Philip Rivers Is All of Us + Adam Schein Game Breaks

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If Nick Siriani got fired tomorrow, the Giants who are in their own division, would they hire him? Under no circumstance would the Giants ever hire Nick Siriani.

If they missed the playoffs this year, I I think Dan might have been ahead of the curve.

Heyo, welcome to Heed the Call and NFL podcast. And around Wednesday, Dan Hans is here with Mark Sessler,

Justin Graver on the ones and twos.

I mean,

Philip Rivers is back.

What is going on? Sassy. Like,

that is, I mean, we all saw it coming, let's be real. Like, there was no,

once the initial report was out there that the Colts were interested in, it's like, well, he's got to pass the physical.

There was nothing that was going to stop the Ursa family from not just willing the signing into existence, but him starting on Sunday.

And so I don't need to see any reporting, midweek reporting. Phil Brivers is playing football this weekend.

And that is a pretty remarkable

news story in what's already been a pretty strange and fascinating 2025 NFL season.

It's a beautiful little development in this particular season. You're right.

And he's playing football in Seattle in what should be murky weather, apparently, against one of the best defenses in professional football. So

I love the story.

And I'm going to to be optimistic and joyful about it because it's so strange. It reminds me of growing up, I played like this card football game where you could take like Y.A.

Tittle and put him on the 2004 Dolphins just to see what would happen. Like this guy's been dropped out of the hemisphere into our world again.
He's not played since the COVID. COVID season.

Like it's wild. And I'm totally here for it.
I don't think it's going to necessarily go well. I think that part of it is very up in the air.
Very up in the air.

Yeah. I mean,

listen, he's 44. He just turned 44.
Like you said, he hasn't played in five years almost. He opened his press conference.

We'll play a couple of Rivers bites from that press conference, but he opened it saying, oh man, we're, you know, we're in person. It's not Zoom.

And that's just like for all of us, all of us that lived through COVID and then had lives that have gone on since COVID feels like it was a million years ago. That's how long ago

that Phil Rivers was playing football at the highest level. He goes into mothballs and now he comes out and he's going to immediately play.

And oh, by the way, you're going to go on the road against arguably the best defense in football.

The one that, you know, absolutely humiliated Max Brosmer, who is not nearly or

a percentage point as accomplished as Phil Rivers is, but he's a young man in his athletic prime and he was made to look silly. I think he'll, I'll put it this way.

What happened to the Vikings when they went to Seattle? I don't think that's what happens to the Colts because at the very least, you're going to have a very cerebral

been there, done that presence there that will, I think, will kind of keep things under control if his body holds up. But

I don't think their chances are high. It's the ultimate Hail Mary by a team that's seen its season turned completely upside down.
But I think there is like a really great human

interest

element to it. Like, and I can't, I won't run from it.
Like as someone who was also born in the early 1980s, who will go out and play wiffleball with my boys or go to the park and play basketball.

And maybe I'll hit a jump shot or I'll do a crossover. And I'll be like, well, do I still, can I, am I still somewhat athletic? Like,

are my, is there anything left to me physically at this time, stage of my life? Or is it time to just let go and look back on the past?

Phil Rivers is here in the National Football League trying to kind of shock the world and will the Colts back into relevance in the NFL.

And it's going to be a great storyline to track the rest of the season.

It does matter that, like,

and

when we first caught wind of this, some of this was not layered into the response, obviously. But he's worked with Shane Steichen for years.
They do a weekly Zoom call.

The coaching job that he's done, Philip Rivers, with his own children, like,

is the Shane Steichen offense. Like, they've been downloading about that for years and years.
So like from that angle, like you mentioned the fact that it's like, here we go. J.J.

Watt mentioned fun fact learn in production meetings. Phillip Rivers ran the same offense for his son Gunners high school team this season.
And they talk weekly, him and Steichen.

So it's like they're two peas in a pot. So I do think that part of it allows for what is really a one-month journey here.

But, you know, Our former coworker Peter Schrager pointed out that Christopher Lloyd playing Doc Brown in Back to the Future was

younger than Philip Rivers is right now. There is just the body holding up.
And if you hear like former quarterbacks talk about

even if you sat for five or six weeks, like if you're a backup and you get dropped into a mid-October game, like there is an air of what the hell is going to happen here to my body.

And I've not, you're not just there, like snap after snap. This is five years and he's 44.
So a very, quite a variable situation. Rivers and why he heeded the call to return to the game he loves.

I know that there's risk involved, obviously, of what may or may not happen, but the only way to find out is going for it. And

I just felt almost like it was a gift, another opportunity to play and cut it loose with you guys in the game you love to play, and the dream that you got to live,

you may get some bonus time. So I really

kept it as simple as that in my mind. And

here I stand. I mean, he looks, still looks like Philip Rivers.
Then there's this amazing tweet I saw from Diana Rossini. Fly that one up, Gravy.

A source close to Philip Rivers describes a player who looks in better shape now than when he played. Here's the quote: it's a no-brainer for who gives them the best chance.

Close quote, expect a heavy dose of Jonathan Taylor in the Cults ground game to support Rivers. That is a trope alert for the ages.

His body is better now than it was five years ago

we've never had it we've never had that trope applied to this particular exact scenario though yeah i don't remember like the 2020 rivers walking around with a big beer gut or something i i don't know if i we don't need to over embellish the situation just let's just be thankful he's been keeping in shape during uh this time off

and uh i did mention the hall of fame thing i saw some pushback from our audience like what do you mean phil rivers isn't a hall of famer it's like okay we could have that conversation. I think he is.

