A recap of the NFL weekend, without the Carolina Panthers

Will Brinson, senior NFL writer, CBSSports.com, pick six podcast moderator, my friend. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me I'm wrong about that game. Now, have you ever seen a worse football game that wasn't weather related? There was a Titans-Jets Monday night game like four years ago that was pretty bad. And also like if you relegate, if you start relegating teams like, you know, I mean, imagine if you, if you relegated like, like Virginia might've been relegated and then they wouldn't have gotten to play North Carolina on Saturday. I'm so surprised that you worked that in so quickly. I've already talked about North Carolina staying on brand. Gosh, that was a, that was a, what a, what an awful weekend it was. All time lost. Oh my gosh.

For those of us, the magical NC state fan, a bi-week Moneyline Parlay, UVA Charlotte and Miami Moneyline plays out like a hundred to one or something like that. Unbelievable. All right.

Well, I appreciate you bringing that up. Seriously though, my larger takeaway from the game, I had two takeaways from the game. They're both about like the Giants won simply because somebody had to, I mean, they're bad too. But here are my, my two takeaways from the game, both Washington related one bless his heart, Sam Howell ain't it. He's not in, that was a terrible, terrible performance by Sam Howell.

He's it? If by it, you mean David Carr on pace to break David Carr's stack record. Just so many inaccurate throws. Just incredible how many times he threw behind receivers who were open and like Washington only has one receiver really worth much. And they didn't throw to him enough, maybe because he was covered most of the time.

So there's that. And then if you're down 14 seven and you're in the fourth quarter and you have fourth and three on the nine yard line, what is the justification Ron Rivera for attempting a field goal? I'm all about karma misses. That was karma blocking that field goal by Joey sly. I was rooting for karma at that point.

Am I crazy? Well, yes, but it has nothing to do with it. Washington had 273 yards on Sunday. Sam Howell has been sacked for negative 267 yards so far this season, 40 times next closest is 28. Daniel Jones adjusted fields at 24 40 times.

It's bad, dude. They played seven games, 40 times. That is on average is 5.7 per game, which if I do the quick math, that's on pace for 97 sacks.

Yeah. What's the, the record is like 70, right? I swear to record like, uh, or David Carr, David Carr is the record. I mean, poor guy, you know, uh, before he ever got, before he ever came Mr. Mittens Carolina, he, uh, he was sacked. Yeah, maybe it was 76.

Is that right? It was like a hundred, but that's a quarterback stat. Anyway, getting sacked is as much, he holds, he holds the ball too long.

I mean, he's, you know, he's a, he likes to, he likes to do a lot of stuff with his feet and with his legs. He's also being asked as a fifth round pick to try and like carry this Washington offense, which I mean, why does it matter that he's a fifth round pick? He just that's when he was picked, right? He went into that season, went into the season as a Heisman trophy hopeful. So that he was a fifth round pick just as kind of an indicate, you know, indicative of the fact that they didn't have a great year. Um, look, I just, if Washington is looking for a franchise quarterback, who do you play for?

Who do you play for? Another, uh, another hyped, uh, another hyped season. Oh, I don't, I don't think, I mean, I mean, this game is, was a disgusting football game. Yeah. The Giants are two and five.

The commanders are three and four. It's hard to see. I mean, I guess Washington could get back in the mix in terms of the place.

Um, place. I mean, I'm just saying they're like, they're like a half game out of the final. I know. I know. I, yeah, that's probably unlikely. The beauty of the NFL is that crappy teams and Washington is a crappy team.

Yeah. Uh, the beauty is that they're still in it because who knows? They could somehow, uh, you know, end up with nine wins and we're going to the last week of the season. And you know, if they, if they do this and five other teams do that, Washington backs into a wildcards, but they're just bad. Uh, I mean, I would say too, they're, they're at Philly this, or they're shooting home against Philly this week. Um, at New England at Seattle, that's a tough combo of, of road games. Just even if you, even if you don't think, you know, New England's that great, um, do you have the giants again at home at Dallas versus the dolphins? Yeah.

