NFL Playoffs: Divisional Round Recap!!

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The Heat the Call Podcast

can't control too many Meredith's brain overload!

Welcome to Heat the Call of the Divisional Round Playoffs Recap.

Dan Hans is here

with Mark Sessler, Connor Orr, Justin Graver on the ones and twos.

And boys,

isn't it funny?

We talk so much for what we do for a living and everyone else about what games mean

and legacies and rivalries and narratives and who is clutch and who's a choker and who's this and who's that.

And in the end, and all this stuff gets kind of sanded down by time and people forget,

but in the end, how often does it actually just come down to a guy drop the ball?

You know what I mean?

And that's like what I thought as we watched, and we're going to get into that game first, the classic between the Ravens and Bills about how all that stuff, all that Lamar and Alan talk,

20 years people will just be like, oh, look at that.

Lamar lost again in the playoffs.

But really, sometimes it's just one tight end, a great tight end, having a really bad hour.

Welcome to Heed the Call.

What's up, Mark?

How are you, buddy?

I'm good.

Well, you're right, because who we're talking about is quarterbacks.

And so what gets lost

in the laundry, in the wash is, you're right, Mark Andrews having a, like one of the most reliable tight ends that we've known, having a disastrous appearance this evening to the point where, and Connor, Connor pointed this out, that, like, on Twitter, people are wondering, did Mark Andrews quietly throw the game like the old, you know, the

old white socks from the back in the day?

And I don't think that's the case.

Nice black socks of 1919, Raph Mark.

You are on fire, right?

I am.

I'm a baseball person as well as a football person.

Connor, were you the one that sent that tweet out?

You do say crazy stuff.

I feel like I would like to get back to the point where we can just accept things as they are.

He says crazy stuff.

I would love a moment where everyone's just like, oh, bless his heart.

But now someone's like, try to find a ghost DraftKings account and see if he made a million dollars.

And it's just like, don't be a fucking loser.

You know, this is the worst moment of his life.

Just let him get over it.

You know, exactly.

And like, I was thinking, like, maybe I'm getting soft in old age and I, you know, I have sons and all that now.

And it's like, I just felt terrible for Mark Andrews because that is something he's going to have to wear and live with.

And in the end, it was the difference in that game, you know, a very good chance that game either goes to overtime, maybe the Bills go down the field to win.

We're going to get into it.

We're going to get into all the games, all four games, that set up the championship weekend, which will be next Sunday when the number one seed Kansas City Chiefs host the number two seed Buffalo Bills, and the number two seed Philadelphia Eagles host the number six seed Washington Commanders.

Can you believe it?

NFC East Showdown

in the National Football Conference.

And yes, that classic Mahomes-Allen matchup that many thought we were going to see again after last year's close game.

We're going to get it again next Sunday at Arrowhead.

So

let's get into it right now.

How we got to that place.

And let us start.

Yes, where we must in western New York.

Yes, the Buffalo Bills were home on Sunday evening.

The Buffalo Bills in their home had not lost all season.

They were 9-0 entering this game.

And yet, and yet, the Ravens were the popular pick to win this game because of how well they were playing on both sides of the ball.

So, was Josh Allen going to be disappointed yet again?

Allen did his part.

He scored two touchdowns on the ground.

The Bills forced three turnovers,

but it still came down to Lamar Allen.

Lamar Jackson taking the Ravens down the field in the final minutes of regulation.

Capped by a beautiful throw, a touchdown pass

to Isaiah Likely, 24 yards, two-point conversion.

Lamar Jackson looks, looks, looks.

Spots Mark Andrews.

Bounces off Andrews' hands as he falls into the end zone.

Onside kick ensuing, recovered by the Bills, and they escape 27 to 25 in a classic.

Yes, the Bills finish their season at Highmark Stadium 10-0, and the Ravens again go home.

Crushing fashion, Connor Orr.

This is as painful as it gets because I guess here's the good news.

If there's any good news for Lamar Jackson,

the Lamarmie, is Lamar stepped up.

He led his team down that field.

They went eight plays and 88 yards in one minute and 56 seconds.

And he did spot the tight end for what should have been the game-tying two-point conversion.

It didn't work out, but you can't come out of this game saying Lamar failed.

The Ravens just came up short because they made too many mistakes.

It's unbelievable.

And I want to highlight two things on that last drive that really stood out to me first.

You know, offensive linemen will say this a lot, but it deserves mentioning, especially in a time like this.

Do you know how hard it is to block for Lamar Jackson because you never know where he is behind you?

And so it's easy to redirect someone if you know where your quarterback's supposed to be and he's on his spot and you can push him somewhere.

But if you push a guy, there's a good chance that Lamar is in the

going in the direction that you're going to push someone.

And so on that final drive, there's two or three of these drop backs where he has eight, nine, 10 seconds.

And yes, maybe, you know, the other team's only rushing a few few guys, but we'll get to another game where, you know, teams are rushing two or three guys and getting into the backfield and sacking a quarterback seven times.

And so I thought that was incredible.

And that's one of my least favorite fourth down or two-point conversion plays ever, the rollout where you kind of scan the field and you hope that that one receiver gets ahead of the other.

Because you're cutting the field in half, right?

Yeah, exactly.

But it worked.

I mean, Mark Andrews is open.

And it was funny, too, if you pause it at the last second, if

Lamar had decided not to go there, if he didn't feel comfortable, Rashad Bateman was getting wide open in the other direction.

And it could have been like one of, I think there was kind of like that throwback that was built into it too.

But my goodness gracious, your heart just goes out to him.

I mean, there's nothing else to say.

It was everything else was perfect.

I'm with you.

Like,

lodged in my memory is that final pass to Mark Andrews.

And

from the television view, it looked like he caught it.

Like, it just seemed kind of like he had it and we're good.

But then, you know, the officials get involved and you find out it's not the case.

And

it's not on Lamar.

Like he, this isn't, this game is not on him, but it will be put that way.

But this was also a situation where I thought they, you know, you're six minutes to go in the first half

and Derrick Henry has 22 yards rushing.

They weren't able to,

they weren't able to like

enforce their will early on the way they wanted to.

But

what a like an insane ending to this.

And to have Mark Andrews, who I think has been one of the most reliable players around dropping.

Right.

Like he is, he just simply does Mark Andrews things and does his job nonstop.

To have this happen to him, it's an incredible end to a season for a team.

And it's another look at like, it's so hard to get back here.

And like, wow, like I thought the Ravens would be somewhere different than this.

And this is where they wound up.

And

like

I said last week, like whoever loses this game, game, it's going to be a really rough,

it's going to be a rough fortune, and that's the situation for Baltimore.

And don't forget, that wasn't Mark Andrews' only mistake he made in the fourth quarter because when the game was 24-19, the Ravens were driving a 16-yard pass to Mark Andrews, who tries to make a move, and Terrell Bernard,

Baylor alum, my father-in-law would be quick to tell you, punches the ball out, and it's recovered by Buffalo, Buffalo, which leads to their final points of the game, their long drive,

11-play, 52-yard drive that covered five minutes and led to the field goal that made it an eight-point game before the Ravens got the ball back for that last possession.

Let's talk about that last possession for the Bills because

that was

why,

like Mark, we were talking about like,

would you be the Dallas Cowboys coach if you got 30 million guaranteed?

And you very quickly said no, because there's too much pressure

and there's just, there's too many prying eyes.

And it feels like one of those things are

the second you put yourself in the shoes of a head coach and all that goes into that,

you can start breaking out into sweat because of the pressure.

The pressure that must have been on Sean McDermott Dermott, fourth and goal at the Baltimore two-yard line, you have Josh Allen, the tank himself, as your quarterback.

You convert that, you get it in the end zone with three and a half minutes to play.

You are going to the AFC title game, and you might have the number one quarterback in the world to get two yards, and yet you just got stuffed on the previous play on a Josh Allen attempt at a score, and you make the decision to kick the 21-yard field goal that pushes the game to eight, and yes, would have backfired if Mark Andrews doesn't drop that ball on the two-point conversion.

I'm curious what you guys thought about that play.

In my mind, I was thinking, go for it, go for it, go for it.

But at the same time, I understood it because going up eight and turning the ball or putting your defense on the field, which had played very well to that point, you could make a case both ways.

I saw an instant on social media, there was

the odds said, the bot said that it's a 2% loss of win probability by kicking the field goal there, but that means very little to me.

I'm curious what you guys thought.

I'm with you.

I think it's been a weekend of aggressive play calling on fourth down.

Season, right?

Season, I mean, seasons in a row.

So

I hold the same opinion.

I would have gone for it.

I liked kicking it, you know, because, and that could have been just because

my

thought is colored from having been at the Eagles game, having stood out on that field and feeling just how absolutely brutal and miserable it is outside.

And, you know, I wonder if there is something to the fact that, like, Mark Andrews gets that ball punched out.

And we'll get to the Eagles game.

There were two punchouts in that game, too.

Is there something to the fact that there's a higher percentage chance that some shit's going to go wrong here in this weather.

You're going to trip, you're going to fall, it's harder to get your footing.

