Week 1 recap: Bills, Bears & Jaguars shine, Chargers & Packers flop

Welcome to the athletic football show brought to you by the US bank smartly visa signature card. I'm Robert May is week one is in the books. Always so good to be back with the new season. We dug into all the important action from week one. Chatted about a notable Sunday night game. The New York Giants taking care of business against the Dallas Cowboys. Big days from Trevor Lawrence and Caleb Williams, a monster performance from the Buffalo Bills offense against the Houston Texans defense, some WTF moments from the chargers, the Packers and Baker Mayfield and we chatted about what made us feel romantic in week one of the NFL. Me, Dave Hellman, Derek Lassen, let's get to it right now. Week one is in the books except for Monday night football, obviously, which we'll talk about tomorrow, but the majority of week one is always fun to be back at it. My body is never ready for the just the wall of stimuli coming at you in the new and window, but a really fun week one to kick things off in the NFL. My energy was like through the roof until like third quarter of the Sunday night game. And then I was like, wow, I've been wired a wire for like nine hours at this point. It like hit me like a wall. It's the first week and it's overwhelming and also May's brings donuts for week one. So like, you get the sugar crash in addition to just the football. I probably shouldn't have done that. That was a bad idea on my part. They just they said it at some point during the new and window where he was like, I, how do we do this? The idea of watching it all happen at the same time. Your body is never ready for it because it is something that you haven't done since week 18 of last year. And I don't think anybody's ever prepared for what it's like to try to watch eight football games at once and try to keep track of everything. Well, even by then, by week 18 and half those games don't even matter. And that's the thing about today's everything matters. And so we're going to try to dig through as much as we can. We have three games that we're going to hit on the hangover tomorrow. A couple games that are always hangover worthy for anybody that's unfamiliar. We always on the Monday into Tuesday show. We hit a handful of games. We do not talk about on the Sunday night show. We're not going to talk about every game tonight. Often those are games that maybe a little bit further down the pecking order. Maybe aren't the sexiest games in the world. Titans Jets is a hangover game that we circled in like July. So we're going to hit that on the hangover tomorrow. We are also going to hit Ravens Colts on the hangover tomorrow because we do want to try to get one juicy game in the hangover each week. A lot of time that's going to be the Sunday night game. But because it's week one, because everyone just watched that Sunday night game. And it was particularly notable. We wanted to kick things off tonight by talking about that game. Just an incredibly impressive performance from the giants all across the board. I mean, what they did offensively. They had that game in the palm of their hand for four quarters. That is such a great way to phrase it. I am so awed by the game plan, by the execution of said game plan. The Cowboys touched the football twice after half time. There's blood the game out in the second half. It was it was unbelievable. The which and I have the stats in front of me. I haven't looked at them since the game ended. The New York Giants went nine of 11 on third down. They were nine of 10 at one point. That is late. Late when they didn't get when the game was already over. I don't mean it to sound derogatory. I'm I'm very, very impressed. But just a a masterful game of keepaway and of like playing to your strengths and staying on the field. I thought Jackson Dart was so impressive. I mean the like the the wow throws probably aren't going to be there for you. I think he finished like bottom of the league in Ariards per attempt for week one. But the decision-making the operation the smoothness with with which he operated. You probably crisp game. Yes. Jackson does a very crisp game when you can I made this joke at halftime when you consider that one quarterback in this game was year 11 and has been all pro and the other one was year two and has a reputation for being a bit of a yellow guy. Who would you have guessed was one and the other? You know, Dak had that ridiculous interception before halftime where he just had too much dip on his chip. Gifted the giants with a chance to score points, which they took advantage of. That was the game. Yes. That that sequence was the entire game because of how well the giants possess the ball in the second half. That's how important that possession was to waste it. Usually you think, ah, it's on punt. Yeah. You know, it's there's however many seconds left in the game for the giants to come down and score that touchdown. It was over. That ended the game because of how few possessions Dallas had over the course of this entire thing. The degree to which like snap after snap, Jackson, Dar just drop back and it's just duh, duh, like from one to two, like, okay, that's not there barely under pressure, by the way, like between the giants offensive line and the just and the Dallas pass rush, just absolutely not looking impressive outside of a Caleb Downs blitz. Just a phenomenally cool crisp smooth performance from Jackson, Darke. The Giants are 1 and 0 for the first time since 2022. And this is only the second time in the last decade. They've started the season 1 and 0 considering where they've been. Of course, like all the prerequisites apply week one is a liar. We don't know for sure what any of this stuff means, but considering where the Giants have been over the last decade and what they hired John Harbaugh to do to play like that and get a game like that from Jackson Dart against a team that has basically treated you like a little brother for the last decade. You are well within your rights to be really, really excited as a New York Giants fan for the offensive line to control the game and the way that they did that to me is the most encouraging part of it. I mean the quarterback playing very well is exactly what you want to see from a second year player, but if you're looking at the construction of the Giants offense, the line is where they were going to do a lot of this damage. It's a very well constructed group. It's completely out of character from what we've come to expect from Giants offense is over the last five to seven years. This is like a real strength of who they are. They showed that today. The quarterback was really good and for the fact that for the the notion that Isaiah likely was as good in this game as he was and has important in this game as he was every the promise of what you wanted the Giants offense to be coming into this season based on the moves they made this off season. You got that on pretty much every single level. It's the most encouraging start you could ask for, including Malik neighbors playing in the game. Yeah, like he played the fact that he played and then Isaiah likely also still popped off the way that he did like, I think that there was some concern about like, oh, well, Isaiah likely is going to have to do that if Malik neighbors can miss his time. Is he going to have to do that when Malik neighbors didn't miss any time. And Isaiah likely is able to do that. And so the fact that you got proof of concept for both of those, I thought they're running game specifically all their lead stuff like anytime they were pulling a guard anytime they were using Patrick or card was just incredibly dominant and like scatterboats the type of runner that even if he meets the linebacker in the hole, he's going to squeeze out a couple of yards after that and he did that a lot of times this game. I think the thing too with Jackson Dart. And again, week one, you don't know if he's going to do this for the rest of the season. It's not that he played well. It's that he played well in a way that he had not ever played well before like him playing within himself. So controlled. Yeah. Taking all the check downs, getting the ball out on time. You just didn't see that much of that last year. Like you did it a little bit specifically against the blitz last year, but not like on a regular down to down basis. That's I want to be sure not to make this sound like a backhanded compliment. But like, what made Jackson Dart so enticing last year was half the time it's wild in a bad way. And then once every six or seven snaps, he does something insanely exciting. The giants weren't exciting in this game. Like they're learning all these crazy explosives or, you know, on the run throws to the backpile on like we saw in the preseason. It was very methodical and smooth. I never would have guessed even I could have imagined the giants winning this. I could have imagined Jackson Dart playing well. But to be as in control as they were, as consistently as they were, I did not see that coming. He had a 72 percent drop X success rate per next gen. That's really good for a player of Jackson Dart's ilk, right? The idea that we want to see a little bit more consistency in year two on the flip side, that's heinous for Dallas's defense. Like this for as good of a start. And I want to give some credit to Matt Nagy and Greg Roman as well, because it that entire offensive staff, there were questions of what is this going to look like? How excited are we for this? How much faith do we have in this entire contingent heading into the season? They were as good as you could have wanted them to be, because as good as Jackson Dart was, there were a lot of very easy simple throws on the table for Jackson Dart in this game because of what the plan looks like for Dallas's offense or the giant's offense. On the other side, it's about as bad a start as you could possibly have for the Cowboys defense. And I think the areas where they struggled, it leaves you really worried, because the linebackers were always going to be a big question for this group. Even if you could get excited about some pieces on the front, they remade the secondary day. You have a combination of Caleb Downs, Jalen Thompson, should rebel getting time now, Kobe Durant is there. The secondary is entirely remade. The linebacking core, you trade for D winters, but other than that, you got a third round rookie in J. Sean Barham, and then you have, um, Domain Oversh own still there. They got picked on this entire D winters got picked on all game the entire game and over show over show got picked on and banged up in this game. It was rough. I mean, the degrees of which the giants consistently and effectively were putting the Cowboys linebackers in conflict the entire game and just picking on them, whether it was in the flat because there was some sort of run past conflict or hitting them over the middle of the field. It's about as rough of a start as you could possibly have. We see this you know, the two games I would point out if you were trying to have some cope for the quality of the giant or the Cowboys defense over the course of the season, which Lord knows I need to right now. You think about that week three game that early season game that the Broncos played against the Dolphins a few years ago by the end of the season. The Broncos. Broncos were an average defense. The other game I always point to that I don't really talk about very much to a through for four hundred and sixty yards and six touchdowns in game two of the Mike McDonald Ravens. Like there are early season games in year ones of