Bills Survive Epic ‘MNF’ Clash With the Rams, and More Week 5 Storylines

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From Sunday, week five of the NFL season, we'll also dig into the Marvin Harrison Jr. trade, the back story. Why to take like 48 hours to find out where he was going? We'll talk about all of it right after this. This is the Ringer NFL Show presented by Fandall. Make every NFL week more rewarding with Fandall Rewards Club. Just bet like you normally would and earn points on eligible settled bets winner-loves. Keep collecting points level up and unlock bigger rewards. So keep an eye on your rewards club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever with Fandall. 21 plus select states, 18 plus DC or Wyoming, gambling problem called 1-800-Gambler, call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. And I'm going to say, was this the same game that I was watching? I actually time-stamped it, okay? Because even in something the third quarter, the bills punt again. At this point, the score is Rams 14, Bill's 13, middle of the third quarter. Josh Allen is four of nine passing for 60 yards in interception. Bill's had run a grand total of 24 plays. And from that, we get to a 37-34 overtime final, Buffalo wins shield. There's just so many angles to this where he wants to start. All right here. You know, I was thinking about that. Where do we want to start? Six-rate touchdowns to end regulation. Incredible. Goes to overtime. Here's where I want to start. Is that Sean McVay is a great coach. He's a Hall of Fame coach. He's mastered. I would say over 90% of what you need to do to be a lead at the profession. He has, I don't know if it's a blind spot. I don't know if it's a weakness. I don't know what to call it. He cannot figure out special teams. And it costs the Rams again in this game with the blocked kick and overtime with the missed kick earlier, with the big return that the Bill's had to start the game. And it's not a one-game thing. Like, all right. Teams have bad special teams games all the time. But for the Rams, this goes back to last year. It costs them games. It goes back to this year where they came into this game 30-second in special teams DVOA. And I just look at this. And if I'm in the Rams organization, I am coming in tomorrow morning, or if I'm the owner or whoever president you have, and when I have my meeting with Sean McVay, Sean, what resources do you need to fix our special teams? Do we need more assistant coaches? Do we need consultants? Do we need to make a trade for a kicker? Do we need to make trades at the back end of the roster to just improve the players we have on the field? Because I'm telling you, I can just see it coming that they can have a great rest of the season. I still believe in this team. I think they're going to be there deep into the playoffs. But if I may a Rams fan or someone in that organization, I cannot, after Miles Garrett trade, after Matthew's effort coming back, after Putin, I can't let special teams be the reason that I'm not hoisting a Lombardi trophy at the end of the season. So that's my big takeaway. Billy was laughing. You didn't think I was going to start with special teams. But that's my big takeaway, Billy. I didn't think that you're going to start with special teams. I'm also wondering what exactly a special team's consultant could be because you have like your special teams code, but you need more consultants coming. I feel like we're long past the days and maybe we surprised tomorrow morning where Harrison Mevis just is no longer on the team. After two Miss Fulgoes, one of them was blocked. And the one that was blocked in overtime where he went out a couple plays beforehand during a time out to just kind of walk around, take a look at the situation. Let's all right, circle of trust here, all of us here with the audience. This is not a way of shaming him at all. But you know, Harrison's got things working against him where he's kind of working with the Sebastian Janikowski body type. Then he comes out there. He starts looking at the field go beforehand, ends up having a block over two. You can't, if you're Harrison, be the one that's costing them games, Shield. And I think that you might be right about this situation. First of all, the resource thing, they used to miss off season, they went and got above event throne. They they went and tried to get one of the better especially his coordinators in the league. There's personnel aspects to it. There's clearly schematic aspects to it. Sometimes it's just Greg Russo, who is playing at an unbelievable level, manages to you know, find the weakness and go get a block. I was amazed after that situation happens. After earlier in the game, Tyler Bass misses an extra point that leads to some back and forth. Joe Brady opts to kick a 45 yard field goal on second and ten overtime. It works out. But I was going, we can't, I understand you've fumbled before. But I would like to get a few more yards. I mean, good for Tyler Bass. It's a great dude. Happy that he made the kick. But you're putting them in a tough spot, man. They just have to boot it. Let's back up to the, to the non-special teams aspect of it. I mean, Stafford was unbelievable in this game. It felt like there were, you know, even more opportunities. There's a couple of near misses, even the shot play before half where they run it down. It's like, what's he doing? And he hits it off the pukes fingertips in the end. So like Stafford has seen things at a really high level. And honestly, that's the first one of those Stafford games that we've gotten this season. He played great against the Giants on Monday night back in a week, too. But like, that was a weird game. Dark goes down. It just felt like that was kind of like the whole thing. Stafford entered tonight with as many touchdowns, so many interceptions as touchdowns to this point in the season. And he was lights out throughout that game. And again, I would go back to, Sean McVase, very, very good coach. But could you get some more yards? You have very conservative play calls to try what was with me. It's a 48 yard field goal. What he'd already missed one earlier in the game. And then on the flip side of it, this was not Josh Allen's best passing game. In part because he didn't have to pass that much. He's 12 of 19 for 210 yards. There was one touchdown has the interception. But he runs for 121 yards in the game. And that is still the part shield, even though we've seen, especially over the last two weeks, you know, the the Chargers game and then the Patriots game, like you've seen a little more up and down with Josh yet all the turnovers, you know, the offense and all the turnovers against the Chargers. It's the Patriots just wasn't enough. But the difference to me always is when things break down when it's not there or when it's just we've got the opportunity to exploit a mismatch. You want to play man coverage on the outside, I'm just going to run behind the man coverage. That's what Josh can do that none of the other pocket passing demons in this league can do with Stafford. He can make magic things happen with his arm shield, but Alan can do things outside of the place structure that just put defenses in an impossible position. I think it was his most scramble yards they said since his rookie season. I mean, you look at that drive in overtime, and he just makes two fantastic plays with his legs. I'm with you when they were that far away, I'm thinking you're like one of the best rushing teams in the NFL. Now, maybe you don't you're getting a little concern there with James Cook. Could you just rush run Josh Allen a couple times in there to get you a little bit closer ultimately. They didn't need to do that. But yeah, it was an interesting identity game for the bills because I think they looked it last week and they ran the ball great in that game against the Patriots. And maybe they had some regrets that we could have leaned on that a little bit more we can lean on that a little bit more to put our defense in better positions. If we're just drinking together drives and kind of shrinking down the number of possessions, they have to defend. So yeah, you look at the box score and it's kind of it's a crazy box score for Josh Allen. It's almost like it, you know, it almost looks like Jaden Daniels box score from this weekend where he's 12 for 19 for 210 yards passing, what he rushes for 121 yards. And I do think when you just kind of zoom out and look at the bills, their run game is unbelievable with James Cook and that offensive line and the threat of Josh Allen where I think they have this thing they're trying to figure out with every coordinator who coaches Josh Allen is trying to figure out where it's like how much do we need to put on his plate in week five in week six and week seven week eight. We know in the playoffs come around like he's going to take us as far as we want to go, but they have such a strength with their run game that they ultimately don't need to just put everything on his plate at this point in the season. Yet to your point, high leverage moments, third down over time possessions. Yeah, Josh, go, go win us the game. And I think that's what you saw in this one. When I goal and they were just running with him, it wasn't even the push, but it's just like we're just going to shove him in there and they tried it from the two and they put up a stat where he has some sort of record of rushes within the two, just the push push for two yards and then they went right back at it again. And he's a bowling ball. I mean, he's just going to run through absolutely everyone. No one's there to stop them. Yeah, it's also I felt like this is a different level of the push push. This was the true push. Did you notice that tonight? It wasn't like get behind him and basically pick him up by his by his waistband and throw him in the end. So it was like, just you got the rest, just I'm going to shove you, I'm going to give you a little push and then just you figure out everything else here. It's just it's so unique. The play style, what they're able to do, like Josh is the rare quarterback running who DB's don't want to get in his way. I mean, how many times a Josh, if you're a poise, how many times does Josh lower his shoulder in the game? I mean, there was no, there's not even a thought of sliding, but there's also not even a thought of just like having a dive to away from the defender. No, he's lowering his shoulder a bunch of times in that game, which there is a balance. Certainly that you need to strike with that. I also mean, again, going back to like where we were mid third quarter when I made that note. And again, at that point, it is a low scoring game. There were close to 200 penalty yards in this game. There were so many pre snap fouls, especially on Buffalo. Like it was, and I say this knowing how it ended, it was the about as bad of a game as you can see between two good teams in the NFL. It wasn't like a defensive struggle that they were there. It was just like just nonstop, whether it was James Cook fumbling, which he did again later, whether it was all the penalties. Like it didn't look clean, but I think that what you see in the best teams is she'll, in those big moments, they have that ability to channel it. A lot of that comes back to the quarterbacks. And so, you know, sitting back