Pine Pony Podcast
Friends arguing about sports
Pine Pony Podcast
Week 3 Whirlwind: Upsets and Insights
In this episode of the Pine Pony Podcast, hosts G and the Fantasy Uncle dive into their fantasy football league updates, including triumphs and struggles. They discuss various college football games with a focus on standout performances and unexpected outcomes. The NFL highlights feature controversial calls, player feuds, and surprising wins. Wrapping up with quick-hit games, the hosts tackle everything from declining team performances to individual player stats, with a touch of humor. Don't miss their hot takes on Shohei Ohtani's impressive yet oddly specific achievements!
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Welcome, welcome, welcome to another edition of the Power Pony podcast, it's me, G. With the fantasy uncle, which by the way, really is the fantasy uncle. His fantasy team is balling right now, five and one against only the other members of the, of the fantasy league, but against the league median as well. Thank you.
Pershin:Thank you for the shout out. I, this is what I was trying to say last year when everyone was clowning me You're the fantasy pet or whatever Whatever you and smith were on about i'll say look look man. i've got the long view You're gonna see next year i'ma have Marv malik neighbors of brock bowers all on the same team now, it turns out I didn't get brock powers. Okay, so Fared not exactly neighbors. Wow. But look, man, I got some good young pieces for my dynasty team. I'm in, I'm in good shape and I still have extra draft picks in the 2025 rookie draft where we're all systems go. And now you guys can stop clowning on me. Mercilessly.
Jason:Yeah. Yeah. I, my, my team's got some work to do. The quarterback area is kind of, you know, Deshaun Watson. I think he's just really clouding my team. Joe Burrows playing like shit. Deshaun's playing like shit. Jordan loves injured.
Pershin:Yeah. I feel like the love and. A couple of the wide receiver injuries slash situations that you've had to deal with have really put you because I mean, you had like a top 10 receiver and Puka go down like immediately and I mean,
Jason:yeah,
Pershin:that's hard. That's hard to deal with for any team, but. You know, I feel like your team will come back when love comes back, when hookah comes back, when these guys get back, you know, hopefully you're still in the mix.
Jason:Yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of football left, a lot of weeks left, you know, all I got to do is just win a couple of games and win against the average and we'll be good. Anyway. With that being said, man, let's start the show.
The Pied Pony Podcast.
Jason:College football was, you know, kind of wild in some ways, Michigan beat USC 27, 24. That was a pretty solid game. Fun game to watch Utah without said Oklahoma state. That was, that, that was a fun game. 22, 19 real close. Clemson absolutely dominated NC State. This game was over in the first quarter again, this week. It was the 28 to zero in the first quarter, 59, 35 overall. I mean, our, our second third string team gave up some points in the fourth quarter, but
Pershin:yeah,
Jason:the game was well in half. Who gives a shit? All their damage,
Pershin:all their damage was essentially junk time damage. And the game was not. As close as it looked. And I mean, it was still two scores and it was worse than that, you know?
Jason:Yeah, it was, I loved it. I love it. Can't wait for next week. FSU finally getting their first win. Congratulations.
Pershin:Hey, their, their fan, they beat Cal, they beat the golden bears. Their, their fans needed this. They'd been down bad for like nine or 10 months in a row.
Jason:Yeah. Yeah, they needed that. Another wild game. JMU absolutely demolishing UNC. Final score. 70 to 50. There was 1200 yards of offense in this game.
Pershin:1200 UNC turned
Jason:yes. You N'T C turned the ball over. Five times.
Pershin:Yikes. That's wild. That's like, this was
Jason:crazy. J you sunbelt representative, if I'm not mistaken.
Pershin:Hey, listen, good for them. Good for them. That's a pretty decisive win against power five squad. You know, making a little statement, Hey, you know, we could play too. Yeah,
Jason:some Sunbelt. Yep. I knew I recognized that team for my Chanticleers, you know whoop that ass and college level. Speaking of it real quick while we're on the college football subject
Pershin:Yeah,
Jason:Smith has he defeated me in the playoffs. It was a wild game
Pershin:Oh,
Jason:I was up. I was up at half 35 to 14 I have a couple of pick sixes on them and then this is
Pershin:like Falcons, Falcons, Patriots,
Jason:the turn tale of two halves.
Pershin:Oh no, he
Jason:scored. He was able to score. I made some stupid. I'm
Pershin:assuming you threw a pick six or something crazy like that
Jason:through a couple of pick sixes, but
Pershin:the
Jason:one where I really gave up on, he was only up by seven and I'm dropping back and I hit the throw button and this is a glitch because it's happened before. It'll look like the camera will even look like my guys throwing the ball and it'll be like fumble Oh, and then he scooped and scored. Yeah, he scooped and scored. I was just like well fuck but anyway Good game nonetheless. Very Friend
Pershin:of the pod good job winning.
