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The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL

13 Oct 2026 · 32m · 14 chapters

Episode artwork

Bills stun special teams-plagued Rams in 37-34 OT win

In short

The Athletic Football Show breaks down the Monday night Bills vs. Rams game, focusing on how the Rams’ special teams errors (including a blocked overtime field goal) and situational decision-making helped Buffalo win 37-34 in OT. They also discuss Josh Allen’s scrambling/creation, the Bills’ offensive success versus Rams defensive matchups, and Rams offensive efficiency (Stafford’s best game, Puka/Devontae involvement, backfield targets).

Guests

Robert Mays (host) and Dave Hellman (co-host). No other guests are mentioned.

Key claims

Rams’ multi-year “special teams doesn’t matter” organizational approach is the main reason they keep getting burned; Sean McVay must prioritize special teams. Bills’ Joe Brady exploited Rams dime/personnel tendencies with motion and light-box runs. Rams’ defensive front didn’t generate pressures (only three quick pressures).

Notable examples

Ray Davis 70-yard opening return; Rams missed field goal early; overtime field goal blocked; Josh Allen 120 rushing yards mostly on scrambles; James Cook TD run vs dime; Kyron Williams third-down catch; Tyler Higby false start then key catches.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes.

Chapters

0:53

Analyzing the Rams' Special Teams Issues

Discussion on the Rams' ongoing special teams problems and their impact on the game.

“Teens spend an average of nine hours a day on screens outside of school.”
2:32

Analyzing the Rams' Special Teams Issues

Discussion on the Rams' ongoing special teams problems and their impact on the game.

“Half the reason that special teams has kind of like become my niche meme is just because I just have to keep saying, Hey man, this is, this is a part of the game that you shouldn't ignore.”
3:40

Game Dynamics and Coaching Decisions

Insights into the Rams' coaching decisions during critical game moments.

“You find a way to win this when it looked hopeless.”
6:06

Matthew Stafford's Performance Analysis

Examination of Stafford's game performance amidst the Rams' struggles.

“Along with that, to me, an even bigger sin in this game specifically, you are cooking on offense.”
8:14

The Rams' Offensive Challenges

Discussions on the challenges faced by the Rams' offensive strategies.

“And it's the third special teams gaffe of the night.”
10:05

Josh Allen's Impactful Game

Analysis of Josh Allen's performance and the Bills' game plan.

“Middle of that thing did not look very good.”
13:32

Exploiting the Rams' Defensive Weaknesses

How the Bills capitalized on the Rams' defensive strategies.

“It's just a very strange game overall, but there were elements of the game plan that I actually really liked.”
14:01

Analyzing the Bills' Offensive Strategy

Explore the Bills' effective offense against the Rams' defense.

“the Bills had played 21 snaps and 11 personnel.”
22:04

Key Player Performances and Game Highlights

Review standout player performances and game-changing moments.

“Outside of those two very big miscues, though, just the running backs in this game were tremendous.”
28:00

Reflections on Early Season Dynamics

Discussion on the negative viewing experience and league adjustments in the season's early weeks.

“I would just tell these guys to chill because it's been a real negative to the watching experience over the first five weeks of the season.”
Show all 14 chapters
29:24

Analyzing the Bills and Rams Performance

Examination of the performance of the Bills and Rams and their potential trajectories.

“Yeah, when they're not playing arguably the best football player in the world.”
31:16

Josh Allen's Decision-Making Breakdown

Analysis of Josh Allen's critical decisions during the game and their implications.

“That's why I'm not overly worried about it.”
33:18

End of Game Strategies and Clock Management

Discussing the strategic decisions made by Sean McVay and the implications of clock management.

“I suppose I just think there are they did.”
35:34

Special Teams Concerns for the Rams

Discussion on the Rams' special teams issues and the need for improvement.

“I just want Sean McVay to care about special teams.”
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Transcript

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2:01Robert Mays: Welcome to the Athletic Football Show, brought to you by the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. I'm Robert Mays. Rams-Bills was a banger. Really fun Monday night game between two very good teams. Unfortunately for the Rams, same old story. Special teams, situational decision-making, doing them in in a big game against a very good team. We dug into that, a monster performance from Josh Allen on the ground. Just a strange but enjoyable game on a lot of different fronts. Dig into all of it with me and Dave Hellman. Let's get to it right now.

