NFL Pro Week 5 Sunday Reaction Show | NFL is a Game of Inches... and Mistakes

Welcome to the NFL Pro Week 5 Reaction Podcast. Thank you for listening on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show. Cobb breaks a tackle. Close. Diving. Where do they mark it? Where do they put it? Football is a game of inches and also a game of seconds. Oh, my goodness. They've got to get up and spike it. They're not going to be able to get this out of time. They're not going to. And also, somehow now, a game of frames. Boy, that is tight.

I just don't know.

How do you mark that, Dean? Oh! And the kick is gone! And the Jaguars win it!

Is this the greatest reality show in the world?

It really is.

NFL.

Unbelievable.

Unbelievable. What a week for football.

Trevor, we're going to begin, obviously, with Niners-Seahawks up in Seattle. The play that everybody's talking about, one of the last plays of the game, effectively the last play of the game. Was Cooper Cup far enough inbounds for that to be considered a first down? Or rather, was the ball still inbounds as.

He crossed the marker?

That is the question that everybody's been trying to figure out. Because if you're just watching it on the broadcast, it is almost impossible to tell. Being the sicko that I am, and being that the NFL gave us access to literally 14 angles from within the stadium, all of the cameras, whether they were shown in the broadcast or not, I went on a little bit of a quest after that game was over. I found the exact frame laterally where the ball hit the first down marker. And then I looked at every angle on that frame to determine, was the ball still in bounds or not? We are talking literally the difference of a frame deciding if this game was over or not. And after looking at every single angle that I had available to me, again, 14 angles

from within the stadium, I still can't tell. And ultimately, that means that the call had to stand. If you can't definitively tell that he got the first down, And I can't. If you can't definitively tell, that call has to stand.

I'm with you. I think when I saw all those angles myself, I did not think that there was enough definitive evidence to overturn it. And I think they got it right. I think they got this call right.

And full transparency, if we found evidence they were wrong, we would have shown that to you. Like, we have no loyalties, no allegiance here. Like, yes, this is a show produced by the league. We are not afraid of saying when things were wrong. We just don't know that they were. But ultimately, this game was not determined by just that one play. There was a lot that led up to that moment that gave it the weight that it had behind it. So let's talk about everything that kind of led to that. and truly how great of a football game this really was.

Where do they put it? They say he's short! 49ers take over! Oh! So close! Yeah, Henry, when you look at Brock Purdy in this game, he was 19 for 29, 189 passing yards, had a quarterback rating of 92.5 thanks to two touchdowns and one interception. It wasn't catastrophic from him like we've seen with him against Mike McDonald in the past, but he was still stressed. He was still stressed the entire game. This was absolutely two heavyweights going at it, but I want to start out shouting out my boy Mike Evans because they said he was over the hill. They said, oh, he's moving on from Tampa.

He's just trying to get a couple of easy wins. No, no, no, no, no. Mike Evans... is still one of the better receivers that we have in the game especially when you put him in that category of I'll call it X receivers but Mike Evans does a lot of work inside the numbers now as well close to the hash marks I mean this is just where the game is going you get your big guys to be able to play in the slot Evans is so good at that. And I mean, you could just go to the first touchdown that he had where, okay, they're lined up close to the goal line.

Mike Evans, he could have very well done one of his signature, you know, fades to the back pylon and then, you know, it's a contested catch above the rim. And he kind of fakes that he's going to do that a little bit, but then he gets so clean across the face of the defender. Boom, he creates that throwing window.

Mike Evans is so good because not only does he still win physically, it's the fact that, okay, maybe he's not as fast as what he used to be. That football IQ is as sharp as it's ever been. He is aging so gracefully physically. I mean, he had a takeover drive in the second half where it was basically only Mike Evans. I think it was to start that fourth quarter. It was just unbelievable to watch. It was cool to have Brady in the booth for this game, obviously, because of the connection that him and Brady had when they were in Tampa Bay.

All these contested catches, second half of games, he's gutting it out. He's just a consummate pro, first ballot Hall of Famer. Big reason why Shanahan brought him here was to bring some of this greatness out in the other receiving core that he's got, and Evans has done that today.

You could tell Brady's just like, that's my boy. That's my boy. Mike Evans right there. Every single time that he came up with a big catch, but what a signing for the 49ers, because can you imagine where this team would be right now without Mike Evans, given all the injuries that they have, he has been just a godsend for them this season. And it's a major reason why they got the win today.

He may be an old man, but you just give him a corner. He can start beef with it's like Popeye getting his spinach. Like as soon as he turned.

Did you see him? when he turned Diggs Diggs around dude he was like wait a second hold on who are you let me look at the name play and Diggs was like wait a second and he almost like goes to slap him away just an unbelievable uh just chef kiss troll job forged forged in Tampa Bay and New Orleans from the days of Marshawn Lattimore and Mike Evans going at it and uh we need more of that we need more corner wide receiver notable rivalries in this league I think by the way uh He's reuniting with his best friend, Marshawn Lattimore, next week. So mark your calendars, folks. Evans v. Lattimore, part, I don't know, 12. Yeah, baby.

I will say, beyond Evans taking this game over, something that really stuck out to me was just how much respect the next-gen stats win probability model gave to both of these teams.

It was like they kind of.

Acknowledged that both teams were really, really good Because the sheer number of swings in the second half off of turnovers, the model was just going all over the place because of how good these two teams are. There are some teams where the better team turns it over and it moves like 5% because it's like, let's be real now, they're fine. This one, early in the third quarter, that Renato Green interception, the Niners went up to an 83% win probability just from that because they had the lead in the second half, then you get a turnover. By five minutes left, so nine minutes of game clock, five minutes left in the third quarter, on the Debo fumble, they were down to 26% win probability.

