NFL Week 8 Recap!!

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The Heed the Call podcast does not recognize National Titans Day.

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Welcome to Heed the Call.

It's the flagship show, Sunday, week eight, and a crazy, crazy week eight it was.

And we're gonna dig into all of it right now.

Dan Hansis with Connor Orr, Justin Graver on the ones and twos, and yes, the sess dog back.

Uh, what's up, Mark?

How are you, bud?

I'm doing mostly better.

I thought that, you know, in our society that we had gotten to the point where, well, maybe for snarky individuals, like COVID had become sort of a

sideline joke at this point.

Like, we're not even sure if it was mostly real or not, but it was.

But then, like, I got whacked with it

right in the face.

Right.

Right in the face.

And

it got me.

And so it kind of was a reminder: like, oh, this kind of sucks having this.

I was a non-functioning person for like a solid 19 to 20 hours.

So, you know, it happened on our busiest day on Thursday, and that was an aggravation to me, and probably to the both of you and all three of you.

Probably more to everyone else.

But I'm glad that you are in a better health spot, Mark.

And we have so much to get into.

Connor, I'm sure between your column work for SI and this program, you've had your hands full on this Sunday as well.

No bye weeks.

And week eight with no buys.

It seems a bit of a cruel thing, but we're going to soldier on.

What else would we rather be doing today, you know?

Well,

I had to watch the Jets today.

You traded for the Jets.

All right.

Let's, without further ado, let us get going.

And yes, we have to start with the game.

The last game of the afternoon window ended with incredible, incredible drama.

So let us go to Landover, Maryland.

The Washington Commanders were staring down the barrel of one of those losses.

The games that feel like they're in your back pocket and then shockingly slip away.

The ones that keep you up at night, the ones that age a head coach like a two-term sitting president, the type of defeat that you obsess over, the type of loss that could be remembered as a turning point into the abyss.

You do anything to avoid those losses.

And when everything else fails, you get on your knees and you say a prayer.

Enter into Washington football lore.

The Hail Maryland.

Whoa.

Yes, down three points and 52 yards away from the end zone with no time on the clock.

Rookie Phenom Jaden Daniels dodged and ducked and scrambled buying time for 12.75 seconds before heaving a gorgeous arcing rainbow to the goal line.

A throw that moments earlier, Tony Roma suggested, was more likely to be successfully handled by literally Marcus Mariota.

Seriously, Tone, take it easy, champ.

Why don't you just stop talking for a while?

The entire Bears secondary converged on the ball, but nobody stayed with Noah Brown.

He pulls it in.

Pandemonium, final score, Commander's 18, Bears 15.

Holy shit.

Unbelievable.

I mean,

they're up 12-0 in this game, boys, the Commanders on four field goals.

Jaden Daniels does play with the rib issue.

And, you know, although he played admirably, I thought he was affected by it, both in terms of certain decisions he made, which were smart ones.

He only took one real lick, I thought, where he got hit hard in the ribs.

But also, you know, they just didn't have the same type of

killer vibe to them that they have when Daniels was healthy.

So by only kicking field goals, they left the door open, and that allowed Chicago to get two touchdowns in the second half, and it looked like it was over.

And so for that play, the game to end the way that it did, it's just, you know, it's another sign that things have changed in Washington, and

you're seeing all the crowd reactions, shots, and everything of a game that will be remembered, Mark,

well beyond when all the players involved have played their final down.

It was that type of special moment for Washington.

It's the kind of video that will be played when Daniels is introduced at Canton.

I was wondering if you were going to say that, but

slow down, but yes.

I just think it's the kind of thing where, like,

if you're a fan,

no matter what type of team you follow, you could go an entire adulthood or lifetime without seeing your team pull that play off.

It happens.

It's not the rarest thing on the planet, but it may never happen to your team.

And the circumstances of it, because you mentioned the 12-point, I think it's 7-9 seconds

to throw on that.

That is the first touchdown pass where someone had over 10 seconds to throw

in the next-gen stats era.

Wow.

Like, that's just so, so it's like these things just don't happen.

And there's so many layers to it on why they just don't happen.

And it's it kind of you know, and we can argue like what sports are, but there is this sort of magical element to this year's Commanders team where when you can pull that off, and I know we've got some video of people that were celebrating, like, this has been a moribund, dead fan base for so long.

This is pretty wild, like the scene at that stadium.

And there were people that, there was a picture I saw of people walking out with like four dudes, four bros walking out of the stadium with like Jaden Daniels jerseys with like the price tag still on them.

Like everything's changing.

So big business.

Kyle.

I love how Matt Eberflus just has this uncanny ability to, every time he like crosses back over to I'm a genius, it's all of a sudden like, let's hand the ball off to my guard at the one-yard line.

And then it's like, let's not defend the Hail Mary because I'm a defensive guy.

And like, oh my God.

Come on.

Thank you.

Um, these are these are like, these are the things that you do at the end of the game to close it out.

Like, let's go.

He, uh, Ibrah loose, yeah, the before the Hail Mary and before the go-ahead touchdown that was preceded by a Keenan Allen pass interference at the goal line that set up a touchdown run.

Yeah, it was the backup center, I believe he was, getting the handoff

at the mini fridge, getting the ball at the goal line, never even getting into his breadbasket, popping out for the turnover.

But to the Bears' credit, they got off the field just barely and

got a three and out from the commanders that allowed them to get the ball back, go back down the field, punch it in to go up.

They get the two-point conversion.

And, you know, this is this story is just kind of coming into focus as we began recording, but I'll give a shout-out to Ben Solak, who had a nice diagram of it, and you saw the video floating around.

Okay, so Ibra Flues probably is not good at this.

Okay, we kind of know that.

But sometimes your players have to play, and also

having players that are mature and can handle big moments, that also is a reflection of coaching.

Tyreek Stevenson is

the player who is supposed to be following Noah Brown, who caught the Hail Mary, the whole way down the field.

But he never finds Brown because he is, as the play is unfolding and the commanders are racing down toward the goal line, he is talking trash to either someone on the sideline or fans of the commanders.

And these guys, we're not talking like the play is about to start or it just starts.

When you watch it, do you have it, Justin?

When you watch this, you actually see

the

commanders are 10, 20, 30, 40, 40, 50 yards downfield.

By the time he turns around and starts to get into the play, and his job was to make sure there was no one that leaked behind like Noah Brown did.

He was supposed to be with Brown, and I don't know, that's the type of stuff that can get you fired.

That's an all-time bonehead move, and God, how ugly is that?

Horrifying.

I mean,

he's got to be in the meetings dealing with that, so he's going to get his.

Well, I think that's a cuttable offense, depending on the pedigree of player, but compare that and contrast that to your point about having veteran players in these moments.

Zach Ertz leaping up and tapping that ball so that there is a second chance for someone to catch it.

Like he couldn't get it, but he kept the ball alive.

And that's how that's, you know, when we see these Hail Marys, like a lot of elements need to happen at the same time.

And that doesn't happen without a veteran who's not a superstar at this point, but Zach Ertz being at the right place at the right time and using his mind.

Mind.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

I'm just, I can't believe what I saw.

And yeah, that whole play is designed for when you're on defense,

you either catch the ball or you knock it straight down.

And then once it's tipped in the air, it was like a worst case scenario played out.

So they didn't execute the way the ball gets deflected.

And then you had an absolute idiot in your secondary that is unplugged and untethered from the play that allows Brown to be by himself in the end zone.

I mean, it wasn't some great catch by Brown.

It literally floated into his hands.

It was like gift-wrapped into his hands.

And for the Bears, I mean, it really,

you know, and we'll get into this more across the week because we've got so many games to get to today.

But for the Bears, that went from a game where you're dead in the water, down 12-0 in the fourth quarter.

DeAndre Swift then

breaks a beautiful touchdown where he evades tacklers, and he's really come on for them.

He had another big game here, and then they overcome the more idiocy this time from Shane Waldron

on the play called a mini-fridge.

They overcome that, and they have this win and then to have it ripped away.

And then when they learn and watch a tape, that in part because they just had a player who was completely out of his mind in the biggest moment of the game.

That's as bad as a regular season loss gets.

Yeah, well, and like I,

maybe you've had a friend like this.

I had a friend in college who, you know, when you're in a dorm room and some people are having furniture for the first time in their lives, and like

he had a mini fridge and he was down and out and kind of a bit of a depressed guy.

guy and started storing garbage inside his fridge because he was too lazy to go down the hallway and throw it.

It's like that was this version of mini fridge.

We've got to start to work on that project if we're the Bears.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not like you don't need every single one of these wins if you're the Bears.

You're playing in the best division in football and you're trying to make the playoffs.

Was your Mini Fredge analogy connected to the fumble at the goal line or Tyreek Stevenson or everything

take you through?

I lost that there.

I lost that.

That was a completely lost opportunity for a score.

And by the way, Caleb Williams is tagged with that fumble stat on that one.

But the mini fridge thing to me, it's like, if you're going to go do that, because like with Fridge, you knew it was going to work.

We all knew it was going to work.

The defense knew it was going to work.

And it was like, mini fridge, the problem is you're mini.

Like you can't, maybe you were even bigger than fridge, but you're playing mini.

So it's like, if you're going to try to cycle that one back on the Bears fans, like it's got to be like, you know, a 10 for 10 type tush push.

That was brutal.

But they overcame it, and they had the lead

as time expired, and then disaster strikes.

So, anyway, the Bears

fall, and then

now they get the Cardinals next week, and the Commanders go and play the Giants.

So, unbelievable.

That's how you kick off a show.

Next up, we head to Cleveland, where there was more drama and another final play.

In a pregame interview, CBS Sideline reporter Amanda Bologas asked Jameis Winston what it means to make his first start since 2022.

Jameis, massive pregnant pause, tells Amanda, this is the day the Lord has made.

I will be glad and rejoice in it.

Very little else.

That is a choice of verbal words considering what God seems to think about the Cleveland Browns.

But then it happens.

Jameis unfurls one big gnarly ball after the next.

Four of his targets cross 60 plus yards.

Names we thought had passed off the earth.

Jerry Judy, Elijah Moore, Cedric Tillman all morph into hyper-juicy weapons.

The O-line is playing its game of the year.

A Ravens secondary missing Marlon Humphrey and Nate Wiggins appears drugged for most of the game, including a nightmare dropped pick by Kyle Hamilton on Cleveland's final go-ahead drive.

A masterpiece by Winston and the entire offense.

334 passing yards, three touchdowns, no picks on the day.

The fans sounded like a flash mob for good after so many months and hours and days of evil.

This was a Browns offense that looked completely reborn.

Does God care?

Did God want this to happen?

Is God watching eight football games at the same time?

Mystery upon mystery.

Cleveland 29, Baltimore 24.

Love it.

And by the way, this is a very,

I know we were talking about.

We have a big podcast coming up down the line.

That's just going to be all about

religion.

What do we call it, Mark?

What have we been teasing it as?

For a while, the theology podcast.

Theology podcast.

Thank you.

A lot of theology in this episode so far, because I was about to say the way Jameis talks now, I'm at least open to the idea that Jameis Winston is Jesus and he might actually,

or at the very least, a Christ disciple that is now being channeled through this former first-round bust draft pick.

Let's listen to him after the game

speaking again to CBS after the really, truly great performance by Winston and the Browns upsetting the Great Ravens.

One play at a time, we fought, we gave everything that we could possibly give.

Thank you for the offensive line, thank you for the defensive line of winning the trenches.

And thank you for the Browns fans for coming up and standing up and helping us get a victory here at home.

