Week 1 recap: Bills and Packers start the season off right

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1:05Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Week one did not disappoint. We watched the games in person today in our studio in Chicago for the first time. It was kind of a perfect morning. It was beautiful out in the city and just walking to the studio and just knowing we were all going to be together to watch the games, Me, Derek Lassen, Dave Hellman, just had a different sort of energy than it's ever really had since I started working here. And the fact that the games showed up in the way that they did just made it even better. It made it really did really did make it feel like a perfect week one.

1:40Robert Mays: So we dug into all of it. We started with a crazy Ravens-Bills game that ended in a way that only a Ravens game can end on like every conceivable level. Talked about a big win for the Green Bay Packers. a Steelers jets game that was way more entertaining than it had any right to be. Probably the most surprising thing we saw in week one, talk about a big bucks win against the Falcons and then dug into some of the low lights from week one in our first WTF of the season. So a fantastic opening week in the NFL calendar. Let's get to it with me, Derek Klassen and Dave Hellman right now.

2:23Robert Mays: if you're like me and week one is always a little bit of a sensory overload for you just a little bit of you it's like i kind of wish we could ease into things you know kind of wade in slowly to what the nfl season is going to feel like nope none of that today week one was everything that we wanted it to be most notably that sunday night game you are like a very sad man right now, Derek. I'm sitting here looking at you as as the world's foremost Baltimore Ravens believer. That's to play sequence when Lamar had the Houdini act and then Derek Henry scored the touchdown of the very next play. You were in a mindset of like, this is the greatest football team that's ever existed.

3:01Robert Mays: And then they pulled a rug out from under us again at the last minute. That was like the most I have felt alive in. I don't know how long watching Lamar Jackson. I think NextGen posted that he ran for like 75 total yards on that 19-yard scramble. He's dead to rights like inside his own red zone. And literally within like 65 seconds real time after that, Derrick Henry is in the end zone. I'm like, this is the coolest offense ever. There's something so beautiful about the fact that only the Ravens could play that game. Only the Ravens could look that dominant for stretches of the game. We were talking about this.

3:35Robert Mays: There was a moment with 7.56 left in the fourth quarter where Lamar and Derek Henry were averaging a combined 11.75 yards per carry. And Lamar was averaging 11.4 yards per attempt. The Ravens were averaging 9.7 yards per play. This is with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter, David, and they lost the football game.

3:55Derrik Klassen: Only the Ravens are capable of this. This is one of those times where we're at a disadvantage recording. I mean, what? We're recording maybe 15 minutes after the game ends. So we don't have the benefit of digging up all the best stats. But consider Lamar Jackson finished with a passer rating of 144. Derek Henry ran for 169. The Ravens ran for 238 as a team. The quarterback didn't turn the ball over. The Ravens scored 40 points. I feel confident saying that in the history of the NFL, they have to be the only team that's lost a game like that. Or if there's another one, it's like one other team in 100 plus years.

4:31Robert Mays: And if the Ravens are the only team that can allow the game script to go that way, I think the team with Josh Allen is one of the only teams on the other side of the ball who could actually make this possible. Because it's so hard to be so dominant for most of a game. And then when you ultimately punt the ball away in that situation that the Ravens did on that fourth and three, every single one of us in that room were like, I think they probably just lost this game because of who's on the other side and what he has been doing over the last couple drives. And that's exactly what happened. That was the thing.

5:01It's like, OK, I understand why fourth and three. And like that felt like a long fourth and three. But like a long fourth and three when Lamar Jackson is my quarterback. And I know it kind of seemed like he was maybe limping like right after that third down. But I don't care. I'm I'm letting him go for it anyway. Like an 80 percent Lamar Jackson in that moment is better than me punting to the second or third best quarterback in the NFL. When we know what Josh Allen can do at the end of those games, like it just punting to him. there is just why especially they only needed a field goal to win not even to tie and it's not like they needed a touchdown like they needed a field goal to win and you gave it to him in the

5:35Derrik Klassen: moment i'll admit like i i can get a little scared there as much as i like to be aggressive it's like oh if it was fourth and two i'd feel a little bit better like it's fourth and three do you maybe you do kick and then the minute josh allen started jogging onto the field i was like what am i talking about they only need a field goal to win this game no this was this was a mistake and i regret my conservative nature that happened 45 seconds ago let's kind of try to untangle the

6:00Robert Mays: details of what happened in this game let's start with kind of the potentially frustrating or scary moments for both defenses respectively is there anything about the bill's ability to claw their way back in this game and what you saw from i don't know how to describe it the aging second outside cornerback spot from the ravens is how i would put it like we just needed an amalgam of Chido B. Woozie and Jair Alexander's name, like the Chido B. Alexander cornerback spot on those on that last. Whoever it happens to be at the time, just the Chido B. Alexander quarterback spot or their bills, just real lack of physicality over the course of this game.

6:36Robert Mays: Whose defense do you leave this game feeling more worried about when we think about their season long aspirations after what you watch tonight? probably buffaloes because i think i feel like for a lot of it for the ravens was i think there were definitely moments where the cornerback two spot was a little bit of an issue like keon coleman having the game that he had in part because he was able to tee off on some of those guys i think was huge but also a lot of the plays in this game were just like josh allen gets outside of the pocket and then when he does that he's the scariest player in the league and like cooking a 51 yard reception that like swings this game and then there's a fumble i think that it's i don't want to take anything away from the bills but i do think that some of the game swinging plays we saw from buffalo i'm not sure there's anything endemic about the ravens in those moments and i think that's not necessarily true on the other side when we talk about that matchup specifically yeah on the other side it's like there were just so many moments of like derrick henry just getting what he wanted in the run game like the first big derrick henry run which just pistol like mid zone and like it scoots off to the right and like it looks like it's going to be jammed up for a second and then left guard climbs, takes out a linebacker.

7:41I think Rashad Bateman just like cleans out one of the other safeties. And then Derrick Henry just like bounces off Taylor Rapp and like him able to do that. And then you have the play later in the game in the fourth quarter where they go, I think to the same play, but from under center, like it was kind of like a stretch zone with the fullback leading. And like they kind of catch Buffalo with the safety Taylor Rapp rotating away from it. So he's got to refit, not the type of player you want refitting to get Derrick Henry in the alley. and he just doesn't have in Derrick Henry outraces him like this just felt like Buffalo doing the thing again where their defense is just not built for teams like this it's funny we talked about

8:14Derrik Klassen: this when we previewed the bills and and the Ravens for that matter but fair or not these are teams where you're judging stuff based on what could happen in the postseason because I'm really I'm not worried about the bills on a weekend and week out basis the Ravens did this to them last year they ran for more yards last year and they crushed the bills I think it was week four of last season and by and large, some teams had success against them. That's going to happen, but they were not that much of a liability on a weekly basis. But guess who you have to play in the post season? You got to play Baltimore or God, you know, God willing, maybe you play a Philadelphia in a Superbowl and you're going to, you're going to have to worry about that.

8:53Derrik Klassen: So am I worried about the bills defense getting like getting them to a 11 plus wins? Not really, but you see that type of stuff crop up against a contender and you're like, yeah, do you have an answer for this in January. I don't know. These teams getting to 11 doesn't matter. It's what you do in the divisional and stuff like that. So that's a great point.

9:10Robert Mays: The physical, the lack of physicality on the bills defense is something I've been concerned about over the last couple of years. And we've talked about this, Derek, the lack of physicality, it's safety specifically, I think really does creep up against a team like Baltimore. And there were a couple of plays that stick out in this game. I mean, the touchdown run that Derek Henry had after that Lamar Jackson scramble where Taylor wraps angle just gets erased the safety. If you're going to be in all these two high looks, your safeties need to tackle in the run game. Like it needs to be part of what your identity is.

9:38Robert Mays: So Taylor Rappet takes a terrible angle on that play. Derrick Henry scores a touchdown. There was another play earlier in the game. It was the drive, I believe, after that third and seven tight end screen that the Bills threw. And Derrick Henry came back on the following drive and had a monster run. And on that play, if you watch the All-22, Andrew Voorhees just absolutely dumps Terrell Bernard on the second level. And then Rashad Bateman clears out and digs out Cole Bishop on that play. That should not happen. Like a receiver, Rashad Bateman is not Matt Collins. That should not happen to you.

10:10Robert Mays: And it happens to the Bills consistently. And that's just something where I totally agree with this framing. Over the course of a 17-game regular season, they'll probably be okay. But when they have to play this team in the playoffs, I do think it's going to be a problem. The thing about Baltimore that I feel like we should not dismiss and we should keep in the back of our minds when we're talking about the things when we get to January that are going to worry us, Dave, Todd Monken again in the biggest moments of the game shells up a little bit like handing that ball off to Zay Flowers and just some of the sequencing at the end of the game it does feel like even if this Ravens team looks like the most dominant well-oiled machine you could possibly construct on that side of the ball for 85 percent of the regular season for 95 percent of an individual game there's still these moments in the most important stretches of the season the most and important stretches of these games where something just feels a little bit off and they shoot themselves in the foot.

11:04Robert Mays: And that's exactly what happened again tonight.

11:06Derrik Klassen: Baltimore ran eight plays in the final 10 minutes of this game. And a huge part of that's obviously the Derrick Henry fumble, but 10 plays over the final 10 minutes when you have been unstoppable. Again, 231 yards on the ground, getting whatever you want. Yeah, it's striking to see that. I mean, what, the first eight drives they punt one time and then they punt twice and fumble inside the final 10 minutes. It's mystifying.

11:29Robert Mays: some moments in this game and just other kind of supporting pieces to point out the emerging receivers one and not emerging because he's like 33 years old but the new Hopkins catch is just something that's going to be lost to history because the Ravens didn't end up winning this game but then what we got from Keon Coleman for how sad you might be about what happened to the Ravens tonight I assume at least a part of you Derek is happy that we had the Keon Coleman game in week one I am now because I was a little bit worried that like when this game with like eight minutes left in the fourth quarter felt like the Ravens were just going to hammer them and like end this game I was like man we're just going to have this like 80 yard Keon Coleman awesome performance just completely lost because the Bills lost this stupid game where they got blown out obviously he ends up being pretty important for them not getting blown out so I'm really excited for Keon Coleman he's a guy who like I think from a yak perspective from a size perspective and even just from a red zone perspective like obviously that the two-point fade they try to throw to him like that's a bad ball from Allen I don't know if that's the call you should be making in a two-point situation, but the fact that they even think that they have a guy like that now I think kind of matters to me.

