Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - The Best Football Weekend Ever, Mahomes is the Greatest, Brady is Out, and More

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

Good Google Moogly! Geoff is back with Gabe to break down an incredible weekend of football, starting with the Chiefs and Bills’ instant classic Sunday night. Josh Allen was amazing, but somehow Mahomes  was even better. Also, Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady were eliminated from the playoffs, and everyone on Twitter had a party.On Moving the Line, Gabe and Geoff talk Joe Burrow and the Bengals, who are somehow only the fourth biggest story of the weekend even after knocking off the one seed. Plus, will AB go from the podcast circuit to the Ravens? Is Sean Payton headed from the Saints to Fox Sports? Why did Geoff go from Outback straight to a weigh-in? There’s a lot of movement happening with the lines this week, tune in so Geoff can help you keep track.Remember to like and subscribe if you enjoyed the pod, and tweet @geoffschwartz with your best Aaron Rodgers jokes!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

it's Tuesday January 25th I'm Jeff Schwartz alongside Gabe Gould this is Jeff Schwartz of Smarting Your Power by the Varsity Podcast Network good googly moogly game what a weekend of football my Chiefs won your dreams came true Thomas Brady's out of the playoffs and we have so much to talk about what a weekend four games ended on the final play of the game. Three with field goals, one with a walk-off touchdown by the Kansas City Chiefs. I've been, like, wandering around the house today. Like, I don't know what to do. Like, I don't know, man. What a treat the National Football League is getting.

It's so incredible what we all just lived through for two straight days uninterrupted. Everybody who I care about got what they wanted. And everyone who I wanted to see eat it, ate it so hard. The only people, honestly, the only people who I feel a little bit bad for right now are Bills fans. But Bills fans, you're used to this by now if i mean if you're my age at least this one's hard because i said this is i believe that i've been look i've obviously been up and down on josh allen man he was fabulous i mean and you would think with 13 seconds left you have won the game and i think both teams chiefs and bills before the

game felt very strongly if we win this game we will go beat the Bengals and we'll go to the Super Bowl and probably be the favorites for the Super Bowl. The Chiefs would be the favorite over the Rams and Niners as of now. And it's like it then just evaporated right away. So I feel very bad for Bills. Who else do you feel bad for? Oh, I mean, that's it. My list ends there.

That's it. I want to celebrate and bask in all the other hell that other people went through. It's going to be fun. Let's start, though, with that last game. And obviously it was the Pat story at the end. And you're going to have a lot to say about it. out taking some of the crazier, more out there, less informed takes and having you sort of rip them to shreds. I don't know if that's necessary with this one. Here's the take everyone has been saying. Why the hell did McDermott kick it away to Pat with 13 seconds on the clock? 13 seconds is now too much time for Pat Mahomes. I mean, what the hell? I don't know how anyone could blame the Bills for anything, but people are somehow. So there's lots of coaching things actually in the game worth exploring because the game ended so crazy that we're not going to probably get to that.

Maybe we will in our discussion today. But, you know, so they score 13 seconds left, and you have to think the Chiefs have got three timeouts left, I believe. Two or three at least. And you want to obviously, your clock is your friend, even she's have got three timeouts left i believe two or three at least and you want to obviously your clock is your friend even with the chiefs timeouts and if you i gave i would even say squib the ball you keep the ball it's like the five you make them return now that they could fair catch it certainly can do that um and that obviously would have eliminated that squib kick guarantees at least one seconds off the clock right catch the ball

take a knee it guarantees one seconds off the clock, right? Catch the ball, take a knee. I guarantee it's one second off the clock. Obviously, with a squib, maybe the ball's in front of the 25-yard line. Maybe it's not. But the goal is to kill the time, right? It's to take the time down. That's the goal for the Bills. It's possible they were afraid of the return power because we saw Tyreek Hill return that punt a couple possessions before that. But that squib obviously allowed Pat

Mahomes the opportunity to move down the field now the Bills defense number one defense the NFL inexcusable the way they played that right I mean after the first play I would have been like okay the Chiefs have practiced this and it's very important okay this is very important point teams practice these plays all season long if you, the Chiefs look like they knew what they were doing. And like the Cowboys two weeks ago, oh, we're going to run a QB sneak, a QB draw. The Chiefs knew exactly what they were doing, right? They knew exactly. And they practiced.

And Coach Reed talked to us after the game. Eric Bien-Ami's job, and I've talked about this many times, is that in Andy Reed's offense, every position coach has a job of the game plan. And Eric Bien-Aimé's part of his jobs was end-of-game situations. So he has to prepare the team for these spots. They've been running these plays each week of the season on Friday. Each week, Gabe. And it just so happened, this is the game they needed it,

they ran the plays, and it worked. And now it came out afterwards, too, on the final play, the Kelsey throw, that Kelsey ran a different route. He told Pat beforehand, hey, if they play in this coverage, I'm going to go up the seam. And then you could hear Pat Mahomes say, do it on the field to Kelsey.

He said, do it, do it, Kels, do it, Kels. And Boone, he went up the seam. And what's funny is the Bills got pressure on that play. They actually hit Mahomes. The right guard busted on his assignment. And nonetheless and nonetheless i mean he went 25 yards untouched and then bucker kicked it and then obviously overtime i'm not we're not doing the overtime discussion here i think overtime is fine we're not doing it if you want to yell about it's like politics right you have your one you'll have your your one belief no matter how much I yell at you through this podcast, you're not going to change your mind. I'm not going to do it.

The Buffalo non-squib kick in Mahomes' ability to be the Grim Reaper. I really hope Andy Reid told him that. Do you think Andy Reid did be the Grim Reaper? Did you see that quote? Well, I know that there are some wonderful quotes floating out there, and some of them are

too crazy to be true. So I have not known where Twitter began and ended on this. But it really covered up for a game the Chiefs, it would have been a signature 2021 game. Mistakes, right? Self-inflicted wounds that caused them to lose the game. Defensively, how many bonus assignments are we going to have on defense especially the end of the game right they come down they let buffalo score before they're in the first half in 75 seconds and then they missed the field goal

they let buffalo fourth and 13 wide open no resistance then later on the next drive touchdown 30 seconds left no resistance um and really the worst of it all was that third and one speed option with the tight end and so this covered up all the chiefs airs now buffalo had him as well they should have gone for a fourth down marvin like as a chiefs fan game every time they punted i was thrilled like thank god they're punting uh that's i mean that's how well this offense for buffalo played and so in the end, I mean, Mahomes has been the starter for four years now. It's his fourth time hosting the AFC Championship game.

