Week 2 Recap: Bengals, Saints, Broncos score big wins on weird Sunday

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2:11Robert Mays: Welcome to The Athletic Football Show, presented by the U.S. Bank Smartly Visa Signature Card. I'm Robert Mays. We got a jam-packed show today. Not going to waste any time. We had so much to dig into. Terrible losses by the Browns and Chargers. Really impressive wins by the Bengals and Broncos. Some WTF moments with quarterback injuries that really put a damper on the entire day. We dug into all of it from week two in the NFL with me, Derek Lassen, and Dave Hellman. Let's get to it right now.

2:46Robert Mays: just a chaotic day of nfl football there's so much i feel like we have to sort through a lot of bad it was an ugly day it was gross here in chicago that's how i woke up this morning is just spitting rain and a lot of the football in the early slate followed suit there's a lot of gross football in the early part of the day which we will get into but the day finishes up with a thrilling Sunday night game. We're going to talk about this game in depth during the hangover tomorrow. So we will go back through the entire thing, but we have to talk about the way that that game ended. We're sitting there as the Colts are weighing this fourth and eighth decision.

3:23Robert Mays: I think your gut, Dave, was that you have to go for this. You can't give Patrick Mahomes the ball back. I was a little bit more torn just because fourth and eighth, three minutes, you have the timeout. If you get a stop, theoretically, you can win the game. It's not like I think the Saints in week one where, or who would had, there was another overtime game where I was like, just go for it. Just try to win the game. You're not, you go for the Saints at the, like it was regulation, but it was like the last play of the game. And so like I, there are moments where I could understand saying, let's just try to win the game.

3:51Robert Mays: Maybe it was overtime. My brain's not working. My brain's fried, but there was a game in week one where who cares if you tie the game, just try to win it. It doesn't matter if you lose. In this one, I was, I understood both sides of it, but you were pretty firmly in the camp that they should have gone for it. You know what's funny is, so I'm sitting there, and it's 4th and 8, and you saw Shane Steichen come onto the screen. You could see him in the background, like, telling them, get away, don't snap this ball. And I was just so disappointed by it, because you look at it, and, like, time's running out.

4:22Like, there's three minutes left, and I was thinking, like, okay, if you kick this field goal, what are the odds that you see the ball again, either because the Chiefs go win the game, or you just get the ball back with not that much time? and you said like it made sense in a vacuum you were like well there's enough time that you get the ball back and you get one last shot to win the game and I was like yeah I guess that makes sense and then as soon as I remembered when I saw Patrick Mahomes jog on on the field I was like wait no it's that guy it's Patrick Mahomes you're not gonna get it back from Patrick Mahomes and lo and behold that's exactly what happened well he looked like Patrick Mahomes this game like he looked it's not like honestly if they had played the offensive game and like passing performance that they did in week one, then I might be a little bit more willing to be like, okay, let's play for the tie.

5:08Let's, let's see if we can get a stop. The chiefs were one of the best offenses that we saw today. Like they were driving all game and kind of doing what they wanted. So I fourth and eight is scary and it's a lot. And I think in almost every other circumstance, I would be like, I don't know if converting a fourth and eight gives you a better chance than just like getting the field goal tie in the game, hoping you make the stop with the way that the chiefs offense was playing. I honestly do feel like that might've been your better chance.

5:32Robert Mays: I think that's probably right. I saw the fourth and eight and the three minutes left. I'm like, you can't go for this. Eight is a lot of yardage. See if you can get a stop. But I think you have to ask yourself the question, are you more likely to get a fourth and eight on one play or stop Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense in that situation? And if they're even slightly close, if they're neck and neck, do you choose to say, I want to lose the game with the ball in my hands? That's the choice that I'm going to make. And I think that, as I think more about it and kind of revisit it, that's probably where I land.

6:04Robert Mays: Where it's like, I'd rather just lose going down swinging rather than giving him the ball one last time, even if fourth and eight seems like a crazy decision. The other thing that I, sorry, Derek, that just, I wanted to mention too, because I was, we've talked about this in the summer and ironically, Braden Smith took this kick out, but like in this day and age, you're starting these possessions north of the 30 yard line most of the time anyway. The Chiefs started at their own 32. Rashard Smith Rashard Brains Brains Smith Brains Smith Brains Smith used to play for the Indianapolis Colts my brain is like misfiring right now yes Brains Smith so if you're starting on the 32 and it's Patrick Mahone like it's just it's not that hard anymore to get in position for a field goal and fourth and eight is a long distance to get and I understand why that's scary but I think I'd rather go down that way my biggest issue with what happened is probably them running the ball on first and 10 and then on second and long and putting themselves in a situation where it was third and long and then getting behind the eight ball to make it that fourth and eight.

7:06Robert Mays: My favorite part about this game is that somehow Laquan Threadwell and Tyquan Thornton are important at work in 2026. Tyquan Thornton is like a real important part of the Chiefs offense. Like that throw that they completed, I didn't look it up in real time because I was preparing for the other games that we were going to talk about. I guarantee you it's been a while since they've had a deep completion in a big moment like that, that far down the field. I mean, that's the area of the offense that has really been lagging over the last couple of years is their inability to push the ball downfield.

7:38Robert Mays: It hasn't been where Mahomes is best. They haven't really had a guy that can do that. It's not surprising to me based on some of the flashes he showed last year and how little we've gotten out of Xavier Worthy that it really does seem like Tyquan Thornton is going to matter for the Chiefs offense over the course of this season in that exact role. He's the only guy who's both fast and tall in the offense. Like, you know, Travis Kelsey's big and like Rasheed Rice is not a small guy, but like Xavier Worthy small and he's fast, but he doesn't have that blend of both. Thorne is a little bit skinny for six, too.

8:08But the fact that you can just like lay that ball out for him and he can go up and get it, I thought was super impressive. I'll also say I think Mahomes is deep all over the last like two ish years has been pretty scattershot. I think he's had a tendency to like because he doesn't trust these guys to overthrow the ball a little bit and just miss long and be like, well, if they can't run under it, we're just going to be incomplete here. But I thought he was nails today. Like that was probably the most accurate. He's looked specifically down the field, I think in quite a long time.

8:35Robert Mays: It was really exciting to watch the passing game look like that a week after it was kind of hit or miss against the Broncos. I mean, it was not humming in the first time we saw Mahomes back. And to see them move the ball through the air the way that they did and still have Kenneth Walker be as productive as he was, a really good second act by the Chiefs offense, which again, we will dig into tomorrow. I don't want to spend too much time on this game. I will say, I'm so glad that they called that. They said Laquan Treadwell was down because I would be so hard with Laquan Treadwell, his journey to this point.

9:08Robert Mays: I mean, the man has been cut over and over and over again. And if they had lost that game because he fumbled after making the biggest play he's made, maybe in his entire NFL career, that would have been pretty heartbreaking. Maybe the most impactful. I agree. He's one of my OG draft crushes. I thought he was baby Des Bryant. I thought he was going to set the league on fire. And I'm so proud of him for carving out like an 11-year career, even if it didn't look like I thought it would. People seem to really like him too. He's very well liked in the building. Like that's part of why I think he stuck around.

9:39Robert Mays: And so I'm glad that the game ended not on that. I'm glad that that would have made me sad. It's a funny footnote instead of being the Laquan Treadwell fumble game. Let's talk about the rest of the games that happened today. I'll be honest with you. We, at the end of the afternoon games every single week, we all get together and we try to figure out what we're going to talk about on this show. And there are weeks where it's clean. We know exactly what the first conversation is going to be. We know exactly what attention is going to be. We know exactly what the f*** is going to be. And we sat there today and probably had the longest meeting I can remember us having about how we were going to sort out the show because of how weird the day was.

10:17Robert Mays: And what we landed on, the first game we wanted to talk about, because I think you can make an argument, and we can even debate this if you want to, what was the most impressive, impactful win of the game? What was the one that you feel like had lasting impact that said the most? And the game that we landed on is the Cincinnati Bengals beating the Houston Texans. The Cincinnati Bengals were almost boring in the sense that they just won this game comfortably on the road, and it wasn't the prettiest performance. And Houston is now 0-2 for, I think, the third time in the last four years. We'll see exactly what they're working with as the season goes along.

10:56And again, even in another loss, this is still a very impressive defense that made life very difficult on the Bengals. And they went down there and got a very undramatic win. And I told you this either in the waning minutes of this game or after it was over. We spend so much time talking about what these teams are doing during the offseason and the stories that they tell themselves about who they're going to be and why the trades they swung or the draft picks they made are going to matter and what it's going to make them look like. And some of that shit has already aged terribly. But the Cincinnati Bengals are like living the best case scenario of what you could have hoped for for their offseason and what it was supposed to make them look like.

11:40Like they look exactly like you daydreamed about if you were hoping for a big Bengals season.

11:45Robert Mays: I would argue that the offense hasn't even found its stride. It hasn't. And that they're 2-0, and you have to feel really good about that. And that's what stuck out to me about this game. Even in the moment when you're watching the Bengals play today, the fact that the offense can, they played against the Texans defense today. The Texans defense is good as hell. The Texans, if you look at the down-to-down metrics, which we'll talk about in a second, the Texans defense was fine in this game. We had some fantastic, incredible moments from Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase to win the Bengals this game and put up the amount of points that they needed.

12:14Robert Mays: But down to down, the Bengals in this game against the Texans, 35.6 % offensive success rate, negative 0.15 EPA per play. Okay? There have been three games in Joe Burrow's tenure where that has happened. They have hit those two marks and won the football game. The first one was in 2024 against the Browns when Dorian Thompson Robinson had 24 pass attempts in a game where Deshaun Watson got hurt. The second one, excuse me, that was the second one. The first one was a week 18 game in 2022 against Anthony Brown when he was the quarterback for the Ravens. So we've got Dorian Thompson Robinson and Anthony Brown were the quarterbacks in the two other games the Bengals have won when their offense has had this little production.

13:02Robert Mays: And that's not even a criticism of the offense. It's incredible that they can play like this against a really good defense, not be humming, and still have the Bengals win the game comfortably because of what their defense did in this game, Derek. I mean, especially to I was after week one, I admit like they played a good run defense game against Tampa for the most part. But I was like, this is still a lot of new pieces. Like it's week one. You never know. Like, I want to see it again. And I think we still have some question marks about like how real was what Houston did running the ball in their first week.

13:33Dexter Lawrence, especially in this game, was insane. But they they really gave the Texans issues and everything that they were doing. But I think what was part of the saving grace of Houston last week when they were running the ball is they had a couple of these short yardage plays that were able to get them and can continue to extend their drives. Cincinnati was dominant in short yardage in this game, and it even kind of scared them off of it. They had in the middle of that. Yeah. Yes. In the middle of the second quarter, they went into jumbo and had a fourth and inches where they actually run away from the six offensive linemen.

14:03And Dexter Lawrence is so fast to get into the backfield. Like Evan Brown should probably be helping his guard a little bit more and just kind of leaves Keelan Rutledge out to dry. He's not able to get there. It ends up being a loss. And then the next time they end up in a similar situation, it's fourth and one in the middle of the third quarter. They choose not to go for it. And then they miss the 58 yard field goal by they miss it short, which is like a little bit of extra salt in the wound. And so obviously they lost the game by more than three points. but it was just like that kind of impact their run defense had on the game, which I don't know the last time I've been able to say that about a Cincinnati Bengals defense.

