NFL Pro Week 7 Preview

0:00 Welcome to the NFL pro week seven preview show. Thank you for listening on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show. Sunday night football. Everybody watching this.

0:12 Everybody including your mama.

0:13 Touchdown 49ers.

0:15 All right, everybody.

0:17 Welcome back to NFL Pro. What a show we have for you today. We're going to preview some of the biggest matchups that we have here in week seven. We're going to take a look at which offensive and defensive coordinators are absolutely in their bag with creativity. Maybe to the point where they're getting some head coaching looks. We're going to talk about some movement in the front office.

0:36 GM already can before we get to halfway through the season. And NFL teams are taking penalties on purpose. We're going to explain so much of that and more.

0:47 What a show. What a show.

0:51 This is a fun slate this week. We have some premier matchups. We have some interesting scheme trends. To your point, we have an interesting... penalty trend that I never thought I would see where teams are benefiting from taking penalties. So we'll see what happens in the offseason about that. But yeah, a lot to talk about today.

1:10 Everything you work for is for a moment like this. All the hard work is for moments like this. What we have to start off with here is a true premier matchup, not just for the week, but for the entire 2026 NFL season. And that is the Kansas City Chiefs versus the Seattle Seahawks. You're a man of culture, so I'm assuming that you have seen the movie Troy.

1:31 And there is a line in the movie where the king basically shouts over at the walls of Troy and says, Is this what you left me for? And Kenneth Walker is the subject here of that quote.

1:45 Kenneth of Troy?

1:46 Touchdown! Ken Walker III wins!

1:53 Well, Helen of Troy and Kenneth Walker, both former Spartans, so probably should start with him.

1:58 Look at you.

1:59 I know.

2:00 I'm a nerd. What can I say?

2:01 That was beautiful, my friend.

2:05 Well done.

2:06 Well done.

2:07 What more can you say about his start to the year? If you're looking at most rushing yards per game in a season all time, he's on pace for a top three season in the history of the sport. OJ Simpson was at 143.1 in 1973. Jim Brown in 1963, 133.1. Kenneth Walker's at 133 flat. He's a tenth of a yard behind Jim Brown's all-time best season. This is ridiculous what he's done so far for this offense.

2:39 60-yard run by Ken Walker III!

2:43 Welcome to the kingdom!

2:45 It's like you've been here all along!

2:47 It feels like Patrick Mahomes hasn't had to do a whole lot relative to the past few years in Kansas City where everything was dependent on Patrick Mahomes. Not that he gets to sit back and do nothing. He does have to make his three to four Patrick Mahomes-y type plays every single week. But going from needing your quarterback to make four plays for you every single week, from making mandatory you have to make 12 plays for us every single week to win, He's got to feel great.

3:16 If you're looking at just the sheer volume of missed tackles that he's forced, he has 47 missed tackles on runs, nine more than the next closest player. By the way, they've had their bye week. He's played less games than most running backs in the league. He's still at 275 in terms of yardage after missed tackles. That still leads the league after their bye week. Plus 277 rushing yards over expected. 100 more than the next closest player with one less game played. I could go on and on and on. Like every single stat is just first, first, first, first.

3:51 And what's interesting about it, defenses haven't really reacted to it. They've played a lot of light boxes against Kansas City, mostly because they're really afraid of these crossing routes that Eric Bien-Ami is known for. And spoiler alert, they're leading the league in terms of crossing route yardage per game again this year. The last time Bien-Ami was OC in 2022, they led the league in crossing route yardage per game.

4:14 This year, they're leading again at 88.2 yards per game on crossing routes. The next closest team is less than half that. And so defenses are playing these two high safety structures because they are terrified of these crossing routes and they're trying to use these two high structures to cut the crossers. And a byproduct of that is. Kenneth Walker against light boxes. And he's just destroying everybody. So it's kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't, dear.

4:38 Yeah, when you look at last year's Kansas City Chiefs team, obviously there wasn't really much of a threat out of the backfield. So they were facing light boxes on 76.4% of their plays. Teams were basically telling the Chiefs like, hey, go ahead, run the ball, see what happens. This year, despite having Kenneth Walker, it's down, but it's only down to 70.3%. That's not near the percentage that you would think for a player that's having as much success on the ground, where the number one part of the game plan for a lot of teams, you would think, is stop Kenneth Walker. But to your point, they're facing more split safety looks this year than last year. 38.1% in 2025. 44.4% this year. Team's number one concern here is actually stopping

5:18 the crosser.

5:19 A lot of times the route drives your front, your coverage opportunities as well. You can look at it from a top-down perspective as well. If you're in split safety, you tend to have a little bit more layers to your defense, a little more overlap.

5:30 I think everybody's kind of asking the question, what's wrong with Sam Darnold right now? Because it's not the same for him. When you look at his 2026 season, 77.4 passer rating, 6.9 yards per attempt, 40.5 success rate, and a negative EPA per dropback. When you look at last year, even the part of his schedule or his year, the second half of the season where you would say that he quote unquote struggled, it's not as bad. 83.2 passer rating, 7.2 yards per attempt, 49.5 success rate, still a negative EPA per dropback, but not too bad. When Sam Darnold was on, though, like the playoffs in the early parts of the season, I mean, it was night and day.

