NFL 2025 Week 14 Preview + TNF Recap

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Yeah, we needed it. We needed to play well in all phases, but certainly offensively, we needed to have a bounce-back game and kind of carry that one, and we did.

And this guy cuffing out that ankle he had, showing up.

Like you said, it kind of epitomizes who we want to be, and there ain't no one better.

Welcome to Heed the Call and NFL Podcast. It's the

week 14

preview and Thursday night football recap. And that right there

was Mr. Jared Goff

after his Detroit Lions

get a big win at home

over the Dallas Cowboys. Final score 44-30, the game that kicks off week 14.
Dan Hans is here with Connor Orr

and Justin Graver on the ones and twos. No Mark today.
I hope to have him back on Sunday. And Connor,

this game

played out more or less how I thought it would.

Because I have respect for what the Cowboys have done.

How could you not?

The three-game winning streak, beating both the Super Bowl participants.

But now you're going on the road in primetime against a Detroit team that knows full well that it is going to be in deep doo-doo if they do not win this game at home.

And it's a credit to Dan Campbell and his staff to have this team ready for this game, knowing the stakes. And I thought that's how they played this game.

I know they weren't perfect, at least on defense, but what we saw from the offense was the type of performance led, of course, by the great Jameer Gibbs with three more touchdowns.

That just reminds you that if this team can find its groove and the injury bug just leaves them alone for a week or two, they are not to be counted out in this league.

Yeah, it's a typical, I think to soak this all in platitudes, it's a typical Lions win. It's very resilient.
You're hanging on during various points.

Jared Goff survived, you know, the pressure that he faced. And when he was starting to get knocked around a little bit, he didn't do anything overly stupid.

Certainly you get some help from the officials and we can get into that in some poor clock management, I think, game management from Brian Schottenheimer. But all in all,

this was one of those hallmark wins from last year that we saw from Detroit all the time. Hang around and just keep plugging at it, and something good will happen.
And we saw that from them tonight.

Yeah, what you also heard there from Jared Goff

was shouting out Amon Ross St. Brown, who doesn't practice this week and then decides to suit up.
And not only suits up, he's a player in this game. You know, he's not,

he wasn't himself necessarily, but still, it's pretty damn good when you're not yourself and you still go six for 92.

And the long reception that essentially ices the game, which I thought was a great call

getting on Schottenheimer, and we will.

But Dan Campbell is the play caller, and we questioned how, you know, they'd also

lost two of three since Campbell took over play calling. But that was exactly the type of situation, the down and distance, the time late in the fourth quarter, where many teams will get conservative.

They'll run the ball three times or call two runs and a very, you know, low percentage pass in terms of downfield and then punt the ball away and turn it over to their defense.

He understood his team's strengths and he let Goff rip it and St. Brown makes the big catch and run to put the game away.
So it's a gutty effort by St. Brown.

And again, Dan Campbell understanding his team, the power of good coaching and how that helps. And smart coaching too, right?

Because what is the one thing that Dallas paid all this money and all this, well, I guess not paid all this money, traded all this equity for it to fix as their run defense.

And in this game, even though Jameer Gibbs did have three rushing touchdowns and David Montgomery was gaining 10 yards of carry, it was still three, like three and a half yards of carry for Jameer Gibbs.

So your main factor back there, who's out touching everybody else, isn't really getting anywhere on the ground. And so you throw the football.

And I think this is what teams are going to start doing against Dallas is rediscovering the fact that this secondary is still not that good.

Even though they got some guys guys back, they're still not exactly where you need to be. And you can pick people off in this way.

And it was almost, it read like Lions fan fiction, where if you would read like this team's subreddit pages, it's like, why aren't we taking more deep shots to Isaac Tesla?

And like, why aren't we bombing it to Jamison Williams? And Dan Campbell's probably just like thumbing through it, being like, yeah, you know, you're right. Fuck it.

And this, this was kind of the materialization of that effort. Yeah, they had six plays of 25 or more yards in this game.
And,

you know, they mentioned, I heard in the post-game show, they mentioned, you know, you didn't go for it on fourth down today.

It's like, I don't know how many times they reached fourth down in this game because, and it was, you know, best typified on the last possession they had.

Dallas pulled within three points twice in the fourth quarter, including with 342 left when Brandon Aubrey, who's, you know, we just saw, we just went through 12 years, 13 years of Justin Tucker

reinventing the kicking game. And now you have Brandon Aubrey, who is the greatest to ever do it.
He hits five field goals in this game. He hit one from 63.
That looked like a chip shot.

Hits one from, I think, 57 in the first quarter. The fifth one pulls him back within a score.
And what happens? Tom Kennedy. Let's give a shout out.
There you go.

I know you like Kennedy, Connor, the Irishman.

Tom Kennedy, who had a great game returning kicks, takes it back to midfield. And they need three plays to go 51 yards, the 37-yarder to St.

Brown, and then too easy for Gibbs, including the touchdown run that ices the game and gives them a 40-burger. So it was just, you know,

I like what you said, like this was a reminder of what their potential is and how easy it looks when the Lions are right.

And there are certain teams and matchups that are going to, that should spook a Lions fan still. We saw it on that Sunday night game against the Lions, against the Eagles as an example.

If you can mess up the timing of this offense, but if you can't, and Dallas' defense, which had really been on a heater of sorts the last few weeks, if you can't do it, if you can't truly disrupt Goff, which they did a few times, but not enough, you're going to be in for a long night.

And if you have three turnovers on top of that, it was just a step back for the Cowboys all the way around.

Speaking of long night, I'm playing my dad in fantasy football, and he drives me nuts because he drafts in order of the positions on the ESPN page.

So you'll take cornerback, running back, running back, wide receiver, wide receiver. And so it's like the sixth round.
And I'm like, dad, don't take a kicker. And he just drafts Brandon Aubrey.

And I have Jameer Gibbs. And I'm losing to my dad right now because Brandon Aubrey has like 30 points.
And now it's just going to validate his decision making.

Wait, does your... Does your dad have some type of like compulsive compulsive nature where he must do it that way, an obsessive nature to him?

Like, does he understand the rules that you don't have to draft in the order? Like, it does sound like a very

baby boomer dad move, but at the same time, it's, it feels like something the son should just step in and be like, dad, it doesn't have, you shouldn't do this way.

You're putting yourself at a disadvantage. I've, I've tried so many different times, and it, it, yeah, I mean, I'm like, it's the fourth round.
We don't need a defense.

And, uh, but he just, you know, he does it his way.

My grandpa does the exact same thing. He, one year, he took Eli Manning in the first round for no, like unbelievably.

And then he'll do his bench. He will recreate the starters.
So he'll go first bench as quarterback. He'll draft two kickers.
It's like the whole thing.

And did you try to make it clear to your grandfather that that's what you're doing? Of course. We try to tell him, but it's like he's doing it his way.
And you can't really stop it.

It's like telling them to stop smoking or using, you know, inappropriate words that they're not supposed to use at Burger King anymore, but they still do it.

Any thoughts about the Cowboys? I know you must have loved this,

Connor. You are not someone who wants the Cowboys to be successful this season.

And, you know, I think the stat that's out there after this game is now their chances of making playoffs are less than, I think, 15% or so.

So you're going to get your dream. No Dallas in the playoffs.
I do, I want to point out that the officiating in this game was wretched,

including the play on the tight end, the OPI call on Ferguson was one of the worst calls I've seen in quite some time, where he actually gets hooked.

It's a DPI, so it should be first and goal at the one instead of fourth and three. But he makes, and Terry Macaulay makes, he's the rules analyst for Amazon.

He says, yeah, he does kind of a swim move to get open, and that's perfectly legal. And I'm thinking to myself, oh, we're going to get another one of these.
I don't know if you've noticed it.

It's one of my favorite tropes of Thursday night football. When either Macaulay, and it happened on the near safety in the first half,

when either Macaulay or Al typically, Herb Street doesn't, he's not plugged in enough.

He doesn't give a shit, but like when Al or Macaulay call out the officiating and say, well, I don't, that's an error.

But especially Macaulay, because Macaulay's the guy that's supposed to be the ombudsman of all this, they'll go to break and you could bet on it. Somebody gets in their ear and says, correct yourself.

We didn't get it wrong. The NFL doesn't like this stage pointing out that the officiating has a problem, but that was a problem.
Blowing that call essentially ended the game.

I don't think Dallas wins the game either way because they couldn't get a stop against this offense. But that took the game

out of reach because Schottenheimer then opts to kick the field goal, which I think is part of what your issue was with some of the Schottenheimer decision-making, Connor.

And so it's a four-point swing

essentially, and the game was all but done after the Kennedy return. Sure.

And we'll get to that in a second. Just quickly, though, from Sunday Night Football on, and we talked about it on Sunday now, this is twice in three standalone games that

a rules analyst has correctly said that this is such a blatant and unforgivably bad call that it's wrong. Right.
It's not even a judgment call that's wrong.

It's a misinterpretation of what the actual rule book says, which is an even worse transgression. Yeah, I mean, Cowboys fans, I had to laugh because Chase Daniel,

and I don't, I can't remember if he played for the Cowboys or not, but he he was like this is bs the nfl doesn't want to see the cowboys in the playoffs and i was like excuse me

you know i actually i actually quote retweeted it and then he replied to me personally chase and he was like yeah that's you're right i said this there's a lot of things i'm all i said i said i said chase like i'm all for conspiracy theories but the nfl wants the cowboys in the playoffs they would yeah they it's like they they they need the cowboys in the playoffs they're not trying to keep them out of it and and chase did see the light there college football doesn't want notre dame in the turn yeah um but the there were two field goal mistakes i thought not going for the not kicking the field goal at the end of the game because really like you have brandon aubrey and you're down by that many points you have to know that if you score the touchdown there you could try him from 70 and it doesn't matter as much how much time is on the clock on the back end but i also thought before the half and i forget who pointed this out but i saw it and i thought it was a valid criticism right before the half you had the long Aubrey field goal as well.

And what happened was you immediately threw your field goal unit on the field. You didn't even try to make the Lions think that you might keep your unit on the field.

And so what happens is Detroit gets to immediately use their timeout. You have to kick the field goal and then they get the ball back with enough time to drive down and kick for them as well.

If you would have kept the offense on the field and utilized that time a little bit better and even just milked the clock and tried to make them jump or do anything, Because I forget what the down and distance was there, but you're costing yourself points.

And that Lions offense was on fire with the pass game today. So you don't want them on the field.
And so I thought that was a mistake, too. Yep.

And you need a touchdown at some point in that in those last five minutes of the game. Yeah.
You're right there in the red zone. Go get the touchdown if you can get it.

And then you have the best kicker in the universe. Give him a chance of 73 if you can get anywhere near

scoring range if you get the ball back. The Cowboys' playoff odds dropped to 10% with the loss, according to the athletic.
And if you look at the Cowboys' upcoming schedule here,

it's easy.

It's a good schedule, but now they got the sixth loss. And as we talked about earlier in the week, this is a very difficult conference to make the playoffs as a wild card.

So you kind of got to get the division. And now the Eagles have a gift wrap set up if they can win on Monday night.

They have, after this, Dallas has home Vikings, home Chargers, at Commanders, at at Giants.

They more or less have to go 10-6 and 1 and then hope one of the teams ahead of them stumbles.

And on the other side of it, the Lions still, it's no sure thing that the Lions are going to get to the playoffs, but they needed this one because the schedule is tougher for them.

They have at Rams, home Steelers, at Vikings, at Bears. So, you know, they at 8-5 are in better position than the Cowboys, but not in the clear yet.
Fun game, good game.