Jason:Yeah,
Pershin:I guess he got the national championship
Jason:He went on to beat georgia in the national title game. Yep.
Pershin:Well done. Well done
Jason:UTEP minors. I have moved from the Sunbelt to the ACC. I've moved the coast. I've moved the Chanticleers to the ACC.
Pershin:Nice. Yeah.
Jason:We've moved up in conference.
Pershin:That make it a
Jason:little tougher.
Pershin:Atlantic
Jason:one in one currently.
Pershin:Atlantic Chanticleer conference. There you go.
Jason:Yeah. I, yeah, there we go. I'm one in one currently one lost in Mississippi state. Not a conference loss. As long as I win the conference, I'm in the playoffs. Good luck to you. Moving on. Anyway, I thought that was a nice little update to our fourth, our fourth season. At some point, we're going to join the same conference.
Pershin:Nice.
Jason:Last couple of games of college football, Tennessee. They, they just, they did their thing. Are they the real deal this year? Can we put our faith?
Pershin:They certainly seem like it. They, they have some impressive performances. I want to say last week was actually something of a dud or maybe it's the week before They disappointed a little bit, but for the most part they look like they've got their shit together, you know Absolutely. I think it absolutely looking like the only ten I see Yeah, I think it I think it's I think this is a real thing. I think that they're here to last I think that they're gonna be playing good ball the majority of the season and I You know, I think they're, they're firmly in the conversation.
Jason:Well, we will see they do play Alabama, Georgia and UTEP. So watch out.
Pershin:Yeah.
Jason:And then moving to the NFL, we had some controversial, no calls for pass interference, one in the Bengals game and one in the chiefs game against Kyle Pitts. That was rough to watch. I don't understand how you don't call that. And then the bingos call the one against T Higgins. That was again, I don't understand how you don't call somebody who is wrapping their arms around the wide receiver before the ball gets there.
Pershin:Yeah.
Jason:I have this one question based on this information. Should this be a reviewable flag or no, like, should it be reviewable, whether it's a flag or no flag?
Pershin:Oh, yeah. I mean, that's simple. Just quickly and plainly. I'll say yes, because my entire philosophy is that anything should be reviewable. If it matters to the outcome of the game, or at least has that potential, then allow the coach to get it right. I mean, I understand you can't give unlimited challenges, but you could at least say, Hey, if something's egregious, You can challenge it. There shouldn't be like, oh, you can't, you can't challenge certain fuck ups because We want certain fuck ups or something. That never made any sense to me. You should be able to challenge everything Particularly when you've got a guy full time in New York that watches all this stuff He could absolutely give the green light to some of this stuff and be like, yeah Yeah, that's that should be looked at again You know, so yes, definitely, definitely. It's unfortunate. I was actually on vacation this past weekend. So I, I mostly just watched recaps. I didn't watch a ton of football myself, but both of those plays I saw. And yeah, they were both obvious in my opinion. You know that the pits thing clearly past five yards down the field and with the Higgins thing clearly there before the balls there, I mean, just full blown making the tackle before the balls there, you know, it's just, it's pretty obvious calls. It's always frustrating for fans to see obvious shit like that. Affect the outcome of a game, you know, I, I didn't, like I
Jason:said, and of course it's like on the chiefs. So it's like, here we go with
Pershin:the chiefs. So I don't even know the story of the full game. I'm not. Gonna say, you know, oh, it was only the refs that this win for them or this loss for them or whatever it is Because I wasn't able to see these full games You know,
Jason:right
Pershin:could be that the it kind of balanced out in the end or whatever But the point is just that anytime there's something egregious like that Yeah, allow the coach to say come on get it right, you know, it's just
Jason:Yeah, well, let's move on to something a little bit more positive in the NFL. The Denver Broncos get a win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 26 7. Surprise, surprise. Bo Nix, 25 36, 216 yards, won Russian TD.
Pershin:Yeah, I think,
Jason:you
Pershin:know, I, I think it's pretty obvious that he's going to have his struggles in his rookie season. I don't think he's like, Oh, everything's clicked for him. And now he's a good NFL quarterback or whatever. But I did go back and watch all of his dropbacks in this game. And one thing I noticed is his footwork looks calmer instead of the first couple games. And also I noticed this in his very first preseason appearance too, when he, when they had the preseason game one, where he was doing this thing where he's just bouncing. He's just kind of bouncing on the toes of his feet while he's in the back of the pocket. And sometimes he can make these sort of off platform throws in it's, it's kind of fine, but you could just tell he, he looks jittery, you know, he looks not calm, looks not cool this game. He wasn't doing so much of this sort of hectic, unnecessary movement, this sort of bouncing and, and kind of dodging around when there's nothing there to dodge yet. You know, So that's that's great. That is a great sign to see from him I hope that maybe he's starting to just kind of be more comfortable with the fact that he's on this big stage And there's all these people watching and yada yada Crowd noise, whatever it is I hope that he could get the the mental part a little more calm down and this game it looked like he did I still think he's kind of passing up some things that he should be taking shots at settling for the lesser play in some instances. But of course you got to be happy that he didn't throw two interceptions, which he did his first two weeks. So,
Jason:right, right. Yeah. Hey, he didn't turn the ball, take
Pershin:any improvement. And really the biggest improvement came on our defensive side. I was actually shocked at how well they were stopping the run. By the way, the backup Bucky Irving for the third week in a row looks a lot better than Benj Rashad white, who is, you know, the first string. I think if you got Rashad white and your fantasy leads or, you know, in your best balls or whatever, you gotta be a little nervous right now because how many weeks in a row is the coach going to let the backup outperform the starter before he just says, okay, you're getting a bigger workload, you know,
Jason:I don't know. You told me to draft them. So.
