GMFB Monday Hour 1: Packers Win, Cardinals Upset Rams, and Giants Outlook

Good Morning Football is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio.

Good morning, football.

Yeah, that's right. Welcome inside, everybody. This is Good Morning Football, presented by Old Trapper Beef Jerky. Monday, October 19th. Jamie Erdahl, Manzai Teo, Sam Acho at the breakfast table here in Los Angeles. This one on Sam. Kyle Brandt in New York. KB, we knew all the storylines for Packers, Cowboys going into Sunday Night Football, but for me, one of the more fascinating ones is that Cowboys always go to Green Bay, and it was never great. They were like 0-5-1 at this point.

Oh, my God.

Did the trends continue? You are the one that holds the magical piece of paper that has all the answers.

Let's get into it and find out because Jamie's trying to make something very optimistic about anything and being fascinated about the NFC East because it.

Is rough right now. But the Packers have it going.

All right, Micah, well-known Dallas Cowboy for a while. You might remember that. He's now a Green Bay Packer. He's not playing yet. So he sat there with basically courtside seats here. Jordan Love, Matthew Golden, touchdown.

Golden was all over the field last night.

A lot of good, some not good, but just a player that really figured in the game very big. 7-0 now. Dak tries to answer back.

Picked off.

Evan Williams. Packers lead the NFL in takeaways. Their defense is very good, and their most talented player is.

In a sweatshirt.

Dak trying to talk with City. Come on, let's get this thing going. We have zero points. 10-0. Jordan Love. We have another interception. That's Brandon Cisse. Cissé, I took my time because I wanted to say Cissé right by the seesaw. Second interception in the first half for deck. Jordan Love, now looking, all kinds of really good blocking.

Who's he find?

Matthew Golden, I told you, he's all over this highlight. Number zero gets the beat down. And then we're gonna just run it in with Jordan Love. 17-nothing at the half. I said 17-nothing at the half. The Cowboys should be desperate, they need a win. javante williams all right he only had 41 yards rushing but he has eight touchdowns this season he has a lot fourth quarter 23 to 7 on a sunday night come on this is supposed to be the grand finale of the weekend do something dallas and nope on a fourth and 11 they do absolutely nothing down 16 fourth down they had to do something and that was just very emblematic of the whole night Not a good night.

For Dallas defense. But you know what? This was not on the defense. We'll talk about it afterwards.

Zach Prescott, second loss in a row.

How you feeling, champ?

Obviously, you know, you lose two games in a row. Doesn't feel good. We've put ourselves in this position. And so, I mean, it's what, 11 games or something.

Like that left.

We just got to take it one at a time. We just got to go get a win. And that's the only way to get to work our way out of this hole and to get momentum going. And to get the confidence and roll on both sides of the ball and special teams included. We need some good momentum, and the only way to do it is get a win.

I feel strongly about this PSA that I'm about to say. Let's hold on just saying greatest of anything from here on out. Self-proclaiming greatest of anything is dangerous territory, Kyle, because the Cowboys now fall to 2-4. This is a Cowboys team that wanted to be the greatest offense there is, the gaudy offense, and now they fail to score 20 or more points with Dak Prescott starting a quarterback and back-to-back game since 2019. So, KB, it's not great.

No, and it should be great. It's Monday morning. It's supposed to be a positive show. We just had a great football weekend and we're sitting here talking about the Cowboys because that's what's slated in the rundown. And I have to talk about this. I'll do my best here. The Cowboys defense is not good. It's not average. It's not decent. It's never going to be decent.

We all know that.

That's no surprising news. 23 points at Lambeau.

Fine.

You would think you would take that, but they're never going to be good. The Packers on third down on the first half. We're 9 of 10?

90%?

That is very, very.

Difficult to do. But just hear me out.

There's not going to be another week where we beat up on the Cowboys' defense. The Cowboys are a relationship in which it's all based on, how should we say this, lust. passion, and that's the offense. That's the only thing keeping the relationship together. There's no real substance. You're not really anything in common.

You're not connecting. You're not soulmates. All the defensive stuff is a mess.

But you've got that incredible lust of the offense where you can just do Dak and CD up and down the field.

But what happens when that goes? This happens.

Dak Prescott just threw 54 passes and they scored 13 points. That should be mathematically impossible. The lust is gone, folks. The connection is not there. You can't just flip that switch and be like, yeah, I know we were fighting the whole night, but then when we get home, bow.

No, it's all terrible. It's all bad.

There's nothing to hang your hat on. Like the Cowboys, the Cowboys are bad, bad. It's not just like they're like, oh, they might be bad. Keep in mind the context, too, of this performance, which was flat and inept. Look at this play right here. I mean, that's like as good as you... Why are Dak and CD not on the same page? Didn't CD have 17 catches in a game like 20 minutes ago? Why does Jake Ferguson get hit by snaps? He's not some undrafted rookie. This is not training camp. Why is CD falling? Like, these are made guys.

This is not well.

The Cowboys are banged up, so they have to bring in some.

Guys from the practice squad. These are.

