Vikings-Rams Recap + Divisional Round Sneak Peek

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Matthew, it's been a difficult week.

You guys had lots of reasons to be distracted.

Just how were you guys able to overcome all of the obstacles that you faced this week?

It's a resilient group, man.

I'm so proud of these guys.

Great mix of young guys, old guys.

Our head coach is an absolute stud getting us dialed in in the right direction.

And

I mean, we knew what we were playing for today.

You know, it was go get this win.

But, man, those are the people of Los Angeles struggling right now.

It's been unbelievable to watch the whole community,

you know, the state, the country kind of get behind them.

It's a tough time to be back there.

And we're just happy that we came out and played like this tonight to get, you know, something to be happy about.

How about that?

The L.A.

Rams, the Los Angeles Rams representing our fair city, kick butt on their neutral home field in Arizona on Monday night.

27-9 over an overwhelmed Minnesota Vikings team that goes from 14-2 to out of the playoffs in the blink of an eye.

Unbelievable.

Dan Hans is here.

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

Heeding that call.

Shout out to all the hedonists back with us as we dig into the final game of wild card weekend.

And Sestog,

before we get into a

look ahead of the playoff picture,

yeah, six games, five one-sided affairs, and I would say that this one is the one that surprises me the most.

Well, it's a complete proof of concept of a young Rams defense that dominated a Vikings line.

And

I think we saw the seeds of this, obviously, against the Lions when the Vikings played them and the other time they played the Lions and in the other time they played the Rams.

But nine sacks tonight, utterly dominant from inside and out along the line.

And, you know, and

your Sam Darnold, it was like a one-man stock market crash in the last, you know, 12, 13 days.

Like everything that you would have hoped for him heading into the playoffs, after the playoffs, into the offseason.

Well, sure, but yes, yeah.

I mean, it starts, I guess, with whatever was happening before that, too, for me, but like, what a complete and utter disaster and meltdown.

I really don't, I'm trying, this has happened to people before, but like the Darnold crash over the last eight days is remarkable.

We're going to get to Sam, all right?

Can we give the Rams their flowers, Mark Sessler?

Before we start

my fare, Sam, we're going to get to it.

He's going to take his beating as he must take on the show.

But we got to start the show by talking about the Rams because the Rams are a great story, Connor.

Considering, obviously, everything that's happening here in Los Angeles with the Fires,

for them to show up the way they did, they set a playoff record in this game.

They tie one with nine sacks of Sam Darnold, completely overwhelming a Minnesota offensive line that had thrived for much of the year.

And the offense with Matthew Stafford leading away with two touchdown passes, very sound.

They get a defensive score from Jared Vurst.

This was complete domination by the Vikings and, you know, excuse me, by the Rams.

And it makes you wonder, as, you know, we're going to spin ahead and we know they have the Eagles next.

Like the Rams have gone from a team that was on the verge of selling off pieces at the trade deadline.

With that guy on your shirt, that's Les Sneed's forehead, if I'm not mistaken, on your hoodie, right?

Yeah, there it is.

To a team that is very much a dangerous threat to every team in the NFC.

And not even one of the teams when we did our preview shenanigans on Thursday, where we were like, okay, who could conceivably make it to the Super Bowl?

The Rams that we saw tonight, absolutely.

No doubt.

And what I loved about that game plan defensively was they went forward in the first half, and then it totally gave them a roadmap for the second half.

And what you saw, I think there was that moment where Trey Eikman had mentioned eyes wide, you know, and you saw Sam Darnold kind of have the headlight eyes after a third and five that fell incomplete.

But what they did was they started kind of inverting a lot of the stuff that they did in the first half.

So a corner blitz would come, and then in the second half, the guy would press up to the line, and then all of a sudden, you know, Darnold reacts a little bit, and then he just backs off into coverage.

And then it's this total, just, you know, what is it?

The

Hall of Mirrors in

the funhouse, like that kind of thing.

And it just becomes this completely different issue for Darnold where he's trying to just unravel one thing after another and he can't.

I love that.

And oddly enough, I think you have to credit Flores in a lot of ways for this because Flores was doing this to a lot of people early in the season.

It became in vogue.

