What We Learned in Week 9: Jayden Daniels's Injury, NFC North Chaos, and the Bills D Steps Up!

0:00Diante Lee:Welcome to the Ringer NFL Show. I'm your host, Sheil Kapadia. We're talking about what we learned in week nine. We had a Sunday night Seahawks blowout over the Commanders and an unfortunate injury to Jaden Daniels. We'll talk about that. The Bills took care of business against the Chiefs. What do we take from that victory? Does it mean anything? And then just chaos in the NFC North. Packers lose, Bears win a wild one, and the Vikings upset the Lions. So there is a lot there to get to. My guest is Deontay Lee, our good friend from the Ringer. He disagreed with me on some of this stuff, like what we take away from that Bills win over the Chiefs.

0:41Diante Lee:So we'll talk about all of it when we come back after the break. This is the Ringer NFL Show presented by FanDuel, the best place to bet the NFL all season long. FanDuel's got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in live and your way so you can build the bet that fits your play. And Missouri, get excited because FanDuel is coming your way December 1st. Download thefanduel.com slash ringer NFL to get started. Must be 21 plus and present in select states and 18 plus in DC, Kentucky, and Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut.

1:31This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

2:09Diante Lee:all right we are back here with Deontay Lee talking about what we learned and that's it's officially the season from hell for the commanders and not just because they got blown out we're not competitive against the Seahawks and Sunday night just a horrible game now they're three and six but because with 739 left, Jaden Daniels goes down with what appeared to be a serious injury to his left arm. Now, we don't know the details as of this recording, but Deontay, I think it's absolutely fair to question why in the world Jaden Daniels is in the game at that point. I mean, he's 38-7, 739 left. He's coming off an injury.

2:46Diante Lee:The game's over and he's still in there. And you know how he's going to play. And to be clear, this isn't just like a Dan Quinn problem, but I don't understand why we see this throughout the NFL. And maybe this will be the turning point, but it's just stupid. Like teams put in all this work with like, you know, who's going to play in the preseason or how many reps are you going to get during practice? And then it comes to a situation like this where there's a blowout and your franchise quarterback, it's like, they don't even think about it. They just keep him out there and I don't get it. And we saw it last week, Brian Dayball is leaving Jackson Dart in a game calling designed runs.

3:21Diante Lee:He's getting like level. He's getting lit up. And I don't understand why coaches do this. So I know Daniels wanted to play. Who cares? Players need to, players are always going to want to play. You have to take the decision out of their hands. So I don't get it. Is it fair or unfair to criticize the commanders and Dan Quinn for leaving Jaden Daniels in that football game? This is maybe one of the only circumstances where I think you get to play Monday morning quarterback and be totally justified. Right? Like, because the juice is just not worth the squeeze in this, in this scenario. You're already chasing what four scores at that point, if not more, right?

3:57The game is well over. I mean, congratulations. You have this garbage time drive that you're trying to score on, but that's not going to materially change the way that you're going to feel about this game. It's not going to change anything for Jaden Daniels at that point, especially knowing that like Marcus Mariota can show up in the game and it not look like a total disaster, right? He can execute the exact same plays that they were running to get to that point. I think that the right decision just in general probably is to pull him, especially, I would say, especially because he's fresh off of being hurt and you guys are already dealing with injuries as is.

4:32And the season doesn't necessarily have to be a lost one, right? You can kind of take your lumps here, try to compete maybe for the seventh seed in the NFC later on down the line. And depending on what we hear back from Jaden Daniels' injury, all that might be off the table, right? And that's just not where you want to be if you're Washington. But I think all this circles back to, I think, bigger than just this moment. It's confirmation of what you said at the top of the show. This is a season from hell. Everybody was predicting this regression. I think that we probably thought about it more from a style of play, more from a, hey, fourth down conversions, fourth quarter luck, all those types of things.

5:06And that hasn't necessarily been what's derailed the season. It's been health and the fact that this defense has taken a bunch of steps backwards. And now that you know that your quarterback is probably not going to be available for a while. You have to ask some serious questions about what exactly it is that they got accomplished this year, if anything at all.

