NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Divisional Round Sunday Recap: Rams Escape Caleb's Heroics and Patriots Handle Houston

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Gregg Rosenthal is joined by Patrick Claybon and Nick Shook to recap the Divisional Round action between the Rams and Bears in Chicago followed by the Texans and Patriots in Foxborough (34:55).  Note: time codes approximate.NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Welcome to NFL Daily, where I don't think Caleb Williams is going to make another life-changing play again this season. But you never know. Like, at this point, he makes the impossible possible. I'm Greg Rosenthal in the Chris Wesleyan podcast studio. I'm with my friend Patrick Claibon. Nick Shook is joining us from Cleveland.

The divisional round was a banger. conference championship weekend is going to have a lot to live up to. Nick Shook, we know what the championship games are going to be. And yes, the Bears are not going to be involved in it. And yet, even though they lost in this game, I still can't move past that one last Caleb movement that he gave us earlier tonight. Yeah, it's only right that it ended that way. Of course, you don't want, you know, Bears fans to have their hearts broken as they too often have.

But it's only right that they had another miraculous play on a four. and four got to have it situation that that pays off and gives them one last thrill to basically put a caper on what was a thrill filled 2025 season a great debut for the ben johnson era and plenty to look forward to for this fan base in classic no no no no yes uh form where calip instantly starts to retreat and spins back and it's like oh no it's all going to be for not and then magic uh that that ultimately fizzles out but but living in those moments is what makes this whole enterprise yes special. I know. And I got Eric Roberts. He's recovered. We love you. Eric from that thing we won't talk about that happened on Saturday involving your team yelling at me. It's like, we're going to get to that play. We're going to talk about the play. But sometimes plays and themes of a season, we can't even wait to get into. And Caleb Williams and these plays that he's made at the end of these games to me are like the number one theme of this season. And yet it was the Rams. Resourceful as ever.

who found a way to get it done in that cold. For the rookie Harrison Meebus, out of the hold of Ethan Evans, here it comes to send the Rams to Seattle for the NFC championship game. It's good! The Rams win it. 20 to 17 in overtime.

A great call by our friend J.B. Long, who's making a little. that long flight back from Chicago on Sunday night with our friend Maurice Jones Drew and they're going to be making another flight up the coast to Seattle for the NFC championship

game next Sunday. Harrison Mivas before getting bleeped on NBC after the game. That was controversial. finishes out a crazy game that had a little bit of everything.

20 to 17, the Rams win. I'm going to do something different here, Patrick. And Nick, we're each going to have one overarching thought. Oh, my God. Of this game, like a takeaway before we get into everything, I'm putting you on the spot. What is your takeaway from this entire affair? Okay. So around 80 plays for the starters on both teams, I think you alter the results on 15 of those individual plays. You get a different end result. It's equal parts frustrating as well as fantastic because those are the stakes in a single elimination playoff game. And I hope in our everlasting search, Greg, for that one particular thing to take away from the game, we pull back

our focus and we're able to turn the resolution up and see that the forest is the trees, the individual aspects that make all of this. Well, that's why I'm getting three different takeaways to start. Just three umbrella takeaways as we get going. What about you, Shuck? this was a classic case of a football game that was included many phases. It included a first half in which the Bears didn't capitalize on what I thought was a better half of performance than their opposition in the Rams. Yet you're tied at 10. It's basically a slog of a third quarter, early fourth quarter. The Rams finally find their rhythm, get into the end zone.

And it takes a miracle for the Bears naturally. I think that it was a perfect example of how football is truly a four quarter and sometimes extra period story and why it is the most popular sport in this nation. Yeah, and the reason I started even with that, like mentioning that Caleb play was, yeah. I mean, Roger Goodell has to be sad to see this Caleb Williams, Ben Johnson team go because we've been doing this a while. There's never been anything quite like the end of this bear season. Not really. I mean, if you go back to the week 16 game against the Packers and how that ended, I mean,

first of all, he has the most, you know, comeback fourth quarter wins in the history of the league. So literally that hasn't happened. But the combination of what he did in week 18 and then throughout these playoffs in week 60, like, I can't remember a ride we've ever been on like this. But my takeaway, so I guess that was kind of too. I'm jamming it in there. Okay. That's what you do as a host. Absolutely. My takeaway is that like the Rams defense kept giving Matthew Stafford enough chances to eventually do the thing that Matthew Stafford does. And I think that gets to your point too, to both of your points that it is a fourth quarter overtime game.

It had so many swings. But we're going to get to the Patriots Texans, I should have mentioned, the AFC championship. That game happened as well. Is set as well. But I found some similarities here where the two leading MVP candidates both didn't play their best games on Sunday. But it is a team sport. And particularly for Stafford, who I think had his worst game of the entire season today,

he was picked up by his defense like he's. picked up his teammates and his defense so many times this season and eventually the play calling in the fourth quarter from Sean McVeigh and then the execution, especially by Stafford in the overtime drive. They kept giving him chances and eventually he did the thing that Matthew Stafford does and he steals your soul. Yeah, it was great performances, especially the entire bear's secondary. Deshaun Wright had better coverage on Devante Adams for almost the entire game crucial great throw and catch from Stafford to Adams on the game winning. Mevis, excuse me,

Mivas field goal drive up and thinking about it all night, and I loved it on the first try. But in terms of like the game by Jaquan Brisker, the game by Kyler Gordon, it was over and over again, the Bears' defense putting Stafford in these disadvantageous positions where, you know, maybe throwing the ball is not the right circumstance, dance, but they're going to dance with who brung him.

And he's been great all year. Just a great defensive performance tonight that came up a touch short. You made a face, shook. When I said, I thought it was the worst Stafford performance of the, of the season. Yeah. Why do you disagree? You're wrong. His worst performance was in Atlanta at the end, near the end of the season.