staffs that just look ugly on either side of the ball. Maybe it doesn't get better, but we have examples of teams course correcting after a rough start. They're going to need to course correct because that's about as bad of a start as you can possibly have for the Dallas defense. We don't have to over react too much or relegate all of the preseason content. And I certainly I'm not like abandoning the Cowboys or the Cowboys defense at this point. But this is something I was really worried about in the sense of if this game happens at noon, it's still disappointing, right? But is it is it the same as like the Dallas Cowboys are going to be on Sunday night football and they're going to get a shitload of hype when they have an exciting defensive coordinator in a big time first round draft pick. And there's nowhere to hide. And that's a scary place to be like you're never hiding in the nude when noon window. If you're the Dallas Cowboys, hopefully not the nude window, but they were in the nude way. They were in the day. They got caught with their pants down on national television today. There's no way around it. That's as bad of a start as you can possibly have. I mean, what happened to them before the half is just unacceptable. It's just it's absolutely ridiculous and the touchdown play was all of it. This is going to be a defense where you've got to communicate exceptionally well. And the linebackers really have to cover until like on that play, they have Isaiah likely out to the right tight to the formation. He's on the ball. They shift Darnell Mooney out to over there and it like pushes, uh, pushes the corner out a little bit in the linebackers flip. So now D Winters is over there. He gets the Mooney like crashing into him and he's supposed to kind of pass that off and then get back into the flat. He doesn't do it at all. Likely just takes the high corner, the corner on the outside like panic. He's like, Oh, there's a guy free in the flat out because the linebacker's not coming off. So they both run to the flat. There's nobody under the corner up for likely. It's just like stuff like that is exactly what I was worried about specifically with the linebackers. And so to see a play like that happen, the last touchdown is something similar like it was pretty concerning again. It's week one like some of this stuff can get fixed, but it really couldn't have looked anywhere better. It was. It wasn't. And for them to get pushed around to the degree that they did and that they're for the giants to do everything they wanted to do on the ground. And again, it's as bad of a start as you can possibly have and you're one new coordinator, first time coordinator. These things happen, but it can't happen again that this has to be the outwire performance if you were the Dallas defense or it's going to be a long season because the offense wasn't great today. But if you're going to look like this, it's the same story as last year. The offense has to be perfect for you to stay in these games. One George Pickens drop to swing the game shouldn't be the reason that you're out of it immediately. And that's what happened to Dallas tonight. That's, I mean, back through a terrible interception and Pickens had an awful night. I mean, he had two drops. Yeah. The driver right before the exception is like, that's that's one where that doesn't happen. Then that sequence we're talking about the end of the half. But still probably lose this game, considering how bad their defense was. But that sequence where he drops and then the interception happens. The game ends right there. The whole point was like the margins shouldn't be that exactly. And if George Pickens has to be perfect every week for you to stand a chance, this is going to be a shitty season, just like last season was about as good a start as you can hope for for the John Harbour era, about a start as you can hope for for a Dallas team that I had hopes for. I think a lot of people did. I don't think I was alone on that island. And this is not the note on which you wanted to start that season. All right. Let's get to some of the other performances that jumped out to us today. It is time for you to have my attention. Gentlemen, now you have my attention, each week, obviously we talked about earlier. There's a wall of stuff coming at you over the course of the day. We want to pick out a handful of performances each and every Sunday. They're really grabbed our attention over the course of the day. And let's start with the Buffalo Bills putting up 36 points on the Houston Texans. The staff that jumped out to me, there were a couple of them, 0.19 EPA per play for Buffalo. That is the third worst game of the D'Amico Ryan's era in Houston. Second worst EPA per dropback game at 0.49 for Josh Allen, all these things are coming from next gen stats, 25% explosive play rate for the Buffalo Bills in this game. That is the worst mark of any game of the D'Amico Ryan's Houston Texans defenses. So in out of character day for the Texans defense and a Bill's offense that, again, you talk about debuts with new coaching staffs about as good a start as you could hope for in terms of some of the excitement that we can start building about what this version of the Joe Brady offense looks like in Buffalo. They got them in every way, man. Okay. Some of it was scheme stuff. I thought in the run game too, like the way that they can put you in conflict in the run game, I think is really impressive with their 13 personnel stuff where their entire run game is built on. We're going to put all three tight ends to one side and we're either going to run weak zone away from it or we're going to run duo at it. And you have this conflict of like, you're either going to get stretched where you don't have many defenders or you're going to have to play the mean match game against a team that like can do that against you. And so I just thought that they, you know, they popped a handful of explosives there. And then I just thought all the different ways that they were getting done in arcade open was phenomenal. He had, he had the game of his life and to open it to do that in the opener against the one. I thought was good. Yeah, like what I thought was going to be the best defense, like, oh my god. Remember what we said in the preview about how low his snap share was and what a problem that was, he led the bill skill players in snaps this, this week, he's their best player. I mean, sure as hell looks like it, 77% of the offensive snaps, 130 receiving yards. I mean, even like spiritually, he played the game of his life, but statistically as well, 130 yards is his best stat line ever. And he was one of eight players in the league with 40 plus yards of, of yak this week, just a phenomenal performance. Yeah, the two plays that stick out the jump ball, essentially the 50 50 ball that Josh Allen just chucks down the field on their third touchdown drive. That's a play that I was to great play by Dalton Kinkay. The quarterback just gives him a chance. What sticks out to me on that play, you mentioned it a little bit in the run game, 13 personnel for this team is not just the talking point, it's actually a way for them to get their best collection of players on the field and wield them in the proper way. And they didn't say that when Reggie Gale moved on this year, there's no fullback on this roster anymore. If they want to get teams in base defense, 13 personnel is what they're going to have to do with those three tight ends. They were in it on about 40% of their snaps today, 21 plays. They had a 48% success rate, they averaged 6.6 yards per play out of 13 personnel. Why the 13 personnel stuff to me works for this group, as well as any team in the league, the outside of Chicago is that Dalton Kinkay is weaponized most potently out of those 13 personnel looks because he can just be like a supercharged version of what Terrence Ferguson was for the Rams last year, but you just, you put him in positions where he just becomes a receiver in those situations and that jump all is a perfect example. He's just running a deep pile on route off play action as the vertical player on that play. So that is a way that they weaponized him and then my favorite play from him the entire game feel goal drive when to go up 30 to 28. He isn't Dalton kids at number one. He goes in motion across like just across the formation and then runs a big circus route and they have to pass it off to read blank and ship and it's a huge chunk gain down the right sideline. So just the ways they're trying to build some of the passing game and build a good chunk at the passing game out of the guy that I think is probably even with DJ Moore, their most potent pass catcher. That's what I mean when I say some of the early returns on what Joe Brady is trying to do with this offense. That shit is exciting. And then even with Kinkay on the last drive, they hit a 35 yarder to him where he's like tight to the formation on the left hand side and like Lassiter is playing like. The thing is when you have one receiver tight to the formation to one side in this case the tight end, the corner like has to play off and outside because you're just going to give up so much leverage today outside to the boundary if you don't. And so if you run that deep over route, the receiver tight end whoever it's going to be obviously has a ton of room. The thing is that 95% of the time when the tight end, you're like, he's not going to outrun me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But like Kinkay actually just straight up outruns Kamari Lassiter. He's a half-sefe flattened. That was down there in person. And he's saying. Yeah. Yeah. It's for them to find so many different ways to get him activated. And then for him to just have the play where he dunks on Derek Stingley, which that was the other thing in this game. I think the bills did a lot of things really impressively schematically. They had four or five plays where it was like their guys were just better, which doesn't happen to Houston very often. Yeah. Kinkayton, D.J. More did it back to back. Yeah. On that drive. Yeah. That drive was just incredibly silly. Like that's just the type of stuff that we can talk about how worried we'll be about Houston's defense after this game. That's one of those drives where you're just kind of like, well, tip your hand. Yeah. You just got to give them credit. The fact that Josh Allen even tries to throw that ball to the D.J. More is insane choice. It's a whole shot like 25 yards down the field from the opposite hash and he's flat-footed. It's an insane decisions. There's like two people on the planet that can make that throw up. I saw there was some like, oh man, re-blankenships getting greedy there. And I'm like, oh no, man, I'm like, I think I just have to make some of your cap against the vast majority of people. Yes. Against 99% of quarterbacks ever. He at least gets a hand on that ball. And like sometimes, sometimes the MVP is just going to do that to you. That is what I was going to say about just King Kate in general, though. And again, we'll see, but I'm reasonably confident the Texans defense is still pretty good. I think they'll be. I'm not losing a lot of sleep about that. So for Dalton, Kaden, in particular, to have this game. against this team where it's not like, well, it was, it was the Titans, but we'll see what next week looks like. No, you did this against the Texans. That gives me a high degree of confidence that this is repeatable. The other thing that jumped out to me about this game, beyond the Dalton Concade stuff, DJ Morph, obviously has a big game is five catches 100 yards. He