2025 NFL Week 14 Recap: Oh Yes, I'm the Great Pretender!

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Speaker 1 Week 14 in the NFL and with every play, every outcome, we get a little bit more clarity on the wild world of our league.

Speaker 2 Yeah, clarity, confusion, madness, sexiness, fill in the blank.

Speaker 1 We want it all, See, and we're going to give it to you right now, hedonists. Time to heed the call.

Speaker 1 Hey, welcome to Heed the Call and NFL podcast.

Speaker 1 It is the flagship program Sunday evening.

Speaker 1 Accept no substitutes. Every game will be covered in depth.

Speaker 1 By the heroes in service of the hedonists. Dan Hans is here.
Mark Sessler, Connor Orr, Justin Graver,

Speaker 1 and boys. We're going to get into all the games, but of course we're going to start with the last game that was played.

Speaker 1 And it does, it feels to me

Speaker 1 like we watched the end of the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty on Sunday night football.

Speaker 1 And I'm trying not to be melodramatic about it, but it felt like the end of something. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1 Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 1 He dropped back. He looked around.
He bought time.

Speaker 1 And he kept targeting the guys that he trusted the most. And nobody could hold on to the ball.
And when the Chiefs weren't killing themselves, the Texans

Speaker 1 were doing everything right. Their top-ranked defense

Speaker 1 locked in. C.J.
Stroud making the big plays when he had to.

Speaker 1 And when the dust cleared, and the dust did clear, because this is one of the more physical games in quite some time that I can remember being played in primetime, it was the Texans 20, the Chiefs 10.

Speaker 1 The Texans remain very much, not just in the AFC wildcard race, but the AFC South Divisional race. And the Chiefs at 6-7.

Speaker 1 Ceci, they're in need of a miracle, one that I don't think is coming this year.

Speaker 2 I don't think so either. I think we all can see that.
No matter what, it's a different team right now. And

Speaker 2 you said it. It feels like the dynastic elements to this team are gone.
And it came on a night with totally unleashed brutality.

Speaker 2 It was, if you're a Chiefs fan, it was a tough watch.

Speaker 2 You're watching... guys like Rashid Rice not really show up.

Speaker 2 Travis Kelsey,

Speaker 2 in the the most critical moment, the ball flutters off his hands for an interception to basically end the game.

Speaker 2 You've got Patrick Mahomes limping around, trying it the best he can and making a couple key throws at the end of the game, but they're dropped. It's like everything fell apart.

Speaker 2 And I don't think it was a great Andy Reid night either.

Speaker 2 Everything sort of just came apart at the seams, but it was the nature of Houston's defense, both defenses really, but like Jalen Petrie blowing up Rashi Rice on one of the biggest hits I've seen in years, kind of just characterizing what what this Houston defense can do and why I think they can win a playoff game.

Speaker 2 I don't think the Chiefs are getting there. I think the Houston Texans can, and they can win a playoff game.

Speaker 4 I don't know if it's the end of the dynasty, but it is certainly the end of like this iteration of it, right? And New England kind of had their gap year.

Speaker 4 And I think really all the signs were there after they got their doors blown off by the Eagles in the Super Bowl last year. This team lacked physicality.
They lacked heft.

Speaker 4 They lacked the ability to be big enough and to play different styles of football.

Speaker 4 This is a back-to-the-drawing board moment, but it was also just literally the worst start of Patrick Mahomes' career. I mean, there's no comp for this.

Speaker 4 Never had a zero touchdown, three-int game, worst completion percentage, I think, worst quarterback rating he's ever had. And so in that regard, it's like, you know,

Speaker 4 how much is it just awful timing and him making awful decisions versus, you know, whatever else is going on with Kansas City?

Speaker 1 That's interesting because I would say the numbers, you could say, worst game of his career. I didn't think he played the worst game of his career.
In fact, I thought he was really let down.

Speaker 1 I mean, he had the one deep ball shot that didn't work out. That was a bad,

Speaker 1 bad throw and a bad decision that led to the interception. But you just look at the sequences down the stretch in this game.
We're talking four massive drops.

Speaker 1 One by Kareem Hunt that comes ahead of the Andy Reid decision that we're going to talk about. You had a Rashi Rice drop on fourth down that put them in a very vulnerable spot, obviously.

Speaker 1 But after after the defense gets the stop, they get back on the field. And Travis Kelsey, as Mark alludes to, had two drops on the final possession of Consequence.

Speaker 1 One to start the drive on a short pass, and then the one where he got lit up, but only after it fluttered off his fingers and he was left unprotected and he got popped in the ribs. Four huge drops.

Speaker 1 And I thought that Collinsworth put it well

Speaker 1 in this game.

Speaker 1 Even when it's perfect, it's not working, he said. And I thought that was a good way to put what happened to the Chiefs in this game where they were struggling and their defense is playing.

Speaker 1 It's hard out. And the offense, though,

Speaker 1 they cannot make a big play. And Mahomes, I thought, got let down a lot.
And let's talk about the Reed decision because this is a game, it was one of my favorite games of the year,

Speaker 1 just because it absolutely felt like a playoff game. And I'm a little surprised, Ceci.
You're saying you said twice there that the Texans could win a playoff game.

Speaker 1 I think they could win multiple playoff games the way they're. Well, it's possible too

Speaker 2 in this conference. Yeah, I think that's it.

Speaker 1 I think they could go on a run.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I think like one quick thing, because when we look at you know, Patrick Momes having 10 straight incompletions or an interception in there, it was he was under incredible duress, and he's the magician that can, in, you know, in a, in a crowded pocket, find a way to get the ball to someone.

Speaker 2 He had a lot of passes that just went nowhere tonight, also down the stretch. Like, Houston's defense is the reason so many of those numbers formed the way they did.

Speaker 1 Right. So let's talk about the decision that Reed makes.
It is a, at this time, it's a 10-10 game, and it's not just Houston's defense that's playing lights out. It's Kansas City's defense, too.

Speaker 1 Spaggs has them playing at a high level.

Speaker 1 They have a fourth and one after a nine-yard home scramble at the Kansas City 31-yard line. It's 10-22 to play.

Speaker 1 And they keep the offense on the field.

Speaker 1 And that play ends with a pass incomplete

Speaker 1 targeting Rashi Rice that got snuffed out by Houston's defense.

Speaker 1 Immediately, Houston takes over, goes six plays, 31 yards for a touchdown.

Speaker 1 And Connor Collinsworth said on the telecast, and I kind of agreed, in a game where these teams, these defenses are playing so hard, I don't know, understand, and I know the analytics, and I hope that's not what the decision was made by.

Speaker 1 I don't think Reed's that type of a coach necessarily.

Speaker 1 The analytics said go for it in that spot, but why give your defense that bad situation when you know they're probably going to get you the ball back and you could live for another day?

Speaker 1 Because the defense seemed to let down there.

Speaker 4 He might have had a play call he liked. And that first one, I'm going to have to look at the all-22 tape on it and actually see kind of the full field perspective.

Speaker 4 But I thought he missed his first read because it was Hollywood Brown, I think, that came in the backfield on the motion and then went towards the sideline.

Speaker 4 I think he had him for a first down, which kind of goes back to, and that's why I like these games, right? They're a kaleidoscope. You saw saw that Kelsey

Speaker 4 drop before the interception as a drop. I saw it as a horrible pass that he had to turn his body back to the throw.

Speaker 1 Not a great throw.

Speaker 1 But a catchable ball. Kelsey would catch that tennis.
Kelsey's caught him before. Yeah, Kelsey's caught him before.

Speaker 4 Yeah. But I think that, like, you know, I think that there's just those games where it's like, maybe you have a bad night of sleep or something like that or whatever it is.

Speaker 4 But I thought he missed a read on that. I thought it was a good play call, but that was, that was just me.

Speaker 2 And Dan, on the rice one, like, that, that also, the Derek Stingley part of that was a great breakup.

Speaker 2 I mean, I do wonder in games like this, it's cold, you're getting your butt kicked physically, like, does it start to get into the head of your targets if you're Patrick Mahomes?

Speaker 2 Because they're taking some of the biggest, vicious hits they've taken all season. There's got to be a little bit of a mental component there.
They were not sharp.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we've seen it time and time again this year.

Speaker 1 This game actually won't end with it being characterized as another one score loss because Houston hits the late field goal after the Kelsey drop turned into the pick. But yeah,

Speaker 1 the hitting in this game and

Speaker 1 the form tackling was just incredible to watch. And Kansas City, which I'm excited to see,

Speaker 1 I'm excited to see how Brett Veach and Andy Reid, I don't know if we're doing the obituary right now, but how they go away and dream this all up again. Because before all those bad things happened,

Speaker 1 the bad Mahomes interception, the four drops,

Speaker 1 the targets that weren't right where they needed to be. This team had 98 yards in the first half and we're down 10-0 at the break.

Speaker 1 And their offense is simply not good enough to defeat a great defense anymore.

Speaker 1 And that's a big change in the way we view not just the Chiefs, but the whole of the NFL because they've been the big baddie for so long.

Speaker 4 And then what happens, right? I mean, you know, do you lose some of your coaches who have been maybe staving off some opportunities to stay on this dynasty?

Speaker 4 Do you lose some of the free agents that are like, hey, you know, I was staying here because I was making the playoffs every year.

Speaker 4 Do you kind of get knocked down a peg because everyone wants to come to Kansas City to play for you guys and make the playoffs?

Speaker 4 You know, you can't really just pick that low-hanging veteran fruit off the tree in free agency every year like New England did for all that time. And so

Speaker 4 it could be consequential down the run for sure.

Speaker 2 I do think, though, like to your point about like a sojourn year like the Patriots had, like, I don't think it's the end of everything, but it's the end of this season. And it kind of just,

Speaker 2 I think, if anything, you don't want to live in illusion. You want to know what you are.
And I think they're finding out what they are.

Speaker 2 And it's not good enough to go another 10 years like the Brady dynasty if you don't make some major changes.

Speaker 1 I mean, Mahomes is still young. He's in his early 30s.
Kelsey, this could be the end of his career.

Speaker 1 Obviously, we talked about Chris Jones earlier in the week that he's getting up there and maybe isn't the same constant menace as he once was.

Speaker 1 They have to add pieces of the offensive line, which has been butchered by injuries this year.

Speaker 1 Will they fortify that? That's all stuff we'll have time to talk about. But in the here and now, the team that's relevant that comes out of this is the Houston Texans, who were 0-3.

Speaker 1 Need I remind you again, and are now 8-5.

Speaker 1 They're riding a five-game winning streak now. They get the Cardinals and Raiders.
Hello. Arguably two of the worst teams in football over the next two weeks.

Speaker 1 They get the Chargers after that on the road, and then they get the Colts at home, the Riley-Leonard Colts. So, the Texans, I know that I'm not going to disrespect the Jaguars.

Speaker 1 We're going to get to the Jags later.

Speaker 1 The Jags deserve respect for what they've done in the last month or so now, but the Texans are very well set up to go from 0-3 to winning their division with double-digit wins, and that has not happened very often in NFL history.

Speaker 1 What a big night for D'Amico Ryans and his team. Any other thoughts before we hit the break and dig into the rest of

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 world?

Speaker 1 we had an old-fashioned lockoff between the gravedigger and the sizzler, and it's Gravy who comes out on top. Oh, yeah, it doesn't feel right.

Speaker 5 For anyone who missed it, Mark obviously not on the Thursday preview show, but did submit via personally recorded selfie video his lock of the week.

Speaker 5 We posted it on the HTC socials on Sunday morning, revealing that Mark locked the Chiefs

Speaker 1 digging shit right now, Mark. Can't you tell just this tone? Connor is tone, right? He's loving it.

Speaker 4 This is vintage graver right now.

Speaker 1 Like he doesn't even need, like, he didn't even need to give that deep background, but he loves like every second of chewing on this steak bone as Sessler, you know, burns alive.

Speaker 2 And also, it's like the one time I locked the Chiefs after like 10 years of perfectionism. Like, this is what I get.
I get this from the Chiefs. This is what they gave me.

Speaker 1 Are you kidding me? Well, in fairness, they have been giving us a lot of signs that you could get that effort from them. We kind of talked about it on Thursday.

Speaker 2 Well, it wasn't on Thursday's show, so I didn't get the message, apparently.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 5 look, not all of our listeners and viewers are

Speaker 5 on social media at all. So I did think it was fair to give them the context that Mark a lot of people

Speaker 1 know of this.

Speaker 1 He's still giving deep background

Speaker 5 anyway. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 Edward Bernstein and Gravedigger over here for

Speaker 1 the Gravedigger.

Speaker 5 Great win. Also, Chiefs, AFC West reign ended the year I put money on the Broncos to win the West.

Speaker 1 Give it away.

Speaker 1 Justin, we're going to have to turn your mic off for the rest of the show.

Speaker 4 You put a $9 ticket to win like $51.

Speaker 4 So enjoy your Chipotle with extra protein.

