff thing works, that he's out there with two gloves on in a a game that you're thinking, this is when Jared Goff's going to crumble in this kind of weather.

We don't maybe trust old versions of golf in this weather, and the opposite happens.

Your backfield with Jameer Gibbs and David Montgomery is so versatile.

It can destroy you with flashes of quickness and electricity or pound you down the stretch.

And I thought if you had to pick one team, if it was going to be bad news for the Lions, that in the first half, one team has eight penalties, four drops, you've missed a field goal and thrown a really weird pick six.

That's the team that goes in and loses in Green Bay.

Instead, it's the Packers.

And so Detroit finds a way to control these games, and they're very consistent that way.

And there aren't that many teams that don't have a couple real stinkers, even by now in the season.

And the Lions seem a little

averse to that happening.

They just seem very solid.

And I couldn't be more impressed with how they handled their business today.

I was blown away, too, Mark, on that line where if you're the Lions, you lose your defensive play caller on field defensive play caller with like seven minutes to go in the second quarter on a hit, which, by the way, so I was kind of cataloging those because we've seen a little bit of an uptick on unnecessary roughness calls.

I saw basically the exact same hit happen in the Dolphins-Bills game, and that player was not ejected.

I saw it in the Eagles-Jaguars game, and it wasn't even called.

And so, you have that in a divisional game in a rainstorm where you lose your defensive play caller, and you know, this is just another category of major issue that they've overcome.

Massive injury,

unrelenting hype.

And now this other thing that just happens where it's like, surprise, this is another way that you're hosed in the middle of a game.

And they just get better after that.

And it's super unbelievable to me.

Yeah, Tom Brady said similar, and I, you know, on the telecast, that that did not rise,

in his opinion, and I felt the same way, to an ejectable offense.

And

to do that and to take out one of the pivotal players, most important players for that defense.

Yeah, that felt very, very ticky tack, but it came from New York, so they felt strongly about it.

But the defense allowed just one quarter, one touchdown in this game late in the fourth quarter.

And yeah,

the pick six by Kirby Joseph,

unbelievable.

That's a time of the game.

I think there was about 32 seconds to go in the second quarter where, you know, at 10-3, the line's ahead.

It's anybody's game at that point.

But once that happens and the weather conditions are bad and Jordan Love clearly is not healthy and moving very well, that's when you knew, okay, it's going to be very hard to imagine Green Bay finding a way in this game, and they didn't.

So, you know, you got to credit the Lions, and we're going to get to the Packers in a second because there's some stuff to talk about there.

But you got to really have a lot of respect for the Lions because they're showing they can do literally anything and they could beat anyone anywhere.

Here's Dan Campbell.

Because whenever the Lions play, win or lose, I love to hear from Dan Campbell.

So here's Campbell on their ability to leave the confines of a dome and still kick ass.

But I know this.

I'm not shocked one bit that we came out here and played pretty good football out in the elements.

I just, that we're built for this, man.

And it doesn't matter.

And just because we play indoors, it doesn't matter.

I mean,

we can play anywhere.

We can play in the snow, we can play in the rain, play in the mud.

That's just us, and we're built to win.

Yeah, they're built to win.

And Connor, that's

Jordan Love's not supposed to be built to be an interception turnover machine, but that's what he is.

He's got 10 of them on the season, and that's a lot for Matt LaFleur to go into the bye week thinking about how does he get his quarterback back to playing clean football.

Yeah, you go from first wondering if he should have been on the field at all, and there were some times where he looked clearly uncomfortable in this game still after the groin injury the week prior, but this is the same sort of vacillations that we've seen from Love.

And again, I mean, this is part and parcel for the kind of quarterback that he wants to become, right?

It's this sort of modern Farvian thing where he's constantly, you know, in control of the game.

He's throwing the ball.

He's aggressive.

But you get these bad games, these dips, and you can't do it against Detroit because you're not a good enough running team as the Packers to climb back into this and to maintain possession if Love is not having his best game and this certainly wasn't one of his best games.

Like, how do you handle it, though?

Because it's not he's a completely different player than like a Josh Allen, but Josh Allen's gone through these streaks where he turned the ball over, not at an alarming rate, but way more than you'd want.

But you kind of want to let him just be Josh Allen.

And like, I kind of feel that way with Love, too, because when he's good, like, he's spectacular.

It's just that he is, you're right, he's a bit of a, I hate the gunslinger term, but he takes risks and he seems to believe in himself.

And it's cost him more than it should this season and today.

And it actually,

well, hopefully the Packers hope that it mirrors because last season Love threw 11 interceptions, but he only had one in the final eight games.

So they got it cleaned up, and they figured that out last year.

Now they have to do it again.

And yes, it's perfectly time by for Green Bay to get the quarterback, hopefully, in a healthier place, because you could see without him at 100%,

that team really

was in a lot of trouble.

All right.

By the way,

one quick thing.

Amon Ross St.

Brown.

This is a team, the Lions that are playing with a lot of confidence, guys, and they believe in themselves.

They're showing up to the stadium wearing this.

Check it out on YouTube.

We hope you're subscribed to youtube.com/slash heed the call pod.

He's wearing a hoodie that says green bay sucks.

And Mark, you and I almost simultaneously expressed the exact same sentiment on

text.

What was it about it that really stood out for us?

Well, so

if you look at the font on the sweatshirt, not the font, the spelling, it's green bay with no space between green and bay.

And I mean,

I don't know.

Come on, but you're going going to put it on a shirt.

So, my second question was: Is that even, is he somehow creating a second type of dig by not spelling the name correctly?

But then I'm just like, no, no, no, he's just, they've mistaken that.

That would be a classic, like, cover-up move.

Like, oh, yeah, I know it's two words, but this is me disrespecting the entire city of Green Bay.

That feels like a stream.

Too niche.

All right, let's move on.

Let's head.

Okay, from one division battle to another.

Connor Orr, tell us what went down today in Orchard Park.

Siri, look up the leading causes of death among dolphins.

Maritime traffic and tourism?

Nope, that's not it.

Stomach ulcers and urogenital disorders.

Not it either.

Killer whales?

We're getting closer.

I think it was some kind of fish.

Tyler Bass?

Yes, that's it.

From 61 yards out, the bass Tyler Bass, kicked a game-winning field goal into almost 10 mile-an-hour wins, ending a last team with the ball wins at Thriller in Buffalo 30-27.

Miami sinks to 2-6.

Buffalo continues to fortify its insurmountable AFC East lead, and Mike McDaniel yet again fails to best Sean McDermott, though it was one of his better efforts to date.

All but one drive in the second half resulted in a touchdown.

This one, boys, was electric.

Great ending.

Had a lot of fun watching.

You know, it's gotten to the point, actually, you know, let's go to the kicker club, Justin, because Christ.

I mean, five years ago, the thought of someone winning a 61, winning a game with a 61-yarder would be cause for lead story status, but it just happens all the time now.

But at the same, you know, at the same right, in the same right, it's you could tell both by Josh Allen's comments after the game when he was on the field with CBS, and then in the locker room, after how much uh, the moment meant to um the Bills and their kicker, who has you know, obviously been going through it this year.

Let's actually check out that locker room after the game.

Unbelievable journey this guy's been on, man.

Unbelievable, right?

Mentally tough,

so proud of you, man.

So proud of you.

Aren't you guys proud of him?

That's sweet.

What if he was like, aren't you guys so proud of him?

And it was just like crickets.

And can I just ask a question?

Like, I'm not, I feel like I'm missing something unless I'm alone.

Like, what is Josh Allen nearly getting emotional on the field after the game, the way that

McDermott put that in the locker room?

Like, what...

Why is Bass such a figure of,

I don't know, intestinal fortitude?

I feel like I'm missing something.

And I'm not trying to be a dick by saying that.

I'm just legitimately curious.

All I know is that I feel like the kick is just shrouded under a little cloud of protest.

That's all.

What's that?

What do you mean, protest?

Spicy little subplot to this game that was brought to my attention at the end by my Dolphins fan friend, Rohan Ned Carney, who works for NBC.

He's awesome.

And it was actually said on the broadcast.

I missed it.

And I went back to look.

At the end of this game, on the final drive, as they're setting up the field goal, Josh Allen throws a quick pass to Mac Collins.

And Mac Collins just picks the ball up and runs forward and then just hands the ball to the official.

And he's like, right here, right here, just put the ball down.

And Trent Green is like.

You can't just do that.

Like the officials have to decide where the ball is spotted.

So he scooted it up.

And in like the fray and in the chaos, the officials never actually looked at where the ball was spotted.

So I think they actually scooted it up like a yard or two, which is, you know, I'm just in the kick probably would have been good from there.

But, you know, I don't know.

I'm just, you know, something we got to talk about.

Well, it's, but that's not against Bass.

And that's not going to take him out of the kicker club, but maybe the officiating could use a little

sprucing up.

I'm looking this up.

Our old buddy

Eric Edholme of NFL Media.

Bass also missed a field goal and an extra point and narrow win over the Jets in week seven.

He's missed three field goal tries and three extra point attempts in nine games.

So, yeah, he's feeling the pressure.

When you're a- I mean, there are other kicker stories in a darker place right now than that, though.

The Bills had kicker tryouts a few weeks ago and signed Lucas Haverisk.

Oh, that's the linebacker number, former Packers kicker, right?

To the practice squad as a measure of insurance.

Oh, it's not.

Okay.

As a measure of insurance and also as a source of competition in practice.

So basically,

even though they cut Haverisk last week,

Bass is a guy that they, you know, there was some pressure on him.

So making that kick is a big deal.

And the crazy thing, Mark, with the kickers now and their ability to hit from this distance routinely is that you don't even know, like in these close end of game situations, you don't even really need like an impressive drive anymore.

You only need like a couple first downs, and these guys are just piping it.

That thing was dead on for the time it left his foot.

Yeah, well, like nothing seems remarkable from the kicking angle at this point.

So, you know, that's their own fault because,

I mean, you know, things happen that

raise our interest, but like a 61-yard field goal when we were youths would have been like, you know, cars would crash like listening to the radio game on the radio and on the on the highway that you'd make that kick.

So now it's just like, well, if he didn't make it, like, you know, he's a bum.

He doesn't get let into the, you know, the club, the so-called club, the nightclub, the kickers.

Okay, you nailed it.

And on the Dolphins side of things, just a stomach punch loss that this is a team that obviously got picked off by a field goal last week at home against the Cardinals.

And this kind of was a had-to-have it game for the Dolphins.

And,

you know, they didn't have it.

And so you don't get any points for being close in this game.

And I guess

Connor, my curiosity is, you know, I know Jalen Waddell had that late touchdown, but he was barely targeted in this game.

Tyreek Hill, both these guys are on pace to finish with less than 1,000 yards.

How come, I know Tevon Achen has really gotten his game in gear with Tua's return, but why aren't the Dolphins like shredding teams with their wide receivers like they've done the last couple of years?

