Week 17 Recap: Bears-Niners Shootout, Bills-Eagles Rockfight and Ravens Stay Alive

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to NFL Daily, where Week eighteen and its schedule
remain alive. I'm Greg Rosshal here in the Chris Wesley
podcast studio with my friends Patrick Clayban and Jordan rod Reeg.
We entered Sunday, Patrick, after a fascinating Saturday that we'll
get to pretty short, with the possibility that all fourteen

(00:27):
playoff spots would have been clinched entering Week eighteen, which
would have broken my heart, not really as a company man,
but just as a man who wants to see entertaining
football each and every one of these eighteen weeks, and
partly because of your Ravens, we are going to get
some of that next week on Sunday, So I'm happy
for that.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, not just the Ravens, but also the Cleveland Browns. Yes,
instrumental in that. Not to spoil anything that we're about
to talk about, but essentially, we want these things to matter,
and not just to have the uplift of the important
games determining things, but just not to have dreadful poort.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Price, because let's be real, it's not gonna be the
greatest slate of important games. It's gonna be great that
we've ever had but it's it's gonna be a lot
better than it could be. Now we will get you
the Sunday night, you know week eighteen schedule with Saturday
at the end of the show. We'll do the Big

(01:19):
Bears forty nine Ers game at the end of the show.
So we're gonna start focusing on the AFC primarily, and
it's good. These games were so good that we're gonna
get the Cleveland Browns and Nick shook into the A
block of the show. It's overdue, but let's actually start
with what ended up being the game of the day.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Let's decide the AFC East. Let's go to Buffalo. Bills
need a two point conversion for the win.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
With five seconds remaining, Ray Davis Delone's setback bunch formation
on the left, Gilliam in motion left to right. Here's
the snap back to pass pressure coming. Alan fires to
the end zone and he misses. The intended receiver in
the back of the end zone was Shakir and Alan
threw it wide to the target incomplete and that will

(02:09):
be the ballgame.

Speaker 5 (02:10):
Well, he had him too, and Josh's beside himself going
to the.

Speaker 6 (02:14):
Sideline right now. He's a beautiful play.

Speaker 7 (02:17):
Call.

Speaker 5 (02:18):
You get Shakir coming open along the back end of
the goal on looked like he was going to run
it over out, he breaks it out, completely, pulls the
defense and Josh Allen just with a huge missfire.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
You hate to see a thrilling ending and a really
game comeback by Josh Allen, specifically in a season that's
required so many of them and that way, But the
Philadelphia Eagles hold on to win thirteen to twelve. With
the Patriots, who will get to in a minute, winning

(02:54):
earlier in the day, the Bills are knocked out of
contention for the AFC East. In so many ways, Patrick,
this felt like a microcosm of both these team seasons,
with the Eagles offense completely disappearing for an entire half,
under twenty yards of offense in the second half, with
the Bills finally coming alive in the fourth quarter the

(03:16):
best second half team in the NFL, and Josh Allen
having to do everything but he falls just one throw short.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, in a throw where they got everything they wanted
in Khalil Shakir getting matched up on Jahad Campbell, where
to the extent where I was confused as to who
was initially supposed to be covering that area of the field.

Speaker 6 (03:33):
I think the Eagles still are.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
But the weight that we talk about Josh Allen constantly
caring he had to run through a Jalen Phillips what
would have been a sack a couple of plays before that,
you know, extending plays, quarterback sneak touchdowns like he got before.
Because they took the Dawson knock touchdown away. It's all
on his shoulders and for him to be it made

(03:56):
it makes me think of the situation where they'd send
after wave of center into foul Shack just to brutalize
Shack and he's muscling the ball up through six people
and then he has to delicately go to the free
throw line and hit this delicate free throw. Or Josh
just churning through bodies and then having to hit that
pass and missing it to them and.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
His foot injury is something to keep an eye on,
and we'll get to kind of the overarching meaning of
what happened in this game and their ability now to
rest in week eighteen, which might be a good thing
for them. But shuk Whu, who's not part of this,
you know, he's like, you got to mention the foot injury,
and after the game, they asked, Josh Allen, did the
foot affect you on that throw? And he said zero percent.

(04:38):
He said the injury is not affecting him at all,
and he just he says, I just missed the throw.
But after the press conference, the media parts of him
in that hallway sees him limping to an X ray room,
and it almost felt like it's a physical manifestation of
what this season has been for Josh Allen, which in

(04:58):
this game like a lot of drugs. But ultimately they
had two touchdowns in the last five and a half
minutes and almost stole this win from the Philadelphia.

Speaker 7 (05:07):
And it took everything he had and and something he
ultimately in the end did not have.

Speaker 8 (05:13):
And normally we'd see him make that play and.

Speaker 7 (05:17):
Limping on and off the field between these drives Greg
and taking the sneak and again every inch of this
this was the ultimate like this was real ball Vic
Fangio defense that was played today.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Big to it.

Speaker 7 (05:30):
Having Jalen carter back was a hugely significant part of
making and the way that those linebackers were playing in
the secondary, the way that they were closing down over
the top.

Speaker 8 (05:41):
Of the bills, but for one or two plays here
or there.

Speaker 7 (05:44):
This was an absolute, agonizing, true death by ten thousand
paper cuts, earn every inch and the moments that you
never think will matter come back to matter in a
big way. Jalen Carter blocks an extra Jalen Carter who
swings this game at will essentially multiple times during the contest.

(06:07):
That is Jalen Carter who is staring down Josh Allen
and really breathing life back into the wavig Fangio wants
to play this defense after coming off of a double
shoulder procedure where he said before he couldn't even do
a push up, comes back and has a monster game
like that.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
We haven't done this yet on the season, but we
were watching early in that game, and when Jalen Carter
sacked Josh Allen, We're like, is that the sack of
the year. It just was a lot of fun. Let's
listen to a potential Sack of the Year nominee. Alan
goes back again.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
He said he sucked.

Speaker 6 (06:40):
They got him.

Speaker 9 (06:41):
Welcome to Jalen Carter, Welcome on his first game back.

Speaker 10 (06:44):
Welcome back jac What an unbelievable job of swimming the
guard just pushing him out of the way and he
runs full speed into Josh Allen.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
It's good to see him by Oh my goodness.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
And how the slowbo replays don't really with justice there,
it's just the force.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
And that was Merril Reeson and my quick wip.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
So yeah, we don't want to get it lost that
the Eagles defense played incredible for fifty minutes of this game,
but like I mentioned, we get a lot of the
stories of the season and during the second in the
third quarter, and it's a driving rainstorm for much of
the game. It got heavier and lighter depending on where

(07:25):
you were in the game. For much of the game
it was just absolutely pouring. And I point out, man,
the Eagles are doing their thing again where they go
three and out. They had one first down to start
the second half, and then they go three and out
four straight time.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
And in the middle of that, I pointed out, and the.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Eagles fans will, yeah, but this is different, like you
should be conservative. The defense has got it lockdown. It's like, no,
you can't play football that way unless you're the Eagles. Chiocapatia,
the ringer points out four times all season an NFL
team has been held under twenty yards in the second
half of the game. Two of those four times are
the Eagles. They won both of those games, so maybe
that is their recipe. It's just it's so funny because

(08:01):
in the first half, like they're under center a ton,
the highest rate that they've been at all season. I
thought Saquon Barkley looked pretty good in the first half
of this game, but then it went away, and I
ultimately I don't really feel too much differently about either
of these teams by the end of it. But the
last drive was incredible. There was the long throat of
Brandon Cooks. We have to apologize to yes Sex Patrick.

Speaker 2 (08:23):
Now couple, I'll bat leadoff. Thank you for bringing it
up multiple times. I've referred to Brandon Cooks as the
ghost of Brandon cook Oh No, he was spectacular today.
Had a contested catch that essentially put the Bills on
a path towards winning the game to win. Probability for
believers in that swung significantly on that Brandon Cooks catch

(08:43):
and also a fifty yard or earlier, giving him his
sixth team that he's had a fifty yard catch for
tying in with Andre Risen as well as Dante Stalworth
of all people for the lead in the history of
the NFL's congratulations to Brandon Cooks.

Speaker 6 (08:58):
I'm sorry I was wrong, you still got it.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Shout out to an underrated wide receiver, Dante stollerth back
back in that they always thought he was a good player.
You know, we've been looking for their wide receivers to
step up. Tyrrell Shavers had an incredible catch. Cooks goes
over one hundred yards, but that last drive was magic.
There was the fourth and ten to start the drive
hook and ladder, which starts with Shavers catching the ball

(09:21):
before he pitches it. It was sort of recognizing, like,
we can't just beat this team normally. We got to
do something crazy. Joe Brady, Josh Allen, the entire team
pulls it off. Great job there. Then they go deep
down the field to Brandon Cooks. They kind of waste
to play running. I'm thinking the Eagles are making a
huge mistake by not calling timeouts there. There's a rare

(09:42):
game management situation where I think Nick Sirianni blew it.
It ends up working out rare, but I think they've
been pretty good with game management stuff.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
John.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, like towards the end of last year to this year. Yeah,
and then that play where he gets out of Jalen Phillips'
potential ten.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
It's the Bills doing the Toush push.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Even though Sean McDermott was the team that was trying
to ban the Toush push. They're doing the touch push
on the Toush pushers and it all set up that final.

Speaker 7 (10:10):
Moment, and and Sean McDermott makes the aggressive decision. And Yeah, certainly,
I think if coaches sometimes think about the elements, thinking
about the snap, the hold, if you're talking about a kick,
a potential point after your attempt. No, even before they
ran that fourth down Toush push play, he was on
the sideline putting the number two up. They were going
for two. They were going for the win in this game,

(10:31):
no matter what. And you have to think like it's
it's again giving everything, taking trying to take every single
little moment, little margin that you can coming up short
in multiple ways, but really making it like such a
dogfight at the end. And that's a lot of the
ethos that Josh Allen brings to that team.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
I have a theory on that they've played a lot
of football. Josh Allen's limping out there. I think they're
obviously trying to win the game, and Sean McDermott has
been more aggressive calling for fourth down, so there's five
second stuff, So maybe they do it in any scenario.
Maybe there's like a little part of them that recognizes
the fact they were very unlikely. They already knew the
Patriots had won to win the AFC West East next week. Anyways,

(11:13):
they could have been playing to win the division, but
ultimately they weren't likely to win the division anyways. They
could have had to play some extra football tonight, you know,
on Sunday night, and they got a banged up team.
Maybe just like, let's just go for the win now,
and we don't want to play any extra football, not tonight.
And in the end, it's got to be a theme
throughout this show, these teams that lost and now have

(11:36):
nothing to play for next week in terms of division slotting,
it might be a good thing for them, because I
think the Bills might rest some people against the Jets,
and maybe Mitch Trubisky can beat the Jets.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
Anyways, if you're worried about getting that five.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Seed, I mich Trubishiki and the Bills backup should right
beat the Jets, and I think it's a nice silver lining.
I don't know that all that calculus was going on
with in regards because the most important player to caet healthy, Yes,
is the giant quarterback who you just smashed into his teammates.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, but also, maybe you don't want to play like
extra this week.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
Maybe maybe it wasn't thinking.

Speaker 7 (12:09):
I like the thought, Greg, I just don't think that
that conversation is happening in football buildings as of yet.

Speaker 8 (12:14):
Maybe you're the change.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Okay, at least give me that they didn't necessarily want
to play extra football today. And look that offensive line.
One last takeaway here was I thought how great this
offensive line has been all season long. You know, they
got pushed around a little bit for a while in
this game by the Eagles front four against a very
good front four, so they've been a little banged up

(12:35):
to on the offensive line. They will try to get healthy.
And yes, like I mentioned, they knew that earlier in
the day, the Patriots had taken care of business. What
we're going to do on this show, We're going to
go through division by division in these races since we
essentially know who's going to the playoffs, let's go division
by division.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
Let's go to MetLife Stadium.

Speaker 11 (12:55):
Three of the right, including Henry hand down the tide
end May with a play fake and a boot leg
to the right. He cruiser towards the end zone. The
pass was timing reception. It's made for a touchdown. Patriots
with the grad for New England. That's the rookie Efton Chishmir.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
You know we're getting close to week eighteen when Efton
Chisholm is broken out the preseason darling of Jordan Rodrigg's
trip to Minnesota to watch some joint Macris.

Speaker 8 (13:24):
You gotta hear about this guy.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
You got to hear about this, all this this chism.
He's gotta have one hundred and six catches.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Well, they kept him on ice most of the year,
but he joined because they had some injuries today before
it even started, and he played throughout the game. The
Patriots win forty two to ten. I thought Zolac would
be in there. Oh that's five touchdowns. You gotta give
Drake Mays FVB. But you know he's getting used to
these wins here. That was Bob soci on w b

(13:52):
X forty two to ten. Yeah, like I mentioned, no
Kishon Booty in this game. Mac Collins was placed on
injured reserve, which would mean he's out until at least
the conference championship if they should make it that far.
So that's a big late week injury that we didn't
really know was particularly serious. But my God, did Drake
May make it look easy. Thank you to the New

(14:14):
York Jets anyone that was hoping that Drake May was
going to win the MVP, because they went six drives
six touchdowns. He had the highest EPA per play of
any quarterback in any game this year. The second highest
was Trevor Lawrence three weeks ago against this same Jets team,
which is now Jordan been outscored in the last four

(14:38):
weeks more than any Jets team in any four game
stretch in the history of maybe the most woebegotten franchise
in the NFL. So it is really dark for Aaron
Glenn and Drake May sat out the final quarter and
a half of this game.

