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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Whether you love true crime or comedy, celebrity interviews or news, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue. And guess what? Now you can call them on your auto insurance, too, with the name of your price tool from Progressive. It works just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance, and they'll show you coverage options that fit your budget. Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Hey, it's Tiki Barber. Getting ready for game day looks a lot different for me now, but the one thing I look forward to most these days are my snacks. My favorite is buffalo chicken dip, and the best way to make it is with some best foods real mayonnaise. Best foods mayonnaise is the secret to bring out the rich and creamy taste in all of your game day dishes, so give it a try and mayo game day be delicious with best foods real mayonnaise. Shop your local Walmart program or grocery store and add some extra deliciousness to your game day dishes this football season. Yo, what's cracking everybody James Ko, Matt Harman here with you. You're listening to Reception, Perception, The Show. Alright, as we fast forward here, as we approach week number two, man week one just went by so fast. It was crazy. It was absolutely insane, Matt Harman, but yeah, looking forward here to week number two, we've already got some quarterback changes and all that kind of stuff due to injuries and some rumors of some quarterback changes potentially in New York as well. But yeah, crazy stuff going on here in week number two. Yeah, I mean, it's a tough break when you are Brian Dabel and you've got to already start swatting down. I'm not thinking about changing my quarterback and all that stuff. Not a great, not a great break there. I will say, I'm, I don't know, I have like a weird fascination with the Steelers quarterback situation just because I guess there's such big names, you know, with Justin Fields and Russell Wilson. But I thought that Arthur Smith, my guy Arthur Smith did a pretty good job designing that passing game around what Justin Fields likes to do, which is don't throw down the pipe. Don't throw down the middle of the field. I thought they had a lot of really like George Pickens role in that game was perfect to me. You're asking them to do a lot of deep outside the numbers targets. That's a his best routes. We know that be a reception perception nine corner out route. Those are his best patterns. That's where Justin Fields likes to throw the football and oh by the way, Arthur Smith, a guy who's familiar with Falcons defender Jesse Bates knows that Jesse Bates is one of the few good defensive players that the Falcons has. So like, yeah, let's not throw down the middle of the field right where Jesse Bates can wreck an entire offense. So I thought that was in. I feel like that's definitely one of the more interesting quarterback situations. You know, Russ is literally lurking behind Justin Fields, like in pads, the whole game. The dude's inactive for the game and he's dressed in full pads like what is going, bro, you can't play. Like, why are you dressed? Why are you dressed? Yeah. I mean, this is my buddy Charles from Yahoo made a great point about this, which is like, this is kind of the, this is kind of the downside of take doing the FU to Denver and like taking just the vet minimum deal to go to Pittsburgh and making Denver pay all of your offset money is that now the your current team has no financial loyalty to you. It's not like, well, we're paying him seven million bucks. We better figure out what he's got. It's like, well, we want a game with Justin Fields. We played pretty well. Like offense kind of function the way we would hope. So yeah, let's just keep rolling with Justin. And I feel like Russell's going to have a tough time with that. But yeah, I feel like as long as Justin Fields doesn't turn the ball over, you know, he's always going to be a sack heater. I think that's just part of it. But as long as he doesn't commit a bunch of turnovers, I feel like this offense can kind of keep rolling just in a very 2022 Falcons type of way, I was going to say rolling is a very interesting term. Yeah, relatively to where things roll. You know what I'm saying? Like, I think this could be that knocking's offense. People forget in 2022, I mean, I will never forget because I kind of like that Falcons offense. And you know, I kind of like the Arthur Smith thing, even though everybody else hates it. In 2022, that offense was top 15 in EPA per play and success rate and stuff like that. So okay. Yeah, I mean, I mean, zero touchdowns though. You know what I'm saying? Like Steelers. Yeah. Six field goals. Oh my goodness. You do. You do want to score touchdowns, but 11th and success rate was that Falcons 2022 offense. Yes, we do. We do eventually want to score some touchdowns here, but, but we'll see. We shall see 14 rush attempts, by the way, for Justin Fields, which is just bonkers too. You know, it's like, oh my goodness, 14 rush attempts and just 17 completions. So yeah, very interesting stat line for Justin Fields in that game against the Atlanta Falcons who they don't have a strong pass defense at all. And the Steelers, I thought, you know, struggled a little bit to get that ball in the passing game. So I don't know. We shall certainly see here, but should we stay there? I guess, you know, we talked about Drake London here in this ball game. Three targets, two grabs for just 15 yards, 15 yards for Drake London, Matt, 27 routes run. I was tied for the most with both Darnell Mooney and Kyle Pitts. He played 100% of the snaps. Never got off the field on the offensive side of the football. He only saw one target though, over 10 air yards was a, it's so, it's so sad because we were, we've been absolutely, you know, scarred by Arthur Smith and the quarterbacking situation there in Atlanta. And we were really anticipating, and I'm using, you know, the collective we, the fantasy we, the football we, we were expecting Drake London to, again, being paired with Kirk Cousins have a much better output. And man, it was the exact same stuff, all this underneath stuff and wasn't targeted nearly enough. It just was, it was a disappointing start, I think to Atlanta's campaign for sure. Yeah. And let's throw two caveats out here. One, this, and I said this a lot, even leading up to a Falcons season that I was very excited about. This is a lot of new here, right? This is a new head coach, a new offensive play caller, first time play caller, new offensive coordinator and a new quarterback in, you know, with a new team, right? It's a lot of new here. Teams just not, you know, just taking a total pass on the preseason is so on my radar too. All these Sean McVey acolytes want to act like they're just the Rams and they're Sean McVey and they can just not play their guys in the preseason and get rolling. Well, then we see teams like this that look like shit in week one. And there's, there's a handful of teams doing this and, and it's just again, I realize we're not playing for week one, right, which is why we shouldn't overreact to week one, we're going to try to not overreact to week one here on this podcast. But it's still, it's better to get off to a good start than to not. Okay. It's just objectively easier to make the postseason. If you win early, that's true in every, in every sport, it's certainly true in football. So I do think that teams getting off and being able to build momentum and like, man, you imagine if the Falcons are coming off like a great vibes week one win. I just think it would be, it would, and now they're going into a Monday night football game, Kurt cousins against the Eagles on Monday night. It's going to be going to be a lot of, going to be a lot of eyeballs on that. Going to be a lot of negativity talking points going into it. I just feel like vibes matter. It would be great to get off to a start. So that's one caveat. Second caveat. I think Pittsburgh might have the best defense in the league. They have like