Cowboys for years and years to come. And they just looked like they just got there. They haven't done anything. They're not going to do anything. Back to the context I was trying to get in. Remember the last time we saw these guys, it feels like two years ago, but they were losing to the fighting Jalen Daniels and the truck worker driver was calling Dak embarrassing. And from what I understand has now been fired. What?

All right.

Well, that guy was doing his job better than the Cowboys offense was doing theirs. That guy driving the truck, calling the face of the program embarrassing was better at his job than anybody on Dallas's offense was last night. Think about that.

It's that bad. So it used to be the Cowboys were, of course, flawed, very flawed. We know that.

But they had that shining light of that physical connection that would just carry the relationship, healthy or unhealthy. That thing's gone now. They're not clicking in any way. There's nothing to hang your hat on. That is just a ho-hum double-digit loss in a game they really need to have.

And I got nothing positive to say. I'm sorry. That's it.

You left me no choice. You painted me into a corner. Happy Monday morning, everybody.

So the worker that said embarrassing got fired?

That's ridiculous. That's just so crazy. Allegedly. Who knows? That's what the internet says.

Somebody had a cell phone video, and he's like, it was me, and now I've lost my job. If it was actually the guy, we're so sorry that happened to you. But Manta, that's the story.

Who knows? Yeah.

Well, I look at the Dallas Cowboys, and there's always a risk, right, Sam, when you have these player-led teams, when you have a team that has a lot of experience, has older players that have a lot of experience. And then you look on the coaching staff, and it's young coaches that don't have a lot of experience. Sometimes- the locker room takes over and it's you're at the mercies of the locker room and that's what it's looking like for the Dallas Cowboys there's no structure there's no leadership there's no direction but I'm going to talk about the Packers I love what coach LaFleur has done offensively you look at what they don't do well and that is run the football and sometimes offensively you look at a

lot of offenses around the the league who can't run the football and it just seem to force it.

Well, Coach LaFleur said, what we do.

Have is we have two really good wide receivers named Matthew Golden and Christian Watson, who can run down the field. They're very fast, and we have a quarterback that can get them the ball.

And that's all we're going to do.

We're just going to keep throwing the ball 40, 50 yards down the field, and we're just going to take the top off of every single defense. And it looks like one of those fighters that just comes out there from the bell and just starts throwing haymakers.

Is it entertaining? Heck yeah. Is it sustainable?

I don't know, but right now I'm looking at Jordan Love and the Packers, and that's really the method to their madness right now. And what's so crazy about it, Sam, is it's actually opening up the run game, and that is so opposite for me to see a team that says, you know what, we can't run the football, we don't really have a short passing game, we don't really have a middle passing game, but what we do have is we have a deep ball, and that's what we're going to rely on.

And it's kind of opening up everything else for them. So I love the... the intention. I love the direction. Hopefully it opens everything else up.

And to what KB just said and Jamie said Michael Parsons still hasn't suited up yet. So they are building some some equity in their season right now.

And it's it's it's definitely entertaining. Yeah, the Packers are definitely entertaining. It was an impressive win, but I want to go back to what KB was talking about how there's no hope that he sees in the Cowboys. I see a little bit of hope. Oh, and I don't go watch you. I do see some hope and I think the defense did play better. Green Bay to 23 points.

My hope isn't what's coming up for the Cowboys their next six games. I know we're talking about schedules now, but they only have one winning team over the next six weeks. So they play the Philadelphia Eagles. We're coming off of four straight losses with the backup quarterback. They got the they got Cardinals right a two-win Arizona Cardinals team.

They have a two-win Colts team of the 49ers right undefeated 49ers, right? They follow that up with the one-win Titans and then the two-win Eagles and maybe Jalen Hurst will be back. Maybe he won't. All that being said, you're in a division in which, okay, the Washington Commanders don't know how to finish games well. A division with the New York Giants are trying to figure out their quarterback situation. All of a sudden, the Dallas Cowboys, though they didn't play well, there's a lot of guys slipping on that. I've seen these slipped. Actually, a couple of drop passes from Green Bay could have been a worse loss.

But the Cowboys actually have an exciting outlook, in my opinion. Moving forward, the defense is getting better. That was a big question mark. I don't have many questions about the offense outside of a bad performance last night. CD is going to be great. He has been great. George Pickens will step up when the time is right. The Cowboys do have a running game. The Cowboys are able to score points. So they haven't didn't put it on display yesterday.

My biggest outlook is who's around you. What are you trying to compete against? And all of a sudden the next six weeks, it's looking up. Sam, I love what you just did there. Thank you for the optimism. Thank you.

It's not easy to do sometimes on a Monday morning. But here's the problem I have with what.

You laid out.

You talk about the Cowboys' schedule, and they got this team coming and this team coming.

You know what?

A couple days ago, I was watching somebody on TV who we all know and respect, and he was talking about the Rams. And they're like, you know, they got the Cardinals coming, so they're going to start going on a run here. They're 2-3 right now, sure, but the schedule gets a lot easier because the Cardinals are coming, and that's a win, right?

Isn't it? I think it was supposed to be. Let's go to Rams-Cardinals and find out what happened.

Let's do it because we have to tell the people that surely the Rams won this game.

All right, Mike LaFleur, long time there, homecoming.