The fourth time. Twice as a one seed and twice as a two seed. So they had not always with the bye. It was just the first yard, yes, without the bye. But one year without home food advantage was your Tennessee beat New England in 2019. So, dude, unbelievable. I can't think of another game that was like that.

It was back. Okay. So I want to take you through a few more points on this. So first of all, there's reason for Josh Allen and Gabriel Davis to have believed that they won the game twice. Twice inside the final two minutes, they had unbelievable go-ahead touchdowns. And unfortunately, Patrick Mahomes, Tyree Kill, and Hill together are the best combination of quarterback, wide receiver, and tight end NFL history on one team. It's hard to disagree. Today, it would be ridiculous to try to outthink that.

That seems like a very obvious statement today. It's a different game than was played, obviously, in different generations. So you can't – like Tyreek Hill is not going to get free releases and be not, you know, obviously. But, dude, the touchdown he scored on that one, did you see the picture of when he caught the ball? There were like seven defenders right there. Dude. It was cover two. It wasn't like they were in man cover.

It was cover two. He ran by everything. He gave him the deuces. I sent you the tweet. One guy's in the background celebrating. A wide receiver is 45 yards down the field. He's pretty cool. Dancing on the field.

Terry Kiel's still 20 yards away from the end zone. It was... He was taunting before he got past the guy. He knew he was going to just speed past. There's another one we probably don't need to discuss on this show. Taunting. Call it consistently. Please stop.

No one cares. No, no. Just like... So Tom Brady cussed at the official i got that confirmed i know what he said he said f word okay like who cares who cares referee don't flag him for that like he's just yelling at you man we we yell at you i've been cussed by officials too you don't see me whining about it like just just let it go yeah oh no all right so let's talk about tyree kill for a second not only does he have the unbelievable touchdown the punt return i mean it was like video game stuff he made three guys miss and

like smash into each other to get them the extra yards they needed in like, there were like seven different series that felt like the game winner. One of them is set up by that moment. Like he just has another gear, right? If you just say, Hey man, like to me, here's a, here's a really simplified takeaway from the game at the end of the day for all the coaching. And I understand that you want to give Andy Reid credit and maybe not even knock Sean McDermott. But at the end of the day, the most athletic guys on the field did freakish things to win the game. That's just all that happened. Yeah.

Look, of course, you have to draft those guys, develop them, and get them in your system. And look, the reason why Tyreek Hilton doesn't return all the punts is because he's full-time on offense.

But in a game like this, you say, all right, like Debo Samuel for the Niners, he's not the normal returner, but in this playoff game you say all right like like like debo samuel for the niners he's not the normal returner but he in this playoff game he was a whole bunch of times like you just put your playmakers back there and debo i think had a great return in that game as well right that game feels like a lifetime ago on saturday night so you put your best guys in the in the situations to succeed and they do that that drive right there man if a cheese fan that must

have pissed you off because this game could could have happened that close, right? You have first and 10, about, what, the 27, 30-yard line. They ran the ball three times, and you've kicked a field goal. It's like, oh, what are we doing? That should have put the game away right there. You would have been up, what, nine points with, suppose I had two possessions to beat you, and you hadn't been stopped all game. It was just the most awesome night of football

i'm on twitter right now and someone is doing a zapruder film of the uh of the referee basically he's framing the coin in a way that it would fall on the chiefs on heads that's where we are now that the coin toss that's what we're doing, yeah. Our buddy Colin Cowherd, we referenced from time to time on this show, had a pretty good take today. And I think you'll agree, but I don't know.

This is another take I need to straighten out. So his summary is basically Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes are a perfect fit because even a superstar, an undeniable talent like Pat, needs to be coached, right?

Jordan had Phil. And Pat Mahomes is a rare coachable superstar. Do you buy that? Is that the right explanation of why they're so good? I think there's many reasons why they're good. I do think Mahomes is everything I've heard about him down to earth. He's obviously a family guy. If you go like you see on Instagram or Twitter, right?

He's with his wife and kids, not going out, not partying. Which, again, most quarterbacks don't do that. That's kind of a stereotype, right, of some quarterbacks. But he's just humble, down to earth, wants to win, wants to work hard, willing to work hard, does work hard. I think the combination of Andy Reid's offensive mind has unlocked Mahomes' potential. But also, Mahomes has made Andy Reid a different coach. More aggressive, more down-the-field passing, which they did not do very often until 2017 with Alex Smith.

And he's covered up some of the coaching mistakes he's made, like yesterday, by being really good. So there are—they benefited each other game i think right um again and you read adapted his offense for him mahomes got in there we need to be more aggressive and that partnership and again i'm gonna go back to the kelsey and and and mahomes thing again because my brother has talked about this before obviously i was not there with mahomes i was there with kelsey when he was very young um they do things on the field that are not in the playbook. And of course, that last play was one of them. That's not coached, obviously, right? That's just a trust and belief. And those guys are best friends of what's happening on the field. And so there are times where you see a play on the field, you're like, oh, wow, great great design that might just be Travis Kelsey doing his own thing and Mahomes finds him in the open part of the field and so that that's a bond you obviously

can't do with coaching but you need the structure of the offense to create that bond right because there has to be a little bit of okay we're running these plays over and over again okay if we run this play for the 18th time you know like in the last two days of practice okay this time if i see this i'm gonna do this right and so you can't do that unless you have a firm belief in what you're doing on your offense then you can make some of the ad lib plays so i think that andy reed was waiting for mahomes to get him into this more aggressive mindset um and then mahomes needed someone like andy who and i thought this i've said this many times, man. What sets Andy Reid apart from other coaches, obviously the mind and the way he coaches games,

