Speaker 1: Here. It is from the field, pressure, coming Party, Hit Party,
Speaker 1: shocks game over, Christian rose Boom clinches it. The Rams
Speaker 1: have a three game winning streak and they sleep San
Speaker 1: Francisco twelve six to final.
Speaker 2: That's how you close a game, not just by Christian
Speaker 2: rose Boom, but by our friend JB. Long on KSPN. Yes,
Speaker 2: the Rams win a game in the division without scoring
Speaker 2: a touchdown twelve to six, a massive result for their
Speaker 2: playoff hopes, basically eliminating their rival forty nine ers in
Speaker 2: a rainy night in Santa Clara. It's dry here in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, and I've got my friend Andrew Siciliano with me.
Speaker 2: Andrew the preseason voice on television of the La Rams,
Speaker 2: so he's an expert, and I liked how they ended there.
Speaker 2: You send some pressure on a hail Mary. Don't even
Speaker 2: let Rock Party throw that ball. Although I was kind
Speaker 2: of wondering if Rock Purty could even reach in the rain.
Speaker 2: We'll never find.
Speaker 3: Out, Rosenthal. I'm touched, I am flattered. I am honored
Speaker 3: to be back on this pod, longtime listener, first time
Speaker 3: in this current format on the pod, and I think
Speaker 3: first time back maybe in the NFL media group since
Speaker 3: the start of Week one. I am honored to be here.
Speaker 2: We miss you, buddy, But look, Andrew one of the
Speaker 2: best people in the business, and he's been busy, not
Speaker 2: you know, since the Olympics. He's of course now the
Speaker 2: voice of the Browns. He's got his YouTube channel, check
Speaker 2: out Andrew Ciciliano. He's got Thinking out Loud on the channel,
Speaker 2: he's got the Bark Tank podcast. But we're here to
Speaker 2: talk a little Rams forty nine Ers. And you've watched
Speaker 2: this division as closely as any because of your connection
Speaker 2: to the Rams. A different sort of NFC West game,
Speaker 2: a defensive struggle. But I do think in the second
Speaker 2: half we kind of saw the reason why these two
Speaker 2: teams are going in separate directions. When they absolutely needed to,
Speaker 2: the Rams did figure out how to move the ball
Speaker 2: even if they were settling for field goals, and when
Speaker 2: they needed to, they got enough pressure on Purty. That's
Speaker 2: kind of been the story of the Rams season, efficient
Speaker 2: long drives when they've needed to in the second half
Speaker 2: of games, and the forty nine Ers really collapsed down
Speaker 2: the stretch. So it says twelve to six, but I
Speaker 2: did feel like it was a just result and the
Speaker 2: Rams really really help out their playoff chances.
Speaker 3: And crazy thing is these teams combined for eighty two
Speaker 3: points in their respective games on Sunday against the Bills
Speaker 3: and against the Bears. But here this is the only
Speaker 3: game all season according to our buddy Tony in research,
Speaker 3: that did not include a touchdown from either team. So
Speaker 3: twelve to six is a thrilling what I had? I wow? Yeah,
Speaker 3: how about that? The only game without a touchdown. It's
Speaker 3: also the first.
Speaker 2: Game that a team that forty nine Ers team who
Speaker 2: didn't give up a touch in the house lost since
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. There are not many games like this.
Speaker 3: I think the fourth quarter of those last two drives
Speaker 3: and even the delayed blitz there on the Hail Mary,
Speaker 3: which is something we saw from the Browns actually against
Speaker 3: Russell Wilson to the Steelers on TNF that game week
Speaker 3: twelve back in Cleveland. Jordan Hicks came delayed pressure and
Speaker 3: drilled Russell Wilson on that final George Pickens, Greg knew
Speaker 3: some ted to ted in the back of the end zone.
Speaker 3: The Rams were the more physical team when they needed
Speaker 3: to down the stretch, and those two long drives and
Speaker 3: that sack that proved a point, and I think there is.
Speaker 3: I don't want to say it's an official changing of
Speaker 3: the guard in the division because the Rams have won
Speaker 3: a Super Bowl here. But the thing about the Niners
Speaker 3: forever kind of having Sean mcvay's number, Kyle kind of
Speaker 3: having Shawn's number, especially when the game was up there,
Speaker 3: is that the Niners were the more physical team. With
Speaker 3: Trent Williams, with Debo, with Boso, with whoever else they
Speaker 3: had on the offensive line and the defensive line for
Speaker 3: that matter, they were the more physical team and they
Speaker 3: punched the Rams in the mouth. This was a bit
Speaker 3: of a reversal, Don't get me wrong. They didn't blow
Speaker 3: them out of the bill And if a hail Mary
Speaker 3: gets to the end zone maybor having a different conversation.
Speaker 3: But the Rams have now beaten Sean McVay has now
Speaker 3: beaten Kyle Shanahan three in a row, the first time
Speaker 3: the Rams have done that since anybody.
Speaker 2: Don't I mean it was in Saint Louis, I would guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. It was the greatest Sean Turf, Kurt Marshall, Tory,
Speaker 3: Isaac Orlando. It was that team from ninety nine to one.
Speaker 3: They beat the Niners six in a row, and now
Speaker 3: they've beaten them three in a row. So I think
Speaker 3: this was a message sent here as well. And it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter now what the Rams do against the Jets
Speaker 3: next week in New York. Honestly, it doesn't matter. If
Speaker 3: they win the last two against the Cardinals and Seahawks,
Speaker 3: they're in.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good point. I was like, well, it
Speaker 2: matters a little. What if the Seahawks went out, No,
Speaker 2: you're right, the division games are all there, really massing.
Speaker 3: Then they'll be five and one in the division and.
Speaker 2: The Seahawks have tough games the next two week against
Speaker 2: the Packers and the Vikings. If I'm a Seahawks fan,
Speaker 2: and I kind of am, but I'm also kind of
Speaker 2: a Rams fan, it's kind of confusing here. This was
Speaker 2: the first game I got to watch at home and
Speaker 2: watch my daughter and my wife go nuts with the
Speaker 2: clapping in the second half of this game, very intense.
Speaker 2: They will likely be playing for the division in week eighteen.
Speaker 2: That's basically what this game all but guaranteed. Because Seattle,
Speaker 2: like I said, was saying like, if you're a fanta Seattle,
Speaker 2: you hope to if you got one of those next
Speaker 2: two games against the Packers and the Vikings. You'd take
Speaker 2: that like those are two really good teams and most
Speaker 2: likely Seattle will have a chance to win the division
Speaker 2: that night and LA will have a chance to win
Speaker 2: the division that night, and it very well could be
Speaker 2: the Sunday night football game and the season, which would
Speaker 2: be fantastic. And this three game winning streak comes after
Speaker 2: the forty nine Ers beat the Rams in the regular
Speaker 2: season nine straight times, which is outrageous and deserves a
Speaker 2: massive asterich that the Rams won the most important game
Speaker 2: these two teams have ever played in this current McVeigh
Speaker 2: Shanahan iteration in the NFC Championship, but I thought they
Speaker 2: were more physical. Kyron Williams, to me, gets the game
Speaker 2: ball twenty nine carries one hundred and eight yards some
Speaker 2: outstanding blitz pickups. There was that seventeen play drive where
Speaker 2: they blew it with a holding call on a zone
Speaker 2: read by Matthew Stafford and they settle for the field goal.
Speaker 2: But that helped set the tone in the second half
Speaker 2: after they couldn't do anything in the first half, punting
Speaker 2: five times and Kyron just kept getting extra yards. I
Speaker 2: kept thinking, oh, that should have been two. It was five. Oh,
Speaker 2: that should have been four. It was seven, that should
Speaker 2: have been six, It was eleven. He's just carrying guys
Speaker 2: and he is such a tough runner. They want to
Speaker 2: play Blake corm He's running well, But I think Kyrin
Speaker 2: Williams is just too good. They can't get him off
Speaker 2: the field. And that was the difference to me on
Speaker 2: a night where you know, the forty nine ers are
Speaker 2: down to their third running back and just couldn't get
Speaker 2: anything going consistently on offense.
