The Week 2 NFL Storylines That Actually Matter, With Lindsay Jones

0:00Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shiel Kapadia. We're on to week two. Everyone's had their week one takes, but now we're going to look at storylines that actually matter going into the weekend. So we're cutting through the noise of the small samples and the overreactions and the randomness and all that. And we're focusing on storylines that actually matter. And to discuss those, thrilled to be joined by my Ringer colleague, senior editor, friend, Lindsay Jones. Lindsay, first team we're talking about is the Las Vegas Raiders, and they are part of a Monday night doubleheader, which I just found out like yesterday, 10 p.m.

0:36kickoff Eastern time for East coasters like me. But you are mountain time zone. Are you thumbs up or thumbs down on this Monday night doubleheader? Well, thank you for having me. First of all, I'm thrilled to be here and potting with you once again. But I don't know who ever asked for Monday night doubleheaders. I don't know who exactly this is for. And yes, I am an old person and an eight o 'clock kickoff here in my lovely mountain time zone. It's just too late. I don't know how you people live on the East Coast. Eight o 'clock kickoff is just completely unacceptable. Eight o 'clock unacceptable.

1:12Ten o 'clock. I'm going to add the coffee intake is going to be very interesting for me on Monday, but fun matchup. Raiders Chargers. We're going to talk about that. We're going to come back. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by FanDuel and the NFL is officially back. So if you're going to be in it, be in it with FanDuel. They've got the goods, futures, live betting, SGPs, your way bets, all of it. The app's clean, it's fast. And yeah, when you win, you get paid instantly, which is nice because Sunday patience doesn't exist. So get your bets in, build something bold, and make every game feel bigger.

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3:07All right, let's get to it, Lindsay. So we've got three storylines we want to talk about today. Storyline number one has to do with the Las Vegas Raiders. And the storyline is, are the Raiders this year's feel-good surprise playoff team? You know, they get the win in week one against the Patriots. Best vibes, maybe, of any week one team. Geno Smith giving Pete Carroll the game ball, the locker room celebration. And now they take on a Chargers team that was very impressive in week one. And I guess, as we might say at the Ringer, are the Raiders like a good-bad team? Or are they potentially an actual good team that could be in the playoffs?

3:46So what's your sort of temperature check with the Las Vegas Raiders going into week two? Yeah, I mean, they were really fun. And I'm like very intrigued about the entire AFC West. I mean, looking at the standings after week one and seeing the Chiefs at the bottom, that's kind of startling, right? I guess it's one week or whatever, but that's just not something that we've seen in a while. So, you know, I think it was important for the Raiders to get off to that quick start. Going to New England is always really tough in week one. We're talking about time zones, right? going out to the East Coast.

4:13That's 10 a.m. for their bodies, you know, having to start pretty early. So, you know, they got off to a quick start. I mean, I think Chip Kelly scripted up the beginning of that game great. I mean, you just watch it, and it was like bang, bang, bang, you know, Chunk plays, Brock Bowers. It was like, oh, right, okay. This team, like, they're ready to go. And I think as the game wore on, maybe not quite as explosively overall. I mean, I think, you know, it's stalled out at some points. I think the run game was somewhat disappointing. But just in terms of what we wanted to see, like the Raiders looked functional.

4:46They looked fun to watch and they got a win. So I don't know what else more they could have really wanted out of week one. I love the term functional because it's been a while for the Raiders. There's been a lot of dysfunction over the years and specifically the last two coaches there, Antonio Pierce, Josh McDaniels, even before then, there was plenty of dysfunction with John Gruden. So I'm with you. It just felt it. And it's not totally vibes because they were, you know, players like D 'Antonio Pierce. It seemed like you just felt like, all right, the coaching staff isn't necessarily giving them an edge.

