2025 NFL Week 6 Recap: Clock In, Clock Out!

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Nope.

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Sessler, break out the smelling salts because I got some questions for you.

You ready?

Let's go.

You like spirals?

I love spirals.

You like tackling?

I like tackling a lot.

You like men in tight pants?

Men in tight pants, check.

Great news for you, birthday boy, because I got all that and then some.

The week six recap begins right now.

Heed the call.

Io, welcome to Heed the Call and NFL podcast,

the week six recap.

We call it the flagship show.

Dan Hansis,

Mark Sessler, Connor Orr, Justin Graver.

Big week of football.

We're going to get to all of it.

Mark, how are you doing?

I know this is a great way to

put a cap to your birthday weekend.

Happy birthday, buddy.

Thank you.

And you guys were true menses to allow me to, as a surprise, I didn't know it was going to happen, but I took the Thursday night recap off and had a wonderful evening and thought of you the entire time.

Three of you, I thought of the entire time.

That's what I spent my time doing and my birthday.

Well, that's great.

Well, we thought of...

about you too.

Plenty, pal.

It was great.

But now we put all the fun and shenanigans to the side side and we start talking football.

We're going to get to every game that was played on this Sunday, but we start as we customarily do with

Sunday Night Football.

And before we get into it, I just want to say,

you know, the copyright monster came for the ESBN primetime music,

which, you know, we didn't anticipate that.

So unless we take a bite out of

Mark's income and we say, no gifts, no, Santa's not coming this year for Luke and Colton.

Like, we're not going to pay for those songs.

So, I was thinking, why don't we just create our own primetime songs by things that are in a rights-free library?

Like, it's an ambitious goal, but starting tonight's show, we're going to create our own iconic primetime-like music, Mark.

And as the brainchild of you, I think it's another piece of evidence that my children probably see you more as a dad figure than even I.

So, um,

you just saved Christmas for the Sesslers.

How about that?

You did.

All right, so let's see.

I mean,

let's, if we have to, if some of these songs pop up and they don't pass the sniff test, we'll just, you know, we'll throw them out, get on Justin a little bit, and then we'll throw them out, and then we'll, we'll, we'll come down with a good set of good set of tunes and get into it.

Justin, poor Justin.

All right, let's do it.

Let's dive into Sunday Night Football from Arrowhead.

Hell yeah.

We're already flying.

Just like Patrick Mahomes.

Like old times, he's flying.

It felt like a good old days night for

the Chiefs who moved the ball at will against the number one in the HTC Power Rankings Lions.

Yeah, Patrick Mahomes going 22 for 30, 257, three touchdowns, 132 passer rating.

I mean, you have Travis Kelsey making big plays, six catches on seven targets.

Even averaging 13 yards a reception was the last time he was in the teens in that category.

We even had Taylor up in the suite

with that Brittany Mahomes just chatting her ear off, I'm sure.

Enough, Brittany.

Enough.

Anyway, add it all up.

30-17.

Chiefs over Lions.

3-3.

The defending AFC champions.

And Mark, the Lions fall to 4-2, 2-2 away from Ford Field.

Chiefs are looking hot, looking feisty, and I'm glad we've kept them in the top 10 of the power rankings this whole time.

Yeah, I think it showed control from this group because we were in no panic mode.

And I don't leave this game panicking about Detroit at all.

It's a long season, but I feel like the Chiefs for multiple seasons have been kind of like searching for something or who they are, their identity, and like a way out.

And tonight was another little dose of confirmation that against what we consider to be the best team in the league, like their offense is spicy again.

They did this without Josh Simmons, their tackle who was not able to be at this game.

And they're getting Rashid Rice back, and they already have weapons.

And I think they're a good example of a team that continues to search to develop players, especially on on offense when they've been in these pretty dark times the past couple years and now it's like i don't know what the limit is the afc to me feels like a 10 to 12 flock of miniature horses um rambling around with like a nuclear bomb ready to land and the chiefs are deep underground in a bunker knowing that it's going to come and they may rise at the perfect time with their pieces back and it's like uh-oh they're just going to go to the super bowl again maybe wow mark Okay.

There's some other, there's some, you know, the Buffalo Bills are in this conference.

They're in there, too.

I said 10 to 12, not, you know, 16.

But yes, but from that standpoint, Connor, like, this is a near-perfect Chiefs performance in primetime, and the kind of ones that we got used to over the years.

No penalties, no turnovers.

Like I said, the offense was locked in.

The defense held the Mighty Lions in check.

This is like the best version of the Chiefs that we've seen in some time.

And that includes when we were watching throughout a Super Bowl run last year.

Two of three on fourth down, two.

And really, I mean, you can see what happens when Patrick Mahomes runs up against an injury-riddled or inferior secondary.

And I think that's what happened tonight: where the lines were too banged up, they were incapable of covering.

And yeah, I mean, I think also having a bunch of guys fight afterwards and then Patrick Mahomes talk shit about them kind of lights even more of a fire under their behinds, too, which is pretty pretty awesome.

You know, the game starts off with an incredible Lions drive, a 15-play drive, nine minutes, 39 seconds.

They chew up most of the first quarter clock.

It ends with a wild touchdown where David Montgomery took a direct snap, throws it to Goff, who bobbles it, then grabs it and like powers in for a touchdown.

But then the officials come together.

No flag comes out, but then they say that Goff was not set an illegal motion penalty, penalty,

and they have to settle for three.

So it even has that Connor, that old school, like, oh man, the Chiefs are getting the calls.

The touchdown gets taken off the board for the opponent without a yellow flag even coming out.

A little bit annoying, but I guess Goff didn't come set.

So if you get the call right, you get the call right.

That was one of my favorite subplots, though.

It's like when a team becomes a dynasty and you become a fan of a dynasty, everybody else, then taking an accounting of the flags given and received takes all the joy out of rooting for this team in the first place.

And so I really do like it when anything good happens with the Chiefs, and then we just get out our little actuary boards and we say, actually, no, they don't deserve it because of the flag discrepancy.

It's great.

And the Chiefs played without left tackle Josh Simmons, their first-round pick, who obviously has gotten a lot of positive buzz in his first year, a personal issue of some kind.

So even without him who's become a key part of what they're doing, Mark, it was just

a great game for the Chiefs all the way around.

Well, it was.

And Connor mentioned it that they, you know, the Lions, and it's unfortunate because it feels like last year a little bit, although it's not permanent, you're going to get people back.

But I think they mentioned that five of six.

cornerbacks that they plan to go into the season with in camp were not on the field tonight.

So that's not how you want to face a Chiefs offense that's heating up.

That's why I think it's a zero panic for either team.

I mean I also feel like if you want to look at positives like Sam Laporta who's been a little hidden name-wise amongst some of the other stars in this like was a star tonight and made one of the catches of the year and it's like they're gonna be all right they've got a tough schedule though they got a they've got a rough month and a half coming up so you want to be healthy that's the one concern is like we're seeing it all over the place health can diminish whatever it is you plan to accomplish and i don't want to see a team like the lions um go down down the road they went down a year ago.

And I hope they can get

these guys back.

They're held under 300 yards in this game.

But yes, they have another big game home against Buccaneers next week.

The Chiefs get the Raiders.

And most importantly for the Chiefs,

they get back their best wide receiver now.

Our buddy Pete Sweeney had this text from Arrowhead or a tweet that

he sent out after the game.

At the start of the season, I said the Chiefs need to go 3-3 without Rashi Rice.

They didn't take the path I anticipated, but they got the result they needed.

Yes, they did.

And I agree with the sentiment there, Pete.

So that's only going to make this offense better.

So keep an eye on Rice and how they deploy him in this offense.

And then finally, maybe the biggest fight we saw from the Lions in this game, Connor, came after the game was over.

And I'm getting a little bit of more context because this literally just ended from an AP runner that they sent out.

Patrick Mahomes to try to give Brian Branch a high five after the final whistle.

The Lions safety walked right by him.

Chiefs wide receiver Juju Smith-Schuster took Umbridge and had words with Branch, who delivered a punch to set off a brief melee.

It took players and coaches from both teams to break up the skirmish and clear the field.

So a little bit of bad blood.

Connor never did nobody wrong.

I like it.

I love it.

I mean,

why should someone take umbrage for refusing to shake Patrick Mahomes' hand?

Like, is he like a dignitary and we're supposed to address him with a certain term or surname?

What?

No.

I mean,

I'm just saying

he is

one of those figures.

There's only a few, you know?

I mean, if you look at the way that it's playing out,

and you can see it if you're watching it on YouTube, clearly doesn't want any part of this, walks by Patrick Mahomes, Patrick Mahomes kind of grabs his wrist like, hey, I'm trying to say say something to you.

And then Juju Smith Schuster kind of just pops up like, ah, you know, and tries to get into the mix here.

I'm not, I never excuse violence, but, you know, I don't know.

I like how Connor did that with the noting the YouTube.

And if you, if you have a comment to, if you agree or disagree with Connor, comment in the comment section.

Right down there.

Very nice.

I mean, spoken like a man with another age of wisdom attached to his resume.

Wow.

This guy knows how to generate traffic and conversation.

Good work, Mark.

Happy birthday.

All right, let's take a quick break and then we dive into the rest of week six.

Stay right there.

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All right, we are back.

Sunday Night Football in the rear view, and now we turn our attention to the rest of the week six Sunday slate.

But before we do that, we need to have a better understanding of what the games meant as a cohesive whole.

And

for that, we turn to

Mark Sessler.

My theme for the week:

clock in, clock out, mommy.

All right.

Clock in, clock out,

mommy.

Hmm.

Connor, you want to take a crack?

I was with him for the first four words, and then mommy just completely threw me.

You know, is there sexual undertones here now?

I don't know.

Well, always.

Oh, especially if the mother is used with Mark, and that's something we're going to break down in an off-season show.

I'm going to go with...

I'm going to call a recurring theme to...

The sex addiction.

You got a problem with sex.

Right away, we go to the

recurring theme to theme of the week, Connor, is my prediction, that it will be about Mark's ongoing.

greatest carnal desire when it comes to the schedule, which is making teams go away and teams that aren't trying go away.

There's only this many teams that matter and everybody else, the quicker they can disappear from Mark's life, the better.

So I'm going to say it has something to do with that realm, a theme of the theme of the week.

It's, you're not far off.

