GMFB Monday — Seattle at 0 and 2, an AFC East nobody here can order, and a crown for a quarterback

SCHRAGER: Monday the twenty-first, and good morning. Okay — two weeks in, eight clubs are 2 and 0 and eight of them are 0 and 2, and I’ll say this before anybody gets excited, because in August, in a room with a pen, I don’t get ten of those sixteen right. Uh, Jamie’s got the weekend at twenty past, we’ve got trivia, and then the AFC East in the second hour, which I did not ask for —

ERDAHL: You asked for it.

SCHRAGER: I asked for it Friday. Well, Friday’s a different man. Friday isn’t this morning.

BRANDT: Okay, so, I’ve got the leaders here. I’ve got them on paper.

TE’O: He’s had that in his hand since the parking structure.

BRANDT: I printed it at home. My printer went.

ERDAHL: Nobody asked about the printer.

BRANDT: Well, not since March, and — look, there’s a line on this page I’m going to need eleven minutes for later, so.

SCHRAGER: I’m starting in Seattle.

TE’O: Ohh.

SCHRAGER: Yeah.

ERDAHL: Okay, and Cleveland’s in the second hour for anybody here for that, so — after the East, before the crown.

BRANDT: Man, it’s going to be a long East.

SCHRAGER: Seattle.

SCHRAGER: February the eighth, in Santa Clara. Seattle were in that football game — I mean they were in it in the fourth quarter — and seven months later they’re 0 and 2 with thirty-seven points in two weeks.

SCHRAGER: Macdonald, Witherspoon, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Leonard Williams, Sam Darnold, who’s been somewhere else three times and had the best year of his life in that jersey... look, I’m not taking one of those names off the page. They lost at home to New England, and Christian Gonzalez took three footballs off them in it, and then Arizona beat them 22 to 17.

SCHRAGER: And everybody’s got the same word ready and the word is hangover. I’ve used it twice in ten years and I was lazy both times, like, both times. Manti. You’re the one at this table who knows what the next August feels like.

TE’O: Yeah. I mean, I lost one in January a long time ago and it’s not the same, I know it’s not the same, it’s not — but here’s the thing that was the same. Everybody’s nice to you all spring and nobody makes you watch it back, right, there’s no meeting where somebody puts it on and makes you sit in it, and then it’s August and you still haven’t looked at it and you know you haven’t.

TE’O: And the calendar’s real, that’s not a feelings thing. They played all the way into February, so their offseason is three weeks shorter than the club that finished 5 and 12, which, you know, nobody says out loud in August.

ERDAHL: Okay, then here’s what I want, because nobody at home wants a mood at eight in the morning. Is this February, or are they worse?

TE’O: Honestly? I don’t know.

ERDAHL: Then give me a specific. One thing, one specific.

TE’O: Seventeen points against Arizona. That’s the specific, that’s — that’s a group that put up a lot more than that on better people in January, and I watched them do it.

SCHRAGER: Kyle, you’ve been quiet, and, uh, that usually means something’s coming.

BRANDT: Well — listen, we’re all doing the poetry version this morning and I want the other one, the boring one. Everybody wants to talk about February because February’s fun to talk about. Okay. They lost by eleven at home and they lost by five on the road. By five. That’s one drive, that’s a holding call and a punt and we’re all having a different Monday.

BRANDT: It isn’t a rebuild, look, it isn’t an injury story, nobody over there’s getting fired. In my opinion — and I want to be careful, in my opinion — this is six or seven plays across two Sundays, and if two of them go the other way then Peter opens this show with the Chargers. Do you follow me on this? We’re not describing a football team, we’re describing a scoreboard, and those look the same on a Monday, and, I mean, I’m as bad at telling them apart as anybody.

BRANDT: And, look, I don’t enjoy this one. I watched every snap they played in January, every snap, and it was the best football anybody played, and now people will say hangover at them until they beat somebody by twenty. They’ll beat somebody by twenty. And then I’ll have been right and nobody’ll remember, and I’d rather be embarrassed about this in September than in December, which is a thing I say every September and have never gone back and checked on.

SCHRAGER: Man. I’ll take that over anything I’ve read since Friday.

SCHRAGER: So. Seattle, 0 and 2, and I’ve moved them almost nowhere, which is where I was on the way in. Jamie.

ERDAHL: Okay, Thursday night, first game in the new building in Buffalo, Detroit 21, Buffalo 18. Detroit had given up forty-two to New Orleans nine days before that, so for nine days every word about that team was the defence, the defence, the defence. Manti, which Detroit did we watch?

TE’O: Thursday. Thursday’s the one, and, uh, I’m saying that as a guy who sat right here last Monday and was wrong about them.