That feels like, uh, if you get two wins there, you're doing pretty good. Um, at best, you're probably, you're probably like, you're probably like, what, uh, five and five and eight going into your, going into your buy and at the Rams at the jets versus the Niners versus the Cowboys to close out. Yeah. I mean, like it's a seven.

Yeah. I mean, like you're going to go, like, they're going to go, I don't know, eight, nine, or probably seven and 10 or six and 11. And Rhonda Rivera will probably get fired. And Josh Harris will have a pretty interesting coaching search that may involve.

Like, I don't know. I like when, I like when really rich people get to have their first coaching search, you get to find out like, cause you never see them, you know, they never go out, like they never buy the team and then be like, yeah, I think we're going to take it. Um, we're going to, you know, we're going to, we're going to be a little frugal in this first coaching search. Like the Waltons went out and got Sean Payton, you know, David ever made this whole, like we flew in a private helicopter and like landed in Matt rules backyard with, you know, 17, 17 man entourage to have breakfast burritos with him and talk him into taking $70 million to come coach the Carolina Panthers. I mean, like, you know, you're going to get, you're going to get Josh Harris is going to do something like kooky too. Cause he's kind of like a, I don't know, like maybe, maybe we'll get a, um, like some big name college, who's a big name college coach that can get involved for this Washington coaching search. Urban Meyer. Uh, what's, well, I'm just kidding.

What's, uh, what's more fun, a billionaire's first head coaching search or a billionaire's third head coaching search. It is the Panthers bye week, Mr. Gold. I'm not talking about the Carolina.

You knew where I was going. Oh, look, this is going to be an interesting week. We have the battle of the rookie quarterbacks with CJ Stroud and the Houston Texans coming in.

All right. Uh, but we're not going to talk about the Panthers. Let me move on to another game because you already mentioned that Washington has to go to new England, which new England does have a good defense, but just like North Carolina state on brand this weekend, wasn't that the bills being very bills like in the way they approached the Patriots game, how is that team with that talent and healthy for the most part, how are they four and three? I'm a little concerned that Josh Allen might be battling some kind of elbow thing.

Maybe. And you know, you mentioned the health. Um, they are, they're, they're banged up on defense. I mean, Matt Milano and true Davis, white are two big losses.

The safeties are older. Uh, you know, I think you saw that. I mean, the Patriots, I don't recall the last time the Patriots scored, uh, 29 points, but I'm pretty confident it hadn't happened this year. They hadn't scored, they hadn't scored 21 points, uh, this year. And you have to go all the way back to March down the field, October 16th, 2022, to find the last time they scored 29 or more points when they beat Cleveland 38 to 15.

So yeah, I mean, this is a team that matriculated the ball pretty easily. Um, Mac Jones, 25 or 30, it's a third highest percentage, a third highest completion percentage of a single game in Patriots history. You can probably guess who has the two above him. Um, no, it's not Brian Hoyer. Right.

Um, it is in fact, Tom Brady. And, uh, and I just think that like, you know, they didn't run the ball particularly well, but max just had Mac. If Mac Jones in this offense that hadn't been able to do anything all year long is able to whip the ball around to Kendrick Bourne and, uh, the rookie Douglas and Ramondre Stevenson and somebody named P Brown, like, and the bills aren't able to stop them. Then we have to ask questions about whether or not Buffalo, the defense is going to be healthy enough to do, to be able to stop Patrick Mahomes. Oh God, no chance. No chance.

Here's the thing. And you and I have talked about this before the Buffalo bills didn't realize that their window was 13 seconds away with a lead at Kansas city in the AFC championship game. And Sean McDermott brutal screwed that up. And they have not been the same team since, uh, they, they still have yet to come up with a running game. That isn't Josh Allen.

They almost refuse to run the football with a running back. Um, With so take two for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, you could show off your skin again. And you know what that means? Beach day as a tick to inhibitor. So tick two is the only one staley pill of its kind for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. Ask your dermatologist about so tick two today and learn more at so clearly you.com.

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Call 1-888-SOTYK-TU to learn more. They have Stefan Diggs, they have, uh, uh, they've got other receivers. They have two good other receivers, other receivers. I mean, here's what they've got.