he is very – he's like what you'd want in a coach, in my opinion. He is hard. He's tough, man. Like tough practices. We're going to practice the right way. But then after that, we're just going to – like we're done. We're done practicing. Like we don't need to be this – I remember on teams I've i've been on man you have a tough practice in the morning this is after

two days they're over with uh after the cba you'd have a tough practice in the morning and then your walkthrough would be just like a full speed practice again you're like that's a walkthrough and he was like walkthrough you're gonna walk through you give me everything you have on the field we're gonna do a walkthrough um you know team meetings are very short but then also he has this personality where he says to us all the time like just be yourself right show your personalities like go out there and play and he doesn't constrain pat mahomes right doesn't make pat mahomes kind of be this robot that belichick wanted brady to be for a long time right i think this all those things like the personality of what andy reed can bring out of pat mahomes because andy reed himself is a fun let me talk about chocolate cake and cheeseburgers and and be the grim reaper and

and like you see in the locker room in the post game he's like it's like gosh darn it what a win like just like he's like a fun guy to be around and um i think his personality his ability to just let the players again he's a tough coach man he wants physicality toughness all that stuff but then he lets the players be themselves a little's a tough coach, man. He wants physicality, toughness, all that stuff. But he lets the players be themselves a little bit. And then the combination of walking that funnel between discipline, toughness, but also, hey, guys, have some fun. Enjoy football. It's meant to be fun.

Be yourself. We drafted you. We brought you here to be yourself. That's so important, I think, to what Pat Mahomes and why that works. Because look, Kelsey, too, right? Kelsey at TV show. He's got his Kelsey too, right? Kelsey at TV show, he's got his big personality, right? Dancing on the field, Tyreek, all these guys. Andy Reid does not care. As long as you win, man, as long as that helps us win, you don't get a penalty for it,

be my guest. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I agree. Of course, that all makes sense from hearing you describe it for the last couple of seasons. It's also probably why Kelsey and Mahomes feel confident enough to throw out the play in the most important play of the season and just do what feels right. And know that even if it didn't work out, coach wasn't going to throw them under the bus, you know, create problems for them. They have the freedom to do that because it made sense on the field. I want to ask you something, our buddy, our other buddy at Fox, Nick, right? Maybe the only person more obsessed with the chiefs than you these days. He's lost his mind talking about the chiefs. And one thing he's been saying that started out crazy, but is starting to maybe maybe convince me he has this take that playing uh in the wild card round is better than a buy right

that that having had the week off would have put some rust on the chiefs uh and by the way this there's some evidence now the bengals beat the titans on a buy and the niners beat uh the packers off a buy so you tell me like is there any merit to the notion that the chiefs were better off playing an extra game well this is the first uh time that the one season ever lost in the divisional round ever so that i guess maybe one outlier year it's the first time i think since 1992 or something i hear some random number where we're not going to have a team with a bye in the Super Bowl at all, a one or two seed. It does matter, I think.

Titans, I don't think, were very good. We talked about this with their fishing numbers. You're like, oh, the fishing numbers aren't very good. Okay, well, all right, then it showed, right? They weren't very good. And so that was, you know, that showed. And then, look, the Packers just played a Packers game in the playoffs, right? I mean, there's not much more to that, right?

So I think that the Chiefs would have been fine with a bye. I think Nick also just is making fun of the Steelers too. Is this hashtag better than bye? Look, the bye, obviously, you prevent injuries. You get healthy. You get right. And Andy Reid, though, is great off a bye. injuries, you get healthy, you get right. And Andy Reid, though, is great off a buy. The Chiefs have been fine off a buy.

Fair enough. Look how long it's been to get into this show before I bring up what I'm about to bring up. And by the way, we still, we're not going to get to Aaron Rodgers till the third topic. If I had told you on Saturday night while Twitter exploded that Aaron Rodgers would be the third topic on our show on Monday, you never would have believed me, would you? No, I wouldn't have. And we shouldn't lose sight of that embarrassing, pathetic performance by the Packers. Before we get to that embarrassing, pathetic performance, let's just spend a minute enjoying something i did not see coming so despite every force in the universe pulling for tom brady after he let his team go down 27-3 then everything out there call it god call it the devil call it whatever you want started forcing turnovers

from the rams they were missing field goals. There were penalties. An insane review on fourth and short giving Tom Brady the extra minute he needed to run a touchdown play. All of these things happened for Tom Brady. And yet, January 23rd, 2022 will be remembered as the day the world had to admit that Tom Brady ain't it anymore. Cooper Cup, you beautiful bastard.

You did it for us. Matthew Stafford, thank you. Tom Brady is gone and maybe never to be seen again. Yes, you're very happy about this. Tom Brady did lose. I was wrong about Matt Stafford. Matt Stafford has had two great games in a row. Maybe the two best games of his career.

He's played great. Yes, Cam row. Maybe the two best games of his career. He's played great. Yes, Cam Akers trying to give it away. The Rams were minus two in turnover margin on the road in a playoff game as Tom Brady won the game. That is very, very rare. So for those who missed it, Rams up 27-3. It could not protect Tom Brady. And the right tackle was out for the Bucs.

