NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - 2022 Super Wild Card Weekend Recap: The Product is Good

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

A room filled with some heroes - Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler and Gregg Rosenthal recap a super exciting Super Wild Card weekend of playoff football, starting with the only non-one-score game, Seahawks at 49ers (2:44). Then we hit Chargers at Jaguars (18:57), Dolphins at Bills (43:28), Giants at Vikings (57:15), and finally finish with Ravens at Bengals (1:12:41). Note: timecodes approximate.NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The Around the NFL podcast, Super Wild Card Weekend was super duper, duper. From the Chris Wesleying podcast studio, it's Around the NFL flagship show. Yes, Jason Zumwalt said it is Super Wild Card Weekend. It's almost through, boys. We've got one more game, but today's show, tonight show is recapping all the crazy action of Saturday and Sunday. Dan Hans is here. Greg Rosenthal, Mark Sessler.

Hey, boys. It's a little wild. Always feels a little different when we're taping the whole show after what was Sunday night football. Bengals, Ravens, that ball just slipping right outside of James Prochay's hand. But I guess it's fitting. Crazy. Crazy weekend. Yes.

Mark, it was crazy, wasn't it? I mean, so after the Seattle, San Francisco game, I thought maybe the league, to some degree now that it's playoff time, has returned to the form that I recall from when we started this show, where you get a dotting of playoff games that are close, but a couple of blowouts in there. We've gone totally acid trip with the league. Like, outside of that contest, which even was close at halftime, every game seems to veer into the totally absurd and bizarre and wild and wonderful. plays in perfectly to, and listeners of the show, long-time listeners, no, I've done this before, pro bono, by the way.

I offer up league slogans. Sure. I have one, just one to share. Okay. The NFL, we're not perfect. And by the way, neither are you. But our product, it's good. It works.

How would just take out the whole first sentence and go right to the product is good? Sometimes I don't like, you know, of course, NFL, our league, it's a big target. but how about we look in the mirror before we start throwing stones? That's part of a part of a broader message I wanted to get out there to the people as well. Yeah, they're protecting themselves in a way that no one can critique.

Oh, you're shooting from behind bulletproof glass. Why don't you step aside so we could actually converse like humans? What's your critique of our sport? Oh, yeah. I think the through line here is like, oh, you don't like some of our calls or something like that.

Were you not entertained? Yeah. Have you seen our ratings? What if we just pivot to being like a totally carrying the water podcast for the next 20 years? I think it would be lucrative. Yeah. Certainly.

So anyway, we're going to get into all the games. Let's roll through it Saturday through Sunday. And there was, and here's the thing, to Mark's point, there was only one blowout this weekend. But even that game, the team that eventually got blown out was freaking winning at halftime. That's how wild, super wildcard weekend was. So let's head to the big bell bottom where the San Francisco 49ers looked to make their Lombardi Trophy March. well get it going let's just just play it fake the toss they roll purdy let's play it purdy going to throwback middle wide open debo samuel down the sideline

50 40 debo 30 debo 20 debo 10 debo touchdown san francisco where the 49ers wanted to start their march to the lombardi trophy in style that would have been a better way to get into that highlight. Well, you did it. No, well, there's no doovers. Anyway, Greg Papa, K&BR with the call. Depot, man. It's good that he's back.

All this, like, excitement about Brock Purdy. Happened with Debo Samuel, resting up, getting ready after he was injured. And now he's back, and he's just another weapon for this incredible Niners attack and a great defense to boot. And you saw both sides of that. in a 41-23 win over the Seahawks. And Greg, I got to start with Purdy here because I know he wasn't perfect, especially in the first half, but as he heated up with the rest of the Niners

and they went on a 25-point run and took control of this game, it just showed once again that this team at its top gear looks like they can beat anybody, even with a seventh round pick, start making a sixth start. Yeah, you just start wondering who can stop this offense, especially in the NFC. Although I look around the league and I don't know because I think Purdy's struggles pointed out how incredible this offense is.

I agree with that. He was Cheeks in the first half. Cheeks. As the kids would say. Like, he played poorly. Cheeks. And at half time, I kept seeing this analysis. Like, well, the Seahawks played a perfect half.

Can they like back it up? And I'm thinking, like, yeah, they had the lead. Offensively, they were doing great. They gave up 250 yards in the first half and only stopped the 49ers one time and it felt like they were just like trying to hold the damn water back and they're giving up explosive plays. And again, that's with Purdy being erratic,

trying to throw interceptions, like being late in terms of his timing. But just the first few drives, like throwing towards Seattle. A little nervous. He seemed to have some nerves. He is a rookie after all. But it didn't matter. Like they got the open receivers, they moved forward, and then he started doing his purdy thing, and it was just a nightcap. It was over.

I mean, we constantly credit other young quarterbacks for working themselves out of corners and, you know, not. P-word. Not losing their head. Showing poise. Sure. I mean, but he's had a couple games here where, like, he was perfect early on. This obviously was a different case, and it didn't, it just doesn't seem to really matter with the Niners, because over the course of 60s. minutes, they just simply overpower you.

I think it's a scheme thing, too, to some degree, because all three of his touchdown throws were to wide open receivers who had five plus yards of separation. He had 179 yards of wide open receiver, yards after the catch. I mean, it's like this offense is set up to fly if you can

play competently a quarterback, but he's more than that. Right. And I think that's much more than that. I think what's really interesting when you hear from whether it's Kyle Shanahan or his teammates, everyone is compliment of them but also you don't hear them saying things like the way you hear certain guys talk about you know the top level quarterbacks in the league like i can't believe what this guy does

because this offense is so beautifully schemed up and so loaded with talent that you're right even with all the throws he missed early on in this game they still piled up they were on pace for 500 yards at the halfway point and then when purdy settled in it was like shooting fish in a barrel really it was it was complete it was so easy and it makes me just appreciate gregg Kyle Shanahan and what he's been able to build here even more. And John Lynch, of course, working in tandem to build this roster. It's a fully functional death machine right now. Totally agree.

And the way that they've put these pieces together where a little bit like that 2016 Falcons team, but better where it's like a basketball team where every different. I know, but at least in terms of the skill position, where every player, including Elijah Mitchell, who is a factor, in this game, of course, including Kittle, has a different skill set. They all do different things. And at the end of the game, Purdy's completion percentage over expected was basically even.

It was like 0.3 because you would be expected to make those throws. You'd be expected to make a 5-yard throw to Debo Samuel. You don't expect Debo Samuel to take it 74 yards. Those crossing routes were just wide open all day. And this was a great matchup for them. They had dominated the Seahawks on both sides of the ball physically in two regular season meetings. They did it again. Seattle had no answer. Tariq Wulin kind of got exposed a little bit on those in-breaking routes. But you started with Debo. I thought that was a great place to because, man,

that was the most Debo-Debo's looked all season and I think that puts them at another level. Yeah. And I mean, with the Seahawks, because they did hang around and it's credit to them. And overall, you can look at Seattle and say, I'm glad they didn't pull an upset there because the Niners to me are the team that, you know, mention it. I can think they can challenge Philadelphia. They can challenge Kansas City. They can challenge any. The addition of Christian McCaffrey is like Debo times two because he gets it from any point in the field and he's explosive and suddenly his 35 yards down field

or running for a touchdown. But with Gino I thought the Niners had the back-to-back-to-back touchdowns and then coaxed Gino into that interception. They had the Charles and Menehue like fumble recovery. The fumble was in it. The interception by then it was over. But that fumble was the like everything pivoted right there and it's like there seems to be if you go back and look,

they've scored under 33 points once the Niners, since week 12. And it's like they're just so explosive, but it's like you almost forget that their defense creates those plays too. And like Gino Smith, it was better than that Thursday night game, but it got ugly for them.

And you just got hit to a point where it's like, Seattle's not getting the way out of this. He played well. I thought Gino in this game. And at that point where he fumbled it, you're right, they were just trying to keep up.

The 49ers had scored to start the second half to take the lead back. At that point, it's 23 to 7. At that point, the 49ers had scored five times in six drives. They would go on to score nine times and ten drives. Like, they scored every drive except for that one punt. And that sequence, I thought, was very telling. They had a short-yard situation.

There's an offensive line penalty. They had a ton of offensive line penalties. It backed them up to second and 14. Then it was third and 14. And they got quick pressure, got the fumble on Gino. And it felt like the game's over because there's no margin for error against the 49ers. and I think if you replayed this game 10 times, I'm not sure if the Seahawks win any of them.

And I don't say that in the NFL too often, but I just don't think it would happen too often. We had a very good 2-7 game on the other side in the other conference, which we'll get to later. But this was more in line with what we've seen so far since they have added these playoff teams. You get a team that's in the old days had a buy. They were so good they had to buy.

They were the second seat in the league. They had 13 or 14 wins. Now they're playing in the wildcard weekend. one of the great titans of the league and you get this team that's very marginal in terms of making the playoffs and this is the type of games we're going to continue to see

I think more than more often than not even though the NFL even in its new slogan the product it's good and it has been it wasn't so good in the second half of this game I hear from Pete Carroll I was talking about how it's kind of interesting hearing the way Brock Purdy's teammates

and his coaches talk about him here's what Carol had to say about Purdy Brock Purdy did a really good job to stay in life. I don't know why we could have that we go. We chased him all over the place. And, you know, he's not known for being the greatest scramble. We look like Fran Tarkening out there today. I want to point that out.

I wanted to play that because his best play of the game, ironically, was an incomplete pass. It was after the game was kind of decided they were in the red zone. He did this really, like, savvy, athletic, scramble moving across the field, keeping his eyes up field, spotting Brandon Ayuk in the back corner of the end zone and then throwing an absolute dart right in his hands. And you couldn't handle the ball. But it just shows how much confidence Purdy's playing with. And you put it all together,

even on and not a truly dominant day by the San Francisco defense, you know that's in them as well. It's all there for them to go all the way. I think they have that potential. It absolutely is. And I, like, Ice called Purdy like a superhuman being, like a superhuman, like on the Thursday show, which is an overstatement, obviously.