Speaker 7 (14:51):
The Pastronaut entered the mix at that point, and yes,
I did like the little note that next Gen Stats
threw in there say that Drake May now leads the
NFL with plus point two foury pa per drop back,
and seven of the last nine NFL.

Speaker 8 (15:07):
MVPs have also led the league in that category.

Speaker 7 (15:11):
Just a little subtle marketing thrown in there by the
great folks at next Gen perhaps leaning a certain way
for that.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Oh look at that, Wow spuriously.

Speaker 7 (15:20):
I mean, Stafford still leads to touchdowns against the Blitz people.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
And maybe that's that will go over the last two
years because it was lare leading NBPA per dropback and.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
I thought Perty had it too a couple of years ago.
For most of the year. That's all beside. Well, here's
the thing that is more impressive to me about May
in this performance in particular. And yeah, if you're watching
us on YouTube, you can see the throw that he
makes to Stefan Diggs, who goes over one hundred yards
in this game. It's that he's pushing the ball down
the field. And actually today he had the second highest

(15:50):
completion percentage over expected of any quarterback at any game
this year, which would tell you that he's hitting tight windows.
And I've been making this point. I'm gonna keep doing it.
This receiver crew, especially Stephan Diggs, who's getting close to
one thousand yards, has made so many difficult grabs for
Drake May, who's confident enough to put it in tight
windows all season long, and that was the case today. He,

(16:12):
like Hunter Henry, had a few very low percentage throws.
Even though it was the Jets, it was kind of
a highlight reel for May. It wasn't all easy, although
I'll admit a lot of it was easy. It was
kind of like, hey, this is what Drake May looks
like with some protection for once.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, twenty six percent of Drake May's completions for touchdown
passes on the day twenty three of his attempts because
he only had a couple of those incompletions where the
Jets clearly weren't up to the task. But to your point,
they've made a lot of those plays for Drake May
down the field tomorrow, Douglas had had one. We seen
kay Shan Budi do it Stefan Diggs, where you really

(16:49):
have to respect the ability of this group to make
plays at the catch point, and also the fact that
Drake May puts the ball in positions where they can
make those plays on it against this Jets team, it's
clearly like this is the worst matchup for the just
I understand they get beat by a lot of people,
but this particular.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
They've given up.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
I mean, they are not competing on defense and that
is a big problem for Aaron Glenn.

Speaker 12 (17:13):
This was him after the game, highly highly disappointed on
the way that we came out to allow this team
to come out and the score. I think on the
first six drives touchdowns, that's not good. Offensively were stagnant,
and man, this is always talk about how we come

(17:34):
out when we played with effort. Today was probably the
one time I feel like our effort wasn't that's good
I would want to be. And that's just me not
bsing you guys, just being on this. I didn't think
the effort was where it need to be.

Speaker 7 (17:49):
That's that's huge because he is a player's coach and
he's been He's gone back and forth at times in
his press conference this year about back and forth with media,
kind of sticking up for his guys, whether it's his coaches,
you know, or his players. Already parted ways with Steve
Wilkes earlier this year. The defense is back under his control.

(18:10):
It's obviously, you know, for any play caller who is
also the head coach.

Speaker 8 (18:13):
I don't care what side of the ball you're on.

Speaker 7 (18:15):
It is always for a first year head coach a
learning curve to do that and to set up the
infrastructure around you in season for a sudden change at
a personnel like a significant coordinator position is difficult. I
do think though, if you are Jets ownership, which we
know have been reactive in the past, you're watching this

(18:37):
specific Patriots team that is on the rise and is
pulling away and lapping you essentially in terms of the competitiveness,
and like basically taking hold of a space that already
really has some heavy you know, a heavyweight in it
with Josh Allen, and like you're really falling behind.

Speaker 8 (18:59):
And so I think that's a it's a dark moment.

Speaker 7 (19:01):
It's a cause for concern, I think, and I just
hope everything works out. They preached that they would be
patient when they brought those two first year guys in,
and Darren Mugi and Aaron Glenn.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
Well, they also are reactive to what the media says,
and this is the week that a lot of people
are going to start wondering, like should Aaron Glenn be back?
There or not, and he could look at the Drod
Mayo season with the Jets as maybe false hope of
like what you would want to do when you realize
maybe it's not gonna work out. Let's let's move on
from this game to more interesting games on the day

(19:32):
Drake may By the way, two incompletions on the day.
One was a wide open, you know seam to Kyle
Williams seed where he dropped it. So only one other
incompletion on the day. And I've been tracking this all season.
I know Patrick was excited about me tracking this. Do
you know what Drake made did for the first time
today as a pro.

Speaker 6 (19:51):
What did he do?

Speaker 1 (19:52):
He finally got a game ball from Mike Rable. It
took this long, like I don't know if that's worth
MVP points, but he finally earned Mike Rabels respect and
got a game ball. Let's go to Cleveland where Nick
Schuk is going to get a game ball for covering
this Browns team all season long. He's joining the show
because the Browns deserve it.

Speaker 13 (20:11):
Fourth and goal, seven yard line, no timeout, Brown Zone
thirteen to six, Week seventeen, twenty one, Ticks to Go
Rogers empty Rogers to throw fade right side.

Speaker 3 (20:25):
Complete, no flug.

Speaker 13 (20:28):
Denzel Ward of a coverage, play your guitar, Pro Bowler, Browns.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Thirteen to six.

Speaker 13 (20:35):
They're taking over on downs and they can't take a knee.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Oh, I'm getting chills.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Listened to Andrew Siciliano wk RK. You think he's heaming
and Han after the incomplete Oh is there a flagger?

Speaker 3 (20:49):
Not in there? No, he's got it all locked up.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
He's talking about the Pro Bowl performance by Denzel Ward
at the end of this game, shook. I know you
care about like draft picks a little bit, but it
had to feel good to watch the Browns defense, which
has been fantastic all year, stand up in the red
zone and stop Aaron Rodgers on those three straight throws,

(21:13):
all at one of your best players, Denzel a Ward.

Speaker 14 (21:15):
Yeah, it had to feel good for Browns fans to
watch that happen, given that they've seen their defense perform
really well for most of this year and their offense
craters and then the defense runs out of gas, and
for a stretch in that final drive, it looked like
they were going to run out of gas. At one point,
Miles Garrett is basically walking back to the line of
scrimmage while the Steelers are in no huddle because you
can tell he's tired. The whole group was tired. But
then they stood tall in the goal to go situation

(21:36):
and it was three targets at Denzel Ward in a
row all to MVS. One on which MVS and Aaron
Rodgers aren't on the same page. Board almost picks that
one off, and then two fades to MVS, which of
course illustrates the fact that they miss DK metcalf dearly
in this game, but it also makes you wonder, Arthur Smith,
what are you doing? Why are you dialing up fades
to MVS with the game on the line. That pretty
much tells the whole story for the day. Finally, the

(21:57):
Browns defensive performance produces a victory for this team.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Let's listen to our friend NFL Daily contributor Bridget Condon
after the game with Denzel Award.

Speaker 7 (22:07):
All right, take me through the end of that game there,
because they kept throwing to you and you maintained your
ground and held them out of the end zone.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, I thought it was kind of crazy that the
game plan was to come and a teck me.

Speaker 12 (22:17):
But you know, I was ready for a team makes
its ready for the moment, and this guy was able.

Speaker 6 (22:22):
To get the win.

Speaker 7 (22:23):
Oh I love that great get by Bridget. Great question.
She was seemed as amused as.

Speaker 8 (22:27):
He was that they would try that strategy.

Speaker 7 (22:30):
We talked about it in the newsroom, you guys, and
I'm curious Nick, what you saw in those moments, because
it was like, well, you got a factor in the
ego of the quarterback.

Speaker 8 (22:39):
I can do this. I'm the guy who was going
to be able to make this work.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
And mvs is my guy. You know that he's got
to go down with his guys.

Speaker 14 (22:49):
That's his guide. But that's not It's not the Green
Bay Packers, guys. It's not what they were when they
were in Green Bay together. Those are years in the past.
This is not where they are now. What I saw
on the replay a lot of these plays was that
everything else was covered. The Browns defense did a really
good job of trying to take everything else away. Rogers
playing with the quick trigger that he's had all year,
and especially against the front that includes Miles Garrett, He's

(23:09):
getting the ballut quick all afternoon. It almost felt like
he was like, I only have one shot here. I'm
gonna get sacked. I'm going to throw it up to
MVS and hope for the best. We're going to do
it twice, hope for the best. Not maybe acknowledging or
respecting the fact that there's a Pro Bowl cornerback there
in Denzel Ward. But what I also saw throughout a
lot of this game, and I'm sending text with my
buddy Sean, who works down in Tampa, but he's a
diehard Steeler fan. At one point, I thought, are they

(23:30):
playing just to avoid Miles Garrett setting the sack record here?
The way they approached a lot of this game, especially
in the fourth quarter, was very strange. They had the
ball in near midfield at one point, they're down, they
need to move the football into field goal range, and
they're just handing off to Jalen mooreen three times. I'm wondering,
I know it's rainy, i know it's cold, it's gross,
it's sloppy, but what are you doing That? Really felt
like that's the way they approached the end of this game,

(23:52):
and it cost them.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
The team's leading receiver down the stretch at so many
games was Kenneth Gainwell, and Kenneth Gainwell was in to
chip Miles Garrett what felt like most of the first
half and then the second half when Miles is and
and I know for those of us because Charles McDonald
of Yahoo was screaming the same thing. I was watching
the game where Miles Garrett was basically like if the
ball was between the hashes, maless, like at the numbers

(24:15):
coming out wide, but and it was. It seemed like
a weird way to try to get the sack. But
it caused like this sort of Rogers malfunction where he
was hitting his back foot and the ball was coming
out regardless of what was happening.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
That's that is how they've played football all year. And
when was the last two week? When was the last
time Miles Garrett didn't get a sack? It was against
his Pittsburgh Steelers team, and they chipped. This is the
approach that they take with Miles Garrett. He does change
your game plan completely, like they did the exact same
thing last time, and he still got three quick pressures.
He had six pressures, like he impacted the game. So

(24:49):
I hear what you're saying. But they also dropped back
like forty five times in this game. It just it's
how they played football. It's just a very limited way
to play football. I don't think they were doing it
just to avoid the sack crack. I think they're just
doing it because that's well.

Speaker 7 (25:02):
I think they're to avoid Miles Garrett specifically. I'm not
sure sack record, shmack record, like, I don't know if
they're thinking about that specifically, but this is what they do.
This is a hat tip to Ben, So to our
friend Ben Solac who is citing next Gen Stats here. Yes,
he was chipped on forty one percent of his past
rush snaps. On the twenty three pass rush snaps that
he was not chipped on, the Steelers either ran quick

(25:24):
game or they rolled away from him. So yes, it
is the way that the Steelers play football. But specifically
they ramp it up because that was the eighth eighth
highest rate for any edge in a game this year
according to Ben and next Gen Next Ben Stats, next
Gen stat. Yeah, and they're so they're exaggerating it when
it happens to be Miles freaking Garrett staring at you
from across the lines.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
And that's that's what all time greats force. I mean,
I really felt it in that Minnesota game that that
I saw live with Miles Garrett where he had one
of his quietest days of the season. That like literally
every play that the Vikings ran was like job one
was to avoid Miles Garrett. I don't think it was
a conspiracy thing. Maybe it was in their their head,
but ultimately they were playing with a lead for most

(26:06):
of the day. Even though the Browns gave up a
sixty four percent pressure rate on shadier standers. They know
should own some of that. But his time to throw
wasn't that crazy. But you know what, the rookie class
for the Browns. At least they made one big time
play early.

Speaker 13 (26:22):
Browns driving Steeler twenty nine yard line, second and nine
of the roup three to I'm taking Adam a shotgun.
Should order throw looking right past the ball, lofting right.
He's got Fannin who catches at the two and rolls
in Touchdo.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Oh, what a catch.

Speaker 13 (26:38):
Harold Fannon looked up, bounded in the rain, landed on
his back and rolled untouched into the end zone.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
What a player they have found in. I love him
Harold Fannin. And it is interesting, Chuck, you're watching this
and you can tell me anything else we missed this game,
but I'm thinking, like, Okay, they found Fannin. Hopefully Duckkins
can get back healthy. Obviously you found some playmakers and
there is that to feel good about. Meanwhile, I'm watching
the Steelers and they lose Darnold Washington with a broken arm,

(27:09):
so who knows. I guess he's gonna be out for
the season. I haven't heard any announcement, but they did
say it's a broken arm.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
That's huge.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
And Rogers, who's going to be playing to try to,
you know, keep the season going next week? Is throwing
the ball to Scotty Miller seven times for twenty five years,
nine times to mvs for twenty one yards, and Adam
Thielen five times for fourteen years. I mean that is
a broke wide receiver group.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
So this is I know they're nine and seven.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
But like you almost feel better about the Brown's future
that I do about the Steelers future if you just
ignore all the defensive talent in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
I talk myself out in the middle of that tientime.

Speaker 14 (27:46):
Yeah, I think I think your argument fell apart it, Yes.

Speaker 3 (27:49):
It did. Sometimes you get too excited. I'm the take
hill and you go to get over your skis.

Speaker 14 (27:54):
Sorry, I understand yah. Because the Brown's receiving cord. You know,
there's nothing really to write home about. But that sequence there,
on that touchdown pass to Harold Fannin, that was the
best offensive sequence for the Browns for the day. Shador
made a great throat to Centric Tillman, another receiver whose
name nobody knows, but he makes one play every six
weeks or so. That reminds you that he's on the team.
I mean, that's basically where the Browns are receiving wise.
They're also a group of youngsters that are playing tough football.

