Speaker 1: Be Around the NFL podcast has plenty of arm telling.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another edition of the Around the NFL Podcast,
Speaker 1: presented by the United States Marine Corps. My name is
Speaker 1: Dan Hansis. I'm joining in the room filled with heroes,
Speaker 1: Mark Sassler, Chris Westling, Greg Rosenthal. What is up? Boys? Hey? Dan?
Speaker 1: You know what I was just saying for the show,
Speaker 1: and I'll repeat it here. We were talking right for
Speaker 1: the show started kai for Bath back in the league,
Speaker 1: kicking for the Patriots tonight, um, and we were trying
Speaker 1: to remember who he's played with over his uh distinguished
Speaker 1: NFL career, and then West made a comment that and
Speaker 1: now he kicks for the future division round losing Patriots,
Speaker 1: which made me reflect on what's been a terrible NFL season,
Speaker 1: yet another one for me. Almost every year I've worked
Speaker 1: here has been just lost, embarrassing JET seasons. But what
Speaker 1: I get out of this season, no matter what, even
Speaker 1: if the Patriots win another Super Bowl, West off Patriots
Speaker 1: corner off the hill, and he is on the right
Speaker 1: side of history now and and for that I'm grateful.
Speaker 1: As we exit the Thanksgiving season, I don't know about
Speaker 1: rights out of history. We'll see about that. Right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it would be great to kind of button up this
Speaker 1: point by saying and he got his lock right by
Speaker 1: picking against the Patriots, but we're gonna have to tease
Speaker 1: that result at the very end of the show, although
Speaker 1: people will well, I get it whatever. But but it's
Speaker 1: nice less. I love having you. I'm happy to be
Speaker 1: of service, dear court. Alright, thanks funny alright, and Mark's
Speaker 1: Mark's headphones are off. That's that's all right. We have
Speaker 1: we have your sound drop anyway, so we can we
Speaker 1: have you covered. If there was ever a football Sunday
Speaker 1: where you could, I'd have no problem with you just
Speaker 1: dropping me off stage left. That would be this one. Hey,
Speaker 1: like the Browns today, his microphone didn't show up. You
Speaker 1: know it's not inaccurate. Um. Alright, So a lot to
Speaker 1: get to Week thirteen. Uh and yes, as we said,
Speaker 1: this is and has now started. Bill Parcels and Bill
Speaker 1: Belichick taught us. So let's get into games as as
Speaker 1: now we it's the mad fight begins, uh for playoff
Speaker 1: position and teams trying to get in the back door
Speaker 1: of the playoffs. It's a lot of fun this time
Speaker 1: of year. So why don't we start with uh, perhaps
Speaker 1: the game of the year and a Super Bowl preview.
Speaker 1: Justin Tucker for the winner from forty nine yards. Snap
Speaker 1: is good, kick on away, It is long enough and
Speaker 1: the kick is good. The time has come off the clock.
Speaker 1: The Hays in a barn, and the Ravens takedown a
Speaker 1: forty Niners, and this house is on par that. The
Speaker 1: Ravens celebrated midfield Justin Tucker its fifteen game winning field goal,
Speaker 1: and Thanksgiving weekend in Baltimore ends with one more thing
Speaker 1: to be thankful for. Oh Jerry Sandusky. Oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: party is raging a kicker club, and we ain't going
Speaker 1: home until the sun comes up. Justin Tucker, we call
Speaker 1: him King Leg kicked a tiebreaking for nine yard field
Speaker 1: goal through the cold and the wind and the rain
Speaker 1: as time expired, giving the Ravens win over the Niners West.
Speaker 1: The Ravens had been nuking teams with bombs dropped from
Speaker 1: above during their epic winning streak. On Sunday, we saw
Speaker 1: him win in a street fight. I think that this
Speaker 1: game delivered. It was not some kind of scoring bonanza,
Speaker 1: but it delivered. With coaches going forward aggressively on fourth
Speaker 1: down with George Kittle blocking his butt off, with Fred
Speaker 1: Warner continuing to play like Greg said, as well as
Speaker 1: any defensive player in the league over the past few weeks.
Speaker 1: And then Lamar Jackson in a game where he didn't
Speaker 1: pass much and had nothing really going downfield, his ball
Speaker 1: handling and play fakes where magic and freed up lots
Speaker 1: of room in a running game for him and the
Speaker 1: other backs. It was a fun game to watch, and
Speaker 1: I don't think we come out of this saying definitively
Speaker 1: the Ravens are the best team in football. These were
Speaker 1: two even teams, and they had the better kicker today,
Speaker 1: and they controlled the end of the game situation better.
Speaker 1: You're right, there was very little separating these two teams.
Speaker 1: I think it's said to the rest of the league,
Speaker 1: not that we need a reminder, but the Ravens aren't
Speaker 1: just gonna steam roll every great team along the way.
Speaker 1: I think the forty Niners did so many things well
Speaker 1: in this game. Some long drives against the Ravens. They
Speaker 1: forced a turnover against Lamar Jackson in terms of a
Speaker 1: lost fumble, which uh you don't see very much. Uh,
Speaker 1: good fourth down decisions that they convert. But it comes
Speaker 1: down to the end of the game where they don't
Speaker 1: pick up a fourth and one, where a play is
Speaker 1: batted uh down, the Ravens hit Jimmy Garoppolo's play, and
Speaker 1: then the Ravens control the ball for the last six
Speaker 1: and a half minutes of the game. And that is
Speaker 1: Ravens football, and that is Lamar Jackson at his best.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't pretty, but maybe that is his MVP
Speaker 1: moment because on a day where he couldn't throw the
Speaker 1: ball very well, he goes three for three on that
Speaker 1: drive in tough conditions for thirty two yards, and he
Speaker 1: picks up two other first downs with his legs, including
Speaker 1: a fourth and one, and in short yarded situations. He's
Speaker 1: just the number one weapon in the league. When you've
Speaker 1: seen Baltimore look vulnerable to any degree, it's because teams
Speaker 1: in the past, and it's not a week two week thing,
Speaker 1: have been able to run on them, and that in
Speaker 1: the in the Niners strength showed up today with ram
Speaker 1: raheemas start hundred forty six yards seven point seven yards
Speaker 1: per carry, and it was George Kiddle playing that role
Speaker 1: where like it wasn't just the big play catches. He
Speaker 1: is a physical nightmare to deal with in opening holes
Speaker 1: and a huge part of that ground game. I just
Speaker 1: I'm impressed with the fact that the Niners, because had
Speaker 1: they had they been wiped out. You have to look
Speaker 1: at this entire league and say, no one's gonna stop
Speaker 1: this rumbling train of Baltimore. And this was a weather game.
Speaker 1: We've seen these three weeks in a row with playoff
Speaker 1: contenders where weather has almost I think clouded what you
Speaker 1: could really say you saw because we are reduced both
Speaker 1: teams to such a degree. But they but the Ravens
Speaker 1: man they are. When you look back on a Super
Speaker 1: Bowl type season, if it happens, it's this kind of
Speaker 1: a game right here, wames like this, It's not always
Speaker 1: gonna be as easy as it's been recently. And yeah
Speaker 1: and ho hum. Lamar Jackson runs for a hundred yards
Speaker 1: and it's just like, you know, you can't just look
Speaker 1: at him and oh, he had a hundred passing yards.
Speaker 1: He's that complete player that we really have rarely seen
Speaker 1: in the history of the game. I would imagine he's
Speaker 1: got to be getting close to a thousand yards now
Speaker 1: we are this. His final stats are gonna look like
Speaker 1: nothing we've ever seen before. He's the first quarterback to
Speaker 1: rush for a hundred yards in a game four times
Speaker 1: in a season. I think by the end of the
Speaker 1: first quarter they had already broken their season franchise record
Speaker 1: for most touchdowns in a year. This guy is just amazing.
Speaker 1: And there's still four games to go, and he's got
Speaker 1: all these records, right, he should break or he could
Speaker 1: break Michael Vick's rushing record in the season next week.
Speaker 1: He's I think he's less than sixty yards away from
Speaker 1: that already. And the US to the running game was quiet.
Speaker 1: It was mark Ingram for fifty nine yards. But I
Speaker 1: do think on a day where you couldn't throw it
Speaker 1: very well down the field, Garoppolo and Lamar Jackson both
Speaker 1: I think were helped out by the receivers making good
Speaker 1: plays for them on passes that were just a little
Speaker 1: bit off. And I think that is where the weather
Speaker 1: came uh into effect. If you run at the ball
Speaker 1: that much on a day against the forty. So, I
Speaker 1: know I've given up some yards on the ground, but
Speaker 1: thirty eight runs against them is imposing their will to
Speaker 1: win that way. In en Ronnie Stanley and Marshall Yonda
Speaker 1: and Brown on the rights, I mean they are just
Speaker 1: as as good as any offensive line in the league.
Speaker 1: And when Lamar did drop back to pass, and I
Speaker 1: know they didn't light it up. There weren't big plays
Speaker 1: to be had by the forty Niners defensive line. They
Speaker 1: kept Lamar pretty clean and and there were no big
Speaker 1: time turnovers where Nick Bosa changes the game. He didn't
Speaker 1: touch Lamar once. I'd say this though, San Francisco, and
Speaker 1: it's a tough lost. You cannot afford another mistake. You
Speaker 1: play the Saints in New Orleans next week, and that
Speaker 1: Seahawks team is hanging out there in weeks seventeen. They
Speaker 1: could wind up as a wild card team if things
Speaker 1: went the wrong way, and that would be very disappointing. Well,
Speaker 1: this this game was so massive, you know, for the
Speaker 1: home field advantage race. Obviously, Ravens are battling the Patriots
Speaker 1: and then the forty Niners. It's gonna be between them
Speaker 1: and the Saints, who they play next week, and the Seahawks.
Speaker 1: And you can even throw the Packards and Vikings in there,
Speaker 1: but they're they're kind of playing from behind. They still
Speaker 1: have a chance, but this is a game that they
Speaker 1: if they could have pulled this out somehow, they would
Speaker 1: have been in much better position. San Francisco managed just
Speaker 1: a hundred nineteen yards and three points after halftime, and
Speaker 1: circling back to Tucker, I do think he's a Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame player. I think that what we saw and
Speaker 1: Robbie Gould on the other side of the field, and
Speaker 1: I know he hasn't been healthy this season, so maybe
Speaker 1: that factors in. But he attempts a fifty one yard
Speaker 1: or that lands halfway up through the end zone. He felt,
Speaker 1: you know, five six, seven yards short short of the crossbar,
Speaker 1: and then you see Justin Tucker just split the uprights
Speaker 1: in those conditions with those steaks, and he has made
Speaker 1: thirty eight consecutive field goal attempts in the fourth quarter
Speaker 1: in his career. Uh, he's just I mean, I joke
Speaker 1: around about kickers a lot, but we were he were
Speaker 1: witnessing greatness with Tucker and he's only been in league
Speaker 1: eight years. He's gonna be around for a lot longer
Speaker 1: than that. Didn't he have a missed pat a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago that had him on our radar and
Speaker 1: we everyone was thinking maybe, you know, he's been a
Speaker 1: bad year for kickers, and Tucker has missed a couple
Speaker 1: of kicks. He hasn't been as invincible as he was
Speaker 1: during that like two thousand fourteen to two thousand seventeen
Speaker 1: stretch when they were winning games like fourteen to eleven
Speaker 1: and they needed him to be total robotronic. But he's
Speaker 1: still the best, and he showed it again and he
Speaker 1: got we have actually some Tucker sound. I also like
Speaker 1: this about Tucker. He's got a little swag as a kicker.
Speaker 1: They can go bad, but not him. I feel like,
Speaker 1: in the spirit of my teammates who have been up
Speaker 1: here to talk to you guys last few weeks, I
Speaker 1: should say something like real inspiring, Big Truss and I'll
Speaker 1: look up the questions. It sounds like one of us
Speaker 1: saying that the dude. I think John Horrible and Bill
Speaker 1: Bill Belichick probably are the best special teams coaches among
Speaker 1: head coaches. They're the most steeped in special teams, and
Speaker 1: each of them in the past year has called him
Speaker 1: the greatest kicker of all times. Yeah, he's the greatest
Speaker 1: you've seen? Oh yes, well, what is what this entire
Speaker 1: show point? I do think we can criticize Kyle Shanahan
Speaker 1: a little bit for having a shotgun pass on fourth
Speaker 1: and one, on the key play of the game when
Speaker 1: you're running for six point seven yards per carry, and
Speaker 1: he said he would do it again because the Ravens,
Speaker 1: you know, they put a ton of people up front
Speaker 1: and that's what they do. But he said he wished
Speaker 1: he's called different play. I also hated how conservative and
Speaker 1: afraid he called the end of the first half. But
Speaker 1: that's the Lamar Jackson effect. They really did not go
Speaker 1: for three points at the end of the first half
Speaker 1: when Gold ended up being short, which is very Unkyle
Speaker 1: Shanahan like to be so conservative because I think they
Speaker 1: were just trying to prevent Lamar Jackson from getting the
Speaker 1: ball again and that three points cost him. All Right,
Speaker 1: let's move on. A game played with big steaks regarding
Speaker 1: the a f C West shotgun, this time for car Slam,
Speaker 1: Pettigon or something that's at five coming to this side.
Speaker 1: It's one Hill ten time touchdown, Kansas City o'h pick
Speaker 1: six by the rookie from Virginia. Slamm intercepted by one
Speaker 1: Thorn Hill in return for forty seven yards. Mitch Holt
Speaker 1: us Chief's radio network with the call, Yes, the rookies
Speaker 1: pick six in the second quarter turned Sunday's game into
Speaker 1: a lapper for the Chiefs, who took control of the
Speaker 1: a f C West with a forty to nine win
Speaker 1: over the Raiders at Arrowhead. And it was a weird game.