14:39Okay, but you can also take that a step further. They missed that field goal, the 58-yarder, where D 'Amico Ryans was clearly spooked by the short yardage failure earlier in the game. It's an indefensible choice.

14:49Robert Mays: Like, it's a completely indefensible choice. The idea that, well, we haven't been able to move the ball in short yardage, and so now we have to kick a 58-yard field goal on fourth and one is just horrendous process. A few snaps. Independent of anything else. A few snaps after that. So they missed the field goal to stay down 10 to three. Third and seven on that drive is when Joe Burrow pulls out his Joe Burrow magic. He's in the grasp of the defensive tackle and flips it out to Samaj P. Ryan for the conversion. Incredible play. It's peak Joe Burrow. And then a handful of snaps after that, he finds Jamar Chase for the second touchdown, which again is peak Joe Burrow escaping from Will Anderson and getting out of the pocket and directing traffic and just, I mean, looking like Joe Burrow at his very best.

15:35Like Joe and Jamar had two or three really special moments and that's the difference in this game. Like Jamar Chase said F you twice and Joe Burrow a handful of times and it comes like right after this missed field goal. And with what the Bengals were doing defensively, you go down 17-3 in the second half of this game. It kind of felt like that was all she wrote.

15:55Robert Mays: the play that on that extended play where Chase scores the touchdown after the play to Pirine. Chase's ability to feel those zone defenders on that play and take his path just a little bit more vertical to find that space, just what a special, incredible football player. And it doesn't even hold a candle to the other touchdown that he scored. I don't even know how to process it just because it's unlike other great catches that are like Pantheon type moments, but this is where Jamar Chase is at his best. The body control that he is able to put on display in moments like this, where the idea that he can throttle down, adjust to that ball, and somehow get both of those feet in bounds.

16:43Robert Mays: I mean, it's one of the best catches I've ever seen. Like it's probably in the top 10 to 15 that I've ever seen in my entire life. It's not a one-handed catch in the way that we talk about some of these other ones, but the body control on that play while running full speed is just absolutely insane. And so those plays are going to happen with this team. When you have Jamar Chase and when you have Joe Burrow, those plays are going to happen. The question is, can you do enough on the other side of the ball to make three or four of them enough? And that was the case today for the Bengals, and we have not seen a team like that in a while.

17:18Robert Mays: that we've not seen this version of that team in a while. To build on the point you made with your stat about success rate, since they drafted Joe Burrow, the Bengals are 8-32 when they score 20 points or less. And this is only the second time in that stretch that they have scored 20 points or less and won by multiple scores. And the other one was one of the most heinous games I can remember. They beat the 2024 Giants 17-7 in a game that nobody wanted to be a part of. And so to comfortably beat what I still absolutely think is a pretty good Texans team, even if they're 0-2, it's uncharted territory for the Bengals.

17:59We're not used to getting these sorts of performances from them. The other thing I want to shout out with this Bengals defense as a whole, and I know that they were playing against mostly backup players for the Houston Texans, and I actually thought CJ Stroud was mostly excellent in this game, but the way that the DBs were just blocking out the sun especially every time that they were playing man coverage like I thought on some of their zone stuff like CJ Stroud was seeing it well and he was able to move the ball down the field didn't amount to many points because obviously they couldn't run the ball whatsoever I think they had one successful run in the first half like it was pretty bad for Houston but passing the ball they were fine but on every single one-on-one contested ball it felt like a Bengals DB was just getting his hand over over the wide receivers back or he was able to just contest it just enough to make it a drop and there were I don't know if I went back and counted them probably four or five balls that like CJ Stroud put right where you have to against tight coverage and his receivers just weren't able to bring it in and so it was just I thought a really impressive performance from the Bengals DBs to be able to like finish a lot of those plays and maybe against Nico Collins you don't do that that many times but the fact that I think when you go into these games where it's like we have the advantage as DBs, we should shut them out.

19:11And they completely shut them out in all those one-on-one scenarios. I was impressed.

19:15Robert Mays: Yeah, there was a strat. I mean, there was, I can't remember when the play happened, but there was a, they tried to throw a slant with DJ Turner. I can't remember which receiver it was. And he said, I think it was Lane. It was Wayne. That's right. Where like Stroud's holding it, he's holding it, he's holding it, and he pins it on Wayne. And he just isn't able to bring it in because it's good coverage. That play jumped out. And the one that really jumped out, and this to me is the sign of a defense that's playing well when you're really marrying the Russian coverage together. There was a play, let me find it in my notes here because I want to get this right.

19:45Robert Mays: It was early in the third quarter. It was third and 10. The Bengals were in a cover zero look. They ended up dropping a couple guys out, but it was a heavy, heavy pressure look. And the thought is he's going to have to get rid of this ball quick. Stroud long corks it quickly. And Dax Hill comes down from that cover zero look as the ball is coming out and gets the PBU. And watching those things happen in concert with one another when the Russian coverage is working together, That happened a lot for the Bengals today. I mean, all three levels of the defense played extremely well, but the run defense is what really stuck out.

20:15Robert Mays: I just want to go over a couple numbers from what this performance was from the Bengals' run defense and the Texans' rushing offense. Per NextGen, 13.3 % rushing success rate for the Texans in this game. 13.3%, okay? The Bengals, or the Texans had eight runs into light boxes in this game. Montgomery had five carries, or excuse me, Marks had five carries for seven yards. Montgomery had three carries for five yards. So on their runs into light boxes, the two running backs for the Texans in this game had eight carries for 12 yards. Dexter Lawrence is a really impactful player. The, the idea was if you trade for this man, he is truly a run defense upon himself.

20:58And I think, and I even, I liked the Dexter Lawrence trade, but I still think that there was fair idea to look at him and be like, well the linebackers aren't very good and they weren't very good in in new york and they could not stop the run either but i do think that there's like an overall defensive difference in that in new york the dbs just weren't good enough to scare you on passing downs whereas i think the bangles are allowed to get away with certain stuff because their guys can actually cover and like they don't have to a lot of resources in the same way that new york was

21:25Robert Mays: having to do and it wasn't just extra lawrence i mean the play that tj slayton makes on that short yardage play where he just dumps trent brown was incredibly impressive jonathan allen and had multiple really nice plays in this game. Jordan Battle comes downhill for a run stuff at some point in this game. The other stat that I think is really telling and funny about just the way that the NFL works and being so week to week and how we don't know anything early in the season. So the Bengals had the second highest stuff rate among all games in the NFL so far in this game per next gen, the Bengals defense did.

21:56Number one was the Bills against the Lions

21:59Robert Mays: on Thursday night. The same Bills defense that the Texans ran the ball pretty well against last week. There's no way to know jack shit two weeks into this season. Like we know absolutely nothing. And the same Lions offense that ran all over the Saints week one and were like the best rushing offense in football. None of this shit makes any sense until like Halloween, it feels like. I'll say this. I'm worried about that. I am. I am worried about the way the Texans ran the ball in this game because it felt like way too much like last year. The short yardage stuff, any zone run, they were just getting dumped on the backside.

22:32Robert Mays: I think part of it is that Wyatt Teller played for Ed Ingram in this game, which may not seem like a huge deal. Ed Ingram is a much better run blocker at this point in his career than Wyatt Teller, as you felt that over the course of this game. But overall, I think even if you average out the two performances we've seen from the Texans offense, what they did today against the Bengals, even if the Bengals front is playing well, that's going to worry me. I still am not really worried about the Texans defense. I said this about Josh Allen coming into the season where I said the only real player that he reminded me of and just how much of a force of nature he could be over the course of an NFL game is Jamar Chase.

23:08Robert Mays: Like in two weeks, they played against these two force of nature players that made like five or six incredible plays over the course of the game. And that's not going to happen every single week. Like at their positions, though, they are singular forces in any given moment. D 'Amico Ryan said it after the game that Jamar Chase like came in and delivered. He was like, this is life in the NFL. Like you make, you get two or three opportunities to make a play in a game like this and you have to answer the bell. And he, I mean, he was kind of calling out his own guys saying like, where are, where are our playmakers to my, to D 'Amico, I would say he's hurt with a hamstring injury.

23:46And that is a big part of why the Texans offense, I think looked as, as hit and miss as it did. but still like the Bengals, I don't want to say they weren't great, but like it's like five moments where they just had a better guy.

24:01Robert Mays: They were not moving the ball consistently down to down. Anderson and Hunter were giving them fits and it took all of Joe and Jamar Chase being that good to make the difference in a game that they won by 13. Like I'm really, I'm not very worried about the Texans, even if they are 0-2. But it's an 0-2 start where you're always threading a little bit of a needle with how good you needed your offense to be. And even if I do think Stroud has played pretty well over these first couple weeks, enough concerns about the state of the offensive line in the run game coming off of what last season looked like that I don't think that part should be ignored.

24:35And unfortunately, I'm past the point of just counting on Nico Collins' availability. Like, I want him back as quickly as possible, but that is becoming a trend.

24:44Robert Mays: All right, let's get to a few other performances today that really stuck out. It's time for You Have My Attention. Gentlemen, now you have my attention. After putting up what I thought was probably the most disappointing performance in week one, the Denver Broncos came back and had arguably the most impressive performance in the NFL right there with what the Bengals did in week two. The Broncos knock off the Jags 20-13, a significantly more impressive day from their offense than what we saw in week one. The Denver Broncos beating a Jags team that looks really, really good in week one. You firmly have our attention.

25:23I'm breathing the biggest sigh of relief right now. Like they were because of the wind. I pushed so many chips in on Denver. I just I don't need all of it to hit, but I just didn't want them to look as abysmal as they did on Monday night. And honestly, halfway through the first half of this game. yeah I was like oh no it wasn't an aberration they just suck and so them pulling out of the nosedive was uh I was feeling much better by the end of the day it felt like on both offense and defense they just found such a different gear like I thought in the second half some of what they were doing to Trevor Lawrence and to the passing offense I thought was incredible like the interception that Trevor Lawrence throws down the left side like Denver's in this blitz look and they've got everybody on the line of scrimmage and they pop off into Tampa too.

26:17And so Trevor thinks, okay, I've got my guy on the left side running down. He's going to be in the hole, but because there's no other immediate threat there holding the cover to corner down, Riley Moss just like runs up and runs under it. And so I thought them toying with him that way was really impressive. Um, and then it felt like, especially on their last couple of drives, they were doing a lot of, like, I remember there was one play where they had Jaquan McMillan run across the field with emotion and look like they're going to be man. They pop out into this zone. Look, Trevor double clutches and almost throws another interception.

26:47They were just doing stuff like that more consistently and more successfully in the second half.

26:52Robert Mays: They weren't playing much man in the second half. I think it was like 20 %-ish man in the second half. It was a lot of zone. That play really stuck out as well, where McMillan, just McMillan and Riley Moss, period. Yes. Played extremely well in this game. Like the other corners, PS2 also had his moments. There was a couple one, the couple that stood out where he's just there. the play on where they try to get strange on like the little angle route in the third quarter where he widens a little bit to break it back in. Sertan never moves. He's just sitting there the entire time. And he didn't have like the PBUs and the splash plays that Moss and McMillan did in this game.