All over, man.

What, a 60% swing in nine minutes of game clock? Then you get to halfway through the fourth quarter, it's like 53-47, dead even. And then finally the Niners, you know, by that ending play with Cupps.

They win the game but the win probability model was like I don't know man it's two good teams we'll see what happens couldn't figure it out I mentioned that it wasn't Purdy's you know best game because you know nobody ever has their best game against Mike McDonald let's be honest but Purdy was pressured on 50% of his drop back so that's a tough day at the office no matter who you're going up against obviously it's their third highest rate in his career He completed 7 of 13 attempts under pressure for 72 yards. He got sacked three times, which he didn't get sacked at all through the first four weeks of the season. So they brought him down more than anybody else did because, well, nobody else did. However, after Purdy's interception, he was 10 for 11,

109 passing yards, a passing touchdown, and a 138.3 passer rating. So he definitely bounced back. But overall... Seven turnovers in this game, resulting in 38 total points between the Niners and the Seahawks. And you mentioned Renardo Green there a second ago. I want to get to him because he had two of those turnovers with two interceptions in this game.

And he is playing with so much confidence and high football IQ in Raheem Morris' defense.

Overall in this game, as a neutral fan, it was everything I wanted it to be. It's two of the three best teams in the conference just throwing haymakers at each other, turnovers all over the place, points everywhere, drama, controversy.

It was awesome.

I understand Hawks and Niners fans were stressed watching this game, but as a neutral fan, it was everything I hoped it would and could be. And I can't wait for part two. That being said, next game I want to talk about. was nothing like what I expected it to be.

And that's Eagles versus Jacksonville, crossed the pond over in London.

This was sloppy. I would say the Jags were more sloppy than the Eagles for most of the game.

A lot of penalties still from the Jags. Tons of penalties, yes.

And ultimately, the Eagles capitalized on that sloppiness from the Jags for 99% of the game.

Until the last, literally, the last two plays. They were down with eight seconds to go. But a great return by Abdullah puts Kim Little in position to kick the game winner. I just want you to know how many memes I had ready to fire at you on Twitter. Because my... 10 confidence game lost on Thursday night and your 10 confidence, it looked like I was dead in the water. And then your 10 confidence game was you picked the Jags over the Eagles. And when the Eagles kicked that field goal, oh man, the holster was ready.

I was about to just unload so many memes at you because we were going to be in the same exact spot.

At that point, we would have both lost our nine and 10 spot games at the same time. So I'm pretty sure the comments would have completely annihilated us this week.

It'll just be me. It'll just be probably, I'm just trying to get 40 points in one week. One of these times, that'd be great. Friday show is going to be must watch. YouTube television for you guys, just so you know. It's going to be bad. It's going to be real bad. But yeah, man, I mean, like, how does that happen with Philly? Like, just kick the touch back.

Like you got it. We talked about special teams. I feel like so many times already on this show and how this feels like we kind of say it tongue in cheek, but it's not. It's like the year of special teams, the top of the show where I said the margin for error is so small. It always is in the NFL, but this year it feels smaller than ever.

And if you're not winning in the little margins, including how you're handling special teams, this is the stuff that can happen.

And the thing that gets me is the return that they popped, it was the same return formation that the opening kickoff of the game, which ultimately didn't count because of penalties and you had like ejections and everything like that. That opening kickoff return for touchdown was the same return formation.

It was flipped, right?

It was a strong return to the right rather than to the left. And it's a very simple return, right? You're just double teaming the number four, you allow the number three to kind of shoot up field. The other, the opposite return man that isn't catching the ball, he then becomes a lead on the one. And you just almost kind of create this fold blocks, very similar to a running play.

And then you pop it and you got one man to beat. And that's the kicker.

Like they already gave up a touchdown doing that early this game. And the only returns that they really stopped, it was, it was like middle returns. where they got, I don't know, 15, 18 yards. But as soon as they saw that same formation, which the Jags went back to because they already popped it in the game, they're like, we need a big return.

Let's do the same thing. At that point, somebody should have raised their hand and was like, hey, we already gave up one with this exact same formation. Kick the touchback. And they just didn't. I have no idea why they didn't do it. And you know what? I think everybody's going to talk about the touchback and how they should have kicked the touchback there. This probably doesn't happen if you do it. And Sirianni talked afterwards about it being on him and everything. Brett, I'd be more upset if I was an Eagles fan about how we got there and how there was even time left on the clock.

Because if you go to the last series... and the last four downs that the Eagles had when it came to kicking the field goal. It's first and 10. Jacksonville has one timeout. Philadelphia has one timeout. And on first and 10, they throw it to the sideline. It's almost intercepted. Then, okay, it's second and 10. Four seconds ran off the clock, so there's 21 seconds left in the game. Again, Jacksonville still has a timeout. It's at Jacksonville's 34-yard line. You're already well within field goal range. They call an outbreaking route for Makai Lemon. Okay, so he catches the football. Sure, great completion. He runs out of bounds. Jacksonville doesn't have to call the timeout now. Then on third and three,

it's a run play that you kind of watch the offensive line. They're not really trying to get the first down. They're just trying to set up the field goal for the position that they want it. Then after the run play, Jacksonville takes their time out. There's 12 seconds left in the game. They kick the field goal. Now there's eight seconds left in the game. But Brett, what bothers me here is that there were still eight seconds left in the game. I know that they don't have Saquon. I know the offensive line isn't great, but what this really comes down to to me is Jalen Hurts. and the unwillingness or lack of preference that he has for throwing over the middle of the field. So Brett, if he throws that ball to Dallas Goddard, that's all you needed.

