Speaker 1: The Around the NFL podcast. I have never been to
Speaker 1: the Briggs. That's true from the Chris Westling podcast studio.
Speaker 1: It's around the NFL. I am Dan Hansis I got
Speaker 1: heroes here? Greg Rosenthal, Mark Sessler and Mark What.
Speaker 2: Day is it?
Speaker 3: When today it's Wednesday? As far as I know, thank you.
Speaker 1: That means also with us is the wiki lead, the cerebral,
Speaker 1: the empathetic, the photogenic, founding member of the ten fifty
Speaker 1: one Club, Colleen.
Speaker 4: Wolf Hello, Hello, the ten fifty one Club is the
Speaker 4: Oh hey, hold on a second, Sean's the queen.
Speaker 1: Uh oh, what happens? He's got one and a half
Speaker 1: dumbs folks.
Speaker 2: That's through me.
Speaker 1: First was that the tropeler going off at the same
Speaker 1: time as the Colleen Wolfeme.
Speaker 2: We're having a soundboard problem.
Speaker 5: So I'm open folders and things flow down on the
Speaker 5: music list.
Speaker 2: But here let me give her a clean one. Sorry, guys,
Speaker 2: you know I didn't hate it.
Speaker 1: Here you go, kind of fun Jolie. There you go, Sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: Shownie's the queen. Queen. She is the queen of NFL meeting.
Speaker 6: There we go.
Speaker 4: So the ten fifty one Club is right now, Dan
Speaker 4: and I are in this club because that is the
Speaker 4: time that we arrive for the pod at the same
Speaker 4: exact moment in the parking garage.
Speaker 1: Separate, but simultaneously our cars happened now maybe three times, so.
Speaker 2: Ten to fifty one.
Speaker 1: Club is howld ground, and I invite anyone to join us.
Speaker 1: It is. There's a bit of a rush, like when
Speaker 1: I see your car, I'm like, oh, oh yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Colleen comes straight here and then you so she's still early.
Speaker 1: Swampy, the saying she comes straight here, this swampy deer. Sir,
Speaker 1: I believe we're starting at eleven twenty five. I was
Speaker 1: sitting here for twenty three minutes before we start there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you got here eleven one, right on.
Speaker 2: That's what being late today. Eleven five start. That's on you.
Speaker 1: No, there's lots of technical issues.
Speaker 2: It's okay, I'll take it. It's okay.
Speaker 6: You want to be part of the come on in.
Speaker 1: Not a problem that that would be a problem, be
Speaker 1: an issue. We got a lot to get to today.
Speaker 1: Calleen the face of NFL Networks coverage of Thursday night football.
Speaker 1: We'll break down the game that starts Week thirteen, Seahawks Cowboys.
Speaker 1: That's a good one the weekly Game. We also have
Speaker 1: a segment now that we are heading marked toward the
Speaker 1: home stretch of the regular season. Here's what matters down
Speaker 1: the stretch here, No Trent going to help.
Speaker 3: I mean, we really were workshopping some ideas during the week.
Speaker 1: You like you. You sent a text yesterday and I
Speaker 1: assumed you were had inhaled ayahuasca because you had so
Speaker 1: many ideas flowing from you.
Speaker 3: I was surprised that all those ideas came when they did,
Speaker 3: but I thought I'd shared them. And this includes some
Speaker 3: elements of those ideas, other elements of other people's ideas.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of Keith Richards waking up from a
Speaker 1: deep sleep, sitting up playing the riff of satisfaction into
Speaker 1: a tape recorder, and then going back to bed.
Speaker 3: You never know, it could have been very close to that.
Speaker 3: I'm a little I will say one of.
Speaker 4: All of the ideas that you had and then put
Speaker 4: it into the segment.
Speaker 6: Maybe it's my own.
Speaker 3: You like structure, and so I was trying to provide
Speaker 3: some elements structure.
Speaker 1: The segment's a little open ended, and I am just
Speaker 1: so excited to see how far Afield Colleen goes on
Speaker 1: this one.
Speaker 3: I'm really going to stick the landing.
Speaker 1: Guys, Colin's gonna be talking about the industrial movement of
Speaker 1: Germany and the nineteen.
Speaker 6: Tens or the departed. Who knows?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you saw Departy? Good job?
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 6: I really thought I had seen it before, as it
Speaker 6: turns out did not. And great movie, guys. Do you
Speaker 6: guys know about it?
Speaker 1: Up next? Mark and I have suggested it and Johnny
Speaker 1: your husband. I feel like he's a bit of a cinophile,
Speaker 1: so this all surprised me. We want you to check
Speaker 1: out heat by Michael Mann. Okay, all right, diner scene?
Speaker 1: What else you know young Natalie Portman? While I'm in
Speaker 1: Val Kilmer. Okay, like Val Kilmer at his heighth we
Speaker 1: talking young Natalie Portman. Let's put a beautiful girls on
Speaker 1: the list.
Speaker 2: As what?
Speaker 4: All right, it's on the list. I have so much
Speaker 4: time to watch this movie.
Speaker 5: Skip skip the Zach Braft movie though, Garden State Age.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, I have seen that one at the time.
Speaker 1: Great Can I say a great sounds? Can I say
Speaker 1: it's okay for some movies just to live in the
Speaker 1: world where they absolutely we could enjoy that. We we
Speaker 1: found it deep in two thousand and four and now
Speaker 1: it's a little embarrassing, but that also that's like taking
Speaker 1: a time machine watching.
Speaker 2: Maybe you should watch Carna.
Speaker 6: Say, I don't know if I want to go back
Speaker 6: a lot of to dos now, all.
Speaker 1: Right, but first, as we promised, I am so excited
Speaker 1: for this. It's something that we've teased the pilot for
Speaker 1: a long time, including an initial pilot. Like you know
Speaker 1: how Game of Thrones had a pilot that was so
Speaker 1: bad that they threw it out and HBO spent millions
Speaker 1: and millions of dollars and then they had to reshoot
Speaker 1: the whole thing.
Speaker 2: We had a pilot of this.
Speaker 1: Until and then we even recorded it, and then we
Speaker 1: realized the sound we were using was actually months old,
Speaker 1: so we had to scrap the pilot and post. We
Speaker 1: had a scrub it. But this time the sound is fresh.
Speaker 1: It is the sound from UH Panthers owner David Tepper's
Speaker 1: press conference after the firing or Frank firing of Frank Reich.
Speaker 1: So and so yes, enjoy the pilot premiere of ATM
Speaker 1: presents Tepper be talking exciting.
Speaker 5: People really need to check out the YouTube, subscribe to
Speaker 5: our channel.
Speaker 1: We have our own channel and lean out just a
Speaker 1: little bit.
Speaker 2: Greg.
Speaker 6: So let's let's see the let's we need to see
Speaker 6: the full let's.
Speaker 1: See if my here we go. Yeah, my directions were
Speaker 1: Tepper hyphen be hyphen talking, lose the g at the
Speaker 1: apostrophe at the end. Stylized perfectly done by Eric Roberts.
Speaker 1: Very much looks like my Trapper Keeper from sixth grade.
Speaker 6: It's so good. It's very saved by the bell. I
Speaker 6: would love this T shirt.
Speaker 3: So a visual feast. Well done, Eric.
Speaker 1: All right, So to set it up once again, David
Speaker 1: Tepper has been the owner of the Panthers for what
Speaker 1: about five years now, and they have struggled mightily in
Speaker 1: that time. They've been unable to field a winning team.
Speaker 1: In fact, only my New York Jets have a worse
Speaker 1: record than the Panthers since David Tepper took over. That's insane,
Speaker 1: by the way, and he fired Frank Reich after eleven games.
Speaker 1: That's the earliest the first year coach has been dismissed
Speaker 1: in over forty years, I believe. So you knew this
Speaker 1: press conference, it was almost it's kismet. Actually, if you
Speaker 1: think about it. The debut episode of Tepper be talking,
Speaker 1: it had to be big, and I mean, what's bigger
Speaker 1: than this when Tepper is kind of under siege and
Speaker 1: the Panthers are being examined in a way that is
Speaker 1: probably uncomfortable for everyone involved. So mister Tepper took to
Speaker 1: the microphone and let's play some of what he said,
Speaker 1: starting with Tepper explaining his decision making on why he
Speaker 1: dismissed Reich and why he's fired three head coaches and
Speaker 1: two MLS coaches in the last few years.
Speaker 7: Look, you know, well, as I said, there are reasons
Speaker 7: for each individual situation. I think you guys upon your
Speaker 7: only flat into looking what happened to the season? Can
Speaker 7: you know can understand that you're around town for those
Speaker 7: that are around town, and you can know the reasons.
Speaker 2: Again, I'm not.
Speaker 7: Going to get into that, particularly into those particulars, but
Speaker 7: I have I do have patience. I'm just not My
Speaker 7: reputation away from this game is one for extreet patience.
Speaker 7: You know, there's no reason why that doesn't. You know,
Speaker 7: come here too, it does now that patience comes with
Speaker 7: good performance and things that you want to see progress
Speaker 7: be made in different aspects.
Speaker 1: Okay, my reputation away from the game is extreme patience.
Speaker 6: Thoughts That caught me when I was listening live.
Speaker 4: It was the It completely jumped out, and it's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 4: but like that doesn't matter. Nobody cares about your reputation
Speaker 4: away from this. We're talking about your reputation right now
Speaker 4: in the league, and it's not of patience.
Speaker 5: Well, plus, I don't know, I don't know if that
Speaker 5: to be true, and I'm not going to do the
Speaker 5: work to find out if it is true. But based
Speaker 5: on the way he's positioned his football takes.
Speaker 1: A lot of it.
Speaker 5: You can find some some haziness too, like the fact
Speaker 5: that like I am patient, but you're not. You're not
Speaker 5: patient yet we heard these reports he didn't want to
Speaker 5: do this, but you did want to do it.
Speaker 1: You did it.
Speaker 5: And I don't know what's happening around town. What was
Speaker 5: he talking about about? He said, the people that are
Speaker 5: walking around town. Know, if I had to guess, I'm
Speaker 5: I think he's talking about the people, the fans, the chirping,
Speaker 5: the what he hears around town.
Speaker 1: Maybe the calumnists, right, And if.
Speaker 5: It's kind of like, if you're listening to the people
Speaker 5: around town, what's what's the quote?