The Cardinals have had four straight losses, but they won opening week in SoFi. So we're showing the kickoff. Something really bad for the Cardinals or really good is about to happen. This is a good return, but watch at.

The end of it. That's Blake Grupe, who is there.

Because Harrison Mevis got fired, and Blake Grupe gets injured. He looks like he's 115 pounds. He tried to make a tackle, respect. But now they got the punter Ethan Evans kicking the extra points on the sideline. 6-3, Arizona's winning. Blake Corham with a walk-in. All right, so surely the L.A. War Machine will just run right over these Arizona Cardinals, 9-6.

But now they got to go for two.

Because they're not comfortable yet with the punter kicking the kick. Boom!

Oh, no!

We interrupt this two-point conversion to bring you LJ Collier, who would rather die than lateral to any of his teammates who are five times faster than him, and all that for zero points. It would have been just for two points, but he got zero. Third quarter, Rams losing 12-9 on the strength of four field goals.

Oh, here's Puka Nakua. He's going to catch. Oh, my God. How did he not complete that?

You keep waiting for the Rams to just flex all their power, and.

They keep doing things like that. Fourth and one. What is this?

It's a ridiculous-looking play. Davis Allen, the backup tight end, gets stuffed.

First career rushing attempt. Stuffed. Stafford on a fourth down. Nothing. Kyron Williams on a screen pass. Blown up. Nothing. Mike LaFleur loves. Look at those two whispers. I thought we were supposed to beat the Cardinals. Everybody said they suck.

Well, they might suck. What does that mean for them beating you?

Over the middle. Puka.

Finally doing the Puka thing where he breaks 75 tackles and you think he's going to score.

He finished sixth for ADR.

It's kind of forgettable.

Four plays later. Rams. Second down. Colby Parkinson. He's ruled short.

At the one-yard line. The play were to be reviewed.

Touchdown.

Rams tie it at 15. They have to have a punter kick a potential game-winning extra point.

Snap good. Hold good. Ethan Evans. What a great story. We'll be talking about this all week. The Rams get right. The Rams win. And they got a punter kicking the extra point. Wait a second. Hold on. Why is the highlight still showing the Cardinals?

They're down 16 to 15 because Jacoby, boom, over the middle makes the catch.

But wait, there's a flag.

And this is really something. They called unnecessary roughness on Wallace right there because the outside inch of his shoulder pad hit the forward inch of the helmet. And that was considered a helmet shot. So they give him 15 yards. And guess what?

That's the win.

Chad Ryland makes six field goals.

The Rams lose again. Not in Australia. No.

They lose at home to a 1-4 Cardinals team that is now 2-4.

Hey, how about those Cardinals? Of course, let's play the Rams coach.

But I like the Cardinals.

Go ahead, Sean.

We won't win a game unless we figure out how not to beat ourselves. You know, just so many unforced errors, so many things that are not in alignment with what we want to do, specifically on the offensive side of the ball. Give up a big return to be able to start, lose the kicker, covering on that kickoff coverage, and that comes out for a big gain.

And so, you know, we didn't do enough.

We have a lot to look at ourselves on, and we have to be able to go back to the drawing board and figure out how we improve. Because like I just told you guys, we have to be able to not beat ourselves before we figure out how to even come away with some of the results. And it's not even good enough, and I got to do a much better job. And clearly, there's nothing positive that I can say about today.

It's hard to remember this, but back in 2024, Sean McVay's Rams team started two and four. This match is now the worst start for a McVay coached Rams team, Kyle. But, you know, he'll be all right, right? We're good here, right?

I don't know. A lot of bets have been made on these Rams, and I don't mean just the actual wagers. I mean, a lot of plans have been made. They're going to be in the Super Bowl, and they're the super team.

And I.

You watch this game and you're like, well, Miles Garrett's coming back. Great, all right, I'm waiting, two and four. And if you wanna do the schedule thing, cuz I said it earlier in the segment, they lose to Buffalo in overtime.

Everyone's like, well, Buffalo's good, that's okay.

The Rams are gonna go on a run now. They got the Cardinals twice, they got the Raiders, they got the Chargers, they got the Commanders. Did you hear what the coach just said? They're not going to beat anybody if they can't totally change things. They will lose to the Raiders and Chargers if they play like this. You think that's crazy? It's not. They don't look like a Sean McVay team right now. He does not look like Sean McVay. I brought this up last week. I'd bring it up again. I don't know if Sean is himself right now.

I'm talking between the ears.

If you recap it, very odd interview to start the season with 60 minutes where he just seemed unhappy and terse and really, really anxious. Ridiculous week one, you know that. And then we've had other weeks and other weeks. And that's just like, God bless the Cardinals. They're an up-and-coming team, an up-and-coming coach. You can't score 16 points against a one-and-four team at home. And by doing it, Stafford can't get anything going. You're making bizarre calls on fourth downs that are just getting stuffed. It's very strange. He's tense as hell. I don't think he's comfortable right now. Some teams and guys, you can speak to this. Basketball, baseball, volleyball, I don't care. Some teams just don't have the mojo

after a while, and you can get it, but we're running out of time here because if Miles Garrett is going to come back to a 2-6 team or a 3-7 team, I don't really care.