6:08 The quarterback rating was over 100 for both of those sample sizes for him. So I think a lot of people look at this and go, you know, is it just something that he's dealing with where it was the same thing during the second half of last season and will he kind of bounce back? I don't know, because for as much as it's a Sam Darnold issue, I think the root is the lack of Kenneth Walker. Ted Wynn did a great job of breaking this down. I saw a tweet from him promoting an article. I went and read the article and it was fantastic. And I kind of went and got some NGS stats that supplement what Ted was saying where teams just aren't afraid of the Seahawks running game. Last year, they faced one high coverages 51.5% of the time because teams wanted that extra

6:53 defender closer to the line of scrimmage to stop Kenneth Walker. This year, they're not nearly as afraid. It's only 38%. Lightbox rate last year, 59.2%. Teams wanted to stop Kenneth Walker.

7:07 This year, 68.5%.

7:08 So again, they're daring the Seahawks to run the ball because they know they're not going to be as explosive. And they're just straight up not. So for Sam Darnold, a lot more is on his plate because there is not that threat of the electric player out of the backfield. And unfortunately, as he's trying to mitigate that and attack down the field and have more on his shoulders, the only player they consistently go to for success is JSN.

7:36 And I think that then on the other side of things for the Chiefs, that lends itself to maybe what Steve Spagnuolo is going to be able to defend against pretty well this week.

7:45 You can see the downstream effect of Walker no longer being in Seattle just in the coverages that they're facing. Last year, to your point, because they faced so much one high, their overall cloud rate faced, cloud rate is defined as any coverage where there is a cloud corner hanging out in the flat. They faced that 32.6% of the time this year. That's number one in the league in terms of amount of cloud looks faced. Last year, they were 23rd. And that was even with JSN going nuclear, becoming one of like six receivers ever to have 1,800 plus yards in a season. And so if you're looking at just the response that defenses have this year to JSN, you don't have the running back that can punish that

8:29 response with these two high looks. just like he's doing right now in Kansas City. So maybe these numbers would be different if they still had Jadarian Price because their overall explosive rate is down on the ground this year, but Jadarian Price's individual explosive rate is high. Maybe if he was in these games and their explosive rate was higher, the cloud rate would be lower because teams would be playing it similarly to how they played them when they had Kenneth Walker. But right now, the only person that really scares you on Seattle is JSN. So why would you do anything different than what they're seeing right now?

9:06 Which is a problem against this Chiefs team, because if you look at how Mansour Delane has played over the last two weeks specifically, I mean, his QBR allowed is lower than 50. I mean, Brett, this guy's a rookie. And not only that, like he missed a little bit of time due to injury. I mean, he He is green to playing at the pro level and he's looked unbelievable.

9:26 You've got so many impressive one-on-one reps with Mansour Delane already because his coverage skills, I think from an athletic and physical standpoint, are so, so, so good that, look, I'm not saying that he's going to totally blanket and shut down JSN, but you have the rare ability to play JSN in in press man coverage when you have a player like that and say, Hey, you know what?

9:50 JSN is going to get his a little bit, but so is the lane. And we're okay with that because we're not afraid of anybody else beating us. And I think that's a problem. for Seattle. And this is going to be a game where they're going to have to lean on somebody else to outscore Kansas City. Because a lot of teams, I think, over the last couple of years have been afraid of to play jsn in man coverage because it's it's jackson in the jig but he's just an incredible separator he's such an artist when it comes to route running when when jsn is running at you he does not give anything away you have no idea where he is going you don't know if he's going vertical you don't know if he's breaking left to right you don't know if he's coming back there's there's

10:27 just so little tells and unless you are truly an elite athlete type of a corner you don't have that stop and start ability to keep up with him and because of that they say well we just got to play zone because if not then JSN is going to burn us. But then when they play zone, guess what JSN does? He finds a soft spot in the zone and he's unbelievable about it. So it's almost like teams are manifesting their own fear by not wanting to get aggressive against him. I don't have that same thought process for Steve Spagnuolo, especially with Mansour Delane now on the team.

10:55 I don't think they're going to look at JSN and say, we're afraid of you. I think they're going to go right at him. And until him and Sam Darnold prove that whatever type of close aggressive man coverage doesn't work against them, they're going to run it. And they're just going to dare them to sort of beat them another way.

11:09 And hell, even if you're just looking at man coverage on third down, we're seeing their overall third down yards per play versus man coverage. It just fell off a cliff this year. They were highest in the league last year at 7.4. This year, third down against man coverage at 3.2. That's dead last in the NFL. So if they're not throwing to JSN, they're getting nothing. JSN individually is doing just fine. You know, he's one of the most productive players in the NFL. But they don't have anybody else to punish it. And so if we're doing a hard double on JSN in man coverage on third down, or if we just have a corner that's good enough to do it by himself, and everybody else is on an island, they have nothing else. Like, for whatever reason,

11:55 you know, the names that they have in their receiving core, whether it's Rashid Shaheed or Cooper Cup, like, you think they should be able to get something, and they're getting nothing. nothing. And teams have started to do that more against them on third down. If you're looking at third down man coverage rate faced last year, they were 23rd because you don't want to do that against JSN this year. Teams are realizing, okay, well, if we're in man coverage, we're in man coverage everywhere, which means everybody on their team also has a one-on-one. So we just take care of the problem and make them beat us with somebody else.