four legitimate game records on defense. They have TJ Watt, who was just out of his mind in this game, I was talking with Nate Tyson about this where TJ Watt was teeing off against Kurt cousins like it was the fourth quarter in the second quarter. Like that's how much he was because, and we'll talk about some of the structural reasons why, but he was absolutely crazy in that game. Cam Hayward is like 40 years old. He's about as old as you James Coe and he's not quite, but almost, almost. He is like wrecking people in this game. He was, he was a bully up front, you know, him and Matthew Bergeron did battle. And Bergeron didn't win a lot of those battles. Joey Porter Jr. in the secondary, I think is one of the obvious breakout corners in the league this year. And they have Minkefitz Patrick back there, who we know is a game record. So they have some other nice ancillary pieces as well. So that's just something to remember here that Pittsburgh, very good defense, that's got continuity, whereas Atlanta, very new things being broken in here. Same time. Okay. Those caveats are not there. That's to be one of the most disappointing, uh, I just said it was disappointing. I didn't say it's over or, or whatever, I just said it's disappointing. Stop laughing. Dude, dude, I mean, you spent a good, you spent a good three, four minutes taking the listeners and myself on a fucking journey of just, Hey man, Atlanta's Atlanta's doing this and this. And at the end, holy hell, wow, just one of literally one of the worst offensive performances we've, I mean, wow, what, what an absolutely most disappointing offensive performances in a week. Oh my God. Which is true and unbelievable, unbelievable rollercoaster that was. I love it. Go, go. I mean, dude, it's like, it's like, okay, you know how these things are sometimes you spend like a month, you know, uh, traveling, you're on the road, you're in hotels, the gym and the hotel's not great. You're eating out more. You come back at the end of the month and you're like, you know what? I'm out of shape. I'm feeling a little flabbier than, than I was before I left on the trip. And you know what? You can risk list all these reasons off while I was traveling. All the foods, but at the end of the day, the results, the result, you need to get your ass back in the gym and you need to hit it and you need to hit it and you need to be better tomorrow. Okay. And that's the, that's the way with the Falcons. We have some reasons, maybe, uh, it may be excuses, maybe reasons, but we have reasons for why it could be excused as just, just disappointing blip on the radar, but the reality is the reality. It was a wildly disappointing performance. Yeah. 15 of 26 was Kirk Cousins, a 61% completion rate, which isn't horrible against this defense. 59%, 59 rating though, one touchdown, two interceptions for Kirk Cousins and quite frankly, just overall it just didn't, there was no sink. There was nothing that was in sync. I mean, Ray Ray McCloud who ran 18 routes in this game saw seven targets. I mean, he's the leading target getter. Ray Ray McCloud. We can't be doing this. I know, I know it's a revenge game for old Ray Ray, but come on now, bro, like we can't, we can't have, we can't be targeting this guy seven times on 18 routes. That to me doesn't make a lot of sense. And I know that Kirk Cousins was under pressure quite a bit, which makes sense in terms of, okay, we want to get this short and underneath. Okay. Brian Robinson, Kyle Pitts. Okay. That, that kind of stuff makes sense, man, but you got to scheme up ways. You got to, if you're Zach Robinson, you got to figure out ways to go get Drake London involved, period, period. I don't care how good Joey Porter is. Drake London is a certified stud, like we got to go get him the football. I don't care if it's contested. We got to scream at Kirk Cousins, brother, I don't care if it's contested. We got to go let Drake go make some plays. You know what I'm saying? So, it just to me was very timid. It looked like it's all of the bad traits of Kirk Cousins, afraid to pull the trigger, you know, wasn't aggressive enough and just too quick to bail out on certain plays. You know what I mean? So, I didn't like how Atlanta looked at all. I thought, I thought we saw some things here with the running game, but overall still disappointing in the run game too, 18 carries for 68 yards for Bijon Robinson for a 3.8 yards per carry average. Yikes. Overall, just a completely disappointing performance, but how does Atlanta now put this kind of sort of behind them? They've got a tall task here. Kirk Cousins in prime time. Oh, gah, Lee, I don't want to bring up the numbers there, but they're not good. Kirk Cousins in prime time is not good, and he's got to go take on one of the better teams in the NFL and Philadelphia. How does Atlanta put it together? Yeah, and before we talk about the Drake London of it all, I think that it's worth pointing out just what a tall task I think this is for Atlanta to get right from a schematic point, from an operations standpoint, because the Falcons, this is from next-gen stats. They use pistol on the majority of their offensive plays, 55% in week one. Kirk Cousins has never taken more, he's never taken more than 10 snaps out of pistol in any game during his NFL career. When you go further into it, the Falcons never used play action, never used play action in this game, not one time, and they took one snap under center. They ran the ball and 81% of their plays out of pistol. They called zero runs out of shotgun. Like if you have a siloed offense in today's NFL, you are cooked. You can't do it. Okay. You've got to be able to blend the run in the past game. That's problematic. And this stuff with Kirk Cousins taking almost, taking no snaps, no play action shots under center. That's crazy. Man, that's crazy. Kirk Cousins, according to profile focus in 2022, and this is just 20, or TV, 2023. He took 31% of his drawbacks of play action. The vast majority of those were under center. The only guys that started multiple, like a ton of games and were higher play action rates were Joe Flacco and Desmond Ritter. Okay. Like the part, the whole thing here about Kirk Cousins going to Atlanta and why this made sense is Zach Robinson, Rahi Morris. These are guys who come off of the Sean McVay tree. Kirk Cousins has been playing in this offense forever, whether it was under the Shanahan's in Washington, when it was under McVay in Washington, whether it was under Kevin O'Connell in Minnesota, former Rand's offensive coordinator. The idea here is that this is such a safe, easy transition for him to make, even if he's coming off an injury, even if he's, you know, a new quarterback to this, to this team, it's a familiar system. What we saw in week one is not a familiar system. No. Some of it is kind of similar to what the Rams were doing with Matthew Stafford the last couple of years, but like, dude, Kirk Cousins is not Matthew Stafford. Kirk Cousins coming off in Gilly's injury is certainly not Matthew Stafford. Some of the reason that TJ Watt was able to, like I say, tee off on this Falcons offense is because you could tell by the second quarter, oh, Kirk is not moving. Kirk is not going to, like, they're not going under center. There's no play action. There's no threat of the boot from the quarterback to open up the field from a play action standpoint. So you're just, this is, this is tough. Again, maybe this is just week one. It's one thing. It's not a good idea, but you can't see this stuff and not think, oh, man, are they worried about the Achilles? You know, are they worried about the fact that he tours Achilles and I regret kind of grouping in Rogers and, and Cousins, just both of these guys. Oh, old Achilles quarterbacks, because one, number one, so different. Yeah. Number one, timeline. So different. Number two, one guy didn't, one guy toward in his plant foot, his back foot, and the other one didn't. Okay. You could tell he was not comfortable getting on that back foot and pushing the ball down the field and even worse. And I think this is where, you know, we'll get