Dan Orlovsky Breaking Down Super Wild Card Weekend, Notre Dame Advances, Picks And Preview + Fyre Fest Of The Week

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Speaker 3 On today's part of my take, Super Wildcard weekend.

Speaker 17 We're still saying it.

Speaker 18 We're going to talk about every game, Saturday and Sunday preview.

Speaker 6 We also have an instant classic Notre Dame Penn State that we're going to recap at the top of the show.

Speaker 22 We've got a good friend Dan Orlofsky on the show to break down the matchups for the Super Wild Card weekend.

Speaker 25 And then we have Firefest to finish us off.

Speaker 27 And we're when Cool Creamy Ranch meets tangy, bold buffalo, the whole is greater than the sum of its sauce. Say howdy, partner, to new Buffalo Ranch sauce only at McDonald's for a limited time.

Speaker 28 At participating, McDonald's.

Speaker 9 Okay, let's go.

Speaker 9 More than my take.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 9 More than my take.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 9 More than my take.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 9 More than my take.

Speaker 28 Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings.

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Speaker 19 The crown is yours.

Speaker 1 Today is Friday, January 10th.

Speaker 31 And wake up the echoes, PFT, because the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are in the college football national championship.

Speaker 32 What's that sound, big cat? It's the echoes? Yes, it's the echoes, but also there's a second sound. What's the sound? It's Lou Holtz putting in his biting teeth.

Speaker 32 Licking his lips.

Speaker 6 And it was an instant classic.

Speaker 34 Yep.

Speaker 22 Like such a great game. I thought it was going to be a snoozer.

Speaker 35 First half was neither offense really did anything.

Speaker 24 Penn State went into halftime, up 10-3.

Speaker 19 Whatever Marcus Freeman did at halftime, he deserves all the credit because that game was won in the third quarter and how Notre Dame came out.

Speaker 6 And they took it right to Penn State, took the lead.

Speaker 22 Obviously, there was, you know, Penn State came back.

Speaker 42 They traded some drives.

Speaker 3 And the big story, as much as I would like to do the narrative that James Franklin can't win a big game,

Speaker 29 Drew Aller was horrific.

Speaker 32 I agree, but I disagree on one point. I think the game was won in the late second quarter.
Oh. When Angeli came out.
Steve Angeli. Angeli.

Speaker 1 Angeli did get him a quick three.

Speaker 32 Angeli got in, and the whole vibe changed. It's true.
Entire vibe flipped. Max got taken out by an Italian sub.

Speaker 32 People were saying.

Speaker 22 Man. And it was, I mean, listen, that game, back and forth.

Speaker 42 Riley Leonard made a huge mistake.

Speaker 40 Penn State takes the lead, and then Drew Aller makes a, like, Drew Aller threw three interceptions today, and only one of them counted because the other two,

Speaker 36 Phantom, well, the first one actually was a real hold, but the second one was just, it was such a bad throw, they shouldn't have thrown a flag because it had no impact on the play.

Speaker 32 It's a bad throw, it's a bad call, too.

Speaker 52 Yeah, it's a bad call.

Speaker 32 I mean, I get that he didn't turn his head around. Yeah.
And then the fans had a little University of Texas moments. Yeah.
You know how mad you have to be to make an Irish guy throw his beer?

Speaker 53 Seriously. Like, pretty hard.
Give up on it.

Speaker 32 That's a bad call. Yeah.
That's a really bad call. And so, but yeah, he came back and

Speaker 32 he had some really bad interceptions.

Speaker 4 Really bad interceptions.

Speaker 32 The last one was just.

Speaker 54 40 seconds left.

Speaker 42 The one thing you can't do in that situation is make a throw like that.

Speaker 49 And he was so bad that even the last lateral of the game, he overthrew and threw out of bounds.

Speaker 54 But I, like, Drew Aller was horrific.

Speaker 20 And by the way, do we have a little

Speaker 24 do-to-do with Brandon Walker?

Speaker 36 Because I think on this show on Wednesday, he said Drew Aller doesn't turn the ball over, and that's why Penn State's going to win the game.

Speaker 57 That's our college football expert. We apologize on behalf of our college football expert.

Speaker 47 He's embarrassed us one day into being our college football expert.

Speaker 32 And he didn't show his face here to be on this show to take responsibility for that mistake either.

Speaker 58 It's crazy.

Speaker 32 He's ducking it.

Speaker 59 Yeah,

Speaker 32 very, very bad interception at the end.

Speaker 32 They got the ball back, and it's like, okay, you have a chance, but the one thing that you can't do is turn the ball over and try to push too hard because then they're going to be in field goal range.

Speaker 32 And that's exactly what he goes out and he does. I actually think a big impact on this game was when Tyler Warren got taken out.
You remember that on the side?

Speaker 4 Yes, from the concussion test.

Speaker 32 So they kept him out for a little bit, and he looked like he was very concussed, just from what you saw in the clip. And then he comes back on the field.

Speaker 32 He didn't look like the same guy when he came back. Right.

Speaker 39 He didn't.

Speaker 32 Like he told the team doctor, they're trying to do the concussion test. That's a HIPAA violation.
Yeah. They're like, good point.
Get back in there, son. Don't play ball.
And then he goes back in.

Speaker 32 He seemed like he was out of sorts around the line of scrimmage. He didn't look right.
He wasn't running fast. He wasn't making heads-up plays.

Speaker 32 I think that there was that, that to me, when you take Tyler Warren away from Penn State, then you take away all the threat of their physical passing because their wide receivers can't catch a ball.

Speaker 42 No, they can't catch a ball. He can't get open.

Speaker 60 I mean, yeah, Tyler Warren is so much fun to watch because he is like, if you need three yards, he's going to get you seven.

Speaker 50 His absorption contact.

Speaker 5 But so Marcus Freeman was incredible.

Speaker 20 I thought he coached a great game.

Speaker 3 I thought that play at the end of the game, where they had third and whatever it was, five, and the conservative thing would be to just run the ball again with Riley Leonard.

Speaker 39 And they rolled out Riley Leonard.

Speaker 22 He hit that perfect pass to Faison, I believe, who ended up getting like 15 yards.

Speaker 30 And Riley Leonard, he wasn't great, but he made big plays at big moments.

Speaker 39 Like he made that throw.

Speaker 18 He made a couple big runs, eluded a couple big-time sacks that would have been like, you know, very detrimental.

Speaker 61 And I don't know.

Speaker 39 Like, I, Marcus Riemann, I'm a believer.

Speaker 22 Like, he last game when he, when he pants Kirby Smart, this game, how they came out at halftime, because I think we all agree, like, halftime,

Speaker 6 it looked like Penn State was going to win this game easily because they were just bullying Notre Dame on both lines.

Speaker 32 Well, it took him a second to figure out the fact that they could get their lineman shoving people over.

Speaker 61 Right.

Speaker 43 And they were in the backfield when they were on defense and they were just running the ball down Notre Dame's throat.

Speaker 1 And then Notre Dame came out, shot out of a cannon.

Speaker 23 And uh oh, we got to mention Jeremiah Love, one of the best like second effort, third effort touchdown runs.

Speaker 32 Three dudes hanging up. Maybe even four or five.
That was a great run. Also, Pinch running backs, all of them had some great runs, too.
It was a really good football game.

Speaker 65 It came down to the quarterback.

Speaker 54 And now it makes sense that Drew Aller is staying in school.

Speaker 23 I think people scratch their head. They're like,

Speaker 10 that doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 63 He would be a first-round pick.

Speaker 4 He's got some things to work on.

Speaker 32 Yeah. Who said he would be a first-round pick?

Speaker 15 I think there were consensus.

Speaker 34 I think there were people that were saying

Speaker 11 in this quarterback class, especially.

Speaker 32 I've heard people say he's like consensus, the best NFL prospect remaining. Yeah.

Speaker 36 It's like Christian Hackenberg.

Speaker 32 Yeah. Hey, second-round pick, right?

Speaker 13 Can in arm.

Speaker 56 Can in arm.

Speaker 58 So we should talk to Max.

Speaker 23 Oh, by the way, I wanted to mention Colin Coward.

Speaker 10 So I said this to you right before we started.

Speaker 4 He tweeted, you see Riley Leonard, I see Josh Allen.

Speaker 32 That sounds racist.

Speaker 8 I was like, okay. The only answer

Speaker 32 for that is that that he's a virulent racist.

Speaker 54 The running style, I guess, but like, I don't know.

Speaker 32 There's literally nothing about it.

Speaker 17 I think it's bowling people over, running the football.

Speaker 32 I guess, maybe, yeah.

Speaker 69 And maybe, I guess, if you gave.

Speaker 32 But Josh is a little, he's way more elusive.

Speaker 69 Yeah, he is.

Speaker 1 But I think that might be the only thing, but he sees Josh Allen.

Speaker 22 So, Max.

Speaker 32 I muted Colin Coward a long time ago.

Speaker 45 I actually blocked him.

Speaker 54 Fake super. Hell yes.

Speaker 29 That was a bad one.

Speaker 7 Yeah, no.

Speaker 7 Drew Allard just can't play it like that.

Speaker 7 The defense

Speaker 7 made enough plays to keep you in that game. You get that sack when Notre Dame is driving to kick the field goal to take the lead.

Speaker 70 And

Speaker 7 that play was so long developing, and there was nothing there. Just throw the ball out of bounds.
You don't need to be a hero. There's 20 seconds left.

Speaker 7 The chances of you going down and actually winning that game are so slim. Just take the sack.
But that's just like a college quarterback who doesn't know what he's doing yet.

Speaker 7 Like, he's still a dumb kid. Yeah.
Like, I felt so

Speaker 7 was unbelievable. Like, that, that pick that

Speaker 7 he had in the third or third quarter.

Speaker 15 It was a fourth quarter when Riley Leonard just didn't see him.

Speaker 7 Notre Dame looked like they were taking control of the game. We put together a nice drive, tie it up.
I don't know. I'm all over the place, but it's disappointing, but I don't know.

Speaker 32 That last kick was kind of weird, too, wasn't it?

Speaker 7 That last kick was crazy.

Speaker 7 It was going right the whole time. Yeah.
And then right before the upright, it just came back left.

Speaker 32 It was very, very strange.

Speaker 55 And Mitch Cheder.

Speaker 32 Mason Crosby type.

Speaker 44 Yeah, he's been bad this year.

Speaker 17 He was injured, but he's been nails in the playoffs.

Speaker 6 I think he's seven for eight now in the playoffs.

Speaker 33 And Notre Dame, listen, I don't know if they can beat Texas or Ohio State, but okay, you're shaking your head, Max.

Speaker 40 Notre Dame's just coached really well, and they've, like, I don't know.

Speaker 19 Riley Leonard did make some mistakes tonight, but if he doesn't throw any interceptions, like, they're a team that can just kind of hang around.

Speaker 49 I think they're good. Yeah.

Speaker 54 I mean,

Speaker 36 they're going to be like eight and a half point underdogs probably to Ohio State if Ohio State.

Speaker 32 I don't know that they can hang around.

Speaker 75 We'll see.

Speaker 4 We'll see. I just give a lot of credit to Notre Dame tonight.

Speaker 36 Marcus Freeman has, he's coached an incredible playoffs.

Speaker 7 James Frank,

Speaker 7 they went up 10-0 and then took their foot off the gas. They were dominating the game.
And then I don't know what.

Speaker 4 It was that first drive in the third quarter.

Speaker 50 It was the first drive to start the second half.

Speaker 17 Notre Dame just went right down the field.

Speaker 22 And it was like all the juice they needed was in that.

Speaker 43 And then they got a three and out.

Speaker 22 And then Penn State went three and out.

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 42 And it was just like this game has just flipped on its head.

Speaker 77 Whatever Marcus Freeman decided to adjust or do at halftime, it worked because they came out a completely different team.

Speaker 7 I think Penn State had seven plays in the third. They went three and out.
Then Tyler Warren got like a 20-yard catch, and then they went, and then they were the fourth down on the next three plays.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 6 And now, James Franklin, I mean,

Speaker 72 we're not doing the narrative, but should we?

Speaker 36 He can't win the big one.

Speaker 16 Because they, although, is it not the big one?

Speaker 32 I think this was a big one.

Speaker 49 But hold on.

Speaker 52 It's not his fault.

Speaker 54 They went from underdogs to favorites right before kickoff.

Speaker 32 Yeah, that was weird. That was weird.
Well, Drew Aller being on a yacht, which was a fake rumor that was put out there, we think.

Speaker 39 We had Notre Dame flu.

Speaker 55 Yeah, we had Notre Dame Flu.

Speaker 32 We also had Penn State having diarrhea.

Speaker 39 Yep, and then Drew Aller on a yacht.

Speaker 32 Drew Aller on a yacht. I don't know if any of those were true, but I would say, big cat, it is a fact that this was a big one.

Speaker 66 Yeah, it was a big one. Did he win it?

Speaker 72 Didn't win it.

Speaker 46 No, they didn't beat anyone good this year.

Speaker 32 It's not his fault, but it is a fact.

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 41 I mean,

Speaker 54 they didn't beat anyone on their level in terms of like.

Speaker 7 Illinois beat South Carolina if they beat South Carolina, which is.

Speaker 32 Illinois should have been in the playoffs.

Speaker 73 Yeah.

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 71 That's a bad thing. But you know,

Speaker 23 you know that like they didn't.

Speaker 46 I mean, they have. But I don't blame.

Speaker 4 This was their second big test, or their third, because they played Oregon, Ohio State, and Notre Dame, and they lost all three.

Speaker 32 It would be nice to have wide receivers.

Speaker 7 Penn State's wide receivers are atrocious.

Speaker 45 In the modern era. Zero catches.

Speaker 32 In the modern era of football,

Speaker 32 you typically want a wide receiver to catch the ball.

Speaker 7 Zero catches. And like,

Speaker 7 I'm not going to go back and watch the film, but if you were to go back and watch the film, I don't think there were any missed wide-open wide receivers. No.

Speaker 46 No.

Speaker 7 Like, they, every time that they did that little replay where you can look out on the field, he had nothing out there except for Tyler Warren.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 32 Nobody's rooting.

Speaker 32 What are you going to say in IU?

Speaker 72 No, I was just sad.

Speaker 9 You're not going to watch the film.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I'm not going to watch a film.

Speaker 49 You're not.

Speaker 29 You've got to get better.

Speaker 7 You don't know how to watch film.

Speaker 32 Hank, what are your thoughts on tonight?

Speaker 78 Hank, do you know how to watch film? Yeah.

Speaker 7 Tell me how to watch a film. If I wanted to go back and watch the All 22, tell me how I would do it.

Speaker 13 Ask Gruden. Google.

Speaker 7 Yep.

Speaker 49 Film.

Speaker 9 PSU film.

Speaker 70 I'll look into that. Okay.

Speaker 32 I'm going to Google that right now and just see. PSU.

Speaker 32 Seriously, though, what were your thoughts on the game?

Speaker 9 I had Penn State.

Speaker 9 They choked at the end. They choked at the end.
That was an absolute choke job.

Speaker 9 There's no world where that shouldn't have gone to overtime.

Speaker 11 Did you listen to our college football expert? Is that why he took Penn State? Yeah.

Speaker 13 Oh, no. And Jeffy.

Speaker 45 He's ruining us.

Speaker 9 Brandon Walker.

Speaker 9 I should have known right then.

Speaker 7 My parlay wasn't that bad.

Speaker 49 No, I know.

Speaker 9 And if it went to overtime, if it went to overtime, all we need was a Tyler Warren touchdown and touchdown.

Speaker 34 Drew Aller.

Speaker 9 If we go to overtime and it goes to two, three, four overtimes, he's going to get one.

Speaker 32 Drew Aller.

Speaker 9 So

Speaker 9 I was mentally in overtime already.

Speaker 32 Oh, no. When you look up PSU football film, the first thing that comes up is Paterno, the film.
Oh, no. Have you seen that film?

Speaker 70 I don't think I have to.

Speaker 32 You should watch that one.

Speaker 45 Not great.

Speaker 79 No. You watched it?

Speaker 49 I actually did, yeah. Wait, the Cheeto.

Speaker 29 You have Pachito one?

Speaker 66 Yeah, FD Lowe's in it. Is he?

Speaker 44 Yeah, he's in the opening scene.

Speaker 49 He's like in the front row.

Speaker 1 They use footage from a game.

Speaker 13 It actually wasn't terrible.

Speaker 45 I'll watch anything with Pachito.

Speaker 49 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 63 All right, so two other things:

Speaker 34 not college football related.

Speaker 50 Do you guys Ohio State tomorrow night? Are you betting Ohio State?

Speaker 32 I think I'm going to take Ohio State, yeah.

Speaker 9 I like

Speaker 9 strictly, it's going to be Ohio State, but I think the Texas Notre Dame championship is more fun for vibes.

Speaker 32 Why is that?

Speaker 9 I don't know.

Speaker 4 It just is.

Speaker 9 I never really liked Ohio State as a non-college football fan, but Ohio State's just not, never been my favorite. This is the Scarlet Texas.

Speaker 71 I think it's the Gray.

Speaker 23 More than the

Speaker 23 Scarlet and the Gray.

Speaker 32 Yeah, mostly the Gray.

Speaker 32 I feel like they're always really good.

Speaker 9 They're never really fun.

Speaker 22 But this team's more fun.

Speaker 73 Cardell is fun.

Speaker 34 Yeah.

Speaker 17 But it went 59-0 against Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 49 was that the one we were at? No.

Speaker 24 The one we were at, Wisconsin only lost by like seven.

Speaker 19 So, two other things.