I think Phil Rivers is a Hall of Famer. I think his counting stats are great, but not just that.

I know he didn't win a Super Bowl, but that was not his fault. That was more than anything else, he was in the wrong era.
He was with Tom Brady, let's be real. And that was a horrible place to be.

And he was always, you know, a couple of years he got picked off in the playoffs. The Chargers have a little bit of a curse thing going on.
I don't put that on Rivers as much.

But he was one of the players that defined his era. And I think that is,

that to me is what makes him a Hall of Famer. It's the level of play on the field and then just, can you tell the story of football in the 2010s and the late aughts without Philip Rivers? And you can.

He spoke about pushing his Hall of Fame clock because, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, it resets the second he's added to the active roster. Did that matter to him?

Did it affect him at all when he made his decision? And, you know, you mentioned the Hall of Fame. I mean, it's been a real, it's a real honor to be mentioned with those other 25 guys, certainly.

But, you know, that's just not, I'm not holding my breath on that. And

I hadn't been counting down the years. I mean,

with all respect to the hall, and

if one day I can be a part of that group, it will be special. No question about it.
But the extension of that time, if that comes to be,

was not a factor in my thinking. He's so pumped up.

Doesn't this kind of add like a spicy little chapter to the Hall of Fame conversation? If he goes out and wins, he could win comeback.

He's like listed third in the odds for like comeback player of the year right now, depending on how this goes.

This is like his face is like me and my buddies when we book a trip to Vegas and we're all going to get away from our wives and kids for three days and two nights.

Like, that's that's the face Phil Rivers has. And just to put a bow on this before we welcome in the great Adam Schein joining us today to talk about what he sees as the three big subplots

as we head towards the close of the regular season. This is certainly one of them about Phil Rivers and the Colts and how the AFC South shakes out.

But like I said, the way the Colts operate and German Ursa is gone, but the Ursays are still in charge.

This is such an Ursa move. It's the same reason they brought in Jeff Saturday a few years ago.
It's like, we need a spark. We like that guy.
Would this guy be interested?

That guy says he's interested. Shit, let's try it.

Pre-Philip Rivers the schedule for the colts was a Wednesday walkthrough and then practices on Thursday and Friday all of a sudden now this via Kevin Bowen post Philip Rivers they're practicing Wednesday Thursday Friday the next update you'll get get is that Rivers is with the first team and then by Friday we'll be told that he is starting on Sunday so get ready

it's a great week 15 and Phil Rivers is playing football again as we see him limbering up his body's never been better an amazing body on him he looks great he does he looks like Phil Rivers.

So that's good.

I don't know, Mark,

does this give you any like a pep in your step as a man in his 50s, what you can do? I've gotten about four feet away. I'm looking at a Peloton bike that I haven't gotten on in a couple weeks here.

So Pep in the step would start with the home exercise, limber up. I don't see competitive sports high on the radar.
down the road. Yeah.

But you did play cornerback famously.

i was listed as a cornerback yes but i played running back and i actually

i did some damage at running running back i'm sure

please i'd like to see the agate on that and any uh footage you have uh touchdown two-point conversion running at about 2.6 yards per carry

gravy would it be the coolest story of the last 20 years if he gets the colts finishes this season with them in the playoffs and like wins a playoff game or two like is that that's better than joe flacco coming off the couch and taking the Browns to the playoffs?

Is it? I don't know.

I think it's similar, but I mean, the Browns are their own experience, but it's different because Flacco went from being relatively, you know, just a background fodder on other teams to a starter.

This is outside of like George Blanda coming back at age 48, which is no one has done at an older age than that.

Like, this is a crazy NFL story, and it kind of made me think: would there be other players that would be inspired to come out of

you know, hibernation just to play, pick up a paycheck? Well, this has been happening forever. I mean, if you go through the annals of history, Jim Brown tried to make a comeback in the 80s.

Like, these guys, you know, they... They talk themselves into it.
Then somebody says, hey, do you think you could do it?

And I mean, I think it's a very human thing to be like, yeah, I think I can do it. I just hope it ends well.
I hope this isn't Apollo Creed coming out of retirement to fight Drago.

You know, I hope this doesn't end horribly and it would be kind of a, it would, you know what, it's still relatively risk-free as long as he gets out of this physically in one piece if it doesn't go well it's a footnote that will quickly be forgotten but if it does it's it's like a disney movie yeah you want it to be more steve deberg than um the other options there but i think also he's got the attitude where he's like steve deberg what do you mean steve deberg well he he didn't he return after like many many years I don't know.

I didn't know that one. I missed your DeBerg reference there.

Justin, look up Steve DeBerg's career timeline. Thank you.

I believe he came back with the Falcons late in life. So we want Steve.

I'm shooting higher, buddy. I'm shooting for playing at a high level and taking the Colts to the playoffs.

I am too, but

I think that if we look at Steve DeBerg's, well, we're not going to go down that avenue too far, but

he was an interesting quarterback in a big NFL story. If this could only.

You honestly nailed this, Mark. He retired in 1993 at the end of the 93 season, Steve DeBerg.

Sat out for five years. At the age of 44, in 1998, he came back to play

for the Falcons. Did he play the Jets? He did play the Jets.
I remember this game. I remember this game like it was yesterday.
And he got absolutely squashed in the game and they lost 28-3.