You notice Aaron Donald was not in the highlight. That's usually the case on these Mondays. He was supposed to be a savior.

I didn't see a lot of these name brand Rams in that highlight.

You know why?

Because they scored 16 points and they lost. So I've made the analogy many times. This is the prestige TV show that everybody keeps telling you.

It's so good. It's so good. Just stick with it.

It gets better.

It gets better. We just watched episode six. It sucks.

When is it going to get better? I got other shows I got to watch. So two and four is two and four. It's not early anymore. You are what your record says you are, and they're a two and four team.

Well, I'll talk about the micro and the macro. I think the micro for this game, and I don't think this game is a signal of the entire season because part of the reason is this. For the Cardinals game, two things happen. Number one, you go into the game, for lack of better terms, without a kicker. And so if you go and watch that game, kicker gets hurt with five minutes left in the first quarter. All of a sudden, you're going forward on fourth and six from like the 25-yard line. Those are three automatic points. You go to Arizona to six field goals. Usually holding teams to field goals is a positive. But now all of a sudden, no kicker, no extra points. That's part one.

Part two, Mike LaFleur came from this staff. And so Mike LaFleur is talking to his defensive coordinator, Nick Rallis, saying, hey, this is exactly who the L.A. Rams are, what they want to run here. here's how we slow it down and stop it. That's kind of like the micro for this game. But the bigger picture is this. This is why you actually play the games. I mean, everybody talks about, you know, super team this and automatically Super Bowl this, but it's like, I mean, okay, Aaron Donald was injured, so he's trying to come back, and all of a sudden he's getting back and getting healthy. Miles Garrett is currently injured, and we don't know if he's going to come back or not. You traded him for Jared Burst.

Jared Burst is on a different team right now, so now you have no miles garrett don't have jared verse who you wanted to get that pass for us aaron donald's still recovering and you don't have a special teams game so all of a sudden it's like okay you can't just uh sign your check for the super bowl that's part one but part two the truth is that ideally miles garrett is on the way right like aaron donald is he didn't of course the team didn't win but he had some splash plays yesterday hopefully they will get a kicker that's going to stay healthy so those are some of the positives that's looking forward now of course two and four is two and four But I do think it's early in the season for the L.A.

Rams that all of a sudden you get the guys you expected to be healthy, expected that you have a kicker who can kick and not a punter who's kicking, and all of a sudden things start to look up.

This is where I'm looking at the Rams. This is where I think they fall short. It's a lot of finesse, not a lot of bully. When I look at the Rams, you just mentioned Jared Verse. Jared Verse is a great player. You know what Jared Verse brought to the LA Rams? He brought this attitude. He brought this edge. And when I'm looking at the Rams, you can't recover from being out-executed.

You can kind of recover from losing the.

Coaching battle, being out-schemed.

What you can't recover is being just out physical. And when I watched that game yesterday, I'm watching Tyler Algier just run over defenders. I'm watching Kendrick Bourne, who Coach Shula, their defensive coordinator, the broadcast said that Coach Shula called.

Kendrick Bourne the Rams killer. That is like, what?

What are we even talking about when we're talking about another opponent being the killer of our team?

That just doesn't make sense. That's not the mentality.

That I would associate with a football team. So my biggest question to the Rams is, who's your enforcer? Like, who's the guy that you turn to when crap hits the fan, when there's no energy, there's no juice, there's no life on the sideline or on the football field? Who is that guy that you can turn to to say, hey, smack somebody, run somebody over, stiff arm somebody, get an anger receptor, do something that can liven up this sideline, liven up this team. Right now, I look at the Rams offensively, who do you have?

I mean, Puka? It's a receiver.

Kyron, I mean, look at Kyron's post-game interview when he's asked about the inconsistencies of the energy on that team. And he's like, I don't know, bro. I'm not on the football field. Who is it defensively? Is it Aaron Donald? He was retired for two years. Other than that, I can't point to somebody on that team that you could look and be like, Man, that's our enforcer. That's the guy that's going to get us back on track. So for the Rams, it's you're too much finesse, not enough bully.

And at the end of the day, football is about mano a mano. I'm going to beat you up for 60 minutes.

And right now they're getting beat up.

Yeah, the greatest pop of emotion we're oftentimes seeing is McVay with the white knuckling the side of the podium press conference moment. So it's something to watch. Let's welcome in NFL Network insider Ian Rapaport, Rap Sheet. The Rams, as we saw in the highlights, suffered a couple injuries in this game. What's the latest that we need to be watching?

Here's one we're going to keep an eye on.

Devontae Adams was not in the highlight, was not in the discussion on the last touchdown, but he was on the field.

If you go back, you watch the late, late.

In the Rams game, you saw Devontae Adams running around in the end zone and kind of hobble up. with what looked at some point to be a non-contact injury.

We don't know what it was.

You see him hobbling right there, grabbing the inside of his knee. Sean McVay was not asked about it post-game, and as of right now, all we know is that there's going to be tests for Devontae Adams, who hobbled off the field and was not seen again.

If this is an injury that takes him.

Off the field for a short term, for a long term, obviously it is something that for the Los Angeles Rams we need to win very badly.