When I scan the results from today, and you know, as you're going along, like

packed inside 18 weeks of regular season football, we've had a couple weeks that have been wild.

earthshaking with block kicks and upsets and endless drama.

I thought today was one of those weeks, and it's a little bit more of a meat and potatoes week where it's like

almost all the favorites won

and that's okay.

I'm not dinging it for that, but sometimes we learn more about each of these teams and it's good to have a normalized slate on Sunday once in a while.

And like it's just if you worked at

Data Farm Tech or Crystal Vision or Future Horizons Global Inc., like you have a day at the office where it's like, look, like Sundays are spectacular and all this stuff happened.

Other days, it's like, I'm going to go in.

I'm going to do my job.

It's like, mommy, I clocked in.

I clocked out.

Are you proud of me?

I have a job.

I make a wage.

My, you know,

my wife is tired.

Are you proud of me, mommy?

Like, I just did what I was supposed to do.

Like, that's kind of what today felt like.

It's not a bad thing.

It was just like all the favorites kind of won.

And it wasn't the most dramatic football Sunday of all time, but it was a good football Sunday.

You have paved a runway for takeoff now, Mark.

I'll tell you what.

And yes, a workmanlike Sunday in the NFL is another way to put it.

So let's, without further ado, dig into all the games in the early and late afternoon window.

And let's start with an early game that pitted two teams that I think the He, the Call family, is they're intrigued by these teams.

So why don't we stick them together, send it to the big

chlorine tank, the home of Fred Durst, and see what happens.

Seahawks, Jaguars, let's go.

Sam Darnold.

He is

having a beautiful debut season for the Seahawks to this point.

But there was nothing flashy about Darnold on Sunday.

He has had issues in the past, actually, six interceptions and two starts in Jacksonville's career, but this time he kept it in front of him.

295 yards, two touchdown passes, one to Jackson Smith and Jigba, another Cooper Cooper Cup.

And Seattle really dominated this ball game

en route to a 20-12 win over the Jaguars.

And,

you know,

I thought the Jaguars really flopped in this game.

And I guess I want to start there because Seattle,

going into this game, we talked about Seattle.

that we kind of knew who Seattle was or we felt like we did.

And that's exactly what you got in this game.

You got a good Seattle pass rush, you got a

smart and efficient offensive game plan.

You had the now obligatory big play between the quarterback and the wide receiver, Smith and Jegwa from Darnold.

But it was Jacksonville that I thought was just totally out of sorts in this game.

They could not get anything going on offense.

They were sloppy.

They were penalized 10 times for 76 yards.

Trevor Lawrence was sacked seven times in this game.

Travis Etienne, leading rusher, 27 yards on 12 carries.

Ladi Da.

What was it?

Diane Keaton, rest in peace.

A Ladi Da.

Brian Thomas has another huge drop over the middle on third down.

And to top it off, Connor, a 54-yard circus touchdown catch.

Brian Thomas does have off a deflection, gets called back because Brian, because none other than Travis Hunter lines up offsides.

Just like a dud of performance from the Jaguars that kind of, if you were looking at them with a little bit of a

little bit of a squint, like, hmm, can I trust you?

I do not trust the Jaguars coming out of this game.

Seattle takes care of business against a team that they looked much better than.

It's not just seven sacks.

It's 17 quarterback hits in this game.

And Jacksonville came into this game, actually allowing the third lowest pressure rate in the NFL.

This was more action than Trevor Lawrence has seen in the pocket, I think in like three years, if you go back on his game-by-game pressure rates, and you can tell that it affects the way his ability to make those throws.

And I think that there's a reverberation to that.

Obviously, something's going on with Brian Thomas, but they were all over them.

And it really didn't look like, yes, it was a schematic clampdown, but you could just see guys getting off the line and just getting penetration on every snap.

It just looked like one of those, maybe it's a letdown game, you call it whatever you want, but everyone looked like they were almost like freeze-framed in that.

If I could dig into one thing with Seattle, like if I could learn more about how they run the show under this coaching regime, like they've been one of the best road teams around, and that's really unusual in the NFL.

And they go from town to town and burn it down.

And they did that today.

And it's like, I can't really think of a team this week that you go from beating the Chiefs, and we're like, oh, have the Jaguars launched?

Are we ready to accept them as something that's tangible and real?

And then we're back here.

And you're not going to survive January or even larger games if you if your quarterback's taking that time of pressure that kind of pressure.

And

it's just not sustainable.

I think I'm still waiting for the Jaguars to be extremely consistent over the course of a month and I'll keep waiting.

Here is Liam Cohen after the loss.

It was kind of a weird game.

You look up at times and you're like, wait, how are we losing?

You know, like from a first down standpoint, all that.

What?

I told you something weird about this guy, man.

Duval.

What is he talking about?

Well, what is he talking about?

Where is he talking about?

Did we not watch the same game?

I mean,

let's see.

Let me look at the stats here.

The Jaguars did have.

They had four more first downs.

Okay.

They had,

let's see, total yards, 346 to 273 in favor of the Seahawks.

They took seven sacks.

They only had one sack.

Neither side could run the ball.

I guess you could point to the Jaguars had the time of possession 33 to 26 and a half.

I don't know, Justin,

what is this man talking about, this very odd man talking about?

Yeah, just to add a little context, he went on to say that this team only had like 55 rushing yards in the second half.

And then he went on to say they got after our quarterback.

We didn't get after their quarterback.

And that's the difference in the game or something like that.

Okay.

Well,

I don't know.

I don't know.

That's that was, yeah, in general, I just thought this was not the game that, if you're a Jaguars fan, coming off the game that you just had, Connor, and that's, I think we were pretty, I thought we did a nice job, eat it, Farbick, um, not falling for the Jaguars despite the big primetime win on Monday.

And this one kind of, I thought, underlined that they might have more work to do.

It underlined to me how much Jacksonville

depends on those additional possessions?

And the Jaguars' defense finally didn't generate a turnover today.

And this goes back to the age-old Trevor Lawrence stat.

He's now 0-22 in games in which the defense does not generate a turnover.

They were on a white-hot pace over the first five weeks of the season.

And now it's like, okay, is this sustainable?

Are you going to get those 90-yard pick sixes?

Are you going to get those amazing theatrical performances from the defense?

Or, you know, are we now going to see what this offense is really made of?

I don't know you don't want it you don't want a team like that right because like that's just on that just does not carry from game to game and yeah also part of your job as a secondary is to stop someone like jackson smith and jigba who is on fire right now is the greatest Seahawks receiver through six games in the history of the organization.

And I know Darnold, Dan, you said he didn't have his greatest game, but like the like the throw he made to

Jackson Smith and Jigba was beautiful.

And it's like we are seeing that from Sam Darnold on a weekly basis.

And I still think he hangs around in the MVP conversation because of that.

Yeah,

even as the queen bee of the Darnold Hive, he's not going to win the MVP.

But this is a perfect example of the type of game that he's been playing with regularity this season, where he stays within himself and he makes throws.

And yes, he'll make those big-time downfield throws.

He's been the best quarterback in the league as a downfield passer this year, which is crazy.

Smith and Jigba, eight for 162 and a touchdown.

The fourth time in six games this season, he's gone over 100 yards.

He leads the NFL with almost 700 receiving yards.

He's one of the best wideouts in the league.

And I don't think anybody thought that that was his ceiling going into this.

One last thing.

The Seahawks are awesome on the road.

They're 3-0 this year on the road.

They're 10-1 in two-plus seasons under Mike McDonald.

So that whole, what we remember during the whole Legion of Boone, Seattle is this amazing home team.

And the road, road, it gets a little dicey.

They're four and eight in that same span at Lumen Field.

So you don't want to get the Seahawks on the road, and that's another sign of a good football game and another lock of the week for Connor Orr.

Very, very wisely done.

I like that.

Well, and Gutsy, you picked a road team.

It's well done.

Well, you picked the right road team.

The man's doing his homework, obviously, Sassy.

You knew that.

I don't doubt that he's doing homework or his homework, but yeah.

I'm glad you said something, Dan, about not falling for it in the power rankings.

And I think that there is a high-mindedness to how we approach power rankings, and even the locks have breadcrumbs back to the power rankings and some of the things that we want to express.

So it's all connected.

If you're paying attention.

Yep.

All right.

Let's move on to the other

big game of the week: a matchup of two 4-in-1 squads.

Now,

listen to this one.

Oh, man.

Oh, yeah.

Man, you're a winner.

Like, it's one of those 80s songs.

Like, you're a winner if you go for the goals of your soul.

Like,

you kidding pajamas on your couch, you know?

Yeah.

Run your fastest and you will be the best.

You know, those songs.

What What a decade.

Have you missed it, man?

Anyway, now, Baker Mayfield, this is an MVP candidate

that you could really get behind because Baker continues to ball the F out.

Two more touchdown passes and a massive scramble, a memorable scramble on third and 14.

In this game against the Niners, it was enough.

His passing, his playmaking on a day where the Bucs continued to face injury issues, and the 49ers could say the same thing with one of the biggest injuries of the season occurring in this game.

In the end, it was 30-19.

The Bucs didn't need the heroics to win this game, Connor Orr.

They just kind of played from in front and looked, again, like the superior team in a battle of two beat-up NFC Titans.

You're right.

I'm glad you said it.

This is, I think, the game, because

when you lose Ibuka,

and it's a hamstring injury right now you add to the domino tally that baker mayfield is doing this without bucky irving mike evans chris godwin abuka he's doing it without a lot of people and it was interesting because everyone was saying oh he's getting rid of the ball quicker he's more efficient and he's actually still getting pressured a lot and if you look at his pressure rate like the quarterbacks who are pressured more than him are russell wilson who legitimately runs into pressure all the time the two bengals quarterbacks who are sitting ducks and one of them had to be replaced by the other, who was under pressure all the time in Cleveland.

And so, really, like, Baker is still one of the most pressured quarterbacks in the NFL, and he's playing at a phenomenally high level.

I mean, to me, I think he's second now behind Josh Allen on most major sports books for an MVP, but I think that was a sea change game for me.

I mean, he's just, he's on another level.

And what, and like, what really is an MVP, right?

Because I can mention Darnold, and I think he's a candidate, but Mayfield is a pronounced candidate.

And it's like he, you can take players away around from around him.

And then suddenly like Tez Johnson and younger players are doing things they've never done in the league because of what he's doing.

And we live in a world of like

from various angles, like compilation videos, right?

We grew up with them.

Like you can get a VCR tape of the greatest hits in the NFL or this or that.

