(00:00) Bills def. Jets 23-20 recap
(25:16) Aaron Rodgers on loss
PFT Live with Mike Florio
Bills defeat Jets 23-20 in MNF flag fest
♪ Glad, drink, feeling fine so fresh ♪ ♪ Glad, drink, drink your best ♪ ♪ Grandma's glaze always feels like pine ♪ ♪ She's a get out the chatroom and clean mine ♪ ♪ Glad, drink, feeling fine so fresh ♪ ♪ The glad girl grew coming at you with a throwback jam ♪ ♪ That was glad for his flexed drawstring trash bags ♪ ♪ Feature in pine salt, original scent ♪ ♪ And that's better than all good ♪ ♪ It's all glad ♪ Perfect gifts? We've got 'em at Nordstrom Rack Stores now. Ugg, Nike, barefoot dreams, Kate Spade, New York, and more. Find everything on their wish list all in one place. Steve Madden, yes, please. It's perfect. Did we just score? The greatest gifts of all time? Yeah. Head to your Nordstrom Rack Store to score. Great brands, great prices. The greatest gifts of all time. This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now. You're multitasking. But what if you could also be saving money by switching to progressive? Drivers you save by switching save nearly $750 on average and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. So, multitask right now. Get your quote now at Progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, national average, 12 months savings of $744 by new customers surveyed, who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. It's a four-man run. Roger's drifting back after the snap. Fox's arm won. Spy will pass for set. He's got a receiver. But the receiver slipped. But he may have popped the ball by Williams. What was it picked up in the play by Johnson? It was the receiver Mike Williams. [Music] Well that was the moment that it became clear that the New York Jets were not going to pull into a first place tie in the AFCEs. That they were not going to complete the 10th point come from behind. Take momentum and take charge. Into a couple of missed field goals and all sorts of other things including 22 total penalties, some of which were probably legitimate, some of which probably were not. We're going to break that down. Plus much more over the course of the next two hours here on PFT Live. He is Devin McCarty. You're like Nick Sirianni showing up at the press conference with his kids. You got your kids behind you. You got the Super Bowl trophies. Man. They finally finished my office. This was what it was supposed to look like. But what happens when you get a new house? Everything that you need, your wife puts a last on the priority list. So it is finally here mid-October. This was supposed to be done back in like August. But my wife said hey, honey, you just need to wait. And I accept it. They're here now though. That's the point of it. Always ready for show time. The problem is all three of them aren't in the shot. See, people are going to think you only won two. Oh, there they are. The wide shot. It's the wide shot, baby. There they are. Devin's going to ask to be on the wide shot all the time. That's what we need on a T-shirt. Three championships need a wide shot all the time. We don't need one for your face. Well, that has nothing to do with the three Super Bowl trophies. That's for frigging sure. This is one of those mornings where, when I roll out of bed, the first thing I think is why is it that we need sleep? I mean, wouldn't it be nice to just function nonstop? Like, there's nothing like five hours of being out of it and then trying to, I don't mind the sleep. It's the trying to come out of the sleep. Like, I feel like today is one of those mornings where the rip court on the lawn or in the damn thing won't start and I didn't have to go home for MetLife Stadium last night. So you must be feeling it today. Yeah. And leaving the stadium, it was just stand still traffic. I'm like, do they not know? I need to wake up for PFT in a few hours. Let's go. But I agree with you. If you could just wake up no matter how much sleep you got, wake up and just rock and roll. Be ready to go. I sign up for that any day of the week. So what time did you get home? I got home about 1 a.m. yesterday. And the stadium is only 30 minutes from my house, but trying to get out of there. So I can't get played too much. The extra 30 minutes took me some back roads and got home. So not too bad. Well, game ended 11 30. So it was 90 minutes from the time the final gun sounded until Devin got home. So off we go. And last night's one of those nights, even if you had been able to walk across the street from the stadium to your house, you probably would have been up for a while. That was the other problem for me. No matter how tired I am when it's an exciting game, it takes a while to come down from it. It takes a while to get sleepy enough that you can go out for five hours, four and a half hours, whatever it is. I don't want to do the math because it'll just depress me. We got a good game last night to talk about here on PFT Live on Peacock, Sirius XM85, Sky Sports, NFL and whoever out there is listening to the podcast. Thank you very much for that. So what was your big overarching takeaway from being in the stadium and calling the game for Westwood one? For one of the sounds that just echoed in my ear all night was the joint of the field goal post, the ball hitting the post so loud and whistles. All I kept hearing all night as I try to fall asleep was another whistle, another whistle because the theme of the night was it felt like no one was trying to take command of this game between the missed extra points, the missed field goals, and then the second part was every time it felt like there was like this game changing play or a big play on the drive, you would see a flag, you would hear a bunch of whistles after the play to find out what the penalty was. It was just nonstop. Both these teams, I think, coming into the game, everyone was wondering what was the build's office going to look like? What adjustments were they going to make coming off the Houston game and then obviously with the Jets firing Robert Salah, what are they going to look like? And I thought both teams came out firing, offenses look explosive, they were getting up all the different guys, and then it just felt like the game took a halt with all of the penalties nonstop. There were 22 penalties with 204 penalty yards attached to them, and I struggled with the knee-jerk reaction, and I remember when John Gruden was the Monday night football analyst, he would constantly complain about too many penalties. And to me, there's a point to be made that maybe they're a little too flag-happy, but in a lot of cases, the penalties are happening