They lost 28-3.

I don't want that to happen, Mark. No, I don't want that.
That's what we want to do. I am drawing a parallel.
As Justin said, I absolutely nailed the parallel of the timeframes.

In that game, Dan, he went 9 of 20 for 117 yards and a pick, and then he was benched. Yeah.

I think it might have been a pick six. Not the game results.

But they did go to the Super Bowl that year and lost to John Elway. I think he coughed up.
He got hit, coughed up a ball that was scooped up by Jerome Henderson, ran 53 to the house.

I do remember the game. I watched it at my Uncle John's house.

So anyway, let's do better than that. But Mark, good historical callback to a guy that left and returned.
Thank you very much. I will give you a B-.

That's the grade you get.

No grade goes higher on this on this production rate. It is.
It's the highest grade one could possibly achieve on Heed the Call. All right, so that's that.
That's the big story.

And we will take a break now. And when we get back, we talk about other big stories around the NFL with Adam Shine.
Buckle up.

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See chime.com for details and applicable terms. Let's get an NFL Today update.
With Adam Chime.

I and JJ Matthew rights. The right

35-yard game-winning field goal for the Texans who have the Bills coming up on Thursday night. Jim Toney, take a look at this.
Mike Kafka in his bag. Next-level trickeration.

This is Governor Orschewski throwing to Jameis Winston. Look at those moves.
Are you kidding me? The Giants lead Detroit by 10. Back to you.
Oh, Jim and Tony, look at this.

More insanity in the snow in lovely western New York. How this? Christian Bedford picked six.
Buffalo's first lead of the game. 63 yards to the house.
32-28. Bills, five minutes ago.
Back to you.

Oh, baby, the dulcet tones of a fan favorite. And the fans being us here at Heed the Call.

We've been pumping up this gentleman all season for the work he's done with the in-game updates on CBS's coverage of the National Football League. And now he joins us on Heed the Call.

baby, Adam, shine.

I gotta tell you, I'm so fired up to be here, guys. Dan, Mark, appreciate it.
You know how much I love you. Love the pod, love all the nice words on the updates.

And man, I just love the chills, a montage of me. I have the chills.
I mean, who loves me more than me? Maybe you. I don't know, but I love me.

Oh, man. You know, Adam,

we were... We kind of get obsessed with this media stuff sometimes.
And when we were talking about these updates you've been giving, this is your first year doing it

with CBS, it got us thinking, what is going on on those Sundays? Because for all we know, you're in your living room with a microphone.

But I like to imagine, we like to imagine that it's like you and JB sitting on the couch together and you're throwing popcorn into Bill Cower's giant jaw and you're all paling around.

Burlson staring at himself in the mirror. Like, take us through it.
What does Sunday look like for you? Love this question. And I always love talking about it.

First of all, I'm not in the same studio as those guys.

So they are in the main NFL Today studio. I am in a separate studio.
One is Studio 43, the other is Studio 44. And I'm sitting there.

And at some point during the day, around like 4.15, 4.30, depending upon the flow of the one o'clock games, I end up doing a couple of YouTube hits, each about eight, 10 minutes long with Kyle Long.

So I'm sitting there and I have in front of me, I'm at at like a studio desk. I have a main TV, which is where I'm hot.
Wherever I'm doing the update, I hear the play by play.

Then a second huge TV, which has the number one CBS game. Then a monitor of six where I could see six other games.
And then a monster TV that has the number two CBS game.

So I have three giant screens, two to my left, one to my right, and directly in front of me, the six other games, all the Fox games, anything that I could potentially do an update on.

And I am obsessed with the process. Like we take a lot of pride into this.
So we have our own control room. It's not the NFL today, guys.

And it's not, you know, Drew Kalisky, who produces the NFL Today, who you guys might have known from the NFL network years ago, who now produces the NFL Today, has been at CBS for over a decade.

And so my producer, Deb Gelman, who I worked with on that of the pregame show for 12 years, she's in my ear. We're watching the games.
We have a great researcher, Avi, and we're just all talking.

And what we want to do is give updates with a purpose. Like if we're going to break into a game, whether that's tell the game producer for Jim and Tony, tell Jim Rickoff, hey.
We have an update.

We want to interrupt your flow.

It's got to be something that matters to jim and tony and most especially the audience so we look for overlap in terms of the games we look for eye candy the jameis winston touchdown where he caught that that's an example of that you know maybe if there is you know potentially like fantasy or survivor implications that would kind of go under the eye candy umbrella but really something that the fans watching care about like i always check like as an example jets jags this week get ready for houston updates because houston jacksonville that matters when you have natural overlap like bills and bengals last week was not on cbs so getting bills bengals into pitts uh pittsburgh baltimore I mean, that was easy and obvious.

Getting any Jacksonville and Indy nuggets. You know, we did our first injury update with Daniel Jones because that impacts everyone playing in the AFC.
It was the first week we took a turnover around.

James Cook when he fumbled, trying to take the lead. Like that has ramifications for everyone who's watching all these different games on CBS.
So I am a geek for the process.

And like, if we're going to, and we will like, we will debate like, should we break in with this? Should we do that? You know, hey, we've, we've.

bothered, you know, Ian and JJ three times already. Why don't we give it a beat? You know, like there is a method to the madness honours.

sometimes like with jim and tony in the bills chiefs game that was during the bears and the bengals and there was another game winning field goal and it was like bam bam bam bam usually at least you know let you set the starting lineup it was like no update update update and jim and tony are great they want more and more and more of their producer jim rickoff the same so that's how i spent my sundays and i'm honestly obsessed i mean dan and i are total nerds for this kind of stuff.