You didn't need to get to the first down mark. You should have seen the cushion, been able to take the cushion. It's over the middle of the field. You're forcing Jacksonville to then burn that timeout on second down. You're in the same situation, and then because you still have a timeout, you get to run the ball, bring it down to two seconds left, call the timeout, kick the field goal, boom, we're going home. Fish and chips for everybody. That's the in the margin stuff. And when you go back to Jalen Hurts, remember that Tennessee Titans game where they had that comeback win in week two?

Guess what most of the concepts were? Outside the numbers. Because when the back is against the wall, I feel like they go, Jalen, let's just do what you are most comfortable with. And it worked for the Titans game because they marched down the field, they scored the touchdown they needed, and they won. But even though it quote unquote worked here in this game, it didn't work as well as it could have or should have for them to win the game. And I think that that is just an observation that I've had with Hurts where even when it looks good, it's not as good as it could be because you've got to be able to take advantage over the middle of the field. And in this situation, if they would have been able to do that, Philadelphia

wins this game and not Jacksonville. It's results over process compounded over years, right?

And we actually have data on this. It's not just us saying, trust me, bro, he doesn't throw over the middle of the field. Next Gen Stats was able to create a stat for us because of all the tracking data.

They have the concept data. They have the target data. They have all that data.

So let's just create a new stat table that we can reference. And it's the percentage of a quarterback's dropbacks that feature an intermediate in-breaking route over the middle of the field. And then we compare that to the percentage of those routes that they're actually targeting. If you look at Jalen last year, different OC, different personnel, 41% of his dropbacks featured an intermediate inbreaker, which was the fourth lowest rate in the NFL. So part of it, okay, was on the structure of the offense. And yet, when they did have an intermediate inbreaker, he only threw it 17% of the time, which was the 10th lowest rate. So it was kind of both in that regard. Now, 49% of his dropbacks feature an intermediate and breaking route.

That's 15th lowest, so let's just call it dead average in the league, right? He's still throwing it at a 16% rate. That's 8th lowest.

He's actually throwing it less this year, even with an offense that's calling it more. So, like, this isn't just us talking out of our a * *.

He's not... throwing it. We don't know why. He's never done it.

If you go back to 2020, when he came into the league, he has the lowest rate of targeting the middle of the field at all, whether it's deep, intermediate, short. He does it 18% of the time since 2020. He doesn't throw over the middle, and defenses know that. They call coverages specifically to play the sidelines because they know he doesn't like to do it. Whether it's been Kevin Petullo at OC, or Sean Manning, or Kellen Moore, whoever, Every single year, it feels like the Eagles offense kind of devolves into this. And I feel like at some point, the only thing linking all of.

These years together is the quarterback, not the OC. Yeah. And I mean, this is two weeks in a row now for the Eagles because they've blown having a 94% or higher win probability in the fourth quarter and haven't been able to come away with the win. And look, I know that people are probably tired of, Oh, Jalen Hurst doesn't throw her the middle. It's all anybody talks about, but Hopefully this was a tangible way that we could point out to you guys that where what Jalen Hurts does works, when you don't unlock the middle of the field, these are the things that can happen. Any thoughts on this game from any other big player performances? I mean, another great Parker Washington day. Jalen Carter was unbelievable in

this game, but we got a lot of other player performances. So any thoughts on those guys before we move on to some other games? So Parker Washington apparently was offered $ 25 million a year this offseason, turned it down, bet on himself, and.

That bet is paying off. Six catches, buck 24, two touchdowns. His late touchdown, the completion probability on that was 21.7%, and he pulled it in. He is the number one in Jacksonville, and I think he's going to get paid like a number one receiver this offseason, whether it's in Jacksonville or elsewhere. But if I'm the Jags, how could I let him go? With what he does for Trevor.

Other Trevor. Long hair Trevor. You can't. And me. I mean, he's on a couple of my fantasy teams. What do you mean? And for me. And for me. Let's talk about the Patriots and the Raiders next. Patriots win this game 45-17. I'm not really too worried about this from a Raiders perspective. You and I have talked about how we are excited for this team, but they're not quite there yet. And we've talked about and mentioned how, okay, yeah, big-time struggles for Drake May early on in the season.

Big-time bounce-back performance here for Drake May. 26-34, 374 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions, and also had a rushing touchdown as well. Brett, what really stands out to me in this game was... Two things, and it's two sides of, I think, the same coin that we're having this conversation. How Drake May continues to look when you present him with press coverage opportunities where he could take advantage of close coverage and just bet on his guys one-on-one, mainly to the outside the numbers and sideline parts of the field, because in this game, most of May's passing production came against press coverage. 118 of his 374 yards came when targeting pressed receivers, and the Raiders played it a lot.

And so that was my big takeaway is I kind of looked at the Raiders' defense game plan and I went, why? Like, you look at how May struggled early on in the year. It was that cover six look. It was softer coverage. It was deeper zone coverage where he'd have to really think about who. I mean, if you're one-on-one in press coverage, Drake May does that in sleep. We talked about this last week. He didn't get a ton of man coverage last week. He didn't get a ton of press coverage looks, but when he did, guess what? He took advantage of it.

It's a big reason why they won that game last week. And I'm just very confused as why the Raiders decided to go with that type of game plan, given how good Drake May is when you are in press coverage. So That was a big surprise to me, but kudos to Drake May. When you give him the chance to bet on his receivers, he's going to do it, and history tells us he's going to do it pretty well.

