Miami Dolphins' Quarterback Dilemma: A Lesson in Hubris? The Miami Dolphins face scrutiny for their lack of a backup plan when Tua Tagovailoa was injured, raising questions about their strategic foresight. Meanwhile, the Green Bay Packers are lauded for their preparedness, having Malik Willis ready to step in for Jordan Love. How does this contrast highlight the importance of quarterback contingency plans in the NFL?
The episode also explores the New York Jets' heavy reliance on Aaron Rodgers and the Los Angeles Chargers' season-threatening injuries against the Steelers. Plus, a preview of the Atlanta Falcons vs. New Orleans Saints rivalry, where offensive line issues could tip the scales.
Join us for an engaging discussion on these pivotal NFL narratives and discover the insights that could shape the season's outcome.
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It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. 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 Miami Dolphins should flat out be ashamed of themselves. Not because their quarterback got hurt, but because they didn't have a plan in case it happened. We'll talk about that in just a second here on Lockdown NFL. The barbershop is open and Tony Wiggins has a chair for you. He's ready with some real NFL talk. The local experts have locked on, bring their expertise, and Wiggy is ready with his clippers and shears. Sit down and enjoy. The new Lockdown NFL starts now. Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome to the new Lockdown NFL, bringing you a double dose of NFL's biggest stories with the help of our local experts that know your favorite teams like no one else. On today's episode of Lockdown NFL, we'll talk about the Saints and the Falcons, how they continue to build a rivalry and where those teams are right now with some injuries on the offensive line. We'll hit that in segment three, segment number two or the Jets playing with fire again when it comes to Aaron Rodgers, that'll be self-explanatory after we talk about segment one, which is Miami commit malpractice, and if they need to learn how to do the quarterback position when your quarterback gets hurt, oh, just look at Green Bay. We'll figure that out in just a second and talk about all of those things today. We appreciate you making us your first listen of the day and for being in every day here on Lockdown NFL, which is part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Make sure to tune in again to Lockdown NFL tomorrow morning for the Matt Mann Tyler Rolling for more NFL coverage. Today's episode is brought to you by Gang Time. That's right. Gang Time is the sponsor for today's episode, and all you have to do is download the Gang Time app, create an account and use the code Lockdown NFL for $20 off your first purchase. Of course it is Wednesday and that means David Harrison of Lockdown NFL and Lockdown Commanders joins us here on the show today, and David, we're going to talk about quarterbacks, quarterback malpractice. First of all, before we even start playing a clip, the tale of two different teams in the way that they handled these things, Miami seemingly has a quarterback that has been injured in the past and everyone was knew it was pretty much one bad hit or misfortune, it was very unfortunate, by the way, from being in a bad situation, but it appears that they did nothing to break themselves forward. Did you find that surprising in the off season and did this all of a sudden come and catch you by surprise, or is it pretty much what you thought it was? I mean, you have to be surprised, right, because you just look at the history and you have to build and anticipate these kinds of things, and this is what I talk to fans about every off season, you know, especially when you cover a team like the Washington Commanders who are kind of in this constant kind of mode of building and rebuilding, is these front office personnel and these decision makers, they've got to make decisions based on what they know, not what they hope. So if you look at to a tongue of a lower, and I will admit that I've never been quite as high on a guy like to it as some people have, but when you look at to it and you look at what he's gone through, you have to understand that you have a quarterback now, like what's to say? I'm not a doctor, but what's it saying? Like once you suffer a concussion, the likelihood that you're going to suffer another one or the potential for you to suffer another one in a similar situation, you know, it only increases. So you have to understand that you have a quarterback that at any moment, because of the way he plays, how competitive he is in his medical history, you might have to go without him, hopefully only for a little while, but even for a little while. Remember, the Cincinnati Bengals, they lost Joe Burrow, but they still had a winning record last year despite losing Joe Burrow, and they missed the playoffs. The AFC is a conference where you can't really afford to drop two, three, four games while you're waiting for your quarterback. And yeah, sometimes people luck into the Tom Brady behind them, because let's be honest, like, the Patriots lost Drew Bledsoe, they're