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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Ten Takes is a production of the NFL in partnership
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Steelers Ravens Week eighteen title game in the EFC North.
Come on now, all my rowdy friends are coming over
for this one right now. One team is eight and six,
one team is seven and seven. The schedule gods had
the Steelers and the Ravens play in Pittsburgh the last
week of the Wow, it's incredible. You guys have a
video for this. I just came up with this answer.
Thank you very much. You are so nimble and so
(00:45):
talented in the truck that you're in the booth that
you came up with it. One of the This kind
of feels like a in college football, like a conference
title game. You know, before the bowl, we will get
together one more time. Conference title game. Very controversial these days.
Not the No Name refuses to play in that MANSI
why because they're just too good for them. But in
other words, the Steelers are Ravens. Everyone would kind of
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handed the North. I feel like to the Steelers a
little bit because they'd won two in a row and
they looked really good. The Ravens are like, oh not
so fast, Kimo Sabi. We got a game. We can
win out, we can beat you. This would be really fun.
And imagine either Lamar or Rogers losing in Week eighteen
to get knocked out of the playoffs. High drama. I
want this. This year's Rams Stafford McVeigh at al. They
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remind me of the twenty sixteen Falcons, a team, of
course that ended an infamy, but had a lot of
incredible things going on. You have the MVP, quarterback Mytt
Ryan was the MVP. You had a cavalcade of weapons,
Julio Jones, Taylor Turbo Gabriel, the running backs, Devonte Freeman,
Tevin Coleman. This is Kyle Shanahan running the offense. A
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fun team, great team, great to I mean they were
destroying the Patriots by three three touchdowns, all right, I
know it ended horribly, but my god, this was a
great team. Matt Ryan won the MVP. People did not
have that in their odds and it was just offense
and offense and offense and guys on the Dion Jones, Young,
Keanu Nil like just fun, cool players did outrageous things.
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I'm not saying that the Rams are going to have
an all time melt done in the Super Bowl I'm
not saying that all this is supposed to be a compliment.
For God's sake, Weapons, MVP quarterback, Grizzled head coaches with
Dan Quinn head coach team. I love that team and
the Falcons. I know they came up short, but the
Rams may not. My theme, guys, is Christmas presents. It's
holiday presence. Whatever you celebrate, whatever you might get and
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like from you know, maybe your least desirable to your
most desirable. And here in my tears, let's start out
with Close from Grandma. It's just the worst. You know,
it's closed when you shake it and you and you're
trying to feign interest and you just throw it and
hope for a Nintendo game. All right, listen, Close from Grandma.
I have C. D. Stroud. I just don't think he's
playing at his best this season, his best rookie season.
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Can play better Bo Nicks. Of course, he looks good.
The other day he's he's very young, and he has
played much of this season. It's been fine. It just
hasn't been excellent. And then Aaron Rodgers, no one loves
Rogers more than me as a player. You guys know
that right now? Compared to this field. There's no shame
in this. The fact that he's forty two and even
in the field is amazing. I don't consider this an insult.
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Tier two. Sometimes you go to the stocking and back
in the day, you get a gift certificate to McDonald's,
a gift card. Sometimes it would be low as fifty cents.
They've used to make fifty cent gift card certificates to
McDonald's and you could buy like fries with him and
it was awesome. It felt like fries in your hand.
Trevor Lawrence belongs in Tier two if you're doing the
right now, and if you looked over the last month,
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it's more than the Jets game. He's been excellent and
the true miracle that Liam Cohen might have pulled off
it's not getting Jacksonville to win. We may have found
a guy to unlock the Prince that was promised in
Trevor Lawrence. He's playing the best football of his career.
Herbert is nothing more justin Herbert than being tier two.
