On today’s episode, Jason discusses Jayden Daniels' virtuoso performance in Washington's upset win over Tampa Bay on Sunday night, the narrative that it's time for the Pittsburgh Steelers to move on from long-time head coach Mike Tomlin, whether or not it's fair to say that the Green Bay Packers are regretting giving Jordan Love that massive contract extension last offseason and the general discourse around the league following a mostly underwhelming NFL Wild Card Playoff slate. Finally, J-Mac previews tonight's showdown between the Minnesota Vikings and the Los Angeles Rams.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What is up Straight Fiream, It's me Jason McIntyre. Street
Fire for Monday, January thirteenth. Oh boy, NFL Wildcard Weekend
is in the books, and we need to change Wildcard Weekend.
I mean, really, we've got to just scrap it. All
these college football fans who were upset about the college
(00:32):
football playoff. All the games were blowouts. Well did you
watch Wildcard weekend, folks?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Yeah, one good game.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
That's it, Washington Tampa with a thriller on Sunday Night.
They saved the best for last, obviously, Sunday Night football.
The Doink by Zane Gonzalez pushes Washington and we'll get
into that game. The rest of the other games were
not phenomenal. Guys, Listen, I had a great weekend obviously.
You know, if you follow me on social is my birthday.
I had a phenomenal birthday weekend. Tough week to have it,
(01:02):
given what's happening in Los Angeles. But you know, I
did the usual thing. I coached my kids in sports.
I went to my son's volleyball tournament. My kids and
wife threw me like just a fun little day of
you want to play a board game, you wanna go
for a walk with a dog, let's go to dinner.
And it was just an awesome weekend and one year older,
and you know it's just you feel old. But then
(01:24):
sitting around watching football, you feel great. And I gotta say,
Tampa Washington finally gave us a good game. And I
don't know, I don't have any sweeping takeaways, but I
will say this. I saw a lot of people online
analysts coming into this Washington game.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well, you gotta like Tampa.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
There's no way that Washington, which during the regular season
was number one by a mile on fourth down percentage.
And it's crazy because Washington completed eighty six percent of
fourth downs last year. Philadelphia led the league at sixty seven.
Two years ago, it was the Rams at seventy eight.
Three years ago, it was New England at seventy one. Folks,
(02:11):
Washington eighty six percent conversions on fourth down. And what
do they do in the big spot in the fourth quarter.
They go for it and fail, and they get another
chance and they thanks to a Baker Mayfield fumble, Washington
goes three for five on fourth down. Tampa did not
go for one. They have so much confidence in young
(02:31):
Jayden Daniels, and we saw the first time quarterbacks in
the playoffs struggle in the form of Bownicks. We've seen
the history. We'll see how Sam Darnold does Deny his
first playoff game. Bo Nicks had a great opening drive
with the touchdown pass, and after that it was gat
Zoukes not good and Jayden and Daniels just undaunted. Man,
you watch this guy all season, You're like, Holy hell.
(02:54):
Jaden Daniels seven point seven yards per attempt, two touchdowns,
no turnovers, and led Washington and rushing thirteen for thirty
six yards.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I mean, the guy made it.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Listen, this is his top targeted guy was McLaurin, but
he hit Diami Brown on five for eighty nine. He
loves Eckler, Ertz, Robinson, Ola, Medes, Zakahias. You guys, come on,
this is his who he's throwing to. Can you imagine
if they go get t Higgins or Tyreek Hill or
or Deebo Samuel, Oh my gosh, this team you could
And now listen, I saw people saying, hey, they can
(03:29):
beat Detroit. They let's just slow down for sec and
enjoy this win over Tampa only two for five in
the red zone. Probably not going to get it done
on the road in Detroit, but Jaden Daniels keeping plays
alive kind of a big analytics win. I thought the
Sunday Night football game, I was personally surprised they didn't
kick to pull within seventeen sixteen with about twelve minutes left.
(03:53):
But listen the undercash on fifty one. Guys, if you
listened with Adam Chernoff on Friday's podcast, you made a
lot of money this weekend. Okay, teasers were just gold.
You remember when I laughed and told uh, turn off
the two bets that I'm the biggest on the teaser
and the parlay. Both of them cashed easily. I mean,
(04:15):
Philadelphia was a no sweat Buffalo after the first drive coasted,
Ravens were never really threatened. It was a very profitable weekend.
And listen, I'm not gonna come out here on crush
Baker Mayfield. He had not his best game ever. Ultimately, listen,
if you tell me Baker's going to go fifteen of
(04:36):
eighteen for a buck eighty five and two touchdowns, I'm thinking, oh,
Tampa might win in a blowout because they didn't need
him to throw much. But the problem, the reason he
didn't throw much, Tampa just didn't really have the football.
I mean, Washington ran so many. Washington ran sixty nine plays,
Tampa forty four. Time of possession thirty five to twenty four.
(04:57):
Washington just controlled the ball thanks to converting on fourth downs.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
You convert a fourth.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Down, you get basically an extra two minutes off the clock,
maybe an extra three minutes, depending on if you go
run run. You know what happens on the next series
of plays. But the fumble, I don't know if it's
on Baker. They ran a jet sweep deep in their
own end to the young kid McMillan. I couldn't tell
who that was really on. So I can't crush Baker.
(05:22):
All I can do is come out and say positive
things about Jadan Daniels and very impressive win rob for
Washington and they advance a face Detroit.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Absolutely, I think the story of the night. You know
all Caps, Jaden Daniels. You mentioned it on fourth down
that they go for fourth down a lot there. One
of the more aggressive teams in all of football, you know.
I know Dan Campbell has the reputation, but maybe dan
Quinn is the guy who should be talking about as
being the gambling man. But Jade Daniels on third and
fourth down nine of fifteen for oneh eight, two touchdowns
(05:53):
converted eight first downs of those fifteen, Like that is
a winning formula any way you slice it. And as
a result, Jayden Daniels is now the first quarterback as
a rookie to win a road playoff game since Russell
Wilson in twenty twelve. Wow, this Washington team is building
(06:14):
something very very special. All Right, dan Quinn can run
a defense with the best of them, and it's only
going to get better as he gets his guys in
there that run his style and row his system and
that kind of fit what he likes to do. But
most importantly, you have a quarterback who just rises to
(06:34):
the occasion over and over and over and over. They
were showing clips during the broadcast. You know, everybody remembers
the Hail Mary against Chicago. You also had a game
winning touchdown against Philadelphia. You had a game winning touchdown
against Dallas. Like this is not you know, a flash
in the pan Ol. This don't happen one time this season,
And you can't do no He's done it a few
(06:54):
times now. On the final drive in this game, gotta
have it. Backs against the wall, three for three forty
four passing yards, including a third down conversion where it's
third and one. He gets hit seven yards behind the
line of scrimmage, shakes off a defensive tackle, picks up
(07:15):
three yards to get the first down YEA, which allows
them here's the big thing to use all four minutes
and forty one seconds of the clock. They got the
ball before forty one. The game ended at zero. Baker
Mayfield never even got the opportunity to see what he
could do. Jaden Daniels, I'm not saying that he's gonna
(07:36):
be the next Lamar Jackson unless the comparison everybody wants
to make, but he is something special. I remember we
were saying earlier in the season how I was skeptical
early on because people were saying, well, look, this guy
is like he's great, He's at RGI three numbers. This
guy's gonna be the next great quarterback. And I was like, hey,
you know, bump the brakes. We just saw CJ. Stroud.
(07:57):
Historically you get one of these every twenty years. This
is not what happens regularly in the NFL, and I
was dead wrong because Jayde and Daniels is doing comparably,
if not better than what CJ. Stroud did last year.
Back to back seasons, we're having rookie quarterbacks that are
breaking the mold and setting up franchises that are perennial
(08:19):
I'm not gonna say losers, but perennial mediocre franchises and
suddenly they have optionsm going forward. This is great.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, Jayden Daniels is awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Now, I just as you started talking about Jayden winning
with his legs, I was like, let me see how
Detroit has done against running quarterbacks this year?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Not great?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So in their loss to Tampa and maybe we just
chalk it up as nothing because it was a bad
game plan, rare bad game plan from Ben Johnson. Baker
led the Bucks in rushing five for thirty four yards
in their loss to Buffalo Josh Allen eleven for sixty
eight two touchdowns, and in the game against Anthony Richardson,
which was close for a while, Richardson had ten for
sixty one.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Now, I'm not saying Daniels as any of those guys.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He's obviously better than Anthony Richardson, and you know, probably
better than Baker, certainly at this age, better than Baker,
but I wonder how much because remember they blitzed the
hell out of Sam Donald in week eighteen, Rob and
Donald was rattled. Well, not only does Jayden and Daniel
not get rattled, but he.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Just runs around the blitzes.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I mean that play where, like you said, at the
end of the game, the defensive lineman was chasing him.
I don't know if you saw, but like I think
he had. He either grabbed Jayden's towel or picked up
a towel, but he was like chasing after Jayden and
Daniels with a towel in his hand, like that was
gonna do something. It was just sheer desperation. He's just
(09:41):
too elusive. Now I'm looking at the line. Holy hell,
if you haven't looked, Rob, do you want to guess
what the line is?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Or do you already know?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I actually saw two different places. I don't know if
I saw it once and it was already bet down
or just have totally different shops. But I saw it
most recently eight and a half.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, eight and a half, I don't know. I guess
that means they think they're thinking blowout.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I need to look a little bit more so Washington.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Oh yeah, sometimes I like to check. So I missed
this on the on the Chargers game, but the Chargers
had Yeah. Okay, so the Chargers had the early one
of the earliest buys in the league. It might have
been the first buy way back in October. I might
have mentioned this, but and then they had three road games.
This playoff game was their third, and they look gassed.
Did you see them in the second half? The defense
(10:26):
like was fighting like hell the first half. These just
ran out of gas and the Texas ran out big numbers.
