NFL WEEK 5 REVIEW- THE NEW ENGLAND DYNASTY IS OVER

The speaker starts by expressing their disappointment with the New England Patriots' performance and blames Bill Belichick for their current state. They feel that the Patriots' dynasty is over and that the team is no longer competitive. They then discuss the recent performances of Justin Fields, Jamar Chase, and the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers game. They criticize the pass catchers of the Ravens and express their disappointment in the Steelers' offense. Overall, they believe that the Steelers' current success is not sustainable. All right, we're back. Liam O'Keefe podcast episode 6. We're going to go over week 5. I have some things to say. But before we get in to the scheduled content that I have for you all today, it's time to go on a rant. As a Patriots fan, it's over, dude. It's never been more over than it has been right now. This is atrocious. The New England Patriots, for the first time in my almost 18 years of living, are bad. They're not mediocre like they were with Cam Newton or like Matt Jones the last few years. They're not fantastic like they were with Tom Brady. For the first time in my life, the New England Patriots are a bad football team. And it's so sad to see, man. And you really can't blame anyone else except for Bill Belichick, right? Like, he is kind of the proprietor, like, guy who started all of this. He was the one who wouldn't get any weapons or have, like, he has no offensive game at all. He can't scheme an offense. He can't draft offensive players. If he didn't get lucky with Tom Brady 20 years ago, it would just be done and he'd probably just be a defensive coordinator. Like, you know, he can't work an offense. It's awful and like it's suffering. They have bargain bin wide receivers because of him. So if he doesn't relinquish his powers as general manager, I say they have to fire him. They have to get him out of there. There's no offensive line. There's no wide receivers. And Matt Jones isn't great on his own. Matt Jones isn't a phenomenal quarterback. He's a mid-game manager-y type of guy who's playing awful right now because the state of his offense is in shambles. He has no time to throw. When he throws, he doesn't throw with accuracy. And he's probably not throwing to a guy that's open. So it's just, like, awful. It's never been more over than it is right now. I can't get over that. The Saints destroyed them. They have not scored a touchdown in two weeks of NFL football, man. Oh my goodness. I can't deal with it anymore. It's, I'm in shambles. Like, I'm finally processing it for, like, the first time now as I look up at my Matt Jones poster, dude. Where, like, ugh. The dynasty is over. This week marks the end of the Patriots dynasty, finally. People said it left in 2019. When Brady left, so did the dynasty. Then people said when the Bills won the AFC championship, or not the AFC championship, when they won the AFC East, that's when the dynasty was over. But man, in my eyes, it's over right here, right now. They can no longer yield a competitive roster to try and make it to the playoffs and win playoff games. It's done for the New England Patriots. So, I just had to open up and talk about that right out of the gates, man. Like, I couldn't, like, it was so hard for me to think about talking about football because for the first time in my life, like, football was, like, not good and a non-positive force, you know? They're 1-4. 1-4. They beat the Jets by 5 and that is their only win on the year. Like, atrocious, man. Really atrocious stuff we're seeing. But, let's actually, let's take a step back. Let's get into some other things, different games. That's my little rant on New England for now. Um, Thursday Night Football. Justin Fields looks amazing. He, I don't know what happened. I badmouthed him on my podcast and all of a sudden he wants to play, like, an MVP candidate, dude. The last two weeks have been incredible for him. I think he has eight touchdowns and one interception in that span and my main notes from watching the Bears the last two weeks, the offense just looks a lot smoother. The play calling looks better. Justin Fields looks a lot more confident and comfortable. More comfortable than he's looked in his entire NFL career, in my opinion. He really looks like he's on top of it all right now. And part of that is the position he's in right now. The Bears offense has been playing really good. He's had a nice run game to lean on for the first time in a while, even though, like, all three of their running backs were out for Chicago. They had to result to their fullback, so that was kind of rough. But when they were healthy, they looked really strong and obviously DJ Moore is looking great. He had the most yards, like, in a game this year, I'm pretty sure, with 230 and three touchdowns. Just a generational performance for, like, that man. And it's not even going to be the best wide receiver performance we talk about this week when we get to Jomar Chase on Sunday. But back to Bears commanders, though. For Washington, I don't really think there's anything new for them. Nothing that I've already, like, I haven't already said on this podcast. Sam Howell is young, he's not great on his own, and the offensive line is miserable. The Bears defensive line got five sacks on him. The Bears defensive line is awful. I think they had one sack in their first three games total, so. And their defensive backs and safeties aren't helping them out either on the other end of the ball. Man, Emmanuel Forbes, he was taken in the first round of the draft weighing less than I do. I think that man weighs 160 pounds. Like, they're