The Week 1 Hangover: Giants-Commanders, Cardinals-Saints, and your sad voicemails

0:03Robert Mays: Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. It is the first edition of our weekly hangover show recording this on Mondays going into your guys's feed on Tuesdays. We've done a version of this show in the athletic football show feed over the in the past and I really wanted to bring it back. I think it's just a great way to do a deep dive on a few games that we could not hit on the Sunday recap and over the course of the year, I think it just allows you to be watching more of these teams. Today, we only talked about two games just because I think we're still sorting through some of the scheduling stuff and the timing that this season is going to look like, especially being in the studio.

0:38Robert Mays: So we dove deep on Washington and the Giants and the Cardinals and Saints today. Really enjoyed both of those conversations with Derek Klassen, who's going to be joining me for these shows throughout the season. The other thing we're including on this show is, mentioned it on social media last night in our Discord channel, which if you guys have not joined that, highly encourage you to do it. I've been posting links to it on social media. Believe that should still be active. But we're going to be taking your voicemails every single Sunday night in the throes of whatever you guys happen to be going through post your team's game that week.

1:12Robert Mays: And the hope is we want to just help you work through it. Whatever you're dealing with in a given week, we're going to talk through this. I'm an NFL fan. I know what it's like to be in that spot. We're recording this at 325 on Monday. I'm about to be at the Bears game in less than four hours. And so there's a chance I just leave us a voicemail on the way home from that game. And I'm the one that we play next Sunday or next Monday. But I know what it's like to be in that spot. And so I want to do everything I can to just help you guys out a little bit. So that's what we're going to be doing every single week on this hangover show.

1:47Robert Mays: In addition to the couple games that we're going to recap. So really looking forward to it. Really enjoyed this one. Hope you guys do as well. Let's get to it with Derek Klassen right now.

2:00Robert Mays: A couple of years ago, we were doing a show that I really enjoyed doing. And it was something we called the Monday Hangover on the athletic football show. And it was essentially just a second reaction show that we did Mondays into Tuesdays, hit a few games that we could not get to on Sunday because we were very open about this. I'm not going to talk about all the games on Sunday night. And as we've moved back to a five day a week schedule, I wanted to do this again because I feel like it's a great way to talk about more games. And by the end of last season, I just kind of came to a realization where I was like, I didn't rewatch enough games based on how the schedule was going.

2:34Robert Mays: And so I am very excited, Derek, to relaunch what we're just calling the weekly hangover because I'm terrible at naming stuff and don't want to come up for a new name for this. I'm excited for it because the way that this is going to work is it's again, it's going to be a lot of the games we didn't talk about as much on Sunday, but that's kind of perfect because usually those like handful of two or three games left over still have some weird thing that I want to go back and watch. In this case, we get a lot of Spencer Rattler, which I was extremely excited to be able to dig into like 12 hours immediately after Sunday wrapped up.

3:03So I'm pretty excited for all this.

3:05Robert Mays: We're going to hit two games today. Plus, we're going to get to your voicemails. That's the other thing that we're incorporating into this show. just doing a little bit of a therapy session every Monday into Tuesday for some people who might have had a tough Sunday night. The voicemails did not disappoint. Sincerely appreciate everyone who took the time to call in and be sad in the process. We've got some really good ones. Hopefully we can help some of you just work through your feelings after maybe a complicated week one. One other note about this show compared to all the other ones that we're going to be doing over the course of the season to Tuesday, we're going to recap two games today, not three.

3:39Robert Mays: New schedule for everybody. Just trying to get the rhythms of it down. We were all up to about 1am last night and so we're just trying to figure out how this is all going to go with the new studio and the timing of being in here. So two games today. We're going to talk about the Commanders and the Giants. We're going to talk about the Cardinals and the Saints which we did not hit last night. But moving forward the plan is for us to do three games on this show with a couple of your voicemails. So just something to keep in mind as we move through this one. It's not going to be quite the same as the other ones as we get a little bit deeper into the season.

4:07Robert Mays: So let's start with Commanders Giants with each of these games. I just want to begin with some high level thoughts like what happened as you think about this game? What's the first thing that comes to mind? So as you went back and watched Giants Commanders this morning at 21 to 6 Commanders win, your first reaction when rewatching this game was what? I think the pessimist in me immediately was like, it does not matter who is going to play quarterback for this Giants team. And I know that we're going to talk about some of the limitations that Russ puts on the offense, which we've done for, I mean, at this point for like five years now, since he's kind of left Seattle.

4:40And I think all of that is valid. But when I went back and watched this game, I just felt like whoever would have been the quarterback there would have had no shot. And I know we're already doing the, oh, Brian Dable is not really fully committing to Russell Wilson continuing to start. I think we all know that he wants to start Jackson Dart at some point, but I just watched that game and I just don't see how he would have had a shot. None of the backs really had a shot in this game. Like that was kind of the other, if I want to flip it to more of an optimistic take, the Washington front played really, really well, particularly the D line like J.G.

5:07Martin was good. Javon Kinlaw looked like he was worth the money. Deron Payne had a couple of moments. It was a really like that little trench matchup was 95 percent favored for Washington throughout the entire day.

5:20Robert Mays: And I want to dig into what that may mean. But starting with the Giants. So I was looking up the numbers when you were talking last year, the Giants finished the season with like a thirty seven point five percent offensive success rate per true. that ranked 30th in the NFL. Yesterday, they were at 34.8%, which ranked 29th out of the 30 teams that have played so far. The only team they were ahead of was the Titans. The entire offseason, I think the line that the Giants were trying to sell you based on the moves that they made, and you and I talked about this at length, the show that we did about the stories the teams were trying to tell themselves, the Giants, based on everything they did this offseason, the story they were trying to tell themselves was this was a Daniel Jones problem.

5:58Robert Mays: That was our issue. as long as we swap out the quarterback and really do nothing else in terms of adding pieces to the offense we're gonna be okay with this thing moving forward and with this group moving forward so our first game and watching this group with that construction with just a new quarterback in there they're worse on a down-to-down basis than they were last year and the quarterback that every single member of that fan base has kicked as he walked out the door over the last six months that team finished number one in the NFL in offensive success rate yesterday as Daniel Jones and the Colts absolutely beat down the Dolphins.

6:34Robert Mays: It's a long season. That is not the first thing you want to see if you were a Giants fan having spent your entire offseason trying to talk yourself into why this was going to feel different. No, absolutely not. And like, that's kind of why this is very frustrating. They all said that this was going to be a quarterback problem. And again, if you still want to make the case that Russell Wilson is better than Daniel Jones, I think that's a fine one to make like one week of him of Daniel Jones playing well for the Colts is not necessarily going to sway me off that but Russ comes with all of his limitations but to me it was again a lot of stuff that didn't even have to do with the quarterback which goes to your point like this was not just a quarterback problem like when I watched this New York offensive line every time they needed to get like a cutoff block like if they're running zone to the right and left tackles got to go you know reach the three tech or something never got there like whether the tight end had to do it on an end they were never getting to their spot and part of that is maybe poor coaching.

7:22They're not timing up stuff well, not taking the right angles. I thought they were really, really bad with a lot of that. Like Washington was just getting a lot of penetration from kind of the backside cutoffs part of runs, which I think was a big thing. And then there was one play in the middle of the second quarter that really irritated me from like a coaching perspective. They had Theo Johnson, the tight end, who was lined up on the right side in line, and he motions over to the left, like towards the left tackle. And they're trying to get it to where he's like kind of shuffle motioning out.