Pershin:I did. I was, I was wrong about the situation. I was like, yo, this guy got so many carries and so many passes out of the backfield last year that, you
Jason:know, he's, he's gonna be, I mean, but still, but still you got to look at it. I mean, Bucky Irving, 11 or 12 and Rashad White, you know, 11. Yeah, I mean, they, they got about the same amount of touches we've seen receiving in
Pershin:rushing. Well, I think that's the thing is that he's already creeping up on him. And he just keeps looking better as a runner. I, I
Jason:thought Rashad white did get six targets versus, I think
Pershin:there's
Jason:no doubt. I think there's no doubt that
Pershin:Rashad white is the better pass catcher. And Rashad white is even pretty good at running actual. Routes, which I don't think Bucky Irving ever did in college. That being said, I do think Bucky Irving is going to continue to, to carve out more of a role going forward. Unless Rashad Wright can really show something here.
Jason:I think there's just a one game FUF beast, man.
Pershin:We'll see. He, to me, he has looked like the better guy in all three games. So
Jason:we'll see. Whatever. We'll see. We'll see.
Pershin:I'm just, okay. Alright. I'm just trying to tear down your fantasy team over here,
Jason:Yes you are. Yes you are. And I'm not gonna let you all, not gonna let do that. Fair enough. Fair
Pershin:enough.
Jason:Okay. Another, it looks to be week one after the benching of Bryce Young. It looks to be a good Panthers versus Raiders. Whoop the Raiders. I mean, this game, I watched this game. It was, this looked like a totally different team. I mean, this is the second time Dalton has played since being the backup for Bryce young and has outshined Bryce young. In every asset of the game.
Pershin:Yes.
Jason:Yes. Yes. Trade, trade price shown for whatever you can get a bag of peanuts. I don't care.
Pershin:What's crazy is like, not only is he making better reads, better decisions, throwing more catchable balls, but then on top of it, he's doing it quicker. He's, he's being decisive, getting the ball out quickly. Not holding on to it the way that it also, which
Jason:also makes it look like the offensive line can block better. I mean, I started Deontay Johnson and he had 122 yards with a touchdown. I did as
Pershin:well. Yeah. I mean, it's Yeah, it's good to see Deontay finally getting out of that Bryce Young jail that he was stuck in.
Jason:I hope Bryce Young never starts.
Pershin:Yeah, I know, right? I, honestly, I thought this a couple years ago when, when Andy Dalton, you know played that final season with the Saints, he came in as the backup. I can't remember who that was that went down ahead of him. But anyway, you know, he played six or seven games and he looked really good in those games. And then I was thinking maybe an NFL team is going to give him a shot at the starter again. No one did. He takes a backup job in Carolina and the rest of that obviously is history. Bryce Young, you know, going first overall. They're letting him play that role. But Look, I think Dalton's probably just a decent NFL quarterback. Nothing crazy, but the part that I thought was even more surprising than the offense was crazy. They also had, like, the leagues were de the league's worst defense, and then the defense was playing much better as well. It's like, yeah. Did they put Dalton in the secondary too? Like what? How did they do that? How did they Right, right. Both sides of the ball like that. it's
Jason:like, and I mean, well, and then Chupa. Hubber had over a hundred yards. I mean.
Pershin:Well, yeah, when, when the defense actually thinks you might throw the ball with, with any sort of efficiency, all of a sudden they're going to let you run a little bit more, you know,
Jason:Speaking of Garner Minshew is not the answer to anyone's problems at a starting quarterback. I just want to put that out there. Yes, he has good moments, but he is not a full time starter. Neither is Aiden O'Connell. If I'm DeAndre Hopkins, I'm demanding a trade. Devante
Pershin:Adams.
Jason:Now, whatever, DeAndre Both, both, both players. Both of them. Yeah. DeAndre Hopkins and Justin Jefferson. Devante Adams. They're
Pershin:all writing in their contract. Never this, never this place, man. Never this place.