It's not often that you get another opportunity like you have just received in the NFL.

What does it mean to lead these guys and what could be the start of what you said is is something special moving forward?

Man,

there's a white boy from Detroit that I really admire named Eminem.

He said, you only get one shot.

Do not miss your chance to blow.

This opportunity lasts once in a lifetime.

And I know I got a quote, you know, Eminem, he from Detroit, he's right on the road.

But, man, I'm just grateful.

I'm grateful that Delore has provided me with this opportunity.

I'm grateful for my teammates, my coaches, and these amazing fans.

It's the greatest living comedian right there.

I mean, you know, I think it's kind of wild that this unfolded, you know, days after legendary Browns, play-by-play guy, Jim Donovan, passed away.

I mean, that is a big deal in Cleveland.

I want to just like,

I think they say, I think Jameis Winston, and there were whispers that like people inside the Browns building were tired with Jameis Winston.

Makes me wonder what the Cleveland Browns want on any level.

Like, it's almost like he snuck this out on them against their will, but I think he saved Kevin Stefanski's job.

And Stefansky, you know,

having to hand over play call duties.

This, like the same way that Flacco came in and this became a huge big play offense, it happened again today.

9.6 air yards per completion are, to that point, the most by a Browns quarterback since Joe Flacco in week 16 of last year.

And what did Flacco do and why did it work?

Like people around him started to show chemistry inside the offense.

And you understood why they found these guys.

Elijah Moore made some of the only great catches I've seen him make as a Cleveland Brown today.

Jerry Judy, same goes for him.

Like he seemed to be playing with a fire that was missing.

Cedric Tillman, who's a big, promising wideout, was absolutely money in the bank today.

And it's like this had to do with Jameis Winston throwing aggressively,

playing with absolute confidence, taking shots into tight windows, and it working.

And I look at this and, you know, we were talking about this stat, Connor, that I think it's five of the last seven

300-yard performances by Cleveland have been by Joe Flacco and by Jameis Winston, none by Deshaun Watson.

So here we are.

And like the record is still a mess.

And yet, there is all we're really asking for is to enjoy football.

And they beat

a Ravens team that was really down on defense, missing guys.

They were very challenged on offense, too.

Lamar had some games, some plays in this game that...

are just the Lamar of the season.

But this felt like a divisional tussle where the Browns just and Jim Schwartz know how to get into Lamar and the offense's mind a little bit.

Yeah, I mean,

and it'll be interesting to see if Winston can sustain this play and he becomes the new Flaca.

Now, they

dug themselves such a big hole.

Obviously, they hadn't won since, what was it, week one before today, that maybe the Browns can get hot, maybe they don't.

But at the very least, yeah, I mean, I thought, obviously, there's so many disgraceful things the way the Browns have handled themselves from acquiring Watson and giving him that contract to even the fact that Winston's not playing because the Browns finally admitted their wrongdoing and

what

they were playing the worst quarterback in the league is because the guy blew out his Achilles and puts Winston in the lineup.

So maybe the Browns themselves or the front office doesn't deserve this, but the Browns fans certainly do.

And Jim Donovan, I was a great that you brought that up because that the voice of the Browns and Andrew Ceciliano is our buddy, who is taking over for Jim, who passed away this weekend, like to see the emotions in

in that booth

between who's at Segora and Ceciliano.

It's just like, yeah, that's such a great football town that deserves more.

So let's see if they get hot now.

And on the Ravens side, yeah, I don't know.

What else needs to be said other than

they're weird?

They're this great dominant team.

And then they'll just, you know, they've been beaten by

the Raiders and the Browns now this season.

So it's strange.

Well, strange.

The one thing that happened to Baltimore, I think

they have given up big plays on defense in the past pretty consistently.

And when you're missing two of your key cornerbacks, that happened in droves today.

And Lamar's wide receivers did not help him out.

There was a late-in-the-game shot downfield, a bomb to Rashad Bateman.

And it happened in the sun, and it looked like he lost his footing a little bit, but it bounced right off this part of the body.

It just bounced right off it.

Yes, the chest.

That part of the body.

Why didn't you say chest?

Like, it's the unusual part of the body.

Plus, it's a podcast.

Well, yes.

If you were looking, if you were watching on YouTube, I literally put my hands on that part of my body.

But you're right, from an audio angle, it could have gone a little deeper there.

Like, if it was like the crook of the neck or something like a weird part of the body, I could understand.

Anyway.

That's apparently.

Any other thoughts?

Well, I agree with Mark that I really do think that Kevin Stavansky was somewhat on the hot seat, but what's ridiculous is when you you look at the fact that, like Mark said, four of your last seven games with a veteran quarterback that did not contain Deshaun Watson had 300-plus passing yards, three plus touchdowns.

Patrick Mahomes hasn't done that in the last two seasons.

Tua Tonguevailoa did it like once last year.

Josh Allen's only done it like 10 times in his career, and the Browns have done it four times in seven games just by removing Deshaun Watson from the lineup.

Kevin Stefansky should be the coach of the year again.

This is ridiculous.

He's just going to keep stacking those.

All right.

Good start.

Two crazy games.

Let's move now to Connor.

One of your games

that you drafted on Friday morning.

Let's head to Duval.

If Matt LaFleur were the murderer in a horror movie, he would literally be the scariest villain of all time because he could kill you with anything.

No chainsaw?

No problem.

What do you have laying around here?

A cranberry-scented candle?

Decapitated.

A vinyl copy of Matchbox 20s yourself or someone like you?

Bled out on the living room carpet.

One of those tiny candy canes you get from the mall Santa?

Lifeless at the bottom of a swimming pool.

With Jordan Love injuring his groin on the first drive and then more seriously in the fourth quarter, Green Bay staved off a relentless, if reckless, Jaguars team 30-27.

Malik Willis hit Jaden Reed on a 51-yard pass to set up Brandon McManus for a game-winning field goal.

Also hit hit Tucker Kraft on a cheeky little touchdown earlier in the game.

The Jaguars got their act together in this one amid a frantic fourth quarter, but it was way too late.

Hmm.

Yeah, I said on Thursday I thought the Jaguars had a chance to hang around in this game and could have been an upset special, and they did take it down to the final play, I guess, Connor.

But what is the deal with

Jordan Love?

So he left the game.

He is being evaluated, but it was one of those weird injuries where it looked like he heard it very early on in the game.

Everything seemed to be okay for a time.

He had some bad plays.

And then in the third quarter, he kind of just got hit late by Trevon Walker almost in the back.

And then while he was like catching himself, you could see him sort of try to readjust and see what was going on there.

And so he left.

And it was one of those injuries, too, where he wasn't even on the sideline warming up.

Like as soon as Malik Willis got into this game, it was all systems go, played phenomenally well again.

Another bomb of a long pass from him.

So it's just like another one of these incredible, seamless examples of Matt LaFleur just handling stuff when it goes wrong.

It just, to me, is

it's demanding at this point that I, because I think Jordan Love, interceptions aside, and we'll see what his health status is, you know, going forward.

But he's played absolutely lights out in stretches.

Like, he's the real real deal.

But I don't know how you don't go in, you know, for the rest of the season, not use Malik Willis generously in certain packages.

Because someone who I think was left for dead in the summer, especially when it was traded to Green Bay, it's like, we'll see how this works.

Like they've tapped that.

He is electric on the ground, and that pat, like, his passing has just improved.

He seems to have matured, sees the field better, and it's just better coaching.

No idea, by the way, was Matt LaFleur's analysis of

how Jordan loves groin is.

Interesting.

How about on the Jaguars side of things?

What did you see from their offense?

And

did you come out of this game encouraged that they might have a run in them?

Or was this, will this be kind of their last gasp to get back in it and they didn't get it done?

So here's what's crazy.

Like it was the full Trevor Lawrence experience where he had some bad picks in this game.

He actually held the ball out.

It got punched out of his hand.

And then the Packers scored that first touchdown with Malik Willis.

But the the crazy part about this game, throws an incredible touchdown pass to Brian Thomas, who just runs a hell of a route, jukes the defender, gets into the end zone, and then when he falls on the ground, hurts his ribs.

So then he's out.

And then later on in the game, whips a bomb to Christian Kirk, who makes this unbelievable catch.

And it looks like the Jaguars are rolling.

And then he immediately, like, frantically starts grabbing his collarbone, like he injured himself.

And then so he was out for the rest of the game.

But then Lawrence started stringing these drives together where he's hitting like Evan Ingram, all of his second, third, fourth string wide receivers.

And they got back to the point where, you know, he was lights out, looked like he was on a roll, but then they just ran out of time at that point.

By the way,

LaFleur did say, according to the Associated Press, that there's a, quote, high level of concern around Love's injury, so we'll, we'll keep tracking that.

And then he also

said during his post-game thoughts that Josh Jacobs, he's a stud, isn't he?

And he is.

Josh Jacobs has a really nice move, the acquisition.

I think when they brought in Josh Jacobs,

you know, there was an idea, well, kind of a lateral move, maybe.

Aaron Jones was maybe just as good.

But Jacobs has been a perfect fit for this offense.

He ran for 127 yards and two touchdowns, including that 38-yard run when he was, you know, putting the skates on multiple Jacksonville defenders.

So if they end up having to go with Willis again,

for a stretch, you know, Jacobs is going to be, you know, the offense will run through him, you would think.

Yeah.

And what's wild about Jacobs is he had his first receiving touchdown like two weeks ago, you know, and I think that that part of his game still hasn't even been explored.

He's not really talked about as a guy who can compliment.

But so many of these other Green Bay, you know, receivers like Tucker Kraft had another unbelievable game, another huge game.

All these other players are just growing and blooming around.

And so it's like, yes, it does suck if Jordan loves out, but you just feel like they can continue to manufacture victories without him.

Green Bay now 6-2.

Jacksonville 2-6.

All right, we're just getting started here.

We're going to take a break, and when we get back, we will continue to roll through this crazy weekend.

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All right, we're back.

Let's dive right back into it.

Gravedigger, take us to Cincinnati.

All right.

Eagles at Bengals.

The Eagles went into Paul Brown Stadium.

wait, excuse me, Paycor Stadium, dumb, looking for their first win in Cincinnati in franchise history.

And Jalen Hurts delivered, in my opinion, his best game of the season.

The fifth year signal caller was accurate, decisive, and efficient, making things happen through the air and on the ground as he led Philly to six straight scoring drives to close out the game.

Four touchdowns and two field goals, including three Jalen Hurts rushing touchdowns.

The Eagles are now 5-2, including three straight wins since Nick Siriani shaved his head as they took down the Bengals 37 to 17.

And this game was kind of interesting because the Bengals jumped out to a 10-3 lead,

and then both teams sort of traded punches going back and forth.

After since he tied it up, Hurts heaved a pretty wobbly, but still pretty accurate deep ball to Devontae Smith, who leaps in the end zone to haul in the 45-yard touchdown.

And the Eagles just never looked back from there.

During that six-straight scoring drive run by the Eagles, the Bengals had a three-straight turnover drive, three straight drives that ended in turnovers, one turnover on downs at their own 39-yard line, one incredible interception,

and one where Mike Kosicki fumbled.

The Eagles turned all three turnovers into points, and the game just got just unraveled for Cincinnati.

I have to give it to the Eagles.

I'll give it to Siriani.

I mean, they are 5-2.

They seem to be coming together as a team rather than falling apart.

And Vic Fagio, who obviously is a defensive coordinator

that is very well regarded, but it's also been stated many, many times, I'm not breaking this news, that sometimes it takes a little bit of time for Vic's defense to coalesce.

