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January 8, 2026 13 mins
With Wild Card weekend set to kick off on Saturday, a lot of buzz has surrounded Monday's MNF thriller, particularly between the Houston Texans and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Switching sides and heading up to Pittsburgh for a moment, sports media and radio personality Andrew Fillipponi from Pittsburgh's 93.7 The Fan joins Dan and Cole ahead of Monday's Wild Card kickoff. Tossing a few scenarios and predictions, Andrew poses a few things we could see differently in Pittsburgh come Monday's showdown.    
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
College football playoff semifinal Game one coming up tonight out

(00:03):
in Arizona. It's gonna be Miami and Ole miss so
as promised, let's head to the phone lines. Now, let's
catch up with a guy that's been with the station
for a long time. He is Andrew Philippony ninety three
to seven, the fan there in Pittsburgh. Pony, Hey, appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Man.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
You got myself, Dan Matthews, Cole Thompson with you this morning.
Let's just start it off. You've had the three days
of shows since we found out that the Texans and
Steelers were going to play against each other. Steelers fans
are feeling what way about this game on Monday night?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
You know, I'm not really sure yet, Guys. I'm sorry
if my voice is a little bit off this morning.
My dog spent the last ten hours puking its brain's out,
and my daughter was trying to negotiate reasons to stay
up and not go to bed last night. And my
wife is a phoenix at the football game tonight, so
I was on solo, dad, dudey, and like, my whole

(00:59):
life right now feels like it's been turned upside down.
If the Steelers play like my family over the last
ten hours. They're going to get beat again, and the
playoffs what happens to them almost every year. No, it's
been a really weird week to gauge temperatures on the
game because the game right now actually feels secondary, because,

(01:21):
you know, I think there were a lot of Steelers
fans that weren't really looking at the Ravens game last
Sunday night and thinking, wow, you know, it would really
be something amazing if the Steelers could win this game
and get a home playoff game. I think there were
a lot of Steelers fans that were intrigued by all
the reporting about the loser of that game moving on

(01:45):
from its head coach, and that was a real tantalizing prospect,
I think for a lot of Steelers fans, because there's
a frustration here with Mike Tomlin and how the results
have pretty much been the same for a very long
period of time. You make the playoffs every year, but
you get blown out and you're pretty much in the
middle of the NFL slightly above average, nothing more, nothing less,

(02:08):
and that John Harbaugh gets fired and it makes Steelers
fans think and wonder, well, if that kick was good.
What would have happened to Mike Tomblin. So that's been
a big talking point. The newspaper here in town just
abruptly closed yesterday and shut down after being in business.
It's the seventeen hundreds, so that obviously was a huge

(02:31):
story too. And I'm guessing by the time I get
on the air today, people will be more inclined to
want to talk about this football game. But it still
feels a little bit out of sight, out of mind
defense here for some reason, Tony.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Let me ask you this. Last season, the Steelers lost
for their last five games. This year, they win for
their last five games, and they finished ten to seven
fish ten seven last year. So like, when you look
at it from the perspective of, yeah, you got lucky
because of Tyler Luke's kick went wide right and in
lone of the firing John Harbaugh, you still won four
of your last five games. Is they're a different field

(03:04):
because like last season, when I watched the Pittsburgh Steelers
in the postseason, it was like you knew that they
were going to get obliterated by whoever they faced off against.
This year's like, I don't think that it's going to
end up Steelers win, but I feel more confident that
it's at least going to be a closer game than
people expect.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, that's right. I
share that sentiment. I don't. I think there's a great
percentage or chunk of Steelers fans that have a lot
more optimism going into this game because of Aaron Rodgers,
because they've seen them lately win. You know, they wont

(03:41):
to back the Ultimate Backs against the Wall game Sunday night.
They went to Baltimore and one they went to Detroit
and won. And I think Houston's better than both of
those teams, clearly. But they've seen this team do a
few things better than they have for most of the season.