like, uh, six round, six round guy, six round quarterback, why not go out there? And they just kind of lucked in the grand sport back the fall of time, but you have to have a plan when you know, it's not like Drew Bledsoe was coming into that season, this like banged up, everybody was like, Oh, we're just waiting on Drew to get hurt again. You've got to have a plan and you've got to have a succession play because when you have a team like this, you're paying Tyree, kill all this money. Jalen Waddell is still a young receiver who's on the verge of needing more money. You have to come out here and be prepared. You can't just tell guys like Tyree, like, sorry, bro, we just don't have an answer. It gets you the ball. Thanks for, thanks for coming. Like you've got to have a plan here because you have a team that you're trying to build into a championship contender. That lack of a plan, uh, I learned a new word listening to Cal crabs called hubris. Listen to what Cal crab says. And when we come back, when we come back, y'all might know what it means. I didn't know what it means until I looked it up. Listen to what Cal crab says is the reason why this is malpractice. Mommy dolphins fell in Seattle to the Seahawks by a final score of 24 to three. I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. Actually, I'm actually pretty mad. I am usually very process oriented frame of mind, not overreactionary to things that happen in the moment or the heat of emotions. But my eyeballs work and I know what product the dolphins put on the field in Seattle with 10 days of rest in preparation to play a football game. And the only word that I could really think of to describe a 21 point loss in which the defense played admirably well. They held Seattle under 300 yards of total offense. That side of the ball played about as well as you could relative to a great game script in which you were behind 14 points within the first 10 minutes. And I really, again, respect the way that that defense played. The word that came to mind was hubris. Um, David Harrison, I looked up hubris because in the barbershop, we don't use such words. We just call it BS or whatever. All right, so I looked it up. It says excessive pride or self confidence and it was absolutely perfect. This is arrogance. This is I can do what I do regardless of who the quarterback is. And it's obviously coach McDaniel. No, you cannot. And whatever heat that has to come from him to him or the GM Greer, they need it because this team is built to win. You can't just, oh, you lose to it and you just roll some dude out there. Skylar Thompson, who doesn't look like he knows what he's doing. Right. No, it absolutely isn't. And, you know, I know we're talking about Miami ball. I'll go up to Detroit kid rock once called this cocky. And what he said about being cocky is it's not cocky. If you're backing it up with Miami dolphins aren't backing it up. And honestly, they haven't even backing up. Because remember, this is a team even with Tyreke, even with Jay and Waddle, even with two, it's on Welloa. Haven't beaten a team that was a had a winning record or finished in the playoffs. And I can't tell you tell you how long it's been so long. Kyle Krabs, a lockdown dolphins, I'm sure has that tally going. And this is just another example of a team that has a lot of shiny weapons on the surface, right? But it kind of reminds me of like, like this great piece of chocolate that's wrapped in this like gold foil. You just think, Oh, man, like this thing's going to be just delicious. And you unwrap. And it's just, it's just a Hershey kiss and not like no offense to Hershey. No offense. People who just love Hershey kisses. But you can put a gold wrapper on anything. It don't make it any more fancy than it is. And this Miami dolphins team has not learned from its mistakes in the past. And because it hasn't learned from its mistakes in the past, it's doomed. To repeat, you know, the results of history and I'll give this like, they got a division rival with the Buffalo Bills and you know, we're like, I'm not super high on what the Buffalo Bills have done. I kind of look at them. I'm like, I don't really know what direction you're trying to go into. I'm sure you have a plan. I just can't really sense it from an outside perspective. But here's the thing, at least they're doing something, right? I learned this thing in the military way we're both veterans here. The worst decision you can ever make is no decision. Anytime you look at a situation, you say, you know what the best thing to do right now? Nothing. That is the, that is always going to fail. The Miami Dolphins looked at their failures of the past and said, you know what, guys? Here's what we're going to do. Nothing. We're just going to come in next year and we're going to do the same thinking thing. And guess what? The same thinking thing has happened in the Miami Dolphins again. Now at the top of segment two, I'm going to show you a team that I hope learned from the same mistake the Dolphins seemingly made this year. I don't know what they have, but before we leave this segment, I'm going to actually sit you. There's nothing better than a side-by-side example. And we also have