Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is the best of the Ben Maler Show on
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Speaker 1 (00:35):
It's not all rainbows and lollipops and mister Rogers, neighborhood.
Welcome in the beginning of another night and another week
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free road hazard protection with convenient installation options like mobile
tire installation, tire i raq dot Com, the Wait tire
buying Shure. So we're back at it again and busy
night bouncing around here. Did have a chance to attend
most of the Sunday Night game. I was out there
(02:08):
watching the Sunday Night game, I believe a little early
to make it here to the Mothership to avoid the
mass exodus. And it was the daily double at SOFI
and as our lead there Sunday Night Football, Mike Tomlin
and the Steelers visiting so Cal to take on Jim
Harbaugh and the Chargers in a made for TV matchup.
(02:30):
I did not get to hear the broadcast. I imagine
that Chris Collnsworth was slobbering all over both quarterbacks, so
the very difficult to slobber over Aaron Rodgers the way
that he played. But there they were at SOFI in
the hood in Inglewood and up to no good. That
was Aaron Rodgers up to no good. My god, horrific.
(02:50):
So I'll get right into it. Justin Herbert, who wasn't
all that great either. He had two hundred twenty yards
passing and a touchdown and Aaron rod a stumble bump
performance for Aaron Rodgers, his worst game with the Pet sparkstiff.
Despite being surrounded by nothing but black and yellow, black
(03:11):
and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow, it did
not matter as the Chargers slapping around Aaron Rodgers, and
a lot of that was unforced mistakes by Rogers. Twenty
five to ten. Your final score saw the game? You
know that on Sunday night there for the third straight win.
Show me your lightning bolt. Now, the better story is
(03:32):
in the losing locker room. Aaron Rodgers completed barely over
fifty percent of his passes in this game. I'm told
that's not good. He averaged a little over five yards
of pass which was actually better than it had been
most of the game thanks to the fourth quarter and
the garbage time touchdown with less than three minutes to
go the game. Well in the bag, what's in the back?
(03:54):
The win is in the bag for the team from
Los Angeles, the Chargers. There, Rodgers has also had an
interception that he sacked for a safety in the in
the end zone, obviously, and then also fumble, though that
was recovered. So when asked to assess Aaron Rodgers play,
Mike Tomlin, the Steelers head coach, seemingly dismissing the question
(04:18):
there and he delivered a death stare, a Mike Tomlin
death stare to the reporter, do we have that? I
don't know we have that? We have that? I listened
to Mike Tomlin here as asked the basic question you're
starting quarterback, went out there and wrote themit comment, what
do you have to say for yourself? How would you?
(04:43):
How would you?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
All?
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Right? So that is a good jumping off point. Let
us discuss always like angry Mike Tomlin's fun. It's fun
angry Mike Tomlin. It was an obvious question. Everyone knows
the answer to that. It's like, but you're not supposed
to say it. So let us discuss the question what
is your takeaway from Mike Tomlin and the death stare?
The death stair like the male medusa right there, Mike
(05:11):
tom about Aaron Rodgers and how to assess his performance
or lack thereof. So I've got limited edition frosty mug
and background noise, and we will combine all of these
things together and we are going to pig out on
ballpark food like stale popcorn, nachos, hot dogs. There's a
(05:34):
lot of ballpark food everywhere being tossed around. So hey,
my first thought on this, I love the Tomlin death.
Stare not quite to the level of Bill Belichick back
in his salad days with the Patriots, but Tomlin, his
blood was boiling. The blood was He's like, here we
go again, here we go again. And Ben Roethlisberger was
(05:55):
not very good the end of his time in Pittsburgh.
They've had a revolving door of dumb and dumber at
quarterback ever since Roethlisberger left. And again he went very
good at the end there in Pittsburgh. And so they
went through a bunch last year was justin Fields, Holy
crapt us. He sucked. And you see what he did
for the JETSA they won, but not because of him.
(06:16):
And then also Russell Wilson, so they well, we got
better and Aaron Rodgers has actually been better than what
they had gotten there in Pittsburgh. But this was horrific.
That was not the kind of performance you expected. Obviously
nobody expected that. And man Rogers looking like he belonged
(06:36):
in a museum, and not the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
I'm talking about like a museum where they look at dinosaurs,
may ancient, ancient looking there for Rogers in the game.
And I was actually sitting kind of near the end
zone when Rogers stumbled and bumbled and fell down there
for the safety early in the football game there, and
(06:58):
any success he had in this game was in garbage time.
The game had already been decided. The outcome was going
to go to the Chargers, and then that's it. So
you'd think the way he was playing, there should be
some kind of spin off with Nike, a limited edition
Nike Orthopedic cleat, Like get those special Orthopedic cleats with
the swooshot them and get him a Walker, Holy canoy man.
(07:23):
Instead of just do it, just nap will be the
phrase there for Rogers watching him play here, he looked
like forget forty one. He played like he was in
his late sixties there, plodding along slow. There was really
no rhythm, no method to the madness here for Aaron Rodgers,
and we call the type of game Rogers had. It's
(07:44):
called the compass Rose. What is the compass Rose? Quarterback?