5:22Diante Lee:Yeah, I think we have to see how bad this gets because even predicting the regression and I thought, you know what? I still like Daniels. Maybe they can get to nine and eight and still earn a playoff spot. The regression has hit and it has hit hard and they've had an old roster and the moves they made in the offseason have not worked out. So there's kind of a whole autopsy to do, which we'll probably do here in a future show. But yeah, they're in a bad spot here. I mean, it's really hard to come up with a reason for optimism why they would be able to climb out of this hole at 3-6 and get into the playoffs other than just, you know, maybe that 7 seed is going to be open there.

5:58Diante Lee:So it'll be a big story this week. We'll see what happens with Daniels. We'll see how serious that injury is. Maybe by the time you listen to it to this episode, we already have the news. But yeah, I don't know why they're putting him in that spot. Alright, next thing we learned here, Deontay. And I wonder if you're going to agree with me on this. You might not. I think we learned that the bills have found something defensively. Now, let me be clear here. I'm not saying a top five or top 10 defense, but there have been times this season where you and I have talked and we've wondered, can their defense just reach that very low threshold to give their offense a chance to win a Superbowl.

6:37Diante Lee:And there have been weeks where we're like, I don't know, It doesn't look like that, but I thought against the Chiefs, they showed they can get to that baseline of competency that I always have been talking about for years. Just get to that baseline of competency if you have a great quarterback and give him a chance. I mean, their pass rush got going. Joey Bosa, Greg Russo, AJ Epinesa. They got the rookie Maxwell Hairston back last week. He played more of a role here. So I'm not telling you again that they have an elite defense, but I thought I saw enough today where if I'm a Bills fan, I'm pretty excited because I think I have a great offense and I feel like that defense can give me a chance to make a run in the AFC.

7:15Diante Lee:Am I going too far or are you at that point as well? I'm not there. And I will say that like the reason why I'm not there is because I just continue to ask myself the same sequence of questions when it comes to these AFC contenders when they play against the Chiefs. Right. The first question is always like, what did I evaluate based off of what we actually saw between the lines? And then based on that evaluation, does it materially change how I feel about this team and its pathway to beating Kansas City in the playoffs? And to tackle the first question, I think they did exactly what you said. They got pressure in a way that you don't usually see Patrick Mahomes be pressured in a lot of ways.

7:55Actually, this game reminds me of their game last year, week nine or week 10, where they gave Kansas City their first loss. And you saw the offense was moving the ball, controlling the line of scrimmage. Josh Allen was a wizard on third down in that game. I thought that he was great in obvious passing situations in this game. And there really weren't even that many of them because they did such a good job on first and second down managing the game situation in the down and distance. But defensively, you force some turnovers. You get some inconsistent play from Mahomes. I would say this might be his most uncharacteristic regular season game that we've seen in I don't know how long, and especially over the last month, month and a half where it looked like, oh, God, this team is back to 2019, 2020, 2021 levels of efficiency.

8:36It was a shock to see them play that way. But I think that kind of speaks to what pressure can do, what pressure with four can do. And we have just not seen Kansas City be pressured to that degree with only four rushers and a team that was able to put a cap over most of the explosive plays that they were shooting for. That was my initial evaluation. But if I'm being honest, the longer I sat with it, I look at Buffalo's defense and I still see a team that is going to be asking its quarterback and its offensive line to operate at an A-plus level to go win a Super Bowl. And to me, the margins are just way too slim if you're asking your offense to perform that way, knowing that the team that you have to beat on the other side in a playoff environment would be Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City team that has played its best ball every year in January and February.

9:25I just don't know if I trust them to be able to replicate that if these two teams were to match up again in the playoffs, even if the game was happening at Highmark Stadium. you.

9:33Diante Lee:It's interesting that their offense has not had an issue with spags. Like even you look at that play. I mean, uh, the chiefs came up in a big spot in that play in the, in the championship game last year, but overall you look at it, I mean, the bills played kind of similar. Yeah, it was very similar to what you saw today. Yeah. They've moved the ball at will. Absolutely. So I think their offense is reliable. And in that game, their defense was just such a disaster. They couldn't do anything. It was like a 98th percentile game for the chiefs, uh, in terms of success rate. So I was buying a look like Joey Bosa in this game.

