An Official Celtics Funk, Plus Todd McShay and Million-Dollar Picks

Speaker 1 Coming up, the state of the Celtics, Todd McShay, million-dollar picks. All next.

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Speaker 1 I put up a new rewatchables mailbag on Monday. We have another episode coming

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Speaker 1 um fan duel i'm doing those 30 on 30 picks every friday where we try to guess who's gonna score 30 plus points on the friday nba slate they do a little profit boost action for you so um check out on my my twitter account i will be tweeting out who i think is going to get that on friday coming up the state of the celtics i saw them back-to-back nights clippers lakers i have a lot of thoughts that's at the top then todd mcshay He comes on because he's doing a show for us on The Ringer, The McShea Show.

Speaker 1 Very good podcast.

Speaker 1 An essential listen during the college football season. So we're going to talk NFL playoffs, college football draft, a whole bunch of things.

Speaker 1 And then last but not least, Die Hard Washington Commanders fan Joe House. He's going to do million-dollar picks with me.
He's out of his mind. It's colonoscopy juice house.

Speaker 1 That's who's on the pod today. We'll explain when he comes on.
So that's it. First our friends from Pearl Jam.

Speaker 1 All right, so earlier in the week, I told myself, Celtics Clippers, Wednesday night, Celtics Lakers, Thursday night, both in LA.

Speaker 1 I'm going to go to both games, and then I'm going to come home, and I'm going to do a little monologue at the top of the Thursday podcast, no matter what happens.

Speaker 1 My worst case scenario was that the Celtics were going to be alarming in both games, and that we're going to have real questions now about what's going on with this team.

Speaker 1 Because it's beyond a funk, and it's beyond an on-off button issue. There's something a little bit deeper happening.
And I was fortunate enough to sit pretty close to the court both games.

Speaker 1 I was behind the Celtic bench for the Laker game, which was just embarrassing and really awful.

Speaker 1 And I think we're at the point now where we have to ask ourselves, is this Celtics team just different than it was last season? All right, well, what's different about it?

Speaker 1 Let's start with Jalen Brown,

Speaker 1 who isn't shooting as well as he did last year.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to do the thing where I just read you a bunch of stats. You can look up all these stats.
He's not shooting as well. Three-pointers, two-pointers.

Speaker 1 He's clumsier with the ball. He's closer to where he was two years ago than where he was last year, where last year, it felt by the end of the season, Tatum was 1A and Jalen Brown was 1B.

Speaker 1 Tatum is clearly better than Brown this season. There is no, the 1A, 1B thing is out the window.
And

Speaker 1 I don't really understand what's happening here. Studying it in person for the last two days,

Speaker 1 he seems jacked. He looks like he's filming Rambo First Blood Part 2 or Predator with Stallone in the 80s.

Speaker 1 He's like really jacked to the point that I'm starting to wonder if it's made him a little more stiff. And,

Speaker 1 you know, there were some really weird Clipper moments on Wednesday night where they're playing against, you know, the role players and the Scrubs and the Clippers because the Clippers rest everybody.

Speaker 1 They're furious with the league that the league rescheduled the fire game and it was six games in nine days. So they're like, we're throwing away the Celtic game.

Speaker 1 And as soon as they did that, I was like, watch this.

Speaker 1 I bet they hang around somehow with the Celtics. They were very well coached.
And they really exploited some of the Jalen stuff that's been going on this year.

Speaker 1 What was fascinating about the Clipper game, Van Gundy, who's like the defensive coordinator on the Clippers,

Speaker 1 was just devising all these different ways to mess with the Celtics.

Speaker 1 Just, they were trapping Jason Tatum 45 feet from the basket as he was trying to do his point forward stuff. They were trying to dive at Jalen's dribble, like which a lot of smart teams do.

Speaker 1 They're also trying to trap him at the end of games and just basically make him make dumb plays, which he was, for whatever reason, really happy to do in that Clipper game.

Speaker 1 And they were exploiting the fact that this year, unlike last year, you can go by all the Celtic guys.

Speaker 1 You saw it in the Clipper game with guys like Derrick Jones and Kevin Porter was doing it until the Celtics brought in Jaden Springer. The Lakers tonight, how many times did Reeves go by somebody?

Speaker 1 I mean, the Celtics, one of the things, the best things about them last year. was the white holiday combo and the fact that those guys could lock down basically everybody in the other team.

Speaker 1 Tatum as a two-way player. Jalen Brown, whose defense, especially in the playoffs, was great.
And this year, they don't lock anybody down.

Speaker 1 Anybody in the league can go by them and get to the rim, which goes back to, is this an on-off button issue or is just something different than last year? This is not an old team.

Speaker 1 These guys are all in their 20s. These guys are all in their prime or about to hit their prime.
And it's sloppy stuff that you could blame.

Speaker 1 the fact that they had a 100 game season last year, that Tatum played in the playoffs, that white, not in the playoffs, in the Olympics, that White and Holiday were in the Olympics, that Horford's older, that they didn't have Porzingus for the first two months.

Speaker 1 There's all these things you can blame, and I'm perfectly fine with doing that.

Speaker 1 But it doesn't explain why Jalen isn't as good as he was last year. I test over and over again, game after game, does not seem like the same guy as he was last year.

Speaker 1 Why isn't the defense as good as it was last year? Well, you can look at the advanced metrics, and it seems fine. Even like the last 19 games, they're 10 and 9.

Speaker 1 If you look at their net rating on NBA Day.com for the last 20 games of the season, not counting today Lakers, they're second in defensive rating.

Speaker 1 So there's all these advanced things you can look at and be like, no, no, they're fine.

Speaker 1 But I'm telling you, if you're watching them every night, if you're going to the games, they don't really look fine. They don't lock teams down with defense the way they did.

Speaker 1 They're never up 20, 25 like they were. Last year, they felt like they were up 20 in 75 to 80 percent of the games.

Speaker 1 This year, that feels like they're down 15, down 10, down 12 in the first half of a lot of these games. And if you go back, you think they were 21 and 5, and now they're 31 and 14.

Speaker 1 So they're 10 and 9 in their last 19. I watched all the games they lost, and I went to two of them, or one went to one of them.

Speaker 1 The 10 and 9 thing starts with the Bulls.

Speaker 1 They lose because Levine is just the best guy on the floor. He's 36.

Speaker 1 36 he he just beats them he plays better than everybody in the celtics fine that's one game they lose to the magic who were missing guys because they couldn't hit threes they were 8 for 33 for threes and if you watch that game the magic just played really hard they played harder than the celtics did and you go huh all right well you know on off switch fine Sixers Christmas, same thing.

Speaker 1 Sixers wanted the game more. You chalk that one up.
Well, the Sixers, they had all their guys. It was national TV.
They have a losing record. They wanted the game more.
It was their Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 Chuck that one up. Just making excuses time after time with this.
Pacers,

Speaker 1 they win the first game against the Pacers by a million points.

Speaker 1 And you know, two days later, the way this works with these, where you played the team two times in three games, you just know the Pacers are going to do better in the second game, which of course they do.

Speaker 1 But the Celtics shoot 54 threes and they lose. So you leave that game and you're like, too many threes.
Didn't go the basket enough. So again, excuses.

Speaker 1 OKC was the first sign of like slight alarm because they they played really well for three quarters.

Speaker 1 They were going toe-to-toe with the team that, you know, they might be seen in the finals, assuming they have a chance to get there.

Speaker 1 And then Drew stunk.

Speaker 1 SGA was the best guy in the game.

Speaker 1 And in the fourth quarter, in nut crunch time, which was really good for the Celtics down the stretch last season, especially in the playoffs, OKC just outplayed them and stole the game from them.

Speaker 1 Slight sounds of alarm for that one. They have a home no-show against the Kings, who just changed their coach.
Drew and Derek White just looked ancient in that game. 3 for 12.

Speaker 1 Coming back from a little road trip where they look pretty good.

Speaker 1 We'll let that one slide. Again, excuses.

Speaker 1 They lose to Toronto,

Speaker 1 who's not good. And Toronto shoots 51% and Jalen's awful.
He's 4 for 16. Another bad sign.

Speaker 1 They choke against the Atlanta Hawks. And this was Drew.
This was one of the worst. This is probably the worst game he played against Boston.
They screwed up the game. The game was going to be over.

Speaker 1 They screwed it up. They blow it.

Speaker 1 Not the kind of thing that was happening last year, though. Fine.
And then we go to this L.A. trip in these two games where Clippers game, just take care of the game.

Speaker 1 They're playing all their scrubs and their role players. Just knock them out.
Knock them out. And

Speaker 1 last year's team would have win the game by 40.

Speaker 1 This year's team, it's a struggle the whole time, and somehow somehow it goes to overtime. They put miles on Tatum.
They put miles on Brown.

Speaker 1 They put miles on white when they're playing the Lakers the next night who are arrested in a TNT game.

Speaker 1 So basically, they took so much effort to win that Clipper game that now they go into this Lakers game and they're a mess. So back to the Jalen Brown thing.
Last year, Brown and Tatum

Speaker 1 just had a really good thing going where there was games. If Tatum didn't totally have it, Brown would be able to lift it.
And they just had a nice yin-yang thing that they just

Speaker 1 haven't had in the same way this year. And Jalen's offense has been really rough to watch.

Speaker 1 I could give you a million stats. You can go look them up.
But his two-point shooting is way down, his three-point shooting's way down.

Speaker 1 And he's added a couple things to his game that I just don't love.

Speaker 1 There's like this flat-footed fallaway he has now at the foul line. I can't stand that one.

Speaker 1 Does these weird drives to the basket where instead, you know, sometimes he'll try to elevate and dunk on guys.

Speaker 1 Other times he's doing like this flat-footed, kind of keeping low to the ground, like scoop into traffic thing that the Clippers were eating up last night.

Speaker 1 The alarming thing with Brown, back to the Van Gundy thing. So, the Celts are up like, you know, six points, four points, whatever in the last minute of regulation.
And they're trapping the Celtics.

Speaker 1 They're doing all these things to try to get the Celtics screw up. And they basically target Jalen Brown.
And there's this one possession where

Speaker 1 Van Gundy's telling them, because we could see it. We're watching, we're watching.
Van Gundy's running the huddle. It was kind of amazing to watch.
And he's telling the guys something.

Speaker 1 So they come out and the Celtics swing the ball and they swing it. And the Clippers are trying to get them to swing it to Brown.
And they do. They trap Brown.
He throws it away. Clippers score.

Speaker 1 Clippers come off and they're all fired up and they're pointing at Van Gundy. It was like, you told us that was going to happen.

Speaker 1 And I'm sitting there going, this is a bad sign if Van Gundy is just reading us. Like he's like the defensive coordinator in a a football game who knows our plays.

Speaker 1 Like he's steering us to the play that we don't want to happen. It just wasn't great.
They were really, really outcoached in that Quipper game, which I did not love.

Speaker 1 But in general, he just,

Speaker 1 you know, he'll hit some threes. The stats are fine.
He can fool you unless you're actually watching game after game. He just hasn't been as good as he was last year.
Derek White's another one.

Speaker 1 Derek White. who the first six weeks of the season, it was like, this guy's going to make the all-star team.
This guy is one of the best 30 assets assets in the league.

Speaker 1 And his three-point shooting has dropped by the month, 47% first month, 40%, 35%, 30% this month. The game today, he was like the 19th best player in the game.
Obviously, he's not, but

Speaker 1 he's just not impactful. And then Holiday, who kind of comes and goes and he's older, and he's clearly saving himself for the playoffs.
First half of the game, non-existent.

Speaker 1 Second half of the game, they come out, they're pissed against the Lakers, and they're now playing defense.

Speaker 1 And Holiday is guarding everybody and has this little five-minute stretch that reminded you, like, this is why this team's pretty special when they can unleash Drew as like this defensive weapon.

Speaker 1 Tatum and Brown, and poor Zingas with his height, like they're, this is it. This is the team we're used to seeing.
And then, you know, missed a couple shots. The Celtics were just so awful tonight.

Speaker 1 I don't know how many layups they missed, how many shots around the rim, but it felt like it was at least 20. They just couldn't buy a basket.

Speaker 1 They were just a complete mess. So the brown thing's concerning, the white thing's concerning.
Holiday is older. I'm going to chalk it up to that.
The on-off switch thing, understandable.

Speaker 1 We've seen it happen a bunch of times with teams that won the title. But as we talked about before the season, the pods we've done,

Speaker 1 it could go one of two ways after you win the title. You either have the on-off switch or you have the chip on your shoulder because the bullseye is on you and everybody's coming after you.

Speaker 1 And you can take that personally and be like, you know what? We're going to kick everybody's asses again that is not the celtics team at least so far um

Speaker 1 they got out coached in a few games especially recently the okayc game the quipper game last night which they ended up winning but definitely outcoached in that one

Speaker 1 lakers game tonight i i don't know what the lineups when they're playing twin towers the whole that it's like you're doing the lakers a favor when you're playing size where you want to you want to use your athleticism last year one of the reasons they blew them out was that they were building everything around their wings tonight they're you know they're playing cornet Cornette.

Speaker 1 They're doing Horford and Porzingis together. They didn't play Jaden Springer at all, even though his defense was so impactful yesterday.
And I didn't really understand anything they were doing.

Speaker 1 I wanted them to put Jaden Springer on LeBron or Reeves, try to take those guys out and try to win the game with defense. They did the opposite, and the Lakers made everything they took.

Speaker 1 There is

Speaker 1 no real roster flexibility for trades. They're a second apron team.
They have a bunch of big contracts and a bunch of small contracts and nothing really in between.

Speaker 1 Springer at 4 million, Pritchard at 7 million.

Speaker 1 And I don't even know what the move is. The move is to hope that the light bulb goes off with these guys because right now it's not going off.

Speaker 1 I mentioned holiday with the age, 43% shooting from three last year, 35% from this year. They're just less special.

Speaker 1 And they have these funk games now that they just weren't having even in the first six weeks of the season.

Speaker 1 So as I look at the state of the Celtics, conversations I have with my my friends, with my dad, with everybody I know who likes the team,

Speaker 1 nobody is like, it's fine.

Speaker 1 It's okay. We're good.
Nobody thinks that, but nobody is really in full panic either. It's more like, no, no, no,

Speaker 1 it should come back.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure the defense is going to come back in the way that

Speaker 1 we really need it to come back unless Jalen can get back to where he was last year. And that's the guy I'm watching because I feel like Tatum

Speaker 1 actually made a slight step up, you know, from last year as a two-way guy, as a point forward, as a reliable guy night after night after night. With that said,

Speaker 1 last night is a really good example of the difference between Jokic, Giannis, SGA, Luca when he's healthy.