It's a good question.

So Sean McDermott was one of the first coaches, him and Bill Belichick, to really kind of pick up on this, but they took it to a different level today where they were just very super physical with Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddell at the line of scrimmage and really threw them off their mark.

And throughout the game, Tuatonga Vailoa was very, very conservative.

A lot of check downs, a lot of mid-range passes.

I think he had one pass of more than 20 yards in this game, and it was Tyreek Hill at the end, but they really had to shift the way that they were doing things and sort of scheme guys open in the intermediate because everything, all the timing got thrown off by the physicality there.

There's one other thing happening with Miami because I kind of wish I had mentioned this more when I covered them a week ago.

It's part of a Tua thing, but it's happening all over.

I think at halftime of this game, they remarked that they'd had seven fumbles in the last two and a half games.

Now, they haven't lost all of them, but there's been quarterback, center exchange issues.

So, as well as it looked, they look like the old Dolphins in many ways, I think, since Tua's returned.

But then they just don't also.

And it's like, this is another opponent where

you can't be the one causing the mistakes or having the mistakes happen to you.

And

the division's cooked, but the Bills just won the division.

The biggest mistake of all, too, was committed by a former Bill, Jordan Poyer, which added kind of like a spicy little thing there where he had a head-to-head collision with Keon Coleman on the final drive.

So, Dan, you talk about unremarkable final drives that had the controversial Mac Collins miss spot and then Jordan Poyer just like spearing Keon Coleman in the helmet.

That was like 90% of the game yardage that they needed to set themselves up for the game-winning kick.

Crazy.

So, the Bills get it done.

The Bills are rolling.

Yes, the AFC East is over.

Now it's just about can there be a wild card team that comes out of that division?

And man, the Dolphins, I know the Jets finally won on Thursday, but they're in a lot of trouble.

And the Dolphins, that's it.

I mean,

you had to have one of these two games, the two back in line if you lost them both.

So you wonder what the trade deadline is coming up.

Reminder, the trade deadline live stream spectacular on Patreon coming up on Tuesday.

So check that out.

You wonder if the Dolphins might be looking to make a move and trade some assets punting on the season.

All right, let's move on.

Another game that went right down to the last play to Seattle.

Matthew Stafford is shaping up as one of the more fascinating Hall of Fame cases in recent memory, isn't he?

I'm of the opinion that Stafford has quietly been one of the defining players at his position during his career, and his heroics on Sunday night in Seattle, heroics delivered in in his 16th season in the league, will stand as a worthy addition to his Canton CV when it's all through.

Stafford threw for 298 yards and two scores against the Seahawks.

His final strike, a glorious, gorgeous 39-yard rainbow to Demarcus Robinson that allowed the Rams to walk off with a 26-20 win in overtime.

That's three straight wins for the Rams, who pull back to 500, and

it further sends the NFC West into chaos.

One game separates the first and last place team in this division.

Stafford, man, what a player.

The final overtime scoring drive came without a target to Cooper Cutt and with Puka Nakua in the locker room and ejected after stupidly throwing a punch at a face mask in the first half.

And he just...

Stafford did what he does.

If you can,

Connor, if you could protect that guy and keep him upright, he is absolutely going to carve you up.

And it's the Seahawks that learn the hard way in this one.

And it always goes back to, I mean, everybody always talks about why Sean McVay got rid of Jared Goff in the first place.

And I think it's one of those rare trades, right, where everyone was correct.

The Lions were correct in wanting Jared Goff, and the Rams were correct in wanting someone to evolve on those little moments where, you know, even if that first guy is covered, that second guy is covered, he's the one that can do the no-look cross-field pass or something incredibly heroic.

And I will say this, even going into the last two seasons, there were like legitimate discussions, right, for him to get traded, right?

If the Jets didn't get Aaron Rodgers, like, would this guy get moved?

But I know that the Rams coaching staff, like it was always just this quietly, this deal where it was like, this guy is just,

he's better than anyone thinks he is.

He's crazy athletic.

He can make these big throws.

And now we're starting to see it with a full complement of players again.

And it's fun.

It's fun when this all works.

I think the trade stuff, a lot of it was cooked up by people like us in the offseason because it seemed to make sense post-Super Bowl for the timeline of a Rams team that looked like it was marching into a full rebuild.

But they did the modern rebuild, which is usually like the good teams now rebuild in like one season.

And that's what they did.

And they overcame the loss of some key guys.

But here we are on an afternoon where Cooper Cup, you know, with Puka in the locker room, has 11 catches for 104 yards.

Robinson, to me, like, it's not just the winning catch, like, he's really grown.

And I think that you're starting to see good player development with the Rams.

And I would just say flip side, like, I was kind of blown away by with DK Metcalf out, Jackson Smith and Jigba has 180 yards and also like 60 to 70 yards taken away by penalty.

Like we are, you know, we're a couple flags removed from him having one of the most monster performances we've seen all season.

So that's a big development for their offense, too.

I wasn't thrilled with Geno Smith in this game, though, Dan.

Yeah, Geno threw three picks in this game, two dreadful, dreadful red zone picks, including one that was returned 103 yards by Cameron Kitchens for a touchdown, which was, you know, felt like a backbreaker when it happened.

And credit, and I'll also add, because these things always get, you know, swept under the rug, but

Geno to Smith and Jigba tied the game in the final minute of regulation, but three or four plays before that, Geno threw one right into the hands of a Los Angeles defender, and the ball was dropped.

That would have been the fourth interception, and that would have led to a lot of consternation and hand-wringing about Geno Smith and the future of the Seahawks if that's how it played out.

It didn't play out that way, and then Geno made a couple big throws, got it to overtime.

So you credit him for that.

But, you know, Geno in general, that's always going to be a part of the, I think, the deal when Geno is your quarterback, that he can get into these,

he can get into these bag jags when it comes to turnovers.

But I thought it was interesting

the big decision of the game that backfired on Mike McDonald.

After they force overtime, they get the stop on defense at the end of regulation, force overtime, they drive right down the field.

Smith and Jigba has a huge catch setting them up in field goal range.

And fourth and short, you have a chance to kick a field goal and take the lead.

And Seattle instead attempts a run.

I believe it was a run to Kenneth Walker that was stuffed.

And the Rams take over.

And like I said, four plays later, the game is over.

And Connor, just a reminder also to me, like that

Seattle homefield advantage, I feel like it doesn't exist anymore.

They don't close out games in that building.

They've been blown out a couple times in that building.

And for a season that started out...

you know, with three straight victories, albeit against opponents that weren't so hot, it's been a pretty ugly stretch of football football now that's lasted into the middle of the regular season.

Interesting test now for Mike McDonald, too, because really the discussion about him going into this season was, you know, hey, he's not a former football player, right?

He's sort of a guy that's like, he, you know, and this is a weird thing to say, but it's like, you're one of the shorter guys in the locker room, right?

You're not this like big Dan Campbell or Robert Saul figure who can be like, let's go, right?

And he's always been very humble about that and said, like, hey, I understand, you know, I'm the guy that's carrying the clipboard.

I get it.

But he was always able to win with brain power and right and outthinking people.

And that's why they hired him to match Wits with Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay.

The deeper that this gets into a sort of emotional thing where he's got to fire people up, where he's got to pull teams out of the doldrums, what's going to happen and how is this going to look?

Yeah, that's fair to ask.

And

self-inflicted mistakes are killing the Seahawks.

And that's a reflection of coaching, of course, in addition to the turnovers, two bad shotgun snaps.

Geno Smith involved, obviously, with both of his quarterback.

It cost Seattle 44 yards of field position.

I mean,

these type of mistakes are going to get you killed, and it's going to be the difference between whether you go to the playoffs or not.

And one last injury note, DK Metcalf

did not play in this game, as Mark said.

Cody White came off the practice squad, made some plays.

Like you said, Jackson Smith and Jigba.

Obviously, he is starting to show some star DNA as he moves up that depth chart in terms of trusted targets.

So that's a very positive side of things for Seattle.

But overall, this is an organization that is searching for it a little bit right now.

All right, let's keep moving.

Bang, up next.

We head to Baltimore.

Great digger.

All right, coming into this game, the Broncos defense was one of the storylines of the season.

We talked about it on the preview show.

They were first in EPA per play allowed, fifth in yards allowed, fifth in total points allowed.

But great offense usually can beat great defense, and the Ravens' offense was great today.

Lamar Jackson was on fire.

Zay Flowers had 100 receiving yards by halftime, and Derrick Henry continued his dominance as the Ravens found the end zone on four straight possessions in the middle of this game.

Baltimore had no trouble rolling to a 41-10 10 victory.

And I think this game was sort of won for Baltimore on one of those classic Bill Belichick, like score before the end of the half, get the ball back after halftime, score again, because they were able to get a touchdown at the end of the half.

They took over possession.

with 54 seconds on the clock before halftime at their own 30-yard line.

They hit a little screen pass to Justice Hill.

It's one of those drives you're like, oh, hopefully they can get into field goal range here.

They don't have a ton of time, but you know, they got positive gain on first down.

And then Lamar Jackson finds Zay Flowers deep over the middle of the field.

And it's like, oh, great.

They're in field goal range.

But wait, Zay Flowers just runs away from the entire defense all the way to the end zone and scores.

Broncos have the ball very like 12 seconds left in the half or something, take a knee.

Next half, kickoff to Baltimore, and they march right down the field, eat up a ton of clock,

over five minutes, 11 plays, 70 yards, and get in the end zone again.

And at that point, it's like, okay, now it's 31 to 10, and you got Bo Nicks, the rookie quarterback.

It felt pretty much over.

10 minutes left in the third quarter.

You know, I had my eye on this game too, Justin.

And I was just,

for a guy that missed two practices this week with,

what was it, knee and back issues, to see Lamar Jackson just

the guy is playing.

He is, to me, far and away the MVP leader in the MVP race.

And by the way, if you win a third MVP by the time you turn 30 years old, you're like entering know, golden circle territory.

Also, well, you need to win a chip at some point, but like, granted, he keeps getting better.

And perfect 158.3 passer rating in this game, 16 of 19, 280, and three touchdowns.

Justin, I thought every pass he threw in this game was right on the money.

Like, it doesn't matter if it was an intermediate pass, a short pass, a arcing pass, a crosser.

Everything was right where it needed to be.

And it's frightening when he's locked in like that that because you have Derrick Henry, who I don't need to tell you, Justin, is playing some of the best football of his career, and Zay Flowers, who's knocking on the door of the Superstar Club the way he's playing in a game like this.

Yeah, it felt like every time Lamar cocked a ball back to pass, it was going to be a big play for the Ravens.

You're right on.

I mean, he was dropping them down the sideline to running backs like Justice Hill over the middle to Zay Flowers finding Mark Andrews.

It was just like a masterclass.

