The Big Suey: The Pocrisy (feat. Nick Wright)

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Welcome to the Big Sue,

presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebetard podcast.
I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that.

In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's prize that if they're just there.

That hasn't happened to you guys. I've done it.
And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar.

This episode of the Dan Lebetard show is presented by DraftKings. DraftKings, the crown is yours.

Nick Wright is going to join us here in a second. He's got to be in a state of near total despondence.

He has been for many years crowing because he's had the football team of a lifetime to support. He has become friends with players on the team.
They love what an ardent supporter of the team he is.

And they had a bad loss against Dallas, and they could have lost to the Colts. He was hopeful after they played the way they did against the Colts.

They lose at Denver and now are you done, Nick, with the season? Like are you still holding on to some sort of hope or are you checking schedules and

being like, well, the AFC is super weak and if they get to the playoffs, they'll still have the best quarterback in the playoffs.

Well, if they get to the playoffs, they'll win the Super Bowl, but now they have to get to the playoffs.

And hi, Dan. I mean, it's Wednesday.
They haven't played in six days. I didn't know we were going to lead with the Chiefs, but cool.
No problem. It's the most topical thing.

I mean, you know, fourth greatest point guard in the history of the NBA gets sent home. We could discuss that.

There's a

lot of things we could get into, but in Miami, fighting for its life college football playoff, does head-to-head even matter?

You know, a topic right up your alley, Lane Kiffin lying allegedly, you know, going to LSU. There's a lot of more.
Don't deflect here, Nick.

Nick, when your team wins, you're not talking about the cycle. It's played on Thursday.
I'm just telling you, I just, it's just how the calendar works. We move forward.

But no, the biggest story in that sport is every week is when the Chiefs lose. It's the biggest story every week.

I agree. I agree every week.
And that was last week, Dan. But it's fine.
It's your show, so I will deal with it. Is it fine, though? Are you dealing with it? Because

you come in whimpering and hot because you are, for the first time in a while, a bit of a loser.

I am a bit of a loser. This son of a

you're right. You know what? You're right.
I am a loser. A bit of a loser.
Not a total loser.

Just for the first time in a long time, your football team is a bit of a loser. Well,

the football, I'd rather you call me a loser than them. Well, they associated with a loser.

Cody,

relax.

Couldn't be more relaxed.

My team's almost as bad as yours.

Okay.

Oh, God. All right.
So let me. There's a lot to unpack here.

And I know what you're trying to get at is how this swoon that I didn't see coming has impacted me emotionally, but really more so financially. And the answer is as bad as you thought.

One of my buddies that I bet with yesterday text me. I'm just going to read you the text.

It's real quick. And then I'll give you actual football analysis, but this is what you want.
This is from my great Argentinian poker pro, Nacho Barbero. I don't mind

telling you this. This is what he texts me.

Can you zell?

I say yes. He then writes, no more betting for you, bro.
I don't want you to feel bad. You can't just keep betting the Chiefs more and more.
They don't have it this year. He feels bad for you?

You've got his own. Wait a minute.

He's taken to pitying you?

He's cut you off? I mean, I know DraftKings does no sweat bets sometimes and parlay insurance. You never really see that from the standard bookie.
That's great. Well, he's not.

The thing is, this, he's not even, it's not even a, it's not a book. He's not a bookie.

It just, if we're on opposite sides of a game, we bet as friends. But that, you know,

when you're on DraftKings, you know, every once in a while they they send you that little alert. They're like, hey, I think they're like, hey, let's reality check.

You don't really get those when you're just Whatsapping in a private gambling consortium. Neither here nor there, Dan.
It's such a...

You just told off yourself so bad that you're getting those prompts. Hey, is everything all right, Nick? I've never gotten one of those.

You haven't? I thought they were automated. I am not your volume.

It doesn't matter, guys. It doesn't matter.
As I texted Nacho, I've got plenty of money. Don't worry about me

it sounds a bit like an intervention it's it's it's not your bookie it's just a friend worried about you the yeah I mean okay again let's nobody cares about me I'm a vessel to give takes on sports let's talk about the team so here's the deal that it's very very simple

They are fly.

