Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Welcome to The Divisional Round

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

Geoff and Gabe discuss the matchups for the upcoming Divisional Round of the playoffs including the Rams defense going up against the Packers offense and this season's third round of Brady vs. Brees. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices 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 12th. I'm Jeff Schwartz alongside Gabe Gould. And this is Jeff Schwartz. This morning, we have so much to get into today. We finally had a full walk. We have six games to go over and four to look forward to the next weekend. Gabe, lots of teams that I have been at odds with with their fans for many years have made it on to the division round.

So we'll talk about all that. But first, some breaking news, Gabe Gabe in the world of the NFL you told me this before we started Doug Peterson out as Eagles head coach surprising especially after they let him tank in week 17 he has now lost the head coaching job of the Eagles so a lot. Yeah, well, I want to bring this up because you're saying surprising, but you know, from the things you've shared with me, I'm not that surprised because what you told me weeks ago was, you know, Doug Peterson's a great coach. Obviously, he can make a team win, but it isn't working with him and Carson Wentz. So, if they're committed, you know, to Wentz, Peterson's out. I guess the only surprising part here is they seem even more committed to Jalen Hurts.

So why is Peterson necessarily out? Maybe this is to help him go get another big job? Because we assume he's just going to get another head coaching job, right? There are rumors that he was going to your Jets this morning. I don't hate it. If he ended up being out of a job. Well, look, I said this. The Eagles have to choose between Carson Wentz or Doug Peterson, right?

Unless they found a way to get rid of Wentz, which again, with the contract and the money you put into him, probably tough to do, right? Is a team going to spend over $30 million a year to have Carson Wentz as their quarterback? No. Go find yourself a coach that can work with Carson Wentz. But the reason why I say it's surprising is because Week 17 doesn't happen unless Doug Peterson's coming back. Like, they don't tell him, hey, yeah, go ahead, play Nate Sudfield.

Do that. Because you know he cleared it with the front office first. Hey, play him if you're not coming back next year to coach this team. So, look, maybe the veterans went to Howie Roseman afterwards and said, hey, man, we can't play with this guy. It's all possible. That's all possible. But I feel like that decision was made

to play Sudfield because Peterson was coming back next season and obviously have a reverse course. Well, we'll get more reporting as the day goes by. Obviously, the takes will heat up and we'll react to those. But it seems like something you're going to have to tackle next week.

Let's focus on the football we saw this weekend. Like you said, something new for the NFL, right? We had two triple headers. There was football nonstop. I don't know about your wife. My wife was a little bit surprised by how much football had to be on this weekend. She couldn't quite understand why it was all day Saturday and all day Sunday. And then that final game, which we'll start with,

just didn't seem to end, even when everyone predicted it was over. It was closed for a little bit. So, Jeff, this is your nightmare. Baker Mayfield, he wore the backwards hat, and yet the Browns dropped 48 on the Steelers, and they are headed to the biggest upset of the weekend and the divisional round against the Chiefs.

They did this, by the way, without a head coach, without damn near their whole coaching staff. Coach was down in a man cave, I guess. Here was the take I saw that I wanted you to react to. Maybe padded practices are overrated. Maybe coaches are overrated. The Browns won without basically an intern coaching them, and they didn't even get to practice.

So maybe we have this whole coaching thing wrong, Jeff. Well, we'll get to that hot take in just a second. Let's talk about the Browns really quick, okay? Because they deserve a lot of credit. Think about this. They barely practiced for the last couple of weeks. Barely practiced, right? Because of COVID, they've been separated.

They talked about it last night. I think Tafoya did a good job of showing the zoom meetings that they were having note cards up and having to visualize plays and stuff. All fantastic. And look last week, he even looked against the Steelers like, Hey, maybe we don't practice kind of hurting us. We only beat the Steelers by two.

They come back and blow them out. Stefanski, the head coach was not there. Their offensive line coach wasn't there. There's just an offensive line coach wasn't there. They had a dude playing offensive line who literally drove there like day of. He made $37,000 to play 14 snaps. He drove there day of, ended up having to play when the backup left guard out for, you know, in for Joel Batonio got hurt as well.

So, look, it was a fantastic win for them. They forced, well, they forced four turnovers and a fifth on the on the pouncy long snap that snap with 15 yards in the air so Browns had a little bit of fortune along the way in winning this game again they they took the game from the Steelers not like the Steelers even with the turnovers they Browns still went and got the points okay so the question becomes obviously for the head coach and do we need to practice so let's talk about the practice thing for a second please so it's funny how nfl people will say hey don't judge something by a small sample size for example don't judge lamar jackson after two playoff games give him a third playoff game okay and and we'll talk about them in a second you know josh allen small sample size

don't judge him on this judge him on that and yet here we are right one game sample size no more practice it's done it's done doesn't matter it's over god screw it coaches screw them too we don't need coaches either look guys it there is a need for practice how many of the professions would you say, the high-level professions, where the answer is doing less of it? Doing less practice, less honing of your craft makes you better when it's time to perform in your profession. I can't give you a single one where you would do less of it to make you better at it. Of course, the physicality of practice is different than other professions.

Fair enough. And I would tell you veterans, I've talked to some veterans today, they're like, yeah, we don't need practice. Yeah, this time of year, they don't need practice. You're right. They know what they're doing. Veterans know what they're doing this time of year. Not young cats, guys. And guess what?

The NFL, it's a ton of young cats. And even now, you're not hitting in practice. You're not even allowed to hit in practice. Playoffs are a little different. I don't know the exact playoff rules per se about hitting. I know like after week 13 or 12 or 10, you can't even put pads on a practice anyways. A lot of veteran teams don't even barely practice.

It's walkthroughs right now anyways. So it's not like there's a big dose of like heavy hitting at practice. And so I don't get the rush to eliminate all the things that make us better for the sake of just eliminating them because we don't like to be in the facility for walkthroughs and like meetings and things that have helped teams win for a long period of time.