It's like, all right, well, it looks like it's coming.

Now, keep in mind that the schedule has been soft for the Eagles these last few weeks, but the Giants and Browns scored 12 points combined, and then you shut down Cincinnati, Mark, and it was kind of like Cincinnati had to have a territory game, a game where they needed to get going.

And instead, you embarrassed them on their home field.

And that's a whole other conversation around this game.

Yeah, because I think the Fongio defense seemed to grow up or evolve and respond to what the Bengals were doing early very well in this game.

And this, to me, was,

I like what you said about Hurts because to me, the whole Eagles offense in general, they exerted their will.

This looked like an Eagles victory that we've kind of been waiting for for a long time.

You like, you said it, 34 points, final six drives, three straight touchdowns.

You're killing them with the brotherly shove.

You're giving Saquon Barkley 22 carries, and you're finding a way to take advantage of a Bengals defense because my thing with the Bengals is like, oh, yes, we give them this hall pass to warm up after like a dead first month.

But the offense in Burrow have played pretty well.

Like, that's not suddenly going to completely change.

It's the fact that your defense can't carry you through the season.

Today's an example of them getting completely dominated.

Yeah, there was a stretch in the fourth quarter where they looked like, you know, vintage, not vintage, 2022-esque Eagles.

They had a drive that started with like 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter, ate up seven minutes a clock, ran 12 plays.

Nine of those plays were run plays, and finished with a tush-push touchdown.

Like it looked like the team that was dominant down the stretch in their Super Bowl run season.

And that last touchdown put them up 34-17, essentially iced to the game.

And it was crazy because the Bengals started so hot.

Their first drive was 17 plays long, ended in a touchdown to Jamar Chase.

They converted five third downs on that first drive.

And they actually finished the game, I think, 10 of 13 on third down.

So like, it wasn't like they just weren't converting in these crucial moments or whatever.

It was, it was really the three straight turnovers.

Going for it on fourth and one at your own 39-yard line when you're only down a touchdown in the third quarter didn't feel like

It felt desperate.

It didn't feel like a pass where you need to go for it.

It was like a swing pass out in the flat, and he got tackled behind the line of scrimmage.

And it was like,

why?

I mean, they got stuffed on third and one.

And if we're going to the Bengals side of things, the thing I think that really hamstrung in this game, they could not run the ball.

They were awful on the ground.

20 carries for just 58 yards, 2.9 yards per carry.

Jalen Hurts by himself had 37 rushing yards to go along with the three rushing touchdowns.

But the Bengals, they set themselves up behind the sticks constantly because they couldn't run the ball.

They couldn't run the ball in short yardage when they needed to convert.

They didn't even try to run it on the fourth and one.

And the Bengals are in trouble, man.

I mean, three and five now?

Three and five, 0-4 at home, which is outrageous.

And their failure to run the ball with any level of effectiveness in this game, that maybe in part explains why Zach Taylor is calling for a swing pass to Jamar Chase on fourth and one that gets stuffed,

I think, by Cooper DeGene.

And they're just, I don't know,

when you talk about who are the most disappointing teams in the league, the team that I historically support obviously is probably top of that list, but the Bengals are right there.

I mean, this is a team that was supposed to take the next step with Burrow Healthy this year.

And instead, I know he said, Connor, famously, that our Super Bowl window is my entire career, but that's actually not how it works.

Your Super Bowl window closed,

you happen to still be in your prime.

So now the Bengals in their front office had to figure out how to reopen it because it ain't happening this year.

And you do wonder if they would explore, like, you know, Bengals are traditionally kind of a frugal franchise, although they've spent a lot under Zach Taylor.

And would they be aggressive enough at the deadline to get an affordable thing like a kind of a power-oriented running back, like someone to help them move the change?

There are a couple of those guys on expiring contracts.

So is that something that you can do to at least get them back

in the swing of things?

And they also could not take advantage of a banged-up Eagles O-line.

You had two backups playing in this game with Makai Bechton and Jordan Milata out.

They had zero sacks.

There was one play where Sam Hubbard was matched up against a backup tight end for the Eagles, Jack Stoll.

It was the Devonta Smith 45-yard touchdown.

And Stoll blocks Sam Hubbard one-on-one and gives Hurts the time he needs to throw down the field.

So do the Bengals think about trading for a pass rusher?

T.

Higgins didn't play in this game, but I really don't think they missed him.

I mean, it's hard to feel fair to say that.

How about the other way, Justin?

How about we trade away some guys?

I mean, we're at the point now where you have to look on both sides of that because at this point, with the trade deadline coming up in a week or so,

and we'll be doing our live trade deadline special on Patreon.

So make sure you get on patreon.com/slash eat the call.

Teams like the Bengals have to, you know, when is it the right move to wave the white flag?

All right.

Other teams thinking about maybe waving a white flag.

The Dolphins?

How is that possible?

Mark Sessler

Thrown out of a moving vehicle, not unlike the call girl who knew too much in the opening moments of Oliver Stone's JFK, the Dolphins appeared banged up, out of answers, and a mere footnote in 2024.

Should Tua play?

Are the Dolphins cruel to allow it?

Does the NFL care about families and human beings?

All debatable.

Not debatable.

The Dolphins...

At least on offense are back with Tua on the field.

You could see it as Miami opened with a meticulous 10-play touchdown march.

You could see it on a hyper-attractive 31-yard arrow to Tyreek Hill through a tight little window, a lightning quick release.

You could see it as Tua boldly ran for a 13-yard scramble.

Wait a minute.

This isn't about the Dolphins.

It's a Cardinals story.

The little Cardinals from Arizona coming all the way across the country decided this would be the day Trey McBride clocks the Finns for 124 yards.

The day Marvin Harrison looks just like Daddy with a string of magical grabs for 100 plus.

Kyler Murray playing as if from another dimension.

These frisky 4-4 cards scored on four of the five marches in the second half to spoil Tua's promising return to civilization.

Arizona 28, Miami 27.

How about that?

Good for the Cardinals.

Good for the Zumwalts.

Arizona pulls to 4-4.

And yeah, like we talked about it last week, Connor, when we were picking our

teams that we thought could make some noise despite being in a tough spot.

And I got behind Miami because really how this game played out is like why I got behind him.

I thought that Tua coming back was going to cure a lot of what ailed them offensively.

And they did that.

He had, what, three touchdowns in this game, which matches their output for his entire absence.

So the offense is now back, but you can't, you cannot, cannot let a game like this get away from you.

It's a terrible loss and one that, you know, if it comes down to it near the end of the season, when they're missing that one game, it's like, damn it, we blew that Cardinals game in our building in October.

Especially when, to your point, Dan, like the offense was humming.

And for me, when you can tell is like, I think it was the touchdown pass to A-chan where, you know, you had Tyreek Hill throwing critical blocks deep into the secondary on that.

And you can tell when you have that tailwind, when you have everybody invested and involved, and then you blow the game, it's that much more painful, right?

It's like that big emotional balloon that pops.

And I really did think, I was with you.

I thought Miami would go for a run.

I also thought the Raiders were going to beat the Chiefs this weekend.

I mean, this is a case of...

Spoiler.

This should have been the

game that put Miami back on the map.

And I think it came down to which Marvin Harrison shows up.

Because if it's the one that's kind of flatlined for 28 or 32 yards, when he played the way he did today, it was 111 yards,

an incredible touchdown grab.

Like, he kills teams on crossers.

And he's working with Murray.

And they talked about the fact that he and Murray spent a lot of time together this past week to say, like, what is it you like, like Marvin Harrison?

And we're going to work on that.

And you could see that today.

Trey McBride is a star.

And so, and James Conner is running as well in the red zone as anyone.

And so when all that's happening, like they were too, they were like, I don't, I'm not trying to, I always feel like I'm overrating the Cardinals, but they were a little too much for the Dolphins to handle down the stretch.

And it kind of changed the entire A storyline, which was to check you later, Dolphins.

You're four games behind the Bills in terms of wins right now.

I mean, it's just like.

The season's over.

Yeah.

The Cardinals can, it may be a matchup thing because we've seen them completely vanish at times, but when they match up well against the defense and

their young players play this way, they're a bit of a berserker.

Well, here's the thing.

And I think Marvin Harrison Jr.

is a, he's like the perfect

in human form version of what the Cardinals are.

You don't know what you're getting week to week.

And there's a lot of, they can, they can really look like beautiful one week, and then they can look like one of the bottom five teams in the league.

So, you know, when we talk about the power rankings and like who's like the number 13 team in the power rankings,

because I don't know what to do with them, so I just stick them at 13.

The Cardinals feel like a perfect example of that.

And it's like, it's like they say in Texas, like, if you don't like the weather, wait a couple of hours, and it will, you know, you'll see what you, if you like that version of the weather, you get that, Justin.

You get that reference.

I thought that was New England.

No, New England is just...

Well, I mean, I've heard that said about New England like roughly 5,000 times.

No, the weather changes very quickly in Texas.

That's the old thing.

But yeah, that's the Cardinals.

So we

look ahead real quick.

So they beat the Chargers, Dolphins.

Now they get the Bears.

Okay.

And then they get the Jets.

So if you beat the Bears, you could start.

really gaining some momentum.

But do I trust him yet?

No, but shout out to the cards.

And Chad Ryland also hits a 57-yarder and then hits the game winner.

It'd be nice to have a dependable kicker, and the Arizona Cardinals might have one.

Well,

he's come a long way, Chad Ryland, from when he was convinced by the Patriots organization to flub that kick late in the year last year to ensure their draft pick.

A long way.

He's a free human now.

Let us move forward on this action-packed week eight.

Up next, we head to Tampa.

I love this song.

It kind of sounds like the Terminator 2 song.

Does anybody know?

Anybody catch that, Ref?

The real ones get it.

I have a plan to formally petition the league to just let the Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers play each other every week.

I know this may seem unorthodox or unnecessary or

dumb, but hear me out.

Let's be real.

Neither of these teams are going to the Super Bowl.

But they're both fun.

And, you know, why not

take full advantage of this excellent entertainment product that they guarantee each time they share the field?

Very, very slim chances, Connor, of an Ashton Kutcher-like butterfly effect scenario affecting us anyway.

Also, if you elect me class president, I also promise a Pepsi machine on every floor of the middle school, not just the one down near the gym that's always out of Mountain Dew.

Anyway, Kirk Cousins and Baker Mayfield combined for over 600 passing yards and seven touchdowns.

But Mayfield also threw two costly picks in his first game without Godwin and Evans.

In the end, Atlanta holds on 31-26.

Huge win for the Falcons and their hopes of winning the division because now they are 4-0 in the NFC South and they have swept the Falcons.

Excuse me.

They have swept the Bucs rather.

So they essentially have now an extra game lead over that rival.

And

from

the standpoint of this offense, you know, Kirk Cousins is having a typically consistent Kirk Cousins season.

You know, it took a little bit to get warmed up,

but he is doing it again.

He's the guy that I think they were hoping for.

But he's the best version of himself against Tampa Bay.

He was just carving them up, including two early touchdowns to Kyle Pitts, which I was reminded at that point for about the 400th time on Sunday that it was National Tight Ends Day.

But yeah, the offense is humming, and the Bucs, you know, without their two great receivers, put up a good fight.

But it's going to be an uphill challenge, and it was in this one.

I wonder if this is where we see the value of Kirk Cousins coming in almost like a good hitter is better the second time you see him through the lineup.

Like now, Kirk Cousins is starting to come through his divisional opponents again.