There was a terrible game they had that day. This was not close to that. But what this was was a great example of why the playoffs are so captivating, and especially this year, because this game mirrored a lot of what we saw in Denver yesterday, which was coaches, making adjustments and basically reacting to what one team dictating to the other and then them taking the power back. And in this instance, it was Dennis Allen, blitzing Matthew Stafford off the edge with the defensive backs, giving him looks that he wasn't accustomed to or wasn't

comfortable with. They couldn't throw the football even though outside of their, you know, first early scoring drive and they stuck to it. And then it's Sean McVeigh getting the halftime and almost listening to the NBC halftime show and they're all sitting at the desk, Jason Garrett, Tony Dungey and they're all just like, run the ball more. And what did you do? They come out and they run the ball more and they get back on track, a chess match, a back and four. This is why playoff football so good. We got laid to the fourth quarter. Yeah, I don't, I think, I don't know if he was watching the halftime live. Maybe they played it

to him like right at the end of the third quarter or so, because it's, it still took him a while. Yeah, there was like a seven drive sequence where they had 89 total yards on 31 place, six first downs in a seven drive sequence. And at that point of the game, they had thrown the ball 34 times. They had run it 11 times. Maybe he actually was on blue sky, because that's the moment where I sent out something of like, yeah,

despite having like a 54% success rate, so far to that point in the game, it would have been 34 to 11 in terms of passes to runs. After that point, when I sent that out, not taking credit, but you just never know. I mean, causation correlation. Who knows?

They only threw the ball 12 times. They ran it 20 times. And they had a classic Kyron Williams and Blake Corum drive that ended up resulting in a touchdown that also included the classic Puka Nakua fourth downplay. Let's actually listen to a question from the press conference after the game.

How about our Jordan Rodrigue in the press conference room? She's not throwing away a question. She's getting to the meat of the matter. Is there anything to take from tonight going so pass-heavy in the elements against a really good D.E. Yeah, you know what? I think what I kind of mentioned it, I could have done a much better job. And then I did think once we were able to get some success, we settled into a little bit of a different approach, you know, being able to lean on the run.

And then when we were throwing it, picking up the tempo a little bit. And I thought, Matthew, had a bunch of success keeping the ball in play. And guys made their plays. And so I think overall, what I would say, Jordan, is I did not like the feel for the flow of the game that I had. outside of the first, you know, series where our guys did a great job. Defensively, it kept us in it in spite of how, you know, poorly, you know, poor of a job I did for our group. But like I said, you know, I'm really grateful for this group being able to find a way, stick with it, and be able to overcome some bad coaching by me tonight.

You know, you like to have players who are coachable. And, you know, you look at the history of Jordan Roderick coaching up Sean McVeigh. It worked in the past. And I think we have an opportunity to see that. past success paying off there in that instance. It's true because I think you had a better question because it was Jordan asking him that question in that spot. And he understood it. It was a great answer. And yeah, they get the ball back in the start of the fourth quarter. Like once again, their defense gets the ball back. As much as I want to credit the Bears defense and Dennis Allen

for having an incredible game plan, getting pressure throughout. Kevin Byard actually told Kimberly Martin of ESPN before the game. Their whole plan was to make Matthew Stafford one-dimensional and make him throw the ball 40 or 50 times. That's what we want to do. He said that before the game publicly, and that is kind of what they made him do. But the Rams defense kept getting the ball back as well.

They force a pun after halftime. They intercept Caleb Williams late in the third quarter to. They force another punt. That's when the Rams get the ball back at their own nine-yard line and go on a 14 play 91-yard drive. That included a lot of runs, yes, but a third-down conversion on a third-and-six to Pooka-Nakua, and then there was that fourth down,

and we're sitting in the newsroom, and if you're watching, you can see the fourth-in-one play to Pooka-Nakua, where it's like, it's the call that the Rams go to all the time on fourth-and-one. That sort of end-around that Pooka-Nakua gets the ball, It's the same one. Jordan and I talk about it all the time. And Patrick called it even before they lined up. Oh, they're going to hand it off to Pukukua on this play.

But you know what? They run a different little variation of it where he goes in motion past Stafford, reverses his field, goes back the other way, and then does a good job breaking the tackle on 31. Who is that? It's Byrd. That's Byrd in a big spot. And it's crazy if you look,

shook over the last few years of Rams football, how many big moments are those wide receiver runs? And it was an up and down game for the Puka Nakua, Matthew Stafford connection. Like a lot of their like automatics just were not happening throughout the game. But then you think about that third down earlier in that drive. You think about a third down where he replaces where the blitz is coming from in overtime to Puka Nakua. And then that fourth down too, like in the end, the Puka Nakua Stafford connection ends up taking them home and just getting them over the finish line.

And that's another part that's just so beautiful about football. It so much could depend on tape study. How much have you studied your opponent and what they like to do in certain situations? And how do they play off of that? Because later in this game, they try to run, they try to show as if they're going to run an end around to Puka again on a third and short. And they motion him to the right. Then they run a toss to the left and it gets blown up in the backfield after Kairn Williams. But he breaks up for an initial tackle and then gets taken down.

right. And so it's that. But it's also, you know, I see people online immediately after they convert that third down and overtime to Puka. Why are you playing off coverage, you know, eight yards off when it's third and five? Well, because they're blitzing and the rams are just replacing where the defender left with the receiver for the first down. It's the back and forth. It's the, what do I think is going to work here? What do we like to go to? What am I anticipating that they're doing? And it's so great that Sean McVeigh caught up to himself in time. Because at the end of that touchdown drive to take a 17 to 10 lead, they show a shot of him on the sideline. And he's visibly fired up. Like, look.

Let's, let's freaking go, that sort of thing. And I'm like, you know what? He really is reveling in this moment right now because he's proud of himself for getting out of a bad game flow, calling a really good drive and finally getting a step of head of Dennis Allen after you spent the entire game on your back foot because Alan was dictating to you. It's just a great thing about football. That's why these games are so special. Yeah.

