Week 11 Preview: Seahawks-Rams headlines a loaded slate

0:28Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. about Broncos Chiefs as our second game of the week, in part because this is a massive game for the Chiefs' chances in the AFC West. Their ability to win the division again is kind of on life support, and it's real this time. It's not just something that we're dancing around. This is a real concern for Kansas City. Hit one thing from Eagles, Lions, Bears, Vikings, and Chargers, Jags. I said some stuff about Caleb Williams that I don't think I've ever said before. I'm allowing myself to feel. I'm allowing myself to be hurt again, which has been, you know, a confusing but exciting time for me.

1:04Spent a little time on Sicko Street with Panthers Falcons, a little under the hood on the Bills passing game, and then chatted about what we want to know coming out of Week 11. Me, Derek Lassen, Dave Hellman. Let's get to it right now.

1:21It's the Week 11 preview here on The Athletic Football Show. We got a doozy of a slate this week. I'm very excited to dig into it. Wasting no time. Let's get to the games of the week. We have two of them. Both these games presented by BetMGM. The first one, Seahawks at Rams. 7-2 Seahawks, 7-2 Rams. Rams are two and a half point favorites in this game. Essentially dead even from everybody who's looking at this thing. Dave, why is Seahawks-Rams the game of the week? Best two teams in the league are playing each other. And the two most interesting teams in the league, probably, in terms of like what they're doing to get to this point, the way that they're playing.

2:02We did our midseason awards earlier this week. We mentioned the two quarterbacks as shortlist candidates to win MVP. I mean, that's a selling point all on its own. And you factor in two ferocious defenses, two head coaches that are at the forefront of what they're doing on their respective sides of the ball. did I mention that this is a rivalry that goes back like not just in the NFC West but I'm sure we're going to get into McVay and Mike McDonald's history as well I mean this is what it's all about man I mean McVay versus McDonald in 23 was like the the last big like this is the ball knowers like football game football game like this was truly like everything about the sport coming to a head at that time and it's the last like big one we've gotten like that and for them to be meeting again as potentially the two best teams in the league where the Rams, especially over the last month, have been the best offense in the league.

2:52In my mind, their defense is obviously really good. And then Mike McDonald putting together what is like you can we can maybe make the case. Maybe the Texans are a better defense, whatever. I think structurally what Seattle is doing is like the coolest thing in the league on that side of the ball. So the fact that they're meeting again for like whoever wins this is probably has the inside track to the NFC, not just the West, but like the one seed in the conference, which is like this. This is like a monumental game. I was thinking about this last night and a reporter asked Mike McDonald about the comments that Greg Olson made earlier this week about teams matching personnel on defense and whether or not they should and just how offenses are trying to manipulate defenses from a personnel perspective.

3:30And Mike, you know, talked about how, you know, there are nuances to every question and things like that. But even just watching him answer that question and the fact that that's the discussion that's kind of been happening in football circles this week, it just brought me to a place where I was thinking about both of these teams. And And it's just hard for me not to smile when I think about what they look like on their respective sides of the ball. I love this sport because to me it is an unsolvable puzzle. It's always moving, right? The evolution consistently is happening and it's a moving target in terms of what you're aiming for.

4:01And that attempt and effort to solve the game and to kind of bend it to your will with all the schematics, that's one of the reasons I'm so interested in this sport all the time. and when I look at what McVay and McDonald are doing on their respective sides of the ball they are the ones that are trying to bend the game to their will and to their advantage like when you look at what Sean has done we've talked about this a bunch this season but it does feel like this is kind of the final form of the Rams offense and we'll talk about it in a second but they'll do the same stuff out of 11 personnel that they do out of 13 personnel this idea of we're going to push the limits in every way possible but still make this cohesive vision while trying to dictate the game to you.

4:43That's what offensive football is. And I think that the Rams right now are kind of reaching their high point in their pursuit of it. And on the other side of the ball, Mike is kind of doing the exact opposite of that, right? Where he is trying to do everything out of the same personnel grouping in a very similar way to what the Rams have done for most of Sean's tenure in order for you not to be able to get information or to dictate the game to them. So when I just think about why I like this sport, what these teams are doing on either side of the ball. It's a very pure expression of that idea.

5:15I think the fact that they like have come to it in that way as play callers is really interesting. Like, yeah, when Sean McVay first got to Los Angeles, everything was 11 personnel. The entire thing is we're going to get under center. We're going to run weak zone and we're going to play action off of it. That was the whole thing. And it was just dressing up different ways to do that out of 11 personnel. And since then, they've like, they had the whole debacle of, okay, maybe we need to change our run game. And then maybe we need to change out the quarterback and maybe we need to be more of a drop back passing game.

5:39And now he's had all those lessons over the years and has converted to this very just multifaceted offense. Whereas, yeah, you look at the Seahawks offense and it's like everything is nickel. If we bring in this huge nickel defense, sorry. They want to bring in Nick Emanwari so that they can just be in nickel all of the time and then just like make everything look the same. I mean, like even from a coverage perspective, like they play a little bit of everything, but like most of what they do is rotating in and out of cover three and cover six. Like that's most of what they do. And it's just like trying to dress it up in different ways.

6:09But it's out of the same shell for the most part. They play with that. I'm like, they play with out of those shells all the time in order to be unpredictable on that side of the ball. And so again, it just, it feels like these teams on offense and defense exist at the furthest point of current evolution of those ideas on either side of the ball. And that's why I love this shit. I love it. And I also love how, and I like, obviously these guys are brilliant and so much thought and effort and money goes into this, but like, it can also be really simple. Like the idea, like this idea of like not changing your personnel and like not matching what the offense is doing.

6:46Like it sounds basic when you just say it, it's just like, well, I don't want to do that. I don't, I'm not, why, why, why would I do that? Why would I play to what you want me to do? But the execution of it is incredibly difficult. Like there are two different things. And I just, I love how it can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it. You know what I mean? Let's dig into that side of the ball. Derek, the number one thing you are looking for when the Rams have the ball in this game is what? I mean, we just talked about the Seahawks. Like, they pretty much only played nickel. And again, when you bring in a guy like Nick Emanuari, now they have a lot of their guys healthy for the most part.

7:21This is the defense that they want to be. The Rams, over the last month, for the first like six or seven weeks of the season, it was still a lot of 11 personnel the way that they typically were. But over the last month, it's been an unbelievable amount of 13 personnel, like almost half of their plays at this stage are out of 13 personnel. And maybe that's just them. Obviously, you know, Dave, you brought this up. They kind of stumbled into it when Huka Nakua got hurt in like I think it was week seven. And since then, they've released a lot of it. But even since he's been back, it is still a huge, huge part of their offense.

7:49And I think part of that is it's helped give them a little bit of variety in the run game. I think it's let them tap into different players that are coming on, like what Terrence Ferguson can do for them. and like having some juice from that spot in a way that they have not had probably ever in the Sean McVay era, I think is really cool. This is a very important thing to bring up because he is a necessary component of their 13 personnel being as dangerous as it is because they're still trying to run a lot of the same concepts out of 13 personnel that they're trying to run out of 11 personnel. And one of the reasons that they're able to do that, and you see this happen over and over and over again in the San Francisco game, Terrence Ferguson has enough vertical juice that even when you're in 13 personnel, you can still have verticality in your passing game and you can still create space because of what he can do.

8:34Two examples that stick out to me. I mean, they hit him on a wheel route in this game. They tried to throw on a couple of them. Yeah, they tried to throw one to him. He couldn't bring it in. And then like two plays later, they're like, I'll do it again. So that is like plays where he's getting the ball. There are two plays that come stick to me. There was one crosser in the red zone where they have Devontae Adams coming on a crosser and they have Ferguson out of 13 personnel running like the clear out corner to create space on that side. And then they hit a dagger to Devontae later in the game where Ferguson out of 13 personnel again is running the clear out route on the dagger so Devontae can hit the inbreaker behind it.

9:08Most tight ends don't have that sort of giddy up to create that amount of space within the offense, but he does. And that's part of the reason they've been able to do this. You can take it back a couple of weeks too, because if you go back and look at the Rams 13 personnel plays and specifically their scoring plays, a lot of them are red zone. A lot of them are goal line because big personnel lets you run the ball down there. And also, if you clog the box with bodies because the Rams have 13 personnel, it's a great way to give Devontae Adams a one on one matchup on the goal line. But one of their only touchdowns that's not a red zone play is the deep shot to Terrence Ferguson against the Jags, where guess what?

9:46The Jags trot out base because you're in 13 personnel and oh, holy shit, the tight end just got behind everybody on our defense for whatever it was yard score, 28-35 yards. It's incredibly fun to watch. If you look at the distribution of how defenses have matched that 13 personnel from the Rams, it's been almost exclusively base defense. It's like 60 plays against base defense and like five plays in Ansonickel. And if you look at the stats in both running the ball and passing the ball, it makes sense considering the way defenses have matched that. The Rams throwing the ball out of 13 personnel this season, 0.7 EPA per drop back.

