January 12, 2026 • 51 mins
Former NFL scout John Middlekauff reacts following Sunday's NFL Wild Card Weekend games. John opens the show talking about how impressive it was for the 49ers to upset the Eagles despite all the injuries SF has suffered. Next, he talks about the Patriots defense stopping the Chargers from getting anything going on the offensive side of the ball, and finally he discusses the exciting Bills comeback win over the Jags.
03:52 - 49ers-Eagles Reaction
30:19 - Patriots-Chargers Reaction
36:00 - Bills-Jaguars Reaction
40:00 - Steelers-Texans Lookahead
50:30 - Matt Ryan named Falcons President
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. What is going on? My people? How are
we doing? John Middlecoff Three and Out podcast, brought to
(00:22):
you by my friends at Zone Pouches. We have officially
gone live and launched on Netflix. Well I'm recording this
on Sunday night, but if you're listening to this on Monday,
we're often rocking on Netflix, so you can go check
that out, subscribe to our podcast, and all of our
(00:43):
videos and everything we record here will be up there
video wise. So pretty big deal for the show. Hopefully
you guys, I know you will check it out and
let me know what you think. Nothing changes, though, we
will do a show tonight based on the craziness. Obviously,
Siria and the Eagles loose to the forty nine ers
(01:04):
in just an all timer, Drake may outplays Herbert, Josh
Allen just goes Michael Jordan. We we know the matchups,
the Bills playing the Broncos, the Patriots taking on whoever
wins tonight, nin or Seattle and Ram Chicago. Matt Ryan
(01:24):
has officially taking the Falcons job as the Grand Pooba
the Boss, and I'm gonna have a baby this week.
So we got a lot going on. Fluid situation We'll
still be recording pods all week. Have a couple ideas,
but the plan I think is to have a baby.
As of right now on Thursday. We have a doctors
appointment on Tuesday. So if something changes and he slipped
(01:46):
around and then we just wait, maybe you'll find out
a little after I do so. But other than that,
I plan on having podcasts all week, recording some stuff
just if I'm not able to do one on Thursday
for Friday, but we will have shows Saturday. Might be
a little up in the air. The reaction to the
I guess it is the forty nine or Seattle game,
(02:08):
but hopefully we're back home by then. Come on, buddy.
Other than that, you guys know the drillph you listen
on Collins Feed, make sure you subscribe to the three
and Out podcast, and obviously Netflix, go check that out.
So let's talk some football. Let's just start right off
the bat with a man named Nick Sirianni. And I
(02:29):
thought about it like this. Let's just pose a question.
If I ask you or anyone they don't even need
to work in the NFL, just a football fan. If
Nick Sirianni was fired on Monday, would he get another
coaching job this season, and want to say coaching job,
would anyone hire him to be their head coach? Since
(02:51):
none of you are here, I will answer that question
for you. The answer is no. Well, let's take some
other guys who were fired. I think we kind of
just assumed that Mike McDaniel was gonna come back randomly
in the middle of the week. See you, you're gone.
Mike McDaniel's fired. Kevin Stefanski a week ago was not shocking,
(03:12):
also fired. Let's assume those guys realized Stefanski's interviewing for
head coaching jobs might, as you know, easily could land one.
Mike McDaniel also, he's interviewing for the Cleveland Browns, who
Mike silver Davis, California resident, former legendary s I writer
wrote a book about like the Shanahan Tree. Of that
(03:32):
crew of guys, the former Washington coaches, Mike McDaniel was
famously wrote a thirty two page essentially essay to help
Kyle Shanahan and himself get out from under the Cleveland
Browns leadership in Jimmy Haslam, and they were able to
resign and leave and go to Atlanta. Well, Mike McDaniel.
I think either has or is going to interview for
(03:53):
the Cleveland Browns. But if Stefanski and McDaniel were not
going to be head coaches and don't get head coaching jobs,
both of those got. Definitely Mike McDaniel would be not
only locked coordinators, people would think about firing their offensive
coordinator to hire those two guys. They would have teams
lined up all around the league to hire Mike McDaniel
(04:13):
and Kevin Stefanski to call their offense. For a ton
of head coaches all around the NFL, no one would
hire Nick Sirianni to be their offensive coordinator. The Eagles
don't let him call plays. Let's be real. Let's look
at the business world. Some people create start things from
scratch and dominate that world, right, whatever their individual industry is.
(04:36):
Jeff Bezos created Amazon from nothing. Elon's created countless companies, right.
Sam Walton created Walmart from thin air, built the thing
up from scratch. Some people hit the lottery and get
rich overnight. Where does Nick Sirianni fall under that? I'd
argue he hit the lottery. He got Howie Rosenman as
(04:57):
a general manager, he got an owner. That's willing to
spend unlimited amounts of money, not just on his own roster.
They obviously have been well renowned now for front loading
contracts and being able to pay guys more cash up front,
and how they can manipulate the books. But a couple
of years ago their defense wasn't shambles. What did Jeffrey
(05:17):
Lurry do? What's it gonna take to get Vic Vangio?
We will pay him the most of any coordinator in
the NFL. Most owners aren't willing to do that help.
The majority of owners get knocked for being cheap. So
Nick Sirianni is in a situation where he plays the
forty nine Ers who When Kyle Shanahan addressed the team
in the locker room after one of his most historic
(05:37):
wins as a head coach, he gave props to the
two linebackers, neither of which were on the team a
month ago. When it was reported this morning that Lane Johnson,
a future Hall of Famer, was not going to be
able to go, do you know the first thing I thought?
Who cares? Doesn't impact the forty nine Ers. They're dead
last in sacks. Nick Bosa is currently third on the
(05:59):
team and he hasn't played in months. The forty nine
Ers defense, beside their secondary, was a bunch of random
practice squad free agent off the street guys, and somehow
the Eagles couldn't do anything when it mattered. The brock
Purty threw two bad interceptions. The Eagles scored three points
(06:19):
off both interceptions. I saw a tweet tonight that the Eagles,
if you remove defensive scores, averaged less than ten points
in the second half of games all season long. They
have Aj Brown, who we can get into here in
a second, is obviously one of the most talented wide
receivers in the NFL. Terrible game to night, but dude's
(06:42):
big time player, so over the course of the season,
at any moment he should dominate. DeVante Smith is a
top fifteen pick who's not only lived up to it,
is a stud. Saquon Barkley last year ran for two
thousand yards. Dallas Goddard. I think Tom Brady said a
night like that's his twelfth touchdown of the year. He's
one of the more productive past catching tight ends in
the NFL. They have a quarterback who is a true
(07:06):
dual threat guy. He might not have the high end
speed like Lamar Jackson or Kyler Murray. But he is
a runner, and I thought, listen, I got it wrong.
I'd never thought when he came out Oklahoma. And I'm
a big Oklahoma guy because the guy before I got
into this world I worked in football. The guy that
hired me when I first started out of college at
Fresno State, he works at Oklahoma. So I've been dialed
(07:29):
into that program for a long time and watched all
Lincoln Riley's, the Baker Mayfields of Kyler Murray's and Jalen Hurts,
and I thought Jalen was probably gonna have to play
running back in the pros. I thought that was the
craziest pick I'd ever seen. When how he took him
in the second round, I was wrong, and then he
became more than a productive passer. But one thing early
(07:50):
on in his career, Jay why I thought he'd be
a running back because I thought he could be like
Frank Gore. He's not some blazing speed guy up the sideline.
His instinct say as a runner are actually much more
natural than even some running backs. You know what the
Chargers would have done to have him just taking carries.
He's patient, he has great vision. He's just he's natural
(08:12):
instincts with the ball in his hands when he's moving.
Even had a couple runs a day, one was called back.
It's like, why didn't Jalen have ten plus runs? Say
this about Lamar since Lamar became MVP caliber. He'll do
whatever it takes to win. You need me to run,
need me to pass. I don't give a damn. I'll
do what it takes to help the Ravens get a victory.
(08:32):
Jaye was like, no, I want to play like Russell Wilson,
dominate from the pocket. You're not a pocket quarterback man,
You're a dual threat player. So watching the Eagles just
completely crumble. I worked there for a couple of years.
I worked for Howie. The pressure in that building is immense.
Hell I still get nightmares about it sometimes, which honestly
keeps me on my toes because the world I live
(08:54):
in now still there's a ton of pressure. I got
a growing family. It's not like I don't have pressure
to produce in to do well financially and professionally for
my wife and my future child. But it's a little different.
I don't walk into that office on pins and needles
and that's what happens in Philadelphia, which is part of
football culture. It was like that at Alabama. It's like
(09:15):
that in Philadelphia. It was like that in Belichick forever.
Like it's a natural environment in the football world and
it's very healthy, but they don't tolerate getting embarrassed. And
tonight watching or this afternoon, watching the Eagles get embarrassed
by Brock Purty throwing to DeMarcus Robinson, who looked like
he was Jerry Rice, I was like, this is not
(09:38):
gonna go overwill George Kittle, who is not just one
of my favorite players in the NFL, he's truly one
of the great tight ends I've ever seen in my life.
He is going to have his number retired one time
as a forty nine er. He's a complete badass, and
as Christian McCaffrey said after the game, he's the heart
and soul of our team. Let me repeat, the heart
(10:01):
and soul of their team. Who is already missing Fred Warner,
who'd argue from some people that he was the heart
and soul of the team. He's been gone forever. Nick
Bosa long gone. They're missing players left and right, And
it didn't matter because it turned out. The Eagles aren't
very well coached and they're just not a very good team,
(10:21):
and the forty nine ers shouldn't be that good of
a team. They're missing way too many players, but there's
like a character to them where they didn't fracture when
it would have been easy to. When George Kittle is
getting carted off the field, war is pretty clear, yeah
his achilles ripped, yet the Eagles are forcing the ball
to AJ Brown. I don't blame them. He's a really
(10:43):
talented player, but it was pretty clear he didn't really
want to be there. And I think a big mistake
the Eagles made was not trading AJ Brown during the
middle of the season when they could have. And they're
going to trade him in two months. But when you
go into these playoff games, you need to have people
who are all in. And did AJ Brown today look
(11:04):
like a guy that was all in? And I'm not
just saying that because he had a bad game. Like
Randy Moss, Jerry Rice had some drops, probably not as
many as he did in an individual game, But it
happens like it's football, like people fumble, people throw interceptions.
Obviously they are better and worse times to do certain things,
but like it happens, and watching that game the day
(11:27):
I went, I don't know, I how does Sirianni survive
the next forty eight hours Because the offensive coordinator was
probably going to get fired no matter what, whether they
unless they won the Super Bowl again, he was a
dead man walking. That's the way Philly works. They fired
coordinators all the time. But I think this outcome against
(11:49):
Kyle Shanahan that when I asked, when I posed that question,
who would hire Sirianni tomorrow if he was fired? What
if I flipped it to the forty nine ers, who
would hire Kyle Shanahan tomorrow if he was fired? I
think your answer would be twenty nine teams, thirty teams,
hell more people would hire the forty nine ers defensive
(12:11):
coordinator who was just fired last year from the Jets.
