Through a third of the season, the top four point differentials in the entire NFL are all in the same division.That is the NFC North, where even the worst team, and I use the term worst loosely, is still 4-2.So this is a completely absurd division.
All four of these teams are really, really good.You could argue that All four of them have a shot to win the division.And yet, all four of them also have an Achilles heel.
I'm not saying it's going to come back to bite them, but if there was a fatal flaw that was going to take down any or all of these teams, that is the subject of today's show. So if you're an NFC North fan, buckle up.
We're going to be heaping a ton of praise on you today, but also trying to warn you about what might happen to you in the future as all of these teams start to cannibalize each other.
Starting this Sunday, where the Vikings and Lions are taking each other on.But before we get into all that NFC North goodness, EJ, buddy, how you doing?
I'm good.This is home ground.It is a very happy place to be this year.Not always the case.We got something right in the offseason.We said that the NFC North might be a really mean division, kind of like the AFC North was for years and years.
And we got this one right.So far, all these teams look like they have a ton of positives, some really high powered qualities that could propel them. into the postseason, maybe even further.But there's always a tree over the tracks, isn't there?
So we're going to talk about the possibilities that they're going to face as the schedules get tougher and they get on down the road.But in general, it should be a lot of fun.
And I think the most intriguing part about this division is that all of their worst matchups are each other.And I'm not entirely sure how this division is going to shake out because we've only seen one division matchup so far.
And it was Vikings Packers.We still have a bunch more to go, including this weekend.And we're going to kind of work in, well, I don't want to say reverse order.
They're all within a game of each other, but we are going to work in technically reverse order.
Start at the top with the Vikings and then work our way down to the technically the bottom with Green Bay, depending on how you want to look at Chicago versus Green Bay is the bottom, but We love the Bears here, so Green Bay's at the bottom.
Deal with it.Before we get into Vikings and Lions, though, I do want to thank Underdog Fantasy for making this episode possible in the first place, as well as all of the content that we do this season.
Speaking of the NFC North, this week's new customer free pick is Aaron Rodgers, who has struggled since leaving the friendly confines of Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The Jets offense has not performed as well as maybe people thought it would on paper this summer, and I'm not entirely convinced it's going to change even with the addition of Devontae Adams.
But if you think Aaron Rodgers can get at least one passing yard this weekend, God willing, that is our new customer free pick.
So if you're doing your pick'ems this Sunday, or really Thursday or Monday, or for the rest of the season, and you want to try to get started on the right foot, Aaron Rodgers, again, is our free pick.
And then you can fill out the rest of it to your heart's content. Again, use promo code bootleg either at the QR code on the screen or at the link in the description below that gets you up to $1,000 in deposit bonuses.
And of course that Rogers free pick.So thank you once again to underdog for sponsoring us today.And with that, let's get to those Minnesota Vikings who are taking on Detroit this weekend.EJ, I'll let you start.
If you had to pick through all the data, all the film we've looked at, and it's been impressive.
If you were going to find one thing that may or may not come back to bite them, even as quickly as this Sunday against Detroit, to you, what is your Achilles heel for them?
The most important thing is always the most important thing.And if Sam Darnold decides to turn into a pumpkin as we approach Halloween, it's going to be rough for the Vikings to win.
Again, what we've said is a very balanced, very powerful, very even division.And we've seen warm Darnold starts before, and we've seen them fade.Agreed, this is a very different team.And I just want to put this out there.
Even if Darnold does turn into a pumpkin, I think this Vikings team is much better equipped to handle it. than the 13-win team from two years ago.The defense is better.The rushing attack is more efficient.
They have way more balance than that team did two years ago.But you still need your quarterback to be driving the bus.And so far, Darnold's been driving it beautifully.
But as we know, you get to the postseason, if your quarterback's not playing well, the chance that you make it to, you know, the round of eight is unlikely.
I went with a similar theme for mine, but expanding on it even more, because I kind of want to zoom in on the difference between Darnold with play action and Darnold without play action, because they're kind of the same quarterback, but also very, very different at the same time.
If you're looking at Sam in totality, completion percentage, fairly low, actually very low, at least by modern standards, right?
and that's that goes for in true drop back passing situation as well as in play action passing situation if you're looking at just play action uh he is hold on i pulled it up 30th in adjusting completion percentage on play action he is 31st in just true drop back passes meaning no screens no rpos no play action so
Not exactly the most accurate quarterback, however, he's made up for it with big time throws and the ability to stretch the field and just land these absolute haymakers deep down the field, right?