Speaker 1: You know, you're going to become one of them if
Speaker 1: you're a head coach.
Speaker 3: I think it wasn't patient in the sense, in a
Speaker 3: lot of senses, because there was Scott Fowler of the
Speaker 3: Charlotte Observer, who had been critical of Tepper in writing
Speaker 3: before all this went down, was not allowed to ask
Speaker 3: a question at this press conference where he's telling us
Speaker 3: how level headed it he is. There is The Ringer
Speaker 3: as a piece from SIATI.
Speaker 5: Can I just say, Scott Fowler the headline of the
Speaker 5: article he wrote the date when he was fired, which
Speaker 5: was Panthers owner David Tepper fired another head coach, he
Speaker 5: should fire himself. And so that is like the number
Speaker 5: one columnist in town. And then they didn't let it,
Speaker 5: and you're muzzled.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's pretty on the nose, and
Speaker 3: I think that shows you don't kind of get Maybe
Speaker 3: that works in your hedge fund magazine if someone's you know,
Speaker 3: on a reporter in that world, but it doesn't work here.
Speaker 3: And Nordra prince i Otta of The Ringer found this
Speaker 3: twenty ten profile of Tepper where he was described in
Speaker 3: quotes as loud and profane, and then this other thing
Speaker 3: that if he goes, the knee jerkism is real if
Speaker 3: he goes and is confronted with anything he doesn't like.
Speaker 3: If someone isn't asked, he said, Tepper like a waiter
Speaker 3: at a restaurant. I think I could just buy this
Speaker 3: place and fire that guy. So you can't tell us
Speaker 3: that in your other world you have all this patience
Speaker 3: and you're bringing it here. There are factoids and anecdotes
Speaker 3: that suggest not.
Speaker 4: Sure ten fifty one club that is what he is
Speaker 4: kind of screaming there. But I will say based on
Speaker 4: his line about being patient. Outside of the NFL, there
Speaker 4: have been plenty of owners that have gone on the
Speaker 4: record and done interviews like Robert Kraft has done it
Speaker 4: and Arthur Blank has done it as well, talking about
Speaker 4: how the NFL being an owner is so different than
Speaker 4: any other business that they've ever been involved in, and
Speaker 4: it like to get the money to get that to
Speaker 4: the point where you can own a team. It's just very,
Speaker 4: very different and you have to adapt to it, and
Speaker 4: it's like nothing that they've ever done.
Speaker 5: Before, right, because half of them are going to be
Speaker 5: losers every year, right by definition, not in terms of
Speaker 5: making money. You can be the dumbest business owner ever,
Speaker 5: and you will be successful owning your NFL team. It
Speaker 5: will always raise in value, like there is no way
Speaker 5: to lose money. So it's a very strange dichotomy.
Speaker 1: I think it takes a lot of owners, maybe all owners,
Speaker 1: a few years to kind of settle in. So I
Speaker 1: just want to say, like the idea that they've struggled
Speaker 1: so far doesn't mean they're struggle forever. Tepper leading the way,
Speaker 1: but you have to obviously learn from what's happening here,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna see if they do. I have another sound.
Speaker 1: Cal have a lot of conversation around Bryce Young. Of course,
Speaker 1: with the CJ. Straud a sensation down in Houston and
Speaker 1: the reports out there, the people talking around town, perhaps
Speaker 1: that it was Frank Reich's desire to have CJ. Stroud
Speaker 1: with the first overall pick, and in general it was
Speaker 1: Tepper's decision to pound the table and say, bring me
Speaker 1: the Alabama star Bryce Young, who has struggled mightily in
Speaker 1: his first year. Here is David Tepper on that rumor
Speaker 1: in his mind.
Speaker 7: Now, look, everything that's right and everything that's wrong here,
Speaker 7: but ultimately.
Speaker 6: It is my fault.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have the final say.
Speaker 7: But as far as those decisions, whether it's Frank Wright
Speaker 7: or it's Bryce Young, those decisions were made, and in
Speaker 7: the case Bryce, it was almost I believe it was
Speaker 7: unionist's decision. And the coaches and then the scouts have
Speaker 7: very strong opinions.
Speaker 3: At the corn See every press conference from here on
Speaker 3: out needs to have this like an underbed of music
Speaker 3: like this. It adds a real vibrancy to it.
Speaker 5: I think only it only makes sense for tempor to
Speaker 5: be talking. This is just the perfect instrument for this content.
Speaker 4: I need to know what was of this like when
Speaker 4: you were working with Eric to put this together.
Speaker 6: What did you tell him the type of music that
Speaker 6: you wanted.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of like when the Gang and Saved
Speaker 1: by the Bell like went into the Max ah okay,
Speaker 1: you know, and that kind of it's exciting to see,
Speaker 1: you know, Zach and Slater and Kelly and Lisa and.
Speaker 2: Screech all together.
Speaker 1: But when you have that that music underneath, and then
Speaker 1: Max the magician rules and the waiter, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: easy with the tricks and give me yes.
Speaker 4: Max, it's a business by the whole place, and fire
Speaker 4: him right exactly.
Speaker 1: It's a little more exciting with the music underneath, you.
Speaker 5: Know, I think it totally fits tonally, uh, and these rumors,
Speaker 5: but people kind of like throw this out there, the
Speaker 5: rumors that he like. It was a very specific reporter,
Speaker 5: Adam Schefter, that said David Tepper loves Bryce Young and
Speaker 5: Frank Reich like CJ.
Speaker 2: Stroud.
Speaker 1: And that was in March.
Speaker 5: So I keep hearing this that it's just like thrown
Speaker 5: it out, like, oh, it's whispers, But it was like
Speaker 5: it was Adam Schefter, Yeah, he was the one that
Speaker 5: reported it. It was last March that Reich wanted Stratt.
Speaker 3: We needed Greg at this press conference.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't have been allowed to ask a question.
Speaker 5: No, no, And there was a lot there that some
Speaker 5: other Carolina journalists noted, just optics wise and everything. They
Speaker 5: kept the entire front row reserved for people that didn't
Speaker 5: end up taking the seat for I don't know who
Speaker 5: it was for. Only one person sat there, and so
Speaker 5: to all the reporters were in the second row.
Speaker 1: I just found that internal.
Speaker 5: They were all in the second row and they almost
Speaker 5: cut it off after like nine minutes. He answered one
Speaker 5: more question that he talked for We're straight minutes on it.
Speaker 5: It was this Price Young topic, and and yeah, Scott
Speaker 5: Fowler and many of the other key journalists that cover
Speaker 5: the team, where.
Speaker 1: You know what they could have done, because if they
Speaker 1: said over fifteen minutes, that's what this is gonna be,
Speaker 1: which is, by the way, fourteen minutes is very short
Speaker 1: for a press conference of this magnitude.
Speaker 2: You know, in the combine.
Speaker 1: The most annoying thing ever is when you want to
Speaker 1: get you know, the GMS and the coaches speak for
Speaker 1: this finite amount of time, and then some bonehead is
Speaker 1: right in the feature about the offensive line through the
Speaker 1: years or something, yeah, and it's like time for one
Speaker 1: more for coach, and it's like, oh, yeah, how is
Speaker 1: blocking in your mind in the seventies different than the
Speaker 1: two thousands? And everyone in the gang bang just kind
Speaker 1: of like they roll their eyes and shrugged their shoulders,
Speaker 1: like you just rounded it for everybody. Yeah, next level thinking,
Speaker 1: if I was an old guard owner, I would just
Speaker 1: plan a couple of the bozos in there to just
Speaker 1: fill up all the time asking about you know, various
Speaker 1: history questions pertaining to the NFL. It's a idea anyway,
Speaker 1: one more this is about his future or something.
Speaker 2: Here we go, you know, I.
Speaker 7: Would like to have somebody here for twenty thirty years.
Speaker 7: I'd like to have somebody that would say eulogy at
Speaker 7: my funeral.
Speaker 1: Won thirty years.
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe it's forty years. I hope.
Speaker 1: That was sing. He wants to find a coach, he
Speaker 1: wants to find a life partner in football.
Speaker 3: A lifer.
Speaker 5: Well, he was a minority owner with the Steelers, and
Speaker 5: people have pointed out, you know how David Tepper has
Speaker 5: fired and had more head coaches in his five years
Speaker 5: than the Steelers had since like World War Two.
Speaker 3: By the way, Like that Charlotte Football Club, I mean
Speaker 3: they're antreme on the other side, yeah the way, but like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that Charlotte Football Club has, like the soccer team has
Speaker 3: fired four head coaches in the past eighteen months. The
Speaker 3: most recent one from what I read, actually went to
Speaker 3: the postseason.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, that's right.
Speaker 3: So it's like, I mean, I think there's an argument
Speaker 3: to say that Frank Wright needed to go, Like it
Speaker 3: was it the MLS. No, no, no, just gone. I
Speaker 3: don't have a huge problem with moving on from this experience.
Speaker 3: And like it's in another peril universe. Had they taken
Speaker 3: Stroud and you got this version of Stroud which is
Speaker 3: also a question mark under Frank Raig. No one's gone, probably,
Speaker 3: but it's like there is a mix of impatience and
Speaker 3: also like I kind of get where he's coming from.
Speaker 3: If you're an owner that has picked the wrong coach
Speaker 3: number of times and you've never found a quarterback, you're
Speaker 3: gonna go through this darkness, right.
Speaker 5: But there's no there's no process, there's no plan. He
Speaker 5: seems to be in charge. The two year contract they
Speaker 5: give to Teddy Bridgewater, remember that guaranteed money. That was
Speaker 5: kind of crazy. Then they were spinning out and he's like,
Speaker 5: this isn't gonna work. Let's go get Sam Darnold and
Speaker 5: give up a second and a fourth first Sam dart
Speaker 5: Like six games of that, it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: this isn't gonna work. Let's try to get Matthew Stafford.
Speaker 5: Matthew Stafford is like, no, thank you. They'll forget about Baker.
Speaker 5: So then they bring in Baker maybe and they're like,
Speaker 5: this isn't gonna work, and it just you know, let's
Speaker 5: go get Bryce Young.
Speaker 4: It just had the most success with them, and that's
Speaker 4: because they were running the ball and like that's how
Speaker 4: their team was built to be successful, and then they
Speaker 4: decided no, no, no, we're gonna get rid of Steve Wolkes,
Speaker 4: and we're also not gonna run the ball.