I believed in the Chiefs last year when the metrics were terrible, but they won these games. Now,

last year, Dan, you know what? I'm just going to go full-on attack. Go on.
Last year, last year, Dan, you and others tried to folks that wished that we didn't even,

the way we figured out who the Super Bowl winner was was a total point differential of the season plus DVOA rankings, plus see what Barnwell and Mina and Solak think, and then just hand them a trophy.

You guys last year all were like, actually, your team's not that good. They're 15 and one, but they're actually not that good.
Well, by that logic, this year, they Mahomes number one in the EPA.

They're top five in all of the smart stats. They have a great point differential.
They're a great team.

However, because I, unlike the nerds who think they understand football, actually understand football, get winning is a skill. And this year's Chiefs team has found ways to lose.

No other Chiefs team has in its its history. It has the, or in the Mahomes era.
It has the bones and a lot of trademarks of really good teams, but they can't get off the field on third and long.

The fumble at the end of the game when Dallas tried to give to Kansas City, they couldn't get to those moments or what decide championships.

So right now they're up against it. With that said,

if they win out, they are guaranteed to make the playoffs. And if that that happens in the wide open AFC, then of course they'll go back to the Super Bowl and be the most dangerous team.

However, this weekend, they are playing the best defense in the NFL, in my opinion.

They won't have their starting left tackle because he got his wrist broken by his teammate helping him out with a block. And they might not have their starting right tackle.

So here is where I am with the Chiefs. They could lose this weekend.
If they do, they're done.

If they win this weekend, if I talk to you next week, what I will say, and I could take a polygraph to attest to it because I will believe it in my bones, what I will say is,

if they beat the Chargers the following Sunday, steady themselves, and then have those tiebreakers over Houston and the Chargers, and then in that point, maybe have a game to play with, they're going to go back to the Super Bowl.

So it's, they have to, they're a game away from being a game away, but for a team that hasn't faced any regular season pressure in eight years,

there's a lot riding on this weekend. And there was a lot riding on the Denver game and they lost it.
And there was a lot riding on the Dallas game and they lost it.

I have one unbelievable stat for you, and then you can take your show back. Let's give him the stat of the day music, Chris.
Please get out of your phone and get him the stat of the day music.

Thank you. Start of the day, start of the day.
It is yes, start of the day.

Start of the day, start of the day. It is here, start of the day.

Start of the day, start of the day. It is here, start of the day.

Start of the day, start of the day. It is here, start of the day.

Thank you.

Three times this season,

Patrick Mahomes has led a fourth quarter comeback

in a game he ended up losing because the defense then gave the lead away

three times this season.

That Tom Brady

did not have that happen to him three times in his career until

year 15.

So that's the other piece of it. What are you describing as the last few minutes of the game?

No, just trailing in the fourth quarter, quarter, go take the lead, and defense doesn't hold it. The third time that happened to Brady,

it was 2014. It was the 15th year of his career.
That has happened to Patrick three times this year. And that fundamentally, if we're actually going to get to

the actual football issue with this Chiefs team,

since they traded Tyreek, they have been third best in the NFL in third third and long defense. This year, they are fourth worst.
They have the fourth fewest turnovers for us.

They have the sixth fewest sacks. They got the Cowboys to third and eight, third and nine, third and ten all game long, like they did the Chargers, like they did the Broncos,

like they did the Jags for that matter, and they couldn't get off the field. And that's the problem.
Chris, what is Roy laughing at? Someone in the back.

No, Chris is still in his phone, and he knows. Roy knows I need need sound and chris is in his phone can you get me the sound explain to me what your coach was saying here i was surprised to hear

hold on a second explain it to me we're gonna try to tickle your tonsils on every every play every game

i don't know

His little smirk. He has like a little laugh after that.

I think he knows. Listen to the laugh through the gravel.
Listen to the laugh. He laughs at himself because I think he does know.
We're going to try to tickle your tonsils on every

play to the game. I think he knows once he sometimes you say something and you're like, oh, that came out weird.
And so I think that's what he knew.

It was like when our show a couple weeks ago,

one of the greatest men I've ever known and devout man of God, Chris Broussard, we were discussing the New England Patriots having a better wide receiver core than we anticipated.

