Playoff Politics, Heisman Hype, And NFL Storylines

A wild week of football served two truths at once: moments are thrilling, but months decide who matters. We kick off with USC’s scheduling complaints and why that’s the inevitable cost of realignment money, then move to Ohio State’s quiet dominance built on snap control, field position, and a defense that strangles games. The national conversation fixates on Indiana’s last-second toe-tap and a “Heisman moment,” so we ask the uncomfortable question: should one dramatic play against a six-loss team outweigh an entire body of work? From there, we pull on the rankings thread—why a top 25 when 12 make it—and how résumé padding props favorites while teams like Oregon, fresh off a snowbound street fight at Iowa, get held down by inertia.

In the SEC, Alabama keeps winning without convincing, A&M looks balanced enough to survive multiple styles, and Georgia does what Georgia does: stumble early, smother late. The ACC’s chaos turns into a playoff math problem, especially if a strong Group of Five champion crowds the bubble. Through it all, the teams that matter most are minimizing variance. Oregon adapted without key weapons. Ohio State is shrinking games on purpose. And the programs leaning on fourth-quarter heroics are discovering that style points don’t fix structural issues.

Sunday flipped the spotlight. Miami punched Buffalo square in the identity, running through light boxes and forcing the Bills into a chase game they aren’t built to win. New England found juice with Drake May, TreVeyon Henderson’s burst, and a rookie wideout who moves like a blur—proof that development beats nostalgia. Seattle and the Rams detonated early and never looked back, while the Jets beat Cleveland with special teams, a reminder that hidden yards still decide outcomes. We close with the Eagles’ grind past Green Bay, why Jordan Love’s variance dictates the Packers’ ceiling, and quick picks for the week ahead.

If you’re into honest, no-fluff football talk—playoff politics, Heisman hype, real trench play—hit follow, share with someone who argues rankings for sport, and leave a five-star review. What did we get right, and who’s still fool’s gold? Tell us your pick and join the conversation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Solo Pod Setup & Plan
• 1:50 College Football Agenda
• 2:24 USC Scheduling Rant & Win
• 6:20 Ohio State Methodical Dominance
• 10:35 Penn State–Indiana Ending & Heisman Debate
• 20:21 SEC Check-In: A&M, Bama, Georgia
• 27:41 Oregon Survives Iowa In The Snow
• 34:00 Around CFB: Notre Dame, ACC Mess, Upsets
• 40:34 Rankings Reaction: Top 12 And Bias
• 49:21 Coaching Drama: LSU, Buyouts, Consequences
• 56:02 NFL News: Injuries, Steelers Move, Giants Fire Daboll
• 1:05:20 Sunday Slate: Colts Edge Falcons
• 1:13:40 Bears Rally Past Giants
• 1:16:50 Dolphins Smash Bills
• 1:24:12 Ravens Control Vikings
• 1:30:10 Jets Beat Browns With Special Teams
• 1:35:20 Patriots Find Playmakers And Rhythm
• 1:48:02 NFC West Fireworks: Seahawks And Rams Roll
• 1:55:55 Lions Maul Commanders, Dan Campbell Calls Plays
• 2:03:40 MNF: Eagles Grind Past Packers
• 2:08:40 Picks, Records, And Closing CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

Welcome back to JB Sports Podcast. Today is Tuesday, November 11th, and we are back for another pod. Today is a solo Tuesday pod. Jace isn't here. Can't make it work. He's doing a little he's working, so can't make it. We can't come together and do it that way. But I do plan on us coming together to do a pod together later on this week when it comes to our prediction pod later on. So you will get both of us together doing this thing uh on the next pod. So that is one thing that'll be good. But for now, until then, you do have to sit here and or do whatever you're doing. I'm not even sure if somebody sits down and watches and listens to me do this. I hope not. I hope you don't let my voice like take over your whole consciousness. Hopefully you're doing something else. You're playing a video game or working or doing something else because that would be that would suck to have all of your attention on what I'm saying for an hour and a half to two hours. And then hopefully not like a couple podcasts ago where I went for three hours by myself, because I don't plan on doing that today. But I don't just don't sit there and do this by yourself like the only thing, because that'd be kind of weird, to be totally honest with you. The idea of podcasts in general is that the fact that people like you know, probably people don't just sit there and only listen to a podcast. That's probably the coolest thing about a podcast that you can do other things and still retain information from listening to it at the same time. I don't know. That was a weird thought process to go down for a second. I'm gonna stop there. Because again, I don't want this podcast to be three hours long. So without further ado, uh, I will go ahead and get start talking about some things. So what we're gonna start with is with college football today, because of because when I'm recording, I'm recording around seven o'clock, we are gonna get the college football playoff rankings here very soon. So we'll start with college football, do the reactions for all the games this past Saturday, and then get into the college football playoff rankings, and then transition over to NFL, talk about on the all the games from last week and all of that, and news and notes and all that. So let's go ahead and get into things here and get into it. So the Friday game from last week, it you got Friday, November 7th, you got Northwestern going to USC. It was a Friday night game. They Lincoln Riley was definitely complaining about the fact that he had a they USC had to play a late game in week 10. I think it was late on a Saturday, USC had to play. They were, I think they were playing on on the other side of the country too. I think they were playing. See, now I gotta check. Now they started thinking about it. They had to go to Nebraska and then travel all the way back to USC and then play a late game on Friday. So Lincoln Riley did complain about that, which I'm like, to a certain extent, why if you are a coach of a major college football program, are you ever gonna complain about the scheduling and the travel and all that? Because guess what? The problem, the thing is, is that that's not going to change. There is no take sees backsees on all the money that USC and all these Big Ten schools decided to take from Fox, from CBS, and from NBC when they did the dude when they did the Grand Rights deal when it came to selling out all the games and then bringing all these teams over from formerly the Pac-12. So once all that happened, this was all bound to happen. So you complaining and like making excuses as to how much all this does not does not help your program, I'm like, well, that's what that's technically on you and technically on the the university that decided to take this deal to not only join a conference with bunch of but most of the teams on the other side of the country from where you're at, but then also with the Grand Rights deal with selling all your games to Fox, NBC, and CBS, like that's it is what it is. And to a certain extent, I can understand fans complaining because obviously fans don't have any sort of connection and don't have any control as to how any of this goes, but when you are a part of the system, when you are a coach of a univer of a football team like that, you're a lot closer to the hand that dealt you this, and that and that hand is your own bosses, the ones that run the universe that decided to take this deal and join for you to join the Big Ten. So you complaining about it is just like it comes off a soft to a certain extent, and uh but but still, even with that being the case, USC won that game against Northwestern 38-17. The game wasn't really all that close. USC takes care of business. And you know what's funny is that Northwestern, they're only 5-4 on the year. They are actually a decent football team this year, which is something that I haven't been able to say about Northwestern in a little while now. So it is definitely a good win for USC. They took care of the game. The game was really never in doubt for USC at all. And you have to give them credit for that, because again, them being at 7-2 right now, and if they win out the rest of their way with the rest of their schedule, they should have an opportunity to be a team that can vie for an opportunity to get into the playoff. And what they have the rest of their schedule is they have to play Iowa this week and then Oregon next week and then UCLA. If they manage to get through all three of those games without a loss, I think they'll probably make the playoff. But I'm gonna say, do I think they get through all those games? Probably not. Iowa's a very good and tough team for a team like USC to have to play. Oregon is a totally different bag of nails to have to deal with at all, especially you're going to Oregon. And then UCLA is a game that USC should probably win. So they probably won't get through the re all three of those games unscathed, but again, they're putting themselves in a spot where if they they do have their own future in their own hands. They don't have to worry if they go ahead and win out, they don't have to worry about the committee or anything like that. They will be in the playoff. I doubt it'll end up being that way, but at least they have the opportunity. On a Saturday, I'll start with Ohio State Purdue just to get it out of the way. The game was it didn't really happen first, but it happened at like one o'clock, which is a weird kickoff time for college football. Usually it's noon, 3 and 3.30, and then you have like 6 to 7.30, and then you have 10. So 1 o'clock is not necessarily a time that you usually look at for, like, oh, that's when college football happens. So usually it's an NFL thing on Sundays, but we'll sp that notwithstanding. Ohio State travels to Purdue, they won the game 34 to 10. It was a game where they were bringing in like Carnell Tate didn't play. You had a bunch of players, they were kind of supping out. It was a game where you could tell Ohio State was trying to do some things, they were trying to run the football, they were being more intentional. They knew they could win this game against Purdue without much of an issue, and you can tell Ohio State kind of treated this game that way. Julian Sand went out there 27 to 33, 300 yards, passing, one touchdown. He did have an interception, it was a bad pick that he threw in the red zone. I'm not sure why he decided to throw the football. Like there was literally a Purdue player sitting right there. But other than that, Julian Sand another great day, did what he had to do, got the ball to Jeremiah Smith. Jeremiah had 10 catches, 137 yards, and a touchdown, and that he had like one catch where he was getting taken down to the ground and still managed to tip the ball to himself as he's falling to the ground and grab it. It's kind of insane. It seems like every week Jeremiah Smith does something else that makes you think, like, man, this guy is so ridiculous as a player. Uh, Bo Jackson, 14 carries, 75 yards, and he should have a lot more than that because he had literally the first or second play of the game, Ohio State had like a 70-something yard touchdown run for that Bo Jackson ran that got called back because Jeremiah Smith blocked somebody in the back. It was a it was a block in the back, it was, but it just sucks that it happened there because it took away such an explosive run play that Ohio State's look been looking for so far this year. But outside of that, Purdue did get the one touchdown at the very end of the game where Ohio State threw the third and fourth strings in. That was kind of disappointing because Ohio State is like they're trying to, I think as of right now, they're averaging like eight points given up per game. And they everything was looking very good. And then they threw their third and fourth strings in, and Purdue just kind of got all the way down the field and managed to score that touchdown pretty easily to get it to double digits. I think there's only two teams that have scored double digit points in Ohio State this year. It was Purdue and I think Illinois were the only teams to get to double digits against Ohio State. So that part was a little disappointing. But Ohio State did what they were supposed to do. If they wanted to score 60, they could have, but they're not going to, like I've already said in the past. Ohio State is really conscience, conscious of pace of play. They're not going to play too many plays. I think Ohio State dominating this game. They think they had the ball for like 40-42 minutes out of the 60. And I think there was like Purdue only had 42 offensive plays. So in this game, Ohio State dominated the game defensively. And then offensively, Ohio State was not going to push the button when it came to trying to run a lot of tempo or anything. They are going to try to have as the least amount of snaps as possible to try to help out not only their offense but their defense when it comes to health, when it comes to tread on the tires. They want to make sure by the time the end of the season comes, they're ready to hit the turbo button and lift off like a rocket ship. And Ohio State's more than happy to win games against Purdue in maybe not covering like they were supposed to. I think the number to cover was like 29 and a half or something like that. So they didn't cover, but Ohio State doesn't really care. I think they've come to realize that as long as you win the game and as long as you're doing what you need to do, it doesn't really need doesn't really matter. And Ohio State being 9-0, being the number one team in the country right now, all you have to do is keep winning. You're going to have a buy in the playoff and just do what you got to do and go ahead and try to win another national championship. Let's see. Next thing I wanted to talk about was Indiana Penn State. I don't want to get too deep into the weeds on this. I really don't. But I don't think I can help it. One second. I don't think I can help it because the narrative around this game, because I watched pretty much all of this game. The first half of this game was pr was a like a slog fest to a certain extent. It really didn't heat up until the second half. Indiana won the game 27-24. This was a very close game. Penn State, I have to give them a lot of credit, did come into play. Their defense showed up and they really did show out. Offensively, Penn State really started running the football very well. And Penn State, like I I said this before last week when Penn State had played Ohio State, and I had said that Penn this may be Penn State's last real chance to like show they have some fight left. And I was wrong. It turns out that after getting manhandled by Ohio State, they came out against Indiana and said, hey, this is going to be our last chance to really go for it. They were going to play their all play very hard, which is what their players did. And I don't even think it was really on the players at all that this game didn't go their way. I really do think it was more of a coaching staff thing where not only do they not have a head coach at all to make some big decisions that they probably need them to make, but when it comes, probably their biggest mistake is having Jim Knowles as a defensive coordinator for them. And you know what's crazy? I don't want to because obviously Jim Knowles led Ohio State, was a defensive coordinator for Ohio State over the last three years, and helped lead Ohio State to a national championship in this last season. So I don't want to sit here and bash him so much, but I I've been through this, it's like a book I've read before. So when I look at what Jim Knowles is doing at Penn State right now, when I watch how that game kind of happened, the game go goes on by playing so well. Penn State's defense is like really controlling the game for the most part through most of the game, and then gets to a point where they get a fourth fourth quarter turnover out of uh why am I forgetting his name now? Um Fernando Mendoza. So like everything is going Penn State's way, and they're really like manhandling and they're like really taking control of the game for the most part. And what do they do when it was finally time? And like I think Penn State had multiple opportunities there at the end of the game to go after it and try to end the game with the ball in their hands offensively, and they didn't. They played