10:23Just for context, like Drake May, I think, leads the league right now. Excuse me, Sam Darnold leads the league right now at.23. So it's almost three times more valuable than the most efficient passer in the NFL right now from that perspective. It's eight yards per attempt. Running the ball out of those looks, they have a 42.5 % success rate per next-gen stats. The EPA is like directly zero, EPA per rush. And so they're much more efficient throwing against those looks out of 13 % other than they are running them, which makes sense. But why it becomes interesting here is what are the Seahawks going to do?

10:56Because they've only faced about a dozen, 15 snaps of 13 personnel all year. And in normal down and distances in normal areas of the field, Dave, not near the goal line, they've played nickel over half the time against those looks. And so I do think that that's probably what they're going to do in this game. And then it becomes a question of, OK, if you're going to match it with lighter bodies, are we going to be able to run the ball at you over the course of the game? and I think the Seahawks might be equipped to actually slow them down if they try to do that. That's like it's really going to depend like how the Rams want to run the ball because I do think in terms of the Rams offensive line in general has been better than this year but that Seahawks front they all just push you into the backfield they are insane top to bottom.

11:39When you watch them against the Niners last week there are a lot of like one-on-one blocks that the Rams offensive line is winning and that makes sense like Avila's playing well he's like he's back Dotson's having a good season. It's just a different sort of group of animals that you're dealing with playing against the Seahawks front right now. That's a really, really good unit. Every play, one of those defensive linemen for the Seahawks is in the backfield. All of their edge players set the edge hard as hell. And then they're linebackers. They use those like little missiles, like constantly against the run game.

12:07It's a little missile is very fitting. That's exactly what he is right now. That is all he is, man. They strapped a rocket to his back and they said, all right, we're going to let you go. Do you guys ever watch the Seahawks and like you're just going through a game and maybe you go through like five or six snaps and then a different good player pops up and you're like, holy shit, that guy hasn't even been on the field this entire time. It feels like they have nine guys, particularly on the front, who can interchange and come in and come out and like Jerron Reed might disappear for a series or a few snaps and then he comes back in.

12:37It's like, holy shit, he's a rotational guy? This is disgusting. I'm so glad you brought up Jerron Reed because I think the comparison that I would make is I think the Seahawks defensive front reminds me a little bit of the Rams defensive front, where you have a lot of differing but complementary skill sets. And when you watch some of these run plays, the Seahawks, like the Rams, stunt their front on early downs as much as nearly any team in the league. And so you have like a Byron Murphy. He'll duck backdoor on a certain run play in order to get some penetration. He's a penetrator. You have a Jaron Reed, just kind of similar to Puna Ford, where, all right, this guy is going to eat up some blocks.

13:09And then you have your Leonard Williams is like an even souped up version of like a Tyler Davis or like whatever. And then you have that and then you have a bunch of different skill sets on the edge too. Colby Turner is a penetrating player in the way that Byron Murphy is. It's like, I love the fact that you have very different sorts of players among each of these two groups and they're utilized in a way where it all kind of makes sense together. The player that unlocks all of this for the Seahawks from a structural perspective is Nick Emanwari and that's why they drafted him where they did. It's like, we're going to stick that guy in the nickel.

13:40He's going to let us play nickel all the time. That has been true, right? Like that's one of the reasons they can do it. But I do think the idea of what Nick Amonwari gives the structure of a defense, there is a gap between that and the quality of the player right now. And I think that speaks to what the Rams might be able to get away with in this game. He's better the less he has to think about what he's doing. Like when he's in pure man-to-man coverage, he can kind of run with guys. Like it's not bad. When they fire him on like blitzes and stuff like that, he is insanely athletic and he can really go on both stuff.

14:13I talked about that sack on, I think, the Sunday show last week. He's a really, really good athlete in that sense. When he's fitting the run, when he's like kind of having to play with guys and press coverage or he has to sit in a zone, you can just kind of see the gears spinning a little bit. And I do think that's why the 13 personnel run stuff is interesting because if they're going to stay in nickel and he's obviously going to be aligned over those tight ends and he's going to be a beat slow to see those guys, you're going to get two tight ends climbing up to him. it's like they're going to be able to find a couple of pop runs here probably.

14:42I'm curious if it doesn't go well early. Is this a situation where McVay just scraps it? Where he's like, you know what? This is an advantage against most teams. The way that they play, it's not really an advantage against them. Because the difference between the Rams 13 personnel and some of these other teams that want to live in heavier personnel groupings, the Rams don't have to play that way. That was the funniest part to me about rewatching the Niners game is that they come out in 13 and you have three tight ends on the field. I can't remember what the play was. It doesn't really matter. But then on the next play, they're an 11 with it spread out.

15:15And two of your three receivers are a Hall of Famer playing at a high level and a guy that has more yards per game as a receiver in his first three years than Randy Moss. It's like, oh yeah, those guys are still on the team. We can still play this way if we want to. So it's not a bad consolation that you have to dig into that. I'm going to laugh if Sean McVay doesn't even try that hard at all. Like it's been so fun to watch. and we're nerds and it's our job to look at this. And it's fun to be like, look, look at the 13 personnel usage. It's ticking up every single week and they can do this and they do that.

15:46And Sean McVay's like, why would I try to do that against these guys? Like if I can spread them out and I can win outside, I can use my incredible receiver core. I could use my athletic tight end Ferguson in other ways than just as a 13 personnel guy. I don't know. I hope he sticks with it just because I want to see what that looks like. But it would be really funny if McVay just didn't even bother. If he doesn't, the reason I do think that Stafford is a very compelling quarterback against Mike McDonald's defense is them playing so much like quarters, cover six, some of this too high stuff. You got to be able to throw under those safeties in middle of the field defense and like throw it past the linebackers ear hole.

16:22And Ernest Jones is a really good coverage player. It looks like he's potentially going to be able to play in this game. That's huge, by the way. All those end breakers, they want to throw a linebacker that can, because Tyrese Knight's been nice over the, he was nice last week. He's good moving forward. having a linebacker that can see behind him in the way that Ernest Jones can against this team specifically, I think is a huge deal. That's what makes it the coolest strength on strength thing. These are the throws that Seattle makes really hard. Those in-breakers over the middle because their safeties drive down on stuff.

16:48Ernest Jones squeezes windows really well. But Stafford is the most like, yeah, I can throw that shit. What are you talking about? So it's just like an incredible matchup. Not to mention Ernest Jones, former Ram. Between him and Cooper Cup, there's some John Wick to this matchup at least a little bit. A couple of stats I think are worth throwing out just some context around how well the Seahawks have defended the run out of nickel and why they might be able to hold up in this matchup. The Seahawks have the third best run defense success rate in the NFL per next gen in nickel looks this year. They are first in EPA per rush when playing nickel.

17:19So it's not just that they do it a lot it's that they are literally the best team in the league defending the run out of those looks. So far this season teams have negative 30 total EPA running the ball against the Seahawks nickel defense. No other team in the league is above 18.7 total. Like teams are losing a field goal a game, basically trying to do that. Trying to do this. They're pounding their heads against the wall. The other, two other things, I think just from a past defense perspective that are interesting to me, the Seahawks have the highest pressure rate in the league when blitzing this year.

17:49It's 55%. They don't do it a lot. I was going to say, how many blitzes is that though? They blitz like below average rate. It's like 20 % of overall dropbacks. But when they do it, it's often properly weaponized. And I'm curious if the Rams are going to play in some of these condensed looks, and even in 13 personnel where it is condensed, are you going to see Emanwari, some of these edge pressures that McDonald likes to use against these Shanahan-McVay teams when things get a little bunched up? And on the flip side of that, the Seahawks have actually been below average in their past defense success rate against condensed formations this season, according to NextGen.

18:21They are second against all other types of formations. So that element of it, just something maybe to keep in mind as you're watching how this unfolds. That is really interesting. I did not know that they struggled a little bit against those condensed formations. You can't sort by that. And so it's all anecdotal to be able to go back and watch it. But just, I was like, you know, I'm curious how they do against condensed looks. I know they're going to see a lot of those and they actually have been below average against them this season. Get to the other side of the ball. Derek, the number one thing you're looking for when the Seahawks have the ball in this game.

18:48I mean, to me, this is like, the reason people thought maybe the Sam Darnold thing wouldn't work out in Seattle is because Chris Shula's Rams defense beat the shit out of him in the playoffs. This is a very Dave Hellman point. I, the historical context you're bringing to the table, but I do like this. It was just like, that was the game where, and obviously Sam had struggled in week 18 or whatever it was too, but this game was like, oh my God, this looks like bad Sam Darnold again. And a lot of it, when I remember watching that game was to go back to the condensed formation thing that we're talking about, the Vikings offense that year and that game got very condensed.