So I was looking at Washington. They had an early
December by second week in December, so theoretically they should
be pretty fresh. This will also be their third straight
road game. They finished the season at Dallas and then
they were at Tampa and then at Detroit. That's a
(10:48):
tough one. I don't know that I'm ready to get
there with Washington yet. But oh, that's a great teaser.
Just take Detroit on a six and a half or
seven point teaser under a field goal and boom. Like
teasers have been guys.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
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listen live.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Let's move to the next game.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
So I don't know, Like again, I don't want to
be in like an argument with Rob or maybe Cowherd
today or people online. I don't get this. Mike Tomlin anger, Okay.
All he does is instill an amazing culture in Pittsburgh.
(11:34):
He keeps them relevant every year they're in the playoffs
five hundred or better. And often he's doing it with
inferior talent, right, especially at quarterback. Yes, Mike Tomlin has
lost six straight playoff games. That's not great. That's not great.
And then you start to dig into the numbers and
you know he's down twenty one nothing to the Ravens.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
They got smoked by the Bills last year in the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
You go to that Chiefs game in twenty one, they
were getting blasted, an embarrassing loss to the Browns with
Ben Roethlisberger. In twenty twenty, that lost to the Jaguars
was at home. If you guys remember, there was some
weird stuff going on. I don't know if it was
Antonio Brown. I would have to look into it. That
was a good Pittsburgh team. They went thirteen and three,
and I feel like somebody just blew off.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
The walk through. It might have been Antonio Brown. I
don't remember who it was.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Do you remember was it either is it there Brown?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Or Bell Bell Levy? I might have been Levey on Bell,
But bottom line, they didn't take that game seriously and
then they ended up losing. I think it was like
forty five to forty two. Jacksonville was on was like
a quarter away from making the Super Bowl with Blake Portals,
and then they collapsed against the Patriots. I remember that
because I it was we were kind of new ish
to California, I think, and I had taken the kids
(12:50):
to a Laker game that day. We were able to
get Lakers tickets. I'm like, well, Patriots, come on, they're
gonna crush the Jags. And I'm following the game on
my phone. I'm like, holy hell, the jackson win this.
And on the car ride home, you know, if you
guys have a certain cable, you can there's an app
and you can watch the game. And I remember watching it,
and of course the Jags melted against the Patriots, but
(13:11):
they were close. That was a good Jags team. I
looked it up.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So in these six playoff games.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Steelers were underdogs in four, considerable underdogs in three. And yeah,
the Browns game was bad. Ben Roethlisberger, who was washed
through a billion interceptions and I think he had two
pick sixes in that one, definitely one, and it was
just it was bad.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
I can't kill Mike Tomlin.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
And I will say this, if Mike Tomlins fired, he
will get hired somewhere else in a second. The Jets
would take him in a heartbeat. The Jets have never
had a culture since Rex Ryan left. And know that
doesn't mean I want Rex Ryan back. But Rob, just
because Tomlins failed in some playoff games, are you.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Ready to run him off?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
And I asked that because the sentiment I got online
after the Ravens smacked Baltimore after the Ravens smacked around
the Steelers on Saturday night, a game that was boring
as hell, by the way, and at one point I
actually turned off and my son and I watched Deadpool
Versus Wolverine. That movie's awesome. You absolutely need to see it.
(14:11):
It's on Disney Plus. I believe phenomenal. I can't crush Tomlin,
like maybe they need a new voice. But there's also
a sentiment is, hey, guys, we've been relevant for a while.
Do we want to become the Jets or the Browns
or the Titans or one of these rotten franchises. I
(14:31):
just I remind people Dolphins lose Shula. Do you know
how long it took them to get a playoff win?
And Shula wasn't great at the end. The quarterbacks that
Tomlin has had in his last two playoff losses are
Mason Rudolph and Russell Wilson. Okay, probably both backups right
now when you're facing good team. So I can't crush Tomlin.
(14:53):
But Rob has a lot of AMMO. And I'm sure
there's people you know, let's get rid of them. I
just want to remind people these this is kind of
a macro football thing and Rob and I think Rob's
touched on this before. The NFL on Sundays during the
regular season is awesome. There's so many games going on,
You've got whiplash from this game to that game. Everybody
(15:14):
watches red Zone or bouncers around on whatever other other
way they watch YouTube. Eight games at once. It is
phenomenal the product with that many games at the same time.
Nothing beats it.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
And then you get Island games like this weekend, and
you remember, I love football, I do, but guys, this
was just a boring ass football weekend. I could not
sit there. And maybe that's like, maybe I just don't
have the patience, but I could not sit there and
watch the entire second half of Chargers Texans. It was bad.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Ravens Steelers was bad.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I just I feel like people are overreacting because the
games are bad. And oh wait, we'll get to this
guy soon. Jordan Love should not have paid him, no way,
not worth it, Like he had a terrible game. Justin
Herbert is trash. Oh he's so overrated.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I had some.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
JABBRONI say, Justin Herbert is basically Jeff George and at
that point I had That's why I had to close
out social media. I was like, I don't mean this
is I feel dumber hearing this stuff. Seriously, Like, I
feel like people are going overboard in the Island games.
But when there's seven games going on on a Sunday,
we don't overreact like this. And it's kind of sort
(16:28):
of we're seeing that happen in college football where Texas
loses and I said, wow, Sark blew that game. We
gotta get rid of Sark or what was the there
was another one? Oh James Franklin. Oh he's one in fifteen.
I guess top fight. We gotta get rid of him.
It's like, can we just pump the brakes? Can we
slow down? I get it, you're frustrated. Tomlin has lost
(16:52):
six straight playoff games, many of them blowouts. But moving
on from him to me seems absolutely crazy. And if
they do move on from remember Andy Reid won a
ton in Philly, never broke through, never won the Super Bowl.
They got rid of him. He was hired in a
Nano second by the Chiefs. He gets handed Patrick Mahomes.
And now remember Andy Reid, who could not win the
(17:12):
big game in Philly? Is now is he? Is? He? Belichick?
I don't know, you have He's amazing?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Now, Like, are we seeing how that work? I don't know, Rob.
It just kind of rubs me the wrong.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Way a little bit.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Well quickly, I think the reason why these games felt
so boring and the reason why the college football Playoff
for the most part has been boring is that, at
least in the NFL, of the twelve quarterbacks that played
a wildcard weekend, maybe not even half of them played well.
So when you have bad quarterback play, it makes the
product excruciatingly difficult to watch. But as far as Mike
(17:45):
Tomlin goes full disclosure, I wish Mike Tomlin was the
Raiders coach. Like I think Mike Tomlin is a fantastic coach.
I think is one of those guys who can build
a culture and you just see what happens when Antonio
Brown left. You know, you saw how crazy that guy was.
When Levy on Ball left, you saw with the Jets,
you know what kind of problems he presents. Deontate Johnson,
(18:05):
uh could you know basically was on his third team
this season because he was such a head case. You know,
you see what's happening with George Pickens. So he does
a good job of managing egos and managing players and
making them, for the most part, play at their maximum ability.
So I think he he definitely is an upper echelon coach.
One three, one oh seven and two in the regular
season is nothing to Heze never had a losing record.
(18:27):
Famously The problem, though, when you alluded to this, is
that he's eight and eleven in the postseason. He has
eight one and done playoff appearances, one short of the
NFL record. Oh boy, that's not the record that you
want to have. And to your point, to your point,
his last six playoff games, it's not just that they've lost,
(18:47):
it's that the games were over before they even really started. Okay,
trailed thirty six to nine against the Patriots, trailed twenty
one nothing against the Jags, and Blake Bortle, trailed twenty
eight to nothing in the first quarter against Baker and
the Browns, trailed thirty five to seven against the Chiefs,
trail twenty one nothing to Buffalo, and then of course
on Saturday, twenty one nothing at a half time to
Lamar and Baltimore Ravens. So the problem with Mike Tomlin again,
(19:12):
I think he's a really good coach, but he has
said it himself repeatedly. The standard is the standard, and
the Pittsburgh Steelers are not in the business of being competitive.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are not in the business of, hey,
we've never had a losing season under this guy. They're
in the business of championships, Like, that's the standard in Pittsburgh.
(19:34):
That's the same standard you get with San Francisco. You
get the same kind of standard with the Green Bay Packers,
Like they're not in it to be a wild card team,
and we make the playoffs and gave our doors blown off.
They are in the business of winning Super Bowls. And
Mike Tomlin, as good of a coach as he is,
(19:54):
it's entirely possible that he's kind of just run his
course because famously, Tomlin is one of only a handful
of NFL head coaches that does not call either the
offense or the defense. He is a CEO head coach,
which is interesting because actually a couple of the guys
that are electric CEO at coaches. I think it's Sirianni Hardball
(20:16):
in Baltimore. I think there's another one as well. But
if you're not calling the offense and you're not calling
the defense, and you can't seem to get your guys
motivated to play at their best when their best is
required in the postseason, like, what is it that you're
bringing to the table. If you're Pittsburgh, wouldn't you much
(20:36):
rather take a swing for the fences? And go after
a Johnson from from the Lions, Ben Johnson, wouldn't you
want to swing for the fences and get Liam Cohen
from from Tampa? That is just a justificant and just
take a risk at this point, like what you know?
So if you if it doesn't work out, you go
(20:56):
from ten and seven to you know what, seven and ten?
Is that that big of a different no, because you
just get a higher draft pick. So again, I think
Mike Tomlan is a great coach. I'd rather him be
with my team than any other team. But at some
point you gotta get over the.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Hop kind of harsh rob Man, so it's weird him
and I would take Mike Tomlin in a heartbeat on
the jetson Raiders, but as of now the Steelers, it
doesn't make sense now. Rob did have a good argument
about Tony Dungee and I'm looking him up in Tampa.
