Hour 2 – Elimination Station

Brian Noe in for Ben Maller opens the 2nd hour talking about the Lions losing to the Vikings, and just how bad Jared Goff has looked lately. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, thanks for listening to the Ben Maler Show podcast.
It's me Ben. Be sure to catch us live every
weeknight from two to six Eastern eleven pm to three
am Pacific right here on Fox Sports Radio. You can
find your local station for the Ben Malers Show over
at foxsports Radio dot com, or stream us live every
night on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio going on. I hope
you're enjoying your Friday morning here. Hope Christmas Day was
fantastic for you. I can't say the same for my
connection over here. My gosh, I don't know what it is.
Don't get me started on this. I apologize militia. All
I hear from Mary Mack. Shout out to Mary Mack.

(00:48):
I haven't talked to Mary Mack yet or Brianna. I
think that's what I need to do. I just need
to be like, so, how is your Christmas? To talk
for ten minutes, go ahead, just tell me everything about it.
Did you have the did you have keish to have
a key line pie with jaff? What do you have
on Christmas Day? You know, just take it away. But yeah, no,
it's a man. I won't squawk about it. Listen, it's uh. Look,

(01:10):
you got to have a good connection wherever you are.
I have the worst luck at home, visiting home. I
got to be home. I was gone last Christmas. I
almost always make it home for Christmas Day. I didn't
make it home last year. I don't even know where
I was last year. I couldn't even tell you. It
might have been Vegas. I'm not even sure. I don't remember.
It's a blur. But I made it back this year.

(01:30):
But the drawback is when I'm home or like Jim Nighbors.
You ever see Jim Nighbors sing back home again in
Indiana during the Indy five hundred, where it's like back home,
my God in Indiana, like that whole thing. When I'm
back home again in Indiana, Oh man, it is the

(01:50):
worst luck with I just pencil in. You know, something's
wrong with your connection, man, I don't know. Can you
like you like reconnect? And it's just it's like, oh
my gosh, the nightmare man. So I apologize if it's
you know, I go from normal sounding to like, you know,
super robotic. It sucks. I'm sorry. I don't know what

(02:11):
it is. I have no idea. But I'll tell you what.
I might be moving locations tonight, like on the fly,
I'm the high tail it over. I don't know what
it's like. It's a place just a few minutes away,
and for some reason the connection works. Fantastic there right here, terrible, there,
good here, awful. I don't know, I don't know. I'm sorry,

(02:33):
but I apologize speaking of awful because I'm gonna save.
I want to get to the biggest surprises this season
in the NFL, good or bad. We're gonna do this
a little bit later in the show tonight. Okay, So
it's putting together this list, and I think it's it's
interesting to put the list together this way instead of
doing Hey, here are my top three surprises in a

(02:55):
good way, like wow, the Bears really surprised as whoa broncos? Right?
Instead of doing that? What if you mix them together,
good and bad, instead of separating them, mush them together. Now, me,
when I eat, I like my food separated. I don't
like things mushed together. If anyone's like, oh, this is
a fill in the blank cast role, I'm out. I'm out.

(03:18):
I have no interest in any cast role. It could
be all things that I love, don't don't want everything
mush together. But in terms of a list, yeah, pull,
I'm mation a list together all day. But I was
thinking about this, and I know I'm gonna get some
tweets Big Lou out there. You know, Lou might hit
me up and be like, hey, Ben doesn't do list radio.

(03:39):
I don't care what Ben does I do. I'll do
a list every now and now. I don't do list radio.
I'm not giving you a list. You know, nine out
of ten segments here, I'll do one. I'll do one
that I think it's good. I will do that. I
probably sound robotic right now. I'm sorry. I'll keep my
voice level down. It might trigger the robotic sounds. But no,

(04:00):
think about it this way. If you're putting a list
together of the biggest NFL surprise teams, and you've got
good surprises and bad surprises, Let's say, okay, this team
was expected to be good, they're freaking terrible. Are the
Chiefs a bigger bad surprise? Then the Bears are a

(04:25):
good surprise? Like, which is the bigger surprise? That to
me is interesting? How would you make your How would
you go about making your list right? If it's a
hodgepodge of good and bad surprises. So we'll do that
a little bit later in this hour, very much looking
forward to that, and my top choice. I think it
might surprise some people out there. I might get an

(04:47):
agreement here or there. My guess is when you hear
my top choice, you're gonna be like em there might
be a better choice than that. But I think if
you hear the reason, you're like, yeah, I yeah, I
kind of get that right, Like, So we'll do that
here in a little bit, looking forward to that. Speaking

(05:10):
of bad, as I said just a minute ago, it's
not just my com Rex connection, unfortunately, it is. Uh,
it's Jared Goff. It's funny because there was a promo
star and Colin Cowherd and he's like waxing poetic about
Jared Goff, and it's like, oh, man, that that that
promo got burned up based on Christmas Day, you know,

(05:31):
eliminated Jared Goff with five turnovers. Five turnovers, man, it
was unbelievable. He threw two picks, he had three fumbles.
They lost all the fumbles. They didn't recover any of these.
Like he crushed the Lions' chances of winning that game.

