The Dallas Cowboys take on the New York Giants on Thursday Night Football in Week 4 and while the Cowboys are favorites, the Giants are primed for a major upset. Also, it is time for CONTENDER/PRETENDER!! There are five teams that are undefeated, but they are not all equal. The Pittsburgh Steelers and Seattle Seahawks are pretenders, but the Buffalo Bills and Minnesota Vikings are primed for a playoff push!
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(upbeat music) - It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. - Okay, you can do this. - I know, I know. Karvana makes it so convenient to sell your car. It's just hard to let go. My car and I have been through so much together. - But look, you already have a great offer from Karvana. That was fast. - Well, I know my lessons played in been my heart, and those questions were easy. - You're almost there, now to just accept the offer and schedule a pick up or drop off. How'd you do it? How were you so strong in letting go of your car? - Well, I already made up my mind and Karvana's so easy. - Oh yeah, true, and sold. - Go to karvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. - This episode is brought to you by FX's American sports story, Aaron Hernandez. From executive producer Ryan Murphy comes the first installment of FX's American sports story. The limited series charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez and explores the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide, and their legacy in sports and American culture. FX's American sports story, Aaron Hernandez, all new Tuesdays on FX, stream on Hulu. - The Dallas Cowboys are primed for a giant upset when they take on the New York Giants. That and more on today's edition of Lockdown NFL. - The new Lockdown NFL. The Madman Tyler Roland is short double shot NFL espresso with the Lockdown local experts on every major story. Get ready. Roland is revving up. The new Lockdown NFL starts now. Lockdown's podcast network, your team every day. - Football fans, welcome in to the new Lockdown NFL, bringing you a double dose of the NFL's biggest stories with help from our local experts that know your favorite teams like no one else. I am the host, the Madman Tyler Roland joined today as I am every Thursday by Lockdown NFL expert, the data queen, Michelle Majuk on today's show. We're gonna play a little pretender, contender. Who do you trust more between the bills and the chiefs? Also, I think the Vikings are true contenders this year, but we'll start with the Thursday night football match up between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants. And I think that we're gonna see a giant upset on Thursday night. Before we get into it, do wanna let you know that we appreciate you making Lockdown NFL your first listen of the day. And for being in every day are here with us at the Lockdown podcast network where it's your team every day. Make sure that you tune into the afternoon version of Lockdown NFL and stepping to the barbershop with Tony Wiggins. And do also wanna let you know that today's episode is brought to you by prize picks. It's crossover Thursday, here on the Lockdown podcast network. Make sure that you check out your team's crossover episode, but go to prize picks.com/lockdown NFL. Use the code Lockdown NFL all lowercase to win $50 instantly when you play $5. Michelle, I let it out there early. I think that the Giants can upset the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night football. And a big reason why is because I think the Giants can physically bully the Cowboys and our girl Patricia Trina from Lockdown Giants. Talked about exactly why that might happen. Running back, Devin Singletary has rushed for 10 or more yards on 14.3% of 42 carries this season, which is tied for the eighth best of qualified running backs. Why is that good, you ask? Well, the Dallas Cowboys, ladies and gentlemen, have the worst run defense in the NFL, all right? The Cowboys have allowed 10 plus yards on 17.3% of their carries against them this season, which is tied for third worst in the NFL. And what's interesting is Dallas runs a stack box on 76.2% of their run defense plays, which is 17th in the league, and that they have allowed four rushing touchdowns in three games, which is the second most behind Tampa Bay. So I think a big reason for that is the Dallas Cowboys like to play in nickel. They're one of the teams that play in nickel the most in the NFL. And look, the Giants don't have a fantastic run game. They're only 19th in the NFL, 105 yards a game. But like Patricia mentioned, Dallas is the worst team in the NFL and run defense, 185 yards allowed for a game. Absolutely ridiculous there. At the end of the day, I think the Dallas Cowboys have gotten away from the Dallas Cowboys identity. You look back at