Week 1 mild, medium & spicy takeaways: Bo Nix, Commanders, Kirk Cousins
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On this episode of Football 301, Matt Harmon joins me for our first recap episode. We are recapping week one, 15 of the 16 games we hit on. We give a spicy or a mild take. A lot of fun. See you guys in a second.

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Hello and welcome back to Football 301. I am Nate Tice. We have our first weekly recap episode because we finally had some football games to watch, to ogle at, to overanalyze, to have takes

Hot takes, lesser takes, mild takes, wild takes. Every version I saw out there. Sometimes we already had some retakes on some games, which started being really fun. That's what's great about having a Tuesday recap show. We get to that point. It's not the initial Sunday. Initial reaction, we get to take a deep breath, maybe two breaths, and then we get to present what we hopefully saw, what we hopefully get to review. And to help me do that every single week is my friend, Matt Harmon himself. How are you doing today, Matt?

Nate, I'm doing so good. We had a great week one. It was awesome to be just washed over by the tidal wave of information, over-information. Like you said, the reactions and the over-reactions. I feel like we're going to kind of walk the line of that in this particular show today, which I think is pretty exciting. But no, man, it was great to have football back. And I think, you know, last night's game, Monday night, it was fine. But overall, I think we had a pretty electric game.

like iso island games set up here for week one which to me just made the week that much better good iso games and a great sunday morning slate a lot of you know the witching hour was witching it was so that that was very nice and that that just kind of gets you back into the football mode i actually yeah having that little friday night kind of double squeeze was kind of nice i'm not gonna lie i kind of enjoyed that going fridays oh i'm

Sorry, wife. Yeah. Oh, there's football. I got it. I got it. Yeah, I'll watch him, but I got to keep an eye on this. Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, sorry. I got to take a note here. Yeah, it was kind of fun for me. I'm not going to lie. I'm pretty concerned about my marriage in the future, but I mean, because Friday Night Football, you know this was like a tester. Yeah.

It was a tester. It was a tester. But that was the one time going on the East Coast was being on the East Coast was nice because we'll be like, oh, we can go out to, you know, our favorite little wine bar and maybe have a little dinner and then games 815 come back. But you don't want to go to bed by that point. So it was all good. You know, the no kid life. That was that was you. Yeah. Yeah. I have to balance mine around. Usually bedtime is right at halftime for the night game. So that's always nice. So I can kind of balance where I don't miss too much. I've gotten really good at rewinding.

on YouTube TV, but every single week, though, I have no ad to give this time. This is great. I can just transition to this. So every single week, though, we are going to be recapping the previous week's games, the previous weekend's games. Matt does a lot of work watching all this stuff. I know I do as well. I am kind of glued into my office, you know, reviewing. I have access now to NextGenStats, which is a lot of fun. But every single week, we're going to recap five, six games, five, six players, and then

and just kind of put maybe more of a deep dive, more of a recap. Maybe that you did not see. Maybe it's obvious. Maybe some more in-depth stuff. That's what we're hopefully doing on Football 301. This week, though, because I kind of...

I felt like my eyes were all over the place, except for one game, which I gave you. And I'm going to tell you that in a sec. But, you know, eyes were everywhere. And it's kind of like I have a lot of feelings about a lot of different games. So when we were talking yesterday, I kind of said that to you. Maybe we dabble on every single game. And rather than, you know, us having to divvy up 15 or 16 games or do them all by ourselves, divvied it up, split them down the middle. Matt and I are going to take every game. We're going to have either a hot

or mild or medium take off of the game. It could be season long. It could just be that one game sample. It could be a player. I am not sure what Matt had for each one. We're going to spin a wheel, uh,

and decide whether we give the hot take or the less hot take, the mild or medium take. And we'll have producer stone spend each one. We split up the game. So for instance, the first game that we're going to talk about will be Jets and 49ers. Matt has to take for that game. We'll spin the wheel, see how hot it gets. Then I'll go on to the next game. We'll start back on Friday night with Packers and Eagles and go from there. Everyone good? I'll give you a minute to look at your menus.

Yeah. Decide your items. There's a few of these games I said this to you in the pre-show meeting, Nate, where I kind of I'm crossing my fingers that I get to give the spicy take. In others, I'm kind of almost going to be relieved if I don't have to give this spicy take. It might be too hot for the palate of some people out there, but I'm looking forward to it. Let's do it. Yeah, it's a variation of how much I want to sweat. Really, how much I want to make my mention sweat.

That's why I want to decide and see how it goes. Well, really not for me to decide. It's for the wheel to decide. So like I said, we'll start off with Monday Night Football, which was the Jets at the 49ers. 49ers, you know, did their job. Took it home, got their first win. Everybody was out there except for Christian McCaffrey. All these signings, all this stuff, but they all ended up playing. And it's actually McCaffrey, the guy that ends up missing time. So go figure. All right, Producer Stone, spin the wheel. If you're watching on YouTube, you get to see this. So a little benefit for all our YouTube viewers.

We got spicy on our very first wheel spin. So Matt, what is your spicy take, your spicy takeaway, spicy observation from Jets and 49ers? I'm so glad this one I get to give the spicy take on because...

I can probably only say this on this show. I definitely cannot say it on the fantasy show, but the 49ers should just hold out Christian McCaffrey all month. Honestly, like it's a long season. Like I said, I could not say that on the fantasy show because the backlash would be absurd. People are already myself included in at least one dynasty league completely banged over this Christian McCaffrey, you know, late announcement. He's out of the game, but man, not only that,

I think Jordan Mason looked good in this game. And I've always thought Jordan Mason has some pop to him. You see him in preseason, very, very limited moments in the regular season. I was always kind of intrigued of what this offense would look like with him instead of Elijah Mitchell as the running back, too. I think Mitchell's a good player, but I just thought that Mason brought some more attitude and some more finishing ability at the end of his runs, which I think you saw last night. But almost secondary to that, Nate, I thought the offensive line was –

revelatory last night. That was probably the weakest unit on the offense by a long shot. Once the receivers are all integrated, when Iyuk's got some more practice under his belt, I think things will be fine in the pass-catching department, of course. But the way they blocked

I mean, working cohesively as a unit, Dominic Poonie, the rookie right guard was excellent in this game. So if they can set the tone like that every single week from a run game perspective, it's,

Yeah. And even Mason made a couple of plays as a pass catcher, had a few plays called back to due to holding and some of some ticky tack stuff, in my opinion. But like, I think that he looks so good that I feel confident if I'm the 49ers like, yeah, I'm not risking it with McCaffrey in week two, maybe not week three. Like, let's get through the first month of the season and then bring our best player back.

Just, yeah, give Debo more touches. I mean, that's why you have all these guys. You can spread the wealth. It's so cool when you can go a game and the guy that I felt like I spent a whole entire month talking about, Brandon Ayuk, I wrote a whole article about, and it felt like I never heard his name last night, and they still felt like they were in control of the game. That's usually when the guy that just got highly paid, especially the skill position guy, is silent. That's all you hear about the next day. It's like, how did they not give him the ball? 49ers, it's just...

Keeps on churning. I love that. Drops a touchdown, too. At least probably nine times out of ten makes that play in the end zone. And yeah, it's like, well, probably should have been in training camp, but who cares? It still beat the hell out of the Jets. They had all those penalties, and they still were moving the ball, and they still scored on the drive. The one where they just kept getting the stuff. I feel like this is kind of my takeaway that...

the same biggest glaring weakness of this offense, which is Colton McKibbit's at right tackle is still the same big glaring weakness. And that's a good thing. The fact that nothing else, no warts popped up with Christian McCaffrey out against, you know, just defense that I did think maybe take a step back, but they still control the game. It's still a talented defense, especially on the back end. So yeah,

No, I really liked that one. Did you? I was actually curious if that's your spicy one, which mild one was. That was my spicy one. My mild one was just going to be, I thought Aaron Rodgers looked good enough. You know, it's like,

Nothing crazy one way or the other. Certainly looked much better than the other Achilles quarterback. I think from week one, I think we probably grouped those guys together a little bit too much. And I know we'll be talking about the Falcons Steelers here pretty soon. But there's a huge difference between you tear it in week one versus you tear it in week eight when it comes to that Achilles and also a difference between your front foot or your back foot. So that's it. I feel a little foolish grouping those guys just as one sort of unit so much this offseason. But yeah, my mild take was just I thought

I thought Rodgers looked good enough to be the quarterback for the Jets and what they need. The things I noticed, there's much made about Kirk Cousins' thing and all the gun, and we'll talk about that in a sec. The Jets did do some pistol. They were tossing all their outside zone stuff, too, because Rodgers can't reach outside. We have two 2015 Peyton Manning offenses right now, so that's something to keep an eye on.

on he did not have a single sprint the whole night according to next gen stats that was the other thing is that in the pocket if he doesn't have to move he can dice him up still i still thought he was getting zip on the throws it's just that it's just it's the pocket and which which we thought and you're not going to face you know nick bosa every single week all right moving on to friday night going to circle all the way back we are not doing thursday night sorry thursday night phil it's just so long ago you guys know spinning the wheel on packers eagles

Technically, it was Packers at Eagles, but in Brazil. All right, we have a mild take on this one. Man, I just started out with a whimper. Kind of want to get my hot take on this one. I will at the end. But my mild take for Eagles and Packers is,

It's not that mild. This is the best run game in the NFL. I mean, the Eagles. This is it. There's a lot of interesting run games. This is the best run game. It turns out when you put a really talented running back named Saquon Barkley with a good and big offensive line, even one that maybe took a half step back on the interior with a good offensive line coach and a good run scheme, it works.

