Aaron Torres & Jason Martin Talk Wild Card Weekend, CFP Semifinals, Deion's Interest in the Raiders & More!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Don't listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome in Everyboday, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday Ertors
Jason Martin. We are broadcasting live from the Tirec dot
Com studios.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Tirec dot Com.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
We'll help you get there an unmatched selection, fast free shipping,
Free road has a protection over ten thousand recommended installers.
Tirec dot Com. The way tire buying should be Ertorus
Jason Martin. We are broadcasting live here at eleven pm
Eastern Baltimore does take care of business against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

(00:37):
That game is officially final. It just went final twenty
and fourteen in Baltimore. Jmart Before we get started, just
really quickly, you know, I just want to say, and
I don't know if you have anything to add, but
trying week for a lot of people across the car.
There's all sorts of crazy weather everywhere, snowsleet, ice, but
also obviously the wildfires here in Los Angeles. If you're

(01:00):
a dedicated Fox Sports Radio listener, we actually had to
close the studios for just a little bit last night
out of an abundance of cautions.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
So listen.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
There's a lot of fun stuff and we were here
to entertain, and we're here to you know, really take
away from the serious stuff in life. Jmart But I
thought I would be I really felt it would be
remiss if we didn't mention off the top, we are
thinking about the people across the Los Angeles and really
across the country, because again, there was all sorts of
crazy weather. But it's been a wild week. I know

(01:30):
people here at Fox Sports Radio have been personally impacted.
So I just wanted to take a moment to just
to just say that.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly right. Certainly the
images and videos that we have watched on this side
of the country of what you guys are going through
out there. Of course I reached out to you so
as you were close to it, and a lot of
the people out there that that I've worked with through
the years are dealing with it on a more you know,
personal level, as well as a lot of the listeners

(01:59):
and things like that. Here there's snow on the ground,
you know, four inches yesterday here, so it's a completely
different story here, but just kind of heartbreaking to view
what we viewed and to hear some of these accounts
and all this, and I did hear what JJ Reddick
may have said. I don't know if it's today or yesterday,
but I mean, he's right. He was just like, I

(02:20):
hate that we can't play because we could be an
escape right now. And of course Reddick lost his house, so,
you know, tough week for him. Hate to hear that.
And I understand his point about wanting to be an
escape for people right now, even though you can't fully
escape this. Anything that can get your mind off it
for a couple of minutes, I'm sure as welcome at
this stage. And if you're having a rough week, then

(02:43):
you know our prayers and thoughts are certainly with you
and with your family, and we'll do our best to
do our job for you as entertainingly as we can
over the next three hours.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Yeah, you know, listen, I've kind of tongue in cheek
joked about my pack and forth with JJ Reddick through
the years that Frank I probably remember a little bit
more vividly than he does at this point. I've disagreed
with a lot of the stuff that he said publicly
as a commentator. As an analyst, I thought he was
a great, uh you know, one, a voice of reason
in this crazy, crazy, crazy time.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
The Lakers were.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Obviously on the road when all this happened, and so
so many of those folks, including JJ Reddick, did not
know what they were coming home to. But you know,
all sorts of comments from JJ Reddick throughout the week,
including the fact that, as you said, uh, he did
lose his home and you know, the community which he
had started to call home in Los Angeles is pretty
much no more. And so again we'll put a we'll

(03:37):
put a bow on this here. But I thought that
JJ did an excellent job throughout the week, you know,
kind of being a voice in a face in Los
Angeles of hey, you know, we're all going through it,
but but we're going.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
To fight through this together.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
And again, I thought JJ Reddick's comments were very you know,
on point and touching and sad frankly, and uh, again,
know that I know that a lot of people are
going through a lot of stuff. If you are listening
wherever you're listening, we hope we can be entertaining for
you for the next three hours. Let's get to the
football and listen. I think we could start with either game.
Let's just go to the one that just went final,

(04:12):
literally less than five minutes ago, as we were coming
on air, Desager told you Baltimore Ravens beat the Pittsburgh
Steelers final score twenty eight to fourteen in Baltimore, just
complete domination by the Ravens. I mean, listen, it was
a two It was a two score game as it
went final, but Baltimore was up twenty eight to seven
late in the third quarter. You know, Pittsburgh got it

(04:34):
within two scores but never really threatened in the fourth.
And you know, I'll say this is that listen, Baltimore
and maybe more specifically Lamar Jackson have their playoff demons
no matter what happens. You know, this game was never
going to be a reflection on whether this season was

(04:54):
quote unquote a success or failure. But I gotta say,
you know, if you're a Ravens fan that's been a
little bit nervous about your team's postseason performances in the past,
this feels like about as good as you could have asked.
For almost five hundred yards of total offense, the X
factor Derrick Henry one hundred and eighty six yards rushing,
two touchdowns, and j mart I don't think I'm you know,

(05:17):
reinventing the hot take wheel here by saying that he
feels like the difference with this team Baltimore wins, but
they have such a dynamic weapon to go alongside Lamar
Jackson this year. Kirk Kurbs Treat was even talking about
it during the game with Al Michaels.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
The fact that when.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
They meet with with teams now used to be about
slowing down, you know, Lamar, Lamar, Lamar, and now a
lot of teams, including the Steelers, really the goal is
don't let Derrick Henry get going, because it makes this
offense so much more deadly. So I could go on
and on, but I just think if there's one takeaway
from this game, if you're a Baltimore fan that's at

(05:53):
all nervous about your playoff history, this was about as
good of a performance as you could ask for.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yes, and everything you just said is right. I think
the biggest thing that Derrick Henry does is takes a
lot of pressure off of Lamar Jackson in the moment
on the field. I mean, I covered the guy's entire
pro career in Tennessee mostly daily as a matter of fact,
until the last couple of years, and you know, I

(06:19):
saw his growth, and I saw when the fans wanted
him traded early in his career to begging for his
MVP candidacy, when he had his two thousand yard season
a couple of years ago, and the Titans' decision to
get rid of Mike Rabel and get rid of Derrick Henry.
They now have the number one pick in the draft,

(06:42):
Derrick Henry maybe having the best overall season of his career,
not in terms of just the yards that he's putting up,
with the impact that he is now having on a
team that absolutely could win the Super Bowl. And then
of course Rabel is the gem of this coaching cycle.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Oh, Jason Martin broke that story a few weeks ago.
You were like, he's going to England. No you or
you were all over, But it's not officially that was
a prediction.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
I don't think I was having to go on too
big of a limb, but uh yeah. But either way,
Like we talk about Saquon and what that means for Philadelphia,
and it's huge. It's the same kind of thing Derrick
Henry allows Lamar Jackson. He gives him just a little
bit more breathing room than he's ever had before. I mean,
consider this, Zay Flowers was his number one target this year.

(07:27):
He didn't play in this game. His leading receiver was
Isaiah Likely, the backup tight end with fifty three yards.
So it was him and Andrews, two tight ends that
had five catches between them. That those were his guys
in this game. But he didn't need it. I mean,
he was sixteen to twenty one in the game for
one to seventy five, but he had a one thirty

(07:47):
two rating because you know, he's still Lamar Jackson. He
could still do all those things. He had eighty one
yards on the ground. But Derrick Henry ran over guys,
stiff arm guys, just like he did five years ago.
He's a cyborg. He is the one of one. When
it comes to he had one big injury in his career.
A lot of people wondered was he going to be
able to come back from that? Well, yes, is the answer.

(08:10):
And he is still a guy no one in the
league is interested in tackling, no one in the league
wants to deal with, especially in the second half of games,
because I think that's what he does, maybe better than
anybody else, and maybe the difference for the Ravens in
a key playoff game is if you can get the lead,

(08:31):
he can make sure that you keep it, because trying
to get the football back from a Baltimore Ravens team
when they're just kind of Boa Constrictor style lading games
is going to be much more difficult with twenty two
out there, except on third downs because a lot of
times he could sometimes be a liability for you there.
And he's not the best pass catching running back you've

(08:53):
ever seen, even though he's gotten better. But he and
Lamar together is just that just seems like nightmare fuel
for a defense.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Well, there's no doubt.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
And I think the other factor two is you know, listen,
I whoever you play, there's gonna be challenges at this point.
But what you mentioned there, you get ahead, you have
the lead, and keep in mind too cold weather, right,
it's not easy. You're gonna be playing almost certainly in
Buffalo and then probably Kansas City. If you'll win in Buffalo,

(09:22):
you're probably gonna play in Kansas City. And it's not
just the ability to get ahead, but it's the ability
to get ahead, it's the ability to move the chains,
it's the ability to keep the other team off the
field in cold weather. And I know that, you know,
it's kind of a cliche talking point, but I do
think it is an important one. I know it's this
feels a little bit premature, and if you have other

(09:43):
takes on tonight, feel free. But obviously, look, Baltimore has
played both Buffalo, who again they're projected to play in
the second round. Buffalo's got to get through Denver tomorrow.
And also they did play Kansas City. But really specifically
the Kansas City one, to me is kind of interesting
because it was obviously, quite literally the first game of
the season. You know, they barely survived Derrick Henry. They're

(10:08):
still trying to figure things out.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
I know it's two rounds ahead.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
It's you know, we don't want to start looking too
far ahead when you got to go to Buffalo next week.
But it's like, I think that's the interesting part as well.
You could sit there and say, well, there's still a
lot of question marks. They lost to Case in week one.
It's like, but this feels like, specifically a completely different
team than the one that went into Arrowhead on that
first Thursday of the season.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
That's true. The only thing you will you will need
to also agree with based on history. Doesn't matter what
you've thought of Kansas City up until this point out.
I know January, Kansas City is a completely different football team.
Mahomes is a completely different animal to face in the
playoffs a lot of times than he has been in
the regular season. So that's a game that's still going

(10:54):
to be very difficult for them should they end up
in that matchup, if they end up hosting Denver, or
if they end up going to Buffalo, or however it's
set up for them. They're the road's going to go
through Arrowhead. That's a tough place to play, and that
team in the playoffs is I just why. That's why
I couldn't pick against them, even if I didn't believe

(11:16):
that their roster was number one going into the season. Overall,
it's just like they got that coach, they've got that quarterback,
they've got that tight end, they've got that defensive wrecker
in Chris Jones. They know what they're doing, especially in January,
and when you match up against them, if something goes
wrong early in the game, are you going to panic?
And we've seen team after team after team, year after

(11:37):
year after year, managed to do that this game. Here
was just Baltimore handling business that they should handle. Now.
This is a this is a tough matchup just because
it's this division rival that hates them and has had
their number a lot in the past. So it's impressive
that they just kind of strangled them out. And that's
what they did. They just they just beat them in

(11:57):
all phases. This game is not as close as the
final score indicate. Never for a second did I think
the Steelers were coming back in this football game. The
first half was almost impossible to watch if you're a
Steelers fan. It was about as bad as it gets
from here on out. This is where we're gonna see
some things. But I mean, Lamar gave you nothing but
what you would want from him in this game. And

(12:18):
certainly Derrick Henry showed the world yet again. And he's
been great in the playoffs pretty much his whole career.
He's been good in all these big moments. You know,
he beat this Baltimore team in the playoffs, and a
lot of it was just largely him being better than
and they watched it, and so they said, we're gonna
go grab that guy, and they did, and luckily for Lamar, Jackson.

(12:40):
Greg Roman is now with the Chargers and not his
OC which I've said for years was his undoing and
one of the reasons they didn't get top flight wide
receivers because I don't think those guys wanted to come
play in a Greg Roman offense. And now you see
what Lamar Jackson looks like, you know, year two with
Monken on the flip side, you see how the Chargers

(13:01):
offense looks, and you see the lack of wide receivers
with the Chargers exactly the same way you saw it
in Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
Well, I'll tell you what.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
We'll get to the Chargers here in just a moment,
because they of course played and there's plenty to discuss
there really quickly to kind of put a bow on
this one. And by the way, we're on till two
am Eastern, so we got plenty more time to break
down this game, the other game, and everything going on
in the world of sports, including three tomorrow and of
course one on Monday.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Really quickly. You know, Pittsburgh Steelers.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Obviously we know how things started for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
We know that they of course lost four straight games
to end the regular season, and they lose a fifth
game here. And it's kind of crazy, right because there
was all the talk, you know, literally six weeks ago,
seven weeks ago, whatever it was of you know, you know,

(13:48):
Mike Tomlin, this is why they pay me the big money,
Russell Wilson career revitalization. And I just bring it up
because going into the playoffs, it was the exact same
conversations that we were having last year about all of
the key participants. Does Mike Tomlin need a fresh start
somewhere else? Is Russell Wilson still an NFL starting quarterback?

(14:09):
And so I guess what I would just ask you
He was fine tonight, but you know, this is being
Russell Wilson. He was fine tonight, but you know he's
obviously just not the guy that he's once been. Just
where are we at with the Steelers, because it feels like, again,
there was a four or five week period where it's like,
oh my god, they fouled something, they filed their quarterback Tomlin.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
We should have never doubted them.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
And now it just feels like the same thing we've
gone through the last two or three offseasons, where this
is kind of a team that congratulations he hadn't finished
below five hundred, but as you could see by these
final few weeks, it just feels like they're nowhere close
to the top of this sport and more specifically the
top of the AFC.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
No they're not. I mean, we all saw this game
coming in terms of how it finished up. Tomlin hasn't
won a playoff game since twenty sixteen. They've usually been
you know, bad losses. They were down double digits sixteen
to the Patriots. They were down three touchdowns to the Jags.
In twenty seventeen. They literally they were down ten nothing.