But I just think it's hilarious that how many quarterbacks around the league that like we're in year two of these people, year two and a half, and it's like, we've got to have patience with these young people. Like what Brock Purdy is doing right now, and I don't need him to be perfect. It's just like the fact, like from the neck up, everything, like he just fits right in. And like the idea that with this offense,

Debo hadn't really done much with Brock Party, he fits right in. Like the way that they're operating right now, they seem totally unstoppable. Because the Seahawks in the first half of this game did what you asked. They were mistake-free. Geno played well. They did all they could do.

But it's like they can't, you cannot, you have to play more than a complete game. You have to coax the Niners into like a disaster zone, and you can't do it. I mean, they played fantastic back-to-back long touchdown drives and then got the sneaky field goal right before the half when the 49ers left them a little time to do it. I was worried as a Gino fan, as a Seahawks fan, although we did lock up the 49ers, so I was, you know, feeling.

Oh, that's right. Some mixed feelings to me and March did that. We were never two. I was never. I was never. I was ever crazy. Three of us. That's right.

Good job. grave ticket. I knew they were. It was even within seven games of 500. I think you're officially eliminated. You have to be by this point. I am eliminated. I'm going for a positive record.

Do we keep the people that are eliminated? Do they keep locking? Yeah. Yeah. That's what we've done in the past. Is that how sports works? I feel like you've been eliminated. We'll see you next season.

It's like the NFL regular season. You keep. You could still get up to fifth or whatever. Take me out of it. What do I need to be here? I think you've eliminated yourself. Just out of my misery. If you're, if you don't want to do it anymore,

if it's important to you to get back. to 500 or whatever. Okay, maybe I'll do one more. In fairness, suggested, I think everyone's kept picking to the end. Let's just keep it going right now. I'm one game out of. What were you saying? I knew we were in trouble when Purdy, when he broke out of the pocket.

And he did some of those Zach Wilson plays where he's doing the, you know, turns his back and starts running around. You get worried, but he usually gets out of it. But at one point, he broke to his left. And he did sort of like a high step to the sideline. I think it was Cody Barton coming. And I was like, did he just put like? a hesitation high step move on Barton, Martin, like

they're in trouble. He, I mean, he did miss like Debo Samuel who was wide open in the middle of the field. He made a couple unperty-like decisions. The first two or three drives. I'll call him unperty-like at this point because he's not done that in these other games. After the first two or three drives, though, I thought he played a great game. Yeah. It just was kind of early

nerves, I think. And I could say this because I'm very experienced in this world called legacy scarring with young quarterbacks, coaching matters, and general setup matters, the scheme that you're putting them into. I'm not saying if Zach Wilson was in San Francisco, he'd be thriving right now, but I bet he'd be a hell of a lot better than he has been with the Jets.

Mack Jones is a perfect example in New England. He was in a functional offense last year. It was set up much better for him to be successful, and he was successful. You took some of those elements out of play, and Max Jones all of a sudden looked like a guy that was a borderline starter or worse, this is not a knock on Purdy, but he hit the lotto. He really did.

He did. But I think it's, I'm not willing to take something away from Purdy by saying, I know you're not advocating for Zach Wilson, but Zach Wilson is Zach Wilson. Purdy is something totally unexpected. And I think a lot of it has to do with his preparation, the person, the locker room absolutely adores him. I mean, they just don't even seem surprised by his progress.

This is the human being of Purdy versus just, Fill in the blank quarterback. I just, I do push, not push back, but it's just, to me, this is the story of this juggernaut. And a rare case in the NFL where a coach and a GM are allowed to have a vision over a long period of time. And we've seen it reach the Super Bowl. We've seen it reach the NFC championship game. But it feels like this is like the full culmination of everything they've been doing. They're nasty.

They're going to be set up next year. I think Gino Smith's going to be set up next year too. Quickly, we do have sound since we're saying goodbye to him. I don't think we're saying goodbye to him as a member of the Seahawks, though. I want to finish my career in Seattle. I want to be here. The town, the city, the team, Coach Carroll, the organization, they all embraced me. You know, I was a guy who probably could have been out of the league.

They embraced me. And I want to repay him for that. Between that comment and Pete Carroll really going hard on, like, after the game, saying Gino Smith has shown us what level of quarterback he is and there's only reason to think he can get better and they ask him a question and he's like I want him. I just think they'll be able to find

some sort of contractual compromise and our guy Ian Rapport said that they would be willing to use the franchise tag to keep them if they needed to. So just hearing that it seems like I think there's enough common ground there between the two sides to get a deal done. Who loves Gino more outside of you, Greg, than P. Carroll

And who's shown more faith from the start? outside of you, Greg, than Pete Carroll. And it's like, I think you can find a way. You're looking always for that rookie quarterback on a contract. You build a team around him. But you can... What? Wait a second.

I want to repay them for that. That makes you think, is he looking to take a hometown discount? Because this is his one chance to get paid on the open market, Gino. I think that is sort of what it said. That maybe he's not going to push the issue. You can't tell me that the Seahawks are seriously thinking about paying him $45 million on a one-year deal next year? It's a big difference.

30 is not bad at all for a guy. But the thing, even just having that out there that they might be willing to use, it just is a starting point where I don't even think, we'll talk about it in the offices that they'll need to get to that point. You don't get to a franchise on a quarterback

unless there's some discord or you can't agree on stuff. I think Gino in the Seahawks canon would be a contract that would not blow the ceiling off the joint. It's like a two-year thing with 45 guaranteed or something. I know there's different. levels of franchise tag. I'm just going off CBS here. The 2023 exclusive quarterback franchise tag currently

projects to 45.248 million. That's exclusive which means like no team can give up two first round picks. So they wouldn't give him right. No. No. Okay. No one's doing that for Gino Smith. I believe that's around that. And that was another addition of sipping on Vino, checking on Gino. I mean big season of that. 32. Absolutely. A lot of Vino. Roughly. We don't Not the official numbers, it better be roughly 32. All right.

There you go. Let's take a break and we will hit the Saturday night burn burner in Duval. All right, welcome back. This stuff is interesting to me. So just to circle back here with the franchise tag, the exclusive tag, teams must offer the selected player a one-year contract no less than either the average of the top five salaries at that player's position based on April, the current year, or 120 percent of the player's previous year salary, whichever is greater.

The non-exclusive is teams must offer the selected player a one-year contract, no less than the average of the top five cap hits of that player's position or 120 of the player's previous salary, whichever is greater. I don't think we're getting there. Obviously, that's significantly different. And it's going to be a conversation with the quarterback we're going to talk about the plate on Sunday. Big time, bro.

Big time. But first, let's finish up the Saturday night schedule. and at his game that started out as a blowout and then turned into a majestic comeback from a Florida team. Cook puts it down. Patterson's kick is up. The field goal is good, good, good.

The Jaguars have won it. The Jaguars have won it. They have come back from 27-0 to win the game. Just made it in there. How good is that? Hey, break Frangie, that's real good. It's great! And you get the bongos.

Yes, you do. As a result. Two weeks in a row, I think. Oh, man, if Graver did not give the Jax the bongos at a spite. No, he's good at that. Titans fans. It got even worse for Titans fans. We'll get to the Grey Digger and some Titan stuff.

We'll later this kind of. It got even worse. I thought we banned the Titans. We're now right back in it. Frank Frandy with a call WOKV. And that's how you call that game. We're going to get to another favorite of ours a little bit later too. So there it is.

The field goal is good. Riley Patterson just sneaks it inside the upright. And it allows the Jacksonville Jaguars to escape with a 3,130 win over the Chargers. One of the great comebacks in the history of the sport. This was a Jaguar team that lost the turnover battle 5 Zilch and Trevor Lawrence threw four picks in the first half and they were down 27 Zip and yet they find away. And Mark, when I, you and I have been doing this a long time

and you may remember the January 2014 Andrew Luck game against the Chiefs where they were down 28 points. And after a really bad first half, Andrew Luck went nuts and threw for 443 and four touchdowns in that game. And who is the player that Trevor Lawrence has been compared to entering the league? It was Andrew Luck. This was a generational quarterback with a monster performance that will never be forgotten. Absolutely. And I think that, you know, a lesser team, I mean, this is a team with zero playoff experience across the board,

players that weren't even in the league a couple years ago. And you could just look around the NFL and see teams that would have, crumbled after that first half. And this is, this Jaguars team, whether it's Doug Peterson or Trevor Lawrence, is made of something different. Pissed off, Angelo. Not tonight. I think the feelings are opposite.

You come out of this game with it being about the loser for a lot of reasons, which we'll get to. This reminded me of, obviously, for other reasons, that Colts Vikings game and something that we were texting about in that Colts Vikings game where you said, Dan, if the Vikings can just get a touchdown before halftime, all. the mistakes they've made have happened in such an abbreviated amount of time. Because as I was watching Trevor Lawrence throw pick after pick, it was like, this is a disaster, except this isn't in the third or fourth quarter. This is happening so early that there's so much time to work your way

out of this if you can pull it together. And I want to just point to one thing that I thought that was very indicative of the last week plus with the Chargers. And it was when they were up 27-0. And it was a third and one for the Chargers that they're own 27. and Justin Herbert audible to a planned down jet sweep and I mentioned this because it was the play where Michael Bandy came around there was a botch job on third down

they were forced to punt and the Jaguars took the ensuing drive into the touchdown into the end zone 27-7 and suddenly after all this nightmareishness you're only down by 20 with a half to go and on that play it was initially you know weeks ago it would be Mike Williams

who would have done the jet sweep And so first of all, you're... Mark tied it all together. You got it. You're Joe Lombardi. Put it on a car for Christmas. Merry Chris. Joe Lombardi and you kept the play in the playbook.