Speaker 5: There was a very human quote in the Albert Brier
Speaker 5: story about him from a former Panther Stafford, which, like
Speaker 5: it seems obvious enough. His thing is, the minute it
Speaker 5: gets bad, it's gonna get worse, so we better try
Speaker 5: something else.
Speaker 1: He's a hedge fun guy. That's what hedge fund guys do.
Speaker 5: The second something stops earning money, they take their money
Speaker 5: out of it, take the profit, and move on to
Speaker 5: something else. So it's like the second any of these
Speaker 5: decisions start going bad and they having bad decidans, he's like,
Speaker 5: all right, let's burn it, let's go, and like that
Speaker 5: just leads to us more and more problems.
Speaker 2: We weren't very good at podcasting when we started.
Speaker 3: No, if you go back and listen to those first
Speaker 3: few episodes, like we speak really wildly and with hesitancy,
Speaker 3: not greg Greg Roldan. You know, he's a talker about
Speaker 3: like like Dan and I are just like.
Speaker 1: Is that true? I don't think that's true. There we
Speaker 1: all you came out of the Birth Canal talking Gregory.
Speaker 3: To check the Sick the podcast.
Speaker 1: Rosie be Honking, that's the next that's our next spin off.
Speaker 1: So the ATN I was a good I think that
Speaker 1: was a good pilot up. I think that one's gonna
Speaker 1: get picked up.
Speaker 3: It's almost like a reverse flash Point because Temper maybe,
Speaker 3: you know, yes, maybe he's rash and maybe he acted
Speaker 3: too quickly, but he also understood that this was gonna
Speaker 3: line up, yeah in a kids met fashion with this
Speaker 3: segment one way or another.
Speaker 2: So you know, flashpoint focus is a hit. Temper be talking.
Speaker 6: Is the branding is Remember.
Speaker 1: When Friends first hit, like in the ninety four and
Speaker 1: it was like, oh my god, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: We've got something here. We got something here immediately. Well
Speaker 1: that's us. We could have a whole network of shows.
Speaker 1: We just had to put our mind to it. Like
Speaker 1: ambition and Empire ambition. The only thing stopping us is
Speaker 1: a lack of ambition. At this point, it's the idea is, well,
Speaker 1: that's accurate, they're unbelievable. Let's take a break, and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're gonna talk about what matters. No
Speaker 1: promises on this seg though at all, No promises on
Speaker 1: what matters down the stretch in the NFL. That is perfect.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, I loved it.
Speaker 2: All Right, we are back.
Speaker 1: Welcome We need to do this for more segments. I
Speaker 1: think that just improved, So welcome back. So here's what matters.
Speaker 1: The regular season is over, I believe on January seventh
Speaker 1: on and that means every team has scounting yeah, either
Speaker 1: five or six games remaining on their schedule. And let's
Speaker 1: talk about as we kind of project towards the postseason,
Speaker 1: what are the things to really be kind of turning
Speaker 1: your focus to and what to keep an eye on
Speaker 1: in these final week And I'll get this one going
Speaker 1: because it does connect with one of the Thursday night
Speaker 1: football combatants.
Speaker 2: So let's start it here.
Speaker 1: I think how the Dallas Cowboys close this regular season
Speaker 1: is mammoth and in terms of how we think of
Speaker 1: them in terms of what their chances are of actually
Speaker 1: doing something that they haven't done in over a quarter century,
Speaker 1: which is get to the NFC Title.
Speaker 2: Game and even win it.
Speaker 1: So they have to close, and we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: a Seahawks at home, Eagles at home at Buffalo. I
Speaker 1: don't know what state Buffalo will be in by then,
Speaker 1: but it's not gonna be an easy game at Miami
Speaker 1: home Detroit at Washington. Now, how do the Cowboys get
Speaker 1: through that gauntlet and go into the playoffs? Because are
Speaker 1: they gonna if they're a thirteen and four right now,
Speaker 1: what are they the eight and three? I believe yeah,
Speaker 1: if they finish thirteen and four or fourteen and three
Speaker 1: and the Juggernaut a potential number one seed, or they
Speaker 1: could be eleven and six or even ten and seven
Speaker 1: and be a wildcard team with a spotty resume against
Speaker 1: NFL elites, because that will have mean that they didn't
Speaker 1: fare too well in this final stretch. And I think
Speaker 1: at that point, if that's the version mark, it's going
Speaker 1: to be back to the old cesslerism where we're kind
Speaker 1: of just like, I don't know, we've seen you stub
Speaker 1: your toe too many times against big time teams this
Speaker 1: year to think it's going to be different in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, the way they're playing right now,
Speaker 1: and I know, you know, there are elements of football Twitter,
Speaker 1: smart Twitter, I call it. They've always had an infatuation
Speaker 1: with Dak and right now you're seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: people going nuts again about how incredible Prescott has been
Speaker 1: and how he's different and better than ever and the
Speaker 1: data backs that up the past six weeks. Can he
Speaker 1: keep that up now when the schedule tightens up? Is
Speaker 1: he going to be an MVP player when it counts
Speaker 1: the most, including when we get to January? But for now,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of focusitting on these last six games. What
Speaker 1: version of the Dallas Cowboys do we get?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no team like this in the NFL, And
Speaker 3: it's it's kind of this continuing optics situation for Dallas
Speaker 3: where like there's two things happening. There's like, wait, Duk
Speaker 3: Prescott very likely could be the MVP, but it's like
Speaker 3: the other people need to see him beat the Eagles,
Speaker 3: not come close against the Eagles, and win these games.
Speaker 3: It's like it's really just how you feel about him,
Speaker 3: I mean, separate from his actual play. Like the Sessler
Speaker 3: version of doubting the Cowboys though, has been eradicated at
Speaker 3: the moment, because this feels different to me than other
Speaker 3: Cowboy barreness.
Speaker 1: It's because we haven't seen how they look at misstretch
Speaker 1: coming yet it.
Speaker 3: Is, except that they have been blowing people's doors off
Speaker 3: with like nuclear weaponry, and so it's not like they're
Speaker 3: sliding by, but the Commanders against Lessons. I've seen like
Speaker 3: all aspects of the team, including coaching, operate this well
Speaker 3: with a Dallas.
Speaker 1: But I probably we're yeah, we're all on fire. Just
Speaker 1: to the point I was making, we're all like super
Speaker 1: pumped about Dallas and their offense right now. But just
Speaker 1: as a reminder, Giants at Carolina home Panthers, those are
Speaker 1: home Commanders. Those are the three wins that have the
Speaker 1: football world like really tuned in right now. I want
Speaker 1: to see it again these next sixty.
Speaker 3: I would just say, if you if you go three,
Speaker 3: four and two and you beat some of these teams,
Speaker 3: like I think we were allowed to think differently about
Speaker 3: the Cowboys at this point, you're not gonna go six
Speaker 3: and oh.
Speaker 5: Right, if like that, if you put a normal Super
Speaker 5: Bowl champion and gave them this schedule down the stretch,
Speaker 5: especially the APT Buffalo at Miami too, they're not gonna
Speaker 5: go six and oh because it's football. Like most most
Speaker 5: great happens, it happens, it happens. They could go six
Speaker 5: and oh. But I think if they went four and
Speaker 5: two and the two losses were closer, they go certainly
Speaker 5: five and one. I mean, that would be extremely impressive.
Speaker 5: That The annoying thing I think for you is it's
Speaker 5: probably gonna land in the middle because of the Eagle schedule.
Speaker 1: I'll get to that. It's very likely, even if they
Speaker 1: beat the Eagles.
Speaker 5: That they're not going to go six and zero, and
Speaker 5: the odds are against them winning the division. They win
Speaker 5: four or five of these games, they're probably going to
Speaker 5: get that five seed. And you're right, these are better
Speaker 5: matchups Buffalo Miami. It's all exciting to watch. The defenses
Speaker 5: he's facing aren't great. I love that Dak MVP odds
Speaker 5: right now because the Seahawks they're struggling on defense, the
Speaker 5: Eagles they can't stop anyone through the air, the Bills
Speaker 5: have been mediocre, the Dolphins are playing well defensively, the
Speaker 5: Lions are one of the worst defense in the league
Speaker 5: right now, and the Commanders are one of the worst
Speaker 5: defense in the league.
Speaker 1: So I think Dak can keep it going. I am
Speaker 1: totally with you as.
Speaker 5: A team like they look like one of the best
Speaker 5: four teams in the NFL. If you're one of those,
Speaker 5: you probably win four or five of these games.
Speaker 1: But if not go three and three, do not go
Speaker 1: two and four, and if you choose to the Eagles,
Speaker 1: if you're and that's that's a key game. Obviously, that
Speaker 1: has to be at home. You either have to win
Speaker 1: that game or compete.
Speaker 2: To the Veria.
Speaker 1: No, you gotta win it. You got to win it.
Speaker 5: Enough of this losing close to the Eagles and getting
Speaker 5: swept by the Well.
Speaker 1: That'd be progress from their last superpower opponent when they
Speaker 1: lost forty two ten to the Niners.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so much has been made about how great
Speaker 4: they've been at home, but like you have to look
Speaker 4: at who they actually played at home, the Jets, the Patriots,
Speaker 4: the Rams, the Giants, the Commanders, like teams that have
Speaker 4: a combined record of nineteen and thirty eight. So of
Speaker 4: course they're averaging forty one points per game at home
Speaker 4: versus on the road where they lost to the Eagles,
Speaker 4: they lost to the Niners, and then they also what
Speaker 4: they played, the Giants, the Cardinals, the Panthers, the Chargers.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's a combined record of twenty nine and
Speaker 4: thirty nine, So of course they're averaging seventeen fewer points
Speaker 4: per game on the road because of those opponents. But
Speaker 4: the Cowboys will very likely be playing in the playoffs
Speaker 4: on the road, so you have to also take that
Speaker 4: into considering.
Speaker 1: Any You're right, Greg, You're right about because they went
Speaker 1: to Philly a few weeks back and they nearly won,
Speaker 1: but they got beat. You can't get swept by the
Speaker 1: Eagles and then expect me to like think something's going
Speaker 1: to change in January. So win that game, yes, when
Speaker 1: when at least four maybe five, and then I'll be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this team's got something different this year. We shall see,
Speaker 1: we shall see. All right, Connie, you're up next.
Speaker 6: All right, So this, uh, this segment, what.