It's actually aged much better because that organization is an
all time clown show than Nick Sirianni. And the crazy
part is Nick Sirianni has been in two of the
last three Super Bowls. But I think, if we're all
being honest, how much did he really have to do
with that? Hey, he leads some team meetings, you know,
(12:31):
he's good like with personalities, but like it feels like
he does nothing in the game and he can't help
the offensive coordinator who was clearly over his head. His
quarterback has got to this spot where it's like, what
are we doing? Why aren't we utilizing your talents? Look
at Brock, perty what does it take to win the game?
(12:53):
You need me to run, you need me to die forward,
you need me to scramble and make a play. Obviously,
I'm a quarterback, so you're gonna need me to pass
and make the play. But we're gonna need my legs
in big spots. And I'm not just talking about quarterback sneaks.
I'm talking about taking off and running. And Brock had
one of the dumbest plays you'll ever see, because it
was one of the truly great six or seven second
(13:15):
at the end of a half play call, because I
was like, what are they gonna do here to try
to get six seven more yards? They don't have any
time out. You can't throw it over the middle of
the field. The Eagles are playing like against the sideline,
and they just ran a quarterback like power, and Brock
kind of froze and then he fubbled the ball. It
was a complete disaster. But listen, party by no means
(13:35):
was perfect tonight. That play multiple interceptions. I'm a little
baffled that during the prep when all else fails, do
not throw at twenty seven, throw at the other guy.
And listen, he tested them twice and got picked off twice.
But what it mattered the most for a game winning drive.
(13:55):
It didn't matter what the play call was or what
was needed. They just did whatever they had to do.
Do you need me to run it? Do you need
me to pass it? Do you need my Pro Bowl
full back to make crazy catches? Do you need Christian
McCaffrey to make a catch. And that's what happened, and
that's why the forty nine ers drove down the field
perty had a huge first down run on that on
that drive. Because it never comes down to I'm just
(14:17):
a pocket quarterback or I'm just a Shanahan quarterback. No,
I'm just a quarterback that will do whatever it takes
on a given week to help us win the game.
And yet when you watch the Eagles, they're the complete opposite.
Jalen's like, I just want to pass, I don't want
to run, and clearly doesn't because you would call more
quarterback runs. I'm watching Josh Allen, I'm watching the two
(14:40):
quarterback Sunday night. I'll do it. Do you need me
to take off, I'll take off. That is not the
way Jalen plays anymore. Maybe he doesn't want to get hit,
Maybe he just doesn't want to run. He got a
super Bowl, He's made a bunch of money. And I
have a lot of respect for Jalen, what he stands for,
how hardy works, how serious he is. But in terms
of as a player, you can't maximize your abilities as
(15:03):
a player when you won't do like one of the
things you are best at, when you also have some
clear deficiencies and you try to lean into them. Like
part of life, to be successful at something is to
double down on what you're good at and do things
you struggle at. I don't give a shit what you do. Avoid,
(15:23):
don't do that, stay away from it. It's like, I'll
just be a pocket quarterback. This isn't really working man like.
This is. This is get run and get moving. That's
your what Look at Drake may look at Justin Herbert,
who didn't play well but throws on the road. Look
at party, get out and move, get out and make
some plays. You're a great athlete, not a good athlete,
a great athlete. But this comes back to coaching, and
(15:45):
this comes back to this situation. The Eagles are ruthless,
they really are. And to get embarrassed like that at
home by, you know, you got to remove the brand
in Kyle Shanahan and put the players that he was
rolling out. They threw a ball today. I've been watching
the forty nine ers for three plus decades to number
eighty one, I had never heard of this player. And
(16:06):
then Kevin Burkhart said, well, he hasn't played in an
NFL game or caught a pass since twenty twenty one.
He's been on practice squas squads and bounced around. I'm like, yeah, no, shit,
I couldn't point this guy out of a lineup. But
that's what the forty nine ers had to do today
because of injuries, because of just the uphill battle they
had to fight against a team loaded with players. Defensively too,
(16:29):
and listen, the Eagles defense is bad at all. You
could win a Super Bowl with that defense. You cannot
win a Super Bowl. Hew, It's proven. You can't win
a playoff game with that offense, which just as a
fan of football, as someone that just would be sitting
on my couch and watching it. If I sold insurance
or had to dig ditches Monday morning, they would be
(16:51):
one of the last teams in the league I will
want to watch. I got so many texts from people
like the Eagles are a terrible watch. I'm like, yeah,
they really are. They're boring, there's no creativity, like the
forty nine Ers ran a trick play. For those of
you that don't watch every forty Niner game, forty nine
Ers are not a trick play team. They actually have
one go to trick play and it's a wide receiver pass.
(17:13):
Now part of it is Juwan Jennings was once a
huge high school recruited quarterback. It kind of went viral
today on Twitter that he was ranked ahead of guys
like Sam Darnold, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson come out
of high school. Then he got to Tennessee, changed positions,
and I don't think it went great toward the end
(17:34):
because when he gets introduced in games, he doesn't even
acknowledge Tennessee. It happened with de Shawn Jackson back in
the day because him and Jeff Tedfer butted heads. It
happens sometimes whenever you hear a player on TV, say
like Davis Senior High School, you like, something went bad
with the coach in that program, right, because usually the
guys are excited, like one to the University of Texas,
went to the University of Oregon, Go Ducks. Whenever you
(17:56):
hear the high school or their hometown, You're like, Oh,
something bad went down, which shouldn't happen as much now
because guys are getting paid so much money. I'd have
a huge smile on my face. I'd be like seven
million dollars University of Oregon. But I do think when
Kyle busted out that trick play. I've been saying this
forever with coordinators, I don't pretend like even the shittiest
(18:18):
coordinators in the NFL, if you got them on a
whiteboard or you got them in front of the room
with high school coaches and just talked football, their knowledge
and understanding a ball would blow us all away. All
of us. We'd be like, what is this sky talking about?
From splits to depths, to route concepts to against all
(18:39):
these guys are great backup quarterbacks as well, but when
you get them on the field as a backup quarterback,
as a player, or as a position coach, as a coordinator,
and they got to start calling the plays and the
bullets start flying. Separates the men from the boys to
the highest level. Speaks for college, no different in the pros.
And some people when I was saying this the other
(19:01):
day about Tony, the little wide receiver from Miami who's
a true freshman. Obviously, our experiences when we're young shape
our capabilities and our future talents in certain things. You know, Obviously,
playing football, there are god given metrics that you're gonna
need to play college or in the NFL. Right that
there are certain you're gonna have to have certain you know,
(19:24):
intellectual capacity to be a doctor or to be an
engineer when it comes to math or biology. Right, But
once you get to that level and you're surrounded by
a bunch of other people at that level, they're gonna
be separating factors. And I remember watching Tony in that
the last game, thinking like this guy was born to
play football, Like his instincts in his feel for the
(19:46):
game are just elite. I remember hearing a story when
I was a kid, I grew up in northern California,
right by Sacramento. My dad was a huge Cow fan,
Cal football, in Cal basketball, And I remember being pretty young,
it's probably like ten twelve years old, when Jason Kidd
was at Cow and there was all these rumors, you know,
it was like took him like five times to pass
(20:06):
the minimum level of SAT. Like it's very academically challenging
to get in Cow. And I don't think anyone would
consider Jason Kidd like, you know, some intellectual genius. But
in terms of basketball IQ, he's like Albert Einstein. And
in sports. One thing I learned, actually, Howie Roseman taught
me this. I remember scouting a guy and talking about
(20:28):
their GPA and it was like, this guy's not that smart.
He's like, was he football smart? I'm like, yes, coach,
say the guys picks it up after one try, no problem,
Like we don't care about his GPA. We're not doing
GPA here, We're doing football, right. And that's like in life,
like your GPA doesn't always translate. Do your instincts at
whatever you're doing translate? And you watch Kyle Shanahan and
(20:52):
Brock Perdy the symbiotic relationship they had Colin plays obviously
the timing of that trick play, and then you watch
the Eagles off operation and all you could say is like,
what the fuck is going on here? And the answer
is no one knows, because if they knew, they would
change it and fix it, but they don't have the
ability to because they're not good enough. It's really that simple.
(21:15):
At the highest level of the NFL, the separating factor
is like pretty small, and the difference of Kyle Shanahan
and Robert Salah compared to the Sirianni Patola combination was
a mile wide. And the sad part is like Vic
Fangio's big time. He ain't the problem. And that's why
(21:35):
I ask, like, if you fire Sirianni, why wouldn't you
immediately go after John Harbaugh. He already has a defensive
coordinator in place. Vic is close with the Harball family,
worked for Jim four years. You could bring Todd Munkin,
who worked with Lamar Jackson and help. You know, a
couple of years ago had one of the best seasons
(21:56):
like NFL history, and boom, you're off and running. Here's
the other thing, Jeffrey luriy knows John Harbaugh well, he
worked there from nineteen ninety eight to two thousand and
seven before he got the Raven job. So when I
know that the Miami thing, and listen, I thought, like,
John Harbaugh, go to Miami. Miami. Job's terrible. They have
(22:18):
no quarterback. They actually do. He's under contract for like
fifty million dollars to me, the Eagles. You're having a
long conversation all day tomorrow of like, not only do
we move on, but if we do, do we just
put all of our chips on the table and just
hire the guy down the road who could basically just
be a way better version of what we just had.
Because our great advantage is working for us is awesome.
(22:42):
We spend a bunch of money, We pick good players
who're extremely talented. We just need the coaching on the field,
something that only a small percentage of people know what
they're doing. We got the defensive coordinator and staff in place.
We just need a massive upgrade in terms of our
head coach and our offensive capability because we just saw
(23:02):
a guy who is elite. You don't go nine and
four with Jimmy Garoppolo and Brock Purdy over the course
of seven years and not be a leade at your job.
And obviously perty's better player than Jimmy Garoppolo, but no
one's getting pretty confused with Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen.
And it looked like I thought when he threw the
second half interception that was gonna doom though, but he
(23:25):
didn't because one thing the forty nine ers have going
for them is mental toughness, and they're pretty unfaced and
they might go down, but they're gonna go down swinging.
And it's felt like the Eagles. You know, the AJ
Brown situation was like, uh, there's a disconnect, and that
to me starts like you're either coaching or allowing it
to happen, back to the Belichick old saying, and it
(23:45):
is true, and they got major problems. So the Eagles
is definitely something to keep a tight eye on, and
the forty nine Ers move on to play Seattle, which
I think the Niners and the Bears just had all
time like validation season wins. Like the forty nine Ers
with their injuries, had no business going twelve and five
(24:08):
and definitely no business winning a playoff game on the
road as a big underdog. The Chicago Bears, who've had
one of the crazier seasons you'll ever see. At down
twenty one to three at home, just honestly had no
business winning that game, and winning those two games, there's
almost a freedom like what do we gotta lose? Moving forward? Now,
(24:30):
I do think that the Bears are healthier, especially after
Kittle's gone. Moving forward, they got more offensive firepower, but
both defenses have major question marks. Made some individual plays,
but at any given moment, you were just kind of
on your heels, like, I don't know if this is
gonna work, but just pretty incredible moments, which shows you
the power coaching, shows you the power of offensive innovative coaching,
(24:53):
and I think the Eagles were a great example of
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New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia. One big story that is
not gonna go away. I am guiltiest charge. I have
been a defender. I defend Justin her Herbert and have
consistently defended Justin Herbert. I thought tonight he was pretty bad.