12:24 They are now at the fourth highest man coverage rate faced on third down in the NFL this year. So it seems counterintuitive, but it's like, okay, You don't want to play man against a team that has multiple threats. If they have one threat, sure, go ahead. Be my guest.

12:47 Let's move on to Packers-Lions next. And I've seen North Divisional matchup here. Packers, man, really struggled out of the gate, especially with their offense on their offensive line and their defensive line, I would say. It was really slow in the trenches for this team. But over the last couple of weeks, they've looked really good. And Jordan Love, I know it can sort of lean into the narrative of, hey, it's an up-and-down team. It's an up-and-down offense. But my goodness, when it's up, it looks good for the Packers. And they have an explosive offense that can absolutely keep up With the Detroit Lions, who, because of their defensive woes, kind of have to be great. Their foot is on the gas pedal from the moment the ball is kicked off.

13:27 Jump and grab! J-Mo touchdown!

13:30 I kind of want to start with Jordan Love. We're not even in Toyotathon yet, and he is already playing Toyotathon Jordan Love. He is out of his mind this year. If you're looking at 30-plus air yard passes, he's got 12. That's four more than the next closest player. If you're looking at deep passing yards, he's got 283 since week four.

13:52 It's not even the entire season. That's just since week four. 18 deep pass attempts. That's most in the NFL. Seven deep completions. That's tied for second most. Only Drake May is ahead of him in that category. He is just on a... And I personally love watching, you know, modern Jordan Love. A few years ago, Jordan Love, like, you would get these crazy deep completions, but then you'd also get the worst pick you've ever seen in your life.

14:16 He's cut out the bad picks and just left all the elite stuff. Dare I say, he is trending towards being Rodgers-esque, because for a long time, that was what you got with Rodgers, too. You got breathtaking deep completions, threading the needle, making the most arrogant throw ever that should not even be attempted but still completed. and also no bad picks. And Jordan Love is trending towards that.

14:40 And as long as he plays like that, no Edge Cooper, no Micah Parsons, offensive line depth chart in shambles, no run game, doesn't matter. They're a good team when you have a quarterback playing like that.

14:53 Yeah. And I mean, you look at the receivers that he's thrown into. We knew over the last couple of years, anytime that Christian Watson has been healthy, he's been heavily impactful for this team. Second most yards in the NFL on downfield targets, 444. But then the emergence of Matthew Golden, I think, has meant everything. to this team because it's a little bit of sort of what we talked about with the Seahawks in the last segment. It's one thing to have one guy that you fear. When you have two players that you have to fear, it makes defense exponentially harder. When you look at Matthew Golden, 501 receiving yards, that's sixth most in the NFL, seventh most on downfield targets, 331.

15:30 So they have the player who has the second most downfield receiving yards and the seventh most downfield receiving yards. Both of those guys are played at an incredibly high level. I think that Watson and what he could do vertically is a constant threat every single time he is on the field. And then where Matthew Golden is certainly a vertical threat, they're using Matthew Golden on a lot of different things. Those deep crossers, I think he has been fantastic at this season. Things to the sideline as well, more of an intermediate receiver. All of that is there for them to where I think that Tucker Crafts had a really quiet season. I know he's been banged up a little bit, but I think the reason why is

16:04 less about Tucker Kraft and more about we got to get this Matthew Golden guy the ball as much as humanly possible. And so it's a great place to be when there's a player that you think has the talent and he's even proven that he has the talent to be more involved in the offense. And you just can't get him the ball enough because, well, you're having so much success doing something else. And you're winning while you're doing it. And I think that's where the Packers are right now. Anything more on the Packers, specifically on offense, before we move to... Because I think that the Packers' defense versus what the Lions have been doing on the offensive line is also an interesting part of this matchup.

16:40 That to me is, even beyond Jordan Love, that's the story. Jonathan Gannon is calling himself a defense right now. He's missing arguably his two best players on the unit. So he's kind of piecing it together a little bit here. And, you know, he's gotten great contributions from Lucas Van Ness and the safeties. And, you know, even the corners, I would say, have played better in the last few weeks.

17:01 But he very much is cobbling this thing together. And he's doing a phenomenal job. In particular, he's really upped their blitz rate. Right now they're blitzing at a 33.2% rate. They were under a 30% blitz rate every year for the last five seasons. So he's bringing more pressure to compensate for the fact that they don't have Micah Parsons.

17:27 And schematically on the back end, what he's complemented these blitz looks with, whether he's showing pressure and bringing it or showing pressure and backing out of it, what he's complementing that aggression with is movement on the back end. So not only is he showing pressure, but he's making you decipher that pressure while watching the safeties and corners just go every single which way. This is something he did a lot in Arizona. If you're looking at, say, past Packers defenses under Jeff Halfley, they were known for rotation as well, but a different kind of rotation. They would start out in two high. They would bring the safeties down and get into a one high look, whether it was cover three, you know, three strong, three weak.

