Week 4 MNF Recap | Jets-Dolphins & Bengals-Broncos

20:19Nick Shook:process of turning around a team uh our writer at nfl.com Kevin Patrick actually made this comment tonight you know over our messaging where he was like they're essentially mirroring what the Dan Campbell Lions were when they first started it's just that nobody cared that the Lions sucked and the Jets operate in New York and they're going to be under major scrutiny that's the only He has such a way with words.

20:39Jourdan Rodrigue:Coming at you. Yeah, coming at you. Exactly.

20:42Nick Shook:And I think he's absolutely right because they are going to be under the microscope because they play in New York. But at the same time, like these things don't happen overnight. The first thing you fix is the details, is the operational issues, is the penalties. And once you get that sorted out, I think in my, you know, just evaluation of this team where they stand right now, they need to figure out who exactly they want to be with Justin Fields at quarterback because, you know, they have the new OC, they got the new staff and everything else. And we've talked about Tanner Engstrand and how this offense is going to look and how they looked in week one against the Jets and how they haven't really looked like that entirely since then.

21:12Nick Shook:And, but there's still glimpses of it. But when it comes down to, you can run the ball. Well, you can kind of play big man ball with that offensive line. You don't know your pass protection with him yet. You have not figured that out. That was painfully clear tonight, but who do you want Justin Fields to be? Because there were times where it felt like they didn't necessarily trust him to throw the ball unless they absolutely had to. but at the same time you can kind of understand why because Justin Fields made a hell of a play on fourth down to try to keep the Jets in it in the second half. Fourth and one on the Dolphins 43 under 940 to play in the third with the Jets down 14.

21:43They need this one here. Fields takes a snap, fakes the handoff, moves to his right, back to his left. He's going to have to be special with his legs and he will across the edge. Now he's got green grass in front. Fields across the 20 weaving back the other way. Fields is going to score spectacular run a 43 yard touchdown and fields gets the jets within a score and yes it

22:06Nick Shook:was a fantastic play also i just realized i didn't credit who was on the call earlier there was no eagle and mike mayock westwood won on that call and the first call of the game as well shout out to them doing a great job calling this prime time game but that's an example of what he can do you and you let him extend plays now the big knock on him for a long time in chicago was that he held with a bit more conviction and realizing, look, I'm a, I'm a Supreme athlete. I can outrun this defense and make a guy or two miss and get in the end zone. And it was a great example of that.

22:34Jourdan Rodrigue:Well, I just think he overall run in pass. I think he's seeing the field better when you see it in flashes. And I know people are going to eye roll. I'll probably get some messages about like, oh, he's missed a bunch of throws or whatever. Yeah. But when you look at when he's, he's blocked up the way that he should be the way that any quarterback anywhere, if you're not dealing with, you know, the bare minimum here should at least be able to, you know, develop a little bit under when he's blocked up and when he when the offense is humming, when they've got a rhythm, when they've got timing, he sees the field really well and he sees it incredibly well, too, as a runner.

23:10Jourdan Rodrigue:And he is really patient and finding his creases and he does not take unnecessary contact as a runner, especially not in this game, which I thought was really interesting. He was very smart about the lanes he chose and the way that he decided to extend plays when he could. Now, some of it, lack of ball security and under pressure at some times, which led to that big play earlier that you talked about. That's obviously an issue. But these are the reasons why teams believe, and the Jets certainly believe, that they still have something here, that there is something still to be found, to still be developed, to still be moved forward with Justin Fields at the helm.