Dallas Cowboys teams that have been successful in the past, not even the championship teams only in the 90s, but like the recent teams that have been successful with Dak Prescott, they were able to physically outman everybody on the front line with their offensive line with their run game. And they simply can't do that right now. So I am calling the upset here. The New York Giants beat the Cowboys. Tyler, I want to agree with you so bad, right? Because that would be the fun way to go. And yeah, you know, watching Thursday night football, you want to see these upsets. But I just can't get on board with that. Like Dak Prescott has absolutely owned the Giants. He's won each of his last 12 starts against the Giants. And it hasn't even been close. Like the last two years, he absolutely destroyed them, right? Like they won 40 to zero in their first match up, 49 to 17. I totally get the run game thing, right? Like the stink is stopping the run. I do think Devin Singletary is a good running back for the Giants and they'll be able to run. I don't trust Daniel Jones. I don't trust Daniel Jones not to make mistakes and turn over the ball when he does have to throw. And I do think that Dak Prescott and CDLam and Jake Ferguson, they're going to be able to get it done to the air. They're not going to have to lean on the run game. So I'm not worried about that. Like I think they can take a huge lead. And then it kind of just eliminates the, you know, worries about their run defense if they have a huge lead. Yeah, I mean, if they can make the Giants pass the ball and force them to be one handed, that's obviously going to help. But on the other side of things, I will admit, I am a bit worried about the Cowboys passing game and attacking the Giants defense. There are some Giants cornerbacks that are going to be out in this game. Adorey Jackson to name one there. So when you're missing two cornerbacks, that's a cluster injury situation. And that can definitely help you but or hurt you. But looking at the Cowboys thing, again, outside of just the idea that they don't have the beef on the front line and they like to play a nickel, another concern for them is they're tackling. And our guys that locked on Cowboys talked about that as well. And then the other big thing for me was missed tackles, man. Like, I mean, just brutal, almost all of the big plays created in this game were due to a missed tackle at some point. That was, should have been an easy tackle by someone. Yeah, even with, come on, the Derek Henry got, like, I get it, it's Derek Henry. You're a professional football player. If you beat him in the hole, you need to tackle him, man. Like, so I think that that was the two main glaring things of the defense, but there certainly is a lot more to discuss. Yeah. There is a lot more to discuss here. And I think one of the big things we're talking about, the Cowboys not being physical. And that's primarily on defense and stopping the run. But on the offensive side of the ball, the Cowboys are 30th in the NFL, only running the ball 73 yards per game. And then you flip that around. When you talk about pass blocking, the Giants are a great pass rush. They're second in the NFL with 14 sacks, Dexter Lawrence, Brian Burns, K-Von Thibodeau. I mean, they have some horses there on the front line. And Shane Bowen is a guy who I've covered a lot in my career, and he can run those twists and stunts up front and really get guys going in the pass rush. So one of the reasons I am taking the Giants, despite some of the things that you have mentioned, is I think the pass rush advantage for the Giants, and then the ability to run the football and get Daniel Jones in advantageous situations, I think the Giants who are underdogs in this game, I think they pull off the upset. Again, I'm going with it, but then again, there's a reason you're three and 0 in the predictions, and I'm one and two, maybe. - I don't hate the line, right? The Giants are sitting there at plus five and a half. I can see this being a closer game than usual for the Giants versus Cowboys. Normally it's a blowout, but the Cowboys have been struggling this year as you just brought up for many, many reasons, right? And this is their own fault that they don't have a run game. I mean, they went into the season with Rico Dottle and Ezekiel Elliott. And so I don't feel bad that you can't run the ball. Like you did this yourself. It's like they didn't get Jonathan Brooks in the draft and they just fell apart and just couldn't figure it out the rest of the offseason. But the Cowboys have trialed for an hour and 52 minutes of time this season through three games. They only trialed for four hours and 37 minutes for the entire 2023 season. So they're more than halfway there already. So this team is very, very different than what they were last