He knows what it looks like, and he can process information really well.

And as the mobility improves, as his body breaks in during the season, you combine that with how he's able to kind of learn these little things about these defensive coordinators.

Could that be that tiny little edge that gets them to win this crappy division?

I mean, this is a huge game in this division because now you've taken a game lead over the Bucs.

You are dealing with a Bucs team that is without Mike Evans for a period of time, without Chris Godwin.

I give Tampa Bay, though, credit for, because I was monitoring this just to see what they look like as a shattered offense in terms of injuries.

And I thought they were creative and did a nice job with using, like, Bucky Irvin is a good player.

Rashad White had a touchdown catch.

Cade Otten exploded.

It's like they found a way to not just like, like the Dolphins or other teams, just completely crumble when injuries mount.

But it's tough to project them longer term over the Falcons.

I thought the Falcons too have like, I think they had three yards rushing in this, like midway through the second quarter.

And it had me a little concerned about just what they are and who they are.

And then by the end of the game, they've made that all up.

Yeah.

Yeah, they've gotten the job done offensively in recent weeks.

And yeah, if Cade Otten is not

on your waiver wire wire in fantasy leagues, go get him because he is definitely now a new guy that they are featuring.

As long as Evans and Godwin, Godwin's gone for the

season.

Evans, we don't know yet, but Otten has really fit in nicely and he was being targeted repeatedly in this game and making plays.

Now, the one thing to keep an eye on here is you lose Godwin, you lose Evans, you lose that downfield presence that Baker, who's a gunslinger and likes to push the ball downfield.

His interceptions came on passes that were intended for Ryan Miller and Jalen McMillan.

So,

like I said on Thursday, I thought you're going to see a lot more turnovers from Baker now because the personnel has come down.

I think he's thrown now seven picks in the last three weeks.

So, he's going to have to be cleaner with the ball.

But, yeah, overall, it wasn't worst case scenario.

And that's a credit to Liam Cohen and Baker that it wasn't like this offense is ground to a halt.

It was still moving the ball, but the defense just has no answers for Kirk Cousins, who has eight touchdowns against

Tampa and six against everyone else this season.

So that was the story of this game.

What do you guys think about my idea?

Just every week, silo them out.

I ran for student council, and I'd say I'd like to tell you I won most of those elections, but you have to really think about granular items to please different parts of the

class, right?

You got like you can sell one thing to the burnouts.

You can sell Coke machines to other people.

And I think you could sell, you know, Bucks, Falcons to people that love a certain type of football.

And so I think that your campaign is sound.

Thank you.

I hesitate to bring this up because I love the man.

He's my bosom buddy, but we're on the topic.

But let me also say something positive about Bob first, Bob Castrone,

my throwback podcast partner,

that he was one of the writers on Nikki Glazer's staff for these Thursday night Amazon hits, which very funny.

Bob is a very talented comedy writer.

But he also, we went to high school and elementary school, middle school together.

In junior high, he ran for class president.

And he, I remember us sitting in the auditorium and he promised

the entire school a sleigh riding club if he was elected.

He was not.

Bob fell short.

But a heck of a guy.

Check out the Throwback Podcast.

All right, moving on.

Sorry, Bob.

How many dreams died that day?

All right, let's take a break, actually.

And when we come back, we keep digging and churning through week eight.

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All right, we're back.

I mean, we have so much to get into, and yet, I was just made aware of something that we cannot delay.

We have to talk about it immediately.

Gravedigger, we were just talking about Mark ran for office

as a boy and fell short.

My buddy Bob promised the sleigh riding club, but that wasn't enough to get him a big chair.

Justin, you also ran for school office.

How did it go for you?

Yeah, in fifth grade, I ran for class president of student council, and I had three just killer slogans.

Trust in Justin.

Do yourself a favor, vote for Justin Graver.

Vote for Justin Graver.

He's a lifesaver.

I did not win, but I was elected for my class to be the student council representative.

So it was sort of a consolation prize that I was okay with.

You cast those students on your own.

My mom was instrumental in helping.

I was 10 years old.

My mom helped a lot.

We handed out lifesavers.

Vote for Justin Graver.

He's a lifesaver.

A lifesaver.

Like,

what exactly is the legislation you were attempting to push through that would be saving lives in your fifth grade class?

I mean,

it was a lot about, like, fun end of semester, end-of-term events for the students, like parties and raffles and stuff like that.

That's pretty good.

Yeah.

There was a kid in my brother's class.

I don't know why this, the weird things that stick in one's mind.

And I remember my brother telling me his class slogan or campaign slogan was, don't dilly-dally, vote for Danny O'Malley.

Well, that's great.

Good one.

I don't know if

he got in.

All right.

Let's get back.

I'll check in with my brother.

I'm going to text him because I know everybody needs to know.

Up next,

we head to Houston with Connor Orr.

With calls growing louder and louder to play America's Dilf, Joe Flacco, against the Texans, Shane Steichen remained on the Anthony Richardson coaster on Sunday.

Whoa!

A 69-yard touchdown to Josh Downs.

Whoa, a play late in the game where he ran 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage, threw a 300-pound defensive tackle off his back like he was Megazord, and then left the game because he was tired.

Whoa, a potential game-tying drive in which he just kept running the ball inbounds and burned like 20 seconds off the clock.

It's amazing.

It's unbelievable, and it could possibly make you vomit.

The Texans won 23-20, barely surviving another game that will probably be more remembered for Stefan Diggs going down in the third quarter with a non-contact injury.

He is, according to head coach D'Amico Ryans, being evaluated at the moment.

Yikes, that is troubling.

And a team that's already missing Nico Collins, that would push Tank Dell firmly into number one wide receiver territory.

And if you haven't noticed, the Texans are not a juggernaut throwing the football ever since Nico went out.

Interesting.

Well, here's the thing.

First of all, can you fly up up a tweet that we were looking at, Justin, regarding Anthony Richardson?

Because I have a question for you, Connor.

So this is from Austin Gale on Twitter.

Anthony Richardson ranks 222nd in completion rate among the 225 QBs with at least 250 dropbacks since the year 2000.

That's a quarter century.

And this is his company.

The likes of Jamarcus Russell, Curtis Painter.

These are,

remember these guys?

Ryan Lindley, Ryan Leaf with the Cowboys,

Tim Tebow.

Achilles Smith.

My God.

And then let's play the sound of Richardson explaining.

Yeah, he exits the game, as Connor said, and everyone's wondering.

He's been injury-prone.

Oh, no.

Is he battling an injury?

And here's Richardson.

Man, tired.

I ain't gonna lie.

That was a lot of running right there that I did.

And I don't think I was gonna be able to go to that next place.

So I just,

you know, just told saying I just needed a break right there.

All right, Connor.

So So this is when I knew, this is just me, and this is my journey as a football fan.

This is when I knew that the Anthony Richardson era is doomed in Indianapolis, and this is never going to work.

I point to that exact moment where he pulled himself out of the game and then told the media why afterwards.

Everyone else is free to formulate their own opinions, including saying, oh, it's way too early.

He's green.

Okay, cool.

I respect your opinion.

This is my opinion.

How about you?

The weird part was, too, he kept tapping his head.

And so I was like, is he concussed?

Like after the play, he just kept tapping himself in the head.

And I was like, oh, he probably is going to see like the independent neural surgeon.

It's like, no, he's just a little gassed.

Like, it's like a pickup basketball game.

It's like, hey, Bob, why don't you come in for a couple of series?

But yeah, if you took out the 69-yard touchdown pass that he threw in the first half, he would have been one for 14 with 12 yards and an interception.

So, and the frustrating thing is

there are so many incredibly designed plays.

Like this touchdown to Downs was unbelievable.

The spacing on the receivers was such that the Texans' defenders like smashed into each other and just obliterated each other.

And so it left this Colts receiver who's so wide open.

This happens with such regularity with the Shane Steichen offense, and he just can't.

whether he's not allowed to bench Anthony Richardson, whatever it is,

all this stuff is going to waste.

And then, to your point, Dan, yes, the very end of the game, you have a chance to win, and he's just like running the ball and not getting out of bounds.

And there's just all this time just bleeding off the clock.

And he's just, he's too green.

He needs to sit.

He needs to learn.

I don't know what the answer is.

You have Joe Flacco as the backup who's like, can he thrive?

If Joe Flacco was in this game, they would have won by two touchdowns.

Right.

And now, Mark, they need to come to grips with that as internally, like, what are we?

Are we developing our franchise quarterback, or are we trying to go to the playoffs and get a chip?

And I'm not saying the Flacco-led Colts are a real contender, but they could have, they believe that because they thought they've thrived with them.

And, like, in general, with Richardson, like, the way you're explaining what he said after the game, Mark, like the way it gets thrown around a little bit too much right now in the discourse, unserious.

But that's what it is.

He strikes me as an unserious franchise quarterback at this moment in time.

Well, underwater, lost, unable to see the field.

And, you know, it's the little things and it's the big things.

And it's like the final pass play where, you know, you're talking about the final drive.

You've got to get rid of that ball and he's dropped for a sack.

And it's like, that's the Anthony Richardson experience where, and I think if you're the Texans,

they may be good.

They may be the victim of some design plays and stuff, but their pressure rate today, 60%, was higher than they've had in a game since 2018.

So if you're an opposing offensive coordinator, it's like Anthony Richardson, the idea of him would give you headaches.

But him in reality is like, let's just get in this guy's face, confuse him.

He can't see the field.

And that's your pathway, your road to victory.

And yeah, like,

if I'm really serious about winning Colts games, you take this guy before you truly shatter him or he gets injured again.

You sit him, you roll with Flacco, and you kind of say maybe Richardson was a two-year project.

He played like very, very little college football.

It was an atypical draft pick because of that.

And so it's not working.

And so do you, what do you say to your whole locker room?

There's teams like this around the league.

Bryce Young, you know, Deshaun, this guy, it's like, it's not working.

You've got like 70 other people on your payroll wanting you to make a responsible, accountable position.

Right.

And remember, Shane Steichen last week, after another

poor performance by the quarterback, tried to put the blame on himself and said, I'm not doing a good enough job of scheming up.

But Connor, you're explaining that, no, that's actually not the case.

They are putting this guy in position to make plays, but he's not getting it done.

I think it's a really interesting subplot to watch here, Connor, how the Colts handle it this week.

Yeah, and what Shane Steichen is doing is he's winning when everyone on the field knows that the Colts are going to have to run or throw easily completable passes to get Richardson in the game.

And there was this play where he just completely botched a handoff that was almost a lost fumble.

And the fortitude, I guess you could call it, for Steichen to go back to that play later in the game, like he's literally learning on the fly.

There are things that he's botching that should have been ironed out in practice that he gets a second or third try in the game, and you're doing this live and you're still gaining yards.

And it's just like, what could we do if we just had some modicum of stability back there?

Any other thoughts on the Texans before we move?

Yes, teams are going after C.J.

Stroud, Dan.

This is Colts were almost, I think 20 of his 26, first 26 drop backs, they had pressure.

They brought blitzes, and that was after another heavy blitz week last week.

I wonder if teams are seeing something on tape where he is not responding as well to certain blitz packages because people are coming after him now.

And with Diggs possibly being on the mend, that could be significant going forward.

This little nugget from DJ Bian AIM of ESPN, that Kenyon Green, their guard,

is having a lot of trouble.

He allowed seven pressures and a sack on Sunday.

He got benched mid-game for Jarrett Patterson, and that lasted one drive because Patterson suffers a concussion.

So you want to look at why is Stroud, and we talked about this last week.

