What an atrocious game by the Carolina Panthers vs the Colts

A super interesting NFL weekend. I mean, really, really interesting.

Even though I don't know that there were that many good games. Like, I'm not sure we're going to get to the fact that the Ravens just rolled a good team in Seattle a couple of weeks after rolling a good team in Detroit. All right, we need to talk about that. They're a threat. I mean, they are a legit threat. As long as they can play some offense, they probably need a lead. They probably need to play from ahead.

They can be really, really hard to beat. Will Brinson, senior NFL writer, CBSSports.com. Pick 6 podcast moderator. Oh my gosh, we have so much to talk about. Let me spend just a couple of minutes real quick on the Panthers debacle at home against a bad Colts team. What was the... Have you ever seen, when was the last time, have you ever seen a team give up two pick sixes off screen passes before?

I can't say that anything comes immediately to mind. I know I was just perusing the old gram and happened to notice that my employer at NFL and CBS on Instagram had a post over. It's like, that's down passes from Bryce young, Adam Thielen three anymore to anymore.

Oh man. That's down catches from Bryce young, which is not ideal. And I mean, talk about a backfire of a revenge game. I thought Frank Wright was going to have his guys ready to play. So if the office would be clicking thought this, you know, Bryce showing, you know, you'd beat TJ Stroud. You're looking for your second straight win.

You get, you're getting the Colts come to town. They just been really exposed in terms of, you know, they're like Garrett car lit them up on deep passes and Derek car is not really a great deep passer. So it was like, all right, you know, the Panthers can't get vertical, but surely they'll be able to put something together down the field before that 48 yard catch from Hayden Hirsch, the longest play of the day for the Panthers is 11 yards. Cause they don't try. Well, they don't try. We don't, we don't have, it's true, but they can't, I told you this couple of weeks ago, they can't, they don't have anyone bad offensive line and nobody who can stretch the field, which is just a horrible combination for being able to sort of vertically. And like, look, I think like, you know, the CDS trial comparison is pretty obvious here. And it's not a good one for, for Panthers fans or for Davis Epper or Scott Fitterer or Frank right.

But like, you know, the office of life for Houston is pretty good. He's been banged up and, you know, you can, you know, no Brown take Dell, Nico Carter, Dalton, so I mean, those are not, that's not the, the 2007 Patriots don't get me wrong. But it is all those guys who are like, no Brown and Dalton Schultz had upside were signed as cheaper free agents from the Cowboys all under 27 years old, Nico Collins, third year wide receiver, 24 years old, you know, take Dell rookie wide receiver was like great for your downfield ability. And then like you contrast that with the Panthers who went out and signed Adam Phelan and Hayden Hurst who are older underneath guys. And I think their plan was to try to use those guys to get by showing easy completions, get the ball out, quit buying a questionable offensive line. And that's all well and good, but man, I mean, I it's, it's impossible.

You can try, try all you want. Is it possible not to like, just like to look at what happened with the Panthers and brush on with the two pick sixes and directly contrasted with CDS trial, breaking the rookie record for a passing yards in a game and throwing five passing touchdowns, including the game winning one of the six seconds left. Was that cam Newton's record that CJ Stroud broke? Although maybe Kim, I think Andrew luck, I think Andrew broke his record. It made it Mark Bulger's Bulger's record for first year quarterback passing yards. Andrew luck had previously broken cam Newton's record for most passing yards in a game by a rookie quarterback.

All right. I understand why it's easy to look at what CJ Stroud has done. But I, I know how bad the offensive line is in terms of pass protection.

It's also bad in terms of run blocking too, even though they ran it somewhat effectively against the Colts. But you just pointed out the Hayden Hurst completion, which was about 25 yards down the field. And I know he was wide open, but Bryce put the ball. It was a perfect throw. We have seen all year long when they are willing to try, Bryce will complete passes down the field.

The problem is that they are terrified to even try. And if the other team knows that, and it was pretty apparent that the Colts did not respect anything. If the, if they know that, then all of that other crap that you are trying at the line of scrimmage isn't going anywhere. How many times on third and 10 did they do a little, a little hitch route for Adam Thielen for two yards? What are we doing? Just hand the ball off.

If you're not going to try, hand it off. I'd be lying to you if I, I have no idea every time I was watching the Eagles Catholic game, right? No, too many, too many. Unfortunately, and this will be the, the, like the, the death of me is that how much time have I wasted watching their game plan suck?