You know, I go back to that Justin Jefferson bomb from the end zone out to midfield a few weeks ago as a great example of that, right?On play action specifically, he is sixth in passer rating.His ADOT is 10.5.
He's 10th in terms of yards per attempt at 9.4.His big time throw rate on play action is seventh in the NFL.He has no turnover worthy plays at all on play action.
five touchdowns one pick and that pick was not counted as a turnover worthy play because he got hit while he threw and it kind of just popped up wasn't really his fault so i don't necessarily hold that against him but he's been very very good on play action however if you look at true drop back passing
That's where there's issues, right?His YPA drops all the way to 15th.He's very average, even though his average depth of target is longer.People would think, oh, on play action, he's actually, that's when he throws his bombs.
No, it's when he's doing his true drop back pass stuff is when he's really, really throwing it down the field.
However, because of the difference in structure in terms of play action passes, which typically are like what you think of as like progression reads versus true drop back passing, which is not, that's not like, I call it sprinkler plays, right?
Where it's dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, you know, like, cause you're going one, two, three, four. Like, that's not really what true dropback passing is in modern offenses.It's really more of a snapshot read.Like, where's my leverage?Where's my matchup?
Are we middle field open, middle field closed?And then you're just like deciding quickly and just throwing to whatever it is.It's not a one, two, three thing.
And so in true dropback passes where it's snapshot reads, he's throwing it way down the field and he's turning it over a lot. because he doesn't have the structure of a true progression on a play action pass to keep him from turning it over.
So he's 15th in terms of big time throw percentage, again, down from I think it was sixth on play action, but he has the fifth worst turnover worthy play rate on true dropback passes.
So when you combine the lack of accuracy with the carelessness with the football in true dropback passing,
And you combine that with the efficiency that he does have in play-action passing, that kind of paints a picture of what kind of quarterback he is this year.I'm not saying he hasn't been good.He's been very good.
But he's been very good circumstantially, right?And so if you're looking at how Detroit can attack them, it comes down to first down. Because again, we're trying to get them out of the play-action passing game.
We're trying to get them into the true drop-back passing game where Darnold's going to make mistakes.This is a Vikings team that is very good in terms of getting yardage on first down to set themselves up for second down play-action shots.
They lead the league in terms of play-action on second and six or less.
they are dead last in play action in second and seven or longer so it's all about keeping them in second and long so they don't hit you with those play action shots which means stopping them on first down detroit's first down defense by the way very good very good at stopping the run vikings first down offense is one of the three best in terms of yards per play on first down so
All that to say, and I know it was a lot of information dump here, the Lions need to stop Minnesota on first down, get them into true drop back passing, because you mentioned Sam turning into a pumpkin.
If he's going to turn into a pumpkin, that would be why.So in a way, Detroit, even without Aidan Hutchinson,
is kind of a funky matchup for Minnesota because if there's one team that can kind of force Sam to do something that he's been less efficient at this year, it's probably the Lions.
And you talked about the way that Darnold's balanced out or covered up or patched over some of those holes, some of those warts.
And it's been with those deep shots and creating massive explosive plays, typically double the distance of what we consider an explosive play.I mean, when he's hit him, he's hit big ones.And that ability does still exist versus the lions.
I'm with you that On paper, the sort of I would call it almost the script matchup or the first quarter matchup is even and maybe even tilted more towards the lions than people would think.
But as you go on, like because he hits such huge shots down the field, he doesn't need very many.He needs like two. And he certainly is going to have the opportunity to hit them.
It's almost like the reverse when we're talking about playing a quarterback that's, you know, going to hurt you in a lot of ways.And we'll say, yeah, but he'll throw you a couple.He just have to catch them.Right.
Darnold may give you opportunities to stall some drives out, but you've got to be. in phase 30, 35, 40 yards down the field.Because normally when you'd be letting off a step or two going, ah, he can't hit that.Like Darnold can hit it.
And if he does, he's going to try, he's going to try.
That's right.And if he does, he only has to do it once or twice.
He does it once in the second quarter and once in the fourth quarter, that could be enough to sink you, which is pretty demoralizing as a defense that, you know, 90 to 95% of the time we can do our job, get them into the longer down and distances, get them quote unquote, where we want them.
