Sept. 7, 2024
Bills vs. Dolphins: AFC East Showdown in Week 2
NFL Week 1 Recap and Week 2 Preview: Surprises, Overreactions, and Predictions
Join hosts Nick Ferguson and Alex Hardy as they dive into the whirlwind that was Week 1 of the NFL season and gear up for Week 2. With Nick's extensive NFL experience and Alex's sharp analytical mind, they break down the key moments, surprising performances, and what to expect as the season progresses. This episode covers everything from the low offensive outputs to standout defensive plays, and the hosts debate whether it's time to overreact or stay calm.
Nick and Alex discuss the implications of Week 1's results, including the unexpected performances of teams like the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons. They also preview the highly anticipated AFC East showdown between the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each team.
Whether you're a die-hard NFL fan or just looking to catch up on the latest football action, this episode is packed with insights and predictions to keep you in the loop.
00:00 Nick Ferguson: Week one of the National Football League season is over
07:57 Nick Saban says we cannot overreact to week one of the NFL season
18:19 Nick Martin: Kirk Cousins' Achilles may be an issue against Atlanta Falcons
27:44 Some of our losers may end up being victors later on in season
Quote:
"Defense wins championships, man. And I love watching defense play well." - Nick Ferguson
Keywords:
NFL, Week 1 Recap, Week 2 Preview, Nick Ferguson, Alex Hardy, Fantasy Football, Defensive Strategies, Offensive Struggles, New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins, AFC East Showdown, Derek Carr, Kirk Cousins, Josh Allen, Tyreek Hill, Jalen Waddle, Clint Kubiak, NFL Predictions, NFL Analysis, Ride the Wave Media, Those Guys Podcast, NFL Insights, Player Performances, Football Strategy, NFL Season
Ride the Wave Media, Those Guys Podcast, Nick Ferguson, Alex Hardy, NFL Analysis, Player Predictions, Football Strategy, NFL Tips
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We are those guys.
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We hope to be your guys bringing you the National Football League.
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Week one is completely wrapped up.
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Nick Ferguson joining me on a Thursday as we count down week two already getting underway.
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I can just see us now.
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My goodness, the season is flying by, Nick.
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It's week two.
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Oh, no, it's week four.
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Oh, no, it's the playoff.
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That's just how things work.
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But in this fast and crazy world, Nick, let's take a stop and say, what up to the people? What's happening, Nick? Everything is going well, man.
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But you know what? You're absolutely right.
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It was only week one.
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Now we're rolling into week two.
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And you know how it's said in the NFL.
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Those first four weeks of the season, that first quarter, is so vital because you have to make sure that you're winning most of your first four games, because even though the season is seventeen weeks, if you don't start fast to me, your season is over, which is which is wild.
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But I understand because in basketball, hockey and baseball, you can lose your first twenty, thirty games and still be in the mix.
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But it's only in the NFL where you lose maybe the first four games that your your possibilities of the playoffs But it's great.
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It's week two, and it's really exciting.
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So, again, we just went through week one.
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The last time you heard from us, we were getting ready for the Chiefs to defend their back-to-back Super Bowl championships.
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And it's funny because of all of week one, the best games that we got were probably those Thursday and Friday primetime games in their designated slot.
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throwing the Lions and Rams for Sunday night football as well.
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And we'll get into this a little deeper, I think, with the fantasy football, Nick, when we touch on that.
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But overall, week one numbers across the National Football League down in terms of overall passing yardage and touchdowns and points on the scoreboard.
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This is a reflection of young quarterbacks, lack of preseason play time.
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Look, I'm not going to ask you to pinpoint one thing, but is this different from the NFL that you've been studying years past? Because we're talking about one of the lowest offensive production outputs since the two thousand seven season.
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I think it was.
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Yeah, this is what's happening, Alex, is that there's balance being brought to the force, so to say, because the league and everyone else is promoted this league as a passing league.
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It's all about the quarterbacks.
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And I know people criticize Jay Daniels, Caleb Williams, Drake May, and even Bo Nix here in Denver and say, well, those rookie quarterbacks didn't do that well.
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But I would say also those veteran quarterbacks didn't do or didn't fare well themselves.
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So what we're seeing is that the defense and the personnel is now starting to catch up with the offense.
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It's almost like the first couple of weeks of training camp, the defense normally dominates the offense until the offense is able to input some of the play pass schemes and they go play action and things started to balance themselves off.
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But for me, I'll say this, from week one, the thing that I got out of week one was that, It's going to be a lot of scoring.
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And the scoring is not going to look the same that it's looked in the past because you think of what Boswell did with the Falcons.
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I mean, the Steelers won that game doing the two things that they do well.
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And they've been running is run the ball and play defense.
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And Boswell kicked with like six field goals.
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That's right.
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Three from fifty plus.
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Yes, it's kind of crazy.
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But for me, as being a defensive guy, I don't know about you.
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I don't like all that offense.
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I don't like that high score.
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And I'm like, forty five, forty one games.
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No, I like baseball scores.
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Right.
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I like those nine, six games.
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I know it doesn't move the needle as far as fantasy football and the level of excitement.
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But defense wins championships, man.
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And I love watching defense play.
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Well, you make the comparison to baseball and it definitely reminds me again, this is more of a labor problem where they have so many premier stars that are still free agents as they start spring training and, you know, pitchers kind of get into a groove and the rotation sort of sets itself.
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So it all is harder for pitchers in baseball to get going at the early part of the season compared to, you know, once they get some more routine built into their schedules, because you go through an entire off season and, and much like in the National Football League, now you start with preparing yourself and your body for Sundays and understanding that you don't want to show anything in the preseason, especially the preseason games.
