49ers manhandle Rams on Thursday Night Football

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show, brought to you by the U.S. Bank smartly visa signature card. Well now flying halfway around the world, a day before the game seems a little f*cked up, huh? Halfway through that game, I was like, I probably didn't think hard enough about how stupid that might have been. I mean, like when when the Rams do it with all of their track record and all of their sports science, you're just like, okay, I guess this is fine. And like after two series of washing Matt Stafford look completely washed and out of sorts, I was like, no, no, I mean, I should have thought harder about how dumb this was. That's what I think it was for me, because I think like some of the other players looked fine at certain points. And I'm sure they did a lot of research on this that had something to do with like how well your body adjusts and your rhythm and your mind and all that stuff. It's not a research about it. I mean, they were very considered decision. Exactly. But that almost seems like it overlooks like our 38 year old quarterback sitting on a plane for 16 hours is not good. And I know they had the lay down seats or whatever, but like it feels like I've been in a lay down seat. I flew with 10 hours to Turkey this summer, I'm six months older than Matthew Stafford. I was not doing well the next morning, despite the lay down flight. Did you want to play pick up back to Paul the next day? No, I looked getting out of bed like he looked on that quarterback sneak. That's exactly the mode that I was in for the first three days I was there. You have any friends who are just full of shit, but they say, they say it so confidently that you don't question them. That's what McVeigh was with the travel stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I feel after this game. I'm joking about this. I don't want to spend too much time on it, because I don't want to frame this solely as a, well, the Niners flew early. That was the right move. The Rams flew late. That was the wrong move. There were some football things that I think are really worth digging into when it comes to the Rams specific weaknesses that we should talk about. Obviously, there are specific strengths that the Niners really showed off in this game that are absolutely worth digging into. So I don't want to spend this entire show making it all about who did the right or wrong thing based on the travel, but I wanted to kind of just get it out of the way, because we do have to address it in some capacity. We don't have to address it, but it lets the Rams off the hook. Like, that shouldn't be left off the hook. It was like a two year decision on your part to do this. So I don't want to hear it as an excuse and be the 49ers kicked ass and like, and kicked ass. So I absolutely do not want to diminish what they did. It was so, I mean, you can point to a dozen different things. But we were joking about it, Derek, in the third or fourth quarter, once it was getting pretty obvious that this was over, a lot of things worth being excited about. But if I'm a Niners fan watching Fred Warner and Nick Bosa just pin right back up, and we spent so much time saying, what can this defense be if these two all pros play like it? Well, they looked like it and the defense shut down the best offense in the NFL. There's a lot to be excited about what both of those guys showed. I mean, Fred Warner just so way to drive with the goal line stand was plenty to get excited about. He didn't miss any time. Yeah. And he looked perfect. Yeah. The Bosa thing, I mean, he has a couple really, a couple of pressures early on where you notice that to me, the thing where Bosa really stood out was the run defense in the second half. I mean, he had two TFLs on the exact same drive, two runs of something exact same drive where he's spiking inside and then spinning back outside and then squeezing and spinning back outside. Those plays were huge because at a certain point in the first half, my biggest concern with this game, and it's still a concern I have about the Niners, the Rams were blowing them off the ball in the first half, blowing them off the ball. And I still am concerned about what the interior for the Niners is going to look like over the course of the year. But Osa had a couple of those early down runstuffs, opt in stout had one and as soon as that you got the Rams into a second and 10 on any single series in this entire game, it was over because they could do absolutely nothing in the drop back pass game because of the way the manners were playing against them in some of the limitations. But as soon as they were able to get them behind the sticks, anytime they had the ball, the Rams had absolutely no answer. >> Which, you know, there are some Rams issues that we can talk about with that. But I also think that is like great proof of concept for what you hoped the Niners defense would be because I think we all said off of last season, the defense overall was bad. But you could see it with the secondary. Like the secondary had enough talent that like, hey, they can kind