conservatively, they ran the football instead of trying to really go for it and get first downs to be able to ice the game with the ball in their own hands, and they played conservatively, and then punted the ball back to Indiana with like two minutes left, I want to say. With yeah, with two minutes left, with a minute 51, they punted the ball back to Penn State. I mean back to Indiana, and then Indiana kind of took the ball, marched right down the field. Fernando Mendoza like had his best drive that whole game. I think most of the game he kind of I'm not gonna sit here and say he struggled, but he definitely was not lights out as he had been throughout most of the rest of their schedule that they have played so far this year. And comes down to the last play. I think it was like a let's see here. Let me make sure I'm not crazy. It's like a third and goal, Penn State seven. Fernando Mendoza gets there, they are they get the ball all the way down the field, which I think they was like a 70-something yard, 80-yard drive, and they do what they have to do, and then he throws that last pass. Penn State goes for an all-out blitz. He sits there, eats the pressure, and somebody literally takes the hit right as he throws it, and then throws it to the back of the end zone where the wide receiver for them, I'm forgetting the guy's name, to Cooper Jr., their wide receiver number three, um, he caught the ball in the back of the end zone and managed to get his left foot in as he's falling out in order to get the touchdown and get the get the lead, to then give the ball back to Penn State with like 35 seconds left for them to kind of end the game that way. So here's my thing with Jim Knowles is that it was going so well, Penn State for most of the game was blitzing the crap out of Fernando Mendoza, and it was working for most of the game. But when it came down to the last drive and they had the lead, all Penn State really needed to do was play coverage and sit there and like change it up a little bit because by the time the get end of the game was over, Indiana knew what was coming, and by and they knew and Fernando Mendoza knew what was coming, and he managed to take advantage of that fact. And all Jim Knowles had to do was change it up a little bit at a crucial time, and they could potentially make the play to win it. And unfortunately, they didn't do that. Indiana did what they had to do, and they went out there and won the game. And that's the part about it is that. No, I don't want to get to that fact yet. I want to give Penn State a little bit of credit. Penn State offensively ran the football very well. They made enough plays to win the game until the end, where the head coach had an opportunity, the inner to interim head coach had an opportunity to sit there and decide, hey, we're gonna win the game with the ball in our hands. They didn't do that. But the players, I'll give them a bunch of credit. Ethan Grunkermeyer, the quarterback out of from Columbus, Ohio, that is now the quarterback for them because they don't have Drew Rowler for the rest of the year. He went out there and played very well. He really did. And the fans were there and they were they were showing out and they were doing their thing. You have to give a lot of people the credit, like Penn State now having six losses in a row, or five losses at the time of playing this game. They really didn't have an opportunity to say, hey, you know what, screw it. This isn't our year. We're not gonna do, we're we're just gonna punt on the year. We don't care, right? We don't have a head coach who knows if we're all gonna be here next year, let alone because either we have to go in the transfer portal or if we're gonna be like graduating after the year. So like they had a real opportunity to say to say, screw it. This is the end of our year, we're done. They went out there and played as hard as they did. They really did show some fight, and to a certain extent showed why Penn State was looked at as such a a good team starting the year is because they have so many talented dudes. They have a lot of dudes on that team that are all gonna be NFL guys, they really do. And they played it like played played like it on that Saturday against Indiana, and they almost pulled off the job, except for some coaches making some crazy, crazy mistakes. And I have to give both Indian and Penn State a lot of credit for that. Indiana survived the onslaught, even though they didn't have their best that day, they didn't play their best, they really didn't. A team that had been ranked number two in the nation and had done so much. Fernando Mendoza has been a Heisman hopeful throughout most of the year because of how light lights out he has been. He was not lights out that day until that final drive. And Penn State gave him a lot of credit because they did what they did had to do and they showed up and they really did play play their role, and the fans did too, did what they had to do. But what grinds my gears on this was that after the game, all every everybody was talking when it comes to the college football media and fans, is like that's a Heisman moment for Fernando Mendoza for that throw. First off, about the play, I actually think the catch was better than the throw. I know that's probably not a hot take, but in the moment, I was like, man, that was an awesome catch. Like the throw was fine. It was in it was in a spot where like it was it was in a spot where the wide receiver can go do it. But the fact that he not only caught the ball like he needed to with the defender draped all over him, but the fact he got his foot down as he's going out of bounds out the back of the end zone was an awesome play. I thought it was a better play by the wide receiver than it was the quarterback. That's one. Second, the fact they're giving Fernando Mendoza that being a Heisman moment, first off, that Heisman moment was against a five loss at the time team, now six loss. A team in Penn State that does not have a win against a power five opponent. And I get it, I already like I just said earlier, Penn State is a much more talented team than that. Like I really do think that. They are not a good team, but they do have a bunch of NFL dudes on that roster. But the fact that Indiana had played themselves to a spot where they had to come back and win that game against the Penn State team that only had three wins on the year, and this is in week 11, I don't think that quantifies, qualifies as being a highest moment for a player to win the award like that. Like that award is supposed to be meant to go towards the most outstanding player for the year, or the best player, depending on how you want to define it. And I just don't think Fernando Mendoza playing as I'm not gonna say sit here and say he played bad all game. He didn't play bad, but he wasn't the reason why they were gonna win that game for most of the game. Let's just say if they had lost that game, Fernando Mendoza would have gotten plenty of plenty of blame as to why they did not get the win in that game because he had mistakes, and especially in that fourth quarter, he threw a fourth quarter interception, a very bad interception that helped lead Penn State towards getting like having the lead in that game. And the fact that all that happens and you have to play from behind, and I get it, you came, you come back from behind, you make the big play, and you have the throws, and he was nails in that final drive. But the idea that that gets to be the moment for a player to have like to really put on his mantle as a moment that proves you're the most outstanding player for the year is kind of baffling to me, especially when you're comparing him to guys like Julian Sand, who has been a quarterback that has been nails all year. And unfortunately for him, I guess, for whatever reason people want to say, is that his team has been so good they haven't had to come back in any games because they've just been dominating everybody. And that's looked at as a downside because Julian Sand hasn't had a struggle. That doesn't make any sense to me. If you're just a Mike Tyson knocking everybody out in every single game, I think that's probably more impressive than a team that has to come back against against an opponent that is not on the same level as you. I don't know. And then they also want to use the excuse for Julian that, like, hey, you're throwing to the best player in college football in Jeremiah Smith. I'm like, yeah, but like, how is he supposed to change that? And it doesn't change, even though he's has he's throwing these balls to this amazing cast of characters when it comes to offensive weapons, it doesn't change the fact he's throwing them to the perfect spot every time and he's not making a ton of mistakes, and he's throwing at over 80% completion percentage. I just I just don't know how you can use a moment where you play yourself in a having a deficit and then manage to dig yourself out of it, and then you could get to use that as a moment when the whole game is not representative of that. I don't know. It's just weird. And I saw I said I wasn't going a whole thing about it, but I can't help myself because I've been just been watching people for days talk about Heisman Mendoza, and I'm sitting there like it's not like my whole feeling on this is that if Penn State and Ohio State keep doing what they're supposed to do, that game in Indianapolis at the Colts Stadium to win the Big Ten Championship game, that is the game for the Heisman. And to be totally honest, Jeremiah Smith is the best player in all of college football, and unfortunately, he's not gonna have a chance to win the Heisman because he doesn't have the crazy uh Devontae Smith numbers that he had to get in order to like go ahead and win the Heisman. Unfortunately, that that award is starting to become mostly a quarterback award because the quarterbacks get all the stats when it comes to production. So I would really love for Jeremiah Smith to win it because he is the best player in all of college football, but that's not gonna happen. It's most if there's gonna be a butt guy that's gonna win it, it'll be Julian Sand because he will have the numbers that'll equate to being worthy of a Heisman candidate because of the production value, as well as having like it is becoming more of a quarterback award as of recently. So I don't know. Again, credit to Indiana for getting that win. They really did because they did not have it that day, and they still managed to come back and win it. That's a lot of credit to them. But you also have to say that Indiana was part of the reason why they were down in the first place in that game, and you have to talk about that as well. And it has to come into for has to come into the picture when it comes to the Heisen conversation as well. Because you can't blame a guy in like Julian Sand that has dominated all year and hasn't had to come back in a game and say, hey, he hasn't struggled, so I'm not sure if he's the best player in the country or not. I'm like, I just don't know, or most outstanding player in the country. I just don't know how you can have it's kind of like having your cake and eating it too. You can't have it both ways. And I just think a lot of people that are instantly crowning Fernando Mendoza as the Heisman winner based off of that game and that catch that one play alone doesn't make any sense to me. Next game. And Texas AM goes to Missouri, beats them 38 to 17. This game was never close. Missouri doesn't have their starting quarterback. They were coming in with a uh rookie, a freshman quarterback, and you can tell from the get-go that AM was going to run away with this game without much of an issue. Marcel Reed was awesome, 20 to 29, 221 yards, two touchdowns. They ran the football like crazy in this game. I think they had over like close to 250 yards rushing total in this game, and it was a runaway affair. Seriously, like there was a time where Missouri was looked at as like a real team that not because they were actually talented enough to potentially win the national championship, but because of their their schedule and because they are talented enough to a certain extent that they would have an opportunity to be one of the better teams in the SEC and potentially get into the playoff. But it hasn't really worked out that way. And in the biggest games they have had, they've kind of gotten ran all over, and especially now they don't have Bo Pabule their quarterback, it has all gone the other way. Anim made it look very clear as to who the better team was, and they played like it, and they won the game without much of an issue, and a lot of credit to them because Anna might be the best team in the SEC, to be totally honest with you, because not only are they undefeated, but I also think they have rose, they have risen to every challenge that they have had in their way, whether it's a high-scoring affair, whether it's a rock fight, and it's in plenty of different games that they have played throughout this year. Do I think the one deficiency for this team is potentially their quarterback, Marcel Reid? Because I don't think he is the most efficient of quarterbacks, and if there's a chance for you to kind of keep him from using his legs, what does that make their offense? I do kind of question that. But I also question the fact that when you think of teams off to face in the future, a la Ohio State, because you know everything comes back to Ohio State and what they've been there this year. Does any team in the country have a defense that can do what Ohio State's defense can do? And I just don't think that'll be the case. And does Tech San M have an offense that can really stress Ohio State enough to make to make them play out a way they don't want to? And I just don't think that's the case as of right now. But Tech AM is a very good team, and I think they have a chance to push Ohio State in that way. I just don't see it as of right now with how things have gone. But again, Tech San M is a good enough team on a given day. If Ohio State doesn't play at their best, Tech S M could definitely knock them off if that is a uh if that is something that does happen. Next game, LSU Alabama, Bama wins the game without again. Here's the thing Bama wins the game 20-9. It was not pretty. Alabama had that one, like in the second quarter, they scored 14 points, but outside of that, they only scored six total points a field goal in the first, and then a field goal in the fourth quarter. And the game was again, Alabama just could not put LSU away, and that was probably the issue because LSU, for the most part, could not get anything going at all. They Garrett and Us by they like throwing the football, they only had 173 total passing yards in this game. And again, you have to give the Alabama defense a lot of credit because they are part of that too. But I also think LSU's offense has been kind of awful throughout most of this year. And they haven't been able to get going, especially getting into the red zone and scoring points. So that has been a problem for LSU, and they can't run the football either. They only had 59 total yards rushing for LSU's offense. Like they can't run the football, they'd been really not great in the red zone, and their quarterback production is not enough to where you probably need it to be. And Alabama, especially being at home, they should have run away with this game and won it by a lot more. Again, I'm not gonna sit here and pocket watch when it comes to how you're winning games or looking for style points, but I do think even though Alabama's the number four team in the country and they deserve to be, but I also think Alabama has their issues. They can't run the football all that well, they only had 56 yards total rushing for in the game. And Ty Simpson, as much as I think he is nails, like there is times where the offense kind of sputters out and they don't do as much production as they probably should with all the weapons that they have on their team. So as much as I respect Alabama, as much as I respect that offense, and they're I don't respect their defense as much because I do think they play well, but it's just not locked down at all. If it's all comes back to Ohio State, if I Ohio State has to play them, I do think Alabama's defense can be had. Not to mention the fact they lost that first game of the year against Florida State, and nobody wants to remember it. Like everybody wants to act like it didn't happen. And again, I do understand that teams do grow throughout the year, but I also think that there hasn't been a team that is able to