It's just, it's so interesting to me how we do this. And we've seen now too, that there's a call for, oh, no more off-season program. You know, let's even reduce training camp even more. Okay. Off-season program, guys, is the easiest way to earn money. It's four hours a day. Like four days a week.

You're talking to players right now. This is not for the audience. You're talking directly to NFL players. Yes. It's, it's, and look, we don't get paid a lot for the off-season program. That is definitely fair. But, relatively speaking, we actually get almost like nothing to a lot for the off-season program. That is definitely fair. But relatively speaking, we actually get almost like nothing to be there in the off-season.

But that's not the point of the discussion. Is that every time that we ask for less practice time, the NFL owners say, great. They don't give a shit. They just want to play on Sundays. They don't care about practice time. Great. You take less practice, but give us this in return right that's how negotiations work they don't they don't just throw us a bone without getting something

back so my contention about less practice time has always been that if we have less practice like negotiated less practice in the cba then we are giving something up to get that and that to me does not feel like a worthwhile trade hey guys don't come in the offseason fair enough but you have to give us more money or more this and more that like it's not that hard to come in the offseason and work out as far as the end of you know the end of year practice which will not probably never touched by the cba but coaches can decide coaches are already doing this guys they're already lessening the amount of time that players are on their feet,

that they're practicing. And last point here, very important to point out, the Browns just played the Steelers. They didn't need to practice to play them again. They just played them a week before. Nothing was going to be different. There was going to be no difference in any of the schemes they saw. They already played them twice.

They're a division opponent. If this was, I don't know, the Bills, I don bills i don't think they put the bills this year they would kind of need to practice they would kind of need to walk it through and figure it out so it's so we just like rushed and and also and on with this on this topic because we've talked about this before is that you would think that with less practice time and less hitting, the average career in the NFL would go up. It has not. You would think that, and this is a general sense,

not people in the business, but you would think that, you know, less practice, less hitting, injuries would go down. Nope, injuries continue to go up. So like the things that are supposed to help us as far as not practicing less have not done any of that to help us. And I get it. Late in the year, you don't want to practice veterans.

Fine. I don't want to either. I get it. I get being a veteran. It's different being like a 10-year guy and being a three-year guy. So I think the takes on that are kind of foolish. But it's Twitter. Of course it was going to be like that.

Okay. But so the other take that is maybe foolish, maybe not. I think Beaumont had the funniest version of this take, which was, I might feel a way if my team played its best game with me locked in my basement. So I saw a lot of people saying like, how's Kevin Stefanski feeling?

Like a lot of people commenting on how many beers he was drinking. And they seem to think that this was a, an indictment on his coaching that they could play such a great game without him even there. I have a different view on this, but curious what you think about the idea of the value of a coach on game day. Because a lot of people seem to be questioning that. Well, look, if the center is going to snap the ball over the quarterback's head

in the first play of the game and you're going to get seven points, I mean, that's not a coaching thing. That's Pouncey just launching the ball. Guys, that wasn't even a bad snap. That ball went 15 yards in the air. It was at the 22, landed on the 7. People have said, well, why didn't Big Ben go jump on the ball? I'll give you a good reason why.

First of all, James Connors should have picked the ball up. It's the first play of the game. Ben ain't going to let guys dive at his head and shoulders and play one of a playoff game. He's gonna be like chalking up to just like all right they get seven points we'll figure it out Connor should pick the ball I think even Ben looked at him was like as they're running like you pick it up like you I'm not gonna get I'm fine with big Ben not jumping on the ball the turnovers like I don't know is that because Stefanski wasn't there the ball's thrown high tipped up in the middle of. Guy caught it. I don't think those are reasons why you wouldn't want to coach at a game.

And we saw, too, man, as the game went on, and it kind of got a little nutcrouching time, right? The play calls got a little conservative. The offense wasn't moving as well. And if not for Tomlin, and I think Tomlin is a great coach. I'm not going to use this word. People call it cowardly when he punted. I don't really like that word because I don't think Mike Tomlin is a coward.

But I don't know what you want to call it. But him punting that spot was not good. The Browns moved there in four plays and eventually scored anyways on that drive. If Pittsburgh had won for it and gotten it and scored that drive, you would have wished Stefanski was there. Because the Browns would have come out in the next drive and been what up five with like eight minutes left and so i think there's still value to having a coach on game day and this is again a one-off one time i i you know they need their coach at the game but can you imagine being stefanski and watching this game on your couch like your team

played the best game they have and they exercise all the demons in one year in this game. So good. Look, Browns fans, great. You know, people, I posted a video of the Browns on Twitter this morning. They're off. It's on. Well, we still remember what you said about us. I'm like, guys, I'm the same guy all the time, man.

Like it doesn't, like, if it's good, it's good. If it's bad, it's bad. I'm gonna tell you how it is. You've been a straight shooter when it comes to the Browns. You've always said they're pretty good. I don't see them winning lots of playoff games the way they're built, but it worked. You know,

the chip on the shoulder thing has been working for them. Baker spinning the hat around backwards in press conferences of clear reference to his boy, Colin cowherd. Um, you know, they're enjoying the fact that a lot of people doubted them and they're trying to prove something.

So let's look at next week. I don't actually fully understand what will be the you know the rules for coach stefanski and the rest of the coaching staff and now they have their hardest challenge ever playing arrested chiefs team i think they're a 10 point dog as the week opens yeah um what are your thoughts we'll have more chances to talk about this throughout the week but what are your thoughts right now on how the browns get ready for that game because that ain't playing a division rival you saw a week ago. So the chiefs have had six games with Andy Reed and Pat Mahomes off a buy.