12:32Derrik Klassen: Yeah, we talked about it again leading up to the season where it's just so fun to see a plan come together. That's why Keon Coleman's here. He makes Josh Allen right. Not that Josh Allen needs to be made right a lot of the time, but he's going to get a ball that might sail on you. He's going to bully people in the end zone and in the red zone, and he did that all night. It was so fun to watch. The other play that's going to be lost to history now

12:54Robert Mays: because it just doesn't matter. because the Ravens ended up losing this game is the screen to Zay Flowers where Ronnie Stanley just absolutely destroys the corner on that play. And that's just the nature of this game for the Ravens. The Ravens do cool shit for 55 minutes, and then it ends up not mattering against a really good team in a really huge game. They are the best team in the league until they need to be. One other quick point I wanted to make before we get out of here with this game, Sean McDermott was throwing a lot at Lamar Jackson. It did not work for a majority of the game. Some of it I think I take issue with.

13:27Robert Mays: Let's talk about the Cole Bishop blitzing. Talk about that two-play sequence that ended with the Zay Flower screen. On the play before that, you have Cole Bishop coming from 15 yards deep on a safety blitz. Taylor Rapp is rotating to the post. He has to rotate too far. And then Zay Flower is coming on that crosser. He's wide open for a huge chunk gain. Yeah, they were throwing a lot of shit at Lamar Jackson. I don't know about the veracity of a lot of that shit. It was not good, but if this can be a situation where they're toying around with stuff for six weeks, That would be good because they against the best offense in the league, most likely.

13:58Exactly. And so they blitzed 45 percent of the time in this game, at least according to true media right now. Sean McDermott has only called seven other games in his career with the Bills at a higher blitz rate than that. And none of them were in the past two years. So this is a little bit of like going back to something for them. So hopefully it sticks.

14:13Derrik Klassen: I know we got a full day of games to get to. But one other thing, I just special teams were such a big part of this game to like Tyler Loop misses an extra point, which looms really large when you lose a game by a point. And then obviously the bills, the bills put a fire drill field goal in the hands of Matt Prater who arrived in town like two days before the game. I just, you were losing your mind as they were setting up to do this. Matt Prater's kicked hundreds of field goals. If you're going to do that to a guy, he's the one you should do it to. But I was just like, I can't believe we're going to do a running clock, walk off field goal with a guy who just got to town.

14:50Derrik Klassen: Like this is nuts. and Kyle Hamilton almost blocked it, by the way. So just, it worked out. I'm not criticizing anybody, but it was a very fun 30 seconds watching all that happen.

15:00Robert Mays: One of my favorite things about our setup this year is that we're going to be able to watch these games together. And it was worth the price of this studio, all of the work we did putting it together to see your emotional journey with what happened with the Ravens today and you losing your mind about them doing this with the kicker that they signed two days ago and it ended up working out. So it's already worth it. that we have this set up last note on this. I wanted to look up these numbers cause I was just curious. So yeah, 45 and a half percent blitz rate from the bills today, seven of nine for 140 yards against those blitzes for was Lamar Jackson, 15 and a half yards per attempt on non blitzes in this game per next gen, seven of 10 for 69 yards.

15:40Robert Mays: So not bringing extra bodies was actually something that at least was a speed bump to the Ravens today in a way that the big blitzes were not. So interesting to see the Bills toying with some stuff. Still concerned about just the general lack of size and physicality for this team, especially at safety against a team built like the Ravens. But let's give some teams some grace in week one. We're going to have to remind ourselves a lot of that over the next hour or so. All right. With that, let's get to the first edition of this season's You Have My Attention.

16:14Robert Mays: Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. Now you have my attention. the Green Bay Packers play one of the highlight games of this week in the three o 'clock window I think a game a lot of us had circled the Packers really have their way David with the Lions in that game we mentioned it as we were just talking about the day the Packers really had that in hand for most of it like that game never felt like it was in doubt your biggest takeaway from watching that version of the Packers today and what it might mean for the rest of the year I mean there's a

16:44Derrik Klassen: lot of directions we can go with this and i'll just start with the most obvious is in 29 snaps we saw why you trade two first round picks for michael parsons i mean the gravity that he played with 29 snaps three pressures one sack he was on the field for three of green bay's four sacks of jared goff so like even when he's not making the play himself he is making life easier on the guys around him he had a pressure to get the packers off the field on third down on his first snap as a green bay packer later in the first half he gets the pressure on jared goff that leads to the errant throw inside the evan williams picks off that basically it didn't kill the lions chances of winning the game but i think it's a different game if detroit has success there like they're it's what 17-3 they're driving in they got a chance to make it a one score game going to half And that whole sequence just snuffed it out.

17:39Derrik Klassen: And Green Bay never really looked like they were in trouble for the rest of it. Even when Detroit opened the second half scoring a field goal, it just didn't feel real. So maybe that changes if that doesn't happen. But yeah, for a guy that played 29 snaps to have that amount of impact on the game. I mean, he was on the field for less than half of the Packers defensive snaps. Three pressures, one sack, helped force a takeaway. uh yeah i'd say you're getting roi pretty quickly especially for a guy that again didn't practice all summer we talked about this when we were watching games a little bit earlier today and

18:12Robert Mays: just this idea of interior pressure versus edge pressure and the value of it in the modern nfl because as we have so many mobile quarterbacks the guys that can slide move around the pocket if you have bendy speedy edge rushers that really just went around the corner if you can push those guys past the quarterback everyone is essentially capable of making a guy miss or pretty easily stepping up in the pocket and neutralizing like the overall value of a guy like that and that's why some quarterbacks and some teams have come to a place where they think interior pressure is more valuable because it's just harder for the quarterback to deal with Micah Parsons is like his own unique animal when it comes to this though and that's because those inside counter they're almost not even counters it's like what he wants to do like his ability to threaten upfield and then immediately win with those inside moves back toward the quarterback.

19:02Robert Mays: You saw that on that first third and seven, like it's just this combination, Derek, of like speed, precision, power, and he affects the game and affects plays quicker than other edge rushers do because he can lean on those moves so much. And that's exactly what he did on both of those third and sevens that Dave is talking about. Yeah. He's like, it's because he's so explosive and because he's so quick, he knows that every tackle in the league is terrified of him winning off the edge. And so he gets a little bit more space to operate inside. And like what I've said before about like the difference between him and Miles Garrett is like, Miles Garrett is way more bendy than he should be for someone his size.

19:36But Micah Parsons for a guy who's like two 55, maybe not even. Yeah. He's like way stronger than anyone that size should be. And that's why he can always win inside shoulder. Like to be able to do that against Penny Sewell, who is, I don't know, like the third best tackle in the league, maybe to be able to do that against him consistently is crazy. I know he had another one similarly off the left side where he like split two offensive linemen. Like he is just a very rare player in that sense. And I think why specifically it works against a team like the lions, other quarterbacks, if you're trying to attack through the inside shoulder, the tackle, they can just, the quarterback can bail.

20:09Josh Allen can bail Lamar Jackson, Jaden Daniels. These guys can get outside of the pocket. Jared golf does a lot of things. he's not getting outside of the pocket. So you can like, you are afforded the ability to go win inside. And when you're a guy like Parsons, I mean, he's, he's going to do that a lot.

20:22Robert Mays: The Parsons stuff, I think absolutely is headline grabbing. And he did impact the game. and like the limited snaps that we saw him. I was really impressed by pretty much everything else that we saw from the other guys in the Packers front seven in this game. And, you know, when they traded Kenny Clark as part of that deal, I think a lot of people who maybe haven't paid attention to some of the depth pieces on the Packers might think, well, now what is like the interior group look like for this team? And it was Slayton leaving too. Yeah, so you're like, essentially your main run stuffing presence among that group.

20:50Robert Mays: If you think about like archetypes of players, that's what TJ Slayton is. And Colby Wooden is somebody that has been, a young kind of ascending player for them as like a potential run stuffing nose guys like Carl Brooks. You know, we know Devante wide was a first round pick. A lot of those guys had nice moments today. There was a play on, it was to start the second quarter. Essentially was a first and 10 run and Colby wouldn't just blows up Christian mahogany. The run goes for no gain. And you go all throughout the game and you watch what that front seven was doing to this lion's run game. And it just seemed like they really had the upper hand for most of it.

21:22Robert Mays: And when I looked at the numbers afterwards, words, I was actually kind of shocked at how toothless the Lions run game was for most of today. They had a 31.8 % design rush success rate, according to next gen. That is their fifth worst game since 2022. And they averaged, I believe like 2.7 yards per carry. That is their second worst mark in a game over the last four seasons. And this is a group that had questions about the interior offensive line, but I still feel like even with those questions, we thought they would be able to run the ball. And the fact that the Packers were the team that really controlled the line of scrimmage on that side today, I think that's a really good sign.

22:00Robert Mays: If you're a little bit worried about what green Bay might look like up front. And I think that's a bad sign. If you have some lingering doubts about how this lions team is constructed on offense up front. Yeah. Like this for the Packers front to be able to do that with, again, like not having two of their best run defenders from last year is like pretty crazy to me. And I do think it is a testament to like how well they have started to draft and started to develop. They also changed their defensive line coach uh this offseason which i think is already showing some pretty good dividends for them um and then i even thought the backers played pretty well like in i totally agree like they were awesome today like walker started to come on at the end of last year and i thought he really did and i thought the cooper was actually a lot better today when it comes to like just playing a little bit less with his hair on fire and just like being in control against the run it was encouraging stuff it's just they are you could see the kernels of the like what the halfley defense was supposed to be last year right and now all the younger players they've been there a little bit longer the the front coaching is potentially a little bit better like it that mixed with getting micah parsons is like helps yeah it's a pretty good mix of what they've got going on here again week one but like man it's impressive i don't we're not going to

23:04Derrik Klassen: overreact to week one but like what facet of this game was not dominant for green bay i mean and we haven't even talked about the offense that's the offense down to down i still think the run game wasn't amazing and yeah but honestly i feel like it the packers felt to me like a team that

23:22Robert Mays: throttled down after halftime yeah that's fair i i just think the down-to-down consistency in the passing game is still something i want to see a little bit more of moving forward this is still a team like i like the fact that jordan love plays the way that he does i don't know if i want the packers averaging 11 and a half air yards per attempt every single game on offense like i get the appeal i kind of want it to be honest i love the fact that they're explosive i still worry about what the down-to-down consistency of the passing game looks like and whether this is the right mindset and construction if you want to win games in the most important parts of the season it's week one but it's just like that's i watched this team play the same style in terms of how they're trying to throw the ball today i'm like when it looks good it looks great and when it looks bad

24:04Derrik Klassen: i think they can find some swoons that's still in the back of my head it's very intoxicating when it works because like I've got it in my notes Jordan Love he attempted 16 passes before halftime six of them went for 15 plus yards like it was just explosive after explosive and then he threw six balls after the break like they just weren't trying to move the ball through the air anymore and but if it's that explosive that consistently in the first half and and I get it it probably won't be consistently enough for that to be worth it but man it's fun to watch when it works.

