MNF Recap: Giants-Steelers (with Josh Norris)

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The Pittsburgh Steelers were beaten at home on Monday night by the New York Giants.

That was back on October 14th, 1991.

Pittsburgh has not lost a Monday night football game at home ever since.

The Steelers have an almost Mad Max feel to them, a different civilization.

Their process can seem insular, tribal.

They don't fit at Sunday tea.

Like a young Charles Bronson, they prefer boxing gloves to books or just bare knuckles.

Tonight they encountered an enemy unafraid to fight, an imperfect Giants team struggling for survival, hanging around, goading Russell Wilson into a late fumble.

But then, like so many times before, the leader of this tribe, TJ Watt, took the ball right back from Daniel Jones.

Given one more try, Jones encountered Beanie Bishop, game-ending pick.

We've seen this picture before.

Three Rivers, I know it's not the name of the stadium, is where you go to die.

This is the NFL's Fury Road.

Steelers 26, Giants 18.

Welcome to Heed the Call.

I'm Mark Sessler.

Dan Hansis is in the big apple tonight.

Bottom of the nights, we're not even going to discuss that game.

To watch his Yankees, we are joined by our underdog brother-in-arms, Josh Norris.

Josh, welcome.

This was a dogfight.

And I could just feel the Giants and especially Brian Dayball struggling.

for the team's in-season survival.

And this is a strange Steelers team, but a tall order at home, the rowdiest stadium in football.

Nothing feels surprising when the Steelers do this.

How did you, what did you feel about this rather long-winded game?

Well, I couldn't tell if this was good football or bad football in many portions of this contest.

There are elements when you watch a game like that, where you kind of pick and choose which things you care about, which moments, which players, and those types of things.

I'm sure we'll get to many of them, including Tyrone Tracy, including Russell Wilson in these last two games, proving to me that he can still be an NFL starter at this level.

I thought looking better even in this game than he did last week.

But mark number one is I get to witness a hosted episode of Heed the Call by you.

And that intro for a minute and a half was worth me staying up past midnight on the East Coast.

Well, you're not only witnessing it, you are part of it.

So

you are fully part of it.

And like, you know, I think we try to have people on these night games from, you know, from different parts of the country.

And I always feel bad when we tag someone from the East Coast because I do understand that

it's creeping close to midnight.

And as it was getting, this almost went into overtime, or it felt like it could.

It felt out of hand, and then it got not out of hand because that's how this works.

And then I was thinking, Josh will be up until, you know,

I was just going to, like I told Justin, I would send you four bottles of wine if that happened.

But we got out of there in time.

And

man, I thought, like,

I just want to start with the giants on one thing they're so frustrating because you can see the pieces and i and i mentioned this after one of their many primetime games earlier in the year and it sounded a little wacky because they were handled but like Tyrone Tracy, Darius Slayton, Belichick on the Manning cast basically said of Darius Slayton, this guy is a problem.

Like he was starting to realize who he was in real time.

You know, you've got Malik neighbors.

I think Theo Johnson late.

Daniel Jones made good decisions for most of the night.

And then the next game, none of it shows up again.

They're very frustrating.

So the Darius Slayton conundrum here for the Giants has been like an ongoing storyline for multiple offseasons.

They've tried to replace him with someone like Jalen Hyatt.

His name always pops up in those May or June months by national insiders saying, oh, this guy might be on the trade block if the right pick comes in.

And then all that we see whenever Darius Slayton is given an opportunity is for him to go out there and produce.

To me, again, Tyrone Tracy is such an awesome storyline of the midway point of this NFL season.

A fifth-round pick, a 24-year-old who played wide receiver at Iowa, shifted over to Purdue to play the running back spot.

You know, goes in and tries to eclipse and overtake a Brian Dayball favorite in Devon Singletary.

And he's absolutely done that in these last three, four, five games.

And his touchdown run of 40-plus yards, just tremendous vision.

I compared him in the draft Mark, to the likes of David Johnson, if you remember that name, one of the most explosive matches in the league.

I don't know if he's quite going to reach that superstar level, but I just absolutely love that, sure, we've seen the Saquon Barkley

timeline go on to the Philadelphia Eagles and how great he's starring there.

But it is cool for this team to replace someone of that caliber with a young up-and-coming talent like Tyrone Tracy.