And if we just blow it once or twice and he hits it, those are not, those two things are kind of mutually exclusive.We could be in for a very long day.
Now, flipping it over to the other side of this matchup, Detroit, I did say that Detroit's a funky matchup for Minnesota, but I also think Minnesota is a funky matchup for Detroit, just not in the way that people think, because people think we're just going to be like, oh, yeah, their pass rush is going to suck without Aiden Hutchinson.
And you're correct.It will.And if there's anything that's going to sink them over the course of the season, It's probably that right is the fact that they just can't get to the quarterback without Aiden and unless they make a crazy trade.
They're not going to get anybody who's even close to Aiden, right?That is fair, but specifically for this game, the Minnesota game.
The reason why Minnesota I think is an equally funky matchup for Detroit is because of the type of quarterback that Jared Goff is in the type of defense that Minnesota is.
And I know people are going to go back to last year and they're going to say, okay, but golf was really successful against Minnesota last year.
Why is Minnesota all of a sudden a funky matchup for golf when they're going to do a lot of the same stuff, right?They're going to blitz them again.They blitzed him 77 times over two games last year. Goff lit him up.
He had 510 yards against them, three touchdowns, no picks, 8.9 yards per attempt, 121 passer rating.Like why is Minnesota all of a sudden a bad matchup for them when structurally they do a lot of the same stuff?It comes down to A, different talent.
B, I think Flores learned from that and he's not going to blitz him as much this time. And again, I apologize for all the numbers I'm about to throw at you, but this matters when trying to project this matchup.
So golf this year against the blitz 12.1 yards per attempt against the blitz, which is number one in the NFL by a lot over the last three weeks, it's 21.1 yards per attempt against the blitz.Okay.Like you don't want to do it.However,
And there's a key difference between throwing against a blitz and throwing against pressure.Those are two different words, two different meanings, right?
If you only rush four against Gough and you get pressure, his yards per attempt drops to 5.1 and his passer rating drops to 75.So it's not just about blitzing Gough to heat him up.You don't want to do that.
It's about being able to get home with four and then playing coverage. The Vikings are the sixth best team in terms of pressure rate without blitzing.They get a lot of attention for all the blitzes they call and they should.
I don't think they're going to do the same thing they did last year.They blitzed them a lot last year.It didn't work this year.You look at all their talent acquisitions.
They're like, we want to get better at rushing with four in the situations where we need to rush with four and they're better at it.Sixth best pressure rate.Like I said, what's interesting about it.
are also 28th in pass rush win rate without a blitz.How is that possible?How is it possible to be 28th in pass rush win rate but 6th in pressure rate?Oh, it comes down to the coverage.If you're looking at the average time to throw
In those situations, it's 2.86 seconds against the Vikings defense this year.If you were taking a quarterback and saying his average time to throw was 2.86, that would be 23rd in the NFL.
So it's not just about having pass rushers that win, it's about having pass rushers that don't quit.Their effort is amazing up front and their secondary and their coverage has been good enough and disciplined enough to slow down the quarterback
And allow that pass rush to be the sixth best and pressure rate.It's not that they're winning early is that they're winning late.They compress the pocket.They frustrate the quarterback.All that to say.
I don't think this game is going to play out similarly to last year.I know everybody expects Flores to blitz a lot.I don't.
Because if you're looking at what happened last year and what's happened this year, the key to slowing down Goff is rushing with four, playing sound coverage, and frustrating him.
If you create space in the field early in the play by blitzing, he is going to find that space.He is going to hurt you.
So, in a way, the Vikings are kind of uniquely built on defense to frustrate Goff, which is probably, keyword probably, the key to victory in this game.
I am fascinated to see what happens, like very fascinated, but just based on what's worked and what hasn't, that's the game plan that I expect Flores to come out with.
Flores is adaptation of his defense over the last year, what he did in the back half of last year and what he's done so far and what is essentially the front half of this year is fascinating.
It's literally watching a guy go to the lab every week and figuring things out.Obviously the off season was a time for him to say, what do we need talent wise to make this defense even more the way I want it to win?
in situations where we lost last year and create that balance.And it's fascinating.
And if, if he ever gets another shot as head coach, it'll be really fascinating to see how he applies that process, that learning, that sort of theory to the entire team.
I think it's us watching a leader get rebuilt because he's been a, you know, he'd certainly learned some lessons from his last stop as head coach.There was a lot of criticism when he left that post.