push them in the way in their in their own schedule. Well, I'm not gonna say that because Florida State's not a great team, and they had that one great day where they were able to run the football and like really get things going. But I just don't think the defense is fixed, and I don't I think the offense can definitely struggle because they can't really run the football like they probably want to. So I don't know. Bama got the win, but it has not been impressive over the last couple weeks, and it does make me worry about what will happen when they really see some of the better teams in all of college football in the playoff. That's all I gotta say. Because what do they have the rest of their schedule? Um They have Oklahoma this coming week, which is gonna be a real big problem for them. They play Eastern Illinois next week, which is insane. That's crazy how you can schedule a game like that at the end of the season, and then you have Auburn and the year. So they do have Oklahoma. Oklahoma and Auburn are definitely teams that have defenses that can cause some problems for Alabama. Question is, can either of those offenses do enough to finish off the job, which is what my question will be about those two potential opponents, those two eventual opponents. Next game, Georgia, Mississippi State. Georgia won the game without much of an issue. They won it 41-21. I thought this was a chance for a look-ahead spot for Georgia to potentially get taken down by Mississippi State. It didn't happen. It was from the outset, dude. It's like the the first quarter ended at 3-7 with Mississippi State having a lead, and then after that, it was all Georgia. Georgia then had a 21-point second quarter, a 14-point third quarter, and then a three-point fourth quarter to Mississippi State only scoring 14 points in the second half. So it's just crazy because Georgia can like have these moments where they can look very dominant and do what they have to do, but just other moments where it just looks totally different. Again, Mississippi State's not a great team, so if they Georgia would have really struggled against Mississippi State, I think it would have been an issue if they would have struggled. So if I had to think about it that way. But they didn't. Do I think Georgia can become the team that can become a real problem for everybody else in Cosmo? Potentially. I just don't see it from their offense, though. And their defense can kind of be had if you have a good enough offense. But again, it's Georgia. It's Kirby Smart. Anybody can figure it out. It's probably him. But I just don't think Georgia has nearly the amount of dudes what they're used to having. And the question is, can they put it all together at the right time to go ahead and try to go on a run? Is probably the biggest question for them. Ole Miss playing against the Citadel, 49 to nothing. The fact that this game is even possible in the SEC is insane to me. But they got the game, they won it. It wasn't much of an issue, so I'm not going to go too far into that one. Texas Tech, BYU playing each other, number a top 10 matchup, Tex Tech being number eight, BYU being number seven. You have Texas Tech winning that game 29-7. This game wasn't close. And honestly, it should have been even more of a blowout than it already was. And it was mostly because of Texas Tech's own fault of sputtering offensively there throughout the game. If they would have just finished off the drives the way they needed to and scored touchdowns instead of field goals, I really do think they probably could have won this game by like by like 30 or 40. Like I really do think Texas Tech could have really dominated this game. They didn't. And it's issues they've had throughout the year where their offense kind of sputters out. I do think their defense is very good, especially on the defensive line. And they can get really get some pressure on quarterbacks. But it's just if they're going to keep having issues offensively like they have been, it does change my thinking as to what they can be on the high end when it comes to what they can be at their top end. High end, top end. I don't know why I said it twice, but you know, it is what it is. So do I think they can really make a run to go win the national championship? Probably not. But I do think they can be a hard out for some of the better teams that they would have to face. And you would have to go beat them. You really would. But I just think offensively, Texas Tech has a little bit of an issue. Next game, Iowa, I mean Oregon, number nine, Oregon, going to number 20 Iowa and playing them. It's not in Iowa City, it's in Kenneck, right? No. Where is that at? Hold on. It doesn't really matter. They had to go to Iowa to play them. It was a crazy cool game to watch. It was a lot of snow, uh, crazy weather, and it was cold, obviously. And this game was not made for Oregon to win. Oregon is a very fast team. They have decor uh Dante Moore, the quarterback, who can throw the football over the yard. He kind of struggled throughout the game up until like the last drive where he was really hitting some big passes. The one pass he hit to one of the wide receivers down the right sideline where he like threw the ball in the perfect spot. And all the difference was that that Iowa defensive back would have just turned his head and got around and like tried to block it or try to catch it, but that didn't happen. But Dante Moore threw that ball in the perfect spot and it was a perfect ball. But he didn't didn't necessarily have the most amazing day. Oregon did run the football very well, they did run the football very well. They had over 250 yards total rushing in this game, so Oregon was able to, when the passing game wasn't playing at its best, they did manage to get things going on the ground, keep their their passing game, I mean keep their offense on the field. And it was time when it was time to go win it in the fourth quarter to go get the last field goal to win the game, they were able to. But I do have to give Iowa a lot of credit. Like this is a game that was built for Iowa to have a chance to win. If this was a game in a dome or in perfect weather, I just think that the way that Oregon's offense can kind of explode and like make a lot of big plays, I think can like separate these two teams. But they must have done some type of rain dance or snow dance or whatever in Iowa because the weather kind of broke uh Iowa's way and they were able to play a more smash-mouth and tough football game, and I think really kind of played into Iowa's hands. And they showed out and played very well. The quarterback for them, Mark Grinowski, wasn't the most efficient. He went 10 of 18 for 138 yards, but that one pass they made in the fourth quarter where it was like they were on the third and five or something like that, in like their own red zone, and he hit a perfect pass to their tight end down the middle of the field. It was an absolutely amazing pass uh for them to see. Like passing is not something I was very good at. And if you watch a lot of college football, you just you know what I'm talking about. They're mostly a running football team. And the idea of getting good quarterback play on a year-in-yard basis is not necessarily an easy thing to happen there. So the fact they managed to get an as even though they didn't get a lot of production from the quarterback, but the fact they got some big plays out of him was amazing. And Oregon managed to like hold on, hold on, no, no, no. Stick to Iowa for just a second. Great game from Iowa. Players played great, weather broke their way, and they really made it a football game. But in the end, Oregon had an opportunity to go out and win the game. They did. Dante Moore made the like the toughest nails play when he absolutely needed to, and threw a perfect ball to his wide receiver to get them down the field to get them into field goal range and where they hit it and won the game. And like I like I said, in this, like throughout this, throughout this season, there are times where you have a chance to like really get taken down if you're not playing at your best. And Oregon was also dealing with injuries. They didn't have their their best wide receiver in DeCorian Moore. He's like their most explosive guy, and he's apparently hurt. Uh as to what I read, they say he might back for might be back later on this year, but it's no guarantee. So it really what it means is that he's has a he's having a long-term injury, and who knows, based on how if Oregon keeps playing and they make it all the way to the National Championship game, he could play if their season goes that long. So they're not necessarily gonna say he's out for the year, but he is gonna be gone for a while. So they're not they were without their best wide receiver, they were without their best tight end. So they had a lot of guys out, and they the weather wasn't really going their way, and they went out there and won the game anyway. So I'm gonna give Oregon a lot of credit. They were ranked number nine coming into this game for a reason because they have not looked the best. But in a game like this against Iowa in their house, I do think it was a very good win by Oregon. I have to give them a lot of credit because that's a game they easily could have lost, and nobody really would have thunk twice about it, to be totally honest with you, because that's a game that usually goes Iowa's way. And Oregon adapted, they did what they had to do, and they went out there and won the game. So a lot of credit to Oregon. I hope when I look at the rankings, I hope they kind of took a step up based on how that game went, but who knows how that how that's gonna go with the cosmological playoff rankings. But no, it was a good great, it was a great game to watch and a great uh a great game by Oregon in general, and a great game by Iowa. I think Iowa in a losing effort played very well. Let's see, other games. Notre Dame destroyed Navy, 49 to 10. The game wasn't close. There was one play that the uh the running back uh Love made, Jeremiah Love made. It was defense player was taking him down, didn't take him all the way down to the ground, he didn't touch the ground, he was on top of the defensive player, and then got back up and ran it all the way down for a touchdown. It was absolutely an amazing play. He is also a Heisman candidate because of how dominant he has been throughout this year, so credit to him for that. But Navy just was not ready for that game. They had no shot. Next game, Virginia, number 14, Virginia, the highest ranked ACC team at the time, lost the game to Wake Forest. Mind you, Wake Forest, over the last five, ten years or so, Wake Forest has been one of the were like the worst-off programs in all of college football. And Wake Forest has not been bad this year. They're 6-3, they're playing some decent ball, and they went out there and won this game 16-9. Like the game. To be honest, Virginia has been kind of walking on a tightrope as to border borderline like success or disaster throughout most of this year. A lot of tough, close games, and it finally did not break their way, and Wake Forest went out there and won the game. But, you know, it just shows how big of a mess the ACC is throughout this year, where like their highest ranked team was Virginia at 8-2, because you know, teams like Miami can't do it that like can't get the job done like wet like they need to throughout the year and win the games they need to, and it kind of makes a mess of the ACC to where like there's a chance if things kind of break a certain way where the ACC may not even get a team into the playoff. And why is that potentially a possibility? Is because the ACC is not guaranteed a playoff spot. Because, oh, what about the five the uh top five the sorry the five auto bids? Like they're not auto bids, especially not for specific uh conferences sorry, yeah, conferences. So it's not that it's for the five highest rate rated conference champions, that's who those five spots are for. And there is a chance that the ACC could be outside that top five if one of the group of five teams that it ends up being the champion is the committee sees as a higher ranked team than them. And if whatever group of five team that ends up being, if they have a better resume than whoever ends up winning the ACC, then there is a real chance that the ACC could be left out of the playoff altogether. I'm just saying. Real opportunity for that. If things don't kind of break the right way for them, either Georgia Tech or Miami needs to finish off the season strong and make it to where they can't be left out of the playoff, even if they don't end up being the ACC champion. Or if they do, does it have to look good enough to make sure that the committee won't keep them out? But it was a weird one. Auburn Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt won the game 45 to 38. Vanderbilt should have lost this game. They didn't. Diego Pavio was awesome. He had over like 500 yards of offense. I think he had three touchdowns passing, and then he had another two. No. He had three touchdowns passing, and then he had another like another touchdown rushing. Diego Pavio was awesome. He had like a 377 yards passing and then 112 yards rushing, so he was really dominant in this game. Auburn just keeps finding ways to lose football games. Like they are very talented. Again, they lost their head coach a couple weeks ago, or I think it was last week. Uh, Hugh Freeze got fired, is not there anymore. So, like, there was a real opportunity for Auburn to kind of like throw in the towel on the year. And they went into this game like they really did have a chance to win. Like Cam Coleman, their best wide receiver, had like his breakout game of the year: 10 catches, 143 yards, and a touchdown, including a very ridiculous touchdown catch. And they ran the football well. Like, it seemed like everything went Auburn's way in that game, and then they just still managed to give it up. Again, you have to give Diego Pavia and that uh Vanderbilt team a lot of credit because they come out and find a way to win and win the game in overtime. But, you know, it's just Auburn, like as talented of a team as they are, they just keep finding ways to lose football games, and it's just it's kind of crazy. I'm glad I never I have not bet on Auburn at all to win football games because it's just not been what I'm about this year, because it's like Auburn's just kind of like a wishy-washy team in general, and Hugh Freeze isn't a great coach. So I've never been a big believer in Auburn to begin with, but they're still a very talented team, and it just sucks to see them lose these games in such weird ways when they're talented enough to be a lot better than where they're at at four and six. But all the credits of Vanderbilt, though, at eight and two, having a real chance getting to the playoff, Diego Pavia, again, when when Van Dy plays a team that is not a good football team, it does show that Vandy does, even though there may not be the most talented team out there, they do have a good enough football team that if you give them an opportunity, they're gonna take it. And Diego Pavia being their leader, like he is nails, and he's gonna make the big play when he needs to, and that's exactly what they keep doing. So I don't know. It's weird. Auburn is just a so like they're such a good football team, talent-wise, but it just goes to show that talent is all that matters. Sometimes you need to have a good team that's coached by a good coach, and then you can kind of put it together and do like achieve those bigger goals of winning more football games and getting to the playoff and doing all that. Miami beat Syracuse 38-10. This game wasn't close. Carson Beck's still not playing great, and it just sucks that Miami, because those two losses that they have to the one loss to Louisville was a I would say quote unquote good loss because Louisville's actually still a pretty good team. But who was the other loss that they had to? It was to SMU. So both of those, like it sucks they lost both of those games because when Miami is right, they look like they can beat anybody in all of college football. But this Carson Beck thing over the last half a ye half the season or so, like, he's been throwing a lot more picks, has not been playing his best ball, and like now he's like not as explosive as he once was. So I'm guessing he's worried about throwing more interceptions. So like, but they can run the football. Like they I don't know. This Miami team is always so weird. I've never been a big Mario Crystal Ball