Transcript of 2024 Week 6 Preview from London

Welcome to NFL Daily, presented by DraftKings Sportsbook, where we don't know if we did or didn't raw dog on the flight. Over here, I am Greg Rosenthal at the Greenwood Sports Club here in London. And yes, it's a Chicago Bear's bar in the middle of London. And Nate and I asked me a question before the show. I'm here Nat Cooms and Ollie Connolly, two of my favorite voices over in the UK talking American football, as you guys would call it. And you asked me a question I didn't know the answer to, Nat.

We got to put the context of the raw dog reference within the first five seconds of the show. We got to give that context. So as Ollie, as you back me up here, pretty standard question. Greg, how was the flight? Did you raw dog on the flight?

I mean, I know what raw dog means, but not in the context of a flight. What does that mean? Not having... What do you think raw dog means? Well, I know what it means, but in the context of a flight, what not having a drink or something else to help you along the way.

That's the part of it. Yeah, it's extreme. There's no in-flight movies. There's no nothing. You're just staring, meditating. You're allowed to go to the bathroom?

I'm not sure if that's-I'm not quite sure. I think you're supposed to just sit in a Zen-like state for as long as the flight, you can't move, you can't talk, you can't do anything.

Which is actually how I prepared for this show.

No, I did not raw dog. I did not have any drinks, but I did crank through a decent amount of Love is Blind Season 7 or whatever we're on. Yeah, three episodes. I did some prep for this show because I knew I had to keep up with you guys. Nat Cooms, of course, is the announcing on Talk Sport Radio. He's got his own podcast, the Nat Cooms podcast. You got to check it out. And Ollie Connolly is getting it done on the Read Optional podcast. He's finally gotten rid of worrying about soccer, and he's focused on the most important football. And yeah, you're doing that podcast twice a week with John Ledyard, and it is absolutely great. If we can do one thing here, it's getting people to check out the Nat Coombs podcast and sign up for the read optional podcast.

I love this Plug Central. I want to put in context for all your American listeners, Ollie and I. So Ollie is one of the most prominent Xs and O's guys in the game. I mean, I'd say globally, but definitely in the UK. He's like an MIT professor. I'm like the fourth grade high school teacher that comes into school, takes roll call, and then puts on a movie for 45 for the rest of us.

That's not true. But we will be cranking through all the games. And yes, Nat, you do have a way with presenting. I met Nat and Will Gavin, who's going to be on the show on Sunday with me and Ollie. I think it was about eight years ago, covering a Rams Giants game. Back, NFL media actually paid for me to come out and write about the game, which is hard to imagine them doing now. That was Cace Keenum's last start. A great Cace Keenum. An LA Ram. I remember asking the question to Jeff Fisher, would he be benching them after the game? He said no, and then two days later, he did. The Jared Goff era started in Los Angeles. We will get to every game. We're basically doing the same preview show that we do each and every week. We'll get to the game at Tottenham in a little bit, but we go through the games in reverse order of the point spread. The closest point spreads first. We will start with one of my favorite topics these days, the New York Jets, the Buffalo Bill's going to New York, two and a half point underdogs.

Ali, you're one of the foremost Nathaniel Hackett defenders in the media. Don't put that on me. Explain why.

I'm not a defender. I would like the criticism to be accurate. I think there's a sense out there, and I read this everywhere, and I've seen this on TV, and people I really respect saying that the Jets run a prehistoric offense, or they're running Aaron Rodgers offense from 10 years ago, and it's just factually inaccurate. They have tried to do plenty of They've run basically the core elements of the Matla floor offense. When you just go through number by number of what they're running, it is identical to what they did in the second MVP season together in Green Bay. The only one that's slightly different is the motion rate. Well, if the guy hates motion, maybe you don't want to run it at such a high level, but it's a normal-ish level and is higher than the commanders who are clubbing everyone over the Edna League right now. I'm not critical of the architecture of the offense. I think Nathaniel Akeit has done a terrible job. I think that the The mechanics and the details of the offense are really poor. He's always been a bad play caller, but the actual design of the offense is pretty standard and fine.

They run a lot of the stuff everyone else runs.

It's quite a big drawback if you're an offensive caller and you're a bad play caller.

Right. So they are running a lot of the cool stuff that other people run. Before we started, I got to look at your computer and you're out there diagramming plays by yourself, writing it all down, that they're doing some of the same stuff that McVay and Lafleur does. It just doesn't look as good when it's maybe not sequenced as well. Or if Aaron Rodgers, maybe that's not the right offense for him because when it's worked this year, and I think Aaron Rodgers has thrown the ball quite well, when he's just sitting there and ripping the ball. He's still a very talented thrower of the ball. Overall, if you add it all up, I would say he's still an above-average starting quarterback, certainly. I was worried about him coming off the Achilles in everything. It just doesn't all work together very well. And he clearly could have defended his guy, Robert Salah, who he says he has a great relationship with. But if you had a great relationship with him, you could have told your owner during that conversation how much you believe in him. And I have to believe that that did not happen.

When you think about quarterbacks and decline, I always remember the old Hemingway line, how did he go broke gradually then suddenly, right? That doesn't appear to be happening. With Rodgers, to your point, there are flashes moments, passages of a game where you think, oh, yeah, he's going to have a season the ages. The Patriots game springs to mind, and I know it's the Patriots, but you think, Okay, this is all rolling. He's zipping it. He's moving. It's working. And then you see the dysfunction that we saw on Sunday, the whole Salah situation. I heard you guys cover it brilliantly on your show earlier this week. My favorite part of all of that was the Woody Johnson line that he talked to Aaron Rodgers about it, and Salah didn't come up in conversation. We believe that.

But even if you do, I believe it, but even that is... Aaron Rodgers is saying on the McAfee show, people think I have a lot more power than I actually do. He's a smart guy. There's such a thing as soft power. He knows that not bringing up Robert Selle and not having a full-throated defense. And then in the very same interview, saying, I think our new coach, Jeff Ulbrook, is going to bring accountability in a way that we need in the building and that we need accountability all throughout the roster. That's enough.

Yeah, I may be naive on this, but I really don't believe he had anything to do with it. I just don't think that's the way he operates. I think he's a pretty passive-aggressive guy, and it would come in drips and drabs. Him not mentioning it on a phone call is why you would get to the decision like he's good with it rather than him being the person who would walk into an office, pick up the phone himself and say, Hey, it's time to move on.

But isn't the point Greg's making that the silence speaks volumes and that if Aaron Rodgers is telling Woody Johnson, We need him, he's got to stay, then Salah doesn't go, does he?

No, I think when you just run through what's wrong with them, this season, the number one thing is the offensive line has been terrible. It's been brutal. They can't run the ball. They can't protect, they can't pick anything up in the blitz game. Most of that, to me, falls on the general manager, Joe Douglas. Then you've got the issues with the offense that I'm sure you've detailed a million times between both Rodgers and Hackett and the entire staff. And then you get to the bottom row, and it's Robert Salah in his defense and the culture and leadership of the team, at least in my opinion. Well, only one of those you can really change. Changing the GM midstream changes nothing for your locker room. Rodgers is not going to get bench. He's not going allow Nathaniel Hackett to be fired. We've already heard that he's not going to be out of the building. So the only thing they could pull to try and change things midstream would be to let Salah go.

We've seen it with this ownership group before that you get angry and you make a change, not for change's sake, but just because I need to do something. And unfortunately for Robert Salah, you could look at Ulbrook and think, they can still run this same defense, and maybe it'll just be a little different vibes, and the vibes will help, or it just looks like we're doing something. When you look at this matchup, though, defensively, the Jets going up against this Bill's offense, which I also don't know exactly what to think about right now. How do you think the Jets defensively match up against Josh Allen coming off of this 9-9 for 30 game?

Yeah, I think they match up pretty well. I think the concern would be how well can the Bills run the ball? The Jets are just not built in any way to try and stop the run. The Bills have played really heavy this season, a bunch of heavy personnel, a bunch of extra linemen set. So that would be the concern. Then you get into favorable down and distance. The Bills have been a team that struggled to convert on third downs this year. So that's what they'll be looking at is how well can they move the ball on early downs? Can they get easy completions on first down? Can they move the ball that way? It's just a weird offense in the sense that those first three weeks, every single thing they did felt like it was clicking and moving, and it was all very much about play design and movement and Joe braided and Josh Allen picking the right spots. Now, the next two weeks, you see when it becomes a game of talent and just like, let's play some matchable, that's where I think some of the preseason concerns about the receiver room have been exposed.

Yeah.

James Cook mispracticed on Wednesday. We'll see. I mean, there's a lot that as we're taping this, we'll find out more. Nate Hackett might be losing play calling by the time people hear this, which would be interesting on the other side, I think they're going to be okay. You have a great offensive line on balance, and you have Josh Allen. I think they have a good enough coaching staff that they can make the rest of it work. They shouldn't miss Khalil Shaqir as much as they did last week, but he's probably the guy that Josh Allen trusts the most. When you look at these two teams, the bill's coming off of a pretty rough stretch, too, desperately needing to win. It's similar to me to the Bengals-Ravens matchup last week, where the future of this division is going to feel a lot differently based on how this game goes. The bangles won that game. The Ravens won that game last week, and now they're two games clear of the division. If the Bills win this game on the road, the Jets are in a world at two and four.

That's the crazy thing about the timing of this decision, right? This conceivably, they go into this, they're in a different alternate reality, and Sal is still there, and they're going to win this, and they're in, to your point, they're in relative control, or at least they've got the momentum. They're on the front foot divisionly, so the timing feels incredibly on. I have a super quick question. Yes. You're both on the Jets' ground game.

Please feel comfortable to jump in and be the host here. Just go for it. That's the algorithm. Ask the question.

With the ground game, why is the Jets' ground game so in the evening?

