Week 2 preview: Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch tops the slate

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0:29Robert Mays: Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. It is our week two preview today. Week two preview is always a fun show. You feel like you're really getting into the rhythm of the season now. Went back and watched a ton of stuff from week one. I mean, we hit on probably eight to 10 different games in this slate and stuff that we're looking for. Talked about the game of the week between the Eagles and the Chiefs. One thing from the Colts Broncos game, the Jets-Bills game, and from the Chargers-Raiders game. Did some sicko deep dives on the Titans defense and the Jags defense on a new segment we're calling Sicko Street this week.

1:03Robert Mays: Also chatted about what we want to know coming out of week two, and did a little under the hood on J.J. McCarthy and the Vikings offense, a segment that we've done essentially since we started doing this show, and we will continue to trot back out this year. So really enjoyed this conversation with Derek Klassen and Dave Hellman. Let's get to it right now.

1:29Robert Mays: The first preview show of the season, the first real preview show heading into week two, that feels like we're back in the swing of things. Because the first slate of games, you don't have to do anything, right? It just shows up in front of you and then you get to watch all of them. And then the first reaction show, we're just kind of like reacting to what we saw. this week, Derek, you're finally back in the rhythm of it. You're rewatching games back to the grind. Not it's not hard. It's a very fun job, but back into the normal routine of how the season goes. And so it was nice and comforting to be rewatching these games over the last couple of days to prepare for this set of conversations.

2:06Dave Helman: That's the thing. The first preview show is like all of August. Like you spend the entire month doing a preview show. Whereas now this week, it's a lot of like you're just sprinting from Monday morning to like Thursday morning, really just being like, OK, how much can I put this stuff together? And that is like that is when you really feel like you settle into the groove of the season, which is exactly where I want to be.

2:27Derrik Klassen: It is very fun, but I missed the jolts of panic that you get. Like you're doing the dishes and you're like, oh, shit, that's another game that I need to go see. Like, you know, more than anything, I don't want to be caught with my pants down, especially in my first season doing this. So like all week, I would just get these reminders like, oh, I haven't watched Steelers jets again. I got to do that. And it's very fun. But like just it was not stressful.

2:51Robert Mays: But I was just trying to be on top of my game when in week one coming out of week one, because everyone is interesting, like even the teams that are bad or interesting because they're bad. It was the first glimpse we got of everybody. And so no matter what, whatever team put on tape. And so when you start wading into rewatching week one, the list just becomes totally unwieldy where it's like I wrote.

3:12Derrik Klassen: adding a new thing every other, every couple hours.

3:15Robert Mays: You're like, I wanted to see how he did. I wrote, I just write it down by unit. It's like, which units do I need to watch for Thursday? And I wrote down the whole list and I was like, oh man, this is going to be a lot.

3:25Dave Helman: It's like, okay, I've seen, I've watched Chargers film three weeks in a row. I can maybe give them a pass.

3:31Robert Mays: You have a sense of who everyone is by then. It's very hard to have a sense of who everyone is right now. So let's dig into our week two preview today. And let's kick things off with the game of the week presented by BetMGM. The Eagles minus one and a half at the Chiefs. If you're a Chiefs fan, Derek, and you had that absolute drubbing in the Super Bowl, and you had all offseason to think about it, and then you spend from February to August, February to September 1st being like, all right, you know, that was bad. But we get a couple new offensive linemen. We're going to be healthier at our receiver spots.

4:06Robert Mays: Like that was an aberration. We're going to be back as the Kansas City Chiefs this year. And then your first glimpse of the team is them having that very underwhelming performance against the Chargers. And now in week two, you are home dogs to the team that destroyed you in the Super Bowl. It has not been the best eight months to be a Kansas City Chiefs fan.

4:26Dave Helman: It hasn't. I got to say, at least it's been a very long time since they've been a home dog. At least you're a home dog to the team that just kicked your ass in the Super Bowl. It's not like it's some other team. At least there's like some degree of... Making Chiefs fans feel a lot better right here. It's not better, but it's like, if it has to be any team, it might as well be them. Like, it's better than if this was, like, against the Bills or something like that. So there is that element of it. I do think, like, to some degree, the Super Bowl was an aberration in that, not that I expect the Chiefs to necessarily win this game, but, like, it's not going to look that bad again.

4:54Dave Helman: I do think the Chiefs went into that game. Offensive line just had zero shot. And I think their game plan for a lot of that game was just not good, especially on the offensive side of the ball. And so I do think that part of it will change. Now, that just might mean the difference between like a 30 point loss and a 10 point loss.

5:10Robert Mays: How do you feel about the Kansas City Chiefs right now compared to how you felt about them coming into the year? Was last week enough for you to kind of change whatever collective optimism you felt about the Chiefs heading into this season?

5:21Derrik Klassen: So I would like to think we and Chiefs fans, too, because I've been trying to have a finger on the pulse, at least as much as like social media will let you. Try to just see what Chiefs fans, content creators feel about the way things are going. I would like to think that we've all learned a few lessons about prematurely burying the Chiefs. But I do think it's fair to just say, and if you go back and listen to us in the AFC West preview, I was very bullish on the Chiefs being a more exciting team. Derek, you talked about bringing back the deep ball. They're healthy at receiver. They got all this.

5:53Derrik Klassen: The offensive line should be better. And we shouldn't overreact to week one. But I can't blame you as an outsider or as a Chiefs fan if you're just like, man are we gonna are we about to do this again where every game is 20 to 17 and like Mahomes is incredible but maybe not fun and like you can enjoy the mastery of Patrick Mahomes like what he did against the Chargers was incredible in a lot of ways like he he is so so good it's still okay to say we want to see you throw 30 yard touchdowns like we want to see those Kansas City Chiefs and one week into the season you're just like Worthy's hurt not only is Worthy hurt but he didn't even do any he didn't get to do anything against the Chargers he got hurt like three snaps into the game Rice is suspended we'll do it obviously he'll be back after five more games so you can hold out some optimism there but for at least the time being I think it's totally reasonable if you're just like are we boring again like we might still be good but are we boring again.

6:55Robert Mays: I'm fine continuing to say the personnel isn't where it needs to be for this team to be efficient, exciting. I'm just kind of tired of doing it. Like I know rationally that that's how I should react to this. The fact that Rasheed Rice and Xavier Worthy did not play in that game, but at a certain point, I'm just like, I'm just tired of having this conversation about this team where it's like, ah, they'll be fine, but they're kind of boring. It's just not the one I wanted to be having about them this season. The fact that we're already doing it one weekend is a little bit disappointing.

7:21Derrik Klassen: I wanted Xavier Worthy to catch six for 102 and a touchdown last week. Like, that's what I was hoping for, and we didn't come close to getting it. That's not his fault,

7:30Dave Helman: but that's where we are. I mean, I think until they try to start building the receiver core in, like, a serious manner, we're probably just going to have to keep having this conversation.

7:38Robert Mays: If Rashearice wasn't suspended, I don't know how much of this conversation we're having.

7:42Dave Helman: But with the idea that they haven't made a serious

7:44Derrik Klassen: effort to do it, they just hasn't worked.

7:47Dave Helman: In terms of investment, they've made a serious effort. I just, Just the types of players that they continue to seek out are just not, this is not the way that would do it. I'll hear that at least.

7:56Derrik Klassen: But yeah, the assets are fitting value.

7:58Dave Helman: Right. They're pumping assets into it. It's just like the hit rate and like the types of players they seek out is not, I just, I struggle with it a lot.

8:04Robert Mays: Let's talk about when the Chiefs have the ball in this game. Let's just extend this conversation into what it may look like against the Eagles. Okay. So obviously last year we have the Eagles just absolutely pantsing the Chiefs in the Super Bowl playing. Pretty fascinating game plan, right? just an absurd amount of quarters, never blitzing the entire game. As you think about this version of the Chiefs, the one that we saw last week, playing against the Eagles defense that we saw a week ago, what are the key elements of this matchup that first come to mind for you, Derek?

8:31Dave Helman: I mean, if they had everyone healthy, it would have been that they can hopefully throw down the field a little bit more, and that I think with Worthy's bang up and Rice is not here, I don't know how much of that is really going to be the case. The other thing to me is that in the Super Bowl, I think the Eagles were able to play that way with all their light boxes, kind of just playing in quarters and just like, oh, the safeties will fit from depth is because the Chiefs run game, especially by that point in the season with the offensive line, they couldn't really do anything but like attach stuff to bubble RPOs and just like we're going to run inside zone and hope this hits and hope that we can get three, four yards.

8:59Dave Helman: I don't know how good the run game is going to look this week, but I do think over the course of the season, having Simmons getting Sue Matai a little bit more comfortable, I think by the end of the year, the run game is going to look good. I think in this game, you just hope that you have a little more balance and a little bit more threat, especially from like under center, because I think if they're going to be this light box team, like let's get under center a little bit. Let's try to punch them. And if that only means two or three explosives, that's two or three more than you got in the Super Bowl.

9:24Dave Helman: So I get any point at the end of last year. And so that to me would be a win.

9:28Robert Mays: At this point, I feel like asking for the Chiefs run game to find anything explosive is a lot to ask in this group because it just does not happen very often.

9:35Derrik Klassen: No. But I do, I think there's potential for something very different in this game. And I was thinking about that because week two is really early for a Super Bowl rematch. Like it kind of just narratively, it's like, we just did this. But then you think about it and it could look completely different. Specifically, the offensive line that gave Patrick Mahomes no shot is very, very different. I mean, you had Joe Tooney playing left tackle in that game. They were completely overwhelmed. And not only does the Chiefs offensive line look a lot different, so does the Eagles. I mean, in my opinion, the guys that wrecked that game are not really there.

10:13Derrik Klassen: Like, obviously, Josh Sweat is the headliner, but Milton Williams is also gone. Like, in addition to the Chiefs being better equipped to deal with it, the Eagles, at least so far, don't have the proven horses, particularly on the edge, to make life miserable on the Chiefs. Obviously, Jalen Carter will be back for this game, but the Chiefs handled him. Like, Creed Humphrey and Trey Smith give you a leg up in dealing with a Jalen Carter, And it's while you're dealing with him, can you handle the stuff on the edge? In the Super Bowl, it was a very, very firm no. But paper, at least, I think the Chiefs could be better equipped here.

10:49Derrik Klassen: Obviously, Simmons is a huge variable there. How good of a game does he have? But if the offensive line plays well, we know Patrick Mahomes doesn't need superstars catching the ball to do stuff. So if you can give him a chance, you could change the complexion of this game completely.

11:04Robert Mays: For the most part, I mean, obviously, Nolan Smith had a really nice breakout year last year. but I forgot Nolan Smith as well. And Nolan Smith is a very good player, but I think that a lot of the other pieces on the Eagles defensive line, they were going to require some young players to step into bigger roles and we were going to see what that looked like. Mauro, Jomo, Jalenx Hunt. Removing Jalen Carter from the equation week one is almost like an experiment. This is what this group looks like without Jalen Carter and I do think it left a lot to be desired to the point that the Eagles immediately went out and signed Zedarius Smith like 10 minutes after the game ended.

