Speaker 1: They around the NFL podcast, It's ready to serve you
Speaker 1: a Championship Sunday Chasty from the Chris Westling podcast studio.
Speaker 1: It's around the NFL, the flagship program, the Championship Sunday.
Speaker 1: That's a little play on words cestog Sunday in the.
Speaker 2: Day of the week and the little ice cream treat.
Speaker 3: My imagination only immediately goes to Jason Zumwalt out in
Speaker 3: the Connecticut wilderness eating a massive banana split nude Sunday.
Speaker 2: Oh that's just me.
Speaker 4: Well nude, I just assume we assume nude.
Speaker 2: Jason. I miss you, buddy. Come back.
Speaker 1: Dan Hans is here with Greg Rosenthal and Mark Sessler,
Speaker 1: and yes, the Super Bowl is set. It's gonna sound familiar,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna be a good game. The San Francisco
Speaker 1: forty nine Ers against the Kansas City Chiefs from Allegiant Stadium.
Speaker 1: M HM in Lost Vegas and Greggy, you're addicted. What
Speaker 1: do you think the opening spread is.
Speaker 5: I'm not addicted to anything because the NFL prevents me
Speaker 5: from being so.
Speaker 1: I'm not addicted. Pigskin, Oh, no idea, I met his gambling.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, we'll do the DraftKings since we're connected to them.
Speaker 6: Tententially forty nine ers minus one and a half.
Speaker 1: Niners mark two and a half, bing bang boom, sess
Speaker 1: Dog's on fire with a spread two weeks in a row,
Speaker 1: two and a half.
Speaker 2: It is opening at two and a half.
Speaker 4: A dug in a dug in Addicted Gambler, I.
Speaker 5: Just Sempler is not coming Vegas. He will be working
Speaker 5: at Mandalay Sports Book.
Speaker 6: By Lord, are we worried about sastag in Vegas for
Speaker 6: the Super Bowl?
Speaker 2: I am?
Speaker 1: I mean no more than most any super Bowl. But yes,
Speaker 1: this one, my behavior will be pristine. This one is
Speaker 1: just start right there. This one's a little touch and go.
Speaker 1: Other books have it between two and three, but DraftKings
Speaker 1: says it right in the middle.
Speaker 2: That's the one that I we're loyal to them. I
Speaker 2: don't know, are we? I can't even keep I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just want Toyota Grand Islander, and you just want
Speaker 1: damn dejoorno pizza.
Speaker 4: Three dollar frozen pizza that like you know, a child
Speaker 4: could be.
Speaker 1: Is that is that asking too much to get mark
Speaker 1: a four dollars ninety nine cent pizza?
Speaker 2: It is?
Speaker 6: That's what I've been told.
Speaker 1: So here we are too closely contested games, two games
Speaker 1: that featured big swings and emotion, two games in which
Speaker 1: only one team could be victorious, and now the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl sets. So we're going to go through both of them,
Speaker 1: and we'll start with the AFC Championship Game, the showdown
Speaker 1: between the Mighty Kansas City Chiefs. This this proud team,
Speaker 1: this dynasty. Could you call them a dynasty? Almost had
Speaker 1: you felt like you got to get back to another one,
Speaker 1: maybe winning one before. It's like a you know, set
Speaker 1: in Stone dynasty. But they had to take care business
Speaker 1: here against the number one seed Ravens at home.
Speaker 2: With the MVP.
Speaker 1: If they didn't beat Mahomes this time, they never would.
Speaker 2: Let's see to the game. Those were the narrative.
Speaker 7: Forty six Ravens, four man front, playing Cress.
Speaker 2: On the outside.
Speaker 4: Mahomes will throw it in the pocket.
Speaker 2: He's launching one long.
Speaker 8: Mar Quest Valders Scantley trenches the call at the Raven
Speaker 8: thirty on his backside, Shades of the catch he had
Speaker 8: against Cincinnati in the end zone last year in the
Speaker 8: AFC Championship Game. Mark Kles Valdez Scantley shaving the best
Speaker 8: or last.
Speaker 2: Whoa Mitch Holt this with a call mvs.
Speaker 1: Who couldn't catch the sniffles in April of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: now is unstoppable on deep balls. He makes the catch
Speaker 1: the clincher from thirty two yards from Mahomes on third
Speaker 1: and nine with about two minutes to play. You know,
Speaker 1: the incompletion there would have given the Ravens the ball
Speaker 1: with time to either tie or win, but instead the
Speaker 1: Chiefs and the great Mahomes gore touchdowns on each of
Speaker 1: their first two possessions, then again turned to that defense,
Speaker 1: which was as good as advertised, to beat the Ravens
Speaker 1: seventeen to ten. And it is the Kansas City Chiefs
Speaker 1: back to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in
Speaker 1: five years as they continue to chisel away in stone
Speaker 1: a dynasty case and Greg, of course, the Chiefs beat
Speaker 1: the Eagles last year in the Super Bowl, and now
Speaker 1: they look to be the first team to repeat as
Speaker 1: Super Bowl champions since your New England Patriots way back
Speaker 1: in twenty four to twenty years ago. And man, at
Speaker 1: this point, how could you doubt the Chiefs? I dare
Speaker 1: you to do it. I did it, and many others did,
Speaker 1: and once again they made everybody gobble on, Banana splits,
Speaker 1: Humble Pie, Jason's nude, everybody was all fired.
Speaker 5: The odds makers are doing it again apparently as well.
Speaker 5: And what I think that number and all the numbers
Speaker 5: can't really quantify is how Patrick mahomes with a big
Speaker 5: time assist from his guy Travis Kelcey. And it is
Speaker 5: crazy how this team who's made all these AFC Championship
Speaker 5: games in a row and all these Super Bowls into
Speaker 5: just a short time, is really led by their quarterback
Speaker 5: and tight end, just like the Patriots, that they're led
Speaker 5: by the best game manager I've ever seen. Like he's
Speaker 5: the best player I've ever seen. And there's a lot
Speaker 5: of game manager discourse going around, I feel like lately,
Speaker 5: and to me, this game was a sign of how
Speaker 5: Patrick Malmes has always been a game manager, but it's
Speaker 5: even better at it now because you think of those
Speaker 5: first couple of drives. He hits a beautiful throw to
Speaker 5: Kelsey on third and down to stay on the field,
Speaker 5: or rather the fourth down to stay on the field.
Speaker 5: Incredible play where Kelsey's not open and he's the backside
Speaker 5: receiver on that plays the third option and you get
Speaker 5: to it in a big spot you get Kelsey again,
Speaker 5: not really that open for the touchdown, but just a
Speaker 5: beautiful play. You get a couple of touchdowns early, and
Speaker 5: then nothing happens. Essentially for eighth Street Driving. You can say, oh,
Speaker 5: he didn't even have a very good game. They scored
Speaker 5: seventeen points, and that's all true. But he knew what
Speaker 5: he was doing, he didn't make any mistakes. And then
Speaker 5: when you absolutely needed to get a first down at
Speaker 5: the end, he goes for a big play and he
Speaker 5: hits it to MVS. Who is our modern day Sammy Watkins.
Speaker 5: He only shows up in the biggest games ever, and
Speaker 5: he delivers.
Speaker 3: Even when MVS was obviously, you know, and overtly struggling,
Speaker 3: and a couple times like An Island games on like
Speaker 3: Sunday Night Football, he still was getting behind defense. He
Speaker 3: still had his speech right, he was getting behind defenders,
Speaker 3: and it was just like, can you just convert? Can
Speaker 3: you catch them ball? And in the last couple of weeks,
Speaker 3: the questions that we've had about Kansas City's weapons and offense,
Speaker 3: that story's changed.
Speaker 4: And it's not that there's suddenly some sort of powerhouse.
Speaker 6: They're not.
Speaker 4: They're still struggling there.
Speaker 3: I mean you know, I watched this game today and
Speaker 3: the way it ended it was just like a team
Speaker 3: that finds the way. Each of these teams have a
Speaker 3: character and a kind of a definition of who they are.
Speaker 3: And the Chiefs like can win ugly, they can win
Speaker 3: in ways that they didn't win in previous years, and
Speaker 3: they can do it with the same players, And you know,
Speaker 3: it's like there's this there's this whole other story of.
Speaker 4: This, because it's very painful.
Speaker 2: I think to lose the Super Bowl is.
Speaker 3: Stark, but to lose these AFC and NFC championship games,
Speaker 3: like you come this far if you're the Ravens, and
Speaker 3: the things that got you here did not show up
Speaker 3: today the way they should have. But I would say this,
Speaker 3: you cannot blame their defense. They shut down Kansas City
Speaker 3: for the almost entirety of the second half and gave
Speaker 3: their offense a chance to succeed.
Speaker 6: And that's what I mean.
Speaker 5: It's sort of isn't it always It's always something And
Speaker 5: that's why this dis performance in this game offensively, and
Speaker 5: we'll get to the defense for the Chiefs just remind
Speaker 5: him so much of Brady because like you look at
Speaker 5: the box squard at the end, It's like, oh, they
Speaker 5: they averaged four point four yards per play and they
Speaker 5: were stopped for like seven or eight straight drives and
Speaker 5: then but like he knows how to make the plays
Speaker 5: that you need to.
Speaker 6: He knows what that game require.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does.
Speaker 3: But I also just think that this Chiefs defense, which
Speaker 3: is overshadowed because of Mahomes always, is like the stamp
Speaker 3: of this team is what their defense was able to
Speaker 3: do today. You took the MVP and a Ravens offense
Speaker 3: thatd it dominated teams and dominated the forty nine ers
Speaker 3: and blew the doors off the Houston Texans, and they
Speaker 3: were non existent when it mattered the most.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I listen, they the Chiefs did not score
Speaker 1: in the second half. And there are echoes of the
Speaker 1: Patriots dynasty now that are just rippling and bouncing off this,
Speaker 1: this chief Chiefs team and this this era of Chiefs football,
Speaker 1: and it is it is the fact that it isn't
Speaker 1: just Mahomes, you know, just like it wasn't just Brady
Speaker 1: and the fact that they and I went into them
Speaker 1: a little bit, went into this game a little bit dubious.
Speaker 1: I've seen multiple like quote unquote big time defenses not
Speaker 1: step up down the stretch of the season, and the
Speaker 1: Chiefs once again showed and Steve Spagnola, who you haven't
Speaker 1: heard anything about, getting another chance at a head coaching job.