How long do we have? Twenty seconds. Offensive line has been really poor, obviously. They're trying to do an awful lot of things. You go watch the game on Sunday. 19 of their first 22 plays are in a congested tight formation. They're doing the things Matt Lafleur did when Rodgers was really cooking there. The run game was really good when Rodgers was winning those MVPs, and they just can't block anyone. They are using tight ends who just are not rosterable players. It sounds brutal, but it's just the reality. They're doing Mike McDaniel type wineback blocks and really cool creative things that just have no hope of working with the talent they have. They would just, at this point, be better off doing the thing they're being accused of, which is, yes, go and run the Aaron Rodgers off. That is what they've done most of the season, which is burn their first 25 plays, trying to run the offense that Matt Lafleur had back Green Bay. It doesn't work. They hit their head against the wall. They pivot midstream and say, This isn't working. Let's go and run the stuff that Aaron's comfortable with. He picks at the line of scrimmage.

They just drive down the field. That's actually where they've looked at their best, at least for me.

Yeah, I think it's just They give up so much penetration in the running game. The average yards before contact, which there can be some wonkiness in the stats, but it's all backed up when you watch it. There's no room for Brees Hall to run. I've always thought Brees Hall is a little bit overrated as a back because I don't know how much that he creates on his own. He's a very explosive player. But I think if you're in a situation like this where you're not going to get the run blocking, you're going to have a lot of negative plays. They've been more successful when they run it with Braille and Allen because he'll get what's blocked and maybe a yard forward, he'll fall forward. He's a bigger guy, but there's no cohesion. I think that was a really great point by Ollie on the running backs and the tight ends, because now when I just think in my head through the plays that have failed, yeah, their offensive line has been up and down. Tyron Smith has looked older, which makes sense. He is older. He just had that year last year where everyone was like, Wow, Tyron Smith is back, but it's a lot to ask him to be so good.

On the interior, they've been match-up dependent. When you play a good front, they haven't been good. And this is a good front for the most part for Buffalo. I love Buffalo in this game, by the way. A little tease maybe for my show later this week with Neil Reynolds, where we picked the games against the spread. I just think it's a big game for them. I'm really excited to see this. My last quick thing on this, and we can't go this long in each game, but this is the most fascinating game of the week for me, is the Josh Allen conversation from last week. Thinking about this game just from a practical lens, I am concerned that Josh Allen is potentially coming off of a concussion that was not reported. It was crazy to see him come back in that game after what you saw visually and smelling salt. There was also a big hit. He took the week before. I just think it's okay to have some concern here for him as a human and for how that's going to translate to how he's playing on the field because he was one for nine after that massive hit.

I mean, his worst performance as easily ever in his entire career off the back.

But all the incompletions that happened before that, he was playing up and down, but the football was getting to his receiver's hands for the most part, and it's crazy. I think the NFL should be taking a little more heat than they did for that entire thesis, like him and Jaquan Brisker.

I just cannot understand why it has not been a way bigger storyline that it seems pretty evident and pretty obvious, not only from the fact that we see the video of the head hitting the ground, not only that we see the smelling salt and him looking confused, pre-smelling salt and waking up a little bit post-smelling salt, as you would expect. But you mentioned the accuracy. When he's throwing after the hit, it does look like he's trying to pick between the multiple people he's seeing down the field and hoping one of them is the correct guy. So it should be, to me, a way bigger storyline. It's something I'd be concerned about.

And I guess, particularly, when you think about the Tua concussion and the, Oh, his back. It was his back.

Oh, yeah. All you Dolphins fans are up in arms about this. How come they're not treating him the same as the Tua thing? You got a fair point. All right, let's go to Titans, hosting the Colts this week. See, this is where we can save some time. Two and a half points. They're favored. They're coming off the buy week. It does look like it's going to be Will Levis. There is no QB controversy in Tennessee. He is fully practicing, so it seems like he is going to be back out there. Again, this is a little bit of a mystery box because they're not announcing that Levis is officially the starter, but they said if he's healthy, he's going to start, and he did fully practice on Wednesday. We don't know for sure if Anthony Richardson is starting in this game or if it's Joe Flacko. Again, they said if Richardson is fully healthy, he's going to start. I tend to think it's probably going to be Richardson. Jeffrey Simmons is probably back for this game. Quitty Pay and Kenny Moore are probably back for this game, which is crucial because last week the Colts made the Jaguars look so good on offense.

And the Colts are 32nd in the league, dead last in yards per drive allowed. So Gus Bradley has this thing where it's like, yeah, we're going to bend and won't break, and we'll keep things in front of you. And I'm watching the game, and they don't keep things in front of them. It's bending and breaking simultaneously. Right. And they've had a lot of injuries up front and they It's just like an average talent with probably a below average scheme and a lot of injuries. That's rough. It could be a bit of a get-right game for the Titans in their running game in Will Levis.

The Will Levis comeback starts right here. I feel the fellow's partially responsible for Will Levis because week one of the season, we're doing our live radio show on Talk Sport. And Ollie Thornton, who, of course, you both know, Ollie Thornton, who is a long-standing NFL character.

Everyone in the UK American football-It's cool. Society is either Ollie or Will. Ollie or Well.

That's affecting me. He's one of the 11 Olias.

No offense to Ollie Wilson, though, but we got the number one Ollie here. We dropped it. That's Ollie Wilson as well.

This is Ollie Thornton. There's a lot of Ollie. Propo, who is long-standing part of the NFL community over here. I messaged him maybe about 25, 30 minutes into the season. This is now a legendary, something that will be brought up against me for years to come. I think Will Levis is legit, was the message I said. So I personally feel responsible for the decline of Will Levis. On the colds, one of the main narratives, I think, in the last couple of weeks has been, do they have a better chance of making the playoffs with Joe Flacko as opposed to Anthony Richardson? I don't think that matters, right? I mean, is there any point in squeaking into the playoffs and probably going out first round with a vet like Flacko when you got to work out if this is your quarterback of the future, your franchise? I mean, I don't know why that question is being thrown out, why that's even being considered as a strategy?

Well, I think everyone wants to win. It's really high pressure. These guys got mortgages to pay. They got jobs and job ladders they want to climb up. If you have the best chance to win with Joe Flacko, Anthony Richardson has barely played any football. He didn't play much football in high school. He barely played in college. He's had very few starts in the NFL because of injuries. If there's a way you can use a bit of chicanery by saying, Hey, the injury is not totally healed. Take another couple of weeks, particularly in this matchup, because the main thing for the Titans is they can to stop the run really effectively. They actually don't have a really dominant ass rush by any stretch, even though they're really eye up in all the advanced metrics defensively. Their pressure rate is really low. It's concentrated and essentially one player for the most part. Arden Key gets some, but it's mostly Harold Landry. They're cycling We're going to be rolling through seventh-round picks on undrafted free agents who are doing absolutely nothing for them in the pass first. So if you're facing a team you know struggles to get off the ball and has the juice to stop the pass, why would you not put the guy who's way more methodical and can dime it down the field, as opposed to bringing Richson back where It's way more boom or bust.

You're more run game concentrated. It's actually match-up-wise would make more sense for me to just roll with Flacko anyway.

That does make sense. And yet, because of the lack of starts, Richard's in his head, this is the year that you have to get him those starts. You got to get him when you got to know what you got. The chances of making the playoffs with Joe Flacko is, in theory, incrementally better. I don't know if that would actually play out. Even then, I don't think it's especially high if this defense doesn't get any better. Since we last tape, they announced Michael Pitman is going to miss multiple weeks. Josh Downs was out of practice. He finished that game, so I would expect that he's playing. My fantasy pickup of Josh Downs is feeling better every week. Josh Downs can play, although all those guys are probably a little happier when Flack goes back. I watched that It was a Joe Flacko game, too, and it was very similar to last year with the Browns, where you can watch a Joe Flacko game and look at the box score afterwards and be like, Man, through two quarters, through big chunks of Joe Flacko games, he's making some crazy decisions and missing some throws, too. It's not like it's all beautiful with Joe Flacko.

But his great throws are great. And he's not afraid and he's fun to watch.

He plays not afraid. It's almost the point of boredom with him. He just gets the ball out and he looks like he's dulled by the fact that he's completing throws. It's just like, okay, this is what I'm asked to do. Obviously, with Richard, you get the upside. They got to find out what they have, but they got issues up front with the offensive line. He is not a guy who's figuring out the protections and all the mechanics and that stuff. They got a Ryan Kelly injury. They got an injury at right tackle. They got to figure out if that's a goal this week. I think it's difficult to drop someone in when you rip Ryan Kelly out of the lineup, and they do a lot of different things in the protection world. You take him out and you've got to have Richardson do that stuff or a backup come in and do that stuff. Now you're in a concern when you're facing a team who you should really be able to attack with.

Yeah, It's a bit of a relevance goal here because if Titans lose at home to the Colts, people have probably written them off already, but that would be the time to do it at one and five. You're in a very tough spot. Then again, if the Colts get to two and four, they are also in a tough spot. So a big game for these two teams actually in the AFC South. All right, it is time for the Sneaky Good Game of the Week presented by DraftKings Sportsbook. I'm going chargers. Bronco says the Sneaky Good Game of the Week just because these two teams, I just don't know what to think about either of these teams. The chargers are favored by three on the road in Denver, which is an amazing amount of disrespect from Vegas for the Broncos after the last couple of weeks. This is a three and two team with a legitimately good defense who are playing a kamikaze style of game. They are blitzing at a 54% rate on first down, which is just wild. They're creating the third highest pressure rate, or they're playing against the team rather, who's giving up the third highest pressure rate in the chargers.

Yeah, the chargers are low. Yeah, which is surprising. You thought their offensive line was going to be great. And they're a strange team because Herb is getting rid of the ball pretty quickly, but on the plays that he isn't It's like he's holding on a long time, and he's getting hit quite a bit. Joe Alt at right tackle and Rashaun Slater were back at practice for this game. They're going up against a great cornerback duo. I could put Riley Moss in a sentence with great right now. He's playing well, at least. He's playing well enough because he's supported by the pressure. How do you see it when the chargers have the ball, Ollie, against this defense, which has been pretty fun to watch?