asking him to go out there and cover wide receivers who probably have 50 pounds on him. If I was a general manager and I saw him weigh in at that at the combine, he's completely off my list, much less a first round pick. The fact that Washington took him there ahead of Christian Gonzalez is insane to me. One spot before they took Emmanuel Forbes instead of Christian Gonzalez, which is brutal, man. Why would they do that? Christian Gonzalez was a generational prospect who fell miraculously to 17th, and you're going to take Emmanuel Forbes over him? I'm not really sure what they saw there, but I think it's time to move on to Sunday's slate of games, and we can start with the best performance from the week in my opinion. Jamar Chase set a franchise record for Cincinnati, 15 catches in one game. He was the entire offense for Cincinnati, and they needed him to be. They have been in an awful slump these past few games, and they just needed that spark, that get-right-game to finally get going, and that was Jamar Chase this week. He came out there, he looked like a baller. He had that quote last week where he said, I'm always open, and he was. He torched Arizona, man. It wasn't even close. No one could guard him. It was insane, and I don't think T. Higgins played in this game, so for him to put the team on his back that hard is just all that more impressive, and you know, I'm not sure how much I'm still bought into the Bengals if Joe Burrows injured and that offensive line still plays bad, because they still have their flaws. This wasn't a perfect all-together game, and Jamar Chase isn't going to be able to do this every week. They played a very bad defense on a very bad team, so we'll see how they handle a real competition, like whenever they get to Kansas City or Buffalo or Philly or one of those games, but for right now, really great game by Justin Jefferson. Hopefully the Bengals can bounce back. Continuing with the theme of the AFC North here, we're going to talk about two AFC North teams that played each other, the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Pittsburgh won this one miraculously. They scored one touchdown the entire game, but put up 17 points, so you can kind of tell what game it was. It wasn't exactly this crazy bloodbath, like air raid of quarterback play, but it was interesting. I still found it really interesting to watch. I went back and I looked through it, and man, my main takeaway, my number one issue with Baltimore right now, their pass catchers sold so hard. If I was Lamar Jackson, I'd be in that locker room, like, taking names, dude. That was atrocious. They had at least 100 yards and a touchdown in dropped passes, because I saw at least five of them, man. Zay Flowers had two brutal drops. Nelson Aguilar had an awful drop on, like, this, like, beautiful fade by Lamar. Nelson Aguilar beat his guy to the outside, but just can't bring it down, and you know, that's Nelson Aguilar. We don't expect anything else except bum plays, but Zay Flowers looked rough, and so did Mark Andrews. They were not hauling in anything he was throwing, man. It was an atrocious day, and it's really sad to see, because it's just, you can't lose to a division opponent like that. It was shaping up so nicely to be the Ravens division last week, because Joe Burrow was hurt and looked bad. Deshaun Watson was hurt and looked bad, and the Steelers were just bad in general, so it was looking so perfectly for the Ravens to take a commanding lead in the division this week, and they just couldn't do it, and I feel so bad for Lamar, because he's trying, man. He finally gets what people think are good weapons, and they just completely sell the game for him, and, like, there's not much else you can do. These are the guys they brought in. These are the better weapons for Lamar, and they're not going to play like that every week. They're going to make those catches other weeks, but that's just a you-gotta-have-it week. They could have taken a multiple-game lead in the division, and now they're not even winning in the division. The Steelers now have the lead because of the tiebreaker there, so just a really sad thing to see as a Lamar Jackson fan, man. I love that guy so much. He's so amazing. He's so dynamic to watch, and it's awful just to see him get sold by his wide receivers like that. I guess talking about the Steelers game, we'll talk about the Steelers for a second, because they somehow won this game. I'm still not moved. They're winning the division right now, 3-2. It's not going to last. I don't really, they don't have the juice. I know they don't have the juice, and maybe they'll get better when Deontay Johnson comes back, but their offense is still miserable. They still can't compete. Matt Canada looks awful, and he, did you guys see that clip? It was all over Instagram. I saw it like 500 times. The Steelers throw a go-ahead game-winning touchdown, and they have a clip of Matt Canada in the box. He doesn't care. He's stone-faced like it's not his play. I bet so much money that Kenny Pickett audibled out of the negative one-yard rush play that Matt Canada had cooked up and threw that amazing ball. You gotta get him out of there, man. Matt Canada is awful, and he is wasting the talent of George Pickens and Deontay Johnson. Their ceiling could be so much higher if they get a better offensive coordinator in there and a guy who can work with what Kenny Pickett is, which isn't a super great dynamic player. So we'll see what happens with the AFC North. It's one of those divisions, it's always a bloodbath. There's never any sense of sanity or normalcy in the AFC North. You're never out of it if you're in the