0:00 Cereal talk
11:39 Jared Goff stellar game leads Lions
27:30 Mike Macdonald playcalling decisions
36:59 Geno Smith and 2nd chances for QBs
46:17 Ben Johnson and the Lions got away with a foolish safety
PFT Live with Mike Florio
Jared Goff "perfect game" leads Lions in win over Seahawks (Hour 1)
Hour 1: Mike Florio (@ProFootballTalk) and Michael Holley (@MichaelSHolley) discuss latest news in the NFL including the Lions win over the Seahawks on Monday Night Football, Amon-Ra St. Brown and the Lions dynamic offense, Mike Macdonald’s tough decisions, Jared Goff’s incredible night, Geno Smith, and quarterbacks being given 2nd chances.
- Broadcast on:
- 01 Oct 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
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Potential savings will vary, discounts not available in all states and situations. This podcast is brought to you by Kleenex Lotion Tissues. You can't predict sick days, but with Kleenex Lotion Tissues, you can be better prepared for them while helping keep your skin healthy. Kleenex Lotion Tissues moisturize to help prevent skin irritation while you're battling those unwanted cold and flu symptoms. It's extra care when you need it most. Keep relief within reach. Grab Kleenex Lotion Tissues to help avoid the added discomfort of irritated skin during cold and flu season. For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Detroit Lions, as Jared Goff catches the touchdown pass in all Michael Hawley, the Lions, through 19 passes, completed 19 passes. The only other time that a team completed every pass it through happened during World War II when the Giants went one for one. Significant milestone last night for the Lions and Jared Goff, who was critical of himself through the first three weeks. Nothing to be critical of last night in the nightcap. Plenty of things to be critical about about the second straight, overlapping, simultaneous, multi-view picture and picture double header. We'll get to that, but at least for now, the Lions historic night for their quarterback, Jared Goff, and good morning. And also, also a programming note, Tuesday's with McCordy. This week we'll be Thursdays with McCordy, Michael Hawley, kind enough to adjust and show up again, first of all, but also to do it for us on Tuesday and good morning. Good morning, Mike, and you have to tell the captain, Devin McCordy, I think he was a captain, 12 was 13 years that I had to stand in for him. I stood in for the captain, so I don't know what that's worth. Maybe a pat on the back, a pat on the head, something like that. But then it's kind of bad for the listeners and the viewers, they were expecting Devin McCordy and they get Michael Hawley. That's kind of a, that's not really what you're looking for. Well, well, Titans fans were expecting Will Lovis last night and they got Mason Rudolph, so you never know how it's going to turn out. That was the other game last night and who knows how it's going to go there. But we're going to start on this Tuesday edition of PFT Live going backward with the game that ended last and then we'll get to the prior game, although you could argue the dolphins lost. The Titans has a lot more intrigue to unpack than the Lions beating the Seahawks, so we'll focus on the second of the two overlapping simultaneous double hunters. Before that though, before that though. And I was trying to remember why this even came up last week. I think it's because my experience this year, not that it's a problem, it's just different because every day I've got a different guest host. And I think at some point we mentioned the metaphor of the variety pack of cereal. And I spent a lot of time last week, well, maybe a minute, because all you have to do nowadays is type it in and you can find it. Or just say it in the presence of your phone and the ads for it will show up. But I have, I have retrieved. That's impressive. I have located. Look at that. You know, they've got, they've got a version of it that isn't like this. This is how it was when we were kids. Ten boxes with a shrink wrap bound together. There's a different version of it that's got little pouches and it's just a, it's one box that opens up. I didn't want that. This is what I wanted. Even though I don't want Raisin Bran, I don't want special K. You would call this last week. Well, let me stop you. In the small boxes nobody wants. Let me stop you right there. I was going to do the same thing. But then I thought, Mike, mainly we could do a draft later in the show. We could do a draft of the variety packs. What goes number one overall? Because already, I think we know what's at the back of the draft board because you, you pointed out the ones that nobody want. No kid. Any kid that wants special K, you're like, what's going on with my kid? Okay. It doesn't even have great, it's not attractive packaging. Anybody that wants to eat special K isn't going to eat the rest of the stuff, right? Anybody that would even bother to eat special K is not eating any of the other stuff. So unless you just assume a family is going to buy this and you got your special K person in the house, you got your Raisin Bran person in the house who has issues with their constitution, you've got, you know, the Fruit Loop person in the house who wants more than one box of food, for somehow Tony the Tiger rates at Kellogg's because you got two frosted flakes in here, which I'm fine with. I'm fine with that. But yeah, corn flakes, I don't need, I don't need frosted flakes without sugar. I don't need that. I don't need special K, I don't need Raisin Bran. And corn pops, so anyway, I found it and I'm probably getting two or three of them after the show. What? You don't like corn? You like corn pops? Yeah, I was going to say controversy, I was with you until you started ripping corn pops. Corn pops. Now those are good. Corn pops are good. Now what we don't have there, we have no cap and crunch, we have no crunch and berry, that's good stuff there. I'm glad the worst, what was the cereal Mike, it was the, it was really, it was a great brand or something like that, just the really hard, small, great nuts, the worst, the worst, I'm