another term in the military called contingency action, right? And folks say you shouldn't head your bets. Well, contingency action is exactly that you're hedging your bets because the stakes are so high. Listen to what Peter Bakowski says about the green-baked Packers and their approach after having a quarterback in camp for a week and now he's 2-0 and they're going to get the other quarterback back. When we talked about adapting this offense last week to a potentially encumbered Jordan love, what we mentioned was the offense is not going to actually have to change that much. And what I meant was depending on the quarterback, you're going to have to ask it to do the same things functionally, structurally, because they're not going to be able to run it down Tennessee's throat right up the middle as effectively as you did against the Indianapolis Colts. And you're going to have to get to more shotgun play action. And so even if you're going to live under the shotgun, you're going to have to expand the menu and you're going to have to expand the menu of passes. You're willing to throw from the gun, which you can do if you have Jordan love and you have to do if you're going to play Malik Willis. And you see on 13 and 14, he rips the in-breaker to Romeo Dobbs. He rips the deep over to Christian Watson on 13 and 18. Those are plays Jordan love would have made. Now I don't know. And so they, they did a lot of the things. I was surprised how much they let Malik Willis just go play quarterback. You see, that's exactly what we're talking about. Somebody would have planned. That's a real organization with the plan who have, they have beaten team. They have beaten playoff team. They have beaten those teams that we talked about. Make that you better watch himself man, being this hot shot play caller because what it's going to come down to is, yeah, you can win when everything's all perfect, but nothing's never perfect in the national football league as we'll talk about in just a second with the Jets. But I'll let you come in on what Peter Bikowski just said. No, I think it makes a very valid point. And honestly, it comes back to as well, going back to Huberts, right, like you don't need a whole lot of time to know who people are. Like I've kind of learned this over the years of like covering, you know, NFL drafts and players and seeing teams take guys that you kind of have these question marks about. And guess what? The question marks you have about a guy coming out of, I don't know, say Duke, big old quarterback coming out of Duke who have ball security issues, inaccuracy issues and wanted to run the ball too much to take too many hits. The New York Giants are probably not the hard way that that guy still is there. He's older. He's smarter. But that guy that he was a Duke is still the guy that he is today and they're paying for that unfortunately. So you don't need as much time as people think you do to know who a guy is. Green Bay Packers apparently just needed a week to know who Malik Willis was and the Tennessee Tigers. So they're going, man, like we never knew this dude apparently. So I mean, part of it is all these are on the coaching stuff. But yeah, Mike McDaniel, man, he's, you're getting, I love you, bro, but you're getting exposed. Yep, you're going to get exposed. All right. So segment two, we're going to continue with the quarterback theme up front and we're going to go to the team that the late great Peter Acstell wants called the big green fungus in New York where they ain't playing like no big green fungus. The Giants are playing like a big blue fungus. But the Jets hopes are obviously once again contingent on Aaron Rodgers stand healthy. Have they depended on that too much without a contingency action? There's my phrase again. I will talk about that here on lockdown NFL in just a second. Today's show is brought to you and sponsored by fan doo. That's right, man. By fan doo, I've been telling you all about fan doo for such a long time because I like talking about greatness and fan doo is 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, view live play by play and so much more on the same page where you actually made your bet. You don't have to leave and come back. It's all right. They're on fan doo. I told you America's number one sports book is always going to have their stuff together. All right. You'll get started with $200 in bonus bets guaranteed. Now this doesn't mean that you got to win. No, all you got to do is place your first ever $5 bet and $200 in bonus bets is going to show up. All you got to do, man, is go to fan doo.com and download fan doo.com or just go visit fan doo.com from your PC and make sure you take advantage of the big return fan doo of America. America's number one sports book, we're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search match with indeed ditch the busy work. Use indeed for scheduling screening and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash locked on NFL. Just go to indeed.com slash locked on NFL right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed.com slash locked on NFL. The terms and conditions apply need to hire. You need indeed. I segment number two here on