I hate to say that tier one talent. We're looking
for that tier two run over the next six weeks,
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and I hope he makes it. Drake May I think
it's a huge confident for him to be Tier two. Guys,
he's played excellent. I don't think he's gonna win MVP,
but tier two looking down on his fellow second year
quarterback Bo Nicks as a compliment, and then I don't
know how you guys don't have that. Tier one is
the Gijo aircraft carrier, which, if you grew up in
the same era as I did, this was considered finding
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the city of Atlantis under the tree for Christmas. It
was a miracle. It was mythical. Your friend's friend's cousin
had it. I had it, but I think it's only
my dad bought it from me because it was posted
Boris and you know, there's a whole heavy stuff going
on there, So that's how it works. Sometimes. I don't
know how you have anybody in the same tier with
Josh Allen. I'm not talking about their teams, I'm not
talking about their record. I don't think there's a player
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in the NFL in any position that is on tier
with Josh Allen. I think Josh Allen is right there
with like Miles Garrett, and that's it in terms of
best at their position. It's not him. He doesn't share
the aircraft carry with anybody. It's just him standing on
the deck saluting to the top gun anthem and thumbs up.
That's my tiers. There's a two A hive out there,
and I respect it, and I think even the two
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A hive is pretty quiet right now because there are
people who can get into the numbers and analytics that
can point out to his assets. You can get into
the tape. There's all sorts of ways to justify him
and to glorify him. The problem is that he just
doesn't have it from the hip unsophisticated analysis. He doesn't
seem like a few years now, like the guy who's like,
that's my guy who's gonna win playoff games. That's my guy.
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And that is the most important test, whether you're a coach,
whether you're just a fan on the couch, if you
can see the guys who are going to win playoff games.
Drake May is gonna win some playoff games. We know
that already. It's been very rare at a time and
to his career, and there have been times, fleeting times
when you're like, oh, hell yeah, well I think we
can win playoff games with Tua in January. Yeah, the
contract situation is an absolute mess. And this is yet
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another byproduct of the absence of a middle class and quarterbacks,
where if you're a certain age and you play at
a certain level, you have to get a massive, massive
amount of money, even if you're not worth that amount
of money, like Tua is not. It's still sitting there. Lastly,
all I want for Christmas is a Zach Wilson comeback
story in a year when we got Daniel Jones, Sam
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Darnold again, Mac Jones. I want that guy. Why can't
he have his turn? This guy who is eviscerated worry
number zero? Oh my god? Is he number zero on
the Dolphins? Is that true? Mike? The picture seems to
say that he is the number that he's wearing. I
don't even know this. This would be amazing, and I
hope it's something about like the number of people who
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believed in them after the Jets got rid of him,
or a special thing like that. Zach, you little dimple faced,
a wrong armed demon. I want you out there, baby,
you deserve it. If all those other guys can have
their second shot, give me Zach Wilson playing out a
string in the last couple of games for a bad
Dolphins team and just lighting it the hell up. What
numbers he might the zero And that's exactly the number
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of options you have outside of Zach Wilson. If you
asked me number zero, z dub out a BYU light
it up. I want the jersey already, get put it
under the tree, I asked my wife. I want some
vinyl records and some meat smoking stuff. Nay, I want
to teal zero Zach Wilson jersey that I will wear
with fist in the air. I also have seen other
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media members and social media accounts who are tracking Caleb's
quest for four thousand how many yards and us the
average and so on and so forth. As a football
guy and as a native Chicago and I could not
give less of a damn if Caleb Williams throws for
four thousand yards. Time was the Bears being the only
team in the NFL who never had a four thousand
yard passer. It was a punchline. It was a pock
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mark on the Bears from years of bad offenses and
bad teams, and it was an embarrassment that they were
the last franchise invited to the party of the modern offense.
But now they're a ten win team. They have a
brilliant head coach, they have a superstar and waiting quarterback.
They're trying to be the best team in their division,
even their conference. Who cares what statistical number of passing
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yards Caleb lands on. It is small times, statistical loser stuff.
Do you know the reason Caleb likely won't hit four
thousand yards? It's not because the Bears passing game isn't good.
It's because their running game is good, because their defense
is good. Caleb's not going to throw for four thousand
yards because Caleb's not going to have to. That's no
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longer a pop mark, that's a flex. In fact, I
openly hope he doesn't do it. Dak Prescott's going to
pass four thousand yards this weekend. How's his season going?
Last season's League MVP didn't throw for four thousand yards.
Last year's Super Bowl MVP didn't throw for three thousand yards,
but Joe Burrow through for nearly five thousand last year.