glad that sounded, that may be the worst cereal. That is a, that's the Mr. irrelevant of cereals. First of all, Quaker makes Captain Crunch, so this is a Kellogg's variety pack. So, so Captain Crunch, there we go, doesn't work here. Never did. I don't know if he ever did, but he didn't work. Got to keep it in the family. Uh, I remember they used to have on TV and we're not that, even though you look a lot younger than me, we're not that far apart in age. You old Gibbons used to do grape nuts commercials. Now I had no idea who the hell you old Gibbons was when he first showed up on my TV, trying to get me to buy grape nuts, but it was the first time in my life that I felt ripped off by false advertising, because they made it look like grape nuts are good. So I had to try them, and I didn't know, it's like gravel. It's like a bowl of gravel, sorry grape nuts, but, and, and I mean, yeah, I'm not sorry. I've had it, and maybe the formulas changed in the last 50 years, it was a bowl of gravel, no amount of milk made it not a bowl of gravel. Agreed. How did it ever make it? Like, what was the, what was the original concept? Who was the audience? Who got into it? I want, I want details. I want a, a mini docu-series on grape nuts and how they came to be and how long it, because I, I'm convinced I haven't looked for them, Mike, so I don't know this to be true, but I'm convinced that they don't make it anymore. I've seen it here most, I see it, I think I see it, no, I think I see it, now they have a formula for the modern day grape nuts. I don't know if it's, if it's the same, but I think it's still, I don't know if it's either with a grape, they're with a grape nut flakes, they're with a flakes, which were basically special K, but the grape nuts, the bowl of gravel, I have a feeling that's still out there, which means somebody buys it, somebody buys it and somebody eats it and I don't know who, but somebody, you'll gibbons, somebody related to you'll gibbons. Maybe you'll gibbons family made so much money off of grape nuts commercials, they fell in love with grape nuts, it's an acquired taste, eating gravel is an acquired taste, and then you got to have your gravel. So anyway, we got to get to football, but, but which one would be your first choice? I mean, the rice Krispies are also kind of lame too, I don't know how you feel about rice Krispies, right, Rice Krispies, no, no Rice Krispies because you get the audio, yeah, yeah, you get the, you get the sound, right, yeah, all right, so, but the first pick, first pick is easy, fruit loops, fruit loops, first pick unanimous, we all agreed, nobody had to pound the table, it was, we love fruit loops, we like the presentation, first of all, it's a good box, so it's attractive, it's sweet, you want to talk, variety within the variety attack, different colors, great, and, oh my, and the other great thing about fruit loops after they're gone, you have them with milk, now you've got a bowl of deliciousness because all the sugar and the colors swirling around in the milk, it's a good, it's almost like a low scale, like a low scale shape or something, like a low scale drink, it's nice, I'd forgotten about that, that also happened with fruity pebbles, the Flintstone equivalent of Rice Krispies with all sorts of different flavors and a lot of sugar, I'm noticing now that I take, I was so excited to get this, I didn't do a full scrutiny of it, it's kind of a lame variety pack, you got fruit loops and okay frosted flakes, but special K we've established corn flakes, poor man's frosted flake, they got two boxes of frosted mini-weats which are actually pretty good if you only eat the half of the thing that's got the sugar on it, Rice Krispies raising brand, corn pops were better when they called them sugar pops, that fell out of style at some point in the rise of concern over diabetes caused them to change sugar pops to corn pops, but anyway, I'll be eating some of this this morning, alright, busy morning but I had to get to that, obviously I was saving it for when you were back and I thought it was going to be tomorrow, but we had to get to it today, I'm touched because I don't know how long these are good for, although I remember realizing when I was a kid, like the expiration date on cereal was forever, and when you're a kid like a year into the future is 20 years, and I remember seeing that for the first time on a cereal box, best if used by, you know, a year from now, and I probably should have thought then, what are they putting in these things that you can still eat them a year from now? Yeah, how do these things hold up, and it's the parental lobby Mike, it's the parental lobby that made sure there were only two or three great draft picks in that variety pick, but they wanted to bring the kids back to good wholesome breakfasts that are not that exciting, so you have out of that variety pack, you got two or three good ones, then you got the ones that the parents who want to eat. By the way, before we move on, we do have visual evidence of yule gibbons, it was not a name that I made up, there's yule gibbons, looking sharp, looking sharp, nice shock of hair, kind of a bolo tie, but with a handkerchief, and he's got his grape nuts that I don't know why that commercial and that look made me decide to try grape nuts, but you know, bowl of gravel, okay, the simultaneous Monday night doubleheader overlapping yada yada is a bowl of gravel as far as I'm concerned. We did a poll last week, like 67% of over 32,000 who responded, don't like the overlapping doubleheader, but we got it for another week, they might be doing it again at some point, I don't think they do it next week, next week is just chiefs and saints, but we already showed you the big highlight from the end, not the end, but the second half of the lion's Seahawks game, and it really was something to see the offenses, you know, there've been all this concern about scoring being down, scoring was not down last night, it was an exciting game, and even though it always kind of felt inevitable, the lions were going to win, the Seahawks would not go away, and they kept it interesting, really up until