Bad idea because it was D'Andre Carter who was Mike Williams' backup who would have done this. But D'Andre Carter was injured by the time that play happened. And so you get Michael Bandy, who Herbert mentioned after the game, was Michael Bandy didn't even know what he was supposed to be doing on that play. So that is a coaching disaster, mixed with a situational disaster, mixed with a mistake by a team that couldn't hold on to a lead

and it opened up the doorway for a Jaguars squad that walked right back in. How good is that? I had to go back to rewatch how this all happened and that was one of the plays where you thought if they just got a yard on this play, they're going to win that game. Which is crazy to say

but I really think they would have. They would have ended the first half. If Herbert had hit a wide open Allen when they were up 24, nothing. Herbert played pretty well in this game for the most part, made a lot of plays that weren't there. Certainly his life was harder. I think than Trevor Lawrence was in terms of he was really having to work for tough plays, but misses that throw. Then you think about the Joey Bosa mistakes. Like I can't remember a single player having a bigger meltdown. Lining up in

the neutral zone on a play where they got a sack and would have forced Jacksonville to kill. a field goal when they were trying to make that comeback was another four-point play. Then he had the penalties obviously left to the two-point conversion. We can go through all the plays that they messed up. But it's like the other team also has to take advantage of it. And Jacksonville did

the whole freaking time. And I'm just so impressed by Doug Peterson and Lawrence and Tred. Balki especially, like every single one of their free agent pickups from last season. And everyone's wearing the Balki clown nose to the stadium. Like,

all their leading receivers, and then Foley Fatukasi with the biggest play on defense of the game, all free agents that weren't on the team a year ago. Let the Jaguars serve as the ultimate example, no matter how downtrod and you are. Things can change quickly in the league. It helps when you have a generational talent, a quarterback hit the scene. And after making the worst hire of the decade in Urban Meyer, you make perhaps one of the best when it's all said and done in Doug Peterson, who I thought was amazing in this game.

everything he did was the right call in the Joey Bosa play after the touchdown what is the pull it would have pulled them the extra point after the score would have pulled him within three an obvious extra point situation

and he gets a second penalty for arguing with the refs so Bosa is cool gets the second penalty having the distance of the two point for the point after and he goes for two which he's getting he would let's be fair

because we'd probably be given him something right now if they didn't get it done. But that was faith in his offense, faith in his players and his scheme. And they convert that. And it's kind of unheard of to have onions at that level to then set it up where when you do get the ball back, you're winning the game with a field goal, which they did. So Peterson. That's a big analytics thing. And you say it's unheard of, but Doug Peterson was doing a lot back in 2017 with that team too. It reminds you. It's happening in the playoffs. I just have a lot of respect for it. Let's hear from Peterson talking about Trevor Lawrence and who he reminds him of.

I played with one of the greatest quarterbacks ever in Brett Farr. And there were times when, you know, he didn't have a great first half and came back in the second half and could light it up. And that's what I'd love about Trevor and his demeanor and his aggressiveness and the ability to just forget and move on. But he'll be the first one to tell you that it's not about him. It's the guys around him too. made plays.

Protection was good. Receivers were doing a nice job being where they needed to be. But, you know, from an individual standpoint, it was, this is really a great performance by our quarterback. I think that we saw Trevor Lawrence, because we mentioned it on the show a bunch, go through sort of a psychological shift in that London game where it's like, I'm not going to be the same Trevor Lawrence.

I'm going to be someone new. And that's been the case. But it's also coaching because if you're Doug Peterson, and he was like best friends with Brett Farve. I mean, his backup forever. Like, you have so many anecdotes. stories of one of the greats melting and being like, Trevor, you're going to be fine. And like, I just, you felt that with Trevor Lawrence, but it was also schematic because

the Chargers and Brandon Staley were adequately, you know, praised for using all sorts of disguised coverages against Trevor Lawrence early on in the game. And if you look at Trevor Lawrence's numbers against disguised coverage, it falls off a shelf. He's not the same guy. But Peterson countered in the second half with a rash of hurry-up snaps. And of their 15 hurry-up snaps, 12 came in the second half. They averaged 10.5 yards per play. Lawrence had three passes of 20 more or more yards.

They all came out of no huddle snaps. Absolutely. But that seems like a year ago, you had a coach in Urban Meyer, and it's not just a rip on Urban Meyer. That's too easy, but who has none of those anecdotes of a quarterback, dating back to his own playing days, and had no concept schematically how to help Trevor Lawrence. Everything is new for tangible reasons with Doug Peterson.

Right. And like all that's a good point you made, Mark. Yeah, that's a great point, Mark. That's a good point, Mark. All that sets up 127 left, fourth and one. And despite it all feeling inevitable, they did get to a spot at 127, fourth, and one, where if you don't get a yard,

the Chargers are going to win a game, win the game anyways. And the Jaguars are getting ready to snap the ball, and Doug Peterson runs in with, to me, is one of the most memorable timeouts that I can remember, because it totally turned the game. He didn't like what he saw.

I thought you were going to go with some Rosenthal hyperbole. I was going to say one of the greatest timeouts of all time. I mean, sure, throw it up there. How many timeouts could be better than that? You basically won a playoff game with that, but he didn't like what he saw in that moment, uses the timeout, comes out of it with that beautiful play where it ends up being ETN,

where they like basically have him one-on-one on Asante Samuel Jr. Good luck with that. And they stuck with the run during that comeback. I just was so impressed, but we wouldn't be talking about Lawrence or Peterson if the defense hadn't started that comeback for them. It was such a great example of that it's a team sport because the Jaguars quietly stopped the chargers in the second quarter on three straight three and outs while Lawrence is still throwing interceptions,

four for 16 for 30 yards and four interceptions at one point. And in the middle of the second quarter, that's really where the comeback started. them three straight three and outs, including after that muffed punt that they got over at the six. So it's like it's a team game and the defense really stepped up too down the stretch. They rushed the passer. What a mess. Yes, yes, they did.

And let's hear from the Chargers now a little bit because this is for a star crossed organization, Chargers is going to charger and all that. I mean, the fact that that was a major part of the discourse on Twitter, even when they were way ahead. There was almost a, I don't know, a general confidence that this game was going to be close. I think anybody watching it just because this is what this organization has always done. I guess it doesn't matter. They always say it's just a laundry, it's just laundry, but why do certain teams seem to have this type of stink that follows them through the decade? A crushing loss. Here's Derwin James, their star safety, asked about his feeling after the game.

This is tough because you guys are, you guys are unit, you guys have been connected. can you put it into words I don't even have any words for it right now like I said I've been playing football 21 years and I ain't ever felt like this And now here is the other star of the defense Superstar of the defense Joey Bosa who as we said

Had a very tough game I'm gonna have this in two parts Because they're very distinct here is part one I need to be More accountable for my actions obviously But it's it's a heated game and I'm hurting out there I'm playing on half a leg

I'm getting dragged to the ground whatever could hurt me along with screwing our team and yeah maybe some of them weren't as blatant as I thought but I don't know

and then Joey Bonesa says F it I don't care if there's a FedEx package on my stool on Monday I think there just needs to be more accountability on, I mean, if I say something to them, I get a $40,000 fine, but if they blow a call that ruins an entire team's season, they're probably back in the locker room after the game, like, I got that. Oh, yeah, got him, 15 yards, a little loser. I guarantee it, that's what they're talking like in the back.

How do you know? He guaranteed it. I'm sick of those people. I'm the third F-bomb so far, sorry, but, man. I kind of love it. Yeah, I mean, listen, some of the calls are bad. And I have to say, like, and you're going to see it.

You're going to see the think pieces in the days ahead. The officiating, which has been under the microscope, because it has not been good this year. It wasn't good this weekend either. And these are supposed to be the best crews in the game. And I'm not saying all the officials. officiating was bad, but I, there were, I feel like every game, there were major calls that were missed. I don't like Saturday was a disaster, and Sunday was good.

Well, I don't know. I don't know. There was a particularly egregious call in Minnesota that gave the Vikings life on their last drive. The one thing, though, when they are jumping in using some of their ability to quickly replay stuff and get it right, there at least is that. Because, I mean, I know it seems worse than ever, but I can remember, like, a playoff game back in, like, the 90s where it's like a missed calls. just led to a team losing and it's like there was I agree with Bosa that like the refs do it and then we complain about it for two days and then they're essentially anonymous individuals and they go on to do their job the next week but we all remember

Joey Bosa melting out we know the Chargers season's over and they're chokers and I understand it's frustration it was like non-holding calls and I didn't think they were crazy Bosa and Mac definitely did not show up in the second half of the game and that it's part of what's frustrating for him is that it really really really was more on the defense in the second half. The offense weirdly had its problems in the first half while they were getting a huge lead, but

the offense, which everyone shares in a blame like this, Brandon Staley does, Herbert does the offense does, but to go touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, field goal, the one thing the offense did in the second half was actually go on longer drives and limit possessions to the point where the Jaguars had

to pitch a perfect game in the second half because they only got... I don't like this, Greg. I don't like this. No, no, no. You're a very vocal member of the Herbert Hive and that's a very loud group in the Twitterverse but they scored three points in the second

half and you even said it on Thursday Greg. But my point is though they go seven for 37 seven for 45, 14 for 53. You got to do better than score three points and then go three and out and that's five. They collapsed but in a comeback like this kind of like that Minnesota game we were talking about like how many things had to go wrong.

They limited it to where they had to score a touchdown and then the game winning field goal exactly on Every single one of those drives, and they got to touch down every single one thing. It was a meltdown. There are moments, and, like, we're talking about Trevor Lawrence, the way we're talking about it. We're forgiving four interceptions because of how he bounced back. And I don't think it's a Justin Herbert thing as much as, like, the Joe Lombardi experience.

I'm not sure where the argument is to continue on with that for another year. I think he gets fired. They had the ball with five plus, and they had a chance to seal this thing. They went three and out. There are just these drives that matter. And, like, the whole second half, you're right. There were some elongated drives, but it ended in a punt, a four. field goal and Cameron Dicker's second miss field goal like in a million years. That was a huge miss too.