Speaker 2: I mean, this guy is the secret weapon.
Speaker 1: He is the Belichick to what Bill Parcells had during
Speaker 1: his era in time in the late eighties and early nineties.
Speaker 1: What the game plan he cooked up to confuse and
Speaker 1: befuddle Lamar Jackson, who looked like he didn't know what
Speaker 1: he was seeing in this game. And there were so
Speaker 1: many moments when the Ravens pass protection is holding up
Speaker 1: and I know they got to him a couple times
Speaker 1: as well, but and he's just holding the ball, Lamar,
Speaker 1: because he's, to quote the Darnald.
Speaker 2: Line, he was seeing ghosts.
Speaker 1: And there are multiple times that I'm thinking, Lamar, you
Speaker 1: are the most fantastic athlete to play the quarterback position,
Speaker 1: perhaps ever, and you're just sitting in this pocket waiting
Speaker 1: for something to happen, waiting to see something that's not there.
Speaker 1: So you have to give it to the Chiefs that
Speaker 1: every level of their defense played a big time game.
Speaker 1: But it is a team effort, Greg and it's Mahomes
Speaker 1: and Kelsey and that offensive line stepping up. Even on
Speaker 1: a day where they're running game, they couldn't do anything.
Speaker 1: But the fact that they were able to make enough
Speaker 1: plays on offense early and then lean on their defense
Speaker 1: just a total team effort and a reminder and a
Speaker 1: lesson to me, and I think it should be to
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Is these teams that don't come
Speaker 1: around too often. When the playoffs come, you see them
Speaker 1: make the plays and stay under control and close out games.
Speaker 1: And teams like the Ravens, no matter how great they
Speaker 1: have been during the year, things go sideways and they
Speaker 1: start short circuiting. And you saw that a lot with
Speaker 1: Baltimore in this game, they did not play a good game.
Speaker 1: Greg they didn't play a discipline game, and they're going home.
Speaker 5: I think their defense played well overall, the offense didn't.
Speaker 6: We'll get to that.
Speaker 5: I want to just give the credit to the Chiefs first,
Speaker 5: Like you mentioned, Pacheco couldn't get anything done, and yet
Speaker 5: like when again, when they get the ball back two
Speaker 5: thirty four to go, Tucker d just hit the field
Speaker 5: go at seventy to ten. They had their best run
Speaker 5: in about three quarters and that seven yards on first down.
Speaker 5: It's just like, even without Joe Toney, they had some
Speaker 5: runs on those first touchdown drives and that seven yard
Speaker 5: run set up you know, Baltimore intentionally taking a penalty
Speaker 5: and it set up everything else. But you're right, the
Speaker 5: story should be the defense and Lamar Jackson struggled in
Speaker 5: this game. The run game other than Lamar he did
Speaker 5: lead them, and rushing for fifty four yards was non existent.
Speaker 5: Gus Edwards and Justice Hill had to combine six attempts
Speaker 5: to Lamar Jackson's thirty seven passing attempts, which I think
Speaker 5: they're you know, Todd Monkin is going to regret how
Speaker 5: that played out. But the guys on the other side
Speaker 5: of the field. I think of that Chris Jones deflection
Speaker 5: in the first half on third down when they were
Speaker 5: throwing a screen, people are like, oh, if that I
Speaker 5: saw people Like, if that wasn't Lamar Jackson, people would
Speaker 5: be killing him for that place. Like, No, that was
Speaker 5: incredible recognition and play by Chris Jones that he made
Speaker 5: multiple times that was going to be a first down.
Speaker 5: Lamar even tried to like get it away from him
Speaker 5: by throwing it sideways, and Chris Jones still makes it.
Speaker 5: Lagarious Steed knocks out the ball. It's a play that
Speaker 5: Zay Flowers is going to live with for the rest
Speaker 5: of his life and he should not be reaching it
Speaker 5: out at the goal line. But it's still lagarious Steed,
Speaker 5: one of the best defensive backs in the league making
Speaker 5: a hustle play and knocking it out at the goal line.
Speaker 5: They were just so active defensively. Amena who had that
Speaker 5: force fumble on Lamar when he did hold it on
Speaker 5: too long, they get the interception. They didn't drop their
Speaker 5: interceptions like we saw so many other teams have today.
Speaker 5: The intercepted Lamar in the end zone, so like it's
Speaker 5: a team effort. We have a little shot of the
Speaker 5: T shirt that all the players wore of Steve Spagnolo.
Speaker 5: So if you're watching how he's on YouTube and I
Speaker 5: see those YouTube numbers ridesing, we appreciate you like and subscribe.
Speaker 5: It was great that I see them to happen the
Speaker 5: in Spags we trust with the demon eyes.
Speaker 6: Every defensive player was wearing.
Speaker 5: Spag said he was almost embarrassed and he was saying,
Speaker 5: I sure hope we won because they were wearing it
Speaker 5: before the game and they came through with an effort
Speaker 5: that shows how much they trust in Spags.
Speaker 2: I got out to Nate Taylor on the tweet.
Speaker 3: It's I think Spagnola one of the things that he's
Speaker 3: done in multiple games where it's like, you know, I
Speaker 3: think because he was an unsuccessful head coach, he had
Speaker 3: to recreate his you know, reputation on some level. But
Speaker 3: like the blitzes that he cooked up, like I thought,
Speaker 3: the Ravens offensive line was operating from behind the entire
Speaker 3: game today, and that's how you get you know, if
Speaker 3: you're gonna beat this Chiefs team, you need to beat
Speaker 3: at home, pure pristine, and you get a terrible Lamar
Speaker 3: Jackson interception in the end zone. There was another play
Speaker 3: on a third down pass where he's very lucky it
Speaker 3: wasn't picked off, you had the fumble. It's like Lamar
Speaker 3: Jackson needs to go as the so called MVP, go
Speaker 3: and play his best game, and it's it's it just
Speaker 3: seems to be asking too much. But it's this Chiefs
Speaker 3: defense that creates complete and total confusion. I think the
Speaker 3: Ravens line was cooked from the start, Like the way
Speaker 3: that they were rushing and getting to them with speed rushers,
Speaker 3: like from wire to wire. It's like it just seemed
Speaker 3: like Baltimore had no answers and they got away from
Speaker 3: who've they've been all year. I thought they went away
Speaker 3: from their ground game.
Speaker 1: I thought, and this is not meant to like I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna want to cook up Lamar here, but I
Speaker 1: thought we were past this, and I thought what we
Speaker 1: saw on the second half of the divisional playoffs that
Speaker 1: put some things to bed around him, and what the
Speaker 1: story is, or the quote unquote narrative around Lamar Jackson is,
Speaker 1: I didn't expect. That's why I picked up Ravens. That's
Speaker 1: why I locked up the Ravens. I thought this really
Speaker 1: was his moment. So I can't say, you have to
Speaker 1: say it's a disappointing performance obviously by Lamar, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to take away from what Kansas City's defense
Speaker 1: did in this game and what Spags and company have
Speaker 1: done all year.
Speaker 2: It's a combination of both.
Speaker 5: Well, it's also like everything went against them too, Like
Speaker 5: if the Flowers touchdown, especially, don't you think change the game.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's seventeen fourteen there with a ton of
Speaker 5: time left in that game, and that was off of
Speaker 5: two three straight good throws by.
Speaker 2: Lebar and here's the thing.
Speaker 1: You're right, and you have a you have a terrible
Speaker 1: turnover by Zay Flowers. That's the old Bill Belichick would
Speaker 1: bench you if you ever try to reach near the
Speaker 1: goal line. It was a dreaded mistake and it might
Speaker 1: have cost them their season. And they got the ball
Speaker 1: down deep again. Was at the next possession, and that's
Speaker 1: when Lamar throws a ball up for grabs. A couple
Speaker 1: of different plays go differently, and the Ravens are either
Speaker 1: you know, we're going overtime or they went out right.
Speaker 1: But that almost like is too kind to their performance
Speaker 1: as a whole. I thought this was a team that
Speaker 1: was undisciplined, that let the moment overwhelm overwhelm them. I
Speaker 1: thought they had multiple, you know, bad penalties, whether it
Speaker 1: was personal fouls, was there are too many men on
Speaker 1: a field, there are five fifteen yard penalties.
Speaker 5: So that's that's sort of what I mean where it's like,
Speaker 5: you're right, Lamar did not have a good game. He
Speaker 5: had his moments, but like a lot of this year
Speaker 5: for this team, like especially if it was a full team,
Speaker 5: like everyone had a huge part of that. They had
Speaker 5: four personal foul penalties and that those first ones. Two
Speaker 5: of them led to the three points that the Chiefs
Speaker 5: had before halftime, which were massive, so they ended up
Speaker 5: minus three. Right, there was no there was there was
Speaker 5: some missed maybe I thought you could have called the
Speaker 5: pass interference on Lamar's interception, but it doesn't take away
Speaker 5: that it was the worst possible throw and like it.
Speaker 1: Was, I think we were getting that throw this January, right,
Speaker 1: and that's gonna now that sticks with him again, whether
Speaker 1: people want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: It does.
Speaker 3: So it's not it's like it's not just a target
Speaker 3: Lamar thing. But I like when you think of the
Speaker 3: Baltimore Ravens under Harbaugh, who they've been, like the ro
Speaker 3: Kwan Smith unnecessary roughness penalty where it was like, you know,
Speaker 3: a sham. You're going in there on intentionally to blow
Speaker 3: things up, but you do it in a way where
Speaker 3: you're not even a good thespian, you're not a good actor,
Speaker 3: and it gets called for what it is. And Zay
Speaker 3: Flowers young player, He's gonna learn from this. But like
Speaker 3: the taunting call, that was.
Speaker 1: An insane It was about a five place sequence where
Speaker 1: he makes a big play, gets a taunting, then he
Speaker 1: gets another big play to get those yards back from
Speaker 1: the taunting penalty, then gets the ball knocked away on
Speaker 1: a penalty, then goes back to the sideline and slams
Speaker 1: his helmet down and cuts his finger open. That's an insane,
Speaker 1: like five minutes of a human's life that was documented
Speaker 1: seven human in front of sixty million people. Speaking of Lamar,
Speaker 1: let's let's hear from the and he will be a
Speaker 1: week from Thursday named the NFL MVP. And you can't
Speaker 1: take away anything from him in terms of the performance
Speaker 1: going into this game, but all of it seems a
Speaker 1: little bittersweet now for Raven's nation.