Speaker 3: And know this too about really any coach, for Sean
Speaker 3: McVay in particular, if you're a rookie running back, pass
Speaker 3: pro is the most important thing. And it's not that
Speaker 3: Sean and full disclosure, I have not been with the
Speaker 3: Rams since August right, still talk to people there, obviously,
Speaker 3: But Sean's not going to put a rookie running back
Speaker 3: on the field unless he absolutely believes in him in
Speaker 3: pass pro, and I think he does. But when you
Speaker 3: see what Kyrin Williams does, and you know that his
Speaker 3: past pro game isn't just good, it can be elite,
Speaker 3: and you're going to keep him. You're going to keep
Speaker 3: him on the field. And it also I think you
Speaker 3: want to talk big picture here, go back to the
Speaker 3: toughness thing. Really the last two draft classes that Less
Speaker 3: Snead has put together. Think of all the guys that
Speaker 3: contributed tonight defensively Jared Versu and Braden Fisk and Byron
Speaker 3: Young and Kobe Turner and Cam Kitchens, and then offensively
Speaker 3: poo to Kua and even a guy like Bowl Limmer.
Speaker 3: Yeah at center Kyroen's in his third year.
Speaker 2: A was out there and in the game. To Houko
Speaker 2: is like half the battle and that that's all about Adule.
Speaker 3: I can't believe I forgot Avula and mentioned bow Limmer,
Speaker 3: the rookie center from Arkansas. But you get My point
Speaker 3: is that these are not only just guys that are
Speaker 3: out there playing, they are key foundational building blocks that
Speaker 3: help you win this game, especially on the defensive side.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Kobe Turner, they had a great stat on
Speaker 2: the broadcast from next in Stats that he had four
Speaker 2: pressures in the first half. On every one of those
Speaker 2: four he was double team. I started counting the drives
Speaker 2: that he ended. There was one with a sack, there
Speaker 2: was one with a run stuff, there was one with
Speaker 2: a pressure where he got right in Perty's face and
Speaker 2: helped force an incompletion, and then in the second half
Speaker 2: he killed another one with a sack. Even on the
Speaker 2: the interception that we're gonna list into. In about ten seconds,
Speaker 2: Kobe Turner gets the pressure right in his face. Bradon
Speaker 2: Fisk was there too. Turner ends up with five pressures
Speaker 2: on the night, two sacks, but Verse and Fist both
Speaker 2: had three pressures too, So you're right, it's all about
Speaker 2: those young guys. Let's listen to our friend JB again.
Speaker 1: Two to snap it for Perty, he does, beat the
Speaker 1: clock back to pass drifting two is right, launches down
Speaker 1: the right numbers.
Speaker 3: This ball's in the air.
Speaker 1: This both picked. Then a cheft it up to go line.
Speaker 1: Darius Williams goes to get it right in front of
Speaker 1: Juwan Jennings and La has the first takeaway on Thursday
Speaker 1: Night Football.
Speaker 3: JMI is so good at what he does.
Speaker 2: By the way, he's so good. He's the best. You
Speaker 2: two are are my favorites to listen to every Sunday.
Speaker 3: Here's too kind.
Speaker 2: Dan Miller's great. I put him on.
Speaker 3: Dan Miller at the Lions is amazing but fun. Fun fact.
Speaker 3: When I was an intern at sports Radio five seventy,
Speaker 3: not nine eighty. Then it was five seventy wt EM
Speaker 3: back in Washington, Dan Miller was the what you say right,
Speaker 3: Redskins beat reporter back then and Miller believe it or not.
Speaker 3: And Steve Colby, who is the board op was later
Speaker 3: the voice of the Capitols. That's a whole nother book
Speaker 3: to be written.
Speaker 2: It's you know, it's it's the place where legends are
Speaker 2: born back there. I don't know that play. That interception
Speaker 2: came with five fourteen left. It was a nine to
Speaker 2: six game. The forty nine ers. Yeah, they watched how
Speaker 2: the field and it was fantastic. Can I go back
Speaker 2: real quick? Put a button on that?
Speaker 3: Brandon Fisk and Jared verse thy so because I have
Speaker 3: Browns Chiefs this week obviously, so doing my research this
Speaker 3: afternoon for that one. Chris Jones Miles Garrett two great
Speaker 3: defensive pieces here. Clearly, Miles Garrett is now half a
Speaker 3: sack away from one hundred. His twenty ninth birthday is
Speaker 3: going to be I think it's December twenty ninth, so
Speaker 3: he'd be like the first guy with one hundred before
Speaker 3: he turns twenty nine, something like that. Anyway, here's the
Speaker 3: list most pressures, most quarterback pressures this season, and this
Speaker 3: was before tonight game. Trey Hendrickson number one, sixty five,
Speaker 3: Jonathan Grenard number two sixty, Chris Jones number three, fifty nine,
Speaker 3: tied with Chris Jones, rookie Jared Verse with fifty nine,
Speaker 3: and then Miles Garrett fifty eight. That's your top.
Speaker 2: Five and you saw it tonight, like that one pressure
Speaker 2: he had that helped kill a drive. It's not always
Speaker 2: about getting the sacker getting the quarterback hit, especially when
Speaker 2: they're working well as a team, and you saw it.
Speaker 2: You said on the last play, they all work really
Speaker 2: well as a group, and the whole idea that him
Speaker 2: and Fisk would work well as a tandem, so maybe
Speaker 2: let's draft them together. It's working like they play literal
Speaker 2: games all the time together and it's really effective and
Speaker 2: it's helped the Rams win different sorts of ways. It's
Speaker 2: not a great defense every single week, but some weeks
Speaker 2: the pass rush has carried them, and that's something that
Speaker 2: you weren't expecting going into the season.
Speaker 3: No, not at all. And conversely, there have been plenty
Speaker 3: of games this year with the secondaries let them down,
Speaker 3: and you know, starting with Tradevius White now he's in Baltimore.
Speaker 3: You go back and you watch when these two teams
Speaker 3: first met Rams Niners earlier the year to Revius White
Speaker 3: was obviously on the field. Rams still have I think
Speaker 3: an issue at corner that they have to address, but
Speaker 3: you go out, you get Cam curl Camp Kitchens started
Speaker 3: slowly but has certainly come on and had his moments
Speaker 3: this year as well, another guy I had mentioned before
Speaker 3: in this year's draft class. Their defense overall, their numbers
Speaker 3: aren't good, but they've been good enough in the moments
Speaker 3: they need them to make a run like they did
Speaker 3: last year. What seven and one, it's seven to two
Speaker 3: after the buye, whatever it is.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 2: I can count four games this year where their defense
Speaker 2: kind of carried them for most of the game and
Speaker 2: just waited for the offense to do something. The Raiders game,
Speaker 2: that the Saints game, this game, and having a handful
Speaker 2: of those games, its just not something that happened in
Speaker 2: previous iterations. And they needed to because the first half
Speaker 2: of this game was a disaster. It was raining buckets.
Speaker 2: But even before it was Stafford nearly threw an interception
Speaker 2: on I think it was his first throw. Is certainly
Speaker 2: the first drive they go for they go.
Speaker 3: Stafford huch off three times in the first quarter.
Speaker 2: Right, so they got lucky. In the first half, Stafford
Speaker 2: goes four for twelve for thirty three yards. The first
Speaker 2: quarter was the first time in Sean mcvay's era. I
Speaker 2: was listening to JB on the call that they didn't
Speaker 2: have a first down, like they punted four three times.