40 years. That's a special teams issue. And that was staley losing out. I think staley got absolutely spooked from the chuckleheads like us banging on them for not going for fourth downs last year. And you saw multiple games this week one because you went for it on fourth down. And that that weirdly doesn't get mentioned as much as when it goes wrong. But staley did the opposite. You kick field goals from the four yard line, the five yard line. And then when dicker missed that kick, he had a fourth and three with under eight minutes to go, where I first down there would have been just absolutely huge, didn't have the guts to go for it,

was going to at first, change his mind, they missed the field goal. And you're Justin Herbert. I'm not throwing Herbert off under the best, but I don't think he didn't play well, but he also didn't play poorly. He just had like a blog game. Here's my point.

I love Herbert. Maybe not at the Genuflect level, but I see him as one of the great young talents in the league. But I think sometimes there's, because the discourse around him is it's almost like the political landscape where it's just people just mad yelling about Herbert where it's like man like we talked to Thursday you because you're a big Herbert guy and you said well the reason the charges win is because they have the best quarterback and you're going to see that here I only saw one special quarterback of the future in this game

and I'm not I'm not taken away from Herbert I still think he's excellent I wish he was on my team but I thought I'm watching Lawrence and I'm thinking we're going to see this guy in the playoffs for 15 years That's a Hall of Fame player just starting his career. And I just thought, like, on that stage, Lawrence was special and Herbert wasn't. Well, it's so funny looking at their stats because, like, it's crazy how similar they were. They both inefficient. They each threw it about, you know, Herbert threw it 43 times for 273. Lawrence threw it 47 times for 288.

Herbert has the one touchdown, no interceptions. Lawrence, and I love that callback you had to Andrew Luck, had the four touchdowns, four interceptions. That was just like Lux game. He threw three in that game and then wind up through and four. So there were ups and their downs. I do think it's fair, though, to point out that the Chargers run it 25 times for 50 yards and the Jaguars have a great running game. That Lawrence has a great play caller who has a sense of the moment and schemes guys wide open.

Herbert has Lombardi, who puts three tight ends on the field for a play action pass to start that last drive. And Zion Johnson loses a block one-on-one. their first round pick and gives up a quick pressure. Like, I don't think that it's remotely even. His coaching is not good. I would also say that Herbert has a head coach who played Mike Williams and his starters deep into the season finale when it was an utterly meaningless task to do so. Explain it off in a weird way.

And then if you look at, if you look at Keenan Allen's numbers when Mike Williams has not been in the lineup this year, they fall off a cliff and your leading receivers are your tight end in the biggest playoff game of your life. If you take these two things, these three things, the fact that Staley in general has been an underwhelming head coach since being hired. Two, the devastating decision to play his starters a week 18 and then lose his biggest playmaker for the playoff game.

And then three, for his team to blow a 27-0 lead, you would think, oh, Staley's going to get fired. Jim Trotter, who's really plugged in veteran reporter for NFL Network, who knows that team very well, has been around. them and covering them for years did a Twitter thread today where he outlined his thoughts and how this thing could play out and

and that to him it seemed like staley there's a good chance he would survive maybe not the offensive coordinator but staley would be safe and I know that's not what Chargers fans who are in their feelings right now want to hear but that's what Trotter thinks one of the reasons was because the linking Sean Payton to L.A. It's like the way

the Chargers operate it's not because they're miserly according to Trotter and I think a lot of people think that. But there is a salary issue with someone like Peyton. They want to pay first-time coaches and coordinators to become head coaches, but they don't want to give up the draft picks. They want to use those to develop players. I mean, that's a choice. It's a choice. I don't know if I agree with it, but... This brings me no joy because this man has seriously been one of my favorite broadcasters in my life. But, um, Al, I think we're going to look back at this game is maybe the beginning of the end

for Al Michaels who terrible job by the way by NBC I kind of pointed this out on Thursday that it wasn't with Herb Street and I know that's different because that's Amazon but you don't throw two guys together

that don't have a lot of experience you certainly don't throw two older guys together when you don't have somebody that's an excitable presence and that's why I know Collinsworth is not a favorite of yours Mark but Collinsworth does bring that kind of joyfulness to the sport and you hear his excitement and that plays off well with Al Michael's

Alan Tony Dungey who Tony Dungey's like paint drying listening to his voice here is the final call of the game in one of the greatest comebacks in the history of this sport here we go for the win got it but there's a flag down there's a flag down as everybody's running out onto the field but there's a penalty market and they call it on the defense unbelievable that is unbelievable Patterson boots them into the divisional round. I love Al Michaels. You're really twisted the knife.

I mean, I agree with you. Oh, I'm sorry, Greg. Oh, I'm sorry to offend you, your sensibilities. I mean, of course I agree with you. How am I twisting the knife? I'm just surprised that we're like listening to the call. Can I just, can I say one thing? Well, it was a lot of people were talking about it.

Oh, yeah. Believe me, I am with you before the game even started and I'm with you now. I totally agree that you need to pair them with someone that's going to bring more energy. I was asking myself all game, why did they put these two together? But when it comes to Chris Collinsworth, it's his, it is the voice. It's not his analysis. This thing is a great analyst, but it's like he's a little folksy and his voice gets on my nerves. That's more of a aesthetic. I just wish that Al was given someone that would make him bring his best. Why are they jamming? I don't need to hear Tom. I don't need to hear from Tony Dungey on anything. Check out his record

on opinions on other things in the world. Now you have me. In a booth in the best game of the year, Al's 78 years old. I hope Al has a long career ahead of him still. I just wonder if we'll look back as like, oh. It wasn't Dunjee, though, botching like the confusion of like the balls at the one-yard line, but it's still the two-point conversion after the penalty. Finally, before we move off this game, another tough night.

Al had a tough night. So did our producer who tweeted this, when things were going all. Chargers, Justin Graver at Titans' film room, hashtag Titans for Maximum Cloud Engagement, were incredibly boring all year. No one wanted to see them in the playoffs over Jacksonville, but I promise you, Titans Chargers would have been a better game than this. Hissing Venom! Hissing Vettom, Gravedigger!

I should have said a better half than this, huh? How about that? That would have worked to me. How about just keep the Titans out of the discourse? No, this was four Titans fans who were like comfortable. The Titans shouldn't have even tried to make the playoffs. But now you have a national international platform as the producer of this program. People are going to see that and amplify that and come back at you.

It's amazing. My tweet got over a thousand likes and I owned the tweet. He's like, I got the cloud. That's all I needed. I quote tweeted myself and I said I played myself or whatever that. That was good job. You kept it up and then you made a joke about yourself. I'm not going to delete the tweet.

It's up there. It was 270 when I tweeted that. Haven't you gotten to, aren't we at the point now where have you thought about tweeting something in the first half of a game like this where it's a declarative and then you're like, wait a minute with this, the way of the NFL is like, I'm not tweeting this because it's going to go south in like an hour and a half. Big leads aren't what they used to be. Absolutely. I was literally

thinking like Staley's defense is built to like force teams into passing all the time. Like that's what he's been trying to build. It's like, then you're dealing with that for the next 72 hours. Lesson learned, but you know what? I regret nothing. There you go. That's how that's how you look at it. Let's take a break and we'll move on.

All right, welcome back. So we moved to Sunday. now. And Mark, you had a sandwich prop earlier this season that the fastest game ever would be played. I don't know if this was the longest playoff game ever today that was a regulation game, but it had to be close. Dolphins, bills, it felt like it was going to be a blowout, but it turned into anything but. Alan letting it go down to two. Now one takes the snap, hands it off to Singletary. Over the block of his left tackle, he moves the pile toward the 35 out toward the first down marker he may have got. how about that that'll be the ball game they signal first down and the bills can go to victory formation

wow that's hard to believe how about the effort by devitt singletary and the old lineman pushing him i don't know if we need that when we have our end of season meeting justin or like how do we make the show better because it's the right call could it be is it possible it could be better to make our show better i'm not sure i think we made the right pick like what is the highlight for the game like oh that's the clinching first down. But I'm finding all season, whenever we get the clinching first down, it just doesn't have the juice.

I think the fourth down stop. I don't know how that call was, the drive before. We checked it, and it was about the same, if not a little worse, maybe. You know what? Maybe it's a lesson. Maybe just go with the great Gabe Davis,

Josh Allen touchdown. Who cares if it was in the third grade? It was a touchdown. It was exciting. When we break bread after the season, these are the things we'll discuss. Respectfully. We'll get it right.

heading into year 11 or 12 or whatever it is. Devin Singletary's seven-yard run for first down was the play that the bills desperately needed to survive against Skyler Thompson and the Miami Dolphins. The final score, Bill's 34, Dolphins 31. So they advance. Josh Allen, despite three more turnovers. He said it after the game.

One week seasons, man, that's it. All that matters is surviving and advancing. Doesn't matter how we win. It's if we win. And Greg, they did win, but it wasn't supposed to go like this, even though they were up 17 zip. No. They will be happy to move on from the Miami portion of the season. All three of these games were funky.

I know Tua played the other two games, and the Dolphins offense certainly looked better in those games. But this was a game where I think Josh Allen and the Bill's offense were really the problem. even though they got 423 yards in this game, Alan was a roller coaster. They were daring him to throw the ball down the field all game, and he obliged, and sometimes it worked, that touchdown throw to Diggs early was just an incredible throw the touchdown to Gabe Davis was an incredible throw.

When he absolutely needed a first down on third and six in the red zone, and they were trailing, trailing in this game to the Dolphins, they call the quarterback Ronnie picks it up and hits Beasley for a touchdown. There were good things. But he had two interceptions and three fumbles, and it was kind of all over the place, and they were stopped in a number of occasions where they could have put the game away.

It was not what you expect out of the bill's offense. I think if we go back for a second to like the Seahawks game, it's like this is what Seattle's defense, if you or the Dolphins, needed to do against the Niners to create the chance a doorway to win, because the first interception leads to a field goal. The second one, which really bounced off Cole Beasley, led to a touchdown.