Speaker 2: No hay in the barn, I.
Speaker 9: Mean no turnovers, you know, they they played the game
Speaker 9: basically perfect. They put points on the board. I felt like,
Speaker 9: if we wouldn't turn the ball over, we definitely would
Speaker 9: have had a shot. We definitely would have came out
Speaker 9: with a win. But they did a great job and
Speaker 9: I turned the ball over and pulling points on the board.
Speaker 1: And let's hear from the other quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who
Speaker 1: and Lamar made a good point there. I mean, the
Speaker 1: Chiefs weren't perfect in this game, but again they've been
Speaker 1: so clean and they've been. They're playing it the way
Speaker 1: the Patriots used to play it. Even wasn't a pristine,
Speaker 1: perfect effort. They play the game the quote unquote right way,
Speaker 1: and then the other team wilts in the big moment,
Speaker 1: and then you take advantage of it.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, you're walking away. It's like, did
Speaker 2: we just lose that game? Yeah.
Speaker 1: You always seem to get beat by that team that
Speaker 1: always keeps their heads together this time of year.
Speaker 10: You don't take it for granted. Either. You never know
Speaker 10: how many you're gonna get to you or if you're
Speaker 10: gonna get to any And so it truly is special
Speaker 10: just to do it with these guys after what we've
Speaker 10: been through all season long, the guys coming together, it
Speaker 10: really is special. But I told him, I mean, job's
Speaker 10: not done. I mean our job now is to prepare
Speaker 10: ourselves to play a good football team in the Super
Speaker 10: Bowl and try to get that ring.
Speaker 5: I think it will remember that. You know, you'll see
Speaker 5: at the end of the game they only seventeen points,
Speaker 5: and you look at the box score and all that,
Speaker 5: and it doesn't seem like a crazy impressive performance. I
Speaker 5: believe there was an eight drive sequence here where they
Speaker 5: had three points. I mean really the last eight and
Speaker 5: not many first downs either. I think they had eight
Speaker 5: first downs in those eight drives, so they weren't really
Speaker 5: moving the ball. But that obscure is like how impressive
Speaker 5: those first two drives were. Like the play where to
Speaker 5: me that would defined this game was the one where
Speaker 5: Mahomes is scrambling around, breaks a bunch of tackles and
Speaker 5: throws an insane pass that Kelsey catches beautiful, like he's
Speaker 5: I'm trying to think of a great center fielder here,
Speaker 5: maybe Mooki and his prime like diving for the ball.
Speaker 5: Kelsey gets that and that leads directly to a touchdown.
Speaker 5: Those were magical plays by Mahomes on those.
Speaker 6: First couple of times. They were perfect.
Speaker 5: He started eleven for eleven in this game, and those
Speaker 5: two touchdowns.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you needed your defense to be great, but they
Speaker 6: set the tone.
Speaker 2: For the game. I'm gonna give you a center fielder
Speaker 2: Jim Edmonds.
Speaker 6: Okay, that would have been like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think Kelsey's like degree of difficulty with
Speaker 3: some of the catches, especially like right out of the gate.
Speaker 3: I think he had four catches in the first quarter alone,
Speaker 3: and you know, Broke the Jerry Rice postseason record. But
Speaker 3: it was like we had come to this sort of
Speaker 3: common understanding that this version of Kelsey that we were
Speaker 3: getting largely was not They.
Speaker 2: Got rope adopes.
Speaker 6: Everybody, you know how he throws went to Kelsey and
Speaker 6: that he and.
Speaker 1: Bills did zero the Bills. The Bills got rope adoped.
Speaker 1: The Ravens got rope adope, Ropodope America got rope adoped.
Speaker 1: Nobody saw this, this Chiefs rise coming, except for the Chiefs.
Speaker 2: I think they always believed they did do this.
Speaker 3: I know this maybe is arcane or stupid or means nothing,
Speaker 3: but I when the when the replays, when James Palmer
Speaker 3: sent out you know, end zone evidence of you Justin
Speaker 3: Tucker sitting there with this little kicking tea and his
Speaker 3: helmet China, get in the way of Patrick Mahomes warming up,
Speaker 3: and Kelsey just come over and takes Justin Tucker's a
Speaker 3: Hall of future Halday, our greatest takes and whips it
Speaker 3: through the end zone.
Speaker 4: It's like, get out of our space.
Speaker 3: We were in Baltimore, and it's like something about the Chiefs,
Speaker 3: that's who they are.
Speaker 2: It's like it was an out ones.
Speaker 4: Get it was it was.
Speaker 6: It was and Justin Tuck, like.
Speaker 3: To his credit, didn't explode or throw a hissy fit
Speaker 3: or anything, but it was like he was left as
Speaker 3: the lesser individual in that kind.
Speaker 1: It was your home stadium. It was I know this
Speaker 1: is your stadium. I know you're the number one seed. Uh,
Speaker 1: but this is Championship Sunday, and this is this is
Speaker 1: our time, this is the.
Speaker 2: Chiefs, this is what we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're just a guest and you'll find out in
Speaker 1: about four hours how this goes. And they absolutely, uh,
Speaker 1: they a absolutely followed up with a great performance. Let's
Speaker 1: listen to Kelsey on the riser after the game.
Speaker 11: Shout out to Jerry rise baby the Chiefs to steal
Speaker 11: the Chiefs and believe it.
Speaker 2: You gotta fight for your ride.
Speaker 1: Believe it, baby, we're going to La Vegas that to
Speaker 1: get us another one. I love that the white boy
Speaker 1: flow from Kelsey, especially when he's excited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's.
Speaker 6: You know that doesn't happen often to.
Speaker 2: Compete on that.
Speaker 1: And and let's just I want to mention this so
Speaker 1: before we get sidetracked again, the fact that Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: is at the game again.
Speaker 2: She comes down on the field after the game.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of shots of them together and point
Speaker 1: at each other and kissing. It's you can't make it up,
Speaker 1: like you can't make up the fact that and maybe
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of talk. I don't know,
Speaker 1: we haven't really addressed it on the show, not because
Speaker 1: we're avoiding it, but just you know, you know, it's stupid,
Speaker 1: But a lot of talk about the fixes in and
Speaker 1: all this was planned, and the colors of the super
Speaker 1: Bowl logo we're supposed to be telling us that the
Speaker 1: NFL had already decided who was the US.
Speaker 6: You know, late at night about that.
Speaker 1: But so the Travis Kelcey thing that he ends up
Speaker 1: dating the most famous woman in the world, and now
Speaker 1: she's been continually in the news and on the cameras,
Speaker 1: and now she's on the field at the ABC Championship game,
Speaker 1: and now she's going to be at the super Bowl.
Speaker 1: This is the the biggest Taylor Swift is on the biggest.
Speaker 2: Pop culture heater since Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: You put out thriller in November eighty two, and we're
Speaker 1: going to take it to We Are the World, which
Speaker 1: he co wrote with Lionel Ritchie and performed in eighty five.
Speaker 2: I put Taylor's run.
Speaker 1: The fact that she's in the middle of even this
Speaker 1: pop culture moment, from all her music and all her success,
Speaker 1: it is outrageous. How in the middle of everything this
Speaker 1: woman is.
Speaker 2: That's my point.
Speaker 5: I mean that well, in like the kiss they had
Speaker 5: was like perfectly framed. They actually ran it as they
Speaker 5: were rolling. The credits reminded me so much of like
Speaker 5: maybe the most famous photograph in like American history there
Speaker 5: in the timescar picture after defeating you know, after you know,
Speaker 5: World War two and everything.
Speaker 6: And that, except now it's trying is Kelcey.
Speaker 5: That's our generation, that's our picture, Travis Kelcey and Taylor Stiff.
Speaker 1: People need to calm down. If that, if they get
Speaker 1: their d day, everybody's gonna oh d And it was
Speaker 1: after victory.
Speaker 3: And yes, I do think Dan, you forgot like when
Speaker 3: Steve Winwoods back in the High Life again came out
Speaker 3: like that was also a heater, that really was.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: Those second to that, But I mean, this is tough'
Speaker 4: it's a big take you.
Speaker 5: I always pushed so hard back against the Kelsey might
Speaker 5: be in the conversation of the greatest tight ends of
Speaker 5: all time because I just I think it was ignoring.
Speaker 5: First of all, how we talked about a lot of
Speaker 5: those Titans, not just Gronk at the time, and some
Speaker 5: of their all pros and all that, and when you
Speaker 5: stack them up, actually they were just as dominant in
Speaker 5: their day as as Kelsey was now. Like stuff like this,
Speaker 5: this playoff run, in particular, to put it over the top,
Speaker 5: does remind me of like Gronk, especially in the one
Speaker 5: where they beat the Chiefs and they got their last
Speaker 5: Super Bowl and Gronku and kind of spiking it and
Speaker 5: having that run with the Bucks. This is special because
Speaker 5: you look at the offense, it's not really that much
Speaker 5: different Dan than the offense we were complaining about. I
Speaker 5: know we're saying it's so much different. It's not that
Speaker 5: much different. It's just Kelsey and Rice. And now they're
Speaker 5: getting a little sprinklet of sc scantling, which does make
Speaker 5: a big difference, a little sprinklet of scalaling. And it
Speaker 5: took away the terrible players that were ruining them, sky
Speaker 5: Moore and Tony who's never going to play for the
Speaker 5: Chiefs again, and and it eliminated and they eliminated the
Speaker 5: mistakes like that's all like the offense actually isn't doing
Speaker 5: much more.
Speaker 2: James Palmer told, right, they got.
Speaker 6: Rid of all the dumb plays.
Speaker 5: But a huge part of that formula is eleven targets
Speaker 5: to Kelsey for eleven catches in one hundred and sixty.
Speaker 6: That's it and what he did, that's just it is.
Speaker 1: We weren't this is what they're from last year when
Speaker 1: they were still an unstoppable offense more or less and
Speaker 1: won the Super Bowl. What made that work despite losing
Speaker 1: Tyreek Hill was that they had some They didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of big playability that that wasn't part of
Speaker 1: their offense last year either. They got you know, stuff
Speaker 1: in moments, but mvs adding that to their their the
Speaker 1: recipe down the stretch here.
Speaker 2: But Kelsey was the key to everything.