because the guys are committing fouls on the field. You're not supposed to ignore them just because we've reached our limit for the night. And so where does it become the officials problem and not the players problem, and can you sense that during a game that it goes beyond what the players are doing? And did it feel like that happened last night for the Jets and the Bills? I think the sad part, not really. I think obviously when you get that many penalties, there's always going to be some as you look back and say, "Oh, they didn't really need to call that." And I thought that jumped out a little bit with a couple of the passing appearances, just felt like the ball was uncatchable, and that's not supposed to matter, but it just seemed in that instance. But there were other penalties in the game, whether it was pre-snat penalties, illegal formation penalties, and then some of the things after the play, the unnecessary roughness. So to me, the game was officiated. It was officiated tight, but I don't think it was that many calls where you were like, "Oh man, that's terrible." I think, obviously roughing a passer, every game in the NFL, we always look back and we're like, "Oh, you know, that's a little close." But we know they're watching it closely, all of the roughing a passer penalty. So overall, it just seemed like a good amount of bad fundamentals showing up, and officials blowing the play dead or throwing out a flag more than these officials trying to dominate the game that some people feel like. You've told us in the past how Bill Belichick would have information on all of the crews and coach you guys up accordingly before a given game, how they call this, how they call that. And I don't know enough about last night's crew to know whether it was characteristic or uncharacteristic. Obviously, it was the most, I think, penalty yardage in a game all year long. But does Belichick, including the adjustments that you make offense and defense during a game, is there ever any, "Hey, we gotta change on the fly. They're flag happy tonight for whatever reason." And what can you really do to watch that without undermining your ability to play at a high level? Yeah, there's a phrase, and I think it goes throughout the whole NFL, do business as business as being done. Whatever game plan or ever thought we thought coming into the game about the officiating crew and how they were going to call it, all that kind of goes out the window after you kind of get into the game and you settle in. And when you're defensive back and, you know, you're sitting on the bench and you're watching your offense out there, if they're throwing flags for, you know, a legal contact or it looks like, "Hey, they're calling flag for hand fighting down the field and passing the interference." You gotta pay attention to that. If you're an offense alignment, you gotta pay attention to guys getting called for holding penalties and different things like that. So once the game starts and it gets going, it doesn't matter what happened or what was said before the game, you're in it now. As players, you have to adjust. You can't keep playing the same way and expect the officials to adjust to you. No, if they're throwing a lot of flags, change up a little bit how you're playing. Some of those roughing of passes, make sure it's clear you're not trying to add anything to a hit on the quarterback. And we know, Josh Allen took advantage, flopped a little bit, but I think that was the key. You have to do business as business is being done and not just keep playing the same way. One of the things that you talked about earlier was the question of whether or not pass interference penalties. If the ball is uncouchable, and this is the standard reaction that we'll see from players and coaches alike when they believe a pass was uncouchable, that's the signal the officials make when they're explaining it, I struggle with the question of whether a pass was catchable because as I pointed out last night on Twitter, when you hold a guy's arm for five strides a pass that would have been catchable suddenly looks uncouchable. And just because the ball lands on the white stripe doesn't mean that this freaky superhuman athlete isn't going to go up and catch it. And if you talk about me, watch one of the highlights from Super Bowl 10 where Lin Swan levitates at the sideline to catch a ball that surely would have landed beyond the white stripe if he had been pulled to the ground by a Cowboys defensive back. So I don't think we factor in how good these guys are and what they could do if they were unimpeded to the ball. Because that notion of uncouchable gets thrown around all the time, but you don't see it called very often. I think the officials understand this guy could go make the play if he wasn't being dragged down to the ground. I agree with you because the exact player you're talking about is DJ Reed's running with Mack Hollins and when the flag first goes out, you guys know me from being in the studio I'm always against passing interference being called on defensive backs and I kind of threw my hands in the air and then as they showed the replay it was. It was about five yards where they're running and DJ Reed just, he has Mack Hollins by the wrist. He can't pump his arms, he can't do anything and that's what I explained on the broadcast was it was an unneeded penalty by DJ Reed. He was in good position, didn't need to do it, but once he did that the inside official the guy in the back judge, he's the one who saw it. The official on the sideline he couldn't see it, but the official inside he saw the hand just being held for about five yards and that to me was the difference. There were penalties. I thought there was a call on the buffalo one time on an end cut that the ball seemed kind of high. I don't know if it was catchable or not. Wasn't a ton of contact that impeded the receiver. I thought that was a little questionable, but I also thought the officials have been calling it all night. There were a lot of contact with the ball in the air, showed up Tony Adams had one against Kincaid, so the penalties I thought were consistent. That to me is the key when you talk about officiating. Are they throwing the flags out of consistent rate? Are they looking at the penalties consistently if they are, then the players have to adjust. You're talking about a fourth quarter throw to Garrett Wilson that looked like he really would have had to climb the ladder, but again, he almost got a hand on it even as he was being hit and prevented from trying to get his body up so he could get a hand on the football. I'm always going