And then you have a strip-sack-fumble touchdown. Like, points are coming from a Dolphins defense that I kind of think, and I thought Romo explained it well, is like, we just want to put Josh Allen into chaos. We know he's going to make big plays out of it, but he's going to make what we've seen of late and earlier in his career,

Josh Allen-esque turnovers, and they've been coming in bunches. And they're not all on him, like any interception we see. But he's lucky they didn't lose those last two fumbles he had. It could have been a different game. Absolutely. I mean, this thing was close, though. I don't, like, you know, we were in the middle the fourth quarter. I know the Dolphins got a touch on

one point on offense. So it's like, the Bill's defense played a pretty crazily amazing game against, I thought they should have against this team. I think it goes back to the fact that Rahim Mostert was not in this game. The way he ran on Buffalo last time, they had no ground game. And in the situation they were in,

if they could have sustained some drives and kept Buffalo off the field a few more times and just had some way to move the ball more. They had like 80% of their drives went for like less than 15 yards. I mean, Skyler Thompson was largely a disaster until he made a couple throws late. I mean, this was, Buffalo's

defense did its job. It's just that it was a truly funky game, and I look at it, I kind of agree with Josh Allen in this one. It doesn't make me totally think differently about Buffalo. They're operating, it seems like, at about 78 percent of their power, but this felt like a weird odyssey with no major larger purpose to me, because they did

escape. All right, so a lot to unpack there. So, Skyler Thompson, I thought he was 18 to 45 for 220, a touchdown, two interceptions. I thought he was actually better than that. I think they had some drops. Waddle had a terrible drop early on in the game. He had another later. Waddle was injured. He's banged up. But I thought Thompson actually considered considering what we had seen to him to this point, acquitted himself fairly well. Now,

that said, they had 231 yards of offense. In 14 drives. A lot of drives. They had 16 first downs and 14 drives. So the Bill's defense did what they were supposed to do. And I guess I disagree with Josh Allen. I'm concerned about the bills a little bit. But his mentality is going to be different than ours. Our job is to pick on the part a little bit. I'm just, I'm concerned about the bills just because like I don't think they look good

against the Patriots in week 18. Naheem Himes kind of bailed them out with those two big kickoff returns. I thought you saw breakdowns and pass protection. The offensive line struggled in this game. Breakdowns in special teams. You saw more bad decision making by your star quarterback. You saw big drops by Buffalo as well.

And that's the only reason this game was close, Not because Miami played well. To me, it was because the bills just were sloppy. And playing at 75%, you'll beat Skyland Thompson's dolphins at home. You will get your doors blown off next week. Who do they have next week? Bengals. They get Cincinnati, and I know Cincinnati wasn't perfect on Sunday either,

but you need to be much sharper. This is your year, Buffalo. Like, this is it. The window is not infinite. You need to start playing better or else. I don't assume it's the year. That's all. I just will say that.

I know we've been saying that forever and it's just like queuing them up is the best team around and like they just Josh Allen does amazing things and you can forgive his mistakes but his mistakes are plentiful right now. When like it's a fair point like we think of the bills one way

and they used to have Micah Hyde and Von Miller those are really important players and not everyone's got injuries right now but it's been a while I guess since we've seen the bills team that we imagine them to be. Right. That week 17 game that disappeared because of the DeMarne Hamilton situation would have been a really good litmus test, and we never saw how that even played out. They had that Bears game where they ended up winning easy, but even that game was messy. They were trailing. The Dolphins game was nip and tuck. They had the Jets game where the Jets actually outgained them. The Lions game on Thanksgiving. They are a team that is battling to win. And I think if they win this Super Bowl, if they keep winning these games, it's not going to look pretty. It's going to have to be with Alan.

being superhuman. I'm a little concerned about their offensive line in general. They had some pretty good blitz pickups early, but as the game went on, they lost more and more consistently up front. And then on the Dolphins side,

they have some regrets after this game as well because they did not play as sharp as they needed to play. This was especially apparent with a number of either delay of game penalties or having to burn timeouts, which really burned them late.

All three times. All three timeouts because of the inability to get calls in from the sideline. And you don't know what the issue is. Now, there was one specific play with the game essentially on the line. They were facing fourth and one from their own 48-yard line with 228 to play again. And they didn't have their timeouts at this point. So this was do or die. They failed to get a playoff in time.

They got flagged for a delay of game. The penalty pushed them back to fourth and six. And then they could not complete the pass. Here's what McDaniel said about that play afterwards. citing a communication gaff at the biggest stage of the season. It was communicated to me through the upstairs. I love this guy. You know, from the headset, I think.

I was standing by an official. I had just had gotten convicted information that it was a first down. So I don't really know exactly who it was from. It was probably the first time all year that that had happened. So, you know, you try to do your best as it was. I thought we had a fourth and six opportunity that we're unable to come up with as well. So fourth and one most of the time is easier than fourth and six, but at the same time, you know, you just have to adjust to whatever variables put out there.

That wasn't a great look all the way around, the entire operation and the presser, in my opinion. Well, I agree with you. I mean, that's a total breakdown, and you don't want to see that happen. But from maybe a little bit more of a global viewpoint on what McDaniel went through with his team, I mean, you're dealing with Skyler Thompson, who essentially was a preseason player. And, yeah, things are getting funky in these key situations. If that happened to him, if you got the wrong information, that's, he said it's the first time all season. That doesn't explain all the other time.

It doesn't. It doesn't. And like Brock Purdy in San Francisco. I mean. It doesn't, but I would just say that Mike McDaniel, like, the fact that, you know, he was like, oh, will Mike McDaniel at some point be replaced if they, They want Sean Payton or fill in the blank coaches. Oh, that was always silly. I agree, but I think like McDaniel on his own proved that he fought through incredible adversity.

I mean, three times they played Buffalo, they beat them once. The night game a couple a month ago was they were saucy. They hung in there and showed something to very few dolphins teams we've ever covered showed. And then today, when no one gave them a chance, rightfully, based on who was starting a quarterback and who was out, and you got this. Right. I totally agree that, like, in the moment, that, that. shortcoming was very frustrating because it was throughout the second half. And Schuyler Thompson probably deserves some of the blame,

but it feels like it's more on the coaching that it was just take everything was taking too long. But I was taken by his quarter or post-half-time interview. You know, he was so confident. Like, and Romo and Nan said that too, that they really thought they were going to go in there and win this game. And they were really close to doing it. And they did get to the playoffs in the end. I know they fell down the stretch.

but we know he can scheme up offense, and I'm with you. I think you have to at least give him some credit for them believing. Like, I think he's doing a better job at the sort of global coaching, and I think having, like, his team believe in him and the coaches and everything like that, then I expect that he's not just like a scheme guy. Like there was one team that Romo talked about getting, it was sort of like weird vibes, jitters, and kind of on edge, and it was the bills. It wasn't the dolphins.

And I get it, the stakes are different for Buffalo than Miami in theory. but like yeah there wasn't i mean Miami was in that enviable position of no one's given us a chance and you see you sense that McDaniel's an interesting guy still to me and we'll get into all this down the road but his offense was brilliant

for half the year the other half not so much there's quarterback issues it was reported today that the team plans to have Tua back next season hopefully health will allow that to happen for Tua and the head injuries he suffered but

But, you know, McDaniels brought in, viewed as an offensive visionary, you've got to put it all together, and you're going to maybe get some better luck, of course, at quarterback health. We'll see. Miami's an interesting team next year. Right now, their season is over. And. I'm glad in the end, the bills, you know, get it done. Yeah, we didn't ride the Miami Dolphins around for another week. I did lock up the bills, and it got a little.

I was never, like, the way McDaniels was. confident. I remained confident throughout the game. It was going to be alright. It was one point when they fell behind in the second half and then the bills had like a three and out and they're punting again. That was a little concerning. Yeah. Like what are you guys doing? Like it would have been a catastrophe for Buffalo to go one and done in this situation. I thought that Buffalo could probably even like midway through third quarter. I think it's still win this game by 20 points. It was a bad weekend for the games over people on Twitter in general. It's always it's the same thing as Justin's tweet. Like this game actually had two of them.

Everyone said the game was over at 17-0. We should mention it was 17-0-0, you know, early the second war. And then everyone said it was over again at 34-24 late in the third. And yet there they were at midfield, down three with two minutes to go. They were about 15 yards away from tying that game up. It's crazy. I have one favorite team, as everyone knows. But I really do like this Bills team, especially after the adversity that they've gone through in recent weeks.

I want to see them get to the Super Bowl. So I'm happy that they moved on. And I really, I implore them. Listen up, guys. We got to go up from 75 to about 90. We got to get over the 90 threshold to make this thing, get to the Super Bowl. And it starts with Josh Allen being the playoff Josh Allen from a year ago. Like, we're not getting that guy right now.

He would say that. And expectations are high. Anything less than the Super Bowl is failure for this Bill's team, whether that feels fair or not. But that's the bar they set after last year's playoffs. So we'll see what happens against Cincinnati. Eddie. Oh, boy. All right. Let's move on to the next game on the schedule to U.S. Bank Stadium. Nailed it. Takes the snap. He's back to throw. He's under pressure. Got hit as he throws, completes it to his right. But he's short of the first down as Hawkinson. He's wrapped up. What a play by their Giants.

They threw it short to Hawkinson, and the Giants rally to the ball and Xavier McKinney makes the play of the ball game. Wow. Giants in dance. Hey, that is great. Oh, it's on. And more ventures here. But it's the New York City market. It can be both. So true.

People don't understand. It can be bold. You don't understand it if you're not from there. Bob Papa with the call. WFN. That's the great Carl Banks. Great player. Back in the day.

Oh, yeah, Parcell's favorite. The New York Giants, the GM. get a 300-yard passing day from Daniel Jones, 78 on the ground, too. And just great, big plays on both sides of the ball and a 3,1, 24 victory over the Minnesota Vikings. And, God, there's so much to get to with Minnesota, including Kirk's checkdown pass there with the season on the line. But let this be known that the Minnesota Vikings,

and this is only the Vikings, and this felt like it was going to happen, it felt like it was like setting in the stars that they would set an NFL record by going 11 and O in one score games and then the calendar turned to the playoffs and they lose a one score game in the wild card round and that is very on brand for the Vikings and the fan base knows it all too well

but the giants Mark Sessler the G men they stepped up and really I thought played a beautiful game here and they're advancing to face the Eagles as a result. The Giants were the other team in the NFC that, you know, were largely viewed as fraudulent to some degree, not up to their record all year long, but they were really well coached.

