The Special Teams Revolution + Week 4's Biggest Matchups

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We're talking special teams today. There is a remarkable trend across the NFL all about special teams that is making a massive difference, not just in who's getting the most yards, but who's winning and losing games. Trevor, are you ready to talk about the third phase? Oh, I'm more than ready.

We talked about in the reaction show how close all of those games were this past Sunday, how there were more one score finishes on that Sunday than we had seen in such a long time. And the more that I thought about it, I was like, you know what? I look at these teams, like the Raiders. the Cardinals, the Dolphins, these teams that were supposed to be cellar dwellers, right?

Pencil in the wind. It's an easy win.

They're going to be terrible this year. And you look at these teams. These teams look competitive. They look good.

It's tighter matchups between these lower teams. And to me, it signals the fact that the floor of the NFL this season feels so much higher. And so when we dug into maybe why, well... You get to the part of the game that often gets overlooked and underappreciated, under-talked about, and that is special teams. And from there, the wonderful people at NextGenStats, they found us the data to actually back up the fact that this is making a major difference this year.

It's up. It is good! He's perfect on the young season. Yeah, if you're just looking at the box score, right, like how many yards your offense got, how many yards your defense held the opposing offense to, it's easy to get a sense of how a game went in that way, but it rarely tells the whole story, which is why if you're looking at average starting field position differential, that's where a lot of the hidden yards in the game shows up. Because the better your starting field position, the less yards your offense has to get to score. Math, baby. Math. Math. Math, right?

Shows up in scoring drive percentage. That's another big number we're going to get to today. And if you're looking at the teams that are best in terms of average starting field position differential, how good is our starting field position versus how good is the opponent's starting field position, right at the very top is the Raiders at plus 12.2 yards. That showed up even last week, right? When the Saints turned the ball over four times. They started one of those drives inside the Saints 10-yard line. They started another one of those drives effectively at midfield. So you don't have to get as many yards to score to make that comeback like the Raiders did when you're set up for success like that. That happened with the Broncos, right?

One of the things that spurred their comeback was a huge punt return. And then the Rams had a bad punt that set up the Broncos at midfield for their next score. Like this stuff matters. The yards don't go away just because you're not getting them on offense. You're just getting them from a different unit, and that's special teams, or in some cases, defense if you're getting turnovers. And if you're looking at the teams that are bad in average starting field position differential, you got the Chargers at negative 9.1 yards. That shows up. It makes Justin Herbert have to work harder, and he hasn't exactly been himself this season. So it's something that doesn't show up in the box score, but you feel it while you're watching

the game like you feel like your offense always has to dig out of a hole, or you feel like your defense is always put in a position to succeed. And having this kind of number, starting field position differential, it tells the story that I don't think has really gotten told so far this season.

When you look at best average starting field position, the Raiders are at the top of that list, right? I mean, we're highlighting them for a reason as a team that's playing really well. And when you look at their EPA per play on offense, or even just total EPA. They're kind of like right around the middle of the league, and yet they're sitting here at 3-0, and it goes into sort of what you said, like where are the hidden yards?

Where's the hidden advantage? It's here.

Raiders, 39.9 yard line is their starting field position. Panthers are right behind them, and Panthers, high scoring team, they put up a lot of points to start the season. They're right at the 35 yard line. Bengals right behind them at the 33.7 yard line as an average for their starting field position. And then when you look at Some of the worst average starting field position, well, it's three teams that have been very frustrating to start the year.

The Patriots, just a 25.6 yard line starting field position average. The Rams, a 25.8. The Texans, a 26.4. So these are teams that are having slower starts.

To the season that you go, man, what's up?

And obviously there are things on offense and defense that they're sort of hampering them that we've talked about already this season. But special teams are such a, again, underappreciated and under-talked about factor when it comes to how close these teams have been on the scoreboard. And I think it matters a lot because the new kickoff rules have totally changed things. It kind of goes into head coaching decisions, right?

You and I have talked about timeout management fourth down decisions all that kinds of stuff it's winning in the little margins that sometimes mean the world to games that have a sliver margin for error you have to win in those margins coaching decisions are one of them special teams are absolutely another and the way that special teams are set up In today's NFL, if you start out with the ball around the 35-yard line, Brett, how many players are you away from field goal range at this point?

In the case of the Ravens, one. You are so much closer to potentially putting points on the board that this cannot be overstated, just how important special teams are. One of the things that NGS tracks is coaching decisions, right? Are you going for it or are you punting? Are you kicking a field goal? Are you punting? And it's determined by win probability added, right? Are you going to get a higher win probability if you make a certain decision?

You know, they track how often coaches are aggressive versus conservative relative to what the recommendation is. I would advocate, we need to track another decision beyond field goals, punting and go going for it. And that's the willingness to intentionally give the other team a touchback at the 35 yard line, right? This was brought up by Jesse Minner after the Cowboys game.

They decided to kick a touchback, gave us the ball in the 35. We really only needed, you know, 18 plus yards to, to, to get to our, you know, end of game type of range. The touchback rule is huge. Like it's, it's, the 35 yard line.

So that added five yards of field position matters a lot. Like even if you're just looking at pre new kickoff rules right now, that average starting field position after a kickoff is 31.1 yards before the new kickoff rules. It was at 26.5 yards. That's worth a lot in terms of average scoring drive percentage for 5%. If you amplify that even more out to the 35, you're one throw away from, in the case of the Ravens, from getting into these kickers' ranges that are past 60 yards at this point. And so I would like to track coaches that intentionally give those extra five yards of field position on a touchback versus just trusting their unit to cover, because in my mind, that's kicking scared in a way,

because you don't trust your kickoff unit to keep them under 35, and so you're giving them the 35, which means you have 20 yards of cushion. If that, that decision cost Dallas, it cost Houston. You know, there was another special teams rule change that I don't think has gotten covered enough. Now teams have the ability to prepare these balls essentially a week in advance for these kickers.

And so ranges have gotten extended, not to mention the kickers these days are just better. And you're giving them the ability to prepare these balls. Like they used to only have, I think, 90 minutes before kickoff. Now they have days to do it and really dial in the ball how they want it to be. And by the way, we do have some stats to back this up. If you're looking at the number of 50 plus yard field goals attempted since 2023, on average, it's 172 and a half per year. Before then, there was never more than 120 in a season. That's a massive jump. This year, by the way, we're on pace for 198. Like these kickers are going nuts, dude.

It wasn't long ago to where a 60-plus yard field goal, like a 61, 62 yards, was considered insane, right? And now, if you don't have a kicker where hitting a 60-yarder, they're at least capable of doing it, you're out. They'll find somebody else who could do it. It's just crazy the growth of this.

Now, you mentioned.

how they can prep some of these field goal balls. I think people are going to ask, what does that look like? So the things that you could do, apply a wet towel to the ball, brushing the football by hand with a new ball brush, using the side of the brush to soften the leather and remove the slickness to it. Ultimately, what this is doing is it's putting more life into the football. I mean, Cam Little attempted a 70-yard field goal this past week.

It's an attempt that a couple of years ago wouldn't even seem plausible anymore. Just amazing to see the kicking range of these guys in the NFL.

You can't just overlook this and say, eh, you know, we don't really love our, you know, special teams, you know, kick coverage group. So we're just going to boot it in the end zone, give it to them at the 35. This is going to be something that's extremely important to monitor throughout this season, but also in the future seasons too, again, where is this emphasis on special teams going to be more and more important when we get to the offseason.

And you know how later in the draft we go, oh, they drafted this guy for special teams. You might start to see serious premiums on guys who are truly difference makers in special teams when it comes to those kick coverage groups because you do not and you cannot have the other team start with the football at the 35 for free.

Y'all have my back. I love having y'all's back. If you're in those special teams meetings, you know we gotta return! Let's get back in here!

Let's get into some of these game previews, though, because we do got to talk about the New England Patriots and the Buffalo Bills.

This is a.