locked on NFL, it is your team every day on the lock on podcast network. We absolutely thank you for joining us. Talk about quarterbacks and we're talking about teams that don't seem to function when their quarterback goes out. Now I'm going to just be real here. There's not one team that wants to get to their backup. It's not there. There aren't a whole bunch of teams that are equipped to stay exactly who they are with a backup quarterback, especially really, really good teams. But I think really, really good teams owe it to themselves and owe it to their team and to the fan base to at least have someone who is competent who can get you through for a little while. Last year the Jets learned along the hard way, even though they still played hard on defense, they learn the hard way, did they figure anything out from a coaching perspective that could help them? Well, John Bushko from locked on Jets, he has the answer for you. After a dominant win over the Patriots, is it fair to say Jets coaching is turning the corner? So yeah, the much more line Jets coaching staff now getting some praise after a great week three win over the New England Patriots. I think it's too early to say that the Jets coaching staff is on track at this point. Now, when people question the Jets coaching staff, I think they're really questioning two elements of it. Because there are parts of the Jets coaching staff that I think everybody agrees are excellent. I think really there are two areas when people say the Jets don't have good coaching, really two areas to focus on. One is the offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett, and I don't think I need to go into a lot of depth to explain to you why Nathaniel Hackett gets questioned. The second is Salah as head coach. He's going to question Salah's dedication, nobody's going to question Salah's influence, nobody's going to question Salah's effectiveness on the defensive side of the ball. But being a defensive coordinator is different from being a head coach. I think everybody agrees Salah is a great defensive coordinator. The success the Jets have had on the defensive side of the ball is testament to that. But being a head coach is more than just about building your own side of the ball. Yeah, well, you know what, looking like a good head coach, having a real good quarterback goes a long way. So a drop off from Aaron Rodgers down to Zach Wilson or whoever else they had last year, that's pretty significant, right? I think this is why you need that buffer. You need a professional backup. Mac Jones was out there for everybody to take and nobody acted like they wanted him. I think there are a bunch of quarterbacks that you can get that can keep your stuff on board for a little while. Too bad that the Jets are going to be judged by the fact that Aaron Rodgers, if he stays healthy, they're going to look like geniuses and they have a chance to make a deep run. But if he doesn't, everybody could get fired and that's a huge variance to overcome. Yeah, you know what the Jets are doing? The Jets are following the Bruce Arians method of no risk, no biscuit. You know what I mean? They're risking it all to try to go get that biscuit. And to a certain extent, there is something that's sort of admirable about it. Admirable about it. The Los Angeles Rams did it not that long ago. They won a championship out of it. And the expectation was, okay, you got your championship now here for the next five years or so, you're probably going to be doodoo and all that. And they have been able to actually keep that ship afloat as least being competitive, right? They've been able to be a competitive team in the NSC. So kudos to them for doing that. The Jets are in a similar situation except they're more like what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did when they brought in Tom Brady and you're basically handing the keys over to a legendary quarterback. Like, let's be honest here. When we're evaluating Robert Sol as a head coach in New York Jets, what are we really evaluating? Honestly, we're evaluating him as a defense reporter because, and John talked about a little bit there in his video because Robert Sol is not running that offense in any way, shape, or form. Aaron Rodgers is running that offense. Then Daniel Hackett is not running that offense. Aaron Rodgers is running that offense because most NFL minds would tell you, when you have a quarterback of the age of Aaron Rodgers as great as he is, you need to go start trying to find your next quarterback. But when you have a quarterback like Aaron Rodgers, who is now a mercenary coming to New York to go kill a championship for you, what you don't do is threaten his status in the tribe. And that's what the New York Jets did. When I got Tyrod Taylor, who is a guy who can try to keep you afloat if you need him, but he is not a threat to Aaron Rodgers. She's not going to replace him. Nobody's going to call for him. If Aaron goes up those 500 receptions, nobody's going to say, why is the Tyrod starting next week? But you know who could be a third round draft pick, a second round draft pick. And this hasn't come out yet. And I don't know for certain that it's true. I would be