of run with people, they can play some man-to-man here. They put more DBs on the field in this game. They put like eight snaps of dime, which they did not really do at all last year. >> They played 17 of them total last year. >> Yeah, so there was a Jack Jones P.B.U. against the Montaill Adams, and I was like, "Renaro Green is playing. Why is Jack Jones?" And he's like, "Oh, they have six DBs on the field." And so that just a little wrinkle we have not seen very often from one of the most nickel-heavy teams in the NFL over the last couple of years. >> Yeah. So to just see that DBs actually get a chance to like make plays and not have to cover guys for four seconds because the past rush was doing something, that was really encouraging to see. Because if you're trying to sell yourself from the Niners getting back to top 12 defense, obviously they were incredible tonight. I don't know how much that's going to last over the course of the year, but if they can get back to top 12 after what last season was, it's going to look a lot like that. >> I think there were a lot of elements of their Rams offense where the Niners made them play a game they don't like to play. And the best example, if you look at their numbers, I think at some point in the fourth quarter looking at next gen, the Niners had played about 45% cover six over the course of this game, which is exactly what the Seahawks did to the Patriots yesterday. And that was one of the issues for the Rams in the first half. I think Stafford in the first half in this game averaged 11.7 air yards per target. They were just trying to chuck the ball down field against all these cover six and cloud looks. And that's exactly how the Niners wanted them to play. And when the Rams weren't blowing them off the ball or having some sort of easy completion of play action on early downs, they had absolutely no answers. And so they tried to make Matthew Stafford make the same set of decisions that the Seahawks forced on drape may yesterday. And he had the same problems just consistently trying to force the ball down field against those looks rather than checking down. And there were multiple instances in the first half where he had check downs and just decided not to take them. Mm-hm. Had check downs decided not to take them or some of those throws like were there to be made. Like there was a third down. I think he missed the demand. You just like, yeah, he's making the accuracy he played so poorly in this game. Did he have? He probably did. He's reacting live in the moment, but like did he have like a nice throw in those first in breaker to Puka was decent. And then the second one he tried to throw was a little bit off too. Yeah. I mean, there, you can count them on one hand. The amount of decent throws, the soft from the reigning MVP in this game, the explosive, the explosive to Puka, like was way more a great play by Puka. The one that got him does on the right top. Yeah. Way more of a great play by Puka. That's a half no look on a dig. That was like the only that was the only decent throw was like, oh man, that's a Matthew Stafford player that we saw the entire game. And this was actually the swing point of the game. I almost like one of his best throws was the third down when they were on the goal line and he like puts it low on Puka's, yeah, I kept where only he can get it. And it's like, it's a great catch by Puka. It's a great throw by Matthew Stafford. It's almost a touchdown. And then the very next play they don't get the run that they want on the sneak and they it flips the game because the Niners then take that. They go 99 and a half yards to go and score immediately after that. And it flips the game. Because I think at that point it was 17-7, obviously ran through down. If they score there and make it 17-14, it's a football game. Absolutely. And so the fact they lose the ball there, they don't get that Niners immediately go out and score. I mean, the game kind of sends right there. And they went 99 and a half yards, really. Yeah. Like Stafford went down right near the goal line, just shoved it right down their throats. It was pretty beautiful to watch, honestly. And like, it's not as if the Niners offense was bad in the first half. And like, you know, getting Mike Evans in the slot, getting, you know, I think Mike Evans picked up like all their throats downs before half time. But the way they were able to get McCaffrey going coming out of half time, and like they're rushing success rate pretty clearly. That's where I spent a lot of time on that. It was absolutely incredible. I think they were at 46% on the night, which is like the Niners was it better than that? 53 points. They're looking at that. I'm sorry now. And that's that went down. That went down over the course of the game 56 has got to be one of it. It's probably better than any of their numbers from last year if I had to guess. They were really middle of the pack to get on average run game last year. I want to talk about that. The last thing, the third down thing is a great thing to bring up. The Rams are two of nine on third down in this game. One of them was a