Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -1/19- Predicting Championship Weekend; Kravitz Employs Fans to Use Caution With Rumors

Episode Date: January 19, 2017

Matt goes through the #AFC and #NFC Championship matchups, predicting the #SuperBowl teams & following more rumors in the Twitter-sphere, Bob Kravitz tells #Colts fans to pump the brakes on believing everything you read. Sound familiar? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more about our healthy benefits at fepblue.org slash getmore. No, I'm not for sale. You are lockeded On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Colts, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Matt Dainley. Thank you for joining me here on January 19th on a Thursday and today we've got a little bit of extra stuff to talk about. We're going to go through pretty briefly what we should expect to see this weekend in the playoff games. They should be pretty exciting games nonetheless. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

So let's get started first with a little bit of news. Obviously, I think a lot of you saw Bob Kravitz's article today on some of the rumors and stuff that have been going around. And a little bit, you know, he kind of addressed a certain, with one of the articles that they ran with and, uh, won't talk about the website. Won't give them the time of day, but I do know Jim, the writer, uh, at least, uh, you know, well, I don't want to say I know him, but we've followed each other for a little while on Twitter, um, and stuff like that. So definitely no personal connection or anything like that. But, uh, and I won't bash him for what he wrote, but there's, you know, a lot of that kind of stuff that, and it's kind of something that we

talked about the other day. You know, I made a comments about how a lot of this information has already been out there and floated around pieces of it in one general direction or another. And then there's been some stuff added to it. I didn't really see, uh, that there was a significant amount of new information in there. I mean, there's a little bits and pieces and stuff like that, but, uh, you know, basically, uh, just to get the gist of it, uh, I'll give you my honest opinion on it. Like I said, I'm not going to bash Jim or anything like that for what he wrote, but I will give my opinion on it. And, you know, Bob made an honest attempt basically.

You know what was kind of funny, though? I don't know if you guys ever heard about this story several months ago, probably sometime in September, where one of the guys from FanRag Sports broke a story. It was something with baseball. Jay Mariotti, the former guy who used to be on Around the Horn, the Chicago Tribune guy who's now a blogger, threw a fit about the guy from FanRag Sports breaking the story and started calling out bloggers on Twitter and stuff like that. And the best part about it was that Mariotti literally has blogger in his Wikipedia page that he, you know, and I just thought it was funny that he was trying to act

a little holier than thou being that he's a woman beater and is literally a blogger himself. So I thought that was kind of funny, but it did kind of remind me of the, I mean, you know, and for what it's worth as well, Bob Kravitz has always been a good guy to me, respectful to me. I'm not trying to be a jerk to him either, but it did kind of come off a little bit

as kind of one of those, you know, get off my lawn type things. Bob is, uh, extremely good at his job, very well connected, obviously, uh, and always has been. So, I mean, uh, he's one of the guys that most of us, uh, and I would assume that a lot of you who are listening that you listen to, or that's who you go for the information if something like that is expected to break, or if something is breaking. You typically believe what Bob says.

Bob doesn't just throw out Rudy Poot suggestions or thoughts. If he's legitimately hearing it from a few different sources, then he puts it out there, and that's what he was kind of getting at, that this is an unnamed source, you know, nobody, you know, knows who it is or anything like that. And that the guys at the website more or less basically said, we don't care if you tell us our source or your source or who it is or anything like that. Just just write the article because it's going to get us some page views and stuff like that. And it's a fairly small time, low, brand new little website and so on. And so they're going to take all the views and whatnot that they can get and attempt to seem relevant in a big site world, which is kind of what we do, you know, big, bigger sites do better. So the, the thing that kind of gets to me with Bob is that he kind of pulled that kind of a Jay Mariotti

thing just a little bit, you know, kind of a trust the big guys. Uh, you know, if you're not gonna, you don't want to listen to these guys and stuff. Um, so that was there, but in a very small bit and very accurate context on Bob's part. So I just, I guess I'm just kind of going through all my thoughts on this all at once and, and just kind of, uh, thinking how it drove me back to the Mariotti thought. And it made me laugh a little bit, but in short, you know, Bob says basically that they didn't know his source. And I'll be honest, this is my thought. I don't think that Jim knows who his source is either. I think that Jim's probably, here's the problem. You don't, you're most of us in, uh, low level journalism, okay. Or blogging or whatever you want to call it, we don't just fall into a

conversation on the street with Colts executives, okay? That doesn't happen. Even those of us that go to camp or go to games or just whatever, you don't just fall into conversations like that, that's not something that happens. And for a guy who hasn't really, I mean, as far as I know, hasn't written much at all recently, and maybe he has, I don't know, to be honest with you, that seems like almost otherworldly, like almost an impossibility. else is possibly talking to somebody who's getting second or third information from somebody else who might be getting information from somebody else. Granted, you know, people have pointed out that it's a detailed story. Of course it is. But it doesn't take a genius to come up with that kind of a thought process that that's the idea behind a Peyton Manning, what kind of a deal he would want, and so on and so forth. Like I said, that had been all floated out previous to any of this talk on Twitter or