That's where the passes go up and down and right
and left. And Rogers, it seemed, specifically, had mastered in
this game the art of the overthrow. The art of
the overthrow. There was vintage. This was like Jets era Rodgers,
although I felt like it was worse than that even
(08:07):
watching it in person. I've seen it on TV a bunch,
but to be there in the building and watch it
in person, I was like, oh yeah, man, like, boy,
I gotta get more monologues in on Rogers. He's not
gonna be around very much longer. Holy crap, man alive.
I've spent the last twenty years of my life talking
about his cat Rogers and man and just grumpy, you know,
typical one. Things aren't going well, you're disengaged, you're not
(08:29):
fired up here. He's like trying to do a fill
in for a Sesame Street character, Oscar the Grouch, grouchy, groutchy, grouchy,
grouchy grouchy man a love Let's They were playing in
a swamp, the Steelers offense, nothing, nothing going on. Third
down for Aaron Rodgers, it was bad. So they had
(08:49):
that limited edition orthopedic shoe for Rogers, and you half
expected him in the third quarter just to crawl back
into the trash can the way that he was plague.
And of course you what it was. He distracted because
you know his imaginary wife was there, maybe his real wife.
I don't know who knows he's in your house in Malibu,
although I think he's moving. I don't know what's going
(09:10):
on with that. But it's week ten. There are no
more excusely like the first five weeks. Wow, it's early,
we'll figure it out. Nothing to worry about. It's week ten.
We are past the midway point. What are you doing?
This is who you are. The trade deadline is over.
There's no reinforcements coming in to save the day. This
(09:30):
is what you got. Now are we discounting the Chargers? Here?
Are the Chargers a really good defense? Then we're they're
good defense. I don't know. I would say really good,
and I would argue based on both watching the game
on the monitor and I'm flipping down with my own eyeballs.
It seemed more case of these were self inflicted wounds
(09:52):
by the Pittsburgh Steelers in this game. So using the
Malord scale of concern, the Malor scale of concern one
to ten, with ten being the worst of the worst
of the worst. I'm out of nine. I'm out of nine.
Am I being a prisoner of the moment? Probably so?
(10:13):
Probably so? But I'm at a nine. I just I'm
telling you what I just watched. That is not a
guy that's gonna win a playoff game. That is not
a guy that looks like he's even gonna make the playoffs.
That was bad. That was bad. That's one game. Blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah. But that's all I
have to do this show right now, It's all I
have to go on. He sucked. Rogers was garbage in
(10:34):
that game, okay, And if this keeps up, forget a quarterback,
coach or a wide receiver. He's gonna need a lifeguard
because he's drowning. The whole offense is drowning out. There
was a gigantic turn Berger is what they served up there.
And Rogers Now, he said after the game that he
feels good and that he'll play better and you know
he's gonna do better decision making and all that. Come on,
(10:56):
all right, now, turning the page as for the big
picture again, better story in the losing locker room now.
Mike Tomlin also said regarding the situation the Steelers are,
and he said, there's quote nothing mystical about it. He said,
he says we'll be back, he claimed, will be better.
We have to be close. Quote from the very verbose
(11:20):
Mike Tomlin. A good SoundBite, really good sound bite. Mike
tom Top five sound bite coach. We don't do lists.
I'm just saying, top five sound bite coach. Big board
not list, big board not list. So the question here
it is how much stalk? How much stalk do you
put into Mike Tomlin promising that these Steelers will be back,
(11:42):
will be back? Is the quote for Mike Tomlin. So
my first reaction, much like when Aaron Rodgers says, hey,
you know, I feel good, We'll play better, when Mike
Tomlin says something similar, it's like, well what else you
supposed to say? You imagine if Tomlin had come out
as the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers and said, well,
we stink boys, We'll just shut it down, get ready
for next year? Looan management, loot management. He can't say that.
(12:07):
So it's coach speak one oh one. You gotta say something.
And so we'll be back as just Tom lines. What
is tomlinies? It's ay, we're not gonna forfeit. Yeah, now
we're not. We just decided not to forfeit. We'll try
to play the game. Congratulations. So the Steelers are gonna
show up next week, and the Steelers can say hellllelujah, hellllelujah.
(12:29):
Now why can't they say halluyah. The problem is not
the pep talk. Pep talk really means all that much.
It's the quality control of the product that has not
been consistent. The defense was atrocious the beginning of the year.
The defense has played a little bit better now the
offense falls apart one thing. It's like playing whack a mole,
like you got one problem, you slap that down, and
(12:52):
then another one pops up over he wa, I only
got two albs, I only got two rs. What he's
supposed to do? And uh so Rod just looked like
watching him play in the first half of that game
and into the third quarter, it looked like he had
gone out prior to the game, and he was tailgating
with like Joe Rogan, even though Rogan lives in Texas,
(13:14):
but they some maybe flew out to La. They were tailgating.
