[FULL SHOW] How Do The Broncos Keep Doing This?

It's time to talk that talk, and we talk it like no one else. This is the stinking truth. Now, here's your host, Mark Sheriff. Hey, welcome in to the Syncube Podcast. Alongside Mike Evans, I am Mark Schler. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day. Whether you download us on Apple or Spotify, watch us on our YouTube channel, or you listen to us on the Odyssey Radio Network, thank you, thank you, thank you for your participation. Mike, how are you, buddy? I'm great, and now we're three weeks into the season, so we're starting to see some trends develop, and we're starting to see some really, really good games. We've got to start with one on Sunday night. Broncos, Rams, tell me. Give me some kind of explanation. How do the Broncos keep doing this? How do they look like absolute crap?

for two, three quarters, and then just flip a switch and pull off these comeback for the ages. Just straight ass. I mean, the first half was straight ass. And luckily, I wasn't watching it directly. So I'm on a flight from Cleveland where I called the game between the Cleveland Browns and the Carolina Panthers. And so I jump on a flight. I'm flying from Cleveland the wrong way to D.C., then D.C. back to Denver. All right. So this is what I'm on right now. So I'm sitting in 2A.

Oh, first class. First class. And I'm trying to get my YouTube channel, my YouTube TV to work. And my YouTube TV, for whatever reason, won't work, but the guy in front of me has got YouTube TV. But his son is all kind of crouched between, so I can't get between the seats to watch. So I'm actually watching the reflection.

off the window in 1A as I'm peeking around the corner watching the Broncos just play like ass. It was diffused, so thankfully I didn't have to watch it directly because it might have burned out my retinas. So then I got on my next flight, and of course I had TV, and so then I ended up watching the second half of the game, which was amazing. But now it's three years in a row that the Broncos have talked about our slow starts, our slow starts, our slow starts. They still haven't figured it out, but I would rather have a quarterback.

that is clutch, a quarterback that when it's on the line makes his best plays and plays his best football, then I would a dude that plays great when nothing's on the line and then takes a dump in his helmet when the game is on the line. So at least I know this about the Denver Broncos and Bo Nix. When push comes to shove, when it's time to let your clackers out and just walk around with your balls like Randy did, Randy Marsh did, put his balls in a wheelbarrow. Yeah, South Park. He's got his balls in a wheelbarrow. That's right. And it was...

Awesome. Some of the plays they made. Talanoa Funga makes the pick six. Who knew that Matthew Stafford led the league or led the history of the league in pick sixes thrown? 33. 33 pick sixes. Unbelievable. Well, let's talk about the Rams and the super team Rams. The let's not even bother playing the season, just give them the Super Bowl rings right now. Rams. Yeah. They're one and two. One and two. Still a really damn good team, right?

You can still see the talent. You can still see, hey, man, they've done it without Pukinokua. They're sitting in 1-2 right now. At the end of the year, remember the Broncos started 1-2 last year, and they wound up going 14-3. By the end of the year, now they play in a tough division. They've got Seattle. They'll have, what, two against Seattle, one more against San Francisco. So they play in a really tough division. I left Arizona out of there, but they play in an exceptionally hard division. But can't you see them at the end of the year being 12-5, 13-4? Can't you still see that happening? Yes, but will they be the clear-cut favorite going into the playoffs? Well, that I can't tell you.

But I think they're still, just watching that, they're still a really good team. But there is something about Denver when they get momentum and they've just lived on the edge and everybody says, oh, they can't win all these one-score games. They can't have all these comebacks. That's what they do. And listen, I'm one that goes, okay, first 15, what are you going to do? They've been trying to figure it out as a coaching staff for three years now. We've got to start faster for three years. And I'm like, all right, do you start off up-tempo? Do you start off right off the bat? You get your first 15, you say, scrap out the first 15. Let's start off up-tempo and run some, you don't have to hurry up, but no huddle where you...

pare down your menu. You've got four or five plays. You say, let's just live here. Like, I'm a believer in finding your North Star. What do we do well? And just let's live in what we do well. Sometimes the Broncos come out and they're like, OK, we're going to run a shotgun and we're going to run three widespread or four widespread. We're going to like instead of just let's let's find something that we can dig our teeth into, sink our teeth into. We got a lot of stuff to get to from around the NFL, but there's something else you wanted to talk about. Yeah. Did you see if you're a college football fan? I think everybody saw it. The big hit.