Would be something that would be not good at all.

And then we'll talk about Blake Grooveby, the kicker, who, yes, tried to make a play on a kickoff return, ended up hurting his knee. It sounds like this is a potentially significant knee injury. Either way, if you're a kicker, every knee injury is significant. They're going to have to need a new kicker. A week after replacing Harrison Mevis, they go to Blake Groupie, tries to make a tackle, injures himself, doesn't play again, which led to Ethan Evans kicking a dramatic PAT at the end.

Rams have some issues.

Injuries are the least of them.

They truly do. Rapsheet, thanks so much. Groupie got the guy out of bounds. I'll give him that. Kyle, I keep thinking of shows that you try to tell people. You're like, just wait, just wait. It'll get good. And right now I've come up with Breaking Bad and The Wire. Like we're at episode six and the hook has to be coming for the Rams, right? Because I don't see him in your backdrop of your home shot right now.

Jamie, you went through six episodes of Breaking Bad.

And weren't into it?

Isn't that normally something you say? I mean, it took me three, but people say, just watch, the start is slow. Isn't that something that people say about Breaking Bad?

Oh, one of the best pilots ever made. I don't know who those people are, but we gotta move on.

All right. Behind me, I've been marooned in Buffalo Bill's basement here. You can tell how much I love it. So I'm trying to make some chicken salad. And these are the division-winning helmets.

I've kept them behind me for this entire season.

So just really quickly, I got a lot.

Of notes last night.

You got the NFC down here, the Fighting McCarthys, the Niners, the Panthers, the Vikings, they all stay.

The AFC, the Bills, the Chiefs, the Jets. Wait a second.

In the AFC North, I need to swap on these guys again.

They're here.

And you might be like, wait a second.

They have the same record as the Ravens and the Steelers. They've beaten the Ravens and the Steelers. And I'm thrilled, really thrilled to put up the Cleveland Browns bright orange helmet right there over my left shoulder. Will it stay there for weeks, months? I don't know, but it's there this weekend. Cleveland, first place team after six weeks of football.

I'm proud of you guys, and I'm.

Excited for you.

Absolutely. Were you already receiving feedback this morning, KB, that you hadn't done the switch yet, or you like doing it on live television?

I was receiving it in the first quarter of the game last night.

Get that shelf ready.

The Browns people are very passionate about this shelf, and I love it, and I hope they stay up there for a while. But again, that's not up to me, folks. I'm keeping this one right here nearby.

All right, we got one more game. You see that beautiful 49ers helmets because they're atop the NFC West. We got week six to close out here with an undefeated team hosting the Washington Commanders. That is tonight, 8 p.m. Eastern, Monday Night Football. A lot of ways to watch ESPN, ESPN.

The app.

Enjoy the game, everybody. You can't get anything by that guy in Buffalo Bill's basement. Like, I make one comment about Breaking Bad, and he's like, oh, going all Jesse Pinkman on me. Relax, KB, all right? Yeah, it took me a second to get in Breaking Bad. Speaking of Breaking Bad, J.J. McCarthy, I don't know how to make this parallel, but, man, he had a fourth quarter for the ages, huh? He makes his trade. He hasn't played.

He's got to come in. He put up numbers, Giants loss, but this makes it a really interesting conversation about the future for the quarterback position.

Kyle? JJ is like a Jesse Pinkman if Jesse's life went dramatically different and he chose sports instead of narcotics. You know? You know what I mean? Anyway, Caleb chose sports, too. And sports yesterday chose Caleb.

He's back.

I don't care if you love Caleb or hate Caleb. We want the starting quarterbacks back out there.

Okay?

That's all that matters. I want Caleb out there. And the Bears wanted him, too. This was one of the best plays of the day. They came out early and strong, and we'll get into this game after it.

Good morning, football. Bears-Falcons.

Caleb starts today. Missed the last three games. It was all up and down for the Bears. Early on, he just, he looked really sharp. This is classic Caleb.

Roll right.

Probably an irresponsible throw left, but he can get away with it because of his accuracy. Holston Loveland makes the catch, takes the hit. Place was rocking. A lot of Bears fans in Atlanta. But Falcons have got some things going on, too. So let's see if we can get them revved up. I can't control the highlights. I can only read them.

No.

DeAndre Swift, two-yard touchdown run.

Bears lead 21-7.

Swift had two touchdowns. Their offense is much better when he's playing well and holding on to the ball.

Rashawn Johnson got in.

Remember, Noma Nungai really got banged up from that big.

Carry game a couple weeks ago.

Bigger roll today. Menungai out, like I said, 28-7, 31-7. It's a blowout.

Come on, let's go. All right.

Michael Pennis goes to Kyle Pitts. 10-yard touchdown. Rookies that carry a branch got the two-point conversion. More Rashawn Johnson, but he fumbles. Don't do that, Rashawn. That'll get Menungai right off the injury report.

Another peanut punch. That's Jesse Bates III. Falcons take over, 31-15. Does that Drake? No, it's Pitts. They're both very tall and strong. He gets in there. Touchdown.

