NFL Pro Week 8 Preview

Welcome to NFL Pro's Week 8 Preview Show. Thank you for listening on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you guys get your podcasts. Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show. Week 8 is here, and this is NFL Pro. Trevor Sycamore, Brett Coleman here with you guys, previewing some of the biggest games that we have in Week 8. But because we're at where we're at in the football calendar.

We're also going to talk a.

Little bit of trade deadline destination, play a little matchmaker.

A lot of good stuff that we're going to get into, but first.

Brett, we've got to address the backdrop. Where in the world are you, my friend? You're putting me to shame right now.

Where are you?

I am right next to Newport, Rhode Island. I'm out of town this week for a wedding because not everybody schedules their weddings around football season. So we are making it work this week. We are on the road. But, I mean, I've never been in this part of the country. And I have instantly fallen in love. The food is good.

The views are beautiful. They actually have seasons out here. I'm a California kid, so anything under 70 is weird to me. So I actually get to wear a vest for once. It's great.

I know that the beanie is sort of your signature look because I've watched enough of the Brett Coleman YouTube channel.

But now, this perfect beanie weather for you.

Yeah, no, it actually makes sense.

At this part of the year, and so I'm very happy for you, my friend. Now you can wear the beanie, but actually not be sweating underneath it. So, you know, I'm very happy for you. Well, you're look-maxing the crap out of me right now, so let's just get to the analysis and hopefully... People won't focus too much on that here in this show. Bears and Seahawks, that's the first game that we're talking about. Not only is it a matchup of two of the best teams in the NFL, man, we're getting to the point of the season where there's a lot of playoff probability swings that can happen with wins and losses here. So this is a pretty high leverage game. If the Seahawks win this game, they have a 78% chance to make the playoffs.

If they lose it, it goes down to 54%, so a 24% swing. And the Bears.

If they win this game, it's all the way up to 82% chance to make the playoffs. And if they lose it, it goes down to 53, a 23% swing.

So a lot of things to dig into here on this one. Brett, where do you want to start?

When you think Seahawks and Bears for week 8 of this season, where does your mind go to first?

I think about a team that wants to run the ball versus a team that is really good at stopping the run. And the thing that's most amazing to me about the Seahawks run defense is that they do it from two high safety structures. The Seahawks, if anything, that they're known for on defense, it's how much quarters and in particular how much quarter, quarter, half or half, quarter, quarter that they play. You know, cover six plus cover eight.

And the fact that they're still able to stop the run to me speaks to how good their DBs are at tackling in space. You know, whether you want to call Nicky M and worry a DB or a linebacker at this point, you know, dealer's choice. But their actual true safeties that are lining up, you know, 10 yards plus off the line of scrimmage, they're top 10 in terms of average depth of tackle, meaning accuracy. how far past the line of scrimmage their average depth of tackle is at just 7.7 yards, which sounds like a lot, but remember, that's the average. So there's a lot of tackles that these safeties are making at 3, 4, 5 yard depth while coming from 10 to 12 yards off the deck. And when you're making that many tackles and

you're that good of a tackling team, that adds up over the course of a game to cut down on the number of second and shorts and make them second and medium, second and long, and to give yourself more advantageous third down positions as well. And so if you're looking at how this defense operates as a whole, it really starts with how they stop the run on early downs to make their late downs better. And you can't do that without good tackling safeties. Yeah, 100%.

I mean, I was going to talk about Nicky Manwari at some point. I might as well talk about him now because I went back and I watched that game. the Seahawks played against the Chiefs. And I said on game day preview, I think this is going to be a struggle for Kenneth Walker. I think that the Seahawks know him very well, and I just think that it was a game that Lent itself towards him having one of his slower, if not the slowest, day.

At the office that we've had so far this season.

Nothing again for Walker. They are shutting him down. Loss of a yard.

I think Nicky Manwari is a huge reason why.

Because when you look at the 14 carries that Kenneth Walker had in that game against the Seahawks last week, if you look at just the players that are on the field, technically it would tell you that 13 of those 14 runs. The Seahawks were in nickel. And on the other one, they were in dime. So they had all their DBs on the field. But Brett, if you actually go and watch the plays, I counted out that they played four of those 14 snaps for Kenneth Walker Runs in a base formation where Nicky Manwari was straight up an off-ball linebacker, or even three of them coming in a 5-2 formation, stacking the line of scrimmage and not letting Kenneth Walker get to the outside with those outside zone rushing concepts,

which is something that the Chicago Bears are going to want to do next.

As well.

When it comes to the Seahawks defending outside zone, they've allowed the fewest rush yards over expected. Obviously, last week was a huge boost into that as well. The fourth fewest yards per carry. The sixth fewest success rate rushing in the NFL. But when you look at the Bears in outside zone, 103 carries, that's the most in the NFL.