We're at the point where like you could get a Baker Mayfield's greatest runs on third down.

and that video is getting meatier and longer by the minute in terms of like how long you'd sit there and watch it that third and 14 15 yard run was just what we've seen from baker it's normalized he does it every week he's not always done it in his career but he's doing it now and i i just like I watch him and I'm like, this guy feels possessed and he's a, he's a confidence guy.

He's got to play with anger and confidence and he's got both.

Right on that point, how insane is this?

He's the highest EPA in the NFL on scrambles.

Like, Josh Allen is in the NFL.

Like, Patrick Mahomes is in the NFL.

Baker Mayfield is adding the most points on scrambles of any quarterback in the league, at least through this point in the season.

That is ridiculous.

It is ridiculous.

He is not the fastest guy in the league.

He's not the tallest guy in the league, but he's just gotten better and better as a quarterback.

I remember in Cleveland, we used to talk about all the time, like, man, he can't see over the line.

The passes get knocked down all the time.

That doesn't, I know it still happens, but it doesn't feel like it's a problem anymore.

It's just like he's become such a superior quarterback at this stage.

And yeah, throw it's one thing to throw to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and Amika Buka.

It's another thing to be linking up with Tez Johnson and Cam Johnson on touchdown passes.

The Tez Johnson pass, and this is like systemic.

Like, this is an example why at one point

it was almost cinematic.

Baker drops back, he unfurls one of those beautiful deep balls, and he does overthrow him just a little bit.

It's the old Bo Nick special where he overthrows this guy by a yard or two.

But this guy who nobody knows, Tez Johnson, maybe you do.

I don't really know much about Tez Johnson's work.

He makes this beautiful fingertip grab, and then 90% of the time, a receiver that far down in the depth chart is not going to survive contact.

No, he survives contact.

He rolls around, around.

And then they have this great shot.

This is the cinematic part of it I was talking about.

It's like, here's the, they have one of the stadiums, the Buck Stadium is one of the stadiums where the people are right behind the end zone.

And it's like everyone's cheering and going nuts.

And then this guy, Tez Johnson, goes into this after the touchdown catch, beautiful acrobatic flip.

And I'm just like.

Everything's like cooking for Tampa right now.

And, you know, maybe they're one of those teams where they're peaking too soon and all that, but I don't think so.

I think if anything, they're going to get better because they're going to get healthier and become more dangerous.

So a really, really interesting, interesting start to the season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Well, you know, I do wonder because what is the difference between all the coordinators and the coaches and the teams he's been on?

Could it be

a man pulled from ancient times, Tom Moore, who still exists on this Bucks coaching staff?

If you're watching on YouTube, this guy, he is awake.

If you look at him, he is awake.

I've confirmed that.

But I don't know what his role is, Connor.

I don't know if you know, but like he is he is doing something good.

He's the senior offensive assistant.

He's got a face like the side of a mountain at this point.

And

it's just cool to see old dogs like that.

An old dog that's still hunting.

I don't know, Connor, if you've had the pleasure of interviewing Moore over the years.

Like,

I'd love to hear if you have.

Yeah, he is.

So you remember this, Dan, during the ill-fated end of the Jets' Brian Schottenheimer era, Tom Moore was imported as an offensive consultant to oversee, I think it was like the 2011

Jets, if I want to, if I got to get my numbers correct on that.

But was that the San Antonio Holmes kicked out of the huddle in Miami season?

I think it was.

Yes.

Yeah.

All-time.

All-time high on that one.

But I remember interviewing him.

And what was funny at the time, like even then, we were like, this guy's old.

And this was 2011.

And I remember him asking me, he's like, well, what newspaper are you from?

And then like, I was like, oh, I work for the Newark Star Ledger.

And he's like, and then he just goes through in his mind, like just starts rattling off the beat reporters who used to cover the team in like 1975 for all of the New Jersey papers.

And back then, there was like 11 New Jersey newspapers.

And he's like, Vinny Detrano used to cover the Giants for the Bergen record.

And I was like, holy shit.

You're just an amazing, amazing human being.

So I don't know.

That's my Tom Moore story.

Tom Moore.

Yeah.

And on the San Francisco side of things, here's the good news: Christian McCaffrey finally scored a rushing touchdown on another day where he averaged about three yards a carry.

Very strange, but that's just the way it's going.

Mac Jones slinging it, nearly 40 pass attempts in this game through two interceptions, no touchdowns, but also averaging nine yards an attempt and really look good at times and move this offense again.

But he's also Mac Jones.

Like, you see, this is a good, like, here's the full picture where he struggles to evade pressure.

He fumbles the ball a shit shit ton.

You got both sides of the Mac Jones experience.

But the big story here, obviously, is the loss of Fred Warner, one of the best players in the league.

And he goes down with a dislocated and broken ankle, and he will be out for the year, and he needs surgery.

Robert's solid defense is dependent on, and you saw how valuable someone like C.J.

Mosley was.

And one of the first things that he did when he went to the Jets, right, was import more faster, sideline-to-sideline linebackers.

It helps him do a lot of things schematically.

Warner is just a destructive loss because the other part of this is he's able to control the defense.

And back to the sign stealing thing a couple of weeks ago, solid signs are very simple, right?

And a lot of it is because Warner is sort of a point guard in that defense.

And then you lose that and

got to figure it out.

And on the other side of the ball, Jawan Jennings, who has been in and out of the lineup,

told reporters that he's dealing with the infrastructure problem of five broken ribs that are on the mend and a high and low ankle sprain.

Like, this team is

Baltimore Ravens-esque in the NFC in terms of injuries.

Yeah.

I tweeted about this today.

It feels like Kyle Shanahan made a deal with the devil, and now the bill has been coming due the last two years.

Only the payment, the initial payment, never came through.

Like, and he checks the mailbox every day, and he's like, no, I still don't have that Super Bowl.

Very, very frustrating.

Very frustrating situation for the Niners.

You can't lose Bosa

and then lose Fred Warner and expect this team to seriously contend.

And that's football and it sucks, but it's the way it is.

All right, let's move on to another game.

Again,

unbelievable.

The Dallas Cowboys, I don't know if they're going to be playing more than the regular season.

It's very much a coin flip, but you can guarantee the Cowboys are going to play a fun game.

Yes.

Nice.

Yes, this is the game that will be remembered

as the Rico Dowdle game.

Dawdle?

What do you guys say?

Dawdle?

Dowdle?

Dowdle?

Dowdle.

Cast aside by the Dallas Cowboys and then surfaces with the Panthers and then gets a chance to play when Chuba Hubbard goes down.

He has now gone over 200 yards from scrimmage and back-to-back games,

absolutely shredding the Dallas Cowboys in this one and a 30-27 win for the Panthers over the Cowboys.

The Panthers,

you know, who looked like they might be one of the worst teams in the league a few weeks back, are now 3-3, and they're undefeated at home.

And in this game, not only did you get, Gravy,

a truly transcendent performance by, yes, again, Rico Dowdle, 30 for 183

and 4 for 56 as a receiver with a touch.

You have Bryce Young balling out, playing excellent football.

The Panthers have a pulse.

Yeah, I thought Bryce Young looked great in this game.

I don't think he did anything particularly like special, but he did a really good job of taking what the defense gives him, throwing accurate balls, playing on time, extending plays when he needed to.

His interception was, you know, not his fault.

It was off a receiver's hands, tipped up into the air, and Donovan Wilson snatches it.

So, you mean, you take away that from his box score because he doesn't deserve to have that on his box score.

199 yards and three touchdowns, only threw the ball 25 times because he only needed to when you have a guy like Rico Dowdle, who you mentioned.

I mean, this was a huge revenge game for him.

And you said the Cowboys cast him aside.

I mean, it's tough to know with what Jerry says, what's real and what's not.

But apparently the Cowboys wanted to bring back Dowdle, but they were like worried about paying Micah Parsons and they didn't know how much money they could set aside.

What?

I don't think Rico Dowdle,

it was a financial decision.

I don't think they did.

No, because like his agent, David Cantor, who we've met, like

said that Dallas never, now it's an agent, but he said that Dallas never even made an offer for Rico Dowdle.

Right.

I'm saying this was reported during the broadcast that Jerry said they wanted to bring him back, but they didn't

wait to see, and then he got the offer from the Panthers and took it.

And Chuba Hubbard was the starter of this team for the first four games.

And not anymore he got chuba hubbard is working at jamba juice right now like that he is not he got her gone canalis was asked after the game if uh hubbard would get his spartan starting spot back and he was very non-committal with his answer which kind of tells you no he will not be getting his starting spot back so um yeah i mean tep uh tep mcmillan had his first receiving touchdown in this game ended up getting a second one in this game And I think if I spin this over to the Cowboys side, I texted this to you guys today.

The Cowboys are this year's Bengals from last year.

They have a quarterback playing at an MVP level.

They have an offense that is going to be fun and put up points.

And again, without CeeDee Lamb, the passing game thrived in this game.

And I can't imagine how it's going to look when he's back because Pickens has really found his footing in this offense.

But their defense can't stop a nosebleed.

I mean, we saw it last week against the Jets too.

Yes, their pass rush picked up a little bit, but how many times did Brees Hall squirt through the middle of their defense for like 15, 20 yards?

Dowdell had more carries.

I think Dowdell had like six or seven carries of over seven yards, and the Cowboys had zero.

So that just tells you, like, you got to be able to run the ball to win.

I know it's a passing league, but you still got to be able to run the ball.

Cowboys, 19 carries for 31 yards in this game.

Yeah, and they're, and I know Javante Williams has been good on balance for them.

He didn't do anything today.

But yeah, an underlining of while we give credit to Dallas when they deserve it for personnel decisions, like bringing Pickens in, and he's playing like an all-pro right now.

Yeah, maybe a guy that like Daudo

to have him on your roster when you don't really have any depth at running back and let him get out the door.

The only way the Cowboys are going to win is by keeping the other team's offense off the field, I feel like.

I mean, unless they pull the trigger on some type of big trade, which is unlikely to make a difference,

they have to win ball control.

Otherwise, I mean, it's just that dire.

They can't cover, they can't rush.

What do they do well?

I don't know.

What defense were they in on that fourth down at the end of of the game to stop the field goal?

Like, it was like just two safeties standing back there being like, here's where you can throw the ball to advance.

And it was like, I don't know what Eberflus is doing.

This is a bad situation.