18:09 They would bring these safeties down and basically be not a hook dropper, but be a hook defender from depth, which is all the rage across the NFL, is getting into cover three from too high. Gannon did it differently in Arizona, more than pretty much any other defense in the league last year, is where he would still rotate, but do it the opposite way. He would start out in one high and then rotate into too high at the snap. And he's bringing that kind of philosophy to Green Bay this year, To great effect. That's how they got the interception on Dak last week. At least one of the interceptions on Dak last week. So this is a three by one in the red zone, high red zone in particular. And just looking at this pre-snap, you

18:54 know it's probably not man coverage because CD is the number three to the field side. The field side meaning the wide side. Coaches call the short side of the field the boundary side. So field and boundary. We count outside in. One, two, three. Seedy's at the number three here. There is no corner on him. There is no safety on him, which tells us it's probably not man coverage.

19:18 And for Dak, he's thinking, oh, this is probably cover three then, which means I might have this linebacker having to carry Seedy Lamb vertical. And in that case, we can beat him kind of over the top with this bender. We run it inside the safety. We run it over the linebacker. I make a great throw. Seedy gets me the touchdown. That's what he's thinking here based on this pre-snap presentation. Is one single high safety, no DB on CeeDee Lamb. That is not what the coverage is. And this is diabolic. by Jonathan Gannon. You have Evan Williams lined up off the edge here. Evan Williams, who you shouted out, I believe in our, our quarterly report here on NFL pro for playing great football this year. So

20:01 he's lined up off the edge. There is no universe where Dak thinks this is going to be quarters coverage. How could it possibly be quarters coverage when the safety, the boundary safety, is lined up as an edge? Let alone a look where you have this safety coming over and playing with the Fangio world, Jonathan Gannon's world, calls a tricks technique where you're poaching the number three from the back side. You can look at the line that he sets himself on in the snap. He's not doing anything other than just finding cd lamb because these dbs know their pre-snap presentation is basically dangling this linebacker in front of dac saying oh don't you want this touchdown come get this touchdown and so evan williams is like

20:43 i know exactly where he's going to go with the ball so he just makes a b line on the angle where he knows he can meet cd at the ball and post snap i mean this is you couldn't tell this differently from any other quarters rep like this is just insane how quick they get into this look and dac has no idea He has no idea that Evan Williams is the backside safety in quarters. This is just insanity to have the balls to do this in the red zone. I cannot believe Jonathan Gannon did this.

21:16 But if you want to beat teams like the Cowboys with that kind of quarterback and these kind of receivers, you have to be aggressive. You have to be dangerous. You have to be risky. Like this Packers defense in the last three weeks, 42% of all drives against them have ended in turnovers. That is unbelievable. It's unbelievable. It's because they're doing this. It's all the rotation. It's all the blitzes. Like, man, the next time the Packers play the Vikings, we are going to see maybe one of the battles of the year for just insane defensive minds doing the most crackpot you've ever seen. Like, this is unbelievable, man.

21:55 I think it's a testament to the talent of having three safeties that can do everything that Xavier McKinney, Evan Williams, and also Jonathan Bullard can do. You have so much versatility. You have so much rotation potential. There's just so much that you can get to with those safeties. You talked about specifically before that breakdown, Gannon being a little bit more aggressive this year. I think one way that he's getting more aggressive is using those mugged looks with the linebackers at the line of scrimmage, you know, whether he'll send them or whether he'll drop them. I just think that creating that hesitation is something that has been to an advantage for him this year. Lions offensive line, for

22:33 as much as we kind of question the interior offensive line for them for a while, like they are playing really well, especially as of late. For the season as a whole, 32.4% pressure rate allowed. That's the 11th lowest in the NFL. And in week five, 30.3% pressure rate overall allowed. their lowest of the season. So they're really gelling.

22:49 And I think one of the reasons why is Drew Scruggs, their center, is really settling in on that starting center role, which I think is very, very important for them. And it's important for this matchup because when you're going up against mugged looks, whether it's a single mugged look, a double mugged look, whatever, your center's got to be on their P's and Q's. Your center has to have great chemistry with the rest of the offensive line. He's got to understand and have sort of a sixth sense. And also just from film study, knowing who's going to be coming from where, where the pressure could be coming from.

23:17 I will say when I kind of looked at the plays this year where they were facing those mug looks, for as much as the Lions have had much better success on the offensive line and pass blocking overall, that is an area where they've, struggled a little bit and I think that Scruggs has a little bit of limitations when it comes to range right out of the snap like right out of the gate that first step you know getting lateral left or right and I think that it's just going to really require him to have a great week of film preparation him to be communicating constantly with that offensive line because That pressure, whether it ends up manifesting or not, is going to be a big deal for a race to 30 points. Because if you

24:00 look at the Detroit Lions, 32.8 points per game this year. That's the second most in the NFL. Their average points per game in their wins, 35.7. Their average points in losses, 28.5. Come on, man. In their losses. So you know this team's going to put up points and it's just a matter of can the Packers stick with it? um on the their offense side of the ball and can they do enough to slow the lions down to instead of averaging you know five touchdowns in a game maybe closer to that four and seeing if you can squeak out a win while they still score 28.

24:33 Points i don't need the numbers i don't need the well here's where we're at at third down percentage here's what we're that's that does i don't need all that i know what that is i need to know schematically what can we improve on.