(27:05):
There were a lot of throws in the middle of
the game where balls are air mailing people. Now as
the game went on and he's just getting shellacked. The
whole thing just crumbled. But there was a stretch where
the Patriots were basically trying to say take the game
from us, and a lot like the forty nine ers,
Jim Harbaugh was going into this game, let's just make
(27:26):
this thing weird. Let's muddy this thing up and make
it weird. And it was. They just needed a couple
of plays from their fifty million dollar quarterback, who physically
is as gifted as anyone in the NFL. But I
thought tonight, in the meat of the game, when it
was there to be like, Hey, a couple of touchdown
drives all of a sudden, you'd be up fourteen to six,
(27:47):
fourteen to nine, like you would take a commanding lead
in this thing. And clearly they are struggling cold weather,
they lose their best corner, and he just didn't play
very well. Now I'm not out on him, I don't
you know. It's one of those situations where you're like,
this is not nothing. He's zero and three in the playoffs,
(28:09):
and he clearly does not look good, and tonight he
did not look good. Now I also think there's two
parts to like the statement, he did not look good
and well, okay, we just got to figure it out.
We got to just play through it. He's not going anywhere.
What do you want to do get rid of them?
What are your other options? There aren't any, So I mean,
you're all in on this. Help. I saw your backup
(28:31):
quarterback play Denver in week eighteen. Never do that again.
So you just got to figure this out. And I
think the best way to figure this out. I think
it's fair to say you're not Josh Allen. I mean,
there's a level in which he is not peaking in
the playoffs. Hey, listen, he's missing some offensive lineman to
(28:53):
star offensive linemen. Their running back situation, the running their
rookie running back from North Carolina, pretty big question mark
right now looks pretty slow to me, Like I would
be a little nervous if I was those guys big
picture about that selection. For the next six months, I'm
sending that guy to speed training. We're gonna work on
an explosion, short area quickness. I'm gonna need a little
(29:14):
more burst, big boy, because the speed in which you're
running is just not good enough. But like as stories
like this grow, when you're as talented as Herbert and
you're viewed as one of the six seven, five, six
to seven best quarterbacks in the NFL, your standard in
the playoffs is way higher. And right now he's oning three.
And obviously last year he played one of the worst
(29:36):
games in the history of the league. Right five interceptions,
It was atrocious. Tonight wasn't that bad, but it was
not good. And you're playing a guy who's playing his
first playoffs start in Drake May who honestly throughout the
game wasn't playing that well either. Started heating up in
the second half, making some runs, made a couple of
big throws and kind of just settled down. He'd be like, well,
his team's a little bit better and definitely healthier. Kind
(29:58):
of like his his number four overall pick left tackle
is getting picked up by Khalil Mack, who's probably one
of the stronger guys in the league history, and just
driven back into him constantly. But like Drake Mayo played him.
Not that he played great. I'm not compared to Drake
made to Josh Allen on Sunday, but he definitely outplayed
Justin Herbert and Drake may has played one real year
of football, because I definitely don't count last year in
(30:21):
his college crews at North Carolina. Did he ever play
in a big game in college? Not trying to shitt
on the ACC here, but definitely that program's not like
they're playing, you know, Alabama and LSU in the playoffs,
so like this is a big game, bright lights game.
Herbert's been there, done that, played in Rose Bulls, started
now in multiple playoff games. It should have been a
(30:42):
huge advantage for him. He's got Jim Harball on his
side right the coaching, the Patriot coaching is elite. Vray Bull,
Josh McDaniels, so's Jim Harbaugh staff. Jesse Mentor probably could
be a head coach here in two weeks. Jim Harbaugh's
won how many playoff games guys won? How many games
the guy I won in his career? Greg Roman takes
(31:02):
a lot of shit. I saw Greg Roman win a
lot of games with Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick. Lamar Jackson,
like his resume is not as bad as the way
he gets discussed. I think sometimes people talk about him
like he's Raiders Chip Kelly. Like, no, guys, he's not bad.
He kind of knows what he's doing. Is he perfect? No,
would you ideally want a little better, of course, but
he's not that bad. And you see tonight like, I
(31:25):
don't know, something's just off. I don't know even I
don't really have like some strong opinion. I don't know why.
But oh and three and it's just one of those
stories that is just not gonna go away. It happens sometimes.
I love Barry Bonds as a kid. For a lot
of his career might have been prey Jews. He didn't
play very well in the playoffs. Alex Ardriguez had that happen.
Baseball is a little different, just because you only get
(31:46):
so many at bats, you have five game series, it
can be a little skewed, but like it wasn't nothing
after a while. And that's what I would say about
this justin Herbert thing. It's like it's gonna be a
massive story. And until he wins a playoff game, people
did want to kind of go counterculture and hang a
left when everyone's hanging a right, kind of always can
(32:06):
hang that above everyone's head. Wake me when he wins
a playoff game. Don't wake me when Josh Allen wins
a playoff game, because he wins a lot of them.
He just happens to not be able to beat the
Kansasity Chiefs. Well, I took out my binoculars to day
and I look, the Kancay Chiefs are nowhere to be found.
They don't exist in this playoff run. Patrick Mahomes obviously
has torn acl and his team's not represented, so he's
(32:28):
playing the Jacks, who were as hot as any team
in the NFL. They're really, really good. Liam Cohen has
done a great job and he went in and kicked
the shit out of him. Josh Allen was incredible today.
He was a one man wrecking crew. He's really more
like something you would see in basketball. He did it all.
(32:49):
There was nothing he couldn't do. On top of slamming
his hand into a helmet, getting his knee twisted on
a touchdown run, he took a quarterback sneak like twelve yard. Honestly,
I don't think I've ever seen that. He was just
had the game where sometimes people like used to write
about this type stuff back when newspapers existed and we
(33:10):
had sports columnists and I grew up reading them all
of like, this was a man that just wouldn't be denied.
And that's what it felt like today, because if you
flip the quarterbacks in that game, Jacksonville would have won
by twenty five points. They would have killed the Bills.
I've come around on Trevor Lawrence over the last couple
of years, like anyone that watched football is like, I'm out,
(33:31):
I don't see it. There was no denying down the
stretch of this season. He did look really good. Today
was not that day. Made a couple good passes, obviously,
threw a couple of touchdowns, but overall he was all
over the map. And sometimes these young coaches and listen,
Kyle Shanahan's probably the only guy in twenty twenty six
that will just keep calling runs and have no problem
(33:54):
even when it's not working. Even Ben Johnson like he's like, Okay,
I just got a pass. Most young coaches are Sean
McVay is the skinny jacked version of Andy Reid. Wants
to pass it NonStop. Did you see that game against Carolina?
It's like, Sean, why are you passing so much? You
know what? They love to pass. Kevin O'Connell loves calling
pass plays. Liam Cohen clearly likes calling pass plays. Watching
(34:15):
this games like you're running at will against these guys.
Have you watched the Bills in the playoffs over the
last couple of years. They're not that big. You can
lean on them. Eat Entrant had twenty five carries, but
he just kept calling down the field passes and it
wasn't really working. And then at the end of the game, listen,
I disagreed with McDermott when he just scored on the
(34:39):
essentially Josh push. I would have melt it, ran it
down to like high twenties, call the time out and
ran that play three times because I wouldn't have wanted
to risk the way the kickoff rule is. I mean,
their kicker can hit it from like seventy yards. I
would have done that, but obviously it worked. A couple
of plays later they pick it off in the game's over,
I thought, And I also understand you don't want to
(35:02):
tempt fate a fumble something weird happens. I get it,
But that was a massive win, and I think sometimes
it's cool. And I've said this forever. I watched sports
for the best players. I was lucky, right. I was
grew up in the nineties, like most kids, idolized Michael Jordan.
I love golf, love Tiger Woods, like those are my
(35:22):
two favorite athletes by far. And then my favorite baseball
team had Barry Bonds from like when I was ten
years old up until I was graduating college, so like,
I watched it. And then when I worked in radio
with Steph Curry, I went to a ton of Warriors
games in his heyday when he was winning MVPs. That's
why I'm not a huge like watch it for the
little guy that could, like that doesn't do it for me.
(35:43):
I want to watch Peyton Manning. I want to watch
Tom Brady. I want to watch Steph Curry. I want
to watch the best of the best, and I pay
to watch Josh Allen. I really would and listen to
Trevor Lawrence. A good player, but kind of like you know,
Jordan Love, they're like the middle of the pack. When
they're on, they can be have top ten games, but
they're not top ten quarterbacks. Especially Trevor Lawrence, he's on
(36:04):
a low end of that. He got hot there first
stretch at the end of the season, but we saw
at home in a very conducive environment in seventy five degrees.
It's funny also, like I love the playoffs because you'll
just go to Chicago and it's like a it's like
a snow globe. You watch Philly, it's like this thing
is freezing, like domb. I know you're a big boy,
but how do you not have an extra jacket on?
(36:27):
How did some of these guys not have beanies on?
And then you go to Jacksonville it's like, yeah, we
got no taxes, were all in the pool. Sun's out
December tenth, were sweating, Like yeah, hard to beat that. Man.
I'm not gonna lie. I'm a warm weather guy, and
like I like that, but that didn't benefit them because
Josh got loose and he got it. He worked him today,
(36:48):
he really did. And I thought Trevor Lawrence just his
numbers don't look that bad. I think he was eighteen
to thirty. But I don't know, man. I think it
was closer to the guy that I remember than the
guy that he thought he had become the last couple
of months. And some of it's on his coach, like
run the ball. Other than that, you know, we got
(37:10):
we know the games now. We got Bill's Denver, we
got New England playing whoever wins tomorrow. We got the
Niners playing Seattle, and we got the Rams playing Chicago.
That's that's a pretty good slate. And I think a
quick look ahead to this tomorrow game. And I mentioned
this to Coward when we were recording, is if this
(37:31):
was a Disney movie, right, if this was I just
watched F one the other day and like the legendary
guy got to win the last race, you would be like,
Aaron Rodgers is gonna throw a bunch of touchdowns. The
record on Monday Night football is gonna continue. It's gonna
be awesome. But this is the NFL. This is not
reality television. I know people think they script this, they don't,
(37:54):
and more than likely, like, this is not gonna end well, right,
He's playing a team as an underdog with an elite defense.
And I was I was flipping the channels this morning
at the gym when I was trying to get a
little sweat before the games, and Aiden Hutchinson was at
the in the studio with ESPN guys, and he was
(38:15):
talking about his experience playing Rogers and he's like, it's
not really fun because he's gonna get rid of the
ball so fast that however many plays you have on offense,
they're gonna be passes. Let's say forty to forty five,
you know, maybe less. You're gonna have two or three
chances over that entire time because of how quick he's
gonna get rid of it to sack him. And when
(38:37):
you get that opportunity, just better not you better not miss.