ERDAHL: So then what was Week 1?

TE’O: Week 1 was a shootout and the last team with the ball won it, that’s all. You can lose 42 to 36 and have played all right, people don’t like hearing that. And, I mean, you don’t hold Buffalo to eighteen on a short week in their own new building unless somebody in there fixed something on purpose.

BRANDT: Hey. Jared Goff’s thrown six touchdown passes. Six. That’s the most in the league and that club’s 1 and 1, so.

ERDAHL: Right, Philadelphia 44, Tennessee 6 — Philadelphia are 2 and 0, fewest yards allowed in all of football, and Nakobe Dean has twenty-eight tackles, which is the most in the league, and then on the other end Tennessee have scored thirteen a game, fewest in the sport.

BRANDT: Yeah, see, thirteen a game isn’t a bad offence. Thirteen a game is a thing you have to go out of your way to do.

TE’O: Cam Ward’s in year two and he’ll be fine, and — can I say the thing from the player side. That clip gets cut and then it’s about him and it shouldn’t be about him.

ERDAHL: Right. Los Angeles 37, Las Vegas 6. So the Chargers are 2 and 0, Quentin Johnston leads football in catches and in yards, twenty and two seventy-five, and Khalil Mack has four and a half sacks and leads that as well, which is a lot of leading for one team.

BRANDT: Quentin Johnston. Man. Three years — three years of people being genuinely horrible to that man on the internet, and he’s the leading receiver in football.

SCHRAGER: And he never once said anything back. Not once. I watched for it, if I'm honest. I went looking.

TE’O: Las Vegas are 0 and 2 and I’ve watched both and I’ve got nothing nice for you.

ERDAHL: Okay, players of the week, then we go. AFC offensive, Daniel Jones, twenty-three of thirty-eight, three fifty-eight, four scores, Indianapolis 2 and 0. NFC offensive, Jayden Daniels, thirteen completions, three hundred yards, five touchdowns —

BRANDT: Thirteen.

ERDAHL: Thirteen of twenty-three.

BRANDT: Okay, five touchdowns on thirteen completions and Washington are 1 and 1. Explain that to me at a break. Not now, at a break.

ERDAHL: NFC defensive, Kyler Gordon, seven tackles, two interceptions, Chicago 2 and 0. And AFC defensive is Carson Schwesinger of the Cleveland Browns, who we’ve got in the second hour, so hold everything.

SCHRAGER: Second hour. Okay. Trivia.

ERDAHL: Okay, through two weeks — who leads the National Football League in punting average. No conferring.

TE’O: Uh. Is it a Raider.

BRANDT: Carlisle Waitman.

TE’O: Corliss.

BRANDT: Corliss Waitman, 57.3.

ERDAHL: Corliss Waitman, 57.3, read off a page he printed at his own house, so, no. Nobody gets a point.

SCHRAGER: Fifty-seven three is preposterous, man.

BRANDT: It is, and, look, here’s my problem with it. Punting average is the only number on this whole page that goes up when your football team gets worse. Right? You go three and out on your own eleven, he punts it out of the end zone, gets a friendly bounce, sixty-two, congratulations to everybody involved.

TE’O: That’s not true, though.

BRANDT: Which part.

TE’O: Okay, Jason Sanders has six field goals, most in the league, and Miami are 1 and 1. You don’t get six field goals on a good team. You get touchdowns.

BRANDT: Well, that’s a completely different thing.

TE’O: It’s the same thing.

BRANDT: Well, it is not, because the kicker gets handed a situation and the punter gets handed a failure —

ERDAHL: Yeah, a punter wouldn’t describe it that way.

BRANDT: A punter would describe it exactly that way, they’re the most honest men in the sport —

SCHRAGER: Can I defend Corliss Waitman for one second.

BRANDT: No.

SCHRAGER: Hang on — hang on a second. Fifty-seven three, and his name is in nobody’s highlight all year and he doesn’t care. Craft. Nerve. And a get-off under two seconds or he’s on the news, and I mean the actual news.

ERDAHL: Okay, we are four minutes into a punter.

BRANDT: Good.

ERDAHL: Okay, two more and we’re out. Bo Nix has more passing yards than anybody, eight forty-nine, and more interceptions than anybody as well, four, tied with Baker Mayfield.

TE’O: And Denver lead football in total yards too. Thirteen ten.

ERDAHL: And Travis Etienne has four rushing touchdowns, most in the league, and Jacksonville are 0 and 2.

BRANDT: There’s one more on here and I’m not doing it now.

ERDAHL: Do it now.

BRANDT: It’s a crown. I’m not spending a crown at twenty to nine in the morning, Jamie.