Premier matchup, I think, before the season started. Everybody was really looking forward to this. But now, Brett, it's two teams on different trajectories. The Bills lost the turnover differential by four last week and still were able to win the game. Before that, the previous two games, Josh Allen looked absolutely unstoppable. And on the other side of things, it feels like it couldn't look worse for the New England Patriots.

Well, my concern level is very high for this football team. Not to beat a dead horse, but the Bills special teams is pretty good too. They have the fifth best average starting field position at 32.7 yards and the sixth most special teams EPA so far this year. That was a big reason why, you know, I mean, they were always going to be a tricky matchup with the Chargers, but the Chargers special teams is bad. Bills special teams is good. That certainly helps make up the difference for five turnovers in a game, right? When you also add in Josh Allen is just on another planet at this point.

Drake May can't buy a deep completion advantage. certainly can't buy a red zone touchdown. They have more turnovers in the red zone than touchdowns at this point. You kind of need every advantage you can get to win a game like this if you're New England, and they have almost every disadvantage you can have. It's a really, really tough matchup for them. A lot tougher than I thought it was going to be a month ago.

The Drake-May conversation, I don't even necessarily think it's too much schematically. I think a lot of it's mental for Drake-May. Because when you look at some of the areas where you would think that Drake May would have an advantage where it's no blitz or being able to hold onto the ball a little bit longer. That's the area where Drake May seems to struggle the most this season. All six of his interceptions have come when he has held the ball for longer than two and a half seconds.

It is when he is looking deep down the field. I think that this is a natural progression of good quarterbacks. You start and you get this hot shot young quarterback who's got all the arm talent in the world. And the NFL, a lot of defense coordinators will say, all right, buddy, we're going to throw the kitchen sink at you. We're going to blitz you. We're going to play tight man coverage.

Nobody's going to be open immediately. What are you going to do with it? And the best quarterbacks, they're able to say, hey, now I got my guy one-on-one. I'm going to finish my drop back.

Boom, there it is.

I'm going to give him a shot to the sideline outside the numbers. And that's what a lot of Drake May's best stuff was last year. Well, the natural progression, if you remember... The league had a problem with this with Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. And the league said, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to play two high or we're going to play, you know, three deep, four deep, whatever it is. And we're going to dare you to be patient. We're going to make it so you have to take everything underneath. And Drake May just doesn't want to do it. There's kind of a reason why that that might be the case. just from an offensive standpoint with the Patriots.

When you look at the.

Patriots, their 8% missed tackle rate by wide receivers last year was the third lowest in the NFL. And this year, it's no better. None of their wide receivers have forced a missed tackle yet this season. So, Brett, you kind of combine things a little bit here. The quick game with wide receivers isn't very dynamic for you, so you don't want to go.

To that a lot.

The running game has either been inefficient, non-dynamic, or sometimes both at the same time, so you don't love going to the ground game. So you have the ball in Drake May's hands a lot longer, which is playing right into what the defense wants him to do. Against the Bills specifically for this matchup, they don't play man. They're playing man coverage at one of the lowest rates this season, 14.5%.

That's seventh lowest in the NFL. So all that to say, I don't mean to pile on, but I don't know if it gets better for the Patriots this week.

This is a tough matchup for them. My comp would be if the late 2010s Warriors just stop being able to shoot threes. Because last year's offense was very much kind of about the three ball, right? He's still taking those shots down the field as much as he did before. If you're looking at percentage of attempts that are 20 plus yards down the field, he targeted those vertical routes on 19.7% of his attempts. And then if you're looking at this year, it's up to 21.3%. So he's actually being more aggressive than he was last year. It's just balls not going in the hoop. If you're looking at his completion percentage over expected last year on vertical routes, it was plus 13.7%, which is nuts because those are

already low percentage balls as it is. They call them 50-50 balls for a reason. So if you're hitting them at that rate, yeah, your EPA per play is going to look crazy because you're hitting a bunch of explosive plays that most teams aren't going to hit this year. He's negative on completion percentage over expected on those. So he's attempting more of them and he's worse at it, which means the offense is stalling because the run game is inconsistent. You know, weirdly enough, the best player on the offense this year has been Will Campbell, but I would say pass protection has been up and down outside of Will Campbell. And when you're not hitting those three balls, for lack of a better comparison, you kind of just

don't have anything else. And they were so good at it last year that they didn't need to have anything else. It's not like they were a great yak team last year. Like you said, they were third lowest rate in missed tackles forced after the catch by their receivers last year. They're terrible at it again this year. It's just they don't have that shot down the boundary to be their comfort food. I don't know how you fix this other than just learning how to operate the offense completely differently.

Develop a real quick game. Be able to get some yards after the catch, which is really more on the receivers than on May. But ball placement does matter for that. But you've got to break a tackle at some point. They need to go back to basics and stop just trying to trick shot their way down the field because it's not working.

It hasn't looked good for the Patriots. And then really quick for Buffalo's side, Josh Allen did throw his two interceptions last week against two high safety shells. I believe it was four deep coverages on both of those interceptions from him. Essentially, it was the Chargers daring him to throw things underneath and he got a little over his skis and he threw.

Those interceptions there.

The Patriots do run two high safeties right around the middle of the pack of the NFL this season. And so they could see a decent amount of that and they could lean a little bit more into that. But man, When the Bills were able to run the ball the way that they could between the tackles last week with James Cook, you got an answer for everything. Just like you said, the Patriots have not been able to do this.

The Bills looked at last week and said, all right, well, Josh Allen's really struggling to throw in deep down the field.

Let's run the ball.

The advantage that they had doing that was amazing. So I think it's full Bills advantage for this game. If the Patriots win, it's going to take by far the best game of their season.

Reaches for the goal line and he's into the end zone. The Cook is in the kitchen.

The Rams and the Eagles are the next game that I want to touch on here because, Brett, is the loser in big trouble in this game for both of these teams?

Obviously, only one team can win. Technically, both teams can tie.

But whoever loses this game, I think that the season's, man, taking a real bad turn for them.

You basically have to win to keep pace for the one seed in the NFC. And these are two teams that want the one seed in the NFC. If the Rams start 1-3... I don't know how they're going to be able to do that when the two other teams that potentially could get the one seed are in their division. That's tough sledding. And the Eagles, they're in a fight with Dallas for this division at this point. I know Dallas hasn't exactly started off the best in the win-loss column, but just watching them using my eyeballs, I would say Dallas might be a bigger threat right now than Philly just because their offense looks so discombobulated.

The throw intercepted by P.J.

Edwards.

So yeah, both these teams have to win this game. It feels early for a must win. But if you're looking at the macro of the season and setting up who's winning your division, who's not winning your division, difference between a one seed and a five seed potentially, this is huge.

For the Rams, I know a lot of the talk has been on the defense side of the ball, right? No Miles Garrett, Aaron Donald hasn't been the high impact player that some people thought that he'd just be able to pop off the couch and be, I think it's going to take a little bit of time. And I just think the defensive line overall hasn't been as ferocious as it was last year and we thought that it was going to be. But really the major issue to me is on the offensive side because Stafford does not look the same specifically under pressure this season. When you look at Matthew Stafford, his numbers under pressure last year.