year. The defense is not nearly as good. So and like Daniel Jones is kind of doing his thing with Malik neighbors. So I don't think your stance that, you know, they can beat this Cowboys team. When the Giants are playing at home, like it's not a crazy take at all. Right, right. I mean, Malik neighbors versus Trevon Diggs. There's some beef there as well. So that'll be interesting to watch. But I think one thing is if the Cowboys, like you said, do get off to a fast start. I think that's going to eliminate some of the concerns that we've talked about and set them up for a big win. But I think this game is much more exciting than maybe some people think on paper. And I'm very excited to watch it. But I'm excited to watch all these games because we're seeing some teams with some undefeated records. And it's kind of interesting whether or not we believe in these teams, we're going to do a little contender. Pretender before we do want to thank you again for making lockdown NFL your first listen. Make sure that you tune in for the second edition of lockdown NFL and stepping in the barbershop with Tony Wiggins this afternoon. It's your team every day here on the lockdown podcast network. Did I hear you're shopping for a car? Because I've been at it for ages. Such a time suck, right? Not really. I bought it on Carvana, super convenient. Oh, then comes all the financing research, am I right? Well, you can, but I got pre-qualified for a Carvana auto loan in like two minutes. Yeah, but then all the number crunching in terms, right? Nope, I saw real numbers as I shopped, found my dream car and got it in a couple of days. Wait, like you already have it? Yep. Oh. Go to Carvana.com to finance your car the convenient way. Do want to let you guys know that today's episode is brought to you by game time. Look, game time is the best place to buy tickets. Period. They have the best features in the industry. And now they just got another fantastic feature. It's called game time picks. And it makes getting tickets for your favorite live events even easier. Game time picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats. So you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. Speaking of those features, if you toggle on the feature in the app, you can get all in pricing. So you actually know what you're going to pay for your tickets when you look at them. Also, speaking of looking, you get a view from your seat panoramic view. So you actually know what you're going to be looking at when you sit down. And of course, you get the game time guarantee. So you know you're getting the best price. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with game time, download the game time app, create an account, use the code locked on NFL for $20 off your first purchase, terms apply again, create an account, redeem the code LOCKEDON NFL for $20 off, download game time today. What time is it? Game time. All right, Michelle, let's continue today's edition of locked on NFL. Talked about that Thursday night football match up. But now we're going to play a little game that everyone loves to play called contender and pretender. So we got five teams to look at five undefeated teams in the NFL. And I'm going to start in the NFC with the Minnesota Vikings. And if the question is contender or pretender, my guy, Luke Braun, the brain from locked on Vikings has his answer. Can Bynum's movie director asks, are we sure the Vikings are not Super Bowl contenders? I think you kind of have to say they are now. They're three and O and strength of schedule has not been kind. And like, OK, so I looked around a little bit at like what National Media was saying, listening to shows like he'd the call and listening to other like national outlets and kind of what they're saying. And people are calling the Vikings like the story of the season is the Minnesota Vikings and Sam Darnell. I think you could like, if you wanted to hate, you could easily write off the Giants game. And if you really wanted to, you could write off the 49ers game as like a fluke. Oh, they were missing McCaffrey, like you could make those excuses. But like, at a certain point, they demand your respect. And I think beating the Texans by 27 points demands your respect as a contender. I think we're there. And like, I think you're being unreasonable if you're not there with them. Now, that is a strong statement from Luke that it's unreasonable to think that the Vikings aren't contenders. But Michelle, I'm a believer. I can't sing on YouTube, you get to copyright strike. But I am after seeing what they did to the Texans and dismantling them that way. I'm a believer. Look at the end of the day. Sam Darnell to somebody who I don't know if I believe in Sam Darnell. I don't know if he can keep this up. And honestly, you look at it like he's been