11:35Robert Mays: When I look at the Eagles defense from last week, and I think about how the Chiefs could potentially attack them, this Eagles defense was one of the best in the entire league last year. I mean, they finished number one in defensive DVOA, did an incredible run throughout the playoffs. But there are a couple key differences with this group that I think are worth paying attention to. So the Eagles last year played with the lightest boxes in the NFL, period. In the Super Bowl, 100 % of the Chiefs runs were into light boxes per next gen, and they still could not run the ball that well. last week the Eagles played with slightly heavier boxes I think in part because they knew they had to the changes with their defensive personnel and the Cowboys were still able to run the ball really efficiently per next-gen 59.1 % rushing success rate for the Cowboys and that becomes even more concerning when you think about some of the other details with this the Eagles want to be a too high team and they want to play that way consistently whether it's against the run against the pass, it's the Fangio way.

12:32Robert Mays: Out of two high shells last week against Dallas, 14 carries, 107 yards, 71.4 % success rate for the Eagles. I assume the Eagles want to play out of those looks against the Chiefs considering how they played them last year. So the question then becomes, can you consistently defend the run out of those looks? Because a week ago, it was a problem. No Jalen Carter, that's worth mentioning. But I think as you're trying to find the pads forward and the avenues for the Chiefs to do something on offense in this game I think that's

13:01Dave Helman: probably where it starts I think definitely again they need to be just more varied in the run game than they were last year and I think you know we'll see how much Zedarius Smith plays because my one concern with the Eagles defense coming into this year was like you don't have size on the edge and now signing Zedarius Smith might fix that so like in my head attacking this Eagles defense would be like can we get some pullers and really like really make like guys like Nolan Smith and stuff take on blocks and they can do that for their size but like Nolan Smith is really strong for his size, but at the end of the day, he's still a smaller guy and can sometimes still get overwhelmed by these bigger guys.

13:29Robert Mays: I think it's an important nuance when we're talking about Nolan Smith as a run defender. When he's taking on pullers and he has a little bit of a head start, he plays with a ton of physicality. At the point of attack, he's still a smaller player. It was just the reality of the situation.

13:42Dave Helman: Exactly. And that's why, honestly, if the Chiefs could do a little bit more wide zone stuff, which they really could not do at all last year because they just didn't trust their left tackle to, I think, do a lot of that. If they can get Simmons moving out a little bit there that I think that might be a little way to get things going.

13:54Derrik Klassen: Simmons is such a fun X factor in this game. And it's not fair to expect him to be dominant in his second career start against the Super Bowl champs. But if he's even not dominant, but if he's just good, like if you watch him in this game and you're like, oh, yeah, Josh Simmons, let's go like that. That could be big for so many reasons.

14:14Robert Mays: Can the Chiefs run the ball at the same sort of clip the Cowboys did last week? I think that's my first question. The second thing that Dallas did that was able to take advantage of this construction of the Eagles defense is that they absolutely barbecued Adoree Jackson. Essentially, every single time CeeDee Lamb was in any sort of cut split and the Eagles were in a single high coverage. So essentially leaving him one on one with Adoree Jackson, it ended horribly for the Eagles. It sounds like Adoree Jackson is going to at least start the game again at outside corner for the Eagles. The Chiefs, unfortunately, do not have a CeeDee Lamb to bring to the party here.

14:46Robert Mays: And so I wonder if the two avenues are, can we run the ball officially and can we take advantage of a Dory Jackson one-on-one situations outside the numbers? Are the Chiefs as currently constructed set up to take advantage of either one of those? And I'm not sure they necessarily are.

15:01Derrik Klassen: I was joking about this. So right before we started recording, we saw Xavier Worthy hit the practice field in Kansas City. And we'll see what he does. I have no idea what that means. It looks like his arm is heavily padded. He might not play. I don't want to try to project that. But if you're the Chiefs, don't you feel better if you're just like, hey, man, if you're just out there running around being somebody that needs to be accounted for, like, don't you feel better about this, even marginally, even if he's just a super duper fast decoy for a little while? That's OK.

15:30Robert Mays: As a space clear, I actually think he's probably worth having out there. I agree. A couple of just Eagles defensive personnel notes I wanted to throw out there from week one is we're trying to figure out, like, what are these teams a week into the season? 91 % of the snaps for Jihad Campbell last week.

15:45Dave Helman: My man.

15:46Robert Mays: 82 % for Andrew Makuba. So Sidney Brown started, but Makuba played a majority of the game. Jordan Davis, 89 % of the snaps last week for the Eagles.

15:55Dave Helman: That's gotta be like the first time in his career. Like even going back to like - Can you imagine that conversation?

15:59Derrik Klassen: Like remember the game got halted up for like, it felt forever when Jalen Carter got kicked out. And the conversation on the sidelines, just like, hey buddy, hey big guy. We're gonna need you today. I hope your conditioning is up to speed.

16:11Robert Mays: And I wonder with Jalen Carter back, how much does that go down? Or does Ojomo play less snaps if Jalen Carter's back? So the fact that Jordan Davis is even capable of playing 89 % snaps in a game, they talked all offseason about how he was in better shape and looked better. And so I do think that's a good sign for the Eagles. So a couple, you know, holes in the armor last week against Dallas. We'll see what that may mean against the Chiefs this week. All right, let's flip to the other side of the ball. The Eagles, you know, didn't necessarily play the flashiest game against Dallas last week. A lot of underneath completions.

16:44Robert Mays: We said this in the moment. Dallas played 100 % zone coverage against the Eagles last week. A lot of very soft zone coverage. And Jalen Hurts, I thought, played about how you'd want him to play in those situations. Took a lot of underneath throws that were there. Was really, really good as a scrambler. And the one situation, one of those spots where he had a chance to take a shot downfield, it's quarters. It's a double post. It's the type of thing he throws very well, had the monster play in the Super Bowl in a very similar sort of play. Throws the ball on time, accurately. They get the chunk that they need.

17:16Robert Mays: And collectively, the Eagles offense does enough. I wonder, is there anything to be learned from the way that the Cowboys played last week? And do you think that's actually the blueprint defenses should follow if they're trying to limit the explosiveness of the Seagulls offense?

17:31Dave Helman: I think for some teams, yes, because the Cowboys ended up playing a bunch of cover, too. especially like in the red zone they were playing a lot of cover two just like really putting a lid on everything and even when it wasn't cover two whether it was quarters cover three just a lot of deep corners like you're either going to throw speed outs or you're just not going to throw anything and you're going to scramble and like sometimes J. Hurts just doesn't want to do that and didn't trigger on some of that so I think that was a big part of it I would say the issue for me is like that's just not how a spags defense should play and I don't think that that is how like this safety room is really equipped to play like I've the way that they move a lot of guys around in this Chiefs defense the Spags is kind of treating them like he's got a couple of Teran Matthews and Justin Reeds and he doesn't anymore like these guys are a little bit stiffer they're a little bit slower they're a little bit younger and I think that that's been an issue so I would almost just like go back to a little bit of like the 2020 kind of Spags formula and just throw a bunch of Jalen Hurts which weirdly enough in the Super Bowl they didn't do a lot of and maybe that was my theory there is like, were they just scared of blitzing and they hand the ball off to Barkley and like one guy just kind of messes up a little bit and he's just gone 70 yards.

18:36Dave Helman: Like I get that, but I think this is a quarterback that you kind of have to blitz.

18:39Robert Mays: The numbers that are associated with that, I think worth pointing out, according to NextGen in the Super Bowl, Jalen Hurts finishes 15 of 17 for 185 yards and two touchdowns on non-blitzes. On blitzes, two of five for 36 yards and an interception. And I think why that becomes even more important is that I watched this Chiefs defense play last week and I watched that pass rush against a Chargers offensive line that we were concerned about heading into the year.

19:03Derrik Klassen: I felt dumb for being worried as I watched that game.

19:06Robert Mays: Well, so here's, and this is always the problem with week one. Does that say more about the Chargers offensive line or does that say more about the Chiefs defensive front that we thought was going to look different because they drafted a couple of guys. Orman, uh, Omar Norton lot did not play. I think he's still banged up coming into this week, Ashton Jelotti played four snaps. So this is the same group for the Chiefs that we had last year, minus Tershawn Wharton, who got paid a lot of money in free agency. You combine that with the secondary that now has Jaden Hicks coming in there for Justin Reed and Chamari Conner still playing a lot.

19:38Robert Mays: Where I land with this, Derek, is that I'm kind of worried about the Chiefs defense. I don't want to overreact too much to week one against a very good quarterback. but what I watched down to down last week in Brazil does not make me feel better about the Chiefs defense having a different sort of flavor now compared to what we saw at the end of last year.

19:55Dave Helman: I'm extremely worried. I do not think that they're a good enough unit or I'm worried that they can be a good enough unit where it's like, okay, we can down to down be good enough. This is why I think you really do have to go back to maybe more of like the 2020, 2021 type of formula where it's like, we're going to give up explosives anyway. So let's at least try a little bit harder to generate some with, you know, throw a few more corner blitzes, throw some chaos in the mix and see what happens. Throw a couple of, you know, throw a couple of explosives out there and just see what happens. And I really think that like that is, again, that worked better when your offense was also able to get more explosives on their side of the ball.

20:29Dave Helman: And so that was part of the formula too. But I really just don't know if this, if this defense is going to live just being like, oh, well, we're going to trust our safeties to do all these crazy rotations and make tackles from depth and all this stuff without a good pass rush in front of them. It seems like you're asking too much of a young and, other than Trent McDuffie, kind of iffy secondary right now.

20:49Derrik Klassen: I'm going to say the exact thing that Robert doesn't want to hear, but that doesn't make it any less true. The Chiefs have just earned the right to sort this out over six weeks. They just have. That pertains to Spags. That pertains to Chris Jones. He wasn't amazing against the Chargers. That doesn't mean he can't play his way back into being amazing. They can tweak this and play with it. And I'm going to choose to believe even if the Chiefs start 0-2, I think I'd have to see them fall far enough behind the pace to where I actually got worried about it. And so it's not great for weekly discourse, but I just I'm not going to make too many judgments about what the Chiefs look like until we've seen at least a month of games.

21:31Robert Mays: I just worry that the Chiefs defense that we saw during that 2023 season into the 2023 plans when they were able to just like play f*** you defense. Yeah, no, this is not that by a far cry. I just worried that we're getting very, very far away from that. And like the idea that Tamari Conner was a problem for them for a good chunk of last year when they wanted to play him in the nickel and they wanted to play in those big nickel looks. And I was wondering, are they going to come into this season? And is McDuffie going to go back in there because they signed Christian Fulton in free agency? They did that a little bit last week, but we still saw a lot of Conner and he struggled.