here after week five, you just saw what you have to say is a potential Super Bowl matchup. And you're my, where does these teams fit in the hierarchy of the AFC and the NFC? Yeah, they're right there. It wouldn't surprise me if this were a Super Bowl matchup. It was a weird game because the Rams couldn't get any explosive place until like deep into the third quarter, where I think their first 50 plays they ran. They didn't have a single play of 20 plus yards. So they were stringing together these long, methodical drives. So there weren't a lot of possessions. The bills are turning the football over a little bit. There are penalties. There's still two great teams. I mean, Matthew Stafford, 40 for 54, for 383 yards and three touchdowns in this game. He takes one sack. That possession they had at the end of regulation. I don't know that I've seen a two-minute drill to force a game into overtime. That's looked easier. I mean, it was just like no doubt that he's going to complete pass after pass after pass right there. I still think the Rams had the potential to be a great team. And the thing that I like about them the most is that I feel like once we get to November, we're really going to see that they're going to be able to win in more than one way. Tonight was their defense great? No, their defeat, but you're facing Josh Allen and you're facing one of the five best offenses in the NFL. I do see the upside of that defense. I think you see it in spurts. You're going to get Miles Garafack eventually. Trent McDuffie's been playing awesome. So I feel like they're a team that can withstand a game where maybe you turn it over a couple of times. Maybe Matthew Stafford doesn't have his A game for one game. You're going to be able to win in different ways. I like Buffalo a lot, but I am worried about their defense. We're five weeks in. And if you look at it statistically, the only team worse than them in terms of EPA are the Detroit Lions. I don't think that people would guess that, that they are worse than the Cowboys right now. Now they just faced a great opponent. But that defense has question marks both with personnel, both with learning a new scheme where I wonder how active they're going to be at the trade deadline or whether they're just going to say, hey, we're going to get better with some of these younger players. But that's my question with Buffalo. But I still see them. If we're doing an inner circle of like the six teams that can win the Super Bowl, they're both in there for me. Yeah. I mean, I think that you have to not really pay attention to the Rams record right now, right? They've had a tough five game stretch here. But their next couple games, Cardinals, Raiders, Chargers, Commanders, Cardinals, like their record is quickly going to improve the toughest one there from what we've seen so far. Probably the Raiders and they haven't looked good the last two weeks. The Commanders figured out over the next couple of weeks that one might be tricky. But their record is going to get right. They're going to be right back up there with the 49ers and the Seahawks in the NFC. And then in the AFC, the AFC is kind of speaking competitive this year, right? The Chiefs, I don't think that we all thought we're going to be this good, this quick. There's still some question marks as to how good the Chiefs actually are, right? But the Chiefs are there. The Jaguars are ones that I would kind of keep my eye on because I started looking. I was on the tankathon and I was seeing right now as presently stated, the Jaguars have the easiest strength of schedule, the rest of the way. And they have a good point differential right now. So the Jaguars, I mean, they haven't proven it in the playoffs. So once you get to the playoffs, things are totally different from there on the regular season anyways. But the Jaguars are there. The Ravens are good. But the bills are up there. The Patriots seem to be figuring things out the last couple of weeks. So I think I'm with Sheila. I think that these are probably in each of their conferences, top three, top four, I'd say. Jay Wars are also eight seconds away from losing a game to the Eagles in London, where their offense didn't look very good. I mean, Jalen Carter was the star of that game. We could talk more about how that game ended in a little bit. To me, the AFC, you're just seeing it on a weekend, week out basis. I think that the Patriots the way they've played the past couple of weeks, you have to say are in that mix. The Broncos as badly as they have played at times, it was not easy. They had to rally to beat the Chargers this past weekend. And the Chargers had to fail on a fourth down in their own territory to kind of flip them all men in that game. I still believe at the end, the Broncos are going to be a pretty good team. You know, and as for Kansas City, it's the same question we've been asking for five years. Who's catching passes from Patrick Mahomes? They haven't had a thousand-yard receivers since Tyree Kill in 2021. Travis Kelsey tied in. They don't count him in that group, but like in terms of receivers, like the best performances they've had. Rishi Rice had one year. He had 900 in change. You know, Juju had a good year there, but like that's been the ongoing thing. They traded Tyree Kill to Miami five years ago, and they've used that money and the resources and everything to fix the offensive line, fix the defense. They want a couple of super balls, not a knock on them at all, but we're still sitting here going. Are they going to trade for a receiver? Are they going to sign Tyree Kill again? What are they going to do to try to fix that? But you also know with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes, you generally can trust it. NFC side, Shield. I still think that we saw probably the two best teams right now in Seattle and San Francisco going at it yesterday. The NFC North, I mean, it's hard to tell. The Lions have one of the best offenses that we've seen. You tweeted out the stats yesterday about how good they are offensively. It's the Vikings that are 5 and 0 in that division, and you are seeing drastic improvement from week over week to last couple of weeks with what they do offensively. Can you win with defense like that at a really high level? Chicago prior to Caleb getting hurt looked like a really, really good football team, and he could be back at some point soon here. I feel like the whole thing is wide open, which some people like Shield, the, you know, you have the enemy, you know, you have the chiefs. It's like who's going to take down the chiefs. I like when it's just we we don't know like there's a lot of really good competitive teams, um, and cool storylines in this thing. And I don't feel like I've got to handle it all of this team is the best one on either side of it. I think it's fun like this because it's not like, oh my god, these are the teams. They're good. These teams, none of them are good. They all stink. It's sort of like, okay, I can see it with this team. Now the Seahawks won the Super Bowl last year. The Niners are five and oh, and are playing at a high level. I put the Rams right there with it with the Seahawks and Niners. I would have those three teams kind of in one tier in the NFC. And then you have, is there going to be someone who's going to sneak up to your point? Do the Lions have a trade in them or Brian Branch comes back and now all of a sudden they look like a more balanced team. The Bears, you got to take seriously, uh, I think as well. The other teams, uh, I don't know. I mean, I guess if you if you like the Packers and you could put them in there, we'll, uh, maybe talk about them a little bit later there. I don't think they're a cross off. But I think those are the teams you're looking at in the NFC. I think this, there's still a strong likelihood that the Super Bowl contender comes out of the NFC West. I'm not going, you know, uh, out on a limb by saying that Seahawks got to figure things out offensively. 49ers is this defense legitimately good. And then Rams, I was just crying about special teams to start the pot. Those are like the three concerns I have for each team. Which one can kind of turn one of those weaknesses into at least a level of competency where they're they're playing in the NFC championship or the Super Bowl? The teams with the question marks are really the fun ones, right? Like not the ones that are off to like the hot start, but like the Broncos, if the Broncos figure out the offense, they've already changed their play collar, then they're going to be a threat. But right now they haven't figured that out. You mentioned the Vikings. The Vikings defense is incredible, but they're offends. I don't think any of us right now trust them. But to your point, they're making strides of they turn that around how serious should we take the Vikings? Because there's no. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you about this. Why can't the Vikings be some version of last year's Seahawks? You know, because like I just spoke and I just said the NFC West teams and I don't even mention the Vikings. They're undefeated. Their defense is playing at the same level that the Seahawks defense played last year. And the Seahawks eventually figured out their offense and it got to a level where they were producing explosive plays. But can the Viking, isn't it? It seems realistic that the Vikings can get to that level yet, we don't seem to talk about them like that. The key was Seattle's running game until December wasn't all that great. And they made some changes and also Kenneth Walker III gets hot and he's the best player on the field in the playoffs. He's the best player on the field in the Superbowl. And that's what kind of carried them or even Sam Darnold could have by his own admission, not a great game in the Superbowl. And it didn't really matter because they were going to run the ball so effectively right now the Vikings. I mean, they've got Aaron Jones who's getting everything out of his 3031 year old body with a bad knee. But you can't rely on that. You can't say he's going to go off for 200 yards. It's just not going to happen. What you're your hope if you're Minnesota is the Kyler who if you won't look at his EPA week over week, it's like making massive strides for just QBR and all those things like he's getting a lot better and a lot more comfortable in the offense. And he really hasn't played with the whole offense in that stretch. Week four, there was no Justin Jefferson. Week five, there was basically no T.J. Hockinson because he got a concussion. And there was no Jordan Addison in that game. They're on the buy this week. They come back week seven. They're going to be healthier. We'll see what other types of tweaks they might make. I do think you can't overlook Minnesota and the NFC. I also don't think that there is battle tested yet as teams like the 49ers, the Seahawks, Billy and the Rams who they play each other often enough to kind of get those those measuring sticks. Even when the Vikings played the Bears, it was on a weird rainy day. It sold your field. Now note that was really a metric on how good either of those teams are. I mean, I love football. I'm just going to come out and say it. I like that the bears are still in there. Congratulations. I think, well, you know, it somewhat is because slightly before you started this show, Tom, she'll have admitted to us that he doesn't know that he loves football, which we thought was a crazy admission the week before the season started. He was kind of walking through things and he's like, I think I like it, but I don't know if I love it as much as everybody else does. Listen, Tom, I say you got to earn my love, you know, they're a little, they're a little bit a little flusy. You know, I love that. You have to touch. I just, you know, you want to be pursued. Yeah. Thank you. You know, can we have a little, it's I've only been doing this for, I don't know, over 10, 15 years or something. Sometimes it takes a little longer to know if you love something than that. That's all. Sometimes you guys sit through three quarters of a pretty crappy game on Monday night with lots of penalties and neither team looks like they've got it together. You stick around long enough that it becomes a complete bonkers finish one of the signature games. I'm sure of this entire 2025 season. We got a lot more to talk about. There were clock management disasters on Sunday. There were some controversial moments. We'll get into all of the highlights and maybe more interestingly the low lights right after this. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by Fandall. Here's something to look forward to between kickoffs this Sunday with Sunday spectacular. Fandall rewards club members can unlock exclusive rewards throughout the day with offers tailored to their rewards club level. Depending on your level, you could unlock things like profit boosts reward boxes points boosts challenges choose your reward offers and more. The best part you rewards drop throughout Sunday's games so there's always something you to discover as the day unfolds. Check out Sunday spectacular in the Fandall app only on Fandall rewards club. Make this your most rewarding season ever with Fandall 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC or Wyoming opt in required refund and bonuses issued as nonwithrobable bonus bets or tokens restrictions apply C terms for all offers at sportsbook.fandall.com gambling problem called 1-800 gambler call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and connect this episode is brought to you by Viori. I spend a lot of time talking about football which means a lot of times sitting around talking about football. So comfortable clothes are pretty important and that's what I like about Viori. I've been wearing the Sunday performance joggers. They are ridiculously comfortable but you can still wear them out and look put together. They're soft lightweight. They've got four-way stretch so they're great for training traveling or just wearing them all day. For our listeners, they're offering 20% off your first purchase at Viori.com/RingerNFL and discover the versatility of your e-clothing. Exclusion supply. Visit the website for full-terms and conditions. Addict it. All right. Let's get to the Sunday slate from week five in the NFL because she oh one might say we saw some good we saw some bad we saw some really ugly and I understand that I just give away the segment name. I want to make sure we got it in. Yeah, that's time. Yeah, I have trouble remembering my own segment name. So you're right. The good, the bad and the ugly Billy. This has never been done before. No. In any content. It hasn't been written. No podcasts. I've ever done this before. I felt good. It just came to me this morning. You know, you're drinking coffee and sometimes you get a good idea. So I thought let's do rather than upon further review rather than winners and losers because this was a weird week five. I thought let's split it up into the good, the bad and the ugly. Are you ready? So how does this work for those who are new to this like myself? Yeah. So I'm going to give you the good. I got something that really stood out. Big positive. That was really on my radar this weekend. We can talk about it. Then I'm going to give you something that was really bad and you're going to say, oh, yeah, that is bad. She'll, but do you have a different angle? I don't know. I'm going to say, yeah, I do have a different angle on it. And then I'm going to give you something that's ugly and we can talk about, you know, well, how ugly was it? Is it more good? Is it more bad? You'll get the hang of it, Billy. I promise. We know you always listen very carefully to the directions, the instructions. So I think you'll get the hang of it. All right. Let's get started with the positive. The good, the big game of week five, Seahawks 49ers 49ers come out with the victory. And I thought maybe the biggest good I saw in week five was Mike Evans. I'm watching that game and I'm looking at the nine years going something feels a little different about them. They're actually able to have a one-on-one advantage with a guy who has not been on the team before. And that drive in the third quarter, I don't know how closely you guys had eyes on that game, but it's 26-21 Seahawks. It's the third quarter. No one's had a drive of over like 30 yards, the entire game. Just turnover, short field, turnover, short field. So the score is up there, but no one's really stringing together drives. And I thought Mike Evans just took over the game on that possession. He had like four catches on the drive. He's got contested catches. He's getting matched up against different Seahawks defenders. Purdy's finding him. They have chemistry like they've been playing together for 10 years. He gets the two-point conversion and that put the 49ers on top. And we've talked about the 49ers before. Is this going to be their year? Are they finally going to break through and get Kyle Shanahan that championship? Evans is just like different than any guy they've had at wide receiver before. And I thought he was the difference in that game. The Seahawks had JSN, but the Niners had like McCaffrey and Mike Evans. It just felt like they had an extra guy who could just make a play in a really even game. So he is my, I was about to say winner, but I caught myself. He is my good in the good, the bad and the ugly from week five. That was a weird game, right? Like you look at it and if you were just to look at the box score and the score, you're like, wow, this is like a nice offense against like, no, offenses were kind of a disaster that game. Like that was a defensive game. There was lots of turnovers. Mike Evans, you look at his stats like, like, wow, he had over a hundred receiving yard. and it's like, to your point, basically that drive. So you had a two yard touchdown earlier in the game. And then on that drive alone, like third quarter headed into the fourth quarter, carried over 15 yard reception, nine yard reception, 23 yard reception, 28 yard reception. He had like 75 yards on that drive alone. And it got to a point where Brock Purti was strictly looking for Mike Evans on that drive. He was going to find him anywhere on the field and Mike couldn't drop anything on that drive. Like every place seemed to be somewhat contested. He had to kind of earn all the yards that he was getting. And then even when they got the touchdown to Brandon Cooks, it looked like he was looking for Mike Evans. And he just couldn't find Mike Evans. So through it to Brandon Cooks, then they called that one back, then he found Brandon Cooks again, which if you had a Brandon Cooks prop on touchdowns in the game, you were very happy with that because I'm sure the odds were crazy on that. Then two point conversion goes right back to Mike Evans, then they call it back, then he goes to Mike Evans again. So I mean, that was the Mike Evans drive. And I think, you know, I don't want to speak for you guys, but there were probably some questions about Mike Evans headed into this year, right? So last year he was injured and he had that streak of 1,000 yards every year. And you're like, well, how is he going to rebound from, you know, the injury last season? Is he going to come back? He's 33 now. And this year in five games, he's almost matched all of his production from last year. So last year, 368 receiving arts, he's at 326, three touchdowns, both years he's done it in five games opposed to eight. And he looks good. And he looks like he might be Brock's number one, which I didn't think we were all expecting. - When I was in Australia and we had the production meetings with both the Rams and the 49ers, got set down with Brock and with Kyle Shanahan. And Brock said something along the lines of like, "I've never had a true X receiver until now." And that's when you have that body type with Mike Evans, where he's just, he's all limbs, he can run, he's got straight line speed, 50/50 ball catcher. It does just make a difference. You know, when you saw in that Rams game, remember like the opening drive, I think he had three third down conversions, just done that one drive. And then you're watching, remember Mike Evans too, in between there, he's been a little bit banged up. He had the ribb issue, we had another injury early in the season, but you know, coming back healthy, he's on pace for 1,000 yards again, I did them half, he's already on pace for 1,000 yards in this season. I said on this show, she'll, I might've been on Friday, but it was, you know, within the past week, you're like, to me with all the injuries for the 49ers, as long as the Kyle guys are healthy, meaning Brock, Kittle, Debo and McCaffrey, they're going to be fine. Whatever else, they're going to figure it out. Well, guess what, Debo's hurt now. Debo's got a hamstring, it could be an injury reserve situation, and minimum, he's going to miss a couple of weeks here. Mike Evans is going to have to step in. Mike Evans is going to have to pick up a lot of that slack because, you know, you go down the rest of the depth chart right now, there's so gutted it receiver. Stribbling's not going to be back anytime soon. They might get, you know, the Christian Kirch's the world back. Finally, Christian Kirch, where I confused for a different receiver last week when talking about the Texans in my defense. Christian Kirch was on the Texans in the past. I was thinking of Xavier Hutchinson. Thank you very much. But you have a situation. You should be Jaden Higgins. I just confused myself again. The share of you in the city of Billy. He's her viewing his own film. I was going on here. I'm very self-critical. I'm on to the next one. I said, this is interesting. I said, your defense, Stephen A. Confusing with a different Kirch last year. So it could be worse. It's true. I said Christian Kirch is up late for the Texan. I meant Jaden Higgins, but Kirch previously had been on the Texans and also went available. Anyway, they might get some reinforcements here. But there's not another debaul walk in the face of the earth. That's going to require some recalibration here. If you're Kyle Shannon about how you're going to win, I would think the Mike Evans shields a big part of it. It's so interesting to do the math of like, because I think we are all accustomed to. It's like it's the Niners. They're not going to all be healthy by the time the playoffs roll around. It's just kind of like you're waiting for it and they are older players. They're key players are over 30, especially on the offensive side of the ball. So I was doing the same math in my head. I'm like, if they have two of three now, McCaffrey, Kittle Evans, I