good, but it's not like he's, you know, prime Pat Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers out there and statistically speaking. But look at everything outside of Sam Darnell. Darnell does his story, but look outside. Brian Flores is a head football coach in the NFL. And what he's doing with his zone concepts, the way he's dropping and disguising coverage was right now. It's absurd stuff that I've never seen before. It's dropping into cover two with the safety on the line of scrimmage. Crazy. But then you look, the offensive line, while the past blocking metrics aren't great, they have a better offensive line than most teams in the NFL. You get Justin Jefferson, they're going to get Jordan Addison back from injury. They're going to get TJ Hawkinson back from injury. You have Aaron Jones in the backfield like Sam Darnell has been solid, but the rest of the team and obviously Kevin O'Connell, a fantastic play caller. So to me, I believe in all the other stuff with the Vikings. And I think with the quarterback play being what it is right now, Darnell is good enough to get them to a contending position in the playoffs. Absolutely. You brought that up perfectly. Their defense is so stinking good. Like so good. It's unbelievable because, you know, going into the season on paper, you were like, I don't think they have the secondary in order to be this great, but they have been so good. And like it is important to bring up their schedule. Cause week one, yeah, the face of giants, you can throw that game out. But the 49ers in the Texans are two of the top offenses, at least going into the season. That's what we expected them to be. And I still think they will be this year. So for them to just like win those games, really slow down those offenses. I mean, basically shut down the Texans completely. Like that's impressive. And with Sam Darnell, he's good enough, right? In this Kevin O'Connell offense, Kevin O'Connell is so good. And you brought up, they don't even have Jordan Edison yet. Or Keith May Hockinson, who is so important to this offense. So when they get him back, I did look at the PFF stats and Sam Darnell still one of the most inaccurate quarterbacks in the league. And he has like, I think the second highest and accurate, but catchable percentages on his pass attempts this year. But the thing is, when you're throwing the Justin Jefferson, it doesn't matter. Get it near him. He's going to catch it. So Sam Darnell's in a great situation. They are contenders for sure. I don't like Super Bowl contenders because you have Sam Darnell back there, but they are contenders. So, you know, win a wild card game, maybe even a division around. Well, to me in the NFC, I'm not such a big believer in like, I'm not such a big believer in Brock Purdy or such a big believer in what the Eagles got going on or such a big believer in Jared golf. Like to me, if there was another superstar elite level quarterback in the NFC that I was worried about, then I would agree with you. But I think that in the NFC, Sam Darnell is good enough to take them to the Super Bowl. But what I will say is they play their arch nemesis, the Green Bay Packers this weekend. And I am excited to see if they can, you know, get that monkey off their back early in the year. Now flipping over, do want to talk about another team, the Seattle Seahawks. And whereas I do believe that the Vikings can be contenders in the playoffs. I do not believe in the Seattle Seahawks. Now this may be reductive to a point to just look at their opponents, but they played the Denver Broncos at home week one. They play on the road, but play the New England Patriots, which people thought the Pats may be better than expected from their Cincinnati Bengals week one win, but looking at the Bengals now, and then looking at the Pats against the Jets in week two, maybe that's not quite what we thought. You know what I mean? So play in Denver, and then the Patriots, and then whatever this version of the Dolphins is that we are seeing right now without toa, like, I feel like the Seahawks are improved. They're better. They're going to be a playoff team. But I absolutely am not buying into the Seahawks as Super Bowl contenders. They are pretenders in my opinion. I think they're strong pretenders as well. I mean, they're deep enders is the perfect way to put it. They're strong pretenders strong pretenders. This is the issue, right? They're defense looks so incredibly good. They're, you know, all the metrics are saying that they're elite defense. And you want to believe it, right? Because Mike McDonald's, Mike McDonald's coming over from the defense of the Ravens and the Ravens were so good on defense last year. And you are seeing that impact on the Ravens defense, right? They're not as good without him. So you want to believe he brought