10:05Diante Lee:I mean, looks like prime Joey Bosa where they signed him in the off season. I'm like, that's an interesting dart throw, but I don't know if you're going to get your bank for your buck there with that signing. And he played really well for them. The other guys, like I said, AJ F Vanessa, Greg Rousseau, those guys played well. Cole Bishop. I mean, how many times did they mention his name at safety in this game. So I think they've got some guys to, again, they just kind of need to play a game in the playoffs where they're giving the offense a chance and they weren't able to do that last year. So I'm buying them a little bit more than you are.

10:40Diante Lee:Where are you with like, because I was looking at this as, you know, I looked at the standings before we came on, Deontay, and I didn't realize this, but the Bills would be a wildcard team right now if the playoffs started. the Chiefs would be out of the playoffs. They're the AFC right now. I was refreshing. Wait a minute. No, this has not happened to me since I've been checking the standings. So the Chiefs would be out of the playoffs. Yet, having said that, I got those two teams in their own tier in the AFC. Are you like, nope, Colts, Patriots, Broncos, Steelers, Chargers, one of them, they belong in the same tier as the Chiefs or the Bills?

11:18Diante Lee:Because I've got those two teams in the top tier and everyone else in the next tier. I think if you're evaluating like down to down quality, I actually think that that cluster of teams is a lot closer than what I ever would have said at any other point in the Josh Allen. Closer to the Chiefs and the Bills. Closer to the Chiefs and the Bills, yes. And at any other point, I think in this, than it has been in this era. But I do still have those two teams in their own tier. Now, circumstances might change how things ultimately play out, right? Kansas City's early season losses can end up really harming them later on down the line when we're talking about teams that are making a playoff run because there are a lot of teams in the AFC that have light schedules, right?

11:54You think about New England. They've got about as light a schedule as it comes in the NFL the rest of the way, right? And they only have to see Buffalo one more time. So Kansas City could still be, in my opinion, a top five, top eight team, but be fighting for its playoff life, right? Like that is a reality. I think with Buffalo, they have an opportunity to be a 12, 13, 14 win team at their best. don't know if looking at their win column is going to be instructive enough of how I feel about them as Super Bowl contenders. You're not going to trust them, it sounds like. I don't. And I think, honestly, when we go back and re-watch this game, I think we're going to walk away from it feeling more like, oh, Kansas City might have been feeling itself a little bit too much in this game.

12:36Diante Lee:But if I'm a Chiefs fan, I am like, every time we have a game like this, it looks the same. You outlined it earlier. Just our offensive line can't protect and Mahomes is under pressure. And all of a sudden you say, wait, what happened to the offense? We've been watching for a month that looked like one of the best in the NFL. I mean, this is the formula the Eagles used had in the Super Bowl last year. This is the Bucs Super Bowl. Every time you see it, and it's not often, I'm not saying it's easy. It's easy for me to say, ah, just rush with four and yeah, pressure Mahomes. Obviously you can say that till the cows come home, but there are teams that can do it.

13:09Diante Lee:And when they do do it, the Chiefs lose games. And you saw that here and the Josh Simmons situation is still up in the air. Left tackle seemed like it was a problem for them in this game. Jawan Taylor, right tackle, leaves the game at one point. They had three backup offensive linemen in there. So we just have to see what that offensive line looks like. I'm with you. If we get to a playoff rematch and their offensive line is healthier, then we're probably going to say, well, that week nine game, I mean, you got to throw it out the window because this one's going to be a lot different. So we'll see.

13:41Diante Lee:I still, I'd be pumped if I were a Bills fan and I wouldn't be panicking if I were a Chiefs fan. I still think those are the two most likely teams to come out of the AFC. All right, let's take a break. We come back and then a division. I have no idea what to make of. That's the NFC North. We have to get into the chaos we saw in week nine. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by FanDuel. FanDuel is changing the way you live bet football and it starts with NextDrive SGPs. Now you can bet what's happening on the NextDrive. Will it end in a touchdown, a punt, a field goal? Then stack player props and build your bet exactly how you want it.