Speaker 1 And then every other really good player in the league, including Tatum. Because last night was a night where it's like, you're playing all your role players and your scrubs i'm gonna have 43.

Speaker 1 i'm just i'm gonna just ice this game myself this is what sga does over and over again sga had what did he have 55 against utah over and over again he's just like dusting teams and tatum as good as he is night after night after night and the best thing about him is how consistent he is as a two-way guy um he's he's just not a i'm just going to dust the other team and and just get on my back everybody guy so it's the collective shit that has to make this team special.

Speaker 1 And if Jalen's not quite where he was last year, if White's not quite where he was last year, if Holiday is a little older, if Horford's a little older, if you're moving Porzingis back in, the only guy who's gone up a level is Pritchard.

Speaker 1 And then on top of it, the league's better. The West is better.
OKC is better. Cleveland's better.
The Knicks are better.

Speaker 1 You know, it's just everybody's deeper. It's a lot harder.
You don't have 11 teams tanking yet. And you have nights like you lose to Toronto because, you know, you fucked around.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 when I think about like the trade deadline coming, and also it's not just the trade deadline, but the team is being sold, like the bids we're in today to get through the first round.

Speaker 1 There's at least five bidders.

Speaker 1 Everyone's expecting this to go to $6 billion. There's some instability.

Speaker 1 within the organization, which is understandable because they're about to change hands from this great ownership and this great infrastructure they've had for the last almost 20 plus years to the unknown.

Speaker 1 So you have an organization that's a little more unstable than it was. You have a team that's not quite as stable as it was.

Speaker 1 The team I saw tonight against the Lakers, like I, the thing, this is the thing that concerns me the most.

Speaker 1 The camaraderie slash

Speaker 1 connection with the guys doesn't seem the same right now.

Speaker 1 And it might just be like, oh, they're like an older married couple couple that, you know, they've, they've done this, they've been together, they don't need to do it.

Speaker 1 But there's a lot of plays where it's just five guys on the court, like when, you know, they're shooting foul shots.

Speaker 1 It's the five guys on the court who just seem like they're not connected in any way.

Speaker 1 There's plays where like somebody makes a shot and gets fouled and it's going to be a three-point play and not all the guys come over and do the fist bump with them. It's little tiny stuff like that.

Speaker 1 It's the way the bench is reacting. to certain things in the game.
Not the same as last year. Last year, the bench standing up, going nuts, the personality of the team, you could just feel it.

Speaker 1 When you're in the building, when you're on TV, you don't feel it in the same way this year. In the Cooper game yesterday,

Speaker 1 Jaden Springer, because he, you know, out of nowhere and everybody likes him and he just had an awesome game. He was great.
He swung the game for them. And it really kind of ignited the bench.

Speaker 1 The bench was into it. They were psyched for him.
He made a big three in the corner when Harden was like talking shit to him as he shot it and he made it and he ran off and they were all going nuts.

Speaker 1 And then tonight in this Laker game, it just felt like they all just wanted to go home. So

Speaker 1 I'm both concerned and not concerned because I still don't know if there's three teams better than them.

Speaker 1 I don't think there's three teams more talented than them. And I think they should,

Speaker 1 you know, there's no real reason that I can see that they can't make the finals again.

Speaker 1 But the way this is going, they're not going to have the one seed in the East and they're not going to have...

Speaker 1 they're not going to have a home court advantage in the finals if OKC gets in and maybe even a couple other teams.

Speaker 1 Like now you're looking at a situation where maybe even Denver can finish with a better record than them.

Speaker 1 So this is a question and this is what makes trying to go back to back so great. And we've seen so many teams try to do it and not be able to do it.
And there's always reasons for it.

Speaker 1 You always hit a point like this where you have to look in the mirror and decide, do we really want to defend our title or not?

Speaker 1 And what I'm seeing lately with the Celtics is a team that seems like a zombie version of itself that doesn't seem to have that same chip on its shoulder, that doesn't seem to be treating a back-to-back title as a life or death experience for them.

Speaker 1 There's too many games now where the other team's playing harder than them, and too many games when they're not solving issues that are pretty obvious as you're watching.

Speaker 1 Like tonight, like just take out Reeves, just play hard defense on LeBron, guard him full court.

Speaker 1 Just make sure you're not giving up open threes to people like Hachimura.

Speaker 1 That's another thing with the Celtics team, the open threes that they're giving up this year, like it makes you want to rip your hair out. So again, it's not even February yet.

Speaker 1 A million things can change. One thing I'm looking for the rest of the way, and this is what I'll leave you with, is they have to have a win streak at some point.

Speaker 1 You have to put together three, four weeks of winning basketball night after night after night, where there seems like there's something special about your team. Even Dallas last year.

Speaker 1 And Dallas, you know, was an unexpected party crasher that made the finals. But Dallas had the stretch after the all-star break where for 25 games, they just were kicking ass and playing really well.

Speaker 1 The Celtics have not had a real stretch like that since the start of the season. And as this regular season goes on,

Speaker 1 if they're not going to do that and this just becomes a night-to-night, I don't know what I'm getting from these guys situation.

Speaker 1 I don't think they're going to make the finals. So it's not urgent yet,

Speaker 1 but I'm flagging it. I didn't like what I saw the last two nights.

Speaker 1 One of those two games should have been good. Neither of them were.
And honestly, they should have lost both games. So we'll see.
This is a nice test for Joe Missoula.

Speaker 1 This is a nice test for the roster, whether they want to tinker around it, maybe get a little more athletic, especially on the wing. It feels like they're an athletic wing short.

Speaker 1 And then Jalen Brown is the guy to watch going forward.

Speaker 1 What are his his numbers? What is his impact?

Speaker 1 Can he be the 1B again? Because right now he's not. He's a two.
He's not a 1B. And if he's a two, the ceiling of the Celtics team has to drop a little bit.
I like what I've seen from Porzingis.

Speaker 1 I think the pedigree of this team is going to be there when it actually matters. They're going to have a home court when it actually matters.
There's going to be a good crowd for them.

Speaker 1 But it's pretty alarming because the Lakers crushed them tonight. And I don't think the Lakers are good.

Speaker 1 So that was my takeaway was, uh-oh, this says way more about the Celtics than it does about the Lakers. Anyway, we're going to take a break and bring back Todd McShea.

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Terms apply. All right, taping this early Thursday afternoon Pacific time.
Todd McShay is here.

Speaker 1 I hope you've been listening to the McShay show, which we've had on the ringer for the last couple of months during a very action-packed college football season. Lots to get to.

Speaker 1 First of all, welcome to the ringer. Belatedly, great to have you on the pod.

Speaker 2 Yeah, man.

Speaker 2 It's been fun. I appreciate it.
I appreciate You're supporting all of it. And we're having a good time.
It's been a whole different world, right?

Speaker 2 Like, I didn't know anything about this world, but we've enjoyed it. And now we're kind of turning the page.
We got the NFL playoffs and then the NFL draft.

Speaker 2 And so we're kind of hitting our sweet spot.

Speaker 1 Well, I have a vested interest in this draft, which we'll get to later. Did the right team win the college football championship?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they did. And it's what's wild, too, is like all the complaints about the 12-team playoff and

Speaker 2 all the adjustments we have to make and the seating's a mess and it should never be conference champions but at the end of the day ohio state wouldn't have been in it in the previous you know four team playoff structure and ohio state was clearly the best team and and it it took them going on a run the michigan loss is a michigan thing for ohio state it's not reflective of of the the program and what they are i mean that's that's almost a headspace that they're going to have to have to deal with but um but that was the best team and and it was everyone talked about well they bought a 20 million dollar roster well they just used a lot of that 20 million to keep the guys there that were there on the defensive side and and yeah they added a running back and quinshaw judkins and and their quarterback will howard was a really good fit for what they do um but ultimately the vast majority of that team was there and they just kept a lot of guys from going to the nfl and having to take pay cuts to do so right wait you know you were one of the rare college and nfl guys roussella's like this too there's a few of them it Gun to your head, which one do you like more?

Speaker 1 Like, if you, if you could only be stuck with one for the rest of your life, which one would you pick?

Speaker 2 Gun to head, I would say college football. I like

Speaker 1 why college football? What is it?

Speaker 2 It's, it's the, I guess I grew up on it. Like my grandfather worked with Bo Shem Beckler and I like going out.
I grew up in Boston, outside of Boston, Swampscott, small town north of Boston.

Speaker 2 But he had worked, he lived in Ohio and helped the recruiting area of Northeast ohio and um

Speaker 2 and so i was around that around that michigan program and kind of just understood like you always hear like the pageantry and but it's like just how important that is and it was weird growing up here right because like it's all pro sports here in new england all pro sports except for the one floody run we had that little fluty yeah yeah intersection and that was a bad hit for for college football right and so just being around that i kind of was introduced to something that was different than what we grew up around you you know, living in this area.

Speaker 2 So I don't know. I just have always loved like going to games and the tailgating and how important it is and the flags flying as you're driving through a town and the crowd and the atmosphere.

Speaker 2 It's just home to me.

Speaker 1 It really is.

Speaker 2 But the personnel part, like I just, I became obsessed with in my 20s when I started in this business.

Speaker 2 evaluating, all right, which of these guys can actually go play at the next level and building a roster. And so that's kind of how it all developed for me.

Speaker 1 Well, so last year we had these three quarterbacks, and it was so much fun to talk about them. And everybody kind of agreed ceiling-wise, Caleb has to be first.

Speaker 1 That was like what everybody came away with. This guy, he's Mahomes-ish.
There's some leadership stuff potentially. There's some immaturity stuff,

Speaker 1 but he's got to be the pick. And yet, there were some other people who are like, ah, Chick May, he's a little Josh Alleny.
And then Jaden Daniels was the other one.

Speaker 1 And the reason people seemed to be down on Daniels was the frame. Could he be durable enough? Could he handle it?

Speaker 1 But then everybody was pointing to last year and saying, this guy was amazing last year.

Speaker 1 Like, if this guy can do in the pros what he did in college, this guy is going to be an amazing quarterback and durability. It's a question.

Speaker 1 Did this exceed what you even thought? Like, whatever you had as a ceiling for Daniels coming in, what's happened this year? Did you see any version of this happening?

Speaker 2 Not this version, man. I mean,

Speaker 2 I'll go back to what I said last year before the the draft.

Speaker 2 If you're dropped on this planet and you could only base your evaluation off of one year of tape, like the 2023 season, Jaden Daniels was clearly the better prospect, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But throughout the process, there was Jaden Daniels at Arizona State, which was... kind of this running around backyard football all about his legs.
Occasionally, he'd pop a pass down the field.

Speaker 2 And then he got to LSU.

Speaker 2 And even early on, there, like I remember being on the field with Brian Kelly before the

Speaker 2 Tennessee game, okay.

Speaker 2 And Tennessee came in, big favorites, and they wound up blowing out LSU in that game.

Speaker 2 But I remember being on the field with him and watching Jaden and having watched his tape and just saying, like, what do you see in practice that I'm not seeing?

Speaker 2 Because it looks like he can make all the throws, but he just doesn't seem to trust it. And the anticipation isn't there and all that.
And he said, he said, watch the first play of this game.

Speaker 2 Just watch because we're forcing him to make this throw.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to tell you where it's going, but we're going to force him to make this throw because we're trying to prove to him that if you just trust your read and your eyes and you get the ball out on time, you're special.

Speaker 2 You're different than anything we've been around or seen. And so the first play of the game comes.
And of course, I'm on the sideline, like peeking over. And it's a deep comeback route.

Speaker 2 uh to the left to the left side and he gets back top of his drop and just rips it and if it gets picked it's a pick six. And at that point, he hadn't thrown an interception.

Speaker 2 And everyone in the local media was just, oh, this Jaden Daniels is great. He hasn't thrown an interception through five games.
How good has he been?

Speaker 2 And Brian's point was like, I can't wait for him to throw an interception. Like, it's driving me fucking crazy.

Speaker 2 The media is talking about the interception thing, but the reason he's not trusting is he's so concerned about throwing a pick. So anyway, the ball comes out, perfect throw, right on time, completion.

Speaker 1 And you saw it there, like that was like the first step in his confidence of like you know what if i trust what i'm seeing and my instincts yeah i can build from here and he just kept getting better and then the following season was 2023 and he just took off it's funny that we've and you know i'm in my mid 50s now and it still doesn't feel like we figured out evaluation of like the best basketball prospects quarterbacks um i think when we get to like you know like Abdul Carter, pass rushers, we have a pretty good sense of like, yeah, this guy's probably going to come in and be really good.

Speaker 1 But the quarterback thing, so much of it seems to depend on situation, what your college experience was, where you're going into, who your coach is when you get there the first couple years.

Speaker 1 And I think of like the situation Daniels was in versus what Drake May was in, where he's like F minus offensive line, no receivers, the worst coaches possible, and he's just running for his life for four quarters.

Speaker 1 And then Daniels, who had kind of an overqualified offensive coordinator, a good head coach, a lot of veterans around him, a team that trusted him.

Speaker 1 He had five years in college, and all that led to like something really good. But then he got hurt, what, five weeks, six weeks in, he took a hit.
Didn't seem like he was the same for fighting.

Speaker 1 That's like, well, this is why we were a little nervous. Could his body hold up? Now I'm thinking about picking them to beat the Eagles.

Speaker 1 And he looks that good compared to what we're watching. And I want to talk to you about what's going on with Hurts, too.

Speaker 1 But it does feel realistic that he could just win three straight playoff games in a row. And I don't like for a rookie quarterback to do that is that inconceivable to you

Speaker 2 it is inconceivable because history says it doesn't like it's it's almost impossible to happen right right like what he's doing now bill is it's so far beyond what you would you can

Speaker 2 that it's that you're allowed to expect from a rookie quarterback like i went back and looked right like no rookie quarterback has ever led his team to a super bowl right right there have been five others who have led led their team team to a conference championship.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I want to rip off these names for you. Sean King,

Speaker 2 Ben Roethlisberger. And I want you to think back like when they actually were rookies.

Speaker 1 His game manager, Ben Roethlisberger. Correct.

Speaker 2 Joe Flacco, same deal. Mark Sanchez, Brock Purdy.

Speaker 2 Now I want you to think about what we just saw last week.

Speaker 2 And then there's a whole other list of guys in their second year, six of them since 2000 have actually, in their second year as quarterbacks have led their teams to a Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 Brady, Rollsberger, Kaepernick, Russell Wilson, Joe Burrow, and Purdy. I would say of that group, Burrow probably

Speaker 2 carried more of the offensive load on his shoulders than any of those other guys. And even Brady back then, we were protecting Brady.