A lot of people kept borrowing from it and borrowing from it.

And now the Vikings get a huge dose of it, courtesy of the Rams, in a big-time playoff spot.

Yeah, let's talk the DCs of it all because Chris Shula, his eighth year with the Rams, his first year

as a defensive coordinator, by the way, Irvington, New Jersey, native Connor, who attended Hofstra

University,

what he was able to cook up here in the year where everyone's talking about Flores and everyone's talking about Aaron Glenn, I was texting with Jordan Rodrigue, obviously, our friend who covers the Rams, who's in Arizona right now.

And she had said in terms of what she was watching on the field tonight, that

the model that she saw being deployed by Los Angeles was like taking what Aaron Glenn and the Detroit Lions did last Sunday night with selective and delayed blitzes and

putting the Vikings in very long second and third downs, and then putting KOC in a very tough spot.

In terms of he looks down at his play sheet and he's like, what do you call when it's second and 18 or third and 21?

Before I throw it back to you, Sess Dog, here is Jordan.

I asked Jordan to send something in.

The The game was such a blowout.

She's able to send this in midway through the fourth quarter.

Her thoughts on the game.

This is what I said when I mean that the Rams, when they're functioning the way they're supposed to function, they're a great matchup team.

And what I mean by that is they can find like the simple way to play you if they execute that is really, really effective.

And it's not trying to do everything at once.

It's picking one thing and spamming that one thing against you.

And in this game, it was really the way that they were going to try to get to Sam Darnold.

I mean, mean you see it even when by the time the quick stuff started getting built in some of the hot reads and some of the pressure beaters he was off.

He was really off target even trying to hit those plays because he couldn't get into a rhythm earlier on in the game.

This was just a masterclass by the Rams.

Really, really tough week for everyone in Los Angeles.

Thank you for everyone who's reached out.

I am safe.

Tucker is safe.

We're kind of on the move right now and will be for the next week or so.

or so.

But I just wanted to wish everybody in Los Angeles and to the heroes, please stay safe.

Please keep yourselves and each other safe.

We're all in this together.

Well, it's well said because she's been talking about these figures on the Rams defense every Thursday on our show.

And it's like Byron Young tonight, guys like Braden Fisk and Jared Verse, who I really fell.

I didn't watch a ton of draft stuff because it's not really our wheelhouse.

But like Jared Verse, I fell in love with during the draft process.

He just looks so vicious and fast.

And he is a big dude with incredible speed.

And like they had to go figure out how to replace Aaron Donald.

And this was, here we are, here we are.

And this was a dominant, dominant performance.

And I think, you know, the one thing I really wasn't trying to go off on Sam Darnell.

I more feel bad for him.

What I would say is that it mattered when Christian Darasaw was lost.

for this offensive line.

They lost Brian O'Neill tonight.

You're down to backups and you're down to different protections.

And the Rams absolutely beguiled this offensive line and Darnold.

And by the end, like, I thought it was pretty telling because Kevin O'Connell could be our coach of the year, but they were, they were in slow motion and lacking urgency at the end of this game when they just knew this thing was over.

The Rams just took them out.

Like the last six, seven minutes, they weren't doing, there was no urgency.

Well, they were getting cooked by that point, right?

I mean, but even before that, I'm glad you brought that up because this was driving me insane.

And I think it's one of those things that I notice across the board, and maybe it's just like the latent Madden player in me.

And like, I haven't played in such a long time, but like, I know where you're going.

You're down 24 points, and there's 10 minutes to, or whatever, nine minutes to go in the third quarter.

I'm not even talking about the fourth quarter.

Go.

Like, you know, don't huddle.

Like, stop.

And like, exactly.

You know, I was sitting there with just a pen and paper and I'm just jotting down, okay, on that play, like, it's cool.

We're going to take some time and get the right play.

Okay, that's 20 seconds.

That's 15 seconds.

That's 30 seconds.

That's 20 seconds.

All that adds up in a very real and significant way.

I mean, you know, and I granted, no huddle is not the answer, you know, perpetually for anybody, and it probably puts your defense in an even worse spot, which you don't want, but it's like you got to go.

And they weren't going at all in the second half.