24:37Robert Mays: I really love the, the post to Romeo Dobbs. And that was actually another one of my takeaways in this game is that I thought the flashes you saw from Romeo Dobbs, like if he's going to be a guy that's capable of making those sorts of plays, and now you're mixing in Matthew Golden and just everybody collectively in that receiving core, just take like one step forward. This group suddenly becomes really dangerous. And that post that Jordan Love hits the Dobbs, he's in a little bit of a cut split. He does a great job of like bending it outside before taking it back to the middle of the field and Jordan love to his credit, Kirby Joseph comes down on the crosser.

25:11Robert Mays: And as soon as Kirby Joseph takes that step, Jordan love lets that ball rip. And so if we're going to have a combination of the receivers coming up in those moments and love seeing it that quickly, this offense is going to be explosive when they throw the ball. I just worry. And I wonder, is it only going to be explosive as we keep going through this season? I still have the contention that they're more consistent than it feels. It's just the bad feels really bad when it happens. But I do think down to down, it's really not that bad. And I think today that that was certainly true. I kind of agree with Dave.

25:41Like they felt like in the second half they throttled down, which when both sides of the ball were playing as well as they were, I kind of get it.

25:47Derrik Klassen: But still, it's way too early in the season for me to think that this definitely means anything. But the parallels from this and the Lambeau Packer Lions game last year are pretty eerie to me. Like they played midway through the season. Green Bay is six and two. It's a huge test. Detroit went into halftime up 17 to three and just throttled down and just choked them out. And they won 24-14. This was basically the same exact game, except it's the Packers now. And we haven't played enough for me to know. Because at that point in the season, you're just like, oh, well, Green Bay is just not ready for this.

26:21Derrik Klassen: Like, they're not ready for Detroit. And we can't say that after one game, but it was weird to see the same game played with the shoe on the other foot. It's week one.

26:29Robert Mays: We're going to say that a million times over the next 40 minutes here. but what you wanted to see from both of these teams with the Packers being, being ready, right? Like are the Packers ready to be the team in this division? And what are the lions going to look like with all of this turnover along the offensive line at both coordinator spots? The early returns on this are about as good as they can be for the Packers being ready to be that team in the NFC North and probably about as bad as they can be for what all of those component parts changing out are going to look like for the lions. Yeah.

27:01Yeah, there was to me where I felt like everything we talked about with what might go wrong with the Lions offense was one of the sacks that Goff took towards the end where Green Bay shows everyone on the line of scrimmage and they get the Lions to slide to the left. Devonta Wyatt is, I think, lined up right over the right guard, maybe to the right guard's right shoulder, just cuts right across his face and gets straight straight to Jared Goff. And that's one of the things that like we worried about, like, is the pass protection plan going to be good enough? Are they going to be able is the interior going to be able to play well enough, even not even just from like a plan perspective.

27:31Are the guys just going to be able to block the other guys in front of them? That play to me was like, that was all of the things I worried about for three months with this team.

27:38Robert Mays: Again, the fact that the Packers were just better up front on defense than the Lions were. I just think that's something that would be concerning to me if I were a Lions fan. And the other part of this is, I can't remember what point in the game it was when I looked up this stat. And obviously the number was higher as we got a little bit deeper because the game was completely out of hand. there was a point like in the fourth quarter, like early in the fourth quarter, but still deep into the game where Jared Goff was averaging 2.9 air yards per attempt. That type of offense. And this is a team that consistently threw the ball short of the sticks.

28:09Robert Mays: Last year, it was a team that really did not push the ball down the field as much as a typically explosive offense would. But they were so good at manufacturing yak on those plays. And they were so these like controlled kind of like pointed shots that they were able to take. but if they're going to live that way without that ability to create explosives on those underneath throws, then I just don't know what the overall mix of this offense is supposed to look like. And so the fact that they were still living in that world, but we're unable to manufacture explosive plays out of it. I just wonder how this is all going to shake out.

28:41Robert Mays: Yeah. Let's get to the next one here. Steelers jets, just as a game, you guys have my attention. Like I, the fact that the Steelers and the jets was the most entertaining game of the early slate of week one, you could have listed off. I mean, if we had to pick between the eight games that were happening, it probably would have been the seventh or eighth pick when it came to like offensive explosiveness and firepower. And it ended up becoming the most entertaining game of the week before we got to Sunday night

29:10Derrik Klassen: football. I mean, on our what we're looking forward to for week one episode, we got to the end of the show and we're like, oh, we want to see some stuff in this game, but we haven't mentioned it in an hour of talking football. Like, I mean, it felt like an afterthought. It felt it. I felt in my bones that this would be a 2016 win for one of these teams. And it's like, yeah, OK, you're one to know. And I did not have fun watching this and I could not have been more wrong. And I'm happy to say it. I had a blast watching this game.

29:38Robert Mays: The Jets had the best EPA per drop back of any offense in the league. I was looking that up for something else. And I saw that the Jets had the best EPA per drop back. And I was like, that cannot be correct. Like it felt good watching it. But I was like, that just can't be correct. I must have like clicked some sort of wrong filter. And then lo and behold, it's right there. And me and Dave kind of had a funny experience rewatching the Jets game, like kind of together during, during the end of the slate there. In the moment, it kind of felt like Justin Fields was playing okay. You were like, oh, he's stepping up in the pocket.

30:06He's making some moves here. A couple of really nice throws down the field. And it was like, if we watch it back, is he really going to have looked like he played that well? And you watch it back and it's like, it's not the all 22 yet, but he looked like he actually played a pretty good game. Like there weren't that many things I took fault. And even like the end of the, the end of the game where he's trying to like drive them back in to go win it, he puts a ball on Josh Reynolds that like, if Josh Reynolds is there a half step earlier, he probably is able to connect and make that play. Jalen Ramsey just gets there and breaks it up.

30:33And then I think on like the fourth and two or fourth and three, where he puts it on, I think Garrett Wilson, Jalen Ramsey just blows him up and then ends the game. And so like Justin Fields kind of, I felt like played a much better game than I would have thought.

30:44Derrik Klassen: It's really funny because when we previewed the jets, we talked about how much fun they could have running the ball. And we saw that like Brees Hall had a hundred yards today. They ran for really good. He looked smooth. He looks explosive.

30:55Robert Mays: It was really nice to see this version of Brees Hall today.

30:58Derrik Klassen: And, and Justin Fields was a part of that. Obviously the naked boot to score late in the game was so much fun. That's why you have Justin Fields to do stuff like that. And we talked all this talk about how much fun they could be running the ball. They had six explosive runs today, by the way, which before the Ravens did their thing was second in the league for week one. so I'm sitting there thinking like yeah this like you can have a lot of fun running the ball and then to Derek's point Justin Fields made like as many as four or five big boy throws in this game where on early Sunday watching it like you said I'm like okay that was good but it wasn't good and then I went back three hours later and I'm like holy shit yeah that was really good he like he stepped up in the pocket he got away from Cam Hayward coming through like the a gap got into the vacated space and just is firing darts eight, 10, 12 yards downfield.

31:51Derrik Klassen: Like it was a really impressive day against the defense. Even if this isn't like one of the best Steelers defenses we're going to see over the last 15 years, it's still the Steelers. Like there's a standard there. And he, he was, he was great today.

32:04Robert Mays: That throw on the touchdown to Garrett Wilson on that scissors concept of coming across. And that's just a beautiful ball in structure, wonderfully placed. And then I'm with you guys on the pocket movement. I'll say this. I think the more impressive part of the pocket movement to me and his ability to kind of subtly extend plays today was actually what the offensive line was doing. This is a perfect example of where pressure rates can be a little bit misleading. So if you look at the pressure rate that the Jets allowed today, it's like 40 something percent. It's one of the highest in the league on Sunday.

32:33Robert Mays: Yes. But when you go back and you watch these plays, there is pressure technically because he is getting moved off of his spot a little bit. but that play you're talking about where he steps up and finds Tyler Johnson. Yep. John Simpson on that play does a fantastic job of eventually clearing Cam Hayward out and providing Justin Fields space to step up in the pocket. And that happened over and over again today. John Simpson had some really nice moments in pass protection. Fashanu had some really, really nice moments in pass protection. He had a one-on-one rep against TJ Watt where it's like, okay, I mean, if we're going to do that, I can get on board with this.

33:07Robert Mays: And the guy I actually was really impressed with multiple times in this game, was Joe Tippman moving over and playing guard. Like the fact that they looked as good as they did without Elijah Vera Tucker after him getting hurt so late in the process and them having to shuffle right before this game started, that's something where if I were a Jets fan, I'm like, all right, this is, combined with the Justin Fields part of this, combined with the fact that the offense seems to have some juice with Tanner Angstrin, the fact that the line played this well after losing AVT a week before the season started, that would make me breathe a lot easier about what this season might look like.

33:39Derrik Klassen: the cliche is that there are no moral victories in the NFL, but this feels like a big time moral victory. If you're, I feel like the Jets won the game. Yeah, but they did not win the game for the record. They did not.

33:50Robert Mays: And one of the reasons that they didn't is because the Steelers passing game was humming in this game. And if you look at the numbers, Aaron Rogers was 22 of 30 for 244 yards and four touchdowns. He did not play that well in this game. He played well, but he did not. Those numbers are a little bit misleading in terms of what he was contributing to the passing game. But it's not to take away from the passing game overall, because my biggest takeaway in this game was, one, the Jets tackling in space was horrendous on a couple of these plays. Dude, the screen with DK Metcalf. The little bubble that DK Metcalf is a play that Michael Carter just like, it's not a good, I mean, that's a tough moment.

34:28Robert Mays: And then there was a play early, I think it was on the first or second drive, where they just throw like a little speed out to DK and Tony Adams just takes a terrible angle. And so there were a couple of those moments, but I think even beyond that, like, let's give credit back to the Steelers. Some of the designs of the passing game, especially to Calvin Austin, like that, that's to me, if I were like trying to stack up, right, how would I feel if I were a Steelers fan? It would be the construction of the offense felt like it was put together. It had a lot of, a lot of juice to it. And I thought that Calvin Austin, like they were, they've been trying to sell Calvin Austin as like, he's better than you think he is sort of player for a couple of years now.