hit a really big deep out that like third down that was really important. It's I mean, having him, even if I do think you can make a really serious argument that Dalton Concade is the most potent pass catcher on the team after what we saw from last year in a limited run. Having him as a full-time player and unleashing him is the thing that could really change this offense, I think even more than DJ Morph. The fact that now DJ Morph could be your second best pass catcher is a very good place for the bill's offense to be in considering where they were at the end of last season. Well, not only that and something I wanted to make sure I mentioned came right off the post game interview that Josh Allen gave to CBS because DJ, I mean DJ Morph went five for 100, but is still a viable enough threat that defenses are going to play him a certain way and Josh Allen said after the game, I have never on the post that put them ahead the post to Josh Palmer 34 yard touchdown. I've never thrown that ball to Josh in my life, not even in practice. You don't even think about it, but they were cheating to DJ Morph so hard that it was just there for me. And so even if DJ Morph doesn't put up these sorts of numbers on a regular basis, how often have you felt that way about a bill's receiver where the gravity that he draws is going to make life easier on somebody else. The other element of this game from the offense that felt different to me and I was talking to you about it when we were just prepping for this watching how consistently and effectively Josh Allen was moving defenders in the middle of the field with his eyes with his shoulders, just little tiny subtleties that we typically ascribe to the Matthew staffers and the Jared Goffs and the guys that are truly limited to being in the pocket like these are nuances you have to bring to the position when you don't have the physical ability. That somebody like Josh Allen does Josh Allen is 30 like these are the sorts of things that are going to start becoming part of his game as he gets a little bit older and if we're adding those sorts of little tiny tricks and again just the nuances of playing the position on top of the fact that he can just rip off a 25 yard scramble down the middle of the field and score touchdown seemingly it will whenever he wants that is when things get like truly horrifying about what he is going to be capable of. We talked about this game for like six minutes before we mentioned a 21 yard scramble where the quarterback bold over three tacklers at the goal line when I said this about him and then when we did the bills preview that he's just a force of nature at the position that no one else is. And that's the play I'm talking about like Lamar had a rushing touchdown in this game when you let Lamar out on the perimeter and he's done a million times in his career what he can do just beating people to the corner is insane. Those scrambles where he just bolts to the goal post and just like I don't give a shit who is in my way on the way to get there he's the only one doing that and the fact that he had one of those in week one on top of everything else just speaks to the type of performance that we're talking about. It needs to be said that he should have been intercepted by Kamari last year on the second black to last play of the game and that might have swung this thing and what I think there's two things that hang on there one. There's always going to be a little bozo in and when he's playing extremely well always that that's never going to go away and it's you just I think you just kind of have to live with it but the other part that I think is worth bringing up with that. The fact that this game was that close where the bills could score 30 points and if that ball gets intercepted they lose speaks to the quality of the Texans offense in this game and I think overall I'm comfortable coming to a conclusion where I'm saying hey the Texas defense is going to be much better than they were today. I'm actually encouraged overall by what I saw because of how good the offense was throughout this game it ends poorly and that stretch near the end of the game where you just try to give the ball away coming off the heels of the playoffs is not what you want to see but he played very well I think over most of this game and I think the combination of his play the way they attack the middle of the field what the running game looked like what the offensive line looked like even if it's a loss that's going to sting I think there's a lot. About this game if you're a Texans fan that you can take some solace and as you project forward through the rest of the season I'd be encouraged like if you if you told a Texans fan that week one we would score 31 points winner. You take that because you're just like well if we can kind of project that out to the rest of the season like you said the Texas defense is not going to play like this like they're just not going to get big boy the way that they did in this game against most other teams like the fact that the run game looked alive was just so exciting like a lot of their pole stuff was really impressive. The gap came stuff is what stuck out because we talked about this every time they do stuff last year they would they would just get annihilated it would get nuked and that's why they kept going back to those duo runs over and over and over again. So the fact that Montgomery touchdown comes on just straight power with at Ingram kicking somebody out like all right. Like I know we can work with that and there was enough of that today to get excited about it. It was Ingram and then the combo that nursery and stover put on the backer and then stover peeling off to the safety I was like holy shit man if they're just going to move people like they got a run game. That was the promise of the offseason that the tight end depth and quality compared to last year plus the additions along the offensive line and David Montgomery where we need to see a different version of the run game and this week one yes we we did see a different version of the run game this is where I'll point out that the bills were horrific against the run last year. That's fair maybe that is a decent place. Maybe they're just not better Houston didn't even do this again. No. That's fair. You're going to do this against anybody is a step in the right direction for the Houston Texas offense. They only had 11 runs of 18 plus yards last year by like design runs by running backs so to hit one for a touchdown in the first go of the year. Was like when Montgomery got to open space I was like well this looks different. Like that's not what I'm used to seeing and he's the 39% rushing success rate. I mean they weren't last year's Rams but it's again I think that there's a lot to build on from what we saw in this game. But they still hit a handful of like really impressive and I just thought the backs looked good like the way that he was seeing it and the way that he was as long as really impressive Lee March I thought looked impressive like they just looked to go back to your point about baby steps they had at least two because they had two fourth and shorts. They had at least two if not more short yardage situations where they converted they converted like the ball got across the line to game. It wasn't the most beautiful thing in the world but I just I'll never forget what a running joke it was last year when the Texans would go short yardage and we just knew before they snapped the ball what was going to happen. Yeah I think to put a point on it not a good start for the Texas defense a group that we expect to be better about as good as you can hope for for the Joe Brady version of this offense again because I think some of the things structurally they were doing and I I wanted to see this team be a play action attack the middle of the field offense and we saw a lot of that in this game it was either that or empty and that collection like that combination of flavors. With the group that they have at plus again all the 13 personnel stuff that they were doing which makes total sense for them. I think it was a really encouraging start with both the ideas and the execution with a year one head coach even if he has been their play collar before. One can I give one more note before we move on course him Greg or so yeah yeah unbelievable this game like I just really quickly wanted to give him a flyers the bills have been hunting for that ed rusher forever and it's just their own guy this whole time it turns out to be you in coverage. And the Texas were backed up and they dropped him off and he had a PBU he had the game ending sack against against Trent Brown yet a strip sack like he had a runstop early in the game it was like yeah it turns out the answer was he was on the roster. Let's just take his hands off the dirt and let him do some other stuff only one player the per PFF and maybe those numbers will change but only one player in the league had more pressures week one than Greg or so. And over at a couple moments to I mean those those the two guys are going to have to carry the front if that if this defense is going to be good enough for the bills to be serious by the end of the season and so a heck of a start for the Buffalo bills. Another team that had a heck of a start today Chicago Bears scored 59 points today comfortably 59 points the Chicago Bears and their offense you guys firmly have my attention I want to be clear that I did not elect to put this in the show. You can be a you can look I get it you don't want to come across like a Homer this is the highest point total in an NFL game since the 2023 season and only one of four performances of the last decade with 59 plus points. 2023 Raiders beat the charger 6321 that was obviously the year the Dolphin song 70 on Denver and then in 2019 Lamar did 59 10 on the Dolphin's Dolphin's that game yeah that's it though yeah this is it doesn't matter who does it when you score 59 points in the NFL it's a headline. How's that make you feel. Colson level and had no catches it scored 59 points he didn't he didn't impact the game it was it was incredibly encouraging and we talked about this throughout the off season in terms of what would need to happen for this offense to take the next step. And there were two things that I kept coming back to really as part of the Caleb Williams extended conversation we had during the lingering question show we did in junior July there's scrambled real stuff last year awful like I think people think about Caleb Williams is this out of structure off schedule quarterback and that's where he's best there numbers last year in those situations were actively bad they talked about it a lot throughout the off season the first two moments he had in this game in the. those situations, he'd shucks a, he'd shucks a 50/50 heave for Rome down the right side line, who moses a guy inside the 10. And then he makes that play rolling to his left to find Khalif Raymond on the move. They didn't, there were games last year where they didn't have too positive out of structure plays when he was throwing the ball not just as a scramble. So the fact that you filled that bucket up. And then the other thing was could he just be crisper and more consistent in defined drop-back situations. And he was. It wasn't just made up of explosives in this game. There were plenty of them. I mean, that touched down to call combat as as good as it gets. That throw is as good as it gets. But to me, it's the checkdowns. It's taking what's there. It's the consistency. You finish with the 59% drop-back success rate today. And when you combine