22:04Robert Mays: And so I just worry, even if they spent some time tweaking this, are we just at a place where this unit overall just doesn't have enough good players?

22:13Dave Helman: I kind of think so, because like, doesn't it feel like remember when like maybe three years ago, the defense started to come on a little bit. They were investing a lot. And then it had the cycle of like because they were investing so much in the defense, the offense started to fall off a little bit. Like the offensive line deteriorated a little bit, left tackle issues, all this other stuff. Now it feels like we're going the other way where they are trying to invest more in the offense. and at the expense of that, the defense is like kind of struggling to retool the way that I think they've wanted to maybe the last year or so.

22:38Derrik Klassen: If I was, and we're getting away from previewing the actual Eagles game, but if I'm a Chiefs fan, my hope is probably in a little more than a month, Worthy's healthier and Rice is back from suspension. And my hope is that the offense can be the unit that can pick up a defense that's not what we got used to watching over the last few years. And that it won't come to fruition until October or maybe later. And that is very scary. I think it's less scary for the Chiefs because again, I just, I got to see them fall far enough below 500 that I'm writing them off before I think it's going to happen.

23:13Robert Mays: In terms of this Eagles offense, reasons that this week might look a little bit different. I expected AJ Brown to be much more involved this week than he was last week, in part because I think there'll be more opportunities this week. You mentioned maybe a little bit more blitzing from the Chiefs. The number that jumped out to me, the Cowboys last week, their corners played off 75 % of the time in that game against the Eagles. They were giving them anything they wanted underneath. The Chiefs just do not play that way.

23:40Dave Helman: And they never, like Spags in general at any stop has never played that way.

23:44Robert Mays: Their corners play press as much as anybody else in the league. So even if it's not a ton of man coverage, I do think there will be more opportunities for A.J. Brown. I think that the run game, though, that's what I'm curious about. The Chiefs' run game defense has been really good over the last couple years, even as other areas have kind of fallen off a little bit. And last week, Dave, the Eagles run game did not look very good compared to what we were used to seeing from them. Saquon Barkley, according to NextGen, 2.9 expected yards per carry in that game. He averaged 3.3, and that was with him making a ton of guys miss in space and getting much more than what was blocked.

24:18Robert Mays: The Eagles were 27th in the NFL in week one and expected yards per carry on running back runs. That is not the Eagles that we have come to know.

24:25Derrik Klassen: The funny thing, I thought it looked great in the first half of that game. Like for the most part, they were getting what they wanted. I heard scrambling was a big part of that, obviously, but it bogged down in a big way in the second half. And it shouldn't, I don't think it should be this way. Cause like you have one of the best offensive tackle duos in the league. You just paid Cam Juergens. You have Saquon who is an elevating factor himself, but Landon Dickerson hurt himself. Like he stayed in, but you could see him get hurt. Like sometime in the third quarter, he was not right for most of that game.

24:56Derrik Klassen: And then he leaves altogether eventually when he realizes it's just not working. And I just everything not to take too much credit away from Dallas, but like most of the good happened after that. And I found myself wondering, like, OK, Landon Dickerson and Cam Juergens can compensate for you having Tyler Steen at right guard. But if you've got two guards that you don't love on either side of your center, this could be a problem. And like I said, it shouldn't be that way. Like you should be able. And I mean, to be fair to them, they did win the game. Like they played well enough to win, but it just didn't look good after Dickerson got nicked up.

25:31Derrik Klassen: And I, I, I wonder if that is sort of a, a domino effect where as long as he's not right, this just isn't the well-oiled machine we've gotten used to. He is, he's practicing. So like, I would expect he's going to play in this game, but how effective will he be? I think the run defense will be fine.

25:48Dave Helman: Like, I do not think that's going to be the issue. It's just a matter of like, how many like true third and eights can we get them in? which I think is a decent chance and then it's just like what do you do with them? How do you turn up on this? Exactly. Again, like you said the end of 2023 I would have been like this defense on third and eight I don't ever want to see it like they're going to destroy whatever offense they're playing against. I think it's a little bit of a mystery box right now with the way these guys are playing.

26:11Robert Mays: One last note again just like what are these teams through one week what's maybe different than we expected. Some stuff with the Eagles offense structurally I found notable in week one compared to kind of what we've come to expect from the Eagles offense. So last year they were in condensed formations at the 26th highest rate in the league. It was about 26 % of snaps in week one. That was 40 % of snaps. It was the 11th highest rate in the NFL. And there were a lot more multi tight end sets for the Eagles. They were in those sets on 51 % of snaps. And so it was a heavier offense and it was a more condensed offense.

26:44Robert Mays: And why the condensed offense part, I think is particularly notable for this week. If you play in condensed sets against the Chiefs, they have no trouble ripping whoever that slot corner is off the edge when you're in those sorts of looks. And so just one small thing to potentially keep an eye on, because historically, that's not something we've really talked about with the Eagles.

27:03Dave Helman: And I think like the Chiefs absolutely want that. Like I would not be doing that against them. Like they if they could get away with like sending Chamari Connor instead of having him cover as much as possible. I think that that it like spags would be like we're in a good spot this week.

27:16Robert Mays: All right. So before we get to some of the other matchups from week one, we're going to take our first quick break.

27:49Derrik Klassen: It practically matches all the cash back you've earned at the end of your first year. Seriously, all of it. And we trust you to make smart decisions. After all, you listen to this show. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. Recently, we asked some people about sharing their New York Times accounts.

28:05Robert Mays: My name is Kayla. My husband and I use his email address to access the New York Times. Each day, we compete for who gets to do connections. Sometimes I log into the app and I discover that he's already finished connections that day. And I'm like, Jonah, it was my day. And he's like, I know, I just couldn't resist. You would do us a huge favor if we got to log in as a family with separate emails. I really think our well-being as a couple depends on it.

28:36Derrik Klassen: Thanks for looking into this. Kayla, we heard you. It's why we created the New York Times Family Subscription. One subscription, up to four separate logins for anyone in your life. Find out more at nytimes.com slash family.

28:57Robert Mays: One other bit of news we wanted to hit before talking about some of the other games this week, Derek, is that it sounds like Brock Purdy, according to Kyle Shanahan, is going to be out for two to five weeks with some sort of turf toe variant. Gotta love that. That's a first. I've never heard of it.

29:14Derrik Klassen: So it's not turf toe? That sounds so ominous. Like the word variant is typically associated with something far more deadly or dangerous. A good disease. Yeah.

29:23Robert Mays: Than turf toe. Coming into this season, the entire, all of the optimism around the Niners was rooted in. Well, they can't be more hurt than they were last year, right? Like this is a season that has to go better just purely from a luck standpoint than last season did. we're one weekend not even one weekend we're five days after the start of the season on Sunday George Kittle is on IR with a hamstring injury Jawan Jennings is not practicing because of a shoulder injury and now the quarterback who I thought played played pretty darn well last year as everything else crumbled around him is out for two to five weeks not the start you wanted if

29:58Dave Helman: you're the San Francisco 49ers it is not the start that you wanted and like what's what's so funny about this is one I you know everyone has made the jokes about like Kyle Shanahan's gonna get his chance with Mac Jones now. I think the thing with that is like when they theoretically could have drafted Mac Jones and did end up drafting Trey Lance, that was when they had the super soldiers like at every skill position, like the offensive line was better, all this stuff like that was when I think truly you could insert an NPC at quarterback and they would have been like the 10th best offense in the league.

30:25Robert Mays: You mean like Jimmy?

30:26Dave Helman: Yeah, like Jimmy. You can do that.

30:28Derrik Klassen: NPC is crazy. I mean, we're talking about two guys that were drafted in the top 40. You know, I think, I mean, you're not wrong. It's just kind of mean.

30:38Dave Helman: He was getting like CJ Beathard to throw for like seven and a half yards a pass.

30:41Robert Mays: Nick Mullins, I believe, still leads the league in yards per attempt over the last five years. They were NPCs.

30:47Dave Helman: He could do it with anybody. And again, that was when the roster, I think, was a little bit better. Right now, I just like, if George Kittle's not going to play, the offensive line, I think, is probably as worse, as bad as it's been in the Kyle Shanahan era. Like, I think we had some concerns coming in with like everything from left guard to right guard, except for maybe Pune or right tackle, I mean. And then Trent Williams did not play very well in week one. So if the offensive line is going to be this and your best skill player and only really like good skill player is Ricky Pearsall, who I think is nice, but like ideally I think a wide receiver too at this stage in his career.

31:17Dave Helman: It's just, I don't know if a backup quarterback like Mac Jones is going to be able to put up 30 or anything.

31:22Robert Mays: In fairness to the Niners, the Seahawks front is better than a lot of fronts you're going to be playing over the course of the season, including the team that you're about to play on Sunday. But let's say Purdy misses a month, but just throw it at the high end of that two to five week range David that's the Saints the Cardinals the Jags and the Rams you'd hope that even with Mac Jones a quarterback they can beat Spencer Atler on Sunday the three games after that I think are a little bit of a different challenge and if this team is suddenly like two and three at the end of five games in what should still be a pretty competitive NFC West I don't think this is just this is not the start we envisioned for the Niners this year.

32:00Robert Mays: Anybody. You have them in the wins league.

32:02Derrik Klassen: I took them in the wins pool. I said multiple times I thought they were due for a big bounce back and I'm a little alarmed right now. Especially, I just want to shout out Brock for a second. I gained a lot of respect for him last year. I just loved the game that he played on Sunday. And that's even with a really bonkers interception and the game winning touchdown was kind of a miracle. But for what Seattle was doing to them, for as well as he played. I just, I thought he was fantastic. So it's a huge bummer that he gets hurt immediately after like a really, really impressive game.

32:37Robert Mays: Solely from a football experiment standpoint, I am interested in seeing what happens with Mac Jones. This is, we were not given the Sam Darnold experience with Kyle Shannon. I didn't want to see that in real time. I wanted that really badly, yeah. And then we got a version of it last year. We still got to see like, what does Sam Darnold look like in objectively good circumstances? We got our answer to that. The Mac Jones thing is adjacent to that for me. But again, I think like you said, Derek, this is not quite as good of circumstances as it would have been two, three years ago if Mac Jones had been dropped onto the net.

33:06Derrik Klassen: It's just a crazy thought. Like even so 2023 is two years ago. I mean, that's life in the NFL. But if you look at this Saints cards, Jacksonville. Yeah, you're just like, oh, they'll roll over these teams. It doesn't even matter. And now I'm very worried about pretty much all three of those games. Even the Saints game is a road game.