23:47Jourdan Rodrigue:And I think he's got to do a little of that figuring it out himself too of, of, you know, really understanding, Hey, I now have to make sure that my offensive linemen are not, are not jumping off sides. I have to set my motions correctly where I'm not double tapping one of my feet and messing up the tight end on one side or tapping a foot before another guy gets set to trigger another guy to come over in motion. This is going to be a lot of little details that all of these guys have to have, but that the quarterback must take ownership of and the head coach and the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator certainly all have a role to play in that but if justin fields is truly going to be the person that they believe he can be and i believe he can be in carrying this offense forward all of those tiny little things have to get cleaned up and he's got to take ownership of that too

24:35Nick Shook:yeah definitely has to because you cannot survive in the nfl as an offense and especially a quarterback when you face a pressure rate of 48 uh percent 48.6 percent miami log tonight against the Jets not looking good. It's going to take patience. It's going to take persistence for the Jets to figure it out. But I too believe much like you, Jordan. And I'll tell you what, we could use a little bit of patience from our listeners because guess what? It was a double header on Monday night. We got another game to talk about coming up next. We're going to head out to Denver to talk about what happened between the Broncos and the Bengals.

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28:50Cincinnati, Bo Nix, the Denver quarterback, gets the shotgun snap, left tackle block, lines right throw, goal line, leaping catch, touchdown! Sutton left and got it against his chest. Two yards deep in the end zone. Broncos a touchdown before halftime. And they get their lead up 20-3 over Cincinnati.

29:10Nick Shook:Kevin Harlan and Kurt Warner on the call for Westwood 1. It was a great catch on a great night for the Denver Broncos. J.K. Dobbins rushed for 101. and one Bo Nix threw for over 300 and Sean Payton he must have found that chef's hat that Russell Wilson left behind when he skipped town and put it on because the man cooked up a feast for the folks in Denver on Monday night the Broncos steamroll the Cincinnati Bengals 28 to 3 in a game I'm not certain the Bengals knew they needed to show up for on Monday night in Denver Jordan what a showing for the now two and two Denver Broncos yeah and you know what it started a

29:47Jourdan Rodrigue:little rough for the Broncos too. We'll get into it, Nick, but this was a game that was so lopsided and so sloppy by the Bengals. Both teams racked up some penalties, but the Bengals certainly are setting new milestones, certainly every single week, it seems like. But this was a game where by the middle of the third quarter, in case you didn't tune in and you wanted to know how it was going, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were talking about the moon waxing crescent, if you were curious, how Joe Buck is a Taurus and roasting the officials for calling yet another penalty that they agreed was the right call to make in the moment, but unnecessary because it kept stopping the game.

30:24Jourdan Rodrigue:And that really tells you what this was as early as midway through the third quarter. What started out a little sloppy on both sides turned into a very, very lopsided affair.

30:35Nick Shook:Yeah, yeah, definitely. Basically, the Bengals mounted one effort and that was in their first drive. And for the rest of the night, they might as well pack those, started the buses and pack things up. because that's about as valuable, unfortunately, as they were on the field. It's funny that you mentioned their complaints about the penalties, because I'm sitting here furiously writing off of Jets-Dolphins and just hearing Troy Aikman talk about how it's a bad product. It's just unnecessary. And I'm like, wait a minute. How many penalties did they have in this game? Because I know the Jets just went for 13.

31:04Nick Shook:Oh, let's see. Mental math, sometimes hard on this show. 18 combined accepted penalties between these two teams. The Bengals led with 11. So you want to talk sloppy, you can find it right there. in statistical form but all that being said the Broncos for perhaps the first time this season got a just a complete offensive showing from this group I mean you can start with Bo Nix and how he's a bit of a tumultuous experience he'll make a bad throw or a bad decision here and there and then he'll hit a big one he'll run around the yard and be a gunslinger and everything else but it wasn't just that it was the running game and how they complemented each other so perfectly what did you see what really stood out for you again a stat line that tells you

31:43Jourdan Rodrigue:exactly where both of these teams are right in this moment, which is that J.K. Dobbins became the Sean Payton Broncos first 100 yards running back. So it's the first one in what, like 38 games. And then if you're looking at it from the other perspective, the Bengals allowed a second consecutive 100 yards rusher on their way to allowing over 500 yards of offense overall. It just depends. Glass half empty, glass half full, whichever side of the coin you happen to be on. But J.K. Dobbins broke that open late in the game. And finally, they have a little bit more of a balanced attack. 15 yards away from 100 yards is Dobbins.

