Who is real and who’s a fake at this point of the NFL season?

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Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done. I feel for Cowboys fans. I can't believe I'm saying this out loud. I feel for Cowboys fans because I know that after the win over Philadelphia, you were convinced that it was different. You were convinced. And then Dallas went to Buffalo and got absolutely punked by the Bills. Bills didn't even have to throw it. Dallas obviously has a run defense problem, but I don't look at the Buffalo Bills as this impenetrable defense. I know defense is good, but I don't look at them as somebody you can't score on, but my gosh, their defense was great.

The Cowboys, again, they are the ultimate frontrunners. They can beat bad teams like crazy. They're good at home. But I don't think they're going to have any home playoff games.

And that's a problem. To me, that's a problem for the Dallas Cowboys, but they looked exactly like we thought they would look on the road against the team. That is good, even though they might not make the playoffs.

With that said, it's time to have a conversation with my friend. Chris Brinson, senior NFL writer, CBSSports.com. Cowboys, to borrow from the late Dennis Green, the Cowboys are who we thought they were, and Buffalo did not let them off the hook.

Is that accurate? Yeah, I think it's a lot about Dallas. I think it's more about the Bills. Good team on the road. Dallas can't beat them.

Yeah, I agree with that completely. Dallas has been truck-sticking people for a while. I think Buffalo is hot right now. I don't know how you feel about these two hot takes. Let's see. I'll judge.

Josh Allen is going to steal the MVP award, even though he threw it for 94 passing yards. The Bills, actually I might have like three or four here. I'm just going to throw out some stuff. You can chortle at your leisure.

I'm going to write them down. Allen MVP. The Bills are going to win the AFC East.

Okay, keep going. The Bills are the one team outside of San Francisco that no one wants to see in the playoffs. And finally, the Buffalo Bills are going to win the Super Bowl. Wow. Those are ghost pepper.

Take it as a group. That is a ghost pepper. I don't know a ton of Bills fans. Are there a bunch of Bills fans at Raleigh? I know my old neighbor Dan.

Shout out Dan. Have you been to Wegmans? Oh, yeah, I guess there are a bunch of Bills fans. Why are there so many Bills fans here?

They sold Josh Allen's cereal at Wegmans for two years. Is it really? Oh, yeah. I don't even know if it's good.

I don't know. Well, some days it's great and some days it actually tastes like dog food. It falls out of the bowl a lot, but look, I don't know if they're going to make the playoffs. That's the thing.

I do agree. If they make the playoffs, they are not a team you want to deal with. There's 70 plus percent to make the playoffs now from like 12% two weeks ago because they go out and beat the Chiefs on the road and then beat Dallas at home and beat Dallas convincingly, by the way.

Whatever. Maybe they're at the Chargers in Easton stick this week. That's on Thursday.

Thursday. They should win that game. If you're going to make the playoffs, you can't lose the game. And then they're home on Christmas Eve against the Patriots. Yeah, they have to win out.

End of discussion. Winning in Miami. I think they can sneak in with 10 and 6, but it would be a real dogfight. If they win out, they're winning the division more than likely, I think. Yeah, could Miami's got a very difficult schedule? They have to host Dallas. Miami loses the next two. You think Miami loses at home to Dallas? Yeah. Miami had beat them.

This is the ultimate who's the bigger fraud game. Well, that is true. Let me ask this question. Is Miami good? Yes or no? Yes, but they're not great. They're not great. Are they good? Is that convincing?

Right? I mean, they are good. Are they at home against Dallas? I don't know because the problem is Miami hasn't beaten a team with a winning record. They beat the Broncos early in the season, but the Broncos are bad then. The Broncos now have a winning record. The Broncos are now 7-7. Anyway, the point being is the Dolphins have not beaten a team with a winning record. The Broncos don't have a winning record either now. They have not beaten a team with a winning record. They have dominated bad teams. They beat the Jets by 30 at home.