2:43Robert Mays: If we talked about special teams on this show, this would be the episode to do it but alas we don't how dare you absolutely not that's where

2:52Derrik Klassen: we're gonna start i was hoping you were gonna ask i was hoping you were i hope you were gonna say dave where do you want to start with such a wacky game and i was gonna say teams right now do you speak it i am i am so mad you realize oh look at the big brain on sean half the reason thank you for picking that up. Half the reason that special teams has kind of like become my niche meme is just because I just have to keep saying, Hey man, this is, this is a part of the game that you shouldn't ignore. And teams, notably the LA Rams just continue to disagree with me. And that's how you wind up trying to figure out how you lost this game quickly, really impressive stuff from the bills in general, just a fun game.

3:40Derrik Klassen: You find a way to win this when it looked hopeless. I don't want to discredit that entirely but but la rams i mean from the from the word go in this game oh yeah they bookended it 70 yard kick return to open this thing you miss a field goal early on and then obviously the block in overtime so you miss six points of your own and hand the bills three at the beginning of this game because they didn't even they didn't even gain yards on that opening possession like Ray Davis goes 70 yards they don't gain any yards after that and kick a field goal so you hand the Bills three and screw up six in an overtime loss I am incensed if you can't tell

4:24Robert Mays: it almost feels like and I know this isn't real I know he this is self-imposed there is a little bit of it that feels like this Faustian bargain to me that Sean McVay has made where you get to be the defining coach of a generation and the most influential figure in the NFL in a lot of ways over the last 10 years, but the price you must pay written in blood is that you have to have the kicking game that the Los Angeles Rams have.

4:46Derrik Klassen: It's a quality joke and I appreciate it. I'm not like coming at you, but I don't know. At what point is it not charming anymore?

4:56Robert Mays: It's not charming. It's gotten ridiculous. And I, every year and credit to Mike Sando does a phenomenal job at this stuff where he spends so much time kind of looking through the cracks of the league and figuring out, all right, this is just something hiding in plain sight. Let's actually take a deep dive look into it and how it's influencing the way that the NFL operates. And his project that he did this offseason was all about these trees that just do not value special teams. And what they do is, and the Rams went through the exact same song and dance this offseason, special teams are terrible.

5:30Robert Mays: They fire Chase Blackburn in the middle of last season. We're going to get a new coordinator in here the new coordinator is going to fix everything and then nothing changes and it really is an organizational thing the way that you approach special teams how you man special teams the way that you build the roster in order to make sure you have the right players on there all of it McVeigh specifically but a lot of the guys associated with this tree just have not been coaches that value this in the right way and it continues to come back and bite them and on top of it, we should be slamming the Rams for this multi-year issue that they've had.

6:06Robert Mays: Along with that, to me, an even bigger sin in this game specifically, you are cooking on offense. Cooking.

6:14Derrik Klassen: The play calling leading up to the field goal?

6:16Robert Mays: The idea that on third and five, you just have no interest in trying to get a first down. If you had Cam Little or Evan McPherson or Brandon Aubrey or any of these guys, the way that Will Reichert is playing right now. How impressed are you that I can name like five kickers, by the way?

6:36Derrik Klassen: I really love the way you just reeled off a bunch of good kickers.

6:39Robert Mays: Those are all the kickers I know. If you have those guys, maybe, maybe you could justify this. They have a guy that has been so incredibly unreliable. The idea that we're settling for like a 48-yard field goal in this moment, I just can't believe it. I can't believe that was the choice.

6:56Derrik Klassen: Not only that. Okay, yes. If the Rams had a better kicker, the Rams also have Matthew Stafford. Why are like, why are we running give up runs? And like just playing cowardly in this situation.

7:08Robert Mays: You're a team that does such an incredible job at manufacturing easy completions. They've been doing it all night. You have the best. I will spit the ball out to him and he will gain five yards player potentially in the entire NFL. You threw him the ball 25 times tonight. What's one more?