472 rushing yards, second most in the NFL. 13 explosive plays, most in the NFL. So it really is the unstoppable force versus the immovable object. And I think Nicky Manwari is the chess piece for that because he played in 100% of the Seahawks defensive plays last week and it's because they feel like they can spread it out and go true nickel or true dime or they can rotate into base not based on who they have out there on the field but just where they align them that's True defensive versatility. So that, of course, I agree with you, is probably the swing in this game. How the Bears fare in the run game and in outside zones specifically, and then how the Seahawks defend it.

And if you're looking at chess piece versus chess piece, this might be one of the premier matchups in terms of unique players and unique body types with unique skill sets. And Seattle, to me, is one of the few teams in the league that has somebody that can actually match up with Colston Loveland one-on-one, or... If they get caught formation-wise or with motion, and all of a sudden he's covering Luther Burden, the fact that he can cover either of those guys in space, how many DBs, linebackers, whatever you want to call them, how many of those even exist in the NFL? Four? Three, maybe? Herbert, pressure coming!

Herbert is thrown down by Eamon Worry! On the other side of this matchup, I want to talk about Sam Darnold, because... Obviously, it hasn't looked quite the same this year as it has the last two years, right? The fact that they're force-feeding JSN so much and he's such a big part of the offense, while he is a super weapon and he is having a ridiculous, historically ridiculous season, he kind of is what they have. And I think that predictability in some ways has worked against them offensively. But with Darnold specifically and his overall production not being quite what it has been in the last couple years, I want to delineate between quick throws and in-rhythm throws. If you're looking at next-gen stats, they separate out average time to

throw between 0 and 2.5 seconds, meaning it's a quick throw. And then they have in-rhythm throws, which is 2.5 to 4 seconds. And then they have extended plays, which is 4 plus seconds, which I don't know how many plays are designed to go 4 plus seconds, but generally not many. And if you're looking at Darnold in rhythm versus quick passing, his throws that are under 2.5 seconds, he has a 105.9 passer rating. His throws that are quote-unquote in rhythm drops all the way down to 68.7. And last week against Kansas City, his average time to throw was 2.45 seconds. Remember, that's average, so he had a bunch of throws faster than that. His second quickest game in his career. And if I'm looking at Seattle and how they can really

get their passing game to be more consistent, it's just calling things that get the ball out of Darnold's hands quicker. Because when it's just one decision and go, he's been a lot better this season. On the Chicago side of things, I almost want to get away from what they've been doing recently where they're kind of Brian Flores-y, putting a bunch of guys in the line of scrimmage, blitzing like crazy.

If you're blitzing like crazy, it kind of reduces the offense to one decision. I want to make Darnold have to make multiple decisions. If you're looking at Sam versus Max Blitz this year, meaning sending six-plus rushers, he is 9 of 14 for 106, 7.6 yards per attempt, three touchdowns, no picks, a 126.8 rating, and an average time to throw of 2.53 seconds. When teams rush four or fewer against him and they make him have to work deep to short, left to right, whatever it is, work through progressions, that's when there's been a lot more problems because there is less space to exploit with more coverage defenders in the back end, and you can kind of build that cage around him and compress the pocket around him, and

he's just a worse quarterback that way.

Okay, our researcher, Callie, put this together in a tab that literally just says, Absurd JSN Stats Rundown. So rather than try to weave it into specific storylines, I'm just going to feed all of this to you guys because they truly are absurd.

It leads the NFL in yards this.

Season, 867. 257 are over-expected.

That's most of the NFL. 267 of them are yards after catch. 23.3% success rate per route.

53.

54.1% total EPA.

That's the most since 2019 and the second most in the NGS era through seven weeks. Chris Godwin, shout out to the Buccaneers in 2019.

Only one who had a higher.

20 explosive receptions, most of the NFL, and he leads the NFL as an isolated receiver with 214 receiving yards. So you know how some of these receivers, okay, they'll be stacked to one side or they'll be in a bunch formation. It's, all right, I got to switch release, or I got one guy going vertical, one guy going out, and it just opens up one receiver.

No, no, no, no.

JSN's playing ethical football. He's playing ethical hoops out here where he is isolated to one side, and okay, he's.

Got a.

They just feed JSN anytime they possibly can. And for as much as they used him a ton last year, obviously, going into this year, you and I have talked about like, all right, when it's JSN and nothing else, is that really good enough? Dude, there have been certainly times already where, yeah, that's good enough. And I think that if you're the Seahawks and you know that hopefully the Cavalry's coming a little bit when it comes to the run game and guys in the backfield, you got to feel pretty good, especially if you win this game against Chicago this week.