But at the end of the day, Mark,

does this even matter at this point?

Like where Brian Dayball Dayball had this team a couple years ago in his first year as head coach, willing them to the playoffs, winning on like the fringes and the dark arts of these games in one-score contests.

Now it doesn't feel like, despite all the superstars that you mentioned, of like Brian Burns and Dexter Lawrence, that they're just not quite there.

And I really do think that the loss of Andrew Thomas last week or two weeks ago is really going to impact this team long term.

Because if you can't just keep Daniel Jones's confidence at an all-time high, I'm not sure how you're going to get through 17 games of Daniel Jones giving you playoff caliber performances.

Yeah,

you know, it's, I, they say it in these games, and I, and I really do see it.

I think that Dayball is a creative,

good game planner, a good coach, and he, and I think the front office, too, beyond the Saquon Barkley disaster, like, and it's not now if Tracy emerges.

It really isn't.

I think it probably kept the owner from having his like fourth and fifth gin and tonic tonight to watch a running back do what he did.

But they got in their,

they seemed to get in their way too.

And we'll get to the Steelers in a minute, but there was the second drive of the game where, and of course, you know, this game was so weird early on.

Four drives in the red zone were turned into field goals, like no touchdowns.

And it was, it looked, it looked clunky.

But the Giants,

in Pittsburgh, when you really have got to find a way to play your cleanest game, had five penalties on their second drive that wiped out, one wiped out a touchdown.

And so it's like these are these little moments.

You get to the end end of the game and it's the final Daniel Jones interception.

But both teams can look at this game and be like, wait a minute, we've got a lot to correct here in the red.

And we also got that sweet two-point conversion attempt, which I see this within high school and college where the entire offensive line and everyone shifts all the way to the left.

And if you have the numbers, then throw it out there.

But everyone was looking to the right except Devlin Singletary.

And when the ball was snapped, no one moved.

And then just a free rusher and Alex Highsmith tackles Link Neighbors for an incomplete pass.

I just love that in this game where it's a game of inches and a game of plays that we just and these teams just, you know, the coaches sleep at the headquarters so they can get every waking moment and breath to game plan for these.

And then something that they drew in a napkin puts it out on National Football League stage and it just is a complete disaster.

Those are always fun little moments for me, Mark.

Yeah, that play stood out.

It was such a, for me, a game where it felt like we can't close the deal because the Steelers moved the ball so well

until they crept close to the end zone.

I thought Najee Harris looked great tonight.

I thought this was a vision of what in between the 20s.

This was what Arthur Smith wants to do, can do.

I know that Russell Wilson started to throw the ball deep, but he feels really limited.

This is like a screen pass offense because I think they finished with 18 plays of 10 plus yards.

But like 16 of those were yards after the catch where the throw is like just like a screen pass or something or you know not over not deep down the center of the field but i do i'll tell you one guy i love like darnell washington who i like i think we actually talked about darnell washington on our old show you came on and we talked about him i just think the idea of just how big he is because at one point at halftime they showed them all rumbling into the tunnel and these are all people that don't fit through a normal door but then darnell washington looks like like he came from a different civilization and he's starting to make big plays So if we can get a little nerdy here, obviously Arthur Smith, Artie Smith is the play caller for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

He runs 13 personnel, three tight end sets at the highest rate in the NFL, around 20% of the time.

This is the same Arthur Smith that in Atlanta, everyone was frustrated that, you know, couldn't get Kyle Pitts involved.

He has Michael Pruitt there.

He has some other random tight ends involved in this situation.

You can't go from like a more different body type from what he had in Atlanta among that tight end group to what he has in Pittsburgh with Darnell Washington, who's probably pushing, what, 280 pounds as a sixth offensive lineman who also, you know, had a catch for 29 yards.

And then Pat Fryermuth, who I think is a really, really fun player.

So he can do some of the cool undercenter deep play action stuff, but get some extra protection help and just bigger bodies on top of it.

And then we can't mention the Pittsburgh Steelers

without mentioning the likes of George Pickens and just the weirdness that this guy brings to the table every single week, Mark.

Like the double right foot in the dirt non-touchdown catch and then also I don't think it was, I don't know if he was planning that physically.