And the thing is these Textan guys don't miss. Denil
Hunter and Will and Will Anderson are just not gonna miss.
So if they get in the position where they are down,
they would be in major trouble. And obviously DK is
gonna have fresh legs, but is he out of rhythm,
they're missing Darnel Washington with a broken arm. Let's face it,
(39:01):
they are extremely lucky to be playing in this game.
If John Harbaugh one with twelve seconds left in a timeout,
if he got a little more aggressive, that field goal
should have been closer. And it's a tough place to kick.
But how often is this guy missing that kick? I
know he's a rookie, but less than twenty five percent
(39:21):
of the time. So if he kicks it ten times,
he's hitting seven or eight of them. So the Steelers
are very, very fortunate to be here. But part of
the reason they're fortunate is because their defense isn't that good.
Like they've moved Jalen Ramsey to safety. He blew multiple
things in that game that cost him. So he is
an all time great player right man. Jalen in his
prime was just elite. His versatility, his size, his physicality
(39:45):
as a tackler. I'm a big Jalen Ramsey fan, but
like at certain positions, when you get old, you kind
of fall off a cliff. He's just not quite the
same guy. And their pass rush isn't that great. And
while Cam Hayward played the game of his definitely over
the last several years he's been an older player. It
was awesome. It was like watching John Randall or something
(40:05):
in his prime. He was dominating that Raven. Can you
do that again? And I'm a cam Heyward. Guys come
on this podcast before TJ. Watt lot of respect for him,
but that injury, Like, did you really notice his presence
last week? I just have a hard time seeing this
go well for the Pittsburgh Steelers and if they lose
that game, listen, I know we had kind of talked
(40:26):
about it. We would talk about Tomlin forever. He never
gets fired. I never expected them to fire John Harbaugh,
not in a million years. It was honestly one of
the more shocking NFL news over the course of the
last i don't know, six plus months, where you just
see it in your jaw drops. You can't convince me
if the Houston Texas beat him by seven and ten
fourteen points. The last two playoff games they played, they've
(40:48):
been blown out by the Ravens and the Bills. If
that happens again, you got all these older players, the
conversation is gonna only get louder. And now they're all
these jobs open and like, would it be time to pivot?
Is now the time? So I listen. I think it
would be cool if the Steelers were to win this game.
With my heart, I would enjoy watching a throwback Rogers game.
(41:12):
It was awesome watching that fourth quarter against the Ravens.
But I'm not betting on it. I'm actually betting against it.
I'm going to take the Houston Txans in this game.
I actually love the Houston Dexans in this game. I
think they could smother them and absolutely destroy them. And
those runs that were going against the Ravens where Jalen
Warren is breaking tackles like he's Walter Payton or Earl Campbell,
(41:36):
I don't envision that happening on Monday night. And then,
you know, I think this loot. You lose at home,
all of a sudden it's not looking well, you get
some booze like you saw it today in Philly. When
it doesn't go well at home, it can just get weird,
and it can get weird really quick. It wasn't that
We're not that far removed from them, like Channing fire
(41:58):
Tomlin wasn't you know six months ago? That was like
two weeks ago against so It's like, guys, I just
think that I think we're seeing the end of it all.
I really do, and I'm more convinced now than ever
this league. There's a lot of moving parts. We're gonna
learn more about Lafleur over the next couple days. Obviously,
(42:19):
have thoughts, however that thing shakes out, This John Harbaughs situation,
the Sirianni situation, we got a lot going on and
it's just a crazy time in the NFL, A lot
like college football, but even on a much higher level.
You can fire anyone at any moment, because paying someone
twenty thirty to fifty million dollars to these NFL owners
now is like change that I could find in my
(42:42):
desk drawer. It means nothing to them. Imagine paying someone
to go away and owing them and the staff sixty
seventy million dollars and not even blinking, not even thinking
twice help the Raiders. A couple of years ago, before
Brady and the money got involved, they paid Josh McDaniels
and Dave Ziegeler are combined like seventy million dollars to
(43:05):
leave to pack your shit and go. Mark Davis is
not you know, Steve Balmer, but he has that much
money because of that's what the league generates from the
media deals. So all these coaches at all times, unless
you're Andy Reid, you just never know Sean McVay and
(43:25):
like Kyle Shan. It's a very short list of guys
that are truly totally safe. Any other guy, like if
people have some conversations, you pissed the wrong guy off you,
you don't manage up well enough, put your stuff in
a cardboard box and get the hell out of there.
That's how fast it changes, and that's it makes the
league a little more unpredictable. You know, the guys aren't
(43:46):
just gonna hold jobs for as long just because I
like you. Look at Wheree Morris. People love the guy.
He tied for first place, now granted it was eight nine.
They given the owner a hug, is like his wife,
his family's hugs, like for every game, and like Raheem,
you gotta go. We love you, but you're not coaching
this team, buddy, And I give Raheem props because if
(44:08):
someone paid me. The American dream is not a white
pick offence, a dog, a couple of kids. It's to
be paid millions of dollars to not work. That's I
can't even And you know what I saw Raheem basically
the guy like, if you don't hire me to bad coach,
I'm gonna go TV. It's like I would do do that.
(44:29):
Enjoy your life, that smart man. I'll end on this.
It's official now that Matt Ryan will be the boss
(44:51):
in Atlanta. They created some title He's above the GM
and the coach. Matt Ryan made hundreds of millions of
dollars playing football, because when you're a professional athlete, especially
I mean Matt Ryan played longer than most professional athletes.
If you're at the top of your field as a
quarterback at whatever position, as a baseball player, basketball player,
(45:12):
when you retire in your late thirties, you have accumulated
an goodly amount of money. Yet, especially a guy like
Matt Ryan, you're healthy, you got another forty to fifty
years ahead of you, You've probably got a young family,
you got literally the world by the balls, and then
you take some cush CBS job which is probably paying
you a million bucks. Just go in the studio, hangout
(45:32):
toxin ball. You do not need to sign up to
go get back into the world of grinding, because that's
what football is. If you're going to go into the
office every day, it is a grind. It's not a
place where people are smiling and having a great time
every day. It's a very serious, stressful, kind of angry environment,
(45:55):
which a lot of people like. Honestly, a lot of
these guys are addicted to that environment. You know, they
said in the movie Heat, the action is the juice.
I think a lot of these guys you know what
the juice is. It's not just Sunday running out there
to play in front of seventy thousand. It's like the
grind of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It's like the grind of
showing up at the office to get a workout at
(46:17):
six am and being there till ten o'clock at night.
It's the grind of just having to figure it out
on the fly on a Wednesday with some injuries and
just everyone on their fifth cup of coffee, third can
of the week of Copenhagen and just seventh pill of
adderall and just grinding in the office. It's some people
(46:40):
are just addicted to it. And Matt Ryan did not
need to do this. Now, I'm not acting like Arthur
Blank's paying him two hundred grand to accept this gick.
He's making millions of dollars, but like, not enough to
change his life. His life's already been changed by the
money he made playing. So when you signed back up
to go grind like this and you saw the clip
(47:01):
of John Lynch on the sideline, another guy did not
need to be doing this. Anyone that watched the Lway
documentary was like, I missed it. I just wanted to
do it. He became the GM of the Broncos, Like,
these guys can go play golf, hang out, do whatever
they want, get involved in businesses, do some TV. I
respect the hell out of these guys to just go
(47:23):
you know what, I miss the juice. I miss it.
I missed the misery, and I do admire and respect
that from these guys that are worth just so much
damn money and don't need the misery in their life,
but it kind of fulfills them because that's kind of
what football is, and working in football is not. The games,
(47:47):
like the three hour game day that you and I
watch on our couch is such a small sliver of
the actual job. It's it's probably over the course of
a season, I don't know two three percent of the gig,
So props to Matt Ryan. And I talked about this
on a podcast a couple of weeks ago because Pelsarro
(48:07):
on the NFL Network had a reported that he was
going to try to do both jobs, and he shot
that down. He said, I'm done with CBS. I was
watching him to day when he talked about it, like
he thanked everyone. You could tell he's kind of getting
emotional and just saying like they gave him this opportunity
and he was appreciative. And I would say the other thing,
you know, the thing with quarterbacks. I thought that i'd
(48:29):
say this with Philip Rivers. You know, Drew Brees, a
guy I got respect for Drew Brees, who I thought
was terrible on TV. He's gotten much better, like they
just happened to be, especially Matt Ryan. Six' five with
a good. Arm If Matt ryan couldn't throw the ball
five yards and just would have had to go work in, economics,
right he would have ran a, bank he would have
started a, business have been really Like Matt ryan was
(48:50):
destined to be a very very successful. Guy SO i
would tell you, This it would not shock me at
all if he was a BETTER gm than he was a.
Quarterback he was a good quarterback obviously had the ONE
mvp season that was the. Outlier mostly it was just
like a, consistent somewhere between like seven to twelve, guy
guy you could win with if you had a good.
Team if he, didn't it could go sour. Fast but
(49:12):
he was always really really impressive in really really. SHARP
i felt like he was smarter than he was. Talented
and if he really goes all in on this and
leans on the people he, knows he's been. Lucky he's
been around a lot of coaches in his career In,
atlanta and If lafleur became available Because Green bay fired,
him he was his quarterback coach when he won THE
(49:32):
mvp working For kyle when shocked me at, off they
hired him. Immediately so you know he's going to need
to lean on people for THE gm scouting. Aspect obviously
he's never done. That but the thing when You're Matt
ryan and you want to get some intel and you
pick up the phone and you Call Lane kiffin Or
Pete golding Or Ryan, day guess what they call you
right back text. HIM i guarantee you get a text
(49:55):
back in five, minutes so he will have no problem
gaining a, network AND I i think it's fair to
say he's smart enough if he's willing to do, this
because you can't be willing to like kind of go half,
in half out like that was the, Knock Like Maggie
johnson always kind of want to do, it but then
not really because he wanted the normal, life WHICH i
don't blame him at. All, RIGHT i would Do Dan
marino same. THING i would be like. Them i'd be,
(50:16):
Like i'm worth hundreds of MILLION, Ti i'm gonna go kick,
It i'm gonna go hang, Out i'm gonna go enjoy my.
Life i've already done, this But matt wants to put
his feet to the. Fire so IF i Was Atlanta falcon,
fan WHICH i haven't had many good things to say
about the franchise over the, YEARS i would say this
is this is EXCITING tbd see how it, goes but
(50:38):
it's it's exciting when you get a guy of his
stature to, say, YEAH i want. This and THEN i
listened to his comments today Like i'm doing this because
we deserve to be in the playoffs and we've been
shitty for too, long so exciting. Times and we'll be
back again tomorrow and we'll see what we'll. See How, hey,
listen there are gonna be some curveballs. COMING i would
(50:58):
Imagine monday Or. Tuesday and by curve, balls HOPEFULLY i
don't mean my son Say i'm. Ready i'm kind of
got my mindset On. Thursday but, listen can't play god,
Here but when it comes to, FOOTBALL I i think
some interesting stuff's about to happen the next couple of.