He's sort of taken back and maybe he never becomes a head coach again.Maybe he's one of those guys that's just happy as a clam doing his defensive coordinator thing and doesn't want to move up to the big chair again.
but it's fascinating to watch him, you know, in the place he's in, it's like, you know, grow flowers in the field you land in, he's doing it.And it's been really cool to watch.
If we flip it over to Detroit and we start talking about their Achilles heel, I am gonna talk about that pass rush because it was pretty noticeable how much Aiden Hutchinson made up or was the, you know, the pole holding up the big tent for them on defense and not just the rush.
like the amount of pass rush he's able to generate was covering some flaws in their secondary.
Now they've invested in their secondary and a lot of those guys are having individually good seasons, but they're young, not necessarily young as an overall age.They are young in playing together.
A couple of big free agent acquisitions, a draft pick who's starting and they're learning how to play together.And as they do that, yes, they're better than the Lions were last year in the secondary, but that's an incredibly low bar.
And some of those mistakes have been covered up by Aiden's amazing effort and effectiveness up front.So people can look at it and go, well, yeah, their success rates in the secondary are pretty good. Hmm.
That might drop off because there are going to be plays where they still are good.Kirby Joseph's been having a great season.We've seen Terry and Arnold, you know, gambles and gets beat because all corners get beat.Doesn't matter how good they are.
50% of those, 70% of those maybe got covered up by a really good pressure pass rush win rate.That was again, coming from one place on the Detroit defensive line.Everybody else is going to have to pick it up at this point.You talk about next man up.
It's not who they put in Aiden's spot.It's the other 10 guys going, okay, we've all got to play 10% better, all of us.And if we do that together, we might get back to the level we were at with Aiden.He's that kind of player.
And when you remove that impact and there's no way to just recreate it.
It is going to cause a vacuum, it is going to cause a gap, and we could see a fairly serious drop, possibly even to the levels we saw last year from the Detroit defense, which was not great and eventually sunk them.
I do honestly believe that Detroit is one of the four best teams in the NFC, but I also believe that the three other four best teams in the NFC are just horrific matchups for them. And like, could they go all the way?They still absolutely could.
I am, I am not saying that they're doomed to a division round loss or another conference championship loss.I'm not saying that they're screwed.
What I am saying is if they go up against a team that hasn't even an average offensive line in a really good defensive line, they can get home with four or at least get pressure with four and they don't have to blitz, which I think is, is golf strength at this point.
It's just eviscerating the blitz. that's not a team that they really want to go up against.I just, I don't think they have the horses, uh, to, to do that.So it's a great team.They still could win it all, but they got to hit a lot of green lights.
And a lot of that is determined by just the matchups that they end up with in January.Cause as, as tough a matchup as they are for teams like Dallas, dare I say half the NFC North is as equally tough a matchup for Detroit.
One quick note, and then we'll get right back to the show.
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Again, that is Manscaped.com promo code bootleg that will give you 20% off and free shipping on whatever you get.Thank you to Manscaped for sponsoring today's show.And with that, let's get back to it.Now, Chicago.
in theory, might be one of those teams that is a tough matchup for Detroit.
I don't think Chicago overall is as good as the Lions, but if you had to put them onto a neutral field and you look at the Chicago defense when they're fully healthy, we'll see what happens with Kyler, and the ability for them to get pressure with four and play really good coverage on the back end,
Again, that scares me on behalf of Lions fans.And then offensively speaking, the Bears offensive line ever since swapping Nate Davis for Matt Pryor is playing a lot better too.And if you put even the
Average on their best day, offensive line of the Bears up against a now Aiden Hutchinson-less pass rush in Detroit.I honestly might favor Chicago in that matchup too.So Chicago themselves is a tough matchup for the Lions.
However, they also have their own Achilles heel. And it's not the Achilles heel that I expected them to have going into the year.Deep passing.This is a team that has really, really struggled throwing the ball down the field.
Caleb in the first three weeks of the season had 18 targets of 20 plus yards outside the numbers.He completed two of them.
And to his credit, he kind of reset his brain a little bit, and he's just been a distributor point guard type over the last three weeks, and they've thrived because of that.
He works the intermediate middle more than almost any other quarterback in the league, and credit to him, that is a tough thing to do.I'm not saying Caleb isn't playing well.He's playing very well.