fan as a or a believer as a college football coach of these better teams. Like, he's always as the coach of these teams, they're always gonna lose these weird games they probably shouldn't lose. And it's no different this year. But it's just like when you watch them play, like you're seeing some real dudes on that team that you're like, oh, if they got it together, they'd be a real problem. And they just for whatever reason, just they can never put it all together, like the way they need to, even though they have all the talent in the world on that team. And last but not least, Wisconsin and Washington. Washington was the ranked team coming into this game. They were number 23. Wisconsin was down bad. They were losing most of their games throughout the year, and they had just gotten done being manhandled by Oregon the week Oregon the week before, and then Ohio State the week before that. It weren't manhandled by Oregon. It was a close, it was a two-possession game. But again, they lost the game still with a good margin. But Wisconsin coming out, this was the after the news, because I talked about in the last pod where Luke Fickle was like, hey, why is he gonna be? They announced that he was gonna be the coach for them going into next year, and I was questioning why. Why would you do that? It's obviously not working. And then they go out in this game and they win. They beat a wash of ranked Washington team 13 to 10. Again, it was not a pretty game by any means, especially offensively. But it was another it was another weather game where there was like some snow, there was stuff going on, and Wisconsin went out there and did what they had to do, and especially defensively. But my problem is that is it is it more about Washington not having a good football team around the the dynamic trio that they have at quarterback, wide receiver, and a running back. That's been them all year. Damon Williams coming into the year was looked at as one of the most explosive quarterbacks, not only throwing the football, but running in all of college football. And they have oh the great running back as well, Jonah Coleman. And then they have their great wide receiver, Denzel Boston. But then outside of that, they don't have a full well-developed football team around those three guys, and they have kept losing football games because of it. And it was like the big cherry on top when they go to play at Wisconsin and they lose the game the way they did to a Wisconsin team that threw the football for 48 yards total. 48 yards, the whole team, because they had four different players throw the football for them in this game. They went 16 of 6 of 18 for 48 yards. No passing offense at all. They ran the football better, they had over 157 yards total rushing and a touchdown. But like, it was a real test spit because Wisconsin was not good enough to win. They they did not play great offensively, and they still managed to win based off playing good defense and then slowing down Washington's offense at all costs, and they did that and they won the football game. And their fans were still on the stands, like ready to go. Like again, they were given something to root for because the team actually went out there and won the football game. But after all the crap that Luke Fickle and that team took all throughout last week, after they had announced he was coming back for next year, like good for them they went out and won this game, a game that nobody thought they had a chance to win. So good on them that they got that win. But what Washington, man, that's probably been one of the more underwhelming teams all year based off of the hype that they had coming into the season. They were looked at as being a team that could be like in the top three or four in all the big ten, and they have been nothing close to that throughout this year, and especially against any of the bigger teams they've played, on top of now playing Wisconsin and not playing well there. So, problem from Washington, but Wisconsin, they're not gonna apologize for winning that game, and I'm sure Luke Fickle isn't. And uh 48 yards, having a total of 48 passing yards in a football game and winning is absolutely insane to me, especially nowadays. Alright, and that's all the games I want to talk about. Hopefully I hadn't gone too long on that. About 49 minutes. So those are all the games I had to react to. That was week 11 in college football. Before I jump on, jump over to the NFL. I think the rankings did come out as I was speaking to you. So let's go ahead and have a reaction to them and talk about if we see any differences based off of how it went. So Cosfball rankings. Oh, by the way, before I get to that, I heard somebody say this and it was made perfect sense to me. Why is there a reason to have if only your top 12 get into the playoff, why does your rankings go all the way to 25? And I think it was uh which podcast was it? I don't know, I forget which one it was. Uh cover three, cover three podcasts. And uh one of them had mentioned that like, hey, the only reason that they would have the rankings go as far as they do is to help bolster the resume for the teams that they do have in the top 12. And it makes total sense. I know I've probably talked about this before on other podcasts over the couple last couple years we've been doing this, but it makes total sense, man. Like, they don't need to have anything outside the top 12, maybe 15, if you just want to have the last couple teams to have an opportunity to jump in based on how the rest of the season goes. But like they don't need to go all the way to 25. And when you really think about the rankings and how they have been, usually they are get a lot of those spots are given to SEC teams and other teams like that, like to help bolster heck, Big Ten teams too. I'm not gonna say Big Ten's out of it, but those later rankings are used to bolster the resumes for teams that are above them to help crystallize the rankings that they do end up coming out with at the end of uh every week for the last few weeks of the season. So it's just crazy how they kind of put that all together where they kind of like it's like confirmation bias. They give their own confirmation bias for their own rankings, and it's just kind of weird that way. But let's let's get into the rankings here. I don't want to go too long here. Number one, Ohio State, no change there. Number two, Indiana, no change there. Number three, Texas AM, number four, Alabama, number five, Georgia. No change in the top five at all. Which is good. I think there were a lot of people that were thinking that Texas AM might jump above Indiana after Indiana kind of struggled to beat Penn State last week, and then you have Tech San M kind of drubbing uh Missouri over the weekend. So people were trying to make the case that Texan should probably jump above Indiana, which I wouldn't necessarily be all that mad about because AM does have a decent strength of schedule, even though some of the teams they face in the SEC are not as good as they would like to say they are. And there were some people even trying to go as far as to say Tech San M deserves to be number one, and I'm like, for what? I'm not gonna get I'm not gonna go down all the way down that road, but for what? That's all I have to say on that. But yes, top five does not change. This is where the changes start happening. You have Texas Tech at number six, who was at number eight before this week started. You have Ole Miss at seven, who had dropped down a spot from where they were at at six, after, you know, I think it was more about Texas Tech kind of jumping above them because Tex Tech Texas Tech actually played another top ten team while Ole Miss was sitting there playing the Citadel this past weekend. So credit to the credit to the committee for dropping Ole Miss when, you know, there was a team that actually did more on their schedule when Ole Miss was playing the Citadel. Ole Miss at seven, Oregon at eight, they jumped up a spot after their win against Iowa. You have Notre Dame at nine that jumped up a spot. You have Texas at 10, who jumped up a spot, Oklahoma at 11, who jumped up a spot, and then number 12 at BYU, who had dropped five spots because they were at seven before this game at this last weekend when they played against Texas Tech. They lose, they dropped down five spots. So they're still giving BYU some credit and keeping them inside the top 12, but they did lose, so they did drop them five spots and let those other teams kind of jump above jump ahead of them. And this is what I'll say. I I think Ole Miss is fine where they're at. I do think their schedule's a little bit light in comparison to like some other teams around them. I think Oregon might still be a little too low. I really do. I think they should probably be above Ole Miss and above Texas Tech potentially. But you know, I'm not gonna go too like, you know. They heck, Oregon's only loss is the number two team in Indiana. So like I don't know why they're necessarily the eighth ranked team. They should probably be the like, you know, the number like outside of the three undefeated teams. Why aren't they the top top one loss team in the country? I just don't understand how that's how that's the case, but you know, who knows? But 12 is BYU, 13 is at Utah, 13 is Utah, number 14 is Vanderbilt, 15 is Miami, number 16 is Georgia Tech, number 17 is USC, number 18 is Michigan, number 19 is Virginia, number 20 is Louisville, number 21 is Iowa. Heck, those last three teams, Virginia dropped five spots to 19, you have Louisville who dropped five spots to 20. You have Iowa that dropped one spot after their loss, and then you have number 22 being Pittsburgh, you have 23 Tennessee, number 24 is South Carolina South Florida, number 25 is Cincinnati. Why is Tennessee ranked? I just think the teams that they had faced so far, their best win is Mississippi State or Arkansas or Kentucky. Like they don't have any big ones on their schedule. They're six and three. I don't know why they're ranked whatsoever. And this is what kind of gave some credence as to the guy I was talking about earlier that was talking about why is anybody outside the top 12 actually ranked is because a team like Tennessee, guess which teams they lost to that helps bolster their their strength of schedule. Georgia is a team they lost to, Alabama is a team they have lost to. Heck, even Oklahoma uses them as a bolstering for their strength of schedule because they're above them as well. So, like, a team like Tennessee should not be in the top 25, but guess what? If they're out of the top 25, you can't give those teams above them credit for beating them. So, you know. Let me see, is there anything else I really care about with this the way this ranking kind of played out? Tennessee shouldn't be ranked, Oregon's a little too low. Um do I see anything else? No, not really. I'm not too mad about anything, but again, it I think it all based off of like knowing how the these playoffs go, especially after last year when it comes to the rankings and all that, it all ends up playing out. And teams have to play each other still. And I think after all that happens, you will be able to have like your final thoughts as to how this goes. But it's just like the week-to-week changes. As long as teams don't necessarily mess up and lose too bad, it's not really going to change all that much until the very last ranking where the real decision has to be made as to who the 12 teams that are getting into the playoffs are going to be. So I'm happy with the rank, especially the top five. I'm cool with all of them, even though I do think Oregon should probably be inside probably that top five, if not at number six. I think they probably should be the top number one loss, only one loss team in the country. The fact that Alabama's number four, maybe you can make the case that Alabama's a better team than a team like Oregon, but I think Oregon has a much better loss. Like, of all the one-loss teams, who has the best loss? Alabama, whose loss is to uh Florida. I mean, sorry, Florida State, who was an awful team right now. Georgia, whose only loss is to Alabama, Texas Tech, who lost to Arizona State. Ole Miss, who lost to Georgia. So you have to give Georgia a little credit. They got the win on that one. And then you have Oregon who's bet whose loss is to number two Indiana. Like, I don't understand why why Oregon is not higher on this in this ranking. And again, I'm not the one that loves Oregon by any means. I'm more than happy to see Oregon not do anything they're supposed to do because I'm not a big fan of them, obviously, because I'm an Ohio State guy. But they should definitely be higher on this ranking. And then the only other thought I have is that the ACE, like I said about the ACC earlier, like they are in real trouble if like Georgia Tech doesn't take care of the rest of their season or if Miami doesn't, they could have a real chance where there's no ACC team inside the top 12 getting to the playoffs. So that's something to keep watch for. But outside of that, I really don't have nothing else to talk about here. So let's go ahead and jump on over to the NFL. Was there any other coach firings in college football? They did talk about the Brian Kelly thing where Brian Kelly had a lawsuit that was claiming that he hadn't been formally fired yet. Not, is it formally, right? That was the word I was looking for. Yeah, formally. So Brian Kelly was claiming, and his his uh lawyers were claiming that he had not been formally fired and that he was still looking for all of his buyout, which is like fifty something million dollars, for him to get fired, and he wanted to get paid out. And apparently LSU is trying to fire him with cause, so they're trying to claim that he did something wrong while he was the coach there, to where they didn't don't have to pay him the buyout that they actually owe him. And this is just real messy. I don't know. They're trying to say that they didn't formally fire him, so technically he has like just not shown up to work over the last couple weeks, and it's just real messy. And like when you decide you're gonna fire him, which is very obvious they're going to, but they're trying to find ways to not pay out the money. Like, that's what the buyout's for. The buyout is to try to deter you from making a rash decision to fire a coach. And guess what LSU decided to do anyway? They decided to fire him again. Again, I'm he was never the right coach for them to hire to begin with. So the buyout is for you to have to pay that Piper if you decide to get rid of him before his contract is up. And guess what happened? You decided to get rid of him. So don't sit here and try to kick and scream now and say we don't want to pay that buyout. Just pay it and get it over with. But until then, this is going to be a big old like dark cloud over your team that you would hope to be gone when your next coach gets there, so you can kind of start off with a fresh slate. But based off how how crazy things have been around LSU and their program and that university, I'm not sure if that'll necessarily get fixed before they manage to bring in the new guy to where that's going to be a problem that he's going to have to deal with when he first starts the job and potentially could keep them from getting the guy they want because things can't be done cleanly and successfully there. And I just think that all of that kind of comes together to potentially make a mess that you know it's gonna be hard for LSU to try to clean up for the next guy. Alright, so let's go ahead and go on to the NFL. Let me talk about some news and stuff first before I do the reaction to all the games from this over the weekend. You have let's see. Travis Hunter. He uh officially has surgery. He's gonna be missed the rest of this of this year. I think it was a it was a surgery to fix his LCL, which isn't the ACL, but it's something very closely related to it. So he's gonna be out for the rest of the year. That's gonna be a guy that Jaguar is not gonna be without. And here's the problem when you lose a guy like that, you're losing not only one guy because of what he was offensively, but you're also losing him defensively as well. And as much as he gives you a bunch of cool aspects, the fact that he can be both a receiver and a corner, but the biggest problem is the fact that if you lose him, you're not losing two players for the price of one. And that's always been one of the arguments I that I have used. And as much as I love to talk about the fact that he had not been that great of a player as of