Week 15 Recap: Broncos quiet doubters, Bills claw back to beat Patriots, and the Chiefs are officially done

0:02Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays week 15 was everything we could have hoped it was going to be two massive games of the week Patriots bills and Broncos. Packers. They lived up to the billing. We wanted those teams, those home underdogs with 11 wins to prove it to us. We wanted to see what they were against better competition. The Broncos, I'll tell you what they did. They made a believer out of me on a bunch of different fronts. They played one hell of a game against the Packers, a Packers team that now feels a lot different than it did at the beginning of the week, considering some of the injuries they endured.

0:36It seemed like the Patriots were going to go the same way. And then Josh Allen and the rest of that Bill's roster had other ideas. We started with those two games, dug into a bunch of teams that just took care of business. And you have my attention, five teams, four teams that look like playoff teams that could have stubbed their toe this week that did not. Bears, Texans, Eagles, Jaguars. Talked about the Rams having another massive game and just the attention their offense is always putting us on notice for. And then a few WTF moments, the Kansas City Chiefs are not a playoff team. Dug into that, what it means.

1:08The Carolina Panthers, with a massive opportunity, NFC South somehow drop a game to the Saints. And we also talked about the Seahawks barely sneaking by a Phillip Rivers-led Colts team. Lots to dig into today with me, Dave Hellman, and Derek Klassen. Let's get to it right now.

1:29I think it's safe to say that week 15 in the NFL was an absolute banger from start to finish. So much good stuff. We're going to hit the Sunday night show on the hangover tomorrow, along with a couple other games. But we've got so much to dig into today and what was a fantastic day of football. What a day. And can I just say, I was not ready for the bonanza in the second window. I feel like very, I'm very used to juggling like six crazy results at three o 'clock. But something about it happening at 530, I didn't know what to do with myself. All the games were good. Even Titans Niners got weird at times.

2:11Like it was overwhelming. It felt very weird to have that much going on that late in the day. You would know more about this than I would, but they had five games in the late window that kicked off all at 325. Yeah. Do you think there's a reason for that? Yeah, I should know that. I'm not nerdy enough to know why. I mean, we're done with bye weeks, so that was part of it. That's part of it. But it led to like a level of chaos, even as it was getting down to halftime. All the games were on the same timeline. Like there was a franticness to several different portions of the windows today. I was also deeply confused by that because we've all talked about this.

2:43We don't look at the schedule, despite this being our job. And so I looked at it as like I'm used to being like, OK, you pop on one or two of the games as the other ones are closing. And that's my little segue into the rest of my day. But I'm just sitting there and I'm like, I've got 20 minutes to do nothing. I guess I'll go like fold a load of laundry in the middle of this like little lull in whatever I'm doing. And so it was a nice break, but I just said I wasn't ready for it. That was actually your that's such a good point. I walked the dog. That's right. I got that out of the way. But then I feel like, you know, the late window is usually like a main course where you're just like, all right, there's there's two one and a half good games on.

3:17And I can just focus on that. And it just it was chaos today in the best way possible. Let's dig into some of that chaos on the previous show. We had two games of the week that we wanted to hit. And I think both of them thematically kind of lined up with one another. You had these teams that had 11 wins that were home underdogs against what we consider like kind of real true blue contenders coming to them. The Packers are more of a mainstay team. We obviously know what Josh Allen is and the Broncos and the Patriots. I think there was a question like, can they show everybody that they deserve a certain level of respect as we get down to the back half of the season?

3:52The answers to that were interesting in that it seemed like from both teams, it was a resounding yes. And then it only ended up being a resounding yes from one team. And let's start with that. The Denver Broncos put together easily their most complete game of the season as a team against the Green Bay Packers. I mean, the defense was phenomenal in the second half. We'll dig into that. But there's really nowhere else you can start this discussion than with what Bo Nix and the offense did for the Broncos in this game. You look at the numbers, they'll match the eye test. I'll tell you guys that right now.

4:27Bo Nix had what I would consider the best game of his career if you just watch the game and you look at the stats afterwards. Per next-gen stats, third-best EPA per dropback performance of his career. Number one was against the Chiefs' backups in Week 18 last year and then against last year's Falcons defense, which I'm not really going to consider either of those. So against the competition, the stage, every aspect of it, even a couple of throws into traffic, whatever, like down to down throughout the entire four quarters, Bo Nix was really f***ing good in this game, and I was incredibly impressed, not only with him, but just the quality of the Broncos passing offense overall.

5:05I couldn't help but laugh as that game went along because I was the one kind of stumping for this Broncos game plan and how we saw them play against the Raiders last week and how I thought they could be successful. Even I didn't see this, man. Bo Nix was just, no doubt about it, no questions, the best quarterback on the field in this game. And there's way more that goes into it. We can dive deep, but if you're just boiling it down, the Green Bay Packers kicked three red zone field goals and the Denver Broncos went four of four in the red zone. And really on all four of those plays, your quarterback did something.

5:47I think that was special to make that play. I mean, the throat a little Jordan Humphrey, where the Packers had good coverage on him, like throwing it where only he could get it at the goal line. The first one, which he threw to the undrafted guy, Bandy, just you see the the effect that Bo Nix's athleticism has on a defense and just the way that he stresses teams out with his legs which opens up easy throws in the red zone and then made a cup made a fantastic throw to Courtland Sutton the Troy Franklin touchdown he just he was amazing in every sense of the word and even if I went into this game thinking that he could play well I sure as hell didn't see this he had a couple I mean there was a bunch of different buckets we can put this in.

6:32But on that drive that ended with a bandy touchdown, he had three like big time completions on third down. They had like split back look with Mims and number 46, whose name I cannot think about right now. He had Mims really quick in the fly. Mims went quick to the flat. He immediately hit court and Cole and Sutton on that play. They had a third and seven on that drive where Enigbari and Parsons were dropping. Enigbari misses the jam and he finds little Jordan Humphrey immediately. And then threatening to scramble, he hits bandy for that touchdown. There were a couple other like really impressive out of structure plays.

7:00There was a play where he starts drifting to his right, has to wheel all the way back over to his left, and that leads to an explosive. So it was a really good combination of him being able to create out of structure a little bit, make plays as a play extender, and also Derek being able to hit multiple chunk plays down the field from the pocket. I think to me, that was the first time you felt how talented he was from wire to wire against a good team. Like you talked about it a little bit before like last year's Falcons or he had that Browns game right or a couple of that times this year he beat up on like the Bengals and and those were the games where I was like well you should be doing that if you're a decent quarterback for him to do it in this game against a Green Bay Packers defense that will throw some weird stuff at you and has obviously until Micah Parsons went down like have some really star players that can get after you I thought Bo Nix was I totally agree this was the best game that he's ever played I thought to me it was a couple of things one you mentioned some of the throws that he made in structure the one that he the touchdown he throws down the left hash to I think it was Troy Franklin one of the best balls that he's thrown all year like that is in the high red or like around that area you have to be so confident getting the ball out you have to rip it and he put it into a really tight window there like if that ball is a little high it maybe gets tipped up or and it's incomplete if it's a little low you're maybe throwing it at a defender I thought that was a really really good ball and then to me you know we've always talked about when Bo Nix has his good games it's like he makes two or three nice plays out of structure where he's running around maybe he scrambles he made like eight today nine like some of them were as a scrambler but a lot of them were like you said he was wheeling around going from right to left or he was moving a guy like Javon Bullard kind of gets his feet stuck in quicksand there on that that throw to Bandy and then there were a couple of plays where he like whipped out like sidearm releases when he was on the move it was like the most it just felt like he was in control against a good team like I said for the first time that I think in his short career that I've ever seen it was really impressive I think it's important as we kind of contextualize, like, why we had questions about the Broncos offense coming into this game and why this feels different than what they had been for most of the season.

9:02Like, this is a team in Denver where they just haven't been very explosive as a passing offense for most of this year while playing against the worst slate of opposing defenses in the NFL. Before today, the Broncos came into this game 28th in explosive pass rate per Trimedia. 28th. It was 10.9 % of their plays. today, 23 and a half percent of their plays went for explosive passes. And so it's just a different sort of feel and a different sort of gear from what you saw from them today than you really had for most of the season. And why I think it's impressive is that they did it against a team that just doesn't allow very many explosive passes coming into the game today that the Packers had allowed 48 completions of 16 plus yards.

9:45That's it. There were eight today from the Broncos. And so I think that was one of the reasons this was so impressive. And Derek, I really like you pointing out that touchdown to Troy Franklin. And I think not only is the throw on that really, really nice. And I think you kind of explaining how you have to layer that ball. And that's why it's a difficult throw, even if it seems like there's a decent amount of space. I thought that while Bo was great, I really liked just how dynamic some of the plan was from the Broncos passing game overall. So you have that play, which is Troy Franklin goes in motion on that play.

10:17and then they get into like sort of a dagger concept where he's coming back across against cover two. And so that kind of creates some separation. The double move to Sutton late in the second quarter on that second and two that goes for 42 yards, that's really well done. Like he's taking advantage of Nick's kind of biting on that on the quick out, knowing that this team likes to get the ball out of their hands, rips it down the right sideline for a monster gain. And then Corlin Sutton deserves a ton of credit. The release he puts on Nixon on the touchdown with like nine minutes left in the third quarter, just a straight fade ball for another touchdown is disgusting.