Jason:Yeah, get me the fuck out of here. Like, I feel bad for just Antonio Pierce to like, just take over such a just What are you going to do at quarterback there? But anyway, I don't know.
Pershin:Did you see, Antonio Pierce's comments after the game about there was individuals that he felt like was making business decisions and that going forward, I kind of,
Jason:you know, who, but hold on real quick. Do you know? Right after that was said, cause I saw it on sports center or good morning football or whatever, and they immediately cut to Devante sitting on the bench by himself looking sad.
Pershin:Yeah. See, that's the thing is. My suspicion, of course, I don't really know, but my suspicion is that that is actually who he was talking about. And so when he says we'll be making business decisions moving forward, does that mean like, we're going to try to trade them because I think he wants out anyway, you know what I mean? It's like, I just think at this point, the closer we get to that trade deadline, the more likely it is that Devante Adams is going to move and you've got teams like the Steelers, who are still trying to get a hold of a better. Second option, other than George, you know what I mean? You still got some teams out there that are in that market. Yeah, I'm glad green Bay's not, it'll be interesting to see how that goes down, but my suspicion is that that is exactly the player. That he was talking about. I didn't see much of the game myself, but I did see, I did hear a commentary of people say, why it looks like Devante Adams just stopped running his route. Like, why is he just stopped? I got to think
Jason:maybe
Pershin:that's what Antonio Pierce is talking about. It's like, okay, you've given up. You're not, you don't want to try anymore. Like, you know, so
Jason:we'll see. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll, we'll see. We'll see. And we'll, we'll see what happens. Moving on to Chiefs Falcons. I got a co I got a couple questions. I got a couple questions. First of all, I wanna shout out Carson Steele. 17. Carrie, 72 yards. Guy's. Just a thrum. Puum bumbling. He so
Pershin:fun to watch. He is so fun to watch. He's, he's like Mike Alta all over again.
Jason:Am I wrong? Am I Didn't have time to research this, but does he have a pet alligator? I read that he had a pet alligator if he does on auto. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I don't know. But anyway, at any rate, our Mahomes and Kelsey feuding is, is like, is politics getting in the way because Taylor Swift is on one side and Brittany Mahomes is, is on Trump's side. And now, like they're, they're not hanging out as much because Kelsey is looking, he's looking old. He's not getting the ball. I mean, I, my homes is throwing interceptions at a clip. I mean at a high clip.
Pershin:Yeah. See, my thing is like, I doubt it has anything to do with outside stuff or politics. I'm
Jason:sure it doesn't. I'm just kidding.
Pershin:They, they are like best buds with Buttker. We saw the Buttker shit go down and pretty much everybody around Buttker said, no, I don't agree with it, but he's a great guy. I love him, you know? And so I just don't think that that's the sort of thing that any of those guys really are upset with each other over. I just think this is the sort of thing where it's like. When things aren't running as smoothly as you think they should be, even though they're getting wins, I think they, I think that they feel frustrated with where the offense is at right now. Everyone was expecting this big bounce back. The guys, Xavier Worthy, they got Hollywood Brown. Of course, Hollywood Brown's not actually part of it, but still. Expect expectations were that they were going to get this back to what we saw, you know, in previous seasons before last season. And it actually has looked a lot more like last season than it has anything better than that. And so I think that probably people are kind of looking around like, which one of us is. Cause it ain't me. And you know what I mean? And it's
Jason:right. Well, my homes, my homes did throw some stupid passes. Yeah. I mean, he, he had won the other game where he stared Kelsey down from the moment they hiked the ball and the guy, the defender was when they showed the quarterback view, I'm like, I could see him playing his day and he still threw it right there.
Pershin:Yeah. Yeah.
Jason:And the thing is
Pershin:like, he is really good. About avoiding these turnover worthy plays, putting the ball in harm's way. Mahome has, has always been just really good about not doing that. And I feel like that's one area where he's really taken a step back this year. He's had at least two interceptions that were definitely on him. Just bad decisions, bad balls. You just shouldn't. You know, you kind of just scratch your head. I'm like, okay, what was he thinking there? That's really not like him. So I, my, my best guess is that whereas last year I felt like the homes was actually playing at an elite level. He just kept getting let down by his receivers. I think this year he actually is kind of less than normal Mahomes for whatever reason. So
Jason:we'll see. It's because I drafted him. Yeah. I
Pershin:blame you.
Jason:Nonetheless, Kirk Cousins, you know, once again, kind of can't do it under the big lights. Again, can't get it done. There were two other controversial calls roughing the passer, one on both teams. I don't think either one of those plays were roughing the passer. But nonetheless, at least, at least both of them got one. So, you know, that was fair. And, and Bijan Robinson, man, he's got a dude 16 carries for 31 yards. That's Alger got 32 yards in half that like that's come on, man. Bijan. You got to do better than that, man. You got a hell of a squad. You got it. You got to do better to get Kirk Cousins ability to throw the ball.