(15:07):
Then they were down twenty one to nothing. Then in
twenty twenty against Baker Mayfield they were down twenty eight
to nothing. Then in twenty twenty one, the Chiefs had
him thirty five to seven. Twenty twenty three, the Bills
were up three touchdowns on them to start the game,
and the Ravens started this game three touchdowns up and
counting against them. So I actually since that a lot

(15:31):
of Steelers fans are ready to move on from Tomlin,
not because of anything about him other than the fact
that dude's playoff record is below five hundred. And I
think that a lot of them are tired of the
he never has a losing season narrative because pretty much
since that last Super Bowl they haven't had much success whatsoever.

(15:53):
The Roethlisberger era didn't end up netting the kind of
championships that many of them thought that they were going
to get, and they've now watched kind of an antiquated
offense and they really just can't score. They haven't been
able to score consistently for a while, regardless of who
the OC is. In this case, it was Arthur Smith,
who you know, he was a gym in Tennessee and

(16:14):
I think he may get another chance that certainly he's
gonna have some head coaching interviews this cycle. But he's
still a pretty sought after offensive mine and it didn't matter.
I just it feels like the Steelers just looks like
it's stuck in the past. There's just there's nothing dynamic
about it, and there's nothing new, there's nothing fresh, there's nothing,
there's no wrinkle in it that stands out. It still

(16:37):
feels like it felt fifteen years ago. But now you've
got kind of an aged Russell Wilson, who you know,
he's gonna throw a couple of deep balls. To George Pickens.
And outside of that, if you can stop Naji Harris,
who had six full carries tonight for seventeen total yards.
In this game, you know it's gonna be about the defense.
And eventually t J. Watt and Cam Hayward and high

(17:00):
Smith and Mika Fitzpatrick and all those defensive guys just
get tired out there. And in that first half they
were out there more than twenty minutes of that thirty minutes.
And that's the other Derrick Henry effect is the clock
just keeps on chewing. That defense was gassed by halftime.
It gave up that touchdown, and you knew it was

(17:20):
over when it got to twenty one. Nothing that touchdown
with two seconds left and a half, we could just
turn the game off. I mean, yes, it ends up
being twenty eight to fourteen. They scored a couple of
touchdowns in the second half. Nobody thought they were coming back.
There was no there was no indicator of that, and
it didn't happen. They just got a couple scores made
it look a little bit more respectful, respectable, but it's

(17:41):
just a Steelers team that walked in that felt dead
man walking and walked out.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
It's interesting if you just think big picture of the NFL,
think about every team, and we'll be quick here because
we got to come back talk about the other game.
Think about all the teams in the NFL, and like,
even the teams that aren't good, the reasons for exciting
going into the off season. The Patriots, Drake May and
you know, it seems like, you know, Mike Vrabel coming

(18:06):
into town. You know, the Raiders were certainly gonna talk about,
you know, what their coaching QB situation may look like
here in the coming weeks. You know, you go on
and on down list even the bad teams, there's reason
for excitement. There's reason for enthusiasm. The Atlanta Falcons, what's
going to becoming Michael Pennix. The Carolina Panthers, Bryce Young

(18:27):
played well down the stretch. And then you look at
the Pittsburgh Steelers and it just feels like we're running
the same thing back. And by the way, whether it's
Russell Wilson, whether it's somebody else, it's just like you said,
it doesn't feel like they have kind of evolved.

Speaker 3 (18:41):
With the times in the NFL.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
And it certainly sets up for you know, a pseudo
interesting offseason in Pittsburgh. From the perspective that it will
be interesting, it doesn't change the fact that I don't
think very much is gonna change, even after a disappointing
end of the season. This is Fox Sports Radio eron Toaurus,
Jason Martin, broadcasting from the tyreck dot com studios. Welcome back,
and boy, oh boy, oh boy, we gotta have a

(19:07):
conversation about Justin Herbert, Hide the kids, Hide the children.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
We'll be back Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
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 (19:28):
Welcome back everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Heritor j.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Smartin.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
We are broadcasting live from the tyreck dot com studios.
We will get to the second game, well second game
which was really the first game we just broke down
Baltimore Pittsburgh which just went final. We'll get to the
Chargers and Texans in just a moment before we do
the first time this evening, Let's get it over the
news desk, same to Saga, watch trending.

Speaker 5 (19:51):
Hello, gentlemen, and we'll get to the home playoff wins
for Baltimore and Houston. Thank you for mentioning the things
going on in various states, not just La at the
top of the hour. But I must ask, as you've
brought up Pasadena before on the show your experiences this week.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
I'll try to be brief. My wife and I did
choose to evacuate. We did not get an order on
Tuesday night. I'll try to be quick. But as everybody
that lives in LA knows, but for people who don't,
the concerns weren't just the fires. It was the record
setting winds with the fires, and so you know, very sad.

(20:29):
The fires got to about four or five miles from
where I live. We live in a little bit of
a gated community, and I realized that with one hundred
mile an hour winds, even if we're safe in the moment,
one down tree would knock out the electricity. I wouldn't
be able to get out of my garage and I
would be sitting there.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
And so.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
What I would say is, I'm very fortunate. We came
back Thursday morning. We didn't even lose power. Certainly a
lot of down branches. The air quality wasn't good. But
I also told you and everybody during the break. I
live probably about a half a mile from the Pasadena
Convention Center, which is where people are being evacuated too,
and it's you know, it's amongst the saddest things I've

(21:10):
ever seen.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
I mean, it looks stuffed on the local news.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
I mean I was there at probably eight am yesterday,
that would have been Friday morning, and it was everybody
just trying to find ten feet of space personal space,
and most people seem to have the clothes on their
back and not much else.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
It was very, very tough to see with my own eyes.

Speaker 5 (21:28):
I heard one story on the news today of somebody
that her house burned down, so she was going to
go stay at her boyfriend's house, and her boyfriend's house
had burned down. Yeah, it was just an astounding amount
of stories and disager.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
You've been in LA longer, this is pretty unprecedented.

Speaker 5 (21:46):
Right for Los Angeles proper. Yeah, I don't remember anything
like this.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, my wife's an LA girl. She's been here since
she was four, so I don't want to age her,
but you know, let's just say late eighties. Will say
she got to Los Angeles and she said she's never
seen anything like this.

Speaker 5 (22:01):
Yeah, let me just go one more paragraph that during
last night's show here in LA, we were told off
the air we might finish the show or we might
have to leave, And as it turned out, we finished
the show at eleven pm Pacific, and then, amazingly, this
a network that's always live, twenty four to seven had
recorded programming until this morning. Now we've been back live
from LA all day. But our area of Los Angeles

(22:23):
is north of Ucla, very near the four or five freeway.
It's under an evacuation warning. But on the other side
of the freeway, the west side, it's a mandatory evacuation.

Speaker 6 (22:33):
And those nearby.

Speaker 5 (22:34):
Hills had been burning all day and night south of
the town of Andence, you know John Wooden's old neighborhood.
The various fires in LA have been going on since Tuesday.
Even if you weren't in a direct fire area here
in the San Fernando Valle, you've probably awakened to find
your car covered with some ash. And then you know,
when we were cleaning up outside for hours one day
this week, a mask was absolutely necessary. The air was

(22:56):
quite bad then it's been for these people in those
specific neighborhoods. I just can't imagine what they've been going through.
And it's not over, So let's get to the NFL playoffs.
The fun and games department is one of the great
aspects of sports, quite honestly, and needed this week as well.
Baltimore and Houston each won playoff games at home to
open wild card weekend. How about this from Derrick Henry.

(23:18):
First half against the Steelers tonight, thirteen carries one hundred yards,
one touchdown. Second half thirteen carries eighty six yards, one touchdown,
so one eighty six total on the ground. Ravens won
their fifth straight game beat Pittsburgh twenty eight to fourteen.
The Pittsburgh Steelers allowed the most yards rushing in any

(23:39):
playoff game they've ever had, breaking Lamart's set by the
Oakland Raiders against them over fifty years ago because Lamar
Jackson had over eighty yards rushing tonight as well, twenty
eight to fourteen the final earlier, Houston beat the Chargers
thirty two to twelve. Chargers actually led six to nothing
late first half. Joe Mixon one hundred six yards rushing.
The Falcons fired defense. It's a coordinator, Jimmy Lake. After

(24:01):
one season, there's one late game in the NBA, and
the Miami heat up seventy to sixty four at Portland
mid third quarter. Houston and Atlanta postponed by the winter storm.
Lakers home game postpone, Clippers home game postponed due to
the fires in LA.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Back to you, Thank you very much, Steve Sager.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
This is Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday aeron towards
Jason Martin, broadcasting live from the tyreck dot Com studios. Again,
speak for everybody here at Fox Sports Radio. Hope everybody
in the Los Angeles area and beyond is doing okay.
And of course I know that there was a lot
of other weather situations across the country as well.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
We'll stick with football, and we'll stick with.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
A game.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
I don't really know how to describe JR. Jmart It's
almost like, you know, like this week in college football,
I didn't really hear anybody making the argument that Texas
was going to beat Ohio State. And then, of course
it's the middle of the third quarter, beginning of the
fourth quarteror whatever, it's fourteen fourteen, you think Texas could win.
I bring it up because we'll get to college football
in a minute. I didn't really hear anybody making the

(25:04):
argument that the Texans were just gonna lay the smack
down on the Chargers, and maybe you heard something that
I didn't.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
I haven't.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
I didn't hear anybody say that, but it was indeed
a SmackDown. Thirty two to twelve was the final score.
But the big story Justin Herbert fourteen of thirty two passing,
one touchdown, four interceptions. Now, in Justin Herbert's defense a
little bit, a couple of the passes were balls that
hit his receivers in the hands that they didn't catch

(25:32):
and then we're deflected. It does not take away from
the fact that fourteen of thirty two will never get
it done for any quarterback at any level. And there's
a lot of conversations right now, Jay Martin about was
this guy elevated too quickly, too soon?

Speaker 1 (25:44):
This that?

Speaker 3 (25:45):
The other thing the floor is yours. J mart give
me your hottest Justin Herbert take playoffs.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Fifty one percent completion, two touchdowns, four picks, sixty two
rating zero and two. That is the Justin Herberts stat line.
Nobody loses to the AFC South in the playoffs quite
like Justin Herbert. We were on air for one of them.
That's exactly right. And we were calling for Brandon Staley's

(26:12):
neck after that game. When it came to his future employment,
he came back for another year. We're like, oh, we've
handcuffed Justin Herbert. We put something behind his back, put
his hands behind his back, and asked him to do
all this. He didn't have that many weapons. Da da
da da. And then here comes Jim Harbaugh and the
culture changes a little bit. Defense is playing a lot

(26:32):
more inspired football throughout the season. But we can't help
but notice outside of lab McConkey, there's not a whole
lot there. Keenan Allen is not there anymore, Williams is
not there anymore. A lot of what you had come
to expect is not there. And Greg Roman is the
offensive coordinator. But Justin Herbert is now zero to two

(26:53):
in the playoffs and has had two ugly performances. This
was just a bad day for him. Yes, will Disley
just handed the ball basically twice to the Houston Texans defense.
And the Texans are a very very good defense and
they took advantage of this. But also Herbert didn't play well. Herbert,

(27:14):
at least one of those picks. He was just flat
out high trying to throw Tom macaukey. It went and
it would have been an easy completion if it had
just been on target, and it wasn't. Herbert was being
pressured the whole game because they knew that they could
get to him, and they did. The offensive line didn't
have a good day for either one of these two teams.
But I think this is where we come with Justin Herbert.

(27:37):
We have been told relentlessly by national media, especially by
analytics people, by football lifers, about how special, how one
of a kind, how outrageously good Justin Herbert is. Just wait,
just wait, I promise you he's going to be eventually.

(28:01):
You are only if all you are is potential, then
you haven't done anything. The potential eventually has to become realized.
It has to actualize itself. And the one thing that
we do know about Justin Herbert this, if we want
to talk about his weapons and all these other kinds
of things, it is he is certainly not someone that

(28:21):
is going to go win without weapons. He is certainly
not someone that's going to be able to get the
job done in the postseason, at least to this point,
because that narrative is going to stick until it doesn't.
And you can start comparing him to all sorts of quarterbacks,
but we need to stop with the He's top five
in the league. He's right there with Burrow and Lamar
Jackson and Josh Allen and Pact. We can't do this anymore.

(28:42):
But we just can't. He's going to have to show
more than this. There is no quarterback that we would
give this kind of a pass to. At this point,
you want to call him Trevor Lawrence, like I think
that's we're getting there. But here's my comparison. He's still young,
good head on his shoulders, likable young man, no question

(29:03):
about it, looks like a leader, all of those things.
But he's stuck in a bad situation and so far
he's come up kind of small. And so you have
this this kind of difference. You've got this dichotomy between
people that are just complete evangelists for him and people
that are completely out on him. And here's what he
reminds me of at this stage. He reminds me of

(29:26):
Matthew Stafford with the Detroit Lions. A guy that has
huge arm talent. Oh, he makes throws almost nobody else
in this league can make Oh my goodness, Matthew Stafford.
He is top five in the league, never winning playoff games,
never even getting to play in playoff games. Coach after
coach after coach coming through, offensive coordinator after offensive coordinator
coming in. But they never had any weapons for him

(29:49):
outside of Calvin Johnson. You know, d no, no, no
da down the line. Now here's Justin Herbert, another big guy,
another guy with a huge arm, throws a really pretty ball.
All of that, no postseason success. Now the question is,
does Justin Herbert have an La Rams version of himself
in him later in his career? Is he gonna play

(30:09):
with the Chargers the whole time and win? I have
no idea, but I think at this point it is
fair to look at him and say we better be
critical of him because we give no one else passes
at this stage when these kinds of things continue to happen.
He had a bad day against a team in the
Texans that I just feel like most people thought we

(30:30):
was gonna walk in and be done. I mean, they
had no Stefan Diggs, they had no Tank Dell. Their
offensive line is an embarrassment to eyesight in general. Just horrible,
and they basically walked all over the Chargers because their
defense just own Justin Herbert all night long. And I

(30:50):
think it's fair at this point to look at Justin
Herbert and say, we better be critical of him, and
we need to take him off this pedestal and allow
him to play himself there as posed to just Oh
what a great ball he throws and did you see
this play? We can't get caught in that mix anymore.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Well, I'll tell you what, Jmart, you covered a lot
of ground there. Why don't we come back and continue
this Justin Herbert conversation? Cuz as great as Baltimore Pittsburgh was,
and as great as Houston looked at times, Justin Herbert
was certainly the biggest story of Saturday's two playoff games. Again,
Chargers lose thirty two to twelve. By the way, the
one touchdown was kind of flukey on top of it.