Speaker 2: So again it was the defense keeping them in it
Speaker 2: and waiting. But the second half, unlike the forty nine ers,
Speaker 2: Stafford gets it, going twelve for fifteen for one to
Speaker 2: twenty seven. Makes all the right decisions. They were aggressive
Speaker 2: on that final drive, throwing the ball to pick up
Speaker 2: the first downs. They needed a great four minute drive
Speaker 2: which got them a field goal and basically gave the
Speaker 2: forty nine ers any time. And on the flip side,
Speaker 2: Purdy was kind of a mess the whole game and
Speaker 2: giving you a little bit of flashbacks so that Packers
Speaker 2: game last year where he struck in the rain and
Speaker 2: he said it affected him, and it felt like it
Speaker 2: affected him tonight and he wasn't any better in the
Speaker 2: second half. He missed, not just on the interception, which
Speaker 2: to me was more of a bad decision, but he
Speaker 2: just missed throws and you wonder if it was the
Speaker 2: moisture or what it was. But it's kind of continued
Speaker 2: a very up and down season. Perty's had incredible games.
Speaker 2: I thought he played amazing last week, and then he
Speaker 2: has a night like tonight and he's had a few
Speaker 2: too many of those.
Speaker 3: You wonder as well, if Deebo hadn't dropped that ball
Speaker 3: slant in the first half, you know, Perdy put it
Speaker 3: on him. Does that change the momentum? Does that change party?
Speaker 3: I don't think one play necessarily makes you a more
Speaker 3: accurate quarterback in the second half. If all of a
Speaker 3: sudden so one catches the ball in the first half,
Speaker 3: of these things spiral out of control. Rosenthal, I'm looking
Speaker 3: down here because I'm looking at my Niners Twitter. We
Speaker 3: have a developing situation in Santa Clara Josh's side. Kyle
Speaker 3: Shanahan says DeAndre Campbell refused to go in the game
Speaker 3: when asked in the third quarter and says he doesn't
Speaker 3: want to talk about it anymore. I got my TV
Speaker 3: on up here, I got the Prime post came on
Speaker 3: right now. They have images of Devondre Campbell walking to
Speaker 3: the locker room during the game with a towel over
Speaker 3: his head. I was making dinner. I might have missed that,
Speaker 3: but Kyle says he refused to go in the game.
Speaker 3: We'll deal with it later. Javaria Scorn asked about it.
Speaker 3: He said, he's probably getting cut.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding. I was going to say, well, this
Speaker 2: is a rare case. While it's happening live, I can
Speaker 2: tell you how it ends. He's either he's not going
Speaker 2: to take another snap for the forty nine ers. Ever, again,
Speaker 2: he wasn't playing well when he was on the field
Speaker 2: anyways this season, and he will either be suspended or cut,
Speaker 2: but he's not going to hit the field.
Speaker 3: The reason why j Johnson kind of thing. They suspended
Speaker 3: him in Baltimore.
Speaker 2: Right, but they I don't know if they're going to
Speaker 2: cut him. Campbell's towards the end of his career. This
Speaker 2: is the end of the season, and the reason he
Speaker 2: was being asked to go on the field, I would
Speaker 2: guess is because Drake Greenlow could not make it through
Speaker 2: this game. And to me that was so important not
Speaker 2: just to this game, but so symbolic of their season,
Speaker 2: heart and soul, this defense, and they look different with
Speaker 2: him on the field. Man Kyron Williams, you don't see
Speaker 2: him get pushed back too often. He's such a tough runner.
Speaker 2: Greenlaw hit him backwards a few times. He had eight
Speaker 2: tackles in the first half of that game. He made
Speaker 2: a big difference. Suddenly you saw the vision him and
Speaker 2: Mustafa and Hufungos who's now healthy, and Warner like, that's
Speaker 2: a group that hits, that is tough, that's coming downhill.
Speaker 2: And when he wasn't in the game in the second half,
Speaker 2: and I don't think he played a snap after halftime.
Speaker 2: We're still waiting word what happened there. They just weren't
Speaker 2: the same defense. So that is a big, big part
Speaker 2: of the forty nine Ers story this season, even though
Speaker 2: it's a bit of the Super Bowl hangover and perty
Speaker 2: the discussion is going to continue, like they have just
Speaker 2: been ravaged with injuries, and every time they feel like
Speaker 2: they get a good bit of news like McCaffrey or
Speaker 2: Greenlaw comes back, then he gets hurt again. So I
Speaker 2: thought that was a big moment in this game.
Speaker 3: The quote from Kyle he said he didn't want to
Speaker 3: play today about Devondre Campbell. Okay, so they got to
Speaker 3: figure out that out. The pretty thing to me is
Speaker 3: fascinating because listen, we know his contract is a thing
Speaker 3: this offseason. I am on team Brock party. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to let you know an up and down season
Speaker 3: in which you don't have Trent Williams for extended periods
Speaker 3: of time, in which you have Christian McCaffrey for a month,
Speaker 3: and he wasn't the Christian McCaffrey that he was a
Speaker 3: year ago, not even close. With all the other injuries
Speaker 3: on the defensive side that affects you on the offensive side,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to take this season and say this
Speaker 3: is who he is. I've seen greatness from the guy,
Speaker 3: but you know that come March, the conversation is going
Speaker 3: to be is brock Purty still the guy? And at
Speaker 3: what price? And oh my god, do we pay him
Speaker 3: forty five forty eight? Do we pay him fifty? What
Speaker 3: do we pay do we give him two of money?
Speaker 3: Do we go beneath that? Well, we want to bring
Speaker 3: him back, but we don't think he's worth the elite money.
Speaker 3: The price is what the price is for the quarterback period,
Speaker 3: full stop. So you know, I kind of feel bad
Speaker 3: for him because now he's going to get caught up
Speaker 3: in the conversation that I don't know that this year's
Speaker 3: necessarily his fault.
Speaker 2: No, but it can show some of the limitations. I
Speaker 2: guess I would just say, does every quarterback have to
Speaker 2: become the highest paid quarterback in the No?
Speaker 3: No, I'm with it. I'm with you on that. I'm
Speaker 3: totally with you on that. But then where do you
Speaker 3: put him?
Speaker 2: Right? Like, it'll be close enough. The differences aren't going
Speaker 2: to be that much. Now if I'm brock party, do
Speaker 2: you consider a shorter term deal that's a little lower
Speaker 2: on a per year basis. It's life changing money for
Speaker 2: a seventh round pick, like it would be for anyone,
Speaker 2: but especially for a seventh round pick. I don't get
Speaker 2: why we're at this point that every single player has
Speaker 2: to get Mahomes money. Couldn't he slot somewhere between a
Speaker 2: Geno Smith contract and like a Burrow contract, Like it's
Speaker 2: it's somewhere halfway way in between where it's not it's
Speaker 2: it's not at the Burrow sphere, but it's like five
Speaker 2: million dollars below, it's above. It's above the Gino and
Speaker 2: Derek Cartier and it's above. Everyone goes on their way.
Speaker 3: Use Baker as the baseline, add whatever percent you want
Speaker 3: and and then be happy with the deal. But if
Speaker 3: I'm his reps, yeah.
Speaker 2: They just don't want well, I mean, I'm gonna want more.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna want borrow money. I'm not gonna want
Speaker 3: golf money, but I'm gonna want good money. You know
Speaker 3: what's gonna happen here. Let's start this now, so the
Speaker 3: Niners face plant down the stretch, the Vikings win at
Speaker 3: least a playoff game. Yeah, you're gonna have some Niner
Speaker 3: fans saying, bring back Sam Darnold. He showed that he
Speaker 3: now is better than Brock Purty. Bring back Sam Darnold.
Speaker 2: Well, good luck getting him. You know, I think the
Speaker 2: Vikings aren't gonna let him go. I think they'll franchise tag.
Speaker 2: I've just started to think about that this week. But
Speaker 2: they have all the cap room in the world, and
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, no, I'll just give him the franchise tag,
Speaker 2: pay him forty five million whatever it is next year.