Speaker 40 One is we already taped our preview.

Speaker 39 We obviously didn't know because they reported it later in the day, but the game in LA is being moved to Arizona.

Speaker 18 Obviously, we hope everyone's okay.

Speaker 4 Oh, actually, we didn't talk about that game, so we'll talk about that game on Sunday.

Speaker 32 Yeah, but we do hope everybody's okay.

Speaker 44 Yeah, yeah, we do hope everyone's game.

Speaker 22 But yeah, that's

Speaker 23 I don't know, it's gonna be weird.

Speaker 72 I don't know if there's enough, I mean, there's got to be.

Speaker 32 It's the first game, first playoff game that has changed location since like the 1930s. Oh, shit.

Speaker 32 There was a game, it was, I forget who was playing against Boston at the time because Boston had a football team, but then they moved that game to the polo grounds because favorite stadium because there weren't enough tickets sold.

Speaker 6 Polo Grounds is such a fun stadium just to look at.

Speaker 7 Yeah, they should have played that game in St. Louis.

Speaker 22 What? Oh, they should have.

Speaker 74 That would have rocked. For the Rams fans.

Speaker 49 That would have rocked. Yep.

Speaker 59 Yep. You're right.

Speaker 22 They should have played that game in St.

Speaker 34 Louis.

Speaker 49 Fuck.

Speaker 71 That would have been cool. Yeah, that is weird.

Speaker 32 Like, you think a bunch of people from LA are going to be able to go to that game? They're probably all just worried about their homes and figuring out what to do.

Speaker 73 Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 22 And there's probably a decent amount of Vikings fans down in Arizona, maybe for the winter.

Speaker 11 I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 32 Or retirees.

Speaker 34 Yeah, right.

Speaker 35 Mm-hmm. So

Speaker 20 weird, weird setup.

Speaker 6 The other one was a stat that came from Zan B21.

Speaker 42 And we should have seen this because it should have been in the preview.

Speaker 1 But since 2017, Sean Payton is 30-12 against bald head coaches.

Speaker 32 It's a pretty big sample size.

Speaker 3 He's going up against Sean McDermott on Sunday.

Speaker 24 That makes me very nervous because I love the Bills in that game.

Speaker 32 Yeah, so you read them off earlier. A number of those were Dan Quinn games.

Speaker 46 A lot of them were Dan Quinn games.

Speaker 32 A lot of them were Dan Quinn games. Yeah.
There was a, was there a Caldwell in there?

Speaker 54 There was a Caldwell.

Speaker 1 So Zan B21 only showed, he

Speaker 2 basically everyone was like, this is bullshit.

Speaker 22 And he's like, you don't think I did my work?

Speaker 1 So he showed 2017 through 2019.

Speaker 3 There was a Caldwell.

Speaker 3 There was a Sean McDermott.

Speaker 35 There was a Todd Bowles.

Speaker 6 There was four Dan Quinn wins.

Speaker 32 You also mentioned Mike Tomlin. I don't think Mike Tomlin is bald, or at least I don't think that he was bald.
Like, he's definitely thinning,

Speaker 32 but I don't think he was bald at the time.

Speaker 17 Ah, he's pretty bald.

Speaker 32 I think he shaved his head recently, but if you go back like two years ago,

Speaker 32 I think Mike Tomlin had hair.

Speaker 6 But Mike Tomlin 2017, can you even find that?

Speaker 32 Mike Tomlin. Coach's photo.

Speaker 13 2017.

Speaker 65 Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 34 He had a little more hair there, if this is correct.

Speaker 6 So maybe Zan B 21, maybe we shouldn't trust this stat.

Speaker 32 I like the stat, though. It's a great stat.
I appreciate the legwork that he did.

Speaker 22 It's the kind of stat you need.

Speaker 49 Okay.

Speaker 10 Let's kick it to ourselves for more football talk.

Speaker 17 We're going to preview every game for Saturday, Sunday.

Speaker 22 Max, are you okay?

Speaker 63 Birds now.

Speaker 7 Birds. Yeah, birds.
Birds.

Speaker 49 Birds.

Speaker 7 I'm a Pen Safe fan, but I'm.

Speaker 84 This isn't Eagles.

Speaker 7 This isn't Eagles.

Speaker 77 Connor Griffin.

Speaker 7 I feel bad for Connor Griffin. He's devastated.
That was one that I felt bad. I feel bad for Connor Griffin.
I feel bad for my older brother. Yeah.

Speaker 7 That's basically how.

Speaker 32 Jeff D. Lowe.

Speaker 7 Jeff D. Lowe.
I feel bad for Jeff D. Lowe.
I feel bad for myself a little bit, but I feel more bad for them.

Speaker 32 What's that like feeling?

Speaker 2 Do you feel bad for yourself?

Speaker 9 Like you should, you feel bad for yourself because you rooted for the same team as them is what you feel bad for. Like it wasn't Penn State.

Speaker 74 Hank's calling you a loser. I am a loser.

Speaker 9 Like if you weren't rooting for Penn State, then Connor Griffin and Jeff D. Lowe might have won that game.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 But if I had to lose this game to win on Sunday, I will take that trade.

Speaker 32 Is that what the trade is, though?

Speaker 49 That's not how it works.

Speaker 7 It could be. You don't know that.

Speaker 32 If you're such a loser that your mere presence made other people lose a game, then do you think rooting for your own team is going to be better?

Speaker 7 You can't help it. You guys are going to win.

Speaker 7 I don't know what you want me to say. Eagles, it is.

Speaker 49 Memes, you shouldn't laugh like that.

Speaker 36 Drew Aller is going to be your next quarterback.

Speaker 49 I'm in.

Speaker 15 No, memes.

Speaker 7 Memes just kept saying he wants Tyler Warren to be his next quarterback.

Speaker 71 I mean, he's the next Josh Allen according to Coward.

Speaker 49 No, that's Riley Leonard. Riley Leonard.
Oh, fuck. Yeah.

Speaker 32 I could actually imagine Riley Leonard running a Browns offense better than DTR.

Speaker 71 Oh, well, anyone could.

Speaker 49 I think Tyler Warren could run that offense.

Speaker 49 That's a low bar.

Speaker 22 All right, let's kick it to ourselves for some weekend preview, then Dan Orlofsky talking more football.

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Speaker 32 Fuck that. I'm going to call it Super Wild Card Weekend.
Insane. I'm going to do it.

Speaker 22 Do it. Stop me.

Speaker 32 It's the biggest wildcard weekend of them all.

Speaker 75 Do it.

Speaker 32 How do I say it? It's super wildcard weekend.

Speaker 79 Thank you.

Speaker 82 We're not going to let them take the super out of wild card weekend.

Speaker 32 Yeah, what is it? Just the bowl now?

Speaker 52 That's the listen.

Speaker 10 They take the super out of wild card weekend.

Speaker 50 The next thing that's going to happen is going to be just the bowl.

Speaker 32 It's a slippery slope. Freedom of speech, Roger.

Speaker 25 Yeah.

Speaker 62 So

Speaker 57 that news, that was also brought to you by our good friend Mike Florio, which I love that he was on the beat for that.

Speaker 20 He was like, the NFL is slowly taking away the super word in wildcard weekend without anyone knowing.

Speaker 32 Wait, did they slowly take it away or have they taken away?

Speaker 74 All right, I'm pulling it up.

Speaker 64 Super wildcard is no more. This is from Florio.

Speaker 18 Wildcard weekend is no longer super in name, at least.

Speaker 18 After noticing on Tuesday the conspicuous absence of the name that emerged when the NFL added two more playoff berths and created a six-game opening round, we asked the league if Super has been sixth.

Speaker 90 Super debuted during the 2020 season playoffs when the NFL introduced a new wildcard format and the addition of a team from each conference making the playoffs, the first change since 1990.

Speaker 24 The league said via email, I just love that Florio emailed the league about this.

Speaker 18 Super was used the last four seasons to help differentiate from the previous 30 years of the Saturday-Sunday schedule and the further drive awareness of the three days of wildcard games.

Speaker 28 It served its purpose as fans have responded.

Speaker 66 Well, well, it has been retired.

Speaker 42 There's no doubt the wildcard games will continue to be super.

Speaker 40 This is the best story ever.

Speaker 49 Okay.

Speaker 80 I mean, Florio just saying, hey, where the fuck is the super?

Speaker 63 I got to email the league.

Speaker 32 That's an eagle eye that he had right there. He noticed.
Like Florio's the king of noticing shit like that.

Speaker 32 I what do you think the NFL is taking it away because they're going to move the word super to something else that they're planning on innovating? Yeah.

Speaker 55 And that would be confusing.

Speaker 52 Yeah.

Speaker 32 Like the 18-game season? Is that going to be the super season?

Speaker 32 Yeah, because you can't have super season season, mega season.

Speaker 32 How about mega wildcard weekend?

Speaker 57 I'm in for mega wildcard weekend.

Speaker 32 Let's get mega with it.

Speaker 2 Do you think they're ever going to go to eight teams?

Speaker 15 I hope not.

Speaker 45 Actually, that would be kind of fun.

Speaker 32 When they put the team in London and they put the team in Brazil, then I think we might go to

Speaker 63 more football, more better.

Speaker 2 Should we say, real quick, before we get into the games?

Speaker 52 It is Super Wildcard weekend.

Speaker 64 We still say that on this show.

Speaker 43 Do we want to do a real quick, updated,

Speaker 20 what teams do you think can win the Super Bowl this year?

Speaker 15 Okay.

Speaker 29 I have

Speaker 3 five teams,

Speaker 35 and it might look stupid.

Speaker 45 I think

Speaker 90 they all can, technically.

Speaker 24 I have five teams, and it might look really dumb when

Speaker 93 one of those teams is not in it, and the other one wins.

Speaker 22 But my five teams are the Philadelphia Eagles, the Detroit Lions,

Speaker 64 the Baltimore Ravens, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Buffalo Bills.

Speaker 32 Okay, I got the Kansas City Chiefs, the Buffalo Bills, the Baltimore Ravens, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Detroit Lions. That's five.
The Washington Commanders.

Speaker 24 You got to.

Speaker 32 And the Dallas Cowboys. Okay.
Micah Parsons just said that they've got the best team, and going into next season, they should be Super Bowl champions. It just didn't show on paper this season.

Speaker 45 Just need it.

Speaker 40 No scoreboards.

Speaker 89 They're the winners. Also,

Speaker 22 an update from Dallas.

Speaker 48 Apparently, so the Cowboys Cowboys blocked the interview with Mike McCarthy to the Bears, and then it was a report that Jerry Jones and Mike McCarthy spent significant time together Tuesday and Wednesday.

Speaker 32 They're getting shit done. That's great.
It's a power meeting. That's awesome.

Speaker 32 Are you happy that they blocked Mike? I am happy they blocked him. Like, thank you to Dallas.
Yes, thank you, Dallas.

Speaker 25 It's also just like kind of fucked up what they're doing, where they're

Speaker 20 putting him in limbo, and if they don't re-sign him, he might miss his window to get another job.

Speaker 43 Yeah, I don't know. Like at this point, you have to resign him.

Speaker 32 If you put Mike McCarthy in limbo, buddy,

Speaker 32 that floor is going to get broken. Yeah.
So I think what's going to happen is they're going to re-sign him.

Speaker 32 I don't think that they would deny him an opportunity to look for a job and then say, yeah, sorry, we're actually not going to re-sign you because Deion just agreed to come to town.

Speaker 32 So good luck out there, Mike. I agree.
Have fun. Go get a mic.
Speaking of

Speaker 32 Deion, I know that he's been connected to the Raiders at some points. The Raiders also reached out to Hank's good friend, Bill Belichick.

Speaker 32 Tom Brady sent out an olive branch branch to Bill to see if Bill would be interested in joining the Raiders. I don't know if Bill has responded.
He is, I guess, busy on the recruiting trail right now.

Speaker 32 I saw a couple pictures of him meeting with recruits. So he is actually like going boots on the ground, meeting with prospects.

Speaker 32 But Hank, how would you feel if Tom Brady and Bill got back together one last ride, but it was for the Raiders?

Speaker 29 I'd be happy.

Speaker 9 I'd be happy to see it.

Speaker 9 I was saying it to you yesterday, PFT. It's like parents getting divorced.

Speaker 9 I'm grown up. It's no longer, you know, my my childhood, but I would like to see them come together and bring that joy and love to another fan base.
That wouldn't bother me.

Speaker 32 That's very big of you to say that.

Speaker 32 I think it's actually a fucked up move for the Raiders to do this. Like, embarrassing for the Raiders to do this.

Speaker 75 Yeah.

Speaker 32 To have the two guys who were responsible for your saddest moment, your most heartbreaking moment, the tuck rule, that you're still angry about. Now you're like, hey, can you just come fix us? Yeah.

Speaker 32 After you broke us? Yeah.

Speaker 43 Yeah, we need your help.

Speaker 32 Also, if you look at the Raiders' coaches, they've had like 16 coaches in the last 30 years.

Speaker 73 I think it was 12 and 20.

Speaker 55 It's insane.

Speaker 32 Yeah, so I think they're averaging one and a half years per coach,

Speaker 32 which is absolutely nuts.

Speaker 44 Not a way to do it. No.

Speaker 32 But yeah, that would be fun. Now, I obviously be fucked for college football if Belichick was just like, yeah, you know what? I'm going back to the NFL.

Speaker 32 But as fans of storylines, which we are, would be incredible. It would be incredible.
Maybe you can coach both.

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 22 Saturdays and Sundays.

Speaker 50 yeah feeder system um okay let's get to some games i'm excited for these games i'm excited this is this is i know i i have a bunch of top weekends but in sports like wild super wild card weekend is is very high up there especially because we have college football playoffs too like this is a weekend i look forward to all year yeah when you say that like feast week is your favorite week that's one of those that's i have like seven favorite sports weeks you got feast

Speaker 32 hand up feast week feels like the outlier the others are conference championship week yep First weekend of March Madness. Second weekend of March Madness, but really first weekend.
The Masters.

Speaker 59 Kentucky Derby.

Speaker 58 And usually when there's a big fight and there's the NBA and NHL playoffs.

Speaker 58 Super wild card weekend, divisional round weekend.

Speaker 10 Conference championship weekend.

Speaker 32 I'm usually more of a fan of divisional round weekend, but for some reason this year,

Speaker 32 the super really, it got to me. Yeah.
It is super.

Speaker 20 And then just throw in a random October weekend when the slate is just insane and it's like, you know, five awesome college football matchups and five awesome NFL matchups.

Speaker 32 Yeah, no, I'm very excited for this weekend. The game should be awesome, and

Speaker 32 yeah, this is just an exciting time to be alive. It is.

Speaker 31 All right, so first game up: Chargers at Texans.

Speaker 99 I updated my lines last night.

Speaker 35 Let me make sure they're all good.

Speaker 25 Chargers at Texans, I believe.

Speaker 94 Sorry, this is bad.

Speaker 25 Chargers at Texans, I think the Texans are three-point.

Speaker 80 Yes, so three-point underdogs at home. Over-under is 42.5.

Speaker 18 This is a tough game for me because

Speaker 42 the Chargers

Speaker 43 should win this game.

Speaker 21 The Texans' offense is not good.

Speaker 99 It has proven to be not good all year.

Speaker 18 They are 31st in early down success rate, but the Houston defense is very good.

Speaker 21 And we also have a fun matchup.

Speaker 18 Lad McConkey is going up against his former teammate, Kamari Lasseter.

Speaker 22 And I think Lad has said that he is the toughest cornerback he ever played in practice at Georgia.

Speaker 49 But

Speaker 16 I'm believing in the Chargers.

Speaker 22 I'm just a little hesitant because I do think Houston's defense is that good and they can keep him in this game and muck it up.

Speaker 32 So is it going to be against Lasseter or is it going to be against Stingley?

Speaker 22 It depends on where he goes.

Speaker 18 I mean, if he's in the slot, it's going to be Lasseter.

Speaker 32 Yeah, I was thinking

Speaker 32 this game is, you know what it is? It's strength for strength all around because you've got good cornerbacks.

Speaker 32 against Ladd, and then you've got some other wide receivers who are going to have to step up. I actually like Josh Palmer in this game a lot.

Speaker 32 But then you have the two defensive ends for Houston. You've got

Speaker 32 Hunter and Will Anderson going up against Alton Slater. Yep.

Speaker 71 Strength on strength.

Speaker 32 The Anchors, strength on strength game.

Speaker 32 And then there's just

Speaker 32 a lot of cool shit to keep your eye on in this game.

Speaker 32 The Texans, according to Sports Info Solutions, is 25th in the league with a 0.22 EPA per play when opponents are targeting the middle of the field.

Speaker 32 But they are first in the NFL with negative 0.11 EPA per play when opponents target the perimeter of the field, which would seem to say it will be a tough day for Lad to eat. Yeah.

Speaker 32 The lad's not going to eat on Sunday. Yeah, and that's kind of why I like Josh Ballmer.

Speaker 4 On the reverse side,

Speaker 31 the Chargers do play a lot of too high safety.

Speaker 24 And when Stroud goes up against it, he's eight touchdowns, seven interception, and his passer rating is 31st in the NFL against that type of defense.

Speaker 20 We also have Jim Harbon knowing Nico Collins, which is the only weapon the Texans have.

Speaker 37 Yep.

Speaker 18 Recruited him, played for him.

Speaker 5 Here's another one I had.

Speaker 101 Houston versus top 10 DVOA defenses because the Chargers rank ninth in DVOA.

Speaker 25 Minnesota, the second DVOA defense, they lost 34-7.

Speaker 57 Baltimore, the sixth, they lost 31-2.