And to me, I think the press-heavy nature of this defense, no matter what the coverage call was, was in response to all of the chips that the Patriots were doing. Even before Will got injured, there was a really high chip rate against these Raiders' edges by the Patriots because they were trying to buy time for Drake to stretch the field. And so the Raiders were like, all right, if you're disrupting us and buying time, we're going to disrupt you and buy time back, like literally on the edges of the field, right, against the receivers.

The thing is, though, you have to actually be able to disrupt these receivers and keep them from winning vertically down the field. Because if you don't, and Drake is kept clean because these Rangers edges are getting chipped, and so he has a clean pocket, he's just going to put the ball wherever he wants to deep and outside the numbers. We saw that in the Kyle Williams touchdown.

which while it did look like it was against man coverage, it was a quarters look. He had three touchdowns against quarters today. It was like seven for eight for 117 and three tuts just against quarters because of the nature of that man to man on the outside. He eats this.

Coverage alive because it's just one-on-one, right? So the fact that the Raiders even gave him that opportunity to me was a mistake. And I think the fact that they responded to those chips with trying to disrupt these receivers in their own right That's a mistake against this particular quarterback and these particular receivers. They did not play them correctly and they got lit up as a result.

100%. And sort of like I said at the beginning, I think that this is more of a compliment to what the Patriots were able to do. And I don't really see the Raiders in too different of a light. Although an interesting note here for the Raiders is Fernando Mendoza did get in the game in this one because the score was so different. He was six for eight.

48 passing yards. Garbage time, obviously. But we're actually going to do a little video short later. We'll break down. It's limited action for Fernando Mendoza, so we didn't want to do a full breakdown here on the show. But we'll have something later coming up on the channel so you guys can watch out for that. Because it is exciting that Fernando Mendoza got into the game for the first time. Another note before we button up this game here.

May had six players who caught at least three passes. And that's the sign of a confident quarterback. That's a sign of somebody who is confident about wherever he's going to throw the football. And I think you feel that confident because you feel that confident against what the defense is presenting you against your receiver. So let's move on to the next game. The Green Bay Packers, man, speaking of games that had a difference on the scoreboard, 31-7 here with the Chicago Bears. I think the main storyline is Jordan Love and how good he looked in this game.

You want to talk about, we just talked about when May is feeling confident in what he is seeing. Jordan Love is always as confident as he possibly can be when he is that fadeaway deep ball passer. And in this game, he could not have been more than that in the best way. Completed six of eight passes of 20 or more air yards for a career high. 258 yards on those deep passes. Two touchdowns. That's also the most deep completions of 20 or more air yards of any quarterback this season in a single game, and it's a career high in a single game for Jordan Love as well. Only Russell Wilson, who had 264 yards in Week 2 of 2025, had more deep passing yards in a single game in the NGS era. So all that to say, Brad, as I said on Twitter, there's always

ammo in the rocket launcher when you're Jordan Love. It doesn't matter what the game script is. It doesn't matter whether you're up, down, by 30, by 40, by 1, by 2, rain, sleet, shine. He'd be playing on Antarctica. It doesn't matter. If there's a deep pass to be had, Jordan Love is going to throw it. And again, I think that you get the results that you have today when he is playing that confidently because that's how Jordan Love wants to play the game. Yeah, just a casual 32 yards per attempt on deep passes in this game. Incredible.

Just incredible.

I mean, it helps when you have Christian Watson and Matthew Golden.

And Matthew Golden, I think, has actually been kind of underappreciated this season. It feels like every time I.

Watch a Packers game, he's doing something cool. Also, side note before we move on. The entire NFC North after this game is above 500. You have three teams that are 3-2, and you have one team that's 5-0. So we thought this division was going to be really good before the season. They're definitely really good as a whole.

They're not good in the ways that we thought they were. They would be, but the record is the record, I guess. It's definitely wacky. Technically, the Bears are last in the NFC North right now.

Which, by the way, I'm not worried about the Bears at all, really. I know they got killed in this game. It wasn't pretty. To me, it was a really bad day for their safeties. We already kind of knew the defense was going to be not one of the better defenses in the NFL, if I do say so so politely. But they've been better than I thought that they would as a unit for the majority of the first quarter of this season. This is just a really bad day, I think, for all deep coverage. Again, specifically, I don't think the safeties had a really good day for them.

And Jordan Love picked them apart. So to me, it was kind of a perfect storm of what went wrong in Chicago. I'm not worried about this team long term. By the way, most passing yards by a Packers quarterback versus the Bears specifically at Lambeau Field, Jordan Love. 367 yards on Sunday. Number one on the list. Had a Brett Favre, had Aaron Rodgers, had a Lynn Dickey, who had 345 in 1983. Let's go. May we never forget. Actually, unfortunately, we might forget it now because Jordan Love's now at the top of that list. I'm shocked that Aaron never did that in all those years at Lambeau. Aaron had 341, so he had a lot in 2021. Okay, he's close.

Before we move on from this game, I want to give one more note about a Packers receiver destroying the Bears. This is the first time a Packers receiver has got multiple 40-plus yard touchdowns in a single game since Jordy Nelson, was it 12 years ago, also conveniently against the Bears. This was a pretty significant performance by Christian Watson. He's also the only player in the NFL to have multiple 140-plus yard games with multiple touchdowns. So he is on an absolute tear right now. One of the most productive players in any position in the NFL in this young season.

Speaking of receivers, by the way.

Yes.

We should talk about Marvin Harrison Jr.

Getting traded. It broke right after the Titans game was over. Yes.

All right.

