Andrew Hawkins & Warren Sharp Preview NFL Super Divisional Round and James Harden is a Chonk King

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Speaker 1 On today's part of my take, we have Divisional Round Preview ready to go with Andrew Hawkins and Warren Sharp.

Speaker 1 Awesome interviews with both those guys get you pumped up for a great weekend of football. I'm so fucking excited for football to be back.

Speaker 1 We got to talk a little bit about James Harden trade to Brooklyn.

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Speaker 1 At participating, McDonald's. Let's go.

Speaker 1 No place behind a low-washing.

Speaker 1 And then I can't blame all of the suns. Oh no, we're gonna rock it down to E-LA.
Trick I value.

Speaker 1 And then we'll take it higher.

Speaker 1 Oh, we're gonna rock it down to E-LA. Trick IV.

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Speaker 1 Today is Friday, January 15th, and we have football divisional round on deck.

Speaker 1 Super divisional round. Super divisional round.
So excited. We're going to get to all of it.

Speaker 1 We first, though, have to talk about this league, the big trade in the NBA, James Harden going to the Brooklyn Nets. I have already contacted James Harden.

Speaker 1 He has not contacted me back, but I told him I would go Havzies on him

Speaker 1 for a gym membership in Brooklyn. The old eat your way out of town officially worked.

Speaker 1 I'm so glad that it did, too. And James, I'll go Havzies on a subway card with you.
We can make this where eat your business. With sandwiches or

Speaker 1 yeah or the the subway both eat both yeah i'm talking about the sandwiches but yeah we can we can split the commute he seems more like a like a uber guy like he doesn't he doesn't want to do the two-block walk to the subway system but he looks awesome his vertical leap right now is about 12 inches um

Speaker 1 i'm I'm very glad that it worked. I'm glad that he's joining the Nets, the only team that could possibly match his level of dysfunction before he got there.

Speaker 1 And now it's just going to get fucking crazy.

Speaker 1 It's also so perfect that the Nets did this because the Nets, essentially, when you look back at the history of the Nets, it's going to be just going for it and then mortgaging the entire future for the going for it.

Speaker 1 They did it obviously when they traded for KG,

Speaker 1 Rayon, and Paul Pierce and traded every single pick. And that's why the Celtics had every single first-round pick for what felt like a decade.

Speaker 1 Now we're in a new decade, and the Houston Rockets are going to have every single Nets pick for a decade.

Speaker 1 And we're going to be sitting here in like seven years when Kevin Durant's Durant's already retired, being like, Oh,

Speaker 1 who does the 10-win Nets have their pick? Oh, yeah, the Rockets again. Yeah, I'm glad that they're doing it, though.
And it's a little bit different from when they did it with the Celtics because

Speaker 1 they're in the prime of their careers. Maybe

Speaker 1 not James Harden right now, but he's going to play his way back in the day. And maybe not Kyrie because he's not playing.
Yeah, that's true. What do you think about this nickname for James Harden?

Speaker 1 The Brooklyn Fridge. Oh, I like that.
I like that too. William Perry.
We need to bring that back, do some of those. He's probably as big as a kegerator now in terms of his game.

Speaker 1 He's a mini, a pony keg. Yeah, he's a pony keg.
He's a pony keg.

Speaker 1 I hope more players do this because this is going to be a roadmap. You talk about a blueprint.
This is a blueprint for how to get anything that you want in the world is just get fat. He's fat as fuck.

Speaker 1 I've been trying it for a long time. I hope Deshaun Watson gets fat as shit, eats his way out of Houston.
Do you think?

Speaker 1 I hope Arch Manning forces a trade in a couple years by putting on so much weight. He looks like Jared Lorenzen at the time.
Did you see my theory?

Speaker 1 Do you think this has anything to do with the Houston Astros have now cursed, officially cursed the city of Houston? Because James Harden and now Deshaun Watson both won out of town.

Speaker 1 James Harden gets his way out of town. Deshaun Watson, to be determined whether he eats his way out of town.
But it all goes back to the Houston Astros and their cheating scandal.

Speaker 1 And yesterday, the day that James Harden did get traded, was the one-year anniversary of A.J. Hinch getting fired.
Shit. Yeah, I don't see mine a little bit.

Speaker 1 I don't see any loophole in that plan at all. So you're cursed.
You're officially cursed, Houston. Hope you enjoyed your one World Series.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 I'll go with it. I'll go with it.
Right when the spin rates started to pick up down there, that's when everything went off kilter.

Speaker 1 So the question is, now, the winners and losers of this trade, I feel like,

Speaker 1 well, I guess it's one of those trades you just never know because it's going to be, like, if the Nets win a title, they won. the trade.

Speaker 1 But if they don't, like, this was a huge, colossal mistake for them.

Speaker 1 The Rockets, actually, I do, I will say, are a winner just because James Harden was going to eat himself to 300 pounds, was not going to try.

Speaker 1 Some of his passes and like effort in the last couple weeks was so funny and so disrespectful that they got anything for him and they got a lot they got a lot of picks ended up being kind of a win and they got victor old depot because the pacers and the um calves got in on a little trade i love when two teams just show up in its little trade action they're just showing up like for the menage de toile they're like here let me let me just uh let me just suck on this real quick that's what the nba always does there's always like four teams involved in a trade and you can never keep track of what happened but it makes it great because you do get to have the debate down the line.

Speaker 1 You can be like, there's a possibility five years from now, we could say, you know what, the Indiana Pacers actually won that trade. Yeah.
You know what? The Cavs did because Jared Allen and

Speaker 1 Andre Drummond, they went back to like 90s basketball and no one could stop them. You know who really won that trade was Junior's Cheesecake in Brooklyn.
Yes. Well, that

Speaker 1 buy some stock. That was better than the Barstool Fund hitting them.
Yes. Was James Harden getting traded.

Speaker 1 I do feel a little bit slighted that we didn't get to see how far James Harden would push it down in Houston, though, because I'm sure you saw

Speaker 1 the same clip that I did that Rosillo put out where he almost threw the ball into the back court because he just didn't care if it was passed. But

Speaker 1 I want to see how much fatter he could have gotten.

Speaker 1 I wanted to see how many more egregious turnovers he could have. I wanted to see Boogie Cousins punch him in the face.

Speaker 1 I wanted all these things to happen. But we did get to see, we got like two solid weeks of fat Harden in Houston.
When Boogie Cousins. That's a blessing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, when Boogie Cousins is like, yo, you're being really really disrespectful. Maybe you got to check yourself.
The Nets now become must-watch.

Speaker 1 They were already kind of must-watch, but they have no,

Speaker 1 I don't know what they're going to do on defense. They're going to score 150 points a game.
And I'm so excited to watch that. Hank, are you worried at all?

Speaker 1 Because it feels like if Kyrie Irving ever returns to playing basketball, by the way, just an aside, it's just so funny that the Nets, like Kevin Durant is by far in a way, the most reasonable, sane guy on that team.

Speaker 1 Like just he is the voice of reason on that team. Never thought you'd see the day, but that is absolutely what it is.
Like, it is his team, and it is him. Like, everyone's got to listen to him.

Speaker 1 What are your thoughts? They're unstoppable, offensively. I don't think

Speaker 1 what makes you think Kyrie Irving is ever going to come back to the television. He's going to.
He's going to because they got James Harden. That was what I said when he was on the Celtics.

Speaker 1 He was a big three. When he was on the Celtics, that was always like the, oh, well, he's going to come back.
He's going to turn it on.

Speaker 1 And once he turns it on, like, we can make a run because he's Kyrie Irving. And it just never happened.
And he's gotten farther and farther off the reservation.

Speaker 1 Like, I think Kyrie Irving is always one good astrology reading away from coming back and getting it like five triple doubles in a row. He just needs a little nudge.

Speaker 1 He needs his horoscope to hit just perfectly right one morning. And then he'll be like, Yep, I'm back in.
Let's do this. Do you know what?

Speaker 1 So, whenever we do like the winners and losers of a trade, they should absolutely win the East, though. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Whenever we do the winners and losers of the trade, the true, true winners of this trade is anyone who likes to watch basketball and loves the drama of the NBA.

Speaker 1 Because not only did you get rid of that Rockets team that was so detestable down the stretch the last few years, which had already kind of had been falling apart, but you have a situation in Brooklyn where if it works, it's going to be so much fun to watch.

Speaker 1 Because I actually, I mean, we joke about there's only one ball. I don't, there's only one ball, but it also, like, and I think it's, I saw a statistic where

Speaker 1 those three guys have three of the seven highest usage rates of all time. Yes.
And they're all on the the same team.

Speaker 1 But it is a little different than like the big three where like Dwayne Wade not really a shooter, right? Like all these guys can shoot.

Speaker 1 So it doesn't, the spacing is going to be hilarious in the fact that you just can't leave anyone open at any time when it comes to nets.

Speaker 1 So either we're going to get like incredible offensive basketball that's going to be so much fun to watch, or it's going to be an absolute train wreck and we're going to have so much behind-the-scenes drama and it's all going to fall apart.

Speaker 1 And it's going to be like the Clippers last last year on steroids. So we, as the consumer, completely win this.
We win the trade. We totally won this trade.

Speaker 1 And the Vikings because they got Sam Bradford. Yeah, we totally won this trade.
Yes. I'm very excited to see James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Kevin.

Speaker 1 And not only is Kevin Duritt the most sane one, but he's also the one who's going to probably like take the ball less because he's the best teammate of the three as well.

Speaker 1 And maybe we can have like, I wish they had just, I wish they had figured out a way to get Russell Westbrook and they just had the OKC team back on the nets. Maybe they could make that trade.

Speaker 1 Kyrie for

Speaker 1 Joe Harris. And Joe Harris.
And no bench. But that, guess what? Steve Nash.
I do love how Jeff Harris. Joe Harris is absolutely living the dream, though.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he just gets to shoot it when he gets the ball. I think they have three open spots now.
We need to get Sam Decker on one of those spots.

Speaker 1 I do love that Jeff Green was trending yesterday because everybody was like, holy shit, Jeff Green still in the league.

Speaker 1 Well, because they also were like, holy shit, Jeff Green's going to have to be the defensive stopper.

Speaker 1 Like, this is hiding James Harden and Kyrie Irving. I mean, Kyrie Irving can play a little bit of defense, but it's going to be

Speaker 1 must-watch television. Well, what's going to happen when one guy goes out? But they're not going to, like,

Speaker 1 they're all. James Harden and Kyrie Irving, at least, like, have shown no commitment to actually wanting to play basketball.
This year.

Speaker 1 In the past few years. No.
James Harden likes to play basketball.

Speaker 1 He doesn't like to win.

Speaker 1 There was reports of him flying back and forth from Vegas before games. Oh,

Speaker 1 he was. Vacation Hank He's shaming Vegas.
I would never shame a vacation. I'm just saying that.
Sounds like Dennis Rodman. He won a couple titles.

Speaker 1 Right, but there's just, yeah, I mean, we'll say. He's sex shaming him.
I'm just saying, I hope they turn it on just from a viewer's perspective.

Speaker 1 Like, I hope they go hard and they're trying to prove everyone wrong, but I don't think they give a fuck if anyone doubts them or shits on them.

Speaker 1 And like a very serious take, I actually think this is a perfect situation for James Harden in that when they go to the playoffs this year, it is the first time in his career.

Speaker 1 Maybe you go back to OKC where he was coming off the bench, but first time in a long time where he isn't like, it isn't all up to him in that the success and failure of their team is put on James Harden.

Speaker 1 Like, it is, he does at least have other guys who can, yeah, but I mean, it still was James Harden put directly forward. It was his team.
The Rockets were his team. Because he was like the MVP guy.

Speaker 1 He was the guy that was scoring all the points.

Speaker 1 It was absolutely his losses. Like, what if he just, what if that unlocks it?

Speaker 1 What if it just just the pressure, because we all know James Harden in the playoffs, remember the time that he just did drugs before that game six, or at least seemed like it, and he just was a no-show?

Speaker 1 Like, if he no-shows, they still have Kyrie and KD. So I don't know.
It will be, I'm excited. It's going to be fun to watch.
It's going to be a carnival. That's the whole point I'm excited about.

Speaker 1 And it's going to definitively answer the question, like, what happens when you get, is there a possibility of having too many scores? Yeah, there's there. Is there truly only one ball?

Speaker 1 How many balls are there? Yeah. That will be, we will find that out.
What are you going to say, Jake? Monday night, the Nets host Giannis in the Bucs. Ooh.
And Market Day on TNT. Okay.

Speaker 1 First game Saturday, though, assuming Hardin plays. Is Harden going to

Speaker 1 probably get on a treadmill? Yeah. They've got to get Bob Huggins in there and just have him set up one of his treadmills on the side of the camera.
They need him to actually walk from Houston.

Speaker 1 By the time he gets here, maybe he'll be in shape. I don't think he can play his way into shape.
It's going to take until next March for him to play his way into shape.

Speaker 1 That is, after everything we just said about how fun this is going to be to watch,

Speaker 1 James Harden's probably going to get injured, trying to play himself into shape, and Kyrie Irving's never going to come back.

Speaker 1 And Kevin Durant's going to take the Nets to the finals by himself and lose in four to LeBron. Fuck.
Which all that's going to happen. And Sixers fans are upset.

Speaker 1 Now, if I was a Sixers fan, I would not have wanted James Harden.

Speaker 1 I just wouldn't. If I were a Sixers fan, I don't want to watch Ben Simmons and Joel M.
Bi try to coexist anymore. Like that, that's kind of been answered.

Speaker 1 I think that Big Cat's right. This is a win for us.
Win for us. This is the best possible destination.
It's going to be hilarious.

Speaker 1 It's going to be, and I honestly think that they have, they already were scoring like 118 a game, I think, and giving up 113 or 12.

Speaker 1 It's, they, they could break the record. I think the record's like 250.
Do you think Kyrie knows? Uh,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't know if Kyrie knows yet. Kyrie might

Speaker 1 be on a Zoom or something.

Speaker 1 No, he might be doing like a Matthew McConaughey style like peyote trip down in Mexico. Here's my answer.
Kyrie knows, but has Kyrie internalized it? No. Kyrie might know.

Speaker 1 He hasn't really let it set in. He knows.
If someone asked him, hey, is James Harden on your team? He'd be like, yeah. But he hasn't actually sat down and been like, oh, James Harden's on my team.

Speaker 1 Kyrie might know, but he might also not believe it. He might just be like, no, that's not true.
That's just, that's the media.

Speaker 1 What if it's like the opposite effect of like, you know, when we talk about Jordan Love being drafted by the Packers and how Aaron Rodgers had a chip?

Speaker 1 What if Kyrie's like, oh, you thought you could bring in someone who's like more dysfunctional? Fuck that. And then I'm going to get even more dysfunctional.
And they just keep going and going.