into the Drake London part of it too. But like, there were times where windows are open downfield and by the time Kirk pushes off that back foot and rips it, then the throw is late. It's picked off. That was definitely the case on that one interception. For sure. Um, yeah, it's, it's a very troubling first performance, both from the way the quarterback played, but also what they asked the quarterback to do, because this is not the Kirk Cousins offense as we know it. So let me bring up one point in regards to the pistol stuff, which is just, it's weird to me. Um, if you're going to go, it's, it's almost again, there is a certain system that you can run with pistol, right? We saw, we actually saw, um, I believe it was, was it Greg Roman's pistol, um, with Colin Kaepernick? Yep. That was extremely successful, but a lot of this requires the running back to be able to generate some yards. Again, you, you talk about the threat of the run, but he has to be able to run this off of like an RPO style, um, system, right? And what that generally means is that these running backs are for better or worse, uh, going to be, you talk about sacrificial X is sometimes these running back runs are sacrificial runs. You know what I mean? Just pistol and RPO and the run back is going to run right down the middle of, of, of main street, right into the line and is expected to either push the pile or find a little bit of a seam and get some positive yardage, right? And as a matter of fact, that's what we saw in Indianapolis. That's why from a production standpoint, I'm extremely, extremely worried about Jonathan Taylor. Uh, but they didn't do that. They almost tried to blend Atlanta did this pistol style with this outside zone concepts that they like to run there with the McVay system, right? Um, and I know McVay did this, you know, a bunch of stuff, you know, gap scheme duo last year, but that's, that's not what he generally has been known for, right? Like it was exclusively outside zone stuff. I looked this up Atlanta led the NFL in week number one in outside run attempts, right? So percentage of runs that go to the outside 81, 82% of their runs went to the outside of the tackles. I can't square that with then also being the highest pistol formation team in the NFL, right? There, those two things just generally don't go together, right? So I'm, I don't know, man, it, it, it very much seemed as if these concepts that they want to bring in Zach Robinson wants to bring in from the McVay system, they want to run it to the outside, but then at the same time that they're not willing to go under center. And I think that's how they ended up on pistol, which I just don't think it's, I just don't think worse. They got to commit you to the full shotgun or go under center man, but they got a pick. Yeah. And you know, Bijon Robinson, 72% of his carries were zone concept runs in week number one. So you're right. To the outside. It makes no sense. Yeah. So usually why this is interesting, for example, when like Matthew Stafford gets into pistol or when Toa, who was one of the most efficient quarter, most yards out of pistol last year, it's interesting for those guys because it's sort of a compromise between play color and quarterback because you're not, you're, you're letting them get into these guys, especially a guy like Stafford wants to get in the shotgun and wants to, you know, do the point and shoot stuff, you know, like ID mismatches and all that stuff. And Matthew Stafford's great about, he's able to attack the middle of the field with, because of all the no look stuff, the eye manipulation. He's great at that. Like he can, he's got almost, almost compare him to like a puppeteer, right? He's got some of these guys in the middle of the field, like on strings and just pop this guy over here with my eyes, boom, wide open window to Cooper cup, 21 times in the damn game against Detroit. So like it's a compromise there for these guys that want to get in the gun, but these play callers want to run their run game out of an under center look. And you know, I wonder too, if we see more of that total tangent, but I wonder if we see more of that in Baltimore because Lamar has typically been a shotgun quarterback, but Derek Henry's been an under center back. So that's something to look out for there. But in this situation, particularly, it's just weird because the quarterback is not a shotgun quarterback, at least he hasn't been throughout the vast majority of his career. He's been efficient as an under center play action quarterback. And you know, if they're putting him in the gun, I would, again, I can't help but wonder if it's, if it's a, if it's just a movement thing, because you are sacrificing some level of the quarterback mobility in this pistol environment. But yeah, I just, man, if cousins like just can't move at all, it's, it's a problem. Okay. So that's just the biggest thing to look out for here from an ecosystem standpoint. It's, are they able to blend these two worlds together? Are we going to see more under center play action? Because that's part of what make Drake London so appealing this year is like, oh, he's, he's going to be getting these shots off play action. I mean, I talked about it in a video for YouTube, like these shots over the middle of the field on play action are going to be so available because that is what Kirk Cousins is throwing. And that's what Drake London is, is good at running to move this to the Drake London part of the discussion. So what is frustrating about this James is just watching Drake London in week one. I love, I love the way they use them. I loved the deployment. I love the deployment for, for Drake London. Okay. Because what I talked about for, for most of his, most of his plays, or excuse me, most of his first few years in Atlanta, pure X receiver stuff outside on the line of scrimmage. It's pretty static usage, mostly just, especially last year running a lot of curl routes. It's not so much this year in week one, over 60% of his snaps came off the line of scrimmage. You frequently see him in most in motion. He's in the slot a good bit. It's just, I love that. That was the type of usage I imagined Drake London getting when I thought about him in this offense. We're getting him slot reps. It just, to me, I thought it was exactly the way I'd like to see him use the problem. And, and a lot of routes over the middle of the field, 38% of his routes were post, dig or slant route. I need more slant routes for sure, but, and less curl routes. But regardless, overall, I like the usage for London in week one. The problem is just everything else around it. Yeah. To your point, he was primarily an outside receiver and still is 80% though outside in 2023, that numbers drops to 70% outside here in the first week of 2024. So it doesn't sound like a huge bit, but it can be though, you know, when you're going from, you know, something like 22% inside to 30% inside, that just means you're getting some more layup looks that you would think about, right? And just putting the stress on the defense to keep accountable of Drake London. So, yeah, if they continue that, I think that's really promising. And that's something that we should certainly look forward to. Man, they got to figure this thing out with Kirk Cousins. If he really honestly does not feel comfortable on that plant leg, I mean, when do you just bring in the rookie and just say, hey, listen, Kirk, get healthy. When you get healthy, you're going to get out there and hopefully panics can keep us, you know, within range of a playoff berth. I don't know, but you just can't keep going on like this. And by the way, taking on Philadelphia, even if they had all guns blazing, they might lose that game, right? Right. They're going to lose that game, even with all weapons functional, right? They're expected to lose that game. So with a 70, 60% Kirk Cousins, Philadelphia, let's say Philadelphia wins that game. Atlanta is now 0-2 in the hole and not looking good. That's scary. Not great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Super scary. And you know, the schedule doesn't ease up after that, man. The schedule for, for the Falcons, it's, it's just tough, right? We, like you said, we get Philadelphia, then we get Kansas City, Kansas City and week three. Oh God. And I mean, then we go on a little NSC South run with the Saints and the Bucks, both of whom looked a hell of a lot better than the Falcons and week one will just say that you don't get to play the Panthers until week six. Okay. So you'll, you'll get your win there. But yeah, I mean, and it's going to get dark pretty quickly. And just the fact that they have panics on the roster, it, it sends me two little, like two little things kind of, you know, go off in my brain. One, the fact that they drafted him, you know, and I can totally see Michael Pennics operating a pistol shotgun offense. Also like, Pennics didn't rush a lot in college. Remember, he ripped off a pretty impressive 40 time. Like the dude can, he might not have the best functional mobility. I think he's got to work on his, um, like, you know, elusiveness in the pocket. Yeah. Right. So I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. 