Week 13 fifth quarter: Cousins' 4 INTs kills Falcons & is Justin Tucker washed?
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This episode of Football 301, it is the Sunday fifth quarter. That's what we're calling it. Me and Charles McDonald, Mr. Vertz himself, recap five of our most interesting games from the morning and afternoon slate of week 13 of the NFL. Super fun show. Super fun Sunday. See you guys in a sec.

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Hello and welcome to Football 301's Sunday 5th quarter, because that's what we're calling it. This is what we're doing every Sunday night, day and afternoon games, or morning and afternoon games if you're on the West Coast. We're going to be recapping those as Sunday Night Football is just about to kick off as we're recording this. Actually, we have Bucks and Panthers wrapping up as we're recording this. This is an overtime thriller in the NFC South going on right now, but...

Like I said, we're going to be recapping five games, five things that we think were most interesting from the Sunday day games. To help me do that every single Sunday for the fifth quarter is my guy, Charles McDonald. How are you doing today, Chuck?

I've been better. I've been better. I mean, well, look, as far as life goes, it's great. I had a great Thanksgiving with the fam, you know. Got to catch up with some old friends. I fell down a hill, had a good time. And then I didn't hear that. Yeah, I did fall down a hill when I had a few two beverages the night before Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving and I fell down a hill. It was, it was really washed. Like I, it was one of those falls where I was like, I could feel myself falling for a good, like three or four seconds. And I was just like, Oh, Oh no, here we go. And then just, you know, just fell. Yeah.

The quasi-recovery is worse almost usually than the fall. My most recent fall down the stairs where I just slipped down the stairs. As I try to catch myself, my left foot hit the railing. And I hurt my left foot more than anything. Dude, I don't know how it happened. I've been still trying to reconfigure.

I've refigured it out. I've drawn up, chalked out my own outline to figure it out. You know, still can't figure out this entry as the Panthers just fumble the ball as they're setting up for a game winning field goal. But talking about NFC South and talking about you maybe not being in the best mood right now as we record this, even, you know, not not considering the fall, but after Thanksgiving weekend, the first game that we're going to be talking about batting lead off chargers. Yeah.

Beat the Falcons 17 to 13 and a kind of game whenever I was watching it. And on a review. Yeah, just a wonky game. Your guy, Kirk Cousins, throws everything.

Oh my God, a superfecta. Four interceptions from our guy Kirk Cousins. The Falcons outgamed the Chargers at 350 yards to 187. Outgamed them 4.5 yards per play to 4.1. The Falcons had 36 successful plays today on offense. The Chargers ran a total of 46 plays on offense. The Falcons had 10 sacks going into this game, recorded five sacks. They had five sacks total over the previous six weeks today.

And they lost. They lost to the Chargers. Charles.

The floor is yours after I just set that whole thing up. What are we feeling about right now with Kirk Cousins, the Falcons and everything going on in the Dirty South? To me, in football, there are so few times when you can actually point the blame at one guy and say that you are the reason that we lost this football game today. But just think about the context of the Falcons defense and what you just said, because they've been terrible again on defense this year.

Think five sacks today. That's 50% of what they had for the whole season going into this game. Like you tell me 187 yards, four yards per play, five sacks, like 25% success rate for the Chargers offense. I think we walked out with an easy dub. Like, no, but no. And it's funny because sometimes you see these games where quarterbacks have

They'll have a bunch of interceptions and not all of them are their fault. But no, every single one of these was just an awful, awful throw. And...

It just got to the point today where even on that last drive where they're marching down the field and they have a chance to potentially do something, I was like, he's been so bad today that he's going to mess up again. And now on fourth and 12th just throws another terrible pick that ended the game. And I was trying to parse out which one of these was the worst.

- Yeah, I did the same thing. - And I think I settled on not even the pick six, but the floater that he threw at the back of the end zone into triple coverage. 'Cause as soon as that ball left his hand, I was like, oh my God, that's an interception. And it wasn't even just the picks because on the first drive of the game, they had Darnold Mooney, clean pocket, wide open next to the goal line, wide open, clean pocket, Kirk Cousins, that's what you're here for. And he just,

skipped it across the ground. Next play, Young-Wae Koo continues his awful season, misses another field goal. And now they're, you know, they're, they're chirping up the quad injury, which is like, if he's had a quad injury for all these weeks, why is he still kicking the ball? I don't know. The kicker kicking pregame, I think too. Yes. I,

I don't really know what's going on with this team, but I do know one thing. Kirk, he lost us that game today. Four picks. That was just abysmal. They had... Kirk had as many touchdowns for the Chargers as the Chargers scored themselves on offense. One apiece. And now we are, what, 6-6? Fighting for our lives. We're still waiting for the Bucs finish over here on this game. But, man, that was so damn bad. And now...