And I think that what we're seeing is that Brian Daibald does and has had an effect on Daniel Jones, who played the game of his life. And we were getting here in bits and pieces with Daniel Jones. I think we saw it the last time he played Minnesota that they basically put it in his hands and said, we're going to throw the ball. It's not going to be one of these 124 passing yard days. and we're going to have you run the ball. You could do it both.

But he did it there. He did it again. I thought they took a great advantage of a terrible defense. So I do feel for Vikings fans who got to this point, watching this defense just utterly collapse early on. The Giants out of the gate had seven plays of 10 plus yards on the first two drives. Daniel Jones was all over the place in a beautiful way, hitting everyone.

You got guys that people didn't even believe in a month ago making big plays for New York. These guys were Niners open, by the way, too. Right. The defense was so poor and the scheme for the Giants so effective that Jones was just like, it was. He was dialed in. They have talked about, and we'll see where this goes with John Jones. They want him back, too. That reporting has been out there for weeks, that they ran a more typical pro-passing game

where it wasn't just rollouts for Daniel Jones and trying to kind of protect him from stuff he couldn't do, that he's grown in this system and they're having him do more and more. And I know this is the Vikings, and it's a bit of an equalizer because they're a mess in their secondary and against the pass. But Daniel Jones today, like the way you get that version of Daniel Jones, and the Giants are a dangerous team. I mean, they maybe go out next week and we'll see you later. But this is a major organizational win for everyone involved. They looked really well coached. They came in totally confident.

You got, you know, they had a huge amount of yardage, and it wasn't all coming from Sequin Barkley. It was coming from other places, which tells me that this offense has grown. I don't care if this game was against the Arkansas State Red Wolves. Like, this was, that might make some. I don't know why they would play that. Yeah, that would be weird. He went over 300 yards with two passing touchdowns and over 70 yards rushing.

He's actually the first player in NFL history to combine those stats in a playoff game. Like, that was a Pete Cam Newton game. That was who I was thinking of. Because, yes, they didn't call a crazy amount of design runs, but they did it, and he scrambled a ton. He was scrambling early. He had over 60 rushing yards.

midway through the second quarter, then it calmed down. And it was him with his legs if the first guy wasn't open. It was him throwing absolute darts on a couple third and long plays where he was very decisive and the velocity was there. They had the best players and they had the best coaches. Like they won this game because Daibu had guts on fourth down back-to-back times in the fourth quarter. It was a tie game when he went for a fourth and won in the fourth quarter

before the game-winning touchdown. And I think it was an obvious call at this point in the NFL because it was like less than a yard, but it wasn't that long ago that that would have seemed controversial. Then he went for, again, fourth and short, on his own end in the Giants' last drive, and that ended up helping them burn the Vikings last couple timeouts, waste some more time.

And it would have ended the game if Darius Slayton hadn't dropped a wide open catch. They would have ended the game with the ball. Instead, they had to count on the defense to finish it off. But man, that's Daibel, I think, really out-coaching Minnesota's defensive coordinator. I agree. Who Kevin O'Connell made no promises about Ed Donatel after the game.

I thought that was telling. I mean, yeah, know thy opponent and credit Daibald and the Giants. And they saw these guys on Christmas Eve. And they lit them up on Christmas Eve also. Of course, I mean, yeah, you always attack the Vikings on defense. And the Vikings are one of the strangest teams in recent NFL history. The fact that they went 13 and 4, but were, you know, relentlessly criticized in many places, including on this podcast as punching above their weight. And this is exactly kind of what I expected and many of us expected.

It would be a go down to the last possession. I thought the Vikings would steal it and find another way to do it. But I knew these teams are even. And that's exactly what this game was. I mean, I think the Giants, the Giants are going to be in a good position next week against the Eagles because they're going to have a lot of confidence. and Gregi, I know that the Giants are a team that you struggle with based on history, but this is kind of an easy team to root for in the NFC. One person picked the Giants in this room this week,

and it was your boy, 60% G. I'm the real Giants fan. The G-Bet came through for it. Are you the same, Greg, that said the Saints were better than the Giants on the preview show two weeks ago? All I'm saying is one person picked the Giants this week, and it was me. Those are the facts. I have the Giants.

I have the Giants ahead. Until the last second of the game. It's fine. I had it ahead of. No. I believe to this team. I believe you said the Saints were a better team than the Giants. I really do.

And I've said this on the show the last few weeks. Think that they've been a different thing in the last four or five weeks. I thought they were lucky to have the record that they had throughout most of the season and that they look better on both sides of the ball. You said it, Mark, with the way the offense is working. Those receivers are established. And they are really talented. There's this idea that they're not a talented team.

I mean, they have an all-pro left tackle. Daniel Jones is certainly talented. Sequin, they used him great today, 14 for 109. And then you look at their defensive line. Dexter Lawrence was the best player in this game. He dominated his matchup, was in Kirk Cousins' lap all game long. Kvon Tibido had a great game. You have Leonard Williams there.

They had a Dory Jackson back. They have good coaches. They're talented with good coaches. I'm buying. To Dexter Lawrence, because this happens to, seems to happen like once a week. The roughing the passer call on Dexter Lawrence. Do you remember this from like late in the game where they basically like I, the crew is like, I'm not sure what else we can ask him to do other than to slowly, quietly put her cousins on the ground. I don't

think they should have called it, but it's because he hit the helmet. But it was so like some of these roughing the passer. That was, that was disgraceful. And you know it's bad when they have to go to who's the Fox guy officiating dude. Pereira. Yeah. And Pereira. And you know how all these guys are very they tiptoe around this stuff because it's there's part of a fraternity even if they're no longer actively involved and when the when you whenever they throw it to the booth guy or the studio guy yeah and he has no choice but to say i don't know what they were seeing on this one it was a glancing blow across the face back i think it's with the officiating it's another example that we talk about the stakes are higher in the playoffs and players sometimes choke under

pressure i think officials see them in the same light and again i'm going to pound the damn table on this. You can, we have this technology now that allows you to quickly rectify drops or catches and reverse things without going to break and without slowing the pace. Why not have New York doing the same thing with these potential game changing plays? After the Slayton drop, which broke my heart for Daniel Jones because he played so great and the game should have been over there. And then that roughing the passer call, which gave the Vikings the ball near midfield. At that point, I was 100% in the bag for the Giants because like they deserve to win this game.

Absolutely. Okay. I'll let you over with the Giants at that point with me. And I'll understand that the Saints are better. But let's now talk about that play. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Fourth down.

It's fourth down and I believe eight for the Vikings near midfield. And Kirk Cousins drops back, checks it down to Tyler. The T.J. Hawkinson, who had another big game. He tries to shake free. He gets tackled. It's a great tackle that was made. I want to give the Giants play credit. Xavier McKinney made the great tackle.

Here's Kirk Cousins after the game. A lot of people are wondering, how is he throwing short of the sticks in that spot? Where is Justin Jefferson? Here's what Kirk Cousins had to say. Tried to work Justin. Didn't feel good about putting it up to Justin. And then when I went to progress,

I just felt like I was about to get sacked and I felt like I got to put the ball in play. And if I take, you know, I can't go down with a sack. So I just thought I'd kick it out to T.J. And I had thrown short of the sticks on a few occasions in the game and even going back a few weeks and just felt like, you know, just throwing a short of the sticks isn't the end of the world.

It's just, you know, it's obviously tight coverage, so didn't have the chance to pull away. But I just felt like I was going to go down and take a sack if I didn't put it out. It's kind of amazing this season for the Vikings, how everything seemed to go their way. And even the way he said that, Cousins, is, you know, I've thrown short of the sticks a lot.

And, you know, even recent weeks, it would work. And in this case, it did not work. and it just happened to be the last play of the season for the Vikings on offense. I guess it's very easy for someone to say in a podcast studio just throw it to Justin Jefferson. Right. But Jefferson is a generationally great talent and you could either get a catch out of it. You could draw a penalty. We already know those officials were flag happy after we saw a couple of plays earlier.

It's just I understand the Vikings fans that are livid that they're quarterback who's known for coming up small in a big spot made that play. Yeah, I mean, it's a bad look. because we're accustomed to just automatically critiquing that. I kind of liked his explanation. The only thing I'd say is, like, and T.J. Hawkinson was awesome today. But I would say that, like, why not, if it's your last gasp, your last chance, give it to the guy that basically got you here, which is Justin Jefferson. The Jefferson Cousins Connection, if it's against all odds, no one's ever going to kill you

for firing it to Justin Jefferson. That said, I mean, we're sitting here. We don't play quarterback. I don't know. He saw what we didn't see. Right. They bracketed Jefferson all game. He only had 40.

seven yards on nine targets. His longest gain was 10. What a great job by their defense in that situation. And my answer for like why he didn't do this, because like he did break out of that somewhat this year where he would just give Jefferson a chance to make a play. And so maybe you're right. I think he was the first read on the play

and that they had a lot of defenders back there. But Cousins is so unlike most of the quarterbacks in this league because he can't escape. And you saw it today. I think Cousins played a really good game until the end, basically. I think he played well. He was getting hit almost every other snap, and he was hanging in there,

and his superpower is he's been good at holding to the last second and then getting it to his guys. Keep his eyes upfield. In this case, yeah, I guess he was hoping Hawkinson would break a tackle. At that point, it was Dexter Lawrence again, who was going to go get that sack, and he was right. He hit Lawrence on the follow-through,

and either way, I think that play was just going to be won by the defense, no matter what Cousins did. You can't come out of this game just hating on Kirk Cousins, because I totally agree with you. I thought that, like, in a Ryan-Tanahill-esque type of way, he threw some shots down field where he was absolutely brutalized after the throw. That would be long-time listeners, no. La Raville Magnifico.