(28:15):
Harold Fannin hurt his groin on that play and still
was able to get up and celebrate his touchdown catch.
Carson Sweessinger is playing through an injury the entire game.
Ties for the team, lead and tackles, so they do
have something building there. But you're right about the Rogers point.
When he threw to receivers, he completed eight of twenty
one passes. It was his lowest completion percentage when targeting
receivers all year. He had a passer rating of forty
six point three when targeting receivers. If they don't lean

(28:36):
on their tight ends and they don't have DK out there.
This passing game just isn't there, especially against the defense
like the Browns. So it's going to be very interesting
to see how they operate next week and if they
can get into the playoffs, how they go from there.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
You talked all season about the importance Darnah Washington is
to the run game. They were dominant in the second
half the past few weeks, but no Darnah Washington, all
that suddenly goes away.

Speaker 6 (28:55):
They struggle to protect and like it's rough that.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
You know, ultimately a Lion's not a rogue Lions fan
because the team is school with it. But it's eventually
considering the results next week because DK was big in
the game against the Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, it's a great point.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
I mean, what do they what do they do without
Without either of those guys.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
They could have really used DK Metcalf this week. And
uh man, they had They had Patrick in the newsroom,
who who wasn't on Game Day Live early and he's
living and dying with this Browns team.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
It was it was something to see.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
And I gotta say for the real deal Steelers fans
out there, they all saw this one coming.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Like Browns fans.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Would say, like what of course, but the Steelers fans
were all expecting to lose this game because it was
like Tomlin just locked in his winning record with the
ninth win. You know that that's that's settled. It could
be easy. We could kind of cruise to the playoffs.
That's just not how the Mike Tomlin Steelers do things.
They always lose to a bad team when you least expect.

(30:00):
And yes, it was the result on Saturday night that
puts so much pressure on them.

Speaker 9 (30:04):
Derrick Henry is back in the backfield in the power
eye formation. He'll get the carry on the toss, gets.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
Around the corner.

Speaker 15 (30:11):
He's in the twenty ten five touchdown.

Speaker 9 (30:15):
Derrick Henry and with that run, he breaks the NFL
record for the most games with two hundred yards carrying.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
He surpasses O. J.

Speaker 9 (30:26):
Simpson and Adrian Peterson and becomes the first NFL running
back to crest the two hundred yard mark seven times
in his career.

Speaker 16 (30:37):
His fourth touchdown.

Speaker 9 (30:38):
Of the game was that his easiest run, and he
takes a Lambeau leap.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
I'm laughing because on the video that's where you see
Tyler Huntley wearing wearing that she's.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Head whatever, that he's greater's greater.

Speaker 7 (30:53):
At for Tyler Huntley, who also is a big time
star in the Progressive commercials or whatever whatever the insurance
company is.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Is a big, big week for everyone at Progressive Love
Tyler Huntley and the cheese Greater forty one to twenty
four That was Jerry Sandusky and Rod Woodson on wb
A L. This man, Derrick Henry has had a lot
of memorable games, so you can't say it's a signature

(31:21):
game because he's he's got four or five of them
you could go through in his career that are just
like you kind of remember where you were Derreck Henry games.
But this was another one and it was a stunning
performance to me by this entire offense. Way back in
twenty ten, I used to talk about the apology contract
that the New York Jets gave Mark Sanchez after they

(31:44):
pursued Peyton Manning. Maybe that wasn't the right year, but
they pursued Peyton Manning in the offseason, didn't get them,
felt bad, and so then they gave Mark Sanchez a
bunch of new guaranteed money basically as an apology. This
was the apology game plan Patrick for what happened last
week when Derrick Henry did not get the ball in
the fourth quarter. He had more rushes in the first

(32:07):
two drives of this game than any running back since
Orlandis Gary in nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Jordan, you're so young.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
I'm gonna ask you who did Orlandos Gary play for?

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Well?

Speaker 8 (32:20):
I was seven, Greg, I know, all.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
Right, let's go as Huck Chuck's jumping in Denver, Bronco. Okay,
he got it.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
You guys are just little kids, so I'm not gonna
hold it against you. All those carries early, he ends
up with thirty six and he just keeps trucking.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
Just an awesome performance.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Yeah, it was a rough matchup for the Packers defense
in this one. And with regards to the apology game plan,
I don't know who the apology was.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
To, because to the fans and to Derrick Henry probably.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, the people who enjoy watching Derek and play football
because those twelve minutes of not doing it in a
game that the Ravens really needed to win. But it
shows that twenty two is still an effective football player.
And you know, there were multiple highlights four touchdowns in
this where you know, the Ravens who traditionally, at least
in the past few years, haven't been able to have
these long sustained drives that they hit home runs, and

(33:09):
they hit that one with Derrick Henry, but they were
also you know, moving the chains, having short completions with
Tyler Huntley his legs big in converting a whole bunch
of third downs as well. Where dominant performance by the
run game and also a great game by File who
day when he's not pass protecting, you know, can be

(33:29):
in an effective football player, which is why I think
all their passes should be player.

Speaker 7 (33:33):
Yes, I'm glad you said that, Patrick, because the Ravens
offensive line won at the line of scrimmage and helped
pave the road for this run game. And Derrick Henry
certainly earned more than his share by himself too.

Speaker 8 (33:45):
But this offensive line.

Speaker 7 (33:47):
Blocked over two yards before contact per play per rush
on average, which is for context, is like the highest
one of the highest totals this season on average for
an entire game, and it just was. It was really
fun to watch, and the fact that they were putting
up historic numbers against really a sort of a withering

(34:10):
away Packers defense that certainly is feeling the loss right now.

Speaker 8 (34:15):
It was demoralizing, right.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
It's the worst way that I think you can possibly lose.
He goes over two hundred yards, he ends up with
two hundred and sixteen. They score on every single drive
except for one punt in the third quarter, and most
of them are touchdowns. In the last two games, Shook,
the Packers have allowed points on a starting in the
fourth quarter they had that ten point lead against the Bears.

(34:40):
They have given up scoring drives on eleven of twelve drives.
Most of those eleven are touchdowns. Sixty one points in
five quarters of action, and they blew what I thought
was literally one of the best performances any quarterbacks had
in the game all season by Malik Willis. That's how
good Malik Willis. We can get to that in a minute.

(35:01):
But now, knowing like how this ended and what the
Packers can do next week they could probably rest their start,
is like, do you give this Packers team any hope
of bouncing back defensively? And how you feeling about this
Ravens team after that performance?

Speaker 14 (35:15):
Well, I hate to hit the lay up here, but
this all traces back to what happened in Denver the
week before when they lost Michael Parsons and then they
can't keep up with the Broncos in that game. The
next game, they crumble in the final six minutes or
so against the Bears, a demoralizing loss that maybe makes
them question their existence and how they should adjust going forward.
And then they do the same thing in over four
quarters in this game. It's concerning. It's concerning for a

(35:36):
Packers team that I thought their strength was their defense.
A month ago, Jeff Haffley's group was playing really well.
Jordan Love was getting it together. Now he's out, Malik
Willis does a good job as a backup, and yet
you can't stop the run. And like Jordan said, the
most demoralizing way to lose a game is when you
cannot stop the run. There's a reason I have a
hat on my bookshelf behind me. This says run the
damn ball on it because if you can run the
damn ball, you can win the damn game, which is

(35:58):
what the Packers haven't been able to prevent other team
from doing so I do going forward.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
I love that and I think it should be noted.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Tyler Huntly's numbers don't look like exceptional in this game,
they're not exciting. You know, he barely gets over one
hundred yards. Their success rate passing the ball when he
did drop back was exceptionally high sixty four percent. So
when it was like thirty three and they were calling
to pass, they were hitting it. He was making good

(36:27):
decisions and his success rate as a runner was very
high too. So he was no Malik Willis, who I
think was transcendent in this game, but he was great,
And what a luxury to have a backup quarterback like that.
Zay Flowers had a couple of big plays in this
game to Patrick and just like it's not like the
Ravens defense played well in this game. They really got

(36:48):
the key stop on a tip ball where they made
the play on it, but like their defense didn't really
play well in this game, and yet their offense just
was that good.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah, and I want to celebrate Malik Willison used the
Ravens defense to kind of limit what he was able
to accomplish, because we've seen this multiple times, even last week,
where you want to talk about the Packers' ability to
run the ball, it was Malik Willis that was running
the ball. Like those rushing yards, sixty of them go
to Malik Willis and Manny Wilson only had sixteen yards
on the Milik Willis had two touchdowns.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
He was the whole team.

Speaker 6 (37:20):
That was it.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
It was like you take he was one incompletion away
from Drake Mays stat line minus five touchdowns was a
big part of that. But he was eighteen to twenty
one where anytime he threw the ball he was throwing
heat checks, like he had a side arm heat check
to Romeo Dobbs down the side line where it's like
this guy is the hottest.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
I was mad. I was mad for him. I mean
he's making himself money. I think that justin fields. His
contract which was two for forty with thirty guaranteed, is
like maybe the floor from Malik Willis. I think he's
gonna get a real deal contract. He hit four thirty
plus yard throws in this game. He went six for
seven on air yard plus twenty throws average thirteen point

(37:59):
seven yards per attempt, and like his scramble for instance,
that picked up a first down to set up some
points when they're down twenty seven to fourteen. That was
the moment where I was like, Oh, this is going
into like Mike Vick, Josh Allen, whoever you want to say,
just like insane special territory. Because you mentioned that the

(38:21):
types of throws it was. It was also it was
a variety of like deep shots, touch throws, seam balls.
It just he kind of showed the whole package. I've
enjoyed watching him so much. Let's actually hear the play
that came almost directly after that scramble was another Willis touchdown.

Speaker 9 (38:37):
First down Green Bay, just outside the ten yard line
of Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
In the shotgun, here's the handoff to Brooks. Both fake
the hand.

Speaker 6 (38:43):
Off the Brooks.

Speaker 17 (38:44):
Willis rolling right to the five to the pilot. He
is the pull a touchdown Malak Willis doing it all
the just had.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Fun watching this.

Speaker 8 (38:56):
It just makes good decisions. Though you mentioned all that,
you guys.

Speaker 7 (38:59):
Both talked about the throws that he made, some of
the touch that he put on the passes too. It
was really good decision making as the type of throw
that was needed for the scenario.

Speaker 8 (39:11):
Super impressive to watch him.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
So that's gonna be the third straight year that they
finish as the seventh seed. The Packers, so that them
adding that seventh seed has been very important for Matt
Wiffleur's career. And yeah, Willis gets banged up at one
point and Clayton Tune comes in briefly and throws an
interception that wasn't his fault, that was on a tip

(39:34):
pass on a third down, and that ends up being
the difference. I just wanted to throw that in there.
It s took because it was like the margin for
era for the Ravens was so thin. They kind of
had to keep scoring every single drive to stay ahead,
and they did. And I'm excited about your AFC North
next week.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
Yeah, I am too.

Speaker 14 (39:51):
And I'd also like to take this moment to just
give some credits to backup quarterbacks in general, and especially
these two, because look, I am so happy that Tyler
Huntley had the game he had for the Ravens, but
this is also a Ravens team that has let Tyler
Huntley leave in the off season each of the last
two years. And where has he spent training camp Cleveland?
And where has he ended up again Baltimore at the
bottom of the depth chart, And then they need him
in a pinch and he comes in and he plays
like this. Keep him on your roster as your backup.

(40:13):
Stop the Cooper Rush experiment. You know who your backup is.
His name is Snoop Huntley. And on the other side,
I want to give some credit to Matt Laflour because
if we think about Malik Willis, where was he when
the Packers acquired him in a trade with the Titans
going nowhere? They had given up on him, They didn't
see any future for him. Lafloor says, come to Green Bay,
We're going to make this situation suitable for you. We're
going to get your started with a little bit of readoption.

(40:33):
Then we're going to open up the passing from there.
That was mostly him moving mobility last year. Now he's
proven himself as a passer too. And I think that
even if he never wins a Super Bowl for reasons
that may or may not be in his control, Matt
Lafloor is damn good at developing players like Malik Willison.
Whenever he gets paid, he's going to be able to
thank him for some of them.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, and help, there's a good chance he stays in
that in that coaching tree somewhere, there'll be a lot
of people looking for him. I'm going to pass the
buff baton here to our producer Eric Roberts, who celebrated
his birthday. You know, unfortunately it's right after Christmas and
it gets a little lost in the shuffle.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
I have a theory.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
Maybe that's why Eric is just such a like a
humble team player. It's like the last guy whoever wants
the attention at himself and this is going that's because
he just hasn't been you know, his birthday never gets
the attention. It's not going anywhere other than I'm going
to give you the choice. We've eaten a lot of
clock here. Yes, we got to take a break. I
love when you bring attention to that fact too. But man,

(41:27):
we have like some great sound from this game. We
have the stiff arm. Maybe we have to choose one
or the other or both. But this is where you
put on your big deal producer pants and you decide
one or both.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
Do the stiff arm to break? I liked I liked
the There's one line in it I enjoyed.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
I appreciate it also one of one of the stiff
arms of Derrick Henry's career, which is saying a lot,
let's take a break.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
And on the way out.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Yes, we watch the one of the all time best
riunding backs power.

Speaker 9 (41:57):
Eye formation, give us the Handrich gets outside the left side,
turns the corner, shoves a defender of.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
His way, and get the.

Speaker 15 (42:04):
First down at.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
The Green Bay thirteen.