to err on the side of saying it was catchable because you've robbed the guy of the opportunity to try. We don't know that he couldn't have caught it because the other guy kept him from having a fair chance to go catch the football and you're right about one specific penalty evening out. There was a roughing the passer called on both teams and both were close. I understand the call that was made on AJ Epinesse to the Bills Pass rusher on Aaron Rodgers because they explained it well. I can't remember the exact verbiage, but there was an unnecessary second act. I think that's what he said. When you see the driving to the ground, I know he's trying to rip the ball out, but when you see that driving his shoulder into the ground, he knows what he's trying to do there. He knows what he's trying to do, whether he does it consciously or not. There's an instinctive driving him into the ground there. Drive that shoulder into the ground. He moved his hand. He knew he was, you see that? Show that again. He moves his hand to the last second because he knows he's driving that shoulder into the ground. This second view will show it. You see the red glove on the shoulder and just before the ground, I got to move my hand because I'm going to drive this shoulder to the ground and I want to break my fingers when I do it. That one, I think I understood what they were doing. There was one on Jevon Kinlaw for hit on Josh Allen and I thought was a little more questionable because he didn't even take him to the ground. And that's the key because in all of those plays you see the official, all he's doing, he has his eyes down. He's just staring at the quarterback. He wants to see how the play is going to finish and that's what I said last night. I think one of the keys, and it's a hard thing to do, but I think for defensive players when you're sacking a quarterback, there's a point where it just feels like this plays over. And I think that's the time where the player has to show that not only is he letting up, but he's actually trying to be really nice to the quarterback. I think that will put you in the best place. And I agree Kinlaw's play was a little question, but I thought Josh Allen did a really good job in live action when you're watching a full speed of as he's taking him down, Josh Allen kind of throws himself backwards. And when you watch film, Josh Allen does that. Whether it's on the sideline, whether it's getting hit, he does a good job of knowing how the game is being officiated and throws his upper half his body as big as strong as he is. He throws his body around and makes it really tough for the officials to not see the flop. And that's one of the things as a defensive player you have to see on film. When you hit this guy, his reaction, what is he going to do? We used to talk about that. Whether it was my homes on the sideline, Josh Allen on the sideline, they both did a good job of trying to sell that penalty and get a free 15 yards. When it's Allen, it's definitely a flop because there was one moment last night that should prove to everyone this guy isn't just big and fast and agile. He is strong. When he ran for the first down that Iced it and the defensive back kind of had him hog tied, had him around the neck and was trying to bring him down. That's the point where he just shrugged it off. He just shrugged the guy off. Here it is. Well done pulling it up. Watch as he's going down like this is a tackle and he just says pay pops right up. He does not go down and that you see 99.9 times out of 100. That guy's going down like that. He just shrugs him off and gets up. And I mean again, I had to tackle this guy for years. It's not fun. It's really hard to bring down and you see everything he has right here. There's a good shape right there in Clemens. He runs right by him. And then as the DB comes, that's the hardest thing to deal with is you're not really going to tackle him and make him go backwards. He's too strong to do that. He lowers his pads. He knows what he's going to get. The worst part of this play is Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills have been running that play at the end of games for years. And as I'm sitting in there watching the play and they have the running back in the back of the pass to the sideline, I was like, oh, Josh Allen's keeping the ball. They do this all the time in key situations, get everybody looking at the back and then Josh Allen either goes right up the middle or goes the other direction. It looks like he has the option and as he fakes a throw, he sees Clemens coming down a little bit and he goes, I can beat him to the edge. But that just shocked me. I think for a Jets defense to not know in those key moments, Josh Allen loves to keep the ball run for the first down. Big play by him. But yeah, this guy is one of the most impressive and toughest guys to tackle in the whole NFL, not just at quarterback. The whole NFL. I don't care what player you bring up. Allen's going to be in the top 10 of hardest guys to tackle. It might have been nice to have, I don't know, Robert Sala there to remind the players in that moment that Josh Allen likes to run the ball. See, there's never going to be a bright line from the absence of the coach and the product on the field. But isn't that one of those obscure little things where call the guys around, say something to someone, watch the quarterback run here and I don't know, maybe Jeff Albrecht, the interim head coach did and it still didn't matter. But when you see the front end of that play, they got roped in. They stepped. Once you make that step and commit, he's running right by you. So they weren't ready for it. And I don't know that Sala would have had them ready for it, but that's one of those tiny little things, Devin, that maybe Sala would have had them on guard for it because he's seen it happen just like you have. Yeah. And I think the main thing is Jeff Albrecht, usually that's his role. He's the defensive coordinator. So all of the time, situation, what's going to happen when we get this defensive stop? What are we going to do next? Sala usually handle that. He's the head coach. Whether people think he did a good job or not, that can be debated. But Jeff Albrecht, he didn't have to think about that. He was zeroed in on his defense. What are their favorite plays? What are they doing? And that was my biggest thing of when you fire a coach in the middle of the year and you don't really have the head coach and experience or, you know, I know you haven't done a hack, but you don't agree to make him and elevate him. Now you put a new guy who's trying to figure out