7:25Derrik Klassen: Not only, I mean, and Puka was incredible. Another part, the Rams' backs in this game were fantastic. You can't leak Coram or Kyron out into the flat on third and five and do more with it than what you got, and you don't trust Matthew Stafford to do that. What did I say to you 45 seconds, maybe two minutes before the field goal was blocked? I was like, you know, we have, like, Greg Russo has been a non-factor in this game. Like it is not as if the bills were affecting the Rams passing game and causing chaos. And, well, we can't drop back on third down because something terrible could happen. That did not feel like the story of this game at all.

8:04Derrik Klassen: So to very blithely say, well, guess we got to let Harrison Mavis kick a 48-yard field goal to try to win this thing. It's unbelievable. And on top of that, the kick procedure, I mean, getting blocked like that in a must-have moment. And it's the third special teams gaffe of the night. There have been special team gaffes in other Rams games, even Rams wins. I said this on the preview show a long time ago at this point. I probably wouldn't harp on it as much if the Rams weren't the overwhelming favorite to win the Super Bowl. And now they're two and three.

8:41Robert Mays: They're two and three. And you go back a year ago, and we talk about that Seattle game as the reason that they weren't the one seed. What if they don't get a field goal blocked by the Eagles and win that game? There are so many crucial, season-changing moments where this has come up for them. And now you're sitting there at 2-3. What's your best-case scenario in a division with the Niners and the Seahawks? You're an 11-6 wildcard team now, which is fine. That's a good season for a lot of people. but not when you came into the year with the expectations that this team did.

9:13Derrik Klassen: It sounds crazy to say because like the Rams, I mean, the offense was cooking in this game and like Stafford looked good. Well, actually Stafford was hit and miss. We can talk about some bad throws that he had in this game.

9:24Robert Mays: He had like two or three that were off target, including the first drive. He had another one to Puka down in the red zone. And then he had the one to Kyron Williams over the middle. But I overall, I was really encouraged by the way that he played because it's 400 yards, give or take. That hadn't happened so far this year. Their passing game hadn't been cooking like this. How much of that is the Bills' defense in the current state of it? But the fact that he had a few misses, those did happen. But Matthew Stafford played his best game of the season, I think, by far.

9:52Derrik Klassen: Main point, for a team that just went punch for punch with the Bills and Stafford did his thing, Puka and Devontae were there, it was all kind of rolling for the Rams in a game where you knew you were going to have to score a lot of points. it still feels like the margin is razor thin now if you want to accomplish i mean you want home field advantage how sick would it be to not have to leave sofi even for the super bowl by the way still my friend i don't i'm not ready to say that i don't know oh man two and three look in the

10:20Robert Mays: way that they do and let's talk about the defense i mean we can get to that conversation if you want to it's not just that the special teams is bad tonight it's that the defense was bad tonight

10:28Derrik Klassen: which i i wanted to bring this up so special teams is the rams big curse the other thing that they don't really value is linebacker self and post these are issues that you could avoid if you

10:38Robert Mays: chose to make different choice if you made different decisions in your life nate landman

10:42Derrik Klassen: did three things in this game where you were like holy shit nate landman like good play dude and then the rest of the night you were like nate landman should not be chasing josh allen around this is bad well that's we have not mentioned his name yet what josh allen did in this game

10:56Robert Mays: what a bizarre game from the bills offense overall the idea that they scored 37 points and won this game i haven't looked at the actual team-wide numbers on it i'll pull them up right now the bills that's always a great place to start so the bills had a 51 success rate overall in offense they had a 65 and a half percent drop back success rate while throwing the ball i mean no bills pass catcher had more than four targets in this game the only one receiver got more than two total targets only one wide receiver in this game had more than one catch for the bills and that was khalil shakir yeah and he did all his work in overtime and he still had a the bills had a 65 and a half percent drop back success rate because the quarterback rushed for 120 yards almost entirely on scrambles because the Rams had absolutely no answer for it.