The more anything game, the left tackle, Donovan Smith, didn't play well. That wasn't even the right tackle. It was the two tackles played very bad. No rhythm in the offense. And all of a sudden, it was like turnover, touchdown, turnover, touchdown. The Rams got very, very tight in that game. Very tight in the game. And then on the game-winning throw to Cooper Cup, the Bucs busted

an assignment. They missed it afterwards. Not everyone got the call, which again was silly. I don't know why you would cover zero anyways in that situation and leave one-on-one with Cup. But the Rams took advantage of that. And again, I am just not sold on Matt Stafford still. I don't know what it's going to take, buddy. I don't know what it's going to take. But yes,

your Tom Brady obsession can wait until next season again when he's back. Okay, so you're telling me he's coming back, even though we're going to have to pretend all offseason that we're not sure so that all the other shows have something to talk about, right? I think he's coming back, yeah. Even though that roster, which was perfectly curated just to his liking, they played with their numbers, they got him everything he needed,

they bowed down to him and gave him Antonio Brown, and all this stuff they did to try to make Tom Brady happy, it's hard to do it over and over again. You really think they can give him the team he needs next year? Well, I guess that's part of the equation, right, is can they give him what he wants? And he might not know that till they get into free agency which by that point you would rather you know the team would should know whether he's not here staying also what is bruce aaron's gonna stay

as a head coach um he just looks like he doesn't enjoy enjoying games very much he's just on the sidelines he's not in charge because tom brady's in charge of the team i know i know i think i just think tom continues to stay i don't know why he would retire right now well i could think of plenty of reasons um but yeah i think we agree he's probably not actually gone forever do you really believe that even after that performance that you you can't see the rams making a super bowl i mean like they're a game away now. Yeah, yeah. They can make the Super Bowl. They're playing the Niners, who they're favored at home. Yeah, well, I don't know if home makes a whole lot of difference for them,

but they are favored. It's going to be a very – I saw the Rams are doing a thing where, like, you can't sell your tickets to someone outside of 100 miles of SoFi or something like that. Dude, it's going to be a 50-50 or more Niners crowd. It's going to be packed with Niner fans. No question.

Look, you're not from LA. You live in LA. I'm from LA. There are no Rams fans. I don't know a single Rams fan in Los Angeles. Like an actual like born and bred Ram. Now, they were there when I was a kid. I was a Niners fan.

Everyone I knew was Raiders, Niners. There's going to be so many freaking Niner fans. Now, they might be priced out. It's a very expensive ticket. But I know a lot of people that are going toiders, Niners. There's going to be so many freaking Niner fans. Now, they might be priced out. It's a very expensive ticket. But I know a lot of people that are going to go as Niners fans are trying to go to that game. It's not going to be a Rams home game. Here's what I know.

Generalization about two fan bases. People who root for the 49ers have a lot of money. Whichever people might actually root for the Rams in Los Angeles may or may not have money. So there's going to be a lot of Niners fans willing to pay a whole lot of money to come down here. Let me go back to Brady for a second because I have to revel in this for a little bit longer. I hear a lot of people, including my buddy Skip Bayless, work very, very hard, earning those paychecks on Sunday and Monday, creating a number of excuses for Tom Brady.

Things like the line, you mentioned it. Things like he didn't have enough of his weapons. Scotty Miller had to play. Like, I don't know. Scotty Miller looked pretty good a year ago when they needed him. He still had Gronk. He still had Mike Evans who looked like the best receiver in the league yesterday, at times at least. Like, why so many excuses? Can't he just lose a game every now and then? He kind of sucked the whole first half. Yeah, he wasn't that good at certain times. I mean, he missed open wide receivers. He threw that bad reception to Gronk right through.

Yeah, into triple coverage, forcing it to his guy. Well, it wasn't quite that. It was a too high, they tried to get a too high beater, kind of that smash route where you run the corner, and he just lofted the ball up. It was a little bit late. Safety came over to play. No, it wasn't great.

And, of course, look, people will make excuses for him because of how good he is and how we've seen him when everything is right. But the game is moving to what Pat Mahomes and Josh Allen can do, right, which is, okay, Joe Burrow, right? Sacked nine times. Nine times. Okay, fine.

It breaks down. I'm going to make a play on my own. Now, obviously, Tom Brady's elite ability pre-snap is what has got him this far. But you're right. I mean, the Chiefs, Bills, Bengals, Chargers can all succeed with one offensive lineman out. Like, it shouldn't be that big of a deal for them. Now, again, the problem was it wasn't just the right tackle that got beat. The left tackle got beat a lot.

And that's what makes Aaron Donald always so special. Aaron Donald said, you know what? I can't beat these three inside guys. I'm going to go rush the right tackle and left tackle. I'm going to beat both of them. No one else besides JJ Watt can really do that in in in in the nfl so yeah there's no excuses he didn't play well for three quarters and he'll have to live with that this off great and and just to go on this point i was told by all these people that oh look at what Tom Brady can do. Look at this patchwork team.

Look at him turning so-and-so receiver in New England into an all pro. Look at how he does it. He just works with whatever they give him. Oh, he can overcome all obstacles. That's what we're told when we want to build up the legend of Tom Brady. But as soon as he loses, it's, well, he didn't have enough pieces. What was he supposed to do? Thank you, Matt matt gay for saving us

from the bloody lip game documentary good line hank uh you a kicker who i have to admit did bring me joy this weekend you saved us all kickers had a hell of a weekend jeff i've been wrong about them i shouldn't have been slandering kickers on your show i thought about you. I mean, three walk-off kicks by the road team, by the way. I mean, the Chiefs saved NFL history. I mean, I'm not sure three road teams ever won division run anyways. That would have been a sweep of the road teams in the division round. You look, again, I mean, I like watching Tom Brady play. I know you don't.

I like watching the best play. It wasn't don't. I like watching the best play. It wasn't his best game. I think he'll tell you that. Yeah, he's at the point where if things aren't perfect, it's tough to win. No Antonio Brown, obviously. No Godwin. No Tristan Wirfs. You know, Gronk looked a bit slower a little bit than usual.