what I'm not doing. What am I used to when I was talking, even to his chief of staff before the game, because I knew him from New England. And he was saying, hey, I have to get inside. I got to bring our new head coach to headset just to go over the different channels he's going to be on that ends and outs of that. And I think that's the biggest thing when you become the head coach. You have new responsibilities on game day during the week. All of these things you're not used to. And Jeff Albrecht and that Jets defense, they've been on it ever since week one with San Francisco. They played good football. And I thought last night not to say that it was all cause because of the firing. They just weren't as sharp as they were the previous weeks. And I think that has something to do with everybody in new roles because of the firing of Salah. That's a great point. You know, apart from the fact that removing Salah from the mix takes your best defensive mind away from the team and then takes your defensive coordinator and thrusts him into a different role. You've lost your defensive coordinator. You've lost your head coach and the former defensive coordinator is now trying to figure out how to be the head coach and everything will be fine. And this is where, and I don't know if you noticed this cause you were, you know, working last night. But during the Madden cast and I want to get the quote, Bill Belichick had something to say about Woody Johnson. And it went something, oh, we have the sound. I missed that we have the sound. So I don't have to remember what he said. Here's Bill Belichick from last night's Manning cast with his views on the man that he worked for as head coach for roughly one day back in 2000. Have a listen. You know, Peyton, Eli, I'm not a big Jets fan in case you don't know that. You know, like Fireman Ed, but that's it. But, you know what, Coach Salah did a good job with that program. I mean, he built a, brought in a culture level of toughness and competitiveness. You know, unfortunately, the offense you know, hasn't been what, you know, a lot of quarterbacks last year and, you know, a little bit of a slow start. But I thought Coach Salah really did a good job with this team. And, you know, they're probably not that far away from winning. That's kind of what it's been there at the Jets. You know, it went barely 1 over 30% in the last 10 years. So, you know, the owner being the owner just ready fire aim. Ready fire aim, baby. There's another T-shirt ready fire aim. It's, and he had discussed it on the Let's Go podcast earlier and it was far more tactful and diplomatic. What he said, you know, can be unpredictable. Something like that. He soft pedaled it a little bit. The owner being the owner ready fire aim, that's exactly the reality of the Jets for 25 years with Woody Johnson, his owner. And it's why Bill Belichick, one of the big reasons why Belichick didn't want that job. But it was kind of thrust on him when Bill Parcel stepped aside. That whole segment right there, it flashed me back to sitting in team rooms and sitting in that first meeting on Wednesday morning. When we had the Jets on the schedule, we would always get some classic line about the owner or something going on. And new guys would kind of look at me and I go, "Bill doesn't seem like a big fan of Johnson." It just always seeped through. So to see him on the manning cast and, you know, you just said it earlier in the week, the Let's Go podcast. He's kind of eloquent, says things the correct way and away. And, you know, he's in the middle of the game and it happens and right away he just goes into attack mode. I mean, ready fire aim. Like, is there a better sentence and slogan to describe what the Jets did this week other than that of like, no idea or no thought process into what's the fallout, what's going to happen next? Oh, if we win Monday night, we'll be first in the division. It was just like, you know what, I'm tired of this, let's move on. So, hey, Bill Belichick, coach, I see what you're saying there. It makes a lot of sense to some fans out there in the football world. Now, when you're in a moment like that and you hear Bill Belichick and it gives you flashbacks, are those good flashbacks or is it like sweating and maybe a little twitching and, you know, maybe a little nausea like how do you feel when you get taken back to those instances? That right there. That's a happy flashback and Jets fans won't like this, but Jets week usually was pretty good week for the New England Patriots back when I was playing there. So, a lot of wins at the end of that week, but as long as he wasn't then going to ask you questions about the team and go on and on about how descriptive your answers need to be, you're pretty good, but I will say I've seen a lot of guys actually start sweating in the meeting, need to take a break after coach asked him, hey, who's the star, who's the star in right guard for the New York Jets and not realizing it has some injury or something that went on, it would get hectic in those meetings. I have a feeling some of those meetings involved guys getting grilled on what the Bills like to do in late game situations when they've got third and short. I got a feeling that's come up with time or two. No doubt about it. And if you get, if you got that question wrong, he would sometimes end it with, hey, I know who shouldn't be on the field in these situations if you didn't know that. And then he would move on to the next player right behind you. And by that time, that whole side of the room would be like quarterback run quarterback run. Josh, I don't keep it. You could just hear it if you sat back, you're mumbling throughout the room. So, the next guy was definitely going to get it right. God, well, I mean, that's a glimpse of why he was so damn good at what he did. You know, it was personnel issues that contributed in a large part to reaching the end of the road. I think one of the reasons why the crafts were a little hesitant to make the move, they understand this guy can get a team ready to play like no one else. And this is a great little example of it. There's no ready fire aim when it comes to Bill Belichick. There was no ready fire aim. He's doing it intentionally. And I don't think Aaron Rodgers ever does anything ready fire aim. I think he knows exactly what he's doing. We might disagree with how he does it and what he says when he does it. But back to the officiating. He addressed it. He went there last night, post game press conference. Here's Aaron Rodgers with his thoughts on the 22 penalties for 204 yards. It seemed a little ridiculous. Yes, some