(05:53):
In a game where Max Brosmer he threw for fifty
one yards, but the Vikings passing it hack collectively when
you factor in sack yardage, right, those lost yards when
Brozemer is getting sacked grand total of three passing yards
for the Vikings on Christmas Day, they passed for three

(06:15):
yards in an NFL game and they still won by
thirteen points. How did that possibly happen? Well, Jared Goff
was disgustingly bad. That's what happened. And listen, man. As
I said before, Jared Goff's numbers are off the charts.

(06:36):
His numbers are fantastic, but its performances like this, and
it's just facing a pass rush in general. The guy
cannot function when a pass rush is getting home right,
when the pass rush is putting heat on him, when
they're getting close to him, when they're hitting him, when

(06:58):
they're forcing him to throw it earlier than he wants to.
He is a fish out of water. And it's the
craziest thing. It really is. I don't get it. I
really don't. I watch football. I watch every NFL game.
I watch every NFL game. There's not an NFL game
that I miss I do not miss NFL games. Man,

(07:20):
it does not happen. So I've seen Jared Goff play
all season long and his numbers are off the charts,
and I'm like, how can his numbers be this good?
And your eyes are telling you consistently like he's not
even close to this good? How can that be? And

(07:43):
Christmas Day that debacle against the Vikings was a good
indication of that. It's it's really it's the bad performance
is stick with you more so than the good does.
And I also think how it looks matters. Listen. I
don't want to make this a whole big thing, but
I think that we're more so in the uh we're

(08:05):
in like the sports center frame of mind when we
watch sports, we watch sports within highlights. There are a
lot of people, I get it, you're busy. You're not
watching games like game in, game out, full games, especially
younger people. A lot of younger people are like, dude,
give me the highlights and I got other stuff to do, right,

(08:25):
Like we're not just digesting full games. Like nobody has
time to set. You got a family, you got kids,
you got a job, you got all these responsibilities. No
one but that on their plate is just watching full
game after full game after full game after full game.
You're not doing it. So in this day and age,
a lot of it is highlights. And when you see

(08:49):
that's why a lot of people think Justin Fields can
cut it in the NFL. Justin Fields is a bad
NFL quarterback like bad, not good, opposite of good, bad, inconsistent, inaccurate.
And yet I should have grabbed the audio at the
time when the Jets were playing the Patriots earlier this
year in Fox Buro Kirk Herbstreet's doing the call. Kirk

(09:12):
does a good job, made a terrible point that particular night.
He's like, as far as all the physical tools and
traits and capabilities, like Justin Fields has the full package.
That's like, Kirk, dude, stop, just stop, man, stop, how
many years are we gonna give this guy until we
finally look and to be like he's not good. He

(09:35):
produces some insane highlights from time to time. Justin Fields
is a very talented person and can make some crazy
things happen on a football field. In doses, he can't
do that consistently, and that's the problem. But the issue
is if you look at Justin Fields, who does make

(09:56):
you say wow. At times, he can make a an
insane run, he can buy time and make an insane
throw and be like that was incredible. How many players
on the planet. How many people on the planet are
capable of making that same play? Not many, but yet
the consistency just isn't there. So the point is when

(10:19):
Justin Fields makes those highlights and you flip on Sports
Center and maybe he didn't watch the whole game. Maybe
it didn't see him miss the wide open guy on
third and three and they didn't move the chains and
that led to them, you know, getting down by seventeen
points and then it just snowballed from there, right Like,
you don't see those little plays. You just see the

(10:39):
jaw dropping highlights and you're like, wow, man, this guy
Justin Fields, like Jared Goff is like the opposite of
Justin Fields. Jared Goff is much more consistent, but he
doesn't produce those wow plays. He's not this athlete that
has these traits and makes these plays and like shakes

(11:02):
a guy or even he's not an athlete. He's not
gonna outrun anybody. He could not run me, right, and
I'm not a gazelle. Over here and he's not gonna
have this just insane arm and I don't know, rip
off this throw that's crazy impressive, that's just not him.
And in turn, when he doesn't produce those highlights, a

(11:24):
lot of it is that's how you're judged these days.
Like that fills in the blanks for a lot of
people in terms of how you're just evaluated in general.
If he's not producing those highlights, it's like, all right,
he's just not going to get the benefit of the
doubt with a lot of people. And then you have