19:21It was a lot of let's get receivers close to the line of scrimmage. And Chris Shula was like, all right, fine. We'll bring our nickel. We'll bring our corners. will like really heat Sam Darnold up. And he just did not have a good answer for that. And so the Seahawks offense, I don't feel like is as condensed as that Minnesota offense, especially now that JSN has really established himself as a very good outside the numbers receiver. But I do think like that element of it and seeing if they can tap into some of that because the Rams are another team that they don't necessarily blitz a ton, but when they do bring pressure, they're getting home pretty consistently.

19:50And for Seahawks, that's a fun, it's a cool parallel. They're very similar in that way. Yeah, it's probably probably bucketing it too strongly by saying this, but like the run game here is like to me almost feels like a non-starter for Seattle. Like their running game has been so bad this year and the Rams run defense is good enough where if you're trying to run the ball against those Rams based defense looks on early downs, I think that you're probably fighting an uphill battle. To me, this is going to be about how does Seattle when lined up in those heavier personnel groupings on early downs?

20:19What does that look like when the Rams are playing in their base looks, which they will do, right? The Rams play that way on early downs. They do match personnel to that extent. And that's what we've seen Seattle do all season. Like when they've been able to dictate on early downs and avoid third down, they've been able to throw the ball all over the place on teams. And so, Dave, if you're thinking about specifically how Seattle's approach in the passing game should look against this version of the Rams defense, where does your mind go? I mean, I think everything I like about the Rams defense happens between the tackle boxes.

20:52and I think it's, I don't want to dog them too much because Emmanuel Forbes has had a really nice month, right? Like he's been playing really well and the Rams defense in general is really good. I would like to point out that in that stretch of time, they have played the Cooper Rush Ravens, the Jags who are deeply troubled in a lot of ways. Imploding might be strong, but we're getting to that place. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about it soon on later in the show. They got to go against Tyler Shook in his first NFL start And the Niners were successful on offense like that. The Niners had a great day against the Rams.

21:26They just couldn't get a stop on the other side of the ball. So it was 21 to nothing pretty quickly. So I will take those numbers with a grain of salt. Fair. Point being, I do think the Rams are still susceptible on the outside. And if you're the Seahawks, knowing that you have the hottest, most productive receiver in the NFL who is playing a lot of his snaps on the outside this season. sorry if this is a little too obvious but you got to find a way to attack that and i think that that you should be able to like i think that is an area where the seahawks can get their wins we've seen teams get after the rams in the perimeter a little bit like when they've struggled relatively in games this year on defense i go back to the eagles game in the second half of that game and what aj brown and even devontae smith were able to do i don't think jsn is that sort of player necessarily but if you're trying to take like vertical shots outside the numbers He has been able to do that this year.

22:17Think about the first series against the Cardinals last week. The other area that interests me in this game is that the Seahawks, even though they play with a lot of heavy bodies, they're not afraid to explode those heavy formations in order to kind of create space. Sometimes that's an empty. Sometimes it's single back stuff where they get to empty because they're releasing the back. They do do a good job of getting horizontal stretch against some of those base defense looks. Because when I think about like the Niners passing game and how they're able to go after those middle of the field, second and third level defenders for the Rams, the linebackers specifically.

22:49Their Niners have such a quick underneath rhythmic passing game. That's not really how Seattle wants to exist, right? It's play action and shots. When they're attacking that area over the middle of the field, it's a lot of empty and a lot of like, we have to create space in order to do that. So them getting into 12, 21, whatever, and now spreading that out in order to create space over the middle, that to me is the version of the Seahawks passing game that I'm maybe most interested in against this version of the Rams they are an offense of extremes that way and like the Seattle I think generally has done a really good job of I think when they get into second and nines or third and nines or whatever they've been a pretty mediocre offense but they generally do a good job of they can run the ball either okay enough to get themselves into like third and four or their quick game can be good enough to get them into like third and four or whatever and when they get into those downs that's where they pull out the empty because it's very easy to okay we get a six-yard completion here and we're good I do think this is like an interesting philosophical matchup for the Rams because like they built their whole defense to we're gonna not let you get in those down in distances because we bring in Puna Ford and all that stuff and so I think the amount of times that Seattle can find ways to access empty and whether or not they feel comfortable because when they get in empty they don't really throw down the field very much it's not like that aggressive exactly It is a, this is our, we don't feel comfortable running on third and three play.

24:08And so I think that part of the down and distance game is going to be really interesting. The Rams this year are middle of the pack in EPA per drop back in base defense. Like they're, it's pretty much dead on average. They are third with five or six DBs on the field. And so if you can keep those in those base looks on early downs and try to dictate the game in that way, I think that goes a long way for Seattle. And it's interesting because these teams haven't really trailed recently. I mean, neither one of these teams has trailed. The Seahawks haven't trailed since week six. And so putting them in a position where they have to drop back and throw a little bit, that's a version of this offense we just haven't had to see this year.

24:42And while the offensive line, I think, has been better, in part because they've avoided a lot of true drop back situations, if they're in a lot of third and sevens down 10 points at some point during this game, I think that's where you see how much the structure has kind of potentially lifted them this year. I'm just trying to think about this right now in the moment. I mean, when was the last time either one of these teams played like a truly neutral script? Like for the Rams, you probably have to go all the way back to the week five loss to the Niners. And for the Seahawks, probably the Jags game.

25:15Yeah, like week, whichever week that was. I mean, that was a month ago. And even that, they were in control because of the mass rush. Okay, so go even further back to the Buccaneers game, which feels like a lifetime ago. So I'm curious to see. I assume this won't be the case, right? So both of these teams reacting to the more normal ebbs and flows and the negative plays and the positive swings that happen in a football game. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with that. Next one here, Chiefs at Broncos. We had a lot of candidates for the second game of the week. Dave, why did we land on Chiefs Broncos as the second one with stuff like Lions Eagles sitting there on the table?

25:51People have tried to do this a thousand times over the last few years, and they're usually wrong. Right. Like declaring the Chiefs dynasty dead or the Chiefs are in trouble in September. That's always been silly. The Chiefs go to Denver. They are favored on the road. If they lose to the eight and two Broncos, they will be at 500 as we approach Thanksgiving, which truly will be uncharted territory for the Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs. In addition to that. I guess leave a little bit of mathematical wiggle room, but you can basically kiss your chances of the division goodbye. If you fall to five and five, the Broncos go to nine and two.

26:30The Chargers and Broncos have both won a division game against you. I don't see it. And so, I mean, the Chiefs have won the AFC West every year since 2017, I think, like nine straight years. I mean, you got to win this game to maintain a chance of winning your division. And if you don't, that's news. That's very newsworthy. If the Kansas City Chiefs are like officially a wildcard team, it's such a weird game and a weird season for the Chiefs. the Chiefs are five and four, the Broncos are eight and two. The Chiefs are favorite in this game on the road. They're three and a half point favorites on the road in Denver, despite the fact that they're five and four and the Broncos are eight and two.

27:05That's one data point. Two, the Chiefs are five and four right now compared to whatever their record was halfway through last year. I feel significantly better about how they're playing football right now than I did at this time last year. We go back to that Patrick Mahomes quote after, I can't remember which game it was, where he was like, our record is worse, but this is way more fun. Yes, that's how I feel about the Chiefs. But then the third part of this is that's kind of how he felt before the Bills game. And then they play that way against the Bills. And so as you sit here in 10 weeks into the season, with that Bills game being the most recent entry into what you've seen from this team, are you closer to thinking that the Chiefs are the team we were really excited about before that Bills game?

27:45Or has that showing done enough to kind of change your opinion of where this team is right now? I'm still pretty excited about the Chiefs. That's kind of how I feel, too. And I don't know if that's unfounded. Yeah, I think they just ran into like that Bills team in particular, even if we have some other issues with the Bills team, which we'll get to like they just like kind of in the regular season just have the Chiefs is number. And so I think that's part of it. They jumped on the wonky game plan too, right? Sometimes you get caught flush. And you saw like Kansas City did not have an like they for whatever reason.

28:11OK, so in that game, the Bills come out in a ton of dime, which I don't think the Bills were ready for. And usually if it's like, OK, we see dime defense, let's run on them. But for whatever reason, Kansas City was like, we're going to throw it over their head 30 times this game. And it's like, you just were not prepared for the moment here. I think we also need to just say, like, look, the sky's falling in Buffalo. We're going to talk about the Bills later on the show. I get it. They're still a really good NFL team. The Bills are a good team. And so are the Chiefs. Like, I'm not. It is weird.

28:38Like, if they don't win this game, and let's point out, too, they absolutely could. Like, the Broncos have a defense. Even without Pat Sertan, the Broncos have a defense that could just drag them into the muck for three and a half hours. Remember, when the Chiefs were trying last year, and I know these are different teams, But when they were trying last year, it took a miraculous field goal block to get past this team. And I believe that was the game at Arrowhead. So this could happen. And so you can't discount that. And if they're five and five fighting for a wild card, that's definitely uncomfy.