And honestly, they should be running the ball even more. That's really my mile to take. This should be a 62-38 run split team. They're not going to ever be that because A.J. Brown will throw his helmet at somebody. But this is an offense that really should be run first, run second. And you would think that a little bit, but I think too many times they do get a little bit where they feel like they have to get to the pass.

And I want to see Kellen Moore just kind of repeat those calls, do the Steichen where you just repeat the calls. Zero RPOs. Separate this offense completely, church and state. It is runs and passes. There is no RPOs. There's no hybrid stuff in it because –

when I watched this, there was some good stuff with, this is going to be my quasi hot take with it. I'll just throw it in here. Why I want the emphasis on the run is because I do think there's improvements with some of the passing game stuff in Moore's offense, but I still have issues. They had answered, Hertz performed well against the Blitz. If you look at the stats, yes, he did. I think he was 8 of 9 or 7 of 8.

Watching it, though, a lot of it was kind of quick out routes and stuff in the offense that wasn't a it wasn't so much Hurts finding an answer. Yes, he did. But it was the kind of answers that have always been there. It was nothing new. So it was good that he found those answers. But it wasn't like this is some revolutionary thing of the new offense. And other things was like designer stuff. The Saquon Barkley touchdown was against the Blitz. So I was play action. So it got blocked up. Packers Blitz stuff is also blitzed.

two thumbs down yeah two thumbs down it's so unoriginal yeah it has me

Double-thinking some Packers takes. Defensively, at least. But I just thought he did a fine job. One was there's some botched up. I thought he struggled against zone. There were some big man-zone splits. Against man coverage, he was 6'9", 128 yards, almost near a perfect passer rating. Against zone coverage, he was 14-25, 150 yards, threw two picks against zone, and he got sacked twice against zone. And he threw a bunch of passes where he escaped the pocket to his right and threw it away.

That was against a Packers defense that I think is more average-ish right now, especially right now. Okay, maybe Falcons won't expose this, but a better defense that runs a lot of zone, I don't know, say the Cowboys, might actually give this a little bit more issues. So that's something I'm keeping an eye on as far as for the Eagles passing game.

Yeah, two things here. Number one, I actually not to do the crossover episode thing right away, but this was actually this was going to be what I wanted to talk with you about tomorrow on the fantasy film room was with Saquon Barkley and the Eagles run game. So I want to kind of expand why this was so successful. But from a past game standpoint, too, you mentioned, you know, A.J. Brown might throw his helmet if they go 60 40 run pass. But.

Man, I thought the splits in terms of where they got the ball in week one was exactly what we sort of called back to at one point on this show. Is it just...

let's not get the third receiver or the second, like get the guys, the ball, 26.5% of targets go to AJ Brown, 23.5% to Devonta Smith. Exactly right. Loved the way Devonta Smith had so many opportunities from the slot, the way they moved AJ Brown as the farthest outside receiver to get leverage on some short motion stuff. Exactly what you wanted to see from Kellen Moore. I don't think they overdid it with motion. I think they just used it purposefully to gain an advantage for an already great player. And then in terms of air yards,

47% to AJ Brown, 28% to Devonta Smith. Nobody else cracks more than a 13%. That was Johnny Wilson, the rookie receiver. So I think if they use the past game that way and they're, they're run heavy, I think we will have no issues here. Yeah, I agree.

It's a great example of how you can use motion different ways. Dolphins are using it because speed kills in a second late, you're dead. Here, it's more they're gaining leverage for guys or gaining like keep a guy off of the ball, get him outstepped and everything. Just a little minor differences, but great call with that.

All right, moving on to, yeah, you got the pair of Achilles games. We got the Steelers at Falcons. Steelers won this game 18 to 10 with a whole bunch of field goals. You landed on a medium take, mild medium take. Matt, what was your mild medium take for the Steelers-Falcons game?

Oh, darn. I can't go spicy take behind. I'll give it real quick at the end. I'll give it real quick at the end. But my mild take was I just think the Steelers might have the best defense in football, which I love. It's maybe that's spicy, but I think it's pretty mild considering the

They have a true game wrecker in TJ Watt, who, you know, he was off sides one of the times that he blew through and sacked the quarterback. But still, he was clearly affecting this game from a snap-by-snap basis. Going back and watching this game on film, especially focusing on Drake London and the receivers, you know, of course, I've been inundated with Drake London questions all week. Oh, I'm sure. From a coverage standpoint, I thought they really –

gloved things up made it tough on kirk cousins where once he had to speed up his process and clearly he was processing a beat too slow those windows even if they were open they were closed real quick i thought joey porter is a guy who had a great rookie season i thought he played really well in week one he's certainly a a true breakout candidate this year and of course like minka fitzpatrick is minka fitzpatrick and dude my god kim hayward is what like

40 years old or something like that. And he was out three guys on one play. And like, he was outrageous in this game. So like even just those four players and then some of the ancillary guys. And I think they're going to, from an offensive perspective, I think the Steelers are going to be very much, uh,

2022 Falcons and be just good enough and kind of, you know, muck things up on that side of the ball and not make a lot of mistakes. You know, Justin Fields does the best Marcus Mariota impression he could do. And I think, I think this team is going to just be in these close competitive games in this defense. Like if they're going to be probably maybe if not the best defense in football, one of the three best defenses in football, and that can be good enough for the Steelers to do the Steelers bulls**t

that they do every single year. I have something about the AFC North later, hopefully, if I get a hot take. But that, I'm with you on the Steelers' defense. They're looking really good. I thought the Falcons' run game had some good stuff, but Cousins, there's been a lot, including myself, about what's happened with Cousins and not being able to move. And they're using pistol, and they're 100% pass out of the gun. And it was a great example of tendencies. These are real tendencies that teams look at. Not usually you get the 100%-er.

You usually don't get that. It's more like 70-30 tendencies, 80-20, you know, that you're going on. But you see, you brought TJ Watt, and TJ Watt being able to tee off. This is the ramifications of not being able to run, like, bootlegs with a quarterback that can't run bootlegs. He just can run down the line and tackle Bijon from the back because bootlegs holds that guy. So you could see TJ realizing,

Oh, oh, you can't move. And then he's second quarter, second quarter. He's he's teeing off like it's the frickin fourth quarter. That's such a good point, because this offense can truly be maximized with the guy. Either you're getting under center and you're attacking the middle of the field with deep play action shots.

none of that. They go under center one snap. They no play action in this game. So it just it looked like a very limited offense. And yeah, you get a great player like TJ Watt. Absolutely teeing off like it's like I said, the damn fourth core. My spicy take on this was just Falcons. Just play Michael Panics right now. We all see you like we all we all know you want to right now. I'm thinking back to they they rested him completely in preseason. I was like, why are they? They're not going to play this guy for three years or all the tea leaves were there, man. They'll

All the breadcrumbs were there. I know. It's got me. I'm sure I'm driving the producers crazy, giving two takes out. But yeah, I got to cheat on that one. Yeah, we don't have to expand on it too much because there's been so much Falcons coverage. But yeah, I did at least start fantasizing what this offense would look like. Even if I have questions about Pennix, a guy with just a live arm and can move a little.

A little bit better. Yeah. The sad thing is his number one knock is, even though he ran well, is lack of mobility and creation. So it's just like, oh, no. At least he actually isn't hobbled. He actually can move a little bit. No, that was a good one. There's a lot to take away from this game. Looks like the Steelers are going with Fields. They already announced it, which...

The cosmic ballet goes on because that's exactly kind of how I thought they would end up. Didn't think it would be this quick, but they got there. Moving on to the next game. This is one of my games. And if you want to listen to me in the last month, it makes sense. It's Cardinals at Bills. Bills took this one home 34-28, although the Cardinals covered the spread. I am on a medium a mile take for this game. You know what?

Okay, this is one that was kind of the take was the same no matter what. It's just how much I want to give it. My take is this Bill's offense is good. If you want to go hotter here, it was this is the best, most complete Bill's offense that Josh Allen has ever had since he's been in Buffalo. The most complete, best overall, however you want to go on. I'm going to use that as my medium take, my medium-model take on that one because if you watch this game,

There's a difference between nickel and diming, and the offense feels tight. And there's the difference with that. And when you watch a Bo Nix, you watch Joe Burrow and the Bengals this weekend. You watch a couple other offenses this weekend. Shoot, even Jacoby Brissett on the other side of that game. But then you watch Josh Allen nickel and dime.