Speaker 1: Shows up every week. I know, right, he's consistent. He's
Speaker 1: the only guy that was consistent all year. But that's
Speaker 1: what we kept on saying, like, what's wrong with this offense?
Speaker 1: Travis Kelson having a kind of like one of those
Speaker 1: all time tight end seasons last year lifted all the boats.
Speaker 1: And now that he's back doing that again all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, and I know they didn't have a huge
Speaker 1: offensive game, but it just you can't understate how incredibly
Speaker 1: important he is to what they do.
Speaker 3: I mean, Mahomes opened eleven for eleven. Kelsey's targeted eleven
Speaker 3: times has eleven catches, and I thought this was the
Speaker 3: defense that could find a way to nullify someone like Travis.
Speaker 5: And to be fair, once they got out of their
Speaker 5: fifteen place script they did. I actually think this was
Speaker 5: a good performance by Mike McDonald and we end up
Speaker 5: talking about the winners only, but like Kyle Hamilton played
Speaker 5: incredible too.
Speaker 6: It was awesome.
Speaker 5: Rokwan Smith was incredible today. I thought Patrick Queen was
Speaker 5: really good today. They got beat and I just think
Speaker 5: great offense beats great defense. And when you go when
Speaker 5: they look at those plays that beat them on those
Speaker 5: first two drives, most of them are just like great
Speaker 5: plays that beat guys in good position, including that Kelsey touchdown,
Speaker 5: Like what could have Kyle Hamilton done anymore on that play?
Speaker 5: He was all over him. Mahomes fits it into a
Speaker 5: tiny window, he had good coverage like that. It happens
Speaker 5: better and they were just better and they adjusted. I
Speaker 5: do think on the other side, though, when you look
Speaker 5: at that box score and it's Flowers for five, for one, fifteen,
Speaker 5: and then after that it's it's nothing. Algallar had a
Speaker 5: nice big play on a nice throw from Lamar, and
Speaker 5: Beckham is kind of playing their fourth receiver role Bateman
Speaker 5: who they trusted to play more like he doesn't do anything,
Speaker 5: and the drop off that there was no one other
Speaker 5: than Lamar and Zay who had his own issues, that
Speaker 5: really did anything. So it was I think they're gonna
Speaker 5: want to fill out this roster. As good as this
Speaker 5: team was, Beckham's not going to be back with this team,
Speaker 5: I don't think unless he just can't get a contract
Speaker 5: elsewhere and he's willing to take like a lot less
Speaker 5: money and they actually do need more weapons.
Speaker 6: Still, they were.
Speaker 1: Again right, I was exactly right, Like you're you're about
Speaker 1: and you're not wrong. You're about to lose Mike McDonald's
Speaker 1: as likely like to you know, head coaching duties, and
Speaker 1: you have to remove some of these weapons, and all
Speaker 1: the same questions crop up, like this is the team
Speaker 1: that should be pounding people in Baltimore in their home
Speaker 1: stadium in late January. Take away Lamar on the ground,
Speaker 1: they ran for twenty seven yards. I guess to kill
Speaker 1: Monkin because the lack of carries in this game, and
Speaker 1: I know the game script and the time of possession
Speaker 1: was a big deal, but I mean that's.
Speaker 6: How they were.
Speaker 5: They're never far off, so I I yea. They were
Speaker 5: the team with critical mistakes right. Exactly what I mean
Speaker 5: is they never ran the ball. Part of it was
Speaker 5: they could never get any drives going after that touchdown drive.
Speaker 5: They have the Lamar fumble drive that last five plays,
Speaker 5: they have a one first down, five play drive, a
Speaker 5: three and out, a three and out to start the
Speaker 5: second half. They had a little something going and then
Speaker 5: they have take negative plays a punt before that, so
Speaker 5: it was like these short drives.
Speaker 6: But you're absolutely right. I thought the.
Speaker 5: Chiefs defensive line really stood up. I thought on the
Speaker 5: other side of the ball, it was like a pretty
Speaker 5: even battle and the and the Ravens won their share.
Speaker 5: But for the Chiefs defensive line, Carl Loftis and the
Speaker 5: middle of that line Dana Omena, who certainly Chris Jones
Speaker 5: like they kind of beat. I think the Ravens offensive
Speaker 5: line for the most part, especially against the run.
Speaker 3: I thought decisively, like surprisingly, and like they have a
Speaker 3: drive that ends at the nine fumble interception the one
Speaker 3: in the end zone and then you know.
Speaker 4: A too late field goal.
Speaker 3: It's like they they disappeared, and like you, I felt
Speaker 3: like the Ravens kept having these drives where it's like,
Speaker 3: here's your chance to get back into this, but then
Speaker 3: it would melt in some way and it's like timeless takes.
Speaker 5: They outgained that, they outgained the Chiefs two hundred and
Speaker 5: one to seventy eight until that last second.
Speaker 1: It's balls off on the second half. It did they
Speaker 1: ask and you don't listen. There are very few quarterbacks
Speaker 1: that are as fortunate to say who we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about later Brock party to have all stars or
Speaker 1: Kurt Warner not to sing laud party back in the day,
Speaker 1: to have all stars all around you, like you shouldn't
Speaker 1: if if Lamar is as good as we say he is,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have to build the perfect supporting cast around
Speaker 1: him for this ultimately to end with a Lombardi Trophy
Speaker 1: being hoisted. Like the true great ones make the most
Speaker 1: of it, and I think they're still less.
Speaker 5: They're and Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady's conference, then no
Speaker 5: one ever makes it.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm just saying, like no one else is great.
Speaker 1: I know, I don't disagree with what you're saying that
Speaker 1: this is a roster on offense that needs tweaks, and
Speaker 1: it would have maybe been a different game of Mark
Speaker 1: Andrews was one hundred percent in this game, obviously, but
Speaker 1: it just was a bad look all the way around
Speaker 1: for the Ravens.
Speaker 2: Flowers bitterly disappointed.
Speaker 5: A great pick, and he was a little immature and
Speaker 5: made some mistakes in this game. He's also a rookie
Speaker 5: and it was their clear number one receiver, so that
Speaker 5: was a nice fine.
Speaker 6: They're just going to be looking for more is.
Speaker 1: And and one last thing about the kel Gronk comparison,
Speaker 1: and it's impossible not to do that with like two
Speaker 1: greats that basically overlapped and play the same position just
Speaker 1: like Gronk back in the day. So many of the
Speaker 1: Kelsey catchers are absolute daggers, either third down conversions, fourth
Speaker 1: down conversions, red zone scoring plays. So even when he
Speaker 1: like in this game, he had eleven, it felt like
Speaker 1: twenty one, Even when like last week, he only had five,
Speaker 1: but it felt like ten because the plays he makes
Speaker 1: are so consequential because and it makes sense in the
Speaker 1: money moments in the crucible moments. That's where number ten looks,
Speaker 1: and they're going to the Hall of Fame together one day.
Speaker 3: That's why we believe in tight end wins. That's a
Speaker 3: stat I'll tell you this. I don't yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: care who else what anybody picks.
Speaker 2: I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm out of the picking against Patrick Mahons and Travis
Speaker 1: Kelcey and Spags and Andy Reid in January and February,
Speaker 1: because look, they've been laying waste to the doubters and
Speaker 1: they've loved doing it and they're gonna be and there
Speaker 1: again a dog, Greg. So any thoughts, any other thoughts
Speaker 1: on this game before we move.
Speaker 5: On that that is almost perfect for them because it's
Speaker 5: like it's kind of inconsequential two and a half points,
Speaker 5: whatever it is.
Speaker 2: But they can ride that.
Speaker 6: I think they will.
Speaker 3: That will, that will fuel them. We will hear about
Speaker 3: that two weeks.
Speaker 2: We will, we will.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna take a break and then we're
Speaker 1: gonna go to the NFC side of things, which was,
Speaker 1: oh man, what a wild one.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a break, right, welcome back.
Speaker 1: So the AFC Championship, I want to say it went
Speaker 1: to script because the favorite went down in flames, but
Speaker 1: the game played out in ways that made sense, you know,
Speaker 1: and with the Mighty Mahomes and Company priumphant this NFC
Speaker 1: title game, we're about to get into him. By the way,
Speaker 1: it's time for the Sunday Drive present by the first
Speaker 1: ever Toyota Grand Highlander. And I'm only asking for one islander,
Speaker 1: like Mark. Yeah, I think we're asking for like ease,
Speaker 1: you know, let's give Mark five pizzas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at least that compared to a like a human
Speaker 3: vehicle that costs thousands of dollars.
Speaker 6: It feels like hell is a human vehicle.
Speaker 3: I mean, just the fact that like they're gonna send
Speaker 3: you like a twenty five thousand dollars truck or something
Speaker 3: or whatever it is, like and I'm getting five frozen pizzas.
Speaker 6: Must fit in with the human amobile.
Speaker 3: Just feels like someone who's getting a better deal potentially there.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, but like you're right, monetarily, it's not
Speaker 1: going to even out, but right, just like give Mark
Speaker 1: like a French red pizza market, We'll just like know
Speaker 1: the product better to give them the classic pie, you know,
Speaker 1: just mix it up.
Speaker 3: It's a fair request on your part for me, are
Speaker 3: you ready for a big w at your next watch party?
Speaker 2: Anyway?
Speaker 6: We don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know either.
Speaker 1: Oh what I was saying, was it just this game
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about now had so many It
Speaker 1: was really two games, two different games. But the thing
Speaker 1: is when there's two different games, you want to be
Speaker 1: typically the team that has like their game last ye
Speaker 1: and h for fans of the team from.
Speaker 5: Michion, by being their game, you mean like scoring lots
Speaker 5: of points.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and just like you know, because let's be honest,
Speaker 1: GREGI this might be said an all time or the
Speaker 1: all time momentum game.
Speaker 2: This is the momentum Bowl.
Speaker 1: This is the one that causes Claybah and Greg to
Speaker 1: drop to their knees and profusely apologize. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that sets the table accurately. I don't think you
Speaker 1: at this point, Greg could debate it. This game we're
Speaker 1: about to talk talk about has proven Mark and I
Speaker 1: and millions of others correctly while sending you scrambling for shelter.
Speaker 6: Not true. Never, it is completely true, not true.
Speaker 2: All right to the big bell bottom.
Speaker 12: Three yards away nine feet is required, prety under center
Speaker 12: used check.
