Week 7 PANIC INDEX + TNF Preview

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Like memories of fake news from your mom.

So with Panics, his mom said, you bite your nails, you get worms.

Anything that you remember from your own childhood.

I mean, hey, listen, I grew up in an Indian household, so shout out to the

brown listeners out there.

I could do two hours on this.

I mean, this was, this is my life, and this was my life.

Heyo, welcome to Heed the Call, an NFL podcast.

I am Dan Hansis, joined by my beautiful co-host, Mark Sessler,

Justin Graver on the ones and twos.

It's the Wednesday show.

It's the end-around show.

It's going to be a gay old time.

What's up, Sassy?

You know, we had the ad when we grew up,

a national ad that said, don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

And it was typically like a supermodel type person, kind of, you know, tis-tisking the rest of us for being jealous or thinking, like, well, I'm in mom jeans or I feel stressed out.

I think her message is on point.

Yeah, you relate.

It's not her fault that she's a beautiful person.

And nor is it yours.

Nor is it yours.

I would, it would extend to myself or anyone who feels that way.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So

I love this stuff um we did our monday show and uh we did our power rankings always

always fodder for conversation and debate and what what what do we have here mark sessler gets aggregated um by a

uh

by a Steelers fan site of some kind, Steelers Depot.

And here is the headline on Twitter.

Analyst, quote, not overly impressed, close quote, by Steelers, thinks they can, quote, sneak, close quote, into playoffs as wild card team.

Hashtag Steelers.

See, hashtags are still hot, Justin.

Hashtag NFL, hashtag Pittsburgh.

And then within this article, when you click on the link, Sese, and I'm sure you were like sweat pouring down out of your pores as you were going through this.

Sese vulnerable, Sese exposed.

Let's see.

I mean, how about that guy?

Who is that guy?

Blah, blah, blah.

In most areas, the Pittsburgh Steelers had their best game of the season

against the Cleveland Browns last week, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

However, analyst,

analyst, Mark Sessler remains skeptical of the Steelers.

And then a quote.

Yes, they quoted you.

I love it.

Pittsburgh, to me, is like, we're hanging on.

We're going to try.

He told the Heed the Call podcast.

And I think it was just another little bit of evidence that this is a team with a good defense that can dominate a lesser team like Cleveland.

They can do enough to disrupt lesser teams and probably compile 9 to 10 wins and sneak in as a wildcard team.

This is just another very Steelers-esque game from the season.

I'm not overly impressed.

I'm not depressed by them.

I don't remember any of these comments you made, but they seem fine to me.

There is, now they're editorializing, there is some merit to Sessler's theory here.

Some.

As the Steelers haven't exactly had the most dominant wins this year.

Ba, ba, ba, ba.

The win doesn't look too great in hindsight against the Jets, and they almost lost what would have been a heartbreaker to Minnesota in the double game.

However, framing the Steelers as a group sneaking into the playoffs as a wildcard team is interesting, especially since they have a firm grip on the North.

Mark Sessler is a dick.

No, I added that.

So not overly scathing, Mark, but you also

got a personal message as well.

Yes, this one cut a little closer to the core.

I'll read it for our audience.

This is the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning because it was sent at 3.22 a.m.

Uh-oh.

Hey, Mark Sessler, it's a good thing that we don't give a f

about what you think.

Go dig in your ass and smell your fingers.

Now, write about that.

Oh.

You might want to also tell us the name of this individual on

Musk's platform.

It's

go get your f ⁇ ing shine box.

And I also, by the way, because when I get tagged with some of these, I went and looked at other stuff he's done, and he's attacking even Steelers people.

Like he's on the attack and on, like, he's kind of just backed into a corner and attacking everyone.

So hey, man, he's got a brand.

It's a go-get your shine box kind of brand.

It wasn't the first thing.

Those do hurt your feelings sometimes.

Like,

and I was like, I have to, what does he want me to do?

Dig into my ass?

Yeah, I mean,

yeah, not, not good.

I wouldn't recommend it either.

But, uh, but I just, I hope this, this criticism, it does come with the territory.

And, and I want you to be, because we're going to talk about the Steelers and Bengals Thursday Night Football and just at the bottom of the hour.

I mean, I hope that doesn't change any of your analysis of this Pittsburgh team.

Stay strong, my friend.

Nothing would.

At the top of the list of what I am and professional would be at the top top of the list.

Absolutely.

All right, enough of that, though, because

we got one of our favorites joining us on this Wednesday end around.

He's the host of the Ringer NFL show.

He's also the host of the Philly Special.

And he is the man, Shield Capadia.

Welcome to Heed the Call Body.

Thanks for having me, guys.

You've provided me such entertainment, hours of entertainment over the years, so I feel like I can give you a half an hour or whatever you need here.

Likewise.

Likewise.

Mark, how about the idea that

Shield's Eagles-focused podcast, the Philly Special, which I know is near and dear to your heart because

you've long held the contention that you should have won a sandwich prop on the Super Bowl where you predicted the singular greatest play in NFL history would occur.

With a new,

you never got.

You never got that because the Philly special, while great, is not the helmet catch, which is the greatest play in Super Bowl history.

We'll throw it to Shield just to get his opinion.

And if it doesn't align with mine, we'll edit it out of the show.

Listen,

I heard Mark say that many years ago, and of course I agree with Mark.

And Mark, I will get you that sandwich, you know, whenever we may meet the next time.

Forget these guys.

I got the sandwich for you.

Yeah, and

Dan labeled it a content.

Like, it's an idea of mine.

Like, it is a fact.

Right.

And the only thing stopping it is Dan's stubbornness that has now lasted almost a decade.

First of all, I am not stubborn.

I've never been told that in my life.

Number two, that's not true.

Number two,

you know, agree to disagree.

But I like to.

I just know number two.

I like the problem.

I like that.

It starts with number one.

You have your little, you know, boy-boy sandwich date where we could just wash our hands of this forever now.

Little.

And leave me out of this, okay?

All right.

You've been felled.

Nice

contentious beginning to this segment.

Hey, why don't we do a little bit of news with Sheil, and then we'll get into the fun segment we're going to do.

It's a panic index

facing certain teams of note.

How about that?

Starting with something that caught my eye, we are a power rankings program.

Do you do any power rankings, Sheil?

I know we all, so many people do.

I don't know if you do as well.

Not a straight power rankings.

I did do a thing of just like who can actually win the Super Bowl, some contenders earlier this week, but not a straight power ranking.

All right, so we do cutting to the point, though, at least, right?

That's cutting to the point.

Yeah, and we like to say that the Heed the Call power rankings are the definitive power rankings out there in the business.

Nothing to back that up substantially in terms of proof, but that's what we say.

And out here in the game, though, there are some people that are trying to data mine how to really get the power rankings right.

I'm very interested by this.

Sam Hoppin,

who is labeled as an NFL

data data scientist, which is pretty good, pretty impressive, at ESBN BET.