What I am saying is they, for whatever reason, have not gotten the deep ball dialed in this year, and they just kind of stopped doing it. over the last three weeks.
He only has one attempt of 20 plus yards outside the numbers over the last three weeks, and it was that underthrown pick that he had against the Jacks.
There is going to come a point where they have to hit those, like they're going to have to, to, to go toe to toe with these really good offenses in the NFC, including in their own division.
And they're going to have to throw some bombs down the field and get chunk plays and score quickly right now.I don't know if they can do that.I'm not saying that Caleb isn't playing very well.
He is, but that is a component of his game that he had at USC that he doesn't have now. And they have to get that back.They can't go the entire year just throwing dig after dig after dig.They gotta be able to take shots outside down the numbers.
You drafted Rome specifically to do that.They have to do it.So until they get that part of their offense up and running, there's still probably a ceiling on the Bears as well.
I would agree and add again, as you fleshed out some of my earlier thoughts, I'm going to, I'm going to blow this one up a little bit because I'm going to say, no, they're not passing deep very well because as you said, they tried it over the first couple of weeks and there's a lot of things that were working over the first couple of weeks and they dialed it way back.
They just, like you said, haven't done it.I'm going to say that's less on Caleb. than it is on how they're using their receivers, not who they have at receiver, but how they're using them.
So Chicago fans, I'm going to say nice things about Shane Waldron.So if you don't like that, now's your time to go get a beverage and come back in a second.
But ever since the players meeting with Shane Waldron, which is odd in the first place, occurred, he's been calling a much better game overall.
Caleb's numbers have gone up, John Ray Swift's numbers have gone up, the protection numbers in the offensive line have gone up.
Again, these are many sort of intermingled moving parts moving together, but Shane has called a much more complete and I would say logical game.He seems to have
tossed his disdain for second down out the window, and he actually now thinks that's a useful time to call a real or good play.And it's been keeping drives together, and that's awesome.
The one thing that Shane slash the Bears haven't really figured out is where to use who when in the wide receiver core.
Because... Oh, so you mean like blocking on the goal line with DeAndre Carter against a defensive end isn't a good idea?Is that what you're saying, EJ?
We'll just talk about the deep passing part.
Uh, yeah, no, there are still flaws and Caleb to his credit has overcome a bunch of them and made what would have been negative plays for most quarterbacks into at least neutral or positive plays, which has been very nice to see.
But specifically with the wide receivers, you've got three very good wide receivers, but their skill sets are different. Keenan had a resurgent week.He didn't get any separation last week.
He had some of the lowest separation numbers in the entire NFL, yet he caught all five targets.Caleb threw him dimes, and he can still catch through contact. He's not the guy you want to run on a deep pattern on pretty much any play.
Like even clear out because he's not going to get a lot of separation off the line.He does not going to threaten you with his wheels anymore.He is a, you know, short to intermediate threat and doing exactly what he did last week.
He can be very effective, but the bears will put him in that role. They'll have him run the deep seven, they'll have him run the go, and you're like, wait, you have two other guys who are clearly better than that.
Rome is the deep threat they should be using, and they'll use Rome as a little hook out to the flats.
Hey man, anytime you can get your first round receiver to run stick routes 12 times, you just gotta do it.
You don't gotta, but it's the one thing with their offense, even as well as it has functioned over the past couple of weeks, that's been a little bit mind-boggling.Like, wait, DJ Moore.Like, DJ is a great runner after the catch.He is a yak threat.
If you're gonna throw something quick and short and expect the guy to pick up yards after contact, I would say the order of Chicago wide receivers you'd be throwing to is D.J.Rome and then Keenan.And they don't seem to do that.
They seem to reverse that D.J.to his credit or discredit hasn't been winning off the line as much.His releases haven't been as powerful and as sudden now he can still do it.He did it a couple of times last game.You're like, ah,
I knew you still had it in you, but then on other plays, you know, there's been some what looked like timing screw ups in route combinations because DJ just hasn't gotten off the press.And typically he's a guy that could be pressed very, very well.
He's, he's very good against main coverage.Hasn't seen it.So that's sort of like who, what, when, where, like picking the right one and putting them in the right route.They're still dialing that in.
They, they dialed in a lot of stuff very quickly over the last They remembered that Cole Comet could catch passes.He's been doing a great job blocking as well.And they're having success.
But when you look at the success, like it's not the kind of success that's going to continue.Like you're not going to be able to thread dimes to Keenan in windows that are this big.