11:57Derrik Klassen: Middle of that thing did not look very good. Not not in crunch time. And yeah, it's actually it's worth saying. So DJ Moore got ruled inactive ahead of this thing. Khalil Shakir had the big catch and run in overtime, but for the most part was not a big part of this game plan. I mean, you're God bless my guy. You're getting meaningful snaps from Skylar Bell, which when you're playing the Rams on Monday Night Football, maybe he wasn't quite ready for that stage. And Josh Allen just made it work. This is a fantastic performance from him.

12:29Robert Mays: Combination of, if you look at all the scrambles, it's a little bit of everything. There are some plays where there's just no one in the middle of the field. There are some plays where Nate Landman has absolutely no shot. But no matter what the issue, the Rams had no answer any time he wanted to take off. Absolutely none.

12:43Derrik Klassen: throw in i mean to say it specifically ty johnson and ray davis accounted for half of his passing production and it was a similar story where once those guys got space past the line of scrimmage there was nobody there to deal with them over the middle of the field even the one i think it was

13:00Robert Mays: the one of the ty johnson big completion the first one that he had in the game the first big reception on the left sideline that is another play that is created by josh allen extending because Cam Curl was on Ty Johnson in-man coverage on that play, and he has to account for Josh Allen as a runner, and he just pops it over him. Overall, even though it was a funny game, I mean, the fact that Ty Johnson led the Bills, and he had four catches. Other than Khalil Shakir, no one else had more than one. And until that Khalil Shakir big, long reception, Ty Johnson and Ray Davis were the leading receivers on the Buffalo Bills in this game.

13:32Robert Mays: It's just a very strange game overall, but there were elements of the game plan that I actually really liked. and the Rams, the Bills, I think the Bills did a really good job of using some of the Rams' tendencies against them in this game. So the Rams pretty often will match personnel to down in distance. And at one point in this game, on James Cook's first 16 carries, nine of them had come out of 11 personnel. At that moment, the Bills had played 21 snaps and 11 personnel. The Rams had matched with dime on all 21 of those snaps. And so the Bills knew if we put three receivers on the field, they're going to match with Dime and we can gash them on the ground.

14:14Robert Mays: They were doing that because they were dealing with light bodies. But Joe Brady did, I think, a phenomenal job. All the motions they were using to bleed out one more player, in addition to already playing against those Dime looks, they were just absolutely gashing them. 90 % light boxes on those nine runs, four runs of 10 plus yards, 7.9 yards per carry, 77 % of the yards on those plays came before contact.

14:38Derrik Klassen: I charted this like before the game was over. And, you know, the live stats take some time to catch up. Like you have to chart that stuff before it goes in. But I looked this up, I think like right around the time we went to overtime. So like late fourth quarter, the Bills had 11 rushes for 94 yards against dime personnel. And it went up over the last like stanza of this game. And I thought James Cook's touchdown toward the end of regulation was such a great example of it. Because I think it was either Kitchens or Curl. One of the safeties came in to, like, fill.

15:14Robert Mays: Curl played more snaps in the box today than he had at any point of the season so far. He was down there a lot. And Quint Lake has mostly been playing a lot of deep safety after being in the slot in week one. I assume it was Curl, is what I'm saying.

15:26Derrik Klassen: And you see that when Cook gets past the line down near the goal line and curls the one trying to fill. And dime is cool, but you can get out-physicaled real quickly, especially when you're playing a team like the Bills. And it felt like that was the case time after time in this game. I mean, how many runs did James Cook have? Not only explosive runs, but he must have had four or five carries in this game where he was like past the second level before anybody even got a hat to him. because the Bills were just moving people out of the way.

15:59Robert Mays: I'm just, the state of the Rams defense in this game, I think there are elements of it that do make sense, right? If you're going to, this is the most tailored for the Rams game plan I can remember from an opposing offense since all of the Shanahan ones. Like everything he does against this team is, it's the old Steven Ruiz microscope meme from like eight years ago where he just has Nate Lambin in his sights every single game. But other than Shanahan, I think this is the most, we have a bespoke game plan for how we're going to attack this team, considering their weaknesses. We're going to throw the ball to the running backs.