35:03Robert Mays: and I actually thought he might have been like the most impressive pass catcher on the Steelers offense today and so all of that stuff coming together it's like oh shit well all right like this is something where it had a lot more giddy up than I probably expected coming into the year I couldn't agree more like this was Aaron Rodgers played well and there were parts of his game that did surprise me a little bit I mean him still having the arm did not surprise me but he was a little more willing to hang in the pocket and like take hits than I thought I would we were going to get from this version of him so that was impressive to see but I'm totally with you on the way that they were using calvin austin like the first big one he gets is they run like a scissors concept versus quarters which that's exactly what you want safety stays a little bit high and he's just like wide open nobody's covering him and then shortly after that he gets one-on-one coverage with brandon stevens wins on the wheel route which like i think calvin austin can win against a lot of guys but like he's also particularly geared to beat a guy like brandon stevens who's a little bit taller a little bit like he's a little bit um you know he's a little bit more stiff that's it's not him leaning against these quick receivers is not the best way to use them.

36:03And then I thought some of the other things that they were doing in the red zone was really good. Like they caught the jets in man coverage in the red zone and like got, they were booting Rogers a little bit to the right and had the running back just flare out or sprints out. I think it was Jalen Warren and knowing that you're going to get a lot of man coverage from the jets because it's Aaron Glenn. That's just like a perfect call to get the linebacker to bite on the, on the run action to the left and have him sprinting out to the right. So I just, I thought all the play calling today from the Steelers was like pretty damn good.

36:30Derrik Klassen: I don't want to hate because it was very impressive, but also just one of the funnier go ahead field goal drives I've seen in a long time. And I just want to shout that out, because if you saw this game on red zone or if you were watching your team and saw this out of the corner of your eye, you see Chris Boswell drill a 60 yarder and you're like, oh, hey, holy cow. The Steelers. Well done getting into position. Ridiculous drive to get to that point. Like it's a 19 yard DPI to Calvin Austin. Very next play. Rogers hits DK on a slant. That sauce breaks up. It hits DK. And then it hits John who Smith's lap and falls into DK's waiting hands.

37:10Derrik Klassen: Cause he, at this point has fallen under the bubble. And from there, the jets go backward. They lose yards and they're like, ah shit. Well, this wasn't really the plan, but Chris, can you, can you hit this? And of course he does. Cause he's one of the best in the NFL. it's just I love how romantic that sounds where you're like yeah game-winning field goal drive and and they did pull it off but just nowhere near as heroic as it maybe looks on red zone

37:34Robert Mays: you mentioned that Calvin Austin play where he kind of sells a little over and then kind of breaks back out against quarters that was a huge chunk play and then on that same drive I believe he had that out and up where he actually makes a contested catch down the right sideline and you just mentioned it he draws the DPI to get them in range for the game-winning field goal and then And the touchdown he scored is a beautiful play design where he kind of inserts on play action. He stutters and then takes it to the corner. And so the number that sticks out to me when we talk about Aaron Rodgers' role in all of this, Aaron Rodgers today averaged negative 4.7 air yards to the sticks, which was dead last among any quarterback in the NFL in week one.

38:10Robert Mays: So again, this is a passing offense that did not ask a lot of the quarterback necessarily, but that was the version of this offense that I kind of wanted to see and thought would be the best version of it. Like if we can ask Aaron Rodgers to not have to carry this whole thing and have him just throw a wide open touchdown to Ben Skoranik off of a boot. Like if that can be if we can put him in like a little bit of a box and the offensive construction can kind of carry this a little bit. That's the best version of this. And that's exactly what we got today. So I think there are a lot of encouraging signs about what this version of the Steelers can be that I had some pretty significant doubts about.

38:50Robert Mays: But the early returns look pretty darn good. I did, too, because I thought we were going to get too much of the Aaron Rodgers. I'm going to call the offense the way I want to call offense. Exactly. Today, those parts of the offense were bad. Like they were not good. A lot of what they were doing was the schemed up stuff that Smith was doing. And that second Calvin Austin touchdown that you mentioned where they like insert him almost as like the wedge tight end and like get him that free release. so he can go and run that route. That's just like when you have a player as small as Calvin Austin, like doing any little thing to get him those advantages.

39:17Like again, when he's going to get a matchup against Brandon Stevens like that, a corner, you know, if you give him space, he's going to be able to win. Just really, really good play calling.

39:25Robert Mays: Are we a little bit worried about the fact that the Jets and the Steelers are supposed to be driven by their defenses, at least in part. And the defense has decided to not show up today.

39:32Derrik Klassen: Yes, we are. But it's week one and we did not expect to like, we did not expect to have this much fun watching the game. So like, we'll let that sort itself.

39:41Robert Mays: I think the gear the offense has showed is probably more important than whatever concerns we have about the defenses one week into the season. I'm willing to land there.

39:49Derrik Klassen: And like, if you're a Jets fan, like the pass rush was active. Like, you know, Will McDonald had a game. Will McDonald, Quinn and Williams looked like Quinn and Williams at times today. Like there was enough there that I'm encouraged, even if they did give up 34 points.

40:01Robert Mays: Last one here. Emeka Buka is somebody we talked about throughout the entire offseason, essentially all of training camp. Like we were ready to give him a gold jacket from the first week he was on the field down there in Tampa. And so far looks pretty good. Two touchdowns in his debut, including the game winner, a Mecca, Buka and the Bucs. You have my attention in a big division win to kick off this season.

40:25Derrik Klassen: Dave, they were road favorites. So I guess you're you're supposed to win. And obviously they've controlled the NFC South for four years. So you're supposed to win this game. But they we talked about it before kickoff. Like they shuffled their offensive line to account for Tristan Wirth still being out injured. So you move Graham Barton to left tackle. He's your center, by the way. So you just you shuffled everything. Those three Graham Barton, Ben Braderson and Michael Jordan gave up like 12 of the 15 pressures on Baker Mayfield today. So like you're coping with that. You're starting a rookie at receiver.

41:00Derrik Klassen: It did not look great for the Bucks all the time. They could not run the ball today. They looked like disconcertingly like 2023 Tampa Bay. So to get that performance from your rookie who you have high expectations for, it just it makes me feel like the Bucs are going to be OK during this stretch where we're waiting on worse to come back. It was reported this morning. Maybe Chris Godwin is back by week five, maybe week six or seven. If a mega Buka is capable of doing that in his debut, then I think they can weather that storm until they stabilize a little bit when those guys are healthy. And I think my favorite part of Ekbuka having the game that he did was that all of his big plays were down the field, like as a vertical player.

41:40Whereas I think coming into the league, a lot of it was like, oh, he's going to be like Robert Woodsy and we're going to throw him some screens and he's going to get us some tough yards after the catch and he's going to block and he's going to be this guy out of the slot. And then he catches two huge like in traffic plays down the field, like down the seam. The second one in particular was super impressive to me, both from him and from Baker Mayfield. Baker pinned that on him.

42:01Derrik Klassen: The way he attacked that ball too, like in the end zone, like went and got like a very confident play for a rookie with a chance to win the game. That was like Baker's Baker spinning that with almost no room in the back of the end zone to work with. And Ibuka attacking it the way he did. Like that's like that looks like how elite, elite passing offense. And it didn't look like that the whole game. But like you get those flashes from these guys.

42:24Robert Mays: The Falcons threw some weird stuff at the Bucs today. Some weird pressures. And I think that's how they're going to try to live Atlanta on defense this year, where it's like, we're going to bring some extra bodies. We're going to be a little bit funky on the back end. And Jeff Roelbeck has talked about this. The fact that I think he's interested in evolving from what he might have been as the Jets defensive coordinator over the last couple of years. That first touchdown, one of those wonky plays got them in trouble. They tried to run like an inverted cover to where they have Mike Hughes is the deep half player on that side.

42:52Robert Mays: And a Buka is running that crosser and he's already got the leverage. and Baker, the safety's dropping down into that window and Baker layers it over him perfectly. And on the second Abuka touchdown, they had run this concept a couple times earlier in the game where you have a dig from the inside receiver and then a post behind it. And they saw Jesse Bates clamp down on that dig earlier in the game. They knew he was going to again. And as soon as he steps down, Baker throws that post over the top. I think the biggest takeaways for me in this game, outside of the Bucs being able to kind of eke this one out is what the Bucs were able to do to an Atlanta team on offense that was really efficient last year.

43:31Robert Mays: Even if there were some fits and starts for the Falcons offense, they were able to move the ball when you look at success rate, just down-to-down efficiency really well and consistently all of last season, especially on the ground. And they just were not able to do that today. They had a 25 % rushing success rate in this game against the Bucs. And the other part of it that was a little bit surprising is that I thought with Michael Penix, we would see this team really push the ball down the field. And I know Darnell Mooney didn't play today, but 35.7 % of the Falcons attempts in this game got to the sticks.

44:05Robert Mays: 35.7. No team in the league last year finished lower than 37%. I just don't really want to watch that version of this Falcons offense. like a Falcons offense that can't run the ball officially and isn't going to push the ball down the field is not what I was expecting to get this year. And that's what we got in week one. Yeah. The whole point of the offense was that we can run the ball so that we can get under center a little bit and chuck it down the field. And we didn't. And again, maybe when Mooney comes back, they'll be able to do that. And again, it's like, this is Michael Penix's first like week one type of start.

44:35So maybe that's all part of it. But like that part of it was, was certainly concerning to me. And it did feel like this is I think going to cut both ways over the course of the season but it did feel like there were certain times where Michael Penix was very obviously just forcing the ball to Drake London which I do think can be good but at the same time it's like it feels like the offense a little bit

44:54Robert Mays: lacks in extra gear because we're doing that they ran like the same reverse pivot route in the red zone in the end zone twice in a row like that was that's the definition of them just trying to like force feed him the ball in those situations and it's probably your best option in those moments but clearly that did not work. The funniest part about this game, Dave, is that what point in the game did I call the fact that the Falcons were going to lose on an excruciating miss field goal?

45:15Derrik Klassen: If you're listening at home, it happened. I'm not I wouldn't lie to you. It happened like early third quarter, probably. I can also confirm with a solid hour to hour and a half left of gameplay. Robert was just like, this will be decided by the most excruciating field goal problem. And that's exactly what happened.

45:32Robert Mays: It was a very Falcons. you wait for that game.