And it feels different because that is truly a quarterback taking what's given to him. And that is the offense that's built to take what's given to them because you have big, big, you know, jumbo size receivers that we talked about. You have, you know, a run first attitude. Now we saw that in that game. I also want to remind people the wind in that game was over 25 miles an hour in Buffalo. And the fact Josh Allen was completing anything like past any quarterback was playing with thing past 10 yards is remarkable in itself.

So that's why maybe those offenses, both sides, the passing game felt a little bit more like, oh, okay. It was. It did. And the wind was a big factor in that. The run games looked cool. We'll tell you that on both sides. But that's really why I got excited. We talked about this recently, was that this Bill's run game, it's not sexy, but it's going to be hyper, hyper efficient. And that's without Josh Allen included. This is just the running back runs.

And you got this complete run game. I haven't posted the cut up yet. I want to write about maybe later this week, but this is a run game that's doing everything well. They do zone runs. They do gap runs where you pull somebody. They use Josh Allen in the red zone. They are really just doing everything.

the things that need to attack these defenses that are playing soft against them because they're terrified of Josh Allen. They don't want to play man coverage because Josh Allen can scramble. They don't want to play a loaded box and single up on the outside because he'll just pop it over the top. So they play these soft zones, and this is the Bills just building their personnel and building their offensive system to go, all right, we're going to pound the rock and get big burly guys underneath and just pepper you underneath and get all these seven to eight yard gains.

And that's what it's going to look like. And I was a big fan of it. I know the Cardinals' defense is even worse than maybe I was expecting. They didn't really do any creative stuff. They're terrified of Josh Allen. So I'm just, wow. I was very bullish on this offense, and I'm more bullish now because that's exactly what I was envisioning with this Bills team. So I think it's just a very complete, sound offense that has the guy that can

reach any ceiling he wants, but right now he doesn't have to. So pretty excited about them.

super excited about this Bill's offense after week one. I know we're not going to talk about Thursday night, but I've gotten a lot of people asking me after Thursday night and Rasheed Rice just catching slant after slant after slant. It's like, well, why don't defenses take this away? It's like, well, because you have number 15 behind center. And when you have Pat Mahomes back there, even before he had receivers and now they have some receivers that can affect the game down the field, even back in, you know, 2023 when it's

Sky Moore running outside routes for whatever reason and MVS out there, guys you're not really scared of, you still have to respect every blade of grass because he can attack every blade of grass deep, outside the numbers, along the boundary. He is willing to throw it there and is the best quarterback in the league of doing it. So you can't just close the middle of the field. You can't play middle of the field closed coverage against Pat Mahomes because you are –

you are going to surrender some serious big plays. That was the whole revolution. Was it like 22 when your team started playing too high against them? The whole thing, this is, this is one of, I think their counter punches to it is Rishi rice. And the bills are similar that way. You can't just play single high coverage against Josh Allen consistently because you're going to have these guys just,

he's going to, he's going to make you pay. So you're going to have that middle of the field open, you know, Kalil Shakir, 11 yards after catch per reception in this game. And then now, like I was impressed with Keon Coleman, who I had my questions about. Right. But we, the one thing we know he can do is just go get it downfield and win jump balls. And we saw it already in week one. So now you have that, the guy you can't just, you,

You got to you can't just glove up the middle of the field and you now have somebody that he can trust at least at least early on one game sample of Keon Coleman just going and getting it downfield to. Yeah, it's making it made sense in my brain as we talked about it. But really in week one, I was like, oh, yeah, this is this is exactly what I was picturing. Even Matt Collins getting a touchdown, even though I was like, oh, shoot, you got more targets in one game that I thought you're going to get this entire year.

Oh, thank God. Thank God my guy, Matt Collins, the stupidest prediction I've ever made is he's going to play more than people think in week one. And thank God he found a perfect offense. There's something to be said. Maybe with the Bears defense is like this where everybody is a B minus or B on the offense. That's a good thing when there's nothing that anyone can focus on because you have an A plus quarterback. This is going to help out and like nullify any weaknesses that you have. So, yeah, or negate, I should say. All right. Next game up. This was this was so.

wonky game. This was Titans at Bears. Titans lost 17 to 24. Will Levis giveth? Will Levis taketh away? We landed on mild to medium for this one. Matt, what is your mild medium take for Titans Bears?

Yeah, with the caveat here that this might have been the worst combined quarterback game of the week, which there were some rough quarterback performances in week one. But I think this probably just from an end result standpoint has to look the worst. Giants Vikings was everyone's betting favorite.

Sorry, guys. Don't worry. We've got that next on the docket. We'll get to your boy, Sam Darnold. But my mild take here is that I think the Titans defense was the best unit in this game overall and might be the best unit over the course of the season, which when you just

Consider what was discussed in the offseason. Obviously, a ton of attention paid to the Bears offense. Those skill position guys with Caleb Williams, even on the Titans. Oh, we'll let us with Calvin Ridley and DeAndre Hopkins and Tony. Like, what are they doing there with Tony Power and Tajay Spears? And, you know, the Bears defense was great to end last year. It felt like in terms of the four units here, the Titans defense really didn't get a lot of discussion. But I was super impressed with.

I mean, just, I thought they dominated the Linus Rimmage at times in this game, especially on the interior. And they have good players there. You know, Jeffrey Simmons, Sweat, who was an aggressive draft pick by them, but he was great in this game. Again, consistently disruptive. You know, and I thought from a coverage standpoint, they made things tough on Caleb Williams. Caleb Williams made things tough on himself, but

you know, maybe forcing into some tighter windows. But I just, again, came away pretty impressed with that side of the ball. I know the Titans never get enough love, but it definitely felt like if Will Levis hadn't given that game away, they could have, they certainly could have won this one.

It was just that's and that's the thing with Levis is he does some nice things and then it's just he does the stupidest plays possible. It's not even just bad. It's the Ritter. It's not just a bad play. It's the stupidest play you could possibly do. And that's the backbreaker. It is. I just I just I'm picturing the picture of him after he threw the pick or the surrender Cobra.

It's like an all-time picture. It's just the swirling stuff, you know, like the SpongeBob meme. It's an all-time picture, and the video is worse. The video is worse because you're like, if you didn't see the interception, you don't realize that he's surrender covering after throwing it away with, like, was it his left hand to somebody in the flat? I mean...

Not even digging it. Just floating it like the end of Rookie of the Year. Oh my god, it was so bad. I know, but I like the Titans defense take. They have good players all around. They just have good vets at all three levels, so I really like that. The Bears offense, that interior O-line woes is still scary to me. Jenkins against Simmons shows kind of what Jenkins' level, even if I like him. And the Bears for...

Oh, my God. It feels like for 12 years now, I have center issues again. The center, Colvin Shelton, who I used to like with the Rams, it was just getting beat over and over. And I know it's a tough D-tackle pairing, but...

If you want to have, you can't have a center lose like that because that just corrupts the whole offense. So that was really scary for me to watch because I was like, oh, wow, that was more glaring than I thought it was going to be right away, even if I like a lot of parts of the team. So yeah, week three, four or five, they get the Bears, get the Colts, the Rams and the Panthers. I think they will function much better offensively in those three games than they did in week one against an underrated interior group. Yeah.

Yeah. Caleb Williams looked like a rookie quarterback, but it was, he, you know, a couple of times he bailed when he shouldn't have, but that's how it goes, man. When those bullets start flying, it's just kind of, it's, it's fast in the regular season, but man, he had a couple of throws, some,

His accuracy is so good. He missed a couple, but his accuracy and ball placement, it's like, okay, okay, we're fine. We're okay. This is more optimistic than maybe some other guys that played this weekend. So I'm still, everyone's chill out in Chicago. You guys won a game with defensive special teams. You guys should be really, really used to this type of situation right now. A little low on Shane Waldron right now, though. All right, going on to the next game.

Back to my guy. Here we go. We got Vikings Giants. I am praying for spicy. We'll give us spicy. Okay. All right. We got spicy. All right. My hot take. Aaron Jones will finish with a career high in rushing yards this season. Hmm.

This run game looked good. And this is a good run defense they went against. He was consistent. He finished with a 57% success rate. Oh, by the way, you'll hear me use success rate a lot. I know you use success rate a lot, Matt. Success rate, just real quick, whenever you hear me use it, and I'll try to reiterate this once every week or two.