He went ten and six, eight and eight, eleven and five,
(21:34):
and they lost in the NFC title Game. Ten and
six lost in a wildcard, nine and seven lost in
a wildcard.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Fired him, and you want to guess who won the
Super Bowl In.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Twenty twenty two, the year after they fired him, The
Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Maybe they just needed a new voice.
Now going from Dungee to Gruden, I'm trying to think back.
What was Gruden around two thousand.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
He was one of the at the time, one of
the great young head coaches in the NFL, because remember
he got higher Chucky or he was Chucky with the Raiders,
and I think he had come off of losing the
Tuck Rule game either the year before that year, yes, okay,
and I believe famously Tampa offered a first round pick
for him and they're like, okay, sure, I mean it's
(22:21):
you know, we can duplicate it. We have the offensive
coordinator right here, Callahan is gonna be just fine. And
they were just fine. I think rich Gannon won the
MVP the next year. But the problem is they ran
into the you know what was it the teacher becomes
the master, and they ran into the guy who really
ran all that stuff, and they ran the exact same
place that Gruden was there as against him, and that
(22:43):
was famously one of the worst feat down in superl history.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
So Gruden in Oakland, Oakland at the time twelve and
four and they lose to the Ravens ten and six,
lose to the Patriots, and I guess was the tuck
rule game.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And then they.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Trade him or move on from him, and then he
goes to Tampa trade him, and he goes to Tampa
wins instantly. Gruden's interesting, We're not going to do it here,
but career record as a head coach five games above
five hundred, career playoff record five and four. But he
has a Super Bowl. It can't take that away from him.
I would say the third biggest story in the NFL
this weekend. Apologies to Justin Herbert. It ain't It ain't
(23:20):
his struggles. It was probably the poor play of Jordan Love.
Now we tried to warn you guys. Without Christian Watson,
this team offensively is extremely limited through the air, and
we saw that Jordan Love through I think it was
the interception. Was that the oh no, they fumbled the kickoff.
They fumbled the opening kickoff and we're down seven to
(23:42):
nothing within two minutes, which was obviously a bad omen.
And then they have the pick. Later in the first half,
they got the miss field goal, another pick. It was
just it was not good. At one point it was
sixteen to three. Then they go with some tempo start
to get back in the game. But it never felt
like they were really back in the game, did it, Rob.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
No, Never, That game was never as close to the
score would suggest.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
That was when I was coaching both my kids, my
son's team. Listen, we we had an epic performance. And
I'm asking the scorekeepers and the referee, he you got
a backer score. I was waiting for it to get
close and get like, okay, I gotta watch it on
the sideline. And I mean we I think the highest
scoring game I've ever had for a team in youth basketball.
We just we had like nine threes. I mean, guys,
(24:28):
who I didn't think of you threes, which is banging threes.
And then I had to go to the next gym
next door and coach my daughter's team, and you know,
we played the same team we played last week, which
was a barn burner, and we were more than ready
to beat them again. And I'll just say we led
twenty to zero at the end of the first quarter.
And that's all you need to know about that game.
So I didn't see a ton of Jordan Love. I
(24:50):
did watch the condensed version, and I don't listen, I'm
not going to bash the guy. I'm not gonna make
this sweeping indictment that he's not worth the money. They
got a young team. They did not show up the
way they did last year in the playoffs. I do
believe they missed Christian Watson badly. And I think this
Eagles team is just really freaking good. This is a
(25:12):
not a juggernaut Eagles team. I know they didn't play great,
but this was like, would you say this was like
their C plus game?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Rob?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
They were two for eleven on third down, Like.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Oh yeah, see see even not even a C plus.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
And they wouldn't cover but without much of a sweat. Yeah,
And people are like, oh boy, egos susceptible, Jordan. People
just want to overreact significantly to one game, and I don't.
I I like doing that, trust me, it's fun. But
for some reason, Rob, this weekend didn't feel like the
weekend to do it. I don't know. Am I missing something?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
No?
Speaker 4 (25:45):
I mean, like again, you never want to overreact to
one game. And your point about the Justin Herbert discourse,
even if I'm lower on Justin Herbert than you are,
I would agree that he's he's a really good quarterback
and He's not as bad as that one playoff game
will suggest. We just talked about Mike Tomlin. You know,
Mike Tomlin had a horrible performance there against Baltimore. I again,
I still think that he's a good coach. I wanted
(26:05):
to be a coach my Raiders. The thing with Jordan Love, though,
is I don't think this is just a one game
commentary about him. Okay, last season, over the final leg
games famously eighteen touchdowns, one pick. The problem is the
first nine games fourteen touchdowns, ten interceptions. So he has
eight great games and nine that are mediocre at best.
(26:31):
Comes add to this season. I know he has the
knee injury to start, but the reality is this. He
had more multi interception games than anybody in football since
it started last season. He has seven of them this
season according to Next Gen Stats, not even counting the
playoff game where he throws three picks. By percentage of
(26:53):
accurate throw rate, which you know it's not complete a
percentages whether or not the throw they determined was accurate
and the receiver makes a great catch or what have you.
Or if a guy throws it out of bounds, that's
a different conversation. Based on accurate throw rate with ESPNX,
since that's he ranks thirty five out of thirty nine
bottom five quarterback in football accurate throw percentage of only
(27:17):
forty five point two percent this season. So there's a
legitimate conversation to be had. This is not just off
of Sunday's game. Did they make a mistake with Jordan Love?
I mean, at the time when the ink was dry
on that contract, it was I know, he looked great
down the stretch, he looked awesome against Dallas, but he
(27:38):
only had nine good games the whole season. Are we
sure we need to pay him fifty five million dollars
a year? And ultimately, you believe in the Packers historically
know how to evaluate quarterbacks. You trust their judgment. You
think that they see something that the rest of us
don't see. And he kind of just became more of
what he was at the started last season. So at
(28:00):
this point in his career, that eight games is the outlier,
not the rule. So you you know, you've got to
be willing to have an uncontrolled conversation if you're a
Green Bay about whether or not this guy really is
a franchise. In the words of Bucky Brooks, Is he
a truck or he's a trailer. Is he the guy
who's gonna pull us and carry us where we gotta go?
(28:21):
Or is he a guy that's gonna need a great
defense and Josh Jacobs and he just does enough to
protect us so we can win that way?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
All right, I'll play Devil's advocate. Sure, Why does it
have to be truck or trailer, black or white? Why
can't it be like, hey, he's a little inconsistent. He's
a twenty six year old quarterback like this. This the guy
who led the country in interceptions at Utah State. He's
a good quarterback. He has moments of greatness and he
(28:50):
has moments of Oh he's terrible. And I know that's
not what you want.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
In your franchise quarterback.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
But I don't know. I feel like it's a I'm
just looking now. He had one three hundred yard game
all season. It was in a loss to Minnesota. Other
than that is high was like three hundred and seventy
three yards or something.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
But I guess, Rob, when I think about.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
A guy like like Jayden Daniels, like I don't want
to hear the comparisons to Patrick Mahomes because when I say, oh,
well he didn't have Christian Watson, the instant counter from
the Peanut Galleries. Well, wait a minute, Patrick Mahomes got
rid of Tyreek Hill, who still won a Super Bowl.
There's one Patrick Mahomes guys. That's it. There's one, you know,
there's one. Rock Perty loses his one or two of
his guys this year and he becomes like, oh is
(29:35):
he any good? You know, I like Lafleur a lot.
It's tough when you fumble the opening kickoff and you're
in a seven to nothing hole before your quarterback takes
a stamp like that sucks. That's terrible, that's awful. And
you know, I just think the comparisons to Mahomes because
you know, he doesn't like Josh Allen got off of
Stefan Diggs. He's having He's gonna be the MVP.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Don't give me excuses for her. People are doing this
with Herbert.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
They're saying he hasn't won a playoff game, and he
has him meltdown in a playoff game with what four
interceptions when he had three all regular season, and then
in the last playoff game and they were up what
twenty seven to nothing and lose the game or some
whatever the numbers were a few years back, it's like,
well he's not good, Like can we I know, we
need hot takes. People want the takes. They're here for
(30:22):
the takes. Okay, I just remember, like, go look up
a pro football reference Peyton Manning. Go look up his
first five years in the league, five playing quarterback, not
sitting like Jordan Love. First five years, zero playoff wins.
He had three playoff games, completetion percentage under sixty percent,
(30:43):
two of them were under I think under fifty percent.
And and now that social media didn't exist, so we
weren't like, wait a minute, maybe Peyton's not the guy
that that wasn't like a thing because you would watch
Peyton Manning falter in the playoffs and there's no bag,
a phone, online, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter to just shout and
(31:05):
just blast him, and you know, you get fans all
over the country doing it, and it's like, oh he stinks,
and I just I just it just seems a little overreact,
a little reaction. Rob Let me ask you one other thing.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
You and I are in agreement that the games this weekend,
for Walkcard weekend were terrible.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Right, Yeah, except for Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, I myself did not watch a lot of pregame
shows halftime shows, did you? And if you didn't, did
you see any clips from the halftime show or pregame
show or postgame show where the studio hosts the analysts
were ripping the quality of play and the players and
(31:58):
the teams and the coaches. Did you see any trashing?
Now it's possible I missed it.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
But did you see any clips circulating?
Speaker 4 (32:05):
I did not. The closest I saw to that was
some Rob Gronkowski commentary which was actually a replay of
before the Mike Rabel hire where it was it was
him going off about the Girodmeo fail. So okay, But
as far as the football itself.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
No interesting. Did you see anybody call.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Mike Tomlin like a choke artist or a loser or
any anybody credible on television?
Speaker 4 (32:31):
I believe so, but not that harshly. It was, Oh,
maybe they got to move on?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Who?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Who?