32:25Uh-oh. Uh-oh. How many is that, Spita? He doesn't know. He's got his hands in the air. That was 16. He's at 100 yards. Troy Aikman, he called it early. He's at 101.

32:40Nick Shook:Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the call for ESPN there.

32:42Jourdan Rodrigue:They were so excited for something to happen, Nick.

32:46Nick Shook:I mean, at that point, I totally understand. What do we have to look forward to other than the moon and our astrological signs? No, we got somebody finally hitting a milestone. Yeah, you're right. That's exactly the type of night it was. But, man, it's just so good. And maybe I'm just speaking from a point of bias or just, I don't know, I have a big heart at times when it comes to sporting events. But J.K. Dobbins has been through so much over the last few years. And really, if you go back to his career at Ohio State, he dealt with ankle injuries in big-time games that limited him even then, and they had tough losses, like to Clemson, for example.

33:20Nick Shook:And now, after all of these trials and tribulations, he ends up with Denver after spending last year with their AFC West rival, the Chargers, and it seems like he's found the perfect home just pacing this ground attack and looking explosive like the Dobbins we knew from before.

33:37Jourdan Rodrigue:Yeah, and that's exactly what they needed because Bo Nix can pick up some yardage with his legs, obviously, and he scored their first touchdown on the move as well. And this is where, you know, they just haven't, they really want to get some of this play action game working. They want to actually move people off the line of scrimmage, doing all the things that Sean Payton has liked to have with previous teams, having a multi-threat rushing attack where some of those players can also split out into the passing game. That is exactly what he wants to have. And it took them a little while to get here.

34:15Jourdan Rodrigue:You heard the stat. I said it, Troy or Joe, whichever one. I always mix up their voices, said it. And it's taken forever. And they even, you know, they mixed up their backs at certain points, too. RJ Harvey got a couple of carries, a couple of looks as well in the passing game. They had a fullback in there at one point as well. But this was going to be J.K. Dobbins' game. And you could almost tell there was just this concerted want to feed him. Having a lead helped, obviously, early on. But you could feel like this was going to be scratching and clawing, however it was going to happen. This was going to be the night that it happened.

34:50Jourdan Rodrigue:And I think it's a good breakthrough for J.K. Dobbins. And now they have to sustain. And I think that's going to be important as well because they've got to settle Bo Nix down and they've got to settle him into a rhythm because he had a couple of pretty bad plays early in the game. There was one, they were down deep inside Bengals territory, inside the 20 certainly, and he's leading Evan Ingram into the flat, into the left side flat, and he cuts the throw loose way too late. And Evan Ingram's out of bounds by the time he even makes the catch. They run the exact same play on the other side. this time he cuts it loose just right on time and they get a short gain and then you know two plays later three I think it was two or three plays later then he throws an interception he makes a bad decision he might have had it on the ground Bo Nix have had it on the ground himself if he picked it up with his legs but then he overthought it you could see him overthinking it in real time and it's picked in the end zone by Demetrius Knight but but the Bengals of course handed it right back to them just three plays later and then this was the Bo Nix experience because then they get down the field again and he hits courtland Sutton for a 20 yard touchdown on third and two and it was a great throw it was a contested throw it had to be threaded correctly um he he saw it well and it was it was right up the gut and it was just sort of a heartbreaker and a backbreaker if you're the side of the Bengals because then the explosives and some catch and run and yards after catch plays by courtland Sutton as well um just really started to break the explosives open for the Broncos and it got Bo Nix into the rhythm that plus the run

36:22Nick Shook:game that he needed to be in yeah and I think that it got Sean Payton into the rhythm as a play caller he's just somebody overseeing the entire offense too because like they're mixing in like basically like jet sweeps around the end and like that's how Marvin Mims scores on a 16-yard touchdown run like he had all of these different tools at his disposal he could do he had the full arsenal because he also probably understood that the Bengals weren't going to mount much resistance with the defense which by the way if we go all the way back to week one i'm going to say this for as long as they struggle defensively the defense that they thought was great in week one was never a good defense and continues on nights like tonight to show that they are not a defense that is at that level that they want to be at and when your offense struggles like they have been without joe burrow it makes for a just a terrible viewing experience breaks my heart for bangles fans who had high hopes coming into the season but that two and a start feels like it was years ago for how they've played over the last two weeks.

