WEEK 6 NFL REVIEW- ARE THE EAGLES AWFUL???

In this podcast episode, the host discusses some key takeaways from week six of the NFL season. He talks about the Cincinnati Bengals bouncing back and looking stronger on offense. He also mentions the surprising losses of the previously undefeated teams, the San Francisco 49ers and the Philadelphia Eagles, to unexpected opponents. The host also provides some fantasy football advice for dealing with bye weeks and talks about the recent acquisition of Julio Jones by the Eagles. Finally, he discusses the Eagles' loss to the New York Jets and criticizes Jalen Hurts for throwing three interceptions. The host also mentions the injuries suffered by the 49ers and praises the performance of backup quarterback Brock Purdy. All right, everybody, we are back. Welcome to the Liam O'Keefe podcast. We have just finished week six of the NFL season. Man, it's flying by, it feels like. Week seven already, what is going on? We're almost at the trade deadline. Hopefully there's some big news there. Who's gonna be a buyer, who's gonna be a seller? But that's not for today's episode. Today, we're just gonna be reviewing some of my top takeaways from week six. We're gonna go over the Bengals. They're bouncing back in a pretty big way, but we're also gonna talk 49ers and Eagles, both undefeated going into the week and both suffered their first loss to teams that you definitely didn't think they were gonna suffer their first loss to. We're gonna talk about the Lions and where they are and the Bills and how I think their season's gonna go and what I think is in future for Buffalo. On top of that, we also have our fantasy segment. You know, I'm gonna give you my do's and don'ts, my starts and shits because bye weeks are really starting to stack up and we're starting to get into some guys who you maybe don't start on a week-to-week basis if you're in smaller leagues, but I think all of these guys are perfect, either guys you wanna look at to start or guys you wanna avoid this week. Before we dive into some of the more unfortunate news of the Eagles and the Niners, we're gonna start with something a little more positive today. The Cincinnati Bengals are looking pretty good again. People weren't sure where they were gonna be starting this season because they looked really bad. I talked about it before. Their offense had no juice. They looked like a shell of their former selves and I couldn't believe it. They looked like unfathomably bad and I couldn't really point out why because everything looked so rough, but the coaching staff got it together. They all like banded together and they look a whole lot better now. They're looking a lot stronger, a whole lot more explosive on that offense. The defense looks good. The defenses look good throughout all of the weeks. They've looked pretty good the whole season, but the offense was what really needs to catch up and return to form from what it was a few years back and they've kind of finally done that. Jamar Chase looks incredible. Tyler Boyd had a big game this week. We're still kind of waiting for the T. Higgins Masterclass, but you best believe it's coming. He had a big game earlier this week, but it's been relatively quiet the rest of the year and they're looking to kind of string some games together now because the AFC North is rough. We've already talked about that, but they're looking like they can contend again. I don't know if they're gonna win just because I like the Ravens a lot more and the Browns are looking pretty scary because they just beat the best team in the NFL with a backup quarterback, so we'll see how Joe Burrow fares against them, but I think they're gonna be a solid team again and definitely they're off my panic list. I was starting to get worried and if they had dropped the game to the Seahawks, I might have been starting to spread some information around the anti-Joe Burrow, anti-Bengals narratives almost slipped, but they've saved themselves and they've kind of won me back over, so to speak. All right, so I've been thrown for a loop right now, an absolute whammy has just hit my Twitter timeline. At mid-recording, Julio Jones is a Philadelphia Eagle? Oh my God, man, what are they doing? Why do they just keep on winning? They lose Quez Watkins to IR, it doesn't matter. They just go out there and they sign Julio Jones, who people think is old, but he put up good stats last year in Tampa Bay. Obviously, Tampa wasn't a great winning situation where it was kind of a retirement home type deal with old Brady, old Julio, and just a bunch of old guys on that team, but he just joined the Eagles, one of the best teams in the NFL who needed more depth at wide receiver. And the Eagles always just get the cool guys. Of course, they get Julio Jones on their team and they get Jalen Hurts on their team and they have