Speaker 6: How Elijah Mitchell is in. They give it a Mitchell
Speaker 6: off the right side. Go on listen in.
Speaker 12: Touchdown seven fran Cisco line.
Speaker 1: There it is the call from Greg Papa with Tim
Speaker 1: Ryan k n b R. The San Francisco forty nine ers,
Speaker 1: down twenty four to seven at the break, absolutely barnstorm
Speaker 1: the Lions in the second half, going up thirty four
Speaker 1: to twenty four after that Mitchell touchdown that was set
Speaker 1: up by a big CMC play and then a late
Speaker 1: Lion score made it close and hurt some people involved
Speaker 1: with deserts. However, all that mattered in the end was
Speaker 1: San Francisco with that big run in the second half
Speaker 1: take out the Lions thirty four to thirty one. The
Speaker 1: Niners scored seventeen points in an eight minute span of
Speaker 1: the third quarter to tie this NFC title game, pull
Speaker 1: away in the fourth and they get a rematch with
Speaker 1: the Chiefs who defeated them in crushing fashion four years ago.
Speaker 1: Mark the Lions did everything right, did everything right in
Speaker 1: the first half, but San Francisco's offense has the explosiveness
Speaker 1: that if you open the door for him, they will
Speaker 1: storm right in. And to the credit of Purdy and
Speaker 1: Ayuk and Deebo and CMC and Kittle, they ran right
Speaker 1: in and set the place on fire.
Speaker 3: Well, they remind me, you know, of what we talked
Speaker 3: about with the Chiefs, to the degree that like you're
Speaker 3: talking about a team that's been through these crucible moments
Speaker 3: against a team that is learning what that means to
Speaker 3: even be as an NFL team. And they came out,
Speaker 3: the Lions so hot and so fiery, and it was
Speaker 3: like they seemed inevitable, inevitable to me almost. But then
Speaker 3: there was this like these games happened, how are they unfold?
Speaker 3: Like there was a sequence of items and I'll just
Speaker 3: say quickly when get into it, but it was like
Speaker 3: you have a key moment where it's twenty four to ten,
Speaker 3: it's fourth and two for the Lions, they have a
Speaker 3: chance to really I think, stick a knife into the Niners.
Speaker 3: A fourth and two pass to Josh Reynolds that goes incomplete.
Speaker 3: You could have ran the ball there. On the next
Speaker 3: sequence for the Niners, you have that Brandon Ayuk incredible
Speaker 3: throw downfield, a fifty one yard completion that ricochets off
Speaker 3: the helmet of Kindle Wilders.
Speaker 6: Sounds like a space age.
Speaker 1: Underboss the name that infamine, right right, I mean the
Speaker 1: thing these are like, that's not the lie, Like that
Speaker 1: isn't like something you just blame on the Lions.
Speaker 4: Just this fateful moment that happened.
Speaker 6: Momentum.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the momentum bounced off, the hounds off, depending on
Speaker 5: who caught it, they had the momentum.
Speaker 1: Whatever happened there sound terrible, Greg, You're you're saying that
Speaker 1: doesn't what you're saying makes no sense.
Speaker 6: No, it's not right. Is that what it is? It
Speaker 6: is two very different things.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, Bill Buckner, it's whatever you say.
Speaker 3: It's like suddenly you know it is.
Speaker 1: It's a failure to execute though build or it doesn't
Speaker 1: make to catch.
Speaker 2: It opens the door for the Niners to make a play.
Speaker 3: It's true, but it also would have been an incredible
Speaker 3: play if he had.
Speaker 4: But then Ayuk scores.
Speaker 3: Plays later, it's twenty four to seventeen, and you can
Speaker 3: start to feel stuff shifting, and then you get Jamier Gibbs,
Speaker 3: who is such a wonderful player for up until this moment,
Speaker 3: the key fumble, and then you have a big un
Speaker 3: by brock Purty.
Speaker 6: They score.
Speaker 4: It's twenty four to twenty four and everything starts to shift.
Speaker 5: A seventeen point lead, a race like that eight minutes,
Speaker 5: it was nothing eight minutes, and we can get to
Speaker 5: all the Campbell decisions and the way I have those
Speaker 5: set up by this thing falls apart. But now that
Speaker 5: we've even had like the game ended probably what an
Speaker 5: hour or something like that, Now that you've even had
Speaker 5: like a little time to think about it, we don't.
Speaker 4: Four days later we do it.
Speaker 5: I don't mean like, so that's that's what you're gonna
Speaker 5: remember from this game, or I'm going to remember first
Speaker 5: is the ball bouncing off the helmet, the fact that
Speaker 5: they had a seventeen point lead, the fact that they
Speaker 5: couldn't execute on the fourth downs, the fact that they
Speaker 5: kept drop being passes.
Speaker 6: They kept dropping the ball.
Speaker 5: Jamir Gibbs Josh Reynolds had two drive killing drops. But
Speaker 5: what is lost a little bit in that is that
Speaker 5: this forty nine Ers offense, which was statistically the best
Speaker 5: offense in the league all season long, they're down seventeen
Speaker 5: points at halftime. They get some good fortunes, certainly in
Speaker 5: the second half, but they got the ball five times
Speaker 5: after halftime. They scored every freaking time they scored three
Speaker 5: touchdowns and had two field goals, and one of those
Speaker 5: field goal drives was the best field goal drive of
Speaker 5: Kyle Shanahan and Brock Perty's life. They squeezed seven minutes
Speaker 5: off the clock to take a lead that completed the
Speaker 5: comeback and gave them their first lead. So there are
Speaker 5: five drives on offense with yes, that won very lucky
Speaker 5: play but offensively and they're an offensive team going up
Speaker 5: a very shaky Lions defense. In general all year they
Speaker 5: were perfect. They had to be perfect after halftime and offensively,
Speaker 5: they ran it when they needed to. They got big
Speaker 5: plays when they needed to. Perty ran it when he
Speaker 5: needed to, and yes, he got very fortunate in this game.
Speaker 5: Threw out at different points, but ultimately when in not
Speaker 5: cutting time, second half, they were the best offense in
Speaker 5: the league. Looked like the best offense.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Late, absolutely, and you want to you know, people are
Speaker 1: gonna maybe just dwell on the Niner side of things
Speaker 1: in the collapse, but you have to give it to
Speaker 1: the Niners and Kyle Shanhan, Kyle Shanahan who before last week,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole story is run this guy as
Speaker 1: great as he is. If his team gets down late,
Speaker 1: they're done back to back big comebacks. They survived the
Speaker 1: Packers game, and then they kind of the way. I
Speaker 1: was so impressed by what the Ravens did against the
Speaker 1: Texans in the divisional round, where they took some punches
Speaker 1: in the first half and then just took control of
Speaker 1: the game. The Niners did that, but on a hugely
Speaker 1: bigger stage, So you got to give him credit. Now,
Speaker 1: so much of the talk around the game is going
Speaker 1: to go back to how do the Lions blow a
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven lead? Okay, and the IU catch
Speaker 1: is a huge part of it. I think it's it
Speaker 1: will live in infamy in Detroit because I don't think
Speaker 1: it would have been what your word was, outstanding or whatever.
Speaker 2: It was catch.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a playable ball by dB that
Speaker 1: gets turned not only into and it's not even just
Speaker 1: an incomplete pass, gets turned into a huge game that
Speaker 1: sets up the touchdown that sends that building. And credit
Speaker 1: to Niners fans because that's not typically a stadium where
Speaker 1: you say, oh, that place rocks when it gets loud.
Speaker 1: That place was rocking. So that was a massive play.
Speaker 1: The fumble happening immedia after huge play, and then.
Speaker 6: You think snowball.
Speaker 1: Guess yeah, I thinks snowballed after that. But with Campbell,
Speaker 1: there were four big decisions in this game that people
Speaker 1: are going to talk about. The first one I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go crazy about because I agreed with it.
Speaker 1: First of all, Greg, I don't think you did. But
Speaker 1: seven seconds to go in the second quarter, they're up
Speaker 1: twenty one to seven. It's fourth and goal to San
Speaker 1: Francisco three. Campbell thinks it over, decides it's a little
Speaker 1: too far. He kicks the field goal, and I think
Speaker 1: Greg Olsen was on him a little bit and said, listen,
Speaker 1: this is your chance to give a knockout punch.
Speaker 2: Hindsight twenty twenty, maybe you do take that chance.
Speaker 1: But instead of own for twenty eight to seven, they
Speaker 1: take the field goal, I guess, And I think part
Speaker 1: of that Greg was the Niners or Campbell knowing the
Speaker 1: Niners got the ball to start the third quarter too,
Speaker 1: it being like, let me take these points, get ahead
Speaker 1: three scores.
Speaker 5: And you wanted to go in feeling like it was
Speaker 5: as dominant as possible. It's hard to have it both
Speaker 5: ways and say like, okay, take the field goal here,
Speaker 5: but don't take it there. The numbers, and I think
Speaker 5: Campbell's instincts coming into play here. A lot of it
Speaker 5: has to do with like, a big part of the
Speaker 5: reason you go for the fourth and goals is because
Speaker 5: you're pinning the other team back and you lose that
Speaker 5: advantage at the end of the second quarter. You get
Speaker 5: no advantage from that. So I'm with you, and that's
Speaker 5: what I like about Campbell. He hasn't been a play
Speaker 5: it by the book guy. He has a feel I
Speaker 5: think for the game and he takes the three there,
Speaker 5: and I think part of it he said it they
Speaker 5: wanted to get to thirty. They did in the end,
Speaker 5: but they knew they needed to score a lot.
Speaker 1: All right, Mark, I'll set you up now on the
Speaker 1: next big play with Campbell. It's fourth and two at
Speaker 1: the San Francisco twenty eight yard line. There's seven minutes
Speaker 1: left in the third quarter. It is twenty four to ten.
Speaker 1: Instead of bringing out the kicker, it was not a
Speaker 1: big time kicker, and that you have to keep these
Speaker 1: things in Michael.
Speaker 6: Badgley Michael bad joined the team.
Speaker 1: But instead of a kicking the field goal to try
Speaker 1: to go up twenty seven to ten. This was after
Speaker 1: San Francisco marched down the field to kick the field
Speaker 1: goal to start the second half. He opts to go
Speaker 1: for it, He passes underneath to Josh Reynolds. He drops
Speaker 1: the ball turnover, and you start to hear people getting
Speaker 1: on Campbell a little bit, which I thought was unfair, Mark,
Speaker 1: because this is what Dan Campbell and the lines are
Speaker 1: about all year.