We traded for Marvin Harrison. See ya. So the whole all-in or all-out in the season hinged on beating the Titans, right? Yeah, basically. That's how we follow the team. If they would have lost to the Titans and it would have been 0-5, this trade doesn't happen. But because they beat the Titans, which I think is kind of funny because the Jags are now 4-1, the Texans are 1-4. The chances of winning the division are extremely slim for them. So you're now all in just to make the wild card. They feel because they still have two games against the Jags, they can steal that margin back from them. They hold their own destiny. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

That's how they look at it, right? And just last year, they were 0-3 to start and.

Still made the playoffs with 12 wins.

So they know they can go on a run here. I think they won like nine straight at one point last year. I mean, for them, the key thing is, hey, our quarterback is playing really well.

Right, right. Yeah. So why don't we lean into that? I just thought it was funny that the Titans game specifically was the we're all in or we're all out after this game. Well, I think it's if you lose to Tennessee this year. No, it's true. We're just bad.

Yeah, yeah.

Which, by the way, man, I mean, Tennessee, I think we'll have a much longer conversation about the Titans when we start to talk about teams there, maybe turn to the page and we're looking at the offseason because I think that's sort of where we're at with the Titans. But for the Texans, they get... I'll call it an easy win. It's an easy win. And then after the game, they trade for Marvin Harrison Jr. Now, the compensation for this trade, a 2027 7th round pick comes with Marvin Harrison Jr. So Marvin Harrison in a 2027 7th round pick going to the Houston Texans and going to the Arizona Cardinals is a 2nd round pick this upcoming draft and then a 6th round pick. So a late round pick swap, but mainly... you are looking at a second-round

pick type of value for Marvin Harrison, who's obviously pick number four overall. So that's not a great return on investment for the Cardinals specifically, but he was getting outplayed, and he has been getting outplayed basically since he got there. So overall, your thoughts on the trade and your thoughts on the fit here with the Houston Texans.

I don't think this trade happens if Jaden Higgins doesn't get hurt before the season starts.

I'm with you, which is why I'm a little... I'm a little skeptical of the overall value of a second round pick here because I look, Higgins got hurt. I get it. He tore his ACL. It's nothing that's light, but man, I feel like we're, I feel like we're seeing players all across the league over the last two or three years, not just come back from ACL injuries, but like come back and play really, really well just because of how things are with surgeries and rehab and, everything.

So I was a little shocked at them giving up a second round pick for Marvin Harrison Jr. knowing that a year from now, you kind of now just have two players who play the exact same position, but I suppose they really didn't want Nico Collins playing the X at all. So Maybe more X receivers, the better in this offense, potentially? Not that Nico can't play the X. Obviously, he can play the X.

When Nico is on the ball, he has a yards per route run of 2.2, which is very solid.

The thing is, when Nico's off the ball... And you give him.

Space to work, especially because he is a big, strong receiver. Like if he's not disrupted and he just gets rolling, he overwhelms corners. Nico's at a Z spot or in the slot. If he's off the ball, his yards per route run goes from 2.2 to 4.1.

Which is ridiculous.

But you kind of have to put him on the ball if you don't have anybody else that you feel comfortable with being an X receiver.

And Marvin Harrison Jr.

while he hasn't reached the potential that we thought he could coming out of Ohio State, When he's on the ball, he's at 1.9 yards per route run. When he's off the ball, he's at 0.9 yards per route run, which is a not good number at all. So Marvin really does thrive being on the ball. And so you just kind of park him there at X and you have Nico be, you know, the queen on the chessboard that can move all over the place. Xavier Hutchinson can still contribute.

Obviously Jalen Knoll can still contribute, but I think they needed to get that X receiver. And as for the compensation, uh, if they lost to Tennessee and they go at 0-5 and they don't make the playoffs, I think Casario and D'Amico are thinking, would we even be around to use those picks anyway?

Right? Not to say that they're on the hot seat, but you can get on the hot seat pretty quick here. I hear what you're saying. Look, I'm more skeptical of this, and maybe I shouldn't have this much faith of a guy coming off of an ACL tear, but I thought Jaden Higgins looked good. I thought he was progressing. Certainly before he got hurt, I was really excited about Jaden Higgins this season. And Brett, Jaden Higgins is a better athlete than Marvin Harris Jr. is. I know neither of them are super great separators, but you look at Jaden Higgins and just his overall combine profile here. 60th and 65th percentile when it came to 40-yard dash and 10-yard split, but then vertical jump. I mean, 85th percentile vertical jump,

85th percentile broad jump. This is an explosive athlete. So if you're going to say, hey, we want somebody on the line of scrimmage to be our X receiver who's going to be our vertical player to free up Nico Collins, I tell you, Jaden Higgins does that better than Marvin Harrison Jr. At least right now. You're not wrong.

But I think the Texans know better than most other teams that you can go from a really deep receiving core to having absolutely nobody really quickly.

I think of a year from now, it's Nico Collins, it's Jaden Higgins, it's Jalen Knoll playing the slot, and then you get to draft another receiver, as every team does every single year because wide receiver is so deep coming out of college. So I'm a little bit more skeptical about it, but I will say this. If you're just going to be a contested catch receiver, which... I kind of think that Marvin Harrison Jr. is just a contested catch receiver in the NFL. You might as well be a contested catch receiver with a quarterback that you have good chemistry with because that's the only way that works.

And Harrison has chemistry with C.J. Stroud going back to that 2022 season when they were playing together when Harrison Jr. was a sophomore and C.J. was a junior, I believe.

So.

I suppose that's the catalyst for it as well, is that you're hoping that you're unlocking that chemistry that they had.

In the last 15 to 17 years, there's only been three top five overall draft picks that have been traded in their first three seasons.