Yeah, like the Matt Eberflus cue rating has dipped in recent years.

We could say that security.

We could say that for sure.

And just to wrap up this game, there was a brutal sequence that ended up deciding things for the Cowboys here.

They have the ball with eight minutes left.

It's 27-27.

and they've just forced a three and out where the Panthers went backwards.

They dial up a screen to Rico Dowdle goes for my, or sorry, to sorry, wrong team, to Devontae Williams, goes for minus five yards.

They come back on the next play and they're like, that didn't work at all.

And the Panthers totally sniffed it out.

Why don't we try it again?

And it goes for minus seven yards.

And now they're in third and 22.

And they're like, Dax under pressure almost immediately has to check it down to the fullback four-yard gain.

They punt with 6-14 to go and don't see the ball again.

Insane.

And that's the problem, right?

Like, all right, so that was a questionable sequence of plays by the offense, but on balance, they've been excellent this year.

You expect to have another chance at it.

When they punt the ball away there, the defense, maybe they'll give up a touchdown, or maybe we'll get a stop, but instead they give up the last seven minutes of the clock and lose the game.

So it's like, It's going to be tough.

It's going to be tough to sustain momentum if you're a Cowboys team when you can't get a stop.

And that's one of the most frustrating experiences as a fan, and I'm sure as an Eberflues as well.

Let's give Rico Dowdle Dowdle.

Dowdle.

It's Dowdle.

The last word.

Going into this game, he said that the Cowboys better buckle up because Rico Dowdle's coming to town.

And here was how he started his press conference.

Hey, one buckled up.

Short and sweet.

Hell yeah.

Fair play, sir.

All right, stay right there.

We're just getting going.

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.

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

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

It's time to get glasses.

And I walked by Warby Parker here in L.A.

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And I look up at trees now.

I can see the leaves.

I couldn't see anything before.

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Mark, I get it.

And we would have loved to bat you clean up and had you at center field for that softball team.

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All right, we are back.

Let's roll on.

And yes, the international series has continued.

And for reasons that I don't quite understand, if you're trying to promote the game overseas, why would you send the New York Jets?

I don't know, but the NFL fed around and found out once again.

To the hot dotty.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is one of the ultimate examples of playing down to your opponent.

The Denver Broncos,

high off their upset win in Philadelphia

seven days earlier, hop on the plane, have a great time in London, and then find themselves in a rock fight with the New York Jets.

In the end, they get a late field goal and a defensive stand to secure a 13-11 win, keeping the Jets as the lone winless team in football at 0-6.

This was a turkey shoot for the Denver defense.

They led by Nick Benito, they sacked Justin Fields.

Geez, how many times was it?

It had to be, oh man, was the number

nine times, constantly pressured him.

The Jets had a net passing yardage in this game of minus 10 yards, obviously one of the worst passing days in the history of professional football.

And, you know, you just, you almost, you can't, you can't make it up.

So, you know, we'll get to the Jets side of it in a second.

But from the Denver side of things,

yeah, this is a game where

they're trying to figure out the consistency on offense, and they couldn't figure it out.

They couldn't really run the ball in this game.

Bo Nicks struggled, especially in the second half when they just scored three points.

They turned the ball over, the first team to turn the ball over to the Jets all season.

But in the end, they had a safety in the end zone that briefly gave the Jets an 11-10 lead.

This game was insanely bad, by the way.

Just crazy bad football.

But that defense, which had as many completions allowed, nine as sacks,

was able to take it home.

And yeah, so good job, Broncos, I guess, but one of those games that you just want to take the W and move forward.

They just escaped.

I mean, if you want to look at the Jets from a long-range positive angle, which is very tough to do as a human, I acknowledge that.

But their defense showed up in this.

And outside of Bonix on the ground, because I really think he's He's a real benefit as a runner, and he got them out of some jams with his feet.

But you're right.

Like that, you know, when your best offensive lineman is getting tagged, Garrett Bowles withholding in the end zone, and that put the Jets up 11 to 10.

They went to sleep, the Broncos, offensively, and they've got to look at that because I will say this, like aesthetically,

I struggle with the Broncos.

They're a really consistent

good team that I think can beat.

better teams than they are, but they're a bit of a tough watch, and the Jets made them feel that way on offense.

But you're playing a team that has a quarterback that has nine completions and is sacked nine times.

So in the NFL, that does not work.

This is not Atari football in 1984 against like your younger brother.

That does not equate.

Yeah, the Justin Fields side of it.

You know, it's been laid bare once again.

What you get from Justin Fields, and it is, it's a, it's a very Jetsian thing for that team to look the way it looked in week one against Pittsburgh.

And then you fast forward a month, and this is what it looks like now.

And Fields, again, against a very good defense, one of the best in the league, but is not built to handle a high-level NFL defense.

He does not process.

He does not, there were open receivers in this game, but he would see his number one read.

If it wasn't there, he would freeze.

And he's not even using his legs.

And that led to a lot of the sacks or coverage sacks.

And it led to situations with Aaron Glenn where it's clear he has lost faith in the quarterback or trust in the quarterback.

There was a sequence at the end of the second quarter that I think,

you know, it perfectly summed up the Jets' dysfunction right now and

the growing dread that Jets fans have: that, oh my God, we don't have the head coach.

Like, we've once again hired the wrong head coach.

This guy doesn't seem to have this team ready.

He doesn't seem sharp.

They decide to deepen their own territory.

This is a game they were trailing 10-6 in the second quarter.

They decide to attempt a fourth down

fake punt rush.

It works, just barely.

They move the chains, and then after they do that, they run the football, then they take a sack, then they use their last timeout, then they throw it over the middle short, and then they run the clock out.

They fake a punt on fourth down, deep in their own territory, and then take the air out of the football.

And you have Kirk Warner in the booth for NFL Network, flabbergasted, literally a color guy that doesn't even know what to say.

And you have Garrett Wilson throwing his arms up, trying to make sense of what just happened.

And as the

seconds tick off, and you see him, a team captain, Garrett Wilson, one of these guys that I think are going to want out of town because they're sick of the Jets dysfunction, go right up to Glenn and be like, what are we doing?

Here it is happening in real time.

That is halftime.

Garrett Wilson

being somewhat demonstrative with his coach heading off the field.

My word, it's 10-6 Denver.

By the way, you know, Eisen's a Jets fan, too, so he's calling this game and he's like, what in the hell?

I have to kind of keep it together here.

After the game, Aaron Glenn was, of course, asked about the decision-making, the ponderous decision-making.

Here's what he said.

Tell us what happened at the end of the first half with

not running a play, just letting the clock run out.

So I knew we were getting the ball back, and I think it was like third and seven or third and eight.

And at that point, we didn't know if we got the first down or not, because I know one ref was saying yes, no one was no.

So once it got the fourth down, guys, I'm not about to sit there and try to get a playoff, and they will get the ball back.

And I think they had a timeout left and give them a chance to kick a field goal.

I don't think that's the smartest thing to do.

So let's just end the half, we get the ball back and see if we can get a chance to score.

Uh-uh.

No, no, no.

That's bad.

That's a major, major, major warning sign in the growing dread that they do not have the right guy ahead coach because he's taking all the wrong lessons from the Detroit Lions side of things, and he doesn't have any of the confidence that marked that organization that he came from.

Not even the worst moment in that press conference either, right?

I mean, when he got after the reporter about Justin Fields, Brian Costello, the man from the New York Post.

Yes, check that out.

Why not?

Justin's numbers are not good for this game.

Is he going to be your quarterback next week, or would you consider him?

What kind of question is that?

look he did not have a good game i mean i think it's a fair question there's a number of guys that you know i mean sometimes this this league is like this and there are guys that have bad games that doesn't mean you just bench them come on you know better than that

i mean he threw for 45 yards he took nine sacks he open receivers on the field he held the ball too long the team is 0-6

the guy's never had any track record of sustained success in the nfl it is an absolutely fair question from the beat reporter of the post and and tyrod taylor has won games and probably would provide more functional offense.

And you know who else is thinking that?

Not just Brian Costello and not just Jets fans.

The Jets players are thinking the same thing in the locker room.

And that's, and if Aaron Glenn wants to be like, go like,

if he wants to be the next guy to go one and done in our league as a coach, keep acting like that because you're going to lose the team.

You're already losing the media and the fan base.

Look out.

Whew.

All right.

Let's move on.

At least I'm going to nail my lock.

Let's head to Lucas Oil Stadium.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, the Colts on paper, this looked like a blowout.

Cardinals coming off an epic loss for the ages.

Kyler Murray scratched with injury.

With Jake Briskett subbing in.

But, you know, that actually kind of seemed to stabilize the Arizona Cardinals, who play a very strong game quarter one through four.

But in the end, it still wasn't enough because Daniel Jones threw two more touchdown passes.

Jonathan Taylor ran for a one-yard score with 432 to play.

And the Indy defense, after struggling throughout most of the game, gets the big stop inside the 20-yard line in the final minutes, despite some...

Some cries that it might have been pass interference.

We can get into all that.

But But final score, Colts 31, Arizona Cardinals 27.

Colts moved to 5-1 atop the AFC South.

The Cardinals have now lost four in a row.

Mark, your thoughts on this one?

A very, very taut, well-played affair.

It was.

And thankfully, this did not begin at 6.30 a.m.

on the West Coast for Dan and Mark.

But it was a joy to watch.

And you know what?

It's kind of like another one of these games where it's like, wait a minute, is this team just better with Jacoby Brissette, a quarterback?

That was kind of my takeaway.

It's like, we've seen a lot of good stuff from Jacoby Brissette.

He's cited by coaches and players.

He's about Jake Brisket.

Right.

Cut us off a piece.

And like,

he's cited by those around him from team to team.

He's a nomad as one of the greatest NFL teammates they've been around.

And he had his first 300-yard game since 220, 20, 200, please, 2022.

And like,

he looked, the offense looked more functional to me.

It just simply did.

But I think part of this game today for me, because I do think this, that this Cardinals defense, the reason that they've been in these one-score games week after week after week, is that they do have one of the NFL's better defenses.

The Colts put it to them in the second half with three straight scoring drives that separated them.

They kind of fell apart on that part of the ball.

But like,

the Colts are just for real.

They're for real.

And the Cardinals, you have to figure out how to win games.

I think it feels like a team that does not have continued success and does not know how to win these close games.

And Tanay was another example of that.

Yeah, this second half was pretty wild.