Nice to see the Lions look like the Lions again.

Dan Campbell

high-fiving the security guard as he leaves the field.

All right, there you go. We're just getting started here.
We're going to take a quick break.

And when we get back, me, Connor, little Brian Baldinger, a little Dasher the gravedigger, we'll take you all the way through week 14. Stay right there.

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All right, we are back. Thursday Night Football in the rear view.
And now, Connor, we roll into the bulk of week 14. This is the last week of buys.

The Patriots, the Giants, the 49ers, and the Panthers are all

off.

And if you

have, let's see, I don't know, Drake May on your fantasy team or Jackson Dart or Christian McCaffrey

or Bryce Young. That's a tough one for your fantasy team if you're trying to make the playoffs.
But that's the way it goes, Connor. That's life.

And life's about understanding that there are challenges that you have to overcome. It is.
We recently welcomed one of our very young nieces and nephews into the Family Fantasy League.

And I stomped one of them out last week with the playoffs on the line. And I needed them to to know that this is mostly what life feels like.

You're not going to have what you need, and an older person hanging on to past glory is going to kick you in the teeth just to get a little feel. Yeah.
That's good.

I'm the commissioner of a kids-only fantasy league in the town, and we gathered at the local Richmond Bar and Grill in the back patio area. We held the draft.

Dads were allowed to help for the first three rounds, I believe it was. And then there was hands-off and the kids had to do it.
And I began the speech before the draft began.

I went specifically to my local bank and I said, I need $100 and I need a crisp $100 bill. And I held the $100 bill and I said, first place gets this.

And you say that to a bunch of like... nine, 10, and nine, 10-year-olds.
I mean, their heads exploded.

Second place gets nothing.

And I I thought that was a good lesson on capitalism and life in general. That,

you know, we're not handing out any participation trophies in my fantasy league that I run for children, for money. What's the Willy Wonka? It's like, you lose.
You get nothing.

Exactly. Exactly.
Anyway, let's get to it. Let's get to the rest of...

Week 14.

And it's a big week. It's a fun week because there's so many important games.
We've reached the stage of the season where teams are really in danger of missing the playoffs on the back of one loss.

And especially the way, and we've been talking about really since Sunday, the way the AFC looks, the way that the top-heavy NFC looks. These games are huge.
So let's get into them.

We're going to start with the primetime games this week because they're pretty solid, rock solid, in fact.

Let's start with the number 15 Houston Texans, now 7-5 and on a four-game winning streak, traveling to Arrowhead to face the number 11 Kansas City Chiefs, 6-6.

And Connor, I think, you know, I think Andy Reid said it himself.

They got to go tickle some tonsils. I still don't know what it means, but they got to go tickle some tonsils here.
And they got to start winning every week.

And I don't know if they win this game. This is going to be a tough game for a Kansas City team that's shown us time and time again this year, they can't just flip the switch switch like the old days.

They can't because it's so dependent now defensively on a really good Chris Jones week, which they're just going to be a little bit fewer and far between as he gets older.

And that's just a fact of life for a pass rushing interior tackle. And then offensively, I think they got to really turn back the clock and go like pre-Rashi Rice.

quick game in this one because Houston is so aggressive and they're just going to get after you in every way. And so what does that look like if you're Andy Reid?

What does it look like if you're Kansas City? And can you even play that way at this point in the season? It's going to be interesting. Yeah, did you see, by the way,

I like this a lot

as someone who is known to

give it out a nickname or two. CJ Stroud was asked about the Kansas City defense.
Just listening. What are some of the things you see from Carloftis and also Stone Cold and have a follow-up?

Who?

What do you see from Carloftis and Stone Cold Jones?

I don't know. That's what people call them.
That's what people call him?

Oh, cool.

Now, I don't want to be ignorant on this.

Maybe, is this a well-known thing that Chris Jones is known as Stone Cold Jones?

Have you guys heard this before?

I have not heard this before.

Like, that's incredibly ballsy in a a press conference to roll out a nickname that's not like nationally known. Well, I will say I agree.
Not nationally known is crazy.

But apparently I should have known because

I quote-tweeted a clip of this on Twitter and said, I refuse to believe anyone has ever called him this. And I got Ryan Bartlett, our former colleague at NFL,

my old boss at Fox Sports, big time Chiefs fan, replied, wrong. I got another reply.
I'm a Chiefs fan and I've only heard it a few times.

Pretty sure sure it is or used to be on his Twitter and one more. He has it, but he started it.
He has, but it started when he called himself this. I don't know if that should count.

So, Connor, let me, I'll tee it up this way again, because giving oneself a nickname, there's nothing wrong with that. Okay.

What I find I have an issue with here is the presumptiveness of the reporter to drop that to the quarterback of another team that plays in a faraway state.

I just don't think you can get away with that. So I'm going to deduct this reporter 12 points and send him back to J school.

100%. I mean, this is just an insane thing to do.

And I know I've said this on the show before, but I was covering the Giants the year that Genoris Jenkins wanted to be referred to as Jackrabbit in all personal.

And I was just like, no, you can't. And like, we have to call each other by our names or else society falls apart.
But

I just can't

imagine like how stupid you would feel to call a grown man that at a press conference. I don't know.
That's it almost sounded like a joke. I don't know.
Let's get back to the matchup.

So here's what I'm concerned about if I'm a Chiefs fan.

What you said is fair about Stone Cold, that maybe he's not the same Stone Cold as he. I mean, we cover the league.
It's not every week. I've been doing, yeah,

I'm getting.

If we don't know that he's still Stone Cold Jones and we've been doing a podcast as long as he has played professional football, let us be the arbiter of this.

Like nationally, you're not allowed to do that. Anyway, here's the problem for the Chiefs beyond Stone Cold Jones.

Josh Simmons is on IR with that wrist injury. Jalen Moore is now protecting Patrick Mahomes's blind side.
He got his ass kicked by the Cowboys last week.

And I understand the Cowboys have really, I mean, in an almost stunning way, turned around their season in large part because their defensive line just started balling out

with the help, of course, of Quinnen Williams. But

now you're going to put more on this

in this matchup with Will Anderson.

Like, if Patrick Mahomes struggled to have time to make the plays he needed to make last week for the Chiefs, what's going to happen against this Houston pass rush, which is the best in the AFC outside maybe the Denver Broncos?

Best in the AFC. And then you add in the complimentary nature of that secondary that's going to make you pay a lot more than Dallas's secondary is going to.

It's a rat trap game for Kansas City. And again, you're going to, it's going to be Indianapolis-esque where they're going to need a perfect Steve Spagnola game.

They're going to need a perfect Chris Jones game. And they're going to need over 100 rushing yards to stay in this one because it's not one of those Patrick Mahomes magic games.

Because if he extends plays or tries to run the the ball in this one, it's going to be over.

What did you see from Stroud last week? I really liked the way he played in the last three quarters. The stat line did not really tell this story.

I thought he looked good. I think Nico Collins is playing his best football of the year.
They've gotten a little bit more out of their running game in recent weeks.

I just feel like this team in general is really trending up. They are.
And I think what they've figured out, I love like the opening script.

I went back and I watched like the first 20 plays of Stroud actually right before we were talking about this.

A lot of quick game, a lot of stuff over the middle where he's comfortable throwing the ball. And they're getting him into games better.

And they're getting the ball out of his hands faster because he was hovering around three seconds, 3.1 seconds. That's too long for him.

He's not one of those guys that likes to evade and extend the plays. He's very accurate and he's very decisive.
Just let him do that.

Play Patriots ball because like we talked about with New England last week, that is succeeding right now. It's negating blitzes.
It's negating pressure. And so let them keep doing that.

I think it's good.

I think the Texans win this game. Am I crazy?

I think they go to Arrowhead. I'm not going to lock it up or anything.
I just, I think Justin's nodding his head. What do you think, Justin?

I just feel like they are a really tough matchup for Kansas City. And I think Kansas City is going to find themselves in another one-score game.
They've been losing these all year.

And I just kind of trust what Houston's doing on both sides of the ball and their coaching to negate what usually is an advantage for Kansas City as well in that department.

I feel like the Texans are the team that has improved the, like one of the teams that has improved the most since where we were the first month of the season.

And another thing, like to your point about Stroud and getting the ball out, and I saw a stat on Twitter this week.

When the Chiefs have blitzed this season, they are allowing the second most yards per play. They have the sixth worst success rate, and they have the fifth worst pressure rate.

In the previous three seasons, they were first in yards per play when they blitzed, third in success rate when they blitzed, and second in pressure rate when they blitzed.

So they're trying to do the same things, but either offensive coordinators have figured them out or the personnel just isn't as good.

And I think that if they try to do that against Stroud this week, he's going to continue playing like he's been playing.

And I kind of, I'm like all in on the Texans to go win the AFC South and actually win a playoff game, maybe.

I think the issue with that stat, too, is the timing of it, because remember, in those Super Bowls, when Spaggs was so masterful, it was the timing of those.

It was when he decided to do it versus needing to do it out of necessity.

And I think that's when you F up your sample size and you start blowing up your opposing stats, which I think happened in this case. All right, let's move to Monday night football.

Another good matchup. The number nine Eagles, eight and four.
The number 13 Chargers, also eight and four. Justin Herbert did have that procedure on Monday

to

set or repair, I don't know, a broken bone in his hand. The latest on this is that he's got his eyes on playing this game, which is crazy.
Here is Herbert.

I was just getting the swelling down. You know, that's been the most important thing the past couple of days of handsome guy.

You know, just getting back acclimated, getting it moving and doing everything I can to be out there. Sometimes I get mad.
You know.

I'm very blessed in many ways in my life, and I understand that.

And I try to keep that in perspective.

But then you see Justin Herbert casually answering a question like that and you you look at all the things and you say that's a lot of things that one person was given by whoever it is that gives out things

you know what though you don't know how it balances out like I was

reading this thing the other day about this wealthy man who

during critical moments in his life, like beautiful moments in his life, couldn't stop hearing the Pink Panther theme song.

And so it's one of those things where like maybe maybe Justin Herbert has one of those things going on where, like, maybe he witnesses the birth of his first child, but,

you know, like the theme song from Step by Step keeps playing or something like that. You know, like he's haunted by that on some deeper level.

I don't know.

Any of those cultural references track for you, Gravedigger?

Step by step, day by day.

Yeah.

No song has had less need for a gospel choir in it, like the whitest sitcom that ever existed in the 90s.

And later, I think in the end of that, so it's like, yeah!

Make it better.

Second time around. We don't need it.
You know both those references, Pink Panther and Step by Step? Oh, Pink Panther, of course. You know, big Steve Martin fan, but Step by Step, not heard of that.

Legend knows all the words to every song, Dan. You remember? Ooh, we should.
That should be the next challenge on the Patreon, a little step-by-step rap verse.

Like opposites of track with Paul Abdul. Like, just drop one in there.

Paula Abdul, the American Idol Judge. Yes.
Okay, that's enough. Now we know what you're doing.
All right. Also,

this was reported on Thursday. Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter is out for Monday night's game after undergoing a procedure earlier this week.
Now, this is a little troubling, con man.

On both of his shoulders,

football player crashing into other humans every Sunday

has surgery on both shoulders.

Carter is now undergoing treatment on both those shoulders, and he will be considered week to week.

I guess the goal here is, and this is a weird one. This is from the Schefter report.
Carter wanted to be as close to 100% as possible for the playoff run.