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So maybe I'm just...
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You're right.
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I'm on the other side of the coin.
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I'm not advocating for scoring and for points.
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But at the same time, Nick, if these teams are going to participate in joint practices and then give us nothing in the preseason, I don't really see the difference here.
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They have to be vanilla.
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They have to hide something from us.
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all just for this week one matchup, as you said.
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These games do matter in a seven-team game season, and many of these offenses came out here and laid an egg.
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It doesn't make sense to me.
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Well, okay.
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Let me help you make it make sense.
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Okay.
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Let's use the example of, let's say, the Cincinnati Bengals, right? Because nobody thought the New England Patriots would beat them.
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Nope.
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You talk about a defensive matchup.
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Luana Marino's defense lost key pieces to that defensive line that we talked about, the Houston Texans and others reaping the benefits.
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They couldn't stop the run, but the offense couldn't put up more than ten points either.
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So what does the rubber meet the road here? Well, it is really simple when we look at it because, I mean, The first week of the season, as though it was last year and the year before, what it resembles is the fourth week in the preseason.
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That's exactly what it is, right? We coined it as, hey, it is the opening season of the twenty twenty fourth season.
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But from the production standpoint, we're not getting that.
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We're not getting a lot of style points.
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We're not getting a lot of creativity.
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Because guys are still and coaches are still working through the nuances of their scheme because a lot of these guys didn't play in that third preseason game.
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And take it back.
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And I don't know the numbers to exact, but I would like to think when we was back in the old NFL, when I was playing, My get off the lawn types.
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There you go.
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But there was four preseason games.
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And in that third preseason game, that was a warm up to the first start of the game of the season.
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The dress rehearsal.
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Would play three quarters because they needed to come out of the half to get guys acclimated to what that is going to look like.
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And I don't know about you, but watching some of these games, there are a lot of guys with their hands on their hips and on their knees sucking air.
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That tells you right there the conditioning isn't there.
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So you can't get into an elaborate play calling system from a coordinator when your guys are sucking wind.
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Part of that is the CBA, right? The players advocated to have less practice time and off-season workouts and participation.
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That's a piece of it.
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The other piece of it is there are coaches that this is how they operate.
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They will take the risk of their players getting injured in practice and joint practices where they go up against other teams, but they do not play preseason games, right? That's been a staple of the Los Angeles Rams, for example.
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and plenty of other teams like the Atlanta Falcons as well.
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Now that that McVeigh tree and that Shanahan tree is about two-thirds of the National Football League.
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At the same time, though, and again, you can't use them as the rule.
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They are just the exception.
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The Kansas City Chiefs are still putting Patrick Mahomes out there for a dozen plays just because I think more than anything else, they could tell him you need to sit and he'll just flat out refuse.
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That's just how he is.
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That's how he operates.
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Nick, you gave us some very wise words of optimism and importance and stressing the fact that we cannot overreact to week one around the National Football League.
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I'm not going to overreact to my New England Patriots.
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We're not going to overreact to...
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a number of other games that took place and upsets and, uh, the, the Panthers and the giants and the, uh, woeful offenses or, um, you know, just the, the, the, the sheer lack of passing production.
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We're not going to overreact at that same time though.
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Nick, do you point to a specific player or team that you saw in week one that you are fighting against your will? I won't overreact.
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I won't overreact.
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Okay, who are we going to overreact to for their week one performance, Nick? Well, you know what? It's kind of a loaded question because part of me wants to overreact based on how this team and this particular quarterback has been kicked to the side.
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And I just don't want to just kind of blow it out of the water.
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But, I mean, the first obvious for me, Derek Carr and the New Orleans Saints.
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They have a new offensive coordinator.
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And Clint Kubiak, who I happen to know.
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And watching Derek Carr in that game, and albeit they're playing against the Carolina Panthers, right? So you hope that you can get them seven weeks out of the season, but you can't.
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But they were just doing defensive things and offensive things that we haven't seen Carr and the Saints offense do over the past two seasons.
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But they were spectacular against the Carolina Panthers.
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And oh, by the way, That happens to be a divisional game.
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And when you look at the NFC South, you're saying, okay, well, list out all the great teams in that particular division.
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And I thought that Kirk Cousins was just going to run roughshod over that division, but he didn't fare too well in his showing as Atlanta quarterback throwing interceptions.
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But right now, and it's crazy for me to say, it looks like Derek Carr and Dennis Allen are the bells of the ball in the NFC South.
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They scored on their first, oh, Lord, nine possessions.
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I'm counting the box score right here.
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One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine possessions they score.
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And all of a sudden it's thirty to three at the half.
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The influence of Clint Kubiak, obviously playing for Gary Kubiak, yourself, his father.
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kind of open things up for this offense.
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You know, we see the deep shots with Rashid Shahid.
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You know, they put up, I believe it was a total of three hundred and seventy nine yards of offense.
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Chris Olave not really factoring into it, but they're spreading the football around.
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They have a balanced attack with Alvin Kamara and Jamal Williams combining for over twenty five carries.
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This is really interesting for me to follow because it was a Saints team that based on Derek Carr's play history, they don't take too many risks.
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He avoids limiting turnovers.
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He's a guy to throw it away on third down and just bring out the punt team because he's afraid of turning the ball over, which I can certainly understand to a certain extent.
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But the efficiency that they played with comes down to Clint Kubiak's offense and the lack of Ability, production, success for that Panthers defensive side of the football, knowing that their best player, Derrick Brown, was placed on IR.
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So now teams are just going to be able to run even more all over this woeful defense, which is just totally disappointing.
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I don't want to overreact to the New Orleans Saints either, but you certainly can't laugh at forty seven points regardless of who their opponent is.