a Kelsey brother and they just get all the cool players, man. They get AJ Brown, they just get to keep on winning. They have a Heisman wide receiver. Take a sip of my water here. Like, that's insane. He's not gonna do much on the field, but news just broke literally mid-podcast recording, so I figured I had to talk about it, but it doesn't mean too much for them in reality, but the fact that Julio Jones is an Eagle kind of boosts my need for the Eagles to win a Super Bowl, but I don't like the city of Philadelphia, so I kind of hope they don't. I don't want to give those animals anything else to celebrate about, dude. You've got the Phillies, and maybe they go win something, but they probably won't, and I hope the Eagles don't win as long as I'm alive, all right? Minor Eagle slander session to the side. This is a perfect segue into slandering the Eagles again. How do you lose to the New York Jets without Aaron Rodgers, with Zach Wilson in there? Jalen Hurts threw three interceptions. He is tied for second most in the league with seven interceptions on the year. Oh my God, I couldn't fathom this. I was at work, and I was checking my phone every so often when this happened. Dog, I couldn't believe it. It struck me like, and it was insane. I can't even think. Like, you are supposed to be this perfect, complete team with an incredible defense, and I understand they've had their injuries, all right? I know they're not a perfect team, a complete, built roster, because their guys are old, and they keep getting injured, but you cannot lose to Zach Wilson. If they had lost to any other team, I wouldn't be this upset, and we wouldn't be having this intensive of a discussion right now, you and I, the viewer, but Jets, Zach Wilson, why did the Jets destroy Super Bowl-caliber talent and then lose to the New England Patriots, dog? What happened? They, like, they forced multiple turnovers out of Jalen Hurts, Patrick Mahomes, and Josh Allen, but Mack Jones beat them? What the hell is going on in New York? You can't complain, though, they keep on winning, and they keep beating the big games, and it's like, kind of, it's the story of the NFL. I said in my first ever podcast that Aaron Rodgers and the Jets were the story of the NFL, and then he got injured, and then I was like, the Jets are probably just gonna suck this year, and you know what, it is what it is, but man, they're, like, gonna be not that bad, which is crazy to me, because it's Zach Wilson at quarterback, the worst option at quarterback ever. They just can't get away with this, man. They can't beat the Philadelphia Eagles with Zach Wilson. It's insane, like, I can't believe it. Props to Rob Zala and the Jets coaching staff. Props to the defense for forcing three turnovers on Jalen Hurts. We'll see where they go. They're not real playoff contenders. I don't want any Jets fan to tell you that they're gonna make the playoffs or anything like that, and Aaron Rodgers looks like he's gonna be back soon, miraculously. I have no clue what he did to, like, come back from a torn Achilles in five weeks or something like that, but they're not playoff contenders this year, no matter what. They've gotten some good, impressive games, but I just don't think, at their core, they're foundationally ready to be a competitive football team right now. And one other thing, really quick, because I forgot to mention this. They didn't have Sauce Gardner or DJ Reed. They didn't have their top two corners, and they still forced three Jalen Hurts interceptions, and look, I'm not just a box score watcher. I didn't just see that Jalen Hurts threw three interceptions and I'm here to call him bad. I know his first interception probably isn't on him. It's one of those balls that gets batted around. It's unfortunate, but the other two were just, like, inexcusable misses. They're just, you can't be missing those balls if you're Jalen Hurts and you're this, like, pro-caliber quarterback throwing these amazing weapons, but at the end of the day, you and I know the Eagles aren't going to be bad. They're gonna bounce back from this game. They're gonna play well. It's gonna be all right in Philadelphia, but it's just one of those games, those stupid games. You can't drop those if you really wanna be serious. However, there were multiple undefeated teams to lose their first game this week, which is crazy, and I should be slandering the San Francisco 49ers for losing a game to the Cleveland Browns without their starting quarterback or their star running back, but they didn't get off scot-free either. Christian McCaffrey had to leave the game early. Trent Williams had to leave the game early. Deebo Samuel had to leave the game early, and the Browns' defense is on, like, an otherworldly pace right now, so you can't blame the San Francisco 49ers for not dominating in a circumstance