24:45 Let's talk about that uh Subject that we teased at the top of the show.

24:49 Penalties.

24:50 Okay? What's up with all of the penalties that we have this season? Offensive yards taken away from penalties here in 2026. 6,199. Shout out to the people over at NGS getting us that data. That is the most since at least the turn of the century. Since the new millennia. When we looked deeper into that, delay of game penalties are up. Because when you look at, okay, there's a lot more penalties around the NFL. You go, why? You start to get into the why. You naturally ask the question, why?

25:26 And then you want to know what penalties are higher.

25:29 Is it holding? Is it?

25:30 Is it pass interference? What is it? What was the most penalty? And we found that delay of game was up massively. 98 delay of game penalties through week six. And, Brett, if you go all the way back to 2000, the turn of the century, the new millennium, 75 in 2007 was the closest that we've had. So we've got 98.

25:51 We've got 23 more delay of game penalties than the second highest year, which is all the way back in 2007. So something is up here. And you and I kind of think that there's no way that teams are just all of a sudden bad at this, right? It's not like, oh, like something's good.

26:08 Some of them are.

26:20 We thought there's a lot of more pre-snap motion that exists in today's game than they're used to. So hey, is it we're not getting the pre-snap motion going soon enough and now all of a sudden the play clock's hitting zero and the guy in motion isn't where he is so we've got to be forced to call timeout?

26:36 A little bit of that, but does that explain 23 more penalties than the second most in a single year through week six since 2000? I don't think it does. I think it's more strategic than that. I think we've got teams that are actually using this more so than ever for a field position advantage. That's what I think it is.

27:00 I mean, if you're just looking at delay of game penalties on fourth down, so out of those 98, 51 were on fourth down. You think if it was more procedure based, it would be more on early downs, but it's fourth down. That's 17 more fourth down delay of game penalties than any other season since 2000. I think this is a direct byproduct of the change in the kicking rules. Some of you out there might be like, where the hell are you guys going with this? Just walk with me. I promise it makes sense. the average starting field position on kickoffs has dramatically moved forward since they instituted the new kickoff rules. So you got teams starting, like some of them are starting on average at like the 33 yard line on kickoffs, right? And the average

27:42 yards gained per drive across the NFL is typically around 30. So if we're starting, you know, NFL average about the 30 yard line on kickoffs, and then you add 30 yards to that, that means teams are ending up oftentimes in no man's land. where they have to make these kick versus punt versus go for it calls. And not everybody has Brandon Aubrey that can just make a 60 yarder or Cam Little or Kaimi Fairbairn that's like super accurate from distance. Some teams, it is a decision where it's like, okay, it's probably better to punt here, but also we think we have a better shot of downing it inside the 10 or the 15 or the 20 if we have a little bit more room to get the bounce that we want and then down it there.

28:26 So teams are taking these delay of game penalties, we believe, in order to intentionally put themselves back five yards so they can gain, you know, maybe 10 to 12 yards of field position on their punt coverage unit, which does add up over time, right? If we're punting, say, three times in a game and we can gain that kind of field position a couple of times, like, you know, 20 yards doesn't seem like much, but it absolutely is over the course of the season if you're getting that per game, right?

28:57 Yeah.

28:57 Absolutely.

28:58 So why not take the penalty? You can try to hard count your way into a first down, obviously, but if not, take the penalty, give your punter room to work with, and if we have a good punter, and punters are better than ever these days, we can down it super deep and then just kind of play that field position battle until eventually we break through and score.

29:15 I think it's brilliant. The question I have, Trevor, are we going to see an uptick in teams declining that to deny them that advantage?

29:24 Maybe.

29:24 Maybe.

29:25 Is that one of those penalties that you can decline? Because I feel like the process happens so quickly that it's almost just like, ah, yeah.

29:32 I think so. We'll kick him back. We'll have to double check on that. I might be just talking on his turn here.

29:37 Because that's Galaxy Brain stuff. That's, uh... That's... I know the... That's the Uno reverse card. That's the, ah, yeah, we'll just take the delay game penalty. And then the Bruce Arians gif where he's just like... What? And he like turns and is like, they declined it? And it's like, that's the manifestation.

29:55 Can you egg on a coach? Let's say it's fourth and four. If you decline the penalty, can you then egg on the coach? Like, go ahead, go for it. I dare you, go for it.

30:04 Yeah, man, that's funny. Dude, what a chess match of decisions. That is funny to think about. It's going to be interesting to monitor because as everybody who's watched this show from the very beginning of the season knows, we have proclaimed this year of the special teams. And this is once again, another brick in the house that we are building to live in very comfortably in the house of special teams here in 2026. And I think this is just a fascinating example. He says he'll get it there. Yeah, let's kick it, Shane. Let's kick it. Okay, now we got to talk about some major news that we had in the NFL. Chris Ballard, longtime general manager for the Indianapolis Colts. He is out after their loss to the

30:43 Tennessee Titans. And we've got more time another day. We can kind of dig into what to philosophically failed during his tenure when he was the general manager of the Colts. But for right now, I think the questions that everybody wants the answer to, Brad, is what's happening with this Colts roster? Are we in fire sale mode? Quentin Nelson, DeForest Buckner, Jonathan Taylor. Are these guys on the move?