They've been so good. Zack Allen has been one of the best players in the NFL, and he's still one of the underrated players. I mean, he's been dominant inside. What's so fun about watching them is how well they just play as a collective, as a unit. They all perform their roles to an unbelievable degree. Everything is built as a group rather than having different... You mentioned the Blitz package. It's not built in a way to feature one person or to try and tilt the protection in one way. It's a really layered design where everyone has to be at the absolute apex of their hours down in, down out. So the fact it's humming so well when there's so many moving pieces, everyone has to perform, those three interior guys have been unbelievable. I think it's going to be a difficult one. I just don't think that the charges right now have enough easy get-out escape valves. So when the pressure is arriving, unless it's Lab McCongny, who's been really, really impressive, probably should have way higher production than he actually has. And we get McCongny on Moss. I think at some point it's going to break the internet.

I think we'll get that at some point.

Yes, Riley Moss has been breaking berries. I'm genuinely surprised it's not a bigger story that a white cornerback is out here making in. I mean, he Mossed a guy on an interception last week. That was a fantastic play. All the metrics are fantastic for him. He's certainly supported by the coverage's role to his side. But yeah, McConkey is playing well. I thought their last game before the buy was certainly the game where you saw the most McConkey from college come out. And so that's exciting to see. On the other side, Bo Nicks has averaged 2.2 yards per attempt when under pressure this year, which It was just a wild stat. As much as they're building him up as he's a great leader and he's a winner, the best news for him, not just the defense playing great, but Javante Williams has played well the last couple of weeks. They have gotten a pretty traditional running game going two weeks in a row, and I think that's the way you got to attack the chargers.

Yeah, we talked about the chargers banged up Ola and Joe Alt, if he's banged, that's a massive plus. But the Broncos Ola has been banged up as well. So you got to put that in context a little bit. Bonix fascinates me because it's that draft, and I'm definitely going to get into Michael Pennix a bit later on. I'm just going to trail that right now. That draft, it seemed to be a really divisive pick. Half, roughly, it's a reach. They're panicking. They just need someone. They've got anyone. Other half, Payton knows what he's doing. He knows his guy. He's got his guy. So you pilot that now into the role that they're on. They're starting to get a bit of a meant of the argument that they do the man on the sidelines last week, which is blown out of proportion ridiculously. But what that told me was that Nick's not afraid to step up. Payton clearly likes what he sees there. Nicks is in fairly safe hands. I think out of all of that class or amongst that class, preseason, pre-draft, Bo Nicks' trajectory where it is now, I think he's landed pretty well.

No, I think you're taking the cheese here. I'm not buying it. These two teams in this division, they're going to be built up a little bit by their schedules all year. Every week, they're just like, Oh, that's a winnable game for the Broncos. It's partly schedule. They're doing what they can. He's actually been pretty effective when he chooses to run Bo'Nicks. But I'm not going to give him too much credit.

I'm not buying the Boenecks stuff. I even go back, there's been some level of progression, but to me, it's mostly been them like, ripping out core elements of their offense to let him do things that are really, really basic and easy for him to do. They still have operational issues. They still struggle game plays out of the huddle. They still struggle with the play clock. He can't really drive anything down the field unless it's moving and creating in some way. And this happened with Sean Payton. It's happened with him before. It happened at times in New Orleans. It happened with Russell Wilson, where the offense only looks really functional when it's the two-minute drill or someone's trying to create something out of the structure of the offense. It just still feels baked in 2013 to me. And I'll give him some credit. He has, over the past three weeks, thrown in new things that Nick's ran in college. I think he realized the guy He wasn't staring in the headlights in the first couple of weeks and just throwing up a bunch of panic balls. But he just screams me of a guy who, unless they're running all the screens, they run like 50 to open the week last week.

Unless you're really putting him in that shell, he's going to give the defense opportunities every single week. You're both selling Bonix.

No, I am selling Bonix, at least right now. I'm not counting out. Sean Payton can build him up over the course of time, but he's still a rookie quarterback, and this is a tough matchup. Denver is getting all the love on defense, but Jesse Minter in this Chargers team, I'm not exactly sure what they're doing, but it's been very sound. It's fundamental. They're getting my guy, Christian Fulton, playing at a high level at cornerback, I think. Overall, they are number two in the league right now in DBO8. Again, at That's very much, I think, about their schedule. They've had a very beneficial schedule for opposing often for their defense, but I think they could lock it down. This is like a 10 to 9 game, which sounds about right. We can't wait. Chargers win. Stealers, favored by three, going to Vegas. This is the Iron Eagle Charles Davis game, which means there's not a lot going on on CBS on Sunday or in the AFC in general. Since we last tape, they announced Christian Wilkins is potentially out for the season, but he's definitely on IR. Definitely, yeah. Definitely out for a while. He hadn't made quite the impact that I expected this year, maybe because there's been other injuries there on the defensive line.

Max Crosby is now in the maintenance portion of his season where he's only playing on Sundays but not practicing throughout the course of the week. Alex Highsmith is out for this game for Pittsburgh. Herbig is out for this game for Pittsburgh. Corderelle Patterson is out. They might I get Jalen Warren back. I do feel like there's just so many injuries that I got to just bring that up at the beginning because that makes such an impact. I'm not sure what to think about this, what's left of this Stealers team, but this Vegas defense, which was supposed to be their calling card, has been just... They went with a defensive coach hoping there would be carry over there, and it's just been... And now they don't have Kristen Wilkins for a while. Your guy from Miami.

My guy, yeah, got it when he left there. O'neill getting the starting job, of course, is... And that whole battle, I think, has been fascinating, particularly when you mentioned Antonio Piz. One of the first things he did when he got-Thank you for covering me there as a good broadcaster.

I should have mentioned that we have a new starting quarterback here for the Las Vegas Raiders. But does it really matter?

Well, that's the question, I guess. And when Piers got the gig, the interim gig, after the legendary cigars in the locker room once, once McDaniels were one of my favorite, I think, moments in the history of the NFL when players are celebrating with a cigar, and McDaniels is gone. That was one of his first was to make O'Neill at the start. So he obviously likes him. It was interesting that Minchee got at the start of the season. Is it going to tangibly, markedly uplift him? I think there's a lot of talk of the pick six that Minchee threw and his confidence went, and he's obviously such a confident player. Again, are they looking at a younger quarterback that they think they might be able to build something around? Is that the upside here for the rest of the season for them?

I don't think so. He's not even that of a quarterback. No.

They are on full-on locker room meltdown watch for me. I love Antonio Pérez. I love the vibes. I think that was really fun back in the last season where you got the Devante Adams situation. You got a cross injury. You're still a rater, by the way. That's the official- Still a rater for now. You're going to AOC, and that is going to be a mess within three weeks. They'll be like, Why did we do that? They'll go back to the other guy.

That's Devante's guy. For a second, I was like, Is this a little bit of a, Hey, you want to come back when you get healthy, Devante? Because he had pretty good numbers with AOC last year. Maybe that's why they made the movie.

That's He's good numbers with everyone. He's Devante Adams. He could play with me and that, and he would do a pretty good job.

You've been on the corner that Devante Adams on film does not look like he's declining much. I mean, maybe he's down a little bit from his super peak. And you can see it in his big last game that he played.

Yeah, I would say 5, 10% max. You take 5, 10% away from Devante Adams, you go from the best receiver in the league to one of the best receivers in the league. It doesn't make that much of a difference. I know there's a money situation. But if you are a team out there, Bills, Chiefs, Jets, whoever looking for some help, to me, it would be a no brainer. It's not one of these stark declines. You're overpaying for someone from two seasons ago. He's still a major difference maker.

And Belichick is on Underdog talking with Matt Patricia and Lombardi. It's like, you can't give up a second. That's too big a price. And that does seem to be the consensus. And I'm thinking, what are we talking about? First of all, he gave up a two for most of the new. We've seen him. Once you actually get on draft, people are throwing out twos just to go up eight spots in the second round. But then you get into the season and they get so locked in and people say, Well, it's the contract. It's the contract. This year, he's actually quite affordable. So as long as you can fit him in, and not every team can seamlessly, but basically every team can. Even the teams like the Saints could figure it out by starting to renegotiate elsewhere. He's not that expensive this year. I don't know what his situation in terms of wanting guaranteed money, but his next two years are exactly where you would expect them to be. They're not a crazy amount. On that front, I don't get it, but pierce actually said, If he's healthy, we expect him to play again for the Raiders.

We'll see if that happens. Just very quickly, the O'Kannell versus Minchu thing. O'kannell takes a lot of chances, actually. They're similar-ish quarterbacks to me, except O'Kannell, he doesn't have a big arm, but I think he'll maybe even to go deeper down the field. I don't know what the difference is.

I think you're looking for some difference. I think Antonio pierce is to it. They are pretty much the same profile of players, slightly different body type. But when you just look through their body of work and what they actually do, they're pretty much the same player. Maybe one takes slightly more gambles than the other, but it's not a market difference.

No. I think they're going to struggle against the Steeler's defense, which is not the same defense without this defensive line and edge rushers. They can't run it either.

They're on the 30th with the as that is. They can't run the ball, so it's going to be slim pickings.

Yeah, but you could see the difference when they took Herbie out of the lineup on the Sunday night game. It's a pretty big drop off to, I think it's Isaiah Lautermilk, who's like 300 pounds, and they're playing them out there as an edge rusher. And so two banged up teams. Let's take a quick break, and we'll be back to talk about a fun game in the NFC, Lions Cowboys, after this. All right, we are back on NFL Daily. And yes, if you happen to be in the UK or wherever Sky Sports NFL is aird or wherever this game is on. I will be on the Sky Sports coverage for this next game back in the studio. Lions, Fevered by 3 Points heading to Dallas. This is a fun one, a rematch of one of my favorite games, Probably my favorite regular season game from last season. And it wasn't because of the weird controversial ending, which was weird and fun and annoying that it was controversial. It was for the other 59 minutes of the game. This was an awesome game a year ago, Lions Cowboys. It feels like this is mostly the same version of a Lions team, but not the same version of the Cowboys.

Obviously, no Parsons for another week, no DeMarcus Lawrence. We've taken out Marshawn Neelen, who's a solid edge player for them as a rookie, they're banged up Dallas, and they're not the same on offense either. This time it feels a little bit more of a mismatch for the line.