Speaker 1: U'd you do?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 6: I thought it was the December dreams that mark.
Speaker 3: What matters is an umbrella over those various other concepts.
Speaker 3: So even in our texting, Dan said, you're welcome to
Speaker 3: approach that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a fatal flaws that was thrown out there, a
Speaker 4: December dream and then also what matters?
Speaker 3: So I have no idea what December dreams even meant.
Speaker 6: I just went with December dream.
Speaker 1: The anxiety is pouring off Colleen right now, and like
Speaker 1: leaking on my shirt.
Speaker 6: I slipped a disk in my neck out.
Speaker 2: Just let it go, Connie, let it go.
Speaker 1: Well, all right, here we go, hey, you're in the
Speaker 1: trust tree.
Speaker 6: My December dream gang is this?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 4: Wait, so after a delightful meetball parm from it, she'll
Speaker 4: ninth and fits water. The decision has been made, family
Speaker 4: members are notified, and a new jersey stitched by the
Speaker 4: Tri State area's finest. The only question left is how
Speaker 4: apoplectic Jerry Jones will be when he finds out the
Speaker 4: obvious here that Shaq Leonard has fallen in love with Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, wa Ald, that thought one second before you
Speaker 1: go on, leric, you have it. I think this will help.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna help. Not that you're off to
Speaker 1: a bad start. What but this is gonna make it great. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll queue you up. Okay, there's a count. Okay three.
Speaker 4: You know it didn't take him long to make the decision.
Speaker 4: But since the Cowboys played the Seahawks on Thursday night
Speaker 4: and the Eagles play the Niners on Sunday, Leonard's debut
Speaker 4: probably not gonna happen until Week fourteen, when the Eagles
Speaker 4: go to Dallas to play the Cowboys in Dallas, who are.
Speaker 6: Also in the sweep stakes for Shack Leonard.
Speaker 4: Bring so listen, don't forget here that Nick Sirianni is
Speaker 4: the former Colts offensive coordinator for three years. He still
Speaker 4: has a relationship with Shaq Leonard, and it just feels
Speaker 4: like a really nice competition for these two to have
Speaker 4: before they actually play the second game, which will be
Speaker 4: huge in the NFC.
Speaker 1: I like it. So what matters is where does Shack
Speaker 1: Leonard land and what kind of impact could.
Speaker 3: He have and what better news and development for your
Speaker 3: December dream that he went to Dallas. You know, it's
Speaker 3: a nice place. You could be driven around town, you
Speaker 3: could live here in this mansion. He was like, yeah, cool,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go to Philadelphia now exactly.
Speaker 5: And to be clear, he has not signed with either team.
Speaker 5: He met with the Eagles earlier on Wednesday as we're taping,
Speaker 5: so this segment could could potentially be out of date
Speaker 5: if he makes a decision on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: I mean more anxiety.
Speaker 6: I'm just saying, this isn't December nightmare.
Speaker 5: Nick Sirianni said, you know, he met with him, they
Speaker 5: talked and and we'll see. And the Eagles and Cowboys
Speaker 5: both have some issues at linebacker. I would say that
Speaker 5: might be even bigger though, uh and the Eagles have
Speaker 5: a nice history of bringing in veterans late in the season.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, and then making a difference, and oh yeah.
Speaker 5: Sometimes they don't make a difference, but they bring them in,
Speaker 5: they give it a shot. And that's where I would go.
Speaker 5: I would make that December dream come true.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I don't think check.
Speaker 5: Lists the holiday, Greg, you're up, all right, here's what matters?
Speaker 1: The schedule?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 5: I feel like we try to avoid schedule.
Speaker 1: We'd be smart before the season.
Speaker 5: The schedule doesn't matter. I don't need to hear your
Speaker 5: schedule analysis. Really, we're just guessing five to six weeks
Speaker 5: left in the season. It matters almost more than anything GC.
Speaker 5: I just got some scheduled nuggets. We talked to Eagles,
Speaker 5: Eagles and Cowboys that that Cowboys schedule rough. Eagles are
Speaker 5: very likely the number one seed because of their schedule,
Speaker 5: and you think, oh wow, they're on this brutal stretch here.
Speaker 1: You know, they got the forty nine ers this week.
Speaker 5: They're underdogs, and then they're okay, that's fine, and then
Speaker 5: they have the Cowboys. They can lose those two, and
Speaker 5: to me, they're still very likely the number one overall seed.
Speaker 5: They're actually future schedule overall, according to the DVOA, is
Speaker 5: better than average because they finish with at Seattle, who's
Speaker 5: not playing as well lately.
Speaker 1: That's an easy game.
Speaker 5: And then Giants, Cardinals, Giants and the forty nine ers
Speaker 5: and the Cowboys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they could get that tiebreaker.
Speaker 5: The forty nine ers are gonna have to win out
Speaker 5: probably for a chance to get that one seed. The Cowboys,
Speaker 5: we just mentioned their scheduled, it'd be very hard for
Speaker 5: them to win out, but they certainly would have to
Speaker 5: beat the Eagles and probably win out. So that's a nice,
Speaker 5: a nice little thing for the Eagles that really, if
Speaker 5: you split these two games, you are going to be
Speaker 5: sky high in terms of number one seed likelihood. And
Speaker 5: even if you lost the two, I would say it's
Speaker 5: better than fifty to fifty.
Speaker 1: Some more stuff that schedule matter. Just think about Greg
Speaker 1: one thing, our friend, Uh, why am I blanking on
Speaker 1: the kicker's name? Sorry, Jake Elliott, our friend Jake Elliott's
Speaker 1: fifty nine yarder. How much that changes things because getting
Speaker 1: that win instead of the l gives them the cushion
Speaker 1: that Greg's are. This is more just a funny nugget.
Speaker 5: Again, according to DVOA people, should check that it's now
Speaker 5: on FT and Fantasy. You gotta pay for it's worth it.
Speaker 5: It's worth it. It's a tax, right our old friend
Speaker 5: Aaron Shatz, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know what that means.
Speaker 5: It's just funny to me that the three easiest schedules
Speaker 5: in the league remaining are the Bucks, Saints, and Falcons
Speaker 5: because they're all playing each other.
Speaker 1: But it's part of it. It's just like that. It's
Speaker 1: just stupid.
Speaker 6: I try to blow up the NFC.
Speaker 2: So you did. You tried, and I was mocked.
Speaker 3: We try giggled you off the stage and now we
Speaker 3: look like.
Speaker 1: Well, she didn't really know what she was talking about
Speaker 1: the segment, but that's she did.
Speaker 5: Ye came all the way around right in another world,
Speaker 5: like you would say, maybe the NFC South could get
Speaker 5: two teams in here because they all said cheesy schedules,
Speaker 5: but they'll find a way to blow it. I think
Speaker 5: if you look at the AFC one seed, the Chiefs
Speaker 5: have the easiest schedule, remaining twenty first easiest in the league,
Speaker 5: while the Ravens have the hardest. The other three teams
Speaker 5: that are in the mix the Ravens, the Dolphins, and
Speaker 5: the Jaguars. The Ravens play the Dolphins and the Jaguars,
Speaker 5: so those are guaranteed l's for one of those teams here,
Speaker 5: and the Chiefs don't really have many difficult games or
Speaker 5: really any difficult games the rest.
Speaker 1: Of the way a winning team, I don't right.
Speaker 5: I think this Packers game is a little bit tricky,
Speaker 5: and they have an AT Chargers, but they always find
Speaker 5: a way there. Whereas I mentioned what the Ravens have,
Speaker 5: the Dolphins have, Cowboys, they have an AT Ravens, they
Speaker 5: have a Bills, the Jags they probably have the second
Speaker 5: best chance here they have an AT Browns, and then
Speaker 5: they have that Ravens game here. But man is shaping
Speaker 5: up to be Chiefs number one. And then if you
Speaker 5: look at the wild cards, the Texans are really the
Speaker 5: team that stand out as having the easiest schedule remaining.
Speaker 5: And so that's good for your Texans, Mark.
Speaker 3: I have one little scheduling you know, request too, that
Speaker 3: we've been light on the flexing, like team like the Patriots,
Speaker 3: plays three primetime games between now and the end of
Speaker 3: their hellish journey that we don't need to lay eyes on,
Speaker 3: and there are not I went through and looked at
Speaker 3: all the primetime games, and there's a couple of good ones,
Speaker 3: you know, thankfully for everyone involved, But there are some
Speaker 3: stinkers out there and some teams that were projected to
Speaker 3: still matter, and they don't like start flexing some of
Speaker 3: these games. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, can we get rid
Speaker 3: of the Patriots?
Speaker 6: On Christmas Eve? They're playing the Broncos. The Broncos are
Speaker 6: good now, but that's good.
Speaker 1: Actually it's Christmas Eve night and like, I want to
Speaker 1: spend time with my family's.
Speaker 3: It's the third game.
Speaker 1: If you want, you can even flex an NFC South
Speaker 1: game in there, and it is like I'm going to
Speaker 1: be with my family and and some and you never know.
Speaker 5: Sometimes like Packers Chiefs to me a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 5: is like, really that it's the same night game and
Speaker 5: now that's one of the most fun games of the week.
Speaker 5: And the last one is that of all the NFC
Speaker 5: wildcard teams. And it's why you see on some of
Speaker 5: these projections that the Packers are already up to a
Speaker 5: fifty percent chance to make the playoffs. They have the
Speaker 5: easiest schedule remain and they have this tough Chiefs game,
Speaker 5: but after that they're all very winnable games.
Speaker 1: It's funny because even at this high point right now
Speaker 1: for the Packers, I still include them in this huge
Speaker 1: middle class of the NFL. It's pretty inconsistent week to
Speaker 1: week sure, and it's like, even though you're right, the
Speaker 1: schedule matters more next we have a better idea of
Speaker 1: what these teams are. I can't look at it even
Speaker 1: It's a perfect test for you, Mark, because I know
Speaker 1: we've had there's been some type of bad energy around
Speaker 1: teams that you have adopted in recent years on the show.
Speaker 1: The Texans, Okay, they seem pretty safe. They have this
Speaker 1: beautiful young quarterback. They have a really cohesive group, and
Speaker 1: they're well coached, and the schedules soft.
Speaker 2: This is gonna be a good test. Mark.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not gonna do anything I can to declare
Speaker 3: publicly anything because I know what will have happen. The
Speaker 3: team will implode from the inside out.