16:31Robert Mays: I don't think the scrambling was maybe an explicit part of what they were doing, but it applies. And we have a plan for how we're going to run the ball. That makes, that all makes sense. The part of this said to me was most surprising and the bills offensive line is good. I know Spencer Brown got hurt in this game. Three quick pressures in this entire game for the Rams defensive front three, even without Miles Garrett we're still talking about a group that has Byron Young, Kobe Turner, Braden Fisk, Aaron Donald, Josiah Stewart and it just didn't happen they just were not affecting the game and so that to me all the other stuff even if it's disheartening if you're a Rams fan the way that this game went and the way that the Bills were able to hammer you you can probably predict some of it based on how the Rams are built that part of it if they're not going to be able to affect the quarterback as they're built it's a non-starter like that to me was the most surprising and I guess because it was so surprising maybe not so concerning but that's something where that needs to change like if that front is not controlling games then what is the entire point of the way the Rams have built this roster that I mean it's a very valid point and I'm

17:38Derrik Klassen: sure the Rams answer is to hope like hell Miles Garrett's return is right around the corner but I can't believe that to your point it does it shouldn't it shouldn't need to it shouldn't need to. And I know that, I mean, the Bills offensive line has been tremendous, but I mean, it was last, last week we were worried about Deion Dawkins. Like last week, the Bills offensive line looked very gettable. And that was not the case in this game.

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19:16Derrik Klassen: Maybe let's go pick up some cards and see if I can kind of create my own Hall of Fame with guys like that. So thanks to whatnot, I was able to go find some Luke Kuechly cards, some really good ones. And obviously he's been, again, like I said, a player that I've held in high esteem for a long time. So whether it's rookie cards, whether it's cards later in his career when he's got a million accolades and defensive player of the years and all pros racked up, it didn't really matter to me. I was able to find all of the stuff I wanted in that realm. The best thing about doing this on whatnot is that I can see it before I buy it.

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22:09Robert Mays: anything else like what what what jumps out to you in terms of other stuff you want to hit from

22:14Derrik Klassen: this thing i mean i already i i think in in both on both sides of this other than james cook james cook needs to take care of the football i think that's not new i think that this these were his third and fourth fumbles, and one of them could have cost the Bills this game. Outside of those two very big miscues, though, just the running backs in this game were tremendous. Like James Cook ran well and ran hard other than the fumbles. We already mentioned what Ty Johnson and Ray Davis did. Kyron Williams and Blake Corum were awesome. The Kyron Williams catch on third down in the dying seconds. He picked up third and seven, got them to the goal line, and then they decided not to use a timeout and took it in from there.

22:57Derrik Klassen: I thought that was a tremendous catch. Kyron Williams drew a DPI on Davis Enigma Nosen in the red zone earlier in the game. Blake Corum, the gear Blake Corum showed on the 34-yard catch and run. I'll be honest, I don't think I knew he had that in him.

23:12Robert Mays: That's the selling point, is that he's got a little bit more giddy-up than Kyron Williams does,

23:17Derrik Klassen: even though Kyron Williams has been tremendous this year. I'm not saying I thought he was slow, but that was just an eye-popping amount of burst from Blake Corum. And yeah, both of them I thought were awesome. Tyler Higby. Tyler Higby had a really cool sequence in this game where he screwed it up for the Rams. He had a false start on fourth and one while they were driving to score. Immediately, he caught the curl on fourth and six to pick that up because they decided to go for it anyway. I think he had another catch right after that. And then it was a Kyron Williams run where he inserted and blew up the linebacker and got Kyron Williams into the end zone.

23:54Derrik Klassen: And I was like, even with the flag, this was just a really fun sequence where Tyler Higby was doing a little bit of everything for the Rams.

24:01Robert Mays: They were those two Higby catches, those two big chunk plays to Higby in the second half. There wasn't as much of that in the first half as you'd want to see against the Bills defense. And the Rams offense overall this year has just been less explosive than they were last year. coming into this game and even maybe through the first half of this game i was looking up the numbers in real time they were like 16th in explosive pass rate the the construction of the passing game overall and part of that might be puka hasn't been playing but even in the first half of this game i mean on puka's like first 10 catches he had 72 yards a lot of it was underneath and that has been a bigger part of the rams passing game overall this season than it was last year.