Speaker 1: I have to say that. So the forty to nine
Speaker 1: it sounds like, oh, typical Chiefs Shenanigans where they just
Speaker 1: overwhelming opponent with their great quarterback in that offense. But
Speaker 1: they scored forty points in a game, uh, in which
Speaker 1: Mahomes Patrick Mahomes through for a hundred and seventy five yards.
Speaker 1: They're leading rusher Darwin Thompson ran for forty four yards.
Speaker 1: In fact, Kansas City was outgained three two to two
Speaker 1: fifty nine by the Raiders, and yet they still coast
Speaker 1: a victor. I would love to maybe I'll reach out
Speaker 1: to the l A researcher team and make sure they
Speaker 1: don't get to see their kids tonight and find out
Speaker 1: if a team has ever scored forty points had a
Speaker 1: forty burger with that few uh that that amount of
Speaker 1: total yards anyway, two major factors. The Chiefs didn't commit
Speaker 1: a turnover or a penalty, and the Raiders had three
Speaker 1: turnovers and twelve penalties for ninety nine yards. So you
Speaker 1: added all up the jumbo the jumble pieces, you could
Speaker 1: figure out how this happened. But it wasn't your typical
Speaker 1: forty to nine victory. It's worth keeping an eye on
Speaker 1: the Chief's offense to see when they start clicking again
Speaker 1: like they did last year and last year, Patrick Mahomes,
Speaker 1: Tyreek Hill, and Travis He played all sixteen games together
Speaker 1: this year. This was only the third game they've completed
Speaker 1: together all year, and I think that factors into why
Speaker 1: they haven't been in rhythm, and maybe we'll see some
Speaker 1: Darwin Thompson going forward. He looked, he looked good at
Speaker 1: the preseason, and part of it was Darryl Williams got
Speaker 1: hurt and they're just Damian Williams was hurt coming into
Speaker 1: the game, and you're right, it's hard to get on
Speaker 1: their offense when they win forty to nine. But Mahomes
Speaker 1: runs for that touchdown and that was a key playing
Speaker 1: the game, just like in the Chargers game, kind of
Speaker 1: because he's needed to because they haven't had a great rhythm.
Speaker 1: But I think if you're a Chiefs fan, it's all
Speaker 1: positive that they can win games in different sort of ways,
Speaker 1: and this Raiders team is falling apart a little bit,
Speaker 1: but this Chiefs secondary is tough to throw on and
Speaker 1: they the fact that they can win games like that
Speaker 1: where wan thorn Hill is making a big play in
Speaker 1: honey Badger back there. That's a pretty good safety combination.
Speaker 1: It just gives them more options of of routes to victory.
Speaker 1: And this was a different one. Eight guys with Russian
Speaker 1: attempt Kansas City. I mean it's like they're banged up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That Patrick Mahomes touch touchdown run thirteen yards came after
Speaker 1: an interception was taken off the board by the Raiders.
Speaker 1: Uh it was challenged and turned to pass interference, which
Speaker 1: was uh. Jon Gruden said after the game was you
Speaker 1: know they got burned by the Wizard of Oz. Uh
Speaker 1: So that that was and it was a bit of
Speaker 1: a questionable call and it and I'm not saying it
Speaker 1: changed the trajectory of this game, but it's another example
Speaker 1: of all these little things that added up to create forty.
Speaker 1: I do wonder, you know, they made the right choice organizationally,
Speaker 1: obviously without question to move on from Kareem Hunt. But
Speaker 1: you just look at the player and wonder what this
Speaker 1: team would be with him at running back, who's looked
Speaker 1: really good for Cleveland because they've never really they they've
Speaker 1: had production, but they never really figured out that role
Speaker 1: since and that's been a very inconsistent kind of clown
Speaker 1: car this season for them, and that that affects you know,
Speaker 1: the guy guys coming who aren't getting reps. They're not
Speaker 1: hot and not the hot capecially an inconsistent one, and
Speaker 1: I mean, you like the consistent cloud cars on And
Speaker 1: if we're gonna talk clown cars in this game, we
Speaker 1: should be talking about the Raiders then, because uh, they
Speaker 1: don't they know, show against the Jets, and we saw
Speaker 1: what happened with the Jets today, so just you know,
Speaker 1: keep that in perspective to get beat up and pushed
Speaker 1: around the way they did at the Meadowlands and then
Speaker 1: they go on the road and um, I y aked
Speaker 1: this one. I thought this would be a close game
Speaker 1: on Thursday, talked about that they would bounce back and
Speaker 1: show some fight, but no, it might be a situation
Speaker 1: where the Raiders, you know, kind of peaked and they're
Speaker 1: one of those teams that are a fun story until
Speaker 1: you get to around Thanksgiving when quote unquote the season
Speaker 1: starts and then you know, the force of gravity takes hold.
Speaker 1: I I still think they'll be a tough team to
Speaker 1: beat in their building, but it's six and six, now,
Speaker 1: what can you really expect going for well, they play
Speaker 1: three four and eight teams in the last three weeks
Speaker 1: of the season, which makes next week home game against
Speaker 1: Tennessee kind of a dirt nap game, at least for
Speaker 1: the Raiders. I think you gotta if you're the Raiders,
Speaker 1: you have to win that game because they're falling behind
Speaker 1: uh in the race. In Derek Carr, you know he's
Speaker 1: gonna have to wait to get another chance to prove
Speaker 1: he can win in cold Weather. Is the numbers in
Speaker 1: cold Weather are are terrible and they got worse today.
Speaker 1: And Jack del rio, is former coach, got on him
Speaker 1: during the week and that became like a big story,
Speaker 1: and Carr took offense, saying, hey, that's a team. That's
Speaker 1: a team game. You know, I don't think it's all
Speaker 1: on me, but for what it's worth, it's just they're
Speaker 1: just facts, the facts of facts. The Bengals and Dolphins
Speaker 1: are the only two a FC teams with a worse
Speaker 1: point point differential in the Raiders this year. Not over
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks. Yeah, the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: Nobody has the worst point difference. Uh. Speaking of the
Speaker 1: Tennessee Titans, it's time now for the Road to Victory,
Speaker 1: presented by the United States Marine Core minitary forty six
Speaker 1: yard field goal left hash for the lead, SI kick fuck.
Speaker 1: Tye Smith has it fifty ten five. It's a tut
Speaker 1: stand Titans. Tye Smith to the house. It's the first
Speaker 1: time since two thousand one when Bigford Henry Ford blocked
Speaker 1: it in Detroit's to three games ago. Oh my, Mike Keith,
Speaker 1: What Alex, that's why you keep Mike Keith a round
Speaker 1: with the nugget in the big spot in the middle
Speaker 1: of the call. I feel like you practiced that on Saturday.
Speaker 1: But fair enough, that was excellent. Titans Radio Network called
Speaker 1: the Crukshank Redemption Dame Kruk Shank rash the inside gap
Speaker 1: blocking a potential game tying field goal. Tye smith scoops
Speaker 1: it up sixty three yards of the house. That's the
Speaker 1: biggest play in the Titans win over the Colts, the
Speaker 1: game that had huge ramifications in the a f C Southwest.
Speaker 1: The Titans are surging and I know you're a believer.
Speaker 1: The race for the a f C South Crown is
Speaker 1: a battle to survive fatal flaws. The Colts fatal flaws
Speaker 1: as the kicking game. They missed three kicks again today,
Speaker 1: two of which were blocked. Uh. And the fact that
Speaker 1: their weapons attrition has taken care of them. Really their
Speaker 1: top five offensive weapons before the season started are all
Speaker 1: out in this game. So they're throwing to Zack Pascal,
Speaker 1: who had a really good game, and Jack Doyle, but
Speaker 1: not much beyond that. UM. And then the Titans fatal
Speaker 1: flaw is an offensive line that's been a problem all year.
Speaker 1: Tannehill was sacked six times, five of those in the
Speaker 1: first half. UM. The Titans could not contain the Colts
Speaker 1: defense for most of this game, and there was there
Speaker 1: was a time of possession issue that made it seem
Speaker 1: like every time I look up, Derrick Henry's rushing for
Speaker 1: a first down, but the Titans never have the ball
Speaker 1: after that. Uh. He now, Derrick Henry. Last sixteen games,
Speaker 1: he has rushed for seven five yards and twenty total touchdowns.
Speaker 1: And the last player to rush for that many yards
Speaker 1: and that many touchdowns over a sixteen game span was
Speaker 1: Chris Johnson who said seventy yards. This guy is a
Speaker 1: legit star right now. And he's averaging a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five yards in the last three games, all of
Speaker 1: which are Titans victory. And they've they've pumped it up
Speaker 1: through the air a little bit more with Tannehill at quarterback,
Speaker 1: and some of the big plays have you know, appeared.
Speaker 1: But a lot of Derrick Henry's production has come when
Speaker 1: you don't trust any of the receivers and you're stacking
Speaker 1: the boxes against him, and he's doing a week after week.
Speaker 1: There were two huge block field goals in this game too.
Speaker 1: I mean you talked about special teams earlier. I thought
Speaker 1: that that one of them changed the complexion of this
Speaker 1: game entirely. And the Colts twenty four straight points given up.
Speaker 1: I feel you can kind of see. I'm I like
Speaker 1: the Colts, I like the coaching, but the injuries are
Speaker 1: racked up. They're drifting away from us in this playoff picture.
Speaker 1: To agree they have a killer loss to Pittsburgh earlier
Speaker 1: in the year, well, they I sometimes think about these
Speaker 1: games as margin for error, and the Titans just have
Speaker 1: so much had so much more margin for error in
Speaker 1: this game. They followed behind early Tannehill as a turn
Speaker 1: There's a couple of turnovers early, but they can survive that,
Speaker 1: whereas that the Colts cannot serve vibe. Jacoby Brissette throwing
Speaker 1: a terrible interception which he did, which which helped to
Speaker 1: turn this game around. It's like they need to play perfect.
Speaker 1: I think Titans fans were frustrated for much of this
Speaker 1: game that Frank Richer is out coaching them. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, you're Brisette and you're throwing to Marcus Johnson.
Speaker 1: You're throwing to someone named Ashton Duelin from a place
Speaker 1: called Malone University. Never heard of Malone. It was a
Speaker 1: painting student. Randy Travis is at tight end. Came from
Speaker 1: the Country Music Awards. I don't know what's going out.
Speaker 1: Leave him alone. Greg likes country. That's not They're like
Speaker 1: two days away from signing Georgian Matthews. It sounds like
Speaker 1: it's rough. I'm just saying that Titans have a little
Speaker 1: bit of a juice, a little bit of firepower. They do.
Speaker 1: They're fun to watch right now, and Tannehill is playing
Speaker 1: really well, you know, despite all those sacks, which I
Speaker 1: don't think we're on him they were on the offensive line.
Speaker 1: He's still making big throws into tight windows and then
Speaker 1: a great throw with the forty yard touchdown to Cliff
Speaker 1: Raymond to put the game out reach late. The Titoons
Speaker 1: era ended when Marcus Mariotta was benched. They just feel
Speaker 1: like a different team now. Look at you. They just
Speaker 1: feel I don't feel anything. There's no animosity towards that
Speaker 1: organization of the fan base that never was. I just
Speaker 1: hated watching Marcus Mariotta. And I don't think Ryan Tannehill
Speaker 1: is a star, but I just think at this time,
Speaker 1: with this team, at this moment, he's performing at a
Speaker 1: very high level and they're fun to watch, although they
Speaker 1: kind of still are like the Mike Malarkey Titans. I mean,
Speaker 1: Tannehill was seventeen finess the ability to block that yet
Speaker 1: seventeen for twenty two. Today every Tannehill game is like
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty, which is great. You know, you're super efficient.
Speaker 1: It's Derrick Henry running. You're playing it close to the vest,
Speaker 1: but it is working. That was a time of possession issue.
Speaker 1: They lost two fumbles early and then the sacks. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was a philosophy issue. As
Speaker 1: much as just this game turned out that way. And
Speaker 1: also West you mentioned on Thursday's show that Tannehill was
Speaker 1: a candidate for the franchise tag. I don't know where
Speaker 1: your reporting came from, but that was followed up this
Speaker 1: morning with additional reporting suggesting that that's how the Titans think. Well,
Speaker 1: let's get to the bottom. This is that your reporting.
Speaker 1: Sometimes things that are easily deduced don't need to be reported.
Speaker 1: We can all reach a sensible conclusion without inside information.
Speaker 1: And you know, speaking of Marcus Mariota. Not to pile on,
Speaker 1: but Delaney Walker went to um I R with an
Speaker 1: ankle injury. This part of the thing that annoyed me
Speaker 1: about the Tytoons era. As soon as something would happen
Speaker 1: like this, like well, that's why, that's what. If they
Speaker 1: just had Delaney Walker, they'd be okay, but you know what,
Speaker 1: bad luck. No, Look, the Titans can still survive and
Speaker 1: thrive on offense even if they lose players. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be a perfect situation. Certain quarterbacks, I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is, seemed to have excuses made for
Speaker 1: them left and right until they literally leave the league. Also,
Speaker 1: John H. Smith is better than Delaney Walker this year anyway,
Speaker 1: So it wasn't a loss, and that was the road
Speaker 1: to victory presented by the United States Marine Corps, the
Speaker 1: real heroes. All right, let's move right along. Crows a
Speaker 1: pass and the pass whose intercepted? And that's Joe Hayden,
Speaker 1: the former power He's at the forty five, he's at
Speaker 1: the fifty. He takes a five at the forty five.