Howd his season go? Caleb will hit four thousand yards
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some year. It's inevitable, and it will be lame and
a petty side story in the context of everything else
he's doing for that franchise. I don't care that a
Bears quarterback hasn't thrown for four thousand yards in over
a century. I care that a Bear's quarterback hasn't thrown
for one yard in a playoff win in over a decade.
That's the streak you should care about, and I know
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for a fact that's the one that Caleb cares about.
All right. You know, I have a pretty good sense
of the Bears fans pulse, and I am on a
lot of text chains of all kinds Chicago people, and
for years up to and including a couple of weeks ago,
it was Packers still have their number, Packers own them
on and on. We'll do something the Packers always figure
out away in the end. A funny thing has happened
in the last two weeks, which which personally makes me
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a little nervous, where most of the Bears fans I
talked to and Reid are saying, we got this, we
got this, this is our night, this is really going
to be a coronation. I'm talking to some people like
I think we roll them. And the reason I think
a lot of that is is the Michael Parsons injury.
That is a huge, huge deal. And the second Mike
MICA's knee went, you knew it was going to affect
this game and every other game. I think a weird
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thing has happened with that injury, as well as Christian
Watson going down. We don't know if he'll play really
or if he'll be himself. It's put pressure on the
Bears to win this game because it's not just the
Packers or your daddy or you got. You lost it
on the road and you went at home. Now it's like, well,
if you can't beat him, now, when are you going
to beat him? You're supposed to be the next best
thing you got, the next best head coach, next best quarterback,
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our best defensive player is out, and we still went
into your house and beat you. That's a tough loss.
If they go to Soldier Field the Packers and win
without Micah, maybe without Watson who crushed the Bears in
that game, and without all the other players, that is
a big flex and that is a tough, tough loss
for Chicago and you go oho and two. Then the
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second layer of this is this is a quote unquote
dream season for Bears. Fans. If you finish, let's just
say you finished twelve and five and you're zero to
two against those guys. Is that not a gut punch?
It sucks, I believe me. I know. If you go
twelve and five losing the wild card, let's say, and
like the Packers got you twice, it's sickening really because
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it doesn't feel like the mission was accomplished. And if
you think you know Ben Johnson, a competitive psychopath who
really really takes a lot of pride in being the
Bears coach, this will destroy him if he loses this game, like,
it will really rip him apart, because that drive by
handshake with Matt Lafleur was a I'll see you in
two weeks bleep bleep, like that I got you in
two weeks. Ben Johnson, you really I have to break
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it to you, dude. You can't show up and say
I'm the next best thing and I got the Bears
going where I want them to go and you lose
both times to the Packers. You can't do it. It's similar
to like we've seen, you know, Ohio State Michigan, where
Ohio State will have this great season and lose the
Michigan or vice versa, whatever it is, it's a big, big,
big scar in the season. So Ben Johnson, don't say
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you're the next best thing when you lose the Matt
lufflur twice if that happens. Strangely, in the last two weeks,
there has become a lot of pressure on the upstart
Bears to win this game. If they lose it on
a last second field goal or boy whatever, bad even
though all the great things this season can't go on
through the Packers just can't do it. The Lions kicked
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the snot out of the Bears in Week two, fifty
two to twenty one in the Ben Johnson Return to
Detroit game. They destroyed them. After the game, Ben Johnson
is asked just how demoralizing was oh not to moralizing
at all, and he said this quote that Bears have
hung on too, which is, we expect our team to
play our best football in December. Well we're in December
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right now. It's December eighteenth. They play the Lions, Bears
last week of the regular season, probably maybe both of
them fighting for things. That is the referendum on the
Ben Jhonson Lions. You lost fifty two to twenty one
to year old Buddies. Week two. You said you'd be
better in December. What do you have now? In Bears
Lions too, it's a fascinating one. I know it's a
couple of weeks away, but that's where the Lions linker.
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They got Steelers at home. I think that's a good
game that to Tray can win that game. They're at Minnesota,
I don't know what Minnesota's deal is. And then last
one at Soldier Field, maybe for a playoff against the
team they destroyed three months ago.
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