Listen, Jalen, I don't know if you realize, but. Two weeks ago, maybe that quote or that reporting doesn't

leave me squinting, but you're in a race right now for the NFC East with the Dallas Cowboys. They're playing their balls off.

And then you have a playoff field that's very tight in the wild card ranks. If this team stumbles, I'm not saying he should be playing.

I'm just saying like the idea that you're looking to rest up to get ready for the playoffs. This is a weird and wild NFC playoff race.

And this is around, God, it was like Christmas time, maybe two years ago or three years ago when the Eagles' defensive front was down really bad.

And remember Howie Roseman came out and he went out and signed Linville Joseph and Domican Sue for no other reason than to spell these guys because they were just exhausted and beat up.

And he knew that that was the lifeblood of the defense. I don't think guys like that are just sitting out there anymore.

I mean, you know, unless Aaron Donald is out there, but the Rams own his rights. Like there's nobody out there to spell them.
They've gotten picked apart in free agency.

And that's the reality of this. Without pressure from that defensive line, Zach Bond doesn't get to run as free.
You know, Jihad Campbell doesn't get to run as free.

It's not the same defense. Can you imagine what would happen if the Eagles lay another stinker here in prime time? I mean, this conversation around them will really start to spiral into

more and more focus on that. And

I have a feeling with this team, some of that noise is difficult to shut out. And there are some cracks, obviously.
It feels like at times in that locker room.

And yeah, this, I think, is a very important game for the Eagles.

For all the reasons we've already said about how the NFC playoff race has really tightened up, to go to Los Angeles and get a win against a very good Chargers team.

And I'm assuming Herbert's going to play,

you could kind of quiet a lot of these things down and really reassert yourself as the favorite in the NFC, maybe even go out and get a buy.

You lose this game, it's going to, the waves that are from rough seas to a building title wave, I feel like this is a big test for Sirianni's bunch.

I agree with you, although I do wonder if there's two sides to it.

Are they so acclimated to the noise that it's really only us feeling the noise and getting a sense of the noise and the hysteria in that market? Or is the pressure real?

And the only reason that I believe it's real is because Howie Roseman and Jeffrey Lurie have fired coaches way earlier than I think other people would have.

And what, two years after winning a Super Bowl for Doug Peterson? So the expectation is always to go out there and be exceptional.

And so I do think that that's part of what's maybe creating the unease in some way.

And, you know, the Chargers, even though they've been dealing with a ton of injuries this year and Jim Harbaugh and his staff deserves a lot of credit, just like we say for Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco and his staff, but their defense is still top 10 in EPA per play and success rate.

And Philadelphia offense that has not been able to get on track. Did you know, I know we all know that Saquon Barkley is not having close to the same season as last year.

He is currently on pace to barely eclipse 1,000 yards rushing. This is a guy that ran for 2,000 yards last year.
And

that inability to have him as this driver of the offense continues to be a thorn in their side. And I know everybody has talked about it, but in some ways, like we've seen it so many times.

The guys that have the monster running back seasons usually come down to earth a little bit, but this whole thing has crashed. And it's not all on him.

Obviously, it's scheme, it's the offensive line play, but it really is startling to see him, you know, what is it, probably about 3.7 yards per carry. And

you thought at some point he was going to snap out of it, and maybe he still will.

But now we're, we're in December, and this is a guy that routinely we're seeing the 20 for 65 stat line or something like that. And it just, it's, it's really stunning in a lot of ways.

He's been wanting to get outside and has done his best work outside. And that is maybe one of the very few Achilles heels of this Chargers defense.

And so I think that's something to watch where can they push Saquon back inside where he's been wholly ineffective this season and kind of funnel him to where they want him?

Because if Saquon does get the edge in this game and get outside the tackles and get free, I do think that that's where some of the magic might start happening again. But you're right.

I mean, at what point does that happen? And is your offensive line even healthy enough to facilitate something like that?

I want to, before we turn the page and get out of this game, I saw a tweet you had that I totally agreed with wholeheartedly

regarding

Egg Gate. And Petulo, the OC.

He spoke on it, by the way, which is a very funny thing. Let's check that out.
It's perfectly acceptable to sit up here and talk about what's going on. He's so funny.

How to fix it, what we're going to do going forward. And we know that.
But when it involves your family, obviously it crosses the line. And so that happened.

And at this point, you know, we just got to move on. We're trying to win.
That's all we want to do is focus.

You know, whether it's my family, whether it's the team, all we're trying to do together is focus on this week. Yeah.

Get off your dom take because I really enjoyed it.

It's it's so weird because

I know Kevin.

He is like

a great dad, great human. And so

you feel for him in that moment as a person. But I also know that I've egged probably 50 houses in my lifetime.
And so it's hard for me to come out and say,

and if it's grown men, which it sounds like it was on the clip, like that is unacceptable. If they're idiot kids, it's not acceptable.
But then like, also, I can't say anything because I did it.

But anyway,

there was the scene.

Suburban dirtbag revels in Statue of Limitations. Connor Orr story.

I hope so, right? Because there's a lot of property damage that I can get out of it. There's that scene in Batman where

the guy's going to out Bruce Wayne, and Morgan Freeman is basically like, so you're saying that your boss is this total animal who spends his nights and weekends just like killing people, and your plan is to just tell on this guy?

Good luck. And I think with the people who egged Kevin Patulla's house, it's like fun idea for you.

However, Big Dom is one of the scariest and most powerful people in the northeast portion of the United States.

And I think you're wholly underestimating his ability to find you and bury you underneath the naval yard in Philadelphia and you're never heard from again.

So he is absolutely, Dom DeSandro is bulletproof in Philadelphia.

I replied to your tweet that that guy has more more PBA cards than the perps here have brain cells.

He's friends with all the cops. He knows where all the bodies are buried.
He might have buried some of them himself. So the idea that you're, and this is exactly the type of case that Dom lives for.

I mean, I feel like they put Dom on this case, find these motherfuckers and bring them to their knees.

So if you are out there, it's like what in Oceans 11 when Terry Benedict gets on the phone after he realizes he's been had, had and he's like,

now I'm going to tell you what to do. Run.

That's what I say to these perps. If you're listening to our show right now, turn this damn thing off and go find a hole and get into it and lay low for about six to 12 years.

Here's the thing. Dominic Geissandro, big dom.
He's got that guy in his corner. Son of a legend.

So I just want to put a button on it by saying this.

And a lot of people reply to that and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, come get me, Tom. Like, what would you do? Okay.
I've done stories on every single corner of football organizations.

You have no idea how connected even the worst director of security in the NFL is. Like, the worst one has FBI ties.
The worst one could call like...

any person in any place in the world and get something done immediately. Like you have a guy that just like doesn't have a passport and magically appears in London the next day for a game.

Like, all this stuff happens because of the directors of security. Dom is like the Liam Neeson from Taken version of that.
So, it's even scarier.

Like, don't look at me and say that this guy cannot f your world up because he can absolutely find you and f your world up. And he's going to.

This is like 50% of what his job responsibilities are. He's a fixer.

Idiot. Stupid idiots.
Hi, run.

All right. Let's take a break.
And when we get back, oh man, it's squad box time.

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All right, Connor, we are back.

You know, we've put a clock, a timer now on the quad box.

Justin, what was it last week?

23 and a half seconds on the dot. So the introduction graphic and the accompanying sound clip for this segment is now

closing in on half a minute long.

Does it get to 30 seconds?

I was listening, and you guys did a great Monday show. I'm still catching up on the Wednesday show, but on the Monday show, I wrote down that Justin, Mark was commenting on Ben Johnson's body.

And then Justin had like a non-sequitur where he was like, I'm in good shape. Like, I'm checking myself out, something like that.
And I thought that would be a really good fit for the quad body.

In the future, shoot us a note on that. I will.
I don't think that one made it, but Justin will now certainly go dig it up and make sure that it's not.

I'll find it and I'll send it to you because I thought it was a little dirtier than that, and I think it would blend in well.

I remember I said, like, I was as Ben Johnson, why he took his shirt off wasn't like a, I'm hot. Look at me.
I have a hot bod. It was because everyone gets free hot dogs.

But yeah, and we've also started to sniff this out, Connor, that Justin sometimes is saying things with more of an ulterior motive behind it.

Maybe he's starting to drop sound bites to get into the quad box.

I don't want to be in the quad box now. No, thank you.
I don't want to underestimate how much I view Justin's upcoming wedding as a reporting trip for me because

just talking to friends from home and just seeing the totality of what I'm dealing with isn't very important to me. And so I'm going to take that job very seriously.
I love that.

All right. Without further ado, the quad box.

Respectfully.

Oh my God.

Kathy Bates is like the cranberry sauce that holds that whole Thanksgiving sandwich together. Exactly.

She is. She's so important.
Both our show and Matt Lock is a lady now, exclusively on CBS and its streaming platform Paramount. All right, let's get into the quad box.

We're going to pick the four games that matter most

in

week 14 for you to follow. And let's start

with an easy one: a layup.

The number 22, Pittsburgh Steelers, 6-6. At the number 19, Baltimore Ravens, 6-6.
six.

Nance and Romo on the call. You know,

the Lamar Jackson health issue is real, and we know it. This is the, I believe, fourth consecutive week where he has missed practices.

Um, and some of that, obviously, some, I remember famously, I think during that first Super Bowl run for the Giants, Plaxco Burris just didn't practice one year.

Just then they, It was just all about pain management and body maintenance and everything. And maybe that's part of what this is.

But when Lamar is now, I think, you know, three straight weeks without a passing touchdown and

the numbers and the production, and it's just, it's not there. And the team obviously misses that.
So he was not participating in practice on Thursday with an ankle issue.

And that's something to keep an eye on. Now, on the other side of the field at the quarterback position, we'll see what's going on with Aaron Rodgers, who looked every bit, his now years.

He just celebrated a birthday

with the cast on the left hand. He got his face busted open after a sack in that game.
So you have two quarterbacks that are not fully right and two teams, Condor, that are not fully right.

And yet the team that wins this game has control of the AFC North.

We forget that last year, I think it was their first matchup between Pittsburgh and Baltimore, that Mike Tomlin had a killer game plan for Lamar Jackson, and the Steelers won that game.

And that was like a Russell Wilson game if I'm not mistaken. And then Baltimore got the better of them in the second matchup.

But I do think that Tomlin has that in his back pocket available to him, especially because Lamar is not going to kill you with his legs. We've seen that over the last few weeks.

Now, the flip side to that is I think Baltimore's offense is in better shape than we'll admit to at this point. Like they had a lot of points taken off the board against them and Cincy last week.

And so interesting to see what happens, but I don't think this is a game where Pittsburgh Pittsburgh necessarily gets steamrolled. And man, do they need this one way more than Baltimore?

Yeah. And, you know, there have been a lot of, it's been building the pressure on Pittsburgh.
And we talked about the fire Tomlin chance.

They've done a good job, I feel like, shutting a lot of that out. Even had Ben Rothlisberger chiming in that it might be time for a head coaching change.

I think this is the type of game where

I think Tomlin is is going to have this team ready? I kind of like Pittsburgh in this game.

And, you know, just when everyone wants to count this team out, I feel like they might have something in them here. And I think a lot of it is because I just don't love the way Baltimore looked.

I thought their defense was, especially in the second half, shredded by Joe Burrow.

And the offense without Lamar being Lamar is a problem. Now, remember, this is Lamar season now.
December and January since 2018,

this team has always been the best team in the league record-wise, and he's been an absolute monster. Here's a good stat from Jameson Hensley at ESPN.