29:06But I'm really I'm not worried about the Chiefs. If that feels weird to say, then that's fine. I think they're really good. I think that's it's important thing to kind of like sort through the nuances of this. I'm not worried about the quality of the Chiefs as a team right now. but because they've been so unlucky in some of these one score games compared to what it looked like last year you have to be worried about the trajectory of their season even if we think they're a better football team than they were last year it's it's really weird it's so funny it's tough to untangle like last year they were the team that was like they can't keep getting away with this like just one week after another and then this year you throw an end zone interception to devin lloyd and travis kelsey fumble bobbles a touchdown that turns into an eagles pick and like that's why you're here like you're the opposite of the chief's luck is happening like the regression to the mean has been very cruel not that anybody in the world feel feels sorry for the chiefs the part of this i do find interesting is like even if they win this game they're still like very much in trouble for not getting a home playoff game which like that it would be the first time that's ever happened on the road yeah like it's just interesting it's the infinity stone that mahomes needs like he got to a super bowl as not the one seed now he has to do it without a home game like that's just part of it get to when the Chiefs have the ball in this game Derek the number one thing you are looking for when the Chiefs offense is on the field in this game so for me obviously I think we kind of know the MO on Vance Joseph's defense and what they like to do they like to play a lot of man coverage and I think even with Patrick Chetan out that's probably going to be the case the Chiefs against man coverage are 23rd in the percentage of their targets that go to receivers this year part of that is obviously you did not have Rasheed Rice for a big part of the season But I think against Denver, like that's kind of how you want to approach it.

30:47You want to throw at the running backs. You want to throw at the tight ends. I actually looked this up. In man coverage, Denver has allowed six receptions to running backs in man coverage. If you have up 163 yards, like once a game, they get popped on an explosive, a wheel route, a ball in the flat that somebody just misses a tackle on something like that. And so potentially getting Rashard Smith involved or putting Rasheed Rice in the backfield, whatever it is, I think that like that is like kind of an interesting way to attack this team. Last year in week 10, the only real game these two teams played last year, Mahomes was blitzed on 43 % of his dropbacks by the Broncos, and the Broncos played man on 53 % of snaps.

31:25Majority of their snaps in that game on defense were a mix of man and cover three. It was about 77 % single high in that game. And so they have not been afraid to kind of get after the Chiefs, even if other teams may be a little bit more hesitant to bring that sort of heat. The Broncos have not been. Think about Broncos defensive personnel in this game, talking about the linebackers specifically, and just where, if you're trying to find where maybe some of the weak links are with the Broncos defense. Alex Singleton is going to miss this game. Obviously, he came out this week. Great news in the sense that had some sort of, what was it?

32:00Early discovery of testicular cancer. He had done some sort of testing, and through that realized that he had testicular cancer. So he's going through treatment for that. Thrilled to hear that. He will not be playing this week, but that's for a good reason, right? So now you have Stranod in there. And then the other one that, I mean, you watch what the Raiders were able to do last week. The Raiders didn't do much on offense against the Broncos last week. Some of their biggest plays, the one Brock Bowers catch in that game, are in defined passing situations when the Broncos are in dime, and they're picking on Jaday Barron a little bit.

32:30And so I do think that those are the two places I would go. Especially in man coverage, can you get after the linebackers a little bit, and can you pick on Barron a little bit when you get them into third and seven? If Rashearais is in the number three spot on those plays, is that a matchup you like if you're the Chiefs? Josh Simmons, I also think, will be back this week. He's at practice, and I wanted to bring that up. I mean, you know, it's always a waiting game with that, and given the nature of his absence from the team, I don't want to assume anything. I would guess that they're going to be very deliberate and careful working him back in, but if he can go, what huge news for Kansas City.

33:08It goes a long way against this front because you watch this front and just like the edges specifically and how they've been able to kind of control games with how they're getting off the ball and just how quickly they're affecting that pocket. I mean, you feel it every single time you watch this Broncos team and oh yeah, John Franklin Myers and Zach Allen are also pretty good. Let's get to the other side of the ball. Obviously the Broncos defense or the Broncos offense has been struggling as of late. Even if they're winning these games, they're winning them in truly ugly fashion and there's nothing wrong with that.

33:35Like dragging teams down into the muck when you have this sort of defense, that is one way to do it. I'm curious as you go back and you watch what the Broncos offense and the Broncos passing game specifically has looked like recently. Is there anything outside of the quarterback's individual struggles that you feel like is holding this team back? Or do you feel like most of it is rooted in what we have seen from Bo Nix recently? For me, a lot of it is rooted in what we're seeing from Bo Nix. I think the way that he's playing right now is kind of, it's hard to divorce what is going wrong with the offense outside of him because I think the shackles that he kind of puts on the offense for what he is, like makes it like how much of the play calling is really Sean Payton's fault.

34:17Like he's a guy who you have to throw a ton of wide receiver screens, a ton of screens to like just get him easy completions that way. He has thrown more go balls than anyone in the league. He has 25 attempts of 25 plus yards outside the numbers. And a lot of those I've talked about it before are just wasted plays. Like he's only completed five of them. So it's a lot of stuff like that. And then I think what is really frustrating also with Bo Nix is he's a really good athlete. He's only scrambled 17 times this year, which is like middle of the pack. And he only has a 53 success rate doing so, which is 29th in the league.

34:46And so it just feels like he's a guy who has some of these tools and isn't really accessing what he can. And the offensive design has kind of suffered for that. That's kind of shocking to hear. It was shocking when I look for how much he moves around and how much he scrambled last year. He scrambled a ton last year and it was an efficient part of the offense. Yeah, I'm surprised to hear that. And that does feel like, I mean, you don't want to do that all the time, obviously, but that feels like an easy way to find it. But when you're that athlete, I would start to do it a little more. It feels like a way to, it's an easy button.

35:15Beyond you being that sort of athlete, if you are scrambling, when you play the position rhythmically the way that he does, you're completely defanging what you can be as a quarterback. Because he does not move around the pocket. We have talked about this. There is very little like pocket movement in Bo Nix's game. There isn't a subtle slide here, a subtle shift there, finding a window, finding plays late in the down. That doesn't happen. There are other quarterbacks for whom that is true in the NFL that are able to succeed. But it's guys like Jalen Hurts or Jaden Daniels. Russell Wilson was kind of like this, but it's like the best scrambler and deep ball thrower in the league at the time.

35:51If you are not going to move to have any sort of presence in the pocket and subtly extend plays and play later into the down from that space, if when you eject from that space, you have to make positive plays. It's the only way you're viable as a player. And so if he's not going to do that, then we're really starting to get into troubling territory here. And there are some plays in that Raiders game where you watch it and it's like, man, you can just feel his gears like grinding to a halt. There was a play in the first quarter where, like it always, like it happens very often, Broncos, great pass protection, great pass protecting offensive line.

36:28And you stop the tape at the top of his drop. It's a second and four. And he has this perfect halo pocket around him. And he gets sacked on that play when there is very, very, very little immediate penetration because he's hanging out of the ball. There's nowhere to go for him. Any kind of short circuits. And those are just happening more often. Like I want him to take off. I want him to run. I want him to scramble because if he's not doing those things, he's not good enough at the rest of this stuff for him to survive. And to that point, I went on True Media again. and I've talked about this with Sam Darnold, they have a probability of dropback things.

37:01So just on plays where you are probably throwing. And so I looked at plays that are 75 % dropback probability and unpressured. So these are plays where it's like defense knows we're throwing, but I'm clean. These are the plays that the quarterback has to make. He has a 44.2 % success rate on those plays, which is the second worst in the league, only above Dylan Gabriel. And it's about eight points lower than the league average. Those are the plays the quarterback has to make and he's just not making them right now. I think the other comparison with Jalen Hurts that's important in like a moment like this, a guy who has similar limitations in the way that he wants to play the position, but has superpowers outside of it.

37:36The down the field accuracy part of this, you have to be able to make accurate throws from those clean pockets if you're not going to be a creator late in the down from the pocket. And that's just not something he's been able to do all year. And that's something that Jalen Hurts does as well as any player in the NFL. Which it's easy to say that, And Jalen Hurts is aided by the quality of his receivers. That also helps. But Cortland Sutton can do some amazing things down the field, like 50-50 balls and stuff like that. And yeah, I don't think Bo Nix has been accurate enough to give him a chance.

38:07And then, you know, the talent behind Cortland Sutton isn't as good as what Philadelphia has. Before we move on, I want to be very clear about this. Jalen Hurts is a significantly better NFL quarterback than Bo Nix. Yes. I'm clear about this. there's just stylistically there are some similarities between them where Jalen Hertz has been able to transcend those limitations and Bo Nix is being completely bogged down in them I want to be very clear about this this is like how I think last year we talked about like Will Levis stylistically does some of the Matthew Stafford stuff he's just it's like you're bucketing play styles not quality correct we're gonna take our first quick break and then come back with one thing from a handful of other week 11 games

38:48it's not just a huge week in the nfl the college game has a ton of great matchups on tap including oklahoma alabama texas georgia and iowa usc our colleagues stewart mandel bruce feldman and ralph russo will break down those games and a whole lot more on this sunday's episode of the audible the athletics college football podcast check them out on sundays tuesdays and thursdays all the way through the national championship game in january all right we're gonna hit three games here one thing from all of them, Lions Eagles. Another big one easily could have been a game of the week. Derek, one thing you are looking out for in Lions Eagles this weekend.