7:49And then he's going to be able to chip the left end and be able to go and get into his check down. But Russ snaps it like while he's still right behind the left tackle and the left tackle just pass sets into him and everything gets disrupted. Left tackle is thrown out and then left tackle loses through the inside shoulder. Russ has to check down immediately. Like just those little things. It goes back to what you were saying of like it wasn't just a quarterback problem, even if the quarterback is still admittedly a problem.

8:12Robert Mays: The number one deficiency, I would say, when you go back and rewatch that game. And this is another thing when we've tried to frame the Giants coming into this season. the offensive line is not what it was in like 2023 when this was one of the worst groups truly like ever seen on the NFL field some of that was injuries some of it was the way that they constructed the group they go out following offseason they bring back they go get Greg Redroton they go get Jermaine Illuminor they sign John Runyon in free agency and the line looks demonstrably better especially when Andrew Thomas is healthy than it did when it was at its lowest point.

8:44Robert Mays: Even though it's not a disaster anymore, though, that doesn't mean it's a good group. And when you go back and you watch that yesterday, I know Andrew Thomas didn't play, but all across the front, Washington was consistently winning those matchups, no matter what it ended up looking like. Was it Greg Van Roten against Javon Kinlaw? Was it Jacob Martin against whatever tight end that you were putting him on? Was it Daron Payne against whoever he happened to be lining up over over the course of this game. Dietrich Wise, every single guy, Dorrance Armstrong, every single member of that Washington front was better than the guy across from him with the Giants offensive line.

9:24Robert Mays: That's a problem when you're playing against a team that has a deep group, solid, and we'll talk about what the proof is in the pudding with how that group played, but this is not a star-studded unit. This is a solid, if anything, unit. and to get vastly outplayed over the course of the game by that group, what is it going to look against when you're having to play against defensive lines that have like actual ace players on it? Yeah, like this was not like Houston did this to you. This was, you know, we were talking a little bit earlier before the show. They don't have any nines or tens on this defensive line.

9:55They have a lot of like sixes, a lot of sixes and a half. And like if you got to play this guy 30 snaps a game, that's pretty good. But they have just like 10 of those guys. And again, all 10 of those guys were a lot better than their Giants counterparts. And I think that was a big issue. And like, to me, it didn't really end up mattering in this game. But like, I did not think Washington's linebackers played very well in the run game. I thought they were kind of like fitting a little bit late. They were not taking on blocks the way that they were supposed to. But the front was so good. It literally didn't matter.

10:19And like when you have a game like that where the linebackers, I think, are a little bit all over the place, but the front is dominating you so much that none of that matters. That's a pretty damn bad spot to be as an offensive line.

10:30Robert Mays: There was a play that I think is very illustrative of what we're talking about here. just overall, like the deficiencies and kind of the limitations of the Giants offense with Russell Wilson. It was a third and 10 on their second drive of the second half. Okay. And there was some initial pressure, but it was cleared out. Like I think it was maybe coming from the right side and Van Roten maybe managed to clear it out. So it was not a clean pocket, but it was still a pocket where Russ could have moved if he wanted to. There was a high low coming on the backside and it was coming open. But instead of sliding up in the pocket and reading out the play on time as it's happening, Russ immediately dumps it to Theo Johnson 12 yards short of the sticks and the Giants are punting.

11:12Robert Mays: Third and 10 is a hard down to pick up anyway, but to me, that's a very good example of like when Russell Wilson is your quarterback, you're probably not going to get to the third or fourth option in the progression. And he's probably not going to have a lot of like clean, efficient pocket movement when things are a little bit dirty in there. And when you have the Giants offensive line, it's going to be a little bit dirty in there. It's not a disaster, but it's still not a great situation. And so I thought that play specifically really spoke to some of the stuff that we're talking about, where this group might run into some issues over the course of the year, as long as Russell Wilson is the quarterback.

11:44And that's been like the running thing with Russ now for forever is like in 2018, he could get away with on third and 10, not having to step up and read it out because he was a good enough athlete still to be able to run around and go make a play and still had to like good enough skill players to be able to go and do that. At this stage in his career, and this has been true probably towards the last year of Seattle, but certainly once he got to Denver, he's not done a lot of that. So now his answer is like, I'm just not even going to run around as much. I'm just going to end up checking down because he's like not used to be able to step up in the pocket and make those throws.

12:12So now his answer is just check down. And that's just not it's not it's not a good way to live as an offense. And I think on the next drive is when he threw two slot fades in the course of like three. I remember posting about that on Blue Sky. I was like, oh, Russ is just doing the bit now. Like he's just fully into like, we're just going to chuck it and see if we can hit it.

12:29Robert Mays: So again, I do think that this Washington defense, even if there is not a lot of star level talent, I do think they're well coached. I think they have a lot of really solid pieces. I was really impressed with Mikey saying we're still in this game. Like, I think there's a lot to like there, but it's still a middle of the road defense. And this Giants offense really, really struggled against even that group. Let's talk about this from Washington's perspective, because I don't want to diminish what the individual pieces on the defensive line did. because when they built that group this offseason, I think this was the idea where it's like, even if we don't have a guy that we're going to pay$35,$40 million a year to get us 15 sacks, we think that we go six, seven, eight guys deep and this group collectively can be more than the sum of its parts.

13:13Robert Mays: I think the first example we got of that, they were right. Like it's against the Giants and all caveats necessary there, but the first glimpse we saw from this kind of retooled group with a couple of these new faces, I do think they got exactly what they wanted one week into the season out of that defensive front. Yeah, they did. And like, I think Kinlaw playing the way that he did kind of embodies all of that. Like, totally agree. Some of the other guys, I think we probably could have already expected that, like guys on the roster. Like, I think Deron Payne probably did not have his best year last year, but I think he's still obviously a solid player for them.

13:43And then a lot of the other players, like Dorrance Armstrong has been solid for them for a couple, for a little bit now. Like, so Kinlaw being what he was, especially with how much talk we had of like, did you really need to sign Javon Kinlaw? for that much money in the offseason. I'm still, you know, I don't know if one game again against the Giants really pushes me off of that, but at least I have some degree of proof of concept for him to be able to get into the backfield. He did, I mean, it was like one of the first plays of the game where he was just like jamming the guard onto the backfield and cutting the playoff.

14:07And I was like, oh, if we're going to get that from the start of the game, then I think this Washington front might be good. So I think for a team that has probably sold themselves that this is a Super Bowl contender team, like I'm still not, you know, you've talked about a number of times, like do you have a guy who can get you like six pressures in a playoff game. I'm still not 100 % sure they have that guy yet, but this was like, even given the team that you played, about as good of a start as you could have had.

14:30Robert Mays: I love you mentioning that first play because it was the first play of the game where Javon Kinlaw just blows up Van Roten and it's a TFL. The rest of that series on second and long, Mikey Saner still does a great job. He's actually, if you look at the play, his guy is setting a pick for the slot fade. And instead of worrying about the pick being set, he actually plays over the top of it, which you almost never see in man coverage. It's just great awareness by him. And on third and 11, after those two plays, the Giants are going to give up screen. That was their first possession. And so there's a little - How emblematic of like how this is going to go.

15:05Robert Mays: And that is, again, that's the Giants being having some of the Giants issues, but credit where it's due for like those two guys on the Washington defense specifically playing exactly the way that we want to see them play. Let's get to the Washington offense in this game because I, again, think that there was a lot to like despite them only scoring 21 points. Part of that is the intentional grounding at the end of the half where they easily could have gotten some points they didn't. But some of the things that we really liked about Washington last year when it comes to some of the details of the offense, the pass protection plan.