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Now that they've got the Cowboys, the Eagles, and then a divisional matchup against the Falcons before they go to Kansas City in primetime, we're going to find out pretty quickly in the first month what kind of football team the New Orleans Saints is.
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I'm going to overreact.
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I'm not even pausing for a moment here.
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I'm just blowing right through your advice, Nick.
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The Atlanta Falcons are in deep trouble.
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I mean, from what I saw against those Pittsburgh Steelers, and you were alluding to it with Kirk Cousins' play, a quarterback that thrived under play action and under center offense.
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This coming from ESPN stats and info, the Falcons were in pistol or shotgun, ninety six percent of their snaps, zero design runs out of shotgun, and they ran the ball on eighty one percent of their snaps out of pistol.
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So, Nick, first of all, they're not doing what Kirk Cousins was successful with in Minnesota.
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Second of all, They are becoming transparent with when they line up in one formation, they're passing.
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When they're lining up in the other formation, they're running.
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This Achilles injury, which was at a later point in the season than Aaron Rodgers, obviously, Kirk played more than four snaps last year, but the Atlanta Falcons took a risk on a player who played his best football in the span of six games coming off of an incredible Incredibly significant injury.
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And out of the gates, you know, we're seeing a hobbled Kirk Cousins who took one snap under center, didn't attempt to pass over twenty yards and had one of the worst turnover worthy throw rates in all of week one.
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So my question to you is, how do I not overreact knowing that Kirk Cousins was known for one thing? The Falcons bring him in.
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And to start the year, they do the opposite.
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This Achilles injury is clearly lingering.
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Well, the reason I say that don't overreact is because watching the Falcons offense, they did some real good things.
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And the problem was that they didn't go back to those things because the Pittsburgh Steelers defense gave them opportunity.
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Now, in critical situations, it seemed as though maybe the coaching staff and even the players themselves from execution standpoint, they couldn't understand, you know what? When you look at the Pittsburgh Steelers, it's one guy on that defense that is a game wrecker.
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And you always want to know where T.J.
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Watt is located.
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It seemed as though they didn't do a good job of it, so they were not effective.
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Yeah, Caleb McGarry losing pretty much every one-on-one matchup, not giving him the help he needed.
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Exactly.
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So that goes back to the coaching, knowing who you're facing from the scouting report to know I might need to chip him with a running back.
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I might need to chip him by motioning a tight end over.
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And if I don't motion the tight end over, actually use orbit a jet motion to create opportunities.
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That's a video I put up on social media.
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You can follow me at Nick Ferguson underscore twenty five.
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Yeah, I wanted I wanted to break this down because I saw it.
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I retweeted it and.
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We saw a very productive run from the pistol formation that we were talking about.
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The Steelers at this point should know that they're running, and how are they so successful that you detailed on social, Nick? Well, there were so many opportunities that the Falcons actually rolled out that could have opened up opportunities throughout the game.
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One, I know it's ill-advised.
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Well, let's not be in a pistol formation because now they're putting your quarterback and your running back in a deeper set.
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But they use orbit motion, using a wide receiver out of the backfield to get one of the linebackers outside the box to create.
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Yeah, Nick Herbig over-pursued.
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Right.
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And the outside linebacker got upfield because when Kirk Cousins hand the ball off, which you're supposed to do every time you hand the ball off as a quarterback, you go through certain motions to set up other plays later on.
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So that linebacker from the Pittsburgh Steelers, he's thinking, OK, they're going to run a boot.
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But they didn't by him getting so far upfield.
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it left somewhat of like a canvas.
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That right side, the proper word would be like a chasm.
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That's the proper word.
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Because Algier kind of got it by four or five yards to his left side, but the right side was ready for the taking.
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And once again, since you get that defender Coming up the field so hard, I'm thinking maybe Zach Robinson might have called a boot play just to kind of test them again because those plays were open.
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And the problem was they never really developed those plays.
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They never used those plays that might have been negative plays as an advantage because the Steelers defense, man, they were trying to penetrate.
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They were trying to get upfield, and sometimes it's the difference between winning and losing.
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And let's not forget, this is Zach Robinson's first opportunity as an OC.
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So we can say that Kirk Cousins failed in his opening showing as a quarterback.
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No, he didn't really blow anyone's doors off.
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But as a first-time OC, well, what did you really get? And I don't think they used B.
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John Robinson.
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in a proper way so that's why I would say uh I'm not going to overreact on this on this loss because we've seen what kirk cousins can do in the past uh and we know that that offense for the atlanta falcons they do have talent they just didn't exploit it and use it against the steelers well that's my concern and why I'm overreacting is because kirk cousins you know mentally uh is sharp but If the Achilles is clearly still an issue, he can't push the ball downfield.
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He can't handle the ball.
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They're taking him out of situations where he has to be on the move, either under center, which affects all facets of the running game.
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This is just like how the Cincinnati Bengals started.
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when Joe burrow had that calf issue coming into the season, they were just beyond predictable with the way that they lined up and the personnel that they had on the field, they were either going to run or they're going to pass.
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And clearly they had, you know, he had an additional unrelated setback, but I just worry that for this early part of the season and for how many people were all in on this Atlanta Falcons team, they have a lot of work to do with the first, with the first time play caller and offensive coordinator and, Raheem Morris back in as the head coach and Kirk Cousins, who's on a new team dealing with new weapons.
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And, you know, I guess in the meantime, the Steelers defense, while they're going to be aggressive and over pursue those rush lanes to try to go after the quarterback, I'll bring this up in further detail.
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you know, former Steeler Ray Ray McLeod gets his revenge game.