Speaker 1 That'd be awesome. Poor Kevin Durant.

Speaker 1 Do you think there's a little bit of him who's like, maybe I should have stayed with Steph?

Speaker 1 Well, I think that you can have some dysfunction, but as long as everybody is kind of like dysfunctional in the same way, then it can work. What's the old belly check saying?

Speaker 1 Look at this fucking show that we do. We're all kind of weirdos, but we're weirdos in a way that works together.

Speaker 1 With the Nets, it's like everybody is weird, but in extremely different ways.

Speaker 1 I think if you can all be wrong together, you can still be right. There you go.
It's like if you're all pulling on the same rope, if it's the same direction,

Speaker 1 even if it's dysfunction, it can work. Yeah, so

Speaker 1 I think that what they're going to run into a problem with is that Kevin Durant is too right.

Speaker 1 So he's not pulling in the fucked-up, weird. He's got to get more burner life.
He's too normal. He's got to get back to burner life.

Speaker 1 He's got to get back being real weird with it, telling girls like he wants to smell their butts at the club. I need Kevin Durant to get weirder with it.
Otherwise,

Speaker 1 he's going to be the responsible one. It's like, yeah, it's like having a kid too early.
Either you get more more responsible or it just sends you out the door. Oh, the kid just, yeah, you fail.

Speaker 1 So everything. We'll figure it out.
Yeah. All right.
Let's talk some. What do you say? Dwight Howard.
Dwight Howard would be a nice piece there, too.

Speaker 1 I also like whenever they throw in their like, check out the next lineup, and it's like,

Speaker 1 they got the big three in DeAndre Jordan. It's like, is that really.

Speaker 1 Okay, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, that's fine.
That's fine.

Speaker 1 All right, let's get to some football.

Speaker 1 By the way, the Road to Super Bowl 55 continues on CBS CBS All Access with the divisional round presented by Intuit Turbo Tax Live. The Cleveland Browns visit the Kansas City Chiefs Sunday at 3 p.m.

Speaker 1 Eastern. Can Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes keep rolling? Will the Cleveland Browns and Baker Mayfield prove capable of another upset?

Speaker 1 Watch it live on CBS All Access and don't miss next Sunday's AFC Championship. Also streaming live on CBS All Access.
If you're a cord cutter, you need this.

Speaker 1 CBS All Access, visit cbs.com/slash NFL to start your free seven-day trial. Boom.
If you start it, I think if you if you time it right, you might be able to get both games.

Speaker 1 I don't, don't check my math on that. Free seven-day trial, watch on any device, thousands of popular TV episodes, live sports, golf, March Madness,

Speaker 1 UEFA Champions League, and Original Series HOMA AFC Championship, and Super Bowl 55, cbs.com/slash NFL to start your free seven-day trial. Okay, divisional round, super divisional round.
Let's go.

Speaker 1 Packers, Rams.

Speaker 1 Oh, boy. This feels like, to me, PFT,

Speaker 1 in my heart of hearts, I think the Packers are going to win. Counterpoint, Blake Bortles.
He's active. Blake Bortles is active.
Blake Bortles is extremely active. Wolford is out.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to do the thing where it's like I don't want to get my hopes up for a team that could potentially beat the Packers and then have them fail me.

Speaker 1 So I don't think, think, like, I'm going to be rooting for the Rams hard.

Speaker 1 I'll probably bet on the Rams hard. 1-800 gambler if you've got a problem.
But I know deep down, this is probably a game that Aaron Rodgers is going to win just because

Speaker 1 Jared's thumb. He hit surgery 10 days ago or 11 days ago.
It's going to be fucking freezing cold.

Speaker 1 It's no slight to him. He's fucking gutsy.
He's the toughest guy I've ever met. Straight up.
He'll beat up your dad. That's how tough Jared Goff is.
Yeah, it's going to be an uphill battle.

Speaker 1 The Packers, I think, they've been playing the best football in the NFC. So I am with you that I want the Rams to win, but I disagree with you because I do think that the Rams could win.

Speaker 1 I'm feeling good just in terms of their defense. I like the Rams' defense a lot.

Speaker 1 So I have a couple stats that might help me and anyone who's rooting for the Rams feel a little bit better. Jalen Ramsey versus top receivers this year.

Speaker 1 They're averaging 2.2 receptions, 23.5 yards that's insane that is insane amari cooper had had the most with seven receptions and then you go down the list like stefon diggs had had uh one terry mclaurin had zero allen robinson had one dk metcalf had zero mike evans had four deandre hopkins had three dk metcalf again with one like he just shuts down these guys so i feel and and the rams have uh gone 11 straight games without giving up 250 yards passing it's also going to be very cold it's going to be very cold which makes me nervous about the the thumb.

Speaker 1 Makes me a little bit nervous about the thumb, but

Speaker 1 he just dominates the Packers. I'll fucking

Speaker 1 load.

Speaker 1 Can you love a man more than you already? I already love Blake the most. So

Speaker 1 what is more than the most love? There's nothing. Like, if he wins.

Speaker 1 If he wins this game, I'll marry him.

Speaker 1 David Baker needs to show up right after the game and just induct him into the hallway. And then wed us.
And then, yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I'm a minister. I can say the rights.
Done. Okay.

Speaker 1 You'll get married to Blackboard. We'll trick them.
Yeah, you'll get married to Bland and we'll fucking get married.

Speaker 1 I think they can do it. I think that the Rams can do it on the defensive side.
And yes,

Speaker 1 the Packers' running game is not bad. They've got a great running back, which is something that they haven't always had in the past.
And it's going to be cold. It's going to be tough.

Speaker 1 It's going to be uphill. But let me ask you this.
If it's cold outside, doesn't that make your injuries hurt less? Isn't it like you're playing in?

Speaker 1 I don't think Yaird's going to even be able to feel his hand. You're playing in the problem.
Just run the ball. Run the ball.
Play good defense. Bother Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 1 I also love that Sean McVay called Aaron Donald the Terminator.

Speaker 1 That made me feel a little bit better. You made that up.
Yeah, that made me feel a little bit better about this. So

Speaker 1 come on, Rams. Go, Rams.
All right. Saturday night, best game out there.
I think we're all very, very excited for this. Bills Mafia, Ravens, Lamar Jackson versus Josh Allen.

Speaker 1 It's just, it couldn't have worked out better. Two guys in the same draft class.
They're obviously compared against each other because you always compare guys in a draft class.

Speaker 1 How are you feeling about Bills Mafia? I think I'm going to bet on Bills Mafia. I have the Ravens adjusted in the can't-lose parlay.
I think the Bills win a close one.

Speaker 1 So I've talked myself back into the Bills. I was nervous earlier this week because that Ravens defense matches up really well against the Bills, I think.

Speaker 1 But I've talked myself back in strictly because of the weather and strictly because Lamar Jackson has never played in the snowball. Do you think he's rope-doping us, though?

Speaker 1 No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 Lamar Lamar Jackson's too respectful to the media. True.
He refers to people. He is.
The Mike Jones clip was a little disrespectful. He calls the media like Miss Sally.

Speaker 1 Did you see the Mike Jones clip? No. There's a reporter who's like, hey, Lamar, Mike Jones here.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Lamar just started laughing. He's like, Mike Jones.
Yeah, that's awesome. Good.
Lamar Jackson, I don't think that he would lie to the media. He's too respectful.
And I think he's afraid of the snow.

Speaker 1 I think the snow has gotten inside his head already. I don't think he's equipped to deal with Lake Erie.
I like this.

Speaker 1 Listen, they're going to let Bills Mafia back into the stadium this weekend. That's going to be an issue for him.
I like the defense. I like Josh Allen.

Speaker 1 He said that he wants to be thrown through a table if they win the Super Bowl. Yes, we'll do it.
We need to figure out the correct way. We'll do it.
It has to be a special table. Honestly, like.

Speaker 1 On fire.

Speaker 1 I would step back and I'd say, Boomer, you have prima nocta on throwing Josh. If you want to do the first one, you can circle the wagons and spike him yourself.
But I like the weather.

Speaker 1 The lake is the 12th man in Buffalo. I think that the Bills are going to pull this off.
It's truly like a coin flip game in my mind. It really is.
There's nothing.

Speaker 1 I think it's going to be close, but I just. If we're sitting here on Sunday and being like, yeah, the Ravens won by three.
The Bills won by...

Speaker 1 These two teams are both very, very good. And I don't really know.

Speaker 1 I know that's lame to say, but I just don't. I don't think it's going to be a game where either team blows out.
And then we can clip this because this will probably be my...

Speaker 1 this will be it won't be a blowout yeah these two teams are too evenly matched 40 40 to 10 uh but that's how i feel i honestly feel that way so i'm i'm just thinking off the top of my head in terms of a poop town buffalo is one of the worst indigestion towns in america and we know that lamar jackson has dealt with his fair share of that this year he's got a weak gut you got you got buffalo wings and you got beef on weck both of which just slide through you like like uh shit through a tin horn if you're a goose so i think that i like i like that matchup and by the way people from Buffalo keep telling me that I'm slandering Buffalo Wings by referring to them as Buffalo Wings.

Speaker 1 You're supposed to call them chicken wings. Yeah, they're just chicken wings.
But if I'm from out of town, I feel like that's showing more respect by putting their name on it, right?

Speaker 1 No, they're just chicken wings. But if I ate it in Buffalo, I would call them chicken wings.
Like if you go to Paris and you make out,

Speaker 1 are you kissing or are you fringing somebody over there? I don't know. Yeah, probably just kissing.
I don't think that you have to. So

Speaker 1 it's from a place of respect.

Speaker 1 I will continue to refer to them as Buffalo Wings when I'm not in Buffalo. And then when I'm there, I'll just be too drunk to say anything.
That's fine. I'll just eat a million of them.
That's fair.

Speaker 1 All right. Sunday, I have talked myself all the way into the Browns.
That's dangerous.

Speaker 1 It's very dangerous. That's a dangerous place to be.
It's a very dangerous place to be.

Speaker 1 So the Browns, a couple stats to maybe tell you why I'm getting there. They're the first team ever.
in pro football focus to have number one run and pass block grade.

Speaker 1 And the Chiefs D ranks 26 in the run stop.

Speaker 1 So the Chiefs' offense, I'm a real believer that I do think the Chiefs have been playing with fire recently. They have won,

Speaker 1 oh, I went through it. I got to find it.

Speaker 1 They basically the last eight weeks, besides week 17, because you can throw that week out because they didn't start Patrick Mahomes, they haven't beaten a team by more than six points.

Speaker 1 So they, like, they've been toying with teams. You know what I mean? They've been toying with teams.
So here it is. They beat the Panthers by two.
They beat the Raiders by four.

Speaker 1 They beat the Bucs by three. They beat the Broncos by six.
Dolphins by six. Saints by three.
Falcons by three. All of these have been close games.

Speaker 1 They haven't won a two-possession game, and you're getting 10 points.

Speaker 1 Now, I'm not saying when I say I'm falling in love with the Browns, I'm not saying I'm falling in love with them winning outright, but I just think 10, the Browns are too live in this game for 10 points.

Speaker 1 The last time these two guys got together, Baker and Patrick Mahomes in college, the stat line. We have to just read the stat line out loud.
Yep. Because it's insane.

Speaker 1 Baker threw for 545 yards, seven touchdowns. Patrick Mahomes threw for 734 yards, five touchdowns, one reception, and lost.
And he had two touchdowns running. Yes.
It was incredible. So

Speaker 1 the thing that worries me is the Browns' defense is not very good.

Speaker 1 Ah, that's putting it lightly.

Speaker 1 They do get Denzel Ward. They don't have any dudes.
No, there's Miles Garrett's. He's a dude.
He's a qualified dude. No, he's a Haas.

Speaker 1 No, that's an upgrade. A dude is the number one.
No, I think a Haas. A Haas is a variant of dude.
Like a bad dude.

Speaker 1 I think a Haas, when I think a Haas, I think a Haas can only really be on the offensive line. No, I think that if

Speaker 1 you've got a bad dude on defense that can get after the quarterback, he's a Haas. But

Speaker 1 regardless, he's really the only dude that they have back there. And the Chiefs' offense can light up anybody.
So I don't know.

Speaker 1 I want to believe in the Browns, and I'm going to be rooting for the Browns. I'm also going to bet the over in this game.
All right, last game, St. Bucks.
Sorry. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But Holmes threw the ball 88 times in that game. Yeah, no, it's crazy.
It was video games. It was a straight-up video game.
It's the truest.

Speaker 1 That's the purest form, unstepped-on, uncut Big 12 football. I bet you Mike Leach wouldn't.
No baby powder in that shit. Wouldn't change a thing.
Uh-huh. Look at that.
734 yards, and he lost. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Bucs, Saints, the old man game.

Speaker 1 I have been saying it all week, but I do think the Saints, I do like the the Bucs in this game, and I like them because when you look at the Bucs season and Allie Marpett goes out,

Speaker 1 they stumbled. So I actually went and pulled the stats with

Speaker 1 Allie Marpett in the lineup. There's pressure on 15% of Tom Brady's drop backs without pressure on 24% of his drop backs.
That's significant. That's a significant number, almost 10% higher.

Speaker 1 I just, I don't, I don't think that's a good thing. You also played the Falcons twice in that span.
No, no, no. This is for the whole season.
Okay.

Speaker 1 He went out for three and a half games with concussion.

Speaker 1 So that's the whole season that their offensive line looks different with and without him.

Speaker 1 I mean, I've said it a million times. I just don't think that Drew Brees.

Speaker 1 I just see another painful Saints loss coming. Okay, I'm with you on that.
There will be a painful Saints loss that happens this postseason, as is tradition.

Speaker 1 But I think it's going to happen next week. I think they're going to win.
I think they're going to dominate the Bucs. It's a matchup.
Dominate. I think they're going to dominate.

Speaker 1 Where'd you get that for? I don't think this is going to be close.

Speaker 1 I think this one might be a blowout. Okay.
I think it's going to be a lot like what happened last time they played. Okay.

Speaker 1 Because I think that for whatever reason, the Saints just like they've got their number.

Speaker 1 They just create problems for it. And

Speaker 1 maybe it's because I wasn't blown away by the Bucs last week. Like,

Speaker 1 you only beat the football team by, what, eight points? But they were never.

Speaker 1 So my counterpoint to that would would be that they were never i was never there was never a moment where i was like the bucks are going to lose this game like if you think that drew brees is limited what's taylor heineke a lot a lot better of a runner would you start a franchise right now with taylor heineke over drew brees right this second if yeah if drew brees said well no it's in the playoffs oh okay you got one guy you got one guy

Speaker 1 of course not but i yeah i just i mean that game to me and also the bucks did a really good job blocking all we heard was how great the washington football team's defense was all year and they weren't, they kind of had got whatever they wanted.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the offensive line was really good.

