Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1 800 Contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast! And breathe. Oh, sorry.
I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry, Namaste. Visit one eight hundred contacts dot com today to save on your first order. One eight hundred contacts. Hey, what's cracking?
Welcome to the jungle. My name is Jim Rome. An awesome Monday to you. Hope you had a great weekend. Nice to have you here.
Program brought to you by FanDuel. Always, my appreciation to our pals at FanDuel for helping us make this happen. What's going on? Nice to see you. How come I can't see me?
What's going on, program? Uh oh. Uh oh. Y'all. Y'all gotta let me know.
All right, so we are efforting to fix something that I am only now finding out about. Welcome to Monday. What's going on? All right, good show for you, nonetheless. One way or another, that's the beauty of having multiple platforms.
You can find us somewhere. We are on terrestrial radio. We are on satellite radio. We will be back on video. I don't know about X.
Are we there? Anyway, telephone number is toll free one eight zero zero six three six eight six eight six. You can find me on X still at Jim Rome. You can email me at Rome R O M E at have a take dot com. And I will let you know when YouTube is back.
It will be back shortly. All right, coming up today, coming up at twelve forty specifically. I've got a senior NFL reporter for SI, Albert Breer. Comes on the program. Then looking ahead to hour number three, we'll talk some college ball, little pro ball too.
Aaron Taylor, CBS Sports college football analyst, will be joining us at that point.
So what I want to do is try to get you involved. All right, get in on one of these platforms. You can email us, you can call us, you can hit us up when YouTube is back up. You know you can jump at the chat. Just find a way to get in.
It was a wild, wild weekend, and I want to get your thoughts on it.
So do it. Call one eight zero zero six three six eight six eight six. Typically on a Monday, I go to an NFL whip. This Monday would be no different in that regard.
Now you know I don't want to start the week on a negative note. Never want to do that. This week, however, it is necessary because there is some negativity, there is some ugliness that needs to be addressed. Because while you can't make your season in week four, you can definitely break your season. You can't win a Lombardi in week four, but you can certainly lose one in week four.
Which brings me to incredibly. The Texans and the Chargers, aka the two most disappointing disasters in the NFL this year, and you know I hate saying that. I don't want to say the Texans are dead and buried and on the wrong side of the dirt already, but that's probably just because I don't want to say it. Yes, there is enough talent on this team to turn the season around. But unfortunately for Houston, that talent is not showing up.
You would never know the Texans had all that talent on defense from watching the Texans' defense. That's obviously a massive problem. Look, I know they've got problems on the offensive line. I know they have problems running the football. I didn't know they had problems defensively.
That's the issue. The Chargers, on the other hand, You go ahead and feel free to jam a fork in these dudes. Feel free to leave these dudes for dead on the side of the road, bleeding out, because that's exactly where they already are right now.
So, who is the more disappointing team? Hate to say it, but obviously the Texans. You see, the Chargers were supposed to take a big step, maybe even win a playoff playoff game. For them, that would be a big step. The Texans, though, was supposed to contend for Lombardi.
Period. And the most disappointing thing about the most disappointing team in the league is, it's not the alleged weak link of the team that's pulling everybody down. It is the alleged strength of that team. C.J. Stroud has actually been playing just fine.
Actually, playing pretty well. More than good enough to win games. It's the Houston defense, on the other hand, that has been trash, and that's what I don't understand because it doesn't make any sense. Yo, Texans!
Somebody might want to cover Ceedee Lamb because I feel like this dude is still out there catching balls all over the field. What the hell happened to the Houston secondary? How messed up do you have to be to make the Cowboys actually look like the gaudy greatest offense there is? I mean, I really don't get it. All the main pieces are still there.
All the main pieces from last year. Will Anderson looks even better than last year, and yet the unit as a whole has completely regressed. How? And again, I want to be very clear about this. You really can't blame the quarterback.
As much as you want to, it's not C.J. Stroud's fault. As D'Amico Ryan said after the game, the offense put up thirty. It's not on them. The offense is far from perfect, but the defense is what's killing them right now.
You can't even really blame Stroud for his goofy iPhone analogy after the game, because even he admits that wasn't his. He ripped it from Ryan Day. Got to find new ways. Like I remember in college, Coach Day used to always say, "You know, you have to be an iPhone. You have to upgrade every year.