yet, but I will give him some credit and say that offensively he was starting to come around. Defensively, he was making plays everyone every once in a while, but it wasn't necessarily consistent. And now that he's gonna be kind of behind the eight ball and he's gonna have to start next year and hoping that you can get some better ball out of here out of him starting next year when you could potentially still use him for the rest of this year. But now he has an injury, he won't be there for the rest of the year, and Jaguar's gonna have to go without him because of it. Other news, you have the Steelers actually making a move. Again, it wasn't at the trade headline like they probably needed to, but again, coming from my point of view, I'm happy they didn't because going and trying to trade for a guy to help this team was not gonna be worth it, to be totally honest with you, with what their their uh weaknesses are offensively and defensively. But in the free agent market, the Steelers have made a little bit of a splash. So they did sign cornerback Asante Samuel Jr. to join them. He is a cornerback that was coming off of an injury where he had to get spinal fusion surgery in April, delaying that any delaying any team from signing him. But apparently he has been medically cleared, he'll be right ready to go. And the Steelers finally brought him in to they brought him into the practice squad, and maybe if everything works out and he's healthy enough, when he was playing, when he because he was a first-round draft pick by the Chargers, like he was a good player. He wasn't awful. He was a good player, he like he made a he made some plays, he really did. And he wasn't he wasn't bad at all. And when you think about the Steelers defense, one of their biggest issues is in the secondary where they brought in a bunch of older guys, Darius Slay being one of them, and he cannot stay healthy for a whole game to save his life right now. So the idea that you could bring in a guy like Asante Asante Samuel Jr., like low risk, high reward, if he works out, you got him on the cheap, and he'll be able to play with play and be a younger guy that may be able to stay a little more healthy, even though he's coming off such a big injury. But apparently he's medically cleared as of right now. But he's a talented dude that can run and that can like play with other guys. So like if it works out, it'll be a good signing. But if not, it's you know, it doesn't really matter much. They didn't really pay a lot for him. So it's a move. A little late, I guess, for some people that were looking for the Steelers to go all in to try to win a Super Bowl this year, which is not possible for this year for this team based off how they're built as of right now. But it is a move, I guess that'll help. Here's the thing I when I watch the Steelers on Sundays, I forget the fact that I'm mad and don't want to see them win, and then I just I get all caught up in wanting to watch them win football games. So in that 60 minutes where I'm watching football with the Steelers playing, I'll forget about my wanting them to lose, and he'll be a nice player to try to help them win. So that's all I got on that. Other than that, I have let's see. No, no. One more story. The New York Giants fired Brian Daball from being their head coach. He's gone. Apparently, they're still keeping their GM, uh, Joe Shane, who apparently can survive multiple coaching hires and firings, and he gets to keep his job, which is kind of crazy. Because when you think about it, though, is like all these coaches you end up hiring, like this GM is hiring too. Like the GM is a part of that process, and the fact they haven't been able to get a coach that can get the team where they want them to go, that's also on the GM as well. And the fact that Joe Shane can kind of sit here and go through all these coaches and not have the blame kind of pointed towards his way is kind of crazy to me. Even though his drafting isn't bad, his drafting is like is not bad whatsoever, but it's just at the end of the day, part of your job is getting a head coach in there and working with them to win football games, and that has to be on the GM as well. But apparently, he doesn't have to pay the ultimate price, and Dayball gets to fall on the sword all by himself. So it's a weird one, but I think the whole thing with Dayball is the fact that Jackson Dart was working, right? Obviously, Dayball was very intent on Jackson Dart once they started brought him in. Because here's the thing the difference between him and Russell Wilson was the fact that he gave you a running threat outside of like Russell Wilson can't give you. Russell Wilson was not a runner anymore. He can't get away from pressure, and that's the one thing Dayball really took advantage of Jackson Dart for was that he was running in more than any other quarterback throughout the NFL over the last four or five weeks where Jackson Dart has been the starter. Again, that's also with, you know, guys like Lamar and Kyler Murray not playing because of injuries, but still, he's been running the most throughout, like of all quarterbacks, he's been running the most. And he's also had four different concussions that he's been tested for and got and gotten. So Brian Dayball really has been running that dude into the ground. But that's the problem, though, is that when you bring Jackson Dart in as the quarterback of your future, and then you have a coach that looks like he's on his last leg and then he's like hoping to try to save his own job, and you have to start winning football games in order for him to keep it, what do you think he's gonna do? Once you start throwing Jackson Dart out there, and once Brian Dayball realizes that the way to win football games with Jackson Dart using his legs, Dayball's gonna take advantage of it. He's gonna run him a lot, and he's gonna get concussions, and everything's gonna start going terribly because at the end of the day, Brian Dayball's number one job is to make sure he can keep his own job. Why would he worry about the quarterback staying healthy for somebody else if he's not gonna be there? So I think that had to go into it with the Giants firing him because to think about it, they probably would have fired him weeks ago if they hadn't start winning some football games once they brought Jackson Dart in. But Jackson Dart comes in, they start winning games, Dart has a little bit of moxie, like he's not giving you much more than what Russell Wilson gave them throwing the football. He gets a little more juice, they can have some bigger plays down the field, but his biggest advantage was his legs, and they had been using that throughout these throughout these last few weeks, but with that comes the injuries, and he has been getting concussions like crazy. Like I said, four concussions over the last five or six weeks. That's a lot. So I think all that put together on top of the fact that everybody's saying that Brian Daybo was an absolute asshole, all that leads to the Giants deciding to get rid of him. But I just don't know how they get to keep the GM, the GM gets to keep his job, though. Because I just it doesn't make any sense to me why. I I don't know. It was weird. It's weird how the coach and GM aren't tied at the hip. I just I don't unless the GM is one of the best GMs in all of the NFL, again, like the Eagles GM or let's see, what other GMs do I think is like really ha are really those guys? GM for the I think I think the only GM that should be free and clear of the head coach is the Eagles. That's it. I really do think otherwise the GM and the coach should be at tied at the hip because what happens is that once things start going terribly, what do people naturally do if they think there's a chance they can kind of be saved? They're gonna throw the other guy under the bus and they're gonna try to save their own job as much as possible. But if you bring a guy, if you bring both a coach and a GM in and just say, hey, you're tied at the hip. If I'm getting getting rid of one, I'll get rid of both of you. I think it'll lead to more collaboration to where once things start getting hard, I think they'll actually try to work together and get the job done rather than like, you know, throwing each other on the under the bus to try to save their own jobs. I don't know. I I feel like that would just be a more conducive work environment for those two positions. But apparently the New York Giants don't think so. You know, Joe Shane can keep his job as long as he wants, I guess. I don't know. But that's it. Let's go ahead for st that's it story-wise. Let's go ahead and go on to reacting to the NFL games from this past weekend. So let's get to that. Do we react to the Broncos Raiders game? Because I think I recorded last week on Thursday, I think, right? Yeah, I recorded last week on Thursday. Or Friday, it was a Friday morning. I recorded Friday morning last week, so I did react to the Thursday game. Okay. Let's go ahead and start on Sunday then. Sunday morning there was a game, Falcons-Colts. It was in Berlin. It was one of those early morning games. You had to wake up at 9.30 to watch the football game. Colts won the game 31-25. Colts getting off the mat after losing a game to the Steelers, they probably, you know, was a little bit of a stunner for most of the uh NFL world after watching the Colts dominate as much as they had. They get off the mat, they go and face the Falcons in Berlin. Daniel Jones plays fine, 19-26, 255, one touchdown, and one pick. Jonathan Taylor was a true superhero in this game. He had 32 carries for 244 yards and three touchdowns. He was awesome in this game. He couldn't be stopped, and it was an absolute, he was a monster in this game. Tyler Warren was awesome, eight receptions, 99 yards. Alec Pierce also had a touchdown catch, four catches, 84 yards. Jonathan Taylor also had another 42 yards receiving off three catches. Let me say, outside of Jonathan Taylor and Tyler Warren, this Colts offense kind of struggled. I'm not going to lie to you. Daniel Jones did not play all that great. The Falcons' defense was getting after Daniel Jones and the Colts all day long. He was sacked seven times in this game, which is crazy because the Colts offensive was looked at as like one of the better offensive lines in all the NFL. And then the last two weeks, he's been sacked like a total of like 12 or 13 times. It has not been pretty. And to be totally honest with you, if the Falcons' offense was better, they probably would have won this game. Michael Penix Jr. was not good in this game. 12 to 28, 177 yards, one touchdown, zero picks. But it's just he was very inaccurate. He was missing a lot of open passes, I thought, throughout this game. And he just felt like he was never in a rhythm at all. He only got sacked three times. He was well protected for the most part. And they just couldn't get the offense rolling like they wanted to. And they had a chance to win to a certain extent. They got to overtime. But the Colts got the ball first and kind of no, they didn't get the ball first. It was the Falcons who got the ball first and then couldn't do anything with it and gave it to the Colts. They went and won the game. Bijan was fine, wasn't necessarily all that dominant. 17 carries, 84 yards. Tyler Allegier, 11 carries, 57 yards, two touchdowns. He was a big reason why they were able to stay in this football game. And they have Drake London. He was good. Six carries, six catches, 104 yards and a touchdown. And outside of that, they didn't really have a bunch of like very productive wide receiving threats. Kyle Pitts was the second lead receiver, two catches, 38 yards. Darnell Mooney, one catch, 17 yards. Bijan, only two catches, four yards. And I think most of that was based off the fact that just Michael Penny Jr. has just has been look, he's just been off this year. He's been off. And he has not played all that well. He has all the weapons in the world that you can think of. Like he has a great running back. He has a great wide receiver. He has a great wide receiver too. A very talented and productive tight end. And it's just like offensively, the Falcons just can't get it going. On top of the fact that the defense for the Falcons has been good. Like they're probably not good. But in this game, they were. They did what they had to do. They sacked Daniel Jones seven times. Like I had said. But again, outside of they couldn't stop Jonathan Taylor. So I'm not going to sit here and say the Falcons' defense was lights out. But the Falcons did enough to win the game. But it's just, you know, especially in regulation. And Michael Penix, that offense, couldn't finish the job and do what they need to do. And see what's crazy. If I got if I had gotten Jace on this podcast and I started talking about how great Jonathan Taylor has been, he would be all over my ass about how he's a stat patter against bad teams. But I just don't think the Falcons defense is a bad team. But I just you have to give credence to the fact that maybe the Falcons' offense, because they just time after time they just didn't take advantage of the moment. And then it was only a matter of time before Jonathan Taylor broke off one. And the fact they gave him the ball 32 times, he was bound to break a few big ones, and that's exactly what he did. I think as long as running run was like an 83-yard touchdown running they had in this game, like he was absolutely amazing. So I don't know, man. The Colts give them credit, they're 8-2. Like, even with all the issues they have, they're they're 8-2 on the year. So they're still one of the better teams in all the NFL. But uh but the Falcons definitely have some issues, and I think Michael Penix, like, will he be able to it's again his first he came in and started a few games at the end of last year, and then coming into this year, I had a lot of confidence in coming into the year that he was going to be better than what Kirk Cousins had had given you last year. And there are times where he does hit some passes that make you think like, oh, this is why they drafted him. But all too often it has been him throwing balls into the dirt, being inaccurate, like it's just has not been as consistent as I would like it to be. Especially with the fact you can't like use an excuse, he hasn't played enough. Like he played he was in college for like four or five years. Like he's had a lot of snaps, and like he's like for the most part not gonna turn into a much different player. It's the only question is is he going to get it, he's gonna get to NFL speed and like really get to is he gonna be that guy or not? That's the question that needs to be answered. And I'm just not sure if it like give another season and see, but it just has not looked good as of right now. Next one. Giants, bears, bears won the game 24-20. Like I said, Giants, they were looking good in this game until Jackson Dart went out of it. He ended up getting hurt with the concussion. But even with that, they still had a lead. The Bears had to come back in the fourth quarter, and that's exactly what they did. Caleb Williams was fine. He threw the ball fine, but it wasn't amazing. 