So, if you're McDermott, it's like, okay, I'm giving myself the maximum amount of cushion.

You can't score more than eight points in one play.

And so, go travel the length of the field now and try to figure that out in this weather.

I mean, I thought that wasn't terrible, but granted, just like Josh Allen or Omar Jackson, Sean McDermott is who Sean McDermott is, and then he has to wear that, right?

And it's sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't type decision for him.

Yeah, yeah, it's a tough call, and they ultimately win the game, but not because of that call.

They kind of got lucky there.

Yeah, you mentioned the Derrick Henry side of things, Mark.

And that's why I think so many people picked

the Ravens in this game because we've all been watching.

There was something, and I don't know, I feel like this, if you're a Ravens fan, if you're listening right now or watching, shout out to you because this can't be easy right now, but it felt like something historic was starting to peak with this Ravens team because you had this MVP-level quarterback having one of the great seasons of all time at the position.

And then Derrick Henry, who regular season

and a playoff game, went over 2,000 yards rushing.

And Lamar Jackson, by the way, went over 1,000 yards rushing in this game.

The first pair of teammates ever to go 2,000 and 1,000 in the same season.

So the offense had reached a level where it felt unstoppable.

And it felt that way on the first possession of the game when the Ravens go right down the field, bing, bang, boom, touchdown.

And it's it's like, oh, wow, this is going to be a coronation for the Ravens who are going to go, you know, cruise to New Orleans as a Super Bowl favorite.

But I thought what the Bills did, Mark, was smart, or maybe it was logical, but it felt like they decided we are not going to let Derrick Henry beat us.

We are going to put everything into how we play this game to stuff their running game.

And if Lamar in the passing game beats us, we can live with it.

And

I don't know.

So the fact that Henry just gets 16 carries, is that because Todd Monkin in Baltimore sensed the same thing and they got off the running game?

Or

did they fail because they weren't running the football enough and they should have been more true to Derrick Henry in this game?

Well, it's interesting because the way that the Ravens season ended a year ago, and this is different than that, was that they weren't who they were in that loss in the AFC title game a year ago.

And it kind of made me think of

the, it's a strange reference, but the Patriots Rams Super Bowl, where Belichick's entire mission was to take Marshall Falk out of the game.

Like, no matter what, we're going to beat him up, we're going to take him out.

And Henry did end up with 80 plus yards, but it was like, we're going to take at least one person out of this entirely and make them have to act a different way.

And, you know, through two quarters at least, they were able to do that.

And I give the Bills' defense, because the Bills' defense allows it.

They allowed 400-plus yards.

But what they do do is they create turnovers and chaos.

They have been good at that.

And like they did that tonight.

And removing Henry from the game plan was a big part of it.

But the Bills, the Bill, that's the one thing they're going to do is they're going to create turnovers and chaos.

And I thought they did a nice job of that tonight.

Here's Josh Allen after the game with Tracy Wolfson.

Josh, we know how bad you wanted it back in town by the reaction when you just came over.

When you were standing on that sideline, though, and you saw that touchdown go in, and then the two-point conversion drive, what was going through your head?

How about that Buffalo Bills defense?

All year, this team has heard, we got no talent, we're too small, we can't stop the run, we're not good enough to compete.

We've just put our head down and worked hard.

I'm so proud of our defense.

I'm so proud of our offense and special teams.

What a complete win.

Obviously, on the offensive side of the ball, we wish we scored a little more so we didn't have to take it down to the fourth quarter like that.

But that's a really good team.

Credit to them as well.

He's like a Derek Carr all-star, by the way, a California guy.

Went to like Wyoming, and he has a southern draw.

I got to get to the bottom of this.

Anyway, again, like going back to the original point, Connor,

these things get sanded down by time.

Josh Allen leading with what a job by the defense.

Well, they went right down the field, 88 yards, and then they were about to give up the two-point conversion, too, and the tight end drops the ball.

But whatever.

It's a minor quibble.

I understand where he's coming from.

The defense did keep a very historically good Ravens offense.

They created two fumbles and an interception.

Like I do think they took the ball away from Lamar Jackson and the Ravens.

That's what I'd say.

There is always like a pressure like

back when I covered the Jets, right, where Rex Ryan had a policy where every player during an interview had to mention two teammates and a coach as like a complimentary thing.

They couldn't talk about themselves.

And I do think that that's like that just could be kind of what's going on here with Josh Allen.

Like even in Philly, like today Saquon Barkley was talking about his touchdown run and he's just like, yeah, I remembered all the box breathing exercises that my therapist taught me before the game.

And it's just like, yeah, well, but also like, you know, Jordan Milata destroyed somebody on that run too.

Like, you know, there's other stuff we could point to, but, you know, whatever.

I think it's nice everyone's trying to compliment one another.

It's good sportsmanship.

Can I give a shout out to Tyler Bass, by the way?

That 51-yard field goal he hits was a huge moment in the game, I thought, because, and Romo was very demonstrative about it on the telecast.

I mean, they come out, Buffalo has a great first half.

They take a 21-10 lead into the tunnel.

They come out, they have the football, and then it's almost like they start to go into a little bit of a, you know, protection mode.

Like, they're playing in a little bit safe.

And it's like, you can't, they had to be smarter than that.

You can't do that against the Baltimore Ravens.

I mean, and sure enough, they have two fruitless drives, the Bills.

The Ravens get a field goal and then a touchdown.

They

go for two and miss two, but they put up nine straight points.

So when the Bills' third drive of the second half stalls out, you're now sending out your kicker, who, by the way, your season ended with the same kicker, Tyler Best, missing one wide, wide, wide right against the Chiefs in the divisional playoffs.

You send him out there in very cold conditions to hit one from 51 out.

If he misses that, it is the Ravens at midfield down two with all the momentum in the world.

So again, as somebody who likes to shout out kickers, that kind of calmed things down because not only did that get points back on the board, got the lead back to five, which eventually turns into eight, which ends up being enough to be the win.

It allows them then to kick off and kind of reset things and calm things down.

So to the point that you made, Mark, like

the Bills didn't play a perfect game here, but they really played a cleaner game.

And they,

the reason the Ravens are going home is their operation had been clean all season.

And yet again, in another January, and you could do narratives or whatever the f you want, in another January playoff game, they didn't play like they played when they were steamrolling the competition earlier in the season.

And here we are again.

Like, it's not a Lamar story this time, but it's a Ravens story.

Here we are.

Any other thoughts on this one, guys?

I thought that, you know, for McDermott, I think, again, I mean, we talked about what a big game

the Kansas City win was and his decision-making during the regular season.

I thought that really, yes, you gave up a lot of yardage, but I thought what they did was they sample, you know, you have all these different things that people have done to kind of slow down the Ravens throughout the season, and you just saw like a little bit of it sprinkled in here, a little bit of it sprinkled in there.

This Bills defense did look amoebic at times where it was hard to see, you know, get it for Baltimore to get a beat on what they were doing.

And they blitzed a lot at the beginning of the game.

They were super active at the beginning of the game.

I think one of the highest rates that they've actually sent pressure over the first half of a game in the year.

So

it does show that, like, I do think he's evolving too.

And that's cool, you know, and that's a different component of as you head into this Kansas City game next week.

And I'll give a little shout out on the Bills' defensive side of the ball.

You have DeMar Hamlin in this game who makes plays.

You have, let's see, Von Miller.

Ed Oliver played a great game.

Ed Oliver played a great game.

Matt Milano played with his hair on fire in this game.

And then Von Miller, another sneaky, again, that's a difference in games like this.

He scoops up that Lamar fumble in the first half.

He runs it back 50 yards, and you're watching it.

And even as a non-Bills fan, you see the Ravens defender coming up on his blind spot from the right side with the club of death on it where he's holding up the football.

Somehow he doesn't fumble the ball.

I was just amazed that he didn't fumble the ball on that.

So this was, I mean, it was the Bills' night, and they made the plays they needed to make.

And as a result, they get another crack at the Chiefs,

which has been a house of horrors for them.

But maybe this year will be better than the last.

Always got to dot the I's with Adam Durritz.

All right, let's move on.

Okay, we hit one AFC game.

So, why don't we go ahead and hit the other AFC game?

How did we get to the Bills-Chiefs rematch?

To Arrowhead, we go.

Yes,

Patrick Mahomes has never lost in the divisional playoffs.

The Houston Texans, they have never won.

I'll give you one guess what happened in this game.

It's not that simple, but it also is.

The Kansas City Chiefs did what the Kansas City Chiefs do.

They play smart, disciplined, under-controlled football.

The Houston Texans Texans make way too many mistakes and don't get any help.

And I mean any help

from,

like I said, the Chiefs or the officiating in this game.

And in the end, another huge Travis Kelsey game and a special Patrick Mahomes pass and a big stop and a great performance by the pass horses.

You know this story before.

We've been watching this playoff game for a long time.

Chiefs 23, Texans 14.

The Chiefs, like the Bills, finish undefeated in their first 10 games, but they get one more next week against Buffalo.

Mark,

this game had the people hot.

It's funny how we have reached this

tipping point with Kansas City.