The game plans are bad. How many, I mean, how many minutes of what are they, what are they, uh, they had to buy it. They had to buy it.

They had to buy it. So it's eight weeks, eight times, uh, what is it? They're one in seven. They're one in seven. I've got nine more games in this. If you watch every game, then you've watched a lot of minutes and a lot of dumb balls underneath stuff to Adam Thielen.

Again, I can't stress this enough. And it's like, now there's a bit of a silver lining for the Panthers in the Daniel Jones injury, uh, because the giants with Tommy DeVito and Matt Barkley is the quarterbacks the rest of the way are, I think much more likely to net the number one pick number, whatever I'll pick this Carolina. That's not a silver lining.

It's not a silver. If you give away the number one, the Caleb Williams, Drake, major app, it is going, everyone is like, it is going to be, it is going to be really, really, really painful to sit back and be like, Oh my gosh, did we just give away like, Who's Carolina beating the giants already have a one game lead on the Panthers. They couldn't beat the Colts at home. The Colts aren't good. The Colts are not good. Just horrendous stuff. Unreal.

Um, all right, let's, let's get to some other games. It makes me angry. Bryce was bad. I am in no way apologizing for Bryce. Uh, I think he is being absolutely hung out to dry by his offensive line, by the fact that they have no good receivers. I love Adam Thielen, but bless his heart when they've decided to take him away, there's no other options. Uh, and the coaching staff is terrified of like, honestly, just play at, just play Andy Dalton at this point, you're going to get, you'll get Bryce killed because you can't protect him. And you're not even trying to do anything down the field at all, which lots of good quarterbacks have looked awful early on in their careers. I would also point out again that like the two adjusted Herbert thing, uh, but you know, I think at this point they basically would take to, uh, I mean, Herbert kept a better, better physical skill set, but to a point being is like, if it's, this is not a sprint to determine for everybody, it's a sprint for everybody.

It's a sprint. I, and I, again, I don't want to sit here and apologize for Bryce, who was bad. Uh, but I think I always use this phrase when it comes to defense, uh, good, great defense is cumulative, has a cumulative effect. And I think Bryce at this point is absolutely gun shy of, uh, of the, of the lack of time he has had. So he's not gay. He's not helping himself out by keeping his eyes down the field.

As soon as the, as soon as the rush is coming, he's looking at the, at the rush. And sometimes he makes the mistakes he did yesterday. And sometimes he does good things like run and pick up first downs. Let me get to other games because I'll drive myself crazy. If we have to talk about that crap, uh, all day long. Um, can Miami beat good teams?

No, they are. Oh, and three against the winning record in six and are we going to teams with a losing record? Um, 33 points per game, given up to teams of the winning record, 17 points per game scored to against teams of the winning record and basically flip flops that, um, when it comes to teams with a losing record. So, you know, I think it's, I wrote about this for CBS, sports.com.

You can read it. Uh, but it's like, it's really difficult for, to trust the dolphins, considering that, um, you know, like it's just difficult to trust the dolphins when we know that, you know, this is a team that plays in South Florida. And I realized they wouldn't like, Oh, I hung with the bills in the playoffs last year. They have to have two of them.

Tyree's like, don't get me wrong. They can go with a playoff game, but you know what, you know what, you know what you're going to see in the playoffs teams, the winning records, right? And the Eagles and the Eagles chieftain bills are three of the 10 best teams in football. Um, so we'll debate the bills.

Um, the bagels, the bagels are definitely all right. Here's the other thing about it. I'm with you. I'm just saying that Miami, Miami hasn't beaten anybody of substance this season.

And that is a big old red flag. Um, when you consider like that, when you get to the playoffs, unless you play, unless you're, unless you draw the NFC South winner, you'd probably be waiting to make the winning record. Yeah. And in the AFC there's, I mean, there are no bad divisions, right? There's you're, you're not going to play anybody. Oh, by the way, first time since they expanded, um, I think it's the first time John breach classified the best, but all four AFC North teams currently in the playoffs, the first time that's ever happened in the course of a season where all four teams were in the playoffs, uh, this late in the year. And, uh, the team that's in last place might be the best of them. That's the Cincinnati Bengals. I don't know if they're technically in last place or not, but I think they're tied.

They are in last place. All right. Well, Brinson, we have a couple of more that we have.