Speaker 2: That seems crazy, but they can fit it very easily,
Speaker 2: and then just see how JJ McCarthy looks and have
Speaker 2: him come back. But you're right, that will be the conversation.
Speaker 2: I don't think the forty nine ers will let it
Speaker 2: get that far because I think you would think they
Speaker 2: would learn something from what happened with Ayuk and Trent
Speaker 2: Williams this year, but especially Ayuk, where I thought that
Speaker 2: poisoned the entire season, the way that they went through
Speaker 2: training camp. It was incredibly bad vibes. I think Deebo
Speaker 2: Samuel you mentioned the drop. It was a rough game.
Speaker 2: I mean he got booed from the whole the home crowd.
Speaker 2: They targeted him seven times andrew sixteen yards. They ran
Speaker 2: him twice for three yeards. I actually think his rushing totals,
Speaker 2: where he's averaging way under three yards per carry this
Speaker 2: year and they keep trying to give it to is
Speaker 2: a very significant indicator that he's just not the same player,
Speaker 2: or how they use him doesn't work like it used to.
Speaker 2: It's a combination of both. Doesn't miss tackles and I
Speaker 2: was thinking, man, this is a bummer, but this is
Speaker 2: how it happens. He probably has one game left in
Speaker 2: his forty nine ers career at home, and it's sad
Speaker 2: to see him getting booed like in his second to
Speaker 2: last game there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he said this week as well. And
Speaker 3: maybe I imagine this, but I'm pretty sure I saw
Speaker 3: it where he said about using him in the run game.
Speaker 3: It's not like a secret anymore. Yeah, Like if they're
Speaker 3: going to put me in the backfield, big deal. Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, I'm a running back on this play.
Speaker 3: It's not like it's some subterfuge where they put him
Speaker 3: in the backfield and people start losing.
Speaker 2: But he's one of the least effective running backs in
Speaker 2: the league. That the thing is, like, you can be
Speaker 2: much better off with Patrick Taylor out there, or obviously
Speaker 2: Isaac Garande, who by the way, I think they got
Speaker 2: something there. He looks pretty good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the guy can run, I mean, just as fast
Speaker 3: as it gets And Patrick Taylor. You ever go back
Speaker 3: and look at that Memphis team, all the guys they
Speaker 3: had on that Mat fifteen.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't. I didn't even know Patrick Taylor went
Speaker 2: to Memphis.
Speaker 3: So here you want, this might be like the greatest
Speaker 3: I should know this.
Speaker 2: It's going to Tulane's biggest rivals, always a problem for Tulane.
Speaker 3: So at one point Memphis had Antonio Gibson, Darryl Henderson,
Speaker 3: Patrick Taylor. Okay, Kenneth gain Well and one other guy
Speaker 3: I can't remember. Hold on Darryl Henderson and Tony Pollard. Oh,
Speaker 3: I knew there was someone way and Calvin Austin Man.
Speaker 3: They were all on the same twenty eighteen Memphis team.
Speaker 2: They know where to find them. And yeah Taylor was
Speaker 2: in there. But if you started Grendo in fantasy, a
Speaker 2: lot of people were on the borderline this week, like
Speaker 2: he didn't do great, but he got just seventy five yards. Pookinakua,
Speaker 2: by the way, like even on a night where he
Speaker 2: had nothing in the first half, breaks open for a
Speaker 2: plus fifty yard or the forty nine ers actually are
Speaker 2: the best in the entire NFL at preventing plus twenty catches.
Speaker 2: They hadn't in weeks, so it is hard to get
Speaker 2: behind that defense. Puka is just on another level. Even
Speaker 2: in a night like this where they could not throw
Speaker 2: the ball at all, he goes seven for ninety seven.
Speaker 2: Cooper Cup did not have a catch, which is absolutely wild,
Speaker 2: But that that shows you who's the one, who's the
Speaker 2: two The Rams, as you mentioned, they have the Jets,
Speaker 2: the Cardinals, and the Seahawks down the stretch. The next
Speaker 2: Gen Stats has them as fifty to fifty to make
Speaker 2: the playoffs. I feel like it's a little more because
Speaker 2: it just to me feels like, well, if they if
Speaker 2: they win eight week eighteen, they're in. And I give
Speaker 2: them a better than fifty percent chance of doing that
Speaker 2: because it's at home. But the Seahawks will have something
Speaker 2: to say about it. We thought this was going to
Speaker 2: be a four team race. It really now looks like
Speaker 2: a two team race. And a sweet victory for Rams
Speaker 2: and their coach and Sean McVay.
Speaker 3: The Jets game, the Rams now get the extra time.
Speaker 3: Who knows what the Jets going to look like in
Speaker 3: two weeks, three days before Christmas and and Week seventeen
Speaker 3: is a flex game that very well could be a
Speaker 3: Saturday one of the NFL Network triubleheader games, and then
Speaker 3: Sunday could be flexed Week eighteen to Sunday night, so
Speaker 3: you could have two.
Speaker 2: They're going to be in. They're going to be in
Speaker 2: the mix here down the stretch, and you will as well.
Speaker 2: Now one of the reasons you're on tonight was we
Speaker 2: thought we'd get you for a Rams I mean a
Speaker 2: Browns post TNF game where you're doing the game and
Speaker 2: you would have been trying to do double duty and
Speaker 2: do NFL Daily afterwards, but they actually flex the Browns
Speaker 2: out as Brown's Bengals, and now it's next week it's
Speaker 2: Broncos Chargers. So I feel like this is a little
Speaker 2: treat that I got to spend a little time virtually
Speaker 2: with my friend Andrew, and we get you those great
Speaker 2: pipes and your great knowledge on NFL Daily. Appreciate you, Andrew.
Speaker 3: Hey man, I've had a blast. As I said at
Speaker 3: the top, honored and flattered that you invited me. We
Speaker 3: could have done after the Browns and Steelers in the
Speaker 3: snow because I'd wait for like an hour to get
Speaker 3: out of there. The snow was so bad and the
Speaker 3: traffic was so bad. I had all the time in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a sneaky classic. I've enjoyed watching the
Speaker 2: Browns this year after Deshaun Watson was gone. They've they've
Speaker 2: been pretty entertaining, so hopefully they keep it. Maybe maybe
Speaker 2: they can have their Super Bowl moment this Sunday against
Speaker 2: the Chiefs. I hope for your sake, I should have
Speaker 2: waited this song in the show to mention we're not
Speaker 2: just talking T and F on this program. Our friend
Speaker 2: Ali Connolly, who's been on NFL Daily multiple times, just
Speaker 2: happened to basically break the Bill Belichick story. And I'm
Speaker 2: such a fan of Ali's and have been obviously a
Speaker 2: fan and a close watcher at Belichick and the whole
Speaker 2: story is fascinating to me. So we're gonna throw it
Speaker 2: after the break to a conversation with myself and Ali Connolly.
Speaker 2: He's going to talk about kind of what went into
Speaker 2: the decision, what's next for the Belichick clan. We'll talk
Speaker 2: about how we think it'll all work. We'll do that
Speaker 2: again after the break. Thank you, Andrew Well. It will
Speaker 2: be the first time, it will not be the last.
Speaker 2: Looking forward to having you again back in the All right,
Speaker 2: welcoming into the program. We could not escape this week
Speaker 2: before talking to our friend Ollie Connolly of the read
Speaker 2: Optional substack. If if you weren't subscribed already, like you,
Speaker 2: got to check out his piece on Bill Belichick joining
Speaker 2: UNC earlier this week. Ali, I mean, I'm just looking
Speaker 2: at Twitter, looking at Blue Sky, and I'm hearing, oh,
Speaker 2: did you did you see this Belichick news? I was like, no,
Speaker 2: what is it? And I look at and the news
Speaker 2: is from Ollie Connolly, our friend who was on NFL
Speaker 2: Daily within the first couple of weeks of us launching,
Speaker 2: and we did a very you know scene podcast about
Speaker 2: Kirk Cousins. We'll get to that later, and then was
Speaker 2: with us on one of my favorite episodes of the year.