Speaker 1 I said that that's what won the game for the Bucs, and their running game was decent. I don't think that Leonard Fournette, excuse me, Lenny, is going to have the same gas in his tank.

Speaker 1 I think he burned up. Playoff Lenny.
He burned up all the gas that he had. Playoff Lenny.
Playoff Lenny. That's true.

Speaker 1 He's a different guy. I feel playoff Lenny.
I like the Saints a lot in this game. Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. Tell me which.
Well, I guess that means that you don't like the can't-lose parlay because so I've adjusted here. Tell me which one loses.
I've adjusted Bucs to plus four and a half.

Speaker 1 You obviously have that. Browns over 48.

Speaker 1 Wait.

Speaker 1 Browns, Chiefs over 48. Browns, Chiefs over 48.

Speaker 1 Ravens plus 10.5, so that's adjusted, obviously.

Speaker 1 And then the Rams-Packers under 52.5. That's a can't-lose parlay.

Speaker 1 You've been really feeling your Rams-unders recently.

Speaker 1 You are the Ram-under-King.

Speaker 1 Every fucking game they play under. Yeah.
I mean, obviously last week, but it still hit on the. It It just concerns me when I hear Big Cat discussing the word under three weeks in a row.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying as a friend. The Rams Unders, I mean,

Speaker 1 I've been wise to the Rams for, although our ticket, Hank, doesn't look so good. But Hank and I were wise to the Rams, what, like two months ago.
Then they lost to the Jets. It ruined everything.

Speaker 1 Blake Portal's going to take us to the promised land. It's going to take us to the promised land.
I hope that Jared Goff plays and he plays well.

Speaker 1 But how amazing would that be, though, if Blake Portals came?

Speaker 1 I mean, I already said I was going to be married.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I'm thinking about it right now. The post-game on the field.
Everything. He's probably putting that hat on real quick on the sidelines.
No, he might be wearing some kind of protection.

Speaker 1 Maybe he's wearing a wetsuit because it's going to be cold. That's true.
So do that, Blake. Or a Yamaka.
Yeah, do that. Just get it ready before you even...

Speaker 1 So when you take off your helmet, oh, got everyone. Little okie-doked there.
Blake in a do-rag? What if Blake came out with like the dude from Poison, Brett Michaels do-rag? He'd look cool.

Speaker 1 And like a long-hair wig. He'd look cool.
He'd look cool in the middle. Have a stat.
Literally anything. Compared to the show and this weekend's NFL games,

Speaker 1 a quarterback on seven of the eight teams remaining has appeared on part of my tick. Oh, whoa.
Wow. So Tom and Aaron Rodgers.
Tom Brady. Wait.
Jordan Love.

Speaker 1 Quarterback. Yeah.
Trace Ncsorley. Got it.
So I want to call Tampa. Uh-huh.
Okay. Interesting.
He's their backup. Ryan Griffin.
Ryan Griffin. Yeah.
Wait,

Speaker 1 is this going to be one of those games where Tom Brady and Drew Brees are

Speaker 1 going to going back and forth, like trading all-time completion records or all-time touchdown records? Tom Brady's got him beat now pretty handily. Let me look that up.

Speaker 1 Because Drew Brees went out for five games this year. So

Speaker 1 I think the touchdown record is

Speaker 1 ahead by not a big, big margin, but it's enough.

Speaker 1 How much does that mean? Tom's got 581, and then Drew Brees has 571. Yeah.
But you could imagine

Speaker 1 Sean's up 10. You can imagine Sean Payton, like, even if they're up up 40, just throwing Hail Marys to try to get Drew Brees that record.

Speaker 1 All right. Before we get to our interview, so we're going to have Hawk, and then we're going to have Warren Sharp.
So the pile is now on sale, 10 a.m.

Speaker 1 There's some stuff from PFT's pile and Hank's pile mixed in there. 10 a.m.
Go to sideline swap. It's going to all be sold right at 10 a.m.

Speaker 1 So if you're listening to this before 10 a.m., you still caught it in time. If not, you probably missed out.
But maybe go check anyway. All money going to barstool fund.
I'm going to match.

Speaker 1 Also, Warren Sharp forgot to mention, but he wanted me to say it.

Speaker 1 If you want to go check out his website,

Speaker 1 what is the actual URL? Can you get that for me? Yep. If you put in code barstool fund50,

Speaker 1 it will be $50 off your purchase and he'll donate 50% of their purchase to the fund. His website, is it sharpfootballanalysis.com or sharpfootballstats.com? I think it's analysis.

Speaker 1 So barstool fund 50, if you put it in, you get $50 off your purchase and he'll donate 50% of it to the barstool fund. Sharpfootball Analysis.com.
Super easy to donate barstool fund.com. Alright.

Speaker 1 Hey, it's PFT here, reminding you that Boarshead makes game day entertaining elevated and effortless.

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Here he is, former Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest. It is Andrew Hawkins.
You know him on Twitter. You know him from his career in the NFL.
You can see him on NFL Network.

Speaker 1 He has the Tomahawk podcast with our friend Joe Thomas, former Cleveland Brown. We thought it'd be perfect to have you on as the Browns are in the divisional round for the first time in forever.

Speaker 1 So we want to talk some ball. We want to talk about this weekend, but I wanted to just

Speaker 1 throw this out there. Do you understand what's at risk right now with the Cleveland Browns in this playoff run?

Speaker 3 No, what's at risk? Okay.

Speaker 1 Here's what's at risk. You last played for the Browns in 2016.

Speaker 1 I think if the Browns had a season of destiny and won the Super Bowl this year, I think it's close enough that that in 10 years, people will think you were on that team.

Speaker 1 This might be the last chance you have.

Speaker 3 You're right.

Speaker 3 That is a good point because people actually, well, I also catfish them, but people think that I was on the Patriots Super Bowl team and I was there for three weeks and I don't correct them. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I can now turn into a two-time Super Bowl winner.

Speaker 1 I didn't think about that. I honestly think you should get a ring if they win.

Speaker 1 They should give everybody that's been on the Cleveland Browns in the last five years that went through, you know, went through the lean years with the team.

Speaker 1 You, you laid the foundations, the building blocks of this franchise or at least you should say that and actually you know what you should do you should take a picture do you still have like your uniform and your helmet yeah you should you should have my helmet like right here you should get dressed up like full kit and like do a little walkout video but make it look like maybe you're back like in the back alley of the stadium seriously have to be like really close it'll be like game day let's do it and then people will definitely think that you're still on the browns yeah because all it would matter would be the tweet and the date the time stamp you're right that's deep but you're i feel feel like I really do have a part in this Super Bowl.

Speaker 3 And everyone will be like, yo, shut the hell up, Hawk. What are you talking about? But you didn't have to go out there and get your head beat in for draft capital the way that I did.

Speaker 3 Like, I got I got real life body bruises from that. So I absolutely have a share in this damn playoff run.
I don't care what anybody says.

Speaker 1 All right. So on that point, and it's something that came up throughout the season.

Speaker 1 Can teams tank in the NFL?

Speaker 3 What is that like in the locker room when you're on a team that basically is saying we are playing for draft capital i i would assume no one says hey we're tanking but there's got to be at least a vibe like hey the front office isn't really convinced to winning right this second yeah i don't know if you're ever in it if you ever really believe that that's going on because every nfl player has like they're idiots right in the sense of you know myself included It wasn't until I looked back on my career and realized like, oh, you were never going to be this guy.

Speaker 3 And I knew that while I was in it, but while you're there, you think you're one play away from being DeAndre Hopkins or one play or one good game away from being Tom Brady.

Speaker 3 You never quite come to grips with the fact that you're just, there's guys who are just better than you, even by professional standards.

Speaker 3 So with a team, you always have that the guys on the team, like we went into every game thinking we would win most times. It wasn't until that 2016 season.
It was the first time in my life.

Speaker 3 I would be on the other side of a team warming up. And I would think to myself, like,

Speaker 3 damn, we don't have a chance to win today. There's literally nothing we could do to win this game.
And

Speaker 3 that took a mental toll that took a while to climb out of.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I imagine. And we are, we're rooting for the Browns here.
Like, we've been long established. We like Cleveland.

Speaker 1 We said they were America's team a couple of years ago when they hired Freddie Kitchens.

Speaker 1 That turned out to be, that was a flash in the pan, but again, God bless the broken road that brought us to this place right now.

Speaker 1 So we are unabashedly rooting rooting for the Bills and the Browns this weekend.

Speaker 1 The Browns have a very tough task going to Kansas City. Can you just lie to us? Can you just tell us, like,

Speaker 1 what is the way? I think there's like a 10% chance the Browns can win.

Speaker 1 What has to happen besides having like the worst weather of all time, the Cleveland weather that they're more used to playing in than the Chiefs?

Speaker 1 Besides that, what's the formula for the Browns to beat the Chiefs?

Speaker 3 Formula to beat the Chiefs. We have to have

Speaker 3 the absolute best running game that the Cleveland organization has seen in the last 10 years. And we have the ability to do it because we have the best O-line

Speaker 3 left in the playoffs and we have the best running back group left in the playoffs. And the Chiefs defense is like 31st against the run.
So it does two things. Number one, that's

Speaker 3 our value proposition and

Speaker 3 the star of our team is our run game. So you are putting that on showcase and display and going with your bread and butter.

Speaker 3 And you're keeping Patrick Mahomes off the field the chiefs have like had slow starts throughout the season because they know they can just flip a switch and patrick mahomes just like like turn his little wheel like a little clown toys and he just goes so if we can get out to control the clock early start gain a lead and and kill time that is our best chance of knocking off the Kansas City Chiefs.

Speaker 1 So the flip the switch thing is interesting because, you know, the Chiefs are the best team in the NFL. And,

Speaker 1 you know, you still have to find a way to talk about them instead of being like, oh, they're the best. They're going to win it all.

Speaker 1 So, what I've kept on thinking about is the last half of their season, they were playing teams pretty close.

Speaker 1 And it did look a lot of times like, hey, even that, like the Falcons game, the Panthers game, they're like, yeah, when we want to, we'll just turn it on and we'll win this game.

Speaker 1 Do you think there's a danger in that? Like that they can't, it might just run out where it's like, hey, they're going to flip the switch, flip the switch.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden, it's the fourth quarter and the switch isn't there.

Speaker 1 Like, have you been a part of a team like that or been around, you know, talking to guys where that is actually a real concern?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I can't say I've been on a team that can flip the switch that way. I was for three weeks with the Patriots, but that was only OTA practices.

Speaker 3 And those guys flipped the switch with the best of them in practice. But anyway, so I think that is a problem.
And it can come back to Haunted in this situation.

Speaker 3 And I think, you know, There's negative reinforcement, right? They won the Super Bowl a year ago. They know how good they are.

Speaker 3 They know that we are more talented than teams and we have the quarterback that whether we need 13 points whether we need three points whether we need 21 points and at whatever time he determines to score those points it's going to happen the only way you can stop that is if he's not on the field to do that and again that's why i'm like the browns team if you can get to that point and then eat clock because your run game is way more dominant than the chiefs run defense it's the perfect matchup for you you can literally just eat the clock away from patrick Mahomes doing that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We've been saying that the Chiefs are getting too cute.
But again, that's just us trying to nitpick and find something to talk about. And they have done things.

Speaker 1 Sometimes it looks like they get bored with scoring a 40-yard touchdown pass to Tyreek Hill. Like that's old hat for them.

Speaker 1 So they have to do something weird like, you know, a double reverse or like a fake lateral to Travis Kelsey and then have Mahomes throw it underhand to Anthony Sherman to run it in.

Speaker 1 So like the play calling has been almost too cute to a point. And the Browns, they're playing big boy football, the run game.
That's what they're trying to do.

Speaker 1 Now, hopefully they won't have any COVID issues this week because that's been a big issue. How bad was the NFL screwing over the Browns?

Speaker 3 How bad were they screwing over the Browns? COVID was screwing over the Browns pretty bad.

Speaker 3 It had all the makings of a classic Cleveland

Speaker 3 story of like, in the one year we were good, this, this, and this happened. But the football gods.
smiled upon us for the first time in like four decades.

Speaker 3 So, you know, now I feel like it's meant to be.

Speaker 1 um can we talk real quick about maxion my favorite thing in the entire world you played at toledo i thought you would hold on we played it you played at toledo jason candle's a friend of ours i think i have one too somewhere in here is that a mini helmet mini helmet i also have i have one that's signed by the toledo greats by like lance more bruce gradkowski yeah uh chet i i got i got a mini helmet of all the toledo greats and coach dubbs i gotta get him on there yes absolutely national title with toledo um when you played on a tuesday and wednesday night did you feel like hey this is our monday night football because it's my it's my favorite thing in the world matching on a tuesday or wednesday night

Speaker 1 do you want me to be honest or you want me to play into the no i want you to be honest i want you to be honest and i'll tell you you're wrong when you say that it was terrible playing in like uh you know the middle of ohio on a tuesday night and no one was in the stands and it was 30 degrees Go ahead, be honest.

Speaker 1 I hated it. Really? I hated Tuesday night football.

Speaker 3 I hated Wednesday night football. I hated Thursday night football because for all the points you just said, it was freezing cold.
Every time they started, it would be like in the middle of November.

Speaker 3 It was freezing cold. We didn't have any heaters on the sideline.
In the pros, you have heaters. So cold games don't really matter to teams because you're on heated benches with heaters.

Speaker 3 In the Mac, we didn't quite have that back then. They have some now, but back then we were thugging it.

Speaker 3 They would give us things like one pair of gloves for the entire season. So now by that time, your gloves don't work anymore.

Speaker 3 So it's cold, you have hypothermia, and you have worn down gloves that make you drop the ball that much more. There was one specific Tuesday night game.
We were playing against Northern Illinois.

Speaker 3 I was a sophomore. This was like to, if we win this, we go to the MAC championship.

Speaker 1 Jordan Lynch? It was,

Speaker 3 was Jordan Lynch there?

Speaker 3 This might have been pre-Jordan Lynch.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 This might have been pre-Jordan Lynch. I think it would have been 2005.
Okay. Bruce Grackowski was still the quarterback.
It was like

Speaker 3 maybe five below. It was like the kind of game where you've got the water cups, you put it down, you walk away for three minutes, come back, and it's frozen.
It was one of those games.

Speaker 3 My hands were cold. I ended up dropping like three bubble screens, one for a fumble touchdown return that made us lose the game.

Speaker 3 And from that day on, I was like, never again with this tooth and egg football shit. I'm over it.

Speaker 1 Never again.

Speaker 1 But it does showcase the Mac. And

Speaker 1 I'm sure that like play, like those are the plays that I love when guys fumble, passes backwards, miss kicks. That's the beauty of the MAC.
It's chaos at all times.