We had scores

on every possession except for the last one.

And again, Trey McBride, you know, I think we've talked about this.

Officials are loath to take the laundry out in a fourth and game on the line situation unless it is absolutely something they cannot ignore.

And, you know, whatever side of it you are on, you're probably right.

But they don't call it, which leads to the end of the game.

They did have a chance to get the ball back also, but Taylor has a first down run that really puts the game to bed after that.

But in the second half, it was Cardinals 10 plays, 61 yards touchdown, field goal by the Colts.

Cardinals, six plays, 66 yards touchdown.

Then the fourth quarter, Colts, six plays, 67 yards touchdown.

Arizona field goal.

Colts, nine plays, 66 yards touchdown.

And then the 10-play drive by Arizona that ends on downs.

And yeah, Connor, I guess

we had a spirited debate about this game, and I thought that this was going to be a cakewalk for the Colts.

Obviously, it wasn't.

I did actually get nervous when I saw that Kyler Murray was out because I think Kyler Murray is part of when I talk about the team that lacks the proper constitution.

I feel like he's like at the heart of that.

So taking him out, and it's funny, we just talked about Tyrod Taylor because he's another guy that everybody loves.

Locker rooms love.

And like you said, Mark, Jake Brisket's the same way.

He does, I think, add a level of professionalism that stabilized this offense and helped them almost pull off an upset.

Yeah, I mean, that has the power to

create a sea change, but I'll say this, like I was genuinely concerned about everything.

I mean, I'm babying the Colts, but I also kind of backed Justin on his Cardinals play.

So I was sort of nebulous in this one.

But the second that I saw Indianapolis is now lining Tyler Warren up in the slot and like invert tossing it to him, just tossing it to him as a slot receiver and letting him run the ball up the middle.

Holy shit, like this offense just keeps developing wrinkles.

And when I saw that, even though it was the very beginning of the game, I was like, there's no way this team's going to lose.

They're just too interesting.

There was a drive, by the way, when

they tied it up up 24-24, the Colts, a series of

Daniel Jones completions to Tyler Warren, Alec Pierce, and Josh Downs.

And it was just another reminder, especially on the Tyler Warren front.

And I feel like we say it every week, it's like they're finding new ways to use him.

He is extremely dynamic.

He is an offensive rookie of the year candidate, if not the lead guy.

And this offense just like, it just is another confirmation that like you find out in the first month what is mythology and what is real.

They're completely real, not to even mention Jonathan Taylor there.

So, here's the other part of it.

And again, not making any excuses.

You know, thought it'd be a blowout.

Wasn't.

But this is a weird day for Indianapolis football.

This game features

not one,

but two of their players suffering.

like high high-profile players.

Their star cornerback and their former first-round pick and the backup quarterback suffering crazy injuries.

We'll start with Anthony Richardson,

who's supposed to be the number two quarterback.

He was using an elastic band to stretch before the game.

The band has a malfunction, I think is what the team put it, how they put it, and it snaps, hits him in the face, and he gets an orbital fracture, which is the bone, you know, that encircles, you know, around the eye.

And also, he needs stitches.

It busts his face wide open, and he's out multiple weeks with this injury potentially.

And then to top it off,

when that kind of shock of what the hell just happened decided, this happens, if you're watching on YouTube, during pregame warm-ups.

And

there he is.

Like Chavarius Ward has a, he's backpedaling during warm-ups and a tight end collides with him and knocks him out.

He gets a concussion.

He's out of the game.

Here's a quote from linebacker Zaire Franklin.

It was a weird day.

I won't lie to you.

Losing two guys that you depend on.

Anthony, we depend on him in a pinch.

That's kind of funny.

And obviously, Ward, losing those guys pregame was tough.

It got to a certain point where, in the locker room, you see guys just whispering about what happened to the point, and you're like, hey, we got a job to do.

So they were a little bit of a shaken team in

a very strange way.

So they got the win, but an odd day at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Some weird shit in general happening in Indianapolis right now.

Yeah.

Ah, we make history too.

You know, you could take your,

you could take your, what do they call that stupid thing when it's a new score that hasn't happened before?

Scorigami.

Score a gami.

You can take your scoreigami, stick it in your old butthole, and have a good time with it.

I like history like this.

The first time

two people took opposite teams in a lockoff, and they both lost because Gravy bravely took the Cardinals and came up short.

And I took the Colts, but since they were in the blind lock zone, they had to cover not seven, but 14.

I wouldn't have covered either.

So so I don't get it either.

You gotta love it.

I'm claiming moral victory on this one.

Moral victories are the best type of victories.

Cardinals drive down like 70 yards, needing a touchdown to win it.

There is, in my very biased opinion, a clear, clear contact on Trey McBride on that last play.

The Cardinals should have had the ball first and goal

with like a minute left.

And

it's even more extraordinary because there was a third loser.

Bye-bye.

It was, let's do our little Patreon draft and have everyone, you know, issuing votes for Justin, who, when they look at the draft, they don't know how our workday goes.

It looks like Justin sat and covered Cardinals Cults in his little lineup, but Mark's covering it.

And I got like two games playing at the same time on my ear, like, you know, sound of music in one ear and like Empire Strikes Back in the other blasting Discord.

And I'm doing all the work.

There's a fourth loser.

There's a fourth loser.

It's Zuzzer and it's Gravy and it's Sest Dog,

but it's also all you little dicks, all you trolls out there that were ready to bury me if the Cardinals could have finished it off, but they couldn't.

So stick it up your butt, too.

Connor, we know from these Sundays.

Right there, we score a gammi, baby.

We know from these Sundays that like Dan is just rolling out of bed on Sunday with scores to settle.

Oh, baby, baby, baby.

That's what it's all about.

You got to chase that high, sesi.

He came in home.

What lights you you up?

It certainly is not going to be our teams.

Kyler could miss multiple weeks with what they're calling a variation of a Liz Frank injury.

Oh, Harlem.

Yeah, well, again, I bet that locker room is not crying about it.

They like to take risk in.

All right, let's move on to the Supa Abom.

Ah, yes.

The New England Patriots.

This is more like, ah yes, New England.

What a beautiful time of year to visit.

The foliage,

the mountains,

the smell of the air,

the smoke coming out of the chimney.

You know that smell when you...

Remember that in the Northeast?

Go for that walk.

Connor knows he smells it every day, but me and Mark don't have it anymore.

Remember going on a walk on like a

cold but not freezing November night with your girl and you could could smell those chimneys working and that crisp autumn air

and now you traded it away to live a life of sin in Hollywood.

I turned it down in the pavement at night

selling your wares.

That's what I did according to you.

I mean I can't really dispute the argument.

Oh, you remember the smell, right?

I do, but I wasn't typically with a girl.

It was like with some, you know, like guy friend who you like played football with.

Like,

girl, like, how often did that happen?

That's why I moved on to the girl.

Teach their own.

Drake May completed 18 to 26 passes for 261 yards.

Didn't turn the ball over.

Made big plays, like the 53-yard touchdown pass to Pop Douglas.

Patriots win for the third straight week, 25-19.

over the Saints.

I did not get a chance to check this game out, so I'm going to throw it to you, Connor, to explain.

I saw a lot of chatter.

I saw one play on Twitter of Steph Diggs getting called for a bogus OPI and what should have been a long gainer.

But apparently, the only reason this game was close is because the officials had $100 bills sticking out of their back pocket in the swamps.

Is that true?

Yeah, they took more than 100 total yards away from the Patriots in this game.

And it was universally considered one of the worst officiated games of the season.

And I love when, you know, like when someone, you start talking about someone as comeback player of the year just because they sucked before.

Right.

And

there was a pool report.

And it's funny when like a pool report is triggered, not necessarily because there's one controversial call, but just because the officiating crew is so fing bad that someone has to go down there and just ask, like, why are you so fing bad?

Right.

So yeah, we had a little, we had a pool report sitch today.

What'd they say?

Did they take ownership of the situation?

I mean, it's the Steph Diggs one that negated the long touchdown was ruled like downfield blocking.

But I mean, my infant daughter had has hit me harder than that.

So I'm it was really soft.

It was really soft.

Yeah.

You know, these New England wide receivers,

you know, Douglas and especially Kayshan Bhute,

these guys, they're developing.

You know,

there's a lot.

May had

the ability to throw downfield.

He's been doing that really well

all season, or especially in this game, three for three for 107 with three touchdown passes on throws of 20 or more yards downfield.

Like this dog will hunt, if you could start opening it up, they need to get a little bit more in their run game, Connor, but it feels like the offense is really coming together right now under Josh McDaniels.

Yeah, and with McDaniels, too, we're seeing him layer in some more touches.

I think he's getting better at, or maybe the offense just needed to find that rhythm where they're better playmakers.

They're guys who can do things with the ball are getting more touches.

I mean, it's not just, yes, Trayvon Henderson only had one catch, but it was the situation and the way that it was dialed up in that game that I thought was really smart.

And so it's certainly a work in progress, but it's like anything else, right?

This is not the Eagles where your best playmakers are completely hidden and just shoved off the field.

Like New England's kind of developing a rhythm and a vibe with this offense, which I really like.

Anything on the Saints side before we move on?

Another bomb from Spencer Rattler today, which which is just

like my favorite player to watch.

But no, I mean,

this is not the kind of game that you write home about if you New Orleans.

All right, here's a quote, Justin, that I'm going to read especially for you.

This is from Justin Reed: the Saints have lost a lot of close games.

He doesn't take any satisfaction from that.

We don't live in a league that we get moral victories for being close.

That isn't what the NFL is.

It's not about points, it's about W's and L's, right?

Right.

Justin?

I don't disagree.

I was speaking more

myself, and I'm not an NFL team.

Join me in the losers' hot tub of the Rock of the Week competition.

It's bubbling.

Well, it's full.

It's packed.

It's packed with losers.

Connor's dancing nude in a field.

He won.

All right.

Justin left speechless.

Okay, let's move on.

Let's head to Lambeau Field.

Packers, man.

Coming off the bye.

They get the Cincinnati Bengals, a Bengals team that's in such desperate straits.

They trade for Joe Flacco in the middle of the week and put him right in the starting lineup.

This more or less ends where you'd expect 27 to 18.

Packers over Bengals.

However, give the Bengals credit because they did put up a nice fight in the second half of this game, Mark.

So why don't we kind of focus on that?

Because the first half was what it was.

I believe it was 10-0.

