The Monday NFL Take Dump: The Saints need to play Jameis but the Eagles can’t bench Wentz

Also: Is Aaron Donald the GOAT? Big Ben is broken. Naming the NFL’s frauds.

We should all be thankful for the NFC East and the Atlanta Falcons. There aren’t a lot of things we can count on in 2020, but that division being a dumpster fire and the Falcons finding innovative ways to lose games are on the shortlist.

Everything else about this season, though? Complete and utter nonsense. All of a sudden, Josh Allen is the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL. The Patriots are basically a triple-option team now. The Chargers went from nearly upsetting the Chiefs to losing to the Panthers. The Bears can’t lose. The Vikings can’t win.

This league is so very dumb.

Here’s how dumb it is: If the season ended today, the Washington Football Team would be hosting a playoff game. I’m confident that the team with no name isn’t playoff-bound, which isn’t a very hot take. And you came here for hot takes. After all, this is the Take Dump, where no take is too hot and all opinions are subject to change upon further review. Here are my five spiciest takes after a long day of watching football…

It’s time for the Saints to consider starting Jameis Winston

Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

Look, I know the Saints are not benching Drew Brees. Sean Payton is going down with the ship before he pulls the greatest player in franchise history. But, as currently constructed, this Saints team isn’t going anywhere with Brees playing like this.

For a second consecutive week, Alvin Kamara carried the offense and I’m not sure how sustainable that is. Especially with defenses — at least ones not coached by Mike Pettine — realizing that Brees doesn’t want to throw the ball more than 10 yards downfield. This offense is going to get real easy to defend once word gets out.

To his credit, Brees was better in the loss to the Packers. It was easily his best game of the early season but that just goes to show how low the bar is right now. He didn’t even attempt a pass over 20 yards and needed two quarters before he was able to complete a pass that traveled more than 10 yards in the air. His average completion traveled only 3.9 yards downfield, which would have been the lowest mark for any quarterback this season if Adam Gase’s white privilege didn’t exist. And luckily for Brees, Pettine did him a solid by playing a bunch of off coverage and sending the occasional blitz, which provided him with the space he needed to just be a distributor.

Will Jameis improve things? I’m not sure, but he will, at the very least, force defenses to defend the entire field, which could make up for whatever the Saints lose in the ball security department. With the way the defense is playing now (not well), a high variance quarterback might be what this team needs. The game manager stuff only works when the rest of the team is playing at a high level and that just isn’t case in New Orleans right now.

Honestly, I just want to see Jameis play in this offense. It’s been a few years since Payton had been able to dial up deep shots consistently, and that’s when his offense is at its most fun. I’m sure he’ll figure out a way to get Brees playing at an acceptable level once again, but the ceiling for this offense — and the team as a whole — isn’t nearly as high with Brees refusing to throw more than a few yards downfield.

Here’s the scariest part for New Orleans: If this is how Brees is playing in September, what will December look like? We’ve seen Brees hit a late-season wall in recent years. If we see another one, he’ll fall into 2015 Peyton Manning territory in terms of washed-ness. At the point, Payton may not have a choice.

No, the Eagles shouldn’t bench Carson Wentz

Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

Carson Wentz is awful right now. Like worst-start-to-a-season-since-the-pre-merger-Buffalo-Bills awful, which has unsurprisingly led to Doug Pederson being asked about a possible quarterback change.

Wentz’s play has certainly warranted a benching. He’s last in just about every efficiency metric out there and even more concerning has been his play in a clean pocket. Before another stinker on Sunday, Wentz was sporting a passing grade of 48.9 on plays with no pressure, per Pro Football Focus. His passer rating on those plays (71.3) would put him at 31st in the league on the OVERALL leaderboard.

But anyone calling for a QB change needs to get familiar with the concept of dead money. There’s still a ton of it left on Wentz’s deal and that won’t change until 2022. Parting ways with him would leave behind a $59 million salary-cap charge for Philadelphia. Wentz ain’t going anywhere. Not with the Eagles already in a bit of a pickle cap-wise and in no shape to just absorb that big of a hit. Their only choice is to just hope Wentz gets better.

I don’t know how big it will be, but there’s a rebound coming eventually. There just has to be. Wentz may never develop into the elite quarterback Eagles fans were sure he’d become back in 2017, but he’s also not this. The larger sample size suggests he’ll eventually remember how to football and maybe it will be in time for Philadelphia to turn things around and compete in an inept NFC East division.

So how can Pederson and the company try to accelerate that process? Maybe take some stuff off Wentz’s plate by installing one of these quarterback-by-numbers offenses that are so popular around the league now. The Eagles are already calling a fair amount of play-action, but they can get those numbers up.