It happened much quicker with the Patriots back in the day, but now it feels like people are just so sick of the Chiefs that there seems to be a lot of vitriol about Kansas City.

But I came out of the game thinking, yes,

it's annoying and problematic, like what's going on with the officiating around this team and specifically Patrick Mahomes.

But

they know how to win in January, and all these other teams just can't figure it out and they keep winning as a result.

I think the officiating part is a Connor special, so I'm going to leave that for Connor because I think that's right up his.

I think he wrote about it for Sports Illustrated.

Well, and it's apt.

I think it's apt.

I mean, but to me, this was

kind of what the Chiefs have been been all year.

They are unremarkable on offense.

They don't dazzle us with special effects.

They score just enough points, and they sack C.J.

Stroud eight times.

It's a Steve Spagnola special.

I'm like, I thought they kind of found the

pressure points with the Texans.

There was a moment in this game, the Texans had this, like, what was it, like a 15-play.

80-plus-yard drive that they could have tied this game up, and then they missed the extra point, and then the Chiefs go down and cap it

by themselves with another 13-play long drive where Travis Kelsey had a touchdown.

And it was one of his best games of the year.

And so it's like the Chiefs just did Chiefs' things, and it was enough.

But I thought their defense really, really created incredible pressure and found a way, like we thought that would happen to the Texans at some point, to create a lot of havoc for C.J.

Stroud.

Eight sacks.

How does the Travis Kelsey thing happen, by the way?

I mean,

it's it's incredible that

he comes in this game.

And, you know, I feel like I talked about it a lot during the season because I did draft him in fantasy and I was like waiting for Travis Kelsey to look like Travis Kelsey doesn't.

Playoff start, seven catches on eight targets, 117 yards and a touchdown.

And, you know, again, Connor, when you pair that version of Mahom of Kelsey, who the same thing happened last year, he just kind of exhumed himself from the crypt right when January hit.

It gives this offense the balance that it's lacked a lot during the season and that big play over the middle element of the offense, which is especially

important because the offensive line is not holding up.

So having Kelsey there as a security blanket is vital for the passing game.

Yeah, Joe Tooney had a tough one in this one.

And again, you're an interior player being asked to play, you know, left tackle, which is incredibly difficult.

But Jordan, who's brilliant, Rodriguez said a couple of days ago on the show where we all was very awesome, We all got to do it together.

That this is a middle-of-the-field kind of game for the Chiefs, just the way that the Texans are going to play them defensively.

And you can just tell the difference that it makes in Mahomes in the rhythm of the offense and just getting Kelsey involved again.

I mean, that was his, what, the 49-yard one was his longest postseason touchdown ever.

And like, he's one of the two or three most prolific postseason receivers in NFL history.

So, I mean, it's, you know, whatever.

That's him and Jerry Rice.

That's pretty wild.

wild.

When we did the Chiefs Hallmark Movie Watch party,

my favorite line from Dan was upper middle class family wins again.

And that was like, that's how I feel about the Chiefs where it's like, wow, it's like a big Kelsey game.

And it's just like, yep, upper middle class family wins again.

Yeah.

And the Texans and their fans can complain about the officiating, and I get it.

But they just did not play it near a high enough level to win in Arrowhead in January.

The Pisspoor pass protection.

I thought D'Amico Ryan's had a tough game.

Some of the coaching decisions on fourth downs, you had numerous special teams breakdowns.

And

so many of these playoff wins for Kansas City, this stuff is the difference that the Chiefs play clean and the opponent does not.

And then you have Chris Boyd, who's kind of the face of this failure for Houston.

Sorry, I know he went to UT, Justin, but the Texans give up a 70-yard return on the opening kickoff.

This guy is running off the field celebrating because he thought that the Chiefs had fumbled away the return.

Throws his helmet, then shoves the special teams coach.

And I'm thinking, I'm watching the game.

Anybody else think to themselves like, hey, Troy, Joe, can we check in on the special teams guy like assaulting the special teams coach?

Like, is he on the bench?

Is he on the sideline?

Is he in the local jail?

Like, I kind of want to know a little bit more about what happened with Chris Boyd.

And in the defense of Boyd, listen, it's a very emotional spot.

He lost his composure after the game.

He spoke on that and apologized.

But that was

like a harbinger of doom for the Texans, Mark.

I know you were pretty hot on the Texans going into this game, but that gave me a very bad feeling that they weren't going to be ready for this type of stage.

I don't think I was hot on them.

I thought they could.

I thought maybe you could.

Don't make us think up the texts, Mark.

Well, I thought maybe you get like C.J.

Stroud going on.

I would say this.

We get these stats every week.

We talk about this, but they are

the first team in the history of the NFL postseason to out-gain their opponent by 100 yards, zero turnovers, and lose.

That has never happened before.

Like, they didn't, they weren't a disaster, but, but the Chiefs are just the Chiefs.

Like, you've got to find a way to make it so uncomfortable for Patrick Mahomes, and they didn't.

That's one of those, I call those, can you put that stat up again?

Well, I think it's absurd.

These stats are

absurd at this point.

No, you know what that is?

I don't care.

That's what I call a Jet stat.

We watch the Jets overseason and like every other game you're like you know this jets are the first team to out gain out out out out and lose all their teams were 700

before today's game so to get a jet stat in the playoffs that's gonna hurt mark not good not good and like and i don't even like pointing those out because i think that they're they're largely absurd um but

they didn't go in and like completely you know completely crap their pants like i don't even like that phrase but like they i thought they did the best they could and they, it's a, it's a fitting end for the Houston Texans.

It is a fitting end.

Yeah, I think, too, for, I mean, if you, I think, too, the uh, Bobby Sloic and Texans offensive coordinator, I mean, this was all season long, right?

Anytime that you were asking about this team, it's when are we going to see version 2.0 of this offense?

They kind of went to Houston with the Shanahan starter pack, and but, but you have to buy extra bundles, you got to add on, you have to customize, and there was just never any sort of movement forward in this offense.

And, you know, if you have a defensive coordinator as good as Steve Spagnola, he's going to shut that down.

Let's talk about, again, the officiating was a storyline in this game.

Here's D'Amiko Ryans,

who very well done here by D'Amiko Ryans because you can't, there are things that you can say and things you cannot say.

And if you do say them, you will get a FedEx fine

package sitting on your stool when you get back to Houston.

But he made it very clear that, yes, it was kind of a Houston against the world vibe in Kansas City.

Yeah, we knew going into this game, man, it was us versus everybody.

When I say everybody is everybody, all of whatever, everybody, the naysayers, the doubt, right?

Everybody.

We got you, DeMe.

We had to go against today.

We're picking up what you're putting down.

With that, knowing going into this game, what we were up against,

we can't make the mistakes that we made, right?

We had a lot of self-inflicted mistakes that happened, whether it's special teams, not converting our kicks defensively, not being where we're supposed to be in coverage,

offensively, not protecting our quarterback and keeping them clean.

So, you know, you marry that on top of everything else that we have to deal with.

It's going to be a really tough uphill battle.

And it should be, it's a bad look what's happening with

Patrick Mahomes.

And it's not just Patrick Mahomes, but he is the face of this.

The Texans get called for two personal foul, unnecessary roughness roughness calls on hits on Mahomes.

The first one was borderline, but the rules guy

for Fox said, or ESPN said, no, that shouldn't have been a penalty.

The second one was a total farce where Mahomes is sliding to the ground right as he starts sliding is when the two defenders converge and basically hit each other.

Mahomes barely gets hit, and that's a 15-yard penalty.

These things lead to points.

These things change games.

And I hope the NFL is paying attention.

A, they're kind of selling the Chiefs a little bit by all of this vitriol being sent the way of Mahomes

for the way the officiating is called.

And when Troy Aikman, one of the most famous quarterbacks in America

in the last 50 years, is on TV talking like this,

you should stand up and

pay attention to changes that might be necessary.

Personal foul, unnecessary reference, defense number 39.

Come on.

15 yards from me.

Here's the end of it.

Yeah, I mean, he's a runner, and

I could not disagree with that one more.

And he barely gets hit.

That's the second penalty now that's been called against the Texans.

And Troy, I agree with you.

There's no forcible contact to the head-neck area of him.

The two Houston players hit each other.

That should not have been a foul.

And

they've got to address it in the offseason.

You can't, as a quarterback, run around and play games with defenders and then be able to draw a penalty.

I agree with Troy wholeheartedly, and I was thinking a lot about this.

Well, first, I'll say this.

That didn't annoy me as much visually, because if you think about it, an official down on the field, it's a bang-bang play, and you throw the flag, whatever.

There needs to be a mechanism, or at least a more common, you know, we need to normalize them picking those flags up, which I think that they have at their disposal.

They can do that.

But the fact that eight plays later on that drive, Patrick Mahomes tries to go run out of bounds and then tries to bait a a defender into hitting him and knocking him out of bounds for a flag.

Shows the fact that he thinks he has one over on the officials and that he expects these calls and that he's too cute for everybody else.

And the problem that I have with this whole thing is that we wrote the rule book at a time when like most of the quarterbacks were like Rich Gannon, who are not physically able to do a lot of the things that these quarterbacks can do now.