(31:27):
You know, Lad mccackey basically breaks one tackle, takes it
like ninety yards.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
So we got to come back.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
There's more on the Justin Herbert tree to to kind
of tear it down, not tear it down, but you know,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Like there's more, there's more here that.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
We got to get to come back, continue the conversation
on Justin Herbert because there is a lot to dive
into twelve of thirty two, one touchdown, four interceptions.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
We're going to continue the conversation next Fox Sports.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Are you don't listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio?

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Welcome back everybody, Fox Sports Radio. All right, before the break, Jmart,
we were talking about we were talking about Justin Herbert
not only a day to forget, but but kind of
a continuation of a frustrating trend if you're a Chargers fan.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Has that been great in the playoffs?

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Obviously had a solid regular season, but even let me
even ask you this, Jamar before we get back to
the postseason and today, Like how would you grade Justin
Herbert in the regular season? Like every time I watch
the Chargers he felt to me like the most naturally
gifted system quarterback that I've ever seen. From the perspective

(32:38):
of I'm just trying to think of, like who are
the guys that kind of had assistem Like we know
the quarterbacks that not too much is put on their plate,
run the football, play defense, don't beat us, and you
know you can name the guys through the years, right,
that's kind of just I like, Justin Herbert never really

(32:58):
wowed me in the right degular season this year. Now,
you could argue individual moments for sure, but I don't
feel like and I understand it was by design based
on the limitations of some of the wide receivers and etc.
And obviously the strength is the O line in the
run game, but I never felt like Justin Herbert had
those moments every single week that we said like wow,

(33:22):
the same way that we did with Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson,
Joe Burrow. First of all, let me just ask you simply,
is that fair for me to say? Am I being
too critical?

Speaker 1 (33:29):
No? Man, I definitely think it's fair. I think that
I think that Justin Herbert does a couple of wow
things that sometimes gets blown out of proportion, like he
does them all the time. And the truth of the
matter is the Chargers won because of their defense yep,
this year, far more than anything the offense did. And yes,
he had deficiencies. I mean, his rookie Lad McConkie was

(33:50):
the guy that he could rely on this year, and
he pretty much had nobody else consistently as a target,
but eventually something has to be done about that or
he's in a fail situation. But he certainly didn't elevate
guys when it came down. I mean, he had three
interceptions on the season, famously had four in this game,
so he had more in one game than he did

(34:11):
in all of the year. But I mean, he had
twenty three touchdowns and three interceptions. It's good, but I
mean in terms of yards, thirty eight hundred yards, so
not four thousand he was. I mean, he was good,
but not like elite of elite the way that he
has often talked about. I think the biggest thing with

(34:31):
him is and it's not anything he's doing, but there
was just a narrative and a christening done of Justin
Herbert very early in his run, like early in his
second year. You started hearing people talk about it, and
he became an internet superstar when it came to social media,
NFL accounts, just talking about what a phenomenal talent he

(34:54):
was and all this stuff. And it just hasn't panned
out in terms of what we've seen in these playoff
games or in a really any meaningful game, Like he
just hasn't had that kind of a marquee moment yet,
and there's been a lot of guys where it has
taken a while. But I think that usually you wait
to give them the accolades until after they've done it,

(35:15):
and with Herbert it was the opposite.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
So I agree on all that.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
And when I look at it, to me, first of all,
in terms of, you know, the the criticism versus whatever,
I do think we're at the point where, listen, whether
it's Josh Allen, whether it's Lamar Jackson, whoever, if you
are an elite quarterback, I understand that the weapons are
this and that there's there's a lot of variables. Okay,
we all get that. But at the same time, if

(35:39):
you are an elite quarterback, you figure out a way
to elevate. And when we say elevate, it's not, oh,
if you don't win a Super Bowl, you're a bust,
but it's like you do kind of got to get
out of the first round to geinst the Texans team
that wasn't very good this year, Like if you're truly elite,
like like at some point you do got to do that.
And I think the other thing that that kind of
stands out to me. I was thinking about when you

(36:00):
were talking last segment, is like we're all fans of sports,
and you know, whether it was you think about some
of the great eras in sports, right when Tom Brady
was at the top in the NFL, or when you know,
Michael Jordan was a star in the NBA, Like there
were those guys that were, like, you know, just a
tier below Michael Jordan, but they weren't quite the same player.

(36:23):
And then there were guys that, like you tried to
elevate to that level and they weren't even there.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
You know.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
So as an example, like who would we say, are
like some of the great contemporaries of like Michael Jordan's
time that weren't quite Michael Jordan, you know, Charles Barkley,
Patrick Ewing, whatever.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
Carl lolone. Yeah, right, and then there's like that tier
that's even below that.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
That's like, Okay, Clyde Drexler had like a moment, but
Clyde Drexler wasn't he I don't even think he was
in that Patrick Ewing class, if you will, Hakeem Olajuan whoever.
I'm just using that as a hypothetical, maybe more recently,
you would say Lebron was the guy. D Wade was
that next tier then, like Mellow was really good, but
he was never really in that elleite elite.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
I think it's easier to look at that than it
is to try and go back and figure out. I
don't know who else we were trying to elevate that
would be a step below a step, but I think
that you can definitely do it in today's NBA. I
think Mellow's a really good example because Mello had incredible
offensive talent throughout his entire career and pretty much never

(37:23):
won anything of note.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, but he wasn't in that like he had. I
think it's basically how I'm described. We just described Justin
Herbert like he had those really incredible moments, but they
weren't sustainable. And we don't think of Melo the way
we do. Even d Wade let alone a Lebron, and
I think Justin Herbert his career is trending that way.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
Now.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Again, he's not even twenty seven years old. Yet he's
got a great head coach. This was year one. There's
plenty of time, but I do think you know, Lamar's
basically his age.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Josh Allen's basically his age, and.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
They've had more meaningful postseason moments even if they haven't made.

Speaker 3 (37:58):
A Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
So I guess that's just the point and I'm trying
to make is that I think historically there's like the
guy Guy Guy, which is Brady Mahomes, Jordan Lebron, whatever.
Then there's that tier below, and then there's that tier
below that. And I think right now Justin Herbert is
in that third tier. I don't even think he's in
that Joe Burrow, Lamar whatever tier, let alone the Patrick
Mahomes here, there's time to get there. But you know

(38:19):
what I'm saying, I hope that it was a long
wind away, but I hope that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
I mean, I like, I don't want a dog on
the guy, because I understand that there were some challenges there.
But at the same time, like I'm already seeing the
apologists out here, I'm already seeing the articles being written
that this isn't his fault and he's still going to
prove it. Okay, okay, great, but he needs to actually
do it. Like we were getting that territory where you
can't bet on it anymore, Like take away the name

(38:44):
Justin Herbert, and instead of Justin Herbert, you can look
at the same stats during the regular season. You can
look at then the same stat line that happened today.
Take the name Justin Herbert out and put the name
Dak Prescott in And how are you talking about it? Bingo,
Take Justin and Herbert's name out and put Kirk Cousin's
name in it. How are you talking about it? That's

(39:05):
where the that's where the disconnect is. Eventually, you are
what your stats and what's your record and all these
things are You are judged as a quarterback in this
league about what you can do in the postseason. And
so far, Justin Herbert has done bupkiss, He's done squat
in the postseason. And I still I don't think we

(39:26):
can give him a pass for that anymore. I don't
think that's fair the way we criticize other quarterbacks.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
I think that's totally fair and think it speaks to
the fact that there's still plenty of time, but he's
got to figure it out. Fox Sports Radio ra Tours
Jason Martin, We'll go from the NFL to college. The
championship is set, there's still a lot to discuss Fox
Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Welcome in everybody, hour two tourres and Martin Fox Sports Radio.
We are broadcasting live from the tai iraq dot Com
studios ti iraq dot Com. We'll help you get there
an unmatched selection, fast free shipping, free road hazard protection,
and over ten thousand recommended installers. Tyreck dot com the

(40:09):
way tire buying should be Ra Torris Jason mart taking
up till two am Eastern time. As de Seger just
told you, two NFL playoff games are in the books.
The most recent one ended about an hour ago. Baltimore
twenty eight, Pittsburgh fourteen. In the early game, Houston running
away from the Los Angeles Chargers thirty two to twelve,

(40:30):
Justin Herbert with four interceptions. We just spent our one
talking about those two games. We will revisit them in
just a little bit, and of course look ahead to
four awesome games coming up on Sunday and Monday. Before
we do, though, Jamart, NFL is the only playoff that's
going on right now. We got a college football playoff

(40:51):
going on. We are down to two teams. Ohio State,
of course, took care of business against Texas on Friday night,
of whorse, the late strip and score sealed the victory
for the Ohio State buck Guys. On Thursday night, the
Notre Dame Fighting Iris, thanks to a late field goal,
did take care of business against the Penn State. Nitney lyons,

(41:13):
I'm gonna give you the floor. I'm gonna say, I
little choose your own adventure. Notre Dame beating Penn State
twenty seven to twenty four, Ohio State beating Texas twenty
eight to fourteen. Which one are you, Jason Martin more
interested in talking about first?

Speaker 1 (41:26):
I mean, both games were dramatic and fun to watch.
I was very happy with both in kind of the final.
Just the final takeaway of watching both those games, they
were both worthy semi finals. All four teams played really,
really hard. You had some dramatic moments and some big
time plays made in both those games. I think that

(41:51):
Penn State Notre Dame maybe is where I would start,
just because there is something about this Dame team that
feels a little bit special, and they seem to. It's
not that they're getting all the bounces, it's that they're
playing really smart football, like they're doing smart things they're
doing clever things, but they seemingly let other teams beat themselves,

(42:16):
Like Riley Leonard. I would even say across the board, actually,
these four quarterbacks, you might not get a collection of
like four more at this stage in their career in
terms of what you're looking at in what they could
do in the future. Maybe more mediocre guys in a
semi final than these four guys. I mean, let's just

(42:37):
be honest. Really, Klton Aller maybe ends up the best
of all of them, and he had the worst performance
of the four.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
I want to let you keep going, but I was
thinking about how crazy it is. And I know college
is just a byproduct of any given year.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
You just never know.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Last year it was awesome with Pennix and bon Nicks,
et cetera. It is crazy, though, how the NFL is
a totally quarterback driven sport and college all of the
quarterback who are still in this playoff. I don't know
how to say it delicately. I wouldn't really trust all
that much. I mean, even Will Howard. He's got plenty
of weapons, but I don't know that I trust him individually.
But go ahead, keep going, Jamarin.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, I mean Riley Leonard is like a more athletic
version of Daniel Jones, basically who doesn't throw the ball
as well as Daniel Jones does. But Marcus Freeman and
the coaching staff I find that really interesting. But really,
I mean, I think it's hard to talk about one
without talking about the other because I felt like two
big decisions in this game, maybe, or in those two games,
maybe determine the outcome of both of them. One, Let's

(43:33):
let Drew Aller throw a pass in the final minute
of the game on our side of the field when
he hasn't completed a pass to a wide receiver all night.
And then on second down from the two yard line
against Ohio States defense, let's do a toss sweep to
the left and lose five yards from a shotgun position

(43:54):
off the snap, as opposed to just I don't know,
putting in Arch doing anything else in that moment if
Arch had been concosted or knocked out earlier, and I
have no idea, but like what you did cost you
five six yards and then directly led to that. Now,
what will be a famous play by Jack Sawyer that

(44:15):
Ohio State people will talk about until the end of time,
And that play never happens. If you don't call that,
I gotta say it, man. It was just a boneheaded choice. Like,
those are two decisions made by those two coaches that
they will probably never be able to fully live down
because they were both just complete self inflicted mistakes.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
Somebody was asking me before the show.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
I forget if it was Ian or Brandon in the back,
but somebody was like, what did you make of the
sark thing? And it's like, there's just no good explanation.
And I know you're not on social media, but generally
when everybody on social media agrees on something, generally they're
they're kind of idiots.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
I mean, you know what you fill in the blank.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yeah, I bring it up because everybody immediately was like,
what was that play call? And I think everybody was right.
I think it was totally fair to ask. And I
think more specifically, it was fair to ask because, as
you said, arch Manning, for whatever reason, you have not
decided to Benchquin yours. That's another conversation that you know

(45:14):
at this point is kind of moot. Doesn't even matter.
But the one thing that you did establish that you
were comfortable doing was putting arch Manning in on short
down short yardage situations, you're on the goal line, you
get the first down because of the past interference. It's
like that, you know, we can get to Aller in
a second. But that was one of the most shocking things,

(45:36):
one of the most dumb things. That obviously set up
the strip and scorees to play later, but that was
for an otherwise I think pretty sharp coach and Steve Sarkishan.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
That was just stunning.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
It really yeah, I just I just there was no
I mean, sure, okay, he gets in the end zone.
What are we saying. We're like, boy, that was risky,
but it's but it works. But when it doesn't work,
this is the result. Like the risk there. The first
thing is all right, so they've had this stingy goal
line defense all year, had that famous stand against Penn
State earlier in the year. Ohio State may stop you