ERDAHL: So. Pittsburgh 30, New England 3, at Foxborough. And a week earlier Atlanta beat Pittsburgh 30 to 3. Same numbers, turned around, seven days apart.

BRANDT: I want that framed.

ERDAHL: And New England had just gone into Seattle and won, which — okay. Buffalo 1 and 1, Miami 1 and 1, New England 1 and 1, the Jets 0 and 2. In order, Manti.

TE’O: Buffalo, New England, Miami, the Jets.

ERDAHL: Buffalo lost at home on Thursday.

TE’O: By three. To Detroit.

ERDAHL: Peter.

SCHRAGER: New England, Buffalo, the Jets, Miami. And, look, Vrabel’s club has the fewest yards in football, five forty-nine, and Christian Gonzalez has four interceptions in two games, and they’re winning in a way you’re not supposed to be able to win any more, and I don’t understand it either.

BRANDT: They scored three points at home.

SCHRAGER: They did, yeah.

BRANDT: At home. Three.

SCHRAGER: And the week before that they went into Seattle and beat the club that played in the Super Bowl, so.

ERDAHL: Kyle.

BRANDT: No.

ERDAHL: Kyle.

BRANDT: Nope. I’m not ranking that division. Nobody can rank that division, nobody at this table. You’ve got three clubs at the same record, none of them have played the same football, and then the one at the bottom is 0 and 2 and might be second by October.

TE’O: So you’ve got the Jets second.

BRANDT: I’ve got the Jets fourth this morning. In three weeks I’ll have them second.

ERDAHL: That’s a ranking. You gave me a ranking.

BRANDT: Buffalo, the Jets, New England, Miami. Under protest.

SCHRAGER: Three orders, four teams, and nobody here has Miami above third. Uh, Cleveland after this.

SCHRAGER: Fifty-four to fourteen at Raymond James, as a road underdog. And here’s the number that stopped me yesterday, and I read it three times: the Cleveland Browns are the highest scoring team in the National Football League. Eighty-nine points in two football games. Tampa went nought for eleven on third down and they did not see the red zone, not once, all afternoon, in their own building.

SCHRAGER: And I’ve got one thing and it’s small, but I’ve had it since last night. After the eighty-seven-yard touchdown in the first quarter, Darnell Savage came off and went and sat at the end of that bench on his own, and he asked to come out of the football game. He asked to come out twice. That’s two people, and one of them doesn’t work for the Cleveland Browns. The answer came back through a position coach and the answer was no. And, you know, they put him in something else instead, and he intercepted a pass in the fourth quarter of a game he’d asked to be out of.

ERDAHL: Who said no?

SCHRAGER: Neither of them would give me that.

ERDAHL: Well, then that’s where the story is, isn’t it. Because a head coach saying no and a secondary coach saying no on a headset are two completely different mornings. Did you go back at them?

SCHRAGER: Twice each. And I got nothing twice each, so what you’re getting is the version I can stand behind and not the version I like better.

TE’O: Yeah, and — okay, from the player side, a room clocks that faster than it clocks anything else all year, and eleven other guys watched a man have the worst quarter of his season and stay out there, and nobody has to say a word about it in the meeting for everybody in that building to know.

TE’O: Okay, and then Carson Schwesinger. Eleven tackles, four behind the line, a sack, two interceptions, four balls broken up, defensive player of the week in the conference. He’s twenty-three and he wears the green dot, which means he’s lining ten grown men up before the snap and he’s younger than every one of them. And he leads the sport in passes defensed. He is a linebacker. Linebackers don’t lead the league in that and I don’t know what to tell you about it.

ERDAHL: Kurt, we’ve got eight minutes. Twenty-nine carries for eighty-four yards, and twenty-six of thirty-five for three twenty-eight and two, plus a fifteen-yard touchdown run. Start wherever you want.

WARNER: Eighty-four yards! Twenty-nine carries! 2.9 a carry, & — okay, I want people to understand what that does to a quarterback, it isn’t small. Second & eight is a pass. Third & three is a pass. Everybody in that stadium knows it, everybody, & Vita Vea never has to think about a run — six behind the line, six, I checked that twice.

WARNER: So put me in there. Second & eight, I’m in the gun, & the three-technique is on my centre before my back foot lands. The pocket is a corridor. I get exactly one hitch. One. & what this kid did over and over is get to the top of the drop, let it go on time, keep his eyes up while he slid two yards. Not one all-arm throw off his back foot in three hours, & that is a year-four thing he’s doing in year one.