Speaker 1 All right. Stay right there.
And we get into the rest of week 14. It was a good one.
Here we go.

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Speaker 1 All right, welcome back. Before we get into the rest of the games, a reminder that Tuesday night, 8 p.m.
Eastern, 5 p.m.

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What was the slogan? Go for four. Go for four.

Speaker 1 Oh, we were, oh, we meant to write an email about that to try to help the marketing of the film. Didn't get around to it.
It's been busy.

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Speaker 1 All right, without further ado, let's get into the rest of the games. And as we always do, Sess Dog is going to kind of set the table by giving us a theme of the week for week 14.

Speaker 2 Yes, and my theme of the week is called,

Speaker 2 Oh, yes, I'm the Great Pretender.

Speaker 1 Oh yes,

Speaker 1 I'm the great pretender.

Speaker 1 Okay, um, Connor,

Speaker 1 I'm going to, well, you take a crack at this one.

Speaker 4 Um,

Speaker 4 I didn't know if it was a reference to one of my favorite songs by Jackson Brown. I doubt it.
Uh, Mark's always a little bit deeper and a little bit harder to predict here.

Speaker 4 So, I'm wondering if it's that teams that built up the facade of toughness are starting to show signs of weakness.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's probably what it is. I believe it's also, yes, an Enya deep cut, which would have been in line with some of Mark's musical tenants.

Speaker 1 Mark?

Speaker 2 It's, I believe, a platter song as well. But

Speaker 2 yes, Connor,

Speaker 2 you said it perfectly. I came out of the early window feeling like teams like the Ravens

Speaker 2 and, you know, through catastrophe, the Colts, and even my Bucs,

Speaker 2 and to some degree, the Bengals, right, like have started to just fall off the side of reality at this point like we can't keep making arguments for them in so it's a little bit of a twist on the the old tessler theme once more uh knocking teams away focusing things in on a smaller amount of teams so we can just take this more seriously you're you're not you're not wrong about that because there's always that focus but i do think this was a decisive three to four hours that put a couple teams to bed.

Speaker 2 That had each of those teams won, we would be thinking very differently about their fortunes.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. I think you're right.
I think a couple teams took dirt naps,

Speaker 1 certainly in the AFC.

Speaker 1 Let us start, though, with an absolutely stellar affair at Lambeau Field.

Speaker 1 Caleb Williams, you almost did it.

Speaker 1 But instead, we still have questions. Oh yes, the Green Bay Packers welcome the Bears into town.
And you know, this is what it's all about. This is the type of rivalry that makes the NFL tick.

Speaker 1 The NFC North cold,

Speaker 1 you know, single-digit with the wind chill conditions. Two teams just going at it.

Speaker 1 And at the end of the game, a great, a taut back and forth affair.

Speaker 1 It came down to Kayson Nixon with a game sealing interception of Caleb Williams in the end zone when it looked like the Bears are about to pull in one and you get a feeling that that Ben Johnson had a two-point conversion he couldn't wait to call but instead it stays in his pocket the Packers win 28-21 the Packers improve to nine and three with one tie and the Bears

Speaker 1 the Bears boys go from the first seed all the way down to the seventh seed

Speaker 1 because of that interception by Caleb Williams Connor. Wow, what a swing.

Speaker 4 Amazing. And this capped off what was maybe the best half of Bears football that we've seen all year.
They were down and played absolutely lights out in the third and the fourth quarter.

Speaker 4 Caleb Williams had like an adjusted completion percentage of almost 90, and it was literally that one play. He got he reverted to old Caleb Williams for one second.
That read was there.

Speaker 4 If he had thrown it two seconds earlier, he also had another option that he could have thrown to. He could have run the ball.
Ben Johnson could have also run the ball. But

Speaker 4 so I think other than that, like they have to leave a little bit with their heads held high. And the fact that this is like a real rivalry now, like Bears-Packers rocks.
This is awesome.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you said it right because I feel like we have been told by NFL historians and broadcasting contingents that the Bears-Packers rivalry is the most special in the NFL.

Speaker 2 And I've just not, I've never felt that way. Today is the best Bears-Packers game I've ever watched.
I mean, it kind of, it finally transformed and became that today.

Speaker 4 52 to 52 and 16. The Packers were 52 and 16 in this game heading into today.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and it doesn't, it doesn't actually become a rivalry until both teams are hitting each other, like Rocky and Apollo. Like,

Speaker 1 that's when it becomes a rivalry. But for the first time, it does feel like the Bears are there.

Speaker 1 And if these teams do meet again in January, it's not going to be like, well, something inevitable is going to happen. It felt like Chicago,

Speaker 1 again, I'm actually getting annoyed now as I think about it. You know, Ben Johnson was going for two there, right? I wonder if they asked him to be able to do that.

Speaker 2 I mean, Brady was like saying the same thing, absolutely.

Speaker 1 Especially a guy like him who just revels in nerding it up and building out plays like that.

Speaker 1 It was all there, and that's the only thing that would have taken this game from where it was, which was a great game, to a potential classic in the rivalry.

Speaker 1 But yeah, it was, I thought, you know, the Packers, I think, were the better team. I think the better team won this game.

Speaker 1 And I thought Jordan Love, again, played at a very high level. That Josh Jacobs' touchdown run tells you so much about him.

Speaker 1 Christian Watson, as we've been saying on the show, Watson has a chance to really step up and carve out a real role in this offense. He has four catches, two of them for touchdowns, 90 yards.

Speaker 1 He's a big-time player

Speaker 1 on this team and a big contributor. And, you know, the interception,

Speaker 1 yeah, Nixon got beat. I mean, he, Cole Komet is behind him.
And if the quarterback makes a better throw, we're having a totally different conversation.

Speaker 1 And Kayshawn Nixon has also gotten his share of criticism for his play this year in the Green Bay secondary. And after the game, he wanted you to know that he doesn't care what you think about him.

Speaker 6 Man, I don't care. I do this shit for me and f ⁇ ing everybody else.
Excuse my language, but, you know, I am who I say I'm and I always tell myself that.

Speaker 6 And if I come on the field and play like that,

Speaker 6 but that's just a play. I got to keep making them.

Speaker 2 Speaking of Rocky analogies, that's a very like like ivan drago i fight for me um move by nixon but you know what he was the hero of the game uh because uh you never know what could have happened if they if they get that touchdown it's i think um you know when i was a very um floating away high school player they put me at cornerback because i was small right um and you learn at cornerback that like the thing they just told you over and over is like you've got to accept that you're going to look bad all the time and bounce back from it and i think it just matters how you come back from critique and criticism.

Speaker 2 And I love what he said right there. And I, you know, this Packers team, a couple of weeks ago, it's like they're a bit of a mystery and I don't feel it right now.
And you nailed it.

Speaker 2 It's Christian Watson growing into this very unique player. Jordan Love making incredible throws today.
He is.

Speaker 2 The throw to Bo Melton, especially, I just thought it was like, there aren't that many quarterbacks making some of these throws. And he overcame an early mistake.

Speaker 2 And Josh Jacobs fits so well that like this team is built for December and into January football.

Speaker 4 I want to draw attention to the fact though that this is so wild when the Bears scored that Colston Loveland touchdown in the fourth quarter with like eight minutes to go and really brought the game

Speaker 4 to this competitive peak. The key read on that was like a tackle eligible.
Like Ben Johnson said after the game, he was going for a fat guy touchdown. That guy gets illegally cut blocked.

Speaker 4 And the play was so well designed that Colston Loveland, your first round pick rookie tight end, is wide open on the other end of the formation. This guy has answer on top of answer.

Speaker 4 And I do wonder, because there was the very terse, you know, there was the post-game handshake, and that was it. None of the coaches really addressed it afterwards.

Speaker 4 But I do wonder if that's why LaFleur is not clapping back because he does realize that he has a worthy adversary here. Like, these are going to be real games.

Speaker 2 They'll meet again, too, I think.

Speaker 1 Referring to the Ben Johnson opening press conference conversation about wanting to beat LaFleur twice. Well, he beat him in this game.

Speaker 1 And yeah, that's, I think, the frustration for Caleb Williams or in the Caleb Williams conversation here is like, you know, the way he put it together in the second half, their 17-play touchdown drive in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 That play, like what you pointed out there, Connor, is dead on. The thing I also took from that play was, yeah, it looked like a play intended for the tackle eligible guy.

Speaker 1 That gets blown up and he doesn't panic. Caleb Williams is like, okay, I'm going to my second read quickly and just floats one right there at a level for the touchdown.

Speaker 1 It just seemed like this was going to be the real Caleb Williams moment in his young pro career. And instead, it's a very frustrating game.
You see him, they did a nice job.

Speaker 1 Fox had the shot of him taking his helmet off and kind of just yelling to the football gods that he let that opportunity get away.

Speaker 1 Here is Caleb Williams on the feeling in the locker room after coming so close.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's frustration just because, you know, we shot ourselves in the foot, I think, more than anything.

Speaker 7 And so, I think that's where the frustration comes from.

Speaker 7 We had a great shot early in the game with the interception,

Speaker 7 defense doing a good job, and then we kind of let them get going. And they put up some points on the board, and

Speaker 7 we had to try and rally,

Speaker 7 and it's not always going to work in our favor. And

Speaker 7 we work our tail off to try and not have these situations. But when the situations do, you know, come, we got to try and go make plays and

Speaker 7 try and come back and make the right plays to still the win.

Speaker 1 Connor, they lost the game, but I actually feel better about the Bears after this.

Speaker 4 I feel better about the Bears, and I feel much better about the Packers' situational defense, too. And I think that was a big thing for them, too.
I mean, Kingsley had a massive run stuff.

Speaker 4 Like, I've never seen a running back in such close quarters. Like, it wasn't quite the Jadevian Clowney South Carolina hit, but that reverberated through the stadium.

Speaker 4 That was a big hit that put the Bears in an uncomfortable fourth down position. And you wanted to see Green Bay make some of those big interior run stuffs like that, too.

Speaker 4 So I bet with both teams, felt better about the Bears, felt much better about the Packers. They're going to see a boost in the power rankings this week for sure.

Speaker 2 I'm really with you, Dan, like the sense that

Speaker 2 this was a costly loss in terms of where you are in playoff position standings, but.

Speaker 2 Like, you're aware now if you're Chicago that you can play with Green Bay. And I think this, this, I do think they're going to meet again.

Speaker 2 And I think this was a big step forward for the Chicago Bears experience under Ben Johnson, even in a loss.

Speaker 1 Man, I thought I had this one.

Speaker 1 I actually locked the Packers because I thought they were going to win

Speaker 1 a tight one-score affair at Lambeau between two evenly matched rivals. Only the desert banged me by making it six and a half points or whatever the hell it was.

Speaker 1 So I had to double the spread so I get the loss.

Speaker 5 It's a pretty spot-on spread, though, looking at the final score.

Speaker 1 It's a tough lock. Shut up.

Speaker 1 Good point, you dick.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but you know, I was, geez, it was that's a great game, and that's a great rivalry. But now the Bears have to win a couple.
Okay, let's move on to another great rivalry in the AFC between

Speaker 1 the Bengals and the Bills.

Speaker 1 Oh man,

Speaker 1 oh man oh man

Speaker 1 this is what it's all about this is what i like

Speaker 1 two hall of fame quarterbacks in the prime of their career playing in the snow in december

Speaker 1 each guy

Speaker 1 slinging it somebody's got to lose and unfortunately for joe burrow

Speaker 1 It's usually Cincinnati that comes out on the wrong end of it because Cincinnati coughs up a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter of this game

Speaker 1 and it was Burroughs' two interceptions and two series that really swung the game.

Speaker 1 The Bills behind an unstoppable Josh Allen cash in on those Cincinnati mistakes with scores and it's the difference in a 39 to 34 win.

Speaker 1 Buffalo improves to 9-4 with a huge showdown and a rematch against the Patriots up next. While the Bengals now 4-9,

Speaker 1 there will be no miracles. And it's like, it's so, it's so spot on.

Speaker 1 It's so spot on that this would be how Cincinnati's season ends, essentially. With Burrow playing lights out,

Speaker 1 with the announcers now getting into the conversation points midway through the fourth quarter when the game seemed like it was in hand for Cincinnati.

Speaker 1 Like, they're actually going to be favored in the rest of their games down the stretch.

Speaker 1 And you're watching that rock fight between Pittsburgh and Baltimore, and you're saying, this is going to be a potential nine-win division.

Speaker 1 Like it was all there for Cincinnati, but they never quite can put it together. And I guess the one difference in this game was that it was Burrow that was at some, you know, at fault in some ways.

Speaker 1 It was the big swing of the game was after the Bills cut the lead back down to single digits, Burrow drops back to pass. He tries to float one,

Speaker 1 I believe, to Jamar Chase, and Christian Benford perfectly times it, snags the pass, comes down. Burrow makes an attempt to tackle him.
He can't, and Benford goes for the touchdown.

Speaker 1 And shockingly, and it was a great job by CBS, the crowded shot of everyone in Buffalo being like, holy shit, we're winning all of a sudden.