And so are many of our listeners.

So the marriage between your updates and our show process itself, it's kind of lit up our Sundays because we're here also with like multiple laptops, every screen open, things are going wild.

And they have made me, they brought me a little bit of joy. There's a levity to what you do.
And I would just ask you, I mean, you're a renowned radio man, you're a writer.

So it's not like I'm surprised that your approach to these are entertaining. I'm not surprised, but you kind of nail them every time.

I haven't heard you stumble and fumble and kind of lose your way. So are these pre-written sometimes? Do you, um, do you just go and do you?

Cause it's like they're very crisp, very crisp, clean with a dry bit of wit to them.

Well, coming from you guys and what you do on your podcast forever, I mean, that, that means the world in terms of, you know, your humor and your writing and your effectiveness.

So a couple of things on that. Number one, Every update is live.
Sometimes people think, oh, do you read? No, no, everyone's live.

I do love when we have a wheel, as we like to call it, where, okay, you take a touchdown, you know, Christian Benford, we took to all the CBS games. So that was on the wheel of highlights.

We get excited. That's rare that that happens because maybe there's an injury in a game.

We don't try to give updates when, you know, a game's in the red zone, or maybe Gene is on and there's a penalty or, you know, it's inside the two-minute warning or, you know, a team's running the hurry-up offense.

That might prevent a certain update getting into certain game. So everyone's live.
You know, I ad-lib them. I would say what I try to do, and I have my notepad here.

So I'm still one of these where, you know, I take my notes on a notepad. You know, I want to make sure I have my facts right, right? You know, in terms of time, score, you know, 67 yards.

pronunciation, all those kind of things. And then it's like a combo of like, okay, you can't miss the next play, right? So I'm making sure the extra point is kicked.

Make, just want to make sure all the details, everything's buttoned up. We've done a couple of updates where I haven't even seen the play because it's so important to a specific game.

That happened where there was a Pittsburgh touchdown. We got it into Baltimore.
Like, I love that stuff. I mean, you know, as a radio guy, they pay me to talk.

So I trust my crew, our incredible director, Kaz, who's fantastic, who works with Deb and works with Avi. We've got a great rapport and a trust.

When I did that rights field goal that you had in the montage, I didn't see that one until it actually hid. And that was to a huge audience, obviously.
So,

you know, there's that kind of rush that goes into it. But what I'll try to do, especially early, is I'll try to,

if there's time, write something out to just kind of, you know, make sure I get some batting practice in, right?

But, you know, if there's, I tried in the beginning to think of lines going in, and then I was like, you know what? That, that doesn't work. Just read, react, have fun.

You know, the Winston one is my favorite one that we did. Maybe the Tuatanga by Loa throwing the interception, his third, as we were showing the highlight of his second.
That was an all-time favorite.

But yeah,

I appreciate that because that's what we're going for, right? I mean, this this is giving me anxiety. It's fun.

I mean, just the thoughts of it, like not even knowing what you're going out to this massive audience with that you don't turn into the poor boom who goes the dynamite kid, but you are a professional at the highest level, and

we love it. Now,

we also have shared work history. We both, all three of us, all four of us, spent time at NFL Media.
You had a column back then called the Shine 9.

And we don't have time to do 9, but why don't we do Shine 9 nine divided by three? The shine three

with four games left in the regular season.

What are the three biggest subplots in our league? You set the table and then we'll talk it out. What's first? All right, here's my number one.

Now, first of all, I love you calling back the shine nine because I loved every single second of that, and we have to bring that back in some way, shape, or form. Um, number one for the shine three:

how do the teams finish in the NFC West and North? And who do you trust?

Now, I think, and this was my Super Bowl pick before the season, and I'm staying with it, not out of stubbornness, because I absolutely believe it.

And I just had Sean McVay on my Sirius XM Shout on Sports Radio show. I think the Rams are the best team in football, and I think they're going to the Super Bowl.
I think Seattle is number two.

Like, if I had to rank teams that I trust in the NFC, it's Rams one, Seattle two. That game next Thursday night is arguably the biggest game in the final quarter of the season.

I would put currently on a power rankings Packers, Bears, Niners.

I think the Niners are a team that needs to be talked about a little bit more because

I'm certainly guilty of this. We talk about who's not there, Warner, Bosa.
The as is, I think, is good enough to go on the road and win a playoff game or two or three.

I still think Chicago is going to find a way to win the division. I think Chicago is going to beat Green Bay in Chicago in a couple of weeks.

I think Denver is going to end up beating Green Bay on CBS coming up on Sunday. I think Detroit misses the playoffs.

Yeah, I mean, it can happen. And our power rankings, HTC power rankings, which we call the power rankings of record, we don't have anything to back that up, but that's what we say, Sean.

We have to build the brand as well. We have the Rams one, we got the Seahawks, two, we got the Packers three.
So, like, we see it the same way as you, as you.

That's a massive subplot because the three superpowers of football right now are in those two divisions. All right, what's next? What's the next big subplot in the NFL?

Eagles, Cowboys. I think the Philadelphia Eagles are absolutely broken.
And this was more of a prediction and a feel.

Like, even if you go back to week two against Kansas City, I don't think they won that game and that was a big deal in Arrowhead Super Bowl rematch. I think this offense is a mess.