Okay. They've scored 40, 31, 40, 51, 35, and 31. And the 31 was against the Colts in the playoffs,

2018. The 51 was Texans playoffs last year and the 31 was Super Bowl against the 49ers and so the Browns defense guys is not good all right and I'm really getting tired of people saying the Browns have to run the football to win no no you have to score points to win if you're running the football and i know that's very john madden-esque right you score points to win the game yes it is but that's how simple is with the chiefs is if running the ball helps you score points great but the idea of running the ball keeping away from pat mahomes is kind of silly when the chiefs can just score in two minutes like congratulations you kept it away from pat mahomes it It don't matter. When the Chiefs lose games, it's because teams can sit in zone coverage

and harass Pat Mahomes with the pass rush. Miles Garrett's really good, but I don't think he's enough to harass Pat Mahomes in the pass rush. Entering this game, the Browns were 25th, I believe, in pass defense. Like, I just, it's a tall task. Think about this. The Browns have to force five turnovers in this game to win by 11 like it's that simple so if you force two turnovers let's say in this game is that enough it might be

it might be but you have to finish your drives with touchdowns and Baker Mayfield yesterday his air yards per attempt were second worst I think think, this whole weekend. I was pretty pissed. I had Baker Mayfield under passing yards. I'm kind of salty about that. I kind of, I think I was pretty much on every game. Like, I kind of hit what I wanted to hit. And I had a good day, especially yesterday with the Ravens and Lamar. But, like, he had, he went over his passing total with a seven-yard pass and went for 60 yards.

A screen went for 40 yards. A screen that went for 40 yards. I was like, ugh. So that's not going to cut against Kansas City. All right, but I'm glad you brought that up because this is where me being the dummy who's just watching, usually with fantasy teams in mind, not an X and O guy, and you being one of the smartest football people I know. What I saw was a quarterback in Baker Mayfield who's heard everyone say he's not good against the rush he doesn't know what to do when you're in his face and I saw a guy basically lay a trap

for one of the best pass rushes in football coming right at his face he'd let him get within a step and then he'd flip it over to a running back he's got a couple of them we know are very good so basically he'd be run plays that he waited until the defense committed. And then they'd take off for, like you said, yards on yards. Is that a strategy? Dumb luck? Just what the defense gave him? Because it looked planned to me. Looked like he had something in mind that he hadn't figured out earlier in the year.

Well, I mean, one was a screen. So that was called. And a couple others were just, guys were just open in the flat. And look, I think the credit in this game, the more I think goes to the Browns offensive line, they were fabulous guys. I mean, did Baker Mayfield get hit the entire game? I don't think he got hit once.

They were incredible in this game. And so I think they deserve a lot of the credit of how this went and kept Baker Mayfield upright. You know, I don't know if Frank Clark and Chris Jones will have a good performance. The Browns' offensive line has been played well the entire season. But if you keep Baker Mayfield upright, he's not a halfback quarterback. But you have to push the ball down the field. The idea about running the football to win against the Chiefs

is that if you're behind 17-10 the second quarter, do you keep up that same energy, as the young kids say? Do you keep that same energy? If you're down 31-17 in the second quarter do you keep up that same energy as the young kids say do you keep the same energy if you're down 31-17 in the third quarter do you still run the football like that's the problem you know we we saw last year with the Tennessee Titans right they go into Arrowhead they're up 10-0 and that's 21-10 at halftime I believe or 28-10 and it's like oh I can't run the football anymore the 49ers right we're Run the football well for three and a half quarters. And it's like, oops, got to throw the ball now. Can't do it.

So that's the problem with the Chiefs, is they put so much pressure on you offensively, continue to score points, that if you are behind in a game in the second half, can you get out of running the football to score points? Or will you continue to run the football to score points? We've seen it this year too. The Rams, the best example of this all season, Rams are in Buffalo, down 28-3, just ran the

football, ran the football, ran the football, came back and got, you know, and obviously took the lead before losing in that game. So it can be done, I guess, but the Browns have a very narrow path, man. Okay. Well, we're going to get into that game and that part of the strategy a little bit more in our over-under. I don't want to skip the other AFC divisional game. I just want to roll it into sort of the other Jeff Schwartz Bowl. If your favorite team to dump on is playing your favorite team in Browns Chiefs, we also have

your two favorite quarterbacks to crap on for the last couple of years, Lamar Jackson versus Josh Allen. We'll have plenty of opportunity to discuss them this week but anything you want to take back or redo with that game because it's pretty funny to me that the AFC comes down to the four teams you've talked the most about since I've known you well look the Ravens I've admit I was wrong about Lamar and he's proven me wrong I think that win this weekend um you can kind of feel the general idea of like oh god it's happening again especially offensively right the lamar hit that he hit that burner between like the 30 and the goal line but no one the nfl has i mean like you could tell the exact second he's like oh i'm gonna score

and just i thought that lifted the weight completely off their shoulders now 20 points is is not enough probably to beat buffalo but buffalo's kryptonized their run defense. We saw the Colts go in there and run the football. I heard a stat today. The Colts are the first time and first team in playoff history to have a 450 yards and no turnovers and lose a game. I think it was 11-0 to that point. I mean, they should have beat Buffalo. And so that's a concern for me if you're Buffalo is your run defense because Baltimore can run the football. And now they

got the kind of monkey off their back as far as you know getting a win in the playoffs with this with this offense but defensively they played really well right 13 points to the Tennessee Titans the question I have is you know their their man coverage um can they do that against Josh Allen because those wide receivers are really good against man coverage and if and the thing with man coverage is against a running quarterback you don't have anyone on the quarterback right like you have man on everyone else now you could spy fair enough but Josh Allen's pretty good as a runner like a spy sometimes it's not good enough unless the pass rush is coordinated with the spy so that's my so those are kind of my general thoughts about that contest right now. I actually might lean Baltimore right now also too.

I tweeted this out. I nailed this one too. I said, I could see. So Josh Allen in the fourth quarter, he rolled out and he threw a ball to Stephon Diggs that wobbled. It was like a thousand miles an hour wobble. I was like, oh God, here's YOLO. Here's YOLO Josh Allen's back, everyone.