You know, you got to upgrade. You know, whatever that looks like from." Personnel to plays to execution everything gotta rise up. You know it doesn't matter what happened the previous year. Doesn't matter accolades the hate the whatever on both sides. You have to be able to flush it because that's our job.
You know this is a new year. We got to be able to you know get ourselves out of this hole and we're the only ones who can do it and we're all we got. You know nobody's coming to save us.
Well, you know me and the reinvention project. I sell that all the time. Nobody is coming to save you. Nobody is coming to save you. As far as that goofy iPhone analogy, Ryan Day, way to relate to your players with some phone analogy.
But he's right. Nobody says the same. I mean, there is like eight cliches that bounce around the world of sports, and everybody says them and says them in a little bit different manner. Nobody is coming to save you. Nobody says the same.
You either get better or you get worse. Evolve or die. You know, we know all these things. That's essentially what he said. But they're 0 and 4.
Hey, there's one more scoreboard. 0 and 4. Here is the thing: the problem isn't even that the team didn't upgrade for the season. The problem is Houston's defense somehow has downgraded. If the defense just maintained where they were last season, there's no chance this team would be 0 and 4.
Even if they typically start slowly, there is no way this team is zero to four if they play defense the way they played last year. Except the defense somehow is now on the downgrade list, and it suddenly looks like a lost season in Houston by October fifth. I never would have seen that coming. I mean, the Texans' secondary was torched so badly yesterday; it looked like the Lions' secondary. And at least the Lions have an excuse—they have no players.
Neither team can cover anybody, but the Texans were supposed to have the best cornerbacks in the league.
So when it comes to the Lions and that mess last night, it's funny. Because I've been pretty adamant that Detroit's Super Bowl window has been slammed shut, nailed shut, painted over. You know, Detroit wants to believe. No, our window's still open, and it's more than cracked open. It's still open.
No, it's not. It has slammed shut, but now I realize maybe I had been a little bit off in that regard. It's not that Detroit's Super Bowl window has been slammed shut. It looks like their entire playoff window has been slammed shut. At least if they're going to keep playing defense the way they are right now, no team has allowed more points or more yards so far than the Lions.
So the fact that they have the number three passing offense and the number five scoring offense means nothing because Detroit has to essentially score every single offense possession to win the game. They've got to score every time they get it to win games. It's not about Ben Johnson being gone. It's about the fact that Detroit cannot stop anybody. The Lions made Bryce Young look like prime Joe Montana last night.
So the classic question returns: Was Bryce that good, or were the Lions just that bad? And as always, yes. Although Bryce Young is clearly making impressive strides, and I'm not denying that, Bryce is throwing dimes over the top. Bryce is coming through in the clutch. Bryce has come a long way from that middle school backpack pick.
Just ask the Lions' defense, because that middle schooler set the Lions' defense on fire last night. But hey. At least nobody has to worry about any coaching changes in Detroit, according to Dan Cannibal. Bite a kneecap. The same apparently can be said about the Chargers.
Back to them, their own four, according to Jim Harbaugh. The Lions' DC is safe, and the Chargers' OC is safe. Even if their units are the biggest disasters in the NFL right now, in the case of the Chargers, I actually think we're watching one of the worst offensive coaching performances in NFL history. I mean, honestly, that bad. Yes, McVay, it is that bad, bro.
Mike McDaniel, Jim Harbaugh did not bring you here to turn his beloved QB into Will Levis. But you've damn near managed to do that in four weeks. Harbaugh obviously deserves plenty of the blame too. First of all, he hired McVay, and it's not just McVay's offense. The entire team looks poorly prepared every single week, and I've never seen that from a Jim Harbaugh team before.
But it goes a long way to explain why Harbaugh is now riding a seven-game losing streak. And dude, you can give it up already. And you can please stop with the glazing of Herbert and defending Herbert. No matter how bad things get, Harbaugh really said the following after the game yesterday, and I quote: "One of the grittiest performances I've ever been associated with from a quarterback." There is no player I've ever coached that I respect more. End quote.
Dude, honestly, that's what we're going with now. The guy threw a pick on the first play of the game. He fumbled on the last play of the game. But you respect that dude more than anyone. Because he's so gritty, not just so gritty, actually, but the grittiest performance you have ever been associated with.