They've got two good, right? Stefan Diggs was targeted 12 times and called six passes. Like Stefan Diggs having like, that is not very Stefan Diggs. Like, I mean, this is a guy who for his career in Buffalo has caught 70% of his passes, right?

Right. 69.9% of his passes for his career. Then nine years in the NFL, 69.2% of his passes caught.

And he catches half of his passes against a banged up Patriots pasty. integrated Bell checks good about taking everybody away or taking the best thing away. Um, I just think, I think you see, you saw some accuracy issues from Josh Allen. And you can ask the question, like, did Stefan Diggs, did Stefan Diggs, did Stefan Diggs, did Stefan Diggs, did Stefan Diggs.

Yeah. Can I offer this theory? Let me offer this theory about why Stefan Diggs. London broke, London broke the bills.

Uh, well, that's possible. I think the bills might be broken, but here's my- They were rolling going to London. They smoked the Raiders and commanders, destroyed the dolphins, go to London on a short week, lose to the Jaguars by five points, sneak past the giants and then get beat by the Patriots. I mean, it's four games with five point or four points. I mean, that's football football's kooky like that.

Totally, totally broken. But here's my theory as to why Stefan Diggs struggled is because the new England Patriots were allowed to hold him all day long. I can't tell you how many, how many replays, like, why isn't that holding down the field? Like defensive backs grabbing both shoulder pads.

Like, what are we doing here? And then they call, I'm going to get to the Colts and the Browns. And then they call those two penalties on the, on the Colts on the final drive. I'm like, there was an illegal contact on Amari Cooper. That's an incomplete pass. And then defensive pass interference, the ball was 15 yards out of bounds. What are we doing? Like, it almost was, I don't want to accuse the referees of having the Browns on the money line, but my gosh, those are two of the worst calls I've seen.

Anyway. The bills in the past too, like if you're new England and you're one and five and the bills are nine point favorite coming into Foxborough, you're like, screw it. Let's just see if we can, let's just, let's just, let's just play hyper aggressive defense. See if they don't call it and then just get away with it. See if we can see how much we can get away with. I mean, there's, that's not an unusual strategy for teams that are, you know, small defensive teams that are, that are, have the back against the wall. No, no, it's not at all. I don't know what you can do with the Browns.

Do what you can get away with. The Browns and the Colts gave me Gardner Minshew. I mean, Gardner Minshew versus PJ Walker, you know, it's like unders have been hitting at a historical rate over the last like three weeks.

And so naturally when Gardner Minshew and PJ Walker get together, we get 80, no, we get 77 combined points. Um, you know, a large part thanks to the Jordan Ford rips off a run. Long pass. Josh, you know, Josh Downs has a long pass, bunch of field goals. Uh, we had a fumble recovery for a touchdown. Miles Garrett, just wrecking havoc.

Can we talk about that? Man, dude, it's insane. My, Miles, I can't decide who the best defensive player in the league is right now. Is it Miles Garrett or is it TJ Watt?

Uh, Watt who does everything. Um, what Miles Garrett blocking that field goal was? Yeah. Ridiculous. I mean, that was Superman stuff that that's Cam Newton S, you know, holding, you know, pulling open your jacket to reveal the S. They asked him after the game, uh, you know, if that was unusual and basically went not for me and I'm like, okay, I just can't explain it.

He was, he was everywhere. How did they give up 30 some odd points? Um, Josh Downs, Michael Pittman, Gardner Minshew. I mean, you know, basically the 1999 Rams, I mean, five hall of famers. Uh, it was just one of those games where you see this a lot of times with NFL games, I think where it's like, um, so the Colts have been when Shane Steichen left the Eagles and went to the Colts, the Colts have been playing at a really fast pace this year.

Right. And the Eagles have, their pace has slowed way down. And so you sort of see like, you know, Jerome, you know, Jerome Ford rips off this run for 70 yards to get a touchdown a minute in. And then it's like, you know, it's like Josh Downs, 59 yard touchdown run or touchdown catch. And all of a sudden it's just like these sort of like quick scoring plays early in a game like this between two teams with okay defenses and decent offenses. Cleveland's defense might be really good, but I mean, it's just that sort of quick scoring kind of, I guess, seems it might want to run with some pace.