Do you need to go to college to become an NFL data scientist?

I'm curious.

I hope I could find out from Sam Hoppin.

But anyway, he put out his power rankings, which is like a combination of all the

like kind of pop the hood analytic sites and then, you know, averaging them all together and finding finding a path from that perspective.

And according to Hoppin's composite rankings, it is in line with Heed the Call.

The Kansas City Chiefs, with their 3-3 record, are the number one team in the league, followed by the Lions, Packers, Bills, Rams, Eagles, Commanders, Seahawks, Colts, and the Broncos at number 10.

And notably, Mark, we had a bit of a...

contention or a conversation.

They have the Bucs at number 11 in their power rankings.

I know you had them at one,

which is not to say who's right or who's wrong, but I guess science sides with me on this one.

Farbuck, Farbuck.

I was not alone in ranking them much higher than where you had them at seven.

Sam Hoppin has done very good.

These charts, he creates this stuff weekly.

He's very, very talented.

I don't know if a college even, if he needed college, but I do not care

personally

about data systems.

Okay, I don't care about committees.

I visualize these team and I use my inner world to see what I I see.

And I'm very comfortable, again, with where I put the bucks.

I know what we've done here.

We've tried to craft a narrative that suggests that your outlook, which was vastly different than the other three people involved with the power rankings, was correct.

It's another,

it's a mythology.

There's no mythology.

This is just data.

This is our data, Shield.

And anything on this list of 32 that jumps out to you is strange or startling?

Yeah, you know, I like a Hoppin, and I like that you are, you know, broadening your horizon.

You're finding a hoppin' on the internet and giving him some pop, as you would say, uh, on this episode.

He did in a big spot.

You know, the old Zeus are in a big spot, giving him some pops.

So I like that.

And I feel like he does a great job with the data.

You know, there are different ways you can look at this.

I like to go to this one site that looks at like the betting markets, you know, and it tells you, hey, if these two teams faced on a neutral field right now, who would be favored?

I think that's a nice way to look at it as well.

And they have the Bucs 13th here, saying that if the Bucs faced 12, this is unpredictable.

You know, you might want to give, you maybe give that some pop next time, but if the Bucs faced 12 other teams on a neutral field right now, they would be an underdog.

Now, I like the Bucs as well.

I think the fact that they've played all these sort of one-score games is working against them a little bit when you look at point differential.

But I look at Tampa and say they haven't had their whole team yet.

You know, second half of the season, when they get Evans and Igbuka and Godwin on the field together with that offensive line, it's going to be a very tough offense to deal with.

And wouldn't you say that the, like, if you're a betting gentleman, the Bucs would make you a bit nervous on Sundays because their games come down to the end.

But they also, as Justin mentioned in a previous show, they find a way to execute the end.

They do.

And, you know, on the bottom end of this, Justin, we had a little conversation on the Monday night show about who deserves to be at the bottom of the power rankings.

The Jets are the lone winless team, but there's actually three teams in this composite ranking below the New York Jets at 0-6.

It's the Saints, the Bengals, and way, way back of the pack statistically, or according to these various pop the hood analytics, it is your Titans at 32.

So, I guess, Mike McCoy, good luck to you, sir.

Yeah, no surprise to me.

I mean, I told you the stat that I use, which is that the team has lost more 10-plus-point games than any team in the league.

So, to me, they are the worst team.

And if you're the team firing your head coach first, it's because you're the worst team, in my opinion, Dan.

You can hold on to the team.

You've nabbed that award potentially, yes.

By the way, is that your own Psych Ward merch?

Are you

created?

I explained this before.

Austin Huff of Corked Bats created this shirt.

You can get them online.

Just search Psych Ward, Cam Ward t-shirt.

We did talk about this.

You came up with a nickname.

Someone else made a t-shirt and put up for sale.

And now you're not going to get any of the money.

We got to work out an arrangement.

Yeah.

This is what we deal with, Shield.

I mean, you got to be first to market.

know, you have a very popular pod.

You can't be just saying the name on the podcast and letting someone else steal that.

There's something to take out of it.

He's telling me about, what's his name?

Scooter Braun and Taylor Swift.

I mean, my girls are telling me about that all day long.

I would say it's a very similar situation here.

Three words, Justin.

Cease and desist.

Okay?

No.

Cease and desist.

Justin's a buddy, and I'm happy if he's able to make some money off this.

There's no such thing as buddies in business, okay, bud.

Hey, in other power rankings news, I guess Tom Brady has power rankings.

What the f?

And so let's just watch Tom Brady trying to be a human being for 90 straight seconds.

All right, everyone, buckle up because if week six is any indication, we're in for an insane NFL season.

We're about to throw records out the window.

10 through 6, it's New England, Seattle, Kansas City, Philadelphia, and Denver.

The game I call the ball

is the most beautiful football game ever played but the Rams defense did what you're supposed to do against a backup quarterback you don't complain about wins on a cross-country road trip and LA climbs up to number five Detroit Justin if you were still working at Fox

you would have written this script I know Chiefs and Eagles fans might have something to say looking at their team in a few spots I would have been involved in the fishing math class the transitive property does not apply to football.

Green Bay was led by Josh Jacobs in the ground game with two tutties, which will continue to open things up for George.

First time he's ever said tutties in his life, it was in score three this week.

I'll be honest, I didn't see this one coming.

Daniel Jones and the Colts are number two.

They haven't faced many real challenges on the schedule.

Oh, look, look at that.

It's hard to ignore.

Tell the truth.

You didn't see this one coming either.

And at number one, yep, that's right.

It's shaking bake time in Tampa.

This whole top 10 could be shuffled in a lot of ways, but the one thing you can't argue is the Bucs are deserving of the top spot.

Now, let's get the wide receiver.

You can't argue.

I'm in Dallas Sunday for Commanders versus Cowboys on America's Game of the Week on Fox.

I'll see you there.

Let's go.

Yeah, let's go.

I would just say,

you know, as someone who's been through a marriage severance, you don't normally land in a home with a podcast background that looks like that.

You don't normally.

He does.

You don't normally, though.

A little bit of a different life circumstance there for old TB12.

Here we go.

And other news.

This one was kind of funny.

This is some behind-the-scenes footage.

Falcons obviously had a really nice win on Monday night against the Bills.

Here was Michael Pennix

before the game talking with a Falcons staffer.

I need to start cutting my nails.

I used to bite them when I was a kid, but I was like, my mama used to tell me to give you worms.

What?

To give you worms if you bite your nails.

They used to always say that so we wouldn't bite them.

I guess I got worms.

You got a lot of worms.

You got a lot of worms.

I don't know about the water.

That's funny.

I like that.

Good to learn a little bit more about Michael Penix and his personality.

Sheil, it did make me think

like memories of fake news from your mom.

Do you have any, so with Pennix, his mom said, you bite your nails, you get worms.

Anything that you remember from your own childhood?