5:17So it's got to be both those things. It can't just be the players having fun smoking cigars in the locker room afterwards. So what Geno Smith did, I think, you know, that was a classic. This is why the hipsters love Geno Smith game. You know, he was just chucking it downfield, tight windows, nine completions of 20 plus yards in that game. It was a lot of fun what they did offensively. Now, looking ahead, the two things that give me some, I don't know if a pause or concern is the right word, but like, I want to see it again. One is the offensive line because the offensive line was not great in that game.

5:50Ashton Gentry did not have a great debut in that game. He had a couple of nice runs, but overall the run game wasn't very good. And then defensively, I'm just going to keep looking at that roster and being like, how are they doing this? I think Patrick Graham did a fantastic job in week one. He's done a fantastic job for years now with them and their defensive line got off after the Patriots. But you just look at like the talent on that side of the ball. And I think that's the big question going up against this Chargers team that was so impressive on that Friday night game against the Chiefs. Yeah, absolutely.

6:24That's certainly what I'm going to be looking for heading into that game against the Chargers because look, the Chargers offensive line way overperformed my expectations in week one. And I think part of that is the Chiefs defense is pretty out of sorts right now. And that's something that I'm sure you'll be talking about on future pods coming up. But, you know, this was a group that didn't have Rayshawn Slater. I wasn't sure how this whole thing was going to work. And they were really good. Justin Herbert had tons of time. The Chargers passing game was just clicking that entire game. And with a receiver group that, you know, I don't think any of us are like, this is a group of world beaters.

6:58Like, we like Ladd McConkie. But, you know, so I think that this is going to be a pretty big test for this Raiders defense. Again, I mean, I think that the Chargers offense is, I'll use that word again, functional. And they are going to throw the ball, despite how many times we heard on that Friday night broadcast, right? I can't believe they're throwing the ball. This is a running team. No, the Chargers are going to throw the ball. They're going to throw the ball a lot. And so I am very curious to see if this Raiders secondary is going to be able to hold up. And if they're going to be able to kind of keep up this pressure rate, right?

7:29I think they had 21 pressures in week one. That was the most in the league. And it wasn't just Max Crosby. They were getting some interior pressure as well. And that's something that they're absolutely going to have to do that on Monday night if they want to be able to beat the Chargers and get to 2-0. Yeah, no doubt about it. The three-point underdogs at home. I think it's a winnable game. It's a game you mentioned the standings. It's like, all right, you just click on the standings page once in a while this time of the year. And if the Broncos lose to the Colts and Raiders win that game, they are still in first place.

7:59after two weeks. Last thing on this game, we get Pete Carroll versus Jim Harbaugh round three. I don't know if you've thought about that yet. I can't believe I took this long to talk about that. I mean, this is like the rivalry. Yeah, it's the rivalry goes back. Stanford, USC, Seahawks, Niners, and now we are blessed to get round three of Pete Carroll, Jim Harbaugh. It would just be so fun if there were some, you know, handshake, squabble, someone running up the score, someone doing something untowards at the end of the game. I'm rooting for that. If I'm going to stay up till 1 a.m. Eastern time, I got to see something like that at the end.

8:33And some of the best stuff with them has happened like late in those games. So yeah, fire up the coffee machine. Let's get let's stay up for it. I do think they've mellowed a little bit in terms of the rivalry. Like last spring at the owners meetings, they were like next to each other in the picture and stuff. And I was like, all right, like, let's know. Like, let's play this up. Like, somebody be the heel. Like, let's make this a real fun rivalry. So game one, we can cross our fingers and hope for some sort of like, what's your deal? Because those are the best. What's your deal? I actually looked earlier.

9:04I was Googling if there was like, what's your deal with Pete Carroll's face on a t-shirt. I was going on those custom t-shirt sites and looking at none out there. So if there's an enterprising listener who wants to put that together, I will definitely order one of those because that is still so classic. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We're talking about Pete Carroll's old team with our second storyline. This episode is brought to you by Verizon. Rookie debuts, underdog stories, bold trades. Talk about refreshing. You know what else is refreshing? A brand new phone with Verizon. Get a new phone on any plan with select phone trade-in and my plan.