Speaker 1: And you can put this one in their history books.
Speaker 1: What a footing end for Joe Haydn to a warmer Browns,
Speaker 1: a former number one Cristians. The ball was intended Rold
Speaker 1: the Brown's receiver in the middle of the field, and
Speaker 1: that was lady. And those Steelers played take away and
Speaker 1: Hi field isn't a frenzy. Bill hill Grove what they
Speaker 1: called Steelers Radio Network, seated next to mark Up paraphrase,
Speaker 1: you said something all on the lines, mark Up. Oh,
Speaker 1: it had to be hated anyway. Hayden's interception Baker Mayfield
Speaker 1: the final minutes of the game, deciding to play the
Speaker 1: Steelers over the Browns at Hines Field. Pittsburgh started the
Speaker 1: season with three straight losses, will enter the final quarter
Speaker 1: of the season. In the sixth and final playoff position
Speaker 1: in the FC. On Sunday, they got some revenge on
Speaker 1: the Browns. Mark it's it to me. It is a
Speaker 1: microcosm of what has been wrong with Cleveland, and we'll
Speaker 1: get off Cleveland quick and get to Pittsburgh, the much
Speaker 1: more encouraging team here. The Browns got out hot and
Speaker 1: had a lead, a yardage advantage of a hundred and
Speaker 1: forty seven to nine, and this was not minutes into
Speaker 1: the game. They built a time of possession advantage because
Speaker 1: they were running the ball at will on Pittsburgh and
Speaker 1: having their way through the air with Jarvis Landry. Seventeen
Speaker 1: plus minutes to under five for Pittsburgh, and I thought
Speaker 1: they have figured out how to finally come in and
Speaker 1: hammer with their talent lesser teams, which on paper the
Speaker 1: Steelers on offense certainly are. And it is unbelievable to
Speaker 1: me how out coached and how classed Cleveland was in
Speaker 1: the second half of this game. Duck Hodges deserves an
Speaker 1: absolute ton of credit for the chemistry that he built
Speaker 1: on a touchdown to James Washington. Had big plays all
Speaker 1: day that changed this game, and they went on to
Speaker 1: twenty straight unanswered points. Pittsburgh because they were using guys
Speaker 1: like Jalen Samuel's Out of the Wildcat to keep Duck
Speaker 1: Hodges out of trouble. At points, the Browns ash rust dried,
Speaker 1: dried up with some injuries, guys like Benny Snell and
Speaker 1: Baker Mayfield had a killer fumble and at one point
Speaker 1: you just looked at them for twenty streight minutes they
Speaker 1: could not move the ball. And Freddie Kitchens, I like
Speaker 1: the guy. I like the person. I have no issue
Speaker 1: with the fact that you know it takes a while
Speaker 1: at as a head coach to learn how to do this.
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen in two minutes. But Mike Tomlin, for
Speaker 1: everyone who wants to get on him for the late
Speaker 1: season losses in Pittsburgh, this was a signature type of
Speaker 1: Mike Tomlin win where you just felt Pittsburgh becoming and
Speaker 1: morphing into the tougher team against the Cleveland team that
Speaker 1: started to feel all the old ghosts around it. And
Speaker 1: so it was absolutely appropriate that Joe Hayden, of all people,
Speaker 1: the X Brown I used to know what that felt like,
Speaker 1: cap this thing and I Cleveland season is over. I
Speaker 1: don't really care about the math involved at this point
Speaker 1: because this is what they do in games. They will
Speaker 1: find a way to lose two more of these, one
Speaker 1: of them against the Bengals, I'm telling you right now,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be a really really long night
Speaker 1: of questioning inside that building whether or not you keep
Speaker 1: this head coach. They've proven this is in their d
Speaker 1: n A for two thousand nineteen. The Freddie Kitchens Browns
Speaker 1: and forget Big Ben, Antonio Brown, Love Bell, those guys
Speaker 1: are long gone. This this offense was playing without Juju Smith,
Speaker 1: the number one receiver, James Conner, the number one running back,
Speaker 1: Marky's pouncing, one of the best centers in the league.
Speaker 1: And they beat a Browns team that's more talented. And
Speaker 1: that's been the story of the Brown seams. And I
Speaker 1: mean this is where it goes back. I think where
Speaker 1: like organizations win. You know, it's unfortunate for Mark and
Speaker 1: Brown's fan, but organization's ownership, every everything sets up for
Speaker 1: like a win like this where Benny's snell out gains,
Speaker 1: Nick Chubb, Advance McDonald, Nodell Beckham kind of have the
Speaker 1: same you know stat line and and the Steelers can
Speaker 1: somehow recover from all of those injuries. Just seems like,
Speaker 1: because there is so much talent on this team, and
Speaker 1: Miles Garrett will be back next year. They just need
Speaker 1: to clean it up a little bit. And you know,
Speaker 1: I know it's not a big deal, but Jervis, Landry
Speaker 1: and Beckham leave the locker room without talking to reporters.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know it's running that team. I
Speaker 1: don't know who's running the team, and I don't it doesn't,
Speaker 1: it doesn't say and maybe that is And this is
Speaker 1: one of the things we thought before the season. If
Speaker 1: the possibility that all the personalities won't mix with the
Speaker 1: right way, maybe with a stronger head coach it works.
Speaker 1: Maybe these are the type of players that won't respond
Speaker 1: to a stern head coach either. These are all things
Speaker 1: that need to be worked out in Cleveland. But they
Speaker 1: have a lot of work to do. I mean, because
Speaker 1: we did say, like, what is this their seventh loss?
Speaker 1: And I get where your frustrations coming from, Mark, obviously,
Speaker 1: because this is a tough game. Uh, they're not out
Speaker 1: of the mix. They can get hot, but what have
Speaker 1: we seen from this year that will that says they
Speaker 1: will Because all the talent in the world doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you're an incon they're not a playoff team and
Speaker 1: they're not going to make the playoffs. Like I, I
Speaker 1: understand the mathematical side, it's the little things to tack onto.
Speaker 1: What you just mentioned that safety da Marius Randall is
Speaker 1: not even brought to the game, and no one quite
Speaker 1: knows why. There were some safety issues he may be received.
Speaker 1: I don't know, some threats or something. Freddy Kitchens is
Speaker 1: photographed with a fan wearing a you know, Pittsburgh started
Speaker 1: at T shirt and it was given to him by
Speaker 1: his daughters on his birthday. So it's like, Okay, let's
Speaker 1: not make a huge deal out of that. But the house, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's NonStop issues and the like you know.
Speaker 1: I this was the one week and Dan, you were
Speaker 1: feeling it with the Jets, the optimism for the first
Speaker 1: time in years, and I tweeted out some real strong
Speaker 1: stuff and like I was like, why is my feet well,
Speaker 1: my feet is blowing up today because I appropriately annoyed
Speaker 1: the Steelers fan base and they seemed to be a
Speaker 1: strong wheeled group and good for them, but it got retweeted,
Speaker 1: It got retweeted. Midday I found out by old takes
Speaker 1: exposed because that's what you do if you're a fan.
Speaker 1: Just it's like a billion oats. It's on Twitter, yes,
Speaker 1: and it's blowing up, and it's like, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: go on Twitter for three weeks and it's you know what,
Speaker 1: I started it, I'll deal with it. I got respect.
Speaker 1: I got respect to you, Mark, because I saw it's
Speaker 1: not really in your nature to use that type of bravado.
Speaker 1: Uh and yet you were confident and you you were
Speaker 1: feeling it. But it did. And I let you know
Speaker 1: this during the game. I I sensed it as I
Speaker 1: was driving to work. I was like, oh god, if
Speaker 1: if Mark doesn't win after those comments, it was like
Speaker 1: dropping a cop prehensive bomb upon the Steelers. It was
Speaker 1: like these fans and Marcus a big enough Twitter five,
Speaker 1: it's coming back Adam hard and that's gonna that's gonna
Speaker 1: compound and annoying. But to your credit, Mark, I think
Speaker 1: your spirits have been in a good place. Your spirits
Speaker 1: are better now than when much worse Browns teams lost
Speaker 1: games that didn't matter. This is who they've been. So
Speaker 1: it's not a surprise if you if you start out
Speaker 1: hot and then you crumble. That's one thing. This is
Speaker 1: who they've been alright, one night on the Steelers. They've
Speaker 1: won six of seven games. Now they are rolling, and
Speaker 1: I don't know how good their offense is gonna be.
Speaker 1: I don't know how how much stain powered Duck Hodges has,
Speaker 1: but the way they turn this around and the balls
Speaker 1: to go get Minca Fitzpatrick, they've been a top two
Speaker 1: or three defense since that trade. At seven and five,
Speaker 1: they now look like a very possible playoff team. They're
Speaker 1: they're gonna host the Bills in two weeks, which will
Speaker 1: be a big one for them, and they have to
Speaker 1: go to the Ravens. But for the Steelers slipping around
Speaker 1: this was just as big. Obviously a game for the Steelers,
Speaker 1: and now they have a legitimate shot to go get
Speaker 1: that six seats and they beat those Cults, so they've
Speaker 1: got tie break direction and us. It's been about four
Speaker 1: or five hours. I tease this earlier in the day,
Speaker 1: and I had a compliment coming your way, okay, and
Speaker 1: now the time has come for me to deliver that compliment. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: good jobs scouting Mason Rudolph's failures. Thank you, And now
Speaker 1: this is where you're just feeling it. You're the guy
Speaker 1: that hits on seventeen at the blackjack table uh and
Speaker 1: gets twenty one Duck Hodges, who you were calling for,
Speaker 1: which just felt like it felt almost unfair to Mason Rudolph.
Speaker 1: He played a really good game once he got warmed up.
Speaker 1: It's so clear that this guy should have been in
Speaker 1: before he came into uh steel to the Steelers offense.
Speaker 1: So my compliment to you, sir, is that you have
Speaker 1: diagnosed this beautifully, and um I love you because of it. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you. That makes up for the other step, that
Speaker 1: makes up for the other team in this game, which
Speaker 1: I spent all offseason raving about Odell Beckham and Baker
Speaker 1: Mayfield Lane waste too defenses. So you get some of
Speaker 1: them right and you get some of them wrong. But
Speaker 1: I do you think Duck Hodges what this team needed
Speaker 1: was a quarterback who won't throw the game away, won't
Speaker 1: mess up, and has some sense of rhythm and timing
Speaker 1: which was missing. I mostly just like Dan's trend towards
Speaker 1: not wanting to have any genuine human interaction outside the podcast.
Speaker 1: He wants to save it all for on air. Eventually
Speaker 1: will only speak to Dan on the podcast. That's like
Speaker 1: what Warren Babies said to Madonna and her documentary, Now
Speaker 1: you're worried there, dare I get it? I get where
Speaker 1: this is going. You inspired the song. You're so vain
Speaker 1: um I can't even go on. It's like so I'm
Speaker 1: not at all but all right, let's go empty backfield
Speaker 1: for Allen takes a spell. Allen under some heat, Allen
Speaker 1: looking looking back, totally give it up. Gardage gets gets
Speaker 1: the in the Redskin's gonna win it. It was Foster
Speaker 1: who knocked it out as Allan fai up Guardage all
Speaker 1: the way back to the thirty all one fourteen sucks
Speaker 1: to go when the words his defense gets the job done.
Speaker 1: Larry Michael, uh, Chris Cooley, sorry with Coolie. Turn it
Speaker 1: up in my headphones? Cool copy. Where are you going?
Speaker 1: Kyle Allen? Turn it up? The Panthers quarterback scamper. Someone's
Speaker 1: in peril. The Panthers quarterback scamper twenty three yards behind
Speaker 1: the line of scrimmage. That's sound you here, that's sound.
Speaker 1: Here is tens of thousands of people clicking into the
Speaker 1: Mark Marin podcast sack scamperd twenty three yards. Thank you
Speaker 1: to everyone taking drugs. That is staying with US twenty
Speaker 1: three yards behind the line of scrimmage before Chris Odom
Speaker 1: knocked the ball from his hands. It was a profoundly
Speaker 1: unsuccessful fourth and gold try for the Carolina Panthers, and
Speaker 1: it allowed the Redskins to escape with a eighteen win.
Speaker 1: That is two straight wins for the Washington Football Club.
Speaker 1: And listen, we all know it. Dwayne Haskins is developing
Speaker 1: and he's developing photos from his selfie binge. But he's
Speaker 1: also developing as a young rookie and he needs help.
Speaker 1: He I mean, he needs all just like any other
Speaker 1: rookie quarterback needs help. And he hasn't been getting much
Speaker 1: of it on a bad Redskins team. Today he did because, uh,
Speaker 1: especially from their running game. Adrian Peterson and Darius Guice
Speaker 1: combined for two fifty eight yards three touchdowns. Uh, guys especially,
Speaker 1: and this is something you really wanted to see because
Speaker 1: he's a talented young player that's had injury issues. He
Speaker 1: was running angry in this game, and I mean that
Speaker 1: as a compliment angry runs Kyle Brand style. He had
Speaker 1: runs of thirty eight and sixty yards two touchdowns. Mark,
Speaker 1: You'll you'll like to know that Adrian Peterson moved one
Speaker 1: step closer to Walter Payton on the all time touchdown list.