Speaker 1 You know, it was all. Brady wasn't close to Brady in 2001.

Speaker 2 And so then you think about.

Speaker 2 what Jaden's doing and under pressure and not just beating the pressure with his legs, but with his arm. And then you think about like the vast majority of the run plays, too.

Speaker 2 I think this kind of goes unnoticed in the NFL with how quick the defenses are and how fast the action of play is.

Speaker 2 He's having to make reads in the run game too, with his own read option and all the possibilities there.

Speaker 2 So every snap, he is making decisions that a rookie quarterback usually doesn't have to have that much load put on them. And he's doing it at such a ridiculous level.

Speaker 2 That's why this is by far, I think by far, in my lifetime, the best rookie quarterback performance I've ever seen. And CJ Stroud, it was awesome, but this is different, man.

Speaker 2 And the supporting cast is not to the level that it should be for a rookie quarterback to have this success. And honestly,

Speaker 2 I like Washington.

Speaker 2 I'm going to go with him.

Speaker 2 I think something special is happening. And I trust, here's the weird part.
I trust him more than I trust Jalen Hurts.

Speaker 1 So that's, I have this playoff manifesto with all these rules. And one of the rules is you really got to look at the quarterbacks.
Look at both sides.

Speaker 1 Imagine betting on the game and just going down the four quarters with each guy. And I want to talk about Hurts in a second because the stuff that's going on with him is alarming.

Speaker 1 And there were some really good videos and pieces about it in the last week.

Speaker 1 The Daniels piece, you listed, we talked about this last week on my pod, just like the Brady 2001 and Mahomes, his first full year.

Speaker 1 And I think the Mahomes, his first full year, is the only real comparison that I can remember.

Speaker 1 Honestly, with Marino, who was amazing, but, you know, in the mid-80s,

Speaker 1 he was probably on TV three times

Speaker 1 when we had football. I can't say I was like a Dan Marino expert.
He would play the Pats or the Jets, and you would get one of those games, maybe.

Speaker 1 But Mahomes, we were there for.

Speaker 1 And he was good enough to win the Super Bowl that year, and they got really lucky, like the D Fords jumped off sides or the the Pat or Brady throws an interception. The Pats lose that game.

Speaker 1 Mahomes would have gone to the Super Bowl that year. Burrows, another one that I think felt like he was arrived and ready to go, and he was going to be in our lives for the next 15 years.

Speaker 1 And I just think Daniels hit that point even before the Detroit game. It was just clear he was going to be in our lives.
The part that was amazing to me is that.

Speaker 1 It felt like Detroit could have run for 10 yards a carry. I'm sure they're looking at the tape going, how did we lose that game? Yeah.
How did we ever not score a touchdown every time we had the ball?

Speaker 1 So now I look at Philly and it's like, all right, are they just going to rush for 300 yards? Maybe Hurts doesn't have to do anything. But I don't, I don't like trusting QBs who are playing like shit.

Speaker 1 And he's playing like shit.

Speaker 2 He is. It's going to be interesting.
Like, I don't want to go too deep in the, in the mud, but like,

Speaker 1 please do. Philly, we're here to go in the mud.

Speaker 2 Philly lives on first down running the football. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think I've read like 71% of the time on first down, they've run the the football in the postseason and it was damn near that close in in um the regular season it's all about staying on schedule and i think in part because they don't trust their quarterback right yeah

Speaker 2 because if we're in third they're they're one for 11 on third down conversions in the postseason when it's third and seven or longer What does that tell you?

Speaker 1 How about the explosive plays he's missed in the two games? Yeah. Where he's had AJ open deep and just like either threw it out of bounds or was late on the throw.

Speaker 1 That safety he took against the Rams in the second half was one of the worst quarterback plays of the year. It was unbelievable that that happened.

Speaker 1 That's what would happen if, you know, if it's like somebody who's replacing Deshaun Watson on the Browns, like that kind of level quarterback. It's not

Speaker 1 this. Jalen Hurts has been to a Super Bowl.
Like the one thing, and the other time when he knocked him out of field goal range because he took a sack. Like this is like basic QB shit.

Speaker 1 Like don't, don't make your situation worse. Like just get out of it.
He can't even seem to do that.

Speaker 1 So, and I think the Eagle fans are really aware of it, but also feel like they can rush for 330 yards on Sunday. Right.

Speaker 2 And they could. I mean, they could.

Speaker 2 But I also like Washington has gotten to the point where they're one of the top teams in the NFL the last like second half of the season and in the postseason with a run blitz on first down.

Speaker 2 So like it could become a war of, all right, when does Philly take a chance, play action first down? And

Speaker 2 can Jalen cash in? Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and again,

Speaker 2 if you're betting on Jalen, is that the bet you want to make?

Speaker 1 Well, so if you're making the case for Washington, and I think I'm going to make it when I do million-dollar picks, you figure spreading that game, by the way. It's up to six and a half.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it'll probably be seven. Who knows? But

Speaker 1 you figure it would be the same recipe that they did against Detroit, where each side's going to have seven possessions. We're going to take our time.
We're going to move the ball down the field.

Speaker 1 Every fourth and two, fourth and three, we're going for it. We're going to complete 70% of our passes.
The clock's going to be moving, moving, moving. We'll hang around.

Speaker 1 Maybe we're up 10-7 in the second quarter. Philly has a turnover.
Now we have the ball again. Now we're, now it's 17-7, 13.
Now Hurts has to start making plays.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 And that's their scenario to win the game, which is very similar to the Detroit scenario. The Eagles scenario is just, we're up 10-0.

Speaker 1 We're running the ball. We're chewing up clock.
Daniels comes out. We get like one stop.
We rush through the middle. We get it.
And now all of a sudden it's 13-0.

Speaker 1 And now we can just run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, play action. We're home.
So I see the two sides. I just feel more comfortable with the Daniels side.

Speaker 2 Yeah, especially with that number, you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because it feels like either team can win the game. So if that's the case,

Speaker 1 I'd rather just take the six and a half.

Speaker 2 I'd love to see Washington jump them early.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, a quick strike early in the game, kind of knock Philly back on its heels. Yeah,

Speaker 2 I just think momentum's crazy. Confidence is like

Speaker 2 is so much of this. And we've lived through it our whole lifetime.
Like when teams get on a run, forget the seeds, forget the Vegas spreads.

Speaker 2 There's something about that momentum and like the belief in what we're doing. And it just feels like Washington has that.
Now, again, they could walk into a buzzsaw.

Speaker 2 Philly jumped, gets out and has a big play early on, and now they can run the football and they get a lead.

Speaker 2 But I just, I don't know. Something special is happening happening in Washington, and I don't want to be on the other side of it anymore.

Speaker 1 Well, were you in Massachusetts during the 0-1 Pats run?

Speaker 2 01.

Speaker 1 The first Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 Yes. I just moved back from New York.
I lived in New York. I went to school at Richmond, lived in New York for two years.
I came back just honestly, I think five, six months before.

Speaker 2 So I was there for the whole run.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it felt like, and it was a little similar where it was an out of nowhere thing. It seemed improbable.
They were big underdogs each year.

Speaker 1 I mean, they were even bigger underdogs than Washington is. And the snow game was the one that officially flipped the narrative.
It's like, wait, what's going on here?

Speaker 1 And then they went into Pittsburgh. They got, you know, a couple special teams plays.
There were some Pittsburgh turnovers, and it was just chip on their shoulder.

Speaker 1 The only people that believe in us are in this locker room. And Washington definitely has some of that.
I think the difference is Daniels is just way ahead of where Brady was.

Speaker 1 Brady, game manager, really smart, didn't turn the ball over, but wasn't he wasn't really Brady until I think, 2005, six range when they really started leaning on him. Yep.

Speaker 1 This Daniels thing, to lean on a rookie where he's basically, the offense is hinging on him, it's pretty unusual.

Speaker 1 I will say, though, Eckler being back and them having two running backs now and just those like, it just feels like they can run the ball a little bit.

Speaker 2 And Eckler looked like he had juice, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, no question.

Speaker 2 Like a couple years ago, like, you know, when he was, when he was in his, I don't want to say prime, but when he was at his peak, it kind of, a couple of his runs, I was like, oh shit, like Eckler's back.

Speaker 1 Right. Well,

Speaker 1 we were talking last week when we're on the show and we were trying to figure out could Washten win this game. They had a really weird season where they looked really good the first few weeks.

Speaker 1 Then they had Daniels got hurt. They had a couple of injuries.
They had the Hail Mary game. It was lucky.

Speaker 1 And they kind of like, they didn't weren't stumbling through the middle of the season, but they looked

Speaker 1 like they were like a rabbit team, the team that looks good for the first two, two and a half months.

Speaker 1 But then like the last month of the season, they kind of went back to where they were in September, and then it just kept going and going and going.

Speaker 1 So you could think that you could also think they easily could have lost to Tampa if Tampa just converts a second and one and makes three more plays and is up four with two minutes left.

Speaker 1 But I'm with you. Like sometimes with football, you get this momentum that's going.

Speaker 1 I guess the question for me in the other conference is, does Buffalo have that too?

Speaker 1 Where Buffalo has had, like the turnover stats with them are nuts, where they've never had a game where they've had more turnovers than the other team the whole season.

Speaker 1 Everyone else has done that as won the Super Bowl. The game last week, it did, they just have a habit of the other team just shoots themselves in the foot as they're playing them.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 so I wonder, like, maybe it could be a Buffalo Washington.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you should have seen this all along. This is, but this is what we've done all year.
Why didn't you believe in us?

Speaker 2 The Josh Allen thing, like, it's his time.

Speaker 1 Oh, you're going there because I I think I'm picking KC.

Speaker 2 Good, good. I want everyone else to.

Speaker 2 And you know what?

Speaker 2 It's kind of like when your mom says to your kid, like, how many times are you going to burn your hand on the stove? Like, how many times? Yeah. You have a.

Speaker 2 And, and as life went on, like, I think I've come to realize like, I'm going to be the one who's going to burn my hand more, you know?

Speaker 1 Going against the Chiefs, you mean?

Speaker 2 Yeah. And so maybe it's a me thing, but

Speaker 2 I don't know. Here's what the tangible thing that I think is different

Speaker 2 is the turnover aspect for for josh allen i also i talked about with this with our guy ryan roussello yeah right after it happened what was it week 11 was it um kansas city buffalo right 30 21 they beat him

Speaker 2 i remember watching that game and waiting to see because they were up four buffalo was up four it's like every time an opponent has has a lead over kansas city in the fourth quarter They get, there's always like that middle of the fourth quarter or like a little bit past the midpoint of the fourth quarter, they get a drive.

Speaker 2 The opponent does.

Speaker 2 And there's some level of conservative play, whether it's playing for a field goal, whether it's dialing it back, not being aggressive. The mentality has to be, we're down for.

Speaker 2 And that's what Buffalo did. It was a, they've lost three games to them in the playoffs.
They've, they've found out, found ways to lose. They've had games pulled away from them, all of it.

Speaker 2 I saw the kind of the

Speaker 2 switch in the mentality in that week 11 game where, all right, we've got the ball. I forget exactly when they got it.
Maybe like six, seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. They're down by four.

Speaker 2 But if you didn't know the score, you'd say, oh, they're, I'm sorry, they're up by four. But if you didn't know the score, you would have said they're down by four points in this game.

Speaker 2 Because not, not by three.

Speaker 2 No, they're down by four is the mentality they had because they had to score a touchdown. And

Speaker 2 they drove the field. They went forward on fourth downs they were aggressive the entire time and they put the game away because what teams do all the time in that fourth quarter drive is

Speaker 2 they take for granted like it's it's assumed it absolutely has to be assumed that when mahomes gets the ball they're going to doesn't matter how much time's left they're going to score and they're going to score a touchdown yeah so if you play with that math And it so

Speaker 2 it was important for that game, but I also think it showed that the Bills get it. They get that we can't turn the ball over.
We can't give them extra possessions.

Speaker 2 And in the fourth quarter, we are full, like full steam ahead, most important drive to save our season, even if we have a lead.

Speaker 2 And I just think the way Josh is playing, I think this is this, we're witnessing

Speaker 2 the best of Josh Allen in this moment. And the best of one of the most talented players to ever play the position has got to be good enough eventually, right?

Speaker 1 Are there Manning Brady mid-2000s parallels for you with this when it seemed like Manning couldn't get over the the hump against the Pats and then finally was able to do it in the AFC title game after had a regular season win, but then he had to do it in the playoffs and he finally did it.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Again, like it's impossible to say I'm confident or I have any confidence in it with Mahomes and we know what they do.

Speaker 2 And like every good organization, they got their quarterback and they have drafted defense after defense after defense.

Speaker 2 And if you put a great defense on the field, which is what has been Brett Viesch, their GM and Andy Reid, their philosophy, like the second they got Mahomes and realized he was the guy, if you go back and study their drafts, it's like four of the first six picks defense, three of the first four, five of the first seven, six in a row defense.

Speaker 2 And they've loaded up on that side because the quarterback's going to take care of all the all the problems on the offensive side. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So we've got to have a great defense because we don't have a fixer on that side. And so that's, that's how they've built this whole thing.

Speaker 2 And so, but I look at Buffalo and Buffalo, like defensively, they're not as great as Kansas City is, but they've done a lot of the same things.

Speaker 2 They've sacrificed their offensive playmakers for their defensive talent. I think they're better up front in the defense than they maybe have been in previous matchups.
I just, I don't know.

Speaker 2 I think it's their time.

Speaker 1 So, I was thinking about, I should have said this on the pod we did Sunday night after the game. I blew it.

Speaker 1 There was 93 seconds left when they went for the two-point.

Speaker 1 And if Andrews catches it, it's

Speaker 1 27, 27. And we left the game going, oh my God, he dropped it.
He blew the game for them. Josh would have the ball with like enough time to go 40, 45 yards and set up some sort of field goal.

Speaker 1 And I almost wonder if that would have been a better outcome for the Bills as we think about the game going forward.

Speaker 1 Like instead of how they won it, where the narrative after the game becomes, oh my God, Baltimore,

Speaker 1 Lamar, he didn't come through in the first half. And Andrews fumble and drops the two.
And it was like, Baltimore blew it. Baltimore blew it, Baltimore blew it.

Speaker 1 If Allen had just come down and gotten the game-winning field goal or whatever in those last 93 seconds, I feel like we'd be talking about this Chiefs game differently.