So it just, it just turns into an accelerant most of the time. All right. Well, well, Brinson is here. We only have a few more minutes left. We haven't even talked about the Eagles and the dolphins yet, and I'm going to leave. Dolphins haven't beaten anybody.

That's where I was going. Like the dolphins are, we, we understand that the dolphins are high octane and Tyreek Hill is impossible to cover. It might be a little too finessy. It might be the problem. Well, that's, that's true. They didn't display their full run game. Now they're not a hundred percent healthy back there right now. And the Eagles certainly defensively are good against it, but although they couldn't, the Jets ran the ball effectively on the Eagles. My read on the dolphins is that they have just not been able to get over the hump.

They were right there. You know, it's only a seven point game when, uh, they just, Tua didn't have a great game. They really only had Hill. Jalen Waddle was in and out of the lineup with a back injury.

He's kind of fragile. Um, to me, the, the Eagles have gotten away with not being fully great. And they're still, other than their loss to the Jets, they haven't been beaten, but I don't think the Eagles have played their best. Eagles have not played their best to start that passing game, started to get going against the dolphins.

I mean, look, you listen, I mean, I think it's, you know, we're seven weeks into the season for a lot of, for most teams, except, you know, all the teams are the buys. And then, you know, the two teams you were playing tonight and the dolphins, I mean, they beat the chargers by two points on the road. Like, ah, I could win chargers actually might stink.

They're two and four lose game. They beat the Patriots in new England by seven points. You went to on the road, like, no, you started doing the NFL. You dropped the seven point game. And then you know, you started doing the NFL. You dropped the 70 burger on the Broncos.

And that's when the hype train sort of peaked. You get stopped by the bills. You manhandle the Giants and the Panthers, and then you sort of get out physical, out, out, out, just out tough by the Eagles. And you needed like a flukey pick six, by the way, to tie it at 17. So like, yeah, I mean, I think you could make the case that the Eagles are a legit team.

Shout out to coach Scott. I know you're listening. Go Eagles. Eagles are good. But the, but the dolphins might just be like a, like a finesse team, you know, and they might not be a team that's capable of like, like, it's great that they're fast and they're explosive and they can light it up by the scoreboard by having guys rip off these big touchdown runs.

But what happens when you get into a grinder? Because that's what you're going to face in the playoffs. You look at Kansas City's defense, they look really good. Buffalo's tough.

No, they're not. You know, they beat the crap out of the dolphins. I just say like, Miami's going to win the division. Buffalo's not winning the division. It'll be, it'll be, it'll be dog fighting.

Miami's got the Patriots again this week, desperate team, and then at the chiefs in, in Jamini. Oh wow. Spicy.

Schnitzel. Look, I, what, real quick, what do you think about the tush push? Or the brotherly shove, which I think is a much better way of saying it. The brotherly shoves way better way to phrase it, but because one, only the Eagles can do it correctly. Everyone else stinks at it. That's why to, to Nick Sirianni's point after the game is like, look, if, if the Eagles are the only team that can do it well, and I am a little worried about like, by the way, Jalen Hurts is banged up after that game, like you're a follower of NFL media, got him sort of limping off the field. That's a concern, especially for tush pushing and brotherly shoving all over the place. But if the Eagles are the only team that can do this well, you can't ban it.

Like everyone keeps trying, keeps failing. They don't have, they don't have Kelsey. They don't have, they don't have the, the offensive line coaching. They don't have the technique.

They don't have Jalen Hurts. Like it's not like it's a cheat code for the entire league and it's ruining football. It's just, you can't ban something when one team is really good at something.