third and one play action dump off, which barely counts as a third down. And this, I tried to do this in certain terms all summer when I was talking about how scared I was about the way that we were talking about the Rams. There are no fucking super teams in professional football. Yeah. That's not how this works. There are 53 guys in the roster. There are 22 starters. You can't build super teams. Every team has relative weaknesses. And we saw so many of those relative weaknesses for the Rams in this game. Third down was a defined weakness for the Rams last season. When you're putting them in drop-back situations, it's not the way their passing game wants to operate. It's not the way the offensive line wants to operate. When they were in third and tens, third and longs in this game, that's where you saw their weaknesses in pass protection. That's not what the tackles want to do. And that's where you saw the Niners and the speed they have defensively show up. I think teams are going to be able to push San Francisco around. And if you're going to get into those, if we can get one negative play, and it's third and ten, we saw the juiceramello height has on a twist. Often, style gets there on a pressure, Osu Digi-Zoo has a pressure. Those types of players. you're going to feel them if you can do that. And that's where the Rams are the weakest. That's where their offense is the worst. And we saw that over and over again tonight. And how much more likely is it that you can get one of those negative plays if Boses capable of three TFLs in a day or one make them? I mean, that's all you need. Well, Warner for that matter. I mean, Warner with a PBU on the very first play of this game, turning it into second and ten, which could have been a pick, by the way. Like I said, I was, I was so impressed by not to diminish anybody else because like I thought the Amador-Linor was really good in this game, but the elevating factor that those two have on this group of players is fantastic. So you look at the two of nine that the Rams had, which was a fake two of nine again, because one of them was a third and one. And you juxtaposed that with the seven of twelve that the Niners had in this game. The plan they had on third down, to me, let's go to the other side and the relative weaknesses that the Rams have. The Rams and tired defense in this game, but the first and second level of the Rams defense in this game got their asses kicked, just straight up got their asses kicked. And on third down, consistently, the Niners plan in this game was twofold. We're going to use a lot of motion and mixed direction to stretch the defense horizontally and then attack the space in the middle of the field with Mike Evans consistently. And what Mike Evans did to Quinten Lake had a PBU in the interception. Every third down, they were picking on Quinten Lake in this game. They were picking on the second level in the passing game on third down and they were picking on the second level with the run game the entire day. My takeaway in this game, the headline thing that I'm looking at is what the Niners of Run game looked like overall. I mean, it's going to be so fun to go back and watch every single way they use Kyle use check with some of those. I don't even know what to call the motions. They're like the 45 degree, like L motion, where he's going to be. He's going back into the back. He'll get back up. I mean, it's, they did it in so many different ways and they were really picking on the second level with all of that mixed direction. All the different runs, concepts they were getting to and the front for the Rams just got pushed around in this game. Like the other thing that if I were a Rams fan that would worry me, we talked so much this offseason about the Niners being banged up. If Miles Garrett is 80% moving forward, he did not look right in this game. No, he did not. He did not. And it was the lack of pass rush production, but it was also, if your Miles Garrett, you can't get pinned on pin pull by Debo Samuel. No, that can't happen. You can't lose one-on-one kick out blocks to Kyle use check who is 235 pounds. And that was happening consistently. They were winning their, they were every single one-on-one was a loss for the Rams up front. And it was allowing the Niners offensive line. The guards just consistently getting to the second level, over and over and over again throughout this entire game. It was a master class. I thought Connor Goldbeard had a pretty good, yes. He was one of those, like, it's one of those things. We didn't even start. We didn't know if he was starting. It's like, I left guard. He's the left guard. And I've admittedly been beating the drum of like, it's been three years now of like the offensive line talent kind of deteriorating. And I'm like, now you're telling me you're going to start a seventh round pick from last year. We don't even know if he's going to start. And for say, it was to give that a rookie was going to take his job because he played last year. Maybe because he played last year because of the shuffling at the end. Exactly. They're offensive line look great. And the run