Speaker 1: He had a score. You tracking this has saved a
Speaker 1: lot of work for me. I appreciate it. Yes, Uh so,
Speaker 1: the Redskins did a nice job and their offensive line
Speaker 1: deserves a lot of credit for that as well. And
Speaker 1: on the panther side of the ball, you know, they
Speaker 1: blow fourteen nothing lead in this game, and I know
Speaker 1: they kind of cooked their goose because of Joey slides
Speaker 1: misses against the Saints last week. So maybe this game
Speaker 1: didn't have a ton of importance um at five and six,
Speaker 1: But now they're five and seven and they're riding a
Speaker 1: four game losing streak, and they have a losing record
Speaker 1: at home. And the owner came out ten days ago
Speaker 1: and said, I will not stand from idiocrity. And they
Speaker 1: are the very picture of mediocrity in the NFL right now.
Speaker 1: And that's all a long way of saying that in
Speaker 1: a league where they fire, in our league, where they
Speaker 1: fire a quarter of the coaches every January, Ron Rivera
Speaker 1: is cooked. And and I don't even know if it
Speaker 1: should be because of his quarterback play. It should be
Speaker 1: because he switched to a three four defense in the
Speaker 1: off season, and they run some hybrid They're not strictly
Speaker 1: one thing or another. But they entered this game thirty
Speaker 1: one and run defense d v o A and got
Speaker 1: worked over today. Their run defense went from decent not
Speaker 1: terrible to one of the worst in the NFL. And
Speaker 1: they've been reasonably healthy all year. Well, they lost Kwan
Speaker 1: Short which was huge, but mine as a like monster
Speaker 1: run defender. He's a pass rusher now and they and
Speaker 1: they losed on Terry po And you watched Darius Skys
Speaker 1: go ten for nine, Peterson go thirteen for the Redskins
Speaker 1: run for two forty eight. I mean, that's the type
Speaker 1: of team that Ron Rivera wishes that the Panthers could be.
Speaker 1: And you assume in some weeks, of course, Christian McCaffrey,
Speaker 1: uh does run that well. But today he was held
Speaker 1: down fourteen forty four on the ground. And uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's surprising this Bill callahan. We're just gonna run the
Speaker 1: ball fifty times and we don't care what happens. Hey,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's gotten them a few wins here. It
Speaker 1: works three out of twelve times. I mean, well, what
Speaker 1: what what was group? What was Callahan? He entered in
Speaker 1: week five? What at oh and four? So you know
Speaker 1: he's he's like three and uh three and five and
Speaker 1: he's doing all right. Coach of the year if Brian
Speaker 1: Flores is in Coach of the Year Candida. See like
Speaker 1: some people are trying to say, why not Bill Callahan
Speaker 1: three and five? I but I get the Ron Rivera
Speaker 1: might be on his way out. You have to make
Speaker 1: sure you're gonna find a better coach because most of
Speaker 1: these guys come in and they don't work. And Ron
Speaker 1: Rivera does seem like it's an every other year thing.
Speaker 1: But Ron Rivera will find another job. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's the reason not to fire. I hear you,
Speaker 1: but it's not every other year though, because the defense
Speaker 1: the last two years has been bad, and that's his defense.
Speaker 1: I think also when you're when you're riding with a
Speaker 1: rookie quarterback, I think it's easy to forget that Kyle
Speaker 1: Allen is a young quarterback that is like learning on
Speaker 1: the job still that we want him to be productive
Speaker 1: all the way because of the good early looks he gave.
Speaker 1: It's like he's just gonna keep that going. Like the
Speaker 1: growing pains are real. It's similar to we've heard calls
Speaker 1: for John Harball's job, We've heard calls from Mike Tomlin's
Speaker 1: job over the last couple of years. Those teams stayed
Speaker 1: with him. And to me, Ron Rivera is similar type
Speaker 1: of coach to those guys. Nate orchard Uh, the linebacker
Speaker 1: the Redskins who has picked up this week, made two games,
Speaker 1: saving type of defensive plays in this game and he
Speaker 1: had just been signed and some you know Redskins reporter
Speaker 1: asked him about it after then he broke down crying,
Speaker 1: like what it meant for him? And it reminds you,
Speaker 1: like in these games that we think are dog games
Speaker 1: and they are you don't need we didn't want to
Speaker 1: watch him or whatever, Like someone's life is changing and
Speaker 1: something like it can mean an awful lot. And it
Speaker 1: was clear to him, who had been out of the
Speaker 1: league as recently as a few days ago, like like
Speaker 1: what that experience meant much less stereous guys who's been
Speaker 1: through total hell. Way to put in respect, Greg, yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew that. I knew that I was gonna get
Speaker 1: on dance right now in a paternal way. You gotta watch,
Speaker 1: you gotta watch a little Nate Orchard interview you. It'll
Speaker 1: break you down there some mental music behind that cold
Speaker 1: heart like yours. Can we do that? So we put
Speaker 1: some cental music, sentimental music line there. We go, alright,
Speaker 1: let you're a copper Sky Island. Let's move on. They're
Speaker 1: gonna fake this thing. Spread all over the field. Five
Speaker 1: to the last four the right cut down, unbelievable dead
Speaker 1: hawk hawk fluid. I've never seen that before. Jimmy Seppalo
Speaker 1: and that man's seen a lot, Bob Greasy and Joe Rose.
Speaker 1: The Dolphins radio network called the Miami Special. How about
Speaker 1: that Eagles bill the statue Matt Hack through an underhead
Speaker 1: one yard touchdown pass. That Jason is Matt Hawk. Let's
Speaker 1: not call the man I mean h A A C
Speaker 1: K it is. I am from it on a strong authority.
Speaker 1: That is Matt Hawk. Tomato Tomato okay uh to Sanders.
Speaker 1: A brilliant bit of trickery by the Dolphins thirty one.
Speaker 1: They go on to win over the fading Eagles, who
Speaker 1: kick away a golden opportunity to pull into a tie
Speaker 1: in the brutal NFC East Mark. The Dolphins also got
Speaker 1: great performances out of Ryan Fitzpatrick and DeVante Parker. It's
Speaker 1: their third win in five weeks. This, Yeah, they're just
Speaker 1: not that team that's tanking. It's like they're they have been.
Speaker 1: What you talk about Brian Floores as Coach of the Year,
Speaker 1: and it's it's maybe it's over sold. Who talk about that,
Speaker 1: but tweets about it that he deserves consideration. I even
Speaker 1: saw you some writers saying and that's just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's doing a great job. I forget the award business,
Speaker 1: but it's an improbable coaching job by him, right, And
Speaker 1: I think it gives you, well, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: teams that are kind of hanging around in this mediocre
Speaker 1: center world. And I think the one thing Dolphins fans
Speaker 1: have is you know, this can change her, dear. But
Speaker 1: we can look at our coach and say he's aggressive.
Speaker 1: He is not afraid to go up, cook up trick
Speaker 1: plays at a bizarre and he will hit you with
Speaker 1: an on site s kick and he'll do it again
Speaker 1: if it doesn't work, because he believes in taking every
Speaker 1: possible advantage. And and we look at Pittsburgh, the roster
Speaker 1: that Miami's dealing with and what they produced today four
Speaker 1: hundred plus yards on an Eagles defense that fell apart
Speaker 1: down the stretch. They helped the Phillies defense got them
Speaker 1: up early with an interception that gave Carson Wentz a
Speaker 1: short field for a touchdown, and then they stopped them
Speaker 1: inside the fifty yard line for make it tend nothing.
Speaker 1: The Dolphins did not give up at that point. Ten
Speaker 1: nothing didn't matter. They got down twenty eight fourteen. It
Speaker 1: didn't matter. And DeVante Parker's career game had a lot
Speaker 1: to do with the Eagles secondary giving Ryan Fitzpatrick big
Speaker 1: open spaces to keep testing them, and the Dolphins cannot
Speaker 1: run the ball and everyone knows it, and they have
Speaker 1: nothing in the backfield, and they kept making huge plays
Speaker 1: through the air. And you asked about Carson Wentz. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is a game where I can
Speaker 1: come away saying that he is a totally changed guy
Speaker 1: because the inner he had one interception, but the mess
Speaker 1: from last week went away that happened in bad weather.
Speaker 1: I don't think having him throw the ball forty six
Speaker 1: times is the right way to be using Carson Wentz
Speaker 1: at this point on this team. All Sean Jeffrey made
Speaker 1: a good difference with them today, but they don't have
Speaker 1: the parts for that. He's not the Carson Wentz of
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago with what's around him right now. Well,
Speaker 1: this is troubling for the Eagles that you have a
Speaker 1: good offensive day and you think you've got a rising
Speaker 1: defense and you give a thirty seven points to a
Speaker 1: Dolphins team that had their running backs at eight carries
Speaker 1: for ten yards through three quarters. They gave up touchdowns
Speaker 1: on five great possessions the Miami Dolphins did. So the
Speaker 1: Miami Dolphins did to the Eagles what the Ravens were
Speaker 1: doing on Monday Night to the Rams. The Miami Dolphins
Speaker 1: didn't score their fifth offensive touchdown till Week seven this year,
Speaker 1: and they went up and down the field with Ryan
Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick and no running game. If nothing else, I think
Speaker 1: it gives you some confidence in their coordinator. Chat O'sha
Speaker 1: who we haven't mentioned his name the whole season. He's
Speaker 1: never called the play in his life in the NFL.
Speaker 1: He's done a great job like focusing on their strength
Speaker 1: and finding a way to put together in NFL offense.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, and it's just isn't it just the sign
Speaker 1: of a mediocre to bad team? Which the Eagles have
Speaker 1: been this season. When when you fix one thing, another
Speaker 1: spring and and and more waters pouring into the ship,
Speaker 1: because it's been the defense that's been keeping him in
Speaker 1: games as his offenses went into a tail spin. The
Speaker 1: offense finally springs back to life and it's the defense
Speaker 1: that kills him. And yeah, they will, they will regret
Speaker 1: this game. And this is not a super Bowl team anyway,
Speaker 1: So it's like it too crazy about them losing this game. Uh,
Speaker 1: there d belief flawed team. But when you have the
Speaker 1: Cowboys licking their wounds and in total crisis and you
Speaker 1: get to watch it on Thanksgiving and then you go
Speaker 1: to Miami and lose, I mean that that is a
Speaker 1: tough film. It has to be the lowest point for
Speaker 1: Doug Peterson because when they when they went out of
Speaker 1: the playoffs last year, that was on a high note
Speaker 1: where you did a lot with a little and Nick
Speaker 1: Foles a quarterback, and this is one where you're questioning
Speaker 1: everything at this point. This game is a great one
Speaker 1: for my The talent is not that different, Chris Wesleyan
Speaker 1: between two NFL teams, because if you look at these
Speaker 1: two rosters, that the talent just should be so overwhelming
Speaker 1: with a halfway competent coaching staff that the Eagles don't
Speaker 1: lose this game like ever he goes are way more
Speaker 1: talented than the Dolphins, That's what I mean, and they
Speaker 1: still didn't. They still don't. That's close enough where somehow
Speaker 1: Miami wins this game. The Dolphins. I saw a stat
Speaker 1: over the weekend. Their roster is undrafted. That is amazing.
Speaker 1: Half the roster almost as undrafted, and Brian Flores is
Speaker 1: out here winning games with him. I don't. I just
Speaker 1: don't take it back East Coach of the Year. I
Speaker 1: just don't see how h A A C K is Hawk.
Speaker 1: It's not. I'm not suggesting that if you're just gonna
Speaker 1: look at the way it's spelled, that you I wouldn't
Speaker 1: come to the same conclusion. But it confused me, so
Speaker 1: I went and looked it up. And I've been told
Speaker 1: that it's another option would be hacked. Where do you
Speaker 1: find if you're some some patron in that family a
Speaker 1: long time ago said our name, our names are you know,
Speaker 1: Joe and Wendy Hack. Let's change it to hawk, which
Speaker 1: is much cooler. It happened a lot on Ellis Island
Speaker 1: when sure a lot of the immigrants came over. Uh.
Speaker 1: If a name was too hard to pronounce, they would
Speaker 1: just cut off vowels or the beginning of a name.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what maybe we got an Ellis Island situation.
Speaker 1: You were Dan Hansen Stein at one point. It's certainly possible.
Speaker 1: That's certainly possible they trimmed it. It's much cooler give
Speaker 1: Matt Hack his name back. I'm just married off the
Speaker 1: research and information that I did before. I think the
Speaker 1: subject here is it's not Dan, it's on Hack. Maybe
Speaker 1: the punter doesn't want to be known as a Hack.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is maybe it's all working out for the best.
Speaker 1: Hawk is kind of a majestic bird. Let's move on.
Speaker 1: Three receivers. He spins one to the goal line and
Speaker 1: a toe tap by Cooper Cup for the touchdown. Touchdown
Speaker 1: l A. Jared Goff couldn't have walked it down there
Speaker 1: in place with any better. Cooper Cup brings it in
Speaker 1: to take the lead to nothing. There's a guy that
Speaker 1: will be at Chris Westling's co ed baby shower. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: his neighbor J B. Long. Oh. The RAMS radio network.
Speaker 1: That was the old days where it's just like alright, honey,
Speaker 1: have fun of the baby shower. I'll come and pick
Speaker 1: up the gifts. But now the man is expected to
Speaker 1: be at the shower. I um as some ornament. I
Speaker 1: will argue have harmy candy against a couple shower. I
Speaker 1: don't know to what effect, but I will argue heavily
Speaker 1: against him. What are we there for? Somewhere in like
Speaker 1: the late nineties, this change that used to be showers
Speaker 1: were just for the women that I've had to go
Speaker 1: to their own show. I do, but now how my
Speaker 1: children have already come and gone at this point in
Speaker 1: terms of the birth arrangements and stuff, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: going to fight out the I'm gonna fight other battles
Speaker 1: like and I agree with you, but I'll pick a
Speaker 1: different battle fight at this point. Jared Goff three for
Speaker 1: four d twenty four yards and two touchdown. Robert Woods
Speaker 1: went off seventy two yards receiving. You heard that Cooper
Speaker 1: Cup touchdown. The Rams cruise seven over the Cards. Uh, Greg,
Speaker 1: everyone's down on the Rams and how could you not
Speaker 1: be after that Monday night football massacre? Um against the Ravens.