Pershin:Yeah. I, I didn't see these plays myself, but I have been somewhat underwhelmed by what I've seen from Bijan. It's not like he's never making good plays, but it's some of these plays, it just looks like. What was that? You see, it almost seems like you weren't trying very hard. You, you know, you're not, the vision isn't quite right. You're, you're, there's a hole there. You didn't hit it like I would expect you to. Or, I'm not sure if there's anything going on, but it just seems, More inconsistent than I would have thought. I'm glad that they are on board with him being the bell cow guy He's going to get lots of opportunity Yeah, but you know, I maybe they're just still getting used to each other I don't know I have been a little bit disappointed and what I saw over the first couple weeks I will go back and try to watch this place, too We'll
Jason:see.
Pershin:We'll
Jason:see. All right go into a surprise ending Rams Versus the 49ers. I mean, that was just unbelievable. Come back by the Rams. I love it. Anytime the 49ers get beat Jawan Jennings. Had a hell of a game. Three touchdowns, 175 yards on 11 receptions. The game of his fucking life.
Pershin:Fucking life. Juwan Jennings was in the zone. I couldn't believe it. He was one of the first people I went to try to go look at his plays. Holy shit, he was balling out. This was not like, oh, we're, we're hurt on a couple of our past catchers. So we're going to purposely scheme up things. A lot of this stuff looked like the first read was actually supposed to be IU, and he wasn't open for whatever reason he decides to go off of that. Yeah. And then go to Juwan Jennings. Juwan Jennings was just in the fucking zone. He was feeling it. He was shaking dudes and getting open. And when he wasn't open, he was actually just going up and Randy Mossing them. I was like, Jesus Christ. You want speaking of that?
Jason:Yeah, go ahead. Speaking of Randy Mossing, there was so many people getting Moss this weekend. So many over at like receivers. Just going up and catching the ball over behind behind dudes.
Pershin:Love to see it. Love to see it.
Jason:Yeah
Pershin:You
Jason:know, well, unfortunately for real quick before jawan jennings Kyron williams matched him with three tighties of his own
Pershin:he did He did kyron williams. I was actually surprised at that because I I thought that there I was loving, I thought their offensive line was actually going to be like four men down for another couple of weeks, but then they got their starting left and right tackle back this past week and it paid huge dividends. They were able to, to, you know, hold up well enough basically. And they came back and, you know, made a pretty gutsy comeback win there. I just, I'll just say on the Jawan Jennings thing, I think this is one of those. moments where you just have an athlete who's just playing out of their mind for one week. And I don't expect that, you know, he's going to be like a priority in their offense going forward or anything. He was just having himself a day, especially when
Jason:everybody comes back.
Pershin:Right, right. Yes. I think a lot of people are going to see that, that really high fantasy number and they're going to be like, Oh, I need to go spend all my fab on this guy or whatever. I would definitely not recommend that this guy's had a lot of opportunity in a really good offense for the past couple of seasons. It hasn't done anything like that before. And You know, I, I just don't expect that that's, that's going to be the case. I will say though, to his credit, this is actually a higher fantasy score than Devo Samuel or Brandon Ayuk has ever put up. So congratulations there.
Jason:Very nice. Yeah. Very nice. Okay. Mike Tomlin wins again. The Steelers is fucking good again, man. This guy, they do it again. Three, you know, and this time you just two fields. Yeah, 20 to 10. I mean, still though, Quentin Johnson, it looks like he's becoming a big part of this offense. He got a touchdown. He caught both his targets. I mean, unfortunately the offense just didn't do much because the Steelers defense was absolutely suffocating.
Pershin:Yeah.
Jason:This, I mean, this is what the Steelers do. This is like Steelers football of old school TJ Watt is an absolute animal. He's a one man wrecking crew. It's, it's it's unreal.
Pershin:Yeah. I, this
Jason:was a, this was a good game to watch.
Pershin:I think a big part of the problem was that. Joe Alt went down and Rashaun Slater went down. Not only that, but Justin Herber apparently has a, a different foot injury aside from the plantar fasciitis he was already dealing with. So I think those are probably, But that shit don't
Jason:go away.
Pershin:I, bro, that's just, don't just go away, man. It lingers around.
Jason:Yeah, man.
Pershin:I you know, so I, I think that that is, You know, their entire offense is predicated on having a bad ass offensive line. So having those guys go down like that actually does fuck up their offense pretty bad. Of course, having Justin Herbert, you know, having multiple foot injuries also doesn't help. But that's not to take anything away from the Steelers because Look man, they have a really good plan to keep Fields on track. He has not been taking sacks like he normally does. He has not been putting the ball in harm's way. He actually has a 73 percent completion percentage over the first three games, which I think is second in the NFL right now. That's great. That's all you need from Justin Fields is just don't turn the ball over and don't take a bunch of sacks. The fact that he can make plays with his legs and they've got a decent run game will keep them. In the driver's seat of most games.