Speaker 1: And in terms of the energy I think you're attached
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 3: Well, I apologize, I don't.
Speaker 1: It's maybe this is different.
Speaker 5: The last time they played in a two score game
Speaker 5: was Week four, so they're kind of a coin flip team.
Speaker 5: Even though they're fine and they have a good quarterback
Speaker 5: and any look at every single game comes down to
Speaker 5: the last play basically that they play.
Speaker 3: This is a good segue to go ahead of the
Speaker 3: team I want to talk about that. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think within the last Fortnite, we're kind of like acknowledged
Speaker 3: that we forgot they existed, but they are lodged right
Speaker 3: now as the AFC's number seventh team. It's the Cults.
Speaker 3: I think that if you look at the journey of
Speaker 3: this team that a year ago we were talking about
Speaker 3: Frank Reich melting down there and it's like, what's the
Speaker 3: future here? And I don't know if there's a it's
Speaker 3: a to me, like a top two or three impressive
Speaker 3: coaching job by Shane Steichen. You have an excuse if
Speaker 3: your other teams, like the Bengals, you lose your starting quarterback,
Speaker 3: like everything kind of goes south. The ben to me,
Speaker 3: are like two steps away from just being like an apparition.
Speaker 3: They don't even exist. We saw what happened with the Jets.
Speaker 3: Couldn't be more unfortunate. Shane Siken loses his rookie first
Speaker 3: rounder Anthony Richardson, incomes Gardner Minshew, who is a total
Speaker 3: hot and cold act. Instead what I think he's done
Speaker 3: is kept that team together. They've won a bunch of
Speaker 3: close games. You're in an AFC where the Chargers and
Speaker 3: the Bengals, like we mentioned, are fading into a false reality.
Speaker 3: And listen to this schedule for the Colts, the Titans,
Speaker 3: the Bengals, the Steelers, the Falcons, the Raiders, the Texans.
Speaker 3: You are currently right now the number seven seed lodged
Speaker 3: with the Houston Texans, same record, and these surging Broncos
Speaker 3: also at six and five, and you've got the Bills
Speaker 3: at six and six, and then it falls off a cliff.
Speaker 3: So I think the Colts have a real opportunity to
Speaker 3: remind us once again that they're not just this little project.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Jonathan Taylor surgery, like I'm sticking togery, it's a relative
Speaker 3: multiple relevant news item. Helped us not have to do
Speaker 3: a huge news SUG because I stuck the Jonathan Taylor
Speaker 3: news right in the middle of this hey new sug
Speaker 3: news seg I should say, so we've got that. I
Speaker 3: think Zach Moss though, like Zach Moss played really well
Speaker 3: surprisingly when Jonathan tailor Jonathan.
Speaker 5: It's a big hit though for my running back draft
Speaker 5: because I was thinking last week. Suddenly, suddenly Kamara Taylor
Speaker 5: Bijon was looking better than your trash teams and all
Speaker 5: the heat I was taken.
Speaker 1: Oh it's great.
Speaker 3: I have Christian McCaffrey one.
Speaker 2: This is what's fascinating about Greg. He's been tracking.
Speaker 5: I don't even remember a competitive I don't either, but
Speaker 5: I do remember that by three that I was worried
Speaker 5: about they were coming together.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is a good little group here,
Speaker 1: can you can you look up again? I'm sorry, it's
Speaker 1: like the most like third time I asked Eric to
Speaker 1: look up our running back groups. Cool, Mark, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: Do I have permission, and I don't say this to
Speaker 1: anger any of the great people of the Indiana and
Speaker 1: Indianapolis one of my favorite nflc I don't really care
Speaker 1: about the Colts. They kind of are ticketed to eight
Speaker 1: nine or nine and eight, and maybe they're playing on
Speaker 1: Saturday of wild Card weekend, and maybe that's the one
Speaker 1: game that if you had to miss, you'll choose to
Speaker 1: miss because I don't see a lot of juice with
Speaker 1: this team, and it will be commendable if they do
Speaker 1: end up getting out of the regular season. But this
Speaker 1: team doesn't necessarily excite me.
Speaker 3: I think it's like for me, what it points to
Speaker 3: is that like a team that post Andrew Luck had
Speaker 3: no identity and it just struggled, especially quarterback, Like whether
Speaker 3: or not, no matter what we get with Anthony Anthony Richardson,
Speaker 3: that matters a lot. Like I think you've got a
Speaker 3: coach who can be around for a really long time,
Speaker 3: and I just think it's been an impressive but under
Speaker 3: the radar coaching job.
Speaker 1: Hey hear you.
Speaker 5: But you know how they kind of remind me of
Speaker 5: is all those Frank Reig teams that would win, Like
Speaker 5: Frank Reich found a way to win all those years.
Speaker 5: He had a great record until last year the option
Speaker 5: with weird quarterbacks and backups, and I think stych. I
Speaker 5: think psychics like they weren't really irrelevant, they were.
Speaker 3: I think psychics like the future of offense where Reich
Speaker 3: is we were didn't even want to change what he
Speaker 3: did in Caroline and be flexible and be open minded.
Speaker 3: So I can just think you've got to guy to
Speaker 3: latch onto. And I wouldn't mind seeing the Colts instead
Speaker 3: of what we've gotten from the Steelers. Oh all right,
Speaker 3: And like frankly wait and see on the Browns offense
Speaker 3: that whole thing.
Speaker 5: Can I just jump into the Steelers because that's what
Speaker 5: I think matters to jumping in.
Speaker 2: Yes, one last thing before you do.
Speaker 1: I just want to say we all, we all could
Speaker 1: succumb to this, but we have optimism around the Colts
Speaker 1: because they just beat the Panthers, Patriots and Bucks. I
Speaker 1: just want to see the fact that the schedule stays soft.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's gonna It's.
Speaker 5: Not even teams that are just like the Colts, they
Speaker 5: have a very average schedule where they could win anything.
Speaker 1: I would say a three game stretch on the Panthers
Speaker 1: and the Patriots is pretty damp.
Speaker 5: No, I mean, moving forward, it's not a brutal it's
Speaker 5: not it's not too hard.
Speaker 1: It's very act.
Speaker 5: They're playing a bunch of teams kind of like the
Speaker 5: Colts and they and that. It's like, okay, I think
Speaker 5: they're better than the Raiders, Raiders Texans week.
Speaker 1: Connie, did you have something to add before we to Greg?
Speaker 4: I mean, I was just gonna mention that Michael Pittman,
Speaker 4: it's great, but that was really I mean, it's not
Speaker 4: a team that excites me either, Like they haven't. They
Speaker 4: haven't since Jonathan Taylor was running wild Anthony Richardson injury.
Speaker 3: Well, you also, you know a year ago had them
Speaker 3: ticketed as like an AFC.
Speaker 6: I don't want to really, that.
Speaker 1: Was a dark power ranking subject throughout the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two season.
Speaker 5: All right, Greg, I take issue with you saying anything
Speaker 5: negative about your Steelers. So you said, uh, we're gonna
Speaker 5: win twelve games, you got a shot at this here, Mark,
Speaker 5: I do I think I'm putting them in the playoffs.
Speaker 5: I think we can ticket five teams to the playoffs
Speaker 5: in the AFC, the Ravens, the Chiefs, the Jags, the Dolphins,
Speaker 5: and the Steelers. The Steelers' offensive resurgence, and it's not
Speaker 5: just since last week when they fired Matt Canada.
Speaker 1: It's since their bye week matters. Since then, they.
Speaker 5: Are third in the NFL in rushing EPA, they're eleventh
Speaker 5: overall in offense, their fourth and success rate. That's since
Speaker 5: Week six. That's more than half of the season that's
Speaker 5: happened so far. They have an identity. They are a
Speaker 5: very good running team with two good running backs. They're
Speaker 5: an effective running team. They can finish out games. They
Speaker 5: rush the passer really well. They got some holes on defense,
Speaker 5: but they tend to make up for it with coaching
Speaker 5: and turnovers, and I think we've seen the worst out
Speaker 5: of their offense. I'm not saying Pickett's gonna play like
Speaker 5: he did on Sunday, where I thought he really play
Speaker 5: play well, really well against the Bengals. I don't really
Speaker 5: trust him, but I trust them. They're seven and four
Speaker 5: and their schedule is pretty easy. I don't think they'll
Speaker 5: come back and beat the Ravens, but like I think
Speaker 5: there's a better chance of them winning the AFC North
Speaker 5: then there is falling out of the playoffs, and that's
Speaker 5: partly because they got Cardinals, Patriots, Colts Bengals the next
Speaker 5: four weeks before a tough final two games at Seattle
Speaker 5: at Baltimore.
Speaker 3: So Seattle may not be that tough pat either.
Speaker 5: Your twelve is not totally crazy, and I actually think
Speaker 5: if you drill down here, this is a pretty good team.
Speaker 5: It's probably a team that's like either one and done
Speaker 5: or loses in the second around of the playoffs. But
Speaker 5: they're not an embarrassing team. I think they got lucky
Speaker 5: early and now they're actually good.
Speaker 3: They have about seven hundred yards of rushing over the
Speaker 3: last five weeks.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Yeah, that's what you want to do.
Speaker 6: I was so excited.
Speaker 4: So this year I felt like the Steelers were sort
Speaker 4: of my Colts coming into the regular season because I
Speaker 4: had gone there for training camp and I drank all
Speaker 4: of the kool aid and there were so many things
Speaker 4: to be excited about. And then watching them play, obviously,
Speaker 4: it was like this team, it just doesn't feel like
Speaker 4: they match their record, Like what I'm watching on the
Speaker 4: field doesn't seem like it should correspond with the winning
Speaker 4: record that they have. But now they've caught up to it,
Speaker 4: and it kind of does feel.
Speaker 6: It feels they're frisky and.
Speaker 3: You're the other side of it too. They have allowed
Speaker 3: under twenty points in six of their last seven games,
Speaker 3: and so that's been consistent. I think TJ. Watson kind
Speaker 3: of got to win a playoff game for you. That's
Speaker 3: his DNA, And like, if I get this twelve wins
Speaker 3: Steelers thing, going to that offen and they don't play right.
Speaker 5: The real team really, I guess the Colts. I take
Speaker 5: that back, but that's not a real quarterback in terms
Speaker 5: of like the top.