39:22Dan Campbell is calling plays, this time against a real defense. Last week, he obviously took over play calling from John Morton and did it against the commander's defense. And like, you could just kind of see from the first snap, the commanders weren't going to have it. It was so bad that after Dan Campbell elevated himself to the play caller, the commander's head coach had to elevate himself to the defensive to play hard or stop the bleeding. Yeah, man, that's a good idea. Maybe I should do that. Yeah, Dan Quinn took somebody out with that game. You could see it from the first snap of the game.

39:51Like the Lions came out in jumbo on the first snap of the game. Six offensive linemen, which one they did more of that than any other game this season, which again, that's Dan Campbell putting his stamp on the offense. The Commanders matched them in nickel on that play. And from there, I was like, okay, this game is like not going to be serious. And it wasn't. Like Dan Campbell called a great game, did a lot. I thought that was really interesting in the passing game. Actually, this week, it'll probably go up Saturday. I'm doing a video on like what Dan Campbell did in this game that was different from what John Morton was doing.

40:18But now you face a real defense that has like a lot of superstar players just brought in Jalen Phillips. So I do think to me, the most interesting part of this is obviously quality wise, it's going to be difficult. But these Eagles edges, they want to kill you. Like all of them are really, really mean edge setters. And so I do think that that presents like a particular issue potentially against the Lions. I'm excited to watch this Eagles front again because what we saw from them on Monday is the best version of the Eagles front We got all year Jalen Phillips was part of that you get a little Nolan Smith sprinkled into it But then I think you really started to see some of the interior guys get unlocked because there are better players on the edge And when you think about this Lions offensive line specifically, you can get after the interior guys a little bit, right?

41:01I mean Jalen Carter against Tate Rattledge in on third and seven is an advantage for the Eagles Mauro Jomo's had a nice season, credit to you. And so I think those guys against these Lions guards, I mean, this front for the first time after watching them last week. And listen, the Packers offensive line is nowhere near the quality of the Lions offensive line right now. But I still, I feel so much better about this being a fair fight up front now than I would have early in the season when the Eagles really still felt like they hadn't figured it out in that way. Just love the idea of the Eagles winning street fights against the NFC North, just taking people out in the back alley, back-to-back weeks on prime time.

41:39Maybe we can get more than like 17 combined points this week though. That'd be nice. I'm excited to watch the other side of the ball too. I know we're not like super digging into this, but like some of the stuff that the Lions are doing from a pass rush perspective, some of the fronts they're using on defined passing downs. Like they're doing a lot of like three down linemen, two linebacker stuff where you're not really sure who's coming from where and they're sending a decent amount of pressure, but still doing some simulated stuff. All the disguises that they're using. Like, I'll be curious to see what Kelvin Shepard's game plan looks like against the Eagles, just because this Lions offense or this Lions defense still plays a ton of man coverage.

42:12And we know that's not the way that you should approach this Eagles offense. And so what sort of curveball they potentially throw because of where the Eagles usually struggle? He's the sort of defensive coordinator already where I'm I'm looking for his answers in those moments. Like, what does he think is the right path? That part of it is funny, like mildly with the like the two offensive or the two coordinators that Dan Campbell hired. Like one, he's having to take his job over in week 10. And then the other one is like, oh, this guy's going to be one of the guys like he's he's in a good spot.

42:40I don't want to put too much into this because it's all stuff you hear secondhand and you start talking to people. It really does feel like Calvin Shepard was always the guy. And I think that Dan had identified him like two years ago. I feel like, yeah, it's it's been coming for a minute as the guy who was going to take over if and when Aaron Glenn got that job. I think with John Morton, that was more of a, this is our best choice based on the currently available options. And so I'm not necessarily surprised that Kelvin Shepard has been sort of a rousing success where on offense it's been a little bit more uneven.

43:11Which makes me think about Tanner Ingstrand because he, I mean, I would guess he would have been the guy had he stayed in Detroit. But I don't think, I don't think they tabbed him as the guy in Detroit and that's why he went to the Jets. In the same way that they did with Shepard. And so I think that I don't think there was like a clear cut successor to Ben Johnson in the same way. And listen, maybe the clear cut successor to Ben Johnson is Dan Campbell. And that's all that really matters. Let's get to our next one here. Bears and Vikings. Dave, one thing you were looking for in Bears Vikings this weekend, this game is just radioactive.

43:43Like it's, it really, really like it sets the Geiger counter off in just the most insane way. The bears have won six of seven. the Vikings look like a team starting a 22 23 year old quarterback who hasn't done very much in the league and the Vikings are favored at home which just I think it's perfect I mean it's hard not to not to bring up bad memories of your trip to Soldier Field Robert but let's just take a minute and sit with our memories of the week one game remember everything that happened there all the high degree of variance I wish I didn't have to I wish I didn't remember it JJ McCarthy out of roughly 300 starts that a quarterback has made in the NFL this year, J.J.

44:26McCarthy had a bottom 10 EPA per drop back in that game. And was NFC player of the week. This game is a perfect encapsulation of the ride that you go on with a young quarterback. Why are you smirking at me? Because it might be a downturn in that ride for me and an uptick in the ride for the Vikings based on the current state of these defenses. It's so perfectly put. Obviously, Caleb has shown so much to be excited about, so much promise. He's had, speaking of your percentile starts in EPA per dropback, he's had a top 10 game and a top 40 game in terms of EPA per dropback. The Cowboys game and the Bengals game, no surprise.

45:09These are against terrible defenses. For the year, he's right in the middle of the pack in all of the major metrics. Like he, you know, it's kind of a roller coaster ride. You're going up and down and you got your peaks and your valleys and you feel optimistic. And now you go on the road to face what is looking like the Vikings defense we remember. And J.J. McCarthy gets to play the Bears defense. And I just, it's easy to imagine the most toxic news cycle ever coming out of this game. If Caleb, from a pure hooping perspective, outplays J.J., but J.J. wins this game. I just, I kind of can't wait.

45:47I'm sorry that I'm saying that, but I kind of can't understand why. That is a nightmare outcome. But it's so easy to picture. The Vikings are literally favored. It's not hard to imagine that. And so I totally get that. And I expect the Vikings offense to look much better against the Bears defense than they did against the Ravens last week. We talked about this on the Hangover show. JJ looks frantic right now. He looks uncomfortable. He's four starts into his career playing against a Ravens defense with a lot of talent. Like, I don't this this shouldn't be surprising. Like, even if he's a second year quarterback, we've seen him play four games.

46:20Like what we saw last week against the Ravens shouldn't be shocking. And I don't think people should be freaking out about it. When we talked about it on Monday, it's like it's not necessarily a predictor of what's to come. But this is what it currently looks like. This is what it currently feels like. That's the thing. It's like we can maybe he'll be good next year. I don't know. Right now. Next week. Exactly. Maybe he'll be. Yeah. But like right now, he's just not been good. We talked about this on the pre-production call, though, and I agree with you. For the most part, he hasn't been good.

46:46Like I said, like he's had two of the worst starts out of anybody in the NFL, particularly the Bears game. He won that game. He made enough plays to beat the Lions in Detroit. Yeah. And like legitimately made four clutch, like nice plays in that game to win. So I'm certainly not saying that he's been good. He's good enough to win this game for sure. He sure is. and I'm thinking about that Lions game as I am trying to decide whether or not I want to say this, but I think I'm going to. I think I'm kind of in on the Caleb Williams thing. Let's go there. I think I'm kind of in. No more couching your words.

47:25I say that facetiously. How many games did it take? How many games has he started now? Like 23? Yeah. Is that where we're at? I think that there has been plenty of excitement and privately, publicly, when we've talked about it, I think that I've really appreciated the growth that we have seen from him this year compared to what it looked like last year. But watching that game against the Giants and just the idea that he really was the reason they won that game. And you watch some of the plays that he made in the second half and just the talent on display. And he can do things that very, very few people can do.

47:56And so allowing that talent to matter now because some of the little things are getting so much better is really exciting. And then he made a handful of throws in that game where it's like, all right, it's hard not to buy into this. Like, I still, here's what I'll say. There were the in-breakers he's throwing off play action and him making those throws on time. It looks so f***ing good. It looks so, so good. You combine some of that stuff with some of the creation and the things he's able to do, the sack avoidance is so real. It's like one of one right now. We talked about it this offseason. Remember when we were talking about second-year quarterbacks and we were just discussing this kind of, like, weird dissonance between his pocket feel and the fact that guys who have that feel for the pocket and the ability to maneuver around the pocket don't usually take sacks at this rate.