37:13Nick Shook:I mean, their offensive line we knew was a weakness already. But with Jake Browning back there, this passing game has essentially just shrunk down to 75 % of your attempts are going to be go balls down the sideline and giving T. Higgins or Jamar Chase a shot in a 50-50 ball and hoping that they come down with it. And the worst part about tonight was that oftentimes when they did make spectacular grabs, they were called back by penalties. And that just points to their operational issues and the amount of mistakes that they've made. 11 penalties accepted for 65 yards. and plenty of them short-circuiting this offense, putting them behind the sticks, and just making it so much harder for a backup quarterback who's behind a leaky offensive line, who operate an offense that doesn't have much of a running game to speak of, and situationally they can't lean on the run when they're down multiple scores, and they're just trying to stop the tidal wave that's coming at them from an opponent that's superior to them.

38:01Nick Shook:And against a defense like the Broncos, who have a ton of aggressive, pin-your-ears-back rushers who are going to get after the quarterback, Nick Benito, Jonathan Cooper, where you can continue to go down the list. It just makes for a disaster scenario. And that's exactly what we got tonight.

38:15Jourdan Rodrigue:Yeah. And, and they couldn't call anything else, but you, you mentioned those like longer developing plays down the sideline where it was like, I don't think Jake Browning that you really do have, that you have the audacity to try to make that throw every single time. I think what you're trying to do is draw a PI. Like I understand.

38:31Nick Shook:Just get it out.

38:32Jourdan Rodrigue:That you have for the, your receivers, two of the best, the one of the best one and two tandems up there in the top three, in the NFL, maybe the best in Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins. And obviously, you know, he hit one down the field to Tee Higgins early in the game, but I don't believe you have that much dip on your chip. I think that that was just try to get yards, however they come. You saw him trying to hard count as well. That didn't work because they had a self-inflicted penalty as well. That was kind of questionable either way. I wouldn't maybe have called that, but it was, everything was going wrong.

39:03Jourdan Rodrigue:And a lot of it comes from everything feels so difficult. And it's like, there's not really any adjustments and it's not just being in a deficit they're in shotgun the entire time 90 of his dropbacks are in shotgun and I know they won games like that with him back in 2023 I went back and I looked at all the next next gen splits of how much and it was a vast majority in the gun at that time as well but they cannot run the ball and they cannot get anything going that would actually protect the quarterback this backup quarterback who you should not expect to be Joe Burrow and be back in the gun. And in some ways, you know, everybody credited and lauded Zach Taylor for changing this offense around the first time around with Jake Browning.

39:48Jourdan Rodrigue:But what I saw from this offense tonight is the same problem still exists, and they compound because not only can you not run the ball, Chase Brown, again, coming into this game, averaging negative yards before contact per rush, so he's not getting any blocking help. 10 carries for 40 yards and they having some type of an under center play action game or even a pistol play action and run game might have helped and it didn't you could have still kept the quarterback's eyes on the defense the whole time and pistol but you can't even use that as a threat because your run game is so bad and that is part of the problem this one issue has compounded in so many different areas, including tying the backup quarterback, one of his hands behind his back.

40:32Jourdan Rodrigue:And it's just bad. To me, I don't even think you can put him in the pistol until the run game improves because in some cases that would keep the play-action threat available to you. In this case, it wouldn't because teams don't think they can run to the point where they knew, the Broncos knew, every play was probably going to be a throw and they could stop the run with the guys that they had up front. They were dropping guys in coverage. Part of that is they respect the receivers, the one and two that they have there. And I don't think it's because they respected Browning's ability to get the ball to them, but certainly it's because they respect the receivers themselves to try to make plays happen.