45:35Derrik Klassen: You can have enough experience

45:36Robert Mays: with Atlanta football. You come to expect these things. Obviously, the field goal at the end is a frustrating moment. I think the other sequence in this game when I was re-watching it, I was like, oh man, that's one where you'll think about that for the rest of the night. With about nine minutes left in the third quarter, Baker forced the ball over the middle against a robber look where Xavier Watts was dropped down. And Xavier Watts dropped the pick. And on the next play, Baker scrambles for 20 yards and the Bucs score a touchdown like two plays later to go up 17 to 10. And so they're going to be a lot of Falcons fans and a lot of people in that building right now that are just going over these plays in their head being like, I cannot believe that we lost that game.

46:13Derrik Klassen: Which, like, Baker's stat line is pretty nice. Like, three touchdowns, no turnovers. It's so close to being a completely different story. And, like, Baker missed a walk-in touchdown to Cade Otten. Like, a shaky day overall, which makes it that much nicer that Ibuka had the debut that he did, where it's like, okay, like this kid can pick us up even if he is a rookie. Like that's really exciting if I'm a Tampa fan. Just a surprising version of this game.

46:40Robert Mays: The Bucs had a 36 % offensive success rate. Again, talking about the Falcons' inability to move the ball, especially on the ground. Like when you consider what the games looked like between these teams last year, the fact that we had like an ugly stop and start game from both offenses in week one, it's just not really a world I want to live in.

46:56Derrik Klassen: I just don't want to see this version of either of these teams. I thought this would have the score that the Jets-Steelers game did. Like I was, you know, I thought this was the 36 to 33 game. Yeah. Falcon or the, the bucks. I can at least give a pass new coordinator. You're missing worse, all that stuff. And I know the Falcons are missing some guys too, but like you've had, these are your guys. Like you, you kind of made your bed here. The last thing I want to say about this game, the play that Anton Winfield made at the end, thank you for remembering. Cause I forgot. Just smokes. I think it was Casey Washington to break that play up.

47:27Like that is just, that is peak safety play.

47:30Derrik Klassen: That was incredible. He is incredible at making plays like that. And like he makes them inside of 10 yards from the goal line too. Like he is the king of the touchdown saving play. I love him so much.

47:42Robert Mays: All right, before we get to some of the lowlights from week one, let's take our first quick break.

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49:21Robert Mays: I don't know if I'm allowed to swear as we do the shows live, and so we'll figure that out later. whether or not Bellar can do some live bleeping for us. But let's get to the rough moments from week one. And let's start with the Miami Dolphins. The last time the three of us sat at this table, we were previewing week one. We were talking about the Colts and the Dolphins. And we said, one of these teams, as we get started with this game, will show us that it is going to be a rough year. One of them. That was our hunch about how this game would go. And Derek, the Miami Dolphins very quickly showed us that it was going to be them.

49:56It was very quickly. Like there were so few games this week one where it felt like one team from start to finish just did not have it. And the Dolphins at no point in this game did not have it. They just did not have it on both sides of the ball. And like I can understand there is some part of me that can understand being like, OK, this Dolphins offense. Like I said, like I kind of pinned the Colts defense. It's like they're kind of a sneaky good unit. Like the front is really good. This Dolphins offensive line is not good. They did some funky stuff today, too, that we'll get into. They really did.

50:28And, like, you could have sold me on the world where, like, okay, maybe Dolphins offense doesn't have the greatest day. And I know the Dolphins defensive roster is not that good, but to let Daniel Jones for, like, a good chunk of the day be the day's passing leader, like, you cannot allow that.

50:41Robert Mays: You did for 200 yards in the first half.

50:43Derrik Klassen: The Colts had a 57 % offensive success rate in this game. Daniel Jones had a 30-point fantasy day. How many people do you think started him in fantasy football? Not enough. A 30-point day from Daniel Jones.

50:54Robert Mays: The bleakest two quarterback league. The bleakest. The 16-team two quarterback league you're getting Daniel Jones today. When I fully felt like the Dolphins had no shot anymore was at some point, I think Daniel Jones had converted four straight third downs. And I turned to Dave and I was like, you cannot let Daniel Jones convert four straight third downs on you. Like, that is unacceptable to allow. There was, I think it was two straight drives. Tua overthrows Tyreek Hill, gets picked off by Cam Bytom. So that's our first moment of the Dolphins offense. And think on the ensuing Colts drive. It's second and 20.

51:29Robert Mays: And the Colts score on that Michael Pittman touchdown. Where they believe it's cover two. Storm Duck does not get enough depth in the flat. And Melfon, Tyler Warren's running a seam. And Melfon was the deep half player. Kind of clamps down on Tyler Warren. And so Michael Pittman was just wide open down the right sideline. That's a play where it's just like, all right, you can give up second and 20. Like walk-in touchdowns. And the other play that I was just like, this is just not a good sign for you as an NFL team is like the 20 yard reception that Mo Alley Cox had catching the ball in the flat.

51:57Robert Mays: And like what Jack Jones looks like trying to tackle Mo Alley Cox. Yes. It's just like this is everything about what the Dolphins were today, including just some of the sideline body language. And just like we the vibes were there. They were there the entire offseason. And we again, we don't want to react too much to week one or overreact. But this is one of those things where it feels like, you know what?

52:17Derrik Klassen: like if there's smoke there's fire here the dolphins can dig out of this and prove us all wrong i think this is a case where it's okay to overreact i think it's it is okay to say how can you be this bad and how can things already look this crappy like like tyree kill is venting on the sideline at before i believe that happened before halftime of your first game like after all of that after the i'm out of here stuff at the end of last season and to it talking about how he's got to like win his way back into everybody's good graces like how do we get here how do you think you did with that today how do we get here in less than a game like sure if that happens in week five because things finally come to a head that is normal and understandable we didn't make it until 2 30 before this happened i mean it's it's absolutely unbelievable and it's all there for the dolphins in a vacuum like they can prove us wrong but this was a performance that it's okay to say the vibes suck the team looked awful like they they're the un there's no doubt that they're the biggest loser of week one period and i think the framing of like when they're smoke there's fire is a great way to put it because sometimes teams have week one games like this right like the packers like four or five years ago when they got murdered by james winston like if it was just week one then i'd be feeling a little bit different exactly it's the last two months exactly and like for that to be the case when we had all these like two months of terrible vibes for them or really even going back to again the end of last season for them to lay a sneaker against and like the Colts if the Bills did this to you like you know they can do that but it's the Colts who we pinned as like I don't know one of the worst teams in the league we also have bad like Robert said like we equally imagined that it could have been the Colts on the other side of this and instead the Colts just took it to them I also to me like when this really really felt extra bad and where I also started to feel like decent about Lou Anarumo on the defense when Tua got picked by Laetulatu like playing zone eyes in the flat and he's like moving out to towards the sideline and then he cuts back to pick two off a little bit closer to the hash that was just like okay two is not seeing it and also like lou is doing some weird stuff if he's using lotu as a dropper like that you can just

54:26Robert Mays: tell that lou loves the fact that he has like defensive talent like it is it is fueling the creativity and that was it was generally the vibe i got when i was there is that i think that the The amount of pieces they had, especially up front, was going to give him some juice this year. And you felt that. There was a sack that Saps and Ebukam had in this game where Latu was lined up as a three technique. Buckner was lined up at defensive end. And then they had Latu all the way on like a twist where he's coming all the way back around. And I believe Ebukam like cleans up the sack as Tua tries to step up in the pocket.

55:00Robert Mays: That was one play. Kenny Moore is coming on a slot blitz and gets the strip sack. And then you mentioned the play where Latu is dropping back in coverage like this front. And if you include kind of Kenny Moore in the core of the defense, there is a lot to like about this group. We'll see what 67 % snap share for Xavier and Howard means against an offense that's not folding in on itself. But I do think there are enough strengths of what this Colts group has with Luana Rumo that it's a unit I'm excited to continue watching this year. Yeah. How do we feel about the Colts offense? again when it's when you're looking at it in the fun house mirror of what the dolphins were today it's a little bit hard to pull everything apart the tyler warren stuff seems very exciting right i think that we can all agree with that and then i there was a moment the catch that ad mitchell had down the right side i knew where that was going i i will not quit him i can't i refuse i refuse to quit ad mitchell if you guys go back and you watch the all 22 of that play he it's just like he's one-on-one on the right side of that, I believe against storm duck, the vertical push he gets and the throttle down he has and the separation he creates on that play.

56:09Robert Mays: That is like the platonic ideal, like what he can do as an NFL player. And so I do think that even if it's an incomplete group, the combination of skillsets that the pass catchers have kind of in cohesion with one another, I was excited about it coming into the year and I'm still excited about it after today. I just, I'm not sure how excited I should be considering the fact that the Dolphins were on the other side of it.

56:32Derrik Klassen: What if I told you you don't have to wait very long to get a definitive answer because the Colts week two opponent is Denver? There you go. Oh, well, that'll answer a lot of questions. Not so we're still recapping week one, but that'll be a very interesting test to see how much of this is for real. Speaking of Denver, let's get to our next WTF of week one.

56:51Robert Mays: The Tennessee Titans continue to be an extremely frustrating NFL football team. That game was there for the taking. Bo Nix had a rough day in his debut in his sophomore season, and the Titans just refused to accept this game from the Broncos. I mean, just so many different moments where it's just like, if I were a Titans fan, I would be pulling my hair out. The election to throw the ball three times with 47 seconds left at the end of the first half when the Broncos only had two timeouts and then punting the ball back and allowing them to go down and kick a field goal. Cam Ward taking two horrendous sacks after that muff punt and getting them out of field goal range.

57:33Robert Mays: The Titans is a team that had way too many penalties last year, way too many operational errors. It's like, all right, there's no way they shoot themselves in the foot this much in year two under Brian Callahan. 13 penalties for 131 yards today. Oh, my God. And that's before we get to the series of drops where it came more to just try to just throw in seeds all over the place. And all I want is for somebody to catch the ball on the other end of this thing. So maybe this is on me, Dave, for having some excitement about the Titans coming into the year. but this was an extremely frustrating opening out opening act for this group.

58:10Derrik Klassen: We will not take the blame for this because like the excitement was there. If you watch this game, like if you, if you box score, watch this game, you're probably rolling your eyes at why anybody should be excited about Cam Ward. It was the best, like 112 yard, no touchdown performance you'll ever see. He was exactly what I wanted him to be. You guys were with me today. The throw that he had, it was in the second half. He was on the O in the word Broncos in the end zone, 12 yards behind the line of scrimmage, second and eight, and he rips it across his body. It's a 25 yard throw to pick up 12 yards to Calvin Ridley with with somebody bearing down on him.