Anybody are talking about this game and everyone just says either lost because Kirk Cousins choked? No. The Vikings lost because their defense, which was terrible all year, once again. was bad again, and this time the offense wasn't able to bail them out. Let's give the last word, though, to Brian Davel, who was asked by a reporter why he seemed to almost be understating how well his quarterback played in his first playoff game. Isn't good, a good adjective to use? Good?

Yeah. I'm not a writer. I'm just a coach. Look, Daniels, I've said it all year. He's been good for us. He continues to be good for us. and he played a good game and I think there's a lot of other people

that play good games too to help him play a good game he'll be the first to admit it but as the leader of our football team you know I'm proud of him I thought he played a great game he did but I think Dable like who's talking to Daniel Jones more

and helping Daniel Jones grow more than Brian Dable it's like it was understated though because I think that this the reason we're all in agreement Greg has finally come around on the Giants sure well welcome aboard Greg I mean, you picked the fraudulent Vikings over them. Give me a break.

The reason why we all feel that they're frisky now. I think in large, first of all, it should be said real quick. Sequin Barclay, if Dexter Lawrence was the best player on the field, Sequin was the second best player on the field. He was explosive, powerful. He is such a badass, that dude. And now he's healthy again. But Jones is lifting his play is made the Giants just a different team.

And they're interesting now. that's something he makes you think of his entire career differently i mean i he wasn't this guy before but like it was interesting to hear like jason garrett in the studio um it was pretty well what was interesting about jason garret in the studio i guess what i found interesting i that's a fair point but like praising daniel jones like i love you daniel great cheap it's like you're part of the reason like i'm not just to kill jason garret but the coaching that daniel jones has gotten was very different than this year brian dable is a difference maker with quarterbacks All right.

Let's take a break. We got one more game to get to. Oh, the Cincinnati Zoo. Coming up next. Greg just shared with me. Welcome back some ratings information about the program. And the only response that came to my mind was what, Greg? Boom, Shakalaka.

We're bringing it back. Feeling good. Let's head the final game of the weekend to Cincinnati, where the defending AFC champions, they were they had a fight on their hands oh my goodness it's a tough division that apc north from the one hundling sticks the ball out the benches have the ball they are running it back he can't go the home lane he can't he's a big man his numbers in the 90s no he had 30 the 20 instead of walking the back 10 the 5 touchdown

bend goals Tyler hudley tried to extend the ball over the goal line it got poker away, Sam Hubbard scooped it up and ran the length of the field for a go-ahead. Bangles touchdown. Oh, Bengals fans, these are the glory days. Special moments, Dan Horde, Dave Lapham with the call, WCKW. Are you kidding me? Sam Hubbard returned Tyler Huntley's goal line fumbled 98 yards for a tie-breaking touchdown in fourth quarter and it helped

Joe Burrow and the Bengals survive a major scare from the Ravens and backup quarterback Huntley a 2417 win for Cincinnati and they advance yes to meet the bills right the bills that is correct in Buffalo next week about that

so they will play on Sunday 3 p.m. Eastern on Sunday we'll go through the whole schedule at the very end of the show but anyway on CBS no I'm just kidding I know you don't want me to share any more about that. But see, people are like, I was ready to tune out. Yeah.

But he just said he's revealing the schedule at the end of the show. Oh. People are stuck now. They're trapped. They need it. There's no other way to get it. Facing third and goal at the one with about 12 minutes left. Yes, Huntley tried to go over the top of the line for that go-head score.

But Jermaine Pratt. Mm-hmm. He got stood up by Jermaine Pratt and Logan Wilson poked that ball away, Mark. One of the biggest plays of the year. Yeah, and Logan Wilson, you know, we were watching this together at this point in the viewing room. And Logan Wilson had a big stop on Huntley earlier in the game as well. But my problem with this was that, like, we live in a world where I have no problem with Josh Allen doing that, attempting that play. I have no Allen with like, you know, people doing

like the double butt push on Jalen Hertz to convert. Trevor Lawrence had that play for the two-point conversion. Trevor Lawrence is six foot six. And like Huntley is doing the best again. Huntley is six foot one in like 195. Well, the ball wasn't at the one yard line. It was like one and a half. Like I just thought it was like That this was not the play call It would have gone with here Let's hear what Joe Burrow thought about the play of the game Going through your mind

During that Sam Hubbard Run faster Sam Go get there He actually did look pretty fast Surprisingly This from next gen stats That's great Sam Hubbert reached the top speed of

What do you think of us? Well I do know You told me 21 miles per hour Everyone runs 20 no No, it was 17.43 miles per hour. It's amazing. Grave-Degger, give me the bio height and weight of Sam Hubbard.

The third fastest speed by a defensive lineman as a ball carrier this season. Mark Andrews, hot on his tail, reached the fastest speed of his career chasing down Hubbard, 20.72 miles per hour, the tight end, but could not make the tackle the athletes. They're good. He was trying to do that Leon Lett thing. He couldn't pull right. 6-5-265. Imagine a man of that size running almost 18 miles per hour.

That is ridiculous. And the fact that sometimes a game does come down to one play because the Ravens kind of outplayed the Bengals other than that one play. And for a kid from Archbishop Moller, as our friend Spicerack points out to me, a local Cincinnati kid. You and Spiceroy are still texting, huh? When this play happened, I heard a lot about the local Cincinnati high school dominance of athletics, of which Sam

Hubbard and apparently Spice Rack and the Wesleyan brothers were apart. And for like a local kid to make that play that will be remembered forever and just get out of here and get rid of the Ravens. They don't want to see this team anymore. The Ravens in the last two weeks held Cincinnati under 500 total yards. And when I say they don't want to see the Ravens,

I mean the Ravens defense. The Bengals average 4.1 yards for play over the last two weeks. They didn't top 260 yards in either game. They were physical. They really shut down Joe Burrow. And when you lost Jonah Williams, their left tackle during this game at that point,

the Bengals' offense didn't do a lot more, and that's concerning. That is, this is really what Wesley and Chris Wesley would have called a Pyrrhic victory because, you know, Jay Morrison of the Athletics said that not much celebrating as they walk into the locker room, the Bengals. A lot of head shakes and excels.

Like, you won, you got out of here, but you have three of your offensive starting linemen not available to you right now. No cigars this week. They were doing the cigar thing last time. I thought that Burrow was certainly affected by the line issue because there was a lot of him having to run around and try to escape pressure.

And it's like, all right, you did that last year. But to do that two years in a row, if this is the state of their line and it is, you got a problem. It's also like Cincinnati's in a different place than they were last year when they were Destiny's darling and nobody was expecting anything.

You know, like Buffalo, they're expected to, if they don't go to the Super Bowl, it's a bus this season. And this game, I think they were surprised because I think they knew obviously it's a division matchup and Baltimore did play them tough last week. But I think, you know, at least I know you had a different viewpoint on this, Greg, going into this game and you turned out to be right on this, which was they had, the Baltimore Ravens were ready for them and they really did stunt what Cincinnati was trying to do on

offense. And then you factor in, yes, the offensive line issues. And this is an issue. Paul Denner, who covers the Bengals, pointed this out on Twitter. They went the first 15 weeks of the season, Cincinnati, without having any offensive line injury, a major injury. In the last three games, they lose their right tackle,

Al-Collins to an ACL, right guard, Al-Capa to an ankle, and now left-tackle Jonah Williams to a knee, and we'll see how serious that is. It is the type of thing, Greg, where you really, because I really like Cincinnati, too, for a lot of different reasons. You wonder if this is going to be the thing that does them in as the competition jumps up.

I know you hate it because you spend all season, you spend all off season talking about these teams and then you get to this point. And they're just not those teams anymore. That's how you get Skyler Thompson starting a game for a promising offense. And now this Bengals team that had such great continuity. I think you said it, that they had the same group.

15 games without a major injury. They were the only team that didn't have those injuries. Now look, they only had three drives after that touchdown drive where Joe Burrow was magnificent. They did have three long. scoring drives. It was a game where Baltimore kind of played the underdog playbook perfectly. They limited possessions. They took possessions away and kept the ball. They did a good job offensively. That was a little worrisome too. I do think the Bengals offense will have better

days in that this is a particularly tough division matchup, seeing the same team three times in the season. Yeah, I mean, if anything, we're going to get a Bills and Bengals showdown where both of these offenses were kind of like, I mean, the bills are at a different situation. I mean, they're super explosive at times. But this is a Ravens issue for me today. This was a team that kind of bottled up, Burrow, all year long. And I don't think it's who they are. But the line issues to me could be enduring because you're right back where you started from in terms of your off-season building. All the work you did has vanished. And the line issues are not just protecting Burrow at all. It's the running game, which has been hot and cold all season,

and they basically gave up on it today. I'm thinking at one play where Roquan Smith just stuffed Mixing on a second and two, and then they didn't even try to run again the next down, and it ended up being another three and out. That part's worrisome, but you do still have Higgins and Chase. And Burrough, like, even though it happens in the first quarter, sometimes the games are won there. He had a couple great drives early that ended up just being enough.