(04:03):
They're throwing the ball down field more, their pass protection
has been a lot better. Their running game when they
decided to run the ball has improved a lot over
the course of the season. Their defense has been really
hit or miss. But the thing they've done a better
job of lately is stopping the run. They were awful
in the first Ravens game that they somehow won. After that,

(04:27):
they completely took away Jamir gibbson Montgomery in that Lions game,
A Chan was red hot when the Dolphins came here,
and he had a quiet night, and Derrick Henry started
the game with a bang with that long run Sunday,
and they did virtually nothing after that. So I think
that's some things that you can hang your hat on

(04:48):
with the Steelers going into this game. That literally last year,
there was nothing to feel good about when they were
headed to Baltimore for that playoff game other than historically
they had played Lamar Jackson, and well that was the
only thing that Fance felt might have been a positive
for them going into that game again.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Andrew Philipponi ninety three seven the fan joining us here
to talk to Steelers. He's a host up in Pittsburgh.
You can find him on Twitter at the Pony Express.
An I instead of a Y for pony so at
the Pony Express on Twitter. And Andrew, I mean, you
bring up an interesting point with the fan base up there,
because I mean, push back if I'm wrong here, but
I mean, is there kind of a feeling amongst the

(05:28):
fan base of this team as currently constructed not good
enough to be able to win a Super Bowl and
you're probably gonna lose Aaron Rodgers after this season. So
is that kind of feeding into maybe wanting to move
off from Tomlin of Hey, look if we got to
take a step back to take a couple of steps
forward and lose the coach and the process, then I'm
fine with that.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
I Mean, we had people that people I shouldn't pluralize it,
but we had somebody colored to our show this week
and say, if they won the super Bowl, they still
fire Tomlin. I mean there's just as nine ridiculous melt
your brain opinions on him, because they're such a malaise

(06:09):
as far as like what the confidence is in him
and really his ability to foster an environment that brings
in a young quarterback and allows for that guy to
succeed and develop and answers that question long term, He's
never done that. He inherited Big Ben. They drafted Kenny

(06:32):
Pickett in the first round. That was an abject failure,
and Justin Fields last year was a guy that they
thought they could remedy. They didn't. That was not a
horrible call because they paid him like a backup, but
there wasn't really any gold there clearly. And now they've
gone the veteran band aid route and it's like every year.

(06:54):
We go into the off season now wondering what are
the Steelers going to do at quarterback after eighteen years
of never asking that question because of mc behn, And
there's like minimal confidence that Mike Tomlin a knows how
to identify the right young quarterback and b knows how
to refine him and get him in a position to

(07:16):
be someone that can get the job done consistently. So
I think that's really where a lot of the angst
comes in and concern and worry about the Steelers beyond
what's going to happen in this game and then maybe
the week after if they win, is okay, cool? You
won a playoff game. You ended this interminable playoff Steelers

(07:38):
wind drought which has been going on now for almost
a decade. But when the dust settles on the season,
where do you go from here? And I would say
right now, it's probably more likely than not that if
Aaron Rodgers wants to keep playing football, the Steelers are
going to let him do that. In twenty twenty six year.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah, pony, the last sudden, the Steelers want a playoff game.
I was in college, so it's been a hot one
since we've seen them actually do anything in the postseason.
But just in your opinion, what's the thing that could
lead to a playoff win over a team like the
Texans that has the number one scoring defense in the NFL,
number two defense in total yards, and probably the scariest one,
their number two in the takeaway department, and their number
two in red zone defense.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
Yeah. Well, Aaron Rodgers has not thrown an interception since
November ninth, so he's he's found that ball security thing
that he was famous for in Green Bay and I
think all time in the NFL. He's got the lowest
interception rate in league history. And Tomlin loves that, and
Tomlin even more than any of her coach fetishizes as

(08:41):
long as you win the turnover battle, you're going to
win the game. You know, he was waxing poetic about
how great the Texans have been and not turned the
ball over and getting the ball from the appointment. That
was the first thing he mentioned about them. What he
did his weekly press conference previewing the game on Tuesday,
was just their ball security straints. So if they're going