58:52Derrik Klassen: He got hit on the throw. I my soul jumped out of my body. I was like, yes, I love watching this guy play. That was ridiculous. Maybe it was ill-advised. Like, there's not very many people that I think should even try to do this. But Cam Ward can. The throw he had, I think it was four verts or something similar. Like, he had Calvin Ridley down the seam on that. He had multiple seam throws. The one in Chigakakwa as well. I mean, like, that was the most egregious draw, probably. It was terrible. And maybe you mentioned it, and I just blacked out because I was so mad. But the second play of the third quarter, Bo Nix throws his second pick.

59:27Derrik Klassen: the bra the titans get the ball on the denver 24 they run three times to set up fourth and one and just kick from the denver 17 that was the other one just the wimpiest sequence i've ever seen and i get it you're on the road denver is a is a crazy environment it's a great defense rookie quarterback give me something a little more either something more imaginative or something a little braver than three runs and kick in a situation where bo nicks gifts you with the best field position you'll get all day.

59:55Robert Mays: I just feel like we're in this and we're in the place now where that idea of we're an underdog, we're on the road, it's a tough environment. That's why you go for it in that situation. That's why you're not going to have that many situations where you have a chance to kind of take control of the game in the way that they did in that moment. That's why you draft a quarterback like Cam Ward. Like that's he lives to play in those moments. Like it's the whole reason you drafted a guy like that. And so I get that there were some frustrating moments with Cam Ward. Like the, it's funny, the sack sequence he takes when the Titans got the ball in that sequence.

1:00:25I remember turning to you, Dave.

1:00:26Derrik Klassen: We had a whole moment about it, and I told you you were going to jinx it. Because they got the ball in like the 30 or something like that because of the turnover, and I was like, oh, the only reason they wouldn't put up points here is if they have some sort of kicking miscue. And then Cam Ward takes two horrific sacks. He was not perfect at all. Yeah, I mean, that is a devastating sequence. Second and third down, back-to-back sacks that take you from a makeable field goal to like we can't even kick now. I mean, that's terrible. But Cam Ward was not the problem with the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.

1:00:56And the thing I'll say about Cam is I think when the ball came out, his decision making was good. He was generally like giving his guys, and he was a little bit aggressive in some of those moments and like testing windows, but that's just what he does. Like that's what I want from him. But he was generally giving guys chances, putting the ball into tight windows. And like, I think as a decision maker, when the ball came out, it was good. He did hold onto the ball way too long in this game. And that's probably going to be like the growing pain with him is he's just going to learn like how much can I get away with athletically and how much can I scramble around and do stuff like that obviously that field goal sequence is bad there was also a red zone rollout before the half if he just waits a quarter of a second longer the guy on the corner running through the pylon is going to be open and it's also like you're sprinting out in the red zone like you kind of don't really have chance to like turn around the way that he wanted to and sprint back to the other side of the field he tried to do that took a sack there so it's just learning what he can and can't get away with as a ball carry i think is going to be important but like as a thrower

1:01:50Derrik Klassen: dave it like it was everything that you wanted it to be he is so he's just i'm i'm glued to every titan game like every throw every decision and sometimes it's bad right like it's not i was

1:02:01Robert Mays: gonna say no godspeed to you it's just a roller coaster hey if i'm not emotionally invested i

1:02:06Derrik Klassen: just want to see what happens and it is a lot of fun you you mentioned the titans penalties but specifically i think you got to shout out the jeffrey simmons fiasco where like the titans get a stop near midfield with like three minutes to play and Jeffrey Simmons just pushes a ball carrier who's clearly stopped he's clearly down and Denver goes on to not turn the ball over until there's one minute left to play just I wrote 400 words of notes about the amount of stupid things the Titans did in this game and like that says it all and like that was just one of them and egregious egregious I do like Denver's defense was awesome by the way like not to take all the credit away from from Denver their pass rush was phenomenal in this game but so that's the thing

1:02:52Robert Mays: is that you can imagine Cam Ward and the Titans offense having a rough day on the road against a defense that has a chance to be the best in the league it's a little bit harder to wave away the performance Bo Nix had at home against the Titans defense that I think collectively we all agree that Dernard Wilson did a very good job last year in tough circumstances and with better talent just a more complete team this year, this Titans defense could surprise some people. Even with that sort of framing, for Bo Nix to look how he did today, that's a tough opening moment for a Broncos team, Derek, that has some real aspirations this year.

1:03:28He, it was like, he did not start off last season, obviously, very well. And then I think they kind of PC of the offense where he could really show some growth at the end of last year. I thought today he might've been the worst quarterback that played. Like he just was spinning. He did not look like he knew. And again, Denard Wilson does throw a lot of interesting stuff at you. But there was the strip sack where he is like faking the ball the wrong way and ends up taking the strip sack there. But I believe it was Jeffrey Simmons. There was a pick he almost threw to Amani Hooker where Hooker is like he's lined up, I think, just over the B gap.

1:04:00And then he ends up popping out to go and play the flat. Nick's just never sees it and throws right at him. And if Hooker's hands are 10 percent better, he probably catches that. he threw another pick out of the half where he's kind of staring at his guy running this deep outbreaker to the right side it's squeezed by two defenders the whole way he's looking at it the whole way and he just throws it anyway and it felt like he was making a lot of those mistakes of like oh this is supposed to be here and it was open in practice and now it's not open what do i do and he kind of threw it anyway and i felt like again week one you can get away with those mistakes if we see a game like this again in like week five or six i'm gonna start hitting the panic

1:04:35Robert Mays: button a little bit and that bizarre choice that they made to go for it on that fourth and eight where he has Colin Sutton wide open and doesn't throw it to him I mean just there were a lot of tough moments for Bo Nix in this game and one of the things we talked about all offseason in discussing where he had to be better and where the Broncos offense had to take a step is what he did under pressure it was a struggle for them all year last year when you look at every single advanced stat under the sun he was one of the worst quarterbacks in the league when pressured last season today only pressured on 18.6 percent of his drop backs per next gen two of seven for eight yards and two interceptions you cannot have as many you can't throw as many caught balls to the defense as you throw to your own team yeah it doesn't work that way same amount of completions under pressure to his team and to the defense in this game so the broncos get out of here with the win but i think some stuff to be a little bit concerned about as we move forward We got plenty of WTF candidates today because there were some frustrating moments all across the board.

1:05:33Robert Mays: Dave, what did you think of the Seahawks decision at the end of that game to kick the field goal, knowing that you were giving the ball back to the Niners with a chance to come back and win the game?

1:05:43Derrik Klassen: I applaud every opportunity I get. I love the way that Greg Olson advances the cause for aggressive, calculated decision making. It felt like a mistake in the moment. obviously the the only benefit of the decision is that the Seahawks had enough time to drive back into range to potentially re-win the game obviously Nick Bosa had something to say about that he called game but yeah in a situation like that I think and and look I'm contradicting myself a little bit because I said I would have I was okay with the punt in the Baltimore Buffalo game right but that's fourth and three and maybe it's a long three i mean you've got fourth and one and also it's completely different field position wise where you're you're in the red zone i mean even if you don't get it it's a long drive to go and potentially uh take the lead first for san francisco i just i think you gotta be more aggressive there it's obviously mike mcdonald is a defensive-minded head coach but greg olson was imploring him like hey man this is this is what the situation calls for and like the the numbers don't say that the Seahawks ran the ball particularly well but Gray's able was making a difference there like go watch Zach Charvenet's touchdown run like they were getting pushed I think if all you need is a yard I trust the what they were doing on the offensive line in this game I trust that you can pick it up somehow some way but obviously they they opted for a different tact yeah I feel like in a vacuum you have to go for it on fourth and one and there's part of me that I get why he didn't like the defense was playing very well up to that point in the game they'd only allowed 10 points to the Niners like they picked off Brock Purdy multiple times I get why Mike McDonald in that moment felt like given the way that his offense wasn't playing that well was like we're just gonna lean on the defense but like when you're when you're giving it up to like to the chance of like letting a quarterback who like Brock Purdy is not the best but he's going to go and give his guys chances and he did that multiple times like in this game like Like him throwing up the ball to Pierce Hall where Woolen kind of loses it.

1:07:46That was the other thing we're going to bring up is that. Yeah. And then again, tacking Woolen in the red zone. Yeah.

1:07:50Robert Mays: The fourth and one decision is part of this. Like that is the WTF aspect of this game. The Tariq Woolen moments at the end of the game is just like, that's the frustrating part about it is it becomes the right, it's the wrong process, but it can be the right outcome. If Woolen makes either one of those plays, instead you get him misplaying the ball to Pierce Hall and Tom just makes game winning play against Tariq Wollin. It was just week one nonsense. George Kittle comes out and then Tonjes is the one that ends up catching the game when he touched down for the Niners.

1:08:22Derrik Klassen: I'd never heard the name Jake Tonjes until sometime in the second half today. I like honest to God shout out to him. He was, the Niners were clearly, because they were missing a million receivers, were clearly committed to playing like 12 personnel, 21, 22. They played over 60 % of their snaps in three of those personnel formations, either 12, 21, or 22. So they were putting multiple tight ends on the board no matter what and so once kiddo went out that was like are they gonna be able to get away with this and then ton just i think had like a third down conversion where he like slides across the that was so great like that was such a great line this is awesome then he catches the game winner it's like for them to be so committed to this no matter what and have your third tight end come off the board and make that play it's just like that's that's

1:09:03Robert Mays: just like awesome to see in week one the reason i'm laughing so hard and this is going to be such an esoteric joke and I know I shouldn't make it. On the most recent season of Righteous Gemstones, there is a joke throughout the entire season where Uncle Baby Billy plays Teen-Gis where it's Teen-Jesus and the moment that I heard it was pronounced Tan-Gis, all I could think about is Walton Goggins saying Teen-Gis in his Baby Billy voice in my head. Come on now, Teen-Gis. Come on now. Tan-Gis. That's all I could think about as it was happening. That's how, by the time we got to the end of their second slate of games.

1:09:39Robert Mays: That's how much my brain had just melted from all the overstimulation today as I just kept hearing Tonjes in that voice.

1:09:44Derrik Klassen: It's like I said, so much stuff happened after McDonald elected to kick that fuel goal. But I've talked about that with people before where a defensive minded head coach, like the unit that he calls and the unit that he understands, like they want the defense to have the chance to affect the game with the outcome on the line. I just, I don't know how to delicately tell defensive minded head coaches Like that, I think that's wrong. Even if you're the best defensive play caller in the league, like it is a reactive unit. The whole goal is to be reactive. Win the game with the proactive half of your team.

1:10:18Derrik Klassen: I mean, everything that happened after that, it didn't need to. If you play that differently. I have one more note on the Seahawks. It felt like watching this team. Every screen was the worst thing that I've ever seen. The Seahawks threw six passes behind the line of scrimmage today. They completed five of them for a total of negative seven yards.