48:46Guys that get sacked a ton are guys that just don't have any sort of mechanism to understand how they should be moving around back there. It's like the Ryan Tannehills of the world where it's like, I'm a statuesque player. I understand this is going to be part of who I am. That was never Caleb Williams. It was never him in college. It was never him. So I was just like, this doesn't make sense. And now we're seeing the fact that even if it's a tick slow every once in a while, his natural ability back there and the feel for when guys, when pressure is coming and this ability to sense it, he's always had that.

49:17Now he's just able to get out of those plays in a way that he wasn't last year. And that's the thing. It's not just that he senses it. Think of how many times you've seen a free rusher coming and he actively like peaks them and then sets them up to miss. Yes. It is insane how often he does it. His awareness is so good. And that's why last year it was like, what is this? because his awareness was so good in college. And so seeing that actually come to fruition has been really nice. I will say, if you look at some of the numbers, it does match the eye test with this. He is throwing to wide open receivers more than any quarterback in the NFL per next gen stats.

49:50Some of that is the structure of the offense and the way that they're setting him up. Like I really like what the plan has looked like on offense for the most part. I thought last week was a bad day for the receivers. I thought it was a bad day for Ben Johnson. And I actually thought it was a bad day for some of the offensive linemen. Like Darnell Wright had that highlight moment on the Colson Lovell in play, but he got got a couple different times by Brian Burns in that game. And so that's why I really enjoyed the performance so much is that he really had to pick up other elements of the offense in ways that he hasn't so far.

50:18But getting back to the open throws thing, I do want him to let things rip when it's a little bit blurrier. He still is not quite there yet, but the progress he has made just from the pocket playing that way combined with the playmaking that still exists. it's just really hard not to get excited about what you saw last week. As long as this is the radioactive take segment, I will do my best like drive time caller thing and just say, I do still want to see it against a higher caliber of opposition. And I got, they look shitty this week, by the way, that's kind of why I'm scared to say what I'm saying right now.

50:51I got receipts out the ass of me believing in Caleb Williams. Like I've been, I was a believer coming into this year. I was a believer when he got drafted. I like Caleb. we're still talking about the Giants and like and the way he played avoiding the rush against the Giants was impressive it was still a bad offensive performance against a bad defense talking about the Giants talking about the Bengals talking about the Cowboys like yeah that's the bulk of the case for Caleb and you know Vibe doing well in this environment this weekend would be a big step and then after that I mean you still have both of the Packers games like there's there's still some big opportunities for him to where I am excited.

51:30I'm not willing to like hop on the train just yet. I don't disagree with that at all. I'm glad he's getting the good defenses now, though, because you could see him for the first eight weeks of the season trying to learn the offense. Like what is the rhythm of throwing those dig routes and stuff over the middle? And so the fact that now some of that is clicking into place for him and then he gets to go have his tests like that's a cool it's just like a fun way that this has been put together for him. And it's always so hard to extricate the quality of the opponent with what the results look like.

51:57And if you're trying to pull those things apart, I do think that just mechanically, the way he's playing the position and his ability to play it more on time than he ever has. I do think that's true, even independent of whoever you're playing against. I think it'll probably look worse against better defenses when we're talking about the results, but just the process of how he's playing. I'm very excited about it. Beller, Katie, when you make this, when you get this episode ready to go, just lead it with something like Maze buys in on Caleb, like officially, even if that's not all the way true it's better for our numbers when i was watching that luther burton completion at the end of that game i watched it back five six seven times and when he decides to let that ball rip and how it ends up on the receiver the guy is like he's extremely talented like there is no denying that and i i do think that i'm at a place now where it's like i'm watching it again and getting pretty excited about like what that could potentially look like when properly weaponized and when the little things get a little bit cleaner.

52:54Dave, we're 100 % leading it with receipts out the ass. Perfect. Last one here, Chargers and Jags. My one thing from Chargers-Jags is right now, the Jags offense has been, the Jags passing offense is at like a really low point. And I'm just curious where this thing goes from here. Among quarterbacks with 200 plus dropbacks this year, the only players with a worse passing success rate than Trevor Lawrence are Aaron Rodgers and Cam Ward. That is shocking. I mean, like, it looks that bad, though. It does look that bad. Since week five, they are allowing the highest pressure rate in the league, which think about how many times whenever we talk about the charges, we're like, oh, my God, Justin Herbert under siege.

53:37The Jaguars since week five, which was funny enough, that Chiefs win actually, have been the worst offensive line in the league. And that's not even just like a blitz thing. Sometimes teams will see the offensive lines and like, oh, we can feast. We can just throw blitzes at them. They've only been blitzed on like 22.3 % of their dropbacks over that span, which is a below average rate, but they are still giving up a 45.8 % pressure rate on four-man rushes. They're one of only like four teams above 40%. Here's my biggest concern with the Jags offense right now. We thought this was going to be different with Liam Cohen, with Brian Thomas Jr., with Travis Hunter.

54:11We thought that this was going to be a different approach. We thought this was going to be a situation where everyone in that offense was set up to succeed. and I think for many different reasons, Travis Hunter's on IR now, Brian Thomas Jr. has been banged up, he's progressed from what he was last year. He hasn't played well anyway, but yeah. We've gotten to a place where this feels way too much like previous versions of the Jaguars offense. From a personnel perspective or receiver, you feel that? The offensive line still wasn't a good group. We were counting on the Liam Cohen pixie dust in order to hide that group in a way that they just haven't been able to And I think even structurally, when you see what the Jags have done over the last month or so, they're straying further and further away from the stuff that defined what the Liam Cohen offense was.

54:55And I think that, to me, signals a group that is searching for answers. So over the last four weeks, the Jags have an average or slightly below average motion rate. They were top five over the first month of the season. they have the ninth lowest rate of condensed formations over the last five weeks in the entire NFL. Only the Raiders per next gen have averaged fewer yards per play when using motion than the Jaguars over the last five weeks. All of the things that made the Liam Cohen offense what the Liam Cohen offense is aren't manifesting for the Jags. And so we're now just back in a place where this is the Jacksonville Jaguars that we've seen for the last two years.

55:37And that just wasn't supposed to happen. And because like my issue with it is just like, I think you can use motion with any number of players and it can be like a useful tool. But like, I think in a lot of cases, motion is effective because you're kind of scared of whoever is moving. Who are you scared of with the Jaguars moving right now? And I'm not right. I know you're not blaming, but that's the thing. I should use more of it. It's not working when they do it. And so the fact that they're just every little tiny lever that he was able to pull last year in order to create separation or to create space in the run game, all that stuff.

56:07The players were better, but it really does feel like they're sitting here halfway through the season being like, oh shit, like I, what do we do with this? And doesn't it feel like to you when you watch them, I would have to look up the numbers for this, but like the run game is less varied than it was even early in the year. Like when I watch them, I'm just like, every other run is weak zone. And I'm like, is that all that you have right now? But does it get to a place where again, how you can't weaponize this offensive line to get you to a variety of runs. And so it's, this is all, especially not without a Brenton Strange at tight end who was like a really good blocker for them.

56:36You get to a place with, and I'd say this with every single new head coach, you are going to run into a wall that you never ran into at your previous stop when you were a coordinator. This is going to happen. Like the fact that you, they needed to hire a new head coach tells you that this team was not in a good position. So you are going to be put into a worse situation almost exclusively than you were as a coordinator. and how you work through the downturns is going to define who you are as a head coach. And we are at that point with the Liam Cohen Jaguars right now. And in comes Justin Herbert, who's like Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders.

57:11He's like, cry me a river. I do not care. And guess what? Part of this for the Jags is that they have played really good pass defenses over this stretch. They played against the Texans, who are the number one pass defense in the league by a defensive DVOA. They played against the Rams. They played against the Seahawks. The Raiders are even 13th. The worst pass defense the Jaguars have played against in the last like six weeks is the Chiefs, who ranks 16th in pass defense DVOA. Guess what? The Chargers are really good. The Chargers are a really good defense and they are now much healthier than they were early in the year.

57:44So even some of like the season long stats for the Chargers aren't an indication of the quality of unit that we're talking about. And so it does not get any easier for the Jaguars this week against this Chargers team. And like small note, I want to say on that too, just in terms of like their, how the offensive line might look. Khalil Mack is a great player in his, like, no matter how you want to dice it. The particular issue the Jaguars tackles have is like, you can push through their chest. And Tule is the same kind of guy. Yeah. Khalil Mack and Tule are going to push these guys into Trevor Lawrence.

58:12Yeah. We are at a place again where we're reminded of the lack of quality personnel on the Jaguars offensive line. And I think we might be really reminded of that again on Sunday. All right, we're going to take one more quick break and then come back with a little time on Sicko Street.

58:30Panthers-Falcons. This is like the most Sicko Street game possible, and here's why. This could be anything. This could be anything. It could even be a boat. This is the most mystery box NFL game you can possibly picture because we've seen it, right? Like, let's think back. Let's go in the time machine a little bit and rewind back to week 18 of last year. watching a thrilling shootout between the Michael Panix Falcons and the Bryce Young Panthers. To quote Derek, that felt like a game where it was like, we are never going to die. Like both of these fan bases with their young quarterbacks are like, wheels up, let's f***ing go.