Success rate is how many yards you gain depending on the down. So it's not all yards are built the same. Like a nine yard gain on third 19 is nothing, but a nine yard gain first and 10 really nice. So EPA there's differences, but this is a true like coach metric. Like I, my dad has used this for forever. Coaches before him use this. He learned it from Brian Billick, I believe. So, but now we have EPA based ones and there's a little tiny differences with it. I did a little study with Keegan Abdu about what some of those difference are from, from connection stats. So,

All it is, is first and second down half the yards. If it's first and 10, get five or more. Traditionally, it was four. But with EPA, it's more five. There's a couple of differences, but that's basically what it is. Second down, half the yards. Second and 10, get five. Second and 16, get eight. You know, first and 15, get eight.

Third down, get all of it. 100% of the yards. Fourth down, get all of it. 100% of the yards. So that's a great way to remember what success rate is. Half the yards on first down, half the yards second down, all the yards third and fourth down. So just want to say that I use success rate a lot, especially early in the season when the sample size isn't gigantic. So I wanted to just get that kind of window dressing, not window dressing, that table setting off the plate. So...

16 touches, though. That's perfect for Aaron Jones. That 12 to 16 touch range, 14-ish carries, two catches. He had a 57% success rate on those runs, which is very good. Anything over 50 is very good. The O-line looked cohesive. Again, I don't think it's an overwhelming unit, but a good, solid unit. And really, the offense as a whole, because they put gigantic,

for Sam Darnold to operate with. I am going to be a realist, guys. I like Sam Darnold. Everyone knows that. It's become more of a bit now at this point in time. He was more solid plus than like this. Oh my God, this is crazy. This is exactly how he has to play. They

But what they do is a bunch of bootlegs, a bunch of play action stuff because the run game is good. And that's why I think Aaron Jones will get fed and Ty Chandler a little bit as long as he stays healthy, though. Like, I think Jones, he still has the juice and they are still setting up some good stuff with it because everyone's scared of Justin Jefferson. And you're scared of Justin Jefferson because at any time, Sam Darnold's willing to launch it 40-something yards. That's what Sam Darnold brings. So what's cool, though, is the designs of this offense. They'll run a bunch of naked, a bunch of bootlegs, which are the safer quote-unquote plays for

But with Kevin O'Connell, this is why he's good. Usually that's the tight end.

On a bootleg, that's the primary auxiliary guy. He makes sure that Justin freaking Jefferson is the primary on the bootleg, no matter what. He designs it to figure it out like that. That's just smart coaching. I know it sounds simple. Get the best player of the ball. Not a lot of coaches do it. That's why I want to point this out. But I think there's a lot of screens, a lot of bootlegs, a lot of play action with just two guys running routes and a check down. This is good for Sam Darnold because it keeps him from his worst habits. It lets him just play loose, play fast.

play quickly, keep him from going too much into his deep recesses of his brain where he makes mistakes. He still tries stuff.

that he got caught on, but every mistake he had, and I would say he had three glaring mistakes, all of them I could understand what he was trying to accomplish, which is improvement for him, as opposed to what the hell were you trying to do there? So that's all I have to say about Darnold. It was solid plus. I thought it was going to be exceptional. Oh my God, everyone was tagging me on Twitter. Well, you guys see this, and it was a couple of good throws. That's what he'll bring, but it's just to be a caretaker, and I thought they did a nice job of caretaking the offense.

Yeah, solid plus is a great way to describe it. I think people expect us to have some kind of knockdown, drag-out fight about Sam Darnold. But you're right. It's almost a bit at this point. The optimism and the Sam Darnold – I mean, calling you a Sam Darnold oligarch is definitely a bit. If it's not obvious, that's a bit. But I love your point about Aaron Jones in the run game here. It reminds me a lot of –

Josh Jacobs and Devontae Adams with the 22 Raiders where he just run into Josh Jacobs run into light box after light box and zero percent of his carries when it's a stacked boxes according to next gen stats in this game. Five point eight yards after contact per attempt. So he definitely still has the juice and it's just all about

You've got a guy with juice, which they absolutely have not had in Minnesota for a minute here. And you've got a receiver on the other side of the field that just is going to dictate coverages. And you will always err on the side of taking away, which you can't, but trying to take away and trying to defend Justin Jefferson, then you will this run game. So, yeah, my only pushback to this is just...

Talk to me in November. Is Aaron Jones still healthy? Right. Like, obviously, if he stays healthy, he's going to show 12 games. It's how it goes. No, it is. That's a great, great point to Jacobs and Devante Adams thing.

these top receivers, that's what helps out is the run game. And really, I was lucky enough to be around my dad's teams as a kid. And Randy Moss was the ultimate with that. They saw cover two every play. So if you ever look back at those run games, no matter who was back there, Michael Bennett, Mewelde Moore, Ontario, the Wizenator Smith, no matter who was back there, they were averaging five yards a pop. Mo Williams. And it was just because they were getting the best looks. So that's a

It's an offensive attack after my own heart. It really is. So I'm liking what I'm seeing in Minnesota so far. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll get back with a few more of the games from week one.

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Stay focused on what's important to you with Noom's psychology and biology-based approach. Sign up for your trial today at Noom.com. All right, we are back. And I am double dipping. I have another game after the break. We have Patriots at Bengals. Patriots won this game outright as more than a touchdown dog, 16 to 10. It really took it to them, if I'm being honest. Yeah. So I got the mild-medium take. God, it's just been...

It's like a Minnesotan's palate. How unspicy this stuff's been. I like spice, but I can say that because I'm from there. All right, my mild-medium take is more of a I told you so. I want to take right now. I love it. I told you this Patriots offense will be okay. I'm not saying good. I'm just saying fine. Fine. And also, I do want to say...

The defense, right? Like this, this is a very good defense that we shouldn't be worried about. It's not going to be a sexy team. It's not, but watching what, how this offense played, this is what the Patriots are going to look like until they feel it's okay. Until, so drop Drake may in there, which to me is like, yeah. Okay. You're okay. Good. Let's let's put number 10 back there because I'm optimistic about it because I think that's just sound like their run game design was the most simple stuff you can do. And I mean, that's a compliment, but,

There's always going to be an unblocked guy in the run game. It's how you control him. This is when they say quarterbacks change the math. That's what they're talking about is that now no one's unblocked. Like we can control every guy 11 on 11. So you have to kind of pick your poison on how you want to do it. But on my favorite run play duo, which is a very attack, very at you power run game right at you down the hill. If you're in certain sets, if you're like a two tight end set,

The point of attack can end up being a bounced run where the corner, the cornerback has to tackle from the side. And you can say, yeah, he's making contact at one yard, but you can also bet on the math of my 225 running back is going to run through that 185 pound corners face. And, and,

The Patriots made that bet and won every single time. And it's not once. It wasn't twice. It was legit five times. It might have been six. And it wasn't four yard gains. It was 10, 12 yard gains. I think even further than that.

But this is what this offense is. They're going to run sound run game stuff. This is a Bill Callahan disciple. And that's why I just kept emphasizing to people. It's like their run game is going to be fine, and they have a running back that can handle it. That's why I got excited. Even Antonio Gibson had some sound runs in this game, which was like, what? You're running between the tackles now? But I liked it. Jacoby Brissett did a nice job as far as he's a caretaker. That's what he is as a quarterback. But this defense, dude, is...

They had the lowest average tackle depth this week, meaning when they made their tackle, what was the...

how many yards did the offense get? It was 13 because there's big plays, but that was the lowest easily in the NFL this week. One day, the lowest missed tackle rate in week one, they converted their first opportunity to make a tackle at the second highest rate. Funnily enough, had the fewest opportunities at a TFL, all these stats from next gen stats, but this defense kicks ass this offense. It's a classic run first couple play action plays passing game. That's going to be like the 24th best offense 22nd, but it's not bad. And

And that's why I kept trying to emphasize to people, it's just a below average, not exciting offense until number 10 gets dropped in there. But that's kind of my mild take. My hot take is, why not? I'll throw this in here. Bengals are going to miss the playoffs. If they play like that, they're missing the playoffs. But yeah, Charles and I did a segment last month and I was like, what if Burroughs washed?

And I was kind of doing it tongue in cheek. And that tongue's not like in my cheek as much anymore. It just didn't look right. I don't know what your takeaways on that, but I had to throw that out there.

Yeah, you know, even Jamar Chase said something about we do this every year where we start slow and like eventually we got to stop doing it. But so I'm kind of hesitant to totally bang on the Bengals, even though it was I almost didn't want to talk about them because it was so pathetic that they don't even last year. And yeah, just like last year. I just almost don't want to even give them airtime. But to put to put a point of emphasis on your Patriots run game, which you mean talk your talk.

about that, bro. I mean, you came on, you came on my show last week and talked about this Patriots run game or Mondry Stevenson. I thought they looked great. You know, that right side of the line, David Andrews, Layden Robinson played well in this game. Mike and when moves a good starting right tackle much better than sort of the preseason hand wringing about it being the worst offensive line of all time. These are your top two running backs in yards after contact in week one, one 39 for Mondry Stevenson, number two, Joe Mixon, one 15,

rushing yards for those two players Joe Mixon 159 reminder Stevenson 120 I think remember I said 139 yards after contact for boundary Stevenson 120 yards I mean that just great performance I thought one of the best running back performances in week one it was it was a very impressive I liked him but he looked he looked even quicker it was good it was good to see especially you know had some injuries stuff last year so

All right, I gave you this one. I'm sorry about it. This is really the game that was the catalyst for this whole premise, because I want to make sure we talked about it all. So this is the Panthers at the Saints. Panthers lost 10-47. We're still on mild-medium. I want to re-roll it, but Matt, let's see. No, we don't. We don't want to re-roll it.