I tweeted out. I said, it's coming. YOLO's coming. And next play, fumbled the ball 30 yards in the backfield. Like, he still kind of has, in these big games against good teams, close games at the end of games,

he still has that YOLO in him. Like, he still has that trying to do too much. Right? I mean, they overcame this game, but he still has that and if he does that against baltimore he's gonna lose i dude i'm with you i put it differently i'd say he's the drunk guy at the bar confidence and that works sometimes sometimes it can work well you know it can get you out of there in one piece with the girl you're trying to talk to

but every now and then drunk guy at the bar ends up having a very bad night and uh you know we'll see which it is for him if he can keep the run going maybe drunk guy at the bar ends up having a very bad night. And, uh, you know, we'll see which it is for him. If he can keep the run going, maybe drunk guy at the bar goes home with a girl. We, we don't know. Um, last chance to talk about AFC before we shift to some big names in the

NFC. Last time we ever see, uh, Ben Roethlisberger, we done with him. At Pittsburgh. Yeah. In Pittsburgh.

Yeah. You think he could do what? I don't know who else would sign him, but I think he's done. I mean, I think the look on the field after the game kind of tells you all, right? You know when your time is here. And often it's not when your mind tells you, it's when your body tells you.

And I just don't know how he can come back. I mean, he can, obviously, but I don't think he would. I saw a great tweet that said, Today's the day where the headline is. Big Ben was quietly playing with a hurt elbow, arms, ribs, eyelashes. It's all coming. All right, let's move to the NFC. The Rams are scary, dude. You know, we've said it at spots during the season, and then we watched them this weekend. They're just scary and and Aaron Rodgers better hope Aaron Donald isn't 100% healthy because that Rams D is going to be up in his face with Bakhtiari out um I would worry about Donald running over to that side also Jalen Ramsey is probably the only person on earth who could make Devante Adams look human so they're going to be matched up I I've been on the Packers bandwagon all year but I gotta admit the Rams defense terrifies me for Aaron Rodgers.

So this is a really fun matchup guys. The Packers offense against the Rams defense, the Rams defense we're talking about is outstanding. Pass defense, number one in the NFL, number one defending deep pass. Jalen Ramsey against Devontae Adams, right?

Like it is a matchup that you would want and and it is going to be a fantastic matchup. I am not the best in the world at discussing the techniques of a cornerback and a wide receiver, but I'll tell you, it's going to be fun to watch. They'll find a way to make each other the matchup. You mentioned Aaron Donald. He has a rib injury. He should play this game.

He does not really play over left tackle, which is where Bakhtiari plays. He'll play inside to inside guys for the Panthers or Panthers. The Packers are pretty decent. So it'll be fun to watch that contest. You know, will Aaron Rodgers throw the ball early to get rid of it? And, you know, that's part of it too is that when you know you have Aaron Donald, you know that, you know, the cornerbacks essentially can sit on routes, right?

Because you know that you can't hold the ball forever. He will get there. I got asked this question this weekend this weekend well why do teams not double aaron aaron donald why don't they double him well it's hard to do because the defense dictates who you double all the times so a lot of times when we as offensive linemen get to a line of scrimmage we go to a certain linebacker right so let's say we're sliding to the right and aaron donald's on the right great great but that linebacker moves to the left we can't go to the right anymore we gotta go left and that's how the

rams do it the rams make sure that we are occupied as blockers to get done one-on-one so it's it's it sounds easy in theory hey block 99 every play put two guys on them but sometimes you just can't that's the structure of what you do so guys have got to hold up and pass but it was really hard to do so rogers will have to throw the ball pretty early. The other side of this, Gabe, is the Packers' rush defense is the Rams' rushing offense, right? You know, Goff, even if he plays, how good is Goff going to be? I mean, Goff, it's outside in the cold. He's going to be very good.

So the Packers get some stops defensively against the run. They should win the game because I don't think, when I say golf, it doesn't really excite me. But the matchup here definitely to watch is Rams defense, Packers offense. Yeah. Well, okay, you breezed past this, and maybe I'm going to just reveal that I'm an idiot with bringing this up again. But Bakhtiari being the best left tackle in the game and not being on the field, and Aaron Donald being the best defensive lineman in the game and being anywhere he wants to be.

That seems like if I'm Aaron Donald, I'm like, hey, I'm going to go run through the inexperienced guy who's over there now instead of the best player in the game at that position. Why is it so obvious that missing that left tackle doesn't impact Aaron Donald? Well, Donald doesn't rush over left tackle very often. He rushes inside. So that's not an issue. I'll tell you where it can matter. So if the Packers planned on helping the left tackle in this game, then you might draw your attention over to Aaron Donald now instead.

And so you leave him more of a one-on-one. But it's not because of Donald specifically against the back of left tackle. It's just that you might devote attention away from that left tackle to Aaron Donald, which again, I saw my brother about this. I said, you know, like I showed him a clip of Seattle this weekend. I said, why did Seattle slide this way instead of going over here to Donald? And he's like, you know, we talked about it. I was like, you know, people just are up in arms

that we don't double Donald. He's like, yeah, some people just don't do it. Like a lot of our game plan is not about who to stop on defense. It's how do we score points? How do we come up with advantages? And spending our entire time trying to find a way to double one player

is not a good use of our preparation. And like, we're pros too. We get paid to play. And so we get paid to stop Aaron Dalton it's tough to do he would eat my lunch too but that's kind of the some teams just don't plan it out very well it's interesting it's sort of I'll use a poker analogy it's like you know the guy with the most chips at the table isn't really all that worried about your cards he's pushing the action like when he has a good hand, he's playing it

and he's playing it aggressively. And it's for you to decide what you want to do about that. And that we could think of as like a really great offense like the Packers or Chiefs have. Like, yeah, we know, we know that other guy

might have aces. I don't know. That's Aaron Donald. But here's the way we're playing our hand. Exactly. And that is how the Packers will operate,

how the Chiefs will operate. Oh, yeah. Okay, great, Browns. You have a good offensive line. Guess what? I'm going to score more points than you. Yeah. Whatever. All right. Well, so that one isn't as big a spread as we're seeing in Chiefs-Browns. It's seven, though. It's still seven. Yeah, it's still seven. Do you think that number's about right?

I know you'll break this down with Matt later in the week, but D keeps it close? That's what you're thinking? I kind of think the under might be a play here. I got to see what the total is. But yeah, it feels like that's about right if the Rams have kind of like a semi-healthy golf. Okay. All right.