27:28Robert Mays: But you just watch how steady of a presence he is. And that trio of corners overall in this game, I just thought played extremely well. But where this was one to me for the Broncos and to me, it's such a contrast from what we were talking about coming out of week one. They whipped ass up front on both sides of the ball in this game. They dominated on both sides of the ball in a way that they kind of got pushed around in week one. And that, when we talked about it in real time, it was just disappointing. Like when you have invested this much and the identity of your team is what you can do in pass protection on offense and what you can do getting after the quarterback on defense and you do none of them, It's like, well, what are you supposed to be?

28:08Robert Mays: And to watch them bounce back Denver in the way that they did on both sides of the ball today, that to me is what was so encouraging. For the Jags, 19.4 % pressure rate per next gen in this game, despite blitzing on 45 % of dropbacks. It's a non-starter. It's going to be really hard to even have a passable defensive performance under those circumstances. And on the other side of the ball, the Broncos had a 45.2 % pressure rate. And you felt that. I mean, Pregnant looked really good in week one. Harrison looked really good in week one. You felt how young Pregnant was in this game. You saw Ezra Cleveland struggle in this game.

28:49Robert Mays: They're not going to play the Broncos every week, but some of the concerns we had about this group in pass protection showed up against Denver in a way that it did not show up against Cleveland last week. And not even just against the Stars. There was one play that Anton Harrison got run over by Q Robinson, who was one of the like backup guys for this Denver team. And so, I mean, obviously Denver's even backups are like pretty impressive relative to the rest of the league. But it was a day where like they really struggled to to protect the quarterback the way that they want to, which was kind of always even though I'm still very high on what this Jags offense can be like, that's always what this is going to look like when it doesn't go right.

29:25It's the run game starts to fall away just a little bit. And then it's like we're in a little too many pure pass situations than we want to be. and we can't protect it, especially against some of these fronts that really do like to blitz you and bring pressure, like a Vance Joseph style of team.

29:39Robert Mays: I just think overall, the physicality from the Jags offense wasn't where it needs to be if they're going to be a team that sticks around until the end. Up front, you felt that. And then Brian Thomas Jr. just continues to be frustrating in some of those moments. That ball that he doesn't pull in with like 10.30 left in the fourth quarter, like that ball has to be caught. That ball is on him. You are not getting a lot of opportunities in this game offensively in the second half because of what the Broncos are doing to you. And for that to fall incomplete when you only have a couple scattered moments that you have to take advantage of, again, I just think overall, they got pushed around on that side of the ball in a way that they did not against the Browns and in a way the Broncos did not do last week against the Chiefs.

30:20Robert Mays: The funny thing is though, and some of the physicality I would agree with, but the execution was still there up until Trevor threw that interception. Like he was, he was dialed in. Yeah, he was. He absolutely was. The two minute drive to get the field goal before half, he threw three straight completions. He had like an 11 yard curl to Parker Washington, a short little dig in cut to BTJ. And then he had an 18 yard little post where he like sat it down, right? Basically had to sit down to catch the ball. Just, he was just ripping incredible throws, like one after the other. And then he talked about it after the game.

31:00Football players, big, big believers in momentum. And like he talked about like from the interception, Denver goes and scores right after that. And he said it just felt like it snowballed away from them. And you could feel it. It just felt like a completely different team after two, three minutes into the third quarter than what we saw up to that point.

31:18Robert Mays: On offense for the Broncos, the one play I want to talk about before we get into just the overall quality of the offense, did you guys see what Quinn Miners did on that Jonah Coleman run late in the fourth quarter? If we're talking about Ross Tucker, like singled it out and was like, look how freaking cool this is. I didn't realize that. I saw Washington in real time. I mean, he just absolutely buries a guy on the Jonah Coleman run with like three minutes left in the fourth quarter. And again, that's just the type of stuff we didn't see enough of last week against the Chiefs. And it was fun to watch that group up front play like that.

31:49Robert Mays: But to me, the other just huge difference in what the Broncos offense felt like is we go from a game where they refuse to push the ball downfield whatsoever. to a game where they seem more than comfortable doing it. And just think about how different the offense felt because of that. Last week, 3.8 air yards per attempt, 21 % of their throws went to the sticks in week one for Denver. Today, 9.2 air yards per attempt, 45 % of those throws go to the sticks. And I had, there was a couple of throws that Bo Nix made in this game. We could talk about it. That are a couple of my favorite plays he has ever made that I've ever seen him make.

32:29Robert Mays: as an NFL quarterback. Like their willingness to be more aggressive and to push the ball and get Jalen Waddell involved along with the quality that we saw up front. It just was such a different feeling version of the Broncos offense against a very good Jags defense. Well, and this is what I thought the passing offense should look like with Bo Nix. And I do think part of like them attacking the six a little bit more and being willing to throw down the field is what you mentioned with the pressure. Like I just thought they protected him better. And so he gets a lot, a little bit more comfortable doing that.

32:59But like the first big post that he throws to Waddle, it's like this little gun bootleg to the right. And he just sets up and just chucks it like he can do that. Like he's he has a very talented arm. I thought there were a handful of other circumstances where they were booting him and rolling him and sprinting him out of the pocket, which they had a lot of success doing that last season. And then I thought in this game, too, there were three or four like really impressive outside the numbers, like deep outbreakers, cuts, overs, all that sort of stuff. those are some of his best throws is to make those deep throws outside the numbers because he does have the arm for it and so if he feels like he's protected and he feels like he can make those throws he obviously has the arm talent to do it I think getting him to do it on every single game is going to be difficult but this game he was that he played really really well the drive for

33:44Robert Mays: them to tie the game at 13 was beautiful it starts with like a big completion to Atkins with like 26 seconds left in the third quarter. It's a YY look to the left. They run play action. Jerrion Jones gets sucked inside a little bit. They throw the big corner out to Atkins. On the same drive, the throw he has to Waddle with the Jags brought a blitz, and I think it's Branson Combs dropping, and Waddle has not cleared him yet coming over the middle of the field. And he lets that thing rip before he sees it. And again, I haven't watched every throw Bo Nix has ever had in his entire career. I watched that play and I think that is my favorite throw I have ever seen him make.

34:24Robert Mays: It's to the middle of the field. It requires a little bit of trust. It requires some aggression. And you just don't see that all the time from him. And so to see that version of him and play with that sort of confidence and anticipation and aggressiveness, we just didn't see that in week one. And I think we're going to need to see it for this to be the sort of team they want to be this year. You know what else I noticed on that throw? Pass protection from the back. Yeah. Much better. RJ Harvey did not play in this game. I wonder, I think it was Beatty. It was really nice moments in pass protection in which, you know, like the Broncos have spent big draft picks on a couple of running backs.

34:59But if Tyler Bidet gives you the better chance at Bo making throws like that, I wonder what that's going to look like. There's one play, even though the Broncos played exceptionally well on offense, especially in the second half. And I don't even mean this to shit on Bo Nix. I actually didn't even really think that this was his fault necessarily. I thought it was a great play by the Jaguars. the interception that Jordan Lewis gets in the end zone is an unbelievable play. Like they're basically playing cover zero, like zone cover zero. And they're trying to run that like double China where you get to.

35:28They actually start breaking them out towards the flat and then they break them back in. But they're trying to get those in cuts so that they can throw the corner over it. Jordan Lewis is the like middle of the three DBs. And he kind of just lets the underneath guy go and then floats on top of it. And that to me is like he's either freelancing or this is like a really impressive zone adjustment that they've made where two and three are going to be like, hey, one of us is going to play in, one of us is going to play out. And for him to float under that, whether that's coaching, whether that's him going freelance, I don't even put that on the quarterback.

35:59You throw that ball every time, and the DB just made an exceptional play.

36:03Robert Mays: Two guys I want to shout out on the Broncos defense before we leave. Zach Allen got both of these guards. There was one series where he had two wins in succession against both of them to torpedo the series. And the other guy that I love when we have players that have super specific skill sets and they work in a certain defense, they might not work everywhere. Justin Starnat is just perfect for the way that this team wants to play. Like, I don't know what he would be if you put him in another situation where he wasn't blitzing all the time and he wasn't just playing downhill all the time, but he had so they were firing those linebackers in this game, Derek.

36:38Robert Mays: like they were coming downhill on run plays and making plays in the backfield because of it so not had a couple of those he always shows up as a blitzer and on stunts he's just so he's like a battering ram like just like the the space he creates for other people and so both zach allen and sternot and again when this defense is playing well it's guys like that that you feel over the course of the game and i think you felt both of those guys today well and and specifically with or not, what did we say about what this passing offense might do to them? It's that if the Jaguars have their way and get what they want, they're going to throw over these linebackers and throw over the middle and all that stuff.

37:12Well, if we're just firing them and replacing them with somebody else, you've kind of solved the problem. And so I think that them doing that so effectively, that's how you end up winning a game like this. I thought that that was really impressive.

37:22Robert Mays: All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. Football season has arrived. And with the U.S. Bank's Smartly Visa signature card, you earn an unlimited 2 % cash back on every purchase, including at the stadium or at home, watching on a brand new TV. Score big with unlimited 2 % cash back on every purchase. Visit usbank.com slash smartlycard to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply. All right, as I sit here right now in the upper Midwest, it is still summer, but it is turning to fall.

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40:30Robert Mays: Let's get to our next one here. The New Orleans Saints, a week after nearly beating the Lions in overtime, go in to Baltimore and beat the Ravens and really show a lot on offense yet again with a young quarterback that meets the moment yet again. And the New Orleans Saints, one and one, we're on the cusp of being 2-0. You guys officially have our attention. What a fun team. Fun team. What a fun couple of fourth quarters here the last couple weeks with rallying against the Lions. I mean, this game was before halftime. They kicked a field goal going into the break. But from 14-3 to winning this game 24-17, I don't know where I want to start.

41:15because obviously like when Tyler... It's a weird game. Yes. Like when Tyler Shuck did what he did, you want to start there. But also I was so impressed by Brandon Staley's defense in particularly in the second half and what they were able to do against Lamar Jackson.

41:29Robert Mays: If you look at the numbers overall, the Ravens actually moved the ball pretty consistently in this game. It was a lot of just weird shooting yourself in the foot moments combined with the Saints defense making enough plays to win the game. I don't want to discredit what they did, but there were some really frustrating moments from the Ravens in this game. Like multiple screens that turn into negative plays because Henry can't get out cleanly and they just get totally blown up. And then obviously the biggest play of the game is Lamar takes that shot to Chris Moore on third and one. Yes. Which probably doesn't need to happen if he hangs on that for another second.

42:05Robert Mays: I think it was Bateman coming open on like the deep outbreaker. And so that choice and then not choosing to go for it on fourth and one, that's a little bit of a, that's a turning point moment in the game. But there were several just frustrating second down plays specifically in the second half for the Ravens that ultimately did them in. I'm glad you brought up the third and one. And I agree with you. Like, many things the Ravens could have done differently. But what a fun play by Kool-Aid McKinstry to poke that thing out. It's a really good recovery by him on that play. Quincy Riley had his own PBU in this game.