He had five for 60 and two touchdowns. So now we got a real game. 31-23. You're down one score. The rush closes in, though. Drops back. He's sacked, and the ball is loose.

Kyler Gordon. Tyler, remember this first sack of the game. An incredible thing.

It's the first DB with three-plus sacks in a game since Todd Bell in 1983.

I remember Todd Bell.

Rashawn Johnson does the gentleman's thing and falls down. Setup scoring a touchdown.

They run out the clock.

Caleb was 30 of 36 for 305 yards and a touchdown.

The Falcons do come back, but the Bears win it. 31 to 23. Let's hear from Caleb. So good. Yeah, it felt good. Body feels great.

Obviously, I got hit a couple times. Felt great to get hit after three weeks of just rehabbing. So, I feel strong, feel good. Obviously, got to go and take care.

Of it this week.

It's going to be a weekly thing, just taking care of it, staying up to date on it, and taking care of my body.

No matter the injury, you always hear that, and it's true. The quarterback's like, yes, I want that first hit. I want to make sure I'm over this and I can move forth, and Kayla Williams truly did. The offense puts up 31 and a win in Atlanta. Sam, what stood out to you from this performance?

This feels like Chicago's the most dangerous team. We're one of the most dangerous teams in football because they're putting up numbers like this offensively, and I get it. They lost to Green Bay last week. It's a rivalry game. That was without Kayla Williams. But you're seeing them not even at full strength, right? Kyle Monunga didn't play yesterday in the game. You've seen it. Roma Dunzey hasn't really had that full onslaught of a performance. Luther Burden's been solid as well, but this team just keeps on showing up week in and week out. And so for me, my biggest takeaway or thought from this game is you see the Chicago Bears, you see a team that you feel like has an offense that can go and compete

for a Super Bowl. Now, defensively, there's still question marks. Jalen Johnson hasn't been playing great. Kyle Gordon did come and step up. But when you have a coach like Ben Johnson, then a quarterback like Caleb Williams, who's finally healthy and playing like he has, and you have so many weapons, Colston Loveland, Cole Komet. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. You have so many weapons.

Roma Dunzay, Luther Burden, running backs in the backfield, Kamal Nunga, who wasn't healthy, DeAndre Swift, a really good offensive line. It feels like the sky is the limit for the Chicago Bears today. Offense, defensively still has to get better, right? Last year, they were able to force a cornucopia of turnovers.

This year, they've struggled just a bit on that turnover side. So this is a very dangerous team I think people need to watch out for.

Yeah, actually, I'm not worried about the defense. I thought having somebody like Kyler Gordon back really helped them out tremendously. And I thought yesterday's game was probably the most complete game I've seen a Chicago Bears team play. in a long, long time. Offensively, you know what you're getting offensively. Defensively, turning the ball over. Special teams-wise, they had two turnovers.

And then Khalif Raymond does his thing in the return game. But offensively, to your point, Sam, you're looking at Caleb Williams and all of those targets. that he has at his disposal at the wide receiver position and the tight end position and the biggest question you got to ask yourself as a defense that's going against his offense is like who's his favorite target Is it Luther Burden?

Is it Colson Loveland?

Is it Cole Komet, Khalif Raymond?

Who is it?

And that's such a headache for defense because if I'm going to run.

Zone coverage on you, who do I roll that coverage to?

If I'm going to run man coverage to, who do I stick the extra safety.

On to double?

And oh, by the way, they actually want to run the football and they have Caleb Williams who can scramble. So when I'm looking at it, KB, it's how do you stop this offense?

You really can't.

You have to hold that that offense beat itself and under Caleb Williams right now it's it's definitely not a recipe that I'd want to go up against if I was a defense.

Well listen huge tension going into this game for the Bears stakes nervousness all of that anxiety get hammered by the Packers in the last game of what I think was the low point of the Ben Johnson era this week Caleb is snippy with the media Ben Johnson's closing practices like and if you don't win this game you don't show up and play good football. They're on a short week against the Patriots Thursday night. Then they're on another national game after that. Like the buzzards are out.

This was big, big stakes. And after the first drive of the game, it was like, all right, everything's going to be OK.

Everybody. It was just like a warm blanket.

Caleb throws a touchdown on the first drive, touchdown on the second drive as well. But the first one, when he rolled out and you're like the hamstring, how is it? How is Caleb between the ears? Zips it across the middle to Loveland beats the defenders and was just like everybody can relax. Caleb is back. Caleb is normal. Caleb has got it. Everybody relax.

It's fine.

And now we can get ready for these national games. The second this ball was completed and they called it a touchdown. I got so many texts from Bears fans just being like, oh, my God, we're back, we're back, we're back. Now, they got problems. They're not a perfect team. And the next couple weeks are going to be very difficult.

But 31-23, I don't really think tells the story of this game. Like we said in the highlight, they were way up. They were way better than the Falcons were on this day. They got sloppy at the end. But the point is, if you were a Bears hater who's hoping Caleb was going to be rusty or the hamstring wasn't going to look right, neither of those things were true.

As I said.

30 of 36 passing is incredible, and we're going to see a lot of Bears the next couple weeks.