You know, every week for the next 10 weeks, it's not going to work out that way.You need to be able to leverage some of those strengths.And really, I think to your point, you got to get Rome down the field.He's so good.
We saw him collect so many of those passes in college.You, you have to put them in the right place to succeed and then let them go win.
Like you said, anytime you can get your ninth overall pick to run tiny little short routes, you should really avoid it and send him down the field because he's really good down there and he's going to help you win.
And early on in the season, again, we were throwing slot fades to Carter.And it's like, you just drafted the guy at ninth overall to do that.Why are we, why are we making DeAndre Carter?Why is DeAndre Carter even on the field?
Like I'll go one step further.Why is he out there?Like he's not as fast.He doesn't separate as much.He's not a fucking fullback.So again, I don't understand why they're running behind him on the goal line.It's like, why is he even out there?
I don't know.It's, Early season Bears offense was a sight to behold.It's gotten a lot better.I was going to say, flush that from your mind.That's all changed.It still has a ways to go though.
It clearly still has a ways to go.
They have not dialed it in as much as they're going to be able to.But if I'm looking at flaws that are going to trip up Chicago, it's not that.I do have some confidence that they will figure that out over time.
Again, this group is new in working together.It's a new offensive coordinator.There are new pieces at wide receiver, new pieces all over the offensive line, and a new quarterback.So some of these are just natural growing pains that I think will
be sort of honed down over time, I'm not too worried about that.
If there is an Achilles heel I'm worried about or a fatal flaw for Chicago, and this has been pointed out by many people, like the Bears don't get to make their own schedule, but their remaining schedule is literally the toughest in the NFL by remaining winning percentage on their schedule.
It is number one and it is number one with the bullet.It is not particularly close.And again, it's because they have all their division games remaining and we're here today talking about how good that division is.
Any injury on the offensive line, this is my bonus ping-pong ball in the fish pool, any injury on the offensive line could easily be a fatal flaw for the Bears.They have played better over the last couple weeks and much better.
The egregious misses of the first two to three weeks have largely been put out, but the interior trio.Pryor has played very well in replacement duty at right guard.Coleman Shelton, still missing some stuff.Tevin, he's a force when he hits his guy.
He's still going the wrong way a couple of times, and it's causing some very wide open, like, oh, well, just won't block the defensive tackle downs.And Caleb, to his credit, is athletic enough to scoot away, but it looks better, but it's not great.
And it's pretty tenuous.It's not like they're waiting for, you know, insert big starter X here to return from injury mid-season or four week IR or whatever.
This is literally what they have.And if you take one of those five away and again, have to do the reshuffling that we've seen time and time again in the Chicago offensive line over the past couple of years, it could be deadly.
Like the whole thing could fall apart.
I would say out of all four teams in the division, the Bears are the one that's most on a knife's edge, and it could go either way.I still think that we haven't seen the best Bears team yet in their four and two.
Yeah, but it is equally possible that they could.
Like once they start playing division games, the different or the gap I should say between the Bears and the other three, it's very possible that that kind of rears its ugly head and they go negative in the division.
They go two and four instead of like even I would take splitting at this point instead of going, you know, four and two or three and three.They could go two and four and then all of a sudden you're looking at a season that ends up at like.
nine wins instead of 11.And you could, you could miss the playoffs.So again, I think both things are possible.
The bears are much further along than a lot of people expected after the second week where, you know, people were hitting the panic button and they're like, Oh my God, the bears are still awful.They're not awful.They're good.
The only question is, are they as good as the other three teams in their own division? That part I'm still questioning.But at least by 2025, like one more off-season of plugging in talent here, and we're ready to rock.
But yeah, I don't know, it could be a one more year type thing.Now, last team in the division.Emphasis on the word last.Green Bay is not normally last in the NFC North, so we're savoring it while we can, right?
And I know Packers fans are going to be upset by that, but because you lost a division game, technically you're number four for now.But will they be number four for the rest of the year?Probably not.This is a very, very, very good team.
This is almost definitely a playoff team in my mind. They have the best head coach in the division, which I know might be a hot take for people that love Dan Campbell, and I love Dan Campbell too, but Matt LaFleur is a miracle worker to me.
Like this is a team that started two games with Malik Willis and scored a ton of points while doing it.So Matt LaFleur, best head coach in the division.