They're 22-4 in December and January since Lamar hit the scene. And Lamar has thrown 53 touchdowns and eight interceptions.

Will we get some type of bounce back?

Now, it's not a magical flip the switch, and now Lamar is going to be Lamar again because the calendar is December, but he has completed less than 60% of his passes.

I mentioned he hasn't thrown a touchdown. He hasn't run for a touchdown either.
They're getting zero out of the quarterback position.

So it just like everything feels different about the Baltimore Ravens because of that. They're just not getting that MVP caliber player play from the best and most important player on their field.

I feel like this is a Tomlins last stand moment, too, because the way that he prefers to play games, as a lot of defensive coaches do, right? Is I want to control time of possession.

I want to force my opponent to make mistakes. And I want to do the bare minimum on offense in terms of, you know, I'm not risking anything.
I'm not doing anything crazy.

This is the perfect arena for the way that Tomlin likes to play because you're not going to have to get into a scoring match with Baltimore. It's not going to be a shootout.
And

the way that you play offensively is going to negate the Kyle Hamiltons a little bit.

It's going to take them out of it because everything is just quick game for Rodgers and adjusting things at the line of scrimmage. So we'll see what happens.
That Lamar injury, like you said, is huge.

It just changes the complexion of everything. I mean,

they were kind of a joke on offense Pittsburgh last week. They had the ball for 18 minutes.
And this is the Steelers. You know, this is the same, the same game.

It is kind of, it's a bit of a car crash game because everything you think you know about the Ravens in recent years, they're just not that right now. And you're expecting them to be, but they're not.

Then Pittsburgh just let

the Buffalo Bills set a

record for yardage by an opponent in their stadium in a game that they didn't possess the ball. Like, Aaron Rodgers, there has to be be some accountability here too.

And I know Mark and I defended Rodgers a little bit for the comments he made after the game.

And then we heard that there was a birthday cake party or something for his birthday and all of his receivers and offensive players were there with him.

I guess that was, I don't know who leaked that or who got paid off for that one to show that everything was fine with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But they better come out with a game plan that has some ball control elements to it because you can't leave that defense, which is simply not good enough and has not been good enough all year, out on an island to win games for you because they just are not capable of doing that.

I wonder what Rogers' birthday cake preference is. You know, is he like a standard Dairy Queen ice cream cake kind of guy, or is he like, where do you find him coming down on the spectrum there?

Do you think that there's cake at all, or do they come over and it's just like, I think there's a cake. I don't think he touches it.

And I think he might even privately chew out a personal personal assistant afterwards for it even being him being put in a position to have the cake. And certainly, is there a wife there?

I, maybe the wife would be involved. Like, I didn't hear anything about a wife.
So if he's celebrating his 42nd birthday with all his receivers and everything, like, she's still not around? Like,

I didn't see her in the stories about this.

Uh, so two things. First, because I was, I was looking up on your drive extending point, Pittsburgh is 30th in, or 31st, I'm sorry, in average drive time and then 29th in the average number of plays.

They're only averaging like just over five plays a drive, which is awful. And they need to find a way to rectify that.
But B,

another Rodgers conspiracy theory. Have you ever seen the Disney Channel original movie Smart House?

Missed that one. Yeah, Justin.
Yeah. Smart House is classic.

And so maybe Rogers is, I was thinking about Rogers maybe being married to his Smart House. It was like, so this was like before AI or Siri or anything like that.
And this was in like the 1990s.

And they won this house that talked to them and like was very maternal. I believe the mother died and she was trying to take over various aspects of their life personally.

So is it like Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, her, that film?

A little bit, slightly more maternal. So maybe Rogers' spin on this one.
This I buy into. yeah, yeah.

It's just a little bit different, but yeah, you know, and we got to check his wording on things. You know, did he say married or did he say, like, I got plugged in this offseason or something?

You know, he's he's often tricky with his words. Exactly.
It's the language that you got to watch with Rogers. Let's pick this game real quick.
Um, I guess I'm in too deep now.

Um, I'll go Steelers 20, Ravens 17. Oh, yeah, um,

21-18 Steelers. I'm right there.
Gravy? Give me the Ravens in shootout 30-27. Wow.
Really? That's not going to happen.

That goes against all of our analysis on this game.

Let's see what happens. Yes, it probably will.
That's exactly what's going to happen. All right, Connor, what's next in the quad box?

All right, boys.

So I am

trying to avoid,

but this week you really can't.

Unless I throw like the.

You got a layup here, Connor.

I think I have.

There's two layups here, actually.

I agree.

But I'm going.

And this is like a classic Dan.

This is like a classic Dan draft, Patreon draft move. But I'm taking Bengals and Bills, number 20 Bengals, 4-8 at the number 5 Bills, 1 p.m.

That's the Davis and Olson game, but you get Joe Burra and Josh Allen. Come on, baby.
Let's go. Pump it in my veins.
Guts.

I love it. Yeah.
Hey, by the way, can I

I'm going to give you a chance to walk back some of your Joe Burrow stuff now, Connor.

You know, oh, you know, look at the first two weeks of the season. He was like the top 27 quarterback.
And now we're going to expect him to come back and hit the ground running. Did you watch?

He did have a little rust. It took him about a quarter and a half.
And then in the third and fourth quarter, he played at the highest level of any player in the sport. Correct.

His accuracy,

not just hitting guys that are open, hitting them in stride. He was a beautiful specimen of a quarterback.
And exactly him making the point for me that you never bet against special.

And I thought that was a special return, even if statistically it didn't blow you away. As you watch that game and you saw once he kind of got into the action, it looked like he hadn't missed a beat.

I mean, he is,

that's why this game is great, because it would not stun me to see him just ball out and

stick a fork potentially in the bills. And all of a sudden, as the, as the Steelers and Ravens fart around,

the Bengals actually start gaining momentum and maybe do something that nobody

thought could happen. But it has to start right here.
And he has to back up all the hype I just pumped into the gas tank.

Unsurprisingly, I'm not going to walk it back.

But

I was just merely suggesting that as it happens, it does take him some time to warm up. His first few games of most seasons are not great.

And so I figured he almost had an off-season's worth of time between those games. And maybe

we just didn't get the full Joe Burrow experience. Now, he looks fantastic.
His pocket movement is phenomenal.

However, I think that the central focus of this game is going to be, can Chase Brown pick up enough extra yardage to stay with James Cook? Because this is going to be a bonanza running back game.

Both of these running defenses are awful, and both of these running backs are two of the three, I think, most efficient running backs in the NFL right now.

I think the past game kind of cancels each other out, what those guys can do. And I think it's about who controls the ground, who runs the ball well, and who picks up extra yards after first contact.

Yeah,

Cook has been...

The engine of the Bills' offense.

I saw a stunning graphic about the average depth of target for Josh Allen over the last five seasons, I think it was.

And, you know, obviously it was extreme against Pittsburgh. And that there was a couple factors there, both with personnel, but also the weather conditions and their game plan.

And obviously, they're running the ball well, but everything.

It's hard for me as I'd love watching Josh Allen play to see him kind of in that type of mode where everything is near the line of scrimmage.

But they're playing a certain type of football right now. And James Cook, though, has been the one thing they could count on.

In fact, all four of the Bills' losses this year have come when Cook runs for less than 100 yards. So he's the guy.

And if you can get him going and that's going to open up a lot, including downfield passing for Buffalo here,

I guess I'm just, I would love to see a shootout here between Allen and Burrow. I just wonder if

that's realistic, the way the Bills are set up right now. Totally agree.
I mean, that's just what I was going to say. The Bengals are prepped for a shootout.
They're armed for a shootout.

Are the Bills? And I don't know.

And will they play in a way that tries to negate that in any possible manner? And that's kind of what I'm looking at there.

Yeah. And Cincinnati, like we mentioned, we have the division.
The battle for the division in Baltimore is two 6-6 teams.

Cincinnati is 4-8. They used up all of their

rope already. So

they need to find a way to win. And I guess that Cincinnati defense, it's kind of fitting to me that if they end up getting killed, it won't be because Joe Burrow fails.

It will be because the defense has another one of those games and they lose 37-34.

So that's kind of where I'm leaning. I just, I do think that we're going to get a lot of scoring.
I think it's going to be a really fun game. I think I might have the first pick,

Justin, in the HTC draft exclusively on Patreon this week. And this is a game that I might not want to miss,

even though on the surface, it's not a great matchup. It really is.

And I think you're going to have a, whenever you have two teams with a ton of urgency and two superstar quarterbacks in their prime, I'd be very surprised if this is not a highly entertaining affair.

I'm putting on a big, comfortable blanket, and I'm letting Greg Olson talk football to me, baby, because if we finally have a marquee matchup between two elite quarterbacks with our best color analyst in the booth and not Romo and not Brady.

No offense, guys. You're just not at that level right now.
This is just going to be, oh, it's going to be so tasty. I can't wait.
By the way,

that James Cook,

the James Cook game, James Cook is going to have a big game here. I think absolutely.
I think the Bills are going to, I kind of like the Bills to find a way in the shootout.

The Bengals have the second last, or second last in EPA per rushing play.

And they've been a little better in recent weeks, but it just feels like the stage is set for Cook to do damage and then Allen to have an Allen game. Now, what's the deal? Do we have any updates?

Last thing on this, Justin, do we have any updates on the Bills' tackles? Because that also factored into their game plan and getting the ball out quickly.

Deion Dawkins and Spencer Brown, I believe they're both questionable right now.

That could be a difference maker in this.

Dalton Kincaid, also questionable with a hamstring. Trey Hendrickson, doubtful.
So we're not going to get him. See anything there, Justin? Spencer Brown did practice.
He was at practice on Thursday.

We're recording this midday, so we don't have the injury report. So I would guess limited, but he was at least out there.
Deion Dawkins

met with the media. So I'm assuming.
Yes, both of them were practicing. Okay.
All right. There we go.
So that's a good sign.

And one last roster note for the Bills. They claim Darius layoff waivers from the Steelers, but he is

he doesn't know if he wants to play. I don't know for the NFL anymore or for

the Bills specifically. I know the Eagles made a claim on him, too, but the Bills had a higher priority.

I don't know if Slay's trying to be sneaky and find his way back to Philly or if he just is done playing.

But I don't know if we're going to see Darius Slay in that secondary, despite Buffalo's intentions to put him there. All right.

Justin, you're up.

All right. I will take the battle for the current AFC South, the number 16 Colts at the number 14 Jacksonville Jaguars, both teams 8 and 4.

However, let's be real, these two teams are fighting for second place because Houston's coming for the division.

Yeah, well, yes, they are. We're high on them, but yes, let's focus on this one.

Two 8-4 teams, number 16 versus number 14.

This is a total coin flip game for me.

Justin, I think

here's what I'm getting out of the Colts.

I think the Colts are cooked. I think the Colts are going down.
And Indianapolis fans, please, I invite you to bury me if they play a really good game here. But

they have been some statistically, some things have really stood out to me.

Now, we know the injury to Daniel Jones and how that affects him, but they have really struggled like bottom of the league in offensive efficiency in early downs

in recent weeks. And that is bad news because it's putting them in a lot of third and longs.
It's putting a lot on Daniel Jones, who is compromised. And

it's telling us that Jonathan Taylor is not having the otherworldly impact he was earlier in the season.

Teams, and what it also tells you is teams are saying, we're daring you to beat us with a passing game. They're stacking the box early on downs.
They're putting, and Taylor's finding less room to run.

If you've noticed, I'm sure if you're a Jonathan Taylor fantasy fantasy owner, you've noticed this. He hasn't had a big game in a few weeks now.