I think the Ravens went three and out on their first possession.

Lamar ended in a Lamar sack and from that point on it was like okay we're here to play now i mentioned they scored on four straight they scored four straight touchdowns but they also over that same span had six uh five scores on six drives with two field goals involved or six scores on something crazy like they just seven straight scoring every time they touched seven straight scoring drives thank you and five of them were touchdowns and it's like how do you stop this offense and then you know baltimore's defense had struggled all season long it felt like not all season but a lot of points the past defense especially had struggled and in this game, they did not struggle.

Like, they were very good on defense.

And when you combine that, they proved why they're one of the juggernauts in the AFC today.

And last week, you know, division matchup, I think we maybe got a little, we put too much stock into the loss to the Browns last week, which was an emotional game for the Browns with Jameis Winston starting, divisional matchup on the road for Baltimore.

Like all those factors come together and they have a subpar game, but then they bounce back from it so strong.

When they're leading, like, and they start to just become like like a bowling ball on fire, like they're just, they're built to destroy people.

This is a really good defense this entire season, and they looked like a two-win team today.

It matters to get Marlon Humphrey back.

That was a big issue last week, was the secondary and dropped interceptions.

Like that game could have gone very differently.

This was a show of force.

And if you're Denver from the flip side a little bit, it's like they had four drives

and pretty deep in Ravens' territory.

At least two or three of them are really deep.

And so it's a a missed opportunity.

It doesn't change that much what I think about Denver, though, because I think this just is what Baltimore is going to do to 80% of the people they play.

Then they'll get a couple stinkers in there, but it's like, this is the Ravens that can go win playoff games versus disappointing us as they do each winter.

Connor, it's almost like you have to hope when you're playing the Ravens that it is one of those bad Ravens weeks that tend to pop up like maybe once a month and then usually in January.

But

that if you don't, though, you get this version.

And here's Sean Payton after the game.

The Broncos, we talked about it on Thursday, going into this game.

Yes, they had compiled a nice record entering action, but now the schedule is about to tighten up and they did not pass their first test.

Look, we've had tough losses.

I think that it gets back to that grit, you know, and sometimes embracing the misery a little bit.

And

you just can't bullshit yourself,

you know, including the head coach or any of us.

Yeah, last week he was Albert Einstein, and he had figured out the NFL and was talking about how crappy other teams were.

The league will humble you quick, Connor.

Not him.

Well, not Sean McCaffrey.

Not him, but like most people get humbled sometimes in this league.

The one thing that still blows my mind, though, I went back and Derrick Henry is on a two-year $20 million contract.

And so during the game, I got a copy of the the contract.

And the 20 million.

It is the most Connor thing I can imagine.

It's very Connor and we love him for it.

So it's 20 million with incentives, right?

And so if you look at the incentives of the deal, I don't even think the Ravens thought he was going to be this good because

They asked him to, you get a half million dollars if you gain 1,200 yards or more.

Last year, he didn't gain 1,200 yards.

You get a half million dollars if you gain 1,500 yards or more.

Half a million dollars if you get 13 or more touchdowns.

Half a million if you get 15 or more, and then half a million if you are on the roster and they win the Super Bowl and you rush for more than a thousand yards.

He almost has all of these in week 10.

He's already hit the touchdown incentive.

He's about to pass the yardage incentive.

He might get the next one in like two weeks.

He's going to make like all this money and no one.

Like you look at all the other free agent running back contracts that were doled out this offseason.

Like there were 11 11 teams that needed him and spent more on way worse players.

And I can't believe that this happened.

Teams talk themselves out of running backs.

Because if this was the same level of player as a wide receiver,

or as a quarterback, or as a left tackle, or as a cornerback, people would have been all over this guy to throw money at him.

But for some reason, the way that position is evaluated.

And then, you know, look what he's doing.

And by the way, you wrote about this, right?

Connor?

Uh, the Derrick Henry taken over the world and taken money with him.

Yeah, you can read about it on si.com.

The only other point I would make to that, uh, thank you, uh, is that teams tricked themselves out of it because they treated him like a normal running back.

But Derrick Henry is the most outlier-sized running back in modern NFL history.

And if you look at all the hits that he's taking, most of them are just like him palming someone in the face and throwing them into the sidelines.

Like, he's not being inflicted, damage is not being inflicted upon him like other people.

He's not going to age like other running backs.

Indeed.

And he also takes care of his body better than anyone.

I mean, we've all seen the crazy off-season workout videos.

Like he truly takes care of his body.

And just a couple more Henry notes from this game because I think it's worth pointing out.

He became in this game the fifth fastest player to reach 100 career rushing touchdowns, which is even more impressive.

That's like based on total games played, which is more impressive when you consider that 2016, 2017, when he first came into the league, he was not the lead back.

He was not a full-time starter until his third year.

Seventh consecutive season with 10-plus rushing touchdowns.

Joins only Adrian Peterson and Ladanian Tomlinson on that list.

Crossed 1,000 yards for the season already in week nine, and he's up to 101 career touchdowns because he scored two in this game.

But real quick, Dan, should we talk about the Broncos side and Bo Nicks?

Because I actually thought Bo Nicks played pretty well.

And Mark, you pointed it out that they had a lot of drives that just stalled out.

Like, they didn't punt until the second half, and they only had 10 points at halftime.

They threw an interception on the second play of the game that was deflected off the receiver's hands.

That shouldn't have been an interception.

They turned it over on Downs at the Baltimore 44 after driving from their own two-yard line.

They turned it over on Downs at the Baltimore 33 on the next possession, and then they got a touchdown and a field goal to cut it to 17-10 before the Ravens did the whole score halftime score thing.

So it was like, could have been a more close and competitive game.

And even the 41-10 final score was inflated because if it had been closer, when they got down to and goal situations in the second half, they turned it over on downs two more times,

including one at the one-yard line.

I see what you're saying is true.

I thought the same thing watching Knicks in this game: that there, he plays with so much confidence.

And you could tell, I just feel really good about him.

And I think Broncos fans

have to be feeling the same way.

Just the way he commands the the huddle and he's involved with that fun trick play that they got for their touchdown where he makes the catch with a man covering him pretty tightly.

You know, his scrambling ability.

I think it's all there.

And I think Peyton is the right guy to help bring it out of him.

But, you know, the fact that they came close to scoring a bunch of times ultimately just highlights to me that they're just, yeah, they're not.

They're not like hopeless against a big-time team like the Ravens, but the Ravens will expose them.

And I won't be surprised if Kansas City does the same thing as well.

Denver might not be ready yet.

I said on Thursday in defense of the Broncos that no one's talking about them, and now no one needs to be talking about them.

Well,

they're going to be in the mix.

I know they're in the mix.

Competitive.

This poured a little bit of cold.

A little bit.

This was a measuring stick game, and they didn't measure up.

Did they?

There you go.

All right, we're just getting started.

Let's take a break, and then we will continue to roll through week nine.

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All right, we are back.

Let's keep rolling.

Let's head to the dog pound with Assess.

Dog.

Double dog.

The beautiful spiritual magic from a week ago, a tall order this time around, for Jameis Winston and the Browns.

No longer adorned in the tunic of Jesus.

Jameis Winston met less with his disciples on Sunday and more often with the Chargers' defensive front.

The LA defense did not hit town with psalms telling of God's care for you and me.

These Chargers were angrier.

Jameis understands the nature of light and dark.

A week ago, the light of Valhalla.

Today, three meltdown interceptions.

More concerning to me, Nick Chubb, until now looks to be one-third of himself.

While the Chargers are feisty, rough, a vicious wind, this was the Jim Harbaugh experience.

Last week's Browns offered a version of religion, oils upon the forehead, Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice.

But true faith comes through fire, through the lion's den.

You can't buy it.

Chargers 27, Browns 10.

Yeah, speaking of some cold water, Mark, being doused.

Well, this was like

a big bucket of rat poison being dropped on the whole operation.

I mean, that sounds even worse.

Is it like a liquid rat poison?

Like, what is it exactly?

Liquefied rat poison.

Rough.

Can I tell you what's most annoying about this game to me?

It's that the Browns had a chance to become the first pro football team in the history of pro football to beat head coach brothers in back-to-back weeks.

Now, that's the real missed opportunity today.

Well, it's one of 40 to 50 missed opportunities for Cleveland.

I am in no mood or I have no interest in dunking on the Browns or their fans

because

I see them as brothers in pain.

But

you don't just get to always

just because now Jameis Winston was in the lineup now.

You're not just going to get another Joe Flacco season.

Like, that was my only thought about why I nominated them for the fork.

Like, Jameis Winston stinks.

Like, I know everybody likes Jameis Winston.

He's like, cool, and like, he's, you know, now he's really strange and he might exist.

Jesus Christ.

Like, well, some people do.

And

they tend to like overlook certain things about Jameis Winston's past while saying, oh, we got to get Deshaun Watson out of the lineup because he's a scumbag.

Get Jameis in there.

Now that's an upstanding gentleman.

Go check his rap sheet while we're at it.

Beside the point.

The point being, Winston sucks, and there's a reason he washed out in Tampa and has bounced around the league.

So a bad game today is not overly surprising.

But at the same time, I get why Browns fans, Mark, were thinking maybe we could tap into some magic here.

I guess it just didn't show up.

I really think it's like 70-30 personality versus anything anyone saw on the field.

Like, that was the best version of his game a week ago.

But, like, we talked about, you got to factor in to like the Ravens' injuries, the fact that I think Cleveland literally was lifted by his personality and what they were removing from the experience.

And so I'm not surprised that it happened.

And I'm not surprised that it didn't continue.

A lot of their issues popped up today.

Both teams, Justin Herbert, got beat up by Miles Garrett and the Browns' pass rush, but in reverse, Winston took a lot of heat today, and you started to see like, oh, I guess Cedric Tillman's not going to just suddenly produce 1,000 yards of offense down the stretch based off of last week.

They can't run the ball.

It's the second time all year the Browns had the same line combination, but where last week it looked like they were brothers in arms and really really playing the best you'd seen all year since last year, not today.

And so you ran into a really I think the thing about the Chargers, it's like we're always focusing on the Jim Harbaugh offense and they want to run the ball 400 times.

It's like they're actually not running the ball in it with any prodigious levels.

Their defense is really good.

Their defense put it on Cleveland today.

And I think in that sense, they impress me more than like a Denver because I think

I just think their potential, where they could be at the end of the year,

is interesting.

Like you got Quentin Johnston today having one of the, I think, the best game of his career.

So it's like, if people start to pop up and Lad McConkey keeps being Lad McConkey, I just see an interesting team that could be a bit of a berserker down the stretch.

I thought Cleveland could be that.

They cannot.