It was the UCLA versus USC. What's the kid's name, Moore, the quarterback? Oregon. What did I say? UCLA. Oh, that's what I meant, Oregon. Oregon. Same thing, different state. Oregon quarterback Dante Moore took a vicious hit from Desmond Stevens II. And Stevens got tossed. Ejected. Now, listen, prancing around and acting like he did something when somebody is hurt is Bush League. But I have said this forever. Playing defense is exceptionally hard. And the problem, I think I have a solution, Mike. This is my solution. And I've been thinking about this for,

Gosh, like probably since March. And I've been waiting for it to come up in one of my games and it just hasn't. So I'm just going to go lay it out there right now. I've got a solution to these situations where quarterbacks get concussed and quarterbacks get hit. Remember we had it with Al Shire a couple of years ago versus Trevor Lawrence, remember? And I've seen quarterbacks. Tua. Yeah, Tua. I've seen Patrick Mahomes kind of almost skate toward the sideline like he's going to go out of bounds and then all of a sudden lower his shoulder and hit a defender who has already kind of quit on the play. And so I think it's incredibly unfair.

to the defenders. And the other thing that happens in certain situations, you'll see quarterbacks try to sneak an extra yard or two before they go down so they can, because they know they're protected. And by that time, the defender is already like, I've made my commitment. And then the other thing is, is when you foot first slide, what happens? Your feet go down, but your upper body stays up.

And so if a guy's already committed, it's really hard for all of a sudden him to avoid. And it's not the hit that concusses you. It's when you get hit and your head snaps back and hits the turf. You're defending Stevens? No, I'm putting the onus on quarterbacks. Just listen to this. Here's how we fix it. You make it illegal to go foot first slides for quarterbacks.

No longer can you go foot first. OK, because one, it keeps your upper body up. And if you slide late because you're trying, you're a competitor, I get it. You're trying to get the first down. So you slide late. The defender is already committed. So then it becomes almost impossible to avoid it. Even if you're trying to avoid it, you're still going to hit him. And if you accidentally hit him or if you just graze him, it's not the hit. It's when your head snaps back and hits the back of the turf. So make it illegal for quarterbacks to go foot first. Because here's what happens. If you go head first, right? One, you got to think twice.

before you end up going for that extra yard or yard and a half. The other thing that happens is your head is the first thing to go down. So if you do go late, that guy has a better chance to go over the top of you without hitting you in the chest. So now your head's not going to flop back and hit the turf. So put it on the quarterbacks and make it illegal to go foot first slide. You solve the concussion issue for quarterbacks sliding late.

100%. Put it on the quarterbacks. You can no longer go foot first to protect yourself. So instead, just act like a running back and stick your helmet in there and see what happens. No, don't. Give yourself up. I'm not saying run him over, but just give yourself up. Head first slide. That's how L.A. used to slide. Go back and look at L.A. L.A. never went foot first. Always head first. 100% of the time. Head first slide. But now all of a sudden, your head's going down. You're protecting yourself. You're going to the turf. And that guy is not going. It's not his feet. His body's going this way. He goes right over the top of you. Yeah, but Stink, I mean, to me.