What is with all this nonsensical hyperbole? Why is everyone and everything you ever see or do the greatest thing in the history of mankind, Jim? You call it the grittiest performance ever. I would call it one of the greatest regressions ever. Just like I call your smackoff performance the worst smackoff call ever.
Tell that clone to get a life. I mean, dude, what are we doing here?
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the head coaching spectrum, you've got Sean McVay and the Rams.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and say the Rams are the undefeated, unbeatable, unstoppable juggernaut that we all thought they'd be. And Sean had one of his best viral moments ever when he called that sideline meeting with the offense that flipped the game and may have saved their season. And it shows just how much of a genius Sean really is. Or did it? Look, I know he runs the offense.
I know he calls the plays. I know he would be the one to circle everybody together and bring them together. And did do a great job in the second half yesterday. And that meeting was at the perfect time. And I'm sure his messaging was great; it always is.
But the Rams came back and they won that game as much as anything because the Eagles are a dysfunctional mess and they cannot move the ball an inch on offense. Not trying to take anything away from the Rams, but the Eagles were o for twelve on third down yesterday. They had their lowest offense. Of total yards in a game in twelve years, sixty-eight net passing yards was their lowest in a game in twenty-three years. And I don't want to hear who the Eagles don't have or who they do have because the Rams were without Miles Garrett and Aaron Donald, and Philadelphia still couldn't move the ball at all.
But you know who they did have? Let's say who Philadelphia did have. Jalen Hurts, and the only reason Hurts' regression isn't the biggest story in the NFL right now is because Justin Herbert exists. But you could easily make the argument that Hurts has fallen further than Herbert because Herbert has never been anywhere near a Super Bowl. Hell, he's never won a playoff game, let alone played in two Super Bowls, let alone one MVP in one of the Super Bowls.
The Rams did what they had to do to keep their season alive and get the hell out of Philly with a dub.
So credit for that, but it definitely helped them that the Eagles were ass yet again. And that this Jalen Hurts looks nothing at all like Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts. Nothing about the current Eagles looks anything like the team that lifted the Lombardi a year and a half ago. And Philly fan would be the very first to tell you all about that. Coach doesn't kick a field goal.
Bad coaching again. Sirianni blew the game again for the for the onmost times. We couldn't be up one point, up two points. Nick Sirianni. Nick, I'm sorry, Nick Sirianni, gotta go.
Nicking it, Nicking it. Nick is cute. He's angry. He can scream, but he doesn't. He doesn't make the team come out of halftime and be the team.
What's happening at halftime? While some fans walked out saying they were going to sell their season tickets, others said they'll still bleed green during good times and really bad. You know what? End of the day, go birds. Philly fan, hey man, Nick, Nick's cute.
Nick's angry. Nick can't coach. I mean, is that all still cute? They're two and two right now, but given how they won those two games. Let's go back to how they won those two games.
They could just as easily be sitting in the same gutter with the Chargers and Texans at zero and four. Man, they are so lucky they're two and two. They could so easily, just as easily, be zero and four.
So, is that still cute? Anyway, another crazy weekend in the NFL. No way I could cover all of that in one single whip.
So you know, there's more of that still to come, and the ref show. The ref show is always out of control, always, always out of control. But now the ref show is f-bombing players. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway, ref show? I'm not even going to give them a whole take, but we'll get into that.
I've got a lot of college football I want to get into. I've got a lot of baseball I want to get into. I've got more NFL I want to get into. I've got some technology I need to get into, and more.
So hit me up. Telephone number is one eight zero zero six three six eight six eight six. Welcome to your most rewarding season ever. Only on FanDuel. How rewarding are we talking?
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Call one eight seven seven eight HopeNY. Text HopeNY New York. Call one eight seven seven seven eight six seven Louisiana. You're listening to the Jim Rome Show. Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800 Contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast! And breathe. Oh, sorry.
I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit. One eight hundred contacts dot com today to save on your first order.
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Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait?
Ask your Doctor, visit Botox Chronic Migraine dot com or call one eight hundred four four Botox to learn more. Welcome back. Your reaction to whatever it is. Go ahead, hit me up. I'm here for it.
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The map. All right, some early reaction. Let's see what we got here. At Arlasko, give me back my show. Give me back my show, dude.
I hear you. I hear you. Totally fair, and I hear you. Nothing would make me happier than to give you back your show. Give me back my.