Play calling, quarterback, A.J. Brown, nobody's trustworthy.
Offensive line, Lane Johnson being heard, Barkley, as a result, not the same.

So I predicted that they would lose their last three games. I had them losing against the Chargers, losing.
against the Chicago Bears. I had them losing against the Cowboys.

Now, the schedule is tissue paper soft, but it's going to be interesting to see what happens against Washington, who they play twice.

You know, if Washington could win one of those games and I have the Bills beating them because I don't think that Philly's capable of outscoring Buffalo, look, I'm the host who's cried Cowboys, right?

I picked them to

ultimately beat the Chiefs. I picked them to beat the Eagles.
I was right. Picked them to beat the Lions.
I was wrong. Vikings, Chargers, Washington, Giants, I think the Cowboys can run the tip.

So in this world that you've built, and we've got an Eagles team that would drop a game to a pretty wretched Washington club, Bills, we get, but then they have the Raiders as well.

They go two and two.

Let's say they, you know, the floor falls out.

On this show, we are pretty laser focused on the experience of Nick Siriani.

Dan has has

prophesied for quite some time that he could eventually be in trouble and he's going to find his way into some trouble. Would that be the end of Nick Siriani if that ever happened?

So I think Dan has been ahead of the curve on this, on Siriani, and I echo his sentiments. And it's weird, right?

Because I think we're all kind of screwed when we start minimizing wins and losses and feel, but I almost feel sometimes you have to kind of frame it this way.

If Nick Siriani got fired tomorrow, the Giants who are in their own division, right, who need an experienced offensive mind, would they hire him? And the answer is no.

Under no circumstance would the Giants ever hire Nick Siriani.

So I think Siriani could be in some trouble because Hertz has been awful this year, because his choice is an offensive coordinator, first to replace Shane Steichen, then to replace Kellen Moore, they have just been poor.

If they missed the playoffs this year, I think Dan might have been ahead of the curve. Seriously.

Like, I think his in-game decisions, even in wins this year, have, I mean, the Green Bay game, I still think about that ending.

And I don't understand from analytics, football, what the hell he was thinking. I think there's been too much

for me anyway, leaning on, look at his record. And then it's like, it's him with Vince Lombardi and Bill Belichick and this guy and that guy and George Hallis.

And it's like, okay, but let's have a little bit of a deeper discourse about who he is, who he's surrounded by, the roster, the coordinators, like the coach himself, like guys like, and Shine and I both grew up in Rockham County in New York.

You remember what it was like when Parcells came to town, left the Patriots to the Jets. He was a culture changer and he was a difference maker.
And you saw what Belichick did with New England.

He did the same thing. Like, that's not Siriani.

And so for people to just point at the record, and even Troy Aikman did it for Christ's sake on Monday night football and be like, I don't know why anybody would ever say anything bad about this guy.

Look at his success. It's like, just look a little bit closer.
And just to put a bow on this one, before we move on to the last subplot,

Adam,

they should get to the playoffs. They should go three and one down the stretch, right? And I don't trust the Cowboys to win out.
And that would be enough, right?

But they're on a three-game losing streak. If they lose at home to the Raiders, all bets are off because we are talking about a dumpster fire with toxic fumes coming off it.

I fully expect them to kick ass in that game. That is not, they're not losing to the Raiders.
Yeah, I'm just saying, if that were to happen, you can't take anything for granted for that point.

And I think Siriandi could be in trouble. All right.
One more subplot, and then we have a fun little thing to cap our conversation with Shine with our own little updates for Adam to handle.

All right, I'm excited for that. I'm excited for the final Shine three: Team to beats in the AFC.

now i'm going to stay very consistent here on my preseason pick and i really was drinking the kool-aid last week josh allen and the buffalo bills okay

now i think the most impressive team all year has been new england and if the season ended today and we called the league before we did the pod it doesn't but if it ended today Mike Drable will get my vote for coach of the year.

Sean Payton's done an unbelievable job. And even though I wanted a little bit more out of Bo Nicks year two, I would love them year one.
I was on board with drafting him where they drafted him.

I'm a little concerned about Bo Nicks, but the Broncos have been unbelievable. I think the Texans are very much in play for everything because I think that that defense is special.

I think there's a case for Jacksonville to win a couple of games in the postseason.

But I think the bills because of Allen, especially if when both Mahomes and Jackson don't make the playoffs, I think this is going to be Josh Allen's time to shine. Having said that, guys.

Time to shine.

You like how I referenced that. I always want to make sure.
Yeah, I mean, you don't disagree. That's what makes you great.

I'll tell you, though, I think this game with New England and Buffalo is monster.

Because even if Buffalo can't catch New England, if they can go into New England, win the game, that shows in January on the road, they can go anywhere.

Because going into Arrowhead has been a house of horrors.

And with all due respect to, you know, New England with Drake May or Denver with Bo Nicks, I think between the years, this game is going to mean everything for Buffalo.

and for New England when it comes to success in January. Right.
Because if you're New England, this version of the New England Patriots have not done this yet. They're in uncharted territory.

I look at the Buffalo Bengals game and feel like that was part A of this for Buffalo, where you were close to implosion and you found your way out of that.

And it's a confirmation of who the Bills are internally. And if you can follow that up with a Patriots victory, everything looks different for Buffalo at that point.

I really think that the AFC playoffs are just going to be held inside of a psych ward, but they're the one team that I trust more than the others at this point.