Speaker 2: The London Recap actually brought broke the news that Bill
Speaker 2: Belichick was looking hard at this UNC job and was
Speaker 2: the first to report it, Like, how the hell did
Speaker 2: this happen? Ali, And are you enjoying your victory.
Speaker 4: Lab enjoying a victory lop? I guess not. It's a
Speaker 4: weird one. I'm not usually in the news breaking game.
Speaker 4: I think people saw me do that. They're like, wait
Speaker 4: a second, is he just like making a joke? He
Speaker 4: must be this the wid scheme guy no one knows
Speaker 4: in some attic in Manchester. I don't think this could
Speaker 4: be true. Is this Cousins? Is this a journalist? Who
Speaker 4: is this person? So? Yeah, a bit peculiar but interesting nonetheless, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So kind of to back it up, maybe some people
Speaker 2: were confused too, because the whole situation was confusing. There
Speaker 2: was no way for you to escape that. When you
Speaker 2: first reported that Belichick was taking the job, Essentially the
Speaker 2: job didn't exist. It was essentially that it was, in
Speaker 2: your words, accepting a job that he was proposing that
Speaker 2: the UNC would have to do all these things upgrades
Speaker 2: and investments and jobs, not just his job, but a
Speaker 2: general manager, which we've now found out is going to
Speaker 2: be Michael Lombardi and all of this, this four hundred
Speaker 2: page organizational bible essentially that he gave to them, like
Speaker 2: how did this come to you? Or whatever you're comfortable saying,
Speaker 2: or just like how did this come about? In reality,
Speaker 2: less about you and more just about like how did
Speaker 2: this happen?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that Look, the NFL situations were closed
Speaker 4: off that he had from why I understand one conversation
Speaker 4: with one team who had a current coach. None of
Speaker 4: the teams with vacancies were interested. The conversation did not
Speaker 4: go well, probably worse than the conversations went last year
Speaker 4: when he had obviously one interview, as everyone knows, and
Speaker 4: didn't make the finalists top three finalists for the Falcons job.
Speaker 4: And I think it was pretty clear the NFL was
Speaker 4: unlikely to be an optional at least in the way
Speaker 4: he would want it to be, and obviously control as
Speaker 4: a huge element for him and not his control, but
Speaker 4: who he can actually staff a building with in every department,
Speaker 4: not just on the coaching staff. And that the thing
Speaker 4: that has jumped out to me throughout all of this,
Speaker 4: and the reason why I kind of went with it
Speaker 4: early compared to everyone else is they've been looking at
Speaker 4: college gigs for like a year. This was not like
Speaker 4: this one popped up and I wrote a too long story.
Speaker 4: Today people can go and read. It's eight thousand words.
Speaker 4: It gets into every single detail of what's happened over
Speaker 4: a season. They were doing background research on how things
Speaker 4: went wrong for Bill Walsh when he returned to college
Speaker 4: as an NFL legend out of the game for three seasons,
Speaker 4: had three Super Bowls, went back to Stamford, and it
Speaker 4: went pretty miserably for Bill Walsh. They were looking into
Speaker 4: what went wrong there with a legend term media personality,
Speaker 4: turn college football coach, and it got my antenna up
Speaker 4: of Oh, it's interesting, you guys are all reading this book.
Speaker 2: I want to read that book now too. It's called
Speaker 2: Rough Magic. It's by Lowell Cone. Who oh, look he's
Speaker 2: holding it up. We're such dorks. Because I actually I
Speaker 2: thought like, this is a good time to kind of
Speaker 2: just talk a little, you know, football dork book Like
Speaker 2: behind me, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see
Speaker 2: my little football library that my wife made me put
Speaker 2: out into the garage. I don't know if these books
Speaker 2: are going to get ruin, but yeah, I got some
Speaker 2: favorites here too. There's like that book The Genius about
Speaker 2: Bill Walsh, which by David Harris, which kind of was
Speaker 2: sad and made me think he didn't really enjoy being
Speaker 2: Bill Walsh. Totally. One thing I got from your article
Speaker 2: and again read optional everyone subscribed, Like I don't ask
Speaker 2: for much. You know, we have advertising stuff, but support
Speaker 2: good football writing and great football podcasting. I've been checking
Speaker 2: out all these podcasts with John Ledyard for a while
Speaker 2: and it's really worth it. But the written article that
Speaker 2: you mentioned today is fascinating and it got me sort
Speaker 2: of thinking we'll get back to like the NFL not
Speaker 2: wanting him, but what does Bill Belichick really want in life?
Speaker 2: It's why I took the UNC stuff seriously just from
Speaker 2: seeing it. Obviously that it was from you, but there
Speaker 2: were other people too, cause it made sense like Bill
Speaker 2: Belichick's not enjoying being in the media, Like what is
Speaker 2: going to make him happy in life. If it's going
Speaker 2: to be coaching, and if the NFL is not giving
Speaker 2: him a job or he's unsure, if he could possibly
Speaker 2: get a job, then I'll coach where I can coach.
Speaker 2: And like that group that you're talking about around him,
Speaker 2: that's maybe reading the book, like is it safe to
Speaker 2: say it's like the same? It's the same. It's like
Speaker 2: it's the.
Speaker 4: Same cast of characters that everyone could reel off their hands,
Speaker 4: including miss still Embodi, who was named general manager within
Speaker 4: twenty minutes of Build.
Speaker 2: Well and you reported too on that Stephen Belichick's involvement
Speaker 2: is part of the whole deal at you.
Speaker 4: And see Yeah, and a conversation going in of I
Speaker 4: would like this in writing that he would be head
Speaker 4: coaching waiting some kind of guarantee. I think that was
Speaker 4: a real big like whoa, that's not really what we're
Speaker 4: interested in. But as you were saying before, he went
Speaker 4: in and just shopped for the moon, if I'm going
Speaker 4: to do this, we need to be competitive. We need
Speaker 4: to go from being an academic institution with a famous
Speaker 4: basketball team to being a football school. It's a football program,
Speaker 4: it's a football factory that I control and that just
Speaker 4: happens to be tied to a school that was the plan,
Speaker 4: that was the pit. This is what you need. Resources, staffing,
Speaker 4: two separate staffs, right, a recruiting staff. That is not
Speaker 4: for me. I'm good, Michael, and someone else will control
Speaker 4: that for me. There'll be the conduit. I'll sign things off,
Speaker 4: I'll watch some tape, I'll close the deals like Deon
Speaker 4: does at Colorado, and I'll run the football side. I'll
Speaker 4: bring all my friends and we'll get the NFL guys.
Speaker 4: I'll get some guys I know from college, and I'll
Speaker 4: run the football department and be just the CEO of
Speaker 4: the program. And I think, to your point about what
Speaker 4: did he want? That's the real difference in Diacosmic between Walsh.
Speaker 4: That's why the book is so fascinating. Why it's so
Speaker 4: interesting that they were reading this a year ago, is
Speaker 4: Walsh went back into school to kind of prove something
Speaker 4: to himself about his offensive system. Thought he missed coaching,
Speaker 4: thought he missed the whistle and the grass and being
Speaker 4: around the players. But it was really internally about Bill
Speaker 4: Walsh in his struggle with like losing a grip on
Speaker 4: being the coach, like the personality of genius coach man,
Speaker 4: whereas Bill Belichick realized, I just missed the actual coaching,
Speaker 4: the technique of it, actually having the whistle, being involved
Speaker 4: with people, data, being with my son in the film
Speaker 4: room and breaking down things. We don't spend a lot
Speaker 4: of time together. My grandkids are all over the place,
Speaker 4: ozol being in one hub. I'm not going to get
Speaker 4: that in Jacksonville. I'm not going to get that in Dallas.