plan looked phenomenal. And the other thing out there in there, Kayone Black has a juice. Yeah. And so if you can take some of the workload off of CMC, I mean, I think that's the other part of this that's potentially really exciting. I thought he looked like he had more juice than he did last year. Well, that's, if you're not going to give him the ball 30 times a game, you might be able to maintain some of that. It's probably too simplistic to like attribute it all to this. But I think McCaffrey had two carries at halftime and they came out of the half and he went right to work. And his first two carries at the second half were explosives. They're like, it's nice to have somebody that can take some of the load off of his legs and the and the beating that he takes. We're going to take a quick break here and then we're going to come back and talk about just some of the other things that really stood out about the Knighter's performance. If you were trying to build the optimistic case for why the Niners could be scary, I think the return of both someone or getting the defense back to an above average level, which we'll see about that. I mean, this is a weird game. I think the early returns are very good. I still would be a little bit issue about what was done to the interior for the first part of this game by a Rams offense that ultimately did not play very well. And even that only really kind of stopped because the game started to get out of hand. So I think the Rams didn't feel comfortable running up to middle like that anymore. I mean, they still finished this game with like a 50% Russian success rate. I mean, they were running the ball at will. In the first half, the Rams said a 69% Russian success rate and the Niners were at 67. I mean, they were. The Rams were, you've already mentioned it, but the Rams were just moving the Niners three, four yards off the ball, like what felt like every snap. It felt more devastating because it was just a duo and they were just moving them in mass off the ball. But what the Niners were doing, even if this is stylistically, it was a little bit different, it was just as impressed upon them over the course of this entire game. And I think that brings me to, again, the idea of the optimistic case was both so more lifting the defense and then the guys on offense, even if they're a little bit older, being healthier and contributing and Kyle Shanahan being Kyle Shanahan. And we saw him do that tonight like this, this game overall is just a reminder on so many different fronts about of what make Kyle Shanahan special. The design and the run game and again, getting back to last year, they were average. On the ground. They were average. I was like, all right, what is that going to look like? He clearly was in the fucking lab the entire offseason based on what that thing just looked like. It was unbelievable. But then that combined with just the overall plan, offensively, with the way that they were using all that motion, the space that they were creating. And the last part is the plan they had for the front, just the sheer, even on the touchdown to Marcus Robinson, right? Two tight ends, little both in like a little just offset wing formations, they'd ship, get a little bit of help, pretty seized the alert on that spear out to Marcus Robinson. Let's go touchdown the four hands on Miles Garrett, every single play and then the other guys on that front guys, you should feel over the course of the game. You never felt one time. And I think that's a testament to the Niners and I think that would be scary shit if I were in that Rams building was rooting for that team. And they, it's funny, that play that the Marcus Robinson one is, well, I want to talk about a couple of things with the passing offense one. The fact that they got like proof of concept in every way for the passing offense is awesome. You get the shot play, which you're going to need. This is not a team that I think is going to throw a ton of them. But the fact that they do every once in a while, you got to make them respect it. And the fact that they found it, I think they're like, that's obviously huge. And the perfect example of that is this team sees so much quarters because the offenses feel like they can squeeze you. Exactly. You're going to get that amount of quarters on early downs. You got to be able to hit one of those every once in a while to put the fear of God and people. And to see them do that in week one, boom, that it's so nice to see. I do love that it was the Marcus Robinson and we should know who will never die. And the point of A, yes, B, Dresan's struggling obviously after this game, if there is one down note from this whole thing, it's that you lose struggling. But I agree with you and I would have liked to see a deep shot to Mike Evans in this game, but just him being what we hope he could be and also posterizing somebody for a touchdown, like immediately, you're like, yes, that's the concept of Constance, like Mike Evans just like dunking on Jalen Watson, just like turns around, grabs it. And that's exactly what you paid him for. And then the third one, which