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I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. Let's be real. They're starting 0-3. They're losing to Philadelphia in prime time. They're losing to Casey. They've got no chance. They're going to be 0-3. There's going to be some serious, depending on how cousins look, there's going to be some serious calls about, like, should we give Michael Pennix a little bit of an opportunity? To your point, I look at that contract and that's why I think, okay, they can actually put the toothpaste back in the tube if it came to that just because of the contract. Also, by the way, I just don't think Pennix is ready, by the way. Given his college tape, I would be surprised if Pennix comes out, just hair on fire and just starts lighting it up. I would be surprised. If he does do that, then, of course, all bets are off. You go with the rookie, right? But, yeah, I just think that it might be a little bit of a struggle for him coming out the gates. Messy, messy stuff here with this whole thing. But, yeah, one other thing I would just say is that, like, I'm not worried about Drake London. Like, I think Drake London played great in this game. I thought he, you know, he got open consistently, especially against zone coverage, which the Steelers played a good bit of zone coverage in this game. I thought he was open consistently. The problem is, against a good secondary like that, those windows are going to open and then they're going to close. Like, he settles in the right spot, working back to the quarterback on curls, working over the middle of the field on digs, but those windows are going to close quickly. And when you have a quarterback who is not confident in that back foot and is not going to just plant, rip, and go, then I think that's when you find yourself in a problem. So, yeah, definitely, I think Drake London's still a great player, but this situation, I hope we're overreacting. I hope that all things come together pretty quickly here in Philadelphia against a defense that is still in transition to a new coach and has some question marks, but definitely the, you just can't put lipstick on a pig. It was a very, very disappointing week, week one debut. Yeah, there's no question about it. By the way, this is why I love we can, we could just talk. We could do whatever we want because we own this podcast. We just spent 30 damn talking about the Atlanta Falcons. There ain't no way unless you're on a Falcons podcast. Anyone is doing this, man, but we broke that thing down. Holy hell. Let's talk about Marvin Harrison Jr. One catch. One measly catch for Marvin Harrison. By the way, he was wide open for a potential game winner. Oh my goodness. I mean, one catch. Kyler could, I mean, you're talking about struggling quarterbacks, man. Kyler could not have been worse throwing this football down the field. One of seven on throws over 10 air yards. The one completion was a five-yard touchdown to Michael Wilson. You're saying, wait a second. I thought you said 10 plus air yards. Yeah. That one pass that was a touchdown to Michael Wilson counts as 10 plus air yards because Michael Wilson was near the back of the end zone. That's it. That was it. One of seven for five yards and a touchdown. Kyler looked like he was in the woods when he was trying to throw anything beyond the line of scrimmage. 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That's just going to be a part of it these days. But, yeah, I mean, one catcher four yards for more. It is draft slot. First round pick, fourth overall. Yeah. Cute spirit. One catch four yards. Exactly. It's poetic. It's very poetic. Yeah, good. Man, that's tough. So, I mean, he just needs to get more targets. I mean, I just, again, I'm just shocked that he didn't have more targets. Yeah. So, I've seen people freaking out about the film. I've seen people freaking out about the max speed under 17 mile an hour max speed. According to next gen stats, people are losing their mind about the Marvin Harrison Jr. film. I would say coming back out of the charting data, the one thing I definitely would take away from this is, yeah, we're going to, we're going to need some better deployment for Marvin Harrison Jr. here. 92.2% of snaps I charted on the line of scrimmage. Only 21.6% in the slot. I knew he would be their X receiver, but I'm not thinking like Rashad Bateman X receiver. I'm thinking X receiver that gets moved around a little bit. Okay. Because I think you have a guy, Michael Wilson, who caught the touchdown pass. Yeah. He didn't do much in production wise in this game either because he's another downfield receiver. You have another guy who could play X receiver and you can, that can help you move Marv around a little bit. That's got to be something that we do in the future. So, was a little disappointed from that part of it. Also from a route perspective, nine of the routes he ran in this game were just curl routes. Which, and when you think about the defense that you got in this game from Buffalo, it's a lot of cloud coverage shading to Marvin Harrison's side. He saw a ton of double coverage in this game, which is crazy for a rookie in week one that defense is already like, this is the guy we're going to try to lock in on. We're going to try to cloud things to his side. It worked pretty well, especially when you're just running a bunch of hook routes. 26.5% of his routes were curl routes in this game. We talked about this with the Steelers offense before under Matt Canada when it's covered too and you're getting just go routes and curls. You're just curling back into the coverage for the most part. Really not a lot of windows there for your quarterback to work with. So, don't love that part of it. Yeah. So, overall, pretty didn't love the usage. I mean, I think Marvin was fine. We definitely got stuck up on man press coverage at times in this game. Body settled down well in spots against zone coverage from a play speed perspective. It's tough when you're running a lot of these curl routes. I think going back to his reception perception prospect profile, there's one weakness I pointed out in his game is I didn't love him working on comeback routes. Going full speed, stopping on a dime, working back to the quarterback, which is a lot of what he did here in week one. So, I thought it was definitely not great. Not something like I'm raising the alarm bells freaking out about. The usage definitely is going to lead to some volatility and some up and down moments. If Kyler is not going to push the ball down the field, I think he'll probably eventually push the ball down the field. I just would like to see him run a more diverse route tree. I do think that we're going to see something completely different. First of all, Buffalo week number one, they've got the LA Rams here in week number two and the Rams have just been absolutely gashed by outside wide receivers. This goes back to 2023. You could consistently beat them on the outside in 2023. And that obviously has