Caleb Williams' Moment, Matt LaFleur's Meltdown, And How the Rams Survived a Scare from the Panthers

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0:36Diante Lee:Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Shiel Kapadia. What an opening day to the NFL playoffs. Rams barely avoid one of the biggest playoff upsets in recent history, beating the Panthers in Carolina and then an epic Bears comeback. Or was it a Packers meltdown? Talk about both sides of it in the night game, but a great night game as well. These games, can you believe there are people out there who don't watch sports? I don't get it. How can you live like that? These were amazing games. We're going to talk about both of them with the Ringers' Deontay Lee on today's show. Let's take a break. We come back with Deontay.

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2:02Diante Lee:all right we are back here with Deontay Lee we're gonna start with Packers Bears but Deontay we were blessed with an amazing first day to the playoffs we could have got two duds where we're searching for storylines instead two amazing games I want to start with the Bears because that comeback and that throw by Caleb Williams on fourth and eight I was just you know watching it live. You're marking it down. All right. It's a big moment. And then the way the game plays out, I was just thinking, and they're showing the crowd shots and it's been 15 years since there's been a playoff victory for the bears.

2:33Diante Lee:Like that is why you watch sports. That is why you pay for the merch and the tickets. And you tell you're on the group chats with your friends. And at times you wonder why do I spend so much time investing my emotional energy into this stupid thing that I have no control over. It's for moments in games like that, man, bears fans will be telling their grandkids about that game, about that play. And the playoffs are about moments. And Kayla, I thought that was Caleb Williams moment. I mean, 283 yards passing in the second half. They're down 21-3. They look overmatched. Later, I'm going to read you some of my notes that I had down after the first half.

3:10Diante Lee:So you can laugh at them with me. But it's 27-16 with 636 left. And they're trying to mount the comeback. And he's rolling to his left. And he's falling down. and he somehow finds Roma Dunze, gives them life. They score a touchdown. They score the two-point try. And then, of course, one more drive to take the lead and win the game, which, by the way, it's not like there was an adversity there. DJ Moore drops the ball. Their left tackle goes out of the game where you're going, are they really going to do this? Are they not going to do this? But I really think the big story, especially if you're a Bears fan, you're just like, man, I feel great about my quarterback.

3:47Diante Lee:And when's the last time Bears fans were able to say that. 1 ,000%, right? It's not just the 15 years in between playoff wins. It's the amount of times that Chicago has come up short because they haven't had a talent like Caleb Williams under center, right? I can only imagine how cathartic that must have felt going through that fourth quarter, watching your quarterback pull some stuff. I can only compare to Steph Curry when he's in a flow state, right? That throw was very much like some Steph Curry, 38 eight foot falling into the sideline, nothing but net type of three-pointer. I think that for them, and you think about the way that the defense played in the first half, and you're like, oh my God, Dennis Allen seems like he has completely lost his grip on what we need to get done from a coverage perspective and getting pressure on Jordan Love.

4:34You think about all the fourth down tries in the first half. I mean, I could not imagine a worse start for the first three quarters of this game than what we got out of Chicago. But to your point, Caleb Williams is able to find it, you know, find a way he's able to make plays late in the game. I think his ability to extend. We've spent so much time for the last two years talking about how him holding on to the ball forever can be a limiting factor for him. How it's going to disjoint this offense now that Ben Johnson is here. And truth be told, they are not in the divisional round unless Caleb Williams is willing to hold on to the ball, make pass rushers miss, extend plays out on the sideline, try to push the ball downfield aggressively.

5:12possibly he is 100 % the thing that is changing the way that we are looking at Chicago as a franchise and why it is possible that this team can make a deep playoff run and certainly why they were able to win tonight.

5:22Diante Lee:Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned their defense because they kind of kept them in the game. You know, it wasn't like the whole second half the Bears offense was cooking. I mean, they had what nine points going into the fourth quarter where they were driving it. You never felt like they were just stuck and in a rut, like they couldn't move the football, but they were getting stopped in the red zone or they were not converting on fourth down or they would have a drop or they would have a miscommunication. I mean, like you said, it just felt like everything was going against them. And you're right. He had to go hero mode.

5:49Diante Lee:And that's been part of the Caleb Williams conversation from the draft process until now was like, does he do that too much? Does he not do it enough? Is he trying too much to be a pocket quarterback? Should he let his natural talent show? How's he being coached? What about his intangibles? The work? I mean, there's just, there's been like 400 different narratives written on this guy and he's only in his second season. And so to put that out there where, again, if you're a Bears fan or even if you're a Caleb Williams skeptic at halftime, you might be going like, okay, these things I thought they were actually coming to fruition and then for him to end it there.