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Who said that I want to say. Jimmy Johnson was
one who said.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
That, Oh Jimmy Okay, Now that okay. So that's what
I'm looking for. And you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
This is the Barklay thing. So one of the guys
on my men's basketball team, I hadn't seen him in
a few weeks. I see him and we're talking about
the upcoming season, and he goes, Hey, what happened with
you and Charles Barkley? And I started laughing because usually
we just talk about hoops and life and kids and
volleyball because our daughters play volleyball. And he's like, yeah,
that was a big story. I had people hit me
(33:04):
up and be like, yo, you're friends with j mac right,
what happened with him in Barkley? You play basketball with Jason?
And I was like, I guess it went viral, you know,
I guess he didn't hear that that was you know,
Rob g fed me that bad boy and Barkley should
have come after you. It was a great take, and
I expounded and then JJ Reddick took the baton and
(33:26):
ran it, you know whatever. But I found it interesting
that he asked about that, and then I thought about
it Barkley and how, oh my gosh, if the Detroit
Pistons made the playoffs and lost the first game by
thirty seven, he would be making a total mockery and
just trash the Detroit Pistons. And I'm wondering why, Rob
(33:49):
does this happen in basketball all the time with inside
the NBA, and yet it never happens with NBC, CBS
or Fox because you can even toss the ESPN. I
I haven't watched the pregame show ever, but pregame, postgame whatever.
Maybe Sports Center is different, but I'm just talking about
studio shows, shoulder programming around the games.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
The simple answer is the partners of the NFL and
the analyst they have on TV watch the games. M.
Charles Barkley admittedly famously has said he does not watch
the games. He has fallen asleep. They make jokes about
it on the broadcast off him falling asleep during playoff games.
(34:34):
There is an entire segment built into the show. Again,
it's entertaining as help, but there is entire segment build
into the show where they say, hey, here's the name,
here's a face, Charles, what team does he play for? No? Nine?
Hears in the time he gets him wrong. Now, I
don't know about you, but even me, as a fan
who has to cover all the sports, can get some
(34:56):
of these. If you only got to worry about one
and you can't do it, that kind of says a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Okay, let me let's do that real quick. I didn't
know this was a game, so.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
I'm not gonna I think it's called who he played for.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
I'm not going to.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Tell you what team. Isaiah Collier Utah Jazz.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Do you know that because he went off?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
No?
Speaker 4 (35:18):
I know that because he went He went viral on
Sunday for in the last minute of the game calling
Sexon's calling for the ball after an inbound and Collier
waves him off and gets eight second violation because I
didn't pass half court.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Oh so that was kind of funny, all right.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Jordan Hawkins Jordan Pelicans, Okay, okay to and oh Justin Champagne.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Spurs close because I think you let me check. I
think he was Spurs last year. He's on the Wizards now, Ah,
I guess there's two Champagnes.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
But he didn't play for the Spurs. But he's don't
watch it like like that.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
This is.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
It's probably a two way guy. They lost by forty
to the thunder whatever. But yeah, like you're Charles Barkley,
you gotta know that now. Then again, I football is different.
You can't ask me where back what teams backup lineman
played for.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
I ain't gonna know, right.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
You know, if we limited the starters, you're probably gonna
clip it ninety five percent and I would probably get
ninety five. But yeah, I just I did find that odd.
It's not it's not a total shot at Barkley. It
kind of is, But I just I didn't see any
and there was Listen, there's plenty to be potentially negative about, right,
(36:36):
Mike Tomlin.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
Right, well, even even something as simple as this. Right,
we open the show talking about Jan Daniels. Jane Daniels
was fantastic on Sunday Night, but what he did was
incredible on the road. Rookie quarterback gets the win, he's
gonna go face, he's probably gonna lose to be Oscards.
He's to Detroit. If this was an nbaight segment, if
this was inside the NBA, they'd probably say, hey, great
game by that young kid. But they're gonna get their
(36:58):
doors blown off in the second round. Like, that's not
the story tonight. You know, into Monday morning, the NFL
is going to focus and highlight Look what this guy did,
Look what this young Look what they're building in Washington.
Thursday Friday, when we start really previewing that weekend's game,
then we'll get into it and say, hey, you know what,
as great as Jaye and Daniel is, the reality is
(37:19):
Detroit is just a better team than.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
They're over maxing, right, But.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
That's not the time to have that conversation. And the
way the NBA is built is, yeah, you know, Oklahoma
City is good, but you know they're so small, they're
probably not they're not. They're nothing in the playoffs. The Knicks,
you know, they're not gonna be in the playoffs. The Celtics,
up until last year, they don't win in the playoff.
Jason Tatum always comes up small in the playoffs. Yeah,
And it's like, how are we gonna care about the
(37:44):
regular season on a night to night basis and what
we saw if we're only worried about what happens in April,
May and June.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And that's yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
I'm cure now.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
The Lamar Jackson one is going to be interesting. He
is ripe for criticism if he doesn't deliver.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
That.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Being said, he's going up against Josh Allen, the likely MVP.
To me, there's no loser in that game. I think
that's the That's an amazing game. It's next Sunday afternoon.
I will do everything in my power to not be
coaching my kids in sports. I think that game's phenomenal.
The rest of the games, Houston at Kansas City, I
see the Chiefs as eight point favorites.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I don't I didn't think Houston was good.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
I don't care that they ran all over or ran
up some yardage on the Chargers. Ain't no way Mahomes
is throwing four picks. I don't know about laying the eight.
I'll tell you who the teaser pairing is in a second.
And Saturday night is Washington at Detroit Detroit minus eight
and a half.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
I'll tell you right now.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I already went big on Chiefs teas down to minus
two and Detroit's teas down to minus two and a half. Now, yes,
there's a chance that Jayden Daniel screws that up, but
I'm willing to take that chance. I think it's the
best way to go. I don't know about just the
eight or the eight and a half. The other game
(39:04):
Baltimore Buffalo, I see it's a pick them games in Buffalo.
I'm gonna wait to see the weather because I did
see reports of snow. I gotta be honest, guys, I
have no idea who's winning that game, no read whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
It is a legitimate toss up.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I would not be surprised if the Ravens won or
the Bills. I have no rooting interest. The only interest
I have is whichever team is gonna give me a
better chance to take down the Chiefs. That's who I'm backing.
And then the other game Sunday early game will be
the winner of Vikings Rams at Philly. And I will
say this. The change of venue for the Rams tonight
(39:40):
to Arizona and these terrible, awful fires that have just
crippled Los Angeles, I gotta say, folks, I don't feel
as confident about the Rams as I did. You know,
six days ago. I just I watched the Chargers kind
of melt down there in the second half, and I part,
I think it was a lot of fatigue, but I
(40:03):
started to wonder do they have friends and family impacted
by the fire who are evacuated and lost it. I
don't know. I mean, surely some people on the team
are impacted by some stuff, and is that the case
with the Rams? I don't know the answer to that,
And without getting a clear cut answer, I mean, my
bets are in. I'm not going to buy out of them.
(40:25):
I think if the Rams are able to play their game,
I think they win, but I don't feel as good
as I did before. I will say unequivocally, I'm going
to be on Philadelphia against Minnesota as long as it's
not an exorbitant number.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I think Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Well, Philadelphia will have like an extra day to prepare obviously,
but they don't know who their opponent is. I guess
an extra day of rest, but I would lean as
of now Casey Detroit. Oh, I don't.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
You give me your thoughts on Baltimore Buffalo before. I
honestly don't know who's gonna win that game.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Well, I'm on the record, I'm openly rooting for Lamar Jackson.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
I want to see the coronation at this point, like
I believe he's goninge MVP. I think when the All
Pro votes came out, and historically the quarterback who's first
team All Pro and up turning the MVP. So that's
what I care. But as far as the matchup itself,
Josh Allen against Denver three hundred and eighteen total yars,
two touchdowns, Lamar Jackson against Pittsburgh two fifty six total yards,
(41:23):
two touchdowns. Those guys did it against defenses that are
number three and number eight I think in scoring defense,
and neither guy was ever really threatened after the first quarter.
So for my money, this is whatever the game of
the playoffs. I'm more excited about this game than I
had even potentially about a Super Bowl, Like these are
(41:45):
the two teams that I really wanted to see go
ahead to d and I'm glad it sucks over getting
so early, but I'm excited about that spinning forward to
I guess Tonight's can do that first. There is two
full conversation Number one, as far as the emotionality part
of it, you know, the fires are devastating around here.
I personally know people who have been displaced. I'm sure
you probably do as well. But there was a player
(42:07):
on the Rams who was doing. Was talking to a
reporter on Friday, and he said something to the effect of,
I'm glad that we're here because now I'm just focused
on football. And if he's saying that, I promise you
there's at least twenty thirty percent of the team minimum
who feels the same way. So to your point, are
(42:29):
we sure they're as locked in as they probably should
be for a playoff game? I can't say that's number one.
Number two, And this is the practicality part of it is,
in the last three games that Stafford and the offense
all played, they're only averaging fourteen points a game. Well,
you know, like any way you slice it, this is
not looking great for the Rams. And that was even
(42:50):
when they had home field advantage. It wasn't because they
weren't scoring too well. Now that it's a neutral site,
you got all this devastation. I'm sure a handful of
the staffers are players is either displaced or knows someone
who had to get displaced. And so you know, Minnesota
definitely feels like the side in this one.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Okay, so we're kind of an agreement.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I am a little surprised that Lamar Jackson love the
way Derek Can. We ran all over Pittsburgh, and I
saw Buffalo's run defense a little porous.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I have a mild concern there. I just think night game.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Buffalo, it is gonna be a Bonker's crowd. I lean slight,
slight leaned to the Buffalo Bills. But nothing would surprise me.
And I probably won't have a cent on that game.
Maybe some props. All right, long Monday Pod to start
the week. It is a huge week. Yes, we will
get into Notre Dame versus Oh my gosh, for a second,
(43:46):
I spaced on Ohio State first Notre Dame. That's a
big spread as well. I believe that's next Monday night.