Yeah,

I want to give the Patriots a little shine here because

I know I've been, I was hard on the Patriots at times in the last few weeks, Adam, because I think, again, a lot of people are just running with too many people. There's their record.

That's what they are. And it's like, okay, let's slow down.

I know they have one marquee win against Buffalo this season. They've beaten, I think, seven.

Right now, if you look at the top 10 draft picks, if you were to have the draft this upcoming weekend, the Patriots have played, I think, seven of the 10 teams that currently are in line for a top 10 pick.

That's how Papersoft their schedule has been. If they beat the Bills, they sweep the Bills, which gives them the division and will probably give them the top seed, it changes everything.

So I totally agree. That's a huge game.
I like Buffalo.

I think Houston has what it takes on both sides of the ball, especially on their defense, to be a team that can go all the way to the Super Bowl. But yes, I think I'm with you on Bills.

And then the Patriots, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. Like, let me see what you do this week only on CBS.
All right. Now,

by the way, you want to get a little plug-in for the CBS schedule this week before we... By the way, the CBS schedule is unbelievable.

I mean, I would make the case, a lot of people were hyping up in general the NFL schedule in week 14.

Now,

this week 15 schedule is the single greatest slate I've ever seen on a network.

I mean, you have,

think about this, right? You have Jim and Tony, Jim, Tony, doing Green Bay in Denver.

You're going to have the Colts with Phillip Rivers in Seattle, which three weeks ago, by the way, could have been a Super Bowl preview and no one would have batted an eye.

To me, the biggest game all week is what we just talked about with Buffalo and, of course, New England.

You have the Chargers in Arrowhead with the ability to potentially put the unofficial death nail and death blow to that football team. Like that's ridiculously insane.

You're going to have Jacksonville and the Jets. We're looking forward to that from a Jacksonville perspective, Baltimore, Cincinnati.
And I do have a take, which we didn't mention in the Shine three.

Maybe we'll make it into three and a half.

I'm not even ruling out Cincinnati as a division division winner like i do have a scenario where cincinnati runs the table and the dolphins perhaps beat pittsburgh and baltimore is clearly broken lamarta's in practice again like i'm not ruling out the bengals until they lose another game like that's just my mindset It's funny because Burrow actually ruled out the Bengals on Sunday,

speaking about their season in the past tense. But yeah, I guess stranger things have happened.
I feel like they did use their ninth life with that.

What was it, their ninth loss?

It's very frustrating. Sign that in with the shine nine.
It's perfect.

There we go. We're right back.
All right. Without further ado, let's close this out.
We have

your in-game updates for CBS. Iconic.

We prepared three for you to read if you would be so kind.

So we're going to, I'll tee you up

and then you take it away and we'll, you know, we'll have a great time with it. So I'll give you the typical tee-up, which is let's get an NFL Today update with Adam Schein.

Iron JJ, Philip Rivers, Dad's Strength, an early touchdown passed in his NFL return.

Also on his to-do list, email the Little League board, go to Home Depot, call back the realtor, ice his name, reserve the Travel Mall Hotel, clean the gutters, book a flight for his parents, bail out his brother-in-law, move the elf on the shelf, and schedule that all-important colonoscopy.

Buckle up, Buttercup. Being 44 is terrible.
Back to you.

That would be the longest update you've done this season, I believe. I was going to say, that might not get in the whole, you know, play clock window there, but I love it.

It's just, you know, I think we all, all us mid-40-somethings, really are pulling for rivers in a big spot, but, you know, it's a tough time of life. There's just a lot of responsibility.

And now you're going to go back to the NFL. All right, here we go.
December, there's a lot going on to be a mid-40-year-old with kids in December.

I mean, you know, September, October, mid-Septober, you know, September, kids going back to school. October, we can talk about it.
December, that's that's tough stuff. Tough.
Let's try another one.

All right, let's get an NFL Today update with Adam Schein.

Oh, Jim Tony, the impossible has happened. Brandon Stevens steps in front of a Trevor Lawrence pass, and the Jets finally have their first interception of the year.

In possibly related news, a swarm of locusts has swarmed over Everbank Stadium and the sun has turned blood red. That's right, guys.
Potential apocalypse scenario brewing in Duval.

Jets, Jaguars, scoreless at the end of one. Back to you.

Troubling.

That felt like a little bit of a bunch of people

on that one. You've got to love sports.

All right, this last one. I don't know the audience is gonna know who penned this one.

One more time. You wanna tee this one up, Mark? By the way, when I got these right before the show, literally, so even the

audience knows, I didn't even, like, I literally was crying from laughing so hard how great these are. I like you teen it up, Dan.
You're very good. All right, here we go.
One more time.

Let's get an NFL Today update with Adam Schein. Spiro, Arch, let's go to Boston, where American catalysts are raiding British ships and whipping chest of tea into the harbor.
Look at this, a protest.

No taxation without representation. Back to you.

And Spiro is so good. Everybody is.
I mean, Nance is the best when it comes to playing off of it and

like hearing every word.

Spiro is awesome.

He's really funny. He would have a field day with that.
One of my other favorite updates, by the way, when he did that interview with Lebatard and said that their group chat was the AFC South.

So I was like, how do I work that into an update? And I just suddenly on the first one, it was like, you know, a Titans Jags game. I said, Smira, just for you, an AFC South update.

And you could audibly hear him laugh.