6:24Diante Lee:And I know they've been doing this type of thing all season long, but it's just totally different when it's the playoffs. This is how sports work. When the lights get brighter, when the moment gets bigger, those are the things we remember. We don't remember week eight or week nine. And you're absolutely right. You know, there were moments in this game where you thought, all right, nice call by Ben Johnson. But we don't even like that screen and go, you know, the touchdown to DJ Moore. That's beautiful. He's wide open. But we don't even get to that point if it's not just, well, Caleb Williams really is kind of a one-on-one of one, just from a talent perspective.

6:57Well, I mean, on a base level, they just want a playoff game that Green Bay choked away. Like, there are Bears fans that will be willing to hang the banner off of that alone. Okay? Like, again, we're talking about catharsis in sports. I cannot imagine anything that feels better for a Bears fan than beating the Packers and having the Packers basically give this game away late in the fourth quarter. Right. And then it does come back to the way you win. It's on the shoulders of your quarterback. It's your defense holding up just enough in the third quarter and in the first half of the fourth quarter to be able to get you an opportunity, like you said, for those last six minutes for your quarterback to come through and get you over the hump.

7:32And honestly, I would say that basically since this team has kind of found itself offensively around mid-October, early November, this is the first time I think that they were thoroughly beaten up up front. This is the first time I think they had a rough game with the offensive line. I mean, they had nothing in the run game. There were rushers that were getting after Caleb Williams. He just did such a good job of evading them in obvious passing situations and extending plays. I was concerned, right? Because this is just not the style of play we've seen from Chicago over the second half of the season.

8:01So again, to be able to have an answer and to know that your answer is the player, right? It's not that Ben Johnson had to draw up a perfect play. It's not that they had to go to some very hyper-specific coverage meter, right? The bubble screen, the fake bubble screen that turns into a touchdown, awesome call in that situation, really more of a discipline breakdown by Green Bay. But the fact that a lot of this was just, we're putting guys in spots past the sticks, and now it's on our superstar second-year quarterback to go make it happen. And the fact that he was able to do that in a high-leverage scenario, like you said, it's a great win.

8:32And now it does kind of alleviate some tension on Williams early in his career, on Ben Johnson. You get a proof of concept playoff win that really could have gone the other way based off of how things looked in the first half. And I think, again, to bounce out of division arrival and the team that has had the level of quarterback play that Chicago has been coveting for the last decade plus, I mean, you just can't ask for anything better than that, I think, if you're a Bears fan.

8:57Diante Lee:On the other side of it, Deontay, you alluded to, The Green Bay Packers. Oh my goodness. All right, let me be clear here. I think Matt LaFleur is a very good coach. If I were the Packers, I would not fire Matt LaFleur. I don't even think I would think about firing Matt LaFleur. Having said that, you know, you always got to include the having said that takes you to a different place. Great phrase in podcasting. This is the type of... I feel like that's one of those Brian Curtis specials. The kind of thing you'd hear on Pressbox, you know? That's right. That's right. We have to send that to our friend, Brian Curtis.

9:29Diante Lee:This is the type of nightmare that can cause an organization to make rash decisions and can just haunt an entire fan base for an entire offseason. So we were joking before we came on, like, I hope we can wrap our head around all the things that have that happened in this game. So let me give you what I wrote down here for the Packers, Deontay. OK, seven second half possessions, four straight punts with one total first down. That was really the stretch of the game where you let the Bears still have hope or you could have stepped on their throat. didn't do it. Overall, you score one touchdown, one missed field goal and then you have the end of game.

10:04Diante Lee:So one touchdown, no field goals on your final seven possessions of the football game in the second half. It's not just that, however, because they used a timeout and then their offense comes out and they get a delay of game on third and 10. Like a huge moment in the game. Third and 10 turns into third and 15. You don't get it. And then you miss a 44 yard field goal. Then on defense, the very next possession, I believe it was the second play. You waste another timeout. This is a game coming down to the end and you just waste it. You use two timeouts and you got a delay of game right there. And then of course the misses Brandon McMahon is two missed field goals, including the 44 yarder, the one before the half, and then the missed extra point, which was huge because if they only needed a field goal at the end.