1:10:40Robert Mays: The negative six yard completion was one where I'm truly like, how does that happen? Yeah. It was so bad. And like Sam Darnold almost threw one of the swings to Zach Charbonnet, like behind him, where it would have been like a fumble out of bounds. Like it was just their whole operation of trying to hit the easy ones was not good today. I mean, you look at the numbers, 30 teams played today. The Seahawks finished 20th in EPA per drop back. And you felt that when you watched the passing game. And their rushing success rate was okay over the course of the game. I mean, because they had some short yardage stuff, but the place where Kenneth Walker was running the ball in this game, he's getting hit in the backfield consistently.

1:11:12Robert Mays: I want to go back and rewatch the Niners defense specifically in this game, because it does feel like they were doing some interesting stuff. And especially with like the pressure packages they were using, like I think Winters had like five or six pass rush snaps in this game. Michael Williams had three coverage snaps. Like it feels like because this is a group where it's a young group, the talent is not proven from top to bottom. I wouldn't necessarily be surprised the same way we said about Jeff Ulbrich, who comes from the same world. If Robert Sala was going to do some wonkier stuff this year in order to maybe make up for some of the gaps he has in talent on that side of the ball.

1:11:49I would want to see it. I mean, it's kind of a tree that does need to, to, to find some new answers.

1:11:53Robert Mays: So we got two more WTF entries and Dave, I don't, I hesitate to talk about this one, but we have to discuss it based on some of the conversations that we had in the preseason previewing this season. it was not a good opening day for Bryce Young and for the Bryce Young believers among us.

1:12:11Derrik Klassen: I thought we were going in a different direction. I don't want to do this one, but yeah, yes, yes, please go ahead. I mean, where do you want to start with this?

1:12:19Robert Mays: It was a, it was a rough outing. Do you want me to start with this? You can start with this if you want to. As the resident Bryce Young skeptic, you were, I will say you were very dignified and polite about it over the course of today. I'm not conceding defeat after a long week, just for the record. I said week one I was going to be civil and I was not the one that put this on the show docket today, but now that it's here. We had to talk about it. If we didn't, it feels like I'd be running away from it. That bad, exactly. I think the first interception he threw, that's just tough where he's rolling out to his right.

1:12:54The safety is clearly hammering down on it and he just never sees him and he throws it anyway. Ball gets tipped up And I think Ola Kun ended up being the one who intercepted that. So there was that.

1:13:04Robert Mays: Yeah, Murray was the one that was driving down. Yeah, it was Murray. And then there were a couple of moments where I just felt in the pocket like he's trying to get the ball up and over to a check down. And he's just a little bit smaller. And so he gets popped and ball's not able to come out the way it is. So he struggles with that. The most egregious one to me was fourth and one inside the red zone. He clearly starts to panic a little bit and he throws the ball away on fourth and one in the end zone in a game where like this is tight and you need to go with it. And so that to me was the moment where like, for whatever reason, this feels a little bit too much for him again.

1:13:36And I'm a little bit worried of that, like snowballing.

1:13:38Derrik Klassen: I'll be honest. My lasting impression of this game, I was really excited about this game. I said it going into the weekend. I had visions of grandeur of Bryce and Trevor just trading blows and just looking great. And it was obvious before the rain delay that this game was a dud. But like even before that happened, I was like, all right, well, the Jags and Panthers disappointing me again. What else is new? And then they were off the air for however long the rain delay was. And by the time they came back, we had Seahawks Niners going. We had Texans Rams. I resented the game. I hated it. Yeah. Like every time I looked over, I was like, can you just go away?

1:14:17Derrik Klassen: Even looking over at that screen is a bummer for me. Not only because it wasn't a good game, but it was just a reminder of my own failure. Every time I looked over there, I hated it. I will say he had, I'll give him his credit. The fourth and five that Ted Arroa McMillan couldn't bring in because I think Tyson Campbell like rips it out. Which that's just an incredible play by Tyson Campbell. That was a really good ball from Bryce Young. Like he had a couple of good throws in this game. It's just the down to down is just, it just wasn't good enough.

1:14:43Robert Mays: The one that Javion Sanders down the right sideline is one that theoretically could have been hauled in. But he did not look good or comfortable in this game. The fourth and one throwaway you mentioned was a bad play. And then the pick six that didn't end up counting because of a cheap penalty on the other side of the ball that was completely away from the play. So I again know we're not conceding anything, Dave, but that is not a good opening act from the Bryce Young believers in the audience here.

1:15:08Derrik Klassen: Far from it. It was like starting right back over. Maybe it wasn't as unbelievably uncompetitive as the week one game against the Saints last year, but it was back to just being like, oh, the Panthers look like Bryce Young doesn't look ready for the moment. He just doesn't look like he's there.

1:15:25Robert Mays: You want to see me twist myself into a pretzel to believe that this might be okay? Week one, we've never seen Anthony Campanile call a defense before. You truly don't know what is coming. And they did some interesting stuff, right? Like Jordan Lewis gets a head has that sloplets where he blows up that third eight in the second quarter. They ran some kind of funky simulated pressures. Like we just didn't know what it was going to look like. Maybe as we get a little bit deeper into the season and game plan, a little bit better, has a little bit more information and we see a better version of the Panthers offense.

1:15:54Robert Mays: But that is some real cope coming from my side of the table.

1:15:56Derrik Klassen: You know, the always sunny meme where Mac is like, I'm playing both sides. So I always come out on time. There you go. Dominant win for the Jags, which is also, I also enjoy that. So that's fine. So the one thing I wanted to say about that, it was so refreshing to have a game where Trevor was just like mid. He was fine. Like the pick he threw was egregious. Like if you're going to throw if you're going to misthrow a deep over route like that, overthrow it to the sideline. Don't under throw it and get picked. And then like otherwise, I think he had some good moments, but was like it was a middling Trevor performance.

1:16:27But to have him do that and then still comfortably win the game was like, I don't know the last time that has happened for the Jaguars.

1:16:34Robert Mays: The Jaguars rushed for 200 yards. I mean, 70 of them were on one Travis ETN play, but the fact that that's even possible is a nice change of pace for the Jacksonville Jaguars. But I will, I would agree that this game was kind of a dud. The last thing that we want to talk about in WTF, they won the game. The Bengals are on notice. They are on notice. This is unacceptable behavior. They had seven yards in the second half of this game, David, seven yards and they somehow ended up beating this Browns team. I just cannot with this team. I cannot believe that they did this again and almost lost a game.

1:17:10Robert Mays: They had no business losing in week one.

1:17:11Derrik Klassen: This is why football is incredible. Like we just, we did a whole thing about Mike McDonald not being aggressive enough. Maybe the Ravens should have gone for it at the end of Sunday night football. Zach Taylor wimped out again. And I guarantee you his entire fan base was screaming at him. If you it's, it's fourth and one on their own, on their own 35. Like that's how egregious the Bengals were, where it's like, just go for it. Just go for it and get this stupid game over with. The Browns are going to find a way to win if you give it back to them. They just will. The defense has done too much already.

1:17:42Derrik Klassen: They've turned them away two or three times in a row. And Zach Taylor punted because that's the type of thing Zach Taylor typically does. And lo and behold, it freaking works out because the Bengals get two tip drill interceptions off the same play, by the way, like different receivers. But Jerry Judy and Cedric Tillman, both they dig deep to come up with balls that that that could have been caught, mind you, like not great throws by Joe Flacco, but catchable balls. They dig down toward the ground to get them. They both scoop them up into the air and Jordan Battle. And and who was who was the other one?

1:18:18Derrik Klassen: I already forgot. DJ Turner. They both come up with them. so two tip drill picks are why the Bengals get out of Cleveland with a win even though I think Zach Taylor made the wrong decision once again they just do this man like I don't I don't know like I honestly I've said it before like the Bengals are not a serious team until October and so like this this should be concerning but for me I'm just like this isn't if they had won a game like 40 to 20 in September that would be a WTF to me this is like this is regularly scheduled

1:18:48Robert Mays: programming the again if i'm trying to like trying to cope with this if i'm a bangles fan and trying to frame it in a more generous way i will say that this is the best version of what we want from the browns this year on multiple different levels they looked extremely competent yes and and competent in the ways i wanted them to be competent so the way they played man coverage in this game if they can do this to teams if you can do this to the bangles i think you'll be able to do this to a lot of offenses joe burrow against man coverage in this game per next gen four of nine for 29 yards, 44 and a half percent of his throws on those plays were into tight windows.

1:19:22Robert Mays: Wow. Like, and Greg Newsom had some really nice moments against Jamar Chase in this game. The, they, one of those man coverage throws, uh, the play that Carson Swessinger made on that little under route to chase Brown, just like, Oh man, loving that. And then Miles Garrett has multiple, like, I cannot believe this is happening. miles garrett very quietly and slowly is becoming the tungsten arm o'doyal of the nfl we are gonna have so many games this season where it's the you can say it right now miles garrett had five pressures two sacks and two run stuffs today as the browns lost 17 to 16 in a game where the bangles had seven yards of offense in the second half back to you chris didn't the browns sack hit

1:20:05Derrik Klassen: joe three times in a row in this game like two of them were miles two of them were miles garrett yes

1:20:11Robert Mays: Unbelievable. So the Bengals are officially on notice. That is how I want to wrap up that segment. But I will say that the Browns doing that on defense and then just this weird Browns offense where we're getting eight Dylan Samson targets and Harold Fannin is heavily involved. Like this is the version of the Cleveland Browns that is going to be watchable in 2025. That still does not justify the behavior that we saw from the Cincinnati Bengals today.

1:20:34Derrik Klassen: I will say this. If you're a Bengals fan, it's probably easy to cope because you're looking at it and saying, hey, we always play like shit in week one, but we won this time. And playing like shit and being 1-0 is way better than what we've experienced most of the last three or four years. I guess that's okay.

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1:21:29Robert Mays: Every week, I want to just take a second to celebrate a couple of the moments that we saw on Sunday. And we're calling this, how can you not be romantic about football? Just stealing a little bit from Moneyball and from Brad Pitt. Two things that I wanted to point out in this game from today are just quarterbacks that, listen, we love watching play. We love watching play because what they bring to the table stylistically, and both of them showed up in a big way today. Let's start with what Geno Smith did for the Las Vegas Raiders. It's against the Patriots defense that is in flux, you know, to be generous.