Speaker 1 And then on the next possession, the next Burrow throws deflected at the line of scrimmage and intercepted.

Speaker 1 And it has to be so frustrating for Bengals fans, for Joe Burrow over Zach Taylor, that Burrow, other than those two passes, Cesse, was magnificent. Again, just the best player in football.

Speaker 1 And yet, when the game ends, he is bested. Those two interceptions killed the team.
And then, on top of it,

Speaker 1 he didn't even end up being the best quarterback in this game because Josh Allen looked like the MVP again and played one of his greatest games, just an amazing football game in Orchard Park.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and the Christian Benford tip and pick was

Speaker 2 an act of absolutely beautiful athleticism. I mean, it was a rare play, and that's a second game in a row he's had a touchdown.

Speaker 2 And it's like, you know, whenever they cut to Burrow on the sideline and you can see him steaming, I totally get it. We all get it because he, there's no room for him to make an error on this team.

Speaker 2 And it's like, cause it's, it's like globally, each time he returns from an injury or in any situation, they've got to win out and win every other game to possibly make the playoffs because they're a perfect berserker team.

Speaker 2 They could beat anyone in the league, but now they can't make the playoffs.

Speaker 2 And like, if you're Burrow, it's like you, if you're going to get into a rut in a game where you make, because we've seen Josh Allen do this, but they'll find a way to survive as a team.

Speaker 2 Like if Joe Burrow has two killer turnovers after playing what was probably one of the best football games we've seen by a quarterback all year, they're cooked because you can't really rely on anyone else on the other side of the ball to pick this team up.

Speaker 2 So it's a very frustrating, I just wonder again this offseason, like what the storyline will be around the Bengals in terms of their tone and stuff.

Speaker 2 You've got one of the best quarterbacks we've ever watched and their season melts down and we can say it's on him. And I see what you mean because those turnovers killed them.

Speaker 2 But like when you're going to go face a team like the Bills and there's no room for error for your quarterback, like that's just an impossible NFL environment to be in.

Speaker 4 He made one of the best throws to Khalil Shakir that I've seen all season in the snow, off platform, off schedule. And it really negates everything that you think about.

Speaker 4 your typical cold weather game because going into it it's a lot of we're going to check the ball down we're going to depend on a defense to miss a lot of tackles it's going to be a lot of short passes to the running back both of these quarterbacks stretch the field today and especially allen with those just critical touch passes and big moments and then i don't know why cincinnati's run blitzing him but when they do he just like just blows out of there for 50 yards it was uh it was surreal i think not to bring up um an old wound, Justin, from your teen years, but there was a Patriots 59 to nothing win, I think it was, in the snow.

Speaker 1 Was it in the snow? Am I remembering this correctly? Yes, you are. And people were like, after the game, Tom Brady was asked, I can't believe you're able to do this in the weather.

Speaker 1 And he's like, well, snow never bothers me. Snow is not something that's going to slow down an offense as much as wind and rain do.

Speaker 1 And so, like, this still was a shootout, despite the fact that it was a pretty heavy snow coming down at one point, and it stayed on the field.

Speaker 1 I thought that play, that throw from Allen to Shakir, was one of three things that won the three moments that won this game for the Bills.

Speaker 1 That situation was a big one because they were down 14-3 facing fourth and four.

Speaker 1 This is about midway through the second quarter, and it looked like the game was getting away from him.

Speaker 1 And there's no business, there was no business that play getting to where it got because Cincinnati had snuffed it out.

Speaker 1 But how Allen can buy time, move around of the pocket, get out of the pocket, step through a guy, and then somehow get a ball between three defenders for for a touchdown is incredible.

Speaker 1 So that's one big moment.

Speaker 1 The other big moment, I'm going to give some credit to Sean McDermott.

Speaker 1 When this game is

Speaker 1 a four-point game and they have a chance to kick a field goal,

Speaker 1 it was just three minutes to play in the third quarter

Speaker 1 on fourth and goal from the Cincinnati three.

Speaker 1 He keeps them on the field. He keeps the offense on the field.

Speaker 1 And he sees what we all see, which is if they kick a field goal here burrows just going to go right down the field then you're just holding on for dear life so instead he leaves the offense out there and what happens he uh completes uh the touchdown to the backup tight end hawes and that was another huge and a gutsy decision and the right move because what happens the bengals go right down the field and and score a touchdown and then the third play was again josh allen who also in this game had his longest career rushing touchdown 40 yards in this game third and 15 and this is what burrows like i know i wasn't perfect in this game, but I was almost perfect.

Speaker 1 Third and 15, get off the damn field. And what do they do? A third and 15, they give up a first down, 20-yard scramble by Allen to end the game.

Speaker 1 So Allen always stepped up, and Cincinnati is always just,

Speaker 1 just on the wrong side of these shootouts. And last note on this, boys, and I'll throw it to you for the final thoughts.

Speaker 1 The Bengals have played eight shootouts, and that's classified as when both teams score at least 30 points since the beginning of last year. They are one and seven in those games.
One and seven.

Speaker 1 One and seven. All right.
Well, I'll throw it to Deion Dawkins.

Speaker 8 When that kid runs and jumps over people and runs through people, it's amazing, man. And, you know, this is our farewell tour in the stadium.
So

Speaker 8 Josh moving on behind legs, bro, this is what the people want to see. That's what gets us to win, man.
Josh being Josh, the O-line being the O-line. The guys being the guys,

Speaker 8 let's talk about it for sure.

Speaker 8 Absolutely, and you mentioned the kids here. They are chanting MVPs.
They're enjoying the snow. You look like a kid slamming the ball at every touchdown.

Speaker 8 What is it like to be able to spike the ball for you and take the joy of these moments as an offense? It's more so the snow angels, man. Spiking the ball and doing snow angels with the guys, man.
So

Speaker 8 don't be in a rush to get older. Stay young.
Keep the kid mindset while being a man.

Speaker 1 Stay.

Speaker 1 Thanks.

Speaker 1 Good, good advice, Dion. Here's Joe Burrow after the loss.

Speaker 9 Yeah, obviously, we're not where we want to be as

Speaker 9 a team or an organization. 4-9 is not

Speaker 9 good. That's how the cookie crumbled this year.

Speaker 9 Obviously, I would have loved to have been out there more and be able to make an impact, but

Speaker 9 that wasn't the case.

Speaker 4 It's like a random thought, but when the Mets built their new stadium and they had like Jose Reyes and all those fast players, and they made the outfield fence like 900 feet away so they could get a bunch of extra base hits, the Bills can never not have a stadium that lets in like Gale Force snowfall when Josh Allen is the quarterback.

Speaker 4 Because when they have like 11 players involved in the run game and Josh being that 11th guy, it's such an advantage over another drop back quarterback, even if it's Burrow. And we saw that on Sunday.

Speaker 4 It's like, you know, and it's such a shame for them. They probably won't get home field advantage because that is like the consummate home field advantage.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And even, even if, you know, Burrow isn't forever, or excuse me, even if Alan isn't forever on the field, give that stadium.
Yeah, in his honor, do it that way.

Speaker 1 That's what they did with Babe Ruth, Yankee Stadium. That's why they built a short porch that they still have to this day to take advantage of this generational player.

Speaker 1 Alan is so special. And I was having a conversation with my sons, my sons and their buddies after the game about who's who's the MVP of the league.

Speaker 1 I think Alan's back in the race, which nobody's talked about. But these games are

Speaker 1 whoa, he is quarterback-wise.

Speaker 2 He is. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Let's move to Baltimore, where Lamar Jackson will not be in any MVP conversations.
Will the Ravens even be in the playoffs?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 If Sessler gets his dream,

Speaker 1 they won't.

Speaker 1 I have many dreams. The Pittsburgh Steelers are the latest team to go into MNT Bank Stadium and deliver a message with a 27-22 win over the Ravens.
Darren Rodgers threw for 284 yards and a touchdown.

Speaker 1 Even ran for a touchdown. He never did that for the Jets.

Speaker 1 It might have been his best game with the Steelers. And Pittsburgh, who we all, let's be real, we all wrote off two weeks back as being also Rands.

Speaker 1 And we were playing the Mike Tom, you know, fire Tomlin chants and all that stuff instead now the Ravens once again show how mortal they are this season and the Steelers are in the driver's seat in the AFC north with the Bengals now dead and buried what a weird year it's been

Speaker 1 they

Speaker 2 did something

Speaker 2 which I wish the Steelers would do more and because it's worked before they opened the game with an Aaron Rodgers 52 yard laser to DK Metcalf like cool explosive plays let's try that more often with DK Metcalf, who has come and gone in these games.

Speaker 2 It was the best game I've seen Rodgers play with the Steelers, unquestionably. Like, he hadn't thrown for over 200 yards in over a month in any of these games, and it looked like it, right?

Speaker 2 Like, that's how their offense looked. It looked different today.

Speaker 2 Jalen Warren had a big catch and run touchdown, and there's still like a bit of a plotting operation, but try that more and more.

Speaker 2 Go for the explosive plays. Rodgers can still make those throws.
He was a little more escapability. He had a little more escapability today than in weeks past two.

Speaker 2 And it matters that when you are playing a Ravens team that ran for over 200 yards, if we told ourselves on Saturday, the Ravens will rush for over 200 yards, they're winning this game.

Speaker 2 But Lamar Jackson is

Speaker 2 like 65% of himself right now.

Speaker 2 Physically just not there. And it looks that way.
And they also lack, I think, like a money-wide receiver that is a dominant kind of like scheme-changing guy that defenses have to pay attention to.

Speaker 2 And when you pack that into Lamar's physical situation right now, it's just a very beatable team. And

Speaker 2 the Ravens are not special at anything at the moment. And the Steelers might not be either, but this was such a quintessential Mike Tomlin type win.

Speaker 2 He has more wins over Harbaugh than any coach has over any other coach since this turn of the century. I mean, it's like Mike Tomlin, a week ago, everyone's saying we should fire this guy.

Speaker 2 And I get where they're they're coming from, but this was a classic Steelers win when most people probably thought it would go the other way.

Speaker 1 All right. Let's listen to Aaron Rodgers on what this win means after a week of noise around him and the head coach.

Speaker 10 Means maybe you guys will shut the hell up for a week.

Speaker 1 That's fair. That is absolutely fair.
And yeah, Connor, the Ravens are not the Ravens this year, but it is because

Speaker 1 that is even against the compromised Baltimore team,

Speaker 1 that was a great job by Tomlin having these guys ready. They outplayed the Ravens this entire game and almost got away from in the end, but they made the stand in the end as well.

Speaker 1 And we can get into how they maybe got a little fortunate as well.

Speaker 1 But the Steelers, the Steelers got it done, and they deserve credit for that. Go ahead, Connor.
Try to take it away.

Speaker 4 Got the game-winning touchdown just taken off the board. The guy got two steps down.
And then all of a sudden, now we're required to make like a balletic third maneuver to ingrain the touchdown.

Speaker 4 Like, this is

Speaker 1 let's talk about that because I agree with you on this.

Speaker 4 So, if you're not aware, there's an identical touchdown that the Steelers scored against the Packers on October 25th that stood as a touchdown. It's identical.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 2 Romo called it absolutely a touchdown, and then it started to get murky.

Speaker 1 Well, then it's not. If Romo said that, it almost certainly isn't.

Speaker 1 No, so here's the issue.

Speaker 1 And by the way, from the guy who brought you my big toe was out of bounds in the season opener of 2024, Isaiah Likely, he now brings you, I caught the ball, got two feet in the end zone, and I still didn't score.

Speaker 1 This is absurd. This is a, again, the NFL, we've been talking about this forever.
Chris Wesling used to have rants about this on ATN.

Speaker 1 The NFL doesn't know what a catch is.

Speaker 1 All I know is I've been watching this game for 25, 30 years. And when you break the plane, the goal line with the ball, The ball could be knocked out of your hands to Mars.

Speaker 1 As long as the ball crosses the plane of the goal line line and you have a possession, it's a touchdown. This rule that they have is that you now have to catch it.

Speaker 1 You have to get one foot down, you have to get two foot down. That to me is equal to crossing the plane of the goal line with the football.

Speaker 1 And yet they have this Fakata addition to it, which maybe makes sense when it's outside the boundaries of the end zone, which is you have to catch it, you have to get two feet down, and then put your third foot down for a football move but when you're in the end zone and you have possession with two feet down the play's over here's here is the statement by and get a load of this guy mark butterworth

Speaker 1 nfl vice president of instant replay the receiver controlled give me the missive music on this justin the receiver controlled the ball in the air had his right foot down then his left foot down the control is the first aspect of the catch the second aspect is two feet or a body part in bounds which he did have then the third step none of this should matter.

Speaker 1 It should already be touched on. Then the third step is an act common to the game, and before he could get the third foot down, the ball was ripped out.
Therefore, it is an incomplete pass.

Speaker 1 And you know what, Connor?