There was just kind of, there was no sense of urgency either, right? Like, didn't we see, I just felt like Tampa Bay came out really slow. Yeah, well, they went down 27 to 3 i mean the game was over if tom brady wasn't the quarterback of that team not even the broadcasters would have tried to convince us to stick around man collinsworth that dude was working the graphics team was working to try to get us to give a crap about that game early in the second half but then lo and behold like we said the rams did everything they could to allow tom brady back into that the refs did their part too what was with the the hey hold on hold on we want to double check the snap as tom brady's trying to snap it on fourth and short what was with that official review well well the rams called timeout so they had time to review it,

which actually might have... Because he was going to run the play without the review. Right, he was going to run a different play. He was going to be in shotgun on fourth. The Rams actually kind of screwed themselves by calling timeout. It wasn't the refs. I'll get out of my... Well, no, the refs, they moved the ball up like half a yard. It was a bad spot. They put the ball up at the nine, should have been closer to the eight,

but the Rams called timeout. That's why the review happened. Fair enough. Well, listen, the only, I guess Twitter really feels the way about this next guy, the way I feel about Tom Brady, because when Aaron Rodgers lost that game, and it wasn't clear he was going to lose all the way through Saturday night, but when the final, you know, gun blasted and Aaron Rodgers was a loser at home at Lambeau, boy, oh boy, did Twitter lose its mind?

I mean, Jeff, it was out of control. Uh, I was enjoying the humor. I don't agree with every take that I saw, but man, it was a fun night to celebrate.

Um, Jeff, did you have any particularly fun memes or jokes about Aaron Rodgers on Saturday night? So I, um, I have, I put out a tweet. I said, give me your, your best Rogers jokes. Cause I have, I put out a tweet. I said, give me your best Rodgers

jokes because I just want to put them all together because I needed to get them all from, I have a radio show and we do a segment called Savage or Stupid, but I saw what Aaron Rodgers should have done more of his own research on the 49ers defense. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers can still make it to the

Super Bowl if Mike Pence has enough courage. That's ridiculous. It's a pretty good one. Everyone says San Francisco won, but I'm going to do my own research. Everyone stopped making fun of Aaron Rodgers. He hates being needled. Did the Packers win? Yeah, we never trailed in regulation.

I mean, he brought this. We all thought Rodgers had a shot, which has happened before. Here's the one I like, Jeff. People were putting together nicknames for him. I'm not going to read them all. In fact, some of them are too ridiculous. But Throw Rogan got me. Throw Rogan.

Throw Rogan, yeah. Throw Rogan. There was, oh God. There was some other ones I didn't think were pretty good. But, dude, look, deserves all of it, right? I mean, when you are – and, again, agree or disagree with his takes.

When you put yourself out there, things you've said, this is coming back on you in any direction. And I've been talking to one of his former teammates today about him. He goes, this is never what he was. He's like, this is new for him. This is not, he said he was a critical thinker. We always had great conversations. But this kind of like turned to the, I mean, he came out and basically was like,

yeah, I'm not sure Biden's the president. Like, just buddy, what's going on now, man? So he deserves all of it. Des Biden's the president. Like, just buddy. What's going on now, man? So he deserves all of it. Deserves all the smoke. He scored 10 points in this game. Three points after the opening drive. It's a Niner secondary that is not very good right now. He let Jimmy Garoppolo beat him, man. Yeah.

Like, it's, dude, these jokes are just, they're incredible. One of the jokes I saw that is a segue to the football talk, Jeff, is, you know, the Niners famously passed on Aaron Rodgers, but they've gotten four wins against the Packers as a result of that. They keep on, the Niners have their number in the playoffs. Jimmy G might be the luckiest man on earth. He did not look good, and he still got the W. Oh, another one, by the way.

Oh, geez. Congratulations to Jimmy Garoppolo on replacing Dr. Fauci's Aaron Rodgers' least favorite Italian. Yeah, that's good. Enough, enough. Oh, man. Look, it's that simple. The Niners, man, physicality in the trenches and being well-coached will always win. We've questioned Shanahan before, right?

Because Shanahan is up and down season. His record is about 500, a little bit over 500. But say what you want about him, man. They claw and battle and fight for every single yard, man. And yes, Jimmy Garoppolo, not a great game, but he does enough in these games. He just does enough. Now, is that enough to beat the Rams?

I don't know, man. The Rams are super talented. They're healthier. But you just can't, the Niners, you can't count them out, man. They won that game in all three phases, right? Now, only six offensive points. I get that. But where they needed it most, they drove down the field

and blocked a punt for a touchdown, blocked a field goal. They just kept fighting and clawing and scratching. They showed a ton. The Packers, to me, it didn't feel like they had that same fight, right? Again, I don't think the Packers didn't play hard. But there was a fight think the packers didn't play hard but there was a a fight in the in in the niners that that's what champion teams champion teams are now again i don't think they get through this weekend and if they did they would lose to the chiefs most likely but

they they have this quality about them that makes them fun to watch and root for yeah no they were easy to root for on Saturday night. And it seemed like all of Twitter was, I mean, look, we have the whole off season to talk about Aaron Rogers and his future and where he's going to go and all of that since the Niners are still playing. I mean, is there something to be said, Jeff? And I'm going to mention a name I haven't mentioned a long time. Don't roll your eyes. Is there something to be said for guys like Jimmy Garoppolo? Guys like, yes, Tim Tebow. Guys like maybe Joe Burrow. I'm putting them all in the same camp where I don't quite know why. But even when they don't have their best game, these dudes just win close ones.

Like, why is that? there's got to be something about jimmy garoppolo that it isn't luck it's got to be something else why do people play better around him debo was great when they needed him like jimmy didn't do anything yeah you know what's funny is that like a lot of times this is with tom brady right yeah Brady has this. Of course he does. But Brady doesn't, like, lose games for his team often. Garoppolo threw a terrible reception this game again. He tried to lose the game to Dallas a couple weeks ago. He's done it before. I think it's a strong belief in what they do

and that what they do wins a lot of games and it does. And so there's never a panic when things don't go well because they just know, hey, man, we stick to the plan. It's worked before. We trust our coaches. We trust our players. Just keep swinging away. Just keep making plays.

Keep making plays. And in the end, it'll work out for us. And it's because they've built up a couple years now of a lot of winning, right? They won the Super Bowl two years ago now. They won. I think it's that. It's not really Jimmy G in this situation, in my opinion.