Quietly, Stroud has been one of the most sacked, pressured quarterbacks in the league.

Okay, well, now they have a short week and they get the Jets, and we'll see what happens.

But the Texans are,

I don't know, they won here, but they feel like they're teetering just a little bit.

So we'll keep an eye on them.

I have a nugget for you.

Yes.

Or it's a question.

There was some sound playing when you said this before.

Did you suggest that I, like Bob, also lost at student council elections?

I thought you did.

No, no, no.

So, no, like, I want to just set the record straight, like any good, you know, government civic leader would do.

But I was between middle school and high school, five for six.

And the one that I lost was due to forgery because my parents were on vacation and you had to get a parental signature on a form to say you could run.

And there was this hyper

severe...

health teacher and she was she always had it out for me and so she somehow snuffed out that this was a forged signature.

And

she

removed me from the election, but then I won by write-in, and she, at that point, had to accept defeat.

So outside of a forgery issue, I'm just, you know, just, I don't want people to think I've been told that I've been to

student government six times.

Nerd alert.

It was nerdy.

Well, it was typically because like student council was filled with like the best, like all the girls you liked in your class, too.

You know, it's just like young leaders.

But also

I cared about the future of the class.

They were like, oh, Mark, your forgery was so hot.

Well,

that was, I thought that was high-level criminal activity for a ninth grader.

I feel like

we're inching towards your mail fraud story again, so we're going to keep moving.

Up next, we head to

drum roll, please, Vegas with the gravedigger.

The Chiefs and Raiders did battle at Allegiance Stadium on Sunday, a place Patrick Mahomes had never lost going into this one.

This game was a bit of a game of margins.

The Chiefs converted 12 of 16 third-down tries, three of four red zone possessions into touchdowns, and picked up a late field goal right before halftime.

But the turning point happened late in the third quarter.

After Mahomes had a pass, deflected at the line of scrimmage, picked off in the red zone, and returned to the three-yard line.

The Raiders had four chances to score a touchdown that would have put them up three points, but the Chiefs denied them four times in a row.

They actually gained yards back with a fourth down sack.

The Raiders managed to make it interesting late,

but the game felt a lot different after that sequence.

Kansas City escapes Vegas with a 27-20 victory and improves to 7-0.

How about that?

I remember we had Bill Barnwell on the show the week before the season started, and Barnwell threw out the take that he had also written about on ESPN that, you know, Chiefs could be a team to keep an eye on in terms of being undefeated.

Now,

the last team that went or the only team since the 72 Dolphins to go undefeated in the regular season, of course, was the Patriots.

And this is not that Patriots team.

There's nothing overwhelming about it.

But week after week, Connor, you see them

just find ways to get it done.

And they did it again here.

Little defensive plays.

I mean, you know, fumble recoveries, great tackling in space, which I think still is their number one advantage that they have over every other team is what they do really well.

But yeah, it's just it's frustrating because I thought this was a game that the Raiders could have could have made some serious noise in.

You're disappointed.

This would have made, we all want this.

We all shoot for this, like games where teams make us look smart.

And if they could have just made a couple plays here, the Raiders, but that's the story.

And I'm also hearing

there was some more shenanigans with the head coach, Antonio Pierce,

Justin, with time management and things of that nature.

Well, they, I mean, they ran 13 straight plays in Chiefs, deep in Chiefs territory that netted them three points.

And there were some questionable decisions there, like when they decide to go for it on fourth and goal versus just take the points there, try to cut it to one score.

But then he's also been getting grilled for doing that, for not, for doing the opposite of that, for taking the points and not going for it.

So I do feel like he's making some emotional decisions, maybe making decisions based on feedback and backlash that he's getting, and not just like being a leader and a head coach and doing what he needs to do that's best for the team.

Um, but they also had a chance to tie the game, driving down the field, eight minutes left, down one score, and Minshew fumbles the ball, um, and the Chiefs take over.

So, were there some weird clock management, things like that, with this game?

Maybe a little bit.

They had to kick an on-site kick.

They scored a late touchdown to make it interesting.

203 to go.

They have to kick an on-site kick.

But yes, Antonio Pierce had already burned all three timeouts.

So

if he hadn't done that, then maybe they could have kicked it off, tried to force three run plays, get the ball back, and have a last-ditch drive with a minute something to go.

But instead, they had to kick the onside kick, did not recover, and the Chiefs were able to kneel out the clock from there.

Didn't he also run out the clock with two minutes at the end of the first half rather than trying to put points on the board?

Sort of, but actually what happened is they got the ball with like, a minute something to go, go three and out very quickly, kick it back to the Chiefs with just over a a minute.

I think it's just over a minute, just over, just under.

I can't remember exactly.

And the Chiefs put a drive together, go down and get a field goal.

And that's what I was talking about, a late field goal right before the half.

And if he had just run some clock or gotten, if they had gotten one first down there, it would have saved three points.

I don't know if those three points really ended up mattering because they were down by two touchdowns with five minutes left.

Oh, so in a lack of aggression to maybe get that first down, that would have run out the clock.

I gotcha.

And last question before we move.

DeAndre Hopkins makes his debut.

How did he look?

He had two catches.

He was mostly invisible, but he converted the very first third down of the game for the Chiefs, which was cool.

And very notably, he was on the receiving end of the pass that put Patrick Mahomes over 30,000 career passing yards.

He became the fastest player to ever get there, 103 games, breaking Matthew Stafford's record of 109 games.

One last note on this game.

Well, I have a couple random notes.

Robert Spillane, Connor, raved about this linebacker for the Raiders on Wednesday.

He's the Raiders' leading leading tackler this season.

Was left on the first drive of the game with an injury.

He got rolled up on, so that's a bummer for him and for the Raiders.

Mahomes, on that drive right before the half to get the field goal, he got his ankle twisted and was walking around with a noticeable limp in the second half.

He never came out of the game.

It didn't really seem to affect him.

I think he'll probably be fine, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him pop up on the injury or something.

He'll be better.

Like the one he faked in the Super Bowl.

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe.

And last thing I want to say: the Chiefs whipped out a designed hook and ladder on this play on that drive right before halftime.

Travis Kelsey was the ladder roller, but this one was not improvised.

It was designed, and it would not have worked.

Like the Raiders would have tackled it.

I can't remember.

He ladderalled it to P.

Ryan, I think, or one of the running backs, and it wouldn't have worked, except P-Rine dropped the ladder roll.

The Raiders players kind of like went for it, dove on the ground, and he was able to pick it up immediately and get around him to pick up a first down.

Just a comedy of errors on the Raiders' part.

Tough.

By the way, you mentioned Travis Kelsey.

He scores his first touchdown in the regular season in 13 games, and he finishes this one 10 for 90 on 12 targets.

So he's slowly but surely starting to find his way in this offense, and they need it.

There is one news item that I think is bigger than this game, actually, was that Mark Davis emailed ESPN to say that there's no way Max Crosby's getting traded.

Emailed.

Mark Davis.

That's what Davis.

That's what they said.

I mean, yeah, of course,

I'm wondering what his email address is.

But yeah, he emailed someone at ESPN.

He also sent, like, he sent that email, but then he sent like a funny forward that his uncle had sent him also to the ESPN News desk.

All right, next up, we move to Seattle.

Mark Sessler, the Bills keep chugging.

People wondering if the Chinese government controls the weather.

They were dialed into the Pacific Northwest on Sunday, where moisture from so-called clouds poured down on the Seahawks and Bills.

You might say, it's been raining for centuries in that part of the country.

I might say Chinese authorities have been around that long, too.

Weather mattered in the second quarter when Josh Allen threw his first pick of the year.

Seattle ball at the Buffalo 7 after that pick.

The Seahawks mine their way to the fourth and goal from the Buffalo 1 when center Connor Williams steps onto Geno Smith's foot.

Down goes Geno, down go the Seahawks on that drive.

This came after a previous drive that saw saw Connor Williams having a bad day.

Sail a wet ball snap over Geno's head from the Buffalo 2, from the Buffalo 2 yard line.

They get stuck kicking a field goal.

Seattle had one yard rushing at half.

I feel like that's the fourth time this has happened.

And just as many fights won on their own sideline between their own players.

Seattle was exposed by a Bills team, beginning to destroy opponents.

A concerning day for the Mike McDonald enthusiasts.

They were no match.

Bills 31, Seahawks 10.

I think this is another team.

If we're putting together the all-disappointing All-Stars, the Seahawks are

tough to figure out, you know, and to be non-competitive in their building mark, that's what jumps out to me, and which has been different.

I know that the Pete Carroll teams in the last five or six years he was there were never, you know, there weren't enough special teams.

That's part of the reason why Pete was finally asked to step aside.

But it always felt like the Seahawks came to play at home.

So just to see, to see him get mollywopped, and it's not the first time we've seen that happen this year, just, it makes you wonder what's going on with them.

I feel like each time I've watched the Seahawks, you hear the color analysts saying, talk about Mike McDonald's staff.

It's so new.

They've all been here for such a short amount of time.

It's almost like in those meetings on Thursdays with the coaching staff, that those guys are emphasizing some of the stuff you're seeing, it's just the program.

It's not here yet.

It was the mistakes I mentioned because

these aren't the kind of mistakes that Geno Smith was making inside that offense when he was playing some of his best football.

And it's not just on him.

I mean, like, literally, the center steps on

his foot and he goes down, but they, they're bickering with each other.

There was a penalty.

So here's what happened on this one play.

If you, if you saw the, the, um, the fight between, it was Jeron Hall and Derek Hall.

Jeron Reed and Derrick Hall.

And so what happened was it was the second quarter.

Buffalo is up only 7-3.

And it's third third and seven from Seattle's 24.

There's an incomplete pass and the Bills are flagged for an illegal shift.

So that would end that drive.

They'd have to try to kick a field goal.

But Allen takes a shot to the head from Derrick Hall.

You get a roughing the passer and it sets up Seattle basically down or the Bills down at the Seattle 12 and then they cut to the sideline and Reed and Hall are like going at each other.

So that also speaks to me just a frustration and coaching.

And I think the Bills create that frustration because this was a game where Gregory Rousseau was squelching Geno.

Josh Allen used his feet.

Khalil Shakir at a career day.

Keon Coleman is blooming before our eyes.

They have four more wins than any AFC East team.

And they overcame their own turnover and penalties in this game and seem better.

prepared to play in this weather than Seattle was.

And so I just think it was like, to your point about are the Seahawks fading away, this took away a lot of belief in who they want to be this season.

The discrepancy between their ability to run a cohesive offense one week and then not run a cohesive offense one week, it's unlike anything I've ever seen.

And I guess we're looking at the one team in the NFL that does have a college play caller, right, that's still trying to adjust to life in the NFL.

And just some weeks when they're playing really good defensive teams, the entire operation just shuts down and Geno Smith is on his own.

And this is another one of these weeks where it just can't happen.

I mean, one game, and I know they have two feature backs technically, but one game with one guy over 100 yards rushing this season is kind of unacceptable.

And

their run game has been missing in action for most of the season.

Minus one yards at halftime on 10 attempts.

They finished with 32 yards overall.

That is not Seahawks football that we know.

And until they find that bounce, especially DK Metcalf out of the game, this was a game where you wanted to get it going.

And the Bills, yeah, the Ravens, I, you know, I really believe in the Ravens, but they have peppered in these weird losses this season.

The Bills now and probably

go back to early September.

I don't think any of us were talking up the Bills.

Like you can make a case for them as being the team in the AFC right now with the Chiefs and the Ravens.