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10:23Lindsay Jones:When every second counts, count on ADT. Visit ADT.com to learn more. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. Storyline number two for week two for me. Does the Seahawks offseason makeover already look misguided? So they lose to the Niners 17-13 in week one. The offense has 14 first downs, 230 total yards, and two turnovers. first game of that Clint Kubiak, Sam Darnold era. And now they go to Pittsburgh and they're two and a half point underdogs. Justin Fields, in one of the bigger surprises of week one, carved up that Steelers defense. The Jets ran for 182 yards. And so if you're a Seahawks fan and you look at that, you say, our offense better look better and better respond here in week two.

11:14So what's your sense on the likelihood of that happening? And if it doesn't happen, what's sort of the panic meter at with the Seahawks team? Yeah, I mean, they don't want to fall to 0-2. I mean, I think that's, you know, that's really when we're looking at kind of the entire landscape of the league. This week, you look at those 0-1 teams and who's in big trouble if they fall to 0-2? And, you know, that's a really bad spot to be in. You know, I think the Niners, there's a lot of questions with them right now at this point, but in this division, we know it's going to be super competitive. So you do not want to start falling behind this early.

11:46I just think what I'm thinking about the Seahawks this year, I'm glad we just talked about the Raiders because that's kind of going to be this cloud that's hanging over the Seahawks all year because we're going to be comparing how did Geno Smith play? And look, Geno Smith played awesome in week one. And so I think we're going to always have this comparison of what did Geno do and how is Sam Darnold playing? Maybe it's unfair to compare them, you know, passing yards to passing yards and pressure rate and all of those sorts of things. But the fact is the Seahawks lost a game because Sam Darnold committed a turnover in crunch time.

12:21I mean, I think there's a lot of things that go into it, but ultimately the knock on Sam Darnold for his entire career outside really of, you know, the first 12 weeks of last season, 12, 15 weeks of last season, was that this is a guy who kind of fails in those clutch moments and turns over the ball a lot, is not careful with the football. And that's what happened in week one. So the Steelers defense, not great in week one, but historically very opportunistic. This is a team that, a Mike Tomlin coach team that is going to get turnovers. They're going to get strip sacks in the big moments. That's one of the reasons that they, you know, Tomlin has that incredible record that we love to talk about so much, his streak of non-losing seasons.

13:04So I want to see Sam Darnold take care of the football. And if he can't do that for two weeks in a row, I'm going to be real worried about Seattle. Yeah, I like your point about sort of the class because if you're a Seahawks fan, you're watching what Pete Carroll does. You're watching what Geno Smith does. And by the way, you're watching what DK Metcalf does because they're facing him in this game. I thought he looked really good, really fast, was doing different things for that Steelers offense last week. And when I was watching that Seahawks game, other than Jackson Smith and Jigba, you're like, who's going to make a play for this team in the passing game?

13:36I mean, all the volume was being funneled to him and he had a nice game and he's a very good wide receiver, but it's just hard to get by when it's one guy and you're not sure who else is going to show up, whether it's Cooper Cup or someone else down the depth chart. So that's a big storyline for me as well. And then it's just the whole sort of messaging with the Seahawks in the offseason that they tried to sell everyone on, hey, Clint Kubiak's going to be able to scheme around the offensive line. And they kept preaching two things. One is, hey, we're going to get back to a strong run game and our play-action pass game is going to help the offensive line.

14:09Well, they ran for 84 yards on 26 carries last week. No running back had a carry longer than eight yards in that game. And then they used play action on two plays. I mean, that was one of the biggest surprises of week one. When you look at their preseason and you just look at, all right, this is what they want to do. That was also really strange. And I know Mike McDonald addressed it after the game. So yeah, I'm curious to see with Clint Kubiak and this offense, it was only one week. Does it look different? Do they have answers against this Jets team? Well, one of my, I love this time of year on the NFL calendar because week one, there's so much excitement, but we also don't really know what's going to happen.