Speaker 9 (42:09):
Jerrick Henry just shoved Carrington Valentine all the way to
Valentine's day on that play.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
But you should have seen how he did.

Speaker 18 (42:16):
He like squared up on him and look at him
and this Ben's pressed team five.

Speaker 6 (42:22):
Yards away from him. That's gonna be on highlights for
quite a long time.

Speaker 16 (42:27):
Jags are sending well, they're sending five or coming after him,
the Jags that have come after him. So he's gonna
try and just throw it as far as he can
into the back of the end zone and the ball
is intercepted by the Jags.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
And the game is over. The Jags picking off.

Speaker 15 (42:41):
In the end zone and they hold on to beat
the Colts twenty three to seventeen, and the Jags remain
in first place in the AFC South.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
How good is that Frank Frangi delivers the goods each
and every week.

Speaker 6 (42:58):
It does.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
One of the most underra play by play guys in
the business. Jacks hold on twenty three to seventeen in
what could have been Philip Rivers's last.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
Game where you get some game action.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
But yeah, that was Riley Leonard who jumped in for
the hail Mary attempt, because let's be real, he's got
a much bigger arm than Philip Rivers at this stage
in their career. It was a dangerous game for Jacksonville.
Nick they had already realized and yes, we're going division
by division.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
Now we're into the AFC South.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
When the Jaguars lined up on Sunday, they knew that
they had to win the game to stay in first place,
and they trailed for most of this game. How did
they end up coming from behind?

Speaker 14 (43:42):
Well, they trailed most of this game, or at least
were in a close battle most of this game because
they played with their food for most of this game,
which was let's try a hook and ladder in the
first half. Oh wait, we fumbled it away. Trevor Lawrence
has a man open in the back corner of the
end zone, leaves it short, his only passing mistake of
the day that ends up in a Jermaine Pratt interception
to kill that scoring opportunity just before halftime, and it

(44:03):
just kind of continued from their early fourth quarter. It's
a tie game. They can take the lead on a
field goal, they go for it on fourth and one,
Trevor Lawrence gets stopped on a sneak turnover on downs.
But eventually they made enough plays that the superior team
typically will make in these games because it is a
four quarter sport, and they did what they had to
do to win the game, which was intercept Philip Rivers
and get three points out of that because they couldn't
finish that drive, and it was get a couple of

(44:24):
first downs to bleed some clock and get some stops late.
They did what they had to do to win. But
I think if they look back at this tape, they're
gonna think, oh, we probably should have won this game
by ten to thirteen points if we had just avoided,
you know, shooting ourselves in the foot, which is a
great lesson to learn in week seventeen when you're still
in a division battle and you are preparing to go
to the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Yeah, they look, they had a failed QB sneak at
one point, they had two red zone turnovers. Now they
do lead the NFL in red zone turnovers this year
now by two, so that kind of has been part
of their messy fun throughout the season. But ultimately they
did whole and their special teams gave up some short yields,
but ultimately they did hold the Colts to two hundred

(45:03):
and four yards of offense. Jonathan Taylor only had nineteen
yards after halftime. And you mentioned the Philip Rivers interception.
There was a couple big time plays shook that you
pointed out to me. There were the Jerry and Jones
who's been great all year with his interception of Philip
Rivers and then another pass breakup on four and ten.

(45:24):
So their defense kind of had to pick up their offense.
If I'm going to give the Broncos kind of credit
for just like finding a way to win an ugly
division game on the road, I think we give credit
to the Jaguars here too.

Speaker 6 (45:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (45:34):
Definitely, Greg Newsom was the one on that pass break up,
a guy who they acquired, and you know, during the season,
I'm pretty even draded if you think about it from
both sides at this point. And yeah, their defense stepped
up and this is what they're going to have to do.
Against better opponents. They also took advantage of Unfortunately, and
I'm not trying to bash Philip Rivers, but he is
forty four years old. They took advantage of the fact
that he doesn't have the arm strength to push the
ball down the field. There was an opportunity for them

(45:56):
to score. Touched on the Colts in this game, and
he fires to Alec Pierson on the sideline. Now, the
player we're watching, if you're watching on YouTube, is the
Jarion Jones interception, which was huge and by the way,
a shout out to Josh Downs for making an ankle
tackle that would have that essentially saved what would have
been a pick six and would have ended this game. Instead,
he trips him up and the Jaguars only get three
out of this. But again it's a River's ball that's
deflected and it's an easy interception. Earlier in this game

(46:17):
that that's when Rivers had Pierce running down the sideline.
He had absolutely toasted Buster Brown. But he throws it
up there and it's like a balloon in the air.
It just hangs up there and it's well short of
where a typical NFL quarterback in his twenties or even
thirties would throw the ball, which was to the end
zone where Alec Pierce would have won the race to
the end zone. Instead, he leaves it up there. Buster
Brown is closing the gap, he breaks it up. It's
just that's kind of, you know, indicative of the Colt

(46:40):
shortcomings with the forty four year old quarterback who point
guard passes his way down the field. You know, they
put together some strong drives early with just chipping away,
chipping away, doing what Rivers does, but ultimately you know
that they are limited, and that's what, you know, kind
of cost him the game because when it got late,
they couldn't push the ball down the field again. And
the Jaguars knew, all right, well, if we don't have
to worry about the deep shot, we're gonna bring everything
close to the line and just close everything.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah, River's getting the ball with eighteen seconds, needing sixty
five yards for a touchdown to try to win the
game a day after the Chargers broke his heart.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
It all felt.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Somewhat fitting and I really enjoyed this Philip Rivers come back.
It sounds like Riley Leonard will get the Week eighteen start.
Let's listen from the old Gunslinger one more time.

Speaker 19 (47:19):
I mean, if this was the last one, shoot again.
I told you guys, I won't have any regrets about
coming back, and I don't. It's other than us not winning, right,
us not winning. It's been an absolute blast for three weeks.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
And how about Philip Rivers really stepping up financially, because
if you saw the booth of the Rivers family, I
mean it was going about twenty deep in terms of
that booth. But then there was another booth of his
entire high school team in Intendance. They're no longer watching
the game back at home, they're on Christmas break, and

(47:52):
there was a whole high school team. It's like, you know,
Philip Rivers making memories and not ultimately threatening the Jaguars
here in the end, not.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
At the end, because you know you have to bring
in Riley Leonard to throw the hail Mary. And also
Josh hains Allen mysteriously decides to get a delay a
game penalty that leads to that play even happening as
he lays on top of MPJA despite the fact there
are only six sects to go to the ballgame.

Speaker 6 (48:17):
They were gonna get the snap off.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
It's happened like three times this game this year in
different situations. Stop doing the way on top of the
guy move. It's that's why the Raiders covered that spread
back in that game.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
But the you know, the River's experience while being fun
to watch, and they were in every single one of
these games against three contenders, by the way, three really
good teams, where you see the shortcomings and you see
the way that you know, this this generation of quarterback
can't operate, and I'm talking about Philip Rivers' generation where
we see the the pre snap motion and all of

(48:51):
the you know, the pre stap adjustments and changing things
and adjusting the protections and all that. It's great to watch,
but you get to a certain point and you got
to hit your back foot and get the ball to somebody.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
And couldn't we have gotten like the Giants in this
stretch for Philip Rivers you mentioned, and he played three
really good teams, and it came down to the end
against all three of those teams. But ultimately the Jaguars
and your guy Parker Washington going to eight for one
point fifteen, it's no longer even just like a cute
thing to say that he's their wide receiver one. He
is clearly their wide receiver one, and they needed him

(49:22):
today to be because this is.

Speaker 7 (49:23):
What Liam Cohen does. When he was in Los Angeles.
It was moving Cooper cup into the slot to play
that power slot role that they called there the f
because of what he could do blocking not necessarily applicable
to other receivers he had in the future. Then he
put Chris Godwin in the slot when he goes to Tampa,
and Chris Godwin has insanely productive seasons with that. And

(49:44):
then he puts Parker Washington in the slot, who's sixty
percent of his snaps today and has been playing a
significant amount in the slot and running these inbreakers that
we know that Liam Cohen is getting Trevor Lawrence to
fire up the same two whoever is going across traffic
in that way, Parker Washington is becoming this like real

(50:05):
hinge piece for what makes this offense come to life.
And we've talked about it from the exact moment that
Liam Cohen took over as the play caller and as
the head coach of that team that he was going
to be seeking that player. Now it's an added fringe
benefit that he can interchange Jacoby Myers the veteran and
Parker Washington between those positions, because that is something that

(50:27):
also really helps them out, that makes them more multiple
than they would be with just one player and depending
only on that player to do it.

Speaker 6 (50:34):
Yea.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
And it was a day where like throwing to Jacoby
Myers and Brian Thomas Junior was not efficient like Myers
nine targets thirty nine yards, seven targets for Thomas thirty
nine yards. He gets a little banged up, but I'm
gonna this is the game you got to win, and
they did win it. And ultimately, if you know, Chane
Steichen doesn't keep his job, which doesn't make sense to me.
Part of it is that the Jaguars have kind of

(50:55):
owned him. He is one in five against the Jaguars
and the only win was actually the last game of
the Doug Peterson era where Mac Jones was starting. So
he has had his troubles against the Jaguars and Liam Cohen.
Do you have any final words, Nick Shook before we
set you free into the Cleveland Night, about the state

(51:16):
of the Jaguars, the AFC South, or just life in general.

Speaker 14 (51:20):
You know what we're gonna hit a couple of bases here.
Number one, Trevor Lawrence goes without a touchdown pass today,
but that's fine because he ran for two. It has
been an underlying, you know theme to his season is
that he's you know, used his legs more than he
has in the past, and it's benefited the Jaguars offense
and it's why it's leading to, you know, the best
stretch of football in his career. That's my first point.
Happy for the Jags. Think they're on the right track.

(51:41):
They're sending their fun to watch. Number two Jordan, what
a great Boston accent you had during the Patriots recap. Fantastic.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Yeah, good mon, I'll leave, Thank you, shookyuh, thank you, Nick.
We love you and we'll be back with you on
Sunday Night Football. Later in this show, get this guy
in the a black block more often.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Yeah, ye, clean that up.

Speaker 8 (52:03):
Head, body head, body head, body should have.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
Quit while you were ahead.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
Let's go to the Texans who tried to when they
got a big lead early in Losian first and ten.

Speaker 20 (52:13):
Texans from the charger forty three clock, moving nine to
twenty five to go first quarter, seven to nothing. Houston
Scroud gets the shotgun staff. He's back to pass, sets
his feet looking, looking going deep down the field. Gotta
hand open. That's top Bin Doal into the end zone.
Touchdown Texans.

Speaker 21 (52:29):
Another deep ball, another wide open receiver, Shalen Nole holds
it in a forty three yard touchdown and the Texans
have a thirteen to nothing lead.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
At that point on Saturday afternoon, I was wondering if
they were going to put up a forty burger on
the Chargers, who had only given up two touchdowns over
twenty yard air yards all season long, gave up two
in the first quarter of this game. The Texans defense
then takes over, holds down the Chargers just enough to
win twenty to sixteen. Again, that was Saturday afternoon that

(53:03):
clinched the playoff spot for the Texans. It knocked the
Colts out of the playoffs, So the Colts knew entering
Sunday that they had no chance. And yes, the Chargers
let Philip Rivers down once again. What a great performance
by the Texans entire team because the defense kept the
Chargers down and then in the fourth quarter the offense,

(53:26):
who started out well, did go on a couple four
minute drives to kind of put the Chargers away.

Speaker 7 (53:32):
Yeah, this was they knew they had to start fast
with shot plays such as these. They, to my understanding,
hope that they would get this specific look that the
Chargers would show against them early. The Texans have been
really struggling to put together explosive plays consistently. As we know,
the Chargers have been one of the best teams in
football and capping the explosive play, but there is a

(53:54):
vulnerability when especially these like very slight inbreakers. The first
one to Jaden Higgins was very long, starting on the
perimeter and curving slightly inward and really taking advantage of
a just one player and coverage and then that coverage
busting and then b The other route by Jalen Knowle
was a shorter version of what that was and it

(54:14):
curved in more dramatically from the opposite side. So after that,
Jesse Minter and the Chargers they adjusted, and this was
fun to see in person live the all twenty two
of him making these changes because they had to. They
made the back end of the defense much cloudier. They
rotated a little bit more of those coverages, and then
they also and they clouded up the middle of the

(54:35):
field specifically and then they also started sending different blitzes,
different types of blitzes, especially including ones that sent larger
bodied defenders such as Khalil Mack into coverage to take
the take the cap over on some of the outlet
plays that CJ. Strod probably should have taken if they
were available to him against such pressure while sending dbs

(54:57):
and this was what really stalled out c. J.

Speaker 8 (55:00):
Stroud and that offense to the middle of the game.

Speaker 7 (55:03):
But it was so good that they had a fourteen
point lead because the pass rush and the rush coverage compliment,
which is their ferocious pass rush featuring Will Anderson Junior
and Danneel Hunter and those great players in the middle
of the defense, as well as a compliment to the
rush in Jalen Peatrie and those inside linebackers that are
cutting off all of the quick throws, all of the

(55:25):
outlet passes to the flat, tackling in space, making no
mistakes in doing so. This was the ultimate A plus
plan to force a team to pass the ball a
lot in the chargers and then to pin their ears
back and suffocate on the other side. It was a
masterful performance by this Texans defense.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
It was it was just a great game, and I
hated like the underlying takes of like I don't know
about either of these teams now watching them, because the
offenses are ultimately underwhelming, and I was like, Yeah, this
is what it looks like when two great defenses play again,
two offenses with.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
Some real problems.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
And it's a huge deal for the Chargers that they
were down Jamari Sawyer, who's not a household name, but
he really had stabilized their left tackle spots as like
kind of their third or fourth tackle to get that
chance this year, and he got hurt and they're hoping
he's back for the playoffs. And Bobby Heart they tried
him out left tackle and he got bench by the
end of the game, and Daniel Hunter was just absolutely
destroying him. Sometimes it was Will Anderson that really killed them,

(56:25):
but they responded to like they Herbro went crazy in
the fourth quarter, and the Texans defense kind of did
the thing that has to be holding back from calling
them an all time defense. They're may be the best
defense in the league this year, but they've had a
tendency to not really close out games and they didn't
in this game. They gave up two touchdown drives late
and they left the door open, but CJ. Stroud and
the offense actually closed it with a couple four minute drives.