Man, you know these people are. You know the terrorists are. They get the show and they start making demands. I'm gonna have to go, Mel Gibson, Gibson, and just get furious with it. Go get my show back.
Give me back my son. Right? Right, Albie. Give me back my show. Give me back my show.
Give me back my son. All right.
Well, the fact of the matter is, there's still a lot of show. We're still on all of our radio stations. We're still on terrestrial radio. We're still on satellite radio, and we will work to fix the other. We are working to fix the other.
Eric on the South Side, you're listening, but you're not watching the Jim Rome Show.
Southern California, you're listening, but you're not watching the Jim Rome Show. Signed, David Lee from. I'm not making light of it. Believe me, I'm not happy about it, but all I can do, I'm not, and I'm not laughing at it. I'm trying to fix it.
It's just a reminder we are running. I have no excuses. I didn't want to tell you what I was going to tell you. Nobody cares what we're running out of this little hut that we broadcast from. I get it.
Stucknut, the video feed is great. But you ever have you ever tried doing the show without video? Regards the unfocused group. It's stuck, nut. You just keep doing your job, yo.
You keep doing your job, yo. Even without the video, you were doing your job long before there was video, nut. Nut, don't be coming at me like, hey, man, no video, no help. Find somebody else, Jimothy. I'm fully convinced that NTC and Sean Penderfan.
Sabotaged your YouTube feed to cover the asses of their fraudulent Texans. That's not a real defense. A real defense resides in Skull Nation. How about our Vikings, Viking Jim? How about your Vikings, Vikings?
Go ahead, Rome, and crown our team the best four and O team in the Shield. V in the fee. Hey V, I'm not doing that. I will crown our four and O team is the most surprising four and O team I've ever seen in my life. I mean, I get Brian Flores, but how the hell is your team four and O?
Notice I didn't say our. How the hell is your team four and O? Crowned her ass. How the hell are the Vikings four and O? Honestly.
Adrian, and by the way, NTC, NTC did not sabotage the YouTube feed. NTC is fully accountable, fully responsible. His eyes are wide ass open. He's not hiding from anything. He's doing whatever he can.
He's like us. He's like us. We're doing whatever we can to fix this thing as quickly as we possibly can. Maybe I need. You know, it's kind of like you know what it's like.
It's like an iPhone. You have to upgrade every single year. You have to upgrade the iOS. At this photograph, hey Jim, I totally understand Strauss' phone analogy. Signed Kenny Smith.
Road trip. When you buy snacks, and he buys the gas, or he pays for the rental car, or whatever. Man, you drove from LA to. Hey YouTube, what's popping? I'm back.
Hey. At the end of the day, I drove more than you did, so we're gonna negotiate how much each of us get. I think I deserve sixty dollars. You deserve forty. I put the gas in.
What happened?
So both sides feel that their part. Ken, you're lucky that we're celebrating your return on YouTube. Nobody's hearing what you were saying. Back in the day, that made no sense. It's more important than driving the car.
Anyway, you know it's more important than driving the car. Us being back on YouTube. Hey, chat. Hey, chat. I know that was probably the 30 hardest, hardest minutes of your life.
Welcome back. I know that was probably the most challenging half hour of your entire life, chat. You not being able to see you. You not being able to be you. I know there is some st, yeah, that I know that was hard, chat, but we're back.
It's fine, it's good. Until the next time it happens, Joseph Vorhees three. Tell Crying Ryan that you don't have to upgrade a Samsung every year. Not going there. We're not having that conversation.
The Android v. Apple conversation. Eric O eight one one. It is time to roll heads in Houston. The team may be talented, but you cannot call yourself a Super Bowl contender and start zero and two, zero and three, zero and four every year.
D'Amico, the coaching staff, and yes, even the NTC deserves scrutiny. Oh no! This is going to be scrutiny. Don't think that they're not looking hard at this. Don't think that there's not scrutiny.
Now, where does that scrutiny stand? Where does it go? Where are they looking at everything? Trust me, everything. How can a team that talented be zero and four?
Why were there some issues that were addressed and some that were not? Why are they having trouble up front? Why can they not run the football? Why can the defense not get off the field? We were talking about the best defense in the NFL coming into this season, and for once, you can't blame it on C.J.
Stroud.