like that, and Brock Purdy still played pretty well, all things considered. Everyone wants to say that Brock Purdy is just, like, a product of the system, and while he is in an incredible situation for him to be in, the 49ers are built perfectly. He still played a very, very clean football game on Sunday. He was making incredible throws. He was standing up in a pocket that wasn't always the greatest. He was looking like a real NFL quarterback out there and not just some guy they dropped in to the world's greatest offense, so this is a major props to Brock Purdy game, even though he lost his first game that he started and finished, which is, like, a weird stat, but it's true. The Browns, on the other hand, the team that actually won this game, congratulations, your defense is incredible. Jim Schwartz, the defensive coordinator, is going to get some serious look at for head coach after this year. Teams are gonna be calling him up for sure because they're on, I said, they're on, like, a crazy pitcher now. They have the best defense and, like, have allowed the least yards since, like, any team in the 70s, and since offenses have only been getting more and more explosive, this is, like, an insane stat. They're an incredible, like, unmovable force out there. They keep getting a whole lot of pressure. They lock down in the secondary, and it's just really hard to move the football on the Browns, and you saw here today, they shut down one of the NFL's best offenses. So it really makes you wonder what is the ceiling for Cleveland at this point because they have a top defense in the league. They have a quarterback that they're paying $300 million for. You heard it, 300 million big ones just for him to not play. He hasn't played in three weeks, and, you know, that's probably his plan. Like, he got this crazy guaranteed deal. He's gonna kick back, relax. He'll play football when he feels like it. I wonder, I wonder if he was ducking the San Francisco 49ers, and he was kinda like, man, maybe I'll come back next week if we have a different opponent. Maybe I wouldn't wanna go up against the undefeated, undefeated San Francisco 49ers, but here he is now looking kinda like a dummy if that's what's true, because P.J. Walker just went out there and beat them, but it did end in a missed field goal to win the game. It's not like the Browns went out there and, like, beat them by three scores. So now that the San Francisco 49ers have lost a game, and the Philadelphia Eagles have lost a game, do you know who is now tied for the best record in the NFL? The Detroit Lions, baby. They're back. For the first time in my life, I can say that the Detroit Lions are the best team in the league, or at least have the best record in the league at five and one, tied with a few other teams. But man, they look sweet. They're dominating every single game. They beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20 to six. They held them without a touchdown. That's hard to do in the National Football League, and they have great weapons. Rashad White is an okay second year back, but you've got two top 20 wide receivers in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, so stopping them is a very, very hard task. And they've been doing this stuff all year. Detroit has been going in to these good teams, and they've been destroying them. They beat the Chiefs. They destroyed the Packers. They beat the Bucs that lot. This is a very, very good football team. They just got Jameson Williams back, and they did lose David Montgomery, who's been an essential part of their game plan, so he might be out for a while. But maybe this is finally the Jameer Gibbs time to shine, even though Craig Reynolds did get some pretty good usage in the backfield, and we'll talk about that when I get to my fantasy segment. But the Detroit Lions don't look like they're gonna miss a beat. They have a great offensive line. Their defense is incredible. Aidan Hutchinson is looking like a young star. And you really just gotta give credit to Jared Goff. He turned his career around, man. Two years ago, they were like, everyone on Twitter was just saying, he's a bridge quarterback. He's not a serious guy. He can't win you that many games. He's just gonna bring you to a new young guy. And then everyone wanted the Lions to take Malik Willis with the second overall pick, and he fell to like the third round. Malik Willis wasn't good. No one should have had the Lions taking him in second overall. They didn't need a quarterback that bad. So it's just a great, great time for Jared Goff and the Jared Goff supporters. He has, he looks like his 2018 self when he made it to the Super Bowl. They're looking strong, and I am really excited to see where this Detroit team goes, because I don't think they have the gears to beat the 49ers, but who knows? Maybe we could see