feel like it's going to be enough. If you know, birdie, Shanahan, if you have two of those three guys. But I don't know. Obviously, you would love to have all of them. We're seeing it. They've been one of the best offenses in the league for over a year now last year. And again, this year, this wasn't even necessarily a great offensive game by any metric. But I think sometimes when you're playing a great defense, it's not about the final numbers and the efficiency and the nerd stats. It's just like they had a drive in the third quarter where birdie got it done. Evans got it done. And then I was really impressed the way they ran the ball. I mean, no one runs the ball against the Seahawks. It's so rare. But McCaffrey was incredible in that game. They're getting Kaelin Black in there schematically. It was working. So what an impressive start form to be undefeated and have wins over the Rams in Australia. The Seahawks on the road. You beat the Broncos. Their defense continues to overachieve as well. I mean, their defense was lights out in that game against the Seahawks. It couldn't be going any better. It's just a matter of like, I don't know. I feel like Niners fans are generally pretty confident. They're not like thinking worst case scenario. But me as a neutral observer, I'm just like, is this built to last for 18 games or not? Because if you played like the Super Bowl this weekend, you'd be like, yeah, they have as good a shot as anybody. The question's about once you get to December, January, are they still the same team? It's too early, obviously, to have this conversation. But while the game is going on, while you see the Seahawks kind of driving there at the end, were you guys thinking like, maybe this is an NFC championship game preview we might revisit this match up when it, because like, it was an ugly game. It was kind of more of a defensive game, even though the numbers offensively were up there. But the Seahawks were right in it. And JSN had a catch that would have been a first down easily that he dropped. And then on the next play, Cooper Cup catches a ball, where if he had been two feet more in bounds and extended that ball, he would have gotten a first down and that's right. >> Did the Billy Gill I test tell you there? Did you feel like he had it or the Kapati I test? I'm like, I don't know, it kind of looks like he's out in there. >> I did look so, I thought he was short. >> I thought the ball was out of bounds before he even stretches forward. Based on the angles we were showing, we don't have the exact. But I was like, this is not, they kept saying it so close. I'm like, I didn't think it was close. Just me personally, I did not think it was that close. >> It is weird, I guess it shouldn't be that weird, right? Because you can't have a camera down the sideline directly at every, you know, like 10 yards or whatever. So if you have one at the goal line, it's not going to catch something at the 30 yard line exactly where it is that he goes out. But then they start breaking down with the rules and as well, imagine a playing sheet of glass that goes all the way up to infinity and where was the ball at that point it can't cross. So it did seem like, you know, looking from at home, he got past the marker, but while he was out of bounds, so it's almost impossible with the camera angles provided for the officials to determine, okay, this is exactly where the ball was when he stretched it out and went out of bounds. So I thought that was a fine non reversal of that call when they went back and looked at it. >> There'll be a lot of debate too, especially off the world cup of should the NFL be implementing, you know, all these other technologies to see it. Part of the issue, like they experimented with a chip in the ball over a decade ago. And part of the issue was it was accurate, but it was accurate within that don't quote me on this, even though I'm going to say it into a microphone right now, but it was like accurate within three inches. In other words, a game of inches, three inches can be a lot. And so don't quote me on that either. You have a situation where you can get close, but if all of a sudden like you're saying, well, it's close enough within three inches and then you're going to use that to be the exact cut off. I see where there's, you know, the technology will keep improving, they weren't able to get it accurate enough at some point today as it get revisited. I'm sure because okay, we got virtual measurements now. Cool, but it's still measuring where the official with their own eyes set the ball down. >> Well, there was also to your point of three inches, yesterday there was a first down that they had to like, you know, review with the virtual thing or whatever. And it was short three inches. So if you give or take three inches, that call probably would have gotten wrong. You wouldn't know if that was the first down or if it wasn't the first down. Also, it's not like tennis or baseball where a ball and tennis like physically hits the ground and you can go and do the review. This ball and football, it's where the person's tackled, but then you also have to judge when is the knee down, where's the elbow down, where exactly is that ball? So it is a very imprecise science that I would think would be one of the harder ones to kind of figure out while you're doing these chips and balls. Can I ask you guys a question because I feel like she was ready to move on to the next one? - Well, no, I just wanted to say on that. And then you can ask me a question. As someone who like, you know, I didn't really like science in high school. - Really? - I took the minute. - I know. Well, yeah, you know, it wasn't really science though. I was like, no, this isn't funny. - A little bit, even that I didn't really have to tell you. It was journalism in college. Billy, I didn't have to take any of these classes. What are you crazy? I took the minimum, but having said that. So I don't understand how a lot of things work. I will fully admit that, you know, something goes wrong in the house. I'm not fixing it. This desk here I have is really wobbly. I don't know how to fix it. Anything like that, I don't understand. But like if we can put people on the moon, I feel like there's a way to implement technology in a billion dollar industry, like the NFL, more so than we're doing right now. That's all I'm saying. So I've just entered-- - You don't really just entered me? - Yeah. - You're actually on your good list? - Well, just to be clear though, you do acknowledge we land on the moon, correct? - Yeah, I'm on very pro moon. - Love a NASA. - Just making sure we're not questioning that. Before we get off of Mike Evans, did you guys see what was going around after the game that they caught between him and Trayvon Diggs? Because we haven't talked about yet, but this was kind of like, this was the juicy like social clip of the day yesterday, where Mike Evans and Trayvon Diggs were kind of jogging back and forth at each other. And I guess Mike Evans was holding a block too long or whatever and Trayvon was not through thrilled with him. And they're, who are you? And then he physically grabs him, turns around. looks at his jersey and then gets pushed in the face. Uh, love it. That was one of those eight moves. It takes them to grab the back of his jersey. The most disrespectful thing you can do. I think not disrespecting like, you know, spitting in someone's face, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. That's assault. But like just disrespectful of like, Hey, who are you again? Oh, let me check that. Let me check the jersey. I, I, and Mike, if you believe him, he was like, I literally, I played him against him before I didn't recognize him. He can't back in the game. It's also a super low key burn of like, I remember you when you were good. Who are you now? Yeah. Amazing. It's hard to come up with new stuff now. Yeah. That was a new one. That, that was well done by Mike Evans, Erica. So that was my good. We're moving on to the bat. Oh, and this is not going to catch you by surprise because this was to me, probably the biggest story of week five. And that's what happened at the end of that commander's Giants game. In overtime, the commanders end of game botch. I imagine that our entire audience knows about this by now. As seen this by now, the commanders are within field goal range. It's the end of overtime. They just need to spike the ball, kick a field goal that's under 40 yards. And they leave with the victory. However, they didn't realize that they were the only ones who didn't realize that's what they had to do because they end up snapping the ball with 13 seconds left, calling an actual play. Jaden Daniels runs on the play. They can't get back to the line of scrimmage game over game ends in a tie. Now, I know what you're going to say. She'll, there's nothing you to say on this. Everybody's already had their takes on this. I disagree. And we can get into what actually happens. But I think there's a big winner in this situation that nobody's talking about. Do you have any guesses? A big winner from that botch at other than Giants? Well, that's a good one. Giants cat about here. He kind of acknowledged that he's a winner because he had the fumble. Not who I'm thinking of. Think a little more outside the box. Billy, you got any outside the box when outside the box? I mean, I thought that you were going to go with Kim. Nick Sireoni because people aren't talking about what happens. That's a good line. Well, yeah, that's fans out there at winner yesterday. You're on the right track. So those are good guesses. But the big winner is Carly Ursegward. And now what you're saying? You're saying, what are you talking about? The Colts lose to the Steelers, their teams not doing well. They don't the first round pick. How could you be the winner there? Because, you know, it's been a big point of discussion again this year that Carly Ursegwarden is on the sideline and she's on the headset and she wants to know the conversations that are going on in the headset during these games. And people get very mad and upset about it and they make fun of her. If I were the owner of the commanders, you know what I would want to know? Who screwed that on? How in the world does this happen that what should be a very simple end of game situation, we can't execute. And it looks like a disaster. I said, prudor film this baby earlier. I mean, I mean, some pasta. I got the phone out. I'm saying, OK, let me let me take a close look at this. The forever. Yes, first, the moon landing. Now, JFK, like, what's going on today? It's been a wild week already. And it's only Monday. So I'm looking at it. The previous play ends with 50 seconds left. You were not pressed for time here. Now, if you watch it, Jaden Daniels, he's trying to listen to the coaches instructions there. They're getting into the huddle late and they're breaking the huddle late. They don't snap the ball until there's 13 seconds left. And Jaden Daniels, I feel like he's taken a lot of criticism for this people are saying it's all on Jaden Daniels. If you watch the play, they're running an actual play. The receivers are running routes way down feel. Whatever the communication was in the huddle, it was not that, hey, we're going to let the clock wind down and spike the ball and kick the field. That's what should have