PMT DB
PMT DB
The Giants were 10-point underdogs, the Jets lost to a Dolphins team that had never held a lead all season, and the Brewers kept doing their weird little late-inning magic act. Week 7 had everything: angry fan bases, questionable officiating, a genuinely good Giants team, and Hank arriving in a mood so bad that even his own Hungry Dog parlay couldn't survive it.
The Giants Are Fun Now
Fastest Two Minutes got the Sunday chaos started, including Jamis Winston singing from Hoboken and the Giants shocking Houston. Then Big Cat made the kind of declaration that would have sounded insane about this franchise a month ago: the Giants are not only good, they are fun. JJ McCarthy threw it deep without fear, Malik Nabers kept looking like a real No. 1 receiver, and Camp Scataboo ran straight out of the doghouse with 124 yards and a touchdown.
Big CatThe Giants are a fun, good team
Even when they're good, they're not fun. This is a fun team. The Giants are fun. Good. Yeah. And I do think that they are a good team.
Big CatMalik Nabers is a true No. 1 receiver
Malik Nabers is a bonafide, bonafide number one in the league, I think. I think Malik Nabers is a true number one.
The Texans, meanwhile, looked nothing like the defense everyone expected. Big Cat called Abdul Carter a menace, while PFT wondered whether Houston's entire defense had simply forgotten how to stop people. Hank got the Giants call right, but his 25-to-1 Hungry Dog parlay died with the Chiefs, leaving him to announce that he exists solely for dogs to bite and rip apart.
Falcons, Vikings, and the NFC South
Atlanta picked off Brock Purdy four times, Jesse Bates played like he had personally been assigned every important play, and Michael Penix finally distributed the ball to Drake London, Kyle Pitts, and Bijan Robinson. The Falcons' skill-position group is suddenly being discussed in the same sentence as the best in football, provided the offensive line can keep Penix upright.
PFT CommenterThe Falcons may have the NFL's best skill-position group
I think that if the Falcons can do that, they have maybe the best set of skill position players in the NFL. If you're able to protect Penix, he's good enough to distribute it and then just let their awesome players do awesome shit.
PFT CommenterThe Falcons are a real, flawed good team
I do think that the Falcons are real. Yeah. I think that they're a good team. They're a flawed good team.
Big Cat also floated Atlanta as a real NFC South winner, which is a sentence that would have gotten the podcast shut down in September. Tampa responded by demolishing Carolina 43-13, running Bucky Irving until the Panthers forgot what tackling was, and making Todd Bowles look like he had prepared for a football game on purpose. The Panthers should probably stop being favorites, at least until further notice.
Minnesota kept winning the least aesthetically pleasing way possible. Brian Flores blitzed Daniel Jones into another dimension, the Vikings shut out Indianapolis in the second half, and Blake Cashman posted a stat line that sounded generated by a broken Madden franchise. Six-and-oh with an 11-game winning streak is no longer fluky to Big Cat, and Flores has somehow become the clear Coordinator of the Year candidate.
Big CatThe Vikings' defense is dominant, not fluky
When you have a defense like this, you're in every game. So that part is not fluky. You know what I mean? Like they will be in every single game, basically, no matter what with how they play defense.
Big CatBrian Flores has to win Coordinator of the Year
Credit the Vikings again. Six and oh, Brian Flores is—I mean, they do do coordinators of the year, right? He absolutely has to win it, because they've won 11 games in a row and they just suffocate everyone.
Jets Season: Officially Over
Memes did not bother pretending. Miami won, Ollie Gordon ran wild, and Aaron Glenn somehow kept three timeouts in his pocket at the end of the first half like he was saving them for Christmas. Garrett Wilson was barely involved, Geno Smith was asked to play perfect football, and the Jets defense once again could not get off the field.
MemesThe Jets' season is over
The season's over. No, it's done. No, season ended officially ended one week before Halloween. Made it further than last year.
The silver lining is that Omar Cooper and Braelon Allen look like actual building blocks, and the Jets currently have three picks in the top 11. Memes wants Jeremiah Smith. Big Cat wants the entire organization fired, rebuilt, and probably moved to a city where the team can hurt fewer people.
Browns Math and Colts Misery
Cleveland went 5-2 by following the same script for the fifth time: play defense, keep the game close, and let Deshaun Watson become Mr. Fourth Quarter. Hank refused to treat the Browns as a real playoff threat, while Big Cat pointed out that the schedule is soft enough for Cleveland to keep getting away with this.
HankThe Browns cannot make a serious playoff run
Could they make a run to the Super Bowl? No. Yes or no. Yeah. Think of the Browns. The Browns aren't good. We know the Browns aren't good.
Big CatThe Browns could make the playoffs
Their schedule isn't that tough. So they might—they could be a playoff team. I wouldn't, I'm not gonna totally rule that out.
The Colts, on the other hand, looked ready to be put in a museum exhibit called “Teams That Need To Start Over.” Daniel Jones led the offense, Shane Steichen said he had a ton of faith in Jones in a way that suggested the exact opposite, and Anthony Richardson was still sitting there. Big Cat's solution was refreshingly simple: fire everyone, trade everyone, start Richardson.
Big CatThe Colts should fire and trade everyone, then start Anthony Richardson
My quick fix for the Colts is to fire everyone. Trade everyone. Start Anthony Richardson.
Bo Nix, Bad Calls, and Dan Campbell Math
Bo Nix heard Ryan Fitzpatrick call him disrespectful to the position and responded by launching the ball downfield, scrambling for 62 yards, and briefly remembering that quarterbacks are allowed to throw past the line of scrimmage. Denver's defense put Arizona in a blender, which has Big Cat buying Broncos stock before next week's meeting with Kansas City.
Detroit-Green Bay was the opposite kind of football: huge yardage, endless flags, missed kicks, and enough roughing-the-passer controversy to make PFT defend Dan Campbell's most aggressive decision of the day. Campbell went for it on his own 24, and Big Cat's argument was that Green Bay couldn't burn the entire clock from there. The Packers got the ball back, but not for long enough to erase the gamble.
The Rams at least remembered they have running backs, giving Kyren Williams and Blake Corum a combined 192 rushing yards while the Raiders waited until halftime to begin participating. The big question is now whether Las Vegas should start Mendoza, because at this point the Raiders season is mostly an experiment with a scoreboard.
Brewers Baseball, Baseball Rules
The Brewers went down 4-0 and immediately began the slow, inevitable process of making the other team panic. Sal Frelick hit a massive home run, Milwaukee kept answering every Rays push, and Big Cat stopped fighting the obvious conclusion: this is the best team in baseball.
Big Cat picked Milwaukee to win the World Series, while Max went one step further and called it in five. The conversation then turned to Yandy Díaz's check swing, a replay angle that made a full swing look legal, and the general problem of seeing baseball in too much high definition. PFT's solution was to assume every future at-bat will become a check swing.
The rest of the show brought back the NBA Cup, more Wisconsin sports misery, LIV Golf's truly deranged collection of anti-LIV domain names, and the usual numbers and birthday shoutouts. Hank promised a bad mood and delivered one. Somewhere, a Hungry Dog parlay is still looking for its final leg.