of them seem really bad, including the rough in the past around me. That's not rough in the past. I was able to play sarcastic ball if we were going to crawl those things. And I thought the one on Kinlan was not rough in the past either. Now, he also said that there was a fandom holding penalty that wiped out a touchdown by rookie running back Braylon Allen. But I didn't know what he was talking about. I didn't remember. I never knew what Sarcaste ball is. That's a reference to a South Park episode where they completely remake football into you're running around with balloons and tinfoil hats and you never touch each other. So yeah, he was he was going next next level with like a 10 year old episode of South Park where they make football into something completely non-violence. So I don't know that he's going to get a letter from the league this week because I don't know what sets them off when a player has things to say about officials. Last year Miles Garrett got fined $25,000 for calling officiating a travesty in a win over the Jaguars in December. So not that he can't afford it, but it's just one of those things we'll keep an eye on now with the league do anything about him saying what he said. I don't think it was that egregious but it was still surprising to see his candor. I would be surprised if he doesn't get fined simply because of who he is the magnitude of it being Aaron Rodgers who criticizes but like I mean just gives us opinion I didn't I grew which I didn't think it was that bad but I think because Aaron Rodgers and who he is and him going out there and saying something about the officials every player is going to see that and I think the NFL would probably try to send a message to the rest of the guys of like this is unacceptable and I understand his frustration because even being at the game it felt like every big play you had to wait and see if there was a flag but again as they showed the replay in the stadium I thought it was another penalty that was unnecessary by the Jets player Tyron Smith I didn't think he needed to hold him but he did hold him and the ball went right up the middle. Braylon Allen I think scores whether he holds them or not but the defender he goes to get off and what they always talk about in the NFL they will call holding when it looks like your hands get outside of your body to the side and looks like you're restricting a player from moving on past you and that showed up on that play and we can always say those plays happen all the time in every play in the NFL there's somebody being held but when it gets called to me you can't complain about it because it was a holding penalty and there it is you see Tyron Smith the left tackle helping create the whole if there's holding away from the play then I think that's a little ridiculous but when it's right there at the point of attack and it's helping to create the opening through which the running back runs how can you not call it there was a holding call that got the fans booing of course fans are going to boo anything they don't like but there was a call on the center on a screen pass that helped spring the guy and you see it he's right next to I think it was Breeze Hall getting ready to catch a little screen pass and the center's holding him how can you not call that when it's part of the XNO plan that is springing the guy who's going to get the football you see it happen you got to call it if it's three players away and it has no impact on on the mechanism and on the the opening that running back eventually realizes then then don't call it but when it's right there when it's directly relevant to that player having his chance to take off you you've got to call it yeah and again I don't want to beat a dead horse but the consistency of the officials to me is what I will compliment them on and say good job I didn't there was even a penalty in the game where they called a legal cut block by Taran Johnson on the Buffalo Bills defense to the nickel corner because the play was maybe only like a yard or two outside the tackle box down the field and the offensive lineman's coming at him and he just goes low and he takes out the lineman's legs that penalty that rule was implemented a couple years ago as a defensive back you couldn't just go take out the lines of the legs of an offensive lineman unless you were inside the tackle box and it was close it was probably about two or three steps of him being outside the tackle box through the flag and it was a penalty so whenever you get the the officials being consistent you can adjust to that so I understand as players you get frustrated at the end of the game and you can play but I think you know for both of these squads I think the head coaches are going to come in the next day and they won't spend I mean on Wednesday they won't spend a ton of time on this game because of the short week but I think they'll have to say to their teams hey we got to do a better job adjusting to as the game is being officiated the flags continue to come both teams got penalized penalized a lot 10 to 11 so it wasn't like one team dominated getting penalties both teams are penalized and I thought it was consistent by their officials. I want to pause for a second because the rule you mentioned it came into being while you were still playing and years ago Rich McKay explained to me about blocks below the waist that in football you got big guys and you got smaller guys and there's usually only one way for the smaller guy to get the big guy on the ground and that's to hit him low and in a moment like that where you've got offensive lineman coming right out to you I think there's an element of survival that comes into play as well like I can only imagine what your reaction was when you became in this rule became aware of this rule because it's like this guy's coming right at me now what am I supposed to do we set up a drill to practice this new rule because a popular play in the NFL as you see the quarterback he'll toss it back to the running back going outside and you'll have a receiver tight end will block down or whoever the last guy is on the line of scrimmage DN outside linebacker and then you see the big tackle he pulls around outside and the only guy for him to block is a little 180 to 90 pound corner back and that tackle has been taught do not break stride run full speed at that little defensive back and I used to love that when I play corner because I have a little juke move a little shoulder shake and then I'm diving right at your legs and I flip the guys I've thrown them over my shoulder because they're running so fast we had to put