10:55And so the Broncos receivers on the perimeter really took advantage of the Packers corners to go along with the great game that their quarterback had. Sutton did it to Valentine, too, because on the fourth and two. That's right. In the I think it was the third quarter or maybe it was the fourth quarter. excuse me, he dusted Valentine on that one and just, and, and Bo made a perfect play. But yeah, I mean, he's got the step on him and that, that was, it was so impressive to see. And there were, like you said, there were a few throws over the course of the day where like, ironically two on the same drive, Xavier McKinney had a shot at two interceptions, you know, like he left like a, a, um, a flat route to Evan Ingram a little bit inside and McKinney came over on the, on the throat of Mims down the field, like a few snaps later, But for the most part, I was so impressed with Bo's placement on a lot of these throws.

11:46And yeah, to go one more time, to go back to the Troy Franklin touchdown, that was kind of, it was like a culmination where throughout the game, I was like, okay, Bo, this is cool. And by the time he throws that touchdown, I was like, shit, I don't have anything else to say. This guy's been dialed in from the beginning. And there were a couple of plays that, you know, probably will be written down as turnover-worthy plays. But I think what we wanted to see and what we were talking about is more ambition from him as a passer. That was the word that I think Derek used. And I'm willing to have a couple like dicey moments if the results and the rewards are going to include what we saw from them today, being able to create explosive plays.

12:25that's the thing I couldn't handle him having three kind of boneheaded plays a game when they were throwing like seven air yards and 30 percent of his passes were uh only 30 percent of his passes were going at or beyond the six like it was just such a dink and dunk offense it's like you can't afford to have some of those plays but if he's going to have the exact same amount of those plays which he did he you know maybe it was only like two or three balls that maybe got away from him could have been picked off but when you're dropping back as often as he did and then you make eight or nine plays down the field outside of the pocket.

12:56It's like the tail skips or the scale tips. And I'm perfectly OK with you having a couple of those bad plays. Again, if you're willing to make those ambitious throws down the field. And again, like in terms of making some of those throws down the field from the pocket, it's very rare that we've seen this from him against a good team, him doing that down the field and for him to do it today in a game that like, I don't know if it secures secures in the one seed, but it goes a long way in doing that. Pretty cool moment for him. The numbers for the Athletic have a 64 % chance now to get the bye. To be the one-seal.

13:2864%. But they haven't locked up the division yet, right, because of the Chargers? 87 % chance to win the division for the Athletic Summers right now. Looking good, obviously. 8 of 12 for 168 and two touchdowns when throwing 10-plus air yards today. I mean, you could feel it. It was a huge part of their game plan, and it was really impressive to watch them do that against a defense that traditionally had limited a lot of those plays this season. defensively in the first half, it really did feel like the Packers were shooting themselves in the foot, coming away with field goals, but being able to move the ball consistently.

14:01And so it did feel like you combine that with, there was that one drive where it was a whole, I think I can't remember what the offensive penalty was, but it was a first and 20 Broncos get bailed out a little bit with a personal foul. I think it was Javon Bullard late charters go down and score a touchdown. So at the end of the first half, it's like, all right, like I still feel like the Packers probably have a decent amount of command in this game with how easily they're moving the ball. They had a 53 % offensive success rate in the first half. They were averaging 7.8 yards per play. They scored 16 points because of the field goal drives.

14:30In the second half, the Broncos' defense clamped down. That interception on the throw down the field to Christian Watson, where Patrick Sertan picks it off, that's a swing point in this game on multiple different levels. You lose Christian Watson, but also that's a possession you steal back if you're Denver, and then they really start to take it to them. You look at it down to down per next gen stats, 19.4 % offensive success rate for the Packers in the second half of this game, 3.6 yards per play. They blitzed on about 50 % of Jordan Love's dropbacks in the second half of this game. And I want to talk about some of the specifics of that, but you could really feel them start to crank up the heat a little bit.

15:11and with some young guys on the Packers offensive line and with a backup right tackle in there for a good chunk of the game, they really started to suffocate Green Bay every time they dropped back to pass for like the final quarter and a half of this game. Which, and it's certainly, it wasn't all they did. It's not all they do to begin with anyway. We talked about that on the preview show, but I said I wanted to see the FU game plan. Jordan loves 6 of 11 for 80 yards against man defense. Like when they did pull it out, the Packers just were nowhere near as successful as what we've gotten used to seeing over the last whatever it is five six weeks I loved some of the pressure stuff that we got from the Broncos in the second half they were doing it consistently where they would have Alex Singleton mugged up in like the left a gap and then they would run a little three-man game on that side and they did it a couple different ways there was a sack on third and 10 with like five minutes left in the third quarter where they have one of the defensive linemen looping all the way back around excuse excuse me, Singleton looping all the way back around with a three-man game.

16:12He creates some pressure. And then there was another one late in the fourth quarter where Singleton is the picker, the defensive tackle then is the looper, and they just slowly crush that side of the pocket. And so those three-man little blitzes that they were able to tap into in the second half, multiple sacks off of them. And I think you really did feel the pressure in this game. And I think you felt the pocket condensing whenever the Packers had to drop back in the second half. And ultimately that comes back to get them. You did. And you felt that I think that was all in tandem with like Rasheed Walker got a little bit banged up in this game for a second.

16:46Zach Tom leaves this game. And then obviously you have a lot of younger and like backup pieces already kind of playing along the interior. So I thought then picking at that as the game went on and especially like I know the I know the Packers popped a couple of big ones in the second half in terms of the run game. But like as the lead started to get away from them, I think the Packers felt like they had to throw themselves back into this game. And for as much as I like the offense in general, it's not really an offense that especially once Christian Watson went down, that is really built to throw themselves back in the game with some of the receiving talent that they have.

17:17So I thought that this was just like as soon as the Broncos like kind of kept the once they put the foot on the pedal and started to go, it's like it was kind of hard for the Packers to dig themselves out of it. The Packers now, I mean, they're still going to make the playoffs. You know, they're they've given themselves enough of enough of a cushion for that to be fine. They have 51 % chance to win the division now per our numbers, but a 93 % chance to make the playoffs. But this is a game with some long lasting ramifications. You lose Micah Parsons to a torn ACL. We'll see how long Christian Watson's out.

17:49Zach Tom is now hurt. The Packers feel like a very different team at the end of this thing than they did at the beginning of the day. I want to, I want to, like, let's make sure. I don't, I don't want to take credit away from what the Broncos did here. Cause like Watson and Parsons go down in the second half. Obviously, that has a big impact on the game, but I think the Broncos, particularly Bo Nix, played well enough that Denver is a worthy winner regardless of that. But just on the Packers side of this, is this one of the most devastating days of the regular season for any team in the NFL to lose?

18:26And yeah, we don't know about Tom or Watson, but with three weeks left in the regular season, it's not like you got... everything is long-term when there's only three weeks left in the season. So to potentially be dealing with that. And then, yeah, I mean, it sounded the preliminary report is ACL for Micah. If that's, if that gets confirmed and you don't have that gravitational defender heading into the playoffs, it's just, it just feels like the, the ceiling for this team is so much lower than it was 24 hours ago. We said it on the previous show. You make the Micah Parsons trade for the NFC championship game.

19:00You make the Micah Parsons trade because you have championship ambitions. Micah Parsons not being out there, the complexion of the defense changes. And then you combine that with every fear about the rest of the defense being on full display in these games. If you were somebody who was worried about the Packers corners, which I wasn't as worried as some other people, you have every bit of evidence you possibly need in this game. And you combine that with them losing Micah Parsons. And this thing starts to feel much, much more fragile than it did a week ago. And the Christian Watson side of it is like we obviously he's not quite the caliber of players at Micah Parsons.

19:36But we talked about since he's come back over the last like five or six weeks, they've been explosive because teams are scared of him again. If he's going to potentially be out for the next three weeks or even banged up into the playoffs, it's like, well, then what are you really afraid of with this offensive? Tucker Kraft isn't going to be out. They're still going to be a little bit banged up on the offensive line, obviously, with Tom out. And so it just it's really not about the loss. Like one of these really good teams had to lose. And the record to me doesn't matter because, yeah, the Packers are going to be in the playoffs.

20:01It's the fact that like two of the really key players and potentially now their right tackle are going to miss some amount of time. And obviously, in Micah's case, the rest of the year. Are you ready, Derek, to watch Jordan Love throw very contested outs and digs to Romeo Dobbs and Jaden Reed the rest of the way? I'm going to have to be committed to it no matter what. So we're going to ride the roller coaster. I will say Matthew Golden had a couple of nice moments today, but this offense does change without Christian Watson in there. And the fact that he had become so important to this group, I think tells you a lot about the state of things without Tucker Kraft.

20:34But here we are. The other game that was between an 11 win team that was a home underdog and what a lot of people consider like truly one of the big Super Bowl favorites in the league was the Patriots and the Bills. And it felt like we were going to have a similar story in that game to the one we did with the Broncos. this 11-win team that people were doubting coming into this thing really assert themselves, send a message. That Travion Henderson touchdown that puts them up 21-0, and it's like, my God, this is just going to be an ass-kicking? Not so fast. Not the way the rest of this game went.

21:06So I fell for it. I thought it was over. I think it'd be hard not to feel that way. CBS came back from a break after Travion's, after that touchdown, and it's 21-0. It's snowing in Foxborough and they cut to a fan holding a sign that said, we're back. And I was just imagining like how Bill's fans must feel like, you know, like you're trying to get over that you're striving to get over this hump. And you've had the you haven't had that much competition in the division for the last five, six years. And in that moment, seeing that sign, knowing that it looks like you're going to lose the division and Josh hasn't won the Super Bowl yet.