(56:47):
One gets points, the other ends the game. And to me,
that's just like a good football game. I think the
better team ultimately did one and they deserved it. But
the fact that like Cam Dicker missed four points worth
of kicks, oh kind of like the difference. And there
was a lot of Texans fans saying Kayami Fairbairon should
have been.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
The Pro Bowl kicker.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
He hasn't missed a kick all year inside of fifty
and I think he's hit like nine or ten fifty yarders.
So I'm with you, Kayami should be the Pro Bowl.
You shouldn't vote. It shouldn't be over with two weeks
to go.

Speaker 6 (57:14):
Yeah, let's not put it.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Let's not put it on anybody other than the decision
to have these Pro Bowl votes at this point, you know,
to generate energy and attention for the Pro Bowl, which
we all love.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
It's very because Cam Dicker missed a chippy and an
extra point and that was just massive in this game.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
It was after we get to that point where as
you pointed out, the Texans defense has seen it happen
multiple times this year. I think back to the prime
time game against the Buccaneers where Baker Mayfield and Bucky
Irving go down the field and that late closing seconds
get a game winning touchdown. But the difference in this
game is the reason that those people who are skeptical
if the Houston Texans should feel okay about the Houston

(57:49):
Texans is they get what they need from the offense
late in the closing moments where getting that sustained drive
is one of the harder things to do in the league.
When the other team is going up and down the
field and Herbo starts to hit those shots that get
Omar and Hampton on a couple of plays where he's
getting run after the catch and it's like, here come
the Chargers. No, the Texans are able to go constrictor mode,

(58:12):
which is why should.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
I mean, they got some help, They got some help
from a lucky call. But I think Texans fans were
absolutely right to point out that there was a very
similar legal contact call that helped extend the Chargers touchdown
drive the drive previous and yeah, like it was maybe
a shaky call, but it's just so boring to me
everyone that complaints or talks about these bang bang calls

(58:34):
that are not even obvious when I rewatching that, you know,
they brought on the broadcast that the rules analyst thought
it was the right call, Like you could have seen
it either way, and so just shut up about the calls.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
There's a lot of other plays.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Well, if we're gonna if we're gonna highlight big plays
in games, yes, say that this moment was conclusive, then
I think it is worth discussing. Not from a standpoint,
oh they hate us, right, but like calls can be impactful.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Yeah, it absolutely can.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
I just I guess my ex actations are always so
much lower because like players mess up literally every play
and they're the best in the world. The coaches mess
up all game long and they're the best word, and
the refs are going to mess up, and those are
like bang bang.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
But we're trying to see the other two. Yeah, we're
not trying to see there the ladder part.

Speaker 7 (59:15):
Well, there were plenty of self inflicted mistakes for both
of these teams as well, and particularly you know those
early Again, you cannot let this Texans defense that is
built a play with the lead, regardless of what the
offense does you can't let him get a two touchdown
lead like that. Absolutely not, and it happened immediately. Those
were back to back opening possessions. The first touchdown was

(59:36):
the third play of the game on third and one.

Speaker 8 (59:38):
But CJ.

Speaker 7 (59:39):
Stard on the Texans offense, which only had a thirty
nine percent success rate through the entirety of the game,
they had eight third down plays. They were not efficient,
even though the box score shows that the running backs
did okay and when over one hundred yards combined, they
were not efficient ahead of the downs on eight third
down plays they needed four or more yards to gain,

(59:59):
and he was throwing on a lot of third downs,
where if you're setting up the call sequencing, then maybe
you think about the two calls in tandem with each
other less, so you are always throwing and having to
throw on third down. Because the Chargers really started bringing
it with the pass rush, he was kept relatively clean,
but he rushed a couple of throws and there was
some pressure that really got to him, including he had

(01:00:22):
a sure touchdown isolation what he marks the running back
against so dafe Oway on the perimeter, but it was
a trap because they covered up his underneath outlet throw
that would have converted with Khalil Mack of all people,
and sent pressure from the opposite side by two skilled defenders.

Speaker 8 (01:00:40):
And so that's where they were.

Speaker 7 (01:00:42):
They were, really and he and he baiting him to
take the perimeter shot, and he took it and it
was not on target. And so that plus his two interceptions,
but then also the Chargers missing the kick in the
kicking game, like you said, but then also Ronde Godson
with the tipped ball off of his hands, it was
a walk in touchdown. He had Aziz al Shaher beat

(01:01:03):
as he's al Shaer admitted this post game, but then
as he made the smart play at the right time
and caught the tipped ball and prevented points. So again,
we can talk about officiating until we're blue in the face,
but there were plenty of self inflicted swings either way,
including stopping the tide from turning fully after justin Herbert

(01:01:23):
went into god mode in the third quarter.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Yes, and we'll we'll wrap with the Herbert god mode.
But I did want to note, like I love that
Demico Ryans let c. J. Stroud throw the ball on
that last drive, because the two key plays on that
drive was a second down throw, So he didn't go
run run pass to open the drive where he hits
Nico Collins for nineteen yards, like a beautiful pass that

(01:01:46):
we've seen between those two all the time. He didn't
just turtle up and then he throws again. When I thought,
because I've seen Demiko Ryans do it, damn they might.
They might just run the ball to kill some clock here,
because at that point I think the Chargers were out
of timeouts and just give up on possession and punt
it back.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
But no, they decided to throw it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
And one of the reasons you throw in that situation
is you might get a flag, and they got it.
So I appreciated Dimiko Ryans, who's been too conservative late
in games, getting a little more aggressive, and maybe it's
because he knew Herbert was on the other side. You
mentioned how great he was late the sixty yard dime
to Quinton Johnson, the play where he lowers his shoulder
and he hurts Stingley by running the ball over him.

(01:02:25):
He was fantastic despite the pressure he had. Jim Harbad
doing what Jim Harbaugh does after the game talking about Herbert.

Speaker 22 (01:02:32):
Yeah, I mean, it's every week he's he does things
that are reserved for only the best in the game.
He heroic, just the kind of competitor he is, and
we all, we all so many feed off it. We
all feed off it, you know. There's yeah, I don't

(01:02:56):
know that I have the kind of ran out of
the platives really. I mean, it's just it's just who
he is. Don't change he's.

Speaker 6 (01:03:06):
He's just.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
I think he's the best there ever was, the best
there ever was. I absolutely love that. Good job by
Justin Herbert and Jim Harbaugh. And so, yeah, the Texans
look like they might have a chance to take over
the division lead. Instead, they're going to be hoping for
the Titans to beat Jacksonville next.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
Week or else.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Nunciation, yes, both the Texans and the Chargers could be
wild cards, because yes, this win by the Texans clinch
the AFC West for the Denver Broncos, who have a
chance still at the one seed.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Okay, that's those divisions.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Let's finally go over to the NFC and find out
what was happening over there.

Speaker 6 (01:03:52):
First and ten. Now, the ball at the seventeen.

Speaker 10 (01:03:55):
Of Caroline Walker back in play fake to him gets
hit as he throws.

Speaker 3 (01:04:01):
Ball is caught in your side barner five touchdown Shayhawks.

Speaker 10 (01:04:07):
Great job by Sam Darnald as he wheels around on
the bullleg right had a man right there was ready
to hit it, but he fires the ball to Barner
down near the ten yard line, and AJ did the rest.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
It's Steve Rabel, It's kiro and it's the second half
Seahawks again. I mean, how many times do we have
to see it? Dam Donald In the offense, they don't
really do much in the first half of the game,
and Seahawks fans are all worried on social media, and
then the defense just keeps strangling the opposing offense during

(01:04:44):
the second half of that game, maybe they give the
offense a couple of short fields that happened in this game,
and ultimately the Seahawks kind of walk away and win
this game. They outscore the Panthers twenty four to three.
In the second half of this game, they win twenty
seven to ten. And it's Julian Love and it's DeMarcus Lawrence.
I think with the key turnovers in the second half

(01:05:06):
which really turned this game around.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
A part of making those explosive turnovers and also the
just sustained excellence by the Seahawks defense and also part
of their offense where I had wondered coming into the
game season long trends, not just recently, because the Seahawks
have run the ball well recently, season long, would they
be able to run the ball against the defense that
could not stop them? And Zach Charbonne was over one

(01:05:28):
hundred yards not that many carries, I believe, seventeen carries,
and also Kenneth Walker had fifty one yards, much to
the chagrin of your write this down three yards.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
Short shout out to the game debut listeners who know
what we're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
Yes, prop ideas that we have to go.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
For deep cut in greg Lore, which you guys should
be delved into. But you know, Scharbone going for over
one hundred, they got one hundred and sixty three on
the ground, and we saw where there was a third
and fifteen in this in the first half that ultimately
led to Jason Myers field goal. Some of the first
points for the Seahawks where they just kind of run
a give up draw to Zach Sharpernay and he goes

(01:06:06):
for twenty two. And that's the kind of defense that
the Panthers have had on the ground, and not to
say that the offense didn't have chances, because you mentioned
the second half points Late in this game, they go
on a drive to start the fourth quarter. Bryce Young
has a touchdown run cut it to ten. Then the
defense gets back on the field. There's a third and
twenty one on an absolute give up play where Donald

(01:06:27):
looks for JSN jc Horn for some reason, reaches inside
of his face mask pokesman in the eye. They get
the first down. Donald goes to hit JSN for two
more long plays on that drive. They score another touchdown
and the Panthers are just playing way from behind him.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Yeah, that point, that was such a key point. It's
a seven point game at that point. It's that close.
And they actually tried to give up on the drive,
but they got a delay a game and so the
play didn't count and they were just gonna get like
a run into the line of scrimmage. Then they run
the next play five yards back and they get that
fifteen yard penalty and that was huge. They get a
field goal there and walk away. But ultimately, like if

(01:07:03):
you look at the stats, I actually do think it
tells you the story. Like the Panthers ran the ball
a little better, a little better success rate today than
they have lately. They actually went over fifty percent like
they had some successful runs and Sam Darnold struggled. He
could have had more than his one turnover, certainly, but
they had some passing. The difference was just that the

(01:07:24):
Seahawks had no passing game. They had one point five
yards per pass play. The Panthers, Sorry, the Panthers had
one point five yards per pass play. Bryce Young ends
up with fifty four yards. He had one fourth down throw,
which I thought was nice that, you know, McMillan can't
come up with and loget his off sides for he

(01:07:46):
But like either he was under pressure, the guys weren't
where they wanted him to be in this Seahawks defense
was kind of just all over him. Where they had
no passing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Game, especially to Marcus Lawrence, yes, who not just the
strip front, but he had a late sack of Bryce
before they went forward on fourth down. They kind of
shut things out and backed them up more where everything
was so constricted, like the defenders of the line of scrimmage.
The guys that were dropping were dropping at the right spots.
Bryce was running you know, sprinting out to his right

(01:08:14):
trying to make plays. He had a couple of nice scrambles,
but it was just the workload for him was so high.
And I understand the passing yardage, you know, was exceedingly low.
But in terms of like you could look at a
low passing yardage like Jackson dart performance against the Minnesota Vikings,
that wasn't this, but this was still a dominant performance
by a defense that there was just no hope anything

(01:08:37):
longer than a couple.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
He just felt unbothered by any Like every matchup up
front or in the secondary, felt like the Seahawks had
a physical advantage.

Speaker 8 (01:08:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:08:47):
Absolutely, And that has to be eye opening for the
Panthers for this front office as they continued to build
out what they actually want this offense to be. The
thing about the Seahawks defense, as it pertains to what
Dave likes to do on offense is and what Bryce
Young likes to do on offense is space and time
be in place.

Speaker 8 (01:09:06):
At certain time.

Speaker 7 (01:09:07):
Now, the scrambled drills have been great, but we just
talked with Brent Tillis a couple of weeks ago about
what is luck and what is like buildable. What is
something you can actually build on, and that is what
the offense wants to be. Are those timing and placement
throws and the point guard stuff that everybody talks about
with Bryce Shung that he can execute at the highest level.
But this Seahawks defense is perfectly constructed to displace your

(01:09:31):
spots and to cover the places on the field you're
supposed to be at a certain time, and they get
there faster than you, and they're more physical and talented
than your skill guys are, so it just of course
they weren't bothered like they're designed. They're built to stop
exactly this type of offense.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
And knock on wood, they are healthier right now than
they've been all seasoned. Byron Murphy had some great plays,
NUOSU had some great place here, and they've been healthy
most of the year. But Julian Love was the best
player in their secondary today. He had the interception Bryce Young,
but also made a couple other big plays. And you
mentioned Lawrence with the sack. We thought he had a
touchdown for a second, but the sack where he forces

(01:10:08):
the fumble and he picks the ball up just you
can do it all. Type of performance from maybe the
best free agent signing of the entire offseason, unless it
was Sam Darnold.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
Now Sam.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
At this point, it's a trend that they just haven't
been the same offense, the same passing game, and this
is the way I think they're going to have to
win games. But it's really unique. They are the worst
team in the NFL on third and long third and
seven plus lowest percentage in the league. So they have
the second most turnovers in the league this season, and
the other top ten teams with the most turnovers are

(01:10:46):
not in playoff position. Like that shows how hard it
is to have that many turnovers and be that good,
and yet they're overcoming it because the rest of the
team really is that good. They did lose Rashid Shaheed
pretty early in this game to a cushion, so that's
a concern with the matchup against the forty nine ers
coming next week. Big game, big big game. So they

(01:11:08):
took care of business. Carolina loses and Carolina had a chance.
They were not scoreboard watching though, Patrick, what did you
think about Dave Canalis's move to allow the out of
town scoreboard at Carolina?