I mean, hey, listen, I grew up in an Indian household, so shout out to the, you know, the brown listeners out there.

I could do two hours on this.

I mean, this was, this is my life and this was my life.

I mean, I'm 42 years old.

I have a cousin named Jay.

Shout out to Jay, who has a beautiful, I mean, he is the Indian George Clooney.

This guy's hair

still at my age.

And I am a bald man.

And my mom, to this day, there's sort of an Indian dish where you mix a little rice with a little yogurt.

She says, if you would have eaten that, like I told you, you would have had, you would have hair, just like Jay.

Instead, you're bald and you're pathetic.

So there you go.

That's, you know, that's, that's the whole thing.

That's tough love.

That's, yeah, listen, we were very blunt in the Capadia family at times.

And so that's the one that stuck out to me when I heard that clip.

I had, um, I have a, uh, an Irish Catholic mom.

I reached out to her earlier today.

I was like, mom, do you remember anything like examples of something you told us as kids that wasn't true, but was for our own good?

Her response, I always told you the truth.

But that's not totally true.

Like,

I remember being told, like, if you lie,

stick out your tongue.

And if you're lying, your tongue is black, which probably wasn't true.

But I use that on my own kids, and it works, or it did work until they hit a certain age.

I also remember being told that a lie, you tell a lie and it puts a black mark on your soul.

Some real, like, a lot of devilly type stuff

back back then.

Also, I always thought that like

the old God slash Santa always watching was a bit unnerving being told that as well.

You know, at all times, 24-7.

How about you, Cesar?

Yeah, no, I, I, I'm, that latter point you made, um, because I was thinking my mom was not, um,

like I'm not Irish Catholic.

I'm me.

I don't know what I am, but like, um, my mom wasn't coming heavy-handed with fables and myths, but like, um, I got into, like, religion when I was pretty early in my life.

And, like, I kind of just like, wait, I'm doing something really bad right now.

Like, are all my grandparents and previous relatives able to watch me from like the roof, like the ceiling of my

A room?

I'll say A room.

Um, like, I just constantly live in that world where, like, people are watching me.

God is watching me.

I'm being judged.

So, what is an A room?

Well, I didn't, I was going to say my bedroom, but it's like it can't happen anywhere.

You do, you, You commit small errors all the time as a human, and I'm going on and on.

And I'm like, are they just watching me or am I operating

a tone of silence?

Yeah.

You tripped me up with a room.

Is that a term?

I don't know that one.

Well, because I was going to say bedroom, but then everyone's thinking one thing, but it's like I did things in lots of rooms all over the place that probably God was not thrilled about or dead relatives wouldn't be thrilled.

I think I've made the points.

God is also confused by that for the record.

Kind of like something an alien would say if he was trying to tell a story about a youth that actually didn't occur.

Just

yes, in the A-room, sometimes the behavior, the modulation

at the same level.

I had a youth.

All right.

Let's see.

And other news.

And other news.

We love Troy Aikman around these parts, Sheil.

I don't know where you come down on him

as the host of Philly's special, legendary cowboy, obviously.

But

the thing we love about Troy on this show is Troy has reached a stage in his career and life where he says it like it is, and he doesn't have to worry about blowback from anyone, whether it's teams or his network or whatever.

Troy does what Troy wants, okay?

And we love that.

And that's something that I think has developed over

in somewhat recent years where you could tell when he was like, he took the restrictor plate off.

There's points in the Bears game on Monday night where he was a little critical of Caleb Williams.

Wasn't killing him, but was killing him.

And then Ben Johnson was asked about it after the Bears' last-second win.

What are we playing first here, Justin?

The podcast comment?

Yeah, no, I have a

pretty tame Aikman criticism commentary, if we want to listen to that first.

And then

let's roll it out.

What do we got?

Over the middle, Zacchaeus off his left hand.

He was open

and sat down and Caleb Williams missed him.

Well, he's been off tonight.

And, you know, this is another one of those.

Okay, that's not bad.

I mean,

it feels fair based on

more harsh criticism.

And honestly, like, I couldn't find a lot.

So I don't know what Bears fans are so up in arms.

All right, so that Ben was on his, I would imagine, Ben Johnson's weekly spot on ESBN Chicago 1,000 a.m.

and he had this to say about it.

Yeah, you know,

I think you said it best.

I love that perspective.

It sounded like

from that game the other night, a few people weren't particularly pleased with how we're winning right now.

So that's the.

I woke up this morning and my kids were watching the second half before school.

And so I heard some of the commentary.

But

and then he was asked again about it at his presser.

I saw you said somewhere today that you caught a little bit of the TV copy of the second half.

Did the tone of coming from the color analyst there surprise you?

The color analyst.

Maybe I just had it on mute.

It sounded like you heard some of what they said.

No.

No,

listen,

you want respect in this league.

You got to go earn it.

And so that's where we're at right now.

We need to go earn that respect from not only

the rest of the teams in the NFL, but everybody.

So that's where we are.

All right.

Sheil, your thoughts?

Yeah, I didn't think.

I watched that game with the sound on and I thought, I'm with you on Aikman.

I love Aikman now.

I feel like once Romo started getting all, everybody loved Romo when he first started.

Aikman's like, I got to do something different.

And he was all of a sudden more honest, more critical during broadcasts.

And I thought he was critical of Caleb Williams at times for his accuracy.

I thought it was all fair there.

I do love, you know, the football coach thing there from Ben Johnson.

Like, I would not go out of my way to watch a TV broadcast.

I am not a peasant.

My kids had it on.

Exactly.

I was getting ready for the day.

You know what I'm saying?

Getting ready for practice, drawing up some plays, and I overheard.

I would never even think about watching the TV broadcast.

I so agree with that.

I think Ben Johnson is a psycho, and I say that in a nice way.

I just think he's a psycho, and

maybe finding little

arrows that he feel were shot at him helps him or helps the team.

I don't think Aikman went out of his way to really critique anything that we didn't see ourselves, but whatever fires you up, Ben Johnson.

I would love to hear

what he actually had to say to his like staffers or, you know, later, you know, in the offseason when he's at Shula's with a couple belts in him.

He'll probably just tee off on Aikman.

He takes that personally.

All right, let's take a break.

And when we get back, we open up the Panic Index.

Stay right there.

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All right, we are back.

Shil Capadia,

the Ringer NFL show, a perfect guest for this segment because we are entering,

if you'd believe it, we are entering week week seven.

And a good time to check in on some teams with our panic index.

And I think a good way to get into this, Shield, is, you know, we could use numbers to explain the panic level.

But I think it'd probably be better to use a real life example that we can all relate to.

I think it's important to be able to,

unlike Tom Brady, relate to humans in a way that is understandable.

That's right.

We want them to feel like they're hanging out with their friends, right?

So we don't need need to throw out, you know, I do like to throw out the nerd stats, but here, you know, putting those away, I'm going to be a real-life human, just like Mark was when he said the A-room a few years ago.