24:41Robert Mays: So in this game, Matthew Stafford threw 20.4 % of his passes to players coming out of the backfield. He was 8 of 11 on those snaps. On the season, before this game happened, 17.8 % of Stafford's pass attempts have gone to players coming out of the backfield. Last year, it was 11.2%. That, among like the 75 quarterback seasons over the last two years, is the sixth lowest rate of any player. That 17.8 from this year, very tellingly, is wedged between 2026 Joe Burrow and 2025 Joe Burrow. And so that has been, the Rams offense has felt more like what you might expect from the Bengals offense in terms of the areas of the field that they're attacking this year compared to last year.

25:29Robert Mays: It's not totally analogous because a lot of the Rams underneath completions come off play action. Like their play action game is a lot of spitting the ball to the flat and creating easy completions off of that, where obviously the Bills are operating or the Bengals are operating more out of the gun. But I have taken notice that we're getting the backs more involved and we're living underneath as the Rams offense more than we have in previous years.

25:52Derrik Klassen: Two thoughts. I mean, it's Puka's third game. And so I. But even a lot of his targets in the first half, they were taking stuff away over the top. I mean, I'm let's see how it ages. And then the other part, which this is something they're going to have to cope with terrence ferguson is on ir and so like that is an explosive downfield part of this they said on the broadcast that sean mcveigh wants to up to to atwell's snap count even if it's just even that's probably more as like the top taker offer read it but still um sprints not having terrence ferguson and i just i we'll see what puka brings to this thing over a larger sample size like i think it's probably fine and even with all my bitching about the special teams my overarching opinion of this is like everybody's probably fine we we were hopeful that this was going to be a banger and it was i'll be i'll be it pretty sloppy that's worth mentioning too like what was it like 23 flags in this game or something i'm just so tired of this shit man

26:51Robert Mays: it's i'm just so tired of this like why who who's asking for this like who's asking to see 20 flags a game 24 excuse me i shorted them one and coming into the week i was curious when we see this a lot where, and maybe this is the distinction, we see this a lot in the NFL where you'll have defined points of emphasis coming into the year. Shit gets called ad nauseum over the first month. The league is like, eh, we probably overdid that. Let's pull it back a little bit. There were more accepted penalties in the first four weeks of this NFL season than in any single year since 1978 when they started tracking flags.

27:27Robert Mays: Who wants that? Like, who wants to come into an NFL game and see 20 flags thrown and 200 yards of penalties? Like, what is the benefit of that? There is none. And so I have no idea why it's been such a flag-heavy start to the year. There are certain things the league will put its thumb on the scale and it's in service of points, entertainment, just making the game a better entertainment product. But why throw 25 flags a game? Like, it hurts the rhythm of things. It hurts offense. It hurts everything that I think you should be caring about if you're the NFL. well. I would just tell these guys to chill because it's been a real negative to the watching

28:07Derrik Klassen: experience over the first five weeks of the season. My generous interpretation, not that I believe this, but hopefully it's like you're overcorrecting and like sort of trying to like teach teams what you're looking for. And so like over time, A, you aren't as strict about it. And And B, you condition teams to like be on the screws. And so if it looks better in November because of it, maybe that's OK. I want to say again, no, it's bad. And you shouldn't be setting records that have stood since the late 70s. That's ridiculous.

28:41Robert Mays: I just why is the league better if offensive players are more aware of whether they're getting holding flags and why? I don't know. This is like a hobby horse of mine from the last in the first month. It was just like, why are we doing this? I just don't understand.

28:55Derrik Klassen: But to go back to the larger point, we hope this would be a banger. And it was. And both teams, even with their warts, looked good and fun. And if you had like if I had to say right now, like I bet these teams will be playing. They'll definitely be playing on divisional weekend, if not conference championship weekend. And so I'm not going to react to a lot other than that. Sean McVay has got to do something about the special teams. That's my only like firm take from this whole thing. I expect the Rams defense will look better. When they're not playing Josh Allen.