And Brew just said matter-of-factly, no, man, Booty is nice. And then one, and then we all just sat there, like,

and so he wasn't trying to make a joke, but it just came out that way. I think so.

I think what Andy's saying is we're going to continue to try to put pressure on you and push the ball down the field and play an exciting brand of football.

Here is what another, again, we're going to do the whole thing on the damn chiefs. Here is another thing that I found interesting.
For the first time in Patrick's entire career

at the post-game press conference after the loss to the Cowboys, he didn't take it one game at a time. Like he just, he's always done the cliche next week, next week, that's it.

He said, we have to win the rest of our games. Andy, in that press conference you played, was somewhat defiant the whole time, basically saying, We know what we need to do, and we're going to do it.

The

glass one-quarter full view of this is the Chiefs have been a superb home team this year. They're four and one.

The one loss was in week two to Philly when they weren't whole and they had that game, and the ball bounces off Kelsey's hands, turns into a pick.

Their three games against good teams, Texans, Chargers, Broncos, are all at home. They have been an awful road team.

Luckily, they play the second worst team in football, the Raiders at home, and the worst team I've seen in the NFL in 10 years, the Tennessee Titans at home.

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Don Lebatard. Baker Mayfield tearing up Tampa Bay 38 for 45.
Stugats. Stredem.
This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

There is a path, but

it is this narrow, and that's the only way they get in the tournament. They get in the tournament, then they're all of a sudden the hottest team with the experience in the most wide open AFC ever.

To me, the biggest story about the AFC this season, other than the Chiefs, you know,

every team that won 12 games last year is worse this year. Philly is worse.
The Chiefs are worse. Detroit's going to miss the playoffs.

Baltimore is far worse. Minnesota fell apart.

Buffalo is, and I'll get to them in a second, at least a little bit worse. And there's one other team I'm leaving out that I forgot.
All those teams regressed

to bearing.

What's happened in Minnesota is crazy. Like, we were talking at the beginning of this season of Kevin O'Connell being a quarterback whisperer.

And now, look how far behind everyone in the division they are. Well, you can't be a quarterback whisperer if your quarterback's deaf.

So the

what I was going to say is,

if you're Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills

and you don't make the Super Bowl this year,

assuming the Chiefs missed the playoffs, it's a

Shakespearean tragedy. This

Burroughs

missed most of the year. The Ravens are a disaster.

By the way, I need to check in again with the smartest people that cover football that have explained to me how, over the last three years, Lamar Jackson, if he never ran, was the best quarterback in football.

He's the most refined pocket passer. We all need to accept that and recognize that.

I wonder how they have taken this last month, where the guy has a foot injury and all of a sudden people aren't afraid of him running, and he's 14 of 28 for 104-yard zero touchdowns every week.

Curious how that's landed again at the smartest smartest people's desk.

But if Josh Allen,

and I think they will, by the way, if the Chiefs miss, this has to be Josh's year.

This is, there's a very 2008 feel to the season, the year Brady blew his ACL, Peyton didn't quite have it, and it was wide open. And I wonder if Josh can step through that void.

Put it on the poll, please, at Lebatard Show. Would you be okay with Mina, Barnwell, and Solak just handling all the CFP rankings? Let's talk about other things outside of football.

You mentioned Chris Paul. I've been delayed in doing this.

In the middle of the night, the Clippers, who are god-awful and will end up making OKC the champions for the next 10 years because they're god-awful. Wave, send home Chris Paul.

This was supposed to be a retirement tour, kind of. I don't get it.
So there has to be more here, right?

Like behind the scenes, Chris Paul, while a pillar professionally in front of us, he has been a union leader and someone who a lot of people think that behind the scenes does some things that don't end up in public.

The Clippers sending this person with this resume just home in the middle of the night? What is that about?

Well, so I,

I mean, I am, I woke up to it, you know, as well, and I have no idea, but it is bizarre. It is,

and then they, you know, they sent out conciliatory messages.

Lawrence Frank,

you know, was like, we're not blaming Chris for the position we're in. But then Bobby Marks explained how this doesn't actually really give the Clippers a bunch of extra flexibility.
This is

all-time bizarre. So I apologize.
I don't, when I was, I was flailing at the beginning when I said I thought you'd want to talk about Chris Paul. I don't have actually anything.