Speaker 50 Detroit, the fifth, they lost 26-23.

Speaker 94 And Green Bay, the seventh, they lost 24-22.

Speaker 32 So they are 0-4 against those top 10 DVOA defenses.

Speaker 25 And like I said, the Chargers are a top 10 DVOA defense.

Speaker 42 Everything we just have said is just like you you should just take the under.

Speaker 32 I was just going to say, did we become an analytics podcast? A little bit there.

Speaker 13 Listen. Touched on it.

Speaker 32 All right, how about this? Let's just get anti-analytics.

Speaker 66 I have a dumb analytics staff for you that's just looking at game logs.

Speaker 82 J.K.

Speaker 92 Dobbins, when he's hurt or he left the game against Baltimore, the Chargers are 2-3.

Speaker 88 When he's healthy, they're 9-3.

Speaker 73 Okay, I like that. Yeah, it's just dumb analytics.

Speaker 17 I literally just looked at the game logs, like, oh, he didn't play there, they lost.

Speaker 32 Okay, here's my dumb analytics. Jim Harbaugh hates losing.

Speaker 32 I think he hates losing more than D'Amico Ryans hates losing.

Speaker 48 Jim Harbaugh also claims that he remembers the day he was born.

Speaker 55 Yeah, yeah. I remember,

Speaker 32 wasn't this a thing, a story that we heard like over the summertime? But then Justin Herbert brought it up at a press conference.

Speaker 32 He's like, when I knew that I liked Jim, was when he told me that he remembers being born. Yeah.
He's putting his head down, hitting daylight. Yeah.
Maybe he hit the C-gap if it was sliced open.

Speaker 32 But there's

Speaker 32 a fun thing in this game that we always do every year. It's the MVP game.
This is the slime slimetime game on Nickelodeon. We got to give the MVP to Harbaugh if they win, right? Is that a possibility?

Speaker 24 He would love it.

Speaker 61 He would

Speaker 69 earnestly accept that with just so much love in his heart.

Speaker 32 Yeah, he'd be like, this is what happens when you dedicate yourself, you put your mind to it, and you fight with a ferocity that no one's ever seen.

Speaker 32 It would be good for kids. It would be good for America and America's children if they could see Jim Harbaugh win the MVP.

Speaker 74 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 32 He'd probably have it presented to him by SpongeBob.

Speaker 32 Which would be a fucking dream come true.

Speaker 102 Starbaugh would be starstruck.

Speaker 32 He would be like, okay, first, I'm going to move my championship trophy from college football to the side, and the MVP goes right there because SpongeBob gave it to me.

Speaker 64 So, is everyone, where's everyone thinking in this game?

Speaker 10 I do think the Chargers win.

Speaker 22 I'm a little nervous about three just because it does feel like it's going to be a low-scoring, knock-down, drag-out fight.

Speaker 74 Yeah,

Speaker 32 there's a pattern for me this weekend, and that is there are a lot of teams that it seems like every single analyst out there is picking the Chargers. Yeah.

Speaker 32 That makes me think: what if the Texans just play like they played last year?

Speaker 32 That's stupid because we've been waiting for the Texans to do that.

Speaker 22 That Browns game is kind of a similar spot.

Speaker 58 I think the Texans might have been underdogs in that game.

Speaker 22 I can't remember, but that was, yeah, they kicked the shit out of the Browns.

Speaker 32 And I think we thought last year this might be the last time we see the Texans in this time slot. Right.

Speaker 101 But the Texans also,

Speaker 23 you kind of are what you are.

Speaker 42 They have not been been a good offense this year.

Speaker 74 So last year they were a lot better of an offense.

Speaker 58 I also, we should say, I mean, the fires in L.A.

Speaker 74 are like horrific, really, really sad.

Speaker 20 Hope everyone who's in AWL is safe and okay. I wonder if there is, is there a human element?

Speaker 93 Because like the, you're living in a city if you're a Charger and it's burning down right now.

Speaker 32 Yeah, you're wondering if your house is okay while you're in there. Yeah.

Speaker 63 I don't know. Just something to throw in there.

Speaker 57 I just more hope that everyone's okay and

Speaker 24 anyone who listens is doing okay.

Speaker 32 Yeah, agreed with that.

Speaker 32 i i do like the chargers though i can't i can't talk myself into the texans i will talk myself into one of these other teams but i'm not doing it for the texans max we got to win this game and then we can cash out our future if we want to cash out it i that's what i was just looking at it's not it's not great it's even right now or a little less right it

Speaker 7 it's a little bit less right now the chargers are 30 to 1 but this was the plan chargers win one playoff game i'm holding for the chiefs okay i think the chargers if the chargers play the chiefs

Speaker 7 divisional opponent, I'm holding for the Chiefs.

Speaker 31 They got a chance.

Speaker 1 Okay, next game, Saturday night, Steelers at Ravens.

Speaker 18 Ravens minus nine and a half over under 43.5.

Speaker 19 I'm very interested to see if Zay Flowers plays.

Speaker 22 That's a big one because I don't,

Speaker 93 there's nothing that tells me the Steelers can win this game unless the Ravens have their number one receiver gone.

Speaker 52 So Zay Flowers has 24% target rate, so a quarter of the targets, and he also has a quarter of the team's total receiving yards.

Speaker 80 If he doesn't play, maybe it's a Tomlin muck it up.

Speaker 2 If he plays, like, where's the Steelers' offense coming from?

Speaker 61 They've looked so bad.

Speaker 32 It's non-existent. What about this?

Speaker 32 Tomlin surprises the world, starts Justin Fields.

Speaker 23 Probably not any better. No, probably not.

Speaker 32 But I do think that if Zay Flowers doesn't play, then that plays obviously into the hands of the Steelers, who are very, very good against the run.

Speaker 32 But the Ravens are different against the run.

Speaker 32 Also, the Ravens' defense is since making the change and since moving Kyle Hamilton back to more of a free safety role or playing him deep, the Ravens defense is like number one in every category.

Speaker 20 Yeah, so we're going to talk more about it with Dan Orlofsky because he breaks it down what they changed.

Speaker 97 But since week 11, when they made the change, they have the top pass defense in the NFL.

Speaker 41 So that's pretty crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 63 They were 30th weeks one through 10.

Speaker 32 I think top pass defense, maybe top scoring defense since making that change.

Speaker 18 They're just an all-around sound team, and

Speaker 15 I want, like, part of me.

Speaker 82 So if I was going to make the case for the Steelers, it's Zay Flowers being out.

Speaker 80 It's Justin Tucker being a little shaky.

Speaker 20 Like,

Speaker 93 this has got to be the first time in the Ravens,

Speaker 10 Justin Tucker history that the other team has the edge in kicking.

Speaker 20 Chris Boswell has had a better year than Justin Tucker.

Speaker 93 And then the Ravens are

Speaker 18 second in the league in penalties, 132 penalties this year.

Speaker 74 And we've seen it.

Speaker 23 They've had games where they've been right there and that little

Speaker 33 thing will happen.

Speaker 18 It's not fully sound, not buttoned up.

Speaker 80 So that would be my case for the Steelers.

Speaker 22 But I feel like that's not a very strong case, and the Ravens are going to win.

Speaker 32 I think that there's a path for the Steelers, though.

Speaker 29 This is me. Give me the path.

Speaker 72 Let's close our eyes and

Speaker 32 give me talking myself into the Steelers.

Speaker 32 They play very, very hard against the Ravens.

Speaker 32 This is not a good first-round matchup for the Ravens.

Speaker 96 How cold is it?

Speaker 49 Let's set the set of it.

Speaker 32 Okay, here's the night game. Night game.

Speaker 32 It is 27 degrees in Baltimore. Windy.
The flags on top of the goalpost swirling.

Speaker 75 Okay.

Speaker 32 Like Acrature Stadium.

Speaker 42 TJ Watt, what's his hair?

Speaker 32 TJ Watt has a fresh bully cut. Okay.
He looks healthy. Okay.

Speaker 32 Justin Fields is coming in not just on third and short. Okay.
He's coming in on second down sometimes.

Speaker 35 I don't know why I still have my eyes closed. Okay.

Speaker 48 Lamar may be wearing a little too many undergarments.

Speaker 75 Yeah.

Speaker 23 Like a little too, hey, Lamar, you're like, you didn't need all those layers.

Speaker 32 Yeah. Mike Tomlin has two hats on, putting a hat on, a hat, two wool caps on,

Speaker 32 and the opening kickoff, returned by the Ravens. Mike Tomlin steps onto the field and lays that motherfucker out.

Speaker 32 Sets the tone. That's Pittsburgh football.
And that's it.

Speaker 62 What's the weather, Max?

Speaker 74 Cold game.

Speaker 8 Too quick for me.

Speaker 79 So I.

Speaker 80 Also, Russie, like, George Pickens has to do something.

Speaker 41 Yep.

Speaker 21 And 25,

Speaker 90 28 degrees.

Speaker 32 I kind of nailed that degree. Yeah.

Speaker 45 It doesn't look like. That's today.
Oh, that's today. All right.

Speaker 31 Give us Saturday.

Speaker 7 41 and sunny.

Speaker 49 Oh, what?

Speaker 15 No, wait, wait. It's a night game.
It's a night game.

Speaker 32 Max, you dummy, that's going to be.

Speaker 78 That's Sunday. It's 39.

Speaker 9 It's 31 degrees at 7.30. Okay.

Speaker 32 It's pretty close. Yeah, that was.

Speaker 46 Probably indignant.

Speaker 18 Not a lot of wind, but we can manufacture wind.

Speaker 32 Yeah, we've seeded clouds. Just have one side of the stadium fart at the same time.

Speaker 32 So

Speaker 32 there's some bulletin board material going around. Okay.
Have you seen the... We got to get Jerry on this case, actually, because it involves cologne.

Speaker 98 Oh.

Speaker 32 So Lamar Jackson has his own cologne. Willie? Yeah.

Speaker 13 Oh.

Speaker 32 Lamar Jackson has his own cologne. Okay.
It's for men and women, so whatever that is, unisex cologne. How does that work?

Speaker 24 I don't know.

Speaker 32 They pass it around the locker room in Baltimore, and you can hear guys in the background talking about the cologne as being passed around. They're asking, how does it smell? How does it smell?

Speaker 32 And one guy says, soft. It smells soft, just like George Pickens.
Oh, that's been going viral. And you know that George just, he needs something like this to lock himself back in.

Speaker 32 Now, it did come out later, I should say.

Speaker 32 They weren't talking about the cologne. It was somebody in the background talking about another thing related to George Pickens.
They were looking at a picture of a guy. Okay.

Speaker 32 And they're like, yeah, yeah, the profile looks kind of, they were just saying this guy looks like George Pickens. But it doesn't matter because the clip already went out there.

Speaker 32 So don't pass, do not correct, nobody show George Pickens the community notes on this if you're a Steelers fan. Right.

Speaker 34 I also,

Speaker 93 George Pickens might be the one guy that you would want to talk shit to because he probably is now just like, all I have to do, all I want to do is fight.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 19 You know?

Speaker 44 You can get him out of his game very easily.

Speaker 32 This could be Art of War shit from Harbaugh here. Yeah.

Speaker 22 I'm excited for this game, though.

Speaker 20 I hope it's a close game.

Speaker 18 I don't want...

Speaker 5 This is the one game that I'm very nervous could be a blowout

Speaker 10 just because I mean, the Steelers, I think it's happened twice that a team has made the playoffs on a four-game losing streak.

Speaker 25 Both teams lost.

Speaker 35 And so I don't.

Speaker 32 Their offense sucks.

Speaker 101 Their offense sucks.

Speaker 32 They can't do anything.

Speaker 65 Their defense got a little bit better.

Speaker 21 Their defense is pretty good.

Speaker 82 I mean, they held the Bengals out of the end zone for 57 minutes of that game.

Speaker 32 Yeah, so there is a path here

Speaker 32 if If TJ can get a couple turnovers from Lamar,

Speaker 32 Bully Cut, then it could happen, potentially. But

Speaker 32 it's unlikely. There was also a video of, I think it was a hard knocks, of Cam Hayward and Russell Wilson after the last game.
Russell going up to him on the field after the game being like, okay,

Speaker 32 we just got to win four in a row now. That's on us.
We've got to win four. And Cam Hayward's just like, yeah.

Speaker 45 Yeah, just like completely.

Speaker 74 Oh, no.

Speaker 32 Can you pull up the video?

Speaker 32 I would like to listen to this video again.

Speaker 26 Hey, Spurg Steel.

Speaker 98 hey, let's go win the last four. All right? Look at me.
Let's go. We can do it.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 98 You feel me? Let's go win the last four.

Speaker 75 Oh, no.

Speaker 32 Yeah, Cam's just like, it's like a.

Speaker 31 Russ's leadership is starting to maybe wear a little thin.

Speaker 32 It's like a fly buzzing around a horse's eye. Yeah.
It's just like, get the fuck away from me, dude.

Speaker 3 And they're, and like, Cam really wants to just be like, hey, dude, how about just throw over the middle of the field?

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 32 Yeah, we just shut down Joe Burrow.

Speaker 98 Yeah.

Speaker 18 We held him. Yeah, we held him to 19 points.

Speaker 24 Can you please just try to win this game?

Speaker 32 Please do something. I do think that Justin might get on the field a little bit more.

Speaker 71 It would be cool.

Speaker 61 Add an element. Yeah.

Speaker 49 Okay.

Speaker 35 Sunday.

Speaker 18 Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

Speaker 33 We have the Broncos at the Bills. Bills, minus 8.5.

Speaker 28 Over-under is 46.5.

Speaker 97 Very funny when reporters asked Josh Allen what Joe Brady has brought to the offense this year.

Speaker 25 He said, because they were asking about him interviewing for head coaching jobs, he said nothing teams should stay away from him.

Speaker 20 I think I love the over in this game.

Speaker 74 I love it. I love it, love it, love it.

Speaker 20 I think that, I mean, the weakness of the Bills is their defense has not been great.

Speaker 11 They've had games where they've looked good, but they just have not, like, they were that Rams game, that Lions game.

Speaker 18 I know they won the Lions game, but if you ask any Bills fan, that's the concern is their defense has not

Speaker 59 been, you know, up to snuff for the back half of the year.

Speaker 18 And Josh Allen has been playing out of his mind.

Speaker 25 I think that he will not be stopped either.

Speaker 59 So, I like the over.

Speaker 32 I think the Bills are going to do everything they can to not let Bonex hit any deep shots. Yeah.
And make Bone, if you're going to score against us,

Speaker 32 you have to take your offense down the field. Yeah.
I'm going to need seven completions out of you on this drive and bait him with stuff underneath. Yeah.

Speaker 32 That to me is the Bills' game plan because Denver's going to try to run the ball. They're not that good at it, but they're going to try to do it.

Speaker 32 The Bills' rush defense is pretty good. And then if you can make Bonex play, if he can make one mistake,

Speaker 32 then I think the Bills are definitely going to win. If Bonex plays a mistake-free game, they have a shot.

Speaker 31 We got a shot.

Speaker 59 So this is one of the, there's three of these.

Speaker 24 QBs making their first playoff start versus QBs who have playoff experience.

Speaker 25 The QBs making their first playoff start in that situation are 34% against the spread since 2002.

Speaker 76 So not great track record.

Speaker 23 You got to think.

Speaker 76 I think one of the three quarterbacks that are making their first playoff start this year,

Speaker 18 Jaden Daniels, Bonix, Sam Darnold, one of those three is going to win the game.

Speaker 20 I think the other two might be in trouble.

Speaker 45 I don't know how to pick those.

Speaker 49 It's kind of like a whack-a-mole,

Speaker 20 which one's going to show up in the other two.

Speaker 3 But like, statistically speaking, a guy making his first playoff start versus a guy who's played in the playoffs before, it's a disadvantage for the guy making his first playoff start.

Speaker 32 It's also a disadvantage to be playing against Josh Allen, Kerry Buffalo Bills, Kirk Buffalo.

Speaker 49 Correct.

Speaker 32 All true. As good as they are right now.

Speaker 49 All true.

Speaker 32 All true. Yeah, I love Buffalo.
Is Von Miller maybe revenge game here? Ooh. He said it's a full circle moment.
I don't know what that means. Full circle.

Speaker 32 What is that button on PlayStation? He went full circle. Spin move? Spin move.
Spin move. So look for Von Miller's spin move.
That's what he means.

Speaker 57 How is this a full circle moment?

Speaker 32 Von Miller? Yeah, he's just talking

Speaker 32 to

Speaker 9 the playoffs when they won. He's just playing the Broncos?

Speaker 32 He's playing against the Broncos.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I know, but.

Speaker 49 Full circle.

Speaker 62 Wouldn't full circle be if the Bills were playing against Texas AM?

Speaker 74 Like,

Speaker 9 if the Broncos beat the Bills in their original run,

Speaker 15 yeah, right.

Speaker 32 Then it'd be full circle, but full circle moment is just playing against a team that you used to play on.

Speaker 34 Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 32 Full circle moment. I don't think it's full circle.

Speaker 75 I don't know.

Speaker 35 I don't know what shape it is.

Speaker 49 Yeah, like, yeah.

Speaker 32 I like the Bills.

Speaker 9 I like the Bills as well. I mean, we know what they didn't.

Speaker 49 All right.

Speaker 52 Packers at Eagles.

Speaker 77 Eagles minus four and a half, over under 44.5.

Speaker 20 Max, do we have any reports?

Speaker 90 The time of this taping, the time is at 10.45.

Speaker 7 By the time that you listen, Jalen Hurts will be out of concussion protocol.