Speaker 1 And by the way, he probably would have.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I think Buffalo almost wants it that way, right?

Speaker 1 Right. They do seem like they're chip on the shoulder.
Yeah. They were doing a lot of nobody believed in us.
I think they knew what the line was.

Speaker 1 I thought Baltimore was the best team in the league, and I still kind of feel that way. Like, I don't regret picking them last week.
They lost, but I just thought they were really good.

Speaker 1 And they, all the errors were self-inflicted. The one, the punch out on the Andrews fumble was, that was a great play by Buffalo.
Yep.

Speaker 1 Those two mistakes in the first half by Lamar were terrible plays by him. Yeah.
Like really,

Speaker 2 he's good for those in these moments.

Speaker 2 That's been the problem.

Speaker 1 That's been the problem. That has been the problem.
And for Allen,

Speaker 1 you know, it's fun when a quarterback gets to this point.

Speaker 1 And we've seen it throughout the course of history where they kind of have he kind of has to win this year he has to win this game like this is like the season this is like this is this happens in basketball too you have a season where a lot of stuff align

Speaker 1 this is it i just really like the chiefs i still think they're really good i don't feel like with the team that they were in the first 12 13 weeks i think they've solved some of those issues They're a little more explosive than they were in September, October, November.

Speaker 1 They can run the ball a little better. I still believe in them at home.
I just

Speaker 1 the whole deal. Kelsey's the whole deal.

Speaker 2 He's the whole deal in this game. If you go back and look, like he clearly has not been the player this year that he has been in the past.

Speaker 2 But you go back and look at those wins, the three times that the Chiefs have beaten the Bills.

Speaker 2 He's averaged nine catches per game, 96 yards, and almost two touchdowns in those three games, right?

Speaker 2 The week 11 game that we were talking to, I want to see two catches for eight yards.

Speaker 1 Well, they keep him in the garage during the regular season now.

Speaker 2 No, I get that.

Speaker 1 I get that. They put the cover over him.
They put him in the heated garage.

Speaker 2 Especially this year when he was not, and I, you know, I took a lot of heat for it, but I know him, right? Like he was not in the shape that he's been in a lot of other years.

Speaker 2 It just wasn't like there. So they were like, they were getting him to this point.
Had an awesome game with 117, right, last week. So

Speaker 2 Terrell Bernard did an amazing job in coverage on him. So that's going to be the matchup you want to watch in this game.

Speaker 2 The linebacker for the Bills, the first time around, he also had the interception in that game.

Speaker 1 But they have some secondary issues this game. There's some guys who may or may not play, and their secondary was already not incredible to begin with.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So, I mean, that to me, because when Mahomes gets in these games and these types of situations, like it's cute that we've got a burner and Xavier Worthies here.

Speaker 2 you know, like all this, all these other bells and whistles and all the things we want, but he's going to rely on himself

Speaker 2 and Travis. I mean, it's been proven.
And so

Speaker 2 he would rather extend a play and dance around and do some things and wait for Kelsey to find a soft spot versus in those moments, in the big moments, if you really watch, like he'll turn down opportunities with other guys and say, I can create a little longer.

Speaker 2 I'm going to wait for Travis because we have to, when he has to have it, that's what he tends to do. So I think Kelsey is going to be the key to this game.

Speaker 2 It's not breaking news, but like he, I think we kind of got lulled to sleep. Well,

Speaker 2 they're winning games and Travis hasn't been huge this year.

Speaker 1 No, they wanted three games from him. That was it.
I think that was the deal before this season. Are you going to be ready for the three games at the end of the season? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are you going to be a nine for 99 with a touchdown each game?

Speaker 1 We'll take a break. I want to keep talking quarterbacks.

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Speaker 1 All right. My guy, Drake May.
I know you've been watching him. I just got a shoehorn just because you're here.
I got a shoe in shoehorn three minutes of content. So, I'm on a lot of Pats text threads.

Speaker 1 We watched what happened with Washington this year, where very similar to the Pats right now, where they had, they drafted the franchise QB, they brought in a new coach, they brought in new leadership, they made a bunch of smart free agent signings, they did well in the draft, and they just basically patched together a playoff team that now has a legitimate chance to make the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 And it'll happen in a year. The Pats, they have May.
So, So you

Speaker 1 think of last year's May season as like Daniels at LSU, basically, like that kind of same thing. Now he's going to have his first real season, hopefully, with on a real professional team.

Speaker 1 Easy schedule.

Speaker 1 They have a ton of cap space.

Speaker 2 The most in the league.

Speaker 1 I assume they're going to spend money. The Crafts really haven't spent money the last 10 years, but we'll see if they do it this year.

Speaker 1 Fourth pick in the draft, top of every draft going down. They have two third-round picks.
Like, why can't this be them next year? What are the reasons that can't happen?

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 what Jaden has done is unbelievably unique and special, but it's Drake's second year, and he has shown

Speaker 2 he's different. That last year's quarterback class, man, when you go back and look at it,

Speaker 2 I'm just excited to see it develop. But like, Pennix looked pretty good.
Bonex, Bonix, there's a cap on Bo Nix.

Speaker 1 But he's definitely an average to above average starter.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and it's the perfect situation for him with Sean.

Speaker 2 But the whole group, you know, and now Ben Johnson comes to Chicago and

Speaker 2 that's a whole different conversation.

Speaker 2 They're set up for that kind of success. I'm not saying make a Super Bowl run, but they are set up to be a surprise playoff team.

Speaker 1 To maybe be a 10-win team.

Speaker 2 To be a surprise playoff team next year from this, you know, from a team that was a game away from having the first overall pick to make maybe potentially making a run.

Speaker 2 Here's the hard part i just talked about the defense and and vrabel certainly will will have his finger on the pulse and and make make the final decisions but he will be pushing um towards building a great defense with a with a great young quarterback i figure he'll do the lines right he'll be like let's start with the lions and we'll build out from both sides of the line of scrimmage and we'll pluck a receiver here we'll grab a retread running back there And we don't need to put a ton of money in that right away unless they go out and get one of the, you know, the top free agents or make a trade at wide receiver.

Speaker 2 I don't even know that that's going to be their MO, but we'll see. But at the end of the day, like what we saw from Drake May

Speaker 2 was all you needed to see to have be resuscitated as a Patriots fan. Like, there's they have two assets in the entire organization.
I said it, it's Drake May and Gonzalez at cornerback.

Speaker 1 And Vrabel now. Now we have three assets.
No, I'm saying before

Speaker 2 the move, before they changed over, like they had two, two assets, and I was screaming, protect your assets. Don't play play them in that final game.
They should, you and I were texting.

Speaker 2 They should never have had the coach coach that game. Gerard Mayo should never have been in that position.
But here we are.

Speaker 2 Now you've got the fourth pick, and it's not all going to come down to the fourth overall pick.

Speaker 2 You know, if Abdul Carter was to fall to him at four, it would be, I don't want to say a miracle, but the odds are it's not going to happen. Right.

Speaker 2 They, they desperately, in my opinion, need one of the quarterbacks to fall to them, Cam Ward or.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so let's talk about that. Because right now it's a three-player draft unless Sanders can move up and get people excited and whet people's appetite and make it a football.

Speaker 1 Because it seems like Ward's higher than Sanders and then Carter and Hunter. But right now it's a three-player draft, drop off.

Speaker 1 People start arguing who the fourth pick should be, which is bad for the Pets, I think.

Speaker 2 Yes and no, because you're sitting there for Tennessee has a quarterback need. Cleveland has a quarterback need and Giants have a quarterback need.

Speaker 1 But Tennessee said they're taking the best guy. They said like now who knows

Speaker 2 but Bill how long have you been in this game I'm not saying that they won't and maybe eventually they will but but since when has a team come out with the the the

Speaker 2 in mid-January yeah and said if it's a generational talent we're gonna yeah okay that's fair that's that's nfl speak for hey, come and get the pick. If not, we'll take your guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 They want out of that pick, you know, just like the Patriots would have wanted out of that pick because they realize they're

Speaker 2 the there is no drake may in this class there's no jaden daniels in this class there's no caleb williams in this class right

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 so let's try to get out of this pick and let's build it like the rest like detroit had built it like the eagles have built it like san francisco did like you know the ravens continue to do all the organizations building on defenses and offensive lines right and so i think tennessee is going to try to follow in that, in those footsteps and try to follow the blueprint and try to get out of that pick and get more picks in a draft where, yeah, those are the top three and they're elite players.

Speaker 2 But even in recent drafts, you could say there's better at those individual positions.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but usually the quarterbacks drift up. And they will.

Speaker 1 This weird phenomenon that happens, and then all of a sudden you've got two guys in the top four, even though there's been like the Trubisky year was a good example when that happened.

Speaker 1 The more people stare at the list and the quarterbacks and think about how important the position is, all of a sudden you start looking at the strengths instead of the weaknesses of the guys and the guys climb up.

Speaker 1 So I'd assume that might happen.

Speaker 2 Yeah, one of two things is going to happen. Either both the quarterbacks are going to go to one of those three spots and Abdul Carter will go.
And then Travis Hunter

Speaker 2 is your pick at number four, unless you can move out of that.

Speaker 1 to get additional picks. It doesn't seem like a variable pick.

Speaker 2 It doesn't, right?

Speaker 1 They need a left tackle. They have to come out of the draft with a left tackle or a pass rusher, and that's it.
Has to be for the Pats. It has to be one of those two.

Speaker 1 They need people who can block for Drake May. He's the only asset they have.

Speaker 2 So trade back with Vegas at six or the Gates at seven, you know what I mean? Or the Saints at nine.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 if one of those two quarterbacks falls, right?

Speaker 1 Yep. That would be the dream scenario.

Speaker 2 I think the worst scenario is

Speaker 2 Cam and Shadur go in the top three picks and Abdul Carter is gone as well.

Speaker 1 And now you're staring at Hunter, who you don't need.

Speaker 2 Who's a wonderful, he is a generational type talent, but you're only getting him on one side of the ball for the vast majority, right?

Speaker 1 And you have him as a cornerback, right?

Speaker 2 I think he's actually a better wide receiver than he is cornerback.

Speaker 2 But if you're going to try to play him and get value from him on both sides, you better play him as a cornerback and then put in some packages for him, you know?

Speaker 1 that's going to be super fun if somebody decides to do that. I'm just glad that player exists because I remember, you know,

Speaker 1 after college or even during college when Deion Sanders, when I was in college, and Deion had that capability of just coming in and playing series on offense, it was like the most exciting thing.

Speaker 1 I was like, oh my God, this is amazing.

Speaker 2 I looked it up.

Speaker 1 It wasn't that many plays.

Speaker 2 I think he had like

Speaker 2 61 receptions his entire career.

Speaker 1 Deion did, yeah.

Speaker 2 Deion did, and that was the most, like, champ Bailey had like

Speaker 2 six.

Speaker 2 Charles Woodson had like two, you know, like, so there's not a, there's not a history of, of someone actually being like consistently, you know, that productive.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So last year's draft seems like it was almost a unicorn draft. Like the way we're going to look back at it, where there's just star players all throughout the first round.

Speaker 1 There's all, we, and we ended up with five starting quarterbacks. We ended up with potentially two, you know, maybe generational quarterbacks, maybe three if Caleb can get his shit going.
Yep.

Speaker 1 And then this year's draft.

Speaker 2 We haven't seen anything from JJ yet, who's got arguably the best

Speaker 1 to develop him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then this year's draft, like you look at Cam Ward, you look at Sanders.

Speaker 1 Where do they go in last year's draft with the tape they have and like the grade they have for this season? Are they in that like Pennex Knicks level? Are they JJ level? Are they below Pennex?

Speaker 2 like where are they i think i think the conversation starts at four with with jj

Speaker 2 okay there's no conversation with with caleb jaden or uh or drake okay i think it starts at at four most teams had jj mccarthy as the fourth some teams were higher on him than others and believe that he was maybe the second or third best quarterback in the class i i didn't I didn't I thought he was the fourth best.

Speaker 2 I think, see, the interesting part is this. The best pure passer in this draft is Shador.
Layers the ball, ball placement, good instincts as a passer, processes things real quickly.

Speaker 2 Doesn't have a great arm. Not a very good one.
The weird part is he's he's Coach Prime's son. He's not a great athlete.

Speaker 2 Like he extends plays, but his instincts in the pocket get him in a lot of trouble.

Speaker 2 And then you've got Cam, who doesn't, I don't want to say he doesn't process it as quickly, but he's been in these systems where he hasn't had to go through all the reads.

Speaker 2 I don't think he can get himself out of trouble as a rookie in terms of understanding where to go with the ball. He's not as consistent with his accuracy.
He makes more poor decisions.

Speaker 2 He'll make a play or two a game where you're like, oh, no, like Will Levis type shit, right?

Speaker 1 Oh, no.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Levis word.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 he's a better athlete than Shador. He extends plays.
His arm angles, the way he's able to get the ball out, he's got a much better arm than Shador.

Speaker 2 So traits-wise, Cam is the guy if you can develop him. But if you're asking compared to last year's class, I think it may go JJ McCarthy 4.

Speaker 2 And then I would say Cam Ward Penix

Speaker 2 and then Shadur kind of bone

Speaker 2 in that range.

Speaker 1 So if Darnold had been really good down the stretch, and let's say they lost in round two, but he was good in that game and it wasn't his fault and it turned into a situation, oh, Minnesota should have re-signed him.

Speaker 1 They should actually bring him back and trade JJ. That's a smarter move.
You think JJ has the kind of talent that you could have traded one of the four picks in the top four

Speaker 1 for JJ and that's a good trade compared to who's in the draft? Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think so. And I think it probably could have happened that way, but I don't know that Minnesota would have even gotten rid of him.
I think they would have sat on both.

Speaker 2 Had he played great down the stretch,

Speaker 2 it was shaping.

Speaker 2 I'm actually frustrated because it was shaping up to be one of the most fascinating personnel decisions you could ever make.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was like a poor man's young versus Montana type of situation, right? It's like, what do we do? We have two guys.

Speaker 2 But the problem is with the salary cap, like you're now preventing your organization from building everywhere else by keeping Sam. But then are you going to gamble? You have this sure thing.

Speaker 2 If he goes and plays well, like you said, two playoff games, they lose, but he's through for 260, 270, and everything.

Speaker 1 He's 27 years old or whatever it is. It's like, all right, we got a guy.

Speaker 2 We got our guy. And so that would have been unbelievable to watch.
It's amazing what two games did to his value.

Speaker 1 Yeah, now he's going to be like Giants, Tennessee. Yep.
Some sort of stopgap somewhere else.