And they were Aaron Curry, Trent Richardson, and Trey Lance. So hopefully it doesn't end up like that. And look, Arizona was very... very willing to give up on him because you have Trey McBride and you have Michael Wilson, right? And like, I think they wanted Marvin Harrison Jr. to be a lot more than a contested catch player because they have the contested catch player in Trey McBride. But man, when this trade happened, I went back and I watched some Ohio State stuff back from 2022. Some of the highlights just from CJ and Marvin Harrison Jr. It's kind of crazy how much more talented that Ohio State team is than basically everybody that they played against. I'm skeptical of them giving up the second round pick, but hey,

you're one in four. CJ is playing better. You hope that your defense bounces back. And obviously they're just hoping that this isn't a wasted year. So you pay a little bit of a premium for this to not be more of a wasted year. But I don't know, maybe I'm just too much of a Jaden Higgins fan to let this sit well with me.

I will say a lot of people on the internet have said, this is why we don't give the generational label.

To prospects, because we don't know until they get to the NFL. You're correct.

But that being said, there is an actual generational receiver coming out.

Of Ohio State this year. We talk about him a lot in the spring.

Even watching Marvin Jr. 's tape at Ohio State compared to Jeremiah Smith.

Let's go back to some top performances that we had this week, highlighting some of these games. The Pittsburgh Steelers got a victory over the Indianapolis Colts, 34-22 in this game. The star, look, I know when we talk about the Steelers, sometimes we're talking about the defensive line, we're talking about Aaron Rodgers, we're talking about all kinds of stuff. Dude, Jalen Warren is a story this season. How well he is playing, and specifically in this game, how fantastic he was.

15 carries, 101 rushing yards, one touchdown, 50 yards over expected. And he also ran 24 routes, 6 targets, 6 catches, 87 receiving yards, and a touchdown in there as well. Dude, I love Jalen Warren's style of play because when you go watch some of the big plays from him in this game, Brett, there's inside zone. There's man and gap scheme blocking concepts. There's some outside zone. There's swing passes.

There's routes he's running out of the backfield. He does it all. And the reason why is because he's a high IQ football player. He's got great vision, fantastic contact balance, light on his feet. His 59 rushing yards after missed tackles this week are second only to Bucky Irving. And everybody watched the Thursday Night Football game where Bucky had that insane run where it was a forced missed tackle and then a cutback and then he's just off to the races. So outside of that Bucky Irving run, Jalen Warren did it better than anybody that wasn't named Bucky Irving this week. And so had to give him his flowers with how the Steelers were able to get a win over the Colts and him being a big reason why.

And he's been like that all year, right? Even coming into this week, he was among the league leaders in terms of missed tackles forced. as well as yardage after missed tackles.

He and Kenneth Walker were pretty close to each other in that metric, and Kenneth has been obviously incredible this year as well. Warren, fun fact, became the first player with an 80-yard receiving touchdown and a 50-yard rushing touchdown in the same game since Herschel Walker versus the Eagles last year. In 1986.

Because they still have two games against the Jags, they can steal that margin back from them. They hold their own destiny. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

That's how they look at it, right? And just last year, so we are talking 40 years since a player's done that for any team against anyone.

That's awesome. It's just a ridiculous, ridiculous performance. He's been awesome this year. He led the team in rushing and receiving. He led the team in rushing and receiving today. That's amazing. He's incredible. He's incredible. And that's what's really hard. I think one of the underrated races this year is All-Pro for running back. Who do you pick? Bijan's going off this year. Kenneth Walker's been going off. Jalen Warren. I mean, the running backs across the league are just putting on a show. I can't pick one. Yeah, man. You didn't even mention Gibbs, did you? You didn't even mention Jameer Gibbs.

And Jameer Gibbs, he went nuclear in his game as well. I mean, when you go to this Lions game against the Cardinals, it wasn't very close. It was 45 to 21. But Gibbs, again, man, 25 carries, 151 rushing yards, two touchdowns, 6.0 yards per carry average, almost 50 rushing yards over expected from him as well. Gibbs, six targets, five receptions, 56 receiving yards. It just feels like every single time the ball is in his hand, you just, you have to stop what you're doing. Because you might be about to watch something extremely special in this game. And he has also been unbelievable. And it's the reason why Detroit's offense is what it is. Detroit's offense has to pick up their defense for any game that they want to

win this season. But, oh boy, they're thankful that they have Jameer Gibbs to be able to do that. Don't tell Kelvin Shepard that. Look, man, I just read the stats. Yeah, that's all I'm doing. I'm here on this show. Anything that you put on that teleprompter, Sycamore will read when it comes to the stats and how teams are doing this season. That's all it is there. Minnesota, 5-0. Kyler, finally looking good this season. Yeah, he's... He's so deadly with his legs.

And he's always been that kind of guy when he's in space where he just, somebody put it today, I can't remember who, that he just exhausts defenses because he's so hard to kind of hem in when he's in space. And he just makes you cut over and over and over again to keep up with his quickness. And he wears people out. That's how he gets a lot of his rushing yards. It's not breaking tackles. It's not running over people. He just tires you out with his shiftiness.

And especially in third and long situations or in high leverage situations, he has this knack for just getting the exact amount of yardage that he needs. I do wish as a passer we could get him to throw over the middle more going into this week.

The Vikings.

had the fourth highest rate of intermediate middle routes. As far as the percentage of his dropbacks, uh, fourth highest rate featuring an intermediate middle route. And yet he's thrown them at the lowest rate in the NFL. So that's still a thing, right? That was a problem in Arizona. We always talked about it and it's still a problem in Minnesota. They're trying to get him to throw over the middle and he's just not doing it. But if all else fails, if you still have that mobility in your back pocket, it's a, pretty good back pocket card to have.