Speaker 1: But they aren't seven and five and they're still on
Speaker 1: the periphery. That's all getting that they're on the periphery.
Speaker 1: They have games that matter, you know, coming up against
Speaker 1: San Francisco in Seattle, so they'll get to decide their
Speaker 1: fate because those are the teams ahead of them. They
Speaker 1: showed at least today that they are capable of a
Speaker 1: game like this that Jared Goff and Robert Woods, Cooks
Speaker 1: and Cup when they're all on the field together. And
Speaker 1: I do think it makes a big difference when all
Speaker 1: three of the receivers are there, are capable of beating
Speaker 1: down a terrible past defense, which is what the Cardinals are.
Speaker 1: But to be clear, like Golf had four eight yards
Speaker 1: with eight fifty left in the third quarter, they basically
Speaker 1: sat sat down, you know, with a quarter to go.
Speaker 1: And he didn't really do anything in the driver too
Speaker 1: after that big barrage. So they were doing everything they wanted.
Speaker 1: It looked like the two thousand, seventeen and eighteen rams
Speaker 1: with a lot of timing throws uh. And Robert Woods,
Speaker 1: especially having just a fantastic game thirteen for one seventy
Speaker 1: two uh and a lot of tough grabs. He he
Speaker 1: is kind of I mean, it's almost cliche to say,
Speaker 1: but He's kind of like the key guy. It's feels
Speaker 1: like to them like when they have a big When
Speaker 1: he has a big day, they have a big I know,
Speaker 1: the key to that offense. And was just he was
Speaker 1: just there though today girl they didn't need a lot
Speaker 1: from Girley was but it was really the passing game.
Speaker 1: Hasn't it felt like those seasons, even when they were
Speaker 1: against non elite defenses, that the Rams have not been
Speaker 1: able to turn it up the way they have today.
Speaker 1: I mean, now that just to be seen as like
Speaker 1: a major turning point if you want to be optimistic
Speaker 1: about this team. They've had a couple of moments offensively,
Speaker 1: including that Monday night loss to the it was at
Speaker 1: Thursday night to the Seahawks where they moved the ball
Speaker 1: pretty well. Definitely nothing as consistent as this, uh And
Speaker 1: it was, you know, surprising to see it against the
Speaker 1: Cardinals team who had played We had been saying how
Speaker 1: great the Cardinals have looked, and they've played all these
Speaker 1: great teams down to the wire and given them credit
Speaker 1: for that. So if they're gonna get blown, if they're
Speaker 1: the doors are gonna get blown off them at their home,
Speaker 1: you gotta give some credit to the Rams for doing it.
Speaker 1: I'd imagine Sean McVeigh did not want to deal with
Speaker 1: the optics or the narratives coming out of a game
Speaker 1: where he if the score reversed, you get a loss
Speaker 1: to Cliff Kingsbury, the new offensive mind, and so there
Speaker 1: you go. So I don't know, I to me this
Speaker 1: this stop some of the bleeding. Do I trust the
Speaker 1: Rams to pick up where they left off from this week,
Speaker 1: next week or the week after. Plus they're in the NFC.
Speaker 1: If they were in the a f C at seven
Speaker 1: and five, you know their rolling because they have games
Speaker 1: against the Cardinals, you know, again in week seventeen and
Speaker 1: you're at Dallas, which at this point is a winnable game,
Speaker 1: but they have Seattle in San Francisco and there they
Speaker 1: might have to run the slate just to get into
Speaker 1: the playoffs in the NFC, and that is that is
Speaker 1: tough for what it's worth. And I know they changed
Speaker 1: their grades after they do some more work. Pro Football
Speaker 1: Focus gave Todd Gurley the highest rushing grade of the
Speaker 1: last four years and one of the highest rushing grades
Speaker 1: I've ever seen from a running back. In this game
Speaker 1: he had he had really good runs early. The only
Speaker 1: reason I said that he was a supporting player is
Speaker 1: when I when they got it to thirty four nothing.
Speaker 1: He had sixty yards at that point on about nine
Speaker 1: or ten carries, and they just had thrown the ball
Speaker 1: like crazy. His runs and as we mentioned on the show,
Speaker 1: he's looked a lot better. Andrew Whitworth had a great game,
Speaker 1: shutting down Chandler Jones, all the guys on their defense,
Speaker 1: uh eight in In fact, Kyler Murray six times. And
Speaker 1: it was Murray healthy in this because I know he
Speaker 1: came in with an ankle issue. They hamstring and they
Speaker 1: talked about that. But then a couple of times when
Speaker 1: he did scramble, he he looked okay. He he said
Speaker 1: that wasn't the problem. After the game, he took full
Speaker 1: responsibility and just said that they were flat and he
Speaker 1: made a bunch of I mean, that's what quarterbacks do.
Speaker 1: What you want. It might have been a factor, but
Speaker 1: there was a couple of times he scrambled and looked okay.
Speaker 1: It's just weird watching this team, just seeing David Johnson
Speaker 1: as the occasional like a couple of carries back up
Speaker 1: to Kenyan Drake. But that's just where the Rams ever
Speaker 1: knocked off Seattle next week. All in all back in
Speaker 1: on saying anything is possible. But but they have their signature.
Speaker 1: Wins are few and far between, and they and they're
Speaker 1: gonna need teams ahead of them, you know, to help him,
Speaker 1: including Seattle. All right, I was just looking at a
Speaker 1: schedule change made for week fifteen. Oh wow, Buffalo ataking
Speaker 1: has been moved from one pm Eastern not CBS to
Speaker 1: eight twenty eastern and NCC some Buffalo, Pittsburgh flex primetime
Speaker 1: Duck Minnesota Chargers flexed out to four oh five. Good job,
Speaker 1: how to do it, how to be done? And it's
Speaker 1: been done and good. You know that is great for
Speaker 1: the and you know, Bills fans, I hope you listen
Speaker 1: to every show, even when we're not talking about your
Speaker 1: team on a recap show. But there you go, there's
Speaker 1: some love for the people a Buffo. When's the last
Speaker 1: time they had a Sunday night football game? So now
Speaker 1: you get Thanksgiving showcase, bang right into Al Chris and Michelle.
Speaker 1: I love. It's not the Vikings fault. They're getting moved out,
Speaker 1: but it's a great decision. And in between you have
Speaker 1: a game against the Patriots, the Bills are going to
Speaker 1: have a lot of big time games in the next month.
Speaker 1: That was spread fresh off the wire. That was six
Speaker 1: seventeen PM from Laksha Westling from the newsroom. So well,
Speaker 1: I mean, what a family affair this truly is. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's move on. Rogers goes quick, cow back looking steps
Speaker 1: up to those ends, on to five. Very tough stop,
Speaker 1: nal leaping crap, what's the end zone? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: Rogers went no huddle, went immediately and the Giants were
Speaker 1: not still seventeen yard touchdown pass Davante second of the game.
Speaker 1: Karon Rodgers Brilliants metally and physically. Yeah, he just took
Speaker 1: advantage of unsettled decense. Wayne Lara Vy and Larry mccaren
Speaker 1: of the Packers Radio network. Aaron Rodgers threw four touchdown
Speaker 1: passes in the snow. The Packers, you know, they put
Speaker 1: that ugly loss of the Niners in the rear view,
Speaker 1: beating up on Jen at the metal ends West. It's
Speaker 1: a nice get right game for the Green Bay Packers,
Speaker 1: with another NFC East cupcake on deck in the red skin.
Speaker 1: First sentence right here. Giants are a great get right
Speaker 1: team for struggling offenses. Bah blah blah blah, bayang. Alan
Speaker 1: Lazard hit a great game. He turned three targets into
Speaker 1: three catches for a hundred three yards in a touchdown,
Speaker 1: had a having forty three yard bomb that's set up
Speaker 1: Davante adams first score, and then he came back with
Speaker 1: a thirty seven yard touchdown against what looked like busted coverage.
Speaker 1: To me, that Giants defense has had a lot of
Speaker 1: that busted coverage this year. Uh. And there's some things
Speaker 1: about the Packers that you still worry about a little bit.
Speaker 1: Aaron Jones had eleven rushes for eighteen yards one point
Speaker 1: six yards per carry. That's been an inconsistency over the
Speaker 1: last month. And I think Kevin King and coverage is
Speaker 1: still an issue for their secondary. But overall, they picked
Speaker 1: off Daniel Jones three times. And on a fun day
Speaker 1: in the snow, Aaron Rodgers looked really good. He he
Speaker 1: always seems like he's the best snow quarterback. If you're
Speaker 1: asking me to take a snow quarterback, they like little
Speaker 1: Aaron Ride I might take bread for but fair enough,
Speaker 1: Laura tom Brady, I would uh ask you guys to
Speaker 1: watch a little bit of the press conference from Pat Shermer.
Speaker 1: It was something he was just like emptying out the
Speaker 1: bag of kind of I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I would call him excuses, but just explanations that
Speaker 1: you don't want to see out of your coach of
Speaker 1: a guy who's on the way out. He called this
Speaker 1: team historically young. Uh. Someone asked him about Jones, is
Speaker 1: you know rough day and he tried to paint it
Speaker 1: as a positive that well, he had three interceptions but
Speaker 1: no fumbles, like he cut down in the fumbling that
Speaker 1: was that was like a positive that the stadium was
Speaker 1: very empty there. And I know his bad weather is
Speaker 1: raining at the start, but that's that's a sign of
Speaker 1: a franchise that's in deep, deep trouble. And he is
Speaker 1: seven and twenty one now through games Patch. He seems
Speaker 1: like he'll be one of the eight Doomed eight we'll
Speaker 1: call them. Uh. And also, you know, you bring up
Speaker 1: a good point that, especially with these coaches where the
Speaker 1: writing seems to be on the wall once you hit December.
Speaker 1: There are some tropes in their press conferences and I'll
Speaker 1: read a line from Ron Riverez presser today, I'm not
Speaker 1: worried about my future. I'm worried about this football team.
Speaker 1: We have a game coming up on Sunday. When you
Speaker 1: start hearing things like this and with some of those
Speaker 1: lines that Greg was talking about from Shermer, you kind
Speaker 1: of know the Dies been cast and it it must
Speaker 1: make for a really weird, slash uncomfortable, slash depressing vibe
Speaker 1: around team headquarters or in the head coaches house potentially.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a just a dark time. Especially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a New York Giants team that's losing this much is
Speaker 1: it's tough. And it's funny because the Giants used to
Speaker 1: get so much credit for while they're the patient owners,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna make hasty changes. Well that that's great
Speaker 1: until your team just becomes one of the worst teams
Speaker 1: in in the NFL and then you probably fire coaches
Speaker 1: with after two years, two straight times, because that's what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen with Macadoo. So so yeah, you're you're patient
Speaker 1: until you turned into one of the worst five teams
Speaker 1: in the NFL and then he became like everyone else
Speaker 1: and you weren't patient. I will I will ask you
Speaker 1: to remember that sandwich bet from August where I mentioned
Speaker 1: Giants ownership picking up Bill Belichick in a parking lot
Speaker 1: outside Giants Stadium and driving them up to New England
Speaker 1: on a conversation that will remain secret about what Bill
Speaker 1: Belichick might do next year. Maybe come back to with
Speaker 1: the team where it all started from. Maybe, Yeah, basically
Speaker 1: from eighty four eighty one. Let's say when Parcels, excuse me,
Speaker 1: I'll say it again, from eighty four, when Parcels kind
Speaker 1: of took hold and the culture change there, and we'll
Speaker 1: take it all the way through. And there were some
Speaker 1: down periods here and there, Ray Hanley here, you know,
Speaker 1: Dave Brown there, Danny Cannell here. Uh. Through two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven and the super second Super Bowl win over the Patriots,
Speaker 1: they really were a model of stability in addition to
Speaker 1: being one of the more respected ownership groups and someone
Speaker 1: who grew up in New York that wasn't a Giants fan.
Speaker 1: A ton of envy about how they how they were
Speaker 1: able to do it and be consistent. But they really
Speaker 1: have lost their way, and you wonder what it feels
Speaker 1: like Shermer's You know, I can't imagine any chance he
Speaker 1: comes back, but they have so much work to do
Speaker 1: to get this thing right. I think he was put
Speaker 1: in a particularly bad position. But when you take a
Speaker 1: head coaching job, and that could have been his last
Speaker 1: chance and he knew that. What do you learn from
Speaker 1: Bill Belichick and all these biographies about him, like you
Speaker 1: when it came time for the second chance because my
Speaker 1: head coach ownership mattered, which would check the box with
Speaker 1: the Giants. But the situation that Shermer went into was
Speaker 1: one where I feel like you had to be a
Speaker 1: yes man for some really weird stuff going on there
Speaker 1: with Eli Manning on down. And it's not all just
Speaker 1: about Eli Manning. I just don't think Patch Schremer has
Speaker 1: proven to really be a head coach that with two
Speaker 1: teams now can work them out of out of a
Speaker 1: back corner. It's not good. I still think it's a
Speaker 1: great job though, if you great job, but next year.