It was driving me crazy.

Yeah, and all those Aaron Cook runs, Aaron Jones runs right into the line.

And it's like, oh my God, get up, get back to the huddle.

Stop running the ball.

Even when you're down three scores, there's nowhere to go with your running game.

And yeah, there were a couple of things that jumped out to me.

One other thing that Jordan had mentioned, which was a good point, that

Darnold is going to wear the goat horns for the last two weeks, and he deserves them.

It's fair.

But KOC, also, Kevin O'Connell, no adjustments in the first half as this game was spinning out of control.

The quarterback is obviously having trouble spotting receivers.

He's holding on to the ball too long.

And yet, all the plays, everything seemed slow with this team.

Everything was drawn out and

no quick hits, nothing nothing to get the offense into a little bit of a rhythm.

It was just almost like the team played in a daze.

And one thing I'm thinking, Mark, like we both love Aikman, Connor, like earmuffs on this one.

One of the things I like about Aikman is like he's one of the analysts or maybe the analysts that you could most like read the tea leaves sometimes with the things that he says.

And he multiple times called the week 18 loss devastating for the Vikings.

And I just wonder if there was a little going on, more going on behind the scenes in terms of how that loss affected this team, both morale and their general belief that they were going to come back and get back on the winning side of things in the playoffs.

Because

I rooted for Darnold all season.

I was rooting for him again.

I went into this game confident as a Sam Darnold fan.

But at the same time, it's like you could see by the second series, something was not right about this team, and they never, ever got off the mat.

Yeah, I mean, they really seem to fall apart spiritually.

And, you know, just scrolling through Twitter there was I saw the scene from just a couple weeks ago where Darnold victoriously comes marching into the locker room and he's like a conquering hero.

He's like David from the Old Testament and instead like we here we are and so I if anything it's just sort of a downcast element to it but it doesn't take away Connor from what this coaching effort by Sean McVay and the Rams.

Like Sean McVay would keep forgetting about him and he keeps doing this.

And Dan,

I'm glad you mentioned the

quickness of the play calls and the lack of adjustment.

There was one in particular, a sack in the second half where basically like Darnold's Reed is Jordan Naylor and he's waiting for him to get open.

And by the time he gets open, he gets drawn down and there's a shot of KOC on the sideline being like, no, but like if you, you know, and we'll see when the all 22 comes out, but it's like, if, you know, if those are his options, those are his options.

You know what I mean?

And there needs to be something else where he can just get rid of the ball.

And it was crazy because there was a couple of times where, as soon as he got into the whatever, however many drops he was steps he was supposed to take in his drop, he would go.

He would just leave.

He would get upfield.

And I was like, that's what you guys need to be doing.

You need to, you know, this concept of a drop back passing game just can't exist right now.

All right.

Let's take a quick pause here to get a sponsor read in, and then we will turn our attention to the conversation that must be had.

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audience only.

All right, let's talk about Sam.

Does anybody know what that was?

Justin and I worked on this one for a while.

We never quite got it.

Was it the beehive sound spliced with the weird Romo noise?

Yeah, was it Romo?

Is that an effective sound?

In part.

In part.

Okay.

Anything else?

Any other?

I wonder if the audience knows.

Any other sounds you picked up there around the beehive?

I want you to picture like there's footsteps.

There was, yeah, it was like walking along, you know.

Hit it again, Justin.

Grasses.

I'm picturing

for the geriatric millennials out there

and Gen Xers.

Remember John Goodman in arachnophobia?

He's got his tank and he's got his pesticide.

Play it, Justin.

And he is.

God damn it.

He's putting the hive

for permanent rest.

They can't all be hit.

All right.

This is a really crushing end to Sam Darnold's season, obviously.

And, all right, Justin.

And

because it's one of those things, you could say it for the Vikings season as a whole.

And again, going back to a comment Aikman made late in the show, and I have a buddy back east, my buddy Greg,

who's a Vikings fan and

he was not pleased that Aikman said, oh, you know, what does it really mean?

Anything that happened this season, the way the season ended, it kind of ruins everything.

Kind of does for Sam in some ways because what he's going to end up being in this situation now is facing a lot of the same questions yet entering the season.