I mean, he threw five touchdowns, zero interceptions, 86 quarterback rating. I mean, this year under pressure, he has a 28.8 quarterback rating. It is just totally different for him. And then specifically, I mean, you want to talk about, okay, well, is it a Puka Nakua thing? Is it just the fact that Nakua has not been out there? It could be a little bit of that. I mean, the on-off splits for them this year, it's a small sample size, but when Puka Nakua has been on the field, it still hasn't been great. The quarterback rating under pressure was 4.1, but Nakua has barely been out there. So I wouldn't necessarily take that too much into account, but it's last year's numbers under pressure that I think do mean a

little bit more. And certainly, surprise, surprise, one of the best wide receivers in the game is out there. The quarterback plays better, I know. But when Nakua was out there on the field, when Stafford faced pressure, he still had a quarterback rating of an 83.0. and then when Nakua was off the field all of last year that dipped to a 63.4 quarterback rating so I think the Nakua's absence certainly means a good amount here but it's worse than even that difference last year would have led you to believe Stafford just is not trusting things he is not getting the ball out when he needs to where he needs to and specifically for this Eagles matchup the Eagles have generated the ninth highest pressure rate in

the NFL at a 39.2 so again you talk about this game meaning a lot to both sides. Stafford's got to look better against a team that has been able to generate pressure although this past weekend the Eagles weren't really able to generate pressure because Keenan was getting the ball out of his hands in less than two and a half seconds Stafford's much more around you know 2.7 2.8 so he's not that quick with getting the ball out of his hands but ultimately Brett we got to see better answers from Stafford the MVP of last year has to be able to play better under pressure or I think that this game could be.

Again more of a struggle than you would think for this Rams team And, you know, you bring up those splits, and to me that shows what a safety or rather security blanket Puka's been for him under pressure because most blitzes in the NFL are not man blitzes. They're zone blitzes, right? It's either going to be a 3-3 fire zone, 3 deep, 3 under with 5 rushing, or, you know, the popular thing these days because Brian Flores does it all the time, you call it a quarters fire zone or a palms fire zone. It's 2 deep. and then you still have five coming after the quarterback. We've seen teams throw six bodies at the quarterback. They faced a bunch of double mug looks against Denver, where we're just putting a bunch

of guys in the line of scrimmage, and it's on you to figure out who's coming and who's going. I mean, that last pick that he threw against Hufunga, the pick six, it was a brilliantly disguised zero blitz that did not look like zero pre-snap. And so they do have to sort this out because it kind of feels like teams have figured out their protections a little bit of like, okay, they are not going to block it up with seven.

They're going to block it up with five or six at most. And they're trusting their MVP quarterback to sort out the free runner. And they're saying like, hey, you have an old quarterback who we think we can outnumber in terms of number of rushers versus your protectors. He can't get away. So we know the ball has to come out quick. That's how Hufunga got the pick six is because it was a really nicely disguised zero. He knew they were going to free rusher. Balls out immediately.

He just steps in front of the running back like they have to figure out a new protection plan that involves more bodies or teams are just going to keep doing this to them. They're just going to keep blitzing him because he can't get away. And to kind of loop the Eagles back in here, I would say Hurts has the opposite problem. They've been using more bodies in protection with him because he clearly doesn't trust his protection.

And so they feel like they have to make him more comfortable with extra protectors because he's not handling the pressure as well as he probably should for a quarterback as veteran as he is. And to me, that comes down to trust. All this to say, both quarterbacks have issues with pressure right now, just in different kind of ways.

And the quarterback that figures it out first is probably going to win this game.

We did mention that this is going to be tough whichever team loses this game, but specifically for the Rams, Brett, if they lose against the Eagles this week, they're 1-3 on the season to start. They then play Monday Night Football against the Buffalo Bills the next week.

Obviously very tough.

Then they have a stretch of the Cardinals, the Raiders, the Chargers, the Commanders, and the Cardinals again. I mentioned a couple of those teams playing way better than we thought that they were going to this season. You might have to go 4-1 at worst during that stretch because then you have your bye week and week 11 if you're the Rams. But then it goes Green Bay, Kansas City, San Francisco, Dallas, Seattle, Tampa Bay, Seattle.

I know we talked about the one seed.

If you lose this game, you're putting so much pressure on yourself in that five-game stretch from the Cardinals to the Cardinals right in between those games. I mean, you almost have to go 5-0, which is a very, very, very tough thing to tell yourself you have to do even for a team that's as talented as the Rams.

So they're the Super Bowl favorites.

I don't want to say they're in trouble early, but they got to pick it up or they might be looking at not just not getting the one seed.

Are they the Super Bowl favorites still?

No, I'm saying there's Super Bowl favorites going into the season. Like by far, you know, everybody would have.

No, no, no, no, no.

No, I think that there are many other teams that are now in that conversation. But going into the year, you'd be hard pressed to find really anybody that was betting against the Rams this year.

The most important intent is, is just making sure we educate our players on how it's being officiated. So there's clarity of how we can coach them to play technique and fundamentally through the cycle of the snap.

And so that's kind of where we're at with that. All right, before we get to our next game, we're going to do a blind resume real quick. I want you guys at home to also play along with us. This is a new game we're trying out here. Trevor, are you ready to identify the team based on the blind resume that I give you?

I feel like I should have had something to actually cover my eyes for the visual here for the blind resume.

But yes, I am ready. Let's do it. Let's go. Yeah, we'll get NFL Pro-branded blindfolds for next time. So here's your resume. Third in explosive pass rate. Fourth in 12 personnel usage. First in yards before contact. This is all one team with these three stats together. Your choices. The Ravens, the Bills, the Chiefs. Yards before contact?

Kenneth Walker's forced a ton of missed tackles, but you could do that after the fact as well.

It doesn't have to be right at the line.

Oh, man, these are like three of the teams that I would have thought of here.

I'm going to go with the Chiefs. I'm going to go with the Chiefs here for this one. Finally, Cali got you and not me. Dang it! That is wrong. The answer is the Baltimore Ravens. Ah, man. You hate to see it. You hate to see it. No, I'm just kidding. Baltimore fans love to see it. I actually love to see this. It's about time somebody else got something wrong. Ah, man. All right, the streak is over.

Streak is over.

I was 3-0 on our researcher, Callie, and she got me here. So the streak resets here. Okay, here is your question for Blind Resume. This team, this mystery team, fourth in time to pressure, third in overall offensive success, And first in tackling efficiency, okay?

So the 49ers, the Buffalo Bills, or the Detroit Lions.

So once again, fourth in time to pressure, third in overall offensive success, first in tackling efficiency.

I feel like the Bills game disqualifies the Lions immediately as far as tackling efficiency. I would not have gotten this answer. Callie, you're killing me. Give me the teams again. The Niners, the Bills, and the Lions. See, now I think it might be the Lions because she knows that I wouldn't think it's the Lions. It's the game within the game. It's the mental game.

Now he's no longer thinking about the statistics. Now he's thinking about the interactions personally that he has had. Over the last couple of weeks as we've been doing our show prep and gathering notes.

It's like poker, man. You're playing the players. You're not playing the cards. You are. You're playing the players here. Give me the Lions? It is the Lions. Yes! Yes!

Finally!

Finally! Oh my god! It is the Lions.

And honestly, man, that's why I said I would not have gotten this one. I would not have gotten this answer. I would have disqualified the Lions right off the bat. They're giving up the most passing yards per game, which I would have thought that their secondary would have been terrible at tackling to, again, disqualify them completely.

Good on you, man.

Good on you for recognizing the trap. That's tough to do. Well done, my friend.

Well done. All I have to do is just recognize the bait. If it's too easy, that means it's actually correct.

I may not know the teams, but I know when somebody's trying to get in my head.

Chiefs and the Raiders.

I do want to touch on these two teams because, hey, 3-0, 3-0. Undefeated versus undefeated, baby. Who thought that this was going to happen here in week four? It's a very intriguing matchup for a lot of reasons. I think the Chiefs Could have expected they'd be in the spot. Not a lot of people expected the Raiders to be. So where do you want to start with this game preview?

Let's just keep with the theme of the day, special teams, right? This is a matchup between two really good special teams units. Average starting field position for the Raiders, again, best in the NFL so far this year at the 39.9 yard line. So they're starting drives basically at midfield. Meanwhile, the Chiefs are starting drives at the 32, which is still 11th best.