Also, by the way, the Seahawks just traded for Quentin Nelson, which probably should mention that. They had six runs stuffed last week, four of them, specifically in the B-gap where the guards are. So if you have Quentin Nelson on one side, Gray Zabel on the other, I can't imagine they're going to have six runs stuffed again this week.

We stack plays.

There's so many examples throughout the game of, hey, we got to play, and then we stack plays, and then, oh, something happened, and then we found a play, and.

Then we stack more plays.

Yeah!

Chiefs and Broncos. Talk about the Chiefs and the Broncos. Brett, where do you want to start?

You want to start on the, we'll talk about Bo Nix eventually because I think we have to every single time that we talk about the Broncos because there's a lot of variance in what he could be depending on what opponent they're going up against. You want to start with Nix or do you want to start somewhere else with this game?

I mean, just kind of a random throwaway fact, JSN has more receiving first downs than both of these teams, entire receiving cores. So that kind of gives you context for what we're working here. Why wasn't that the absurd JSN stats? It should have been. Crazy, crazy stat. But that gives you an idea of how far ahead a JSN is from everybody else, but also where both of these receiving cores are at this year. I think for different reasons. I think the Broncos receiving core is talented.

But the passing game overall hasn't been ideal, to be diplomatic about it. And then the Chiefs receiving core, I think Patrick Mahomes is playing really well, but their receiving core isn't that talented. So as of right now, both these passing games are struggling for very different reasons. I know you said you want to get to Bo Nix later.

I feel like that kind of is the main story of this game, just because we saw what happened in week one, Bo versus Steve Spagnuolo and this defense. You're side-intercepted by the Chiefs' Mansoor Delane! He was atrocious. I don't think even Broncos fans could defend it. It was arguably his worst game of the year. And if you're looking at the Broncos against man coverage this season, which they faced a lot of in that week one matchup, he's got a completion percentage of 41.3%, which is obviously not great. EPA per dropback of negative 0.4, which is obviously also not great. Weirdly, 11.7 air yards per attempt when facing man coverage, which is the most in the NFL.

It's one of the only times he actually does stretch the field is when he faces man. It's just he's not very good at actually completing the ball down the field. And overall, if you're looking at amount of targets that he throws against man, it's still a low volume thing. Like he just doesn't throw against man that often. And I think it's because he just he's not comfortable throwing into the tight windows that are required to throw into against man coverage. 11.5% tight window throw rate, which is sixth lowest in the NFL, 50.9% open target rate, which is sixth highest, which means he's only throwing it when his receivers are open. And if you're looking at wide open target rate, he's the third highest in the NFL

at 31.2%. So His comfort zone is just targeting guys that are wide open, sitting in gaps in between zone defenders and kind of completing layups down the field, which I think factors into why his passing charts tend to look the way that they do. Whereas if you're playing a bunch of man coverage, he's really only going to throw it if it's a one-on-one down the boundary where there's only one guy he has to try to fit the ball in around. And that's just a low percentage throw to begin with.

Yeah, and that's why Nick's has been, I think, so frustrating for me in the NFL because when I was watching him at Oregon, I was like, okay, this guy can operate the offense pretty well. He can keep things on script, but then he has the athletic ability. He's got an NFL arm, and obviously we've seen what he can do with his legs as well to give you those explosives. He's just not very confident and consistent when getting to that, and I think that's just been a frustrating part that hasn't become more consistent for him because I know that the talent's there.

We just don't see it. on a regular basis from him.

On the other side of things, because this game was 31-10 when these two teams matched up in Week 1.

It really was not close.

And it was the Kenneth Walker sort of coming out party of, hey, this contract was absolutely well worth.

It for this Kansas City Chiefs team.

But, you know, when you look at the Broncos, I went back and I watched that game sort of getting ready for this preview here. And There's no other way to say it. I mean, I just think the Broncos kind of came out flat. And it's hard for me to say, well, you know, the Chiefs really took advantage of them here, here, and here. I guess when you talk about outside throws, that's an area where it might be a translatable or repeatable thing that they could still struggle with. The Chiefs had over 120 passing yards on outbreaking routes. They had over 120 passes when it comes to attacking the seam as well. And so The way that they really, really beat up on this Broncos team is in the run game. And watching that Broncos game

was one where we said, okay, we have to talk about the missed tackles in week one because of how bad it was. Because this team had a 29.5% missed tackle rate against the Chiefs in week one. That was the highest rate since week three of 2023, which.

Was also the Denver Broncos, by the way.