The picture dictates so much of what the Rams do. It's based on the look. And to take that particular flow back from Dennis Allen and say, well, why don't we take an opportunity to dictate here? Because to me, it freed up a little bit of Stafford in the passing game because these, like, Kyler Gordon had the second most pressures on the Bears. Like the Bears' time to their pressure. Wow.

A lot of them was less than three seconds. Like it was getting to Stafford so quickly where you can see it in the statistics that, yeah, McVeigh is right. The flow of the game and the play calling wasn't on inside. until it was. And then you think about in terms of going with tempo late in the game, they also had a good drive at the end of the second quarter to get a field goal. And that was when they had to go tempo, a minute and 10 seconds left in that game.

And so that's sort of what I was getting at when I said the defense kept giving them chances for Sean McVeigh to kind of get out of that rut. Because the last drive of regulation, the drive after the Rams scored that touchdown, a bit of a fiasco. The first drive of overtime, you just mentioned one of the final plays on it, the toss that gets stuffed, looked like it might lose them the game

because they're giving the ball back up and all the bears need to do is get a field goal. They were all in that position, though, because of the play. Let's actually listen, let's set up, once again, it's 17 to 10. Rams allow the bears to drive down to the goal line. But like for much of the day,

the Bears struggled inside the five-yard line. We'll return to that in a second. They get all the way to fourth down until Caleb just takes it into his own hands. It's fourth and four at the Ram 14. And in the gun is the quarterback, Caleb Williams, looks into the nickel, arms outstretched, fourth down and four,

14 of the Rams, shotgun snap, goes back four, four-man rush. He's chased, he's flushed, he's all the way back to the 40. He's backpedaling and throws a pass into the end. Caught. Touchdown. Touchdown. Chicago has caught a touchdown pass.

With Cole come in, open in the corner. If you hadn't seen it, you would not believe it. 18 seconds left. Pandemonium at Soldier Field. This dude's magic. It's a Harlan banger. Another one. The best. Love Kevin Harlan.

and yeah, I could watch that play forever. And look, the way he kept running back on that play, it reminded me of flag football a little bit. Occasionally you'll see in these flag like middle school leagues, there's the one kid who's just way more athletic and better than everyone. And that's the type of stuff that you can do. Also reminds me a little bit of Tecmo Super Bowl. if you have a good quarterback

and you just start running backwards forever because you're faster than he could do. But he's doing that against Jared Verse and Braden Fiske and Kobe Turner and then turning around and Kobe Durant would have been sick if they lose this game because he loses commit at the last second.

But for Caleb to throw that ball kind of blind but kind of knowing he's there and having the confidence to do it. Like that looked like it was plan A, Patrick. That was kind of what he wanted. wanted to do. Yeah, just wanted to get enough time to have his giant tight end matched up with one of the smallest people on the field and to have a wait room moment in the back of the end zone

where I get Tecmo, Super Bowl, I get a little game breaker 98. Yeah. With the way that all of Fisk and Verse and Young's animations were the exact same in Chase Caleb Williams reacting to his movements where it's, I mean, he's laying on his back at the logo. one catches this ball where there's it's perfect it's a perfect moment so this throw you won't be surprised to know was the furthest completion on a throw mate like the furthest behind the line of scrimmage of any completion in the NFL since the NGS era started like he went back further and completed the pass more than any any throw in the NGS era it also

was the longest completion of any red zone throw, not a surprise there, in terms of air yards in the NGS era. So that's just putting like a couple of numbers on seeing fantastic play. And Ben Johnson called it just ridiculous afterwards. Now, in that moment, there's, what, 18 seconds left and it's 17 to 16. Do you think that Ben Johnson should have gone for two, Chuck? and did you think he would? I don't know if I would say I think that he should have.

I thought he was going to. I definitely thought he. This is like the most aggressive coach in the NFL. It comes from the Dan Campbell tree, one of the most aggressive coaches in the NFL. But it was also a great example of how within the game, how it can affect your decisions later. Because every time that they went for it,

whether it was in a goal to go situation, they turned it over on downs twice in this game. And the fourth and goal situation they had earlier, which led them to needing that throw, it was a call that, you know, it's a quick fire pass and it gets broken up by spates at the goal line. And you're thinking if that's your best play call at that point, you probably have nothing left.

So I understand why you kick the PAT, you take it to overtime, you think you're going to ride the wave of momentum at home into overtime and capitalize there. But I was a little bit surprised just knowing who he was that he didn't go for it, just because that's the type of coach he is totally understood why though, don't disagree with it at all. Yeah, I said to Greg before the drive that this is setting up for a two point conversion that

we're going to have a chance to talk about for years. but the explanation from Coach Johnson makes perfect sense and chooks all over it. The play had already been run. If you go through game-winning two-point conversion plays considering the stakes of the game, whatever they would have run in that situation was probably already called.

And it wasn't executed well. As he pointed out, he was just saying, like, they weren't clean. He wishes he had a better plan. Our goal-to-go plan just wasn't great. And if you're watching again, you can see the video, by the way, I just want people to see this,

that Stacey Dale's shot of the Caleb touchdown, which might be the finest reporter on the sideline, just taping from their phone, hoping to get a little magic moment ever. Maybe the number one of the genre, Cole Comet, just swinging for the home run right to Stacey Dales. He was like, I'm going to score a life-changing touchdown, and then I'm going to find Stacey Dales and go right into her phone.

If you're watching on Sunday night football, you're thinking, wow, Cole, comment went right to the Sunday night football camera and hit his home run celebration. No, that was Stacy. He was doing that celebration just, just off screen. Crazy. Also, Stacy, great master of the Zoom feature on an iPhone, right? Like the little pull your thumb up, pull it down, zoom it in, zooming out at the perfect time. Tim Cook, hit her up.