Speaker 3 It is chaos. And MAC Shin is fun.
It was like,

Speaker 3 it really is an awesome football conference, man. I'm not just saying that tongue-in-cheek.
I like loved playing in it. And even at Toledo,

Speaker 3 it was a dope experience.

Speaker 1 Was that really fun for you when you were playing both offense and defense?

Speaker 1 If I were in your shoes, I would be like getting ready for a game and be like, oh, shit, I have to go do this for two hours.

Speaker 3 Like, that sounds like the most exhausting way to spend an evening that i could ever imagine no it was dope and i'll tell you the back story which i've never told before so basically my senior year we had a new cornerback coach come in and the first day i met him i was like hey just so you know um i have first round feet and first round hips like that's how i could So I'm the best corner on the team.

Speaker 3 I just play wide receiver. And he laughed it off.
And so, you know, again, I'm 5'7. And every coach has different philosophies.
They actually back then, they weren't too high on shorter receivers.

Speaker 3 So they would actually take me out of third downs. Imagine that.
Slot receiver Andrew Hawkins that goes to play in the NFL. They would take me out on third downs my senior year.

Speaker 3 And so I was like, yo, this is, this is BS. And the corner coach is like, yo, why aren't you, you're the best receiver we got.
Like, why aren't they? He's like, well, fine, come play corner for me.

Speaker 3 And so it was like a thing to where the corner coach and the opposite coaches almost got in a fist fight at practice because I was like, all right, I'll go play corner.

Speaker 3 So one game we were playing and something happened where maybe i caught a like kick return and like stepped out and then me and the me and the oc it we got into it heavy like yelling back and forth and he was like you're out and i was like well forget you then i'll go play defense and sure enough the corner was like yep go in you're at corner and so that's how i started playing both ways was kind of like uh you know inner squad squabble

Speaker 1 i like that you had people fighting

Speaker 1 everybody wanted to

Speaker 1 fight yeah that's a power move you know what i mean both ways in college come on exactly a lot of people experiment yeah sure are you in a sauna by the way yeah a little sauna no this is actually i'm in my garage so let me show you i built a set oh sick in the quarantine and then it's all fake that's actually that's cardboard that's cardboard you should just tell people that's a sauna you should get like a little red light that comes on you'd be like yeah this is you're getting the hottest takes when you're talking to me in the sauna spray yourself down with some water yeah yeah

Speaker 3 don't and don't don't try to sue sue me for that, too, because I'm using it.

Speaker 1 No, by all means. All right.
So, the rest of the divisional round, obviously, you cover the whole league.

Speaker 1 Which game are you most excited for outside the Browns? And what maybe matchup as well? Yeah.

Speaker 3 Can I say Bills Ravens?

Speaker 1 Yeah. My favorite one.
That's what I want to watch.

Speaker 3 I'm a huge Lamar Jackson fan.

Speaker 3 Even though I'm a Browns guy, I feel like he's the most likable player in the NFL. If you don't like Lamar, you're an asshole.
That's how I kind of feel.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Well, that seems pointed towards me.

Speaker 1 I like Lamar. No, I I like Lamar.
I do. I think it's a weird spot.
Lamar, like, he's very, obviously, when you talk about Lamar Jackson on Twitter,

Speaker 1 there's two camps. And my camp has always been, I think Lamar is incredible.

Speaker 1 I think what he does with his feet is like that run against the Titans, no one else in NFL history besides maybe Michael Vick can make that run.

Speaker 1 I still have my doubts at times about being able to, you know, throw the ball when it's an obvious throwing situation.

Speaker 1 And maybe you could also, I'm okay with making the argument that his receivers aren't great either because that's also true. So do you think that that's fair to say like

Speaker 1 you still, I still would like to see a little bit more out of Lamar in the obvious passing downs, in the obvious passing situations where he can, you know, he's come back a couple times this year, so that's kind of to bed.

Speaker 1 But like playoffs,

Speaker 1 if the Ravens get down in this game and Lamar has to pass, how's that going to look?

Speaker 3 No, that's fair. And when I say like Lamar, I mean like personally.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's so cool. Yes.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's very cool. Like that whole Ravens team has a coolness factor to it that absolutely like draws people in.

Speaker 3 Like he's just a good, a good kid to me as a person. But on the field, no, I don't think you're unfounded or, you know, you're wrong for thinking that because it's true.

Speaker 3 And based off of what we've seen at the quarterbacks, that is the formula for quarterback. But I do feel like we're seeing something in Lamar that we've never seen.

Speaker 3 And it is changing the game to where we're waiting for that moment where you got to throw it. You got to do this.
But it's like, if it's a sliding scale, you know, like I'm 5'7

Speaker 3 and, you know what I mean? But I can do these things better. So it equals it out.
Or if I'm not a good looking guy, I might be very, very funny.

Speaker 1 Right. And because of that,

Speaker 1 I'm now wearing sunglasses.

Speaker 3 Maybe I grow my hair out. Maybe I grow a really strong beard to hide my, you know, my look.

Speaker 3 So I feel like with Lamar, the fact that the way he runs is so much better than we've ever seen from a quarterback, Michael Vick included, that because we're looking for this passing thing,

Speaker 3 it's not going to be there, but the running makes up for it for the elite level. Now, eventually we'll find somebody.
That's the crazy part where we've seen Mahomes and we've seen Lamar.

Speaker 3 We didn't think someone could run the ball better than Michael Vick at quarterback. Think about eventually is there going to be a quarterback.
who can run like Lamar and pass like Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 3 And then our minds are going to be just blown at that point.

Speaker 1 His name's Josh Allen. He's playing in this game.
Okay, yeah, yeah. So you've heard of him.
Okay, okay, great. No, it is.
You're absolutely right.

Speaker 1 Like, Lamar's running ability is so out of this world that it's okay that his passing isn't all the way what other quarterbacks are. I'm just,

Speaker 1 it's a fascinating team. And I also think, like, Lamar becomes the biggest story because he won the MVP.
He was 0-2 in the playoffs. They win last Sunday.

Speaker 1 But more than anything, I walked away from that game being like, holy fuck, the Ravens' defense is incredible right now. Like, they're finally all the way healthy.
And that's the biggest thing to me.

Speaker 1 Like Lamar will get his. It's their defense being able to stop the Bills who have been one of the top offenses in the league this year.

Speaker 3 And that's what you kind of sacrificed for what you may lack at the receiver position. You know what I mean? It's like, what would you rather have?

Speaker 3 Would you rather have this top-tier receiver here, or would you have a defense that keeps you close to make sure you can play your game the way that it's set up?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 What about the Ravens defense? I think that they actually have a bit of an edge going in this weekend because they're going against Josh Allen, who, yeah, he's making some great throws.

Speaker 1 It's actually his feet. We talked about that earlier this week.
But he's passing the ball as good as anybody in the NFL right now. But he's also extremely mobile and really effective running the ball.

Speaker 1 So the fact that the Ravens defense gets to see that all the time in practice, does that actually make them more ready to play against a mobile quarterback like Josh Allen, or is that just me trying to find a reason to think that the Ravens are going to be pretty dominant on defense?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think that does. I think it does help.

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 3 you know because it's like i i would tell corners that i will go against like if you can guard me you can guard any receiver route wise because no one's going to be as quick yes i'm smaller but no one's going to be as quick and move like i i can and the and the corners they would say the same thing like they you know no one's going to beat them that way so with lamar you're not going to find a mobile quarterback that you're going to play against that's different than lamar now i will say in practice the first team defense doesn't go against the first team offense it's rare right so the first team offense is practicing against the backups, and the first team defense is also practicing against the backups.

Speaker 1 So they get to see RG3, though.

Speaker 1 They see RG3 all the time. Trace McSorley.
They trace for the RG3. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they see a lot of trace, a lot of RG3.

Speaker 3 So that helps. RG3 probably runs similar to Josh Allen does.

Speaker 3 They're junctured nowadays. But I do think that the Ravens defense has an edge because I think they have the best cornerback tandem.
The thing that the Bills had is that they can't be guarded.

Speaker 3 Like Cole Beasley can't be guarded one-on-one. Stephon Diggs can't be guarded one-on-one.

Speaker 3 And every receiver after that is fast and quick, and you got a quarterback that can make any throw, it's just tough to guard everyone.

Speaker 3 The team that has the best chance of that is the Ravens because their trio of corners is probably the best in the league.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, absolutely.

Speaker 1 So, speaking of cornerbacks, and this is kind of a dumb question, but the Rams-Packers game, Jair Alexander and Jalen Ramsey, two of the best cornerbacks in the league.

Speaker 1 How does a shutdown corner exist?

Speaker 1 I don't really understand it because the wide receiver position and the way the offense has moved in the NFL, like, how do you shut down any of these guys who are so big, strong, fast, and then all the rules are in their favor?

Speaker 3 Yeah, so I think it's two part. Number one, Jalen Ramsey is the best corner on planet Earth.

Speaker 3 He really is. He's like patient.
The scariest corners are the guys who are patient. That's typically the bigger guys.
They're not going to fall for a lot of fakes.

Speaker 3 They're just going to sit in there, hang in there and kind of muscle you. If they can throw your timing off, I don't have to guard you and be so quick, fast, and reactive.

Speaker 3 It's just a matter of ruining your timing with your quarterback and making them come off of you. So that's what Jalen Ramsey is great at.
And that's why he's the best.

Speaker 3 The other thing he has working in his favor is he has Aaron Donald in front of him, right? So he's not having to guard guys, you know,

Speaker 3 as much as the team with a terrible D-line because you can't just sit back there with AD. chasing you.
He's going to come there. And if he catches you, he has bad intentions.

Speaker 3 So the combination of those two players on a defense are huge because it takes three guys to block Aaron Donald.

Speaker 3 And Jalen can guard anybody, you know, one-on-one for the, for, you know, the regular tie, let alone a quicker tick because he has Aaron Donald chasing down a quarterback.

Speaker 1 It is crazy, though. Like, I'm so excited to watch Jalen Ramsey versus Devontae Adams on Saturday because Devontae Adams, like he had an incredible, incredible season.

Speaker 1 And if you had to ask yourself right now, like, who will probably get the best of that matchup, it's Jalen Ramsey.

Speaker 3 And that makes no sense in in my brain because devontae adams every every time he runs on the field he's wide open he's catching balls from aaron rodgers yeah and it's crazy i remember the the graphic of uh uh darrell rivus when they had like the list of receivers in that season and they had like no catches one catch two catch three catch and if you look at jalen ramsey this year it's the same thing And I feel like this is like the final board of the video game.

Speaker 3 And if he locks Devontae Adams down against Aaron Rodgers, it's like, yo,

Speaker 3 he's in a whole other stratosphere. And I never thought we'd see a corner that kind of matched that same graphic from Darrell Revis.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You mentioned Cole Beasley a second ago.

Speaker 1 Do you have respect for his all-pro vote as a fellow slot guy? Are you like, yeah, it's about time that we start, you know, we're not going to slot shame each other out here. It's 2021.

Speaker 3 We're not slot shaming. No, I mean, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's taking the fight on and taking it to new levels that I, you know, I didn't even, I didn't even think was possible.

Speaker 3 You know, I feel like I played a small part in that. And, you know, to watch Peter King explain it the way he did.

Speaker 3 At first, I was like, yeah, those that's, you know, and then when he explained it, like, no, this is my slot guy. It was a standard ovation.
Like, you damn right.

Speaker 3 This is a, this is, you wouldn't say it, you wouldn't judge a tight end based on his receiving yards to a wide receiver. So why would you do that on a slot? Is it the best slot in the game?

Speaker 3 Give him the all-pro vote.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's also such a Peter King thing to do. He just feels like, hey, here's everyone's votes.
Oh, I'm going to do something so different. So it's the story about myself.

Speaker 1 I'm redefining the all-pro position. You know what he did? Okay, I'm with you on part of that.

Speaker 1 But I think that son of a bitch, Peter King, took away a vote for a fullback and then transferred it to the slot guy, which I don't appreciate at all.

Speaker 1 But yeah. This is the game we're in.

Speaker 1 I know you like the fullbacks. I do, and I like Patrick Ricard.
I think Patrick Ricard, hand up. I haven't talked about Patrick Ricard enough.
We all make mistakes.

Speaker 1 That was a big oversight on my part. I don't know how I overlooked a dude that's like 6'2 ⁇ and 311 pounds, but that dude, he's not, we like to do this with different teams.

Speaker 1 He's not the best player on the Ravens offense, but he's the most important player on the Ravens offense. I like that.

Speaker 1 I like that. It's important.

Speaker 1 All right, the other game I want to talk to you about, the Bucs Saints. So we always make the joke, there's only one ball.

Speaker 1 And how much is that, like, how much truth behind that is there when you're talking about a Bucs offense that seems to have kind of found their way, but you have Antonio Brown, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Rob Gronkowski.

Speaker 1 If, what, if, like, those guys don't get looks during a game, do they get out of the game?

Speaker 1 Like, how does that feel as a receiver when you're not getting the ball or you're not getting targets and you're in the third quarter? It's like, I have no rhythm here.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you can definitely fall into that, but it all depends. It's like a top-down mentality.
I'm going to go pretty deep into this, this rabbit hole.

Speaker 3 So, like, the Patriots work because everything in the organization flows up to one person.

Speaker 3 Belichick decides, you know, what PR requests that you say yes to and don't, what we eat in the cafeteria, the schedule, our recovery, like it all comes, it all flows to one person.

Speaker 3 So everybody understands who's in charge, right?

Speaker 3 And then there's situations, I'll go to the Browns, where, you know, if you notice when OBJ went down, you know, the offense kind of started clicking more because at that point, Baker Mayfield stopped thinking, oh, let me get OBJ touches, Jarvis touches, OBJ.

Speaker 3 And it was like, let me just throw to the open guy, you know, because, and not, not that it's a bad thing. It wasn't anything on OBJ or anything on Baker either.

Speaker 3 It's just that OBJ is a big dog and he has been for a while. So yes, you want to give that guy touches.
With Tom Brady,

Speaker 3 it's different. Tom Brady is the big dog.
You can't go to Tom Brady and say, yo, throw me the ball.

Speaker 3 No one is going to step outside of that, even Mike Evans or Godwin or whoever that is, because they understand it. And they know that Tom Brady only runs his offense that way.

Speaker 3 The open guy gets the ball. So your touches will come when your touches are become open.

Speaker 3 And we're going to do a lot of other things to make sure they can't take one guy or one side of the field or one play or one formation away. So everyone just kind of buys in because it's Tom.

Speaker 3 What could you say?

Speaker 1 And it's kind of, so what you're describing is it's basically on you. Like you have to get open.
You have to win your one-on-one battle. And if you do, Tom Brady will get you the ball.