So their return unit's also really good. And they are plus 2.7 EPA on special teams, which is also 11th best. So the hidden yardage advantage that the Raiders have had so far this season might be dialed back a bit in this one, which then puts more pressure on Cousins and Bowers and Jenty and all these guys to kind of make up that difference and get the real yards instead of the hidden yards. The question I have is, Can they do that against a resurgent Chiefs defense that has a bunch of DBs that are playing out of their mind and have not one, not two, but three corners that could match up on Brock Bowers and potentially do some damage?

Yeah, Bowers, I mean, you talk about the things that are going well for the Raiders. You figured that Brock Bowers was going to be one of them.

He absolutely is.

I just wanted to kind of put it into context how well he is playing.

Right now.

We talk about Bowers versus other tight ends. His plus 0.25 EPA per route run is the sixth most in the NFL, and it's the most amongst all tight ends with a minimum of 20 routes this season. And his 0.66 EPA per target, seventh most amongst tight ends with a minimum of five targets. But just to quantify sort of how good Brock Bowers is, not just against tight ends, but against all of these top receiving options in the NFL.

You look at his EPA per play when he is on the field. So we're looking at splits on and off the field. When you look at when he is on. The only other wide receiver that has a higher EPA per play when he is on the field is CeeDee Lamb. Brock Bowers' 0.10 EPA per play when he is on the field is higher than Jackson Smith and Jigba. It's higher than Tee Higgins. It's higher than Jamar Chase. Now the differential of on-off splits is a little bit lower than a couple of those other guys, but he's right there in that category. And that's been huge, obviously, for the Raiders this season. And he's sort of been Kirk Cousins' best friend throughout the year when he has been out there.

But I think that you are right. I think that the Chiefs have a unique ability, not only in their players, but also in their coach, to get creative with how they match up against Bowers. You talked about this, how Bowers is a tight end basically only by name. He is a wide receiver. He is running routes from the slot.

He is running routes from out wide. He is a wide receiver. And so with that, why bother putting a linebacker against him? Why bother putting a safety against Brock Bowers? He's not a tight end.

There's no reason to.

Line up a linebacker and a safety, which often gives Brock Bowers that advantage when teams try to do that.

He's a wide receiver. Pull a Jerry Snead on him. Put Noel Williams on him. Put Delane on him. Any of them.

Put a corner on Brock Bowers. And I think that Steve Spagnuolo is going to say... Hell yeah, I'm going to do that. So I think.

Obviously he's going to mean the world.

If Brock Bowers doesn't have a big day, I'm not so sure that the Raiders can keep up with the Chiefs. And I think that that's how Kansas City is actually going to try to neutralize him.

Yeah, he had 33 routes last week. 25 of them were in the slaughter out wide, which is just a wide receiver number. If you're looking at how often he was detached from the formation, this is per NextGenStats, 74.0% of his snaps up from 53.2% last year. when they at least kind of pretended he was a tight end.

They're not even doing that anymore. He was aligned out wide or in the slot on all of his receptions. And Vegas head coach Clint Kubiak has not deployed a quote-unquote tight end detached from the formation on at least 50% of his staffs as an offensive coordinator or head coach before Bowers. It's the first time he's ever done it.

So he's not a tight end. And the thing that I am fascinated by is when his eventual contract extension comes up, Is he going to allow himself to be paid like a tight end? Because I wouldn't if I was him as agent. No, no. No, they're absolutely.

Remember, was Jimmy Graham kind of the first most notable headlining one?

Jimmy Graham led the team in catches, receiving yards, and touchdowns, and was about to hit the market, but the Saints want to keep him, and they're expected to use their franchise tag on the fourth-year pro. Graham took to Twitter and said, confirming it's officially Franchise Friday.

Tag.

I guess I'm it. It was back in 2014. There was an argument over the franchise tag and they had an independent arbiter that ruled he was a tight end based on percentage of snaps in line versus outwiden in the slot. And it was a lot closer to 50-50. It's not 50-50 in Vegas. It's 74%. So he's basically being used the same way that Puka is in Sean McVay's Wildest Dreams. That's a receiver. Like his contract... If he gets franchise tag, I would bet they're going to argue it's as a receiver. But when he does get his extension, he's not going to be scaling off Trey McBride.

He's going to be scaling off Jamar Chase. I agree. I agree.

On the Chiefs side of things, before we move on here, a team that's top three in total EPA earned this season. Big reason why is because of how balanced they can be with Patrick Mahomes and then obviously Kenneth Walker. But what do you think about Kenneth Walker's matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders this week?

He's got 41 missed tackles for so far this year. It's 12 more than the next closest player, which is absurd. The key for this matchup to me is just can the Raiders continue being as good at tackling as they have been so far this year? And they were quietly a very good run defense last year. It's just the volume stats made them look worse than they actually were. Efficiency-wise, they were a very good run defense. But if you're looking at their missed tackle rate as a defense, they're at 12.5%. which is 13th lowest in the NFL, so slightly above average. That's better than the 13.9% they had last year, so they're even better at tackling than they were before. Five yards allowed per missed tackle, which is

10th fewest. They were at 5.3 last season, so even when they miss, there's always somebody else there to rally and finish the job. And they have 10. Is this a real number? 10 forced fumbles? We're three weeks into the year. I thought I misread that. Get after it, baby. How is that possible? Punch the ball. What the hell?

Create turnovers. Name of the game.

We've been talking about it all year. How do you get the little advantages? 10 forced fumbles. But that's a team that is just flying around trying to make plays, man. And I think that, look, I'll be up front. I'm not picking the Raiders in this game. However, I love what they're doing. I love what John Spytick has done.

I love very clearly the culture that Clint Kubiak has established within that locker room and within that team early on to where you've even got young guys flying around believing that they can make.

Plays at the highest level.

So you better believe that if they do win this game against the Chiefs, I cannot wait to talk about this team and give them their flowers in the reaction show that you guys can see next Monday. So again, I'm not quite picking the Raiders. I am picking the Chiefs in this game. But, man, if they're able to take down the Chiefs and they look good, this is a story that we are going to have to continue to tell through a megaphone now at this point if they become 4-0.

That's what resilience looks like, okay? That's you guys believing in each other, okay? Never say and die, okay? And fight until the very end. Say, so proud of you, so proud of the effort. I'm not surprised, though. I'm not surprised by how that turned out. One last note here. Did you see the video that the Chiefs posted yesterday of Kenneth Walker and his run last week where he did like a frame perfect parry if you're a fan of fighting video games where a Dolphins player came in and perfectly peanut punched the ball and he just went and just blocked it like he just secured the ball like fractions of a second he's like nope my ball and just kept going unreal dude like he is just on a different planet right now.

You know what that stems from when you're in high school you're walking around from class to class.

Holding the football And everybody's just on it. Fundamentals. That's where that begins, baby.

For Broncos 49ers, Brett, it unfortunately feels like it's just another season for the Niners when it comes to injuries.

They're just racking up so many guys that are either hitting IR, short-term, long-term. This depth chart looks so different than what it was even Four weeks ago. Right before the season. But the fact of the matter is. It doesn't matter. Because Brock Purdy is playing that well. He is playing at an elite level. And he is giving them a chance. No matter who is on the offensive line.

No matter who he is throwing the ball to. No matter what their defense looks like. No matter what country the game is being played in. Brock Purdy is giving them a chance. To beat any opponent at any given time. He is playing the position well. about as well as you can for a player who has his skill set.

He's been unbelievable. I've mentioned some incredible football players so far that should be on the MVP ballot. Josh Allen, Lamar, Kenneth Walker. I would put Brock Purdy at the very top. If I had to give an MVP after three weeks, he has been sensational in almost every single way. If you're looking at his career success rates at 52.6%, that leads every quarterback in the NFL since he got in the league in 2023. Not so irrelevant after all, I guess.

He's the only quarterback, by the way, in that time span with multiple seasons of 50% or higher. This year, he's at 64% success rate. For people that don't know what that is, it's essentially a metric that tracks how on schedule your offense is. If it's first and 10, if your offense gains four yards, that's considered a successful play.