Speaker 1: Here's here's why December thirty. First, here's what here's what
Speaker 1: makes this make sense. Okay, because even they could get
Speaker 1: to twelve, but they're not really a twelve win team. No,
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter for your prediction. That doesn't matter at all.
Speaker 1: The truth of the matter is, and it's very simple.
Speaker 1: They are a ten and seventeen that got the Bengals
Speaker 1: twice after Joe Burrow got hurt perfect time in. So
Speaker 1: they they're gonna pick up two wins that they probably
Speaker 1: had no business getting. And that's gonna ten plus two
Speaker 1: e goes twelve. M that's and so in my mind,
Speaker 1: this is kind of like a fringy nine or ten
Speaker 1: win team that again and not another another team stick
Speaker 1: them on Saturday. God, hopefully maybe we can get the
Speaker 1: salt the Steelers and Colts and locking horns and knocking
Speaker 1: to get that game off the grid and tires.
Speaker 5: One advances they got to that, true too, but I
Speaker 5: think they I think they could. The only thing I
Speaker 5: pushed back on just a little. I think I'd put
Speaker 5: them at eleven. I mean, you're right, in general, they
Speaker 5: are a ten win team, but now, like looking forward,
Speaker 5: I don't think the Bengals would have swept them with
Speaker 5: Joe Burrow, Like this Bengals team has issues, and I
Speaker 5: think this Steelers team can be a legit top ten
Speaker 5: type of team. I think they most likely split split.
Speaker 6: That division games.
Speaker 1: You know, the margins to check out the Joe Burrow
Speaker 1: film when he was healthy there for a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks they were looking I hear you, Cincinnati, there's other issues.
Speaker 1: That's another frustrating supplier.
Speaker 3: You've mentioned about six teams that you want to play
Speaker 3: on that invisible Saturday playoff game. But like that, I
Speaker 3: think to the point of that, if you look at
Speaker 3: the top seven or eight in both conferences, there's a
Speaker 3: lot of junk that's gonna escape.
Speaker 1: That's why that's coming up repeatedly. There are some of
Speaker 1: these teams at the bottom of the playoff picture are
Speaker 1: really teams you just want to get to Division round.
Speaker 2: Football as soon as possible. That you know it.
Speaker 1: I'll still be watching the games. I'll still enjoy them.
Speaker 1: Could be drama, all right, you're professionals, no total bro.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll do my other one. All right, here's
Speaker 1: what matters. Trevor Lawrence and the doomed quarterback class of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Look at it, you ready, Trevor Lawrence
Speaker 1: number one overall in the twenty twenty one draft. It was,
Speaker 1: it was signed, sealed, and delivered the moment he declared
Speaker 1: out of.
Speaker 2: Man, I don't know this.
Speaker 1: You have the ball, that's right. Well, I have a
Speaker 1: deep connection with the university out of Clemson. Okay, now
Speaker 1: do you want to Should I share the ball story? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think it would.
Speaker 1: Help now, either that or we have to edit that out.
Speaker 2: Yes, because now can you grab the ball?
Speaker 1: I a couple of weeks ago, I was in the
Speaker 1: office and and I went downstairs where we have like
Speaker 1: our dressing area, and there was a football sitting with
Speaker 1: all my shirts and stuff. And I picked it up
Speaker 1: and my name was on it, like and it was
Speaker 1: beauty and you want to get a.
Speaker 2: Shot of this here?
Speaker 1: My name was on it, and uh, it says most
Speaker 1: valuable partner, Dan Hansis, thank you for aiding in the
Speaker 1: professional development of our scholar athlete and providing a life
Speaker 1: changing career experience during our twenty twenty three Los Angeles
Speaker 1: business week trip. And then it's signed by head coach
Speaker 1: of Clemson Dave O Sweeney Dallas.
Speaker 3: Wait, what was this that you did for them?
Speaker 2: Or they're nothing.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: How do you know?
Speaker 1: And because you told me?
Speaker 2: How do you know? Though? I love how mad Greg
Speaker 2: gets back.
Speaker 4: Kansas displayed it in the window here in the podcast studio,
Speaker 4: so anyone walking past the studio.
Speaker 3: I rotated the football so that so that if you
Speaker 3: walk by, you could see his name prominently displayed.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing on the top.
Speaker 6: Of a mug, so it was hoisted up as well.
Speaker 1: If you do is it perfectly clear to anyone myself
Speaker 1: included what I did for this scholar athlete?
Speaker 2: No, not not on the surface.
Speaker 1: But do I have this football and my name aggraved
Speaker 1: in it and signed by one of the most sam
Speaker 1: as head coach? I mean something with all these nice
Speaker 1: words about me that is absolutely true.
Speaker 2: What did it say you do that is apparent?
Speaker 5: But you help the scholar athletes on a business tree?
Speaker 5: Now I realize it's not from Clemson. It's from Dabos
Speaker 5: Sweeney in some sort of.
Speaker 2: Paw journey, which is is a lifestyle of winning.
Speaker 3: What business trip was this?
Speaker 1: And I don't I'm like one of those people, like
Speaker 1: there are people that do things nice things and then
Speaker 1: make sure everyone knows about it. Yeah, there are people
Speaker 1: that just try to keep it to themselves. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to leave it kind of more mysterious. And you know, yes, Greg,
Speaker 1: there's also people this.
Speaker 6: Was absolutely a clerical error.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to know, Like, is it as I
Speaker 5: know you want to My theory is a listener somehow
Speaker 5: is involved with this program and sent it as.
Speaker 1: A joke about you. There's no other explanation.
Speaker 3: Well that's that's one way to look at It's a
Speaker 3: flat out clerical mistake.
Speaker 4: The way that you're holding this football right now and
Speaker 4: displaying it now, You're cradling it like.
Speaker 1: A maybe not say name Sweeney, because I don't do
Speaker 1: it for the autograph or even for the head coach
Speaker 1: to to send me this beautiful ball. I just do
Speaker 1: it at all.
Speaker 2: What do you mean?
Speaker 1: What do you know? I love it? I do love
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you love it. Greg Creig sent it.
Speaker 3: There is a selfless nature to you, Dan, and I
Speaker 3: don't think anyone could deny that.
Speaker 1: And like now that the football landed in my lap, yeah,
Speaker 1: did I rotate it this morning toward the window, Because
Speaker 1: I think it's an inspiration to others to also give
Speaker 1: their time for people who need it.
Speaker 3: Maybe another student. Nowt I get a little pause. Come on,
Speaker 3: let's take its home. All right, let's move on. You're anyway,
Speaker 3: Trevor Lawrence got to end the second we.
Speaker 1: Trevor Lawrence number one overall pick, Zach Wilson, number two
Speaker 1: overall pick Zach Wilson, Trey Lanceon number three overall pick,
Speaker 1: Justin Fields, the number eleven overall pick, Mac Jones, the
Speaker 1: fifteenth overall pick. None of the last four names are
Speaker 1: going to get a second contract with the team that drafted.
Speaker 2: Them, and one of them is already no longer with
Speaker 2: a team.
Speaker 1: That's Trey lance And it's now all up to Trevor
Speaker 1: Lawrence to make that. By the way, which was kind
Speaker 1: of a fascinating draft class, Mark, would you mind pulling
Speaker 1: up the twenty twenty one NFL draft class? Great first round,
Speaker 1: tons of stars, and the quarterbacks were the headliners, and
Speaker 1: they pretty much all busted except for Lawrence. And now
Speaker 1: you look at Trevor Lawrence, and I mentioned it a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago, but he closed strong last year.
Speaker 1: His last seven games. I looked this up on Pro
Speaker 1: Football Reference. He had a one hundred and four passer rating,
Speaker 1: twelve touchdowns, two interceptions, He added two rushing scores, completed
Speaker 1: sixty eight percent of his passes.
Speaker 2: They won the AFC.
Speaker 1: South, had one of the great comebacks in the history
Speaker 1: of the NFL against the Chargers, and then gave the
Speaker 1: Chiefs all they could handle in the divisional round. As
Speaker 1: Greg mentioned, they have a pretty soft remaining schedule No Burrough,
Speaker 1: Cincinnati at Cleveland with dtr or whoever home against Baltimore,
Speaker 1: major game with high level stakes in the AFC playoff picture,
Speaker 1: and the potential by at Tampa home Carolina at Tennessee.
Speaker 1: They absolutely can be a twelve or thirteen win team
Speaker 1: if they get high level play from their quarterback, who
Speaker 1: is the only QB that matters out of that draft class.
Speaker 1: We shall see how he finishes and how the Jags finish.
Speaker 1: I'm not totally giving whoever you are, You're welcome.
Speaker 3: That is a terrible quarterback class, looking at him from
Speaker 3: the top to.
Speaker 5: Bottom, I'm not giving up on fields having a reasonable
Speaker 5: career where he starts a lot of games and has
Speaker 5: a better second act like a Ryan Tannehill type of guy.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't put him nearly in the same class of where.
Speaker 1: Will Well He'll be traded though in the offseason. I
Speaker 1: don't think he'll be on the Bears. I'm a team
Speaker 1: that we've seen him ass up the number one overall
Speaker 1: pick last year to keep right. But Trey Lance and
Speaker 1: Zach Welson and Mac Jones are in very dark places.
Speaker 1: I just put Fields like a little right to the side,
Speaker 1: and they're just kind of crazy. It is because the
Speaker 1: next quarterbacks that were taken in that class were Kellen
Speaker 1: Mond right after a long break, Davis Mills like it, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess he's living.
Speaker 2: Wills was in that first round. Mark, that was a
Speaker 2: good first round.
Speaker 3: Well, it's Trevor Lawrence, it's Zach Wilson, it's Trey Lance,
Speaker 3: it's justin Fields, it's Mac Jones. Then it falls off
Speaker 3: to Kyle Traskin. So I mean the other players that
Speaker 3: weren't quarterback, Oh absolutely, look there is You've got Michael
Speaker 3: Parsons in there.
Speaker 1: Parsons is twelfth. Yep, you got Mark Chase's.
Speaker 3: Fifth, Penay Sewell, Patrick Sutan, DeVonta Smith.
Speaker 5: Kyle Pitts was fourth, Wattle was sixth. I mean, Sewell's
Speaker 5: an All Pro or Pro bowler, so Sertan at nine.