He nailed that.

That was total human behavior, and you got to respect it.

I'll get us going.

How about that?

So

the Baltimore Ravens.

You look at their situation, and obviously it is grim.

This bye week comes at a very good time, as we know, but also times are very bad.

You are one and five,

and you are in a division with a Steelers team that is four and one,

and I think it's starting to feel itself a little bit.

And that's the biggest concern I have.

I don't worry about Joe Flacco keeping the Bengals in contention.

I don't worry about Cleveland.

I do worry about the number, right?

You've reached with five losses, you have to worry about the math of it all.

So you kind of need the Steelers to maybe max out at 10 wins.

And even then, you could be in a little trouble.

So you've used up all your rope.

You come off your bye and you're going to face the Bears.

And then you're

at Miami, at Minnesota, at Cleveland, home Jets.

You've got to win at least four of those and maybe all of them, right?

To kind of get yourself back in.

And that's a lot of pressure on a team that's not just a Lamar Jackson injury away.

I mean,

before I share where they are on the panic index, Shield,

how concerned would you be as a Ravens fan right now?

Yeah, I mean, one in five, the odds are obviously stacked against you, but I think if you gave me all the one in five teams of like the last 10 years, I would put them in the upper tier of you still have a chance, because I don't think that Steelers team is like a juggernaut that's going to run away with it.

I think they still get to play them two more times here.

And I am concerned with the defense.

I am concerned with Lamar Jackson coming back and maybe not being 100% with that hamstring injury.

But if you look at history, when Lamar Jackson plays and you change whatever variables you want to change, they win like over 70% of their game.

So I think they have a chance.

They could be the year from hell team where it's just like, it's not happening.

But I am not completely ruling them out just yet.

And that.

That slate that you mentioned upcoming for them includes some punchable opponents, to say the least.

You've got five division games left,

including two with the Steelers from week 14 on, including the closers.

So if you're going to surge, you've got a doorway to operate against Pittsburgh.

Because I think you've got to reduce wins for Pittsburgh.

And every year there is one team that kind of just goes on a seven out of eight game winning streak.

And the Ravens feel like that team.

But I also think there's this public belief in a way it's fading, but it's like, oh, they're going to be fine.

Like, I don't think they were fine before all the injuries, as I've said.

And so,

who are you?

I think it's one year where I kind of question who the Ravens really are.

But it's not panic mode yet because Lamar is coming back.

They're on the panic index, though, Mark.

And I'll tell you where they are in the panic index.

Okay.

You're on a double date with your wife.

She insisted on this Saturday night social engagement citing a desire, her desire,

not yours, for you to have more guy friends.

Your wife insists that you'll get along with this man, the husband of a lady in your wife's book club.

You'll like him.

He's a regular guy.

He watches sports.

What?

All right.

The dinner is stilted, but not unbearable thanks to three Tito's.

That is until your wife accidentally spills wine in her lap and rushes off to the restroom, her book club chum in tow.

Now you're alone with this random dude for what you estimate will be two to six excruciating minutes.

He doesn't actually like sports.

Panic index level, double date with wife's book club friend and her husband, comma, a complete stranger.

It's panic inducing, the concept of that, or agreeing to that in any situation.

So I don't, I'm not sure.

But it's manageable.

It's a very painful shield, two to six minutes, but it's like, I know this is going to be uncomfortable, but I can, with steely nerves and maybe another Tito's, I could see my way out of this one.

You can get through it.

You can go to your bank of, you know, do they have kids?

Maybe they are an assistant coach on a little league team.

Maybe they're watching Task on HBO.

Like you really need

one topic, maybe two topics, and you know, they're going to be in and out of that bathroom.

So, um, yeah, I might even say the Ravens panic would be a little bit higher than that because that seems, I feel like if you ask John Harbaugh, he'd say, I'll take that.

I can get through that.

My situation's a little bit more dire.

Yeah, fair.

All right, let's move on to the next one.

Sheil, you get it.

You get us going with the defending champions, the subject every week of the Philly special, the Philadelphia Eagles.

No, just to be clear, I follow the same format here, right?

Save the actual panic, the real-life thing.

Okay, gotcha.

All right, so the Eagles right now, you know, days have suddenly gotten darker and colder in Philadelphia.

A few weeks ago, this was the team that could not lose, and now they've lost back-to-back games against the Broncos and the Giants.

Jalen Hurts is not playing great.

AJ Brown seems miserable.

Saquon Barkley can't break a run.

And, you know, locally, Kevin Petullo, the offensive coordinator, I mean, just punching bag number one.

Like, if you, that situation you just described, if that was in Philadelphia, you could have just said to the guy, Kevin Petullo, even if he doesn't follow,

he's heard of this guy, and he'll just start ripping on him.

Yeah, so that's that.

The defense is injured, lost a lot of talent.

Now, the team is still four and two, and some are hopeful they can turn things around.

Others fear that this is a sinking ship that could only get uglier.

So that's kind of where we're at here with the state of the Eagles going into this week seven game against the Vikings.

Yeah.

I mean, like,

you know, this team as well as anyone, Sheil.

Like, people are going to maybe draw parallels to two years ago when the wheels came flying off.

Is there any concern in your mind?

I guess that will inform where their panic index is.

So do you want to share that and then maybe we'll have a conversation after that?

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah.

So I am going panic index at you're on a second date with someone you like.

Now we both are doing a restaurant here, Zuser.

So I don't know if that speaks to our lack of creativity or what, but I will continue with my real life example.

Nice Italian restaurant.

You forgot your lactate, you know, and you're someone, you got some trouble

with you.

It's a great graphic.

You got some trouble with the dairy.

And so there are ways out of this, you know, you could stay away from dairy.

with your order.

Maybe you come clean and there's like a CVS nearby, but it's only a second date.

You know, are you really going to say, I need to go run to see?

And I don't think you're at that comfort level.

So you could also just risk it and do what you usually do.

You know, you order the rigatoni with the blush sauce and the parmesan cheese and you say, I'll be okay, but there's a chance that leads to a bad night and you never see this person again.

So the bottom line is you got the power to make it out of this, okay,

to make this right if you're committed to finding a solution, but it's a high variant situation and there's a chance this thing goes terribly.

So there's tapping into

real, real um, past concerns and issues.

That's gonna be

well stated.

Like, I'm at the point where I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen with this team, and it might spin out of control, or they might in a week from now be back notched nearly the top of our power rankings.

Like, it's up to them, and I don't know if I trust them right now, Dan.

Is

in this

parallel, life parallel, is like firing Petula or taking away play calling and giving it to someone else on the staff, would that be locating the lactate?

Or like, what, what's the solution here that would ease the panic?

And conversely, maybe you look, you excuse yourself, you have the big plate or rigatoni, you go to the restroom, and then you google and say, oh, there's a right aid across the street.