I wouldn't ban it, but I would make it legal. If you can't put, if, if you can push a player, tell me why you can't pull a player or tell me why I can't grab you and throw you like in roller Derby. The same reason on fourth down, the only person who can recover a forward fumble forward is the person who fumbled somebody fumbling it intentionally. Cause I remember the play. Most people listening are too young to remember the Raiders beating the chargers when Ken Stabler purposely fumbled the ball forward. And then they just kind of shoveled the ball forward and then fell out in the end zone. I think that's what you're talking about is shove it, throwing somebody forward because hurts is hurts is at least just running and then being pushed or it's like, look like the other thing is like the Kelsey thing is really underrated and Kelsey claims. He said on new heights, there's somebody else, anybody else could do it, but like he knows how he has like the perfect technique for getting low and then driving up to clear this lane for Jalen hurts and Jalen hurts squat 600 pounds.

You shouldn't need a running back and a tight end or AJ Brown, who's basically a tight end and another tight end. You shouldn't need somebody pushing from behind. My point is simply that if I can't pull you and if I can't slingshot you, then I shouldn't be allowed to push you. I don't see the difference. Well, how would you pull somebody?

Are you gonna get on the other side? I've seen it. I've seen, no, no, no. If an offensive lineman goes to block and then just turns and grabs you and then drags you forward, why isn't that legal? But it's not.

That's not legal because I've seen it flagged. You can't pull the running back forward. Yeah, you can push.

But you can push. I don't see the difference. I don't see the difference.

If he can't do it on his own power, then forget it. I hate to be master of the obvious, but one's a push and one's a pull. No, I understand, but why is one legal and one not? It doesn't make any sense to me. One is in and one is out. Right, you understand the linear boundaries of the field. I understand that.

One is left, one is right. You're not going to convince me that I'm wrong about this, but I do think the NFL is going to ban it. The Eagles have changed the math on this, by the way, because instead of having to stop the Eagles from getting 10 yards and three downs, you have to stop them from getting eight yards and three downs because if they get anything inside of fourth and two, they know they can get two yards. And I mean, that is a massive, massive mathematical advantage. No question about it. And look, I think it's entertaining. I actually like to see it. I'm just saying that I like how mad people get. I like how mad people get about it. A hundred percent. I see the giants try to run it and fail. I like that too. You know who Joe Shad is, right? With SOTIC-2 for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, you could show off your skin again.

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Tell your doctor if you have a history of these events or if you have an infection or symptoms like fever, sweats, chills, muscle aches or cough. Or if you have history of hepatitis B or C, liver or kidney problems, high triglycerides or had a vaccine or plan to. SOTIC-2 inhibits TIC-2 which is part of the JAK family. People 50 and older with heart disease risk factors who use a JAK inhibitor are at increased risk for certain side effects, sometimes fatal. It's unknown if SOTIC-2 has the same risks as JAK inhibitors. Call 1-888-SOTYKTU to learn more. Yeah, Joe Shad covers the dolphins now used to work for ESPN so he tweeted out uh how he hates the play and all that and I just went first of all I think they're gonna ban it I think the NFL is gonna ban it um and I'm like one don't make it a safety issue because every play in the NFL is a safety issue so miss me with your well it's a dangerous play they're all dangerous plays so miss me with that too I happen to think it's entertaining like I just think it's funny and three I do think it will be banned because based on my the way I've looked at it if I can't pull a player or slingshot a player then I shouldn't be able to push a player and Joe Shad because I responded to him Joe Shad quote tweeted me Adam Gold dot dot likes the tush push or it thinks the tush push is fun which I do and he I was like do you realize that Joe Shad got mad at me because I said that the Dolphins beat reporters are all a bunch of homers well they are I mean they're agreeing 100% agreed they're all like they're like take that national media so it's great I said you did realize that I was I said Joe you do realize that I was agreeing with you right just not 100% of your premise and he goes I was just having fun bs bs you weren't having fun by the way I am very glad that there is a Chiron at the bottom of the screen on TV for those people watching because I was just about to get in trouble uh Will Brinson senior were you ready to give Shad the finger no no no no no it was it was along the same lines but it was not the same exact thing I see what you're saying yeah yeah gosh I'm so glad I am a hand motion that you don't want being shown on WRAL 2.0 that's what you're saying very good Will Brinson my friend uh appreciate your time this was fun and nearly uh career altering I'll give you a I'll give you a legal hand motion and wave at you I'm just gonna wave now