like we know that Purdy can do, but they end up in like a little bit of a scramble drill situation in like the high red zone. And he just bails out to his right, debo climbs a little bit and Purdy makes an excellent throw. But the last thing I want to say about Purdy, I actually think that if we're going to move into a world where defenses are going to make you just throw the underneath stuff all the time and just like take it and take it and take it and take it. He's kind of perfect. He's going for it, man. Kyle Shanahan's offense, I think is pretty well crafted to allow for that like the last play I'll bring up. It was right after the Matthew Stafford gets stuffed and the Niners have a second and ten backed up on their own one. It's an under center straight drop back with chips on both sides and actually looks a little bit like the remarks Robinson play. And so you get run threat because you're under center. You get pass for a hell because these ads are chipping and then I think Kittle leaks out into the flat to the left into the boundary. But the quarterback can get to those short throws quicker because he's not like turning his back looking for the deep shot immediately. He's like eyes aware the whole time. So as soon as Kittle is ready, he can go and he can throw it. And it's like Purdy kind of is the perfect quarterback for that style of offense. They did the under center non-poaction as heavily as any other team in the league over the last couple of years and he's really good at it. Because you're right. Him and you get all the benefits. You get all the benefits with none of the dropbacks because it's the same as the touchdown where being under center, there's just a mindset. I remember talking to coaches last summer about this where why are we getting back to a place where we're seeing more under center straight drop back? What are the benefits of it? And I think one defences have checks that are the dot checks or shotgun checks. And so if you're under center, they're going to do things they might not do if you were in the gun. And two, it plays with expectations. If you see the quarterback under center, you have a certain set of expectations as a defender. And so if your cam kitchens on that play and it's not always fall like the corner on that play where I think was Watson. I just make Duffy on that side on the opposite side. >> The backside corner is supposed to get back to the play and the reason he doesn't is because there's a big kind of, there's like a big in breaker that threatens off. deal just enough for him to sit on it, which is really good just route distribution or timing and depth. But either way, if you're in quarters on play where he's under center, the idea of this guy's going to run straight past me on a straight under center, drop back, it's not even crossing your mind. Yeah, you're like, no. There's no way. It plays with expectation. And so it, to me, it just gets back to all the layers you see when the Niners are humming. And you saw every single one of them. And the, the idea that it extends to the run game where we didn't see them be dominant there last year, that to me is the most exciting takeaway full stop from this game. If you're reviewing for that team, Kyle Shanahan is this guy all the time, but I also wonder how much extra if he put into this one because he seems, he seemed unhappy about the arrangement here from the very beginning, like all the way back in February, he wasn't happy about having to do this. And I'm sure he's tired of hearing people talk about the other team in the division. The other two. I mean, they're very, I guarantee you there's a little bit of like, you probably shouldn't forget about us. And I respect that. And I think that I was probably guilty a little bit of that this summer. And but I'm still worried about how creepy they are, but the offense we knew has that gear. We know has this gear. We know this. I'm going to sound like an asshole and I don't mean to the thing that gives you pause about the Niners is something that's never going to go away. That's right. That's that is the issue. If they're healthy and humming, you should absolutely take them seriously as a threat to win everything. The funny thing about Evans is beyond the quality of what we saw from him and him contributing. The usage. It's a, it's a weird mix of stuff. We joked about this in real time. For the most part, they're using them in the slot on third down. He's just super jawan Jennings for most of this game. But then in the moment where you need him to be Mike Evans, picking the ball off Jay and Watson's, Watson's helmet, he's still able to do that. And so it was just such a cool blend of everything you could want to see from them. It actually makes me think of Devante last year for the Rams, where remember like the first three weeks, they, they went in the red zone like four times a game. It was the only thing you did. And it was like, I'm never going to work for ever to pop. And so to get to get Evans a touchdown on like his first red zone, look, that's nice. And I honestly, you say that jokingly about Devante, to me, that does kind of