Speaker 1 If this happened in the playoffs, the rule would be changed. This is the other thing that drives me crazy about the NFLs and how rule changes happen.

Speaker 1 They don't give a shit if it happens in December, November, October, or September. The timing has to line up in January for the rule to change.

Speaker 1 And since it didn't, we'll be dealing with this again next year or maybe until it happens in the AFC title game.

Speaker 4 Not like working for Dan when he just changes the fing rules every week when he feels like it.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 4 Two quick points on this because you agreed with me and then that lowered my temperature about this Tomlin bullshit, which is

Speaker 4 still going to be a thing. Like the Steelers are going to finish with nine wins and get blown out in the wild card round of the playoffs.
And Mike Tomlin's still going to be Mike Tomlin.

Speaker 4 That conversation is going to exist. And one victory over the Ravens that shouldn't have been, and there's a couple questionable calls in this game, doesn't change that.

Speaker 1 Connor, I'm not saying give him an extension. I'm just saying that was a nice win for the team and with a lot of Steelers type around them.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 Jerry is giving the kiss to you, Connor, specifically. He's like, I know you wanted to write my obituary, but you did it.

Speaker 2 I did it.

Speaker 2 And, Connor, I would imagine that you're also pointing to there was a play where Aaron Rodgers throws the ball, it's tipped, he catches his own tipped pass and is crumpled by like a mat a group mass of enemies and he goes to the ground and it looks like from one angle that his knee touched the ground but it's unclear if he had already lost the ball at that point it's it there was a lot of good camera work on this but it was unclear and Harbaugh went absolutely nuts over this play because he believed, and I think he was right potentially, that it was a recovered fumble by the Ravens.

Speaker 2 And then this likely thing happened after. Harbaugh was about to punch about 14 people in the face.
It was an officiating disaster from that angle.

Speaker 4 His face was so good, too, because sometimes you're like, oh, what's he saying? I can't tell. He was pointing to an official square in the face and saying, you are wrong.

Speaker 1 You are wrong.

Speaker 4 And he was. I mean, this whole thing was just a disaster.

Speaker 1 So that happens with 247 to go in the fourth. And this is my last thought on the game.
And it's about the Ravens and why the Ravens just, to your point, Mark, they're not special this year.

Speaker 1 They're just a flawed team and they're not going anywhere.

Speaker 1 That was on first and 10 from the Pittsburgh 13.

Speaker 1 Then on second and 10, they have an eight-yard completion to Derrick Henry. It's third and two.
It's third and two with 232 to play in the fourth quarter at the Pittsburgh five-yard line.

Speaker 1 Derrick Henry, loss of three. Lamar Jackson targets Mark Andrews in completion.
Turnover. The Steelers played way too conservative in their last drive.

Speaker 1 They go three and out, including stopping the clock with a terrible pass short of the sticks that's incomplete. So the Ravens get the ball back 156 to play

Speaker 1 with a timeout. So they get two chances, two cracks at it.
They go nine plays for 36 yards and time runs out. They don't even get into the red zone.

Speaker 1 And it's again, it's a credit to Pittsburgh because they had a stiff upper lip all week and then stiffened up their backbone in a big spot at the end of this game.

Speaker 1 But the Ravens not being the Ravens is something that's hard to get used to, but it is now a reality.

Speaker 2 They're not making the playoffs.

Speaker 1 See you later. Well, here's the thing, though.
The Steelers aren't very good either. Well, mostly the division.

Speaker 1 And now the Bengals are gone. So now here we are in a situation where be careful, Mark, about writing off the Ravens because the Ravens can make the playoffs and not be good.

Speaker 2 I'm wish casting, but you're right. It will be somewhere different a week from now, I guess.

Speaker 1 All right, let's take a break and we continue to roll on.

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Speaker 2 I've not gotten going on that. I should.

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Speaker 2 Yeah, I always struggle to find a, I guess, a truly personal gift for the people closest to me. It's like it has to be meaningful, but not another useless item that ends up in someone's closet.

Speaker 2 Don't have time for that.

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Speaker 2 So you're telling me you can preload the pictures, the photos before it ships?

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Speaker 1 All right, welcome back.

Speaker 1 I want to share something.

Speaker 1 You know, it's been on my radar a little bit about how Fox positions Gronk as like we need a Frankenstein to replace the aging Frankenstein we have.

Speaker 1 Like, it's not even Frankenstein because that would be would be too much menace. It's like Frankenstein and like a clown makeup.

Speaker 1 And they're like, uh-oh, Terry's getting old. We can't make fun of him too much longer.

Speaker 1 He's getting closer to the old age home at this point. So we're grooming Gronk to be the new Terry that we could all make fun of for being a dumbass all the time.

Speaker 1 Gronk doesn't, Gronk either doesn't know or doesn't care. He's just cashing the paychecks.

Speaker 1 But I like this little promo in the middle of Bill's, or one of the games in the early window.

Speaker 1 Coming Coming up on the Verizon half, Tambo gets caught up as to what has happened so far today here in week 14. You're excited to say something.

Speaker 1 Look, look, I told you last week, did I not, that we were going to decorate this place and I had a little help. Hey, hey, look, guys, my manager gets Santa's hat up there.
Oh,

Speaker 1 well, you're the only one that could have gotten it up there. We'll see you at the half with these guys.
See you at the half. It's like just like two botched lobotomy patients.

Speaker 1 Like these men have dignity. They have families.
They've had great success in their careers, great success in business. Terry even had a cup of coffee in Hollywood.

Speaker 2 Who writes these things?

Speaker 2 I think we know.

Speaker 5 I know exactly where they shot that. It's right at the entrance to the Fox Studios building,

Speaker 5 where the camera is basically positioned at the security desk.

Speaker 5 To the camera left is the entrance and the elevators. To the right, you go into the studios.
Okay.

Speaker 5 Pretty dumb setting for this.

Speaker 1 Did you have to double down with the Fox Sports shirt too today, Justin? Totally random. Why don't you just tell us?

Speaker 1 If you want to go back, Justin, we can't stop you.

Speaker 5 Well, I'd have to move back to L.A.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's the biggest problem?

Speaker 1 Oh, I'd love to go back, but I'd have to move. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right, let's get back into it.

Speaker 1 Da-da-da.

Speaker 1 Oh, gee, this has got graver written all over it.

Speaker 1 I didn't catch this, but he's got Titans Browns way up in the rundown. So I guess we'll hit that next.
It's the next closest game of the day. Okay, Justin.
Oh, boy.

Speaker 2 Huge ramifications.

Speaker 1 Holy shit.

Speaker 1 Feel free to fast forward to a relevant game, and then you can double back

Speaker 1 at the end.

Speaker 1 Should we audible out of this? Should we do a quad box violation? Yeah, could I quad box this? Yeah, that's a violation. We're dropping this.

Speaker 2 What? Why you walked into this, Justin?

Speaker 1 Look at the rest of the games. I'm sorry.
Fire it up. It's a quad box violation, Justin Graver.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 To say that this game is more important than Colts Jags is malpractice.

Speaker 5 Jeez. It's not more important, but it was way more fun.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 Justin? Colts Jags was miserable. I know.
I covered it.

Speaker 1 Justin.

Speaker 2 Enjoy your autonomy, Justin.

Speaker 1 It's shining through.

Speaker 1 Quad box violation! Great!

Speaker 1 Let's get it again!

Speaker 1 Don't mind me, I'm just doing some like emergency surgery on the rundown.

Speaker 5 All right. This isn't even a quad box-related, but okay.

Speaker 5 This is the game that should have been in the quad box as our first game.

Speaker 1 To Jacksonville, we go. Look, he's got the jags buried in the rundown.
Outrageous.

Speaker 5 They were two games later after a crazy upset, and this fun game, but okay.

Speaker 2 It's like a staff meeting. The listeners are enduring.

Speaker 1 Phew, dodged a bolt there. All right.

Speaker 1 Here's a game with huge ramifications

Speaker 1 in the AFC South.

Speaker 1 Two teams that entered action tied

Speaker 1 in the division.

Speaker 1 So now we're going to talk about it. And it's the Jacksonville Jaguars

Speaker 1 who step up.

Speaker 1 And it's Trevor Lawrence playing like the guy they always wanted him to be and it's Travis Etienne running for two touchdowns and it's the Colts continuing a free fall that got somehow even worse and we'll get to that in a minute a 36-19

Speaker 1 victory for the Jags sole possession of first place in the AFC South now 9-4 and

Speaker 1 Gravy

Speaker 1 Gravy watched the game and he's like, let me bury this.

Speaker 5 This was a boring game.

Speaker 1 Buy two games, Gravy, you have to.

Speaker 1 Let me just help you, Gravy. It's not always about whether the game was close or not.
It's like, what does the game mean? How does it reflect on the league as a whole?

Speaker 1 And this, in the AFC South, at least, admittedly, not my favorite division.

Speaker 1 It's time to take the Jacksonville Jaguars a little bit seriously because this was an ass whooping against a Colts team that now also has lost its quarterback and Daniel Jones, who blew his Achilles in this game.

Speaker 1 Wow,

Speaker 1 it's a seismic shift in the AFC.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and honestly, the Colts didn't look up for this matchup. And maybe it was losing their quarterback early that just took the wind out of their sails.

Speaker 5 But I actually thought Riley Leonard had some moments where I was like, okay, Shane Steichen can probably work with this, like some pre-snap like recognition and adjustments and making good throws.

Speaker 5 And he was kind of let down by teammates like bobbling the ball as they're making sideline catches and not completing the process and stuff like that.

Speaker 5 But overall, I was very impressed by Jacksonville.

Speaker 5 Like, I thought Jacksonville really came to play and took it to the Colts in this game in a way that I, I mean, we've seen it in spurts at random moments, like when they blew out the 49ers at home earlier this year.

Speaker 5 But in this game, with this kind of stakes, with the division basically up for grabs here, I was really impressed that Trevor Lawrence played one of his better games this season.

Speaker 5 They were able to run the ball. Travis Etienne was running through this defense, weaving through for long touchdowns.
Like, this was a really impressive showing from Jacksonville.

Speaker 1 You know who else was impressed by this performance? Head coach Liam Cohen.

Speaker 13 That's how y'all set that shit.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 13 are the moments.

Speaker 13 These are the moments. And we rose to the occasion.
Every single one of you guys should be so freaking proud to go look yourself in the mirror tonight.

Speaker 13 Love you guys.

Speaker 1 How about our freaking quarterback?

Speaker 1 The vibes are good in Duval, Connor.

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 ever since he started wearing the plays on his wrists, he's unstoppable. I think it's like nine touchdowns, no interceptions, 60-some percent, 65% completion rate.
But it was how he was doing it.

Speaker 4 And this is the guy that coming out of Clemson, we all thought we were going to get with regularity, right?

Speaker 4 Rolling to your left and making cross-body throws downfield, throwing to the sideline deep in double coverage, and you're getting guys in stride.

Speaker 1 Like, I loved it.

Speaker 4 I loved every minute of it. This is, uh, this is who we pay to come see.

Speaker 1 Like, let's go.

Speaker 2 I mean, I just love, I love seeing Cohen run run that locker room that way and that fire and what he's getting out of Trevor Lawrence. And that was Trevor Lawrence's best game.

Speaker 2 And you know, one thing that Cohen talked about, and this isn't a Mike Jones athletic article, that he wanted the team, this entire team, instead of kind of shrouding them away from the media attention, to see how little attention they were getting, that they were disregarded as a group.

Speaker 2 That when we talk about the AFC playoff race, they were hardly even mentioned because they're down in Jacksonville, and that's what we think of the Jaguars.

Speaker 2 And Travis Etienne is one person who talked about this directly today.

Speaker 6 I mean,

Speaker 14 at the end of the day, I feel like no one likes to accept except for us. You know, and I feel like

Speaker 14 it just goes along with just

Speaker 14 being in this organization, with an organization that's been for quite some time now. So we're not going to get that respect.
We kind of don't even care.

Speaker 14 As long as we know what we got inside the locker room and we can go out there and take it, you know what I mean?

Speaker 14 There's no better feeling than just being disrespected and having an extra chip on your shoulder, playing with an extra edge.

Speaker 1 You know what? And usually I'll say I kind of dismiss that as malarkey when teams and players use that.

Speaker 1 You know, nobody believed in this and all that. But with the Jags, it's been, I think, fair.
I mean, I'll raise my hand. I've been very slow to come around on them as a team to take seriously.

Speaker 1 And maybe we're all being premature and now saying, Connor, that

Speaker 1 Trevor Lawrence is fixed.

Speaker 1 That now he's not going to be a guy that throws the ball for grabs anymore because he had two good games in a row.

Speaker 1 But when you look at this division,

Speaker 1 you know, Houston has a lot to be excited about if you're a Texans fan. So you keep an eye on them.

Speaker 1 But with the Colts going the direction they're going, the Jags have a chance to win this division, get a playoff game, and then they have pieces to go on a run, and they have a coach that the team believes in.

Speaker 1 So there is juice in Duval.