20 of 36, 2-20, one touchdown, zero picks. Caleb did run the football very well in this game. He had eight carries for 63 yards and a touchdown. So like he did his thing there, especially he was like the game winning touchdown, I think, with that that got them the uh lead to win the game. But I don't know. Like I think Caleb Williams has has gone past the point of will he work in the NFL? I think he will work. The only question is, I think, whether he will be one of those, like those dudes or not. I think that's a question that needs to be answered now. Because I just think I think Caleb Williams, even at his worst, still has a skill set that I think, especially with them having Ben Johnson as their head coach, I think he can cultivate the good things out of Caleb Williams enough to make him a decent enough NFL quarterback. The question is, is can Caleb turn this into him being one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL? And I just think that's the question that needs to be answered. But to be honest, they're 6-3 on the year, they're playing some good football, but they're just not being the most efficient offensively. Defensively or not, they really haven't been all that great. It's been all about the offense and them running the football and them doing it that way. So they really do need Caleb Williams to kind of like turn that switch, and like again, all these weeks, they're gonna there are be they're gonna be moments where he throws that pass as like, oh, that's why he has an NFL arm. He really does. He has a cannon of an arm, he really does. But it's just he has to put everything together, and he hasn't yet, and it looks like he hasn't, but it's just in this game, he did enough and he managed for them to win this football game. Next game, the Dolphins, man. This might have been the surprise of the day, to be totally honest with you. The Dolphins thump the Bills 30 to the 13. Josh Allen looked like old Josh Allen. He was not great in this game. He had a I think he had a fumble this game and a pick. Am I crazy on that? Josh Allen, he went 28 to 40, 300 yards, two touchdowns and a pick, and then he also had a fumble as well. So like that wasn't it was a fumble lost in the red zones. That definitely wasn't helpful at all either. James Kick, James Cook also had a fumble that was lost in this game. It was this coming off of the win against Kansas City the week before that made like gave a lot of people some confidence that the Bills can still be that team. And then you come into this game this weekend against Miami, and the Bills just don't show up defensively, offensively, it was an absolute thumping by the Miami Dolphins. And it's something that nobody really thought the Miami really had the possibility of doing throughout this year, where it seems like every week that they were everybody's looking for a reason for McDaniels to uh Mike McDaniel to get fired. Tua isn't necessarily at his best, and he didn't play as well throughout this game. 15 of 21 for 173 yards, two touchdowns, and two picks. But the thing is, is that what the problem is with the Bills right now is that the Bills' defense is not great. It hasn't been all year. They had that one game against the Chiefs last week where they were able to get after him and make him feel uncomfortable. Joey Bosa had one of his better games he's had in a couple years now, and they were able to make Patrick Mahomes so uncomfortable, and the offense for the Bills is able to stay efficient and get points on the board and do what they had to do there. But the thing is that the Miami jumped on Buffalo so fast and they jumped on a lead, and what happened was that Miami was able to run the football, and they ran it so effectively that Buffalo could not try to do like the Because what Buffalo tries to rely on is having a defense that's very multiple, and then but their issue is that if they face a team that really can run the football and make them have to declare, like, hey, we're gonna put more guys in the box to try to stop the run. That's where Miami was able to get hit the play action off of that and be able to get some bigger plays down the field, even with Tua not playing well. They still got Jalen Waddle. Jalen Waddle, sorry, I was mushmouth there. They got him involved, five catches, 84 yards, and a touchdown. Devon H-chan had 51 yards receiving in this game. So, like, and they ran the football for almost 200 yards. Devon Han, 22 carries, 174 yards, and two touchdowns. And that's it. Is like if the Buffalo Bills defense is not going to play how they played against the Chiefs in that game, Buffalo really doesn't have a chance because what they what because Buffalo is not explosive enough to win games from behind. And their defense is not good enough to like lock down anybody. So if Buffalo can't jump on a team and get ahead early to where they're they can run the football and do it that way and help out their defense, they don't have a chance because Josh Allen, if he's not being Superman and scoring 40 points by himself, they don't have an awesome set of receivers. Dalton Kincaid's a very good tight end, but he's not good enough to be your number one guy. And the fact that like on their wide receiver list, they had a bunch of dudes catch the football, but do they have a number one guy? They don't. When they have a when they need to have when they need a have to have it play, Keon Coleman's the closest guy to that, and he's so inconsistent it's not even funny. And the fact that they need three different tight ends for them to catch footballs for them in order for them to be efficient throwing the football down the field is kind of a problem. Apparently, they did try to trade for Jalen Waddle from the Miami Dolphins, and it didn't work out. They couldn't make a deal happen. On the back end, the Bills were trying to say that the Miami wouldn't let Jalen Waddle go inside the division, but apparently, based off of certain news sources, if you read it, it was that it was more of the fact that Buffalo wasn't willing to give up enough for him. And it's more about that than Miami wasn't willing to give him up in division because Miami was willing to give up guys all over the place for sure. So I don't know. I'm just like, does this take away any type of hope that I had for Buffalo to be that team this year in the AFC? Probably. Not gonna lie to you, they're not even first in their own division right now. It's New England Patriots like running, like they're not running away with it, because I think they only have like a one-game lead on the Bills right now. But like, based on how the there's only there's one team going up in this that division and one team going down, and New England Patriots are the team that's going up, like they're the team that's ascending right now, and the Bills are kind of going down into nothingness. And my only thing is that if Josh Allen isn't being Superman, they don't have any other answers. And again, maybe the New England Patriots is kind of like that as well, but the problem is, for not the problem, or the good thing is for them, is that they have a couple of rookies, Trevion Henderson and Kyle Kyle Williams. They have some dudes that if they keep developing, they'll have other guys that can help out Drake May and make sure he does not have to be Superman in order for them to win. And outside of James Cook for the Bills, I just don't think they have anybody else offensively to help out Josh Allen in that way. Maybe Dalton Kincaid. But I just think tight ends to a certain extent can't they can be very productive, but can they be productive enough to be your number one receiver in an offense? I just don't think that'll be the case. So I don't know. The Bills have some real questions to answer, but credit to the Dolphins, though. Credit to Mike McDaniels, because like everybody's looking for reason to fire their head coach, and then they have a game like this that makes you rethink some things to where I'm like, he is a good offensive play caller, he really is. He's not really much of a leader of men, like they don't respect him at all in that locker room. And like I've said before, I don't think that's gonna change because they win some football games this year when they're already bad. But like he knows how to call offensive plays, man, and if he gets the right quarterback and he can kind of put things together, like they can have there was a time where they were the leading scoring offense in all the NFL a couple years ago, and like maybe they put too much into it, which I totally agree with. The fact they should not have committed to him long term the way they did, giving him all that money. But like, you made your bet you have to lie in it, but like Mike McDaniels, like he can call plays, he really can. I don't know, it's a weird one, but Bill's just like they're going down to me right for me right now. Next one, Ravens, Vikings. Ravens won the game 27-19. This game wasn't all that close. Lamar Jackson was good in this game. He wasn't necessarily awesome. 17-29, 176, and one touchdown. He didn't do a lot, but he did enough. Derek Henry, 20 carries, 75 yards. Their only uh rushing touchdown was for Justice Hill. He had like the one carry on the gold line. But here's the thing: Mark Andrews had a touchdown catch, Zay Flowers was four catches, 75 yards. But here's the thing like, did you ever expect Baltimore to like explode on this defense? Like, Minnesota has a better defense in all the NFL. Like, they have a pretty decent defense. So my like 27 points is a very good output against a good Minnesota Vikings D. And they do what they had to do. The like the Ravens did enough to win this football game and just said, hey, we're just not gonna mess this thing up. We're gonna we're gonna let Minnesota and J.J. McCarthy offensively mess everything up. JJ McCarthy, 20 of 42 for 248, one touchdown and two picks. Two turnovers from for JJ McCarthy. Like that was a dip, big difference in this game. And outside of and I think those two touchdowns were late in this game where the game was no, they had the one touchdown early. So you had that like that one touchdown drive early on in this game where they like they looked very good and they were it was scripted, and JJ McCarthy looked good, and then after that, it's like a struggle bust from there because they just can't get enough done. JJ's just not consistent enough or not consistent, efficient, like he's just not. And what I talked about him last game, like last week on the pod, I'm like the question is is can JJ because you either have to be very efficient in do what you have to do and not throw the throw the football away a lot in order to nickel and dime your way down the field, or if you're gonna be inefficient, you have to be very explosive. And in this game, JJ McCarthy could not get any explosive plays going in the at all, and if that's the case, and he's also being inefficient, the offense has no chance. And you can tell Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison are both very um unhappy with how their quarterback is playing so far this year. Especially with when they had a guy in their locker room last year in why am I forgetting his name now? That sucks. In uh Sam Darnold, who is now balling out with the Seahawks and winning a bunch of games and throwing the football over the place. So that has to be in their head. Jalen Naylor was their leading receiver in this game with five catches and 124 yards. He had a couple big catches in this game, including that one long play of 62 yards. But like that was the only big play that Minnesota had in this game, but they just needed more because of how inefficient he just can't nickel and dive down the field right now. That's not what JJ can do. And if he's not gonna be create more explosive, it's just gonna make it a lot harder for your offense can to get down the field and score in the red zone like they like they need to. So in Baltimore, like I said, they just they were gonna sit on this game and not make any mistakes and just wait for Minnesota to do so. And that's exactly what happened with JJ, man. He's just not and they had a couple fumbles as well, so that also didn't help. I think it was a couple fumbles by their special teams, I think. So like that wasn't helpful whatsoever. So you had the two throw uh interceptions by JJ McCarthy, and then you had another two fumbles by my by their special teams, one of them lost. It's three total um turnovers, and Ravens took care took care of all of it. So I don't know, Ravens are a much better football team. Team. They're on the rise while there's other teams in their own division kind of taking a stumble. And the Ravens are doing what they need to do, man. Keep winning football games in Minnesota. I don't know, man. I just don't see their whole situation changing with JJ McCarthy. And the longer this goes, the more frustrated their wide receivers and their players are going to get when they're like, hey, we drafted this dude as a top 10 pick. Like, why isn't he playing better? I don't know. It's a weird spot. Next game, Browns, Jets. Jets win the game 27 to 20. This game was awful. Was an awful watch in general. I do have to give. No, sorry, it was an awful watch if you're in it for offensive football. If you're a special teams guy, the Jets are awesome because they had in the first half. No, sorry, in the first quarter, they had a let me make sure I have this right. I think it was back to back. So in that first quarter, the Jets had a kickoff return touchdown, and then a couple punts. Am I crazy? Touchdown pass. It was a kick return touchdown and a punt return touchdown, right? Or am I nuts? Touchdown to go up 7-7, and then the kickoff return for the Jets to get the touchdown. And then you had. Okay, there we go. The punt return touchdown. So literally back to back. You had the Browns go up early with a 7-0. Kick, and then they had a kickoff return touchdown for the Jets. And then they had a punt return touchdown for uh punt return touchdown as well. So it was like very early, it was 14-7. And from then on, it was pretty much a slog of a game. Even though they were able to do a little bit more there in the like they were able to score a little bit. I don't know. It was a it was a very tough, it was a very tough watch. Because think about it this way. The Jets won this game. And let me get you the box score here. Outside of the one touchdown throw, Justin Fields had to breeze hall. It was like a it was a 42-yard touchdown catch. It was like a short throw. And then Brees Hall kind of took it the rest of the way. Justin Fields went six of eleven for 54 yards and one touchdown, one pick. Justin Fields didn't do anything in this game. Their offense really didn't do a lot other than that Brees Hall touchdown. That was it. Lots of field goals. Lots of field goals in this game. And they ran the football well. Brees Hall had an amazing game. He had 83 yards rushing, that 42-yard reception as well for that touchdown. But like outside of that, the Jets offense was not doing anything in this game. Dylan Gabriel played okay. 17 of 32, 167, two touchdowns, zero picks. They ran the football well. 32 carries, total, 158 yards total rushing in this game. Jerry Judy had a touchdown catch. David Njoku had a touchdown catch. But when they get down 14, they get down, when they give up two touchdowns in special teams, that was pretty much the day for you. Even though they still had a chance to win, it was just you kind of dig yourself a hole, and now you're asking for the Cleveland Browns to kind of like dig themselves out of it, and it just really wasn't going to happen that day. Again, like I said, it's crazy when you can win a football game with Justin Fields throwing for 42 yards. Total. Insane. Insane the fact that you can win a game that way. Again, it's a testament to how good the defense is for the Browns, but also how bad the offense is for the Browns. I don't know. It was crazy. Next game, Patriots, Buccaneers. Patriots win the game 28 to 23. To be honest, there was one. The first drive by the Buccaneers were they able to go right down the football field. Baker was efficient. He threw the ball to Omega Buka a couple times, also with the touchdown catch. Like right down the field as soon as the game started, right? Buccaneers go up 7-0. And then after that, it was pretty much all Patriots from there. And it wasn't just Drake May. Because I've been talking about how good Drake May has been throughout this year. But in this game, he wasn't necessarily the best. He went 16-31, 270 yards, two touchdowns, and a pick. Their real winners, like I kind of mentioned earlier, was Trevion Henderson, 14 carries, 147 yards, and two touchdowns. The other big winner of the day was Kyle Williams, the rookie wide receiver, one catch, 72 yards, and a touchdown. Stephon Diggs also had a touchdown catch as well. Mack Hollins had a decent day, six catches, 100 yards. And it was just as soon as that first drive went from Tampa Bay, it was just never consistent enough to win the football game. And it just felt like every time Buck Tampa Bay tried to like get back into it and score some points, New England was able to score another touchdown to kind of build the lead and just keep themselves ahead. And here's what I'll say. If Tampa Bay was fully healthy, I would feel a lot like I thought this game would be different if they were fully healthy. If they had all their guys, had all their wide receivers back. Like that's the part I think because Tampa Bay is a very good football team. They didn't play all that well that day. And I do think if they were fully healthy, they would have had a it would have been a much different game against the Patriots. But here's the thing you have to give the Patriots a lot of credit. Like it was just a scoring affair. Drake May played well. He didn't make a bunch of terrible mistakes, and he did throw the football down the field, and they had some big play guys around him to help him out. And like I've been saying all