this over to Seattle, but it's so hard to tell right now, because you just brought up those matchups. That means they face Bo Nix, Jacobi Percet, and Skyler Thompson. Like we don't know anything about this defense yet. Now they have to face the Lions this week. That's a harder offense, even though they've been starting slow, they get the 49ers a couple of weeks, the Falcons, the Bills, the Rams, the 49ers, the Cardinals, the Jets, like their schedules about to get way harder. I won't even be surprised if they end up missing the playoffs, let alone not contending in the playoffs. I mean, that is a little spicy. I must say, I think three and O really gives you an advantage there. But yeah, I see what you mean. To me, I don't believe in the offensive line. To me, I don't believe in the run game, especially with Kenny Walker banged up. I know Zach Charbonnet had a good game. I understand that. But again, it's all colored by the schedule that they've played. So we got more contender, pretender ahead. There are three other undefeated teams in the NFL, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Buffalo Bills, the Kansas City Chiefs. Who do you trust more of Buffalo or Kansas City and congesting fields? Keep this going. A lot to discuss on today's lockdown NFL. Another reminder, make sure that you check out Tony Wiggins in the barbershop for the afternoon edition of Lockdown NFL. It's the Lockdown podcast network, your team every day. Today's episode is brought to you by fan dual sports book. Hey, NFL fans. Yes, I'm talking to you. You're an NFL fan. Yep, that's you. You can start the season with a big return on fan dual America's number one sports book. So when you get a hunch in the middle of the game, you can check out the latest stats. You can view live play by play and so much more on the same exact page where you place your bets. It is an all encompassing hub for game information. You can get started on fan dual right now as well with $200 and bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. Let me run that by you one more time, just in case you missed it. That's $200 in bonus bets guaranteed when you place your first $5 bet. And hey, listen, I'm not telling you you have to, but the Giants plus five and a half that Thursday night game. I'm just saying, folks, I'm just saying. So make sure you take advantage and head to America's number one sports book. It's fandall got a fandall dot com. Okay, you can do this. I know, I know Carvana makes it so convenient to sell your car. It's just hard to let go. My car and I have been through so much together. But look, you already have a great offer from Carvana. That was fast. Well, I know my lessons played in my heart and those questions were easy. You're almost there now to just accept the offer and schedule a pickup or drop off. How did you do it? How were you so strong in letting go of your car? Well, I already made up my mind and Carvana's so easy. Yeah, true. And sold. Go to Carvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. All right, we're going to cap off today's Thursday night football preview edition of the lock on NFL podcast. We talked about that Thursday night football matchup football is back, folks. We made it through the couple of days of the week with no football, but we are back. But we've transitioned the conversation to a little contender pretender called the Vikings contenders or at least I did. Michelle, I'm not so certain. We both agreed the Seahawks are pretenders based on the schedule that they played. But now we're going to talk about the AFC teams that are undefeated and we'll start with the Pittsburgh Steelers. And obviously, a lot of the conversation is about Justin Fields and whether he could continue doing this. And we're going to hear from my guy Chris Carter at locked on Steelers about what Mike Tomlin is saying about the quarterback competition. The bottom line here is the reason Mike Tomman won't let anyone pin him down is because he realized why would you let anyone pin me down into a decision right now? And we all know it's no secret. It would be more beneficial to the Steelers if Justin Fields turned out to be the guy because he's the guy. He's 25 years old. You lock him into a future contract. You've got you may have your franchise quarterback for the next 10 years. And now that questions out the door. You don't got to worry about it. If Russell Wilson's the guy that could work out for this year, maybe next year. But you'll have to quickly be searching for your next quarterback hand. So obviously the Steelers like ideally Justin Fields would work out. But when you're in this position, if you're Mike Tomman, you just saw Kenny Pickett's situation blow up last year when Mason Rudolph was the starter and he can pick it wasn't sure about things. And then Kenny Pickett