(11:46):
a disaster like on Christmas Day against the Vikings, and
it's like, man, that that's the kryptonite for Jared Goff.
When a pass rush is putting heat on him and
forcing his hand. Wow, Like yo, it is a disaster.
So you know, listen, I'm not rooting against the guy,

(12:07):
and I hate that that's the reality. But when you're
not producing these highlight reel plays and you look like
a fish eyt of water when a pass rush is
getting home or getting close to getting home and you
have five turnovers against the Vikings, it's like, man, it's crazy,
how right, Like think about this, I can't believe this

(12:30):
is a reality. But when you look at Justin Field's numbers,
let me try to get something for you real fast, Okay,
cause I don't know how many times we've played the
game of hey, hey, Justin Fields. I mean maybe Justin
Fields is not that far away from you. Okay, let's
can we please just stop here? Can we just stop
if you look at Justin Fields? All right, I'm trying

(12:51):
to get his numbers real quick from this season. So
all right, thumbing down, thumbing down, further further down, a
little more down. All right, here we go. So seven touchdowns,
one pick, that's not bad. Passer rating is eighty five
eighty nine point five, by the way, almost identical with
bow Knicks, almost like almost on the to the decimal point.

(13:17):
Oh most Actually he's point five better. Can you believe this?
Justin Field's passer rating point five better than bo Nicks
this season. I don't buy Bonnicks. But yeah, Justin Field's
a completion percentage just under sixty three. Okay, like similar things, right,
Like he can make plays, the touchdowns, the interceptions not bad,

(13:40):
but he's not pushing the ball down field. And with
the completion percentage that low, you know, the passer rating
is going to suffer. That's the way it goes. So
not putting up gaudy numbers, but more times than not
you'll hear, you know, justin field, like Kirk kob Street
on Thursday Night Football. You know he's got all the
physical traits. Nobody questions it. Okay, dude, give it a rest. Meanwhile,

(14:03):
Jared Goff over four thousand yards passing, nearly sixty nine
percent completion rate, thirty two touchdowns, five interceptions, one oh
nine point four passer rating that would be number two
in the NFL, Like it is insane. His numbers are insane,
and yet most of us are like I just I

(14:24):
don't know about this golf guy man like ye sh
and there's no defending the guy on Christmas Day who's
just bad. One thing, I'm gonna be switching locations here momentarily,
Malard Militia, Like the broadcast qualities not good enough, so
I'm gonna high tail it to a better location. You
deserve the best here, especially you know, if this is

(14:44):
your Christmas Day night cap, you can't have faulty audio
and you know, scrambled signals, you can't have that. So
I'll be high tailing it over to a more secure location.
But my guy Milkman, Mike, he wrote, you were a
little off on your movie reference. It was DeNiro playing
al Capone in The Untouchables, So I just mentioned there's

(15:08):
a the neuro line where he's like dead dead. He
says that now in this uh in the Untouchables. You know,
I'm not as familiar with that movie, so I'm not
gonna speak on that, and he might say something that's similar,
might say a variation to that. But it is from
the movie Casino. If you guys are Casino fans or

(15:29):
Goodfellas fans, the neuro fans, what have you. It's a
scene where he's he's talking to Sharon Stone and he's
talking about like Sharon Stone's boyfriend, right, and he says,
you know, dead, he would be dead, That's what he says.
I think what it was she took their daughter with

(15:54):
her former boyfriend. I believe that's the case, and they
they kind of skipped town, and so dear Row he
sent a plane for them and the whole thing, and
he was kind of threatening, like if you take my
daughter away like that again, like you're dead dead. It's
like basically the context. So it is from Casino. It
just wasn't the most flawless way. It was basically a

(16:16):
Jared goffway at least on Christmas Day of explaining that scene,
so I apologize for that. Be sure to catch live
editions of The Ben Meller Show weekdays at two am
Eastern eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the
iHeartRadio app Polly Foods Go Here with Tony Foods Go. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
As everybody knows, we're the hosts of the award winning
Polly and Tony Foods Go show. Yeah, but instead of
us telling you how great we are, here's how Dan
Patrick described us when he came on our show.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Quick, knowledgeable and funny, opinionated. What are you doing interrupting
our promo? Yeah, it wasn't talking about you. You took
those clips totally out of context.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Oh yeah, well after this promo, I'm gonna take you
out and beat you.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Let me put this into context. Shut up.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, anyway, just listen to the Pauli and Toni Fusco
Show on IHOT Radio, Apple podcasts oherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Ye oh, what it's going on? I'm probably knowing for
Big Ben Meller here on Fox Sports Radio, so I
have switched locations. I got a full taste of what
you guys were putting up with earlier tonight. Oh man,
I'm sorry. It's funny because listen, I'm not gonna bore
you with technical stuff. We're probably not supposed to even