Whole thing is crazy. And I certainly don't blame Ben Johnson for not going for two. and this is why press conferences asking for context is perfect. That all made sense. Like his answer for it. And ultimately, he got the ball back in overtime. His defense got to stop. That might have played into it.

He thought he's like, I felt like, you know, we could go win it in overtime. And he was, you know, he was right. He got the ball back. He gets all the way to midfield in overtime. And you do think about whether the fourth down decisions, too, earlier in this game, you know, impacted Ben Johnson. So the Bears go three for six on fourth down in this game. Now, they get a touchdown in the first half because they go for it on fourth down.

And then they get stopped another time. You know, that that's a net win. You get seven points. Seven's better than the two field goals. It's greater than. Then you have a goal line stop of D'Andre Swift on third down. That was a really fascinating sequence. When the Bears are driving late in regulation,

it's their drive before that one, they get to the goal line, and there's a back-to-back play sequence with DeAndre Swift trying to get in and then a stop on fourth down that could have possibly been a James Harrison type of play for Omar Spates. What were you thinking about what the Rams defense was going to do there?

just in general. Like, why was it? Why were the, like, what did the Rams do specifically, I guess, if you saw anything in this game? Because their defense did a great job too and deserves a lot of credit for slowing down this Bears attack, especially on the ground near the goal line. And this is a Bears team that runs pretty violently inside the five when they do commit to the run on the goal line. Like, it's worked against other teams in the past. And this time around, they kind of twist swift down short of the goal line by, I think, two yards on second down. Third down, it looks like he's going to make it with the toss.

but the bear successfully string it out. He tries to go for the hurdle. Then he gets blasted. Quentin Lake flies in out of nowhere. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see it right now. He gets strung out by verse. He tries to hurdle over the next defender. Then Quentin Lake flies in out of nowhere and blasts him out of the air

to send him down to the ground still short of the goal line. He's gained nothing there. And at that point, you're thinking, okay, if you're trying to commit to running the ball, you believe you can run the ball here into the end zone, you're probably out of options going on to fourth down. I don't know why Kyle. Manung guy wasn't more involved. He's the more violent runner of the two.

but you can always, you know, hindsight's 20. I thought the fourth down play was curious at best. It was basically like what you would call a spacing concept where you get, you know, guys in kind of a bunch formation. Somebody comes inside and runs a little like hitch on the inside. And you just fired in there in a tight window, but space was all over it. It's a great play by the Rams defense.

And at that point, you've exhausted all the Bears goal line plays, including probably the two-point conversion, which is why it had such a major effect on the outcome of the game because then they get down there with the miraculous catch. And they can't do anything to go win the game. They just have to settle for the PAT, which was perfectly fine. fine. Yeah, it's one of those particular, like the granular aspects of that play because they pulled Jordan McFadden, the left guard on the other side on that shotgun handoff to Swift, where maybe you

think he can go inside of McFadden's block. He trusts himself to be able to get to the end zone. Then he's got Darius Williams. He can't see Quentin Lake coming on the backside, you know, in hindsight and looking at the broadcast view, you're thinking, well, if he takes Darius Williams corner to the pylon, I think D'Andre Swift gets there, but he sees the short. this route being there not knowing that Lake was on the outside of his block in the first place, which is probably why he could have gone inside in the first way. It did feel like Detroit Lions, DeAndre Swift showed up for one play. Because if he just, if he just didn't jump, if he just lowered his shoulder, like he's falling inside the one, I think, at the, at the worst. But,

but the way they defended that. And yeah, there were so many defensive plays by the Rams during this game, which kept them in it. But more than anything, it was the secondary. like Cam Curl gets an absolutely massive interception in overtime. Here is Cam Curl talking after the game with NBC. Two picks for your boy, Kobe Durant. How were you all able to read Caleb Williams so well tonight? Man, you know, just playing together, man. We trust each other, man.

And, you know, we heard a little noise, you know, in the wind about our secondary. You know, they were hating on us. But, you know, we came to show them what we can do, man. We make plays back there, man. We win games for the team. What'd you hear? Man, we're willing to give no air time, but we heard it, though. And that's why we play like that.

We'll continue to play like that. That's me. I'm sorry, Chicago. I motivated the Rams secondary to play extra hard. I thought maybe the Bears could exploit some size advantages than considering the Kobe Durant play with Colquimitt. It appears that happened, but the Ram's secondary made some place. We've been talking about the Rams DB as being, especially the cornerbacks,

being potentially their Achilles heel all season. I do want to show that Cam Curl interception in overtime because I think it's going to be a controversial, you know, play for a long time in Chicago. After the game, Caleb Williams said that it was a miscommunication that he thought DJ Moore was going to flatten out the route a little more. But Moore went vertical. Some other people, Shooki saying DJ Moore kind of quiet quit on a route at the biggest spot in overtime. What was your read on that? Just a fantastic play, by the way, by Curl. Like, that often is the difference in these games.

It's like a defensive back or a defensive player just like making the damn play. But it was not a great DJ Moore moment and probably the last moment of him in a bear's uniform. Yeah, but I think this is a both things can be true situation because let's think about it from DJ Moore's perspective. You're running that route at the deep over and you're thinking, all right, this safety's here. I'm covered. Like, I'm not going to get the ball because I'm covered. Whereas Caleb's thinking flat. and out adjust to where the DB is. He doesn't.

So he does kind of quit on the play. But also, it's a great play made by the defensive back. And it's just a bit of a misunderstanding between quarterback and receiver. And sometimes that just happens. It's just that it happened to be that the worst possible time for the reins. It happens with DJ more a lot. It really does. And that's probably why he's going to be gone.

Yeah. It's unfortunate because, look, that's, I am more amazed by quarterbacks and wide receivers being able to side adjust just as a regular part. of that's just how the NFL is played, like on a every down basis. I'm more amazed by that than almost anything, like even more than all the athletic. It seems insane that that works. And it's always worked.