that last drive that petered out on a fourth in goal after that bizarre safety that the lions took when they got a little too cute after they got the ball back up to scores. Yeah, Mike, you're right, it's a thing to see, when the lions have it going, you wonder how something like last week could happen, they were actually held under 20 points last week, Tampa Bay really had its way with the lions, but I know every Detroit fan has to be thankful that Ben Johnson was not part of the last hiring cycle, maybe he should've been, maybe he should be a head coach in the league right now, but he understands, he's one of these coordinators who's hard, he's hard to figure out, when you try to think along with them, you can't do it, he is full of surprises, not just because of the I'm on Ross St. Brown to Jared Goff touchdown pass, but the way he uses Montgomery and Gibbs and works in Laporta, and then you still have St. Brown, and you've got Jameson Williams, just really does a great job of pushing all the buttons at the right time, and I think the other thing about Detroit is how they're built, you know, offenses like this, offenses that can score 42 points, you think, okay, if we just do this, we can slow them down. This offenses like this usually don't have a power row greater type undergirding to them. And the lions, what makes a lion's great, they've got a hell of an offensive line, and so when you start to think, okay, we'll just worry about the perimeter people, or we'll focus on this one guy, they can bring a lot of different elements, because they are really at heart, they are a power team with some glitz. It's really an interesting mix. And they're living up to the expectations that we saw coming into the season, that lost the Bucks in week two, I don't know that I would call it an aberration, the Bucks are pretty good this year, they were motivated to go back to Detroit and win, they had lost there in the postseason, they were accustomed to the noise, Baker Mayfield told me that after the game, it made it easier to operate the second time around. So that's the one thing that's hanging on the lions, the one blemish so far, otherwise they're one of the best teams in the NFL. And you know, we saw last night what they can do when everything is clicking, they've got the toughness, but they also have, excuse me, they also have the style and the sizzle to go along with it. And, and Gough, look, I've gone back and forth on Jared Gough. When the lions got to the Super Bowl with him, 53, lost to the Patriots, he had Brandon Cook's wide open second half championship throw failed to make it, Jason McCordy got over and broke it up because even though they did the same play in the first half and it worked and Brandon Cook's was wide open and they did it again in the second half, Gough saw him too late and threw it just a little too far to the side so McCordy could get there. They soured on him after they paid him the big contract. They shouldn't have given him the big contract. They soured on him. They thought this is a guy that's never going to get us to a Super Bowl and win it. They get Matthew Stafford. They were proven right, but then Gough got better and he's gotten better. And last night was the best we've seen really him or any other quarterback play statistically and just overall there, 18 for 18 for nearly 300 yards and they need him to get better. When they paid him this year, he's one of the few guys that got paid a lot of money this offseason who has gotten better. They challenged him to get better. This isn't your reward. This is a benchmark. We expect you to live up to this. We expect you to play better. We're giving you this money with an express directive, a mandate. We want you to get better and through four weeks he has. No question. Like I wrote for him. I love the Jared Gough story because this year we talked about quarterbacks who had kind of a rebirth or Renaissance, Sam Darnold with your Vikings and Baker Mayfield really the last couple of years. He was great last year and he was just great the other day against Philadelphia. We talked about these quarterbacks who have kind of moved around and have found themselves. I think Jared Gough is the captain of that team and he's the captain of that team with the twist because he did the other guys who could say they really didn't have success at the first stop. We just talked about Super Bowl 53. Jared Gough was there with the Rams. He got the team. He played great in the NFC Championship game that year. So who was the Super Bowl? They scored three points. He wasn't at his best but neither was Sean McVay. McVay talks about it where he wasn't prepared for what Bill Belichick did to him. I feel like he really took the brunt of some of the failures that the Rams had. They put it all on him and when they got rid of him, it's not like they're getting rid of a 30-year-old player who had nothing in front of him, they got rid of a player who still had a lot of improvement as you pointed out. So I think he has answered the challenge. I think he was pretty good with the Rams. That's the one thing where he might take issue with being in that list with Sam Darnell because Sam Darnell really wasn't good until now. Jared Gough, once upon a time, was a pro bowler with the Rams and got to the Super Bowl with the Rams but I think he's taken his game to another level since then. I think Chris and I have talked about this before, again, I can't remember because variety pack but I just need to keep this around. Anytime I want to excuse a failure of memory on who I talked to about something, I might have been talking to Rice Krispies, I might have been talking to Frosted Flakes, I don't know. Okay, but now what the hell was I going to say? Oh. I'm fruit looped, though. Do you remember? I'm Mr. Fruit Loops. You're Fruit Loops. Okay. Like Reservoir Dogs, you're Mr. Fruit Loops, Sims is Mr. Frosted Flakes, Devin can be Mr. Corn Flakes and we'll take it from there. I remember what I was going to say now. I'd forgotten it twice. I knew, forgot, knew again, forgot, but now I know. The Rams would never say they regret and no one could reasonably say they regret