They beat the commanders by 30 on the road. They beat the Jets by 30 or 21 on the road. They snuck by the Raiders, which is interesting, but anytime they played a decent team, they've lost. And then you have Dallas who just can't win away from home. They lost to the Cardinals. They lost to the Bills. They lost to the Eagles.

I mean, they're a dominant team in Dallas and not very good away. I think it, you know, we'll see. We'll see.

I think the way you framed it is correct. This is the who's who's really for real here. It's the the fraud bowl. Who's who's who's really not for real? Yeah, that's true. I think we'll find out. It is it is certainly intriguing.

Do people believe maybe I'm talking to myself here. Do people believe more in the Ravens after going to Jacksonville and beating the Jaguars? It's funny how many people I saw try to throw shade on Lamar Jackson because he didn't have like a dominant passing game. He had almost 300 yards in total offense. He was awesome.

Yes, and some of the plays he made to just create some of the completions were amazing. People like to not like Lamar Jackson. We've talked about this since the offseason when when he was being listed as like not a top 10 quarterback or whatever, which is ridiculous. I think he's probably the MVP right now. Although, I mean, obviously Brock Purdy, you know, would like a word. Can we please just say Christian McCaffrey is the MVP? Well, but I mean like is Christian McCaffrey going to do it without Brock Purdy?

Well, Brock Purdy couldn't do it without him. I don't know, man. There's a lot of pieces on the 49er. It's hard.

It's hard to distinguish. Well, Trent Williams is the MVP. Right.

Exactly. I mean, I don't think if you're Kevin Clark and I did a draft on his podcast of like last week of like like Niners, you would take an order and it's like Trent Williams is one and then Dick Post is two and then maybe some more like maybe Fred Warner. I'd say there's a lot of that's that's why the 49ers. I mean, I'm not sure what they're I need to look what their odds are to win the Super Bowl, but I wouldn't be opposed to plus 225.

I wouldn't be opposed. I mean, like that's not a bad number per se. They're just the best team in football. They are. And they're the best. They're the best team in football by think by a wide margin. They have everything.

They check every single box. I think Purdy is very good. I think Cam Newton's ultimately right. He's not a game changer. He doesn't have to be. Okay, so I think he operates an offense. Literally like literally was I was on had like two things going on my computer at once where I was like talking to I was like get I was like about to come on here and I was also like wrapping up with Dave Damaschek.

That's how poorly scheduled I did today. But Shaq had a good point. He he's like, let's get rid of game manager. And we'll stick with the gunplay role and we'll call him assassins.

Because I think that's like if you brought parties in assassin. That's a good description of what Brock Purdy does. He's incredibly accurate. He is a slit like game manager is so pejorative and you hear it and it thinks and Camden didn't mean it. I mean, he what and like I made this point was Shaq to is like look, Camden in 2015. Didn't he didn't have Trent Williams, or do you know, or Christian McCaffrey McCaffrey wasn't there yet. He had Ted Ginn Jr. Do who's was running was D'Angelo. So the running back D'Angelo and Jonathan Stewart, he had Greg Olson at tight end. He had he had good players. He had good players and Mike Schuler calling the players where you drop back six, seven steps every time hope to God someone got open in the takeoff running if he couldn't hit Greg Olson, if he didn't get on a go round or Greg Olson on a deep out route. He was just taking off running a bully through everybody.

And like to his point, he's not wrong. He's a game changer. He was took over that season. Brock Purdy can't do that. But Brock Purdy is not a gunslinger or a game changer or whatever you want to call it a game changer game manager gunslinger assassin. Brock Purdy is operating in the context of this system.

And I've been saying this since what week was like, this is what Brock Purdy is going to do. He's going to play well inside the confines of the system. He's going to operate the system with a high degree of professionalism and accuracy and intelligence. He's going to make quick he's going to make quick decisions quickly. And he's going to get rid of the ball.

He's throwing the ball deep and he's averaging 9.9 yards per pass attempt. He's awesome. I love Brock Purdy. My only question is will they pay him when it comes time to pay him because he is not a game changer. I agree.