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The least likely person you'd expect to lead the Falcons receiving core because the Steelers are going to that stuff up from slow receivers pretty much all season.
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Exciting to see Joey Porter able to stick on top receivers doing a great job holding Drake one to two catches for fifteen yards on only three targets.
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But Nick, we're not going to panic about Drake London just yet.
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We may do that a little bit on the Fantasy Football Podcast.
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But again, we're not going to overreact from week one.
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That's not what we are here to do.
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One more thing on this game.
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The fact that right now, what you're saying, it is correct.
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And this is kind of a problem.
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That is reared his ugly face in the NFL.
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So long gone are the days of your traditional dropback quarterback.
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Aaron Rodgers may be like the only guy remaining of that group.
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I mean, besides her cousins.
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So at some point, if you're Zach Robinson and you're Raheem Morris, you still have to look at it and say, you have a very talented team.
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This is the reason why they went out and drafted Michael Penix.
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And I know some may say, it's early to call for Penix.
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But once again, you have a very talented roster.
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And I know one thing that makes it a headache for any defense, I don't care how talented you are, it's a mobile quarterback.
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And granted, Penis is not that much more mobile than Kirk Cousins, but he's going to give Zach Robinson an opportunity to do a couple of things that would threaten the defense, that would open up some things, both in the running and in the passing game.
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Nick, before we split, it is Thursday.
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We've got, you know, it's not going to compete with the Chiefs and the Ravens in an AFC Championship rematch, but that's opening night.
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We still have a division battle between the Bills and the Dolphins, two of the prohibited favorites there in the AFC East.
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All AFC East teams, other than the Jets, by the way, want to know.
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Just going to give myself a pat on the back for that.
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But what I thought was interesting with Buffalo, in their victory.
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I'll start with them and then I'll let you cover your, your, your native Miami dolphins.
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The bills were interesting to me because it was really a tale of two halves, right? They get down.
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Seventeen to three to the Cardinals.
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The defense allows three straight scoring drives for the Cardinals.
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I think it had been the first time in nearly a decade or even fifteen years that the Cardinals had three straight scoring possessions on their opening drive in week one.
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Meanwhile, the Bills fumbled a football after Josh Allen was strip sacked.
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They settled for three on a drive that they get all the way down to the four-yard line, and then penalties set them back.
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Then in the second half, they quickly take over Josh Allen plays hero ball.
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He finishes with a lot of deep throws, a couple rushing touchdowns.
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So it's kind of live and die by what Josh Allen is going to be able to do on the football field, which I think most people, that's a proposition they're willing to take.
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But I'd be remiss.
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This is where I'm going to fit in our kickoff return discussion, Nick, because on the opening kick, rookie Brandon Cognton had a three-yard return for the Cardinals.
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against the Cardinals.
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And after that point, they decided to just kick the ball out the back of the end zone.
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And the Bills are now taking the ball out from the thirty instead of the twenty like we'd seen in years past.
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You also have the first return touchdown for a TD from DJ Dallas for the Cardinals side of things.
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I think it's sort of interesting that the kicking rules, while not necessarily present, you see the value proposition the Cardinals went through to say, well, This guy is dangerous, and we're not calling him Devin Hester, but in many ways, like Devin Hester, you say, okay, we'll deal with allowing them to take the ball out at the thirty rather than try to see if we can pin the Bills back.
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So the Bills, to me, are a big roller coaster, but I do have more concerns for the defensive side of things than I do on the offensive side of the football.
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I guess, Nick, as we sort of move to the Miami Dolphins side of things, who are banged up in their own right, We already know Raheem Mostert ruled out for this game.
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I just, you know, between these two AFC East powers, who has the advantage in your eyes and in particular that Dolphins offense that, you know, obviously the big splash play is a huge component to what they do.
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Well, I give the advantage to the Miami Dolphins and Mike McDaniels.
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And that's not because I think Joe Brady does do a great job up in Buffalo.
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I just look at the weapons that the Miami Dolphins have.
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Most are not possibly not going to play, but You still have A-Chain.
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You still have Waddle.
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You still have Tyreek Hill.
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And those guys are always a threat.
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And you said it.
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I mean, you open up with the idea that Buffalo and Buffalo was at home.
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They were down seventeen three.
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And if it wasn't for a hero ball.
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by Josh Allen, who I think he's going to change everyone's opinion of what type of quarterback he is because he doesn't have a lot of weapons.
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He's going to do a lot of hero ball.
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But it was his efforts that pretty much got them back into the mix.
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And then I'll look at the fact that, you know, the Miami Dolphins were in kind of a a tug of war with in-state rival Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars, but they were able to pull it off with a late field goal.
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So to me, I've always looked at the Miami Dolphins as a battle-tested team, and knowing as though Mike McDaniels is like Kyle Shanahan, it's always thinking of what can we do next as an evolution to our game, and just looking at The depletion of Buffalo on both sides of the ball, to me, Miami gets the nod on this one for sure.
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And I would be surprised if they did not win it outright.
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That's fair.
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The Dolphins are the home favorites.
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They get two and a half point spread.
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So we assume that they can get the job done.
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Just a quick turnaround.
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And you mentioned HN, the game time decision, and a huge component of that offense.
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But You know, as that zone blocking scheme does, as we saw with Kyle Shan, the forty niners, they'll dust off Jeff Wilson.
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We'll assume that the Dolphins can still run the football better than most other teams can.
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Yeah, just the bills don't necessarily have the back end pieces.
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Both safeties moving on, including Jordan Poyer from Buffalo now in Miami.
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You can expect Tyreek Hill, Jalen Waddle to take things off the top.