Yeah, it does on paper for sure. Logic prevailing. But we see so many teams right now that are their season complete, roll out either way. There are so many teams clustered, and a number of teams that people are down on. And I look at Dallas with a fair amount of upside because they're still in the mix. Look at three or four things. You mentioned DeMarcus Lawrence and Parsons out, they still win a tight game without it. Their ground game at the moment is nonexistent. Zeke's done, 30 carries for 98 yards. Dalvin Cook, they're talking about maybe re-upping off the practice squad there.

Maybe found something last week, I thought, with the Steelers. It seemed like they went away from some of the zone stuff they were doing and just did what had worked for them better. Their offensive line was... It worked a little better for one week, so that gave them some hope.

Moving the right way. They're clearly in the market for a receiver. They worked out Denzel Mims this week, Dante Pettus as well. They might be in the... Yeah, that will change it. But they might be in the mix for the Devante sweep six. My point is, with all of this, they lead the league in penalties. That should statistically correct itself. They're not in good shape, yet they're still in contention. So the upside for Dallas is they get two or three of those things right, or at least tangibly uplift in a division that is quite dysfunctional, Washington notwithstanding, and they could be in the mix.

I don't see it personally. The run defense is so bad, and I know they've slightly, of course, corrected it slightly over the last couple of weeks when you go through some of the numbers, but it just structurally is so off, and they don't have the talent either, I think, for this to sustain over the course of the season. You're facing a team where they will gladly say, Let's run the ball 18 in the first 18 plays if it's cooking for us. So I think this has a potential to be a real ugly first half for Dallas. And I still watch, and I don't know what you think, Greg, but I still watch the Dallas offense, and they were driving the ball pretty comfortably against the stealers. And McDon was saying just how well Dak Prescott played. I still watch it and it always looks more difficult than it should be for them. Everything just feels like a beat off. Given some of the talent they have, how good Dak is, Dak doesn't move and creep much anymore. He certainly doesn't scramble anymore. Everything just feels like they've turned on a degree of difficulty setting that is completely unnecessary and they could actually be more productive.

So when you can't stop the run and it feels like hard work to generate offense, then I just don't think it's going to write itself.

In this matchup where it's the best running game in the league or one of the best running games in the league, and I saw the lines practice report and everyone practiced. Now, you just don't see that. In week six now, they're coming off of a buy, and so that's what you want. And yes, they have a couple of guys on IR, but for the most part, they're extremely healthy, especially on offense. You can just think they are going to match. This Mike Zimmer defense, he doesn't have the players to run the defense that he wants. It seems like he's putting it difficult mode for his players, and maybe they don't understand everything. Then I hate to be too basic about it, but I totally agree on the McCarthy thing. It's one where you watch the film and it really backs up those numbers with average separation and everything with Dak Prescott throwing into tight windows. And it's very 2018, 2017 packers, where everyone was saying the same things. It's like they just are trying to rely on their players to win, and they're not winning enough. But the difference is those packers at least had Devante Adams.

And yes, you have Seedy land here, but the depth of the players. Sure. Jalen Tolbert is now your number two. He's coming off like a decent game, but it's-So I'm talking about upside.

The downside, though, the schedule is brutal.

Look at that run. That win last week was huge, though. To your point, if I was going to be optimistic, I never rule out teams that have a quarterback and have a decent amount of talent because so often teams in December just have no resemblance of what they are in October. So is there a world where they scrape out enough wins? In the meantime, I think that Steeler's win was one of them, where you're just hanging around 500 and things can somehow click in a different way in December when Lawrence and Parsons and Dak. You do have Dak Prescott as your... I think it's possible. With that narrative, the top of that moment right now, this stage of proceedings is the Chiefs, right?

I mean, this is exactly what we're saying. The defense is driving, the offense is doing their thing.

They looked awesome on Monday night.

Okay, right. But for the majority of the season, oh, my God, they're still unbeat and they're not playing very well. So you think about this, it was relative upside here I'm talking about, but there are a cluster of teams that are going to be winning despite not playing particularly well, but despite that, they're still in the mix.

Yeah, but it's one of those ones where why are we judging the standard? But to me, they came into the season with championship expectations. This is the year. And I'm not saying they won't make the play-off. I'm just saying there is nothing in what they're doing right now that will go toe to toe with a Championship caliber defense, which is what they need to be. They need to be offensively such a jugunor to to cover up the fact that they cannot stop anything on the ground defensively, and they're just so far away from it. I understand what you're saying. You can usually figure things out, patch things up through the season, right? I think Zemmour will figure some things out. We know that McCarthy and Shottanaima, they're not changing the offense in the middle of the season. That's just not going to happen.

I think windows are sometimes overrated, but I do think there are moments when you have a better chance to advance far in the play-ups. The Cowboys had a chance. If you spun the dial a few different times last year in last year's NFC play-ups, I think they had a chance. I think this is not going to be as good as last year's seems. I think the Lions are right in the middle of their window. I will be curious to see if Tyler Gaiton starts in this game. He's a little banged up. When he left that game, Their offensive line maybe made a little sense where that was actually their best five out there, Tyler Smith at left tackle. I forget who was it at left guard, but he's played at Tyler Bass, who is out there. And they actually looked quite good, I thought, against Pittsburgh up front in that game. All right, let's go to the Bengals. This is a Sunday night football game, three and a half point favorites at the Giants. Yes, we're saving the Tottenham game for a little bit of a meteor talk a little later in the show. So this is the Mike Toreko game.

There were some rumors out there that they were trying to get out of this game a couple of weeks ago because they were afraid of the Giants. Now, it's almost they needed to be more afraid of the Bengals, although I'm sure they're fine having Joe Burrow in primetime. The Giants are frisky. It is all about expectations where they just feel like an average football team, and that feels enough above expectations that it's like, okay, you don't feel too bad about them. I heard they were blocked, though, by the Washington... They wanted to take Washington, Baltimore. And CBS has that game, and they blocked them. And so they're stuck with this Giants. Bangles game, Giants really need to... They don't really need to win as much at two and three, but the Bingo's really need to win at one and four. The Bingo's offense has been pretty awesome the last few weeks. How do you see them looking against a relatively frisky Giants defense, Ollie?

Yeah, I think the front in particular, after a really disappointing couple in weeks of the season, the three star pass, which is, I guess, plus they've rolled through some guys on the interior, have finally come alive. They just ragdolled the Seahawks up from last week. Avon Thibodeau. Avon Thibodeau is alive and well and hour rushing and being very impressive.

Out this week, though, suddenly.

Is he really? Oh, no.

He is week to week with a wrist injury. That came out of nowhere, though. But you're right. To have three players up front who are legitimate problems, now it's two. That's a good matchup against a good bangles of a line.

Yeah, and Lawrence has just been breaking games apart on his own. And if you get that internal pressure, Burrow is a guy who, and I know it's a cliché when you go back to Braedia and what have you, everyone struggles with internal pressure. Burrow, particularly, is susceptible to internal pressure because he just doesn't like to He wants to climb and move through the pressure. And so if it's in his lap, Lawrence can just end this game for everyone. I think it's going to be really close because Dayball is such an excellent one week to week game planner facing a defensive front that is just like an absolute travesty at the moment. And I think the Giants will be able to hit some deep shots and have some pop plays, and I think they'll hang around.

Yeah, 31st in points allowed. And this is the Louana room is one of the most highly regarded coordinators in the last five years, right? And that's what's faintly tragic about this Bengals site, because they are exhilarating to watch. They're entertaining because they're racking them up and the defense. And he's managed to build a D consistently without massive names like Dallas have had. He's built this He's been a powerful D over the years, which the alchemy is not working anymore. And you can be thinking about Morrow and everything with this situation. We're talking about contenders, the bengals in the mix or not. And you're right, if they drop this, they're in trouble. If they win this, they got the Browns next, and they're suddenly right back in it. Is Joe Burrow, is he the John Elway of his generation? Is Joe Burrow John Elway? Is he going to be this sensational player that rolls and rolls, full short in terms of championships, and then has that last hurrah.

I think he is right saying that with him as a quarterback, you're going to have a chance to win every year. You assume they're going to get that Jamar Chase contract right. You do worry about ownership. When they were in that game against the Rams, it is tough to get back to that point where they had a lot of talent on that team. Is ownership and the player acquisition going to be as strong? I think Duke Tobin has done a good job, but you can see what happens. They're one and four in a season. They expected to contend. They've been pretty good Statistically, against pressure. Daniel Jones is clearly not, but the Bengals have had no pass rush. The worst team in the league in terms of pass rush, which is crazy because you have Trey Hendriksen. And this Giants offensive line has helped to support my most medium take that I've had forever, which is if Daniel Jones is protected, he's fine. He's not going to be a hero, but he's fine. He'll be right there at the Andy Dalton line of the Dalton scale where he's a league average, and he's played fine in the last couple of weeks.

And Ollie, he's firing up his team, trucking defenders. I mean, he's looking for contact in the running game, which does not seem like it's a good idea, but he was pretty effective. He's getting Theo Johnson involved, his rookie tight-end. I could see them putting up a lot of points in this game. And like, bangles are probably marking this as a win. And it seems like it's a dangerous game. I think it's a close game.

I think it's going to be a close game. I think it's going to be an upset alert type situation. The bangles defensively, it's just declined so rapidly, you mentioned that. And what's weird is you mentioned people take shots of Mike Brown. Totally understand it. They don't invest a ton. Well, they don't invest in scouts, but they actually draft pretty well every single season. I understand the contractual situation, but the big floor this season has been defensive line, injured and lacking talent, linebackers aging and not playing very well. Safety is looking pretty cooked. Von Bell in particular is like it's actually sad to watch him play at this point, but they've invested so much in that defensive line. You go by cat figure, you go by draft picks. The last four years, they've put everything into it, and it's comfortably the worst in the league. It's not even close where it is compared to everyone else. To put that level of resources into it and to have declined so starkly is really jarring.