29:28Robert Mays: Yeah, when they're not playing arguably the best football player in the world. The Bills defense. That is probably the unit among these four. Well, there are six units involved in this game. I have to keep reminding myself of that. That's right. Among the six units involved in this game, they are probably second highest. If we're stacking them up in terms of concern level, I'd probably put that unit at number two. Right now, based on what we have seen so far. Of course. And not still early with a new coordinator, but I'm like, I might poke, I do something.

30:01Derrik Klassen: They played the at full strength Rams. Like this was the first week where it's really looked like, oh yeah, that guy won MVP. And that guy could have been offensive player of the year. And that guy used to be the best receiver in the world. And he's still pretty damn good. I don't know. Am I, am I supposed to panic because the Rams looked like the Rams? I mean, I don't think the Bills' defense is good, but I came into this thinking the winner needed north of 31 points, probably.

30:30Robert Mays: They played the Patriots last week. They played a Chargers team that's imploding, and they played the Lions, and then they played the Texans. Well, the Texans' running game hasn't been good this year. The Texans' passing game has been good this year. And so you've played—in your five games so far, you've played four pretty good offenses in terms of throwing the football.

30:46Derrik Klassen: And you're a new coordinator, got some young players on the back end. I mean, like Igbenosan is getting baptized by fire.

30:54Robert Mays: The idea that Maxwell Harrison is just now has been pushed to the side and Igbenosan is now the guy. I mean, we're trying to figure out why they were willing to draft him. The idea of, oh, we just wanted to protect ourselves from injuries was, I think, the company line as to why that was happening. Or we're worried about what type of player Maxwell Harrison is.

31:12Derrik Klassen: On top of that, we hear over and over again how the first month of any season at this point is like basically preseason. That's why I'm not overly worried about it.

31:21Robert Mays: You got to, you're, you're at four and one.

31:23Derrik Klassen: Yeah. You're at four and one. And you had a chance to even win the Patriots game. And Josh Allen kind of lost his mind there, which by the way, that's one more thing. There's two, there's two more things I want to hit. We can hit that. Okay. That's not an arm punt. Let's, let me just say that it can't be an arm punt. If you give the other team that still has two timeouts, miraculously, by the way, Sean McVay was not burning his timeouts. He had all three at the end of the game. He was not burning his timeouts in this game. It can't be an arm punt if you put the other team in position to get points, which he did by throwing it to them at the minus 43 with 40 seconds.

32:00Derrik Klassen: Or I think it went down to 20. So Jalen Watson really bailed Josh Allen out by trying to score a touchdown instead of just getting the ball back to the offense. And then the Rams incurred a false start immediately and it all wound up being OK. But you absolutely set the Rams up to to at least get a field goal at the end of the half. lol because like maybe we're asking the rams to like drive and kick a 50 yard field maybe that was it maybe that was the thought process the rams can't do this i've done the math there's no way

32:30Robert Mays: they can get into field goal range with the resources and time they have left i might as

32:34Derrik Klassen: well just let this shit go i don't think that's a justifiable decision by josh allen and and i even looked it up their punter has longs of 59 and 63 so people want to say like oh it's it's virtually the same distance as a punt not necessarily not if your guy kicks the shit out of the ball

32:50Robert Mays: There are worse decisions to make situationally with when you are going to throw an interception, but it is still not a good decision.

32:56Derrik Klassen: It's not the worst interception Josh Allen has ever thrown, but I'm not just going to hand wave it off like arm punt. No, if the Rams had not lost their minds, they could have they could have scored points there.

33:08Robert Mays: The other decision making thing that I wanted to talk about just very briefly, the end of game clock management from McVay and the way they decided to handle that situation. situation i was not a fan of it because by ticking it down like that even if you're in a spot where you're giving them no time after you scored the game tying touchdown you have one shot at the end zone if that run gets stuffed if you had called timeout earlier you can still play with the clock a little bit and then even if you didn't call timeout spike the ball you can only give yourself three downs but the idea of if this run does not if we don't score on this play we have one play to score a touchdown to tie the game not a fan of that they think there's a different way to approach

33:52Derrik Klassen: that situation i liked it because the idea of like do or die and we don't have any timeouts scares the shit out of me because even like as good as matthew stafford is maybe in that moment jim leonard has the call of his life and maybe you get an unblocked pressure maybe whatever and all of a sudden well then maybe just if you're a shit creep without a timeout you can still

34:15Robert Mays: dirt the ball and have second down with 18 seconds left in a timeout if you wanted to.