Speaker 3 (01:11:23):
Except for the Bucks result, it.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Seems weird we do, and I wonder what's the point
of investing time and energy in this in twenty twenty
five when we all have access to things on our smartphones.

Speaker 6 (01:11:36):
Everybody in there knew the score.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
Well, everyone in the crowd certainly knew it. Yes, I
don't know about the players. Maybe they check it at halftime,
but maybe they would have tried harder Patrick if they
knew that the Buccaneers were blowing it in Miami, because
the Panthers.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
Could have won the division on Sunday.

Speaker 16 (01:11:55):
First down, Jim Mayfield looking toward the Angel, going.

Speaker 10 (01:11:57):
Dog with that's gonna be kind of shuttle the toe
outside the numbers, down the sideline to the twenty inside
the numbers, now to the twenty seven yard line.

Speaker 6 (01:12:06):
In Mayfield, it was a second interception of the game.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
This one's This one's a bad throw.

Speaker 23 (01:12:12):
He got paided into this by the safety and the
other defender was right there as well, So I'm not
sure exactly where he thought he was gonna slide this
one in to a puka because.

Speaker 6 (01:12:23):
Borda was well covered.

Speaker 8 (01:12:26):
Baker rolling bene.

Speaker 3 (01:12:31):
Keith. So poor Baker.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
This is this is rule Eric, But I I appreciate
that you you gave yourself this as a birthday present.

Speaker 3 (01:12:42):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Dolphins win twenty to seventeen. That was Jordan Rodrieg the
slow faith an NFL Daily back in October. There's also
a sad Gene Deckerhoff, which I was not expecting on
w f US. Dolphins hold on to win twenty seventeen.
Baker with the couple interceptions. He was not their only

(01:13:05):
issue today, but he is. He is part of what's
been a problem for about ten games here for the Buccaneers.

Speaker 7 (01:13:11):
Baker Mayfield through two interceptions. He also lost a fumble,
and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers continued their impressive streak of
some of the more depressing losses you will ever watch
this season. The Bucks have now lost seven of their
last eight games after a six and two start, and
yet Greg and Patrick, the NFC South is still in

(01:13:32):
play and it'll come down sort of mostly to Week
eighteen between the Bucks and the Panthers. It was too little,
too late today for Baker Ball and the Bucks, who
down ten points deep in the fourth quarter, did go
three plays in one minute just inside the two minute
warning to bring the score within three points, but Davon
A Chan recovered the on side kick at the end

(01:13:54):
for Miami, the second on side kick that Miami has
recovered this season and a season where no buddy is
doing on side kicks. That was with about fifty seconds left,
and that was the ballgame.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
Look, we gotta give some love here to the Dolphins. Yeah,
and we will. Now, let's just do it right now.
If we have a THEO ready, we junior highlight to
play on an NFL Daily Big Sunday recap.

Speaker 3 (01:14:18):
So we're gonna do it.

Speaker 24 (01:14:20):
Third and eight yours now very bad by Weeks thirty,
twenty ten, five touchdown, the rookie from Missouri got open.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
Yours found him, and the Dolphins are on the board.

Speaker 24 (01:14:36):
How about that the old weeks your partner during pre season?

Speaker 6 (01:14:41):
They connect quite last week.

Speaker 24 (01:14:44):
For first downs and now it's first touchdown.

Speaker 6 (01:14:46):
This runs down the side.

Speaker 3 (01:14:48):
Give me broken coverage or a bad angle?

Speaker 8 (01:14:50):
Both?

Speaker 7 (01:14:51):
Yes, I give you both. He's a practice squad call up.
Love that, guys. I'm impressed with the Dolphins. If you
would like your quin yours correspondent dispatch, Yes, i'mflate to
give it. I made a clean game. So last week
obviously was a disaster all in the third quarter with
the five turnovers by the Dolphins offense. But today quin

(01:15:12):
Yours made some really nice throws, and just as it
was in college, it seemed he really just loves to
target the middle of the field. He loves inbreakers, he
loves those crossers. He clearly loves when a busted coverage
happened right down the field and his guy is running
wide open. He got a lot of help today from
the rest of the Dolphins skill players because a lot

(01:15:33):
of those plays that that ended up being successful for
them were explosives, whether it was in the kicking game
with the returns, or it was that we se play
that was really really nice, and the really great throw
that he did make on the drive after Baker's first interception,
quin you Weres hit a really nice seamball to.

Speaker 8 (01:15:52):
Greg Dolchitz Adults.

Speaker 7 (01:15:54):
I can never say it because it's dulphin, but it's
two c's and h's and I just can't do it physically,
cannot and so that was a touchdown. It was a
great throw. So he played clean, he was efficient. He
didn't have a lot of negative plays. There was one
moment where he missed a screen and it went behind
the player, and it was accounted as a fumble to him,
but it dribbled out of bound, so it didn't matter.

Speaker 8 (01:16:15):
Quin Yours is playing.

Speaker 7 (01:16:16):
Really solid backup quarterback football, and he'll be a good
backup I think for the next couple of years and
years from now is Patrick and I are manifesting he'll
eventually be signed by a Shanahan Tree coach who needs
a bridge quarterback. And to remind people that he can
scheme guys up.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
I mean, who knows he might be a bit quarterback
next year. I mean I always, I always leave room.
We always sort of assume, like these late round picks
aren't going to improve extraordinarily.

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):
Maybe he will. You know, he's a seventh round pick.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
These they are two good rookie performances, but obviously very
disappointing by the Buccaneers, by the defense, by everything. And
I know you think Baker's not one hundred percent, but.

Speaker 7 (01:16:56):
I believe he's way less than one hundred percent. I mean,
there was some shot to him on the sideline.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Patrick like, yes, yeah, he's left shoulder, but a lot
of it. But the problem I have and I get
that he is not one hundred percent and he goes
over three hundred yards in this game. Is that it's
the decisions that kill him. I think it's very It's
rare where I say like, oh, he didn't have enough
on that, or like he made a mistakes. It's usually
the stuff that we've kind of been seen from Baker

(01:17:21):
since he's been in the NFL, which is in up
and down an up and down player, and a lot
of it is because he's either not seeing the fielder
or trying to do too much.

Speaker 3 (01:17:28):
But maybe maybe I'm being too hard.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Up the I think the best example today was the
Jason Marshall interception where Baker has a clean pocket, steps
into the throw and we've seen Baker Mayfield throw the
ball out of the back of the end zone before,
like from the other forty yard line, and he's about
four yards short on that throw. Where I'm just you know,
because I'm the last person in the world to do

(01:17:51):
body language analysis, but the shots of Baker looking near
death on the sideline where like he's.

Speaker 7 (01:17:59):
It's more than a shoulder to me, I'm I'm not
I'm not reporting anything obviously, but my theory because it's
like it's like half of his body doesn't work really
like it and he looks like he is just hurting.
I'm not saying that's like, oh, he's playing through the pain.
And that's why the Bucks are losing. No, they have
problems everywhere at Tristan Wurf's wasn't out there today either.

(01:18:20):
They're not getting enough from their skill guys that they
normally will.

Speaker 3 (01:18:22):
Linebackers are a problem, then game was a problem.

Speaker 8 (01:18:25):
Everything.

Speaker 7 (01:18:26):
It's everything, but it's also the fact that the quarterback
is like only half working.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
And and a risk taking quarterback who's taking these chances
for a long time. And yeah, things can go the
other way, but mentally, when you're out there and operating,
I don't I don't think there's time to think, oh
I can't, I can't hit that at this moment right now,
he's still pulling the trigger on these things.

Speaker 6 (01:18:49):
But when physically he's not there, you get the results
through you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
And yeah, it's a fascinating fake situation because we didn't
really talk about Todd Bowles when we talked about the
hot seat situation. But if they don't win next week,
they will be seven and ten. But as you mentioned,
they could win the division. So here's what they need.
It very well could come down to Week eighteen, hopefully,
and it probably should. If the Falcons lose on Monday

(01:19:14):
Night Football, then the Panthers Bucks game will decide the
NFC South. If the Falcons upset the Rams and then
find a way to win in New Orleans, that actually
would clinch the division for the Panthers, even if the
Panthers lose in Week eighteen, because then it'd be a
three way tie and the Panthers would win that tie.

Speaker 3 (01:19:37):
So I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
Panthers fans should root for the Falcons on Monday Night,
but it doesn't feel like there would be much point
to it because the Rams really need that game and
it seems unlikely. I think we're getting Bucks Panthers and
we could once again have a losing record NFC South.
After all the years I've defended you, NFC South, you're
not beating the allegations. And that's why maybe we'll be

(01:19:59):
rooting for the Panthers. It's a it's a better story,
and they would be a nine to eight division champ,
which feels better than the Bucks, which would be an
eight and nine division champ. All Right, we still got
one big NFC game to go. Let's take one final
break and on the other side, we're actually gonna hear
a pretty great rookie quarterback shootout.

Speaker 3 (01:20:20):
In week sixteen seventeen, for losing track.

Speaker 25 (01:20:23):
Leak Gaul passed a Juwan Johnson handoff, aldrich Estima bounces
to the outside, skates once to love us.

Speaker 15 (01:20:36):
Meet Yesterday twenty fifteen.

Speaker 25 (01:20:39):
Hardrig Estime no flags, takes a fin from thirty two
yards out and aldrig.

Speaker 10 (01:20:46):
Estime gets his touchdown for the Saints, his first as
a New Orleans Saints.

Speaker 25 (01:20:53):
Holy cow, that pounced to the outside, that still have
to break two jacks.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
My Coss on w w L Saints cap a thrillly,
I'll say it, fourth quarter come back a game they
were trailing throughout With that touchdown, capsa a big time
scoring performance thirty four to twenty six on a day

(01:21:19):
where Tyler Shuck might have just won the Offensive Rookie
of the Year at least if Chris Olave has anything
to do about it. He was on the podium stumping saying, Shook, Shuck,
He's all about Nick too, for Offensive Rookie of the Year.
And then he went on Twitter and he did the
same thing. Chuck Chuck three hundred and thirty three yards

(01:21:44):
and two touchdowns in the win for the Saint.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
Yeah, a great total stat line, but this story shown
in the first and second half stat lines for the
best player on the New Orleans Saints, which was the
rookie quarterback Tyler Shuck, the best player on the Tennessee
Titans late this season. Jeffrey sim and Tyler Schuck was
twelve of sixteen for two hundred and fifty one yards
and two touchdowns in the second half, and in the

(01:22:07):
first half, Jeffrey Simmons rushing the passer, had four quick
quarterback pressures, got a sack, also got the ball out
in the run game, and then in the second half
zero pressures for Jeffrey Simmons. That's when the Saints passing attack,
which includes Chris olave I understand that's why he's making
that case. And the Saints defense doing enough to bother

(01:22:30):
cam Ward late in this game and see the Titans
lead dwindle, And yeah, this is a scrappy Saints team
that has six wins.

Speaker 3 (01:22:38):
Now, Greg, it is outrageous.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
They can, I think, get the second place in the division.

Speaker 3 (01:22:45):
Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
They can pass the Bucks And yeah, and they had
passed the Falcons as well. It is outrageous, and yet
it was their defense that helped to turn this game around.
The sack fumble and returned by Chase Young was one
of the most athletic plays by a defensive player all season,

(01:23:06):
and Mickey Loomis, who's in the locker room peacock in
a little bit lately, should be proud of that Chase
Young contract. I wasn't sure about it went like why
and the money. Chase Young's played really well for them
this year and is settling into kind of a Gedevian
clowney like I think, really solid career where he's had
some injuries early, but very productive power rusher. And yes,

(01:23:31):
the Saints fans I think are going to be pretty
obnoxious all offseason if they finished this season on a
five game winning streak, and why not they found their quarterback.
Chuck is really playing like lights out. I mean, Kim
Ward had some great throws in this game too, and
certainly was up for like the battle, but I don't know,
Chuck is the best rookie quarterback in the league this year.

Speaker 3 (01:23:53):
I think this a better situation.

Speaker 2 (01:23:55):
Yeah, the situation, the play callers and coaches a little
bit different when when Tyler Shuck is needed to make
a play, and you know, there was there was some
taste theming in this game.

Speaker 6 (01:24:07):
There was a fourth, fourth and one.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
We did have some but you know, coach Moore has
has leaned on the rookie and understandably so he's been
great down the stretch.

Speaker 26 (01:24:16):
I was looking at the success rate statistics for defenses
on True Media for the ahead of the Texans game,
hearing what was then a seven game win streak before
Saturdays when for the Houston Texans, because I was looking to.