They had like a frosty mug of ayahuasca. And Rogers
went out there and he was seeing demons to the right,
and he was seeing aliens to the left. And it
was wild, wild goes spook. It was a comedy of errors,
(13:35):
is what it was. And now the good news is
and I said, hallelujah, the good news is up next
the ben Gals. They suck. If you don't have success
in offense against the Cincinnati Bengals, then you might want
to go and get your pulse checked because you might
be dead. Okay, they suck. So that's the good news.
(13:55):
That's the silver lining playbook for Mike Tomlin and for
Aaron Rodgers. You got Cincinnati, they're easy, Mark. You still
got to show up. You got to win the game.
You'll get a focused Pittsburgh team next week. The question
is is this going to be what Rogers is the
rest of the way. Who knows. But Mike Tomlin can
talk about and he loves the quote. The standard is
(14:18):
the standard. It's the iconic Mike Tomlin quote from his
time in Pittsburgh with the if you look at the
drive through menu board right now, if you look at
the drive through menu board there, it says here and
you can look it up. It says a standard lately
has been mediocrity. And then they've got a side dish
with the combo on the drive through menu. You've got
(14:38):
mediocrity and then a side of false hope aside of
false hope. So you've got a little bit of that,
a little bit of this. It's all kind of mixed together.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Now.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
The last word among and I did see this. It
was multitasking and people were telling me old stories that
they didn't really want to hear, but they kept on
me anyway. The other storyline was the crowd, and it's
not new. It's been this way ever since the NFL
left Los Angeles for a generation and came back. Certain
(15:09):
teams that have a rich history packed the stadium, in
this case the Pittsburgh Steelers. It might as well have
been in the confluence there where they formed the Ohio River,
the Monongahela and the Allegheny. Give birth to a baby
might as well have had that they had a little
man made lake out front so far that they have there.
(15:31):
But the NBC cameras you couldn't help but miss it.
You couldn't. You couldn't avoid it, is what I'm trying
to say. The cameras showed, Now we were shocked by it,
shouldn't be shocked by it. Happens every time they play
a legacy team like the Packers, Steelers of the forty
nine ers, teams that have huge followings. So the cameras
(15:51):
kept showing these Steeler fans waving the terrible towels, and
a buddy of mine in the press box is like, hey,
did they give those out? I said, why they give
out terrible towels? That's a Pittsburgh thing, you dummy. They
don't give those out, But it looked like it was.
It was like a promotion. Everyone had one. Everyone had
a Terrible towel. At one point, I think the Charger
(16:13):
fans started holding them up. They were like, hey, they're yellow.
We'll make it about that. And so you had Mike
Tariko on the broadcast. He said, and he was being
generous when he said sixty five percent he estimated a
pro Steeler crowd as sixty five percent. Other estimates said
seventy percent. I did the malor math and I was there,
(16:33):
so boots on the ground, I said seventy five percent.
Steeler fans seventy five percent. The place was packed. It
was absolutely packed, everyone in the house there with the
black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow, black
and yellow all that. So the question is this embarrassing
(16:53):
for the NFL that you have an island game island
game Sunday night for well, yet again, Chargers there and
they've been in LA for a while now and they
have not been able to develop a fan base in LA.
And here's the latest example example A your honor the
defense now rest, so listen. It is I would not
(17:17):
say it's embarrassing. I'm looking. I'm not gonna use the
word embarrassing. The word that should be used here, and
I like words. Inevitable is the word I will use.
So I'm gonna use the word inevitable. And the reason
I'm using the word inevitable the Chargers ghosted San Diego.
You know how you're sending your date and you might
just you know, you go out and date, you get
a free meal, you blow the other person off. It
(17:37):
I'm gonna contact them again. So the Chargers ghosted the
city of San Diego. Now you know, some of you
know I started in radio in San Diego. I was
there as a young lad. The Chargers got to a
Super Bowl. The town was electric. It was a loyal
fan base of Charger fans in San Diego, and the franchise,
the Spanos family, said screw you, We're done. That's it.
(17:59):
And so so and I know this. I've had this
explained to me by some people that work for the
Chargers years ago. When they first came to LA, they said, listen,
we're gonna get a certain percentage of people that are
going to drive up from San Diego, and they're gonna
make the drive every Sunday. It's gonna be a thing.
And then they're gonna go back. And so they figured
they'd have that, and then they'd add slowly, they'd add
(18:22):
fans in LA. Could not have been more wrong, could
not have been more wrong. I love when really educated
people who have gone through all of academia have had
all that crap and they just are complete morons people.
There's a few Charger fans that make the trip up
in San Diego very few. The town's pretty much like,
(18:42):
screw you, we hate all things LA. We're not going
up there. You people come down here on the weekends
and run amok in our city. So we're out. And
so you can't just reboot a fan base like you
can reboot a computer or a phone. It's not the
way it works, I'll be you certainly can't get all
of a sudden loyal large numbers of loyal fans. There
(19:04):
are loyal Charger fans, it's just not many, not many
of them. And you know, San Diego, say what you want,
military town, surf for town, all that. But they did
love the Chargers. They did, and they were rewarded with
the bird from the NFL and from the Spanos family.