And then you get outside the restaurant and it's actually a shuttered right aid.

And then you're like, holy shit, there's a lot of

tens outs.

What happens here?

A lot of variables.

I don't think that firing Petulo would do it because Nick Siriani hired Petullo.

This was his right-hand man.

Like when he got hired, the guy he brought with him, literally his first trip to Philadelphia as he was getting hired, was Kevin Petullo.

So it's not like there's somebody else in there.

It's kind of this mix of what Jalen Hurts wants the offense to be, what Nick Siriani wants the offense to be.

New play caller in Kevin Petullo, A.J.

Brown.

So I don't know.

It's kind of like everybody together has to find a solution.

And we're six weeks in here where you're not sure if that's going to happen to but to mark's point we could be a week from now going man they hung you know 31 on the vikings and they look like the team we thought they were going to be all right moving on interesting we're off to a flying start here mark what do you got who do you got

well i want to start with the um

the la chargers who sit at four and two

You got the Colts at home this weekend, and it's really one of these, it feels like there's a lot of these teams right now, but it's the injury situation.

O'Marion Hampton, IR.

Rashawn Slater, out.

Joe Walt, questionable.

Should get him back at some point.

Didn't look that way when he was getting carted off, but that's that's hopeful.

Um, Quentin Johnston is also banged up, along with like seven or eight other people.

And I thought they looked without in the summer, it was talked about that the Chargers were this big

team built with vast humans ready to rip people apart.

And it looked that way.

And they looked different to me under Harbaugh this season.

And I loved it.

And they looked incredibly vulnerable in losses to the Giants and to Washington.

And I'm just at this point, I'm like,

I don't know if they can really represent with these injuries who they want to be.

And my issue with them is mostly: is this a team that is good, but they're not great?

Yeah, I guess there are some stats out there that I'm really concerned about.

Let me see if I could pull it up.

I had it.

I had it, and I hope I can find it.

I think I did.

Hang on.

Yeah, I did find it.

This is a

Twitter account, run it back Herbo.

Interesting.

Justin Herbert, under constant pressure this season per next-gen stats, he's been blitzed 71 times most in the NFL, pressured 100 times most in the NFL, pressured on 40.8% of his drop backs, third most, sacked 17 times, sixth most, tied to pressure, tied six lowest.

And Sheil, like, those are scary numbers because I think

great coaching, great coaching staff, great quarterback, a lot of playmakers on both sides of the ball.

And if you can get some guys healthy, you'll be okay.

And I think they can make a deep run.

But if the quarterback goes down, like so many other teams, the whole thing goes to hell.

And it just feels like at this point, it's like a game of Russian roulette, every Chargers game.

That's my biggest concern because Herbert, even though he's an athletic freak, injuries are not something that he's been immune from in his career.

And I feel like it's just a matter of time if this continues.

Yeah, I think it's all about those offensive line injuries, like you mentioned.

I think their goal is to stay in the mix until like Thanksgiving, where we're saying, all right, they look like a playoff team.

Now are they getting healthy?

Is Herbert healthy?

Does Joe Alt come back?

Makai Bechton, the guard, does he come back?

Because remember, first two weeks of the season, we were all going, man, Chargers look good.

They look like a different team right here.

So I think they've got a chance, but I'm with you.

it would not shock anyone if before they get healthy if it's just like that's one too many hits on herbert um and he's out of there and by the way dan i would like maybe after we record i need to get some advice on your kind of consumption of content because you're going from hopping to run it back herbo i mean i feel like i have trouble keeping up with all the content out there you're getting information from all types of sources i'm a dense researcher dense researcher try to put me in a box can't put me in a box all right take us to the panic index now for the Los Angeles Superchargers.

Yeah,

like I said, it's sort of a good but not great thing.

This is the kind of like I'm in LA traffic and it's it's terrible and I can't get home in time.

And I've slightly but certainly peed my pants.

Yet I'm wearing dark blue jeans and I do have an extra flannel shirt on the

on the seat next to me that I can wrap around my groin area, but I still very soon have to meet a girl girl named Jamie Franklin Bottoms for red wine and a spaghetti dinner.

Now, she said I was very good on text and she wanted to meet.

So there's built up,

there's some bona fides here, but I smell vaguely of urine.

So there are questions.

Yeah.

Solutions though, too, right?

Like

there is, you're in the car.

There is, you know, hotel restrooms, things of that nature.

I mean,

is there a store open?

You could actually completely bail yourself out if you're in the right neighborhood and just get a whole new bottom after you peed your pants.

That's how I feel about the Chargers, but they're in a bit of a fix, right?

Right.

And you can't go in the car because you literally pissed yourself.

It's going to stink in there for a couple of weeks.

For sure.

It took me a while with the visual there, where now I understand you're saying wrap the flannel around the jeans and cover.

At first, I was picturing you using the flannel as some type of diaper of sorts.

And I know, but

it still would be like not the thing where the, like, the

izod-wearing guy has like the flannel around the back of his shirt and it's or his pants and it's covered.

It's going to be around the front.

So it's.

You got to get the crotch covered.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I hear you.

Cover that crotch.

Cover it up.

You must.

All right.

Interesting.

Um, let's move on.

Um, I wasn't going to do this, but I got to do it.

I got to, I got to talk about the Jets.

0-6.

Um,

0-6, Justin Fields, one of the worst games ever by a quarterback on Sunday.

But even worse, I'll tell you what all the conversation is, as you can imagine,

out of the New York market right now, is it's one thing that Fields sucked and should have been benched, and they could have probably beat the Broncos if they would have turned to Tyrod Taylor.

It was more that this general creeping panic that, oh my God,

we blew the head coach higher here, and there are a lot of people jumping ship on Aaron Glenn.

I've been sitting with that for a few days now, personally.

And at first, I was totally on board in that kind of manic WFAN caller way.

But I've come now to just like chill a little bit and

say, listen, he's new on the job.

Maybe he's not incompetent.

Maybe he's just, he doesn't have the experience.

But at the same time, 0-6 is 0-6.

And there's all sorts of reasons to be terrified about how bad SHIELD this season can get because,

yeah, this doesn't even, so far this season isn't even same old Jets.

It's something new, but somehow feels even worse than same old Jets, which, you know, I almost got to give the organization credit for that in terms of how fans are feeling here on October 15th.

Yeah, I think your Glenn point is a good one because if you're a Jets fan, you weren't coming into the season with lofty expectations.

You just, hey, don't embarrass us.

Maybe we can at the end of the season say we're on the right track with the head coach.

We'll figure everything else out.

And then with him getting killed on Sunday morning and Kurt Warner's just like tweeting during it, like, can somebody explain to me what Aaron Glenn is doing and Garrett Wilson's reaction?

So the hope is what you said, that he is a first-time head coach that can grow into this.

But it does sort of feel like there's already this urgency that like, this, like, is there a point where it's like, this is going to be a one-year thing?