So like, I get it that it's a high degree of difficulty situation. But unfortunately, I think Caleb had it read, you know, right. And it's interesting because they get the ball back there in overtime after a pretty regrettable drive by the Rams. And they get it all the way to midfield. Caleb Williams is scrambling later in the game. Caleb Williams is making a lot of really great high level throws. They're at midfield.

At this point, I think Rams fans are thinking like, this game is probably over. They need one first down to get in Cairo Santos' field goal range. And instead, they're kind of big game hunting. And that's how the Rams end up moving on. Yeah, and Caleb's aggressive. That's why they were in this game in the first place. you know, it has happened a lot with DJ Moore. I feel like the fact that it was, you know,

route number 58 for DJ Moore and the accumulation of, you know, DJ is not a smallish wide receiver to be, you know, playing that volume of plays, and not to make excuse for it, but just to highlight, you know, some of the factors that go into that where he's, like he said, he's not necessarily looking. If he's looking, I think it's a little bit different,

but didn't see the ball. saw something different that Caleb did. And this is a couple of plays after Caleb runs directly into Landman on a first down run where, you know, he's like Tebow powering it down the field for the Chicago Bears. And I know hindsight being absolutely flawless as it always is going to be. Folks wanted some more runs there. But people wanted runs when there were passes. We could fix everything if we had a time machine.

Caleb was, even though he threw three picks, I just have so much more confidence in him than I even did six weeks ago. I think he was just improving on a week-to-week basis. Some of the whole shots in this game, there was the one to Adunzee late in the fourth quarter that he hit. But there were a couple like that on that one. Actually, Colston Loveland, by the way, Ali Connolly texted me to point.

Make sure you give Colston Loveland his credit for blocking Jared verse one-on-one. Sometimes tight ends can block the defensive end and it's not always a problem. And it's true on that play. And Caleb had a few plays like that to Odunzei to Moore, who did have five catches in this game, including a touchdown to Loveland. But I did think, like, a problem for them in this game

was like the Bears' receivers weren't always making the plays for him. I think there were two to three clear drops. Loveland definitely had one or two. And then there was probably like four or five more. That would have been tough, but you could have made the play for him. We'll talk about the Patriots in a second.

Their receivers were making plays. The defensive backs, for the Rams were making plays. Kobe Durant with two of them. They weren't easy ones. And yeah, I'm not going to like attribute it to anything magical other than they just made it happen in the end in a game that could not have been any closer.

And I think to your point, I think for a lot of the game, it almost looked like the Bears were the better team and the Rams snuck it out. Yeah, that is kind of what it felt like. But I also think that you're right in that they could have made some plays. I think about a deep shot to Luther Bird and that gets broken up by a great play by a Rams defensive back.

And you think, oh, maybe a bigger receiver or more experienced receiver, a stronger receiver makes that play. And that changes, you know, the course of the game. But it's also this game, you know, on Caleb's three interceptions, we just talked about the last one. But there was also one earlier where it felt like maybe there was another misunderstanding. And it's a feather on the cap of Chris Shula, the defensive coordinator for the Rams for the way that he disguises coverage. They come out showing man coverage across the board. And it looks like the receiving core and Caleb both believe that it's man coverage. And instead, he goes to the corner route to Luther Burton and Kobe Durant's right there drifting back.

in zone coverage to pick it off and take away the idea of a possible whole shot because you think, all right, burden's running the corner route. He's got in, he's got the advantage on outside leverage over the safety, but he never sees Durant back there because he thinks Durant's running with the receiver who cuts inside from the outside and he's never going to be there. And that's why it's beautiful that the Rams can get away with things like this or at least accomplish things like this defensively. It's just a feather in the cap of Chris Shula and an example of why football is so much of a chess match and such an in-game reaction thing. And for Caleb, being a second year quarterback done so many great things. You talk about over the last six weeks. I go all the way back

to the Raider game way back in week four when he led them back. That was the first step in him becoming this clutch player. He did it so many times this season, but it is another example of why we have to remind ourselves he is only in his second year and he will learn from things like this. There was a moment in the game where Collinsworth was maybe speculating that Loveland runs the wrong route on the adjustment there. And could have taken up more space vertically to occupy Durant so that there's more freedom to get that ball to Luther Burden, but a great play, a great call by defense

as you said, Greg. One team made plays when the ball was in the air and the other did. Yeah, and I, look, I think Colston Loveland ended up suffering a concussion in this game. He did not finish the game. Ben Johnson did confirm that afterwards. You hate to

see that. And just shout out to Kevin Dotson and this running game and this offensive line that, you know, we'll have all week to talk about what they need to do in Seattle. But the running game, look, it's not as easy as just saying, you got to run the ball more. And then it works. Like, you got to have the players to actually execute that on a day where they almost used no heavy personnel. They were basically in three wide receivers, the whole game, almost treating Jordan Whittington as a tight end. or sometimes it was Mumpfield,

but they did not go heavy. And for what it's worth, the few plays that they did, it did not go very well for them. And when they needed to run, their offensive line really road-graded and just were getting four, five-yard chunks.

Let's wrap, actually, just giving the Rams some credit. And by listening to Sean McVeigh talk about what they were going up against today. And that's what it's about. There's no style points. It's about being able to survive. in advance and we were able to do that in a tough hostile environment and it was cold as

shit today. And yeah, they got through. The West Coast team. They can win in the cold. Probably won't be as cold in Seattle next week. Let's take a break. I mean, the most surprising thing all Sunday for me was not the moment that Caleb Williams through that pass.

It was the moment that Eric got in my ear and told me, we've already gone 25 minutes. I was like, what? I feel like we've only been talking for like five minutes. Let's take a quick break, and we're going to come back, and we're going to talk about

the AFC matchup between Drake May and that Texan's defense. Stevenson steps up over the right guard. Here comes a four-man wash. May stands in, throws a long ball, deep down the right side for King Sean. Burmese reaches out of the right head. Two-score league.