10:54Diante Lee:Well, they drove into field goal range. They could have at least attempted a field goal and forced overtime. So you add all those things up. And I understand if you're someone who's just like, LeFleur doesn't have it. He's great in the regular season. He's a great offensive schemer, but this seems to happen to them year after year after year. They lose four straight to end the season. I know the last game didn't really matter, but then they blow a 21-3 lead at the Bears, you know, your rival, the coach who has become your rival. How do you digest this? How do you size this up? If you have a Packers fan in your life who's calling you up, Deontay, say, tell me what I should think about this.

11:34Diante Lee:What do you tell them after a game like this? You know, Shiel, for me, honestly, I don't know if I have anything rational to say in response to a Packers fan who's calling me, asking, you know, for guidance in this moment, right? asking for an easy way to kind of cope with and rationalize this loss. And that's not to say that because you lose in an embarrassing fashion, it's not to say because you lose to a division rival, it's not to say that because you blow a multi-score second-half lead that you have to burn the whole thing down. But I do think if you're a Packers fan, this is not necessarily just a prisoner of the moment thing.

12:07I think that this is something we can zoom out and look at over Matt LaFleur's tenure because he's been here for a little while. your three playoff wins under LaFleur was against an awful Cowboys defense, which is basically like the very end of the Dan Quinn stint as a defensive coordinator in Dallas. You have the end of the golf era in 2020 against the Rams. And you basically have like the end of the Russell Wilson era in 2019 against the Seahawks, right? That's not to say that those playoff wins don't count. But I do think if you're just looking at the way that this team played in the second half, it was just kind of a great representation of some of the things that have held this team up.

12:42the season. We pointed it out early in the year, right? They kind of only have two modes of running the ball. It's either going for a big one because you get a light box and everything is set up perfectly or it's going for nothing. You have to be looking at the game that Jordan Love just had and saying, we can't lose that game. If we get that version of Jordan Love in a postseason game on the road, we absolutely have to win it. That cannot go to waste. So it doesn't mean that Matt LaFleur is not a good coach. It doesn't mean that I think he should lose his job. But if you are a front office executive that's sitting with their CEO, right, over this weekend, going into next week, and you're saying, hey, man, we might lose Jeff Halfley now to be a head coach elsewhere.

13:22We have a head coach who has not been able to get us to where we want to go with this organization. Should we consider all of our options here? I wouldn't be mad at that. If they ultimately landed on keeping Matt LaFleur for another year and maybe the eyes are on him in a way that's even greater than what it is right now, I would totally understand that. And if they They decided to go in a different direction, obviously contingent on who they got next. I would understand that as well. I do think it's fair to ask a question of a head coach that's had an MVP in Aaron Rodgers at the end of his prime and now has one of the rising stars, Jordan Love, who did not fade in this postseason, who did not have major turnover problems in this game or major sack problems in this game.

14:02It is fair to ask why the head coach hasn't quite gotten over the hump.

14:06Diante Lee:you know I'm looking at the pro football reference page and it's like you know we went from this is incredible he's going from Rodgers to love and they're still a competitive team this is one of the best coaching jobs in the NFL but now we've had three years of that and they've had one playoff win in three years so at some point you have to stop you like you stop giving credit for that And again, even those years with Rodgers, when they were amazing, and I know it's, I don't want to judge stuff by one game. They got to the conference championship game. It's not like he has that goodwill built up, basically.

14:43Diante Lee:You know, if you got to the Super Bowl or obviously won the Super Bowl in one of those Rodgers years, then you're saying everybody settled down. This guy has done it. But now it's what? One, two, three, four, five years without getting out of the divisional round. And again, one playoff win in the last four years. Again, if I'm in Green Bay and I'm just part of the, whatever, the decision-making process and they're saying, Shiel, what do you think? I'm saying, hey, we lost Micah Parsons. Okay, this was our big move. Matt LaFleur, listen, we can work with him on some of this stuff that's happening at the end of games.

15:19Diante Lee:He is still a very good coach. He's still a very good offensive coach. We are, the likelihood of us getting someone better than him versus him improving and growing as a head coach, I would rather keep him. That is absolutely my stance right now. But you're right. Now you kind of look at going into next year, it does sort of feel like there would be some pressure where if this were to happen again next year and they don't get out of the first round or even worse, they don't make the playoffs or whatever. That's when I think those conversations really get heated. But you know what? After the Harbaugh thing, it is a weird year.

15:56Diante Lee:And I do think some of these coaches that haven't gotten over the hum, like it wouldn't totally shock me if we are texting you, Deontay, and to, hey, Deontay, can you jump on emergency pod? Matt LeFleur got fired. That wouldn't totally shock me. I don't think that's what's going to happen, but I do understand the questions here. All right, before we go to break, Deontay, I'm going to read you my notes from the first half here, okay? Please. Because I'm team content, you know, and I'm all right embarrassing myself. So here's what I had written down. You know, I'm getting ready. I'm like, all right, let me get some notes down for the pod.