Let's stay in the NFC and talk about just take heaven. I haven't even seen all the takes that have come out of this yet, but Breeze versus Brady is just like the perfect matchup for this season. You know, I don't have to list all the reasons why this is everyone's favorite matchup. The studio shows are surely talking about it. It'll be the Sunday night game. It'll probably have the biggest ratings of the weekend, if not the year. My buddy Skip is already saying he never bets against Tom Brady. For the most part, for the last 20 years,

that has not done him wrong. But this feels like, for some of the things we've already talked about with other matchups, this feels like a very tough one for the slightly older Hall of Famer in Tom Brady against Drew Brees with a very healthy offense all of a sudden.

Isn't it interesting how this game is kind of the most boring to talk about? Oh, there's a take. Your counter to the take is there's not enough takes? It's boring? I mean, like, okay, think about this. We have, obviously, the entire week we talk about the Browns and, like, the resurgent Browns and can they beat the Chiefs and, like, what's the plan to beat the Chiefs? Then we have

Ravens and Bills, right? Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen. We've got Aaron Rodgers, you know, can the Packers beat a depleted Rams team who's got a great defense, like, just a great match? And it's like, oh, well, we got this game where Drew Brees continues to look like he has a noodle arm. Tom Brady's already lost to this team twice. I, you know, like, oh, well, we got this game where Drew Brees continues to look like he has a noodle arm. Tom Brady's already lost to this team twice.

You know, like, we kind of feel like we know these teams really well. There's no real schematic advantage either way. I mean, both teams know each other. It's just a matter of who executes. And Tampa Bay is playing at a much different level than they had the entire season offensively. But since the offense is really good too. So I don't, I don't, I think this game is like, I mean, it'd be fun to watch, but I don't really, I'm not as interested in this game as I don't know why.

Like nothing stands out as like, wow, man, this is going to be some classic game. I don't know why I feel that way. Well, I mean, both, Drew Brees is still with the team he's been with for years, but he's ring chasing and Tom Brady's very obviously ring chasing. So one of them goes to the NFC Championship game with a good chance to compete for another ring. I mean, that's what... I think part of it is the Saints look much worse in the playoffs

every year than they do in the regular season, which is a problem. Like they look not as good on offense as they had. And look, you can't judge them because Trubisky's freaking awful, so you can't really judge their defense very well. But the offense continues to not look as good in the playoffs. They have not won two playoff games since 2009. Yeah. Yeah, they are right.

It's funny. The Saints, who lived on a bad reputation far too long, have now lived on a good reputation for maybe a few seasons too long yeah that that said let me throw this at you jeff and this is truly how i felt um with michael thomas back seemingly healthy and seemingly motivated to try uh two things that were not always the case earlier this season and alvin camara and tasem hill whatever you might think of him and one more week of Drew Brees getting healthier and not having to play in cold weather,

I don't know how you stop their offense. I just don't. And you can come up with a way, but like, it doesn't matter about their past. This team with this offense and this many weapons does not look stoppable to me. There's only 21 points this weekend right well

bears are pretty good d and this was their first week with all those guys back together 100 well we know that when taste of milk comes in the game you better watch out because taste some hell's going to do some damage i mean that just it's the most shocking of all time i like imagine if if i was a hall of fame podcaster i'm getting close i'm getting very close yeah i think you're there yeah and you know i'm having a good show, right? We're, what are we, 32 minutes in, maybe like somewhere like that. 32 minutes in.

I'm having a great show. It's like, let's bring in the less talented podcaster for two minutes of reps. And he just shits the bed and the podcast goes to shit. And I have to come back and save it. That's what they do with Taysom Hill. I don't get it. Drew Brees will be like, boom, down the field,

down the field, down the field. Oh, take him out for three plays. What are we doing, guys? What are we doing? I don't know. There's something about, look, the Saints now again, continue, if you look at the Vikings game two years ago, even back to the Rams game three

years ago in the NCAA championship game, their offense just isn't as functional in the postseason. And I don't have a great reason why. I know it's hard to stop them, but getting Devin White back off the COVID list will be huge for Tampa Bay to run with Kamara. Tampa Bay has the linebackers to run with Alvin Kamara. They actually have a decent matchup.

The matchup I'm looking at, and I know my offensive lineman, and this is what really hurt them the first couple of games, is the Saints' defensive line pressuring Tom Brady. That's what got them the first couple of games. And so if Tampa has solved that problem,

I think they'll be fine defensively. But the interesting thing about it, I know Ram a little bit, but I wrote about this with Fox Sports. I don't know what Tampa's defense is, which kind of worries me. Like, what are they? Do they rush the passer?

They're number one in stopping the run, but I don't really watch their games and think, like, wow, great rush defense. So I don't know what their defense is. So I think you have a point about how they stop them. I don't know because I don't really know what their defense is. I know they have the physical parts to do it, but we've seen them this year. I mean, Tyler Heineke lit them up at times in that game. I mean, you've got to be worried if you're a saints a bucks fan with the saints offense if

tyler heineke lights you up yeah one thing again where i'm kind of a dummy and you can tell me if this is a thing or not i noticed at least once they lined up uh michael thomas out wide to the top of the field and alvin camara right him. Like in what normally would be like a wide receiver screen kind of look. And so now you have the two best playmakers in football. Standing literally like right in front of each other. When they snap the ball. And I don't know what the hell to make of that. I don't know who's supposed to cover who.

Which direction either of those guys are going. It looked to me like you could run that 20 times a game. And no one would know how to stop it. Why is that too simplistic like why don't they do that more often well because you're probably not getting a lot of explosive plays out of that and like the goal is not is to get kind of just and look all those formations this is why Taysom Hill is used by the way is that a lot of those formations once you mentioned and the taste of it just makes the defense have to spend more time on it so it takes less time away from or takes time away as you say that a lot of those formations, ones you mentioned, it just makes the defense have to spend more time on it.