But it was that lack of discipline, that lack of focus, those... those missed tackles and yeah of course like it was some of those outside zone runs what which we've seen from the Chiefs but also just up the middle as well like they were just getting a ton of push up the middle when they were running power or duo or just straight up individual man blocking concepts where they were just like hey you'll become that wall and take a step forward and eventually they did and it felt like the strength of the Chiefs offensive line was just straight up better that day. They had 248 yards allowed after missed tackles. That was the most in a single game since 2018 as well. So if you're the Broncos, you got to be able to say, we took a

look at the tape against the Chiefs in week one. And even though it wasn't close on the scoreboard, we feel as though we did a lot of beating ourselves in that game. And I think that's the approach that you have to have if you're the Broncos. So it just kind of comes down to you got to be a lot more focused. You got to be a lot more disciplined. And that's really where the difference in this game has to be is it's just got to be so, so much better. And the floor has to be so much higher than what it was in week one, obviously.

As of recording this show, we're not 100% sure if Patrick Sertan's going to be playing. We're on Sertan Watch this week. So it's possible this note doesn't match up as well. When we get to game time, he obviously is going to have a massive impact on this game because he's Patrick Sertan. How could he not? And in particular, we've had this interesting trend where Kenneth Walker is running against split safety looks way more than you expect for a running back as productive as he is because teams are playing these split safety looks to stop crossing routes.

The Broncos, just as a unit, are very good against crossing routes because they have an explosive secondary. They communicate really well. And when you have Patrick Sertan, there's not really any route that's going to work against him. And Riley Moss is a high-end CB2 as well. So I'm wondering if that bread and butter of crossing routes is going to get eliminated for a second straight week because Seattle similarly is equipped to handle these crossing routes really well.

They play split safety a bunch anyway. If you take that away and if you have a better tackling performance against Kenneth Walker than what they had in week one, what is the third punch that Kansas City has? I'm still waiting to see that. They obviously didn't have it against Seattle and they got trounced, right? No snaps in the red zone that entire game. This could be a very low scoring game. I don't know if either team would really be able to crack 17 points.

Every week when you play a game, you have to hear one thing. There's a way to win each one of these games. We just got to promise ourselves we're still improving.

You mentioned how Nix has kind of struggled under pressure. Man, I think it's the complete opposite with Jared Goff, who is where I want to go with this Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings game that we're talking about next.

I think Goff is.

Underrated at this point, and this is coming from somebody who is a Jared Goff skeptic. When I've done these preseason quarterback rankings, I'd have Goff anywhere between 13 and 18, somewhere between there over the years. Can he get it done for you? Yeah, but What is Jared Goff really in that offense? How much does he really matter? This is, I think, a year where you look at this Lions offense, and yes, he's got great weapons to throw to. He has a good offensive line, but Jared Goff himself is individually, I think, bringing the most value that I've seen in a long time from him, even in really good Lions offenses that we've seen over the years, specifically when it comes to play under pressure. The thought with Goff was always, hey,

When it's on script, when he's clean, he can be a great facilitator. But when you pressure him, he really struggles. Now, he's not the best quarterback in the NFL because he's not the most mobile when it comes to playing under pressure.

But this season.

this feels like one of the better versions under pressure of Jared Goff maybe we've ever seen this season 89.3 percent passer rating that's fourth highest in the NFL this is under pressure of course 39.2% success rate. Again, top five, fourth highest in the NFL. And negative EPA per dropback, but that's kind of to be expected a lot of times that there's heavy pressure against quarterbacks because his EPA per dropback and negative 0.15.

That's still eighth best in the NFL.

So it matters, of course, for this week because he's going up against the madman that is Brian Flores. But Goff in this Lions offense has been able to at least punch back, have some answers against Flores. And I think this year it's even more intriguing because Goff, from a confidence standpoint, seems more well-equipped to take on whatever Flores is going to throw at him. So just wanted to kind of start this preview by giving Goff a shout-out here as somebody, again, who has been a skeptic of what his overall value to the offense really has been.

You go out there and you have a good performance in this game and you get a W, we're going to need to talk about Jared Goff in the MVP conversation if that's the case.

Hell, I'm already there. He's got 14 touchdowns, no picks. That's true.

Yeah, that's very true. We are already there with him, no doubt.

And the thing that I... love the most about Jared Goff is his ability to work the middle, even when he's not supposed to be able to work in the middle. You know, last week against Green Bay coming into that game, Green Bay was arguably the best defense in the league in terms of eliminating in breaking routes. He more than doubled the average yards per attempt on in breaking routes that Green Bay had allowed all season. Like that is how good he is at slicing and dicing over the middle.

whether it's dagger concepts, crossing routes, even just shallows, his ability to throw anywhere in between the numbers with absolutely no fear at any level of the defense, his ability to manipulate defenders out of the way to open up space in the middle of the field, the connection that he has with Amon Ra and Laporta and Jamison where they're just always in the right spot at the exact right time, it's almost impossible to deal with. And looking at the matchup against Flores, yes, Recently, Flores has had more success against Goff, but before last year, Detroit, under Ben Johnson, with Jared Goff as the quarterback, was the only defense that was really putting up 30 burgers against Minnesota.