that trade that caused them to give up a first round pick and a third round pick for Stafford and tuck another first round pick into the package so they would haul away Jared Gough. You're paying someone to haul away something that you don't want anymore. They want a Super Bowl the first year. So how can you have any regrets about that, however, however, Jared Gough is unexpectedly having a very impressive second life and the Lions are going to be in sustained contention at a time where I don't know what the Rams are right now. What have they been since they won the Super Bowl disaster in 2022? Last year they got to the playoffs and it was unexpected. The bar was low going in. This year it was all kind of like, well, a lot of guys injured in camp who really knows and here they are at one and three. So yeah, they want a Super Bowl, but with each passing year that thing gets deeper and deeper into your rearview mirror and here are the Lions is one of the NFL's elite teams powered by the guy that the Rams tied a first round pick to to get someone to take him away. That part of it's amazing. Yeah, and I'm with you because they won the Super Bowl. After that Matthew Stafford throwing no-look passes in the Super Bowl and the final drive to win it over the Bengals, the Rams can always say, yeah, but we got the Super Bowl. We want a Super Bowl in our hometown, in our home stadium. I mean, you can't really get better than that. So they win the argument for now, but if Detroit ever wins it and I actually think they're going to get there this year, they actually win this thing, now you got an interesting conversation because you've got a Super Bowl winning quarterback who you got from them. You got from the Rams. He really restarted your rebuild. Same year you get Jared Goff, Pinesoul and Amman Ross St. Brown. That's starting the rebuild. So you've got all the building blocks, you got a left tackle or you got a quarterback and you got a number one wide receiver. And one of those guys came courtesy of the L.A. Rams as a giveaway. So that's why I love his story. I love his story and the Detroit story really goes together. I always go back to that quote from Dan Campbell after the playoff game after the Rams. We said, yeah, you're good enough, I'm not going to say it the way he did it, but you're good enough for Detroit, Jared Goff. And that's what he is. And the key is, and look, this continued to be my concern. This is why I've got this pendulum thing with Jared Goff. Okay, yes, he's good enough to get you to a Super Bowl. He's not good enough to win a Super Bowl and the Rams want to win a Super Bowl and there are flaws in his game. So he goes to Detroit and now he gets better and better and better. And is he good enough? And this is really the question. This is really the question because we saw how far they got last year, up 17 points in the second half of the NFC championship and Goff wasn't able to deliver it. Now he's not the one who decided to go for it on fourth down when they could have gone back up by 17, back up by three scores and really put the 49ers in a bind midway through the third quarter, but that's attached to him. And oh, it was a drop. It was a misfire, whatever, whatever, it's attached to him. He didn't make the play that needed to be made to slam the door on the comeback. One of the things I said yesterday that's impressed me about Sam Darnell this year, two of the games of Vikings, one, Darnell had to go in and slam the door with a scoring drive when it felt like the momentum had completely gone the other way. We can all feel it, even if you're not at the stadium, if you're watching 5,000 miles away, you can feel it coming through your television that the momentum is swung and the other team needs to push it back. Goff wasn't able to push it back once the momentum started to go. We'll see what happens this year. Maybe it never gets to that point because maybe they never have to worry about a team coming back from a multi score lead. The Seahawks kept trying and you could argue this. He did push it back last night with the throw and catch to Jameson Williams, the 70 yarder. I mean, we're still trying to process why replay reviewed it and overturned the apparent catch by DK Metcalf for a two point conversion. And the automatic process applies even on a failed two pointer. Any two pointer, it's supposed to be automatic replay review and we're thinking, well, what happened? What's going on here? Next thing you know, boom. Here's a 70 yard throw and catch for a touchdown. So just as the Seahawks were starting to creep back, Goff answers on the first play of the drive. So maybe he does. Maybe he did learn from last year. When that team you're beating starts to creep up on you, you got to go for the throw. Yeah, you bring up an interesting point, Mike, and that was a great play in the game. And it's good to see Jameson Williams finally start to become what the Lions thought he'd be when they moved up for him in the draft. But interesting point about that NFC Championship game last year, and we're all going back and forth and saying this is Dan Campbell doing this. Is this driven by Campbell? Is this driven by Ben Johnson? Is this analytics? Is this the analytics department? I know the Lions like many teams really value their analytics department. All that said, would they do it again? Would they go back and would they learn from that experience and say, hey, just tough luck? Are they going to say it's, well, it would have been fine if Josh Reynolds had caught the ball. Is that the playing game or is it, hey, our numbers are going to go by our numbers. It was the right decision even though it didn't work out. I just wonder how they look at it now privately because they'll never come out and say, yeah, we screwed up. But I wonder if they did learn from that situation last year because that was a, that was a great opportunity that they just let slip away with some questionable decision-making. Oh, and a moment of exasperation after the game, Dan Campbell said he told the team and he admitted it again to reporters, we may never be in this position again. And he's right. The hard part