It's the belief of the coaching staff, and it's the belief of just the entire organization and how they're set up to win these type of games okay so then i'm going to compare him maybe some of the other names i mentioned weren't quite the right comparisons but let me compare him to a name that you know in an organization you are a part of is the better comp for jimmy g more like eli manning there's enough of a system. There's enough faith in what we're there to do. There's enough trust that he can make a play if he has to,

even if he screws a few things up. Is that who we should be thinking of him as? It's a good point. I was listening to something, podcast today that brought up, I think it was Bill Simmons brought up the Giants and the Niners remind him of the Giants team. Me too.

The one that beat the Patriots because of the way they pass rush, running the football, offensive line, just kind of making enough plays. And then, you know, Eli and Jimmy right now. I think Eli's much better than Jimmy Garoppolo. But the point is, like, any given play, they might just have a bad throw. Now, Eli's made far bigger throws in his career than Jimmy Garoppolo has in big moments. I think it's unfair to compare him to Eli Manning. But I can see the comparison for the belief in the structure of the program

and the belief in just keep doing what we practice. Just keep playing hard, rush the passer. Run the football. Beat people in the line of scrimmage. And our quarterback will make one or two throws a game. Now, Jimmy doesn't do that. He's not. He really just. Have you ever noticed?

He almost only completes the ball in between the hashes. Yeah. Or like in between the numbers. I have noticed. Eli's made plenty of throws. Like the Manningham catch. He's a much better quarterback. But I think that the comparison makes a lot of sense

if you're trying to find a historical comp to Niners getting to the Super Bowl this season. All right, fair enough. Then let me ask this, and then we'll take a quick break. I was saying, foolishly, I think, are they going to pull a Saban and just yank Jimmy G when it just looked like they couldn't get anything going and go to Trey? Just put in Lance. And you know what?

They didn't. And everyone kept talking about it. Maybe if this kind of weather and more run packages, maybe Lance, maybe Lance. What do you think the chances are we see Trey Lance in any meaningful role against the Rams? None. I don't know why he would do it now. No, I don't either. Versatility.

Then they'll have a question this offseason. What the hell are they supposed to do? Because I don't think they're going to be able to trade Jimmy G, which seemed like the plan, if he takes them to another Super Bowl. But let's preview the Super Bowl and the other teams. Oh, no. No. They know he's gone after this year.

Everyone knows it. Super Bowl or not, gone. You really think Jimmy G stays hot, gets to the Super Bowl, maybe even wins a Super Bowl somehow, he's still gone? I think so, yeah. I think maybe not if they win the Super Bowl, but I'm pretty sure if that's about the only outcome where he stays. All right.

Well, we have a chance to talk about the Super Bowl in a minute in our over-under game, moving the line. Also, some other silly questions involving, it's been a week or two since we mentioned him, Antonio Brown. He's back talking into microphones. Yep, it's coming. So let's move the line right after this. All right, we're back.

Jeff, bonus question in moving the line. I snuck this one past Hank, our producer. Whose family was more annoyed with them? Mine when I lost my shit as the Rams beat Brady during nap time. Or yours when Pat and Kelsey connected connected way after bedtime probably waking up your household so i was in the living room my wife had just gotten back from a trip and we had we're hanging out in the bedroom for a little bit and uh no i was watching football it was not it was none of that happening and um and uh so she had gone to bed. I just went in the family room. Once the Bills scored to go ahead 29-26,

I left the bedroom to watch. I was like, I need to switch rooms. We're switching rooms. Go switch a room routine. Tyreek Hill goes down immediately, scores a touchdown. Great switch of room shorts. And then obviously the ending happened. I didn't make a noise.

Didn't make a noise. The only time I yell at sport when I watch sports is when Oregon plays Washington. That's it, huh? Well, I went absolutely crazy and my whole neighborhood could hear me. And it was surprising to my family because they were not aware that I am a Rams fan. Because I'm not. I'm not. But man, we were big cooper cup fans on sunday i saw the i saw the cute video your kid cooper cup he loves cooper cup man he's

enjoying saying cooper cup um all right well so cooper cooper cup and the rams are the favorite in the nfc right now to get the super bowl the chiefs are the favorite over in the afc we haven't talked enough bangles we'll get to them in a second so jeff right now over under 90 confidence the chiefs chiefs are winning the super bowl this season i feel pretty good about it the rams the rams would be a very tough out okay but i trust uh mahomes over stafford i don't i don't see why you wouldn't. So you think Chiefs for sure. So let's talk Bengals. Over under nine and a half sacks the Chiefs will have on the Bengals.

And is that going to be enough to stop Joe Burrow? Because nine wasn't enough the last time. So what's interesting about that is the Titans actually got less pressure than the Raiders did in the first game. All the pressure was a sack. Here's the thing about the Bengals. Joe Burrows has been playing well.

They only had 19 points on offense. They only had 26 against the Raiders. Their offense has not been that great in the playoffs. The reason why offense is so important, there's many reasons, but in the red zone, it's so important. The Bengals have had terrible luck from the low red, the high red zone, the 30 to the 21, and then the 20 into the end zone. Not luck, but just bad success because offense lines are even more important there because so with the

safeties play you know the field shrinks right you have you have 20 the 30 to the to the back of the end zone it's 40 yards right then it goes to 30 yards and 10 obviously okay so that means that the passing lanes aren't quite there so quarterbackbacks have to throw the ball quickly and sometimes have to hold on to the ball. If that's the case, the pass rush can get home, obviously. With their less confined space too, safeties can easily attach into the run game. So you've got offense along that knocks everyone off the ball, less of a concern.

The Bengals don't have that right now. So I do fear in this game, it could get out of hand if the bangles can't do much on offense and again the chiefs defense has got to be better hopefully honey badgers back that'd be huge for them okay let me ask you this then i don't want to i don't want to rule out the bangles yet they've done some surprising things this season um joe burrow seems to just have it whatever it is so we can't count them out but let's give them the loss for the hypothetical here do Bengals seem to you, and I don't know their cap situation off the top of my head, but don't they seem to you like the place that some young ring chasers should try to go this offseason?