The Panthers fans have had it bad enough. We do not want to re-roll this reel. So my mild take is I think the Saints offense is watchable again. I totally, totally want to...

Remind both myself and the people, this is against the Carolina Panthers team, that in order to make their offense better, borrowed from the defense. Didn't spend any resources. In fact, got actively worse on that side of the ball, probably on purpose. Kind of sucks when your offense looks...

Even worse than it did last season in week one. Not great when, like I said, you borrowed from that side of the ball. So I do want to just emphasize that, even remind myself that the opponent here. However, the Saints were number one in pre-snap motion rate in week one. 88% of their dropbacks they had pre-snap motion on. Derek Carr had a 40% play action rate.

behind only Justin Fields and Anthony Richardson. He was dead last among quarterbacks, according to Pro Football Focus, 14.3%, like guys that start at least 50% of their, or 50% of their dropouts. He's good at it. That's the thing. He's always been good at it. And he was dead last in 2023. So they went from the basement of the league in pre-snap motion and play action to first place

And I wrote about this in the offseason where I said, I do not think we are giving enough credit to the fact that New Orleans has not had new offensive ideas in almost 20 years. Pete Carmichael was part of the original 2006 Saints staff. There were other members on that coaching staff that were part of that original 2006 Saints coaching staff. Clint Kubiak might not be the next coach.

Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan or anything like that. But geez, man, like we just saw what a little bit of modernization can do for this unit.

And I, again, I get it. It's the Panthers. I can't believe they gave up the most obvious post route touchdown to Rashid Shahid. One of the best post route dominators in the league. Yeah. And some of it was, I think you're trying to dunk on the Panthers a little much with the taste of Hill thing. Like we're throwing go routes off pre-snap motion to taste of Hill. So we don't maybe need to do all that. But I just think that this offense is going to be,

It's going to be a pretty good unit this year. I was not excited about it, but just, again, I don't think we gave enough credit to the change that was coming here. And all opponent caveats needed. I think we saw a lot of the results of that in week one. Always like the phrase, not crap to... Or crap to not crap. And usually I use that as a player. Like, oh, the center going from a bad center to an average center is still a big improvement. You don't have to go from bad to pro bowler. Same with playoff.

Play callers. Sometimes you just need competency. And that's what a Kubiak is, is at least you have like, oh, all right, this is at least sound. And, you know, Carr has always been kind of underrated as a, like he is smart as like Cerebral is kind of understanding. That's also kind of the double-edged sword of him is he's so smart. He knows he's like, no, I'm, I have to check it down here. It's like, oh, try it, try it, push it a little bit. Play action gets him to push it.

a little bit because that's what the one two of everything is hey anything to see Chi and Olave look good Camaro look good I'm all for whatever tight end scores that week I'm all for any of it and not to rain on even more or rain of pores with the Panthers but then Derek Brown has a torn meniscus and it's just like

I know. I know. It's rough over there. I'm sorry, guys. I did like the Saints defense, too. Chase Young looks fresh and he was teeing off. So that's another thing, too, with the Saints defense. All right. Moving on. Staying in the South, but the AFC South, we have the Texans and the Colts. 29-27. Texans win. Entertaining game. Still mild-medium. Still mild-medium. Do I even have a good hot one here?

I know this is kind of hard to, I feel like this is hard to have a good hot one. Oh, I had a good hot one. I'll throw, I'll rip it in, but all right. So my mile take, I'm just using this as an excuse to get two takes off. All right. My mile take here, Texas run game. We'll finish top 10 in the league.

This is this is this look good. This look legit. This is a they are a zone running team. They are a Shanahan offense all the way. There's different coaches. They're not all. No, the coaches there are Shanahan guys. And that's why there's some of their drop back stuff, especially on third down is from different offenses. And I've noticed that. And guess what? They have a dude that can run them. It's CJ Stroud. So it's like, yeah, this is this is what this is.

I'm not, they're not going to reach this peak. I don't think so, but this is kind of how 2016 Falcons felt when you had a real drop back quarterback with the Shanahan offense. That was Matt Ryan, you know, like a true drop back guy and all that. Not saying reaching that peak. It might though. It might don't rule it out. Looked really like it though, but that's what this really feels like. Cause it's zone, zone, zone, some boots up, some play action stuff, but then they can drop back and whip it to one of their talented receivers with some sound passing game stuff. But this run game, man,

This would have been their second best game. If you include last year in terms of rushing success rate, Mixon was at 56% success rate on 30 carries. Singletary's high had one that was better, but he did on 16 carries. You're,

Over 50% on 30 carries is like a lot of coaches would dream for that in their career. That is like you don't get that a lot for it, but you get that one game. That's the first game. We'll see how this Colts defense is, but I thought at least the run game would be decent. Maybe they're scared of Stroud and Nico Collins. I would be too.

But I guess Bradley did say that. Actually, he said today that they lightened the boxes intentionally to do more too high. Yeah. Yeah. With the receivers there. So that was a part of it. But he and, you know, of course, classic Gus was like, I was surprised by how well how well it worked for them.

Oh, Gus. It's such a Gus defense, too. It's like I recognize everything from 10 years ago. But even the Texans, though, they improved. Kenyon Green at left guard, alert contract year, Kenyon Green. He looked like one of the most improved players in the entire NFL. And I will say that with my chest out in that first game. He looked like a weapon going from like to like a very, very good player that looked like he was a first rounder.

He was awesome. He wasn't even perfect on it, too. But in the run game, run that zone stuff, Joe Mixon has a great feel for zone. That's his best type of run. It just really looked good. But like you said, we were just tying it again. When you get those light boxes with the passing game, the run game could benefit from it. And yeah, that run game looked really good. All right. I got to get my hot take off, though. So this is what I was hinting at with my AFC North thing. Three AFC South teams will make the playoffs is my hot take now. The Jags take.

Texans and Colts just after my initial feels for this. And that's, it's a very hot take, but I'm not feeling great about the AFC North teams. I'm feeling much better about the AFC South teams, even if none of them are more complete as they should be. Yeah. We'll get to Jacksonville for sure. And put a pin in that. Cause I'm, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on a very classic Jags loss in week one, but yeah, this, I came away from both of these two teams, Houston and Indianapolis feeling great about the vision for both. I,

Every Anthony Richardson game is going to be an annoying Rorschach test. People are going to see what they want to see from it. There are plays he absolutely left on the field for sure, but that throw to Alec Pierce is almost like a one-of-one throw. You can't count on one hand how many quarterbacks in the league would probably even...

I mean, in like Gardner Minshew's greatest acid trip or fever dream, he wouldn't even imagine like, what if I made that throw down? No, you wouldn't even try. Yeah, you don't even think of that. No, no. Us mortals do not fathom that throw. Exactly. And this Texans offense, I wouldn't put the limit on it. I really think after seeing in week one, just the receiver usage especially is exactly what I pictured it to be. And what it opens up for the run game and just having a –

an adult in the room type of running back in Joe Mixon and just being following the blocks, reading it out. I was very impressed by the Texans as well. Yeah. Yeah. The Richardson experience is the first pass went five yards over 80 Mitchell's head. And the next one is one of the best throws you ever seen in your life. But that's why I like the big arms. He earned six first downs with one throw. Why complete it 10 times where you could just do one. I don't know. There's something with that. Moving on another AFC, AFC West.

We had the Raiders and the Chargers. The Raiders lost this game 10 to 22 in a quasi home game where you had with the Chargers fans waving by. The Chargers players were waving goodbye to the stands, implying obviously like, you know, go home to the fans in their home stadium.

LA's a raider town. It really is. You, we laid it on spicy. Yes. A little Southern California cuisine for you. All right, Matt, what's your spicy take from this game? I mean, the Antonio Pierce era is over. It's, it's over. I wasn't sure how you're going to frame that. Okay. Oh,

Okay. This is just the fourth and one decision. That's a canary in a coal mine for a lot. I agree. But yeah, keep going. Come on. The whole thing with Pierce, who I'm rooting for, man. He seems like he has the locker room. The players love him. He probably has that job because Max Crosby, you know, probably threatened ownership. You know what I'm saying? Like, so clearly the players love him.