That's what's up. They're telling the Texans. We're blowing it. Drake Bac says I don't care. Poor Zolak. I mean, Eric's just sick of hearing him. He's like, that's enough Zolak. That's Pop Sochi.

That's the final score in a 28 to 16 Patriots victory. New England is moving on to the AFC championship game in Denver. It was all building up to the Jarrett Stittenden. Revenge game all along. What a sentence. We can talk about that later in the week. First, we got to talk about this game. Similar to how Matthew Stafford's defense

kept getting the ball back to Stafford. The Patriots defense kept getting it back with turnovers. C.J. Stroud and the Texans turn it over five times and you can only keep this Patriots big play offense down for so long. They did throw three touchdown passes, first quarterback all season, to do that against the Houston Texans. It wasn't pretty shook on a play-by-play basis, but I was impressed by May and the receiver's ability to make something big happen in spurts. You know what I mean? Like, they just needed someone to make big plays.

And Kayshan Booty and Stefan Diggs and May in spurts made enough of them to get out of there in just an ugly game there in the cold rain and the snow. Yeah, I think we're establishing a bit of the theme with the Patriots postseason journey because that was kind of the story of the Charger game as well. It was the throw to Hunter Henry to get the touchdown to essentially seal that victory. And we got that three or four times today, which was the throw to booty that you just heard that we just played there. but it was also an earlier throw to booty on third down

where he forces it in a tight window for a gain of 17 or 18 that sets up the tight window throw to Stefan Diggs in the end zone for a touchdown. And yes, May is not lighting up the stat sheet. He finishes with 179 yards passing 16 to 27, but with those three touchdowns, you don't have to when you get short fields because your defense is playing better than it has all year.

It's very opportunistic. And outside of your own strip sack issues against a couple of good pass rushes who are totally taking advantage of a rookie at left tackle and Will Campbell, you're not committing egregious turnovers that are costing you the game and you're capitalizing on most of the opportunities

that you're getting. And that's what's gotten now to the AFC championship game. The question is, will that formula stand the test of another week? We'll find out. But through two games, he hasn't been stellar, but he's been good when he's needed to be good. And that's what's mattered most. Yeah, it's hard to evaluate because, look,

he fumbled the ball four times, Drake May today, and lost it twice. I think two were really on him and two, you know, the pressure is pretty quick. there from the blind side. The reason I kind of started with that play was ultimately, this game was insane, first of all. I mean, there were eight turnovers in the game and they all happen, you know, I think in the first three quarters.

In those five turnovers, how many points do you think the Patriots scored off those, off the, how much the offense scored off the turnovers? I believe it was zero points. Zero. They got the pick six, but on offense, they didn't do anything with any of them. The three touchdowns that they got were actually like full field normal drives where they just suddenly popped up for like a 65, 70 year drive, which against his Texans defense, you'll take. Ultimately, I think what people are going to remember more from this game is what happened on the other side of the ball with CJ Straff. Yeah, just a cataclysm of errors where you wonder about the early, you know, we've had every single quarterback, I feel like, in the playoffs, injure their hand on a follow through at some point.

It happens early for CJ Stroud. There was the wintry mix. There was the notable absence of Nico Collins coming into the game, out with the brain injury. And then they lose Dalton Schultz, who was apparently the entire plane was constructed. Game plan was out of Dalton Schultz and combined with the worst CJ Stroud game since last week's worst CJ Stroud game. It all led to this just kind of a waste of a great defensive performance by the Houston Texans. because you talk about all three of those touchdown passes. If I'm not mistaken, other than the Kishon Booty one-hander,

because that was the only place anybody was going to get a hand on the ball, the Texans got hands on both of those touchdown passes. Bullock got a full palm on the ball that was caught by Pop Douglas, where he makes a great adjustment late to catch that ball that was deflected, not like a full deflection, but enough that were the bothered some people. So he goes into the end zone there. And you could see Stefan D.

Diggs's fingers impressing on the football. He's able to hold on that touchdown pass where that was the level of difficulty that was required for the Patriots to score points today. And then, you know, Hunter and Anderson, I get like the frustrations with Will Campbell and the Patriots front. They're getting everybody. They're doing up everybody at this point. And that's going to happen with Drake May.

He's going to have deep drops and look down the field and try to make plays. Maybe not the team that you want to do that against, but they kind of check that down late in the second. Right. They started just getting the ball out of his hands on some of the third and longs. I hear what you're saying, but here's just a little stat from next-gen stats. Will Anderson and Daffa-O-A-O-A are the only two players in the history of the postseason to get three sacks and two force fumbles in the same game.

I mean, they do have a commonality, which is a, you know, this Campbell and May are the two kind of problem. And look, mate, there might be a little bit of like a, we might be on hand-size in the cold weather watch a little bit with Drake May. in your eyes. Yeah. If you get Bobbin out there or maybe Wimby and have them hold the ball with giant hands and have DeMille Hunter's

swat like it's not necessarily going to go. No, it's if you were going to get on the hand side stuff, maybe it's when he fumbles it rushing earlier in the game that that was, yeah, there was it. They were playing in a slushy machine. Either way it was, it was tough to make

plays there on offense. Certainly, you mentioned that Douglas fourth down play. Let's actually listen to that because I think that was a big early moment where Josh McDaniels and Mike Friable decide to go for it on fourth down.

Instead of just, you know, quote unquote, taking the points against a great defense, they decide to go for it on fourth down. To see if he's to the right, including Douglas. Mays looking that way. He's throwing out one. Douglas makes the catch. Roe's fine. To trace them and get him

in America coverage. Here comes the blitz. They go gone on fourth and one. Pace and lead. Your quarterback, and Douglas clears the underneath coverage, and then it's off to the races. He's been nowhere this last month, and Bob Douglas gets you on the board early. Again, so why do you got to say he's been nowhere this last month?