Yeah, and you mentioned Dable. He was in his bag last Last week, he's starting to feel confident. He has enough people around him, and this offensive line has been good, certainly good enough, maybe even more. They can have a running game with Tyrone Tracy. Showed up last week. Chase Browns look good on the other side. We got to move on, though.Let's.

Go to-Okay, can I have a quick line on Daniel Jones? Because I want to talk that. One of my best mates is a Giants fan, and it's this perennial nightmare he's in that Daniel Jones starts to play after a difficult patch, and this is finally the end of the road, starts to play well, hence the contract he's got, of course, starts to play well. But it's going to You're going to have to battle with him forever and ever, all eternity.

No, I've heard that from Danny Hyfe had said that on NFL Daily, too. He was like, Are we getting back into this question? No, I thought we've settled that question, but what you want is to him play at a reasonable enough level this year that he can get a fine contract elsewhere next year. You can be happy for him, and that you can just watch more entertaining football. Life is short. You'd rather win these games and have some meaningful mid-December games. I think they're trending that way where they're going to win eight games, which is not that exciting.

Is he the Cud cousins of his generation?

No.

She's getting big deals.

He could be the Jacobi Brisset. I don't know. Just bounce around, be in the league, be a guy that you're fine starting. Teddy Bridge. That was all I wanted. That is my medium take. People acting like that. He's the worst player in the league, but he needs protection. All right, let's go to Bucks. Saints. Very excited that Spencer Rattler is getting his first NFL start. The Bucks are favored by three Three and a half in this game. Look, there are a significant portion of the Saints fan base that are actually excited to see Spencer Rattler. It's Rattler time. The agenda has been out there. Most years, this would be a difficult spot. Going up against a Todd Bulls defense, they'll throw a lot at you. And the offensive line for the Saints is Come Back to Earth after- That's a very kind way of putting it.a great start. What did you think, Ollie, of Spencer Rattler as a prospect? And do you think this Saints offense Could do enough positive things around him that actually he'd put in a fun performance.

I think he can certainly put in a fun performance. He, to me, is going to be a red zone darling. This could be like Levis type stuff where we get these really crazy wild players. Then we get the bonehead of turnovers. He was, I fell into the camp of my mid-round quarterback love was Spencer Rattler. I watched all the games at South Carolina, and I know how bad a lot of it was. But when you just break him down, he's got the arm talent, he's intelligent, he can move and make players with his feet. So he just strike me as one of these guys who's going to wind up having a 6, 7, 8-year career where he just winds up being in different spots and he can move the ball. I'm excited to watch him in the first game. You mentioned top bowls. Boles has been blitzing a ton. I'm blitzing in a way that almost no one is in the league right now. He's got his own thing going on compared to the rest of the league. And most of it is to take away really short, quick outlet things. We mentioned old school offenses.

The way Balls is attacking people right now is going right back to what he did with Rex Ryan. It's a very old-school style of blitzing compared to when you look at the other people up there, Vance Joseph, Brian Flores. They are doing something brand new and different to what anyone else is doing. So it's a concerning match up for me because I think the line is actually not that good. They got away with it in the first couple of weeks of the season. Mccoy goes down, they get injuries on the right side. And you would just say, typically to your young quarterback, If you see the heat, just get it out. We replace the blitz so we keep the game moving. The way he bowls is attacking people is built to make you hold onto the ball. And I think Spetser has a chance to be a developmental guy, but him holding onto the ball in his first start makes me a little bit crazy.

It always is on my radar, the extra rest when you're the Monday night team on a short week, playing the Thursday night team on a particularly long week. It was why I was on the Giants last week against the Seahawks. I don't know. Maybe that's overthink you, but that seems like a significant difference, having five days extra rest. And yeah, with a rookie quarterback, they have weapons on offense for Rattler to play with. But on the flip side, that's the matchup where you're expecting the Saints defense to carry them. They've been okay. They've been fine. You've got Latamor matching up against Mike Evans. That's been a matchup that's included more routes like cornerback on wide receiver than any cornerback on any wide receiver. Statistically, it's a fact, according to next Gen stats since 2017 or whatever. So that's fun. But it's actually one of those years. I think the Bucks often The Bucks Offense matches up fine with them. The Bucks offense has been pretty good all year. They feel pretty comfortable. The running game certainly has had ups and downs, but getting better. But as a passing attack, I think they're getting the best out of Baker Mayfield.

Yeah, on that. So two things. Firstly, just jumping back, Red Zone Darlings is the perfect name for a band. In fact, I'm going to put my hand after this show and do that. Yeah, Liam Cohen from the McVay tree, right? And it's fascinating watching the Baker evolution. In simple terms, he's just become more controlled. Everything is a bit calmer, right? And because Baker is always history on extra love and the head budding and all the animation, as a player, this year as a quarterback, they've adapted and he's adapted. It's really, really clinical at times, which is surprising, I think, when you think about Baker Bayfield-led offense. 2.43 seconds, that's the quickest of his career in terms of release. He's got a career low 7.2% of throws 20 yards or more downfield. This is an all-new Baker. It's working right now.

Yeah. It's been quite surprising to see Baker. He was good in that Atlanta game, too. They're really getting him out of his worst instincts because one of his worst traits is he takes a ton of sacks, and that's still the case. He still takes a ton of sacks in terms of the amount of pressure that gets on him. But the pressure never gets there because he's throwing to his first read so often that you never get to that bad Baker. I do think he's gotten away with getting into scramble mode. It's worked at a higher rate than you probably would have... It's still not working all the time, but he has escape pressure a decent amount this year on scrambles, at least. How have you thought the Liam Cohen experiment was going to be? Because I was skeptical coming in. He felt like a little like one rung above Alex Van Pelt of like a Shana Han tree leftover. Don't do that to Liam. The tree has picked over. They're like, Let's take that branch. Who's left? Oh, it's Cohen over there at Kentucky. But you're putting him well ahead of Alex Van Pelt.

Yeah, outrageously rude. He did really cool things at Kentucky. I think I go back and forth with you on the use of motion. Our people just put the motion charts up. And if you're on motion, you must be a really innovative mind. Cohen, to me, through the first stretch of the season I mean, the best coach in the league at having a purpose to the motion. The way he's able to move and manipulate the defense to create voids is why Baker's just gunning, gunning, gunning. Why he cannot come out so quickly. He will use formation and motion to manipulate one-on-ones with Mike Evans, which is not an easy thing to do. I thought in the offseason, it was an upgrade going from Canales to Liam Co. And I thought they got the best part of that deal of Canales moving on. And I think for the first few weeks of the season, they've got serious issues in the run game that I just don't know how they can quite address as we head towards the middle of the But to me, it's been an improvement in the passing game in the way that he's maximized everyone, most notably Baker.

I am curious also in this game, can the Saints running game get back? I mean, normally you think of the Bucaneers as a great run defense. They haven't been Statistically, this year at all, they are getting healthier. They had a lot of injuries. Kalajia Canty, I believe, is back at practice. They've been banged up. I just feel like this Saints team is not going to work unless they can get the most out of Kamara and the most out of that zone running scheme, which they had something special for a couple of weeks, and then everyone was like, This is how we're going to stop. It does not seem like they have a counter right now. I like the Bucks in this game. Let's go to packers and the Cardinals. And yes, it is time for the game of the Week presented by DraftKings Sportsbook. The packers are five-point favorites in this game. This is the Kevin Kugler, Darryl Johnston game. I just I think of this packer's run game and how they're throwing so much at opposing defenses. And it's just been a great backstop for any other issues that this team has had. I'm still waiting for a normal game out of Jordan Love.

Everything is just boom or bust. It's just a little crazy out of him. They have that running game, which is so creative and so explosive. And there's not a lot of reason to think the Cardinals defense is going to be able to stop it.

And that's the thing they brought in Jonathan Gannon to uplift the D, right? It isn't working so far. Statistically, in most categories, they're the wrong end of proceedings, Derek. I guess the hold against the Niners might act as a catalyst, galvanize a little bit. Darius Robertson, their first rounder in training. He could be back soon. That'll be a big lift as well. But yeah, right now, when you think about the packers O-line is strong, I mean, this one to me feels packers all the way.

Yeah, I feel bad for Gannon. I mean, he's been dealt a pretty rough card. He's got the youngest defense by far in the NFL. They don't seem to have that much talent. They certainly don't have that much talent. It's clearly the weakest group of pass rushes in the league, and he's not running anything close to what he ran in Philadelphia, which was built around a four-man rotation of pass rushes. You get eight guys, you just cycle through every other down who you want in there. That's going to take a couple of years to develop. I actually think they're way further along in their process than I thought they would have been. They are competitive every single week. They create upset with a defense that is lacking a bunch of talent. But in this game, in particular, I thought it was funny you mentioned with Jordan, love, it's not even to me, boom or bust. It's like everything all the time.

That's what I mean. That's what I'm getting at. Can we get one normal call? Drive.

One drive of normality would be nice.

It's everything. It's reminding me of how he used to play in the preseason, when he wasn't the starter. So you would watch those games closely and it'd just be like, blah. It'd just be like an explosion. And it is fun, but it seems a little out of control.

Yeah, it really smacks of when he came back and he was wearing the FAAV jersey. He spent the time where he just grinding through FAAV film was like, this is the cool way to play football. It definitely is, Jordan. I love it, but it's not going to help the team win games consistently. He seems like he's having the most fun.

He's good at avoiding sacks. You mentioned this is not a good pass rush, and so that's a mismatch where he'll have time. So it should be a fun matchup. They're probably getting Christian Watson and Robio Dobbs back. Watson was back at practice. Dobbs is apparently over being Are you being upset that Tucker Kraft was getting featured in the game plan last week or Dontavian Wix was. I don't know what he was upset about, but they calm that down. He might have had a point. Wix didn't really come through in a big spot for all his fantasy owners out there. Fun game, though. Even then, five points at this point feels like a lot to give.

I think Kyla is going to dice through that defense pretty effectively. They have no asterisk. They only get an asterisk when they send five. They're the best in the league when they send six. No one sends six very often. And Kyla has been in his back this season just gobbling up pressure. So I think Kyla's got a real.