in a drill to remind guys hey you can't go low anymore and as you watch the NFL games and they run what we call the quarterback toss outside you see corners get absolutely destroyed on these plays because you no longer can just go and dive in office alignment they're more athletic now to running faster they're just taking guys heads off so it was a big penalty that and a rule that got implemented that didn't get a lot of attention but all defensive backs across the hole in the NFL former and current they felt the pain when that rule got put in place we knew how much that took away from playing defensive back and being assertive in the run game 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 when you get in a situation like that you worry about sweating here's one way to take that worry off the table dove men plus care whole body deodorant provides you all day care and odor protection wherever you need it most from your pits to your privates to your feet it's available at Walmart in the soothing sense of aloe and bamboo and shea butter and cedar and when they say whole body they mean it dove man dio works on anywhere that smells it goes on instantly dry for odor protection that lasts giving you confidence to celebrate like a real fan all day long dove man dio is aluminum free with vitamin E paraben free and 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schedule there's no complex technology no long-term contracts and no hidden rigamarole if you're awarded for watching college football sling lets you do that visit sling.com/play to learn more and get started that is sling.com/play sling.com/play we'll get back to the game here in a second folks I'm just curious what did you do then what was the drill and how did you combat this freight train coming right at you the biggest thing now became you're not gonna win a one-on-one match up with a 315 20-pound tackle you had to try to set them up you know fake like you're going inside get back outside fake like you're going outside get back inside and then get up the field and make the tackle so you see it sometimes a step on Gilmore did it a week ago against the Jets in London where he's outside they throw a wide receiver screen the tackles coming at him he stays outside and at the last minute he fakes outside and then comes underneath and is able to make the tackle so as a little guy your advantage there's more space that the big guy can't keep up with your quickness you have to use that if you think you're gonna win dropping your shoulder and hitting an offensive tackle good luck playing next week after that okay there was another comment made by Aaron Rodgers in the post game press conference it relates to the play that you saw at the top of the show the Mike Williams coming back for the ball it looked like an under-thrown pass that was intercepted to essentially ice the game and we know how Aaron Rodgers feels about intersections no quarterback likes them but for Rodgers his mark of all time greatness is his touchdown to interception ratio which has taken a hit of light so he's not happy that this potential TD became an INT you see Mike Williams breaking to the sideline and the ball's under and he still tried to catch it and it kind of hurt himself going down but there's the pick here's Rodgers after the game on what happened on that play there's two verticals you know Alan's down the same Mike's down red line so I'm looking at Alan he puts his hand up three guys ago with him so I'm throwing a no look to the red line and when I just peeked my eyes back there he's running an in-breaker so it's gotta be down the red line no I was throwing it to the red line but when I got to about here I realized he was running an in-breaker so I had to kind of adjust it a little bit but the play is two guys vertical one guy down the same one guy on the red line I remember when John Gruden was doing his quarterback school first year he was with ESPN and that was a popular show he's meeting with all the incoming quarterbacks Jimmy Claus and the Notre Dame quarterback tried to blame Golden Tate for an interception and Gruden said it's always your fault you never blame your receiver and I think the fact that Rodgers went there because they were talking earlier in the game which of course you were calling so you didn't hear it how Mike Williams is trying so hard to win Aaron Rodgers trust and it just hasn't happened yet he dropped a pass earlier in the game Rodgers might be done with Mike Williams after that last night if he's gonna call him out like he did he's either gonna never throw to him again or he's gonna say trade this guy back to the Chargers and it's important as a player when you describe these situations Aaron Rodgers correct on the spacing of the play and where Mike Williams needs to be Mike Williams you know he sees the jam up top and he breaks and he comes inside the corner because the corner is playing hard outside when he does that he needs to get back outside and when he says the red line the red line is about four to five yards from the sideline inside and it creates that spacing on practice fields usually have that red line drawn in to get receivers used to knowing exactly where that is and he's correct and knowing where Mike Williams should be but the thought of that play is he said he looked back out there and Mike was running an end breaker so he saw that Mike Williams ran an end breaker and was not where he should be so to me you either throw the ball out to the red line where nobody was so the pass would have been incomplete the two minute warning had just sounded so you still had two minutes left in this game and you throw it out there Mike Williams isn't there you get mad at him you tell him where he should be but this situation isn't full explanation of what he did he saw where Mike Williams was and he thought he could get the ball in there that's the truth of the matter he thought he could throw it in there he couldn't he could have threw the ball back out to the red line Mike Williams looked like he was headed that way and honestly he probably would add a shot to catch it outside nonetheless he doesn't do that. Aaron Johnson makes a really nice play to get his hands under the ball but when you look back at that play if he looks out there and he doesn't like where Mike Williams was he could have checked the ball down to Breece Hall who was five yards away from him and no bills defender in sight within about 10 to 12 yards so throwing the ball to Breece Hall in space against the Buffalo Bills defense seems like a pretty good play for the Jets so I understand where Mike Williams should be