by about a million times is getting yourself in position when you're leading by 17 points in the second half of the NFC Championship game. Getting there is the climb. You are one foot away from the pinnacle and you fell all the way down to the valley. So processing that, you know, we're seeing some teams this year who had disappointing post seasons after great regular seasons. They're struggling to get things going again with that memory of last year. Look at all that effort. Look at everything that went so well. You know, what do we, what do we ultimately show for? What's the point, right? Look at the dolphins. Look at the cowboys. Oh, we did all that last year and everything was great and then it just all fell apart. It's hard. My favorite, one of my favorite dentist green lines, the valley of zero and zero. It's hard to go back to the valley of zero and zero and do that again when you got thrown all the way down from, from just as your, as it's close enough to tantalize you. It's hard. Not for the lions. Not for the lions. It looked a little sketchy after week two when they lost to the bucks and they didn't exactly blow out the Cardinals. This was their kind of signature crowning heading into their bi week, early bi week, but they wrap up business for the first four games and, and they've, I think last year's in the review mirror. This year is about how far they can take it and yes, they can get back to where they were last year and yes, they can take it even farther. They can get to the first Super Bowl and franchise history. This team is good enough to do it. Now they just have to do it. The pressure is going to arrive when you get to the postseason when, you know, maybe you're up 17 points in the second half of the NFC championship. Yeah, if you can get, if you can get to that position, you know, we all find ourselves in situations where we can feel a little bit nervous. Sometimes for me, standing in a studio, the lights get a little hot. The anxiety runs a little high as I wonder whether or not the words are going to come out of my mouth the way that they are supposed to. 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This time of year, Saturdays mean one thing and one thing only. College football with sling, you get access to hundreds of games and the biggest network starting at $40 a month. That's just $40 a month. Sling takes your love of college football to the next level. It's a no brainer streaming games and saving on them too and it's not just college football. Sling has live sports news entertainment channels you love and less of the ones you don't. So you save hundreds of dollars on live TV. Sling also lets you choose and customize your channel lineup so you can choose the channels you actually like to watch. Sling's cloud DVR lets you record your shows to watch on your schedule. There's no complex technology, no long term contracts and no hidden rigmarole. Get rewarded for watching college football. Sling lets you do that. At sling.com/play to learn more and get started, that's sling.com/play, sling.com/play. Detroit, I think Mike McDonald really underestimated them. I went back and I watched like from the very beginning. So after the game, because it was such a fun game to watch and went back and rewatched it, the nice little interviews before the game, sideline reporter talked to the head coach and most of the time it's like, okay, that's contractually, that's something that they have to do and the coaches aren't going to give them all that much. But before the game, Mike McDonald, it was clear from the commentary I can hear. It was clear that he thought the Seahawks had enough to slow them down. He felt really good about the plan he had going into the game. I wonder if you want to talk about regret. I wonder when he rewatches the game, why didn't he go for it on fourth and four? First opportunity. Early in the game, they're at the 50 yard line, fourth and four. He puffs and I'm thinking, okay, all right, we'll see, we'll see if you really, if you are going to think this opponent is similar to the Broncos that you beat with the rookie quarterback and the Patriots with Jacobi Brissette. If you think this is similar, all right, maybe you made the right call and I think he figured it out and got himself in trouble, Mike, because in the third quarter, I think it was like 18 minutes left in the game. So three minutes left in the third quarter, they're going for two. Now it turns out they got it and the officials got it wrong, but why are you going for two there? Because I think he started to panic that, oh, we can't slow these guys down. We need to start chasing points. So I think he figured out maybe in the second half that he was dealing with a Detroit Lions team that, believe it or not, I think he underestimated offensively. And he leaned into that analytics point that many love and many hate. It's very polarizing. It's one of the most polarizing concepts of analytics. When you're down 14 and you score a touchdown goal for two, if you get it, you can avoid overtime with a seven pointer. If you don't get it, you can still tie the game with a touchdown and a two point conversion. And, and hey, look, who knows what the Lions would have done. If the officials had gotten that right and they would have been only down six points instead of eight points. Does that give you a different psychological approach to the next drive? I don't know. They went for the jugular and popped that 70 yard catch and run, but it should have been a six point game. Just like when the Packers were two scores down, two touchdowns down against the Vikings on Sunday and they went for two and got it, made it 28-22. It's exactly what the Seahawks were trying to do. Same situation. Trying to get to 28-22 and then you snap your fingers and instead of 28-22, it's 35-20. You make another great point that we hear from time to time with analytics. And usually it applies to a late game decision where, you know, we saw Nick Serion of Eagles coach nine days ago going forward on fourth and short in a 3-0 game when you're in field goal range. Dean Pease used to say this. This was after his time with the