You pair that with the Jeremy Fowler report from this morning that said the Falcons like, hey, if this doesn't improve, we are probably just going to be done this offseason and just end it. But now I'm starting to think, if you fall out the playoff race, do we see panics before the season's over? Which would just be a hilarious end to all of this because they thought they were going to be in the Super Bowl. We're never going to be high enough to be picking another quarterback. That's why we got to take the QB. Right.

And now you're six and six going into December. Die. Just die. Just contract the franchise. Get rid of all of it. It was so bad today. And the Bucs are lining up for a game-winning field goal right now to also put them at six and six. Not sure how the tiebreakers would work, but they have 2-0 up on them. That's right. Yeah, we broke the fall down. But yeah.

Oh, I'm glad you brought up the Miss Mooney throw in the red zone. That was brutal. Then he had a low throw to Mooney on third and eight in the two-minute drill before the half that he missed. The short again. I thought the first interception was a...

What are you doing, Kirk? It was a sale concept, which is a deep corner, a go ball and flat play action. They finally ran play action. Yell about it. And then still or yes, still the corner that had two picks. They still still.

It was just cover three, and he just falls off the go because they pass it off. And he's just standing there. He almost overran the pick because he was just waiting there. And you could see Paul Chris used to always have the line, listen to your feet. You could see Kirk Cousins hitch.

And because you could tell his feet are going, do not throw this. His brain is going, shut it down, check it out. And he still throws it because you could tell he was like, well, this was supposed to be open. Like if Ritter throws that pick, I'm like, okay, yeah, you know, rookie mistake or second year guy, but you don't pay a guy to throw that kind of pick, you know? And then the pick six was.

They had a good rotation on it. They had a nice little coverage disguise on it. But again, he's staring at it. He knows it's a cover two corner, and he's like, I throw it. Just floated it, too. And then he floats the other one in the end zone. All those were like Ritter interceptions. Not the guy. Not Cousins coming in. Yeah, it was just a whole lot. And then the Chargers was just a slog to watch them. They can't block anyone on the interior. But they won. They sure won. They had a failed fake punt.

You know, the Falcons defense did what they're supposed to do, man. They did. They did. For once. And they just Falconsed it. I know. I mean, there's some cool runs to be on. I know. Yeah, it was just. It's just getting to the point. This offense is so damn easy to defend now because your quarterback can't move. He can't do anything. He can't boot.

I mean, dude, think about all you could do with Bijan and Tyler Algier if you could just move the pocket a little bit or how much more explosive they would be. I feel like every week I gain more appreciation for the work that the Falcons' run game in O-line has done because you're just dealing with static every single play. You're not getting much help because your quarterback can't move. So the idea that even today they could just stand firm and pass protection for most of the game, it's kind of admirable. But then your quarterback is just...

Just pissing the game away. Yeah. I mean, I know cousins come off the Achilles, but this was the risk you signed with him. Like I'm watching Stafford who can't move that well. The Rams still boot them all the time. Like they use it. I mean, even Rogers gets used on boots sometimes. Like the, and there's a difference between play action, which is in the pocket. You move in the pocket. You set up over the guard.

or one of the gaps depends on which one. And then there's bootlegs. And that's what is like missing. They're just these bootlegs with this offense. That's what you're supposed to be setting up and supposed to be the changeups and supposed to help everything else out. So yeah, six and six Falcons who they have next week. Vikings.

So they got Vikings and they got Raiders who also playing feisty. All right. Yeah. And then Giants commanders and then Panthers. It's a playoffs. All right. They got the playoffs. Yeah. Bucks pull out another one. Yeah. The NFC South. All right. And the Chargers go at Chiefs host the Bucks host the Broncos at Patriots at Raiders. It's pretty.

Pretty tough slog for them, but they keep stacking up wins. So congrats to the Chargers. We'll move on to our next game. Also, shout out to Tarheap Still for the couple picks. I should give him a shout out. And Derwin James had a great game and then an interception late, so I wanted to give him a shout out too. So I know you're shaking your head, but I got to keep my neutral fandom here as the analyst. So getting into the game that just wrapped up right before we started recording, which was a fun one.

for a while was Eagles and Ravens. The Eagles take this one in a bird matchup 24-19.

Yeah, this was you can see Saquon Barkley taking over in that fourth quarter. That was kind of my first takeaway on this game. Seeing that last touchdown that sealed the game. They ran a nice little dark play, which is tackle pole during my lot of pulling. And that was I love that they're using that play because they run so much spread formations is a good run there. Barkley finished with over 100 yards.