Now, if you go and you look at every NFL team, one through 32, I did this the other day, generously speaking, 26 of the 32 teams have a quarterback that you would consider mobile.

These guys are the best athletes on the field now, and they can manipulate the rules as they're written.

to their advantage.

They can run towards the sideline and stop on a dime.

They can slide quicker.

They can do all these other things.

And the rule book hasn't caught up to it yet.

And so I think you should be able to review roughing the passer because, you know, it was 1,300 yards were given out on roughing roughing the passer calls this year.

That's ridiculous.

You should be able to review that.

And what Mahomes does on the sideline and what Josh Allen does on the sideline, a lot of these guys do on the sideline, should be a 15-yard penalty with consideration for expulsion because it's a dangerous play.

And you should also eliminate the late slide.

That's a dangerous play, too.

These are dangerous plays.

It's a health and safety issue.

But whatever.

I'm like, you know, I can, if we got another 45 minutes, I can keep going on this.

I think you're so right.

And like, I think for all of us, because Dan, you talk about, you know, you watch these games with

your children.

When it becomes a visual disgrace, when we all can see that something is going on that we don't agree with visually, we need to make changes.

And I think the NFL's been pretty good about this in general.

Like, we've got to address stuff and make the game as competitive and not try to hoodwink the audience.

But none of it, like, I think Troy Iikman's response makes me feel that there's some justice to it because if he sees it and he feels that way, I feel that way too.

And, you know, even in the late game on Saturday,

Jaden Daniels ran a QB option at one point.

He hands the ball off and then he takes a shot and out comes the laundry again.

And, and I'm thinking to myself, if you are running the QB option, you should have to live with the consequences that your guy can get smoked.

And it doesn't, just because he takes a hard hit doesn't mean the laundry has to come out.

And then, and then what really will drive you crazy, and we'll move on after this, but like

poor Jared Goff, who I know is not a journeyman or anything, but he's not at the stature of the Mahomeses, the Burroughs, the Lamars, the Josh Allens.

He merely gets assassinated on the field on that pick six return, and nobody throws a goddamn flag.

Can you even imagine they would lower the flags at Park Avenue to half mast if Patrick Mahomes took the hit on a pick six that poor Jared Goff took, and

they don't even flag it.

They don't even, they look the other way on it.

And it's done to scoff.

i mean jalen hurts today lamar jackson got knocked into a water cooler how many times in this buffalo game like you know he gets officiated differently it's just how it is

i guess that's what you get when you win three super bowl mvps but it doesn't make it right um

anyway but the chiefs hey the chief

we can get mad at the chiefs and but the chiefs or the NFLs, how they handle the officiating of the Chiefs.

But I have, how can you not respect that the Chiefs again are hosting the AFC Championship game for the what is it, the seventh straight year?

They're in the final four of the NFL.

I mean, that is unbelievable.

We're about to get into the Lions, like a team that had everything in the world going from they can't even get to the game this year.

And the Chiefs have done it seven years in a row, and they're 16 and two.

All right.

Let's take a break

and then we'll hit the NFC.

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All right, we are back.

Divisional round playoffs.

Can you believe it?

There's only three games left.

Mark, three games left in the NFL season now.

It is remarkable.

This is how it works.

We've been watching the NFL for multiple decades and it seems to work that way every year and it's working that way once again.

What's so funny, Connor?

This is how it works.

I don't know.

He got me on that one.

That was good.

It's kind of a means to an end answer and it got the job done.

I like your tasteful hotel room lighting behind you,

Connor.

The type of lamps that only are found in hotel rooms.

Like no one would go to an IKEA or whatever and buy that for their house, but there it is.

Two rectangles.

And then there's also, I was showing Justin while we were doing a speed test on my internet.

There's like the, I'm watching my wife with another man couch over here where it's like that.

Sure.

Well, you got to.

Because what else are those chairs?

I don't know.

Like, there's just like, do you curl up with a book and read in isolation in your hotel room?

I don't know.

I read on the bed.

I don't know.

I don't know if that's a good idea.

Yeah, in like the movie, the guy, the husband that's sitting there is always kind of like cross-legged with like kind of his hand over his mouth.

Maybe he has a cigarette and he's kind of in the darkness a little bit.

But a little bit of light coming in.

Just

Is there anyone in there right now?

It could be a late-night version of Connor.

Like, if you came in after, you know, you had that strange night out, you'd be sitting on that little couch and ponder the world.

That could be you.

I can look out right now and see all of, like, I can almost see the New Jersey Turnpike from here.

It's very scenic.

It's beautiful.

Do you guys want to, before we get into the NFC side of things, I want to hear

poor Lamar Jackson.

And by the way, shout out to Lamar, who was really,

you know, he came right up to Josh Allen in midfield and with a smile and a hearty congratulations.

I mean, great sportsmanship.

And then Josh kind of repaid that in his post-game comments

to Wolfson, you know, praising Lamar as one of the best to ever do it.

But Lamar, obviously, the disappointment is something you can't hide.

Here is Lamar Jackson

frustrated about the sloppiness that cost the Ravens this special season.

First half, I had two costly turnovers.

Me not holding the safety, me just knowing the coverage, me knowing it was a man.

Through a BS interception, Gabe, it was 7-7 at the time, I believe they scored after that.

Battle back,

fumble, snapped, trying to make something happen, you know, couldn't throw it.

It was like an RPO play, so I couldn't really throw the ball to likely, you know, the officers line or down the field.

So I tried to make something happen.

Tried to squeeze the ball, it slipped out my hand.

Von Meta picked it up, got some yards.

I think that led to points for them.

So it's a team effort out there.

You know, he's been busting his behind.

He's making plays happen out down that field for us.

Came up short.

And like I've been saying all season, every time we're in situations like this, turnovers play a factor.

Penalties play a factor.

Today, well, tonight, it's a turnover.

You can't have that shit.

And that's why we lost the game.

Because as you can see, we're moving the ball wonderfully.

Hold on to the fing ball.

I'm sorry for my language.

This shit annoying.

Tired of this shit, man.

Can I just add one?

I don't understand from a fashion angle the cloth helmet that he seems to want to wear.

I was struggling.

Yeah.

Like it's not a thing.

Yeah.

It's hard to take

a shot.

It's a podcast audience.

Yeah.

For the audio listeners, he's wearing what would be like a nun's habit if you got rid of the black fabric and just

remove the black left behind.

It's the thing below it.

But he's like a 6'3, 215-pound, like brilliant athlete

speaking from his heart about a crushing setback in his career.

It's a tough look.

I will say I'm glad that you brought up, I thought

these things don't move me that much, but the way that he did come up with almost a joy in his

heart to hug Josh Allen, I thought that was, that said something about Lamar Jackson.

But that look, I mean, we need to work on that look, but like that's that's two different clashing issues, I guess.

It's like a two guys in the same spot in their career.

What was that?

He looks like the bowling pins from Big Lebowski in that one scene where they're all in the space decks.

That's exactly right.

Maybe we could do a side-by-side of that, Justin.

All right, let us move now to the NFC.

Mark Sessler, the Detroit Lions.

This is the year for the Detroit Lions.

Just like Lamar taking the ball on that last possession, everything was in front of Lamar.

And for the Lions, with the commanders coming into the building and a chance to get to the NFC title game, it was all in front of the Lions.

And then it got away.

Well, we don't always get the perfect story.

We don't always get what we want.

The Lions were the perfect story.

Our nation, in love with the Lions, the idea of the Detroit Lions.

But here come the commanders, smashing a tattered Detroit defense for 182 yards on the ground.

An angel lands.

Jaden Daniels, calm as a cucumber.

Are you watching in a quarter zip?

a button-down shirt, a used tee, with a big front yard?

Is your significant other slightly disappointed in you, but she doesn't say it verbally?

You just sense it?

That's how one would feel with the

destiny of the Detroit Lions.

You didn't achieve great, the greatest event.

Instead, you were upended by a joyful feast known as the Commanders, a defense generating five takeaways, an offense that never relents, fourth down, endless attempts, fourth down, a floral garden.

The nation's capital is a strange place.

It's long been called Hollywood for ugly people, but the Commanders, the looks of the citizenry aside, are a powerful football team that now soars where nobody expected.

Commanders, 45, Lions, 31.

Weird feelings.

What a moment for Commanders fans, for Washington fans who've been through the ringer and went into that building.

And on the Thursday show, I think we all dismissed them.

I even, I got a tweet

that was fair.

Sometimes you people send good tweets, and it makes me think.

Many times, especially if you're an Eagles fan, you just send stupid things that are easy for me to filter out of my brain.

But a commander fan said, hey, you guys didn't even on Thursday kind of get into how the commanders could win this game.

You didn't really give the commanders a chance.

And then we went and we saw exactly how the commanders could win the game

with an offense that took off in this game, Mark, and then a defense that kept on forcing turnovers and then put everything on Jared Goff.

And that doesn't end well typically for Jared Goff in his career.

There are versions of the Lions, I feel like.

There's the pristine version where they go and drop an A-bomb on someone.