Speaker 3 Absolutely. And if you didn't, if you weren't, if he doesn't throw it to you, you're not the throw.
That's like. That's what people get pissed is because they're like, yo, I was open.
I was the throw.

Speaker 3 Throw it to me. I was never like, yo, give me the ball, guy.

Speaker 1 i would only get mad when i know this play is called i know where i am in the progression i won and i didn't get the rock now i'm pissed right you never have to worry about that with tom brady because if i didn't come to you you want to throw and everybody knows that he knows that better than anybody else that makes a lot of sense what about looking back on on the earlier matchups this year between the the saints and the bucks like the saints dominated them just absolutely like stomped on their heads last time they played what's what's the difference between a team that looks at that goes in the next matchup with their heads down and a team that looks at that and just gets pissed off?

Speaker 3 Yeah, because I think there's only one goal

Speaker 3 for the Bucs and the Saints, right? And the Saints know they can beat them because they have twice and they stomped them pretty good.

Speaker 3 And to beat a team three times in a row as talented as the Buccaneers, I don't know. I think it's tough sledding.
I actually have the Bucs winning this game.

Speaker 3 And I think a big important factor is the fact that Antonio Brown. is starting to look like Antonio Brown, right? He's finally getting his rhythm and it's added another element to this offense.

Speaker 1 So, you know couple that with some of the injuries on the on the saints side and you know they're not quite full rhythm they didn't look great against the bears last week and and the bears looked terrible oh yeah i yeah i'm going with the bucks man yeah i agree with you i i think the bears as bad as the bears looked they actually had a chance to win that game in like the third quarter which is which is shocking what about our guy cd uh cd deuce on the saints oh yeah like mike evans loves to get into fights against the saints i think it's his favorite thing i i think he likes doing that more than catching touchdown passes and he's he's a big dude, and he likes to talk, and he likes to fire back.

Speaker 1 And the Saints are really good at getting under his skin. That's like, that is the best matchup that they could have is an elite shit talker like CD Deuce going after Mike Evans.

Speaker 1 Have you ever like, was there one quarterback that you played against that you just, you wanted to fight all the time?

Speaker 3 Nah, not because they were like trash talking. The biggest trash talker was probably Kip Talib.

Speaker 3 He was like, he would say some, he would say some wild stuff. You run into those guys that will literally say anything on the field to get under your skin.
He would say some wild stuff.

Speaker 3 He was the best at it. Like it wasn't, you know, it's like Chad Otra Sequ was like a fun trash talker.
Yeah. Talib would say some disrespectful stuff, man.
And I'm like,

Speaker 3 it would absolutely get under guy's skin. And I think Jalen probably did that, too.
I didn't play against Jalen, but I've heard Jalen gets that level of disrespectful too.

Speaker 3 And hey, man, if you could do it and maintain and throw a guy off their game, that's the whole point of it.

Speaker 1 Did you ever wear a necklace around a kebab or did you know like, hey, he's going to come after jewelry?

Speaker 3 I couldn't afford a damn necklace, TFT.

Speaker 3 I was still trying to make sure I was on the team. I couldn't afford to get a necklace and get that ripped off in a game.
I'd have been crying in midfield.

Speaker 1 Like, when that happens, though, so the Bears afterwards,

Speaker 1 Matt Nagy was like, yeah, we went over this in practice. We went over this in film.
Like, CD Deuce is going to talk shit. Don't respond.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 what do you say to your teammate when he gets kicked out of a game like that? It's like, you knew this was coming. We talked about it.

Speaker 3 It happened earlier in the year what the happened there like you just lost your mind or is it just some guys will say something so vile that you can't help yourself i don't think people realize like the mindset you have to be in to play an nfl game that that's what i think it's not just like oh you're going out to do a job like we're not out here making copies at fedex kinkos right like i would go into a game and i would turn into a completely different person the reason being ray lewis is trying to take my damn head off right like in in my mind, there is a chance I don't make it home tonight to my kids.

Speaker 3 These guys are going to try to kill me if I'm not looking, right? So if they don't, if they bring it to me, I bring it.

Speaker 3 So when you're in that mindset out on the field and bullets are flying and people are talking, you're not thinking with a sound mind. This is a Warriors game.

Speaker 3 And that's the mentality you go into it with. I would be trying to take people's legs out.
I didn't give a shit. And I would tell them that.
Like, yo. I want you to know.

Speaker 3 Like, because they would say, oh, we're going to knock you out. They try to intimidate the small.
And I said, you know what? You can try if you want to. I'm taking every ACL I see out here out.

Speaker 3 That's the mentality that I would be. I'm going to cut block you every play and we'll see who lasts longer.

Speaker 3 So I think just it gets the best of players while you're out there. And even as much as you try to mitigate or say, okay, I'm not going to respond.
Yo, it's tough, man. It's emotional.

Speaker 3 A lot going on out there.

Speaker 1 All right. So give us your picks this weekend.
Or do you pick against the spread?

Speaker 3 No.

Speaker 1 I pick straight up. Coward.
Coward.

Speaker 3 Pussy. What? I thought that was the gangster thing to do.

Speaker 1 Okay, no, no, you're being a pussy. This is step into our arena.
Yeah, you come on this show.

Speaker 1 If you don't pick against the spread, we're going to take your fucking ACL out. That's the mentality you have when you step into the studio.
Just tell you what, just tell us

Speaker 1 that the Browns are going to win by a lot so that we can make a video out of it, and then we'll try to get LeBron James to retweet it because I know that he follows you and retweets you all the time.

Speaker 1 Are you a baby Braun?

Speaker 1 Has LeBron ever referred to you as Baby Braun?

Speaker 3 No, he has not referred to me as baby braun or LeBron.

Speaker 3 Still working on that. Still working on that.
I will go with the Browns will win by seven points. Okay.

Speaker 1 And then do the other three games.

Speaker 3 Okay, the Ravens will win

Speaker 3 by four points. Okay.

Speaker 3 The Bucs

Speaker 3 will win

Speaker 3 by three points.

Speaker 1 Okay, all underdogs here. I like this.

Speaker 3 And actually, I'm going to be more serious with the Browns pick. The Browns are going to

Speaker 3 win by three.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 And what is the last game?

Speaker 1 Packers, Rams.

Speaker 3 Packers. The Packers will beat the Rams

Speaker 3 by a touchdown. Set it.

Speaker 1 Okay. I mean, that's about a push, wherever it is.
All right. I like those.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, Hawk, this has been awesome.
Oh, I had one last question. So you do co-host a podcast with our friend Joe Thomas, the Tomahawk podcast.

Speaker 1 If Joe Thomas, you know, there was the COVID issue with the Browns and they've had a bunch of injuries.

Speaker 1 Given his weight right now, could Joe Thomas survive a game playing offensive line, just knowing how great he was technique-wise and like savvy vetness, even though he's like 75 pounds light?

Speaker 3 They would push Joe Thomas' shit in the dirt.

Speaker 1 Much as I love him.

Speaker 3 To try to go block those guys at 70 pounds. I mean, Joe is

Speaker 3 more cut than I am. I know.

Speaker 3 Like, you're essentially putting a receiver out there to go play left tackle i don't care how great your technique is i don't think you can do it okay do you ever look at joe and just be like man this is kind of creepy yeah just dude stop you look you look kind of weird yeah eat a cheeseburger absolutely okay absolutely yesterday on the show it was weird when he started when i like got the gut and he had a six pack it was a very weird transition of things like yesterday he just like sits there and his arms are just like jacked i don't know it's it is weird it's weird every time i see him i'm not gonna lie to you now what about the other side of of it?

Speaker 1 What if the Browns, all their wide receivers, come down with positive tests or contact tracing again?

Speaker 1 I said that they should get the whole gang back together, like the old school Browns, you know, the highlight reel of the last 15 years. Suit them up.
Could you go out there?

Speaker 3 I could go out there.

Speaker 3 It wouldn't do anybody any good. But if they were like, we need someone on the roster, I could.
No, I would be terrible. I would literally be.

Speaker 3 I don't work out. I haven't worked out since I left the NFL.

Speaker 1 What do you mean?

Speaker 3 Like, I don't work out. Like, I do not.

Speaker 1 What does that mean?

Speaker 1 Like, you don't even go on a tread? I mean, I'm, I'm the same way.

Speaker 1 So, like, but like, when people say they don't work out, like, when I say I don't work out, that literally means my heart rate hasn't gotten above, like, you know, a resting heart rate in months.

Speaker 1 You do not

Speaker 1 run, sprint, shoot hoops, anything.

Speaker 3 Nothing. I don't do.
I work all day.

Speaker 1 I fucking do that. That's all I do.
I don't.

Speaker 3 I don't work out. It's not great, but I don't.

Speaker 3 I did for a second, like a year ago when I got like really bad and I got real, I like snapped back in like 40 day period and again it's been over a year since then I hadn't done anything from retirement till then like I didn't work out since my last patriots practice for two years and then since then which has been like a year and a half now I have not lifted a weight have not run have not broken a sweat um yeah I don't I don't I'm not aware it's I'm over it I did it forever and now I'm like I want to spend a little time doing nothing.

Speaker 1 All right. That's cool.
And it's harder, though, to do what you're doing now than it is to play in the NFL, right? Like not work out, do podcasts, all that. Yeah.
Oh, my God. It's like, we're

Speaker 3 tough business.

Speaker 1 That's why we didn't play in the NFL. Are you addicted to work? I see you working all the time.
You're literally on every show. How many shows?

Speaker 1 How many shows are you on? Are you addicted to work?

Speaker 3 That's a good question. I honestly, like, being 100% serious, I've had that conversation with myself recently.
I that I might be. I might be addicted to work.
I do a lot of shows.

Speaker 3 I even do, because I have businesses too that I work for in like an everyday nine to five role, and I have a hard time turning down jobs.

Speaker 3 It is a problem.

Speaker 1 But that's okay, because I'd imagine you live to work, not work to live.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 1 Yeah. If you live to work, it's good.
If you live to work, it's okay. Like, we're kind of addicted to work.
Like, we enjoy working. Like, I live to work.
I don't work to live.

Speaker 3 You're right. I do.
I like that take. That is how it is.

Speaker 3 I like to make something out of nothing. That's a process that I'm very appreciative of.
So I like that.

Speaker 1 I love it. All right.
Well, Hawk, this has been awesome, man. You're a recurring guest now.
So you got to come back on whenever we ask. But go Browns and appreciate you coming on.

Speaker 3 Go Browns, man. Appreciate you guys having me, fellas.

Speaker 1 No doubt. Anytime, man.

Speaker 1 I'm not going back to college to be your friend. I'm going so I can get Uber one for students.
It saves you on Uber and Uber Eats.

Speaker 1 I'm there for $0 delivery fee on cheeseburgers, up to 10% off smoothies, and 6% Uber credits back on rides.

Speaker 1 just to be clear i'm there for savings not whatever you think college is for get uber one for students a membership to save on uber and uber eats with deals this good everyone wants to be a student join for just 4.99 a month savings may vary eligibility and member terms apply here's warren sharp and now for something completely different

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on our good friend Warren Sharp. You can find him at sharp football, sharpfootballanalysis.com.
He's got a podcast on the ringer. He's here to break down divisional round.

Speaker 1 Very excited for these matchups. Let's just do it.
Let's just jump in. Let's just go chronological order.
You can tell us your thoughts. We'll tell you our thoughts.
We'll trade thoughts.

Speaker 1 Let's start with the Packers-Rams. It just was announced that John Wolford is not going to be active.
So it's Jared Goff and then the boat, Blake Bortles behind him.

Speaker 1 Is there a recipe for the Rams to win this game, and what does it look like?

Speaker 4 The recipe is you've got to figure out with Brandon Staley, a brilliant defensive coordinator for the Rams, figure out how to slow down the Packers in the first half.

Speaker 4 The Packers are the NFL's number one highest scoring offense in the first half. What Staley has been great at is reducing offensive output by opponents in the second half of games.

Speaker 4 They have the number two best adjustments and second half point output of opposing offenses.

Speaker 4 But you got to figure out how to do that in the first half right off the jump against the Packers because that's where Green Bay does so much damage. They're on their home field.

Speaker 4 Aaron Rodgers has been dreaming of this opportunity to host this playoff game. That's what he's been playing all season for, is to have home field advantage to be able to host one of these.
And

Speaker 4 now you're dealing with trying to manage

Speaker 4 a guy with a broken thumb who's only played a couple games in his NFL career in cold weather like this.

Speaker 4 It's going to be a challenge, but you have to win it with defense and not make your offense have mistakes.

Speaker 1 What about the other side of the coin, the Packers defense, which we've slandered repeatedly this year, but we've kind of come around on them because they seem to be playing better than

Speaker 1 the eyeball test in the Fraud Bowl against Ryan Tannehill, who he's a quarterback that absolutely hates the cold.

Speaker 1 I don't know if there's any stats to back that up, but he looked like he was just, he looked like he was frozen out there.

Speaker 1 Is the Packers defense actually that much better in the second half of the season? Are we making that up?

Speaker 4 No, look, I think when the Packers play an offense, it's really going to test them. They're going to have some trouble.

Speaker 4 Where they match up good here against the

Speaker 4 LA Rams is that they're really good at the perimeter with their cornerbacks. And so I think LA has got a very defined game plan here.

Speaker 4 I think it's a lot of Cam Akers running the football, and you've got to try to get some upside from Higbee as a lot as a tight end against some of those linebackers.

Speaker 4 That's an edge that I think should be able to favor the LA Rams here.

Speaker 4 I like the Packers defense, but I do think that it is a little bit fraudulent, could get exposed by the right offense.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I just don't know if this is the right team to do it. I think this easily could be a Rams cover and a game that sits right around like 26-20, possibly somewhere in that neighborhood.

Speaker 4 I think the point spread is pretty good with this one.

Speaker 4 There is the potential that the Packers get out pretty quick in this game, And you definitely can't have that happen because this really is one of those first quarter games.

Speaker 4 If Aaron Rodgers puts up 10 to 13 points to 14 points in the first quarter, I mean, you don't want Goff sitting back. They're dropping back over and over and over.

Speaker 4 We now know, as you mentioned, his Walford, his backup is not going to be in there. So it could be Blake Bortles

Speaker 4 who enters into the game. But

Speaker 4 I just think the Rams have to figure out a way to keep this game close through the first quarter.

Speaker 1 Do you think, is there anything with, you you know, Vic Fangio obviously coached defense for the Bears. Brandon Staley is a disciple of Vic Fangio.

Speaker 1 Is there like a sharing of ideas in those situations where it's like, hey, how do we stop Aaron Rodgers? And can you even?

Speaker 1 Like, is this a situation where the Rams can go in and reasonably hope that they could maybe keep the Packers to 17 points? Because I feel like that's...