I, I, I want this to work out for Antonio Pierce, but dude, the whole ethos of this team is, and he said it a thousand times to end last year and said it a million times. This off season is toughness and attitude and all of these things. And then you're going to punt in your own territory late in the game on fourth and one. What, what are we talking about? Like if it, to me, and it's, it's,

It's so such a harsh juxtaposition to the chargers on the other side who you can already feel from that team. Like, Oh, we believe we are tougher. Like we believe we are, we have whatever Jim Harbaugh is preaching. They're already buying. They already embody like that attitude from the head coach and the physicality. And you know,

J.K. Dobbins ripping off these explosive runs in the year 2024, 12 months after an Achilles. They're dominating. It was not perfect. It was not dominating at the line of scrimmage. Pass protection, I thought, was a big improvement on the tackle play. The run blocking, I thought, was better. Some classic Greg Roman stuff on that offense. Pre-snap penalties and

The whole deal. I get it. But again, you could see a clear attitude adjustment on from the charges is such a stark juxtaposition. Then to see Antonio Pierce, like,

We're just going to punt on a fourth and one inside our own territory, like what are inside opposing territory late in the game? What are we doing here? That one was just like you said, it just takes away from like Dan Campbell from day one has been like, right, we're going to be tough. We're going to be tough when they're winning one, two, three games. He's still going for a fourth down, still doing all the trick plays because you don't just turn that on.

You can't just go, we're tough now. You have to, you can't just switch that on. You have to start day one. That's just team building or anything like really organizational skills, you know? So that I, I, there's been a lot of warning signs, you know, even stuff like the 30 plus member staff is always just like, why? Like who, you know, stuff like they practice late in the day. And I know that sounds silly, but it's like, they're little, little organizational things that have been some warning signs for me on top of,

Gardner Minshew is the quarterback that they decided to go into the season with. And that's the thing too, Nate, is they have Gardner Minshew at quarterback. You're going to have to win on the margins. And you're not going to win on the margins if you're going to punt in that situation.

against a division rival like i i just how many games that's the thing you have to be realistic about like how many games i know they shouldn't know because they're in vegas but how many games do you think they are favored in but they should know that like be like hey man like we're gonna be on their dogs because we have garner minchu at quarterback like we gotta like we gotta do some stuff like we gotta be tricky we gotta be like that's like you said that's how you create those little one percentage points going for a fourth down um two point conversions you know just little things like all those type stuff so

Oh, the Raiders just make me sad. The next up, speaking of teams that make me sad, we got the Jaguars at the Dolphins. Jaguars lost this game 17 to 20. At one point, they had a 90th win overall.

90% win projection. Yep. And then proceeded to lose it. I got a spicy take. That's perfect. Cause I only had a spicy take for this one. And that is my spicy take on this. The Jaguar. It was kind of one. I actually, it's kind of sounded like one that you had earlier. The Jaguars defense is the best unit of the four units that played out there. Sorry, special teams. The Jaguars defense though, was the most impressive unit. It was the most complete unit. It was the best unit. And my eyes just reviewed this game this morning. Um,

Yeah, Ryan Nielsen, that dude can game plan. And that guy finds answers. The personnel for the Jaguars, Ryan Nielsen's defense coordinator for the Jags, how he used the personnel. I was optimistic about the Darnell Savage signing. He looked great. It's great when you see a player with confidence now get to play fast. They're using a lot of man coverage, which I saw, you know,

I saw some fancy people getting on him about it and they did it like, but it was great. They had all these varieties of man coverage. They're doing robber. They're pressing guys. They're rotating guys. There's a third down example. I tweeted out where it's man coverage, man coverage, man coverage. It looks like man at me right now. Like I could just go up. That's man coverage. They had Foy Alucon at the line of scrimmage, the linebacker.

And so when the Dolphins, of course, ran their running back motion because they put someone in motion every play, what the Jaguars did is they sprinted a safety down to cover the motion and a Luokan now becomes the whole robber player. So that in man coverage, if you're not blitzing somebody, you have an extra player and he's going to be in the middle reading quarterback's eyes. Everyone has different rules. So what they did is based on the motion, they switch responsibilities and Floyd jumps, gets a tip ball and they got off the field on third down.

They held Tua to his third low dropback success rate since Mike McDonald got there in 2022. Even though he went 23 for 37, 338 yards, one touchdown. You look at that, you're like, oh, big day. 300 yards, saw the big play of Tyreek.

It was really just two big plays that did a lot in this offense because they were clamped down on it. And I was really impressed. Trayvon Walker had a good game against the run, had a great sack later in the game. Different guys were really showing up. Their safeties played well. Cisco got beat a couple times, but

if you're a step late against four, two, five, Tyree kill, like that's what happens. But man, I was optimistic about this defense, but even some of the stuff they did was very, very impressive. And I would say they're the most impressive unit. And I think we'll be the best unit of these four going on.

But yeah, on the man coverage stuff, you know, fantasy points data has a bunch of tracking. They had them at 73.2% man coverage in week one. The next highest team was the Broncos at 46.4%. So crazy high. And yeah, I mean, I don't know how you can really criticize this defense after this performance. Even take out football 301 and all the advanced stuff. The Dolphins scored 20 points. Right.

Good. Yeah. At home in September when you they've they've scored 70 plus there before. I don't know if you guys remember that. So I agree with you. I came away from this very impressed. I haven't I haven't broken down like this game too much, but just watching it on Sunday, I was impressed with the performance of the of the Jaguars defense. I mean, honestly, like, yeah, you're going to give up.

two, three big plays to the Dolphins offense. It's just going to happen. But again, to hold them to 20 points, uh,

you had an opportunity to win this game which I think makes it all the more frustrating for Jaguars fans that you know I did find it funny actually after the after the I remember this popping up on red zone but after the Tyree kill I think the 80 yard touchdown or whatever they immediately just show Travis ETM on the sideline because it was his fumble I think that opened up this whole thing so yeah super super frustrating classic Jags loss but yeah I agree with you it won't get discussed enough because they lost the game that the Jaguars defense looked like a great unit and

week one. They're good. And I felt better about the offense until they clamped down on themselves. Yeah. Like Trevor, this is my Trevor stat was he pushed the ball in the first half and it looked good. Like they weren't playing scared. He had seven throws or 10 or more air yards for 102 yards, five completions, one touchdown, one drop. Second half, you only had one pass to travel 10 or more air yards. They went for 22 yards, but they just felt got tight and

Just kind of how this always feels for this team. Even when they play well, it just leaves you wanting more. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and then we'll wrap it up with the last couple games.

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All right, we are back to round it up. We got two games each left. So four games. I lied when I said couple. It's a couple times too. Next up, we got the Cowboys at the Browns. Please give me spicy on this. Okay. Cowboys won this game 33 to 17. I see mild me. I know that I'm going to pretend it's dark purple. I'll give you both because neither one of these require. Yeah, neither one of these requires a ton of the spicy one doesn't require a nuanced breakdown. But the mild take here is just that

But Mike Zimmer is already a serious upgrade over Dan Quinn, I think. I mean, just from... I would say it was awesome. I think the way they played zone coverage in week one was exactly kind of how you want to mug things up in the modern NFL. And, you know, Cleveland...

I did not have a Browns take on this one because like what the hell are you supposed to say? Congratulate. Yeah, you know, we all know we all know what we want to say here. So I you know, the zone heavy background there with Dallas. They were fourth most in terms of zone coverage in week one. I just think that's exactly how you want to play things. You want to force the quarterback to play.

take low percentage throws. And this particular quarterback makes the low percentage throws even lower. So it was a great, I think, game plan. I thought they truly held the point of attack in the run, which I thought was impressive, and a departure from last year's Dallas Cowboys. So I get it. It's the Cowboys. It's September. Talk to me in January. The whole deal. Understand that. But I thought this was a nice...

just early test, early glimpse of this Cowboys team and what they might look like this season. My spicy take, we should never discuss contract disputes again in the offseason. Nate Tyson.

What a waste of time. What a colossal waste of time the Cowboys, I think, maybe did on purpose just to get attention. Make it exhausting for us. Yeah. Because they gave CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott the exact deals the agents had to be asking for the entire time. I mean, what are we talking about? We wasted all that time for at the 11th, not even just the 11th hour, the 11th hour and 59 minutes.

For Dak to just go ahead and sign that deal, I think a lot of Cowboys panic. And look, I was definitely down on them when we did the top 10 offenses show. Kind of came around when we did the win totals pod, said they would go over 8.5. I actually feel pretty good about them now at this point, especially after that defensive performance that...

And again, I realized they could just end up losing in January. But part of me, you know, at different points, the office is like, yeah, why don't you just blow it up and try something different? But at the same time, there's some real foundation building blocks here. You know, Dak is a good quarterback. CeeDee Lamb's a great wide receiver. And there's talent on this defense. And if you just have some sometimes it just takes talent.