So it takes less time away from, or takes time away, I should say, from something else the Saints are good at that they can't prepare for. That's what those formations are for. And that's what Taysom Hill is for. It's to frustrate the defense preparing for the Saints.

Yeah, not to get into politics, but it's like Biden campaigning in Texas. Even if he doesn't think he will win Texas, he forces the other campaign to have to use resources there and compete there, even though they don't really want to focus on Texas. I got it. All right. Well, last thing about the game with the Saints and the Bears that got us here was everyone was blowing up about the Nickelodeon broadcast. I did not get to watch it because I have too much like Nickelodeon type crap in my life with my young kids.

So I did not watch that. I think you sampled it. People loved it and I'm all for it. And I'd say, let's do more of it. Let's do a comedy one. Let's do one for every kind of audience. I'd say more simulcast the better. But what was your take on that?

I watched a few minutes of it. I don't know. I watch most games on mute. Like I don a few minutes of it. I don't know. I watch most games on mute. Like I don't really listen to games. I don't need the visual element for me to enjoy the games. I don't need the announcers to enjoy the games. I thought they did a good job when I listened of just dumbing things down.

So that was important. I don't need the visual effects to watch football. So for kids, if they liked it, great. I mean, that's the goal of what the program was about. If they help kids learn about football, great. I mean, that's the goal of what the program was about. If they help, you know, kids learn about football. Great. I put on my kids.

My kids didn't care at all. They were like, all right, cool. Like there's the, Oh, look at the graphics. And my son was like,

Oh, look at SpongeBob. And like, that was for seven minutes. He watched the game. I don't know. I, I'm,

I'm also just like a curmudgeon. I could care less. I really, I doesn't, I just don't, I don't care. If people liked doesn't, I just don't, I don't care. If people liked it, good. I didn't, I don't care. Well, I'll say, I'll say this.

If you didn't like it, get over yourself. This is free extra fun for someone else. Then the people who complain about shit that they don't need to watch will always frustrate me. More production, more options, more attempts at fun. These are good things. It leads to innovation. It leads to more enjoyment for the rest of us. That's where you get things like the pylon cam is people trying new shit.

So people should just calm down on Twitter if they didn't like it. And some of those, by the you know some of those inventions came from like the xfl didn't come from the sky cam and uh and so like that you know it's it's not even from the nfl's invention yeah look again i i think that and i don't think i know that our society rushes to have a judgment on everything and i i actually don't like i don't whatever i don't care i didn't watch it like it. Like if you like it, fine, whatever. I have no, I have no comment on it. I don't care.

Like, so good. If you liked the broadcast, congratulations. Good for you. Great. More, more borrowing the new camera. You know, this camera, everyone talks about every weekend that Fox has been using, which is just a steady cam. I like it.

It's a steady cam. It's got a soft sort of shallow focus. It looks like kind of like it, right? I like it. It's a Steadicam. It's got a soft sort of shallow focus. It looks like kind of artsy, right? It looks more like an NFL film shot with a lot of movement in it. And people have a lot of reactions to that. Guys, that's just borrowed from other forms of television. Like sports didn't invent that. They're using that on dancing shows.

They're using that in, you know, scripted. Like that's just a look. So the NFL borrowed it. You only come up with those ideas when you try new stuff. this nick thing's very cool to me i liked it is that but the difference is the 8k right well i don't know how many k's we're up to at this point but that obviously your tv can only process what your tv can process so how good i thought the coolness of that steadicam was that it was more of the picture quality, not like the actual guy holding it. Well, yeah, no.

It's for sure. It's the picture quality. But what people are noticing is the lens focus is different than you'd get in a game camera. Watch it again. You'll see. I mean, I'm not that smart on the technical either. Maybe again. I'm just like an old curmudgeon.

I don't... I just want football, man. I just want football. I don't care what format it's in. All right, well, good. So let's talk more football in the format of our over-under game, moving the line. We'll take a quick break. We'll come back.

I'll throw some fake bets at you. Boom, and there it is. Wireless on the most reliable network nationwide. That's cool. But with my wireless, I get unlimited for just $30. Impressive. But does yours have 5G included? Of course. And my wireless saves me $400 a year. That's because you all have Xfinity Mobile with your internet.

It's wireless so good, it keeps one-upping itself. $30 per line per month. Taxes and fees extra. Compares pricing of top carriers. Xfinity internet required. Reduced speeds up to 20 gigabits of usage per line. Most reliable based on RootMetrics UL's report. Results vary. Non-endorsement. All right, Jeff, we're back. It's time to move the line a little over-under game. Most of these are not real bets you can make, but, you know, they're close enough, so you weigh in on them, all right?

Let's do it. All right, here we go. Bills-Ravens quarterback rushing yards combined over-under 150. I made that number up. Well, Lamar Jackson has averaged near 100 in the last six games, I believe. He had over 100 again against the Titans. It's a good bet. I had Lamar Jackson over 65 yards in that game. I would say, I'd say over, and I'll tell you what. Obviously, Lamar I think he'll get 100.

What they do is run the football now. But Josh Allen running the ball against man coverage is going to be pretty big for the Bill's success. He's able to avoid pressure, which the Ravens will bring a lot of pressure. I think over. And again, it's not design runs for Josh Allen, but scrambles will get him. And look, Lamar

Jackson's biggest run of the game was a scramble too. So I go over. I think we'll get a lot of rushing yards from the quarterbacks. Yeah. I don't see any reason to argue with that. And I think it'll be exciting. And I like what you're bringing up about sort of Josh Allen against man coverage leading to scramble yards. And we know when he gets those legs moving, I mean, he's almost as quick as anyone out there and he's almost as quick as anyone out there and he's certainly harder to bring down um and in the playoffs where we haven't seen him like i don't think he's sliding i think josh allen's going for it and he's going to get the extra yard so 150 seemed he's not a slider he's not a slider he's gonna try to truck guys all right well let's

move to one that we sort of hit on this earlier about to put a finer point on it how many points do the browns need to put up against Mahomes and the Chiefs to scare you? I'm not saying to win. To scare you, make you nervous over under 35 and a half. I was going to say 35 too. Wow. I'd go over.