Speaker 1 Like for the Rams to win this game, the Rams aren't going to score more than 24 points. So they got to kind of keep the Packers to 17, 20, 21, somewhere in that range, right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think that would be tough, especially at home for Green Bay to only have that level of output.

Speaker 4 Because you look at the Rams defense and the best elements of their defense, what they've been able to win the most with. And it's Jalen Ramsey and it's Aaron Donald, right? Those are your two studs.

Speaker 4 And the Packers have the NFL's best-graded center in Corey Lindsay to go up against Aaron Donald. And we don't even know how long in this game Aaron Donald might be able to last.

Speaker 4 We certainly know that he's going to start the game. But if he takes another shot to those ribs or something else happens or pops or who knows what is going on right there,

Speaker 4 he might miss some time in the second half of this game. I don't know.
I hope he doesn't, but it's a possibility.

Speaker 4 But you have a great matchup if you're the Packers to stop one of the biggest elements of the Rams offense.

Speaker 4 Now, I don't think that Lindsey is going to be able to stop him, but at least try to slow him down.

Speaker 4 It's better to have the best center playing the sport right now than it is like the 13th best or 15th best. So at least that's favorable to the Packers from that perspective.

Speaker 4 And then you've got Devontae Adams who excels using his footwork. And that's the key thing.
I know they're going to talk about it time in and time out on the broadcast.

Speaker 4 He uses his footwork to gain separation. He doesn't try to overpower with his hands against a guy like Jalen Ramsey.

Speaker 4 And Jalen Ramsey's had some success against guys who try to outmuscle him at the line of scrimmage. And I don't think Devontae Adams is really going to do that.

Speaker 4 I'm also really intrigued to see how they move Devontae Adams around and what that causes to happen for the rules of Jalen Ramsey and where they line him up. I like this defense.

Speaker 4 I will say, you know, having spoken with coaches, I don't think Vic Fangio would feel comfortable reaching out to Brandon Staley, be like, hey, here's some thoughts that I have for you on this game.

Speaker 4 I think if it's going to happen, if there was some of that communication, it would have come when Brandon Staley floats a little note out to Vic and say, any thoughts on the matchup this weekend?

Speaker 4 And then you might get a little bit of a discourse there. So I'm not quite sure where that would go, but

Speaker 4 it's definitely going to be important to try to figure out a way to slow down Aaron Rodgers. But I think expecting that you can limit him to 17 points is relatively unreasonable, in my opinion.

Speaker 1 I love the narratives about the disciples. I just love any disciple conversation.
And the big disciple conversation this game, obviously, is going to be McVay and LaFleur.

Speaker 1 How does that usually shake out if there's like a head coach that's coaching against a guy that worked underneath him?

Speaker 1 Does the advantage, would you think that it would go to the guy that learned so much from the head coach or would it go from, you know, would it go to a head coach like McVay who saw everything that LaFleur did, probably memorized it, and then has a little leg up leading into the actual game?

Speaker 4 I think it's really fascinating because I don't know that there's necessarily hard and fast rule.

Speaker 4 I have not studied the game results when those two types of things line up because it really is so specific in this particular instance.

Speaker 4 As an offensive coach, as a designer of your offense, you cook, you're the chef and you work with the ingredients that you have at hand. And then you're trying to make the best meal possible.

Speaker 4 And each guy's got their own set of ingredients.

Speaker 4 It's not like these cooking shows where they give all the teams the same exact recipe, the same exact or the same exact ingredients, make something different and that we'll like it's it's you've got totally different sets of ingredients here so um i think that there's going to be a little bit of familiarity like that you you could share with your defensive coordinator like hey i know he likes to use this i know he likes to do that um you might have a little bit of familiarity matt lafleur like hey i've seen jared goff and he struggles with this a little bit um but

Speaker 4 I think it's, I think there's a cat and mouse game associated with it, but I don't know if there's a definitive edge for the master or his pupil.

Speaker 1 So, what would you say looking at the difference between LaFleur and McVay? Because a lot of times, in my dumb brain, at least, I'm like, oh, that's LaFleur. He's just McVay with darker hair.

Speaker 1 And he was hired to be like the next McVay during that whole coach offseason hiring spree. So, like, what does LaFleur do differently?

Speaker 1 What are the notable differences in his offense as opposed to what Sean McVay tries to do?

Speaker 4 Well, the cool thing is, is that when McVay was with LaFleur in L.A., McVay was

Speaker 4 11 personnel, 90% of the game. I'm just going to, and you know what?

Speaker 1 One running back and one tight end. Yep to it.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And so they spread the field with wide receivers constantly, and that's what they were using up through that 2018 Super Bowl that they lost to the Patriots.

Speaker 4 But when LaFleur goes and leaves and goes to Tennessee, he's got Derrick Henry. He's got Marcus Mariota.
He's doing totally different things with the offense. They aren't using 11 wise.

Speaker 4 They aren't doing the same types of things that Sean McVay was using with the Rams back in 2018. But then Matt LaFleur comes to Green Bay.

Speaker 4 And guess what also has happened now is that Sean McVay is no longer, he's learned from the 2018 and 2017. They were also using the three wise all the time.
He's learned from that.

Speaker 4 Now they're using more two tight end sets to help protect Goff because Goff is terrible under pressure. That's going to be a key element to this game is the pass rush that Green Bay can get in there.

Speaker 4 So even Sean McVay's offense looks a little bit different. They're saying still the same principles and same concepts, but I mean,

Speaker 4 the game that we remember from Sean McVay that was just like, holy cow, this is one of the best games we've ever seen was the game against the Rams versus the Chiefs, where it was like 54 to 50.

Speaker 4 It was in supposed to be, I think, in Mexico, but then it got moved back to L.A. And they played this massive shootout on Monday night football.
And it was incredible to watch.

Speaker 4 And there was a lot of deep passes that the Rams were throwing down the field. There's a constant 11 personnel.
Now they're not even throwing the ball deep down the field anymore.

Speaker 4 They're hardly ever throwing, the Rams hardly ever throw deep. They're using a lot more 12.
But the principles of

Speaker 4 using the run to set up play action and open the game off of that, both of these guys like to utilize that. Both of these guys like to have that.

Speaker 4 But I mean, there's night and day differences that each of these coordinators have and play callers have with the ingredients specifically at quarterback and specifically in this game.

Speaker 4 Aaron Rodgers throws deep at the highest rate in the NFL. The Rams are one of the best defenses at stopping deep passes.

Speaker 4 Jared Goff doesn't throw the ball deep hardly at all. So, I mean, there's a lot of interesting angles from that perspective.

Speaker 1 All right. So,

Speaker 1 Saturday night, I think, is the game that everyone's looking forward to the most this weekend. The Ravens and the Bills.

Speaker 1 It feels like whoever wins this game has a very decent chance of going to the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 Maybe it's the Chiefs, maybe it's the Browns. We'll get to that in a second.
What is the

Speaker 1 last week and I was like, damn, the Ravens' defense was humming at a different level that they have been at for a while. Like, so are they able to stop a dynamic offense like the Buffalo Bills?

Speaker 1 And how is that going to look when, you know, the Bills weren't perfect on Saturday against the Colts. So are they going to be able to kind of clean some of that stuff up?

Speaker 4 So a lot of elements to this game, but on that side of the football, I have a lot of respect for the Ravens' defense. I do think it's going to be a difficult matchup.

Speaker 4 The difference between this matchup and let's say say when Brian Dayball and the Bills went up against the Chargers or the Steelers with the Ravens defense is that in the Chargers, it's like, okay, we got to make sure that Joey Bosa doesn't wreck our game plan.

Speaker 4 With the Steelers, it's like, okay, let's make sure TJ Watt and Cam Hayward don't wreck our game plan, getting pressure from those guys could derail some things.

Speaker 4 And Brian Dayball was able to come in after the first series or two where they started a little bit slowly and made some adjustments. And then the offense started humming after that.

Speaker 4 In this game, there isn't one guy or one or two guys that really stand out for the Radiums.

Speaker 4 I mean, like Matthew Judon, they got guys who have a few more sacks than others, but there's not that guy that's just like, oh, God, we got to make sure.

Speaker 4 It's the scheme of Wink Martindale, and it's the pressure rate. They blitz at the number one highest rate of any team in the NFL.

Speaker 4 And it's the ability to send sim pressures, which are like we stand at the line of scrimmage and there's six of us and two of us are going to drop out.

Speaker 4 You don't know which is going to come, or five of us are going to rush, and one of us is going to drop out, and you don't know which is going to come.

Speaker 4 So, they're simulating that all the guys are coming. So, the line has to figure out what are we going to do, and then the Ravens drop back.
That is like one of the better

Speaker 4 adjustments that defenses can use against offenses to try to slow them down.

Speaker 4 Like, offenses use pre-stop motion and play action to try to get extra information before the snap or fake the defense after the snap to gain an even better edge by getting guys out of position with play action, where the defense thinks it might be a run, but it's actually a pass.

Speaker 4 With sim pressures, the same exact concept happens where the offense thinks we got the line, thinks I'm blocking these guys.

Speaker 4 The quarterback thinks I might have pressure from this side, so I've got to look for my hot routes. And then it's not after like a second, it's not what you thought it was going to be.

Speaker 4 So there's definitely going to be a challenge for the Buffalo Bills offense to try to figure this out.

Speaker 4 Two things that we know, though.

Speaker 4 I mentioned that the Buffalo Bills, sorry, that the Baltimore Ravens have the number one highest blitz rate. Josh Allen is phenomenal against the Blitz.

Speaker 4 He's faced eight top 10 Blitz-heavy teams in the NFL so far this season. So he's faced teams that like the Blitz, though nobody blitzes at the rate of the Ravens.

Speaker 4 And he's done well against the Blitz, just the Blitz. But there's a difference between a Blitz and pressure.

Speaker 4 Pressure means the Blitz is getting home, or you could be pressured even if they didn't blitz. And Josh Allen has massively bad splits when he is being pressured.

Speaker 4 So the key, the whole framework of the Bills' offense needs to be get the ball out of Josh Allen's hands before the pressure reaches him. Because under pressure, he's not good.

Speaker 4 Without pressure, he's great. And if he can diagnose a blitz before it gets to him and before he's pressured, he's great as well.

Speaker 4 So you just got to figure out the right types of personnel groupings, which there are some that work better against the Ravens than others, which the Ravens have not had much success getting pressure against.

Speaker 4 Use those a little bit more often and try to get the ball out of Josh's hand.

Speaker 4 And the biggest thing here to guys for me in this game is it's imperative that the Buffalo Bills start quickly and put up points. You must make Baltimore.

Speaker 4 go into halftime down seven to 10 points and thinking, man, we've got to throw the ball ball more in the second half. We've got to take the ball out of Lamar's hand.
We've got to make an adjustment.

Speaker 4 And they have to be sitting there in that locker room at halftime, making some of those adjustments to use more 11 personnel or more drop back passing game from Lamar.

Speaker 4 If the Bills keep the Ravens in the game or if the Ravens have a lead here, they're going to be able to run all second half against this defense. And that's a concern for me.

Speaker 1 What about the other side of it? What about the Buffalo Bills defense against offenses like the Ravens?

Speaker 1 I'm sure that there's no other team in the NFL that does certain things that the Ravens do offensively.

Speaker 1 But when they're going up against those, you know, the fancy math personnel groupings that you keep very close tabs on, how does that defense fare in those situations?

Speaker 4 The thing with the Ravens is that

Speaker 4 they only have one really good wide receiver, and that's Marquise Brown, number 15.

Speaker 4 And the problem for, but the problem for them is that the Bills have one of the best shutdown corners in the NFL, Tredavious White.

Speaker 4 Most teams that the Bills go go up against have a couple of comparable receivers.

Speaker 4 You're not really going to find another team in the NFL that has one guy who you should fear, who's got some speed, and the rest of the guys just kind of, eh, like they don't throw the ball to them much.

Speaker 4 There's not much to do with them. So I'll be interested to see how the Bills deploy Tredavius White against Marquise Brown.

Speaker 4 Are they moving him? Is he traveling with Marquise Brown or is he staying on his side, which is what he's done most of the season?

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 beyond any shadow of the doubt, the number one thing when you've got a corner like that who can guard Marquise Brown is we've got to shut the run.

Speaker 4 Let's focus the rest of our efforts on stopping the run.

Speaker 4 I think they had some success. If you go back and watch the 2019 game where Buffalo, a much worse version of Josh Allen, played the Baltimore Ravens.

Speaker 4 Baltimore struggled to run the football against this Buffalo Bills defense. I do think Buffalo was a a little bit better defensively in 2019 than they are in 2020, and there's going to be some edges.

Speaker 4 Buffalo ranks number 30 over the course of the entire season against explosive rushes. It means like runs that gain 10 plus or 10 plus yards.

Speaker 4 So I think that there's going to be opportunities for the Baltimore Ravens to have some of these big explosive runs on the ground. And Buffalo may struggle against that.

Speaker 4 They've gotten a little bit better of late, but they still may struggle against that.

Speaker 4 But I think that Mark Andrews is the key guy that you want to be looking at to have a big game for Baltimore. I think, regardless of what Buffalo ends up doing, they stink covering tight ends.

Speaker 4 So I think Mark Andrews is going to have a big game here from a yardage perspective, possibly a touchdown perspective, too. I just think he's going to have a good game here.

Speaker 4 But it'll be interesting to see if the weather is bad. I mean, the weather forecast is all over the place.

Speaker 4 And we do know that we got surprised against the Pittsburgh Steelers with some lake effect snow flurries in that game that weren't being predicted three hours beforehand and so that was certainly a big a big shock to us

Speaker 4 if if the weather is bad that favors baltimore because they want to just run the football and buffalo lost their starting running back last week so they're playing with singletary and they want to pass the football um but what the funny part is is it's already in lamar jackson's head he's already said i don't want to play in the snow i really don't want to and so to me it's like Buffalo should use this to their advantage, right?

Speaker 4 Like

Speaker 4 I know Buffalo has hasn't fared well against

Speaker 4 in the weather conditions that they've played, but why did you go get Josh Allen?

Speaker 4 You got the big hulky dude from Wyoming, the guy with the big hands and the big arm who could play in these conditions, who's played in them in Wyoming.

Speaker 4 This is a Buffalo quarterback, right? This is Josh Allen's perfect for this.

Speaker 4 And you've got another quarterback who's like, I don't really want to play in the, I don't want to have to play in the snow.

Speaker 4 So Buffalo needs to welcome whatever the weather conditions are and just try to use it to their advantage.

Speaker 1 The lake is the 12th man. I mean, Lake Erie across the board.
Those are our teams there. So Lamar has never played in the snow in his life.