Speaker 5: Devanta Smith might as well be at ten, great player
Speaker 5: Parsons at twelve. Slater made an All Pro team at thirteen.
Speaker 5: That is a great top of the draft that the But.
Speaker 3: That said, though quarter Jets were not gonna take you know,
Speaker 3: a linebacker at this like there was. It was like
Speaker 3: you have to keep trying.
Speaker 1: Well. Once the Jets beat the Rams in Week sixteen,
Speaker 1: they locked themselves out of the Trevor Lawrence swop stakes,
Speaker 1: and they would have been no matter what they would
Speaker 1: have done, they would have been wrong.
Speaker 2: But doesn't make it feel any better.
Speaker 6: And this quarterback class, that one was sold to us
Speaker 6: as a really.
Speaker 2: Good generational class. Yeah, yeah, that's just where it is.
Speaker 3: So bawning over Zach Wilson even a year into his career.
Speaker 1: So I just want to like say that Lawrence and
Speaker 1: the Jags are a team to watch down the stretch
Speaker 1: here with a soft schedule and good positioning, and they could,
Speaker 1: even though it strikes you as odd, potentially be the
Speaker 1: number one seed in them I give him the little
Speaker 1: less of a chance than the Chiefs, but they were
Speaker 1: the second last. But this way, at a certain point
Speaker 1: before games were played, they were the number one seed.
Speaker 1: On Sunday it changed but that tells you how incredibly
Speaker 1: packed things are.
Speaker 2: But also they're in the mix absolutely right.
Speaker 3: I have one quick one yeah, because it's the literally
Speaker 3: one of the biggest sports stories around, and it's we're
Speaker 3: about forty days away from knowing the fate very simply
Speaker 3: of Bill Belichick staying in New England or leaving the Patriots,
Speaker 3: maybe saying good bye to him when they had the
Speaker 3: number one overall pick or first, second or third, and
Speaker 3: then like in a any given Sunday Al Pacino Closer,
Speaker 3: like have you.
Speaker 1: Seen that movie, Collen?
Speaker 3: I have, yes, there you go, like Belichick turning right
Speaker 3: around and continuing his coaching career and chasing Don Shula's
Speaker 3: record somewhere else, maybe with the Chargers, maybe with the Commanders,
Speaker 3: the commis.
Speaker 2: You know what's you know what's interesting?
Speaker 1: Is there anything that Belichick can do from this point
Speaker 1: to January seventh that would change his fate in New England?
Speaker 3: I think it would more come down to the fact
Speaker 3: that crafty or the other I don't know, you know,
Speaker 3: I think if your craft.
Speaker 5: And your game, if you go six and oh with
Speaker 5: Bailey z Appy, that would probably.
Speaker 1: Change Or is it just already over?
Speaker 3: Why would that change Why wouldn't change it?
Speaker 1: Then I'm just saying, that's what I'm saying. Have they
Speaker 1: already made the decision?
Speaker 3: More like what Craft is weighing as other op and
Speaker 3: it's going to be, you know, the coach that's to
Speaker 3: come be post Bill Belichick. You know, if it's Gerald Mayo,
Speaker 3: maybe it's already decided to Craft's mind.
Speaker 5: But Belichick said this week that he enjoys coaching this
Speaker 5: team and enjoys coaching as which now as he did
Speaker 5: when they were winning Super Bowls, which Okay, there's no
Speaker 5: way I don't quite believe that, but I do believe
Speaker 5: a that's a signal I plan to continue coaching, and
Speaker 5: he wants the record.
Speaker 1: And I actually do believe him that he.
Speaker 5: Believes in He's probably right that he is going to
Speaker 5: find no greater satisfaction or enjoyment or joy in his
Speaker 5: life than doing what he's doing. So he's gonnaep doing
Speaker 5: it if someone hires him to do it, and.
Speaker 1: If he if he could be hired by a team
Speaker 1: that has an established quarterback thats on their schedule, I
Speaker 1: think he would like that too.
Speaker 5: That would be be willing to give up running the
Speaker 5: organization because I do think he's not that far away
Speaker 5: from the defensive version of Mike Shanahan, which is like
Speaker 5: Mike Shanahan running the organization where he was essentially the owner,
Speaker 5: ruined that he was still like his son, the best
Speaker 5: play caller in the league.
Speaker 1: And for everything that.
Speaker 5: Bill Belichick, you know, isn't doing right, they're still ranked
Speaker 5: pretty high defensively. Like I think he's still a fine
Speaker 5: game day coach, like he could coach up a defense.
Speaker 1: He just everything else. I don't think Bill's gonna want
Speaker 1: to go somewhere where someone else's as Bill Parcells telling
Speaker 1: Bill Belichick, if you're gonna, you know, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: ask me to cook the meal, you gotta let me
Speaker 1: shop for the groceries about forty I can't see Bill
Speaker 1: having someone else go to the supermarket. You're probably right,
Speaker 1: but if you have I don't know, Justin Herbert is
Speaker 1: a quarterback, then you have a little more margin for error,
Speaker 1: which he does not have. Right now, all right, let's
Speaker 1: get to Thursday night football unless we're good, all right,
Speaker 1: good talk, good seg Thursday night Football. Yes, the AFA
Speaker 1: mentioned Dallas Cowboys are at home, where they have been
Speaker 1: unstoppable this year. Including a Thursday night bashing of the
Speaker 1: Commanders that got people fired. They host the Seattle Seahawks,
Speaker 1: and these are two teams, Connie and again Colleen, who
Speaker 1: anchors coverage of TNF on NFL Network, Two teams going
Speaker 1: in different directions. So I think the general sentiment out
Speaker 1: there and I don't know what the desert saying, but.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna guess, Greggy, I'm gonna guess about who. Maybe
Speaker 8: seven and a half. I'm checking at least it's up
Speaker 8: to nine.
Speaker 1: Up to nine, my god. The general sentiment out there
Speaker 1: in the Vegas sentiment is that the Cowboys are going
Speaker 1: to keep rolling. Is there anything that you're seeing in
Speaker 1: your studying of the Seahawks that says, you know what,
Speaker 1: this could be a team that the game they hang
Speaker 1: around in and maybe even win.
Speaker 4: So the only thing that jumps out at me is
Speaker 4: Gino Smith. Yes, he was definitely not one hundred percent
Speaker 4: last week. We knew that after hurting his elbow, and
Speaker 4: he wasn't a full participant in practice going into that
Speaker 4: Thanksgiving game. But this week he's had He's participated in
Speaker 4: all of the practices fully. So his uh, I think
Speaker 4: Pete Carroll came out and said that, like it's a
Speaker 4: night and day difference for him coming into this game.
Speaker 4: So maybe we see a little bit more from Gino
Speaker 4: because that was just not a great performance by him
Speaker 4: at all. But yeah, I mean these two teams. I
Speaker 4: think the Seahawks are like a perfect example of how
Speaker 4: volatile the NFL is this year in general, because they
Speaker 4: were five and two, they were one of the darlings
Speaker 4: of the NFC. They were in conversations about challenging the
Speaker 4: Niners for the division, and then they lost three of
Speaker 4: four games, including the San Francisco on and they're still
Speaker 4: in the playoff picture. But their next three games at Dallas,
Speaker 4: at San Francisco, and then hosting the Eagles, that's a
Speaker 4: really tough stretch. And with these two teams matching up
Speaker 4: on Thursday, Like Deron Bland has more touchdowns than any of.
Speaker 6: The Seahawks wide receivers, so they.
Speaker 4: Kind of I know that they run the ball well
Speaker 4: and they're gonna have to to win this game or
Speaker 4: even make it close.
Speaker 3: Metcalf has won one hundred plus yard performance. There's a
Speaker 3: number out there that says on tight window throws, he's
Speaker 3: caught two of seventeen tight window targets. The offense has
Speaker 3: fallen off a cliff since Week nine, allowing just over
Speaker 3: fifteen points per game. They're allowing almost twenty eight on defense.
Speaker 3: Dallas has never trailed at home this entire season. Seattle's
Speaker 3: gone twenty straight drives without a touchdown. So it's not
Speaker 3: just the healthier version of Gino Smith. It's like we're
Speaker 3: watching a team that I think had great promise and
Speaker 3: is starting to crumble left and right. You don't have
Speaker 3: Kenneth Walker, and I see issues on both sides of
Speaker 3: the ball, And do I trust Pete Carroll on the
Speaker 3: road against a white hot Cowboys team to coach his
Speaker 3: way out of it? If I say I don't trust them,
Speaker 3: they'll probably win anyways, because I remember what happened last
Speaker 3: week to predict.
Speaker 5: It, Greg, it's a little dan Quinn Pete Carroll off,
Speaker 5: by the way, dah oh, that's true. Dan Quinn's coaching
Speaker 5: up a storm. Pete Carroll twenty second in defensive DVOA.
Speaker 5: They've been below average now for five out of six years.
Speaker 5: The one year they weren't was the pandemic year where
Speaker 5: they were thirteenth. So he's a defensive coach with a
Speaker 5: below average defense basically every year.
Speaker 1: Uh, Greg, you know what else matters in these last
Speaker 1: six weeks, I think it's your boy. I think Gino's
Speaker 1: playing for his job these last six weeks of the
Speaker 1: regular season because I think he's had a you know,
Speaker 1: pretty Gino coaster type year, and I think contract wise,
Speaker 1: they can make a move if they have to after
Speaker 1: this year, so he's got to put better tape out
Speaker 1: there as well.
Speaker 5: I think they're more likely to draft a quarterback to
Speaker 5: pair with him because of the contract that he has,
Speaker 5: which is similar to the Derek Carr contract with the Raiders,
Speaker 5: which you can't get off of it, but you'd have
Speaker 5: to still guaranteed like twelve million years.
Speaker 1: But if his next season money looks like his last
Speaker 1: six weeks, I think they could go in a different direction.
Speaker 5: I don't think they would do that with a veteran
Speaker 5: because I think he's played over that line of just
Speaker 5: like he's better than average, so we're gonna.
Speaker 1: Need right, Yes, I do.
Speaker 5: I do think though that that, like, like the Thursday
Speaker 5: night game was a great example, Like they've had a
Speaker 5: couple of these games this year and it's boring to
Speaker 5: point this out, but they get steamrolled offensively and defensively
Speaker 5: on the line, they have no pass rush essentially, that's consistent.