Do you think he could recreate this exact play over again if given the chance 10 more occasions?

No, not for like not for like 10 years.

Like you'd have to keep trying.

But I mean it was.

It's just funny how like that rule needed to be explained because the first football book I ever had was like one knee equals two feet, like John Madden's book where he very click for you a child almost explains those things.

And I'm not some rules Maven.

I'm not saying that, but like it was pretty clearly when you saw the replay a good call, I thought.

It just was frustrating because it was such an acrobatic almost catch with, you know, with they're taking his head off and he's he's still making the play very closely.

But add it to his file.

Has George Pickens not like a dozen of these near touchdowns over his last few years too?

So I think if anyone was going to show us that once again that is possible and the same foot twice does not equal two feet in bounds, then George Pickens is like the perfect advocate for that rule once again.

He did have the, I thought, beautiful 43-yard catch when it mattered late.

Calvin Austin, like coming out of nowhere with the punt return, which feels like more and more of a rare happening in the NFL.

Broke Brooklyn.

Broke the game open, and then it's the 29-yard touchdown catch right after it.

And I know that, you know, if you're a fantasy head, you've got, I have a friend that was the Steelers defense.

Like, suddenly you're on fire because it's like great things are happening to you.

But that's another playmaker on this team.

And it's like, I do think sometimes they feel a little limited.

And Russell Ways, I think Russell Wilson played a really good game.

And he's having, he fits in this offense to some degree.

The deep ball came out a little bit.

I just think

he creates trouble and he creates havoc in sacks by holding on to the ball too long.

And that's just what this offense cannot have.

He's got to get it out quicker.

But it's not nearly as bad as it was last year.

And maybe, you know, this is the honeymoon period between him and the Steelers at this moment in the first two starting games.

And things really started to climb with he and, you know sean payton last year in denver but mark i was of the opinion that this was only going to be like a one to two week experiment with russell wilson back at the helm and that at some point they would shift back over to justin fields boy do i look wrong in that department because like again you're not alone but yeah totally but he's other than you know the fumble in this game he's not really putting the football in harm's way he is definitely showing i think more accuracy than justin fields in this game and again he's was better in this performance than he was last week.

And then I think he's just carrying out what the offensive identity wants to be in terms of playing on time.

And like you're saying, I think both teams had, in terms of the Giants, have offensive line issues and namely tackle problems.

And that's where a lot of the screens and the underneath and the misdirection, the play action, quick passes kind of came from.

But, you know, both teams have paid their defensive linemen and invested a whole bunch of money into both of those units.

So it's kind of like a strength versus weaknesses in both of those.

But I just can't say enough good things about Russ showing this in the first two starts.

And hopefully this continues because to me, that would, again, make it one of the better stories of the league.

It's like the 18th veteran quarterback coming in to overtake someone that has less experience and isn't moving the attack the way you want it to.

And I mean, I didn't expect that from Russell Wilson either.

I thought that was sort of like, oh, the Steelers are going in with like two wildcard scenarios here, and it is working.

He looked really clean tonight.

But to your point about their offensive line, like the Broderick Jones penalty, which took away a George Pickens touchdown, like that was no fun either.

It just seemed like these guys have to figure out how to close these drives.

I thought the turning point in this, and we'll move on to some news in a minute, is when, you know, the...

Daniel Jones was protected.

He was also getting the ball out really quick tonight.

I thought that was a good aspect to his game.

But then you got the drive where

TJ Watts sacks him, and then on the next play, High Smith sacks him.

Then on the next drive, there's another High Smith Sack.

And it's like

the floor started to fall out there because it just seemed like every single Steelers game we've ever watched to some degree in this era of Steelers football.

And so I give them credit for crawling back into it, the Giants, because they used big plays.

It was a good plan.

They didn't shy away from the moment, but they just can't seem to get out of their own way with little things.

And now the thing is their record,

their season is over.

Their season is over.

And they crawl back from two and six.

And the opposite end of that is the Steelers, six and two.

Mark, the freaking Steelers, with this roster that is not loaded with playmakers other than some defensive linemen.

And I think you can argue with every single other player on there.

This is just what Mike Tomlin does.

And I think every single person in my seat can hop on a show just like this and say, Mike Tomlin somehow has this dark magic and wins in and wills his team to these victories and these winning records.

