The Story with Rachel Nichols: Inside the Colts' Trade Deadline Strategy, and Who Might Be on the Move

Today, Sports Illustrated's Connor Orr joins us on this story.

We're going to break down Sunday's biggest NFL games, the trade talk around the league, and what is going on with the Colts.

Let's get into it.

Hi, I'm Rachel Nichols here with Connor Orr.

Welcome to the story, Connor.

Thanks for having me.

It was fun yesterday watching games.

We came into the weekend with plenty to talk about already, but after yesterday's games, where do you want to start?

I want to start with Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

I mean, just an unbelievable performance by the Steelers.

Aaron Rodgers seems ageless again.

Mike McCarthy is in his bag, which is very surprising for a 3rd time.

head coach, and I think the balance of power is really shifting there.

That's interesting because there were a lot of people who were like, oh, I can't believe Aaron Rodgers is coming back.

Will he just retire already?

And yet he's showing exactly why he didn't.

It's really interesting.

A lot of coaches have told me that he has a unique skill set for this time and place in the NFL.

A lot of blitz heavy defenses.

And what Aaron can do is he's one of the last quarterbacks who's a true priest.

Snap operator.

He can still see through the blitzes.

He can still have a pretty good idea of where the ball's going.

And so he can just either throw it or dirt it, and he's not getting himself hurt like a lot of these other quarterbacks that are holding the ball on an average of about 1 2nd longer than Aaron Rodgers is.

And that's one of the big reasons you're seeing a ton of these quarterback injuries this year, Rachel.

That's super interesting because, of course, we've talked to coaches who have said, oh, the time of release, the time of release.

I mean, The Chargers, they changed Justin Herbert's, which foot was front, you know, for the time of release, it didn't work, but obviously I didn't think, I thought about that more about successive routes and not as much about injuries, and of course that makes total sense.

And lo and behold, your 43-year-old is like the one quarterback who hasn't needed a backup this year.

It's amazing.

I was gonna ask you if there's a game where the score didn't really tell you what happened, but I already know what that game would be.

Bucks, Falcons.

What happened there?

Because I'm gonna let you tell it.

What did the Bucks manage to do in this win?

They managed to win a game, uh, without completing a pass.

Such is life in Florida sometimes, you know, you deal with the hurricane winds, but it was crazy because Tampa was already trending in this direction when Baker Mayfield came back.

They had a huge statement win the week before by just feeding Bucky Irving the football, and I'm wondering if, even if it was just sunny, they might have just tried the same thing.

I first saw that stat and I was like, oh, they won without a touchdown pass, like.

It's unusual, but we see it.

And then I was like, wait, no passes at all during the entire game.

That hasn't happened in 52 years, guys.

I wanted to get into Buffalo and Baltimore.

What is going on?

We saw Lamar first play of the game, of his first game back, already down with an injury.

It's going to be a thumb procedure that's going to put him out for quite some time.

And we saw Baker Mayfield miss about a month and a half.

And this is a surgical procedure for Lamar.

He's missed significantly.

An amount of time in most of the last 5 seasons.

And it's to the point where Lamar is kind of on a year to year basis of really wanting to try to re up.

I don't think his goals of having a fully guaranteed contract have changed.

And so, it's going to be interesting to see what happens when he arrives back at the negotiating table without a real sample size in this offense.

Yeah, and with another set of injuries, right?

Yeah.

And you have to, at some point, I think, ask the question, where is the speed going to go?

Where's the durability going to go as someone who is 38, I can.

You, it doesn't get better the closer that you can get to 40.

And I think that that's just something that it's going to be interesting, right?

It's going to be a whole team consultation here.

You're going to want your medical people involved.

You're going to want all your PT people involved.

What do they think that the human body can withstand, especially someone who plays like Lamar?

Yeah, I grew up in Maryland.

I feel bad about all the things that have happened there.

And Lamar is a good guy.

And it just seems like he's snake it sometimes.

Cardinals, let's talk about the upset.

They pulled the Gardner Minho getting it done.

And how did the Cowboys let this one get away?

It starts and ends with the defense, and I think that this is one of those classic ugly scenarios.

It's never good if you're a young defensive coordinator, and then the coach hires someone who he's friendlier with than you to kind of oversee everything.

And Christian Parker, it's tough.