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uh for the dolphins offense as they do in typical fashion so nick that is that is kind of how we pass the torch again we don't overreact to week one although we we we kind of have our sights set on the uh the nfc south meanwhile an exciting thursday night football game to say the least Nick Ferguson, I'll be back with you to break down week two.
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It's a pleasure as always, at NickFerguson underscore twenty-five.
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More film breakdown, not just on the Atlanta Falcons.
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It could be your team.
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It's his Denver Broncos.
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Make sure you catch us for a fantasy football evening every Friday.
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I think that's probably the time where we break down some rookie quarterback tape, including one Bo Nix.
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Nick Ferguson, let's get on out of here.
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What do you have to say to the people? Hey, man, stop overreacting.
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It's week one.
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It's not like it's week fifteen of your fantasy football team or week seventeen.
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It's just week one.
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Things are not as though they seem.
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Some of our losers may end up being victors.
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And some of those week one winners, well, they could disappoint later on in the season.
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Well, fantasy for week seventeen, Nick.
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Championship.
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We are those guys.
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We hope to be your guys bringing you the National Football League.
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Week one is completely wrapped up.
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Nick Ferguson joining me on a Thursday as we count down week two already getting underway.
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I can just see us now.
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My goodness, the season is flying by, Nick.
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It's week two.
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Oh, no, it's week four.
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Oh, no, it's the playoff.
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That's just how things work.
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But in this fast and crazy world, Nick, let's take a stop and say, what up to the people? What's happening, Nick? Everything is going well, man.
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But you know what? You're absolutely right.
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It was only week one.
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Now we're rolling into week two.
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And you know how it's said in the NFL.
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Those first four weeks of the season, that first quarter, is so vital because you have to make sure that you're winning most of your first four games, because even though the season is seventeen weeks, if you don't start fast to me, your season is over, which is which is wild.
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But I understand because in basketball, hockey and baseball, you can lose your first twenty, thirty games and still be in the mix.
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But it's only in the NFL where you lose maybe the first four games that your your possibilities of the playoffs But it's great.
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It's week two, and it's really exciting.
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So, again, we just went through week one.
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The last time you heard from us, we were getting ready for the Chiefs to defend their back-to-back Super Bowl championships.
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And it's funny because of all of week one, the best games that we got were probably those Thursday and Friday primetime games in their designated slot.
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throwing the Lions and Rams for Sunday night football as well.
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And we'll get into this a little deeper, I think, with the fantasy football, Nick, when we touch on that.
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But overall, week one numbers across the National Football League down in terms of overall passing yardage and touchdowns and points on the scoreboard.
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This is a reflection of young quarterbacks, lack of preseason play time.
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Look, I'm not going to ask you to pinpoint one thing, but is this different from the NFL that you've been studying years past? Because we're talking about one of the lowest offensive production outputs since the two thousand seven season.
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I think it was.
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Yeah, this is what's happening, Alex, is that there's balance being brought to the force, so to say, because the league and everyone else is promoted this league as a passing league.
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It's all about the quarterbacks.
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And I know people criticize Jay Daniels, Caleb Williams, Drake May, and even Bo Nix here in Denver and say, well, those rookie quarterbacks didn't do that well.
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But I would say also those veteran quarterbacks didn't do or didn't fare well themselves.
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So what we're seeing is that the defense and the personnel is now starting to catch up with the offense.
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It's almost like the first couple of weeks of training camp, the defense normally dominates the offense until the offense is able to input some of the play pass schemes and they go play action and things started to balance themselves off.
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But for me, I'll say this, from week one, the thing that I got out of week one was that, It's going to be a lot of scoring.
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And the scoring is not going to look the same that it's looked in the past because you think of what Boswell did with the Falcons.
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I mean, the Steelers won that game doing the two things that they do well.
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And they've been running is run the ball and play defense.
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And Boswell kicked with like six field goals.
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That's right.
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Three from fifty plus.
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Yes, it's kind of crazy.
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But for me, as being a defensive guy, I don't know about you.
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I don't like all that offense.
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I don't like that high score.
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And I'm like, forty five, forty one games.
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No, I like baseball scores.
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Right.
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I like those nine, six games.
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I know it doesn't move the needle as far as fantasy football and the level of excitement.
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But defense wins championships, man.
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And I love watching defense play.
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Well, you make the comparison to baseball and it definitely reminds me again, this is more of a labor problem where they have so many premier stars that are still free agents as they start spring training and, you know, pitchers kind of get into a groove and the rotation sort of sets itself.
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So it all is harder for pitchers in baseball to get going at the early part of the season compared to, you know, once they get some more routine built into their schedules, because you go through an entire off season and, and much like in the National Football League, now you start with preparing yourself and your body for Sundays and understanding that you don't want to show anything in the preseason, especially the preseason games.
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So maybe I'm just...
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You're right.
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I'm on the other side of the coin.
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I'm not advocating for scoring and for points.
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But at the same time, Nick, if these teams are going to participate in joint practices and then give us nothing in the preseason, I don't really see the difference here.
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They have to be vanilla.
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They have to hide something from us.
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all just for this week one matchup, as you said.
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These games do matter in a seven-team game season, and many of these offenses came out here and laid an egg.
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It doesn't make sense to me.
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Well, okay.
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Let me help you make it make sense.
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Okay.
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Let's use the example of, let's say, the Cincinnati Bengals, right? Because nobody thought the New England Patriots would beat them.
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Nope.
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You talk about a defensive matchup.
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Luana Marino's defense lost key pieces to that defensive line that we talked about, the Houston Texans and others reaping the benefits.
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They couldn't stop the run, but the offense couldn't put up more than ten points either.