33:23Robert Mays: So I don't think that Jags or the Cardinals are world beaters by any stretch, but I think they're probably teams that will finish somewhere around 500. And the fact that we're a little bit worried about what the Niners are going to look like against teams like that, I think does say a lot. Before we get back to the show, some fun news to share with you guys. We at The Athletic now have access to the NFL highlights packages so we can use video in our shows, our social clips and on our app. If you're an NBA fan, you probably saw the way our NBA team used highlights during the playoffs. And now we have that for the NFL.

33:55Robert Mays: We are very excited about how we can use this on our show. And you'll be seeing that integrated into the athletic football show very soon. Next thing we're going to hit today, we did this last year on our weekly preview show, and we're going to run it back again. We're just going to run through one thing that we are looking for in a handful of other games. The kind of through line theme with the three that we're picking from here, or the couple that we're picking from here to start is a couple of these offenses looked very good in week one. Can they do it again against maybe somewhat better competition?

34:28Robert Mays: And that is very true for the first one that we want to talk about. Broncos Colts is the first game we wanted to hit here. Dave, what is the one thing that you were looking for in the Broncos Colts game this weekend?

34:38Derrik Klassen: So I went back and watched the Colts Dolphins game with really more of a focus on the Colts because we were very taken by how bad Miami looked like in the moment. And that was the story. Like, holy crap, are the Dolphins even going to finish the season with how bad this looks? So I wanted to go back and watch the Colts. And I was I was so impressed by what I saw. Like maybe some of it is the Dolphins looking bad, but the Colts looked very good. And keep in mind, like when you talk about where India is, obviously it's a new quarterback with Daniel Jones. They let two guys on their offensive line go to Minnesota.

35:15Derrik Klassen: So you're reworking a significant chunk of that. But one of the after watching the game, like one of the biggest pieces of your offense already is Tyler Warren, who I love, by the way. I mean, I liked him as a prospect. I knew he was a good player. But seeing what he was capable of in week one of his NFL career was so cool. I mean, like the catch, the catches, the route running, the stuff that he did as a blocker. Like he's not this overpowering blocker, but he just always gets where he needs to be. Yeah, and he had a couple really fun blocks where he's just posterizing DBs down the field. He's a very fun player.

35:50Derrik Klassen: And all of that, it just looked really smooth for how much new stuff they had. Like, I think they got flagged four times for holding, which, hey, that's a really good Miami front. But you wouldn't know it because Daniel Jones was pressured on 24 % of his dropbacks. He had all day to hang out in the pocket. And I just I came away thinking like this does not look like an offense with this many important new pieces. Like, like, I mean, not to rub salt in the wound, Robert, but like, look at what the Bears were doing on Monday night. That's what it should look like when it's all a bunch of new faces and guys doing new things.

36:28Derrik Klassen: And the Colts were just on top of their stuff. And what better way to find out how real it was than to play the Denver Broncos? Like it is. We joked about it on the recap show. So sometimes we have to wait a month, right? Where you play three great games, you start 3-0, and you're like, yeah, is this for real? We are going to find out really quickly because there is no doubt in my mind that the Broncos are one of the best defenses in the NFL. They mauled the Titans on Sunday just like people expected them to. So how real is this? How good does Daniel Jones look against better pressure? How well designed is it all?

37:03Derrik Klassen: How clean can they play? I'm so excited to see how a very impressive week one holds up against Denver.

37:09Dave Helman: That's where I'm a little bit of like two minds on this. Cause like, I do think some of what the Colts were doing was pretty impressive. And even Daniel Jones, like I think his quick game operation was actually pretty good. And then there was one play, fourth and two, they had a midfield. Jones can feel the heat coming. He actually spreads out the formation a little bit and gets it to where the slot player, I believe it might, I think it was Josh Downs. And he kind of gets him to run just like straight to the flat. and the Miami Dolphins defense tried to send the nickel. And so Jones immediately sees it, throws it, and they convert.

37:40Dave Helman: Like him being able to do at least once or twice a game, be able to do that, I think is like a nice setting presence. And so I think all of that was nice. The thing to me is like a lot of their success in this game was against a defense that likes to play a lot of too high and lighter boxes. And all they were doing was like zone and attach RPOs to everything. I think against the Denver front, that is going to be like, dude, we'll put eight night in the box and we'll just play man coverage. And now you just have to beat our guys. when they've got guys like Patrick Shretan who can kind of just go man up on your best guy.

38:07Dave Helman: I'm a little bit worried about how well that's going to work. Or not worried, but kind of like you said, Dave, it's about as good a test as it gets. We're about to find some stuff out about the Colts very quickly.

38:15Derrik Klassen: I'll be impressed if it looks as good as it did against Miami. But I do want to give them credit that it did look very good.

38:22Robert Mays: The big gap to me, stylistically between those two defenses and why this is going to be a different sort of challenge. Last week, 12 % man coverage for the Dolphins, 42 % man coverage for the Broncos. And so it is, they're just going to be tighter window throws that Daniel Jones is going to have to make in this game. And I think my question about Daniel Jones, even if there were some parts of the argument for why Daniel Jones was the better option at quarterback, where I was kind of like, all right, I guess I see that in the sense that the floor was higher with Daniel Jones. Fine. Even if we want to concede the floor was higher with Daniel Jones, there are some explosive down the field pass catchers on this Colts offense.

38:57Robert Mays: And I was wondering, is Daniel Jones going to be the type of quarterback that can access those throws within the offense? He did that last week. He pushed the ball down the field correctly on time with a level of aggression I have not seen from him in a while that I think can get you excited about him unlocking all of these pass catchers. so I think that was a good step forward and then the thing that even well we can argue about whether or not that is something that you can continue doing against teams that don't have storm duck and whoever else at corner right like the Dolphins secondary is an absolute mess we know this even Melo Fonu they signed him in free agency he's a guy that I like as oh he can play close to the line of scrimmage and he's a blitzer and all this he's playing in the deep half for the Dolphins like this is a thrown together group that is not the case with the Broncos but the Dolphins do have a legit front.

39:46Robert Mays: The Dolphins have legit dudes with their front and they were blitzing at an insane rate in this game. They had a 51 and a half percent blitz rate against the Colts last week. On those plays, the Dolphins had a 23 and a half percent pressure rate. The ball was coming out and the protection was fantastic. And that is the one area where I'm like, okay, even if it's the Broncos versus the Dolphins, I do think that the, the past protection for the Colts last week leads me to believe they might be okay against Denver. Because I thought that Bordellini and even Jonathan Taylor, against all of those pressure looks, they looked incredibly buttoned up and put together in pass protection.

40:25Robert Mays: So if they can protect the quarterback and at least give him time in this game, we'll see what happens when those windows get a little bit tighter. But I was very encouraged by what I saw from the offensive line.

40:35Derrik Klassen: He had that 36-yard dart to Pierce that made us sit up in our seats. That was the best throw of the weekend. Yeah, that was insane. I would argue it was like his only truly impressive throw in this game. Like there were a couple like deep comebacks where I'm like, that's a nice NFL throw. But that was the only one where I was like, that is a high difficulty, like high leverage throw. And I'm guessing he's going to need to make about five. He's going to need to make a few more like really impressive throws

41:05Robert Mays: against the defense like this. I will say, personnel-wise for the Broncos, Nick Benito played out of his mind last week. just like ruined Dan Moore's first game as a Titan in a way that was not good for anybody involved. And then the other guy that I will point out that I think on the other side of it, if you want to try to pick on somebody, Hufunga in space, I think, you know, he's a really fun player. He's a physical player. But when you're making him play in space, I think there are some limitations. So if I'm the Colts and I'm trying to circle some guys, I think he'd be one of them. And I actually was kind of impressed with some of the things Riley Moss did last week.

41:38Robert Mays: So he was good. I do. I don't think there are a lot of weak links on the Broncos defense. I think can you attack Fonga in certain situations would probably be the thing I would circle if I were Shane Steichen going into this game. Let's get to our next one here. The Colts led the NFL in success rate on offense last week per TrueMedia. Number two, the New York Jets. What is the one thing you are looking for in the Bills-Jets game this weekend, Eric?

42:03Dave Helman: I mean, this, I think going into the season, we all would have been like, Like, okay, this is, you know, Bills get an easy one to start out the season. And I think the way that they played against that Steelers team, this is probably not going to be the case. Like, I really think, so I think I'm, I don't want to give the Bills a pass for letting what happened in run defense against the Ravens happen, but like, they're the Ravens. They can kind of do that to a lot of teams. But the Jets, I think are a good test of like, okay, they can run the ball at like a pretty above average clip. I think like, I was really impressed with Membu.

42:31Dave Helman: Titman was playing incredibly well at guard. I thought Fashanu is a good mover, even if every now and then he can get jammed back like this offensive line they clearly got something in the run game you add on top of some of the stuff they were doing with fields both in the read game they also had like a you know they motioned a four by one and run qb draw with him like they were doing a lot of the right stuff that way so i just feel like if the bills are going to have such an issue with linebackers not being able to take on blocks safety's taking the wrong angles in the run game you know ed oliver might not play in this game he was in a boot absolutely brutal i just don't know how they're going to not get run on for 200 yards again.

43:05Robert Mays: I will say down to down, the Bills run defense was not that bad last week. When you look at just success rate and just how often the Ravens are putting together productive runs, the explosive runs are what were a problem. And I think some of those explosive runs that we saw from the Ravens are the exact type of explosive runs you have to worry about against the Jets.

43:23Dave Helman: That's the whole deal with Breeze Hall. Like that's his thing.

43:25Robert Mays: Well, I'm talking about the quarterback. Oh, him too. Lamar Jackson last week had five carries on design runs, 51 yards on those design carries. Four of those runs went for 10 plus yards. He averaged 1.3 EPA per rush. So on those five Lamar Jackson runs, the Ravens got a touchdown, essentially worth of expected points. And so that's exactly what you're having to worry about when playing against the Jets here, because that's what you're going to, the exact same things they were doing with Lamar Jackson, you're going to be testing that with Justin Fields. And the Steelers had an issue last week.

43:58Robert Mays: the Steelers problems I think are a little bit different than the Bills problems the Steelers linebackers their heads can spin to the point where they're exploding when you're doing too much to them but I the other part of this is that the Jets did a good job of making them wrong in the quarterback run game so early in the game they were trying to like surf and they were trying to play both and then later in the game they were trying to do some scrape exchange stuff where the edge crashes down hard and the linebacker fills over well the Jets at one point Justin Fields just didn't care. When they were doing the scrape exchange, he handed the ball off.

44:29Robert Mays: DJ Watt missed the play. And because Patrick Queen was shooting outside, now you have one fewer guys in the box. And so I thought the Jets had answers to pretty much everything in the run game combined, like you said, with the offensive line just playing really, really well. Like what Tipman and Armand Membu did last week, I just wasn't ready for that. Even if I was excited about Membu, the fact that Elijah Veritaker gets hurt and then we have a backup right guard in the game. And he was like one of the more impressive players I watched in the run game last week, David, is one of the more shocking things I saw in week one overall.