He's one of the bright young stars in this league, runs a Fangio kind of style defense.

But I think what happens when you're running a Fangio style defense and you're not Fangio is just the, the history that goes into that and the little tweaks that go into the game.

Game plan.

And you can see what happens, especially with Gardner Minho.

And here's something really interesting about Gardner Minho.

He is one of the best signal decoders in the NFL.

He can look at a cornerback and know almost exactly what he's doing based on the hand signals that they're relaying across the field.

So he's a really sticky competitor in those weird kind of spots where he comes in on injury and a guy that I would hate to see come on the field if I was Christian Parker.

That's crazy.

How does he, does he ever talked about how he does it?

So, he used to play in the air raid, and it was a lot of no huddling.

And one of the benefits of a no-huddle offense is that it keeps the defense off the field, and so they have to rely more on hand signals.

And over time, he just got really good at building kind of a photographic memory of, OK, they're going to do this, which means they're going to do that.

He can memory bank that, he's learned to look for it on film, which is legal, especially if you do it between the weeks.

There's no Bill Belichick thing involved here.

And, uh, as long as you build that database and you have that mental database in there, it can really give you the answers to the test.

This is very interesting insight.

And the Cowboys' defense is possibly not one you'd want to come into the year with a complication in terms of scheme, but who am I to say?

Um, we talked about the Steelers.

I want to talk about the team on the other end of that game, the Browns.

Where do you think they stand?

Well, I think at the end of the day, it comes back to your anchor and your quarterback.

And I think Todd Monken's did a good job of keeping DeShaun out of perilous situations on the field, but still , he's the twenty-seventh best quarterback in the NFL in terms of EPA and was very high up on turnover.

Worthy plays.

And then we saw against Pittsburgh, them really releasing blitzes.

They had a lot of free runners.

There were 2 fumbles on the first two possessions.

And so, in my trade deadline, dream trades, I said, go after someone like Kirk Cousins, Spencer Rattler, get a real backup in there, because this is a good team, otherwise, a lot of stars and a lot of positions.

Before we talk, Lions, Vikings, obviously, all of us very concerned about Jack Campbell and wishing him the best.

But to talk about the football, how did the Lions give the Vikings their First loss and what stands out to you about these teams right now?

I thought Drew Petzing, the Lions' offensive coordinator, was brilliant today.

I thought what was really smart about his game plan was bringing both of the tight ends into the backfield and basically doing kind of like an inverted wishbone or they're calling it a sidecar now.

And that negates a little bit of the Brian Flores crazy blitzing, especially when you're running the ball really well into the teeth of it.

You just have extra protectors.

Yeah, and look, I mean, Kyler Murray's passing has been so stunted, and it seems like the entire offense is just Built around not to get him into trouble.

You see Justin Jefferson's numbers going way down, all of that.

They won them 6 games.

I don't know how long that can last.

It's an interesting gamble for Kevin O'Connell because he said at the beginning of the season, I just need adequate quarterback play.

And you even watch the way that he calls these games.

They have one of the highest time of possessions in the league.

And even though they're not scoring a lot of points, basically what he's saying is, I need to get that defense off the field, get them rested so they can go out and, uh, and win us the game.

But is that a replicable formula?

Week in and week out, the lines kind of told us no today.

Yeah, I don't think it is.

All right, so preseason, it felt like every single human on the earth was picking the Rams to win the Super Bowl.

Who do you now give the edge to for the rest of the season now that you've seen a pretty decent sample size?

I still like the Seahawks.

I think that they have another move left in them, and I think that Brian Fleury, once he gets caught up to speed, it's going to be the same offense for Sam Darnold.

They're just calling it differently, and they've been protecting him a little bit differently.

That defense is still so good.

What if they have another big swing at the trade deadline?

They've already gotten Quentin Nelson.

Are they planning on adding more?

At least Ja'Darian Price is going to come back.

It's hard not to wonder if even Buffalo can get that defense up to like mid-tier, if that can be the 15th or 16th best defense in the NFL, because as we learned through the majority of the Patrick Mahomes run there, that can change so much.

It can erase so many faults.

It can erase all the things that are wrong with your team, and Josh Allen's still playing phenomenal football this year.

Oh my God, set another spate of records today, right?

So.