(46:06):
if you go four times straight at them. Yeah, but
I don't think the idea then should be all right,
we're gonna take quinn Ewers and put him in shotgun
and we're then gonna do a toss suite to the
left side on the outside. But we have to get
five yards just to get where we started. From that's like.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
Against it, I'm gonna give up with NFL everywhere, with
speed everywhere, Like it just it defied reason, Like I can, honestly,
of the two, that's the more egregious one.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
I can. I can. I don't like what Penn State
did either, but I I feel like of the two,
the Texas mistake was was more massive to say the least.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
I think there's no doubt and I mean I think
the Penn State one.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
I I was a little surprised that.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
You know, listen, I'm not here to criticize other media
members because I think everybody mostly for the most part
in our business like works hard and does Like if
you're calling a college football playoff game, you clearly are
qualified to do the job. But like Greg McElroy being like, well,
Drew Aller, I would let him loose because he just
doesn't make mistakes. And it's like it's kind of what
we were saying about justin Herbert last hour. It's like, yeah,

(47:18):
he doesn't make mistakes because his team doesn't really put
him in position to make mistakes. And I go back
to you just have to look at the most recent games,
even before the semi final Boise thirteen of twenty five
passing one hundred and seventy one yards. Yeah, he had
three touchdowns. It's fifty two percent completion percentage. Thirteen of
twenty two against SMU didn't really matter because SMU gifted

(47:41):
Penn State a bunch of points. Even the Oregon game
that we remember as this incredible coming out party for
the Penn State offense, Drew Aller twenty of thirty nine
and he did have three touchdowns, also had two interceptions.
I just found it weird that even during the broadcast,
it was like you would have thought it was like,
you know, Russell Wilson has probam just drell or Cook.
I'm like, I don't know, You've been running the ball

(48:03):
pretty well all game, you know. Notre Dame it was
clearly by the end of that game, and even coming
into the game, I think the more banged up team.
I know Abdul Carter was hurt, but I think as
a collective team, Notre Dame had two offensive linemen out
Riley Leonard in and out of Kukushia Protocol. Love had
a big brace on his knee. Listen, I'll say this,

(48:23):
jam Mark, because I want to get it back to you.
I thought it was a little aggressive to oh, here's
James Franklin again in a game that didn't matter. I
didn't think that was a James Franklin, like the worst
loss that I've ever seen. I just did not agree
with the idea that, oh, just let drewal or Cook
because he's not gonna beat you.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I man, he
looked man earlier in the game.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
I'll say this. So he tries to throw an interception
in the end zone in the in the left corner
of the end zone. They end up calling that PI
and so it doesn't end up being costly. I'm literally screaming,
like out loud, I said, what are you doing? Because
they were just running the ball and they were running
it down their throat outside of Warren, they were just

(49:08):
running the ball at Notre Dame, and both Allen and
especially Singleton were doing a great job, and I was
just like, why are you throwing the ball for the
end zone? And I immediately before the ball was even
like while I was still in the air, I said,
what are you doing? And then he ends up getting
saved by that, and it's just kind of like Aler
has not been accurate tonight. He hasn't been making great

(49:29):
decisions tonight. This Notre Dame defense is just waiting for
him to make a mistake because they may have the
best secondary in the country and they're just sitting there
waiting for Drew Aller to throw the football to him.
And that's exactly what he did. It's just a play
you can't make. And to McElroy and listen to his defense.
But this is what you get sometimes when you have

(49:52):
quarterbacks in the booth as analysts, is that they're always
going to seed more ground to the idea that the
quarterbacks should be a allowed to go make the play.
And in this case, mackilroy was just flat wrong.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Well, can I him?

Speaker 1 (50:05):
State had a much better chance to just run the
ball and then go to overtime on a short field
and then we'll see whether or not. You know, Riley
Leonard's going to cough it up again, because Roley Leonard
coughed it up twice in the game. Their defense was
still playing very well against Notre Dame. There was no
reason to think you couldn't win that thing in overtime.
I understand wanting to win it in regulation, but not

(50:27):
when you haven't thrown a completion to a wide receiver
all night long. Call that's what I'm gonna go do.
That's gonna be the play call at that point in time.
I just I fail to see the logic there.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
That's probably the most important point that neither of us
had brought up to that point is you had not
completed a pass to a wide receiver at all, at
all at that point really quickly on that game. Do
you like We've both been very critical of James Franklin
and I listen, He's won in fifteen against top five teams,
and so I think it's largely justifiable. I do think

(51:01):
it's kind of weird. Like, I'm still not totally sure
if like how good Penn State was. Okay, lost to
the three best teams on the schedule, Oregon, Ohio State,
and Notre Dame. Those aren't three losses to scoff At.
I'm not saying you're a bad team, but you know,
SMU Gift wrapped you a victory where you didn't really
have to hit fifth gear. You weren't great against Boise
no matter what the final score said. So I don't

(51:24):
know how good Penn State was but I also I
did feel like it was a little aggressive to just
pile on James Franklin. It's a college football semi final.
It came down to a play or two. I think
that some of the decision making wasn't great, But I
don't know that it's James Franklin's fault that you have
the ball back, you have the ball tied with under

(51:45):
a minute to go, and your quarterback throws an interception
against a really good Notre Names And where'd you stand
on just James Franklin as a coach coming out of
that game.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
I don't feel worse about James Franklin coming out of that.
I think the problem that all of us saw was
at that point in the game, that's a game you
had every opportunity to then go and win. That's a
game that you could have won, and you lost, and
you largely lost because you made a bad decision on

(52:13):
a play call. If you're OC made it, then overrule
him because you're the head coach in that situation. So that,
I think is where the critique could be fair. I
don't think that this was a terrible performance. I agree
with you, and we kind of said that during the season.
I don't know how good Penn State is because they
only beat the teams they're supposed to beat. But we
looked at them in the Big Ten championship game where

(52:36):
they put up a ton of points against the Oregon
looked good and then unfortunately, And I even said, I
was like, I feel bad James Franklin going into this
playoff because no matter what he does in the first
two games in terms of wins, it's not gonna matter
because people are just going to blame the opponents and say,
all right, well, let's see what happens when they play
a real team. And the first quote unquote real team

(52:57):
that they played was Notre Dame, and they found a
way to lose close based on what I think could
be deemed a questionable decision. I came away feeling a
little better about James Franklin than I did at the
beginning of the season, but he still got a lot
to prove. There's still a lot that is left out there,
and I can understand why any Penn State fan would

(53:18):
be frustrated by it, but I can't get like two
over my skis when it comes to the James Franklin
kind of hatred society or anything like that. I just
I've always been a little bit skeptical of him as
a game day coach. I remain a little bit skeptical

(53:38):
about him as a game day coach. But I was
more impressed with what Penn State pulled off this year
as a whole, because I didn't think they were going
to get this far. And I think that is a
credit to the program. And I do think they're going
to put money into nil and they do need to
get Aller some weapons. They need to give him some
better wide receivers, some more guys so he doesn't have

(53:59):
to think or to Tyler Warren or handing football off
every time. And I think that Aller proved This is
the other point. We haven't made it yet, Yeah, but
we both suggested it to each other as that game
is going on. We don't need to have the Drew
Aller to the NFL conversation yet, Like we can back
that off. No one needs to have that. Don't write
the articles, don't talk about it. I don't care what

(54:20):
his potential. He's got a long way to go. There's
still a lot that he there's some maturation that needs
to take place, there's some decision making, some accuracy, there's
stuff that he needs. There's no reason to rush this.
I understand. You look at his size, you look at
his ability to throw the football all that. Don't get
enamored with that yet, Like let's not have Anthony Richardson
two point zero or the next you know, Trey Lance

(54:43):
or whatever it is that hasn't played a whole lot
of football. But the potential's there, so we got to
go do this. No, no, no, you really don't. Let's
give this some time.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Especially in the nil ere.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
I have no doubt that Drew Ally listen, if the
nilier has proven anything, there is clearly a market for
quarterbacks after what happened with car Garson beck On earlier
this week, where there are reports he's gonna get upwards
of four million dollars to go to Miami. Who knows
what's the truth, but Drew Aller will be making very
nice money by returning to Penn State. Fox Sports radio
eritors Jason Martin, Jay mart I want to come back.

(55:13):
I have one more question sort of related to the
Thursday Friday night games, and then also a question that's
sort of related. Going ahead, we also got to talk
the latest with Dion Sanders, a very interesting development on Saturday.
We got to get you updated on this Fox Sports Radio.

(55:35):
Welcome back, everybody, Fox Sports Radio er Torris Jason Martin.
We are broadcasting live from the Tyrax Studios. Football fans,
be sure to tune into Fox Sports Radio every Sunday morning,
beginning at ten am Eastern seven Pacific for Countdown to
Kickoff presented by BETMGM, Brian No, Jeff Schwartz, Professional better
Bill Krackenberger will have you covered for three hours before kickoff.

(55:56):
Every Sunday morning. Listen to Countdown to Kickoff, presented by betmg.
I'm right here on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Jmart We got actually we just you know, we just
talked a little bit about the two college football semi finals.
Thursday Friday, Notre Dame beats Penn State, and of course
on Friday, Ohio State takes care of Texas. We have

(56:17):
another full show to preview this game, so I don't
want to.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Spend too much time on this topic.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
But I was curious because we did mention a minute
ago that James Franklin, I don't think Thursday night is
a tear down. James Franklin, it's the worst night he's
ever had. But I do think there is a conversation about, like, Okay,
what did we actually learn anything from him? And does
he still have kind of a lot to prove going forward,

(56:45):
especially if Drew Aller comes back. I bring it up
because I was thinking this, and I was thinking about
this too on Friday night when we weren't totally sure
that Ohio State was gonna win. If Ohio State somehow
got to the National Championship game, and again, we can
be quick on this because we could do a full two, three,
four segments on this next week if i'steake got the
National Championship Game and somehow did lose to Notre Dame,

(57:07):
who's obviously a great team.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
But how do we feel about Ryan Day because.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
The whole like, like I was thinking about this last
night when it looked like there was the possibility that
Ohio State would not win the game. It's like, it's
great that you beat Tennessee, it's great that you beat
Oregon and now even Texas. If you don't close this
out with the Natty, we're feeling better about him. But
I do feel like you gotta close this out at

(57:32):
this point, right, if you're Ryan Day, I mean yes.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
Because we have and I said this before the semi
really even after the Tennessee game, we now see what
this team can look like. Yes, So now we're gonna
expect to see it every time, and Ohio State fans
are definitely gonna expect to see it every time because
the standard is higher at Ohio State for its football
program and for the coach of its football program. And

(57:59):
you look at talent on the field, and even as
good as Notre Dame has become, and as as Marcus
Freeman and that crew have used his transfer portal win
and all the accolades you want to give Notre Dame,
I'm here for them. But Ohio State's talent is next level.
And so I think that becomes sort of the conundrum
for Ryan Day. Ryan Day has done nothing in this

(58:20):
postseason at all negative Like he's coached well, His team
has looked ready to play. They've been They've had when
they've had to make an adjustment, they've made adjustments. They've
done everything that you need and to do. When they
needed to make a big play, even in a tight
game against Texas, they made a big play. Everything has
has gone pretty much according to plan for them. But

(58:42):
if you don't finish it off, people are gonna say
Jeremiah Smith, Ibuka, Caleb Downs and just start naming it
Jack Sawyer naming all these guys like how could you
not win with that on the field. And I do
think that the only guy that that ends up sticking
to is Ryan Day. I do think the talk of

(59:03):
him not being there next year is over. Yeah, I
think that that conversation's well well passed now. Likes he's
out of those woods. The seat is no longer hot
in my opinion. But I do think this is still
going to be regarded as a disappointment if you don't
finish it, because we've seen what Voltron looks like when
it's fully formed.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Yeah. Two quick thoughts and we'll get to the saga.

Speaker 6 (59:25):
One.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
First of all, I agree, and I was guessed on
Steve Steve Hartman and Manzi Bolanio show, and I said,
this today is like all these people that are coming
out of the woodwork now like, oh, if you criticize
Ryan Day, how are you feeling right now? It's like, well, no,
we feel the exact same way. And we were critical
because we knew Ohio State was capable of what they've
done the last three games well, and.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
Also we've gotten more information, like when we criticize them,
When we criticized Ryan Day, were we right at that time?
The answers yes, yeah, the answers, yes we were. And
now what are we doing well now that we have
more information? What is the first thing we have just
said about Ryan Day? The whole hot seat thing is over.
If he wants to stay at Ohio State, everything's going

(01:00:08):
to be fine. And I don't think that winning or
losing this game is going to be a death now
for him anymore. And I think he's had an excellent
postseason and he's done everything right. That's new information, and
don't I think that's exactly what you're supposed to do,
is evolve your position based on facts and not letting
your emotions are old takes or ego get in the way.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Bingo.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
My other quick thought after watching Ohio State the last
three weeks, I think we can officially retire that old
at what is it an axiom?

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Is that the right word?

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
The old axiom of I'd rather beat my rival and
lose every other game than lose to my rival it's
like you're gonna lose to Michigan and probably win a Natty.
I don't think anyone. I think people still care about Michigan.
But the idea that you would have somehow been happier
by beating Michigan and losing every other game on.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
The schedule, yeah, I think we can go ahead in and I'll.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Ask you one hypothetical question before you get to the Sager.
Sure you'll want to address this too, but if Ohio
State beats Michigan, are they in this championship?

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Oh that's such a good question. I'll tell you what.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Let's toss it over the news desk, bring in to Sager.
To Sager, do you have any hot takes on that one,
because I I.

Speaker 6 (01:01:21):
Wow, that's a great one.

Speaker 5 (01:01:22):
Yeah, because I mean, they could not lay could not
have laid a larger egg than they did on that
day against their arrival, and then now this they look
like the team that we kind of thought they might be.