Speaker 5: They put all this money in Draymond Jones, they traded
Speaker 5: for Leonard Williams, you know, boy Mafia, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: They get rocked.
Speaker 5: And the Cowboys offensive line has been great, and then
Speaker 5: you flip it and Gino's facing i think the third
Speaker 5: highest pressure rate in the league, despite getting rid of
Speaker 5: the ball pretty quickly and mostly avoiding sex. They do
Speaker 5: get Abe Lucas possibly back for this game to replace
Speaker 5: the forty forty one year old Jason Peters for the
Speaker 5: first time since Week one. This would be the first
Speaker 5: time they have their tackles back together for the first
Speaker 5: time since week one. But there's there's still got like
Speaker 5: a missing guard or two, Like their two lines are bad,
Speaker 5: and it's man, the Cowboys are so good upfront on
Speaker 5: both sides. It's it's sad, I'm not looking forward to
Speaker 5: you don't playing this this defense because there's no reason
Speaker 5: to think that they're gonna play well.
Speaker 3: I think also, if you're Dallas, like you could point
Speaker 3: to figures on the roster who have improved, like we've
Speaker 3: gotten a much better version of Brandon Cooks the last
Speaker 3: couple of weeks, we're waiting for that. I think Tony
Speaker 3: Poller has been running the ball better than any point
Speaker 3: in the year. And then it's like they're the kind
Speaker 3: of team that if you get behind against Dallas, they
Speaker 3: just start to unleak dark like dark hell on everyone.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like, I don't know, I don't love
Speaker 3: the formula for Seattle here.
Speaker 4: No, And also I kind of think it's interesting that
Speaker 4: the Seahawks they just signed Calvin Joseph too to their
Speaker 4: practice squad, so a former Cowboy.
Speaker 6: They have a couple of former.
Speaker 4: Cowboys spy on the Yeah, on the team if you
Speaker 4: count Jason Peters, I guess at this point, but the
Speaker 4: Cowboys offensive line has been playing so well. Both Smith's
Speaker 4: on the left side, Tyron and Tyler they look great just.
Speaker 3: The right Dallas Yeah really said they had three Hall
Speaker 3: of famers on their line, including Tyler Smith.
Speaker 1: I think Dak is also, I think he misspoke. I
Speaker 1: think he was thinking.
Speaker 3: I mean, he did say it. I don't right, He's
Speaker 3: probably not pounding the table, I think on the line
Speaker 3: for a grocery store something. Back when before Travis Frederick retired.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Cooks obviously, CD Lambsman an All Pro this year.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Pollard starting to heat up. Uh, you are
Speaker 1: getting a situation where I think Dak is lifting all
Speaker 1: boats here and uh, Connie, here's a good stat that's
Speaker 1: from Barnwell, write this one down, buddy. Yeah, he has
Speaker 1: an eighty point seven QBR since Week six, and I
Speaker 1: think WEEKSA you're butter knifing in a little bit because
Speaker 1: I think that's when he bombed out against San Francisco.
Speaker 1: But since that game, Uh, he has an eighty point
Speaker 1: seven QBR. Nobody else in the entire NFL is over
Speaker 1: sixty eight. So he's head and shoulders the best QB
Speaker 1: in the league for a month and a half now.
Speaker 1: And I just think of everything sets up in prime
Speaker 1: time with the Cowboys feeling themselves. Oh yeah, they are
Speaker 1: in normal rest even though they played on Thursday night.
Speaker 1: Same with the Seahawks, by the way, Uh, to keep
Speaker 1: rolling on offense, I think we could be looking at
Speaker 1: another thirty to forty burger.
Speaker 4: I could definitely see that. It feels like they're at
Speaker 4: the height of their power right now. And Dak Prescott, Yeah,
Speaker 4: he's on an absolute tear. He was actually asked about it.
Speaker 4: You know, he has a daughter that's due in March
Speaker 4: coming up, so you could call him Dad Prescott if
Speaker 4: you want, well you could, But he was saying that
Speaker 4: he was asked about the how well he's been playing,
Speaker 4: like he.
Speaker 1: Said, shopping that for Moocha on Thursday night.
Speaker 3: Mooch alone, that this show exists, I'm sure he does.
Speaker 3: You just have him on sure, I mean so much.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he knows the show exists, but
Speaker 1: I mean, what a great guy?
Speaker 6: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: He is the best always.
Speaker 1: Uncle Uncle Mooch here in the office. Everybody like Steve Mariucci.
Speaker 4: He is just the sweetest, most genuine like he's so
Speaker 4: much fun to be around.
Speaker 6: I love doing shows with him. And my dad was
Speaker 6: in town right.
Speaker 4: Now because we want to get really yeah, so it's
Speaker 4: like I just had big dad.
Speaker 6: Energy all around me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dad energy is right, I think because we hear
Speaker 1: another one we want to get who we want to
Speaker 1: get on the show the off season, McDaniel.
Speaker 3: We want to get Darius Lay, Kyle Shanahan.
Speaker 2: We want to get.
Speaker 1: Steve Smith my own episode with Colleen. Yeah, and how
Speaker 1: about Mooch. Yeah, Connie as.
Speaker 6: Well, mondays with Mooch. It's one of my favorite days
Speaker 6: of the week.
Speaker 4: And anyway, what I was just about to say though
Speaker 4: about Prescott, he was asked about the tear.
Speaker 6: That he's on right now, and he said that it's
Speaker 6: Dad's strength. That's what's really like pushing him through right now.
Speaker 3: Wait the titled yeah there we go till you're getting
Speaker 3: in about two and a half hours of sleep and
Speaker 3: anything else, I'm this.
Speaker 2: Game all right? Good?
Speaker 1: That's so up. Seahawks.
Speaker 5: They are more interesting nine and a half point underdog
Speaker 5: than most. I'm with you, And there is something to
Speaker 5: the the fact that they're not facing the forty nine ers.
Speaker 5: I know the Cowboys are great, but the Seahawks just
Speaker 5: look like little babies when they go against the forty
Speaker 5: nine ers, like they shouldn't even belong.
Speaker 1: They're they had to have been humbled there.
Speaker 5: If ever they were gonna, you know, respond a little bit,
Speaker 5: try a little harder, Dan, this is the game after
Speaker 5: I mean, that was as bad as it gets last week.
Speaker 3: You know what, other energy to show up? Remember that
Speaker 3: fenothera night, just hit the road. We're good.
Speaker 6: Do the Rams end up getting in the playoffs and
Speaker 6: balancing the Seahawks are in trouble.
Speaker 1: Feel like the Packers are more likely, but yeah, they
Speaker 1: are in trouble. They gotta win on one less underdog,
Speaker 1: fearless prediction. I think Deron Bland gets an interception he
Speaker 1: gets in the open field that gets brought down on
Speaker 1: the Seattle side of the field, so he almost has
Speaker 1: builds on his NFL record with a sixth pick six.
Speaker 5: I thought you were gonna say tackle him, and for
Speaker 5: some reason, Gino has a lot of strength open field tackling.
Speaker 1: I just don't feel like would be one of them.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I will freak out if this happens.
Speaker 1: All right, Okay, okay, okay, I think we covered everything.
Speaker 2: Let me check the rundown.
Speaker 1: Colleen Wolf, do you have I want to give you
Speaker 1: the floor before you say goodbye. Is there anything you
Speaker 1: want to share with the audience and anything you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's a plug or or something personal or what
Speaker 1: I will.
Speaker 6: Be on TV on Thursday? Got that Bursday Night of football?
Speaker 1: What else are your Christmas decorations up yet?
Speaker 6: No Christmas is canceled.
Speaker 4: I yeah, I've canceled it because we had to put
Speaker 4: our sweet baby to.
Speaker 6: Sleep last week.
Speaker 1: Blitzen.
Speaker 6: So one of the reindeer is not suitable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like that's terrible.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry to hear that a down note here. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so I am a basket case and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so there's that, all right, guys, Yes, and you
Speaker 4: and and you will have the one dog and still
Speaker 4: have Dasher.
Speaker 2: You and Johnny will give Dasher the company needs.
Speaker 5: Yeah, by Christmas, you're get in the spirit. I don't
Speaker 5: need a little recovery as.
Speaker 1: I As I've said before with dogs, because I've been
Speaker 1: very close with dogs.
Speaker 2: In my life. They are the perfect animal. Only thing.
Speaker 2: The only fundamental flaw of the dog is it lives
Speaker 2: long enough for you to really embrace it as a
Speaker 2: part of your family, but not long enough to just
Speaker 2: be around, you know, and you get those ten to
Speaker 2: fifteen years.
Speaker 1: And Blitzen was a good dog, great great dog. My
Speaker 1: Boomer was a great dog. Everyone has had a great
Speaker 1: dog for most of us.
Speaker 3: I feel lucky that over the off season I got
Speaker 3: yanked out of the mist to house it.
Speaker 2: At Kanye and house and spend a lot of time
Speaker 2: with both dogs.
Speaker 3: And I'd met them both before, but I it literally, well,
Speaker 3: it kind of fs me up to hear this news
Speaker 3: because they were really sweet and they were best friends too.
Speaker 6: And you sent me the best videos of them.
Speaker 4: I still like the best pictures and videos so many
Speaker 4: throughout the time that you were house sitting, and like,
Speaker 4: I love them. I love every single one that you sent,
Speaker 4: and I save them and I look at them and.
Speaker 1: Advice to a friend, find an ornament that looks like blitzing,
Speaker 1: decorate for the holidays and hang that ornament and celebrate together.
Speaker 2: I think it would actually help.
Speaker 1: I think, so bring love into the house, celebrate uncanceled Christmas, Fine,
Speaker 1: uncanceled Chriss Christmas.
Speaker 6: And Christmas back. Turn on the music.
Speaker 1: All right, shout out blitzing, uh for everyone.
Speaker 2: And you and dogs.
Speaker 1: It's NonStop drama around I know, Gez, how is Tank
Speaker 1: still around? And blitz is actually.
Speaker 2: The dog?
Speaker 1: All right, Okay, gotta go.
Speaker 2: That's uh.
Speaker 1: That's everything you said it all, Colleen. Thank you to
Speaker 1: everybody for listening. We'll be back on Thursday with the
Speaker 1: TNF Preview, NFL plus tn F recap.
Speaker 2: It's our Thursday triple header.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of work looking forward to. That's what
Speaker 1: we do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we grind until then. Heed the call.