happened. That is not what Jaden Daniels or whoever was communicating to the rest of the team. And then even if you watch it after he scrambles a little bit and goes down, there's like two guys who are rushing back and like, wait, what's going no one on the team realized what the situation was. So I don't think it's just on Jaden Daniels. I don't know if it's Dan Quinn, David Glau, organizational failure, whatever you want to say, but that is just such a complete disaster. And we look again, looking at all those little details of it, like a Carlier say Gordon big winner because I would want to know exactly how that happened if it were my football team. But absolutely the worst thing I saw in week five in the NFL. The weird thing about that drive too is they get the ball back with 155 left on a miss vehicle, right? And they look, letting an indivision opponent off the hook the way that they did is wild because they were up by 14 and blew that lead in regulation. And the giants come back. James leads his team on two different touchdown drives in the fourth quarter, even tie the game, right? But they missed three, the giants missed three field goals in that game. It was bad weather. It was an ugly game. But they gifted you that. Then Cam fumbles the ball. You get the ball from Cam. And now all you need to do is score to win, right? So they get the ball. The giants get the ball. They miss a field goal. Bangers get the ball, fun. Giants get the ball, give you the ball right back. You have two minutes. You drive down the field and they were so clock conscious at the beginning. There's a 16 yard reception go out about. Then there's like another six yard reception. Then there's another run by Jaden. He goes out about. So they're stopping the clock along the way until that 52nd mark shield that you're mentioning and those last two plays where they just completely abandoned everything else that they had been doing on that drive for whatever reason and had no sense of urgency. It was weird. It's a total system failure. And I go back even further to the 13 yard game on first intense a minute and two seconds left. So 13 yard game. That gets them to the 26. Okay. The clock has now stopped with 55 seconds left. There's no reason to pen at that moment. Everyone has to get on the same page of what do we need to accomplish? That is at that point of 44 yard field goal. Drew Stevens is kicking well. Yes, there's rain. But if I'm putting myself in their shoes and obviously there's a lot of chaos that's going on in the game. But this is why you practice these situations. This is why every coach has analytics people who are giving them information of like here's what we need to do. You don't need any more yardage. And Dan Quinn has said that repeat like we didn't need any more yardage should have been a clock or throw it out about. But they run the ball first, which I don't have a problem with if you're going to say, hey, Drew, what hash do you want it on? All right. Hand it off. Get to that hash. And you come on 55 seconds. Okay. The place can be over with 50, 48 seconds somewhere in there. Take your time. Set up. You kick the field field goal. Naturally, it's taking up the correct amount of time where Quinn seems to be a little bit off here. Is he keep referring to what we wanted to drain the clock, which the only way that comes into place if you miss the field goal, and you don't want the giants coming back on you. But again, 55 seconds. Clock is stopped. 44 yard field goal. There is no reason to do anything of that. And it's sudden death. If you kick the field goal. Right? It's a few more. Yeah, why should you do that? If you run to the right hash, five seconds goes off seven seconds on the play, then a 40 second clock. You're kicking it with 10 seconds. Like the statistical odds that this is going to boomerang on you are are pretty low. Make the kick. There may be going to have three seconds to try a Hail Mary, but they're not going to be in field goal range. Dan Quinn has gotten the brunt of it. I've seen all kinds of people calling for him to be fired over this. One thing you need to know about Dan Quinn is he does not interfere with his coordinators. He is a big believer of, Hey, David Blow, you are the OC. You're running that side of things. He needs obviously Dan needs to be more aware and make sure he knows what the communication is. Everyone's on the same page. See what's going on. And that's the time to do is when the balls out of bounds, not when they're substituting in personnel to run another play with the clock ticking down and seemingly no one knowing what's going on. But ultimately, David Blow is a very, very young coach who guys would probably have more experience in those spots is just going, Hey, all right, Jayden, this is a clock or this is, Hey, we're going to snap it to you. Throw it over Snot's head. That's where he's going is the tight end out in the flat. It's one read. That's it. If it's not there, throw it out of bounds or just say clock it. That would also be fine. They could have clocked it after the run on first start. Just get up and spike it 45 seconds. Okay, everyone breathe. Let's get this thing right that there's so many different ways this could have gone a different direction. I think it's a massive learning experience for David Blow. I think for DQ and you saw his frustration. Maybe you see him approach things a little bit differently. Maybe he is, I don't want to say involved works. He's always been the head coach. But maybe he's putting his thumb on the scale a little bit more and saying, Hey, I got to make sure that we know what we're doing here. And then for Jayden Daniels, he's laying on the ground. He slides and he's laying there. And there's no urgency. It looks like total confusion. If there's one guy on the field, Greta, he's still a young player. He hadn't played in a few weeks. You have to know. Do you have timeouts and has to communicate to him. He has to communicate to everyone in the huddle. I find it really hard to believe. And I even saw one player say it was said in the huddle. But how in the world, everyone involved know to the quarterback. You don't say that also if you're that player, like, zip it up and like someone needs to just say this was on me and stop blaming everyone else. Just know idea, you know, I'll leave, you know, the, the body language critics to look at Jaden smiling in his post game presser when he's talking about it and all those different things. I'm sure on some level, you know, he's ticked off, but also nothing about that end of game makes any sense. They teams rep it in the, all of the off season and in training camp, most teams do it, you know, if it's Fridays or whatever the day is and you do a two minute period, you do end of game situation, like you're literally are prepared and they look so woefully unprepared. It's an oversimplification to put all that on Dan Quinn, but ultimately he's right when he says it starts with me. It does. I would expect with a huge game this week, Monday night football in San Francisco, followed by the eye, there's no time to waste, like you got to get this thing right right now. I felt like we were about to have this conversation though about John Harboh had they kicked that field goal and had they won the game, right? Because the giants were doing similarly odd things on the other side of the ball beforehand where they're well within field goal range and they're just doing little runs here, runs there. And it's like, guys, you don't need to run down the clock. If you kick this, you win the game. And again, they had already missed multiple field goals. So I guess you're trying to make it as much of a close or as far as 51 and 50, you know, he missed from 57 and he missed from 46 and he missed from 50, so he missed three field goals in that game. It's bad. It's like, I get the, get it closer. Maybe next time Harboh will give it to somebody who wears gloves in the rain, although I've also heard from people before who say gloves get slick sometimes. I'm not judging Camp Scataboo on it, but I didn't blame them for that. Like you're just trying to get a more manageable field goal to make sure you don't mess it up. But it's, it's a lot different to be doing that with three minutes to go or two minutes to go than with under a minute to go. It's just, yeah, none of it, none of it makes any logical sense. And like I would have, I would pay a lot of money to have been a fly on the wall in the staff meeting when they're going over this, this morning. Because again, it starts with Dan, but also like what in the world? How is no one aware what's going on? The whole team other than maybe Sam Cosby, everyone else seems completely unaware of what's going on. I've never seen anything like, that's the most shocking thing when I rewashed it. I'm like, you know, I would be feeling so much anxiety there like, you know, like someone doesn't look up and say, we got no timeouts that we're snapping the boat with 13 seconds. We probably shouldn't be running, running a play here. This is crazy. Like no one's just yelling. We're just running up to Jayden Daniels and being like, dude, I don't care what they told you. Just collect the ball. I don't know if they didn't play enough mat in his kids. I don't know if they didn't watch enough football as kids, but it's just like how he's no one paying attention to this. That's crazy. I would say we've got so many examples over time of players not knowing the overtime rules and the overtime rules have changed many times a lot fundamentally. If you've never been in that spot, are you just like, Oh, it's like the first quarter of overtime. We'll just keep playing a second quarter. That's the, that's the only explanation I can come up with. But you've got receivers who are just walking back to the line. One of them is kind of slowly helping up Jayden. We got tight ends and some of the offensive linemen who just looked like they're in no rush. It's just, it's mind blowing. And I say that in fairness to the guy who I think is a pretty good coach in Dan Quinn. How that's possible. Again, with a young offensive coordinator, I do think that that's part of it. Then maybe just the game. Things are moving fast and you're overthinking that as opposed to getting the easiest play possible. Don't send in the big personnel. I mean, it was, it was so wacky that even the broadcast is like, Oh, all right, they're going to bring in the big personnel and run the whole, you can't run the ball. You can't. There's, there's some things that happened that's just like, it's so weird that, you know, it'd be like, if you saw like a, you know, a dog riding a horse downtown and like, if no one else around you was reacting, you'd be like, I guess dogs ride horses. Yeah. It's so weird like it's just everything, everything threw us off. It was bad, man. Like, there's just, there's no sugar coating it and they got a, they got to respond this week. All right. That was the bad. Now, that was a good discussion because a lot of these, there's gray areas. It's like, well, I see it this way. I see it that way. The commander's one. There was no gray area. Everyone's like, what are you doing? This, the ugly, I'm going to the London game, Eagle Jaguars. The Eagles blowing that game, it looks like they got this great comeback. They're short handed. They were big underdogs. They're