Like a reference to the NCU location? What's he mean? I mean, he's been in Foxborough practicing with the Patriots, but, you know, he's like... So like taking a shot at Foxborough there? Fourth wide receiver. I thought the game management, like, it wasn't perfect. by the Patriots, but I do think

the kind of routine that Josh McDaniels got in on a couple different drives going for it there on fourth, how they handled kind of the end of half situation, different situations compared to how Domingo Ryans and the Texans handled a lot of their decision-making and their ability to kind of stay composed and timeouts

and pre-snap penalties, things like that. I think that was a difference. And I was kind of thinking about how Mike Ravel said, going into the year. Like the first thing we got to do is find out how to not beat ourselves. Like let the other teams beat themselves. And I did feel like at times on Sunday shook that the Texans were beating themselves. Yeah, I think it's an identify your strengths going into the game and try to lean on that sort of situation for both of these teams. And if you're the Patriots, you're looking at that opportunity early and you're thinking, how many times are we going to

get down here and really have a real shot at scoring a touchdown against this defense? Probably not very often. Even, you know, we talked about how they didn't cash in those turnovers for points. That's kind of an example of what they expected. But in that moment, early enough in the game, you feel yourself having a little bit of strength, fourth and one, we're going to get the right call, and you just narrowly get it past Kalin Bullock and ends up producing a touchdown. That's the risk that you take in a playoff game and you hope that it pays off and it did for them there. But you're right. And I thought it was most telling in the fourth quarter not to speed ahead to that point, but there's like four and a half minutes left in the game and the Texans are down 12 points.

And D'emico Ryan's is like, I'm going to punt because much like the Steeler game proved itself to be the Texans defense probably had a better chance of scoring than the Texans' offense did at that point because he knew that was their strength, their defense. And it's, it is unfortunate because this is a defense that had they gotten all the way to the Super Bowl, had an opportunity to go to go down among some of the best of this century. Like I'm thinking 2000s, 2000 Ravens, the O2 Buccaneers, the 13 Seahawks, the 15 Broncos. That could have been this Texans defense, but because the offense was so bad, none of it ends up really being, really mattering. It ends up being a footnote in the greater picture.

this is unfair but I think if they were those defenses they would have been one of those defenses. You know what I mean? That's okay. You're talking about the greatest defenses of all time. So that's an unfair. The bar was so, they had to be one of those defenses

I think to go on this run. But I think if they were one of those defenses, they would have been one of those defenses. It's kind of, you know, it's like the line from the social network. If you were the one that invented Facebook remembering those defenses. If you were the one that would invented Facebook, you would have invented Facebook. Like, they still gave up,

they still gave up the three like touchdowns. You know what I mean? Yes, but also consider the flow of the game and the fact that their offense was getting them nothing and they were constantly on the field. Like time of possession was only five minute different, about four and a half minute difference. But if you, wouldn't we watch this game in real time?

It felt like the Texans were constantly finding themselves trotting back on the field, tasked with doing the same thing you just got off the field doing, which was stopping a Patriots offense that had the potential to put points on the board. I totally agree with you. The bar was like insanely,

unfairly high. And one of the big reasons the Patriots won this game was fumble luck that when DeNeil Hunter, strip sack Drake made near the goal line early in the game, he didn't fall on it. Like he was so close. That could have been seven points. When Will Anderson had a strip sack in the third quarter,

he didn't fall on it. And that's just, that's more luck than anything. And so maybe that's a fair point that it's complimentary. But it's not like they were on the field play-wise that much. Actually, the Texans had more plays. The Texans made it to the red zone four times.

The Patriots only did it once. The problem was, as you mentioned, Shook, that when they hit plays, like, they kind of hit him in a row and they hit big plays, we actually have like a shot of, you know, Kishan Booty dusted Derek Stingley Jr. You know, I wouldn't say he dusted him for this touchdown, but his very first touchdown for Drake May and his entire career was from basically the same spot on the field, little in front of the 40, and he beats Derek Stingley clean. and he scores a touchdown there.

Camari Lasseter got beat off the line of scrimmage. They didn't hit that shot to Kyle Williams. I mean, Kyle Williams in this game. But Stingley had another pass interference penalty. The bar was like so unfairly high that they just had to like shut them down. But they didn't force field goals is kind of what I'm getting at. Like that they needed to force field goals not give up touchdowns. Yeah.

And they got got. You know, good defenses can get got, especially when they're put in disaventage of situations where there's the accumulation of dealing with what they were having to watch the amount of times they were having to run immediately back on the field. Great plays by Drake May

and this Patriots team. I think it's a little more difficult now to have, because we talk about those defenses of old. I think the game has changed to a capacity. I agree. We're probably never going to see that level of defense as well as keeping teams

to talk 2,000 Ravens going through that playoff run where I don't think anybody got 20 points. I don't know that we're getting there again. That's fair. And the Patriots defense did score in this game, as we mentioned earlier. Let's actually listen to the pick six by Marcus Jones. I think this was the biggest play in the game because, you know, to bring it back to this point, the Texans are winning at this point.

You know, CJ Stroud did put together a pretty good touchdown drive to go up 10-7. So they had scored 10 points unanswered. They really had Drake May looking rattled early in this game, but they get the ball back. the Texans do. And that is time for the Patriots to score. CJ Stroud

in attack formation, two by two. Single back is Chuck. Play fake. Group leg to the near side. Receiver fell down and Scrow throws it up in the air. Intercepted Marcus Jones.

Right 20, 1510. Jones is tackled by Hutchinson. Takes him to the pylon. Touchdown. He's in. Look at it. It's nuts again. They're going nuts.

And you've got to love it. Press her off the end. Contact. And finally we get it off the deflection. There's been three times in the first quarter. Balls have gone up, deflected, and on the ground. Jones picks it off and arrests his history. Just a brutal decision by Stroud, one of four first half interceptions.

You know, one of them, the throw was a little high. Who was that off of Higgins? Yeah. No, it was Hutchinson. Hutchinson. Like that one was kind of, you know, a little on both of them. The others were more about the. decisions rather than the execution.