Like they have, I think, a seat at that table in that conversation when things come together like they did here.

So.

I'd be afraid to play them right now.

Yeah, I think there was an earlier portion of the season where you wondered if these pieces were going to fit together and kind of evolve together.

And today was a good example of that.

You know, Amari Cooper was on the field a lot and he's been used more, but he wasn't the reason that this happened.

I mean, it's like he'll he might in a month be the reason it's happening, but like Shakir,

their running game themselves is so balanced.

Like they really can do it all.

And so they seem like the team that can go on one of these runs like that before, but they're just pounding teams into salt.

And that was Seattle today.

All right, let's move on.

Next stop, Foxborough.

Ooh, Jaunty.

You know, I've watched all kinds of bad Jet teams in my lifetime.

Teams with zero talent, teams with talent, but maybe only on one side of the football.

Teams with talent everywhere, but the quarterback.

I've watched good coaches make the most of average rosters, and terrible coaches make the least of terrible rosters.

I've seen butt fumbles.

I've seen two Achilles snaps in week ones.

But in my 35 years of fandom, I have never seen a Jets team like this.

So rest in peace to the moribund 2024 New York Jets, a spineless, unlikable, underachieving misfit team for the ages.

And Good Riddens, 25-22 Patriots get the win here on a late touchdown drive by Jacoby Brissette.

Jake Brisket himself, who took over for Drake May,

who exited the game with a concussion in the second quarter?

And by the way, the NFL's concussion protocol.

I mean,

it's a joke.

I mean, this guy clearly gets smoked in the helmet on a scramble and

looks woozy.

Kind of gets to his feet, and you could see like a couple of the teammates check him out.

You see an official kind of give him a look,

but he's allowed to finish that possession with a brain injury.

And then he goes into the locker room and is quickly ruled out.

So you hope Drake May is going to be okay and he won't miss a lot of time.

Because once again, Drake May, because we'll start with the Patriots here, they're the team that won and ended a long losing streak.

Drake May

really does strike me, boys, as someone who has a chance to be a player.

His ability to scramble and make big plays.

He kept on, the Jets kept on leaving the barn door open on pass rushes, and he would just, he was eating them alive, including on a long touchdown drive that ended with

a score on the ground from the rookie quarterback.

But he also put several passes right on the money.

There is no team with a more clear offseason to do list than the New England Patriots, which is build around this quarterback and get him some toys to play with.

I counted five

big-time drops by the wide receivers of this team.

And

so that credit to them.

After the Jets go ahead with a late touchdown, Jake Brisket finally connects with their wide receivers who had done nothing all game, and Hunter Henry was the only guy that had been a part of their attack in terms of passing.

And they score the touchdown, and then

they get the hold in the final second.

So, Patriots get off the schneide, and you just hope that Drake May is okay.

But on the Jets side,

I mean

it's hard to even it's hard to even wrap your head around the

awfulness of what you witness in this game, where this team has talent but no execution.

They burned a couple snapshots.

In the first quarter, they burned all three timeouts because they could not get plays off in time.

When they go ahead late in the fourth quarter on a nice touchdown drive and they go ahead and they're going to go for two to try to make it a three-point game, they get a delay of game

going for two that pushes them back to the seven-yard line.

And of course, they do not then,

they don't get the job done on that conversion.

The defense is a shell of its former self.

The total backfire of

Woody Johnson firing Robert Salah, who I didn't think was a good head coach.

I said that a hundred times in the show, but to fire him after five games, you upset the entire Apple cart because now you promoted Ulrich, who's completely out of his depth.

They've gotten worse with him as the head coach.

So you lose your DC then.

And so you have all these different issues all coming together, poor tackling, poor execution.

The big name player is on the roster, not stepping up.

And then the kicker, to top things off, had another miserable game.

He's cost them three games this year.

And what else can be said?

He's still on the roster.

So how does the ultimate Connor, tell me how the ultimate win-now team, the 2024 New York Jets, ran out a kicker long enough for him to blow three games?

He missed an extra point in a field goal this game, missing the net both times.

I mean, the dysfunction, the rot in the foundation is so apparent with the Jets and it's unbelievable.

I think, you know, it's like one of those things where one begets another.

And,

God, I mean, that sideline is probably just such a collection of nerves and discomfort at this point.

And so it's probably hell for a kicker, right?

Because you're feeling all this.

You're seeing the tightness.

And then you go out there and, you know, it's just a manifestation of what's on the sidelines.

But we've already exhausted the checklist of all the things that you could do, right?

I mean, you've made the big acquisition, you've made a change at head coach, you have gotten the much talked about speech from the veteran player to try to rally everybody.

And like, we're just out of stuff.

Like,

there's nothing else to do except for Aaron Rodgers to

like behave in a way that I guess Woody Johnson expected him to and literally take this thing on his back.

But I just don't think he's physically there anymore.

Like, I don't think that's possible.

Well, it's too late.

Like, they weren't a win-now team a month ago, in my opinion.

Like, I think the cracks were there from the very outset.

And I mean, you're starting to get the point where, like, the numbers coming out about this team are pretty ridiculous.

Rich Samini tweeted that they had today zero turnovers and held the Patriots to 247 yards and still lost.

They were the first team to lose a game in that manner since week three of 2012.

The other teams in that span are 220 and 0.

And like, this is a little trolly, and I'm not trying to troll the Jets, but you know, Zach Wilson has a higher winning percentage than Aaron Rodgers right now, and it's not all on Aaron Rodgers.

Like, he's played relatively well, but you're right.

What else do you do?

I think the only thing that comes next is a massive

deep-cutting nuclear house cleaning.

Well, that's, and yeah, that's coming.

And, and they're another team.

And I think this is the most disappointing team in football.

Like, trade deadline, I would sell.

You are out.

You have lost five straight games.

You are two and six.

There's no coming back from this hole that you've dug for yourself.

So maybe you could do something to set yourself up for what comes next.

But and to the point about, because I've seen that.

I've seen that thing too about Rodgers and Wilson.

And the only thing it is, it's not an accurate indicator of the the actual quarterback play to me.

It's like Wilson actually had a great roster and a supreme defense with him.

The Jets' defense is a shell of its former self now.

And you have players, a hallmark of this team has been the top players playing at a much lower level than expected.

Sauce Gardner was terrible in this game, and he's been bad all year long.

Like, how do you expect that?

Sometimes to me, it's like there is something cosmic to it.

It's not a curse because it all starts with the rot in the foundation and the ownership, but everything that the Jets touch turns to poison.

And Aaron Rodgers is just the latest case.

I wonder, though, there is a precedent, like, you know, not in the same sport, but the Mets were similarly when they got Steve Cohen.

They got Verlander, they got Scherzer.

There was all this expectation.

And then halfway through the season, it just completely imploded.

They were hurt.

The team sucked.

And, you know, ownership just got rid of them.

And the next year, they were in the World Series, you know, and there is this corollary between, like, maybe if you're Woody Johnson, and I've said this before, but you've built a chemistry disaster before with the 2011 Jets, 2012 Jets, after those AFC title runs, and you sat with it.

You prolonged it.

Why don't you just cut your losses at this point?

Because the fastest way to get Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner back to playing is to probably go back to the point where they were empowered and they were growing and they didn't have all this other stuff that was happening around them.

Here's the problem.

We have learned enough over 25 years that Woody Johnson will always make the wrong decision.

He may also not be there in four weeks.

Right.

And maybe his brother will be back in charge.

And how did that era go?

That was the Adam Gase era that his brother presided over.

It's just that team with that ownership.

I now am certain this team will never, ever, ever be good as long as the Johnsons are running the show.

And that's just how I feel.

And I'm going to give my old man the final word on this before we take a break

well the Jets have another bad loss today Okay, the offense was totally out of sync.

Game starts off good with a 60-yard punt return, no points.

The biggest thing that I saw that I cannot believe was they had three timeouts they call in the first quarter because the clock is running out.

And the clock is running out as Rodgers is doing that.

319, 319, seconds are going down 2-1.

Unbelievable.

It even happened at the end of the game when they were trying to get a two-point conversion where they had a drop from the two-yard line to the seven.

But the biggest thing was it was a total failure by the team defensively.

Could not stop them after they did score at the end to score a touchdown.

So I don't know what's going on with this team, but one thing I know for sure, Zerline has to be cut.

What are they doing keeping that guy?

that has cost them three games already this this year already and he's still on a team frustrating loss losing to the one and five Patriots.

Only one team was worse than that was the Browns.

So now even that tied with the Jets.

That's it for today.

I mean, thank you, Dad.

What a disgrace.

You've upset my dad,

and that is not allowed.

We're already dealing with the Yankees right now.

Yeah, he's had a tough, it's been a tough weekend.

You have let down my father for 50 consecutive years, and somehow you are inventing new ways to get worse.

The New York Jets, ladies and gentlemen, rest in peace and good riddance.

We'll be right back.

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All right, we are back.

Let's move to Detroit.

Ooh, functional football teams.

One of the best teams in the league, the Detroit Lions, absolutely demolished one of the worst teams in the league, the Tennessee Titans, 52 to 14.

Oh, is that it?

What?

Do I need to say more?

I need to keep talking?

52-14.

I said enough.

A little bit of shading, but

your point stands, and it's excellent.

52-14, huh?

Yeah, this was.

This was...

You know what's crazy about it?

52 points and three quarters.

Yeah, it was, well, yes, the fourth quarter didn't count.

I mean, Hendon Hooker played the fourth quarter for the Lions, but

the game was tied 14-14 at at one point, and then the Lions just ripped off an insane amount of unanswered points.

The Lions had nine net passing yards at halftime with a 35-14 lead.

The Titans outgained the Lions, 416 yards to 225,

but The Lions had 262 punt and kick return yards, including a punt return touchdown.

Titan special teams were a disaster.

Or I think my biggest takeaway from this about the powerhouse Lions is that they continue to find new ways to win.

And not necessarily that they have to find new ways to win because they could have beat Tennessee with their eyes closed today, but the fact that they can, they have so many avenues to success.

And on this day, it was the special teams that carried them.

They became, hang on, this is from

Brett Coleman, 55 net passing yards with 52 points at one point in the game.

They finished with a little more than that, but they finished with less than 100 net passing yards.

The last team to put up 50-plus points with less than 100 passing yards was the Chicago Bears in 1955.

That's crazy.

I mean, some of it's situational, and we, right, we chatted about this.

Like, you get, if you're the Lions, you get an interception at the Titans 23.

You get another interception at the Tennessee 12.

You get a fumble at the Tennessee 26, and then you're pointed on with special teams.

Like, I think it even in a way, because

that's why you have the yard.

If they needed to go on long drives, they can do it.

And they can do almost anything.

And it's like you're starting to...

And I know you've lost your best pass rusher, but outside of that.

Like this team finds ways to pummel, like they absolutely destroy people.

And like Tennessee can be, you know, matched in points and yards early on.

But Detroit, Detroit got there yardage-wise because they're creating and generating back-breaking turnovers.

Here's a quote from Goff on just the nature of this game and how it was a blowout, but an odd one.

I don't think I've ever been part of something like that.

12 of 15 for 85 yards, repeatedly taking advantage of short fields.

And, you know, they also, and this is...

I don't believe in this because I think it's weak.

If you have a favorite team, oh, I quit being a fan of that team and now I'm going to be a fan of this team.

That's weak.

But if I could pick a new team, if that was something that I felt was personally within the code of honor as a fan, it would be the Lions because not only are they loaded with stars, they play the game in such a fun

way.

They're professional, but also there's some sizzle to them.