didn't want to be in Pittsburgh, go and Russell Wilson was signed. They want to avoid all that. Like, you know what? We're not talking about that. And that's why he's he's clear in the air, not talking to hypotheticals. Right now Justin Fields is setting to start this week. If Russell Wilson's healthy, we'll reapproach it here. I mean, that's the that's the right call from Mike Tomlin. Why box yourself in and, you know, basically lay your own trap in the woods. Like you're not going to lay a bear trap in the path that you walk when you go out to hunt. That's a little bit of a loose metaphor, but I like it. So I'm rolling with it. But at the end of the day, the quarterback situation is why I think the Steelers are pretenders. I think the Steelers are a playoff team. I said that before my playoff predictions. I think the Steelers make the playoffs. But I don't think that they are true Super Bowl contenders here because I don't trust that quarterback situation. So the defense is strong. They lean on the run game, but I just don't trust the quarterback. I don't trust the playmakers in Pittsburgh either. So Mike Tomlin can ham this egg and ham and egg this thing to a playoff appearance. But we know once they get there, they're not a team that you would trust to make a run. So I'm a Steelers fan. I'll say that just going to put it out there. So I might be biased, but I feel like I'm a very, very fair Steelers fan. So in previous years, I would have said, yeah, if they claw their way into a playoff, we're just going to get killed in the wildcard run. That's what I was saying last year. They're always going to get killed. I actually watching them this year. I have so much more confidence. Obviously, the defense is amazing, right? They rank first scoring total third down defense red zone defense. They've been playing lights out, but honestly, like, I know they haven't been putting up a lot of touchdowns or points on offense, but it's a completely different experience for me watching these games. Like, everything seems easier. They're actually throwing over the middle of the field. There's been some big plays called back by Tiki Tack Falls. Like, they, I really do think they haven't even come close to hitting their full potential. They haven't even let Justin Fields loose yet, right? He hasn't been using his legs as much as he could be. And I do think they're at this cusp of truly breaking out an offense. So if they can do that, and I think they will, I do think they could be contenders for the Super Bowl, maybe not, but for an AFC Championship appearance, I wouldn't be surprised. I'm not as down on them as I have been for the last three, four years. Well, I guess I wouldn't be shocked if they won a playoff game. I guess I can say that maybe saying that they're automatic loss in the playoffs. That's a step too far, but I don't, I just can't, I can't get there to say that they would even make the AFC Championship game. But that's why they play the games. Now, speaking of AFC Championship games, the two teams that are favorites to make it to that game right now are the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills who both sit at undefeated. I think that the reason we put these two teams at the end is because I think both of us would say that they are contenders. And I don't think you can really say much, like much else. But the real question here is, Michelle, with the Chiefs, maybe not looking their best, who do you trust more right now with Buffalo looking like the best team in the league? And I know you've seen some stats that make you maybe a little worried about the Chiefs. I mean, Josh Allen is playing lights out. I mean, I know the whole Bills team is their defense is playing lights out too, but Josh Allen is just killing it. He's limited to turnovers. With Joe Brady is like without Stefan Diggs and trying to get him his targets. Like he's not throwing interceptions anymore. And it's wild to see like how much he's dominating the league without having a go-to guy. He's just spreading the ball around and imagine when Kean Coleman gets more work under his belt or they finally like, you know, don't concave can break out or Khalil Shakir gets more time too. Like at the end of the year, they could even be better with these guys getting more experience. So I love the Bills this year. It's hard not to say you they should be strong, strong contenders for finally to make the Super Bowl, right? Hopefully that happens for Josh Allen. The reason I'm the thing is you can't be worried about the Chiefs, right? Because they stunk last year in the regular season. They crawled their way to the playoffs because they're in a terrible division. And then, you know, they pick it up for the playoffs, but I think their defense isn't as strong as it was last year. And that was a big part of them, you know, making it to the Super Bowl last year. Mahomes is really struggling this season. 