Then there's the Goff game where Goff, mixed with other teammates, are addicted to turning the ball over.

And I don't care who you are, if you're going to turn the ball over five times and play the way that they did and really not get off the ground early enough.

And

we're all learning about the commanders in real time.

I think that's part of it.

It's like, it's easy in a preview show to say probably they can't handle the Lions.

But what we're learning about, I think the Commanders is like this quarterback and this offense are capable of anything.

Like they seem like you cannot suppress them.

And they absolutely slayed a Lions team that finally the bow broke with when it came to the injuries, the defense.

And And if the offense is going to not do its job and you've got to

lean on second, third, and fourth team defenders against a quarterback that he's done this like seven times where it's like, it doesn't matter where we are in the fourth quarter.

I'm going to find a way to score.

And so

I'm not saying it was wrong not to give them credit before the game, but I think at this point, like, have we not turned the corner?

We realized they could beat anyone.

They could beat anyone.

And they just took care of business in one of the most unfriendly environments to play play a football game in front of a rowdy crowd and a city that was yearning and like frothing for this victory.

And they took care of business.

And again, it's Jaden Daniels sitting there like, hey, no problem.

This happened too.

And it's like, you've been in the league for less than a year.

Whoa.

I was going to say, too, I mean, I think, you know,

if you were to spell out, like, if you were to try to like input the occurrences into this game into AI and then ask a computer whether or not the Lions won, like, okay, the Commander's Kicker starts off by blasting the ball out of bounds.

They run this ridiculous Marcus Mariota fourth-down play where

it looks like a complete accident.

Jameer Gibbs is completely unstoppable in this game, rushes for like 120 yards, and it just looks unbelievable.

Amon Ross St.

Brown is over 100

receiving yards.

You would say, and the Lions score first.

You would say there's a 0% chance the Commanders won this game.

Like, there's no way.

But

give credit to Cliff Kingsbury.

I thought this has been the season of Cliff.

I thought he was unbelievable with Jaden Daniels in this game.

And in a moment where it says a lot about an OC, I think, in a moment where everybody knows you're going to need to get him easy completions to get it going, but he still got him productive and easy completions that got him going.

And it's just, you know, I thought that was a really good job by him.

And isn't it the marriage of also Dan Quinn, who a defensive coach is willing on fourth down just to be as aggressive as Dan Campbell.

Like he's like, I'll out aggressive the Lions.

Like I thought that was a huge part of this game.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That

you're right.

The way the game starts, it seems like it's going a certain direction.

And then for them to kind of just get things calmed down and then just start to take it to the Lions.

And you've, one of my favorite

things in sports, and it's in, in, it could be in football, could be in the NBA, it could be in baseball, it could be wherever, right?

When the team that is the heavy favorite is in their building and the crowd's going nuts, and then something happens, and you could actually feel through your television that nervous energy that starts pulsating through the entire place with 80,000 people all thinking the same thing.

It's akin to what I said about the Steelers-Ravens game a couple last week, which is, you know,

to win this game, the commanders needed a, the Russian is cut moment.

And that was the pick six that Jared Goff throws, where he gets absolutely destroyed, and it shouldn't even been a touchdown.

But like we said, the refs did not call it.

But that pick six, who had the pick six again?

Whoever it was, the pick six will get that name.

But that play

was what really made me think, oh my God, this could actually happen.

And then to the Lions' credit and Ben Johnson's credit, they then dial up one of their patented trick plays

and they go, what, 70, 80 yards on Jamison Williams just darting through and the crowd is right back in it.

But even when they get right back in it, the commanders and Jaden Daniels just kept on taking it to them and taking it to them.

And then when you dotted in these turnovers, including they have a chance to get it down to one score going into half.

And Goff throws that bad interception targeting Williams where he underthrows him and that gets undercut for the interception.

It was a combination of the relentlessness of the Jaden Daniels-led offense, obviously the

great pressure being put on Goff in moments, and then the Lions doing the thing that all the teams that went home this weekend did, these self-inflicted mistakes on this stage that you cannot overcome.

I was, I mean, speaking of which, I thought, again, I mean, Ben Johnson's brilliant, at least with this group, right?

He's brilliant with the best offensive line in football, and he's brilliant with this group of playmakers, right?

And we don't know what he'll be after this.

But if I had one complaint, it was that you can't call a trick play in which Jamison Williams throws a ball in this game because, you know, Jameson Williams, you could see, you could see the thought process.

And then he's just like, well, I'm only going to get one shot at this.

He just chucks it down the field and it gets intercepted.

And it's like, I think sometimes we do outthink ourselves and we get a little bit too cute.

And, you know, I think that there's some of these circumstances where, I mean, that guy shouldn't be near a football when he's throwing it.

And

I just push back on that a little bit, Connor, though.

Like, I know that's, that was kind of the general thought was like, I can't believe they called that.

And it's kind of ironic that for the second straight year, the Lions go out.

Last year, they got killed for being too aggressive on fourth down, which they made famous last year.

And this year, the turnover on the trick play is what kind of dooms them for good in the second half, which they had been praised all this year for their trick plays.

Like, there is something that so accountability on the player, Jameson Williams.

And I get it.

Like, you don't trust him to make the right decision.

But that play call, call, I imagine, is done with the idea that, hey, man, if he's double covered, if there's nothing there, you throw it out of bounds.

So you're hoping the player makes the right decision.

Now, if this is a conversation, I guess that you don't give him the chance to make a decision, but that doesn't seem like Detroit Lions football ought to empower their guys to be able to be special and make the right choices.

So I was just, I was a little more torn on whether or not that was a quote-unquote bad play.

It generally was panned by all after it didn't work.

You're right.

It's like a chicken or the egg moment.

It's like, did they properly instill in Jameson Williams the idea that if it's not there, you throw it away?

Or did Jameson Williams just make the decision in the moment to be like, nah, I'm just going to do something really cool here?

And he's made some bad decisions, Jameson Williams.

No, he's not.

Not at all.

So that's fair too.

Let's check out the locker room of the Washington Commanders after this historic win for the Josh Harris-led team.

Three things, man.

First one is this.

Ball is life, man.

Talked about being heavy hitters.

And

you're for damn sure some heavy hitters now.

From the first day we got together, it's on our wall.

Anybody, anywhere, anybody.

All right, love you guys.

Let's find out where it is tomorrow and get our show back on the road.

Yes, sir.

Wow, what a comeback for Dan Quinn getting another shot as the head coach.

And yes, we'll be going to Philadelphia next Sunday.

But yeah, Mark, Detroit will not forget this disappointment.

This was absolutely crushing, and the NFL is all about windows.

And

I'm not saying that the lines, the windows closing, but the window over the last couple of years was slowly opening.

But now it's going to start closing.

And there are reasons why you can make that case, that why they had a chance to really seize the moment and to see them fail in that regard was kind of shocking.

They're different to me and to everyone, obviously, than like a Buffalo Bills where your window is Josh Allen or your window in Cincinnati is Joe Burrow.

Like in Detroit, you have coaxed the best possible football you could dream of from Jared Goff.

But now you are losing the play caller, probably likely in Ben Johnson, who made that offense intricate, special, unique, strange, hard to deal with.

And probably Aaron Glenn, your defensive coordinator.

And so I think that matters in football a lot.

We saw what happened to

the Eagles team under Doug Peterson when those coordinators left.

Like, this matters.

Like, sometimes your brain power and your ingenuity comes from these hardworking coordinators and position coaches, not necessarily the CEO, the head coach.

And so, I think Dan Campbell is all that, and he's good.

But, like, this is major mind power leaving the building very soon with a non-elite quarterback.

So, the window is different different than I'd look at for different types of teams that seem like a superpower.

Yeah, and this team, I remember talking about it on the show after they, I think it was in week 17, they outlasted the Niners 40 to 34.

And to me, like this game was a reminder, but they were always a little bit more vulnerable than your typical 15-2 juggernaut because

in the end,

what was always the worst case scenario,

which you thought could happen, but you also thought, well, this also feels like a special year, and maybe it won't happen, is that all it took was a bad day from an injury-ravaged defense.

And then coupled with, okay, now the season is in the hands of Jared Goff.

And it's like, Jared, don't make the wrong decisions.

Don't press.

Don't fumble when you get rushed.

And all that stuff happened.

So it turned into kind of like a Murphy's Law type game.

And it was enough to completely eradicate from existence this beautiful Detroit Lions team.

And great story that I think a lot of us thought was destined to end in New Orleans, win or lose, them finally getting to the Super Bowl.

So one of the more crushing divisional round losses that I can ever remember a team suffering just because

what it meant, what felt like the stakes were, and what was expected, quite frankly, going into it.

You're right.

And it's the how, right?

It's like, you know, like you look back at like the Terry McLaurin touchdown, for example, the really long one, but started with the short pass, the long run.

And, you know, this is a team that, that, you know, the Lions beat the crap out of the Vikings a couple of weeks ago with these feisty cornerbacks and stuff.

And now they're just getting blocked off the field, you know, by the commanders' wide receivers.

Like there was, and yes, granted, injuries do play a factor there, but there's like, there was like an out-aggressiveness from the commanders towards the Lions where it was like they kind of stepped up and they took all the punches and they punched back.