just continued here in 2024 as we saw Jameson Williams go off for 120 yards or whatever it was. So, Marvin Harrison here, I think in week number two against the Rams, I would not be surprised to see him be one of the most productive wide receivers here in week number two. I think Arizona and Kyler specifically will try to force feed Marvin Harrison after this huge backlash that the offense got here after week number one. I don't know. I just would be, I would be stunned if Marvin Harrison Jr. did not see 10 targets in this game specifically in this matchup against the Rams. Yeah, I mean, the Rams definitely not as good of a defense as what we've got in Buffalo, that's for sure. Again, important to remember Buffalo, probably one of the best defensive coaches in the league in Sean McDermott. People are freaking out about the Kyler Murray quote where he said, sometimes the ball goes to him, Marvin Harrison, but that's not my job. I leave that up to Drew, you know, Drew Petzing, the offensive coordinator. What? Well, wait, Kyler, hold up, Kyler, you understand that you actually throw the ball though. You're not a video game character, bro. How does if Drew Petzing is in the, it's not as if Petzing is in the freaking box with the controller and just being like, all right, we're going to, let me press B. Let me press X. Let me throw it at like, what are you talking about? You actually control who you throw the ball to. What you talk about? I don't understand. Yeah, I'm with you. According to fantasy points data, you know, Greg Dorich. I know people love Greg Dorich, but this way too much Dorich in week one. Okay. He had eight targets. Insane. Six of them were first read targets. He had a 28.6% share of the first read targets. Okay. You've got Marvin Harrison over here. You do not need to be thrown to Greg Dorich. Six catches for 47 yards that many times on first read look. So I think maybe Kyler is saying like, Hey, yeah, let's make Marvin Harrison the number one read in the concept, especially when we're playing against the bills and like we're having them run these curl routes and stuff like that. So let's yeah, let's, let's get Marvin Harrison into the, into the concept, into the routes that we kind of want him running here routes over the middle of the field, not just breaking back to the quarterback because I think that's the strength of his game overall. So definitely a disappointing. I mean, no, no way around it. I'm not sitting here again telling you that, Oh man, Marvin Harrison was perfect. He was not. Yeah. It was not a good debut on film for Marvin Harrison, but I won't really be panicking on this until we see it. Like for four weeks or something like that. And look, then if it's, if we're sitting here on this podcast in four weeks and I'm, and we're still getting the same Marvin Harrison on film. Yeah, I'm going to be pretty concerned about, about everybody in the industry saying that this guy was a great prospect. Sure. Right. Right. Exactly. All right. A reception perception favorite is Tyler Lockett. His usage was, was interesting and notable because I think if you just looked at the box score, Matt, you say to yourself, all right. Seven targets, six catches, 77 yards. He led the team in the yardage and everything looks pretty good. But when you actually dig into the usage there, it is, I was, I was intrigued. My eyebrow was raised because he was third on the team in routes run and he only played 52% of the snaps, offensive snaps for Tyler Lockett. He was routinely not out there on two wide receiver sets. It was mostly DK and JSN on those two receiver sets. And now despite that, when Tyler Lockett's out there, he's going to be, you know, one of the primary targets in those three receiver sets. But I just found his usage to be very, very interesting and, and maybe indicative of how this team wants to approach the usage of JSN. Yeah. And I think this does show us that, okay, there's definitely a leap here coming at some point for JSN, right? He's playing on two receiver sets. He's playing every single down. It'll happen at some point for JSN. I'm not really too concerned about that. But what I do think is true here is that what we saw in week one is that they're going to scale Tyler Lockett's roll back. But that does not mean Tyler Lockett is washed. I think there was this assumption in the fantasy industry for sure that like, "Oh, Lockett is cooked." Yep. He's not cooked. He is a declining player. There is a difference between a declining player and a washed player. This is why analyzing older receivers or aging receivers is tricky. Because it's kind of a sliding scale. There's, there's just like, there's a big gap between saying somebody is done, done, and like somebody is not the player that they used to be. I think it's pretty obvious that Tyler Lockett is not the same player that he used to be. But, and this is all, again, we could have come out here after week one and be like, "Well, I saw Tyler Lockett play and I didn't look good." I thought he looked good. And the fact that, again, six targets, all six of them were first three targets. You mentioned he was not on the field for every snap, but he was targeted on 33% of his routes run. Right. That shows that when he's out there, he still has the trust of Geno. He has the trust of the coaching staff. He is still a good and reliable player in this offense. So that is going to put a damper on, I think, everyone in this offense. Well, go ahead. I just wanted to say in terms of the usage, what I found to be really interesting is that, okay, so Tyler Lockett's not out there on two wide receiver sets, right? But when he is out there in 11 personnel or three wide receiver sets, he's playing primarily outside. So 70% of his snaps came on the outside, 30% on the inside. When you take a look at the target distribution mat, six of his seven targets came while he was lined up outside. So, and the reason I bring this up is generally, when we are talking about guys who don't play in two wide receiver sets, what are we normally talking about? We're normally talking about slot players, right? So that's where I was, I'm trying to navigate this in my mind of, okay, Tyler Lockett is not in on two receiver sets, but when he does go in there, he's playing primarily his normal role, which is outside wide receiver. So they haven't kicked him inside as of yet, right? So very interesting usage there in Seattle for who is obviously an aging player in Tyler Lockett. Agree, I think the biggest reason for that is that JSN is definitely going to be better slot than outside. He was better slot than outside in college. That's just the way his usage probably always will be. I didn't, you know, there were also some times where it was 12 personnel and like, my guy Jake Bobo is on the field, you know, over JSN. So that's still something to pay attention to as well. The biggest thing here is just, I'm with you that Lockett being as an outside guy is pretty interesting, but, you know, it's probably just because his route running is reliable. It's a little bit like Jalen McMillan in this offense in Washington, where his separation quick and underneath is good and you kind of like him as a man beater. That's definitely, I think, where Tyler Lockett's going to be at this point. And the biggest thing, I think he's going to, that role is going to affect everybody in the offense, you know, because if you don't like the matchup and Seahawks definitely didn't like the matchup with DK and Patsertan in week one. So they just go, they're just going somewhere else, okay? They're just going to go to, they're going to go to these guys that can get open and Lockett is still a guy that can get open. Yeah, it was really interesting, his deployment, and now be curious because he is an aging player, like, are they doing this to preserve him for future games? It's got to be. It's got to be, right? I mean, because he didn't do anything, I think, in training camp and like preseason and he kind of even said a little coyly like, yeah, yeah, you know, just deal with something. Or something like that. He just didn't want