Sometimes the player is such an important cog to the team that when the rest of the guys see him get hit, then it helps them as well. It wasn't just about Kayla Williams feeling relieved as well. Bears roll on, as do we on GMFB. We've got to keep going with NFC highlights, specifically Giants-Saints yesterday. Saints are on the move now. They're going to go play that game in Paris, but they beat the Giants on their way out of town.

But that doesn't mean that we have to not talk about what went down in the fourth quarter with the recently arrived quarterback in J.J.

McCarthy.

Plus, rewind that later this hour on GMFB.

Good morning, football.

One week from right now, we'll all be sitting at Stateside Live in Philadelphia, getting you ready for Cowboys-Eagles. Jamie, Fante, Kyle, Seth Rollins.

Let's go.

And the man who will have the warmest welcome of all is Michael Urban. Plus, maybe we'll have our guy Brandon Graham stopping by. Guest list is great. Please come hang out with us. Links are online for tickets. Stateside Live in Philadelphia, man.

Yes, let's stay in Philadelphia, shall we, Jamie?

Because yesterday there was a clash between the Panthers and the Eagles.

There's Tanner McKee.

He got his third career start after putting Jalen Hurts on IR.

Jalen, get healthy.

There's Bryce Young. Fourth quarter, Panthers, Chuba Hubbard on the left side.

For a one-yard touchdown. Now they would go for the two-point conversion, but they wouldn't get it. Panthers lead 19-7. In swing, Eagles drive. There's Tanner McKee. He hits Devontae Smith. What a catch by Devontae Smith. We have life over there in Philly. Eagles throw 19-14. Later in the fourth, Bryce Young will hit Tommy Tremble in the end zone for.

A 19-yard touchdown pass.

That was Tommy Tremble's second of the game.

Young had his 11th passing.

Touchdown most in franchise history through five games.

Panthers win 25-14.

Saints.

Giants. All right, here we go.

Let's get after this. We're in the Meadowlands. It's 10-10, third quarter. Shot got to the sideline.

Look at the moves!

I like the Saints, guys.

They've had a rough little run here for a while, but if they get back on the scoreboard, they can take them out. That's Alvin Kamara. Fourth quarter, 27-10. Scatterboot nowhere to be seen. Zero carries on six snaps. Jameis Winston... Intercepted. He tried to go to likely. Jameis had two picks on the day, 14 of 26 passing. Remember we talked about the roller coaster last week?

It's inevitable. Look at that lady. She's like, get him off the field. I think she's talking about the Saints though. Tyler Shuck. A lobby. We got a blowout.

34 to 10.

And we got JJ.

JJ McCarthy takes over down 24 points. And on a second and 10, immediately finds Isaiah Likely for a 24-yard touchdown.

What's up, JJ? I don't mind it at all. 34-24.

Now it's 34-27. Is JJ going to steal this thing? Stuffed up the middle on a third and four.

And suing Giants possession, 34-27.

First and 10, under a minute to play. JJ, nothing downfield, evades the rush.

He's taken off. JJ's a New York legend. 28-yard run for the Giants. They have no timeout. On the ball, on the ball, on the ball.

It's a fourth and one now from the 14.

They still have a chance. You can be a hero.

Launches it towards likely as he spins out of the pocket.

Make a play! And he can't. He can't do it. Heavy coverage. No flags.

JJ has actual heroics. Not enough to overcome the deficit, though. Just too many points. J.J. McCarthy at 243 yards in the damn fourth quarter. I said he threw for almost a thousand-yard pace in the fourth quarter alone on just 11 completions.

34-27.

Coach Harbaugh, would you like to make an announcement on your quarterbacks?

I'm sure you would. Is he your starter to move forward?

I can't answer that now. Game just ended 10 minutes ago.

So do you consider that an open conversation?

Just like I said, I can't answer it now. It's not even up for discussion or conversation right now. We've got to go back and go to work. I mean, I have no problem with Jameis whatsoever. I love the way he competes. I love the way he fights. All those kind of things. He was up and down today for sure, but those things will all be decided not ten minutes after a game.

All right.

Well, Ian Rappaport, it's been longer than 10 minutes. So where are we at with the Giants quarterback conversation? Because Harbaugh is going to have to answer to this eventually, right?

Eventually, but generally, coaches do not like to answer questions of who is going to be your starting quarterback at the podium postgame, mostly because you've got to go back, you've got to watch film, you've got to evaluate all the things, you've got to talk to your players.

There's a lot that goes.

To these really seismic decisions of whether or not J.J. McCarthy is ready to take over the Giants, because it's not just for this Sunday.

If McCarthy's going to go.

In, he's just going to go in, and he is now the starter.

I should also mention.

That coming up next is the Houston Texans, whose defense has been up and down, but whose pass rush.

Has just been up.

I mean, Will Anderson playing like one of the best players in football.

Daniel Hunter is awesome.

It is a lot for someone who just came in here basically last week, doesn't know all the plays, and still was able to somehow go in there and be productive. We will see what the Giants end up deciding. If Jameis Winston maybe gets one more week on a short leash, or whether it's J.J. McCarthy just handed the keys, One thing we know for sure, McCarthy's.

Time is coming.

Whether it's this week, whether it's next week, he is going to play. And the early returns from what the Giants saw are very, very promising.