Speaker 6: I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I think that you could say, do you run the
Speaker 3: ball there? Maybe because they you know, earlier in the
Speaker 3: game they were running with a lot of force and power.
Speaker 1: They picked up a third and thirteen running it right,
Speaker 1: and so there would be evidence that that might have
Speaker 1: been another option at that point in the game. Goff
Speaker 1: was also starting to feel pressure from Bosa. Nick Bosa
Speaker 1: was starting.
Speaker 3: He had two sacks in this game, and Golf was
Speaker 3: under a lot of heat on that actual in particular,
Speaker 3: like in completion of Josh Reynolds and then it leads
Speaker 3: to the Ayug play. But I would say this, like
Speaker 3: if we just talked about a that looked different today
Speaker 3: than the way that they were hammering teams in the past,
Speaker 3: Like I had at no point thought that Dan Campbell
Speaker 3: went away from his character who he is, how he
Speaker 3: runs this team, and so this is part of what
Speaker 3: the Lions do was true, Like the.
Speaker 2: Reynolds dropped the ball and they.
Speaker 3: Were connected, it would be they were connecting on a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff tonight. It's like, I think it's just
Speaker 3: you go for it. I have no problem with that
Speaker 3: at all. All right, don't get the whole issue.
Speaker 1: With this one. This one gets a little dicier. Now
Speaker 1: it's fourth and three at the Niners thirty. Now you've
Speaker 1: lost the lead. The Niners just went on that long
Speaker 1: lead drive. To kick the field goal, you have a
Speaker 1: chance to tie the game. He bring out badgely to
Speaker 1: attempt a forty seven yarder, which is a very high
Speaker 1: percentage make in the league. Right now, now in the
Speaker 1: NFC title game in the fourth quarter, midway through. It's
Speaker 1: a little harder kick, but no doubt. He decides to
Speaker 1: again keep the offense on the field, and this time
Speaker 1: Greg Goff does not take care of his own business
Speaker 1: because he misses someone crossing underneath and throws incomplete. So
Speaker 1: a chance to tie the game midway through the fourth
Speaker 1: I had to go for it, and he gets killed.
Speaker 1: He's getting killed on social media for this. My point
Speaker 1: about the previous play still stands. This is what the
Speaker 1: Lions were. You can't change now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that would have been a forty seven yarder. Again,
Speaker 5: that's hardly locked in for Michael badgely in a big spot.
Speaker 1: But your boy, uh this is it. Yeah, this one
Speaker 1: coin flip. But that's who they were.
Speaker 5: And I wish I could rewatch that play right now
Speaker 5: because if if I'm remembering right, I think Bosa had
Speaker 5: a quick pressure on that play to Bosa really made
Speaker 5: his money in the second half of this game.
Speaker 6: He was really good, and so that impacted the play.
Speaker 5: Goff I think was a little off down the stretch
Speaker 5: going for the field goal there. I just think the
Speaker 5: thing to remember is the Lions defense did not have
Speaker 5: a stop in the second half, and they look at
Speaker 5: it and people kind of use the fact that, hey,
Speaker 5: you'd be within seven if you had just hit that
Speaker 5: field goal. Okay, true, but you just gave up a touchdown.
Speaker 5: The point was they needed to keep scoring to possibly
Speaker 5: keep up. So, yeah, maybe you kick a field goal,
Speaker 5: your defense still need to get stops.
Speaker 6: It wasn't showing that it could do it.
Speaker 2: All right, let's hear it.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm gonna hear from Campbell on his
Speaker 1: decision to stay aggressive.
Speaker 11: I don't regret those decisions. And that's hard. You know,
Speaker 11: it's hard because you know they didn't we didn't come through.
Speaker 11: It wasn't able to work out. But I just I don't.
Speaker 11: I don't, And I understand the scrutiny. I'll get that's
Speaker 11: part of the gig man, but you know, we just
Speaker 11: just didn't work out.
Speaker 1: And now the final move that he makes, and this
Speaker 1: is the only one I thought was indefensible. They are
Speaker 1: down thirty four twenty four. At this point, it's third
Speaker 1: and goal the San Francisco one. I understand the odds
Speaker 1: are stacked against them, but with sixty five seconds to play,
Speaker 1: they run the ball to Montgomery. It gets stuffed and
Speaker 1: not only does that backfire, you have to burn a
Speaker 1: time out. So at that point you're playing, you have
Speaker 1: to go for it on fourth down obviously, which they convert,
Speaker 1: but now it's on side kick or bust because you
Speaker 1: no longer have three timeouts. Mark, that was a very
Speaker 1: shaky decision, probably not in either way, but that was
Speaker 1: the only one where I was like, well, Campbell, f
Speaker 1: that one up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I I like, I, you know, I think you said
Speaker 3: it perfectly, like you're going through the script and you know,
Speaker 3: with the bullets flying in real time, and you've got
Speaker 3: to do the best you can with it. And I
Speaker 3: didn't love that play call necessarily, but this is who
Speaker 3: the Lions are. And like I think that one of
Speaker 3: the reasons that more coaches are being hired who.
Speaker 4: See decision making the same way that Dan.
Speaker 3: Campbell does is because this is like I think Greg
Speaker 3: Olsen we talked about to Greg Olsen is one of
Speaker 3: the better describers of why these things are happening why
Speaker 3: coaches because he's sitting there and the best coach of
Speaker 3: my best right, he's describing like what today's NFL is,
Speaker 3: And like I understand also if you're coming from a
Speaker 3: different point of view, from a different time, where like
Speaker 3: some of this stuff drives you mad or you don't
Speaker 3: quite have the full read on why it's happening, that
Speaker 3: can be if you're a Lions fan, you've got a
Speaker 3: lot of frustration, But this is who they are.
Speaker 6: This is your head coach.
Speaker 3: You got this far because he's been doing this all year,
Speaker 3: He's been doing it last year. It's like aggression is
Speaker 3: the way to go, and today's league well, and especially
Speaker 3: with this team, which is an offense heavy team that
Speaker 3: didn't play great on offense done.
Speaker 5: You know, I think golf his ball placement was a
Speaker 5: little off in the second half, but that even that run, Dan,
Speaker 5: I hear you.
Speaker 6: It didn't work.
Speaker 5: But I think that's sort of what we get back
Speaker 5: to with all these It's just like, I think the
Speaker 5: process all made sense. It's just like they the players decide,
Speaker 5: and they didn't. They didn't win, they didn't execute. They
Speaker 5: were the inferior team ultimately, I think when you stack
Speaker 5: it all up, but you you kind of look back
Speaker 5: at that sequence and they were taking a little while
Speaker 5: to get down there. Ferkser barely steps out of bounds
Speaker 5: at the one. Looked like Ferkser was gonna.
Speaker 1: Score, moving like Frankenson after you'd want to like it's
Speaker 1: like he caught was like, why is Sam Laporte? Did
Speaker 1: he hurt his knee again? It's like, oh no, it's
Speaker 1: the guy that doesn't have a catchy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I wouldn't again, I'd have to rewatch it.
Speaker 5: I doubt he's the first read on that play, but
Speaker 5: a lot right, he probably should have. Then they do
Speaker 5: throw on second down, so then you're at a point.
Speaker 5: You're at a point you have to score, and like you,
Speaker 5: they know that. You know that, they know that you
Speaker 5: can't like that. You don't want to blow the time
Speaker 5: out there, and so you're trying to catch them a
Speaker 5: little by suprise perhaps, but you're also thinking, what are
Speaker 5: we better at? What can we do best? We can
Speaker 5: run the ball. It's a low it's a higher percentage play.
Speaker 5: And yes they did get the touchdown. That touchdown was
Speaker 5: like one of the best plays a Lion's receiver made
Speaker 5: all day. Was a great catch by Jamison Williams on
Speaker 5: a great throw by Golf. It was a very difficult
Speaker 5: It's just hard for those to work. And like I
Speaker 5: just come back to like the players have to make
Speaker 5: the plays, and the Lions just didn't make it. Like
Speaker 5: they had four drives that went poor before that touchdown drive. Right,
Speaker 5: here's how three of them ended, two with Reynolds drops.
Speaker 5: We didn't mention the first Reynolds the second Reynolds drop,
Speaker 5: which to me was the bigger one. It was on
Speaker 5: a third down. He's wide open on a crossing route.
Speaker 5: It's a perfect throw and he literally kicks it like
Speaker 5: he drops it in and then he kicks it. So
Speaker 5: there's four drives in a row that go poorly. Two
Speaker 5: are On Reynolds drops and one is Gibs his fumball.
Speaker 5: So it's just like yeah, and they dropped the ball literally.
Speaker 3: And like you know, Aman Rossaint Brown, who had just
Speaker 3: I thought in the first half, I was like, just
Speaker 3: gonna take over this entire game. In the second half,
Speaker 3: you know, ta mirror what you're talking about about, just
Speaker 3: drives crumbling away. He wasn't targeted till eight minutes left
Speaker 3: to go in the game. It's like, so the guys
Speaker 3: in the first half that were dominating San Francisco, uh,
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of it just sort of vanished.
Speaker 2: I want to I.
Speaker 1: Want to throw some flowers to your boy, Mark Rock Party,
Speaker 1: who will be obviously the subject of exhaust of examination.
Speaker 2: For the next two weeks.
Speaker 1: And I thought the beginning of this game, and you know,
Speaker 1: even into and including that throw of the big completion
Speaker 1: to Ayuk, was everything that has concerned me about Party
Speaker 1: in big spots this season. But back to the matter
Speaker 1: is sometimes you just got things are with you, things
Speaker 1: are clicking, and you're having a good season. And he
Speaker 1: did throw he got away with a couple bad throws,
Speaker 1: a couple of floaters, he survived them. The other team
Speaker 1: didn't take advantage of it. But then when it was
Speaker 1: time to win the game in the second half, just
Speaker 1: like he did it in the end of the game
Speaker 1: against the Packers, he made big plays. He was he
Speaker 1: was precise with his throwing and most of most of all,
Speaker 1: the thing I think people will remember about this Party
Speaker 1: performance is how many big plays he made with his legs.