And I see the Jaguars at home as a team that defensively can continue to put Indianapolis in a blender and put Daniel Jones, who, by the way, is now wearing a 3D cast of some kind

that was designed by his... former Duke teammates.
What the hell is going on here?

Because he's got a broken leg.

So just a

long story short, I think the Colts' offense, we've already seen the best of it. And I think Jacksonville is going to make this a one-score game.

It's still a coin flip to me, but I like Jacksonville in this by a field goal and another low-scoring game.

I mean, the secret is to get him behind the line of scrimmage, Jonathan Taylor, to get him often.

And I think it was earlier in the season we brought this up that throughout this insane run of like three-plus touchdown performances, I think it was like an 18% rate of eight-plus defenders in the box.

That has since gone up significantly.

And it shows a little bit of a lack of respect for Daniel Jones, certainly, but it also just shows that everything is flowed through play action, through backfield motion, and through the running game.

And if you blow up the threat of Jonathan Taylor going somewhere, you blow up the entire machine. And I think that the Colts have to find a way to do this.

But this is why you draft guys like Tyler Warren. This is why you bring in Shane Steichen.
Like he's got to find a way to get around it.

And I think this is a big game for him because Campanali is a great defensive coordinator. He's changed things in Jacksonville.

Yeah, I agree with everything you guys are saying. And that is such a turn from when the Colts were on like a historical early down efficiency pace for like, what, the first eight weeks of the year.

This, like, this does strike me as a potential week where it's like everything that we think we currently know gets flipped on its head and Indy wins like 32 to 10 or something.

But I don't, the whole point is, I don't expect that. So I feel like

Indy, I don't know, was the first half of the season just a total liar about who the Colts really are?

And were we not skeptical enough, Dan, when you brought up why is nobody skeptical about Daniel Jones? That was like a month ago. Yeah,

and I know you want that. I love, you love AOC South teams that aren't the Titans going down in flames.

But yeah,

it's certainly a team. There's always one team, put it this way, there's always at least one team that is flying high in September, October, November that crashes out.

And I think Indianapolis is another, I love this week. I love week 14 because I feel like this is a, we're going to learn a lot about the Colts.

They kind of have to circle the wagons here and find a way to get this done. And to the point, they've lost three or four,

and Jonathan Taylor is averaging, I think, 62 yards a game on the ground in those losses. They're 5-0 this year when he goes over 100.

Like, they have to find a way to both feed him the ball, make him the focal point, but also

give enough balance to the offense where Jacksonville can't sit on it. And

a lot of that goes back to Daniel Jones. Like, not to simplify it and make it about the quarterback, but if Jones can play efficiently, it's going to open things up.

On the Jacksonville side, I really do think if they play their game and can continue to

keep Indianapolis' offense in check, Connor, like it comes down to can Trevor Lawrence control himself, basically?

Because that's the other thing that can get the Colts beat or get the Jaguars beat here is the quarterback throwing the ball for grabs and creating short fields and messing things up.

I think a clean game goes Jacksonville's way, but the quarterback doesn't play clean all the time. Yeah.
I mean, and I want to ask Baldy about this actually in a couple minutes.

But in addition to that, they built that stylistic compliment run game for a reason. I mean, it couldn't have just been ETN like they tried to have it for years in Jacksonville.

And the reason you have this two-headed horse now is so you can ride through the sloppy Lawrence games. And I think they're doing a good job evening him out in Jacksonville, but this is a big test.

I mean, Enrumo is going to come after him. They're going to be able to scramble Lawrence.
And so you got to keep the ball on the ground.

And we mentioned that Sauce Gardner, his Achilles, is intact, thankfully.

And he won't be placed on IR, but he is not playing in this game. So that obviously affects

Jacksonville as well, Charvarius White Award,

and how they deploy him and their scheme. So another good one.
All right, let's close out the quad box. Let's do this.
No sese here. So just the three of us.
Let's figure out a way to

pick a team here. This would be a collective quad box violation.

So I don't think that's a good idea. Can I pitch something that you guys might not care about at all? Okay, go ahead.

All through the draft process, there were two quarterbacks looked at as the top two in the class. And now they didn't get drafted that way.
Oh, no. But they play each other this week.

And that's kind of cool. Also, Miles Garrett might break the sack record this week.
He's only four away playing against the quarterback who's been. Let's go with the number 21 Miami Dolphins.
Okay.

Five and seven. At the number 27 New York Jets.

Oh, sure. Your team, Matt Matt.
Matt Netas, Matt Mana. Dolphins.
Yeah.

No, it's not just my team. It's also Connor's team.
Connor's Miami Dolphins, baby. I mean,

we got narratives in place.

I just want to, you know what?

Can I give a little shout out? You know, I've been a little hard on Aaron Glenn,

but they're doing some things that I like. And the thing I really like that we didn't talk about as much on Sunday is their special teams

is they have one of the best special teams in the NFL. I love it.
Banjo, baby.

Banjo,

their coordinator, is killing it. Austin McNamara, the punter, who's named the AFC Special Teams Player of the Month,

they get routinely have been getting big kick returns that have been setting up a mundane offense. They created a huge fumble

on a muff punch situation that set up a score last week in their win over the Falcons. They are not a good team.
They are a talent-deficient team, but they play even the games they're losing.

First of all, they've... They're three and two in their last five games.
So they've really been competitive. And because of the special teams,

even the losses haven't gotten out of hand.

So I just want to like credit Aaron Glenn and that whole staff that they are they are building something a little bit here.

And I'm not saying, I'm not saying the Jets are about to become some juggernaut or finish the season on an incredible streak or anything.

But from where we were at 0-7 and the vibes around this team to now, this is a team that is, and I don't really believe in momentum from one season to the next but we we certainly we were in danger as Jets fans of like a one in 16 2 and 15 nightmare and now it feels like they're just a talent poor team that's battled injuries and trading away their best players but they're fighting every week and making games close and now they get a dolphins team that that that

is playing at a high level for especially compared to earlier in the season Connor I think that they're playing smarter football in that they're taking the ball out of Tua's hands and they're just exploring the outer reaches of what they can achieve with HHN in the running game.

And so I think what's going to happen here is the Jets' EPA against the Rush, I think, went up after Quinn and Williams left.

There was a while there where they were like top three in that stretch after Quinn and Williams went to Dallas. I don't know if that's since gone down.
I'll have to check.

Dijon Robinson probably put a dent in that

last week, yeah. And so, does that spell vulnerability? Um, and did they put anything on tape in that game that makes A-Chan likely to equally break out?

And also, sneakily, we got Darren Waller coming back, baby. And that's one of my favorite, you know, the red zone menace.
He's going to score like three touchdowns again this season. Oh, he will.

The Jets have struggled against tight ends. In fact, I think Waller had two touchdowns against the Jets

in his first game back when these teams faced each other earlier this season.

I mean, the fact that he's doing anything at this stage is incredible. But yeah, Devon A.
Chan is the reigning AFC player of the month, I believe, offensive player of the month.

It's almost like working out for Miami in the sense that

they can explore, they can make a push for the playoffs, as they are on some level. It's weird, but yes, Connor's right.

There is a path while also exploring what's life without Tua as the center point of what we're trying to do on offense, where they're almost maybe laying the ground for a future that doesn't involve the quarterback while playing the quarterback, just minimizing what his role is on the team.

100%. I mean, it's a job audition for next year where it's like, get me a GM who can come in and bring me any other quarterback on earth.

And we can call it a competition in the preseason and we can make it go how we want it to go.

All right. There we go.
There is the

I would like an old AFC

rivalry. I would like to kind of stick a spear through the heart of the Dolphins on Sunday and Connor's Little Fantasy.
That's nice.

I didn't buy into the Sessler narratives. Like, oh, if we can just get Mike McDaniel another year, I think about it all the time.

I didn't believe that for a second, but I know you want this, Connor. And I'm taking that spear and I'm throwing it through the sea, and it's cutting through the sea like a knife through hot butter

or a hot knife through regular butter. No, the butter's hot and the knife's hot.
That's how fast it's cutting through the water into the heart of your dolphins. Yeah, you got King Triton vibes.

Definitely

like a hot Disney dad character. Yeah.

All right, let's take a break and we'll get to the late games.

What's good, y'all? It's Yvonne Miller, Super Bowl MVP, SAG Master, and now your host of Free Range. This is where NFL meets real talk.

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All right, we are back.

We dealt with the quad box. It's been dealt with.
One of these weeks, it's going to consume us and destroy us. But that is not this week.

And now we move to the late games. And there's a banger.
There's a big one in the late window. I like when there's one just really good game, and that's in this world,

this increasingly fractured world that we live in. Anybody that's an NFL fan is going to be sitting down focusing in on the number seven Chicago Bears, nine and three.
Do you believe in me now, Dad?

How about now, dad?

Hey, Pa.

Am I good enough for you now? They have that energy to them, right?

At the number four Green Bay Packers, eight, three,

and one. Yes, NFC North on the line potentially here.
Burkhart and Brady on the call.

I like this matchup, Connor. What stands out to you the most here in terms of a difference maker in one of the best matchups of the week? Packers' vulnerability against explosive running plays.

And I think that's the long and short of it, right? If you can, if you allow,

it's similar to Shanahan in that if you allow him to set the tone and to set the narrative with Monangai and with Swift and

with what he wants to do in the running game, you're cooked because everything builds off of that. And they're going to control the clock.

They're going to be able to install some of the really cool play action packages. They're going to start involving all their trick plays, which Ben Johnson loves to do to kind of put a dagger in you.

And that's how you fall into the trap. This has to be a huge game from a physicality standpoint for Green Bay.
On that point, the Bears might not have all of their running game.

Monagai has been missing practice this week. He's banged up.
So that could work out in Green Bay's favor. Also, working out in Green Bay's favor is Micah Parsons right now.

He is going nuts. He is up to 67 pressures.
He is up to 14 sacks.

He is

driving this defense week after week, and Caleb Williams is going to have to deal with him. I'm curious to see how

he operates against the Bears' offensive line.

You know, Darnell Wright, he kind of quietly goes about his business, does his job. He's only allowed one sack all season.
So you have here is a good matchup.

Now, it's a totally different situation when you're up against a guy like Parsons. But if you can somewhat

neutralize Parsons, it could be the difference in this game. I think it's another close game.
It's a good week.

Good week of games.

But Wright is the former first-round pick. Big stage for him here.
Huge. And for Hafley, too, right?

Because Halfley is, I mean, I'm just kind of wrapping up my yearly coaches list, which I spend a lot of time on.

And I think that that guy is probably one of your, he's in that lock category at this point. Like, I think he's going to leave.
I think he's going to get a job.

But you have to, in these moments, utilize the best or second best defensive player in the NFL to shut down an offense where Caleb Williams is great, but they even said there's problems with the passing game.

He still does freelance. Like Micah Parsons is built to destroy someone like that.
But it's up to Halfley to put him in the right spots, to get him some one-on-ones, and we'll see what happens.

I like what I've liked about Green Bay in recent weeks

is they've, you know, they're not at the level, maybe the Rams, but overall, I think there's a lot of balance to what they can do.

And when Jordan Love has the type of game that he had against the Lions, it's very hard for anyone to beat them. Really, Parsons and Love anchoring each side of the attack is a big deal.

So I want to see if they can continue to build on that because I think

what we saw from the Packers in the beginning of the season, what we've seen in recent weeks is their highest gear is higher than most other teams' highest gears.

I think there's only a couple teams out there that can get there.