I don't know. We got to like six, seven minutes left and I want to get to another couple of games, but I want to ask you one thing about Kansas city, uh, because I think the narrative coming out of that, um, which is a cool setting by the way, in Frankfurt, Germany, and we're going to have another game in Frankfurt this week. I think the narrative coming out of it is Kansas city got away with another lack of a quality offensive performance. They put together a couple of good drives, uh, but, and Pat Mahomes said after the game, we got to be much better.

We'll figure it out. Is there a problem simply that they just don't have enough good wide receiver options? Yeah.

I think it's really interesting because, uh, the, and I don't want to get yelled at by my employer, but I mean like they keep people can be like, Hey, can you do like a video of like who won the tiger kill trade? I'm like, no, the chiefs won the super bowl. They won the trade.

No, I won't do that. They're like, number one seed in the AC right now. And their defense is great.

A lot of those pieces on defense think they acquired through the draft by virtue of getting these extra draft picks in the Tyree kill trade. Uh, Terry Hill wanted to get paid a ton of money. Like it was a win, win, win for everybody. The dolphins won. Terry killed one. The chiefs won. Uh, you know, I mean the Patrick Holmes won the MVP. So no, they, everybody won the trade.

It's fine to get paid. Um, yes, the chiefs have a problem with their wide receiver right now. Uh, you know, they have this hodgepodge of guys, um, who, you know, and like, you really should say pass catcher because Tyree or Travis Kelsey obviously an elite catcher in that offense.

Um, Mark is about to skip, like, I think all the pieces, Mark is about to scantling Skymoor ratio rice. There's still young guys, Rishi rice, a rookie MBS is just sort of your deep threat and who can, he needs to be a little bit more consistent. And then, uh, Sky more in the second year, you expect to maybe come on a little bit stronger. It's okay for it to take some time for these guys to develop. I mean, Terry Hill didn't have 1500 yards his first year in Kansas city. And I think what should scare everybody about the chiefs is that they're winning these games. Their defense is already playing great. And they have 80 Reed and Patrick Holmes at some point that office is going to, we've seen it click at a couple of different points this season. If I, I think this is the best case scenario for the chiefs, where you're winning games, you're winning them in a different kind of way. They still have the top 10 or top five options depending on what metrics you want to look at.

And if you start to, you know, you get down the road and all of a sudden the office does start clicking. And that's where Holmes said, we will figure it out. Then people are going to be in a lot of trouble because if the chief defense is elite going into the playoffs, they're going to be really, really hard to beat.

And no question about it. Cause their offense will figure out enough points that their defense is great. I'm going to skip over Dallas and Philadelphia for now, because frankly, I think that game played out exactly how we anticipated Philadelphia is better. Plus they were at home, but let me get to Buffalo and Cincinnati because my read on that game is that Buffalo gets the least out of Buffalo almost every single week. Cause I think the, the bills have enough to be great anywhere they play.

Of course, they never decide. They, they hate handing the ball off to a running back. So everything runs through Josh Allen. But I just think they get the least out of their ability, almost every single week.

Yeah. I mean, they've had some pretty big spike weeks. And like they were playing really good football until they went to London and get to London, wait, lose the Jaguars. And they might just, the injuries just piled up on, on defense for them. And I've got, that's certainly been a problem. And I think one of the things that you have to be concerned about with Buffalo is when they started to trail and they started to need to like Josh Allen, I don't know if Collins were said this last night, I'm talking about a long day of football yesterday, man. I'm not complaining for the second.

I even watched the 9 30 AM game. You know, of course. I mean, but it's just, I mean, that's, I mean, like, again, not limiting it.

It's just a, it's a 15 hour grind of, of watching football, but really 18 hours of podcasts, not complaining about my job. But, um, the, the thing about the bills is that like Josh Allen was probably the most impatient player in the NFL. And when they start to trail and you saw their opposite sort of stagnate and struggle, couldn't hit anything over the top to Dave Davis, um, Stepan Davis got the touchdown late, but you know, it didn't really wasn't as big a factor as you would want. And the defense is just injured and banged up right now. Bob Miller is showing back to that ACL tears, or he's not himself, right? Uh, the safety you've got hurt in this game.

Uh, you already have your debut swipe down the head of your trade group with little Douglas. It's Matt Milano. Who's really the, the, the, the focal point for that defense too underrated way.