So, if you want to cut right to the chase, if you're asking me, when you say scrutiny, are you saying whose heads going to roll? Whose job is in jeopardy? Who's going to lose their job if this team doesn't make the playoffs, or if this team is a 500 team? How does a team that is a Super Bowl favorite start 0 and 4 the year after they start 0 and 3? Look, I get it.
I know why you're angry. I know why you want answers. But I can tell you this right now: they're not firing Demikol Ryan's. Dumiko is not getting fired. Not this year.
Even if they have one really bad year, he's not. The guy is a franchise icon. He played there. They love him.
Now, granted, you as fans may not love him as much as you did previously, but he's very, very well thought of within the organization. I know for fact Nick loves him. Nick loves Dumiko. And they are zero and four. They're not zero and twelve.
Now I'm not saying that any zero and four team has ever made any great run. I'm not going to sit here and say relax. They're going to get turned around. I'm not sure they are. And just as I'm not sure how Seedy Lamb, as good as he is, caught seventeen passes yesterday, so it is bad.
And it's really disappointing, and that they are—I hate to say it—about my guy and his team. They're the most disappointing team in the NFL. They are. I've been saying it's the Chargers, but as I mentioned, Houston was supposed to be a Super Bowl team. The Chargers have not won a playoff game with Justin Herbert.
Houston is more disappointing. But if you're looking for it to cost D'Amico his job, that's not happening. If you're looking for them to fire the NTC, that's not happening. That they just need to stop the bleeding stat, and then you know what they do have to do. They're going to have to make a decision on CJ Stroud.
And again, it's not his fault. He's playing well. Can't put this on the quarterback. All right.
When we come back. Hey YouTube, Chad. What's up, Chad? Nice to have you back. Can't say that I missed you for those thirty minutes, but you are back.
Welcome home. Albert Breer joins us when we come back. You're listening to the Jim Rome Show. Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800 Contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast! And breathe. Oh, sorry.
I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800Contacts.com today to save on your first order. One eight hundred contacts.
Chronic migraine is fifteen or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with fourteen or fewer headache days a month. It prevents, on average, eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor.
Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing. Speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache.
Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor.
Visit Botox Chronic Migraine dot com or call one eight hundred four four Botox to learn more. All right, so that is true, but all systems are go. We are on Westwood One. We are on Sirius XM. We are back on our YouTube channel, and we're on our Room TV channel, which has eight different platforms.
So all systems are go. As promised, we are joined right now by a senior NFL reporter and a lead content strategist for Sports Illustrated. He has covered the NFL since two thousand five. He is a Contributor to Patriots pregame live on NBC Sports Boston. He's an NFL insider for ninety eight point five the Sports Hub Radio in Boston.
He is Albert Breer. Albert, really good to talk to you. Great to have you on the show. How you doing?
Now, thanks for having me, Jim. I appreciate it. I appreciate you making time. Thank you very much, Albert. If you don't mind, why don't we start in the NFC?
I want to ask you about the 49ers. George Kittle turns a short pass from Brock Purdy into a 56-yard score, and that seals the 49ers' win over the Broncos. While Denver's secondary, Albert, was pretty banged up, does Brock Purdy look to you like the MVP through the first month of the season? I mean, he's definitely in there, and you know I think you have to look at like what the Niners have been through from an injury standpoint over the course the first month of the season. They got Kittle coming off an Achilles.
Nick Bosa obviously hasn't played much, you know, at all. No Ricky Pearsall. No Deson Stripling, who they'd expected to contribute as a rookie. Mike Evans got banged up, and I think that was like the big question with Purdy when you sign him to that deal at fifty-five million dollars per year. It was, you know, you.
We know we can you can win with them, but can you win because of them? And I think we've seen a little bit more of that over the course the first month of the season. And that's probably the best thing about the Niners to through four weeks is that they've shown they can win different ways. You know they they they played a physical game against the Rams in Australia and won that in the back of Christian McCaffrey. They come back the next week and Purdy's the best player on the field.
You know, and they've been able to kind of scratch through these injuries and oftentimes and rightfully.
So, when things are crumbling around the quarterback, the quarterback gets a lot of credit for for a team winning. You know that question or that point made is very interesting. If we were to relate that to Jalen Hurts a couple of years ago, we would not have posed that question. But right now, if you were to pose that same question about Jalen Hurts you you can can you win with him, but can you win because of him? How would you answer that?