So next weekend you get Saturday to NFL, Sunday to NFL,
and one Monday college football in like the final really
great weekend of football before Championship weekend, the super.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Bowl, and then we're in the offseason. We'll be talking
to NBA and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
All right, we're back tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Talk to you
This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
What is up Straight Fiream, It's me Jason McIntyre. Street
Fire for Monday, January thirteenth. Oh boy, NFL Wildcard Weekend
is in the books, and we need to change Wildcard Weekend.
I mean, really, we've got to just scrap it. All
these college football fans who were upset about the college
(00:32):
football playoff. All the games were blowouts. Well did you
watch Wildcard weekend, folks?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Yeah, one good game.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
That's it, Washington Tampa with a thriller on Sunday Night.
They saved the best for last, obviously, Sunday Night football.
The Doink by Zane Gonzalez pushes Washington and we'll get
into that game. The rest of the other games were
not phenomenal. Guys, Listen, I had a great weekend obviously.
You know, if you follow me on social is my birthday.
I had a phenomenal birthday weekend. Tough week to have it,
(01:02):
given what's happening in Los Angeles. But you know, I
did the usual thing. I coached my kids in sports.
I went to my son's volleyball tournament. My kids and
wife threw me like just a fun little day of
you want to play a board game, you wanna go
for a walk with a dog, let's go to dinner.
And it was just an awesome weekend and one year older,
and you know it's just you feel old. But then
(01:24):
sitting around watching football, you feel great. And I gotta say,
Tampa Washington finally gave us a good game. And I
don't know, I don't have any sweeping takeaways, but I
will say this. I saw a lot of people online
analysts coming into this Washington game.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Well, you gotta like Tampa.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
There's no way that Washington, which during the regular season
was number one by a mile on fourth down percentage.
And it's crazy because Washington completed eighty six percent of
fourth downs last year. Philadelphia led the league at sixty seven.
Two years ago, it was the Rams at seventy eight.
Three years ago, it was New England at seventy one. Folks,
(02:11):
Washington eighty six percent conversions on fourth down. And what
do they do in the big spot in the fourth quarter.
They go for it and fail, and they get another
chance and they thanks to a Baker Mayfield fumble, Washington
goes three for five on fourth down. Tampa did not
go for one. They have so much confidence in young
(02:31):
Jayden Daniels, and we saw the first time quarterbacks in
the playoffs struggle in the form of Bownicks. We've seen
the history. We'll see how Sam Darnold does Deny his
first playoff game. Bo Nicks had a great opening drive
with the touchdown pass, and after that it was gat
Zoukes not good and Jayden and Daniels just undaunted. Man,
you watch this guy all season, You're like, Holy hell.
(02:54):
Jaden Daniels seven point seven yards per attempt, two touchdowns,
no turnovers, and led Washington and rushing thirteen for thirty
six yards.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I mean, the guy made it.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Listen, this is his top targeted guy was McLaurin, but
he hit Diami Brown on five for eighty nine. He
loves Eckler, Ertz, Robinson, Ola, Medes, Zakahias. You guys, come on,
this is his who he's throwing to. Can you imagine
if they go get t Higgins or Tyreek Hill or
or Deebo Samuel, Oh my gosh, this team you could
And now listen, I saw people saying, hey, they can
(03:29):
beat Detroit. They let's just slow down for sec and
enjoy this win over Tampa only two for five in
the red zone. Probably not going to get it done
on the road in Detroit, but Jaden Daniels keeping plays
alive kind of a big analytics win. I thought the
Sunday Night football game, I was personally surprised they didn't
kick to pull within seventeen sixteen with about twelve minutes left.
(03:53):
But listen the undercash on fifty one. Guys, if you
listened with Adam Chernoff on Friday's podcast, you made a
lot of money this weekend. Okay, teasers were just gold.
You remember when I laughed and told uh, turn off
the two bets that I'm the biggest on the teaser
and the parlay. Both of them cashed easily. I mean,
(04:15):
Philadelphia was a no sweat Buffalo after the first drive coasted,
Ravens were never really threatened. It was a very profitable weekend.
And listen, I'm not gonna come out here on crush
Baker Mayfield. He had not his best game ever. Ultimately, listen,
if you tell me Baker's going to go fifteen of
(04:36):
eighteen for a buck eighty five and two touchdowns, I'm thinking, oh,
Tampa might win in a blowout because they didn't need
him to throw much. But the problem, the reason he
didn't throw much, Tampa just didn't really have the football.
I mean, Washington ran so many. Washington ran sixty nine plays,
Tampa forty four. Time of possession thirty five to twenty four.
(04:57):
Washington just controlled the ball thanks to converting on fourth downs.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
You convert a fourth.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Down, you get basically an extra two minutes off the clock,
maybe an extra three minutes, depending on if you go
run run. You know what happens on the next series
of plays. But the fumble, I don't know if it's
on Baker. They ran a jet sweep deep in their
own end to the young kid McMillan. I couldn't tell
who that was really on. So I can't crush Baker.
(05:22):
All I can do is come out and say positive
things about Jadan Daniels and very impressive win rob for
Washington and they advance a face Detroit.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Absolutely, I think the story of the night. You know
all Caps, Jaden Daniels. You mentioned it on fourth down
that they go for fourth down a lot there. One
of the more aggressive teams in all of football, you know.
I know Dan Campbell has the reputation, but maybe dan
Quinn is the guy who should be talking about as
being the gambling man. But Jade Daniels on third and
fourth down nine of fifteen for oneh eight, two touchdowns
(05:53):
converted eight first downs of those fifteen, Like that is
a winning formula any way you slice it. And as
a result, Jayden Daniels is now the first quarterback as
a rookie to win a road playoff game since Russell
Wilson in twenty twelve. Wow, this Washington team is building
(06:14):
something very very special. All Right, dan Quinn can run
a defense with the best of them, and it's only
going to get better as he gets his guys in
there that run his style and row his system and
that kind of fit what he likes to do. But
most importantly, you have a quarterback who just rises to
(06:34):
the occasion over and over and over and over. They
were showing clips during the broadcast. You know, everybody remembers
the Hail Mary against Chicago. You also had a game
winning touchdown against Philadelphia. You had a game winning touchdown
against Dallas. Like this is not you know, a flash
in the pan Ol. This don't happen one time this season,
And you can't do no He's done it a few
(06:54):
times now. On the final drive in this game, gotta
have it. Backs against the wall, three for three forty
four passing yards, including a third down conversion where it's
third and one. He gets hit seven yards behind the
line of scrimmage, shakes off a defensive tackle, picks up
(07:15):
three yards to get the first down YEA, which allows
them here's the big thing to use all four minutes
and forty one seconds of the clock. They got the
ball before forty one. The game ended at zero. Baker
Mayfield never even got the opportunity to see what he
could do. Jaden Daniels, I'm not saying that he's gonna
(07:36):
be the next Lamar Jackson unless the comparison everybody wants
to make, but he is something special. I remember we
were saying earlier in the season how I was skeptical
early on because people were saying, well, look, this guy
is like he's great, He's at RGI three numbers. This
guy's gonna be the next great quarterback. And I was like, hey,
you know, bump the brakes. We just saw CJ. Stroud.
(07:57):
Historically you get one of these every twenty years. This
is not what happens regularly in the NFL, and I
was dead wrong because Jayde and Daniels is doing comparably,
if not better than what CJ. Stroud did last year.
Back to back seasons, we're having rookie quarterbacks that are
breaking the mold and setting up franchises that are perennial
(08:19):
I'm not gonna say losers, but perennial mediocre franchises and
suddenly they have optionsm going forward. This is great.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Yeah, Jayden Daniels is awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Now, I just as you started talking about Jayden winning
with his legs, I was like, let me see how
Detroit has done against running quarterbacks this year?
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Not great?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So in their loss to Tampa and maybe we just
chalk it up as nothing because it was a bad
game plan, rare bad game plan from Ben Johnson. Baker
led the Bucks in rushing five for thirty four yards
in their loss to Buffalo Josh Allen eleven for sixty
eight two touchdowns, and in the game against Anthony Richardson,
which was close for a while, Richardson had ten for
sixty one.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Now, I'm not saying Daniels as any of those guys.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
He's obviously better than Anthony Richardson, and you know, probably
better than Baker, certainly at this age, better than Baker,
but I wonder how much because remember they blitzed the
hell out of Sam Donald in week eighteen, Rob and
Donald was rattled. Well, not only does Jayden and Daniel
not get rattled, but he.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Just runs around the blitzes.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I mean that play where, like you said, at the
end of the game, the defensive lineman was chasing him.
I don't know if you saw, but like I think
he had. He either grabbed Jayden's towel or picked up
a towel, but he was like chasing after Jayden and
Daniels with a towel in his hand, like that was
gonna do something. It was just sheer desperation. He's just
(09:41):
too elusive. Now I'm looking at the line. Holy hell,
if you haven't looked, Rob, do you want to guess
what the line is?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Or do you already know?
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I actually saw two different places. I don't know if
I saw it once and it was already bet down
or just have totally different shops. But I saw it
most recently eight and a half.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, eight and a half, I don't know. I guess
that means they think they're thinking blowout.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I need to look a little bit more so Washington.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Oh yeah, sometimes I like to check. So I missed
this on the on the Chargers game, but the Chargers
had Yeah. Okay, so the Chargers had the early one
of the earliest buys in the league. It might have
been the first buy way back in October. I might
have mentioned this, but and then they had three road games.
This playoff game was their third, and they look gassed.
Did you see them in the second half? The defense
(10:26):
like was fighting like hell the first half. These just
ran out of gas and the Texas ran out big numbers.
So I was looking at Washington. They had an early
December by second week in December, so theoretically they should
be pretty fresh. This will also be their third straight
road game. They finished the season at Dallas and then
they were at Tampa and then at Detroit. That's a
(10:48):
tough one. I don't know that I'm ready to get
there with Washington yet. But oh, that's a great teaser.