Speaker 1 He saw snow one time. Is this going to be the coldest game he's ever played in as well? I think it might be.
I know he played in Buffalo last year. There was a really,

Speaker 1 I think the Chargers' Baltimore playoff game a couple years ago was super cold. Remember that? Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think Lamar obviously didn't have a very good game in that game.

Speaker 4 That's when they lost and the Chargers used a deployment of like six linebackers or six DBs rather and got rid of some D-linemen.

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 4 I don't know that it will be the coldest because I do think that the game time temps are going to be around like 35 to 36.

Speaker 4 It's going to feel a little bit colder and then it's just a matter of whether or not there is moisture in the air and whether it ends up coming down as...

Speaker 4 rain or a little bit of snow or some mix therein. But

Speaker 4 I don't think it will be his coldest, but he's already talking about it.

Speaker 4 So you know he's thinking about it yeah that game was that game had uh pretty big wind gusts and was uh i'm looking at it right now that was where everybody was like do we put joe flak it was halftime yeah it wasn't that cold but it was it wasn't like nice out i just want to say one thing about buffalo last week so buffalo last week um one big thing that's not getting as much attention that should get more attention is buffalo's average starting field position in the first half of that game um like it or not you know what but before i started talking to different guys around the league, I just wanted offensive coordinators to, even if they're backed up on their 10 or their 15 or their five, to just call some, call what they need to call like to move the ball, call the most efficient stuff anyways.

Speaker 4 But there is an extreme tendency. It's hard to call the best stuff.
It's hard to call all these creative plays down there backed up where you know that a small mistake will result in.

Speaker 4 immediate points for the other team.

Speaker 4 And look at where Buffalo starts this game last week in the first half against the Indianapolis Colts.

Speaker 4 They have drives starting at their own three-yard line, four-yard line, six-yard line, 11-yard line, and 15-yard line. And that's it.

Speaker 4 That's their entire offensive series in the first half of the game. They marched two of those drives, 85 yards and I think 96 yards down for touchdowns.

Speaker 4 Okay, which takes a lot of the clock to do and is very difficult to do. But for the most part, they're staying backed up and they're giving the Colts good field position.

Speaker 4 And the Colts, if they called better plays offensively, if Frank Wright was a little bit more aggressive in certain situations I think that they end up scoring more points so I'm not going to sit here and say like well uh the the the bills should have won by an even larger margin because the colts made some mistakes offensively they had good field position they didn't take advantage of it themselves but I do think that Right now, the thought process of Buffalo is, man, they probably should have lost that game last week to the Colts.

Speaker 4 And then the thought process of the Ravens is like, man, they had a really good game down in Tennessee. They were able to exercise the demons, so to speak.
Lamar won his first game.

Speaker 1 They were able to stomp on the logo and get revenge.

Speaker 4 But I do sit here and question, like John Harbaugh says that that was his favorite game, his best win of his entire coaching career. I don't know if you guys heard.

Speaker 4 He said his best win of his entire career, right? Like that, that particular win. And you're playing one of the worst.
defenses in the entire NFL. The Titans have one of the worst defenses.

Speaker 4 And but for like that Lamar pass play where he drops back and then scrambles for 50 plus yards, like incredible run, scoring that massive touchdown. What really does your offense do the entire game?

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 4 And you had a lot of help on the other side of the ball because Arthur Smith, and this is something I've been saying on your show each time that I come on and we talk about the Titans, stop running the ball on first downs in the first quarter of the game.

Speaker 4 I know you love Derrick Henry, but when the defense is stacking the box and you're not having efficient gains on those run plays,

Speaker 4 Adjust, throw the football, use some play action, then go back to the run later.

Speaker 4 And he came out on 10, Arthur Smith did, the offensive quarter for the Titans, on 10 first downs in the first half and ran the ball on eight of them.

Speaker 4 And they were getting like 2.7 yards per carry or something. And the Ravens, you look at the next-gen stats, they were stacking the box on those plays and the Titans never adjusted.

Speaker 4 So I think the Bills will adjust. You can guarantee Brian Dayball is going to adjust to whatever Wink throws at him.
I think it's going to be a fascinating game. It's really hard to pick a winner.

Speaker 4 I can tell you sharp action has been on both sides of this game. When the line opened a little bit higher, they grabbed Baltimore.

Speaker 4 When the line got down to like minus one and a half, they grabbed Buffalo. They laid it with Buffalo.

Speaker 4 So there's a couple of really, really sharp groups with a lot of storied success in the sports betting, like the part of the space that I live in, like behind the scenes, that are on opposing fronts on this game.

Speaker 1 So we actually had Andrew Hawkins on the show as well.

Speaker 1 We always do two guests on Friday. So we talked a ton about the Browns and Chiefs.
So let's skip that game and and go to Bucs Saints. I love the Bucs.

Speaker 1 Tell me why I'm either an idiot or I'm the smartest man alive, and my bet on the Bucs is going to win.

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 can I ask you a question? Yeah.

Speaker 4 How much of Tom Brady catching points is factoring into the reason why you like the Bucs here? No,

Speaker 1 it's actually that I don't believe in the Saints, and

Speaker 1 I think Drew Brees is very limited.

Speaker 1 And more than anything i think if you look at the bucks season the first half of the season trying to figure things out the second half when they had that little blip where they close game to the giants get killed by the saints lose the chiefs alley marpetts out for all those games one of the best guards in the game and i think that that changes that shifts it to me where the bucks will have a lot more success protecting tom brady and at that point he can slice you up any which way yeah i well i think that if you like the bucks in this game you have to like them for one of two reasons.

Speaker 4 The first reason is you think Breeze and the Saints are toast. You think that they're kind of done.
His arm strength is done.

Speaker 4 The best of his career is come and gone. And now he's in the twilight and this isn't going to work out well.
So

Speaker 4 you either think that they're going to be inefficient against the Bucs defense, which the Bucs defense ranks pretty well, but really is susceptible.

Speaker 4 So you got to feel like the Saints aren't going to be able to take advantage of that this go-around.

Speaker 4 Or you have to think that the tampa bay bucks something has changed either personnel wise like you said with marpet or strategic wise the strategy of the attack because they obviously had no success in the in the first couple of games against these guys and so what i did is i went back and i looked at

Speaker 4 It's rare that a team wins twice against the same opponent in the same season. That doesn't happen very often.

Speaker 4 When it did happen, when the first team won, like let's pretend it's the divisional matchup. That's what all these games are.
We're not talking about the playoffs yet.

Speaker 4 We're just talking about regular season only. Team A wins the first game.

Speaker 4 Then they play the same opponent again later that season in the divisional rematch, and team A wins again. So they swept them.

Speaker 4 Typically, when you play and win the second game against the opponent, you win by higher margin than you did the first go-round. And why would that be?

Speaker 4 Even though that on average, only like 55% of the time will there be a sweep will the first team be able to win the second game like i said it's very difficult to do but the 45 of the time or sorry the 55 time that it does happen you win by higher margin and the reason is probably because you've got inherent matchup edges against that opponent you're just better i mean football at the end of the day there it comes down to the X's and O's and the Jimmies and the Joes.

Speaker 4 It comes down to the players lining up against one another and the strategy that the coach is using.

Speaker 4 And in some cases, a combination of those two things or one more than the other ends up factoring into the outcomes of games where certain teams just don't match up well with one another.

Speaker 4 We're talking a very low sample, very small sample size, but I want to share the results here when a team sweeps its opponent and then plays them for a third time in the playoffs.

Speaker 4 And I went back to 1990 to look at instances of this. And there's only been 17 instances where that has happened.

Speaker 4 And the team that swept their opponent won 13 of those 17 games in the third meeting, the third meeting of the season, the one that was in the postseason.

Speaker 4 If it was beyond the wildcard round, they won five of six.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 they won by pretty large margins.

Speaker 4 And it again speaks to the fact that like this one team may just have this inherent matchup edge or coaching advantage, personnel advantage over their opponent, which you can say everything you want.

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 we don't want to get swept by them. We don't want to lose a third time.
We're going to make all these adjustments, which is helpful.

Speaker 4 When you lose a game, you tend to make more adjustments when you play that same team again. Team that wins says, Let's just do the same stuff.

Speaker 4 So there are things that do benefit you, but sometimes you might just be outmatched. And that's what I'm trying to figure out here: is

Speaker 4 are the Saints just a better matchup against the Bucs? And will the Bucks, or will the Bucs have any hope of success?

Speaker 4 Because when you guys look at the Saints defense, you'll see that they rank top five in defensive efficiency. But then you go down and you look at the opposing offenses that they played.

Speaker 4 Look at any team that ranked above average that the Saints have played this year besides the Bucs. The Chiefs, they gave up 32 points.
The Vikings, they gave up 33.

Speaker 4 The Panthers, they gave up 24 in the first meeting. The Raiders, they gave up 34.
The Chargers, 27, and the Lions, 29.

Speaker 4 We're talking about 24-plus points to all of these teams with just above-average offenses, not the best of the best, just above-average. The Bucs obviously are an above-average offense.

Speaker 4 They're better than that. They're one of the best that we have in the NFL.

Speaker 4 Will they be able to produce like these other guys have done?

Speaker 4 Or is the matchup just so much in favor based upon the way that these teams physically line up against one another that they're not going to have as much success?

Speaker 4 It's a tough game. I mean, I'll just tell you that it is a tough game to bet.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So,

Speaker 1 what's the, in terms of this matchup and the coaches in particular, you find something about like every coaching matchup that you tend to get upset about sometimes on Twitter.

Speaker 1 Like this guy should have been doing this. He did this all season and he's doing it again right now and it's costing his team.
In terms of Bruce Arians or Sean Payton,

Speaker 1 what do you get pissed off about when it comes to those coaches? Is there one thing in particular that's like a pet peeve with those guys?

Speaker 4 100% this season with Bruce Arians and Byron Luthwich, because I think they're both working on the offense.

Speaker 4 I think Byron is actually the one calling in the plays, but it's some of Bruce's philosophy is in there as well. And it's their run rate on first downs, on early downs.

Speaker 4 I mean, I will just tell you this. The Bucs got lucky that they had success running the football last week against Washington because they called a very high rate of run plays in that game.

Speaker 4 Maybe they were trying to keep Tom Brady away from the pressure, ended up not having as much pressure. Their O-line did a very good job.

Speaker 4 They should have been throwing the football a little bit more often.

Speaker 4 But I looked back at the first like 13 games of the season for Tampa Bay, and they had one of the higher run rates in the NFL, an above-average run rate, and the worst production on these runs on first downs in the first half of games.

Speaker 4 Literally number 32 in the NFL yards per carry on run plays. They had their bye week.
They play Minnesota out the bye.

Speaker 4 You remember that game, the poor old Minnesota kicker shanks a bunch of field goals and the Bucs end up winning that game by a margin, but the game was a little bit closer than that, but for those misses, they come back their last three games of the regular season.

Speaker 4 Tampa does against the Falcons twice and the Detroit Lions. And they go 68% pass on these first-down plays in the first half of games.
I'm like, oh, my God, they turned a corner. This is what we want.

Speaker 4 Why the hell did you bring Tom Brady to Tampa? You bring him to Tampa so that you can manage him.

Speaker 4 You hand off the Leonard Fournette so that you could have Byron Lefwich running the show and deciding what ends up happening with this team.

Speaker 4 No, that's not why you bring Tom Tom Brady and Antonio Brown and Rob Gronkowski and all these pieces. You do it because you love Tom Brady.
You think he's the key to get you over the hump.

Speaker 4 He gives you the best chance to win games. They came out last week.

Speaker 4 And if you go back and look at the film or just look at the data, they ran the ball on 58% of their first downs in the first half of the game. Way too high of a run rate once again.

Speaker 4 And I just feel like if they come into this game with a too high of a run rate on these first down plays, they could say whatever they want in terms of their reasoning.

Speaker 4 We're doing it to protect Tom Brady from the pass rush, or we just think it's a good game plan to be balanced.

Speaker 4 Whatever the reasoning is, the Saints have a much better run defense than Washington does. And those runs have a lower likelihood of seeing the success that they had last week.

Speaker 4 And that's going to be meaning more situations where Tom Brady is going to have to convert on third downs.

Speaker 4 Against Washington, he converted, I want to say, at a 60% clip at the beginning part of that game, averaged 10.8 yards per pass attempt.

Speaker 4 It's going to be very difficult for him to replicate those numbers against the New Orleans Saints defense.

Speaker 4 So bigger than anything to me, well, that's the pet peeve I have about Bruce Arians and Byron Lefwich. It's this is the playoffs.

Speaker 4 This is a game against Drew Brees, a team that you've played twice and lost to twice.

Speaker 4 Tom Brady goes out on his shield in this game, in my opinion. Let Tom Brady throw the damn ball on first down.

Speaker 4 We will win or lose because of Tom Brady, not because Byron Lefwich is a play calling genius, right? That all of a sudden, oh my God, it's Byron Lefwich. He figured it all out.

Speaker 4 No, Tom Brady wins or loses this game. Let's not take that opportunity away from him by running Leonard Fournette too much.
On the other side, it's very simple.

Speaker 4 It's just one man.

Speaker 4 It's one man that bothers me, and that's his usage of our old quarterback friend from BYU.

Speaker 4 I just don't understand the affinity that he has to Taysom Hill and when he trots him in and throws off the game plan and the timing of it.

Speaker 4 I mean, if they bring him in in the red zone against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and he botches the play or in some capacity, I mean, I'm just going to lose my mind because I don't think the upside is there with Taysom Hill being involved in this offense.

Speaker 4 I would much rather have Drew Brees and Alvin Kamara either passing or running or throw it to Alvin Kamara rather than mixing in Taysom Hill.

Speaker 4 Now, I hope to God if I was backing backing the Saints here, but Taysom Hill scores a bunch of touchdowns. I don't care at that point.
Like, if my money's on the Saints, I want him to do well.

Speaker 4 But if he screws things up in this game, like then that's on Sean Payton more than anybody else.

Speaker 1 Counterpoint, it's fun when he comes to the game. When Taysom Hill comes in and just stupid and it's fun and just runs face first into a linebacker, that's fun to watch.

Speaker 1 And maybe it's fun for his teammates, too.

Speaker 1 Maybe his teammates are like, that was pretty fucking cool when Taysom just like put his head into that guy's shoulder pads and now he's going to be out for another another like 15 plays until we see him again.

Speaker 1 Maybe his teammates are like, that's fun. Let's have fun on the next play.
Then they score a touchdown from Drew Brees. It is fun.
It is fun.

Speaker 1 Warren, admit that it's fun. Just say it.
It's unexpected.

Speaker 4 You don't know.

Speaker 4 I think the viewer, I will give you this.

Speaker 4 If you think it's fun to raise the level of variance on any outcome of a play such that it could be a boom bust or a highlight, then yes, then that's what you're going to get when you trot him out there.