Now, and that's not to disrespect the Bears, because I know we keep on saying the Bears are this or they're not that, and then they keep winning uh but yeah this would be the win if chicago finds a way to to cool off green bay i think they become like a huge story in the league and i think it's a it's a bit of an annoying subplot for bears fans like how are we not already the the team that's getting all the buzz while everyone's talking about the patriots or this team or that team like what about us here's this this is the final boss to be i think a huge national story and people start talking to you about more than just a team that's going to the playoffs, a team that should be reckoned with as a true Super Bowl contender.

Big stage for them here. Yeah.
And the one guy we haven't brought up yet is Dennis Allen. And Jordan Love has been on another heater.

And I think his costly plays have been less costly over the course of this year, which hasn't been talked enough about. But this could, like, it's weird, right?

It could spoil the Ben Johnson party, but it's really not a Ben Johnson issue if Jordan Love cooks in this game. And he might, because I think, again, I mean, he's on a really hot streak right now.

I mentioned Menangai did not practice Wednesday, ankle injury. Packers wide receiver Jaden Reed, he could come back.

Remember, he broke his worst way to get hurt is making like an amazing touchdown catch in the end zone, and then it gets wiped out by a penalty. And then, oh, bang, my clavicle snapped as well.

That's what happened to him earlier in the season. But he is a player for them, and he could be back in this game.
And let's see, this is good sound. This is fun sound.

remember january 22nd when ben johnson was hired by the chicago bears he said this about the green bay coach

dane campbell kevin o'connell you're talking about two guys that are up for coach of the year awards as the season ends here and to be quite frank with you

i kind of enjoyed beating matt laflore twice a year

i forgot how weird his face was I forgot about that too. That was like ew.
Do you know what's funny about that?

If you watch that and you watch the way he delivers that in almost a halting manner, it's something that he had written down that he probably had run by his wife and his best friend and a couple of his like coach buddies.

He's like, Should I say this? Like, should I do it? Should I not do it? And even as he's going into it, he's still thinking, Should I bail out of this? Should I parachute out of this?

And then he goes through with it and it becomes one of the hookiest parts of the press conference. And now here he has an opportunity to bang LaFleur in a big spot.
That's fun.

It's like. And you know LaFleur didn't like it.

It wasn't one of those things where it's like, ah, all's fun and, you know,

whatever and whatever. What is it? All's fair and love and war.
Yeah, like, I'm sure LaFleur is like, you little dick. I'm coming for your ass.

It's also if you, if you take that part of it and you would put like a really horrifying like radio head song underneath it, like it looks, it would, it would come off as very scary and not funny and competitive at all.

Like it would, like, he's almost like this is the early stages of before he becomes like a prolific stalker murderer, you know? Yeah, we've dabbled in that on this program in the past.

In fact, let's put something disturbing under

Ben Johnson and play that back, Justin.

Dane Campbell, Kevin O'Connell,

talking about two guys that are up for Cook of the Year awards as the season ends here. And to be quite frank with you,

I kind of enjoyed beating Matt LaFleur twice a year.

The little lip bite thing, and then if it's a movie, it cuts to like a back alley and he's beating someone to death with like

you can almost picture him peeling off his Patrick Bateman skin mask as he's finishing those comments.

So he said he was going to beat, he was looking forward to beating LaFleur twice, and they're playing twice in three weeks here. So buckle up, baby.

And in between those two Bears games for the Packers

is the Denver Broncos. So this is a big,

this is a big stretch for Green Bay as they look to lock up both the division and potentially buy

for the Bears and the head coach a major chance to make a statement. You got to love it.
That was terrifying. Holy shit.

Let's end with something lighter about Ben Johnson. Remember, the Wiener Circle, which is a, I guess, a popular hot dog chain in Chicago.
Stand.

It's not even a chain. Oh, it's a stand.
Okay.

Sorry, all you people out there in Illinois

and my producer

that if Ben Johnson took his shirt off,

everybody would get free hot dogs. Here's the video.
Check it out on YouTube. Smash the subscribe.
Get us the 30K so we can hear about Connor, Sean Payton.

So they kept their word. And I like the shot because, first of all, this feels so Chicago.

This whole, all the people, the street, the snow on the side of the road, everybody's freezing their balls off. Everybody's wearing hats.
Nobody gives a shit. And everybody's getting free hot dogs.

So it's just like an exciting time to be a Bears fan. And that's, I feel like football is a little better when football's good in Chicago.
I see that one guy that's like, I don't know, about

45 people deep, and he's got the baby. And that guy's not getting a hot dog.
He's not making it there. No way.

Baby's going to shut that down. Yep.
Ooh, birds hot chicken. I bet that's tasty.
Let's go to Chicago. We should.
Let's all move to Chicago together.

Get a condo

on the lake there.

Oh, wow. It's around the corner, too.
It's around the corner.

Oh, look at that.

So

there's got to be limits. to how long you're willing to wait for a hot dog.
But you know what? Free stuff, man. I'll tell you something about free stuff.

There was Mexican cantina place that opened in our town a couple of months back and part of their promotion was a free breakfast burrito.

And so it was like 8 a.m. free breakfast burrito.
So I hopped in the car. I was like, you know, maybe I'll pick it up for the wife and I.

And I saw a line that was, you know, a quarter of that, but it was like going down the street. And I'm like, I'm not waiting in line.
Like, how much would I, like, if the burrito costs $12, right?

Like, is my time worth the $12 standing there making conversation or just having my AirPods in standing there? No. So I don't know.

But some people have different viewpoints on free stuff and the need for it. Time is your most valuable asset in life.
You can't put a price on time.

So

give yourself a round of applause on that one, Justin.

Very nice.

Let's throw it to the ageless Brian Baldinger.

All right. We're now joined by Odyssey NFL insider Brian Baldinger, host of the Best Football Show podcast.
Insider calls are brought to you by Nationwide for your insurance and financial needs.

Nationwide is on your side. What's up, Baldy?

Dan, Connor, I see we were joined here.

You know, it's just...

It's a free diving Thursday. I mean, you got to get in the water in a day like today.
Yeah, and as I understand, the waters were particularly crisp on this on this stuff. Yeah.
Yeah.

You know, I always say this. Jimmy Buffett said something like this, too.
A bad day free diving is better than a good day doing anything else. And so today was a good day, man.

Let me ask you a question, Baldi, because you are, you know, we all look up to you, Baldi. We see you, in some ways, as the ultimate male.

And

there have been studies out in the sea, especially with the advent of drones and various other technologies, that let us know that surfers like yourself, people that go out in the sea and whatever you do there,

the sharks are actually everywhere. We used to think maybe there's a shark every once in a while, but they're kind of all around us.

They don't really want much to do with us, but they're also sharks with teeth that are man-eater, some of them.

Has that ever given you, the ultimate male, any level of concern or pause? No, I went diving. I went looking for them

in Jupiter, Florida.

We actually chummed the water to get them to come out of the depths. Like,

I'm not a big fan of, you know, some sharks, you know, bull sharks, I'm not a big fan of it because they're just like, you just don't know what they're going to do.

They're like bipolar, you know, like they're not just normal. So like, but, you know,

the bull sharks were like swarming. And I don't know, I felt right at home with them.
They were, I was filming them. They were checking me out.

They were eating the chum. It was a good day.
I'd actually called Steve Pesciati because I was in Jupiter. I was like, Steve, you want to come out? And he's like, I think I'll golf today, Baldi.

I don't even want to talk about football right now. I just want to keep talking about this.

Baldy, I always thought the most honorable death, Baldy, in cinema was Robert Shaw's character, Quint, in Jaws, a man who lived his life on the sea, and the great beast got the best of him at the end, but he went out.

eaten alive, but you could tell he wasn't scared.

It was almost like his destiny. I feel like if you ever came face to face with a shark, you would have a maybe it would work out better for you than old Quint, but I don't think you'd be afraid.

He had the ultimate line in jaws and he said i can find him for 5 000 but i can capture him and kill him for 10. i always wanted to be that guy

i think there's a football analogy in there somewhere somewhere in there um all right i guess we'll talk about football what the hell um

all right on our wednesday show bald i talked about we we dug into the nfc playoff picture and all those great teams in there

and there's going to be a good or even great team on the outside looking in uh at the end of the regular season. The AFC is a little weirder, right?

And a lot of that is because the typical AFC superpowers, Chiefs, Bills, Ravens are scuffling. The Bengal had a hell of a time trying to survive without Burrow.
And now we'll see what happens.

Which one to you is the best position to not only make the playoffs, but get on a run and kind of restore what we've thought about them in the last three or four seasons?

You know, the Chiefs played Houston this weekend, and it's going to, you know, it might just separate. And I obviously see a defense.
In fact,

Houston's defense reminds me of like a shark feeding, honestly. Like nobody plays defense like Houston.
You don't need stats to like support it and verify. You just have to watch them.

And like they're just violent at what they do. And they're really good.
Everybody tackles Kamari Lasseter. It doesn't matter who it is.
They all tackle. And they're just, they're so simple.

Like they just play a four-man front, single-high safety, and they just get after you. Jonathan Taylor,

he couldn't find any running room last week. I feel like if Houston can score 20 points, if they can score 20, there's nobody they can't beat.

I mean, I kind of feel like, and you know, they've got like a three or four game win streak going. I feel like they could be a dangerous team right now.

And nobody's really talking about Houston because you want to talk about the other teams in AFC South, which is fine.

But, you know, they just went into Indy and they just like basically took them apart. So, I don't know, like, that's a team that I got my eye on right now.

Do you think it's emblematic at all of you look at Houston, you looked at Minnesota last year, the Rams to some degree this year, there's that guerrilla mentality for all these defenses.

The quarterbacks who seem to be more post-snap players are struggling, and Mahomes is kind of the ultimate by time post-snap player.

Do you think he has to adjust the way that he plays in order to get by a defense like Houston at this point?

It's a good question. It's a good question, Connor.
I hadn't really thought about it.

I do think, you know, like Bo Dix plays like that. He plays completely off schedule and he's really good at it.
He doesn't get sacked. He doesn't get hurt.
Like, you know, knock on wood. We need him.

We need young quarterbacks. But like, he just, I can see it's the anti-Sean Payton quarterback, you know, like Sean's never coached a guy like this, but he's coaching him with a bunch of young guys.

I think there's a place for it because the big plays happen

off schedule, it seems like in this league. Every once in a while, you know, you'll throw a go ball to Jackson Smith and Jigba and, you know, just beat somebody on time.

But we don't see that very often. Maybe George Pickens on occasion, but there doesn't seem to be enough of those type of plays.
They seem to be off schedule is when the big plays happen right now.

You know, while we're on the topic of the AFC South, I think part of the reason maybe some people aren't giving the Texans more buzz right now is that the AFC South kind of gets a tax a little bit.

It's like an AFC South tax because they're a little juice deficient over the years. But you look at it this year.

I'm not saying like I see a Super Bowl contender coming out of there, but I'm on the same page with you on Houston.

They keep an eye on them, especially the way Stroud came back and really played well down the stretch in his return to action. But you have the Colts there and you have the Jaguars.

And I think Jaguars fans are the most annoyed right now because nobody's talking about the Jaguars and they're actually leading the division. I know you did a baldy breakdown about their

trench play. Your thoughts on them in recent weeks as they've stacked up some W's.
You, you just need to spend five minutes, you know, with Liam Cohen, and you're impressed.