You know, if he gets like 0-12, 0-13, what is that point?

And the players are like, we don't trust this guy.

So, that's kind of what I'm keeping my eye on with the Jets right now.

I'd really agree.

Like,

Justin Fields never mattered in this equation in the sense that,

okay, if it works really well, you got something.

But probably this team was looking for a quarterback.

Aaron Glenn was the thing that mattered, and very little after it did.

And he came in verbally fiery,

talking about the Jets in a way that having, you know, a legacy with the Jets in a way that I think made their fans feel different.

And what happened that final sequence in London

before the half, it just felt like a team that didn't know what they were doing situationally.

And like that stuff, that's like an island game, but it also started at 6.30 in the morning out here.

But like, I will say that kind of stuff is what the Jets don't need.

The only hope, though, Dan, because I always try to steer you a little bit in this direction, is there is a lot of time time for him to create a different feel around the Jets between now and January.

Thank you, Mark.

Here's where they are in the panic index for me.

I'm going to call it.

I'm rubbed off.

You know, a lot of people, even Sheila when I was on the Ringer NFL show, was trying to paint like, hey, this is why it might not be that bad.

And then it turned out to be that bad.

But that's okay.

I was wrong.

That's okay.

Everything's okay.

Everything's fine.

Everything's fine.

Here is the panic index.

It's a text exchange

between

two colleagues,

two single colleagues at wherever you work in your own world.

All right, here we go.

Do we have this, Justin?

All right.

All right.

So this is coming off a vacation for Sarah.

Sarah, Ugh, I can't believe I'm back here.

Dan.

Ha ha ha.

I get it.

This place wasn't the same without you.

Sarah, I I missed you.

Hmm.

Dan.

Honestly, that's nice to hear.

While you were gone, it got me thinking about us and our connection.

I haven't felt something like this since my college girlfriend.

Big swing there.

Okay.

Sarah, she's typing.

Oh, she's deleting.

She's typing again.

Oh, shit.

She's deleting again.

She's typing.

This could go either way.

Dan, you're a nice guy.

You're like my brother at the office.

Okay.

Time to reply to that one.

Totally, LOL.

Did you really think?

Emoji of crazy face.

That's what I meant too.

All right.

Hopefully she bought it.

Follow-up.

Not that you're my brother, LOL.

I mean, sister.

You're my sister.

Follow-up.

Well, not literally, you know what I mean.

Follow-up.

God, Chad's been such a dick at the morning meeting lately, huh?

So, insummation, panic index, big swing and miss with Sarah from Accounting.

Who's probably with Chad, I would imagine, behind the scenes.

It's a tough sitch.

We've all been there.

You don't want to go there again.

I do like the pivot at the end there.

You know, if you feel strongly that Chad is just universally hated, that's a nice move to just, let's get on the same team here.

Nothing happened.

Chad is a disaster.

You want to make fun of him with me?

All right, move on.

There you go.

You know what that that is?

Chad is firing Steve Wilkes, the defensive coordinator.

All right.

Up next, let's go back to Shil.

Shield, I believe you're hitting on another AFC Titan.

I am.

Maybe a little bit of the AFC version of the Eagles.

Maybe not quite as bad, but we'll see.

After being viewed as Super Bowl favorites, thanks to a 4-0 start, Bills have now lost back-to-back games.

Patriots and Drake May on Sunday night.

Falcons on Monday night.

And remember, you had that offseason thing where GM Brandon Bean ripped the local radio host.

You remember that one where he was on hold and the local radio host was saying, yeah, the local radio host was going, you know, the Bills could use an upgrade at receiver.

Bean's on hold listening to it, comes on, rips the host.

Well, you know what, Brandon?

I mean, I was watching Monday night.

It looked like maybe one more wide receiver would have been helpful in that game against the Atlanta Falcons.

So you have that.

But the bigger issue, in my opinion, is the other side of the ball.

And the Bills run defense is terrible.

terrible they're giving up explosive plays bills fans have seen this defense let them down january after january after january now it's only six weeks in maybe they can write the ship here they're going into their buy at four and two they've got josh allen they've got the offensive line the floor is high but it's buffalo and it's not about the floor it's about the ceiling and whether this team can finally get over the hump so i think that's where bills fans are going to have something to bitch about.

That's right.

I was trying to remember what was the quote.

Got to have something.

There is something to bitch about, Mark, with these Buffalo Bills.

And I imagine the airwaves out there in Western New York are pretty salty at the moment as they hit their buy.

Well, the bar is so high, Shield nailed it.

It's like, this isn't like, are we panicked about them reaching the playoffs or potentially winning the division if the Patriots don't continue to become a massive headache?

I think they can do all that.

I feel like I'm presupposing a visualization of Josh Allen on the sideline in January looking forlorn.

I can just see it already.

Like, I just feel like it's not going to be enough because they're not invincible.

They're the opposite of that.

And we've seen that in very distinct ways over 14 days.

The Buffalo Bills started 4-2 last year, finished 13-4 as the division champion.

I'm not panicking, but there are things that have to get fixed, and it's a perfect time for their buy.

I'm very curious to see how they look coming out of it.

All right, where are they at on the Panic Index?

Shield Capadia.

So this is sitting down in your seat for a two-hour flight, and you realize you forgot your headphones.

You know, you put in the hard work.

Killer.

You know, you downloaded some shows or movies on the iPad.

It's a work trip.

No kids.

It's been a stressful week.

You were looking forward to just relaxing.

Maybe you're trying out Chad Powers.

Maybe it's an old episode of The Sopranos.

But guess what?

Now you're stuck.

You had high expectations for the flight, no entertainment, can't even listen to a podcast.

You got to sit there and raw dog it.

I think that's what I'm doing.

Yeah, that is.

You raw dog a flight.

Yeah.

Not by choice.

Yeah, not by choice, or you take a nap.

The annoying guy next to you might strike up a conversation now because you don't have the headphones in.

But listen, you know what?

It's okay.

In the short term, this sucks, but in a couple hours, you grab an Uber, you get to the hotel, you blast the AC, maybe you order some room service, everything's going to be be fine.

So short-term discomfort, but in the long run, you're going to be where you want to be.

That's the Buffalo Bills.

They're going to be in the mix in January.

So take a deep breath.

I like that one a lot.

Unplanned raw dog on the

index.

All right.

Close it out, Ceci.

All right.

That is the worst, by the way.

The worst.

Also, Jets.

Wait, I just want to say, like,

it's one thing to not have your headphones.

And then when, and it's it's like, well, I'll get my laptop out and I'll get some work done.

And it's like, the internet's not working.

It's like, why don't you just kill yourself?

The entire airline that I'm associated with.

You're triggering me right now.

Okay, go ahead, Mark.

Yeah, shoot me up with something probably illegal.

I'm going Cardinals.

Here's the thing.

They're two and four.

Everyone else in the division is four and two.