45:00Derrik Klassen: I'll throw John Simpson in there too. I thought he was, he was bullying guys. And that's, I was curious, like watching it live. Yeah. Like they, they did a lot of stuff with fields and fields accounted for 25 % of their rushing total. So when I see that I'm again, I'm like, is this real or was this the Steelers not being ready for the number of ways that they can attack you? It looked really real. Like they were getting to the second level, bullying dudes, overwhelming the Steelers front. Ben had a bad day. That was one of the worst games she's ever played. It was an ass kicking. Like it was a very physical effort from the Jets offensive line.

45:33Derrik Klassen: And it looked a lot like we were hoping the Jets run game would look like. And on top of that, Justin Fields looked as good as I can remember him ever looking as a quarterback too, as a thrower of the football. So I never, and I apologize to my Jets diehards. I never imagined myself being this excited to see the Jets in week two, but here I am.

45:53Dave Helman: I didn't either. And like the last two things I want to say, one, I do think the run game is a slightly different issue. Kind of what you were talking about, Robert. I think the issue with the Steelers is anytime the Jets were in a gun, they were just like constantly out leveraged in the box. Like they kept bumping their linebackers out way too far to deal with RPOs and stuff like that. And so just a lot of space there, which I don't think will be as much of an issue for Buffalo. And then the issue for Buffalo is the backers just can't take on blocks. Like they're too small. But like you said, with the Steelers, it's like guys are kind of just they're guessing, they're gambling and stuff like that.

46:21Dave Helman: With Buffalo, it won't be that. They will be buttoned up and in the right spot. But just when John Simpson gets to the second level, can he move the guy? When Josh Myers climbs to the second level, can he move the guy?

46:32Robert Mays: And like, I kind of think they'll be able to. The Justin Fields part of this is interesting. It's one of the better games he's played essentially in his entire career when you look at the numbers. And there was some stuff that I do think is sustainable, right? Like, I mean, that throw, there's some versions of it where like, this is exactly what I see from Justin Fields. All of the run game deployment, the touchdown he threw to Garrett Wilson, like he can still push the ball downfield when given the opportunity to do so. The thing that was most encouraging to me, and it kind of cuts both ways because I loved watching it and I don't know how much of it is you can carry over.

47:05Robert Mays: How good of a job he was doing, keeping his eyes downfield while moving around the pocket in order to throw. That's something he really didn't do a ton of early in his career. and that's good to see, but those are still volatile plays. And so what he is capable of doing in the pocket on time, I still want to see how he continues to carry that over. The early returns were great. Like that's exactly what you want to see out of a Justin Fields game. There are still just a couple more things I want to see before I get really excited about this over the course of an entire season.

47:37Dave Helman: I think I agree with that. For me, it's just like, can we do that five times out of 10 instead of the two out of 10 the way it used to be? And that's it. And because that gives you three more explosive plays a game,

47:46Robert Mays: that's exactly what happened last week.

47:48Derrik Klassen: I do think it's interesting. The Jets were one of the most pleasant surprises of week one. And we saw, I mean, it is the Ravens, but we saw the Bills defense. They're still six and a half point road favorites. It's a large road spread. I don't think I would be gutsy enough to call for the upset, but I bet it'll be a classic division game.

48:06Robert Mays: Last one we wanted to hit here, the one thing that we wanted to watch is from Chargers Raiders. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this game. We're going to be recapping every single Monday night football game this year on our YouTube channel. And so we probably won't spend a ton of time previewing those games compared to the two o 'clock and three o 'clock kickoff games from Sunday. But I just love the fact that Chargers Raiders is a matchup between the Internet's two favorite quarterbacks and two guys who played fantastic football last week for the combined Gino Herbert truthers among like football media and the football hipster Internet last week was a very good week.

48:40Robert Mays: Like the fact that they Herbert did that in an island game and then Gino does it in week one when everyone's paying at least a little bit of attention. It was a fun one. It felt like a little bit of vindication as we've screamed into the void. I promise you these guys are as good as I'm telling you. I'm telling you they are.

48:57Dave Helman: Yeah. Like the Herbert one happened in primetime. So I feel like I don't have to talk about that one as much. The Gino one, dude, like this was Gino is already prone to like having games where all he wants to do is just like get to his spot and chuck it. And he's about as good as anybody in the league at that. because truly his ball location and like knowing based on leverage and coverage where to put the ball he really is like a very special quarterback in that sense and then the arm talent is really

49:18Robert Mays: really impressive like when it comes to down the field accuracy in term and especially outside the numbers down the field accuracy I think him and Herbert are probably one and two I mean yeah probably in terms of like driving the ball I think Jaden and Jalen both are very good at down the field like they can drop it in a bucket exactly yeah but driving the ball like second level throws to the sideline yeah i'm talking about laser show shit yeah gino and herbert i think are probably one and two in the entire league which i think says something about why we like gino and justin

49:49Dave Helman: herbert they're they're like they're fun throws on the field fun it's very fun to watch i mean

49:55Derrik Klassen: it is of course they get the late game because this is a double header week so they get the game that won't end until probably like after midnight eastern time it kind of feels like pack 12 after

50:04Robert Mays: dark.

50:08Robert Mays: I, the, the one throw I wanted to talk about from the Justin Herbert game, because we didn't really talk much about it. And by the way, I'm sorry about that. I just want to like, I know that too often I do this where I just assume everyone who listens to the show is always listened to the show. We're not going to talk about all the games. Like it just, it's never going to happen on the Sunday night recap show. We're not going to talk about all the games. The hope is over 17 weeks, we make a very concerted effort to talk about every single team. And so we're going to talk about the Chargers plenty.

50:35Robert Mays: But the one throw from that game I wanted to talk about was actually an incompletion. The corner out he throws to Keenan Allen in the first half of that game, Justin Herbert, that goes incomplete, is just an insane play on like five different levels. He starts his eyes to the left and comes back to a corner out on the other side of the field. He does not see it come open before he throws the ball. he literally turns to his right in rhythm and throws that ball perfectly to Keenan Allen and hits him in the hands and he drops it like nobody there are so few other quarter I don't know if any other quarterback in the league is attempting that throw with that timing in that exact sequence in

51:14Dave Helman: the way that he was moving his eyes well in the corner didn't think so either you can see the corner playing flat he's just like he like starts to stutter and he's like he like starts to go field a little bit he's like oh there's no way he's throwing that so he settles again and then And he realizes, oh, shit, no, he's throwing that. And he just he can't get there because it's again, no quarterback is willing to test something like that. Funny enough, like the one Gino throw I wanted to talk about was like similar ish. It was third quarter, 840. And he ends up, he has to slide a little bit to his left in the pocket.

51:40Dave Helman: And he's flat footed on his own 12 yard line. Cannot step into this throw. And he just whips a wheeler out to Brock Bowers down the right sideline, 40, like 30, 40 yards away. And I'm like, it's incredible. It's like a twisting catch. It's like, dude, everything about it was like, you just have to be nuts to even try that.

51:58Derrik Klassen: This is why people love Gino and Herbert. You can hear the excitement in y 'all's voices just talking about him. I had an epiphany on Friday where like, it's easy to, and I still think he's going to have a big role to play. Don't get me wrong, but it's easy to focus on Amari and Hampton because he's the first round pick and he's like the new different thing. And you kind of look at the pass catchers and you're like, what's Trey Harris really going to do in year one? You know, he had one catch in his debut. Lad McConkie was there. Keenan Allen's year 13, and he's not a burner anyway. So it's easy to look at it and be like, ah, what's what's really different and new and exciting about this?

52:33Derrik Klassen: And then during the game, I was like, oh, right. It's still Justin Herbert. I wrote off like one of the best throwers of the football in the world.

52:42Robert Mays: I went through the exact same process. And I will say already, I regret not taking them in the wins league at the 15th pick. All right. I already I regret it. I said at the beginning, I'm just going to take the quarterbacks that I like. And for whatever reason, I just like, I guess it was, it was probably because what they did this offseason just wasn't overly exciting. And it was, it was hard to get excited about it. And then it's like, oh yeah, he had plantar fasciitis coming into last season and then he was hurt. And so the version that we saw of Justin Herbert at his best last year when he was healthy, he was scrambling, he was pushing the ball down the field that we saw that a lot for a good chunk of last year.

53:14Robert Mays: That's exactly what we got on Friday. And so I'm excited about watching that all year, even if it's going to come with a little bit of regret. And I just can't wait. I think we should just have a counter during the Monday night game. Like how many? Yeah, I can fit that in there. Throws do we see combined from those two guys? Do not drink to those. Do not make that a drinking game. Not a drinking game. We'll just have a little counter on the side before we do our Monday night recap. All right. We're going to take one more quick break and then get to a new segment that we're trotting out on this year's preview show.

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54:29Robert Mays: Every week, there are a couple games that it takes a real like sickness to get into. It's games that when you look at the schedule, it's just not something that's going to jump out at you. The two teams that we're going to talk about today are fit for like color rush Thursday night football. That's what we're getting into here. So we're calling this sicko street every single week. every week on the Thursday show, we're going to spend some time on Sicko Street talking about a couple units that I assume you're not hearing a lot about in your typical NFL programming. And we're going to start this conversation, Dave, with the Jacksonville Jaguars defense.

55:03Robert Mays: They're playing the Bengals offense this week. New defensive coordinator, Anthony Campanile, this year for the Jags. We had no idea what this unit was going to look like. And one weekend, they had a pretty damn good outing against the Panthers. what were your early impressions from the Jacksonville Jaguars defense yeah this was the

55:21Derrik Klassen: game I was willing to be the best game of week one and it did not deliver at all it landed with a thud and a big part of that was the Jags defense which so this is this is where we concluded when we talked about it in our pre-production meeting I'll just lead with it because if you watch this game back on defense for Jacksonville the number one takeaway that I had when it was over I was like, you know, it's easy to roll your eyes at the decision to sign Eric Murray and Jordan Lewis, who are aging defensive backs to free agent contracts. And we see guys not live up to these deals all the time. And it's the type of deal Jacksonville has done in the past that hasn't aged very well for them.

56:01Derrik Klassen: It's one game. They looked really damn good. Like they looked like guys who were worth their contracts, Jordan Lewis and Eric Murray. I have their stats in front of me somewhere. Five tackles for Jordan, a pressure with on a nickel blitz on a third down, just a really cool look from, from this defense where like you, you mugged the lineup with seven or eight guys, two of them fall back. And just as Bryce Young is processing all of that, Jordan Lewis comes from the slot and almost strip sacked him, honestly, it turned into an incompletion. He had a fumble recovery at the end of the first half on top of that.

56:35Derrik Klassen: And then he ends the game with an interception and garbage time. Eric Murray, seven tackles, pass breakup, a pressure of his own because they were sending the safeties often in this game. Like that's my, I guess other than that, my main takeaway is he's, they are not afraid to send pressure from all over the place if they think it's going to work. And these two guys were a huge part of it. I thought they had really, really nice days.