Speaker 4 I mean, you don't want to take it all the way back to that, but you almost have to take it all the way back to that.

Speaker 4 Being willing to separate from the GM that you didn't want to separate from in order to get the head coach that you needed ended up being the biggest move that this franchise has made in like a decade.

Speaker 1 Good point.

Speaker 1 On the Colt side, Justin, Daniel Jones drops back to pass in this game,

Speaker 1 collapses to the ground. It's a torn Achilles.
It's the opposite leg of the broken fibula that they had in the special Duke cast.

Speaker 1 And you have to wonder if there are some second thoughts going on behind the scenes in Indianapolis about letting this guy play. It's a terrible break.
And even if Riley Wenner did play

Speaker 1 better than expected in this game, they appear to be sunk now with with a sixth-round rookie at the controls.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and to be clear, better than expected is a good way to put it because he's still, I mean, final numbers averaged five yards per attempt, 145 passing yards, one interception, no touchdowns.

Speaker 5 Although he should have had a touchdown, he did run in a touchdown, and he had a touchdown that was like not completed the process of the catch or whatever.

Speaker 5 But yeah, I mean, Daniel Jones just like collapsing to the ground. You have to wonder.

Speaker 5 Like, I had a buddy tweet and I retweeted: breaking Colts playing a QB on a broken leg turns out to be just as bad an idea in reality as everyone thought it would be.

Speaker 5 It's like, yeah, I mean, what were you expecting?

Speaker 5 I don't know if it's directly related, but it feels extremely coincidental that it wouldn't be.

Speaker 5 Like, this seems like one of those Achilles injuries are almost always like this, where you have like some sort of...

Speaker 5 injury on one of your legs and you're overcompensating the way you're displacing your weight and then your Achilles ruptures and it sucks for Daniel Jones.

Speaker 5 They said it's going to be like a nine-month recovery, which is going to put him right up against the start of next year. He's a free agent after this season.

Speaker 5 The Colts went all in on this year around him, trading two first-round picks for Sauce Gardner, who's also dealing with a calf-slash Achilles-ish kind of scary injury. And

Speaker 5 I don't know. It feels like the season's gone off the rails for Indianapolis.
They also struggled to run the ball. effectively today.
They got stopped on their only fourth down.

Speaker 1 They're still in up for a month though. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And that's their only hope right now.

Speaker 5 And it's like teams, because I think we talked about this recently, how we talked about earlier in the year, how teams were not daring Daniel, how teams were like, Daniel Jones is not going to beat us.

Speaker 5 And now they're, I don't know, like Daniel Jones threw a horrible interception before he got hurt in this game, like right to Devin Lloyd.

Speaker 5 And Devin Lloyd's back in the box score with some takeaways like he was doing at the beginning of the year.

Speaker 5 I don't know if I, if I'm the Colts, if I'm a Colts fan, I'm extremely concerned that we went all in for what's coming up bust and who knows how you rebuild now because you still, depending on how quickly Jones can get back on the field, Achilles can take like two years to get back to yourself.

Speaker 5 What are they going to do at quarterback next year?

Speaker 4 I will say this, having watched a lot of Riley Leonard in my life,

Speaker 1 I knew this is coming from the Notre Dame guy. Yeah, here we go.

Speaker 1 Tell us why the six-round pick is going to stun us.

Speaker 4 I think that

Speaker 4 he's not a throw first quarterback. I think, what, he had like 40 rushing touchdowns at Notre Dame.
This was essentially

Speaker 4 an adjusted army offense that Notre Dame was running when they made it to the national title game.

Speaker 4 That said, with him and Jonathan Taylor, if you're Shane Steichen and you have a good interior offensive line, I think you could probably do some interesting stuff.

Speaker 4 They definitely didn't have that quarterback run package put in for this weekend, but I know that there was a thought, especially when Anthony Richardson got hurt, of using him more in the red zone.

Speaker 4 This might be a chance to spread that out through a full field package. So just a thought.

Speaker 1 I'd be very nervous. If I'm like a Jonathan Taylor fantasy owner, I'm very nervous about the playoffs now.
It's going to be 13 guys in the box.

Speaker 5 It is an interesting opportunity with only four games left. Like, you can't sustain that kind of offense over a full season.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 5 But can you break it out randomly in week 15 and surprise your last four opponents with it?

Speaker 1 Possibly can. Yeah.
Yeah. By the way, I figured out who Liam Cohn, who's, I've been kind of fascinated by him every sound clip we've played.

Speaker 1 That line where he says, that's how we set that shit off. I finally figured out who he reminds me of.

Speaker 1 It's Kenny.

Speaker 1 No, it's

Speaker 1 Stevie, Kenny Powers's buddy from Eastbound and Down. Here's a little clip of

Speaker 1 Stevie.

Speaker 15 You're a big boy. From now on, you got to clean up your own feet.

Speaker 1 There's a little bit there. Fixing.
If you listen to Cohen,

Speaker 1 there's a little bit there.

Speaker 2 I'm sure he would agree.

Speaker 1 Oh, all right. Let's move to.

Speaker 1 Are we moving to Browns versus Titans?

Speaker 1 Definitely not. To Tampa.

Speaker 2 Another game with implications.

Speaker 1 Implications matter.

Speaker 1 Tyler Schuck, man. Speaking of people, I'm going to start plugging in on him a little bit more.
Tyler Schuck.

Speaker 1 He goes on the road to Tampa against the Bucs, who, by the way, sassy.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, I said it at the top of the production. I'm not thrilled.

Speaker 1 Ran for two touchdowns,

Speaker 1 and the Saints at 2-10 knock off the fading Bucs 24-20, tightening the division race in the NFC South.

Speaker 1 And after the game, the Saints, who entered this game as eight and a half-point underdogs,

Speaker 1 were feeling pretty good about themselves. Here's Shuck afterwards.

Speaker 16 That's my mindset is just go out there we can beat anybody you know we whenever we're stalling out we're beating ourselves um but i think that's why you play the game and and knowing just how close we have been on some of those losses and how you know how we can kind of flip it flip it on its head and um keep producing those big plays um and get those wins Connor, I'll set it up this way because the Saints, this is a really nice win, obviously, and we'll get into what happened in the game.

Speaker 1 But have the Saints found their quarterback?

Speaker 1 Are they going to roll with this dude? Has he shown enough to them, to you? What are your thoughts?

Speaker 4 This was a perfect arena for Shuck because he had the big touchdown run, and then there was that bonkers end-of-half scenario where both teams went for it on fourth down. Neither of them got it.

Speaker 4 And then there was the Hail Mary at the end of the half for Tampa Bay that didn't get home.

Speaker 4 But around that time, it started, there was the driving rain, and then the Saints got the running game going. The defense stepped up.

Speaker 4 And so I think this was like a really good, almost like Josh Allen in the snow. It was a really good place for Tyler Shuck to play well.

Speaker 4 It fit the run game. He ran the ball really well.
Is he the quarterback of the future?

Speaker 4 I'm not 100% sure. I mean, I want to see him, though, but I will say this, Dan, big game for me for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 1 Let's get to what matters. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 Go on, King.

Speaker 4 As you guys know,

Speaker 4 I've been a bald for quite some time, and

Speaker 4 we talked about on the Thursday show. One team is going to have a really stupid, stupid loss this weekend.
And we pegged the Seahawks against the Falcons and we pegged the Bucks against the Saints.

Speaker 4 And I want to just, you know, sometimes I crawl under the YouTube and I look at the comments. You know, sometimes, you know, you might control F your name here.

Speaker 4 And I just want to find, I just want to fly this up.

Speaker 4 Can someone read that for me, please?

Speaker 1 I'll read it. You know what? Why don't you read it, buddy? Because

Speaker 1 you found it. And by the way, control Fing your name is diabolical.
I've never thought of that as an option, but wow. Okay, go ahead, buddy.

Speaker 4 From Major morigami

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 4 and it was so it was seven hours ago when he made the comment so whenever that was like on friday morning i saw yeah go ahead bud if the saints beat the bucks i'll have all my hair cut off and donate it to connor one end spelled that wrong i do not appreciate that energy con man so i i can't really enlarge the thumbnail here but major morigami looks like a very hairy man and uh i'm looking forward to it so i don't know if we have a post box but i'll take it send it it.

Speaker 1 Do you want his hair? I'm a plastic bag of hair coming your way.

Speaker 4 I would like it. Please.

Speaker 1 Did he say all of his hair? You want his pubis region? Don't care.

Speaker 4 Send it.

Speaker 1 Sassy, like when Connor gets a win,

Speaker 1 he goes for it. He wants it all.

Speaker 2 Major Morgami did say all my hair cut off.

Speaker 1 Eyebrows.

Speaker 2 All my hair, if you're talking about a human body, is all your hair. Yep.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Let's, so there you go. So that's the Saints side of things.
The Buck side of things, whoa. I mean,

Speaker 1 what are we to take out of this,

Speaker 1 Connor? Because the Bucs have not been able to get it going. We've talked about it on the show.
People kind of were sleeping on like, it's more than injuries. This offense isn't the same.

Speaker 1 And I'm going to point out a player because I saw a lot of this on social media. Amika Ibuka has been

Speaker 1 a problem. That chemistry that everyone was going nuts about in September has completely disappeared.

Speaker 1 And with Mike Evans on the shelf and Godwin still working his way back, taking now that element of their offense out of it, I feel like that's been an unheralded element of their decline.

Speaker 4 Yeah, what it was: Godwin, Otten, Abuka, and Shepard. It was like 11 catches, but it was all very close to the line of scrimmage.
The vertical element of this offense is completely gone.

Speaker 4 And you're wondering if, is Grizard building something in for Mayfield? Because he threw the Hail Mary. He was not uncomfortable.
It didn't look like he has been in weeks past.

Speaker 4 But is there something that they're seeing that they're not wanting? Was it a rain game? So you want to keep stuff close to the line of scrimmage? I don't know.

Speaker 4 But the vertical element of this offense has disappeared. It's a bad look.

Speaker 2 And Igbuka had the drop in the end zone, which was uncharacteristic for Baker and him together as a connection.

Speaker 2 I mean, we're having a different conversation if Kate Otten isn't short on the fourth down to end the game.

Speaker 2 But everything else is true, that the Bucs don't look like the way they did a month ago. I also know that Baker, he got treatment on his throwing hand early in this game.

Speaker 2 I wonder if that had any effect on the play calling or what they think they can do. But he battles through injuries every week, it feels like.

Speaker 1 The Saints only had 260 total yards in this game.

Speaker 1 But the Bucs...

Speaker 1 barely crossed 300. So not exactly a shootout.
But the Saints get the win. I wonder if some Saints fans are a little annoyed about that because that drops them in the tankathon.

Speaker 1 But beating a division rival always has to feel good. As good as Connor Control effing his way to glory.

Speaker 1 Big bag of hair. All of the hair.
All right, let's head to...

Speaker 1 Should we head to Tennessee Cleveland?

Speaker 2 I know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 It's crystal clear. What?

Speaker 2 We're going to do...

Speaker 1 We're going to do every game that actually matters.

Speaker 1 We're going to do that last. We get to the games that don't matter.
No disrespect to you, Mark, or Justin. Well,

Speaker 2 we'll see how Justin and I feel about it. I think you can tell by the time that you're going to be able to do it.

Speaker 1 So let's head to the Meadowlands, where the Miami Dolphins continued to surge. Another Connor Orr subplot unfurls.

Speaker 1 This entire podcast is just about keeping score on wins and slights.

Speaker 1 Oh, man, what a blowout because the Dolphins showed up to play football on Sunday and the home team, the Jets, did not.

Speaker 1 Tuatungo Vailoa led the team right down the field for a touchdown on the first drive, did it again on the second drive. And by the end of it,

Speaker 1 it was an easy 34-10 win for the Dolphins who win their fourth straight. And this was, listen, the Jets, a bad Jets day is as bad as any team in football.
This was a bad Jets day. They get another

Speaker 1 big special teams play, a punt return for a touchdown by Isaiah Williams Williams that briefly pumped a little bit of life into this game, making it 21-7.

Speaker 1 But they scored three points the rest of the way. Tyrod Taylor goes out with an injury in the first half.
Brady Cooks, the third string quarterback.

Speaker 1 Whenever the third string quarterback gets in the game, bye-bye. The game's going to suck.
The other team's going to win, and that's what happened here. Connor, you are...

Speaker 1 You are very pleased. You locked the Dolphins in this game, and you got the easy victory.
I'm glad I didn't do a lock-off with you.

Speaker 4 This was quite a Sunday for me. And everything continues to come up, Connor.
I'm very, very pleased.

Speaker 4 This was another game that, dude, Mike McDaniel's like reinventing himself, and it's so awesome. Like he is leaning on that run game.

Speaker 1 They were

Speaker 4 achieving first downs by like jet sweeping handoffs to Darren Waller, who's like 37 and was retired last year. They're finding openings in every which way.
Dev Achan looks awesome.

Speaker 4 And Tua, while he did make some good throws in this game, I'll give him credit for that. He's strictly a play action guy now.