He's just an impressive guy just the way his command it reminds me actually a lot of sean mcveigh just his overall command whether it's the media the team struggling players like he just has a unique style anthony campanilli has been a good fit for that last year It used to literally annoy me watching Jacksteel play defense.

I'm like, does anybody talk to anybody? Because guys would just be wide open and you go,

it was awful to watch. And you don't see that this year.
Like that's gone. And then,

you know, they're just, you know, Vaseli, the whole group, he's Gladstone. Like, this is an impressive group of people.
And I think the team has bought in.

And, you know, I thought Jacoby Myers was actually the perfect fit for that offense because he sort of is their version of Puka.

You know, just a tough guy, do the blocking, do the dirty work, not going to just blow you away.

But he's such a role for those kind of players that

you need 10 yards in the first down. He'll get you 10 yards and first down.

With the Jags, I mean,

someone had brought up the Trevor Lawrence and almost like Winstonian comparison where we just don't know what we're going to get from him on a week-to-week basis.

Do you see a quarterback that has the ability to be reined in? and has the ability to be consistent week in and week out?

Or is the good part of him the unknown a little bit and just allowing him to be Trevor Lawrence?

He's been wildly inconsistent, Connors, you know like that's you're you're spot on um i think coaching matters how you call plays who your personnel is getting the tight end back strange getting jacobi myers in very dependable targets um

i think that helps i think the running game the the commitment to the run game helps i think i think he just he's just not one of those guys that can just go out there and carve you up.

It's, you know, I mean, we thought he was going to be that guy coming coming out of Georgia and coming out of Clemson, a high school in Georgia.

Like we, we thought it was a guarantee, but he's just been very inconsistent like that.

But I think the more help they get around him, the better he gets and the better, more confident he plays like he did last week.

Insider calls are brought to you by Nationwide for your insurance and financial needs. Nationwide is on your side.
Did you see, speaking of

Liam Cohen,

you know, there was a little bit of a a controversy. Apparently, the punter of the Jaguars made a death threat toward another player.
And if you remember, Robert Sala had threatened Cohen.

And then everyone was hand-wringing about it. And then Liam Cohen

spoke on it. Do we have that, Justin? I've probably heard that said like,

I mean, 100 times, you know, from players in games. So,

whatever. So a bit of a shrug.
I've heard it hundreds of times from players in games.

You played Baldy. Death threats common on the field in the NFL?

I never made any.

It was just a game. You're a man of peace.
Just a game.

I actually haven't made any death threats, period, to anybody, although some probably were deserving of it.

I don't remember anybody ever threatening me like that, you know, like with, you know, death to you part. I don't recall that.

We heard in recent weeks, too, there was

a player player who called another player a hoe and said that the reason that the player was a hoe is because he said something that crossed the line, but he didn't specify. I guess along those lines,

what stands out to you is something that you heard on the field that you would classify as crossing the line, like something someone said in the heat of the game where you were like, that's messed up to say.

That's just a really messed up answer. Yeah, to use a baseball analogy on that, it's like the umpire would have the magic word.

So they don't say the the magic word to the umpire, you won't get tossed. But once you do that, you're gone.
Your ass is in the jackpot.

If you don't throw the guy out, yeah, great question for Connor. Bald of your thoughts.

I guess, you know, not just football, but if anybody says something derogatory about your mom, like that's crossing the line. Like that's, you know, moms are sacred.

Like they, they, they never should ever be talked badly about.

So if I, like, if anybody ever did that, you know, in at a gas station or on a football field or out there diving in the ocean, somebody probably

said something derogatory about my mom. That probably would get

the worst out of me.

That's fair.

That was my guess, either a mom or a girlfriend or a spouse. And maybe if they had some shared past.

Yeah, I've seen that. I've seen that in the stands where

the wife and the girlfriend both saw each other and went at it. Like that was, that happened in Philadelphia at Veterans Stadium one day when I was with the Eagles.

And that was way more entertaining than the game we were playing because we were all watching.

Yeah, that's one of those things where you take those two individuals, take them down to the tank in the bottom of the Veterans Memorial Stadium, and then we just gather around like Pit Fighter.

Oh, yeah. No, it's, you know, you can charge big, you know, you could charge like,

I don't know, some big dollars for that. All right.
Finally, before we let you go, everybody loves a big man touchdown. Tristan Worfs had one for the Bucs in week 13.

According to our research, you had a 37-yard reception, your only career catch.

We would fly that up right now if we could, but the warlords at NFL Media would come for us. So we're not.
So people just got to imagine a young Baldy making a glorious big gainer.

Your memories of that and if it left you yearning for more after it was over. Well, yes, it did.
And so there's two stories.

One was the catch, which was in Green Bay Lambeau Field, legendary Lambeau Field. And in 1988, Ron Meyer was our coach in Indianapolis.

And when we would get it, we finished, we started poor, but we finished strong. And we won eight of our last 10.
And we went to a wishbone when we would get the beat in the fourth quarter.

And they asked me to go from starting guard to a tight end position. And I said, I would play tight end in the wishbone because they really wanted to seal the edge.
We had Dickerson, Albert Bentley.

We had good running backs. So I said, look, I'll go and play tight end for you, but you got to put a pass in for me.
I'm an athlete. Like, I can catch.
And they said, deal.

So I made a deal with Rod Meyer. And they called my number at Lambeau Field.
And, you know, I blocked, blocked, and went out, ran my corner out, and they threw it to me. And,

you know,

I'm glad you didn't put the video up because the safety blew me up.

I was going to say, how come it's not a touchdown? But yeah, now I know.

Well, i did they did call that number again and it was against the bears and damn that singletary if he didn't pass interfere with me as i'm going to get the ball and i could have been tristan worse i could have had my my day and that singletary mess it all up by interfering with me that was that was like when walter payton didn't score in 20 and he was he was

i felt just like that

yes yes all right baldy uh have a great uh weekend enjoy the football and the sea yep nice nice to meet you connor as well You too, Baldy. Hey, guys.
Yep. Take care.

That was Odyssey NFL Insider, Brian Baldinger, host of the Best Football Show podcast. Insider calls are brought to you by Nationwide for your insurance and financial needs.

Nationwide is on your side.

Might get in trouble for that. All right, we'll be right back.

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I think it was the first time my dad was truly proud of me. It completely stole the show.
Well, that's a positive story. I mean, yeah, it sounds great.

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All right, we're back.

Good times with Baldy. So I just want to go sea diving with Brian Baldinger just once, Connor.
Just once. You could show us so much about the world.
Oh, yeah. And his,

like, just as a man, to chum the waters, as he's saying it, before these sharks are coming, like, I don't know what that is.

Like, is he, is he cutting himself and bleeding into the ocean so that the sharks come? Are you putting dead fish in there to get them to come after you? Like, you know, what's happening here?

I don't know. Yeah.

Literally, just like Roy Scheider did in Jaws. They're trying to bring the shark to them.
That's baldy in a nutshell. All right,

let's get to the other ones. And if your team's in here and you're pissed off, it's not our fault.
It's your fault. Well, not your fault either.
It's their fault. All right, let's start.

Bad transition because the number two Seahawks deserve to be at the top of any conversation. They were one of the best teams in the league.
Maybe the best, number two in the power rankings at 9-3.

But it's the Falcons that puts them down here in the other ones this week. The number 26 Falcons, 4-8.

And, you know, we talked about Darnold and

with Michael Sean Dugar on Wednesday's show. And

it feels like the only thing that can hold the Seahawks back is the quarterback

being unable to protect the football. Everything else is all systems go for this team, Connor.

And I think the Falcons are going to have their hands full, especially Kirk Cousins against that pass rush. I agree with you, although just looking at Seattle this year,

where is their their Rams

Panthers loss? You know what I mean? Where is their one stupid, inexplicable loss that they've had this season? They haven't had it yet. And no team is infallible.

And like, what if this is the one game? Like, I just, I just have a weird feeling that this is the egg-laying game for them. Because what? They lost to what? San Francisco, Tampa Bay, and the Rams.

And this is the week that we're all kind of pitchforking and we're saying Raheem Morris is going to get fired after this game and it's all going to end.

What if this is just the Kirk Cousins four-tutty berserker game that makes absolutely no sense? And then after the week after this, you go back to normal.

You need to build that in on almost any team schedule.

Yeah, I like where you're coming from that.

And if it's going to be that type of situation, traveling across the country against a Falcons defense that does have a pass rush, but also blitzes at

one of the highest rates in the NFL. Sam Darnold has been

like a two-face scenario. Yeah.
Batman reference.

He's killed it against the Blitz this year. He's also been killed by the Blitz this year at decision-making.

Maybe you get the wrong side of it

for Darnold. And

then there will be a lot of hand-wringing about Darnold coming out of this week. But anyway, I like the Seahawks, but I like where you're going on that.
All right, the number 31 Titans.

Sorry, Justin, that they're here, but it's the number 31 Titans against the number 29 Browns. And I don't know, man.
Like,

we don't even get to what we had last week, which was positive Cam Ward buzz. They scored three points last week, so the offense is back in the sewer.
And Shadura Sanders' mileage varies on

how much you want to talk about

that dude, especially with Deshaun Watson designated to return from the pup list. Oh, maybe, maybe he's going to play by the end of the year.
Thoughts on this game?

Yeah, my thing I'm watching watching for in this game, Miles Garrett has 19 sacks. The record is 22 and a half sacks.
Garrett has 14 in his last five games.

That would be a great season for any other pass rusher in the NFL. That's five games.
In that span, he has a four-sack game and a five-sack game.

Can he have another four-sack game and set the record in week 14? That, I think, is very possible. Cam Ward been sacked more than any quarterback in football.
Okay.

I'm going to stay on the Brown side, too. I saw Michael Irvin had a good little sound bite on this.

There was a shot of Jerry Judy yelling at Shador Sanders on the sideline, and Irvin pointed out, you can't do that. You do not.
There's a pecking order in a roster.

The quarterback doesn't get screamed at by the wide receiver. Browns got to get guys like Jerry Judy off this roster.

I don't know if Shador Sanders is a guy that's a long-term guy on this roster, but Judy is a headache. Steve Smith had that thing nailed from the start.

The Browns have to clean up the entire operation. He had that worst, that awful fumble in that Radius game that was one of the funniest ones I've seen all year.

Just very quickly, Justin, was on with friend of the program, Bill Barnwell, on Monday, and he asked me what team could be the Patriots of next year.

We both universally agreed the Titans have the ingredients to turn it around. So there you go.
Nice. Check out.

Bill Barnwell, Shar. Yeah.
Thanks, Bill. I do think Ward played his worst game of the season last week.
Let's see if he can bounce back. One more thing.
I know we're on time here.

Dude, I thought, by the way, I thought that

Barnwell saying something positive about the Titans was about the Titans, but Justin positioned that as like Bill Barnwell said something positive about Justin Graver. It's like, thanks, Bill.

Well, Bill is like one of the smartest people I know. And so I just thought that Justin would would like that.

Like, if I say it, it's like, okay, f what. But like, Bill, like, is.
Sure. You know, yeah.
No, no, we pick up what you're putting down. There's some gravity to that.
And I, I take it personally.

So thank you, Bill.

I just want to close this game with one last note. Since you mentioned the Jets Punter, one AFC Special Teams Player of the Month, congratulations to him.

Titans rookie returner Shimaray Dke averaged 26.4 yards per punt return. That's over five yards more than his league leading 21.2 yards.
We have an entire format to the program.

And we're two return touchdowns in November. Busting formatting for this.
He was snubbed. Snubbed.
He was snubbed. That's all.
Congratulations.

who was snubbed for special teams player of the week. Two punt return touchdowns in November.
That leads the NFL in November.