Detroit wasn't used to that at any point this season.

And I think that has to be like kind of a weird way to go uniquely.

All right, here's Dan Campbell.

Obviously, I don't have to tell you emotional in his post-game address to the reporters.

It's hard, you know, when you lose, when you lose these games, man.

It's like the players,

you know,

what they put into it.

A lot of people don't know,

you know, what they go through.

You have to get up,

bodies beat to shit, and,

you know, mentally stay locked in and do those things.

So

long season.

Trouble Mark, I looked what happened on the

12-minute field package uncomfortable.

It's my fault.

It's my fault.

He's referring, that was a question, if you didn't hear it clearly, that

they had so many opportunities to maybe change the tide, and their defense just could not make the play.

None bigger than the fourth and two

in the fourth quarter, where they have a chance to get a stop and really make a game of it and even steal it.

But they have 12 men on the field.

And that then leads to the touchdown that essentially puts the game away just

a really tough night for a defense that we can't just blame it on the injuries, right?

Because

nobody was just talking about the injuries when they dismantled the Minnesota Vikings in the regular season finale, right?

And they had found a way, and that's why Aaron Glenn's still going to get a job.

And anybody who thinks he shouldn't get a job now because they had a terrible game here,

that's just, that's silly.

That's not going to be the case.

But like, yeah, like there's no excuse really to say it was because of the injuries because they've shown that they could adapt.

They just had a bad night.

Is it as simple as that?

Like, sometimes a team has a bad night, and the Lions,

it was a

bad timing for a bad night, and the Lions are home as a result.

It's pretty, like, I think

it's the kind of sports team, and Dan Campbell, like, right there, kind of exudes the energy that we feel about the Lions, that they're a little different than another football team losing.

And it feels a little sad, a little

tragic.

And yet,

for everyone except for one team, it's going to be a very tragic end.

But

the Lions were a little different to me, I think, for all of us.

And they fought through a lot of ups and downs.

That's kind of who they were.

That's their character.

And it came to an end.

And Connor, Jaden Daniels, before we move on, I mean, this is, where is he now ranking in the best rookie seasons of, let's say, the 21st century?

Two playoff wins.

But this, you know, what's different about this guy?

Like, even in my fandom, like Mark Sanchez did this.

He had, he had back-to-back years where he won two road games and got to NFC title games, but, or AFC title games.

But in all the other cases where a rookie quarterback goes on a run in the playoffs, he's almost always supported by a big-time defense and a running game.

That is not the case with the Commanders.

They have this kid that's actually putting the team on his back, and he didn't do it alone in this game, as we've been talking about.

But what he's doing is kind of unprecedented how he's carrying a team as a rookie.

A pretty special dude.

Yeah, you remember, like, even Sanchez's early career,

Ben Rothesberger, I think, had the 15-1 season, and those were not win because of quarterbacks, you know, or, you know, they were just win in spite of quarterbacks, you know, while those guys were still developing and they were still coming around.

I mean,

I just think back to all the things that I wish I would have tweeted, right, at the beginning of the season, and one of which was that there was

all these handful of coaches during right before the draft that said, Why the hell isn't anyone talking about the fact that this is the best player in the draft?

Why isn't anyone talking about this?

Why aren't the Bears talking about him as the number one pick?

And, you know, I think it was very obvious and clear to some people that there was just this special quality to him.

And, you know, for some reason, you know,

whatever it is, he ends up at the number two pick.

But he's absolutely phenomenal.

Like I said, dynamite game plan in this one, too.

But, you know, for him to come into this game at Ford Field and just have the, you know, to have the stones just to throw down the field and tight coverage, there's, there's just absolute fearlessness from him.

And it's, it's great.

It's so much fun to watch.

To that point, under pressure, this via next gen stats, under pressure, seven of nine, 109 yards

versus the Blitz, 12 of 16, 191 yards, touchdown.

He got the ball out quick.

He got the ball out accurately.

And he was not sacked in this game.

So here we are again.

The team that plays clean, the team that protects the quarterback, the team that doesn't shoot itself in the foot and make mistakes, continues to play for the Super Bowl, and the other team goes home.

I just don't think anybody predicted it would be the commanders that were making all the right moves.

Haven't we turned a corner, though, at this point?

Like, now I'm like, oh, he could just win the Super Bowl.

Like, he was Blitzmore in this game, second most of the entire of his entire season.

Like,

I am done

trying to supersede another team or operation over him at this point.

I might just ride this train.

Well, you know what, too?

And I love divisional round playoffs.

Like watching games on Saturday and not having any podcasting responsibilities, just a really fun thing that I enjoyed, have a couple of drinks, watch it with some friends and family.

It was a lot of fun.

And then I'll check out.

I'll be more engaged on Twitter just as a football fan.

And some people are

hitting me up, like, oh, man, you're really going to

struggle because I know you picked the commanders to get beat and the lines are your lock of the week.

No, this is why sports is great.

Like, I'm not, I only care about one team in that way.

It's it's the Jets, and that sucks for me.

But everything else is like with predictions, and most of it's like that's all fun for the show, but like, this is a way better outcome to that sports and the NFL can continue to surprise and, quite frankly, in this case, amaze you.

So, I'll trade off my losing my lock of the week to have this like dynamo now going into Philadelphia where the Eagles, you know, we're about to get to the Eagles.

Well, that accomplishes maybe multiple goals with yours.

I mean, listen, Jaden Daniels is 60 minutes away from being, I'm a Commanders fan, put it that way.

Yes, you are.

Lifetime Commanders fan, if this goes a certain way.

But anyway, unbelievable.

Sorry to the Lions and their fans.

We thought this was your year, but

you'll be okay.

We just don't know what's going on next.

Tough, tough, tough.

All right.

We take one more break here, Justin?

All right, one more break, and then we'll be back with the final game.

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All right, one more game.

Yes, the Washington Commanders will be on the road in the NFC title game.

They're going to Philly.

This is how it happened.

Connor Orr.

Yeah.

Do you love the Chiefs' confounding brand of narrow victory football predicated mostly on the ill-timed, nervous pooping of their opponents?

But hate the fact that every now and then you have to watch an awesome Patrick Mahomes throw?

Then you're going to love Playoff Eagles, a badass unit of beefy lumberjack men who toil in obscurity, biding their time between 100-yard touchdown runs, which to this point remains their only means of survival.

Eagles 28, Rams 22, but it's more complicated than that.

The Eagles got two Rams fumbles, went up 13 points with four minutes to go on a 78-yard touchdown run from Barkley, and still had to sweat out a final Rams attempt at a game-winning drive.

That's because, the story to me, time and time again, an injured Jalen Hurts was asked to drop back with a banged-up knee in the snow against a vicious pass rush, seven sacks, six hits.

But the name of the game is survival.

Eagles Commanders three next Sunday at the Lynx.

See you there, drunk Santa Claus.

Yes, the Eagles survive.

That, I mean, that would have been, and if there's any,

if you are among those that were enjoying this Rams team or perhaps are just not a fan of these Philadelphia Eagles, you could take some solace in the amount of sweating and the bullets pouring down the brows and cheeks of Eagles fans on that last possession because it got hairy.

After the Barkley touchdown, that sent

Philadelphia into a massive, massive celebration.

78-yard run.

He crosses the goal line with 436 to play, puts Philly up 28 to 15.

Jake Elliott misses the extra point, which didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

But then they go, I don't know, like Connor knows the schemes better than me.

It felt or played like a pre-vent defense by the Eagles that allows the Rams to go right down the field.

They get down to inside the 10-yard line in about five or six plays.

It takes a couple plays, but they do punch it in to get it to 28-22.

And then, yes, like Connor's saying, you have a compromised Jalen Hurts, and you are attempting a pass on second and seven rather than just giving Saquon Barkley the rock three times in a row and seeing what happens.

Instead, you take a sack minus 12 yards, and the Rams take it all the way down.

They take over again.

They have a 10-play drive.

They take it down.

They have the ball first and 10 at the Philadelphia 21,

third and two at the Philadelphia 13-yard line.

Mark, that's it got close, but to Philadelphia's credit, they did.

And I think a big false start penalty by Dotson kind of changed the momentum of that drive.

It

allowed Philadelphia to substitute on their defensive line.

It backed the Rams up into a pour down and distance at second and 12, and they never really recovered as a result.

I think we can talk about the Eagles.

They haven't had a 300-yard passing game all season.

Wow.

To win 14 games and that not be the way that they're winning games.

I mean, we understand that it's Saquon Barkley at the core of it.

If I want to spin it positive, I think I've seen this Eagles defense really step up.

And, you know, look, they absorbed, what was it, seven sacks today on offense, like Jalen Hurts, and he was banged up.

The Rams defense is on fire.

They've got a great pass rush.

And the Eagles found a way to get it done with big run game.

But I think to me, this was another Vic Fangio special.

Like, Jalen Carter is the guy that I would point to that just played out of his mind.

And this guy plays like 69 out of 70 snaps every time out there.

And he is the centerpiece.