Speaker 6 (01:01:35):
I I all, in the same season.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Yeah, I think so. To j Mart's question, I think
in theory, Ohio State could be here. I'm not sold
that they look the way that they do. I think
when you lose a game like that, a twenty one
point favorite at home when we all know Michigan can't
throw the football. I think it makes you reevaluate everything
that you're doing. And by the way, I think a

(01:01:57):
lot of it you have to reevaluate because there's a
lot of public pressure that wasn't maybe there when you're
winning ugly against other teams. And so long story short is,
they might be here, but I don't think we see
this version of Ohio State if they don't beat Michigan.

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
And you can win in advance when you're start receiver
essentially isn't thrown to I mean, I mean invisible.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
That's insane.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
At least Texas like did a good job covering a Michigan.
They just tried to run the ball up the middle
thirty times with no we do in the NFL playoffs
have one thing to pass along. As the Steelers are out,
there was a question to Steelers wide receiver George Pickens,
and he says, yes, I have seen signs of growth
from this offense in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
This way more grow for sure. Does that make you optimistic?

Speaker 6 (01:02:43):
Does that make you optimistic?

Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:02:46):
Okay, Well there's the Pittsburgh Dealers in a nuts chill.
They lose five in a row to end this season.

Speaker 5 (01:02:52):
They're done at ten and eight overall at Baltimore twenty
eight fourteen.

Speaker 6 (01:02:57):
Baltimore is the final.

Speaker 5 (01:02:58):
There was one point in the clobe seconds of the
first half tonight where Lamar Jackson scrambled around and found
Justice Hill for a five yard TD. He scrambled for
almost six and a half seconds before a touchdown pass,
third time this season he has done that, making the
play over six seconds and then a touchdown.

Speaker 6 (01:03:20):
Needless to say most in the NFL. There so the.

Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
Rushing yards he had fifteen carries eighty one yards in
addition to a couple of TD passes for Jackson, So
for the moment, he is number one all time in
rushing yards by a quarterback in postseason play. He's over
six hundred career rushing yards in playoff games. Steve Young
just under six hundred yards. Now, if Josh Allen gets

(01:03:44):
about forty yards on the ground, he'll be the new
number one. Bill's hosting the Broncos tomorrow and then two
other games and then the Monday night Rams game in
Arizona against the Vikings. But the Steelers didn't just lose
another playoff game. They have now trailed by double digits
at halftime in five straight playoff games, twenty eight to

(01:04:04):
fourteen Ravens the final Derrick Henry one hundred eighty six
yards rushing and two scores. Houston trailed the Chargers late
first half six nothing and then beat him thirty two
to twelve. Nicocollins seven receptions, one hundred and twenty two
yards and a TD. The Falcons fired defensive coordinator Jimmy
Lake in the NBA late game. It was a win
for the Miami Heat at Portland one nineteen ninety eight,

(01:04:27):
Memphis edge Minnesota one twenty seven to one twenty five,
and in college hoops, number one Tennessee was a winner
at Texas seventy four to seventy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Back to you, thank you very much, Steve de Sager.
The SAGA will rejoin us in just a few minutes
with his extended update at about twelve forty five Eastern time,
Fox Sports Radio or towards Jason Martin, broadcasting live from
the Tireck dot Com studios. Jaymart disappointing thing about hosting
for only three hours here on weekend when we're privileged

(01:04:57):
to do what we do. There's only so much time
to talk about every thing.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
And I don't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
We're going to get to all of the train wreck
coaching searches that are going on right now, the Jets,
the Bears. But I will say this, we got an
interesting twist, but maybe not ultimately that's surprising of a
twist with the Los Angeles or the Las Vegas, excuse me,
the Las Vegas Raiders. On Saturday, it was reported by
the Las Vegas Review Journal that the Las Vegas Raiders

(01:05:25):
and Dion Sanders. I guess the way it has been
framed is that quote Dion Sanders has very strong interest
end quote in the Raiders, and the tie there, obviously
being is that one, the Raiders need a quarterback. Two
Shador Sanders has been linked to the Raiders because Tom
Brady has served as a mentor Tom Brady as an
owner of the Raiders. I'll tell you this and I'll

(01:05:47):
toss it over to you. I found a lot of
the Dion discourse kind of silly. You know, six eight
weeks ago, Oh the Cowboys could they get Shador? And
it's like, well, what about Dak Prescott and the Cowboys
aren't going to be into the top. Whatever the point
I'm trying to make, this is one that passes the

(01:06:08):
smell test. To me, the Raiders have long been It
feels like if you were giving an unofficial poll in
the Sanders camp, it feels as though the Raiders would
have been the team that they wanted all along. Now
they have a head coaching opportunity. Obviously there's a little
bit of nuance here because the Raiders don't pick until
number or what seven, I believe six maybe, But the

(01:06:32):
point being is that there's been a lot of Dion discourse.
This is one that I do buy. And there's probably
you know, we could even do a little bit of
it an hour three, but there's probably a conversation about
should Shadoor want Dion as his college as his NFL
head coach? But this is a report that and it's
not to criticize the reporter, but I I just believe

(01:06:52):
that this story makes sense to me.

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
I guess it is the best way to put it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Yeah, I mean the Brady tie in here would add
more credence a little bit. Also if Brady actually was
interested in Dion. And but you can understand why Dion
would be interested in Brady as well, And of course
Vegas is a showman's town and Dion is a showman's coach.
But and I said this to you when we were
talking about this before the show, that I feel like,

(01:07:22):
if you wanted Dion and you were the Raiders, all
you pretty much have to say is we'll do whatever
we have to do to make sure your son comes here,
because it seems like that's what he wants. He wants
to coach his sons in the NFL. I have definite
qualms with that, for both Shador and for Dion. It's like,
you guys need to do this on your own. But

(01:07:45):
that notwithstanding, I agree, Like I haven't really bought into
any of this either. None of it makes sense to me.
But the Raiders side of it kind of does because
they're in this spot where you don't have a quarterback.
You've got kind of a lot of things in flux,
but you do have the big name of Tom Brady,
and you do have the idea that it's Vegas in
a pretty new stadium and all of that kind of stuff,

(01:08:07):
And that's exactly what you would want is somebody to
help sell tickets for you, and he would be the
kind of guy that could do that, and his son
is not going to be some surefire success story in
the NFL just based on the way that he plays.
It's going to have to be the right situation. And
of course, no one knows that situation better than his father,
who just coached him to a successful college career.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
I don't know what else there really is to add one. Again,
it's a story that adds up to me. I listen,
I'll defend Dion a little bit. I don't think that
he is looking to follow his son necessarily to the pros.
I just think it's listen, it's a place that he'd
probably want to live, It's a place he'd probably want
to coach. It's kind of a brand that kind of

(01:08:51):
vibes with kind of his energy and kind of you know,
rebel brand. Dion coach primes kind of a little bit
of a rebel himself. So and again the Brady tie
really quickly. Like I mean, obviously there's the you know Dion.
We'll see what kind of coach he is wherever he
is next year without Shador. But like I think, to me,

(01:09:13):
the more interesting thing I could see why Dion would
be obviously interested. He's had success with Shador as his quarterback.
It's the NFL. What is your take on how Shador
We can't speak for how he does feel, but how
he should feel about the idea of this is your
dad's obviously the only guy that you've ever that's ever
coached you. But at the same time, it's like, I'm

(01:09:35):
sure at some point he does want to kind of
go out and make a name for himself. Well, like,
more so from the Shador perspective, what do you think
Shador should think or maybe is thinking at this time.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
I mean, I don't know what he is thinking. I'm
sure he loves his dad and so that needs to
be factored in. We don't need to speak for what
he is actually thinking, but what I would what I
would be thinking in this situation is I need to
get away from dad, like not get away from him
in life, but I need to go carve my own niche.

(01:10:10):
I need to go do this my own way. I'm
arch Manning. I need to go to Texas, not Ole,
miss I need to go to Texas, not Tennessee. Need
I need to do this. I need to have my
own career and some of that needs to be apart
from my dad, I'm good enough. Like this is not
a brawny situation, that's the difference. This is someone that

(01:10:35):
can do it without Dion being there. This is someone
that has shown a ton of talent and if he
is in the right situation, he can flourish. And he
knows that. And yeah, he look, he's pretty high on
himself too, Like he's got a pretty high opinion of
himself and he should, like he's he's done a lot
in his college career. I don't think him being tethered
to his dad throughout his career is something that he

(01:10:58):
should want. I think it's rake that his dad cares
and loves him that way. I do like And you know,
he even said, Dion said the only interest that he
would have in the NFL is if he could coach
his sons, and he said that plural, And I love that,
you know. I'm glad that he cares that much about
his family and wants to be around them and all
that kind of stuff. I just think if it were me,

(01:11:20):
I would want to play anywhere other than for my dad,
just because I don't want that to become a narrative
surrounding me. Or him just our family, like we can
go do this and succeed, and we don't have to
do it underneath the same roof all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
I'll be quick because we got to get back to
the Sager, but I'll just say this is I also
think there's a difference between coming from Jackson State to Colorado,
the worst program power five football, and basically being like,
you know, if we remember that Dion opening press conference
in Colorado is like I'm your coach and this is
this is my son should or he's your quarterback. There's

(01:11:57):
a difference between that and a locker full of full
of grown men, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:02):
And I also think that sets.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
Up the the nuance of what if Shador struggles? You know,
because people's livelihoods are on the line now, and I
know it's an NIO college football world, but it's like,
it's not the same as being in a locker room
with in the NFL with grown men with families with livelihoods.

Speaker 3 (01:12:22):
And it's not to say that Shador won't have.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
Success, it's just to say that it puts Dion also
in a tough position where what if his son isn't
playing well?

Speaker 3 (01:12:31):
What if this? What if that?

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
What if the perception is that Shador is only playing
because of whatever, because of his dad.

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):
So, you know, were many steps away from that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
I don't know if you have anything, because I want
to get back to Sega, if you got thirty seconds
or anything on that. But I think that's part of
it too, is it's one thing to do it in college.
It's certainly one thing to do it in high school.
It's another thing when you got grown men with mortgages
and families and things like that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's right. I mean, I
think that you have What you did at Colorado is
a cool story and a good story, and it's going
to be a good memory and it's going to be
remembered as such, like it's it's important to Colorado and
it's important to your family, and you've already done this. Now,
I think you gotta let you got the You gotta
go let the young fellow live on his own and
go do your thing, Go be a great coach at

(01:13:19):
Colorado or wherever it else is that you want to
do it. But I do think that that split would
be best for both of them, especially in public perception.

Speaker 3 (01:13:28):
Again, the report out earlier on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
That quote there is interest from Dion Sanders in the
Las Vegas Raiders job, that from the Las.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
Vegas Review Journal.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Fox Sports Radio er Tords Jason Martin will come back
to Sager with his extended update. We give it to
you every week around nine to forty five Pacific twelve
forty five Eastern.

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
That's next. Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back, everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Fox Sports Radio er Tords Jason Martin broadcasting live from
Thetireck dot Com studios as we do every week around
twelve forty five Eastern time. Let's toss it over the
news desk Steve de Sager, what is trending?

Speaker 5 (01:14:04):
Well, we got football to get to, but I got
to mention as far as the Rose Bowl and others,
there is that large fire in West LA. There's also
been a bad fire just above Pasadena in the city
of Altadena, which has a small population by the way,
less than fifty thousand people in its city limits. But
the Rose Bowl grounds are being used for or were
for donations of food and clothing that was then moved

(01:14:25):
elsewhere because the Rose Bowl lots are now being used
as a fire department staging area and no horse racing
at Santa Anita this weekend. East of Pasadena. Those grounds
are being used by organizations, including a power company. You
know how every New Year's Day we see the sun
setting on the hills behind the Rose Bowl Stadium. It's
one of the great views in sports. Those are the

(01:14:45):
general mountains we're talking about. With the Altadena fire, over
fourteen thousand acres burned.

Speaker 6 (01:14:50):
I looked it up.

Speaker 5 (01:14:51):
That would be the equivalent of half of San Francisco's
land area torched. And that's just what's burned near Pasadena.
In addition to Palace Sades fire and West La is
another twenty four thousand acres burned, including Arnie spaniards alma mater,
Palisades High School. He has often talked about how he
went there, as did Steve Kerr, Jeanie Buss, and many others.

(01:15:12):
That school located off Sunset Boulevard, very near the Pacific Ocean,
so on the west side of the four or five Freeway,
a few miles west of Ucla. That high school's football
field and baseball field apparently are still there, along with
some buildings. Even closer to the high school is Rivier
Country Club, where the PGA holds a tournament every February,
so it's due to be there next month. As far

(01:15:33):
as total buildings lost, including homes in LA, at least
five thousand structures have been destroyed by fire so far
this week, with a minimum of sixteen deaths.

Speaker 6 (01:15:42):
Also, and it's not over, so had to mention that
to the football.

Speaker 5 (01:15:46):
The Ravens could get a home playoff game again next
weekend after beating Pittsburgh tonight, but they would need Denver
to pull off the upset tomorrow at Buffalo. If not,
if all the seting holds with the top four advance,
the AFC would have the three seed Baltimore at two
seed Buffalo next weekend, it would be Lamar Jackson against

(01:16:07):
Josh Allen. And just yesterday the Ravens quarterback Jackson was
voted All Pro ahead of Josh Allen. It was thirty
votes to eighteen. Derrick Henry one of the stars in
the twenty eight to fourteen win over the Steelers tonight.
How many rushing yards for Henry tonight after contact one
hundred and fifty seven against the Steelers. He also forced

(01:16:29):
twelve mistackles in this game, So how many rushing yards
can one guy have in a season When you include
the playoff games of that year. Well on the list,
Terrell Davis's number one and number two if you go
back to number nineteen ninety seven and ninety eight. In
each season, including playoffs, he rushed for about twenty four

(01:16:50):
hundred yards. Dereck Henry's at about twenty one hundred yards
rushing for this season including tonight. Well, how Pittsburgh has
done in the postseason is not just a story about
the Steelers. Ap points out that since the Penguins were
eliminated from the twenty eighteen playoffs, not a single Pittsburgh
pro team has won even a playoff round, certainly not

(01:17:13):
the Steelers. In recent years, the Penguins are zero for
four in playoff rounds. The Pirates have not advanced year.