to go to training camp. He just didn't want to, he's a veteran receiver. He doesn't need to. Yeah, he's learning new offense. Okay, he can learn it on the iPad and get out there and, okay, now we're just running routes with Gino Smith, which you've done for years now at this point. So, yeah, I think Lockett's going to have a pretty critical role. Is it going to be like a big fantasy role? Probably not, but he's definitely going to have a critical role on this team. I may shoot seven for, you know, seven for six catches and 77 yards. I mean, even in fantasy, that's not bad. You'll take that all day long, man. Okay, so Seattle takes on New England here in week number two. All right, as we continue this week two preview in some of these storylines here, man, I just cannot get over how bad Bryce Young looked. I just, I cannot get it out of my head because we are talking about a guy that the, did they make the right call in this quarterback? Obviously not, but what they have tried to do then is then say, all right, well, we're not going to abandon this pick, right? He's the number one overall pick, but we're not going to abandon him just because he had a bad rookie season. We're going to bring in Dave Canales, who has a notable track record with Gino Smith and Baker Mayfield. We're going to bring in a certified number one wide receiver in Deontay Johnson, and I don't care what you think of, what pecking order you put this guy in. This guy is a top 20 wide receiver in the NFL. I mean, arguably a top five separator, not a top five wide receiver, but a top five separator in the NFL. But certainly a guy that can get open, make himself available. You're going to pair him with Adam Thelan, who out of the slot was, was, you know, again, an effective separator there for Carolina. You're going to, again, boost the athleticism overall. You're going to bring in Xavier Legette. Okay. This is what you're going to do. You're going to try to, again, throw some pieces at the offensive side of the football. And by the way, those pieces I thought that they brought in, a lot of it makes sense. I like what they do. Man, all of that cast aside, Bryce Young has 20 pass attempts and throws two picks and just looked awful out there in week number one. I cannot get that out of my mind. You know, and, and the worst part about this too, James, is that, you know, from a team building perspective, this is the worst part about it, is that in order to get the offense to functional. And the Panthers last year averaged 4.1 yards per play. That was last in the league. It was also the last of like the last five years, you know, because the year before that it was like Houston with 4.7. The year before with 4.6. So like 4.0, it doesn't sound like much, but in football terms, 4.7 to 4.1 is a crazy drop. So in order to get their offense from, I don't even know, hideous and abomination to just just to get it from abomination to bad. They borrowed from the defense, right? Because they trade Brian Burns. They basically don't spend any resources on that side of the ball. Like premium, significant resource. They kind of bring in, you know, these cast off guys, right? Yeah, you know, players who have maybe had some familiarity with the system before the Giro Evero, who I think is a good coach, wants to run. Well, now your defense is way worse than it was last year, and your offense is still something between hideous and abominable. Pretty tough break there. And then you lose your best defensive player by a mile in Derrick Brown in week one. So not only is Bryce Young in the offense still not good, you're going to, you're never going to be in positive down and distant. You're never going to be in positive game strip situations because your defense is going to be giving up points like crazy on the other side. I mean, the Saints offense, I know I was higher than almost any rational person on the Saints offense this year, but shoot, I didn't expect him to just be moving the ball down the field like that. So that was pretty crazy. Yeah. Yeah, Bryce Young under pressure in week one. 39.5% of his drop backs when a pro football focus, which is a top seven number, among quarterbacks, two of 10 for 41 yards. There's that number 4.1 yards per, 4.1. It's back 4.1 yards per attempt. I mean, it's just, look, I know every quarterback is going to be worse under pressure, but that's not like that. Yeah, that, I mean, it's better than Daniel Jones at 1.8 yards per attempt. Congratulations. And man, yeah, just like from a structure perspective, it didn't look great from a pass protection standpoint. Didn't look great from Bryce Young perspective. It didn't look great. And I know New Orleans is a pretty good defense, but yeah, really concerning. I mean, even there, but the Saints defense, I think is, I don't even know how to put it. It's not that they're good. They're just not, they're not a bad D. They're not a bad D, but I hesitate to put them into the good category. You know, I think they, if they play, if they do the things that they do really well, they can be a good team, but I think when the season comes to a close, I think the Saints will be somewhere around average. You know, I mean, unless they get to play the Panthers, you know, 17 more times or whatever it is, then they'll be the best defense in the league. But no, Bryce Young, 13 of 31 61, zero touchdowns, zero passing touchdowns, two interceptions, a 32.8 rating, 43.3% completion rate. Man, I just, again, after the off season that they had to put these pieces in place. I just am, I'm blown away by how poor Bryce Young played in this situation. Okay. What is it? I mean, again, we focus on the wide receivers. What does this mean, though, for a Deontay Johnson type of player here? Again, it's just, it's just so bad. It's so tough where this guy's getting separation, but he's just not really seeing the football. I'm like speechless. I don't really know what to say. I mean, it's bad, James. It's really bad. It's bad when your quarterback is at this level. So, I mean, look, I'm really just hoping it's a week one aberration, you know, and this offense can get it going. But the biggest concern I have is that, that the defense is at this level. That's honestly my biggest concern because Canales said when he came here, you know, at that press conference in the combine and he's reiterated it with both with words and actions. I'm going to show you how stubborn I can be with the run game. And I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I think you want to have a tough physical football team. I think that really, really matters more than ever in today's NFL to be a tough physical football team. You get your players, when you're looking Dan Campbell, right? They're a tough physical football team. Oh, it's time to end this game in overtime. Let's go end this thing in overtime. It matters when you can talk the talk and walk the walk. Sometimes you're Antonio Pearson, you punt on your own 43 yard line in the opposing territory. Oh my God. When you're supposed to be the toughness coach, not a great look. When you walk the walk and talk, talk, talk, it really shows like with the Lions rebuild. I think the Panthers want to do this, but they're not going to do this with their defense, giving up 30 points every week. So I think Bryce Young is going to consistently be in bad situations. Teams are going to tee off on him. And he's just, by the way, this is just so tough to say for a quarterback that went first overall. He's just not physically talented enough to be a creative thrower in the pocket to playoff platform and all of those things. So I think for Deontay Johnson, it's just, yeah, we might get another season of a lot of volume and not a lot of production. I was surprised to see Xavier Leguette be the most targeted player on this team. Seven targets led the way Deontay Johnson with six. Leguette with four catches and 35 yards. Deontay Johnson just two catches for 19. Oh my goodness. This is tough. Yeah, they did start pulling guys in the fourth court. Like Johnson basically didn't play all the fourth quarter. So yeah, that's worth