42:39Robert Mays: Like, this defense, I do think, has some juice to it. I do think that this is going to be a defense after the way they played in the second half of last year over the course of the year. That's going to be a solid unit. And speaking of firing linebackers, I mean, you know, Caden Ellis is going to do that. But Caden Ellis and Pete Werner both were like Brandon Staley. I think they combined for like five pressures and a sack on Lamar. This is going to be a blitz team. That's why they assigned Caden Ellis in free agency, because they're going to be at their best when they're sending a lot of pressure.

43:08Robert Mays: And they did in this game. I think they finished. So the Saints in this game finished with a 44 % blitz rate and a 44 % pressure rate. And that doesn't even account for some of the simulators that they said. I mean, the amount of times that we have second level defenders coming toward the quarterback for the Saints defense, that is going to be a fixture of what this team is defensively this year. I think the drive that kind of actually explains everything that we were just talking about. It was late in the third quarter. the I forget exactly what happened on the play, but the or maybe it was just a false start, but the Ravens end up in first and 15.

43:42They call a screen to Derrick Henry that loses three yards. So now it's second and 18. Then they fire Pete Werner at Derrick Henry in pass protection. He gives it up and now it's third and 25. And obviously the drive is over. And it just the entire second half felt like that stuff like that for the Baltimore Ravens. I do think I'm a little bit worried about the defense. Actually, I don't think that they played all that well in this game. I think that they were just a lot of situations, especially late in this game where you felt the Ravens did not have wide receiver talent anymore. And I think the Ravens should have kept running the ball.

44:16I do think part of the reason they didn't is some of the shooting your foot, ending up in first and 15, all this stuff, but they had they were like a 60 % rushing success rate in this game. Declan Doyle forgot about Derrick Henry in the second half of this game. That's totally fair to say. Didn't it feel like a young play caller? kind of just like having one of those moments, like just lost the feel of the game a little bit. And again, I think he's going to be really good at this. And like the design of the offense is phenomenal, but that's just going to happen to younger play callers. We're just like game starts to slip away.

44:46Weird stuff is happening. You're getting some of these penalties. The offense on the other side is starting to make you score points and stuff like that just starts to fall away.

44:53Robert Mays: Yeah, I think that's fair. I still have a relative level, like a reasonable level of confidence in the, in the Saints defense overall, because I do think that they, if you look at it, like their ability to bow up against the run in some big moments in this game, they were still able to do that. Like the biggest play their run defense made in the entire game, there's a second and three in the fourth quarter set up that third and one throw where Kobe Wooden makes a really nice play to kind of shove that thing back inside. It's a two yard game. They set up the third and one and that the game kind of changes there.

45:25Robert Mays: But I just think that the combination of what they can do as a pressure team, Chase Young, again, having multiple, really standout moments in this game. The Ravens are going to be a good offense over the course of this season. I think that both of those things can be true. I think that we can acknowledge the fact that the Ravens are going to be really good on offense, that Declan Doyle had some moments he probably wants back in this game. The Saints defense down to down did not play great, but over the course of the season, I think they're probably going to be okay. I think that's where I land with it overall.

45:56I think the pass defense, I agree with that. The run defense, I want to see more. it's two weeks in a row now where they've gotten shish kebabed by these teams like i think where did i have the number 64 of the ravens run he's gained at least five yards not even just like successful run five yards like they were popping them for a lot of this game i do think the past defense will be good but the run defense i'm a little i hear you and i know that zay flowers and jacoby lane are hurt but the ravens were like eight and a half point favorites in this game Like this, I mean, this was supposed to be a comfortable win for Baltimore, and it looked like it was going to be up until early third quarter, midway, like late third quarter.

46:36And so, I mean, even if it wasn't perfect, I think the Saints defense was gritty and impressive and rose to the occasion, especially considering what the Baltimore offense looked like last week.

46:48Robert Mays: And that's exactly what I would say about the Saints offense and their quarterback. what he did in the second half of this game. In the second half, per next gen, Tyler Shuck, 15 of 19 for 150 yards, 54.5 % success rate,.33 EPA per dropback. And you just watch how he was doing it. I was so impressed in both of those touchdown drives in the second half. Third and five on the first one, simulated pressure. He hits Olave sitting in the hook, like the safety having to come down from depth. He has to make that decision really quickly, gets the ball out. The touchdown to Olave on that drive, it's a beautiful design.

47:25Robert Mays: He comes in motion, and then he runs the big post back behind it. It's like a perfect quarters beater in that situation. Shuck rips that ball for a touchdown. The next drive, they get the ball back. Olave, by the way, Olave looks f***ing crazy. He just looks so good. The touchdown is potentially an example of that. The one that really jumps out to me, on their game-winning touchdown drive, He pushes vertical against Wiggins and then throttles back down on a deep comeback for a 15-yard chunk. Third and six. Chuck gets the ball quickly to Valle to set up a fourth and one. They get Wiggins lost on a bunch with five minutes left.

48:04Robert Mays: The play that Olave makes on third and two on that final drive, the physical catch that he makes against Marlon Humphrey in the left flat to keep that drive alive was incredibly impressive. and then the third and sixth completion to Juwan Johnson that gets them down the field. I mean, Trey Hendrickson is coming untouched on that play. Tyler Shuck stands in, stares down the barrel of the gun, gets drilled and delivers that ball to Juwan Johnson, who makes the play and takes it down inside like the 10-yard line. I mean, just consistently, you talk about rising to the moment and just like a gritty performance.

48:40Robert Mays: For the second week in a row, when they needed him to make a bunch of nails throws, Tyler Shuck did it again. Tyler Shuck threw a pass on 10 third downs in this game. He completed nine of the 10 passes and converted seven of the 10 third downs. And one of the non-conversions was the one you just mentioned, the five-yard completion to Velae that set up a fourth and short. So that's not a third down conversion, but it's pretty damn good. I mean, like he was unstoppable on the money downs in this game. The offense I buy. like he he looks even better than he did he looks like a just a better version of what he was last year and I think part of what has been so impressive to me with him is just how quickly the ball comes out and like how clean and obvious the way that he operates is like it's just there are some quarterbacks that you watch and you don't feel like they have a consistent process with the way that they're doing things I feel like Shuck if you gave me a like snapshot at any point in the down I could tell you what he's going to do because he just like he just plays the game in such a consistent way.

49:41And then on top, I think that part you could have sold me on, like coming out of college, coming off his rookie year, all that stuff. I'm shocked at how dynamic he is. Like like you said, willing to just stare down the barrel of the gun. I think when he his ability to make plays is funny. I posted this on Blue Sky. I think when he's like getting off the blocks, he's not that impressive of an athlete. But once the first guy misses or once he steps up into space and starts moving and accelerating the way he sees downfield, the throws that he's willing to make I think he's a much more impressive playmaker than I thought there was one play in the second quarter where he like scoots up into his right and finds a lava like 20 yards down the field and just I didn't know how much of that we were going to get from him and so the fact that we're getting that and he is handling what is a pure dropback offense honestly that puts a lot on his shoulders to replace blitzes and throw hot and all this stuff and other than the first half of last week against the Lions I think he's done it very very well so far he's an interesting

50:34Robert Mays: athlete like he's not twitchy in the short area but his he's good in a straight line like he's explosive enough in a straight line and when he gets out into space he can make plays out of structure it's and so it's just like a weird combination of stuff where he is athletic but in a very specific way he's like you you have to push him down the hill and then once he gets pushed down the hill and he's accelerated he he could just snowball and start making things happen but you got to push him and nudge him down. You saw Anthony Weaver called him a poor man's Josh Allen heading into the game. And Chuck, you know, he had a fun little comment afterward about that, getting him fired up for the game and him appreciating the spirit of it, I guess.

51:16But I mean, if the shoe fits, right?

51:19Robert Mays: Again, for the second straight week, just very impressed by what he was doing on some of those really high leverage plays in the second half of a very close game. I think it's worth noting, too, the Saints lost Kelvin Banks pretty early in this game. And so for Shuck to perform and for Kellen Moore to mitigate that, they were giving him a lot of help. There were a lot of chips. He usually had a back or a tight end. Awesome Richard stepped in. But to get that performance without a left tackle, a very promising left tackle. Because when I heard that news, I was like, oh no, Tyler Shuck is screwed.

51:54Baltimore is going to just pick on that all day long.

51:57Robert Mays: And they were able to avoid it. Another one of those frustrating early season Raven losses. which they seem to have one every single year. They're frustrating, but I think not something to be overly concerned about is where I land on it. I just think the Saints are going to be a really plucky team over the course of the season. We have one more entry here into You Have My Attention, and I think this speaks to the weirdness of the day. Both the Packers and Eagles, you had my attention at the end of those games in a way that I didn't necessarily expect. I didn't think you'd be having my attention against the Jets and Titans late in those games, but they did because they were close.

52:34Robert Mays: And I feel like we should talk about both of them. Where do you want to start? Which of these games stood out to you the most? Probably Packers. Excuse me, no, probably Eagles-Titans, honestly. Just because I, A, I thought, based on the way the Titans played last week, I thought even a flawed Eagles team would make pretty quick work of that. And then the end of the game was just incredibly entertaining between, you know, the Nick Sirianni gaffe that gave the Titans an extra down and TyJ Spears converts from 23 yards out, even with Robert Sala, like not even trying to pick up a first down. And then Robert Sala immediately just going back to that very conservative well and deciding that a field goal is going to be good enough to beat the Eagles.

53:19And for all the hell that he catches, sometimes deservingly so, Jalen Hurts was phenomenal getting them down the field for that game-winning touchdown. Like just two or three just badass throws. Like, I mean, the one that got him down near the goal line to Devontae Smith was just absolutely awesome. And so, like, the two-minute drill in this game was riveting and very fun to watch, even if I didn't see it coming.

53:46Robert Mays: He had two of those very similar sorts of concepts where they're like a short outbreaker underneath and then the corner out behind it. And he just throws those corner outs beautifully. That, to me, is the best throw that he makes, and he made several of them in this game. I think on the final drive, he hits one to Wicks on the right side and then comes back to Devontae Smith on the left side. Devontae Smith was phenomenal in this game. I mean, just everything he brings to the table, it's cool to watch him get these sorts of opportunities. The play he makes on that ball, he has to go get it. He had a deep comeback where he comes back to the ball.

54:23Robert Mays: It's cool to see him featured as the number one receiver and the best receiver in an offense, because it's just such a reminder of just how preternaturally talented Devontae Smith is. Like it just, he's the most productive college receiver we've ever seen. And you just see the little tiny things he does incredibly well at the position. And so many of those were on display in this game. I mean, we always say it, but like him and T Higgins for a long time, we're like, you're not a number two because you're a number two. You're just a number two because you had to be. And so to get him to be able to do that, I think is is really incredible.

54:56I'm so glad you brought up all the outbreakers that he threw, because I think that that's when Jalen Hurts has been at his best in any other previous iteration of this offense. It's outbreakers that he's thrown, sale routes, corner routes, just like anything deep and breaking outside of the numbers. And so I think in that sense, you got like vintage Jalen Hurts. I also think we got like a different version of him than we usually see, which is that this was only one of four games in Hertz's career with more than 10 throws between the numbers beyond five yards. One of only four times in his entire career that he's done that.