15:36Robert Mays: I mean, think about how much time and energy people spent this offseason talking about what this Giants pass rush might look like in 2025. You did not feel them in this game. I kind of forgot Abdul Carter was like playing the game for a lot of part of this. He played like half of the snaps and he was moving around a decent amount. He spied a couple times. And so we can talk about whether that's the right plan with Adam Carter. But I think that this was a really good example of the Giants did a bunch of different stuff to try to handle Jaden Daniels. We're spying him a little bit. We're playing a little bit more man coverage.

16:05Robert Mays: And I think Washington had consistent answers over the course of the game, no matter what the Giants defense was trying to do. And that's what you want to see, right? The Giants played a decent amount of man. We discussed this a decent amount this offseason where it's like, hey, if you can play man and keep him in the pocket, this is where the Washington offense struggles a little bit. And I think that they had, in my estimation, two or three good answers against those looks to be able to kind of skirt around that. And that's what I wanted to see from this Washington team. It's like, after you were a half step ahead of every team you played last year, for the most part on the coaching side, can you carry that over into year two?

16:39Robert Mays: And I think we had a lot of moments yesterday where I feel pretty good about the answer so far. I felt like in some ways, this was a lot of the same for me from last year, where in terms of the protection stuff, I thought they, again, did a really good job. Like on their critical downs, like on a lot of their third and eights, third and twelves, whatever it was, it was still a lot of we're double chipping one way or another. And like, again, against the front like this, you probably should be doing that. And then again, when you have a quarterback like Jaden Daniels, where it's okay if guys are not out into the route immediately, because if he wants to hold onto the ball and then end up running, he can obviously do that.

17:10So the way that they keep constructing that, I really do enjoy. And so I think the fact that we saw more of that was honestly pretty nice. I was mostly really encouraged by the way that the run game actually went. They were the second best run game by success rate this week. And first was the Dolphins, which is like cheating because they barely ran the ball. And by the time they were doing some of that, it was like nonsense, like did not matter. But Washington had a 57.7 % offensive rushing success rate. And again, some of that is Daniels. But like the run game itself looked really good. Like they did a lot of interesting stuff.

17:40Obviously, they had a lot of pullers and like Kroski Merritt looked really good. The play to me where like I really got a little bit sold on what the run game could look like. They had a red zone play where I think they were pulling the left tackle on the left guard and Brandon Coleman comes across and he smokes Chauncey Golston. Like Golston should be able to hit the guard, spill this play, like give his guys a chance. None of that. Like he just drives him three yards off the ball and it allows Merritt to just go be able to bounce that playing and get in for a touchdown. And it's like, OK, if you because last year, the run game, even when they were using the backs, it was all smoke and mirrors.

18:14Like it was like, we're just hoping that we have numbers and can beat you. But now if you have maybe a guard who can go around and pull and just take people out, that kind of changes to me what this run game can be. So I think that was really what I wanted to see from this offense on top of the man coverage stuff you mentioned. And to get some of that was extremely encouraging to me.

18:30Robert Mays: I'm really excited for Brandon Coleman at guard over the course of the season. It was his first play, but he just there's so much power. There's so much torque with the way that he plays. I'm excited to see how that goes. The other guy who I thought played pretty well, and it's not surprising. He was a starter for them last year. He obviously knows the offense, but Sam Cosme not playing in this game. I thought Alagretti was really solid. He just did everything that you want him to do. There was a play. It actually, talking about the pass protection specifically, it was an incompletion, but the play where McCorin had Paulson Adibo on the go ball down the left sideline.

19:04Robert Mays: Oh, yeah. That to me was like a really good example of the protection quality for Washington in this game. So they sent a slot blitz, a DB blitz of some kind, and Eckler sorts all the way across the formation to pick it up. And so at the same time that's happening, we get a chip on Burns with either wide receiver or tight end, I can't remember exactly what, to the Tunsil side. And then on the offensive line's right side, you have Dexter Lawrence at defensive tackle, and then you, I believe, have Abdul Carter as the edge on that side. Well, they slide Dexter Lawrence's way, and Elogredi does such a great job on this play where there's four hands on Lawrence, but he still kind of has a little bit of outside help to make sure that Connerly doesn't have to worry about the inside move and when you're a rookie right tackle in your first game and you're playing against Abdul Carter and he was struggling in this game for a lot of it he had a couple moments where it's like yeah and but in that play specifically it's like he can feel that right guard next to him and that really gives you confidence to play that block a certain way and so that just there's a lot of examples like that in this game where it's like you look at the plan and it's just really detailed and really smart in terms of how they're trying to take these guys away and against the Giants front that has a lot of talent I felt like you saw that consistently throughout the game yeah you really did like that was honestly one of the best or better examples like I mean Jaden Daniels had I think he was only pressured in about 24 percent of his dropbacks in this game which was like the fifth lowest in the league or something uh it was definitely one of the lower rates in the league and again that is part of that is is like you don't really want to just tee off on Jaden Daniels because if you do and you miss he's going to be gone but it also is Which happened multiple times.

20:37Which did happen multiple times in this game.

20:39Robert Mays: He will do that. That was the problem, is that no matter what they were doing, it was the wrong thing to do. I think it was the first scramble that he had. Keon Thibodeau goes high side, gets pushed by the quarterback. Jaden Daniels just very calmly steps up, scrambles first down. And so later in the game, they're trying to pull back a little bit. They're trying to spy him a little bit. And then they're leaving way too much time. They're dropping Brian Burns into coverage. Like whatever wrinkles they were trying to use didn't end up working. and it's funny because when you look at the man coverage numbers in this game i was curious because that's what that's the one area it's like what are they going to be in the second act against man coverage jayden finished five of 12 for 77 yards and a touchdown against man coverage on sunday but he had four scrambles for 34 yards and four first downs against man coverage as well he added 5.9 epa on those scrambles over the course of the game so this was another example where no matter what you were trying to do against this team, you ended up being wrong in large part because of the quarterback.

21:34Yeah. Like he just has this ability to, even when you feel like you've got him and they did get him a number of times in this game. I think he took like four or five sacks. But again, a lot of those were like not the late in the downs where he has some chance at it. A couple of those were one, they tried to motion into this. Okay. This was my favorite set. The Giants didn't do a whole lot great on defense, but the one sack I thought was awesome. Washington tries to motion like four by one empty to the right side get Debo Samuel as the number one you can see the Giants corner I forget who it was it might have been Flott he's like jumping ready he's like I know the screen is coming he fires immediately and Jaden Daniels like oh that's I have to abort this and he immediately takes a sack so that was one of the few things I thought I thought the Giants defense did well is to jump on that but like you said like Daniels just has an incredible ability to to make plays like that I will say though as as a passer the accuracy was not there in this game, which I thought was kind of weird.

22:25I thought he was over the middle of the field specifically, just not leading receivers the way that we saw him last year. Like he threw behind guys like five or six times in this game.

22:33Robert Mays: I don't think it was egregious. I think that it led to more contested plays than you want. And I think why that's notable, especially against those man coverage looks is that Washington does not have a lot of like high end outside receiver talent. We know this. And so against man, their answers in this game, other than Jaden scrambling is they were trying to get runaways with the number two or number three receiver from the slot, whether it be Debo, whether it be. Ertz did it one time in verse. So that's what they're trying to do is, okay, we don't have guys that are going to play well against press against man coverage.