I was just throwing things.

What I will

be begging me to ask you about.

I just didn't want to do 20 minutes on the Chiefs, Dan.

I will say this.

This is something I have a take on.

Everyone complaining about LeBron staying in that game to get to double-digit points is a liar. So here's what I mean.
I don't think anyone actually is bothered by it. I think people just understand

that they can pretend to be bothered by it. And I think we would go 100%

at people privately if you asked them, did this actually bother you and why? They'd be like, no, I don't care. Just have six minutes left.
I think it bothered Zaslow.

Yeah, I mean, Nick, I think the party.

Don't ever call me a liar. I always tell the truth, even when I lie.
I didn't call you a liar. I said you're lying.

I think what happened there, I think what people are upset about is the hypocrisy of it. Where the night before...

the hypocrisy.

Yeah,

it's an hypocrisy. Okay, all right.

I own an apothecary store. Go ahead.

The hypocrisy of it is the night before, which is the first night of a back-to-back, LeBron, because he's old and they want to save him and they want to maximize his availability, sits out that game.

Well, are you maximizing his availability if he's in the middle of the fourth quarter down by 26 points? So, this is so this is where I'm saying you're lying, and I will say it. Do you you

actually think

there is any relation whatsoever to the rest LeBron James gets from knowing at the beginning of a day, I'm not playing tonight.

I don't have to do the five hours to get myself ready plus play in the game. That's in one bucket.
And the other bucket is, hey,

In a game you've already played in, we are going to let you stay out an extra 90 seconds of game time to take a couple threes do you think those are at all similar in wear and tear on the body and the answer to that is of course no but folks who have made it either a small part and you know it maybe in your case and in other people's folks the entire part of their public brand is like oh There's something, you know,

something possible that I can say LeBron did that I don't like, even if you don't actually care. Well, now I'll ask you one more thing then.

If he was already at 10 points, would he have been in the game at that time? Probably not. That's right.
Probably not.

Yeah, everybody knows. See, that's the thing.
This is the second time, Zaz, I'm going to do something that I think can be very uncomfortable for people with your argument style. Finish the thought.

Yes, I agree with you. He would not have been in if he had 10 points.
So then, is it about a record or is it about maximizing availability? That's no point. So, again, hold on.

Are you saying that you think his availability for the next game or the rest of the season or any amount was impacted by him jogging up and down the court for an extra 90 seconds and shooting that three?

No, but then why?

No, no, but then why if he had already extended the streak, would he have been out of the game? Hypocrisy.

No.

Hypocrisy.

It's an outrage. Zaszlo, because he stayed in the game to extent.
What you're saying. A record, by the way, that nobody cares about.

Can we agree on that? Nobody cares. Well, everybody, it's like most NBA records.
It was hallowed and untouchable until LeBron blasted it. It was, it was.
I don't even know what the record is.

I don't know who had it before. I don't know what you were doing.

And again, all right, now, Zaszlo, I'm now again, now I, you know what? I'm now just going to call you a liar. That is something

that is an obvious lie. You have a lot of, I have no idea what the record is.

No, no, no, no, no, no, that part, that part, I believe. You said, and I quote, I have no idea who held it before.
I had no idea.

You're saying it was Michael Jordan. I had no idea.

It's a completely inconsequential record. Double-digit point streak? Who cares? Then why are you demonizing the record if you don't care about it? Because there's an hypocrisy.

I thought players, we need a rest in play the night before. It's very important to be available.
Unless I only have seven points down by 26. Come on.

This is

this is so the guy who's played more games, more minutes, been more available than literally any athlete in the history of the sport.

You're banging on him for not playing the front night of a back-to-back while also banging on him for staying in a game an extra 90 seconds. Just admit it, bro.

You're not over that he left you. No, that's not true.
It's been 10 years. No, I'm very grateful for LeBron's time down.

My career is not where it is without LeBron being here. I'd be an ingrate if I wasn't grateful.
I'd be a major

feeling that way. I gotta go.
Okay, see you later. I wanted to ask you an assortment of other questions, but what's right? What's talking about MLS Cup? What's right with Nick Wright? We're gonna

talk about MLS Cup on Fox.