You get to second and six, if you gain three yards, that's considered a successful play because it just sets up third and short. Just can you stay ahead of the sticks? Can you stay on schedule? 64% of the time, that's what he's doing, which is just unreasonable as a metric. Nobody does that in the modern NFL. And if you're looking at how that translates into scoring drive success, the Niners offense has scored touchdowns on 48.1% of their drives this year, easily highest in the NFL. That's highest through the first three weeks in the season since at least, The year 2000, like they didn't start tracking it before then.

It might be the best ever. We don't know. But at least in the best in recent history, this is the most effective offense Kyle Shanahan's ever had. And Kyle Shanahan's coordinated some of the best offenses ever.

Right?

You look at the 2016 Falcons, you look at the late 2000s Texans, just looking at some of the other 49ers offenses that he's led. There's nothing that's ever been this good ever. Like we don't have a comparison for this. That is how dominant Purdy has been and how in the zone Kyle Shanahan has been.

Yeah, I'm going to run through some numbers really quick just to quantify exactly what you're talking about. Brock Purdy versus Zone this season. Completion percentage, fourth highest in the NFL. Yards per attempt, also fourth highest. EPA per dropback, most in the NFL. All right, what about in the intermediate area?

Completion percentage, third highest. Yards per attempt, second highest. EPA per dropback, oh, once again, most in the NFL. And then over the middle of the field where he has been so fantastic. completion percentage seventh highest yards per attempt fifth highest epa per drop back six most 152 total yards over the middle of the field most in the nfl they said he couldn't do it they said he was too short they said he couldn't see over the middle of the field but i think that you know a little bit tongue-in-cheek there but i think that goes into something that brock purdy said himself on a podcast where he said hey man look in the nfl like i've talked to kyle shanahan about this 40% of the throws that you have, you're not going to be able

to see when guys are open.

You're throwing to a spot.

You're throwing to a zone. You got to have that much confidence in what you are seeing. And the confidence works both ways because Kyle Shanahan also said recently that he compared the confidence that he has in Brock Purdy. to Matt Ryan in 2016. That MVP caliber season from Matt Ryan. That's the comfort level that we're talking about.

So we've gushed over Brock Purdy a little bit here, but there's another quarterback on the other side in Bo Nix, who also has the ability to play the position at a high level. But do you think from what we've seen from Nix over the first couple of weeks, you have faith in him keeping up with Purdy and ending up winning this game?

What do you think? Well, that's the issue, right? Is the keeping up. I think if this is a one possession game in the fourth quarter, let's just say it's one possession. Because the Broncos defense, you know, steps up to the challenge and holds this incredible Niners offense down at least a little bit. If this is a one possession game, yeah, Bo Nix can win it. And we've seen him do that over and over and over again.

Look at the Eagles game last year. Look at the Giants game last year. Look at the Rams game. If the game is close in the fourth quarter and you just need him to put together one drive, he can put together that one drive. The problem is, if the game's already out of reach because of how he plays in the first three quarters, I have pretty big worries that he's going to be able to dig them out of the hole that he creates. And the 30-point second half explosion. Why can't we do this in the first half?

If you're looking at just the first three quarters from that Sunday night game against the Rams, his yards per attempt was 3.9. The fourth quarter was 9.9. But even if you're just looking at completions on attempts, he was only four of nine in that quarter. He completed less than 50% of his passes. It's just he had a 9.9 yards per attempt because he got 60 yards on back-to-back throws on that last drive because the Rams blew two coverages in a row. So if the Rams don't blow those coverages... Do they even get into the red zone with those controversial penalties in the first place? I'm not sure they do because of what he played like in the 50 minutes leading up to that moment. And I just, I don't have faith that he's going to

keep up with Purdy right now. And I know Broncos fans would be like, well, he had two touchdown drives in the third quarter.

Yeah.

One of them, they started at midfield and they ran the ball to the red zone. I'm giving credit to the offensive line. I'm giving credit to the run game, but it's not like Bo was the one that was carrying the team on his back there. until those two throws against like literally broken coverages. You could look at it on tape. So I'm not, I'm not saying Bo Nix is a bad quarterback. That's not the point of this segment. What I'm saying is he can't play like a bad quarterback for 45 to 50 minutes and try to keep up with the guy who might be the MVP front runner. Like you have to do that the entire game. You have to go blow for blow. You can't just let him stack touchdowns on you because eventually

you're going to be down by, 20 points, and it's going to look like the Chiefs game from week one where you're just kind of waiting for it to happen, and it never did, and they just got blown out and embarrassed on national TV. So he has to play good from the first quarter on. He cannot save it for the fourth quarter, not against an opponent like this one.

Here's what has to happen.

We have to continue to trend the right way, all right?

But I'm proud of every one of you.

Jags-Bengals, last game that we're going to talk about here today, and it's also a matchup of two great offenses, great quarterbacks, and I'm specifically looking to see what Trevor Lawrence is going to be like in this game, because through the first three weeks of the season, man, he's been excellent against zone. Every time that a team has played zone coverage against him, you talk about quarterbacks that are confident right now. Trevor Lawrence believes he can make any throw in the world, and he's showcasing it, especially in the red zone, man. When things are at a premium, when space is at a premium, I mean, he only seems to play better, which Well, quarterback does that.

It's pretty incredible.

The Bengals, though, they play man coverage at a top eight rate in the NFL this season.

So is this game maybe going to be a little bit harder for Trevor Lawrence?

Because if you go back to that week two game against the Broncos, it was the second half of that game when the Broncos switched more to man coverage in which Lawrence started to struggle.

Now, it's still been good for him.

0.18 EPA per dropback against man, 0.25 EPA per dropback against zone.

So it's not like he has a negative EPA per play. He's still a.

Great quarterback against man coverage. It's just looked a little bit different. Now on the flip side, go back to last week, Aaron Rodgers tore this defense up. Aaron Rodgers versus the Bengals. Man coverage, 8 for 15, 149 passing yards, two touchdowns, 0.54 EPA per dropback.

And we highlighted this in the reaction show.

Aaron Rodgers is able to hang on to the ball for a while and actually make a lot of these plays happen as well.

So what matters more here?

The fact that Lawrence hasn't been as good against man coverage? Or is it the fact that, sure, the Bengals play it, but they've given up a lot of explosive plays this season and Aaron Rodgers carved them up?

I'm not sure.

And I think that's going to go a long way into determining who has the most points when this one's all done.

I'm looking for a bounce back game from Lawrence. The Clemson one? The other Clemson one? Dexter Lawrence? Sorry, I've been saving that for years for them to match up. It's about time we get it. No, that was good. I didn't know where you were going there, but that was good. He kind of got his ass kicked against Pittsburgh last week. I'm not going to lie. How did he get his ass kicked, or did they just have a good plan for him? First of all, I'm not convinced the lifting of the leg thing was legal, but it was genius, so bonus points for that. However, that's not even like really the play that I'm talking about.

If you're looking at that big Jalen Warren run, like they scoop blocked Dexter Lawrence and just ran it right at him. This left side of the Steelers line did really well against Dexter Lawrence. And so I'm a little bit not worried. I'm curious to see if he bounces back in this one because the left side of the Jags line is also pretty good, right? Emmanuel Pregnant has been a wall for them at left guard. Harrison, we know is a really talented tackle. And then you got Nate Borkature. right? Rookie tight end who, let's say his selection was controversial at the time. And we'll leave it at that. No, you can say it from yours truly.

My face is the poster boy for me being skeptical of how early they went with this Nate Bork at your selection. But hey, this is identifying the talent and recognizing where it could fit on your roster. And I even said afterwards, like, look, I think that they picked him way too early. I think that they could have got him Later, I questioned the overall draft strategy with it, but how they are deploying him, what it means, and how it is making this run game and this trenches better for the Jags, it looks awesome early on. For them to already have these returns for him, however highly you wanted to draft him, you have to feel good about what he is doing early on because you are right.

It's changing their power run game.