Speaker 71 Let's go.

Speaker 49 But wait, let's go.

Speaker 32 Max, you told me several times this week that when he woke up on Thursday morning, he'd be out of concussion protocol. He is.

Speaker 7 They just haven't reported it yet.

Speaker 32 He's awake right now.

Speaker 7 He doesn't have symptoms.

Speaker 32 How do you know?

Speaker 7 I know. You don't know.
Me and my guy, we... I know.

Speaker 32 You don't know.

Speaker 7 He doesn't have symptoms.

Speaker 32 He's good to go. You said when he opens his eyes on Thursday, he's going to be out.

Speaker 7 Correct, because all he needs to do is wake up without symptoms. And I know that he woke up without symptoms.
They just haven't reported to the media that they woke up.

Speaker 7 Nick Siriani is trying to keep everyone guessing.

Speaker 7 Why would he give up information earlier than he has to give out information?

Speaker 32 I think he does have to give out information today, though.

Speaker 7 Today, yeah. Yeah.
So by the time that the listeners are listening to this, he will be out of protocol.

Speaker 32 I actually agree with you. I think he's going to be fine.

Speaker 64 Yeah, I think he's going to be fine too.

Speaker 17 And I like the Eagles in this game.

Speaker 2 Here's the problem.

Speaker 31 Here's the thing, Max, that we can't have happen.

Speaker 88 The Eagles cannot start slow.

Speaker 62 The Eagles are.

Speaker 7 They always start slow. I know.

Speaker 18 They're 21st in, but especially in this game, they're 21st in first quarter scoring, and the Packers are fourth in first quarter scoring.

Speaker 15 That's not good.

Speaker 64 You don't want to be down and have the Packers be able to lean on Josh Jacobs and have them be able to control this game.

Speaker 41 And there is a little, here's my biggest concern.

Speaker 18 Jordan Love is not, I mean, I think last year he was ascending at the end.

Speaker 74 This year, the Packers are probably a better team overall, but they weren't playing better towards the end of the season.

Speaker 20 Like last year, they were playing well towards the end of the season.

Speaker 22 That game against the Cowboys was crazy.

Speaker 48 He played a perfect football game. That was his first playoff start.

Speaker 57 I'm worried that that guy's going to show up.

Speaker 32 They're the only seven seed to win a playoff game.

Speaker 45 Yeah.

Speaker 32 The other seven seeds are one and seven all the time. So

Speaker 32 that team is the only one that's done it before.

Speaker 7 That's what I've been saying all week. What's your biggest worry? It's nothing really about

Speaker 7 what I've seen on the field the past couple of weeks. It's really just the vibe of the Green Bay Packers as a seven seed coming off of last year.
Yeah.

Speaker 7 Like the Eagles are better than the Packers in almost every category of the game, but it's still the Green Bay Packers.

Speaker 7 They still have a really good coach

Speaker 7 and they've done it before.

Speaker 56 And they know it.

Speaker 7 And they're not scared.

Speaker 7 That's what I'm scared of is that

Speaker 7 we're not playing a seven seed that is scared of

Speaker 7 the big guns.

Speaker 32 Yeah, so let's do a guy off real quick. Is there anybody at the same position on the Packers who's better than on the Eagles?

Speaker 71 Quarterback?

Speaker 7 I would take Jalen Hurts.

Speaker 32 Running back.

Speaker 7 I would take Saquon Barkley.

Speaker 32 Left and right tackles. I would take our guy.

Speaker 72 Yeah, no, you guys have a better

Speaker 74 kicker.

Speaker 72 But yeah, you guys have better wide receivers.

Speaker 32 Better cornerbacks.

Speaker 98 Yeah.

Speaker 71 What about coach?

Speaker 7 Best winning percentage in the NFL.

Speaker 50 You didn't answer the question. No, I didn't.

Speaker 7 No, not coach.

Speaker 73 I also think Vic Fanjio is going to have a little bit.

Speaker 22 I mean, I think he already has an edge because Christian Watson being out is a big deal.

Speaker 59 Like, that's, I know that he's, you know, Packers are like, well, he doesn't, he has stones for hands, but he's a field stretcher.

Speaker 10 He is the guy who can get open deep, and you have to worry about his speed at all times.

Speaker 18 That definitely changes the dynamic of what the Packers can do and what the Eagles can do in terms of defending the Packers.

Speaker 7 And even if you go back to that week one game, the Eagles still won that game. Jair Alexander was playing in that game.
A.J. Brown torched him, but then

Speaker 7 Jaden Reed torched Avante Maddox, but Avante Maddox is no longer our nickel corner. Cooper DeGene is now our nickel corner who's been one of the best in the league since he's come in.

Speaker 7 So the Eagles won that game, and they're in a better spot now than they were week one.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 7 So like everything points that the Eagles should take care of business, but it's the Green Bay Packers and they beat the shit out of the Cowboys week one last year. It's the only thing I'm scared of.

Speaker 7 Okay.

Speaker 32 It makes sense. So not afraid.

Speaker 56 No, I'm what?

Speaker 52 I'm not afraid. I just at all.

Speaker 7 I just explained to you why I'm afraid.

Speaker 32 But you're not afraid.

Speaker 7 I mean, I'm confident, but

Speaker 7 there's still worry.

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Like, I'm not going to go in here and say we're on the week two or we're on the divisional round.

Speaker 49 Super divisional round?

Speaker 7 Yeah. We're on to the super divisional round.

Speaker 32 I'm going to give Sirian a compliment. That was a good decision that he made last week.
Yeah. Got your guys a little mini buy.
Yeah. He created his own buy.
Yeah. Had to.

Speaker 32 Because if you're not going to get the one seed, you need that little small little break for yourselves to get a little bit more fresh for super wild cards.

Speaker 7 Assuming Jalen Hurts is healthy,

Speaker 7 week one, all 11 starters on offense and defense will be playing in this game for the year.

Speaker 78 Okay.

Speaker 41 And I

Speaker 41 I just hope he's because that's the slow start and the fact that he's missed, what, two weeks now?

Speaker 52 Three weeks? Two weeks?

Speaker 31 Two and a half. Just got to find a way to

Speaker 49 start fast.

Speaker 15 I'm worried about the start.

Speaker 47 Have to find a way to scheme something up and get in a rhythm early because that's where I'm going to start getting nervous.

Speaker 18 If the Eagles come out and they're like three and out and the Packers go down the field and now you're playing a different game because the Eagles are an incredible team to play from ahead.

Speaker 18 We saw it in that Steelers game when they had the fucking, whatever it was, 13-minute drive down the field to end the game.

Speaker 7 Counterpoint, though, they've been playing from behind all year. True.
So even if they do start off playing from behind, they can't.

Speaker 16 It's just playing from behind in the playoffs is definitely a different game.

Speaker 7 It's different in the playoffs. It's different in the playoffs.
But

Speaker 7 like the Eagles have found a way this year to start to play from behind in every game and still win by two scores in almost every game.

Speaker 32 Yeah, I think with the Packers, that would be the one way that you could go about it, though, if you could just start handing the ball to Josh Jacobs.

Speaker 7 We started behind in that game. I'm pretty sure.

Speaker 18 Did you guys see that you added another Georgia Bulldog?

Speaker 28 I think there's 11 total playing in this game.

Speaker 71 Who is it? Jean's North.

Speaker 34 Louis Scene, the former first-round pick who was cut by the Vikings.

Speaker 24 I think he was on the Bills practice squad, and he got added to the Eagles

Speaker 85 active roster.

Speaker 67 So

Speaker 58 it's a significant amount of Georgia Bulldogs.

Speaker 71 I love that uh

Speaker 15 i'm

Speaker 32 let's go win a football game max let's go win a football game max can can you give me a quick breakdown of the howard askin stuff oh that was my fuck whoa so i he gave me he gave me a homework i gave him a homework that i because

Speaker 32 i saw a headline and it said howard askin like the the reporter in philly got banned from the facility and then gave himself his own press credential oh and tried to sneak in like he was still on the job that's the horny guy who posted the

Speaker 62 picture of his daughter, I think.

Speaker 32 But there's some other horny stuff in here, too.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I think horniness is

Speaker 7 to be.

Speaker 7 I have not done my homework. I didn't, I hand up, Professor.

Speaker 7 I did not do my homework.

Speaker 18 All right, so we need it for Sunday night show.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 98 Okay.

Speaker 9 That sounds like you're not going to do it then. Yeah, it's not.
I know.

Speaker 13 I have to put it.

Speaker 32 How about this? How about by the end of class?

Speaker 7 I can get it by the end of class.

Speaker 71 Okay. By the end of class.

Speaker 72 Okay.

Speaker 32 Have it on my desk.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 50 Yeah, I like the Packers.

Speaker 75 I mean, sorry.

Speaker 52 I like the Eagles.

Speaker 69 I think the Packers are going to win.

Speaker 32 There might be something to that.

Speaker 72 I already bet the Eagles.

Speaker 32 That was a Freudian slip right there, Max.

Speaker 39 I like the Eagles.

Speaker 5 They're going to win this game.

Speaker 18 Just don't start slow.

Speaker 7 I'm not promising they're not going to start slow, but you're more worried about starting slow than I am.

Speaker 49 Okay.

Speaker 32 I would like very much for the Packers to win this game. Very much.

Speaker 7 I would like very much for the Commanders to lose their game as well.

Speaker 45 I'm aware. Oh, I'm aware.

Speaker 52 Nice. All right, let's talk about that game.

Speaker 3 Commanders at Bucs.

Speaker 64 Bucks minus three, over-under, 50.5.

Speaker 48 What are we thinking, PFT?

Speaker 50 How are we feeling?

Speaker 32 I told you I had a path, right? I told you I had this whole thing figured out from doing a deep dive into the all-22.

Speaker 32 I think Jaden is going to run the fuck out of the football. And I think Austin Eckler is going to run the fuck out of the football.

Speaker 32 I think that Todd Bowles is going to, if he tries to blitz Jaden the way that he did in week one, it's not going to end up well for him because Jaden will take off on him.

Speaker 32 He's a different quarterback. Fun fact, no team has ever beaten Jaden Daniels twice in the same year.

Speaker 49 Ever.

Speaker 35 That is a fun fact. Right?

Speaker 32 I think it's just three teams this year.

Speaker 53 Wait.

Speaker 32 That had the opportunity to do it.

Speaker 58 He didn't play in an SEC championship.

Speaker 32 He did not play. No, when they lost,

Speaker 32 it was Alabama and Georgia.

Speaker 98 Okay.

Speaker 49 And then, yeah.

Speaker 32 So no team's ever beaten him twice in the same year. That's awesome.
Which is pretty good. Dan Quinn has never gone one and done in the playoffs.
Okay.

Speaker 32 I think he's 2-0 in that. The Bucs were 0-4 in primetime this year as well.
This is a Sunday night game. Okay.
So they haven't won a prime time yet. That Cowboys game was bad.
It was very bad.

Speaker 32 Now, Counterpoint, if you're a Bucs fan listening to this, you can say, hey, we beat you when you were the Redskins in the playoffs. We beat you when you were the football team in the playoffs.

Speaker 32 And now we're going to be the only team to have beaten you when you're all three of those playoffs. We haven't won a playoff game since 2006, which was against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Chris Sims.

Speaker 63 Okay.

Speaker 32 But I think the way that Todd Bowles is going to attack this is going to be start off blitzing, get damaged a little bit by Jaden's legs, and then he's going to drop back more into more of like a rush four, take his foot off the gas a little bit blitzing, and then expect Jaden to be looking like he was in week one passing the ball.

Speaker 32 But Jaden is a lot better. Now, there's a different Jaden Daniels that we saw in week one.
So I think there's a path to it. Now, the downside to all this is that our defense is still not very good.

Speaker 32 Our defense is, I would say, medium bad, which is medium bad is not good. Which is also, it's not good, but it's also a significant upgrade on what the Bucs saw in week one.
True.

Speaker 32 When we were a bad, bad,

Speaker 32 maybe worse than the league bad. True.
I think I said after that, if our defense can just get medium, then we'll be a decent team.

Speaker 32 Our defense is like medium-bad with an opportunity to escalate to medium.

Speaker 80 Yep.

Speaker 32 I think there's going to be a lot of points either way. I do too.
I think that it's going to be a shootout. But

Speaker 32 weird stuff happens with the commanders at the end of games. We've won a lot of games, some against bad teams that we shouldn't have won, but for some reason, Jaden at the end just figures shit out.

Speaker 32 Yes. He's a big figure shit out guy.
He doesn't get too excited. He doesn't get too emotional, besides happy.

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 32 So I like our chances. I think that we have a very good chance of beating the Bucs.

Speaker 71 Yeah.

Speaker 52 I do too. I think this would be a great game.

Speaker 18 I think the Bucs are not like the Bucs defense has not looked great. They also have a lot of injuries.

Speaker 99 And

Speaker 74 I don't know.

Speaker 18 I think it actually helps that Jaden Daniels has played them before, like you said.

Speaker 2 Like, it's like, you know, the unfamiliarity of playoffs, a lot of pressure.

Speaker 40 But we've been to Tampa.

Speaker 17 We've played them.

Speaker 93 That was the first game of the season.

Speaker 20 I would be a little worried about the run game for the Bucs.

Speaker 50 I feel like Bucky's going to have a huge day.

Speaker 48 Yep. Probably going to ladder his overs.

Speaker 32 I would agree with that.

Speaker 32 We're going to have a very hard time stopping Bucky Irving and Rashad White.

Speaker 32 Mike Evans, I don't know what to expect.

Speaker 32 I like Lattimore's chances more than I would like Benjamin St. Juice's chances

Speaker 32 against Mike Evans. So,

Speaker 32 yeah, if you look at Todd Bowles, he's got like two ways of playing defense. He will blitz quarterbacks that he does not respect,

Speaker 32 and then he will take away the deep ball against quarterbacks that he does. That's what he did to Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl.
Yep. Where he just stopped blitzing entirely.

Speaker 32 So I think he's going to try to blitz and then realize this isn't working. And then Jaden's going to have his way.
Okay.

Speaker 10 I think you guys are going to be in this game.

Speaker 61 I'm rooting for you to get a playoff win.

Speaker 41 I've told you, I've been honest.

Speaker 50 If you want a Super Bowl this year, I'd be like, that's fucking bullshit.

Speaker 97 I would like you to win this game, especially because it's against Stephen Che.

Speaker 18 And that would be very nice for you to win against Stephen Che.

Speaker 94 I will probably do a friendship bet on the commanders and ride with you because I want you to just rub it in his face.

Speaker 32 I appreciate that. Yeah.
And so the path becomes, here's what I'm also worried about.

Speaker 32 If we do somehow happen to win this game, I'm going to, the next week, I'm going to treat like we just won the Super Bowl. Oh, you have to!

Speaker 52 Because

Speaker 32 in all likelihood, we're then going to have to play against the Lions. Right.
In which case, I think the Lions are going to score 70 points if they play the command.

Speaker 16 That would not be a great matchup for you.

Speaker 32 It would be a terrible matchup for us, which is why I'm rooting so hard for the Packers. Yes.
But yeah, this is going to be fun. We're in the playoffs.

Speaker 68 Let's go.

Speaker 84 Let's go.

Speaker 32 I'm above the moon. The fact that I get a

Speaker 32 moon. Above the moon that I get a playoff.

Speaker 49 Above the moon. Yeah.

Speaker 15 Damn.

Speaker 49 Okay.

Speaker 23 That's it.

Speaker 18 We'll do the Monday night game on Sunday. Yep.

Speaker 32 Hank, by the way, we had 12 wins this season. You bet us to not make the playoffs.
12 wins.

Speaker 62 12 wins is a lot of wins, Hank.

Speaker 9 Yeah, it was a bad bet. You guys,

Speaker 45 good team.

Speaker 9 I have the Super Bowl future. I'm hoping for this path to come through.

Speaker 74 Wait.

Speaker 32 You said on Monday that we were not a good team.

Speaker 18 No, it was actually Sunday.

Speaker 50 Yeah. Sunday, he turned to me during the game.

Speaker 25 He said the commanders are not a good team.

Speaker 15 Yeah.

Speaker 32 You just said you're a good team.

Speaker 9 Well, you made the playoffs. You got 12 wins.
I'm not going to, I'm not like, you're not, I don't know.

Speaker 32 Well, we made the playoffs a week before that.

Speaker 32 We beat the Falcons.

Speaker 9 Listen, I'm rooting for the Commanders. I don't think they're like that good of a team, but the numbers stayed otherwise.
The wins stayed otherwise. You guys made the playoffs.
Like, I'm just a hater.

Speaker 9 I don't, I don't, I'm, I'm definitely hating. Yeah.
And you guys basically lost to the Bears. You basically lost to the Saints.

Speaker 45 Like, you barely beat the Cowboys.

Speaker 9 Those are bad teams. You have to fight to beat bad teams.

Speaker 32 Basically lose.

Speaker 9 In theory, you guys are going to get smoked in the playoffs.

Speaker 46 You almost lost to Kenny Pickett.

Speaker 32 Hank, you basically dunked.

Speaker 9 Yeah, exactly. I actually did basically dunk.

Speaker 49 I was pretty close.

Speaker 70 No.

Speaker 9 I mean, it was pretty close.

Speaker 29 At no point.

Speaker 9 I have no problem admitting that I was wrong. And for the sake of this podcast, I want Commander's Eagles.
And the best case scenario out of that, I guess I have the Eagles' futures.

Speaker 9 But I want the Eagles to make a run for the sake of the show. I don't care if that makes me look wrong.