this article or any of that as well. But like I said, I don't think that Jim knows his source. I think that Jim's source is somebody else who's getting information from somebody else who might be getting information from someone else who might be getting information from someone they consider a source. That's strictly opinion. I don't know any of that to be true. Like I said, that's just my opinion because of the thought process in my head, the people that I talk to. None of us fall into those situations. Guys who cover the team and have been covering the team locally for, don't fall into those situations very often. You know, guys who have been there for 10 plus years, they talk to some of those guys,

but they, you know, unless they have something they want to get out, they're not going to bring that kind of stuff up in casual conversation. So, uh, how these newsbreakers like a Schefter, you know, a lot of that is, uh, through agents of agents and what they have, uh, similar agents to players or coaches or just whoever, whatever the news is becoming, you know, a lot of those guys have that kind of a relationship to get the information that they've got and they get, and they they're good at it and they do it and they are confident about it so that they get a ton of it. And that's how that works. So otherwise, you know, I just don't, uh, really have much other of an opinion about it. Like I said, people said it was detailed. I'm sure that it was, but none of that was information that hadn't been floated out or assumed or thought

of previous to that. I don't know, to be quite 110% honest with you, I don't care either. It's good to talk about. It's always fun to talk about. All this stuff is good stuff to talk about. It's interesting with the clown show that the Indianapolis Colts have become in the past couple years, really. I mean, just with the uncertainty of the head coaching position, nobody being happy with the GM, and that carrying over to this offseason. That's what people want to talk about. That's interesting to people, and I get that.

But, you know, just thought I would offer my own personal thoughts on that. Maybe I rambled a little bit. Maybe I get that. But, you know, just thought I would offer my own personal thoughts on that. Maybe I rambled a little bit. Maybe I didn't. But, you know, that's my thoughts. So let's look at these games. I mean, we've got a couple of really, really good games for the conference championship set up. Green Bay is at Atlanta, a four and two seed, and Pittsburgh at New England, a three and a one seed. Super interesting games, excellent matchups. I think that it's more than realistic to say that those are the two best teams in each conference. Don't get me wrong, the Cowboys were fantastic, and they just didn't quite make it past a Green Bay team that has the best quarterback in the world right now.

So that's something that you have to consider. But Pittsburgh, aside from being inconsistent sometimes and laying some stinkers, they have some amazing talent on offense, and their defense has been unreal you know just unreal the past several weeks New England is New England everybody knows that Atlanta's offense is absolutely off the charts on white hot fire right now or red hot if I guess so let's go through this first game Green Bay at Atlanta I know what my head wants to tell me right away. And my head wants to tell me that Aaron Rodgers is going to win this game because he's Aaron

Rodgers. He proved last week that he doesn't need Jordy Nelson. I think we talked about that the week before. Jordy Nelson is a fantastic weapon for him in that offense, but he doesn't need him, and he's proven that. Week after week, certain guys can be stepping up. Geronimo Allison, other guys, just random guys can be the hero, so to speak, for that game. Other guys, it could be Ty Montgomery in this game. You just don't know. That defense has been pretty great as well. Pretty good against the run. Has been better than expected with their secondary issues against the pass, I think. I don't think that too many people would disagree with that. On the other hand, Atlanta, a team that had a very subpar defense throughout the majority of the season,

their defense has come to play in the playoffs. There's no two ways about that. And that offense is just phenomenal. They're playing in Atlanta. It's at 3-0-5 on Sunday. And I almost want to flip a coin on this one, but here's my thought process. I want Aaron Rodgers to get that extra opportunity at a Super Bowl for his legacy, because I think his legacy deserves him to get that extra Super Bowl opportunity and possibly the Super Bowl victory, because his career is going to be one that we talk about 20 or 30 years from now as being the best quarterback ever to play the game, I think, or at least one of a couple guys. And one of the guys in the AFC championship game is the other

one. But on the other hand, Matt Ryan has been so disappointing in some of his past seasons, and he is having a phenomenal season this year. He did some of it without Julio. Tyler Gabriel, some of those guys have stepped up. Their running game is phenomenal. Both of those guys in the backfield are weapons. They have so much with Shanahan back there calling plays to where they can set up the pass with the run,

set up the run with the pass, set up the run with a different run. I mean, they have so many options in that offense and have so many pieces right now and such a fantastic play caller. And Matt Ryan has proved to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. I'm going to pick Atlanta in this one, and it's going to be by a field goal. So I'm going to say, and I think this could be one of those games, though. We've seen Green Bay and Atlanta just continue to shoot up in the points, and I'm almost wanting to say 30-27 in this one. I just don't think it's going to quite go to that level where, you know, it's 40-37 or 38-35, something like that, to where everyone's like, God, it was just a track meet. You know, I think it's going