34:20Derrik Klassen: I suppose I just think there are they did. I mean, it got really low before they finally snapped it to Kyron.

34:26Robert Mays: You were guaranteeing that the next play was going to be the last play of regulation and you would have one chance to score a touchdown if you did not on that play. I don't like that.

34:34Derrik Klassen: I like having the timeout in my back pocket, but that needed to be faster. I will. I'll meet you there because and like Stafford, like he had to go up and adjust the line and like it It took a long time to finally get to the point where they were ready to run that play. But I do, I like having a timeout in my back pocket. Even if burning it means you're going to have four seconds left to run a play when it's all over. I mean, I see your point. Hindsight, but do you just go for two there? No. Not. There are, not like in the NFL. like you know i've watched a lot of college football like in college it makes so much sense where there can be such decided talent advantages where it's like they got 10 nfl guys and you don't like end the game on your terms but like in and and maybe maybe there are nfl games where you

35:29Robert Mays: might do that if you're a supreme underdog yeah yeah i can i can understand do that with the

35:34Derrik Klassen: variance jalen daniels making his third start for the bucks you know but this is mvp versus mvp Super Bowl favorites like I just I feel like both of these teams should feel like they want to play it out on in an extra period with like an even field and not have to resort to weird math shit to get this thing done I'd like no when you've got I when you have Matt Stafford or Josh Allen it's like no man let's go to overtime and our MVP is going to win us this game before we get out of

36:04Robert Mays: here do you want to take the Rams off the table absolutely not let's cut it down to five teams I You have a three-team table in week six?

36:11Derrik Klassen: I just want Sean McVay to care about special teams.

36:13Robert Mays: Oh, I think it's too late now, buddy. I think this is going to have to be an off-season thing. He said he—it was an off-season thing this year! He said it like 100 times this year. I mean, more than just hiring a new coordinator and pretending that you care about it.

36:26Derrik Klassen: Sean, you need like five dedicated special teams players. I know that that just made you throw up in your mouth, but the truth hurts.

36:34Robert Mays: It's hard to do that when you need to carry seven tight ends. and 18 defensive backs because they were put i mean the i can't remember which play it was uh it was a josiah stewart sack on the bills first drive the rams were in dime and cam curl was the only like linebacker type out there they had five other like true dbs plus cam curl and then they

36:57Derrik Klassen: had five defensive linemen if you want to play like that joe brady saw that and said bet we're just gonna run it through the a gap for the rest of the night they learned their lesson over the

37:05Robert Mays: rest of the game, unfortunately for the Rams. All right. That is all we've got for tonight. That was really fun. That lived up to the hype. I thought you meant the show itself. I mean, the show was fun too, but like the game. I'm glad you're enjoying doing the podcast.

37:20Derrik Klassen: That was a, like, that was a really fun game. I'm, it's, it's fun when something like that lives up to the billing. Good job. Way to go Rams and Bills. Congratulations guys.

37:32Robert Mays: All right. That's all we got for tonight. If you have not checked out the week five recap, that is available on your YouTube channel, in your podcast feed. If you are watching this on YouTube, especially if you are new to the channel, please like, subscribe, do all that great stuff. I need to be way better about saying that. Katie's mad at me all the time. Please like, subscribe, do all that fun stuff. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment, and leave a rating.

38:05Robert Mays: We'll see you next time.

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From the publisher

There are a few things we knew before the season even started: Josh Allen is good at football, Monday Night Football games are best when they feature good teams, and the Los Angeles Rams have a special teams problem. All those familiar themes were on display tonight. Robert Mays and Dave Helman recap Puka Nacua's big night, James Cook's gaffes, and everything else from the Buffalo Bills overtime win.


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Host: Robert Mays

Co-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman

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