especially now that we're so conditioned now in the pros and in the in college now the idea that you can't hit the quarterback that when when they go into a slide you can't come on i mean it takes it takes a little bit of predetermination for a quarterback to start his slide and as a defensive player you you got enough heads up to see that no you don't know bullshit no you don't have enough bullshit you don't have enough when that guy's taking an extra yard you're supposed to just go okay take the extra yard Or when he's down the sideline, he looks like he's going to step out, and you just give up, and then all of a sudden he trucks your ass. The Mahomes thing, I'm with you, but what about starting to slide? When you are committed to it, you're like, fuck that, man, I'm going to go hit this guy. I'm not going to let this guy, because he's running upright, and all of a sudden, the last second, he goes down like that. That is virtually impossible. Even if you're trying to avoid, you'll still have the potential of hitting him. You take that out if you say it is illegal to go foot first slice. It's illegal. You've got to go head down. You've got to go head down, and I think it could completely eliminate what we saw with the Oregon quarterback.

You're not going to hit your head on the back of the turf. So you think that in the case of Desmond Stevens, that was just a well-meaning, well-intentioned defensive player who just got caught in between, or was it a guy who maliciously was headhunted? It was a guy that was flying up there to make a hit, and he committed. Here I go, and then all of a sudden the quarterback goes down. And I don't think the quarterback was super late in that. I don't. But I think that defensive player is committed. And so I think you can completely eliminate the quarterback concussion on those plays, completely eliminate it, by just saying we are no longer going to go foot first. It's illegal.

And I think if you're really truly about player safety, you're truly about player safety, that would eliminate that type of concussion. So put the onus on the quarterback. Look, we protect those sons of bitches every second. You can't run by the guy and accidentally graze his helmet. You know, as you're trying to block a pass, you try to block a pass and your fingers barely touch the guy's helmet. Woo, 15-yard flag. We protect him every way. Make them protect themselves.

Eliminate it. Make it illegal. And you completely take that play out of that play no longer exists in football. All right. I'm curious to see what kind of reaction you all have to what he just had to say. Let's get back to the NFL. Let's get back to the surprise 3-0 teams. All right. The Raiders and the Vikings. Where do you want to start? I guess you got to start with the Raiders, right? Last year, they went 3-14. They've matched last year's season win total in three games. What's going on here? And is this thing sustainable?

If you build your team from the inside out, you've got a chance to be great. You got a chance. The Raiders, and I will tip my cap to them, they went out and they got Clint Kubiak, offensive coordinator, Gary Kubiak's son, from the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, and he came in and he said, we're going to play under center. We're going to play in heavy formations. We're going to run the ball. We're going to have a fullback and we're going to adhere to what we do. These are our tenants. This is our identity. This is what we do. And then he went out and got a professional quarterback. Not flashy.

not the most talented, isn't going to win a arm talent contest. Hey, let's see who can throw it the farthest. Kirk Cousins may come in last. You know, the starting 32 quarterbacks does not matter. He's going to play on time. He's going to play on schedule. He's going to get you in the right play, and he's not going to be pissed if you run it seven times in a row.

It's exactly what you should do. And what that does for a defense from a complimentary standpoint, man, you physically dominate a line of scrimmage. Guess what's going to happen? Your defense is going to be able to be fresh and rush the passer. And that's exactly what's going on with the Vegas Raiders. Kudos to them because you can't name their starting wide receivers.

In a day and age where we make so much of, who's the number one? Which guy's the number two? How are we going to? They don't give a shit. They don't. And it's refreshing. Went out and got Linderbaum to play center. Rick Dennison, their offensive line coach, went to Jackson Powers Johnson and said, dude, you're too fat. You got to lose weight. I don't know if he said fat. I just added that in there. But he goes, you got to lose weight. I need you quick as a cat.

I need you to be in better shape. Went and got left guard from San Francisco and got their starting left tackle back. I love what they've done. As far as Minnesota's concerned, Minnesota's interesting to me because you started Kyler. He went out in four plays. Then you went wins for a couple plays. They won with wins. Then you went back to Kyler. But it really comes down to their defense, doesn't it? I saw a stat the other day that our guy, Brian Flores, blitzes 75% of the time. Did I get that right? 75% of the time, he's heating you up?