They only threw the ball six times in the second half, only dropped back six times in the whole second half. Hurts went 2-5 with one sack and one successful play. It was a 3rd-7 crosser. Barkley in the fourth quarter, they had 15 runs total, including Hurts. Seven of them were successful, only two passes in the whole fourth quarter. They just pounded the rock. Eagles' average distance to go on third down was 5.7 yards. This was...

they're having their way there. And this is a, this is a tough Ravens defense, at least the front seven to run the ball. So they are able to win this way. And the Eagles defense kicks some butt too, but watching this one, this was a, this was a pretty good one. This was a slog fest. What were your takeaways from this one, Chuck? Yeah,

I kind of feel like the Eagles won the game the way the Ravens wish they could have been able to win the game. You know, just being able to just kind of bulldoze them at the end of the game. Because even Jalen Hurts had some nice runs on the drive where Barkley had the long touchdown run back that pretty much killed it. So...

And especially just to be able to walk down one of the arguably or probably the best run defense in football. Because even tonight, they still had some good stuff from Saquon. But just as the game went on, just got worn down over and over and over again. And you didn't get much help from their offense, which is probably a problem. I'm not sure how concerned I am about the Ravens' offense just yet because this is a tough defense to play. And they were in...

scoring position a lot today you know like or at least within field goal range uh and you know justin tucker i don't really know what's going on there but uh he just hasn't been good at all this year and it's there's no like sugarcoating that he's just been awful uh and they're kind of in a weird spot where uh the kicker is also a beloved franchise legend so you don't

I mean, I would just say that. You were going into the season going like, yeah, we're getting rid of Justin Tucker. Right. And now it's like, dude, you could have won this game if he was hitting some of those kicks or at least being in a position to go ahead at the end of the game. So that's a tough draw for them to have to deal with that. I mean, personally, I would just say, man, this has been great, but you're still a kicker at the end of the day if you're not going to hit these –

what are you here for? You don't do anything else. It's a tough one, but they need to at least start making some moves because if they get into the playoffs with this situation, he's already shown that he can't be count upon even though they continue to trot him out. So like, do you just start going forward and forth down every time? That's not really a stable way to live.

And they're just not squeezing as much as they could from this offense. But you still got to give the Eagles defense credit today. I think this is probably one of the lowest, maybe the Steelers game, but lowest success rates that the Ravens have had on offenses here, 38%. They had 37% rush success rate, which is pretty low for them.

They were able to move the ball at times, but I think in the second half, it just got really muddied up and tough for them. Because really, not even the second half. I feel like maybe from the first quarter on, they just would kind of get into a groove, and then they would get stuck. And then the Eagles just kind of won that battle for Trishney at the end of the day. So that's a bad one to lose, especially with the Steelers picking up a big win in Cincy. Now, you actually are probably a wildcard team moving forward, which is not where you want it to be. But...

I can't quit this team just yet. That was a bad loss, but I'm not fully out on them. You know, and I actually thought their defense did nice things. Like they made it tough to like, especially third down. They're really doing some cool stuff and doing well. The Ravens, I mean, but like, but the Justin Tucker thing, Seth Walter from ESPN, Justin Tucker's now he had a tweet is now in bottom five and field goals made over expectation this season.

So he's essentially the... Young-Way Koo is third worst. So he's the fifth worst kicker, not a total game-changing, needle-moving kicker that he was. That's a huge drop-off. But no, the Eagles... I'm glad you brought up the Steelers or the success rate thing because I was looking at the same thing. And it was the lowest...

yards per play that the Ravens have had in the game this season, 4.7. Their next lowest was 5.3. Lowest net yards per pass for Lamar. It was just they – the Eagles just make it tough. All right, that's the whole Fangio defense. You've got to be good 30-something times. You can't – he's not going to – they're not going to make it easy for you. You're not going to get the explosives. Like even the –

Zay Flowers gained that he had early near the sideline. It was a big explosive play for the Ravens. It was completely out of structure, and they showed the overhead view, and the coverage was just perfect on the play. And then Lamar was Lamar, and Zay Flowers was Zay Flowers. But that's what they do. They make you have to be superheroes or have an exquisite game plan that you have to execute. But their defensive line is playing well. Cooper Dejean is freaking giving tombstones to –

to Derek Henry. That was awesome. It was a great hit. This Eagles team is just really good. It's a really complete team. Some passing stuff on third down, yeah, they're going to have some limitations, but they do so much well. They can run on anybody and they can play defense against anybody. And then they have an explosive passing game. That's the formula for the playoffs. So