I guess beyond power run game, it's changing the dynamics of what they want to do on the trenches in the blocking game And I think that that's been incredibly valuable for them early on this season.

And, you know, when you put him next to Harrison and next to Pregdon, that left side, it just caves people in. This is actually kind of the matchup between two teams that love blocking tight ends the most. They're two of the top three teams in terms of 12 personnel usage in the league. Jags use it 31% of the time since he uses it 38.2% of the time.

So blocking tight ends galore in this one. And Dexter Lawrence has to bounce back from last week because when they put him on that side, they are trusting him to really just make the math be in their favor against a talented left side of this Jags offense. He's got to do it. Here we go, everybody.

It's time for our week four game picks here. Trevor and Brett, once again, picking the 10 most interesting games, the games we are most compelled by in this week's slate, and not only picking the winner, but ranking them in.

Terms of confidence.

So if you've been following along for a while, you know the drill. But if you're new here, what we do is we take these 10 games and we order them in confidence rankings. So the team that we have at the number 10 spot, that means that we are getting 10 points if we get that game right. In the nine spot, you get nine points if you get it right. Eight spot, eight, and so on and so forth.

We'll kind of preview these games as we go along. And we've been keeping score all season long. Brett, would you like to know what your score was from week three and then also your season total here?

How do you think you did? Dude, I think I got demolished. I'm not going to lie. I had a bad week three. I think everybody had a bad week three other than the people in the comments. They kind of smoked me.

We'll talk about the people in the comments who we love that you guys are getting involved in this as well. We'll shout a couple of you out in a couple of minutes. But you did lose your number 10 confidence game, your most confident game, because you picked the Bengals over the Pittsburgh Steelers. But all in all, You got 33 points last week, which brings your season total to 111.

I don't know how I did, but I do know that I picked the Buccaneers to win and they did not. So I know that we lost that one right off of the bat. But give me the bad news.

Tell me how it was. So you came into the week one point behind me in total. Yeah. You got 34, which means your season total is 111.

We are dead even. You love that parody. You love that parody. I mean, we're just simply matching what the NFL season is giving.

Us, right?

Because we had the most one-score games in a Sunday slate that we've had over the last 20 years this past week. So we're right on par with the 2026 NFL season.

Okay, tied up.

Oh man, that makes this game pick even better. Shout out to some of you guys who are getting in on the games as well. We absolutely love this. You guys are firing it off in the comments where you're taking the 10 games that we have. You're ordering them and you're picking them as well. Three people that we got to shout out right off the top of the show.

Iber Condrell, I think is how you say this, 46 points for their game picks last week. They only missed one game, and the one game that they missed was the Bengals.

They also took the Bengals over the Steelers.

Quasar, who we also shouted out last week, by the way, 45.

Points again last week as well. So they are on a roll.

Tablet Brothers, 44 points. That was some of the highest scores of any of the entries that we had last week. And by the way, these top three that we just named there, they were the only fans to pick three of the four upset winners. So the Steelers, the Colts, the Broncos, and the Raiders, they at least had three out of four, some combination of those four teams.

So shout out to you guys.

And again, if you want to get in on the game here with us, do so in the comment section. Listen to the 10 games that we have here this week and give us your picks and and in the confidence rankings so we can keep your scores as well as ours.

Brett.

I don't know why the NFL is paying us to do this. They should just have them do it. Dude, don't say that out loud. Come on. Come on.

Come on.

The mortgage, brother. We should get Rogers out here as well. Now that you say it. Okay.

The first game that I want to highlight, Jacksonville versus Cincinnati.

Cincinnati. This is a tough one, man.

These are two teams that can light up a scoreboard, but what are we thinking here? Who are you taking, and where is it in your confidence rankings?

So Trevor Lawrence is playing out of his mind so far this season, so I am taking Jacksonville to win this game. I did put it up my three spot. It's mainly because I can't figure out what Cincinnati is right now. If you take out the special teams errors, would they have beat the Steelers last week? I think it's a strong possibility. But the special teams are what the special teams are. If you're looking at special teams EPA per play, they're second worst in the NFL so far this season. Giving up a lot of explosive plays through the air. Also, you know, the Steelers just kind of ran right at Dexter Lawrence last week. The left side of the Jags line is pretty good. I just don't feel good about the Bengals in this one, which

of course means they're going to win. But I'm picking Jacksonville to take this one at my three spot.

I'm also taking Jacksonville, but because of the uncertainty of both of these offenses being able to light it up at any point in time, this is only in the one spot for me. So I'm going to take the Jags too, but this is all the way down to the bottom of my list. An interesting point for this game is that Trevor Lawrence has been tearing it up specifically against zone coverage. He's been great against man as well, but he's specifically been phenomenal at attacking zone coverages. Man, he's gotten a little bit more trouble with, you know, when you look at the second half of that Denver Broncos game, he struggled and they switched to play a lot more man.

So it was just a different look.

The Bengals play man coverage at a top eight rate in the NFL so far this season.

So they could.

Sort of lean into what Lawrence hasn't been as stellar at this season. However, Aaron Rodgers just absolutely lit up this Bengals defense last week, playing a lot of that single high cover one, cover three stuff. So the tape is out there on how you beat it. And I got a lot of faith in this coaching staff, so I'm taking the Jags here in this one. Dallas Cowboys coming back stateside to take on your Houston Texans.

What do we think about this one? So three weeks in a row, I've picked the Texans and put it at the one spot. I don't know how I can have any Confidence in this team at this point. So I'm going Dallas. I'm putting it at the four spot. There's just so many problems with the Texans right now. None of them are C.J. Stroud, by the way. I do want to reiterate that. He has had a nice year.

But they have had problems up front, especially trying to run the ball. That has popped up again this year. Defense... It's just been very inconsistent, more inconsistent than I expected from them so far this year. Like Will Anderson had a whale of a game, and it still just didn't feel like it mattered that much because when they really needed this defense to step up, you're giving up 20 yards to Laquan Treadwell. That sets up a game-winning field goal.

So I just don't have a lot of confidence in the Texans right now, so I'm going Dallas, who also has their own issues, but less issues than Houston.

Yeah, without Neagle Collins and obviously no Jaden Higgins as well with his long-term injury, this team sort of struggled to.

I mean, C.J.

Stroud said it in the presser after the game. He's like, we weren't aggressive. We didn't push the ball the way that we needed to. They're bad in short-yarded situations on the ground, like you mentioned. I mean, those third and short, fourth and short situations. I mean, this team is just not reliable right now with converting a lot of those things.

And so.

The easy stuff seems harder, and the more difficult stuff just doesn't seem feasible with the current health of that roster right now. So it's tough for me, even with Houston's defense and all the potential it still has, it's tough for me to think about this team outscoring a Cowboys offense that I think is just only getting better, and we saw them really start to catch fire in Brazil last week. I know they didn't win the game, but certainly the offense did what they needed to do to Have a chance to win it at the end, score a touchdown, and take care of it right there in regulation, or kick the field goal, and they thought that they were going to head to overtime, and obviously they didn't because of the defensive blunder there. I'm also

taking the Dallas Cowboys, but I'm putting that at my five spot here. So pretty close to where you have it at. We've got the same team winning this game, but I'm going to take that at the five spot.

What about the Denver.

Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers? Niners just keep racking up injuries, as it unfortunately feels like they always do, and it continues to not... matter this team is still executing at extremely high level and the broncos where they can play a very high level of football at some points they can flip the switch very quickly and it can all not look great just such a high variance team right now so who are you taking in this one and where are you putting in the confidence ranking.

So i'm taking san francisco to win this game injuries be damned all right is it weird that i put at the seven spot like i'm actually really confident in this because i just look at how brock purdy is playing i compare that to how bo nix is playing You're asking Bo Nix to keep up with who I believe is the MVP front runner right now in Brock Purdy.