Speaker 9 Do I think it's going to happen if you gave me true serum? No.

Speaker 9 But at this point,

Speaker 9 I'll take my licks and say I was wrong and somehow hope the Commanders make a run.

Speaker 45 That's fine.

Speaker 32 Well, the reality is the NFL was very bad this year. There were a lot of bad teams, and we beat a lot of bad teams, and we beat a lot of bad teams by

Speaker 32 a narrow margin. But we also

Speaker 32 narrowly lost to several good teams.

Speaker 41 You are what your record says you are.

Speaker 52 Exactly.

Speaker 32 12-win team. 12-5.
I'll take the number 12 next to the win column. Looks pretty good.

Speaker 58 I did put in a feature on DraftKings Sportsbook.

Speaker 59 Ohio State parlayed with Ohio State to win the national championship, parlayed with the Eagles.

Speaker 32 I think it's 13-1.

Speaker 11 Eagles Super Bowl. All right.
So I'm with Maxie.

Speaker 9 Me too. And I'm just.

Speaker 80 I think the Eagles are the best team in the NFC.

Speaker 62 I've said it for months now.

Speaker 37 That's a fact.

Speaker 9 I think the Eagles are walking walking on a minefield to get to the Super Bowl.

Speaker 49 Why?

Speaker 9 There's just a lot of good teams in the NFC.

Speaker 85 I think the AFCs.

Speaker 9 The Packers is tough. The

Speaker 9 Lions are tough. The Vikings are tough.
The Rams. I'm not going to say Commanders.

Speaker 13 No.

Speaker 98 That's funny.

Speaker 79 You said the Packers, too.

Speaker 46 He just named

Speaker 49 Commander Bucks. Yeah.

Speaker 21 Yeah, he named 4-5-6.

Speaker 62 Am I wrong? 4-5-7. Am I wrong?

Speaker 74 No, listen, Hank.

Speaker 55 Skip 6.

Speaker 32 Hank's not wrong.

Speaker 9 I think that all those teams have a better chance against.

Speaker 68 I think, all right.

Speaker 32 In my dream matchup, I had the Buccaneers. In the Buccaneers' dream matchup, they had the Commanders.

Speaker 10 Here's what I would say in PFT's defense, and

Speaker 40 because

Speaker 42 he's not trying to be cocky butter, but I think what the Commanders are is they're not a finished product.

Speaker 1 They're not a great team, but the way Jaden Daniels has played this year.

Speaker 10 gives you a chance in any game.

Speaker 74 Any game.

Speaker 22 That's really what it comes down to is you got a guy that is so dynamic that

Speaker 18 if he is hitting his long balls, if he's running when he needs to run, he's a matchup-matchup problem.

Speaker 32 I would say even if he doesn't hit the long balls and he's running well and hitting Zach Ertz and Zacchaeus and some of the other receivers on intermediate stuff, he's still going to keep you in the games.

Speaker 32 And if he hits the long balls, that's when we win.

Speaker 32 If he's connecting on long balls and running well at the same time, I think we win the game. No doubt about it.
But, you know, anything can happen. Anything can happen.
Anything can happen.

Speaker 32 He can pay his own foreign prime time.

Speaker 61 Memes, you got anything on the playoffs?

Speaker 103 I'm all in on Steve Spagnola right now.

Speaker 49 Oh, okay.

Speaker 7 Second chance.

Speaker 32 You guys are interviewing a ton of Italians.

Speaker 103 So many Italians. Yeah.

Speaker 75 Leave the league in Italians.

Speaker 103 Do you think the Rizzler is in on any of these interviews?

Speaker 93 I saw somebody say we interviewed Mike Francesa for the GM job.

Speaker 15 Oh.

Speaker 7 The Eagles definitely lead the league in Italians, by the way.

Speaker 32 Yeah, but the Jets are trying to copycat.

Speaker 71 They are.

Speaker 7 They have been trying to copycat league the Eagles for a while now.

Speaker 71 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Just because they got Joe Douglas.

Speaker 103 Should we have an Italian off?

Speaker 99 We might have to.

Speaker 71 Might have to an Italian off.

Speaker 7 I mean, Big Dom counts as like 10 Italian officers. That's true.

Speaker 32 He's the Don.

Speaker 31 He's the starting five for Italians.

Speaker 7 We have Eagles. There's just Eagles' hats that have the Italian flag on the side of it for the whole coaching staff.

Speaker 32 That is true.

Speaker 72 Must be Italian to coach.

Speaker 61 My brother asked me.

Speaker 32 Like, that is your terrible tell.

Speaker 7 My brother has asked me so many times. He's like, can you get me that Eagles Italian hag flag? Because you can't buy it.
Only the coaches get it.

Speaker 15 You got to get it for him. Yeah.

Speaker 32 You got to get it for him. Teams, are you rooting for Max?

Speaker 49 No, you're rooting for pain.

Speaker 32 Yeah. Yeah, be honest.
What are you rooting? I don't want anybody to win.

Speaker 103 I want everybody to lose.

Speaker 53 But

Speaker 80 if you're rooting for maximum for the podcast listeners, we need to spread out the losses.

Speaker 10 Like, if you guys both lost this weekend, it would kind of suck.

Speaker 15 Yeah. You know?

Speaker 71 Eagles are going to lose in the Super Bowl and horrific.

Speaker 7 No, they'll probably lose in the NFC Championship in horrific fashion.

Speaker 8 Okay.

Speaker 75 No confidence. Loser.

Speaker 49 Loser talk.

Speaker 71 Loser talk.

Speaker 7 You say that, and then you just don't look at me.

Speaker 49 Loser. Look at me.

Speaker 26 Loser at me.

Speaker 74 Speak like a winner.

Speaker 49 I'm the captain now.

Speaker 102 I am a loser.

Speaker 7 In what way you're like, oh, this is shocking. Max is acting like a loser.

Speaker 32 Max, you're acting like a loser right now.

Speaker 74 Yeah, I am a loser.

Speaker 9 Do you want to win?

Speaker 84 Did you beat Hank in a supernatural like a winner?

Speaker 7 Not on this show.

Speaker 32 Yeah, this is bad. You're setting a bad tone.

Speaker 98 All right, let's.

Speaker 80 We have a same game parlay for the people.

Speaker 31 We actually have two of them.

Speaker 42 So, DraftKings this weekend.

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Speaker 30 Okay, what is your guys' pick?

Speaker 96 Well, let's do ours first because it's the first game.

Speaker 43 Max and I are doing the Packers-Eagles game, and we have

Speaker 21 a plus 575 parlay for the people. It's Eagles money line, Devontae Smith, 70 yards receiving, and Devontae Smith touchdown, and Saquon Barkley, 80-plus yards rushing.

Speaker 45 Okay, where's that game out?

Speaker 25 It pays 575.

Speaker 32 Okay, Hank and I teamed up on this one. Hank's a winner, Max is a loser, so teamed up with Hank.
We got Terry McLaurin, anytime touchdown.

Speaker 32 Terry McLaurin, 60-plus receiving yards. Jaden Daniels, 40-plus rushing yards, and Baker Mayfield, over 18 and a half rushing yards.

Speaker 45 Double dipping with Terry.

Speaker 32 Double dipping with Terry and quarterbacks. I might just bet on every quarterbacks over for rushing yards in the playoffs because they start to run more.
Yes.

Speaker 32 So all that parlayed together is plus 750.

Speaker 32 Seems like a winner. I like that.
All Terry does is catch touchdowns.

Speaker 37 Bet for bet.

Speaker 90 I'm bet your parlay.

Speaker 99 You bet mine.

Speaker 81 Come on.

Speaker 58 So go to DraftKings Sportsbook.

Speaker 18 They got everything this weekend's great weekend of football.

Speaker 63 Okay, let's talk some more football. We got our good friend Dan Orlofsky on the show breaking down the wild card, super wild card weekend matchups.

Speaker 10 Uh, PFT, you got a couple ads before we do that.

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Speaker 61 Okay, we now welcome on our good friend Dan Orlofsky.

Speaker 24 You can see him on ESPN.

Speaker 82 He's calling games now, doing a great job calling games. He was calling that Ravens-Browns game the other night.

Speaker 22 It is playoff time, though.

Speaker 82 We want to talk to Dan about some playoffs.

Speaker 64 We want to break down these games.

Speaker 73 Dan, I'm excited.

Speaker 22 Which matchup has you the most excited out of the six this weekend?

Speaker 92 Because I figured I'll follow your lead and we'll start there.

Speaker 106 Yeah, I really do think it's Buffalo Denver

Speaker 106 because one, I think it's the game that most makes me feel like a real upset could actually happen. You know, I don't think that the Vikings beating the Rams would be like a quote-unquote upset.

Speaker 106 And I think that, you know, for Buffalo and Denver, obviously, Josh has had an outstanding season, and so it's elevated the expectations.

Speaker 106 And he falls into that category of like, hey, you got to win a Super Bowl, man.

Speaker 106 You can only get so many opportunities this quickly in your career till we start to have the worry of like, are you ever going to get there and/or win one?

Speaker 106 I also think that it's a really favorable matchup or interesting matchup for the underdog for Denver.

Speaker 106 I think Denver's got a guy that could be the defensive player of the year and Sertan, and he's as close to a thing to Darrell Rivas that I've seen when it comes to, hey, you go by yourself and shut down the field.

Speaker 106 And, you know, without getting too deep into the weeds of like the X's and O's, like schematically, that's a huge part of this game because Buffalo gets into some unique formations where they try to kind of overload one side of the field and Sertan takes that away.

Speaker 106 And so, and then Sean Payton, I remember Sean Payton went up there last year with Russell Wilson and beat him.

Speaker 106 And he's so well coached, such a good coach, and he understands how to attack these defenses and get them into certain situations that are favorable to them. And so

Speaker 106 it would be a massive upset, but I honestly don't think I would be surprised, yes, but I wouldn't walk away going, oh my gosh, I did not accept it, foresee this at all.

Speaker 32 So if that does happen, we're big roadmap guys. Give us the roadmap of how it happens.
How can can the Broncos outscore the Bills?

Speaker 106 Yeah, I think number one, it starts defensively for Denver. I just talked about Sertan.

Speaker 106 So like what Buffalo does, and every team in the playoffs does this, is they get into these four-by-one formations. So they take one person and put them on one side of the formation.

Speaker 106 They take four guys and put them on the other side. And it's very simple.
Like the quarterback, he says, if I like the one-on-one matchup, great, I'm going to throw that.

Speaker 106 If not, I'm going to throw something to the field that's easy. It's like a little flat router and RPO.
And we have numbers advantages because defenses are usually trying to be like symmetrical.

Speaker 106 You don't want to vacate one side of the field. Well, Sertan can go there by himself.
So you, Buffalo, don't have the numbers advantage to that four-person side.

Speaker 106 And so that might stunt their offense a little bit.

Speaker 106 And then I think the second thing is Denver led the NFL in Sachs. And, you know, they got dudes who are unbelievably big and talented.
You know, Jonathan Cooper is fantastic. Zach Allen on the inside.

Speaker 106 And Benito's the one for me because when you're playing against Buffalo and you're playing man man coverage, which Denver loves to do, Josh is going to be a runner.

Speaker 106 Bonito's big enough, he's fast enough, he's athletic enough, he's physical enough to kind of that's what he's done with Patrick. He's a little bit of a spy.

Speaker 106 So I think defensively they match up well against Buffalo. And then, you know, if you were going to ask me how to attack Buffalo, you're trying to get Buffalo into

Speaker 106 where Taryn Johnson, who's an unbelievable nickel, has to defend the run. They play, he plays every play.
So, like, you can get 320 pound offensive linemen blocking him if you formation the right way.

Speaker 106 And Sean Payton absolutely will. And I just think that's beneficial for Denver to kind of control the game, run the ball.
They are heavy RPOs

Speaker 106 and they've been hurt a little bit by quarterback run. Bo Nick's really athletic.
So, you know, that's the way I see it. They'll get into beefy, beefy dudes on the field and run the football.

Speaker 24 So the only question I have in this week, we could maybe use this to jump to the Jaden Daniels Commander's game, is obviously a rookie quarterback, first playoff start, especially on the road, not the best record overall.

Speaker 2 What is that?

Speaker 40 Is that just simply like, this is just a different, this is just a different level of football that they are not, you can't prepare yourself.

Speaker 22 There's just no way you could have a great, fantastic rookie year like Bo Nix and Jaden Daniels did.

Speaker 5 And then you get in that playoff environment, and it's just a totally different ballgame.

Speaker 61 That, yes.

Speaker 106 And also, the playoffs become so game plan specific.

Speaker 106 You know, the regular season is so week to week to week to week and you only get you know you have all this evidence now and it you become so game plan specific because you know it's it's winner go home and so you're a little bit less kind of like this is what we do and you're a little bit more of we're going to take away what you want to do and that's the focus point and it has all your attention and you know guys are just more hyper focused in the playoffs because you know that it's again it's winner go home and so i think that's a big part of it as well is a lot of teams that go in with rookie rookie quarterbacks it's not you know they don't have the plethora of a wide open playbook more often than not there's things that they do well and they live in them because that allows the quarterbacks to not play poorly and kind of to play to a quote-unquote strength and defenses just become so much more focused on all right they really love to do these three things in this formation or these two things in this formation so we're going to take that away and then force them to kind of play to that c game or d game that's a huge part of it.

Speaker 32 Yeah. So one dude that I feel like America should know more or at least discuss more on the Broncos is Quinn Miners because that guy is a beast and he just looks like a dude.

Speaker 32 You're talking about like getting your beefy boys going? Yep.

Speaker 32 I feel like Dak, is he the leader of that offense?

Speaker 32 I mean, obviously Bo Nick's, a lot's been put on his shoulders as a rookie, but I feel like they get some of their attitude from that strength on the inside.

Speaker 106 There's no question, him and Bowles. You know, Garrett Bowles has become, again, a high-end left tackle.

Speaker 106 The Quinn Miners versus Ed Oliver matchup is going to be awesome to watch, you know, because those two dudes are outstanding. When they play their best, their units usually play their best.

Speaker 106 That's the thing. You know, we fall in love with the past game and Bo Nix and Sutton have been really good.

Speaker 106 They, you know, I don't want to sit here and pretend that Denver is Philadelphia running the football, but Sean Payton wants to run the football.

Speaker 106 And then what happens is like you just become obsessed with stopping the run and they'll get a perimeter screen to go 50 for a touchdown. But Miners, he's a stud.
He's a monster at guard.

Speaker 32 Yeah, Miners versus Oliver, that's like the most country matchup that you could possibly get.

Speaker 32 Like one is the country of Canada, basically.

Speaker 82 Dan, you called that Ravens game last week.

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 61 And you mentioned something on the broadcast.

Speaker 93 And I think that people have been watching the Ravens all year have seen it as well.

Speaker 1 But they have adjusted their defense, their secondary specifically, and been playing really good ball down the stretch.

Speaker 23 What has happened?

Speaker 61 And do you think that that is what was needed to, like, they're now a very bona fide, like they're going to win the Super Bowl.

Speaker 21 They're one of the best top two, top three teams in the playoffs.

Speaker 106 Yeah, Kyle Hamilton saved their season.

Speaker 106 So there's the butterfly effect to it. So they were really bad on defense because the secondary was just blown coverages, missed assignments, poor communication, ball going over their head.

Speaker 106 And so their best player on defense was closer to line of scrimmage.

Speaker 106 They had Kyle down there to line of scrimmage, a little bit like what the Rams have done in the past with like a Jalen Ramsey and whatnot, which makes sense. The Chargers do it with Derwin.

Speaker 106 But what they did was they say, okay, the worst part of our defense is the secondary. Let's take our best player and move him back there.

Speaker 106 So once they move Kyle back to the secondary, two things happen. One.
He communicates at such a high level. He gets everybody in the right positions.

Speaker 106 And we often say that and don't think it's meaningful.

Speaker 106 It's enormous because in an era in football, offensively, where teams are constantly changing with shifts and motions, you know, those guys' rules change.

Speaker 106 It's not like the defense goes, hey, cover two, ready, break, and it just stays that way no matter what. And so everybody's kind of rules change once offensive shifts.

Speaker 106 And so Kyle goes back there and he, he is the quarterback of the defense. He gets everybody in the right places and everybody on the same page.

Speaker 106 And then what happens is Roquan Smith, their linebacker, no longer has to bear that responsibility.

Speaker 106 So then his focus is solely on the front seven and the backers in the rush and getting those guys, because their rules change as well.

Speaker 106 So like getting those guys into the right alignment and right set. So, that's that's the trickle-down effect of Kyle going back there.
I think the second part of that is twofold.

Speaker 106 It allows Marlon Humphrey to go inside because Marlon is an all-pro nickel. He struggled on the outside as a nickel on the inside.
He's as good as anybody in the league.

Speaker 106 And then, really, Nate Wiggins, their first-round pick from Clemson, has really played good football.

Speaker 106 And they, and down there, when you talk to Roquan and ask him about Nate Wiggins, the first thing out of his mouth is, Nate thinks he's the best corner in football.

Speaker 106 You know, and you just imagine down there in Baltimore with that kind of off defensive like slag and moxie and mindset. So Kyle going back there has been huge.
Van Noy's been phenomenal for them.

Speaker 106 So I agree that that defense is plenty capable of going to the Super Bowl.

Speaker 32 Yeah, when you get Marlon Humphrey on the inside, you also let him play more run support. 100%.

Speaker 32 He's there to impact the run game a little bit. And I feel like that's a big difference too for that team.
Because if you look at what happened, was it after the Bengals game?

Speaker 32 How many of them got to meet a game?