So the reality is hardly anybody cares about the Chargers
in LA. They're just kind of background noise, if you will,
(19:28):
in between commercials and they pop up and you're like,
why is the Charger game? I don't want to watch
the Charger game. Why don't we get another game? Well,
that's the game because they're in LA, so you get
to charge again. But I don't want the charge of it.
But that's the game. That's what you get. Nine years
they've been back. It's been nine years already. The Chargers
have been back in LA and most of the time
they're playing road games and it doesn't affect the outcome.
(19:50):
And I'm not gonna say people make a big deal
about it. They love to talk about home field event
it doesn't. The Chargers won this game. It was a
Steeler home game. The Rams win most of their home games.
When there's other fans from other teams, it doesn't matter.
It feels good if you're a fan of another team,
Like I know, the Niner fans love when they come
to LA to play the Rams and it's like a
Niner home game. They love it. May just win most
(20:11):
of the time. When the other team has more fans
than the Chargers, it doesn't affect it. But it does
take at least a generation, at least a generation to
cultivate to grow. If you're a farmer, it takes a
generation to grow on fan base. Right, twenty years, it's
been nine So if you do the math on that,
eleven more years, Holy crap, we're looking at twenty thirty six,
(20:35):
twenty thirty six before you start to feel any kind
of local, local family. And that's the kids that became
charge of fans that now have become adults, and then
they're starting families and crap like that. That's what that is.
Now you can fast track it. You can fast track
it the way you would fast track it is to
win a couple of super Bowls, because everyone's a front runner.
Everyone's a band wagner, as Blair and Main likes to say,
(20:58):
and so you can zip things along a little. The
Chargers don't look like a super Bowl team to me?
Do they look like a super Bowl team to you?
They don't look like a super Bowl team to me.
They like a typical middle of the pack good team,
not great team where five things happen, right, meaning a
couple of quarterbacks break their ankles or whatever. You could
go to the super Bowl. Other than that, eh, you know,
(21:20):
they'll win their ten or eleven games, and they'll be
a playoff team and they'll lose in the first or
the second weekend of the NFL playoffs, and that'll be that.
And so meanwhile, the Steeler fans generation which runner the
mathot so nineteen seventies, the great Steeler teams with Terry
Bradshaw on that great defense. And so you fast forward
out for those people in the seventies had kids, so
(21:42):
then they became adults in the nineties. So then those
people they had kids maybe in the twenty tens, right,
So now we're on to another generation of Steeler fans.
And it was crazy, man. I was looking around. I
want to I saw her buddy Eddie, the Great Eddie
Garcia up with him. Had a little pow wow with
Eddie down there. He had full Steeler gear on. I
(22:04):
couldn't find him because he had full Steeler gear. If
you want to stand out, you should want to charge
your jersey. I would have found him right away. Was
King Eddy right there. But it was like a black
and yellow, black and yellow circus. It was like Halloween
had continued here and it was like a pajama party
mixed with Halloween. There were dudes with homemade costumes. It
was pretty pretty intense. Man. These guys have spent a
(22:25):
lot of time and effort to come up with the
right look. And some of it was store bought, you know.
Some of it was just what you can find online.
But it looked like there were some things I had
never seen before. I saw a lot of steely McBean,
which is I thought that was a mascot. Eddie hated
the mascot, but I saw a lot of shirts with
Steely McBean on it and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
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Speaker 1 (23:22):
Away another giant mistake. It happens on a weekly basis.
Welcome in the beginning of another hour of the Ben
Mahler Show. We are in the air everywhere. Ear plug playfellows,
as we are committed to justice, sporty justice, coast to coast,
(23:47):
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we are back at it here and our lead this
(25:39):
hour from Sweet Homeshiticago, where yet again it looked like
the Bears were going to blow it and they needed
some cardiac help, not like the kind Jed who fled.
Got more on that later this hour, Jed revealing a
senior member of the Mallem Militia that he had a
heart attack. Anyway, the Giants blew another doubled lead. Where
(26:00):
have we seen this before? Hmmm, I don't know, almost
every road game. Anyway, The Giants put another double digit lead,
losing twenty four to twenty. Jackson Dart also leaving this
game with injury. Now, the better story is in the
losing locker room in Chicago. So they very rare, very
rare that an NFL coach gets put on blast by
(26:22):
the TV people. Just almost never happens because everyone's in
bed with everyone else. When you're part of the cabal,
you don't mess with the cabal. And every once in
a while somebody steps out of mounds. Now normally when
that happens, they are allowed to do it. You might
remember after the Cardinals took down the Cowboys in that
(26:42):
Monday night game. During the game and then the postgame,
Joe Back and Troy Aikman revealed that they didn't think
Kyler Murray would keep his job as QB one in Arizona. Well,
the next day it was announced that Kyler Murray had
been demoted. He had been losing his rank excommunicated, if
you will, And that really helped the Cardinals, by the way,
(27:03):
that really did really well in Seattle without him. But anyway,
they said it, they put their name on it, and
they put their name on it because they were allowed
to do it. I bring that up because Greg Olsen,
the Fox broadcaster Greg Olsen was essentially doing the same thing.