I'll say second best quarterback for reasons that I'm about to go over, but still very good quarterback.Uh, the defense has played a lot better this year.The offensive line is always good because it's green Bay.
Like you could take guys off the street and they're going to play well there.And they have one of the most explosive young collections of weapons anywhere in the NFL.So this is a very talented, very well coached team.They will be there in the end.
However, If there is a fatal flaw, it is the reason why I think Love is QB2 in his own division.And that is the almost unbelievable, indefensible, arrogant mistakes that Jordan Love makes against the Blitz.
And if we just take out the two games where he didn't play, and if we're only looking at weeks one, four, five, and six,
You know, across all quarterbacks that played in those weeks, like that is our sample size, just the non Jordan love weeks, right?He was the third most blitz quarterback in those four games.
And in those four games, he was 28th in terms of passer rating against the blitz at only 58.7, again, across the entire league. He was 21st in adjusted completion percentage at 65.1%.He had the 5th highest turnover worthy play rate.
A 0% big time throw rate by the way.He didn't have any against the Blitz in those 4 games.23rd in yards per attempt at 5.3. By the way, Goff again, 19.9 in those weeks and just over the last three weeks alone, 21.1.
So Goff has handled the Blitz way better than Jordan Love.Three TDs, four picks against the Blitz in those four games. And I know a lot of people will say, okay, yeah, but the Vikings game weighs that super heavily.No, no, no.
If you also take out the Vikings game and you look at the other games that Jordan Love has played, his YPA goes down to 4.5 and his quarterback rating also goes down to 53.4.The Vikings game propped it up while he was throwing those picks.
And when you look at the tape against the Blitz, there's so many throws that he's making where I'm like, Jordan, What the fuck are you doing?Like, colossal amounts of dip on the chip.Like, you just should not be even attempting these.
And I don't understand it.I really don't understand it, because you look at Jordan Love in the back half of last season, he was not making those dumb decisions. And I love the confidence, but good God, man.
You don't need to throw it to the other team.It's okay to take a sack.It's okay to throw eight yards instead of 40.He makes these preposterous throws that are super impressive, but for every one of those, there is just an indefensible pick.
And I think it's going to come back to bite them.I really do.
And I think when I look at the rest of the NFC North, and they're all going to play each other in the regular season, and they're all going to play each other in the playoffs, at the end of the day, games are won and lost based on turnovers.
If you're turning the ball over and making really stupid decisions against the Blitz, guess what other teams are going to do?They're going to blitz you.They're going to blitz you until you give them the ball.
So Jordan love, and again, it's a correctable issue.Like I say, Achilles heel, like it's correctable.It's not like a lack of talent.He just needs to stop doing stupid shit with the ball and then there'll be fine.
But until he does that, like that is the biggest red flag with the Packers is, is Jordan love against five plus pass rushers.And I, I just, I, Why?Like, why did this start happening?
He didn't do it last year, he's doing it this year, and I just don't get it.I can explain this in two concepts.One is one that we talk about on this pod all the time.Progression is not linear.The other one I know you're also familiar with.
The Dunning-Kruger effect. Oh yeah.Right?At the end of last year, at the beginning when he started last year and everybody was like, Oh, is Jordan Love going to be good?And he was in that learning curve for the first half of the year.
And there was a lot of, I'm not so sure this is going to work out.And then right after Thanksgiving last year. It all clicked in, he locked in, he played very well, and he continued that ascent, that rise.
And all offseason, that's what everybody, including us, talked about.Holy cow, did you see this guy from Thanksgiving to the end of the year?This is scary.He's the third good one in the row.He's just gonna like...
keep, he's going to pick right up where he left off and keep climbing.Well, if you're familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, that's, that's the pride before the fall, right?It's the 200 hour mark for pilots, right?
You know, just enough to think you know everything and get yourself in some very serious trouble.Like you said, so much dip on the chip and he's right there.He listened to that stuff all off season and he was like, yeah, let's go.
Injury sets him back a little bit.Now the last two, three weeks, this is really the beginning of his season And he's like, yeah, let's go.I'll show you.I'm that guy.And it hasn't worked out that way.
So he's going to bottom out and then begin his rise again.Like you said, it's not incorrectable.He doesn't lack talent.It doesn't mean he's a fraud, nothing like that.But he's right in the dip of Dunning-Kruger right now.He's about to find that out.