Well, you also had Connor, you had Justin Herbert, who is quietly really starting to get on the heater now, week after week, is putting together big statistical games and playing clean football and you have Quentin Johnston he kind of presumed to be a huge draft bust last year he goes for four for 118 in this game

and you know there are reasons you mentioned McConkey is another guy to get excited about and the defense which really shut down shut down the Browns who had 57 total net yards at halftime so yeah if you want to like find a team to get behind right now and the AFC is a potential lurking beast,

maybe it is the Chargers.

And I think we just need to underline this for a second because a lot of coaches and executives that I talked to before the season, if you were to ask them, like quarterback removed, what are the maybe one of the five worst rosters in the NFL?

Almost to a man, it would be the Chargers.

They'd be like, it's Justin Herbert and not a lot else.

Like, you know, when are they going to trade Kleomack?

When are they going to gut the rest of this thing?

They could not get anything going with this roster.

And now all of a sudden, Harbaugh adds like two draft picks and turns Quentin Johnson into this home run hitter.

And it really is phenomenal what he's been able to do in just a couple of weeks.

It's pretty wild that there are a lot of continuing holdover players from the Brandon Staley defense.

And remember, that Chargers defense, they spent more money on that defense at one point than any other team.

They were terrible.

And just the fact that so many of the same figures are shining right now and how much more organized that defense looks to me.

It's not a great selling point for Brandon Staley, who already was not surrounded with great selling points.

I think we get that.

One last question for you, Sess Dog.

I believe this was

Nick Chubb's third game back from the knee injury and the rehab.

How does he look to you?

Forget about his box score, which wasn't impressive today, but in general, does he look like Chubb or look like a guy that's working his way back?

Well,

I really want to kind of see where we are

by the end of the year.

He does not look like Nick Chubb at all.

If you put a different name on the back of the jersey,

that was, you know, a year ago before the injury, Nick Chubb, to me, was one of the most ferocious, powerful physical runners who also had speed and could beat you with his speed.

And you don't see any of that right now.

I can only imagine, like, psychologically, you are playing in a bad offense, too.

It's a little bit of a different situation than before, but he does not look like the same player.

I hope three weeks from now, I could say something different.

All right, let's move on.

Up next, Connor, take us to the desert of Arizona.

Oh, one more thing.

I got to, I mean, since we're here,

let's hear Jameis, who,

unbelievable pregame

interview

in week eight.

Let's listen to just a touch of week nine.

I got to hear it.

I got it.

Bless the holly favorite, man.

Extremely grateful for the day.

And we're extremely grateful to have you.

You guys had a huge win last week, but it's a new day, a new week, a new opponent.

What's your message to your team going into this one?

It's nothing about today.

Today we have to be firm in our foundation, firm in the Lord, and we standing ground.

We're dependent on the Lord.

There's nothing else that we can depend on but him.

No doubt.

No doubt.

No doubt.

Jameis, what do you think about today's game between the two football teams?

God is the best.

God's the greatest.

God will take us to victory.

No doubt.

No doubt.

Awkward.

Do we really think God is plugged in on the Browns games?

Well, I would say you could make a much firmer argument that God is not plugged in on the Browns.

Well, Nate, Burrelson disagrees.

No doubt.

No doubt.

Connor takes to the desert.

Last Sunday, Matt Eberflus stood on the sideline of FedEx Field and Landover, watching his defensive back flexing to the crowd while a stunning Hail Mary was in motion.

His questionable defensive maneuvers and all-prevent defense led Jaden Daniels to the precipice of the most rewatched play of the season.

Surely our friend had endured the worst of times.

Oh, no.

Flash forward to this weekend.

It's third and five at the Cardinals' 46 and a half yard line.

There's 11 seconds to go until halftime.

The Bears are down by five.

You just got to get off the field.

But now Eberflus decides to blitz and rush the passer.

And Emmanuel DiMarcado busts through the first level, slips a tackle, jets his way into the end zone.

It's a 50 plus yard backbreaking score that the Bears could never recover from.

Guys, in the last 30 years of Bears football, the team has allowed six touchdowns of 35 yards per more in the final seconds of a half.

Two of them have come in the last seven days.

The final score was 29-9, but the story here is a coach barely hanging on in the massive lingering controversy here, guys.

Caleb Williams was in danger during garbage time Matt Iberflus kept him in down 20 our boy Charles Davis called it CD he said why is he in this game two plays later he gets dragged down by a defender from behind starts limping Charles Davis goes see and then keeps him in to throw another ball on fourth and five and he's knocked down has to be helped up off the field uh he like to say that the heat is on Flues in Chicago is the understatement of all times.

He is in the middle of the sun right now.

Isn't it crazy kind of how quickly things change in the NFL?

Because, you know, when the Bears hit their bye week, they seemed like a team that was on the rise and everyone was excited about what was going on.

And yeah, the coaching staff made you pause, but they had gotten positive results and they seem to be trending up.

They come back from their bye in the offense craters.

They, you know, get beat on a Hail Mary last week in humiliating fashion.

They have the drama around Tyreek Stevenson, who apparently pulled himself out of practice when he learned he was being demoted as part of a one-week demotion connected to his foolish move during the Hail Mary debacle.

And now this game, yeah, it's like we're right back to where we were in week three or whatever when everyone thought they needed to clean house.

And it's weird, too, because, and Dan, you'll be familiar with this because the Chicago market is the New York market.

It's vicious, right?

And I think that part of this is us looking at Matt Eberflus already as a guy who is doomed.

And so through that lens, all of the decisions seem like failures.

And okay, we wanted him to rush the passer last week before the half against Jaden Daniels.

Now he rushes the passer in a Hail Mary situation, and they slip a little drop play underneath him and it goes 54 yards for a touchdown.

Had Caleb Williams not played the final four minutes of the game, are we saying that he's getting special treatment?

I don't know.

I mean, Clayton Toon was on the field for the Cardinals, so it's not like this was a game in contention.

But, you know, at this point, it doesn't seem like he can do anything right.

And when you're in a big market, it's really hard to fight your way out of that.

I'm really impressed with what Arizona's done the past

three or so weeks.

They're a different team to me.

And

I was trying to put my finger on it because I think they were so frustrating when Cliff Kingsbury was building that team along with Steve Kaimen.

It was a lot of lightning quick players.

And when you watch the Cardinals thrive,

they had 12 different players with the pressure today.

And they manhandled Chicago's offensive line, not the tallest order in the business, but still they did it.

And they run the ball so well, and they've got bigger, stronger players.

And I think that, you know, Monty, Austin Fort, and company are trying to build a team that can out-physical you.

And even going back to last year, when they have had a couple of surprise wins, that's what it looked like.

And it looked like that today.

And, you know, the Bears hadn't given up 21 points in a game all season, and they did in the first half.

And it wasn't fraudulent.

A season high six sacks for the Cardinals pass rush in this game.

And, you know, being able to put up 29 points in a game where Connor doesn't look like Kyler Murray was Superman, that's also a positive sign.

Yeah, neither of these quarterbacks in this game were spectacular in any sense.

And there were drives that were just solely James Conner, Benson, DeMarcato, like a lot of James Conner, heavy doses of James Conner.

So 213 rushing yards for the Cardinals.

That's their second best performance on the ground this season.

And one kind of sneaky thing here, the Cardinals' offensive line has been,

like, depending on what kind of...

Offensive line analytic you subscribe to, but just on the eye test, no pressures allowed last week against the Dolphins.

And now this week, you shove around a pretty good Bears defense.

I mean, say what you will about Matt Eberfus, but he's a good defensive coordinator.

They shove these guys around and get back in a game where, listen, I mean, this was a game that the Bears absolutely had to have for their own sanity.

And the Cardinals just ripped this one off.

It was untouched.

They were untouchable by halftime.

That DiMercardo,

Di Mercado touchdown at the end of the half.

Like, were they just trying to run out the clock or what?

And they just broke one off for 53?

Or, like, what was that?

Like, I've never seen anything like that before.

I mean, it was

the absolute

worst case scenario begetting the absolute worst case scenario, right?

So, you give up a Hail Mary from almost the same spot the week before.

So, if you're Matt Eberflues, you're like, I got to rush the passer.

And so, you bring extra guys that were going to be in the secondary to make the tackle.

And then DeMarcato kind of gets into the secondary.

He like slips one defender, and then all of a sudden it's just

green space, and he's gone.

And to Matt Eberflues' credit, after the game, he said it.

He's like, I called a pass pressure there.

That's totally my fault.

But given the context of last week rolling into this week,

it's a brilliant play call, and it's just absolutely the worst case scenario.

And the visual of to circle back to your original point, the visual of Caleb Williams getting trashed on the last play of the game, limping to the sideline just to go through the mechanics of a typical end-of-game scenario where you got to hand your helmet to the equipment guy so then you could go meet the opposing quarterback at midfield to go through the pleasantries.

Like, and you could tell it's just another game where it looked like it went through a war.

It's like,

is this operation being run in a professional manner?

So, I listened to Matty Berflus' press conference, and this is not like, it feels like I'm picking on him now at this point, but there there was just this one line that really stuck out.

And he's just like, yeah, you know, we're going to have to go back.

We're going to get to work.

He's like, we're coming in tomorrow.

We're going to be here before noon tomorrow.

And it's like,

before noon.

And I know they have to fly back from Arizona and everything, but it's like, we're serious, man.

We're going to roll in here at like 1150, 11.55.

We can probably bring lunch.

We're not messing around.

We're going to stop.

We're going to get some breakfast shakes.

But

as soon as we get that, depending on if the line's not too long,

we're going to be there.

We're going to run in beforehand and then, yeah, we're good.

Yeah, we'll hit the Peloton and then we'll go.

All right, let's move to Atlanta where, listen, I made a decision to stand up for the Cowboys, and obviously the Cowboys would

respond in kind with a big performance.

Let's see how it turned out.

The Falcons exerted their will on the Cowboys today, leaning on Bijan Robinson, who touched the ball 13 times on the Falcons' first 19 offensive plays, and an efficient day from Kirk Cousins to survive the loss of Drake London, who left early with a hip injury and did not return.

They even got the pass rush going with their first multi-sack day since week one.

This game was not as close as the final score indicates.

Falcons win 27.21.

Did you say first multi-sack game since week one?

Like two sacks?

Like two sacks.

They had three sacks in this game and two of them came on back-to-back plays in the first half.

Well, that's part of the

Cowboys are really just a mess.

Jesus Christ.

Justin's trying to give some analysis and then he's got to find the Jonathan Develma.

Jesus Christ drop.

That is tough.

That's a professional right there.

Thank you.

Spent time on the Falcons and the setup there, so let's just talk about the mess that the Cowboys are.

On four consecutive fourth downs today, here's what happened.

The first one, the Cowboys tried an end around to CD Lamb that went for a loss.

They had an end of half, fourth and seven, incomplete pass, whatever, last play of the half.

On their next fourth down, they faked a punt that never had a prayer of being completed with Brian Anger trying to throw to the opposite hash.