Patriots. I think he was working for the Falcons at the time, but he said, look, one of the factors is what kind of game is this? Is this a field goal game or is this a touchdown game? But sometimes you have to make a projection. What kind of game is this going to be? You got to make that fourth down call before you've really seen, is it going to be a track meet or is it going to be a tug of war? And Mike McDonald pivoted on the fly from track meet to tug of war or the other way around tug of war to track meet, but early on, he didn't foresee what was going to happen. Maybe that's why he punted. If he knows it's going to be back and forth up and down all night, you go for it there. But you have to have that ability to, you maybe need a crystal ball, I don't know. But early in a game like that, you're going to view it maybe differently than you will late in the game. Even pre-analytics revolution, I don't know how you looked at it. I always used to cringe at punts, you know, close to the 50 or, you know, if you're at the 50 or say a punt from like the 44-yard line, like, okay, why not go for it? You really need to have a skilled punter because a lot of times you punt and now you're going to flip the field and guys couldn't hit that corner, so you wind out, you wind up getting a touch back anyway, you know, what did you really gain? But now it's even more interesting because we've got another revolution with field goal kickers. So if you miss a 55-yarder now, it's almost like people look at you like you don't have any game as a kicker. Remember, when we were kids, my 50-yarder was pretty impressive, you know, 55. Ooh, that's, now you're going, you're a big leg kicker, but we just saw a game over the weekend where the Falcons win a game on a 58-yarder and we expected it. It wasn't a surprise. The Patriots had a 63-yarder. So when you're in that position, there are a couple of things that you can do. Everything seems like the worst option now with all the information in the weaponry offensive or kicking weaponry we have now. Those field goals used to be the highest of drama. I mean, 58-yarder, when I was a kid, when we're kids, like, you know, there's no ways making a 58-yarder. Why they even try? Why don't you do a Hail Mary instead? But, you know, a kick between 40 and 49 to win the game down one or two, a flip of a coin is how it used to feel. And now it's weird when you see one of those kicks at any time, especially in crunch time when you see one of those kicks sail wide or left or, you know, a 55-yarder that comes up short, comes up short, everybody can kick at 55, everybody can kick at 65. So yeah, interesting choices for a first-year head coach to have to make, and it's gone well so far for Mike McDonald, the Seahawks' worth 3-0. They were one of the last three remaining unbeaten teams going into last night. Let's have a listen to what McDonald had to say after the game following the first loss of his head coaching career. Not a good enough performance on our front, got to give Detroit a lot of credit. I thought they had a great plan offensively, definitely, they just outplayed us on the defensive side of the ball for us. I will tell you this, our guys fought the heck out of that game. They went down to the last second, and that's what I'm most proud of right now, and we're going to hold on to that, and that's a foundation that we built here that we're going to push forward with, and, you know, we're four weeks into the season, and look, I mean, the message all week has been, you know, that we're on the foundation of our football team, and we want to be, and it's obvious we're not the team that we want to be yet, and we shouldn't be the team that we're going to be, you know, we have time to grow as a football team. We have a short week. We have to have a sense of urgency about it, and we need to take the next step. I mean, he's absolutely right. Teams change. They get better, they get worse. They very rarely are static from week one through week 17, and I wasn't a big believer in their three in a record because of the quality of the opposition. It wasn't that long ago that McDonald was dismayed over surrendering 185 rushing yards to the Patriots in a game that they had to take to overtime to win. Now, the Broncos had not looked good offensively and still haven't looked great offensively. They won a game by scoring only 10 points on Sunday, and I can't remember who the Seahawks beat week three, but it didn't make me say, "Wow, this is a team that's ready to go on a run." So, yeah, last night's game I learned more about the Seahawks than I had in the first three combined, and I see a team that can be competitive, a team that can contend, a team that can maybe even take that division given the injury issues that the 49ers are currently dealing with. Oh, there's no question. You look at their talent, it's not like Pete Carroll left them with meager talent. They have pretty good talent. They beat the Dolphins, by the way, so they beat the Dolphins with Skyler, Thompson and Tim Boyle, so I could understand why you wouldn't be on all that impressive. I've already gotten the Neuralizer on the Dolphins' 24th season, as all Dolphins fans would like to get. They want to see Will Smith. Two weeks ago it was Eagles fans that wanted the Neuralizer from Will Smith from Men in Black now, and that's, again, that was Devon on the Variety Pack Day that we talked about the Neuralizer, but now Dolphins fans ready for the Neuralizer. I have already apparently been visited by Mr. Smith, and I had my memory wipe clean of that game. And you should. You should after that. That was a miserable game. Even Seattle doesn't count that one as an impressive win, but I think you said they could win the division. I agree with you. Offensively, we talked about these quarterbacks who were having their moment. The moment for Gino Smith continues, and no, we had the big year in 22, but Gino Smith's a really good quarterback. He made some great plays last night, got a good army, understands that offense, and you look at those receivers, DK Metcalf, they had a real problem just staying with him last night and made some acrobatic