But hey, it's 2024 and he's doing it again.

He is.

And they are, they head into their bye, a game up on the the Ravens.

And with six AFC North, their schedule, I mean, as we know, is just so bizarre.

It's not that they don't backload divisional games, but they have every one of them piled on top of each other down the stretch.

And so I think that's good for them because we know their defense is here.

But if they're going to continue to grow, if Russell Wilson and the offense gets more comfortable as a unit together and the offensive line, some of the issues figured out.

This is just like to my point at the top of the show.

If you have to go into Pittsburgh for any reason in the playoffs, I don't really care who you are.

It like adds a like 30% challenge level to what you'd have to do in January.

Yeah, final two odds and ends.

Hopefully, Tyron Tracy is okay.

I know he left very, very late with a head injury.

Hopefully, it's not a concussion, but we'll see with that moving forward.

And then, as much praise as I'm going to give Mike Tomlin, another funny moment was with the George Pickens near touchdown that automatically gets reviewed in the booth.

Then, one of the four head coaches on the NFL's competition committee doesn't realize that you cannot throw the challenge flag in that department and then waste the time out on top of it.

It's just chef's kiss.

That was

there are like certain, a certain ilk of Steelers fans that are sort of eternally frustrated with Mike Tomlin despite the sort of basic success to every season.

And I think it's little moments like that.

And he makes up for it by like, I think, the way he is with his own players in the locker room.

But that was a very like Steelers moment on some level.

But that, you know, that's...

It's kind of shocking to me when that stuff happens.

I don't know if it's like disorganization in the moment.

You're dealing with more than we are listening to like Troy Aikman crow on about it at home.

I understand that, but it seems like a relatively basic

ask.

All right.

Justin, how are you?

Great figure.

Were you not expecting to come in on this one?

No.

Did you guys mention the Mike Tomlin camera moment where he found the camera and smiled and it's blowing up on Twitter now?

I didn't see this part.

No.

Oh, just search Mike Tomlin on Twitter right now and it'll pop up a million times.

There was also on the, and we'll try to find this, but on the Manning cast, Eli Manning stood up out of his seat and did, like Dexter Lawrence did his sexy Dexi dance, and Eli Manning did a relatively admirable copy of it on his own.

And, you know, it was, it's good to see Eli Manning doing that kind of stuff on our planet, I guess, potentially.

All right, let's do some news.

How about that, Justin?

No, let's take a break and then we'll do some news.

Let's take a break and then we're going to do some news.

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All right, we are back.

And you know, naturally, um, I, you know, I host the show once, like when a solar eclipse happens, that's when I'll host the show for the most part.

Uh, and you know, Justin, our loyal producer, uh, reminded me roughly 12 times, you know, before we started, make sure you take it to a break.

We need to do that.

That's contractually obligated.

Um, he apparently texted me during the show, and naturally, I've forgot.

So, I appreciate the prodding to get that done.

I hope you enjoyed the break, uh, listener.

And now, let's do some news.

Feel there's anything imminent on the trade front like in the next 24 hours

come to you with

Kohan Baghdad.

No, no, seriously, the Petsy come to you with something that you could be.

I love it.

Dan Campbell hopping with glee at the potential acquisition, trade, trade activity they might be involved in or will be involved in.

It's that time of year.

You think they're going to do it, Josh?

They haven't been Edge Rusher.

You can never replace Aiden Hutchinson, but that would be the position I would think of most for the Detroit Lions to add, for sure.

Saw a rumor that Zadarius Smith trade is like happening, but it's

one of those sources that we're not going to cite.

So we'll see if that actually is true.

You know what's weird about all this, though?

It's like you look around the league and people that were readily available a week ago, like one one game can change things.

And I'm not, like, this is not the Cleveland Browns fan in me, but it's like now you want to start selling.

Like, you might have changed your season at least.

And he has been really effective across from Miles Garrett.

Like, even Miles Garrett's name popped up as a, would the Browns even listen?

And now that was just, that's, that means you're basically ending this era of the organization if you do that.

But I don't love the idea of moving Zadarius Smith because I feel like you don't get anything for most of these deals.

You don't get the value of a Zadarius Smith.

Is it like going to be a fourth or fifth or something?