Speaker 8 like 45 points.

Speaker 5 Jamar Chase had like 200 plus yards.

Speaker 32 After that game, they've been one of the best defenses in football across the board.

Speaker 32 And it's as simple as just moving Kyle back and then the following adjustments that happened because of that wave. So on the offensive side of the ball, Trey Flowers, or Zay Flowers, excuse me.

Speaker 32 I feel like Zay's injury, that adds the one little like ding into the Ravens offense that could make me believe that Pittsburgh might be able to beat him in a weird world just because he's that much of an impact on offense.

Speaker 32 Do you think that he's going to play this weekend?

Speaker 106 I hope he does because I agree. It's a huge.
It's a huge injury.

Speaker 106 You know, call in that game, once Zay went down and Cleveland's good defensively, once Zay went down, the past game wasn't nearly what it was with Zay on the field, naturally, right?

Speaker 106 And so I have no idea if he's going to play because

Speaker 106 You know, we haven't gotten a ton of information, at least to my knowledge of kind of what the injury is. I know he's day-to-day.
And so

Speaker 106 if he doesn't play, that really hampers their pass game just because he does so much for their pass game, both down the field and the intermediate routes and kind of winning one-on-one.

Speaker 106 I do think Bateman's good enough to kind of fill that void a little bit. I do believe that Tylon Wallace can step in and handle some of the role.
Their tight ends are really good.

Speaker 106 It's interesting because like the way to attack Pittsburgh defensively, Cleveland actually exposed this like six or seven weeks ago.

Speaker 106 It's like you spread them out sideline to sideline and you try to minimize Queen and um cam hayward and and tj a little bit because you don't want to play those guys in a small space you want to play them sideline to sideline so we'll see if he plays if he doesn't i do think the game's closer than i would have if he if he plays yeah uh what about the texans and the the chargers uh that game i just can't i can't get to it with the texans in in the way they've looked offensively this year Even when they had all their guys, it was never like clean.

Speaker 82 And I can't think of one game where I was like, man, the the Texans looked awesome. Their defense is great, but are they going to get enough offense against a good Chargers defense?

Speaker 5 And like, what is the fix when you're watching the tape?

Speaker 40 You're like, if they could do this or this, they might have a little more success.

Speaker 106 Yeah, one, the fix is going to be in 2025. There is no fix right now.

Speaker 106 And then, two, I honestly believe the Chargers would be a team that I would sit here and go, like, that's a dangerous team in the long run out of the AFC.

Speaker 106 I do think the AFC is that three-team race in my gut.

Speaker 106 But I think, think, so here's the thing for the Chargers before I touch on Houston, like they just, there's no, they don't have negative plays on offense.

Speaker 106 They're always like moving the ball forward. They're so efficient and like there's never, oh, second and 12 or third and eight.

Speaker 106 And so like they control the game in that regard. Obviously, the defense is.
phenomenal and their disguise is crazy.

Speaker 106 I'll go back to Houston and I remember the first game of the year against Indy and watching it and going on TV the next day and being like, Houston better figure out their pass protection because CJ was running for his life and it never got fixed this year.

Speaker 106 Their interior of their offensive line has been the weakest, weak part of their football team all season long. Obviously, Nico missing time, but then, you know, Steph and Tank Dell not being there.

Speaker 106 I just don't see how this offensive line can hold up against the Chargers' defensive line that's going to send crazy type of stunts and pick games and pressures against them.

Speaker 106 So I fully expect the Chargers to win that game.

Speaker 55 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 32 I mean, they signed an impact-free agent, Ezekiel Elliott. Who knows what that guy's going to be able to do?

Speaker 49 Give him the ball.

Speaker 32 Accomplish. Shout out Jerry.

Speaker 49 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 71 Shout out Jerry.

Speaker 32 He's taken the ball this year. Yeah.
All right. So, yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 32 If you go to Sunday now, obviously Jalen Hurts, whether or not he plays. It looks like he's probably going to play.
I think Max reported he was going to play, and everything would be fine.

Speaker 32 The Eagles look right now like they are one of the most... I'd say maybe second best roster in the NFL, depending on how you look at the Chiefs.
But they have a shitload of talent.

Speaker 32 And going into this game, it feels like things have been clicking very well for the Eagles this season.

Speaker 32 The Packers, on the other hand, the injury concerns like Christian Watson, obviously, and then we don't know how healthy Love is.

Speaker 32 Should the Eagles be worried?

Speaker 106 I don't think Philadelphia has to get worried if Jalen Hurts practices today. If Jalen Hurts practices today, I do think that Philly is, I agree.

Speaker 106 I think Philly's the most talented roster, top to bottom in the NFL. I would say along with Baltimore.

Speaker 106 As long as he's there today and he's able to kind of sharpen over the next three days, I think Jalen's proven enough that he's one of those guys that can figure out a way to get plenty capable to go play

Speaker 106 good enough football. I do think the interesting, no Jair Alexander is a big deal.
I thought Jair was one of those corners that could try to play AJ one-on-one.

Speaker 106 They don't have that guy anymore, so they're going to have to play a little bit more zone defense.

Speaker 106 Playing zone defense against Philly's offense is a problem just because, obviously, the run game. I think a huge key in the game is Edrin Cooper.
He's a freaking problem at linebacker.

Speaker 106 He's athletic and like slippery enough. So the best way to kind of hope if you're Green Bay defensively is that he has like an all-world game, has a bunch of tackles for loss.

Speaker 106 But I think Philly's just so good.

Speaker 106 And without Watson trying to stretch them vertically, I don't think there's a ton of fear in Philadelphia's defense going against Green Bay's offense that feels a little bit sideline to sideline now without Watson.

Speaker 16 Dudes, so speaking of quarterbacks, Jordan Love,

Speaker 29 I think he's good. I obviously hate the Packers.

Speaker 16 He does throw off his back foot a lot.

Speaker 16 So what's said in practice, is that something you're trying to coach out of him?

Speaker 31 Is that something you're saying, like, dude, you got to stop doing this?

Speaker 16 Because there's sometimes they're incredible plays, but sometimes it looks like he's just doing it when he could easily plant and go forward.

Speaker 106 Yeah, I mean, one, that's way more of an off-season thing than it is in-season. You very rarely can you fix that.
I think you can get it a little bit better.

Speaker 106 I'll never forget being around a coach that one time, you know, kind of made the comment of, you never want to take a guy's stinger away.

Speaker 106 And I thought that was like an all-encompassing thing of like, you never want to take a quarterback, like a quarterback that's really aggressive, or he wants to push the ball, or he thinks he can make all these throws.

Speaker 106 You know, Stafford was the guy that they were referencing.

Speaker 106 You know, we had coaches that were constantly trying, because Matthew used to do it too, and they were constantly trying to get Matthew to be this mechanically like flawless guy, Drew Brees type of player.

Speaker 106 And, you know, it would frustrate Matthew to a point where Matthew would almost like shit. I don't want to say shell up, but it would make him be a lesser player, in my opinion.

Speaker 106 And I think you got to walk that fine line with Jordan.

Speaker 106 Like, yes, you want him to become mechanically as sound as possible, but I think that's a little bit more of one offseason and two as he gets older in his career.

Speaker 106 Right now, I still believe that he's such a physically talented guy that you really want him to, I'm not saying be sloppy, but you really want his kind of natural athletic instincts to be the focal point of his past game.

Speaker 55 Yeah,

Speaker 32 that does make sense.

Speaker 32 And when you're talking about Matthew Stafford, thinking about Jared Goff and what he's done in Detroit after Stafford went to L.A., that is the best example of a win-win trade of all time, I think.

Speaker 32 I don't think it could have worked out any better for either franchise. And I still think that the Lions are probably the team to beat in the NFC.
What do you think?

Speaker 32 Would you put it like if you were to pick your winner out of the NFC right now are you going with the eagles or the lions

Speaker 106 i think i'm going with detroit um you know my wife is going to be pissed off about that i think them getting home home field matters a ton angel i'm going to text i'm going to text her right now dan yeah

Speaker 106 well yeah hopefully you don't um you should tell her

Speaker 93 real quick we are supposed to have dan on yesterday and i wake up at like seven in the morning and i have a text from a number i don't see and it says hey it's it's orlofsky uh my phone broke i'm texting you for my wife's wife's number.

Speaker 62 And I was like, Oh, okay.

Speaker 82 And then we just texted on, like, I texted your wife's number for like two times back and forth communicating.

Speaker 45 So I'll delete the number. Don't worry.
Thank you.

Speaker 49 You gotta pass it around in the office.

Speaker 54 She's an Eagles fan, isn't she?

Speaker 75 Yeah.

Speaker 75 I'm gonna tell her.

Speaker 46 I'm gonna tell her.

Speaker 61 She's an Eagles fan, right?

Speaker 106 She is a maniac, dude.

Speaker 73 Yeah, so I'm gonna have to text her.

Speaker 107 Yeah,

Speaker 107 I asked her the other day.

Speaker 106 I'm like, hey, Sunday, Eagles play 4:30 in Philly. You want to go? And she was like, I'd rather wait and just go to Detroit when they go there.
I'm like, okay,

Speaker 106 you're already booking that.

Speaker 16 Okay, so why Detroit?

Speaker 106 I think that she thinks, oh, why do I like Detroit? Getting healthy. You know, Anzalone getting healthy matters a ton.

Speaker 106 I was so impressed with the way that they played on the defense side of the football. I think Detroit all comes down to can they get like two takeaways a game?

Speaker 106 If they get two takeaways a game, and you could say that about everybody, but that's not really reality because I think they're going to have to score 30 plus to beat anybody.

Speaker 106 And because the defense is still still beat up and so i'm banking on detroit i think it's they're as well coached as anybody i think they understand like hey we got to win two games and um you know i do believe that they match up well versus philadelphia as long as

Speaker 106 One of those corners is going to have to play out of his head, kind of like he did the other night against Minnesota.

Speaker 106 Like Robertson or if Carlton Davis comes back or Terry and Arnold, like one of those cats versus AJ is going to have to play out of his head. Yeah.

Speaker 32 Yeah.

Speaker 32 So with Tampa Bay, Washington, I'm obviously a Commanders fan, so I'm going to be biased in how I perceive your answer, and I will put you on the enemies list if I don't think that you answer it fairly.

Speaker 32 In week one, we saw the Commanders and the Bucs, and that was a very different team. I think probably for both teams, but especially for the Commanders.

Speaker 32 And Todd Bowles did his thing where he just blitzes the hell out of you. And he put Jaden under a lot of pressure.
Jaden's grown a lot as a quarterback since then.

Speaker 32 Are we going to see more of that Todd Bowles signature send pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure, force him to make quick decisions and

Speaker 32 see what happens from there? Are we going to see the Todd Bulls where he takes his foot off that gas and ends up playing deep coverage to take away the deep ball from Jaden?

Speaker 106 I think that you'll get a little bit more of that softer deep coverage protection.

Speaker 106 Well, one, in that first game, you know, Washington did not run as much no huddle as they have throughout this season, and that kind of mitigates trying to to get to all those pressures.

Speaker 106 I think, too, you got to be worried about Blitz and Daniels right now, because if you leave McLaurin one-on-one versus the corners, in my opinion, advantage Washington.

Speaker 106 I don't think Tampa Bay can run with McLaurin on the outside. And two, you know, kind of what happened in week one, if you don't get home, he's gone.
You know, he's going to get 80 to 100 on you.

Speaker 106 And so I don't love the matchup for Tampa Bay. Honestly, I think they play way too soft on the outside.
I think Jaden's going going to have opportunity to create a ton of easy completions.

Speaker 106 I would be very aggressive down the field with McLaurin if I were them. I don't think either of these corners can cover him on a consistent basis.

Speaker 106 So I don't think that Todd comes after him that much early on, and they try to just see if they can play really, really good red zone defense.

Speaker 32 Okay, I like that, and I agree with you because I've been watching the tape, Dan. So I'm thinking...

Speaker 32 And what you saw in week one was Jaden, when he did get pressured, since it was all, you know, the game speed was new to him, his first NFL game,

Speaker 32 he would either try to take off, or there were times when he would try to just like drop back in the pocket a little bit because

Speaker 32 he didn't have the confidence necessarily to just go forward, step up in the pocket, and take off. So he would try to escape the pressure by like backpedaling.
Boom, he gets hit.

Speaker 32 They got a couple sacks that way. I feel like this is a very different team.
And then

Speaker 32 on the defensive side of the ball for the Commanders, I love, if he plays, I love the Marshawn Lattimore matchup against Mike Evans. Historically, that's been a very good matchup for Lattimore.

Speaker 106 Yeah, yeah, Lattimore's had the opportunity to have some success against it. I don't, I know people keep saying that, but I don't know.

Speaker 106 The one time we saw Lattimore, it was versus AJ, and AJ had his way versus both in success and penalty. So I know he's fresh off the injury.
We'll see how healthy he is.

Speaker 106 I don't feel the same way about that Marshawn Lattimore kind of performance as it did three or four or five years ago in New Orleans. So

Speaker 106 I think this game's high scoring. I really do.
I think this game could sniff both teams getting close to 30.

Speaker 106 I think Washington's going to struggle to stop Bucky Irving and Rashad White, you know. And,

Speaker 106 you know, I think that this is the team, this is the game where both defenses are reeling a little bit versus offenses that are hot, man.

Speaker 32 Yeah. I actually think in a weird way that this matchup, it's a good matchup for both teams.

Speaker 20 It's going to be a fun game. Yeah.

Speaker 20 How do you,

Speaker 61 I do, I think the Bucs are going to be able to run the ball.

Speaker 49 I agree. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 73 Yeah.

Speaker 73 And that's going to open up a a lot.

Speaker 5 Like, I think Bucky Irving's going to have a big day.

Speaker 15 He's so good.

Speaker 13 He's so good.

Speaker 22 He's so good. And that's, I mean, that's been the difference.

Speaker 18 You know, coming down the stretch, he became just a real dude.

Speaker 106 Yeah, he reminds me of like Brian Westbrook years ago for the Eagles.

Speaker 106 You know, it's like he's big enough where he can make any kind of a run, but then when he gets the ball in space, it's like he's shifty, but low to the ground and strong and tough.

Speaker 106 He's a really big-time player.

Speaker 104 Experian is your big financial friend, helping you find ways to save, manage your credit, and apply for cards labeled No Ding decline.

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Speaker 73 All right, so Monday Night Football

Speaker 18 will be on ESPN, so we'll see our friends Joe and Troy.

Speaker 22 Sam Darnold, I saw the clip.

Speaker 21 You said you thought he missed five touchdown passes on Sunday night.

Speaker 49 Is this

Speaker 82 a, hey, the Lions had an incredible game plan.

Speaker 5 They did something that the Vikings weren't expecting.

Speaker 18 That's an anomaly. That's one game.

Speaker 93 Or is this,

Speaker 5 hey, this is a big problem. And Sam Darnold, as great as he's been this year, like, you have a little bit of doubt going into the playoffs.

Speaker 106 Yeah, I think it's a little bit more of a tip of the hat to Detroit. I really thought Detroit's game plan was awesome.

Speaker 106 That doesn't mean that Sam didn't miss those throws, but I do think, you know, just from a quarterback's perspective, when you get some of those defenses that you don't, one, expect or two, necessarily have clarity of what you're looking at, you can start to kind of chase stuff.

Speaker 106 And whether it's getting your eyes off the, you know, the guy too soon or, you know, you're anticipating one thing and then it's another thing.

Speaker 106 So what you might be anticipating and doing something with your eyes to try to move a guy isn't exactly that. And so you're quote unquote doing the wrong thing.

Speaker 106 So I think it's a little bit more of a tip of the hat to Detroit. I'm not overly concerned about it.

Speaker 106 The thing that I'm honestly like more concerned about in the game when it comes to this matchup, Minnesota offense, and the Rams defensive line is awesome.

Speaker 106 And I want part of the reason that I think Sam played that way. And I thought the Lions defensive line kicked the crap out of the Vikings offensive line.

Speaker 106 And so, you know, with a young, violent, physical, nasty defensive line with the Rams with Verse and Fisk and Turner, like that's a little bit more has my attention rather than do I think Sam Darnold's going to play poorly again.

Speaker 106 So I fully expect Sam to bounce back. It's a different defensive structure, way more zone than man, than obviously Detroit run.

Speaker 106 So I think he plays a lot better, but I'll have my eyes more on their offensive line.

Speaker 22 I got a question about this game as well.

Speaker 20 Can you explain just how good Puka Nakua is and how, like, how does he get open all the time?

Speaker 66 And I know that you can't like just leave, you know, Cooper Cup is a worry, but Puka is, it just feels like every time they need a big pass, he's there and he's open.

Speaker 61 What the hell do you do if you're a defense?

Speaker 106 Yeah, he, I mean, he reminds me so much of TJ Hushmanzada. You remember TJ back in the day with Chad?

Speaker 106 Like, we, we would be playing against them, and you would obviously have your attention to Chad, rightfully so, but TJ would just get open all the time, and you would like be like, what the fudge route was that?

Speaker 106 You know, like, that's not even a route, dude. You know, and he just has this great ability to understand.
Like, I do think he's crazy strong.

Speaker 106 Um, he has this really good understanding of like how to use his body and his strength to lean into guys to get them to kind of be where he wants you to be.

Speaker 106 And then he has a really good feel for space. I think he's crazy smart.

Speaker 106 Like, if you ever watch him, I remember last year when he was starting to break out, I thought one of the things he did as good as anybody in the league would as he gets to the top of his routes.