speak to some areas where the Rams have historically had relative weaknesses, third down red zone. That's a, that's a fun answer that we're just going to spam Devante slants and one-on-one opportunities in the red zone. It's not a great plan. No. It's not like a fully formed plan. And so I, again, like I have all the respect in the world for McVeigh, but there are certain things that this team has not done great, where when you get, when you play against Rahim Morris, you know exactly who you are, who was the head coach of a Falcons team that gave you problems last year, who was in your building and has a very intimate understanding of maybe how to attack you. Everyone else gets paid too. Everyone else has good players. There are a lot of good coaches like the idea that they were just going to run rough shot through this entire season is so stupid. Like it's just, I never understood it. And that voice was always in the back of my head all summer about this idea of like, we shouldn't be talking about them this way. Like no one should be talking about an NFL team this way because it's never, ever real. It never turns out this way. Also, even in this Stafford stretch, like they want a Super Bowl and they've been contenders for most of this time, they goof like this all the time, whether it's because of injury or something else. They were the foreseed the year they won the Super Bowl. Yes. And that way they flew. Needle back here. They did so much. The Blue Home field advantage last year, like they straight up blew it in the final month of the season. And so I agree with you. Like, I did not see this coming. I don't want to act like I thought the Niners were going to beat that. But all off season, I've just been like, the Rams are going to be great. But the Rams version of great is probably like 12 and 5, maybe 13 and 4 because some dumb shit's going to happen for one reason or another. The galaxy brain take I am willing to put my name on as we sit here 22 25 minutes into this. I think this is a good thing. Yes. Yes. I agree. I think they needed a little bit of like, oh shit. They got kids from the teeth. Yeah. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing from an intangible perspective. I think it's a good thing for messaging. I think it's a good reminder of what life in the NFL was really like despite how people talked about you all off season. The weaknesses are real. Like the things that they showed that would give me pause about their chances over the course of the season, whether it's the quality of the second level, some of their issues on third down what the offensive line looks like in pure drop-back situations. All the things that you probably would have focused on them all rearing their ugly head in week one is a bad way to start. But I think again on an intangible messaging level, them getting their teeth kicked in to start a season where they're on 60 minutes last week and that's how we're talking about this team. I don't think that's a bad thing. To cross over on the 60 minutes is like that you're too famous for for a football team. I'd set it all off season. When has this ever worked out when we talk about a team like this? It doesn't. It never has. I will say this. And actually I was going to say you can call it cope. Don't even call it cope because I didn't even pick the ramps to get to the Super Bowl. But I think this is worth pointing out. And I was talking to somebody about this today. You can ask any coach. You can ask players in the modern NFL September. I think like Bill Belichick said this when he was still coaching in the NFL. September is training camp now, especially when you have a team like this. We talked about it during the game. The Ram's whole rookie class was an active today. This is an old team. Miles Garrett. We'll see the severity of the injury. But like you're going to keep Miles Garrett on ice during camp. You're going to keep Matthew Stafford as far away from harm as you possibly can. And so if you have to play your way into game shape over the course of September, that's not ideal. But I do think that's a very real thing. And so like if the Rams are taking their lakes in the first six weeks of the season because of how they approached it, they're going to get clowned on. But I think it'll be okay in the long run. And kind of to that point, they need to get through week five and they'll be fine. They have a couple of tough games. And then in the middle of that season, they get like Arizona, Las Vegas, Washington. I hadn't looked at their schedule. The middle of their season before their buy becomes like, okay, that's a good, they can round into things. Thankfully, they're going to be able to acclimate pretty quickly when they come home. They're stopping at a Eastern time, Pacific time. That's humble yourself. Yeah, like we are, we don't have to go back to the time change thing, but that's, it's crazy in retrospect. I do think though, the Stafford, how he looked specifically is the part of it that I'm most curious about. A lot of the other stuff, I can kind of like talk myself into it, just being a weird game and all this