totally disagree with putting a blame on him on the perception because ultimately Aaron Rodgers is the one who decided to throw that ball and put the ball in a harm's way when they were driving with a chance to win the game. So to take the John Gruden advice to Jimmy Closs in next level not only do you take the blame when it's not your fault you probably should take the blame when it is your fault and I wonder Devin you know on a night like that we haven't even talked about the Hail Mary yet they end the first half with the latest in a growing line of Hail Mary throws by Aaron Rodgers in his career he had that keyhole throw to Alan Lazard where it's like how did he how did he even how did the ball even fit it was like an optical illusion do you get confident to the point of delusional that you can do whatever you want however you want I'm trying to understand why he would pull the trigger on that throw because he's been doing this long enough to know exactly what you said and what he should have done is he just thinking screw it I'm on tonight I'm I'm letting it fly because I hit a Hail Mary I hit this other pass I'm feeling like old Aaron Rodgers not old Aaron Rodgers but former Aaron Rodgers I'm feeling like him tonight so I'm just going to throw caution to the win yeah it's so tough because the great quarterbacks especially these ones who have you know special arm talent and it was on display last night with Josh Alan and Aaron Rodgers we used to explain it sometimes in our media room is there's no quarterback there's no throw that this quarterback doesn't like they just have the ultimate confidence and belief in their arms that they can fire a ball in there and I think for Aaron Rodgers it's just a natural reaction he sees Lazard running down the middle so he's like hey I can make this throw back outside but as we watched his unbelievable Hail Mary and you see on that throw Aaron Rodgers was able to move up in the pocket take a step and launch the ball on the other throw to Mike Williams he was kind of that balance set that he loves to throw the ball and usually he is able to throw it but he couldn't get enough on it to get it back outside whereas this throw he was able to do it and to me the coolest thing about this throw is they line up for eight seconds left I'm talking about how the bills were able to get points on the board score and now they can get a stop defensively and get the ball back in the second half and as I'm saying I remind myself and saying on the broadcast of but we cannot forget because Aaron Rodgers has some unbelievable moments with Hail Mary's and we saw it right there unbelievable moment as he launches the Hail Mary but the guy still has a special arm and we're reminded each time we watch him because he throws a throw where we're like there's only a few guys that can make that throw in the game today and 40 year old Aaron Rodgers he's still one of those guys. 50 to yard throw oh there's the one we're talking about earlier throw it out on the Zard where what in the world like I had no I still don't understand how the ball made it through and there's a confidence to the way he throws the ball and it's almost like the moment it leaves his hand the way it jumps off his hand you know it's going to end up exactly where it needs to be. Yeah you talk about a back shoulder that throw to the Zard that was a back thigh running down the field and if he throws the back shoulder to defender naturally he's probably going to put his hands up in the air because we as defenders you practice the back shoulder but you don't practice a guy fading backwards and the ball I mean legit hit him right on where your thigh pad is supposed to be so I mean Aaron Rodgers you talk about sitting behind a line of scrimmage behind offensive lineman as defensive lineman are coming and they're ready to pounce on you and hit you and he did get hit on that play to know exactly where you want to throw a football about 20 to 30 yards down the field and put it exactly where you thought you wanted to put it I mean it's unbelievable and we've seen him do that so many times that we kind of forget how hard and complicated that is because he does it effortlessly and a lot of times it's not in the best situation as feet are where you want it to be all of these little things that I'm sure we always hear in the screening room between Jason Garrett Chris Sims of where you want to be as a quarterback Aaron Rodgers can do that out of any position and it's still phenomenal to watch especially in person there might be one extra reason why Aaron Rodgers was willing to blame Mike Williams even if it wasn't ultimately Mike Williams fault on that last interception because if the pass had been completed Aaron Rodgers with six yards more would have gotten to 300 passing yards for the first time since since December 12 of 2021 he now has the longest streak this decade of consecutive starts without a 300 yard passing game he had been at 28 tied with Justin Fields Tyrod Taylor and Josh Allen he is not all alone at 29 straight games without 300 yards passing he got to 294 last night so he's the last guy you would think we get to that point he was great last night and I think what had to make last night frustrating for his fans Devin I was thinking about this earlier we've seen two different Aaron Rodgers this year we've seen old Aaron Rodgers and old Aaron Rodgers as I was saying earlier he was playing like old Aaron Rodgers last night the good old the old MVP four time Aaron Rodgers when you lose on a night when he plays like that that hurts yeah I mean the ability that throw right there to still buy time in the pocket I thought the bills a good amount you know the defense normally they don't send a lot of blitzes they don't add guys into the rush and when you do that against Aaron Rodgers he makes you pay and that's what he did most of the night he made them pay for when they didn't get to him there was no pressure he found the right guy and he made unbelievable throws that I mean they're really hard to make it's just over one defender in front of the other defender so when you get a night like that from Aaron Rodgers in the last time I was in the Jets day and they played against the New England Patriots and he had a very similar night where he was just picking them apart but I think for the Jets it's just like how do we get out of our own way between the penalties and the zer line just not being able to connect on field goals and it looked like it got to him mentally because he hits the crawl he hits the upright one end of the field going to the right side and then comes back later