Speaker 4: I can get it in Carolina, and I'll do it
Speaker 4: if they acquiesce to ten thousand things. I need to
Speaker 4: make it competitive so I don't embarrass myself and spoil
Speaker 4: my legacy at the end here and they agree twittle.
Speaker 2: Right, he's competitive, and so I think he wrote great,
Speaker 2: great about it. It's multiple things can be true that
Speaker 2: it's the joy of it. He's getting towards the end
Speaker 2: of the life. Hell, I'm in my mid forties. I
Speaker 2: think about the end of life and like what matters
Speaker 2: and finding my joy and everything like on an hourly basis.
Speaker 2: I'm sure Bill Belichick does as well. And so having
Speaker 2: that opportunity to just like coach with his son like
Speaker 2: that to me and just coaching in general probably is
Speaker 2: the biggest job, but like he also knows about legacy,
Speaker 2: he doesn't want his last game coaching. And I had
Speaker 2: to check this out be a seventeen to three loft
Speaker 2: of the Jets. It is sad like coachings always end poorly,
Speaker 2: like Vince Lombardi more or less died on the job
Speaker 2: for coaching a mediocre Washington team, which is you know,
Speaker 2: about as sad as it gets. Like that didn't ruin
Speaker 2: his legacy, no one, no one really cares, No one
Speaker 2: really remembers that Bill what Bill Belichick. That is not
Speaker 2: going to change. But I did have to go check
Speaker 2: that their last game. I mean, it can't get lower
Speaker 2: than this ended the Patriots fifteen game winning streak over
Speaker 2: the Jets, and it was to the Trevor Simeon led Jets,
Speaker 2: which it was zappy zammy going twelve for thirty.
Speaker 4: And it was in the snow, if your remember, and
Speaker 4: snow was like clustering on his face and it was
Speaker 4: just like the most said, depressing. And the legacy thing
Speaker 4: to me is interesting because people are bending around this
Speaker 4: idea of the winds record, right like always gonna come
Speaker 4: back to the wins record. In what world did anyone
Speaker 4: even care about the wins record. Frankly before, like three
Speaker 4: four years ago, was that even a brow up eva
Speaker 4: in the case of his Don Shoele better than Bill Belichick. No,
Speaker 4: we go by Lombardi's mostly all innovation, right. I was
Speaker 4: asking people about that midway through, being like, is this
Speaker 4: really going to swing a decision, Like, surely if someone
Speaker 4: just came to him with the same offer of you
Speaker 4: run a franchise, he take the NFL. The answer is yes,
Speaker 4: that was not going to happen in this go around,
Speaker 4: and he did not want to be left at the altar.
Speaker 4: It publicly embarrassed again that he was left out of
Speaker 4: a hiring cycle, So we jumped at the first opportunity
Speaker 4: that was there that would meet his demands. The boat
Speaker 4: that he has is called eight rings, it's not called
Speaker 4: three hundred and thirty three wins. He does not care
Speaker 4: about the wins record. He cares about the championships. That's
Speaker 4: what drives him. And then the coaching day to day
Speaker 4: aspect I think is really really critical that being able
Speaker 4: to be on the field every day teaching technique the
Speaker 4: things that he really enjoys, and doing it with a
Speaker 4: group of coaches who are essentially family at this point.
Speaker 4: That's why they all hang around with him all the time.
Speaker 4: We may think that some of them are laughable or funny,
Speaker 4: when they go to the places, they're really meaningful to him.
Speaker 4: And so to be able to get them all back
Speaker 4: together again coaching, I think is the reason why he's
Speaker 4: doing this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Matt Patricia outside of the Patriots ecosystem probably worthy
Speaker 2: of your laughs. But he worked inside. He worked inside
Speaker 2: the Patriots ecosystem. Lombardi, that's a bit of a red flag.
Speaker 2: Always was. I always was like, huh, Like when you'd
Speaker 2: see them at the combine and they're at Shula's ironically
Speaker 2: they now closed bar and steak place, and it's it's
Speaker 2: just Belichick and Lombardi, or it's like Belichick, Lombardi and
Speaker 2: one other coach or whatever, and you're like, he really
Speaker 2: likes this guy, Like this is really the guy he
Speaker 2: wants to bounce off of. And so I think there
Speaker 2: is a concern that, Okay, it makes sense he wants
Speaker 2: to silo. I don't want to deal with the money
Speaker 2: part of it, and IL like, I think Bill Barty
Speaker 2: has gotta do it. But man, I'm a little concerned
Speaker 2: that Lombardi's in charge of all that.
Speaker 4: I think the misunderstanding of the Lombardi thing is from
Speaker 4: what I understand, is that is very much as a
Speaker 4: buffer for all the college bullsh you have to deal with.
Speaker 4: When does the boost to club meeting and Bill's supposed
Speaker 4: to go, and people be disappointed because Bill doesn't want
Speaker 4: to go do the boost to club meeting. He wants
Speaker 4: to be watching film of Wake Forest or Richmond, I guess,
Speaker 4: because that's who they have to play next. He'son, not
Speaker 4: the Bengals, not the Cowboys. He's gonna of play Richmond
Speaker 4: next season. That's actually a thing that's happening with Bill Belichick.
Speaker 2: He's going to be playing against the two lane excellent
Speaker 2: red shirt freshman Darien Mensa, who was ESPN's number one
Speaker 2: guy in the portal. He left us and he's now
Speaker 2: at Duke. So the big Darien Mensa versus Belichi game,
Speaker 2: it like blows my mind.
Speaker 4: Sorry, but Lombardy is nothing if not smooth and comfortable
Speaker 4: in like c sweet situations, and so I think as
Speaker 4: sending him along as kind of like the chaperone of
Speaker 4: a face of the program behind the scenes is the
Speaker 4: filter t Bill helps them deal with all the shenaniguns
Speaker 4: people like Bill Belichie doesn't want to go and do
Speaker 4: those things. He doesn't want to go to the luncheon. Well,
Speaker 4: you said, Michael Lombardi, who can glad hand and smile
Speaker 4: and is charismatic with these people, and that limits some
Speaker 4: of the impact. I know you can roll your eyes,
Speaker 4: and I agree with you, But in those circles. You
Speaker 4: know this too, that he can at least operate in
Speaker 4: those situations.
Speaker 2: For No, that's an important skill. I always thought one
Speaker 2: of Mike Tannenbaum's best skill. And I like Mike tannanbamb
Speaker 2: He's obviously extremely intelligent, but one of his best skills
Speaker 2: is like he's good at talking to owners. Someone needs
Speaker 2: to be able to do that, and Lombardy can maybe
Speaker 2: fulfill that service kind of be a high level almost
Speaker 2: assistant on some level, like a personal assistant, but on
Speaker 2: a more like business you know, football, Like do you
Speaker 2: think Bill Belichick will be a good college coach? Let's
Speaker 2: just like take out the nil and recruiting and everything else,
Speaker 2: like brass tax, He's gonna be game planning for these teams.
Speaker 2: Like what do you think that looks like?
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's gonna be gamed against Darbo Sweeney and Mario Cristobal.
Speaker 4: I feel pretty confident that Bill Belichick will be okay. Frankly,
Speaker 4: I think any notion that he's not is pretty silly.