He was attacking Brian Dayball, the formerly row Ton coach
of the Giants, did essentially a job review on the
(27:27):
boob Tube of the New York Giants coach. Now the Giants.
To set this up, the Giants had a touchdown lead.
They were at the one yard line. So at the
one yard line you're up by a touchdown and you
got to decide it's fourth down. Do you kick the
field goal? Do you go for the touchdown? He kicked
the field goal. Now you figure two score lead in
(27:47):
the fourth quarter. You think, okay, we're still going to
win this game, until you realize the Giants defense isn't
very good. And then Caleb Williams he put down the
nail polish and stormed back and Chicago ended up getting
the win. There Yourphemi tree in Chicago, all those guys
very happy, Eugene in Chicago. So on the broadcast, greg
(28:08):
Olsen ripped Brian day Ball on Fox, took up shot
at him, say, well in the grasspies, coach diok conservatively
and that is a good jumping off point. Much discussion.
Will we see another coaching change in the NFL? When
the sun rises in the east, Will Brian day Ball
be setting as coach of the Giants? Developing hot dot
(28:30):
dot dot. So the question all right, how many more?
How many more of these epic choke jobs does Brian
day Ball get before the Giants hand him a nice
parting gift, a big pink slip? How many more does
he get? So my observations on this one, I've got Hanukkah,
grilled asparagus, and Corner Bakery, and we will combine all
(28:56):
of these things together and we're gonna make We're gonna
make the Gabba Ghoul is what we're gonna make, all right.
So before we rant and rave, here let's hear from
the man of the hour, a man who has mastered
the art of the choke job, yet for some reason,
can't seem to be removed as coach of the Giants.
Here's Brian day Ball, asked yet again about his tenuous
(29:17):
future as coach of the Giants. Take a listen. Pretty
worried about.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Your job too? Any Yeah, I'm just focused on you know,
these guys in the locker room. You know, they're tough losses, Dan,
they really are. Everybody puts so much into it, the
coaches put so much into it, the players, you know,
and it's painful when you have when you have these endings,
you know, you stick together and you know that's what
that's what you have to do.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
How's that working out? You're sticking together? Because what else
is you going to say in that situation. So it's
the same every week when they go on the road
at home most of the time too, same old story.
Double digit lead, Saya nara to the double digit league
gone conservative play calling. Yeah, no, It's one thing if
you're trying to protect a big lead or something like that,
trying to nurse a lead and you've got a good team.
(30:03):
It's another thing if you have nothing to lose because
you blow. That's the Giants like like, why are you
coaching conservative? Your team sucks? Like what are you trying
to accomplish? I don't understand it. So anyway, Brian day
Ball is standing there on the sidelines looking like he's
trying to solve a Ruby's cube and he's blindfolded. You know,
check that box right there, Check that box. That's about right.
(30:25):
So there you go, and the man's team, he's been
there long enough. We now know the book on Brian
day Ball. He's not making them better. He's not making
anyone better. That's the same old sorry ass Giants, So
why exactly is he there right? You look at him,
It's like his teams have consistently committed crimes against competitiveness,
(30:48):
which is just bonehead turnovers and poor coaching decisions and
all of that, And so you'd think he would have
never been brought back this year in the first places. Obviously,
you would think on borrowed time, although the Giants seem
to want to keep him around there it doesn't make
any sense. The doomsday clock should be at kabboom. It
(31:08):
should be a kaboom here. Tick tick tick tick tick
tick tick. Giants have played now four games on the
road when leading by ten or more points, and they
have lost all four. That is not bad luck. That
is systemic incompetence is what that is from the coaching
all the way down. In this game, you're at the
one yard line, you're at the one yard line, you're
(31:30):
up seven, and you decided to kick a field goal.
I'm gonna kick a field goal. Okay, you know what
that is? That is lf Loser football is what that is?
That is loser football. That is I hope on a
wing and a prayer that my defense can make a
few plays, even though they rarely make many plays, and
(31:51):
then meanwhile, Caleb Williams of all people, Yes, that Caleb
Williams goes video game mode. Boom, just like that, another
blown lead for the Giants. You can stack it on
top of the other hotcakes there. So unfortunately, Brian dables.
So what do we know about how does he keep
the job? What we know about him is he seems
to be a nice guy. It seems like he's a
(32:13):
nice guy, big personality guy and football guy and all
that stuff there doesn't win, mind you, doesn't win. But
really good guy, really good guy. And it's like a
Hanuka classic. He's the mench on the bench, although he
shouldn't be on the bench anymore. He is the mench
(32:33):
on the bench. There. That would be Brian day Ball.
Great for the holidays, unless you want to actually win
football games in crunch time, and then not so good.