Speaker 2 (01:17:20):
The Pirates are kind of one of those professional sports
teams you just kind of forget exists. It's like, oh,
Calgary Flames, forgot that was a team. Oh, Pittsburgh Pirates.

Speaker 5 (01:17:31):
Especially, you know, Pittsburgh being such the football town, and
it overlaps in September if the Pirates are out of
it before September. But Mike Tomlin has now lost his
last six playoff games. The NFL record is seven straight
postseason losses.

Speaker 6 (01:17:45):
By the Bengals.

Speaker 5 (01:17:46):
Marvin Lewis, we had a Houston final score over the
Chargers of thirty two to twelve today. Apparently that's yet
another score agami, as they call it, a final score
that has never been one before in NFL history. There
had never been at thirty two to twelve until today.
You talked about Justin Herbert early in My goodness, want
to he pressured?

Speaker 6 (01:18:04):
Today? They wound up losing. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 5 (01:18:07):
They were ahead six to nothing late first half. They
lost thirty two to twelve. Justin Herbert dropped back to
try and pass thirty six times in this game. He
was pressured over half the time he dropped back, and
when he actually got a pass off under pressure, he
was three to fifteen with two interceptions. Add on the

(01:18:27):
four sacks as well so ap points. I remember Jared
Goff had the bad game against the Houston defense as well.

Speaker 6 (01:18:33):
This season.

Speaker 5 (01:18:35):
Goff and Herbert threw a combined nine interceptions just against
the Texans defense this year. Those two quarterback threw a
thousand passes against everybody else on the season and only
ten interceptions total, but nine against the Houston defense in
their one game each. We do have a Monday night
game with the Rams in Arizona, not La due to

(01:18:57):
the fires. Rams Monday Night against the Vikings and in Arizona,
the league says two hundred gallons of RAMS colored paints
arrived this morning and they have now painted the field,
although the seats are still red. In Arizona at the
Cardinals Stadium, they have painted the field with the Rams
logo in the middle and the Los Angeles and yellow
in the end zones with the blue background home game

(01:19:19):
and there will be thousands of Rams fans there, twenty
buses leaving.

Speaker 3 (01:19:23):
Wow. Well, we will talk.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
There's four games in the NFL coming up Sunday and Monday.
We're going to talk about those in the next hour,
as well as recap to two games we saw on Saturday.
Jason Martin, Ertors taking me up till two a m.
Eastern Fox Sports.

Speaker 4 (01:19:38):
Are you you're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
Welcome everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports. I guess Saturday
and the Sunday It is Sunday on the Eastern and
Central time zones. Ertors, Jason Martin, we are broadcasting live
from the tyrack dot Com studios tierrack dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
We'll help you get an unmatched.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Selection, fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection, over ten
thousand recommended installers. Tyreck dot com the way tire buying
should be. As I said, we are taking up till
two am Eastern. Bernie Frado of The Bernie Frado Show
will follow us. We know Bernie's gonna have plenty to
say about a busy Saturday in the NFL and a

(01:20:23):
busy Sunday ahead. J Mart, We will get to these
Sunday and Monday games coming up, but do want to
go ahead and recap everything that happened on Saturday's Wildcard
weekend games.

Speaker 3 (01:20:34):
We'll start with the.

Speaker 2 (01:20:35):
Early game, probably the more noteworthy game in terms of
really a narrative to discuss, because Justin Herbert pee you
He's stunk.

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):
Now, I'm just kidding. I feel bad saying it, but
it is kind of the truth.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
Justin Herbert in the Los Angeles Chargers game, completes a
grand total of fourteen of thirty two passes, one touchdown,
four interceptions. The Chargers go on the road to the
Houston Texans and lose thirty two to twelve. Honestly, look
great win for Houston, who now advances to play the
Kansas City Chiefs next week. But the story, of course

(01:21:13):
is Justin Herbert, as I just said, completed less than
fifty percent of his passes, one touchdown, four interceptions. And
for a guy that we just want to elevate into
that upper upper, upper upper tier with the Mahomes and
maybe even the Josh Allens and the Lamar Jacksons, Justin
Herbert comes up yet again in a big game.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Yep. And you know we talked a lot about that
in the first hour of the show. I you don't
want to hit him too hard, but at the same time,
you have to criticize him the way you criticize any
other quarterback. And I think that he has gotten a
lot of let's just say soft coverage when I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:21:56):
Talking about defensive backs here.

Speaker 1 (01:21:57):
No, No, he was anointed pretty early, and so that
narrative has found its way to stick. And it doesn't
really matter what he does. There's always an excuse, and
it seems like that excuse is not given to other
quarterbacks that have similar struggles. And so far, he's zero
to two in five years in the NFL. In the playoffs,

(01:22:20):
he has twice as many interceptions than he has touchdowns.
In the playoffs, He's barely fifty percent when it comes
to completion percentage in the playoffs. He's had three offensive
coordinators in five years. He hasn't had the best situation,
he hasn't had the best weapons, but he has certainly
not been able to take those weapons and do anything

(01:22:41):
with them. At this point, I think that the comparison
I made earlier is the one I'm gonna stick with
as of right now. And the way he was talked
about by smart analytics people and football people that cover
the league day after day after day, hour after hour,
sit in training camps and all this stuff. The way
that they talked about Matthew Stafford when he was with

(01:23:02):
the Lions is a lot how I feel about how
Justin Herbert has talked about now. And look, that's worked
out real well for Matthew Stafford when he got to
the Rams, when he got into a better situation. You've
seen what that can look like. And look, there's no
reason to think that Herbert wouldn't be similar. They're both
big guys with big arms that throw really pretty balls,

(01:23:23):
that are smart guys, likable guys. Everything. I mean a
lot of that kind of stuff. But had he not
gotten to the Rams, I still think we'd be looking
at Matthew Stafford that had not won anything, because who
knows if Dan Campbell or any of that stuff ever
even happens. There's been a lot of changes with that organization.
The Chargers are still trying to get this right. But

(01:23:45):
he has less weapons now than he had when Brandon
Staley was there. And they didn't win, and they lost
to a Jags team that they had no business losing to,
especially when they were up twenty seven to nothing a
couple of years ago. And now they lose to another
AFC South team that was leaking oil late in the year,
that hadn't scored a touchdown at home in their last
three games. And we saw what happened here, and really

(01:24:09):
the one thing we didn't talk about about the game itself,
the game turned on the broken play. The game completely
turned on the broken play. It was six to nothing.
The Texans defense, which has been good against quarterbacks all
year long, had still been holding them, so it was
six to nothing. But the fumbled snap, Stroud for somehow

(01:24:30):
grabs it as the poise to get it, goes towards
the right sideline and then just uncorks one. It's caught
for thirty four yards. They go and score a touchdown
on that play, and then they end up getting the
field goal because of whatever happened to the it was
a very quick three and out for the Chargers after
that point, and they were able to kick another field
goal and go up ten to six going into the half.

(01:24:52):
They were in better position there and Herbert two of
his picks are not on him, all right, they're not.
You know, the thing is down the line. We're not
gonna remember that down the line. We're just gonna say
he had four interceptions tonight. We can talk about the
fact that Will Disley had a couple go right off
his hands, directly into it, and they were thrown perfectly.

(01:25:12):
I even saw one comment from somebody suggesting those were
on Herbert because he didn't throw with touch. Okay, I'm
not going there. Let's listen back off on that. But
he also had two really bad interceptions in the game,
one in particular where he just overshot Lad mccaukey, who
almost made the play anyway, jumping up high. But that
ended up being a pick six. So there were there's

(01:25:35):
enough to criticize when it comes to justin Herbert where
you just can't give him the pass anymore. Now he
gets to that spot where he's going to have to
prove it, and I can't put him there with Burrow
and Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen and these guys that
I've seen accomplish more. I don't care how much talent
he has. You could be the most talented guy, but
if you could be the smartest guy in the world,

(01:25:56):
you show up and you get an F on the test,
you're gonna get an F as a grade, and that's
what's going to determine your future. And so Herbert's in
a really good spot, has a good life all this,
but he's got to start winning in the playoffs. He's
getting into that territory where you simply can't believe in
him until you see him do it.

Speaker 2 (01:26:13):
Yeah, I don't really have a ton to add. I
mentioned in hour one. It does remind me a little
bit of right now. It's you know, he's still relatively young.
But to your point is he'll be twenty seven this year.
In twenty twenty five, but we are also talking about
a guy that came in the same year as Joe Burrow,
and you know Joe Burrow has you know, Joe Burrow

(01:26:33):
has obviously a Super Bowl appearance, a second AFC Championship game.
And so I mentioned this in the first hour, and
I think, you know, listen, it was my analogy. So
I think it was awesome obviously, but well it all's
airs is. I think in sports, to me, there are
three tiers, right, is that there are the all time greats,
the Brady's, the Mahomes, the Lebrons, the MJ's, whatever. Then

(01:26:58):
there are guys that in their eras are like all
time greats for their eras, but a step below like
the all time greats. Right so, during Lebron's run, Dwayne
Wade was awesome, but he wasn't Lebron.

Speaker 3 (01:27:11):
Whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:27:12):
Doesn't mean he wasn't a great player. And then there's
like the third tier that's like, oh he was good,
but he wasn't those guys. And right now, I think
you have to put Justin Herbert in that tier. Of
these quarterbacks of this era, is Patrick Mahomes right now
is on a tier to himself. We'll see if over
the next couple of years Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen

(01:27:32):
can get there, but Mahomes is on a tier of
his own, and behind him is the Josh Allen Lamar Jackson,
and I would, obviously, and I think most people would
put Joe Burrow in there, as I mentioned, been to
a Super Bowl, been to another AFC Championship game, not
his fault that his defense stunk this year, and then
I would put Justin Herbert in that third tier. And
it doesn't mean that he can't move up. It doesn't

(01:27:54):
mean that his worst football is behind him, but he
is in an era where there are a lot of
great quarterbacks in the AFC specifically, and this is who
he is going to be compared to over the course
of his career. So still plenty of time, but not
a great day for Justin Herbert as he loses in
Round one with the Los Angeles Chargers. Thirty two to

(01:28:14):
twelve was the final score in Houston. And now we
switch gears to the Lake game. Baltimore beats Pittsburgh twenty
eight to fourteen. And you look at this game and
to me, I just sit there and I just think
that if you are a Baltimore Ravens fan that is
at all concerned about this team in the postseason. This

(01:28:35):
is what you wanted to see. Baltimore puts up close
to five hundred yards of total offense, Derrick Henry with
one hundred and eighty six yards rushing seven point two
yards per carry.

Speaker 3 (01:28:47):
This is what you wanted to see.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
A Pittsburgh team that is struggling, that has reeling, lost
four straight games to end the regular season, including one
to you in Baltimore. Baltimore gets the victory, they advance.
We assume they will play Buffalo. We will talk about
these Sunday and Monday games in a minute. But to me,
j Mart, you wanted to see complete domination. You wanted
to see Lamar and Derrick Henry click at the highest

(01:29:10):
level in the playoffs. That's exactly what we got Saturday
night in Baltimore.

Speaker 1 (01:29:14):
Yeah, I mean they were dominant. It was twenty eight fourteen.
If you didn't watch the game, you would think it
was closer than it was. The Steelers tried to make
it interesting but couldn't. I still fell asleep in the
third quarter, and that's not a joke. I literally fell
asleep in the third quarter watching a game because the
Ravens Mike dom Baby. Let's I will say this too.

(01:29:37):
Like in the first half it looked very easy. It wasn't,
I understand, but it looked easy, Like it just looked
like the Ravens could do whatever they wanted. Lamar could
do whatever he wanted, Derek Henry could do whatever he wanted.
The Ravens defense didn't have to worry about much except
the occasional push off from George Pickens. Like there was
nothing really that they had to be concerned about it all.