And Flores has been doing this high blitz rate style for a while now. He's amped it up more this year, but it's not like he wasn't blitzing a lot before. He was number one. Now he's just number one by more. And the way that he deploys it, the coverage structures in the back end, When you're rushing five guys, most defenses, they're going to play what's called a 3-3 fire zone, three deep, three under. Flores does it differently. He's going to play a lot of quarters and cover two behind it. Specifically, if you're looking at quarters, 36.7% quarters coverage with a five-man rush. The next closest team is down at 30.6%, and the NFL average is like under 12%. So he's over triple the NFL average in terms of the amount

of quarters run with a five-man rush. Why is that? Well, most teams don't like having to stress their linebackers that much to cover stuff over the middle without having that seventh guy to work with in coverage. But when you have Blake Cashman, when you have Eric Wilson, I mean, there's only five players in the entire NFL with 100 snaps aligned. on the defensive line and 50 off of it.

There are two of them. If you include Van Ginkle, it's three. It's just he has more snaps on ball than the other guys have. But I mean, that's three guys that they're able to use as chess pieces that can be rushers or drop back and be these hook zone players over the middle. And it's a tall order. It's really, really hard to do. Cashman and Wilson are one of the only guys that are trusted that much to do it. And when you have that much space over the middle and you have a quarterback like Jared Goff that isn't really flustered by pressure like he used to be early in his career, and he knows exactly where the ball has to go, and he knows exactly the timing and the types of throws he has to make to get it there. He's one of the quarterbacks

that is uniquely equipped to have success against this. Plus, he's also seen it more than anybody else at this point. Him and Jordan Love are the two that have seen it most. but he is so, so good at working that area of the field. And the only way to really beat this defense is to work that area of the field. That's what makes this matchup so fascinating to me.

And if there is any offense this year that is going to beat this Flores defense and finally take a win off of Minnesota, it's going to be him.

And Brett, I think it's even deeper than that. We talk about Brian Flores versus, you know, other teams, quarterbacks and You know, how much he blitzes them, does that show almost like how much he respects the other quarterback? You know, again, like they blitz the Colts 85% of the time. They just straight up said, Daniel Jones will not be able to handle the blitz. We're just going to keep throwing it at you and it is going to keep working.

And that is what ended up happening.

What's interesting about Goff though, is the way that the last three years have played out from 2023 to 2025, obviously going into this year. the games they've already played. I think it shows an underlying level of respect. that Flores has for Jared Goff in this Lions offense. Because Goff was blitzed on 44.7% of the dropbacks the Lions had on their two losses to the Vikings last season after facing the blitz on 64.5% of dropbacks on their four wins against Minnesota from 2023 to 2024.

So essentially, Flores blitzed Goff more.

In 2023 and 2024, the first two years when he was facing him as the Vikings defensive coordinator, and they lost all four of those games. So instead, I think Flores went back to the drawing board and said, okay, okay, hold on here. I'm going to blitz him less. I'm just going to try to be more... calculated with when I do. So it's less of a volume thing and more of a picking his battles because he blitzed Goff less in the two games that the Vikings won against the Lions last season. But Goff was still fantastic when there was no blitz.

When there was no blitz.

Goff completed more than 80% of his passes, had 339 passing yards, 9.2 yards per attempt average, three touchdowns, no interceptions. But when he was blitzed, so again, it's less frequent, but it was more impactful because when he was blitzed, that's when the interceptions came. Zero touchdowns, two interceptions, yards per attempt went all the way down to 4.9. Completion percentage went to 44.8. So Brett, I just think this.

Is so fascinating.

Yeah, it caught him by surprise. When you're presenting eight guys in a line of scrimmage and Jared Goff knows that you're blitzing, It's not that he knows who's blitzing, right? Because the Flores defense isn't really designed around position labels, right? A safety could be a linebacker. A linebacker could be an edge. An edge can be an off-ball line. It's not about position labels. You just have to imagine X's on a chalkboard, on a whiteboard. It's about structure and a role, not about positions and matchups. And so you don't know exactly who's coming, but you know people are coming, and you know generally what the structure of the coverage is going to be because they play so much too deep.

whether it's quarters, whether it's cover two, I mean, we're talking like 50% of their blitzes are going to be a too high structure of some kind. So you know what they're going to do. You just don't know exactly who's doing what role, but you know where they're going to be. And so if you are presenting that and Goff knows that he can attack it, if you're presenting it and then you drop out a bunch, now he doesn't know when you're blitzing and when you're not. So it causes him either to slow down his clock a little bit or to misidentify something, not to mention if you add in rotation at the snap on there. And so if you're picking your spots and then actually blitz when he's been lulled into this kind of false sense

of security, that's how you get him. So if we see Brian Flores in this game have a blitz rate under 60%, it's a story. If we see him have a blitz rate under 50%, That's a major, major story, because that means he knows that the only way he can actually blitz Goff effectively is if he doesn't tell him when he's going to do it, which so far this season, he's told everybody when he's going to do it, and it's still worked. Goff might be the exception. There's news happening in the NFL. We are weeks away from a trade deadline and there's already some action.