No PI, by the way.

Are you referring to the opposite hash fly pattern for the punter?

Yeah, well, it was like

it was like a 10-yard out or stop, comeback, hook route.

But I guess the Cowboys don't know that on a fake punt, there's no pass interference on the outside players because the defense doesn't know it's a fake punt, so they can get ready to ball.

I didn't know that either.

I actually didn't either, but you'd think Bones Fossil, the special teams coordinator for the Cowboys, who's been around for like a hundred years,

should know that.

And the Cowboys are complaining for pass interference after this play.

And then on their next fourth down, it was fourth and one, and they were lined up to go for it, and they get flagged for 12 men in the huddle, which pushes them back to fourth and sixth.

So they never even had a chance.

And to make matters worse for the Cowboys just for this day, promising young linebacker

DeMarvion Overshone hookum left the game early with an injury.

CeeDee Lamb got banged up early, played through it.

He was clutching at his ribs.

He was like working his shoulder.

He was letting everybody know that he was hurt.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, he was.

But then he eventually had to exit the game again because he landed on it again.

And the biggest one of all, obviously, Dak Prescott first like injured his hand.

They were examining his hand on the sideline, but then he was ruled out late in the third quarter with a hamstring injury.

So Cooper Rush came in.

He led a late touchdown drive, which made, as I referenced, the score was closer because of that.

But it really felt like the Falcons controlled the game from basically from start to.

The Cowboys went up 3-0, but from then on, it was like the Falcons control.

We were at the point in the season, and I'm surprised it didn't even come a little sooner, where I look down at this among other games, and there's Mike McCarthy with the surface tablet, just whipping it to the ground as fast as you'd throw like a baseball,

you know, fastball or something, like no care for technology, frustration boiling over.

I, my one feeling about this team, because I know we're going to have to, everyone is going to have to keep talking about them no matter what.

It's just the issue with the Cowboys.

It always will be.

Like, I cannot take, don't ask me to take you seriously on any level.

I cannot take their offseason seriously.

I cannot take seriously the way that they've approached big moments inside the season itself, the coaching,

the whole Dak Prescott experience, and what's around him.

Like, bye.

Yeah, it's rough.

It's rough.

I needed the Cowboys to show up in this game, and I guess they just,

they're never going to show up.

And I guess that's because they don't have any players.

That feels like a big problem for them.

Tough shot to be.

That's problematic.

They're very injured.

They're very bad.

Yeah, you know, you still don't have Parsons on the field.

They don't have any depth at wide receiver.

Their defensive line sucks right now.

Their offensive line is no longer a strength.

The running back position is an absolute farce to the point where Ezekiel Elliott

was left

back in Dallas because he, and we learned via reporting that it's because throughout the season he's been dealing, there's been some disciplinarian stuff with him just like, I guess, no showing for certain things and just not

giving full commitment to the team.

It's like, get that f ⁇ ing guy out off the team.

Like, what are we doing?

Like, how can we take you seriously jara and this goes back to my theory that nobody wants to talk about i don't know

i don't know if jerry actually knows what's going on with this team i don't know if he's so insulated and has so many yes men around him look how he handed how he treated those two uh uh you know radio guys Like, people are probably afraid to tell him hard truths.

And one of them being that, hey, the guy that's the worst running back in the league, I know he used to be an all-pro with us, but he's also like setting a bad example in the locker room.

Like, he's got to be gone.

Like, and you, and I know that's not going to help you get better, but like, this is a team that has culture issues.

And the fact that they cannot, the reason I thought the Cowboys would get off the deck and get back to 500 is because the Falcons' defense with their poor pass rush, I thought that Dak and CD were going to eat in this game, but the opposite happened.

They both ended up hurt, and we don't know about Dak's future.

But

this has been, for a team that entered the season, I think, you know,

externally, I think a lot of people thought they would come down a little bit this year.

I don't know if the Cowboys realized how far they were going to come down.

Obviously, they didn't, but this, they have a chance to go from, you know, 12 and 5 to 5 and 12.

That's like what this could turn into.

At least that's what they look like right now.

This is deserved on every front.

And the fact that Jerry Jones, after the game, said that they might add during the trade deadline, are you high?

That's what I mean.

I don't know if Jara actually knows what's going on here, and this goes back to, I mean, you know, we had just detailed right how cheap it was to sign Derrick Henry.

And Jerry Jones said you couldn't afford him.

You could absolutely afford him.

Like, you could have paid him $5 million more than the Ravens could.

And you'd be all right at the running back position.

You could have had him, but like, that's neither here nor there.

The fact that, like, everybody in your building is on a one-year contract, like, that still blows my mind that you're allowing this to happen as the CEO of a company.

Everyone's freaked out.

Everyone's pissed off.

Nobody wants to come to work.

And it's not just the coaches.

It's everybody in that building.

And so you allow this to happen.

And then you're just like, oh, yeah, I don't get back.

It's like,

get a grip on yourself.

We're a couple pieces away.

We just need a running back and two wide receivers and three linemen.

You're going to trade for who to fix this.

Right.

By the way.

Dan Jackson wouldn't fix this if you got him.

There was a shot on the sideline late in the game where you didn't need to be an expert

lip reader.

And it was Dak, I believe, saying to Trey Lance,

we f ⁇ ing suck.

Oh, man.

And then a quick cut to CeeDee Lamb doubled over in absolute agony because his shoulder is hanging out of the socket.

Bad, bad, bad times.

Last word to you, Justin, and then we're going to move.

All right.

We didn't talk much about the Falcons, but they were great.

I mean, they weren't great, but they were very good today.

And I do want to just make the last point on more shitting on the Cowboys.

Their defense, the communication on defense, this is a serious problem to still be happening in week nine is insane.

So there was a fourth and three where the Falcons came out and go for it.

And they've got this bunch formation to the right side of the formation.

And Trayvon Diggs is like hopping up and down, hollering before the snap, looking at his teammates, like, where's my guy?

Like, he's supposed to identify the receiver in that formation because Bijan's lined up split wide on the opposite side of the field.

So, like, it's a weird formation.

Everyone on defense is trying to find their guy because it's man coverage.

And his guy was Darnell Mooney, who runs, like, from the inside of the bunch, loops around the two kind of natural picks to the outside of the bunch and runs down the sideline.

And Trevon Diggs, like,

gets hung up in the bunch and is, I don't know, expecting someone else to like pick up Mooney or switch and get back, like almost like a screen and roll defense in basketball.

I know they're different sports.

I'm talking, so I'm not going to do it.

And nobody picks him up, and Trayvon Diggs mid-play, Darnell Mooney is like catching the ball 10 yards from the end zone.

And mid-play, Trayvon Diggs is like turned around, looking like, who was supposed to be that guy?

It was you, Trayvon Diggs.

You're supposed to be that guy.

And then

there were other plays in the game where like Bijan starts on one side of the formation and motions all the way across the formation.

And you can see the cornerback, like

who's aligned on Bijan, start to shift and then like point to his right.

like hey somebody else take the guy that's motioning because I'm staying on this side of the field and then nobody takes him and it's a little flare-out pass to Bijan he picks up a first down and it's like this was just a microcosm of the communication issues on the defensive side like who no i know mike zimmer is like a hundred years old and has a million years of experience too like what's the how is this still happening in week nine when you have that much experience and that much talent i know we're talking about lack of depth and injuries, but they still have a lot of talent on defense.

And guys who have played together for a long time, and this is still happening, it's mind-blowing to me.

Sounds like you don't see this as a championship-level team.

I don't know.

It's only week nine.

A lot can happen.

Exactly.

I know it's just going to piss you guys off, but I'm standing by.

The fork is still in hand.

It's not over yet.

Not allowed.

I know you don't want it to be because you don't like the Cowboys.

It's not over yet.

They're going to make some moves ahead of Tuesday.

They're going to fortify this roster and they are going to fly.

If they trade for a relevant player before the trade deadline, and that player turns out to even be marginally successful, I will donate my show rate to the charity that I talked about when I forked it.

All right.

Okay.

Good.

Write that down.

Note that, Justin.

Let's move.

We are on to Cincinnati with Mark Zessler.

Cut to Chappaqua, New York, where Hillary Rodham Clinton verbally undresses her 19-year-old manservant for failing to smooth the crease in her cream-colored pantsuit.

You take that back to the washroom and iron that out.

You know how I like my pantsuits, smooth as silk against my lower body.

Cut to Cincinnati, where T Higgins is not in the lineup.

No Zach Moss.

No Orlando Brown,

where Jermaine Burton, the mysterious rookie, is a healthy scratch for not good reasons.

Enter Bundle of Fun Chase Brown, Touchdown.

Enter Andre Yoshivas.

Touchdown.

Enter Drew Sample.

Touchdown.

Enter Mike Asicki.

Touchdown twice.

Enter Trey Hendrickson.

Four sacks.

Enter Joe Burrow opening 15 of 15.

Bring me my third cocktail, Hillary Rodham tells her Mantoy, a male stripper who operates largely in the White Plains New York sphere of milk flesh clubs.

I want you to pour that cocktail rich and thick and bring me a bowl of warmed molasses with a crumpet.

The Bengals handled a Raiders team that felt entirely cooked down 24 to 10 when Gardner Minshew dumbly fumbled the ball in Vegas territory.

You could see a look in the eyes of Antonio Pierce that screamed, that boy is a fool.

Bengals 41, Raiders 24.

I mean,

you know, the Sessler setups that

start to veer into penthouse form submission territory, those are the ones that really, you know, stick to my ribs and I struggle to sleep at night.

When you're talking about Hillary Clinton's lower body and how the fabric is going to hug said lower body, how am I supposed to hear anything else in the setup?

I mean,

I believe you could multitask that if you'd agree, it may be distracting.

I believe the Cincinnati Bengals were up for forking by the cess dog last Wednesday.

And while I don't believe that

the Bengals mark are now some finished product that is going to roll into January.

After all the shit and all the failures of this season in an AFC that is hardly imposing after the first couple of top teams, they're four and five.

And

they have Joe Burrow.

And I know this is going to be the next time they blow a game where it's like, oh, I thought they were going to get their momentum going.

We're going to be again scratching our heads and being like, why won't the Cincinnati Bengals take off?

Maybe that's going to happen again.

But it's games like these, even against the lowly Raiders, where I'm like, yeah, there's something in this.

There's a run in this team as long as you have that guy atop the pyramid.

I very much agree.

And

it was about eight minutes into this game when I recalled that I had candidated the Bengals for forking.

You know, part of that was trying to just be edgy versus just picking like a total garbage bag operation, but I was wrong.

Because, Joe Burrow, you don't have, you've only produced 43 yards in this game to Jamar Chase.

And if I knew that and all the guys they were missing, I think, uh-oh, like, what's going to happen to this team?

This might be a blessing in disguise because so many second and third wave players and younger players are getting a ton of experience with guys like T.