59:07I cannot wait for next year. Like everything good is on the horizon for us. Three weeks ago, the Panthers won a game 30 to nothing against this Falcons team. Two weeks ago, the Panthers beat the Green Bay Packers. A week ago, they lost to the Saints. So when you consider what these two teams have been, and the numbers bear this out, by the way, they're both like bottom five and variants per FTN. Like they have been very inconsistent teams. But I think all that stuff, you throw it into a stew and you get to a place where this game could exist and express in any possible manner. You didn't even mention the Falcons smacking the Bills in that Monday night game.

59:50That got us so excited and they haven't won since. They have not won since that night. And they almost beat the Colts last week. So that's why this game is just like, you have to tune in because anything could be on the table. Truly anything. You said it in our meeting. There are very few games where you could try to, before the game starts, lay out like 30 different outcomes and buy every single one of them. This is a game where you could see it in your head how the game plays out if you give me the outcome. Okay. the Panthers beat the Falcons 30 to nothing earlier this year. Yeah. If the Falcons beat the Panthers 30 to nothing because the Panthers turned the ball over like five times in this game, would that be crazy to you?

1:00:29No. Get them into a couple of like true drop back situations and all the Falcons do on defense is brush the passer and you get a couple of sacks, a couple of strip sacks. The only reason I struggle to... The only reason I struggle with that is because like the Falcons are bad against the run. And so like... That's a good... The Panthers should have enough success running the ball to where it shouldn't get that far out of whack. But guess what? I didn't think the first one would. That is still, and it's funny because the result that stuck with me all year last year was the Patriots-Bengals game where the Patriots beat Joe Burrow and like all year that was confusing and it bit the Bengals in the ass.

1:01:06Neither one of these teams looks like they're going to matter that much. And 30 to nothing is still the result that sticks with me. Like I'll be washing my dishes or folding laundry or walking to work and out of nowhere, I'll be like, what the hell happened that day? How did that happen? And so the fact that we get the exact same thing when it goes the other way this week. Yeah, I can't wait. No, any result would be fun for one reason or another, because any like if Bryce Young has a good day, then I'm a happy man. But the Falcons are also, I think, better than the run that they've been on here over the last month.

1:01:41So I can spin any result into being something fun for me. Speaking of that Falcons game against the Bills, our under the hood segment this week, kind of digging into a unit that is either playing better or worse than we might've expected is about the Bills and their drop back passing game. It's not a disaster, right? Like this isn't like they've been one of the worst teams in the league, for example. But coming off of that Dolphins game, having that Falcons game, not that far in the rear view mirror, Derek, I do think this is like a good time to kind of take a step back and dig into what is actually happening here with the Bills passing game?

1:02:14And how worried should we be about this? I'm a little worried about it for a number of reasons. One, I would say that like when they have to be a voluminous dropback passing game where like they have to do it 20, 25 times a game because the run game isn't working, I think that starts to lead to some issues. Like when they've ran the ball well, they've also been a good dropback team. But that's just because like the rest of the offense kind of starts to click into place, all that jazz. I think when you like watch some of their pure drop back situations, especially in games they've struggled, it's very obvious they have nobody who can run down the field.

1:02:48And I think Josh Allen is getting a little bit antsy and a little bit just like doesn't really trust a lot of the guys that he's starting to, especially over the middle of the field. It feels like Patrick Mahomes is I always speak in meme. He's the James Franco meme. First time, huh? You don't feel good about what's available to you. Yeah, I've been there a couple of times. And like there were a couple of plays that like really stood out to me in that sense. There was one in that Dolphins game where it's early in the third quarter. The defense is playing like a little bit of a man coverage. And Allen progresses from the left side is where I think they have three receivers.

1:03:26And he progresses to the backside to Keon Coleman trying to run this post. And as he gets his eyes back to this post, Keon Coleman is like stumbling out of his break, getting jammed by the corner. And it's just like, it's shit like that every time they try to do these like five step drop back plays. And I just there's way too much of that right now. And so it's frustrating because there will be moments on film where it's like, oh, that guy's kind of coming open and he doesn't throw it. But it's like, yeah, he doesn't trust that even when he does throw it, that these guys are going to make the play for him.

1:03:56Just a tiny bit of context for like what this has looked like since week six when they played against that Falcons game. I know that's an arbitrary endpoint, but that was our first glimpse of like, is this a problem? Josh Allen is 13th. among all quarterbacks in EPA per drop back, and he's 12th in success rate. So again, this isn't like a total nightmare, but it's just not the type of group we're used to seeing considering this guy won the MVP last year. And again, like we say this every time we talk about the Bills, but when you're talking about a team with legit Super Bowl aspirations, it skews it, you know?

1:04:25Like, I mean, for anybody else, 12, 13, you're like, damn, that's pretty good. For Josh Allen, I'm like, oh, what's going on with the Bills? You feel the lack of juice when you watch them. There just aren't a lot of guys who are creating space within the offense. The fact that their real vertical threat in this thing is Keon Coleman outside of the numbers, that's just not the type of verticality you really need in NFL offense right now. I think it's compounded by how they're trying to run the offense. When you watch this thing, the amount of crossers and mesh and underneath stuff they're trying to do, that only makes the fact that you don't have this level of explosiveness worse.

1:05:04because even when you get into the second half of that game against the Dolphins, you can still use these tight ends as seam stretchers. You can still try to push the ball down the field and create space. And I think when they're trying to do that, it still looks okay. To me, it's when the whole thing gets a little bit too horizontal that I get most frustrated. And here's the other part of this for me. And here's why I do think there is a way out of this, even if it looked pretty bleak last week against the Dolphins. Josh Allen over the last couple years has looked like one of the best pre-snap operators in the entire NFL And this offense specifically does a great job of getting him information Because of the things that they try to do before the snap Two very obvious examples when you watch the bills watch how often they'll have the back offset and shotgun He'll bump out and then he'll rehome after that in order for them to get either a tell on pressure like who might be coming and some sort of man zone tell.

1:06:01You'll see them do a ton of stuff with Khalil Shakir on little yo-yo motions before the snap in order to get a sense of are we getting man? Are we getting zone? It's a good thing, right? Like that helps a quarterback with Josh Allen's capacity. It helps make the game easier for him. We've seen the benefits of it. But when you play against a team like Miami and what they did last week, they had a very good sense of, all right, I'm going to follow with that guy in motion. We're going to do our own sort of check here. We're going to check into some breakout version of like a weird funky cover too.

1:06:29When they think we're getting man, he's going to catch the ball, pump, a little bit of hesitation, we own the play. That happened a bunch of different times in that game. And so part of me, even if this is the right approach because your quarterback can handle it, you don't need to get into the perfect play all the time. You don't need to have beaters dialed up all the time depending on what coverage you think you're going to get. This guy can just play the place. If you're just using, this group of receivers is the same group of receivers as it was last year when he won the MVP award. Like this thing has not collapsed.

1:07:00They still have one of the best offensive lines in the league. If we just get to a place where we're trying to push the ball down the field a little bit more often, just with the types of routes we're deploying, and we're getting into more all-purpose plays that aren't necessarily the best man beater in this specific situation, I still think that you can come out on the other side being okay. I think you're kind of selling me on that because like the, what is the point of all the man beaters if like whoever you're throwing it to is not going to run away from anyone anyway like even if they get the ball like none of these guys are running away from someone to make an explosive and i think that's part of the problem is that they're so cognizant of the fact that they don't have any man beating players especially with josh palmer out who's supposed to be that for them that it's like oh we have to make sure that we're creating rubs and runaways and all this stuff within the offense or we're not going to be okay you're not okay anyway and they're low like those are low those are very like a low reward place like there just isn't those plays like if you're running those plays into the wrong look they're almost doa unless you're hitting that route over the ball and so the fact that they're very high like high risk low reward sort of plays because you think you have to manufacture that separation i think that's running yourself into walls and like the point of josh allen is like yeah he can make you right not even just by the way that he processes the game but just by virtue of like if things break down in the pocket he can just go and make a play that's funny because I wanted to see Pat the way Patrick Mahomes has been playing this year and so like Josh Allen's been holding the shit out of the ball this year right like he's at his highest number since like 2020 he's second in the league in terms of time to throw to Caleb Williams almost three seconds per drop back Patrick Mahomes is getting the ball out in two and a half seconds or less 15 % more of the time.

1:08:47Like, you know, just in structured, getting the ball out much more often. But Patrick Mahomes holds the ball for four plus seconds, like way more than Josh Allen. And it's effective because like Patrick Mahomes is picking his spots, I feel like. Yeah. Where Josh Allen, you just wind up in this world where you're doing it all the time for various reasons. But it's not the way you want to live. Like you want more structure than that. And I think the fact that like Josh and Pat are so similar in the way that they can do that stuff. Yeah, like picking your spots to be Superman and extend a play and do that shit is great.