Now, he has the benefit of having a great statistical regular season and all the great things that went along with it.

It peaked with what Mark pointed out: that moment in the locker room, which is an all-time moment where he's on the shoulders of his teammates getting doused with water as Kevin O'Connell watches on like a proud dad in the corner of the room.

But all of that, over the course of a dreadful eight-quarter stretch,

it really puts a lot of questions on what's next for him.

And his numbers were awful.

He posted a 17.4 QBR, completed 44% of his passes in the week 18 loss to Detroit, and then followed it up with this game where he seemed very jittery in this game.

And

dare I say, it felt like he was seeing some ghosts there holding onto the ball too long.

So I wonder if it feels like this was the end of his Vikings career, as crazy as it is, because things

change happens so fast in the NFL.

And I wonder how many millions and millions of dollars he cost himself with these last eight quarters.

Man, life comes at you fast.

Lost a lot of money.

Like, that's just clear and evident.

Tens of millions of dollars.

Clear and evident.

But I also, like, honestly, for the person of Sam Darnold, I never liked the idea of him signing a massive deal with a crappy football team.

Like, and then he's exposed.

Like, he was put in a good position this year.

I'd say, like, Connor, you made a good point against the, in the after the Lions game, where they were like, we're going to rough up these receivers and DPI them to the end of the earth, and the refs won't call it the way they should.

And tonight,

they were mystified by a different approach.

And like with the pass rush, and it's like some of this is on, it's on the coaching staff, not just Sam Darnold.

But you are right that people are going to remember this in these key moments.

That's how we remember quarterbacks so often.

Is that fair?

It's partially fair.

I think it is.

Connor, I do think it's fair.

I think throwing for 4,300 yards and nearly 40 touchdowns and leading this team to 14 wins cannot be thrown out here.

But if you're looking to make an investment in a quarterback to how he played with the lights at their brightest, it's going to hurt him.

It's going to really hurt him.

It's a bummer for Darnold.

I was just laughing too because Troy did say that during the broadcast.

He's like, he just costs himself so much money.

He's like, what a terrible game.

And I was like, I looked up his best season in the NFL.

Who Aikron?

Yeah.

His best season is 3100 passing yards here comes mark 15 touchdowns and six interceptions like and 15 that is astonishing even

his people with career high he he had 18 he had 19 touchdowns one year but and or 23 touchdowns one year 19 and that but 15 was his pro bowl uh uh mv uh mvp fifth place and ap uh offensive sixth place ap offensive player of the year so that was his most like decorated year.

And I was like, what's your point, Connor?

I'm just saying.

One thing, can I just say one thing?

You're right.

You're right.

But like, yes, it was a different sport, but like people did this all the time with Tony Romo and Aikman, saying that Tony Romo is technically a better quarterback than Aikman.

What is your memory of Aikman?

What's the number one image?

It is him racing down the field with his finger in the air because he is an absolute badass.

And it's like, what we are talking about are quarterbacks that they can have a great season.

And it's in a world where everyone's throwing for 4,500 yards now.

But like here we are in these big moments and it's a crumble job.

And it's, and we, we praise Aikman when he does it.

Good team around him.

But like when the quarterback falls apart, like what else,

simple-minded or not, like that's where your eyes go and your heart goes.

You know what's funny too?

What's funny too about Aikman, Connor, is that if you follow the arc of Monday Night Football, there will be a handful of comments that he makes across the season.

He's still irritated by how much money these quarterbacks make now

compared to what he made.

And then Joe Buck will occasionally fire back, like, yeah, but you know, back then what you were making was good.

And he's like, no, it's not like today.

And I think he's like,

he's watching Darnold, you know, shit his pants in this game and thinking to himself, like, even the quote-unquote bad contract he might get out of this will probably dwarf what I made in my entire career.

So there's some of that, I think, cooking with Troy as well.

Have you ever seen Aikman's house?

Troy's doing fine, I'm sure.

Yeah, he's doing fine.

To your point, though, I'm always, I'm hyper-quarterback sympathetic and always have been.

I mean, we talked about this on the show last night where, you know, I went through all of Justin Herbert's interceptions.

