I can make this work as long as it doesn’t affect the greater good of the team.
All right.
Welcome in.
It’s the Brew Report for Friday, October 9th, presented by State Farm.
Week 5 is underway, and it got started last night with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers outlasting the Dallas Cowboys 24 to 16.
They got their coach, Todd Bowles off the hook here.
Um, a decision he made late in the game opened the door for the Cowboys to come back.
Uh, they went for it on 4th and goal from inside the 1 yard line, up 24 to 10.
The the Buccaneers were not able to convert there.
The Cowboys then drove 99 yards for a touchdown, got a stop, got the ball back.
It looked like they were in the process of driving the field again to go in and potentially tie the score, and then a Dak Prescott throw clangs off the hands.
Of tight end Jake Ferguson, Alex Anzalone is able to run underneath it, pick it off.
The Bucks then grind out one more first down with Bucky Irving running the ball, and they wind up winning the game.
And the and the the the for the Buccaneers, this is absolutely massive, potentially season saving.
Of course, they come into this game 0 and 4, coming back from coming back out of an 0 and 5 hole, um, to make the playoffs would have been borderline impossible.
Um, and I think if they’re 0 and 5, and Todd Bowles may have made that decision, and the Cowboys drive the field twice and wind up winning the game, we’re probably talking about Todd Bowles.
Jobs, Cody, we’ve seen that before coming off of Thursday night games on Friday.
The Buccaneers are spared all of that, and I think you got to give them credit.
I mean, you look at the numbers, 243 yards rushing.
Bucky Irving again, he’s able to help close out the Cowboys at the very end, 165 yards and 21 carries.
Again, as a team, 243 yards rushing.
And Jalen Daniels, the undrafted free agent quarterback, acquitted himself nicely, 19 to 25, 189 yards, a touchdown, a 110.
2 rating, all the way around, a really, really good victory for the Buccaneers.
Now what does this mean for the Cowboys?
I’m not gonna kill Dak Prescott for it.
Yes, it, it looks on the stat sheet like he throws a costly interception at the end of the game.
That one isn’t really on him, um, and I wouldn’t be too concerned about the Cowboys’ offense.
I would be more concerned with the Cowboys’ defense and where they’re at.
And no, they didn’t have Joey Porter.
He came down with an illness last-minute scratch for, for that Dallas defense, but Here we are now, 5 games in with Christian Parker as the team’s defensive coordinator, and there’s just haven’t been a lot of great signs on where they’re at.
They weren’t able to stop the run tonight.
They weren’t able to get the one stop that they needed at the very end to maybe give the offense one last chance to come back, um.
I think coming out of this one, rather than talking about Todd Bow’s job security, maybe we’re talking about Christian Parker and where is he, where he’s at, and what he can do to fix the Cowboys’ defense.
The hope is, and the hope has been there for a while now, that the Cowboys will be able to ascend on defense over the course of the year.
They’ve got some veteran players in the group, of course, Kenny Clarke, Rashaw Gary.
You know, Joey Porter now coming over from Pittsburgh should help them get better.
You know, Jalen Thompson, Malik Hooker, they’ve got guys who’ve been around the block, Quentin Williams.
Um, the hope is that the young guys can come along.
And help them elevate.
And so that’s DeMarvian Overshon who is, you know, still working his way back from the injury and trying to get himself back to, to full speed.
That’s Donovan Ezaraku playing on the edge opposite Rashaw Garry.
That’s Caleb Downs, who’s already turned into a, a high-end player in the secondary and might wind up being The best player on defense by the end of the year.
So, Christian Parker’s ability to make a scheme work, Christian Parker’s ability to develop defense, develop young defensive players, all of that is gonna be under the microscope coming off of a performance like this one.
Not great for the Dallas defense.
Again, I think the Cowboys’ offense is gonna be just fine.
I think you’re idiotic if you’re blaming Dak Prescott after this one.
again, that last throw was right between Jake Ferguson’s hands and it’s not on the quarterback.
But the Cowboys are what they are right now, and what they are is a 2 and 3 team.
All right, our second topic, we’ll stay in the NFC East for this one.
The Philadelphia Eagles had an incredibly eventful week.
Early in the week, of course, Lane Johnson announces his retirement.
Um, it was surprising, I think for most of us on the outside.