Speaker 4 Like, unless it's ingrained in the run and it's married to something that they've already shown with A-chan, Tua's not throwing it. And so this whole game, I thought, was just a masterpiece.

Speaker 4 I mean, they were up, what, 21-0 before the Jets even blinked in this one?

Speaker 1 I think it was like the total yards at one point was like 185 to 2

Speaker 1 in the first quarter. Yeah, I was really what took me.

Speaker 1 And it doesn't change what I I feel about the Dolphins because I do feel like if they do get that last AFC seed, that's just going to be, you could ticket it for the most boring playoff game of the first round.

Speaker 1 But somebody's got to get the last playoff spot. And the Dolphins are playing at a level that they say, you know,

Speaker 1 we could do this. I give credit.
I'm watching the game. I'm like, I know the Jets suck.
And now it's a third string quarterback. But

Speaker 1 Anthony Weaver's defense was locked in in this game. And since week 10, they actually lead the NFL in points per game allowed.

Speaker 1 So this is a trend that has now continued uh over a significant stretch their run defense is especially good right now they have those rookie defensive tackles that are stuff in the run brees hall had nowhere to go and once you took brees hall out of it and you you were asking a rookie quarterback to throw to ad mitchell and and john menshe and and mason taylor just it wasn't happening so they have they they have a recipe here now one thing there connor devon a chan goes out of this game with a rib injury and doesn't come back.

Speaker 1 I don't know where we're at with the serious name of how serious that is, but you take him out of this offense.

Speaker 1 That's going to put a lot more back on the QB's plate, and I don't think that would go well.

Speaker 4 Although Jalen Wright was also awesome in this game. And that touchdown run,

Speaker 4 you know, I think Aaron Glenn said after the game, well, you get, you know, it's BS, whatever. You can't give up 234 rushing yards, but it's more than that.
It's, it's at the goal line.

Speaker 4 After seeing so many good goal line stands today and good goal line play in big situations, or even like third and fourth and ones, there was no effort from the Jets in those situations.

Speaker 4 Like Wright was walking in. No one wanted a piece of him.
And I don't know whether that says more about the Jets and where they're at or the fact that like Wright can throw his weight around too.

Speaker 4 I like him a lot as a back.

Speaker 2 I wonder if you get Mike McDaniel coming from the Shanahan system where it's like 18 different running backs could run for 100 yards in that offense.

Speaker 2 It feels like it translates a little bit like with what you saw from Wright today. I got to say one thing, Dan, these Gotham City uniforms,

Speaker 2 they're not damaged for me.

Speaker 2 The name is cheesy, and the look is unappealing to the eye. No good.

Speaker 1 I hope they don't move units and they scrap it.

Speaker 1 It should be stated that Mike McDaniel said after the game that the rib injury H-Han suffered was not deemed to be serious. In fact, he could have gone back in the game, but the game was out of reach.

Speaker 1 Anything else on this ballgame? I have one more thing, Connor, but I'll let you go if you have something else.

Speaker 4 You go.

Speaker 4 I want to hear this.

Speaker 1 The Jets interceptionless streak continues, the historic streak. And I just want to, I wish I knew who the defensive back was, but I'm blanking on it right now.

Speaker 1 It was somebody deeper on their depth chart. But there was a play in this game where Tua drops back to pass.
It gets deflected. Yes.
And here it comes. It's coming right at this motherfucker.

Speaker 1 It's coming right at him.

Speaker 1 The streak is over. It's going to end.
And I swear,

Speaker 1 I'm telling you, this guy sees the ball coming. He leaps as high as he can.
And he does

Speaker 1 like a Mary Catherine Gallagher from SNL kick.

Speaker 1 And he like kicks the ball away from his hands.

Speaker 1 And I was just like, man, that's pretty cool. Like

Speaker 1 to ensure the interception streak continues, you're now kicking the ball away from yourself. So good job,

Speaker 1 unnamed Jets secondary man who probably won't be there next year. Way to keep the streak because I want the streak now.
I want to go

Speaker 1 17 without an interception.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's a prized internal goal to

Speaker 1 set some sort of a record this year. It seems counterintuitive because Aaron Glenn was actually a ballhawk as a cornerback when he was the head coach or a star on the Jets years ago.

Speaker 1 But maybe they're... There's something going on here.
They're galaxy braining this thing because that was suspicious. They also had one that looked like it was a backwards lateral near the goal line.

Speaker 1 And once again, a Jet got there first and he was like, nah, never mind. And he did not grab it.
So there appears to be an effort not to intercept passes by the Jets who,

Speaker 1 you know, if

Speaker 1 you're asking Jets fans, like, I like getting those wins. They're nice.
So I'm not saying we should tank.

Speaker 1 But there is a part of me that's like, when they do lose, also, it's like, all right, let's calm this down. Let's not get too successful and win six games here.
So we're edging our way back up.

Speaker 1 And by the way, the Giants on by are now, they own the first overall pick, not the Tennessee Titans, who we'll get to

Speaker 1 many, many minutes from now. Two weeks from now.

Speaker 1 Let's head to Vegas.

Speaker 1 Subplot continues.

Speaker 1 Week 14.

Speaker 1 Bite me.

Speaker 1 Are you really rushing to get to that game, Mark?

Speaker 2 Well, it's my game, so it's also like the mark

Speaker 2 moment being pushed to the end. But some specialists are going to be able to do that.

Speaker 1 Let me try to help here. You could look at it as like we're saving it for the grand finale.

Speaker 2 I'll reframe my thinking and see it through that lens.

Speaker 1 All right. To the desert.

Speaker 1 It was in the desert, right? Yes. Yes.
Where the Denver Broncos

Speaker 1 had a layup. It is the Raiders, the team that has not been competitive for most of the season.

Speaker 1 And they really were not very competitive in this game either, even though the score looks like a one-score game, which it was 24-17. That was lipstick on the pig.

Speaker 1 The Broncos kind of controlled this one. Bo Nicks threw for 212 yards.
Rush for a touchdown. And the Broncos win their 10th straight and prove to 11-2 as they continue their bid, Cese.

Speaker 1 Oh, the stage is yours, Mark. They continue their bid for the top seed in the AFC.
And maybe, just maybe, not to fall out of Sessler's top 10 in the power rankings,

Speaker 1 the stage is yours.

Speaker 2 This was a game that made me believe in the Broncos. I know it's the Raiders.

Speaker 2 Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why.
I know it's the Raiders, so you throw it all out the window, but you can always tell when

Speaker 2 an analyst has gotten a certain nugget from a coach. And I know we've got some Sean Payton

Speaker 2 issues on this show. I get that.
But Charles Davis, our old co-worker, talked early on about Sean Payton wanting to play in this game, specifically Bill Parcells football.

Speaker 2 And you know what kind of games I love.

Speaker 2 Here are three drives that they scored on: a 14-play, 81-yard, nine-minute touchdown drive to open the game.

Speaker 2 Then another 14-play, 86, 9-minute touchdown drive to keep adding the hurt on the Raiders. And then a field goal drive that went 19 plays plays for 85 yards and over 10 minutes.

Speaker 2 And it did look to me the way that when we discovered football back in the day and you're watching those boring Giants 10 to 7 games.

Speaker 2 And I picked the Browns because I'm like, I'm not doing this Bill Parcells Giants team that wins in a windy, gusty condition

Speaker 2 with a 10-7 win.

Speaker 2 It looked like Otis Anderson and Dave Meggett. It was RJ Harvey today.
They were very precise. They were brutal.
And it looked like Sean Payton was paying homage to Bill Parcells.

Speaker 2 And I just enjoyed watching it. I know it's the Raiders, but they went in there and pummeled him physically.
The score looks nothing like what this game looked like to the eye.

Speaker 1 Evan.

Speaker 4 Bill Nix is playing under center now.

Speaker 1 That's wild.

Speaker 4 Like, I think most of his snaps are, I didn't see all of it, but weren't most of his snaps from under center in this game?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's much different than it was before. And I think it had to do with

Speaker 2 what they wanted to do at this point today.

Speaker 2 I mean, it looked like they just wanted to impose their will and and they did and it to me it was kind of like the broncos can win in a couple different ways um they also had a masterful

Speaker 2 there were some great special teams play around the league but marvin mins had a 49 yard punt return that was completely badass where he's basically doing the thing where you're scorching downfield and pointing at a teammate upfield to make a block like get on that guy and we got a touchdown and it's exactly what happened it was just kind of like all right the broncos can go kick teams butts if they're not i don't know what the where will they end up, but like, it was a butt kicking.

Speaker 1 Yeah, to your point, the Broncos had three scoring drives of at least 80 yards, including a 19-play, 90-yard field goal drive that took up the majority of the fourth quarter. What is the record?

Speaker 1 What is the longest drive ever? Justin, can you look this up? The longest drive. Let's take a guess.
Let's all guess. The longest drive.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, whatever. Justin, whatever you got to do, just don't tell Connor.
Play count? Play count for a scoring drive, field goal or touchdown. I'm going to say 24.

Speaker 1 Let's see who wins this competition.

Speaker 2 I'll say 25 because I'll just go with the over.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm going to prices right you. You got it closest without going over, by the way.

Speaker 5 What did you say, Mark?

Speaker 2 25, but Connor hasn't guessed yet.

Speaker 2 Connor's searching it up right now.

Speaker 4 No, no.

Speaker 1 Connor's control effing this right now.

Speaker 4 Let's say

Speaker 4 I'd say like maybe

Speaker 1 out of time. Sorry, Justin.

Speaker 4 27.

Speaker 1 The final answer is

Speaker 5 in 1997,

Speaker 5 the Tennessee Oilers, who only existed for two seasons by that name.

Speaker 1 The only time it was okay to have that. Oh, there it is.

Speaker 5 25

Speaker 1 stage. Mark me to the dub.
Give him the dub. Nice.
Nice.

Speaker 4 Nice.

Speaker 1 That was the only time it was okay to wear the Oilers uniforms, by the way, during that changeover period.

Speaker 1 Anyway, yes, 19-play, 90-yard field goal drive. Congratulations, Mark.
It's all coming up, Sessie.

Speaker 1 One important thing to note here before we move on.

Speaker 1 Beating the Raiders ensures that if they finish with the same record as the Patriots, the Broncos would have the number one seed because the Raiders somehow beat the Patriots back in week one, the Broncos now have a better common opponent

Speaker 1 record clinched over the Pats, just so you know.

Speaker 2 I'll say one quick thing:

Speaker 2 they've got quite a schedule coming up. They've got the Packers, the Jaguars, the Chiefs, and the Chargers.

Speaker 1 That is a playoff run. That's a test.
That will be a test. All right.

Speaker 1 Let us now move to a break. And when we come back,

Speaker 1 more football and maybe Titans Browns.

Speaker 15 What's good, y'all? It's Von Miller, Super Bowl MVP, SAG Master, and now your host of Free Range. This is where NFL meets real talk.

Speaker 15 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?

Speaker 15 Welcome to Free Range with Von Miller, where nothing is off limits and every down counts. New episodes every Wednesday.
Listen and follow Free Range with me, Von Miller, wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 Hey, Mark, have you heard of Gold Belly?

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, from you, but I don't know if our listeners have heard about it.

Speaker 1 Okay, for anyone who hasn't heard of Gold Belly, know this. I've been ordering from them for a while now.
And honestly, it's kind of magical.

Speaker 1 Gold Belly gives you access to the most iconic, the most famous foods from restaurants all across the United States. And they ship them right to your door.
It's perfect for the holidays, too.

Speaker 1 You should have seen how impressed my family was when we brought out a red velvet cheesecake from Juniors that I had ordered through Gold Belly.

Speaker 1 I think it was the first time my dad was truly proud of me. It completely stole the show.

Speaker 2 Well, that's a positive story. I mean, yeah, it sounds great.
I've always been a little skeptical, though, about ordering food online, right?

Speaker 4 Me too, Mark.

Speaker 1 But from the moment our Gold Belly order arrived, perfectly packaged and tasting exactly like it would, straight from the bakery, I was blown away.

Speaker 1 The quality was incredible, and seeing everyone's faces when we dug into it reminded me why food, food, sese, can create such unforgettable memories.

Speaker 1 This year, I'm eyeing Ina Garten's coconut cake for holiday hosting, and it's something that will make the season feel extra special and indulgent. I can't wait to share it with my fam.

Speaker 2 Well, this holiday season, if you're looking for that perfect gift for everyone on your list or you want to impress your friends and family with an unforgettable meal and make hosting a holiday gathering a breeze this year, go to goldbelly.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code HTC.

Speaker 2 That's goldbelly.com code HTC for 20 off your first order

Speaker 1 all right we are back by the way i want to let you know i've been in touch with one adam shine

Speaker 1 fellow rockland county native in new york uh he said he'd love to do the show and uh we're setting that up

Speaker 1 and with that said we

Speaker 1 dan mark

Speaker 1 big fan of you guys

Speaker 1 with that said uh we all of us had submissions for the shine update of this Sunday. The one that wins, though, comes out of Steelers-Ravens.
Check it out. Oh, Kim and Tony, look at this.