And if that doesn’t work, they can always tell him to turn his hat around.

Why Aaron Donald deserves to be in the GOAT conversation

(AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

At one point during the Rams’ loss in Buffalo, I found myself thinking “The Bills are actually doing a decent job against Aaron Donald today.” That thought lasted about 10 seconds before Donald burst through Buffalo’s line and threw Josh Allen to the ground for what felt like a sack that lost a million yards. By the end of the day, Donald had two sacks and seven total pressures. For another defensive tackle, that’s a career day. For Donald, it was just another Sunday.

It’s widely accepted that Donald is the league’s best defensive player, but I want to take it a step further: It’s time to start asking if the Rams star is the greatest football player we’ve ever seen.

Now, obviously, this isn’t a question of value. As a defensive tackle, Donald doesn’t have as big of an impact on the game as even a decent quarterback does. But I’m just looking at his skill compared to the rest of the players at his position and … I don’t know if we’ve ever seen a defensive tackle quite like him.

John Randle is the closest comparison, but Donald could match his career all-pro selections by the end of this season! And he’d be on pace to match Jerry Rice’s 10 career selections by the time he turned 33. He’s also on pace to break Randle’s record for career sacks for a defensive tackle by his 34th birthday.

Pro Football Reference came up with a stat it calls Hall of Fame Monitor, which uses a bunch of different metrics and accolades to measure the likelihood of a player making it to Canton. It’s also a convenient way to compare careers. And by this measure, Donald has already put together the 10th best career we’ve seen by a defensive tackle. He’s played only six full seasons. And by the end of this year, he should be up to seventh place. Cowboys legend Bob Lilly leads the position in this stat but it won’t be long before Donald catches him, too. At his current pace, it could happen by 2022, which would be Donald’s ninth NFL season.

By the time No. 99 is done, the gap between him and the second-best defensive tackle could be as wide as the gap between Jerry Rice and the second-best receiver. That, in and of itself, should put Donald in the GOAT discussion.

The Steelers are winning but Ben Roethlisberger looks broken

Nobody has really noticed because the Steelers are 3-0 and Ben Roethlisberger has put together a decent stat line, but the dude’s arm is dead.

Look at his passing chart from Sunday’s win over the Texans…

Ben Roethlisberger Week 3 Pass Chart

Do you see all those grey dots past the 20-yard mark? They don’t really do those passes justice. Roethlisberger couldn’t get the ball within the general vicinity of his receivers on anything downfield.

Even when he gets the ball where it needs to go, it looks … off.  Like this completion to Eric Ebron.

It’s an accurate throw, sure, but it took an eternity to get there. And that’s on a near-hash throw! Maybe I’m being too harsh on him but Prime Ben is driving that sucker in there.

The Steelers offense has just been so constricted these first few weeks. It’s been all shallow crossers with the occasional deep shot thrown in. While it hasn’t been an issue against the bad teams Pittsburgh has been beating up on, I don’t know if this is going to fly against better competition.

Roethlisberger is coming off a major elbow injury so it’s very possible that his arm will get stronger as the season goes on. And even if it doesn’t, the Steelers have enough around him to make a run at the playoffs. But they aren’t competing with the Chiefs and Ravens with the offense running like this.

These teams with winning records will miss the playoffs: Bears, Titans, Cardinals, Raiders

All right, let’s do this rapid-fire style…

Bears: I’m just going to let Chase Stuart of Football Perspective handle this one…

And, no, Nick Foles isn’t saving this team. The game-winning throw was legitimately great, but the rest of Foles’ performance? Not so much. This game would have been over on this play if the Falcons weren’t the Falcons…

Titans: Tennessee has had to eke out three wins against teams that have combined for one win on the season. And up until Sunday’s game against the Vikings’ awful run defense, Derrick Henry had been largely held in check. It also appears Ryan Tannehill is useless when not using play-action. He’s averaging 5.4 yards per attempt on non-play-action passes, which is tied for dead last with Joe Burrow. This is not a sustainable business model.

Cardinals: I’m still excited by this team’s future but a home loss to Matt Patricia automatically earns you the “fraud” label. I’m sorry, Arizona. My hands are tied.

Raiders: Coming into Week 3, the Raiders had been converting on third down at an unsustainable level.

Regression was surely coming and it hit on Sunday as Las Vegas converted on just 3-of-9 third-down plays in New England. And, all of a sudden, that win over New Orleans doesn’t look nearly as strong as it did a week ago.