Speaker 4 And we don't really know what we're going to get. It could be great.
It could be terrible. It could be a nice collision.
He could hurdle some dude.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's fine.
I think that's fun. Perfect.
The Jameis windshield. Come around.

Speaker 1 That's the saber metric that we have wrapped around that.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, Warren, thank you as always.
At sharp football.

Speaker 1 I have one last question.

Speaker 1 Are there any props that you're fired up about?

Speaker 1 I want to lay some money on some props this weekend. Feels like a good prop weekend.

Speaker 4 I think it should be a good prop weekend.

Speaker 1 Just give us one.

Speaker 4 Okay, I'll give you two. And they're tight ends.
And we love talking about heavy personnel and tight ends

Speaker 4 with you guys.

Speaker 4 I like Travis Kelsey. I think he's going to have a really big game against Cleveland Browns linebackers.

Speaker 4 And you guys covered that game in detail before. And I also like Mark Andrews.
We talked about him before. I think he's going to have a big game as well.

Speaker 4 So Mark Andrews and Travis Kelsey should have some success here. Love it.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, thank you, Warren.
Hopefully those hit so everyone can say thank you on Twitter. You're the best.
We appreciate it, man. And we'll talk soon.

Speaker 4 Thanks, guys. Best weekend of the year for football.
I can't wait.

Speaker 1 Yes. Let's go.

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Man, I miss Costco so much. Oh yeah, Sam's Club Costco the best.
Dude, you know what?

Speaker 1 As a dad, one of the great things that you have to look forward to once you get out of New York is all my life going into my life.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just going to Costco on a Saturday morning and just seeing everybody that you know from your neighborhood. Samples.
Sample City. Sample.

Speaker 1 You just stand next to that smoothie station for like two hours. Love it.
You get breakfast, weenie lunch. The little weenies, or we call them the Jeff D.
Lowe's.

Speaker 1 Then it's like $1.25 to get a slice of pizza and a Coke after you. Man, Costco is awesome.

Speaker 1 You can find Liquid IV at Costco. Liquid IV, check them out.
LiquidIV.com. Promo code TAKE.

Speaker 1 All right. Fire Fest of the Week.
Let's do it, boys. Let's finish the week strong.
Hank, start us off.

Speaker 1 So this one's pretty serious. As you guys know, it's winter here in New York.
It's cold outside. Don't say you're depressed or some shit like that.

Speaker 1 Even worse, good cat.

Speaker 1 Dude, just exercise. What? The zipper on my jacket broke.
Oh,

Speaker 1 that's worse. Way worse than depression.
That's worse. Way worse.
Yeah, that's worse. And it's like it just fell off.

Speaker 1 Do I have to bring my whole coat

Speaker 1 to get thick? Like, do I have to get a new coat? Yeah, you got to go to it. Or do I have to go through the process of bringing my coat? No buttons, obviously.
No buttons.

Speaker 1 You're going to have to drop your coat off at the coat guy and then walk out with your JV coat and then walk in the cold with that. Bro.
And then walk back to pick your coat up. And I just donated.

Speaker 1 We put in there's like a hundred starter jackets in the pile the barstool fun but those are gone you can buy them now but yeah

Speaker 1 there's i think you had like six patriots jackets i saw away i saw a tick tock how to fix that like actually like how to fix that

Speaker 1 i'm sure all right well then find that and i'll just bring it in on something yeah you said spoiler

Speaker 1 fire firefest soft no seriously specific tick tock actually pre-algorithms you yeah it's like tenant they knew billy was going to talk about this today spoilers man so they they showed that i don't don't think that's a spoiler.

Speaker 1 I don't even.

Speaker 1 I don't know the movie well enough. I've got a TikTok feed to just give me the most useful information ever.
Here's my Tenet review. I haven't seen it yet.
Here's my review.

Speaker 1 I don't know what the fuck I just watched. Yep.
But I'm a little bit creeped out, but I'm not sure if I'm totally creeped out. There you go.
That's Tenet. Nutshell.
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 Everyone's been talking about it. And I actually, like, they haven't been able to spoil it because they're like, I don't understand it.
Yeah. I thought I was falling.

Speaker 1 It's really long in the first few hours. How long? I think it's like two and a half hours.
But I was like, I think I'm there. And then the last hour, I was like,

Speaker 1 how do we have? I'm still talking about that? Truly no idea.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 1 Are we still talking about what?

Speaker 1 There we go. Zippers.
We're talking about zippers.

Speaker 1 How do we get to tenant?

Speaker 1 Because you got preconceived into watching a TikTok video.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I just don't get it.
Billy,

Speaker 1 I would say, yeah, don't watch Tenant if you couldn't even follow along that one-minute conversation about not understanding Tenet. I know, but I don't understand how he got onto it.
Right, yeah.

Speaker 1 So don't watch Tenet. Yeah, we get it.
We'll never see him again. Actually, it would just billy would get so woke off he'd paralyze himself i'd love to hear your review billy would just get mad

Speaker 1 you'd get mad at the at your television you've poisoned me into being confused uh pft what's your fire fest my fire fest is uh

Speaker 1 i'm kind of addicted to warzone oh that's not a fire fest no it's not badass no it's it's a fire fest because have you ever been addicted to something that you're really really bad at reading Watching the Bears.

Speaker 1 Watching the Bears. Reading, too.
I'm addicted to reading. But I'm reading

Speaker 1 it. No, but I can't do it.

Speaker 1 what do you mean like i can't read because once you start you know that you'll just i'll never read all such a bookworm and you'll never do anything yeah uh so i'm i play a lot i've started to play like almost every night where be we've been doing these streams um with billy with hank with uh aaron rupkowski with a lot of people and i'm so bad i can't follow along what's going on occasionally i like stumble my way ass backwards into a kill um but it's it's so painful to really enjoy doing something that makes you not enjoy it as you're doing it but all you gotta do is win once

Speaker 1 i'm oh that's video games i'm years away years away from winning an entire warzone you're playing in diamond lobbies with rip rip is really good hank is now is doing a big eye roll at billy no but he'd have more fun in like a bronze lobby well no i i'm also it's a problem i'm also playing by myself I'm also doing solos, and I still stinking that.

Speaker 1 I mean, occasionally

Speaker 1 I'll hide in the sniper tower and just be a coward and pick a couple people off and get lucky. But I'm so bad at it, but I can't stop playing it.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is like my fire fest from quarantine. Yeah.
Although it's not a fire fest, but I have. You're good at it.
I have. No, I'm bad, but I was like PFT for the first few months.
Then

Speaker 1 once you at least know how to play, I'm getting nerfed, Hank. I'm getting nerfed.

Speaker 1 But I've, yeah, I mean, Call of Duty, like, I've become, I just, like, I, I used to always, like, scoff at the people that were, like, at the office, like, watching streams and stuff.

Speaker 1 Like, Like, I'll just, if I, like, if we're working or whatever and it's late, like, I'll just turn on a stream, like, watch a YouTube video, like, try to get it. Try to get better.
Yeah, get better.

Speaker 1 And I don't know all the lingo because people have been using like the slang terms that I don't understand because they've been playing the game for like three years.

Speaker 1 That's that's actually just a problem that I have in general where I get into trends years after they're already popular. Yeah, you need to wait.
Like, I missed the boat on this Call of Duty.

Speaker 1 I'm going to try to hop back in on maybe the next one. Yeah.
Because you got to get there early. Right.
Otherwise, you're fucked.

Speaker 1 Remember when I was trying to talk to you guys about Game Game of Thrones like six months ago? It's kind of... Yeah, we do.
I mean, I just started wearing Jinko jeans within the last couple of years.

Speaker 1 So I'm considerably late to most things, but it's just, it's tough because I want to get better, but I also suck at it. Keep at it.
It sucks while I'm doing it, but I don't understand why.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's it. That's video games.
They're frustrating as hell, but when you get that win. All right, My Fire Fest.

Speaker 1 Well, the entire Bears organization, but I don't even want to waste my breath on that.

Speaker 1 They're just fucking incompetent morons that they literally are, they literally are keeping everyone hired because they work well together not because they're good but they work well together that's that was actually what they said that's that's cool though like they have a good time at the boys hanging with the boys collaboration is what ted Phillips said 17 times you only get one life you might as well do with people that you like hanging out with I'll tell you what I'll say something nice about the Bears organization George McCowski and Ted Phillips are elite at answering their own questions Did we figure out the quarterback position?

Speaker 1 No, not really. That's it.
That's like their whole thing. I mean, I did.
Do we want to win more? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I love that quote when they said, you know, we've done a pretty good job at everything except for finding a quarterback and winning games.

Speaker 1 And winning games.

Speaker 1 They've been over 500 once in the last eight years. That's crazy because I feel like, well, that also might be misleading because I feel like the Bears have been exactly 500 many times.

Speaker 1 They have been twice. Yeah.
But they suck.

Speaker 1 It's a bad franchise. It's a bad, it's an ugly friend.
I'm excited for next year whenever they draft. They probably Mac Jones.
Give me McCorkle. But my real Fire Fest is

Speaker 1 I had the moment after Monday night.

Speaker 1 We have seven games left. Seven football games left.
Right. Seven football games left.
Once you get down to seven,

Speaker 1 it really kind of hits you and you're like, ooh, this. Because I've just been all week.
Like, I think I even said

Speaker 1 when we're sitting at our desks, like on Tuesday at like 2 o'clock, I was like, PFD, I'm ready for the divisional round. Like, I was ready right then.
That was when it hit me.

Speaker 1 Like, let's play these games right now. I'm just thinking about the fact that, uh,

Speaker 1 yeah, it's it's sad. It's sad.
So, cherish it.

Speaker 1 Cherish the memories we've made and the last seven games. Live in the moment over the weekend because we're going to have to wait all the way until the end of February to get more football.
Yes.

Speaker 1 Billy. Division 2.
I can't stop pissing. Why? Because I keep drinking so much water.
Dude, but you're a weapon. I know.
You know what Billy told me earlier today?

Speaker 1 What did you think of Jose's videos, Billy?

Speaker 1 Loser.

Speaker 1 I'm going to fucking kick his ass. Yeah.
No, like, seriously.

Speaker 1 Like, straight up. Straight up.
So, when you watch those videos, like,

Speaker 1 I've been sparring with dudes who

Speaker 1 are much more dangerous than Jose Conseiko. And

Speaker 1 you're winning these spars. Well, I'm putting up a fight.
I mean, I started boxing. Stop winning.
You're going to kick his ass. I'm going to fuck him up.
You know, yeah.

Speaker 1 Dude,

Speaker 1 I've hit the point in my athlete to weapon transition where it's like if i'm going to the only way to win and to get this guy to stop punching me is i have to punch him harder to make him quit yeah right so he doesn't punch me yeah i think you feel you you just practice

Speaker 1 exactly what's funny is billy's 100 right but he like totally believes that he's found this secret to boxing and once he'll attach himself onto that you can actually do it

Speaker 1 when it becomes that simple for you he's jose conseiko is going to be a lot of people well if it gets if it gets into your reptile brain, that means no matter what, it's going to be functioning.

Speaker 1 Guess what, Jose? Billy just figured out boxing. Bad news for you, bro.
Yeah. You're dead.
It's going to be so funny to see Jose Conseco in West Virginia just trying to get around.

Speaker 1 I actually doubt that Jose Conseco will be able to get from the airport to his hotel, then to the venue. Like, he doesn't know how to get around there.
No.

Speaker 1 He's probably going to try to drive his shitty ass Camaro, get salt all over the tires, fuck it up like a moron. Probably still owes money on it.
it. Jake, do you have a fire fest?

Speaker 1 You lost to Hank in ping-pong. No, he was the better player.
Oh, but you did lose to him. Yeah, I did.
Yeah, that's not your fire fest? No, I need to take your tie off. What?

Speaker 1 I'm starting to get some visible gray hairs. Let me see.
On my side. Where Jake? Nah, God.

Speaker 1 Whoa!

Speaker 1 Whoa, Bill. Jake's been even up close.
No, they're.

Speaker 1 It totally depends. It totally depends.
If it evens out everywhere, go with it. My problem is I have them just on my temples.
So

Speaker 1 just, yeah, let it go. True Bubba got a nice zoom in there.
Pink's got him, too.

Speaker 1 I think that's good for Jake, though, isn't it? Like being a real big J. Yeah.
If you want to look at it, you will look older, you'll get better jobs. I would actually die for this one.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 of course not.

Speaker 1 You've had better jobs, and then I realized that's such a cell phone. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Dude, you'll actually be with like real professionals, not like us. So I'm going to borrow some basketball.
I'm going to sign that Marty Mush isn't a respected college basketball competition.

Speaker 1 Enrico Bosco. No, I think it's good for you.
And I don't want to go back to ping pong, but I need to discuss a little bit because I haven't heard all the details. You took your tie off.

Speaker 1 To me, that's the bigger stain on your legacy is you kind of disrespected Stool Stream Stadium by taking the tie off. Did you give it to Hank like Jim Nance?

Speaker 1 No, I mean, he deserves it, but I didn't formally give it to him. Yeah, it's just weird that you took.
I don't like it, Jake.

Speaker 1 You look naked. You look nude out there without your tie on.
Agreed. Agreed.
We'll see.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 100.

Speaker 1 7. 8.
A group of frogs are called... 18.

Speaker 1 What did you say, Liam? I'm at 11. 8.
11. 43.

Speaker 1 A group of frogs is called an army.

Speaker 1 I saw that on Uber 4. 24.

Speaker 1 24.

Speaker 1 RIP Kobe. Yeah.

Speaker 1 R.I.P. Love you guys.

Speaker 1 Also, gritcoin is inflating at an unsustainable rate right now, so I'm having to control the outflow of it. You know what I should do? I should start issuing negative grit coins to people.

Speaker 1 Love you guys.

Speaker 1 I'll be coming for your love, okay.

Speaker 1 Shy it away.

Speaker 1 I'll be coming for your love, okay.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 me,

Speaker 1 take

Speaker 1 me

Speaker 1 on.

Speaker 1 I'll be

Speaker 1 gone

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 needless to say,

Speaker 1 I've all the said is about me, stole a little way.

Speaker 1 Further learning that life is okay.

Speaker 1 Stay up to me.

Speaker 1 Life's not better to be safe than so.

Speaker 1 Stay up to me.

Speaker 1 Life's not better to be safe than so.

Speaker 1 Stay up to me.

Speaker 1 Life's not better to be safe than sorry.

Speaker 1 Stay up to me.

Speaker 1 Life's not better to be safe than some.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 me.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 me on.

Speaker 1 I'll be

Speaker 1 gone

Speaker 1 and I'll be out to

Speaker 1 take

Speaker 1 on

Speaker 1 me.

Speaker 1 Take

Speaker 1 me up.

Speaker 1 I'll be

Speaker 1 gone.