AFC North. There's always a chance that you can beat that other AFC North team you're playing. If the Browns, the Browns were 0-15 and they almost beat the Steelers one year. They didn't, but if you didn't win a game all year and you almost beat your division rival, that's gotta be telling you something about this division. And it's merciless, and it can go any which way, and it's just a mess, man. We'll see who, like, it's so hard to predict that division, so we'll see what happens. I'm still rocking with the Ravens. I'm still, you know, riding that Lamar train, but we'll see what happens in the end. Moving away from the AFC and into the NFC, I have two different teams I want to talk about, and they're on two very different paths. And we're gonna start with the Carolina Panthers, man. They're screwed. They're done for. This season is not looking great for them, and it doesn't project to get much better. Bryce Young is not looking super sharp right now. He's not having the greatest, you know, start to his NFL career, and that's partially because the team around him isn't all that awesome either, you know. They've taken a step back in pretty much everything that they were efficient at last year. Their offensive line has taken a hit. Their wide receivers took a hit, because obviously they traded D.J. Moraway to get the opportunity to draft Bryce Young. But the wide receivers still aren't great. That Adam Thielen, you know, wide receiver one is fueling my fantasy team right now, the waiver wire pickup of the century. But, we'll, we will see what happens with the Panthers potentially trying to trade for another wide receiver, even though they really shouldn't be doing that. It just sounds, the reports coming out that Carolina wants to trade for a star receiver just screams desperate to me. Like, they're like, oh no, like, we're not working, we're not winning, what's going on? And they're like, kind of hitting the panic button when they should have seen this coming from the start. They have a rookie quarterback, and no matter how good your rookie quarterback was in college, you always run that risk of them needing a lot of time to develop. Because the NFL is hard. The NFL is so hard. It's nowhere near college, you know? That's why draft busts happen. Guys who are good in college aren't always going to be good in the NFL. And that's not me saying that Bryce Young is going to be a draft bust, but it's just like, there's a reason that it's hard to play in the NFL, and that guys look bad in the NFL. So, the fact that they kind of expected Bryce Young to go in there and scourge Earth right away as like their only plan with limited weapons and not a great defense is not good, man. Not a smart team-building strategy to have. And I'm not really sure where they go from here, because most bad teams are like, you know, we're not good, but at least we have our draft pick to maybe get new talent. But the Panthers don't have their own first round pick. They had to trade it to Chicago. Chicago has it because they wanted Bryce Young. So, it's like, it's a bad situation to be in when you're really bad and don't have your first round pick. And the Panthers aren't great at hitting in later rounds either. They get their guy in the first round, but then every other guy doesn't really seem to work out for them after that. Like, the Panthers don't really have those like, late round sleepers that like, the Patriots dynasty had thrived on for so many years. Like, they don't get those guys. They don't hit on those late round picks like other teams do. And that's why they haven't been a great team in a while. They don't have the depth that comes with hitting in the later rounds of the draft. They have their star player that they got in the first round, and that's it. You know, there's not much else out there. And now we're going to flip that entire conversation right over with the San Francisco 49ers who found a franchise quarterback apparently in the last pick of the draft. Mr. Irrelevant is 12-0 in games that he starts and finishes. Obviously, in the NFC Championship he lost, but that's because he tore his like, UCL in his shoulder or something and couldn't throw the football, which is something you need to do to play quarterback. But now that he's back and healthy, man, just watching this team feels like watching peak football. The play calling? Amazing. The quarterback play? Amazing. The defensive play? Amazing. The weapons? Always getting open. The offensive line can block in both pass protection and run support, man. Everything the 49ers do is like, peak football. They are at the pinnacle of the NFL. They are the 1A. They are the best team. They should be your Super Bowl favorite, and if they're not, what are you doing? Who can hang with the 49ers in all phases of the game right now? Who, like, you can say the other team has better quarterback play, but it doesn't matter when he's surrounded with the ultimate weapons and the ultimate system to beat in. It's like the perfect spot for a guy like Brock Purdy to be in, you know? He can manage the game well, but he's not just like a game-managing guy. He's like a step above that. He's fast. He's got a quick release. He can process the game well. He's smart, and like, it's just so awesome to see that in a guy like Brock Purdy and the 49ers, because the 49ers have needed this win for like a long time now. They've always had great teams, but they've never made it to the final dance. Like, the Super Bowl, they haven't gotten that Super Bowl win in quite some time. They have had, like, Super Bowl championship caliber teams many, many times in the last, like, 20-ish years, and they haven't won