21:47and now like Drake May might win the MVP. It felt like it was a dark 15 or 20 minutes there in Buffalo. And then obviously that wasn't the story of the day. It's funny though, because I can't remember who did this sideline interview, but they asked Mike, they were talking to Mike Vrabel at halftime. And Mike Vrabel was like, this thing is not over. Like I know who's on the other side. And then even after the game, they asked him and Mike Vrabel was just like, I don't know, man. He's like a 6 '5", 240 pound guy that like is an incredible runner and has amazing arm strength. He won the MVP. Like, what do you want me to say?

22:21Like, that's the person that's on the other side. This is always possible. And I think Josh Allen, obviously, and we'll get into this, deserves a ton of credit for how he played in the second half. But to me, what was most exciting about this, Derek, is that there were layers to the Bills' comeback in this game. The run game got involved, the defense chipped in at a bunch of ways. And so I think too often when this happens, we're just being like, oh man, man, Josh Allen, look at Josh Allen. The Bills are dangerous, or they're going to be as dangerous as they want to be because other things are falling into place.

22:50And that's what happened for them in the second half. The quarterback was insane, but they got a lot of things going in the way that they needed to, to come all the way back. They adjusted well in this game, which is not always the case for this Bills offense. And I think has bit them in the ass at certain other points in this game. And like where I thought, where my first real moment in this game was, there was it was the first quarter there was about four and a half minutes less it was a third and nine for Buffalo and the Patriots run this like really funky looking pressure where they drop Elijah Ponder one of their defensive ends out from the B gap like into the trip side to the other side of the field to undercut a I think it was Dalton Kincaid running a deep over which all we talked about in the preview show I was like hey man that was the only thing the Bills did the first time that these two teams played and so obviously New England was ready for that and And to me, seeing them pull out this like kind of funky pressure to take away the one thing they want to do.

23:42I was like, oh, no, here we go again. The Buffalo is not going to have any answers. They're going to get their favorite toy taken away and they're just going to end up losing this game. And that was coupled on top of obviously the Patriots scoring a bunch on their side. And then, like you said, as the game went on, I thought they got the run game involved really well. They used Josh Allen a couple of times in the run game, like they had that designed empty run for him. And then shortly after that designed empty run on a third and three, which was the first drive out of the half, they went into this little designed boot on kind of the goal line where it looks like it's going to be a duo run to the right-hand side into the three tight ends.

24:17One of the tight ends holds onto his block for like two seconds, flies into the flat, just like little stuff where it felt like they started to really take advantage of some of these Patriots defenders. I think just being a little bit too aggressive, kind of cat chasing a laser sometimes, which I think that front can be. And they just got a couple of really, really nice plays and started to get things rolling. They made a couple big time adjustments in this game. Let's start with adjustments and just little things they started tapping into more in the second half. So the run game is a big part of this.

24:4528.6 % rushing success rate for James Cook in the first half per next gen. 53.3 % in the second half. And so the run game really got going. And James Cook was really good, but I was so impressed watching the Bills offensive line on some of these chunk runs. And what to me really stood out is that you saw both the flexibility, communication, because the New England's front and just their front seven in general, there's a lot of stunting. There's a lot of run blitzing. There's a ton of moving parts. It's very dynamic. And the Bills did a fantastic job of handling all of that and also communicating to handle that.

25:23If you watch the 20-yarder from Josh Allen, that keeper, you see David Andrews signaling to Deion Dawkins. He's like, the linebacker, the defensive end is going to slant inside here. The linebacker is going to come over the top. I'm going to handle the defensive end. You handle the linebacker. Huge hole opens. And against all of this stunting, the guy I thought did such a good job was McGovern, was consistently picking this stuff up and keeping contact with guys through a ton of these stunts. They had a nine yard game. The Bills did with like 735 left in the third quarter. And on that play, the one technique nose tackle like ducks into the B gap and McGovern just leaves him immediately and knows that the three technique is slanting into him.

26:10And so they pick that up in a gorgeous way. Spencer Hawes, the five technique is slanting into him. He overtakes him without Spencer Brown even touching him. Spencer Brown climbs up to the linebacker. It's a nine yard gain. It's only one small play, but I think it was really indicative of like what the communication and just reactive element of the Bills offensive line looked like throughout the entire second half of this game. And I think those guys deserve a ton of credit. They do. And like, how much did we talk about coming into this? Like they, the New England front kind of not dominated the last game, but certainly had their moments.

26:45And like Kairos Tonga, I thought you certainly felt him more the first time that these two teams played. And again, I think a lot of that was how well they were communicating. So I think them getting the run game, I think in almost every Bills game that they've played this year, like Josh Allen can always do the superhero stuff. But I do think that you can feel in games where they can't run the ball at all. Sometimes the pressure is a little bit too much. And like when you have to throw all of the time in every play is a drop back, you're just naturally probably going to get some of the old bad Josh Allen plays when they can settle things down and breathe a little bit.

27:17and then in the moments where he has to he can go do what he has to where he's the throw that he had where he's stepping up in the red zone and making that like overthrow to I think it was Dawson Knox like pinning it right past the safety with that's why Mike Vrabel is like well this guy can kind of just win this game whenever he wants to play specifically he's an alien we're talking about the touchdown right yes yes the touchdown sorry freaking believable insane man which to be able to be stepping up, moving and running and rip the ball like 8000 miles an hour like that. I don't know how you do it.

27:49I think it's really cool of y 'all to highlight some of the unsung things in this game and the Bills offensive line and the run game. It definitely all mattered. But also, it's OK to highlight that Josh Allen is a he's a necessary component of this too. Wait, can we all right. Can we just talk about how he did the thing again with Khalil Shakir? He did it again Fourth down Just rip a shot right past the defender's ear hole Over their shoulder To Khalil Shakir I can't believe that happened in back-to-back weeks Because he did it against Cincinnati And oh, by the way, this time it's 37 yards I think it was like 25 last week Just rips it past Marcus Jones Puts the Bills inside the 10-yard line Could have been a DPI Didn't need it Because somehow Khalil Shakir catches it anyway He had like three just only Josh Allen type of throws in this game.

28:45One of those being the touchdown to Dawson Knox, which is just, it almost looks routine because you're so used to seeing Josh Allen do it. And then you kind of take a step back and you're just like, that's inhuman. I'm glad you brought up that play because I think that is a perfect example of the other kind of like wrinkle or element of the offense that I think really was productive for them in this game. when the Bills offense has been frustrating in high leverage moments this year. It's because they're running a thousand crossers and it's all they do every single time. It's like third and four.

29:19That was a fourth and three. They have those crossing routes. Shakir is running like a clear out vertically. And instead of throwing the ball underneath, they throw the deep clear out and it's a huge chunk gain. They did that multiple different times in this game. There was a play in the first half that I absolutely loved. where it was like three minutes left in the second quarter and they had Dawson Knox and he fakes the crossing route and runs a little whip on third and five. They hit him, that drive ends with the touchdown. And just a small thing, but it's like, all right, that's what they're expecting on this.

29:53Let's have a little tweak on it. It leads to a completion, it leads to a first down. Then there was another one where Dalton Kincaid is running like a big over route and another like third and short and medium. The linebackers are clamping down on everything underneath and Josh Allen hits him for a huge chunk game. And so them being a little bit more aggressive in those moments and not trying to get a five yard completion on third and four, that is the version, Derek, of this offense that I want to see. Josh Allen is your quarterback. Like, let's have a little bit more of that, please. And that first like mesh pivot return route, whatever you want to call it, it wasn't actually the Bills' first good offensive play of the game, but it felt like it, right?

30:33Where I was like, where I saw it and I was like, okay, that they can move the ball here and they can actually start to get things going. And the game swings off of that because they have that play like right before the half. They finally get some points on the board. OK, let's breathe a little bit. And then right out of the half, they return the kickoff to like the Patriots 45 yard line. And then that gets into the sequence we were talking about where Josh Allen had his third and three run. And then they had the little goal line boot and stuff like that. So that short period of like, I don't know, six game minutes, basically, of them being able to finish out the half that way with that nice little pivot route that they had and then being able to open the half the next way.

31:09It was like, it is kind of a reminder of how quickly like the Josh Allen Bills, you can just snap the finger and it's like, oh shit, they're right back in the game again. How did that happen? Thank you for being the one to bring up special teams, Derek. I appreciate that. That was enormous. That was enormous to start the second half out that way. In my quiet moments that influenced the game section of my notes, big Ray Davis kickoff return to start the second half sets up bills and plus territory growth. We're starting a movement. Let's go. The other side of the ball. We have to talk about it because this is a 21 nothing lead where it feels like the Patriots are going to run away with this thing.

31:44And while I think the adjustments, quote unquote, on offense, were more so just leaning into some of the things that were working, there was a serious adjustment for the bills on defense in this game. In the second half of this game, the Bills had three total dropbacks without a cloud corner or cover two safety as part of the overall coverage plan. Three. They played 53.5 % cover six. They played several reps of two man, and they had several reps of cover two, often in funky looks. So what they did in the second half is they essentially said, we're going to cloud this the entire half. We're going to send some funky simulators and pressures, and we're going to hope that if we're keeping guys over the top and you can't be explosive, we're going to send guys into some weird windows.