Now listen, in two weeks when we get to the trade deadline and on the last day, maybe there's not fireworks.

I don't want to hear everybody say, oh, bummer of a trade deadline because this counts right now. The Colts getting a jump here.

Let's get into a little trade deadline talk here. We've already got two big names who have been traded. Quentin Nelson, we talked about it, is now a member of the Seattle Seahawks. DeForest Buckner coming home to the San Francisco Seahawks. 49ers as part of what feels like a Colts fire sale thing. Heck, by the time that this episode comes out, maybe Jonathan Taylor gets dealt. Maybe Josh Downs gets dealt.

I mean, it basically everybody on the roster feels available for the Indianapolis Colts. But Brad, I want to talk a little bit beyond the Colts because I think everybody's just talking about the Colts with the trade deadline, but there's 31 other teams in the NFL and there's buyers and sellers. And I want to throw out some names that maybe people aren't talking too much about, or if they are, connections that maybe just make a lot of sense.

So whose name do you want to bring to the table here? Have a little trade discussion. talk here about whether or not they could be moved at the deadline.

So the thing with high value trades for star players, you know, no fan base accepts the reality that they're, you know, their best player or one of their best players is going to get traded. But it is a reality and it happens every single season. We saw the Jets do it twice last year, trading Quinn and trading Sauce.

And hell, Sauce was recently extended and they still gave him up for multiple first round picks because at some point, a general manager's job is to acknowledge that the timelines are off kilter. And when I say the timelines, I mean, you have an age timeline for your roster. You want your best players to all be peaking at the same time in their prime. You have financial timelines. And then there's development timelines, right? And this is really more so about quarterback. Is he going to be ascending at the same time as the other star players, the core of your team, are hitting their peaks? And is our financial timeline managed well enough where we can fill in the rest of the roster around them because we have leftover money?

That's what the general manager's job is. The head coach and the players, their job is to win games and to not worry about that. The GM's job is to worry about that, and they have to think in three-year increments. You can't really think in five-year increments anymore. It has to be three because everything changes so fast.

Yeah, it's a strategy for the initial 53 cut and then as well as what we're going to look like in the middle of October and then trying to be as strong as we possibly can and as deep as we possibly can with a combination of older and younger players down the stretch.

And so teams are not intentionally trying to lose this time of year. I know some people think that they are. They're really not. Coaches are coaching for their jobs. Players are coaching for their jobs. But general managers have to make sure that their timelines all line up, which is why you see trades like Quinton to the Seahawks and DeForest Buckner and maybe Jonathan Taylor, because they realize their timelines were not lined up. They don't have a future quarterback solution. They don't have their financial ducks in a row.

That is why these fire sales happen. And so... Keeping the congruency of timelines in mind, when I look at players that can be on the move, I look at bad teams that probably need a reset, that are multiple years away, that have some players that might just not fit their current timeline in one of those three phases, if not multiple of those three phases that need to be lined up. So I look at, say, Jeff Simmons with the Titans. He's almost 30. He's almost the same age as Quentin Nelson. He still got it. He could be on the move because the Titans are just not going to be competitive by the time that he's still in his prime. So, you know, Quinton got a third because he's in the last year of his deal. Simmons,

I think, would get more because he is a longer runway of cost control and he's still, you know. Jeff Simmons and finding an elite interior rusher is hard to do.

Breaking news on GMFB is the trade deadline is less.

Than two weeks away.

The Chicago Bears are swinging big, bringing in one of the best defensive tackles in the NFL, one of the best players in the NFL. Regardless of position, Jeff Simmons, a Defensive Player of the Year candidate. Here are the terms. It is Jeff Simmons and a 5-20-28. for a first-rounder in 2027, a first-rounder in 2028, and a fourth-rounder in 2027.

The Ravens are playing the Bills, and Lamar Jackson doesn't play last week against the Cincinnati Bengals. It kind of felt like he was pretty close, and so I'm operating under the guise of, I think he's playing this week. I feel decently confident about that, just given what his status was the previous week. So with that being the case, if that's the table that we're setting here, What do you think about this game?

Where's your mind go to first with this one?

My mind goes, weirdly, not to the quarterbacks because we know both quarterbacks are great, but the Bills, when they're at their best, it's when they're able to establish the ground game to not make Josh's job easier, but more so it's so that he can be the force multiplier or rather have something that he can multiply even more, which is their dominant ground game, which then leads to their play action pass game, which then leads to their explosive rates being super high. It's all a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?