Speaker 7 (01:24:28):
See how well their defense is playing just in terms
of success rate over that span. I was surprised to
see them the heat the Texans at number two during
that span. Can you guys guess which team was number one?
And through sixteen it was the Brandon Staley who I
have I promised you guys, especially Greg, I was not
gonna honk about all season. I'm honking now Stanley Stile

(01:24:52):
winning specifically as a defensive coordinator right now. But the
Staley Suns is back, and I think that it is
fun to watch these guys all throw up and get
better together. They have some really good young players. They
have some veterans who have bought into the system. We
heard about it when we went and visited them training camp.
Now we're actually seeing it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
It is a great story for them and Cam Jordan
had a six hundred thousand dollars sack today. Helly, I
hit an incentive to get up to nine and a
half for the season. Great win by the Saints and yeah,
shuck is one of the biggest stories down the stretch
in the entire NFL. They found their guy. You know
who else has their guy who? Cincinnati Bengals Cody.

Speaker 18 (01:25:29):
Ford lines up as a wide receiver outside the numerals
at about three hundred and fifty pounds. Burrow throws Cody
Ford catches, He's down to the fifty, the ten, the five.
He tackled around the three yard line, almost a big

(01:25:50):
man TV for.

Speaker 6 (01:25:52):
The all time highlight reel.

Speaker 18 (01:25:54):
As Burrow threw it to Cody Ford and the Wooly
Mammoth began running down the near sideline.

Speaker 6 (01:26:02):
I love it, Wie Mammoth.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
I'm telling you, man, it's a.

Speaker 10 (01:26:05):
Big, big player out there at the wide receiver decision.

Speaker 15 (01:26:10):
That might be the biggest pide receiver ever in the
history of football.

Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
Quick stop startability too by Cody eve.

Speaker 6 (01:26:17):
Moore, disrespectful player.

Speaker 3 (01:26:19):
This is oh.

Speaker 1 (01:26:20):
That was the moment that Jonathan Gannon lost his job.
That was also the moment where Mike Brown decided, oh,
that's a five year extension for Zach Taylor. That was
the moment Zach Taylor became president. Thirty seven to fourteen
Bengals win against the Arizona Cardinals, and they were winning
by so much. They were making birthday dreams come true

(01:26:41):
for Cody Ford.

Speaker 7 (01:26:42):
Yes, aligned out wide, so wide that you thought he
was a spread receiver in the freaking air raid like
it was fantastic.

Speaker 8 (01:26:50):
And you know what, they.

Speaker 7 (01:26:51):
Weren't done because of this Bengals crowd, who is ride
or die with this team through some of the most
miserable weeks in every season and so far for the
last couple of years, and beyond, well, beyond that, start
to get into it.

Speaker 8 (01:27:05):
They start chanting. You could hear it on the broadcast.

Speaker 9 (01:27:07):
Do you give the ball to Cody Ford on his
birthday to capa drive?

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
Absolutely? You worked too hard to get the ball down
to where it's almost in the end zone. You gotta
give it to him for the for the carry, the
breath from.

Speaker 6 (01:27:21):
A twenty one yard rum day.

Speaker 3 (01:27:22):
I mean, that's not an easy thing.

Speaker 20 (01:27:26):
Or do we just we just get him into the flat,
We just run that kind of traditional you can.

Speaker 8 (01:27:29):
Hear it play action.

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
Listen to the crowd like Taylor's like that coy looks awful.

Speaker 20 (01:27:40):
The crowd is charing for Tody Ford to get the football.

Speaker 8 (01:27:44):
So here's what they do next.

Speaker 7 (01:27:46):
They put him at the freaking full back and they
use him as a split blocker and they run, you know,
a failed goal line attempt.

Speaker 8 (01:27:53):
They score a play later.

Speaker 7 (01:27:55):
They booth Zach Taylor and the Bengals when they take
Cody Ford off the play a play later in order to.

Speaker 8 (01:28:03):
Get to the touchdown.

Speaker 7 (01:28:05):
Not only was this the highlight for the Bengals fans
I think, who are finishing on an all time high
of watching this offense live up to every inch of
its potential in a completely lost season. The brutal thing
about this was in the thirty seven and that touchdown
put them up thirty seven to seven near the end
of the third quarter.

Speaker 8 (01:28:26):
And the most brutal thing was.

Speaker 7 (01:28:28):
On the other side of all the exhilaration from that
crowd and from the Bengals players having so much fun.
Were these Cardinals players standing at the goal line waiting
for the ball to be snapped with their hands on
their hips, looking dejected. There are two ways to end
a pitiful season, that is the lesson here. The Bengals
are doing it one way and the Cardinals are very

(01:28:49):
much doing it another.

Speaker 3 (01:28:50):
Yeah. I just hope.

Speaker 1 (01:28:53):
Nick Westling's great wife, Stephanie, who earlier in the season
said she regretted and she would rather be home doing
laundry than watching what the Bengals were putting out there
on the field.

Speaker 3 (01:29:01):
I hope she was part of that crowd enjoying.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
Uh, what has kind of become Zach Taylor's move, to
paraphrase our great friend Chris, like playing well late in
the season when it doesn't matter, Like that's Zach Taylor's move.
He's gonna use it, Like that's basically what Zach Taylor
does every year, and you'd rather do it than not.
I suppose it's it's nice to see them put up
some points on offense, and yeah, it's been a really

(01:29:25):
tough end to the season for Jonathan Gannon. Despite what
the insiders say, I think they're gonna make a change
in Arizona Let's go to another team that that has
made a change, The New York Giants visiting Las Vegas
to help decide who will draft first in April.

Speaker 27 (01:29:42):
With two thirty one to go on the third kick
comes to the near side. Banks fields it at the
five east of the twenty east of the thirty. There
goes Banks along the left. Who's a crossmanfield? It's a
foot race, Fiante Banks look twenty ten.

Speaker 21 (01:29:58):
Five touchdown Giant, and that's how you respond.

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
After giving up the fourth and goal touchdown.

Speaker 6 (01:30:06):
Pass, Franks takes it to the house.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
Been saying it for weeks. Giants weren't gonna lose this game.
The Giants are bad, but they're not Raiders bad, especially
the Raiders after they sit down Max Crosby and Rock
Bowers and do everything they can to not help Pete
carroll out down the stretch thirty four to ten. Though
I don't know if it would have mattered if Max
was out there. Giants win. Jackson Dart has a clean performance,

(01:30:34):
Deontay Banks finds a role, the cornerback who's been benched
makes a big play as a returner, and the Raiders
now in pole position for that number one draft pick.
They haven't clinched it. They would have to lose next
week to definitely clinch it. And they play a Chiefs
team that is sitting a lot of guys too. Maybe

(01:30:56):
they would go out of their way to try to
lose that game, almost to mess it up for the Raiders,
and then the Giants would be actually back in the
mix potentially to get the one pick back.

Speaker 3 (01:31:06):
But you're laughing? Why why are you laughing?

Speaker 8 (01:31:09):
This all week was so good, guys.

Speaker 7 (01:31:11):
It was like one transaction after another, the team's trade
off each day, who was going to be deactivated ahead
of the game, and then it was your move, and
then it was your move, and then it was your move.

Speaker 8 (01:31:22):
It was fantastic.

Speaker 7 (01:31:23):
But the Giants, for all of the players that they
have out right now and all of the injuries and
all of the just the sort of doom and gloom
that they've been facing forever for weeks and months, at
this point, they were more ready to play this game
than the Raiders were. They showed up immediately. They Bobby
o'carake intercepted Geno Smith early on. They turned it, they

(01:31:44):
cashed it and turned into a touchdown. Devin Singletary also
broke off an explosive run. In doing so, Importantly, Mike
Kafka did not call a designed run for the quarterback
Jackson Dart at the goal line. Instead handed it off
to the running back for the touchdown Deontay Banks with
some pop. And this was just was the Giants game

(01:32:05):
the entire way, as so many Raiders defeats have been.

Speaker 8 (01:32:08):
They had no control over this from the jump.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
The Giants have been slightly better than a two win
team all year, like, for instance, entering today DVA, they
were twenty seven. They were actually ahead of like the
Saints and you know the Browns and the Titans and
the Jets and stuff, which I watching them every week
kind of makes sense to me. There's a team that
blew so many big leads. Anyways, they get the win,
and yeah, the Raiders, I think this is going to
be the final days for Pete Carrol.

Speaker 6 (01:32:33):
Yeah. Gino left this game.

Speaker 2 (01:32:35):
Took a brutal hit on an interception, which will probably
lock him in as the league leader in interceptions as
he's passed Tua and Tuas no longer playing.

Speaker 6 (01:32:43):
Gino may not play either Kenny Pickett.

Speaker 3 (01:32:45):
He has a high ankle spreak, but he's almost certainly
out yes.

Speaker 6 (01:32:48):
Yes, and yet yes he can.

Speaker 2 (01:32:49):
Kenny Pickett did come into this game, and there was
a review that took away a first down run by
Kenny Pickett where it's like, oh, this is this is
the Raiders season where Gino actually gets a touchdown to
Tyler Lockett of all people, and then it's like, oh,
the Raiders are gonna come back.

Speaker 6 (01:33:04):
Then Daniel Carlson line drives a kick to.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
The backs where there's no chance for anybody, nobody who's
living five yards of the aute bicks all the way
down the field.

Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
Shout out to Wandelle Robinson, who went over a thousand
yards on the season with one hundred yard performance getting
it done in PPR leagues for years. But a nice
season for a guy who you probably always thought was
going to be a role player putting up big stats
on this team. While Malak Neighbors acts in a hilarious
I have commercial.

Speaker 8 (01:33:33):
Well done, Malik Neighbors.

Speaker 1 (01:33:34):
Great job by him, Yes, great job by you guys today.
Thanks big week. Need you to rest up, Patrick, You're
gonna be with us, you know. On the preview show,
we got a QB Island Week coming up.

Speaker 3 (01:33:47):
Jordan.

Speaker 8 (01:33:47):
Little movements, A little movement on.

Speaker 1 (01:33:49):
The way, gotta be a lot of controversy. But before
all that, we got to get to the score fest
that was Sunday Night football.

Speaker 3 (01:33:56):
Two yard line for the Bears, no timeouts left. Here's
the snap. Williams looking left, Williams looking right.

Speaker 4 (01:34:02):
Williams look you, Turns gets away from Huff still looking
sill looking back, pedaling.

Speaker 15 (01:34:07):
Bus to play the Pallas over and the forty Niners
have won it.

Speaker 3 (01:34:16):
They come spilling onto the field.

Speaker 7 (01:34:19):
What an upper?

Speaker 6 (01:34:20):
What an upper by this forty Niners.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
Defense on one of the best offensive showings of the
entire season by two quarterbacks.

Speaker 3 (01:34:32):
It was a defensive play that ended it. Caleb Williams.

Speaker 1 (01:34:37):
Jacking up that time to throw number at the very
last second, comes up short. Forty nine Ers hold on
to win forty two to thirty eight. They will play
for the one seed in the NFC next Saturday night against.

Speaker 3 (01:34:56):
The Seattle Seahawks. That was Guy Haberman on k n
B are.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
What a matchup tonight between two eleven and four teams,
two quarterbacks Brock Purty and Caleb Williams, who aren't even
on quarterback island, entering a very spicy season finale coming
up this Tuesday. But two guys that put on a show,
and ultimately the Bears just run out of time, They

(01:35:24):
run out of plays. Possible bad timeout usage during that drive,
but it's really hard, hard to fault them too much.

Speaker 3 (01:35:32):
They just come up a little short in what was
a beautiful night.

Speaker 1 (01:35:35):
And it's the Game of the Year of the week
the NFC West and the NFC has given us a
lot of great ones lately.

Speaker 14 (01:35:41):
Yeah, I you know, I'd reshuffled my Game of the
Year rankings last week with two editions, and now I
feel like I'm have to add another one here and
just blow up the whole thing lately. The regular season
is finishing strong grand and so is Caleb Williams, and
so is Brock Purty Rock Party. By the way, he
wasn't on QB Island, but he was in kV index
top ten. Some scan at me same some with three

(01:36:04):
g's in his first name may have scoffed to me
putting Brock Purdy in the top ten. You see why now,
because he makes plays like that. He made an incredible
play where he danced around a couple of defenders, faked
as if he was going to run the end zone
and tossed it over them for a touchdown. He was awesome.
And he didn't even throw for the most passing yards
in that game, because that belonged to Kallabillians. It was
shades of Jared Goff versus Patrick Mahomes in the LA Coliseum.

(01:36:26):
And it's the first time I've been able to say
that in a long time.

Speaker 17 (01:36:28):
What a night.

Speaker 3 (01:36:28):
There were so many crazy stats in this game.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
Brock Purdy is you know, only I think the sixth
quarterback in the Super Bowl era to have six, you know,
touchdowns in back to back games, which is just outrageous.
I love that Tariko point out. It was the first
game ever in the regular season that was tied at seven, fourteen,
twenty one, twenty eight, and thirty five. It was just
like back and forth and back and forth. And there
were some punts, like the Bears punted three times early

(01:36:53):
in this game. There was a pick six by Purdy
to start at Jalen Johnson earning that big time contract
by breaking on a ball with a tip pass, but
ultimately a great play by Jalen Johnson. But man, I
am so impressed with these two quarterbacks but especially Brock Purty.
You mentioned that play where he was running around and
it was very mahomesy, and let's listen to it.

Speaker 6 (01:37:13):
There we go.

Speaker 27 (01:37:15):
Perty takes the snap, he turns, play action, bootleg left,
He's looking, he's looking.

Speaker 3 (01:37:19):
He pumps. Now, he's backpedaling.

Speaker 17 (01:37:21):
Now he touched the ball away, He's gonna run.