I think he was at practice.

We don't know for sure, but that would be an interesting matchup, him and Marvin Harrison. He has tended to travel a little bit with better receivers. Harrison has been quite inefficient with the targets that go to him.

He'll be fine, though.

That was a crazy. He'll be fine, but this year, they're not It's just a lot of hope balls. They've been pretty efficient offensively when they're not throwing to him, actually.

Yeah, his gravitational pull has actually been the most valuable thing he's brought to the team, essentially. And it's weird because they don't have chemistry yet within the flow of the offense. They're doing a lot of back shoulder stuff, and they're just off. The timing is not great. Where they've been at their best is when they just both try and figure it out on the fly. Remember the Rams' touch down, the big boot, and the turn of the sideline? That was completely aborting what the play was supposed to be. They just figured it out together. So they're actually better when he's not the primary. And then if it's not there, they can go and do stuff on their own.

Kyler always seems to be reacting to what happened the previous week. If he just goes bananas on the Rams, then he just started playing freestyle like crazy the next week, and that didn't really work. And then he didn't run at all one week, and everyone's like, You should run more. And then he ran all over the 49ers last week and played really well. So they're a better offense when he does run the ball. That'll be fun to watch. Let's take one more break. We'll be back to run through the the rest of the big point spread games, and then wrap up with our Tottenham Hotspur matchup Jaguars, bears. Talk a little, Caleb Williams to finish out. All right, back on NFL Daily. Yes, we're at the Greenwood Sports Pub. Very cool. We just walk in here. You see it right across from the tube. I walked all the way here from the hotel actually. It's like two and a half miles, but I'm not going to get any exercise.

First you're raw dogging, now you are.

That would be it. Listen to some music. That's my happy place. See the bookshops. I love it. But you're getting close and you see the bears graphics and everything as you come up. Our friend Henry Hudson told me last week, the official sports pubs were literally running out of beer mid-Friday. They have reservations throughout the weekend. It is sold out the whole weekend here. We have to get out of here, actually. Not fairly soon, but we'll be good because we have reservations and it's all booked up later. So it's very cool to be in London and see that representation.

This pub was last week. Don't tell anybody this, right? But this is the Vikings headquarters last week. It was a three-game stand in London. So the Vikings took over the pub last week, everything. So they turned it around pretty quickly. It's like MetLife from a Jets game to a Giants game within a week. But we did a great night with Chris Carter, the legend, Jake Reid as well. We went to all of 3D, Randy Moss didn't travel. So it was Chris Carter and Jake Reid. What a character Chris Carter is. What a night that was. That was a lot of fun.

He is not afraid to speak his mind. He definitely wasn't. I've possibly lost him some jobs in the league and at ESPN, but it's fun to listen to. All right, let's roll through these big points break-ins, and then we'll talk the Tottenham game. Falcons minus 6 at Carolina, the Dalton bump. Hit a little bit of a standstill last week when he had to play a better defense, but now he's up against a not-so-great defense.

I got a London edge to this one, right? So this is Dalton. If you remember Dalton Cousins back in 2017, I want to say. Probably one of the best games in London ever, the Tide Game, the Washington-S Cincinnati Tide Game, which I did annoyingly. I wasn't at the game. I was in a BBC studio up north in Manchester, where the BBC BBC Sport had their base, with OcuM and Euro, of course, store both The Game and Broadcasting now.

I should have mentioned, you're also the host on BBC, which is a big deal.

Back in the day, yeah. And Mike Carlson, who your British listeners will know, a legend of The Game over here, a longtime partner in crime, who dressed unusually for him, super sharp suit and glasses. And when I posted something out on social media saying, We're ready to do the game, everyone thought it was Bill Gates, that he was in OCI, and I played along with that for all. Anyway, that was the game we did. And I think it was probably, Ollie, I don't know if you agree, one of the best line of games ever is an absolute thriller.

And they're not that different now, Kirk. Are they? They're not that different.

No, not that different. This game, to me, has a chance, I think, to be the scoring game of the week. When you look at them, I know that the Anthas have got the issues up for an offensive line, injuries, center, right guard. But neither team can rush the pass. They are the two worst teams in the league by pressure rate, whether they send pressure, whether they don't. They just don't get after anyone. So this has a chance, I think, to be a real fun back and forth, drive after drive after drive type I liked how much Kirk was trusting it.

This was something I wrote down. I wanted to ask you, Ollie, about his numbers this year when he's not pressured are insanely good. When he is pressured, they're insanely bad. Everyone was like, This isn't going to last. You're going to have to start having him move, do some play action. Actually, whenever they've done that, it hasn't really worked. They didn't really do it in that Thursday night game. He's just sitting back there and having confidence his guys are going to be where they need to be. And they've shown that one thing they've proven is they have enough offensive depth in terms of their weapons. Darnell Mooney is helping out. They can get other guys involved. But do you think that can work long term? That he is just sitting back there as a statue and throwing the ball beautifully, very similar to Aaron Rodgers in a way that when he has time, it's like people forget he is a beautiful thrower of the football.

Yeah, and your lookalike. I'm my lookalike. That's why I defend him all the time. An A plus plus anticipation thrower. The anticipation thrower the day was absurd. The throw to Darnell Mooney for the shutdown, I don't want to bore your listeners too much. That throw never happens. It's not designed to ever happen that way. That route is a clear-out route to push the You get the coverage back and you rip it underneath. You maybe throw it as a now alert based on the coverage. He threaded it between three players, to the point where I'm not even sure if he actually intended to throw that ball, Mooney goes up and gets it. The thing that I think is the concern is him playing that spread out 45 dropbacks a game. He's had multiple drop pics already this season. I just don't think that you can live that way with Kirk Usman. I think if he's in the 30 dropback range, I don't think they necessarily need all the play-action stuff you mentioned, but they definitely need some complement with the run game or get more of a screen game involved to be able to do it effectively.

Yeah, they're doing all this outside zone in the running game, and it's not really working with Bajon Robinson. You hope they can figure that out because they're really not... It's funny, they're not accentuating him just as much or worse than Arthur Smith did. They are using Jake London in a positive way. He's playing a lot out of the slot. They're targeting him a ton. When he's in the slot, they are throwing the ball to him. And you mentioned the Panthers' offensive line. Yeah, Taylor Moton, who's their best offensive lineman, is out of this game. He had one of those crazy snap streaks going. He had missed a game for 120 straight games, so they lost their center. And Moton will be back pretty soon, it sounds like, but he's out this week. And Corbitt, their center, is also out for the week. So this week, I think it can work for Kirk to just rip it because he's not going to face any pressure. Long term, we'll see. Washington at Baltimore. The Ravens are somehow favored by six and a half in this game. That's a number where they're begging everyone to take Washington because they think actually this will be the...

On some level, the numbers say it might be a little bit of a come back to Earth game for Washington. Jaden Daniels just had a normal game last week, and that was fine. They still were outstanding. It shows that they're more on offense. I actually wanted to talk Ravens offense for a bit. Their offense has been a lot better than people expected. They were a great offense last year. Sure. They're the number one running game by EPA, by DVOA by orders of magnitude. But they're actually the number one passing game, too, by DVOA, so extremely efficient. You see the receiver is very open for Lamar Jackson. He's making good decisions. So it's a plus matchup against this Washington commander's secondary. Yeah, absolutely.

The cliché book on Lamar is, well, does he have the arm of those top-tier players? And it's a nonsense, I think. And it's been proved to be that this season. 211 yards a game is what they're averaging on the ground, which means they keep up this clip. They're on pace to beat their own record this season. But this is a decent run D against the Washington have, they're going up against. So that is going to be fascinating. Just on this game, the other thought of mine Given rehabilitation story, it seems to be one of the big narratives of the season. Sam Darnold, I guess, being the number one rehabilitation story so far. I think Cliff Kingsbury has got to be a close second, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, Kingsbury has reinvented his reputation in the space of about six weeks.

Right. What have you thought about what they've done with their running game? These are maybe the two best running games in the league in terms of just been cool to watch.

Yeah. And the offensive line for Washington has gone so under the radar. They've played unbelievable centers. Biotish has been He's by far playing his best football. Cosme at right guard has been really good. They re-signed him before the season. It's one of those funky contracts. Is he really that player? Evidently, he is. Cliffs? We've been here with Cliff before where he throws it out early in the season. You get to week 6, week 7, it comes crashing down. He got all the funds out of the way. What's different this year is he's just completely redefined his run game. It is almost identical to what Harbor was doing with Alex Smith and Colin Kaepnick back in San Francisco. He has just clearly gone They studied that stuff, a lot of the Greg Roman stuff, and then just transported it over. They move more than everyone, right? They're pulling and wrapping people all the time. It is the most diverse run game by a good amount. And this is a first real test for that offensive line who's been so good. The Browns was a first initial test. They handled Miles Garrett so well. This is the first time they're facing a front where five, six, seven positions are really good.

So it's a big, big test.

Can they go a little pass first? Because that's how you attack the Ravens. They're so stout. Upfront, or do you stick with what's gotten you here? Look, if the Ravens want to get in man coverage, and they're relatively high in man coverage, Jaden has just been the best scrambler in the league. Again, Lamar is the best just pure runner, but if you look at QBR rushing value this year, Jaden Daniels is actually number one in the league because he's just killing you with 11-yard runs on third and nine whenever they play man coverage.

Yeah, and actually, they're doing something really interesting in the Blitz game. They are crushing the Blitz because they are cool leaving unblocked runners in a way that you don't ordinarily do in the NFL. You never in the NFL allow a free runner through the middle of the line of scrimage. That's just not allowed. You take away, you allow a free runner at the perimeter because the quarterback can see, can throw behind it. They have freed up to say Jaden can beat people. And we saw against the Browns, right? Two times. Now, you don't expect him to make three people miss like that, but they have changed some of their rules in a way that defenses don't actually know now how to approach this stuff. So what Cliff Kingsbury has done, obviously, Daniels has been incredible. The whole machine is just clicking so well.