them in the NFC Championship game. The Eagles didn't look super sharp, so you never know. Maybe the Lions make it to the NFC Championship. Maybe they make it to the Super Bowl. They pull off a crazy miracle, and the entire city of Detroit literally explodes, because that's probably what would happen. But there's no bad juju. There's no bad vibes coming out of Detroit. They're one of the smoothest sailing teams out there as far as I can see. I don't know if there are too many other teams with this good of a feel around them. They're winning a lot of games. They're star players. They're staying healthy, and even they lost to Monterey St. Brown for a week. It didn't matter. They bounced back. They still looked amazing. They're gonna lose David Montgomery. I don't think it's gonna be that hard. Their coaching is so great. Dan Campbell and Ben Johnson are both incredible, incredible, incredible coaches. Ben Johnson is another guy to watch out for. When coaches start getting fired, he's gonna be a guy who's gonna pick up a nice, nice coaching job somewhere. Now we're gonna kind of flip the switch on that story, and the Lions are a team with great juju and great moxie and a really, really great vibe or a team. We're gonna switch over to the Buffalo Bills, which is kind of surprising to some of you, I'm sure, but I'm really not sure what Buffalo's true ceiling is. They can make explosive plays sometimes. They have a quarterback who's, when he's on, he's one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, but I just don't know if he can play that consistently to win them four straight games at a high enough level to bring them to a Super Bowl, because it doesn't matter how many regular season games you win if you can't make it to the big one, and the Bills have not played consistently enough for me to buy into them as real title contenders this year. They barely beat the awful New York Giants who got routed by 40 by Dallas and have just gotten repeatedly washed off the face of the earth. They came down to the final play for Buffalo in a game where A, they should have gotten called for a holding call, and then New York probably wins that game, and B, they only put up 14 points. It wasn't like this was some crazy slugfest. Josh Allen and the Bills, that offense looked miserable. The defense really kept them in that game, but the offense just couldn't keep it going. Josh Allen barely made any magic happen. He would just kind of throw it to Stephon Diggs and just hope that he made a play, and when that didn't work, he wasn't on today. He didn't look super great, and this is not the first time it's happened. He did this against the Jets. The Bills are just lucky Josh Allen didn't have super crazy turnovers this game, because that's another thing that tends to happen when Josh Allen isn't on, and with Miami, as hot as they are, they're not a lot to win the division this year, so if they're fighting in a wild card, playing games at home in the playoffs, who knows if they even make it out of the wild card. They have lost in the division over the past two years. They lost in the conference championship three years ago, but I really just don't see this Josh Allen masterclass coming any time soon. He's never played consistently enough at a high enough level for four games in a row to show me that he can carry this team to a Super Bowl, because the team around him isn't perfect either. I would really like them to get a real bona fide second wide receiver. Gabe Davis isn't cutting it. Dawson Knox isn't cutting it. Dawn Kincaid isn't cutting it. All these other gadgety guys they have aren't it, so that's one thing. I'd like to see the O-line be a little better. I'd like their defense to get younger, but you can't be perfect all the time. We can't all be the San Francisco 49ers. Sometimes you're gonna have to deal with flaws on your team, so I really don't see the Bills ceiling. I think they'll make the playoffs. I don't think they're that bad that they're gonna miss the playoffs entirely, but if they're the sixth or the seventh seed with nine, 10, 11 wins, don't be surprised is all I'm gonna say. All right, time to flip the switch here. Wow, just checked. That was not another groundbreaking moment. Someone just dropped Jamal Williams in my fantasy league, so happens, but we don't get two breaking news stories in the same episode, but speaking of fantasy football, it's time to learn. It's time to get your facts down. I have my guys here, my starts, my stits. Jamal Williams, I wouldn't touch him with a 10-foot pole, man, so good on him for dropping him, but a guy I would start instead, Josh Jacobs. People are low on Josh Jacobs. I don't really see why. He's put up semi-consistent numbers without scoring a touchdown yet. Those numbers are only gonna go up once his touchdowns increase. He gets receiving