Dano, I had a hard out three minutes ago. I hate to do this this to you.
I have to go. I'll see you next week.
See you later. Hosted.
Don't ever call me a liar. FS1's, it's too late for that.

He's the host of FS1's First Things First. He's also the host of What's Right with Nick Wright, the podcast he does with his son.

Just called you a liar, right to your face. I know, but that I owned him in our discussion.
So it's all good. Did you? I did.
You should go back and listen. You clearly weren't.
Okay. No, come on.

Tremendous. Nick's right.
I got to go on Nick's Wright. Nick Wright, he's right.
You were wrong on this one. Eat it.

Own it.

Because

there's nothing wrong with LeBron James wanting to continue a 10-point stream. I agree with that part.
Okay, then why are you faulting him for staying in the game?

I told you because of the hypocrisy involved. There's no hypocrisy with making sure that we rest.
Well, why would you play in a blowout late in a game if being available is the most important thing?

It's not more important, though, than records.

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Hey, Amin here, and the NBA on Prime is back tomorrow with another great doubleheader.

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Don Lebatard. This is the quickest it goes.

Hey, this is the quickest it goes. Stugats.
Everybody, this is the quickest it goes. Yeah, this is the Don Lebatar show with the guys.

I don't want to do this again. We did it once, and I believe we got the dismount we needed when he simply called you

a liar.

Thank you for getting out of your phone, Chris, long enough to hit some of those buttons. I appreciate it.

What is happening right now at Penn State, I believe, is something that people should be paying attention to.

Because if you fire James Franklin just because he lost to Northwestern, you have to have a plan after that.

You can't be the first one to fire your coach when everyone's going to do all this stuff of fighting for coaches. Today's National Signing Day.
Penn State's recruiting class is the worst.

Like they don't have order there.

So they are in a position where, however good James Franklin did make them and Penn State was at the center of the single biggest sports scandal of my lifetime and recovered from it in a way that was a little faster than I thought, given everything that happened there.

And it's why James Franklin was as wanted as he was, because he repaired everything about Penn State except for winning some of the games at the end that they expected him to win, because they wanted to go even further after the biggest scandal I've ever seen in my sports lifetime.

The fact that they are in complete disarray and that they've got a bad recruiting class, and they've got, what is, what can be said about how it it is that their their power is getting in the way of doing this correctly like their their their leadership that that you have um that yeah that penn state's a kooky place happy valley is strange we know that about this place there's a lot of old school paternal people that have a lot of influence and you kind of have to check certain boxes to get a lot of influential people in in your camp.

But what happened to Penn State is pretty fascinating that the reason why all these other schools are hiring coaches and they hadn't was they had their guy. They had him locked up.

Their guy was playing in a conference championship game of consequence. So that's why we hadn't heard anything about it.
And Kalani Satake, the BYU guy?

The head coach of BYU left them at the altar because the CEO of Crumble came to the table and gave Satake an offer he couldn't refuse. Cookies are good.

They are. And now the team that had the longest runway

is scrambling to fill what was thought to be one of the more

desirable head coaching jobs in the history of the sport. Today is National Signing Day, as Dana announced.
They have the worst class in the Big Ten, and it isn't by a little.

Every single person that committed to James Franklin apparently didn't care about Happy Valley because they're all going to Blacksburg. There's no loyalty amongst those recruits to Happy Valley.

So right now, where does Penn State go from here? A couple names that I've heard. More coaches that have played and that are playing in conference championship games.

We have to remember, Manny Diaz is actually rated by those people because he did a good job as defensive coordinator. Seems to be doing an okay enough job at Duke.

So as a plan D, I guess, Manny Diaz and Jeff Braum is another name. Jeff Braum's at his alma mater.
I think if Jeff Braum leaves, it might be for the NFL.

But Penn State is a really good job and they may be panicking here, but I cannot believe that Penn State has found itself in this situation. Shouldn't have fired James Franklin.
Period.

There is debate to be had around that because people were fed up about the fact that the last three games of James Franklin's career, he seemed safe, and then losing to Northwestern is the thing that got him gone.