Speaker 2 It'll be interesting to see how much money he lost too.

Speaker 1 That was the most wrong I've been about anything all season.

Speaker 1 I completely believed by week 17 with the Vikings. I was like, I'm in on this team.

Speaker 1 I believe in Darnold. This team's going to beat Detroit.

Speaker 2 Why is everyone overlooking him?

Speaker 1 No one wants to talk about him.

Speaker 2 I was the same way.

Speaker 1 I saw that video of them carrying him, picking him up in the locker room. I was like, I'm all in.
You've won me over. And then he just turned into a pumpkin.
It was unbelievable.

Speaker 2 Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 your mock draft has come in February 10th, your first one?

Speaker 2 I think so. That's what we're looking at.
Yep.

Speaker 1 Not that far away.

Speaker 2 No. Is there,

Speaker 1 we can spoil one thing in the mock draft. Is there a surprise guy for you that you're higher on than everybody else that you feel like you're going to be right and people just don't see it yet?

Speaker 1 Do you have one of those guys yet?

Speaker 2 I don't want to bore you with an offensive tackle, but

Speaker 1 let's hear it.

Speaker 2 Josh Connerly from Oregon. Everyone's talked about this Will Campbell guy who's a guard tackle from LSU and Kelvin Banks, who's a really talented player from Texas.

Speaker 2 I think Josh Connerly might wind up being the best left tackle.

Speaker 1 You act like I haven't studied these guys copiously, hoping the Pats are going to take a left tackle. See Josh Connerly that high?

Speaker 2 I think he's up there.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 2 he's as he's unbelievably athletic. The way he moves, he's gotten better with his hands.
I think he's got a chance to be a star from this class.

Speaker 2 And nobody, I haven't heard or talked to anyone who's quite as high on him as I am. So keep an eye on Connerly.

Speaker 1 Were you high on Cole Strange a couple of years ago or no?

Speaker 2 Not as as high as the mistress were.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We traded out of the McDuffie pick and then took him one pick in front of Carloftis.
Was the rare double whammy Belichick down the stretch?

Speaker 1 So you, so your dream scenario for the Pats would be somehow move out of that four pick, get into the nine to 11 range and take Connerly.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You think he goes that high?

Speaker 2 Or I was, I think more like, I think he winds up going mid-first,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 1 if

Speaker 2 people see what I see, then maybe he goes, he goes somewhere around 10.

Speaker 1 And the receiver class is a disaster this year compared to last year, which was like a pretty historic run of dudes.

Speaker 2 We've had, we had a historic, almost decade of run, run of, of wide receivers, like every year. Yeah.
Four to five first round.

Speaker 2 almost sure fire, like a lot of them, you know, like all those Alabama guys, like, you know, when you look at them and then Ohio State guys and the LSU guys, like all from like five programs, the vast majority.

Speaker 2 It's not like Tederoa McMillan from Arizona is really talented, but but I don't, you know, I wouldn't put him up. He's not like Jamar Chase, you know? Yeah, I see him mocked at like four or five.

Speaker 2 And I just, I have a hard time going that high on Luther Burden's a burner, but drops a lot of passes, inconsistent. The best wide receiver in the class is Travis Hunter.

Speaker 2 And after that, I think there's a lot of guys you like late in the first and second round, but I don't see the value where you're going to have to pick for him. I just don't see.

Speaker 1 Last year was nuts. Like, even think like Bowers,

Speaker 1 who is probably going to be the best tight end of his generation if he doesn't get concussed 17 times because he tries to take on nine tackers every time he catches the ball.

Speaker 1 But that guy, that guy's going to be the next guy, it feels like.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he is the next guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And how about Lad Lad McConkey?

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. I mean, Pat's straight out of that pick.

Speaker 1 Pats took the

Speaker 1 10th wide receiver in a nine receiver draft.

Speaker 1 It was great. Although, don't you feel like, like, I watched what Washington did, where they basically, they got this coaching staff and they overpaid for their assistance, right?

Speaker 1 They got overqualified dudes at different, and they coached guys up, whereas the Pats went the other way and had a terrible coaching staff. But don't, aren't some of these guys?

Speaker 1 Like, is Polk really like he's just not going to ever be an NFL player? He's not salvageable at all. Can you lose your confidence to that degree? Because

Speaker 1 he was good last year. Like, nobody thought he was going to be a bust.
I just don't understand the concept of

Speaker 1 can a coach and a coaching staff like bring, resuscitate a guy back to life. Is that even possible?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's possible. It's possible, but there, but damage gets done as a rookie.
It really does. And it's hard to overcome that.

Speaker 2 Sometimes it takes a change of scenery, and sometimes that's not even enough.

Speaker 2 I just look at like what Adam Peters did at Washington from the hire of Dan Quinn to the coordinators to Jaden was the easiest decision he had to make. How about Mike Sandristro?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 Two interceptions,

Speaker 2 drafting him as a rookie.

Speaker 1 Yeah, what round was he?

Speaker 2 He was,

Speaker 2 he wound up going second. He was, yeah, he wound up going second.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the Daniels one, I mean, obviously that was a huge topic with the Pats fans wondering what, because it seemed like there was a stretch there where it seemed like Washington might take Drake May.

Speaker 1 And then it's like, okay, I'm going to talk myself into Daniels. And he's a little older and he's maybe not durable, but holy shit.

Speaker 1 And people in my life who love college football and like Van Lathan, who loves LSU, was like, Daniels is incredible. Like, if you guys got Daniels, it'd be a miracle.
So you had that.

Speaker 2 The conversations I had with a lot of NFL teams was like,

Speaker 2 you guys in the media are missing. I remember in like about this time last last year.

Speaker 1 They you guysed you?

Speaker 2 You guysed us.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 You guys me. Yes.
Like we're having real conversations and fights in our draft room. Like when we go get together our meetings that we just had a January meeting, like it is a, it's a war in our room

Speaker 2 about Jaden versus Caleb. Wars.
And a lot of teams I talked to, you know, at the end. before they saw the product on the field this year.
So it's not like, you know, revisionist history.

Speaker 2 We're like, yeah, we would have taken Jaden.

Speaker 1 So now, if it's a redraft, is Caleb third on everyone's board or is he second? He's third, you think? I think he is 10.

Speaker 2 I do.

Speaker 1 And probably Daniels has to be first.

Speaker 2 I mean, this is Daniels first, May second, then Caleb.

Speaker 1 Daniels has won this argument, at least for now. Now he's in this different argument of like, who would you want with the ball with five minutes left in a playoff game? Right.
It's not Mahomes.

Speaker 1 Is he Daniels?

Speaker 1 Second, third, or fourth?

Speaker 2 Is there a fifth quarterback in the NFL that you would take over Jaden? Like, he's, I saw that conversation the other day.

Speaker 1 Would you rather have Burrow or Jay Danos? Would you rather Herbert or Jay Danos? Like, yeah, he's already

Speaker 2 there is the second year thing. Like

Speaker 2 Stroud grinded through it, didn't have as much protection, all that. So they've got to avoid the

Speaker 2 second time around. Team's having a full offseason to study his tendencies.
If he gets through his second year and is playing at this level, then we're in the clear.

Speaker 1 And you don't worry about him physically at all over the course of 15 years or is it like a Lamar? Of course, I do.

Speaker 2 Do me a favor at some point when you have a Freeman moment on your hands this week.

Speaker 2 You got, I think I told Ceru to you about this too. You got to go on Twitter.
There's just like

Speaker 2 Jaden Daniels Looney Tunes.

Speaker 2 Someone put together a great reel of him as like of all the times he just got popped. And like,

Speaker 2 it's one thing to get popped, but when you're like the way his body parts are just flailing everywhere, because he's so lean and long, it's just, it's, it's hysterical. It's worth a laugh.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it concerns me. We were always worried about Lamar, but Lamar always seemed like he knew how to take a hit.
Then some guys just know how to do it.

Speaker 2 Jaden pops up so many times. He's so flexible, and that's just who he is.
But he hasn't learned that yet.

Speaker 1 You know who was bad at that initially? It was Brady. Brady took some

Speaker 1 smacks his first couple years where he just got, and Drake May last year took like three or four horrible.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Brady figure

Speaker 2 yeah that's the whole thing it's flexibility like that's why i like the brady quins and like the the guys who are like t-bows yeah i just i can't will levis yeah

Speaker 1 the dudes who look awesome with their shirt off and look like they can outbench rascillo are the ones i really worry about you know nobody can outbench rascillo what are you talking about yeah i know you've seen him lately he's mad just ask him just ask him jesus um do you think brady screwed up everything for all these old quarterbacks going forward where we decided this was realistic because Tom Brady did it?

Speaker 1 And now we're just going to have this generation of guys in this Rodgers cousin stage in their late 30s where they just suck. Absolutely.
Like, no, no, Tom Brady did it.

Speaker 1 I really feel like he fooled even me. I picked the Rodgers to, you know, win the AFC East this year.

Speaker 1 Now it's like, oh, yeah, it's really hard to play quarterback when you're 39 and your body's breaking down.

Speaker 2 I went to that Patriots Jets game. I brought my son.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 To see him live in person now compared to what he was two years ago,

Speaker 2 you know, like the MVP level version of Aaron Rodgers was, it was scary.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And to see Drake May before the concussion and how mobile and in control he was, it was like, oh, so that's next. And that's done.

Speaker 2 That's my two takeaways. Like, that's next.
That's done.

Speaker 1 And yet, somebody will probably sign Rodgers, I'm guessing.

Speaker 1 there'll be one more year i feel like he's gonna be like one of those boxers that needs to get knocked out two more times before they finally hang out yeah i could see him wanting to i just don't why would you invest that and bring in that

Speaker 1 you know i'm not saying i would i just feel like how many dumb teams do we have we just watched the jaguars do two weeks of coach interviews and then fire their gm this is like

Speaker 1 seven eight just horrifically managed franchises yes so yeah i think rogers could play somewhere oh i'm not saying he won't.

Speaker 2 I agree with you. I'm just saying, why would you?

Speaker 2 With all the, with everything that comes with it, too. You know, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the other piece. Yeah.
All right. Todd McShay, first mock draft, February 10th.
You can listen to the McShay show. We're heating up toward the draft.

Speaker 1 Can't wait for all your takes, all your thoughts. Good to see you.
Thanks for coming on, finally.

Speaker 2 All right, my man. I'm glad to join you.
I appreciate you having me in

Speaker 2 this ringer gig. I'm loving it.

Speaker 1 It's been fun. Great.
We love to have you. Thanks.
Thanks, man.

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Speaker 1 All right, taping this part late Thursday afternoon. Joe House is here.
He is dressed almost like a Washington Commander's NASCAR driver. There's just Washington stuff everywhere.

Speaker 1 You're getting a colonoscopy tomorrow. You're drinking the colonoscopy juice.
There's been fireworks in the house house. This is the most action-packed million-dollar picks we've ever had.

Speaker 1 Your team might make the Super Bowl to play.

Speaker 2 I mean, first of all, you see all this gear, what I have on, what's behind me. You're going to see none of that when I'm in Philadelphia this weekend.

Speaker 2 This is the last time you're going to see any of this stuff because i am not catching any hands when i'm up there and i'm not i'm not looking for it right i'm not i'm too old we're too old we're too old for the the visiting teams member uh merchandise we can't do it definitely you gotta go

Speaker 1 you support the team

Speaker 2 silently and hope you don't get punched also if you do get in a fight in the stands though make sure it's it's to somebody who's below you this is the musclo technique the guy in the higher ground always wins in the in the uh football things anyway don't punch house he's a great guy gonna try my best not to get punched i mean if beers get poured on me that's fine i i i'll i'll go with that but i will tell you on the subject of of the procedure of my screening procedure this this you know health uh path that we're on you you you can tell how unimaginable it was that that I would have something football related in my life this weekend.

Speaker 2 I mean, I scheduled the colonoscopy months ago, right? Because I look at the calendar, like, oh, sure, it's conference championship weekend. That's fine.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'll be yeah, you're not playing conference championship weekend. No, this turned out to be the dance nighter colonoscopy.

Speaker 1 You're releasing all the dance nighter feces and toxins out of your body.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's symbolic.

Speaker 2 It's amazing. Really? Yeah, it really is.
All of it's coming out. I can tell you that much.
In fact, if I, we might have to take a break 10 minutes in here.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, the listeners slash viewers will never know.
We'll just do a nice, clean edit and you can come back with a nice, happy look on your business.

Speaker 2 As clean as Mike Colin, hopefully.

Speaker 1 We didn't do well on million-dollar picks last week. We lost $585,000, but we were still up $1.282 million for the year.
I'm okay with what happened last week. I would take Baltimore again.

Speaker 1 And your team, we kind of had to see it.

Speaker 1 I wish I took last in. I didn't have the balls.
I just didn't.

Speaker 1 I didn't have the balls to take a rookie QB against a team that felt like they were going to run all over you, which they basically did, but it didn't matter because they turned the ball over five times.

Speaker 1 Turnovers are the story of this last round. There's so many, there might even be turnover in your pants.

Speaker 1 There's so many stories this week about turnover battle, like the Bills, 21 straight games where they haven't lost a turnover battle, like hasn't happened since 1960.

Speaker 1 There's all these good metrics for if you, if

Speaker 1 you look like this Bills team just with turnovers, you end up winning the Super Bowl. Chiefs haven't turned the ball over in two months.

Speaker 1 This round, the the last four teams, none of them have a turnover.

Speaker 1 And I just wish, I wish I wasn't saying it this way, but it's almost as reductive as, at least with the Chiefs-Bills game, whoever doesn't turn the ball over is probably going to win.

Speaker 1 I feel stupid saying it, but I think it's true.

Speaker 2 Well, the two aspects of it for sure that all four of these teams have an advantage is taking sacks, these quarterbacks not taking sacks, and these teams, you know, being on the correct side of the turnover margin.

Speaker 2 Both Washington and Philadelphia arrive for their matchup plus six, the exact same number through these playoffs.

Speaker 2 And nobody would have forecasted this for Washington, I don't think. I mean, that's what's truly remarkable.

Speaker 2 And for sure, I think the handicap that we, now by the time on Sunday on the Ringer pregame show in advance of the

Speaker 2 yes, indeed.

Speaker 2 thought that nine and a half points. I finally was had the balls to say it.

Speaker 2 Detroit favored by nine nine and a half was goddamn disrespectful.

Speaker 1 You didn't have the balls to say it when we did million-dollar picks. Oh, good.
We couldn't remember. No, I did not.
No, you were like,

Speaker 1 well, we teased you.