23:03Robert Mays: So with the slot backed off a little bit, can we get some runaways all the way across the field where that lack of separation initially is less important? And I think in those moments, you really need to lay the ball out there in order to make the most of those opportunities. And I think he was just a tick off on some of those throws in this game. Yeah, he was. And again, like he's he was better than that last year. So this is not like a big concern. He'll probably be fine. But that was the one area of this game where I was like, that seemed bizarrely like uncharacteristic of him to not be able to be that accurate.

23:33Robert Mays: The other thing I'll mention about the Giants defense, a couple different things. Losing Micah McFadden was like a real thing in this game. Like Micah McFadden going out and getting replaced by Darius Mauso. I hope I'm saying that correctly. You noticed that over the course of this game. And I think some of that was against the run. But a lot of it was him just not getting enough depth and width in the hook in some of those own coverages. Every dig route was open. Every dig route was open. And even like some deep curls. Like they're just, there was a lot of air because of that. And I think that brings me to a point, and obviously that's because of injury, but when we thought about this Giants defense coming into the year, everyone was so transfixed with this notion of Brian Burns, Kayvon Thibodeau, Dexter Lawrence, Abdul Carter.

24:13Robert Mays: And I get all that, but that the defense is an 11 guys on an NFL team. And so over the course of this game, you notice the backup linebacker, you notice Cordell Flott a little bit. When I'm talking about the fact that the first round pick, the Giants took a corner, which is no longer a starter for them from a couple of years ago. and then when they dug a little bit deeper into this depth and some other areas here like I really thought that the snaps where Dane Belton played he struggled against both the run and the pass when he was in some of those dime looks when they dig into some of the defensive line depth like there's still going to be snaps for Rakeem Nunez Roches for DJ Davidson for Elijah Garcia and you just don't feel the depth in this group when they have to start digging into that a little bit and I do think that we're going to notice that over the course of the year, even if the headline players on this defense are guys that you can get excited about.

25:03Yeah. And like for as much as I think, you know, I have also harped on like how good is that formula really for like the Los Angeles Rams, at least the coaching in LA, I feel like pretty good about like the way that things are taught, the way that guys are spacing. It's like, okay, a guy just might not be a good enough athlete to make a tackle here in space, but I trust that he's probably going to be in the right spot. Even guys who are a little bit further down on the depth chart with New York, I feel like I have not, I don't have that level of confidence yet. And I, again, think once you start to see some of the injuries or depth have to start chipping away, you really start to feel that, I think.

25:34Robert Mays: Yeah, I think for both good and bad on either side here, these teams were kind of what we might have expected them to be based on last season. And if you're a Commanders fan, I think that's something to be excited about. If you're a Giants fan, I think that's something to be worried about. Brian Dable came out after the game, even today, said Russell Wilson is going to start next week. The fact that it took one game for him to need to have that vote of confidence and need to tell people that Russ is remaining the starter, I heard a bunch of times this offseason that it's going to be so decent that Jackson Dart isn't even going to have to play for the whole year.

26:08Robert Mays: One week we got of, yeah, Russell is still the starter. We're going to keep rolling with Russ. I've said this many times. This entire situation just gives me Chicago Bears flashbacks from the past two decades. and the last 48 or the last 24 hours of everything about the Giants is doing nothing to push me off of that point. Bad as weak one as you can get. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back with some Saints Cardinals talk.

26:36Hey, hold up. This is your minute. It's your minute in this life on this day. It's your day to play. to play, to make, to move, to move through, to explore. It's your morning to share, your weekend to shape,

26:58Robert Mays: to cook, to soak, to listen, to wait. It's your body to rest, to nourish, to grow. It's your mind, you know. It's your place, your country, your life, to love, to rise, to dream, to change. It's your world as much as anyone's. It's your world to understand. The New York Times. Find out more at nytimes.com slash your world.

27:36Robert Mays: All right, let's dig into Saints Cardinals. It ends up being a 20-13 Cardinals win. Your first thought after going back to rewatch Saints-Cardinals today was what? You might be the wrong person to ask. I swear to God I'm not doing a bit right now. Because I would have wanted to do a bit coming into the game. Spencer Rattler was like, kind of fine. I'm not saying he's good. I'm not saying he's going to ever make a Pro Bowl. I'm not even saying that I'm going to make the case that he's going to like, by the end of the season, I'm predicting he'll be the starter for next year. None of that. but he was legitimately fine and I can make the objective case 15th in success rate this week 19th in EPA per drop back which is not great that's like a perfectly fine mediocre quarterback this is supposed to be the worst offense in the NFL based on every single preseason prediction yes exactly and like this and again he threw 45 times also which that is also my other complaint is that for whatever you think of Spencer Rattler he should not be throwing 45 times a game that's really the bigger issue here but he was like a perfectly okay quarterback for what they were asking him to do and like Jaden Daniels who we just talked about was 18th in success rate and EPA per drop back for example so it's like he was again it's it's one week but like Rattler played fine and I really do think that like his operation of quick game I thought was good he was actually getting the ball out which like that was the biggest complaint with Spencer Rattler is like he's gonna take sacks and he's not gonna get gonna get the ball he got sacked one time on 45 drop backs and had like a 2.6 time to throw he was doing a good job on throws of two and a half seconds or less because I looked this up because I thought the exact same stuff while we were watching the game.

29:02Robert Mays: He was 18 of 24 for 142 yards on those plays, according to NextGen. And I think part of that is because the horizontal stretch they were trying to create in like the short to intermediate area of the field, the Cardinals, for all the fun stuff they do on defense and for all the defensive talent they now have, the second level of the defense having to cover sideline to sideline is not a strength of this team. So trying to attack those areas over and over again, based on what the Cardinals are, I actually think that made a lot of sense from the Saints perspective, and they did it pretty efficiently.

29:32They did. And like, again, Rattler, I think on a lot of those like horizontal stretch stuff, he did a really good job getting the ball and like accuracy wise was not perfect, but like pretty good. Like I thought he was putting the ball on guys where he needed to. There were a couple of tight window throws that like guys couldn't catch, especially at the end, which we'll talk about. But I thought accuracy wise, he was good. And then to me against a team like the Cardinals, they're going to throw a lot of weird stuff at you. And obviously they did. And to me, there was like where I felt the most confidence about what Rattler was able to do.

30:02There was a third and seven in the middle of the third quarter. Arizona's got seven guys on the line of scrimmage. One of the safeties, I think it was Buda Baker, was over the right side B gap for the offense. He bails, he starts to bail out early. And I think Rattler sees that and he goes, OK, might be a void here. Soon as the play snaps, the linebacker who is lined up on the right side A gap, he also pops out and he like goes over a little bit more towards the hash. so Rattler immediately sees all of that and goes oh there's going to be a void like right inside the numbers pins it right on Juwan Johnson in time and it's just like for a guy that we thought that was just this like willy-nilly kind of a backyard player did a lot of that nonsense like the Mahomes stuff in college for him to like look relatively put together with stuff like that I was like okay I would like to see a few more weeks of this but it was a good start for him to be able to

30:46Robert Mays: do some stuff like that it's super early and I understand that when you don't have a guy you You should take multiple dice rolls to try to find that guy. But one of my just like clear takeaways from this game is like, why couldn't we have just done this all year with Spencer Rattler? Seriously. Where you are as a franchise, if you're the Saints, he is more than competent enough to get you through the entire season without embarrassing yourself every single week. And that's really all you needed to do for 2025 before trying to find a actual quarterback prospect in 2026 versus taking one with the 40th overall pick this year.