And what they're adding offensively, just the little layers. I mentioned that dart play, some stuff that they're figuring out, not doing – like even Hurts' runs are a little bit more streamlined. And you shouted out that he had some nice runs, and he looks quicker on those. He's getting upfield. He looks more decisive, I think maybe is the best word I should put it, where he's like, all right, I'm getting this, and then I'm either getting down, running out of bounds, or doing this, as opposed to when Hurts –

So really, those wheels are turning. That's not how you want him to play. He's a forceful guy. So you want him to be direct with everything. So you're watching him, especially in the second half, look more direct and

Eagles are rolling. It's a really, really good team. And I'm with you that I don't think that I think the Ravens feel like a good wildcard team and that they're really shoring up. You had some stats about their defense was really kind of kicking up recently too, right? Yeah. Their defense is playing better. We know what the offense is. It's a good team. They've been around a fringe top 10 defense for the past like five games. So yeah, man, they can just get some complete performance here. Like I,

And this is where you... All three units. All three units. But this is where you just look back early in the season and think, man, dropping those first two games really hurts. You can live with the KC loss, I think, but losing to the Raiders at home, it would really help to be 9-3 or however many wins they should have right now because that's a tough one when you start looking at how congested the standings are at the top of the AFC, especially in the division.

Yeah. Yeah. It's starting to become a fish fight. Well, I mean, all these teams, all the AFC West teams. I mean, now the Colts won a game, but we're going to take a quick break and come back with one Colts, the Colts game in another game for our fifth quarter of football. Three one. See you guys in a sec.

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Game three, fun one. This one got a primary screen for me. Cardinals at Vikings. Cardinals won the, or I mean, sorry, the Vikings won the game 23-22. Felt like the Cardinals were really in control for most of the game. You know, the Vikings were fine, don't get me wrong, but then it really picked up in the fourth quarter.

Especially, you know, as the game went along, I have some notes on Darnold and Kyler, but I thought both quarterbacks had some nice moments. Kyler over the first kind of three quarters and Darnold really the fourth quarter picked up. And I thought the Vikings had a good run game. You know, maybe not so much against the Blitz, which I'll talk about, but you watch this game, Chuck, what were some of your takeaways with the Vikings pulling off the one point win?

It was kind of what I expected because these teams seem fairly similar over the last or just like overall performance over the last, you know, few weeks. But man, I was pretty impressed, honestly, with the Vikings defense. I thought they played Kyler pretty well, especially towards the back half of the game. And, you know, like,

Cause I think we were talking last week, how sometimes that can be tough. Like if you're a team that, which is a lot, you're playing someone who can run like Kyler. If you're not getting him down the first time that leaves you exposed on the second play. But I thought they did a pretty good job, just not exposing themselves to that. And yeah,

For Sam Darnold, he's just going to keep allowing Vikings fans to dump on us, I guess, because he marched down the field to close the game out, and he made some good throws and some good plays. I think that was a strong performance from him, and I just couldn't get over the amount of people who were

saying, you know, that's why you don't go up six at the end of the game right there. I'm just like, man, you held the 16 points. There's so much time left. Yeah, you held the 16 points. I can't have any faith. My defense were going to get them off the field for more time. But, you know, that's why you play the game. And they didn't. But I thought they didn't get it done. You know, I guess to those people's points. But with the Vikings in this game and the Cardinals in this game, I think that

that was a kind of a tough pill for the Cardinals to swallow because yeah um at six and six like you are kind of fighting for your playoff life especially with the Seahawks getting uh another depth today and I think that they're a playoff quality team obviously at this point in the season but you know you just rack up a few too many losses in the middle and and you get stuck but still I think you know if you're a Cardinals fan you shouldn't feel too terrible about this game uh

Kyler had a nice game. He still had a 50% success rate on dropbacks, positive EPA. You just lost it at the end, which is kind of expected with this defense that they're still turning through town and trying to figure out what sticks for them.

Yeah, and the Cardinals defense had nice moments, especially on third down. Darnold against the Blitz. They put some 10 dropbacks. He was 4-7, 34 yards. He was pressured eight of those 10 dropbacks and sacked three times. So the Blitzes were working when they got to him, but then they started kind of getting gashed in the second half. It really felt like the fourth quarter, the Vikings were like, okay, we're not even going to run it. We're just going to start chucking it on you guys. And I mean, off play action in the second half,

They had gains of 18, 15, 17, and 26 yards. They only ran the ball five times in the second half. Two of those were explosive. 80% pass rate in the second half. They figured out, okay, we're done with the runs. We're just going to try and gash you down the field. And they got Jefferson going a little bit. Yeah, and Darnold got hot. Beginning of the fourth quarter is when he really started picking up. I felt like he got in the first half, some of those blitzes got him because Cardinals do so much funkiness on the back end with the blitzes. So it's like,

This looks like cover zero. Oh, it's cover two. And so you could see him kind of double clutching and take a sack early in the second half. It felt like they just wad stuff up. They had better answers. And then Kyler ended up with those two picks. But one of them was an arm punt, third and long. And then the last one was for the ball game. He underthrows it a little bit. But like you said, I thought Kyler had a great game for the most part, or a really good game, I should say. But Kyler had more dropbacks and pass attempts against the blitz today than he did against non-blitzes.