catches and just the power of Metcalf, Metcalf, Smith and Jigba, Kenneth Walker, I mean, they got a lot of, they got a lot of range to their offense too. I think what's surprising to Mike McDonald, and I think he's going to figure it out even more after this game, is at the defense needs a lot of help. I just don't think, I don't think he has really gotten the gravity of where he is compared to where he was. Maybe that's why you underestimated the Lions, because you remember last year, the Lions went to Baltimore where Mike McDonald was, and they decimated the Lions. It was no contest. That was not even a competitive game. They overwhelmed them defensively, and maybe he thought, "Hey, this was last year, I coordinated a defense last year, I shut these guys down, maybe it's a little more of the same." Well, you're far away from Baltimore, Mike, I think they got some work to do on the defensive end against quality competition. This is the first quality offense they faced all year. Do you know Smith was the first guy in recent years who had that washout of an experience with the team that drafted him, extended stretches of backup going here, there and everywhere before earning in competition with Drew Locke the opportunity to be the starter in Seattle after the Russell Wilson trade. He's in year three now. It wasn't a fluke. He's in year three, and last night he set career highs and completions attempts, and I also believe yardage, they were talking about that late in the game, I haven't gone back and checked it, but I assume, I assume that the ESPN researchers fed the proper information to Joe Buck because he was relaying that to the rest of us. But when you look at this, Gino Smith, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Justin Fields to a certain extent. You could even put Jared Goff in there because he was thrown overboard by his original team. Even though he didn't fail, he made it through a Super Bowl. He washed out with his original stop. We know how the NFL is, copycat, copycat, copycat. So what I suspect will be happening in these organizations this year, and you'll have owners who push general managers and coaches, find me the next one, who's out there that we've overlooked because there's this idea, and maybe it's just hard to sell to the fans. Hey, here's who our quarterbacks are going to be. I remember when they started leaking the idea that Sam Darnold was planned B to Kirk Cousins, and I remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach about the prospect of Sam Darnold being the starter quarterback for the Vikings because we view a guy a certain way. You get that reputation, and it's hard to wash it off. And even as you wash it off and you're still, oh, that's just Sam Darnold, he stinks. And I think that the challenge for teams is to forget about that, find the next one. Where's the next one lurking? Is it Zach Wilson? I don't know. Where's the next guy who was stigmatized by bad circumstances? Who can rise and be a better quarterback? And his investment goes, whether it's signing a veteran, trading for a veteran, using that high draft pick currency on an unproven rookie, it's a hell of a deal if you can find a guy like that. So as we try to figure out where the trend lines are going to be in the NFL, I think it's ludicrous for teams to not be studying every failed former starter out there and say, is this guy another example of this long line that we're assembling a failed quarterbacks who have found their way? I think you're right. I think it will happen for two kinds of teams. One, the kind of team that say where the Broncos were last year, I think they wound up with the 12th pick, right, with Bo Nick. So teams in that range, 12, 13 to 17, they have that draft position. They're not that good. They don't have a quarterback and they miss out on the top four, top five. Let's say it's four great franchise quarterbacks and you're picking 13 or 14 and you don't have the capital or you just can't find a partner, you can't move up. So these owners are saying, well, okay, you could move up to find the next kid, the franchise kid. But I've seen these other teams kind of rehab and repurpose some of these quarterbacks, go out and find me one of those. And then the other kind of team is one where you feel like you've got some high price talent around the roster. You don't really love your quarterback situation. So you go and find one of these guys to make it work. Our roster is great. We're just missing the right kind of quarterback. So find me a quarterback that will unlock this roster and you can't find them in the draft. So go ahead and give me one of these guys. And we're not settling. We're not settling. We're, you know, I say that the guys who enter the NFL via the draft are basically lottery tickets. Everybody knows until you scratch off the ticket, whether or not the ticket is going to cash. And there's so many factors that go into it beyond the ticket. It's the coaching, it's the supporting staff, it's the ownership, but it all gets stuck on. When or lose, it's stuck on the player. But you know, to continue that a step farther, there's still one box left to scratch for some of these guys. They give up on the ticket before they really know whether or not there's a winner there. And I think the key is shedding the stigma, getting the fans to still buy tickets, show up for games, get excited when you're getting Zach Wilson. I mean, think about how hard it would be to sell Zach Wilson to a fan base. But what's the difference between Zach Wilson, Sam Darnold, Gino Smith, you know what the similarity is, the Jets ruined all three of them to start their careers. Hell, let's go find Christian Hackenberg, Michael, maybe he's got some gas in the tank. Right. Yeah, let's, let's start going down the list. Okay. Who do we forget about? I wonder though, is Zach Wilson, is he the guy? So would he be one of those guys, if you're a fan of a team and Zach Wilson, if you look at this whole rebirth of the washed up bus quarterback, we thought he was a bus, but not quite. There's more to this story. Would you buy it? If you let's say if you got what your team has, like