Can you go drive for drive with this offense? This offense that has put up touchdown drives at a rate higher than every other team in every other season in the first three weeks of a year since at least 2000. It is absurd what they're doing right now. It is historic what they're doing right now. And Bo Nix... God bless him for the fourth quarters that he's had. Quarters one through three still matter a lot, and he's been objectively bad in quarters one through three. And I feel like even with good fourth quarters, the gap between these two quarterbacks is going to be so big that I don't think Denver's going to be able to overcome that.

So give me San Francisco at the seventh spot. I'll be different than you here. I'll take the Denver Broncos and.

It's super high variance, like I said, but the highs for this Denver team are really good. Again, you talk about a team that was toe-to-toe with the Jags, who I feel like are one of the better teams in the NFL, and they even were able to adjust in the second half and best that team. I think there's a world where they could give Purdy some fits, and I think that the Broncos play man coverage not only at a higher rate, but I think they play coverage better than most teams that like to do it on a regular basis. Obviously, having Patrick Sertan really helps you in that regard. But I also look at the player that Talanova Hufanga is, and sort of we saw that this past week and how great that he was in sort.

Of that rover role where he's over the middle of the field.

I mean, Purdy loves to attack over the middle of the field, and I think the Broncos are going to try to set up their defense to where they're giving Hufanga the ability to really close in on a lot of those in-breaking routes, that over-the-middle stuff. So I think a lot of the numbers so far would tell you to pick San Francisco, so I certainly don't fault you for it.

But I think Denver's defense is.

Uniquely built to frustrate Purdy more than these other teams have been able to to start the year. So as long as Bo gives us the up, we can have a little bit of the down, but as long as he gives you the up... I think they got a chance to win this game. So I'll take the Denver Broncos here at my four spot for this one. The Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Chargers.

Thoughts? Opinions? Where are we going? If the chargers win this game, I'll be stunned. Me too. Cause I have it at the 10 spot for Seattle winning. I put it, I put it at nine, Seattle winning at the nine, like, which might surprise people that I have something even higher than that. But like, is there anything, literally anything that the chargers do better than Seattle at all? I don't think there is. No, no, I I'm, I'm with you.

And, You look at last week's game where Seattle loses and we talked about it in the review show how turnovers meant everything in that game, right? They turned the ball over three times. Washington scores touchdowns on all three turnovers and they still only won that game by two points. You know, Jackson, the Jigba still goes off. Sam Donald almost has 400 yards passing. I think that we saw in that game, you know, okay, this is going to be a little bit different with us not having Kenneth Walker here. If you're on the Seattle Seahawks side of things, but it's so hard to watch the chargers, especially on offense and how much Herbert has really struggled. It would, I think this goes without saying, it would have to

be by far the best game of Justin Herbert's season for them to keep this close, let alone upset Seattle in this one. So I have the Seattle Seahawks at the 10 spot because where I think some teams, you know, might have viewed the Chargers at this point coming off of licking their wounds a little bit as like a trap game, maybe ease up on it a little bit.

The Chargers aren't really what we thought they were going to be going into the season. A Mike McDonald team is not going to do that, especially coming off of a loss. So I got a lot of faith in them, obviously. I got that at the 10th spot.

What about the Chiefs and the Raiders? 3-0 versus 3-0, by the way. So I went the Chiefs with this one. I put it at the 5th spot. Like dead in the middle because I wasn't 100% sure about it, but I feel pretty confident in it. That's why I put it in confidence rankings. If there's one thing the Raiders have been good at the last season plus three weeks, it's been their run defense. And if there's one thing the Chiefs have really leaned on so far this season, it's been their rushing offense. Kenneth Walker's been amazing. If the Raiders have a good day just even remotely containing Kenneth Walker and forcing the Chiefs back into being that one-dimensional pass-heavy team that they were the last couple years

without really having a dynamic receiver to speak of, I don't think Rasheed Rice counts. Like I'm talking like down the field receiver. Yeah. You know, if, if we get them into that one dimensional mode where it's explosives through yak or nothing can, can the chief still win this game? And I'm, I hesitate with it. So I put it at the five spot. I think it's more likely than not that Kansas city wins, but like, would it shock you if Vegas does for me? Not really.

I have the Chiefs winning and I have this at the ninth spot. Wow, okay, so it would shock you. It feels a little disrespectful to how the Raiders have started the year. Because I don't want to take credit away from how well the Raiders are playing. I just still view this as a little bit of a different tier.

The Chiefs are top three in the NFL in total EPA rankings. per play and just, well, total EPA and I believe EPA per play as well. If not top three, I believe they're top five in both of those categories. The offense is just a well-oiled machine right now. You mentioned what Kenneth Walker has meant to this team, but it's more complimentary for the Chiefs than it ever has been.

And I think that that really matters here and how they're probably going to put a the Raiders, who are playing well, I want to be clear, but again, I think that there's levels to this, and where I think they're a lot closer to what Kansas City has been in years past, the way that Kansas City is currently operating, especially because when you look at Steve Spagnuolo, I think he's going to have something up his sleeve for how you slow down this Raiders offense, which has been methodical, and I think.

That Kirk's done a really great job.

Brock Bowers has been awesome when he has been out there, especially last week when he was the focal point of that passing game, but you and I have talked about this, like, you They might just use Legereus Neat one-on-one against Brock Bowers. And like Brock will still get his, but I don't think it'll be as easy as it's been in weeks past.

So I think it'll be a fun game.

I really do.

But I've just got so much faith in the Chiefs when it comes to how they have moved the ball, how they have scored points, how repeatable and how explosive it is, both in the passing game and the ground game. I just think they're going to end up with more points in this game, even if it's a better football competition between the two than it has been In years past.

So I'm taking the Chiefs here, and I got them at the 9th spot. Buffalo and New England. Where do you got this game? So this is my tenner. I put the Bills at 10 over New England. How can you watch Drake May this season and think they're going to win this game? I have zero confidence in this team. It's not really an indictment on their defense. It's not an indictment on their offensive line. Like, Will Campbell... has been playing like the best Patriots offensive player who saw that coming after, you know, the home strikes last year when he was playing banged up, but it's true. Like he has been playing really well, but this is a quarterback league, whether we like it or not. Like, yes, it's 22 on 22, but nobody has a bigger effect

on whether or not your team wins or loses in the quarterback. And Buffalo has a quarterback that not just raises their floor, but also raises their ceiling and, The Patriots so far have had quarterback play that reduces both, makes their floor way lower, and I feel like their ceiling is capped at knee height this year so far.

So I just, I don't, as odd as it is to say compared to where we were a month ago looking at this team, I need to see it to believe it with the Patriots. This could very easily be a team that's like bottom 10 or worse.

I have the Bills winning this game at the 8th spot here, so I also see it pretty highly the way that you do.

And it goes a little bit back to what I talked about with the Chargers.

If the Chargers win their game, if the Patriots win this game against the Bills, this will be by far the best they have ever looked this season, in so many facets of the game. and for Buffalo to be a team that just had five turnovers and lost the turnover differential by four and still won the football game, I mean, that just tells you how genuinely powerful this team is and how there is no say-die with the Buffalo Bills. For as much as they can shoot themselves in the foot, they still have the players to get out of it in any situation. And the way that the Patriots are playing, it's really hard to have faith that they're all of a sudden going to be the team that capitalizes on the Bills' mistakes. Because last week

was the week for the Bills to lose. You had five turnovers. You lost the turnover differential battle by four. I'm not saying that the Bills are going to go undefeated. I don't know if they're going to go undefeated, but that's the game that you lose. So if you're the Patriots, what are you saying?

Well, I mean, if we... If we get six turnovers, maybe that'll work.

If we score six turnovers, then we got a shot. So, look, every game starts 0-0. Every game is different. But I agree with you. It's hard to watch what the Patriots have done and think that they're going to beat this Bills team. So I got that at the eight spot. Carolina and Detroit. Sunday night football here. A little prime time in Carolina. First time, I think, in over 10 years that the Carolina Panthers have been on Sunday night football.