56:59Robert Mays: Jordan Lewis and Eric Murray, both of them, when those signings happened, I was like, okay, you know, like we'll see, right? Like you're signing 30 year old corners to like top of market deals to play nickel. Eric Murray has played on a million different teams. Happy to be wrong about my pessimism about both of those because I totally agree. They were probably two of the four best players on the field for the Jags last week. I would throw Josh Allen in there who was an absolute menace the entire game coming off the edge. And I thought Foyalou Khan played well against the run. And so I think those four guys, I think, but the fact that two of them were guys that I wasn't sure how that was going to go.

57:33Robert Mays: That I think you can feel good about. Overall, though, I think that the numbers from the Jags defensive performance and the final results, not necessarily indicative of Derek about what we might see from the Jags moving forward, especially as they play against the Bengals this Sunday.

57:49Dave Helman: That's where I landed. Like, I think if this game had happened week 15 of last year, there was a shot that the Panthers could have hung 30 on him. And so, like, the fact that we didn't arrive there this week, I think, was really, really nice. That's important to point out.

58:01Robert Mays: The Jags finished 31st in defensive DVOA last week. They were fourth in week one. It's one game and it's against the Panthers, but this is a very different unit, even if there are some imperfections about it.

58:10Derrik Klassen: And I agree. Like, I agree with you. I don't know that this was a case of them being like an overwhelming unit, but even if they're a little fraudulent, worst in the NFL to middle of the pack is a hell of an improvement.

58:23Dave Helman: I think that's my thing is like, I think they checked the box of like, okay, they're not a complete disaster. But I do think that this was probably the like fakest performance we got from any unit in the entire week. Like they only allowed three points for really most of this game until the Panthers kind of scored what was basically a garbage time touchdown, which you would think feels like a dominant performance. And again, I think they got some great performances like Josh Heinz Allen was phenomenal in this game. Eric Murray was really, really good. Like he had a obviously he forces that interception.

58:50Dave Helman: Also smoked Hunter Renfro on a seam route. Just folded him in half. Took him out. And then even on a third and sixth screen later in the game, he was able to kind of take it out by himself. So he played really well. but I had a couple issues with just like I think the defensive line in run defense was kind of all over the place. I thought Devin Lloyd was all over the place in run defense. In pass defense, I thought both of the linebackers were giving up a lot of space, especially underneath and like not relating to routes the way that I think you see from teams like the Chargers, the Eagles, like the really buttoned up kind of pass coverage units.

59:21Dave Helman: And then I really just thought, like, other than the one play that Tyson Campbell makes on the post route, nobody could really cover Ted O 'Rohan and McMillan. And I think when you're going to play the Bengals where you have Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins, a little bit of an issue.

59:32Robert Mays: I think the one-on-one matchups outside the numbers on past defense is probably the number one thing I would point to. Like, Jerry and Jones got picked on a couple different times by Ted O 'Rohan and McMillan. That looks mildly problematic when Bryce Young is throwing to Tee Mac. It's going to look like a real issue when Joe Burrow is throwing to Jamar Chase and Tee Higgins. So that's the first thing I would say is that anytime you can get any sort of one-on-one matchup on the outside, whether it's quarters, cover three, man, anything, the Bengals have a decided advantage against that, like the other outside corner that's not Tyson Campbell.

1:00:03Robert Mays: I'll be curious how much Travis Hunter plays in this game. Because the idea being that he's going to be used situationally, he's going to be deployed based on the matchup. Is this the type of game where you think, all right, they have T. Higgins and Jamar Chase. Do we play Travis Hunter at corner a little bit more? I'm still not sure how I feel about that mindset and plan. But if you're going to approach it that way, this seems like the week where he would play a little bit more.

1:00:25Derrik Klassen: I mean, in theory, and maybe I should give more credit to a guy who was drafted number two overall, but I'm kind of like, I hear that and I'm like, you're not going to give him any run against a very manageable offense and then just throw him into the deep end against Jamar Chase and T Higgins. Like, he's a really good player. I'm not saying he can't do it, but that makes me a little nervous.

1:00:47Dave Helman: And like for me too, like I really think Travis Hunter can be a special corner. I've said that a number of times over the course of the offseason. I do think if there is one nit to pick in his game as a corner, he's a little bit on the thinner side. And these bigger, stronger receivers can bully you a little bit. The Bengals receiving core might be the most like bully you type of receiving core in the league.

1:01:06Derrik Klassen: They are the transformer receivers. They are huge.

1:01:10Robert Mays: Travis Hunter played six snaps last week. He had one target and he allowed a 12 yard reception on that target. It was just like a little quick, like kind of glance slant when he was playing the flat and cover two. And so I just think it's difficult to be like thrown in for a handful of plays at a corner when you're playing as a full-time offensive player. Like it was always going to be difficult. Like this idea that you could be situationally used on the defensive side of the ball in coverage. We've never seen it before. And I wonder if there's a reason that we've never seen it before. So if we see him more this week, I think that maybe we'll find out a little bit more about that experiment, but curious to watch that.

1:01:42Robert Mays: But the last thing I'll say, I'm with you on the run defense specifically. The Panthers ran the ball decently well in this game. And just when you watch the mechanics of it, especially the guys on the edge, I mean, there is some pretty aggressive stuff happening when it comes to crashing inside, you know, hopping outside against certain run looks. And so I do think that there are some creases to be found against this team based on the way they played the run in week one. Chase Brown is an explosive player. And I wonder, especially if they're trying to get the ball on the perimeter, can the Bengals, who really struggled to run the ball last week efficiently, can they find a couple explosives on the edge against this Jags team the way that they played last week?

1:02:22Dave Helman: It's a great point. Like between Chase Brown having the gear that he has, I think, on some of those moments in a way that maybe sometimes the Panthers backs don't have. And then also what I mentioned with the linebackers giving up so much space and coverage. This is like a Chase Brown might have like 20 touches or 160 yards or something crazy.

1:02:36Robert Mays: I think the Jags defense, the numbers are very good from last week. I think we can poke some holes in how real that necessarily is. Another AFC South defense that I am tempted to kind of believe what they put on tape last week and the trouble that they gave the offense that they played against. The Titans were eighth in defensive DVOA last week against the Broncos, Derek. And I was pretty encouraged about what we saw from some elements of the Tennessee Titans defense. So let's stick on sicko street here. What did you see from Tennessee and Denard Wilson last week that got you excited for what this potentially looked like against the Rams?

1:03:11Dave Helman: I'm buying it, man. Like this is, I mean, I've been doing Denard Wilson propaganda for like an entire year now. But like, I still have a couple of questions personnel wise, like did not think the linebackers played well in this game. The safeties, I think, can be a little bit up and down the corner two spot for a million teams. This is true, but is true for the Titans. Like those are issues. But like when I watched the way that this was put together, they were throwing so much cover to at Bo Nix. and specifically them, what I've noticed, the former Ravens guys love dropping the nickel to play cover to as like their weird little wrinkle to it.

1:03:41Dave Helman: And so they did that a number of times, I think on the McCreary interception. That's exactly what they did on the McCreary interception. And dude, the way that he wheels around, that was one where when we were watching it on the broadcast, I was like, man, Nix is an idiot. Like you can't make that throw. And then you go back and you watch the film and you're just like, there's no way any quarterback would have expected Roger McCreary to wheel around and go find that. There's nothing wrong with the decision. No, it's like fine.

1:04:03Robert Mays: He throws it because he sees the safety drifting backwards to that deep corner. And so he's throwing the more shallow crossing route coming to the left. And McCreary wheels around and makes that play. I don't think there's anything wrong with the decision Bo Nix made on that play, even though it goes down as an interception in the statute.

1:04:21Dave Helman: Yeah, like that was just when I watched that back, I was like, man, that is McCreary just making a very, very good calculated risk and making an incredible play. So I would say all that stuff, I think coverage-wise, they do a good job of mixing it up. And then to me, it's just like the run defense, I think, is serious. Like the backers, I have a little bit of an issue with, but obviously the defensive tackles are phenomenal. And then we talked about it a little bit during the offseason. The fact that they got a little bit bigger on the edge, bringing guys like Jihad Ward. Jihad Ward had a game, man.

1:04:48Dave Helman: Like he doesn't do a whole lot for you as a pass rusher, but just in terms of like condensing space on the edge, setting, you know, setting the edge in the run game, giving your backers a chance. Like he did a good job. And so if their formula is, we're going to get you into second and nine, we're going to get you into third and six. I think that's like a pretty good formula.

1:05:05Robert Mays: I, you saw the vision for why they wanted to get bigger on the edge. Jihad Ward, Draymond Jones is that sort of player. And I'm really curious what Femi Olodejo is going to be over the course of his rookie year. He's just a unique player that I think is well suited for the way that the Titans want to play. So he is that big bodied edge that plays with power, right? And so that's all they want him to do is a pass rush. Just like, I want you to run through an M. Epper's face. Like that's exactly what I want you to do every single play. And then he was an off ball linebacker at UCLA and they dropped him a ton in this game and he looks comfortable doing it.

1:05:36Robert Mays: And so this was a funky defense that we got in week one, Dave. We had 35 % cover two from the Titans in this game and they got to it in a million different ways. I'm curious, is that something you're trying to do against a young quarterback where you're going to put a lot of bodies in wonky places and make him read that stuff out? or is that who you want to be? Because if that's who you want to be, Matthew Stafford is a very different sort of challenge when it comes to working through those sorts of looks than a second-year quarterback in Bo Nix is going to be.

1:06:08Derrik Klassen: Well, I think the theme for the show is we're going to find out

1:06:12Robert Mays: because if that's who you want to be,

1:06:16Derrik Klassen: then you're going to be willing to do it. And my hunch is that that is more Bo Nix specific and you don't want to try to fool somebody that's been playing pro football since 2009, I think. I mean, I don't know. That would be my guess. I also, I don't want to completely throw cold water on all of this for y 'all, and I can tell how excited you are by it. Pressure? Like, are you not worried about that at all? I mean, Bo Nix had the second lowest pressure rate in the NFL for the week. Jeffrey Simmons is maybe the most underrated defender in the NFL, certainly the most underrated, like really good defensive tackle.

1:06:54Derrik Klassen: where is the rest of the pressure coming from with the Tennessee Titans? That's my only concern.

1:06:59Robert Mays: Totally fair question. I think that is worth pointing out. I will say the Broncos offense in pass protection was one of the best units in the league last year. That is a good point as well, but I would like to see a little bit more. You look at where Jeffrey Simmons was lining up in that game, and it was actually like a kaiju fight between him and Quinn Miners. If you go back and you watch that tape, the Rams this week, both of those guards are banged up. This might not be the week to worry about it. If we get to a place where Kevin Dotson, Steve Avila, or both are not playing in this game, I think that we could see Jeffrey Simmons show up in a way that he couldn't necessarily against arguably the best right guard in the league last week.