And so when the Bills' run game is at their best, it's when they're just running north-south in between the tackles. They have a monstrously large offensive line. I think I saw that Deion Dawkins is still like 340 pounds, and that's after losing 40? They're just a huge, huge offensive line. If you're looking at the concepts that they run, they get 5.4 yards per carry on man concepts, which is fourth best in the NFL. 5.4 yards per carry on duo specifically, also fourth best in the NFL. They mash people in between the tackles off these double teams because they're bigger than you are. Meanwhile, the Ravens, interestingly enough, if they're going to have a shot at stopping the Buffalo offense, it's not really about Josh Allen. It's about

making every single third down really long and forcing him to be a superhero as much as possible. We know he can, but the more he has to, the better, because sometimes you can get him into a mistake. And the Ravens run defense against these man concepts, 2.6 yards per carry allowed, fourth fewest in the NFL, and specifically against Duo, 3.2 yards per carry allowed, eighth fewest. So they are good at stopping what the Bills do in the ground game. So if they have a good chance here, to me it's not just because of Lamar, it's because they can put the Bills' offense off schedule. I am fascinated to see if they actually do it, because so far this year, nobody really has been able to.

I also want to talk about Zay Flowers and Flowers is having an unbelievable season. You know, whether Lamar has been out there or not, obviously it looks better when Lamar is out there, or I should just say the offense is more explosive when Lamar is out there. But we even saw last week in the first half of the game against the Bengals, like they were going to Zay Flowers and he was able to do his thing with Snoop Huntley out there as well. Specifically though, the NGS peeps were able to point this out. How Zay Flowers is does against linebackers is, I think, a major area where they have exploited this season and could continue to do so. 14 receptions, 224 yards on 17 targets versus linebackers. And Brett, he averages 6.1 yards per matchup

against linebackers. They are halfway to a first down if there is a linebacker on Zay Flowers. Now, when it comes to coverage roles for linebackers, Some assignments are really tough, right? Sometimes you can go back and you can look at a play and you can say, okay, technically, yes, this was the linebacker's responsibility, but you go back and you watch it and just due to the positioning and how the guys were aligned pre-snap or what the play was or what the route combination was post-snap, you go, yeah, you probably weren't stopping that one. That was just kind of a hat tip to how the offense was designed.

And Brett, all of that is really important for this matchup against the Bills. Because Bill's linebackers are currently giving up 8.6 yards per target.

That's 30th in the league.

So the Ravens very clearly want to get Zay Flowers involved.

They want to get him over the middle of the field.

They want him to get matched up against linebackers, whether he's in motion, whether another guy is in motion. However they need to make it happen, they're willing to do that. Declan Doyle is pointing out these linebackers and saying there's no way they can keep up with Flowers. I think that continues this week, and I think it's going to be a a big reason why the Ravens are going to have success against the Bills' defense if they do.

I mean, they're really going to have to lean on Flowers because I'm not sure they can lean on their run game at this point. If you're looking at the first month of the season, and really this is a multifaceted problem because this is the first year of Derrick Henry's career, shockingly, at his age where I feel like he's finally started to slow down a little bit. He doesn't quite look the same. But the offensive line in front of him, partly due to injuries, obviously, acknowledging that, Ravens fans, don't come at me, Partly due to injuries, the offensive line is not blocking as well as they did in the first part of the season. If you're looking at yards before contact per carry, weeks one through four, 3.2,

which is absurd. Like you're darn near getting four yards before he even gets touched. And, you know, Henry's a freight train. Weeks five through seven, 0.1. Teams are hitting him in the backfield way more often. the last few weeks. And it's kind of tanked their run game. You know, zone runs are their bread and butter, which has been true for Derrick Henry for darn near a decade at this point. Weeks one through four, 5.4 yards per carry, 54% success rate, 16% explosive rate on zone runs. Without that run game being a stabilizing presence, maybe part of that is because Huntley's been in there, so teams are keying on Henry. I get that too. Context, context, context. But the context isn't good. And so if you can't run

the ball here and it's just Zay, Lamar, please save us, I'm not sure that's enough to keep up with all of the ways the Bills offense can beat you. I'm deeply worried about them if they can't get the ground game going.

Yeah, I think it's already tough with the Ravens going into this one because Veggie Iwane has the sprained MCL. And to be honest with you, even though he is a rookie, The Ravens are at their best when they are running behind him. If you just look at yards before contact by gap, in the A gap between the center and the right guard, that is by far the highest area that they have at 3.4 yards before.

Contact as an average.

Vega Ioane has played both right guard and center. So that is quite literally a Vega Ioane stat. And if he is not in this game or if he is not as mobile or whatever it is, that's where they struggle. I think this team wants to run outside zone, but the yards before contact by gap showcase that, you know, everything out really from the sea gap and beyond is a struggle for this team. And there's just not a lot going on the ground. And I think that losing Vega Ioane is going to hurt them in a big way.