And then you go pick someone who it flames out and is on another team in a year and a half, Josh.

It's frustrating to me.

Well, should we then send it to one of these teams that we're actually going to praise them to make this move in the Kansas City Chiefs and adding an edge rusher for their playoff run?

It looks like they might do that.

They did do that.

They have done that.

And they have traded for Juju Smith Schuster.

They've acquired him.

They've acquired Kareem Hunt, DeAndre Hopkins, and now Josh USA from the Patriots.

But this was for a six-round pick.

Do you like, that's to my point a little bit.

Like, I know he had a bit of a tough time in New England this year, but is he not worth more than a six-round pick?

Very fair question.

And he is one of those players, as you said, who has kind of been in and out of the starting lineup.

And he's, to me, just such a great fit for this team that a six-round pick was absolutely nothing when we get to, you know, the last weekend in April.

And a six-round pick you can just pick up by dropping back an extra 15 or 20 spots in the NFL draft.

Like they just give them away the free cookies at Harris Teeter.

But for me, like when I think back and look into how Joshua Ushé, which by the way, we have a name change.

I always love these when we're entering like the fifth or sixth year of a player and we've been saying his name incorrectly for the last half decade.

Right.

Just forced this upon us and this new skill.

With Cease Spagnolo, this is, you have obviously Chris Jones in the the middle, you have George Carloftis on the outside, and then you have some blitzing into your linebackers on top of it, plus a whole bunch of slot corners blitzing off the edge and the nickel.

That this Joshua Ushé is going to be this really fun edge stand-up two-point stance.

He can run the ring on the outside, or he can loop back inside.

And it's kind of like one of those maybe final chess pieces in Spaggs' defense that I think can even tick them up another notch, which is super dangerous right now.

And if you're Joshua, not you, but that Joshua, like you love the idea of this going to a defense that's going to carry you into February and you're going to be maximized and used well.

It's like sometimes these players, I know you probably have to, you got to move your kids out of preschool and all this other stuff and pack boxes if you're actually going to do it.

But this is a great situation for anyone, for all these guys that are like exodus out of team death to Kansas City Chiefs.

I love that.

I had an idea for you for a trade.

You tell me how crazy this is because I think that one of the, along with, you know, Tracy in New York, but Tank Bigsby has been such a good player in year two.

And it's like each week now, and I know he's banged up, but you got Travis Etienne sitting there with a so-called hamstring injury.

I'm not doubting that that's the case, but what about Travis Etienne going to the Kansas City Chiefs?

Dare I say that Kareem Hunt is better than Travis Etienne right now?

Like, how?

Well, it hurt Travis Etienne, but yeah.

But do you really think you think so?

I'm just kind of down on what Travis Etienne is at the moment.

Like

the last year and a half, he's basically turned into this volume sponge player that needs 17 carries to really do anything in the league to break one off.

Now, at the same time, Kareem Hunt isn't going to break off a long run.

A long run to him is about 11 yards.

And wow, that's

a massive gain.

But where the Chiefs are at this moment, Mark, they are just so comfortable in picking up four to seven yards on like every single play.

They're the most high success rate team when it comes to rushing the football.

And that's without, you know, these 10, 12, 15, 20 yard gains on top of it.

And then we'll see when Isaiah Pacheco comes back and really internally how they feel about that.

If it's true, he'll come off into reserve and get back, or maybe that's more of like a week 15 and beyond type thing.

To me, they're just totally comfortable with someone like Kareem Hunt,

the understanding, the comfort of inside the 10, inside the five, and you're not going to foam the football for us.

And it's that simple for them at this moment.

Yeah, and if Pacheco comes back, he's better than all of them.

So that would be ideal.

But you're right.

They seem to make anyone fit.

Let's travel to Indianapolis, shall we?

Okay, so we know what happened with Anthony Richardson.

And we're at the point, and we always know what this starts to mean, that Shane Steichen, very good coach, has tried to make things work with Anthony Richardson.

I don't think roller coaster even works as a sports term anymore because

it was a creative way to describe things like 40 years ago.

But I don't know what the new term is, but it's all over the map.

And he basically said when they asked if he would start in week nine, Anthony Richardson, we're evaluating everything.