31:20Robert Mays: You didn't have to do it. Like you didn't have to do it to like try to hand or like try to gesture the idea of being competent this year. I think he's probably good enough to get you there for this season specifically. And what happened yesterday has done nothing to push me off of that idea. That's literally like all I'm trying to say with my Spencer Rattler take is like if we've had seasons where like Gardner Minshew is walking in as a week one starter. Davis Mills. And Davis Mills. He was a starter for multiple years. Yes. And like Jacoby Brissett has like started like 14 games for teams. it's like if those guys can do it like Rattler is at least of that quality there's no reason the Saints shouldn't have at least tried it and again I get when you look back at last year's numbers he was like disgustingly bad but he was like the offensive line was discombobulated he was a terrible situation like the the two best receivers on the team were not playing for a lot of that like it was just we should have given him more grace than like again I'm not saying he's going to be good like he's a perfectly capable quarterback I mean that when they get the ball back with 413 left and they're down 20 to 10 that ripped shot he has to juan johnson and then the only reason that they're forced to kick field goal in that situation is because the backup right tackle gets beat by dante stills for like a ridiculous tfl that was probably the biggest issue i had with the entire game for the saints offense is what was going on at right tackle because flag it was clearly hurt yeah just clearly hurt i mean he's getting beat around the edge multiple different times baron browning roasted him at one point there's a reason he came out of this game but the fact that the right tackle was kind of a black hole all game because your starter was hurt and then you eventually had to take him out I think that was the biggest problem I saw with the Saints offense probably throughout the entire game and that was like that was frustrating for a number of reasons like I thought the rest of the line actually looked like pretty good like I thought the interior looked solid like they abandoned the run game I think a little bit earlier than they should have but there were moments where the run game I thought looked pretty solid for them like they the offensive line at least gave me some hope that they can be competent like again this is not going to be a good offense but the whole point was that people were maybe scared that they were going to be offense 31 this year I think we saw enough in this week that I was like they can be offense like 24 and like do some decent stuff and have some decent games and we also saw this Cardinals offense against the Saints defense for the first time the Saints defense led by Brandon Staley weren't exactly sure what we were going to get out of this and this is a Cardinals offense that has bumped up against the top 10 in every efficiency metric over the last couple of years.

33:37Robert Mays: And they struggled relatively today. They had a worse success rate offensively Arizona did than the Panthers yesterday. Yes. Panthers finished at 38.5%. The Cardinals finished at 38.2%. The design rush success rate for the Cardinals yesterday per next gen was 30.4%. This is a team that was one of the most efficient rushing teams in the NFL over the last several years. And so I think the early returns on the Saints defense is, again, even if this is a group where the biggest names are aging players, they looked more than competent yesterday. I was actually pretty encouraged by what I saw from them over the course of that game.

34:11I really was too. And like, again, that actually, now that you mentioned like the run game success rate, the Cardinals really did not have many good plays in the run game, except for the one Trey Benson run where like Isaac Yottam fits a little bit too far inside for what he needs to be doing as the outside corner there. And like, otherwise they'd played a really, really good game up front. I thought Nathan Shepard, especially early on, was just mauling a lot of the Cardinals interior players. Demario Davis, he's 36 years old, and I swear to God he's a better athlete than every other linebacker in the league.

34:41Robert Mays: Even Cam Jordan both turned back the clock a little bit yesterday. Obviously, the first big Cam Jordan play is a sack where he's unblocked on a boot. But Cam Jordan had a big pressure that almost led to, or excuse me, a tip ball that almost led to an interception. and then there was a run play at some point in the second half where he just comes crashing down in the polar completely caves in that side and it leads to like a one or two yard gain and so he had a handful of plays Demario Davis had a handful of plays I thought Kool-Aid McKinstry actually had some really nice flashes and coverage in this game he gets beat deep to one time on that go ball to Marvin Harrison down the right sideline but other than that I actually thought that he played really well and even that he was he was he was like squeezed him to the sideline that was just like part of the beauty of what Marvin Harrison can do is like his ball skills are phenomenal and his tracking is crazy and he just like slowed up at the right time at the last second and snagged that ball like that to me was more just like really really insane tracking for Marvin Harrison Jr.

35:37But again like otherwise Cooley McKinstry was doing a really good job of plastering guys he got Marvin Harrison Jr. a number of times Michael Wilson he was just not giving anything to on a lot There was one where he just blanked him on like a third down and just shoved him out of bounds.

35:52Robert Mays: He didn't shove him out of bounds, but there is a third down where Michael Wilson gets blanked that we're going to talk about. That play was awesome. So like he did a really good job. And then I think to go back a little bit to mention to Mario Davis, Cam Jordan did a good job of this. Pete Werner even had a really good play. What the Cardinals want to do in the run game still is to be able to pull guys and go and be more. When you're pulling guys, you're trying to be more physical. every time a Saints guy was boxing a puller or meeting him in the hole, whatever it was, the Saints defenders just won.

36:20Like almost every single time they just won. And again, I know some of those Saints guys are just good at that. And that's a defense that's hard to do that against. But the concern with this Cardinals offense was like, do you have the players to be what you want to do on offense? And today it didn't really look like it.

36:34Robert Mays: I know they won the game. It's week one. I think it's just important to keep saying that over and over and over again to remind myself, even if it's not about reminding the people listening. this version of the Cardinals is kind of my worst nightmare, what we saw yesterday. It's not because it's bad, right? They won the football game. You still see the flashes of what they want to be. There's a decent level of talent on both sides of the ball. But the offense being as inconsistent as they were yesterday and just hitting snag after snag because of some of the personnel deficiencies combined with the defense still being very strange with better players, but still having some of the same issues and weaknesses they did last year with lesser talent.

37:19Robert Mays: That was kind of like my biggest fear with this Cardinals team is that we would walk into this year when they were supposed to take this jump and the offense was kind of got to be what it still, what it was before with the same sort of issues. And the defense, even after all of these investments would go from being a middle of the pack group that did some interesting stuff to a slightly better middle of the pack group that was doing all this interesting stuff. And one weekend, that's kind of what we've gotten. And so I really do hope that it changes over time. But my first glimpse at this team is like, oh, this is what I did not want to see this year.

37:53Robert Mays: I did not want to see them look like a nine and eight team on both sides of the ball. And that's kind of what they looked like yesterday. It was. And like, because other than I think moving Marvin Harrison Jr. around and giving him some chances, I thought they did a little bit better of that. The other issues I had were going to be like, can you be physical enough which one did not check that box for me I didn't think and then I think another one was like can you be a little bit more varied personnel wise than you were last year and get more receivers on the field and be useful uh that was not the case they had they be well that's the problem they had a 44 11 personnel rate which is the same as the Ravens I'm sorry you cannot win football games the same way as the Ravens they had a in 13 personnel 23 of their plays and that's like kind of weird because Elijah Higgins is like a little bit of like a hybrid player but like He's not really.

38:35They use him as a fullback.

38:37Robert Mays: They use him as like an H, like move around tight end. He's like a Scoronic, the way that like McVay was trying to use him initially. Yeah, but I think when we say this with some tight ends where it's like, well, they're not really using him like a tight end. It's because they're a glorified slot receiver. That is not the case with Elijah Higgins. He's just small. They're still using him the way that you would use a certain type of tight end. Yeah, that is true. Maybe so just like it's still, you know, more like 12.75 personnel, just the way that he's built. But they do effectively use him that way.