Yeah, I think it's an interesting question because he's obviously had some pretty favorable rosters around him.
Now you can question the the staffs that that have coached him and and some of the fits and starts they've had in hiring offensive coordinators. But you know this is one of those years where it looks like the Eagles are going to need their quarterback to lift them up. No AJ Brown now, Devontae Smith banged up. The offensive line does not look like. It's at the level that it's been over the course of the last decade and a half.
With you know, and Dickerson now down, he wasn't playing well when he was in there in the first place. The tackles are getting older. Lane Johnson didn't play on Sunday, you know. And and and so this is one of those years with a new offensive coordinator coming in, with you know, age and attrition starting to hit the offensive line with a remade receiver group. You need the quarterback to give you a little bit more, and they needed the quarterback to give.
A little more yesterday to close out the Rams and weren't able to do it. Albert Breer joining us on the program.
So just jumping around, Albert, you know the Patriots as well as anybody. How badly did they need that win in Buffalo, and then how far will that go to calm the collective nerves in the region about Drake May? Yeah, it was interesting because I think you know a lot of the a lot of the questioning of of Drake May over the course the last three or four weeks is really I think the product of the natural progression of growing up and playing that position in the pros. You know, it's just I think what Drake went through was a little more stark to everybody on the outside because of the circumstances. The schedule was historically light last year, and he had a new offensive.
Coordinator coming in, who's really, really good, and also hadn't worked with the type of quarterback that he is before, as a bigger, more athletic type of guy. And so, I think they were playing with an edge for the entire regular season last year. Then they get in the playoffs, better defensive coordinators, better defensive personnel, and they hit bumps. Drake started to turn the ball over, and then early in the year this year, I think you've seen defensive coaches use the same sort of Playbook to to to to get to Drake, and it's defending over the top, not letting him beat you deep. You know, a lot of too high safety, quarter quarter half type looks, mixing pressures, and not letting him outside the pocket.
And so, you know, with that idea that that that this book has been written with the off season, the Patriots went through with some of the injuries they had early on, which you know goes against the great injury luck they had last year. It was fair to ask some big picture questions, and there were a lot. Big picture questions asked.
So to be able to go into Buffalo and not only win, but win in a two-minute situation with Drake making a play at the end to to win the game to a receiver that very few people have ever heard of, I think can be you know a really good confidence builder for them going forward, and at the very least, stem the tide of the negative momentum. Albert Breer joining us.
So Albert, where does that leave Buffalo, and do they look any different, or how different do they look to you? This year than last year.
So like it's interesting because you know I I talked to Joe Brady about this a bunch and yeah I go back to Sean Payton's history. Sean is is Joe's mentor, and you know when Sean was with the Giants as a play caller and then the Cowboys as a play caller, he was actually stripped to play calling in New York. You know and and Bill Parcells used to refer to him as Dennis the Menace in Dallas. There was there was a little bit of a this guy's got all These wild ideas, and and and we need to rein him in a little bit. And then when he got out on his own, we saw what it could really become in New Orleans.
And I think that was the idea here: was that Joe Brady is going to get out on his own now and be able to run his own show, and we are going to see something that's completely different than what we've seen from him as an NFL play caller, either in Carolina or in Buffalo. And I think that's been true to a degree. The question is: does does that need some reining in right now? You know, and and I know. How happy they were, you know, coming out of of the win last week, being able to beat the Chargers despite turning the ball over five times and having ten penalties.
And the hope was, and I talked to Joe about this, was that okay, like you didn't have to incur a loss, and you get all of those lessons. And then they crash the car again this week. You know what I mean? Like so, sometimes players, teams need to go through it to really learn it. And I think all those lessons were there.
For them, when they beat the Chargers, with all the things that went wrong, it just seems like maybe they didn't take some of the lessons that were there for them to learn, and you wind up learning them the hard way and and and messing up a bunch of things against the Patriots. Not the least of which was that heave at the end of the game from Josh. Interesting.
So, Albert, to extend that, how does Sean Payton now see Davis Webb? Is Davis Webb also Dennis the Menace? And then, how short is that leash? Um. I.