Jason:Yeah. He is not having a ton of turnover worthy plays along with Aaron Rogers to, to only to, to lead the league in non turnover worthy place.
Pershin:Yeah.
Jason:So that's pretty wild.
Pershin:I'm still
Jason:frustrated
Pershin:that I haven't seen the demise of Aaron Rogers yet.
Jason:It's coming. Any day
Pershin:now, any day now, he's going to,
Jason:he's going
Pershin:to be too old any moment now.
Jason:Okay. So going from the Steelers and their magic beans, we're going to go to a Monday night game, the Bills versus Jaguars. And so I got, I got one question. The reason why we're hitting this game is because someone is getting a pass while another person is not getting a pass and they have identical. Records and stats do the same amount of games. Who do you think I'm talking about? You're
Pershin:definitely talking about Trevor Lawrence, but I'm not sure who is the shitter that you're comparing him to
Jason:Bryce Young.
Pershin:No way.
Jason:Bryce Young. Yes.
Pershin:That's are as bad as Bryce Young.
Jason:Yes, not necessarily this, this like set of games this year, but through,
Pershin:Oh, like their same first 18 games, 18, 20
Jason:games in Trevor Lawrence, just like you said, and I still backed them up. But just like you said, this guy, every time he always has a built in excuse, or there's an excuse. And I think not only is Doug Pedersen's offense just stale and the league is passing him by, Trevor Lawrence isn't doing that well either. In my opinion, I mean,
Pershin:yeah,
Jason:he hasn't shown me any flash.
Pershin:Yeah. I did listen to a breakdown of this game from JTO Sullivan. And he was basically saying like, What I'm seeing from Trevor Lawrence is that he is continuously. really, really confident, which is usually a good thing, but he is trying to make all of the smallest windows, like almost every single pass that he throws, he's trying to throw like a fucking hero ball. And so many of them are almost caught or even almost intercepted. And it's just like
Jason:perfectionist.
Pershin:Yeah. It's like he's trying to make the hardest possible throw Some of the time the problem is that that scheme sucks and there's nobody to throw to but also some of the time there's an easier throw to be made and for whatever reason he's passing it up or he's deciding that his first read is a good enough window he is going to make that and on one hand it's great that Trevor Lawrence has that kind of confidence in himself to make those those hard right those hard passes but at the same time it's like At some point you just, you're kind of just making poor decisions. If you're always making hard, you know, trying to throw thread the needle constantly,
Jason:it's not good. If you lead the league and turnover worthy
Pershin:play, And look, this is not more excuses because I'm the one who said like it pretty soon here. We're just going to have to come to the acceptance that he's just kind of like an average quarterback rather than the guy he was supposed to be. Right.
Jason:But at least in this current situation, that
Pershin:being said, I will say that the offensive line is underperforming versus expectations. They've been, but, and then also I, I do think there's a problem with Doug Peterson. I think that he's, his scheme is not getting guys open. The way that they should like, he's, he's not doing his quarterback any favors and his quarterbacks taking all the heat and he should have some of the heat obviously, but also Peterson should be like in the limelight here as like, yo, what's your, you're supposed to be like an offense guru and you're supposed to be like a quarterback. Guy who makes it a QB friendly offense. It doesn't look that way. It looks like you've, you've made an offense where my man feels like he constantly has to thread the needle, you know, so
Jason:absolutely, absolutely. Let's go into a few quick hit games. The other Monday night game, you know, what's up with burrow and company, man? You know, is all the drama getting to them? Is it the dyed hair? What, you know, is it the fact that Joe Mixon isn't there anymore? I will say what's going on with this
Pershin:team. I will say things looked pretty good in the second half it wasn't a complete disaster but it's like What was going on that first half? It just seems like this is the first drive is great. It just seems like this is such a bad defense, particularly past defense, you know, for the, for the commanders. I always want to say this for the commanders is, is just really bad. The first couple of weeks, all of last year, no reason to believe it's necessarily going to be great. And then it's like, they, they just couldn't get anything going in the past game for most of that first half. That's weird. That's kind of, you know I guess you could say kudos to the commanders for coming out and actually throwing the ball. Downfield, which they did not do the first couple weeks. They, Jaden Daniels looked great. They actually showed confidence in Daniels and let him kind of what are the, what's the, they let him off the leash a little bit. Let him kind of like get loose and, and throw downfield, which is great. He's a dual wet, dual threat,
Jason:dual wet, which always helps the
Pershin:offense. And, you know, the Brian Robinson jr. Is kind of underrated as a running back. I think, I think that he's, he's making some plays happen, even when the offensive line is kind of letting him down, which is a great attribute to have as a running back.
Jason:Well, he's not underrated in fantasy leagues. That's for sure.
Pershin:No, people are, people are noticing them touchdowns.