Like there's a trick play almost every week, including this week where a touchdown pass by Montgomery, the running back, who took a pitch from Goff and found Sam Laporta from three yards out.

Put him up 35, 14.

And then you have guys like Jameer Gibbs.

And

I always highlight these guys, Connor.

He hit 22 miles per hour on his 70-yard touchdown run.

That's the magic number.

You're feeling 22.

You're one of the special ones.

So you have all this different stuff.

And then the obvious, you know, Jared Goff is such a likable guy that's kicking ass as well.

It's just a great team.

So you take the DNA, right, of all these other great teams in the NFL, San Francisco's power running game, Kansas City's ingenuity and creativity.

And in all of that, you find that the Lions have that, right?

They can win like every other great team in the NFL, but just combined onto one roster.

And that to me is why I still believe that they are far and away the best team in the NFL this year.

And

on a Sunday when we're talking about a Jets sideline that's like pressure-packed with nerves, you got Seattle defenders fighting each other on the sideline.

Like this is the opposite of all that.

Oh, yeah.

And there is one thing to be aware of and to just watch throughout this week, similar to Patrick Mahomes.

There was a play Jared Goff got.

Jared Goff got sacked on the first play of the game, by the way.

And it was like, whoa, what's happening?

No, but

he rolled his ankle at one point in the game and was.

What's happening?

From my standpoint.

I'll join you as a Lions fan, Dan, at the Titans.

I told you, it's not within my code of honor as a fan, but if it was, I would.

Yes.

Go on.

So Jared Goff's ankle, they had it wrapped on the sidelines at some point with this huge, huge wrap thing.

I don't know if it was ice or heat or what they were doing with that, but he never came out of the game until, I mean, I don't know why he came out in the second half, honestly, because they were just destroying the Titans.

42-14, I think, before they even had the ball, because I think, if I remember right, the pump return touchdown was their first play, the Lions first play of the second half.

But anyway, their first drive of the fourth quarter, Goff did not return.

Like, they were like, Hendon Hooker can handle this.

We're winning by so many points.

But until that point, and I don't know how it went with Hooker exactly, I stopped tracking this, but the Lions were up to 24 offensive touchdowns compared to 19 incompletions over their last five games at the point when Goff

stopped playing.

They're humming.

Unbelievable.

The Lions are off to their first 6-1 start since 1956.

They're a great team.

They probably should be atop the power rankings for HTC.

You'll have to find out

this week.

All right, let's move to Mile Highland with Connor Orr.

Every single week in Carolina, there's a quarterback being misused.

Q-shot of cold dogs sleeping outside.

More than three former highly drafted quarterbacks are rescued every year with the help of people like you and Kyle Shanahan and Kevin O'Connell.

Q three-legged cat nestling into blanket next to new adoptive owner.

But sometimes help arrives too late.

Q-shot of crying Puggle.

Hi, I'm Sarah McLaughlin, and ahead of this week's trade deadline, after the Broncos dismantled the Patriots 28-14, but Bryce Young looked kind of good.

I'm asking you to stand up and help get Young a new home where he can succeed and slang tutties.

Call the number on your screen and ask David Tepper to trade his former number one pick today.

You'd love to see it.

A fresh start.

And we were, Justin, you were looking it up

earlier today.

Has a team ever finished with the worst record in football three consecutive years in the Super Bowl era?

Not that I could find.

I need to do a deeper dive on this, but I could not find an instance of it.

And there's been articles written about all the teams that have gone back to back with the number one picks.

Or like Carolina didn't have the number one pick, technically, because they traded it before the season started, but they earned the number one pick last year.

As far as I could tell, and I'll update everyone about this on our Wednesday show.

Please do.

Or on your Titans podcast, maybe.

Or sure.

That doesn't seem relevant, but they are on track to be the first team to have the number one overall pick three years in a row, as far as I could tell.

Someone correct me if you know that I'm wrong.

That'll be nice.

What else, Connor, from this game?

So, again, I mean, I thought that Bryce Young looked good in moments.

So it was the first opening drive touchdown of his career.

They got the ball deep in Broncos territory after a fumble.

He started the game five for five through a touchdown pass.

And then the wheels sort of came off.

Denver just started scoring in droves, and everything started happening for Carolina, including that sort of weird Denver Nathaniel Hackett thing where they just couldn't get the play in.

And every single time the clock ran down to zero, which led to a kind of a funny moment with the announcement crew, they seemed to kind of give up.

This is a disaster.

Oh, no,

it's always bad when the announcing crew like calls out the obvious like that.

Yeah, but I will say this: I give Dave Canalis a lot of credit.

He tried everything in this game, like just an awful fake punt North Johnny Hecker like threw a ball deep in their own territory that didn't work out.

He was letting Bryce Young go for it on fourth down, fourth and five, fourth and six, late in the game, because you know, I hate those Jason Garrett surrender punts when you're down 21 points.

Just do it, you know, keep the drive going.

And he completed this one pass to Jalen Coker, who is an undrafted free agent out of Holy Cross and seems to be their best wide receiver right now,

while he was getting roughing the passard.

So absolutely obliterated and just completed this dime on the sideline.

And in your head, you're just thinking, My God, like this can work if you just get him out of this place.

It's they had

seven drives under seven yards.

Yeah.

My problem with the whole thing is you're stuck knowing that very likely your biggest investment in your quarterback is not going to work, no matter what happens in hot and cold flashes in these games.

And I just think this is a different type of owner.

We already know that.

Tep would be doing things differently.

But like, is he,

what code does he have that doesn't say, oh, I'm just going to fire this coaching staff too?

Like, in no other elements of his industry or business does he sit around with people that don't do what he wants and don't do it well.

And like, yet he doesn't care about the money side of it.

So I worry for someone like Dave Canalis that this whole thing just gets completely eradicated two months from now.

Bo Nix, by the way, threw 220 yards in the first half of this game.

And the fact that you even say, Connor, you know, that they were just going up and down the field and scoring on offense.

I know it's the Panthers, but that's a nice little confidence booster for the Denver offense and shows perhaps progress as Nicks continues to grow into the job.

They definitely were going to get a nice test, though, Connor, with Knicks because they have Baltimore in Baltimore next week who are going to be pissed off after what happened with the Browns, and then they go to Arrowhead.

So this, you know, here we go.

So the Panthers were a nice little tease, and now we see what happens next.

And right, the Broncos were also coming off an absolute dismantling of the Saints.

So this was like their feeling froggy portion of the schedule where Sean Payton goes and just destroys the team that he left for dead a couple years ago anyway, and then comes back and dismantles the Panthers.

Everybody's feeling good, but you know, that's why I was like, I was a little reserved in my Bo Nick's criticism or my Bro Nick's praise, but it was fun to watch him today.

It was like that game in high school, like ours was,

the high school was called Wall and Paul Pack, and like everyone got to play and like the offensive lineman got to play running back and we all had a good time.

And that was that game.

Like it was like third and two and Bo Nicks was just like throwing the ball 60 yards downfield for the hell of it.

And so, that was fun for them, I imagine.

And one last thing: Sean Payton, you know, he's starting to feel himself.

You could always tell in these press conferences where Sean's at headspace-wise.

He's beaten up on some of these, you know, have-nots in the league, and he's not afraid to

put them in the category or that bucket if you haven't noticed already.

Take it away, Sean.

I wish we would have finished better.

Um, I said this: it's not a good offense we played, um, it's just the the truth.

So

we expected that, and

we're going to see a lot better teams.

I mean, the Sean Payton thing?

Ever.

The thing about Payton, when he does this shit, like he did it with Hackett, of course, last summer famously, it's like

it's unnecessary.

And you just wonder because he's a

because this is just his personality.

Like, why is he doing it?

Like, who is he?

Who is the axe that he must grind like what is the source of why he's getting that dig in like why is show why are you the way that you are sean payton why personal demons

i think you nailed it

all right let's move to our final game before sunday night football uh back to sofi stadium

Man, we all just want to see Justin Herbert sling it with that golden arm, but he needs somebody.

He needs somebody to throw to.

Who can be that person?

Well, how about Lad McConkey?

I could sign off on a guy named Lad McConkey being an impact player in the league for 10 to 12 years.

Let's do it.

The former Georgia star definitely balled out on Sunday against the Saints.

Six catches for 111 yards, including a long touchdown.

And it is the Chargers easily taking care of the Saints.

26 to 8.

Herber at 328 total yards, 279 passing, 48 rushing, and two touchdown passes.

So coming off.

You could turn off the music now, Justin.

So coming off that

last-second loss in the least-watched Monday night game in the history of professional football, the Chargers get back to their winning ways.

They're 4-3.

And the Saints, Mark, the Saints are just a really tough watch right now.

I mean, not saying this is showing us that Derek Carr is a great quarterback, but like, you know, be careful what you wish for.

The offense has gone to the tank with Rattler.

Yeah, they're non-functional, and you're playing a good defense.

And, you know, I think this is encouraging for the Chargers.

Justin Herbert coming off his best game of the season, one of his best games ever, even though it was a loss, comes and does this again today.

You needed the wide receiver group around him to grow.

That's happening with Lad McConkey.

And this was the right time to face face a Saints team that, I don't know, those first two weeks of the season, we should remember this for the future use, that like there are mirages that occur, just deep mirages.

But that was with your starting quarterback, and you're now stuck trying to hope that Spencer Rattler grows very quickly, and you're two and six.

There's very little hope.

And if anything, if you're like if Spencer Rattler was crowed about as this guy that the people inside the organization wanted just to take over the job, well, that's probably, I would imagine those those hopes and dreams are fading at the moment.

Like, you want to get Derek Carr back and try to save the season, but it may be too late.

Six losses already.

I will say, though, that the Saints did that cool thing where they basically ran like a punt block on the third down against the Chargers early in the game, and you're just like, Dennis Allen's just pulling everything he's got out of the hat to try to save this thing.

And I do like that when that happens, but obviously, not nearly enough.

I like that this game was, I looked up, because we're all trying to, you know, team on this one.

It was 3-2 at one point.

It's like, well, of course it is.

And it's 9-5 at one point.

It's like, of course it is.

And then I was like, I'm going to attempt to take a third look at this game at some point.

Only six of Rattler's 24 pass attempts went more than 10 yards through the air per Catherine Terrell of ESPN.

So, you know, it's very clear they're not.

trying to put too much on his plate.

And

they just have no, there's nothing dynamic about their offense, even with the return of Taysom Hill and Chris Olave.

So yeah, we are a long way away from the think pieces about the rise of the Saints offense.

And yeah, we'll see what happens next for the Chargers who head to Cleveland next week.

All right, on to Sunday night football.

Sunday night.

Crazy stat.

NBC flew up in the second half of Sunday night football that the Cowboys and 49ers combined to win 10 of the first 30 Super Bowls.

But no Super Bowl titles for either team in the last 28 years.

The 49ers, of course, have been much closer, painfully so, in the last decade or so.

And we shall see if they get another crack at things in January.

But in the here and now, they needed to start stacking some W's in this stop-and-start campaign of theirs.

And they got it done

on Sunday night.

A 30-24 win over the Cowboys, a game that got a little bit interesting in the final

quarter

after San Francisco, behind a monster third quarter, blew out Dallas.

The Cowboys get back into the game with Dak and CeeDee getting hot.

But in money time, when they had the ball, down six,

had the ball, down six, they go four and out, and that allows the Niners to seal another W.

Connor,

we talked about last week how this team, these two teams, this is an important game for both of them.