You know, I like I the the the the thing that makes me hesitate a little bit here is I know it was a process for Sean Payton to get to the point where he was willing to give up play calling, and it was always going to take somebody that he saw something special and to do it, and he did see that in Davis Webb, and he gave him a trial run last year during the summer in the preseason, and he really thought about it a lot as Davis Webb went through the interview process. And remember, he wasn't just interviewed for the Bills' job and the Raiders' job. There are also teams that are looking to poach him to become the OC. And so, you know, doing what he needed to do to keep him in house meant giving him play calling. And I can tell you, he wouldn't have done that unless he had a real comfort level with it.
So, I think Sean is—he's not going to sacrifice the season in the name of developing Davis Webb as a play caller. But I also think he's going to. Give more than four weeks, so you know they're two and two, and I don't think their season is yet at any sort of critical mass. But if it gets to that point, then then sure, I think those questions will be asked.
Sober, one last thought because you mentioned the charges. I want to get your thoughts on that. Seattle handed them their fourth straight loss. Justin Herbert again did not play well. Much better in the second half, but had a very tough first half.
Given the they're the disappointment that they are, and that schedule is going to get even nastier. What kind of possible or potential in-season changes might be on the table for the Bolts?
Well, I think the one that everybody's looking at is the potential on offense, right? Because on defense, they haven't been great, but you know, I think you had it built in that Chris O'Leary, the new defensive coordinator, taking over for Jesse Minter, who was fantastic, was going to have some growing pains, and you know, I think he's been pretty good on balance based on the fact that this is his first month calling it in the NFL. I think the the expectation, you know, conversely on offense was that you get instant results, and that's. Given how experienced Mike McDaniel is and how much background he's got.
Now the question becomes how that marriage works. The personalities are obviously very different. Both guys, Harbaugh and McDaniel, the foundation of what they do is in the run game, but they go about it very differently. And McDaniel's run game is is more of a finesse, a movement run game. Jim Harbaugh, as you know, Jim, always been downhill gap scheme, power type run game.
So they spent the off season trying to marry those things, and now how do those personalities? The personalities of the two guys match as they try to find ways to fix it. I think they're in on it on McDaniel for the rest of the year, at least, just because I don't think they've got another answer on that staff, that another guy who can run the offense that McDaniel's put in.
However, you know, I think the the questions that we all had about the personalities of the two guys, this is when you find out. You know, you haven't lost any games in April and May. You haven't lost any games in July and August. It's easy to get along then, and everybody's got great ideas then. When you actually hit some bumps, and this is a pretty significant bump, being zero and four, that's when you find out whether or not the personalities really work together.
So, finally, Albert, to that point, do you personally still view Justin Herbert as an elite NFL quarterback, or has he taken a step back? Like, how do you view him at this point? I think he was in a pretty impossible situation yesterday and did a good job with it to come back and look. Like I don't think he played well at the beginning of that game, but you know the injuries in the offensive line, the receivers haven't developed on the outside. I don't think the offense is working right now, and he took a beating.
I mean, he took a couple shots that I personally thought had a you know we're going to take him out of the game, and then you look up and there he is back in the huddle.
So. Like I don't know that I would be too critical of him for yesterday because a million things went right, but I do think it's fair to ask, you know, whether or not people have have overrated him to a degree.
Now that said, I just caution everybody with this: when I talk to NFL people, the way they talk about Justin Herbert reminds me a lot of the way that people spoke about Matthew Stafford when he was in Detroit, in that. I think people in the league always had a higher opinion of Matthew Stafford than people on the outside did when he was getting killed by everybody. And then he goes to the Rams, and we see what he can become, right? What he could become, and what he what what he actually probably always was in Detroit, and that's sort of the way that. People talk about Herbert inside the league.
You don't hear the same criticism you hear on the outside. I think if he were ever to become available by trade, there would be a line of teams out the door looking to looking to acquire him. And that's the one thing that gives me pause: is the people that really know what they're talking about feel the same way about Justin Herbert that say, you know, teams would have felt about Matthew Stafford in Detroit in 2015. He is a senior NFL reporter and a lead content strategist for Sports Illustrated and a contributor to Patriots Pregame Live on NBC Sports Boston and NFL Insider for ninety eight point five the Sports Hub Radio in Boston. He is Albert Brewer.
Albert, appreciate that so much. Great job. Really good to see you. All right, thanks, Jim. Me too.
Albert Breer joining us.
All right, there's hour number one. Really good content in that. Your reaction to any of that, and we set up a wide open hour number two. You have the phones. You know where to find me on social media.
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