32:33We're going to make you hold on to the ball for another half second, and we're going to get a couple sacks. And that's exactly what happened. So you really did feel a drastic change, Derek, from how they approach things in the first half coverage wise to how they approach things in the second half. They really did. They played a really good game. I think it was even the first it was the first third down out of the half they had they ran this little like simulated pressure where they pop a couple of guys out and Drake may has Mac I think it was Matt Collins racing from the left side over to the right side on this little shallow crosser and if he wants to he can get to it it's obviously short of the sticks but he has enough leverage against the defender trying to chase him down that is like he can get to the sticks there if Drake may gets to it but he's a little bit late and by the time he starts to get there pressure off his left side he ends up taking a sack and so I thought they did that there was a really cool sequence at the very end of the third quarter where they ran back-to-back plays of man coverage where again in a game where and like they just haven't been running a ton of it in general I thought that was just like a funky little change up for them to spam it twice in a row like that uh that was like right after the Ramondre Stevenson punch by the way uh which is like that was just how I stacked it in my notes um but they really did do a lot of interesting stuff and then even on Milano actually got a sack a little bit later where it is cover six and that to me didn't even look like drake was fooled so much as i think he just immediately felt the pressure yeah of milano getting in his face and he was like i gotta go and there was just nowhere to go matt milano had one sack on the season heading into this game and three sacks dating back over the last three years this was his second multi-sack game ever he did it in the i think against the dolphins in the playoffs and And like, it's not even some inspired effort as a pass rusher.

34:16Like they used him, like Derek just described one of them. They, you know, they sent him on a blitz one time. He replaced Bosa in the B gap on like a simulated later in the game. But both of them, first one, first Milano sack, Rousseau kind of disrupted the pocket and he just cleaned up what Rousseau started. But that leads to a punt on third down and the Bills get the ball and immediately cut the lead to three. and then the second one leads to the third and long, which Drake may still almost converted it if Hunter Henry can hold onto the ball at the sticks right there, but forcing another punt that lets the Bills bring the clock down under three minutes, I think it was.

34:54So just using him in that role and getting two very high-impact plays, I thought was really fun. Even though the final play of the game, they're playing man coverage, but Joey Bosa is the hole player in man coverage and ends up getting a hand on that ball to create a deflection to win the game. And so, again, just a complete win in a complete second half by every layer of this Bills team. And the Patriots are still right there. This will be a competitive team as we get into the playoffs. But I think just a reminder that these are learning experiences for young teams, right? And so Drake May kind of being put into a blender by a team doing a lot of funky shit to him in the second half of this game.

35:31These are the little speed bumps you are going to hit as you're a team learning how to figure out these moments. And that's what today was. Yeah, this just felt like young, good team ran into the team that is actually probably the best team in the AFC at their best in the Buffalo Bills. I also, really quickly, it's one small thing. I want to shout this guy out. I thought Jerry Wilson played a hell of a game. Like, he was moving people in the run game and had a number of good pass blocking reps. And so he was just one guy when I was watching this game. I was really impressed with some of the stuff he was doing.

36:00I came away, and I know, I mean, the second half, especially like Drake May was not wonderful in the second half of this game and the offense bogged down a little bit after a fast start. But in general, I come out of this with a good opinion of the Patriots. I'm not talking about down the line or what it means for their championship hopes, but for a team that has taken as much criticism as they have for who they've played, they went toe-to-toe with Josh Allen at his best and a Bills defense that rallied in the second half. Somebody had to lose this game. I don't think much less of the Patriots coming out than I did heading in.

36:38I don't think so. I think that this is a perfect example of when the Bills are going to throw kind of a weird, funky defensive plan at you and catch you flush with it. And you combine that with how explosive the offense can feel. This is what the Bills can be over two quarters. And that's exactly what happened in the second half. Before we move on, we're going to take a quick break.

37:03Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. Now you have my attention. We're going to lump a bunch of these together because I think there were like, how many of these do we have? Five? There were a bunch of performances in the early window where I was watching and I was like, you know what? Good on you guys for taking care of business. There are a lot of teams that are slated to be playoff teams that could have stubbed their toe in week 15 playing against lesser competition and a lot of those teams did exactly what they were supposed to do. The Bears beat the Browns 31-3. The Texans take care of the Cardinals by 20 points.

37:40The Jaguars beat up on the Jets 48-20. The Eagles destroy the Raiders 31-0. So all these teams, these playoff teams that absolutely could have stumbled considering how wonky and weird this entire season has been, you have my attention for taking care of business today. Good on you. and it made our lives a hell of a lot easier. It sure did. By the start of the fourth quarter of the early games, I guess that's why it was so weird because the windows just inverted on each other because by the start of the fourth quarter of the early games, I was like, this is wonderful. I can put all my attention on Bills, Patriots, and Chiefs, Chargers and catch up on the rest of this later.

38:19It was very nice. Let's run through all of these just kind of one by one. We're not going to spend a ton of time on them, but with the Bears-Browns game, two things were really nice to see from the Bears in this game. One, just dismantling the Browns offense. The Bears defense has been a shaky unit all year. We watched the Browns offense actually perform pretty darn well against the Titans last week. And so there's 100 % a world where the Browns offense gets a bunch of explosives in this game, they run the ball decently well, and they stay in this thing, even if the Bears offense is playing well.

38:53That did not happen. at one point like late in the game like in the fourth quarter the browns had a 12 and a half percent offensive success rate for the game they averaged 3.4 yards per play and so it was really nice to see the bears defense do that to an opposing offense even if it isn't a good one because that's not a guarantee to me it was just the run defense like you could have sold me on the world where the somehow the bears secondary steals away two really weirder interceptions which they actually got three in this game like that that all you could have sold me on because they've been doing that all year them having the best rushing success uh defensive success against literally any team in the league would have shocked me and for them to do it today it was like all right that's you're handling business the way that a 10 win team is supposed to handle business on the other side of the ball i thought the first half in this game is the best first half that is the best half of football that caleb williams has played this year and maybe in his career he was not how did the touchdown throw to dj moore make you feel walk me through it because that that is honestly a dumb thing to do i wish we had a camera on you that was a dumb throw for him to make that was like a i'm gonna do it because i can and he did because he can i have a couple a couple thoughts about this my response on twitter was it was a gif of uh lou brown from major league saying to willie mays hayes it's a cool kid catch hayes never do it again.

40:16That's kind of how I felt in the moment. You think a layer deeper though, I don't mind him trying that stuff. I want to see him push the envelope a little bit more often. I think that if you look at the Bears offensive production this year and how explosive they've been throwing the ball at times, it's a lot of wide open guys and huge windows. And we don't take away from that, but him trying to make plays and to throw the ball when it's a little bit blurry every once in a while and take advantage of what he can do outside of the pocket, even if it's dangerous, I like him kind of towing the line a little bit because he's not doing that often enough overall.

40:53And so it was one of those things where that's a no, no, no, yes play. But at the same time, I do think that there's a kernel of something to actually like about him making that decision. I also hope, I would guess you can smartly pick your spot there. Like what that was in the third quarter of a game where I think at that point, you're reasonably confident that the Browns are not going to get it together to the degree of beating you. And like maybe you're a little more willing to get wild with it in a situation like that, as opposed to a tight, tense game where it's ebbing and flowing and the outcome is a little more in doubt.

41:30I think I'd like to think he's got the confidence to try some shit in a game that feels unlosable by that point. And if you watch when he decides to throw that ball, Moore is coming open. So I understand why he makes the decision. A defender sinks back into it, and then I think it's Campbell who's covering Moore, does undercut it enough to create a contested throw. But it's one of those things where I don't want to see him do that all the time, but I understand the benefits of it. But you look at the first half, I mean, he layered a beautiful ball to Colson Lovelland down the left sideline, threw a couple missiles outside the numbers.

42:01Again, he was like 9 of 13. one of those was a drop common on guy's screen uh commit dropped a bender that was another just like perfect absolute rocket shot and that was my favorite of the day actually i mean like the dj more one is cool but like in terms of repeatable stuff like that throw was incredible and then he had one to burden that was like a sidearm fling on a crosser that burden dropped and then there was another one where zakiis fell down and so i was really impressed with the way that he played in the first half. And so I do think that there's a lot of stuff to be excited about from that game.

42:33I just really love, if you're not aware, here in the Chicago area, it was like eight degrees at kickoff with whatever the windchill was. Like very gnarly conditions. And it's not like he wasn't whipping the ball around. Like they were throwing the ball downfield. And this was the game where Caleb had his best completion percentage in seven weeks. I would have never guessed that for a five degrees at kickoff sort of game. That's what I'm saying. The performance from the passing game, you love to see what they were for a huge chunk of this game. Texans, Cardinals, same story. Like the Texans passing game being as efficient and dynamic and explosive as they were in this game, Derek, like that's the gear you want to see from this team.

43:18I know the Cardinals aren't a great team, but we know what the Texans defense is. I mean, if CJ Stroud and Nico Collins can get it together for a couple of explosives a game and this team can kind of be where they were today as an offense and just feel like they have this sort of gear, that's when things get interesting for the Texans. Yeah, they were. This game, I think, of all of these, got out of hand maybe the fastest. The Texans scored on their second play of the day because CJ Stroud just ripped one to Nico Collins over the middle of the field. Buda Baker kind of takes a little bit of a tough angle and Collins just is off to the races.