And if you do an idiot check, do you ever
do the idiot check? If you do an idiot check
on Brian day Ball? There the consistent thing here, the
common denominator is the coach. The roster has turned over,
(32:56):
the quarterbacks have turned over, and the meltdowns have continued.
So the constant there. You always looking to chop down
possibilities with the constant is forget the injuries. And he said, well,
Jackson Dart got hurt and all that. Forget that. Yeah,
Russell Wilson socks and he was in there. I get
it at the end, but most of this is self
(33:18):
inflicted wounds. So you either go for the touchdown. If
you don't get it, you make the Bears go ninety
nine yards against your team, and that's just to tie
the game, and you feel like you're in pretty good ship. Now. Meanwhile,
we turned the page to San Francisco, actually Santa Clara
that it was an NFC West Brew ha ha. A
(33:39):
couple rivals. They were there, the Rams and the forty
nine ers, and it was all Rams. You could ram
it all day, you could ram it all night. The Rams, Baby,
I didn't think they were gonna win this game by
that much. They did made me look bad. Seven and two.
Now the Rams record, matt if you watched Benny versus
the Penny, I was like, oh, the Rams usually struggle
on the spot and all that stuff. Well they didn't struggle.
(34:01):
They boat raced the forty nine Ers in this game.
Domination situation. Matthew Stafford getting hyped up as an MVP candidate.
I'll believe it when I see it. Stafford, though, torched
the forty nine Ers rag tag defense in this game.
As the Niners go win lost win loss, win lost
win lost win lost, win loss, and forty two. They
put forty two points off the Rams against the Niners
(34:23):
defense there as Stafford at two hundred and eighty yards
passing and four touchdowns. I didn't play in the NFL.
I'm gonna check with Ryan Clark. I think that's good.
Many pundits and officia nachos of the NFL now losing
their minds because of this domination situation by the Rams,
that this is a Super Bowl team and Stafford's the
(34:45):
ENVP and everything is great, and oh my god, it's
so good. All right, So question question for you, do
Matthew Stafford in the Rams get style points for clocking
the forty nine ers. So I saw the raw ross stuff,
(35:08):
super Bowl Stafford MVP and to all of it in
terms of that in the style points, I am shaking
my head. No, you can't see me, but if you're
watching on the YouTube, I'm shaking my head no. And
if I do this any longer I'm I'm get dizzy,
and I don't want to get dizzy. But the answer
is no, like slow your row, what are you doing here?
(35:32):
Like seriously, I don't give them any extra credit. The Ram.
I'm a Ram. I do like the Rams. You guys
know that. I like the Rams. I want to see
the Rams do well. I don't give any extra credit.
Stafford was sharp. Four touchdowns obviously was great. They kept
scoring touchdowns. It was insane with a six touchdowns something
like that. It was insane. So they spread the ball around.
(35:53):
He spread the ball around and it was it was great.
Its hold off on the parade. We don't have to
have a parade here. This wasn't the Niner eighty. I
didn't see Nick Bosa out there. I didn't see Fred Warner.
I didn't see brock Purty, although I'm not a big
brock Purty guy. Mac Jones is fine. He had some
empty stats there, misleading stats as the Rams jumped out
(36:15):
to a big lead, and then mac Jones made some
garbage time plays. But the Rams, the Rams beat essentially
the cover band for the Niners. That was the cover band.
That was not the original. That's what that was there,
And so let's not get too excited. They didn't have
their headline. It's kind of like going to the cheesecake
factory and you're like, oh, I'm gonna go to the
cheesecake factory, and then you realize, well, I didn't order
(36:36):
the main dish. I got the grilled disparagus and I
got that off the Skinny Delicious menu, and that's not
really the full meal. You're not getting the full experience there.
So it was the Niners light. It was the Niners light.
A lot of flotsam and jetsam on defense. Guys you've
never heard of in the front seven, a couple guys
in the secondary there. And the Rams are good. We
(36:57):
know the Rams are good. We know that if you
look around the NFC, everyone is beatable. There's no one
that you look at and say that's the immovable object.
You can't beat that team. And so congratulations, they can
beat anyone in the NFC, anyone, Seattle, Philadelphia, you look
(37:18):
at the top teams there, whoever you think the top
team is, the Rams can beat them. And so as
far as this game, it was Bachmann Turner overdrive. It
was just taking care of business is what this was.
And Sean mcvay's team showed up, they punched the clock.
Good for them. They cashed in the check and that's it.
And so you don't get any extra credit as you
don't get style points, at least not on this side
of the microphone. You don't do that. And it was
(37:40):
like doing a shift at the factory. You do your job,
You go home and maybe you crack open a cold one,
and then you kind of wind down and go to bed,
and then you get back up and do it again
the next day. All right, now, final point. We go
now to Charlotte, North Carolina. We go to Charlotte where
the lowly Saints, many believe the worst team in the NFL.
(38:04):
The lowly Saints. They knocked off the upstart Carolina Panthers.
All that talk to Carolina was back, baby, they were back,
Well not so much. Now. The story here, the better
story in the losing locker room, how bad Carolina played
against just a total tomato can in the New Orleans Saints.