If they score 42, if they score the 40s, they've got a good chance of winning. That would make you very nervous, wouldn't it? Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. So if the Chiefs can hold them under 30 into the fourth quarter, you're not kicking your feet up, but you're starting to feel about as good as Browns fans felt in the fourth quarter on Sunday. If they're over 30 points?

Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, you're going to feel pretty comfortable if, well, obviously, we're going to say the Chiefs are winning and you want to keep the Browns under 35

and you think you win the game. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, fair enough. Chris Mortensen is back with some big reporting. So he has,

Deshaun Watson's apparently upset that he wasn't consulted about who the next Texans GM was going to be. I personally don't think I can blame him. He's the only thing they got right now. I think they should have at least given him a courtesy call.

But Mort is also reporting that Deshaun could be traded to Miami. I was wondering if maybe the Jets are an option. So I want to ask you odds that Deshaun Watson is just in Houston still next season? We'll say over under 75% because it seems likely, but door's open. Yeah. So I think Deshaun Watson is more upset about the head coaching search and the GM search than what appears.

They didn't interview Eric Bien-Ami, which is odd. They interviewed everyone else but Eric Bien-Ami. They hired the guy from New England. I mean, he might interview Eric Bien-Ami too. That's part of this. He might interview him. We don't know what he's going to do.

Deshaun's still upset, I think, about some of the talk dealing with race and on the team and the ownership and some things that were said. And I totally get it. And the kind of insensitivity toward race relations. Is that the way to put it? I think that's probably the best way to put it. I think it's what he's upset about too.

And he has every right to be upset about that. They have not, you know, they said some things in the past. I know someone that was there and yeah, it's all true. But, you know, players don't often hire coaches for a reason. And that's because that's not our job. And the guys that we hire probably wouldn't be good. Because again, it's not our job to hire coaches. You know, Doug Peterson got hired in Philly.

Everyone thought he was the worst hire that entire hiring cycle. He won a Super Bowl. Like, that's why we're not, it's not our job. Now, if they promised him the opportunity to be part of this, it did not give him an opportunity to at least have his say. That's where the problem is, right? It's not that they should give him the opportunity to basically tell him what coach to hire.

It's that he was promised the opportunity to be part of a process. Whether or not the Texans were ever going to include him in the process, like actually include him, is another story. But they should have talked to him about it. And so if I were him, I went out anyways for many reasons. And if any team can afford to trade for him, you do this.

If you're draft quarterbacks right now, Gabe, Pat Mahomes would be one, Deshaun Watson would be two for the future too. Go get Deshaun Watson, everybody. Go do it now. Well, I'm glad you said that. So then that brings me to Miami and New York more specifically. I think the reason Miami's on the list is because they have the picks to,

to burn should be funny given that some of those picks are the Texans picks from moronic trades made by Bill O'Brien, but the Jets have a whole bunch of picks too. And they're, they're going to be sitting on a very valuable pick this year. So I, I would personally rather have Deshaun Watson and give up this year so i i would personally rather have deshaun watson and give up this year's first and maybe next year's first and who knows what else but i mean how big can that package be and are there are there any other teams who have enough to give up in order to get a guy like that because you're not trading player for player like it's got to be picks um i don't

know what the competition number is i'm not i'm not a trade competition guy but i don't know what the compensation number is i'm not a i'm not a trade competition guy but i don't know what would be too much for deshaun watson if you're the jets you trade your first round is he better than justin fields probably i would i i statistically he is right like maybe justin fields turns out to be the best NFL quarterback alive by 24, but it doesn't seem likely statistic. The question I think becomes if you're the jets or anyone else, the dolphins,

let's say jets and dolphins too, is that if the jets trade away all these picks and they can't, and they don't, they're not able to build their roster up around the Sean Watson. Can they win doing that? Probably not. Right. So is it better to just continue to bring in talent,

bring in talent, bring in talent, and hope you hit on Justin Fields, or you keep Sam Darnold and you try to hit on Sam Darnold? For the Dolphins, you've got a pretty good roster already. If you trade those picks away and you add them to your team with continued improvement on the offensive line, you get yourself a wide receiver and free agency you're kind of right there of being competitive team like they make more sense

as far as we can kind of hit the ground running with deshaun watson where the jets probably aren't there yet with their roster so yeah go trade make the trade if you're the jets you'll give yourself deshaun watson fine the roster around him is not that great the team that should be doing is san francisco the niners should trade everything they have for deshaun watson i don't know if they're Watson, fine. The roster around him is not that great. The team that should be doing it is San Francisco. The Niners should trade everything they have for Deshaun Watson. I don't know if they're going to, but they got to do that like now. Again, I don't know if they're going to. That's who I would trade.

I would trade everything I have for Deshaun Watson. They have a Super Bowl caliber roster still. Go get Deshaun Watson. Well, our buddy Matt, who will do the show with you later this week, I'm going to steal this from him, but he would tell you that the niners should probably trade for matt ryan and put matt ryan and shanahan back together for the last couple of years matt ryan has left that he's good enough uh that sounded like a pretty good idea to me in the miami situation you're trading to sean essentially for two end picks and i don't know if everyone wants to do that do you remember when dolphin spins gave me

shit because i told because i told him i didn't think Tua was playing that well this year? Now they're talking about trading him. It's hilarious. Yeah, I don't know. That's how things go. So let's stick with more. This is a fun thing. Nick added this, and I don't have a way to phrase this as an over-under.

Just do it as a follow-up to this topic. The AFC quarterbacks right now, average age is 24. They're an exceptionally young group of guys all of them very talented the average age of the nfc quarterbacks left in the playoffs is 37 they're also talented quarterbacks but they're old as hell if you had to have one of those groups of quarterbacks which group do you want not for the future because obviously the younger guys. For now, who do you want? Old guys or young guys? I'll get Rodgers, Brady, Brees, and Goff. Or I get Mahomes, Baker, Allen, and Lamar.