1:09:19When you're doing it as often as Josh has been doing it this year, clearly it can bog some things down. And it's funny because you look at, and I think Patrick Mahomes is a very good example of this, because Patrick Mahomes, those plays where he's getting rid of the ball in two and a half seconds, that's when you play zone against that team and he's finding voids within the zone. And during this stretch where the Bills offense has like sort of relatively struggled compared to expectation, Josh Allen is fourth from the bottom in the percentage of man coverage that he has faced over that stretch.

1:09:51And so like you don't need to be worrying about this sort of stuff. Like teams, they're playing 80 percent zone against you. Just like let the guy go out and play. And I just feel like that is not currently happening in the ways that it should. That's a really good point. They're calling all these man beaters that teams are playing zone and it's still just like you don't get anybody open. I'd be curious. So that's over the last six weeks. So it's interesting. I think part of the reason maybe that they've been inclined to use some of these man beaters is that early in the year they were seeing a lot of man coverage.

1:10:21So early in the season, Josh Allen was seeing man coverage per next gen on 35.6 % of his dropbacks, which was like the 10th highest rate in the league and significantly above average. So it went from a top 10 rate to a now bottom five rate. and it does feel like we're seeing a little bit of the inconsistencies and the misalignment with the plan based on what they might be expecting from defenses. And so maybe that's just part of what this is, is that we're getting into a little bit of the growing pains here as teams twist the way that they're approaching the offense. And that just happens to NFL teams in week, what are we on, week 11?

1:10:53That is just going to happen. So I guess we can revisit in three weeks to see if they've figured out any solves by then. get to what we want to know by the end of the week 11 slate dave you kick us off buddy what do you want to know by the time week 11 wraps up so it would be obvious to say like can the packers just take care of somebody but i think it is a it is a relevant question given the history that we are given what we've seen from them recently green bay has been favored in eight of nine games this year they're three you know when they're favored to win by a field goal or less they're 2-2-1 in games where they're favored to win by a touchdown and more not that this matters for them but they're also 0-5 against the spread in those games like they just can't do it they can't just they can't be boring by halftime you know in the noon slate the game where you're like okay good the Packers are taking care of business what else is going on it's so true they can't be that team you can't ignore a Packer game at any point this year it's the Giants it sounds like it's the Jameis Winston Giants so the obvious angle is can the Packers win a game convincingly But for me, I'm also excited.

1:11:58Can the Giants just keep doing funny bullshit against the Green Bay Packers? Because for a matchup that is not a rivalry, the Giants have a hilarious history against Green Bay. Like they've upset them the last two times they've played. 2023, they beat them with Tommy DeVito in a game that looked like it was going to sink their season. Obviously, that's not what happened. But at the time, it was like a full on meltdown for the Packers. They beat them in 2022. Two, Daniel Jones and Saquon beat Aaron Rodgers during the farewell tour. And I think you got to throw the playoff games in there, too. I mean, who other than San Francisco has authored more devastating playoff defeats for the Green Bay Packers recently than the Giants?

1:12:39I'm not always interested in team histories. I love it. The proponent parts change out. And it's like, well, how much does this really matter? This is one of them where I'm so in. There's so many weird Giant Packer games that I'm like, I'm actually kind of bought in on this. It has nothing to do with the teams. Like, yeah, they don't care. But the fans, I guarantee you, a lot of Giants fans probably have irrational confidence about this because goofy shit happens when they play the Packers. And Packers fans are probably dreading this because it's like, oh, my God, the Giants. We always play like shit against the Giants.

1:13:13Like, I love that sort of element to a matchup, especially when it's not like a division rivalry. I was at the playoff game where Rodgers threw the Hail Mary against the Giants. I was at that game. and think back to the 2007 NFC Championship game. We had cold-ass Tom Coughlin. It's just like, it's an epic, like famous game. 2011 and 2007. Like I said, I mean, that lives in Giants lore and Packer infamy. So, yeah. I like to dust off some old memories for games like this. This one, I'm more than willing to kind of dig around in there with you. One more for you guys. Chicago born and bred, Mike Kafka.

1:13:47That's true. His debut as the RM head coach. That's right. Absolutely. I'm weirdly interested in that, by the way. We talked about that on The Hangover this week. I'm kind of intrigued by the Mike Kafka experience. When he asked me, he was like, is there a chance that Kafka could stay on as the interim? I was like, that was not even a thought that had entered my mind, but maybe. It's usually not a thought that enters my mind, but I think in this case specifically, I'm more interested in it than I typically would be. Derek, what do you want to know by the end of week 11? I just want to know if the Ravens can find a little something in the run game against Cleveland, and I say that for two reasons.

1:14:18We talked about this on The Hangover Show, that the Ravens found a little something with like getting Ricard in the backfield, running some I-form lead stuff. But I think for most of the season, they've struggled to find their run game identity, especially compared to last year. Part of that was, I think, offensive line was playing worse, especially early in the year. Then Lamar goes out and since he's been back, they haven't wanted to run him. And also against this Cleveland team very early in the season, they could not run the ball very well against them. Cleveland's front is incredibly explosive.

1:14:44They get into the backfield, they're going to knock you back. And so for a Ravens team that I think is clearly surging in almost every way, this would kind of feel like if they can really start to find the run game against a team like this, it would be like, okay, all of the things that we thought you would be coming into the season are starting to form. My last one here, let's stick in the AFC North. Are the Bengals going to be relevant long enough for the Joe Burrow conversation to matter, right? Saw Joe Burrow and Pads this week, saw videos of him walking out to practice. Is that even going to be somewhat relevant because the Bengals can hang around long enough for him to be able to potentially save their season?

1:15:20I have my doubts about that based on the current trajectory of the Ravens. And I feel like this might get out of hand in the AFC North quicker than we want it to, to keep this thing interesting. But that's what's on my mind. Can the Bengals keep this thing close by beating the Steelers this weekend? Have you seen the Bengals' schedule leading up to when Joe might come back? It's horrendous. So when this happened, and I wrote off the thought of Joe coming back weeks ago. And when I saw the news, I got giddy. You know, like my LSU sensibilities flared up and I'm so excited. And then I saw like after the Steelers, it's New England at Baltimore at Buffalo back home against Baltimore.

1:15:59So like and obviously this Steelers game is like this is a tough game. The Steelers are still leading the division right now. I mean, if you don't get this one, you're three and seven with murderers row coming up in front of you. So it dampened my enthusiasm a little bit. But if you could win this one, maybe I can squint. I don't have much enthusiasm. I guess it's like, do I have to care about this? Like, that's what I want to know by the end of week 11. Can I stop watching Bengals film in week 13? How quickly can the Bengals become a no longer relevant part of the 2025 NFL season? Is it next Monday or do we wait longer than that?

1:16:34See, for me, I just like I just want to watch my guy play football. So like even if it's a lost cause for the Bengals, it would mean a lot to me to get to watch Joe Burrow. But don't do it if the season's clearly over, Bengals. is this as an LSU grad is this the worst combined NFL and college football season that you've had in recent memory why would you ask me that the LSU season unfolding the way that it has Joe Burrow being hurt Jaden Daniels being hurt Brian Thomas Jr. playing the way that Brian Thomas Jr. is playing neighbors just hurt Justin Jefferson is having the worst season he's had as a pro what's crazy there it is saving the day yeah I hadn't taken the time to think about it but I think you're right So yeah, I'll go have an existential crisis now.

1:17:18Yeah, it's been tough. It's been, which is since the, since the Joe Burrow year when they won the national title, it's been pretty dog shit for LSU, but this might be, this might be a new low. But at least you've had the NFL guys to like solve it. Whoa. You can still watch Joe Burrow play for the most part. You're right. And like people in Louisiana feel the same way. Like obviously New Orleans gets the Saints games, but like the rest of the state usually has the Bengals game on. So to not even have that. Yeah, it's been. And the Saints are having this. You don't have to worry about that, but like your family does.

1:17:48Louisiana football's in a bad place right now. On that note. All right. It's time to get out of here. Really excited about the week 11 slate. We'll be back on Sunday night chatting that through. We'll be recapping the Thursday night game on our YouTube channel. Encourage you guys to go check that out. If you have not subscribed to the YouTube channel, if you're watching this, please press the subscribe button. If you are listening to this wherever you get your podcasts, doing a ton of stuff on YouTube this year. Derek alluded to the Dan Campbell video he's got coming out a little bit later this week.

1:18:17I've got a video about Will Anderson that's coming out a little bit later this week. On our recap shows, we've got some new graphics packages this year. We've got highlights that we're incorporating into those shows. And so now is the time to check out that content on YouTube and subscribe to the channel. If you have not, we hit 50 ,000 subscribers earlier this week, which was very exciting. We will be back here on Sunday night, digging into all of the week 11 action for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. Talk to you very soon. We'll see you next time.