DAYS i think we're we're gonna enter the season where
we start getting really. Weird see you. Later the volume
(51:24):
m
The volume. What is going on? My people? How are
we doing? John Middlecoff Three and Out podcast, brought to
(00:22):
you by my friends at Zone Pouches. We have officially
gone live and launched on Netflix. Well I'm recording this
on Sunday night, but if you're listening to this on Monday,
we're often rocking on Netflix, so you can go check
that out, subscribe to our podcast, and all of our
(00:43):
videos and everything we record here will be up there
video wise. So pretty big deal for the show. Hopefully
you guys, I know you will check it out and
let me know what you think. Nothing changes, though, we
will do a show tonight based on the craziness. Obviously,
Siria and the Eagles loose to the forty nine ers
(01:04):
in just an all timer, Drake may outplays Herbert, Josh
Allen just goes Michael Jordan. We we know the matchups,
the Bills playing the Broncos, the Patriots taking on whoever
wins tonight, nin or Seattle and Ram Chicago. Matt Ryan
(01:24):
has officially taking the Falcons job as the Grand Pooba
the Boss, and I'm gonna have a baby this week.
So we got a lot going on. Fluid situation We'll
still be recording pods all week. Have a couple ideas,
but the plan I think is to have a baby.
As of right now on Thursday. We have a doctors
appointment on Tuesday. So if something changes and he slipped
(01:46):
around and then we just wait, maybe you'll find out
a little after I do so. But other than that,
I plan on having podcasts all week, recording some stuff
just if I'm not able to do one on Thursday
for Friday, but we will have shows Saturday. Might be
a little up in the air. The reaction to the
I guess it is the forty nine or Seattle game,
(02:08):
but hopefully we're back home by then. Come on, buddy.
Other than that, you guys know the drillph you listen
on Collins Feed, make sure you subscribe to the three
and Out podcast, and obviously Netflix, go check that out.
So let's talk some football. Let's just start right off
the bat with a man named Nick Sirianni. And I
(02:29):
thought about it like this. Let's just pose a question.
If I ask you or anyone they don't even need
to work in the NFL, just a football fan. If
Nick Sirianni was fired on Monday, would he get another
coaching job this season, and want to say coaching job,
would anyone hire him to be their head coach? Since
(02:51):
none of you are here, I will answer that question
for you. The answer is no. Well, let's take some
other guys who were fired. I think we kind of
just assumed that Mike McDaniel was gonna come back randomly
in the middle of the week. See you, you're gone.
Mike McDaniel's fired. Kevin Stefanski a week ago was not shocking,
(03:12):
also fired. Let's assume those guys realized Stefanski's interviewing for
head coaching jobs might, as you know, easily could land one.
Mike McDaniel also, he's interviewing for the Cleveland Browns, who
Mike silver Davis, California resident, former legendary s I writer
wrote a book about like the Shanahan Tree. Of that
(03:32):
crew of guys, the former Washington coaches, Mike McDaniel was
famously wrote a thirty two page essentially essay to help
Kyle Shanahan and himself get out from under the Cleveland
Browns leadership in Jimmy Haslam, and they were able to
resign and leave and go to Atlanta. Well, Mike McDaniel.
I think either has or is going to interview for
(03:53):
the Cleveland Browns. But if Stefanski and McDaniel were not
going to be head coaches and don't get head coaching jobs,
both of those got. Definitely Mike McDaniel would be not
only locked coordinators, people would think about firing their offensive
coordinator to hire those two guys. They would have teams
lined up all around the league to hire Mike McDaniel
(04:13):
and Kevin Stefanski to call their offense. For a ton
of head coaches all around the NFL, no one would
hire Nick Sirianni to be their offensive coordinator. The Eagles
don't let him call plays. Let's be real. Let's look
at the business world. Some people create start things from
scratch and dominate that world, right, whatever their individual industry is.
(04:36):
Jeff Bezos created Amazon from nothing. Elon's created countless companies, right.
Sam Walton created Walmart from thin air, built the thing
up from scratch. Some people hit the lottery and get
rich overnight. Where does Nick Sirianni fall under that? I'd
argue he hit the lottery. He got Howie Rosenman as
(04:57):
a general manager, he got an owner. That's willing to
spend unlimited amounts of money, not just on his own roster.
They obviously have been well renowned now for front loading
contracts and being able to pay guys more cash up front,
and how they can manipulate the books. But a couple
of years ago their defense wasn't shambles. What did Jeffrey
(05:17):
Lurry do? What's it gonna take to get Vic Vangio?
We will pay him the most of any coordinator in
the NFL. Most owners aren't willing to do that help.
The majority of owners get knocked for being cheap. So
Nick Sirianni is in a situation where he plays the
forty nine Ers who When Kyle Shanahan addressed the team
in the locker room after one of his most historic
(05:37):
wins as a head coach, he gave props to the
two linebackers, neither of which were on the team a
month ago. When it was reported this morning that Lane Johnson,
a future Hall of Famer, was not going to be
able to go, do you know the first thing I thought?
Who cares? Doesn't impact the forty nine Ers. They're dead
last in sacks. Nick Bosa is currently third on the
(05:59):
team and he hasn't played in months. The forty nine
Ers defense, beside their secondary, was a bunch of random
practice squad free agent off the street guys, and somehow
the Eagles couldn't do anything when it mattered. The brock
Purty threw two bad interceptions. The Eagles scored three points
(06:19):
off both interceptions. I saw a tweet tonight that the Eagles,
if you remove defensive scores, averaged less than ten points
in the second half of games all season long. They
have Aj Brown, who we can get into here in
a second, is obviously one of the most talented wide
receivers in the NFL. Terrible game to night, but dude's
(06:42):
big time player, so over the course of the season,
at any moment he should dominate. DeVante Smith is a
top fifteen pick who's not only lived up to it,
is a stud. Saquon Barkley last year ran for two
thousand yards. Dallas Goddard. I think Tom Brady said a
night like that's his twelfth touchdown of the year. He's
one of the more productive past catching tight ends in
the NFL. They have a quarterback who is a true
(07:06):
dual threat guy. He might not have the high end
speed like Lamar Jackson or Kyler Murray. But he is
a runner, and I thought, listen, I got it wrong.
I'd never thought when he came out Oklahoma. And I'm
a big Oklahoma guy because the guy before I got
into this world I worked in football. The guy that
hired me when I first started out of college at
Fresno State, he works at Oklahoma. So I've been dialed
(07:29):
into that program for a long time and watched all
Lincoln Riley's, the Baker Mayfields of Kyler Murray's and Jalen Hurts,
and I thought Jalen was probably gonna have to play
running back in the pros. I thought that was the
craziest pick I'd ever seen. When how he took him
in the second round, I was wrong, and then he
became more than a productive passer. But one thing early
(07:50):
on in his career, Jay why I thought he'd be
a running back because I thought he could be like
Frank Gore. He's not some blazing speed guy up the sideline.
His instinct say as a runner are actually much more
natural than even some running backs. You know what the
Chargers would have done to have him just taking carries.
He's patient, he has great vision. He's just he's natural
(08:12):
instincts with the ball in his hands when he's moving.
Even had a couple runs a day, one was called back.
It's like, why didn't Jalen have ten plus runs? Say
this about Lamar since Lamar became MVP caliber. He'll do
whatever it takes to win. You need me to run,
need me to pass. I don't give a damn. I'll
do what it takes to help the Ravens get a victory.
(08:32):
Jaye was like, no, I want to play like Russell Wilson,
dominate from the pocket. You're not a pocket quarterback man,
You're a dual threat player. So watching the Eagles just
completely crumble. I worked there for a couple of years.
I worked for Howie. The pressure in that building is immense.
Hell I still get nightmares about it sometimes, which honestly
keeps me on my toes because the world I live
(08:54):
in now still there's a ton of pressure. I got
a growing family. It's not like I don't have pressure
to produce in to do well financially and professionally for
my wife and my future child. But it's a little different.
I don't walk into that office on pins and needles
and that's what happens in Philadelphia, which is part of
football culture. It was like that at Alabama. It's like
(09:15):
that in Philadelphia. It was like that in Belichick forever.
Like it's a natural environment in the football world and
it's very healthy, but they don't tolerate getting embarrassed. And
tonight watching or this afternoon, watching the Eagles get embarrassed
by Brock Purty throwing to DeMarcus Robinson, who looked like
he was Jerry Rice, I was like, this is not
(09:38):
gonna go overwill George Kittle, who is not just one
of my favorite players in the NFL, he's truly one
of the great tight ends I've ever seen in my life.
He is going to have his number retired one time
as a forty nine er. He's a complete badass, and
as Christian McCaffrey said after the game, he's the heart
and soul of our team. Let me repeat, the heart
(10:01):
and soul of their team. Who is already missing Fred Warner,
who'd argue from some people that he was the heart
and soul of the team. He's been gone forever. Nick
Bosa long gone. They're missing players left and right, And
it didn't matter because it turned out. The Eagles aren't
very well coached and they're just not a very good team,
(10:21):
and the forty nine ers shouldn't be that good of
a team. They're missing way too many players, but there's
like a character to them where they didn't fracture when
it would have been easy to. When George Kittle is
getting carted off the field, war is pretty clear, yeah
his achilles ripped, yet the Eagles are forcing the ball
to AJ Brown. I don't blame them. He's a really
(10:43):
talented player, but it was pretty clear he didn't really
want to be there. And I think a big mistake
the Eagles made was not trading AJ Brown during the
middle of the season when they could have. And they're
going to trade him in two months. But when you
go into these playoff games, you need to have people
who are all in. And did AJ Brown today look
(11:04):
like a guy that was all in? And I'm not
just saying that because he had a bad game. Like
Randy Moss, Jerry Rice had some drops, probably not as
many as he did in an individual game, But it
happens like it's football, like people fumble, people throw interceptions.
Obviously they are better and worse times to do certain things,
but like it happens, and watching that game the day
(11:27):
I went, I don't know, I how does Sirianni survive
the next forty eight hours Because the offensive coordinator was
probably going to get fired no matter what, whether they
unless they won the Super Bowl again, he was a
dead man walking. That's the way Philly works. They fired
coordinators all the time. But I think this outcome against
(11:49):
Kyle Shanahan that when I asked, when I posed that question,
who would hire Sirianni tomorrow if he was fired? What
if I flipped it to the forty nine ers, who
would hire Kyle Shanahan tomorrow if he was fired? I
think your answer would be twenty nine teams, thirty teams,
hell more people would hire the forty nine ers defensive
(12:11):
coordinator who was just fired last year from the Jets.
It's actually aged much better because that organization is an
all time clown show than Nick Sirianni. And the crazy
part is Nick Sirianni has been in two of the
last three Super Bowls. But I think, if we're all
being honest, how much did he really have to do
with that? Hey, he leads some team meetings, you know,
(12:31):
he's good like with personalities, but like it feels like
he does nothing in the game and he can't help
the offensive coordinator who was clearly over his head. His
quarterback has got to this spot where it's like, what
are we doing? Why aren't we utilizing your talents? Look
at Brock, perty what does it take to win the game?