14:19Diante Lee:And every NFL game day comes with a profit boost you can use on your next drive SGP. Visit fanduel.com slash ringer NFL to download the app today and bet the next drive your way. Must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt-in required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Joe Malone London.

15:04Diante Lee:It's the go-to for fragrances and holiday gifts. If you're looking for a new scent, Cypress and Grapevine is their best-selling men's cologne. It's bold and woody, and it's worn by some of the biggest players in the game. Plus, they've got something for everyone on your holiday gift list, from pre-wrapped gift sets to candles, colognes, and luxury advent calendars to make gifting easy and extra special. Shop holiday favorites at joemalone.com or at a Joe Malone London store near you. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. Next thing we learned, Deontay, NFC North in full chaos mode, man.

15:43Diante Lee:This was, I don't know what was happening in these games. These four teams are separated now by one win. You have the Packers at 5-2-1, just playing with their food once again in a loss to the Carolina Panthers where they were 13.5 point favorites. You've got the Vikings with J.J. McCarthy going on the road to Detroit. It's eight and a half point underdogs. And they upset the Detroit Lions. And then you've got the Bears. And honestly, one of the wildest games of the entire season where they were going from, oh my gosh, why do I even watch sports anymore? To, oh, how could anyone not watch sports with the euphoria they felt at the end of that game?

16:28Diante Lee:And what's your biggest takeaway from any of these teams in the NFC North? Just what you saw on Sunday. I'm never selling with the Packers, but God, do they make you want to do it, right? When they have games like this, you can't sell on them because their upper quartile, right, in terms of like their level of performance, that upper quartile for them looks like a Super Bowl team, right? And there are moments we've seen this year where they're just bombs away on offense, getting sacks and forcing turnovers on defense and you leave those games feeling like how could anybody believe that they could beat this team that they had to play them in a one-game sample and it's because they'll show up the very next week and play like they did against carolina today or play how they did against cleveland a few weeks ago right so that always exists i would say that was probably my biggest takeaway i think as far as like the detroit minnesota game it was an uncharacteristic day for detroit's offensive line i do think if you're if you're a Jared Goff skeptic, you leave that game feeling like that guy is always there and it's always just a matter of time until pressure brings that version of Jared Goff out.

17:33But you don't usually see Detroit get dominated in between the tackles the way that they did, especially in the run game. I don't know if that's going to hold for a week on a week over week basis. And I felt like Minnesota probably played the best version of the best version of the game that they could have in that scenario. So I'm more willing to dismiss that one. And then I think with the Bears, my biggest takeaway with them is just that you can't If you ride the lightning with them on Caleb Williams is great. Caleb Williams is terrible every week. You're going to miss the forest for the trees.

18:01I think that the more we zoom out, the more we're looking at like this offense is accomplishing exactly what Ben Johnson said he wanted to accomplish this year. And as long as the defense doesn't do what it did in the last like six minutes of the fourth quarter of this game, that team actually can end up sneaking into the wildcard picture, even though I don't think anybody would pick them to win a playoff game. So I do think that the margins are extremely tight in this division, especially when we're talking about Detroit versus Green Bay, because I think we're just seeing more variance with them than I think we expected this year.

18:30Diante Lee:I'm with you on the bear. I think the most exciting thing, if you're a Bears fan, is that what you thought was being promised with this Ben Johnson experience with your young quarterback who you wanted to believe in, it's actually happening. I mean, they had 576 yards of offense in this game. They're producing explosive plays at the highest rate in the NFL. Remember after two or three weeks where we're like, they can't run the ball. They're now fourth in rushing success rate. He's figured that out. So all those things are coming together. And then it just isolating Caleb Williams. I mean, they have a third and 10 in that game where they are 35 seconds away from that being a loss that Bears fans will be telling their grandkids about.