Speaker 106 He's always starting to peek to where the defense is and like gauging, okay, where is the corner? Where's the safety? Where's the backer? So, he kind of knows how to get out of the cut.

Speaker 106 And is he going full speed? Is he going slow? Is he going deep? Is he going high? And so he's got a great kind of feel for that stuff.

Speaker 106 I also think, you know, I've talked about this a little bit this year.

Speaker 106 Like the Rams do and Sean do with him better than anybody double motions, you know, where they motion twice before the ball gets snapped.

Speaker 106 They'll set the formation and they'll motion him over and he'll get set and then they'll motion him again.

Speaker 106 And so, you know, they did a really good job of kind of creating some leverage for him or getting him into some soft spots and he takes advantage of it and stafford and him have gotten just countless reps together so he's a problem he's a problem to stop it's just crazy to watch it is he's so fun to watch especially without the ball too yeah i love i just love it they should do it all 22 except it's all one and it's just just follow him i like that the where's maldo of puka yeah so what about the rams offense though because since that bills game uh the rams offense hasn't looked great yeah uh are you concerned at all with your boy i am He hasn't played well in the last three or four weeks.

Speaker 106 You know, he had that unbelievable game, specifically on third down where he was just off the charts. And so, you know, since then,

Speaker 106 I think that they fought a little bit of an offensive identity as well. You know, sometimes I'm like, you know, I love their keeper game where they bootleg him and I love their play action game.

Speaker 106 And then sometimes it's like, well, how come you're not running it?

Speaker 106 And then I live in the world of I love when they stack Puka and Cooper on the same side, but then like, well, you're getting a little bit too predictable with that.

Speaker 106 And so I think that they fought a little bit of exactly who they want to be.

Speaker 106 I also know that there's such a good run game, you know, that you, it's a challenge and it's a battle of like, hey, it's almost like Baltimore as well.

Speaker 106 Like, we're really good running the football and we want to run the football, but we don't want to become so obvious and predictable where teams just tee, they get paid as well defensively.

Speaker 106 So like they just tee off on us. And so I think they've battled that a little bit.
I don't believe that Matthew's thrown the ball incredibly well over the last three weeks. So So

Speaker 106 I think, like, if you were going to ask me the one thing that has to happen in that game for the Rams to win, I really believe Matthew's going to have to throw the ball better than he has the last three weeks.

Speaker 106 I feel differently than when they went on their Super Bowl run. You know, when they're on that Super Bowl run, I remember the last three, four weeks of the season, I was like, they're going to win it.

Speaker 106 You know, like, he's just playing too well or too good. I kind of feel the opposite where I'm like, he's, he's got to be the person that plays better for them to win.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 61 All right. Yeah.

Speaker 32 Big Kat and I were big fans,

Speaker 32 at least at times, on The Simpsons broadcast. I love The Simpsons, huge fan, grew up watching it.

Speaker 32 The only thing that we had, I think we were saying that the play was too far behind. Yeah.

Speaker 49 The live broadcast.

Speaker 32 The live game was, and I know that they do that because it's like a whole animated thing, but that must have been a lot of fun to participate in

Speaker 32 on your part. What was your prep like for The Simpsons game?

Speaker 106 Yeah, it was cool.

Speaker 106 Football prep-wise, you know, it wasn't nearly what it is, you know, when you're calling an actual game, just because we knew, one, the game didn't really have any playoff implications or, you know, kind of, you know, the results of it mattering a ton.

Speaker 106 So we leaned into a little bit more of the let's live in the moment and the animation of it and the Simpsons part of it. So football-wise, another ton.
Simpsons-wise, a lot.

Speaker 106 You know, the writers helped us out a lot. You know, they gave us a ton of kind of notes just to refresh our memories because I'm a 90s kid, so I grew up in many ways watching The Simpsons.

Speaker 106 I have a son who's autistic, so anything that has to do with animation is like his superpower wheelhouse part of it is because he thinks that they're actually real no matter if it's a still shot of the animation so you know when he found out it he was the most intuitive person on the planet and so he was constantly drawing he wanted to watch it a ton so we started having allowing him to watch it a little bit uh and so i would watch it with him just trying to refresh my memory with some of the episodes and so the writers were great um you know catching up on a ton of episodes you know kind of trying to make sure that i was up to date with some of the jokes some of the one-liners some of the kind of the personalities of it uh so it was cool it was really cool to be a part of the technology is nuts did they have any any prep with you on what they would do if there was like a fight on the field or if like somebody got injured no and it's like no it's like ralph wiggum that's laying out there yeah no they didn't um i think that they were prepared they had so many elements built in you know some of like the cutaways of Mo and, you know, obviously the jokes and whatnot.

Speaker 106 They had so many elements built in that my thought would, that they would like go to that. The only thing that they really had us kind of pay attention to in that regard was

Speaker 106 like when they brought somebody in the game, we more often knew, hey, that person's going to impact this play somehow. So

Speaker 106 if Lisa comes in at running back, it's like, well, I would give the ball to Lisa here. So like, that was the only thing that they kind of hinted to us.

Speaker 32 It's embarrassing. It took me like two quarters to pick up on that.
I was like,

Speaker 49 everyone was like, oh, my gosh, he called the touchdown.

Speaker 107 You know, it's like, yeah, we knew what he's up to.

Speaker 73 All right, Dan, I got one last question for you.

Speaker 64 By the way, also, congrats on one of the best clips ever with Shannon Sharp the other day.

Speaker 29 You had that locked and loaded.

Speaker 26 For people who weren't.

Speaker 106 Did you see how kind of like that came out, like, or how it came to be on Pat's show when I hit up Hembo? I was like, it just

Speaker 106 during the commercial break of GetUp, I was like, I wonder if, and I texted Hembo, who's the stats guy, and he's so good at ESPN. Has this ever happened? He just texted back 1992, Sterling Sharp.

Speaker 106 And when Shannon started talking, I was like, there's no fudging way that you're going here right now.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 101 So for people who missed it, Shannon was like, when was the last time a guy won the Triple Crown and didn't make the playoffs?

Speaker 93 And Dan was just like, your brother, 1992. And he was like,

Speaker 47 it completely got him. It was just a great moment.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 106 I had, there's been, you know, the internet, when it's not on your side, it sucks, but when it's on your side, it's it's awesome.

Speaker 106 Uh, and so the internet had a field day with that one in a good way for me.

Speaker 49 Yeah, it was very funny.

Speaker 32 The look on your face afterwards is priceless. I'm such a prick.

Speaker 106 I'm such a prick, dude.

Speaker 49 Yeah, you got it.

Speaker 32 No, but you, you know, you nailed it.

Speaker 55 Yeah, and you got you got to take a victory lap sometimes.

Speaker 106 Yeah, because I have plenty of moments when the opposite happens. So, yeah, all right.

Speaker 16 So, my last question.

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Speaker 93 I want to do, so I won't make you pick against the spread, but can you give us what you think is going to be your winner for all six games wild card weekend and then give us your Super Bowl?

Speaker 61 Yep.

Speaker 106 So I think game one is Houston Chargers, I believe. I'm taking the Chargers in that game.

Speaker 106 I think game two is going to be Baltimore. Whether Zay Flowers plays or not, I feel confident saying Baltimore wins that game.
I don't think Pittsburgh's offense is good enough.

Speaker 106 The third game is Tampa Bay and Washington. I'm going to take Washington.
I think Jaden Daniel sniffs 80% completion in that game. Here we go.

Speaker 106 I just don't think Tampa Bay's defense is good enough on the perimeter to hold up with them.

Speaker 32 You can pick Dan.

Speaker 106 Thank you. Game number four,

Speaker 106 Philly Green Bay. I think the Watson injury is huge for their offense.
I think Philadelphia comes out. The only thing that gives me reservation is the one thing that Philly's done.

Speaker 106 A lot of times this year, a little bit less in the second half of the season, is start slow. Jalen not practicing for a long time.
If they start slow, it does give me.

Speaker 106 If I was Green Bay, I would just bombs away early on in that game. See if I could grab a lead and control the game.
But I am taking Philly. And then in Monday Night Football, fudge, dude.

Speaker 8 I'm going to go.

Speaker 106 Yeah, this is the toughest one for me.

Speaker 106 I'm going to go Minnesota on the road. I don't think that Sam Darndo plays two bad games in a row.
Great game, but I'll go Minnesota on the road.

Speaker 106 And then I think the NFC title game is Detroit, Philly. I think the AFC title game is Kansas City, Baltimore.
And I'm going to pick

Speaker 106 I'm going to pick Kansas City and Detroit in the the Super Bowl, and I'm going to say Kansas City does it.

Speaker 13 That would be one of those maps where like, what is the country rooting for?

Speaker 64 And it's just one circle in the middle for Kansas City.

Speaker 32 Are you picking Kansas City because you're just afraid of not picking Kansas City? Or do you actually believe that they're good enough?

Speaker 106 I'm afraid of not picking Mahomes. No, I don't really,

Speaker 49 like, you know,

Speaker 106 you've done this long enough where you realize people hate you no matter what type of stuff. So, like,

Speaker 106 I just, I think that that's a different group when it's winner go home. I really do.
And I do think that they're a better team this year than they were last year.

Speaker 106 And so I just think for some reason, 15 finds a way, man. And they're plenty good enough.
It's not like, you know, he's dragging a team to the Super Bowl. They're a really good team.

Speaker 33 And they got healthy in the secondary, which is going to be huge.

Speaker 106 Healthy in the secondary, for sure. Watson coming back is huge.

Speaker 4 Bills Broncos, did we do that one?

Speaker 106 No, Bills-Broncos, I did not do. I'm taking the Bills, although, again, that game has my attention.

Speaker 74 Okay.

Speaker 32 And then obviously the Ravens over the Bills.

Speaker 106 Yeah, I think the Ravens over the the Bills. I just, dude, there's something about Baltimore.
I've been around both teams this year. Obviously, I think they're both really good.

Speaker 106 There's something about Baltimore where Todd Monken, their play caller, said to me, as long as we stay ahead of the schedule, we're unstoppable. Like, that's their philosophy.

Speaker 106 And I just think that they're in a unique place where like they can line up and say, hey, here comes.

Speaker 107 Stop it. Yep.

Speaker 8 Yep. Yep.

Speaker 34 Yep.

Speaker 22 They've run it down their throat.

Speaker 24 That's what happened in the first time they played this season.

Speaker 66 All right.

Speaker 22 Well, Dan, thank you as always, man.

Speaker 33 We love having you on. Love talking ball.

Speaker 20 We appreciate it.

Speaker 62 And I'm happy you got your phone back.

Speaker 106 Thanks, boys. Always good to be with you guys.
Enjoy the weekend.

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Speaker 16 Okay, Fire Fest of the week.

Speaker 49 Henry, you're up.

Speaker 9 A couple Fire Fests. Brandon Walker cucked me out of my chair.

Speaker 81 I like that.

Speaker 49 Do you have a cuck chair?

Speaker 9 The Vanny Woodhead chair. No, I had the Vanny Woodhead chair in here, but I got outvoted, so I'm back to the couch.

Speaker 32 We should actually have Brandon sit in that chair and watch.

Speaker 9 And then

Speaker 9 I posted a jumpsuit picture from my condo, and people just, you know, it's the internet, but they were just roasting my interior design. Oh, no.
Said it looked like I lived in a time share in Florida.

Speaker 9 Oh, no. Old woman's home.
Why do you have two, why are the Christmas trees up?

Speaker 9 I like the Christmas tree aesthetic. Yep.
I'm keeping them up till after the Super Bowl. That's when winter ends for me.
I don't care. People get mad.
I don't take them down after Christmas.

Speaker 9 Super Bowl is the end of winter. As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of our season.

Speaker 9 Go on a golf trip the week after Super Bowl, and then when we come back, that's the sign of spring to me, and that's when I will take down my Christmas tree.

Speaker 9 I'll probably keep posting my Christmas tree just to piss people off, but

Speaker 9 it's winter. It's still winter.
It's Christmas tree season.

Speaker 53 Yep, I agree.

Speaker 32 I love keeping the Christmas tree up.

Speaker 10 So, people are saying you got to take your Christmas tree down?

Speaker 9 People are saying, I got to take my Christmas tree down. They said, which I guess I was reading, like, oh, it looks like you have a timeshare home.
It looks like a vacation home in Florida.

Speaker 9 That's the vibe. I'm that's the vibe I want.

Speaker 49 Yeah. Yeah.
I doesn't want to, who doesn't want to live where it's vacation all the time?

Speaker 32 Yeah. You have a minimalistic vibe going in your place.
Get some Jimmy Buffett stuff there. You know what? You don't need.

Speaker 9 But it's one of those things, and

Speaker 9 I get in my head because it's just people, and I shouldn't because it's random people on the internet that I shouldn't let it bother me, but it kind of did. But it's like, why?

Speaker 9 And you realize, you know, you can't, anything you post, people are going to get mad about. Anything you say, people are going to get mad about.

Speaker 9 But I've never, I love where I live. I like the vibe I have.
But now then I start second-guessing myself.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 32 So the Christmas tree stays up. Christmas tree stays up.
You don't need to decorate your house. You have the water.
Right. With the water, that covers all the interior design.
Yes.

Speaker 32 You don't want to try to take away from the water. No.

Speaker 22 The water is,

Speaker 30 what is it? Zen? Yeah.

Speaker 13 Zen.

Speaker 55 Yeah. Yeah, peace.

Speaker 15 Tranquil.

Speaker 32 If Marie Kondo went up to your apartment, would she say, throw away the water?

Speaker 32 Throw away Lake Michigan? No. No, she wouldn't.

Speaker 9 And the trees bring me joy, so I'm going to keep them up.

Speaker 32 Love it. I like it.

Speaker 32 Yeah.

Speaker 59 Do you. Yeah.

Speaker 49 Do you. Fuck them.

Speaker 32 Absolutely. Fuck them.
Fuck the haters. PFT, your firefest? My firefest.

Speaker 71 I'm a lot of jumpsuits.

Speaker 46 Oh, okay. I am too.

Speaker 18 So, can we mix in some non-jumpsuits if you're in there?

Speaker 32 If you're comfortable doing it, I don't know.

Speaker 9 I started posting these videos every day. Now I'm like, I don't know how to stop.

Speaker 7 What if people just send us more jumpsuits? Yeah.

Speaker 32 Well, that'd be cool.

Speaker 50 That would be cool.

Speaker 32 I got more jumpsuits.

Speaker 9 Well, it's Jammy January, but yeah.

Speaker 8 It's called One Piece.

Speaker 7 You looked like the Easter bunny the other day.

Speaker 32 Jammy January.

Speaker 32 I was the coziest boy on the other side. You looked so cozy.

Speaker 71 I love the fish.

Speaker 32 I was really cozy.

Speaker 32 Okay, so the Firefest was wearing the cozy jumpsuits, which I got a lot of feedback on.

Speaker 32 Positive.

Speaker 32 Much of it positive.

Speaker 32 Some was negative.

Speaker 32 I thought you looked cute. I did look cute.

Speaker 32 Like I said, I was so cozy. The problem with wearing such a cozy jumpsuit slash pajamas is that everybody comes up to you and touches you.
Like, I got touched by so many dudes. Oh, yeah,

Speaker 32 last week. I think it was Jersey Jerry.
He sat down next to me on the couch. He was just like, squeeze.
Give me an arm of squeeze. I was like, oh, hey, what's up, Jerry? Didn't see you there.

Speaker 32 But yeah, I still have some jumpsuits, but my Fire Fest is that none of them are as cozy as the ones I was wearing this week, which were all one pieces. And also, Hank got me sick.

Speaker 71 Yeah, PFT feels sick.

Speaker 32 Yeah, now I feel sick. It's my bad.
It's okay. It's okay.

Speaker 32 You know what?

Speaker 71 Did you know if we getting a flu shot?

Speaker 9 By the way, New Year's Resolution got a physical, so we're halfway down.

Speaker 9 Also got a flu shot. Didn't know that getting a flu shot makes you sicker.

Speaker 63 Well, no,

Speaker 23 you get a little bit of the flu.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I didn't know that. That was like, I was like, I got a flu shot.
I feel like shit. They're like, yeah, that's the point.
They inject you with the flu.

Speaker 32 So you were already sick with the flu. Then you went to the doctor and you're like, hey, can I have a flu shot to take a late sale?

Speaker 71 Well, no,

Speaker 9 I was getting my physical and I had to get a prescription refilled and they're like, do you want a flu shot? And it's like, how do you say no to that?

Speaker 99 Yeah, they just hand them out. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 9 So I said yes. And then, yeah, I got sicker afterwards.

Speaker 32 Yeah, we've done a pretty good job. Me and Big Cat have done, I should rephrase that.
You and I, Big Cat, have done a very good job of not getting too sick on shows. Don't say this now.

Speaker 7 Don't say this now.

Speaker 23 Because I had that one day when Heisman Saturday.

Speaker 74 I could not hold anything down.

Speaker 31 I was puking like 15 times.

Speaker 25 It happened on a Saturday.

Speaker 35 I was able to get back on a Sunday and I felt like shit, but we show up.

Speaker 71 Good job.

Speaker 32 There have been so many times where Thursday night I drive home and I'm like, oh, I feel sick. My body just knows.
Yeah. You're off the clock for a day and a half.
Yeah. It's okay to get sick now.

Speaker 32 But yeah, Hank got me sick this week. Sorry.
It's okay, Hank. I'll fight through it.

Speaker 77 Okay. All right.
My Fire Fest.

Speaker 66 I got a big one.

Speaker 80 People who have probably watched Surviving Barstool, it has not been a fun week for me, but there's one thing I want to kind of address because I've obviously seen it in the comments section.