Dude, that's just all balls. 75% of the time, he's like, here we come. What are you going to do about it? And we used to go, I remember Joe Bugle back in the day, boss hog. Joe Bugle, our offensive line coach from the Washington Redskins, legendary coach. He'd go like this. He'd always give his fingers. He'd go, you know, and he'd go, we make them to blitz.

We bake them to blitz because that's where the big plays happen, man. You pick that stuff up, Mike. You're timing right. The other thing that happens in blitz is you're always disguising. So all of a sudden, you're like, okay, you're going to be up here on the line of scrimmage. We're going to populate the line of scrimmage, and then what's going to happen? All of a sudden, you're out there over the slot, but bam, you're deep middle, right? You're blitzing, but we're playing cover one, man to man. We got one high safety, and you're going to play the high safety, the post safety, but you're going to be on the line of scrimmage when you start. Disguise is great until disguise screws you, and occasionally it'll screw you, but for them to have that going on and multiple quarterbacks playing and to be 3-0?

Kudos. I get the sense that Brian Flores would do this regardless, but there's a part of the way that he runs his defense with that attacking, blitzing style. It's like, okay, you guys want to blackball me and shun me from being able to get a head coaching job to the point where I have to sue you? I almost feel like he's going out every week on his personal revenge tour. Yeah, well, I think he feels like, and I love this about him because I am, you know, I always tell you guys I'm a gracious loser, but I'm an absolute dick when it comes to winning. I feel like he's just going, oh, that team passed me by. That team didn't interview me. That team didn't do it. That team didn't do it. And he's just like, I'm going to shove it up. Your ass, your ass. I'm going to go to your ass, your ass, your ass. It's like the Brady Six. Yeah, exactly. He's got his own little minus the crime. He passed me by.

You know, yeah, so I love, I love, I love what Brian Flores is doing. By the way, the breaking news. Yeah, this happened right before we came on here for the Streaming Truth podcast. Vikings sending, trading J.J. McCarthy to the New York Giants. He goes to a Harbaugh, not the Harbaugh we thought. He goes to the Giants for a fifth round pick. Wow. So he was what, ninth overall? Ninth overall. He went from ninth. Two years ago. Three years ago. To a fifth round pick. Yep. Well, I've got sources. Okay. I've got sources. So I reached out to my sources. As you know, I am apt to do.

And my sources have confirmed that the Giants needed the pot sweetened a little bit. They needed the pot sweetened, so it was like a fifth rounder. I'm not sure. Could you throw in all your eye black so we don't have to spend so much money on eye black between Jackson Dart and now J.J. McCarthy? So my sources tell me that the Minnesota Vikings shipped not one, not two, not three, not four LeBron James, not five, not six, but seven cases of eye black along with J.J. McCarthy to the Giants in exchange.

That's what they did. You think it's going to be like before games? Hey, can I do your face paint, JJ? Only if you'll do my face paint, Jackson. Maybe. Maybe they room together. Night before the game. And it's like a slumber party where we have a makeup. Or maybe they both talk to each other and go, you know what? We both look like a couple of toolboxes. We both look like idiots. Let's stop. Let's both of us make a vow now. A pact. Did we just become best friends? Good for him. I've said this on this podcast many times. That dude needed a fresh start. He needed somewhere else. And John is such a great...

leader and just such a kind of a kind of a real figure. I think that's I think it's a great place for him to kind of start over without expectations and without having to be labeled as a bust in your own town. Speaking of boss, let's talk about these 0-3 teams. All three teams that we thought would be playoff teams. In some cases, legitimate Super Bowl contenders. 0-3 Chargers, 0-3 Texans, 0-3 Buccaneers. And the stats are the stats. If you start a season 0-3, you have about a 2% chance of climbing out of that hole and making it to the playoffs. Yeah, and you look at it right now. I mean, obviously there's a history in Houston of getting that done.