19:13Diante Lee:And he has a scramble that he converts third and 10 and then he finds Colston Loveland for the 58 yard touchdown. And yes, is it terrible defense? Sure. But you still got to make the plays against terrible defense. So, um, I think you're very excited about that. I still think their defense stinks, honestly. And I know they get turned when they don't get turnovers, they don't do anything. I mean, Joe Flacco was cooking them in that game over 400 yards. He threw four, I think 10 completions of 20 plus yards. But if you're a Bears fan, you're like, guess what? I can live with that. I am here for Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams, because those are the two guys I want to be here three, five, eight years from now.

19:53Diante Lee:And that's happening for you in Chicago. So I thought that was exciting. And let's just get, we got to get back to the Packers here for a minute. Cause we've talked about the Packers a lot. I think we both have said, we think the Packers can get to the Superbowl. Like you mentioned, I was giving them credit last week. Remember we talked last week and I'm like, finally they put together a whole game. a game. Then I corrected myself. Well, they put together a whole half. It was a whole half on Sunday night against this team. That wasn't even a complete game. I don't understand why they're incapable of playing a complete game.

20:24Diante Lee:Deontay, they feel like a flip a switch team. Like they're an NBA team that thinks they can just float through the regular season, but they haven't done anything yet. They don't have a long playoff history. They don't have a championship pedigree where we should just say, oh, give them the benefit of the doubt. You know, they'll, like if the Chiefs, when the Chiefs do this, we're like, all right, it's the Chiefs, you know? And sometimes we get carried away, but still in the pit of our stomachs, we're like, they're still the Chiefs. They're still probably going to be there. You haven't done that yet if you're the Packers.

20:56Diante Lee:And they're a frustrating team. I still think I'm with you. I'm not giving up on them. Of course, if I made a list of three teams from the NFC, I think can get to the Super Bowl. They're going to be on that list. But I don't understand why this happens week after week. Tucker Craft, by the way, might be out for the season with a torn ACL. That hasn't been confirmed yet. Really hurts that offense. Yeah. The Athletics said they fear that. I called him last week the best tight end in the entire NFL. So that is a big, big deal. So I just don't know what to make of him. Like there was a situation ended the first half where it's like a 101 left and they're running the football at the 50 yard line.

21:34Diante Lee:And even Craig Olson's like, I don't know why they're running the ball so much. It's like, why aren't they thinking, let's go score a touchdown here? And stuff like that just seems to always creep up with them. And so I don't know what to make of them. It's sort of one of those things like, let's go through the ups and downs of the next couple months here and see where we are in January. But I don't understand why we're still having this conversation after week nine. I'm with you. And you know what? To draw a cross sports analogy, you know what they feel like to me? They feel like the Celtics team that ultimately ended up winning the NBA finals a few years ago.

22:08Right. And I think you remember all of the bluster throughout that NBA season of they take so many threes. This is unsustainable. When they make them, they look unstoppable. When they miss them, they look like the most beatable contender that you could have in the NBA. And what I remember about that year was Joe Mazzulla being like very ardent about, no, the math is going to work in our favor. These are the most efficient shots for us. We have the guys that can make them. The math will work out for us in high leverage situations. And he was proven right. Green Bay is just not necessarily borrowing from the same benefit of the doubt.

22:37They're not doing the smart math stuff.

22:38Diante Lee:I feel like, yeah, exactly. Right. And I think a lot of that is the over-reliance on the run game on early downs, right. And the bubble screens. And it's not like, you got Jordan love. I'm seeing a bubble screen. I mean, come on. If it was creative, we could say, Hey, when it's not working, the design is great. Things will probably work out for them. If we saw them doing something a little bit more innovative or something that was, I think, a little bit more sustainable on a down-to-down basis. We will feel a lot more comfortable with it. It's just not as imaginative this year as it was just last year, right?

23:12We were talking about them last year on this very podcast when Malik Willis was a starter. Like, whoa, this year broke out like the single wing offense, basically. This is one of the more creative run games we have in the league. I don't know if we see that as often. It seems like they're always like, all right, we're really running the ball to take a break between asking our receivers to run these deep posts and digs. I don't know if you can live that way, even though I think again, when they're converting on those explosive plays, they can do whatever they want offensively. I just, they just have not added the, added the extra layers.