Speaker 4: I do think there's an interesting thing going on in
Speaker 4: college sports schematically at the football level, where the college
Speaker 4: game was more advanced than the NFL defensively four, five,
Speaker 4: six years ago, because you could just have so many
Speaker 4: people on campus for so long to sustained amount of
Speaker 4: time that guys like could be smart and Nick Saban
Speaker 4: have more complex systems than people in the NFL, where
Speaker 4: you're bringing a street free agent to play come back
Speaker 4: for one week, and you're not able to install systems
Speaker 4: year after year after year, where they have a lot
Speaker 4: of reading on the fly complex things as now every
Speaker 4: season has just build a team year by year, bring
Speaker 4: this transfer and bring that transfer in. I do think
Speaker 4: that it's going to become less complex, and that, to
Speaker 4: me is the thing I'm looking forward to seeing is
Speaker 4: how complex does Bill Belichick want to be? That was
Speaker 4: the thing Bill Wolsh running two, did not want to
Speaker 4: change what he thought was the perfect football system for
Speaker 4: the college level, But then He's also the most adaptable
Speaker 4: coach we've ever seen. That's the greatness. The greatness is
Speaker 4: not one great scheme, one great innovation. It's knowing how
Speaker 4: to tailor the scheme to the players he has available,
Speaker 4: and how to teach basically everything in football on all
Speaker 4: sides of the ball, special teams, offense, defense, And so
Speaker 4: I think if you give this guy a chance to
Speaker 4: be adaptable week to week defensively against what college has
Speaker 4: to offer, that I honestly think he'd run circles around
Speaker 4: them defensively.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I tend to agree because that never left it.
Speaker 2: And you made that point too in the article, like
Speaker 2: they were eighth and EPA for play allowed last year
Speaker 2: the Patriots, but they actually improved after it came out
Speaker 2: of that. Belichick was essentially gonna get fired. But that
Speaker 2: does leave the offensive side, like as jet like we
Speaker 2: haven't heard any reporting like is it gonna be Joshua
Speaker 2: McDaniels there. I would feel better about that than like,
Speaker 2: you know, we're sending Matt Patricia back over to the
Speaker 2: offensive side. It's like, you know, he so he didn't
Speaker 2: have like a magic wand that was gonna be able
Speaker 2: to fix what was going on on the Patriots offensive
Speaker 2: side the last couple of years.
Speaker 4: No, but I think that I would be really surprised
Speaker 4: if there were not at least a bunch of little
Speaker 4: minnoni hot shot r PO kings rolling around them with
Speaker 4: friends with Steven or have got a recommendation from Jed
Speaker 4: Fish or Nick Saban and guys who can at least
Speaker 4: put inpatim. I have no idea what it's gonna look like.
Speaker 4: Will he try and do the Herm Edwards things where
Speaker 4: it's like, actually an NFL team in college football that
Speaker 4: becomes a disaster and everyone gets in legal trouble, Like
Speaker 4: that's plausible, this is Bill Belichick. But I would think
Speaker 4: the just be wanting to win will override the rest
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like excited to see it. And he's so
Speaker 2: he's so cognizant of football history, But I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't think like he's going to be like a prisoner
Speaker 2: to that, Like he grew up on college campus. So
Speaker 2: another book I have here, you know, sitting here is
Speaker 2: The Old Football Scouting Methods by Steve Belichick, which you
Speaker 2: know he wrote at the US Naval Academy and famously
Speaker 2: got to stay there forever and never never tried to
Speaker 2: become the head coach in a way because he thought
Speaker 2: it was more stable and he had a better family life.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's basically where Belichick grew up as
Speaker 2: a kid and as a coach on some level, because
Speaker 2: he was essentially a coach as a fourteen year old
Speaker 2: hanging out with his dad. And now he can kind
Speaker 2: of return the favor. I'm I'm optimistic as a Belichick Belichickian,
Speaker 2: like I've gotten used to this already. It makes sense
Speaker 2: to me that the NFL ultimately wasn't that interested, which,
Speaker 2: like Art, do you think like teams are making a
Speaker 2: mistake by not wanting Belichick at the NFL level?
Speaker 4: I think I don't they're making a mistake if it
Speaker 4: was that you're we're going to hand a seventy three
Speaker 4: year old at the start of the next season our
Speaker 4: entire operation from the nutrition staff to the analytics department
Speaker 4: for what three four five seasons that I completely understand.
Speaker 4: That team just don't operate that way anymore. They're really siloed.
Speaker 4: They bring coaches in, and now the coaching staffs are
Speaker 4: so transient. Some quarterback coach goes here, some guy comes
Speaker 4: over here you get an assistant head coach the following season, right,
Speaker 4: So I get that as just the coach. It is
Speaker 4: still my numbing to me and just jaw dropping that
Speaker 4: eleven months ago, we as a collective public, I think, Greg,
Speaker 4: you're probably doing this too, right. We're discussing maybe acting
Speaker 4: Nick Siriani to slide in Bill Belichick and just looking
Speaker 4: at different circumstances of competitive playoff teams. Would they be
Speaker 4: better off letting go of their good to average to
Speaker 4: maybe very good coach in place of Bill Belichick? And
Speaker 4: eleven months later he's going to a middle class second
Speaker 4: to college football program.
Speaker 2: Yeah, middle class is generous. I mean it's in an
Speaker 2: upper class relatively, you know conference, but it's at the
Speaker 2: bottom of it the ACC, which which is an opportunity
Speaker 2: for him, you know, kind of you wanted the old
Speaker 2: parcels'sm You want to take over the team when they're
Speaker 2: at the bottom. You're right. That Eagles example, though, that
Speaker 2: was maybe the one because there was reporting by Seth
Speaker 2: Wickersham that he was telling the Falcons that he didn't
Speaker 2: need to take over all the operations. But if you're
Speaker 2: the GM there, you know, there's just no way you
Speaker 2: buy that.
Speaker 4: There's no way you'd buy he has a thirty year
Speaker 4: trek record.
Speaker 2: It's and it's and I think like the one of
Speaker 2: the least admirable things you know, throughout this season if
Speaker 2: you want to get on Belichick or certainly a bought
Speaker 2: Lombardi's like they were hammering the Falcons, the Jets and
Speaker 2: the Patriots in their media appearances. Especially Lombardi. He had
Speaker 2: a little pet name like calling their GM and name
Speaker 2: like over and it's like, okay, you're obviously just like
Speaker 2: kind of I know.
Speaker 4: And it's not like they hired a dundehead and at
Speaker 4: London they got Rahie Morris. Right, this is a good hya,
Speaker 4: this is a great coach. They know he's an excellent coach.
Speaker 4: Whether it works or not long term, they signed a quarterback.
Speaker 4: Maybe they should not have done like the You can
Speaker 4: definitely quibble with the GM and whether he should have
Speaker 4: got full power or just coach power, But to take
Speaker 4: shots at them because you didn't get a coach job
Speaker 4: when a very qualified, good coach got the job is
Speaker 4: a bit struck, right.
Speaker 2: Which is why I'm actually I'm glad he's going back
Speaker 2: to coaching because if he was going to do the media,
Speaker 2: like do it give us some real takes, But really
Speaker 2: it's felt like settling scores and being as vague as
Speaker 2: possible while he was doing his real job, which was
Speaker 2: making this four hundred page bible and looking for another job.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is amazing how he could pull off
Speaker 2: having eight different media jobs at the same time. What
Speaker 2: do you think this manual was?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Are we ever going to see this manual?
Speaker 4: Well? I know it's so frustrating. As I was told
Speaker 4: I could release portions of it if he didn't get
Speaker 4: the job. Then he got the job. That was a killer.
Speaker 4: That was a kill and people really got carried away
Speaker 4: with that. There was you know, justice for Colli stallions.
Speaker 4: When he does it, it's a bible. When a white
Speaker 4: job does it, it's a manifesto. I get all that,
Speaker 4: this is not an unusual thing. I get white Court
Speaker 4: fire because it's Belichick. It's like, wow, what could possibly
Speaker 4: be in that? Like that's the the thing you're holding
Speaker 4: the book there. What Belichick has been writing for two years,
Speaker 4: including in the final Patriots season, is his own version
Speaker 4: of the Winning Edge. That's what he's been working on.
Speaker 2: Bill Wilsch has this famous book Finding the Winning Edge
Speaker 2: that every football guy has in their library and speaks
Speaker 2: as like the Holy Bible, and you know, not exactly
Speaker 2: a quick read for the average fan, but it is interesting.