I believe that Flacco had thrown for 40 yards in the first two quarters.

But you saw a different Cincinnati attack in the second half.

So even though they lost this game and they've lost four in a row since Joe Burrow went out, maybe, maybe they can get something going with the old man.

It really looked to me like Flacco's, that second half, like the better moments he's had with the Browns.

Like he's been there for like 80 hours.

They had them throw the ball 45 times.

Jamar Chase,

12 targets, 10 catches, 94 yards and a touchdown.

Like that's what I wanted to see.

It's like, are you working with the best aspects?

Was

beautiful.

Absolutely.

You had an unbelievable blitz pickup by the offensive line, the much beleaguered offensive line and the other

extra blockers on that play.

And then Flacco hangs tough because he's a Stone Age pony for the ages.

And then he drills one in there in tight coverage that Jamar Chase, because he's arguably the best wide receiver alive, catches with just like his left arm as he's being thrown into the end zone.

Just like, it was, I guess, a reminder, Mark, that there is talent here.

And if they could just sustain some level of pass protection, maybe they can get the offense on track.

Yeah, I think Flacco, I mean, you could move him through 28 teams in the league and probably help things out on some level for parts of games, but he may just be a better fit for a team like the Bengals where you're veteran heavy and star studded, you're offensive heavy.

And, you know, I will say one thing about them.

It surprises me that this is true with Flacco back there, but they only allowed one sack that offensive line.

Now, maybe that's a Green Bay issue, but they kept the Packers defense that I was, you know,

doing sea poems about three weeks ago

at bay.

And this is sort of a Packers story, too, because like, isn't this the team in Cincinnati that's been had their, like points-wise, had their barn door ripped open twice and like their family taken out by machine gun fire?

And then today they hung around.

It's like it was a little bit of a different type of Bengals game than I expected.

And I'm a little disappointed with the Packers' inability to take an easy, what should be an easy opponent like this with a guy, a quarterback, that arrived days ago and had this go down kind of to the end.

You know, the big play.

This game got really,

really tight.

And now

it's within a score, right?

I believe it's 24-18, if I'm not wrong.

And the Packers have the ball.

It is 24-18.

It is

second.

It is third and eight with two and a half minutes to play.

And Jordan Love is flushed out of the pocket and rolls out.

And if he gets a pass gets knocked down or he misfires or whatever, they're punting the ball back to a Cincinnati offense that all of a sudden can't get stopped.

They've scored 18 points in the second half.

But to the credit of Jordan Love, out of shotgun, he does roll out and then he hits Golden, who's really making an imprint on this team as a rookie for 31 yards.

That gets him, that moves the chain, that burns clock, and then they eventually kick the field goal that makes it a two-score game and ends it.

But it was that close to this turning into one of the biggest upsets of the week.

So you credit the Packers, right, Connor?

You credit them for making the big play because you got to make the big plays to win games in our league.

But they continue to be just a tick under like inspiring since that initial two-week surge to start the year.

Credit to the Packers, but also credit to Connor and a little bit of maybe an ask for Dan to take the recap from the top here and give the proper credit to Joe Flacco, who I don't think we're properly contextualizing the fact that including the two games that Joe Burrow played this year, this was by far, like not even close, the best quarterbacked game that the Cincinnati Bengals have had all season.

Joe Flacco is a marked improvement.

No, no, no, no.

No, no, no.

No, no, no, no.

You did see the first half, right?

I mean, he threw for 40 yards in the first half, but it was

over, Jake Frank Brown.

How many quarters are games?

Jake Browning over in a second.

I never, just so we're on the same page, Connor, I never said that bringing Joe Flacco in was a bad decision.

I thought it was a desperate slash dangerous move to do it on this level of short notice, and he came out of it.

He didn't get killed, and he got the offense going, so it worked out to a certain extent.

But yeah, I mean, I'd have to, I guess, go back.

I'm not going to, and watch the tape of Joe Burrow's first two games, but I'm not ready to be like, man, they had a quarterback that was basically peak Joe Burrow on this field today.

Well, no, no, now we're taking everything out of context.

Is this by far the best quarterbacked game that the Bengals have had all season, and you could use any advanced metric that you wanted.

It would bear that out i think that they made the right move they got the steelers coming down the pike this is a team where the arrow is pointing up i'm i'm staking out my position here i mean you butter knifed that one pretty good i'll give you that butter knife it yeah you butter knifed that one pretty good and i like i like a man that knows how to cut his butter i'm trying to look at because i know they played poorly in week one just if we're gonna run with this like what was the when did burrow get hurt oh did he get hurt in week two yeah yeah oh so it was like one i was still kind of burrow played one and a a half games.

Yeah, but to be fair, they had like six yards.

Damn, they had six yards of offense against the Browns in like the second half of the week one.

I'm saying what a strange, bizarre

sample size to pull from.

One bad Browns game, and then they got hurt in the second quarter.

Why can't we just say Burrow played or Flacco played well in the second half today?

Without even

invoking Joe Burrow in this conversation.

I think it was the tone, like you talked about it in the way that a lot of my relatives talk about my career, which is like that it's not a real thing while they're accountants.

And it was like, oh, the Bengals are doing a thing where they're just like kind of figuring it out a quarterback or whatever, brought this guy in.

And so I thought that there was just a dismissiveness, a tone of the city.

To the setup of this, I thought I was giving, I thought I was giving him his flowers off the top.

I even let him.

I didn't, I didn't.

Well, that's not what the feeling is.

I apologize.

You didn't greet those.

And I just want to make it clear that

I quite enjoy that Joe Flacco is still a thing in our league.

He's kind of like the next generation's Vinny Testaverdi.

I was always happy when Vinny would continue to pop up here and there, but Flacco is kind of a better version of old Vinny.

And, you know, let's hope maybe can keep him relevant.

Let's see.

I think they can.

Help to win, but sure.

Where's Micah Parsons, by the way?

Like, I was, a lot of my feelings on it was like, man, the Packers are going to kill this guy.

Where's the pass rush?

That's two straight weeks.

Like, is Parsons?

I hear the announcers every, oh man, there isn't a time when Micah Parsons isn't causing major havoc.

And it's like, where is Michael Parsons?

Well, they're doing the thing that probably would annoy you where it's like, it's not just about sacks.

It's about pressure rate.

Oh, he makes a big difference.

And it's not just about the box score.

You know what?

If I'm going to pay a guy like the greatest defensive player in the world, I want the stats too.

I digress, Sessler.

It is a fair concern on your point.

Wait, let me look.

You know what's not fair?

Let me at least look at his box score.

What did Michael Parsons do today?

Michael Parsons.

Michael Parson.

What do we got?

Michael Parson.

Michael Parsons.

To be fair, and I saw this floated out there.

No sacks, no QB hits.

No tackles for loss.

Michael Parson.

No turnovers, nothing.

Okay.

I mean, what's that about?

Three tackles, three combined tackles.

But it's not just about the tackles.

Well, we don't ever cite tackles.

Feel sort of Fugesi.

The rest of the box score is pretty

empty.

Yeah, Fugesy, Fugazi.

All right.

But I'm sorry, Connor.

I was trying.

I'm sorry if I fell short.

I did think that I was enjoying Joe Flacco's play in the second half.

It was spirited.

And I really was, I was bummed when Golden caught that ball because I was like, I wanted Flacco to get on that field one more time.

Maybe steal this thing.

Spirited is like what the Washington Post calls like James Patterson's 39th novel.

Like, this is like, come on.

Like, how would you describe the

Joe Flacco game in totality, the 27-18 loss?

Like a thing of brilliance?

It's described as what I said.

It's the best game out of a quarterback that's a good one.

Butter knife, buddy.

Now you're butter knifing.

Good old butter knife.

Connie Butterknife.

All right, let's take a break and we will continue on.

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all right we are back let's dive right back in let's head to miami miami

oh this sounds like miami baby

actually i don't know if i like this one turn it up my headphones

do we like this one what do you guys think

there's a it's a little i thought there was like a dony yeah that's a songs that have like silly like doings in them like doings that threw me off yeah it's you know,

it's this one.

It's attention seeking.

Yeah, overly so.

Let's move to the next song.

This is a work in progress

as we look for our own primetime music.

Justin wrote all of these, so be nice.

Yes, I know.

Doing?

He's like, I just wanted to be a little silly with this one.

This one's got a playful air to it.

Anyway, Justin Herbert.

I thought that one was spirited, but whatever.

James Patterson.

Butter knife it.

All right, Justin Herbert to Lad McConkey.

Speaking of things we've missed, how about a big-time play from Justin Herbert to Lad McConkey?

Like a 42-yard catch and run.

That was the key play in the game-winning field goal drive for the Chargers, who escaped Miami with a 29-27 win.

And, you know, I have one of my favorite, you know, Jim Harbaugh is insane.

And we love that about Jim.

And sometimes we get a little weirded out by

some of the ways he talks about Justin Herbert.

It starts to get a little, I don't know, going to a different place.

But in this case, talking about this particular play, which was Herbert keeping his legs moving, finding a throwing lane, hitting McConkey, McConkey making a couple guys miss, getting a great block along the way.

That's the stuff coaches live for, and that's what I think Jim Harbaugh is getting at after this game.

Again, I mean, that player will be burning my mind for until they throw dirt over top of me.

Yeah.

He's the best.

So, yeah, they struggle offensively in the first half.

And, you know, the Chargers in general, it's been a tough go over the last few weeks as the injuries have crashed down.

But they were much, much, much better in the second half moving the ball.

And running back, Kamani Vidal stepped up, a six-round pick in in last year's draft.

He re-signed on the practice squad because of all the injuries they've had in their backfield.

And he finishes with a buck 22 on 17 carries, adds three catches and a touchdown.

So with Hampton on IR, it's good to have somebody that you can trust.

And in general, a Chargers team that's missing so many guys that, you know, who's going to help Herbert?

So he's just not

having someone emerge in this case, Vidal, is a big deal.

So Chargers get back in the win column in this one i thought part of that

play and that pass to lad mcconkey was

you know the physical being of justin herbert we're always trying to figure out how like a shorter smaller quarterback can thrive but herbert like

basically shaking off jalen phillips who is a large strong giant man to make that like there are moments each week where like the strength of Justin Herbert is the reason they shine.

And I thought that really is the one.

That's how that play happened.

And so I get it where Harbaugh's coming from.

I don't, you know, if you're part of his family, you'd like to think that your final thoughts would be maybe your own family, but that's not the way he's built.