highly surprised to find out that Tom Brady was very unhappy when the Buccaneers selected Kyle Trask at the end of the second round, following bringing him in. Instead of going and getting another tie dent or a receiver or a blocker or a defender to take the ball away from the opponent every once in a while. I would be very surprised if Tom Brady was not unhappy about that. But that was the difference there is the Buccaneers said, Tom can have so much control, but we're still going to plan for the future. While the Jets, A-Rod is running the show. I would probably say A-Rod is the head coach, Robert Salas, the defensive coordinator, which isn't necessarily fair to Robert, right? But that's the job. You know what I mean? And to a certain extent, at least we're all being led to believe that he signed off on it as well and was willing to accept those circumstances. And if that's the case, then you made your bet. You got to lay in it. But I think that when we look at the New York Jets, we got to understand with what they're doing, it's not whether they learn their lesson or not. It's whether or not Aaron Rodgers learned his lesson. But the thing is, Aaron Rodgers is not worried about the Jets without Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers is worried about the Jets with Aaron Rodgers. You got that right. And this is just the tale of two different things. If Rodgers goes down, even if it's for a week or two, in the likelihood that that happened into a 40-year-old quarterback who's been hurt every year for the last five years, it's very high. So now you're going to really, really see whether or not Solon can do what the Packers did and figure out a way to win in a short window if that happens. Um, injuries have hit the Chargers who got off to a really, really hot start. My, uh, the estimation says that John Jim Harbaugh is going to figure it out and be able to make that team because of the way that they play a certain way. We're going to listen to a segment here really, really quick about the extent of their injuries. And then when we come back and David, I'll give you a chance to, uh, talk about their prospects because they played the Chiefs this week. Sunday was a disaster for the Chargers who dropped their game to the Steelers, but the result is far from their biggest concern going forward. This is Daniel Wade here from Lockdown Chargers coming to you after a bloodbath of a 20-10 loss for the Chargers against the Pittsburgh Steelers. And Justin Herbert entered this game with a high ankle sprain and was questionable. He looked good early on, but as the protection broke down, he ended up seemingly re-agervating the injury and had to leave this game, but that wasn't the end of the list. For Sean Slater, their all-pro tackle had to leave this game with a pectoral injury and their fifth overall pick, Joe Alt, their right tackle ended up getting banged up at the end of the game too. Add that to the Chargers already losing their best pass rusher, Joey Bosa in this game with a hip injury and the ramifications for this one game could follow the Chargers for a while with a game against the Kansas City Chiefs in week four before their bi-week. But for the full game breakdown, make sure to check out the Lockdown Chargers podcast. Part of the Lockdown podcast network, your team, every day. David, it's a tough week for Jim Harbaugh to show how good of a coach he is with the point that they have coming in. Yeah, man, look, we talked about this not that long ago. The Los Angeles Chargers opened up the season against Las Vegas Raiders and Carolina Panthers, so I didn't believe any of that two-and-oh Starcraft anyway. They lose the Pittsburgh Steelers. You want to talk about coaches having plans? Mike Tomlin is a man who knows who he needs on his team to win football games and continuously produce winning records. So while everybody's laughing at him for taking Rosa Wilson, everybody's laughing at him for taking on Justin Fields. Guess what? That man's laughing at you right now, and Pittsburgh Steelers are winning football games. The Los Angeles Chargers, I never viewed them as the legit contender the way that everybody else did. I thought they would have an inflated win/loss record because they had the second easiest schedule in the NFL this season. And look, after beating the Raiders, beating the Panthers, the Raiders, by the way, just lost to the Carolina Panthers. I don't care that it was Andy Dalton in there. It's still the Carolina Panthers. They've come up against a team with a winning record, and they lose, and they lose by multiple scores. And that just shows you the state of Los Angeles Chargers. Those injuries are not going to help. And actually, if those injuries are sustainable, with the second weakest schedule in the NFL, it might even be worse than I thought they were. Yeah, they just might be, man. So it's got a big test for them in the AFC West. They still play relatively competitive against the Steelers. I do like where they are, but I think we have to be realistic about it. Two teams that are fighting to show you who they are, are hoping to be like the Hatfields in my course. The Saints and the Falcons, they can't stand each