55:30And it's not just that he was throwing that area of the field and willing to do it the way that he was hanging in the pocket and just like willing to hang in there and wait for that throw to come. That's just not something that we had always got in previous versions of the offense, like even when they were really good in 24, that's just not really what he did. And so whether or not this is a flash in the pan or if that's something he can continue to do we'll see but that was the vision for the offense is that you could get that out of him on top of some of the other vintage throws that we got from him outside the numbers so if they can continue to get a little bit of both worlds from him in that sense and davanta smith is going to play like a receiver who can get like 14 1500 yards okay we can we can start to sell myself i would 100 agree i think that that's

56:13Robert Mays: exactly where i would land with this where it's the it's the blend that you want to see it's all of those things happening together. The throw that, so when I was at training camp and we were talking about this, the idea of him trying to access the middle of the field more and how this offense could push him to do that. The argument was, well, the way that we're playing and what we're asking him to do with his feet and the timing we're asking him to play with, his feet are going to take him to those throws. And you hear that, and that's a cool thing to hear on like August 10th. And you're like, all right, how's that actually going to play out?

56:43Robert Mays: The dagger he hits to Wicks with like 12 minutes left in the first quarter. It's third and 12. And you watch this play unfold and he has one hitch to the left, two hitches back to the middle on the, on the end breaker. And he throws it on that second hitch to Wicks on that dagger. And he completes it for a huge chunk game. And it's like, how many times have you ever seen him do that? Derek? Not nearly enough. It felt like I watched it. You got him at two hands. I mean, like it just doesn't happen that often. It felt like I watched, it felt like I watched half of the throws that he's made his entire career of that kind in this case and that's probably an over exaggeration but like it truly felt like I don't know how many times I've really seen him make that throw watching him do that in rhythm and then the other element of it that is Jalen hurts at his best is him making plays extending place is just buying enough time with his feet to make explosive plays happen he had a third a 14 yard completion on third and eight to Makai Lemon early in the game where he just it's a slightly off schedule play where he's buying himself just a little bit of space.

57:44Robert Mays: And then the Devante Smith touchdown is that where he's escaping out to his right. He's keeping his eyes downfield and he's making an explosive play. And so I just think on so many levels, the first pick, it's a bad play that you want back. The second pick he's getting hit as he throws that ball. Jeffrey Simmons just toasts Cam Juergens on that play. And that's why that ball was under thrown. And he had, he had him. He had him. And that's, I mean, that's the Jalen Hurts isn't under throwing a lot of deep balls. Like that, That's one thing he does extremely well. And so watching that ball get so badly underthrown as a product of him getting hit, that to me, if I were trying to pinpoint the area of concern I have about the Eagles offense, is that the offensive line is still in its current state.

58:25Robert Mays: With Juergen's moving over and just the lack of run game again, they had a 33 % offensive success rate in this game, Philly. I know Saquon Barkley was out for a good chunk of it, but 32 carries for 89 yards. And I think it even speaks to how impressive that Hurts' performance is, the fact that for the second straight week, he's really had to do the heavy lifting for this offense. And I think that's a really encouraging place to be just for his performance. Overall, as an Eagles fan watching this, it's not the offense that you were promised at its best because the run game hasn't been clicking so far.

58:57Robert Mays: But for the second straight week, I think you have to be really happy with how Hurts played. Yeah, it's definitely like in the noon window So when everything's going on and you're checking over to see if Philly's pulling away and they're not, and then all of a sudden they're trailing, it's very easy to, like, that's... What's wrong with the offense? What's wrong with the Eagles? For the second straight week. Yes. For the second straight week, it felt like that. But in reality, he played well for the second straight week. Not to say it was good. And Saquon, I mean, Saquon got hurt in this game.

59:25That's something to monitor. The offensive line continues to not look impressive. But just going back and watching Jalen Hurts, I was nowhere near as discouraged by this as in the moment. I was like, holy shit, are they going to lose to the Titans? Like, what's going on? I don't think it was that bad.

59:39Robert Mays: And part of the reason that they almost lost to the Titans is that the Titans offense showed some life in this game. We had some really nice moments from Cam Ward in this game, which I, who knows what this will look like over the course of the season. If you're a Titans fan, after the way that week one looked and after the way that last year looked, having this offense and him show some signs of life has to be such a relief. Who knows how long it'll last, but I would be incredibly relieved if I were a Titans fan watching the way that they played today. And it was the third highest EPA per drop back of his career and one of I think only five games that was at average or better.

1:00:16And so like it was a genuinely nice performance. And I thought that I think part of that too is like the run game kind of worked a little bit at spurts in this game for them and it was able to allow them to like just not be in a million third and eights or feel like they had to rely on the screen game to get things going. Like I thought Cam Ward did really make a handful of really impressive plays. And so he even even as a runner, like there was he had the scramble out to his left in the end zone that gets him like in where he just gets over the pylon. So I thought the fact that he looked the way that he did against the Eagles defense that.

1:00:46I think has not been quite as good as I wanted them to be out of the gates, but still think will be one of the best eight defenses by the end of the season. I think that it was like a pretty encouraging performance.

1:00:56Robert Mays: the other team that won ugly we didn't expect it to be that close near the end was the green bay packers who pull out a win over the new york jets in i would say messier fashion yeah than what we got from the eagles this required a lot of nonsense for the packers to win this game in a bunch of different ways i've got some silly numbers if you want to put one on it here's what i got in the last 25 years there are three games in which a team has committed at least 14 penalties and put five fumbles on the ground. So not lost them, but put the ball on the ground. It's an 0-7 loss by the Bears. That sounds right.

1:01:33A 2016 win by the Miami Dolphins and this game by the Packers. 14 penalties and five fumbles on the ground. They really only honestly won this game in large part because Skymore was insane as a returner. He made multiple put them into scoring position returns. that probably saved them. And otherwise, I don't know if they win this game.

1:01:58Robert Mays: Real monkey's paw situation with the Packers. We're going to give you decent special teams now, but your offense has to struggle in this way if it's going to happen. You have to make a tradeoff. I don't think they win this game without Skymore's 63-yarder. He outgained them, by the way. Skymore had like 208 return yards and the Packers offense had 199 yards of offense. I mean, just a couple moments from the Jets in this game. The overall competency level from the Jets is so much better than it was last year. But so many just frustrating gaffes down the stretch that allowed the Packers to win this game.

1:02:30Robert Mays: The one that ultimately didn't come back to bite them but was completely indefensible in the moment. Aaron Glenn not calling timeout with 51 seconds left and allowing the Packers to get a free Hail Mary that didn't end up mattering. But even as it was happening, I said the moment that play ended, I was like, we're not going to call timeout there? You were on top of it immediately. You had 51 seconds left. And what were they going to do? They weren't going to use that time. And so giving them a free roll Hail Mary and then the stretch after that big Brees Hall catch where the Jets botched that pitch that goes for a huge loss and then Cooper gets home on a sack.

1:03:08Robert Mays: And then on the next drive, they end up not going for it on the fourth and one and kicking the field goal and allowing the Packers to get back into the game. Sky Moore, some very sketchy decision making from the Jets and just some self-inflicted wounds and a defensive front that really did keep the Packers in this game. The pride of Barrington high school, Lucas Van Ness career day. Brother against Armand Membu, by the way, like not, not hollow stats. That was, that was pretty eye popping. If I was looking for a real positive takeaway from this game, that's probably where I'd start. Nine pressures.

1:03:42Lucas Van Ness made the game winning play. The game winning play. Like the fourth and one stop on that, like inside zone. He ends the game.

1:03:48Robert Mays: Nine pressures, five quick pressures, a sack and a half and the game winning play on fourth and one. That's pretty dang good for a guy that is this year for for him? Like we've been saying every year, it's like, oh, is this going to be the breakout? Is this going to be the breakout? And you saw like sprinkles of it at the end of last year. But so much was wrong with the Packers defense that was like, is this really going to materialize to anything? And through two weeks, he's been really, really good. Other small like when is this guy going to break out ever? Robert, I'm sure you noticed this.

1:04:18The Jets seem to really like A.D. Mitchell down the field. Like, they really seem to want to target him. And, like, I was kind of impressed with some of the plays that he made. I'm not going to lie.

1:04:27Robert Mays: I don't know what to make of this game and really just what to make of the Packers two weeks into the season. Like, what should we think about the Green Bay Packers right now? Well, let's start here, because honestly, like, I'm worried. I mean, how could you not be having watched these two weeks? but burying the lead a little bit, I mean, it doesn't reflect how the Packers managed to overcome and win this game, but they lost. All right, Jaden Reed is tough too, obviously. They lose Jaden Reed, but they lost Zach Bacobuwele, Aaron Banks, and Donovan Jennings all got hurt in this game. And I don't know, we don't know the severity of those yet.

1:04:59I do know Zach Bacobuwele was put in an aircast, and Matt LaFleur already confirmed after the game that he's going to miss some time. I don't know the timetable for sure, but he sure as hell isn't going to be available for the next game. Cause do you know when that is Thursday night? So you're on a short week dealing with an offensive line that had three guys

1:05:18Robert Mays: go down today against the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night. One of three straight primetime games by the Atlanta Falcons. We are not going to talk about that game. Yes. Three straight primetime games for the Atlanta Falcons. Who's responsible for that? Take it up with the league. Thankfully, at least I assume Penix will be playing. We're not going to talk about that game in depth. One guy who, Minnie, you have my attention, Devin Lloyd was insane in that game today. Absolutely insane. His second, it's funny, he had two interceptions, including the pick six. The second interception that leads to the pick six is a deflected ball that he picks off and takes back.

1:05:52Robert Mays: But then he had a deflection that led to an interception. So you add it all together, that's two very real picks with a pick six. He had a sack, he had a handful of TFLs. He was absolutely everywhere in this game for the Panthers. And so I at least wanted to mention that, even if we're not going to dig into it because right now I I'm sorry for Panthers fans Cooper Rush Falcons games are off the table like I'm not doing this until we have a different quarterback in a different offensive situation for the Falcons those are asterisks until until they we play some real teams but Devin Lloyd that's why you signed the linebacker with tree trunks for us I mean you you felt he you felt all six five of Devin Lloyd over the course of this game in every single way he impacted it.

1:06:35Robert Mays: All right, let's, uh, we've been putting it off for long enough. Let's get to what the, what the, the Bears season, it sounds like it's going to be okay in terms of the actual severity of the injury compared to what it could have been. But you guys should have been in this room when the Caleb Williams thing happened. I mean, it's just the idea of, cause for a moment when you thought it was an Achilles and you thought the season was over the idea that two weeks into the year, this Bears season could just potentially be done. I was going through it. It's just the worst feeling you can have as an NFL fan with a team that, I don't know how good they'll be, but I woke up this morning wanting to watch them play.