31:05 Do you think that these guys could be traded? And if so, like any thoughts about value or where they could go or things like that?

31:13 If I'm reading their contracts correctly, They get cap savings of $ 15. 8 million if they trade DeForest Buckner. They get cap savings of $ 18 million if they trade Quentin Nelson. Tarverius is $ 6. 5 million in savings. Grover Stewart, a little over $ 12 million in savings. They have guys that they can trade, especially DeForest, because everybody who's trying to go on a run here could use more interior pass rush.

31:38 That's not something that any team ever has enough of. And I would say Quentin Nelson, considering how, let's call it light, your guard market is every single year. Every year, man.

31:50 Yeah.

31:51 Every year.

31:52 People would love to make a deal for him. Like if I'm the Ravens, I might actually be kind of kicking myself because I just gave up a second rounder for Cam Juergens when if I waited a couple of weeks, maybe I could have spent that on Quentin Nelson. If the Colts would even entertain that offer. But like somebody's going to at least pick up the phone. I think a bunch of teams are going to pick up the phone about Jonathan Taylor as well.

32:13 Right.

32:13 The Packers, I think, would be interested in that. The Bengals, who we'll get to in just a second, speaking of the Ravens, the Bengals who are playing the Ravens this week would be very interested in Jonathan Taylor. I mean, who who doesn't want a top six running back in the league to go on a stretch run with? Like they've got guys that they're going to like Josh Downs, I think, could be a 49er. within a couple weeks here because they're out of receivers. So I think Indy is probably open for business here, and if I'm any other team that I think I have a shot, I'm going to do what the Colts just did last year and call up a team that is on the downswing and see what I can get. I just won't do the Ballard thing of giving up two first-rounders.

32:57 I wish, and I'm sure Chargers fans agree with me, I wish the Chargers weren't this bad because... if they were anywhere close to Byers to fix things at the deadline, Quentin Nelson on this Chargers team, if you fast forward a year and your starting offensive line is Rayshon Slater, Quentin Nelson, Tyler Biotish, maybe Jake Slaughter at the other guard spot, and then Joe Alt, that's a really good starting five. So I thought about that there, but you're right.

33:31 Any team that is looking to make a run that has any sort of guard need. I think it would be interesting in Quentin Nelson, of course. DeForest Buckner, I have a team that came to mind. The Las Vegas Raiders. Ooh. I think he would be a really nice splash addition for them. And clearly, his post-game press conference, when he was at his locker room after the Titans, he's fed up.

33:55 He's pissed. He wants to be competing. And the Raiders are getting to the point where they're competing. So that's the spot that I thought of there. And then for Jonathan Taylor, that takes us into our next game that we're talking about here, the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals. And I think the Cincinnati Bengals could potentially look into this depending on how this game goes. I think if the Bengals win this game, there's a lot on the line, Brad, because when you look at the swing that this game could have in NGS playoff probability, if the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Baltimore Ravens, They jump up to a 73% chance to make the playoffs. They lose, it goes down to 48%. So close to a coin flip, but 48%.

34:36 So that's a 25% swing there. That's the highest in the AFC. If Baltimore wins this game, they go to a 69% chance to make the playoffs. And in a loss, they go down to 45%. So again, a 24% swing. That's the second highest in the AFC for games. And so when you look at the Bengals, and the reason why I talk about them as a potential trade spot for Jonathan Taylor is My big question mark that I have for the Bengals is their lack of explosiveness on the ground. For the longest time, we talked about, oh, yeah, it's Bengals' offensive line, Bengals' offensive line, it's terrible, it'll always let them down. Now I think the offensive line is pretty dang good, but they still aren't getting those explosive plays. When you look at Chase Brown and his, well,

35:15 just overall Cincinnati rush success, last year was 42.8%, 10th in the NFL. This year, rush success is 39.5%, so a couple percentage points down, but that's all the way down to 17th in the NFL. And then overall, if you go to the explosiveness in the run game, Chase Brown's explosive run rate's 8.5 this year. The NFL average is 10.3. So yeah, we could sit here and we could talk about, you know, Joe Burrow, the offensive line, the wide receivers, all that kind of stuff. To me, the Cincinnati Bengals season goes as their run game goes because that'll unlock how potent this offense can really be, especially when we get into the playoffs. And I'm just losing faith that it can be everything they need it

35:56 to be with the current guys that they have. So do they go after a player like Jonathan Taylor? And if they win against the Ravens, outside of them winning and Chase Brown's rushing for like 120 yards, obviously then they're not going to think about it. But if they struggle on the ground, yet they still beat the Ravens, I think this team could be all in. I think they could absolutely call up the Colts.

36:15 NGS has their yards before contact per attempt at 7th best in the NFL at 1.6. It's not the offensive line's problem. There you go. They're giving you a yard and a half to work with every single carry. Even if you're just average after the contact, you should be a very solid run game. They're just not. If they win this game, and their playoff probability is north of 70%, yeah, I'm putting my foot on the gas. I'm not going to give up a huge pick for Jonathan Taylor. I would start with offering a three, and if they talk me up to a two, I would maybe want something back on day three to even it out a little bit.