I, I don’t know that it was a shocker internally though.
This is something that That Lane Johnson had been talking about for quite some time.
He considered retiring before this year.
He is now, he was in the midst of his 14th year when he decided to hang him up.
Um, I mean, first of all, just an appreciation for Lane Johnson as a football player, the greatest right tackle of his era, um, one of the greatest at his position ever to play.
Uh, he is the one constant on the offensive line.
Um, between the three Super Bowl teams and 2 Super Bowl champions, the Eagles have had over the course of the last decade.
Uh, this is an all-timer for the Eagles.
This is a likely Hall of Famer, and I hate calling guys locked Pro Football Hall of Famers unless you’re Tom Brady or Joe Montana or Jerry Rice, but he’s pretty close to a, a, a, a sure thing for the Hall of Fame as well.
And then, A couple days later, the Eagles turn around and they trade Cam Jergens to the Baltimore Ravens.
Of course, Jerrigen’s going with the 2027 7th round pick to the Ravens for a 2027 5th round pick, and 2028 2nd round pick.
So they’re essentially turning a 7 into a 5 and getting a 2 for Cam Jergens.
So why did the Eagles do this?
Well, the Eagles.
The Eagles are at a in a position now where their offensive line isn’t what it was before.
They lost Landon Dickerson to injury, but he wasn’t very good before he got injured, um, and I think a lot of things that kind of started to take their toll and caught up to him.
And there’s no, there’s there’s no guarantee that he’s going to regain his form when he comes back from the injury.
This guy’s got a lot of mileage on his legs for his age.
And when he went out, they moved Kim Jergens over to left guard, and they moved , uh, they moved Drew Kendall, their 2nd year 5th round, former 5th round pick in its center , and Drew Kendall actually acquitted himself well.
Jergens did not look good at guard.
So that left the Eagles in a little bit of a weird spot where they’ve got a young center who’s playing well, and they had a guard who wasn’t playing well, who probably needed to move back to center.
They weren’t looking to trade Cam Jergens.
This wasn’t something that was on their radar, but the Ravens played aggressor here and gave them the opportunity to do what they did.
For the Ravens, Javon Gwyn, uh, Danny Pinter, and finally, Ethan Postic all wound up suffering season-ending injuries.
They were in a pretty desperate spot at center .
They wind up moving their first-round pick, Vega Ione into center.
It’s not ideal for them .
They made it work for a week.
Uh, they wanted to kick him back out to guard all along, and this will allow them to do that.
With all the injuries at the center position, they made calls earlier in the week.
They found a willing partner in the Eagles.
They felt like if we can stabilize the center position, we’ll be much better off for it.
And remember, they tried to bring back Tyler Linderbaum.
It’s not like they didn’t value the position, just waved goodbye.
They offered last year during the season to make him the highest-paid center in all of football, and then just before he left, they pushed their offer up over $22 million per year, which would have been the biggest center contract in history by a relatively wide margin.
The problem was the Raiders were willing to go even further.
The commanders were in that mix, helping to drive the the market up.
And Linderbaum winds up getting 27 million per year in Vegas, which was like an incredible percentage of the previous market, 150% of the previous market, and I think that the Raiders did well to get him, but that’s why the Ravens lost him.
And so this gives them a chance to, to replace him in the short term and the long term.
Um, and that Cam Jerges is under contract at the minimum for the rest of this year, $16 million next year, $17 million the year after that, and $17 million after the year after that.
So, they essentially get a replacement for Tyler Linderbaum for the next 3.5 years for far less than they would have had to pay Linderbaum to stay.
Um, the Ravens view themselves as a team that’s capable of winning it all right now.
And so taking care of a very important spot on the roster, a very important spot in the offense that new coordinator Declan Doyle is running was important.
Um, so, like I think from the Ravens’ perspective, you find a guy who’s gonna come in, play a very important position, be able to help run the show for the offensive line there, which should make Lamar Jackson and the rest of the players on that side of the ball better.
Um, and, you know, they, they, they move one draft pick down and then the second draft pick that they’re getting is not for another year and a half, which means they’ve got time to replace it.
There’s a long-term component here for the Eagles as well.
And that’s the cap crunch that’s coming.
They got a ton of dead cap, um, on their books , and that is eventually going to have to be taken.