(38:24):
And following the game, the head coach Dave Canalis of
Carolina raised some eyebrows there as he refused to criticize
in any meaningful way. Bryce Young, that's a quarterback. Not
a good one. Not a good one. Bryce Young the quarterback,
the little fella and under center. A really just miserable
(38:44):
performance by the quarterback. And yet Dave Canalis would not
go there. Here's a little taste of his postgame newscomers.
Let's take a listen. I think he's throwing the ball great.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Some plays that he would tell you that he would
like to have back. But in general, this is not
about Bryce.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
This is about me.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
This is about our group.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
This is about us taking the steps so we can
be a balance offense. Okay, so that money quote right there,
you heard it. This is not about Bryce. This is
about me and our group. Close quote. We'll leave the
rest on the cutting room floor. So question, what is
your reaction? What is your reaction to coach Dave Canalis
saying that Carolina's problems are on offense, obviously, but they're
(39:25):
not on Bryce Young. It's on the group, not on
Bryce Young. So on this one, oh please, like seriously,
like I know you're supposed to say that and all
that stuff. Spare me. This is absolutely on the very
small shoulders of Bryce Young. It is the arrow is
(39:48):
pointing directly at Bryce Young. Every man, woman, and child
knows it. And he went out there and drowned against
the Saints. He just sunk. And if you play like
that against the Saints, right, that's a team that is
in the same realm of the NFL. If you look
(40:09):
at the ven diagram of the NFL, in the little quadrant,
the team from New Orleans. Their contemporaries are the Browns
and the Jets. Carolina had one hundred and seventy five
yards of offense one hundred and seventy five against the Aints. Okay,
they had thirteen first downs the entire game, and a
(40:31):
couple of those were because of penalty by New Orleans.
So really eleven first downs that they earned that they
were not given. And so what is Dave Canalys the coach,
what is he telling us? He's telling us that Bryce
Young is a mister softy, that he can't handle criticism.
A real coach, a real leader of men, comes out
(40:51):
and said, that's not good enough, that's not what we need.
We have to get better quarterback playing. If we don't
get better quarterback play, none of this is going to work.
It's all gonna feel. But no, you can't say that
because Bryce Young can't handle it, And that's the takeaway here.
Dave Canalis knows that he's got a soft quarterback that
cannot handle criticism, and so you have to say, it's
(41:13):
not about him, it's about the group and all that stuff.
And he's essentially like, hey, listen, our quarterback. We can
change our quarterback. Go down to Corner Bakery and get
a creampuff and we'd have the same personality at quarterback,
Bryce Young or a creampuff one, and the same interchangeable
every word from Dave Canalis, the coach there in Carolina
(41:34):
is essentially but please don't, don't wound his confidence. Everything's
gonna be okay. Blah blah blah blah blah. This is
what happens when you're what is he five nine, five
four whatever, I don't know, fun size, fun sized quarterback.
And not only that you trade it up to get
the guy doesn't elevate anybody. The only thing he elevates
is the other team's defense. They feel pretty good about
(41:54):
themselves when they play Bryce Young. They're like, oh man,
we're better than we are. You don't see teammates of
Bryce Young playing extra hard for him. You don't see
that there's no real fire there. When you watch Carolina's offense,
you don't see any real leadership, So what else is there?
I see a bunch of dump off passes and a
lot of blank stares most of the time. And when
(42:15):
Carolina has had some success this year, it's been because
mostly the running game. Dowdell has been a revelation in that.
But they think the Panthers they traded a duffel bag
of scratcher tickets to Chicago DJ Moore a whole kitchen pantry,
if you will, to get a franchise quarterback. They assumed
(42:38):
they were getting one. And what did they get? You
won't get a lemon. They got a lemon. They got
a lemon. That guy went and what does he do?
He makes the other defense look good. And the secret
weapon for Carolina is there punting. Okay, that's their most expive,
explosive offensive play is punting the football to the other team.
(43:00):
It's great and so essentially Bryce Young and you watch
him play for Carolina and he's like cork Everyone's able
to cork him up like he's boxed wine. They just
box him up and all that stuff, and man just
shake him and it's just bad. It's all bad, and
Carolina came out there like this game was an inconvenience.
(43:23):
They were favored by over five. That's a game I
flipped on. If you watched Benny Versus the Penny this
week on YouTube, that was a game that originally I
was going with Carolina, and I said, well, that's that
line is too big, that the Carolina is that they're
not that much better than the Saints. And sure enough,
they went out and played like it and very little aggression,
(43:44):
really no juice. The only juice there was from the
way they were playing as far as where they were
sitting watching. And I didn't watch the entire game, but
when I flipped over to the Carolina New Orleans game,
it gave the fumes I imagine in my head the
fumes there were from like a porta potty that had
(44:05):
been out in a really hot September day early September,
and it's really hot and nasty and all that stuff,
and just the smell of that. That's what Carolina played
like that. And Dave Canalis knows it, Yeah, he knows it.