16:27Diante Lee:Ben Johnson flop? Question mark. Oh my gosh. Trick plays not working. Execution off. Bad snap on fourth down. Caleb Williams interception. Luther Burden confused. All the gimmicky stuff is getting stuffed. 21-6 in the third. Fourth and one in the red zone. He goes play action. And I got LaFleur cook Dennis Allen just killing their man coverage. And then I got LaFleur out coaching Ben Johnson. Coaching is getting your players to execute. the talk of LeFleur coaching for his job was absurd. And then I have LeFleur masterclass equivalent of stuffing Ben Johnson into a locker. See why I don't post a lot during games, Deontay?

17:06Diante Lee:Never tweet, man. Never tweet before the end of the game. Just wait till the end and then fire him off. 100%. No. 100%. You're not a coward. I'm a coward, so I keep posting myself. But I'm 100 % with you. I didn't jump in on this one because I had a feeling, given the way that the first few matchups this season played out, that we probably weren't at the end of it. with how poorly things went in the first half. But I had a very similar thought to you. Like, hey, man, the play calls themselves are fine, Ben Johnson. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We get to the other game, Rams versus Panthers.

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19:09Diante Lee:All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show. All right, let me start with the Rams. So this was also a fantastic game. Rams, Panthers. I mean, there was a time in the fourth quarter where I'm going, are the Panthers actually going to pull this off. It's this weird NFL season. And guess what? Maybe the favorite will lose in the wild card round as 10 and a half point favorites. But let's start with the Rams aspect of this, because I'm going to give the caveat that NFL history is littered with Super Bowl champions who didn't look great in the wild card round. It's just one game. Rams can still do this.

19:41Diante Lee:And that was a great last drive by Matthew Stafford, the touchdown by Colby Parkinson. But I got to say, I can't help but feel like the team we're watching right now is just different than the team we were watching a month ago. Since that nine-minute mark in the fourth quarter of that Seahawks game, they lose that game to the Seahawks. They lose to the Falcons on Monday night where they get outplayed for most of that game. They beat the Cardinals, but even in that game that no one was paying attention to, they're trailing late in the third quarter in that game against Jacoby Brissett. And then in this game, as 10.5-point favorites, I do feel like it was a coin flip game.

20:17Diante Lee:I don't feel like it was fluky. I mean, the Panthers had two turnovers in this game, and I'm watching it going. I know the numbers on the Rams' defense are good. I don't trust their defense. I don't trust their secondary. Now Matthew Stafford's dealing with a finger injury, and I'm just not sure about this team. Again, I know they can still do it, but if you're just asking for what I feel inside, Deontay, I feel differently about them than I did a month ago when we were talking about the Rams. I mean, we're coming down the stretch of this game, and I picked the Rams to win the Super Bowl, right?

20:47when we did all our staff picks for the site. And I'm just sitting there like, wow, how foolish of me to have seen a very obvious flaw with this team being the back seven of this defense, knowing how well Seattle moved the ball against them when they played on that Thursday night game, knowing how well Detroit moved the ball against them when they had played the week prior. And I'm just sitting there looking at myself like, I dismissed that for no good reason because I'm typically pretty consistent in teams that have these fatal flaws, these potential fatal flaws, rarely end up being the teams that play like champions, and that's exactly what it looked like down the stretch of this game.

21:21I would say the moment that this offense kind of lost its rhythm in the second quarter, right, second to like the first half of the third quarter-ish, it definitely looked like they weren't the same machine in the passing game that we had expected them to be, certainly weren't playing as well as they had to open the game. And I was like, oh, this is perfect for the Panthers. They've got just enough window to be able to get out in front and maybe hold Los Angeles off. I think that ultimately the reason why they escaped with this comes back to the fact that they don't have to get explosives in the run game to be effective, right?

21:52It's not that they were just mashing Carolina up front on a down-to-down basis, but they were getting four and a half here, another six yards there. They were turning second and shorts in the first and tens. They were turning third and shorts in the first and tens. And that ended up alleviating a lot of the pressure that I felt like Matthew Stafford was under when that offense went cold. I do think that we have to have a conversation for all the success of this offense that they have not been a good third down offense basically since about the midway point of this season. You add that with a vulnerable defense and we are probably talking about a team that has a little bit more tenuous relationship to their ability to contend than what we were talking about before the holiday season.