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So what does the rubber meet the road here? Well, it is really simple when we look at it because, I mean, The first week of the season, as though it was last year and the year before, what it resembles is the fourth week in the preseason.
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That's exactly what it is, right? We coined it as, hey, it is the opening season of the twenty twenty fourth season.
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But from the production standpoint, we're not getting that.
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We're not getting a lot of style points.
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We're not getting a lot of creativity.
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Because guys are still and coaches are still working through the nuances of their scheme because a lot of these guys didn't play in that third preseason game.
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And take it back.
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And I don't know the numbers to exact, but I would like to think when we was back in the old NFL, when I was playing, My get off the lawn types.
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There you go.
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But there was four preseason games.
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And in that third preseason game, that was a warm up to the first start of the game of the season.
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The dress rehearsal.
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Would play three quarters because they needed to come out of the half to get guys acclimated to what that is going to look like.
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And I don't know about you, but watching some of these games, there are a lot of guys with their hands on their hips and on their knees sucking air.
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That tells you right there the conditioning isn't there.
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So you can't get into an elaborate play calling system from a coordinator when your guys are sucking wind.
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Part of that is the CBA, right? The players advocated to have less practice time and off-season workouts and participation.
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That's a piece of it.
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The other piece of it is there are coaches that this is how they operate.
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They will take the risk of their players getting injured in practice and joint practices where they go up against other teams, but they do not play preseason games, right? That's been a staple of the Los Angeles Rams, for example.
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and plenty of other teams like the Atlanta Falcons as well.
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Now that that McVeigh tree and that Shanahan tree is about two-thirds of the National Football League.
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At the same time, though, and again, you can't use them as the rule.
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They are just the exception.
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The Kansas City Chiefs are still putting Patrick Mahomes out there for a dozen plays just because I think more than anything else, they could tell him you need to sit and he'll just flat out refuse.
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That's just how he is.
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That's how he operates.
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Nick, you gave us some very wise words of optimism and importance and stressing the fact that we cannot overreact to week one around the National Football League.
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I'm not going to overreact to my New England Patriots.
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We're not going to overreact to...
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a number of other games that took place and upsets and, uh, the, the Panthers and the giants and the, uh, woeful offenses or, um, you know, just the, the, the, the sheer lack of passing production.
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We're not going to overreact at that same time though.
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Nick, do you point to a specific player or team that you saw in week one that you are fighting against your will? I won't overreact.
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I won't overreact.
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Okay, who are we going to overreact to for their week one performance, Nick? Well, you know what? It's kind of a loaded question because part of me wants to overreact based on how this team and this particular quarterback has been kicked to the side.
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And I just don't want to just kind of blow it out of the water.
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But, I mean, the first obvious for me, Derek Carr and the New Orleans Saints.
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They have a new offensive coordinator.
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And Clint Kubiak, who I happen to know.
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And watching Derek Carr in that game, and albeit they're playing against the Carolina Panthers, right? So you hope that you can get them seven weeks out of the season, but you can't.
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But they were just doing defensive things and offensive things that we haven't seen Carr and the Saints offense do over the past two seasons.
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But they were spectacular against the Carolina Panthers.
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And oh, by the way, That happens to be a divisional game.
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And when you look at the NFC South, you're saying, okay, well, list out all the great teams in that particular division.
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And I thought that Kirk Cousins was just going to run roughshod over that division, but he didn't fare too well in his showing as Atlanta quarterback throwing interceptions.
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But right now, and it's crazy for me to say, it looks like Derek Carr and Dennis Allen are the bells of the ball in the NFC South.
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They scored on their first, oh, Lord, nine possessions.
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I'm counting the box score right here.
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One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine possessions they score.
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And all of a sudden it's thirty to three at the half.
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The influence of Clint Kubiak, obviously playing for Gary Kubiak, yourself, his father.
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kind of open things up for this offense.
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You know, we see the deep shots with Rashid Shahid.
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You know, they put up, I believe it was a total of three hundred and seventy nine yards of offense.
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Chris Olave not really factoring into it, but they're spreading the football around.
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They have a balanced attack with Alvin Kamara and Jamal Williams combining for over twenty five carries.
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This is really interesting for me to follow because it was a Saints team that based on Derek Carr's play history, they don't take too many risks.
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He avoids limiting turnovers.
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He's a guy to throw it away on third down and just bring out the punt team because he's afraid of turning the ball over, which I can certainly understand to a certain extent.
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But the efficiency that they played with comes down to Clint Kubiak's offense and the lack of Ability, production, success for that Panthers defensive side of the football, knowing that their best player, Derrick Brown, was placed on IR.
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So now teams are just going to be able to run even more all over this woeful defense, which is just totally disappointing.
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I don't want to overreact to the New Orleans Saints either, but you certainly can't laugh at forty seven points regardless of who their opponent is.
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Now that they've got the Cowboys, the Eagles, and then a divisional matchup against the Falcons before they go to Kansas City in primetime, we're going to find out pretty quickly in the first month what kind of football team the New Orleans Saints is.
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I'm going to overreact.
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I'm not even pausing for a moment here.
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I'm just blowing right through your advice, Nick.
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The Atlanta Falcons are in deep trouble.
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I mean, from what I saw against those Pittsburgh Steelers, and you were alluding to it with Kirk Cousins' play, a quarterback that thrived under play action and under center offense.
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This coming from ESPN stats and info, the Falcons were in pistol or shotgun, ninety six percent of their snaps, zero design runs out of shotgun, and they ran the ball on eighty one percent of their snaps out of pistol.
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So, Nick, first of all, they're not doing what Kirk Cousins was successful with in Minnesota.
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Second of all, They are becoming transparent with when they line up in one formation, they're passing.