Yeah, 23 passes against the Blitz, 22 passes against non-Blitzes, which I always just love when you go against the Vikings. Usually it's like five pass attempts or seven or eight. Nope, 23 pass attempts. Pressured 13 times on those 23 pass attempts. Only sacked once, but then one of the picks, the pixel eight, were both on picks. Or I'm sorry, both against the Blitz.

I thought those just was an interesting game. I thought there's some really cool scheme stuff. I'm excited to review this one. All 22 wise that there's some good quarterback play. I do want to highlight to just how well coach both of these teams are.

But the Cardinals at the end of the half and just like the contrast to like what happened with the Bears, the end of the half, they just did a little sequence. How they use the timeouts was great. And then they were setting up a field goal. They hit one to Trey McBride. Kyler hits Trey McBride. He's aware to get the ball to the refs. Kyler goes to spike it. He lets it trickle down to three seconds.

then the receivers just fire off the ball in case that he runs like a fake spike and i was like look at this they have layers when they're spiking the ball meanwhile you watch the bears last thursday who just like didn't know what to do for 32 seconds it's just like man this is just the contrast of feelings with these teams they like that played each other just even a few weeks ago so i just kind of had to highlight i thought the cardinals had some cool bootleg stuff the whole game uh but the vikings had some really really good play action stuff and

Darnold executed four explosive passes. Yeah, it was a classic Darnold game. Gave you a couple chances early and then at the end just got hot. And when he gets hot, he can throw some S-tier throws in there. Yeah.

Yeah, that was a good one. The fourth quarter, I was just looking at it. Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison combined for six catches, 99 yards. They both had over 3.4 yards per route run. And Justin Jefferson had 1.05 EPA per target in the fourth quarter. Yeah, that's that's how nasty you got.

And it was just like, it was methodical too. It was like a dig, a deep curl. It was like real big boy routes, of course, because that's what he runs. So I know the Vikings offense, when it clicks, it's so much fun. Because, I mean, the run game was really good today. They just didn't need to. Like, they were just like, okay, let's just start airing it out. Like, all right, as long as we don't, you know, some of these third down blitzes, we block them off. We're going to chuck it. So, yeah, I thought this game was fun. But Vikings come up with another win. Moving on to the next game. Colts.

At Patriots, Colts win this one by one point. This was, you know, we had Drake May was chucking it.

And running it. Yeah, he was chucking at this game. And then Anthony Richardson had a good early drive and then a real good late drive with a long, long Colts game winning drive where they went for two, which is awesome. Yeah, but this game was kind of a wacky game. There's some terrible refereeing in this game, some terrible spots throughout it. But what do you think about this one with Anthony Richardson and the Colts coming out on top?

One, awesome by Syken at the end. Just go for two. Dude, you guys have slogged through this season. Just go and get a win, especially when the production has been so inconsistent for your offense. Do you really want to go out there for another quarter and try it out? Probably not. Just go for the win. Quit while you're ahead. You got a chance to end it right there. The most inconsistent moments of brilliance in this offense. And then just...

some plays where they look like they've never practiced and it's just it's what happens that's just the it's a bunch of young players they're inconsistent but man yeah then they put together this beautiful drive to win the game with which still had drops by the way by ed mitchell and kyle and grantson so yeah yeah sorry to cut you off but it was yeah quite well you're ahead and just win the game

It was just another one of those games where I feel like I'm a crazy person when I tell people, you know, Anthony Richie really wasn't as bad as like the numbers look again, you know, because they, I don't think it was quite as bad as last week against the Lions, but they did have some drops. They had some miscues and you get to the end of the game. I think our buddy Seth Galino was, was,

he said in our group chat earlier today that he had, you know, placed a bet on something like, I mean, if he reaches it's over for his past yards, the number was so low and he still like barely got over a hundred yards today. I'm like, Oh my God, dude. Like, and, and I'm, I'm watching parts of the games and I'm seeing him make plays that look,