What do you think about this game? The only thing I know for sure is that Detroit's going to score 31 points because that's all they've done all season is just score 31 points. The question is, can Carolina get to 32? Or higher. Maybe. Or higher. 32 or higher.

Maybe.

I can't figure out the Panthers because every time I feel like I do, a star player gets hurt and they just lost JC Horn with a torn quad.

Right?

Like Bryce has been really good, but you know, the Cleveland defense did clamp down in the red zone force for straight field goals from them, which ultimately, you know, keeping those sevens from becoming or keeping those threes from becoming sevens is why, you know, the Browns won that game. I still, I think I favor Detroit in this one ever so slightly, but it's more so because I really don't know what the Panthers are yet. I have a pretty good idea of what the, The lions are, they're a good offense with a shaky at best defense. So give me the lines to win this game. I put it at the one spot. Cause I have no idea.

Like I really have no idea who's going to win. It's I'm taking Carolina. I'm taking Carolina here.

I'll take the Panthers and I'll put this in my three spot. I agree with you that I think the lions are going to score good amount of points. I think it's going to be above 25.

Certainly.

I don't know how high exactly it is. Maybe it is exactly 31. but this Lions team is giving up the most passing yards per game of any team in the NFL through each of the season. You look at what Geno Smith was doing. able to do against his defense.

He was 31 for 37 last week.

321 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, 129.8 quarterback rating, and an 83.8 completion percentage.

Is that all?

Bryce.

Has had much more good than bad this season. And in fact we've talked about it. It's sometimes been the best that Bryce Young has looked.

So. I'm going to have faith.

In Bryce to continue to look really well. Against one of if not the worst pass defense in the NFL. And I think because of that.

I wonder if Carolina.

You highlighted this in the season preview show. How Carolina all of last year. Liked to be that team that limited possessions. I wonder if there's a little bit of that as well. They're still averaging a very high cushion coverage average when they're playing cover three and they're playing that off coverage. Do they keep things in front of them enough to slow down the game enough to where, hey, you capitalize on their mistakes a little bit and very clearly in the passing game, they're not really able to put a lot of pressure on you, or at least they haven't been this season. I'll have my faith in Bryce Young in this game and how well he has played through the first three weeks of the season. I'll

take Carolina. I got him at my three spot there. What about the Packers and the Buccaneers? What do you got in this game?

I might regret this. I'm going with Tampa. Wow. I put it at my eight spot. wait hold on hold on you know Baker Mayfield's not.

Playing right I'm I realize that could it be worse no sadly no it can't it really can't get too much worse than how the offense has played through the first three weeks of the season so they might get the backup quarterback bump with Jalen Daniels uh especially from how Jalen Daniels played this preseason you.

Heard of the eight spot I put it the eight spot it's not really a reflection on Tampa like Tampa hasn't been good Green Bay's been atrocious. Green Bay's been bad. They've been really bad. This might be the worst offensive line in football. This is the all horrendous vibes bowl. It's bad. This is a bad game.

I can't think of a matchup where two combined fan bases are having less of a good time this season than the Packers facing the Buccaneers.

Both fan bases are doing mock drafts. We're not in October yet. That's bad, dude. Mocktober, you mean? Like I, yeah, I partially put it at the eight spot because I felt like if I knew you weren't going to pick Tampa, I'm assuming you didn't pick Tampa. Of course not. And I was like, if there's any game, if there's any game, especially like just a gross game that I could build a little bit of a lead on you. I was like eight points on Tampa, maybe, but I don't feel good about it. I have Green Bay winning. I have it at a two spot.

So if, so if Tampa wins this game, you are going to leap me, I think in the ranking.

So we will see. You're right.

I mean, Green Bay's offensive line is, is bad and it doesn't feel like it's getting any better. Um, but man, Tampa has been all over the place, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Maybe they do get that backup quarterback bump where you just, you don't know what to expect. And the kid comes out guns blazing, but, um, We will see.

We will see. You got it at the eight spot. I got it at the two spot. I got Green Bay. You got Tampa. That's going to be interesting. Rams and the Eagles. Where's this in the rankings? So this was right above Kansas City and Vegas. I put it at the sixth spot because I wasn't sure either way. Like I was reasonably confident, but I wasn't like really, really confident in it. So I picked the Rams in this one.

They have their own problems, right? When you're missing Miles Garrett, there is a difference in this pass rush. When you're missing Puka, there is a difference in this pass game. Matthew Stafford, I don't want to say he's been bad, but it hasn't looked like the MVP Stafford of last year. Basically, the only player who's really looked like himself is Devontae Adams, and he looks like 29-year-old Devontae Adams, not 35-year-old Devontae Adams. Right.

The defense, it feels like it oscillates with each passing week. I still can't quite figure them out either. So the one reason why I felt good about putting it at the six is because for all the problems the Rams have, the Eagles' problems are worse.

Yeah, right.

Nine possessions last game, and six of them were five plays or less. Like, this offense can't do anything. And the defense, I expect a lot more from their defensive line so far this season. I'll say that. So give me the Rams.

Reasonably confident, not super confident at the sixth spot. I get the Rams winning, and I have the seventh spot. Man, it was so out of sync, what we saw with the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football. The first half wasn't horrible, but the second half, man, it was just... It was, I think, the furthest end of the spectrum from what we have seen with this Eagles offense, not just this year, but also in years past as well, where it's either they are... they are a well-oiled machine or it is nothing. And there is far too much of both of those realities that exist for me to have a lot of faith in what the Eagles are doing right now, especially up front along the offensive line.

The quick passing game really got to them against the Bears when Case Keenum was getting the ball out of his hands really quick. I think the Rams are going to notice that and try to neutralize the Eagles' defensive front in sort of the same ways. So give me the Rams in this one. I also think that the Rams are Man, very desperate team. I mean, I'm not saying the season's anywhere close to over for them, but they have a really rough last six or seven games of the season. They got to start stacking some wins together to be okay with, you know, bouncing around with wins and losses when they get into the late November and December.

And I think this is one of those pivotal games for them.

So I'll take the Rams. I got the seventh spot. Last game, the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons.

Where's this game for you? It's like the polar opposite of Bucks-Packers as far as vibes. It's just fun. I think both fan bases are really excited for this. We know the Dome is going to be rocking. It's the 20-year anniversary of the Gleason play. It's going to be an emotional night. It's going to be a super juiced-up night.

But in come the Falcons coming off a really excellent win over Green Bay where they just dominated them almost 500 net yards of offense, 240 on the ground. Bijan's looking amazing. He's also on the MVP ballot if there was one right now. The defense has been super aggressive. Michael Penix started off slow. Two of seven in the first quarter. Finished darn near perfect in the last three quarters.

I love this game. I really can't wait to watch this game as a neutral observer. As far as picking it, darn near impossible. Because both of these teams are really explosive. They can put up points. I'm going Atlanta, but I put it at my two spot because I don't really have a good idea of who's going to win. All I know is this is going to be phenomenal television. Like, I really, really cannot wait for this game. And I'm very happy to be a third-party fan that doesn't have to agonize over it because I know it's going to be close either way.

Phenomenal television and NFC South matchups have not normally gone in the same sentence over the last couple of years, but here we are. I do think that this is going to be a fun matchup, whether that's like super explosive offense is fun or both teams not knowing how to win, but at the same time, and it's a close game to the very end kind of fun. Ultimately, the Atlanta Falcons play man coverage at a top 10 rate in the NFL through the first three weeks of the season. Tyler Shuck is a top 10 passer, at least for passing yards. versus man coverage this season. I think that that's when he feels very, very comfortable. And even though the Falcons want to play man coverage, I don't know if they have the full secondary to be

able to contain this Saints passing attack.

Give me New Orleans in this one.

I'm going to take New Orleans at the sixth spot. I think that they bounce back and I think that they get a division win here. Thanks for listening to our week four preview podcast. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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