work. He gets so many carries, and that's what you need. You need the volume. If you just put up counting stats on less volume, that's not sustainable as getting a lot of volume and maybe not having the best week-to-week performances, but being able to continually get the ball your way is so much more valuable, in my opinion, and Josh Jacobs is the workhorse bell cow running back in Las Vegas, and they're not a super great offense on their own, but he put up a solid week last week, and I think that Josh Jacobs can really only go up from here. Another guy who gets a solid workload and a pretty great offense is Isaiah Pacheco. He's a guy who is not the number one option on his team, but he's the number one rushing option, even though they don't love to run the ball as much. He still gets a considerable workload. He still makes the most out of that workload every week, and they're playing a pretty easy matchup in the Chargers this week. The Chargers have never been great at stopping the run, so this seems like a pretty good week to start Pacheco and watch him cook, man. The final start I have before we start talking about guys that I would tend to avoid and shy away from is Brandon Ayuk. If Debo is injured and McCaffrey is injured, even if they don't miss the game this week on Monday night, they could still be limited, and Brandon Ayuk had a solid game against Cleveland, but he had a few pretty bad drops, and if he comes down with those, he could've had a monster game last week, and if he continues to get that target share, I think he's a guy you should definitely start in your lineup. So I know I have him, and I'm really excited about what he's gonna do next week against the Minnesota Vikings, who don't have a crazy defense either. So if they can just overpower a young, not super great Minnesota defense, I think that smells like a lot of points for Brandon Ayuk. But the team that just played, the Minnesota Vikings, the Bears, I would shy away from pretty much everything there. The Justin Fields got hurt. He doesn't look like he's gonna play this week, so that's an automatic down for DJ Moore and Cole Komet, any of those guys, and their running backs who are still pretty hurt, I wouldn't lean on any of them either. No Devonta Foreman, no Rocheon Johnson. I wouldn't trust any of those guys to carry a workout and have a solid fantasy performance now that they have a backup in. Another guy who I'm gonna be fading in all my leagues this week is Mike Evans. I don't think they're primed to have a big game at all this week against Atlanta, and that sounds really weird to say out loud because their defense on paper doesn't seem great, but they put up incredible results. Their first against the run, and I wanna say fifth against the pass is what my notes have, so it's not gonna be easy going for Tampa Bay and Baker Mayfield, and because of that, Mike Evans probably won't be getting the volume and the stats he needs to put up a bunch of good points. I don't see them finding the end zone too many times, so don't count on a Mike Evans touchdown, so those are all guys I've faded away from, and one guy that people are starting to get excited about that I don't really see is Jameer Gibbs. They think that it's his turn to step into that offense and finally take on a full workload. I don't think that's their plan yet. I still think they're gonna dabble him in for a few plays, but he's still not gonna get the full workload, and people are surprised that this is happening with Jameer Gibbs, but at Alabama, he only got over 20 carries twice in his entire career, so you can't give a guy who had a lower workload in college a super, super, super high workload right out of the gates, even though he's oozing with talent and he's got that big playability and he's so, so fast, he's just never had the workload to be a bell cow back, and that's what they're working them into right now, so hopefully next year and the year after that, he can play a serviceable, larger role in this offense and really tear it up, but I just don't think that's gonna happen this year unless everyone else in that offense gets injured and they can't lean on anyone else. I'm fading Jameer Gibbs for the rest of the year, truthfully. He's a guy that I'm not trading for unless he magically blows up, so until then, he's a solid flex play for me, because he does have that elite talent, and he could maybe pop off a few games of the year, but I don't know if it's consistent enough to be laying on him as one of my top guys, and if you have him as one of your top two running backs, I'd consider making a trade for another one for sure, but yeah, that's all I have this week. Pretty solid week of NFL football. The Patriots, man, can't deal with it, wanna cry. That's my notes on them, but thank you all so much for tuning in, and I'll see you all next week.