going to fight Steve, you know, got a win over the Jags. They're back in it in the NFC East. All they got to do with eight seconds left is make sure the Jaguars do not score eight seconds. Now, they're up by one. They're kicking off. The Jaguars have no timeouts. This is one where I actually think there is a gray area. So I'm really curious to hear what you guys think about it. They kick it off, short of the end zone, and invite a return. So the reason to do that is you're taking time off the clock. Again, there's eight seconds left. Literally, the only way you lose is if that return puts them into field goal range and doesn't take eight seconds. If they have a big return, but it takes eight seconds, you win the game. If they have a nice return, but it doesn't take eight seconds, but they're not in field goal range, they don't have time to complete a pass and then kick a field goal. That's the only way they lose the game is the way they lost the game. So that's the case for kicking it short. Now, the case for kicking it into the end zone and just saying touchback is that, you know what, now they're going to have to complete a pass to the sidelines. They have no timeouts. They got to do that within eight seconds and then kick a field goal, which one is less likely. Which one, the Eagles chose, they gave up a 53 yard return that took seven seconds and they lose the game on a 57 yard field goal. So I felt one type of way right after the game and I checked with some people, I thought about it and now I feel a different type of way. So I want to hear what you guys think first and then I'll tell you which way I'm leaving. What do you think? I do not have the emotional investment of someone who lives in the town that was negatively affected by this has not that you, you know, are clouded by emotions or anything. But you're surrounded by people that have probably strong feelings about this. So it's easy for you to get all the emotions. Now, I will remind the audience out there and you guys remember this just two weeks ago, we had this conversation about what we would do in this situation because of the Ravens game against the Cowboys in Brazil. And we were talking about, well, how do you handle it? At the time, they only had seven seconds left. So it's like, okay, well, what do you do with seven seconds here? And what the Cowboys decided to do was to kick it out of the end zone. And then they got the ball at the 35 and then they completed a 27 yard pass and then they called the timeout with one second left and it was a tie game at the time. The Cowboys had just tied it. Then the Ravens, as you guys know, kicked the field goal and up winning the game were like, well, you can never, you can never do that again. So in this game, the opposite happening, I like, well, surely this will just prove everybody's point two weeks ago that what you do is you kind of just kick it off. Granted, the Jaguars had already returned one back for a touchdown, even though that was called back on one of the most eventful first plays of a game that I think we've seen in a long time where they return a kick all the way for a touchdown. Then two guys are immediately ejected and then there's a holding or a block in the back or something. And it's like, never mind these two guys are gone, touchdown off the board. Let's just start this game again and, you know, whatever. So they have, they have, obviously, a guy returning the kickoffs that we know can take it a long way. So they decide to kick it off to him. And then he miraculously she'll get tackled at the exact time that we stopped the clock with one second. And I saw the post that you put out there on social, where you're like, had he gone two yards further, this wouldn't have even been a question. The game would have, the clock would have run out, the game would have been over. Unfortunately, for the Eagles, they tacked him, they tackled him at the worst possible time. And then you go to the kicker who can kick the ball further than anyone else in the NFL. And he kicked it through and they ended up losing the game. So I don't feel that bad for them in part. Well, the other big difference, just to interrupt your, the only other big difference between the Ravens is that the Ravens had a timeout. Correct. So it's like, they could complete a pass in the middle, they could complete a pass anywhere they wanted and call timeout and still have a chance to kick the field goal. The Jaguars did not have a timeout. So they would have to complete a pass and get out, it would have to be towards the sidelines, get out of bounds. If you complete it in bounds, then you lose the game, just started interrupt you. No, no. And the only way the clock could stop here after a play is by kicking it to them because the clock stops after you return it. So that was going to stop the clock wherever it is that they were tackled. And then, you know, if they tackled him 20 yards back, then you'd have a hill marry or whatever. But yeah, like it didn't work out, but I don't feel as bad because I feel like two weeks ago, we were arguing, this is how you should let this play out. And now we've seen it fail both ways. The timeout is a big deal. And I just was on the phone right before we were accorded with the GM. We were going through this entire situation because every team evaluates all these late game situations because they're always going, okay, we just saw what happened. And it's like, my guy's script is just going, it's not how he, but they all, they all look at it. And your game management staff looks at it and they evaluate the situation because they go, okay, you know, what are we going to do next time? Todd Bowles, you know, makes the decision he did on force down the air. And every team is looking at that and going, the analytics didn't track on that one. And so I bet you we don't see another coach, you know, make a move like that. The timeout is critical here because of exactly what happened. exactly what she'll said, which is it's the difference between being able to complete a pass anywhere on the field and having to throw it to the sidelines. You could just play outside leverage, protect the sideline, try to tackle the guy in bounds, potentially mitigate, you know, the possibility of being able to get out and then still kick in the field goal. But you're still talking about two utterly brutal plates, okay? The Cowboys lose that game. Yes. We had to make it a solution to you, apologize to the team next day, but there's a receiver running wide open 27 yards down the field to get you into field goal range. In the decision yesterday, again, you can go back in time and say just boot it into the end zone. They can only complete the ball in the middle of the field. It's a lot harder, but I'm sure again, the Eagles evaluated the Cowboys situation. They talked about it. They came to the conclusion, hey, we'll take our chances because what are the odds? We're going to get about about 50 plus yard kickoffer turn. And if I may, work blue for just one moment on this show. I know that we all want to blame the coaches and this decision led to this and why do you do that? He blew the game. How about make a fucking play? How about one time make a stop, do, don't allow the most catastrophic thing to follow the decision, you know, Jaden Daniels throw the ball out of bounds. No, have some of us throw it out of bounds, Eagles kick return unit. How do we get the guy on the ground? Cowboys, defense, hey, maybe don't allow the guys just be standing wide open by himself between the ashes. Make a play. I know that's easier said than done and like coaching is a big part of the NFL. I'm not minimizing that. I'm just saying there's so much outcome based analysis of well, he made that decision. He blew it. Shouldn't have done that. The other thing would have worked. Maybe not. There's going to blow on that too, like players have to step up at some point and make a play. You're right. You know, they have the situation earlier in the game where it gets called back and then there's a fight. There's like a 10 minute delay and half the crowd in London's probably going like, what is this game? What am I watching? Yeah. Why are the officials huddled for 10 minutes here? Why is run Torbert having a very long conversation? He was having a lot to say in that huddle. Yeah. Like we already had that happen once. Which is all right, get it together, guys, here's what we got to do. We got to have lane integrity here. Make sure we get this guy on the ground. You do it again. Make a play. Yeah. I think it's I think it is twofold. I think the coach's job is to give the players the best chance to succeed and win the game and they've got to make optimal decisions and have a good process for making those decisions and all that stuff. Most of it should be sorted out during the week, during the off season, all these conversations, coaches love to preach situational football. So I do think it's fair to rip them for some of this, but I think what Tom's saying is true in this case. This is where I landed right after the game. I'm saying, oh my god, how did you not kick it? That should be a touch back. And then I thought about it more and I talked to more people and I got more information and I'm like, no, I actually think this was the reasonable decision because you're choosing two different scenarios, one scenario and they're both very low probability. The first is that the other team completes a 15 yard pass and gets out of bounds and kicks a 64 yard field goal. Now came a little kick the 68 yard pass. Last year. So for the Eagles, you're saying this is what the guy has the strongest leg in the NFL. We don't want even want to get in that situation. Let's not do that. So you say, all right, let's invite a kickoff return again. The only way that burns you. It's not only that it has to be a kick return that's over around 50 yards or more. It has to be under eight seconds. If it takes eight seconds, the game is over. The exact moment that he brought him down, you have one second on the clock, so three things needed to happen. 