14:48And we've spent months, right? If you're a reporter who's out covering the league and national reporter, you're going to training camps, or if you're a beat writer watching every single practice. And then us who are like, we're trying to consume all of that content and filter out like what's real and what's not. and they're like lying to us all the time. These coaches and these teams and everybody is so optimistic about like what their new identity is going to be. And you can get really caught up in like, oh, this new coordinator, everything's going to be better, right? Because like that offense was pretty stale last year for a lot of reasons and they needed to make some changes.

15:24And you can get really excited about Clint Kubiak. But ultimately, like what has Clint Kubiak done to necessarily like Warren? and everything is going to be better here. So this is not, Seattle's not the only team that were in this circumstance, right? But like you have to make a lot of assumptions about this team is going to be better in 2025 because they've made change X, Y, and Z. But you can't really, you don't really know until we see it. And, you know, I want to see just a bit of a larger sample out of what this offense is going to look like. Because ultimately there's a lot of places where you talk a big game about the changes that you're going to see and why your team's going to be better.

16:00but ultimately your personnel is largely the same or you can't make a wholesale, you know, offensive scheme change in one off season and have a click in week one. So, you know, I think they're one of those teams that I'm really looking forward to seeing, like at some point that identity has got to match the language that we heard all summer about them. It just didn't happen right away. I love that point because it also applies to Mike McDonald, the language, the messaging, and then the actions. And in that game, they had a fourth and one from the San Francisco 19 with 324 left. Game's tied at 10-10.

16:35If you go for it, you're taking time off the clock, potentially score a touchdown that puts you up seven instead of three. Mike McDonald, who I don't know if you've been following this, but all summer, chasing edges has been his big catchphrase. We're chasing it. And I believe it, man. It's a good catchphrase. I like that. Chasing edges. but like that's a spot where he said their analytical model, whoever's advising him on the headset said to go for it and he didn't think it was the right time and he didn't go for it. And I thought that told us so much about what he thinks about his team because he's not one of the, you know, he's not like one of these coaches who's like, oh no, we're not going to follow that.

17:14I'm going to go with my gut. Like he's got the process in place where he wants the information. He comes from Baltimore where they did that. He's a smart guy. But even having that information he was like, I can't do it. I don't trust my offense to get a yard. I would rather trust my defense to stop the 49ers in this spot. And they didn't do it. They gave up a touchdown. So I thought in week one in a big spot, that kind of just told you a lot about maybe what Mike McDonald thinks about his team and what he thinks about their best chances to win this season. So I'm keeping an eye on the game management with McDonald too.

17:48Not because I think he's going to make dumb decisions, but I'm curious about what decisions does he make actually having the information and a good process in place. So that's going to be interesting this week as well. All right, storyline number three. Are the Dolphins, the Miami Dolphins, headed for the season from hell? Are they that team this year where you came into the season? You know, you might've thought they were headed for that or you might've thought, you know what? They've been 28 and 23 with Mike McDaniel. They haven't been great, but they've been relatively competent. Week one was not competent.

18:22They got crushed by Daniel Jones and the Indianapolis Colts. I thought they got outcoached. I thought Tua looked terrible. I thought the warts on their roster, offensive line, cornerback were completely exposed. And now they return home to take on the Patriots. They are one and a half point favorites in that game. If they fall to 0-2, it could get really ugly really quickly. what is sort of your vibe check with the Miami Dolphins going into this weekend?

18:51Lindsay Jones:I have been struggling to remember a team where the vibes were worse. I just, I mean, the vibes were really bad all summer. Like this was like the bad vibe all-star team in training camp. Like even when you would try to find like the local coverage, you know, I think you can kind of get this like positive spin on the team that, you know, and there just was none. There was no like why this team is going to be better than you think they are. It was really, really hard to find really any of that. And, you know, I think there was, you know, you heard little bits of like, maybe, maybe, you know, you think like, okay, they have Tyreek Hill when two is healthy.