WARNER: & while I’m here. Last Monday I said most of what he did in Jacksonville was on schedule, which is the highest thing I say about a young player — & somebody cut four seconds of it & put GAME MANAGER on the screen & I spent all of Tuesday on my phone. On schedule means he sees it before the snap & then trusts it after, & almost nobody at twenty-four does the second half of that.

ERDAHL: Then what do you still not know about him?

WARNER: Oh, that one’s easy. He hasn’t been behind. Two games, against two clubs who haven’t won yet, & he has never once played from fourteen down in a fourth quarter, which is a different sport — that is where you hold it the half second longer & that is where the interceptions live! I don’t know what he looks like there, & neither does he! Ask me in November & I’ll have something, but I don’t have it this morning.

BRANDT: Okay, so I’ll do the other side and it isn’t hard. Jacksonville and Tampa Bay are 0 and 4 between them. Tampa have given up eighty-six points, more than anybody in football, and Todd Bowles calls that defence himself — there’s no coordinator over there, he decided that in the spring, and it’s going the way it’s going. Cleveland have beaten two bad clubs. That’s all of it, and that took eleven seconds.

BRANDT: And — okay, but they did it by twenty-eight and by forty, on the road, both times, and Carolina come in on Sunday and Carolina aren’t bad. So I don’t know what this is. I’ve got no name for it and I’m not putting one on it in September, in my opinion it’s too early to put a name on anything. I’m watching it every week, though. I’ve moved my Sunday twice to do it and I’ll move it again.

SCHRAGER: Twenty-three years old with the green dot. And a corner who stayed on the field. Yeah.

SCHRAGER: So — Carolina at Cleveland Sunday, and then Pittsburgh at Cleveland on the Thursday night, the first of October, which I’ve had circled since May. Kurt, thank you, go and do your show.

WARNER: Any time!

BRANDT: Okay. So this is what was on the page. Yards per carry, league leader, all positions: Bryce Young, eight point eight.

TE’O: That cannot be right.

BRANDT: It is right. Yeah. It’s been right since one o’clock yesterday. Eight point eight. Ahead of every running back in professional football. He’s not fast, he’s not big, he is the smallest quarterback anybody has taken first in thirty years, and he’s out-averaging Josh Jacobs by a distance you cannot see the end of.

ERDAHL: Right, Jacobs has two hundred and eighty-three yards, though. Most in the league.

BRANDT: Look, Jacobs gets a crown every year. Jacobs has a shelf. This one’s going to a quarterback, and — Manti’s already doing the face, look at him. (laughter)

TE’O: Quarterbacks slide.

BRANDT: The crown goes to the run. It has never once been about who was carrying it.

TE’O: There’s no rule. You made that rule up in the car this morning.

BRANDT: I made it up in the car in 2019 and it’s been the rule ever since, which is, I mean, that’s how a rule works.

ERDAHL: He beat Atlanta on Sunday, for anybody who didn’t see it, and Carolina are 1 and 1.

BRANDT: He beat Atlanta, and for a stretch he was the leading rusher in that whole stadium, and every one of them was a man deciding on his own, with nobody blocking for him, to just go and get eleven yards and then get up like it had been the plan. Somebody over there has a spreadsheet where this makes sense and I want to see it. (laughter) I’m not joking. I want to see the spreadsheet.

TE’O: Man, it’s going to regress.

BRANDT: Yeah, everything regresses. Corliss Waitman will regress. But this morning, on the page, in my hand, it says eight point eight.

SCHRAGER: He said the punter’s name right that time.

BRANDT: I’ve said it right all day.

TE’O: Carlisle.

BRANDT: One time.

SCHRAGER: Okay, Into The Booth, and it’s Thursday night, Kirk Herbstreit, and he doesn’t say anything, which is the whole entry. Opening kickoff, first one ever in that building, seventy-odd thousand people who waited a long time for it, the ball goes up — and Herbstreit says nothing. Eleven seconds of it. I counted it back twice because I, if I'm honest thought we’d lost audio.

SCHRAGER: There’s a producer in his ear and a graphic ready to go, and he let seventy thousand people be the sound. Restraint. Taste. And when he came back in he had one sentence about a man in the north end with the same seat since 1974... and, look, he did not have to do any of that, none of it, nobody would have said a word.

ERDAHL: Okay, tomorrow — Manti has Carolina, I’ve got the waiver wire, which nobody wants, and Kyle owes me a printer explanation.

BRANDT: The printer has never been the issue, man.

TE’O: You said in the open that it hadn’t worked since March.

BRANDT: Since March, and now it works, which is what I said.

SCHRAGER: Eight clubs at 2 and 0, eight at 0 and 2, and one of the eight is Seattle, which is where we came in. Tomorrow.