Speaker 3 (01:37:23):
Now he's gonna throw Pajo's check for the touchdown.

Speaker 15 (01:37:28):
Touchdown, forty nine ers and up Beauty and the.

Speaker 3 (01:37:33):
Forty nine ers are back in front and Brock is
doing the donkey again.

Speaker 21 (01:37:39):
What an absolute playground party play.

Speaker 1 (01:37:43):
The playground play was awesome, and there were a lot
of plays late. There was there was one of him
navigating the pocket. I believe it was to Pierce All
on a third and six late that was really important.
There was a fourth and three where Kyle Shanahan trusted
Pearsall and he goes over the middle. Pierceall had a
really good game and Jwan Jennings is the one that

(01:38:05):
gets the go ahead touchdown to really set up that
last Bears drive. And I think Perty's just had such
a great calibration of what to go for and what
not to And let's face it, these two teams. They're
offensive teams that don't really have great pass rushes. And
I've been saying forever the forty nine ers have a

(01:38:25):
path and it's winning games like this, which sounds crazy,
but right now, if you're stacking offenses in the NFL,
to me, it's rams and it's forty nine ers, and
it kind of just makes me think, Oh, Kyle Shannon,
Sean McVay, it's like same as it ever was. If
you have the best offense in the league, you got
a chance each and every week, and they might just
be the one seed.

Speaker 3 (01:38:43):
Shook.

Speaker 1 (01:38:44):
What do you think about how this team has come
together and like where they could go after this.

Speaker 14 (01:38:50):
I'm not one to take many victory laps, even though
I just took one about ninety seconds again, but I
would like to take one for both of us because
on Monday Night this past week, we talked about how
the four nine ers had to be an offensive team.
And it's halftime and I'm thinking, Wow, this is exactly
what we said. They have to just keep scoring because
they're probably not going to get any stops. In the end,
they get the stop and the call says, what a

(01:39:11):
great effort by the defense, and yes, it wasn't effort play,
but it was more a product of the Bears ran
out of time, because if the clock wasn't an issue,
this game would have gone on forever. Because that is
the forty nine ERDs defense at this point, even when
they're on the edge of getting stops, even when Luther
Burdon and Colston lovel And both drop passes, Burden catches
a pass and makes a man miss and extends a
play and gets the first down. Williams extends the play,

(01:39:31):
gets the first down with his legs like they were
on skates. But they made just enough plays. So again
this is the only path for them. But they proved again. Now,
the Bears defense not a measuring stick necessarily, but in
a big spot, their offense proved, especially with brock perty
he is the lynchpin that they can put up points
and bunches. And oh, by the way, we can talk
about how Christian McCaffrey had a great night and how

(01:39:53):
you got Kendrick burd involved and you had you know,
obviously Juwan Jennings and Ricky Piersall and everything else. They
did all this without George Kittle.

Speaker 3 (01:40:02):
He was just so close. That's the key.

Speaker 14 (01:40:03):
To the offense outside of the quarterback. He wasn't even
playing tonight. Their ceiling is just about as high as
the Rams. You're right, they are one of the top
two offenses in the NFL right now.

Speaker 1 (01:40:12):
And I misspoke earlier saying he had six touchdowns in
back to back weeks.

Speaker 3 (01:40:15):
He has five touchdowns in back to back weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:40:17):
The other quarterbacks who have ever done that, Tom Brady,
who's done it a few times, three times all in
one season in two thousand and seven, back to back
five touch tick he was like outrange now Russell Wilson
early in that COVID season where people were giving him
MVP love early in the season he did it. Then
Deshaun Watson did it for the Texans Roethlisberger and Dante

(01:40:37):
Culpepper in the most underrated season of all time two
thousand and four. This Bears team, it's all going to
depend on what the matchup is in the playoffs, right
And they lost their chance for the one seed tonight
and they are still the two seed. They have the
tiebreaker over Philadelphia. Puts a little more pressure on them

(01:40:57):
to win in eighteen and get that two seed, which
which I think they're they're gonna want and it could
be a rematch against Green Bay. I guess it's it's
up to you because you might end up with San
Francisco as the sixth seed. Would you rather have a
rematch against San Francisco?

Speaker 3 (01:41:15):
Who knows? That's getting too far ahead of it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:17):
I know Caleb Williams like missed a couple throws on
Sunday and Chris Collinsworth got to him where he's running
around and like that's why his completion percentages over it.
But my god, he had some pretty throws. So let's
at least listen to one. I feel like we need
to have some balance in terms of the highlights. Let's
listen to one of the seeds he had for a touchdown.

Speaker 18 (01:41:37):
San Francisco first down jock gun snap oh r, Yeah,
got to throw Cato late pressure, locked it into the
end zone over the Sholer catch lute their.

Speaker 10 (01:41:46):
Burden what a beauty Hey, special throw by candub had
a terrific road run by Burden back to the end
zone thirty three thirty five yards.

Speaker 3 (01:41:55):
We're two fifty eight to go in the first quarter.
How the Bears an extra poort away tying it up.

Speaker 1 (01:42:01):
This is these are the good old days for the Bears.
They had more yards from rookie receivers. This is, according
to Josh Dubo of the Associated Press, in this game
than any team in NFL history. I mean, that is
crazy to think about. The record was a nineteen eighty
one Lions team, but it was mostly Burden and Colston Loveland.
Burden goes eight for one thirty eight, has a key play,

(01:42:23):
you know, breaking someone's ankle on a third down on
the final drive of the game. Loveland makes a great
catch later in the game. I loved the touchdown pass
Caleb has. He just to Loveland where it's just on
a rope and that's down the field. Like he makes
some of these throws look easy when they're just not

(01:42:43):
at all. And the future is bright. They just gotta
they gotta figure out some defensive issues.

Speaker 3 (01:42:49):
But who knows.

Speaker 1 (01:42:49):
Everyone's been saying all year, how wide open the AFC is.
I mean, if the forty nine ers are playing for
the one seed, the NFC is a little wide open too.
If we got to have the Rams and potentially even
the Seahawks play through the wild card, it is a loaded.

Speaker 3 (01:43:02):
Conference right now.

Speaker 14 (01:43:03):
Yeah, it's a clash of Titans in that conference, like
I cannot wait for the postseason to begin with the
NFC because there are just so many good teams that
are going to be very matchup dependent but also got
to give us some great games. I will say this
about the Bears, though, we saw their one weakness tonight,
which is that this is a team that defensively has
lived on takeaways. They don't get them tonight save for
the pick six early, and this is what happens. So

(01:43:23):
you have to hope if you're a Bears fan, that
your defense ends up being a little bit more opportunistic
against the quarterback who is not playing white hot football
like Brock Purty is, and that's your path to success
because you have plenty of confidence in the offense. I mean,
Ben Johnson has so much confidence in his offense that
on the second to last play of the game he
dials up a hooking ladder and nearly scores a touchdown
offense offense. So no need to worry about your quarterback

(01:43:44):
who's playing, who continues to ascend and is playing great football.
But you need that defense to get some takeaways to
be more opportunistic than they were tonight. That's the one
real weakness right now, and hopefully they you know, I
mean everyone from takeaways. Turnovers are kind of a randomized
stat in football. They just kind of are a product
of circumstance sometimes. But Bears fans, you better hope that
you get one or two more because otherwise you are
going to find yourself in the wrong match of it

(01:44:05):
a shoout like this in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (01:44:06):
They don't have defenses worthy of winning the super Bowl
on paper, but how many teams can really make them pay?
I think tonight they each face the team that can
make them pay. Like these two offenses are wagons, but
they have this weakness. Like, for instance, the pressure rate
was down under twenty five percent for both teams, despite

(01:44:26):
their blitz rate being higher than their pressu rate. And
that's despite their two quarterbacks holding the ball over three
seconds by a decent amount. These are the two quarterbacks
who hold on to the ball just about the most
in the league, along with cam Ward. So it was
crazy how low the forty nine ers pressure rate was
on this night. And Caleb made him play with some
pay with some beautiful roles to the left, and yeah,

(01:44:47):
you think about that hook and ladder play That tackle
by Lenore ends up being absolutely massive, and something Chris
Collinsworth pointed out and I agreed with him at the time,
so I'm not just second guessing where they didn't take
a time out with about a minute to left and
they were at the thirty five yard line. It's not
a crazy, huge mistake at the time, but I just thought,
you're at the thirty five plus, you should no longer

(01:45:09):
be worried about giving them the ball back with too
much time, and they took about twenty five plus seconds there,
and I just thought, there's a chance you're not going
to be able to run out as many plays as
you want, and unfortunately for them, that is exactly what happened.
They should have been able to run at least a
couple more plays on the goal line, and they had
three timeouts and they burned another one just because they

(01:45:32):
wanted to get settled before that fourth down to burden.
But it's tough to be too critical. That was just
an awesome football game, and we are setting up for
a fun Week eighteen and a really great playoffs, especially man,
I was gonna say especially in the NFC, but I
think they both are wide open. Okay, So let's go
over next week. Unless you have anything major else you
want to hit for this game, let's talk about Saturday.

Speaker 6 (01:45:53):
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (01:45:54):
Yeah, okay. I was wondering how the NFL.

Speaker 1 (01:45:57):
Was going to handle this, and they decided we only
got three games that truly matter in week eighteen, which
is more than I thought. Maybe we were even gonna
have coming into today and not as you know, much
as we usually do in Week eighteen. And they put
all three of those in the Island game windows. So
we have a Saturday afternoon game for the NFC South,

(01:46:22):
that is when the Panthers and the Buccaneers play. Then
Saturday night we get the Seahawks and the forty nine
Ers game to decide the one seed in Santa Clara.

Speaker 3 (01:46:33):
That is just an awesome Saturday slate. And then, of
course when we saw it.

Speaker 1 (01:46:37):
At the beginning of the season, maybe I didn't think
it would be for the division, just flat out one
team's in, one team's out of the playoffs. I thought
the Ravens would be in better shape, but it does
make sense to me that the Steelers are playing for
a playoff spot against the Ravens on Sunday Night football.

Speaker 3 (01:46:54):
It was pre written in the stars, Shookie.

Speaker 14 (01:46:56):
I would imagine that even if there were multiple winner wins,
the division gets the playoffs and the other one goes home,
it would still be Raven Steelers on Sunday Night. I
had a buddy who's a Bucks fan, text me, so
are the Bucks and Panthers gonna get flex to Sunday
Night away? Let me think hierarchy of these important games. No,
you're gonna be the first one on the calendar, and
that's exactly what they did. But it's a good weekend
of football on the professional side. I mean, two bangers

(01:47:18):
on Saturday night. There's gonna be a reason for everybody
to tune in. And then we get the best one
of all, a classic rivalry in the AFC North between
the Ravens and Steelers to decide who wins that division.
That well, this year it embodied mid, but Mid is
still fun sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:47:32):
And you know what we're doing for the very first time, Chuck,
We're going live next Sunday night at the end of
Raven Steelers game. We've never gone live on YouTube from
the studio or on Sunday Night. You'll be breaking down
that game with us too, Chuck, Ravens and Steers will
be recapping that and all the action, all the early

(01:47:54):
playoff matchups. We're really excited to try something out new
next Sunday night. But yeah, we have a big week
in store for us before that. By the way, the
Sunday early games not a lot of meaningful football being played,
but that's where the AFC South will be decided, both
the Jaguars and the Texans playing at the same time.
Jaguars trying to hold Serve beat the Titans and they

(01:48:16):
take care of the AFC South. The Texans would love,
i think, to get that five seed. They're in the
five seed right now, and if they win that game,
then they can play at either Baltimore or Pittsburgh, which
I think is the best matchup for them in the
late window.

Speaker 3 (01:48:31):
That's when they put the Patriots game.

Speaker 1 (01:48:32):
Even though they're on the East Coast, They're gonna be
in a late window because they want that at the
same time as the Broncos, who are playing for the
one seed. In theory, the Jaguars still have a chance
for the one seed too if both the Broncos and
the Patriots lost. But basically the Patriots playing the Dolphins
and hoping that the Chargers could beat the Broncos. We

(01:48:53):
can get into like who's playing, who's resting, who's motivated.

Speaker 3 (01:48:57):
We'll have to see.

Speaker 1 (01:48:59):
I have a feeling it doesn't make a lot of
sense for the Chargers to go balls to the wall
to win that game. But it is Jim Harbaugh, and
if any coach is just crazy enough to do it,
he might just go ahead and go for it. But
we can talk about all that stuff during the week.
Gonna be fun.

Speaker 14 (01:49:14):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm gonna it's gonna be a blast. I
hope the Bills rest Josh Allen because his foot needs it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:19):
Yes, I don't think the big the Bills care about
winning that game against the Jets, and I think their
backups can absolutely beat the Jets.

Speaker 3 (01:49:29):
Let's be real.

Speaker 1 (01:49:29):
Mitch Trubisky a much better quarterback than Brady Cook and
whoever the Bill's put out there on defense, there's only
so many people you can rest. Is gonna be better
than who the Jets, so they could win that game.
To all right, we will be back though. Shook on
Monday night hit that music, but bona big week. It
was Eric Roberts' birthday this week, and it was Christmas,

(01:49:52):
and we wouldn't be the show that we are without
Eric Roberts. I don't think people know how much Eric
Roberts does for us to keep the train on the track.

Speaker 3 (01:50:00):
So we love you Eric. We like Chris tu He's okay.
We'll be back on Monday night. Check us out YouTube
live

Speaker 21 (01:50:08):
M

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Gregg Rosenthal

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Week 17 Recap: Bears-Niners Shootout, Bills-Eagles Rockfight and Ravens Stay Alive