39:04And so that's why it's just, they're a frustrating offense. And you need to make the point, like, who else would it be a receiver? I don't really know. Like, that was kind of the contention is this year. It felt like they needed to add someone to do something and they didn't do that. And so that part of it has frustrated me. And then the other frustration is like, Kyler Murray just has to play the play more. And he just, I know that like he came into this game with an illness. And so maybe that's part of that. And all of that was weird. But like, literally his first big drop back is Marvin Harrison is cutting over the middle of the field on a dig route and he just doesn't want to step up into the pocket and throw it because he doesn't think he can put it over the linebackers and it's just like he had a couple other moments like that in this game there was one where he actually got a free rusher off the left side I think it was Carl Granderson and it wasn't like a blown protection this was just the way that they had it blocked up it was like it's okay we have the free rusher here our answers to throw hot to the speed out Kyler just can't get it over Carl Granderson because Kyler's 5 '10 and Carl Granderson is 6 '5 with 34 inch arms and just like the little stuff like that that again And you watch the offense and it was like, man, this was the problem last year.

40:03Oh, it's a problem again. I did feel that way.

40:06Robert Mays: There was a play with 140 left in the third quarter. That to me is like the best possible expression of my frustrations with this Cardinals team. Marv is lined up as the isolated receiver to the left side. He has a one-on-one where he's running a vertical route on the left sideline. He gets gloved up. I think it was by Kool-Aid McKinstry. Michael Wilson is working from the right side and he's running like an in breaker from a stack on that side. and he gets gloved up by Elante Taylor. The timing of it just does not work. And Kyler, in a pocket, similar to that Russell Wilson play that I was talking about, where it's not super clean, but it's clean enough.

40:40Robert Mays: He gets really skittish and he ends up taking a sack. And so I'm watching this play and I'm like, this is my nightmare. This is like exactly the version of the Cardinals offense that would lead to me to be very frustrated over the course of this year. And some of that is the quarterback. And I think worth giving him a little bit of grace for not feeling 100 % yesterday, for it being week one, all that kind of stuff. But as we've talked about Caleb Williams this offseason, and we've talked about the potential kind of blue-skied path forward for Caleb Williams, Kyler Murray is a name that you've mentioned a couple different times.

41:12Robert Mays: And when you do that, I kind of internally bristle. And that's not because I think that would necessarily be a bad outcome, especially with what we saw from Caleb Williams as a rookie. If he ended up having Kyler Murray's career, I think that's probably like, I mean, that's the best Bears quarterback of my lifetime. Yes, correct. And that's probably like a 66 percentile outcome, right? For like Caleb Williams's career. But I think part of the reason that I just can't bring myself to explore that potential timeline is that watching games like this and knowing what Kyler is capable of, I think that rooting for Kyler Murray would drive me insane.

41:50Robert Mays: Like, I think if I had to watch this every single week, the little dips and the highs and lows and what the best moments look like and then what the worst moments look like, I think it would slowly drive me crazy. And I was reminded of that when we were watching the game today. And I think that's kind of why they brought up that as like a version of Caleb Williams that we might see. I mean, I can see why it would be, and again, they have some of this, I brought it up too, because they have some of the same issues, like Caleb Williams, for as good as I think he can be, some of his issues is sometimes if there's a dig right over the middle, he just like doesn't want to trigger on it the way that he should and again Kyler that's kind of his biggest issue again Kyler will hold the ball and take some sacks but Kyler's a better athlete than Caleb Williams but like it is funny that like when they're having these low games and you're watching it and you're just screaming at your computer like throw the digger out those are just the like it's you that's a quarterback that's really really hard to live with sometimes let's talk about the Cardinals defense a little bit because that was a group that I was fascinated by coming into this season they go out and spend And I don't know, a fortune in overall just team building capital on this group.

42:53Robert Mays: First round pick on Walter Nolan, second round pick on Will Johnson, third round pick on Jordan Burge, Josh Sweat in free agency, Calais Campbell in free agency, Dalvin Tomlinson in free agency. I get just so many resources thrown at this. And I thought they were a solid defense last year. What can they be this year? And I don't really know what to make of like what they were in week one. Like there were obviously some moments that are worth getting excited about. I thought that Will Johnson, he had an interception wiped off the board. And even other than that, you watch that guy play and it's just like, well, that's a different sort of player.

43:25Robert Mays: Like that is a star level talent at corner. So that was great. There were some other areas of the defense though, where I'm like, I don't really know what to make of this. And I'm still a little bit concerned about some of the relative deficiencies and gaps we might see with this group. So when you watch what the Cardinals put on tape yesterday, what were kind of your bigger picture thoughts and takeaways about the defense specifically i mean first of all echo the will johnson thing like he had the the pick that gets taken off the board he had they tried to test him on a go ball down the right sideline in the end zone and he just like was not having any of that he also he's just one of those guys like you just look at the way that he's built in moves and you're like that's a pretty good nfl play exactly right and he absolutely lays out do ave on that screen like the way he's i thought he was gonna leto shepherd him like the way that reggie bush got hit.

44:11I thought that's what we were getting. But that's exactly right.

44:14Robert Mays: This thought when you watch him play, it's just like that guy looks and moves different. And that is my first example. Even like Max Melton, who's a really good athlete. Like you look at Max Melton next to Will Johnson, it's just like different thing. We were talking about a different thing right now with those two players. Yeah. So like that was if we want to be encouraged, that was definitely the highlight for me is that he looked really, really good. And I thought the front looked solid. I didn't think they were great, but I thought like you invested for them to be a little bit better. And I thought but they were not as embarrassing.

44:40And I think along the front specifically didn't have to do as much weird stuff as they have previously.

44:45Robert Mays: But they still, on defense overall, did a lot of weird stuff. So that's my thing. It's my uh-oh moment for the defense was like it felt like at some point in the middle of the second quarter, they were like six DBs every play. Like we're just, we don't want to do any of this other stuff. And it's like, I get that in certain packages that can make sense. The Saints were throwing a lot in this game and had committed to kind of being a really big no huddle, a really big like empty team. And so I get why personnel wise that could have made sense in this game. But I think overall, if that's going to be something that they're going to want to do where they just play that much dime and just are not going to have enough size on the field.

45:19I think teams that can beat you up are going to really, really beat them up. And I'm pretty concerned about what that's going to look like.

45:26Robert Mays: Even when you add bigger, better players on the defensive front, if you're going to be in dime as much as they are, I think you're still going to have issues in even semi-normal down and distance situations. So yesterday, the Cardinals lined up in dime on 46.4 % of their snaps, according to next jet. Just for context, the Vikings led the league last season at 28.8%. So it's just an entirely different thing. And some of that is game script, but I also think some of that is the way they want to play to get their best 11 guys out there. This is a team, I think, in an ideal world. On first and 10, they want to be in those penny fronts with five down linemen, one off ball linebacker in those three safeties.

46:05Robert Mays: I think and then the hope is okay on those plays can we get a second and nine and I think on second and nine if they get a one yard gain with those five man fronts they immediately be like all right it's dime time we're gonna get to 60 beats right now and I I think that even if those are your best 11 guys you might run into some limitations trying to play that way the perfect example to me is in the I believe it was in the third quarter uh the Cardinals had a first the Saints had a first and 15 and the dime linebacker switched over the course of this game sometimes it was Buda Baker sometimes it was number 42 his name I can't remember right now Deidrean Taylor Demerson and then sometimes it was Jalen Thompson so Jalen Thompson has lined up as the dime linebacker on first and 15.