Higgins out.

The reason I mentioned all those people, but they got contributions from everyone.

And the most important part of it,

is that Burrow, who opens 15 for 15,

looks great.

He just just looks great.

And so, like, you can kind of see it.

And

as much as I could see them losing a couple games in an annoying fashion, they can steal games too.

I could see them hanging with a team like Baltimore on the right day.

My one concern, it's a consistent concern, is that the defense has major issues against so many of the better offenses.

And outside of Trey Hendrickson, who was awesome today, you just can't put together a big argument for them stopping high-powered offenses.

Fair enough.

Fair enough, Mark.

Raiders, anything to note?

I find it amazing.

I think Gardner Minshew got benched again in this game.

Sestog,

I feel like I was ahead of the curve on this one.

I firmly believe that Antonio Pierce hates Gardner Minshew with every fiber of his being and not just as a player.

It's personal.

He just doesn't like the cut of his jib.

And he has now benched him three times in nine weeks.

That's pretty impressive.

Yeah,

clearly clearly something's going on there where if others were swept up in the mythology of Garden Minshew and like the idea that he was fun, that's not how Antonio Pierce feels.

They had a lot of offensive line.

They had some injuries along the line today, too.

I mean, but they're just an incomplete team missing parts all over the place.

So, you know, I don't have a lot of Raiders' notes, to be honest with you.

We've seen this show before.

All right, and on the Cincinnati side, as we go to break,

they, yes, got right.

They've quietly won three out of four games, but now here's a real measuring stick the next two weeks.

They got at Baltimore, at Los Angeles Chargers.

Let's see where they're at.

But, you know, even a split there, and I feel like they're hanging around.

If they get wiped twice, bye-bye.

Let's see where they're at.

Let's take a break, and we'll keep it rolling.

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All right.

Oh, yes, Washington and the New York Giants.

It's the poppy game and the brown chair on Cardine Place in Pearl River.

He's back from church and now he's got his mug of root beer.

He's got his pretzels.

But this ain't Mark Rippin and this ain't Phil Sims.

Let's head to East Rutherford.

Ooh, jaunty.

Ah, the Commanders and the Giants.

For the last several years, they were the two Z-listers at their high school.

So overlooked by the rest of the student body, it was fair to wonder if they even existed.

But this is one of those stories where one of those invisible geeks goes away to summer sleepaway camp.

They have a growth spurt.

They start listening to cool music.

They learn how to play the guitar.

They buy some new clothes from the mall, and then they show up for a new school year looking totally transformed.

Now, one geek is cool and accepted.

and sitting at the A-lister table at lunch while the other loser is left behind, forced to pivot to finding another hopeless social zero to pass the time.

Yes, I think you know who is who in this case.

Commanders 27, Giants 22.

Not the prettiest performance by the Commanders in this game.

They allowed the Giants to hang around and stay in this game.

And if not for some just grotesque failures in two-point conversion scenarios for New York, maybe this game turns out differently.

But Jaden Daniels, with the help of

Terry McLaurin, who had two touchdowns in this game, and again, I'm so happy for Terry.

They figure it out and get it done.

Austin Eckler filling in for Brian Robinson.

He has 82 total yards and a touchdown in this game.

And the commanders' defense kind of does the rest, especially in the first half, where they held Daniel Jones to zero passing yards in the first two quarters.

He was four of six for zero yards and a touchdown in the first half.

So, you know,

Mark Jones, because I know

you like this Giants team, Mark, Danny Dives did a little bit better

in the second half, but in the first half, just absolutely, again,

ugly, ugly football that the

home team is putting up in Jersey lately.

Well, they're just too inconsistent because they make you feel

you know, jaunted when you fall.

I tend to fall for them.

You're right.

But then, you know, a certain two quarters in a row, it looked like a complete disaster.

Like that Daniel Jones stat line, because didn't he throw a, what happened with that stat line?

So he was four for six for zero yards with a touchdown.

Right, he threw an in-close pass from within five yards for a touchdown, but I had a couple swing passes that went the wrong way.

And in general, was, yeah, they had negative five passing yards total

in the first half.

I mean, they ran the ball well.

New York ran for 140 yards in the first half, but the Commanders kind of did a nice job making adjustments in the second half there.

And like I said, the Giants, you know, put some points on the board, but it just, you know, it felt like the Commanders were playing with their food a little bit.

And that's another sign of a team that's really taking that next step where you don't even have to play your best game to take care of business on the road.

Oddly, though, I mean,

it's one of those games where if you go back the last two games that the Giants have played against the Commanders, if they had just made all of their extra points and or two-point conversions, they would have been 2-0 against like one of the best teams in the NFL, which is really funny.

But what Daniel Jones did lack in grit, he like trucked someone in this game in a major way and had like a few nice throws.

He's not the problem there.

Like, I really don't know what they will do to fix all this, but I don't know, man.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think he's the solution either.

No.

And he's paid at such a high level that that kind of is what turns it into an untenable situation.

And he's the face of the failure because they paid him like a star.

And like that, and that's, that's so frustrating.

Yeah, I know I hesitate to even mention this stuff because I know in the discourse online,

people like thumb their nose at it, but you know, when you're down 24 to 10, you're down the magical 14.

Let's just talk a little strategy here.

I understand like the analytics people won and you go for two twice there.

Ooh, strategy.

But I also don't.

Doesn't it matter like who you are also?

Like if the Giants struggle from, you know, to bang it in from in close, right?

And I think Mark Sanchez was on this game and, you know, had a really good game, I thought.

And that's your guy, Connor.

And he made the point that, you know, Daniel Jones, I think that's the play you're referring to, where he kind of

ducked out of some traffic and then pushed a guy down and then went into the end zone.

Two-yard run.

He spikes the ball demonstratively.

The crowd is fired up.

13-play, 80-yard drive that makes it 24-16.

You kick the extra point.

It's a seven-point game and you never know what happens.

But what happens?

They have a bad two-point conversion try.

And Sanchez pointed out, it took all the energy out of the building.

And it's like, there are, I don't know, it doesn't seem like such an automatic for me going going for two.

That's just a minor aside.

That's all I'd say.

And then they tried for two again when they scored later in the fourth quarter and they failed a second time.

So it was just like, what are we doing?

How do we get here?

Were you

going back to the sort of can't buy me love scenario that you opened with, were you the

nerd that went away and upped your fashion and came back like as the cool

one of the duo, or were you left with the money?

I thought I said on this show today, I always was very firmly on the B list where I was never the cool kid.

I could occasionally make the jump up to certain parties on the higher level, but I could also

drop down a level.

And in general, I feel like that's not a bad place to be.

No, that feels like there's a certain element of humility, but also you can achieve more than you thought.

I also never went to a summer camp.

Like, I know you had camp happiness, and I feel like you went to camp happiness and became a different person entirely.

No, because it,

you know, not to go down this wormhole, but like it doesn't make you cooler because what I learned as I got older was that you'd go away for, I'd go work there for the summer.

I'd come back and like all my friends like got hammered for the first time and like did all sorts of crazy stuff that I was stuck at a summer camp not doing.

Toughy.

Toughy.

All right.

That's tough situation.

Very tough situation.

The commanders keep winning and Jaden Daniels stays in the MVP conversation.

And if you're curious, he was wearing that heating pack around his waist throughout the game again, but he didn't seem to be too limited by the rib issue.

To Philadelphia with the Sest Dog.

With the Eagles up 22-0 in the third quarter, the Jaguars floating through an abyss had managed 36 yards.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in salary cap, players, coaches, uniforms, weight rooms, vehicles, airplanes, hassled flight attendants, snacks, suitcases, 36 yards.

But these Eagles found a way to let them back in.

Jalen Hurts blown up on a pair of tush-push two-point conversions.

A third two-point try goes awry.

Jacksonville scoring on a mysterious play where Trayvon Walker rumbles in for a touchdown on a Saquon Barkley fumble.

It sure looked like the ground caused it.

Going for it on fourth and one up 22-16 late from Jacksonville's 25-yard line and not getting it.

Philly then missing a field goal up 28-23 with two plus to go.

Eagles fans going bonkers at Nick Siriani, a drunken, agitated mass who don't quite see a Super Bowl team.

But there's something special about this offense.

When Saquon Barkley is witnessed by cameras spinning, rotating, flipping out of a tackle, and then somehow hopping over, hurdling a defender in reverse with his buttocks.

When Devontae Adams, when Devontae Smith makes one of the finer touchdown grabs all year, when Nakobe Dean ends Jacksonville's day with a leaping pick six, that's when you can kind of believe Eagles 28, Jaguars 23.

Yeah, the Saquon play, and you just saw it on YouTube, was unbelievable.

I've never seen anything like it, which is, you know, when you could say that, you're doing something special.

Sessdog, a lot of discourse, and I can't venture any type of take because I didn't see a second of this game yet.

I'll watch it during the week, but like a lot of anti-Syriani discourse today.

What was going on in this game?

I think it just reached a boiling point because, like I mentioned, they had gone for the Tush Push two-point conversion twice and failed twice.

And I think there's something about that.

If you're an Eagles fan, it's like, wait, that's the one thing that we could do that no one else could do like us, and now we can't do it the same way.

They passed on a 39-yard field goal.

I'll get to that in a minute.

They passed on a 42-yard field goal.

They missed a field goal.

They basically gave away like eight points.

And so when I think it really bubbled over was they're up 22 to 16, facing fourth and one from Jacksonville's 25-yard line.

It's fourth and one, and that's the classic place where no matter what's happened with the tush push, that's your identity.

You go for it.

Instead, they have Hurts line up and then roll out in some, you know, a passing scheme scenario that just didn't work and they lost the

possession.

And Jacksonville had no business climbing back into this game.

They're a little spicy when we want them to be, but it had a lot to do with Sirianni pushing for these decisions.

And I think we have the sound.

He stood up for himself after the game, sort of saying, look, you like it when it works.

When it doesn't, you get this.

So we can listen to that.

You know, when we get a fourth down and we convert a fourth down, you know, we're not, you know, it's nothing's really sad.

When we don't,

you know, I understand that there's going to be questions.

But again,

I have to be able to have the balls to do that, really, at the end of the day and say,

am I doing everything I can do to help us win the game?

And in those moments, I thought I was, but I'll go back and re-look at them.

I'm always going to be hypercritical of myself.

Fair enough.

What do you think, Connor?

i just can't believe he dropped a balls in there you know like that was you know what did he say i have to have the balls i have to have the balls yeah that's but that's like a sneaky little braggy like yeah i got balls you i got big balls i'm mixed

i thought he was gonna have connor or his kids with him on the day on days if they he might have swung by to pick him up in jersey if uh they blew this game because it was a trevor lawrence ugly interception there that that kind of bailed him out more than anything else right yep

it was i mean

you know, they had to work through some stuff.

A.J.