Speaker 35 I owe it to the AWLs.

Speaker 20 So I think a lot of people knew this, but I'm just going to say it.

Speaker 94 Let's just fucking do it because I don't know why.

Speaker 54 I don't know why I've been living in shame.

Speaker 82 Like, I don't know why I'm ashamed of this, but yeah,

Speaker 24 I was born and raised in Newton, Massachusetts.

Speaker 24 So, growing up, I have family in Chicago.

Speaker 100 I would come here once a year.

Speaker 94 Michael Jordan was my favorite athlete.

Speaker 90 I kind of rooted for both.

Speaker 76 I did root for the Patriots.

Speaker 49 I moved away in 2003 for high school or for college.

Speaker 5 Never moved back.

Speaker 9 Long time ago.

Speaker 56 Long time ago.

Speaker 16 Wasn't like a die-hard Patriots fan, but I rooted for them.

Speaker 80 I moved to Chicago right after college.

Speaker 22 And I love the city of Chicago.

Speaker 20 I loved it when I was a kid when I would come visit.

Speaker 88 And my uncle would take me to games and stuff.

Speaker 22 I loved it.

Speaker 62 I always loved it.

Speaker 33 So it's kind of like a, this is the city that, you know, it's the other city.

Speaker 24 Like my, my uncle was loose.

Speaker 64 I think he might have lied to me when I was a kid, like loosely friends with Phil Jackson.

Speaker 32 That's such an uncle move.

Speaker 94 Yeah, and I was just like, that fucking awesome dude, because they, they used to practice right by where they live.

Speaker 85 So I always loved the city of Chicago.

Speaker 66 Kind of just moved it, yeah, moved out in 2003.

Speaker 18 Have not lived in Massachusetts since then.

Speaker 100 Still, you know, know rooted for the patriots a little bit uh rooted i've never was really hockey um

Speaker 11 and then i you know when i moved to chicago i started falling in love with you know the city of chicago and uh the teams and everything and so it was a slow gradual thing where i started writing about it uh dave hired me and

Speaker 24 He I remember asking him right away, I was like, should I just say this? And he was like, no, just do your job.

Speaker 50 Just blog.

Speaker 51 And

Speaker 74 go ahead.

Speaker 9 no i was gonna say i'll i'll let you finish there is context i think and this is so long ago like when i started like the 2012 2013 barstool was writing city-based there was a chicago person that was the chicago writer before you he was not from chicago and either the fans basically like ran him out of town.

Speaker 9 That's right.

Speaker 41 I forgot about that part.

Speaker 9 And we have other writers who, there was a writer from Philly who was from Philly.

Speaker 74 All he did was live in Brooklyn.

Speaker 9 And people found out he lived in Brooklyn. They kind of ran him out of town.

Speaker 9 There was definitely, and like you said, you asked Dave about it, and I think there was definitely like a

Speaker 49 you, you know, you want people to identify with you and Chicago.

Speaker 41 Right. And I was ashamed that I'm

Speaker 72 stupid.

Speaker 9 The writers. Like, we had, you know, Kay Marco, like, is from.

Speaker 9 I always thought he was from New York because he wrote for Barcelona, New York, and then I found out he wasn't from New York, and I was like, wait, what?

Speaker 9 Because that was like how it was supposed, not supposed to come across. You're not lying, but like

Speaker 9 there was, there is a lot of context with that that i think people have never understood

Speaker 18 especially with the mo and like the kneel like all that stuff like there was a lot of that where it's like that was a big thing back in the day but i i don't know why for so long i've let it bother me and like been ashamed of it it's such a stupid trivial thing when it comes to like you know i listen i i'm sure there'll be some people who are like fuck this i hate them i'm not listening to pmt anymore fuck big cat i get it i i would say to you

Speaker 59 yes, I used to, you know,

Speaker 16 have a complicated like Chicago teams were always kind of my second teams.

Speaker 94 I rooted for the Patriots.

Speaker 18 I moved away in 2003.

Speaker 74 So basically, all the winning happened after I moved.

Speaker 59 Probably was, I'm probably a curse.

Speaker 32 I was going to say, would you say that that would be a good choice to make if you were just trying to like, I wish I didn't make that choice.

Speaker 80 I wish I had just been like, you know, but I fell in love with the city of Chicago and the teams.

Speaker 32 And I, listen, this is why i moved back here uh this is why i'm raising my kids here i just you know and my my fandom of the chicago teams are is genuine i've been doing this for 14 15 years now you think someone would subject themselves 13 years 13 14 to the bears over the course of the past like 15 years so if people didn't care about the bears yeah i mean well the my other Firefest is I did get my tattoo.

Speaker 24 Thanks, Tyreek Stevenson.

Speaker 37 Finally got my tattoo, paid that bet.

Speaker 37 So thanks a lot for not paying attention.

Speaker 68 But so I,

Speaker 20 listen, I've been,

Speaker 22 I have, I think I've talked about it on the show.

Speaker 50 I, I've, I started seeing a therapist a few months ago.

Speaker 25 That was not, that's not because of this.

Speaker 48 That was because of the pressure of having an office where everyone gives you their problems, and I never give anyone my problems.

Speaker 24 I never tell anyone my problems.

Speaker 56 But I, I,

Speaker 22 it's something that I shouldn't be ashamed of.

Speaker 10 It's something I should just embrace.

Speaker 74 Uh, I had a great childhood.

Speaker 35 I, like, I, I don't know why.

Speaker 22 I, I, I just, it's part of the context Hank said. It's part of like, I just don't want people to hate me.
And that's another fucked up.

Speaker 42 Like, I actually have talked to my therapist about this, being a people pleaser. You can't do that.

Speaker 53 But

Speaker 22 I should just stop. Like, stop being ashamed.

Speaker 50 That's the story. I, like, rip the band-aid.

Speaker 43 Rip the band-aid.

Speaker 22 My teams are the teams for the rest of my life now.

Speaker 22 And, and I don't know, you know, I actually, my uncle, I was looking at it because I was just like, last night, I was just kind of, you know, I I was, I wasn't feeling great, wasn't feeling awesome.

Speaker 22 So my uncle passed away in 2018, kind of tragically.

Speaker 34 It was cancer very quickly.

Speaker 10 I looked it up because I was just like going through like kind of memory lane.

Speaker 90 It was actually 2019.

Speaker 50 And my last text to him is,

Speaker 20 the Bears are the Bears again, an unbelievable defense and a maddening quarterback.

Speaker 25 Time is a flat circle.

Speaker 10 I'm starting to think Trubisky will never be the guy, which is so damn frustrating.

Speaker 22 So like it was, it was just funny.

Speaker 24 I was laughing about that because I was like, shit.

Speaker 2 Like, but he, you know, he was part of why I always would, you know, have a second team.

Speaker 20 Like, oh, yeah, you know, Jordan and everything.

Speaker 9 So, which everyone, when they're growing up, like,

Speaker 9 I was born in LA. I moved when I was three, but like, when I was growing up, I was like, oh, I was born in LA.
The Dodgers are my second team. Like, that's just like a thing.

Speaker 18 And I still rooted for the Patriots when they were, you know, like when I was like 18, 19, 20, a little bit out of college.

Speaker 10 But then I slowly was like,

Speaker 23 I'm going to be a bear.

Speaker 20 Like, I want to be in Chicago.

Speaker 24 This is the city I want to be in for the rest of my life.

Speaker 22 I love this city to death i want to rep this city um so yeah that's it and then also the weirdest thing i i i get i get this all the time um yeah i was i was in a couple plays in in high school i did play sports growing up i just sucked after so when i was 12 years old 13 years old i tore every ligament and tendon in my ankle playing basketball travel basketball like whatever the AU equivalent is.

Speaker 82 And I just was never, I was never good at anything after that.

Speaker 20 Like I just sucked.

Speaker 24 I I mean, I think people understand I did play, like, little league soccer, basketball, all that stuff.

Speaker 18 When you see me playing sports when we do competitions, I don't look like a guy who never played a sport.

Speaker 55 Also, wait, I don't think that being in a

Speaker 55 thing to be ashamed of.

Speaker 21 No, I mean, listen, if we're being totally honest, I was away to try to get chicks, okay?

Speaker 49 I like didn't work that well.

Speaker 80 Wasn't really fucking a lot.

Speaker 55 I was a guy in theater. Yes.
I was a theater guy.

Speaker 54 Yeah, I mean, but people will pick it.

Speaker 77 And my problem is I let it, I never just said it, so then I let it bother me.

Speaker 80 And I'm done letting it bother me.

Speaker 77 I have a fucking awesome life.

Speaker 22 This show is the best thing in the world. I love it so, so much.

Speaker 97 Someone asked me the other day, PFD, on Twitter, they're like, how long are you going to do this show?

Speaker 64 I was like, dude, I'll do this show for as long as people will listen.

Speaker 20 Like, and I truly mean that.

Speaker 31 And I know that it sounds corny and shit, but like, I will do this show with these people.

Speaker 6 for till we're 60, 70, if everyone wants to do it, because I love it that much.

Speaker 22 And letting something like this bother me, just it affects other parts of my life that I shouldn't let it affect.

Speaker 85 It makes me not as good of a coworker, boss, father, husband, all that shit.

Speaker 80 So I'm done with it.

Speaker 61 So that's it.

Speaker 51 And

Speaker 53 if people are going to hate me, I can't do anything about it.

Speaker 32 I don't think anybody's going to hate you.

Speaker 54 No, I know, but

Speaker 9 I think that the, and obviously it's like, it's, it's something that has been like in the back of your mind for a while, but I think the, the,

Speaker 9 the fear, your fear of the percentage of people that are gonna be like fuck pick out of I know

Speaker 9 is like minuscule I know it's 0.001% and it's like those type of people like listening to the show who gives a fuck like yeah no they that fear yeah consumes that's but that's also not no one's listening is gonna be like I know slamming their fist against their their steering wheel being like ah and I appreciate everyone who's had my back

Speaker 24 you know everyone in this room everyone in the booth.

Speaker 15 You told me all the fans talked about it.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I have talked about it before, but I've never said that, like, you know, I I used to be a fan of the family.

Speaker 16 I used to root for, you know, the, like, I used to have a kind of a complicated, I root for both teams kind of thing.

Speaker 49 And not like, I wasn't a full, you know, Bears fan when I was eight, nine years old.

Speaker 23 And then I, you know, was like, you know what?

Speaker 43 I'm going to be a Bears fan.

Speaker 35 I'm staying the rest of my life in Chicago.

Speaker 18 Obviously, we went to New York for seven years, but we came back, and my kids are going to be here. They're going to be raised in Chicago, which I'm happy about.

Speaker 35 So, yeah, and I think a lot of people, yeah, I mean, there's multiple times I've said it, but there's just say, I should have just said it.

Speaker 2 I should have just said it 10 years ago.

Speaker 32 You told me in 2016 when we first started the show. Yeah.
And after having been around you for eight years and seen you probably more than anybody else,

Speaker 32 I can fully say that you are a die-hard Chicago sports fan. Yeah.
Like, that's why it wasn't a big deal. It's like, okay.

Speaker 75 Yeah.

Speaker 32 A lot of us were born in different, hand up. I used to root for Duke basketball when I was a kid.
Hank knows that until I read Coach Kay's book. I did root for the Braves.

Speaker 32 I did root for the Braves a little bit.

Speaker 25 Terry Pendleton, shout out.

Speaker 50 Yes. Badass.

Speaker 32 So did I, but that's just because

Speaker 45 they were on.

Speaker 72 And I rooted for the Cubs because I was. I was going to wrong with that.

Speaker 52 I was, well, yeah, he is.

Speaker 5 I was on the Cubs Little League team, and then I could watch Cubs games, too.

Speaker 85 So I would watch Cubs games and Braves games.

Speaker 24 But yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 32 Sorry. No, I was going to say, yeah, TBS watching the Braves every day in the summertime.

Speaker 32 WGN watching Chicago. I didn't have a baseball team closest with the Baltimore Orioles, which I kind of like.
But yeah, listen, people change a little bit as you grow older.

Speaker 52 I know.

Speaker 41 It's just I'm in my own head.

Speaker 20 You guys know me well enough that I

Speaker 20 my probably one of the faults I have is I do care like not to sound like Michael Scott I care too much but I do I do a little bit where it's like Hank tells me all the time he's like dude like Hank will text me be like dude you have an awesome life you have a beautiful family you you you make an incredible living like why do you care and it's like I don't know I just still care because I want I want people to like the show that we do and I've always been like oh fuck they're gonna stop liking me um people I mean you're not that good of an actor.

Speaker 61 No.

Speaker 49 Like,

Speaker 7 you watch what you do after a Bears loss.

Speaker 40 It's not. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Who could possibly think that you're faking your fake? Right.

Speaker 22 I put my emotions and everything into it.

Speaker 69 And it's like, I, yeah.

Speaker 43 And I get triggered when you guys say, you know, we should get Mike McCarthy as a jet.

Speaker 22 Like, that's real. I wish it wasn't.

Speaker 80 And yeah, I probably should have just stuck with Boston teams.

Speaker 62 My life would have been a lot better.

Speaker 66 But yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 22 We just had to say it.

Speaker 9 That also wouldn't have, that's where it's like the context of the old block. Like, that's where it's like, that just wouldn't, it's not a thing.

Speaker 23 Yeah. No, I know.
I know.

Speaker 65 But I feel good that I'm even saying it right now.

Speaker 35 So, you know, that's it.

Speaker 97 I just hope that, you know, people still like me.

Speaker 49 They will. They will.

Speaker 74 I got a tattoo.

Speaker 10 Tyreek Stevenson.

Speaker 22 Also, just, I was never obviously a credible athlete.

Speaker 24 I don't think anyone in this room, actually, Hank peaked when he was

Speaker 49 incredible.

Speaker 15 Max was incredible.

Speaker 49 Max was incredible.

Speaker 15 My worst.

Speaker 9 Memes was all-American. 14 home runs, Greenwash.

Speaker 32 That's a good point. Memes all-American.

Speaker 64 My baseball highlight was when I was was 11 in the City Series. I pitched, I was the third pitcher on our team, and they

Speaker 48 started the game with me.

Speaker 18 And our first pitcher only had three innings that they could pitch.

Speaker 82 And I pitched one hit, shut out three innings, and my coach pulled me

Speaker 59 for the number one pitcher, and we lost.

Speaker 35 And I've never lived that one down.

Speaker 22 I've been so upset ever since.

Speaker 73 I had unlimited inning.

Speaker 45 I was the third ace. You're not taken state.

Speaker 98 Yeah.

Speaker 52 Third ace.

Speaker 9 It's also got to be said that the

Speaker 9 two biggest podcasters, Joe Rogan, Big Cat.

Speaker 53 Yeah, yeah. Same time.

Speaker 52 Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 45 Although, yeah, he doesn't really talk about that.

Speaker 52 Oh, I didn't know much.

Speaker 71 I don't know if he talks about it.

Speaker 9 John Krasinski.

Speaker 52 Oh, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 32 How old is Joe?

Speaker 35 He's much older than me.

Speaker 13 Okay.

Speaker 32 Like 10 years older.

Speaker 45 Yeah, that is funny.

Speaker 49 I didn't even connect that.

Speaker 22 But yeah, all right. That was my firefighters.

Speaker 21 And yeah, I got a tattoo.

Speaker 17 So I finally paid my bet.

Speaker 33 It's a Grateful Dead Lightning Bolt.

Speaker 37 I think I'm already ready for another one, PFT.

Speaker 32 Yeah, we're kind of low-key addicted to getting tats.

Speaker 57 Commanders and Bears, I hope part of hoping that we do this show forever is that we get, you know, 25 years down the line and we both have full sleeves.

Speaker 35 And it's just like, all right, that was 2028.

Speaker 64 Yep. That was 20, you know.

Speaker 32 That's how they used to write down history, like way back in medieval times, is like a giant tapestry. Our bodies are going to be tapestries of losing important battles.

Speaker 49 Yeah.

Speaker 32 And so that'll be nice to see.

Speaker 75 Yeah.

Speaker 51 All right.

Speaker 61 Well, thank you, everyone, to all the the fans.

Speaker 24 I really do love all of you and everyone who's had my back.

Speaker 18 Should we finish with numbers?

Speaker 70 40.

Speaker 32 5.

Speaker 7 11.

Speaker 49 Yes, you want 3?

Speaker 81 8.

Speaker 62 8's going to hit. I'll do three.

Speaker 32 Do people in Newton not have accents? Four?

Speaker 31 My parents are not from Boston.

Speaker 22 So that's why I've never had an accent.

Speaker 63 Okay.

Speaker 9 My parents are both from Massachusetts.

Speaker 9 Everyone I know that has accent is because their parents have accents. Yeah, my parents, my parents, even being from Massachusetts, did really have an accent, so I didn't.

Speaker 75 Yeah.

Speaker 36 So neither of my parents are from Boston.

Speaker 9 But when I did the Dixie tour, it was down south, I would weigh it on thick. The Boston?

Speaker 13 I'm from Massachusetts.

Speaker 32 From Boston.

Speaker 98 From Boston.

Speaker 7 Did it help you with the ladies?

Speaker 70 No.

Speaker 13 Pug, what was your number?

Speaker 15 Not at all.

Speaker 32 They thought you were coming in there like speaking up. Oh, it was something.

Speaker 84 Yeah, it was like, you know, a little something. A little exotic.

Speaker 32 You needed anything.

Speaker 74 99.

Speaker 46 96. Oh,

Speaker 49 close, pug.

Speaker 98 Close.

Speaker 32 Love you guys.