(12:53):
You need me to run, you need me to die forward,
you need me to scramble and make a play. Obviously,
I'm a quarterback, so you're gonna need me to pass
and make the play. But we're gonna need my legs
in big spots. And I'm not just talking about quarterback sneaks.
I'm talking about taking off and running. And Brock had
one of the dumbest plays you'll ever see, because it
was one of the truly great six or seven second
(13:15):
at the end of a half play call, because I
was like, what are they gonna do here to try
to get six seven more yards? They don't have any
time out. You can't throw it over the middle of
the field. The Eagles are playing like against the sideline,
and they just ran a quarterback like power, and Brock
kind of froze and then he fubbled the ball. It
was a complete disaster. But listen, party by no means
(13:35):
was perfect tonight. That play multiple interceptions. I'm a little
baffled that during the prep when all else fails, do
not throw at twenty seven, throw at the other guy.
And listen, he tested them twice and got picked off twice.
But what it mattered the most for a game winning drive.
(13:55):
It didn't matter what the play call was or what
was needed. They just did whatever they had to do.
Do you need me to run it? Do you need
me to pass it? Do you need my Pro Bowl
full back to make crazy catches? Do you need Christian
McCaffrey to make a catch. And that's what happened, and
that's why the forty nine ers drove down the field
perty had a huge first down run on that on
that drive. Because it never comes down to I'm just
(14:17):
a pocket quarterback or I'm just a Shanahan quarterback. No,
I'm just a quarterback that will do whatever it takes
on a given week to help us win the game.
And yet when you watch the Eagles, they're the complete opposite.
Jalen's like, I just want to pass, I don't want
to run, and clearly doesn't because you would call more
quarterback runs. I'm watching Josh Allen, I'm watching the two
(14:40):
quarterback Sunday night. I'll do it. Do you need me
to take off, I'll take off. That is not the
way Jalen plays anymore. Maybe he doesn't want to get hit,
Maybe he just doesn't want to run. He got a
super Bowl, He's made a bunch of money. And I
have a lot of respect for Jalen, what he stands for,
how hardy works, how serious he is. But in terms
of as a player, you can't maximize your abilities as
(15:03):
a player when you won't do like one of the
things you are best at, when you also have some
clear deficiencies and you try to lean into them. Like
part of life, to be successful at something is to
double down on what you're good at and do things
you struggle at. I don't give a shit what you do. Avoid,
(15:23):
don't do that, stay away from it. It's like, I'll
just be a pocket quarterback. This isn't really working man like.
This is. This is get run and get moving. That's
your what Look at Drake may look at Justin Herbert,
who didn't play well but throws on the road. Look
at party, get out and move, get out and make
some plays. You're a great athlete, not a good athlete,
a great athlete. But this comes back to coaching, and
(15:45):
this comes back to this situation. The Eagles are ruthless,
they really are. And to get embarrassed like that at
home by, you know, you got to remove the brand
in Kyle Shanahan and put the players that he was
rolling out. They threw a ball today. I've been watching
the forty nine ers for three plus decades to number
eighty one, I had never heard of this player. And
(16:06):
then Kevin Burkhart said, well, he hasn't played in an
NFL game or caught a pass since twenty twenty one.
He's been on practice squas squads and bounced around. I'm like, yeah, no, shit,
I couldn't point this guy out of a lineup. But
that's what the forty nine ers had to do today
because of injuries, because of just the uphill battle they
had to fight against a team loaded with players. Defensively too,
(16:29):
and listen, the Eagles defense is bad at all. You
could win a Super Bowl with that defense. You cannot
win a Super Bowl. Hew, It's proven. You can't win
a playoff game with that offense, which just as a
fan of football, as someone that just would be sitting
on my couch and watching it. If I sold insurance
or had to dig ditches Monday morning, they would be
(16:51):
one of the last teams in the league I will
want to watch. I got so many texts from people
like the Eagles are a terrible watch. I'm like, yeah,
they really are. They're boring, there's no creativity, like the
forty nine Ers ran a trick play. For those of
you that don't watch every forty Niner game, forty nine
Ers are not a trick play team. They actually have
one go to trick play and it's a wide receiver pass.
(17:13):
Now part of it is Juwan Jennings was once a
huge high school recruited quarterback. It kind of went viral
today on Twitter that he was ranked ahead of guys
like Sam Darnold, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson come out
of high school. Then he got to Tennessee, changed positions,
and I don't think it went great toward the end
(17:34):
because when he gets introduced in games, he doesn't even
acknowledge Tennessee. It happened with de Shawn Jackson back in
the day because him and Jeff Tedfer butted heads. It
happens sometimes whenever you hear a player on TV, say
like Davis Senior High School, you like, something went bad
with the coach in that program, right, because usually the
guys are excited, like one to the University of Texas,
went to the University of Oregon, Go Ducks. Whenever you
(17:56):
hear the high school or their hometown, You're like, Oh,
something bad went down, which shouldn't happen as much now
because guys are getting paid so much money. I'd have
a huge smile on my face. I'd be like seven
million dollars University of Oregon. But I do think when
Kyle busted out that trick play. I've been saying this
forever with coordinators, I don't pretend like even the shittiest
(18:18):
coordinators in the NFL, if you got them on a
whiteboard or you got them in front of the room
with high school coaches and just talked football, their knowledge
and understanding a ball would blow us all away. All
of us. We'd be like, what is this sky talking about?
From splits to depths, to route concepts to against all
(18:39):
these guys are great backup quarterbacks as well, but when
you get them on the field as a backup quarterback,
as a player, or as a position coach, as a coordinator,
and they got to start calling the plays and the
bullets start flying. Separates the men from the boys to
the highest level. Speaks for college, no different in the pros.
And some people when I was saying this the other
(19:01):
day about Tony, the little wide receiver from Miami who's
a true freshman. Obviously, our experiences when we're young shape
our capabilities and our future talents in certain things. You know, Obviously,
playing football, there are god given metrics that you're gonna
need to play college or in the NFL. Right that
there are certain you're gonna have to have certain you know,
(19:24):
intellectual capacity to be a doctor or to be an
engineer when it comes to math or biology. Right, But
once you get to that level and you're surrounded by
a bunch of other people at that level, they're gonna
be separating factors. And I remember watching Tony in that
the last game, thinking like this guy was born to
play football, Like his instincts in his feel for the
(19:46):
game are just elite. I remember hearing a story when
I was a kid, I grew up in northern California,
right by Sacramento. My dad was a huge Cow fan,
Cal football, in Cal basketball, And I remember being pretty young,
it's probably like ten twelve years old, when Jason Kidd
was at Cow and there was all these rumors, you know,
it was like took him like five times to pass
(20:06):
the minimum level of SAT. Like it's very academically challenging
to get in Cow. And I don't think anyone would
consider Jason Kidd like, you know, some intellectual genius. But
in terms of basketball IQ, he's like Albert Einstein. And
in sports. One thing I learned, actually, Howie Roseman taught
me this. I remember scouting a guy and talking about
(20:28):
their GPA and it was like, this guy's not that smart.
He's like, was he football smart? I'm like, yes, coach,
say the guys picks it up after one try, no problem,
Like we don't care about his GPA. We're not doing
GPA here, We're doing football, right. And that's like in life,
like your GPA doesn't always translate. Do your instincts at
whatever you're doing translate? And you watch Kyle Shanahan and
(20:52):
Brock Perdy the symbiotic relationship they had Colin plays obviously
the timing of that trick play, and then you watch
the Eagles off operation and all you could say is like,
what the fuck is going on here? And the answer
is no one knows, because if they knew, they would
change it and fix it, but they don't have the
ability to because they're not good enough. It's really that simple.
(21:15):
At the highest level of the NFL, the separating factor
is like pretty small, and the difference of Kyle Shanahan
and Robert Salah compared to the Sirianni Patola combination was
a mile wide. And the sad part is like Vic
Fangio's big time. He ain't the problem. And that's why
(21:35):
I ask, like, if you fire Sirianni, why wouldn't you
immediately go after John Harbaugh. He already has a defensive
coordinator in place. Vic is close with the Harball family,
worked for Jim four years. You could bring Todd Munkin,
who worked with Lamar Jackson and help. You know, a
couple of years ago had one of the best seasons
(21:56):
like NFL history, and boom, you're off and running. Here's
the other thing, Jeffrey luriy knows John Harbaugh well, he
worked there from nineteen ninety eight to two thousand and
seven before he got the Raven job. So when I
know that the Miami thing, and listen, I thought, like,
John Harbaugh, go to Miami. Miami. Job's terrible. They have
(22:18):
no quarterback. They actually do. He's under contract for like
fifty million dollars to me, the Eagles. You're having a
long conversation all day tomorrow of like, not only do
we move on, but if we do, do we just
put all of our chips on the table and just
hire the guy down the road who could basically just
be a way better version of what we just had.
Because our great advantage is working for us is awesome.
(22:42):
We spend a bunch of money, We pick good players
who're extremely talented. We just need the coaching on the field,
something that only a small percentage of people know what
they're doing. We got the defensive coordinator and staff in place.
We just need a massive upgrade in terms of our
head coach and our offensive capability because we just saw
(23:02):
a guy who is elite. You don't go nine and
four with Jimmy Garoppolo and Brock Purdy over the course
of seven years and not be a leade at your job.
And obviously perty's better player than Jimmy Garoppolo, but no
one's getting pretty confused with Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen.
And it looked like I thought when he threw the
second half interception that was gonna doom though, but he
(23:25):
didn't because one thing the forty nine ers have going
for them is mental toughness, and they're pretty unfaced and
they might go down, but they're gonna go down swinging.
And it's felt like the Eagles. You know, the AJ
Brown situation was like, uh, there's a disconnect, and that
to me starts like you're either coaching or allowing it
to happen, back to the Belichick old saying, and it
(23:45):
is true, and they got major problems. So the Eagles
is definitely something to keep a tight eye on, and
the forty nine Ers move on to play Seattle, which
I think the Niners and the Bears just had all
time like validation season wins. Like the forty nine Ers
with their injuries, had no business going twelve and five
(24:08):
and definitely no business winning a playoff game on the
road as a big underdog. The Chicago Bears, who've had
one of the crazier seasons you'll ever see. At down
twenty one to three at home, just honestly had no
business winning that game, and winning those two games, there's
almost a freedom like what do we gotta lose? Moving forward? Now,
(24:30):
I do think that the Bears are healthier, especially after
Kittle's gone. Moving forward, they got more offensive firepower, but
both defenses have major question marks. Made some individual plays,
but at any given moment, you were just kind of
on your heels, like, I don't know if this is
gonna work, but just pretty incredible moments, which shows you
the power coaching, shows you the power of offensive innovative coaching,
(24:53):
and I think the Eagles were a great example of
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New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia. One big story that is
not gonna go away. I am guiltiest charge. I have
been a defender. I defend Justin her Herbert and have
consistently defended Justin Herbert. I thought tonight he was pretty bad.