That usually feels to me like

I don't like what's happening here for me and my staff in the locker room, and we need to pump the brakes on this experiment.

And we've got a hyper-solid veteran roaming the sideline, a very tall drink of water who goes out and wins games and throws for 300 yards.

What would you do?

What should they do?

What's going to happen here, Josh?

Before we get into this conversation, and I apologize,

was not able to listen to the recap show this morning, but did you guys cover the

moment where he substituted himself out?

I'm sure you had an entire conversation about that.

We did.

We did.

Actually, I think we should bring something up.

Can we bring this up?

Because I thought, you know,

this coming from someone who couldn't be more

embaked into what the NFL has been for four decades.

Brian Baldinger, here's what he tweeted because he, you know, he's, he's the best.

He's tweeting out like 55 film studies.

And he came across this and he said, wait a minute, Colts QB got tired, got winded, and tapped out.

WTF, this is not acceptable.

Been in this business every day since 1982 and I have never seen this before.

I'll leave it at that.

I mean, like,

are we in a different age now where that doesn't matter as much?

I will say, Mark, my response was very different than that, but I'm also not an athlete and definitely not a professional athlete on top of it.

That is news to us.

In the news section, we've broken some element of news.

But it really stood out to me that literally every single former athlete on Twitter, I recorded a episode of Scheme actually on Anthony Richardson today with your pal.

in real life, Colt McCoy.

And he was irate about this, if I can peel back the curtain, and said, never in his life had he seen a moment, yes, he's seen running backs do this, he's seen wide receivers, defensive pass rushers, as we saw with DJ Watt and Alex Highsmith on the last play of the game tonight, but never for a quarterback.

And I just say, like, maybe there's a little bit of context that's missed in that with the two previous plays where he shrugged off a 318-pound defensive tackle and tried to run around and avoid a sack.

And also, it was third and 23, and he didn't want to take a timeout to catch his breath because they could keep that time out for the fourth quarter, so on and so forth.

But that doesn't matter what I think.

It matters what his sinner, Ryan Kelly, who came out today and said that's already been discussed

internally, and I'm glad he admitted it publicly.

But we need to fix that internally, for better or for worse.

And so it matters to them.

And I do wonder if, Mark, that little moment, like that.

That little time is going to impact the decision here for Shane Steichen when, to me, the decision is so much bigger.

This guy who only has, you know, about 23 starts since high school, since high school.

And that's crazy.

I mean, that's nothing.

He is the least experienced and youngest starting quarterback in the NFL.

And if you pull the plug now, I understand we've seen like some other quarterbacks go in and out of starting lineups, but you're basically admitting that this is not going well.

And we don't know when it is going to start going well.

And that won't sit well with me because for a guy who only has 23 starts since high school, the number one thing is time on task.

It's reps.

It's experience.

And he's not going to get that by sitting on the sideline.

No, it's like you're dancing this odd jig because you're also trying to win games.

You're in a competitive situation record-wise.

And I wonder if the schedule has just a little bit to do with it because they've got Minnesota coming up next.

Yeah, I think Brian Flores would have an interesting time with Anthony Richardson.

Then you've got the Bills after that.

So, you know, part of this is like,

how do you keep your locker room engaged in understanding that the coaches are making the best decisions?

We'll see what happens there.

I have a feeling we know what's going to happen there.

We'll go through some injuries real quick, and let's see if you have any response here.

Jordan Love looks like he avoided major injury.

MRI came back with some good news, according to Rapsheet.

Strained groin, nothing major.

We'll see if he's in the lineup this week.

But I don't hate the idea of Malik Willis, except the fact that they're playing the Lions.

Then they have a buy, so we'll see what happens there.

Dennis Allen expects Derek Carr to practice Wednesday.

Nobody cares.

The Jags, Christian Kirk.

This is one of those guys.

Christian Kirk, we're about to potentially trade him, and then bang, he has a broken collarball.

That's why you see certain guys just not being put into the lineup for various reasons.

And I kind of was wondering if Etienne was one of those people, maybe.

That's why that came to mind.

Brian Thomas will have an MRI in his ribs.

That's not fun.

And we might get Christian McCaffrey at some point.

The IR window opens on Monday.

And Shanahan, in one of the least informative quotes I've ever heard from a coach, said, it's going to be nice getting him back, hopefully.