in the game where now he has the win at his back and he's kicking with the win still hits the upright I mean and that might have played a part in Aaron Rodgers decision two of he might not have been thinking at the end of the game hey we can line up and kick a field goal and go to overtime he might have been pressing forward thinking we can't have him come back and kick another kick we got to go win the game now and might have made them a little bit more aggressive even though they still had a good amount of time left in the game yeah and really if I'm a Jets fan today I am disappointed that we saw exactly the guy that we thought we were getting but it was players beyond him the missed field goals whether it's because of the win or not we saw Aaron Rodgers we saw the points scored but we saw fouls like this and he called it phantom there's nothing phantom about it we talked about it earlier it was a hold on Tyrone Smith we saw other guys not get it done because Aaron Rodgers did everything in his power to win that game and I think the one thing as you watch the game whether you're watching on the broadcast and I'm sure they showed different times Aaron Rodgers on the bench but even being up in the booth I think there's times that he can help this team move forward from some of the negative plays just as body language is posture just what he does you saw that throw the guard Wilson in the back and ends on Taylor rap did a really good job as soon as Garrett Wilson got the ball and looked like he was going to secure a touchdown comes and lays a big hit on him he stays down on the field Aaron Rodgers just walks off to the sideline obviously frustrated that they couldn't connect on the touchdown right there but I thought that those are times where he can go and walk over check on his star receiver see if he's good and just to uplift the team a little bit now like it was a tough moment it felt like they wanted to break up take control of the game and they couldn't and I think his body language can just help that team because they're all looking at him he's the guy so if he gets pissed off go get angry you know yell at guys get him going be fiery but when he just kind of sits and is almost like a sulking look to him I think that really has a downcast for this team and I think they need him to be more of a uplifter especially in the game and especially after the week they just had everybody on that team looks to him for leadership and that's sometimes as a player you get caught up because you're only thinking about how you feel and your emotions in the game that I think he could be better to help this team out the on field demeanor was better than the game in London the game in London he looked disinterested he looked discombobulated he just looked like he didn't want to be there last night it was better but the sideline stuff and at one point when he's like you know like furrowing his brow with his hand and is almost like should he be in the blue tent we're sensitive to that now with the Josh Allen stuff like does he need a concussion evaluation but then this is at the end of the game and this is very fitting this was pointed out by the NFL memes account on Twitter you have the blood on your hand in the shape of an L after you threw the interception it doesn't get any more perfect than that although Jets fans probably don't want to hear that I did not even notice that and to me it's very similar obviously you know I played with Tom Brady for 10 years and when you have those guys that are just they're out of this world they're rock stars they're superstars to so many young players who grew up watching them who are now their teammates constantly look towards them and you know on the defensive side of the ball it's easy to say hey let the offense figure out let's just do what we do let's do our job but on offense everybody all those players they're seeking to get approval from that star quarterback so when you have that kind of body language and I think it's even a little different at the end of the game where you know you throw the interception there's a frustration where it's like we I just kind of lost the game and we have no shot but in the middle of the game when it's still a back and forth to me you don't want to look like that because it's like like we're still in the game like pick your head up like we didn't lose the game yet let's keep playing and let's keep fighting and I think I think he has to do a better job this team is going to be a contender either for the division or for the conference they need him to be a version of himself that almost is above whatever else is happening in the game because he's the he's the face of this team especially after fine Robert Salah there's going to be no one else to look to other than Aaron Rodgers to get this team over the hump so he has to be better in all and every phase of being a player a leader whatever you want to call it a captain he needs to be the absolute best at that for this team to be successful and as we get a break I had a thought last night that Aaron Rodgers hadn't said anything to suggest in any way shape or form that he disagrees with the fire of Robert Salah I think that implies plenty but if this doesn't work he's got a handy thing he can point back to later and say everything was fine until we fired Robert Salah so it's a no lose situation for him when you think about it it's not his fault if it didn't work out this year the owners stepped in and fired the coach you know I hadn't really thought about this before maybe that's why he's okay with it he's got a pre-baked excuse for this season going sideways it went sideways because you fired the head coach when we were two and three and if we'd had him on Monday night against the bill he had told the defense watch for the Josh Allen run on third and one you're going deep into the bag of your Aaron Rodgers thought process that's scary anything could be possible I'm not sure Aaron Rodgers thought all the way through that oh he does oh he does oh he does he's the delegate genius who thinks all angles through to their conclusion we've reached the conclusion of the first segment of the program we'll next see the Jets on Sunday night football in Pittsburgh on NBC and Peacock a very important game for the Jets another primetime game for the Jets and one fewer day than usual to get ready for it the Bills will host the Titans this weekend and before we put that game from last night to bed we're gonna talk a little bit more about the superhero whose legal name is Josh Allen we'll do that next time 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