Brown left the game.

I think it was a knee.

That wasn't great.

It was a knee, yeah.

Man, Saquon, just, he, I know, I think it was his fifth 100-yard game on the ground.

And, like, beyond the acrobatic, you know, jump over you backwards thing, which was incredible, like, he's just perfect for this offense.

And so that's what I can believe in because I think without him, they'd be

happy to jump backwards like that.

We were watching that, and that is insane.

Which we could do.

We just don't want to.

He also lost the tumble that went for a touchdown, right?

So it wasn't like it was a perfect game.

That should be noted if it happened.

Well,

that irritated me too, because if you go watch that,

there is an argument that he was down.

Someone also kind of grabbed his sock as he was going down.

It just looked to me like they even brought Gene Sterator on, and they're like,

Gene, like, can you explain this?

He's like, not really.

Like,

it seemed like something happened where where New York, I don't know.

I didn't like that.

I think they could have spent more time on that.

That was a big turning point.

You said grabbed his sock.

Well, so he's going down.

It's kind of hard to say.

No, you said sock.

Sock, S-O-C-K.

All right.

Yes, I said sock.

Okay.

Anything else on the Jaguars?

Speaking of head coaches that are under fire, another loss for Doug Peterson.

I mean, they seem like they keep doing enough to not have it be totally overt that Peterson's got got to go cut like the comeback because again, like it was midway through the second quarter and they had produced like 30 yards of

stop, Angelo.

So I just don't see it.

It's not the vision's not, there's good players on this team and it's it's not working.

All right, let's keep moving.

Up next, we head to Nashville.

No, that's not true.

We head to Charlotte with Connor Orr.

Love the song.

The sound of your baby's first cry as she emerges from the womb.

The first glimpse of your bride as she walks down the aisle.

The fluttering in your stomach as you approach a grade school crush and ask her to slow dance on a crowded gym floor while Beautiful Day by U2 plays in the background.

True story.

Some of life's greatest moments can only be experienced once.

And on Sunday, we had another.

For the first time in Bryce Young's almost two-year NFL career, he took a knee for a victory.

The former number one overall pick built on a solid start against the Broncos with another okay performance, 16 of 26, one TD, one in.

More than that, though, high-fiving everyone as they went into the tunnel, laughing with his teammates, appearing for the first time as if he were not being held captive in a dark Italian prison for crimes unknown and unexplained.

Two amazing stats here before we get into it, boys.

And there's a lot of off-field drama here.

We got tweet storms and we got angry stuff happening here.

But

over the last 20 years of NFL football, only one team has rushed for 150-plus yards, outgamed their opponent by 150 or more yards, won the turnover battle and lost.

And that is the New Orleans Saints.

They were 275-0 prior to that.

And

as if that weren't enough, guys, Derek Carr becomes the first quarterback in NFL history to lose to 31 different football teams.

He plays the Raiders on December 29th.

We might want to make that a special thing here.

If he does, he becomes the first quarterback in NFL history to lose to every single franchise, which would be kind of awesome.

But yes, he is at the heart of this.

There's a lot of drama.

There's a lot of tweets.

There's a lot of anger, and it's boiled over.

So Chris Olave suffers another concussion, which sucks.

And this is a guy.

It's one of the young stars, a wide receiver in the league.

And he had a concussion concussion earlier this season.

He's hit on the head and neck by Panther Safety Xavier Woods while attempting to catch a high pass from Carr over the middle of the field.

Woods got flagged on the play.

His ninth unnecessary roughness for a play like that since he's been in the NFL, by the way.

Yeah, that's a headhunter.

That's a guy.

If you have nine, maybe you should be thrown out of the game every time that happens, but he didn't get thrown out anyway.

And that led to former Saints wide receiver Michael Thomas.

And Derek Carr is one of those guys.

He gives people the red ass, like,

which is an old baseball term, like, where you just get fired up and you're a little irascible.

And there's something about Carr that fires people up.

And he's just, I don't know what it is, but he wrote,

Thomas wrote, dude, scary and panic.

Just throw the ball.

Get him the F out of here.

He is so ass.

And

he had some other tweets, and Carr was asked about it after the game.

One of his responses was, I've had so many teammates over the years and he's like the one dude that didn't get along with me.

And I don't know what I did to him.

I don't know why he feels that way.

I'm sorry for whatever he's dealing with to make him feel like he's got to do that.

So,

Connor, this was a team that was 2-0 and they've done nothing but lose.

And this is, you want to talk about coaches that are in danger.

We might even be due for a coach to hit the road.

And Dennis Allen feels like he could be at the top of that list.

He did.

He said after the the game, I'm hurting right now, hurting for our city, hurting for our organization, hurting for the guys in that locker room.

But more than anything, I think this is a

Dennis Allen problem.

I mean, I really do think like if you boiled it down to just like Dennis Allen trying to coach a defense, he's doing a good job.

But like, we need to zoom this thing out.

Like, why is Mickey Loomis still the general manager of this team?

Like, why is all this stuff still happening?

Like, this is a bad roster that honestly has been in decay.

I mean, there's a reason that Sean Payton like illegally tried to leave this team and go coach the Dolphins.

It's in a bad shape.

It's financially just

unmovable.

Like you can't solve this problem and you just keep signing 30-year-old people to extensions.

I don't, I don't know how you fix this.

Yeah, there was another tweet, I think, Cam Jordan, who, you know, we know Cam or, you know, he's worked with us in at least parallel-wise NFL media.

He's been on our show, our old show, and like, I think he sent out a a tweet, Mark, like, hey, guys, you know,

we didn't think it was going to be this bad.

We're sorry.

Like, they're at the stage where it's like,

we just lost to the Panthers.

Like,

we know this is bad.

There's nothing to say at this point.

Because I think the Saints and their fans have had a, there have been a fair share of frustrating junctures in history.

But even going back a couple years, The way they'd put it on like the Tom Brady Bucks and their defense and the nature of that defense, like, you couldn't look at the Saints and say, I don't know who they are.

They have no identity.

They weren't perfect.

And like post, you know, post-breeze, there were issues, but it's like they'd go thump you and deal with you physically.

And there was a certain nature to the Saints that you could kind of see week to week.

Right now,

I can't put my finger on what they are.

And I think you're absolutely right about Mickey Loomis.

That's been on my radar going back a decade, and it's just like,

each of these teams are run a little differently, and this feels like a little mom-and-pop shop where

there's no one one really asking in a committee tougher questions about where to go.

And to your point, Connor, Cam Jordan's like one of those guys.

Like they're an aging team.

He's been one of the worst edge players in the league, and that's, I don't say that to stomp on him because he's had a great career, but he's been one of the problems, many problems for New Orleans this year.

He just got old.

This is his exact line.

We just lost to the Panthers.

I love y'all.

New Orleans truly had higher expectations and the best of hopes for us.

Y'all deserve it.

We just lost to the Panthers.

We'll talk about the Panthers later in the week, but good for you, Bryce Young.

One last word, Connor.

Yeah, I mean, Bryce Young played really well.

Like, there were moments where he was in the, you know, I have not seen him throw from a solid base in like two years, and he was dropping back.

He had his two feet on the ground, and he was ripping balls.

He had a very long, like, beautiful touchdown pass that was dropped that I think would have taken this game from, okay, he's not the worst quarterback in the league to like, he's actually like

borderline exceptional.

Like he's doing really cool things.

And so I do think this was a big, big moment for him.

All right, good.

Happy to hear that.

All right.

One more game before Sunday Night Football.

Gravedigger to Nashville.

The battle for the number one overall pick through nine weeks.

A fork off.

The Titans and Patriots win went back.

He's got the back out of his mouth.

He's so upset.

Go ahead.

Hey, the Titans won a game.

It's a good day.

With Drake May running for his life for most of the game, while Mason Rudolph started again for the Titans and continued Tennessee's streak of throwing an interception in every single game this season.

But this time, the Titans' defense actually forced more turnovers than their offense committed, and the Titans were able to pull out an overtime victory sealed by Amani Hooker's second interception of the day.

Titans win 20 to 17.

Can I tell you guys a crazy stat?

Yes.

The Patriots today had 295 total yards of offense.

Drake May accounted for 301 total yards of offense.

He had more yards of offense than the Patriots did because he was sacked four times, which accounted accounted for minus 21 yards, which I'm not attributing to his total yards.

Antonio Gibson had a minus one-yard run.

The only yardage that the Patriots compiled that were not accumulated by Drake May were 16 rushing yards by Ramondre Stevenson.

That's it.

And the play that tied the game as the clock expired was absolutely unreal.

Drake May held the ball, scrambled around in the backfield for 11.82 seconds before finally finding Ramondre Stevenson in the end zone to force overtime.

We talked about it with the Hale Marilyn last week, that Jaden Daniels was like the first quarterback to have a time to throw over 10 seconds and complete a pass in the next-gen stats era.

Drake May does it this game as time expires, and the only play that was completed with a longer time to throw was Jaden Daniels last week in the entire, since 2016, next-gen stats era.

It's wild to me that like

record aside, I feel very differently about the Patriots just simply because of the presence of this quarterback.

Like, I don't know, like, he can do a little bit of everything.

And I watched that play, too, and it was just like, there's just something about him.

And compared to where you were a month ago,

I don't know.

Get me one of these guys.

You know, like, if you want a guy that has a lot of ceiling or upside as a throw over the football, but can give you an eight for 95, like, okay, Jaden Daniels is doing that.

Drake May has the ability to do that.

Obviously, the Bears are hoping their quarterback has that dual threat capability.

But yeah, he makes them watchable on offense.

Let's give, though, the final word on this game,

Justin, to your boy, Brian Callahan.

Just how badly did you guys need this today?

Look at me.

I needed it bad, man.

It was.

Yeah, we needed it.

He's crazy.

Oh, I feel like.

You know, I didn't know.

Can I just say I read that quote and then I asked Justin to grab it?

I didn't know that he was getting emotional.

Shit.

Yeah.

Man, coaching's hard, dude.

I say I'm not mocking him.

I mean, that.

I am.

I'm happy for him.

I will mock him.

I mean, he called a really good game today.

The Titans did have a play where they kicked a field goal on fourth and goal from the two-yard line that was like...

Shouldn't you go for it?

But I actually, a lot of people are mad at this decision.

Analytics say it was like 4.3% higher win probability to go for it versus a kick-the-field goal.

The Titans had three backups in on the offensive line after losing Lloyd Cushenberry for the season with an injury, which is terrible.

They have a backup quarterback in.

They just traded DeAndre Hopkins.

They're dealing with injuries everywhere.

They've been in the red zone multiple times this season and turned it over on downs or by interception, including earlier in this game.

Take the points and tie the game.

I'm with you, Brian Callahan.

Good job.

I just try to give Brian Callahan the last word.

The guy needed it.

You heard it.

Should I play that again?

Yeah, give it a word.