Anything on that?

I have one on the Packers, but then I'll first go with the 49ers since you just mentioned them.

It is so obvious, but Christian McCaffrey is so meaningful for this team.

And most importantly, inside the red zone, inside the 10-yard line, they have now transformed into one of the worst red zone touchdown success rate teams in the league.

They're at 27th right now, 48% of the time they're scoring touchdowns instead of field goals in that area of the field.

I believe they were first last year.

And in those condensed spaces, someone like Christian McCaffrey is super beneficial.

for this team.

So while Jordan Mason had a stretch of being a nice rusher in a replacement, he was a zero in comparison to the receiving game.

And while Isaac Gorindo has some really nice explosiveness to him for these long touchdown runs, especially when you're missing someone like Brandon Ayute for for the rest of the season, adding Christian McCaffrey could really reshape how their success in that area on those four-point plays, which we saw definitely were meaningful this week across the league,

can improve for the 49ers moving forward.

Yeah, I think like the one thing about them, it was a rough ride to lose all these people, but they're good enough in the way that they developed.

the backup and the backup to the backup.

And now you've got a roster with deeper experience at skill position levels, and you might need them again.

So maybe it's a blessing in disguise although i don't know i'd ever describe like an a non-christian mccaffrey offense as that way um we'll see him again anything else yes one thing on the packers if let's say matt lafleur wins one more game with malik willis lockup coach of the year yeah i mean that's three wins then with malik willis at the helm i mean I don't know if you saw this, and I should have sent it to you, Graver, where Matt LaFleur admitted that, you know, the one play that Malik Willis had the completion of 51 of his 54 passing yards wasn't even in the playbook.

They discussed it in practice,

but it didn't make the actual game plan.

And then they got to the sideline and showed off that one of those boot keepers to that side would have left a massive void on the left side for the leak out.

for Jaden Reed.

And so then they then installed it.

That was not the play call.

And instead, Malik Willis gets to the line of scrimmage, checks into it, and then boom, hits that reception to really win the game for 51 yards.

That is, that is the standard of coaching that Matt LeFour has brought to the table and shows you that it's not just the starting quarterback, it's also the backup quarterback that is ready for that.

When we see all these normal starting quarterbacks not ready to play in an NFL game this season.

There's a weird, like, so it was, it was...

Jason Vrabel, the passing game coordinator, that lobbied for that to be used.

And that said my head.

I was like, you know, looking some of this stuff during.

Where Mike was.

Yeah, I was like, wait, wait, is he Mike's like

brother or cousin?

And like, there's the first headline I saw was that Mike Rabel's like, I've never met Jason Vrabel.

So there's just another, it's another successful Vrabel out there.

So take that, Justin.

A successful Vrabel.

AOE.

And a successful Malik Willis.

Who would have thought a successful Malik Willis in the NFL?

Not me.

No.

Right.

It's not just the way that they've found a way to scheme him up, but he looks

55 times better than he did in Tennessee.

And so you're absolutely right.

Just the development of him has been one of the bigger storylines.

I'd keep him in there in sub-packages, like I've said.

All right, that was Monday Night Football and News, and we are now moving on to week nine.

It does not stop.

Dan will be back on Wednesday with Connor Orr because it's time to fork some teams.

And I think we each have some ideas who those candidates could be.

We'll preview Texans at Jets.

I feel like we're always previewing the Jets on the show.

And that's not a, it just feels like they're at 4,000 primetime games.

Thursday, we have the week nine preview show with Jordan and Mike, the TNF recap later that night.

And finally, the Sunday night flagship with Connor Orr and Justin.

That's what's coming up.

Josh, thank you so much.

I hope we can have you back soon.

Anytime, Mark.

I brought a fork just in case.

I love that.

All right.

Well, there's one last thing that you've got to do.

Heed the call.

Nationwide is so much more than a great insurance company.

They're one of America's largest financial services companies.

Like, how am I more than Saquon Barkley, the NFL's reigning leading rusher?

I'm also the NFL's leading husher.

Hush up back there.

Wow.

I might have just set the hushing record.

Well, almost.

For your insurance and financial needs, Nationwide is on your side.

Nationwide Investment Services Corporation member Finrick, Columbus, Ohio.

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