that with the explosive nature of the offense across the board that they are going to have, those are the factors in combination that needed to come together for them to feel like this. And I think that's the thing. They didn't, I think sometimes when we have these like super explosive players in any realm, the idea is like, well, we have to tone down something to make them more successful. They didn't tone down anything. Yeah, they were still chucking it all over Yard. They were trying to do all the stuff. They went through the yard's pertence. And he was still just like making the throws. It's going to sound funny because he's a young quarterback that hasn't proven as much as Caleb Williams, but it reminded me of the command that Jackson Darts just showed against the Cowboys, but with the explosive element, like with, I mean, Jackson Darts average, like for something Ariards per attempt, Caleb was up at 10. Like, he was winging it around when he could. But the, just the efficiency and the, the calm demeanor of this and he knew when to scramble. And he was so good at scrambling, by the way, like that, like that went really well in this game. His the sack avoidance and scrambling carrying over from what they were last year. That part is really encouraging because there was at least a little part of me. Then when you look at that, those are volatile situations. And so for him to be as good as he was at mitigating sacks last year and escaping pressure when it would happen, you wondered, does that fall back to earth a little bit? Really, the only play where that happened today is he thought he could be Jalen Phillips to the edge and took a sack because of it. But other than that, we talked about it. I mean, his ability to sense pressure coming off of his blindside and wheel around and make unblocked guys miss is really uncanny. And he did it multiple times again today. His like when he retires and when I'm thinking of him in like 20 years, the, the last thing image in my mind of Caleb Williams is going to be he gets a pressure off his blindside. And he does the thing where he steps up just a little bit, ducks, and then wheels back out of it. He gets guys to bite every single time on it because if you don't respect it, I mean Pat Mahomes does that like a lot. There's one guy that sticks out to me, Roger, Roger. Yeah, all the time. That's, this is my own experience coloring it, but like, it reminds me of like Tony Romo at his very best is like Romo was so good at some of that shit when he was still mobile. It just an incredibly impressive performance. And we haven't even mentioned the fact. They ran for 291 yards. They've run for 280 plus yards three times in the 20 games that Ben Johnson has coached. They've done it one other time in the whole history of the franchise going back to the merger. It's they really did just assert themselves on the ground for like a good majority of this game. You said it in real time. It seems like every run is going to go like every time they run the ball, it seems like it's going to go it literally and they only had like a 43% rushing success rate. It wasn't even the best of the day or anything, but it's just when you watch it, you're like every run is either going to pop or it literally does like it. It's just like a feeling. Do you know why I think part of that is and Caleb's at this after the game. And I thought it was a really mature observation from him. He said the manungai touched down run. That's the type of offense we want to be. Go back and watch what happens on that run. Romt picks somebody off, Khalifa Amin picks somebody off, Kolkamek completely caves in that side of the line of scrimmage. They're blocking that jade walker did in this game. Like we talked about this in real time. The idea that Luther Burton was a guy that was like, how much does he love football and there were some questions just about makeup coming into the draft. And now he just blocks like a banshee every time he's given the opportunity really speaks to what they want this offense to feel. And I think that's part of why it does feel like every run can go is because 10 guys are blocking their asses off on every single play. Maybe that's what it is. There's always someone down the field who has hands on the one. There's never a free safety. How easy must it be to get buy-in when you see the explosives that this offense generates. They gave jade walker touch. Did I get there? You're going to get yours if you block in this offense. Serden had the fumble early in this game. And it kind of felt like he disappeared for a little while after that. And like revisiting the game getting ready for the show. I was like, uh, disappointing debut for Luther Burton. He had the fumble. And then I pulled up the box score. And he had like four for 65. Like he had a perfectly very good day for a second year receiver in this offense. Like there's just, I mean, there's touches to go around for everybody. And they're usually very productive. Let's get to another young quarterback who had a monster day today. You have the stats on hand. I'm going to let you you take it from this. Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars offense. They scored 34 points in this game, but they did it at will, especially when they were throwing the ball. Trevor Lawrence and the Jags passing game. You guys officially have our attention after today. Yeah. 34 points, 24 of them in the first quarter. And then after that, they kind of just took took the foot off the gas. Trevor Lawrence in this game. And this is exactly what their offense needs to look like. He had 10.5 air yards per attempt and a 69.2% success rate. The only other games since 2022 that arrived at that was Geno Smith did it against the Lions in 2024. Lamar Jackson did it against the Giants in 2024. And then there was one other one that I'm forgetting, but it only happened three times in in that time spent. And he did it week one against the defense to like, we don't know how good they'll be, but they're talented. They're definitely playing. Yes. This is not I think people are going to look at and like, oh man, whatever they did it against the Browns. The Browns defense, even without Miles Garrett, there is a requisite amount of talent on this defense for them to steam roll them in the way that they did today. Yes. Oh, the last one, Jared Goff did it last year against the Bears. So this is a type of performance to talking about the 2024 Giants defense in the 2025 Bears. And he just came out and did it. Also, to your point, regardless of who you're playing, points on your first four drives of the season. Yes. And like your first four times you touched the ball, they were up 24 nothing with six minutes to play until half time. I mean, yeah, the stats are video game. Ask my favorite one. Similar to what we were talking about with Caleb, Trevor did all of that. I mean, you have the numbers. Second best, EPA per dropback of his career, best passer rating of his career. He threw a third of his passes, 15 yards or more. They're just chocolate. I mean, that's exactly what I want to say from this. He threw five in completions and four touchdowns while chucking the ball down the field. Like again, this was not manufactured bullshit. This was Trevor throwing lasers at will and pretty much all of them getting completed. I loves beyond the quality and the production. What they were doing offensively was incredibly exciting. There were like four or five plays where I was like holy shit, that's cool. I mean, you can go. There's so many of them early in the game. Like the first like 11 yard chunk to Parker Washington, I don't know this for a fact. I'm curious to ask. I think that they watched some minor stuff this off season. Like when you look at what the offense was doing, that chunk to Washington, the first drive that we get Brent Strange on, obviously, I'm sure they didn't put this in after watching the Niners in week one, but that little kind of like banana motion that we see from use check. We got that from Brent and Strange play action, little in breaker behind it. Shunk. The Parker Washington touchdown is an incredible design. It's third and seventh, they have liquid Allen in motion. They get him out and his route to the flat actually creates a pick on the linebacker as Parker Washington is moving from the slot on that deep corner against Miles Harden. It's an incredible diving catch for a touchdown. They had tons of plays in this game where they just did such a great job of getting five out, using space, yanking guys out of like certain areas in zone coverage. I just I love the plan. I love watching them go at it. The the Strange touchdown. I think it might have been my favorite where they're in the red zone and a lot of times what you'll get in the red zone is teams will try to play like Tampa 2. And so what the Jaguars did is they said they're tied into the left hand side into the boundary into the short side and one receiver over there. And then two receivers and the back to the other side to into the field. So the the pole linebacker in this case Carson Swessinger. He's always going to open to the strengthen to the field. Like that's his rule. And so what they do is they get strange on this like switchverse post right behind him and Trevor Lawrence just ribs. That's my that are the cameras are my favorite throws of the day. Both of them just like lasers 100 miles an hour. The laser to camera and the strange thing what what is most impressive and just really sticks out to me about that play. He comes back to that. And it's on the back side just starts on the right side. He comes all the way back to the back side puts his foot in the ground and just rips that thing to bring the strange for a touchdown. He had a couple of those today. Okay. I love this and these are all good answers. Also Josh Cameron. One of my day three pet cats scoring in his NFL debut incredible. But my favorite is the one that was the most just like f you I'm better play, which was the Jacobi Myers touchdown, which when I like when I imagine Trevor Lawrence a decade ago as a prospect and an NFL quarterback. This is the type of shit I was imagining where like Anton Harris Harrison lost his rep. He Trevor's dead. The edge rushers got him dead to rights. He squeezes between the end and the detackle like 99% of quarterbacks get sacked squeezes out of it goes left and then just uncorks a howitzer to Jacobi Myers in one-on-one coverage. Just when you talk about like a mech warrior playing quarterback, like a very Josh Alleny sort of play, but like that's the type of shit Trevor can do. He's just explosive, man. Yeah. And like the strange touchdown, I just talked about the play before he just launches like a third down deep comeback to Parker Washington. Just like you just have to have the arm for it, the nuclear arm to do it and he put that in there. Speaking of Josh Allen, you just said Josh Allen is always going to have a little bozo in him. Trevor's always going to have a little bozo in him. For all of the great things we just said about him, he still had an illegal forward pass with his left hand in this game. He's just always going to have a little bit of knucklehead in there for the plot. My high school offensive line coach used to say if you give me 60 plays where you're playing as hard as you can, I'll give you one where you play a little too hard. And that's how I feel about Trevor Lawrence and Josh Allen. Yeah. If they're going to give me the 60 plays they gave over the course of these games, I think we're allowed to give them one. Yep. With the Jags and the Bears. Two offenses that took the league