(27:05):
There were a lot of throws in the middle of
the game where balls are air mailing people. Now as
the game went on and he's just getting shellacked. The
whole thing just crumbled. But there was a stretch where
the Patriots were basically trying to say take the game
from us, and a lot like the forty nine ers,
Jim Harbaugh was going into this game, let's just make
(27:26):
this thing weird. Let's muddy this thing up and make
it weird. And it was. They just needed a couple
of plays from their fifty million dollar quarterback, who physically
is as gifted as anyone in the NFL. But I
thought tonight, in the meat of the game, when it
was there to be like, Hey, a couple of touchdown
drives all of a sudden, you'd be up fourteen to six,
(27:47):
fourteen to nine, like you would take a commanding lead
in this thing. And clearly they are struggling cold weather,
they lose their best corner, and he just didn't play
very well. Now I'm not out on him, I don't
you know. It's one of those situations where you're like,
this is not nothing. He's zero and three in the playoffs,
(28:09):
and he clearly does not look good, and tonight he
did not look good. Now I also think there's two
parts to like the statement, he did not look good
and well, okay, we just got to figure it out.
We got to just play through it. He's not going anywhere.
What do you want to do get rid of them?
What are your other options? There aren't any, So I mean,
you're all in on this. Help. I saw your backup
(28:31):
quarterback play Denver in week eighteen. Never do that again.
So you just got to figure this out. And I
think the best way to figure this out. I think
it's fair to say you're not Josh Allen. I mean,
there's a level in which he is not peaking in
the playoffs. Hey, listen, he's missing some offensive lineman to
(28:53):
star offensive linemen. Their running back situation, the running their
rookie running back from North Carolina, pretty big question mark
right now looks pretty slow to me, Like I would
be a little nervous if I was those guys big
picture about that selection. For the next six months, I'm
sending that guy to speed training. We're gonna work on
an explosion, short area quickness. I'm gonna need a little
(29:14):
more burst, big boy, because the speed in which you're
running is just not good enough. But like as stories
like this grow, when you're as talented as Herbert and
you're viewed as one of the six seven, five, six
to seven best quarterbacks in the NFL, your standard in
the playoffs is way higher. And right now he's oning three.
And obviously last year he played one of the worst
(29:36):
games in the history of the league. Right five interceptions,
It was atrocious. Tonight wasn't that bad, but it was
not good. And you're playing a guy who's playing his
first playoffs start in Drake May who honestly throughout the
game wasn't playing that well either. Started heating up in
the second half, making some runs, made a couple of
big throws and kind of just settled down. He'd be like, well,
his team's a little bit better and definitely healthier. Kind
(29:58):
of like his his number four overall pick left tackle
is getting picked up by Khalil Mack, who's probably one
of the stronger guys in the league history, and just
driven back into him constantly. But like Drake Mayo played him.
Not that he played great. I'm not compared to Drake
made to Josh Allen on Sunday, but he definitely outplayed
Justin Herbert and Drake may has played one real year
of football, because I definitely don't count last year in
(30:21):
his college crews at North Carolina. Did he ever play
in a big game in college? Not trying to shitt
on the ACC here, but definitely that program's not like
they're playing, you know, Alabama and LSU in the playoffs,
so like this is a big game, bright lights game.
Herbert's been there, done that, played in Rose Bulls, started
now in multiple playoff games. It should have been a
(30:42):
huge advantage for him. He's got Jim Harball on his
side right the coaching, the Patriot coaching is elite. Vray Bull,
Josh McDaniels, so's Jim Harbaugh staff. Jesse Mentor probably could
be a head coach here in two weeks. Jim Harbaugh's
won how many playoff games guys won? How many games
the guy I won in his career? Greg Roman takes
(31:02):
a lot of shit. I saw Greg Roman win a
lot of games with Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick. Lamar Jackson,
like his resume is not as bad as the way
he gets discussed. I think sometimes people talk about him
like he's Raiders Chip Kelly. Like, no, guys, he's not bad.
He kind of knows what he's doing. Is he perfect? No,
would you ideally want a little better, of course, but
he's not that bad. And you see tonight like, I
(31:25):
don't know, something's just off. I don't know even I
don't really have like some strong opinion. I don't know why.
But oh and three and it's just one of those
stories that is just not gonna go away. It happens sometimes.
I love Barry Bonds as a kid. For a lot
of his career might have been prey Jews. He didn't
play very well in the playoffs. Alex Ardriguez had that happen.
Baseball is a little different, just because you only get
(31:46):
so many at bats, you have five game series, it
can be a little skewed, but like it wasn't nothing
after a while. And that's what I would say about
this justin Herbert thing. It's like it's gonna be a
massive story. And until he wins a playoff game, people
did want to kind of go counterculture and hang a
left when everyone's hanging a right, kind of always can
(32:06):
hang that above everyone's head. Wake me when he wins
a playoff game. Don't wake me when Josh Allen wins
a playoff game, because he wins a lot of them.
He just happens to not be able to beat the
Kansasity Chiefs. Well, I took out my binoculars to day
and I look, the Kancay Chiefs are nowhere to be found.
They don't exist in this playoff run. Patrick Mahomes obviously
has torn acl and his team's not represented, so he's
(32:28):
playing the Jacks, who were as hot as any team
in the NFL. They're really, really good. Liam Cohen has
done a great job and he went in and kicked
the shit out of him. Josh Allen was incredible today.
He was a one man wrecking crew. He's really more
like something you would see in basketball. He did it all.
(32:49):
There was nothing he couldn't do. On top of slamming
his hand into a helmet, getting his knee twisted on
a touchdown run, he took a quarterback sneak like twelve yard. Honestly,
I don't think I've ever seen that. He was just
had the game where sometimes people like used to write
about this type stuff back when newspapers existed and we
(33:10):
had sports columnists and I grew up reading them all
of like, this was a man that just wouldn't be denied.
And that's what it felt like today, because if you
flip the quarterbacks in that game, Jacksonville would have won
by twenty five points. They would have killed the Bills.
I've come around on Trevor Lawrence over the last couple
of years, like anyone that watched football is like, I'm out,
(33:31):
I don't see it. There was no denying down the
stretch of this season. He did look really good. Today
was not that day. Made a couple good passes, obviously,
threw a couple of touchdowns, but overall he was all
over the map. And sometimes these young coaches and listen,
Kyle Shanahan's probably the only guy in twenty twenty six
that will just keep calling runs and have no problem
(33:54):
even when it's not working. Even Ben Johnson like he's like, Okay,
I just got a pass. Most young coaches are Sean
McVay is the skinny jacked version of Andy Reid. Wants
to pass it NonStop. Did you see that game against Carolina?
It's like, Sean, why are you passing so much? You
know what? They love to pass. Kevin O'Connell loves calling
pass plays. Liam Cohen clearly likes calling pass plays. Watching
(34:15):
this games like you're running at will against these guys.
Have you watched the Bills in the playoffs over the
last couple of years. They're not that big. You can
lean on them. Eat Entrant had twenty five carries, but
he just kept calling down the field passes and it
wasn't really working. And then at the end of the game, listen,
I disagreed with McDermott when he just scored on the
(34:39):
essentially Josh push. I would have melt it, ran it
down to like high twenties, call the time out and
ran that play three times because I wouldn't have wanted
to risk the way the kickoff rule is. I mean,
their kicker can hit it from like seventy yards. I
would have done that, but obviously it worked. A couple
of plays later they pick it off in the game's over,
I thought, And I also understand you don't want to
(35:02):
tempt fate a fumble something weird happens. I get it,
But that was a massive win, and I think sometimes
it's cool. And I've said this forever. I watched sports
for the best players. I was lucky, right. I was
grew up in the nineties, like most kids, idolized Michael Jordan.
I love golf, love Tiger Woods, like those are my
(35:22):
two favorite athletes by far. And then my favorite baseball
team had Barry Bonds from like when I was ten
years old up until I was graduating college, so like,
I watched it. And then when I worked in radio
with Steph Curry, I went to a ton of Warriors
games in his heyday when he was winning MVPs. That's
why I'm not a huge like watch it for the
little guy that could, like that doesn't do it for me.
(35:43):
I want to watch Peyton Manning. I want to watch
Tom Brady. I want to watch Steph Curry. I want
to watch the best of the best, and I pay
to watch Josh Allen. I really would and listen to
Trevor Lawrence. A good player, but kind of like you know,
Jordan Love, they're like the middle of the pack. When
they're on, they can be have top ten games, but
they're not top ten quarterbacks. Especially Trevor Lawrence, he's on
(36:04):
a low end of that. He got hot there first
stretch at the end of the season, but we saw
at home in a very conducive environment in seventy five degrees.
It's funny also, like I love the playoffs because you'll
just go to Chicago and it's like a it's like
a snow globe. You watch Philly, it's like this thing
is freezing, like domb. I know you're a big boy,
but how do you not have an extra jacket on?
(36:27):
How did some of these guys not have beanies on?
And then you go to Jacksonville it's like, yeah, we
got no taxes, were all in the pool. Sun's out
December tenth, were sweating, Like yeah, hard to beat that. Man.
I'm not gonna lie. I'm a warm weather guy, and
like I like that, but that didn't benefit them because
Josh got loose and he got it. He worked him today,
(36:48):
he really did. And I thought Trevor Lawrence just his
numbers don't look that bad. I think he was eighteen
to thirty. But I don't know, man. I think it
was closer to the guy that I remember than the
guy that he thought he had become the last couple
of months. And some of it's on his coach, like
run the ball. Other than that, you know, we got
(37:10):
we know the games now. We got Bill's Denver, we
got New England playing whoever wins tomorrow. We got the
Niners playing Seattle, and we got the Rams playing Chicago.
That's that's a pretty good slate. And I think a
quick look ahead to this tomorrow game. And I mentioned
this to Coward when we were recording, is if this
(37:31):
was a Disney movie, right, if this was I just
watched F one the other day and like the legendary
guy got to win the last race, you would be like,
Aaron Rodgers is gonna throw a bunch of touchdowns. The
record on Monday Night football is gonna continue. It's gonna
be awesome. But this is the NFL. This is not
reality television. I know people think they script this, they don't,
(37:54):
and more than likely, like, this is not gonna end well, right,
He's playing a team as an underdog with an elite defense.
And I was I was flipping the channels this morning
at the gym when I was trying to get a
little sweat before the games, and Aiden Hutchinson was at
the in the studio with ESPN guys, and he was
(38:15):
talking about his experience playing Rogers and he's like, it's
not really fun because he's gonna get rid of the
ball so fast that however many plays you have on offense,
they're gonna be passes. Let's say forty to forty five,
you know, maybe less. You're gonna have two or three
chances over that entire time because of how quick he's
gonna get rid of it to sack him. And when
(38:37):
you get that opportunity, just better not you better not miss.
And the thing is these Textan guys don't miss. Denil
Hunter and Will and Will Anderson are just not gonna miss.