Someone else set the controls to maybe just like it did when Dan Quinn got there. I think, you know, throw him in there, mix things up a little bit, play more man coverage and pressure the quarterback. Now you have something different. Mike Zimmer, I think, can provide that different dimension. Very impressed with Trayvon Diggs, by the way. I thought that was a great game from him. First game back off the torn ACL, too. So a lot of good vibes, I think, in Dallas right now, and especially on that defense where I do think Zimmer is going to provide a serious upgrade over Quinn.

Yeah, I feel even better about it. Right away, seeing third down, I saw the double mug looks, which is when two linebackers are over the center. And I was just like, oh, yeah, here we go, buddy. Yeah, this is great. And even getting into...

This is how the layers of football have gotten added. Even when I first saw those double mug looks probably like first got exposed to him, like in the NFL, like maybe like 2012 ish when I was leaving college and stuff. And now we get into the next step of that was offenses would bring another guy back to help with the protection, just sort it out. Cowboys did it. Other teams have done it.

And so now we got Zimmer's next step to that was, all right, show the double mug. Look, offense brings another guy back up, back into the backfield. This case for the Browns is Ninjoku back to the backfield. And then the Cowboys go, nevermind, we're not doing it. And they back the linebackers off.

And what that does is it screws the offense because you're wasting two guys. Now, they have to... Because when you do those double splitback looks, it's chip, check, and release. Or check, chip, and release. Sorry, I just ruined a coaching point. But they check the blitz. They have the will of the sky, same sky. They chip on the way out, and then they release. And usually it's a flat route, a sit route, something short. But it's really...

Half routes like yeah, they get out but they take two seconds to get there So it's really a three-man route and now we got seven in coverage against three routes on fourth down or third down that's just not a winning formula unless you have a dude at quarterback and

Browns do not have a dude at quarterback. They do not. They have the opposite of a dude at quarterback. So it's yeah. Even the CD lamb at X, that go ball was sweet. The touchdown of Brandon Cokes was beautiful. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm feeling pretty good about where the Cowboys are. Oh, Marshawn Nealon had a good game. The rookie D end from, from Western Michigan.

always mix them up, but they look pretty good. I mean, just serious linebacker play, brother. That's not been... Overshawn? Yeah, Overshawn. That's not been a thing in Dallas the last couple of seasons. Yeah, I know the McCarthy stuff always gets people fired up, but I...

Again, you look at last season as a whole and you're like, you want to build on that, not tear it down. So I've kind of I wouldn't say I've gone full 180 on Dallas, but definitely come out of now that everything's just settled there. Now I feel like we can talk about this team like serious adults, even if sometimes they're not run like serious adults. And that feels great after week one. I'm not shrugging my shoulders at him anymore. All right. Moving on. There's one I'm shrugging my shoulders at. Next up, we got the Broncos at the Seahawks.

In the Russell Wilson Bowl, we have, or whatever the bowl was, the Percy Harvin Bowl, too. The Broncos lost this game 20-26. Oh, I got a spicy take. It's good because mine's one sentence here.

I don't think Bo Nix is it. That's my spicy take. And I know it's one game in, but this is exactly what I was worried about, guys. And this is what I've been saying for the last month. And there is a workable foundation for this offense, I do think. I think the run game will get there. And I'm not saying, oh, yeah, this quarterback will never be able to make it.

This is just the exact performance in the first game where I thought it'd be a little easier as they game plan some stuff. They've known he's the starter for a few weeks now, and they went as simple as the offense can get. And on top of it, anytime he had to push the ball past, shoot, I wouldn't even say 10 yards. I'd say five yards. It was a, this might get picked. There's different, and this is, again, this is process and results. Sometimes a guy throws a pick or a guy can finish a game with three picks and

And you come away and you're like, actually, it wasn't that bad. He was trying to squeeze that one in there. He got unlucky on that one. Sometimes a guy throws no picks and you're like, God dang, he should have been picked off five times, seven times because the read was bad. He wasn't just trying to throw it into a tight window. He was straight up throwing into the wrong window. There's a difference between tight windows and wrong windows. Bo Nix was doing the wrong window and he was doing it late. The first pick, the second pick was the worst example of it.

And again, it's a rookie quarterback and everything. And this is where my concerns are. His whole shtick, the argument for Bo Nix was that he was a ready-made quarterback. He's the second oldest quarterback draft in the last 15 years after Brandon Whedon. Like in first round, I should say. This is what you're supposed to come in there and run day one, day two and sell stuff and be okay at it and let the run game work and everything's okay. Like we have the 16th best offense because everything's okay.

I never thought he could do that because I don't think he can push the ball. And I think he's a little too chaotic. I will say only two quarterbacks broke 20 miles an hour this weekend. And that was Jane Daniels and Bo Nix. He is a good athlete. He can run. I will give him that.

But passing game-wise, I think they're just sliding uphill. And I don't want to be outright negative after one game. I do think there is a line to he can start and be a viable starter. This is just a little... This is scarier and maybe a little more of an uphill sliding than even I thought. So that's my hot take. It's pretty hot, but yeah. Yeah, it's pretty hot. I know, but it was...

that's concerning you said you didn't want to be too harsh but you said his shtick like it was him that did it too i know it's not his fault i know but this is why i liked him on day two because this is i don't know and i think we're in a new world now and i've talked to this with friends it's just i think we're in a new world with uh what quarterbacks taken in the first round and i can still grade guys differently but guys get taken first round but the thing is

I know they have to play earlier, but his whole thing was that he was supposed to be ready to play early. So it's yeah, I'm I was not optimistic after reviewing that game and reviewing it afterwards either.

Yeah. And someone sent me there or no, I was, I shouldn't say someone, the producer, Colin, uh, from the fantasy podcast sent me, uh, sent me the tweet about how Bo Nix reached the second fastest top speed of anyone on any rushing play, uh, followed, you know, behind only tank Dell pretty fast player. Uh, and we were joking that, you know, tired Sean Payton just got his new Drew Brees and Bo Nix wired. Sean Payton just got his new taste of Hill in, uh, in Bo Nix. So

Man, there's a way that it can work. It's just that I thought it would be, I thought the initial returns would be a little more, I thought the bar, the floor would be a little higher. And I think the floor is a little lower than I was expecting. So yeah, I know it's one week. I know all this. Just let him get to the bye. But that is pretty concerning. All right, next game up featuring another rookie quarterback. This is the Commanders at the Bucs. Bucs won this game 37 to 20.

We are spinning the wheel. This is a Mac game. I'm nervous. If I get spicy. Well into existence, let's hear it. Dan Quinn is going to be one and done is my spicy take on this one. I think that they will probably have the worst defense in the league. We discussed this, I think on, on this show when we're talking about the wind totals where you just start looking at the defensive depth chart before the season and you're

We're doing this one again. We're doing... Cleland Farrell is one of our...

biggest edge rushers here. We got Bobby Wagner playing. And then you see it in action, and it's actually worse than you could think. My mild take on this was the Bucs offense is better this year than last year. And part of my big caveat, if I was going to make that take, was let's remember again the just for opponent competition here. So my two takes might be kind of in... They're contradicting each other in some way, or there's a conflict here. But just stick on the Washington one, too. The defense...

It definitely could be the worst in the league, which is rough because Dan Quinn is a defensive coach. Secondly, though, I mean, offense was just as unimaginative as you could possibly imagine. And what's so frustrating about this, Nate,

is that in a league where we've got people, you know, offensive coordinators, play callers, doing so much with motion at the snap and pre-snap motion to get our best players free. What did we just talk about with the Eagles all the way at the top? They're doing this stuff for A.J. Brown. A.J. Brown doesn't need you to do any of that, okay? A.J. Brown could line up at X receiver and kick everybody's ass out there on a snap-by-snap basis. But you know what makes...

everyone's life easier is if you do some of this motion stuff with him. Meanwhile, you've got cliff down here. You've got one good,

pass catcher. You've got one good pass catcher in Terry McLaurin, and you've got him stuck over there on the left side of the field, just never in motion. Meanwhile, it's like, oh, motion, motion, good, motion, we should do more motion. But you're just motioning around Olamide Zaccheaus, and no disrespect to these players, but it's just a lot of non-needle movers, and I would be less concerned about that if that wasn't the exact same thing we saw in Arizona. So you've got Jaden Daniels, who...

I don't even want to give a Jaden Daniels take because he's a rookie quarterback in his first start. After I just gave a Bo Nix scorcher. After you just slammed a rookie quarterback in his first start. Me as an arbiter of fairness and justice, I will not do that.