53 yard return only takes up seven seconds and they kick a 57 yard. I mean, honestly, what are the odds of all three of those things happening? So I think Tom's right. I actually, and I've been very, you know, critical of Seriani in the past that I'm sure, depending on how this season goes, we'll have conversations about him. I don't think that this was on him. I think he made a reasonable decision at the time. I think it's something that they were prepared for. And I know he took the blame after the game, and that's fine. And I think that's what you should do as a head coach, but I actually don't think this was on him. I think Tom's right. Make a tackle before the guy returns it for 53 yards. That's why you lost the game, not because of the decision to invite the return. Well, the Eagles kicker like decided I'm going to give up my life to make this tackle and just unfortunately did not get him down. Like he got hurtle, he barely clipped him a little bit. But if he would have gotten him, that probably would have won them the game. He just did decide he was going to give up his life to make that tackle. Well, I think he's still with us because he missed, but he threw his whole body to try to stop the return and he just ended up getting a little injured around. But he would have stopped him like 15 yards further back, and like, Cam's got a leg, but that would have been NFL record length there. Yeah. I can't talk. I'm not getting in the way of anybody burning that faster. That would hurt too much. I'd be in the hospital. So I don't blame him. That's not, that's not his job, but yeah, he didn't make the tackle there. All right. So that was the ugly, the Eagles, the bad was the commanders, the good was Mike Evans. Did you get it, Billy? Did it make sense as we were going through it? I mean, I'm wondering how you decided bad versus ugly, like how you, because I don't think that the Eagles won, because of where I landed with the Eagles won. Yeah. I don't think that the decision there was black and white and that they screwed it up. That's why I thought that was more ugly, but you know how it goes when you come up with the categories where the format first time knows this, you know, you're writing. And then you squeeze stuff into there and they don't always make sense. But once you send it in, it's like, it's over. I'm moving on to the next thing. So that's going to look like this was like great segment. Also, by the way, we were talking about it. Eagles fans so happy that the commanders messed that up so spectacular, because everyone just forgot about what happened in the Eagles game after that. No NFC team won yesterday, even though two played each other. It's wide open. We should talk about Drake May and the Patriots since the moon landing didn't get us there. We got to Packers, Bears and also Marvin Harrison Jr. trade all that more after this. This episode is brought to you by Nationwide. A football team is so much more than a set of players. It's a complete roster filled with depth and grit. It's offense and defense coming together to make something unstoppable. It's like how Nationwide is so much more than a great insurance company. For one of America's largest financial services companies too, insurance and financial services together, that's a whole team in and of itself. Team Nationwide. For your insurance and financial needs, Nationwide is on your side. Nationwide Investment Services Corporation, Member Finra, Columbus, Ohio. This episode is brought to you by Chevrolet. Chevy drivers need a truck that shows up the same way they do. That's why Chevy Silverado is number one in manufacturer loyalty. So they can go where others won't make their own way there and always get it done. And as long as Chevy people keep showing up, we'll keep building trucks that do the same. Chevrolet, together, let's try visit chevy.com/trucks to explore the lineup. My favorite quote that came out of all the post-game and day after pressers was Matt LaFlure talking about the touchdown to Christian Watson right after the J. Michael Sturt event. Touchdown got called back and he was asked about throwing another deep all there and he said it was a, I believe he said it was a pure rage call. I love that. Like, if you know Matt and his personality that's exactly just like I'm going to do it to you again. That was for a Green Bay team that has gotten shelled in so many different ways through the course of the season. Their biggest rival, the most played rivalry in NFL history. Still everything out in front of them in terms of the NFC North, even though the Vikings improved 5 and 0 yesterday. That was she'll by far the best that we've seen the Packers and the Bears who obviously a couple weeks ago Ben Johnson decided to go to Tyson Bage and this is the first week he really committed to it early in the week. You have to look at this now and just say when's Caleb Williams back exactly because that just didn't look as talented as Tyson Bage and is that did not look very good on a big stage. Yeah. You know, I'm sure you'll have information on Caleb Williams throughout the week, but three games without him. They go two and one, you know, if you zoom out, it's like that's pretty good with the backup quarterback. But to me, you're right. The story was the Packers. This was like a, we're still here type performance from Matt LaFlure and Jordan Love specifically where it's like Ben Johnson has gotten all the hype and listen, I've been hyping him up every show we've done pretty much since the start of the season. I think he's done an incredible job, but the Bears have been the story. The Lions offense has been terrific. The Vikings are undefeated and the Packers have just had a real rough go so far. But that game, that's the bombs away, shut it down field. We will create explosive plays against any defense in the NFL. That's who they've been since Jordan Love became quarterback. It doesn't always have to be, we're going to get 31st downs, you know, we're just going to be moving the football efficiently all game. They hunt explosives. That's been the trademark of the LaFlure love offense. And man, did they do that at a high level in this game, which is like every time my eyes flashed to that game, Jordan Love was chucking the ball 35, 40 yards down field. Christian Watts and other guys were coming down with it, Tucker Kraft. And it was, you know, 428 yards of offense against a Bears defense that I thought had really over achieved the first month of the season. I didn't think they were going to be good coming into the air, but I was kind of re-evaluating it going. Did I miss some stuff here? Is this Bears defense actually pretty good? They made them look bad. And so now they're right in the thick of this three and two, you get Michael Parsons back at some point. You hope, I think the big thing is your offensive line can get settled. But even that, I'll give credit to LaFleur because they're calling those play action passes on first and second down, which really helps your offensive line. Defense doesn't know if it's going to be a run or a pass. You have different personnel on the field. So I thought LaFleur did a brilliant job of that as well. Yeah, that is a big time win. If I was doing a bunch of good, Billy, you know, the packer certainly would have been on the shortlist there because that was a big time win. Yeah, I think it's the packers team that we'd all been expecting and kind of waiting around for, right? Like they, they, two wins that they had this season, they snuck by the Jess, they barely held on to the books. They got blown up by Michael Penix in his return. And then they had that collapse to the Vikings in week one. And the Bears defense to your point, they gave up 37 points, week one to the Panthers, right? But after that, nine points to the Viking, seven points, the Eagles, 12 points to the Jess. So they haven't been giving up a ton of points. So to see the Packers kind of just have their way with the defense was positive and, you know, a good step in the right direction, I guess, if you're a Packers fan. And you see Christian Watson and Matthew Golden, what they can't be together, right? Because try to love was just launching the ball. And they were going up there and they were, they're great passes, but they were making some great catches. There was one in the end zone particular where he catches it and he's covered, then slides gets his feet and bounce and make sure to get the touchdown. I mean, this could be, you know, prison of the moment here. But Christian Watson and Matthew Golden might be the best receiver tandem in the NFL. Are we jumping the gut on this here? Christian Watson is a bonafide superstar. He's everything that the Packers want a player to be. He's just had a lot of injuries over the years. When he is healthy, he's one of the top 10 receivers in the entire NFL and the emergence of Matthew Golden has been a big deal too. The Packers issue, you know, yes, the, you know, some of the, the big plays, I would say, the overall offensive production wasn't there. But a lot of that was, Malafluhr couldn't drop Jordan love back because the line was so bad. He's got all kinds of different pieces, Lincoln Tomlinson starting at left guard now. He was on a practice squad a couple of weeks ago. They got Kevin Zyler trying to, you know, ramp him up to be able to help them at some point. Like when they can actually just drop back and go play action and throw and like keep the pocket relatively clean, Jordan loves a really good quarterback. The numbers as we all know go way down when he's under a dress. And when you don't feel comfortable, we're going to be able to give this guy a clean pocket. It changes everything about how you call the game. They still never running back. Chris Berks is on injured reserve now. I know Marshawn Lloyd got into the end zone. Did the two small celebration, which you don't get a whole lot in the NFL. Especially on a play that had nothing to do with height. But he has a 31 yards. So like that two times. That's a nice one. 31 yards. Yeah. Marshawn Lloyd missed like two full years of football and was coming back. So I say celebrate everything that you got here. It turns to Caleb Williams and what I reported in the sweep over the weekend is he just started throwing again. He's not yet running full speed. They're still ramping him up. He went through a pregame workout on Sunday. You're only allowed to do that if you're not ruled out. So why was Caleb Williams questioned for this game? There was no chance he was playing. They wanted to go through a workout. So it's plausible he could be back this week. But I just don't foresee them going to Caleb Williams until he's 100%. We'll see maybe makes that type of ramp up to face the Falcons. If not, they got a Thursday and I came that following week against the Patriots, which could be a potential option for him as well. And as for Michael Parsons, still not back. But you'd also know if you read this week two weeks ago, not going to practice this week. We'll see if it's before November. I don't know that it is they're they're making sure that he is absolutely 100%. Drake May looks 100% two weeks in a row, she'll for all the conversations we had over those first three games. What's wrong with him? Why is he turning the ball over so much and when I investigated it, the main response was just like trying to do too much. Now all of a sudden gets a big win and Buffalo played great in the second half of that game. And yesterday just look like I mean, that was that was practice out there. That was too easy for for Drake man, the Patriots offense. Yeah, the bills game was a nice win. It was a gutty win, you know, it kind of took Efton Chisholm making that incredible catch and there were, you know, there were some fumbles in there that you were, there were some plays in there that you thought, all right, if that went either way, maybe they lose this game and it's a different narrative. This was the, all right, now they kind of look all the way back game for the Patriots. I mean, 536 yards of offense against the Raiders. Josh McDaniels was in his bag early. I mean, some of those that first touchdown Drake made through. I mean, he's like you mentioned practice. I mean, he's sitting back there. He might as well have had the red jersey red penny on because there was no one around him and the wide receiver is just wide open. You create a coverage bus wide open in the end zone. That might be the easiest touchdown pass of his career. You had a little hook and ladder on third down, which I thought was great to see early on. Really aggressive on fourth down, you know, as