(17:27):
talk about it. You know, it's just act like it
never happened. But if if your connection's a little bit spotty,
if it's bad, like it's gonna sound bad. And it
was funny. I was driving over here and I caught
some of the show and they just replayed an earlier
segment and for a couple of minutes, I'm like, is
that that bad? What? Like? What's going on with Mary
Mack and Brianna? Like maybe they're just crazy tonight. I

(17:49):
don't know. It sounds okay to me. And then and
then it kicked in and I'm like, oh, oh yeah,
I get it. I I totally I totally hear what
they're hearing. And yeah, man, I don't know. I don't
know what it is like when I visit home, because
when I visit home, I just stay at my mom's.
So I moved from Vegas. I'm at home for the
holidays and then after the new year, I'm moving wherever

(18:12):
I'm moving, I don't know where I'm going. But man,
when I don't know what it is, I love my
mom to death. She's the most awesome person in my life.
And I don't know what. She has tried everything. That's
the sad thing. She has bent over backwards trying to
fix the Internet issues. If I ever come home to

(18:32):
visit and do a couple of shows, something goes freaking terrible.
And she's done everything possible short of moving mountains, and
for some reason it will still be a huffle. I
don't know what it is, but we're good now. And
I was just thinking, like, you've been bombarded with a
lot of NFL stuff and there's more to come. You're
not over with being bombarded, by the way, but a

(18:55):
little NBA love because there were some interesting things that
happened during Chris Day. I disagree with Charles Barkley, like,
it's not the NBA's day anymore Christmas Day, it's the
NFL's day. The ratings would show as much. But listen,
there weren't great NFL games. They were all sloppy, like
the Nightcap was sloppy with the Chiefs and the Broncos.

(19:20):
The Vikings beating the Lions was sloppiness defined. So it
wasn't an incredibly crisp day of football and basketball wise,
some interesting things that happened. So the nixt had a
seventeen point comeback win against the Calves that got everything started.
This headline very unfortunate Anthony Davis exits with the groin injury.

(19:43):
You know, does that that seem fitting? I hate that.
By the way, I gotta put one of my buddies
on blast, Bruce Jacobs. I love Bruce Jacobs. He's a
good friend of mine. We did radio together in Albany,
New York. That's how far back we go, Upstate New York.
Like how deep is your bond? It might not be
upstate New York deep. That's how deep my bond is

(20:05):
with Bruce Jacobs. And he has the worst take of
all takes. I don't know if he's backed off this yet,
because it was terrible when he came up with it,
and it's even worse if he's standing by it. I
swear he's the one person breathing right now who thinks
that Dallas won the Luca trade. I'm not even joking, man,

(20:29):
I'll hit him up. I need to hit him up,
probably during the show tonight, you know what's the segment
is done. I'm gonna hit him up like Bruce Hey,
ad grun injury. They still won that trade though, right Like,
I'm just waiting for him to concede the loss. Just
concede the loss, man. And we've all had bad takes
from time to time. Granted I've never had a Hey

(20:49):
Dallas actually won the Luca trade. I've never had to
take that bad. Not that that's historically bad. But even
if that were my take, I would I would, I
would take the Yel's got to concede the loss on
this one, man. But I did did see the high
the headline that Ad unfortunately exited with the groin injury.
MAVs lost to the Warriors. How about the Lakers? They

(21:14):
got crushed by the Rockets. I'll tell you one thing,
and this is gonna make me sound old. I don't
even care Steph Curry shoe updates. I'm over it. I
am completely over it right like each it seems like
every every Warriors game. So he's a shoe free agent, right.

(21:35):
You probably know that he stepped away from under armour,
so he is a shoe free agent. And so what
Steph Curry and his inner circle have come up with.
They're like, all right, here's what we do. We're gonna
rock like old school shoes, right, wear like vintage Jordan's
one game and walk in with like some Kobe shoes

(21:57):
and some Alan iverson shoes. That's what he did on
Smith's Day. He walked in like paying homage to Kobe
and Ai and Oh, we're gonna wear some shack shoes. Oh,
we're gonna do that. I don't freaking care. I don't
care at all, not even a little. So that was
one of the headlines. It's like, oh, we got a
Steph Curry shoe update, all right, Uh, swipe left on

(22:19):
that joker. Fifty six point triple double. Insanity, just insane.
By the way, the most insane part of this fifty
six points sixteen boards, fifteen assists. You know what he
shot from the field fifteen for twenty one. That's an
efficient fifty six point triple double. That's insanity right there.

(22:39):
And of course the Spurs beat the Thunder again, third
time in two weeks. They beat the Thunder. Remember we
were talking about the Thunder. They started off twenty four
and one. We're like, they might win seventy five games. Yeah,
that's that's clearly not happening. Likely to get to seventy
right now,