But I want to examine some of what it is that's happening in college football because if you're Oklahoma State, which has been terrible for the last three years, everything collapsed on Gundy, and you want to get back in the game, you just take North Texas as coach and quarterback.

I guess we've kind of gotten used to that, even though it doesn't seem like any version of college football I've seen before. But the idea

that players would follow James Franklin to Blacksburg and choose the coach over a program of the pedigree of Penn State makes it. So you've made almost fundamentally irrelevant what the program is.

Like it really is now about is Lane Kiffin outside your building trying to steal your children?

Like it's just what's the one guy if you can get Mario Cristobal and he's going to be the guy who gets the players. It doesn't matter if he can coach.
It doesn't matter if he can call plays.

Nothing matters except are you good at convincing 17 year olds to follow you anyplace in the country? Talent acquisition is the name of the game right now.

Also being in a big conference helps because revenue goes to that whole talent acquisition thing. Yeah, like they wouldn't be following him if he went to a GE5,

right?

Look, there's a real possibility here that Penn State ends up hiring one of the better talent recruiters in the nation, the guy that's, as we mentioned, stealing their entire class and taking them to Blacksburg.

And they're replacing that guy with Manny Diaz. And that wouldn't have been the outcome that people envisioned.

But how did we get exactly to the point for all the consternation that we have about talking

because what we've seen

over the last 10 10 years is indisputably minor league football has become the second biggest sport in America. Saturdays are the second biggest day in sports.

Football Saturdays are the second biggest day in sports. It tops baseball, World Series, hockey, Stanley Cup, basketball.
Saturdays are enormous. When did it happen?

Landmarket for me, where James Franklin is more important than Penn State, that James Franklin is the one that travels with the players.

James Franklin rehabs himself and the program in Penn State and then just takes it all with him.

That in my lifetime has not been the case that there can be all sorts of upheaval in the coaching position. And when a coach leaves, it's always bad for recruiting.
That's always been so.

But it's never been so that the coach can just take Penn State's recruiting class to Virginia Tech. But isn't it the money? Like, that's the big thing.
It's the money. It's like it's the money.

I think the moment in time that you're looking for is either Petrino going back to the college game and leaving the Falcons, or Sabin leaving the Pros for the college game, which started this whole arms race for high-priced coaches that come to your program and promise one thing.

We're going to have the talent. And then, you know, people started cheating, and the SEC totally blew up.
And now everyone's jealous of one another.

And that created 20 teams, 20 programs that think that their way into the game is to outspend the other. James Franklin, though, did not get what I considered to be one of the good jobs.

You can make all the arguments you want on behalf of Virginia Tech, and I'd listen to them, but I don't think it's one of the coveted jobs. We have a tarnished James Franklin.

moving to Virginia Tech, and I wonder if in any of these openings that are now open, if any of these other teams would have gone to James Franklin if it came with the promise, hey, we'll get you Penn State's recruiting class.

The whole thing's coming with James Franklin. It's no longer about the program mattering the way that it should.
It's about the coach who's tarnished, who's taking a secondary job.

A tarnished coach is taking a demotion to go to another job. And I'm being told that the recruiting class, because I don't know these things, I'm not following recruiting classes or signing days.

I'm being told that basically Penn State's class is just going to Virginia Tech. That's just not something that's been so before.

I'm surprised you think that, I'm surprised you're using the word tarnished to describe his reputation.

Like he got fired, but he got fired from a major program that was always in contention every year. Well,

I'm saying tarnished just because it is not one of the top jobs. Like he had, he didn't have his choice of options.

His last act in public was losing to Northwestern, and he had to settle for a job that I'm guessing he thought was beneath him two weeks ago. Well, we got to go forth.

He's absolutely tarnished, even though I think he raises the floor of any program that he goes to. I mean, tarnished means you think less of him.
Yes, I do. I think he's become a cliche.

Like, you want a coach that can't win you the big game? Here it is. It's James Franklin, the same way that Clemsoning was a thing before.
Like, you're not going to be able to get over the hurdle.

But if you're a program like Virginia Tech, come here, raise that floor. We'll worry about losing the big games because we flatly haven't been playing in big games.