And beyond those numbers, like you, you have the you have a stink on you from one of the most disastrous,

more than disastrous, outrageous losses to the Tennessee Titans of all teams.

You have

these computer simulations that run the season like 30 times in August and tell you who's going to win what.

That game would not be recreated by any of those simulations.

Your backup quarterback appears to be better than your starting quarterback.

Your starting quarterback is more passionate about Call of Duty than he is about being a starting quarterback.

Your

top engine running back is gone.

Marvin Harrison is coming off a concussion.

Your games upcoming are the Packers, the Cowboys, the Seahawks, the 49ers, the Jags, and the Bucks.

And the coach has generated multiple

sound bites for this podcast.

They have a good defense in theory, but everything else about this team is simply a theory.

It's a theory, and I'm not loving where the theory is going right now with the Cardinals.

Man, if they could have found a way to hold on against the Colts, it would have been such a great reset for their season because you would have completely not only turned the page on that terrible loss to the Titans, but also showed that you have resolve and all this shit.

Instead, you don't win, so it's just another L.

There's, what is it, four in a row now?

And you have to find a way to regroup on the fly.

As we head to the index on Mark, I want to note that Cardinals coach Jonathan Gannon said Kyler Murray is the, quote, starting quarterback when he's healthy.

I mean, but they asked him that, and that tells you some stuff's going on in the desert.

All right.

Where are they on the index?

So I kind of think back to like the, when you're like in 10th or 11th grade and you go to like the prom with someone, um, like your girlfriend, hopefully, like it's usually a girlfriend or hopefully your girlfriend after the prom and like there's already issues.

And the parents do the thing where like, well, when I grew up, you know, you didn't just, now everyone can do whatever they want, I guess.

But like when, you know, you'd sleep and they asked you to sleep in different rooms.

And so you'd have, you'd be in like a guest room sleeping over, but

you would have drank probably, and I ate like a whole bag of barbecue chips, okay?

And then like woke up in like a big puddle of my own barbecue chip mess.

And there's a dog barking loudly and people are coming down the hallway to check on me.

And so here's what I do is like, I wrap up the blankets and I find a way to dispose them.

And I run out of her house.

She's kind of a rich girl that lives by a pond and there's a dock.

And I'll play this clip.

I run down

the dock and take a jump in the pool.

And her dog comes with me, which looks like I'm caring.

And if you're watching on YouTube,

the dog just gets drunk.

That's why you gotta check out the YouTube.

And that's a clip of a girl doing that.

I'm a guy in this.

I'm still me.

I'm a boy.

Will you figure it out?

Yep.

Yeah, I'm a boy.

But it's like a, you know, you've got disasters to come.

The family thinks you're psychotic.

And there's no future here.

Tag up with that.

Can I know it?

Yeah, go ahead, Sheil.

No, I mean, listen, I've listened to you guys for a while here, and I knew when Dan proposed this exercise, I've heard Mark do these types of things before, and I knew I was no match, and I was looking forward to what he came up with.

And I'm just telling you, I have not been disappointed by either of the Panics Index scenarios.

So, what a treat for me today.

Well, you believe those as well.

Thank you.

Can I just ask Mark?

Because

so, you

what happened with the sheets?

I know you ate the barbecue chips, but what happened with the sheets exactly?

Well,

I, you know, I don't like to use crude language, but I vomited on the sheets in the middle of the night because I'm in 11th grade and I probably only drank.

And this happened for, this sounds like it's something that actually happened to you.

Yes or no?

Oh, no.

No, in fact, I was thinking back to

train spotting, where something much worse happens to a character, and you can search that on your own.

Well, the Cardinal's obviously in a tough situation.

And the dog, who's the dog in this?

Kyler?

It's her, it's her little dog.

And so it's like, then I'm whipping the dog and the dog doesn't do water stuff and I'm whipping the dog off.

And like Kyler, it's undersized, so it really goes flying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Little guy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Beautifully done.

All of you.

There goes Kyler.

Right into the lake.

Sheil Capadia, you've said it all.

The Ringer NFL show.

Make sure you check that out, everybody.

Philly special and anything else.

Any other plugs to get out there, Sheil?

That's it.

It has been a pleasure.

I appreciate the home and home.

Now I can ask Ceci,

I can ask Justin, and I can just take advantage of this whole relationship because I got a lot of airtime to fill between now and the end of the season.

So I'm glad we made this happen.

Leverage us, baby.

We love it.

Thanks, pal.

Please do.

See you guys.

All right, everybody, stay right there.

We'll come back and we'll hit the TNF preview.

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Walking around the streets here, people are coming up to me.

Where did you get that?

What's it about?

Why do you look so good?

Wow, that's cool.

Nobody comes up to me ever.

But I, you know, I also went on the site and I got the Tower Parka.

I wanted to get something that looked like something Liam Gallagher would wear on the Oasis reunion tour.

And instead, I have that, but also something where if we ever, if the podcasting thing doesn't work out, Mark, and we have to get our hands dirty, I could go out there fully weatherproof and insulated, designed for cold, wet job sites.

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

Yeah.

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

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

It's time to get glasses.

And I walked by Warby Parker here in LA and like got a great pair of glasses.

And I look up at trees now.

I can see the leaves.

I couldn't see anything before.

Warby Parker changed all that.

Mark, i get it and we would have loved to bat you clean up and had you at center field for that softball team um maybe if we find a time machine warby parker uses nothing but premium materials in each frame warby parker designs every frame in-house and our collection includes silhouettes colors and fits made to suit every face.

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I got a pair of the sunglasses.

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But go in there.

You could also get sunglasses and bang, you're the coolest looking guy in the sector.

Well, that's an overstatement of how I looked in relative to everyone else, but I looked better with these sunglasses.

They also have contact lenses.

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All right, we are back.

That was great.

Fun times with Sheil.

We hope you enjoyed it.

I enjoyed it.

Mark, did you enjoy it?

I really did.

We've got a stable of friends of the show who fit right in, and we've added another.

I like that.

I like that tease that he's going to be hitting you up.

Sese, putting in the extra hours as a guest on another man's podcast.

I can't wait to check that one out.

Yeah, he makes me sound extremely enthusiastic about my own endeavors.

I appreciate that.

All right, let's get into the first preview of week seven.

Can you believe it?

Top 10 football insider.

Yeah, you got to get him on the show.

The Thursday night game, it's a division showdown.

Pittsburgh Steelers at the Cincinnati Bengals.

Interesting matchup here.

A matchup between two 40-something quarterbacks.

How about that?

Speaking of which, here's a fun little moment between Cam Hayward and Aaron Rodgers this week.

Check this out.

What was quarterbacks playing this week?

Let's go.

Icy hot ball.

I love it.

All right, we'll open her up for questions.

We're on the media.

Wait, I can't tell.

I'm not being a jerk toward Rodgers, but I honestly can't tell by his reaction there if he's being playful about it or if he was seething a little bit.

Any opinions on that?