41:07Jourdan Rodrigue:And even near the end, you saw they were able to start sending more and more guys on pressures because they could condense and condense and condense and shrink down because the run game was not a factor at all. even in a deficit you still should have tried to or had at least something there so you weren't so

41:26Nick Shook:one-dimensional the entire time yeah you would think with a lopsided lopsided score like this that the pressure rate must have been sky high for the broncos it was 37.9 i mean that's that's good but that's not sky high but then again you must consider that the bangles only ran 43 offensive plays because they couldn't sustain any possessions they got out they were dominated in time of possession by nearly 16 minutes like there was just no life to this offense and it's funny because I think in common football discussions, parlance, whatever you might want to say, they always say, you got to stop the run first.

41:57Nick Shook:If you can't stop the run, you can't do anything in this league defensively.

42:00Jourdan Rodrigue:Well, for the Bengals, they can't stop an opposing run,

42:05Nick Shook:and they can't run the ball at all to the point where in a game like this, Denver comes out and says, screw the run. We know what they're going to try to beat us with. Those awesome receivers they paid all that money to take that away, and they're going to have no options. And that's also a testament to their confidence in their defense. But for the Bengals, I think it just starts in the trenches. It starts in the trenches on both sides of the ball. And we knew this was going to be an issue. And unfortunately, once you take the magic elixir, the linchpin, the magician with the wand, Joe Burrow out of the mix, it all kind of starts to fall apart.

42:34Nick Shook:So it's not to be all doom and gloom. It's only week four. But I hate to say it about the Bengals right now. They're just in a tough place. And oh, by the way, the schedule doesn't get any easier. You go home and play Detroit. You go on the road to play the Packers. You come back home against Pittsburgh. And then you play the Jets in week eight. You got to get to that point in the schedule with at least some signs of life and competitiveness, or else this is going to snowball. And if it feels far away right now, that 2-0 start, it's going to feel light years away by the time you get to that point.

43:03Jourdan Rodrigue:Yeah, you could see the frustration is right at the surface for so many people. Jamar Chase and Zach Taylor, there was a shot at one point cut to them having a discussion on the sideline, but a little bit away from the sideline. and you know when you start seeing the broadcast cutting to people close-ups of people's faces and sort of the the blank stairs the 30 mile stairs you know it's just it's not good and and the Bengals they to their credit they did put so much into the guys that Joe Burrow wanted and they worked it out with Trey Hendrickson and they figured out all of these things that were such big headlines and big issues for them.

43:48Jourdan Rodrigue:But when you live by going all in around one player and then that player gets hurt, this is what you also die by. And that is what they're experiencing right now. And in the future, they're going to have to make these decisions about whether living on that razor's edge is sustainable for this organization. I don't think they're there yet. Injuries are what they are. But this is going to be a question that as these things continue to get But worse, these are the questions the franchise is going to ask of itself.

44:16Nick Shook:They're also not going to face defense with a top-tier defensive back that can shut down one of those guys like Patrick Sertan. According to NextGenStats, he allowed one reception for eight yards across 13 coverage matchups with Jamar Chase, including zero receptions on 10 matchups in man coverage. So you want somebody to put you on an island and shut you down. The Broncos have that guy, and they deployed him against Chase. So it's not always going to be this difficult. There is a reason to be hopeful. It is a long season. This is a tough one. This was a tough one for the Bengals. You know what wasn't tough, Jordan?

44:47Nick Shook:Doing the show with you. I don't even know if we left anything out. I don't know if we're supposed to say anything else here, but I feel like at this point, this is where the show ends.

44:55Jourdan Rodrigue:Mom and dad left the house. Here we are.

44:58Nick Shook:The kids are in charge. There's no rules. Take all the pizza rolls out of the freezer and put them on a tray in the oven. Cook them up. We had a great time. Shout out to Greg. You'll get Greg tomorrow. No News Monday. All the news Tuesday with Jordan. I'm Nick Shook. That's Jordan Roderick. Well, Dave, we'll see you tomorrow.

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