other. And those games are always in domes, and those games are always loud and crazy. Speaking of a team that invested in a quarterback, even though, well, they invested in a quarterback, the Falcons have actually looked pretty good this year. We'll discuss that in segment number two here, unlocked on NFL. Today's show is sponsored and brought to you by BetterHelp. Man, if you have ever been like me and have been in situations where therapy was really something that you wanted to think about, well, you need to listen, because BetterHelp is an outstanding option. And it could be for any reason. It could be, I had a death in the family. I was dealing with severe pain management, and nobody knew why I was hurting so bad. And having people understand that creates an anxiety when they keep telling you nothing's wrong. And also, finding time to spend with your loved ones when it seems like you just don't have as much time. There's a lot of reasons you can use therapy. And I really think if you're considering therapy, you should give BetterHelp a try. It is always an option that could absolutely work for you. It's entirely online designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no reason. Here's what you do. Visit BetterHelp.com/lockedon. Today to get 10% off your first month, that's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P. .com/lockedon to get 10% off your first month. All right, third and final segment here on Lockedon NFL, where it's your team every day. We always thank you for making us your first list. And make sure you tap into the double dose of Lockedon NFL, the madman Tyler Roland hit you early in the morning with a double shot of espresso. I'm telling you, it's going to wake you up too. Tyler is calling the madman for a reason. And you can slide on over here, but we just relax, chill out, and we pick at everybody. We're always in everybody's business over here at the barbershop. That's five days a week Lockedon NFL on YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast. I'm actually impressed with the Atlanta Falcons. And this is not about the total picture, but it is about whether or not they've improved or whether or not they've become competent. They lost a close game, but I want to get Aaron Freeman from Lockedon Falcons. I want to get his reaction from the close loss they had to the Chiefs the other night. The Falcons come up short on Sunday night. I'm Aaron Freeman with Lockedon Falcons. The Falcons lost a close competitive game to the Kansas City Chiefs 22 to 17 on Sunday night football. The Chiefs ground game fueled an offense that dominated time of possession, possessing the ball for more than 12 minutes more. Then the Falcons and the Falcons just couldn't take advantage of their limited opportunities with two final possessions in a position late in the game to make the go ahead score. They came up short once on a pair of under thrown balls from Kirk Cousins, the Drake London and Kyle Pitts in the end zone. And then on another pair of rushers that got bottled up in short yardage. The Falcons will get another chance to get their first home win of 2024 next week versus their bitter rivals to New Orleans Saints in the battle that could help decide NFC South playoff race from more coverage of the Atlanta Falcons. Follow Lockedon Falcons, part of Lockedon podcast network, your team every day. Aaron Freeman from Lockedon Falcons, he makes some absolutely wonderful, wonderful points about the Falcons. This is a good game with two, two and one teams. Yeah, you know, the thing about the Atlanta Falcons, right? So they obviously come in, you know, they come in with a record that they have and people will say you are what your records is for. And I think it's a funny way because we go through this episode and we start off talking about a team that didn't do enough to get a back reporter back. And now we're going to end up talking about a team in Atlanta, at least where we would all say they did too much to go get the back of quarterback or the next quarterback, right? So you have two different sides of the point here, but I think we have to remember about the Atlanta Falcons is, you know, the history of the NFL will tell you that when a new quarterback gets a new office coordinator or an office coordinator gets a new quarterback or both are new together, there's a growing period, right? There are growing pains you have to go through. And I think that's important to remember here with the Atlanta Falcons. The other part of it to remember is that Kirk Cousins is coming off a very serious injury. And yes, he's back and yes, he's playing and yes, he's practicing. But anybody who's gone through a torn ligament of pretty much any kind will tell you that it takes time. Like once you're healed and ready to go back to regular activity, and these are all the air quotes for our audio audience, you're not like 100%, like you're not just you again. It's like, ah, okay, I'm healed. And now I'm just the same old guy you saw before. No, it takes time. And so you add that on to learning a new system, the system learning you, coordinator learning you, you learn coordinator, all that kind of stuff. And even if you're working with