Just take Detroit on a six and a half or
seven point teaser under a field goal and boom. Like
teasers have been guys.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Let's move to the next game.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
So I don't know, Like again, I don't want to
be in like an argument with Rob or maybe Cowherd
today or people online. I don't get this. Mike Tomlin anger, Okay.
All he does is instill an amazing culture in Pittsburgh.
(11:34):
He keeps them relevant every year they're in the playoffs
five hundred or better. And often he's doing it with
inferior talent, right, especially at quarterback. Yes, Mike Tomlin has
lost six straight playoff games. That's not great. That's not great.
And then you start to dig into the numbers and
you know he's down twenty one nothing to the Ravens.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
They got smoked by the Bills last year in the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
You go to that Chiefs game in twenty one, they
were getting blasted, an embarrassing loss to the Browns with
Ben Roethlisberger. In twenty twenty, that lost to the Jaguars
was at home. If you guys remember, there was some
weird stuff going on. I don't know if it was
Antonio Brown. I would have to look into it. That
was a good Pittsburgh team. They went thirteen and three,
and I feel like somebody just blew off.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
The walk through. It might have been Antonio Brown. I
don't remember who it was.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Do you remember was it either is it there Brown?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Or Bell Bell Levy? I might have been Levey on Bell,
But bottom line, they didn't take that game seriously and
then they ended up losing. I think it was like
forty five to forty two. Jacksonville was on was like
a quarter away from making the Super Bowl with Blake Portals,
and then they collapsed against the Patriots. I remember that
because I it was we were kind of new ish
to California, I think, and I had taken the kids
(12:50):
to a Laker game that day. We were able to
get Lakers tickets. I'm like, well, Patriots, come on, they're
gonna crush the Jags. And I'm following the game on
my phone. I'm like, holy hell, the jackson win this.
And on the car ride home, you know, if you
guys have a certain cable, you can there's an app
and you can watch the game. And I remember watching it,
and of course the Jags melted against the Patriots, but
(13:11):
they were close. That was a good Jags team. I
looked it up.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So in these six playoff games.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Steelers were underdogs in four, considerable underdogs in three. And yeah,
the Browns game was bad. Ben Roethlisberger, who was washed
through a billion interceptions and I think he had two
pick sixes in that one, definitely one, and it was
just it was bad.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
I can't kill Mike Tomlin.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
And I will say this, if Mike Tomlins fired, he
will get hired somewhere else in a second. The Jets
would take him in a heartbeat. The Jets have never
had a culture since Rex Ryan left. And know that
doesn't mean I want Rex Ryan back. But Rob, just
because Tomlins failed in some playoff games, are you.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Ready to run him off?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
And I asked that because the sentiment I got online
after the Ravens smacked Baltimore after the Ravens smacked around
the Steelers on Saturday night, a game that was boring
as hell, by the way, and at one point I
actually turned off and my son and I watched Deadpool
Versus Wolverine. That movie's awesome. You absolutely need to see it.
(14:11):
It's on Disney Plus. I believe phenomenal. I can't crush Tomlin,
like maybe they need a new voice. But there's also
a sentiment is, hey, guys, we've been relevant for a while.
Do we want to become the Jets or the Browns
or the Titans or one of these rotten franchises. I
(14:31):
just I remind people Dolphins lose Shula. Do you know
how long it took them to get a playoff win?
And Shula wasn't great at the end. The quarterbacks that
Tomlin has had in his last two playoff losses are
Mason Rudolph and Russell Wilson. Okay, probably both backups right
now when you're facing good team. So I can't crush Tomlin.
(14:53):
But Rob has a lot of AMMO. And I'm sure
there's people you know, let's get rid of them. I
just want to remind people these this is kind of
a macro football thing and Rob and I think Rob's
touched on this before. The NFL on Sundays during the
regular season is awesome. There's so many games going on,
You've got whiplash from this game to that game. Everybody
(15:14):
watches red Zone or bouncers around on whatever other other
way they watch YouTube. Eight games at once. It is
phenomenal the product with that many games at the same time.
Nothing beats it.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Nothing.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
And then you get Island games like this weekend, and
you remember, I love football, I do, but guys, this
was just a boring ass football weekend. I could not
sit there. And maybe that's like, maybe I just don't
have the patience, but I could not sit there and
watch the entire second half of Chargers Texans. It was bad.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Ravens Steelers was bad.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
I just I feel like people are overreacting because the
games are bad. And oh wait, we'll get to this
guy soon. Jordan Love should not have paid him, no way,
not worth it, Like he had a terrible game. Justin
Herbert is trash. Oh he's so overrated.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
I had some.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
JABBRONI say, Justin Herbert is basically Jeff George and at
that point I had That's why I had to close
out social media. I was like, I don't mean this
is I feel dumber hearing this stuff. Seriously, Like, I
feel like people are going overboard in the Island games.
But when there's seven games going on on a Sunday,
we don't overreact like this. And it's kind of sort
(16:28):
of we're seeing that happen in college football where Texas
loses and I said, wow, Sark blew that game. We
gotta get rid of Sark or what was the there
was another one? Oh James Franklin. Oh he's one in fifteen.
I guess top fight. We gotta get rid of him.
It's like, can we just pump the brakes? Can we
slow down? I get it, you're frustrated. Tomlin has lost
(16:52):
six straight playoff games, many of them blowouts. But moving
on from him to me seems absolutely crazy. And if
they do move on from remember Andy Reid won a
ton in Philly, never broke through, never won the Super Bowl.
They got rid of him. He was hired in a
Nano second by the Chiefs. He gets handed Patrick Mahomes.
And now remember Andy Reid, who could not win the
(17:12):
big game in Philly? Is now is he? Is? He? Belichick?
I don't know, you have He's amazing?
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Now, Like, are we seeing how that work? I don't know, Rob.
It just kind of rubs me the wrong.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Way a little bit.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Well quickly, I think the reason why these games felt
so boring and the reason why the college football Playoff
for the most part has been boring is that, at
least in the NFL, of the twelve quarterbacks that played
a wildcard weekend, maybe not even half of them played well.
So when you have bad quarterback play, it makes the
product excruciatingly difficult to watch. But as far as Mike
(17:45):
Tomlin goes full disclosure, I wish Mike Tomlin was the
Raiders coach. Like I think Mike Tomlin is a fantastic coach.
I think is one of those guys who can build
a culture and you just see what happens when Antonio
Brown left. You know, you saw how crazy that guy was.
When Levy on Ball left, you saw with the Jets,
you know what kind of problems he presents. Deontate Johnson,
(18:05):
uh could you know basically was on his third team
this season because he was such a head case. You know,
you see what's happening with George Pickens. So he does
a good job of managing egos and managing players and
making them, for the most part, play at their maximum ability.
So I think he he definitely is an upper echelon coach.
One three, one oh seven and two in the regular
season is nothing to Heze never had a losing record.
(18:27):
Famously The problem, though, when you alluded to this, is
that he's eight and eleven in the postseason. He has
eight one and done playoff appearances, one short of the
NFL record. Oh boy, that's not the record that you
want to have. And to your point, to your point,
his last six playoff games, it's not just that they've lost,
(18:47):
it's that the games were over before they even really started. Okay,
trailed thirty six to nine against the Patriots, trailed twenty
one nothing against the Jags, and Blake Bortle, trailed twenty
eight to nothing in the first quarter against Baker and
the Browns, trailed thirty five to seven against the Chiefs,
trail twenty one nothing to Buffalo, and then of course
on Saturday, twenty one nothing at a half time to
Lamar and Baltimore Ravens. So the problem with Mike Tomlin again,
(19:12):
I think he's a really good coach, but he has
said it himself repeatedly. The standard is the standard, and
the Pittsburgh Steelers are not in the business of being competitive.
The Pittsburgh Steelers are not in the business of, hey,
we've never had a losing season under this guy. They're
in the business of championships, Like, that's the standard in Pittsburgh.
(19:34):
That's the same standard you get with San Francisco. You
get the same kind of standard with the Green Bay Packers,
Like they're not in it to be a wild card team,
and we make the playoffs and gave our doors blown off.
They are in the business of winning Super Bowls. And
Mike Tomlin, as good of a coach as he is,
(19:54):
it's entirely possible that he's kind of just run his
course because famously, Tomlin is one of only a handful
of NFL head coaches that does not call either the
offense or the defense. He is a CEO head coach,
which is interesting because actually a couple of the guys
that are electric CEO at coaches. I think it's Sirianni Hardball
(20:16):
in Baltimore. I think there's another one as well. But
if you're not calling the offense and you're not calling
the defense, and you can't seem to get your guys
motivated to play at their best when their best is
required in the postseason, like, what is it that you're
bringing to the table. If you're Pittsburgh, wouldn't you much
(20:36):
rather take a swing for the fences? And go after
a Johnson from from the Lions, Ben Johnson, wouldn't you
want to swing for the fences and get Liam Cohen
from from Tampa? That is just a justificant and just
take a risk at this point, like what you know?
So if you if it doesn't work out, you go
(20:56):
from ten and seven to you know what, seven and ten?
Is that that big of a different no, because you
just get a higher draft pick. So again, I think
Mike Tomlan is a great coach. I'd rather him be
with my team than any other team. But at some
point you gotta get over the.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Hop kind of harsh rob Man, so it's weird him
and I would take Mike Tomlin in a heartbeat on
the jetson Raiders, but as of now the Steelers, it
doesn't make sense now. Rob did have a good argument
about Tony Dungee and I'm looking him up in Tampa.
He went ten and six, eight and eight, eleven and five,
(21:34):
and they lost in the NFC title Game. Ten and
six lost in a wildcard, nine and seven lost in
a wildcard.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Fired him, and you want to guess who won the
Super Bowl In.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Twenty twenty two, the year after they fired him, The
Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Maybe they just needed a new voice.
Now going from Dungee to Gruden, I'm trying to think back.