1:22:03Robert Mays: I think there's some questions about the Patriots defense. That still in my mind does not take away from what Geno Smith did in this game. Nine completions of 20 plus yards for Geno Smith and the Las Vegas Raiders. Before Sunday Night Football, I've not looked at the numbers since, and the Ravens may have passed them. The Raiders had the highest explosive pass rate of week one after the second slate of games was over today. 0.41 EPA per attempt for Geno today. The Ravens led the league last year at 0.40. when you talk about the Raiders being like a watchable offense because they have a quarterback who's just willing to put on a laser show at any point.

1:22:40Robert Mays: That's exactly what we saw from the Raiders offense today. It was the most Geno Smith performance. I think possible where like he, there was a point in this game where he had been sacked, like I think four times for like 30 yards. He had a pick. And then he also had like 10 yards in attempt and 300 yards because almost every drop back he was just getting, it was like a lot of five and seven step drop. He was finding his spot. He was holding onto the ball. And the Patriots, to be clear, were actually throwing a lot of interesting pressures. And they were getting to him. But he was really good about resetting his spot when he needed to.

1:23:11Sticking in there and making throws. Like, he hit Jacoby Myers, like, in the intermediate area a number of times. He started off the game, by the way, ripping a ball to Brock Bowers. Oh, my God. Like, right past the ear hole of a linebacker. As soon as he did that, I was like, this offense is going to be as cool as it needs to be. He found Besh down the field a couple of times. Tucker down the field like he was just Gino was very much I'm gonna get to my spot and I'm gonna be a flat cannon and that's exactly what I wanted him to be in this offense I love like any good Gino

1:23:41Derrik Klassen: game like of course you're gonna have the shots deep downfield like I mean the touchdown was a bust anyway but you can like at every level of the field like he'll do something audacious but like from five to ten yards from 10 to 12 from 15 to 20 and then like beyond that like it doesn't matter how deep the route is he's gonna make a ridiculous throw that there are other quarterbacks in the league who will do it but his willingness to do it and the consistency with which he is willing to do it is is almost unmatched the first seam ripped about his off play action is just a

1:24:14Robert Mays: disgusting play the touchdown to trey tucker i still don't really understand what the coverage is supposed to be it's cover zero essentially with multiple droppers from the line of scrimmage and Gino's just like okay so that's the thing is like I kind of love that call against like 27 quarterbacks where like you're dropping you're playing cover zero but you're dropping a couple guys uh off the front of the line of scrimmage so it's like quarterback against cover zero they're probably thinking oh then I can just throw this bullet I can get it out quick I could throw this bullet slant we're gonna convert well if you're dropping guys off the line of scrimmage Jared Goff is gonna get got you know like maybe like Kyler Murray is gonna get got by something like that Gino Smith goes oh you're playing zero I don't care what else is happening I'm throwing into the deep sky down the field blitzing while playing zero he's gonna have the time to do it he's the wrong quarterback to do that against so that happens at the start of the third quarter he rips a deep curl to jacoby myers like 23 yards down the field and then the one to brock bowers up the right sideline where bowers has to kind of back shoulder a little bit and twist back toward the ball milton williams is like in gino's face as he throws that ball and it just doesn't end up mattering.

1:25:19Robert Mays: He just rips at the Brock Bowers down the right sideline. So if that's the version of Gino, we're going to get in this offense where we just see again, like eight to 10 lasers over the course of the game. How can you not be romantic about that? Also quietly love that we got the Jacoby Myers, like maybe getting traded fiasco and then he gets 10 targets in this game. So they very clearly want to keep him around. I mean, we'll see what happens with the Brock Bauer side of it. I know that a lot of the, you know, fantasy people are going to talk about this ad nauseum over the next 24 hours, but the fact that he essentially wasn't playing in one tight end sets early in the game, even before Michael Mayer got, or even before Brock Bowers got banged up something to keep an eye on, because even if my Brock Bowers is limited as a blocker, it still feels like Brock Bowers should be on the field as often as possible.

1:26:00Robert Mays: If you're trying to create the best version of the Las Vegas Raiders offense, one more, how could you not be romantic about football? I'm just going to mention one specific throw from this game. The Matthew Stafford throw that Avante Adams talking about back shoulder throws down the left sideline. Those two guys, just in terms of like the sheer flair that they play their positions, right? Yes. Like they, Matthew Stafford and Devante Adams, like there are guys that when you talk to players about peers at their position, there are one, two guys are always are the first people out of their mouths.

1:26:35Robert Mays: Matthew Stafford and Devante Adams are those guys. And I think we knew it was going to be fun to watch this pair play together. Dave, that play specifically near the end of that game where it's like, this is it. This to me is like what football is on a pedestal. And we got to see it in week one for that really brief moment.

1:26:52Derrik Klassen: This entire game really. And I won't lie. I thought the score might've been higher. Obviously Houston didn't score a touchdown. The pass rushes in this team are in this game are good, right? Like they're very good on both sides of the ball. Stylistically, this game was everything I thought it would be in terms of just two quarterbacks with like a PhD in pocket navigation and, and passing concepts, just going at it. And like the scoreline's not sexy. The stat lines aren't sexy, but Matthew Stafford and CJ Stroud were just throwing darts all over the field. Like Stafford was doing his thing. Yeah, the Devontae, the back shoulder one that you're talking about, I know exactly which one, but also Puka caught 10 balls in this game, just ripping digs over the middle of the field, time in and time out.

1:27:36Derrik Klassen: And Puka was in on the blocking for Kyron Williams' touchdown run early in this game. just magnificent and then cj stroud and dak prescott for me this week were the like can i get some freaking help award candidates of the week like cj stroud the stat line 19 of 27 for 188 with a pick does not do justice to what this cat was doing on sunday like his interception hit his receiver in the hands and the db just took it away from the guy like he was he he was throwing the ball all over the yard like this was just a a quarterback fans dream matchup and and

1:28:12Robert Mays: stroud and stafford both delivered in my opinion 41.2 pressure rate for cj stride in this game nine of ten for 102 yards on those plays where he was pressured balling dude like balling out of and like he had a couple of scrambles actually that were like pretty good for them like he was again dave you said it like the stat line does not look very good but you watched the cj stroud game and i even like watched it back during the end of the slate and i was like man he just outside of like maybe one or two throws like and there was one sack he took where he could have slid up in the pocket but like he played given the pressure about as well as he probably even the sacks he did take again a lot of them not his fault yeah exactly i just think that some of the penalties in this game like they were in disadvantageous down and distance situations for most of the game it just it the rams defense on that front is going to make it tough on you but the fact that the offensive line this was the first kind of glimpse we got from them i know they were a little bit banged up over the course of the game it's i think a little bit of cause for concern about what this Texans offense is going to look like if this is what we're going to get from the offensive line week in and week out.

1:29:08Derrik Klassen: For sure, but C.J. Stroud will still be entertaining to watch. There were three explosive runs in that game, and one of them was C.J. Stroud scrambling. I was going to say, that feels like a lot. I don't remember the backstreet of a lot of that. The Rams don't get explosive runs. The Rams didn't even have one.

1:29:23Robert Mays: This version of Nick Chubb is the running back for the Texans.

1:29:25Derrik Klassen: And yet, I was riveted all afternoon by the number of throws that these guys were making. Before we get out of here, it's time to talk about what we learned today. you know i think i've learned something today we were kind of kicking around ideas for what this

1:29:39Robert Mays: was going to be because in week one you don't often learn a lot that's lasting and i think that there could be a lot of answers to this that would look very stupid by the time we got to the end of september but i do think the biggest lesson that we learned from this game and from this week was that sometimes when the vibes feel like they're rotten they might be rotten and that feels like it's what's happening with the Miami Dolphins David I think it's only fair you direct

1:30:07Derrik Klassen: that at me because I have been at least mildly defending the Dolphins for most of the summer I was talking them up on our wins pool show I didn't wind up taking them thank God but it was an idea that I had less than a week ago less than a week ago and yeah I think I it's funny because I fell for my own. I had a blind spot and something that I tell people all the time where I often remind people where I'm like, don't forget that these like these are people with other things going on in their lives. And like, you can't separate that from the performance that you see on the field. And I ignored it despite a mountain of evidence that suggests like, hey, just because the Dolphins have good players doesn't mean that they're going to play like a good football team and it is only one week but it's hard not to be very alarmed by the play the vibes all of it when you watch the performance the Dolphins put out there I think just because of the way it's been building too or like I think sometimes if you get a performance like this where it's like new staff and everything it's like okay well sometimes you're just not going to be as put together and you don't really know how to call a game yet and all this stuff but for the for a Dolphins core that has been together for three four years now and for it to have clearly deteriorated the way that it did at the end of last season with Hill, like pretty openly saying that he did not want to be there anymore.

1:31:27And then even this summer, like him and Tua kind of talking about how their relationship was a little bit fractured. All of that stuff on top of looking at certain parts of the roster that were like very clearly terrible, like with the way that the secondary had been built, still a lot of questions on the offensive line. You're kind of like we talked about the preventative units, like those are the units that are supposed to stop the bad plays from happening. And those are probably the two worst units on the team. So you mix that with like just how bad a lot of this felt. It is a situation, Dave, you said it at the top of the show.

1:31:55Sometimes when there's smoke, there's fire. And when it's a team that's been together this long, there should not be smoke. And so it's pretty concerning.

1:32:02Robert Mays: Feels like a raging inferno right now. We talked about it coming into the season. If you're trying to build the optimistic case for the Dolphins, it's that when Tua has been on the field, this has been one of the better offenses in the entire league, one of the more efficient offenses in the entire league. today the only team with a worse EPA per drop back than the Miami Dolphins was the Tennessee Titans playing on the road against the Broncos with a rookie quarterback so even that where it's like well yeah when they've been healthy they've been really good on offense was not the case today the Colts defense I do think has a chance to be an interesting unit but this is not the Broncos on the road like this is a team that you should at least look competent against instead they looked like one of the worst offenses in the league in week one and if that's going to be the case when this group is fully healthy there's really no optimistic case to be made about what the dolphins can be in 2025 all right guys that's all we got our first recap show from the studio hope you guys enjoyed it it was so fun to watch the games all together today and just be together

1:33:03Derrik Klassen: to watch them we got a good setup it's like it would have been fun if it was a mediocre day but like what a what a week one man like it would have been great without raven's bills and then you get that at the end that's just that's unbelievable derek and i will be back on tuesday

1:33:21Robert Mays: in your feeds we're doing a version of a show that we've done in the past just you know something akin to the monday hangover we used to do where we're going to break down three or four games that we did not hit in detail on tonight's show so if you are a fan of a team that we did not talk about tonight, it is very likely that we will be talking about them in depth on our Tuesday podcast. So please come back and check that out for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.