That's all I needed to do right now. That's what's what it's all about.
Adam Sean, you've said it all. Check out Shine on Sports Monday to Friday, 9 to noon Eastern on Mad Dog Radio, Sirius XM.

Also, of course, the NFL on CBS, game updates, the Rise and Shine pod. I mean, the man, how does he find the time? And he is around 44 as well, I believe.

So, you know, just shine also making all of us

elder millennials and late gen Xers proud. Thank you very much.
Three of us and Phillip Rivers. That's right.
Thank you. Thank you, buddy.

Hey, Mark, I asked you last week about your Christmas shopping. Have you made any progress since then? Well, Well, it's a very busy time for us, Dan.
You know that. Oh, sassy, you got to make time.

Sounds like a no. Well, look, if you're still hunting for the right gift for that special person in your life, I know just the thing Aura frames.

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Honestly, Dan, it really is the perfect gift idea, especially because I always struggle to find something meaningful and useful.

The last thing I want is my gift that I buy for someone shoved in a drawer or forgotten about as soon as Christmas is over. Ah, tragic.
I mentioned this before, but I'll tell you all again.

Last year, I gave an aura frame to my parents, preloaded it with family photos, some vacation shots, cute ones of the kiddos, all that. A year later, they absolutely love it.

It sits in their living room, rotating through the memories all day long. Grandparents love that stuff.

And the best part is you can preload photos before it ships and keep adding new ones anytime from anywhere. You can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it.
You are a good son.

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

Every week, I'm bringing you inside the game, from locker room stories to league-wide headlines. You want football IQ, locker room insight, and real conversations with the people shaping the league?

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All right.

There he goes.

You know, that was great. Sean was

exactly what I hoped he would be on our program, and I hope everybody enjoyed that. He is like, I like to see someone who

in person, talking to us, just having a conversation, is the same person in many ways they are on air when they're doing what makes them special. Like,

I love that talk. Yes.
And

I look forward to maybe, maybe there's some type of little,

maybe Shine gives us a little quiet shout-out during one of his updates, you know? I feel like there'd be a disconnect with like Tony Romo and Jim Nats on that, just to mention out of the way.

Well, he did, he did a little

inside joke to Archoletta. I'm just saying, if I,

or was it Spiro? I don't know who it was. Spiro? Yeah, like, maybe.
I'm just saying, let's keep an ear out, everybody. Okay.

Before we get to the Thursday night preview, this is something we've been meaning to hit. I've been getting a lot of, I'm sure you have too, Mark.

Tubai

has indeed

finally unfurled their long-awaited football documentary about the quarterback of Justin's favorite football team.

And Justin has sent me about seven text messages today about, hey, we're going to get get this into the show we're gonna get it in how about he just sent me one three seconds ago this would be a good spot for this so i will now clear the runway for um zero star

the

cam ward story okay here we go

who is cam ward and why do we not know about him

he wants to win

No quarterback has ever been a zero star number one NFL draft pick. Everything is on me.
A lot of people don't know. I was going to quit.
That's when the circus began.

He invested everything he had.

If you start something, you're going to finish.

I live by it every day.

It actually is called Zero Star, the Cam Ward story. How about that? Yeah, okay.
I nailed it. Shout out to by getting that thing out the door because we had checked in earlier this season with it.

Justin had sent an email and they're like, yeah, it's almost like when Justin sent the email, the reply was like, they're like, oh, yeah, what about the Cam Ward thing? And that kickstarted.

So maybe this show indirectly got this program to people. Did you watch it, Justin? I watched it.
It was released in three parts.

Each one is exactly 22 minutes long, and you have to watch an ad or a group of ads before it starts. So it's like a 60-minute dock with three ad breaks.
That feels like

two parts too many.

No, I mean, it's only, they're only 22 minutes each. And it's like, here's his high school and recruiting journey.
Here's his like, he's at Incarnate Word and Washington State journey.

And here's like he transferred to Miami and became the number one overall pick.

And if you're a diehard Titans fan like me and you followed Cam Word all through the process, I don't think this doc will teach you anything that you didn't already know.

I think most of the footage was sourced from like Miami's YouTube page. Like there's a lot of clips in this documentary that I have used in clip in like videos I made on YouTube for my Titans channel.

So it's not the most original set of footage or anything like that. The interviews are cool.

The coolest part is Eric Morris, the guy who recruited him, talking about how when he brought him to Washington State, when Morris got a job up there and took Cam Ward with him, how he felt like Cam Ward was like a son to him because he was so far away from home, the furthest he'd ever been.

But his parents still went to every game. It's a cool thing to watch if you're super into content around Cam Ward.
It's not super revelation.

There's no big revelations. And honestly, I don't think it's that well made.
Like that trailer right there is the most

in trying so hard to at least give it a lukewarm review. Like, you just, in a way that you would review any type of film, you've dinged it in like five key spots in this.

Yeah, the documentary uses four YouTube clips that I've used repeatedly on my podcast, Vamos List Titans. You're not going to learn anything.

Honestly, like, it could have been a lot more exciting and better. That 30-second trailer, they needed, they should have, have you guys ever watched one of those untold?

Like, they open with like a two-minute montage that really hooks you.

This was missing all that, but I will say, the best thing that came out of it was the last 10 seconds of the entire thing, and I'm gonna play it for you right now.

Oh, what a gift. Maybe this is a spoiler space, but uh, yes, here's the last 10 seconds of Zero Star, the Cam Ward story.
And I think, final question: What does Zero Star mean to you?