I think that what I was impressed with him today against the Saints was the way that he was going through progressions. I felt as though he was willing to hold on to the ball and where Kyler will scramble and, you know, he's not the tallest quarterback in the NFL. So sometimes he's got to get on motion to make sure that he can see everything that's going on in front of him, including the middle of the field. But He's able to go through those progressions, and I didn't feel like he was panicking while doing so, and that's why I felt like it was a really good performance for him. I think he is settling in to where his receivers are going to be, the timing of that, and it was always going to take a little bit

of a time, but it's good to see he is getting better and that Week 5 was the best performance, I think, of his season there for the Vikings. I know we've done this every single week. We should talk about Justin Herbert.

Again and just how sloppy this has looked. The fumbles were a problem once more. The inaccuracy, the decision-making.

Dude, the interception in the second half, I mean, again, it's... He's staring at the defender. I don't know what to do, man. I don't either. It's bad. I don't know who this is. I know. But we're five weeks into the season, and it still looks like this. I don't... Are they going to blow it up?

I don't... Yeah.

I don't even know at this point, because... If there was a generational quarterback type of a prospect, if there was a Trevor Lawrence, if there was an Andrew Luck, if there was somebody like that who you were guaranteed at number one overall, The Chargers are 0-5, and it still looks ugly for this team, and they're extremely beat up by injuries. The offensive line, they tried it out there.

I love that the young guys are getting experience, but my goodness, that's not a recipe to win football games. Herbert's been pressured on 43.8% of his dropbacks this season, second highest rate among qualified quarterbacks, and above his previous career high, which was 41.2% last season. So we already talked about all the different combinations of offensive lines that the Chargers have had, and that part of it's not getting any easier for Justin Herbert. But he's also making it hard. It's almost like Herbert, I don't want to say he's giving up, because that's not fair and that's not the words that I want to use. But it's almost like you could tell he's worn down. He's worn down of either playing in the offense that he was

playing in last year, the pressure that he was getting. This year, it's no different. Now they're sitting here at 0-5. The vibes couldn't be worse. And again, going back to... If Arch Manning kind of had become the prospect that we thought that he was going to become, which he absolutely has not yet, maybe you'd think about blowing the whole thing up. I still... I don't think they're going to do it. I don't think they're going to do it.

We have such a large sample size of Justin Herbert being great. I'm not ready to ditch it after five games.

I'm not either, because I... I want to be very clear, because I saw people talking about this on social media. Justin Herbert, right now, full contract, full context, everything. Justin Herbert's QB1 in this class. Not even close. Not even close. Justin Herbert's QB1 in this class. I guess we can talk about Mestemaker when we get there, because he's put some good stuff on. And Mestemaker's great. I don't think it's close. Justin Herbert, I would still take him. Yeah, I'm not saying that I would take him. Over any quarterback in this class. Yeah, I'm not saying that Mestemaker would...

make me move off Justin Herbert. I'm just saying in this class, like that might be the best you're going to get is him. Maybe. Right.

And so I'm still not moving off Justin Herbert, but I guess the question I want to ask is, is anyone else in the building safe?

Literally anybody else? No, not right now. Certainly you got a lot of season left to go, but right now, no, no, I don't think anybody's safe in that building.

Also just to kind of preempt the Broncos fans in the chat who I know are vigorously typing right now.

You can't just talk about one team here. Talk about the team that won. I agree. The defense was amazing. They were very good in this game. Yes.

Ten pressures in the second half, four sacks in the second half. We have talked over and over and over again about how this Broncos defense, when you get after halftime, they just turn into a completely.

New nightmare for opposing offense. They're great at adjustments. Oh, my God. We talked earlier in the year about how some fans like to be like, where were the adjustments in the second half? And a lot of times it's not really a thing. You maybe go about executing a game plan a little bit differently, but a lot of times you can go into a week and it's kind of like, hey, this is how we saw this team.

This is how we're going to match up against this team. We got to execute it a little bit better. But the Broncos... It kind of feels like they have that good of a defense and that good of a defense coordinator to be able to do it. That's what they did to Trevor Lawrence in Week 2. They switched up and they're like, all right, fine, we're going to play more aggressive. You're killing us against zone, guess what we're going to do? We're going to play way more man in the second half. And it worked.

All right, a few more games we want to touch on before we get out of here. Have to start with the Jets beating the Browns in dramatic fashion. This game had a little bit of everything. You had Garrett Wilson... dominating early. He had like 70 yards on their first drive, you know, great broken tackle for a touchdown. But after that, really, this was the David Bailey game. I think it was the David Bailey game that everybody's been kind of waiting for.

Nine pressures, including five quick pressures, three sacks in this game on 28 rushes, which was a 32.1% pressure rate. He even got a sack on a power move, which we weren't sure if he.

Had that in his bag. coming into the league, because he was really more of a speed guy. First, I want to ask you, as our resident draft guru, where were you at on Bailey pre-draft, and did you think he had this in him? So I had Bailey as a top 20 player like everybody did, but I was a little bit lower on him because when I watched him at Texas Tech, his first step exposed to this is unbelievable, and I think that's one of the most important traits for an edge rusher. But I felt like he was kind of Only that when he was in college and it was so good that it just kind of feasted on a lot of the bad offensive tackles that he went up against in college. So this is a diverse game for him. And I think that this

was his best game from what I saw. This was David Bailey's best game. Because what he needs to do is, of course, convert that first step into power to round out his game a little bit more. And I felt like this was, there were some stats that people pointed to with him through the first four weeks of the season where I was like, hmm, kind of lying to you a little bit there. But this game, I think, was the most legit game from David Bailey so far in his career. Bengals, Dolphins. Dolphins have obviously started a ton of rookies recently. so far this year.