Speaker 1 More insanity in the snow in lovely western New York. How about this? Christian Bedford picks six.
Buffalo's first lead of the game. 63 yards to the house.
32-28. Bills five minutes ago.
Back to you.

Speaker 5 I like that one because you get the take a look at this. And then three seconds later, look at this.

Speaker 1 You get it twice, which is great.

Speaker 1 You need those things, the different inflection hits, the enthusiasm, all the hallmarks of a great shine update on display and a big spot.

Speaker 1 Let's move to Atlanta, where, by the way, Connor, we talked about it on Thursday. We identified two playoff contenders that we thought could stumble against an inferior opponent.

Speaker 1 Got the Saints right. And this one, which we got wrong, tied at halftime, 6-6.

Speaker 1 But then, the Seahawks woke up.

Speaker 1 My goodness, did they wake up? Putting up 31 points in the second half, allowing them to ease past the pathetic Falcons, the Morabun Atlanta Falcons, 37-9.

Speaker 1 Raheem, put that house on the market, buddy. It's over.

Speaker 1 Credit to the Seahawks. Yeah,

Speaker 1 they start the second half. They

Speaker 1 wake up from the stupor in a great way with Rashid Shaheed returning the second half kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown. And you could feel it was over at that point.

Speaker 1 You could feel there was this will be no upset.

Speaker 1 And Sam Darnold, who had a shaky first half, was lights out in the second half, ended up with a game I thought that he needed as well. So I thought that was important.

Speaker 1 And in general, once this Seahawks team, once that the Seahawks defense, which of course is fresh off a vicious beating of the Vikings last week.

Speaker 1 Once they lock in and the momentum starts rolling with this team, you do not want to go near them. Kirk Cousins had no chance.
Bijan Robinson, no chance. And the Seahawks cruise to another,

Speaker 1 you know, dominant victory. They are a very good team.

Speaker 2 The Rashid Shahid trade

Speaker 2 is working out in so many different ways, and he just adds this element to their offense. And our friend Michael Sean Dugar wrote about the fact that Mike McDonald

Speaker 2 specifically talked to the kick team coming out of half to say, we are going to take advantage of Atlanta's coverage unit, which is the worst kickoff return yardage unit in the league.

Speaker 2 And that play made me kind of, it reminded me, Dan, of when we were at the Super Bowl in New York.

Speaker 2 And it was like Rashid Jahid sort of has a Percy Harvin element to him on special teams that it juiced this whole thing up today. It juiced them up.
It brought them right out of that weird first half.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I thought that was a huge play, and I want to give a little shout out. How did the Seahawks build themselves into the superpower kind of on the sly?

Speaker 1 Guys like Nick Imanawari, who had a tackle for loss, blocked a field goal, had an interception, had a sack. They just have players across this roster at every level.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, I'll reiterate, I thought it was a very important Darnold game. The Falcons are not a good football team,

Speaker 1 but you need Darnold, obviously, to play at a smart, efficient level for this team to actually be a Super Bowl winner. And he's been a little too shaky for anyone's liking in the last few weeks.

Speaker 1 This game, we talked about it, Connor, on Thursday. The Blitz.
If Raheem Morris sends the Blitz, if Ulbric sends the Blitz, how does Darnold react to it? He killed it against the Blitz.

Speaker 1 He had three touchdown passes against it, all against the Blitz, eight of 10 for 101 yards on those plays.

Speaker 1 And why they're such a hard team and he's such a hard quarterback to figure out is he has been lights out against the Blitz this year, but there's also been some hiccups where he's been terrible against it.

Speaker 1 It's like you don't know quite what you're going to get. Today you got the good Darnell, especially in the second half.

Speaker 4 He was there. And, you know, I think when you get games like this where

Speaker 4 not that the pressure's off, but you could just tell how dominant this defense was. And especially in the second half, there was the fumble, there was the pick.

Speaker 4 And I think that Darnold is like just demonstrably a cooler person when he has like a 10-point lead. And that's just been how he's been for the last two years.

Speaker 4 And I like cool Darnold because then you get to see these really great touch throws. He's like more fun on the run, like the whole thing.
It's like fun dad. You know, we got fun dad this weekend.

Speaker 2 Don't they feel like a team that's going to win their first playoff game, they're just going to win it like 40 to 7 against some hapless nightmare-induced

Speaker 1 opponent. Bit of a buy at this point.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 it's what version of Darnold shows shows up, but this one was the good one.

Speaker 1 One other note on the Falcons. I believe this is eight straight losing seasons, if I'm not mistaken, for Atlanta.

Speaker 1 And they have not made the postseason since 2017. Mark, we were at their last postseason win at the old Coliseum against the Rams

Speaker 1 way back then. And you just wonder, you know, Arthur Blank said in training camp he believed the organization had the right people in place

Speaker 1 to build a winner. And it feels like it's building from the ground up potentially again

Speaker 1 after this season, which has gotten away from them.

Speaker 1 All right, let's move on.

Speaker 1 Where to go? Where to go?

Speaker 1 Hmm.

Speaker 5 I know where we could go.

Speaker 1 Oh, yes, of course. We just talked about the Seahawks.
Let's talk about the LA Rams.

Speaker 1 What a division battle.

Speaker 1 Not the best game.

Speaker 1 But what a showing once again. This is one of my favorite, I got to say, it's one of my favorite division races in a long time.
This NFC West.

Speaker 1 And the Niners are like, don't forget about us, but the Seahawks Rams, I mean, pick a winner. I mean, you can make a case for either side because Matthew Stafford talked about the MVP.

Speaker 1 Maybe we'll talk about the MVP race a little bit this week, but Stafford to me is he is in the catbird seat right now.

Speaker 1 After another dominant showing, the 37-year-old throws three touchdown passes all in the second half 281 yards just dime after dime after dime the cardinals had no chance 45 to 17

Speaker 1 as

Speaker 1 as stafford just leads a rams offense that was just totally locked in in this game 30 first downs

Speaker 1 They ran 67 plays, 530 yards of offense, 11 drives, averaged nearly 8 yards per play, possessed the ball for 35 minutes.

Speaker 1 And then when the defense is on the field, they're not letting poor Jake Brisket breathe. I mean,

Speaker 1 this was a complete effort. Again, like an equally bad lost team

Speaker 1 in the Arizona Cardinals, but that's what you like to see. You get a bad team on your schedule, you kick the shit out of them, and you keep stacking wins.

Speaker 2 Yeah, just

Speaker 2 the way they set the tone to open the game with three 60-yard-plus drives, field goal, three straight touchdowns. And the Cardinals are a lost team at this point.

Speaker 2 But the Rams make you, the Rams put you in that position. I also love, like, man, Blake Coram and this running game is just absolutely

Speaker 2 something to deal with. And I know, like,

Speaker 2 they can beat you in so many different ways. They are like Seattle to me, where it's like, they kind of just, all the pieces fit together.

Speaker 2 And so I agree with your point about the division because at some point these two are going to clash in like the highest possible arena for the most important position, position like prize and it's like they're awesome to watch and like these both of these teams were a little lost a couple seasons ago they've both grown up and like built the roster so rapidly into what they are today and it was like a complete show of force

Speaker 1 i was thinking about that uh

Speaker 1 that old yarn that was spun a few years back after they won the super bowl it's like oh they bought the super bowl on credit now they're gonna have to pay for it and it's like no you could draft well and identify talent to keep in your building and then most crucially, ensure that Matthew Stafford continues to be your quarterback.

Speaker 1 And I guess that would be the difference maker if we're trying to like figure out who's going to win this division and finish atop the NFC.

Speaker 1 It's like Stafford is the difference because Darnold, you don't know what you're going to get, but Stafford, you know, he's going to play the game at a high level, both from a cerebral aspect and from a physical aspect.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Corham, his stats were a little bit inflated with a 48-yard run when the Cardinals weren't even trying anymore in the fourth quarter. But he's a great, great depth piece on this team.

Speaker 1 Kyron Williams, when the game was

Speaker 1 still

Speaker 1 in doubt on some level, he ran for a touchdown and

Speaker 1 he had 84 yards. They had 249 yards on the ground in this game, in addition to Stafford going 22 of 31.
And Puka Nakua, the craziest stat of the day, he has an awesome game.

Speaker 1 He had the catch of the year last week. This game, he mosses a defender for one touchdown.
He had another touchdown before that. This is his first multi-touchdown game of his career.

Speaker 1 And speaking of shaving all my body hair off, I would have bet that

Speaker 1 if you told me he'd never done it before, but he did it for the first time, which is scored two touchdowns in one game. Wow.

Speaker 1 How about that?

Speaker 4 To Mark's point, though, like, you know, I remember the Eagles Super Bowl run year or even the year that they beat the Patriots the first time, any of these teams, right?

Speaker 4 It's about like those 51st and 52nd guys on the roster.

Speaker 4 And I'm willing to bet at this point that guys like Terrence Ferguson, Jordan Whittington, guys that are getting one target a game, maybe in this offense, would be legitimate 1A threats on 15 other teams in the NFL right now.

Speaker 4 And we just have no idea how good they are.

Speaker 1 On the Cardinals side, Michael Wilson once again had a huge game with Marvin Harrison on the sideline, Harrison out with the heel, and Wilson goes for 142 yards and two touchdowns on 11 catches.

Speaker 1 I mean, of the many things that are broken about the Cardinals, when Harrison came back,

Speaker 1 Wilson disappeared from the attack. It's like, guys, figure out what to do with your good players.
And Jonathan Gannon is not going to be got to figure that out.

Speaker 1 Just like Raheem Morris, you can put in the books that Gannon is coaching his final games with the Cardinals because this team is just a tough, tough

Speaker 1 watch.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Let's move on.

Speaker 1 Hmm.

Speaker 1 Let's go to Minnesota.

Speaker 2 Yeah, running out of options here.

Speaker 1 Minnesota. We got to talk to Vikings.
The Vikings. Everybody's favorite car crash.
Noin.

Speaker 1 How about this? You know what? It's the holidays. I'm very happy for J.J.
McCarthy. Because he went 16 of 23 for a buck 63, three touchdowns, zero interceptions.

Speaker 1 Sure, the Commanders are a bunch of corpses strewn across the field and didn't show up in a 31-0 game. But who cares?

Speaker 1 That's a nice, nice performance for McCarthy and something him and Kevin O'Connell can build on. And not Justin Jefferson, because he somehow is still invisible.

Speaker 1 It has nothing to do with the offense in this blowout win. But Justin, a nice bounce back game after a humiliating shutout in the other direction last week against the Seahawks.

Speaker 5 Incredible bounce back game. J.J.
McCarthy looked like an NFL quarterback, a starting-level NFL quarterback that you can win with, especially when the pieces around him are working.

Speaker 5 Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason double battering rammed this commander's defense. You have some of the best receiving options in the game in Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and the commander's defense.

Speaker 5 I think, you know, any struggling quarterback needs a chance to like get right. Roll out this commander's defense against them because that, it was an atrocious showing by them.

Speaker 5 They could not get pressure on the quarterback.

Speaker 5 They ran, I don't know what the exact number total at the end of the game was because I like it's impossible for me to track this from the TV broadcast, but they mentioned on the broadcast about three minutes left in the third quarter, so almost three quarters of the game.

Speaker 5 The game's over by this point. Mariota's in for Daniels, who got hurt.
We'll talk about in a sec.

Speaker 5 Um, again, but they had run the commanders zone coverage on every single passing play up until this point in the third quarter.

Speaker 5 So, I mean, you'd think Minnesota with their receivers would be able to do well against man coverage because Justin Jefferson should be able to beat any man corner in the world.

Speaker 5 But the fact that you make it this simple on this quarterback who has struggled so much

Speaker 5 with

Speaker 5 so little experience to make it this simplified, I texted you guys, and this is what I would compare to. It's like playing a preseason vanilla defense.
Like, he should be this.

Speaker 5 If he's going to be a franchise quarterback, he should have looked like this today, which isn't to take anything away from him.

Speaker 5 It's good that he did because it's a really encouraging sign for his future.

Speaker 4 I don't know, Justin, if you were watching the same first drive that I was, but when I saw nine emerge, and he did, the character came out after that first touchdown pass, and he had the face and he had the angry eyes and everything like that.

Speaker 4 If I'm Dan Quinn, I'm sitting in prevent two because you do not want that guy to beat you. And you just got to keep nine in front of you at that point.

Speaker 1 So I don't know. Let's hear from nine.
Let's hear from nine. Let's give, let's give nine the floor.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 12 It means a lot. And, you know, it's just something that I feel like should have happened a lot earlier.
So, you know, I absolutely love those guys for the grace and patience they've had with me.

Speaker 12 But, you know, we got to continue to do it again. You're only as successful as your last successful act.
And we're going to get to work, you know, tomorrow, Tuesday, or Wednesday, and

Speaker 16 keep this thing rolling, you know?