43:53He's gone for a touchdown. On the ensuing kickoff, the Texans get the ball back because they force a fumble and then they only end up getting a field goal at that short field. But the game is immediately 10 to 0 against this Texans defense with the way that the Texans offense is starting to play. I thought they played a really good game like if CJ Stroud can. Because I really think all we've talked about and we've said this a number of times. The offensive line, his rookie year was not that good. It just has to be mediocre and he can start to feel confident, make a couple of plays outside of the pocket, feel comfortable holding onto the ball and finding Nico Collins.

44:29The touchdown he throws to Dalton Schultz, where he scoots out a little bit to his left in the red zone. Just certain stuff like that. If he can do that and they can avoid him having a, I don't know, 55, 60 % Justin Herbert level pressure rate, he can have games like this. And I know the Cardinals defense isn't insane, but we were worried in week seven if the Texans offense could do that to any defense. And so for them to go out and have the game that they did, I was like, I hope they can keep this gear going in the playoffs. Yeah, they become much more interesting come postseason time when the offense has this level to them.

45:01I mean, there really was a stretch where it felt like the offense was going to implode in on itself at some point this year, and that is not happening. Let's get to the other team that had a big win in the AFC South today. The Jacksonville Jaguars destroy the New York Jets. And I feel like we're saying this every week, what is probably the most impressive performance of Trevor Lawrence's career. I so I'm going to let the people behind the curtain a little bit here. We you were like, hey, do you are you comfortable leading off the Jags little segment here? And I was like, I've been waiting to do this for five years.

45:32Am I? I'm extremely ready for this. I really think, too, this was obviously I thought Trevor was awesome. He made another of those. We've said it before when he was coming out of Clemson, the whole thing with him, like one of his little special traits was when he gets moving to his left, he can uncork it. probably his coolest play of the day was in the second quarter two minutes 41 seconds left his right guard loses immediately through the inside shoulder and Trevor immediately spins out the back side of the pocket to the left the left edge is already kind of pushing him so he's got to get like deep deep deep and he at some point maybe around like right when he gets to like the inside of the painted numbers stops flips his hips in the air as soon as he planted rips a 50 yard ball to Parker Washington.

46:16And I was like, if he's just going to do that once a week now, that's like indefensible, like quarterback kind of stuff. And so I just think the fact that he has that in his bag again, he had a scramble touchdown, which Robert, you and I have talked about before. Like, you should probably just do that more. I mean, he played his one of his best games this year against the Chiefs because he was running. And so he's just playing with a level of confidence. And I thought in this game, accuracy, that is frankly pretty striking. Like I've always liked him, but the level of consistency with it recently is like pretty insane.

46:48We talk about it every time Trevor has a game like this, but he is so impressive when his mobility is a big part of what the Jags are doing. He's an incredible athlete. I know. He has a physical specimen. But like Josh Allen, and I hate to compare anybody to an MVP and a guy that's done what Josh has done, but Josh Allen never goes a week without reminding us that he can do that shit, you know? And Trevor, it feels less common and something that he's like less willing to lean on in his game. And every time I see him do it to a degree like this or, yeah, going back to the Chiefs game, I'm just like, it should be like this every week.

47:23Like, you're a big, freakish athlete. You can do this with less danger of getting hurt than most other guys. Like, lean into this as often as possible, please. I've, when I think about Trevor Lawrence and the last five years and some of the stretches that have been frustrating, there are a lot of elements of it that remind me of when I've been frustrated with Justin Herbert. These guys who have every tool in their bag that are these incredible, big, big-armed athletic quarterbacks, and then you watch them play. And with Trevor specifically, there have been a lot of stretches like this where it feels a little bit robotic.

47:58Everything is underneath. He's getting rid of the ball so quickly. And I think that is the difference to me in watching what the Jags offense has felt like over the past month and what the Jags offense has looked like at its worst over the last three or four years. The aggressiveness, his willing to push the ball in the deep and intermediate areas of the field. And there's a looseness to his game right now and the way that he's playing that just isn't there when he isn't playing well. There's a tightness to the bad version of Trevor Lawrence that we have not seen over the last month. And so I think that's similar to how I felt about Justin Herbert for the last couple of years.

48:31It's like, I want you to play with a certain confidence and looseness based on how talented you are. And it really does feel like as this team with a first year staff has gotten into the back half of their season, they've really figured out how they need to call the games, how they need to structure the offense to make him feel confident and to kind of push that aggressiveness on him in ways that it really wasn't there over the first half of the season. and I think that again is I think speaks to maybe some of the growth that like Liam Cohen has done because I think he is when they first got there was it was a little bit of calling like the Baker Mayfield offense and what it was with the Bucks and how they had their offensive line some of the screens that they were calling I think with Trevor Lawrence even though he's had these stretches where he can be this robotic kind of throw too much underneath I think part of that to me was like the Doug Peterson of it all I think in his heart of hearts Trevor does want to throw the shit out of the ball.

49:24And I think them trading for Jacoby Myers, being a little bit more aggressive with some of their passing concepts recently, like opening up a little bit more of these wheel routes, some of these post routes and just being like, listen, man, Trevor's going to chuck the ball. And if we can just scheme it up and let him feel comfortable doing that and we can get six really good plays to one of the bad ones that he's going to have, that's a formula for us to go and win a lot of games. Liam Cohen did some really cool shit with his running backs in this game too. I just wanted to shout that out. Yeah, the Basel Tootin touchdown was sick where like you use Etienne as like a guy in the flat and just draw those defenders down.

50:01And it just opens Tootin up running through the B gap for the easiest touchdown of the day. And then they used BTJ as kind of a rub route guy on a dig to free Etienne up on like a fade in both in the red zone. I just loved watching it. It was a lot of fun. Trevor had 11 completions of 10 plus air yards in this game, which was a career high. and that's exactly what I've wanted to see from this offense and that's what they have been recently. And I think you're exactly right with the coaching staff, Derek, and chatting with some people there over the last couple weeks. I think it really just has been a process of we're learning what the guys need and that's always going to be a process for a first-year staff.

50:39You can come in and you can have all the ideas in the world about what you think the offense should be and what you think are going to be the positions you need to put these guys in. It's never going to go that way. it's never going to go that way. Like you only have such a truncated period of time in training camp to install all this stuff and to get to know what your guys do well, what they like, what they're comfortable with. These offenses that are in year one of a system, they're going to tinker over the course of the year. And I do think that this group has really found a groove with this personnel as they've added a couple of guys like Myers that are more reliable, all of that.

51:14It's coming together in a way that is very cool. Last one we wanted to hit here, the Eagles, take care of business against the Raiders. 31 to nothing. Nice to see this. Nice to see the Eagles have a game like this, even if it is the Raiders. It is nice to see. And with all the noise that has surrounded the Eagles, you take what you can get, right? I mean, you stop the bleeding. You get things back on the right track. Dallas loses to Minnesota on Sunday night, which I'm sure, I don't know if Eagles fans were stressing about it, but that helps you breathe a little bit easier, creating a little more distance there.

51:47Having said all that good stuff, can we have a conversation about what the Las Vegas Raiders are putting on the football field? It's over. It has to be, right? I just don't understand how you can make an argument that it's not. Other than we can't do this again, right? We can't fire a coach after one year again. That's the only solid argument against this, and I don't think it's a good enough argument to deter you. You realize this is the second time this year, and I'm not even including last week against Denver, where Denver sort of played with them for 60 minutes because at least the Raiders did enough things to make that look like a real football game.

52:23This is the second time this year, by the same score that's happened against Kansas City, where this doesn't even look like NFL product. I'll just read off some stats here. This game lasted two and a half hours. It's the shortest game in the NFL since 1996. The Eagles defense allowed the fewest yards in a single game in the Super Bowl era. 75 yards of offense. This is according to Ryan McFadden over at ESPN, who covers the Raiders. 75 yards of offense by the Raiders. Pre-Super Bowl era, it's the second fewest in their history, dating back to 1961. Jalen Hurts, 0.86 EPA per dropback, is the third highest by a starting quarterback in a game this season.

53:09Eagles scored touchdowns on four of their first six drives. and the only reason it wasn't five of six is because Dallas Goddard just drop seed a wide open ball in the flat it should have been five of six uh they punt once on the day and then go look at the drive chart here man in the fourth quarter the Eagles get the ball with a uh with 13 minutes to play in the fourth quarter the backups are in it's Tanner McKee and Tank Bigsby and they They go 17 plays, 11 and a half minutes, 80 yards down to the goal line. And they just turn it over on downs. They're like, screw it, whatever. Okay, cool. You stopped us.

53:50Is this game over yet? They ran the ball on 14 of the 17 plays on that drive and still moved the ball 80 yards and ate up 75 % of the fourth quarter. Just nonsense. Like high school football running clock because we need to get out of here and this is a mismatch type of stuff and I mean the Eagles are going to win this game they were always going to win this game but it's it's not supposed to look like that even in a blowout you know like go look at the other side of all of these other games we just mentioned and you can find something cool you can find some resistance yeah very least you can go find Trey McBride having like a career game oh you you're telling me man I needed it today in the fantasy football world and I got it in a big way You can find stuff like that in all NFL blowouts, but not the 2025 Las Vegas Raiders.

54:41There's not a word for it other than embarrassing. But congrats to the Eagles, though. Big win for them to get back on track. Taking care of business. That's the theme of this conversation. December 28th, Giants and Raiders. Oh, heavens, man. Really does feel like that. Oh, good heavens. Because right now, the Giants have the number one pick in the draft. Okay? The Giants are much more of a real football team as currently constructed than the Las Vegas Raiders. And so it's hard to imagine the Raiders winning another game this year. And so if the Giants win that game, the Raiders are going to be in place to have the number one pick.