1:07:35Dave Helman: And I also think like a little bit with Bo Nix, even though he really struggled in that game, a thing that he can do is like, you kind of got to be disciplined about your rush pass against him because he can get outside of the pocket. With Matthew Stafford, that's just not an issue. You can kind of do a lot of stuff. And so if the guards are going to be able to, or if the guards are going to lose against these offensive tackles and maybe your edge guys can just be a little bit more aggressive in terms of just crashing the pocket and like I don't think Alaric Jackson played well uh last week so I do think that like front wise Tennessee has a pretty big advantage in this game like the other thing with the Rams is they did not run the ball well at all last week and I really think if there's any part of this Titans defense that I do believe in week to week like will stick it's the run defense and so we just might get in a situation where it's a lot of third and sevens for Matthew Stafford and

1:08:17Derrik Klassen: he can be good, but sometimes, you know, I was going to go a little and go a little awry. You mentioned it. If their plan is like, let's get you into third and six and third and eight, then my eyes are going to that TV on third downs for the Rams immediately. Cause like Matthew Stafford trying to make that work 10 or 12 times this Sunday sounds very fun. I was looking at the numbers.

1:08:37Robert Mays: Matthew Stafford was top five in the NFL last year, according to next gen against cover two and success rate last year, the problems for the Rams were when teams were challenging them in man coverage. And I wonder, are the Titans built to do that necessarily, because some of what they were doing last week and all the wonky cover two variants we were looking at, maybe that's playing against Bo Nix. It also could be, we want to hide the corners. Well, Jerry Snead is not 100 % and Daryl Baker is still somebody you have to worry about in another outside corner spot. We saw him get smoked by Corwin Sutton on that touchdown.

1:09:05Robert Mays: Now it's Devontae Adams and Matthew Stafford. So I think that's a matchup that the Rams could potentially pick on. And the one other thing that the Broncos did not, were not able to tap into much last week. the one thing they were able to hit on a couple different times that I think is worth watching if you're going to be in all these crazy looks where you have all these droppers and there's all these moving parts on the back end and there are plays where you literally see it you see like the entire secondary for the Titans shift and it does create space the Broncos had a lot of success on screens four of the five screens that they threw last week were successful plays and I think the other was dropped I think the other was dropped and so then the Rams did throw three screens last week.

1:09:43Robert Mays: And so I do think screens are one way against a defense like this that wants to have all these moving parts. Is that something that the Rams can hit a couple of different times? Just something to keep in mind as you watch this one. We're going to return here to a segment that we've done essentially since the conception of this Thursday preview show. We call it under the hood. Just a deep dive look into one specific unit that either has been better than we thought, worse than we thought, or in this case, Dave, just new and interesting. We spent so much time this offseason talking about whether J.J.

1:10:19Robert Mays: McCarthy was going to be good enough to justify every other part of the Vikings team building plan, aspirations this year. It would have felt silly after all that to not even talk about J.J. McCarthy at all coming out of or coming into week two. So we wanted to go under the hood and talk about the Vikings offense with J.J. McCarthy. You guys talked about this on Monday night, but with a couple days to sleep on it, be able to rewatch the game, what were your main takeaways from what you saw from J.J. McCarthy in the Vikings offense?

1:10:49Derrik Klassen: If you want me to be really honest, obvious takeaway, but, well, number one, and we talked about this in the recap, Derek, but they were so much better at running the ball in the second half, and particularly Jordan Mason, no offense to Aaron Jones, but I'm trying to finagle those snaps whatever way I can to make sure he's the guy doing most of the work between the tackles because it just looked so much different, in my opinion. And then the other one, it's really obvious, but you guys realize four of the five pressures that were attributed to the Vikings offensive line, because a couple pressures and a sack were attributed to J.J.

1:11:27Derrik Klassen: McCarthy, understandably so, playing his first NFL game on the road. All of the rest of it was Justin Skule, who had a rough night replacing Christian Derrissaw. That's completely reasonable. That is normal. When you don't have your star left tackle, the guy that steps in for him often is going to struggle. But looking back at it, I was like, man, if this is where they got to over the course of the night and JJ made a couple really nice plays in the second half with his arm and with his legs, and you got the run game going, if Christian Derisaw plugs back in there, and it sounds like there's at least hope that he could be available Sunday night, that's a really encouraging place to be if you replace the very obvious wink-link in your offense with a potentially all-pro caliber player.

1:12:14Derrik Klassen: Yeah, I thought Dio O'Dangbo looked like Lawrence Taylor

1:12:17Dave Helman: for a lot of his game. He did! He did! But you make a good point. If they're going to have... J.J. McCarthy, to me, I think... Going back and watching the film, the first half was like... The actual mistakes that he's making were not as bad maybe as they felt on the broadcast, but also he clearly was like a little, things were fast for him. He was not getting the ball out on time. He was clearly having issues getting in the play call for whatever reason. Again, you're on the road against Dennis Allen. That's pretty hard to do. And so he clearly, I think things were a little bit too fast for him.

1:12:47Dave Helman: Once they settled down a little bit, he made, again, what's funny is I don't think the bad was quite as bad as it felt during the broadcast, but then the good towards the end, I was just like, this is a lot of like Bears players making mistakes. There also wasn't that much good. There really wasn't. He made like three plays. The one that really did stick out to me. What? The one where he like, they play action and he rips it to the left sideline to Justin Jefferson. That was like, what made Sam Darnold work in this offense last year is like, you are going to stand in there and you're going to take this, you're going to take someone's face mask to your chest and you're going to make this throw.

1:13:20Dave Helman: And he did it. And that was like one of the best throws of the night.

1:13:23Derrik Klassen: I will stand up for the Vikings as a team that I was, I want to see proof of concept. And by the way, one quarter of football does not get me there. I'm not I'm not ready to make judgments on the Vikings. But that's that's the that's the idea, right? Like the idea is that J.J. McCarthy just needs to be capable of making a handful of plays a week and otherwise not ruining it for you, which, ironically, he did both in this game. Right. It looked like it was going to be ruined in the first half. And then he made a handful of plays in the fourth quarter. But if he can do that, maybe space it out over a whole game instead of all in one quarter and see where it gets you.

1:13:58Robert Mays: That was my main takeaway from this game. It was, I agree with you. In the first three quarters, like the numbers aren't very good. I think they were 0-4 on third down for most of this game, like going into the, I believe into the fourth quarter. I think a lot of people are going to look at that and the pick six and be like, oh man, JJ McCarthy was horrible for most of this game. I don't really think he was very bad for most of this game. The pick six is obviously an awful play. The first two third downs they don't get, he just gets fooled by really good defensive play calls. And that first one, remember I saw a clip of Peyton Manning talking about it and I was talking about it in real time sitting in the stands.

1:14:28Robert Mays: It's like they, he thinks it's man coverage based on what they do with the motion drop out in his own. He gets fooled in real time. That happens. He's a quarterback making his first NFL start. Same sort of thing happened on the next third down third down after that. It's a third and eight throws a little bit low for Justin Jefferson. One ball he can absolutely catch had a bunch of balls batted down in this game, had a completion to Justin Jefferson on third and five, one yard short of the sticks that I think is the right read in that moment. He's maybe a tick late to Adam Thielen on another third down, but it's a ball feel and should catch for a first down.

1:15:00Robert Mays: So I didn't really think he played that poorly. I think that the argument for the Vikings this year, like Dave alluded to, it was that we just do not need him to do a lot because we've got everything else humming. Well, everything else wasn't humming for the first three quarters. The pass protection wasn't good in large part because your backup left tackle was in there. They couldn't run the ball with any sort of consistency. First three quarters of that game, according to NextGen, 23 % rushing success rate. They were 30th in EPA per carry in the first three quarters of the game. They were fifth in the fourth quarter.

1:15:31Robert Mays: And I think a lot of that was, it was a lot of zone runs for most of the game. They tapped into some of the gap scheme runs later. They had the same run that they hit twice for huge chunk gains. And so I think that was kind of my biggest takeaway is that it took Kevin O 'Connell to get ramped up some time to get ramped up in this game. He hits a couple of those. And then him getting Justin Jefferson on the move for a couple of those completions later in the game, you have Aaron Jones beautifully called little stutter go cut touchdown. And right before that, I want to say, or it might've been right before the JJ keeper touchdown.

1:16:02Robert Mays: I can't remember. They call a very well time screen to Justin Jefferson on the right side. So I just don't think the supporting cast or the play caller had the sort of games that we're used to seeing from them for the first three quarters. They locked in in the fourth quarter and the quarterback made the two or three plays that you need him to make. They made good on the promise in the fourth quarter in ways they didn't for the first three quarters.

1:16:25Derrik Klassen: And that raises an interesting point for me too. And I was the one that just, I am, I am excited to see what they'll look like with Christian Derrissaw at left tackle. I'm not trying to relitigate. And Jordan Addison, by the way. And that's what I was going to say. And you'll see Vikings fans talking about that. I was like, hey, we don't have wide receiver two. We don't have left tackle one. And that's all true. And I'm excited what it can look like when they're back. But to go back to the seat at the table argument that we got so much feedback on. What do you think your team's going to look like in January?

1:16:54Derrik Klassen: Like injury luck plays into who wins the Superbowl so, so much, but it's a good bet that you will have at least one hand or something tied behind your back. When you get to the post season, we see that with teams all the time. And is JJ McCarthy at a place where he can win big games when things aren't perfect? I mean, it did ironically work out against the bears in week one. But I think when I think about the Vikings, that is what holds me back is like the quarterback probably won't have a perfect ecosystem for 20 weeks. Like that's not realistic.

1:17:25Robert Mays: I think a perfect ecosystem and missing your pro bowl left tackle are two different things though. I think if any team's pro bowl left tackle got hurt in like week 10 and was out for the year, you probably wouldn't think they could win the Superbowl, but that's not the situation.

1:17:37Derrik Klassen: I mean, the Minnesota Vikings won 14 games last year and almost won the division and had home field advantage. Robinson was a real problem as they got into the playoffs. Well, Well, that is, but, but that is, that is what holds me back when I think about like whether I think this team could actually win the Superbowl with a first year starter quarterback.

1:17:54Robert Mays: Understandable. I will say what doesn't hold me back is what the defense looked like over the course of that game. We'll talk more about that later on, but it looked, what they looked like up front is, and even on the back end, like this is going to be a terrifying group yet again, couple just notes about the Vikings offense, just to keep in mind when we think about the differences with this group and kind of how they're approaching things with JJ McCarthy that I wanted to hit on before we moved on 25 called runs versus 25 called passes in this game legitimately split 50 50 that is not the way the vikings have operated in a close game they were trailing for a lot of they were they were trailing for a lot of this game even went down a touchdown in the fourth quarter they're still running the ball in part because i think they thought they could but just something to keep in mind play action on almost 42 percent of his dropbacks in this game and vikings in week one highest first down run rate of any team in the league 76 percent of their first down 16 of the 21, they called a running play.