Speaker 2: It's basically how to build an organization and how to
Speaker 2: coach from the ground up. And so I always thought
Speaker 2: it would be interesting to see like an updated version
Speaker 2: of that, and this would be that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he had a college one written and a
Speaker 4: NFL one written. The reason why I report that at
Speaker 4: the time that I thought was interesting is he tailor
Speaker 4: made the college one for Carolina, right, So it's an
Speaker 4: examination of the depth chart, it's transfer targets, it's why
Speaker 4: would this man go through this trouble? Why there was
Speaker 4: graphics in his presentation? Can you imagine Bill Belichick sat
Speaker 4: at a laptop screen designing cool graphics about titands? I cannot. Therefore,
Speaker 4: I was like, it's pretty clear these guys are interested
Speaker 4: seriously in the job. If demands will be met, He's
Speaker 4: not going to sit down on fote Shepette.
Speaker 2: He did to work through his Bible. Well, he's definitely
Speaker 2: got someone younger with him, right, He's he's got I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, my son is much better making slide
Speaker 2: shows for his class than I'm he's got someone working
Speaker 2: with him, but it shows, it shows how serious it
Speaker 2: is he is. I'm excited about it like he's much.
Speaker 2: I think he's gonna be much more fun to watch
Speaker 2: from afar and cover than than have as like a
Speaker 2: fellow media member. How how does it feel for you?
Speaker 2: You know you're wearing that Boston hat. You're you're a
Speaker 2: young guy. You know you've had some experience with this
Speaker 2: coaching tree. You kind of reveal in the in the
Speaker 2: article again, everyone check out the read optional substeck, like,
Speaker 2: how does it feel to be a little speck a
Speaker 2: little part of the Belichick story here? Yeah, the guy
Speaker 2: who got it out there as that he's going to
Speaker 2: unc shocked the world.
Speaker 4: I guess I think my mistake is an inside it
Speaker 4: if I'm critiquing myself as being almost too detailed. I
Speaker 4: think I think if there's more vagaries people aliable, maybe
Speaker 4: to leave it more. I kind of just put out
Speaker 4: the exact contract, like in full, which I don't think
Speaker 4: is normally out the inside a game goes, I think
Speaker 4: you just say deal close or stumbling blocks rather than
Speaker 4: articulating it.
Speaker 2: But it feels slightly surreal.
Speaker 4: I guess the payoff for having like tons of dunkin
Speaker 4: Donuts with guys ten years ago around Boston College. You know,
Speaker 4: maybe that's what it is. I'm writing twelve thousand words
Speaker 4: about why Zach Bourne is the best offball linebacker in
Speaker 4: the NFL. You know, the reward is getting a twenty
Speaker 4: four hour heads up on Bill Belichick.
Speaker 2: I guess, mm, so you're going Bond over Warner for
Speaker 2: your All Pro team? Oh wait, can you get two
Speaker 2: off ball linebacker? They could both go there?
Speaker 4: I think you could squeeze both in.
Speaker 2: Okay, speaking of uh, you know football takes. You were
Speaker 2: on an episode. First one on that you were on
Speaker 2: an NFL daily was an episode entitled what if the
Speaker 2: bad Kirk Cousins shows up? This year? It happened, Like ya,
Speaker 2: talk about patting yourself on the back. This is a
Speaker 2: big week, a big week, big month. You know you
Speaker 2: famously look a lot like Kirk Cousins if you're watching
Speaker 2: And how do you feel watching your namesake how he's
Speaker 2: playing lately?
Speaker 4: I feel sad watching it that these arm strength just
Speaker 4: eroded in the middle of the season. It wasn't that
Speaker 4: strong to begin with. He couldn't move. At the beginning
Speaker 4: of the season, they had to overhall their entire offense
Speaker 4: to hide the fact he couldn't move. And then they
Speaker 4: got him to move a little bit and somehow that
Speaker 4: seemed to evaporate his arm, And so there's elements of
Speaker 4: it and then just making really really peculiar decisions because
Speaker 4: he just cannot drive the ball into coverage anymore. So, Yeah,
Speaker 4: and I've written and I believe that you took Michael
Speaker 4: Pennix with the first pick.
Speaker 2: This was always the bite you we're.
Speaker 4: Going to get yourself into what if this contract is
Speaker 4: a dud from the get go? And I think they've
Speaker 4: got a decision to make. In the decision I think
Speaker 4: will be go and find out what you have in
Speaker 4: the rookie sooner Robin Linter.
Speaker 2: I kind of get while they're sticking with him this
Speaker 2: one week because he really did do a lot of
Speaker 2: good things Kirk last week, like it felt like it
Speaker 2: was like you saw a lot of the things you
Speaker 2: wanted to see, but then you saw the two interceptions
Speaker 2: that kind of ruined the rest of the positive stuff.
Speaker 2: But I kind of would want to see it maybe
Speaker 2: for one more week before pulling the plug. Maybe I'm crazy,
Speaker 2: Maybe I'm sentimental.
Speaker 4: I don't know, it's sentimentality. We've seen him have like three,
Speaker 4: four or five solid week stretches in the season. But
Speaker 4: once the arm goes at that rate and you're playing
Speaker 4: week after week absorbing shots or refusing to take hits
Speaker 4: because they start to really really hurt when you're getting older,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure what you can do around that. Which
Speaker 4: would be the concern is that he feels liable now
Speaker 4: for five ducks a game, and you're just really hoping
Speaker 4: that two of them don't wind up with the other team.
Speaker 2: It's depressing, but also makes me feel good because we
Speaker 2: really didn't do an episode quite like that during the
Speaker 2: rest of the preseason. That was just like a thought experiment,
Speaker 2: like everyone's just assuming that this is going to be
Speaker 2: some good, great Kirk Cousins experience. He wasn't always great,
Speaker 2: and even when he was healthy.
Speaker 4: It feels like they're answered to our question what happens
Speaker 4: is they're just like, let's try and hide and pretend
Speaker 4: like this isn't happening, and hopefully no one sees the
Speaker 4: stat lines of zero touchdowns fourteen turnovers in a three
Speaker 4: week run.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I mean they did such an admirable job.
Speaker 2: I thought he did too. It was almost like they
Speaker 2: were they were playing football with like these ankle weights
Speaker 2: and with just all sorts of restrictions in this tiny
Speaker 2: little box, and they were kind of making it work,
Speaker 2: which I thought was impressive for a while. Ali Connolly,
Speaker 2: he loves ball. Maybe that's why you got this story
Speaker 2: because they saw a like minded individual in Ali Connolly,
Speaker 2: like a little salty not afraid to puff his chest out.
Speaker 2: You sent me a text. If people thought I was
Speaker 2: more unsufferable before, wait till after this. But ultimately it's
Speaker 2: about the joy that you're getting from from this game.
Speaker 2: Very cool man. I'm glad uh that you know it happened,
Speaker 2: that it's going and you're gonna have to be the
Speaker 2: Belichick inside of the next couple of years, in addition
Speaker 2: to all the x's and o's on the NFL that
Speaker 2: you're doing at the read optional.
Speaker 4: I think it moved to North Carolina, might be on
Speaker 4: the cuts. This could be happening.
Speaker 2: Let's go. Yeah, Ali, if if you didn't know, is
Speaker 2: living over in the UK, that's where he was on
Speaker 2: that Week six recap. We got to get him on
Speaker 2: the NFL Daily more maybe in the offseason when the
Speaker 2: timing works out better. Thank you again, Olie, it has
Speaker 2: been a big week. Thank you everyone for tuning in
Speaker 2: and listening. We will be back on Friday with the
Speaker 2: Pick Show with Cynthia Freeland against the spread and yeah,
Speaker 2: when Bill Belichick has a freaking head coaching job again,
Speaker 2: you know football is back finally,