Kyle mentioned the fourth quarter number.

More yards than any player in the fourth quarter this season.

It's pretty crazy.

On pace guy thanks for actually appreciate it talk to you in a little bit this is a conversation that has to be had about the NFC so it's not a fun one though because when you look at this division and the teams that you know one has to be in the playoffs although I'm not really sure if they deserve it at this point look at how fascinating this becomes the Giants still with a winning record at 3-2-1.

And then after that, the drop-off continues. However, guys, you got to pick somebody. Which one of these teams is making the playoffs, Sam, as we look at the current state of the division?

Making the playoffs, I'm going to go Cowboys on this one. But here's the thing about this division, even playoffs in general, All you have to do is win your division. You could be 7-9, 7-9-1. You could figure that thing out. I like the Cowboys, and part of the reason why is that I think the Christian Parker experiment needs time to develop. I got a chance to play under Vic Fangio, who really was the tree that... Yeah, Christian Parker came from and it takes time for a defense to develop came to Chicago 2015 2014. They were like the 31st ranked defense 2015. We get there. We're like 20th. It got a little bit better 2016. We're like 13th. It takes time to develop and so I think defense is on the way up office has no question.

The only issue with the Cowboys is it takes time but for some reason the Cowboys seem like it's starting to split a little bit that locker room and that's that's something that I'm very concerned about here. Philadelphia, I love what that defense has, one of the best defenses.

In the NFL.

But right now, the New York Giants, I like the New York Giants because they're playing with something, and that's called belief right now. And Coach Harbaugh has, in regards to this quarterback thing, got to be very careful, right? Because that belief can just be pulled away based on the decision that he makes at the quarterback position.

So I like the Giants right now.

KB Jamie I think we should do a thing I know Sam's going to be joining us every Monday it's moving forward we should each adopt one of these teams and have just be our team every Monday.

And we have to be responsible for our team.

So it's happening in real time Sam just took the Cowboys Manti just took the Giants and Jamie if you don't mind I'm going to jump in and take the commanders why the hell not I'm going to go on that ride with They bottomed out.

They can only go up. And I looked at the schedule, and I'm like, oh, no, the Eagles and Rams. But then I'm like, oh, yes, the Eagles and Rams. I'll take the Commanders if you want to go Philly.

Okay, I'll go Philly. My mom grew up there. We're going there next week. So I get it. I'll go with the Eagles. And Manti, go stand by the Giants. This is it. We used to do pound puppy teams, and NFC East has become our pound puppy division. And let's go Birds, I guess.

Let's go Giants. There's two and four. I'm with you, dawg. Go Tanner McKee.

Hail.

Those are my guys.

Back on GMFB. Let's do a little rewind that. Sam, you're up first.

So mine is, I played a lot of special teams in the NFL, right? That was my priority. And so I got a video from a special teams coordinator, Danny Smith, who was on the sideline at Tampa Bay. And I don't know what he was doing. Actually, I do know what he was doing. He looked kind of weird, right? So 32 years old. He's trying to find out where the wind is going. But it was just like, bro, what's going on? Why are we chewing our gum, holding this little flag, right? Got his play sheets going there.

Let's kick off a turn.

It looks like a streamer or a flag that's torn in half.

Well, whatever it takes, right? Some people throw grass up in the air to see which way the wind blows. Danny Smith's got the streamers, so rewind that and make sure you know what Danny Smith's got going on over there. Danny Smith is an OG. He's an OG. He's an OG. Oh, yeah, with Steelers for 12, 13 years, dominance.

Somebody who plays OG, his name is Kyle Hamilton. I'm on a mission, guys, to bring some physicality back to this game. I'm going to give you a thoughtful of what the sweet, the beautiful music of.

Football sounds like. Just listen to this real quick.

Just listen.

Kyle Hamilton hits Shaluma.

Yep.

It's beautiful. And it's just beautiful.

And it's clean.

It's within the rules. It is within the context. But it's physicality. Oh, my gosh.

It is so beautiful. Shout out to Kyle Hamilton. Shout out to Jameel McLaughlin for getting up right after this hit. But that is what we need. That is what I'm bringing back to this game, KB. That's my rewind that moment.

Beautiful.

I agree, but I think we need some of this, too. There was a full moon in Philadelphia yesterday, guys.

I don't know if you saw this.

Tanner McGee, our guy, the Tanner McGee portion of the program, he's going to throw to Dallas Goddard, and the defensive back does anything he possibly can to stop the play. Ross Tucker on the call was fantastic, in my opinion. And if we look at the second look, third time's the charm, I'm told.

Hold on. Nope, not there. Hold on. There we go. It kills, folks. It tells you as a child. It kills. It's whack as well. KB, it's a children's show. It's an amazing thing that just happened, and it's even more amazing. We're showing it this morning.

But, hey, sometimes football is football.

You see all kinds of stuff. That's all bad. Better the back than the front.

GMFB Monday Hour 1: Packers Win, Cardinals Upset Rams, and Giants Outlook

Kapitelklicken springt direkt hin

Shownotes

Transkriptvom Podcast bereitgestellt · Zeitmarken springen hin