somebody you're familiar with, people change, people grow, people have experiences. Atlanta Falcons have a lot to build off of right now. I think that's the most important thing. I know we hate moral victories, but guess what? In the early part of the season, those moral victories can turn into actual victories. And this is a very critical stretch to the Atlanta Falcons, because not only do they got the Saints this week, after that, they got the Bucks, after that, they got the Panthers. That's three divisional games. If they can take those three divisional games, they put themselves in the driver's seat, and then they get to rinse their NFC South, taste out their mouth a little bit, they get the Seahawks, but then they come right back. They got the Buccaneers, then the Cowboys, then the Saints. This is an incredibly important stretch to the Atlanta Falcons to learn from these first three games, because they're coming out of that Kansas-C Chiefs game. I understand they got dominated time possession, but they're going to come out of that thing and say, "Look guys, even though we had few opportunities, bro, we could have won that game." So if you could have won that game, you could beat the Saints, you could beat the Bucks, you could beat the Panthers, you could do all of these things. It's about learning, being patient enough with yourself to learn appropriately, and doing it in the opportune times. And, you know, look, this is going to be a very big stretch for the Atlanta Falcons to find out who they are, and see just how far they've come in the first three weeks of the season. And one of the keys Aaron Freeman said is the Chiefs basically ran a bunch of plagues. They had the ball control. That has become a little bit more difficult with New Orleans. Ross Jackson from The Lockdown Saints, going to tell you why. Well, that one's going to hurt. I'm Ross Jackson, host of The Lockdown Saints podcast. The New Orleans Saints expected now be without starting center Eric McCoy for six to eight weeks. He's going to have to undergo surgery for the groin injury that knocked him out, up against the Philadelphia Eagles, and just the third play of the game. All this, of course, due to reporting from NFL Network. So this is a big loss for New Orleans. They had a lot of trouble running the football without Eric McCoy in the lineup. How much of that was because of what Philly was doing well. How much of that was the Saints having to replace Eric McCoy in a game as opposed to with a week of preparation? We don't know. We'll have to see. But in terms of solutions, here's whether the New Orleans Saints will likely go. Either Lucas Patrick or Cesarueez, one of their starting guards, will likely shift the center. My vote would be Cesarueez moving back to his natural collegiate position. And then they can elevate somebody from the practice squad, maybe a Kyle Hergel, to help to build out the rest of the depth on the offensive line. They could also look outside the building, add to the practice squad, and then eventually up to the active Rosser. A guy like Mason Cole would make a lot of sense. All right, David, we got about a minute. Tell me who you think wins this game. Who wins despite the depleted offensive line from both teams? I think the Falcons are going to win. I think the Falcons are going to win because I think that the depleted offensive line impacts New Orleans Saints more than it impacts the Atlanta Falcons. I like that Falcons defense. And I'll tell you what, we're going to flip the coin over again. The Saints, their next few matchups, they got the Falcons. They've got the Kansas City Chiefs. They've got the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Guess what the Chiefs and the Buccaneers have two of the best interior defensive lineman in the national football league. Losing that center is massive from the New Orleans Saints. They could go over three in this next stretch and all those good vibes that they just had coming in the last weekend could be a complete memory. And then you got the Denver Broncos and wig. The Buccaneers learned the hard way. Sean Payton, he knows the NFC South and he knows how to beat you. He does know how to beat you and kudos to Sean Payton for making me look silly by thinking that Sean Payton was looking silly in Denver. I tell you what, man, we don't look silly here on lockdown NFL because we give it to you in a double dose. Twice a day, Tyler rolled in the madman in the morning. Tony Wiggins in the barbershop coming to you in the early afternoon here on lockdown NFL, the new lockdown NFL, adding in the local hosts that covered the team and know the team better than anyone. And we love it here on lockdown NFL. Make sure you tap in tomorrow on Thursday with both episodes wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. All right, Mr. Harrison, we will see you next Wednesday. My brother enjoy your time out there covering the commanders all on the road. Like a jet setter, I see you, man. All right, we'll see you next time here on lockdown NFL. Make sure you take care of each other and we'll do the same. A prime member, you can listen to this lockdown podcast ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.