He just doesn't want to admit it because his quarterback
can't handle it. And that it's on me line is
the standard answer. That's the boiler played answer for all
(44:27):
of these coaches. It's also code for my quarterback cannot
take any real criticism and if we criticize him, I'll
lose him in the room and then he'll fold up
like a lawn chair, which he does anyway, So why
does it matter? That's what he does most days. And
Bryce Young again just doesn't make people around him better.
That's my hypothesis on this. He makes them often worse
(44:50):
the way that he approaches the games here and good
quarterbacks are able to hide flaws. It's usually how that works.
And the bad ones put a spotlight like you're at
the Hollywood Bowl on them and there you go. And
so Bryce Young, needless to say, does not look particularly good,
(45:10):
and the Panthers look like hell you Yet they have
one good number of games, winning ugly but man alive.
Carolina's problem is not the group. It is not is
the guy that they built the team around, the franchise
quarterback Bryce Young.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Ben Meller
Show weekdays at two am Eastern eleven pm Pacific.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Here we go, how about that?
Speaker 2 (45:38):
This is one big Ben gets grilled.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
Ben the Browns lost to the Jets, and Dylan Gabril
hasn't exactly been good as a quarterback for the Browns.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
He sucks. Guy sucks, he does. Yes, do you think
kevin'ste fancy is gonna stick with him? Well, he said
he's gonna stick with him. That doesn't mean anything. There
must be something more that we don't know about Shuder
saying he must have really pissed some people off in
that building. Otherwise, what's the point. Dylan Gabriel averaged five
yards of pass against the Jets defense, who just got
(46:10):
rid of their two top players. He sucks. They should
just play shitter Sandas for talk radio purposes next.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Well, speaking of the Jets, they now have five first
round selections over the next two years, and some analysts
thinks that they could use those to trade for somebody
like Joe Burrow and Adam Sfer didn't exactly shut that
rumor down.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah you think that could ever happen? Ben, Yeah, that
would be what I would do. I would trade all
of those picks. If the Ravens are dumb enough to
trade Lamar Jackson, that would be the guy I would
go after. If I'm the Jets, absolutely. That would be
the only reason I would support the Jets if they
just draft those guys.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
No.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
Next, Lincoln Riley has been doing pretty well with the
USC this season, so there's a lot of rumors that
he might leave us for another head coaching John He said,
I'm where I need to be.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Do you believe that? Well, he has a contract, so yes,
right now, it's where he needs to be. So I
talked to some people over the weekend who said, Lincoln's
just trying to get more money out of sc This
is just a money grab. He wants to stay, but
he wants more money. So that's how that usually works.
How did we do you pass us? How as they win?
I won? Marna? What have I winner?
Speaker 4 (47:11):
What?
Speaker 2 (47:13):
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. Hey you sports figure, guy or girl?
Speaker 1 (47:30):
Who get here? Were you talking to songs?
Speaker 3 (47:32):
Here?
Speaker 1 (47:32):
Some interestant advice?
Speaker 3 (47:34):
Hold that thun No one's paid attention to me for
ten whole seconds.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
And if you don't like it, you who needs our advice?
How about the Buffalo bills? They need our advice and
give him some advice to Josh Allen. This week, the
Bills got smacked around by the Dolphins. We're not ready
to play that game. And Buffalo said to be a
heavyweight contender in the AFC. They've now lost to Atlanta
(47:58):
and the Patriots, who they are said to have more
talent then and now the Dolphins. So advice to Josh
Allen and the Bills. You're live on the air when
you hear my voice eight seven, seven ninety nine on Fox.
Line one, Hello, Line one, Good morning ten.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Next, just just told me that a happily married couple
had been together long.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
Oh interesting, Okay, thank you, Stephen Maryland. Now your next
instant advice line for Josh Allen and the Bills. Hello,
they need to bring back the word segment. The word
segment line number for line four. Advice to Josh Allen
and the Bills, Line.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
For how do you get beat by a coach with
such a patchy beard?
Speaker 1 (48:35):
Is his beard ever going to grow in? No? I
think he's too old for that now. He might need
to see some kind of get some pills or something. Yes,
your next caller advice to Josh Allen and the bills caller.
If you greet Lorena before Ben, you should get hung
up on. It's Ben show not that's right for a dog.
Come on, don't be a douche. Line one, Hello, Line one, Yeah, man.
(48:56):
The only way this problem can be solved is by
making the just person illegal for ever and stop. Okay,
all right, thank you there our friend from Missouri. Line
and number three, Hello, and three. We're giving advice to
Josh Allen the bills. Line three, he give everybody the cardinal. Okay,
everyone sucks. Yes. Line four, you're on the airline for Hello.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
They're gonna water animal beat us Land animal.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
Yeah, I know, it's very odd. It is line line
sex Hello official, Oh there is all right, we do
one more. Hurry up, cool pigot. Last call Line one.
Line one. You're on the airline one. Do there. It
is dollar dollar bill. That's all the bills need. Donard
dollar bill, all dollar dollar bell. That's all they did.