stuff. But like if he just does it, there's no way to know what's just weird and what's real. Yeah. You know, like he, that's what I want over. Not looking right. I was like, if it still looks like this in October, that's going to be a problem. That, I'm not worried about that. I just don't think, I mean, during training camp, whenever he practiced, things looked good and I just think again, this is, it's a weird game. It's so much of this and again, there are things that you want to react to. You just don't want to overreact to them. I think the Rams will probably be okay. Are they going to be good? Yeah, exactly. I think the Rams are probably going to be okay. Have you looked at their early season schedule though, like, or did you just say that? No, I've looked at it the next month is tough. I mean, after that, it's fun. Giants at home next week, but then it's at Broncos, at Eagles, Bills. And also, those are prepped on by the way. Loing this game really messes up your margin for error. And I hate to say blow. It's been in blow anything. They played a good team in weird circumstances and that team jumped on them. I, exactly. I don't mean to act like this should have, this was like an easy game, but like, to no show completely. I mean, you're going to be favored in most of the games that you play and to not even look like you belong on the same field. week one is weird anyway. It is. It is. It is. It is. You're flying halfway around the world to play this game. The game that you mentioned when we were talking about it in the preview show, that year where the Packers got their doors blown off against the USA and the week one. By the drivers win the NBA. It's by that point. It's like, there's already an element of weirdness to this. And then so to add the layer of the travel, nothing to take away from the Niners because, except again, you don't want to overreact, but you do want to react. And some of the things they're doing offensively and what the run game looks like. I want to react to that kind of stuff. They deserve a ton of credit, but there are so many caveats about the weirdness of week one already baked in beyond the weirdness of this game on top. And I think the last thing I'll say about that. Sometimes the weirdness of week one is like teams that we didn't think would look good looked really good. And then it's like that ends up being fake. Like the Steelers and the Jets last year. That's like the key one. But the Niners team, it was like not off the board that they could be a good team. So when they come out and kick ass, it's like, oh, maybe they can just maybe they can just do that to people. This is it's the best case scenario for what the offense could look like. And the kid will barely play like like 40% of the snaps. So you're going to get that on top of it. And so this Niners offense at full at full strength with a run game that feels rejuvenated and they've really added to it. This was always a team that could have the best offense in the league, a top three offense in the league if everyone stays healthy. That was never off the table. Can I tell you all from personal experience? One of the most electric vibes you can experience is a victory flight home from an NFL road game. And one of the most awkward vibes so you can personally experience is flying home after you got your shit kicked in. And that's like, you know, New York to Dallas. 15 hours with the Rams right now. Like that sounds like hell. And and vice versa. Like the Niners flight is just going to be a party. It's going to be amazing. The way that it works now is you get you can get the tape on your had immediately, right? And so let's just say you have a bad game, you have a three-hour flight, you go over the game once, you can distract yourself even if it's an ugly experience and the flight is over. Now, if you're somebody on that staff, you go back and rewatch the game and then you get to sit in it for 12 hours of how shitty it feels. That's like on, you know, when I used to fly with the Cowboys, like you can do the tape and like by the time you're going done going over the tape in detail and maybe the coaches will go have some conversations with some players. By the time you're all done doing all of that, maybe you get 30, 40 minutes of sleep, you're landing and it's time to get off the plane and go to work. You can do all of that and have like nine hours to kill. That sounds absolutely brutal. I've had some regrets about not loading enough shit on my iPad movie wise on a long flight, let alone if you just experienced what that game was like for the ramps. All right, hell of a couple of games to start this thing off. I had some surprises and things that were really fun to dig into. We will be doing it again right here on Sunday and night. For those of you unfamiliar, if you're just visiting us for the first time, we do a live Sunday night show every single week from right here. We will be right here on YouTube live on Sunday and night after week one wraps up. Very much looking forward to that. Thank you to all of us for joining us. That's all we got. We'll talk to you in a couple days. [Music]