I'd rather have, for this season, the NFC quarterbacks. The depth. Really? Okay. Yeah. I wasn't sure which way you'd go with that. You have the best quarterback, everyone agrees, on the AFC side in Pat. Then you have two guys who are arguably the next best in Josh and Lamar in the argument with Rodgers.

But then I think it's a step to Breeze and Brady. And then obviously you get into Baker before Goff. But it sounds like the AFC has argument for obviously the number one and then argument for the next two guys. If I'm in the playoffs right now, would I rather have Tom Brady or Josh Allen and Lamar? Same my team is the equal. Talent's equal.

Yeah, we're redrafting all the teams i mean from the current pool i think most people would draft tom tom brady looks fine there's nothing wrong with them you put him on so you think if we were drafting just for this playoff season with a new team it'd be like raw it'd be like rogers mahomes brady wow rogers ahead of my home it depends on what rogers are my homes like 1a 1b and then brady wow huh i i mean i i want to argue with you because i always like to argue that tom brady's overrated but i can't because right now he's winning the brady versus belichick like who who did it better like okay if you fourth quarter not crushing time. Fourth quarter, need to win a playoff game. Mahomes, Rodgers, Brady.

You taking anyone besides Tom Brady? Who's in the playoffs right now? I would take those other two guys before Tom Brady. Right. Those two. Yeah. No, I hate to say it. I probably wouldn't.

I would have to just suck it up and deal with him. Yeah. All right. I'm going to throw this one at you. I don't want to get into the whole politics of it let's just say it's a given that this is a controversial thing whether we agree with it or disagree with it i want to know odds bill belichick accepting a presidential medal medal of honor from president trump later this week as is reported may happen could actually hurt the pats moving forward. 25% chance over under. What does hurt mean? Do you define hurt?

Yeah, here's how I mean it. If he does this right now, accepts this honor from this guy, he is signaling to everyone around the league, especially the players, that I don't give a crap what you think about Trump, this week, the news. This is, I'm with him. I'm his guy.

I want this honor. I want the association. So I don't really care what you think about it or what you think about life. Deal with it. And I think that could be interpreted by free agents, by even guys on his team as kind of an FU. This is interesting. Because obviously. Trump is outgoing. And there are players on teams that support Trump.

Of course. That's their right. So. I. Don't think he will accept it. For the reasons you mentioned. But I. Don't think it would hurt the Patriots, but I don't think he'll accept it just because I don't, he doesn't really seem And this is an honor a lot of people are happy to have. I just wondered if like, it's one thing to just sort of have your political beliefs.

And, you know, right now, a lot, there's certainly a lot of people who support Trump, who just are keeping that quiet, that we've seen the people who are doing it loudly. But I would have thought this would be a time where coaches especially would prefer to have those political beliefs just in the background and not something they're discussing with their players who almost all of whom see it the other way it just seems like a very obvious divide between coaches ad's owners etc guys in charge versus young players what's really interesting is that i don't remember like even when obama was in, I remember being in the locker room during that election. It was my first year and guys talked about it and it's historic,

right? They were debating whether or not, you know, who you're voting for. But I don't remember it really mattering if you're a Democrat or Republican, like it's gotten so divisive now, especially with Trump, where, you know, again, the locker room is full of plenty of different where, you know, again, Lockham was full of plenty of different opinions, ideologies, religions, races, cultures, political views. And, you know, if you,

his name is so divisive that if you say you support him publicly, like as a coach, you turn off players. And if you had said you support George Bush, I don't think you would turn off players. Or if a coach said, I don't support Barack Obama, and you made a case for it that was just like, I'm a conservative. I don't support what he does.

I don't think anyone would really say anything in the locker room. But Trump is looked at as so divisive that I think it's a problem. But he's only president for nine more days. I mean, so I don't know if expecting a Medal of Honor or a Presidential Medal of Freedom, I should say, if expecting a Medal of Honor or Presidential Medal of Freedom, I should say,

not Medal of Honor, but the Presidential Medal of Freedom matters if he's out of office in nine days and kind of everyone forgets it. No, it obviously doesn't. But the reason I brought it up and you took it about as seriously as I was hoping

was because of the optics. Just that you're essentially recruiting young people who see that the president as a major turnoff you're recruiting them to come work for you and if if it's known that you disagree with them on things they think are life and death that could become a problem in your workplace that's all i i don't care about bill belichick's politics he can believe and vote for whoever he wants. I just wondered if it would hinder him as essentially the leader of a team

where he's trying to get 20-something-year-old guys to come play for him. But okay, you helped me clarify. Yeah. All right, last question. Since we can't see the result while we're recording this, national championship game is going on on Monday. This will drop first thing Tuesday morning.

I want to know, are we absolutely sure Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields of Ohio State are going to be 1-2 in the draft? Over or under 99% sure? Yeah, I don't know if it's the Jets at 2, but I would say those two are going 1-2. So the Jets perhaps trade out of that slot for someone who wants Fields at 2. Yes. two so the jets perhaps trade out of that slot for someone who wants fields at two yes but you think those two are going to be one and two just like another you know luck rg3 type year it's just a given these are the guys agreed yes okay yeah that's the way i see it too i i don't i don't have a challenge to that it doesn't seem like anyone can slide up in there but it does mean

then that my jets are probably trading that pick because I don't think they're going for that guy at quarterback. I don't know what they're doing, but I think that we're going 1-2 and it's Fields and Mortz. Just like most years. The quarterbacks go 1-2. It just matters who ends up drafting them at what spot. Alright, well, enjoy the championship game. I won't ask you for a prediction because it won't matter by the time

people hear this. I like Alabama wins, so you can old take me after this if you would like. You could get old take. Ohio State surprised people last night. Oh no. What will happen? I'll be wrong about something. Oh my God. The horror. No. Don't want to be wrong about anything.

All right, guys. Have a great couple of days. We'll be back on Thursday with our Gamblers. You had a good week. We had a good week we had a good week yeah so we'll continue to to do that hope you enjoyed the show

please rate, review, subscribe and we'll talk to you then alright guys have a good one