I made a case that that was not as bad of a game.

Like, that's where I come to.

But there were a lot of moments in this game where it still did come down on Sam.

Because at first, my immediate posture was like, this offensive line's got to figure out how to deal with like simulated pressure.

Like, come on, like, get these guys out of his face.

But at some point, it does come down to like either Kevin O'Connell's got to call shorter route concepts or Darnold's just got to get rid of the ball or he's got to leave the pocket and he's got to run.

After time, it became harder and harder for me to excuse some of that stuff.

Yeah.

And we'll see if this, what worked for Los Angeles this week will work next week against the Eagles.

The Eagles obviously are predicated their offense on the run.

And also, Stafford is, you know, he moves well in the pocket for a man his age, but that is a fearsome front seven that

the Eagles will throw at a quarterback.

Will he be able to, you know, stay on his feet and not take a similar beating that was just doled out to poor Sam Darnold.

Let's take a look, by the way, at the bracket now as we have the super wild card weekend in the rear view.

The divisional round playoffs are set here.

We have the number six seed Washington Commanders traveling to Detroit to face the Lions.

You have the number four seed Los Angeles Rams traveling to Philadelphia to face the Eagles on the AFC side.

The number four seed Texans traveling to Kansas City to take on the Chiefs at Arrowhead.

And the game that I think everyone is most excited about, perhaps, is the Baltimore Ravens, the three seed traveling to Buffalo to face the Bills, the number two

seed.

Before we do a little spin-ahead and look at the divisional round and what we're most excited about in terms of storylines,

do we want to put a button on this game?

Is there anything else you guys wanted to throw out there that

you noticed?

Okay.

All right.

Justin just threw up our own underdog, our company.

Actually, Sam Donald looking sneaky hot in this photo on a beach holding.

Just sneaky hot.

Yeah, it's a cocktail and his Ray-Bands.

Vikings only lost to two teams this season.

The Lions twice and the Rams twice, 14-0 against everyone else.

Trophy is in the mail.

All right, Underdog.

We love our Underdog friends.

That was a savage.

You wrong for that underdog.

You know, it's another, I think it was, maybe it got left in 2024, but, oh,

that's a diabolical tweet by Underdog.

Diabolical at a big run in 24.

I think the word still is used, but yeah, I think some of these phrases need to be retired.

I'm always a proponent of that.

Nice.

My bow and the Rams.

Oh, here's our friend Jake Rudin on Twitter.

Coach underscore Jay Gruden.

I love Jay.

Jake Rudin.

Jay Duncan.

Great hanging.

Jay Duncan.

Shit.

Jay will just tell you where he's at at this point in his life and in his career.

He tweets, so Sean McVay versus Kevin O'Connell tonight.

I hired them both, but I don't get mentioned once.

LOL.

No, you were not mentioned, Jay Gruden.

But guess what?

We mention you here on Heed the Call.

We love us from Jay Gruden.

Well, any other thoughts on the game?

If I were to put a bow on this and to blow some wind behind your theory that the Rams could actually be dangerous, I do think that these playoffs will come down to a team with the deepest library of

different ways to run the football.

And LA would probably have the deepest Rolodex at this point out of any of these teams.

Like, you know, even the Ravens, the way that they do things, I think the Rams have a more complex library.

I think they have different ways to attack you with the way they block it up.

So I'm interested.

I was not a believer, but now I'm in.

The most savage beating I ever saw in a playoff game was Patrick Mahomes in that Super Bowl against the Bucks a few years back.

Courtney Fitzgerald.

Physical beating.

Yeah, just absolutely got whipped behind a terrible offensive offensive line uh ESBN research had this uh Kevin Siefford sent it out that Darnold was pressured 23 times in this game a career high that is the most QB pressures faced in the playoffs since Mahomes took 29 in that Super Bowl wow it showed and you know some of the pressures just like sacks so it's not just all on the offensive line Darnold was not comfortable Darnold was afraid to make mistakes Darnold was holding the ball too long uh but that just tells you like the Rams if they can keep this magic going on their defense, I just watched an Eagles team, and we're going to get into it all, but like, I just watched an Eagles team that took took care of their business against the Packers team that had a bad day, but that offense in Philadelphia still is not right.