Incredible. And I was seeing some drops there. And I know like he's not, it's not a complete picture with him. He's obviously still got his own things that he can improve on. But man, it's just not as quite as bad as the numbers look. And I think it's even funny when you look at EPA per dropback. He had, even though he had 25 dropbacks, 109 passing yards, two touchdowns, two picks. We look at the EPA per dropback. It's like just slightly below average.

you know, he was like, he finished at negative 0.08 for the day. So you were almost like at a neutral impact just production wise. And that's not even counting all of, you know, the slop s***.

that happens every time the cold seem to step on the field so i i'm still here i'm encouraged uh 44 success rate on dropbacks again really not that bad but outshined by drake may today for sure who was just yeah it was awesome like even even in a loss like a losing performance drake was fantastic today yeah i i don't think he he missed two throws

And both of them are, that's the thing when a guy misses a throw and it's like, you know, misplaces a throw. It's like, was that understandable? Was it just a true miss? You know, sometimes Richardson has ones where he misses by 15 yards and you're like, ah, but like may had two throws. He missed one was a slant where I think he thought the guy was going to settle. And then I understood what he was doing. And then another one to Jim and poke where he was sitting over the middle and he was like kind of unraveling. And it's like the classic where, uh,

The quarterback thinks the receiver is sitting in the hole. Receiver thinks that he has to move out of the hole and just throws it behind him. So I'm just – those are ones just anecdotally. That's the throws that he missed. All the other throws I thought were on the money or had an understanding of what he was trying to accomplish on them. I think he's – I've been very –

I think he's rapidly improved his underneath accuracy, especially throwing left. That was the one thing I thought he had to improve on, and I think he's already improved on it. How he's on third down, you can see his scrambling. I mean, his feel for getting rid of the ball when he's under pressure is great. I mean, both of these guys. I mean, Richardson didn't take a sack today, and then May took four sacks, but some of them were just like him, just like, ah, whatever, third down where he has to get rid of the play. But I just think their sack mitigation is so good. But yeah, I thought May, this was a really efficient play

After last week where May had some, eh, he had some rookie moments I thought last week where maybe he didn't pull the trigger on some throws, but I still thought he had some nice moments. Some Rick and Morty moments. Did you say Rick and Morty moments? I don't think so, but maybe I did. I thought you said Rick and Morty moments. I don't know. What does that mean? I don't know, Chuck. You know, he tried to get rid of it, Rick, and I understand what he was trying to do there. Um...

No idea how that sounds. Aw, jeez, Rick. Aw, jeez, Rick. I was just trying to throw it in between his two safeties, Rick. I don't know what the hell, Rick. Now I wish I could rewind because that goes before you said a Ricky Morty moment. I think what Rick and Morty plays are. It's just an aw, jeez play. Aw, jeez, Rick. I was just trying to give it a chance. Like six Ravens dropbacks a game, probably. Yeah.

yeah um but no it was i thought that i actually thought the patriots offense had some real nice moments the the old line has become a meme though where it's i know they get all these holdings but now the refs look for it and i can tell like they get no leeway like it's just like ah that yeah that looks like a hold where yeah it has to be a hold like i'm watching these games they got bad spots so i just had to like say that too because i did notice that but uh

Yeah, I thought it was encouraging from Richardson, especially how the game ended. It's just all about consistency with him. We know the flashes, so seeing him just...

coming back from bad plays, you know, where a guy dropped it or something, not just like hanging his head. He didn't have, you know, a big third down run on that, on that last drive. He's not botching the snap. You know, he's not bumbling off a guy's leg. Like he, you know, those little things are adding up even with a bunch of offensive linemen. The Colts had out, I think they're on the third string center. They got, I mean, they had a whole bunch of just patchwork guys at offensive line. So yeah, I mean, the Colts are still in it. Also last thing, sorry.

Gus Bradley also had no idea what was going on at the end of the game that the Patriots were trying to set up a long field goal for Joey Sly, who also called out his holder, by the way, threw his holder under the bus on his field goal. Joey, that was a terrible kick. That was not the hold. I watched it. But Gus Bradley had no idea what the Patriots were trying to do.

This guy was a head coach and this guy's been a defense coordinator for like so long and just was he was he thought it was like Hail Mary attempts. So the Patriots just kept hitting these little ones to Hunter Henry to set up like a 60 something yarder. It was like Gus, what are you doing, man? And then you see them rallying up at the end trying to figure it out. But yeah, sorry. Just had a I don't know if that's a shout out. It's the opposite of a shout out to Gus Bradley there.

No, it is bad. You see like these guys who have been in the league for so long and they just lose their brains. And I'm like, like, bro, how many times has he been in that exact scenario as a head coach or a defensive coordinator? A hundred times. Like, come on, wake up, wake up. Practice watching other games. I know mental reps that you take. Yeah. All right. Well, we are going to take one last break and then we're going to wrap up with Seahawks jets and I'll be here for the fifth quarter.