And I thought he was on fire in this game.

And so this was an elements game where I thought the Rams, I thought the snow.

And Connor, you were there, so you can tell me what you think.

But like, I thought the snow and the weather really affected both teams, and it really affected the Rams a lot.

And Matthew Stafford was a little banged up in this too.

But like, this to me was an Eagles defensive game where like we're going to find a different way to win because our offense right now is compromised passing wise.

I want to go back to just for a second because that was a great stat about the lack of the 300-yard passing games.

So there were, at the beginning of this game, the way that the Rams played this defensively, right?

On passing downs, they had kind of a lighter box and then they would mix it up with pressure.

They would fake that they were going to bring guys and then drop them back into coverage, you know, just stuff to throw Jalen Hurts off his game.

But that's how the Eagles scored two touchdowns early in that game.

The Rams showed them those fronts that were a little bit lighter, and then Hurts runs for like a 40-yard touchdown.

Then Barkley runs for a 60-yard touchdown.

From that point on, they just started allowing the Rams to blitz like that or to run their stunts or their games up front like that.

But they were just dropping Jalen Hurts like five or six yards into the backfield every time.

Twice they were sacked out of field goal range.

There was another situation where, and on both of those, you didn't have Saquon Barkley in your best pass protecting back.

You had getting Kenneth Gainwell.

In another situation, you're backed up against your own goal line at the four-yard line, and you dropped Jalen Hurts into the end zone after he hurt his knee.

Like,

this is beyond malpractice.

I have no idea why you were making some of these decisions.

And, Mark, Jalen Hurts threw for 128 yards in this game.

He's not thrown for 200 yards in two playoff games.

Like, combined.

I didn't see A.J.

Brown now in two playoff games.

He has three catches.

The offense is totally compromised.

And listen, I'm not here to tell you that

I can dial up the scheme that's going to shut down the Eagles in the NFC title game.

But if you're Washington,

I'm coaching a flag football team this year of third and fourth graders.

And we had our opening game on Friday night.

By the way, Jim Harbaugh's either son or grandson is on one of the teams in the league, and he walked right by me when I was warming up my team.

A little bit of an intimidating moment when you're coaching your first flag football game, and literally Jim Harbaugh walks by.

Yeah, sure.

I was like, oh, God, don't notice these three.

You're like the league's Nick Siriani.

You just don't want to.

Exactly.

You don't want that to be known.

Exactly.

So, like, so in this game, this is a quick aside, but it will tie back into what's happening with the Eagles right now.

In this game,

my team of merry nine and ten-year-olds

are getting hammered early.

And there's this kid on the other team that my team is, they were calling Juice World because he looked like the late rapper, Juice World.

And he was just shredding us.

And he scored three touchdowns early, and we're down 19-0.

We end up mounting a great comeback.

We lose, I think, 33 to 26.

So I was happy with how we adjusted.

You know how we adjusted?

I said, Juice World is not going to beat us.

And I said, we're going to take our safety and I'm going to take my fastest kid.

And we will only put them.

You guys are following Juice World everywhere he goes.

And that changed their offense.

Why wouldn't the commanders, at this point, what we are seeing with the Philadelphia Eagles, just put everything into stopping Saquon and dare a compromise beat up Jalen Hurts in a passing game that's broken for the Eagles to beat you.

Otherwise, anything that any,

if Saquon Barkley runs for 200 yards next weekend, that is malpractice.

Maybe you physically can't stop Saquon Barkley because he is that good and he is in that zone and a special place that few athletes get to ever.

But I would think the commanders have to be all in on stopping the run next week.

And we'll talk about all that.

But watching this game, it amazes me that they can win these games with the offense being as unbalanced as it is.

And to the offensive line's credit, I mean, this is a, I mean, you know, Makai Beckton had a good and bad game, but, you know, we saw him literally throw a Rams linebacker like five yards downfield on Saquon Barkley's touchdown.

We saw AJ.

Just fans were annoyed about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He, by the way, in the post-game locker room, had on this corduroy Louis Vuitton outfit that just looks so cool and this big gold chain.

And he was going up to other guys and being like, do you see what I'm wearing?

And the guys are like, Louie.

You know, it was very cool.

I was like very happy for Mackay Bechten.

He seems to be in a very good place.

But AJ Brown on one of the Saquon touchdown runs through a phenomenal block.

Like they have massive space movers that are excellent at this.

But I'll tell you this, Dan, to your point about selling out to stop Saquon Barkley.

On the 74-yard touchdown run, he wasn't even lined up in the right place.

He was supposed to be on the other side of Jalen Hurts.

And he got about a, he got about a, about this big.

So if you're watching on YouTube, I'm holding up like, what, about half a dollar bill in terms of length between my that?

That's how big the space was that he got and just crushed it.

And it was a dead sprint in the snow.

And everyone was having trouble with that snow.

It was a very like wet, sort of like sloppy, muddy snow.

And he was gone.

Like that was unbelievable.

Yeah,

before Hurts got injured, and this again speaks to the talent that that offensive line possesses.

And it was the play where

Bechten just put a clown suit on the defensive player, knocked him down.

Jordan Milata,

being the athlete he is, he gets to the second level.

He has nobody even to block.

They have blown open such a hole that Hurts goes in all the way for the score.

So pretty, they have,

they are well equipped to be a team.

There may be, Mark, the only team that can beat you when you know they're going to run the football, but they're getting to the point where the passing game is

so inert that you know they're not going to beat you that way.

It's going to be, if they could get through the NFC in this way, it'll be quite an achievement, I have to say.

It is a different Eagles team than the previous year, but it's interesting that Dan Quinn Quinn knows this offensive line.

Like, he knows this team and this offense.

He knows Jalen Hurts.

They were without Saquon before, but that matchup intrigues me.

We will get on to that.

But

for me, I think the Eagles are balanced because of the defense.

I really think they can win in different ways.

And I am concerned, though, because you're talking about a quarterback that has...

Had a nasty concussion.

He now has a knee injury.

He had other injuries this season.

Like, what condition is he in at this point?

Because it seems, I'm not saying they're playing around Jalen Hurts, but it's kind of like they're slowly playing around Jalen Hurts a little bit.

And he's not the reason they're winning.

And I don't know how a quarterback who's not the reason you're winning takes you on and on.

Here's sound from Jalen Hurts on how injured he is and whether he is going to play in the NFC title game.

For this week, you said you'll see how the week goes.

Is your status uncertain for next week?

Great question.

No, I was just seeing how the week would go.

Great question.

Seeing how things progress.

So you think you feel confident you'll play next week, I guess?

Yeah.

Good to get a great question in there if you're a reporter.

Jalen Hurts dressed like Eddie Murphy and Boomerang there, by the way.

Except for Marcus.

Yeah,

he was jacked up.

He was jacked up.

Yes, Justin.

I thought he looked like Woody from Toy Story.

You worked right, Justin.

Good job.

Okay.

By the way,

if I had a great bod like Jalen Hurts, I'd be wearing something that wasn't overly baggy.

I'm not into this look.

I'm just going to say it.

But

you have a great bod, though, from what I've seen in person.

That's blatantly incorrect, but thank you.

You're a very kind man.

No, so

he gets taken down in the second half, jacks up his knee very clearly, and Connor brought up like dropping him back in his own end zone to get smoked for that safety.

Where, by the way, you know, know, kind of surviving by the skin of their teeth, that ball is moving as he takes a hit.

That could have been a touchdown for the Rams, and all of a sudden, Los Angeles is ahead in that game.

I mean, the Eagles, very fortunate in a lot of ways in this game, but they do survive.

So the question is now, I don't think you're going to get a 55-yard Jalen Hurts touchdown run next week.

The question is, can he play the position in the way they need him to play the position to beat the Commanders?

Because we know the Commanders, despite this great, inspiring two-week run, are a fun team and a dangerous team.

But

they're going to be, I would think, a six and a half point underdog in this game.

The Eagles are still going to be expected to win, but if Hurts is really compromised, it does get that much closer.

Can you buy the, just very quickly for my own self,

can you guys please confirm that Chris Collinsworth didn't say it was an amazing, gutsy call for Nick Siriani to do a deep bootleg for Jalen Hurts at the end of that game.

Was anyone listening to that?

I just don't believe it.

Like I had posted like, why on earth are they doing this?

And I got like 100 tweets that Chris Collinsworth said it was an amazing gutsy call by Nick Siriani to drop him 12 yards into the backfield on that play.

Did you see Kobe Turner go after him?

Like, I know this guy can't move.

I'm just going to run up there and tackle him.

Oh, my God.

How about Jared Verse in this game, by the way?

I mean, Jared Verse, Byron Yale,

Kobe Turner, like this.

Braden Fisk got hurt in this game and they were still like, I mean, that's what's crazy.

You know what I mean?

A tough loss for the Rams for all the reasons that we said that they were right there, couldn't get over the hump.

Here's Sean McVay.

You know, this is the time for gratitude, for appreciation.

I love this group.

I love this coaching staff.

I love these players.

And I also understand and appreciate how difficult it is to be in positions like this, where you've got the game, you've got the game in hand.