Speaker 1: Right for a guy that is obviously mister irrelevant, not
Speaker 1: the most athletic, how many times did he escape pressure
Speaker 1: and turn a sack or no gain into ten, fifteen,
Speaker 1: eighteen yards And that was a big difference in this.
Speaker 2: Game as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like the twenty one yard run that came after
Speaker 3: the Gibbs fumble that set up a Christian McCaffrey touchdown
Speaker 3: to tie the game at twenty four twenty four, It's like,
Speaker 3: you don't just expect that from Rock Party. And I
Speaker 3: thought tonight, you know, he had something like fifty something
Speaker 3: yards on the ground, where it's say forty eight nine
Speaker 3: point six.
Speaker 4: Yards per carry.
Speaker 3: He added it to his game, and it's like, this
Speaker 3: is a really young quarterback who's adding some of those
Speaker 3: game and it's like, even when Mahomes did that last season,
Speaker 3: I thought, to some agree, it's like, what more can
Speaker 3: he Mahomes do? It's like in the playoffs, Mahomes on
Speaker 3: the ground with like a high angle sprain was a
Speaker 3: differentiator game after game and in this game, brock Purty
Speaker 3: added that to his palette.
Speaker 5: And he had the huge run last week. It was
Speaker 5: only one against the Packers, but by far a career
Speaker 5: high in rushing. And it's funny because compared to the
Speaker 5: average NFL quarterback now he's You're right, he's not that athletic,
Speaker 5: but he does have good short area quickness. I mean
Speaker 5: you could see it in something like he can move
Speaker 5: if you put him in the NFL twenty years ago.
Speaker 5: He's a better than average runner. He is above sort
Speaker 5: of the line that you almost need to be. Now
Speaker 5: he is Jeff Garcia maybe right, he is, No Jeff
Speaker 5: Garcia is a great runner, but like he's athletic. Help
Speaker 5: you make yeah, yeh, yeah, he's athletic enough, is what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. And like he made those now he was fortunate.
Speaker 5: I thought, like the opening driving the game was very
Speaker 5: typical of how his game was two absolute big boy throws.
Speaker 5: It's almost hard to remember by that, like one where
Speaker 5: he was getting hit, another just beautiful ball placement, and
Speaker 5: then he almost threw an interception that they dropped to
Speaker 5: start the second half. On that field goal drive, that
Speaker 5: drive ended almost he was melting down at the end
Speaker 5: of that drive. He had like three crazy decisions in
Speaker 5: a row before they kicked that field goal, and he
Speaker 5: got away with like.
Speaker 2: That's what I thought I might be getting.
Speaker 1: Donald's sideline shot had double fingers crossed.
Speaker 5: He's not a very safe player, but those mistakes that
Speaker 5: he makes doesn't linger, and he didn't really make any
Speaker 5: the rest.
Speaker 2: Of the game.
Speaker 3: One of the passes that you're talking about on the
Speaker 3: first drive, because there was a perfect throw to Brandon Aiyuk,
Speaker 3: but there was a play on third down where he
Speaker 3: completed a pass to Deebo Samuel where he was destroyed
Speaker 3: on it.
Speaker 4: And I just do think he's a tough quarterback.
Speaker 1: Oh year, it was like, there's no questioning the fact
Speaker 1: that he will do anything he is making.
Speaker 2: He's easy to root for.
Speaker 1: He's got the guts of a burglar. As they say
Speaker 1: he doesn't he does not. If he throws interceptions he's
Speaker 1: going to keep throwing, which could lead to games like
Speaker 1: Christmas and Balter. But also it shows that he's not afraid.
Speaker 1: He believes in himself by the way going back and
Speaker 1: I will yes, maybe the fumble, the immediate fumble after
Speaker 1: that touchdown.
Speaker 2: Is kind of the play that really swung the game.
Speaker 5: But I think it's forgotten a little bit because everything
Speaker 5: was going like it just happened so quick.
Speaker 6: I think the first play of the drive.
Speaker 1: The Ayuk catch off the miss by Bill Dore, is
Speaker 1: the play that I'll remember as when everything turned and
Speaker 1: when this truly became momentum.
Speaker 2: Greg Let's let's listen to the Dan, because I want
Speaker 2: to hear from Dan Miller. It's a bummer that there
Speaker 2: you're not getting to.
Speaker 1: The super Bowl, and I think it's sixty sixty years
Speaker 1: now without the Lions winning a championship. Here's the call
Speaker 1: of that play from the Detroit side of things. And
Speaker 1: then right after that, if we could Eric play Ayuk's
Speaker 1: postgame comments about the play.
Speaker 7: Pretty out of the gun, takes to snap back and
Speaker 7: looking looking, looking, loading, throwing.
Speaker 2: Deep down field.
Speaker 8: It is up in the air and talk by hire,
Speaker 8: you get the heads.
Speaker 6: Of Kindle Bill Door, are you played the grab? There
Speaker 6: is a flag down as well?
Speaker 7: Why it looks like he's gonna go against the Lions
Speaker 7: the hit there is.
Speaker 10: No phone in the play cats was made was down
Speaker 10: the contract with.
Speaker 7: The thing and half first went right through Bill Door's
Speaker 7: hands and right off his face.
Speaker 5: Map ely right before the game, A lady bug landing
Speaker 5: on my shoe.
Speaker 6: Hey, y'all know what that means. So that's all I
Speaker 6: can say. No, I don't know, I don't know. Just great.
Speaker 6: Let dolls with it today, great win by game, It's
Speaker 6: crazy super star.
Speaker 5: That probably was the moment, although the Gibbs fumble really
Speaker 5: cemented it that Lions fans must have started feeling like,
Speaker 5: oh my god.
Speaker 1: Great guy said it was twenty four to twenty four.
Speaker 1: After the fumbling score, it already felt like thirty four
Speaker 1: to twenty four, right, but yeah, and that was in
Speaker 1: the blink of another eye.
Speaker 5: The score at that point is twenty four to ten,
Speaker 5: and you just feel like, if you're a Lions fan,
Speaker 5: you've been seeing lady bugs landing on other teams' shoes
Speaker 5: for fifty something years, and you felt like this was
Speaker 5: maybe the year that was going to be different. We
Speaker 5: have Dan Campbell talking after the game about how there's
Speaker 5: no guarantee that you ever do get back to this point.
Speaker 11: Look, I told those guys this may have been always shot.
Speaker 11: Do I think that?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 11: Do I believe that. However, I know how hard it
Speaker 11: is to get here. I'm well aware, and it'll be
Speaker 11: it's going to be twice as hard to get back
Speaker 11: to this point next year than it was this year.
Speaker 11: That's that's the reality.
Speaker 3: Well, I would say this, though, you can look across
Speaker 3: to real point to the Niners and say that a
Speaker 3: team that's really well built, like the Lions with a
Speaker 3: that I didn't. I don't think they overachieved this year.
Speaker 3: I think they adequally achieved for like the roster they have, like,
Speaker 3: but they're not going away, Like I got what he's saying,
Speaker 3: but like, yeah, but the hope for the.
Speaker 1: Life for every for every forty nine Ers team, and
Speaker 1: every Chiefs team and back in the day, every Patriots team.
Speaker 1: There are so many other teams that look like they
Speaker 1: have a bright tomorrow and you think, oh, they'll be
Speaker 1: back next year. We talked about this last week too.
Speaker 1: You just never know. And he's right because this.
Speaker 3: Telling them that he like him telling them that because
Speaker 3: that's also and I'm.
Speaker 1: Glad that he's being honest, because this was a good
Speaker 1: time to strike for the Detroit Lions in that division,
Speaker 1: with the Packers trying to figure things out, the Bear
Speaker 1: still trying to figure things out, the Vikings being the
Speaker 1: Vikings like this was this felt like their chance and
Speaker 1: they and they let it slip away. When we have
Speaker 1: Dan Campbell. I don't know what's going with Dan's nose
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks, very red. It's been distracting
Speaker 1: to me. I don't bother anyone else. I I hadn't
Speaker 1: notice that, but now all not. I'm Erican.
Speaker 5: I'm the most color blind man that's right in America.
Speaker 5: His nose look great to me.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a very masculine nose, the shape and
Speaker 1: structure of it, but there's a discoloration or a high coloration.
Speaker 2: Sorry to rub it in. Greg. Here is more Campbell
Speaker 2: on the game that almost was.
Speaker 11: You know, Coach Shannan's hell of a coach. That's a
Speaker 11: team that you know, they've they've done it, they lived it,
Speaker 11: and they made the place. So credit to them. I'm really,
Speaker 11: I'm really proud of all these guys. I am. I mean,
Speaker 11: and it's hard when you lose that way. It's hard,
Speaker 11: you know, you feel like you get your heart ripped out.
Speaker 1: So and on the other side with Shanahan, because I
Speaker 1: thought something he said after the game really illuminated how
Speaker 1: special they are and how different they are. He said,
Speaker 1: we played as bad of a first half as we could,
Speaker 1: but we were still within seventeen. How many teams can
Speaker 1: say that and be like, we're all right, it's only seventeen.
Speaker 1: That's a three score game in the second half of
Speaker 1: the NFC Championship game. But that's not just coach speak,
Speaker 1: Like he knows he has the dogs to dig out
Speaker 1: and they made him look great in this game. Because
Speaker 1: they lose this game, Greg Mark, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: chatter around Shanahan the guy that just can't get over
Speaker 1: the hump, and instead, in two weeks it gets another
Speaker 1: chance to kind of really stamp himself as if not
Speaker 1: the top of the chain of coaches right there.
Speaker 3: I think it's easy to feel like almost a sadness
Speaker 3: if you're a generalist and you're not rooting specifically for
Speaker 3: one of these teams, that you lose the experience of
Speaker 3: the Lions going on to do something that we would
Speaker 3: have been fun.
Speaker 6: It would have been fun.
Speaker 3: But that said, if we shift focus in a couple
Speaker 3: of days, like what the Niners have been through and
Speaker 3: how close they've come, and how close Shanahan has come,
Speaker 3: Like he knows you can come back from seventeen because
Speaker 3: he lived through twenty eight to three and he's lived
Speaker 3: through a thousand moments coaching in all different situations, and
Speaker 3: he's got the right people on the field to do it.