a Super Bowl since 1995. They've been to a few, but they haven't won them, but I really think this is their year, man. I am fully on the 49ers are taking it this year, and the reason that they've been so good at this is, like I said earlier, they can hit on all their draft picks. On top of incredible coaching, like masterful coaching right now from the Shanahan tree, all the stars you see on 49ers offense, they're not these top-high, first-round draft picks. Some of them are, obviously, like Trent Williams was, Christian McCaffrey was, but they didn't even draft either of those guys. They got both of them either through trade or free agency or whatever, but most of their guys have been, like, day-two, day-three picks. Deebo Samuel, second round. George Kittle, third round. Brock Purdy, seventh round. All the guys that they have here have been hits late in the draft, and that's what you have to have to be a successful team. And looking at the rest of the 49ers schedule, there's not too many losable games here, so I'm not going to say that they go undefeated, because obviously they won't. And when you know, it'll be big news, because Brock Purdy finally lost his first game in the NFL after, like, two years, but, like, I'm not, I don't know when it's going to be. Like, I think they'll beat Cleveland, they can beat Minnesota, they can beat Cincinnati, they can beat every single team on the, like, schedule, you know? They have to go through some of the easier teams. They get to play Washington, they get to play L.A., they get to play Arizona, they get to play a lot of easy teams, so if I'm a fan of the San Francisco 49ers, I'll be looking to kick back and relax for the wild card weekend, because my team probably won't be playing in it. It looks like I'm running a little faster than I should be. I'm, I've got a little more time than I thought I would, because I only have my fantasy football segment next, so we're going to talk about one other game that I thought was pretty interesting before then, and that is the London game. Football fans all around America had to get up at 9.30 or earlier to watch the Jacksonville Jaguars take on the Buffalo Bills in London for some reason, which I don't know why they keep promoting these, you know, international games. They have some in Germany coming up, some in Mexico, some in, like, a bunch of other places, and I guess it's good to get it out there more, but I don't know if football is really that, you know, it's a huge thing in our country. Everyone knows about football, and if you're listening to this podcast, you definitely love football, but I'm just not sure, like, I don't know if this marketing is going to work. They always keep pushing for it, and it would be cool to have, like, teams in other countries, but I'm just not sure how practical that is, because, you know, you're going to have to fly everywhere. Like, imagine if a team in, imagine if Seattle Seahawks in Washington have to fly all the way over to who knows where, like, London. We'll just call it London, I guess, because that's where they're playing at, and they have to fly all the way to London, which is crazy, and then they have to fly, like, all the way back for, like, let's say a Thursday night football game. That's just not going to work. That's awful for Seattle. It puts them at a huge disadvantage, so I'm just not sure how things are going to work out there logistically, but in theory, it sounds fun, but this is nothing about the game. Jacksonville and Buffalo was honestly a pretty entertaining game. It was definitely a better game than the one we had the first time around with Atlanta, because, you know, Desmond Ritter and all that. But yeah, it was a much better game. It was one that you were like, it could change at any moment. Some games feel so out of reach, even if the score doesn't, like, predict it to. This was not that. This game looked like any given play could be the one play that, you know, Josh Allen and the Bills needed to change the tide and, like, take control of this game, which I don't think they led for a single second in the game. I think Jacksonville had the lead, took it, kept it. So, it was still a fun game, though. It looked like, it was, it came down to the wire. It could have happened at any moment, Josh Allen-Bills comeback, because he was on fire. This was another Josh Allen masterclass game, and if you take out Week 1, he is looking phenomenal through this season, because he has limited the turnovers, he is explosive as ever, he is just looking fantastic, man. But that wasn't enough to stop Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars. Despite the fact that I thought the Bills' defense played a very good game, they just got beat up by injuries so bad. Matt Milano looks like he's going to be out for the season. Tradevious White is out for the season. The Bills just can't get that injury luck to go their way. Every year, it seems, Tradevious White, Micah Hyde, Jordan Poirier, they're all missing time in that secondary, and Kier Elam is not looking very strong back there in his second year. He's kind of going through a slump, but it's, they, they went out there and they still played a very valiant game. I can't remember his name right now, I think it's last name Bernard. He is a monster out there, he is so, like, game-wrecking, he's getting crazy sacks, he's batting the ball out of the air. He's looking like a real gamer, man. He can play. I don't really have any, like, crazy narratives to push through this game, or anything like, anything groundbreaking, but it was a really fun game, you know, one of those classics with two teams that should both be in the playoffs, both