What was Gruden around two thousand.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
He was one of the at the time, one of
the great young head coaches in the NFL, because remember
he got higher Chucky or he was Chucky with the Raiders,
and I think he had come off of losing the
Tuck Rule game either the year before that year, yes, okay,
and I believe famously Tampa offered a first round pick
for him and they're like, okay, sure, I mean it's
(22:21):
you know, we can duplicate it. We have the offensive
coordinator right here, Callahan is gonna be just fine. And
they were just fine. I think rich Gannon won the
MVP the next year. But the problem is they ran
into the you know what was it the teacher becomes
the master, and they ran into the guy who really
ran all that stuff, and they ran the exact same
place that Gruden was there as against him, and that
(22:43):
was famously one of the worst feat down in superl history.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
So Gruden in Oakland, Oakland at the time twelve and
four and they lose to the Ravens ten and six,
lose to the Patriots, and I guess was the tuck
rule game.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And then they.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Trade him or move on from him, and then he
goes to Tampa trade him, and he goes to Tampa
wins instantly. Gruden's interesting, We're not going to do it here,
but career record as a head coach five games above
five hundred, career playoff record five and four. But he
has a Super Bowl. It can't take that away from him.
I would say the third biggest story in the NFL
this weekend. Apologies to Justin Herbert. It ain't It ain't
(23:20):
his struggles. It was probably the poor play of Jordan Love.
Now we tried to warn you guys. Without Christian Watson,
this team offensively is extremely limited through the air, and
we saw that Jordan Love through I think it was
the interception. Was that the oh no, they fumbled the kickoff.
They fumbled the opening kickoff and we're down seven to
(23:42):
nothing within two minutes, which was obviously a bad omen.
And then they have the pick. Later in the first half,
they got the miss field goal, another pick. It was
just it was not good. At one point it was
sixteen to three. Then they go with some tempo start
to get back in the game. But it never felt
like they were really back in the game, did it, Rob.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
No, Never, That game was never as close to the
score would suggest.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
That was when I was coaching both my kids, my
son's team. Listen, we we had an epic performance. And
I'm asking the scorekeepers and the referee, he you got
a backer score. I was waiting for it to get
close and get like, okay, I gotta watch it on
the sideline. And I mean we I think the highest
scoring game I've ever had for a team in youth basketball.
We just we had like nine threes. I mean, guys,
(24:28):
who I didn't think of you threes, which is banging threes.
And then I had to go to the next gym
next door and coach my daughter's team, and you know,
we played the same team we played last week, which
was a barn burner, and we were more than ready
to beat them again. And I'll just say we led
twenty to zero at the end of the first quarter.
And that's all you need to know about that game.
So I didn't see a ton of Jordan Love. I
(24:50):
did watch the condensed version, and I don't listen, I'm
not going to bash the guy. I'm not gonna make
this sweeping indictment that he's not worth the money. They
got a young team. They did not show up the
way they did last year in the playoffs. I do
believe they missed Christian Watson badly. And I think this
Eagles team is just really freaking good. This is a
(25:12):
not a juggernaut Eagles team. I know they didn't play great,
but this was like, would you say this was like
their C plus game?
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Rob?
Speaker 3 (25:18):
They were two for eleven on third down, Like.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Oh yeah, see see even not even a C plus.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
And they wouldn't cover but without much of a sweat. Yeah,
And people are like, oh boy, egos susceptible, Jordan. People
just want to overreact significantly to one game, and I don't.
I I like doing that, trust me, it's fun. But
for some reason, Rob, this weekend didn't feel like the
weekend to do it. I don't know. Am I missing something?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
No?
Speaker 4 (25:45):
I mean, like again, you never want to overreact to
one game. And your point about the Justin Herbert discourse,
even if I'm lower on Justin Herbert than you are,
I would agree that he's he's a really good quarterback
and He's not as bad as that one playoff game
will suggest. We just talked about Mike Tomlin. You know,
Mike Tomlin had a horrible performance there against Baltimore. I again,
I still think that he's a good coach. I wanted
(26:05):
to be a coach my Raiders. The thing with Jordan Love, though,
is I don't think this is just a one game
commentary about him. Okay, last season, over the final leg
games famously eighteen touchdowns, one pick. The problem is the
first nine games fourteen touchdowns, ten interceptions. So he has
eight great games and nine that are mediocre at best.
(26:31):
Comes add to this season. I know he has the
knee injury to start, but the reality is this. He
had more multi interception games than anybody in football since
it started last season. He has seven of them this
season according to Next Gen Stats, not even counting the
playoff game where he throws three picks. By percentage of
(26:53):
accurate throw rate, which you know it's not complete a
percentages whether or not the throw they determined was accurate
and the receiver makes a great catch or what have you.
Or if a guy throws it out of bounds, that's
a different conversation. Based on accurate throw rate with ESPNX,
since that's he ranks thirty five out of thirty nine
bottom five quarterback in football accurate throw percentage of only
(27:17):
forty five point two percent this season. So there's a
legitimate conversation to be had. This is not just off
of Sunday's game. Did they make a mistake with Jordan Love?
I mean, at the time when the ink was dry
on that contract, it was I know, he looked great
down the stretch, he looked awesome against Dallas, but he
(27:38):
only had nine good games the whole season. Are we
sure we need to pay him fifty five million dollars
a year? And ultimately, you believe in the Packers historically
know how to evaluate quarterbacks. You trust their judgment. You
think that they see something that the rest of us
don't see. And he kind of just became more of
what he was at the started last season. So at
(28:00):
this point in his career, that eight games is the outlier,
not the rule. So you you know, you've got to
be willing to have an uncontrolled conversation if you're a
Green Bay about whether or not this guy really is
a franchise. In the words of Bucky Brooks, Is he
a truck or he's a trailer. Is he the guy
who's gonna pull us and carry us where we gotta go?
(28:21):
Or is he a guy that's gonna need a great
defense and Josh Jacobs and he just does enough to
protect us so we can win that way?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
All right, I'll play Devil's advocate. Sure, Why does it
have to be truck or trailer, black or white? Why
can't it be like, hey, he's a little inconsistent. He's
a twenty six year old quarterback like this. This the guy
who led the country in interceptions at Utah State. He's
a good quarterback. He has moments of greatness and he
(28:50):
has moments of Oh he's terrible. And I know that's
not what you want.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
In your franchise quarterback.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
But I don't know. I feel like it's a I'm
just looking now. He had one three hundred yard game
all season. It was in a loss to Minnesota. Other
than that is high was like three hundred and seventy
three yards or something.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
But I guess, Rob, when I think about.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
A guy like like Jayden Daniels, like I don't want
to hear the comparisons to Patrick Mahomes because when I say, oh,
well he didn't have Christian Watson, the instant counter from
the Peanut Galleries. Well, wait a minute, Patrick Mahomes got
rid of Tyreek Hill, who still won a Super Bowl.
There's one Patrick Mahomes guys. That's it. There's one, you know,
there's one. Rock Perty loses his one or two of
his guys this year and he becomes like, oh is
(29:35):
he any good? You know, I like Lafleur a lot.
It's tough when you fumble the opening kickoff and you're
in a seven to nothing hole before your quarterback takes
a stamp like that sucks. That's terrible, that's awful. And
you know, I just think the comparisons to Mahomes because
you know, he doesn't like Josh Allen got off of
Stefan Diggs. He's having He's gonna be the MVP.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Don't give me excuses for her. People are doing this
with Herbert.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
They're saying he hasn't won a playoff game, and he
has him meltdown in a playoff game with what four
interceptions when he had three all regular season, and then
in the last playoff game and they were up what
twenty seven to nothing and lose the game or some
whatever the numbers were a few years back, it's like,
well he's not good, Like can we I know, we
need hot takes. People want the takes. They're here for
(30:22):
the takes. Okay, I just remember, like, go look up
a pro football reference Peyton Manning. Go look up his
first five years in the league, five playing quarterback, not
sitting like Jordan Love. First five years, zero playoff wins.
He had three playoff games, completetion percentage under sixty percent,
(30:43):
two of them were under I think under fifty percent.
And and now that social media didn't exist, so we
weren't like, wait a minute, maybe Peyton's not the guy
that that wasn't like a thing because you would watch
Peyton Manning falter in the playoffs and there's no bag,
a phone, online, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter to just shout and
(31:05):
just blast him, and you know, you get fans all
over the country doing it, and it's like, oh he stinks,
and I just I just it just seems a little overreact,
a little reaction. Rob Let me ask you one other thing.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
You and I are in agreement that the games this weekend,
for Walkcard weekend were terrible.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Right, Yeah, except for Sunday night.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, I myself did not watch a lot of pregame
shows halftime shows, did you? And if you didn't, did
you see any clips from the halftime show or pregame
show or postgame show where the studio hosts the analysts
were ripping the quality of play and the players and
(31:58):
the teams and the coaches. Did you see any trashing?
Now it's possible I missed it.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
But did you see any clips circulating?
Speaker 4 (32:05):
I did not. The closest I saw to that was
some Rob Gronkowski commentary which was actually a replay of
before the Mike Rabel hire where it was it was
him going off about the Girodmeo fail. So okay, But
as far as the football itself.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
No interesting. Did you see anybody call.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Mike Tomlin like a choke artist or a loser or
any anybody credible on television?
Speaker 4 (32:31):
I believe so, but not that harshly. It was, Oh,
maybe they got to move on?
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Who?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Who?
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Who said that I want to say. Jimmy Johnson was
one who said.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
That, Oh Jimmy Okay, Now that okay. So that's what
I'm looking for. And you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
This is the Barklay thing. So one of the guys
on my men's basketball team, I hadn't seen him in
a few weeks. I see him and we're talking about
the upcoming season, and he goes, Hey, what happened with
you and Charles Barkley? And I started laughing because usually
we just talk about hoops and life and kids and
volleyball because our daughters play volleyball. And he's like, yeah,
that was a big story. I had people hit me
(33:04):
up and be like, yo, you're friends with j mac right,
what happened with him in Barkley? You play basketball with Jason?