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All right, last game here. Game five. We got Seahawks-Jets. Seahawks win this game 26-21. That score does not do this game service. Not because it was a great game with brilliant football being played. There were some nice cool moments, but because just a lot of s***.

happened in this game uh let's just start with uh the i mentioned that the the harbaugh's had an interesting day on special teams today well that was jim with a fake punt then we had john with justin tucker's situation then we got j harbaugh who's a special teams coach for the seahawks seahawks had first they blocked an extra point then they fumbled a kickoff return

Then they let up a return touchdown. Then they blocked the extra point. Then they got the extra point blocked after a pick six. And then they allowed another return to near midfield. And that pick six, by the way, was Leonard Williams. 315 pound Leonard Williams, give or take, as a hot dropper hitting 17.84 miles an hour. Dude, he was moving. On that pick six.

Fastest by defensive tackle as a ball carrier in over five seasons. Current and next gen stats. 17.84 miles an hour. Yeah. He was rolling. Did you see what he said after the game about that play? No.

He said when he got to the 50-yard line, he was looking for someone to pitch the ball to because he was too tired to keep running. I love that. I love it, too. I'm very honest. Very honest. Because most of those guys, I mean, what's his face? Saunders for the Saints when he gets the Chiefs. He was like, no, I want to play quarterback now. Like, no, Leonard Williams is like, no, I know what I am. Is there a DB? Yeah. Somebody take this away from me.

It was a wacky game. The Seahawks are terrified. They have an electric fence in short yard situations. They are terrified of it. The one near the goal line where Gino ended up taking the sack on fourth and goal from the one foot line. They're in gun and they run a sprint out, which is fine in those little low red zone areas. But they're in the gun. The Jets are in two, three techniques.

They were at the one foot line and the quarterback is not under center and there's nobody lined up over the center. It's like, what happened to my football? What happened to my NFL? Where's the sneak? Like, wait, wait, what are you guys doing on that? So that was nasty. That was a whole bizarre sequence. I know. What'd you think of this game? Anything else to throw in there? Sorry. I just got to start rambling about it because it was a goofy one. There's so much to get to. I did appreciate after the game, the,

Gino Smith tweeted the my biggest haters death meme because obviously when he was with the Jets, you know, over 10 years ago at this point, things did not go well for him. Locker room fights. Locker room fights, broken jaws, you know, getting benched and then he gets to get his revenge in this game, which was just so sloppy. Like, dude, the...

I would just love to do a podcast just asking Jets fans, what do you think about this Aaron Rodgers experience? Because what happened today? Okay, so I remember when I went to the Jets-Colts game a few weeks ago, I couldn't believe how conservative a passer he'd become, where he doesn't want to throw anything that's further than two or three yards down the field, which is, dude, you guys aren't good enough to operate like that. I

No team is really. It's pretty tough. Maybe Kansas City. You guys obviously aren't that. But they just ended up in so many horrible down and distances that they just can't recover from. And to be fair, the Seahawks defense is improving. That's probably not a team where you just want to live in super long down and distances. I have a stat that might break your brain a little bit from this game.

In the second half, when the Jets offense like really, really died. Do you want to do you want to guess what their average distance on third down to first down was?

9.1. 14 yards. What? They averaged 14 yards on third down in the second half. And obviously, it looks like they only had like three of them or maybe a little bit more, actually, because they only converted 33% of them. But they were 20% on third and long, which makes sense because.

14 yards, 15 yards, 16 yards plus away from the first down marker for an entire half of football. So obviously for the second half, they had basically minus 0.3 EPA per play, negative point drop back. They averaged almost a full point lost every time they ran the ball too. So it was just brutal, brutal. And I just don't know where you go from here. Yeah.

You, you, like, this is so bad. You spent so much money and picks and resources to be here. You clearly have to blow it all up. It is just peak, peak jets. Very funny. Oh, peak jets. Yeah. And I see Olberk, the head coach. He's just like happy to see everybody from Seahawks. He could care less. It's just a joke. Just trying to get to January, man. Just trying to get to January. Keep that resume fresh. Might have to go to Mobile, you know, for sure going to Indy, you know, Frisco.