Zero Star means to me, um,

we We ball.

What?

What?

No, Cam. Let's do another take where you actually give us something.
Yeah, that's a

film. Cam, that's a layup.

Here's a little

unsolicited suggestion for part four.

This via Justin Scouting of the week 14 schedule. The greatest incomplete pass of all time.
Just like 22 minutes on that. Angry run scepter, baby.

All right.

From that sizzler to the opening of week 15. And as Shine pointed out, it is a great week 15.

It doesn't start too great unless you're See, because Seci's holding on to that Tampa Bay Buccaneers ghost.

He doesn't want to give it up. He still thinks there's magic in this season for Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers, despite about a month and a half of deeply uninspired play.

Well, with the division hanging in the balance, they welcome in the Atlanta Falcons.

And when this schedule was released, the NFL, Amazon, they had held out hope that finally, just maybe the Atlanta Falcons will be worth a damn and not tripping on their own balls, okay? But they have.

They have indeed tripped on their testicles once more. They're 4-9.
So forget about the Falcons. Even the young quarterback, he's on IR with the knee injury.

So unless we're talking about the fantasy playoffs and you have Bijan Robinson,

that side of it's not what it's about.

This is about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Mark, and whether they can get it together, use this game at home as a launching point for a strong close of the season, and make us believe again in a team that not so long ago was trending upward as one of the top teams in the conference.

Yeah, this so-called belief I have in them has been dinged because they have struggled as much as any once-decent team in the league to close games.

You can't lose four of five and have another team in the division come up and catch you.

But where the schedule helps beyond this Falcons game is they've got the Panthers, the Dolphins, and they close with the Panthers. You can still choose your own adventure.

I have a weird feeling about this game. Now, I know that the Falcons are without Drake London.
Kyle Pitts is questionable, and you don't love that on a short week where

you're going on the road to begin with. But could it be the kind of game where you take advantage of a Bucs run defense that has been better in the last month, but has been pretty leaky at times?

And does Bijan Robinson and Tyler Algier in a hemmed-down sort of short-week game plan where you're not putting it all into the hands of the quarterback on any level at this point?

Like, do you get one of those games where like we're watching Tyler Algier in a close contest with the Bucs pounding like 10, 12 yard runs down the stretch?

Because this is that the Bucs give up the eighth most rushing yards allowed per game.

And it's, and that's, it's it's been a problem all year um if it's been short up it's because they've been getting flamed through the air in the past couple of weeks and

you know they made mistakes a week ago the Bucs but you have got to play a clean game and save your season I really think it's basically curtains if they can't get it done at home yeah they should win this game I expect them to win it handedly um

but we'll see and they they are getting healthy now they've activated Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan from injured reserve in advance of this game we'll see see if they're both playing, but that's certainly a good sign.

They also will get all-pro left tackle Tristan Wurst back after he missed the Saints loss with an oblique injury. That's important.
They even went and signed Jason Pierre Paul. How about that?

After

a tryout.

I feel like Phillip Rivers is taking the shine away from JPP, but the fact that this man has a chance to collect a paycheck like a decade after he lost most of a hand in a fireworks accident, that's pretty good.

But

they need a little bit of help with their pass rush, and maybe he can help them

because of injuries. Hassan Reddick left the game because of an ankle injury against the Saints.
So a little depth there. But

yeah,

it's not the most thrilling

start to the week, but it's an important one because when you look at the state of the NFC

South, and we know it's a very competitive wildcard field, so you got to win this division division if you're in the NFC South or you're going home. The Panthers, Bucs both tied at 7-6.

Panthers get this week at New Orleans. So, like you said, if there was, and then they play each other next week.
So, two of the next three.

Yeah, you're right. With

the Panthers getting the Seahawks in between.

So, this is the game where both sides need to take care of business against inferior division opponents, and then we get a big showdown that is going to put somebody in the driver's seat heading into the final two weeks of the regular season.

So those are the stakes. Yeah, because we can say we're not thrilled with the NFC South, but to these two teams, they don't care what the record is.
It's all ahead of you. And

I still think Tampa Bay with

Baker can win any game. But they have not closed games.
And last week was an absolute

looking at that. We've now moved from credibly talking about the Bucs as a team that matters to just we're in our feels about Baker and what can happen on a special, on a wild card Saturday night.

Like that, right?

They have definitely leveled down and then another level down to a place that's a little bit disappointing, quite frankly, because I know they were very high in our power rankings at one point.

And with Baker seemingly surrounded by a team that was ready to make a run, that was a nice subplot in the NFC. Things now seem to be back where they've been in recent years.

And yeah, keep an eye on Todd Bowles and how this season ends and his job security because, you know, some things, especially on the defensive side of the ball, have gotten a little stale at Fields in Tampa.

So unless this offense can bail them out, they might have trouble closing out this division. All right.
Good stuff. Thank you again to Adam Schein.

Thank you to Phillip Rivers for teaching us that,

you know, age is but a number. I mean,

Aaliyah taught us that first, but now Phil has come. I never thought that

they would cross like that, but here we are: Philip Rivers and Aaliyah. He's re-emphasizing her message.
His message. As must be done.

We'll be back on Thursday night, recapping the game we just previewed and also previewing all of the week 15 schedule, the one that Shine was pumping up

with good reason. So that will be a fun show.
Connor Orr will be back. That makes it even more fun.
So be there or be square. And until next time, do what you must.
Heed the call.

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