Come here and make us play in big games, and then we'll talk about how you can't get over the hump.

If Mario Kristobal doesn't get into the playoffs and he has another season in which maybe he's hovering around that 10-win frame, I'm sure that act will wear thin over time to Miami fans.

But right now, you're thrilled that he turned things around and you're relevant again.

Let's get to the useless sound montage. I am never happy that we go this late into the week, the middle of Wednesday, before getting to the useless sound montage.

It has been refurbished, it is no longer tarnished, it is now strengthened. Let's see who we have in the NFL's useless sound montage this week.

How are you guys doing?

You want to ask me? Thanksgiving. It is Thanksgiving, so that's bigger.
You hope they can, and the beautiful thing is they did. One week at a time, 1-0.
It was wet. They were loud.

They all know what good football looks like. We really wanted to win.
In no way, shape, or form. Can we play offensive football like that? I can't wait to lean in.

I'm not going to get into all that stuff. We're just going to keep playing football.
Certainly not going to feel sorry for ourselves. That's this business we're in.

You think you have the right type of guys, but you don't know until you know. Man, there are a number of guys that did a number of things.

It's easy for those young guys to come to work at every day and just look at how these old heads are going about their business, and you just kind of fall in line.

The rest of the way, you've got competitive, meaningful football games, and I think that that's just an important thing for us to go through as a team. This is football.

You got to be able to handle some tough moments. There's an NFL game.
I wish I could tell you this is exactly what it is, and this is hard. Well, I like when we win.

This was a nice microcosm of how the world should be where it's competition. Doubling down on our process process every week and really trying to just be dedicated to playing our style of ball.

I think it's the same message we've been sending every week that we're just going to compete our tails off for 60 minutes. Man, just ebbs and flows of how a game goes.
We're together.

This was a great team win, and our fates are intertwined. When things go well, these can be blessings in disguise if you use them the right way.
It was an awful performance by us, but it's us.

I don't think there's room for complacency in the NFL. There's no room for any team to get comfortable.
When I watch our defense play, man, I see violence.

Shoot, I'm the guy that they have to calm down sometimes, which is a great sign. The team that made the least number of mistakes was probably going to win this game.

Didn't think that we weren't not ready to go. Didn't think we took this group lightly.
All of those questions are reasonable given what we put out there.

Obviously, if I knew exactly what it was and everything that it was, then we'd have fixed it.

And listen, even though we have this long-range vision of what we're trying to get to, the now is what's important for all guys to continue to understand, man, how do you win games?

The idea is to end the game in the stadium with more points than the opponent.

What I'm supposed to do as I go out there to lead that offense, score one more point or however many more points than the opposing team.

This is a disappointing day, but we're not going to stay in this moment for long. Solutions to turn this thing around exist in your building? Certainly.

Keep watching. If you're coming to me on this, Matt, I'm telling you, we're going to go after you every game.
You know, that's how we roll. We're going to try to tickle your tonsils on every

play, every game.

Chris Cody, can you get out of your phone, please, and get me that Aaron Glenn throat clear?

I also, I heard a couple of times from Brian Schottenheimer in there, and as I've watched the Cowboys play this season, specifically what they do on fourth down, and they've got a great field goal kicker, but they love to go for it on fourth and four and fourth and five.

Brian's daddy would have never done that. Brian's daddy is spinning in his grave, even though Stugatz was somehow happy about hearing of the death of Marty Schottenheimer.

Hey, Mike, Marty Schottenheimer died.

Marty Schottenheimer loved to punt. His daddy, put it on the poll at Lebatard's show.
Didn't Brian Schottenheimer's daddy, Pappy, love to punt? It's crazy what's happened to fourth down in all

college, too. Even in high school.
I mean, you can kind of understand that because their specialists aren't that good, but everyone's just going for it now. Early in games, their side of the field,

even when you're like, it makes all the sense in the world to add a field goal here to give you some space. And they're like, nah,

we just go. Remember, it was like 15, maybe 20 years ago where ESPN did that special the one time about the high school team, this crazy coach who never punts.
They always go for fourth down.

Yes, let's listen to Stugatz here.

A great old memory. Mike Marty Schottenheimer passed away.

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