(01:29:59):
I mean, you look at Russ' final numbers, twenty to
twenty nine, couple touchdowns, no interceptions. I mean, he played fine,
he played decently well. You're not gonna cast a lot
of negatives on him for the performance or anything like that.
There's just one of these teams that is a playoff
team and the other ones really not. And I think
we knew that a month ago. The Steelers were kind of, yeah,

(01:30:21):
all right, they're a mediocre football team. I mean, let's
be real, like they put themselves in because of what
they did early in the year. They kind of hit
a wall where it's okay, maybe they overperformed, but now
they're kind of coming to coming back to earth. When
everybody was having this discussion about Denver and Cincinnati and
all this stuff. No, the game that you would have

(01:30:41):
liked to have had was Cincinnati in instead of Pittsburgh.
You would have liked for the Bengals to have been
the Steelers this year in that division and found their
way into the playoffs because Burrow and that offense. That
would have been Yeah, it probably would have been a
shootout because the Bengals defense was terrible. But the Steelers
are one of the most boring football teams to watch

(01:31:01):
in the league because that offense looks like you're watching
black and white film, like it looks so old and
outdated in so many respects. And then you look at
the other side of the ball. Yes, they pound it
with Derrick Henry, but the stuff Lamar does the magic.
Had disagre with that stat earlier where he had another
six plus second time with the ball in his hands

(01:31:22):
before throwing a touchdown pass to Justice Hill at the
end of the first half. There's dynamic stuff happening all
over this league. None of it is happening with Pittsburgh's offense. Regardless.
It seems like of who the offensive coordinator is, they
haven't had a quarterback since Ben in his last few years.
They barely had Ben Roethlisberger. They certainly didn't have the
Ben Roethlisberger we came to know in the peak of

(01:31:44):
his career. So there's just I don't know if changes
are made. I don't know if Russell Wilson is a
starter next year. I don't know if Mike tom is
still the coach. I tend to think the latter will
be true. I don't know about the former, but something
needs to change for Pittsburgh or they're just going to
get further left behind. They can't continue to rely on TJ.
Watt and Cam Hayward to bail them out and then

(01:32:05):
still win these games thirteen to ten. Like that's not
going to fly for very much longer. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
I don't really have a ton else to add. I
just I mentioned it earlier, But I do find it interesting.
Probably week eight week nine, when Russell Wilson came in
was playing well, we had all these conversations about the
Steelers have found their quarterback. And then you get to
week seventeen, Week eighteen, and it's a lot of the
same conversations that we have had about the Steelers. Should

(01:32:30):
Mike Tomlin start over somewhere else with all these coaching
opportunities that are available, Is Russell Wilson the answer? Long term?
He probably isn't. What do you do at quarterback? And
it feels like we're right back to square square one
with Pittsburgh And it's a shame because obviously they look
so good. Probably about the middle of the season. Fox
Sports Radio, Eric Toeords Jasmartin, we are broadcasting live from

(01:32:52):
the tyreck dot Com studios. We'll come back and we
will start to look ahead to a loaded Sunday and
night slate for playoff games still to come. We're gonna
preview them all next Fox Sports Radio, Welcome back, everybody.
Fox Sports Radio Ra Torstase Martin, broadcasting live from the
tyreck dot Com studios. Shortly after the show, our podcast

(01:33:16):
will be going up. If you missed any of today's show,
be sure to check out the podcast. Just search Fox
Sports Radio wherever you get your podcasts, and also be
sure to follow, rate and review the podcast. Again, just
search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your podcasts, and
you'll see this show posted. After we get off air,
we are on for another thirty eight minutes. Bernie freddover

(01:33:36):
the Bernie Fredo Show follows us and we got thirty
eight minutes left to preview, which should be a very
fun two days of football. So I'll tell you what,
Marymack give us a little music Ian TuS up on
the games. You could go chronological order starting early Sunday
and we'll wrap with with late Monday.

Speaker 1 (01:33:57):
You got it.

Speaker 7 (01:33:58):
Let's start with Jmarts headed to Orchard Park to face
the Bills. The Bills are favored by eight and a half.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):
Aaron, what do you.

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
Think, Well, I think the Buffalo Football Bills are gonna win, man.
I mean, you know, listen, I think that there are
moments in time where Buffalo there's plenty of question, but
they have been playing such good football down the street
really all season long. I mean, if you really think
about it, I don't take much out of losing to
the Patriots when they weren't playing anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:34:27):
And with the Broncos.

Speaker 2 (01:34:28):
This is gonna sound like I'm tearing them down, and
I'm not, because it was a great season ten and seven.
We know the over underwin total was like five and
a half, six and a half in the preseason, but
you look at their final month or two of the season,
you beat the Chiefs when the Chiefs aren't playing anybody
loose to the Bengals loose to, the Chargers, beat the Colts, Browns, Raiders,
and Falcons right before they bench Kirk Cousins. It's not

(01:34:51):
as though you beat a who's who of elite NFL teams.
Not a knock on Denver. They're ahead of schedule in
this Sean Payton era. I just don't think they have
the manpower to go to Orchard Park and get the victory.

Speaker 1 (01:35:02):
Look, I think the Bills are going to win the game, too,
But I do like that Denver is being given this
sort of They're being given a little bit of respect
from some of the things that I've heard this week
in terms of this is the kind of defense that
has given Josh Allen trouble in the past, and they
are going to be ready to play. They're a really
solid unit. Then you look at like bo Nicks just

(01:35:25):
seems to be able to make a couple of plays
in Courtland. Sutton is having the season that Broncos fans
have wanted to see from him now for three or
four years. I think they're riding pretty high coming in.
They feel pretty good about themselves. I don't think they're
ready to win this game. I think that this is
the step you get into the playoffs, and then you
have a good offseason, you come back next year, and
you see what you have been able to build off.

(01:35:48):
I think that they honestly think it's almost house money.
I don't think anybody's anticipating that they need to win.
On the flip side, the Bills can't lose this game.
They just can't. Like It's not that it's impossible them,
it's that they'd better not lose this game.

Speaker 3 (01:36:03):
Can you imagine it takes on Monday?

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
If the Bills lose this horrifying unless they have some
epic game that finishes forty seven to forty five. Not
I don't think you can dog out Josh Allen for that.
But I still think you're gonna go after McDermott and
go The Bills just can't lose here. This is not
a game that they are authorized to lose. Really, and
in the national media, it would be ugly if they lost.

Speaker 2 (01:36:27):
Really quick, because we got three other games to preview.
If the Bills lose this game, Sean McDermott's future is
what you'd have to consider. Letting them go, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:36:38):
But I mean we've kind of been on that train
for a couple of years. I tend to think they
probably still wouldn't. But I think this would be a
fireball offense unless it was just a very freakish kind
of deal or some I don't think they can lose
this game. I think it would lead to a lot
of changes if they lost. So I don't anticipate that

(01:36:59):
they are going to But if this thing is, you know,
very close, late boy, there's gonna be some You're gonna
be able to see sweat on the brow all across
that sideline.

Speaker 3 (01:37:10):
All right.

Speaker 7 (01:37:11):
Next up, four to thirty Eastern time on Fox, the
Greenbay Packers are going to Philadelphia to take on the Eagles,
who are favored by five points.

Speaker 3 (01:37:18):
We'll start with you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:18):
J mart Herts is gonna play, not really shocked that
he found a way. Uh. Saquan is gonna be ready
to go. The Eagles have too much firepower right now.
You lose Watson. He's not the most important part of
Green Bay's offense, but more than anything right now, I
just don't trust Jordan Love not yet, Like he just

(01:37:40):
hasn't he It's not that he's been bad this year.
It's just I've seen enough to just feel a little
shaky about him in this spot. Remember these two teams
played in Mexico in Week one, Brazil, so here they
are Brazil, right, and now now they find themselves matched
up in the playoffs. I just think the Eagles are
flat out better at this point. Even though my preseason

(01:38:00):
Super Bowl was Chiefs over Packers, I think the Packers
just this is not the team you want to see
right now if you're Green Bay. So I like Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (01:38:08):
So first of all, I think the Jalen Hurts not
getting clear till the back end of the week. It
proves why the Saquon conversation was so dumb the last
two weeks. It's like things can just change so quickly.
Besides the fact that you would have to play all
of your starters, we discussed it last week. You're not
gonna put Saquon in It gets the backup offensive line
or wrestling Johnson or whatever. But it just shows how

(01:38:31):
quickly things can turn and that nothing is guaranteed. And
the fact that Jalen Hurts again was obviously in concussion
protocol a lot longer than anticipated shows just how how
dangerous this get Not dangerous in like a bad sense,
but you know, it's the reality of playing football. So
I was thinking about that a lot this week. As
far as the game is concerned, I'm kind of with you.

(01:38:54):
I just the Eagles were operating at such a high level.
As you mentioned, these two teams did play way back
in Week one. That was just a strange game to
even think about Friday night in Brazil.

Speaker 3 (01:39:05):
Weird field.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
But I look at it from the same perspective you do.
I don't trust Jordan Love. I was actually one of
the few people I feel like that going back to
the preseason, I understood why he got the extension. I
thought the hype was a little bit too much, just
because dating back to last year, he had a couple
of really big games in big spots, but he had
a couple really down games that a lot of people

(01:39:29):
forgot about as well. That's just a long winded way
of me saying that I think Philly probably wins and
wins reasonably.

Speaker 1 (01:39:35):
One X factor, I do trust Matt Lafleur more than yeah, Sirianni.
If it does come down to coaching decisions, Sirianni can
find a way to get them beat. I've just seen
I've seen too many instances where I just he has lived,
but his team has bailed him out of situations. So
as long as he doesn't cost them the game, I

(01:39:56):
think they'll win.

Speaker 3 (01:39:57):
Totally fair point, totally fair point. I'll tell you what, Jamark.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
We will come back and we'll preview the other two games,
the Sunday Night and Monday night playoff games.

Speaker 3 (01:40:07):
That's next.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
But first, for the final time this evening, let's toss
it over the news desk Steve de Sager, what is trendy?

Speaker 5 (01:40:13):
I will mention that matchup for Sunday Night. It's the
Commanders who've won five straight at the Bucks, who've won
six of seven. Although in Tampa Bay's streak they beat
Carolina twice and the Giants and the Raiders and the Saints.
But Tampa Bay did beat the Chargers in LA and
completely dominated the second half those two met remember in
the season opener at Tampa Bay, and Washington lost that

(01:40:36):
thirty seven to twenty Baker Mayfield four touchdown passes. Monday Night,
we'll get the Rams in Arizona hosting the Vikings, a
Minnesota team that's fourteen and three but they lost twice
to Detroit and lost at the Rams in October. It
was a Thursday night game, thirty to twenty. Rams had
led twenty one to twenty with six and a half
minutes to go. You've got Sam Darnold from USC who

(01:40:58):
had two touchdowns against the Rams in that game. You've
got Kevin O'Connell, Vikings head coach, who's a southern California
native and was a Rams assistant offensive coordinator for Sean
McVay in twenty twenty and twenty one. By the way,
the Falcons fired defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake after one season.
Atlanta allowed the highest completion percentage and the second most

(01:41:19):
TD passes. The Patriots, according to the Boston Globe, are
in contract negotiations with Mike Rabel to make him their
next head coach. Today, the postseason's wild card weekend began
in Houston. Texans were trailing at home late first half
six nothing to the Chargers. Houston won the game thirty
two to twelve. Justin Herbert through four interceptions, was sacked

(01:41:39):
four times. Joe Mixon over one hundred yards rushing. Chargers
got field goals on their first two drives and had
very little offense after that, a total of seven turnovers
in the game. Rookie Ladd mccaukee of LA did have
nine receptions one hundred and ninety seven yards and a score.
Charger franchise still with just one playoff win since twenty
thirteen regular season. The Chargers will be hosting the Texans.

(01:42:03):
Baltimore tonight at home beat Pittsburgh twenty eight to fourteen.
Steelers as a team eleven carries twenty nine yards rushing,
Derrick Henry twenty six carries one hundred and eighty six
yards rushing and two scores. The amazing stat from Associated
Press is the Steelers in the postseason have not even
had the ball with a lead even once in their

(01:42:24):
last six playoff games.

Speaker 3 (01:42:26):
That is insane.

Speaker 5 (01:42:26):
That is insane. So yes, they've lost six playoff games
in a row. They were down badly after the first
half tonight, down twenty one nothing, and in the first half,
Baltimore had an advantage of nineteen first downs to two.
The yardage at halftime was three ZHO eight to fifty nine,
and on third down conversions Baltimore was seven for eight.

(01:42:47):
Pittsburgh hasn't won a playoff game since the twenty sixteen season.
Baltimore this year with the top ranked offense four hundred
and twenty five yards a game. They had four to
sixty four tonight, led by Henry, who ties Terrell for
most playoff games in history with at least one hundred
and fifty yards rushing four of them now and in fact,
in NFL history, including playoff games, Derrick Henry has tied

(01:43:10):
a Jim Rownd record most games with at least one
hundred and fifty yards rushing and at least two touchdowns
on the ground thirteen different times. Derrick Henry has done
that in his NFL career. At Ravens Pro Bowl wide
receiver z A. Flowers remember, left last Saturday with a
knee injury out tonight. No guarantee he plays next weekend
to the NBA Houston and Atlanta postponed by the winter storm,

(01:43:33):
Lakers home game postponed and the Clippers' home game postponed
due to the fires in Los Angeles. College hoops Number
one Tennessee did get a close win at Texas. Number
two Auburn came back to win a close game at
South Carolina and third ranked Iowa State with a comeback
overtime win at Texas Tech at number four, Duke Cooper
flag with forty two points in a win against Notre

(01:43:55):
Dame eighty six seventy eight, and fifth ranked Alabama won
at number ten Texas A and M ninety four to
eighty eight.

Speaker 3 (01:44:03):
Back to you, Thank you very much, Steve de Seger.

Speaker 2 (01:44:05):
This is Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Sunday Now, Aaron Torris,
Jay Smartin broadcasting live from the ti raq dot com studios.
Let's keep it going, Marry, give us some music. Ian, Yes,
game are we previewing?

Speaker 1 (01:44:20):
Next?

Speaker 3 (01:44:21):
I know, but I'll just let you I'll build a
dramatic suspense.

Speaker 1 (01:44:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:44:24):
Next up, it's uh the Washington Commanders going to Tampa
Bay to face the Buccaneers. The Bucks are favored by three.
We'll start with you Erin So Commander's great story. By
the way, I remember doing a show with Steve Hartman
over the summer. He gave he asked me my bold
NFL predictions, and you know, everybody kind of had the

(01:44:44):
same playoff teams. I had two playoff teams that maybe
some other people didn't have.