And I think you kind of, at least for me, I saw what I expected to see out of both of them, the Niners kind of waking up knowing they need to get things going now at home, and a Cowboys team that just doesn't have enough players, enough answers to get it done on a weekly basis.

Yeah,

I guess it's too much to call them like a non-serious football team, but at this point, you just don't see anything beyond the very shallow surface-level talent that they have.

I mean, Dak Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, they can get each other open.

You can get enough to make yourself masquerade as a professional football team.

But when it comes down to it, if you're facing another talented roster, the coaching is not up to par.

The depth is not up to par.

And San Francisco, even with all their injury issues, are breaking through and making plays.

And also, I mean, you know, there was a huge dropped interception there at the end of the game where this wouldn't even be as much of a comeback as I think we were thinking it was too.

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at a Cowboys team and you can say you don't have Micah Parsons, you don't have DeMarcus Lawrence, you don't have Deron Bland, and that's going to change what you want to do if you're Mike Zimmer and you're this defense.

But you go up and the floor falls out with three pristine Niners drives, where here's the difference between these two teams.

The Niners find a way to incorporate new people.

Isaac Garendo, a rookie, fourth-round guy, a running back they really like, steps in and in Shanahan fashion has a big night.

Ricky Parasol returns from his insane early part of the season and is making big plays.

So you can see one team is going to use innovation and trust young players to come out and affect a game against the Dallas defense.

And Dallas is the same collection of guys.

And when CeeDee Lamb is doing what he's doing late, part of that is you've got some young defensive backs for the Niners out there.

A big mistake occurred where they collided with each other.

But other than that, they were dominant early.

And this is the second week week in a row.

When you come out to Dallas and you put up 21 points on the Cowboys to open the third quarter, to me, the game's over.

I get that they climbed back into it.

But this is not unlike last week when you played another good team in the Lions who scored 20 in the second quarter and ended the game by halftime.

So the DNA of the Cowboys to me is you're going to find a way

at some point over 60 minutes to be outcoached, to not have the talent on the field.

And the result, no matter how, come back or not, like I'm with you guys.

Like this never was in question to me.

The Niners needed to make one big stop, and they did it when they needed to at the very end.

Yeah, and

of course, Micah Parsons not playing for the Cowboys, and he's missed a couple games, and we'll see when he gets back on the field is

terrible for them.

But, you know what?

They weren't doing too hot when Parsons was in the lineup, and that's kind of been glossed over a little bit.

It's not just about Parsons and the missing players.

It's just the whole team has fallen short.

And I thought that was emblematic, that last possession, because it wasn't CD-lamp touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

You could chalk it up to lipstick on a pig, but it wasn't.

It was more than that because they got the two touchdowns.

They got it down to six points.

And then they got the stop.

And they even had a sack on a blitz where, to Brock Purdy's credit, I think eight times out of 10, the quarterback coughs that ball up, and the Cowboys could have been in different business in a different way.

But he holds on to it, but they get off the field.

And now here we are, first and 10 at the Dallas 25-yard line, 305 to play.

And then that goes over the middle.

I don't know who he's throwing it to.

That was crazy.

Terrible.

And Collinswood said the same thing.

No clue what Dak was thinking, who had already made two bad passes earlier in the night for interceptions.

Fred Warner doesn't come down with it.

Really, it was a ball.

Warner,

eight times out of 10, maybe nine times out of 10, does.

So they get a second life there.

Then he rolls out, pass incomplete, right.

Then, again, emblematic.

Like, who do the Cowboys have?

Who does Dak Prescott have that he could really trust in this offense outside of CeeDee Lamb?

He drops back and throws a dime to Turpin down the left sideline, clanks off his hands.

That's a 50-yard gain potentially, wiped off the books.

And then on fourth down, he looks right, deep pass to Brooks.

They get tangled up.

No call, and rightfully so.

And for all intents and purposes, game over.

Just Connor, just not enough in the tank of this team.

They're just missing that extra gear that makes them a team that you take seriously right now.

And it's funny, too, because you wonder, like you think about the old Jerry Jones, right?

And it would be, you know, fire and brimstone.

Like in the middle of the season, I'm going to take the coach from, you know, Texas and I'm going to make him my head coach, you know, and do something crazy.

And he's clearly not doing that anymore because he doesn't care.

But also,

who would you even

who would you even promote at this point?

Like if you were to fire

Mike McCarthy?

Like, I was thinking about that during the game and sure, Bones Fossil is like a consummate internal team.

He's done it before.

Right.

And he's done it before.

But like, yeah, would you put Mike Zimmer in charge of this team?

Like, you know, at least the Jets, like they had, Jeff Ulbrick was a sought-after head coach.

You wanted to give him an evaluation.

There's nothing here.

Like, there's no, there's no future on this roster.

It's just this sort of like Vegas show act that you just come and pay to see be mediocre.

And yet they're paying their quarterback.

you know, about 60 times more than Brock Purdy or something in that neighborhood.

And I mean, I get that.

The Niners are going to have to pay Brock Purdy down the road, but just watching them tonight, both, you know, it's not just the way the game ended for Dallas.

They came out so flat after halftime.

It's, you know, multiple three and outs.

Like, there's two, and there's two more Dak Prescott's Prescott interceptions in this game.

It's like,

I just don't believe in them.

And then I take a look at what's coming up for them.

And you've got Atlanta, which is a spicy team.

They could beat Dallas.

Philly getting hot.

Houston, who might have Nico Collins back at that point.

That's a rough road road right there.

And then you've got Washington after that, the actual real team in this division.

That's what Dallas thought they wanted to be.

It's an ongoing theme

of this Sunday.

A lot of the teams that had been under the microscope as underachievers,

in some ways,

ranging from signing their own death warrants to further establishing themselves as

teams that...

are not to be taken seriously down the stretch.

The Cowboys, I think, fall in that category as well with the Bengals and the Jets and the Jaguars and teams of that ilk.

It's going to be a long final couple months of the season.

And you look at the Niners now on the flip side,

they get a buy, and it's a perfectly time buy for them because they're all sorts of beat up.

And you have Christian McCaffrey on the men now, and there is a possibility we're hearing that he'll be ready when they come back from the bye for week 10 against the Buccaneers.

So

I have faith that the Niners are going to go on a run here.

We'll see if they do have that in them.

And I would say the biggest in terms of what we lost in this game as a public, George Kittle had a big game.

A very big game, in fact.

A monster game.

George Kittle going to the Hall of Fame?

I don't know.

Maybe.

Up for grabs.

Love the guy.

Up for grabs.

Ha!

Tight end nailed it.

It is National Tight Ends Day, and Kittle,

you know, six for 128, touchdown.

And then I saw a nugget.

Who had that nugget?

Maybe it's been bouncing around in a couple different places, but

today is the record for

catches or yardage by tight ends.

Hold on.

I mean,

do you think that has this become such a farce that,

and I'm sure there's pride within the organizations to have their tight ends have, you know, monstrous days on this ridiculous.

It's like the NFL's like, we'll take Christmas as our holiday and give you national tight end dates.

Like, it doesn't feel like a totally fair trade.

But, like, was there a messaging within the buildings?

Like, make this work.

Don't, you know, put your tight ends out there in the spotlight.

Because I was thinking about this, because I don't want to be a curmudgeon about it.

I've been banging on about this for a couple of years now.

Like, they used to walk around at the old office and be like, hey, do you want a t-shirt for National Tight Ends Day?

And then I would laugh, thinking it was a joke.

But no, they had made t-shirts for it.

And then I was like, is this like one of those internet things where it's like an inside joke?

And like, remember, like last year, Creed, the

butt rock band of the turn of the century, it became like very fashionable for Creed to show up in all these different reels and everything because everybody was like winking about how Creed sucks, but we kind of like Creed songs.

And it was like just like an inside joke, like this Creed Assance.

Is that what this is?

Like, is it really like a joke that everyone is kind of in on?

And and I'm just

except us?

That's what I mean.

I'm trying to figure out why I heard that term 400 times today, and I've heard it every year without fail.

This happens.

Like,

I don't know.

It's been a long show.

I don't know if we want to really dig on the discourse, but when I think I'm talking to the right people, and Connor and Mark, like when I smell something in terms of out of order in the universe, it feels there's a little bit of a conspiracy in the air here.

It's one of those jokes that you feel like is there's a depth to it, but there's really not.

And so you're simultaneously in on it and not in on it.

And then that just sort of overwhelms the zeitgeist.

And that's where we are right now.

Well said.

Dante Kopolowicz-Fleming of NFL media, George Kittle's touchdown reception was the 175th catch by a tight end today on National Tight Ends Day.

This is an all-time NFL record for receptions by tight ends in a single day.

So now they have this as a hook, and we're totally fed.

I mean,

the those of us that that wanted this to to die it will never die in fact it's just going to continue to metastasize i i'm concerned now though will national tight ends day always be on a sunday or is this like easter where it's subject to like the you know like the catholic calendar like what where it is like could there be a national tight ends day on like a on like a tuesday and then there's no

like what what's happening here you know i mean if i'm the if i were and i'm not a part of the catholic Church, but if I were, I'd be very concerned that they're coming for Easter.

They're coming for May Day.

They're coming for, you know, I mean, the off-season, the idea that the in-season games were a boundary line.

F that.

And not for nothing.

You know, the NFL never met something it didn't want to market to death.

Think about Columbus Day and how that became a hot-button.

topic.

So now it's also Indigenous Peoples Day.

At what point are like the other positional groups going to be be like, I want my day?

Well,

that's what I'm worried about.

Then it's like a 10 day.

There's like National Guard Day on the day.

Oh, that's going to fucking swear.

That would be like a 10 or 11-week,

you know, that's a pantomime.

And

like, oh, everybody, isn't it so funny?

And wink, wink, you know, the irony of it being National Log Snappers Day.

Like, enough.

It's just like enough.

I mean, you think they're going to...

The problem is when the results on the field, as they designed all this, are matching the actual holiday, then it's going to be that's what I find to be a problem because then you, well, let's get three running backs to rush for 200-plus yards on National Running Back Day, which would be next week.

We're just three old guys shaking our fists at the clouds right now.

There's nothing we can do about it.

Graver, you're in a younger demographic.

You cool with this, or like where you stand on it?

On National Tight Ends Day or just the holidays being absorbed in general?

Two subjects.

The former, yeah.

National Tight Ends Day is dumb, but there were 16 tight end touchdowns on Sunday, which is more than one per game.

But you're not helping just when you add the nugget that only flames people's passion for this.

But I was just going to say, I subscribe to your subject.

Be the change you want to see in the world, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But if you subscribe to my theory, I want to hear what you say.

I subscribe to your theory that somebody was planting seeds in buildings.

It's like, hey, if you're near the end zone and you got a red zone play dialed up, let's do the ones to the tight ends because it's National Tight Ends Day.

who's it in service of though like what is if you start peeling back the layers of this onion who does it serve and why it all boils down to having dumb people giving them something to ask george kittle about when he's sponsored by old spice on radio row like that's this is where it all comes back like it all comes back to old spice Okay, and I'll and I'll just mention last thing, last tag on it from my perspective.

There's an election coming up.

Put it on the board.

Red string this thing.

How does it connect to that?

And China.

This is the first time I've laughed about the election.

All right.

Tension.

Okay, good stuff.

Week eight, Sunday, in the books.

Thank you to everybody.

As always, Monday,

we will cap the coverage of week eight with the Monday night football tilt between the New York Giants.

Oh, the Giants back in prime time, baby.

And the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So make sure you're there for that.

And until next time, you know what you must do.

Eat the call.