And how he responds is going to be how the balance of the Packers season goes.So the other thing is, this is a four-win team, as we've talked about. Seems like all the teams in this division are 4-win teams.
But they are also going into the hardest part of their schedule.Yes, because the division is tough and they have a lot of division games remaining, but they have the fourth hardest schedule remaining overall.
Again, Bears have the first, Packers are only fourth, only three spots behind them.
So the balance of their schedule is going to turn up and we're going to know a lot more about how good the Packers are and whether or not Jordan Love can rebound on that curve quickly or slowly.And that's really going to determine
how the rest of their season goes.Now, I got accused over the weekend of being a Matt LaFleur lover that is even greater than the base of the Green Bay fan base.
They said, man, it must suck to be a Bears fan to love Matt LaFleur more than most Packers fans do.Hey, man, if you can't recognize quality, that's on you.He's a really good head coach.
He's what gives me- He's a beautiful man.Like, how can you not love Matt LaFleur?
You know, I wasn't even going to get into the whole aesthetics, but you know, if you want to, we can go there anyways.
As a football coach, if someone is going to lead Jordan Love back up off this mini cliff that he's jumped off of and say, hey, yeah, we got a tough remaining schedule.
If I was betting on any of these teams to be able to weather that and not take a sort of ludicrous negative hit. It would be Matt LeFleur to right the ship.You're in terms of how you talked about him in the coaching hierarchy within this division.
You know, if you're picking a coach for a neutral field with any team, team of, I don't know, you know, French Olympic all-stars and you want a football coach to like lead them to victory out of this division, I think I'm probably taking Matt LeFleur first.
So overall, I know this is a little bit shorter of an episode than maybe people are used to, but we really did kind of want to take a look at this division because of how strong it is and how balanced and even that it is.
Like we said at the top, all four of these teams are really, really good in their own ways. And to varying degrees, like I think the Bears are more like wildcard contender type territory, whereas say Lions, Super Bowl contender type territory.
And we're still trying to figure out what the Vikings and the Packers are, but like they're at least playoff teams, right?So all four of these teams, really, really good.All four of these teams, really, really tough matchups for each other.
And ultimately, the NFC playoff seeding is going to be determined by how much these teams beat the shit out of each other, because they all still got to play each other, for the most part, twice, in some cases once.
So I just think fans need to be cognizant of matchups, because matchups are everything in this sport.Talent levels compared to college football, like everybody's a lot more even in the NFL in terms of talent level.
So it really does come down to specific position matchups and schematic matchups and everything like that.And all four of these teams are really, really fascinating in that regard.
So hopefully you guys enjoyed this kind of deep dive into the NFC North. And if you kind of like this style of episode, let us know.We can do this for another division, too.
I'm just certain that there's no other division that's as good as the NFC North, so we wanted to start here.Once again, thank you to all of our executive producers for Bootleg Football on our Patreon, Andrew, Connor, Aiken, Liam, and Mike.
Thank you to Manscaped.Thank you to Underdog.Once again, use the promo code in the description or the QR code on the screen.Use a promo code bootleg.You get up to $1,000 deposit bonus and an Aaron Rodgers free pick for this weekend.
Thank you to Homage, our clothing partner.That is also found in the description.Anything you get on Homage, whether it's bootleg gear or gear for your favorite NFL team or college team, whatever it happens to be, we get a cut of that.
So it's a good way to kind of indirectly support the show. And with that, I got nothing else.E.J., any final words?
Nope.Homage launched a very cool Saturday Night Live line this week.Oh, they did?I didn't see that.And I have a T-shirt coming from that line.Any guesses from all the classic SNL skits?
Gotta be Belushi.You're a Belushi kind of guy.
I am a Belushi guy.Huge Belushi guy.It is not Belushi.
Ooh.Is it a character or an actor?
Uh, if I said Christopher Walken, you would know.
Oh, cowbell.Hell, yeah, it's more cowbell.Let's go.Let's go.Do they have land shark?I got to get a land shark.
You're going to have to check it out.And you two at home, if you want very comfy homage gear, go check it out.They have TVs, movies, college sports, major league baseball, NFL, you name it, as well as, of course, bootleg football gear.
Go check it out.They've got great stuff.
All right, we'll be back next week to talk about what actually happened in this Lions-Vikings game, because I'm sure it's going to be fascinating either way.And we'll talk about all the best games from week seven on that same day.
So see you guys very soon.And until then.
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