1:07:19Robert Mays: And the idea that that's taken away from you one week into the season is just awful. And then it happened to the f***ing commanders. Like, I just cannot believe that the top two picks in that draft, young, exciting quarterbacks, we lose them for an indeterminate amount of time, both of them, two weeks into the season. And both of these fan bases now have to endure whatever that looks like. Devastating, horrific, impactful quarterback injuries two weeks into the year. What the f***? It puts a pall over an entire NFL Sunday. And like in both windows. Yeah, because Jaden right after Caleb. And I mean, do we, have we heard anything definitive about Caleb other than like the bear said it was a hamstring?

1:08:03Robert Mays: Imaging tomorrow. And so, I mean, it sounds like if he, if it was a grade three, he wouldn't have been able to even walk and he was walking. And Mike Florio came out today and said, it didn't seem that bad. And for anyone, the only, the unacceptable follow-up to this will be people looking at how he reacted and him getting carted off and being like, oh, was only a grade one hamstring strain. This guy got the shit kicked out of him for 17 straight games two years ago. Don't say a f***ing word to me about how tough this dude is. Not to mention. Don't say a word to me. Also, until you do that yourself, I'm not going to put myself in my shoes and be like, oh, this guy's being weak because he only had a grade one.

1:08:40He was clearly frustrated because he thought he had a devastating injury. In addition. They could have still won that game. In addition to the pain, on that cart, he thought his season was over. He had the towel over his head. And to be clear, maybe it still is. I don't know. And I'm not trying to be a pessimist or shit on anybody's happiness. I have memories of people saying bullet dodged the day before imaging and then the news is worse than you thought. That has happened plenty of times. And hopefully that is not the case. But you're not out of the woods with this thing yet. And so, but it's absolutely devastating.

1:09:18and I guess maybe you certainly feel it hard in a room full of Chicago Bears fans by the way Derek I needed you here man I needed you here because I'm there were there were I feel like the screams would have been as horrifying as like the the scream of like Poseidon's son in the Odyssey that's kind of what I'm imagining it was it's a good reference there were four people in the room who like were devastated we're just catatonic didn't want to talk it was just like and I just What do you say? I didn't know how to move on with the day. Five minutes later, I was like, holy shit, did you see that catch?

1:09:54And everybody just glared at me. You're still watching football? What are you talking about? It was brutal. I don't know what you do with that one. Obviously, this is not a commander's show necessarily, but the Jaden Daniels one, I would feel the same way. That one, we know. He dislocated his elbow.

1:10:12Robert Mays: How long is he going to be out? That torpedoes their season, probably. And it's like the same injury is what scares me too. And like it was basically like non-contact where he just like kind of slips and like ends up popping in when he hits the ground. Like that to me is like is really, really scary. Hopefully Caleb's okay. But like Jaden, we know like this is probably going to be a while. Yeah. I mean, again, if you're a Commanders fan, it just completely changes the entire complexion of what. And it was hard. I'm sure you're sitting there watching that game even before he gets hurt. And you're probably seeing the writing on the wall a little bit with what the season's going to look like and this coaching staff and all of that.

1:10:48Robert Mays: But it doesn't make it any easier when it comes to your weekly experience watching your team. I was going to say, yet again, we're going to get 10 games of Marcus Mariota. The commanders could be ass and Jaden Daniels can still be a fun player to watch. 100%. We're not enthused by week two of the Dallas defense. I know they won comfortably, but we are not enthused by what the Cowboys did. So maybe it wouldn't look that good every week. But the way Jaden Daniels was playing leading up to halftime, you can be excited to turn that on and watch your team's favorite player. He's electric. What he was doing with his legs was insane.

1:11:20And plus, you get the added benefit of loving Jaden and just absolving him of all blame for the organization, and now that's on hold. And watching the commanders is probably going to be a lot more tragic here over the time that he's out.

1:11:35Robert Mays: I don't want this entire conversation about the Bears-Vikings game to be about Caleb Williams getting hurt because we should spend a little bit of time talking about what the Vikings did to the Chicago Bears in this game. That was a pantsing in terms of how much Brian Flores controlled that game. That was, the weather was awful, right? Like let's acknowledge the fact that it was disgusting outside. That to me was the sloppiest, potentially worst coach game I have seen from Ben Johnson in his two years since he's been the Bears coach. like the Vikings controlled that entire side of the ball. Everything the Bears were trying to do in the passing game was either sped up or off schedule the entire game.

1:12:20Robert Mays: Like the Vikings dictated every single snap, it seemed like that was happening when the Bears dropped back. They ran the ball fine and penalties and just overall sloppiness really came back to hurt them. But when they dropped back to pass in this game, they were scrambling literally and figuratively for four straight quarters. And that is a credit to what Brian Flores did yet again. It was everything like this was, I believe, the second lowest rushing success rate of Ben Johnson's tenure. Now with the Chicago Bears, number one was week one last year against Brian Flores. And so we kind of came into this week being like you're saving grace against a defense like this is like, can you run them out of it?

1:12:59And they pretty much had the one good drive, I think, directly out of the half where they were able to run the ball and otherwise were terrible on the ground. And so it was a lot of we have to make a lot of plays through the air. And like I think the one that like puts a point on everything that the defense was able to do to them in the passing game with some of their blitzes, with some of their looks, the third and 12 interception. I think that that Caleb Williams throws, they come out in like a pressure look. And so they've got a lot of people up front and they drop a lot of people to the field, which is what a lot of offenses are going to do, especially like Ben Johnson does like to do.

1:13:33this is take that crosser from the short side of the field and run him into the field and say hey if the throw pass the sticks isn't open you can spit it to this guy and he has so much room to work with to get us the first down but the way they drop their players out like that was never going to be there and so caleb's got to go make a play he overthrows it he throws the interception and it was just stuff like that that brian flores was able to do to them really for four quarters like you said it felt like almost all of caleb's best plays were a lot of stuff that was like out of structure and him having to make like a really impressive play.

1:14:03Robert Mays: I think one of the only in-structure plays they made in the entire game is the single chunk completion he had to Loveland and that got called back because of an illegal formation penalty, which that was the entire game. Every single time there was a positive play, there was some sort of penalty, there was some sort of flub. The overall just total sloppiness with the operational stuff, the penalties, and then, I mean, Sam Rauch had a day he would love to forget. I mean, I typically don't play this game, but he catches that ball inside the goal line that Caleb play never even happens. And he missed the block on the block field goal.

1:14:35Robert Mays: He, uh, he dropped the pass earlier in this game. Like it, he had a nightmarish day in what was a nightmarish game overall for the Bears offense. Garrett Bradbury as well. In the preseason about downgrading at center, even, even if it was a smart move, the way in which they acquired Garrett Bradbury, like I, I had worries about just transitioning from Drew Dahlman to Bradbury seamlessly. And it did not look great against this defense, which by the way, this is not Garrett Bradbury's fault necessarily. But do you know who leads the NFL in pressures? Dallas Turner. That's right. Yeah, he was phenomenal in this game.

1:15:10He was electric in this game. I want to give one more shout out to the Vikings defense. James Pierre on the second, I think it was the second to last play of the game. Tyson Bajan, who was in the quarterback at this point in the game, throws like a little five, six yard route to Luther Burden on the right hand side. And by this point, the Bears are trying to drive and they have no timeouts. James Pierre, like Luther Burden almost slips out of this tackle to where he would have been able to get to the sideline. They can stop the clock. They can kind of take a breather for a second. But James Pierre, like as Burden is slipping out, grabs him by the shoulder pads and rips him down, keeps him inbound, forces him to go fast when they probably didn't think they were going to have to.

1:15:48And Baygent just like chucks ones up to the end zone after that. Like that was a it's kind of a hidden play because obviously the very end of the game is a more explosive play. But that was like if he does not make that tackle, I think the Bears have a significantly better chance at actually like getting into the end zone there at the end.

1:16:03Robert Mays: All right, before we move on, let's take one more quick break. I use what not to buy a bunch of old PlayStation 2 games. One of my friends and I, we go way back. He has an old PlayStation 2 and we have this like long running list. That's like a dozen games long that we've been searching for. And some of them are really hard to find, whether it's like old Maddens or whatever it is. One that we've been really trying to pick up for a long time is 007 Nightfire for the PlayStation 2, one of our favorite games. I was finally able to find that on Whatnot, that on top of a couple of the old NCAA football games that were incredible.

1:16:34Some of those older games are hard to find if you go into a physical shop. I mean, some of those just don't have everything. But on a site like Whatnot, where there's just an endless amount of sellers, it's easy to find all those games that, again, are pretty hard to find in real life. stores. And one of the best parts about whatnot is that you can see this stuff before you buy it. I mean, that's the whole point. You can see the seller showing up, whether it's in my case, obviously a bunch of video games. But if you're into playing cards, you can find a bunch of those. If you're into sports cards, whether it's sneakers, anything like that, you can see the sneaker holding these things physically.

1:17:06This is not just somebody throwing out stuff out of their garage. These are real deal sellers. And that's the other great part about whatnot. These are real sellers. This is, again, not just people throwing stuff out of their garage. This is like real deal people trying to make a business, trying to make a living, trying to really make and sell a product for people that care about this stuff. That's why you can find all of these collectible types of items and items that are hard to find because these are people that want to get hard to find items into other people's hands. And you, lucky listener, can get$20 off your first purchase right now at Whatnot.

1:17:37Just search Whatnot, W-H-A-T-N-O-T in the App Store. Download, sign up, and start finding things that you've been chasing. Terms apply. No matter where you live, big city, small town, suburbs, whatever it might be, we all know the feeling of supporting small local business. In my town, the town that I live in, right in the same area, we've got a bakery we love, a restaurant that we love, and a great florist. And when I'm thinking about going to the bakery or going to get some flowers, I don't even think twice about where I might go. I am always going to support those great small local businesses.

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1:20:49Robert Mays: Let's get to a couple more traditional WTF games. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lose to the Cleveland Browns 23-19, drop to 0-2 on the season. We'll dig into the details of this, but Tampa Bay Buccaneers, what the f*** was that? In addition to their form, what the f*** was a two-and-a-half-hour weather delay? Just disgusting on every level. This game ended in a monsoon while the late games were in the second half. here's the stat that I will throw out that I think is just very telling for what this game and this moment feels like for the Bucs Deshaun Watson,.25 EPA per dropback 52.8 % dropback success rate both the best numbers he has put up as a starting quarterback for the Cleveland Browns that's just a gut punch of a stat and one of the more embarrassing parts to me he wasn't even really pushing the ball down the field like he hit one to Denzel Boston that was really impressive and he makes the like spinning out of three people insane play by Denzel Boston crazy um other than that it was like it was a lot of like short passes check down screens like it was a lot of Tampa Bay not being able to tackle the way that they wanted to I think that was what was more concerning to me they can't tackle and it's insane is is Alex Anzalone through two games having like the worst opening stretch with a new team in recent memory like It has been a disastrous couple of weeks for him.

1:22:24I mean, he missed tackles in the Bengals game. He missed multiple tackles in this game. And really, the Boston play opened this whole thing up. The Bucs didn't look good, but they looked like they were in control. The Browns had one explosive play in the entire first half of this game. It was the one completion of Fannin, right? Yeah. It was like 10 minutes up in the first quarter. They finished with seven on the day. and like virtually all of it came after the Boston play. And that's a, that's like a 15 or 16 yard gain. And like, it's a great play, but like the, I mean, the Browns still have work to do if one of three guys just gets him on the ground and not to take credit away from Denzel Boston, but Alex Anzalone is making a lot of money to make that tackle.