1:18:48Robert Mays: And so I do think bringing back to what Dave said, they're going to try to do everything they can to make this. We have five plays a game that we need to make. And on Monday, he was able to make those five plays. Last thing we're going to talk about today, we're going to finish off every preview show with this simple question. We did this last year. We're going to run it back. What do you want to know by the end of week two? Dave, it's your first one. You're going to start us off. What do you want to know by the end of week two in the NFL?

1:19:18Derrik Klassen: I want to know what the Bucs offensive line is going to look like against one of the best units they'll face all year. They play the Houston on Monday night. And fittingly, my original question was, is the Bucs offensive line going to be a problem without Tristan Wirfs? He could play. Todd Bowles said on Thursday that they are going to keep an eye on him this week. They're not ruling him out. that has to be tremendously exciting if you're a Bucs fan, but also if you're Baker Mayfield, because I'm sure he would feel so much better about this matchup. If Tristan Wirfs was available, even if it's not a hundred percent of Tristan Wirfs, that's got to make you feel so much better because we saw the Bucs won.

1:19:59Derrik Klassen: The Bucs looked good at times without Tristan Wirfs in the lineup, but you'd much rather have that than what they wound up doing, which was shuffling the entire offensive line. You get better at like three positions if you move them back to left tackle. I want to make sure we say this. And we mentioned that they shuffled their line on the recap show. Graham Barton moving out to left tackle. And I know he played there at Duke, but he even made the joke about it after the game where he's like, guess what? The ACC is not the NFL. He moved out to left tackle, and I'm sure they practiced it, obviously.

1:20:30Derrik Klassen: But in a live game on the road to play pretty damn well, certainly wasn't perfect, but played pretty damn well. Like that is so cool. I rewatched this and I was like grinning from ear to ear at Graham Barton handling business.

1:20:45Robert Mays: Is there any other team in the league where that would happen? Or if your left tackle got hurt, you would move the center to left tackle? Maybe the Packers now because Alton Jenkins plays center. But in years past when it was like Josh Myers or whatever, that wouldn't have happened. So the Packers now because Jenkins went from guard to center. That might be the only other case of this.

1:21:06Derrik Klassen: It's very admirable how the Bucs played. Like the line did what it could. Bucky Irving, I thought was very impressive in pass protection when you watch this game back. Just saved Baker's ass on a handful of occasions. But still, I mean, Baker was top 10 in pressure rate. He was only sacked once, but he was under duress. The run game had nothing doing. I think the rushing success rate of 31%, which is a full 10 % down from where they were last year. and Baker just, yeah, ironically, I thought on a lot of his misses, there wasn't a lot of pressure, but I'm sure he was just antsy. Like you got to feel less comfortable in those circumstances, knowing that two guys are out of position and they're blitzing you a little bit more than they might, et cetera.

1:21:49Derrik Klassen: And he just, he looked antsy. He looked uncomfortable. He had a couple of really bad misses. He almost threw a pick. We talked about the Xavier Watts missed opportunity. he missed Kate Otten I'm still baffled that like he had time and it's he's just there and Kate Otten would still be running if he had thrown a better ball so they played well enough to win it could have been so much better and now it's Houston now it's you know it's Anderson and Hunter and everything else that comes with that and I hope it would be fun if Tristan Wirfs is available but what I want to know is what does that look like and it's a little bit easier a question to answer if Worfs is in there, but if not, they're going to have their work cut out for them.

1:22:30Derrik Klassen: Derek, what do you

1:22:31Robert Mays: want to know by the end of week two?

1:22:33Dave Helman: Mine is very simple, and we talked about this a little bit on our Hangover show earlier this week. The Cardinals front for a team that, one, I'm still iffy about all the additions they made up front and then also likes to play a lot of dime. They have to go face the Panthers run game. Now, the Panthers offense didn't look great overall, but they were...

1:22:48Robert Mays: The fact that this is where you ended was just like... There's no saving you. It's perfect. There's no serious team.

1:22:55Dave Helman: They need to be able to defend the run. And this is a good test to do it. And like the way that Damian Lewis was playing against the Jaguars, dog, he was just beating the bricks out of everybody in front of him. And I think if he can do and the rest of the line played pretty well, too. But like if he can do that again against this front again against the front that likes to play pretty light, I'm going to be worried about the way that Arizona has this thing.

1:23:14Robert Mays: But I joke, but it's a worthwhile question, considering a lot of the conversation we're having about the Cardinals defense coming into this game and the fact that they had relative struggles. against the Saints against the run last week, right? It wasn't a disaster, but it's a Saints team that I don't think their offense is scaring anybody. And I think they looked a lot more competent against that Cardinals defense than you'd expect considering some of the preseason expectations for the Cardinals defense. They were a top 10 unit by preseason DVOA and some of the preseason expectations for the Saints offense.

1:23:42Robert Mays: Mine is also pretty simple in framing, not in like the layers and kind of the complexities that come with it. How scared should I be about the Bears offense? That's what I want to know by the end of week two. Is this a week one thing against Brian Flores?

1:23:57Derrik Klassen: I can feel that question just reverberating through the streets of Chicago,

1:24:01Robert Mays: like everywhere I go. True story. On Tuesday, I get up, working from home for the morning. The UPS guy comes and he drops off a package and he's just like, he's like, we need to talk about what happened last night. He's like, should I be really worried about what happened? And so like literally the mailman is asking me about how worried he should be about the Bears. That's where we are as a town. Going back and rewatching it, I don't think we have to dig too much into it. I wanted to just talk about it a little bit because I haven't had the chance to because you guys did the recap show. Obviously, it's a disaster on a couple different levels offensively.

1:24:36Robert Mays: I don't necessarily think just the quarterback. The run game to me was the most troubling part of this. It was the worst in the league. They had a 17 % rushing success rate per next year on running back runs. You're playing against a team that was one of the best run defenses in the league last year and is arguably better up front this year. I'm hoping this is a one week aberration but the run game the way that Dolman played I think was really concerning considering how much money you gave him in free agency the way that Jonah Jackson played I thought was really concerning I mean part of the argument for this offense is that the interior and the offensive line overall was going to be better this year than it's been over the last couple years you used resources to fix this and it was not fixed last week the Caleb part of it I thought that he did a really good job off schedule on Monday, which some people will be like, well, that's kind of what he does.

1:25:23Robert Mays: That wasn't necessarily the case all the time last year. He took 60 sacks last year. And so the fact that he didn't take a bunch of sacks last week, I do think is a good thing. Some of the misses, here's what I'll say. I'm more worried that the offense looks sloppy than I am about something being truly wrong with the quarterback. I'm open to the idea that there's something truly wrong with him, but the two plays that I'm thinking about, the two DJ Moore misses, The one to the corner and then the one over the middle of the field. I don't know what's supposed to happen on those plays. Whether DJ Moore is supposed to actually run a corner out on that miss that Caleb has to the outside.

1:25:57Robert Mays: And then the one he misses to DJ Moore coming over the middle of the field. DJ Moore takes it up the field rather than flattening it out. I don't know what he's supposed to do on that play. I know the timing overall of the offense is not there. Who I'm supposed to blame, I don't necessarily know. If it continues at this pace, I am comfortable blaming the quarterback. I'm not all the way there yet. I'm not like totally freaking out. And so I want to see this week over the next couple of weeks, how scared should I be about the Bears quarterback and the Bears offense? That's what I want to know by the end of week.

1:26:30Dave Helman: I think that's a really good way to put it. Because like the fourth, I think it was the fourth down. He misses to more, right? Was it on the three? Yeah, over the middle of the field. Yes. And that was good too, because you can see the safety. He has inside leverage and he's playing flat footed. He wants to drive on this ball. So probably if he's driving, maybe the receiver should flatten out a little bit. You don't know. I think that was a play, though, where the biggest issue I had with Caleb in this game is that it seems like he's just a little bit tense and doesn't want to trigger at the right time or he'll trigger a little bit too early.

1:26:58Dave Helman: On that one, it felt like he was so antsy to throw it. And then there were a couple where they actually did, I think there was a play right before the half where they do a yo-yo motion and get the guy running free in the flat. And he waits another beat to throw it. And it's like, you know it's open. Just throw it. And so there were a couple of moments like that, but I don't know. I thought his pocket movement was good. He looked as fast as he ever has. And then he had like three throws that were like, holy shit. And so I think we were never going to get.

1:27:21Robert Mays: I don't want to live with those though.

1:27:23Dave Helman: I don't want to. It's the Kyler Murray thing. I don't want to insist on those.

1:27:26Robert Mays: I'm not trying to excuse the way that he played. I'm worried about the way that he played. Did you think you would have an answer? My worries extend to the offense overall.

1:27:32Dave Helman: Did you think you would have an answer on this by week five? No, but I hoped it would look better than this when it comes to how comfortable he looked,

1:27:40Robert Mays: how on time he was playing. and again, some of the down the field accuracy things. And maybe those aren't necessarily all on him. I will say I want the offense to feel more cohesive and I want everyone to feel like they're playing on the same timing in the way that they were not on Monday. I don't, whether that's on the quarterback, whether that's on the receivers, whether that's on the coaching staff, there are a lot of pre-snap penalties, just so many different issues. Things need to be cleaned up, period. And so I want to know by the end of this week, how worried should I be about those things getting cleaned up?

1:28:06That game is so unique.

1:28:09Derrik Klassen: Like watching it back even gave me like an existential crisis because you see things and you're like, oh, it's not that bad. And then like two snaps later, you're like, it's pretty bad. Or like, where do I assign blame for this? And like part of me wants to hand wave away some of the misses. And then part of me is like, but why? Like, why does that happen in this spot?

1:28:31Robert Mays: If they continue to happen, it's going to be harder to hand wave them away. And I think that's kind of where I land with all of it. All right. That is all we've got for today. If you guys have not checked out our Thursday Night Football recap on the Athletic Football Show YouTube channel, highly encourage you to do that. Dave and Derek, again this week, I'm unfortunately going to be on a plane. I'm like really crossing my fingers that the Wi-Fi on this plane is going to be good enough for me to watch Packers Commanders in real time because that is a very, very good game. I will be back on those shows next week.

1:29:00Robert Mays: Very much looking forward to that. Appreciate you guys pinch hitting for me while I've been out this week. We will be back here at this desk on Sunday night around 10.30 p.m. Central Time. Essentially when the Sunday night game ends, we will be here live on YouTube. Highly encourage you guys to join us for that and to join us every single Sunday night. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. Enjoy your weekend. We'll talk to you soon.

1:30:03Dave Helman: We'll see you next time. for all your HCM needs.

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