Speaker 1: Greig's points a lot of work. But I think ownership
Speaker 1: and the and the stage and the team, they they
Speaker 1: just there's a lot of work. There's a glamour job.
Speaker 1: Who wouldn't want to coach the New York Giants. You
Speaker 1: can be the savior there. It's like being the coach
Speaker 1: of the Green Bay Packers. I mean, look at Maddie Lafleur.
Speaker 1: You know, he met with us back at the Honors
Speaker 1: meeting and he's taken off nine and three. Where's where's
Speaker 1: Mike McCarthy, I mean Mike McCarthy. He's watching at home,
Speaker 1: which is I know a lot of the coach. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't move because you've lived there forever. But Green
Speaker 1: Bay seems like it'd be a particularly awkward place to
Speaker 1: live because there's only like fourteen people that don't work
Speaker 1: for the packers there that are in the town. So
Speaker 1: it's like all my McCarthy runs into as packers, you know,
Speaker 1: employees and fans. I think Rod just tried to build
Speaker 1: a wall around his compound in three band. They said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not even joking. I'll have to look all these
Speaker 1: guys trying to build these walls. Um and so before
Speaker 1: we get to the next game circling back, good on
Speaker 1: the NFL for acting to flex that game out. What
Speaker 1: happened with the Ravens today, UM and the Niners was
Speaker 1: so bad and actually was worse because we realized that
Speaker 1: because of the Jets and Giants playing in the early slot,
Speaker 1: the biggest market in the country, New York, did not
Speaker 1: get Ravens Niners. Uh the West Coast. Simone, your wife Mark,
Speaker 1: who's a big Niners fan. She was listening to the
Speaker 1: game on the radio. I saw her. La didn't get
Speaker 1: Ravens Niners either. Astal was on Fox and she said infomercials,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, not what you're hoping for when
Speaker 1: Niners and so game has been hyped up for weeks
Speaker 1: as a Super Bowl preview. Uh, the two biggest markets
Speaker 1: in the country don't get the biggest game. Uh. So
Speaker 1: nice and get the Charges out of Sunday Night football.
Speaker 1: My goodness. Speaking of the Chargers, let's go. So McManus
Speaker 1: is gonna have to do it again. Ball spotted bar
Speaker 1: Hash forty three yards an attempt at fifty three yards
Speaker 1: for the wind off size by the Charger snap placement
Speaker 1: kick on the way and it is God, It's over
Speaker 1: Brandon mcmahdus from fifty three yards out. Just the Broncos
Speaker 1: a twenty three to twenty win over the Chargers, A
Speaker 1: much needed victory for this Broncos team that now finds
Speaker 1: their record four and eight. Dave Logan the Broncos Radio
Speaker 1: network with a call. The Chargers and Broncos traded field
Speaker 1: goals in the final minute Sunday. Luckily for Denver they
Speaker 1: kicked last win at Empower Field at Mile High. You know,
Speaker 1: either sell the naming rights or stick with the tradition,
Speaker 1: you know. I just I couldn't agree with my call
Speaker 1: bs on this habit both ways, stadium naming stuff, um Park.
Speaker 1: I understand it. It's a business and the goals to
Speaker 1: turn a prop bit and live in the black. But
Speaker 1: why should fans be put in that situation? That's where
Speaker 1: we're going with this. I mean, I don't think this
Speaker 1: should It's not fair to fans their herd to talk
Speaker 1: about the game. I don't know, talk about the game.
Speaker 1: This game and you know we were all watching it together.
Speaker 1: Was it just struck me as the most chargerish type
Speaker 1: game ever, but also the most bronchoish because you mentioned
Speaker 1: Greg was was totally fired up, and rightly so, because
Speaker 1: the Chargers trying to drive down to kick what would
Speaker 1: have been a game time field goal, or even better
Speaker 1: to continue to go for it on fourth down and
Speaker 1: get a touchdown and get out of there and what
Speaker 1: is a lost season, could not get out of their
Speaker 1: own way. There was a sequence where it was fourth
Speaker 1: and one, al right, and just to display their total
Speaker 1: lack of organization, the the go watch that drive, and
Speaker 1: the amount of time the Chargers are wasting, the the
Speaker 1: they're allergic to urgency. In a situation where you kept
Speaker 1: seeing Philip Rivers, I don't know if there were communication
Speaker 1: issues with the helmet or something that instructed light. That
Speaker 1: struck me that there might be, because he had to kept,
Speaker 1: you know, waddling over to the offensive coordinator and the
Speaker 1: offensive coordinators, you know, talking in long, long, long sentence
Speaker 1: about what to do. The clocks ticking away. They have
Speaker 1: two penalties to take a fourth and one session with situation,
Speaker 1: the fourth and six, then the fourth and eleven. Then
Speaker 1: they get a Mike Williams bomb down field that gives
Speaker 1: you everything you might get from a Charger's finish. And
Speaker 1: on fourth and inches they kick, they go for a
Speaker 1: field goal and they get it, and then the whole
Speaker 1: thing happens with Casey Hayward mere seconds left getting hit
Speaker 1: with a p I by Drew Lock who has never
Speaker 1: played an NFL game until today, and Brandon McManus hits
Speaker 1: the fifty three yard field goal. But it strikes me
Speaker 1: with Chargers games, there's so many things happening in the
Speaker 1: last two or three minutes that are so bizarre that
Speaker 1: it's a mess to try to chronicle other than the
Speaker 1: fact that this is just like every other Chargers game
Speaker 1: I've watched. Well, I think if if there's like Philip
Speaker 1: Rivers has a big hand in all this, you know,
Speaker 1: he's kind of the commonality in all these games. But
Speaker 1: one thing I think we can look at the Anthony
Speaker 1: Lynnear's what's a common analyst commonality is if he's gonna
Speaker 1: go out, he wants to do it in the most
Speaker 1: tepid way possible. Like he he's saying, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't want to go out swinging. I want to go
Speaker 1: out kicking that field goal. I don't want to go
Speaker 1: for fourth and inches. I don't want to play hurry
Speaker 1: up late in the game. I don't want to have
Speaker 1: a decision already made in my mind of what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do on fourth down with two minutes and forty
Speaker 1: seconds to go. I want to then have the camera
Speaker 1: pantam me on the sideline and have me in the
Speaker 1: offensive coordinator go back and forth, and you can almost
Speaker 1: literally read their lips like, what do you think we
Speaker 1: should do? Well? I think maybe we should run well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I should maybe I should put well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe maybe we shouldn't. I don't know,
Speaker 1: really trust Philip Rivers, So that doesn't really make sense.
Speaker 1: And it's like the clock is ticking here, buddies, and
Speaker 1: then they have to waste the time out which forces
Speaker 1: their decision, and you saw that throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: the drive and it just speaks to a lack of
Speaker 1: preparation and what happens when I think there's a breakdown
Speaker 1: in communication and trust between the head coach and the quarterback,
Speaker 1: which is what this team has. Well, that was a
Speaker 1: pretty major report from rap sheet before the game right
Speaker 1: that Philip Rivers, if he continued to play the way
Speaker 1: he had would be pulled for Tyrod Taylor. And at
Speaker 1: one point in the game we saw Tyrod Taylor warming up,
Speaker 1: but they sent Rivers back out for the next series. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I guess to me, I'm not sure this team wants
Speaker 1: Philip Rivers next year, at least I'm not sure the
Speaker 1: head coach does. And after the way he's been treated
Speaker 1: with his report coming out, I'm not sure Philip Rivers
Speaker 1: would want to be back anyway. I would love to
Speaker 1: know what happened in that sequence where they were Tyrod
Speaker 1: Taylor and you know it could have happened for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons, was flinging passes on the sideline and
Speaker 1: Rivers seemed like, oh, you ain't taken me out of
Speaker 1: this game, and he went back in. But was their
Speaker 1: conversation because there's clearly some disconnect between the coaching staff
Speaker 1: and Philip Rivers. You know, it's sort of the B
Speaker 1: line through a lot of this madness and confusion. Their
Speaker 1: four and eight and they've outscored their opponents this year.
Speaker 1: It feels if that feels like every charge, if we're
Speaker 1: gonna get on Garts, we're gonna get on Garrett for
Speaker 1: close you know, losing close games because the situational football.
Speaker 1: This Chargers team is not coached in situational football. Drew
Speaker 1: lock Um, people are gonna give him a lot of credit.
Speaker 1: And he he had the one interception, brother than that
Speaker 1: didn't make huge mistakes. He was sub gather zone in
Speaker 1: this game four point eight yards per attempt. I was
Speaker 1: not nearly as impressed with him as I was with
Speaker 1: court Courtland Sutton, who to me continues to put down
Speaker 1: a strong argument for that second all pro spot behind
Speaker 1: Michael Thomas. He has played as well as any a
Speaker 1: f C wide receiver. And it doesn't matter whose quarterbacking
Speaker 1: for them. It can be Joe Flacco, Brandon Now and
Speaker 1: Drew Lock. He's beating his man in this case, one
Speaker 1: of the best cornerbacks in the league over the past
Speaker 1: half decade. Casey Hayward had a great diving touchdown catch
Speaker 1: and then obviously drew the past interference call that decided
Speaker 1: the game. I would say, also, no, I want to
Speaker 1: see a little more from Noah Fund. It feels like
Speaker 1: there's just lost yardage that he dropped at what could
Speaker 1: have been It should have been a touchdown. And during
Speaker 1: this whole stuff with the Chargers, they had no Von
Speaker 1: Miller today. At one point Jeremy Jeremiah tashed you went
Speaker 1: out and Millie creed to They had too healthy outside linebackers.
Speaker 1: That should be an area where the Chargers can take advantage.
Speaker 1: They also had twenty thousand almost no shows, got people
Speaker 1: who bought tickets and didn't show up. You are not
Speaker 1: used to seeing that in Denver. It's these teams are
Speaker 1: both four and eight. I mean the Chargers are in
Speaker 1: a position now, you know, with the Redskins, the Dolphins,
Speaker 1: the Bengals all win today. That you're not gonna fall
Speaker 1: behind the Bengals. But the Chargers are at four and eight.
Speaker 1: Who knows they might sneak into the top five and
Speaker 1: have a chance to go draft their next quarterback. You said,
Speaker 1: Noah font Mark, Is that like how you say on
Speaker 1: instead of ant? Yes, it is actually exactly what's happening there.
Speaker 1: It's been a season long storyline. And I actually noticed
Speaker 1: downstairs today that he called him fants And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think Mark Stern get I get tweets weekly for
Speaker 1: se Kwon Barkley verse se Kwan Barkley too. It's just
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna change Drew Drew lock uh finished sub
Speaker 1: Gabbard zone Uh. And there are some whispers downstairs in
Speaker 1: the news room. Does he pass the quarterback the look
Speaker 1: test look like a quarterback? Did this whisper start at
Speaker 1: your desk starting and you look at him in the
Speaker 1: sideline the helmet off? Is that a franchise quarterback that?
Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying he is or he isn't. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying there was some chatter. It wasn't just me
Speaker 1: talking to myself. If there's a segment to not clip
Speaker 1: off for our social media video. I think that's it
Speaker 1: right there. Let's move on to snap on the shop
Speaker 1: and here's the snap to throw on goal passes. Now
Speaker 1: it's pickball here, there's something picked off by the box
Speaker 1: that we keep it outside the end zone. We go
Speaker 1: and it's a picked by the Bucks. Tampa Bay has
Speaker 1: forced the fourth takeaway on the ball gave a Perfrey
Speaker 1: Button has his second career touchdown, this one today on
Speaker 1: the road in Jacksonville. Gene Decker off Bucks Radio Network. Yes,
Speaker 1: Sean Murphy bunting Murph, I'm sure as Buddy's call him
Speaker 1: picked off a Guarden meansho pass in the end zone,
Speaker 1: removing all semblance of drama at the Big Glorine tankleven.
Speaker 1: The Bucks beat the Jaguars. Mitchell entered the game after
Speaker 1: um nick Foles melted down in the first half. The
Speaker 1: crowd is booing they weren't moving the ball, So Doug
Speaker 1: Barone makes the shift back to the rookie. So the
Speaker 1: Super Bowl MVP is on the bench. And uh, and
Speaker 1: Greg this, I mean, the whole nick Foles season has
Speaker 1: been a disaster. Uh, And it's been sloppy and staggered
Speaker 1: in all the wrong ways, and it just this seems
Speaker 1: like a fitting end to which has been a lost
Speaker 1: year for Fall. Yeah, I wave the weight flag and
Speaker 1: the whole Nick Foles Minshew debate. H Nick Foles was
Speaker 1: the problem today in the first half. I mean, they
Speaker 1: have more than you know, just quarterback problems, but today
Speaker 1: he pulled in six drives, three three and outs in
Speaker 1: three turnovers. I mean that's like a that's going full
Speaker 1: Peterman's Like there was like one drop on a long
Speaker 1: pass that you know that that would have helped him,
Speaker 1: But other than that, it was his inability to move
Speaker 1: out of the way of the extremely effective Bucks pass rush,
Speaker 1: Shack Barrett and and Jason Pierre Paul leading the way.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I was on the offensive lineman who
Speaker 1: also hurt Minshew, who hadn't up and down. He definitely
Speaker 1: helped them in the second half, But it was the
Speaker 1: Bucks defense and Todd Bowles, you know, throwing all sorts
Speaker 1: of blitzes at him that just that just had this
Speaker 1: Jet Jaguars team fl mixed well. After playing mid season
Speaker 1: a bunch of shootouts in which you know, they could
Speaker 1: have won, but they lost. The Bucks have won three
Speaker 1: of the past four games, and they've just got way
Speaker 1: more firepower than a team like the Jaguars. They should
Speaker 1: be winning almost every week now, wow, uh why do
Speaker 1: you every week against good teams? If their quarterback can
Speaker 1: avoid interceptions, they will beat these teams that they've almost beat.