Well, this is also another quote from the game from Harbaugh.

Justin Herbert.

I mean, he's like Hercules out there.

Yeah, I think that's I think I think he's like, we're on the party line with that.

Say something about your wife, quick.

Quick, exactly.

Or your side piece or your wife or someone.

I don't know what's happening over there, but like, let's go.

On the Miami side, you know, they overcome a 10-point deficit in this game.

This is a game at one point I was thinking to myself, I said, all right, this is the time of year, the Monday after week six, where the hatchet tends to come for a head coach.

And midway through this game, the Dolphins are getting booed off the field after fruitless, fruitless after fruitless possession of

just bad offensive football.

But they get it together.

And Tua, to his credit, he leads the team and gets on one of his hot hot streaks.

He hits Darren Waller of all people.

Darren Waller has four touchdowns in the last three games.

How about that?

With 46 seconds to play.

But as you can see, they're not able to get the stop in the end.

They get beat at the gun.

And then one of the, I think the sound bites, the soundbite of week six that was the most eyebrow raising came from Tua Tungavailoa, who volunteers information about the dysfunction in his own locker room that you don't typically

see in our league.

Listen in.

Well, I think it starts with the leadership in helping articulate that for the guys and then what we're expecting out of the guys, right?

We're expecting this.

Are we getting that?

Are we not getting that?

We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late, guys not showing up to player-only meeting.

Like, there's a lot that goes into that.

Do we have to make this mandatory?

Do we not have to make this mandatory?

So

it's a lot of things of that nature that we got to get cleaned up.

And it starts with the little things like that.

Connor, I'm guessing that Tuo would want those comments back because it's going to be taken a certain way.

But also that I think what's coming from as he fashions himself a team leader, a place of frustration because I'm sure

there seems those comments, how I'm parsing that is like They know there's problems here and they're trying, there are certain members of the team that are trying to find solutions, but there seems to be just a lack of buy-in and it's kind of a bit of an indictment on the entire culture of the team where they are right now.

So I have a theory as to why this happened, and then I'll address it.

So at the end of that game, it was one of the most embarrassing interceptions that you've ever seen.

He was picked off trying to throw a Hail Mary, but it was like a shallow

pass that I think was probably trying to start some sort of a lateral.

You go from that, which was clearly a miscommunication.

I don't think the receiver was where he was supposed to be, to the podium.

There's no time to slow down and cool down.

You only have that 10-minute buffer and you're pissed off because probably something that you could have worked on in one of these meetings was not addressed.

Now, by doing that, I think what he's done is it's like that letter you don't want from HR.

You've elevated this issue from a coaching issue to now an ownership issue.

And the owner has no choice now, but to start sniffing around to see why people are upset and to respond in kind with some sort of an action.

And so I think at this point, silence from Stephen Ross is unacceptable.

And I know he's been at Mike McDaniel in the background, but it's time for him to come forward.

And I think Tua made clear that that was going to happen, whether he wanted to or not.

And weren't there, there were whispers in recent days that Stephen Ross had eyes for like a Rex Ryan type who could bring old school kind of toughness and structure, which kind of speaks again to whatever the heck is going on there now.

The days of the the nerdy, brainy coach are numbered at this point if this doesn't work out because people aren't going to take a swing at this again.

So

more Jim.

You know, I've been on this beat for years.

The halftime interview is the most pointless thing on television.

And

Harbaugh in his interview with

AJ Ross, just one of my favorites.

I mean, in terms of the I'll give you nothing and you'll like it, Hall of Fame, this one's near the top.

Check it out.

Coach Kamani Vidal with an impressive first half, but you were limited to three field goals.

What more do you need to see from your offense to score more points as you get the ball in the second half?

Yeah, just keep fighting, keep fighting,

moving the ball.

Continue that.

Thank you, Coach.

Appreciate it.

More like AJ Ross.

Now, check out that poor woman, AJ Ross, if you could show it again, Gravy.

Like, her walk-off, she just puts her mic down and you see her just kind of, of in a resigned way be like, ah, shit.

I feel like if you're a sideline reporter, if you have to watch film, like with your producer the next morning, like players have to watch film, you're like, damn, I'm not going to, this isn't going to look good.

But what are you going to do?

What's Jim going to give you?

I've got a good job by the camera guy there.

I mean, everybody kind of mailed it in.

Why are you following the,

I mean, I guess, right, you're always taught to stay there and you're like stoic through the end of the shot and you give the extra five second buffer or whatever, but follow the coach.

I mean, that's I have a take.

I have a take that, like, they were the cameraman and AJ were both frustrated by it, and he kind of like almost put the camera down on his side, like, ah, like, what is it?

He's on our side.

Well, it wasn't.

And while we're here on this beat, while we're here, Tracy Wolfson, she can't even get the coach to stop walking.

Check out Tracy and Kyle Shanahan in the Niners-Bucks game.

Coach, obviously, hard to watch Fred Warner go down.

Two straight touchdowns, your defense gives up.

What will you say to them in the locker room?

Oh, we got a rally.

I mean, it sucks, losing Fred.

We know that.

We'll deal with that after the game, but we got two quarters to play, and we need everyone's best.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I mean, she doesn't even get a stop.

Good job by Wilson in a big spot.

It's not exactly all the president's men, these halftime confabs.

No, not typically.

All right, let's move on to Pittsburgh.

Oh, man.

There was.

Listen, the stat, I know, Mark, you hate this.

You hate that everyone's talking about it.

It's like 23 straight games, 23 years in a row since the Steelers were defeated by the Browns in Pittsburgh.

Like, what about the playoff game?

Right, well, regular short.

Yeah.

I mean, there was cardboard people in the stands.

But, yeah, the Browns can't beat the Steelers at Acroshore, at Heinz, whatever you call it.

It is 22 straight years dating back to 2003, and that didn't change or come close to changing on Sunday.

A 23-9 win for Pittsburgh.

Aaron Rodgers continues to play within this Pittsburgh offense well, 235 and two touchdowns.

Doesn't get sacked once in the game by the vaunted Cleveland defensive front.

And Dylan Gabriel, victimized by a lot of drop passes.

The Cleveland offense continues to be as bad as it gets.

An easy win for the Steelers, Mark.

They had Dylan Gabriel throw the ball 52 times,

and I believe only three of them went more than 10 air yards.

So it's unclear what they're attempting to accomplish.

I think it's like a snapshot of two different teams because I read

the question was asked to multiple people, like reporters and stuff on the athletic, like, does this legit,

not this particular game, but do we take the Steelers as a legitimate threat for the playoffs?

And the Browns are in that category of team where whatever happened today does not add much evidence.

The Browns are in a full-on rebuild.

In fact, over the weekend, it was listed that players like Wyatt Teller and David Ojoku were up for trades.

They're trade candidates.

They just traded Greg Newsom.

They have an immense cap hell incoming for the next offseason.

And you're going to see this team change a lot.

A youth movement is happening.

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

We're going to try.

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.

DK Metcalf and Aaron Rodgers.

Aaron Rodgers is a different player than he used to be, but

that's working, and they can do enough to disrupt lesser teams and probably compile nine to ten wins and sneak in as a wildcard team.

This was just another very Steelers-esque game from this season.

I'm not overly impressed.

I'm not depressed by them, but the Browns are not playing for this year.

I'm not sure what they're playing for.

I'm not sure what sport they think they're part of.

It doesn't look like they know it themselves at this point.

And because I do wonder behind the scenes, and I don't want to make it all to the Browns, but it's like, what has Kevin Stefansky been told about his job security?

Because this is an on-field disaster.

Like, how long are we going to hang out with you?

Because you're not making a difference and you can't with this roster, but we also put you into a really tough spot where the Steelers,

in comparison, are functional still and thriving for a January playoff spot.

There's that play where

Dylan Gabriel got waxed on like a cornerback blitz from Jalen Ramsey.

And I was just thinking to myself, like, how long is this guy going to last as a meat shield?

And then, you know, it's not just, it's not just, can he play well enough to stay in the lineup?

I mean, this team's doing what it's done several times in the deep Podesta era, strategically tear down, you know, try to recoup assets when it doesn't look right and pivot.

But you're going to get to Shadura Sanders at this point, whether you like it or not.

And I hate to make this about him, but if Dylan Gabriel keeps getting hit like that, he's not going to make it for the next few games.

Let's see.

Pittsburgh, yeah, I think everybody's kind of in the same place.

The Aaron Rodgers move right now looks like it was the right one.

I don't think either side really wanted each other.

Now they ended up with each other.

But as long as you could keep eight clean, he's going to be able to move the offense.

Not explosively, but he's going to run it professionally.

And DK Metcalf and Rodgers, all the kind of concerns that we had with their

chemistry, you could check the box on that.

That's fine.

The Arthur Smith-Aaron Rodgers thing.

That's all deep summer talk now.

This works.

Their wins, they beat the Jets narrowly.

They had a road win over Patriots team that completely self-combusted.

They beat the Vikings with Carson Wentz in London, and now they beat a terrible Browns team, and they get a pretty terrible Bengals team next week.

I mean, the schedule has been kind to them.

I'm going to need to see more from Pittsburgh, but at the end of the day, Mark, they're 4-1, and they've absolutely done just about

as well as you can hope for

this time.

And I want to hit you up on this one, Mark, and get your thoughts because we talked about...

In the offseason, you know, Miles Guard asks for a trade, and then the Browns add a zero to his contract offer.

He takes the money money and stays in Cleveland.

He says that he's told that they have a plan, Cleveland, a quarterback, and all this.

And then in this game, amidst another losing season, a reporter asks him, what's it like to see TJ Watt have a chance to get after a quarterback with a two-score lead?

And he says, you know, curtly, it must be nice.

Are you allowed to say things like that when you do take the money?

Or are you, where do you stand on star player expressing frustration given his specific situation with the trade request and then taking the taking the bag?

No, I don't like it.

I mean, I also, like, if you remember, and as you do, like, I was willing

to see the Browns trade him.

If you're going to rebuild, rebuild.

Don't go half-measure and stick him in this because you're going to get this.

And I'm watching Jim Schwartz on the sideline in his sunglasses for like the fifth game in a row where the defense is dominant, but then the floor falls out late.

And it's like he's going to off a call girl tonight at some point because it's like, how angry can you be about what's happening?

It's a week-to-week.

Off like murder.

I just think it's untenable.