I mean, if you're If you're a running game dork, this is the game. Washington, they remind me like they were running some... They looked like the hogs out there last week with the way they're pulling their guards and stuff and just powerful. But then there's Baltimore, which on their option plays, both options are so good. And I don't just mean, obviously, Lamar and Derek Henry are both so good. I mean, when you watch the playback, a lot of times it feels like, actually, Lamar, you should have kept it. The right read was to keep it. You would have had a big run, but he's handing it off, and Derek Henry is getting a big run anyways for seven yards. So it's really cool. We did want to mention, Dean Pease is in the building. You talked about reclamation projects and nice stories. Dean Pease is back. They brought him out of retirement. They've been struggling defensively, and he's a consultant there with Zack Orr.

I love that. Because talking to Washington, I like the Rivera Del Rio tandem because it was getting close to one of my dreams, as you well know, we talked about it on the show in the past, is having, if I ever get to become an NFL GM, is having a coaching staff that is set to a minimum, 70 plus.

Hees would be a good choice for it.

Hees would be in there.

He would be great. He'd probably coach Zack Orr, who's now the coordinator back in Baltimore, when Zack Gore was 22 years old. Zack Gore might be the youngest coordinator in the League. So that's good. A little dean piece.Yeah. I love that. Coming back in the League. Houston minus seven at the Patriots. I like the Patriots covering this. That's a lot for me. And I've been pretty down. The Patriots had their safety, Jibril Peppers, rather, put on the commissioners' exempt list after a very troubling arrest last week. Of course, it's Drake Mays' first game. Yeah, it's a tough match up for his first game.

Yeah, it's not one that you would... It's a little bit. It's a little bit. It's a really interesting one. I understand the debate, and I'm sure you've spoken about whether they should start and whether you don't. It does feel almost like a, I can't afford to lose the building decision rather than this is exactly what the plan is. I get he gives him the best chance to win right now because he can move and he's got a stronger arm. He's just a more talented player than Jacob Roset. But I do think throwing him to the wolves like this in his first game is a real, real tough one. Even if he plays well and They sneak the win out. I think there's going to be some pretty brutal moments.

I've been through this argument, so I won't repeat it, but it's going to be hard. Playing in the NFL is hard. This game will be harder than the next handful, which look easier on paper, but you're going to have really hard games. Jacobo Braset was in Playing well. The Gerard Mayo thing that concerned me the most this week was him saying, We played well enough defensively and on special teams against the Dolphins, and that he was upset that the news leaked on Tuesday when he hadn't told the team yet. So it just It just speaks to an organization where things aren't being run that well. You gave up almost 200 yards on the ground to the Dolphins. You gave up scores every single possession in the second half of that game to a Dolphins' offense that had been the absolute worst in the league. I think he's He should be much more disappointed with how his defense is. And yes, they've had a ton of injuries, but they've also had some easy matchups, and they have not looked good in any way.

The offensive line, 21 pressures on 39 pass plays against Miami. Will Anderson is coming to town. It is negligent is what it is starting direct there in this game.

I think it's fine.

It's not fine. It's relative.

I would be with you.

They're playing Leighton Robinson, who didn't play at all in training camp, and they just put him out week one to go up against someone. Hey, just go block Quinn and Williams. It's like, this is what happens.

No, I know. That is certainly what happens. But, Drake May is the future of the organization, and this guy's career, Jereob Mayo, is tied to this quarterback. Is He's different than the right guard who's a rookie who's played a bunch of football already. I am concerned. I'm contradicting my argument earlier about the Joe Flacko argument.

This is the The exception to that rule.

I just want to see him make enough plays. This week probably is not going to go that well. Who knows? Maybe they'll hold down the Texans. The Texans put Nico Collins on injured reserve since we last did a podcast, but we did know he was going to be out for a little while. That's concerning their offensive line has not been playing that well. I think C. J. Stroud has really made up for some deficiencies in terms of schématically and the running game and everything. He's just awesome, and he's probably going to continue to be awesome, but I don't think they're putting him in the best position.

No, certainly not. I mean, they have so many penalties. They can't even line up at this point. He's got plays this season where he's holding the back of a guard to hold the pressure off from him while someone is holding onto a towel and the undershirt coming off him, and he's still completing 15 yards, throws down the field. The one thing about C. J. Stroud that marks him out from any of the young guys you have in the league is he does not take bad sacks. Even when they take sacks, they are sacks that are acceptable within what would be the coaching world of, Okay, you take one on a third and must have It is what it is. We'll move on. He never, ever takes bad sacks. The Patriots don't even get after anyone. They got on the worst pass versus an elite.

All right, maybe the seven points is plenty. I just thought it's just like Texans coming off a couple of big wins at home. They snuck out a win against Jacksonville. They're coming. It just feels like a let down game where maybe it's a young team that's relatively taken. That's what it was, 17 points. It's just like a close ugly game. But I'm a Drake May believer. All right, Eagles hosting the Browns. The Eagles are favored by nine points in the year 2024, which is crazy to me. The Eagles have not played well this year overall. They're very lucky to be two and two.

But they're healthy.

They are healthier. They get AJ Brown back. They get Lane Johnson back. They're probably getting Devante Smith back. He is in the protocol but practicing, which is usually a good sign that you'll be cleared by the end of the week. Most importantly, they're playing the Browns. That's the reason. But still, that seems like a huge number for me. We haven't seen a lot of in-rhythm throws by Jalen Hertz. This is a team that I didn't know what to think about. Before the season, I still don't really know what to think about.

Yeah, the Siriani Jalen Hertz stuff preseason when Jalen Hertz gave one of the most awkward answers to a reporter, I think I've ever seen. In answering a question about the offense, and it was quite clearly apparent they were not on the same page. So what's played out is wildly surprising when you look at that, this function they couldn't even mask there, right? But this is a decent spot, I guess, because not specifically for the offense, but conversely, against this Browns offense that is so misfiring, the golden boy of coaching in the last couple of years, Kevin Stovansky, is now Peeragon Hot Take Coach on hot take coach on the hot seat, which is crazy.

Which is crazy because he literally just signed a contract extension.

It's crazy. It's obviously nonsense to people getting carried away. But it has been well documented, this bound in deal. We're talking about whether you play with a vet hand because it's going to give you a moderately better chance to win a game or put a run together versus seeing what you know with a young rookie or sophomore quarterback. The Browns are in this crazy situation where they're completely bound in. They just got to keep on playing Watson and hope he turns a corner. I don't think he's ever going to get back to Texans' Watson. But if he can uptick 15, 20 %, if they can protect him a little bit more, if nick Chubb comes back, maybe with this D, then they do become a contender. But I don't think they've got any other option. People are talking about Jamies coming in, and Jameis' cameo, the Saints a few years ago was tidy, sure. But But literally, what's the point of bringing him in?

What? Bringing Jameis out? Other than nick. Trying to win some football games. Trying to win a game. Is he going to give him enough upside?

I think DeJane Watson is bad enough that it's fair to expect Jameis Winston to play better, yes.by a significant amount.

By a significant amount.

Especially in that offense where Stavansky has shown... Jameis' last few appearances in New Orleans were pretty rough. But Kevin Stefansky has shown that he can make players look better than they have been in other spots. And so I would expect Jameis under Stefansky to be better. That's a good point. I think this is going to be Jason Watson's last start if it doesn't go well. I think they're at that point.

Yeah, I think so, too. But I'm surprised it hasn't happened already to the point where it feels like... Because they just can't get out of the contract. So it might even be a thing from on high. We just cannot bench this guy. What are we going to do? Just have a $92 million sink hole on the sidelines?

You know who moderately enjoys this, so I'm sure he wants to win games, though, is Jim Schwartz, who's like, No one's talking about how my defense is It's pretty easy to run on. We're about to play the Eagles. We've gone from one of the best defenses in the league to an average to below average defense.

But that's defensive football. You don't have sustainability gear to you unless you have magical players at all three levels. They don't. They have a really talented front. They got some eases in the secondary, but it's not like they're overwhelmed with Alan.

Alan got an offense, right?

And this is a really tough match. Last week, they actually had a couple of positive plays in series in the first half, and then eventually the dam broke. But this is a terrible matchup for them because this defense is very susceptible to the run. And I think coming off this with the Eagles, they roll. Saquon Barkley having a big game. All right, we are going to take one quick break. I'm going to say goodbye to you, Nat. Right. I'm out of here. You are out of here. I love you, buddy. You've been a pal to me on all these trips. Everyone, check out Nat's podcast. It It's been a pleasure. We'll do this again.

It's great to see you, man. Thank you very much for having me. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Always done a lot with Oli Connolly as well. So good to see you, bro. Okay.

And we'll be back quickly right after this break. All right, back on NFL Daily, wrapping up our week 6 preview show. It has been really fun to be here at the Greenwood Sports Pub in London, the There's Home For The Bear's home for the week. We said goodbye to one iconic presenter in London, and we're welcoming in another. Yes. So Nat Cooms is gone. Neil Reynolds is here for Sky Sports. Neil's actually got it in his contract. Ollie Connolly is still with us. Ollie probably doesn't know this, but Neil refuses to do anything on air with Nat Cooms. So they couldn't be on the same show at the same time. They're rivals.

Although we used to be back in the day on BBC radio. But I had that written in. Luckily, you found me on the floor under the bar and dragged me out.

I wish. I wish you were that way, but you're too responsible for that. We're actually doing a show for your podcast in Sky Sports later in the day. This is how big time Neil is, Ollie. I know for a fact he is at a dinner later tonight that includes Roger Goodell. And this is a tough invite to get. I looked at the invite. I'm not going to say everyone that's on here, I'm already blowing your spot that you're there, but it's either massive, like celebrities in terms of former NFL players or people that make seven figures at the NFL.

How do I do neither of those things?

How am I doing wrong? But I saw the seating chart, and I was told I could not talk about the seating chart on this podcast, so I won't. All right, we're going to finish off the preview show by talking a little Jag's bears. I just felt like, all right, let's finish off the show this way. I'm excited for this one. I chose, not that I had the pick of the litter, but I pushed to come to this week's game because I thought, I can see Caleb Williams play football in person. That's something I've never done before, and I hope to do more than once. And so I'm really excited for that. Just from a bird's-eye view, looking at this game, Neil, what gets you going? The bears are favored by two.