I would say with fairly positive results, all things considered. But they are still a work in progress.

Very much so a work in progress.

And sometimes you run into Joe Burrow having a Joe Burrow kind of day.

Four touchdowns from him.

This game, I think, it was closer on paper than it was when I was actually watching it.

But I still, every single week, I see glimpses. I see glimpses of what the Dolphins are building towards. I just acknowledge... They're probably not going to win a lot of games, but they will be good TV, I guess is the best way that I'll describe it.

They're not going to get blown out a lot because they do have a bunch of young, exciting talent, but they're probably a year away.

From being a year away. Yeah, the Bengals never dipped below 75% of a win probability from NGS in this game. Malik Willis just is not consistent enough. I think that there are moments, again, where you can see things from the Dolphins, but This is such a young team. They're playing so many rookies, and Malik just doesn't have that consistency yet. It's hard to really see them beating teams of the Bengals' caliber. But on the Bengals' side of things, for as much as it is like, hey, let's play as the Bengals, big game, big game on offense, I'm still kind of worried overall about this run game because where Samadji Pirine had 14 carries, 68 yards, 4.9 yards per carry average, Chase Brown, who they would like to

be their bell cow back, 13 carries, 39 rushing yards, 3.0 yards per carry average. And we're coming off of a week where they really struggled to get anything going on the ground at all. And even for a quarterback like Joe Burrow, with the receivers that he has at his disposal, you can't be so one-dimensional in this league and beat really good football teams. And so I'm still worried about that Bengals- run game a little bit moving forward.

Somehow we've gone this entire show without talking about it, so we might as well do it now.

Commander's Giants, that ending sequence, there's no excuse. There's absolutely no excuse. I know Dan Quinn took responsibility, and Jaden took responsibility in his way, even though in the presser he did say, yeah, it starts.

From the top down, but ultimately it's on me. I would have just said the second part of that sentence. Ultimately, it is on you.

Whether you get told over the headset, hey, let's spike this or hey, let's throw a quick completion.

Whether they tell you to do it or not over the headset, you should just know to do it. Like move on with the ball. So I, I, yeah, I don't like that answer in the presser either way. It was bad. It was just bad. I don't know how much speculating that I want to do over words that weren't actually said, but it does seem like a situation where I think Dan Quinn wanted Jaden to be a little bit more aware of the situation. And I think that Jaden was like, man, I'm trying to think of a million things. How do you not just like say that to me amongst the other things that you're saying here?

And I think that it really, it did seem like there was a little bit of, okay, yes, the majority of the time they were trying to take responsibility for it. And they were like, no, no, no, it's on me. But they both let a little bit, like Jaden said the thing about, yeah, it's a top down. And then Dan Quinn was answering a question And Dan Quinn was basically like, yeah, ball's got to come out. It's got to be a spike or it's got to be out.

And he said it very confidently. And I don't know, again, I don't want to, I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth, but it was a situation where however we get there, it has to be better executed. And I, and I think that both of those guys are right when they do say it's on me. Cause I think that both of them obviously could have handled it better to not end that game the way that it is.

Cause that's, that's pretty inexcusable that Washington didn't at least get a field goal off to try to win that game. Where does the buck stop, though, in that situation? Does it stop with the coach or does it stop with the quarterback? If you ask me, I think it stops with the quarterback. I would say so, too, because you're on the field. You got the ball. I think the quarterback's got to understand. I was a little surprised at how lackadaisical it felt with them, the way that they were taking all the time off the clock. I don't want to be hypocritical here because I talked about, you know, Philly needed to do a better job of that, but They had a little bit more control there. I wonder if Jaden, in his head, just the way that they

were operating things, thought they still had a timeout, but even if he thought that, I think that he did as well, and I think that even with that context, you have to say, dude, you have to know that you don't have a timeout there. You are the quarterback. You have the ball in your hand. I think, ultimately, he has to know what to do with the football.

I know he's young.

I do, but These are the kind of situations that you look back on at the end of the season, and if you're a game away from missing the playoffs, or in this case, a half game away from missing the playoffs, and you think back to just the tiniest little thing, like either remembering that we don't have a timeout or just remembering to spike the ball, if we go an entire season, and that's the difference between making the playoffs and not, I would just be sick to my stomach.

And obviously we're recording the show before Monday Night Football. And we got Rams-Bills on Monday Night Football. Huge game in primetime here. Brett, any overall thoughts on that game before it happens? I've said it before. I'll say it again. This is a game where we are going to see some astonishing throws. Truly astonishing throws. And also the dumbest turnover of the year. Book it. Guarantee it. We are going to see... An abomination of an interception. Did we see enough already this week in week five? Haven't we seen enough turnovers? You know it's coming. I think that's a great way to preview this game because it's going to be must-watch television. Whether it's good or bad, it's going to be must-watch television either way between the Bills

and the Rams. Appreciate everybody watching this reaction show. Man, a lot from this show. Game management stuff. Again, special teams. teams forming their identities, sometimes bucking some trends. Man, that's what it's all about. So we're five weeks into the season. We're learning a lot. We're having a lot of fun.

We appreciate that you guys are here along for the ride. For the producers, making it all happen behind the scenes because this is always a beast of a show. Every single time that we record it to get ready for the Monday release, shout out to them, all of the great footage that they find for us, the stats, all that great stuff. Appreciate all of them doing that. For Brett Coleman as well, Trevor Sikama saying, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you guys on Friday. Thanks for listening to our Week 5 Reaction Podcast. Listen to NFL Pro on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

NFL Pro Week 5 Sunday Reaction Show | NFL is a Game of Inches... and Mistakes

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