I think they will. I've heard people say that they believe they're going to let him go and just go to the next guy because Kyle Shanahan has proven that he can win with just guys. I think Brock Purdy is better than that.

Let me we only have a couple of more minutes here because we have a bunch of things going on today. So let me ask you this all the commits to the NC State Wolfpack. The Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers went to Green Bay in one, which I don't know right now is a great feat but the Buccaneers went on the road and won Cleveland Beach, Chicago for rallying from I don't know, two touchdowns down late to do apparently Joe Flacco is a lead again, which of those two 12 to me those seem like similar results to me. These are teams that didn't necessarily come out of nowhere because the Browns have been pretty good all year.

I put I don't know why I put them in the same category, but thumbnail these two wins. Joe Flacco is elite. Stop it. That's a hotter thing than the bills are going to win Champions League sure.

Okay, there's like a not and I talked about this in the pictures podcast. I won't dive into the full thing, but it's basically like Browns went out and like the Ravens sort of stumble like the Ravens lose the Niners and then lose the Dolphins like there's not a not possible path with the Browns hit the one seed. Are you sure you want to play Joe Flacco in January? Yeah.

Yes a hundred times in a row. The Bears are terrible. The Browns are good. I didn't say the Browns weren't good, but the Bears are terrible. I bears have been pretty good the last couple weeks, right? And then as far as the Buccaneers in the Packers here, I'm just saying I'm just saying look Joe Flacco in 2012 completed less than 60% of his passes had like 3500 passing yards. I don't know 22 touchdowns and like 14 or like 10 picks or something very pedestrian numbers got to the playoffs blacked out had an all-time heater and won a Super Bowl.

I wouldn't want to play Joe Flacco in the months. It's that was 11 years ago. 11 years ago.

I'm well, that's not dead. No, you're still doing a great job. Here 11 years certainly am not perfectly adequate.

Yeah. I mean, I've said I've been at CBS for 11 years. I'm like, I'm sure the ground will know her CBS things are still got the same upside as I've been 11 years ago. I think I had this conversation about Joe Flacco 11 years ago and I probably didn't I probably didn't believe him then on the on the Buccaneers and Packers and the Packers are a wild ride. They still got a decent dance to get into the playoffs because we've you know, because they got the Panthers on their schedule. Shout out to the Panthers for a win.

Whoo. Way to go doesn't really incredible. Yeah, I know Baker Mayfield was awesome in that Packers game. He grew the ball all over the place was slinging it. They've I think the Buccaneers are I think the Buccaneers are the clear favorite Dave canal is doing a great job with that offense. Yeah, I sort of thought that Todd balls would really stifle it up and that they but they feed Rashad white Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are elite receivers Baker when he's protected plays really well and it's like they're just so much better than the rest of the NFC teams.

I was actually shocked the Saints, you know, manhandled the Giants. I know the time Tommy DeVito isn't very good, but the Saints are not inspiring one great game and he lives in with his mom and she does his laundry and eats chicken cutlets. So now Tommy cutlets with an agent with a hat three sizes too small becomes this folk hero. But if you look at his game, he's been bad if Tommy DeVito played for like the like the Buccaneers and be like get this Italian clown out of here is fun is a great store. I hope he has a long career as a backup would talk with Tommy DeVito have with Tommy to beat him have raised his price from 10 if he let's say he played for the imaginary Raleigh football team in the NFL. What do you have raised his price?

You see the way he raises price from if you're signing photographs of the media's photographs of the media's would he bump it from 10 to 20 grand and would there be a revolt like I mean, my God, what is this twist 20 grand tweeting Darren 20 grand to sign autographs. That's fantastic. Will Brinson senior NFL writer CVS sports.com pixig podcast moderator. I'll probably talk to you offline. But for the for the benefit of the show Merry Christmas. Happy New Year, and I will talk to you on January 2nd. Good Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays and talk to you in 2024 next year next year.

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