by storm last year, just in a sense of new play cars, new places, quarterbacks that we want to see more from teams go to the playoffs. Their top 10 offenses by the end of the year. I think hovering over their entire offseason was can they do this again? Like what does the follow up act for Ben Johnson and Liam Cohen look like? Can these teams stave off for aggression when it would typically come for you in these moments? And so for this to be the first act for the Bears and the Jags offenses in week one about as good a start as you can hope for. And neither of their games, I know the Bears fans in this room might disagree. Neither of their games were overly stressful. I mean, the Panthers gave the the Bears a better game than the Browns gave the Jags, but I was done worrying about the outcome of the Bears game in the third quarter. Yeah, it's stressful just in the sense that the defense is going to make me of course turn into the Joker. Of course, in this game, like I it's going to be a rough year if it continues to look like that, but if the offensive scoring 59 points again, that doesn't really matter. We will talk like I said at the beginning, we will talk about the Ravens tomorrow. They would absolutely be involved here. It's week one. There's so many things that happen and we wanted one juicy game to really dig into. I kind of want to watch the whole game and dig into it. And so that will we will have a chance to do that on the hangover tomorrow. I will let y'all get into it in depth, but they absolutely did get my attention because you set it Derek during preview season where you used to just be able to count on the Ravens to do that shit to somebody week one like every year and midway through the second quarter. I was like, oh, no, the Ravens are back. All right. We are going to get to the some of the stuff that was not as fun in week one before that. We're going to take a quick break. Are you the kind of sports fan that wants to dig into the story behind the stats? Join the athletic live on YouTube to cover all of the sports stories you can't stop talking about. On game days, we'll watch the biggest matchups alongside the athletics most tapped in reporters. And you can become part of the show in the interactive chat. The athletic live is presented by Google Gemini. Subscribe now on YouTube. What the f***? I'm going to love that that's a draft the entire year. Each week, they're going to be some things that just can found us, whether it's a moment, a game, a performance. So we're going to dig into a couple of those today. The Los Angeles Chargers were the biggest favorites in week one. Everyone expected them to come out, throw the ball over the yard. It was going to be the Mike McDaniel Justin Herbert moment. Instead, they go down 26 14 to an Arizona Cardinals team that not many people had a lot of high hopes for coming into the year. Los Angeles Chargers losing to the Cardinals as the biggest favorite of the week. What the f***? That game was I want to work all the way backwards and start it basically the end on the Chargers' last drive and really like their last play. It was a fourth and 18 and in Joku is running this like deep over out where he's going to try to get to the sticks and then just sit down and he shoves Will Johnson to the ground so egregiously like in so much frustration that it was like the entire 60 minutes before that had just came rushing out of them and it was like you could kind of just feel that boiling over the course of this entire Chargers game. So for the fact that it like ended like that against again, a team that they it's the NFL things are always going to happen. It's a it's a any given Sunday type of league, but like that game was that was tough. I said this to you when we were prepping for this, but this my big picture takeaway and we can kind of dig into the specifics. The Cardinals did all of the things to the Chargers that we expected the Chargers to do to other people as the best version of themselves and there are two things that really stick it stick out to me when I say that. One, the way the Cardinals just massacred the middle of the field in this game throwing the ball and all the ways they pride open the middle of the field in this game was phenomenal. I think that we were living in a condensed world now offensively and we thought the Cardinals would be that sort of team. The next year numbers weren't available when I was looking at this. There was only from the Thursday and Wednesday games for in terms of formation with. I'm very curious to see how spread out the Cardinals played in this game because it felt like it was very spread out coming from a McVeigh world that Michael Fleur lives in. And when you do that and you stretch out these shell defenses, you get a ton of space and a ton of answers. And so I thought they did a phenomenal job of manufacturing space horizontally either formationally or with motions and actions and then accessing things back in the middle of the field on throws between the numbers in this game. Jacobi percent was 17 of 20 for 167 yards. They had anything they wanted anything. The first throw of the game was like a monster symbol. Yeah, McBride. And they just kept doing which was a straight under center drop back that they would hit like a 20 yard chunk play out the scene to to term it right. They did that the entire game. Like they did such a good job of again, just manufacturing space in the middle of the field. And they the ways they were picking on the linebackers specifically Philips and they on Henley had a rough time. There were so many moments. I'm curious what the coaching point is on this where the linebackers are like really flashing to the flat hard and then they're just throwing stuff right behind them. And I just and that's the other element of this. The chargers were a team which Jesse Minter that they felt so buttoned up in zone coverage where they squeeze things so effectively. And the team that was doing that way better way more consistently throughout this game was the Cardinals. Like if you look at the depth the linebackers were getting what the again the safety is just squeezing down on things their ability to really squeeze some of those windows was incredibly impressive over the course of this game. And that's the type of team we were used to the chargers being. And so the Cardinals were essentially just what we hoped the chargers would be throughout this entire game. And I did not expect to see that. I don't think anyone had that on their being okay. I'm not ready to re litigate the Cardinals entire situation after one week. But I mean we laid it out. This was one of the most injured teams in the NFL. And Jacobi percent wasn't it wasn't it's it obviously wasn't all good last year. But they were in a lot of games with Jacobi percent. Like they played a lot of better teams tough. And we talked the skill talent is evident. I mean, Trey McBride was awesome in this game. Jeremiah love really nice debut for Jeremiah love Tyler Alger our guy Kendrick born. That's the most obvious stat line ever for a guy that Michael Flurr clearly prioritized when he got to Arizona. Yet eight targets today. This this just is not the roster of the worst team in the NFL. And Jacobi percent's probably not always going to look good enough for the result to look like this. But good enough. I think is the right framing. Yeah. He's good enough. He's good enough. If the offense is well constructed with the skill position talent they have and the offensive line clears the bar. He's good enough to do this. This is not a hopeless team other than the fact that they just punted on really answering the quarterback situation this season. Yes. And he is in theory the right quarterback for what you laid out for the offense where it's like we're going to be able to get under center. We're going to spread things out and we're going to like use every bit of the field. Can you throw through some of the car wash that might happen over the middle of the field? Jacobi percent is not afraid to do any of that now clearly wasn't in this game. And so if they're really going to lean into that. I mean like it's not a one for one. But like when percent played fairly well in like Cleveland. A while it was a little bit of some of that same principles. And so I think if they can continue to access that that would be huge again. Tramack bride was they did so many different things to access him in this game. Kendrick boring pieving the game he did. He only had one catch for like Marvin Harrison did make an insane catch in this game. Yeah. If he is just kind of going to be like a big play merchant for them every now. And then if the other guys are enough of floor razors like again, we can litigate whatever we want about top five pick. But like that would be good enough for this offense to be interesting. It's not ideal if that's all Marvin Harrison is. But they have a $25 million receiver now. Like so they they answered it. And like I said, it's not the ideal order of events. But it works itself out, I guess. It's just incredibly impressed by the early in the game that chargers were getting some chunks over the middle of the field by moving the pocket a little bit giving. I think that the past protection and their ability to just create space for Herbert early in the game. You saw that on some of those chunks over the middle of the field and over the course of the game. I just thought the Cardinals did such a great job of squeezing that space and getting creative and how they were getting bodies there, right? Whether it's boot a bake a dropping boot a break a dropping down just so many different ways of again squeezing that area and the car the chargers really had no other place to go. And then the other element of this game that is worrying for the chargers because this is not something that's probably going to get better. The interior of the offensive line looks like it's going to be a problem again on that fourth and three that game swinging fourth and three Dante still just puts traipipkins in just a Herbert's lap and those are the guys we're going to see on the interior for the Chargers this year. Like there's no reinforcements coming. Some of that is obviously a shitty break because you lost Tyler Biotis before you played a single snap. But did it feel good enough when Tyler Biotis was available? Probably not. I'm not convinced that that's the case. And I like I thought that was strange heading into the year and then guess what? It's a hundred percent chance of injury game. So the odds that you were going to get through it fully healthy anyway were not good. And here we are again. Yeah, it's this Chargers team. It was going to be if the defense was going to take a step back, which I think is reasonable to expect given the fact that this is still not a defense with a ton of elite talent. At first, first time play collar applies here as well. But if we, if this continues, if this version of the team continues where the defense isn't quite what it was last year, the offense was going to need to be the unit that picked up the slack. And for them to come out and have such a dud in week one, it's a frustrating start given like all the ink that we spilled this off season talking about the Chargers offense. And the other thing I would say and it's only one game. The Chargers longest run in this game was 14 yards. What's the point of the offense if that's where we're going to be? Like I'm sure they will clearly have better games than this, but like that is the entire point of the offense is that we're going to create at least one 20 25 yard chunk at some point and they