1:23:08In addition to Tykee Smith and Antoine Winfield, it's just, and it just felt like it all fell apart after that. And like, not that there were all these like crazy explosive plays, but the Browns just started moving the ball in chunks not long after that play.

1:23:23Robert Mays: Letting Deshaun Watson and that offense have the best game he's had in Cleveland is a low moment for the Todd Bowles era, I think. But to me, the more concerning part of this is just what the offense continues to look like and the way that Baker Mayfield continues to play. We'll talk about this a little bit when we talk about the Chargers. the skittishness in the pocket. And it's not even skittishness. The way that I would describe it is his pocket movement right now, Baker's and Justin Herbert a little bit too. It's all or nothing. There is no subtle movements. Anytime there's like a flash of color, the ball is getting pulled down and we're in like frantic play extension mode.

1:24:07Robert Mays: There is no trying to maneuver around that space and find completions. And it just makes it difficult for the entire offense to function. The hold that Barton gets late in the game is in part a product of Baker just bailing from the pocket on that play. It's hard to play offensive line when your quarterback is going to play like that. And watching him just go into that mode over and over and over again, the Bucs had a couple nice moments as a passing offense in this game. Almost every single one of them was off of play action when they were wadding it up and giving him a ton of space to make a defined throw before the play even started.

1:24:48Robert Mays: On non-play action passes in this game, Baker Mayfield was 11 of 22 for 72 yards. He had a 29.6 % success rate and averaged negative 0.28 EPA per drop back. Like consistently when they ask him to be and have asked him to be a drop back passer, this is the product that you're getting. And it just makes everything else on the offense look worse. And I don't really know what you do about it. He is pressing. Like you just feel like, like you said, it is all or nothing. Like if he did not play so all or nothing against Cincinnati, I think that they probably win that game. If he doesn't do that in this game, they probably win this game.

1:25:28I think even on the very last drive, like after the weather day, after the weather delay when they come back it's I think like a third and 11 and they're like near the red zone in the red zone and so I know on third and 11 you probably want to attack the sticks in most cases but like given the game situation you're okay with just taking some of the yards you're going to go for it on fourth down every time anyway and so it's third down on that drive and they're in empty and the defense is showing six rushers so like you're not necessarily going to throw hot they're probably going to drop somebody off but you should be thinking about it And he's got a quick throw, a quick slant to Ted Hurst to the left hand side if he wants it.

1:26:03Maybe it only gets you eight yards, but you get to fourth and four. You can maybe keep going. He doesn't take it. He holds on to the ball and it's like a dead play. And I think he either I think he like tries to scramble out to his right and he gets like one yard on the scramble. And now it's fourth and 11. And then he overthrows like Buka in the end zone. It's just like you felt more moments like that from him. And like even when at his best, he has games like this sometimes. but the fact that out of the two games that we've seen this season, he has been like that 100 % of snaps. It's pretty concerning to me.

1:26:33It's funny. Like Baker's been bad. I'm not arguing that point. I'm way more concerned about what the Deshaun Watson was able to do to the Buccaneers defense in this game. Like the useful context here, my morning started by waking up still being mad about LSU losing to Ole miss and opening social media and all of the reports like Ian Rapoport and Mary Kay Cabot who's been tied into the Browns forever are like yeah so the Browns are thinking about benching Deshaun when they get back from this road trip launched the bench before the game and they had the best game of tenure with the team they were so the Browns themselves were so confident that he was going to play poorly that they were pre-benching him in the media and he went out and played like that and scored what they scored 23 points scoring 23 points in Tampa and and the the Bucks biggest free agency addition was Alex Anzalone they spent money there they've drafted so many young players they have tried to revamp this defense after so many of the Super Bowl guys left town and it just doesn't look good enough and like last week you could wave some of that off by the turnover margin getting things out of whack but if Deshaun Watson is having career games against you in 2026 that is that is damning even if I mean like I said no Baker is not good

1:27:52Robert Mays: but that is really troubling I had my concerns about the viability of this regime by the end of this season like I felt like we might be coming to the end even as somebody who was relatively pessimistic about this i couldn't have imagined this sort of start where you have a game like this and the offense looking this out of sorts like this is worse than i even could have imagined even as somebody that was relatively down on this team coming into the year yeah i given all the stocks i bought of them i'm a little bit concerned but this is the bet i've made for myself they are they are still in the nfc south and with the upstart New Orleans Saints.

1:28:30Thank you for making me feel good. Bryce Young played his nuclear Atlanta game today, so maybe it won't be as easy as we think, but it's still a preferable place to be compared to some other divisions.

1:28:42Robert Mays: Can I trot out my pet theory about Baker Mayfield that's going to tie us into the Justin Herbert game we're about to talk about? Please. Let's hear it. The way that those guys succeeded at times last year for Baker early in the season, for Justin Herbert late in the season, when them pulling the ripcord and really tapping into their scrambling ability and trying to create plays over and over and over again it leading to the positives it did for both of those offenses last year I think it's broken them like not irreparably but I think that it has harmed them for the moment in terms of how they are playing the position because Baker that's what he looks like and we'll talk about let's get let's get into it the Chargers get beat up by the Raiders in this game and look completely out of sorts again on offense, Los Angeles Chargers, what the f***?

1:29:34Robert Mays: And again, that's how I feel about this. Like, it's probably too simple of an explanation, but when you watch what both of these guys look like in the pocket, and again, that all-or-nothing feel to what they're trying to do, it's just, we'll talk about the Niners game at the end of this. Like, you watch what, I know they're playing against the Dolphins, but you watch what a quarterback that, like, has command in the pocket looks like, And then you watch Justin Herbert and Baker Mayfield right now. And it's just an ocean between those two things. It's hard to watch. It's really, it's like disappointing.

1:30:05I don't think it's unfounded though. Like I have in my notes here, like verbatim, maybe this can change, but Justin Herbert isn't playing as fast and confident as usual. Like he just does not feel like he is playing in the pocket the way that he normally does. And I think last year that was like you're mentioning, I think early in the year, like Justin Herbert had command of the offense and the offensive line falls apart. He's got to run all around and do all this scrambling stuff. By the end of last season, he did not seem super confident. And so I think some of that has carried over into having to learn a new offense.

1:30:35And I do think that like, I think that's the other thing I want to talk about. Mike McDaniel, I do think is good at this. And there are still some things that they're, that they were doing that like looks good. And there were a handful of plays that they opened up in this game and receivers drop it or Herbert misses a throw, whatever. But I do think that one thing that like, as I've watched this unfold now some of the Tua stuff worked in Miami not just because Tua would throw it but because even if they weren't obviously open they would make a play lad McConkie doesn't do that Quentin Johnston doesn't do that like these receivers don't do that in the way that Tyree kill and then even to a lesser extent like Jalen Waddell could do where like space was there even if it really wasn't and so one you have the space not really being there because I don't think they're consistently separating at a super high level right now and you have a quarterback who's learning a new offense and like doesn't necessarily trust those tight windows right now because throwing them in the way that you have to throw them in this offense and it's not the whole offense the way it was with Tua but it's still there and I think that there's just been a little bit of like a things are not clicking the way that we hoped they would part to this on top of what you mentioned where I think some of last year like kind of has maybe broken Justin Herbert's brain just a little bit it's really important to point

1:31:46Robert Mays: out that these are new offensive systems and new offensive coordinators and new play callers. I think we should give teams grace that are in these situations. We've seen it take a little while with new staffs. This happens. It can take a month. It can take five weeks. The problem is both the Bucs and the Chargers look so much like offenses that have new offensive coordinators and new play callers. And in both of their cases, and they're sitting at 0-2, these are teams that are supposed to make the playoffs that I think see themselves as playoff teams. Even if we should give them a little bit of time to figure this out, they don't have time to figure this out.

1:32:25The Chargers especially.

1:32:26Robert Mays: The Chargers especially. They've got to play soon. The whole goal for the Chargers was to win these games to give yourself cushion for what's coming. I'm sure you've probably seen the graphics going around of what is up next for the Chargers at Bills, at Seahawks, Broncos, at Chiefs. And even after their bye week, it doesn't let up. It's at Rams, Texans, at Ravens after that. They don't have a manageable looking game on the schedule until roughly Thanksgiving. So have fun with all that. And they'll find a way to win one of those games if I had to guess. I'm not saying they're going to go 0-4, but this was the chunk of the schedule where you could make a little bit of hay for yourself so you had some room for error.

1:33:11Robert Mays: Here's what I'll say about this. The fact that the offense looks a little bit uneven and a little bit unsettled. You can imagine that with a new offensive coordinator, new offensive system, all that stuff. And it's a little bit of everything. I do not think Justin Herbert is playing well, but I also think that so many other aspects of the offense, it's like clown car shit. Some of the stuff that they are doing is just hilarious. The first drive, Herbert puts a perfect ball on Brennan Thompson. He just drops it on a crosser. 3.27 left in the first quarter. Tron Johnson comes completely unblocked off play action, puts them into a third down.

1:33:42Robert Mays: on the next play, Njoku bobbles it right into the hands of a defensive player. This team, over the course of the game, had six unblocked pressures that they allowed. They allowed a 26 % overall quick pressure rate per next-gen. You have two false starts by Joe All in a row. A ball hits... In their own end zone, by the way. In their own end zone. He gets two false starts in a row. You have a ball hit a player going in motion on a third and one, which happened in this game. Just a horrendous O'Marion Hampton fumble in the fourth quarter. Herbert fumbles while trying to get out of pressure early in the fourth quarter.

1:34:19Robert Mays: I mean, it's just a comedy of errors. And again, you can excuse some of that with the offense maybe a little bit. But my thing with this is, isn't the whole premise of having Jim Harbaugh be your head coach is that you're supposed to do this shit right? You're supposed to be a team that does the details right? Like, isn't that the entire specter of what a head coach like Jim Harbaugh is supposed to be? So what are the what are the Chargers supposed to be in this current iteration? Because they are none of those things. That's the part that is most frustrating to me. Like the if you told me like, hey, this Chargers pass catching group isn't going to be as impressive as you want.

1:35:00All right. I mean, like I could have bought that. It's a group that's like just not super, super talented. And so like the drops are frustrating and bad, but like that's just going to happen with groups that are kind of mediocre. The two false starts by who is supposed to be like your star tackle in their own end zone is frustrating. And then like you said, the play where they have a receiver in motion and they snap in the ball. It's because I don't know if they were late getting the play in or late changing the play, whatever it was. But like they had to snap because otherwise they were going to get a delay of game.

1:35:28The fact that their operation looked as not put together as it did. And then, like you said, O'Marrion Hampton just not protecting the football when he's running straight up the middle. It's just like that is the stuff that I didn't even think about with this team. Because like you said, like it's a Jim Harbaugh team. Like, why would that be an issue? And the fact that it has been consistently an issue through two games is really concerning. They fumbled six times in this game.