The Rams could surprise you, maybe.

That game will be interesting.

All right, let's talk about

what is the storyline, a storyline that you got juice for, Mark, before we say goodbye for next weekend.

I know a game is going to get talked about for like 17 hours between now and 6.30 p.m.

Eastern on CBS,

Bills and Ravens.

So I'm going to go to Houston visiting the Chiefs.

And I kind of have this like weird feeling that after we literally buried the Texans six feet under for like a month and a half, that suddenly they're like...

Maybe there's been an awakening and they do the like CJ Stroud just has this wildly insane game out of nowhere and it's like, oh, where's Taylor Swift?

Like, who cares?

Like, the Chiefs are out.

Like, I just want to see

something mad happen.

I want to see one thing cooked up.

You know, like, we got a little bit of that this week.

Like, go do something stunning because everyone doesn't think you can.

That's what I like about the divisional round.

We get a little surprised.

A reversal of the,

what was it, the 2019 AFC Championship game where Houston was up like by three scores.

And then all the time.

It was 24 to 3 or 24 to 10.

Yeah, I was there.

I remember that.

They're the uninvited guests in the divisional round, the Houston Texans.

What's up, Justin?

It was 24 to nothing, and then Kansas City went on a 51-7 run, which

when I looked that up earlier today, I was like, that can't be 51-7?

Throw my thighs on the table.

I raise those Chiefs.

I know we're now in such a, that's so far in the rear view that we don't even like, it's not even weird anymore that the Chiefs score like 22 points a game or whatever.

But yeah, that's probably not going to happen.

Connor, how about you?

I'm dying to see the Eagles again.

I mean, I'm going back down to Philly, not just because it's incredibly convenient for me, but just now they inherit this Rams team.

And, you know, this was not a well-oiled machine last week by any stretch of the imagination.

You know, Jalen Hurts kind of disappeared for an entire quarter.

And I know this is going to be super popular, me in particular, saying this after I refused to draft them and then took the Packers in the first round of our Super Bowl draft.

I know everyone makes mistakes.

What is it like to be perfect?

Are you referring to our worst segment of the year again?

I made a mistake, okay?

By the way, you know, you're the complete before tonight's game, you were totally eliminated from that competition.

All three teams that you had drafted were eliminated by the second day of the playoffs.

It's pretty, I mean, that's hard to do.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty, pretty sweet.

But I would say this.

You know,

I went back and I was thinking a lot about

you guys picked up on Jalen Hurts saying that he never saw A.J.

Brown reading the book before.

And I was talking to a couple people about it today,

just like friends in the business.

And I can't let it go now.

And it's like, was Jalen Hurts saying that he was being a jerk on the sidelines reading a book when he only had one target or three targets during the the game.

Like, was that, was it, you know, and then the Eagles PR staff just did an excellent job of cooking up like a little hot feature piece for everybody after the game.

I don't know if that's the case or not, you know.

Spin it, Dom.

Spin it.

I don't know.

So it's like, you know,

is there something here?

Is the offense a little broken?

Is there anything going on?

Because, I mean, Ertz looked lost for a while.

Maybe it was a rust game, but this Rams defense clearly doesn't give a shit, and they are going to come after people.

So I'm dying to see it now.

I think we all loved,

well, some more than others, but like, oh, wow, look at him reading this book on the sideline.

It's kind of a, it's a weird move.

It was a strange move.

Yeah.

And

I think the natural inclination then was like, what is the book he's reading?

And Connor, you led the way with great coverage of it.

What's in the book?

Who's the author?

Like, why did you start reading this book?

But like,

I'm more like, what, yeah, why are you on the sideline reading a goddamn book in the middle of a playoff game?

And

i think you're right connor like and people that are like oh dan just hates the eagles and connor still does secretly even though he tried to walk it back like whatever maybe that's i can't i can only speak for myself life is complicated still i chalk it up is less about oh how cool is that book and positive affirmation and another weird thing on that sideline and you know maybe it's all building up towards something that's all I went back and I tried to look up and research different things that athletes had used as you know positive cope coping mechanisms on the sidelines.