I'm replaying it.

Now, let's give Brian the last word.

Go ahead.

And then to Sunday Night Football.

Just how badly did you guys need this today?

I mean, look at me.

I needed it bad, man.

It was,

yeah, we needed it.

That's Justin talking about his next cigarette.

All right, to Sunday Night Football.

Sunday night.

Two losses in five days for the Minnesota Vikings.

Humbled the team

from the land of 10,000 Lakes.

But undeterred, they got off the mat and got back in the winning column on Sunday night football with a 21-13 win over the Indianapolis Colts.

A game in which Sam Darnold

was sacked four times and turned the ball over three times.

But he also threw three touchdown passes in the second half,

including a throw in the final few minutes to put this game on ice to Josh Oliver.

And yes, the Vikings approved to six and two, and the Colts, without Anthony Richardson and with Joe Flacco in the lineup, fall to four and five.

Connor,

I was already seeing it's a little bit frustrating to me because I know that the football cognizant

Is known to have their favorites, and Anthony Richardson is one of them.

And

there was a lot of hand-wringing at the conclusion of this game about

how, oh, way to go, Anthony Richardson on the bench.

I bet he's really learning as Joe Flacco struggles through a game in which the only touchdown for the Colts is a defensive fumble return score.

All right, whatever.

But you wouldn't have been saying that if Flacco balled out, but he didn't, and that's the way it is.

I hate this argument, though, because it strips away.

Yes, in a perfect world, it's great to wait for all of these people to develop, but we're talking about Anthony Richardson against a Brian Flores defense that has clowned like four of the better quarterbacks in the NFL.

And maybe Joe Flacco holding serve was better than what we would have gotten in another case.

And

this all goes back to the central point.

And I know I said this a week ago and now I was getting a ton of crap from it from Colts fans, but like Shane Steichen's a really good play caller.

He's not going to be your head coach if he has to stick with Anthony Richardson and lose all these games until Anthony Richardson is ready.

Shane Steichen's got to win enough games to get to the playoffs to remain the head coach of the Colts to develop Anthony Richardson.

I'm sorry.

That's just how it goes.

And you can't just throw a season away because a guy's not ready yet.

It's not how it works in the NFL anymore.

Yeah, I think there's, you know, the B-line for Anthony Richardson has been inconsistency, whether it's he can't stay in the lineup because of injuries or simply his play.

And if you're Shane Steichen in two years or just a season and a half, you've been through a lot.

You've had multiple quarterbacks both seasons.

You've got in Anthony Richardson a quarterback that maybe can't play, and you've got a locker room of professionals who care about their career and want to understand that their coach is going to make the decision for them.

You've got a running back and then Jonathan Taylor who's in and out.

So you've had to deal with so much that, yeah, you need to stack wins.

And I have no problem with them starting Flacco tonight.

I think you're playing a defense that has masqueraded,

disguises itself, brings heavy pressure, and they didn't get past, they didn't get inside the 20-yard line.

of the Vikings.

And that's sort of like what you can rely on the Vikings to do to certain quarterbacks.

So I think today is not an acid test or a final quiz on which quarterback Shane Steichen should have started.

This was not a bad move to do that.

It's just you're playing a rowdy beast in the Vikings.

Yeah, it was a tough assignment.

Richardson, I think, would have really struggled in this environment.

And to be fair, Joe Flacco did as well.

I thought the pivotal moment in this game came in the fourth quarter.

This was the penultimate drive for the Colts.

They were facing third and two at the Minnesota 40, 529 to play in the fourth quarter.

And

Collinsworth did a good job illuminating it.

That

they had a play.

If they just hand the ball off, the Vikings were willing to give up five yards or more.

There was a big gaping lane in the blocking.

They don't hand it off.

The running back then

veers out into the flat or into the medium zone on an intermediate type route.

All Flacco's got to do is just dump it to that running back, and you get five to ten yards there, and you move the chains.

He does not throw that pass.

He

instead tries to bang one into Michael Pittman downfield.

Harrison Smith knocks it away.

On fourth and two, Flacco and the shotgun

targets Doolan.

Once again, knocked away

turnover on downs.

And that ended up being the closest that they got.

So,

you know, the Colts are a team that is going to,

you know, the margin for error is small, Connor, because they're just not an

explosive offense.

So when you have those opportunities, you can't give them away.

Yeah, for sure.

And, you know, you just wonder

what the alternative for them is at this point.

Because, you know, okay, could you have conjured up a world where Anthony Richardson got active enough on the ground to be able to negate some of this?

Or, you know, would you put him in situationally in this game to help him learn if that's the ultimate goal here?

I don't know.

I mean, and maybe I'm just dragging out this argument because I'm still mad about it, but it's one of those things where it's like, this is what you are at this point, and you have to just, you have to make it work.

And this is the best avenue towards making it work.

I mean,

not getting blown out and completely embarrassed and pants by this defense, I think, is still kind of like a silver medal.

I mean, they're still really, really good, you know?

They're in hot water.

They've been swept by the Texans, and you've got the Bills, then the Jets, but then the Lions.

You're on the fringe, and so tough decisions are going to have to be made.

And I don't, I'm really with you on this one.

They're in a tough spot.

I don't see them as a playoff team, and I just think that

they've got schedule issues now, and the only team that you need to catch in division just swept you.

And then my last thought on the game is Sam Darnold, who, you know, the talk of Sam Darnold as an MVP candidate has receded, and rightfully so, but he's still having a good season for them, and he's leading that offense better than most anybody could have imagined.

He throws for two.

Sam Darnold, MVP odds.

Yeah, the odds are pretty

low, but that's beside the point.

He threw for a season high, 290 yards, three touchdown passes, 28 of 34, which is all great.

Not so great as he lost the fumble that was returned for a score, and he threw two other interceptions.

So three turnovers is not what you're looking for, obviously.

But overall, I thought it was notable

that in the final minutes of the game where they could have kicked the field goal

to give them some padding, but still been within one score for the Colts.

I thought it was interesting that O'Connell said, Hey, I'm going to give Darnold a chance to end this game and put the ball in the air, which he did, and he threw the touchdown pass to the tight end to ice the game.

So, I thought O'Connell Connor showed some faith in Darnold on a mistake-prone night that he still believed he could make the big throw to put that game away.

And that's exactly what he did.

So I thought overall another positive step forward for Darnold, even if it wasn't the cleanest game.

I don't know if you guys caught this, but while that was happening, Mike Torico said, and Chris, here's J.J.

McCarthy on the sideline, and you have something on that, right?

And Chris Collinsworth was like, yeah, short of Sam Darnold taking the Vikings to the Super Bowl and winning it, J.J.

McCarthy is going to be the quarterback next year.

And he said it with like absolute certainty.

And we know that these guys spend the whole week in the facility.

Yeah, you could tell he was told that.

Yeah, and that was to me like a fairly stunning announcement that just like all of a sudden, like, you know, you just sort of like pop that at the very end of a game when like 90% of the world's asleep.

But like, that's a pretty big deal.

I mean, I had argued earlier in the season that they should have signed him to a mini extension, and I still think they should.

I mean, we don't know what this kid's going to look like coming off of

an injury like this.

They made it very clear that

he made it very clear that the driving force behind that sounded like we want to live the life of the rookie cornerback contract.

I mean, 100%.

Like, to be damned, no matter what Darnold does.

He said, even if he took him to the Super Bowl, it's like he'd have to win it.

So it's like, whoa, okay.

Right.

I mean, it's not like Sam Darnold's so expensive.

Like, I don't know why you couldn't move forward with both of these guys.

Well, now we're getting back into that ground where I know we didn't park our cars in the same garage there on that, Mark.

But the Falcons first-round first-round pick that's just gathering dust on the sideline

in Atlanta right now.

The Vikings don't want to do that with their guy.

You get a finite amount of time when they're on that rookie deal.

They already lost year one of his development and the contract to the knee injury, and they want to get him on the field.

So that all makes sense to me.

And Darnold knows that.

And I think there's a general understanding that he's playing for, again, he'll be on the move again.

And if he continues at this rate and they're a playoff team, which at 6-2, that certainly certainly seems like a very good possibility, that he's going to get a starting quarterback job somewhere next year and maybe everybody wins.

Most of all, J.J.

McCarthy, who gets a clean slate as a starting quarterback.

But in the here and now, the Vikings are one of the surprises of the NFC, and the Colts have to make a decision at quarterback.

It would have been easier for the Colts if Flacco lit it up again.

But if Flacco's not going to play well,

it's almost like their hands are tied and the criticism will mount that why did you even do this in the first place?

But that's that's hindsight 2020 shit that bothers me when people do that.

It's like, man, all the recent history tells us that Flacco is going to do the job.

I'm not counting him out.

This was a tough spot and he didn't get the job done, but they should give him another start and stand by the decision they made.

I agree.

More people need to stick up for Joe Flacco.

Yeah, man.

He's a good guy.

He almost played Johnny Unidas in a movie once.

What else do you think?

What happened to that movie?

It got lost.

It got put into turnaround and,

you know, just never saw the light of day.

But

it is what it is.

That's a real shame.

It is a real shame, Mark.

What's also a real shame is that we can't go on talking for another two hours because all the games have been covered in Sunday.

It's Monday night football.

Buccaneers at Chiefs wraps things up.

And Mark, you and I, will be there with Gravedigger to give you everything you need there.

And a reminder once again that we have extra fun content over on patreon.com slash heedthecall, including this Tuesday a live stream for the trade deadline right on Election Day.

We like to just add, like if the NFL could try to gobble up days of the calendar, we're coming for Election Day.

So get on patreon.com slash heed the call.

Join the movement and join us for the live stream, which, you know, Mark, I think we'll do like reaction to anything that goes down on Tuesday and we'll do some Q ⁇ A with fans.

We'll have some fun with everybody.

Anybody that's there, we'll have a good old time.

Yeah, I think we're looking at a Gandhi-length show, four to five hours, robust, many ideas.

Correct?

Don't get me wrong.

Gandhi just cut it.

Gandhi was a, for those that are not Mark's age, Gandhi was a movie that came out roughly 43 years ago.

Well, it's, yeah, but it's noted, it's, I, I don't even know if I did see it when I was very young, but like, um, it, it was an incredibly long.

Like, it, it used to be kind of, now it, now it's, like, not even as long as as like most superhero movies.

But back then, it was a

project.

Don't get me started.

Like,

the idea that the Avengers, the search for the missing Golden Stones is three hours and 41 minutes is an absolute atrocity of popular culture.

And we gotta rein it in.

Says the guy wrapping up the two-hour NFL podcast.

All right.

Without further ado, we'll see you on Monday night.

Thanks to everybody for listening.

Thank you to Connor.

We love you.

And Justin, who's been a trooper as I put him through some hoops here in Texas.

We'll all be back together in California tomorrow.

Until then, heed the call.

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