55:15They will likely draft a quarterback, and I would assume that quarterback is going to be playing for a different staff next year. Other entry in You Have My Attention today, we're not going to spend a ton of time on this, but it was a big game between two playoff teams. The Los Angeles Rams, another monster outing from the Rams on offense. even in a game where they were down 24 to 14 felt like it was slipping away from them a little bit the offense is just enough of a machine and kind of like an unstoppable wave when it's playing like this so the rams who just continue to be can week in and week out the most dangerous dynamic just terrifying offense in the league you guys once again have my attention to 500 yards to 500 yard games this season and the the most succinct way I can put this for the Rams is again Broncos and Packers are playing a great game in this window the Saints and Panthers are doing their thing there's all kinds of crazy stuff going on Rams go down by 10 points and before I could even start to be concerned about what that meant it felt like they erased it in the blink of an eye because they're just that terrifying of an offense they went down 24 to 14 immediately they hit Puka for 37 yards and kick a field goal immediately.

56:29And then when they, the drive for them to go up 27, 24, that's one of those drives where it's just like, my God, it was all 13 personnel essentially, but they were splitting out the 13 personnel in different ways. And so there's a dagger to Devante with Terrence Ferguson as the wide as like number one receiver to the other side. They split it out even more. They throw a fade to Colby Parkinson down the right sideline for a touchdown. In this game, the Rams played 13 personnel on 62 % of their snaps. On those plays, they averaged 8.9 yards per play. They had a 63 % success rate and scored five touchdowns they had 30 first downs they had seven completions of 20 plus yards it's just ridiculous they had 30 first downs 30 30 first downs and they went two of nine on third down it helped us they went three or three on fourth down and then actually i do like that i like the fact that sean is willing to do this now i like the fact that he's willing to go to that knowing what his offense is capable of it does feel like that's kind of the last little detail that needed to come together for them to feel like this kind of machine.

57:46I think almost in that way, it was like that you kind of got all of the best parts of the Rams offense because you got in terms of the run game, like they were incredible in this game. Sixty four percent rushing success rate overall. They ran for like one 60, something like that. The passing game was not just effective, obviously, but Stafford was chucking it. He had twelve and a half area, twelve point four air yards per attempt in this game. like he was slinging it and some of them like were kind of just like I'm gonna throw it up to Devante Adams and see what he's gonna do with it but he made a number of those plays they were throwing some of those deep drift routes to Devante Adams Puka Nakua a number of times down the field and that's actually one thing I do want to talk about with Nakua overall he's been a good player from the jump right but a lot of that early on was underneath stuff it was over the middle it was crossers it was some seam routes stuff like that his work outside of the numbers this year has been awesome.

58:37And I don't know if that's just personal growth. Like he's just gotten better individually. I don't know if that's helped getting Devonta Adams in the building to help him with some of that stuff. But like his ability to just know where the sideline is, know how to hand fight. It's just outside of the numbers. It always felt like it was something he was more good than great at. And now he is fucking awesome at it. Like he's just I think he has become maybe be my like favorite offensive player in the league to watch because to me football is violence and grace and very few players can blend that together the way that Puka Nakua does and that's why I just like he's such a special player the one I think it was oh man the 36 yarder 11 20 to play in the second quarter it's the out and up I think it was against Kobe Durant the way he pulls that in over his over his head and it's just on a line from Stafford.

59:31He makes that look so much simpler than it actually is. He's yeah. What a game. He had four explosive gains in this game, which is as many or more than nine different teams in the NFL had this week. I'm you pointed that out about the outside the number stuff, Derek. I totally agree with that. And it's I really wonder like how much of it is him working with Devontae Adams about some of the release stuff. because his ability to create separation in one-on-one situations, even against man coverage, that's something he struggled with early in his career, even as he was great at everything else. He used to just run at people and then he would subtly push off at the catch point.

1:00:08And he was incredible at that and it worked, but it's just like he wasn't really a separator the first couple of years in his career. Now he is. Kobe Durant's on Pukunakua's team. It was DJ Reed that he beat. Forgive me. It's late. It's late at night. The offense had that gear. And then I just think that, again, those sequences where they have one dynamic play on defense and then the game starts to get away from you. When they went up 34-24, Kobe Durant gets a sack against the backup left guard for the Lions, destroys that drive. The Rams come out on the next drive. They have a 13-personnel chunk to Puka for 39 yards.

1:00:45And then Blake Horham scores an 11-yard touchdown. So in the blink of an eye, in a three-play sequence, you're now down by 10 points. and I think that was also from the Lions perspective the last thing I want to say about this game is that you just feel where personnel wise they're just not good enough because of the injuries right like the Colby Parkinson touchdown on this on the fade comes against a backup safety that's a touchdown you have Tristan Colon playing left guard you back up tight ends all over the place like you know the Lions are still very much in this and I think that there is absolutely a scenario where they have a win and get in game against the Bears in week 18 if the bears stumble over the next couple of weeks, but you just feel like this team is not close to 100 % and some of their personnel concerns really are holding them back when they have to play against a team that's built like a, that's a wagon.

1:01:31That's like the ramps. All right, let's get to the other side of the coin in week 15. It is time for some lowlights and what the fuck.

1:01:43The chiefs are officially done 16-13 loss to the Chargers they will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2014 Patrick Mahomes tears his ACL in this game it does not get it does not get much worse than how Chiefs fans are feeling right now when you consider what the season has felt like and now what the next year will feel like as your superstar quarterback is having to rehab that thing I mentioned the Packers having a brutal day and I meant like obviously I think at this point Chiefs fans, even before this game, had probably made peace with not winning a Super Bowl this year. But losing Mahomes at the tail end of this, maybe you could have convinced me there's an approach to this where it's like, OK, this team is old and tired and beat up and they've played so many more games than everybody else because of all the playoff runs.

1:02:36And maybe an early offseason would be a nice thing in the long run. But that goes up in smoke when the best quarterback in the world tears his ACL. And from what I know about Patrick Mahomes, I'm sure he's going to attack that rehab like a maniac. But still, this late in the season, you're running up against training camp in the regular season. There's no way around it. And it's way too soon to try to put a timetable on that. I wouldn't bet against the guy. But that puts a damper on any sense of copium that you want to put on this season. where like, ah, we'll be back better and stronger. It's hard to even make that case right now.

1:03:15Just a brutal overall season for the Chiefs. It's the definition of salt in the wound. It's like having it in like this. And we can do this pretty quickly. Chiefs are not at the table anymore. Broncos are at the table. I don't think we have to spend much time on that. Boom, done. Right? And I don't think we have to spend much time on how the Chiefs got here. We've talked about this a lot. We've talked about this ad nauseum. Why the Chiefs are in this position. And I think that the offensive line injuries and the fact that they just could not hold up today. The Chargers had 21 pressures, which was the most by any Chiefs opponent since week 16 of the 2023 season.

1:03:47And so the offensive line is in tatters. And, you know, we just, we know how the Chiefs got here. They are too static on offense. They just don't have it when it comes to some of the easy buttons they're able to press or they're not able to press that other teams are. And so I don't think we have to rehash a ton of that right now. This is what feels like a fitting end for what the 2025 Kansas City Chiefs have been. I think there were two moments for me that felt very like this was 2025 on one of the first plays of the game. Jalen Moore goes down with an injury and that's like, OK, this back half of the season, they've just struggled with injury after injury along the offensive line.

1:04:26So it was like, OK, it's going to be one of those days. And then to me early on in the second quarter, there was about 12 and a half minutes left. Mahomes tries to throw this deep post route to Tyquan Thornton it's a decent ball he gives him a chance and Thornton just doesn't at all go up and fight for it and that in my mind was immediately like we've said this before nobody makes plays for Patrick Mahomes on the Chiefs like Kelsey is a useful player but he just he's not a star playmaker like that anymore Rasheed Rice since being back doesn't make plays like that anymore Xavier Worthy was a first round pick but he doesn't really make plays like that like nobody even great quarterbacks are going to be wrong or need help every now and then Mahomes doesn't get any of those moments with this version of the Chiefs and it's just left for him to have superhero moments and he's going to have a couple of those but with some of the injuries it's just that's not enough clearly it wasn't enough I thought the second and third level of the Chargers defense was incredibly good in this game like incredibly good in this game.

1:05:26I mean, there are so many different examples you can point out about how they just took it to the Chiefs offense. In the first quarter with like nine minutes left, Derwin James just blows up Travis Kelsey on a negative Brashard Smith run. On the next play, Deion Henley does a fantastic job on a little whip route to Rasheed Rice, takes that away. Troy Dye on the play after that takes Pacheco away on a little angle route, field goal. 56 seconds left in the second quarter. Dion does an incredible job picking up Kelsey on a crosser. I thought the Chargers on defense today were amazing passing things off in man coverage.

1:06:02The Chiefs are one of seven for nine yards of the interception against man coverage in this game. And some of that was just really good communication with like the hole and zone players in man coverage. Derwin destroys Rasheed Rice with like 850 left in the third quarter. Tony Jefferson drops the hammer on Rice on third and three with three minutes left in the third quarter. He gets kicked out of the game eventually for another one of those. And then the pick from Henley in on the route to Kareem Hunt out of the backfield was an insane play. And so you just had like six, seven moments from the second and third level of the Chargers defense on top of what the front was doing to bother them where the Chiefs just had absolutely no answers on offense the entire game.