should probably win their division, but we're not totally sure how the AFC East is going to shape out because Miami is still a threat. They're dangerous as ever. I didn't talk about them today because they played the Giants, you know, who cares about the Giants? I'm sorry, they're not good. Daniel Jones, bad, expensive, beaten up. But we can't sit here and just, you know, badmouth Daniel Jones. It's, uh, time to talk about some fantasy football. Who's ready to switch into the fantasy football segment? I know I sure am, because last week, I was on fire with my picks. I went crazy with every single one of them. I said, sit Miles Sanders, he threw up about seven points. I said, start David Montgomery, he got another touchdown. He's incredible. They have to, like, he's going to be a touchdown machine, man. He's going to be the Jamal Williams of this year for that team. And I said, sit Romandre Stevenson, that was another hit. He might have put up, did he even put up three points? Like, the Patriots are just so abysmal, man. Doesn't even matter. Romandre Stevenson is in the toilet in terms of fantasy football. I wouldn't even think about starting him anymore. But I also said, Damien Pierce, you should start him, which wasn't my best decision because, like, I don't know, the Texans lost to Desmond Ritter, which wasn't a good look for me, but Ritter had a pretty, pretty solid game, all things considered, even though I don't expect it to be, I don't expect that to stick around, you know. But one thing, moving on to this week, I had this guy in my notes last week, and it still stands true today. And it's that Calvin Ridley is getting outpaced. He's getting outclassed by Christian Kirk. Christian Kirk is getting big volume. He's getting a lot more targets than Calvin Ridley is. And he's just playing better overall, which no one thought going in. People thought Calvin Ridley was going to be the ultimate weapon for him. And he's made some good plays for Trevor Lawrence, but I'm just kind of mad I didn't hop on this, this trend sooner because now I kind of look like a fan following the Christian Kirk trend. But Calvin Ridley, he needs to step it up a little bit more. I'd like to see a little more out of him in terms of consistency and efficiency. There's a lot of dropped balls. You know, he gets open fine, but there's just not enough of the consistency and like the passing game, which is what they really need out of a guy like him. As my dog barks in the background, we can move on to some guys you should start if you're like, if you lost players this week, a lot of good fantasy football players got injured. Justin Jefferson's out. James Conner is out. It's rough out there. Now, Devin a chain, he's looking to be out for a few weeks and a Monroe St. Brown was out. So I have some guys you can kind of plug into your lineup and they might not be the most efficient as a Justin Jefferson kind of guy. Obviously no one's as efficient as Justin Jefferson, but you can start as backup KJ Osborne. He has a nice relationship with their cousins. He's been there a long time and I think he's definitely the target guy there to step up. Jordan Madison still remains there, but I think KJ Osborne is still going to be able to be a fantasy relevant player with the increase in targets he's going to get. Another wide receiver who I think is going to be able to step up and take a bigger workload is Josh Downs from Indianapolis. He is stepping up and he is looking really good. Michael Pittman is, he's playing all right. He's not playing his best ball, but Josh Downs is keeping him honest. He's taking a lot of those targets. He's making a big name for himself in that offense, but with Anthony Richardson out, you don't even have to worry because Gardner Minshew is playing fantastic football as well. So the production for Pittman and Downs should still be there. Then my last guy who you could probably still pick up off waivers is Tajay Spears, who is the backup running back behind Derek Henry in Tennessee, which isn't usually, you know, the key to success, which is backing up Derek Henry on the Tennessee Titans for fantasy, but he keeps getting a more and more snap share every week. His rushing numbers keep going up. His attempts keep going up. His receptions have gone up and that's what you really need to look for in fantasy football players. It's not about who's going to like get the longest touchdown or like have the most explosive play. It's about who's going to get the most volume and the most opportunity to keep making plays. The more catches you get, the more receptions you get, the more likely you are to be on the field. That's what you should be looking for now. If you really need guys who are going to plug right into your roster and go are guys who are going to keep getting opportunities to score points. And that's what Tajay Spears is to me, a guy who's going to come in and relieve some of the workload off of Derek Henry's plate because he's only getting older and they'd love to run the ball there because their passing attack is so weak. Ryan Tannehill needs to run on, uh, not run on the run game, couch on the run game to play well. So that's why I'm a fan of Tajay Spears as well. I'm definitely trying to pick him up as a late flex option RB2 if I need to in my leagues. And that's all I have for you all this week. Thank you so much for listening all the way through. It means a lot to me. Make sure you share the podcast with friends and family, anyone you'd like if you thought it was interesting because it really helps me out trying to grow this thing, make it into something real and I'll see you all next week with another week review.