Speaker 1 All right, nine. Don't say anything else.
Just shut up.

Speaker 2 Keep it right there. Well, there, you know,

Speaker 2 it came at the absolute necessary and right time for the Vikings and this offense because there were some pretty concerning quotes from other players on the offense about the fact that they were going to simplify the playbook and make it easier for J.J.

Speaker 2 McCarthy. And like, had this gone sideways today, I mean, it kind of felt like a locker room that could boil over and just, it could turn really toxic.
And instead, you get this.

Speaker 2 And, you know, it's like, just for me with the JJ McCarthy thing, like, we're in a place where we want these guys to grow up in like four weeks. Like, there's a lot to pick up here.

Speaker 2 Like, this is a step. It's a step.
Are we saying that we have a franchise quarterback? There's still a lot of questions. We don't know that.
It's a step, though.

Speaker 1 My one McCarthy thing, or not even a McCarthy thing, because honestly, I still feel exactly the same that he's actually not part of this future and they have to make decisions about how they're going to handle this quarterback situation.

Speaker 1 But the biggest situation they have is they have an all-time talent in Justin Jefferson. And if I'm Kevin O'Connell, I'm like, this is great,

Speaker 1 but I'm looking at this box score. Yeah.
And all three touchdown passes went to tight ends. And Justin Jefferson goes two for 11 on four targets.

Speaker 1 And I'm thinking, I got, what, four games left this season. I am going to target this guy like a

Speaker 1 mother effer because the one thing we can't deal with is on top of all other challenges in identifying a quarterback is dealing with the wide receiver wanting out of towns like Stefan Diggs, which brought Justin Jefferson here in the first place.

Speaker 1 We need to placate this guy. I'm sorry, that might not be like the team first attitude, but we can't have these games taken into the offseason because this is not denigrating his character.

Speaker 1 I'm just going by like how the league tends to operate. If he ends up with 700 yards receiving this year and not another touchdown, he's going to probably want out.

Speaker 1 And it's like they need to find a way to communicate with this guy and get him the rock. And that's my, that to me is the only objective the Vikings should have for the rest of this lost season.

Speaker 2 Yeah, can't you see him on a flaming like athletes, athlete on athlete podcast after the season ends?

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. I mean, can't you see the Vikings being stripped from his social media accounts? Like, and I'm not saying he seems like a great guy, so I'm not saying he's a malcontent or anything.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying this is how it tends to work in the NFL.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and to that point, like McCarthy was playing really fast today, which is credit to him. It's one of the fastest games he's had this season in terms of time to throw.

Speaker 5 He completed 10 of his 16 completions, came on throws under two and a a half seconds, which would sound like he's hitting his first read really quickly, which is usually how you get the ball out of your hands that quick.

Speaker 5 It's kind of bizarre then that Justin Jefferson only has two catches because shouldn't Justin Jefferson be his first read on like 80% of his drop backs? Like he's Justin Jefferson, for goodness sake.

Speaker 1 I don't know, man. One thing I do know is both this game and the last game that we talked about, when a great team has a bad week, and we talked about this on the Thursday show, watch out.

Speaker 1 And that's what happened to the poor Cardinals when the Rams went there.

Speaker 1 When a bad team has a good week and they still fall short, like happened with the Commanders last week, look out because they're probably going to roll over and play dead the week after because they shot their Johnny Wadd.

Speaker 1 Um, tough one, Connor. Finish this one off.

Speaker 4 I don't know if you guys saw the Sunday splash reports, but Rapsheet did have

Speaker 4 on NFL, whatever their morning show is, the Wolf show, I forget what it is. But Ian, who's great, said that they are supposed to bring in competition for McCarthy this offseason.

Speaker 5 We can't leave this game recap without mentioning that Jaden Daniels got hurt again on a fourth down. They go for it, fourth and short.
It's a quick RPO pass concept thing.

Speaker 5 Ball gets tipped into the air and picked off by Andrew Van Ginkle.

Speaker 5 And here comes Isaiah Rogers, just detonates Jaden Daniels, who's trying to sprint back to make the tackle, lands directly on the elbow that he had already dislocated. Goes to the 10.

Speaker 5 Just quickly ruled out. He wasn't playing well before that either.

Speaker 5 So not a good sign.

Speaker 5 I don't know why you would bring him back this season. You're 3-10.

Speaker 5 Just let Mariota play out the string, but it did sound like the reporting was that they want to try to get him back on the field again.

Speaker 1 Gee, have we not learned anything? Washington, do we remember RG3?

Speaker 1 They are 3-10 according to Tankathon. They're at the sixth overall pick.
There is no reason to play this guy in meaningless football when he's not physically right.

Speaker 1 And by the way, oh my God, Atlanta is up to the top 10 pick. They're at 9.
And where's that pick going? The Los Angeles Rams.

Speaker 1 It's amazing.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 Good show, everybody. A reminder, there's one more game on Monday night, Monday night football.

Speaker 1 What do we do? And we recap every game, because that's what we do. We recap every game in the NFL, no matter how high or how low.
So, thank you for your hedonism.

Speaker 1 Eagles, Chargers, Ceci, that's going to be a good one.

Speaker 2 Well, okay, we'll discuss that when it occurs. This is utterly absurd what's unfolding right now.
And another example.

Speaker 1 Oh, we, oh, there's one more game. Is that what you're referring to?

Speaker 1 Ah, yes. Okay, let's cut the music and let's head.
Yes, to Cleveland, Ohio.

Speaker 1 Oh, break out the Titans. They go to Cleveland.

Speaker 1 Bang Dan's fantasy football team.

Speaker 1 Plug in the Browns, plug and play at home against the Titans. I got Graver tell me all week that Miles Garrett's going to have 15 sacks.

Speaker 1 Poison my mind because the Titans go off.

Speaker 1 Tony Pollard rushed for a career high, 161 yards, two touchdowns. The defense forces two turnovers

Speaker 1 and then hold off

Speaker 1 is Shadir Sanders led comeback

Speaker 1 with some special help from Mr. Kevin Stefansky a very curious decision which we'll get to final score Titans 31 Browns 29 speaking of tankathon

Speaker 1 Titans now drop behind the Giants in the NFL draft order with four to play The Browns move up to fourth overall. That's them stakes, sussy.

Speaker 2 Your fantasy team

Speaker 2 predicted this the way that many did, and it didn't go that way. The biggest surprise was to see this Browns defense at home, which is where they shine, get flamed the way they did.

Speaker 2 Miles Garrett did get one sack. He's up to 20.

Speaker 2 But I also thought this seemed like a showcase for him to absolutely be, you know, one of the last chances at home before he breaks the record to do what Miles Garrett, you'd expect him to do against a bad Titans team.

Speaker 2 Didn't happen. Second biggest surprise to me was the play of Shador Sanders.
No matter, just take the name off the jersey, forget about what you think about him.

Speaker 2 Like he made some pretty great throws in this game. And this is one of the better rookie classes.
And I'm not even packing Shador Sanders into this, but that I have seen the Browns ever maneuver for.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 all their young players, Carson Swessinger, Harold Fannin Jr., who went off for 100 plus to this game, are really, really playing well. And they look like the future of the team.

Speaker 2 And so if you throw in the idea that Chador Sanders, the Browns are 81 years old, and they have never had a rookie throw for 300-plus yards, two-plus touchdowns, and also a rush for a touchdown ever.

Speaker 2 And he did all of those things today. Did he make some mistakes? Yes.
But each game, he shows that he's better than Dylan Gabriel, and

Speaker 2 he's aggressive, and he throws the ball downfield. And to your point, Dan, they get in a position where they are down by two points at the end of the game.

Speaker 2 And Kevin Stefansky, who there's all these whispers that there's just this disconnect between him and Sanders and Stefansky and Earth at this point, but he pulls Shador Sanders off the field on the two-point conversion and has a direct snap to Quinchin Judson, who like kind of bobbles the ball and the whole thing goes south.

Speaker 2 And like they had failed on a two-point conversion earlier. It's like, what are you doing here?

Speaker 1 Why would you...

Speaker 1 It was like a design trick play, right? Right.

Speaker 2 But he's two up his own butt on this. Like, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 And Sanders, to his credit, after the game, they asked him about it, and he said, listen, I would have liked to have the ball on my hands or be on the field in that spot, but I'm going to, you know, I stand by any of the play calling.

Speaker 1 But that's an absurd, absurd decision by Stefansky, who's not had a good year in Cleveland. I don't think he's going to get coach of the year this year.
Like, you are in development mode.

Speaker 1 You're trying to figure out what you have in the quarterback.

Speaker 1 Unless, to your point, Mark, or to the point of the whispers, Stefanski has already internally decided, I don't want anything to do with this guy as my long-term guy.

Speaker 1 So I don't need to see what he's going to do in this two-point conversion that can tie the game. Takes him off the field.
It fails miserably. They look dumb.
They lose the game.

Speaker 1 Here's Stefansky on that decision.

Speaker 10 Not going to get into all the specifics, Jeff, but obviously did not go as we thought it would.

Speaker 15 Did you make that call or did Tommy?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I make every call. I make every call.

Speaker 1 Why would you take him off?

Speaker 10 Yeah, again, it's a two-point play.

Speaker 10 Didn't come through on our first two-point play, got to the second two-point play. We didn't come through.
But that's on me.

Speaker 15 Was that play call yours at Tommy's?

Speaker 10 I'm responsible for all of it.

Speaker 1 Ceci, that's chum in the water for Cleveland Media.

Speaker 2 You know what? Because I will say one thing. I think the Kevin Stefansky, demeanor-wise, has always been very even-keeled.

Speaker 2 He's willing to go into detail on answers in the past. He's someone that you feel like

Speaker 2 there's an honesty to him. This is like a Manchurian candidate version of Kevin Stefansky the past couple of months.
Like every answer is not an answer. It's clipped.
He's annoyed.

Speaker 2 It's like a kind of, you can, when things are truly going south and you lose the personality of the coach that you once knew, it's like, that's what I'm feeling with Kevin Stefanski.

Speaker 2 And it's pretty inexplicable. I mean, to me, I get that the team is terrible, but I mean, Justin, you watch this too.

Speaker 2 It's like the Titans came out of this game with their own quarterback play, but I just feel like

Speaker 2 what an odd... What an odd confrontation in a way for it to end.
Like it left me furious and baffled.

Speaker 5 And the craziest part was Sanders had driven them down the field on back-to-back drives to even get them in this position.

Speaker 5 And Sanders did screw up the first two-point try by straight up just dropping the snap, just completely mishandling the snap. Titans linebacker picks it up.

Speaker 5 Could have, if he had run it all the way back, would have scored two points for the Titans and put the game back to 10 points. It would have been out of reach.

Speaker 5 But he ran out of gas and just fell down at like the 40-yard, just literally just fell down at the 40. Said after the game, he was too tired to run it all the way back.

Speaker 5 But yeah, it didn't make any sense. And I thought, to your point, Sanders made a lot of really nice throws.
Touch down the field, perfectly placed over the shoulder.

Speaker 5 The two in the back corner of the end zone, one to Njoku and one to Fannin were just amazing throws, like the kind of throws that's that you want to work with and develop. So it's so bizarre.

Speaker 5 I mean, maybe it's the media stuff, like the narratives and the distractions around it, but it's bizarre to me that they wouldn't want to explore this and try to develop it further.

Speaker 1 Justin, one point on the Titans, and then we got to go.

Speaker 5 Cam Ward had the best best incompletion you will see this season.

Speaker 1 Grant Delpit.

Speaker 5 This is all this is going viral on Twitter, so don't make fun of this. Grant Delpit had him dead to rights on a sack.

Speaker 5 Cam Ward tried to shrug him off, and it looked like he was going to fail to shrug him off, and then somehow gets him up in the air and throws him to the ground and then just has to chunk the ball out of bounds.

Speaker 5 But it was pretty wild. It was a special athletic play.

Speaker 1 Great.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 That's it for the show. By the way, cut for time.
We did have. Can you play the college fight music anyway?

Speaker 1 We were going to give both Justin and Connor 60 seconds to rant about Notre Dame getting screwed out of the college football playoff and UT getting screwed out of the college football playoff.

Speaker 5 We weren't as screwed as Notre Dame, but yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, and I was going to dovetail that into

Speaker 1 being pissed off about Don Mattingly getting screwed out of the Hall of Fame. Just know that

Speaker 1 everyone outside of SESI is pissed off about their fandom outside of the NFL and That's it.

Speaker 2 Well, I've got things to be annoyed at trust me

Speaker 1 In the sport of life. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right, everybody great stuff. We'll see you Monday night when we finish out week 14.
Can you believe it? Week 14 will finish up with

Speaker 1 Eagles Chargers two 8-4 teams. Nice way to end it.
See, put a bow on the show.

Speaker 2 these Sundays are like a big stack of pancakes and syrup, and I just want to keep eating.

Speaker 1 I love it. Sessler Eaton.
What a novel concept. Till next time, heed the call.

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