77, or sorry, 73% of his yards have been from yards after the catch. That's the second most behind two. And he's only thrown for 659 yards. That's the worst through three games of a season in his career. He is averaging 4.6 area yards per attempt by far the lowest among all qualified quarterbacks. He has a 30 pass rating when under pressure. Only bonyx and Bryce Young have worst pass ratings when pressured. He has the worst completion percentage under pressure. So even worse, the bonyx and Bryce Young. And he's doing all this. He has all these bad numbers. Well, he's targeting an open receiver 56% of the time. That's the third highest rate in the league. So it's not the system. It's not your guys not getting open. It's just there's something there that Mahomes has been struggling the last two regular seasons. And I'm sure I'll look stupid in the playoffs and they'll come back to life and it'll be fine. I know it's a cheese, but I think they're falling apart a little bit right here. Well, I think so. Not falling apart too hard. Right. I know. And they get the charges with maybe without Justin Herbert this week. So they'll be foreign. Oh, it's just I don't think they're the same chiefs as normal. Yeah. And that's fair to look at. And what I would say is they've added wide receivers. You know, last year, everybody's like, how can they win without these wide receivers? And they add Hollywood Brown, who hasn't played yet and may not play at all this year with the injury, but Xavier Worthy and Rishi Rice is back. But Patrick Mahomes is average depth of target is 5.8. It's like the lowest in the entire NFL to go along with some of the stats that you're mentioning. So it's not like the offense has vastly improved now with the added weapons. One thing I will say for the Buffalo Bills is they have a really good offensive line this year, maybe the best offensive line they've had with Josh Allen. Their defensive line looks absolutely fantastic. And when you look around the NFL, the quality of offensive line play is so low that if you have a really good defensive line, they could take advantage of bad offensive lines. And you yourself have a good offensive line, which most teams do not. That is a critical advantage in the new version of the NFL. We're seeing this year where the run game is more important. Stop in the run is more important than it's bid. I saw some data in previous years, correlate and basically pass defense EPA and pass offense EPA. And that correlates directly with the best teams in the NFL, like DVO, a top DVOA teams and stuff like that. Well, I wonder if maybe we need to throw that out and start looking at it in a new cycle with the two high safety shells. Milk hyper hates to hear it. But you know, like, I think that we're seeing the NFL has always been cyclical. And we're seeing either season one or season two of the cycle going the other way. And the Buffalo Bills may be ideally suited to take advantage. But I have to steal a line for my guy Alex Clancy. It's Patrick Mahomes until it isn't. And there's no way that I'm betting on Buffalo over Kansas City. So I'll go with Kansas City as the team I trust. Patrick Mahomes and the refs. Am I right? Yeah, where's where's the bailout button? Everybody says it's like a beat the beatups commercial where they hit the overtime button. The NFL has the bail out the Chiefs button that they could be wanted to do right now. But they got to they got two friendly calls at the end of the game. I don't want to. I mean, Patrick Mahomes, it's that that's what he shines right at the end of games. It's always he's going to come through. I'm not trying to hate on him with these stats. It's just like we're not seeing the old Patrick Mahomes. And I feel like we have it in the regular season for a while now. Now, when they need him in the fourth quarter, he comes through and that's huge and he does make big plays and obviously he's the best quarterback in the league. But I just feel like Josh Allen and that team right now, that bill's team, it's just so dominant. Now there's been a lot of times they started strong and then kind of fell off. So hopefully they can keep it up. Well, it'll be interesting to watch the football weekend is back, folks. We made it once again, but that's going to do it for today's edition of lock on NFL. I'll be back on Friday with Ross Jackson, the mastermind to look at the rest of the NFL slate. But for me, the Matt and man, Tyler Roland and my co host, Michelle Maju, that is going to do it for us today. As I tell you, every single show, stay safe out there. Bye y'all. Hey, prime members, you can listen to this lock on podcast and free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today.