And I was like, I guess it went viral, you know,
I guess he didn't hear that that was you know,
Rob g fed me that bad boy and Barkley should
have come after you. It was a great take, and
I expounded and then JJ Reddick took the baton and
(33:26):
ran it, you know whatever. But I found it interesting
that he asked about that, and then I thought about
it Barkley and how, oh my gosh, if the Detroit
Pistons made the playoffs and lost the first game by
thirty seven, he would be making a total mockery and
just trash the Detroit Pistons. And I'm wondering why, Rob
(33:49):
does this happen in basketball all the time with inside
the NBA, and yet it never happens with NBC, CBS
or Fox because you can even toss the ESPN. I
I haven't watched the pregame show ever, but pregame, postgame whatever.
Maybe Sports Center is different, but I'm just talking about
studio shows, shoulder programming around the games.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
The simple answer is the partners of the NFL and
the analyst they have on TV watch the games. M.
Charles Barkley admittedly famously has said he does not watch
the games. He has fallen asleep. They make jokes about
it on the broadcast off him falling asleep during playoff games.
(34:34):
There is an entire segment built into the show. Again,
it's entertaining as help, but there is entire segment build
into the show where they say, hey, here's the name,
here's a face, Charles, what team does he play for? No? Nine?
Hears in the time he gets him wrong. Now, I
don't know about you, but even me, as a fan
who has to cover all the sports, can get some
(34:56):
of these. If you only got to worry about one
and you can't do it, that kind of says a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Okay, let me let's do that real quick. I didn't
know this was a game, so.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
I'm not gonna I think it's called who he played for.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
I'm not going to.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Tell you what team. Isaiah Collier Utah Jazz.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Do you know that because he went off?
Speaker 1 (35:18):
No?
Speaker 4 (35:18):
I know that because he went He went viral on
Sunday for in the last minute of the game calling
Sexon's calling for the ball after an inbound and Collier
waves him off and gets eight second violation because I
didn't pass half court.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Oh so that was kind of funny, all right.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Jordan Hawkins Jordan Pelicans, Okay, okay to and oh Justin Champagne.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Spurs close because I think you let me check. I
think he was Spurs last year. He's on the Wizards now, Ah,
I guess there's two Champagnes.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
But he didn't play for the Spurs. But he's don't
watch it like like that.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
This is.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
It's probably a two way guy. They lost by forty
to the thunder whatever. But yeah, like you're Charles Barkley,
you gotta know that now. Then again, I football is different.
You can't ask me where back what teams backup lineman
played for.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
I ain't gonna know, right.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
You know, if we limited the starters, you're probably gonna
clip it ninety five percent and I would probably get
ninety five. But yeah, I just I did find that odd.
It's not it's not a total shot at Barkley. It
kind of is, But I just I didn't see any
and there was Listen, there's plenty to be potentially negative about, right,
(36:36):
Mike Tomlin.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
Right, well, even even something as simple as this. Right,
we open the show talking about Jan Daniels. Jane Daniels
was fantastic on Sunday Night, but what he did was
incredible on the road. Rookie quarterback gets the win, he's
gonna go face, he's probably gonna lose to be Oscards.
He's to Detroit. If this was an nbaight segment, if
this was inside the NBA, they'd probably say, hey, great
game by that young kid. But they're gonna get their
(36:58):
doors blown off in the second round. Like, that's not
the story tonight. You know, into Monday morning, the NFL
is going to focus and highlight Look what this guy did,
Look what this young Look what they're building in Washington.
Thursday Friday, when we start really previewing that weekend's game,
then we'll get into it and say, hey, you know what,
as great as Jaye and Daniel is, the reality is
(37:19):
Detroit is just a better team than.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
They're over maxing, right, But.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
That's not the time to have that conversation. And the
way the NBA is built is, yeah, you know, Oklahoma
City is good, but you know they're so small, they're
probably not they're not. They're nothing in the playoffs. The Knicks,
you know, they're not gonna be in the playoffs. The Celtics,
up until last year, they don't win in the playoff.
Jason Tatum always comes up small in the playoffs. Yeah,
And it's like, how are we gonna care about the
(37:44):
regular season on a night to night basis and what
we saw if we're only worried about what happens in April,
May and June.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
And that's yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
I'm cure now.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
The Lamar Jackson one is going to be interesting. He
is ripe for criticism if he doesn't deliver.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
That.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Being said, he's going up against Josh Allen, the likely MVP.
To me, there's no loser in that game. I think
that's the That's an amazing game. It's next Sunday afternoon.
I will do everything in my power to not be
coaching my kids in sports. I think that game's phenomenal.
The rest of the games, Houston at Kansas City, I
see the Chiefs as eight point favorites.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
I don't I didn't think Houston was good.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
I don't care that they ran all over or ran
up some yardage on the Chargers. Ain't no way Mahomes
is throwing four picks. I don't know about laying the eight.
I'll tell you who the teaser pairing is in a second.
And Saturday night is Washington at Detroit Detroit minus eight
and a half.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
I'll tell you right now.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
I already went big on Chiefs teas down to minus
two and Detroit's teas down to minus two and a half. Now, yes,
there's a chance that Jayden Daniel screws that up, but
I'm willing to take that chance. I think it's the
best way to go. I don't know about just the
eight or the eight and a half. The other game
(39:04):
Baltimore Buffalo, I see it's a pick them games in Buffalo.
I'm gonna wait to see the weather because I did
see reports of snow. I gotta be honest, guys, I
have no idea who's winning that game, no read whatsoever.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
It is a legitimate toss up.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
I would not be surprised if the Ravens won or
the Bills. I have no rooting interest. The only interest
I have is whichever team is gonna give me a
better chance to take down the Chiefs. That's who I'm backing.
And then the other game Sunday early game will be
the winner of Vikings Rams at Philly. And I will
say this. The change of venue for the Rams tonight
(39:40):
to Arizona and these terrible, awful fires that have just
crippled Los Angeles, I gotta say, folks, I don't feel
as confident about the Rams as I did. You know,
six days ago. I just I watched the Chargers kind
of melt down there in the second half, and I part,
I think it was a lot of fatigue, but I
(40:03):
started to wonder do they have friends and family impacted
by the fire who are evacuated and lost it. I
don't know. I mean, surely some people on the team
are impacted by some stuff, and is that the case
with the Rams? I don't know the answer to that,
And without getting a clear cut answer, I mean, my
bets are in. I'm not going to buy out of them.
(40:25):
I think if the Rams are able to play their game,
I think they win, but I don't feel as good
as I did before. I will say unequivocally, I'm going
to be on Philadelphia against Minnesota as long as it's
not an exorbitant number.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I think Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Well, Philadelphia will have like an extra day to prepare obviously,
but they don't know who their opponent is. I guess
an extra day of rest, but I would lean as
of now Casey Detroit. Oh, I don't.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
You give me your thoughts on Baltimore Buffalo before. I
honestly don't know who's gonna win that game.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Well, I'm on the record, I'm openly rooting for Lamar Jackson.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
I want to see the coronation at this point, like
I believe he's goninge MVP. I think when the All
Pro votes came out, and historically the quarterback who's first
team All Pro and up turning the MVP. So that's
what I care. But as far as the matchup itself,
Josh Allen against Denver three hundred and eighteen total yars,
two touchdowns, Lamar Jackson against Pittsburgh two fifty six total yards,
(41:23):
two touchdowns. Those guys did it against defenses that are
number three and number eight I think in scoring defense,
and neither guy was ever really threatened after the first quarter.
So for my money, this is whatever the game of
the playoffs. I'm more excited about this game than I
had even potentially about a Super Bowl, Like these are
(41:45):
the two teams that I really wanted to see go
ahead to d and I'm glad it sucks over getting
so early, but I'm excited about that spinning forward to
I guess Tonight's can do that first. There is two
full conversation Number one, as far as the emotionality part
of it, you know, the fires are devastating around here.
I personally know people who have been displaced. I'm sure
you probably do as well. But there was a player
(42:07):
on the Rams who was doing. Was talking to a
reporter on Friday, and he said something to the effect of,
I'm glad that we're here because now I'm just focused
on football. And if he's saying that, I promise you
there's at least twenty thirty percent of the team minimum
who feels the same way. So to your point, are
(42:29):
we sure they're as locked in as they probably should
be for a playoff game? I can't say that's number one.
Number two, And this is the practicality part of it is,
in the last three games that Stafford and the offense
all played, they're only averaging fourteen points a game. Well,
you know, like any way you slice it, this is
not looking great for the Rams. And that was even
(42:50):
when they had home field advantage. It wasn't because they
weren't scoring too well. Now that it's a neutral site,
you got all this devastation. I'm sure a handful of
the staffers are players is either displaced or knows someone
who had to get displaced. And so you know, Minnesota
definitely feels like the side in this one.
Speaker 3 (43:08):
Okay, so we're kind of an agreement.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
I am a little surprised that Lamar Jackson love the
way Derek Can. We ran all over Pittsburgh, and I
saw Buffalo's run defense a little porous.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I have a mild concern there. I just think night game.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Buffalo, it is gonna be a Bonker's crowd. I lean slight,
slight leaned to the Buffalo Bills. But nothing would surprise me.
And I probably won't have a cent on that game.
Maybe some props. All right, long Monday Pod to start
the week. It is a huge week. Yes, we will
get into Notre Dame versus Oh my gosh, for a second,
(43:46):
I spaced on Ohio State first Notre Dame. That's a
big spread as well. I believe that's next Monday night.
So next weekend you get Saturday to NFL, Sunday to NFL,
and one Monday college football in like the final really
great weekend of football before Championship weekend, the super.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Bowl, and then we're in the offseason. We'll be talking
to NBA and all that fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
All right, we're back tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Talk to you
Hosts And Creators
kelvin washington
Rob Parker
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