Jason:Interesting enough, Dak Prescott and the Cowboys lose again. He tells everyone to get off the wagon, just get off the train. He said, if you don't like us, get off of the bandwagon, boys. Jerry Jones says he's the one to blame for the Dallas woes. Oh man, this is exactly what he loves. Jerry Jones loves the drama. This is, this is classic cowboy shit.
Pershin:Jerry Jones definitely involved himself in extra drama recently. Did you see this Jamie Foxx clip where Jamie Foxx had to cut, cut his, his streaming, he was like live streaming. He was, he was recording his conversation with Jerry. They were, I think they were at a, an exhibition game, a preseason. I, I think it was still before the season actually started. And he's, he's asking, he's kind of making jokes with Jerry Jones and like they're trying to be funny or something. And, and Jerry Jones starts talking about. Like the guys that he drafted this guy this guy's 6'4. He can run up for whatever 40 This is what it's dude. He's like, he's got an eight and a half inch dick too. And I'm just like, oh Jamie Foxx his face is like and then he just ends his his his livestream. He's just like, okay work
Jason:So Jerry Jones has been the Diddy's freak offs
Pershin:Yeah. It's like, Jerry, why, why, why are your scouts even measuring penises? Is that something that you care about? Jerry, you want to draft dudes with like,
Jason:Oh, maybe that's what the problem is. But at any rate, let's, let's go, let's go to the next game. Giants beat the Browns.
Pershin:Man, I was not expecting the giants. I was just so shocked of this. Malik neighbors
Jason:goes
Pershin:off, man. Great. Malik has just been great right off the get go. I mean, he has, he has been getting, he's been getting an absurd amount of targets right off the rip. And frankly, for as much production as he's had, he's left a lot of meat on the bones. There's been some off throws. I don't know if they're just kind of still working on their timing. I have a, an unfortunate suspicion that Daniel Jones is just. Air air mailing some of these passes where malik's getting open But the thing is that there's been meat left on the bone despite all the production He's put up it could it could have been even crazier the first three weeks And I just think this guy's just a bona fide playmaker. He looks to me like the very first year the That Justin Jefferson played, he didn't get on the field week one, the way that my neighbors did, but when he played, you could see it, you're like, Oh, he moves a little bit differently. He can make plays, you know, he, he can catch the ball and then in a phone booth, make a dude miss. And I, I see that kind of movement skills with Malik neighbors, too. I think the dude's just a huge play waiting to happen. And you gotta love it.
Jason:Absolutely.
Pershin:You gotta love it. He's clearly the alpha. Yup.
Jason:Absolutely. Tashaun Watson, the Browns arrow down big time, big time. They need help anyway.
Pershin:Yeah. I mean the giant hackers just real quick, I'll just say the Giants defense is just not good for them to just be hardly put up 15. It's like, come on, bro.
Jason:Well, he, he made, he fourth down at the end of the game, he had a wide open receiver and he pulls the ball down and tucks it. I mean, he's just making selfish plays. Packers pick up another win against the Titans, Malik Willis revenge game. He has a hell of a game, just absolutely commanding the offense again. 26 or 34. Two touchdowns, 260 yards. It's, I know it's Malik Willis's playing, but this is Matt LaFleur's office. This
Pershin:is absolutely this plug and play. Matt Lare This is absolutely Matt. Plug and
Jason:play.
Pershin:I was, I was listening to the Kurt Warner talk about this, this game here, and he was explaining how he, like Matt LaFleur pretty much dropped. All of their normal pass plays that they were using with Jordan Love. He pretty much made from the ground up an entirely new passing scheme. It was a simple one, but it was a brand new one for that week. That week two game where Malik wills had to go in there on short notice He wasn't really ready. And what's crazy is that they didn't go back to what they were doing What jordan loved and they're like, oh well now you you you're a little bit more familiar with the play They did yet again Scrap the week two scheme and at least most of it Came up with some more shit that the team was going to do and managed to get the entire team on the page again, the very next week he did this two weeks in a row where he just kind of reinvents the passing game. That is, that's impressive coaching.
Jason:That's next level.
Pershin:That's next level. And, and, you know, Kurt said, which I agree with, he's like right now, you're looking at KOC in Minnesota and you're looking at Matt LaFleur in Green Bay as the obvious front runners for coach of the year. And what's really fun is that we're going to get to see him play twice, you know, their rivals We're going to get to see and then and then we're going to see the who's out scheming who and I mean It's it's pretty it's pretty cool stuff though. It is really impressive how The the packers have been able to reinvent themselves Two weeks in a row like that to keep the opposing defense from knowing what in the hell might be coming so, you know,
Jason:absolutely And in the final game of the week, a game I did not see coming like this point wise. 15 to 12, Eagle Saints. This was a disgusting game. This was
Pershin:Oh, it
Jason:was just ugly defense offense was shit on both sides. I mean, this is kind of the third week in a row where the eagles have just looked like straight Doodoo the
Pershin:eagles offense looks like they still don't know what they're doing. I My guess is that there's they didn't score until the fourth quarter. My guess is that there's all their points came in fourth Yeah yeah, my guess is that there's better days to come down the line as the season progresses because They got no choice but to Get more familiar with things, but it, it does look like no one's on the same page. People are not necessarily understanding their assignments. Like Hertz is expecting a guy to stop when he's continuing to run. He's expecting a guy to continue when he's stopping all kinds of, you know, it, I understand that they, they had AJ Brown out. And then eventually they had Devonta Smith out as well. But look,
Jason:Oh, that was a dirty hit.