remembering too. Yeah, six targets on 24 rounds. That's pretty good. So we will certainly take that. And yeah, I think better days are certainly ahead here. Can it come here in week number two against the Chargers? The Chargers just held the Raiders to 10 points. And objectively speaking, who is the better offense? You know, the Las Vegas Raiders are the Carolina Panthers. Right, objectively speaking. You know, who's the better quarterback, the other guys on his fourth team? You know what's crazy, man? Like, okay, so this was the point that I made on my on my own podcast, which was if I were to describe to you an undersized quarterback that struggles to get out of the pocket with average arm strength. Am I talking about Gardner Menchoo or am I describing Bryce Young? And you really couldn't tell. I mean, and again, obviously the accuracy. Look, the accuracy is totally different. You know, Bryce Young much more accurate than Gardner Menchoo, but the traits that we're talking about right there, the traits that we're talking about. It holds true. That's why it's so tough, man. It's so tough. You have to be almost perfect if you're Bryce Young to overcome some of these physical limitations that he's got, man. So I don't know. It's going to be it's going to be awfully tough. And it's going to be a long year. I think for Carolina, even despite just one game in, I think we can convincingly say it's going to be a long year for Carolina. So we shall see. Can we talk about Houston, though? Oh, my God. How do we always talk about Houston after Carolina, man? How? How? I swear we didn't plan this guys. I swear to God. Cosmic. I know, dude. It's crazy. They take on Chicago here in week number two, talk about a guy who just fell flat on his face in terms of a debut. Oh, my goodness. We talked about Chicago, though. Earlier this week, can we talk about CJ Stroud and the past catchers, Nico Collins, Stefan Diggs, Tank Dell, they're in Houston. What did you make of that trio in their usage? Yeah. Look, you come into week one and you immediately know, like, wow, I got a lot of shit wrong. A lot of things we said in the off season got a lot of shit wrong, you know, and it's just going to happen and we're going to keep getting things wrong because it's an unpredictable thing. Because it's an unpredictable sport. Yeah. But man, sometimes you see something in week one, you're like, that is exactly how I thought it was going to look. You nailed it. Houston Texans receiver room. I thought looked exactly how I thought it was going to look, which is number one, your alpha receiver, your ex is Nico Collins. And man, Nico Collins looks so good. So good. I mean, he is a stud. He's you want him winning deep. He'll go get you a 55 yard shot play where he's going to win against two defenders downfield. You want him to run a crisp route with great hands at the end of it to win you the game in the fourth quarter. Yep. He's going to do that. Got you. I mean, he's a top 10 real life NFL receiver and he's your ex. And then the other two guys, which I think was the more that that to me was like, okay, that was obvious. We knew that was going to happen. Right. The more interesting thing was how are these other two guys tanked out and step on digs going to be used and man, I felt great just seeing digs the role that they had for him was pretty much exactly what I thought. 63.6% of his routes from the slot. He was used on a lot of like quick hitting patterns, especially in the reds in the end zone. Three first downs on his targets. Like that's why I said he's going to be a first down maker. And then because of that, because this offense is good. He's also going to be a touchdown maker. I've seen some like fantasy analysts banging on digs for the air yards he got in week one or his average depth of target, which was 1.3 folks. He had three targets inside the 10 yard line, not a lot of yards to garner down there in the in the old inside the 10 yard line when you're trying to get it into the goal line. So yeah, digs like he'll have some bigger plays, but yeah, he's going to be used on these quick hitting patterns out of the slot. He's going to be the easy separator there. He's not going to be a slot only player because you're going to want to get some of these other guys some slot reps and things like that. But especially tank del you want him screaming on vertical routes from the slot, which is going to happen. I mean, and then to push this to tank del 16.3 average depth of target. He was used on 80% of the routes like wasn't a part time player. These guys are full. These are all full time players. They're going to be an 11 personnel team. They telegraph this when they released Andrew Beck who played their full back position last year. And the only thing that really caught me by surprise Houston's offense, which I thought was going to be great. I thought these three receivers going to be used exactly how we saw in week one was that they ran the piss out of the ball to which I thought was super impressive and a little bit surprising B. So yeah, the usage the usage there for the three receivers was exactly what I thought it was going to be. So pretty good to see. And by the way, I think it's wheels up for all three of these guys in Houston as a whole. Yeah, the whole targeted area yards things is a little bit tricky. And to your points, a little bit misleading because when I take a look at his route chart for Stefan Diggs and this is just true visually to like when you're watching him run the routes. It's not as if they're just asking him to run a bunch of stick routes, dude. 17 of his 31 routes that he ran were more than 10 yards downfield. That's, that to me doesn't say, okay, this is a guy that we got to get around the line of scrimmage that it just happened to be that, you know, again, his targeted routes. Yeah, they were, they were there. They were there around the line of scrimmage for sure. But the routes that he actually ran more than half were more than 10 yards downfield. Listen, those plays are going to come. Those plays are going to come. You know, so I think to your point though, it's, it is very interesting. By the way, just, I mean, again, just, if you're just watching the game, I didn't, I did not come away thinking like, Oh my God, Stefan Diggs is just being this like, you know, line of scrimmage guy like that's, I 100% did not take that away from watching this, this Houston film. You know what I mean? Yeah, Danny. I'm a dole out there. Right. Exactly. That's not what I got. Watching Diggs play. Yeah, look, he's definitely, I think, lost a step as a vertical separator. We charge on that endlessly this off season, but his go back and look at his route success rate chart on reception perception from last year. The routes short and around the line of scrimmage were still extremely strong slants and curls and all these things. You know, that's the outrouts, routes, like quick outrouts, things like that. Yeah, those are going to be the base of his route tree this year, which is totally fine when you have two guys who can bang on you downfield in Nico Collins and tank Dell in very different ways. Right. We've talked about this with Niko's the go route guy, the deep overs, the big overs over the middle of the field, whereas tank Dell's that outside breaking route runner. And they're going to do a little bit of both. You know, these guys will do both of those things too. So yeah, I mean, it's just those two guys can hit you downfield. And meanwhile, you've got kind of a, I was talking about layups, you know, I mean, it's going to be layups and layups for CJ Stroud and Stefan Diggs when you're working those short targets, especially like I said, down near the goal line. I mean, he's definitely a threat to catch 10 plus touchdowns this year. I think Stefan Diggs is. Well, he's well on his way. He's got two of them already. So that's not bad. He's on pace. He's on pace. He's on pace for 34. Let's go. No, I love it. No, I love it. I absolutely love it. And it was interesting too. I mean, damn near, I mean, damn near 100% of the snaps that Niko Collins took