36:51 I'm not ready to give up a one for him. I'm certainly not going to give up a high two for him without getting something back, potential high two, that is. I don't want to overextend myself, but if I think that he's going to be the difference between a Super Bowl run or losing the division round, a second rounder is kind of a small price to pay for that.

37:08 On the Ravens side of things, this game goes as Lamar goes, right? I mean, the fact of the matter is, is it can kind of just be boiled down to that. They're just not explosive enough of an offense without Lamar Jackson out there. And when he's, obviously it's an ankle injury. So even if he's playing, you know, what percent of health is he playing at? But it seems hard to envision a script where they're able to keep up with the Cincinnati Bengals without Lamar Jackson. But if Lamar is in there, of course, I think this is going to be an excellent game as all Ravens and Bengals games seem.

37:35 Jackson looking left.

37:36 Nobody home, but he's got another receiver inside.

37:41 For the Ravens. Touchdown!

37:44 49ers-Falcons.

37:46 A game that, maybe on paper, when you look at some of these, how these teams have played through the first six weeks of the season, people go, okay, you know, who cares? But the Falcons looked like gangbusters for two weeks in the middle of the season when Michael Penix got out there. I know it's been a little up and down since, and the 49ers have I feel like, okay, yes, they are undefeated. Don't want to take anything away from them there because that is difficult to do. But was Mike Evans going out against the Commanders, the straw that broke the camel's back? Because, boy, it was tough sledding after Mike Evans went out. Was that like, okay, now this is too much for the 49ers to wear? All of a sudden, we're talking about this game being an

38:21 interesting game. Brett, where do you want to start with this one, Falcons or 49ers?

38:25 I kind of want to start with the 49ers defense against Michael Penix. I still can't figure out what he is because it feels like we get these wild swings from week to week. And, you know, he's certainly not as mobile as he used to be three knee injuries in. And I think that's maybe affected things somewhat as well.

38:45 But even just from an accuracy standpoint, a ball placement standpoint, a decision making standpoint, he'll He'll pitch a perfect game and then he will just get lit up and get pulled by the third inning. And I never know what version of Michael Penix I'm going to get, even from like half to half. I'm wishing him the best. I want him to succeed. He's still in the part of his career where he's just kind of figuring it out.

39:07 And specifically against defenses that pressure quarterbacks that are still figuring it out by bringing blitzes and speeding up their clock when they're not used to having their clock sped up that much. Like we saw what happened against Chicago where you're bringing Kyler Gordon off the edge over and over and over again. And by the way, Kyler Gordon's average getoff in that game was 0.74 seconds. There's no tackle on planet Earth that can keep up with that.

39:33 And so you're basically trusting Penix to beat the rush with a throw, knowing he's going to have pressure coming off the edge. And he couldn't do it. He got sacked three times, gave up two forced fumbles to Kyler Gordon. If the 49ers saw that tape and was like, OK, the key is quick pressure, We can bring a DB to get quick pressure and make him beat it. Is he going to be able to do that? I truly don't know the answer. If you're looking at how often the 49ers bring DBs, they only do it 8.6% of the time. That's six lowest in the NFL. But does that change because of the quarterback they're facing? Because Penix, if you're looking at him facing these DB blitzes, he's faced it at the highest rate in the NFL. So

40:10 clearly other teams are realizing that it's an issue for him speeding up his clock with these fast rushers off the edge. He has a 53.1% completion percentage against a DB Blitz that's 24th in the NFL, 5.9 yards per attempt, 18th in the NFL, negative. 52 EPA per play. That is 31st in the NFL out of 33 qualifying quarterbacks.

40:34 He's not good against that. The 49ers don't do it, but if I'm Raheem, I'm looking at that tape and just being like, there's my answer. I am bringing Malik Mustafa off the edge as much as humanly possible and dare him to beat it. And if Malik makes contact, by the way, he's going to force another fumble because he hits like a freaking freight train. So that's something I'm looking out for here.

40:55 If you go over to the 49ers offensive side of things, Mike Evans' presence on this team, I mean, it cannot be overstated how important it is. With NGS, we've got the ability to look at how the offense is when a certain player is on the field versus when they're off the field. Mike Evans, when he is on the field, 7.2 yards per play, 19.3% explosive play percentage. 55.7% success rate and a positive 0.31 EPA per play.

41:20 Really good.

41:21 When Mike Evans is off the field, 5.3 yards per play. So almost two whole yards less per play. 10.5% explosive play. So almost nine percentage in the wrong direction when it comes to explosive plays. 45.4% success rate. So again, down about 10% overall in success rate and a negative EPA per play when Mike Evans is not out there. So again, I kind of felt like the way that they were talking about Mike Evans, like, oh, he's going to be out for a couple of weeks. Now, I know Kyle Shanahan said it wasn't going to be long-term, but it felt like he was going to be out for a couple of weeks. Maybe not, because they didn't activate Christian Kirk, I believe, on Monday, which is a good sign for Evans potentially playing this week. So, obviously, we talked about

42:05 how big of a deal it is if he is out there. But specifically, I wonder if they... Just lean more into 21 personnel. When I say lean more, I'm laughing when I say that because their 34.6% is the highest 21 personnel rate in the NFL and their success rate in 21 personnel is 56.3% also the highest in the NFL. So they run it a lot and they run it a lot for a big reason because they're really good at it.