You know, because I'm the nice guy here. I said to set a coach can be one and done. But yeah, I mean, Jane Daniels, rookie quarterback, first start. He definitely did the Wiley Coyote stuff, some of the crazy, you know, runs and things like that. But he's got no shot behind this offensive line. He's got no shot with these receivers. And I just don't think he's going to be set up to succeed. So Washington could easily be the worst team in the league this year. And because in the context of I don't even really know how jazzed up they were to hire this staff to begin with.

no matter what they say, I don't think this was the plan. I think we could just easily see them cleared out this year, which is unfortunate. I'm not rooting for that, but that is my spicy take, especially when they're not the offensive play car, you know, too. And yeah, you know, that's usually you can hold that card, you know, unless you're hack it. I can just go like, Hey, you want me to run this ball fence, right? I just drafted this guy. You want to ruin his career already, right? You want to switch the coaches? Yeah, I will say just, it is, it is so much like the Cardinals offense. It really is. It's,

back when Cliff was there. Again, the best parts about it is not the parts you would think. It's the run game is the best part, not including Daniel's running. I'm talking about just a straight up run game. It's exciting. It is. The two leading receivers were the backs, man. I know, but that's what it is. It's a nickel and dime offense. And anyone that's surprised by that, like,

That's what this offense was in Arizona. It was the same thing. Guys on left and right sides, no motion, very predictable formations to where everybody's on an Island, you know, split out the tight end, which limits some other stuff you can get to. Yeah. And just the personnel is not overwhelming enough. You just brought up AJ Brown and the highest compliment I can give a player, especially a receiver though, is scheme proof, meaning they don't need the best play call or they don't need the motion. That's AJ Brown. He can line up and whatever and do whatever. And it's good.

Not everyone is that. And so you need, like, I'm just kind of reiterating your point, is you need a little help with this. And yeah, Daniels, I thought his eyes came down a little bit quickly, especially against the Blitz. He got sacked a couple of times. But the thing was, Duke can run. And I mean, they didn't have answers for it at first. They figured out some things as the game went along. But Daniels is fast, fast, which we knew. But it's nice to see it in the NFL terms.

wasn't taking hits early either, which was good until the very end of the game where he decided, I'm going to get socked three times in a row in the face right at the goal line, which is like, you guys are losing by three scores, man. You know how much money you have invested in this guy?

This guy's worth more than the entire coaching staff. Like, what are you guys doing? Sorry. That stuff kind of irks me a little bit. But he had the eighth highest scramble rate in the past five years. Minimum 20 dropbacks. Would have been first of all of last year. But the thing was, and I will say this, really successful throwing the ball. He didn't throw the ball a ton, but he was good throwing the ball. My negative stat, again, on the flip side of those scrambles, and this was my issue with him in college, didn't throw once on the move. Every time he moved, he scrambled. Oh, wow.

Kirk Cousins had more throws on the move than Jane Daniels did in week one. What? Kirk Cousins had one. Jane Daniels had zero. The touchdown to Kyle Pitts where he broke her out. Yeah, I looked at next-gen stats. Yeah, so Kirk Cousins had one. Jane Daniels had zero throws on the move, something he has to get better at because he can't just scramble all day. It's hard. But yeah, the defense is very concerning. Last game here, Sunday Night Football.

The Stafford golf ball. A pallet cleanser, honestly. Yes. Rams-Lions. Lions won this game 26-20. Entertaining game. Ooh, spicy take. My hot take. My spicy take for this game. This is one of my games. The Lions defense will rank higher. I don't know what we're going with, but they'll rank higher than the Lions offense this year.

I was more impressed by the defense than the offense, even though the offense, of course, especially at the end, that run game, oh, that was after my own heart. Just pound it down their throats. Brayden Fisk, yeah, it's a little tough. It's a little tough to hold up against Penn A's two-hole double teams over and over and over. That's just how it goes. I had a little...

some of the offensive stuff with the Lions. I have to review this game again because I just want to see everything going. You know, Goff felt like he was under duress a little bit. I did think the offensive line, I love their offensive line, but you know how they're coaching everything. But

Maybe take that half step back. So but man, I thought but this is also a compliment to their defense. I thought they did a good job against this Rams offense. It's not easy to go against, especially with all these young guys, new faces. I think the run defense is hard to play against. Again, this is a really good Rams run game and really creative one, even if they had woes, you know, with injuries and stuff.

I do feel good about this defense, seeing them more just for the first time in action, seeing it actually unfold a little bit. That, yeah, I'm optimistic about, which makes me more optimistic, even more optimistic about this team. It's kind of had some thoughts on this, but yeah, just overall, I was just more impressed about the defense. So I'm still saying this is more like,

seventh and eighth i'm not saying like top five defense and 20th offense i'm just saying that they're more in in line together which is good for the lines than maybe just really good offense and poor defense which again we had theories and thoughts about also have a mild take that i thought you would like oh what's the mild take rams to trade for rashad bateman but that's more of a nut i mean that would be great you mean the second leading receiver on the ravens

Of what? Two targets? Yeah. Just look his way, Lamar. He's open. I mean, my God. Yeah. Well, let's not go down that path particularly. I thought it would be a good way to end the pod if I did end up with the mile take. I like that. Yeah. I mean, that would be awesome. Although my worry about the Rams is that this feels very 2022 Rams where we're back to fantasy bros are at the full 3.9 on Cooper Cup, 20 targets. It's like, yeah, then they scored...

they scored fewer points than cup had targets, not, not 21 targets, 20 points, not what you want. That's not what you want. The offensive line is, is, is injured. So that's part of the lion's defensive take years. Let's see them, you know, against some, some starting tackles, but you know, my Aiden Hutchinson defensive player of the year prediction is live baby. Let's go. My last question to you on this, is this,

Do you have any concerns about the Lions offense, like big, big ones? Because I thought the James Williams emergence, I think it's going to force us if he can stack these performances, which obviously we need to see him stack the performances, does give them a whole new dimension, but also does kind of take them away a little bit from their bread and butter, which is attacking the middle of the field.

I feel like their strength has gotten weakened and one of their weaknesses has gotten better, which was they have more passing game options. I thought Jameson Williams, that's exactly how I pictured him. Like even his first catch was like a real dig route or in-breaker. I might be mixing it up, but then he had the 90. Some kind of in-breaking route, yeah.

yeah but it was a real route it wasn't just and then we see him on the touchdown which was how you probably picture jameson williams getting to use which is literally literally this is the play call 989 nine is a go route just run past everybody and the quarterback get protected and throw it as far as he can like that and he ran past judevious white i mean that was he when i'm when i'm charting uh you know if guys got open or not yeah that's a that's

That's a yes. Just for the methodology, bros. Success, yes. Explosive, yes. Yeah, that's easy. So I feel like his improvement is real. Like that was not a flash in the pan. You saw growth last year. I just, I'm more, really the take should be the offensive line has made me

It's just hard because I don't want this to come out that I'm like, this is a glaring concern. It's just that I thought this offensive line is the best offensive line in the league, kind of hands down or at least pretty easy. And now I'm more like, oh, it might be more just good as opposed to fantastic and really just the slight drop offs that they have. And so it's like if Ragnow gets hurt, that gets me really scared about that interior. So and this this offense is built on running the ball and golf doesn't do well with pressure.

So that, that is just, that's my, I'm just pulling out that thread a little bit, but overall I'm optimistic about the lines. Cause how that defense did play overall. So do we get it in? Oh no. I over at a video game or drink, whatever. But yes, whatever.

Whatever. The people will like it. And we are a podcast. We nailed it. We are a podcast for the people. Sorry, Ravens Chiefs. We didn't talk about your teams. I'm sorry. We talked a little bit, Rasheed Rice, and again, the second leading receiver from the Baltimore Ravens. We talked about both of those players. We did. We did.

No, it's a great call. Oh, her shoe race looks so, so good. That's what I pictured. It's awesome. But we're closing it out today. Be back on Thursday with football 301. Chuck is joining me for, we're going to preview the week two games. This is our schedule now.

Next week, we'll be back. Matt and I will be doing more recap. Just week two. Hopefully not all 16 or 15 games. Maybe a little bit more 5-6. Get a little deeper on them. So that'll be a lot of fun. I'm Nate Tice. You can find me at Nate underscore Tice. Where can they find you, Mr. Matt Harmon? Yeah, Matt Harmon underscore BYB. And looking forward to having you on the fantasy show tomorrow for the fantasy film room where I definitely want to break down this Eagles run game in depth. So we'll do some depth on that tomorrow.

Yeah. Make sure you check it out. Yeah, that'll be great. I'm going to try and get some visual elements on this show once we get a little more deep dives and I can kind of... Once trends start. I have some theories, but we'll see once some more data points get in here. But to hear us in a few weeks or next week or later this Thursday, subscribe to us. Follow us. Rate us. Pretty, pretty please. Also...

watch us on YouTube, the Yahoo Sports YouTube channel. Also follow Yahoo Sports on Snapchat too, if you're into that. Also send a mailbag questions once we get to those. Football301mailbag at yahoosports.com. We're going to start getting a few of those as the weeks go on. Again, thanks to Brett Stonati behind the scenes. Thank you to you, Matt. Thank you to everyone for listening. See you all on Thursday. ♪♪♪

Bye.