1:35:51Robert Mays: They miraculously only lost one. It was not pouring rain in Los Angeles, if you're curious. Yeah. It's not quite a dome. It's actually weird. It's enough of a dome. It's enough of a dome. It's dome adjacent. So you guys mentioned all and what a rough day for him. The Chargers O-line in totality got flagged six times in this game and Slater got a holding call. So you're too, we're not even talking about the interior, which everybody is so worried about. The tackles, which are supposed to be the good part of this thing, got flagged five times today. They don't do anything well. What is the best thing about the Los Angeles Chargers right now?

1:36:28Robert Mays: You can't even say Justin Herbert right now. No. You can't even select your name No, which normally you could when it was going poorly No, that's my point You could say he will have some games And today, I'm not, no way I'm not doing that today Here's the thing that's most worrying to me In the Jim Harbaugh era You could count on them to play really good Sound, disciplined, put-together defense Not right now Not right now We're giving up chunk touchdowns to Trey Tucker right now And I don't want to make this all about the Chargers The Raiders deserve credit for being a put together enough operation on offense to take advantage of this team.

1:37:05Robert Mays: Like the Raiders are doing, the Raiders are doing so many of the right things in year one of a new staff as the Chargers do so many of the wrong things with carryover from the defensive system, from the language, everything, and just a new offensive play caller. Like I don't, this isn't a let's shit on the Chargers. Let's not talk about the Raiders at all thing. The Raiders deserve a lot of credit for being a good enough team. And it put together enough team this early in the season to take advantage of what the Chargers are right now. Maybe the Chargers just had a hard time dealing with the Raiders home crowd.

1:37:36That's another element of this. Tough day. They travel a few hours to get there. Buddy, they travel down the street.

1:37:45Robert Mays: LA is Raider territory. You know what's upsetting to me or frustrating to me? I think two different fronts. One, again, I think the Raiders' defensive plan in this game was better than what the Chargers had, which like that's a worrying place to be if you were a team that has hung its hat on defense over the last couple years under Jim Harbaugh. And you know what the other part of it is? Again, we're like, this is football guy stuff, right? We're supposed to be tough. We're supposed to be like milk drinking guys over here on the Jim Harbaugh team. Watching Kobe White go up and snatch that ball for that touchdown and you getting pushed around by this Raiders team and them wanting and rising to those moments more than you are.

1:38:31Robert Mays: Again, what are you? What is your calling card? What are you supposed to be? I'm glad you bring up that throw because that throw is not open at any point. And Kirk just says, I'm going to throw it because it's the throw that is supposed to be thrown on this play. I don't really care if it's actually open or not. I'm going to give him a chance. And that's like, what's it? Yeah, Cody White, who was what? Their fourth, fifth wide receiver? on a wider score that is like not all that dynamic big play all of uh all of Kubiak's guys that he brought over from Seattle yeah that lack of receiving talent doesn't seem to be affecting the Raiders no not a problem for them and like honestly I just said that Kirk threw up like he threw it even when it wasn't open I think he looks good and like the interception that he threw in this game Jalen Ayler just or maybe it was Trey Tucker one of them just falls down like it was going to be a good throw and he just it just ends up going to the to the defensive back because the guy falls but like kirk looked good in this game i thought picked him apart like the run game i thought looked decent there was there was a lead play that they ran to the left hand side where the fullback just like nukes the linebacker in the hole and to your point like that's what you're supposed to be your linebacker is supposed to kill him and take him out the way nicobe dean played in this game like where where's where's that where is nicobe dean was awesome today he was phenomenal he was really good last week too he's been that's another one where they've gotten what they've paid for, I think, with those linebackers.

1:39:58Robert Mays: Credit to the Raiders and whatever the opposite of credit is to the start that the Chargers have had. Before we get out of here, let's talk about what made us feel romantic about football in Week 2. I mean, this thing was a thing of beauty. I know that it was against the Dolphins. My God, did I have a blast spinning back through that Niners game and the way that that passing game looked. Just to put a point on it before we dig into some of the details, The Niners in this game finished with an 80 % passing success rate per next-gen. 8-0. I don't care who you're playing. You'd be playing Kent State.

1:40:33Robert Mays: Putting up an 80 % passing success rate is going to be pretty impressive. That has happened one other time in the next-gen era, which goes back to 2016. 10 years. We're on 11 seasons of next-gen. We have two games with an 80 % passing success rate. The other one? The Niners in 2023. I was going to say, is it also Kyle Shanahan? The Niners in 2023, week four against the Cardinals. And that's telling to me because this version of the Niners offense that we've seen through two weeks, they are humming in a way that we have seen from the best versions of this Niners offense. And some of it is the skill position, talent, and what you're bringing to the table with those guys.

1:41:14Robert Mays: Kittle had some really nice moments in this game. We got vertical Kyle Juszczyk catches in this game, which was phenomenal. Mike Evans made a couple big plays CMC as a receiver but the promise of this version of the offense and what is potentially so cool about it is that you have all of the schematic schemed up designer stuff that Kyle Shanahan is going to bring you but Purdy what he can do as a creator and off schedule that was always the thing that could take this offense to a slightly different gear from the moment that he took over and you saw every single bit of that in this game. There were four or five moments that he has as like an improv player playing outside of the pocket.

1:41:58Robert Mays: The improv play he makes, Mike Evans spinning away from pressure. He had multiple great plays with his legs when they were up 7-3. Just incredible pocket movement. He fires a missile to Demarcus Robinson. The play he makes with like 350 left in the third quarter, they fake toss boot to the right. He boots back to the left side. There's an unblocked player coming on the boot. He pumps and makes the guy jump, buys a little bit of time to his left, and just rips a ball that Evans on a crosser coming across the field. Piss missile. He was, again, all caveats about the Dolphins, I completely understand that.

1:42:39Robert Mays: Brock Purdy was phenomenal in this game. He was incredibly good. I love that. It's still the NFL. It's still the NFL. To do it at this level, it is still the NFL. He was 20 of 22. He was 20 of 22. His two incompletions, one was a Debo drop that hit him in the hands, and the other one, there was an unblocked player, and he got an intentional grounding. Those were the two incompletions. So he didn't throw a real one. That's kind of crazy. In the next-gen era is one of 10 performances where a quarterback attempted at least 20 passes and finished with an EPA per drop back of 1.0 or better. and it's actually Brock Purdy's second game doing it.

1:43:22Lamar Jackson's done it twice. Jared Goff's done it twice. Drake May, Ben Roethlisberger. Like, not something you see very often and we've seen plenty of blowouts in the NFL. I don't give a shit who it was. And I love that point that when you watch the Niners and they're really humming, it's so satisfying because, like, you can just see the mechanics of the offense and even in real time, you don't even have to go back and watch, like, all 22. too. You can see it happening on the broadcast where the choreography is just, you're just like, oh, that block opens that up. And this motion is doing that.

1:43:52And this guy is pulling that guy down. And that's why all of these throws are wide ass open. And just when you start to not be impressed by the quarterback, cause that, you know, Purdy and other San Francisco quarterbacks have caught in a lot of hate. Cause it's like, well, yeah, George Kittle's just wide ass open on this dig for the fifth time today. The minute you start to feel that way, he does that shit with Mike Evans on the fake toss that throw was insane and and he's such a good athlete I know his touchdown with his feet today wasn't anything impressive but you have that element that he brings to it where he can get an explosive run and score a touchdown for you if the play does break down he's just he's so good dude and I like I I will readily admit I didn't appreciate him quickly because so much of it was the other players on that I did not I did not either but I've he's he's so high up on the list of guys.

1:44:46Robert Mays: I love to 26 years old. He like that is what he that like he is. He's getting better and he was already pretty darn good. Well, and that's what I appreciate most about it. When he first came onto the scene, they could do more drop back stuff because of him. But I think the value really was that he was more willing to throw the ball down the field, even if he wasn't great at it than Jimmy ever was. And he could make plays outside of the pocket. But the longer he's in the offense, the less that he needs to do that stuff because he's gotten so much better at the just spit the ball out, find the right throw, stay on time stuff.

1:45:19But not in the same way that Jimmy was doing, where it was like you throw the first or second read and then you go or you just, you know, you take the sack, whatever you're going to do. You're not going to go because you're Jimmy Garoppolo. But Purdy has a little bit more to him. And so I think that like he's finally kind of met both of the perfect worlds. It feels like the other funny thing I want to talk about with this team. I know it's only two weeks and I know that we're gonna have to be hanging on for the whole season with them but we went into last year with the Rams being like what does Stafford's back look like can Devontae Adams still really do this at this age is the offensive line really gonna hold up the way you want it to and at least through two weeks it's like well shit George Kittle looks like most of himself Mike Evans has been phenomenal for them CMC looks like he has juice back like all of the things that you would have wanted for the most part shriveling going down obviously sucks but all of the older guys that you had some questions about Trent Williams even looks incredible it's like okay the fact that they look like they are playing 85th percentile or better football for all of them is like okay if they can continue to do that for the rest of the season it's wheels and even Evans did get dinged up in this game but Shanahan said immediately after that he would have come back he's just chronically dinged up I'm not I'm not getting

1:46:27Robert Mays: worried about that anymore we were 96 minutes into this there's probably a table conversation to be had about the Bengals and the Niners at some point in the next couple of weeks. I haven't thought about the table recently. Well, again, they're worthwhile discussions to be had. I think we revisit them maybe after one more week, just for space reasons, but also I just might maybe want to see a little bit more. But the Bengals and the Niners, after the way that they've looked through two weeks and the reasons they've looked as good as they have, both of them deserve some consideration. We'll sit with that.

1:46:58Robert Mays: The last play I want to bring up, I don't know if you watched this, Derek, watched it back. The chunk play to Kittle off of the play action is maybe my favorite just schematic play from week two that I saw. Kittle's on the back. Was it where him and the other player almost run into each other and like, but they both could catch the pass. Kittle's on the backside of a zone run going to the right and he, he comes back and runs like a backside dig off play action, but it's like the timing of it and the way that the play unfolds, that makes me feel romantic about football. Like that is what the San Francisco 49ers are at their best, where you have a tight end on the left side of the formation on the left hash goes, they run a play action.

1:47:49Robert Mays: He runs all the way back. And essentially the timing of it is like a backside dig and back into that space. And just like the design of it, everything about it is like, holy shit, this thing is fun to watch while it's humming and through two games it is the most it is the most rhythmic offense that you can possibly design it's beautiful and when you have a quarterback that is operating it like this again 61 offensive success rate through two games for this team pretty damn good start for the san francisco 49ers yeah it's worth saying yes it was the miami dolphins they did this to the rams yeah 10 days ago like it's not like we don't have uh evidence that they're pretty freaking good incredible day in what was an ugly day overall in a lot of ways in the NFL.

1:48:33Robert Mays: And that's why we wanted to sit and spend a little bit of time with it. That is all we've got for today. Our three games tomorrow on the Hangover. Colts Chiefs, Seahawks Cardinals, which we wanted to save that one because we wanted to spend a little bit more time with it. And Pat Steelers. We've not talked about the Steelers at all. They played another really ugly game offensively. Those are the three games we're going to dig into tomorrow. Sorry, we didn't have time to hit them and a lot of other stuff that we wanted to get dig into tonight That is all we've got for today. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening.

1:49:05Robert Mays: We'll talk to you very soon

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