the Vikings have an elite play caller in Kevin O'Connell. So let's say Kevin O'Connell, that type O'Connell, a Ben Johnson, a Sean McVey, like a really respected and now after last night, throw Ryan Grubbin a list too from the Seahawks. You got a really respected play caller and you got a guy who's never had one because those guys never really had one. Would you buy it if it's your, your team, they say, hey, we got, we got the infrastructure to support as Zach Wilson. Guys, the number two pick in the draft, he's got a big arm, he's got all the traits. We can do this. We can actually thrive in our system. Well the PR staff's out there for any team that is thinking about doing it, now have more ammunition than ever before to put lipstick on the pig if it goes that way because they can say to the columnists, the beat writers, the TV talking heads that are out there that they try to, to spin a certain way, it's not as tough of a spin as it used to be because you can start rattling off all the names of all the quarterbacks who have turned it around and here's why we think we found. We scoured film, we went back to college, we went all back to high school. We think this is the guy, bear with us, give us a chance. This could be the next guy and at some point you appeal to the egos of the people who craft the opinions who just don't want to be wrong and they think, hey, maybe, maybe they do have maybe Zach Wilson is the guy who knows, but that's part of the shift in the mindset that everybody's going to have to accept as teams become more deliberate and taken guys that we've all written off and say, wait a minute, have we learned nothing from 2024 and for Gino Smith 2022 and 2023. So it's, it's a, it's a neat thing to watch going forward. I want to make one last point before we take a break though. Cause I, this would have been, you know, Dan Campbell got docked after they blew the game in San Francisco in the NFC championship, which is absolutely wrong and should never happen, but it's impossible to avoid having your address get out there. Somebody is determined to put your address out there. They can do it. It's not like we live in bat caves or this fortress of solitude. They can find it and they can put it out there. And I thought last night they're going to have to worry about it again when they call that play that results in the safety, like Ben, if the lions blow this game, that, that is the thing, like what the hell are you doing? It's over. You're up to scores. It's over. Just run the ball, run the ball. Why are you getting cute? And you mentioned Ben Johnson and even he, even a guy who had arguably, depending upon who you believe his pick of multiple jobs last year and decided to come back for another year, he's still operating like an offensive coordinator who wants to prove himself worthy of a head coaching job. And they do screwy things at screwy times when they're thinking about showcasing their talents. Here's Ben Johnson going for the dagger, right? And if it works, if he pops another long touchdown and oh, it's, but man, that almost blew up in their faces. And that again, just because it didn't doesn't make it a stupid ass decision. And I still think it's incumbent on us to spot it and say, man, that was a stupid ass decision to throw there and ultimately give up a safety and give the Seahawks the ball back. It was, he's lucky, the game situation, even if that had turned into a disaster, let's say it gets even worse, let's say it's not a safety, let's say he just kind of throws the ball up and it's a short defensive touchdown. Fortunately for Ben Johnson and the Lions, the Seahawks didn't have enough time. They didn't have enough time in that game situation to really make them, make them pay. But if it had been a one score game, I mean, that's what we would have started, we would have opened with that. We'd be talking about that and forget about the touchdown catch from Jared Goff and a perfect 18 for 18 night. That would be the story. I wonder what he was trying to accomplish with that. Another padding the stats, you're fine. We know you got a great offense. You don't need to pad the stats. You want Jared Goff, is it 19, we're in the numerology, you want him to be 19 for 19, not 18 for 18? I'm not sure what he was thinking, I'm guessing he was just a lapse. I have no idea why they would even think about doing that. Okay, if they stop you, at least it's not a safety, but he gave them points and then he gave them an opportunity to get more points, really silly. Well, sometimes we see a brilliant play call to pass right up against the two minute warning because the clock is going to stop anyway. There's no value in running. There was 205 left when that play was called. And I remember like those moments where somebody does it like, oh, that's the presence of mind that a coach has. And this is great. Your calm amidst the chaos and you understand, I can throw it here because even if it's incomplete, it doesn't matter, the two minute warning is stopping the clock. That part of it's great. But man, when you're up 15, as they were at the time, 42 to 27. And a Michael, I, yeah, it would have been difficult for the Seahawks to score, recover on side kick and score two touchdowns, but there was two minutes left. There was still time. I'd rather take my chance, keep it conservative, punt back to them if I need to, they, you know, cause I'm at least going to work some more time off the clock before they get the ball back and I'm up 15 instead of 13. That changes everything going up by 13 or, or it could have been touchdown, single point conversion, down eight if, you know, he fumbled in the end zone or it had been a pick six or something like that. Just, just a very, very curious decision up to scores and that deep in your own end. All right. We need to take a break. The early game, very good for one team, very bad for the other team and, you know, part of me is more interested in talking about the team for which it went really badly because they got a lot of questions to answer soon. We'll talk Titan's dolphins next year on PFT Law. 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