Uh, Passing legends, Josh Allen, you mentioned the trade deadlines coming up.

What other team do you look at and you say that team needs to make a move?

Speaking of the Chiefs, right?

I mean, Patrick Mahomes needs some sort of an upgrade at wide receiver.

I don't know necessarily if Josh Downs is that.

Guy, I mean , they've had that stable of kind of familiar players that seem to rotate in and off of that roster completely.

What's the deal with Tyreek Hill?

Is he going to come back?

Is he going to be a part of this roster?

I'm not sure.

And so we're back deja vu, right?

Patrick Mahomes needs a wide receiver.

It's the middle of the season.

Can they get him one?

It's crazy to me that they haven't been able to fix this in in several years.

I mean, the move to bring in a real reliable running back this year was huge and has made a huge difference.

I know Patrick had the highest rushing totals of his career last season, and that is partly what got him hurt and all of the other stuff.

But that's not the only problem you have to solve.

You have to solve the receiver problem.

Anytime, uh, Patrick Mahomes is leaving the pocket, I think there's like a collective shudder on Kansas City sideline, especially when he's lowering his shoulder and he's trying to gain extra yards.

That's just something that you don't want literally the greatest quarterback in the NFL to do.

But we'll see.

I mean, the Chiefs have been very interesting in terms of how they're gauging their success timeline.

Sometimes it seems like they're a little flat-footed and lackadaisical at the deadline.

But they did make some big moves in the draft already.

So maybe that shows a little bit of aggression on their part this season.

I want to ask you about the Colts too before we go.

What are you hearing is the plan for Indy going forward?

I think they probably jumped the gun a little bit on De Forest Buckner and Quentin Nelson.

Could you have gotten more if you just pushed it a little bit closer to the deadline?

You let a few more teams become contenders and give them the illusion that they need to jump in and spend for these picks.

But I think that the Jonathan Taylor thing, reading the tea leaves whenever a team says we're definitely not shopping somebody, and then you see, uh, right alongside that, uh, maybe a 3rd round pick will, would be good enough, you know, I think they're they're just waiting, right?

You're biding their time until we see the increased bids.

I did want to ask you about the Colts and sort of the controversy around ownership right now, because I don't understand it.

And maybe you can explain it to me.

Why are people so critical?

Of Carly being on the sidelines, and they're not critical of the owner who's soliciting prostitutes in his van or whatever.

It's one of the most nonsensical and, you know, misogynistic storylines in the NFL.

And I think that, you know, as a Commanders fan, right, what a benefit it would have been if their owner was on the sideline and on the headset when they couldn't get a timeout in at the end of the game, and then that owner could have.

Understood who made that mistake.

Carly's got a notebook full of these things.

She knows who's reacting right.

She knows who's reacting wrong in big situations.

She knows who's calm, she knows who's supposed to be there.

And I think that's such a valuable building piece for an organization.

I wish all owners did this instead of just kind of hung out in the, in the owner's seat and spilled whiskey on people, you know.

Talked about Jonathan Taylor, but Josh Downs is interesting to me since he wants out too.

He provides stability at wideout for anyone.

What do you think?

Yeah, Josh Downs is great.

I mean, he's equally as good against man coverage in zone coverage.

He can be a kind of break the top off a defense guy.

He's great in the intermediate.

I think some of these teams like San Francisco especially make a lot of sense the deeper that we get into this one, or the Chiefs, maybe, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, get a receiver, not wait, come on, come on, guys.

You have a singular player where it could be 30 years before you get someone like that again in your franchise.

Who cares about the future that you're mortgaging to me, because you're not going to have Patrick Mahomes anymore.

How good is your team going to be anyway?

Bill Belichick showed us ultimately what happens when hubris in regards to the scheme and the process overrides the common sense nature of just like, get him the wide receiver.

Just, just get it for him, you know, please, please help him out.

Obviously.

Sensitive issue for me.

Anyway, Connor, I really, really appreciate you making the time.

Great to talk football with you and we would like you back throughout the season.

Anytime.

Thanks, Rachel.

Before we go, congratulations to the Golden State Valkyries.

Had to talk about it just two seasons in already NBA champions.

Great story.

And that is what we do here at Sports Illustrated because the games may end, but the stories don't.

I'm Rachel Nichols.

We'll see you tomorrow.