Speaker 2 (01:44:50):
One was way wrong in the New York Jets. One
ended up being right, though, because I had the Washington
Commanders in the playoffs, so great story. I think the
story ends here and let me tell you why you
look at it. Listen, It's been an amazing year. I'm
not here to tear down what they did. Jayden Daniels
has been amazing, but obviously hit a lull probably about

(01:45:13):
week eleven, week twelve, something like that. They were red hot.
Then they hit a little bit of a low. They
lose three straight. Their final five games that they won
or final well, yeah, five games that they won. Titans, Okay, Saints,
Okay Eagles in which Jalen Hurts gets hurt and Kenny
Pickett plays most of the game, Falcons and Michael Pennix's

(01:45:34):
first career start in overtime, and the lousy Cowboys. So
I guess what I'm saying is, listen, I'm not going
to discredit teams for beating the teams that they're supposed to.
But I do think going on the road at night,
Tampa kind of just a team that takes care of business. Baker,
Mike Evans, the defense, Todd Bowles.

Speaker 1 (01:45:55):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
That's a long win away of me saying that I
do like the Tampa Bay Bucks.

Speaker 1 (01:45:59):
You make a really good case. We have to disagree somewhere.
I'm gonna take Washington. I think I picked him in
the playoffs too. I'd have to go back to that show,
but we were both fairly high on them coming into
the season. I just feel like Jayden Daniels has made
for prime time. In a moment like this, I think
dan Quinn knows what he's doing. I've enjoyed watching the
way that they have grown a bit. We thought they

(01:46:21):
hit a wall, but then yes, you're right. They haven't
looked as impressive in the last four or five weeks,
but there was a moment there where it's like, are
they gonna completely fall off the tracks? And they haven't
done that. There's still some growth in Jaydon Daniels that
we need to see, but I could see it a
couple of big time splash plays. Baker is a boom
er bust guy too. He can be really good and

(01:46:42):
then there are those moments where he just kind of
has an off day and he can give the ball
away two or three times. Also, I could see it
going either in this case, but I just for some reason,
I think the Commanders are gonna get a road win.
I think they're one and done in the playoffs, but
I think they're gonna make it a little interesting and
get one on here as good as Tampa Bay has
been this year, because I have really enjoyed watching them play,

(01:47:05):
and I like so many other players.

Speaker 7 (01:47:07):
All Right, last, but not least, the Vikings versus Rams.
Remember this game was moved to glend Arizona because of
the wildfires. Keep that in mind. Minnesota's favored by two
and a half points. Though, we'll start with you erin
jam before we get to the game.

Speaker 2 (01:47:20):
I have a question for you, and I've been thinking
a lot about this, and I know I'm just kind
of reading off schedules a lot. Right now, did we
anoint Sam Darnold a little too fast? And let me
let me make the argument here, Okay, all right, So obviously,
prior to the Detroit game, great win over Green Bay,
but Seattle Chicago twice, Atlanta again with Kirk Cousins right

(01:47:43):
before he got benched, Tennessee Jacksonville, Indy plays Detroit in primetime,
looks like a deer in headlights. And we've seen Detroit's
defense the week's prior to this game. We know how
many guys are out I don't want to discredit Detroit
for doing what did.

Speaker 3 (01:48:01):
But one, this is obviously it goes out saying.

Speaker 2 (01:48:05):
I just think, one, we know that if Minnesota does
not win this game, we have to reevaluate the entire
Sam Darnold conversation. So maybe I'm just getting forty eight
hours ahead of this, and maybe I should just wait
until after the Rams game because it's a moot point
if they destroy the Rams, and it's probably the lead
talking point on Tuesday if they don't win.

Speaker 3 (01:48:27):
But I do wonder did we annoint him a little
bit early? Is it fair? Is it not fair? What
do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:48:34):
I don't know that he's been anointed yet. I think
it depends on the circle.

Speaker 2 (01:48:38):
I mean, I think people were ready to hand him
the long term extension.

Speaker 1 (01:48:42):
Where do we do it? JJ McCarthy go, yeah, yeah,
I still thought that was kind of nuts. Maybe franchise
or whatever was out there as well. But you're right, like,
if they get loose to the Rams, then McCarthy's gonna
be the quarterback next year. I feel like because of
the way this season ended with the Lions and then
whatever would happen here with the Rams, I think Donald

(01:49:02):
is Donald's a product of Kevin O'Connell being really good
at his job. He's a product of Justin Jefferson. He
is a product of Jordan Addison, Hockinson, all those guys.
He benefits from having those guys. He does. And I
do think that he's he's a better player right now
and he's closer to the guy we thought he could

(01:49:23):
be coming out of college. But I mean, Kevin O'Connell
won with Josh Dobbs last year. He is one with
other guys. He's more Kyle Shanahan than he is Andy
Reid where it has to be Mahomes or it has
to be this or whatever like that. Like he's a
guy that we've seen win with everybody throughout the course
of his career and they like you think about Brock

(01:49:45):
Perdy and Nick Mullins and all the guys that Shanahan's
won with. Well, O'Connell has been able to win no
matter who's been playing quarterback for him as well, and
I think Donald is I think because of that, Donald's
a system guy. And it's not a negative to say that,
but he's a system and I think that that's the
accurate way to kind of look at him in terms

(01:50:05):
of the game, because I don't even think we've predicted
the game yet. I don't know. Because the location of
the game and all the stuff that's kind of going
into it, it just feels weird. The Rams are not
a team that I would want to play right now
if I were the Vikings. I really don't like that
for them, and it's unfortunate considering the season that they've had.

(01:50:26):
I'm tempted to go with the Rams, but I'm going
to take the Vikings because of the defense and because
of the wide receiver talent.

Speaker 2 (01:50:34):
Maybe I'm being a little too critical of Sam Darnold,
but I actually do like the Rams. I know it's
not a traditional home game, but Di Sager kind of
did mention off the top, like what twenty buses around.
You know, it's not going to be a Rams home game,
but the Rams will probably have more fans there. It'll

(01:50:54):
probably be more of a neutral site game. The Rams,
by the way, are one.

Speaker 3 (01:50:58):
Of the few teams that did beat the Vikings.

Speaker 2 (01:51:00):
This year, so to me veteran, I know O'Connell's great,
but I trust the coach a little bit more. With
the Rams. I certainly trust the quarterback more with the Rams,
and I will take the Rams to win. Also think,
by the way, it's not a totally fair thing, but
Rams obviously just played on a Saturday, or excuse me,

(01:51:23):
the Vikings just played Sunday night, excuse me.

Speaker 3 (01:51:26):
And so I just I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:51:27):
It's just I'm not ready to annoint Sam Donald yet
and maybe I'll look stupid, but I just bring it
up because to me, it does feel like a spot where.

Speaker 3 (01:51:36):
The Rams go on the road for a home.

Speaker 2 (01:51:40):
Game and get the win. Fox Sports Radio er Tors
Jason Martin will come back. One segment left wrap the show.

Speaker 1 (01:51:47):
Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (01:51:51):
Welcome back, everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:51:52):
Fox Sports Radio Erin Tords Jason Martin, broadcasting live from
the tire rack dot Com studios. One segment left. Bernie
Frado of The Bernie Frado Show will follow us. Cannot
wait to hear what Bernie has to say about a busy, busy,
busy day in the NFL, and of course looking ahead

(01:52:13):
to three games on Sunday, one game on Monday. Jason,
one thing we haven't talked about NFL Draft order is
set Tennessee. Tye is a team that you have covered
for years for people who do not know Jay Martin
lives in Nashville. Do you get any sense of what

(01:52:34):
the Titans are gonna do?

Speaker 3 (01:52:35):
And I bring it up.

Speaker 2 (01:52:36):
We talked a little bit about Dion Sanders earlier potentially
being interested in becoming the head coach of the Las
Vegas Raiders, and even previously Dion had kind of said publicly,
we're not afraid to pull a quote Eli in other words, like, hey,
if we don't like the situation, we're not afraid to
kind of ruffle some feathers.

Speaker 3 (01:52:55):
So is it gonna be cam Ward?

Speaker 2 (01:52:57):
Obviously Abdul Carter picked up some buzz coming out of
coming out of the Orange Bowl. Do you have any
strong opinions on what the Titans should or will do
with the number one overall pick.

Speaker 1 (01:53:08):
I feel like if you don't have a quarterback, then
you don't have the luxury not to take one. The
problem is this is not the year you want the
number one pick. This sounds like a really negative thing
to say about guys that have been excellent in college.
But do we have a feeling that cam Ward is

(01:53:28):
going to be all pro, superstar quarterback level guy. I
don't know, But if you're the Tennessee Titans. You have
to find a quarterback. The quarterback is not the best
player in the draft this time. But I don't think
that you have the luxury to take the best player
in the draft. I don't think you can take the

(01:53:48):
best player available at one. You either are going to
take a quarterback or you're going to trade down to
someone who is going to take a quarterback and try
to get multiple picks out of it. Your bigger problem
is you got to find a general man first, and
then you've got to figure out what his philosophy is
going to be, because he's certainly going to want to
come in and not probably have to deal with the
quarterback scenario the way they have it this year. I

(01:54:10):
heard a couple of different Titans legends this week suggesting
you got to take Travis Hunter at number one and
just ride this one more year with Levis and Mason
Rudolph and then we'll look at quarterback after that. And
it's just like, I don't think you can do that.

(01:54:31):
I just don't, And I don't think a general manager
that's coming in here is going to allow that either.
So my anticipation is and a lot can change my
anticipation is they're going to take cam Ward at number one,
because I don't think that trading out when you need
a quarterback is what you do, even though I don't
know that you have a number one overall pick sitting

(01:54:52):
there at quarterback, or I don't think that a quarterback
is necessarily worthy of that pick, even though you have
a lot of holes and a quarterback is not. You're
not a back away if you're Tennessee anymore. That might
have been might have been true when you had Dereck Henry,
but you don't anymore. And so with that said, I
think you still have to try and build around a quarterback,

(01:55:14):
and I think that you know you don't have one
right now. So a general manager is not going to
be able to sit around because you can't guarantee you're
going to have the number one pick again. So I
don't know what you're supposed to do. Really, I assume
that they're going to take cam Ward.

Speaker 2 (01:55:29):
I'll say I always feel bad for teams. I always
feel bad for teams that are in position when they
clearly need a quarterback, but there isn't obvious answers, And
I think that applies to a bunch of teams. But
I mean, I even go back three four years. I mean,
and it's been a topic of conversation the last month
or so, but the New York Jets like the year

(01:55:50):
that they needed, they felt like they needed to take
a quarterback. They take Zach Wilson. It ends up being
the wrong pick, and it turns out that none of
the quarterbacks in that draft were any good, certainly none
that were available at number two. And so I feel
bad because whoever is the GM is pretty much going
to be defined by do they take either cam Ward

(01:56:11):
or Shore Sanders and I think they will, and does
that guy work out or not? And if they don't,
nobody's gonna remember, Oh, it was a bad quarterback draft
and it's not his fault.

Speaker 3 (01:56:21):
And you know, da da da da.

Speaker 2 (01:56:22):
It's like, no, you had your shot at the quarterback,
you whiffed, and frankly, you'll probably end up getting fired.
So I always feel bad for teams and organizations in
this situation. By the way, It's why I'd give Brian
Dable another year. But even Brian Dable, it's like, are
they gonna get the quarterback that they want? Is the
quarterback gonna be any good? They're in the impossible spot

(01:56:42):
where they're at what number three, and both teams ahead
of them probably need a quarterback now that we know
that Deshaun Watson is gonna be available next year. So
it's just I just feel bad for these organizations. And
I think I especially feel bad because there are so
many teams that clearly need a quarterback this year, and
there just aren't the guys in the draft this year.

(01:57:03):
So it's just gonna be really interesting a minute or less.
I don't think we have very much time, but any
takeaways from a By the way, Cleveland Browns a number two,
we think we think they're taking a quarterback, right.

Speaker 1 (01:57:17):
I don't know that Deshaun Watson ever plays another down
in the NFL?

Speaker 2 (01:57:21):
Is that normal to retear your ACL before you're like,
while you're I've never heard of that before.

Speaker 1 (01:57:28):
No, but neither was the contract that he signed and
everything else, Like everything about Deshaun Watson since since the
end in Houston has just been I don't even know
what to say. And you can, you can make a
lot of comments about the retearing of the ACL and
all this other kind of stuff. It's just I said

(01:57:49):
this before. I just didn't ever feel right watching him
play football, sure at all, not once everything started coming
out and all this kind of stuff. I hope he's
able to piece his life back together and you know,
find that piece again, find that joy again, find forgiveness

(01:58:10):
and all those other kinds of things. I'm cool, though,
with the Deshaun Watson experiment in terms of us as
a viewing public watching I'm cool if it's over and
the Browns have reaped what they sewed and it's hard
to feel sympathy for them, despite the fact that a
lot of their players don't have anything to do with it.

(01:58:32):
I think it's probably better for all involved if Deshaun's
career is over.

Speaker 2 (01:58:37):
Very interesting situation for the Cleveland Browns. I feels like
they probably have to go quarterback too. But again, yeah,
but how many quarterbacks are on the board that you
want to take, Especially, as we discussed earlier, Dion Sanders
reportedly potentially with some interest in the Las Vegas Raiders
job if he goes to Vegas there Obviously, Schador is

(01:58:59):
not gonna play anywhere other than for the Raiders.

Speaker 3 (01:59:02):
So you have the number two pick. If you're the Browns, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:59:05):
Just gonna be a very interesting draft because the supply
and demand of quarterback is totally out of whack.

Speaker 3 (01:59:10):
We gotta get out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:59:11):
Want to thank the crew, Mary mack back from her
international gallivanting all over the world.

Speaker 3 (01:59:16):
Nice of you to join us. She was on the
boards this evening.

Speaker 2 (01:59:19):
Producer Ian who's just been working hard unlike Mary, but
that's another conversation for another day.

Speaker 3 (01:59:23):
We appreciate both of you.

Speaker 2 (01:59:25):
Disager, by the way, I'm teasing Mary from my partner
Jason Martin, I'm meratorus. Make sure to download the podcast.
Bernie Fratto of The Bernie Fratto Show is next. Stay
tuned Fox Sports Tridio

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