I felt like we had total control towards the latter part of that game.

Momentum was in our favor.

And we had an opportunity to be able to win that game.

We just came up short.

And I'm just really sad that this journey is over.

This was a special season.

It's as much fun as I've had,

as much as you've ever wanted to do right for the people in that locker room.

Tough loss.

Matthew Stafford after the game said he's thinking about everything, but obviously playing at a very high level.

It was great to have the insight all season long, obviously, from Jordan Rodriguez that she gives covering the Rams.

And the thing that she kind of taught us about Stafford Stafford this year is that the dark Matthew energy that he feeds off

pain.

He feeds off being put in a corner.

And you could see that in this game.

And that's why I really thought

that he was going to finish off that last drive and what drama that would be if he did.

But ultimately, the Rams fall just short.

But that organization is obviously moving in the right direction.

And she fashioned that.

She latched onto that dark Matthew Stafford energy a couple seasons ago, and

she knows better than anyone.

Connor, you got to hang out with her today.

That's kind of cool.

But like, what a fascinating coaching job by Sean McVay.

No one thought this team, when they started the way they did, were going to be anywhere.

And so I think Sean McVay is like one of the four or five difference-making coaches in the league, and they'll be fine.

Being able to confer with Jordan, like I had texted her an observation of mine

at the end of, maybe it was like midway through the second second quarter.

And she just explained it so thoroughly and so incredibly well.

And I was just like, God damn it.

Like, I just wish I could cover every game with you.

And, you know, she's the best.

We're very lucky to have Jordan, and we'll obviously have Jordan involved for the rest of the playoffs on our show.

The Eagles, like I said, 128 yards passing, 63 yards from sacks,

and in team passing stats, that gets subtracted from the total.

So they finish with 65 passing yards overall as a team.

So, yeah, they are going to need that defense.

That's like your football team that you're coaching.

That's about probably how many yards is that?

It was a tough first half.

Yeah.

But we figured out, we diagnosed some things, and it was a spirited comeback.

And the kids are feeling in a really good place.

You are an adjuster.

You adjust.

I mean, we can see you growing before our eyes as

an on-field motivator and coach.

I thought that was a body dig after you set me up and you said that my body was growing before your eyes, too.

I said your body was attractive.

That's what I recall saying.

I ain't buying it.

Was A.J.

Brown reading the book today?

No, but he invited, but the author was there.

He invited the author to the game.

The author got to come to the game.

So he was there.

So maybe.

Maybe he didn't need to read the book.

It would be tough to bring the book

in the elements because then you know you're going to get destroyed.

That's the one drawback to paperback.

Oh, that's fair.

That's good.

And last point, because I do want to, you got to give the

Eagles fans know where I'm at.

But I'll give him flowers.

The Barclay acquisition, he is kind of like, he's now hitting this point where he's like, for the old heads out there, Bo Jackson, a Tecmobo.

He's going to break one.

It's going to be anywhere between 50 and 80 yards.

And if you're on the opposing team, you just hope it doesn't break your back.

And in this case, it kind of did for the Rams and what he's doing on a weekly basis.

That's what I was saying on the Thursday preview, Mark.

I was saying,

Saquon, like you are in a very special moment in time that few running backs in the history of the league have ever reached the level that you're at.

Don't slide down at the end of that game.

Get those yards.

Like, set an unbreakable playoff rushing yardage record.

Because in addition to the 150 or whatever he put up 130 last week, he goes 26 for 205 and two touchdowns with that 78-yarder.

That's unbelievable.

It's the perfect marriage.

Like he's got the perfect offensive line.

And like, this is like, because Saquon, I think he used to have like 25 carries sometimes for 48 yards.

But we're getting the break loose, go wild version of Saquon.

And I think that's why they could beat anyone.

And the defense, in addition to

forcing that big Kyron Williams fumble, I thought they did and getting the stop, obviously, to clinch the game.

They did a really good job with Puka Nakua in this game, who did heat up near the end on that last drive, including making a big 37-yard gain.

But to hold Nakua under 100 yards in this game is something that very few teams have been able to do this season.

And it really

kind of shut down the...

the Rams attack in a lot of ways.

So, you know, let's see if the Eagles can continue to run for over 250 yards a game because I think they're going to have to

285 in this game to go with the 65 yards passing

and they find enough plays.

Our buddy Dan Supi from the Wonder Years texted me right after the game to kind of try to rub it in a little bit.

He's like, listen, I predicted the Eagles to win, so how could I be upset?

Nailed it.

Nellie's probably annoyed with your general demeanor towards the team, like dating back to August.

Yeah, I get that.

Eagles fans, listen, you had Eagles fans.

Connor's not innocent here, the two of you.

I know, I'm not in a good spot.

I'm not in a good spot with that.

I feel like your game intro isn't going to help matters either.

Probably not.

So

Dan texted me a few Eagle emojis after the game, and Dan is good because I very much.

You made Soupy from the Wonder Years, the band of Wonder Years.

Correct.

Yes.

I am not texting anyone Eagles emojis.

I often use him as a barometer for Philadelphia in general.

He has a finger to the pulse of the city.

And I said, Dan,

how much trouble am I going to be in when I just write about how shitty I think this team is after they made the NFC championship game?

And he's like, yeah, it's not going to be good for you at all.

And so far, he's right.

So, just based on what I'm seeing on social media.

Well, we'll see if the Eagles can take it all the way to New Orleans.

We'll have a full week of shows, obviously,

ahead of the championship Sunday.

And I think the biggest winner, ultimately, guys, I thought was Nate Burleson, who after Ravens-Bills

got a,

not only was able to tee up the

idea of a Mahomes-Allen

showdown, he also got a plug-in for Hollywood Squares, which he hosts on CBS.

He said, like, too many times, Circle is blocked the square.

With that being Josh Allen being blocked by Patrick Mahomes, I'm like, wow, that's what I'm going to remember about this Sunday.

He was also telling me I gave your man my very own podcast.

Let's hope Hollywood Squares exceeds one episode.

He was also very brave in telling Mark Andrews, like he, he, he did the thing where he was like, where's my camera?

And he got centered up and he's just like, Mark, hold your head up high.

And I was like, Come on.

Like,

I would say 90% of America is in the spot where we feel sick for Mark Andrews.

We don't need, and

the people who are not feeling sick for Mark Andrews are not watching CBS right now.

They're smoking cigarettes and trying to figure out how to recoup their DraftKings losses, like and downing a bottle of ground liquor.

You know what I mean?

Like that, those people are not going to be able to be reached by Nate Burleson right now.

But perhaps, just perhaps, just to tell both sides of this, there's a 0.00001%

chance that Mark Andrews has found a quiet area of the visitor's locker room, maybe in like the laundry area, and he's got a small, you know, 20-inch television with the bunny ears, and he's looking right back at Nate Burlison, who's looking right back at him.

Is that he once?

Is that the one?

And

thankfully, Nape Earlson is putting it in perspective that he will rise above it.

Well, you're probably right.

No doubt.

No doubt about it.

No doubt about it.

We can't have a conversation.

And this tweet.

Sorry.

Thank you, Justin.

Mark Andrews wasn't available to speak to reporters in the locker room after the game.

And you know what?

People want to get on him, like people like Connor, because he's a journalist.

Like, oh, you must be accountable.

No.

No?

Okay.

I want to put you in the bucket.

No, he's a good bucket.

Give the man a little space.

Yeah, he's good.

He's going to have to live with that for a long, long time.

He's fine.

That would be awesome if we wake up, Mark, in the morning to a scathing column from Connor Orr about the lack of accountability of Mark Andrews that tells the stories of the Ravens' failures in the 2020s.

I think just for your own pleasure, Connor, as an experiment, test that column and see what occurs to you.

I've had enough talking to people on the internet.

Just get the entire

east coast of NFL wanting to kill you.

It's like from Kansas City all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.

Right down the turnpike.

Yeah.

It's been

hide out in

a Bailey suite in Atlantic City in the hope that Commanders or Ravens fans and Eagles fans don't find you.

Can we just say this, though, very definitively?

And I mean this

with no disrespect whatsoever to the Eagles fans beyond what I have already expressed, or the Chiefs fans.

We cannot have another goddamn Chiefs, Eagles Super Bowl.

Like, we can't have it.

I agree.

We can't have it.

Stylistically, it's just not there.

I can't watch this.

Can't do it.

Yeah.

No.

We're not able to.

We're not able to.

If you want, listen, to everybody else,

excepting the fan bases, obviously, but unless you want a replay of that last Rams Patriots, the 13-3 game, if that's what you want, yeah, root for Kansas City and Philadelphia next Sunday.

The rest of us are rooting for America.

Bills Commanders would be a weird market Super Bowl, but it's also like electric.

Well, they played back in 91.

They'll do a huge number.

Hey, it'll do a huge number no matter what.

It's a Super Bowl.

Rock hard.

What was that, Tony?

Rock hard.

All right, that's it.

Thanks.

Thank you, everybody.

We'll be back on Tuesday

with

beginning to dig in on, yes, both this and everything else in the NFL.

You know what we do.

Until next time, heed the call.

Rock hard.