19:28Lindsay Jones:They've been a really good team. Mike McDaniel can really scheme stuff up. Zero evidence of that in week one. And I went back and I looked and because I was trying to think, I was like, what other teams have had really bad losses in week one? Like they can't be the only team that's like gotten blown out in week one. And there's lots of teams that have lost by 15, 20, 30 points in week one. There's not a lot of examples of teams that have kind of turned it around. And the teams that have turned it around, there have kind of been some sort of, you could have some sort of explanation. I went back, do you remember the 2021 season?

20:04Lindsay Jones:I don't know if you remember this, Sheil. Week one, the Packers lost 38 to three to the Saints. It was this weird game. There was a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf. And so they played that game in Jacksonville. Aaron Rodgers threw two interceptions. They just got their asses handed to them. Jameis Winston, I think, threw like five touchdowns. It was like one of the best Jameis Winston games ever. And it was like, oh, what's up with the Packers? Like, oh, oh, no. How many interceptions did Aaron Rodgers throw the rest of the year? Two. Two. All right. The same as he threw in week one. They went on.

20:38Lindsay Jones:They were the number one seed in the NFC. they were fine. That same week, the Titans lost by 15, let's see, no, 20, 25 points to the Cardinals at home. They went on, got the number one seed. Kind of a not that memorable of a Titans team. If you had said who got the number one seed in the 2021 season, I don't think anybody would right off the bat remember it was the Titans. But those are two examples of teams that kind of like got it together. That is not this Dolphins team. I do not think in any case the Dolphins have like the offensive infrastructure, the coaching stability, the kind of the culture around to be like, okay, we can get it together.

21:17Lindsay Jones:Everything about this team screams, this is going to blow up and blow up fast. You know what it is? They are, I think, the most fragile team in the NFL. Like it's been like this for years. And that doesn't mean they're the worst team. They haven't been the worst team under Mike McDaniel, but most fragile team. Like, you know, you can turn them on on any given week and think, wow, they're putting up points. They have a real chance. But once things start to go bad, I think they just snowball. There's not, I hate to speak in football coach cliches, but there's no resilience to them. There's no like, oh, this team can overcome adversity or to your point, this team can overcome a bad start.

21:55They're like a front running team where if they get out there and they're scoring touchdowns in the first quarter, yeah, they can beat a lot of teams in the NFL. But I really worry about things getting out of control when they start to go badly. And it feels like they started to go badly. And to your point, this isn't just this game. This is the end of last season. This is the off season. This is Mike McDaniel coming in with a lot of pressure, maybe the hottest seat or one of the hottest seats in the NFL. And so you add all those things together. Now you have injuries at cornerback. They had a couple offensive line injuries in that game.

22:27So you add all this up and you're looking at it going, I don't know if it's going to get better. And they're one of the teams that we know who gets blamed when things go badly in Miami. I mean, Chris Greer has been around for 10 years. 2016, he was named GM. A nine-year stretch where they have not won a playoff game. They've made the playoffs three times and it feels like he's still got really good job security. So if things go sideways, we know where it's going with Mike McDaniel. So I'm still like, I feel like could they be an okay team this year? I think that's possible, but my opinion is going to be shaped in a lot of ways by whether they respond and are able to beat a beatable Patriots team this weekend.

23:09Lindsay Jones:Yeah. I mean, football wise, if we're just talking like schematic stuff, I think the most problematic part or the concerning thing that's going on is that, you know, we're what, four years into the Mike McDaniel kind of experience. And we haven't really seen any sort of like offensive evolution. We kind of know that they do what they do. And when they have done it at their peak, they've been unstoppable. I mean, right. We all remember them scoring 50 plus, right. Against the Broncos a couple of years ago. And like, holy shit, this guy is taking over the NFL, like his offense, the stuff that he was doing with motion, everything pre-snap, um, the way that kind of like loaded his roster with all these speed guys, like we weren't seeing that anywhere.