1:06:44the second half of this game and the injury to Mahomes really overshadowed it but I'd be remiss not to mention the sequence at the end of the first half where the Chargers cut it to 13-10 against all odds and they hadn't been doing freaking anything for a solid chunk of that first half and Herbert hits the sick go ball to Trey Harris makes a phenomenal catch and then your guy Keiondre Lambert Smith with just the ridiculous touchdown at the buzzer of the first half. That was, like I said, as the result starts to crystallize, you're really thinking of it more in terms of like, what does this mean for the Chiefs?

1:07:28But some really cool Chargers moments that I didn't want to forget about. Let's get to our next one here. The Carolina Panthers, who have this huge opportunity gifted to them by the Bucs losing to the Falcons on Thursday. The Panthers are sitting here being like, all right, we control our destiny. We win this game. We are now in the driver's seat in the NFC South. And then they lose to the Saints in a disgusting game. Carolina Panthers. What the f***? This, the NFC South, this is like the sloppiest game of hot potato trying to hold on to the division here. It is so bad. Like I, this really was a good opportunity for them to do this.

1:08:07And I think part of it is like why it's so frustrating is the the Saints defense has been good. So the Panthers only putting up like 17 points. That part of it is not that crazy to me. And I know Tyler Shuck has had a couple of good moments since he's come in. But like this is an offense that if you want to prove that you can win the division, you should be able to hold to even fewer than 20 points. And I know that that's asking for a lot, like holding a team under 20 is a good day. But like you should be able to do that against a rookie quarterback if you really want to go win the division. And they just could not do it.

1:08:36I'm a firm believer that winning the division should matter. I hate the idea of taking the home game away from the division champion. I think fantastic take. I hate it. I think you like you want to promote. You want the winning the division to be important. You want division rivalries to matter. The way to do that is to make winning your division very, very, very valuable. I have always felt that way. I don't want to hear that whiny stuff. I don't care that the runner up of the NFC North had to play on the road last year. having said that the NFC South in 2025 is testing my limits. Like it seems we do that every single year where the NFC South or the AFC South should lose their home playoff game.

1:09:18Typically by this point in the year, like especially the last few years, cause it's been Tampa for however many years in a row. But by this point in the year, I feel like the bucks have done enough or shown enough to where I'm like, all right, like this isn't a great team, but this is a team deserving of hosting a playoff game right now. with three weeks to play, it's hard to say that. I want to say it for the record. I'm not changing my mind. I still think the winner of the division champion should get a home playoff game, but I feel less convicted about it right now than I have in the past because this has been a gross couple of weeks for this division.

1:09:54The grossest part of this game to me for the Panthers is what they allowed the Saints to do while being behind the sticks just this entire game. If you look at it, on the drive where the Saints scored, I think their first touchdown, they had a third and 13, a second and 14, and a second and 18. I mean, Shuck was ripping balls in this game to Devon Vele, to Chris Olave. The third and 13 completion he has is disgusting, and then he gets a roughing. He fires one of Vele on the second and 18 that goes for a 17-yard gain, but this is happening consistently. For the drive where they go down 17-10, third and 13 conversion, where there's just so much cushion on a little bender to Velae.

1:10:34They get a second and 23 conversion on that drive because of a PI. But it's like just the amount of third and 13s, third and 15s in this game converted by the Saints were just absolutely ridiculous. And Shuck deserves a lot of credit because he was ripping stuff from the pocket this entire game. But it just should not be that easy when they are consistently behind the sticks for this entire thing. That's what I'm saying. It's not like this is an offense where I'm like, oh, they have a couple of superstar players and they can just be your they out scheme to you. It was literally it felt like the Panthers beat themselves.

1:11:05And again, credit to Tyler Shuck, like stepping up at the end of the game. He actually did this last week, too, where he made a couple of really nice throws towards the end, obviously had a couple of scrambles and runs that kept them in it. And so I know I said he's a rookie quarterback and he's had his moments. But again, this this felt very much like the Panthers beating themselves. The last thing I want to say about this game, Chase Young effectively ended it or not ended it because the the saints still had to go and get their uh field goal drive but he gave his team the ball back at the end of the game it was tied 17 17 on the the panthers had converted a couple plays and got to first and 10 again but on first and 10 from the carolina 40 chase young blows up the left tackle and like shoves him right into bryce young that's a sack two plays later on the third down bryce young tries to scramble up the middle and chase young just hunts him down and only it's only like a seven yard game they have to punt and then obviously saints and go run it down so like i just thought for a player that feels very forgotten on this saints defense because again who's watching the saints at awesome awesome end to the game for him i can't believe i'm about to say this but and and the saints front office deserves plenty of criticism for things that have happened over the last four or five years but i think kelvin banks has had a nice rookie season tyler shuck has shown you plenty in this time since he became the starter the two rookie dbs Jonas Sanker and Quincy Riley have shown you some things.

1:12:26Devin Neal scored a touchdown today for the second straight week. Pretty nice draft class that they've put together here. And on top of that, if you're going to play your way out of the top five, which currently they have, I start to think that they're at least going to give Tyler Shook a year to try to build around him as the dude, which I was the one that said that that felt incredibly unlikely. And here we are with three weeks to play, And that seems like the most sensible path forward to me, at least for 2026. I'm interested in what he's doing right now. I'm very interested. He made half a dozen really impressive throws in this game.

1:13:01We got one more WTF entry to get to, but we're going to take one more quick break before we get into that.

1:13:11One last news item to get to in WTF. And don't worry, we did not forget about it. one of the more unique results of week 15 as the Seattle Seahawks need every bit of 60 minutes to squeak past the Philip Rivers led Colts Seattle Seahawks specifically the Seattle Seahawks offense which did not score a touchdown in this game what the fuck I this game was like I so I shout out to our producer Katie for pointing this out Philip Rivers had and we'll talk about Philip Rivers his entire performance in totality and what it really was. But the fact that he had more passing touchdowns today than Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes and Drake May is crazy.

1:13:52You have like the best quarterback of all time, one of the leading MVP front runners and Joe Burrow and somehow 44 year old Phillip Rivers coming off of four years of having not played football against one of the best defenses, him getting on the board at all, even if just the one time. What what a weird game. What a weird game. I got to give a round of applause. We'll talk about the Seahawks offense and what they've been up to over the last month. But Mike McDonald going through his timeouts at the end of this game and preserving enough time to give the Seahawks a chance to go down and win this game.

1:14:28Underrated coaching moment of week 15 because it's going to be dicey in Seattle if you lose to the Phillip Rivers Seahawks heading into a short week against the L.A. Rams. And so by hook or by crook, they find a way to get it over the finish line. I thought that was a nice moment by Mike McDonald. But I mean, this is starting to feel iffy, Robert, with the Seahawks' struggles on offense. I think we saw where they really can run into issues. And we've talked about this all year. When they're forced into dropback situations, that's where the cracks really start to form. And there are multiple different things leading to that today.

1:15:09they had a 37 % rushing success rate in this game. The Seahawks did 22 carries for 50 yards. And so they're consistently behind the sticks early in these series. And then they're getting into all of these third downs. They went two of 13 on third down today. The Seahawks did two of 13. And you watch what's happening in those moments. And you just feel the lack of quality pass protection across the board, especially in the interior when teams can start picking on them like that. And I think their pass protection rules in some of those moments, I think teams can manipulate that. You had a really good plan from Luan Arummo and from the Colts defensive staff when the Seahawks were in those moments throughout this entire game.

1:15:53Their initial third down, you get like a big funky pressure with only three defensive linemen. You have Quidipe looping all the way around from the defensive end spot. and then Rodney Thomas comes right into that vacated area, untouched for a big-time pressure. Sam Darnold barely gets the ball away. On the Latu sack later in the game, the Seahawks have a full slide to the left. It leaves Latu alone on the back. He eventually gets home. The right tackle gets wasted. With about six minutes left in the third quarter, they had another mugged-up sim pressure where Charbonnet is alone on Zaire Franklin, and you have the right guard sitting there blocking nobody.

1:16:33And so I just think this team, when you put them into those situations consistently over and over again, I need to see them come through in those moments because right now you can pick on them really no matter who you are. And I think this is like a little bit twofold. I think this is one of those things that I think with a lot of these guys who run the Shanahan-esque offense, obviously the Kubiak offense, I think once they take over as play callers, there's a little bit of a learning curve of like, what does my drop back game look like I mean even for as good as Kyle Shanahan is you could pick on his passing offenses in pure drop back situations even the pass protection rules for a long time and I think really until they started to get Brock Purdy and figured some of that stuff out they just didn't really have good answers there I think the other part of this that feels a little bit icky and kind of scary to me is it just feels a lot of the the path that we had for Sam Darnold last year where for three three and a half months it looks really really good and you have a lot of these good moments and then right at the end it's like ah they kind of start making him do all the things that he doesn't want to be comfortable with they start condensing the pocket teams are throwing weird stuff at him in these pure drop back scenarios and then you get a lot of his bad and kind of a shaky play and so they're gonna get the rams next week and that again that's chris uh chris shula is kind of his boogeyman and so if we get another game like that i'm gonna start getting pretty concerned it's a short week thursday night football yeah i think you really even if they pulled this thing out they pulled this thing out against a quarterback i know you guys were talking talking about it, like so much love and respect for Phillip Rivers being able to get through this thing.