just weren't really able to do that at any point. We'll also never know. But it's worth mentioning at least it was 16 14 Chargers absolutely still could have won this game. They had forced two puns in a row when semi-fiddleco blocks that pun and what it's a three yard possession to take a two score lead. I mean, the Chargers were punting from their own red zone. So maybe Arizona takes the ball anyway and changes the complexion of the game, but you just you just gave it to him. You just gave him a three yard field to essentially put this game away or at least put you in chasing mode down two scores in the fourth quarter. They absolutely could have found a way to win this game without a completely unforgivable special teams gaff. It was all too familiar. That's what I'll say. The special teams gaff, Lad McConkey getting peeled off the field at one point in this game. It just if there was any hope that it was going to feel different for the Chargers this year. This is not the note on which you want it to start. I mean, it's reminds me a little bit of situation with Dallas. It's like we can have this conversation over and over and over again. Like this time it's going to be different. This time it's going to be different and then to come out in week one and have it not be different. It's a tough way to start. Let's keep going here. The Green Bay Packers up 22 to 10 with 512 in the third quarter. Not only lose to the Vikings, but lose to the Vikings by multiple scores. They lost by 17 points to the Carson Lens to the Carson Lens Vikings after being up 22 to 10 with 512 in the third quarter. They led for roughly 50 minutes of this game because they they kicked a fuel goal pretty early in the first quarter and didn't officially surrender the lead until there were like six minutes left in the game. So lost by three scores. The final 20 minutes from the Green Bay Packers. What the ****? This entire game was this game was insane to because Flores. I don't know what the final blitz numbers are going to settle on. It felt like every play. I mean, it was hovering around 80%. Depending on that is insane. Even for Brian Flores. That is like truly insane level of play. And honestly, for a lot of this game, like for I would say three quarters of it, like Jordan Levin, the offense, like handled it relatively well. Like they were hitting chunks and obviously they were explosive. They were, they were willing to like if Brian Flores was like, I'm going to kill you with these blitzes. Jordan, I'll try right back. And he was hitting a lot of them by the fourth quarter. I think my biggest issue with this team kind of started to rear. It's had the offensive line. Just doesn't have it. And you have two backup guards. You have two backup guards and who, like the left guard, I don't know if Jennings, if he had ever even really played with like the first team or the main team at all over like the preseason or anything like that. Like I was shocked to see him in the line. Isn't it really Packers coded to do that? So we were arguing about the guard situation. And I don't think we brought up Donovan Jennings during the preview. And then he's out there with the, with the starters and pregame warmups. And I mean, it did not go well. Pernex, Jen Vikings, Blitz, Jordan Levin 78.23% of his draft backs, which is the fourth highest raid by a defense in a game since 2018. I can't believe it's only the fourth highest rate. Yeah, that's kind of shocking. Is one of them the Brian Flores Lamar game? I don't, I don't have any. But I assume Brian Flores is involved in some of those games. I don't, I don't want to, I was so impressed by a lot of what Jordan loved in this game. And it did make me think of our preview where Jordan love is just going to have to be awesome. This is the ecosystem he's playing in. And the passing game is going to have to be awesome. It's going to have to be incredible. And I wonder he had so many sick throws in this game. Like the throw coming out of his own in zone to Matthew Golden for 13 yards was it made us both like just laugh out loud during the second window. The 42 yards of Matthew Golden was disgusting. Also, like him by time in the pocket, making that throw is nasty. The early touchdown to Christian Watson was disgusting, but crazy. The reason I bring it up, though, is like on that play, Flores brought heat. And I think it was Theo Jackson, like he whiffed diving for that ball and just and it like that led to the explosive. And I just wonder if Flores was like, okay, do that eight more times today. And we'll see who comes out on top because that's what it felt like where he was like, like March on lunch. Like I'm going to get got, but I'm going to get mine more than I get got. Like that's how it felt watching this game. And Flores wound up on top in the end. We really had the anatomy of a collapse. Like all the elements that you need for a truly horrifying collapse were in play. The play that will probably be forgotten, except by Packers fans that had to live it. When they're up 22 to 10, Miles Price returns a kickoff down to the 28 yard line with five minutes left in the third quarter, Miles Price, Miles Price down to the 28 yard line set up a short field base score, a touchdown. So that is what gets it to 22 to 17. Then we have the taking points off the board, but it would have been 25 17 and choosing to go for it on the quarterback sneak and not getting it. That is classic collapse type stuff. And then the one drive where you have an illegal contact, a roughing the pastor and a defensive hold, and rude to a touchdown for the Vikings. Like it could not have been a more frustrating 20 minutes of football if you were a Green Bay Packer span that what you had to watch in this game. I was curious because and they had the penalty that made it fourth and short instead of fourth and like five and a half or whatever it was. But in the Jordan love era, Green Bay is 24th in the league in go for it decisions. They were 20th last year like. Malafloor is just not the most aggressive guy. And I think that's part of the rationale for why you can be okay with the decision in the moment, trying to put the game away. Exactly. If it ultimately costs them, I kind of applaud it. Really, like, you know, hindsight's 2020. I was like proud of Matt Laflore for like, let's just end this right now. If we get a yard, games probably over and he's never going to do anything about that. Yeah, they did not get the yard and the game was not over. He's never going to do it again after everything that followed that failed sneak. I mean, what Blake Cashman and just like the linebackers did as what's your game? He came untouched on, I mean, the two plays in a row. Dallas Turner comes untouched. Yes. Just destroys Jordan love and then Blake Cashman comes untouched on the very next play. And that's the one where the offensive line stuff and all the shuffling. I think is where you saw it because they had a linebacker lined up in the right side A gap and then on the right side B gap. And Jacob Monk, I think, is supposed to take the B gap player and let the back scan from A gap all the way back out and you can see the back he scans and he looks at the A gap player and he drops out and then he's out. And so Monk goes to nobody because he slides to the guy who drops out. And then the guy in the B gap is just like free to go hit the quarterback. And so maybe that's on the back. I think that's on the garden. It's just like a miscommunication. But it's just it was that exact stuff where like a backup center is now you're starting right guard. And things like this are going to happen against especially against Brian Flores defenses. Speaking of Brian Flores the offense is the one play I wanted to point out just because it is so crazy to me. Harrison Smith signed like five days ago. He had a huge P.B.U. on that drive where the packers ultimately took. Oh, smoke Matthew Golden, the coolest part about that play though. He's mugged up on that one. He's bailing. And then puts his foot in the ground has to come back downhill to get the P.B.U. The man did not practice the entire the entire summer. And he's doing that crazy shit before the play and ultimately getting a P.B.U. By the time it's all over. I've got to believe Harrison Smith was like doing calisthenics in his backyard just like shuffling the backyard with for when he got the time. It's not about the physical aptitude. It's about the fact that he hadn't played football the entire summer. He's been practicing for like four days. And then he's doing that sort of sort of weird disguised thing is you don't need to practice when they built the defense for you. Like Flores does a lot of that stuff because he had Harrison Smith at that. It's so true. But that's always been true. Right. Yeah. It's a summer days. I said this when he resigned. I'm if you actually tracked how far each individual defensive player has moved before the snap over the last decade. He wins going away. Oh, he's the record holder. It's not even close. Is that information available? I don't know. If it were, he would absolutely be the winner. Just you think about how many times he's been on the line of scrimmage and ends up 20 yards in the defensive backfield. The fact that he was doing that after practicing for like four days in a huge moment in a week one game. It's a very good thing that the Vikings have Harrison Smith back. The fact that the Vikings won this game after what happened with Coward Murray. We said it in the moment. But to be a Vikings fan, this entire summer and talk to yourself into man, it's so nice to have just a capable human quarterback again that we can hopefully get the ball to Justin Jefferson. We can be a reasonable team. Just be normal enough for me to enjoy this. And you lose him five pass attempts into the game is the ultimate gut punch. And for it to end like this, something you could not have imagined when he went down in this game in the first quarter for so much of this game. It just felt like you were living a slow death, you know, like 22, 10. It's like, well, it's only 12 points. But what is Carson Wentz done to give me this degree of confidence? Like it did not really feel like it could happen for Minnesota until it did. All right. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. One more performance we wanted to dig into the minutes are, excuse me, the Cincinnati Bangles beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 33 to 27. You're going to see those 33 points and think, man, what a huge day from the Cincinnati Bangles offense, something that we've come to expect, they to 48% success rate. They were fine. The bucks turned the ball over four times. It was a pretty wild performance from the Tampa Bay quarterback. And he is unfortunately the subject of this Baker Mayfield. So many decisions in this game, truly what the ****? My first note on Baker Mayfield in this game is he's trying to do more than ever. And he looks less athletic than ever. And that is getting better. Yeah. That's not a good combo if you're going to try to be Baker Mayfield. Baker Mayfield looked like he thought he was at, oh, you like with the amount of time he was holding the football in these, in these snaps where he fumbled or got stripped. I mean, I know I'm the final one that really like put a nail in the coffin that people give Tristan Worf's a lot of shit because he technically gave up the sack. Baker held the ball for four seconds. It's the time to sack in this game was I think like four point seven seconds. Yeah. They were not like snapping the ball and getting pressure on Baker Mayfield. It was like him holding onto the ball. He was pressured. You felt the front, but it was better than last year, but it was like, oh, my God. Paul's defense, I thought all things considered was encouraging. They pressured Baker 10 times per PFF and he averaged just north of three seconds to throw. Like it was there or at the very least it was there for Baker to get rid of the football and the unwillingness to do that. I don't even really know how to completely judge this game because three of these turnovers happened in nine minutes of game time. One of them was Bucky Irvings, not all Baker. He waited another hour for the for the third fumble, but when you like, when you turn this into a three score game in a matter of nine minutes of game time, I mean, it just, it went sideways before I could even blink. And one of them, the last Baker Mayfield turnover was that they were like inside the five, like they were about to score a touchdown. So you give the first turnover. He gets stripped sack to meet your snite returns it for a touchdown and then you give up the other touchdown. People recovery for six put gives the bingles their first touchdown. The Bucky fumble came right after that and put Cincinnati on their plus 33. That leads to that makes it 14 to three. And then you just mentioned Baker fumbles. He and he he did is he actually looked athletic. He did his Baker magic thing. He escaped a sack, juke to couple guys and he's going to have them first and goal from the four. When he fumbles into the end zone, like you're talking like 21 points worth of swing. Things from three plays in a matter of nine minutes of game time. The first one he's just doing way too much on the Miles Murphy strip sack. But I think in the big defensive moments in this game for Cincinnati, you felt the additions that they made this off season, right? So Maffa gets the initial pressure on that first sack. The even the Bucky fumble. That's a play where Brian Cook tracks him down in space. What do we say? That the front, obviously, so much talent that they added this offseason compared to what they had a year ago. It's night and day difference. But the other thing that you watched this team last year that was just basement level bad was the second and third levels tackling in space. Brian Cook was arguably the best third level tackler in the league last year. Like what he gives you as a safety in space is so much better than what they've been working with. And he tracks down Bucky Irving in space. He eventually gets there first. Maffa finishes it off and you you felt Maffa multiple different times in this game. And even the strips or the saxophone, both the end of Maffa gets. If you go back and you watch that play, the boxer trying to run like a dagger life concept with Chris Godwin coming back across the middle of the field, Brian Cook is the one that gets underneath it. And then Maffa finishes it off. So Baker contributed to this again, just trying to do too much way too often. But you really did feel all of the additions that the Bengals made this off season. Most of those guys had at least one moment where they contributed to what this game felt like for Cincinnati. It's also not to give some credit to the Bengals and not just put it all on a Tampa implosion. It's got to be refreshing to be a Bengals fan and just like benefit from these things. Yes, please run off the cliff and just let me be the the less stupid team in this game for a change. Jonathan Allen had a sack on a stunt where he was the penetrator. I mean, just everybody that they added seemed to have a moment in this game. And I think that's very encouraging place to start. The one Bengals offense thing I wanted to mention was just the drive after the fumble inside the five to me is a perfect expression of what they want this offense to be as they play more under center, which they did a lot more of in this game. I don't have the numbers in front of one. So at least since 2023 in games with Joe burrow, this was their fourth highest under center game. And if you just look at the first half, it was their highest game. So like they did they were doing it a lot. They were 28.6% under center per next gen, which is I think they were last year where they were under 20%. Yeah. So that's at least like a 10 percentage point or about a 10 percentage point, pick up that drive where they go down and they score a touchdown after the fumble inside the five. The first big play of that drive, their under center play action, Jamar chases in the slot, the varying I think 12 personnel boxer in single high, right? And so single high under center play action, we get Jamar chase on like a big corner out against a single high coverage for a chunk, there's a little dump off to sample in the flat off of play action, which again, just easy completions that this team didn't always have off play action. And then you combine that with really efficient quick passing from the gun, just the type of stuff we're used to seeing with this team. And then there to start the third quarter out of gun, they run a little pin pull where they get chase brown on onto the perimeter. So we're diversifying the gun run game. We're doing things under center play action wise, we've never done before and if we want to just play ball control consistent, efficient offense from the gun, we know our quarterback can do that. Like can you watch all those things get mixed in together? That to me is what the promise of the Bengals offense is supposed to be this year. And you saw it all on that drive. It really was everything. Like the one to me, the one that was really encouraging, obviously the one to chase where they get him on the little sailor out of that was nice. The one you mentioned with Drew sample where they're in the high red zone and they have like, they shuffle the wide receiver into make it look like duo and then he inserts and runs that corner. It clears out the space and samples wide open. That's just a Rams play. Yeah. But they needed some of the ramps play to let their gun stuff breathe because that's all it is. Like you can still be 70% gun and that can be your identity. That's fine. You just need to let it breathe. Like you need something to force defenses to think about other things. We still have and we do see this, right? I think plenty of teams really weaponized this type of play action in week one as we went more under center where you're trying to get the linebackers to step up or trying to hit crossers behind it. Let me just think about some of the stuff the Jags did in this game. But a lot of the things the Rams did with their under center play action game last year out of those heavier personal looks was just haven't spitting the ball to a tight end in the flat for a 10-year gain, just giving yourself easy completions and the Bengals just didn't have many easy completions like that that are they have easy completions, but they're not plays off for everybody else like that's a playoff for everybody else that gives you a 10-year-art completion and having more of those within the offense on top of trying to make yourself more explosive. There are benefits coming in multiple directions by playing this way and we saw them access a couple of those. He had a couple F U balls. One of them got reversed on that challenge by Todd Bulls, but like he did some tea stuff in this game, but like the box held Jamar chase down and this was still a perfectly efficient at times, explosive Bengals offense. I thought that was really encouraging even even if the turnovers did get it out of whack. We're going to wrap up, wrap up, we're about an hour and 10 minutes into a week one show. We're going to wrap up all of these shows with a moment that made us feel or a game or anything from the week that made us feel romantic about football. Last year we all picked one. This year we're collectively going to land on one and where we landed in week one was that the Lion Saints game, everything about the Lion Saints game is just a perfect distillation of what week one and a return to the NFL should feel like on so many different levels. We had a game that felt over. It was 21 to nothing. We had a random comeback that somehow snuck up on us. We game went into overtime. There was a controversial choice in overtime. There was a controversial call at some point in this game. There were guys who were just like, oh shit, look at that guy, right? Like the way that the game, the tie shop had in this game, so many of the throws he made in the second half. There was just a little bit of everything in this one. And as we got down to the wishing hour and we're all sitting there watching that thing finish up. That is what a week in the NFL should feel like when you get to the end of the early window. And this was a perfect encapsulation of it. I really think this was a perfect early window game, and especially for where it was on the card, because like, if you're going into this week, just trying to figure out what you want to watch, like, of course, Texans bills is going to be like the big top of the top of the billing. And then Bengals, Buccaneers, you've got the quarterbacks going against each other. And like, I don't know, probably fourth or fifth on the pecking order. You're really excited about this game, like, but like, but it's, it's down a little bit, you know, and like quickly into this thing, you're just like, oh, this isn't really living up to my expectations. Like the lions aren't really firing on all cylinders. The saints haven't done a whole lot. Shuck at you horrible turnovers. Like multiple horrible turnovers. Definitely. Well, two in the first half. And then, well, he had three total because he had this just sack fumble, as well as two interceptions. Exactly. And the pick, I will, I think I will put on Noah fan. Okay. They're running like a choice route and fan breaks it out. I think what Shuck saw was that fan is running the choice route and the safety playing over the top is so far away from him that he's expecting a fan like, just sit down. Let's take the five yards here. We'll be fine. Fan breaks it out. The DB is there by the time the ball gets there and it's, it's over, but still that's like week. I just really love, like by, by midway through the second quarter, I was just like, ah, I don't know how many more times I'm going to be looking over here today. And then that like sealed it when the lions went up 21, nothing where you're just like, ah, Tyler shock. We're not closing the book on you, but the lights were a bit too bright in week one, Bubba. And then my favorite part of this whole thing, like I said, uh, interception early throws it to Barnes coming right out of halftime and then miss the blitz by Roger McCreary, strip sack. That's when, uh, Um and Rod scores to go up 21, nothing. I didn't even see this in the moment because I had six other things to worry about first play after that. Tyler shock just bombs it deep to Chris O'Lavett. He's like, this, like, I'm not, we're not going out like this. Who had a 182 yards today? Cause he just like Tyler. I was just like, screw it. I guess I got to throw us back into this thing. Tyler shock at one point in this game was 10 for 23 for 85 yards with two interceptions. He wound up throwing like 56 balls, obviously went over 400 yards. He threw 20 passes in the fourth quarter and over time alone and it's like some darts. Like Alave, obviously, dropped one in the bucket to Devon Veile, the play before the touchdown in addition to the touchdown, like he threw like eight insane passes from like mid third quarter onward. The fourth and 12 he hits in the fourth quarter is a nasty play. The deep shot to Alave with