I don't think he was seething.

If anything, before Rogers signed, Cam Hayward had the strongest words about Rodgers, basically like, get here or don't.

Like, we will survive either way.

And they've formed a pretty good friendship.

So I think it was in good humor.

And then he's talked about how much he appreciates older quarterbacks as he's aged himself.

So if you're going to go do all these ayahuasca retreats and stuff, like is age going to really offend you?

I don't know.

You tell me.

Fair.

Fair enough.

You never know.

You never know.

But who cares?

It doesn't matter because Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers are playing very good football this season

and they are sitting atop comfortably the AFC North at this moment.

And speaking of the Cincinnati Bengals and their 40-something-year-old quarterback, Joe Flacco, two fun kind of Flacco-related things here with Jamar Chase.

Here's a reporter asking about, I guess, some speculation that Chase runs some of his own routes and why that might be tough for a quarterback new to the system.

Like seeing Flacco totally comfortable in his element wherever he is in America.

What is it like when Jamar comes to you and says,

I understand the play call was this, but

I know.

I don't think he's out there freestyling, at least not with me right now, you know.

And listen, I mean, ultimately, if he came to me and said, hey, I know the play is this, but I'm going to do this, I'd say, okay, I guess, yeah, that's what you're going to do.

Okay, it sounds good to me.

I would lean on him to feel it out.

I don't necessarily see that happening, but I'm just saying, and hypothetically, if he was to come to me and do that, I'd just say, yes, sir.

That's what we'll do.

Yeah, it does seem a free and easiness to Flacco, Mark, a guy that knows exactly where he is at this stage of his career.

And, you know, just hearing him and seeing how he played in the second half, maybe the right guy for this Bengals team to just throw caution in the wind and maybe something special happens against the Steelers.

I think that's a little, that's sort of the key to why Tomlin was annoyed, because I think that Flacco knows the Steelers really well, knows Tomlin really well,

is someone that can adapt quickly like we saw on you know last week.

And it's just you're upping the level of variance of what the quarterback could do by just a bit.

And I thought one thing, because for me, it's like, how do you handle Pittsburgh's pass rush on a short week?

They are getting healthier on defense.

I feel like since the Patriots game, you mentioned it before, the Steelers just kind of feel different.

And I think that they've found their way into who they are.

And they are playing a a compromise Bengals line.

But last week, what Flacco did really well was they had him throwing the ball and getting rid of it within under 2.5 seconds.

And he was 21 for 25 for 179 yards and a touchdown when he ripped the ball quickly.

And they had an explosive play rate that was higher than any game this year.

you know the fact that he's willing to work with jamar chase and t higgins um the way that he just mentioned it's like that's your chance out of this that's your chance out of this against the Steelers defense that's coming on.

Yeah.

And

yeah, to your point, this is what Tomlin was pissed about.

Like, Flacco's not going to be overwhelmed by the primetime stage.

He's done this before.

He's been playing for 18 years in the NFL.

And the offense certainly was a lot better, at least in the last two quarters, than we saw previously with Browning in for Burrows.

So that's interesting.

And like we said in the conversation we had about the Panic Index, like the Ravens as an example, and the Bengal.

I mean, again, the Bengals are on a four-game losing streak, but at the same time, they're two and four.

Like, you got to hang a couple of losses on the Steelers to keep this thing,

you keep it from turning into a boat race for Pittsburgh.

So this is a huge opportunity for Cincinnati to

right itself.

Not an easy task, obviously, in this situation.

This is in Cincinnati.

Are we playing in Cincy here?

Yes.

Yeah, but this is it.

It's kind of like, I'll go this far, Mark.

For the Bengals, this is their season.

They're two and four.

They're at home.

They have some good vibes coming off

the narrow loss and the play, the quarterback.

Win this game.

Bring the Steelers down a peg.

Keep yourself in the mix and then see where the season goes.

I think there's that much riding on it for Cincinnati.

One more note: since we mentioned

the game is in Cincinnati.

Thankfully, it's not in Pittsburgh.

We didn't talk about this on the show, Mark.

The Steelers and Browns expressed, quote, outrage and concerns to the union about the, quote, embarrassing playing service surface last week at Acroshore Stadium.

A union source told NFL, told ESPN,

that was crazy watching how terrible that turf was in that game.

Fixed.

Yeah, like that kicker almost

went down there.

I mean, yeah, it looked bad, and it's only October.

So it's kind of crazy that that even happens anymore.

My one thing about the Bengals real quick before we go is like Trey Hendrickson, day to day at this point, like he may practice, but we don't know what condition he's in.

They're really compromised at tight end.

Like they're going to need some weird stuff to happen to win this game.

I just think there's clearly a better team here.

I kind of like the Bengals in this game.

You want to come with me on a magic carpet ride?

I'm not against it because especially on a short week at home, but I don't know.

I think this is a different Pittsburgh team than we were dealing with.

So I'm not going to get on that carpet.

I'm going Pittsburgh.

Don't get soft because you've got some of the Pittsburgh bloggers after you, Mark.

I'm going Cincinnati 24, Pittsburgh 17.

I'm not appealing to them on any level.

In fact, I confront them even more now.

But I say Pittsburgh 24-20.

I'm disappointed.

Finally, we talked about raw dogging with Shiel.

Here's Jamar Chase

on the Bengals' upcoming game against the rival Steelers.

What is next game is always the most important game just because it's a divisional game also.

But

just the rankings that we got going on, the standards where we are right now.

We know the Steelers are going to try to come in and raw dog us and kill us, but we're going to be ready for that challenge and we're going to be waiting for it.

Don't love that.

You know, Mark, I don't love that.

Don't love the imagery, but it is, I will say, it's visceral imagery,

but maybe not

kid-friendly, not a clip I would play for the boys.

No, and you hope that if our children are on YouTube, that they don't come across that, that they don't find that.

That would be unrewarding for them.

Here's a scenario.

Your boys are a little older than mine, Mark, but let's say you have an eight-year-old and

he sees that, that Jamar Chase says, we know this is going to come in and try to raw dog us.

What do you say to a boy of eight?

Daddy, what does that mean?

I just say, you know, look, I've lost complete control here, and I don't have answers for anyone.

I can't stop anything at this point.

I can't control anything.

Because no matter what I do with my own children, they're at school with hooligans that someone's going to be saying it, and then they're going to pick it up as jargon, and you've lost all elements of

the lid on it.

So you're like a 1950s dad, or you just like throw up your hands and say, go ask your mother?

Is that what we're taking out of this one?

Yeah, I could throw it on her plate.

That was wild.

All right, let's

shut this thing down.

We will be back on Thursday with a recap of this game, with a full preview of week seven.

And hopefully, you're along with the ride, on the ride, with us, with Connor Orr as well, of course.

So, thank you to everybody.

Thank you to Justin for your great production work as always.

Thank you to Shil Capadia.

And until next time, do what you must.

Heed the call.