Speaker 1 Hey, you're being cute. You're being cute about it.
I think you deep down knew your team had a real chance.

Speaker 1 I'm a little annoyed. You know, a little annoyed.

Speaker 1 Well, let's go backwards because you have been on the pod since Washington wins this game.

Speaker 1 Top five sports moment of your life?

Speaker 2 absolutely yes yes unquestionably i would say unquestionably because of how far we've come how unexpected it was i mean i i feel now like it's a a bad um analogy coming on here every single week and saying to you that if we wrote this script out if you wrote real life as it's occurring and said this is a script about a football team every production house would turn it down say this is this is trash.

Speaker 1 Like a sports movie, they dump their terrible owner who hated the fans, who almost like ruined football in an entire city that loved football.

Speaker 1 And then the new Kai comes in, new coach, new GM, new QB, and they just go on a winning streak.

Speaker 2 Well, not just new QB, possibly the greatest rookie in the history of the football game.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, there were a few of those stories this week.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 1 we were there for Marino. Marino was pretty great.
Now, granted, we, you know, we only got to see him a couple of times, but yeah, what the dandelions had a playoff wins to it. Pretty nuts.

Speaker 1 There's a lot to cover with this game.

Speaker 1 The Washington piece, I can't shake. There's some 2001 Pats parallels.
Oh, and watching your excitement with this.

Speaker 1 The Pats, they were like five and five after 10 games, and then they didn't lose again.

Speaker 1 And at some point, weird shit started happening, leading to the snow game, which was like, that was when they finally pulled us in.

Speaker 1 And none of the Pats fans fans wanted to believe and say, no, no, believe. We had like weird Brady Bledsoe stuff, but you know, Bledsoe got hurt.
It was an up and down season.

Speaker 1 We had that with the defense and the coaching. You have it with your offense.
But

Speaker 1 you guys are 14 and five. You guys won eight straight games.
It's not like what they're like, oh my God, what's Washington doing here? Like at some point, Washington's just good.

Speaker 1 And I'm really leaning toward taking them in the game, not just with the points, but outright.

Speaker 1 I really think they can win. And we'll get into the Philly stuff in a second, but let's just get that out of the way.
I don't think this is fluky. I think that Daniels has been that good.

Speaker 1 The coaching has been that good. The guys over and over again, you've had like these semi-miraculous wins, these comeback wins, these fourth quarter wins.

Speaker 1 And there's a mojo that develops that I think divides a magician. I picked against Washington the last two rounds.

Speaker 1 Understandable.

Speaker 1 I'm tired of doing it. Like at some point, you got to accept what's going on and something is going on.

Speaker 2 it does feel like something is going on i mean i i can't view it uh from my unbiased in an unbiased kind of of way and for sure the sum of all of these guys together believing is greater than the parts because you can't sit down and do x's and those you can't do advanced metrics you can't

Speaker 2 use any of those things to truly capture the spirit of this team and the way these guys believe. And they just believe and that belief in each other.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's an incredible combination of veterans and rookies, and the veterans, some guys that have been there before, Bobby Wagner's been there before.

Speaker 2 So, for a defense that by all metrics, it's the worst unit on the football field come Sunday, but somehow or another, we keep getting W's. They just keep getting W's, Bill Simmons.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you have, it's like the 30th defense DVOA against the run. Your defense is basically what the 0-1 0-1 Pats offense was.
Every week, we're like, how are we going to score points?

Speaker 1 Like, we have Jermaine Wiggins as a tight end. Our only good offensive player is Troy Brown.
We have a rookie QB who they're terrified to have him really do anything.

Speaker 1 And each week we would just patch together points. And the same thing's happening with your defense,

Speaker 1 where it's like, how is this defense going to stop anybody? And you're just getting turnovers. But the thing is, it was like Detroit.
Yeah, they had five turnovers. There were some bad plays.

Speaker 1 Washington also made some good plays. Like, yeah,

Speaker 1 that guy jumping the post route on the TD and the end zone, that was a good fucking play.

Speaker 2 Outstanding. Yes.
Yeah. But the rookie Mike Sandristil had two interceptions.

Speaker 2 And I feel very proud of myself. And one of my threads with actually a guy with the team, I said, you know, this is part of the revelation.

Speaker 2 This guy Sandrustill, the kid from Michigan, he's been unbelievable. But, you know, he is for sure benefiting from the overall

Speaker 2 gravitas of this defense. Dan Quinn can coach up a defense.
He's got the spine. You have Jeremy Chin playing safety.
You've got Frankie Louvu and Bobby Wagner where they are. And

Speaker 2 they just really do

Speaker 2 believe. And look, they held Tampa to 20 points.
And we watched that Tampa defense, I mean, offense go out and just post points on everybody.

Speaker 2 Now, it did feel like if Detroit had stuck with the run, that they might have been able to run for 250 yards in the second half and they they might have won that football game, but they chose not to.

Speaker 2 And that kid, who had at least some role in it, is now going to be the head coach of the Chicago Bears. So good luck to them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he got to stay in your conference.

Speaker 2 Their conference.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 you're the Washington conference. The Bears, Ben Johnson,

Speaker 1 get to play him.

Speaker 1 The Washington piece of this, big picture.

Speaker 1 If they could actually win this game, where do the Eagles rank on most hated Washington opponents? They're not number one, but they're in the top three, right?

Speaker 2 Well, because we hate everybody in the NFC East.

Speaker 1 You hate Dallas the most, though.

Speaker 2 Yes, hate Dallas the most for sure. It's mutual hatred amongst all of the franchises in the NFC East, and each team has their own, which one they hate the most.

Speaker 2 I think the Giants hate the Eagles the most.

Speaker 2 I think the Eagles hate Dallas the most. I don't know, but

Speaker 2 for sure, Washington hates Dallas the most. Philadelphia, let's be real about it, wasn't really on the radar for a long time.

Speaker 1 Well, you've only played them once in the playoffs. It's like the weirdest rivalry that's not actually a rivalry.

Speaker 1 It felt like the last couple of years, it was more fun because you guys would have some good games. You beat them last year.

Speaker 2 Well, it doesn't make, I mean, I'm not that surprised that Washington and Philadelphia have only faced each other in the playoffs once because that means both teams have to make it in and you know, and they're pretty generation.

Speaker 1 Well, when you think they've been playing football for 80 years, one time seems low.

Speaker 2 Sure, sure, sure.

Speaker 1 And Daniels is the most popular Washington athlete since I've known you. It's either him or New Pole.

Speaker 1 It's either him or George Meerson.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know, your all-time greats are John Riggins. And,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 there are several generations of Washington fans that didn't have football in their lives. So Alex Ovechkin ranks pretty high up in terms of Washington icons.

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 Daniels is in the conversation, let there be no doubt. Some old heads like me like Wes Onsel and Melvin Hayes, but you know, that's old head shit.

Speaker 1 Finishing last, Andre Blutch.

Speaker 1 All right, to get to the point where I want to have the balls to take Washington. No, Nicoby Dean.
That's good.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Here's the big thing.

Speaker 1 Do your thing about how you think Hurts is hurt because this is the number one reason to take Washten: there is something wrong with Jalen Hurts.

Speaker 1 The stats back it up, the eye tests back it up, and his knee got bent backwards during the game. And they've been tight-lipped about it.
I don't think they tell us if he was hurt, but do your thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And

Speaker 2 we watched it. It was a bad stretch.
And it was, you know, bad enough that we wondered. I wondered in the moment whether that was a tear, whether that was a ligament tear.

Speaker 2 It turned out it clearly was not a ligament tear because that would have been announced on Monday. But

Speaker 2 the discussion all week has been: we presume that Jalen Hurts is going to play, we expect Jalen Hurts to play.

Speaker 2 I mean, we watched the way that that knee bent, and they definitely shot him up with something because his behavior in the interview after that game when he was with Saquon, that was a version of Jalen Hurts that is not your sort of standard issue post-game.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 he had a kind of aura. Let's just put it at that.

Speaker 2 But look, if Washington only has to stop Saquon Barkley, preposterous kind of task that's in front of them,

Speaker 2 if Jalen Hurts isn't going to throw the football down the field, it takes him too long. We've been watching this now, and I know you have the stats to back it up.

Speaker 2 Where for throws that are 10 yards or longer down the football field, it's just taken too long for him to get the ball out of their hand and out of his hand. And they're not throwing the ball anyway.

Speaker 1 I think he's taking sacks, which he didn't take before. Like, I, there was a free Twitter thread of all the worst plays he had in that last game.
Yeah. And it was just video after video.

Speaker 1 And it was like, Jesus, he looks like freaking Dorian Thompson Robinson. Like, what's this dude doing?

Speaker 1 You know, I really thought long and hard about the matchup because my instinct was to take Washington. And I didn't have a good week last week.

Speaker 1 And I wanted to, I kept coming back to the total yardage, which I sent to you. There was most rushing yards ever in the NFC championship game and the AFC championship game.

Speaker 1 The case for the Eagles, which I'm not against, is that they're going to run the ball down Washington's throat. They're going to control the game and they're just going to have the ball a ton.

Speaker 1 You're only going to get like six possessions, one bad thing. You won't get a fourth and two.
Maybe there's a tip-pass turnover, and all of a sudden the Eagles are up 10 and they went.

Speaker 1 The thing that's interesting to me is how few times in the title game

Speaker 1 a team has just run the ball down somebody else's throat. And I sent this to you.
Just in the last 40-plus years,

Speaker 1 only one team in the NFC title game has gotten a 200-plus yards rushing. That was the Niners against the Packers in 2020.

Speaker 1 Other than that, we're talking 81 Eagles, 71 Cowboys, 80 Rams, 73 Vikings, 97 Packers. And then you get into that 169 to 196 range, and there's some more modern teams there.
The Lions

Speaker 1 last year,

Speaker 1 the Seahawks in January 2015, the Bears.

Speaker 1 But my point is, it's unusual, like really, really historically unusual to rush for 200 plus in this second to last game of the season.

Speaker 1 So, my question to you is: how many yards are the Eagles going to have in this game when you factor in Hertz is throwing for 130 to 150 yards a game?

Speaker 1 That puts them in like the low 300s, which you get every week.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the crucial thing for what you just shared in terms of Philly's approach is if Jalen Hurts can't run, go ahead and set Saquon Barkley's over-under at 199 and a half yards.

Speaker 2 If Washington can hold him under 200, I like Washington's chances.

Speaker 1 But 200 would be the, that would be one of the two best performances of the last 45 years. How about like set it at 150?

Speaker 2 Well, I don't. It's Saquon.
He's been unbelievable.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 2 he rips off 70-yard runs. But to me, the larger point is if Jalen, if that dimension of Jalen Hurts is not on the table, and we'll know within the first

Speaker 2 series, we'll see how he moves.

Speaker 2 If he is not a threat to run the football down the field, then that changes things immensely. And, you know, I...

Speaker 1 Washington.

Speaker 1 That long touchdown run he had in the first quarter last year.

Speaker 2 Right. Take that away.
If that threat isn't there, then it changes things. It tilts things for the Washington defense.

Speaker 1 In the AFC title game, nobody ever, no team has ever rushed for 200 plus yards. The last team in the last, like, the 99 Broncos rushed for 178.
It makes sense. The 2015 Pats ran for 177.

Speaker 1 So it's just, it's important to remember, like, oh, Saquon's going to run all over them. Well, when we get to the final four, that's usually not happening in the way you think it's going to happen.

Speaker 1 And then if Hurts Hurts is going to look throwing the ball like he has the last few weeks and really like the whole season, I haven't really liked watching him all season.

Speaker 1 And, you know, it seems like you look at the stats and the advanced stats for him the last three years, it's not that far off.

Speaker 1 But then like Debundo wrote a great piece for The Ringer today about the Eagles passing game. And it's like, they've basically just kind of punted on it.
Yeah. And

Speaker 1 maybe try to take two shots a game, but other than a couple of Dallas Goddard plays. But for the most part, they're just trying to run the ball and control the clock.

Speaker 1 The question for me, though, if you can hang around, what we saw from the Eagles in that fourth quarter against the Rams, where all it just felt like the front four died, they started to get tired, and the Rams are just moving the ball down the field on them.

Speaker 1 Their Supers are getting open. That's what Daniel, that's what he does.

Speaker 2 Well, and here's the thing. Washington, from the minute that they get the ball in the first quarter, is going to be playing no huddle, up tempo offense.
Right.

Speaker 1 Four down offense, too. Any fourth and and two, fourth and three, they're going for it.

Speaker 2 Going for every single one of those.

Speaker 2 Every series that Washington possesses the ball will be a four-down series in the sense that they're going to try, if they're close at all and they're not on the wrong side of like, you know, the, the, their own 30-yard line, that they'll go for it.

Speaker 2 I, I'm, and, and, you know, at some point, the cumulative effect of that on a defense, this is why, like, the Jalen Carter piece is significant. And Washington lost

Speaker 1 his lineman. Right.
Right. Yeah.
We just watched

Speaker 2 We lost Sam Cosme. Now, you know, Washington, in its own shrewd way, is being coy about, you know, how they're going to play this.

Speaker 2 And there is a thought that Andrew Wiley might slide from the left side over to the right side. And he has played some right guard

Speaker 2 for Kansas City, but it was several years ago. And, you know, they have talent on this offensive line, but really it's a Kingsbury scheme thing that's been most impressive.

Speaker 2 So it's a huge loss to lose Cosme. But the Jalen Carter piece, yeah, man, he got tired.
He made the play of the game.

Speaker 2 I would say on a really bad play call, McVay said that there was a miscommunication

Speaker 2 and that led to, you know,

Speaker 1 I always watch for that from a live bet standpoint. These teams that have these awesome pass rushes the first two hours of the game.

Speaker 1 In that fourth quarter, it gets a little different once the guys have been out there for three hours.

Speaker 2 Well, and you know, another time we saw it? The last time Washington played Philadelphia, when Washington came back from down two scores.

Speaker 1 Scored 36 points.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the most points anybody scored on this Philadelphia defense all season.

Speaker 1 So, McShea and I talked earlier about how there's like been three Washington seasons, basically. You had that first stretch in the beginning when it was like, oh, my God, what's going on?

Speaker 1 Daniels got hurt.

Speaker 1 You had some injuries. Ecker got hurt.
Like, it's just, you didn't. And then all of a sudden, you had your full team again and it came on.
But you go back to that. You lost to Philly in week 11.

Speaker 1 And from that point on, Dallas, week 12, you put up 412 yards. Tennessee, 463.

Speaker 1 Saints, 326. Eagles in week 16, 368.