were lined up outside. So man, they've got their roles, man. They know what they're going to do with these guys and good luck trying to stop them each and every week. So yeah, it was a good week one for Houston for sure. All right, we're running a little low on time here, Matt, but I did want to talk very quickly about Cincinnati. A little bit of a debacle there in, not a little bit, very much a debacle in week one against the New England Patriots. There's a bunch of this conspiracy theory videos of Joe Burrow, you know, kind of sort of toying with his wrist, throwing wrist a little bit. Oh, yeah, bottle gate. Gatorade bottle gate. I do. I felt bad. I don't know if people have seen the video, but yeah, he like kind of picks up a water bottle, a little weird and like almost kind of like drops it a little bit with his right wrist. And people are like, oh, the wrist, the wrist, the wrist. Maybe it's the wrist, but I will just say as somebody that picks things up weird sometimes. It just has a weird way of. I always say, I take my walks in the morning with my with my yeti, my cup of coffee and I'm always like, God, am I holding this thing weird? Like sometimes I hold it down on my side and like, I don't know. So as a guy who holds things weird sometimes, I felt for bro in this moment. Yeah, there you go. Hyper analyzing how somebody picks up a Gatorade bottle, man. It's incredible. But no, what did you see from Cincinnati's offense? Look, they had they had no T Higgins and T Higgins is still as we're recording here Wednesday. I don't believe he's practicing even on a Wednesday here, right? So that hamstring injury sounds like it could be troubling and problematic and there's certainly going to be a lot of conspiracy theories about his contract and whether or not he's actually heard and whether that's fair or not. So those those accusations and that speculation will certainly come. But just from a pass catching standpoint, what did you see here from Andrea Yoshivas? What did you see here from Drew Marchese and just the Cincinnati passcasters in general? Well, not great. I did find it interesting. Hey, talk about another thing we got right from this offseason despite not playing any preseason for the most part. Mr. Marchese ran 43% of his routes from the slot. So more slot usage role, Mr. Marchese there, which I think is is going to be pretty critical. But, you know, him and Yoshivas run the most routes on the team. They both get six targets and the ADOT is under seven for both of these guys. Yeah, that's not going to cut it. That's not good. I almost almost don't want to talk about the Bengals in week one because they do this every year where they come out flat in the first two weeks in season. Chase was talking about it after the game where he's like, at some point, like, this is embarrassing. We got to stop doing this. It's like, yeah, for sure. Correct. Good. Good. I agree. But, yeah, I was super, I think the least impressive unit of the four in that game, you know, Bengals offense, Bengals defense, Patriots offense, Patriots defense was easily the Bengals defense. Uh, Mike, they just got pushed around all game by Ramondra Stevenson and offensive line that people were pissing their pants about in pretty sure. Well, they can't play, but the trick may behind this is worse offensive line ever. Well, that offensive line, especially center to right tackle moved people in the ground game and Ramondra Stevenson made them pay for it. So, um, that's pretty concerning Bengals defense, but from a Bengals offense perspective, you know, burrow, I think was just really quick to like pass up throws down the field and check it down. And, and check it down and get rid of the ball. Uh, hopefully it looks better than that going forward because that is not going to cut it. No, that was, it was a very strange offensive output here for the Cincinnati Bengals. And, and I know that the, you know, look, New England's getting a little healthier with Christian Gonzalez and stuff like that. So obviously their defense is going to be better than it was last year, but still though, for the Bengals to put up 10 points. And the way they did it too, you know, super hyper conservative. I mean, they weren't testing the boundaries. They weren't testing anything downfield. It was tough. Um, to me, it was a tough watch and I'm just like, what is this team that I'm watching? This does not look like the Bengals to me, you know, I mean, we're talking about a team that where previously I said this is a team that plays 1990 style football. You've got, you know, two dominant guys on the outside and they're just going to go try to win downfield and let's just see if they could do it. You know, that's, that's the way they play. Now, all of a sudden you've got Jamar Chase, you know, running a bunch of these little baby slot routes like what's going on? What's going on? I don't, I didn't recognize this offense, man. And, and maybe there is something to that. The fact that they've got that coordinator change. Yeah, maybe there's something to that. I think we also just have to be honest with the way that Joe burrow, whether it's injuries or not, the way Joe burrow is played for the vast majority of the last, you know, calendar year. Because he started off the season extremely poor, probably because of the calf injury. Right. He had the game against the Cardinals in 2023, which was kind of the first sign of a turnaround, but, you know, it was still like a lot of under seven yards and attempt. A lot of getting it out quick and everything. It really wasn't until the 49ers game. Like honestly, 49ers game in week eight is by far the best game he's played over the last, probably, I would say two seasons. The bills game right after that was extremely strong as well. They're 134.8 pass rating and then 108.9 pass rating. And then, you know, two losses. Obviously he goes out against the Ravens on Thursday night. And that's it. Like so the for the vast majority of what we've seen out of burrow on the field in the last year has not been the quarterback that he is regarded as. Can you get back to that? I don't know. But, you know, this is the we do this with quarterbacks sometimes. It's like, let's we keep imagining the thing that we knew. Just where we're at with burrow right now is I need to see it. I need to see him put together a consistent stretch of games to get him back up into that stratosphere. If that makes sense. I believe you can do it, but I do need to see it. It's such a great point. And when you when you were talking about that kind of stuff, my mind immediately went to Deshawn Watson. I mean, Deshawn Watson has not has not had a good season in what? What is it? Five years, maybe? You know? So, yeah. It's been so long. And yet we're still searching for that dude. We're still searching for that dude. Cleveland certainly searching for that dude for sure. Anyways, all right. So there you go. We have run a little bit long here, but that's okay. Good episode. Good show. If you guys want to hit us up on Twitter by all means, if you guys would rate the podcast, man, that would help us out considerably. Just go ahead and rate that and give us that five star review. Let us know what you think of the podcast, man. That would be awesome. Anyways, we got to go. From Matt Harmon, I'm James Goep. Everyone have a great week number two. And remember, it's never too late to chase your dreams. Please. (upbeat music)
Matt and James get Week 2 underway with a discussion of what we saw in Atlanta and if Kirk Cousins is physically okay, Marvin Harrison Jr.'s quiet NFL debut, Tyler Lockett coming through like the veteran he is, another rough outing for Bryce Young in Carolina, the wide receiver trio in Houston all looking the part and the Bengals getting off to a slow start in Week 1.
Whether it's the biggest stars in the league or new rookies bursting on the scene, you won't get better wideout information anywhere else. Along the way, they'll break down the biggest stories in the NFL and offer up a few big-picture fantasy football thoughts.
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