Speaker 1: They are probably the best five and seven team out there.
Speaker 1: They could have a better record. Like this was a
Speaker 1: very Unbucks game. Winston through thirty three passes, didn't have
Speaker 1: an interception. O J. Howard and Breshad Perriman had a
Speaker 1: combined hundred and forty eight yards. Chris Godwin and Mike
Speaker 1: Evans were barely over a hundred combined, like they used everyone.
Speaker 1: Devin White deserves mention as just a guy who's really
Speaker 1: coming on strong. The number five overall pick in the
Speaker 1: second half of his rookie year. He had an interception.
Speaker 1: He's great in pass coverage for a linebacker. Also had
Speaker 1: a touchdown on on a fumble recovery. And JPP just dominated.
Speaker 1: He had ten pressures. Your boy Shack Barrett two sacks,
Speaker 1: So they do have a lot of him. They do
Speaker 1: have a lot of talent. It's like December Bucks no one.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's nice good for him. You threw it there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I've I've come around on him, you know, weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I I know that was a take that I had,
Speaker 1: you know, back in like late September, which was drastically
Speaker 1: wrong and not even related to he was he's a
Speaker 1: free agent. He's gonna make some money. Maybe he'll be
Speaker 1: franchise tech. Why not. Might be have fun in Cleveland.
Speaker 1: I know he's not gonna hit the market. The Jaguars, though,
Speaker 1: I've been outscored a hundred and seven to forty seven
Speaker 1: the last four weeks. That's twenty points a game, So
Speaker 1: that more than just the quarterback. That's well, and that's
Speaker 1: that's just like a full system meltdown. And there was
Speaker 1: fighting inside their locker room after the game. Andrew Norwell
Speaker 1: and Yannick and gok Way had to be separated and
Speaker 1: then they heard separate yelling in the shower. So it's
Speaker 1: all happening. And they had they had issues last year
Speaker 1: on the Marone in the locker room and with with
Speaker 1: four Nette and the rest of them. And if we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about these other coaches on thin ice, you know,
Speaker 1: Doug Marone is probably lucky to escape what happened last
Speaker 1: season and to get another chance this year, and it's
Speaker 1: just the team has totally fallen apart. When they were
Speaker 1: winning with Minshew. Part of it in a couple of
Speaker 1: those games was Leonard Fournette exploding in the running game,
Speaker 1: having two hundred plus yards on the ground. So maybe
Speaker 1: you guys are right and we're right in the sense that,
Speaker 1: like I do believe in Minshew more than folds at
Speaker 1: this stage, for a minute, it looked like the Minshew
Speaker 1: magic was gonna happen. He came in, they scored eleven unanswered,
Speaker 1: and they had the ball on the two yard line.
Speaker 1: He that he had seven plays inside the ten, six
Speaker 1: straight plays inside the five with Minshew. In the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: where they could have cut it to one score, he
Speaker 1: winds up throwing an interception. They couldn't run the ball.
Speaker 1: The offensive line like it was everyone collapsing in this Uh,
Speaker 1: speaking of the doomed date, because sometimes it's seven, maybe
Speaker 1: six if you're lucky, but guys that could be fired. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta add Maron to that list. So RIVERA Shermer group,
Speaker 1: Jake Gruden has already gone. That's just the way it
Speaker 1: is in the NFL. Alright, let's move on seventeen yards.
Speaker 1: On the play first and ten, at the seventeen of
Speaker 1: the Jets, Dalton fakes a handoff from the pocket, throws
Speaker 1: open the middle of it. We're a touchdowne by Tyler
Speaker 1: boyd Andy Dalton threading the needle between two New York
Speaker 1: Jets defenders and with that touchdown pass, the red rifle
Speaker 1: stands alone career touchdown pass number one in his NFL career,
Speaker 1: more than any other quarterback in Bengals history. It's almost
Speaker 1: like you shouldn't have benched him, Dave Horde, and you
Speaker 1: haven't heard them at all this year on our podcast
Speaker 1: because they hadn't won a game, But now they have.
Speaker 1: Bengals Radio Network, come off the roof, radio, man, you
Speaker 1: are free. Andy Dalton returned from an undeserved benching to
Speaker 1: spark the Bengals to win over the Jets at Paul
Speaker 1: Brown Stadium. The win is Cincinnati's first and twelve tries
Speaker 1: this season, and a complete effort from the Bengals, who
Speaker 1: moved the ball with ease in the first half uh
Speaker 1: and shut down the Jets completely for four quarters. In fact,
Speaker 1: the Jets never even reached the red zone in this game.
Speaker 1: It was um quite frankly stunning, but also not at
Speaker 1: all studying all the things. I'm just glad I got
Speaker 1: my optimism in about the Jets. I got to have
Speaker 1: a nice week around Thanksgiving where I could have some fun.
Speaker 1: But anybody that's watched the Jets and follow the Jets
Speaker 1: uh for long as long as I have, or even
Speaker 1: half as long or twice as long, knew exactly uh
Speaker 1: going into this game that this was a danger spot.
Speaker 1: And it became a lot more dangerous when Dalton re
Speaker 1: entered the fray for Ryan Finley. Because Dalton, you had
Speaker 1: a feeling, was gonna come in and play well, and
Speaker 1: he really did. But it's a once from from the
Speaker 1: Bengal side of it. Uh. Good for them, and even
Speaker 1: they got a Washington Redskins win, so they there and
Speaker 1: even though the Giants are right behind them, they're still
Speaker 1: in position for the first overall pick. Uh. And their
Speaker 1: their front seven really did a good job in this game.
Speaker 1: Carlos Dunlop had three sacks. Geno Atkins was making plays.
Speaker 1: He's still around doing things, uh. And on the Jets,
Speaker 1: all those things that I laid out on Thursday that
Speaker 1: they had fixed their um offensive line and their secondary
Speaker 1: and the UM play calling from Adam Gates. All that
Speaker 1: stuff went back in the other direction and went back
Speaker 1: to one in Sevenville. It was that bad. The worst
Speaker 1: the culprit was the offensive line, which was completely ineffective
Speaker 1: and it was embarrassing to watch, quite frankly as a
Speaker 1: Jets fan. UM an offensive line that committed seven penalties
Speaker 1: allowed four sacks of safety. Uh, it's just hard to
Speaker 1: figure it out and also just such a bad look.
Speaker 1: Again for Adam Gates, who has the vote of confidence
Speaker 1: from his coaching staff. The three straight wins UH probably
Speaker 1: ensures that he'll be back uh this season. But there's
Speaker 1: nothing I could be said about this performance other than
Speaker 1: it was grotesque. In the Jets made NFL history as
Speaker 1: their want to do a team that seems chemically addicted
Speaker 1: to embarrassing themselves. Uh. They are the first team to
Speaker 1: ever um surrender and lose to a team that was
Speaker 1: at least owen seven, which was the Dolphins last month,
Speaker 1: and now a team that's that was O one eleven.
Speaker 1: So two teams that got their first win against the
Speaker 1: Jets after seven straight losses are more to open the season.
Speaker 1: No team ever done that. Congratulations New York Jets, and
Speaker 1: congratulations to the Bengals, because they never were They never
Speaker 1: fit the profile quite frankly as an o N sixteen team.
Speaker 1: They had been hanging in a lot of games this
Speaker 1: year and had gone down to the wire a bunch
Speaker 1: of times and just couldn't figure it out. In this game.
Speaker 1: It kind of all wind up for them and they
Speaker 1: got a dub. We've alluded to it a couple of
Speaker 1: times recently. This is not the same Bengals team as
Speaker 1: the mid season punching bag that was getting their doors
Speaker 1: blown off. On defense especially and a lot of tackles.
Speaker 1: They have allowed about twelve points a game over the
Speaker 1: last three weeks. And you get Andy Dalton back. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying he's a savior. John Ross could be coming
Speaker 1: back soon. Who knows if a J Green might play.
Speaker 1: This is a different team, and I think they're gonna
Speaker 1: be tough to beat the rest of the way. They
Speaker 1: well they you already said they're beating the Patriots in
Speaker 1: a few weeks, so that that is a prediction. Now
Speaker 1: they're big time win for them. It really speaks to
Speaker 1: how strange this Bengals franchises and season that Zach Taylor,
Speaker 1: you know, in the postgame celebration, and I kind of
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorite like sneaky things is when
Speaker 1: the team gets their first win of the season after
Speaker 1: a long losing streak, just like it feels like to
Speaker 1: that team they want a playoff game, like they are
Speaker 1: so excited, gatorade baths and all that, right, like they
Speaker 1: were just going crazy in the locker room. But it's
Speaker 1: just annie that he hands the game ball out to
Speaker 1: Andy Dalton, of course, which which makes all the sense.
Speaker 1: You know, exactly, the guy that they had just bench
Speaker 1: basically for for a fourth round rookie you had no idea,
Speaker 1: throws at the Dalton. Dalton doesn't catch it, goes on
Speaker 1: the ground, and then dog Dog picks it up and
Speaker 1: he gives it back to Zach Taylor, which is really
Speaker 1: nice of Andy Dalton. He gave a game ball to
Speaker 1: Zach Taylor, saying, you know, we all support you and
Speaker 1: all that, and he's given it to the guy who
Speaker 1: benched him. Who knows it might not even be Taylor's
Speaker 1: decision to bend it, but it just it all felt
Speaker 1: very even in a happy moment, it felt very bad.
Speaker 1: And they'll finish four and twelve. I like, I know
Speaker 1: the vote of confidence for Gaye, and we'll see what
Speaker 1: happens with the Jets. I don't kill them on this
Speaker 1: loss the same way I would with with the some
Speaker 1: of the other ones. They I'm sure they were just organized.
Speaker 1: I'll go watch it. But the Bengals almost beat the Steelers,
Speaker 1: they almost beat the Raiders. That said any vote of confidence.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of weeks left to go in
Speaker 1: the season, and it does matter. I think how Gays
Speaker 1: finishes this out. I don't wouldn't I put him on
Speaker 1: that list of coaches you mentioned if it were to
Speaker 1: morph into it from that list at this point, well,
Speaker 1: and I would ask this, and I would ask this, like,
Speaker 1: you're keeping him? And why is it too? Is it
Speaker 1: a self confirmation of a decision you made last offseason
Speaker 1: or is it because you truly think he's the guy
Speaker 1: and they just have other issues that are bigger than him.
Speaker 1: At this point, we've talked about it, Christopher Johnson, this
Speaker 1: was his big higher and they don't want to go
Speaker 1: one and done because one and done is kind of
Speaker 1: a devastating look for a franchise. Also, so they they're
Speaker 1: gonna stick with him. I don't. I think they could
Speaker 1: lose out here and maybe that does come and play,
Speaker 1: but I think that's what would have to happen. And
Speaker 1: they were coming off three games, so they looked really good.
Speaker 1: So maybe this is just a bump of the road.
Speaker 1: But it's been a bad season. There's no other way
Speaker 1: to describe it. One note on Andy Dalton and that
Speaker 1: franchise record for touchdown passes, that speaks a lot to
Speaker 1: how unreliable football stats are. And you can't compare across
Speaker 1: eras he's at best the fourth best quarterback in that
Speaker 1: franchise's history, behind Ken Anderson, Boom, Rescias and car and Palmer.
Speaker 1: And depending how you feel about Greg Cook's rookie year,
Speaker 1: let's give it to Andy for you know, he did
Speaker 1: take him to five playoffs one year. Six games of
Speaker 1: Greg Cooked in an entire career of Andy Dalton, all
Speaker 1: right on to Sunday Night football. Sean hands off the chops,
Speaker 1: him out to hop right side, he flips the ball,
Speaker 1: the Watson timing for the pylon and he's got it.
Speaker 1: Wrastle tussle, touchdown Houston Shawn Watson without touchdown coming from
Speaker 1: his body. DeAndre Hopkins beautiful, beautiful. Indeed, Mark Vandermere and
Speaker 1: Andre where with the call Texans Radio Network to Shaun Watson,
Speaker 1: he was the best quarterback on the field on Sunday
Speaker 1: night in Houston, throwing three touchdown passes and yes involved
Speaker 1: on the beautiful trickery there h for another score. The
Speaker 1: Houston Texans to New England Patriots two. Whoa very interesting
Speaker 1: Chris Westling, I'm gonna start with you on this one
Speaker 1: because you had you had the testicular fortitude to lock
Speaker 1: up the Texans against the previously ten and won Pats,
Speaker 1: and it paid off in a big way. Well, I've
Speaker 1: been thinking for a while now that the football world
Speaker 1: is not judging the Patriots for who they are. They're
Speaker 1: judging the Patriots for who they have been in the past.
Speaker 1: It's been evident that this offense is among the bottom
Speaker 1: third offenses in the NFL for a month or six
Speaker 1: weeks now. They have these issues. They have not been corrected,
Speaker 1: and I think when you look at this team is
Speaker 1: the second worst rushing attack of the Brady era, It's
Speaker 1: the worst tight end group of the Brady era, it's
Speaker 1: one of the worst wide receiver groups of the Brady era,
Speaker 1: and it's an offensive line that has a different starting
Speaker 1: lineup almost every week. They lost Ted Carriss. The Patriots
Speaker 1: did their starting center today. He was the only offensive
Speaker 1: lineman that had played every snap. And you're bringing in
Speaker 1: Kirk Ference's son, and that was a huge He doesn't
Speaker 1: even get a name. Uh yeah, you know, a little
Speaker 1: fair and you know everyone knows him, like, yeah, Shack Mason,
Speaker 1: who's the guy who got the contract extension. Has struggled
Speaker 1: all year and the offensive line is a problem in
Speaker 1: the offense is a problem. And but this is the
Speaker 1: night I think that all those problems showed up in
Speaker 1: a bigger way than before because it was a matchup
Speaker 1: on paper that looked good. And I think the first
Speaker 1: half was the worst half of offensive football they played.