The only other examples that I could find, and I'm sure there are a couple,

Justin Fields was meditating.

Remember that when he was on his rookie contract with the Bears?

Like he was sitting on the bench doing like deep breathing exercises.

And then the only other one that came to mind was like Len Dawson just ripping darts, you know?

Like, and

what about Mark Sanchez as a rookie eating a hot dog on the sideline in the old Oakland Coliseum?

That was a massive New York football scandal.

And he was hungry.

Like it was late in the game.

Well, you know where he went wrong?

He actually put mustard on it.

That got people upset.

That was like a callback to when Barry Switzer took over the Jimmy Johnson Cowboys.

And you want to talk about a team that was a bit of a disaster.

They won the Super Bowl, but the year before they lost the NFC title game.

And that's back when those, you lose the title game and you coach the Pro Bowl.

And then they're getting their ass whipped in the Pro Bowl, and they cut down a Barry Switzer just sitting there eating eating a giant hot dog.

It's like, does this guy for real?

Come on, do we do it?

That caused a stir back then.

All right, so you guys went with your games.

I'll just button it up with the storyline from each of the other games because divisional round playoffs is the best weekend of the year.

Maybe.

Jaden Daniels in DGF

mode, just nothing to lose.

The Lions with everything to lose.

So I don't think a Dan Campbell team is ever going to show up tight in this spot.

But I don't know.

I don't know if you guys saw that moment when the commanders, you know, they hit the field goal off the upright and everyone's going insane.

And then they cut and they show Jaden Daniels just sitting on the bench, you know, pleased with the, pleased with it, but almost like emotionless.

Just like, all right, took care of this.

Like that dude is maybe the opposite of what you saw from Sam Darnold in moments.

the last two weeks, completely chill and not going to be as scared of that moment in forward field against the Detroit defense that can be had.

And then, yeah, just to button this up, that Josh Allen versus Lamar Jackson in a playoff game where not only do you have two of the great, maybe the best

MVP showdown

of my lifetime and perhaps all of our lifetime, just the two guys that just had massive seasons going head-to-head, these two teams both have so much on the line.

I thought about other years where there's been a killer divisional round matchup or even a championship Sunday matchup and if two Titans going out at each other and maybe they both have had history, they both won Super Bowls or advanced the Super Bowls.

No, these are two teams that know if they lose this game, their season is a failure and it will be a major point of emphasis in the offseason of what went wrong and what do we have to change because we got bounced again before the title game.

So the stakes are so high in this game.

Baltimore favored by a point.

It all makes sense to me.

And I cannot wait.

That is one of the games that I am most excited to watch in a very long time.

Ravens-Bills.

Can't wait.

Football.

Still love it.

Still love the sport, you know?

They feel like the two teams where whoever loses, like there's this element of heartbreak, and it kind of is a visual reminder, like how effing impossible it is to get back to this point.

Like you're starting all over again.

Like, I kind of wish this was happening like in the AFC title game because I'm no Ravens fan, but it will be tough to watch him fall and it would be very tough to watch the same for Josh Allen.

It's kind of like, I don't know.

And I know you embrace Chaos Theory, Mark.

You were hoping the Broncos were going to do something last week.

I don't need the Texans, with all due respect to Texans fans listening, to knock off the Chiefs 2017, and then we get either the Bills or Ravens against the Texans in the AFC title game.

No, give me this super, duper matchup between Bills, Ravens, and then send that team to Arrowhead to face the Chiefs in the AFC title game.

And I am a happy football fan.

I mean,

but when you pitch it that way, like, of course, like, but that's what it is.

That's what this is, right?

I was more saying that I just have this weird feeling that something

that something is going to happen with CJ Stroud.

Maybe, maybe, well, I've been wrong on about 98% of the feelings this year.

So, yeah, I just went two and four in my wild card round pick.

So, this isn't always easy to do.

I had my son do it, and he only got one game wrong.

Yeah, my son

went four and two.

Tell us something.

Also, our Mr.

Perfect challenge is already over.

Yes, it is.

Well, we were all knocked out by the first game, except for Jordan, and then Jordan got popped by.