Speaker 1 Atlanta, week 17, 412. Week 18 against Dallas throughout because that wasn't.
Mariota. It was a Mariota.

Speaker 1 Tampa, wild card, 350. And then last week, Detroit, 481.

Speaker 1 So if you're taking a team on the road,

Speaker 1 I want to make sure they can move the ball. And everybody's like, this Eagles defense, it's really good.
It's the best defense in the league.

Speaker 1 But I think Washington can move the ball on them because we've seen them do it.

Speaker 1 And then the question is: how special is Daniels? And that becomes the narrative out of this.

Speaker 1 Can he get there? There's a couple of playoff manifesto rules in play.

Speaker 1 Rule number three: beware of the nobody believes in us team, but don't try to talk yourself into one either.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure they qualify anymore because it seems like this week there's some good discourse about people believing in them. Last week, definitely nobody believed in them.

Speaker 2 The funny thing is that I feel like, you know, from the sort of national NFL media perspective, there's a lot of believers in Washington, but the market does not believe in Washington because this line opened at four and a half and it got slammed all the way up to its present six and a half spot.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think the general consensus is the Eagles are going to run all over them. Their defense will shut them down.

Speaker 1 And this was a nice congratulations, Washington, for making the NFC title game, but it's time to go home.

Speaker 1 Rule number six: never pick an underdog unless you genuinely believe that it has a chance to win.

Speaker 1 I believe.

Speaker 1 I honestly think either I think either team could win. So with the plus six and a half.

Speaker 1 I believe. I think they could win.
I don't know if they're going to win.

Speaker 1 I think they're going to win. Rule number 14 was beware of any team that reminds you of the 2007 Giants.
I'm going to add the 2001 Pats to this list.

Speaker 2 Okay. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 Because I think there's something that happens with teams that get thrown together over the course of a season when they can get hot like this and some funky stuff happen.

Speaker 1 But when you think about, you go backwards, you think about the five, the four and a half months with Washington and the Hail Mary and some of these games you pulled out of your ass.

Speaker 1 At some point, you develop like these

Speaker 1 winning scars almost. I agree with that.
So

Speaker 1 if they're hanging around in the fourth quarter and they're down three, I'm just, I'm going to be mad if I bet on Philly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Go ahead. Do you have any more manifesto things?

Speaker 1 Yeah, rule number 16. Take one last look at the quarterbacks.
And remember, there's plenty of time to bet against any QB or coach.

Speaker 1 So this would really apply to Hurts because if it's like, wait till next round to bet against Hurts, that would go. But I mean,

Speaker 1 not only is Daniels the best quarterback in this game,

Speaker 1 he has been out of control. I mean, he's 70% of his passes, even if you look at like his last seven or eight, is like 20 touchdowns, six picks.
He'll have the one uh-oh, throw a game.

Speaker 2 Sure.

Speaker 1 But he completes 70% of his passes and every fourth down and two and every fourth down and three, you just feel like he's going to get it.

Speaker 2 And incredibly, he just doesn't take sacks. He just doesn't take,

Speaker 2 Washington just doesn't get that setback

Speaker 2 thrown at him. Now, I do want to,

Speaker 2 if I can have a moment,

Speaker 1 some water on some stuff.

Speaker 2 Pour some settle-down juice on the whole situation, right?

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 2 we're talking about an absolutely unprecedented outcome. First of all, this is Washington's fourth road game coming up here.

Speaker 1 It's not unprecedented.

Speaker 1 The Pats, well, I guess the Pats played their first game at home in 0-1, but the Pats were 14-point underdogs against this, or 13-point underdogs against the Steelers, and then 14 against the Rams.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So the starting point is fourth road game.

Speaker 1 Fourth road game in a row.

Speaker 2 In a row. Its own unique challenge.
But here's the stuff. It's the rookie quarterbacks in conference championship games.

Speaker 1 Never. We talked about this last week.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 0-5 straight up, only 1-4 against the spread.

Speaker 2 Also, teams like Washington that were underdogs in the first two rounds and covered both of those rounds, one and five straight up, two and four against the spread when it comes time for the conference championship.

Speaker 2 And this one also, underdogs in divisional

Speaker 2 rematches. So Washington is the underdog.
It's a divisional rematch. 0-4 straight up, 1-3 against the spread.
I mean, that's your settle-down juice, right?

Speaker 2 It just, there's no precedent for a team in Washington's position to actually win this game.

Speaker 1 I think you can win. There's two scenarios.
There's the scenario we laid out earlier where the Eagles just run the ball down your throat. You don't get a fourth and two.
There's one turnover.

Speaker 1 You're down 13. You kind of know by the third quarter.

Speaker 1 Great run, guys. Great run, guys.
Then there's the other scenario where... The Eagles can't throw the ball at all.

Speaker 1 Washington is just loading up on Saquon. The fans are frustrated.
You get one turnover, one strip sack, something.

Speaker 1 Maybe you get a special team, something, and you're just hanging around, hanging around.

Speaker 1 And it can get to the fourth quarter where it's either tied, you're up three, you're down three, but you're in the mix of exactly where the Eagles fans don't want to be with this Eagles team.

Speaker 1 And that's that's it. It's one of those two scenarios.
And I got to say, I'm leaning toward

Speaker 1 Washington plus six and a half. Let's We'll take a break and then we'll talk Casey Buffalo.

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Speaker 1 All right, coming back.

Speaker 1 House, house, the colonoscopy juice has not really kicked in. So that's a good sign for Washington, I think.

Speaker 1 I was thinking about the last 20 minutes we just did is going to be hilarious if you lose like 45 to 10.

Speaker 1 It could happen.

Speaker 1 Hopefully,

Speaker 2 it would still be fine. I, I'm, I, I'm beyond, you know, any reasonable hope or expectation for this, this team, the franchise, what they've done.
Those moments of joy.

Speaker 2 I mean, I hate that Washington did what it did to Detroit of all franchises. You know, I bear no ill will towards Detroit, but they did shut that stadium up.

Speaker 2 I mean, it was silent in there, and nothing would be more beautiful than doing that to the Philly crowd. But look, Philly might come out and just, you know, put us

Speaker 2 on our backs and

Speaker 2 run the road sled right over us. It is possible.
They have the best offensive line. It's an incredible offensive line that Philly possesses.

Speaker 1 What was the demeanor of Washington after the game? Was it like they won the Super Bowl or was like two more?

Speaker 2 Something in between those two because there could be a lot of people.

Speaker 1 You want to make sure it wasn't like, we did it. Oh, my God.
And then you.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of enthusiasm. You know, those guys are, they believe in each other.
So they're coming out of both the Tampa game and that Detroit game. Like

Speaker 2 there's a swagger, but there's also...

Speaker 1 for sure some some exuberance let there be no doubt if you could take your coloscomy juice collect colonoscopy juice stained underwear and mail them to Dan Snyder without getting arrested, would you do it?

Speaker 2 Oh, I mean, first of all, right now they're small stains. I sent you the picture.

Speaker 2 I would, I would, I would, I mean,

Speaker 2 what I would send Dan Snyder wouldn't be those. They're not nearly foul enough.

Speaker 1 He's so much

Speaker 1 house. We've had drunk house, buzz house, sober house, and now we have colonoscopy juice house.

Speaker 1 Chiefs bills.

Speaker 1 I just don't have a lot of.

Speaker 1 It's stupid to even talk advanced numbers with this game. I don't really know what to say other than the Chiefs just win these games all the time.

Speaker 1 They've lost three times in the playoffs with Mahomes. We went through the losses last week.

Speaker 1 The only one where they really got their ass kicked was the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 They should have beaten the Patriots, and we lucked out. Even the Patriots fans would admit that.

Speaker 1 And the Bengals game where Mahomes clearly got concussed near the end of the first first half that was what it was otherwise they just win these games the line is disrespectful everyone's disrespected the bills are disrespectful from last week they're they're trying to get the nobody believes in us it's like well the ravens we're the best team in the league like there's a reason they were they ended up being favored um it's gonna

Speaker 2 really are a nobody believes in us team do you agree with that at least

Speaker 1 nobody believes in the bills i feel like a lot of people are taking them this week okay

Speaker 2 i mean that line hasn't moved.

Speaker 2 Opened at one and a half, stuck right there at one and a half.

Speaker 1 But that, to me, says the Bills aren't a nobody believes in this team.

Speaker 1 They're playing on the road against a team that's been to four of the last five AFC title games, and they're only plus one and a half.

Speaker 2 Fair enough. I will say this.

Speaker 2 Let's see what happens when the public wakes up Sunday morning or, you know, Saturday night going into Sunday, because right now, this is just a professional market, right?

Speaker 1 Buffalo secondary looking a little banged up.

Speaker 2 Not only looked, they are banged up.

Speaker 2 Both Christian Benford,

Speaker 2 I don't know if he practiced. I mean, you know, he had a concussion on the last play of the game against the Ray.
And Taylor Rapp was questionable with the hip injury.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, there's serious issues in their secondary.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 there's a working case for a Buffalo pick and there's a working case for a Chiefs pick.

Speaker 1 The Chiefs case is partly what we laid out about the this is just the infrastructure of what they do.

Speaker 1 This is the best mini dynasty we've had since the Pats, combined with the fact that there's really two KCs now

Speaker 1 trying to play this 20-game season where every year they're playing 19 or 20 games, and they're one way in the regular season, and they're barely scraping by.

Speaker 1 And then around late December, they start, and then in January, they become a different team. So that's why it's almost like you can't look at the numbers, but

Speaker 1 they're home. This is a game they should win.
They hate the Bills,

Speaker 1 so there's all of that. And I really like their team.
I think this is the best they've looked the last couple of weeks.

Speaker 1 The case for the Bills is just Josh Allen grabs the torch from homes, then that's it, because that's the only way they're winning. He could

Speaker 1 grab the torch, he could do it, takes it,

Speaker 1 walks off a la Peyton Manning in 2006.

Speaker 2 One of the things that the Texans showed us last week is that, you know, there was a bunch of supportive numbers for the idea that Kansas City's run defense was a dominant run defense.

Speaker 2 And then Joe Mixon got the ball. And the Texans, with their,

Speaker 2 the most,

Speaker 2 the weakest unit of that Texans team is their offensive line. And somehow they established the run.
And Mixon was really effective. And the Texans out-yardaged the Chiefs

Speaker 2 by quite a bit.

Speaker 1 That was a weird one, though, because they had the long kick return. So they had like, and then a three and out, but they still scored three points.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 2 Okay. I'm talking only about the ability to

Speaker 1 establish the run, but I'm saying

Speaker 2 they established the run.

Speaker 1 They did.

Speaker 2 Buffalo's offensive line is good. And if James gets cooking, and you know, Josh Allen, one of my favorite props of this week, especially with the quiet rush yards game that Josh Allen had.

Speaker 2 Now, he did get to 10 attempts over eight and a half attempts last week. That was a giant cash for everybody.

Speaker 2 I hope everybody listened to the Ringer Pregame Show, but he was way under his yardage number. I do not expect him to be under his yardage number this week.
This is a by any means necessary.

Speaker 2 Pull it all out. Pull out every stop.
Pull it right out of

Speaker 2 your butthole.

Speaker 2 You know, nice and clean, Josh Allen. I think he's going to rush.
I think 50 is a great number.

Speaker 1 So I guess my question is, I really feel like Buffalo should have lost to Baltimore last week. And I know that pisses the Baltimore fans off.

Speaker 1 It used to piss me off as a Pats fan when we would beat somebody in the playoffs and people are like, you shouldn't have won. You looked out, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 And it's like, yeah, well, we didn't fucking turn the ball over and they did. And we forced turnovers.
So fuck you. So I get it.

Speaker 2 It's a fair answer.

Speaker 1 I just think Buffalo this whole season has looked a little better than they actually are. And the Chiefs have looked a little worse than they actually are until recently.

Speaker 1 and one team i think has a little higher ceiling than the other team unless josh allen just says watch this he could that's why the line's one and a half that's why it's you get one and a half for being home it's a perfect matchup i just like the chiefs infrastructure like there was that moment in the houston game last week when all of a sudden spags dialed up all those funky blitzes right he's like waiting waiting waiting's like bam and he just went after stroud yeah and fucked up a whole texans drive there's some institutional knowledge of how to win these playoff games that I just don't want to bet against.

Speaker 1 And if Buffalo beats them, so be it.

Speaker 2 I totally agree. I mean, that has to be the approach, right?

Speaker 2 Like, why would we put ourselves through the mental gymnastics to get to a spot where we say like definitively, affirmatively, yes, the Bills are going to win this game and the points and all, you know, we'll grab the points.

Speaker 2 And the Bills is a case to make, you have to work so hard. It's the simple case.
It's the case you just made.

Speaker 2 Josh Allen does the thing, does the superlative, superior thing, and that would be awesome. And I'll be fine with losing my money if he does it.

Speaker 1 I'm not kidding, but I'm not betting against, I'm not betting against the Chiefs.

Speaker 2 Just not going to do it. Not at this number, not at this number that they've won and covered every single time in the playoffs where it's been under three in this neighborhood.
Yeah, sign me up.

Speaker 1 We talk about this. Well, we did it last year.
We bet against the Chiefs, against the Ravens in the AFC title game,

Speaker 1 And it was a never again.

Speaker 2 Never again.

Speaker 1 Lesson learned.

Speaker 1 It was for me, at least as long as Mahomes is in his P in his prime, and as long as the Reed coaching infrastructure and they have a good enough team and they have Kelsey or somebody like him, I just don't want, I don't, I didn't like the feeling of being like, why the fuck did I bet against the Chiefs?

Speaker 1 So they're going to have to lose before I stop doing it. This is, it's a little bit of us staying at the blackjack table too long, but I also

Speaker 1 Mahomes is in his late 20s. No, yeah,

Speaker 2 yeah. And respectfully,

Speaker 2 it wasn't we. You didn't have me on million-dollar picks for that Ravens Chiefs game.

Speaker 1 But you also had the Ravens.

Speaker 2 Oh, no, I did not.

Speaker 1 I definitely did. You had the Chiefs? Did you zag it?

Speaker 2 It was four and a half or five points. It was preposterous.
Yeah, that line was crazy talk.

Speaker 1 Playoff manifesto,

Speaker 1 really nothing unless we want to create a manifesto rule for the Chiefs.

Speaker 2 They might deserve their own rule.

Speaker 1 Rule number 17 is don't try to be a hero. just try to win money.
And that really applies to the Josh Allen thing. It's like the Josh Allen scenario.
It's like, don't try to be a hero.