Speaker 1: And you have to give a lot of credit to
Speaker 1: Romeo Cornell and the Texans defense for mixing up coverages
Speaker 1: and also sending blitz is. And Tom Brady had more
Speaker 1: time to throw and tried to extend plays a little
Speaker 1: longer actually than any Patriots game all year, and he
Speaker 1: couldn't find guys open, and they were daring the Patriots
Speaker 1: to throw deep, and so he did and there was
Speaker 1: nothing there. It was either a miscommunication with Jacoby Myers
Speaker 1: or with Nikkil Harry, who was a big factor in
Speaker 1: the first interception which really changed the game and ultimately
Speaker 1: gotten to kill Harry benched or Hamed Sanu dropping a
Speaker 1: pass on fourth down. So right now Brady doesn't have
Speaker 1: anyone he trusts other than Adelman and James White. And
Speaker 1: we're in what week a lot of lip readers out tonight, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were. I mean we're in that. We're now in
Speaker 1: the time where we say, you know, Belichick, he just
Speaker 1: uses September to craft his master plan on offense and
Speaker 1: figure out how to round into shape as some sort
Speaker 1: of total juggernaut. And to West's point, they're just not
Speaker 1: fixing it. They had a sixty nine yard field goal
Speaker 1: drive to open the game. Their next five drives did
Speaker 1: not cover more than thirty yards each. Then they lost
Speaker 1: the ball on downs and I love the Texans doing
Speaker 1: what you need to do against England, but just be
Speaker 1: ultra aggressive the trick play that we open with. But
Speaker 1: then they had the shot to Will Fuller that went
Speaker 1: out incompleted the back into the end zone, almost a catch.
Speaker 1: And they go right back after that to Kenny Stills
Speaker 1: and It's like, that's how you need to handle New England.
Speaker 1: And their defense has been super consistent, but they got
Speaker 1: buzz sawed by the Ravens. They got taken to town
Speaker 1: a night by Houston's offense. You have to wonder, just
Speaker 1: I don't I think I'm not gonna view New England
Speaker 1: as they're gonna round into this number one seed material
Speaker 1: over the next couple of weeks. I wonder what will
Speaker 1: happen against the Bills. I wonder what will happen down
Speaker 1: the road the Chiefs next week. We in a podcast
Speaker 1: that you know, technical difficulties might have wiped it away
Speaker 1: from a lot of our listeners, but we talked about
Speaker 1: it on the Friday Morning Thanksgiving recap show. The Bills
Speaker 1: are lying in the weeds a little bit at nine
Speaker 1: and three. If the Pats came down to Earth and
Speaker 1: now you have the Pats tendant to they fall out
Speaker 1: of the number one seed that's now property of the
Speaker 1: Ravens for the time being, and New England now goes
Speaker 1: and has a big matchup against the Chiefs, who are
Speaker 1: obviously an excellent team as well. It's it's a very
Speaker 1: interesting time and I want to because I feel like
Speaker 1: this falls to me certain things like the Eli Manning
Speaker 1: defending Bill O'Brien, trying to give him some praise. It's
Speaker 1: hard to get praise for Bill O'Brien in this room sometimes.
Speaker 1: But they're eight and four, they are looking like they're
Speaker 1: gonna well, and the Titans should be taken seriously at
Speaker 1: this point. But I still like the Texans to win
Speaker 1: that division. And on the same day that Ian Rapport
Speaker 1: reported that the Texans are not planning to hire a
Speaker 1: general manager in they like what he's doing running that
Speaker 1: whole show. Uh, this is just an organization that's become
Speaker 1: consistent and year after year. I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: going to translate into January. But the Texans to me
Speaker 1: are a dangerous team in the conference. They play the
Speaker 1: Titans twice in the last three weeks of the of
Speaker 1: the season that will decide the division, and I think
Speaker 1: the odds are increasing that both of those teams make
Speaker 1: the playoffs. They will have a chance, And I think
Speaker 1: the Patriots defense for the most part played well. You know,
Speaker 1: they give up the touchdown where Brady has an interception
Speaker 1: in the red zone early, they get a lot of
Speaker 1: punts they give up for you know they had Texans
Speaker 1: had two and seventy six yards on the day. They
Speaker 1: got a lot of stops, they didn't make big plays.
Speaker 1: What I saw was Deshaun Watson and UH eight Jordan
Speaker 1: nakin is making a play and Kenny Stills making a
Speaker 1: play in Duke Johnson getting singled up on Kyle van Noy,
Speaker 1: and I just saw better athletes winning their one on
Speaker 1: one match ups because they were better on those plays
Speaker 1: and they deserve to win it. A lot of the times,
Speaker 1: the Patriots blitz is we're getting home and Watson was
Speaker 1: just too good. And I think that's like good offense
Speaker 1: is gonna be good defense. I don't look at the
Speaker 1: Patriots defense any differently. I look at a Patriots offense
Speaker 1: that I have been saying that I think has time
Speaker 1: to round into form, and I think that's still true.
Speaker 1: I mean they think they will. I I mean it
Speaker 1: depends what form is good enough to win playoff games.
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely possible. But they have four weeks left.
Speaker 1: I mean a year ago at this time, they were
Speaker 1: also losing to the Dolphins and the Steelers. We've seen
Speaker 1: so many teams over the years, over and over this
Speaker 1: happens to us that teams stink in December and they
Speaker 1: win the Super Bowl. So if you're Patriots fan just
Speaker 1: trying to manage the season, they want to get to
Speaker 1: that by They need to get the buy and the
Speaker 1: one seed is gonna be tough at this point. But
Speaker 1: if they can get whatever it is, they win two
Speaker 1: or three of the last four games. They probably need
Speaker 1: to win three of the last four games. If you
Speaker 1: beat the Chiefs, you're probably gonna get it. You're in
Speaker 1: good shape. Beat the Chiefs at home. You've got at
Speaker 1: Cincinnati home, Buffalo home, Miami. But who knows the Texans also,
Speaker 1: you know, if they could play well enough, could maybe
Speaker 1: they could run the table and they have a tie break.
Speaker 1: When the Patriots lose, they tend to lose convincingly. I
Speaker 1: mean they got blown out three times last year. They've
Speaker 1: been blown out twice this year. Uh, it's not like
Speaker 1: totally out of their character that we've seen it, whether
Speaker 1: the team the Patriots team we've seen in the lost
Speaker 1: to Baltimore, the barely winning against the Eagles, barely winning
Speaker 1: against the Cowboys, and losing to Texans in convincing fish
Speaker 1: and cannot be counting on to go into Cincinnati and
Speaker 1: just win the game. I don't think that. I think
Speaker 1: if they their schedule has helped them a lot this year,
Speaker 1: whereas if they had a tougher schedule, they might be
Speaker 1: a more normal record like eight and four, which again
Speaker 1: isn't like, isn't the end of the world. I do
Speaker 1: think that there are pieces here, but you're starting to
Speaker 1: run out of time. You threw the ball five times
Speaker 1: to s New you thought maybe he'd be an answer
Speaker 1: fourteen yards. You threw it six times to Dorsett, who
Speaker 1: was in one month coverage a lot fifteen yards. So
Speaker 1: there's really struggling to find like where is this offense
Speaker 1: coming from? And if you have a pretty bad offensive line,
Speaker 1: which they do right now, when you play the better
Speaker 1: defenses and the Chiefs have a pretty good past defense,
Speaker 1: like it's gonna be tough. You're gonna need turnovers, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna need to be in foxborol most like, I
Speaker 1: just haven't seen Tom Brady this frustrated in regular season
Speaker 1: games like this consistently week after week. And there were
Speaker 1: a series of flags on the offensive line that are
Speaker 1: not characteristic for the Patriots. So it isn't just you know,
Speaker 1: you have to fix one position group. There's a lot
Speaker 1: to fix. Do I trust any team more to do
Speaker 1: it than the Patriots. Obviously it's every year they do this.
Speaker 1: We get it, but something different with Brady it is different.
Speaker 1: We also said we thought it was different last year.
Speaker 1: The difference this year is it's offense. And I know
Speaker 1: and I always trust offense more than defense. And the
Speaker 1: offense is like nothing we've seen in the in the
Speaker 1: Belichick era. Again though, like the teams that get the buy,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just a three game tournament and then
Speaker 1: it's your matchups and sometimes in the Patriots have gotten
Speaker 1: some breaks over the years of you know, they get
Speaker 1: to play the championship game even when they're not the
Speaker 1: one seat or a certain matchup falls the way way.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ways you can get lucky. But
Speaker 1: right now, unless they get a lot better, they're gonna
Speaker 1: need to get lucky. Let's play a fun game, um,
Speaker 1: I asked Erica, and even though she's a Patriots, then
Speaker 1: she did do it, so that was she's a pro.
Speaker 1: I asked her to cut the Patriots radio network highlight
Speaker 1: of that trick played by the Texans. Now, if the
Speaker 1: Pats did that, play. Zolak would be hollering like a
Speaker 1: madman and saying, warm up the busses and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Will we hear from Zolak uh during this call and
Speaker 1: the immediate moments after, will you hear his voice? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll hear him down a beer? Probably. Have you heard
Speaker 1: this yet? I have not heard it. I I think
Speaker 1: so because, like I'm assuming that he realizes that's part
Speaker 1: of his job. I don't think it's going to be
Speaker 1: as wild and vociferous, but you know, yes, I think
Speaker 1: we'll hear his voice. This is the very is the
Speaker 1: literal definition. I predict radio silence from Zolac greg Let's
Speaker 1: hear uh silence? I guess, okay, okay, let's see walks
Speaker 1: and he hands it up to Johnson and then gives
Speaker 1: it to Hopkins. On a reverse he pitches it to
Speaker 1: the right social dives to the pylon. Did he get
Speaker 1: in to Shaun Watsons celebrating with his teammates the pylon
Speaker 1: knocked over the officials with a less than emphatic signal
Speaker 1: and the text, if you guess you just want to
Speaker 1: gain here? That makes sense? That might be come back
Speaker 1: the Texas. I almost think that both sides are right
Speaker 1: that we did hear from him. But to your point,
Speaker 1: it was not like, oh wow, what great triggeration warm
Speaker 1: up the buses now, It was I think you've got
Speaker 1: jobbed on that one. Villas Hey, Ricky also a tweet
Speaker 1: from you sent during the game. Belichick looks more disappointed
Speaker 1: than when I gave my dad's new Mercedes a car
Speaker 1: wash and used the mop to reach the roof, causing
Speaker 1: the metal bar to scratch the entirety of the car.
Speaker 1: First of all, that sucks, but a bit of a
Speaker 1: flex that you grew up with Mercedes and your driveway.
Speaker 1: Um No, I didn't think of it like that. I
Speaker 1: thought of it more of like my dad was so
Speaker 1: upset when I tried to do this nice thing for him, Um,
Speaker 1: and it made If it was just his Toyota Corolla,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been a big of a deal. It
Speaker 1: was it was a Mercedes, and I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to give my dad a secret car wash. And
Speaker 1: I reached on top of the roof with the mop
Speaker 1: and you know how there's the metal bar that like
Speaker 1: holds the mop to the stick part of it, and
Speaker 1: I just scratched the top of my dad's new Mercedes,
Speaker 1: back and forth, secret car wash, Yeah, I want. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be nice and like do it something for
Speaker 1: my dad? And what was your punishment or did he
Speaker 1: think it was such a nice act that he saw
Speaker 1: he didn't care about the scratch. Oh no, I had
Speaker 1: to buy him n Mercedes. You you were like nikkil
Speaker 1: Harry was like, oh, I'm gonna surprise Tom Brady with
Speaker 1: this special new route. I'm gonna run and then not
Speaker 1: be sorry. The only Mercedes I've ever been in is
Speaker 1: when I was like parking valet cars for the rich
Speaker 1: people at the top of the hill. We don't we
Speaker 1: believe that. I said, Wow, you could have leather in
Speaker 1: the interior. Unbelievable. Do you need a car wash day?
Speaker 1: I mean, if there's any if there's any four people
Speaker 1: who have overcome more in life, I don't think you
Speaker 1: could find them outside of you know, created narratives spun
Speaker 1: from fiction. Um, all right, so good stuff. We'll be
Speaker 1: back on Tuesday with a podcast breaking down all what's
Speaker 1: happening around the NFL. That's what we do. Then we'll
Speaker 1: have a show Thursday, Thursday Night show and the wheel
Speaker 1: goes round and round. Thank you everybody. Uh, and also again,
Speaker 1: uh rate us five stars and leave some comments on Apple.
Speaker 1: Uh the iTunes client whatever they're called, the podcast client,
Speaker 1: And soon we will read some Mark will read them. Actually,
Speaker 1: Mark will curate the entire project. Give him something to
Speaker 1: do at least read them all. Right, let's go stand
Speaker 1: hands is signing up quiet Storm the mail man, the
Speaker 1: old boss. That sounds like all these guys had Mercedes
Speaker 1: growing up like must be nice us did. Of course
Speaker 1: they our friendly. I'm lonely, I'm lonely. Make it all
Speaker 1: go away, hey, hey, make it all go away, hey hey,