Jordan took the Texans?

Jordan took the Texans.

You did.

Jordan took the Texans, yes.

Good for her.

Well, there was some controversy on this.

What's this?

Like,

I texted previous and asked, can I switch to the Texans?

And Justin said, no, because I built the graphic.

Not that I built the graphic.

That's Justin's decision, Mark.

Our hand.

I had already built the

remote the graphic on Twitter and Instagram.

If it hadn't been posted yet, I would have remade the graphic.

But...

Well.

It was already out in the world.

What are we going to do?

Quote, tweet it, and be like, oh, actually, Mark changed his mind.

Hope you didn't miss this tweet.

Yes, it's half my show, so yes.

it's exactly how it works

did you go undefeated otherwise

i don't even know i'd have to invest i think you know mark i think you know

well i think justin said i did pretty well right

i don't know but i was the only one who picked the commanders so if mark do you know who you picked in the game

i do it's in a document somewhere for sure i gotta go like full how could you be so passionate about getting this reversed when you don't even know because I was defamed.

Like, I was already 0-1 right out of the game.

Heater went off.

All right.

Good stuff.

Hey, we know that there's other things going on in the NFL orbit, such as Mike Vrabel got hired by the Patriots, the big news that went down in Dallas around Mike McCarthy.

We're going to talk about all of that tomorrow.

We're going to have Jordan Schultz, who is the Fox Sports NFL insider, and he is very plugged in on this whole scene.

So we're going to check in on the coaching carousel, the GM carousel, and hit that juicy, juicy subplot in Dallas where Deion Sanders Connor is connected to the Dallas Cowboys

job, which is, I don't know, at this point, like if you follow like an arc of

just how aging owners that feel like there's

the chess, the chess moves are running low, this feels like something that a 80-something-year-old 80-something-year-old Jerry Jones is going to do.

You know, like, let's get Deion in here.

Do you?

I don't know.

Maybe it'll work.

And a lot of people thought it wasn't going to work in Colorado with Deion, and it did to a certain extent.

But yes, it sounds like that is a real thing that Deion could be heading to Dallas.

And does that mean that

they orchestrate his son getting there too?

You know, these things have happened in the past in the NFL, Conman.

Two quick thoughts on that.

One, I think that jerry would have never passed up the opportunity um to have this go live during the during the playoffs while his team is irrelevant like i i i post i tweeted that at like one o'clock or as soon as they fired mike mccarthy the first thing i posted after that was jerry jones is going to interview deion sanders i promise you and the reasons are because it only helps Jerry Jones.

It increases Deion Sanders' bona fides as an NFL head coach, which makes him look better by proxy.

And it gives him all the attention that he clearly craves based on the way that he operates.

I would say this, if it actually happens, I will still love and be grateful for my job, but I think it's going to be that first little straw on the camel's back where it's kind of just like, f this.

Like, I kind of don't want to deal with it, you know?

Like, it's just, like, it's like when, uh, like, if, if you loved like old, you know, if you love like vintage WWE or WWF wrestling, and then like all these new characters started coming in, you're just like, I don't, I don't like this anymore it doesn't feel the same like I feel like that could probably be my moment you know just to sort of start fading out I only got 30 years left I need to do this so you know what happens if you get a you get a old phone call from the old editor at SI that he wants to send you down to the star then when cover story is that what you explained to him

just like listen uh listen guy who uh signs my paychecks uh I'm just not feeling it today uh I was just that was a juice check I didn't know if you have the ability to be like no I'm not feeling that story bro No, I don't.

All right.

Well, keep an eye on the next issue of SR and see if Connor gets roped into covering a story he clearly wants nothing to do with.

Mark, if we count

your flip-flop on Texans, you went four and two.

If we stick with the original picks, you went three and three.

So either way, you were not Mr.

Perfect.

So if that makes you feel better.

I'll accept three and three just out of nobility.

Okay.

That's one way to look at it.

All right.

Thank you, everybody.

And we have, isn't it crazy how quickly it dwindles?

We now have

seven games left.

Seven games left.

All right, we'll see you tomorrow for a little coaching carousel conversation with Jordan Schultz.

Until then, heed the call.

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