Speaker 3: I mean, this guy's been doing this for a entire life,
Speaker 3: and it's like there is a part of me that's
Speaker 3: like I cannot help it root for Kyle Shanahan to
Speaker 3: finally do it because he has come so close over well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because they know how the further you get, the
Speaker 5: more brute of the losses. And this will be the
Speaker 5: fourth time in five years. I mean they're not a
Speaker 5: dynasty in the way that we use the word, but
Speaker 5: to make four conference finals in five years, to make
Speaker 5: two Super Bowls now in five seasons, you just feel
Speaker 5: like you got it in those By the way, we're
Speaker 5: brutal losses. Uh, you gotta win, you you gotta get
Speaker 5: it done. And I do think they learned They can't
Speaker 5: fall down like that against the Chiefs, obviously, but I
Speaker 5: do think they learned something about themselves because I I
Speaker 5: think one of the reasons I thought this team was
Speaker 5: not built to make that come up wasn't the offense.
Speaker 5: It was that their defense looked like trash for large
Speaker 5: portions of this Packers and Lions game, and that that's
Speaker 5: something to be concerned about. The Lions had almost like
Speaker 5: two hundred yards. I just thought the game script was
Speaker 5: such that the Lions would be able to run the
Speaker 5: ball in the second half. The Lions still ended up
Speaker 5: with one eight two GiB Montgomery fifteen for ninety three,
Speaker 5: Gibbs twelve for forty five, and Jamison Williams had that
Speaker 5: electric forty two yard touchdown to start the game. And
Speaker 5: yet give the defense credit to when they needed to
Speaker 5: in the second half. They do have a lot of
Speaker 5: star players, and they came together enough. Their run defense,
Speaker 5: which is a problem and we'll talk about it leading
Speaker 5: up to the Super Bowl, it did get good enough
Speaker 5: when it really mattered to get them over the line.
Speaker 2: Unbelievable, Yeah, I can't.
Speaker 1: And that was by the way, the Sunday Drive presented
Speaker 1: by Toyota, where a drive. Of course, it was let's
Speaker 1: go places like Las Vegas. Learn moy learn more at
Speaker 1: toyota dot com. Slash ran Islander. Yeah, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: lie like this is not listen if it's not the
Speaker 1: Jets playing, I'm not gonna get overly invested in terms
Speaker 1: of heartbreak. Although I feel for Cynthia Frielan, who's a
Speaker 1: front of ours, I absolutely feel for Patra, who we
Speaker 1: know forever and he was lined up to be on
Speaker 1: the show tonight. It was texting with him earlier late
Speaker 1: last week, like, you know, we try to get him
Speaker 1: out on Thursday. We couldn't make it happen. It was like,
Speaker 1: how about Sunday if they win? And just knowing and
Speaker 1: listen with Patra, you don't. We're not texting Patrick, you say,
Speaker 1: give him a wide berth as you would any die
Speaker 1: hard fan.
Speaker 2: Right now. I don't even like that. The email is
Speaker 2: sitting in his inbox right now.
Speaker 1: No, he's probably the Eric job. We're not coming after
Speaker 1: you because you're doing your job. There's to make a
Speaker 1: show like we do. There has to be things like
Speaker 1: setting up link ups for a essentially a feed into
Speaker 1: the studio. But listen, you don't you've never met Kevin
Speaker 1: Patra all right, He's an intense, powerful man who works out.
Speaker 2: I just I don't want you to be hurt.
Speaker 13: The timing of it all was just very, very unlucky
Speaker 13: because I see that as I'm trying to set this
Speaker 13: up the book, Hey, if they win, we're gonna do this.
Speaker 13: I'm okay, i gotta get this and now moving parts.
Speaker 13: And as I'm sending this link like it's it's flipping,
Speaker 13: and then I get separate messages from both Dan and Greg. Hey, like,
Speaker 13: don't Mark wasn't even worried about patches directly, especially at
Speaker 13: this moment, Like at this moment, like never even cross
Speaker 13: marks month.
Speaker 6: So it was But yeah, I mean, hopefully it just
Speaker 6: went to spam.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying you should do this, because this
Speaker 1: could lead to other problems. If you could somehow hack
Speaker 1: into the NFL network mainframe to unsend that email before
Speaker 1: Patrick wakes up for like his five am shift tomorrow
Speaker 1: to write news items about this great comeback by the Niners,
Speaker 1: I think it would be in your best interest, and
Speaker 1: I'll leave it there.
Speaker 2: I didn't say to do it.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that's one thing you might want to think,
Speaker 1: what if I just spam him, so it just gets
Speaker 1: pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed him.
Speaker 2: That's another potential incredible hole.
Speaker 6: It's like a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's got to be very careful. I would say,
Speaker 1: I think he will survive. He'll be Mexico's and options,
Speaker 1: He'll be okay.
Speaker 5: And if he comes at us, we'll just blame it
Speaker 5: on the shadowy League figure who actually lost the game
Speaker 5: for the Lions by sending like a text that they
Speaker 5: can't do that. Yeah, that jinks them when they were
Speaker 5: up seventeen that you.
Speaker 2: Can't do that, you can't do it.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so what I was saying was, if it's not
Speaker 1: the Jets, I'm not really gonna be heartbroken about anything,
Speaker 1: but I will. I will say I did, just like
Speaker 1: probably a lot of people, I had thoughts of, you know,
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand Lions fans coming into Vegas and what
Speaker 1: as we've been so lucky to cover so many Super
Speaker 1: Bowls and we're going to be doing it again and
Speaker 1: I can't wait.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 1: That would have been a completely unique, obviously new experience,
Speaker 1: and hopefully hopefully the Lions get over the hump down
Speaker 1: the line. But there's no doubting what Campbell said is
Speaker 1: absolutely true.
Speaker 2: You don't know. You just never know if you're going
Speaker 2: to get another crack at it.
Speaker 1: And when you get to this level, at this stage,
Speaker 1: to let it slip away is just crushing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like they showed the you know, this is unusual,
Speaker 3: but like they cut to Ford Field, which was a
Speaker 3: capacity crowd. I remember as a child watching like WrestleMania three,
Speaker 3: not at WrestleMania three, but at like at a stadium
Speaker 3: with a bunch of other people, which my dad was
Speaker 3: forced to take me to a highly in nerdy we
Speaker 3: has to do like close circuit. Yeah, it was close circuit.
Speaker 4: This was the opposite of that.
Speaker 3: This was like a city like literally celebrating for many
Speaker 3: of them, the biggest event that they've ever come together for.
Speaker 3: And so they stopped showing that stadium as the two
Speaker 3: things I'm wondering about it happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the procession back to the parking lot at Portfield. Also,
Speaker 1: I saw one shot of eminem who is at the
Speaker 1: game in San Francisco, doing a double bird do, like
Speaker 1: a bunch of fans in the suite and the level
Speaker 1: below him, Like, what is what is Eminem's like exit
Speaker 1: route out of Levi's stadium?
Speaker 2: Does he state it?
Speaker 1: Does he pull a Mark Wahlberg and leave in the
Speaker 1: third quarter of twenty eight three to get it to
Speaker 1: beat the crowd? Is Marshall Mather is currently brawling with
Speaker 1: multiple with the opposition, I don't know, No.
Speaker 3: I'd say that you get like a couple of your
Speaker 3: friends to like wrap you in blankets and take you
Speaker 3: out like a dead body and no face.
Speaker 6: That's got to have some security, that's true.
Speaker 1: We saw that they're actually footage of Taylor Swift being
Speaker 1: snuck from backstage to the stage before one of our
Speaker 1: concerts in like a cleaning person's cart. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: was the way to maybe do that with Marshall Mantis.
Speaker 1: This is definitely the playoffs and the season in general
Speaker 1: where we've got like minor and major celebrities crawling out
Speaker 1: of the suites into the crowd itself or in the crowd, yeah,
Speaker 1: recognizing them.
Speaker 6: You know, he was sitting in the crowd.
Speaker 5: And I don't think forty nine ers fans would even
Speaker 5: look a scans at you or us having that view.
Speaker 6: They're different, The lions are different.
Speaker 1: There's been I don't know about that, Greg, I think
Speaker 1: I didn't know we're even talking about this right now.
Speaker 6: Well, they can eat it. There were twenty four teams.
Speaker 6: That's why it's the bad boy of NFL media. There
Speaker 6: are twenty four teams.
Speaker 2: Give them a guitar, squeals.
Speaker 6: It's like wine and cheese.
Speaker 5: I'm just saying there were twenty four teams that were
Speaker 5: in the NFL when the NFL truly started the merger.
Speaker 5: There's one of those twenty four teams they have not
Speaker 5: been to the Super Bowl.
Speaker 6: That is the Detroit Lions.
Speaker 5: And you're comparing and there's another team on the other side,
Speaker 5: and I know it's been a minute, Who've won five
Speaker 5: Super Bowls. So yes, the average fan is going to
Speaker 5: root for that fan base who has been through more
Speaker 5: heartache than anyone who's never even really had a chance,
Speaker 5: and that this was their chance.
Speaker 6: Of course, the average fan is going.
Speaker 2: To be r it was new.
Speaker 4: That's we talked yet a little.
Speaker 6: Less soonus in terms of uniqueness.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, we are not
Speaker 1: complaining because Chiefs v. Niners is going to be a
Speaker 1: hell of a game. Andy Reid versus Kyle Shanahan. That
Speaker 1: is gorgeous. It's happened before, and it was a great
Speaker 1: game last time. And I have a feeling, just like
Speaker 1: the desert is feeling right now, that is going to
Speaker 1: go down to the wire again.
Speaker 2: So that is the game.
Speaker 1: Next time you hear us doing a recap, well, Mark's
Speaker 1: going to be We're sending Mark to Orlando correct to
Speaker 1: cover all Oh yeah, bowl game?
Speaker 6: What am I doing?
Speaker 2: Just dodgeball the triple jump tag.
Speaker 6: Defend his Pro Bowl Flag Football MVP. He had that
Speaker 6: big drive to finish.
Speaker 3: I think there's I had officially do not have time
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 1: No, Mark Marcus coming to Vegas with us, and we're
Speaker 1: going to cover all the games. We still, of course,
Speaker 1: have two weeks of shows before that, so make sure
Speaker 1: you're there, uh and tuning in anything else?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we'll be back to Tuesday. Who's they music's playing?
Speaker 8: That?
Speaker 6: Guess nothing else.
Speaker 1: Thank you everybody who've been listening to every Sunday all season.
Speaker 2: One game left, Heed the call.