Like, doesn't it seem like they should start to build a little bit of a super team, especially with some old linemen who want to win? Yes. If you are a player kind of ring hunting it feels like a place to be because they're going to have the cap room because they're very young team burrow has at least two more years on this deal now obviously after next year they'll probably be talking about giving him a new deal very early soon as possible you can structure the way mahomes deal is where a lot of that money doesn't come in until kind of the core group is up um but there is there is some work to be done why is hank putting my

brother in there my mitch is not going to the bangles what did mitch go to bangles for he didn't play this season for the chiefs um he's not going to bangles um so uh i i i yes it but it's cincinnati though so i don't know how many players are going to feel like they want to go to play Cincinnati. My brother already has a ring, Hank. Why would he need it? Jeff is now live, uh, explaining the behind the scenes chat with our producer. Who's obviously trolling him. And Jeff, for some reason is taking the bait.

Mitch Schwartz is not coming out of pseudo retirement to play for the Bengals. But what you're telling me is some guys like him should because you got a better chance there than most places in the AFC. The Chiefs are going to be the favorite next year no matter what. If you are a fan right now of about 25 other teams that don't have Mahomes, Allen, Herbert, Burrow, maybe Lamar Jackson, Rogers, Brady that are leaving their

places maybe. Do you feel like you're ever going to win a championship? No, I think two-thirds of the league is completely hopeless, including the one seed in the AFC. We never gave them a serious thought. And they were the one seed because they just don't have the quarterback. And that was pretty much evidence that quarterbacks matter. Let me ask you this. Antonio Brown is again talking into microphones. This time, Brandon Marshall's podcast. So I want to know over under 25% chance Antonio Brown joins the Ravens next season. He made it very clear that's where he would like to be why would you do that for the baltimore ravens i have no earthly clue except

lamar responded with an emoji that makes me think he's thinking about it he's not in charge of personnel um also by the way antonio brown if you're not done talking yet, we do interviews. You're welcome to come on our show. Um, if you're looking to talk a little bit more, you have an open invite. So no, it's not going to Baltimore. They would never do that. No chance. They would never do that.

No. Is there any team dysfunctional enough to say that and give it a shot? Dallas. Okay. Dallas. Good answer. Okay, Dallas. Good answer. All right. Over under 40% chance we see Drew Brees and Sean Payton

in the booth together next season. Ian Rappaport saying Sean Payton is not committed to returning to New Orleans next season. Man, Drew Brees got skewered for that game he called against the Bengals Raiders. Yeah, it's not

easy to just step into the booth, even if you're great at playing. They say that Sean Payne has to deal with Fox Sports, so we'll be calling soon, I guess. I think he still coaches. Yeah, this is funny, right? Like, I thought Taysom Hill was his dude. Now he's going to bounce? Your boy's

in the prime of his career. Is he going to leave now after you left him with all that cap dysfunction? I think Sean Payton still coaches next year. I don't think that's a thing we should worry about. Any chance? I'm out of date on my coaching hires here, so allow a stupid question in case I'm overlooking something more obvious. I thought Sean Payton, a few years ago,

might go to the Giants and say, I want control of everything. Yeah. What about that? Well, he's not going to control everything because the new GM is going to have control. Joe Shane is probably going to hire Brian Dable. That's my guess from Buffalo. Leslie Frazier.

Maybe Brian Flores. There's a little bit of talk about that. He's from the area. But that time has passed for Sean Payne, I think, to be in New York. Okay. And we heard rumors of Josh McCown being a coach, not a quarterback. A coach in Houston. You seem unconvinced by that.

Yeah, I don't know what the point of that would be. Okay. How is that going to help you guys win? I don't know. Josh seems like a pretty smart dude. There's a difference between being a smart dude and being a first-time coach

as the head coach of an NFL team. It's not a baseball. It's not basketball. It's the NFL, man. There's a lot more involved with that. No chance. Okay. Another bonus one for you.

Over under 25% chance, Jeff admits he got a little bit nervous with the flurry of transfer portal news coming out of Southern California this past weekend, including his own running back leaving Oregon to go to USC. Oh, I'm not worried about Travis Stott leaving. this past weekend, including his own running back leaving Oregon to go to USC. Oh, I'm not worried about Travis Dye leaving. Look, if USC is playing seven-on-seven tournament this year, Gabe, you guys are going to win a lot of football games. I just tell you that.

No, the Dye thing is pretty interesting. So Travis Dye went from Oregon to USC. He led the Pac-12 last year in all-purpose yards. He only started, I think, eight games because our starting running back, C.J. Verdell, who just announced today he's going to the NFL, he was starting and died, took over in week five after C.J. Verdell got hurt against Stanford.

This was really fascinating, Gabe, because the transfer portal was not designed for this, right? It wasn't supposed to be for starting guys to leave in this manner, which is fine. It is what it is. I'm not going to argue against it. But think about what he did, Gabe. He had a four-year career at Oregon where he was beloved, right?

He worked his way up, became a starter. His brother is in the NFL, played linebacker at Oregon. Troy Dye, played for the Vikings, I believe. Families loved. Everyone likes Travis Dye. He just burned all that by going to USC. Like, he can't come back to Oregon anymore. He's now, like, when he gets drafted, if he does, which is unlikely,

he's on the shorter side, smaller side, it's going to go down as USC running back Travis Dye. Okay. Like the four years at Oregon, is that worth it to go win eight or nine games? I looked up the numbers in Lincoln Riley's offense last year. The running back caught nine hole passes. Travis Dye caught 41 last season

and wasn't even the starter for the first five games. Like it's not the same offense. It's not. And now he's in a room with Austin Jones. He's there from Stanford. He transferred in. He's there with the kid, was it Relique Brown, the five-star running back that USC just signed

who'll be on campus in August. I don't get it. I think there's some family things. He's from California. Wants to go back home. But he just threw away four years at Oregon. Like, four good years. Two Pac-12 championships, a Rose Bowl win,

to go to USC for one year. Wow. I don't know. It's a good question of, and a good test case, four years from now, I'll look back and be like, does the transfer portal work? Does it work as intended is it as um is it is it supposed to be is this the way it's supposed to be real quick on the

transfer portal i saw this today um this is from at rivals portal 408 uh power five portal players announced new schools since august 1st that's not how many players are in the transfer portal. That's how many announced a new location. Okay? Power Five, right? So the five top conferences. SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12. Okay, again, what percent do you think went to another Power Five program?