I will say, like, J.K. Dobbins, after the game, had some pretty strong comments about that Huntley play that we talked. about he was esteemed that he wasn't out there he basically said in quotes i'm a guy who feels like i'm on the field at all the time i can help this team win and i wasn't it's the playoffs why am i not out there 12 carries it's the playoffs he also added if we would have had lamar we would have won two we'll get to that in just a bit but daubbins we were saying the same thing we were watching in the theater uh greggie uh when this all went down um the you know when that fumble occurs like why isn't daubbins who's been chewing up yards on the ground all day

why wasn't he getting the ball? He was their best offensive player, certainly. And that's something, that's a tough way to go into the offseason like that. That came from Jeff Zerbiak, by the way, the Ravens Athletic Reporter. Other Baltimore gaffs, I thought that they did not handle the clock well on their final possession. And I'll point out specifically some time elements here. First and 10 at the Cincinnati 28, Tyler Huntley passes to Dobbins for 11 yards and a first down. That's at 117 remaining Baltimore, I believe had two timeouts.

at this point. They don't call a timeout and they don't run another play until 34 seconds on first and 10 and it's an incomplete pass. And they then take a holding penalty that kind of knocks them back. And all of a sudden now they're at the 27 with 22 seconds left and they have these timeouts, but now everything's out of sorts. They never used them. And they eventually, I know they used at least one. But still, they kind of, I think they cost themselves there. Here's how Harbaugh explained to the time usage or the timeout usage or lack thereof after the game. I think we played it right. It didn't work out in the sense that after that we had incomplete passes,

so you're not going to have a chance to call them. If you complete the passes, you get the ball back in the red zone, you call the timeout. So I think it's, you know, from an elementary level, you could say, ah, they should have called the timeouts. But we had the timeouts worked out right. I think he's telling us that we're operating on an elementary level. He's talking to specifically us. I think he knows a little more than us.

I see what he's saying, but the difference is if Lamar Jackson's in that game, they get the next snap off, I think. No matter what, even if you didn't want to use the time out there, you want to get the next snap off in less than 30 seconds. I mean, you can't compare everything. Jim said is fine, though. You can't compare everything in Tom Brady, but he's getting that thing snapped with 30 seconds left on the clock.

That thing is... But that's why we're watching these playoff games with second and third string quarterbacks in there and, oh, wait, oh, well, it's not operating like a piece of machinery from outer space. In fairness, they did, like, a lot of good things. because they had 364 yards. Remember that third and one call

where they just chuck it up deep to Andrews? I'm like, whoa. I thought Huntley played pretty well. Right. They kind of let them be aggressive today. They were better per play than the Bengals were. And Huntley, other than that play, really did a good job. And let's just, I want to touch on a couple Melissa Stark-related things here

real quick. Melissa Stark reports right before kickoff that Lamar Jackson did not travel with the team to the game, which is interesting because he was in Cincinnati the week. before and now he's not at the playoff game and he had also ruled himself out rather than any type of conversation with the team about it. So there's going to be a lot of question marks about that. And this is more now this also I think ties into Lamar, Melissa Stark also. And you know I kind of got on my soapbox about this couple of weeks ago. I am not about the end of first quarter interview with the coach who's in the middle of a war, you know,

in football terms. Here is in full Melissa Stark's conversation with John Harbaugh, who by the way is under a lot of stress in the game and with his franchise

quarterback potentially just in outer space himself. Yeah, it won't. Back in Cincinnati with Ravens head coach John Harbaugh and John,

you told us your guys were going to be disciplined. What did you think about that last penalty? Well, I didn't like the last penalty. And so what will you tell your guys defense?

We'll be fine. Our guys will be fine. It's going to be a hard-fought game out here. We're going to play a Good game. And Tyler Huntley, with that interception, you said we might see Anthony Brown. What will that take?

We'll just see how the game goes, okay? Thanks. Thanks, John. With a big smile. Melissa, don't ask me another question. I think John Harbaugh is a young 60 years old. I think he's a young 60 years old, but I think this Lamar situation will learn more probably in the offseason is probably aging him in dog years.

And this is a tough way down the season. He has an intensity to him. just beneath the surface I guess not that far beneath the service that's like a lot to take and I've seen that after losses too sometimes when they're asking him questions and he he would be high on the list

along with Belichick of guys you just don't want to ask tough questions too after a loss maybe a mean dad think of the other Harbaugh brother so he keeps it under wraps compared to Jim Harbour like a good father but you know like if you get his temper

going I actually do you remember this expose on John Harbaugh that came out a couple years where he allowed us to look at his schedule. And he did have like in the course of like each day like an eight to 10 minute period penciled in to speak to his daughters. I think it was like it's because he's that busy. But it was like so old. That was like a Yahoo article for like 2014 or something. I just stuck out to me. I remember that. I remember we talked about it. The headline of that story was a good father comma mean dad. I think that's what that was it. That was the headline. By the way and just I don't

want to belabor this, but Gregie, I brought it up to you. Um, you know, the, the thing, with Lamar and we're going to learn more about it, obviously. Or maybe we won't. Who knows? But we'll see where his future is. And Gregi, I know that you have some reporting to share in a moment. At one point during the telecast, and this is where I get a little signals crossed, they remarked that Tyler Huntley's best friend is Lamar Jackson.

And Tyler Huntley happens to be playing the biggest game of his life. And then that's when I get a little confused because it's like, if there is an issue with the player and the team over money, I understand and there's a business side of this. But not being on the field, if this guy's your best friend and you want your team to be successful, don't you want to be down on the sideline with Tyler Huntley? And much less the rest of your teammates.

Like talking to him, taking them through different things. You know, that kind of surprised me that he wasn't in the building. And I know there's always going to be a sentiment, oh, you're being pro-ownership. That's not the case. But sometimes what I struggle with is the, the being the teammate side of this that also kind of crosses paths with the business side and how bad blood can develop with an organization, not necessarily with teammates.

I think it's complicated. There's a lot we don't know. But as a friendship and a teammate part of it, look, I think those two men like know exactly what's going on in each other's life. And the status that Lamar has with the team right now, it might be a distraction for him to be there and be around John Harba. Now, you can assign blame to whose fault that is to get to this point. It's not a good point.

If you had asked, you know, if we had this information before you asked that question on the Thursday show, what's the percentage that Lamar is back for the team? I would have answered it a lot more than 10%. I feel like we're in a different place. And I can't help but notice Roquan Smith getting that contract extension last week doesn't have an agent. There's just been buzz, I guess, that like they were working on a contract. contract for Lamar last week, potentially, like that this isn't necessarily, like, I think in a perfect world, like, that all would have happened. And I think the money and, and everything

got mixed up here, along with his injuries, I'm not doubting that, like, he has the looseness in his knee. But I think if he's not with the team, that feels like it's taking this whole thing to another level. I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier, but we are going to talk about Lamar Jackson. Yeah, we don't need to talk about Lamar Jackson, 875,000. Where did you get the reporting on the contract situation? I didn't have any reporting to share. Oh, I thought it was from our friend. Was it your paper of me?

Oh, well, it wasn't for the Washington Post. No, it wasn't. But it was that reporter. It was, yeah, Jason Locke and for, I believe, a radio station reported, like, he thought this was coming, essentially. and that he wasn't going to be showing up and he thinks... Wapo's not going to be happy that he's not reporting on the relationship

between the Ravens and the Lamar is in a bad place. I do not care what the watching post says. I mean, him not going to the game to me tells... I don't know what it is exactly, but it's a lot. It's an eyebrow razor. I think you're also, when you do that, Lamar is savvy enough to know that when he doesn't show up and we're all talking about it now.

We're all talking about this whole thing. And it's like that's an extra thing where had he been there. To his credit or not, I don't think he's, that is his focus. He doesn't manage, like, he doesn't have an, like, he's not managing the PR angle of it as a priority. I mean, just like, if you don't show up to your team's playoff game,

and you're able to go, what, what are we doing here? Well, I think the able to go is a separate issue. I'm not saying that, like, you couldn't get right. I think, like, he was able to go, like, to play in the game. But this indicates a bad state of their relationship, no doubt. Yeah. All right. And now what everyone's been waiting.

waiting for. And remember, there's one more game. It is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers hosting of the Dallas Cowboys Monday night, and we'll have the full recap and all the other reaction to everything that's going on in our league as we start spinning towards divisional round play on Tuesday. But you've been waiting for the divisional playoff schedule, and here it is. So sorry, but before we get too far, the Nick Wesleying locked the Bengals. Okay, go ahead with this game. It's tight. Just want to, you know, keep the audience on their toes. No, that's bookkeeping. That's an important part of being a producer.

Thank you, Grave Digger. Saturday, this upcoming Saturday, the first game, 4.30 p.m. Eastern on NBC. The Jacksonville, Jaguars, at Kansas City Chiefs. Hmm, frisky. I love it. I think it's frisky. I'm glad we got this because it had been the Ravens winning. Would have been a whole different situation.

This is nice. I like that. The night game. Oh, it's going to get wild and salty in the northeast because the Nogibis. because the Nijiman travel to the link to face the Eagles at 815 ESPN, excuse me, Eastern. That's on Fox. The Sunday games will be Cincinnati at Bills on CBS at 3 o'clock

and Cowboys or Bucks at Niners at 6.30 p.m. Eastern on Fox. Good slate. Very good. It is. It's the best weekend of the year, division around playoffs. It came within a hair of having the Bengals. Bill's knocked out, that would have been utter chaos. I think this is kind of perfect.

You got good games, but you got the top two seeds in each conference through. You got the Bengals through, which I wanted. And the way the Giants team is playing, that game is in the way the Eagles ended the season. That game is way more interesting to me. And Hertz is endless updates about a shoulder that's not feeling up to snuff. Right. I mean, Nick Siriana did a lot of talk about what a great healer, Jalen Hertz is.

Let's see how healed up he is come Saturday night in Philadelphia. All right. Any other thoughts, boys? I thought that was good. I thought that was a solid, professional, comprehensive breakdown of super wildcard weekend. We are professionals. And I would just like to let, you know, you know, and others that we've had a microphone issue in here, a headset issue. And so the entire night, I like to use the cough button on these machines a lot, just in times, just a... Sure. You're a big cough button guy in general. Yes. The cough button is located above Greg's lap because it had to be plugged into the one that Greg's normally, and he's one further down. We're opening the kimono here to some degree. We can edit this out, so it's fun. Sure.

But I did not use the cough button once because it seemed too awkward. But you did use it once, didn't you? I didn't use it twice. Justin, this is when you hit the music. Was there any type of glancing? I warned Greg ahead of time that this might be a thing, but I try to keep it to a minimum. them once. Give me wink if there was a

crotch graze. No. Oh, not on my behind. He's the call. This is an I-Heart podcast.