(09:02):
to win, I think they're going to have to We're
going to have to see the Steelers defense dominate the
Houston Texans offense. That would be my best guess. I mean,
I'm sure there's a scenario in which the game is
like twenty seven twenty four, but that would not be
my assumption that this is going to be a game

(09:24):
that's played in the high twenties. Is probably going to
be played in the high teams or low twenties. And
the Steelers defense at tides this year has shown that
they can do that, but at other times they've gotten
torched and destroyed by inferior quarterbacks and lesser offenses. So
it's a matter of what Steelers defense shows up. The

(09:46):
Steelers thought this year going into the season that they
were going to have what Houston has on defense. They
pay more money than any team for defensive players one
hundred and seventy million. Tomlin even said before the season
that he thought they could be a historic defense. He
threw stuff like that around, and they ended up I
think seventeenth in scoring defense and they're near the bottom

(10:06):
of the league in pass defense. So it's a matter
of which Steelers defense shows up, and lately it's been better,
but you just never know what these guys in the
playoffs during this six game losing streak in the playoffs,
they're giving up on average thirty eight points per game,
which is insane.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, that's tough. But I mean, of course, this Texans
offense hasn't been any great shakes really either, Pony, I
want to get you out door on this one, and
that is you know, I was talking about Aaron Rodgers.
I see a lot of underneath throws out of him
and not a ton of downfield throws. I mean, is
there kind of a feeling that that plays right in
what this Texans defense wants to do.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Well? I mean he I think that he was more
confident and more comfortable in making some of those throws
and attempting those throws against Baltimore because they have no
pass rush. And I don't think it's a coincidence that
he had his best games this year against the Ravens
because they're lacking significantly in that department, and as everybody

(11:09):
in your audience knows, the Texans are the exact opposite
of that. And he was horrible against the Chargers earlier
this year, and he was awful against the Bills earlier
this year, and both of those teams have good at rushers,
so that's my worry in this game, that he's going
to be concerned about it, that it's going to affect

(11:31):
his mindset even before the snap, that he needs to
get rid of the ball quickly, and they're going to
completely rely upon maybe they're running backs making plays on
checkdown throws, which they're both really good at. I mean,
Jalen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell are probably the two best
players in Steelers offense right now. But yeah, I mean,

(11:53):
I could absolutely see the Steelers offense reverting back to
that shortest average depth to target, quickest release point, you know,
no attacking of the field vertically and down the middle
if that happens again, and the Steelers are going to
score very very few points in this game unless Houston

(12:13):
offensively just completely goes in the tank, turns the ball over,
there's a special team's touchdown or something like that. So
my gut tells me that the Steelers will be lucky
to score seventeen points in this game.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Okay, Paie, I'm gonna get you out of here on this.
You said your wife was down in Arizona for the
playoff game, So who she's pulling for and who's winning tonight.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
I have no idea who she's pulling for. She went
to West Virginia, so she has no dog in the fight.
She's with people who assumed that Ohio State was going
to play in this game, and they're out, so it's
a very weird dynamic. Yes, yeah, they they put the
cart before the horse. I think she's a ring for

(12:55):
Indiana because Signette's from here, so I think she likes
to story. But I think, well, actually, wait, the game's
Old Miss versus.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, yeah, there, she can pull over for a first,
that's totally cool.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
I don't think she could name one player on either team,
so I have no idea who she's rooting for. Maybe
Old Miss. I feel like she would be into like
their cocktail scene and like tailgates and stuff like that,
so she'll probably gravitate towards their fans.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
And they've never lost a party. That's a That's absolutely
what they will tell you. There on the Grove in Oxford,
Andrew Philippony again part of ninety three seven the Fan
up in Pittsburgh, hopping on with us for a few minutes.
Pony Hey, appreciate the time. Get some rest rest up
for the show. This afternoon, and we'll catch up with
you again another.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Time, all right, boys, see it. Enjoying the game, Monday,
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