46:54Robert Mays: Well, it's not third and 15. It's first and 15. The offense still has a choice here. And the Saints made a choice on that play. And the choice they made was to pull Talese Fouaga and have him lead up on Jalen Thompson as a linebacker on first down. It did not end well for the Cardinals. And so I do think that even if they have all this DB personnel that is good and intriguing and they can be deployed in interesting ways. I still feel like we kind of saw where the gaps still exist with this team. And it's the fact that when they want to put two linebackers in the field, Akeem Davis Gaither is just not somebody they want to play a lot.

47:33Robert Mays: And I think they're going to run into some issues because of the personnel concerns at that spot specifically. Yeah, I mean, Akeem Davis Gaither was a player that was on this Bengals team who was not a consistent starter and they shift off a bunch of their like that. That to me like kind of says all you need to know about like not wanting that caliber of player on the field. And I think the point of this show is not necessarily to look ahead. But next week they get the Panthers. That is an offensive line and run game that will test you if you try to play this way. And so I feel like we're going to get a decent look at like, can they hold up trying to play this way?

48:02And I'm not sure.

48:04Robert Mays: Week one is always, even the first couple of weeks of the season, is always going to be like a testing ground. And for very few teams is that more true than a staff like the Cardinals defense. Like they want to do a bunch of weird stuff. They're going to be experimenting early in the season. Some of it's going to go well, some of it's not. And I think that we're going to see some extremes from teams like this as they figure out what they can and cannot get away with. But I think the early returns and the early evidence that we have is that there are going to be some issues if they want to continue playing this way specifically.

48:36Robert Mays: The one guy who just like down to down where I was like, that's a little bit disappointing with the way that he played. I really really hope that we don't have like a bad Calais Campbell season I mean it has to happen at some point but it doesn't it doesn't he could just retire at some point and so he he got moved in the run game a couple times yesterday where I was just like I really really hope this doesn't happen I really hope he is going to be better over the course of the year but I'm at least gonna for now tell myself the Saints offensive line just looks good and I'm not gonna make this about Calais The Saints offensive line does have some talent on it.

49:09Robert Mays: So I think overall, the Cardinals, week one, all the stuff that comes with it, quarterback not feeling well, but I think some of the same issues that we had seen over the last couple of years creeping up again, still need them to show me they can overcome some of that stuff. And on the Saints side of it, just a level of overall competence, especially on the defense, where it's like, this is not going to be a team that gets blown out every single week. I think they're going to be consistently competitive in the ways that you want to see, even if it's not a good team by the end of the year. We're going to take one more quick break, and then we're going to come back and talk a couple of you through some of the feelings that you were feeling post-week one.

49:49Robert Mays: We don't have a funny or clever name for this, which we probably should. If you guys have any suggestions, I'm open to them. This is truly, in the last 15 years of doing this, I'm not very good at many things, but the thing I'm worst at is naming the shit about the show, whether it's the show itself or the segments within the show. I think I've come up with like two good names for things since I started doing this. So if you're working, so I mean, you know, what can you say? I mean, this goes back to like, it's one of those things where early in your career, when you're trying to develop skills, if there's somebody, this is how you're true for an NFL team.

50:23Robert Mays: If you are blocked by like a veteran at your position and you don't get the opportunities, then you're just never going to develop those skills. When we were at Grantland, David Jacoby was so good at naming things that he would just name everything and I would never have to think about what things are called. And so I just never figured out like how to do that as part of this job. So if you are somebody who is good at that and you're in the Discord or you're following us on social media, let us know something clever that you want this segment called. Essentially, this is just going to be a little bit of therapy talking you guys through what you're working through in relation to your teams.

50:55Robert Mays: So that's what we're going to do every single week. I'm very excited about this. Essentially, just team fan advice is the thought here. So let's get to our first voicemail from yesterday. Bellar, fire it up. Hi, Maze. It's Shocker. I'm calling you seconds after the Lions just lost that really awful season opener to the Packers. And as awesome as that touchdown from the rookie was, I am now sitting here in a state of fear that the last two and a half years were a dream and that this team is back to being terrible. The O-line looked bad. The defense couldn't get any penetration. Goff looked not like the good version of Goff.

51:39Help me sort through these feelings, Robert Mays, because I am. Oh, boy, this hurts. Anyway, cheers, mate. Bye.

51:47Robert Mays: Speaking of former co-workers of mine, Shocker and I worked together for several years at the Ringer, and I think that what he's feeling right now is probably what a lot of Lions fans are feeling right now. And I saw this posted a couple of times yesterday, but it was like the quote card of what Dan Campbell said after the NFC championship game lost to the Niners, where it's like, there's no guarantee that you will ever be back here. And it's way too early to get that worried about this. But if you're a Lions fan, I can understand watching what happened yesterday and being like, oh man, was our best shot already?

52:20Robert Mays: Has it come and gone? Yeah, I still like Dan Campbell. He still got banked up like eight weeks before I'm like truly panicking about this. He's got enough of that. But this week one, I think the best part of the email is the clear pause after not the good version of Jared Goff. And then there's a pause of like a really sitting with what that means and what we've all seen what that looks like, especially when Jared Goff is a quarterback who, for all the things that he does well, very pressure sensitive. And the thing that we worried about with this Lions team was up the middle of specifically, they might be a little bit more pressure sensitive than usual.

52:54And I think we saw that in this game. And like, if that was your nightmare going in to get it the exact way that you got it in week one was like, I get why you would be a little bit worried about this. I don't have as much good of like, this will be okay. Like I'm, I am a little bit worried as well.

53:08Robert Mays: Yeah. I don't think we should necessarily believe that it's going to be okay. I think the only real answer to this is it's really early and there is so much built up equity with this franchise over the last few years. It wasn't a dream. It all happened. Right. Like the Lions built themselves into this thing. That was very real. And we talked about this coming into the season and it was a point we harped on over and over and over again. When you become one of those mainstay franchises, it becomes a question of whether you can endure the attrition and continue to be successful. But we don't know how to treat that until we see the teams do it.

53:44Robert Mays: And we have not seen the Lions have to do it. And so we were one week into the year. And I think the offense was not nearly as dynamic as it felt under Ben Johnson. I think part of that is because the Packers defense is an underrated group that has a lot of you talk about like this idea of having like a lot of like sixes and sevens collectively with the defensive front. That's what the Packers were before they added Micah Persons. And the upside of a lot of those players, I think, is higher than a team like Washington. Like some of the sevens might be eights like like Edron Cooper, if he takes that stuff, might be really good.

54:16like Evan Williams being healthy and playing the way that he played. It's like, these guys might be good.

54:19Robert Mays: One of the guys, and again, I'm biased here because he went to my high school and I'm really hoping that he ends up panning out in a good way. I thought that the way that the Packers use Lucas van nest yesterday was actually very smart when it's like, okay, maybe he's not the most refined pass rusher with all these tools in his bag, but he is a big, really good athlete. So them using him in like a four point stance, like over tight ends in the run game, them dropping him a little bit, Like just allowing him to be a big explosive athlete, I think was actually a really good deployment of him. And so that is, I don't know if it's a unique challenge, but it's a substantial challenge going on the road and playing against a Packers defense that is layered, diverse, hard to play against and does have a certain amount of talent.