Like he and the employer and hide the safety are the key there. And because of all that, it's like, they know they don't feel like they can really slow down the bingles enough. And so Josh Allen just starts pressing and he starts pressing and he's done this a lot, uh, in these games that the bills lose. And I think that's just, it's, it's like going to be a problem. Now. I do think that Buffalo is talented enough and has enough, um, like, like, like upside where this is a team that they're going to get in the playoffs. Sure. Yeah.

Right. And they can be the team that like the defense just kind of clicks for a couple of games and Allen goes nuclear and they make a run. I don't think that's out of the question at all, but the AFC is going to be so tough. I mean, you're going to have to like Baltimore, Kansas city and Cincinnati. And I mean, like, those are three really good teams. They didn't even include the Jaguars who were playing great football. We were just on the bias or sort of out of mind, out of sight, out of mind. And then you have the bills, the dolphins, um, the, the Browns, the Steelers, like who, like it's, it's the AFC is sort of shaping up into the judges might go with that division. Uh, but I mean, you might be right.

I'm not on the, it's just amazing to me. That's how good the defense is. Yeah. I just think that the AFC is, it's fascinating how through the first couple of weeks here, Aaron Rogers hurt the charges. I mean, the charges are still good team and they're, and they're scuffling down there.

Okay. They have talent upside too. They have talent, right? They have talent.

Right. They're a talented team. I'm just saying that like, there's going to be like, if you're the two season, the AFC you're going to draw or choose the two, three, and four sheets are going to draw tough matchup in the playoffs against the five, six, and seven teams. And it's one of those where I don't think it's out of the question that a wildcard team, like let's say the bills are the six feet or whatever.

And they just catch fire. Like that's kind of like, because of the injuries and because of how this office is built, I think that's going to have to be the pathway to real success because they don't look like they're going to be consistent week in and week out. So, uh, where are the bills seated right now? I believe the bills, uh, the bills are the 60, nine. They're the ninth seed right now. I thought that was a trick question.

I didn't have my last person. Um, yeah, they're the ninth seed right now that look, that's going to make it, that's going to make it tough to win. It's hard to, it's hard to like run the table from the nine hole in the, uh, in the NFL playoffs.

Right. The bills are the nine, the jets are the eight. Obviously the jets played in charges tonight. The jets are four and three, and the bills are five and four. Um, you know, you have to, you have to believe that the AFC North is going to beat up on each other, uh, to a degree. We'll see what happens with the jets that they can, they can hold on there. But I mean like converse that with the nine seed in, in the NSC, which is Atlanta or the seventh seed in the NSC, which is Minnesota. And it's like, uh, it's like, I, you know, like, I, I feel a lot, you know, you feel a lot better about being a team in the NSC and making a run than you do in the ASB. I am, uh, I watched the bills and maybe I expect more, or maybe I'm just looking for the flaws because I, I'm not in any way saying that I am not that guy. Uh, because I keep going back to your window may have been in Kansas city with a lead and 13 seconds on the clock.

It may have been that. I think you could also look at this team and say, and I think it's, there are a lot of people looking for flaws with the bills. I want the bills to be bad. I don't want them to be bad.

I am, but I am definitely looking for flaws. Emotional tough scene. The jets have been difficult for Josh Allen, his entire career since Robert solid took over. You lose that game in an overtime walk-off punt, Jaguar against the Jaguars in London. Jaguar's a really good team at the Patriots. That's a really bad loss. No one's going to excuse it, but it is in the division on the road and then at the bingo. So, I mean, there, there are three of their losses are on the road. The fourth loss is against like an elite AFC team in London who had been there for two weeks. I don't think the losses when you step back and look at it are as bad as people think.

And they take your business against and, and, and found ways to win. Yeah. Like after four weeks, there were three and one who looked dominant guys started getting hurt and they've scuffled a lot here, but you have the Broncos jets and then the Eagles before you get to the buy in week 13, go two and one. And all of a sudden, you know, you're, you're, you're, you're seven and five.

And I think you're fine with, you know, with a typical stretch after the buy as well. So it's not an easy schedule, but I mean, like the bills, I just, the bills are a playoff team to me, but yes, they are, they're, they're not, they're not dominant by any stretch of the imagination. Right. Denver, they should handle. Then they host the jets. They are at Philadelphia and then the buy then they're at Kansas city. Then they're home to Dallas.

I wish the Buffalo bills luck in making the playoffs. I will just say that, uh, will Brinson, you are the best. I appreciate your time, sir. You got it, buddy. See you then.