42:31 So the question becomes, if Mike Evans doesn't play in this game, do they just go old school? Do they just go, I mean, do they just get that George Kittles on the line of scrimmage, Kyle Juszczyk's in the backfield, and they just go, we're going straight north to south, baby.

42:49 We're getting downhill. Now, obviously, Kyle's going to be creative in kind of how he does it there, which Christian McCaffrey versus the Falcons linebackers in coverage I think is a major area where they can exploit. But I just, I'm fascinated to see how much they go to that 21 personnel against the Falcons, especially if Mike Evans is not out there this week.

43:09 I think Brock Birdie's building his MVP case for the following reason. 49ers wide receivers going into the year. Wide receiver one, Mike Evans, Achilles. Wide receiver two, Debo Samuel, Hamstring. Wide receiver three, Dejon Stripling, Ankle. Wide receiver four, Ricky Pearsall, PCL. Wide receiver five, Christian Kirk, Calf. Wide receiver six, Demarcus Robinson, Ankle.

43:33 And yet, this is still... arguably been the most potent offense in the NFL. That is Brock Purdy in a nutshell. He is making it work. He's making incredible throws. Obviously been a great decision maker. His mobility was clutch in the second half, you know, post Mike Evans injury, like he was able to get them out of trouble with his legs. His arm strength has just gotten so much better every single year. And that was always something people kind of dogged on him coming out of college, coming out of Iowa state was, Oh, he doesn't have a great arm. Well, the thing that people don't realize is that his quarterback coach that he worked with down in Florida in the offseason, Will Hewlett, they got an extra

44:13 10 miles per hour out of him in a single offseason between Iowa State and the Niners. So as a rookie, his arm was okay. And they've just built on that every single year, where now it's like Purdy can make any throw, plus being mobile, plus having great spatial awareness, being a great decision maker, accuracy. And when a quarterback is playing like that, I don't want to say it doesn't matter who your receivers are because clearly there's a big difference when you have Mike and when you don't, but he can still make it work. Touchdown, 49ers! That, to me, is what an MVP is. Even when you're down six receivers in a month and a half, you can still make it work, and he's doing that.

44:52 I want to wrap things up by getting into some coaches who are absolutely in their bag. We're six weeks into the NFL season, and we have already seen some incredible creativity with star players and also just rotational players. Guys that you would think you would get creative with and guys that the other team is like, whoa, wait a second, I didn't even know that guy was going to be on the field and he's doing what? I think there's a couple plays on offense and a couple plays on defense that we want to get to from throughout the league. Brett, I'll let you kick it off here.

45:20 So Jesse Minner was an assistant with the Ravens in 2018 where they did this the first time. And they went deep into Ravens lore history deep into their bag as a franchise to pull this one out. They put Josh Cuevas, a tight end, lined him up as an off-ball guard is the best way I could describe it.

45:42 Very common. You know, I'm going to add that to the scouting book, actually, when guys are an off-ball guard. He is my off-ball guard one here in this year's draft.

45:52 But like, what a creative way to run a crossing route. Like the Browns defense was like, can you do that? Because that leak, like they just let him go. And it was such an easy explosive that you could generate with Tyler Huntley. It was one of his two biggest explosives of the day. And it wasn't necessarily a difficult throw.

46:12 Like this was just pure scheme and trickery and deception. And I love seeing Declan Doyle kind of pull this out from Raven's history from God almost a decade ago to give them a big play in a big spot when they needed it. And then the second one that I have for you this week, speaking of reaching deep into their history. So Nick Haley spent time under Sean McVay with the Rams. And something that the Rams really like to do is called mesh traffic, where it's a mesh concept, but you're sneaking the running back out through the offensive line. Matt LaFleur up in Green Bay, he calls this a slither route, where you find your best release through the offensive line because you can't predict which gaps the defensive line is going to go into. So

46:55 you're just kind of reading on the fly and you find space and you attack through it. And then you also have a mesh concept that is going to be taking the eyes of the underneath defenders. And the idea here is you can do exactly what the Texans did here, where you get three Jaguars essentially diving on Jalen Knoll, while Woody Marks sneaks out through an A-gap wide open to the flat, to get 19 yards on third and two when they desperately needed it to set up a game-winning field goal. And, you know, Cayley breaking this out exactly when he needed to, going deep into his Rams history of like, okay, it's third and short. We know we're going to get man. How do we beat man reliably?

47:36 Let's call mesh traffic to our best receiving back. Absolutely love this call. Nick Cayley's been on a heater the last couple weeks. CJ Stroud also been on a heater. For all the noise there was in Houston about Nick Cayley as an OC, I think he's really stepped up recently and calls like this are a big reason why.

47:52 Herbert just had nowhere to go with that ball, wrapped it up, loses on the play.

47:57 So many incredible storylines and trends and things to follow coming out of the first six weeks of the season going into week seven. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode. Make sure you don't miss the episode that we have on Monday where we basically instantly react to everything that we're going to see in the Sunday slate in week seven.

48:14 We'll see you guys then. Thanks for listening to our week seven preview show. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.