So if they get in the position where they are down,
they would be in major trouble. And obviously DK is
gonna have fresh legs, but is he out of rhythm,
they're missing Darnel Washington with a broken arm. Let's face it,
(39:01):
they are extremely lucky to be playing in this game.
If John Harbaugh one with twelve seconds left in a timeout,
if he got a little more aggressive, that field goal
should have been closer. And it's a tough place to kick.
But how often is this guy missing that kick? I
know he's a rookie, but less than twenty five percent
(39:21):
of the time. So if he kicks it ten times,
he's hitting seven or eight of them. So the Steelers
are very, very fortunate to be here. But part of
the reason they're fortunate is because their defense isn't that good.
Like they've moved Jalen Ramsey to safety. He blew multiple
things in that game that cost him. So he is
an all time great player right man. Jalen in his
prime was just elite. His versatility, his size, his physicality
(39:45):
as a tackler. I'm a big Jalen Ramsey fan, but
like at certain positions, when you get old, you kind
of fall off a cliff. He's just not quite the
same guy. And their pass rush isn't that great. And
while Cam Hayward played the game of his definitely over
the last several years he's been an older player. It
was awesome. It was like watching John Randall or something
(40:05):
in his prime. He was dominating that Raven. Can you
do that again? And I'm a cam Heyward. Guys come
on this podcast before TJ. Watt lot of respect for him,
but that injury, Like, did you really notice his presence
last week? I just have a hard time seeing this
go well for the Pittsburgh Steelers and if they lose
that game, listen, I know we had kind of talked
(40:26):
about it. We would talk about Tomlin forever. He never
gets fired. I never expected them to fire John Harbaugh,
not in a million years. It was honestly one of
the more shocking NFL news over the course of the
last i don't know, six plus months, where you just
see it in your jaw drops. You can't convince me
if the Houston Texas beat him by seven and ten
fourteen points. The last two playoff games they played, they've
(40:48):
been blown out by the Ravens and the Bills. If
that happens again, you got all these older players, the
conversation is gonna only get louder. And now they're all
these jobs open and like, would it be time to pivot?
Is now the time? So I listen. I think it
would be cool if the Steelers were to win this game.
With my heart, I would enjoy watching a throwback Rogers game.
(41:12):
It was awesome watching that fourth quarter against the Ravens.
But I'm not betting on it. I'm actually betting against it.
I'm going to take the Houston Txans in this game.
I actually love the Houston Dexans in this game. I
think they could smother them and absolutely destroy them. And
those runs that were going against the Ravens where Jalen
Warren is breaking tackles like he's Walter Payton or Earl Campbell,
(41:36):
I don't envision that happening on Monday night. And then,
you know, I think this loot. You lose at home,
all of a sudden it's not looking well, you get
some booze like you saw it today in Philly. When
it doesn't go well at home, it can just get weird,
and it can get weird really quick. It wasn't that
We're not that far removed from them, like Channing fire
(41:58):
Tomlin wasn't you know six months ago? That was like
two weeks ago against so It's like, guys, I just
think that I think we're seeing the end of it all.
I really do, and I'm more convinced now than ever
this league. There's a lot of moving parts. We're gonna
learn more about Lafleur over the next couple days. Obviously,
(42:19):
have thoughts, however that thing shakes out, This John Harbaughs situation,
the Sirianni situation, we got a lot going on and
it's just a crazy time in the NFL, A lot
like college football, but even on a much higher level.
You can fire anyone at any moment, because paying someone
twenty thirty to fifty million dollars to these NFL owners
now is like change that I could find in my
(42:42):
desk drawer. It means nothing to them. Imagine paying someone
to go away and owing them and the staff sixty
seventy million dollars and not even blinking, not even thinking
twice help the Raiders. A couple of years ago, before
Brady and the money got involved, they paid Josh McDaniels
and Dave Ziegeler are combined like seventy million dollars to
(43:05):
leave to pack your shit and go. Mark Davis is
not you know, Steve Balmer, but he has that much
money because of that's what the league generates from the
media deals. So all these coaches at all times, unless
you're Andy Reid, you just never know Sean McVay and
(43:25):
like Kyle Shan. It's a very short list of guys
that are truly totally safe. Any other guy, like if
people have some conversations, you pissed the wrong guy off you,
you don't manage up well enough, put your stuff in
a cardboard box and get the hell out of there.
That's how fast it changes, and that's it makes the
league a little more unpredictable. You know, the guys aren't
(43:46):
just gonna hold jobs for as long just because I
like you. Look at Wheree Morris. People love the guy.
He tied for first place, now granted it was eight nine.
They given the owner a hug, is like his wife,
his family's hugs, like for every game, and like Raheem,
you gotta go. We love you, but you're not coaching
this team, buddy, And I give Raheem props because if
(44:08):
someone paid me. The American dream is not a white
pick offence, a dog, a couple of kids. It's to
be paid millions of dollars to not work. That's I
can't even And you know what I saw Raheem basically
the guy like, if you don't hire me to bad coach,
I'm gonna go TV. It's like I would do do that.
(44:29):
Enjoy your life, that smart man. I'll end on this.
It's official now that Matt Ryan will be the boss
(44:51):
in Atlanta. They created some title He's above the GM
and the coach. Matt Ryan made hundreds of millions of
dollars playing football, because when you're a professional athlete, especially
I mean Matt Ryan played longer than most professional athletes.
If you're at the top of your field as a
quarterback at whatever position, as a baseball player, basketball player,
(45:12):
when you retire in your late thirties, you have accumulated
an goodly amount of money. Yet, especially a guy like
Matt Ryan, you're healthy, you got another forty to fifty
years ahead of you, You've probably got a young family,
you got literally the world by the balls, and then
you take some cush CBS job which is probably paying
you a million bucks. Just go in the studio, hangout
(45:32):
toxin ball. You do not need to sign up to
go get back into the world of grinding, because that's
what football is. If you're going to go into the
office every day, it is a grind. It's not a
place where people are smiling and having a great time
every day. It's a very serious, stressful, kind of angry environment,
(45:55):
which a lot of people like. Honestly, a lot of
these guys are addicted to that environment. You know, they
said in the movie Heat, the action is the juice.
I think a lot of these guys you know what
the juice is. It's not just Sunday running out there
to play in front of seventy thousand. It's like the
grind of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It's like the grind of
showing up at the office to get a workout at
(46:17):
six am and being there till ten o'clock at night.
It's the grind of just having to figure it out
on the fly on a Wednesday with some injuries and
just everyone on their fifth cup of coffee, third can
of the week of Copenhagen and just seventh pill of
adderall and just grinding in the office. It's some people
(46:40):
are just addicted to it. And Matt Ryan did not
need to do this. Now, I'm not acting like Arthur
Blank's paying him two hundred grand to accept this gick.
He's making millions of dollars, but like, not enough to
change his life. His life's already been changed by the
money he made playing. So when you signed back up
to go grind like this and you saw the clip
(47:01):
of John Lynch on the sideline, another guy did not
need to be doing this. Anyone that watched the Lway
documentary was like, I missed it. I just wanted to
do it. He became the GM of the Broncos, Like,
these guys can go play golf, hang out, do whatever
they want, get involved in businesses, do some TV. I
respect the hell out of these guys to just go
(47:23):
you know what, I miss the juice. I miss it.
I missed the misery, and I do admire and respect
that from these guys that are worth just so much
damn money and don't need the misery in their life,
but it kind of fulfills them because that's kind of
what football is, and working in football is not. The games,
(47:47):
like the three hour game day that you and I
watch on our couch is such a small sliver of
the actual job. It's it's probably over the course of
a season, I don't know two three percent of the gig,
So props to Matt Ryan. And I talked about this
on a podcast a couple of weeks ago because Pelsarro
(48:07):
on the NFL Network had a reported that he was
going to try to do both jobs, and he shot
that down. He said, I'm done with CBS. I was
watching him to day when he talked about it, like
he thanked everyone. You could tell he's kind of getting
emotional and just saying like they gave him this opportunity
and he was appreciative. And I would say the other thing,
you know, the thing with quarterbacks. I thought that i'd
(48:29):
say this with Philip Rivers. You know, Drew Brees, a
guy I got respect for Drew Brees, who I thought
was terrible on TV. He's gotten much better, like they
just happened to be, especially Matt Ryan. Six' five with
a good. Arm If Matt ryan couldn't throw the ball
five yards and just would have had to go work in, economics,
right he would have ran a, bank he would have
started a, business have been really Like Matt ryan was
(48:50):
destined to be a very very successful. Guy SO i
would tell you, This it would not shock me at
all if he was a BETTER gm than he was a.
Quarterback he was a good quarterback obviously had the ONE
mvp season that was the. Outlier mostly it was just
like a, consistent somewhere between like seven to twelve, guy
guy you could win with if you had a good.
Team if he, didn't it could go sour. Fast but
(49:12):
he was always really really impressive in really really. SHARP
i felt like he was smarter than he was. Talented
and if he really goes all in on this and
leans on the people he, knows he's been. Lucky he's
been around a lot of coaches in his career In,
atlanta and If lafleur became available Because Green bay fired,
him he was his quarterback coach when he won THE
(49:32):
mvp working For kyle when shocked me at, off they
hired him. Immediately so you know he's going to need
to lean on people for THE gm scouting. Aspect obviously
he's never done. That but the thing when You're Matt
ryan and you want to get some intel and you
pick up the phone and you Call Lane kiffin Or
Pete golding Or Ryan, day guess what they call you
right back text. HIM i guarantee you get a text
(49:55):
back in five, minutes so he will have no problem
gaining a, network AND I i think it's fair to
say he's smart enough if he's willing to do, this
because you can't be willing to like kind of go half,
in half out like that was the, Knock Like Maggie
johnson always kind of want to do, it but then
not really because he wanted the normal, life WHICH i
don't blame him at. All, RIGHT i would Do Dan
marino same. THING i would be like. Them i'd be,
(50:16):
Like i'm worth hundreds of MILLION, Ti i'm gonna go kick,
It i'm gonna go hang, Out i'm gonna go enjoy my.
Life i've already done, this But matt wants to put
his feet to the. Fire so IF i Was Atlanta falcon,
fan WHICH i haven't had many good things to say
about the franchise over the, YEARS i would say this
is this is EXCITING tbd see how it, goes but
(50:38):
it's it's exciting when you get a guy of his
stature to, say, YEAH i want. This and THEN i
listened to his comments today Like i'm doing this because
we deserve to be in the playoffs and we've been
shitty for too, long so exciting. Times and we'll be
back again tomorrow and we'll see what we'll. See How, hey,
listen there are gonna be some curveballs. COMING i would
(50:58):
Imagine monday Or. Tuesday and by curve, balls HOPEFULLY i
don't mean my son Say i'm. Ready i'm kind of
got my mindset On. Thursday but, listen can't play god,
Here but when it comes to, FOOTBALL I i think
some interesting stuff's about to happen the next couple of.
DAYS i think we're we're gonna enter the season where
we start getting really. Weird see you. Later the volume
(51:24):
m
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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