like 119 left is he's getting hammered by Aiden Hutchinson. And then the out and up to Johan Johnson in overtime, just a gorgeous throw. His, the touch he puts on some of those throws, like second and third level throws down the field. He's just a, he's a very good thrower of the football just like purely as a thrower of the football. I really enjoy watching Tyler shock play and that's why the beginning of the game was so disappointing. Yes. It was just like man, coming off with the way that he ended last season, like the fact that this is act one of year two for Tyler shock, what a bummer. And then for him to come back and play the way that he did down the stretch, just encouraging if you want to be excited about the Saints moving forward this season. Absolutely. Because like it and like, especially about him because I think the run game like did not look as good as you wanted it to. But the fact that he was able to rally back despite that and despite the early turnovers and like, Chris Alave is really good. But like, otherwise, this is not like a star studded, no, past catching roster like Devon Veile is fine and did make a couple of good plays like the touchdown. He catches and then the deep diving one down the right side is like a crazy play by him. John Johnson is like a fine tight end, but again, he's not like a needle mover that everybody super excited about the fact that he was able to do that. We were talking on the NFC South preview about who was the third receiver for this team until Jordan Tyson's healthy again. And for one week, at least it did not matter. We were wondering what the Saints run game was going to look like after a rough year. They did not run the ball effectively in this game. And I think that's where the Lions need to be good. And so that's a good sign. We also talked about whether the Lions running game would be better than it was last year. Box checked. 55% rushing success rate for Jameer Gibbs in this game who had 29 carries. We're going to see a lot of Jameer Gibbs this season. And I think that's probably the right path forward for the Lions. 34 touches for basically 200 skirmish yards. It's pretty pretty good for your debut. I was going to ask you that because you have been so dialed in on the Saints run game. Are you more worried that the run game looked like more of the same? I got to go back and watch it. I know that's a cop out answer, but I haven't I couldn't even begin to tell you where they are. I was just sitting there debating. I was like, is it bad that the Saints still can't run the ball? Or is it? Yes. Also, is it or is it sick that Tyler Shuck did this without a complimentary offense to help him out? That's down 21. Nothing. He was just like screw it. I guess I got to just drop back and bomb away. And it worked. I mean, they obviously didn't win the game, but it still worked. Yeah. The fact that the Lions run game looked like it did against a Saints team that was incredibly good run defense last year. Like that was the calling card for the Saints defense down the stretch is that they were one of these light box teams or neutral box teams that was really able to defend the run out of those show looks for the Lions to be as effective as they were. That's what you want to see for a Lions team that needed a bounce back on the ground. And to put a point on it, the fact that it was like success, like success rate, like down to downwinds, because last year there were still as explosive as anybody. I mean, Jermaine Gibbs is unbelievable, but the fact that like they got the five and six yard runs that they wanted on top of all the explosives, what did you make? You mentioned the controversial call, what did you make of the chase young touchdown recovery fumble that wasn't by the letter of the law? It's the correct call. I've just never seen that rule before. So I want to read the actual the verbiage like that, the text that comprises the rule. Terry McCauley tweeted this out during the game and I thought is it, it's a very clear explanation of why they called it the way that they did. It's going to read a word for word. If contact by an opponent materially affects a passer after the passer begins his throwing motion, it is a forward pass if he passes the ball, and this is the key part, regardless of where the ball strikes the ground, a player, an official or anything else. When you watch that play in the just your gut feeling of what you're seeing there is, well, it's either a fumble or he threw it. And if you're going to call it an incomplete pass, he threw it backwards. So shouldn't that be a fumble. Like that's how my brain is processing watching that play in real time. But if that's the rule, then technically that is the correct ruling. Yeah. I think it's a bullshare rule like I just don't understand why that should not be a fumble if the ball ends up going backwards. But if that is the actual letter of the law, I guess that's the correct way to land. It is strange that like so we talked about this before the show like he doesn't lose control of the football. He's obviously like still going through his throwing motion and moving the ball with his arm. There's a lot of empty hand examples that other people were using. This is not one of those. It's not empty. He had the ball. But my question is why so clearly it's the defender redirected him to where he's throwing the ball backward. Yes. Why isn't that a fumble? And like to your point. No, no, I know. I am with you. When did we decide that that was okay? It's like, well, the defender redirected him. It's like, yeah, well, that means he did a tick-ass job, exactly. Exactly. I just don't really understand the penalizing a defensive player for doing that. Like the defensive player should be rewarded for that play. His point, the point of him is to make the offense do the thing they don't want to have done it. You're supposed to redirect people as a defensive player. That is your charge. If you forced Jared Goff to throw the ball backward, that should be a fumble. I agree. Although, but like I spiritually agree, even if I understand the rules say that it's not. But like by the letter of the law, I watched it and I was like, yeah, like they, they definitely got this right. It's just why is the rule on the books? Yes. That's where I landed. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously an incredibly strange and specific rule. I mean, we may never see. Yeah. Talk about this again. I've been doing this for a long time. I can't remember that rule ever being placed in front of me. Now I'm just thinking about the fact that we agonized about Jared Goff's hand size coming out of college and that's the fact that he held on to it with his baby hands. It's kind of amazing. Again, week one, no reason to make sweeping proclamations. How are you feeling about both of these teams coming out of this game? I think I feel fine about the like I think the line's offense is going to continue to be really good. Obviously, a little bit of a slow roll in this game, but if the rushing offense is going to have that gear to them, and I did think some of the offensive line changes look good, like Suo, left tackle, look to good. I thought Miller had a good game, and so that I think was pretty promising. The, the Saints defense, I think is probably the thing I would have, like going into the year, I had the most concerns about, but week one against the Lions offense. Like, I'm not really going to run over. Yeah. They didn't get run over for most of the short, a lot of short fields. They ran the ball efficiently, but again, I think the Lions are a team that we expect can run the ball efficiently, even if the Saints defense was very good in that area last year. I think this is actually also why this was another good and perfect week one football game. I came out of this not like second guessing anything I thought about these teams going into it. Like, this is like kind of mostly what I thought about these teams and someone had to, it was a little closer. than I would have guessed, but like not out of the realm of possibility for either team. I'm not saying I thought the lions were going to blow their doors off, but they were seven point favorites at home. I thought they would cover that spread. Like I thought this would be a touchdown to 10 point win for Detroit. And so for it to come down to, I mean, the Saints could have won this game. We didn't, we haven't talked about the Kellan more. Yeah. Love the decision. Absolutely. You have to do it there. The kids played the played extremely well. I, I hate to like armchair quarterback, but it really looked like Olave was clearly the read at the front pile on and DJ read did a phenomenal job of getting around the trash to cover it. And I like he threw the corner to the back pile on, but it didn't really seem like there was somewhere for the ball to realistically go after Olave was covered. And I was like, maybe, maybe we could have called a play with more than one real read, but like that's the epitome of armchair quarterbacking. Yeah, I think you go for that every single time every single time you're not getting the ball back. And so you're playing for a tie at best, especially at that extra point, you were, you're seven point underdogs with second year quarterback. Like nobody's got high expectations for you. You got the line. Let's try to steal one. Yeah. So I loved it. Um, and just to go back to the part about this being romantic, I mentally checked out of this at like one 45 p.m. And I was just like, ah, maybe next week Saints, you just weren't ready. And then I was riveted to the last 40 minutes of this game. Like, I think Texans, Texans bills ended. And I was like, okay, I don't give a shit what's going on with Packers Vikings, show me the Saints Lions game. And that's, that's what the early windows all about. That's exactly right. Like that's we, we have not had that feeling in quite a long time. And so to have that feeling, one, which in our moment, that was worth it in week one. That is why we love doing this. And that is what made us feel romantic about football one week into the season. All right. That is all we've got with our week one recap again. We will hit three more games on the Monday hangover show that we do that will be available for you on Tuesday and all of your podcast feeds and here on the YouTube channel. Three games we are hitting Ravens Colts, Raiders Dolphins and Titans Jets are our three hangover games. We're back buddy. It's like an inverse. We're back the three headed monster me. Like Ravens Colts is going to be. I'm actually really excited. The Raiders game might be interesting. I'm very excited to see what the Raiders offense did in this game. Because the other thing too, really quickly, if you look at like all the just like the team efficiency stats from today, the Dolphins are at the bottom for like everything. So I'm kind of curious about like how bad that got. I'm looking forward to watching the Raiders offense and saying some of the stuff they did today. It was nice to have Ash and Jenny show some life. I'm looking forward to that. And I'm curious to see what the Jets did. You know, I got to the fact that the Jets one convincingly, I'm curious to go back and watch that. Again, we do not hit all the games on this show. We've never done it that way. It's just a way to be able to talk about them with a little bit more depth. Why we do the hangover show each and every week. And we will be back tomorrow with that show right here for now. That's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, please like, comment and leave a rating. We'll see you next time.