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When they're lining up in the other formation, they're running.
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This Achilles injury, which was at a later point in the season than Aaron Rodgers, obviously, Kirk played more than four snaps last year, but the Atlanta Falcons took a risk on a player who played his best football in the span of six games coming off of an incredible Incredibly significant injury.
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And out of the gates, you know, we're seeing a hobbled Kirk Cousins who took one snap under center, didn't attempt to pass over twenty yards and had one of the worst turnover worthy throw rates in all of week one.
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So my question to you is, how do I not overreact knowing that Kirk Cousins was known for one thing? The Falcons bring him in.
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And to start the year, they do the opposite.
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This Achilles injury is clearly lingering.
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Well, the reason I say that don't overreact is because watching the Falcons offense, they did some real good things.
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And the problem was that they didn't go back to those things because the Pittsburgh Steelers defense gave them opportunity.
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Now, in critical situations, it seemed as though maybe the coaching staff and even the players themselves from execution standpoint, they couldn't understand, you know what? When you look at the Pittsburgh Steelers, it's one guy on that defense that is a game wrecker.
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And you always want to know where T.J.
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Watt is located.
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It seemed as though they didn't do a good job of it, so they were not effective.
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Yeah, Caleb McGarry losing pretty much every one-on-one matchup, not giving him the help he needed.
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Exactly.
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So that goes back to the coaching, knowing who you're facing from the scouting report to know I might need to chip him with a running back.
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I might need to chip him by motioning a tight end over.
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And if I don't motion the tight end over, actually use orbit a jet motion to create opportunities.
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That's a video I put up on social media.
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You can follow me at Nick Ferguson underscore twenty five.
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Yeah, I wanted I wanted to break this down because I saw it.
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I retweeted it and.
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We saw a very productive run from the pistol formation that we were talking about.
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The Steelers at this point should know that they're running, and how are they so successful that you detailed on social, Nick? Well, there were so many opportunities that the Falcons actually rolled out that could have opened up opportunities throughout the game.
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One, I know it's ill-advised.
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Well, let's not be in a pistol formation because now they're putting your quarterback and your running back in a deeper set.
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But they use orbit motion, using a wide receiver out of the backfield to get one of the linebackers outside the box to create.
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Yeah, Nick Herbig over-pursued.
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Right.
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And the outside linebacker got upfield because when Kirk Cousins hand the ball off, which you're supposed to do every time you hand the ball off as a quarterback, you go through certain motions to set up other plays later on.
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So that linebacker from the Pittsburgh Steelers, he's thinking, OK, they're going to run a boot.
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But they didn't by him getting so far upfield.
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it left somewhat of like a canvas.
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That right side, the proper word would be like a chasm.
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That's the proper word.
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Because Algier kind of got it by four or five yards to his left side, but the right side was ready for the taking.
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And once again, since you get that defender Coming up the field so hard, I'm thinking maybe Zach Robinson might have called a boot play just to kind of test them again because those plays were open.
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And the problem was they never really developed those plays.
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They never used those plays that might have been negative plays as an advantage because the Steelers defense, man, they were trying to penetrate.
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They were trying to get upfield, and sometimes it's the difference between winning and losing.
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And let's not forget, this is Zach Robinson's first opportunity as an OC.
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So we can say that Kirk Cousins failed in his opening showing as a quarterback.
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No, he didn't really blow anyone's doors off.
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But as a first-time OC, well, what did you really get? And I don't think they used B.
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John Robinson.
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in a proper way so that's why I would say uh I'm not going to overreact on this on this loss because we've seen what kirk cousins can do in the past uh and we know that that offense for the atlanta falcons they do have talent they just didn't exploit it and use it against the steelers well that's my concern and why I'm overreacting is because kirk cousins you know mentally uh is sharp but If the Achilles is clearly still an issue, he can't push the ball downfield.
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He can't handle the ball.
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They're taking him out of situations where he has to be on the move, either under center, which affects all facets of the running game.
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This is just like how the Cincinnati Bengals started.
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when Joe burrow had that calf issue coming into the season, they were just beyond predictable with the way that they lined up and the personnel that they had on the field, they were either going to run or they're going to pass.
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And clearly they had, you know, he had an additional unrelated setback, but I just worry that for this early part of the season and for how many people were all in on this Atlanta Falcons team, they have a lot of work to do with the first, with the first time play caller and offensive coordinator and, Raheem Morris back in as the head coach and Kirk Cousins, who's on a new team dealing with new weapons.
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And, you know, I guess in the meantime, the Steelers defense, while they're going to be aggressive and over pursue those rush lanes to try to go after the quarterback, I'll bring this up in further detail.
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you know, former Steeler Ray Ray McLeod gets his revenge game.
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The least likely person you'd expect to lead the Falcons receiving core because the Steelers are going to that stuff up from slow receivers pretty much all season.
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Exciting to see Joey Porter able to stick on top receivers doing a great job holding Drake one to two catches for fifteen yards on only three targets.
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But Nick, we're not going to panic about Drake London just yet.
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We may do that a little bit on the Fantasy Football Podcast.
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But again, we're not going to overreact from week one.
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That's not what we are here to do.
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One more thing on this game.
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The fact that right now, what you're saying, it is correct.
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And this is kind of a problem.
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That is reared his ugly face in the NFL.
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So long gone are the days of your traditional dropback quarterback.
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Aaron Rodgers may be like the only guy remaining of that group.
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I mean, besides her cousins.
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So at some point, if you're Zach Robinson and you're Raheem Morris, you still have to look at it and say, you have a very talented team.
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This is the reason why they went out and drafted Michael Penix.
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And I know some may say, it's early to call for Penix.