So I know it's so obvious, but that's where we would start as well. When you look at Trevor coming off his best game the season for the Jags behind a healthier offensive line using Brian Thomas and all those weapons. Most fans who go to that game on Sunday are going to pay attention to the quarterbacks. We always do. Caleb is I can see why, and it's unfair on a young rookie, I can see why he gets the Mahomes comparison sometimes. Not all the time, but there's just sometimes there'll be a play and you're like, That looks great. I saw it in training camp. I was sat with Albert Breer from Sports Illustrating. We're watching Caleb make this incredible play. Climes a pocket, rolls to his right, throws as he's falling away to Roma Dunzé from 40 yards downfield. And Albert went, You know who that looks like, don't you? I said, Yeah, I saw him in Kansas City yesterday on the day before. There's a lot to be excited about. It starts with the quarterback.

Wait, you must have talked, not to just hold off on the game for a second. You must have talked to Caleb that day, too. What was he like as a person? Because Neil, whenever you go on those trips, you're always sending those, I on Instagram all your pictures, and you get the coach and the quarterback at every place. There's no way I'm getting those guys. That's exciting.

Yeah, I spoke to Caleb in the summer. I spoke to Caleb yesterday as well. I did a sit down with him yesterday. Humblebrag. I just dropped that in. I really like him. I noticed from an off-the-field stuff first when I met him in Chicago, very comfortable in his own skin. He's going to be who he wants to be. He's going to show his emotions. He's going to lead the way he wants to lead, and I really respect that. I think he's learning to be... He said he likes... Obviously everyone likes the out-of-structure plays. What gets him up in the morning is making on-time throws, what he calls the boring stuff, but it's what we need to see to make this offense go. He also said that after last week's game, he got home and then texted the quarterback's coach, was listed out the things he wanted to work on this week. I stopped him. I was like, You threw for over 300 yards. You won your second game in a row. Everyone was talking about how great it was. And you're sitting at home listing out what you want to work on this week. So I'm very impressed with him.

It's interesting he said that. What makes him excited is the on-time throw is Ollie, because you put it really well on your podcast with John Lud. Again, everyone check out the read optional. I thought you said it in a way that maybe the first few weeks of the season, they threw a lot at him, and maybe they pared it down, and that's led to better results the last few weeks.

Yeah, and I think a lot of that is on the staff, too. They were trying to do everything imaginable, get to the best possible play, and he was just being asked to do an awful lot. Neil mentioned it there. He's running everything at the line of scrimmage. That was not who he was projected to be coming into the league. He was never asked to do that stuff at USC. That stuff is really basic at USC. Waldrons is beyond expansive compared to the rest of the league anyway. And he's gone up to the line of scrimmage with three or four players, having to pick that apart. I think that they certainly, you can tell, pared certain things down situationally. The start of drive is the most obvious one. The first two players of every drive, there is no checking anymore. It's like, let's get this guy comfortable. If he's comfortable and we can get the drive rolling, then, as Neil mentioned, we can get more of the fun, creative plays. But the thing with Williams has always been that for as As long as the splashy stuff is, he was still unbelievable on time and in rhythm at USA.

He just had a bad offensive line for the most part. So I think the development is going to be really interesting this week as a really fun matchup, but I couldn't be more impressed. Honestly, I think people were throwing that to Oza and the Brown way too early, early on, given what was asked of him in those early weeks.

Yeah, but you would love to see just as a fan, a few more of the big plays in the off-structure place, because there's almost been times the last few weeks where you can almost see him thinking, Don't leave the pocket, don't leave the pocket. And it's worked in two pretty advantageous matchups, the Rams and then the Panthers. This is similarly advantageous against the Jaguars in the back-end. I I think the one chance the Jaguars have is if Trayvon Walker and Josh Heinz-Alan have a big-time game getting pressure on them, then they have a little bit of a chance.

And that line is playing better. You look at the line the last couple of weeks, again, it's all relative against who they're playing against. But That's where the key matchup is. I think on that pressure, if they can get to Caleb Williams. He recognizes he's a rookie as well. He talked about that yesterday. He said that he's quite hard on himself and that he feels at times he maybe needs to give himself a little bit more grace because he said, I have to remember that I am a rookie. So to your point, Ollie, about the too much on the plate, all of that stuff. I think that is a real thing. It was a real thing for him.

Yeah, I think, look, they took the opposite approach to what is happening in Washington with Jaden Daniels. We mentioned Jaden Daniels before. What is asked of Daniels is fairly simplistic. The offense has been unbelievable, and it's the best way to approach winning games. Jaden Daniels is an MVP candidate. It feels with Kyla Williams like they took the 17-game, six-year view of let's just give him the mother load and hopefully, he figures out by the midpoint. This is the week, I think, where we will get more of the out-of-structure stuff. The Jags don't blitz, they don't simulate pressure, they don't do anything. They play press coverage, they send four guys. It is really old fashioned, Ryan Nielsen defense. So he's no longer have to diagnose, is that guy dropping? Who's rolling where? What's happening in the secondary? If someone just flashes in his face, he can just then go and do Caleb William's things.

I hope we see that. And yeah, the Ryan Nielsen Jaguars have been Underwhelming. They've had injuries certainly at linebacker and cornerback, where they might have issues anyways, but it just hasn't gone well at all. So that's a good match. On the flip side, I do think about Caleb, what he said to you about the notes coming back on Sunday night and wanting to get better and better. And we don't know what's going on in the Jaguars building. But what we haven't seen on the field from Trevor Lawrence is a progression of, here's the details that he's getting better at in his career. He always has missed more throws that are there than I liked in terms of him getting to his ceiling. This year, it's been on another level, where until last week, it was a lot. And he's a streaky quarterback, and this is a really tough matchup for him. So I want a close game. I always, in London, am rooting for just like, let's get some points and let's have it within one score. And I'm a little worried on both ends this week. We It's only a two-point spread here, if you want to trust that.

And Lawrence is coming off his best game of the year. But I think there is a way that you could see this game being 26 to 10 or something like that.

I think Trevor now, and I'm a big supporter of him, and I enjoy watching his highs, but I think you get frustrated by the lows, and they are both in equal measure. And we got a body of work now. This is year four, and he knows that. He talked about that in the summer, that this is the best team they've ever had. And they all talked about finishing.

Wait, so you got Lawrence, too?

Yeah.

Of course, you got Trevor. I said he said about it. I didn't say he said it to me. I'm hearing what I'm hearing.

I got you.

I was trying to suttle that one down a bit.

He would be an intimidating guy for you to go just interview just because-Why? Well, just because-Why? The hair. I don't have to have hair. I don't need the hair. Okay, that's true. You've done well. You've done well.

Wow, it was eight minutes.

We got to the hair. Sorry about that. That's actually fine. Ali, though, this year has been particularly disappointing.

What really frustrates me with him is at this stage, I just accept we're getting 25 turnover worthy throws a season. That's who he is. Philip Rivers had years like that, and he was able to trim some of the fat as it went along. What is just odd about his game is he's very nuanced as a player. When you watch him mechanically, he does an awful lot of Matt Ryan type things to maneuver, manipulate people. So that is in there. That player exists, but It's as though he gets sloppy or lazy or bored mid-game. And it's just we're at the stage now where you just can't have that degree of variance week in, week out. You can live with a guy who makes three special throws a game and has one dud that he's going to turn over and you just go, that's who he is, as long as it's all the open easy ones, and he just misses too many of the open easy ones. So the trade-off becomes, we got a guy who's not keeping us on schedule all the time. We might get two special throws, but now we're getting two really rough ones every single week.

It's just not our way to consistently win.

Yeah, not always seeing the open receiver. And he's had some. Brian Thomas Jr. I'm excited. I'm exciting to watch him in person. His progression has been great to see more hands catches, more contested catches. He looks like a... If he's not a one already, he's a future one. Tanks Bigsby in the running game has gotten going. So there is a route to them catching fire in London like they did a year ago. Yeah, I think so.

I don't think last week was a fluke. I think they got healthier. I think they've still got I've still got talent there. Thomas is so exciting. I think there's a little bit of... So when I first watched him play, I just saw a few plays early on in the season. I was like, he's almost like a running back after the catch. But then I watched him like, no, he can fly. He's like a proper speed. I mean, he's got everything. And so he's definitely given them the juice. Bixby has been a really good addition with ETN being a bit injured and a bit banged up. Doug Peterson says that it's still ETN's job, but I think you've got to give big speed carries now. He's earned them.

Yeah, and their line needs to play better. I think that's been an underrated issue the last couple of years. I think they were expecting Anton Harrison, the right tackle to play at another level this year. That Maybe it hasn't happened for them. All right, that's it. We've talked this game out. Ollie Connolly, thank you for spending all this time. Ollie is going to be back on Sunday night. You're not backing out of that yet?

Not yet. I'll text you-It's Sunday afternoon. Midnight on Sunday.

I over staff that game. We're going to be working on Sky Sports. If you haven't been in the UK, you'll be watching Neil Reynolds covering the pregame, and then during, Obviously, Jaguars, bears. I'll be part of that coverage as well before the game and during the game a little bit on the sidelines. And then I'll head back. I'll be part of their coverage. And then we're going to tape an NFL daily, actually, at the Talk Sport studios at 1 AM. Who have you ever staffed with? Yeah, Ollie is going to join me there, and Phoebe Schechter is going to drive with me from the Sky Studio. Phoebe's a lunatic. She needs to learn when to sleep. Yes. I know you won't be there at the studios with me. I wouldn't dare ask the Rich Eisen of the UK to join me at 1:00 AM.

I might be three glasses of red in by then.

Yes, I appreciate you coming with me here. Me too. And you're going to help me make some pics on our Friday afternoon show as well. So for Neil, When we're in the Greenwood Sports Pub, you know that football is back. See you next time.