55:02Robert Mays: So I'm not freaking out yet, but I think this is the, like what you would be worried about as Alliance fans coming into the season. It's like, even if we have a lot of talent still on this roster, the offensive and defensive line are not as talented as they have been over the last couple of years. And we had guys that justifiably were given head coaching opportunities as some of the best coordinators in the NFL that are no longer in those jobs. And that's what the Lions felt like yesterday. And like with the, I think I am more honestly concerned about the offense one, because the interior, like it's just a lot of young pieces.

55:36I think that could always be an issue. And for me, like we've seen John Morton call plays before, like he's done this. He has some level of experience, not with this quarterback not with this team all that stuff but he's at least done it before so the fact that they looked so discombobulated was a little bit concerning to me the defense I'm willing to give a little bit more credence just because one Kelvin Shepard has never called plays before I think that that's really tough and then two like you can count on one hand how many play callers you'd rather have than Matt LaFleur or at least I can and for like Jordan Love was more incredible

56:05Robert Mays: like challenge yeah like for week one that is a unique challenge yeah that is just like brutal You're going to be on your shit against somebody like that. And especially when Jordan Love is going to just like throw it over your head the way that he was in this game. Like that one, the defense, I'll give a little bit more time. The offense, I had a little bit more of like earnest concern about. The one layer of the Lions defense where it's just like, I don't know about that, is I don't think I need to see Aide Hutchison in coverage on like key passing situations. Like that's one where like I think we're galaxy bringing things a little bit.

56:34Robert Mays: And I do, coming into the year, we talked about this when we were proving the Lions. I think that they did want to add some layers of complexity, disguise, just making the defense a little bit harder to pin down pre-snap than the previous version of the Lions might have been. But I think every once in a while, you can push yourself a little bit too far in that area, and I think we got a couple glimpses of that yesterday. All right, Bob, let's get to our next one. Well, you know, I woke up this morning. I was so excited for football to really be back. Football Sundays, my family, we love it. We take it seriously.

57:08You know, yesterday I was setting up multiple TVs in my father-in-law's house. And when I woke up this morning, I was excited after a off-season of just small little doses of hope for the Carolina Panthers. And all I wanted today, I did not ask for much. All I wanted today was for some competent football and for stuff to look forward to for the rest of the season. On offense, on defense, just any incremental improvement and excitement. I just wanted to compete with the Jaguars. Didn't care if we won. Thought we could win, but didn't care if we did. Just wanted to compete.

57:44Robert Mays: And did we compete? We did not compete. I wish I had a good response to this. Yeah, I've got nothing. I really do. And I think really the only thing you can say is some of the stuff that we said last night where it's just a normal, hey, it's week one. Everybody take a breath. Like how many times do we see something that happens in week one that's just not indicative at all of what the rest of the season is going to look like. But I think that's really the only thing you can root your hope in when it comes to this, because I did, I'm on record. I believed in a lot of the flashes we saw from the Panthers offense in the back half of last season.

58:23Robert Mays: But when you look like you did yesterday, it's not as if this is the first time. And so as a Panthers fan, I think there's a lot of built up scar tissue with this version of the Bryce Young offense, where you watch this start to unfold, just like, oh shit, not again. And when you combine that with that feeling that he's talking about of there's an off season of hope, there's an off season of optimism. We do have some of those moments at the back half of last season to attach ourselves to. It's week one, it's nice and it's warm out. It's a little bit crisp, it's beautiful. It's like exactly what you want in a football atmosphere.

58:57Robert Mays: You're getting excited about it. And then for that to be what you're met with, I'm not going to dismiss or diminish what this person is going through right now I think it's very real I want to acknowledge and say that I see what you're dealing with here I just hope that they can turn it around starting next week but I don't really have much more solace to offer you right now I mean I really don't either like that I'm going to be like pretty down in the dumpsters about it like I the biggest issue to me was not that the offense struggled I think even with like, as well as some things went for them last year, there were still times where like, it still looked janky.

59:33Like it still just didn't look right. Even when Bryce Young was playing well last year. Um, so you could have told me that like, they just had a bad game. The particular way in which it was a bad game where things started to feel a little bit too fast for him. Things in the pocket started to feel a little bit too big for Bryce Young again. And again, I mentioned it on the Sunday show, the fourth and one where he throws it away in the red zone. That is just like, you can't do that as an NFL quarterback.

59:55Robert Mays: to me the coolest thing about watching him in the back half of last season was the confidence that he just believed it he believed it like watching and it was such a stark contrast to what we had seen from him in his rookie year and over the first month of last season where it's like that to me just didn't feel like something that would be easily shaken and so to watch him play without that yesterday and to look like the player just in terms of the operation how it felt how he like even if he, how he was carrying himself like that to me was the most troubling part of it. And hopefully it is a one week blip, but I can understand being a little bit more worried about it.

1:00:32Robert Mays: If you're a Panthers fan. Yeah. All right. We got one more that we wanted to play. There's really nothing to say about this. It's just a perfect encapsulation of what it means to be an NFL football fan, especially in week one. So we've got two voicemails that we're going to play back to back from the same listener that I think are just a perfect expression of the, it's so over, we're so back element of being a football fan? So I was having a good night, and then Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry just decided to be gods and absolutely clown the already kind of shaky Buffalo Bills defense. I know it's Lamar Jackson and it's Derrick Henry, but long term, I'm thinking if we should be worried about wrapping Bishop into safety because they have been getting torched like burnt toast all night.

1:01:25Love the show. Please, God, don't play like this against the Jets. Thank you. And then? Okay, I left an earlier voicemail just voicing my displeasures about the Bills' defense. Those are still true. But it turns out when Josh Allen does Josh Allen things, who needs a defense?

1:01:51Robert Mays: Go Bills. There it is. And the thing is, he already knows that. Before the game, he already knows that Josh Allen doesn't matter. In the moment, it doesn't matter. Even if in your bones you know that, sometimes it just doesn't matter. But you know what? Some Bills fans didn't because I saw Josh Allen give a clip after the game where he was like, I saw some people leaving, you know, have a little bit more faith. And I think that is a thing for like 29 quarterbacks is like, come on, man, you should not believe that anybody can win that game. But like Josh Allen, like, yeah, you should probably always believe that he can win that game.

1:02:25We've seen him. I think Deontay Lee even posted this. The best quarterback, like in late game situations, like in the two minute by EPA per play is Josh Allen.

1:02:34Robert Mays: Like you don't give him the ball in those situations. It's ridiculous. Those fans, at least they got an answer to their prayers. like everything they were worried about, they no longer had to be worried about it at the end of that game. Unfortunately, that is not going to be the case for plenty of the teams that lost in week one. So I'm looking forward to hopefully helping you guys work through some of this stuff every single week. We enjoyed the first round of it. We'll enjoy the rest of them. Good to be back doing the weekly hangover show. Cannot wait to be doing this all season. That's all we got for today.

1:03:05Robert Mays: We will be back tomorrow on the feed with the first in-season episode of Building the Beast with Dane Brugler and Dave Hellman. So if you guys are looking for a weekly draft show, I mean, there's nobody better to give it to you than Dane. And I think that Dave and Dane have had a relationship for a very long time. They have great chemistry. Dave is a massive college football fan. He's watching this stuff every single week. So very excited about you guys getting that show in the feed over the course of this year. For now, that is all we've got. Appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you guys soon.

1:03:48We'll see you next time.