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But once again, you have a very talented roster.
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And I know one thing that makes it a headache for any defense, I don't care how talented you are, it's a mobile quarterback.
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And granted, Penis is not that much more mobile than Kirk Cousins, but he's going to give Zach Robinson an opportunity to do a couple of things that would threaten the defense, that would open up some things, both in the running and in the passing game.
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Nick, before we split, it is Thursday.
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We've got, you know, it's not going to compete with the Chiefs and the Ravens in an AFC Championship rematch, but that's opening night.
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We still have a division battle between the Bills and the Dolphins, two of the prohibited favorites there in the AFC East.
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All AFC East teams, other than the Jets, by the way, want to know.
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Just going to give myself a pat on the back for that.
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But what I thought was interesting with Buffalo, in their victory.
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I'll start with them and then I'll let you cover your, your, your native Miami dolphins.
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The bills were interesting to me because it was really a tale of two halves, right? They get down.
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Seventeen to three to the Cardinals.
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The defense allows three straight scoring drives for the Cardinals.
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I think it had been the first time in nearly a decade or even fifteen years that the Cardinals had three straight scoring possessions on their opening drive in week one.
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Meanwhile, the Bills fumbled a football after Josh Allen was strip sacked.
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They settled for three on a drive that they get all the way down to the four-yard line, and then penalties set them back.
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Then in the second half, they quickly take over Josh Allen plays hero ball.
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He finishes with a lot of deep throws, a couple rushing touchdowns.
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So it's kind of live and die by what Josh Allen is going to be able to do on the football field, which I think most people, that's a proposition they're willing to take.
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But I'd be remiss.
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This is where I'm going to fit in our kickoff return discussion, Nick, because on the opening kick, rookie Brandon Cognton had a three-yard return for the Cardinals.
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against the Cardinals.
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And after that point, they decided to just kick the ball out the back of the end zone.
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And the Bills are now taking the ball out from the thirty instead of the twenty like we'd seen in years past.
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You also have the first return touchdown for a TD from DJ Dallas for the Cardinals side of things.
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I think it's sort of interesting that the kicking rules, while not necessarily present, you see the value proposition the Cardinals went through to say, well, This guy is dangerous, and we're not calling him Devin Hester, but in many ways, like Devin Hester, you say, okay, we'll deal with allowing them to take the ball out at the thirty rather than try to see if we can pin the Bills back.
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So the Bills, to me, are a big roller coaster, but I do have more concerns for the defensive side of things than I do on the offensive side of the football.
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I guess, Nick, as we sort of move to the Miami Dolphins side of things, who are banged up in their own right, We already know Raheem Mostert ruled out for this game.
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I just, you know, between these two AFC East powers, who has the advantage in your eyes and in particular that Dolphins offense that, you know, obviously the big splash play is a huge component to what they do.
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Well, I give the advantage to the Miami Dolphins and Mike McDaniels.
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And that's not because I think Joe Brady does do a great job up in Buffalo.
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I just look at the weapons that the Miami Dolphins have.
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Most are not possibly not going to play, but You still have A-Chain.
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You still have Waddle.
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You still have Tyreek Hill.
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And those guys are always a threat.
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And you said it.
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I mean, you open up with the idea that Buffalo and Buffalo was at home.
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They were down seventeen three.
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And if it wasn't for a hero ball.
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by Josh Allen, who I think he's going to change everyone's opinion of what type of quarterback he is because he doesn't have a lot of weapons.
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He's going to do a lot of hero ball.
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But it was his efforts that pretty much got them back into the mix.
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And then I'll look at the fact that, you know, the Miami Dolphins were in kind of a a tug of war with in-state rival Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars, but they were able to pull it off with a late field goal.
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So to me, I've always looked at the Miami Dolphins as a battle-tested team, and knowing as though Mike McDaniels is like Kyle Shanahan, it's always thinking of what can we do next as an evolution to our game, and just looking at The depletion of Buffalo on both sides of the ball, to me, Miami gets the nod on this one for sure.
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And I would be surprised if they did not win it outright.
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That's fair.
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The Dolphins are the home favorites.
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They get two and a half point spread.
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So we assume that they can get the job done.
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Just a quick turnaround.
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And you mentioned HN, the game time decision, and a huge component of that offense.
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But You know, as that zone blocking scheme does, as we saw with Kyle Shan, the forty niners, they'll dust off Jeff Wilson.
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We'll assume that the Dolphins can still run the football better than most other teams can.
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Yeah, just the bills don't necessarily have the back end pieces.
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Both safeties moving on, including Jordan Poyer from Buffalo now in Miami.
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You can expect Tyreek Hill, Jalen Waddle to take things off the top.
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uh for the dolphins offense as they do in typical fashion so nick that is that is kind of how we pass the torch again we don't overreact to week one although we we we kind of have our sights set on the uh the nfc south meanwhile an exciting thursday night football game to say the least Nick Ferguson, I'll be back with you to break down week two.
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It's a pleasure as always, at NickFerguson underscore twenty-five.
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More film breakdown, not just on the Atlanta Falcons.
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It could be your team.
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It's his Denver Broncos.
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Make sure you catch us for a fantasy football evening every Friday.
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I think that's probably the time where we break down some rookie quarterback tape, including one Bo Nix.
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Nick Ferguson, let's get on out of here.
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What do you have to say to the people? Hey, man, stop overreacting.
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It's week one.
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It's not like it's week fifteen of your fantasy football team or week seventeen.
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It's just week one.
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Things are not as though they seem.
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Some of our losers may end up being victors.
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And some of those week one winners, well, they could disappoint later on in the season.
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Well, fantasy for week seventeen, Nick.
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Championship.