Pershin:Yeah, I actually didn't see it. I still haven't seen it. He got, he got sandwiched, right? That's what I heard.
Jason:So he caught the ball and then you know, people go to tackle him and they pushed him back. At this point, he had been pushed back another 10 yards and then a Saints guy comes in full speed, rams him helmet to helmet, sandwiched.
Pershin:Oh, that sucks.
Jason:I'm not surprised. I would be fine on a
Pershin:hit. That was unnecessary.
Jason:Yeah. Basically they took forever to blow the whistle. Had they blew the whistle earlier, it would have been, he probably would have been fine.
Pershin:The reps are blowing calls even when they're not blowing calls, bro. I promise you these guys, these dudes suck. But at any rate I just wanted to say quickly the last man standing that they could actually rely on was Dallas Goddard. And he came through, he looked good with his. catches. Yes, he did. And John Dodson, this was the best possible situation for him. He ran a route on every single snap that they had and he could not do anything. I'm sad to say, but I think I'm just done with. I think he's just dead to me when it comes to fantasy betting or whatever. I'm not betting anything besides unders with John Dotson. He's going to have to have some remarkable performances to change my mind because this is the best possible scenario for him and he, he just can't do anything.
Jason:That's hilarious. And then one, one parting gift to leave everybody with. Shohei Ohtani, he is absolutely a baller, right? 50 home runs, 50 stolen bases. Clearly good at baseball. But here's my thing. Here's my thing about this. I've never heard this stat before. My whole life, never heard this stat before. And all these sports do it. It's like, all of a sudden this player's like, You know, you're watching a game and, Oh, if he completes this pass, this'll be his 160th past this season in four games. And he's the youngest person to do it in this, at this rate with this many passes and it's like, how many goalposts are we going to move to, to make somebody the greatest and don't get me wrong. Shohei Ohtani is that dude. He absolutely is. But how many times are we going to like create a stat where it's like, Oh, this is historic because it's never happened. And it's like, well, how long have you even been keeping the stat and how long ago did it get broken? Like, you know, it's like, how, how much has the game changed? It's just, It just seems like a lot of leagues. They bring up this unknown stat all of a sudden out of thin air. And you're like, Oh wow. 50 stolen bases and 50 home runs. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. Like what, like when did we start keeping track of those two together?
Pershin:Yeah, yeah, no, they, they definitely do that. Whenever there's like a, a guy that they have. a certain take on, they want to find as many possible stats as they can to like support their take. And you're ready for this. Sometimes it's just like, since when do we define greatness by this stat? It's like, okay,
Jason:here it is. It's, it's like wrestling. This is the guy that's over right now. And they want to push them and push them to the top. Cause he's like, you know what I'm saying? You got a guy, he's a little, he's a little, you know, he's every fans love them, a lot of people love them. Okay. Okay. Let's, let's just build them up and make them bet crazy big. So he just gets so over, did you know that Joe Hayes brother
Pershin:has not been to the States to visit him in six months now? Did you know that? He has the Japanese streak for the most MLB home runs in a row without seeing his mother. Did you know that? You know, it would just be like, it'll be some crazy context where you're like, Oh, okay. I guess, I guess we're supposed to care about that. Yeah. That's, that sounds good. I mean, that sounds good. That's six stolen bases since he last got some pussy. That sounds good, right? It's so
Jason:good. Man, I wish I could steal six stolen bases. And it'll be like, look at
Pershin:the other players who have ever done this before. It's just two. It's Cal Ripken and it's Ken Griffey Jr. and that's it. So obviously he's the go. It's just like, okay guys.
Jason:And they had to go to freak offs to do it.
Pershin:Yeah, I mean, this is, this
Jason:is
Pershin:the kind
Jason:of
Pershin:stuff that they do though. They will come up with whatever crazy stats that they can to. You know, to, to build someone up or tear them down. Sometimes, sometimes they, the media likes doing both sides of that. You know,
Jason:the media will definitely tell you who they like and who they don't like. That is for certain. And with that being said, you can always hit us up at the email at pine pony podcast, 22 at gmail. com or on threads and Instagram at pine pony podcasts. And until the next episode, see ya.
Pershin:Adios.