And so now, I don’t think this is why they did it, but now you look at the dead money off of Lane, you look at the dead money off of , off of, off of, uh, off Camp Jergens, and you put the two numbers together and you start thinking, is this the point where you’re looking at it and you’re saying, we’re gonna take our medicine.
And I, by the way, think it’s gonna be a multi-year process getting out from underneath the cap damage, and 100% was worth it.
They went to 3 Super Bowls, they won 2.
But they were gonna have to pay this Piper at some point, and it might make sense to do it now, given the the, the events of the last 3 days.
Um, and it’ll be interesting to see as well what that Eagles team looks like with a much younger offensive line.
4 of the 5 starters are now on rookie contracts.
You have a 26-year-old guard in In Tyler Steen, a 24-year-old guard in Willie Lampkin, who I think a lot of, who had a really strong camp, who’s now a starter, a 24-year-old center in, in Drew Kendall, and a 24-year-old right tackle in Markell Bell.
Twenty-nine-year-old Jordan Milotta, of course , left tackle, the elder statesman, so a much different look for the Eagles.
And Sunday could be a tough go.
They’re playing the red-hot Jaguars over in London.
All right, and our 3rd topic and our personal plan for the week brought to you by State Farm.
Thank you again to State Farm, the good folks at State Farm for being a part of all of this, is to look a little deeper into the decision made by Sean Payton and Sean Payton’s plan now to take over play calling with the Denver Broncos.
I do not think that this is something that was part of Sean Payton’s plan.
Um, a month ago, 2 months ago, 3 months ago.
The decision to go to Davis Webb as play caller was incredibly well thought out.
Um, he had actually given Davis Webb a test drive as a play caller last summer.
Um, it’s something that he had continually thought about as Davis Webb worked through the 2025 season as the quarterbacks coach.
And it was a reason why he moved on from Joe Lombardi after last year.
Um , a guy who’s been a longtime right-hand man to his.
Um, because he knew that Davis Webb was gonna elicit a lot of interest, which he did.
He interviewed for head coaching jobs with Vegas and Buffalo, and there were a number of different teams that wanted to bring him in as a play calling OC.
He knew that he was gonna have to do something to keep him, and this is what he was gonna have to do.
And so, you know, he gave him a test run last summer.
He worked with him, he involved him in things, and he really thought that there would be.
I, I think , uh, there’d be something very real there that would be different that would give the Broncos an advantage.
It hasn’t played out that way.
Um, if you look at the numbers, the, the Broncos right now are 27th in total offense.
They are 27th in scoring offense.
Um, their quarterback , Bo Nix, in his third year now, has an 80.4 quarterback rating that ranks 31st among NFL quarterbacks.
And they are averaging 3.6 yards per carry, that is 27th in the NFL as well.
And so, I think as much as anything else, as much as Sean Payton loves Davis Webb, he also knows what he has.
And as a team that’s ready to compete for a championship, as a team that was in the AFC championship game last year, and oh by the way, almost pulled that off, despite losing Bo Nix the week before and having to go with Jarrett Stidham in that big spot.
And I think the way that Sean Payton looks at this is, I can make this work.
As long as it doesn’t affect the greater good of the team.
And the greater good of the team right now is to do everything you possibly can, um, to try to dig them out from underneath this hole.
Right now, the Broncos are 2 and 2.
They have an unforgiving schedule over the course of the next few weeks.
They play at the Chargers on Sunday.
They’ve got the Seahawks in week 6.
They go to Arizona in week 7, so maybe that’s a little bit of a reprieve there, but then you got the Chiefs at home.
And they have to go to Carolina and Carolina is no pushover, and that gets you to the, to your buy in week 10.
So I think as much as anything else, this is Sean Payton recognizing what sort of team he has, recognizing the spot that they’re that they’re in, recognizing that these opportunities don’t come along forever, and deciding that As much as he likes Davis Webb, he doesn’t want to risk the rest of this year in developing a new play caller, so he’s taking matters into his own hands.
Appreciate you guys coming out.
As always, you can leave your comments, your questions down below here on the YouTube page.
Um, you can also get to me on my social media, that’s at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert Arrey on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram, and now at Albert Breer on TikTok.
Appreciate you guys coming out.
We will be back early next week to wrap up all the week 5 action.