1:18:00And like, I'd made the joke before the game had been about how we're going to see like if a human brain can play quarterback. And the reason I framed it that way is because you watch him like the man fell down, had to get up and was sacked on a play in this game. And then you look at it, the numbers are not surprising whatsoever. 4.7 air yards per attempt, 2.36 time to throw, 63 % of his attempts came in under two and a half seconds on those plays. He was 13 of 17 for 92 yards. Like the, he is one of the most impressive cerebral players in the history of professional football, his ability to come in after not playing for five years and consistently get rid of the ball quickly, often go to the right spot with like no tangible physical talent is kind of remarkable.

1:18:51I just can't believe he did it Against the Seahawks It's not like this was like I don't know They were playing the Raiders or something like that Top 5 defense in the league A defense known for being kind of tricky to decipher He's just He's one of one man He led them on a game winning drive potentially They almost won the game We were talking about that in the studio Like while we were prepping for this show If this is what Phillip Rivers did against Seattle You gotta let him play out the string, right? I mean, unless he doesn't want to, but that would be surprising to me. I mean, he seemed to be having a really good time today.

1:19:30I would imagine if you come back for one, you can come back for four. You know what I mean? I'd be like, why would you stop? If you can do that, they got the Niners next. If you can do that against the Seahawks, just knowing the gap in talent and personnel between the Seahawks and the Niners, like if that's what you look like against Seattle, I am intrigued by what it could look like against San Francisco. Let's be clear. The reason we included this in the show was one. I am worried about the Seahawks offense I think that it's legitimate like the concerns we have for what they are But I also we needed to talk about this and this felt like the most logical place to do it The back shoulder ball to pierce on the drive to go ahead like I know it Wasn't pretty and like I was checking out of this game and watching Broncos Packers a lot during the day But I just wanted a moment like that when something like this happens like you just want to see you just want to see a cool moment like that at least once and I got it so I can go home happy speaking of let's talk about what made us feel romantic about football in week 15 I mean this thing was a thing of beauty Derek what made you feel romantic about football in week 15 we can continue the conversation we were just having yeah I mean Philip Philip Rivers I talked about coming into this game I was sad that the last time we saw Philip Rivers we got the perfect Rivers scenario which is that he was down a couple of points at the end of the game and had to drive back for them to win it.

1:20:52Them having ended this game where with two and a half minutes left, they get the ball back with down one point, two and a half minutes. Rivers does drive them. He gets to get the go ahead field goal. He drives them down in like seven plays, makes that throw that you were talking about. And then shortly after that, Mike McDonald and the Seahawks, they go and get their field goal. Colts get the ball back with 11 seconds and Rivers immediately chucks an interception down the field because that's the only thing you can do with 11 seconds. It was all so perfectly Philip Rivers that it was like he can leave the field for four years, come back.

1:21:26Nothing's changed. He still is who he is. Dave, what made you feel romantic in week 15? There's some important context here. Starts with the fact that Ed Reed, South Louisiana native Ed Reed, is one of my very favorite football players ever. I'm so glad you're taking it this way. His figurine. You're welcome. His figurine is behind me on the set. Like Ed Reed is the gold standard for deep safety play. And like it's a level of instinct and understanding that I don't know if we'll ever see again. I mean, look at his career numbers, 73 interceptions, all time interception return yardage leader, like 1500 interception return yards.

1:22:06And he was famously confident and cavalier with the football. Like you would have thought this guy played running back in high school with his willingness to dance and dart and put the ball out there. And importantly to our conversation here, just do shit with it. Ed Reed lateraled the ball on interception returns multiple times over the course of his career, probably most famously against Carolina in 2010, when he literally lateraled it to DeJuan Landry, who kept it going for a touchdown, like like an option play on an interception return. Ed Reed is the man. So with that context in mind, can you imagine the way that I cheesed from ear to ear when Kyle Van Noy dropped off a blitz?

1:22:52He like his sim pressure dropped off into the middle of the field on third and goal against the Bengals. Joe Burrow gets hit on the throw, pops it right to him. And Kyle Van Noy, he's 6 '3", 250, and he's 34 years old, starts looking for the nearest guy to hand the ball to. And my favorite part, he hands it to Alohi Gilman like it's a relay race. Like he's trying, he's like, take the baton, get us home on the anchor leg. And Alohi Gilman is much faster than him. He takes it the other, whatever it is, 85 yards for the touchdown that essentially puts the Bengals-Ravens game away. And this would have been an amazing play regardless.

1:23:29But to do it for the Ravens, after so many years of watching Ed Reed do crazy stuff like that, it just, it really resonated with me. That was my exact same thought. The first name that came to mind when I watched that was Ed Reed. And so I'm very glad that that's the way that you framed it because it's hard not to feel romantic about football when you're remembering Ed Reed doing exactly that for the Ravens. Mine's going to be pretty short and sweet here. In the Bears postgame locker room, DeMarco Jackson, who's done a really good job as like an off-the-bench linebacker for them as guys have been hurt, he had a pick in that game against the Browns today that kind of swung the momentum of the game and just really allowed the Bears to kind of take control in the second half.

1:24:08and Ben Johnson gave him a game ball. And his response after getting the game ball was essentially, this is nice. I'm glad we won today. I still got a bad taste in my mouth after last week. That's all I care about. It took, they were like 10 seconds of enjoyment from him after the game, after they beat the Browns today before him and I think everybody else in the locker room was like, we care about what's going to happen next week against the Packers. Does that get you, you want to run through a brick wall? I got chills. I got chills when I watched that happen. Like it, it's been a fun season and I'm very excited to see if they can avenge what happened a couple of weeks ago.

1:24:43Saturday night. Saturday night. We will nationally televised audience, island game, a lot of eyeballs. I'm very much looking forward to it. All right, let's talk about what we learned in week 15. You know, I think I've learned something today. What I learned today and what I learned from a lot of stuff that's happened this season is one of the joys of this NFL season is just allowing yourself to be suppressed. There have been so many elements of this that have snuck up on us, and I've really enjoyed that part of it. Just the chaos and just how hard to predict and how, I don't know, there's been like a spontaneity with this season where we've had these moments that none of us ever could have imagined, and they've been some of the best moments of the year.

1:25:31Philip Rivers played football in the NFL today. like that's crazy the Chiefs are not going to make the playoffs Bo Nix after some of his low points earlier this year and just again the Broncos offense looking like it really didn't have that gear we thought they might has the game of his career against the Packers and really shows us that I mean this Broncos team does have that level where they can do this whole thing I mean it reminds me of a period of time I've been thinking a lot about like the 2001 Patriots recently where this team won the Super Bowl that just came completely out of nowhere.

1:26:04And the Broncos aren't that. The Patriots are that. But we've just been so dominated by these elite teams and these elite quarterbacks. And that's just not how this season has felt. You know, Matthew Stafford, we didn't know if he would be able to play football at any reasonable level this season because of what his back was in August. There's a very good chance now he's going to win the MVP for the best team in the NFL. And so I just think there have been so many elements of who the best teams are, what the best teams have felt like, how it's been hard to pin down the best teams. This has been a surprising NFL season.

1:26:37And I think just kind of sitting back and allowing yourself to enjoy the fact that maybe we just don't know what's going on. I'm, I'm letting it wash over me and I'm having a really good time doing it. It's funny. Cause I don't say this to like celebrate the Chiefs loss, obviously. I mean, their accomplishments are so fantastic and they've been so fun over the course of this run. But I kind of blew my own mind after that game was over and they were officially out. And it dawned on me that like 30-year-old, eight-year vets in the NFL have played their entire career with the Chiefs being in the final four of the tournament.

1:27:20And I mean, it's a testament to their dominance and the run that they've had. But then you think about what that means and what's coming in the playoffs. I mean, obviously there are still very successful teams that have made the playoffs a ton of years that are going to factor into this, but it just, it's going to have a new look. And guys like, whether it's Josh Allen or like Nick Chubb has played his entire career in the Chiefs dynasty. That's crazy. That's a good name to bring up. That's a good one to frame it. That's perfect. That freaked me out when I thought about it. Fred Warner's entire career has taken place with the AFC championship running through the Chiefs.

1:28:00That's nuts to me. And so it's going to be a very different, very interesting looking January. Like I said, I don't say that to disparage the Chiefs, but it just puts it into perspective what the last eight years have looked like. It 100 % does. And I think that every year we have turnover in the NFL. Every year we have half the playoff teams turnover. But that means that a team that maybe had some variance go their way doesn't the year after. That means Washington doesn't make the playoffs this year. It's not that the Chiefs go from winning the division for a decade straight to not making the playoffs.

1:28:33It doesn't mean that the Ravens go from being the best offense in the league last year to a team teetering on the edge of not making the playoffs. It doesn't mean that the Patriots, I mean, before today, absolutely could have been the one seed in the conference after picking in the top five last year. It has felt more chaotic and more surprising this year than in really any year I can remember in recent history covering the NFL. And I'm embracing it because I think there's a lot of fun that's going to come with that over the next couple months here. That is all we've got for tonight. You're keeping track.

1:29:07We're hitting the Sunday night game on tomorrow's hangover show. Ravens-Bengals. And then we're going to dig into Niners-Titans. We haven't talked about the Niners enough over the last few weeks. I really do want to just sit with what the Niners are on offense and defense right now as we creep closer toward the playoffs because that is going to be a playoff team. So that's what's coming tomorrow on the hangover. We will be back me and Derek for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.