year, Trevion Henderson is their best running back, and just took him a while for them to trust him, I guess, or for them to truly want him to go on the field. It also helped that Ramon J. Stevenson has been out over the last couple weeks with an injury. So they have no choice. And it was good to see, obviously, Travion being a buckeye. I love to see those guys go into the NFL and be successful. And I'm glad he finally had his day to go out there and ball out. Seeing him hit those big runs is like that's nothing new to me. I've seen him do that over for years at Ohio State. So I'm happy they gave him an opportunity to go out there and make some big plays. Kyle Williams, that guy, is an absolute jitterbug, man. Like it felt like they gave him that football and he was running at a different pace. Like he was. It was just his speed is so effortless. And it's hard to put into words, but like that's the that's the only way I could put it. Like it was just so effortless, and like when he hit the boost, it felt like nobody around him could keep up. So like if they were still if they're able to cultivate these weapons to get better and better throughout the year, I think by the end of the year, the Patriots could be a very scary football team. They're 8-2 right now. Like they already are winning a bunch of games, and they're only gonna get better from here. They're only gonna get more healthy. Like they like this is I'll I'll say this one thing, and then I'll get to the another game is that I hate Patriot fans. They suck for like three or four years or so, and they already have a winner again. Oh, it's it's it's absolutely insane. I get it. They brought in a great coach, obviously. And um oh no, why am I forgetting their name now? Oh no. This sucks. Why am I forgetting their name? Oh no. Mike Vabel. I wasn't I don't know why I forgot his name. They brought in a great coach in Mike Vrabel. They have a great quarterback in Drake May, who they drafted in the top five picks, which is great. Because that's my difference right now. Because this is where I get really upset about the about the Patriots, right? The fans don't deserve them. They're already getting a winner again. It makes me kind of upset. They had five years of being down, and now they're back to winning again, and they're gonna be unfathomably bad to have to deal with if they really turn into a real winner with Matt with the with Drake May with Mike Vrabel. But as a Steelers fan, that has been kind of like, you know, since Ben had left, kind of just sitting there throwing band-aids on the issue, trying to draft a quarterback and not drafting a good one in Kenny Pickett, and then that not going well, now they're throwing band-aids on the thing, now having a 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers out there. And having a coach in Mike Tomlin that is a good coach, like he is a great coach, one of the better coaches in the NFL. But the problem is, is that even when you have a coach, you need to have a quarterback that can help get the job done. And as much as I think Mike Tomman would get hired in a heartbeat if the Steelers ever were to get rid of him. The problem is that you need to have a quarterback that can help you build for a future, and for that, Mike Tomlinisms and all of his culture stuff, all that doesn't matter if you don't have a guy at the helm that can make it happen. And there was a time for me where I did not have to worry about all this stuff. I had Big Ben at the helm, and he was never really a top, like like a top three guy, but he that times he was a top five, definitely a top ten. And for a long time in my Steelers fandom, I had Big Ben at the helm, so I didn't have to worry about any of that. Like Mike Tomlin got to be one of the best head coach in the NFL, but he also had a quarterback that was able to get you to where you need to go, get you to where you could be a team that could anybody can be scared of. But now we're stuck with Mike Tomlin, who is a great coach. But the thing is that it'll never go your way until you have the quarterback to get you where you want to go. And we don't have that because guess what? When we lost Big Ben, we draft a bad option with Kenny Pickett, and then from there we have not been able to swallow the pill and go and lose football games in order to get the quarterback we want to get. Because at the end of the day, if you're always picking anywhere from 15 to 22, you're never going to be able to go get the quarterback you need to get unless you are like a very good when it comes to making evaluations and getting kind of lucky. Think about it this way: the last guy to be drafted, like the the guys you could think of that were drafted later on in the first round or at the second round or past that is Patch Mahomes, where Kansas City had to trade up from being in the late 20s to getting into the mid-teens to go get him. Because it was a great e-val, and they had a they went and they they saw what they saw in Patch Mahomes, and they built him up into being the top quarter top, if not one of the top one or two quarterbacks in all the NFL. One of the better quarterbacks I've ever seen. You have the Ravens getting Lamar Jackson. They were able to pick him up at the end of the first round, and they traded up from the top from the second round to the first round to get him at the within with the last pick in the first round. So they had great eval and they picked a guy and they built the offense around him to where he's one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL. Or you need to have a bad year to where you have a top five pick and you can go pick the guy you want. And that's a story as old as time. You have these guys going to get their quarterbacks, you have the Bears getting Caleb Williams. Again, he may not look like the guy, but he is a guy that is much better than what we got. I would kill for a guy like Caleb Williams right now. You got Stafford was a top five pick. Goff was a top five pick. Kyler, a top five pick. He's not playing right now, but he's a top five pick. And you have so many different guys. Like, there's not a lot of dudes that are out there. Like, you either have to have great Eval, to where you can get your guy late later on in the draft and like get the guy you need to have, or you need to suck and go get a top five picks or top ten pick so you can go get your quarterback you want. And the Steelers can't do either. And even though we have a great coach in Mike Tomlin, I just don't think we're ever going to get the best of what we can get out of him until we can go either great have great evaluation and get the quarterback that we can with a pick that may not be in the top ten, or we have to go suck for a year so we can go get our guy. And guess what the Patriots did? They sucked for five years. They hired a great head coach who's Mike Frabel, and now they've put it together and now they have a real future on their hands where they can build towards something, and they look like they have a real chance to be a great team for the long term. I just wish the Steelers would take something out, take that page out of the Patriots book for once, I think. I don't know. I don't know. And I'm not gonna lie, a little bit of a bad thought in the back of my brain. There was a time when Mike Vrabel did not have a job for over a year. I'm just saying, like, I love Mike Vrabel. I really do think he would be a coach that I would love to be a fan of a team that he is coaching. And I'm just like, as look as much as I love Mike Tomlin, if like we end up having to make a change anyway, there was a time where Mike Tomlin was available, and I think he would have made a very good fit in Pittsburgh, and it's just it just sucks that now if we manage if we ever decide to get rid of Mike Tomlin, there is no guarantee you get a guy like Mike Vrabel sitting there ready to go. I don't know. I'm just saying it was a very bad again. I'm not trying to say get rid of Mike Tomlin. Because at the end of the day, I don't think he is necessarily part of the problem. I really don't. I think he needs to hire a better defensive coordinator. I think that's on him. But I think otherwise, when it comes to drafting and all that, I don't think he has control over any of that. I think that is a teamslash management decision that they make over his head, and he has no control over that. So, I don't know. Next game, we got Saints, Panthers. Saints win that game 17-7. I a game I never thought would happen. You have Tyler Shuck going out there and playing some pretty decent football. Chris Olave had a great game, five catches, 104 yards, and a touchdown. And the Panthers were just pretty much a no-show in this game. Again, they haven't, they're 5-5 on the year. I think they've played a lot better than what, sorry, the team has achieved a lot more than I ever thought they would because Bryce Young has not played well. He has not been great for them this year. Nowhere near it. I think he is, they've they've been winning in spite of him to a certain extent. But they've ran the football well. They've played some decent defense and played some good situational football that got that got them to some wins. And they went and played a New Orleans Saints team that just came out and played some just flat out better football than them. Like I said, Tyler Shuck, 19-27, 282, two touchdowns. Alvin Kamara, 22 carries, 83 yards. They ran the football for over 122 yards total. Chris Olave, like I said, had an awesome day. He was a big one. Juwan Johnson, their tight end, also had a touchdown catch, four catches, 92 yards. And it was just the Saints went out there and just played flat out better football than them, especially when everybody looked at the Saints as like one of the worst teams in the NFL. If you don't bring your A game, anybody, anybody can get got. And the Panthers are a team that weren't good in the first place, and they didn't play their best game. The Saints came up and got them. Credit to the Saints for winning that game. Texans, Jaguars, Texans win the game 36-29. They had they were they were the Texans came back from a 19-point fourth quarter deficit to win the game. It felt like early on in this game, Jacksonville was going to run away with this thing because they scored 10 points, 10 unanswered in the first quarter, and then the second quarter they scored another 10, and they went to halftime with a 20 to 10 lead, and it felt like the Texans couldn't get anything going offensively enough to win the football, to come back and win the game. And then in that third quarter where Jacksonville scored another nine points, and now they're up 19 to 10. I mean sorry, 29 to 10. It's like, oh, they really can't come back. And then Houston exploded in that fourth quarter. They exploded, man. And let's see, in that fourth quarter, they had boom, boom. In the fourth quarter, Jaguars totally stalled offensively, couldn't do anything, couldn't score any points. I think it also it's also a testament to the Houston Texans defense who really started locking it down and gave the offense for the for the Houston a chance to come back and win the football game. Like I said, four unanswered touchdowns in that fourth quarter. Like four. And it was like the icing on the cake in the last drive where Jacksonville had the ball trying to come back to win the game, and then the ball was fumbled by Trevor Lawrence was sacked, fumbled the ball, and then you had Rankins, their tackle, defense tackle, picked it up and took it all the way back to the house and won the football game 36-29. And I picked this, I picked Houston to win the game because again, I knew they weren't going to have CJ Stroud, but I was like, you know what? Jacksonville isn't consistent consistent enough. And I'm like, Houston has a great defense, but here's the thing: Houston didn't really turn on the defense until the fourth quarter. Like they really, like, again, the game could have been worse. Like they played well, but they didn't really turn it on until the fourth quarter where they locked Jacksonville down and they couldn't do anything offensively. And Jacksonville just kind of crumbled there, and they just let Houston come back and score all 26 unanswered points in that fourth quarter to come back and win. Trevor Lawrence, again, did not play great football. 13 of 23, 158 yards, one touchdown, one pick. Again, did I really expect him to play amazing against this defense? No. But when you let's see. Field goal, touchdown. It was just short fields, man. Like all of their drives that they had that ended in scores, like they didn't have long drives whatsoever. It was all, I guess, their 58-yard drive. But it was just watching this game, it just felt like at the end it was time, and the Houston D Houston team just doesn't know when to quit. And they came back and Davis Davis Mose played very well. They ran the football, ran the football effectively, had over 130 yards total rushing in this game with a couple touchdowns. Nico Collins was awesome in this game. Dalton Schultz got involved. Jaden Higgins also came out and had a touchdown catch as well. And it was just when it was time to time to go out there and win. And there was one team that took advantage of the moment, one didn't. And Houston went out there and won the football game, and Jacksonville crumbled. I think it's really getting to a point where we really have to start really questioning the Jags and Trevor Lawrence because it's just like they went out there and went and traded for why am I forgetting his name now? Jacoby Myers. They went out and traded for him. Like that is not a move of a team that feels like they are not going to be able to go out there and like make the playoffs and like do all that. Like that's a that's a move of a team that's trying to be aggressive, but it's just when you lose a game like that, it just makes you think like, why did we do that? I don't know. Credit to Houston, though. Especially that fourth quarter, it was awesome to see them play the way they did. And I'm just like, man, like if they could keep this momentum going and they can get CJ back, and their defense could keep playing lights out, and then I think if they can just find a little bit of a groove offensively, they can really they can go out there and really be a scary team because that defense is absolutely insane. Next game, Cardinals Saints, sorry, sorry, Cardinals Seahawks. Seahawks win the game 44 to 22. This game was all about freaking Sam Darnold throwing that ball to JSN, man. Not just him, he's throwing to everybody. Sam Darnold didn't necessarily have the best day. 10 carries, I mean sorry, 10 of 12. 178 yards, one touchdown, one pick. He didn't play great. I think he had a pick that he threw. I think he also had a couple fumbles that were lost in this game, but it didn't freaking matter at all. They ran the football effectively, they had over two close to 200 yards rushing. Zach Charbonnet had a great day, 14 carries, 83 yards. Kenneth Walker, 14 carries, 67 yards. Like I said, JSN had another great day, five catches, 93 yards, and a touchdown. Cooper Cup, two catches, 74 yards. It was just literally the Seahawks just got off to such a great start to begin the game. They've got up 21 to nothing in the first quarter. And it's the second week in a row that they've done it. It's just like the Seahawks are such a fast, efficient team offensively. They could just they could throw you in a ditch before your team is even blinked, before they've even gotten really warmed up into the game, and they could be up 21 to nothing. And it's just like, how are you gonna dig yourself out of that hole? And again, Arizona tried, they really did, but it's just every time they tried to like really start tripping away at it, the Seahawks went and scored more points. Heck, in the first half, they scored 38. And going into halftime when you're down 38 to 7, like, what are you gonna do in the second half to come back in the game? You're not. That's not gonna happen. And the Seahawks defense has really turned around like they've really came out and like started to play a lot better football throughout this season so far. They have a lot of like really talented dudes out there. And they got got after Jacobi Brissett. He could not feel comfortable at all in this game. He went 22 of 44 for 258, two touchdowns. Like I said, he got sacked five times. Arizona's able to run the football for 129 yards total rushing in this game. Trey McBride had a great game, nine catches, 127 yards and a touchdown. Marv only had three catches for 33 yards and a touchdown. But it's just when they got put into such a hole so early on in this game, like what are you supposed to do? And Seattle did that same exact thing to the commanders the week before. It's just like if they're gonna keep nuking these teams to start off the game, and now you have to like crawl yourself, like dig yourself out, like how are you gonna do that? Like, I just I don't know. Especially with Seattle being so explosive offensively, I just don't know how it's gonna work, man. And their defense has really come along and starting to play a lot better football. So, and like I said, Sam Donald didn't even play well, and they still won that by such a big margin. I don't know. It's crazy. Next game, Rams, Niners. Rams won the game 42-26. This is another one where it's just like the Rams totally destroyed the Niners like quickly. Rams scored 14 unanswered points in the first quarter, and it just felt like that was like a lead that they were just never going to give up. Matthew Stafford, 24 of 36 for 280 yards, four touchdowns, zero picks. He only got sacked one time in this game. Running the football, they ran the football for like over 120 yards total rushing this game. Kyron Williams, 14 carries, 73 yards, two touchdowns. Blake Coram, their second string back, 13 carry, 56 yards. Devontae Adams, six catches, 77 yards and a touchdown. He did have to go out later on in the game with like a back issue. So hopefully that won't be a long-term thing, but he managed to go out there and play well before that injury happened. Puka Nakua, five catches, 64 yards and a touchdown. Kobe Parkinson, their tight end, had four catches, 41 yards and a touchdown. Heck, they had another tight end, Davis Allen, had a touchdown catch in this game. So I'm just like after that, like after they just so quickly got up 14-0 and just felt like there's nothing San Frank could do to get back into the football game. Mac Jones didn't play terribly. 