Speaker 1 What's going to happen? Are you really ready when it's third quarter and it's 19 to 17 Chiefs and they have the ball and they're driving? Are you kicking yourself?

Speaker 1 There was a rule I proposed last year that I didn't really adopt, but maybe I should. New rule: What does the NFL really, really, really want to happen?

Speaker 2 This is very funny in view of what we watched out of the referees in that Houston game. Wow.

Speaker 1 And it's been a big topic. Has it? They really love the Chiefs.
On the other hand, with like a Buffalo-Washington Super Bowl or Buffalo,

Speaker 1 like, I just feel like the one Super Bowl matchup that everybody's going to be like, ah, what the fuck is Casey Philly?

Speaker 1 Right. That'll be the one.
We're like, ah, we already did this. It's still pretty good, though.

Speaker 1 I know, but we already already already already do it.

Speaker 2 It was still pretty good.

Speaker 1 Every other matchup, super fun, though. Washington,

Speaker 1 Bowl. Washington, Kansas City, Buffalo, Philly.
Every version of that is fun.

Speaker 1 The KC Phillies, both of them have won Super Bowls within the last 10 years. They've already played each other.
I just can't get that excited about it. I still don't like watching Philly's offense.

Speaker 1 But as fun as Barkley is, it's really like a slog watching the 39 seconds of play.

Speaker 2 You know who agrees with you?

Speaker 1 AJ Brown.

Speaker 2 What's going on here? He's also not healthy, by the way. That's another guy.
He might come out and look like, you know, with a spring in his step, but we haven't seen it.

Speaker 2 And those drops last week were big time.

Speaker 1 I had a couple of prop bets for you before we get to the picks.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I have some for you. Let's hear them.

Speaker 1 What do you have? I'll hear yours first if you want.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, go ahead.

Speaker 1 Daniel's no interceptions, minus 104.

Speaker 1 I don't love it. I wish the ads were better.

Speaker 2 I don't love it only because of what you

Speaker 2 sort of observed was possible earlier, which is like the tip pass of the line of scrimmage. That defensive line.

Speaker 1 He gets hit as he's throwing it. All right.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Mahomes over four and a half carries minus 128, which is, it just feels like this line should be six and a half because you know he's going to scramble four times. There's the kneel-down possibility.

Speaker 2 It's the same number as last week, and we really didn't sweat that at all. I don't like this at this stage of the playoffs, those two guys are running the football.

Speaker 2 Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are running the football.

Speaker 1 So, that juice on that, that's minus 120 in a fancy. Fine, fine, Josh Allen to score a touchdown is minus 115.

Speaker 1 I love the odds, but it just feels like if they're around the goal line, you could even see it last week against the Ravens. They were just doing the traditional QB draw play over and over again.

Speaker 2 He's a batting ram. He's a bad boy.
Him in the end zone makes a lot of sense to me.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 Kelsey

Speaker 1 hitting his over, which is 67 and a half, and Casey to win is plus 202.

Speaker 1 And I feel like those two are

Speaker 1 correlated. Yeah.
Correlated. Yes.
I agree with this. So I marked that one down.

Speaker 1 Casey and Washington to be the Super Bowl is plus 518.

Speaker 1 Here's my favorite one, though.

Speaker 1 This is is a five

Speaker 1 member same-game parlay. Wow.

Speaker 1 Kelsey, 50-plus yards.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 50 plus or no. Sure.
50 yards.

Speaker 2 That's a yes. That's a yes.
That's a yes.

Speaker 1 Matt Collins, one catch.

Speaker 1 He's gotten a catch every just one. Just one catch from Matt Collins.
He always gets a catch.

Speaker 2 As long as he doesn't get kicked out of the game, because he's a psychopath. As long as he doesn't get kicked out, then I like the idea of one.

Speaker 1 Daniels,

Speaker 1 plus passing rushing combined.

Speaker 2 That's that's that's kind of appetizing.

Speaker 1 He's way over that every game. He would basically have to get hurt not to get that.

Speaker 2 He's in the 50 to 75 yard rush without really in at least 200.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
All right.

Speaker 1 Dallas Goddard, 25 plus yards.

Speaker 2 That's one of my favorite props of the entire. I'm on Goddard every which way this guy.
All right.

Speaker 1 So you're with me for those first four.

Speaker 2 Those four are on the target.

Speaker 1 So I will let you choose who is the fifth here. I have two options.
Deami Brown, 40 plus yards, would make that five thing parlay plus 380.

Speaker 1 Or McLaurin, 70 plus yards, that's plus 437 if you throw that one in.

Speaker 2 Does it have to be a Washington receiver for the fifth leg of this thing?

Speaker 1 It does. I needed one Washington.

Speaker 1 Why? You don't want it to be a Washington receiver? Well,

Speaker 2 the numbers are all over the place. It would be McLaurin.

Speaker 2 I would feel much, much, much, much, much more comfortable with the idea of McLaurin, especially because it could come by way of what we watched

Speaker 2 against Detroit, which is like a really smart play, like a bubble kind of play, a wheel route, you know, something that is unconnected.

Speaker 1 But who's catching the ball?

Speaker 2 Something that McLaurin is going to be catching, but really it's Austin Eckler and it's Zach Ertz. That's who's catching the ball for Washington.
Those are your ball control guys.

Speaker 2 That's how you matriculate the ball down the field.

Speaker 2 That's how you possess the ball and have eight to 12 play drives and play and drives that take, you know, seven to nine minutes, which is absolutely the

Speaker 2 pathway for Washington to potentially win this game.

Speaker 1 So Eckler and Eckler.

Speaker 1 There's an alternate Eckler rushing receiving

Speaker 1 where it's 25 plus is minus 470 and 40. He's going to get that receiving.
He's going to get that receiving. 40 plus is minus 165.
So you want to put that in and study your receivers?

Speaker 1 Austin Eckler gets 40 plus rushing receiving yards.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm fine with that. I mean, I don't think he's going to get a ton of touches in terms of the running game, but he is such a crucial outlet for Jaden.

Speaker 2 He factors into every time Jaden's under pressure, you know, Eckler is the guy that gets the first look. And no, Nicobie Dean is such a big deal for Philly.

Speaker 2 Like, that would be the dude that I would worry about taking away the Eckler option, but I ain't going to worry worry about that in this game. So I love the idea of Eckler.

Speaker 2 He's going to touch the ball a lot in my estimation.

Speaker 1 All right. So we're going to do Ecker as the fifth, and I'll give you the odds when we actually do million-dollar picks.
Let me write that one down.

Speaker 1 What were your props that you liked?

Speaker 2 Dallas Goddard, I'm not sure exactly where the number is at the moment, but I had him over 38 and a half yards. There's an incredible case to be made.

Speaker 2 He has at least 47 rushing yard receiving yards in the last three games.

Speaker 2 He's got a full-time role in the offense.

Speaker 1 So would you go 40 plus yards for him and not 25?

Speaker 2 I'm fine with 40 plus. I mean, I'm sure that ramps up the odds.
I think that he's going to be a big-time priority for Hurts, especially if he's hurt. which is, you know, a terrible thing.

Speaker 2 But he is the safety valve

Speaker 2 for JL and Washington against tight ends this season 26th in DVOA. And, you know, he's the guy that occupies kind of a short area.
So he'll get the touches.

Speaker 2 I like him over his receptions, which I think is three and a half. And I like him over his receiving yards as well.

Speaker 1 I really have enjoyed betting him over the last few years in the playoffs because when he's actually healthy, he gets the ball and he gets the ball in big spots.

Speaker 1 And I always feel good about having him in there. What else do you have?

Speaker 2 I love Mahomes' longest pass completion over 34 and a half yards. We talked a little bit about how the Bills have those injuries in the secondary since week 14.
And this is not tied to injuries.

Speaker 2 Buffalo is 29th in drop back EPA. So teams are able to pass the ball.
We watched this with our own two eyes with Lamar Jackson and then Baltimore offense.

Speaker 2 The Bills have allowed the fourth most passing yards since week 14, third most per attempt on throws of 20 yards or more. And Lamar had, he went three of five on 20 yard or more pass attempts.

Speaker 2 Both Rashad Bateman and Isaiah likely had catches over 35 yards last week. And what I especially am keying in on here is Mahomes with the complement of receivers that we haven't really seen them.

Speaker 2 We haven't, this is an element of the Chiefs offense we haven't really seen. And we know, know, we intuit that the Chiefs show up to a game like this with a wrinkle that we haven't really seen.

Speaker 1 I think he's in 34. I think

Speaker 2 34 and a half. It was minus 108 on FanDuel when I typed this in.

Speaker 1 Oh, I really like that one, House.

Speaker 1 House, good job.

Speaker 2 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Go, go take a dump and come back and we'll do a million dollar pick. No, I'm kidding.

Speaker 1 All right. So we have some good ones.
Is there anything else? Is there any kicker stuff we want to do? Nothing.

Speaker 2 No. Under no source Jake Elliott to miss a point after.
Yes, that mother effer. I mean, that was the difference between a six-point, you know, non-spread and a seven-point cover.

Speaker 2 Got to do Josh Allen over rushing yards at 47 and a half. You got to, I think you have to play that.

Speaker 1 I always feel like I lose on those. You don't, do you like the unders in both of these games, or is it just me?

Speaker 2 I think Kansas City and Buffalo have could get frisky.

Speaker 2 They could, yeah, for sure. Because I, I mean, you know, Buffalo, um, I think we'll be able to run the ball.

Speaker 1 So that's 48 and a half that over, and then the other one, Philly, Washington, is 47.5.

Speaker 2 So that

Speaker 2 Kansas City Buffalo number moved, it was 47.5 earlier this week. So people are catching on to this.

Speaker 1 I think both these games are going to be very similar with these teams methodically going down and trying to keep the other team's offense

Speaker 1 off the field. All right, let's do it.

Speaker 1 Last but not least,

Speaker 1 do you like Washington plus six and a half with juice? It's minus 120 on Fando or Washington plus five and a half even-ans?

Speaker 2 oh, I much prefer six and a half to five and a half. Okay,

Speaker 2 six is a key number as we just watched on Sunday.

Speaker 1 We did just watch it on Sunday. All right, it's time.

Speaker 1 The million-dollar picks. Conference championship weekend trying to rally.
We lost some last week. We lost $585,000.
Still up. This is why you build the nest egg during the season.

Speaker 1 Still up $1.282 million for this season. Joe House has been helping out a lot of the time.
He's decked out in Washington.

Speaker 1 All his gear.

Speaker 1 We're going to take the Chiefs.

Speaker 1 Money line or minus one and a half?

Speaker 2 However you like.

Speaker 2 Both are fine, maybe.

Speaker 1 Well, the money line is minus 126, and the minus one and a half is minus 112.

Speaker 1 And I would just rather take the.

Speaker 1 You want to lay the point. It's fine.
And then they win 24,

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 okay, the

Speaker 1 money line, I'm paying the chiefs.

Speaker 1 Fine, fine, fine. Chiefs minus 126.
We are not betting against the infrastructure.

Speaker 1 I did it last year, a million-dollar picks in the AFC title game, and I just said never again, never again, never again.

Speaker 1 At least while they have this iteration of them, Chiefs minus 126 over the Bills

Speaker 1 300K,

Speaker 2 yeah, yes, okay, yeah,

Speaker 1 and then

Speaker 1 houses, Washton. He officially said it's okay to call them the Commanders.

Speaker 2 I'm saying it. They are the Washington Commanders because they took that name from the Kalamosky Jews toilet and they've propped it up.

Speaker 2 This name belongs to this guy right here, number five over my left shoulder. And he is the Commandant of the Commanders.
This is the Washington Commanders. I'm here for it.
Hail to the C words.

Speaker 1 We are banking on a close game, and we are grabbing Washington plus six and a half at minus 120. This feels to both of us.
And House has been very respectful of not veering too hard pro-Washington.

Speaker 1 And even there was a couple weeks where I felt like you were intentionally not taking them because you were obeying Jinx rules.

Speaker 1 I just feel like either team can win this game. There's cases for both.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Eagles won by 28.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't be surprised if Washington won by 10. I'm prepared for anything.
That means take the points, putting 300K on that.

Speaker 1 We are going to do some 25K props, including Mahomes, longest pass, 34.5 yards. 35-yard Mahomes pass.
We win. Mahomes over four and a half carries, minus 128.

Speaker 1 Josh Allen, TD, minus 115.

Speaker 2 Love it.

Speaker 1 We're doing 25K on Kelsey, 68-plus yards with Casey to win plus 202.

Speaker 2 Great.

Speaker 1 And then the Mac Daddy one. We're putting 50K on this one.

Speaker 1 It's a fiver. Now let's put 33K on this one, actually.
Great, great. Just for good luck.
Yeah. Shout out to the legend, Larry Bird.
Kelsey, 50-plus yards. Hollins, one catch.

Speaker 1 Daniels, 250 pass, rush combined.

Speaker 1 Dallas Goddard, your guy, 40-plus yards. Eckler, 40-plus yards, rushing, receiving combined.
That is plus 522.

Speaker 1 Over five to one odds, boom.

Speaker 1 And then just for the hell of it, I'm putting 25K on a KC Washington Super Bowl. Wow.

Speaker 1 Plus 518. Just because we built this nest egg all year at the craps table.
I'm just throwing shit all over the place. Why not?

Speaker 1 If you have a seat for house in a pro-Washington suite, which there's probably two of them in Philadelphia,

Speaker 1 hit his Twitter. He's

Speaker 1 there.

Speaker 2 I am definitely available. I will be at this football game by hook or by crook.
I haven't yet figured out how I'm going to get through the turnstile.

Speaker 2 I will not be wearing any identifying Washington garb. I can tell you that much, but I am available.

Speaker 1 Maybe some Washington underwear for me.

Speaker 2 I promise I won't eat all of the food in the suite. I promise.

Speaker 1 I promise.

Speaker 1 And nobody's allowed to punch house. House is old.
Left hand up. Those are the million-dollar picks for week.

Speaker 1 What week is this? 21? Week 21, conference championship. House, good luck.

Speaker 2 We're all rooting for you.

Speaker 1 Thank you, buddy.

Speaker 1 All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to McShay and House.
Thanks to Sarudi and Kyle and Gahau. As always, don't forget you can watch videos and clips from this podcast on the

Speaker 1 Bill Simmons YouTube channel. We also had Kevin O'Connor doing fake trades with me on Wednesday, if you missed that podcast.
So we put up two in 24 hours.

Speaker 1 I will see you on Sunday night, right after Chiefs Bill's live Bill Simmons podcast. Go check it out on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel.
Have a great weekend.

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