The Houston Texans, I mean, when you got to have a stop, they can't get a stop. They gave up 36 to Buffalo week one. Now they've they've limited. I think they limited 20 points to Cincinnati, 19 points yesterday, but they just aren't playing complimentary football. That one surprises me probably more than any of the other ones that surprised me. So you've got that Tampa Bay Baker, like they've lost some pieces around Baker. Baker has not played great. I did the Carolina game last weekend. And so prepping that game, watch the Tampa Bay loss. There were.

I mean, there were, excuse me, the Carolina, it was a Cleveland-Tampa game that I was watching as I was prepping for the Carolina-Cleveland game. So I said that kind of backwards. But I'm watching that, and Cleveland's just going to line up man-to-man and say, come get a taste. Let's go. That's our superpower. We can cover. And there were probably six. Baker completed one long ball, one deep ball. But there were probably six balls that he attempted that were open. And I mean open. And I understand you missed the shot, right? I understand a DB makes a play. I understand, like, hey, man, maybe we get pass interference.

He wasn't within eight yards of any of them. I mean, it was like, dude, wide open. He was like, oh, shoot. I mean, it's eight yards over his head. You got to give your guy a chance to at least go up and draw a pass interference. So that one was scary to me. But the Chargers. Dude, you threw this out. I've got the stat. Do you have it or do you want me to do it? Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Since 2013, there have been five teams that have had a plus five, right?

that have created five turnovers, that have had at least that situation, those teams have gone three, the teams that have the minus. Let me take this over. Yeah, please do, because I screwed this up. Let me write this down so I know. Since 2013, There have been only three teams that have done what the Buffalo Bills did yesterday. And that is commit five or more turnovers, have a turnover margin of minus four. Okay, that's where I was trying to get. And still win the football game. Since 2013, the record is three. 81 and one. Only three teams have managed to do that. Now I've got it. Now I've got it. Hey, focus right here. Right here. The moneymaker, okay? Now that I've completely botched that, now I come with the exclamation point. There you go. Bam! Exclamation mark. Okay, yes. The Bills yesterday are one of the teams over the Chargers.

And then it was the Jags in 2022 over the Chargers. And then it was in 2015, the Broncos over the, you guessed it, Chargers. So the three teams that have lost that scenario, where they are, where they have gotten five turnovers, and the other team was minus four or worse, the three teams that lost, the Chargers, the Chargers, the Chargers. And I think I figured it out. Chargers going to Charger? Well, I think I figured out why. Why? Because yesterday, I'm watching some highlights. I'm coming back from my game, watching a few highlights, Mike. And they focused on...

Jim Harbaugh and Mike McDaniel. And I couldn't help but notice something. Jim Harbaugh is out there in cleats. You mean like turf shoes? No, like cleats. He's got molded bottom cleats on to coach his football team. What are we doing? Hey, toolbox. What are we doing? And boy, you're going to show up in football pants next, right?

Right your root hanging out like hey, can we tighten these down a little bit? I really want to show my manhood. What are we doing? You got freaking cleats on and then you got Mike McDaniel over there in a pair of pedal pusher lady yoga pants Like how can you even if you're playing for that team? How can you even take that seriously? My coach is wearing cleats and my offensive coordinator has got culottes on. What are we doing? Like what how can you even like you're over there on the sideline goes? Oh, here comes a coach. Oh, no shit like this embarrassing. I don't want to be seen. I hope nobody snaps a picture of him talking to me in those yoga pants. What are we doing?

I mean, you can't win like that. You can't win. No, you're not going to win. No, you're just not going to do it. 0-3. 0-3. Season's over. Hey, thanks for participating, Chargers. For everybody involved in the Stinkin' Truth Podcast, we appreciate you guys so much. Got a lot of stuff coming this week. We got our Broncos breakdown coming this week. We've got the Cleveland Carolina game, the Leftovers Podcast. I'll break all that down. All the stuff that maybe didn't make the broadcast that I talked to the coaching staff about, some of the players about. So that's coming this week as well as a bunch more stuff. So make sure you keep it locked in here on the Stinkin' Truth Podcast, the Stinkin' Truth Podcast Network. We appreciate you.