It's unfair to the defense, and it's unfair to the coaching staff and to Miles Garrett.

You should have moved on for Miles Garrett.

Collective.

For a strange logic leap.

Hooker murder?

I think we're getting there with

some of these figures that are being put through this.

I'd throw that out there, but

definitely

character questions.

If that's the next leap from like I'm struggling on the football field.

Well, I'd agree with that, but you could understand it.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I don't know.

Again, I don't know.

All right, you want to move on?

Do you want to talk about this game anymore?

Because it feels like a tough one.

One of the teams simply does not matter, and we talked about the other one, so we can progress.

All right, let's move on.

A team that we all thought would matter quite a bit is the Baltimore Ravens, but they matter not

at this point.

I was going to do like a quote the Raven thing, but it was not myself.

Yeah, the Rams, they're the latest team to go to Baltimore and take care of business.

17-3

over the Ravens.

Very bad first half for the Rams.

Like the Broncos in London, just playing down to the competition, this horrendously

decimated Ravens team.

Tons of penalties, kicking issues, a turnover.

Puka Nakua gets banged up in this game, but Matthew Stafford and Company writes the ship, and the Rams are four and two.

Connor, your thoughts on this one?

So after the game, I think is the most important thing.

John Harbaugh again said, no plans for staff changes.

And I think it's interesting to look at this team now into the buy, into the trade deadline as we start to get there.

I still think, to me, this feels like a team that merits.

loading up and trying it.

I mean, they ran Derrick Henry like six or seven straight times, times and were actually moving the ball against the Rams, good Rams defense to start this game.

Got a field goal out of it and then actually got another turnover where, I mean, these guys, second, third string like nose tackles are getting penetration, taking the ball out of Matt Stafford's hands.

And

maybe it's just you're getting taken aback by the first couple quarters of the game, but I think that there's something still here.

I think the roster is good.

You just can't live with Cooper Rush.

I mean, that's the long and short of it at this point.

All right, let's look at it.

Let's look at it from this standpoint because we could talk about this game, but obviously the game and all these, it seems like the same thing with Houston last week.

What do you really take from the game?

One team that should win is beating a team that has no chance and Cooper Rush can't even finish this game.

Pro Bowler Snoop Huntley ends up finishing the game.

But I look at the Ravens now, like they're going to be playing the first playoff game of the NFL season when they come out of their bye home against the Bears.

And they're expected to get Roquan Smith back.

I think Harbaugh said it after the game.

John Harbaugh is expected to have Lamar back on the field.

I mean, they have Chicago, at Miami, at Minnesota, at Cleveland, three road games in a row, but all winnable.

Home Jets, home Bengals.

So, one, two, three, four, five, six.

You got to win at least five of those.

And if you don't, if you have a stumble and lose a couple of those, you're in too deep a hole.

They've used up, Mark, to kind of our conversation on Thursday, right?

They've used up with this four-game losing streak almost all of their wiggle room as they hit the buy.

Yeah, they've got to go in one of those like eight out of nine winning streak

scenarios.

Something they do every year, but can they do it this year with these injuries?

I don't see it right now, but to Connor's point, if you aggressively added a piece or two to cover up like full-on long-term injuries, you've got five division games, and your biggest ally is the state of the AFC North.

And if you can, you've got two Steelers games, if you can beat the Steelers once, maybe twice, and take care of the Browns and Bengals, which feels like child's play at this point to some degree, you're in there.

Like, it's weird because Vegas,

up until before this loss today, still had them as the favorite to win the division.

Like, it's not just non-belief in the Steelers, but it's belief that the Ravens are going to do what you're talking about.

Will they?

I will just say this, even before some of these injuries, I don't see the same Ravens team from years of old.

I think it's just imprinted in our psyche that we assume they'll do this.

I don't see that team right now.

No, nobody does.

I think that's, I think it's more like the idea is to get to this buy, get your quarterback back, get a couple other guys back, and then start to beat up some of these bad teams and kind of get your mojo back.

I still see it, but at this point, like I said, there's no margin for error and they have to figure it out.

On the other, only other thing on the Rams side, I guess, we should talk about is Puka Nakua left the game, returned to the game, but afterwards, afterwards,

you know, said that it is no certainty that he's playing next week.

And he was in a lot of pain when he went down with the injury.

It was in the end zone.

He entered the game leading the NFL in receptions and receiving yards.

Obviously, they have Devontae Adams there and Tyler Higby and some other pieces, but Nakua is a top three wide receiver in the league, and the Rams are going to be holding their breath on that one.

All right.

Anything else on this game, Connor?

Just quickly, I would say that, I mean, Byron Young was a monster, and Tavius Robinson, too, from the Ravens,

broke his foot.

So that's just like another important Ravens starter.

Unreal.

It's just not going to be able to help them anymore.

Unreal.

All right.

One more game.

The octane level is going lower as we get deeper, but hanging there.

Let's head to Las Vegas.

Las Vegas.

You know, this weekend included, if you want to throw the sign up,

Justin,

College Game Day, ESPN College Game Day in Eugene, Oregon.

The fire Brian Callahan signed.

What's the connective tissue on that one?

Justin, help me out.

Yeah, this is just a theory, obviously, but

my theory is

in 2015, Titans draft Oregon star Marcus Mariota, probably convert some people in the area to Titans fans.

They probably stuck with the team,

and now they're wishing they had not done so.

Okay, I guess.

That's like Umbrella Man on Dealey Plaza level

territory there.

Geno Smith passed for 174 yards and a score.

And the Raiders defense did the rest against

zero-star Cam Ward and the rest of the Titans' offense.

20-10.

That ends a four-game losing streak for the Raiders.

The Titans can't build on their

first win of the season.

In fact, this, according to the Associated Press Gravy,

the Titans have not won consecutive games since November of 2022.

47 games.

That covers

100, baby.

The last time the Titans won consecutive games was that crazy Thursday night win over 2022

over the Packers.

And their offensive coordinator, Todd Downing, got a DUI that night.

And that was the last time the Titans were good at anything.

They've closed the season on a losing streak.

Frabel got fired the next year.

It's just been a mess.

This guy who had a party or what?

The Titans, through six games, have 83 total points.

That is the fewest the franchise has scored through six games in 40 years.

Brian Callahan, offensive guru, right, hired because he's an offensive guy, is leading the worst offense the Titans have fielded since they were the Oilers 40 years ago.

It's time to fire him.

The only reason the Titans are not winless is because the Cardinals had three once-in-a-decade catastrophic plays happen in the same game.

They are the worst team in football.

I'd love to see the Titans and Jets play because I know that you think the Jets would win.

Hang on a second.

Hang on a second.

Slow down.

Let me slow your roll.

Let Justin talk.

No.

Hang on and listen a second.

All right.

You don't get to take the worst team in football.

It's the only thing I have.

We're the winless team.

We're the embarrassment of the football.

The Jets are 0-6.

They're the worst.

Okay.

The Titans are 1-5.

They're the second worst.

And if the Titans had played anyone but the Cardinals last week, they'd also be 0-6.

But your point stands.

The Raiders are not good at football, but the Titans are a get-right game for any team that has them on the schedule.

And the Raiders didn't play particularly well in this game, but the Titans made their defense look like an all-pro defense.

Cam Ward, maybe his roughest outing, three turnovers.

He got strip-sacked early on.

He had a horrible fumble late in the game when it was pretty much over where he tried to like...

He was moving out of the pocket and he patted the ball and he knocked it out of his own hand.

So

that was pretty good.

And he had an interception where I think he was trying to throw the ball away, but his arm got tipped and it just fluttered up in the air over the middle of the field for an easy interception.

I also don't think he's getting any help from his supporting cast, from his coaching staff.

I mean, this is my really quick, this is, I'll just keep it to this because I could rant for four.

Wait, is this an episode of Go Off King?

Which I did on the Mississippi City Audubon.

I'm looking to wrap things up, but okay, here we go.

Here's the latest edition of Go Off King.

Go ahead, Justin.

Okay, so the scripted portion of your offense is supposed to be like the best part of your offense, right?

It's the part that you've game planned all week.

You're looking at specific tendencies you want to attack.

You have like a, it's like it's all scripted and planned, and you should have repped it in practice.

You should be amazing on the first 15 plays of the game.

The Titans have not scored an opening drive touchdown this season.

So, what does that tell you?

In this game, they open with run up the middle, run up the middle, run up the middle, punt, get the ball back, screen for negative yards, screen for negative yards.

That's the first five plays you've scripted.

Cam Ward's first real drop back is a third and ten against Max Crosby on the other side, who was a game wrecker in this game, like he is basically every game.

And he throws a bullet, dart, pinpoint throw to Calvin Ridley.

Calvin Ridley played six snaps before he got hurt.

I'm just appalled that somebody who's supposed to be an offensive guru could script out the start of the game with run, run, run, screen, screen.

And that's what you're doing to like help your young rookie quarterback get in the rhythm and carry over the momentum from last week?

Whatever.

Do you watch podcast numbers suffer or tumble a bit as the team goes deeper into the black hole?

Yes, absolutely.

Nobody cares to tune into the product.

Except pun intended because they're playing the Raiders, Mark.

That was good.

Good podcasting, buddy.

That was good.

Yeah, I'll take it.

Sessler strikes again.

Subconscious.

Old Sese strikes again.

Now you have wordplay.

Mike Verabel coming in next week, and he is going to embarrass the Titans.

And when that happens, Amy Adams-Strunk is going to be embarrassed, and she's going to fire Brian Callahan.

I pray to the football gods.

You've been saying this for four weeks now, but she's not going to do it that game.

There's no

maybe, baby.

I think she wants to avoid this appearance of being super trigger happy with firing people.

It's too late.

You've already fired three people in a row year after year after year.

Do it again.

Just do it again.

I don't know.

Well, we wish the best for you, Justin.

We do.

And that was

a Texas beat OU.

There we go.

Very good app.

All right.

That king went off.

All right, that's it.

We'll be back Monday night.

I think, is it a double header, Mark?

Yes, it is.

I believe there's one or two more of those, but it is a double header.

I think it's the last one.

And I'll tell you what it is right now.

Buffalo at Atlanta, Chicago at Washington.

So Mark and I, with Justin, we'll have the reaction to those games and then a look at the week seven power rankings as the wheel keeps turning.

Thank you for tuning into the flagship show and have a great week.

And we'll see you soon.

Till next time, do what you must.

Heed the call.