33 of 39 for 319 yards, three touchdowns, and a pick. They didn't run the football all that well. Brian Robinson Jr. was their leading rusher in this game, had 41 yards rushing. CMC had 30 yards rushing. Greg Kittle had a okay day. Sorry, not okay, a good day. Nine catches, 84 yards and a touchdown. Juwan Jennings had six catches, 71 yards and a touchdown. CMC had 66 yards receiving off eight catches. But it's just even in the fourth quarter, like it was they tried to score, like to come back in the game, and then it just felt like every time they scored some points, the Rams were able to get the ball back and like go right down the football field and score some more. And it's just like same thing as I said with this with the Seahawks, man. It's just like when they get up and they kind of like put you into a hole, like how is San Frank to dig their way out, especially if their defense is not going to be able to like hold up their end of the bargain. But again, I'm not going to blame the defense totally. They are just so such an injured football team. Like, I just don't know how you're going to fix that when you have so many guys out because of injury. And it's just they San Francis has had such bad injury luck of this year. It's been absolutely insane to see how many guys they don't have. But it's just the Rams are just hitting a good stride right now where they're playing some very good ball. And I just don't think the Niners really had a real chance to fight that in this game based on how it kind of started. Next game, you have the Lions Commanders. Lions won the game 44-22. Like I said in the last pod preview in this game, the Lions know how to beat up on a dead body when they see it. Commanders don't have Jaden Daniels. He's gone for a while with his elbow injury. And Lions said, hey, that's a team that looks very uh susceptible to getting beat up on, and they absolutely did that. Jared Goff, 25 of 33 for 320 yards, three touchdowns, zero picks. Hey, Jameer Gibbs, do you want to go out there and have a great day? Yeah, go ahead. He had 15 carries, 142 yards, and two touchdowns. David Montgomery, do you want to run the football a little bit? Yeah, for sure. He had 15 carries for 71 yards. Hey, Jamison Williams, I know you haven't really done a lot lately. Would you like to get involved? Yeah, yeah, I'll do that. Six catches, 119 yards and a touchdown. Sam Brown, you can't forget that guy. He had five catches, 58 yards and a touchdown. Sam Laporte had five catches for 53 yards. Khalif Raymond had 49 yards off four catches. Jameer Gibbs also had a few catches for 30 yards and a touchdown. So it's just like when the Lions get into grooves like this and they have a team that's not as good as them, I've been saying this. They just know how to destroy a team and just not give them any chance to think they can win the football game. And they went out there and did it, man. They did what they had to do. And Washington just really had no chance in this football game whatsoever. Marcus Mariota played fine. 16 of 22, 213 yards, two touchdowns, zero picks. They didn't run the football that effectively, but guess what? They got down so early they really couldn't run the football like they wanted to, anyway. So I'm not going to blame them because it got out of there the way they want to play because they got down so early. And when you don't have your best wide receiver in Terry McLaurin, it just takes away a big piece of your offense. Not to mention the fact you don't have your main guy throwing the football around for your team either. So that's also another thing for you to have to get over. And the Lions just take advantage of that. One of the stories in this game was that their head coach. No, I'm forgetting. See, I'm forgetting head coach's names today, like crazy. That's what the problem for me is for remembering head coach's names. No. Dan Campbell. Dan Campbell had looked like watching this game that he was calling plays offensively for the team in this game. And I've said that such a weird way. He was calling plays for the offense. And somebody asked, like one of the press guys asked him after the game, like, hey, are you now calling the plays? Like, yeah, I am. And it just felt like it doesn't when you lose Ben Johnson over the offseason for him to go coach the Bears. It did feel like early on in the year they didn't really know what they were doing off, not really know what they're doing, but it's felt like they'd lacked an identity a little bit with a new play caller. And apparently things weren't really going how they wanted it, wanted it to. And and whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I literally just said his name and then I forgot it again. Dan Campbell. Apparently, Dan Campbell didn't like how it was going. He went and took over the play calling duties, and from what he was doing on that day against Washington, it was working just fine. Can You give them a ton of credit for that? No, because Washington's defense is awful. And they've only they are they already weren't good to start off the year, and then they've lost guys throughout the season. So, like, that's not really a great litmus test for how great he is as a play caller for the offense and whether this is what the Lions will be for the rest of the year. But guess what? They're no matter who the play caller is for this offense, they'll be very explosive no matter what, because they just have a bunch of dudes. So, question is can they keep this going for the rest of the year and in the playoffs against some of the better teams that they'll have to face? That's where the questions will have to be answered. But again, like what like I said, the Lions, when they're when they see a team that is not as good as them, they just know how to dominate and they're going to, and it's not going to look pretty while doing it. And that's exactly what happened in that game. The one little other thing is that if you did watch the game, Trump also was in the booth, like calling a play and like talking on the while on the broadcast. And it's just that might be the closest I've ever been to saying, like, hey, get politics out of my sport, because the last thing I wanted to see was Trump in the in the booth talking while I'm watching trying to watch football. Not gonna go any farther to it than that, but that was a weird thing to see, to be totally honest with you. I just didn't don't want to see Trump, don't want to have to listen to Trump while I'm watching football at all. I just don't. I know, I get it, it was a special occasion with it being um Veterans Day, Veterans Day this week and everything, but it just was not a great look for me. Not a great look for me, but it's just wasn't I wasn't a fan of the situation. Okay. Um let's see, next one here. Sorry, let me get over the get over the next game. Okay, the last game I wanted to talk about was Was that all the Sunday night? Okay, that was a s so that's through all the Sunday games, and now all we have is Monday game. Okay, so the Monday night game, last night, Eagles Packers. Game wasn't great. Offensively, it was awful out from both sides. Eagles won the game 10-7. The only let's see. Jalen Hurts, 15-26, 183 yards, one touchdown. Saquon Barkley had 60 yards total rushing in this game off 22 carries. Devontae Smith, uh, four catches, 69 yards, and a touchdown. AJ Brown did nothing in this game, two catches for 13 yards. Dallas Goddard had four catches for 43. Saquon had a 41, 41 yards receiving off three catches. It was a let me get to the pack, talk about them offensively first before I get into like my whole thoughts on the game. Jordan Love did not play good at all. He was awful in this game. 20 of 36 for 176 yards, zero touchdowns, zero picks. They ran the football decently well. Josh Jacobs, 21 carries, 74 yards, and a touchdown. Kristen Watson had Christian Watson had a couple catches, 45 yards. Dontavian Wicks, four catches, 38 yards. Josh Jacobs had a five catches for 33. And they just couldn't get into the end zone enough, man. They just they got into the end zone that one time with the rushing touchdown from Josh Jacobs. But other than that, like they just could not, their offense for Green Bake just could not get anything going at all. And that was like, and it again was for the Eagles as well. Like they did have that one big play for Devontae Smith, but and then the one big catch, catch and run from Saquon, but like both offenses couldn't really do anything in this football game whatsoever. And it was a tough, it was a tough watch, to be totally honest with you. It really was. And I come out of it, like maybe you can say on one end, like both teams played awfully, but the Eagles managed to pull out just enough to win the game. I will say the guy they got, let's see here. Why am I forgetting that defensive end's name for the Eagles that they just they just traded for? Jalen Phillips, the uh the defensive end they traded for from Miami, he came up and had his first game with the Eagles, and he made an instant impact on that team. So I'm just saying, like, every time the Eagles go and trade for pieces and let them come in, and what do you know? They have an instant instant impact dude come in right away and play in his first game and have it like a really good impact on the defensive line, and he got after Jordan Love, and like he was he definitely made a different made a difference. And it doesn't give Jordan Love any type of excuse because he was so not good in this game, he was awful, and this has been my whole problem with Jordan Love this whole his whole career so far. He's been so up and down at his best, he looks like one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, and at his worst, he looks like a top, uh at best a top 20 guy. And it's just he, especially how that team is as of right now, how it's built, it's the Green Bay Packers go as Jordan Love goes. And if he can't be the guy they they want him to be when it comes to being efficient, being explosive, throwing the football down the field, they can run the football, but it's just it's so intertwined in the way they play, is that they don't have a team that can sit there and run the football 30 times and win that way. They do want to throw the football around, that's what they have Jordan Love for. And if he can't be ex consistent enough, they're not gonna be a team that they need to be. And their defense is really built to have a lead and get after you with their defense, with their with their defensive line and with Micah Parsons being their headliner, like that's what they're built to be. They they're built to get ahead with their offense and they let their defensive line led by Michael Parsons go eat. And if Jordan Love is not going to be that guy that can be consistent and get you a lead, like what are you at that point? And it just seems like the Green Bay Packers are a little bit lost. They don't really have much of an identity offensively, especially if Jordan Love isn't playing well, and it just doesn't look good on a week in, week out basis out of the Packers. Heck, they just lost a game to the Panthers a couple weeks ago. Was that last week or two weeks ago? Hold on, let me see here. No, that was last week. Last week they just lost to the Panthers. Like one of the Panthers aren't terrible, but they're one of the worst, one of the worser off teams in the NFL, and they just lost them too. So it's just it's not looking pretty for Jordan Love and that Packers team right now. Credit to the Eagles for winning that game, even though they didn't look great doing it either. I it was a it was a weird game last night, I do have to say so. So that's all the games to that I have to react to. I know I went a little long, it's a little over two hours now, so it's not terrible, but still not great. But talked about all the stories I wanted to talk about, talked about the games. Is there anything else that I have to talk about here? No, I got nothing else. So let's go ahead and get out of here. So no, that's about it. Nothing else to really talk about here. So let's go ahead and get to it. So if you're listening for a while, we appreciate you. If you're just now joining on, hopefully, oh, Thursday night game. That's what I was thinking of. If so, Thursday night game is between the New York Jets going to New England to play. Me and Jace have both picked New England to go ahead and win that game. Honestly, there really isn't much of a reason to say say why or why not, because the New England just playing a lot better football. And I just think Drake May is just gonna play a lot better than Justin Fields will. I don't think that's really a hot take right now, even though I hate to say it because I love Justin Fields, he's a buck guy and all. So that's Thursday night game. Our records as of right now is I went nine and five last week. Jace went 10-4. Overall, I am 85-49-1. Jace is 89. Sorry, I'm 85-49 and one, and Jace is 89-45 and one. Sorry, that's hard to say when I'm not thinking about it. So that's our records. That's a Thursday night pick, and that's it there. So that is all I have to talk about. So I'll end the podcast here. If you're listening for a while, we appreciate you. If you're just now joining on, hopefully you like us and enjoy us enough to join us on this ride of talking about sports in the dumbest way possible. If you like, and if you this is the first podcast you're listening to, hopefully you can go to a different podcast when you have both me and Jace on to get a better idea of what this podcast is at its best. When you have the brothers our both being podcast hosts, going back and forth, talking shit, making jokes, doing what we usually do on a week in weekout basis. If you go listen to one of those pods if you want to get a better idea of what we are at our best. And if you like us and enjoy us enough, we'd appreciate if you could do a couple things for us. Like our podcast, subscribe to the podcast, rate the podcast five stars wherever you listen to us. We're pretty much available on all audio platforms out there. We would love if you could do that. Also, share us with friends, family, enemies, anybody if they can enjoy the podcast we put out on a weekly basis a couple times a week. We would love if you can do that. And then last but not least, if you could follow us on Twitter and or X, whatever you'd like to call it. At JV Sports Pod is the podcast handle, at Javante Boozer is my handle at Jace Boozer1 is Jace's handle, and that is about it. So thank you guys for listening. Thank you guys for always listening. Have a great day, have a great night, and we will see you guys in a couple days. Goodbye, y'all.