So maybe it does have to be Lamar and Zay, please save us.

They won't catch him! It's a touchdown for the Ravens!

Last game that we're touching on here, let's go to the Browns and the Steelers. A feisty matchup here near the top of the AFC North. Thoughts overall on these two teams here entering Week 8 as two teams above. 500 in a record and near the top of the division race here.

I mean, the leverage on this game is crazy, right? The Browns, if they win, their playoff probability is 61%, which halfway through the season, if your playoff probability is 61%, that's great. It's far better than what people expected from Cleveland early this season. If they lose, though, it goes down to 35%. So that is a 26% leverage swing, which is massive. And the Steelers are right behind them at 25%. If they win, it's 72% to go to the playoffs. If they lose, it's 48%. So huge, huge game in the AFC North. might determine ultimately who wins the division. And right now, if I'm trying to pick this game, it's about who has the better offensive line and running back combination. They are a top five offensive line,

fourth as of recording this in terms of pressure rate allowed, just 30.8%, fourth best in the NFL. And you have a running back. who has 36 missed tackles forced from scrimmage, which is fourth most, 354 yards after missed tackles from scrimmage, which is most in the NFL, and he has an EPA per touch of 0.13, which is also fourth most among running backs with at least 50 touches. So you have an offensive line that isn't letting Aaron Rodgers get hit, and they're opening up holes like crazy for Jalen Warren, and when Jalen Warren gets a hole, He's paying it off better than almost any other running back in the league.

That is an extremely difficult combination to beat. And if you're looking at the resume of a team that has that combination of a top five offensive line and pressure percentage allowed, as well as top five in EPA per designed runs from the running back, if we're looking at how far that takes you historically, these are the last few teams to even come close to that resume if not having that resume. 2025 Rams, they lost in the NFC Conference game. 2024 Bucks, lost in the wildcard. 2023 Dolphins, lost in the wildcard. 2022 Packers, no playoffs. 2021 Browns, interestingly enough, no playoffs. And then 2020 Packers, lost in the NFC Conference game. So most of those went to the playoffs, and half of them, when they got to

the playoffs, went all the way to the conference championship game. So this is a winning formula. that the Steelers have. And while they have their other issues, obviously, when you have an offensive line like that and a running back like that and a defense that's playing like they're playing recently, how many teams realistically in the AFC could beat that?

Not many.

You emphasize the Steelers offensive line, which I think was appropriate here for this game. I'm going to emphasize the Steelers on the defensive line because my goodness, I mean, when you hold the New Orleans Saints to 18 rushing yards on 17 carries. I mean, we got to pay attention. We got to go back to the film. We got to see what you're doing. And the Steelers defensive line is one of the best in the NFL. Now, are they one of the best pass rushing units in the NFL?

No, not quite.

They have the third lowest pressure rate this season at 30.9. And last week, they actually had their season low at 21.4. But defending the run, oh boy, they can defend the run. Cam Hayward, Keanu Benton, the different edge rushers that they have there, Patrick Queen, Peyton Wilson, those guys were incredible last week. Overall on the season, they have a below 40% success rate allowed on the ground versus the run at 39.4%.

They're top five in the NFL in yards before contact per attempt at just 0.8. When I say top five, I mean in a good way for the defensive line. And they're number two behind only the Kansas City Chiefs in percentage of hitting the running back at the line of scrimmage at 48.2%. This defensive line is so stout against the run. And I think that this is going to make for quite a low scoring game, which maybe lends itself to a place that the Cleveland Browns want to be in because they've had so many you know fourth quarter comebacks and last drive comebacks and so maybe that's exactly where the Browns want to be but I think that it's going to be a defensive slugfest in this game this is gonna be a throwback AFC North

type of matchup with strength on strength in the trenches you know you highlighted obviously the Steelers on the offensive side but Man, the Steelers on the defensive side, if they continue to stop the run, I mean, it's going to put more on Deshaun Watson's plate in a single game than I think they've had to do at any point in time this season. So with Rodgers really feeling it and what we saw last week with how they've been, really the last couple of weeks, with how they've been able to expand the passing game to, you know, Jeremy Bernard and DK Metcalf and Darnell Washington and all of those guys, I think this is going to be a fun one. I think that it's going to be low scoring, but I do think that this is going to be

a pretty fun matchup.

There we go.

That's all the Week 8 games that we're previewing here on the show. Obviously, we've got so many more, which we will touch on on the Reaction Show, where we touch on every single game from the Sunday slate on Monday.

Make sure you guys tune in for that.

Thanks for listening to our Week 8 preview show. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

NFL Pro Week 8 Preview

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