I don't even know where you're going with this point, so I'm going to say 50%. Close. 47%. Okay. Okay. And I imagine a lot of those guys are obviously high-end players, right? 39% of those guys went to a Group of Five program, so a step down. 13.5% went to an FCS program, which used to be 1AA,

and less than basically a tenth of a percent went to a D2 program. So these players aren't even transferring up a lot of times. They transfer down. I just I get it. We're in mobility and all that stuff and I'm not against Transfer Portal. I just think

players have got to think about everything that goes into this and that's where we are with Transfer Portal. Alright, well I didn't mean to add this much time to the show, but now I have to ask. Jermaine Burton, an even crazier head scratcher, wins a national title at Georgia after beating Alabama and now is transferring to Alabama. He honestly, he must think he has either,

A, a better chance at winning a title at alabama than as a defending champ or b better draft odds after another year at alabama getting pat you know having passes thrown by bryce what's that one about well they're also also too i forgot to mention with the travis die which i don't think is the case with him but there's obviously naming july right in the nil deals and i don't think that's why Travis Dye went to USC. It might be. I don't, I don't think it is.

Yeah. That was odd. Right. To go to Georgia, to Alabama. Like I, he might be able to, if Alabama wins next year,

he'll be one of the only players probably ever to win a championship on two separate teams, two straight years. I mean, there's can't be any way possible that that's been done in college. The guy who comes to mind who did it in the NFL, who you might have played with in college, LeGarrette Blunt did it with the...

Oh, Chris Long did it too. Chris, yeah. He went Eagles to Pats. Both those guys did it. Yeah. Yeah, that's... There's a bit of other guys. There's been a couple...

No, Wisniewski did it on the Chiefs. He did Eagles-Chiefs, so that was a year in between. Yeah, not many guys have done the back-to-back years in different teams. How about that, man? Oh, I would love – I'd kill you at Super Bowl ring. Not going to happen, obviously. Maybe as a coach one day, Jeff. It sounds like guys about your generation are starting to take over.

Yeah, there's a 0% chance. I can't give up this podcast. We make millions of dollars. I just can't do it. Listen, I don't know what I would do without you because you have unleashed a whole bunch of usually very polite and friendly Chiefs fans upon my mentions from time to time. Why?

Because I like to retweet you and and chat with you know with your fans and every now and then i get some chiefs guys telling me what's what and i've enjoyed it and now i'm part of the i'm part of chief's kingdom i feel like at least for another couple weeks yeah but you're you're working with now someone who's even a bigger chiefs homer nick wright than me that's true i am he is the biggest you're gonna be full chiefs homer there is so uh you know my my new bandwagon team is the rams i'm he is the biggest you're gonna be full chiefs chiefs homer there is so uh you know my my new bandwagon team is the rams i'm rooting for the rams the whole way out uh me cooper cup and my son we're a big team now did you see his ig live yesterday nick's ig live it was

so it was just unhinged smoking black and mild yes yeah just for the record there's nothing extra in those black and mild guys don't get it twisted nick just likes those black and mild guys. Don't get it twisted. Nick just likes smoking black and mild tobacco. That's not something you can buy in California. Oh, black and mild. The black and mild are their actual blunts. No, normal people use those to roll blunts. Nick is not. Oh, he's just having the black and mild.

Yes. The wood tip ones or the regular ones? That's just having the black and mild. Yes. The wood tip ones or the regular ones? That's a level of detail I don't know. I just can tell you when he's talking about black and mild, he's not smoking weed. That's not what's in there. I thought it was a blunt. I didn't think it was a black and mild yesterday. Good for Nick.

Black and mild. He makes too much money to be smoking black and mild. You like what you like. I like drinking Budweiser and eating Outback, man. Outback's a fancy meal for me. Give me that. My wife loves Outback. It's delicious.

Can I tell you? Okay. One more thing before we go. So when I got in the NFL, we weigh in every Friday. Oh, yeah. Yep. It's the wood tip black and mild sweet good for Nick okay so we had to weigh in every Friday in in the NFL it depends Thursday or Friday depends on the team you're on so for the combine I played about 340 in college it's about my good

weight it's what I was most of my NFL career but I tried to cut a bunch of weight for the combine to weigh in lower so I ran faster. I didn't run faster. So we're like 331 at the combine. When I got to the Panthers, they were like, I need you to weigh 330 each Thursday, which is not my natural weight.

My natural weight is about 340, 345. Okay. So before weigh-in every Thursday night or whatever it was, my wife and I would go to Outback. And I thought like just, oh, I'm going to get the chicken wings. I mean, I was 22 years old.

No idea about nutrition. No idea. I'm like, okay, well, just let me get the wings. It's just chicken. Like what's wrong with eating just chicken before weigh-ins? Come to find out that's like the most calorie meal of like any fast food, not fast food chain, but like any chain restaurant in the country. The wings at Outback are 3,000 calories.

I ate that every night before weigh-ins and wondered why I struggled to make weight. I didn't know any better. You didn't need to be a genius to know that eating chicken wings wasn't like a weight loss program. I was on practice squad, buddy. I had no money and I was young and dumb.

Well, we all learn emotionally. Now I'm smart. Now I was young and dumb. Well, we all learn emotionally. Now I'm smart. Now I'm older and smarter, maybe. Yeah. Well, you better be or the show title here makes absolutely no sense. That is very fair. All right, guys. Well, man.

Speaking about a cigar, Black and Mild would have been nice last night after the Chiefs win. Absolutely. We are powered by the Varsity Podcast Network. We'll be back later this week. We'll give you a little preview of the Super Bowl. It's not Super Bowl, it's the divisional round. We will have our waivers.

We'll have our favorite props. We had a bad weekend. Hope to make it up this past, this next week, I should say. And we'll be back on Wednesday. Take care, guys.