That was one thing I learned very early in my career when I was making the senior bowl circuits. You start seeing like big time coaches, it's like just milling around there. But once he's doing it, he's looking for a damn job. That's what he's doing. That's exactly what he's doing. Yeah. Senior bowl used to not be, I mean, everyone would be there, but it was so much different.

less public than it is now but now yeah now it's like when you see one of those older coaches like yeah yeah they're just trying to try and make sure they get the networking early before they have to go to indy uh the one one little stat i'd say about this was uh you mentioned how rogers kind of nickel and diming they uh he only had two pass attempts today over 10 air yards according to next gen stats like that that's exactly right he hit beautiful first touchdown davante adams and i was like oh okay and then it's just the the leonard williams pick this is the exact

Same problem they ran into against the Broncos and who did they play in Europe? Minnesota. Minnesota. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that's what you said. Yeah, Minnesota. This is the same issue. He wants to beat the Blitz his way, him being Aaron Rodgers.

But that is from 10 years ago. Like the rules that he's trying to beat are from 10 years ago and defenses have adapted. So now you got Leonard Williams flying like he was trying to throw a hot route, you know, or an inside slant. What's his face? Witherspoon was coming inside.

I think it was Witherspoon or Love came inside, got the tip and everything. Leonard Williams is flying as a hot dropper because that is what, you know, Mike McDonald's very smart. That's what these defenses do. Oh, you're throwing hot. We're going to drop somebody where you run a hot route. That's a hot dropper under a hot route. And so either way, like they had an answer for it. So it's like, I don't know. That's just the problem. They're stuck in 2014. Like that's just how this Jets team feels just as an organization and just as an offense and as a quarterback. Yeah.

Not a lot of fun to watch. But yeah, see how I can pull it off. They're rolling a little bit. Good shout out about the defense. I definitely want to study it a little bit. I want one last stat for the Steelers-Bengals game, which was a shootout. Just an absolutely insane offensive game. Russell Wilson, 414 passing yards, second most of his career.

had the highest success rate passing since week 14 of 2020, the fourth highest single game passing success or dropback success rate of his career. He had 41 dropbacks today. The ones that are above them, the games that we had a better success rate were 32, 35 and 27. Let Russ cook in 2024.

what what's going on here and burrow was excellent too even though he had some turnovers late and everything but he was a machine for most of the game but that steelers offense was cooking today i know the bangles defensively there but nausea harris rushing touchdown was sweet scars guard my guy ben skronic had a pancake in the end zone on that one he looked for a flag because he thought he's gonna get a flag on it uh but yeah yeah this was uh the steelers offense is cooking the offensive line looks better and

I had a great stab by Joey Porter late. He had five tackles and five penalties. That's a fun stat for our corner. Five tackles, five penalties. But yeah, just had to give that little shout out to Russell Wilson. A game ball, if you will, to Russell Wilson, Arthur Smith, and the Steelers offense in that shootout against the Bengals. You have any game balls? Or do you want to just wrap this up? I think I have one. I have a funny Falcons stat. The Falcons today, this was...

The fourth time this season that fewer than 20% of their drives have ended in three and out or, you know, getting a turnover before you get to a first down. This was the fourth time they've done that this season. Basically, you're moving the ball. You're getting at least out of the first, you know, portion of your drive every single time you're on the field. They are one in three in those games. They've only beat Tampa Bay a few weeks ago. They've lost to the Chargers, the Seahawks, and at New Orleans in those other games where they're moving the ball and not actually scoring any points. Yeah.

That is such a confident step. As long as they play the Bucs, they're okay. Or apparently the Eagles early. Success rate-wise, this was a top five game for Kirk Cousins this season. I mean, just embarrassing. Embarrassing stuff.

Good way to wrap up your Thanksgiving. That was a good way to do it. Lucky number 13 for Charles, week 13. But no, really fun show, really fun doing this. We'll be here every Sunday wrapping up the season. We'll be back on Tuesday, me and Matt, usual show for Football 3-1. Me and you will be back on Thursday to preview week 14 of

I am Nate Tice. You can find me at Nate underscore Tice on Twitter. Nate Tice on blue sky. That is Charles McDonald. Where can they find you, Chuck? You can find me on blue sky. I don't really post on Twitter that much anymore. I forward stop. East guy dot social. Yeah, I think it's a, we're building a nice little community over there and the engagement has been fun. So you should definitely come check it out. Nice. But yeah, also send in your mailbag questions.

Football 301 mailbag at YahooSports.com or leave us a five-star review.

And if you have a question there, it jumps to the front of the line. I see a couple of those in there, but subscribe to us, follow us, rate us that five stars. If not five stars, just yell us on Twitter. Everyone else does that anyways. Watch us on YouTube on the Yahoo sports YouTube channel. Thanks to Brett and stone behind the scenes for making us look and sound good. Thank you so much for all for listening. Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving. We'll be back on Tuesday. Me and Matt talk to you guys then.

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