to be 30-27. There's going to be some nerves in this game from somebody on both teams, whether it's on their defensive side or some of their offensive playmakers. I think two things. I think this would be a bad game for Aaron Rodgers to lay a stinker and have a bad game, and I think it would be a bad game for Matt Ryan to do that. I want to see both of these games, but I want to see this game very much because I think this is two really up and like, uh, teams that have built their way up in the past eight to 10 weeks and deserve to be where they're at. But I'm going to go with Atlanta 3027. Now, uh, Pittsburgh goes to new England and Foxborough. Uh, this is, in my opinion, this is not a good matchup for either team, but it's a worse matchup for Pittsburgh. And I say that because New England's defense is surprising. A lot of people have all season. Tom Brady is phenomenal. It does not matter what somebody talks about his last couple playoff games,

the specific statistics of it. Tom Brady is a gamer. He will be there, and he will have his team absolutely pumped and his offensive guys ready to make plays. That's just the bottom line. Then you've got the best coach in NFL history, in my opinion, there as well. That's another side to it. That's going to be a know uh that's a big

hill to climb for pittsburgh uh tomlin's a great coach i think i think ben roethlisberger is one of the most criminally underrated quarterbacks in nfl history i think that he's a guy who's definitely going to be uh in the conversation for uh not only the hall of fame but in the conversation for not only the Hall of Fame, but in the conversation for maybe top 10 quarterbacks of all time. And he absolutely should be. The thing that kind of gives me a little bit of pause is just last week, for example, against a team with a good defense and a very suspect offense. They could do nothing but put up field goals against the Chiefs. They didn't really look impressive at all. All three of those guys, the Killer Bs, none of them had crossed the goal line.

That's a kind of a game. And I think that this bodes well for them, just that they didn't get in the end zone for this game. Because, I mean, what are the chances of them not doing that again, right? I mean, Pittsburgh's a very good team. They do struggle at times. But I'm very curious to watch this game. I can't wait.

I think this is going to be a fantastic game. But I also think that Pittsburgh has to have an all-time game for them to win in Foxborough. New England is amazing at home. Pittsburgh is not typically one of those teams that has the ability to knock off the Patriots at home, in my opinion. Baltimore is more suited to do that regardless of how terrible they are at times. But being that last week that they didn't get across the goal, they didn't score any touchdowns. You know what? I'm going with Pittsburgh here and I'm going 27-26. This is a

one-point game. It's a field goal at the end, at the buzzer, in Foxborough, sending all of the Patriots faithful home, throwing things, hating life, burning terrible tiles outside of the stadium. the game's sake because obviously the Colts aren't in it. So I want to see the best game possible. But I definitely think that we could have an absolute explosion of offense with Atlanta and Pittsburgh just the same. So I think Pittsburgh is going to come out hot in this one. I really do. And that's the main reason why is because they just left so much on the field last week. So I got Pittsburgh and Atlanta going to the Super Bowl. That's going to be a fantastic game. I think that the NFL will hate that because New England's not in the game and Green Bay's not in the game. But I would love to see Atlanta or Green Bay against either one of those teams. I think the best matchups that if they were to be in the Super Bowl,

if Green Bay was to win, I think their best matchup would be against New England because you've got those two quarterbacks going head-to-head and all their legacy talk and everything that would come with it. Atlanta and Pittsburgh would be, in my opinion, the second best matchup because you have Matt Ryan, a guy who is still trying to form his legacy. Then you have Ben Roethlisberger, a guy who has had some ups and downs, some bad years. I think that Luck's kind of following his trajectory right now, to be quite honest with you, except for the fact

that, you know, Roethlisberger had a Super Bowl early on in his career. But this is, I think that that's something that if he gets to the, if Roethlisberger gets to the Super Bowl, this would be humongous for his career and equally large and huge, I mean, for Matt Ryan's career, because he really doesn't have to do anything else. Uh, he's got a Superbowl win if he gets there and wins it. So, uh, that's who I got. I got Atlanta and Pittsburgh going to the final game, the Superbowl, and it should be a super exciting. Uh, I hope you guys all enjoy this weekend's games. And I wanted to, I do want to say, reiterate that, uh, I'm sorry for some of you that took my little fake interview the other day to heart. I tried to write it in the show notes so that you guys understood that it wasn't to be taken seriously.

I thought that a lot of what I said was letting you know that it wasn't serious. I mean, who talks in a donut shop? Come on, guys. But I do promise not to do that again. I thought it would be funny. I laughed. I thought it was funny. I think a lot of other people did too. Um, but for those of you that kind of, you know, that I got, so to speak, uh, I'm sorry. So I won't do that again, but thank you guys for joining me again. And I will, uh, talk to you guys all tomorrow,

right here on Lock locked on Colts. You are locked on Colts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts, part of the locked on podcast network, your team every day. We'll see you next time.