a nerd, as, you know, Philly called me earlier that didn't go on notice, Philly, as a nerd, you know, the fourth down stuff. Whenever it doesn't work, now it's leading every morning show and everyone's talking about it. The Patriots, the last two weeks, go look at what they've, how aggressive they've been on fourth down and how much it's paid off. Go look at that Lions game this week. Also, by the way, how often they went for it on fourth down like that's been a big deal for the Patriots. These last two weeks just being like, hey, we're on their side of the field and it's fourth and three, fourth and four, we're going to, we're going to empower our quarterback that hey, we're going to have a play ready for you just execute it. And it feels like they've been hitting on those over and over again. So yeah, he was throwing bombs just like Jordan Love. I mean, 374 yards, four TDs. Now you look at it. They're three and two, AJ Brown comes back at some point here. I don't think there's been another team that I feel this differently about now compared to what I did maybe two weeks ago. Well, he also protected the ball right like coming into this week, he had nine turnovers between fumbles and interceptions. He had only thrown five or four touchdowns through match that in this game. And he threw for 374 yards. The Raider had not given up 250 yards passing to any of only one time this season. It was to to child or shut besides that they were barely giving up 200 yards of game. So if this is what the Patriots actually are, it's just a week, right? And if you look at the first three weeks, they're averaging 12 points per game. These last two weeks, they're averaging 37 points per game. So if they actually solve their problems, and these aren't just two anomalies, and this is who they actually are, they're a threat again. And I think we were questioning early in the season, hey, you know, it was a stinger of a first game, right? And then you start having the cover six conversations for Drake and that they figure them out again. But if they did solve these problems, they're going to be a problem in the AFC, which I don't think we thought was the case two weeks ago. >> I mean, while the Texans get their first win over the Titans in fairly dominating fashion and they emerge with a new wide receiver. This one took a couple of days to play out, especially publicly, and I can certainly give you a little bit of background on that. But it's a fascinating figure, Shield, because we know the Marvin Harrison Jr. and C. Day strut at a lot of success together at Ohio State. If you get into the metrics, the analytics, the tracking data, I mean, Harrison Jr. just hasn't been a really good separator. There's nothing that you look at there and say like the data backs. He can be really good. I'll be really interested to see how do they fit him in? How do they kind of rebuild whatever confidence he might be lacking after everything that played out in Arizona? I do think that there's part of this that comes down to, when they didn't have Nico Collins, it became very apparent. But there was nobody out there that C. Day strut trusted. Collins has hamstring injuries every year, missed a couple of weeks. They were not good in those weeks. Maybe now you got somebody else that he can lean on if Nico either is getting taken away or isn't available in a given game. Yeah. My initial reaction was a second round pick for Marvin Harrison Jr. who's been a disappointment as a prime. And we could say that. Everybody had just as draft amnesia every year where it's like, no, I remember what everyone was telling me about Marvin Harrison Jr. As a prospect, that this is like generational prospect, can't miss this guy's going to be one of the five best wide receivers in the NFL, but we know the draft is hard. I wish everyone would remember that in April that the draft is hard. And you don't have to be so confident in your takes because a lot of them are going to end up being wrong. And it's just that everybody's take on Marvin Harrison Jr. has been wrong. He has been a disappointment so far as an NFL wide receiver. Now, if you look at the production, it isn't like, you know, capital B boss, he's a not unuseful player, he's not even going to be on a roster. It's just been like, he's been very average. Anyway, you look at it. If you look at just yards or yards per out run or I'm sure the separation stuff, times eluding to is even worse than average right now. So part of me was like, I don't think I'd give up a second round pick for him. But then I was like, I can kind of see the vision here if you're the Texans because of what Tom said. When you lose Nico Collins, you look like a different offense. So now you get some Nico Collins insurance. Harrison has to be a number two. You're not relying on him to carry your passing offense. He's played it with CJ Stroud before. So that chemistry that's always a concern for team trading for a wide receiver. It's like, no, there's some chemistry between between Stroud and Harrison Jr. You have all those things. And the other thing I was thinking about, and I don't know that they view it this way, but they can't run the ball. They've been a terrible running team. And if you look at it, they become pretty pass heavy here in recent weeks. So is there an internal acknowledgement that, hey, we tried to rebuild the old line? We got David Montgomery. But you know what? It's not going to be there. We need to lean into being a hybrid. of all you passing game and Marvin Harrison Jr. is gonna be a nice option for us as we do that there. So there's different ways to look at his under contract through I think 2027 and then you have the fifth year option I believe for 2028. So it's not like a rental here. This can help you in future years. So I'm a little bit on the fence with it. I think if I were in the room and they said, "Shield, raise your hand if you wanna do this." I think I would have said no. Let's not give up a second round pick and a loaded draft for Marvin Harrison Jr. But at the same time, I can see what they're going for with this move. - This was weird, right? Like I'm not like on the outside of this. Like this was weird where, you know, we're headed into the week and it's like, "Looks like Marvin Harrison might get traded." It's like, "Oh, he did get traded." Where'd he get traded? Oh, we don't know. Like, but he definitely got traded. I may be oversimplifying this. Obviously Tom, you would know better than the rest of us. But when you're sitting back, you're like, wait, he was traded, he's on other team. We don't know where he's going. Like, how did this all happen? - So, all right, I'll give you the starting point of this entire thing from my perspective, which was we all knew that there was some trade talks involving Marvin Harrison over the past couple of weeks. As of late last week, everything I was hearing from various teams that inquired was they want way too much. They want a two and something else for Marvin Harrison Jr. And so, my lead of the sweep on Saturday morning was basically like, "Hey, this is the hottest name "in the trade market, but he's not going to come cheap." They want a second round pick and more, which if you go back to my tweet saying that from Saturday morning, the response is now in hindsight or hilarious, 'cause everyone would be like, "Oh, they'll never, yeah, fifth round at most." It's like, "No, they're saying that's what it's going to take." So, a couple of hours after that, this thing was ramping up and they go to Marvin Harrison and say, "We're going to make you an active. "We're working on a trade." At that point, those of us who were in the information game know, it's going to leak. The odds of, it's not just the teams. The teams can keep things quiet sometimes, but it's just two GMs, hey, we're going to wait through the week and we'll do this on Monday. That can stay quiet at times. There have been recent examples I can tell you that where that's happened. The moment you tell the player, they're going to tell their teammates, they're going to tell their agents, it's going to get around that something is going on. That's where you get this bizarre sequence of events where ESPN reports that Marvin Harrison Jr. has been informed he's being traded and he's going to be an active for the game. The inactive for the game is kind of the core part of it and then they're working to finalize the trade. At that point, I couldn't tell you exactly when the trade was fully agreed to. I would tell you, number one, ever in the league believed it was the Texans because they were the only team that had offered a second round pick at that point. And also by Saturday night, there were still teams calling Monty Austin for the Cardinals GM and he was basically saying, don't bother like, we already have something in place. So it was done at least by Saturday night at that point. And then so they get through the game and I've, as usual, got my tweets ready to go and all that. I thought it was going to wait until after the Cardinals game as well. And then all the sudden, Demiko Ryan's goes to the podium. He's badgered repeatedly about Marvin Harrison. Finally goes, you want to know? Yeah, we traded for Marvin Harrison, C and walks off. Which then, because that happens, but you don't know, is he being serious? Even some of the people tweeting it were like, I don't know if he's kidding. So I'm friendly being like, hang on. So just to be clear, we're good. And it was done at that point. There was a little confusion too in terms of the picks involved. It actually ends up being a second round pick going from Houston, Arizona. But then the Texans get a sixth round pick and send a seventh. So they move up in the draft order. So in other words, value wise, it's a little less than a second round pick. Instead of a little bit more than a second round pick, people didn't believe they'd actually get a hard two. They did get the two. They gave back a little bit in the end. And obviously, once the cat's out of the bag, once it's that far down the road, and you know you're going to do something, you kind of just have to force it through, because otherwise you'd be sitting there trying to jam the toothpaste back in the tube this week. Wasn't realistic. Played out weird, but knowing how these trade talks go, that's the one thing. The moment you tell the player, it is leaking, and it is leaking fast. That's your lesson for tonight of how the information game works. Thank you very much to everybody for watching and listening. Thanks to our Juno Chris, everybody behind the scenes. For Billy and Shiel, I'm Tom. See you Wednesday. (upbeat music) 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Starkicino, or 18 plus and present in DC or Wyoming, gambling problem called 1-800-Gampler, or 1-800-MyReset, call 1-888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gamblinghelplinema.org, or call 800-327-5050, for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8 hope and why, or text hope and why in New York, for Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867, from the studio that brought you one to vision. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore. (upbeat music) The vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. Are you sure about that? I had a father called Vision. 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