Hey. Oh, Justin.
We can move on. It's all good.
Up next, the number 24 Commanders,

3-9

at the number 25 Vikings, 4-8. I mean, at this point, there is that.

This is just a rubbernecking situation, right? Jaden Daniels practiced in full on Thursday, so keep an eye on that.

If Daniels is playing, it makes things a little bit more interesting, even though the commander season is over.

J.J. McCarthy is set to return after missing one week with a concussion.

I saw a couple crazy, crazy tweets, Connor, about how bad Brosmer in the offense was, or Brosmer in the offense was last week against the Seahawks. Can you fire up these tweets, Justin? Here's one.

Saw this from Bleacher Report:

that the Vikings QBR in week 12, J.J. McCarthy, 34.2, Brosmer in week 13, 32.8.

QBR, if you spike the ball every play,

39.6.

And then, speaking of Bill Barnwell, speak of the devil. Vikings finished at negative 0.79 EPA per play on offense, third worst game of the year behind Raiders, Chiefs, and Bengals Vikings.

For reference, the COVID game where the Broncos didn't have a quarterback and started wide receiver Kendall Hinton against the Saints was negative 0.80 EPA per play.

So historically shitty game for the Vikings. Anything else on this one?

Watch the Commanders' offense, man. I mean, we're starting to get head coaching stuff coming around.
Cliff Kingsbury was a candidate last year.

Do they have anybody on that roster who can work with Jaden and keep that offense rolling?

I don't know because they just lost their quarterbacks coach to Stanford, Tavita Pritchard, who became the head coach at Stanford. So watch out.

The number 30 Saints, 2 and 10 at the number 18 18 Buccaneers, 7-5. This is the Harlan Green call.

This is a nice spot, you would think, for the Buccaneers to pad their win total and get a little more breathing room in the NFC South.

But maybe do they have a hideous loss on their schedule yet this year, Connor? I was thinking the same thing.

It's going to happen. I mean, it's easy to say that it's going to happen at some point in the week.
It happens every week. But this one, I think, is particularly interesting.

Baker Mayfield, remember him mouthing off against the Saints earlier this year? They go down and they play not a perfect game, a little bit of an incomplete game against the Saints the last time.

What if New Orleans, like this is the, I don't know, this is the game where the ball starts rolling for them a little bit. They start playing a little bit better.

I mean, the stats don't support it in any meaningful way, but, you know, that's why we play the game. Mike Evans getting closer to returning.
Chris Godwin is back. Bucky Irving is back.

Did you know that the offense is 24th in EPA per play for the Bucs? Like they've really, you know, who's really gotten a little bit cold? Amika Abuka.

I feel like it might line up exactly with Gronk butchering his name on Fox, but that chemistry, which was so on fire to start the season, has gotten a little bit cold with, I believe, a hamstring injury.

Big, big boo.

In the mix there as well.

Let's see. And Alvin Kamara is questionable after missing week 13

with a knee issue. So maybe get a Tyler Shuck game here.

But yeah, heavy favorites, I would imagine, the Bucs in this game. Up next, the number six Broncos, 10-2 at the number 32 Raiders, 2-10.
This, I think, the game here,

the only thing that interests me about this game,

Connor, is can the Broncos get out of it healthy? Number one. And number two, this really will test the limits of...
Denver playing down to their opponent.

And we know they can get up for a big game, but we've seen, and Bo Nix is at the front of this as an issue.

We've seen them come down against bad teams and then need to turn it on late to finish off games, which is why somebody like Sese is having them number 10 in the power rankings despite being 10 and 2.

You should mop the floor at the Raiders because they're not even an NFL team right now. You better.

Yeah, I mean, and that's the long and short of it. Slight improvement after

changing out the offensive coordinator with Chip Kelly and then the typical smear job of him on the way out, which I don't buy at all.

Are you on Chip Kelly's payroll? Do you get anything for all this? No, I mean, you know, I'll take it if he wants.

But no,

you saw that stuff with Peter Schrager on Monday Night Football that he talks to Tom Brady. Who the hell knows what Tom Brady's asking him to call? I don't know what's going on over there.

But anyway, the offense had a slight improvement with Olson in the seat, but this should be a laugher the whole way. All right.

And finally, in the rundown, the number one Los Angeles Rams, 9-3 at the number 23 Cardinals, 3-9.

Albert and Vilma. Jesus Christ on the call.

I don't know.

It's going to be another tough day to be Jason Zumwalt and an Arizona Cardinals fan because when great teams like the Rams have a bad game, they got their

stunning loss last week in Charlotte. They usually kick the shit out of their

next opponent. And lo and behold, there's the three and nine Cardinals waiting to take their beating.
Your thoughts? Yeah,

I'm interested to see. This is one of those games where Sean McVay might come up with something, right? Like, this is where you try things.

You probably have the time and the space to be able to move your pieces around, see what you got after this, break down

what happened the week before and kind of mess around with it a little bit. So I think these are kind of fun games because, in the dark, like that, like Sean Payton will cook a little bit.

So let's see what he comes up with, you know?

Jacoby Brissette continues to play well. And

I saw this as a Michael Wilson is as a Michael Wilson fantasy owner,

a waiver wire scrap he pickup.

Seeing Marvin Harrison back on the shelf with a heel injury tells me we're going to get one of those games where McBride and Wilson combine for 23 targets in this game and probably a touchdown or two, but probably will be in garbage time.

And maybe, just maybe, it will lead to Arizona Cardinals' gear being sent to the Hall of Fame again.

Congratulations.

By the way, they put Kyler Murray in mothballs.

He's past the window for an IR.

They're not even practicing him. And then when

they ask the coach about, oh, what's going on with Kyler Murray? It's like, ah, you know, it's just not coming along quite as as we hoped, but we hoped to get him back. It's like, okay,

yeah, it's dope as hell. He's trying his best, but, you know, we'll see him when we see him.

The

supposed, right? You never want to, you never want to go after somebody. Like with the McCarthy thing, if it was a self-reported concussion, you would hate to call it anything nefarious.

But the seeming weaponization, of the IR this year has been fascinating to watch. I mean, it's Major League Baseball-esque at this point.
Yeah, it is. It needs to be studied.
All right, that's it.

That's the

other ones for week 14. Let's now move to the competition portion of the Thursday program, the blind locks.
And I know we all killed it last week

in the competition.

I threw out a rule change,

and lo and behold,

everyone picked Road Warriors that won.

And

he tied with Dan at eight and five atop the standings. You got to love it, Connor.
You know why? Because

I know you're nervous about this, but I love it. Like when the pressure is on, you get the best of the old Zeuser.
So when I pick, it's with absolute confidence. And I know you're running scared.

And it's just only, it's only a matter of time now until I pass you. That's all I'm going to say.
I know.

There's no question in my mind that when my facade starts to crumble, emotionally, I am just a piece of wet cardboard. And this is what's been happening to me of late.

Justin, are we sure, though, that

I just want to go back and track? I didn't know that a win tied us. We were tied going into last week, too? We did.
I caught you last week. You caught me last week.
Okay. Maybe that was the.
Yeah.

And Mark is at 7-6.

And Gravy at 6-7. So it's wide open.
It's like the AFC playoff picture with all these Hamenaggers fighting for supremacy.

Let's now go to the games. Again, if you're not aware, we do not know the spreads.

Pick anyone we want, but if we pick a team that is favored by five points or more, we have to cover, double that number.

Otherwise, if you stay out of that danger zone, you just got to get the game right.

So,

Connor, do you want to get us going here? Oh, boy.

Yes.

I think it's important to dance with the date that you brought

to the party. And so I will take the Miami Dolphins at the New York Jets.

Okay. I like that.

I like that.

I think it's a sound pick.

I think you'll be safe on that one.

Geez, this is a tough week.

Right? Yeah. It's a tough week.

Is Green Bay?

There's one that

I'm looking at right now that I wish I went after a little bit more, if I'm being honest. But yeah,

this week looks hellacious. All right, this is where I'm going to go.
Because

I was thinking about backing up my

big talk. around the Colts free fall,

but I just don't trust Trevor Lawrence not to dynamite that up, even though I do like Jacksonville in that game.

So, what I will do, I'll go with the team that I think is playing at a very high level at home. And I'm still not quite all the way there on the Bears, although I'm getting there, okay, Bears fans.

But I'm going to take the Packers at home against Chicago. And I think that's going to be a spread of about three to four and a half.
So, I think I'm going to be okay.

Good luck to you. I will take.

Thank you, Justin. I really wanted to lock up the Eagles, especially with the uncertainty around Herbert, but the Jalen Carter thing has me kind of scared off.

Oh, you mean the double shoulder surgery he's having in week 14?

Week to week. We'll see how he's...

They want him close to 100% for the playoffs, as long as my double shoulder surgery heals. Unless he got like pimples removed, I feel like this is an ominous procedure.
Yeah.

So I'm going to stay away from that. And instead, I'm going to, you said early in the show, we started the show after TNF by talking about Sunday night Texans at Chiefs.

And you were like, I really like the Texans. I'm not going to lock them up, but I really like them.
And you said, oh, Justin's nodding. I was nodding because I was like, I am going to lock him up.

Give me the Houston Texans to virtually, kind of effectively end the season for the Kansas City Chiefs. Wow.

And that's also very.

I got to say, I'm impressed because you do typically go against any AFC AFC South teams. Maybe this is a reverse Jinx.
Maybe that's what's happening here. No, I'm trying to get to 500.

So I need to pick a team. I think that's a good idea.

You're a bit of a, because you're in a bit of a must-win situation at this point as well. Now,

playoffs are going to count. We're going to run straight through the playoffs for this competition.

But if either Connor or myself win and you lose, you're going to be four games out, I think, three games out with

not a lot of time left. So that's a big one for you.
We'll get Marks offline and let you all know where Sestog goes with his choice.

And now, without further ado, let's make sure we're all safe in terms of the lock zone.

Oh, yeah. Okay.
Oh, no.

Wow. Green Bay's getting six and a half.
How? Giving. Yes, they are.

They're giving. Oh, my God.
Oh, God.

Holy shit. Wow.
The disrespect of the Chicago Bears extends to Vegas.

I am blown away

that I need to cover

13.

Oh, that's not good at all. Now, the last time this happened to me, the bills covered by one point.

Wow.

I'm literally, I'm,

wow, why is that? How can that happen?

The money's going Green Bay's side right now with the people are not buying in on Chicago.

This happened last week.

The Bears were a seven-point dog to Philly.

Yeah, but then they beat Philly, handle it. I know.
It's crazy. It's crazy.

That's what's stunning to me because if this one happened last week, I'd be like, okay.

But I guess that also speaks to the public's feeling on the Eagles and where they stand. Right.

Wow. Okay.
So I'm in a little bit of trouble there. This is a golden opportunity for the ore man and everyone else.
You need your Jets to bail you out. What a little subplot to this week.
Come on.

You got a lot. You got a roof of the Jets a little bit harder.
I hate this team.

And Casey laying three and a half. Okay.
See, that's the number I thought the Packers were going to be laying against the Bears. That's crazy.
All right. I ate shit on that one.

Let's see what happens.

All right, everybody. If you want the sister program of this preview, head over to the Patreon, www.patreon.com/slash heed the call, where the three of us will be handling the Patreon draft.

Until then,

and if you're not there, check us out Sunday night, the flagship program, where we recap every game we just previewed.

And thank you for your loyal hedonism. And until next time, do what you must.
Heed the call.

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