But it didn't seem like he had a lot of open receivers in this game. I'll play like that, though, and you got to find a way to dirt it or just take the sack. Yeah, but it's also a microcosm of the Texans' 2025 season on offense where the operation was weird. You have, you had brought in because Schultz had already gotten hurt at this point. He's coming across in motion. The tackle steps back, trips him, so he goes down. There was someone.

Williams kind of pushed that. He gets a little bit of an assist on that play yet. But there were just so many plays in this Texan season where the balls being snapped and bounce passes to C.J. Stroud where there's spin move handoffs to the wrong person, the defensive toe guys getting weird touchdown opportunities where this was something that is happening all season for the Texans and the Patriots were able to take it. Woody Marks ran for 17 yards on 14 carries. They also had the Texans classic and a legal formation inside the five yard line that took a touch

down off the board on, I think, the first drive of the game. Like, there were, you have a defensive tackle at fullback. So, so it was in, and you mentioned the injuries to Schultz and Nico. Don't forget, Trent Brown, who's been so important for them, was inactive for this game. He got hurt last week. I was a little bit surprised he was inactive. And then Titus Howard, uh, who was helping to replace him.

I mean, he's a starter, but they moved the whole line around. He gets hurt in this game too. So they're down a couple offensive line. So there was a lot going against him. Let's actually listen to D'emiko Ryan's asking or asked after the game about, you know, backing his quarterback, the man that he entered Houston with. No, CJ's our guy. I believe that he could come back out in the second half and flip it.

I believe that he could play better. And he did that in the second half. He did play better. We had some positive drives there in the second half because I believe that he would do that and he did that. Let's also listen to C.J. Stroud after the game, after one of his, if not most difficult, nights as a pro. I'm a pretty self-confident person. I think, you know, when they started to pile up, I try my best to stay, you know, locked in in the spirit and, you know, realizing I, you know, I just got to be there for my teammates.

And they encourage me a lot through it. So I'm really appreciative of this team and, you know, them doing that because they didn't have to. but yeah it was it was you know not not easy um it's something that i'm learned from and you know um you know just grateful my teammates are picking me up i'm always a cj stroud believer he's going to have to wear this this off season shook kind of where where are you at with with stroud after this third season and especially like how it ended these last two weeks yeah i think you have to look at his career in totality from this point because of how good he was as a rookie and you have to think what changed last year they had a terrible offensive line he

had over 50 sacks taken that was obviously a need for them going to the off season. They felt like they had improved it and it showed in the sack numbers. They cut that in half. But Stroud was still a little inconsistent when it came to just delivering. And we saw in some games like the late season game against the Chargers where they were good for the big play. Like if he had time to throw, he'd find a guy downfield and produce explosives. And they did that a lot down the second half of the season once Stroud came back to replace Davis Mills.

But ultimately, once you lose a couple of guys in a playoff game, you see. the same offensive line regress back to where it was last year. And he has been under pressure for so long now that I feel like they've kind of broken him a little bit mentally. And he needs an offseason to kind of reset. He needs to be told that I can trust this offensive line. And I don't have to go be the hero and make the superhero play that results in all the turnovers we saw against Pittsburgh and we saw against New England today.

So I think that's a big part of it too. But also I'm a little concerned about his accuracy over the long term. Like to the point where Aikman's like, his hand's got to be hurt or something. because even on the touchdown pass he throws to Christian Kirk in this game, it's on the wrong shoulder. He was missing placement all game. And he'd been doing that for a little bit against Pittsburgh as well. He had some bigger throws in that game. But it makes me think that is your greatest attribute, is your accuracy.

That's what made you special coming out of Ohio State. That's what made you special as a rookie. If that's gone, you got bigger problems at hand. And unfortunately, the season ends in this fashion. And now all he's going to have to try to tune out for the entire offseason is, is he the future? The Texans need to look somewhere else when maybe he just needs an offseason to reset, but yeah, it's not nearly as encouraging as it was two years ago. And I understand why people would question his outlook now. Look, I don't, I'm shocked that, that Texans fans are jumping off.

I mean, I guess I shouldn't be shocked. Every, every fan jumps off, uh, the quarterback when they struggle big time. There weren't a lot of people calling for Mitch Trubiskey yesterday. Right. Um, CJ goes 20 for 47 in this game. The context of what happened, especially last year, is important and certainly this year, it hasn't been perfect either. But he's also just become an erratic quarterback in a way that, like, I believe he was like real deal truth.

And I still think he can be because one thing I'll always believe, if you show that level at the NFL level, you can do it. Like, you can get back to that. But there have been a lot of times this season when the situation actually I think has been fine, like within a game, certainly within plays, and that he has done things that have been confounding, that he's just been more erratic on a play-to-play,

drive-to-drive-to-quarter, game-to-game basis, where I'm never quite sure like where it's coming. And sometimes he'll get in a rhythm and you'll be like, damn, that's one of the best... And you're like, there it is. That's one of the best quarterbacks in the league because he does the hard stuff really well.

But sometimes, and I know the weather, think was a huge factor in this game. I think the Patriots defense has gotten way better as the season's gone on. And they were a huge factor in this game. But they need to go back to the drawing board because I don't think it's, I don't think you can just put it all on everything around them. There's something that was going on this year. I think even in good situations, that almost concerned me more than what happened last year. I think, I think on balance, it was a little more unsettling. But for the Texans, they're not, they're not going to question anything. Like, they're going to pick up his fifth year option. He's, he's contract extension eligible. What,

what it might do is it just might prevent them from giving him his monster contract now, which frankly, I think is like, that, that's the breaks. It's a five-year rookie contract. You don't have to get the contract after three years, but they might. They might try to save some money on giving it to him now. Like, that's not to decide right now. And I think that would be preposterous at this point. And just like I think the folks call for Davis Mills in this game. We're a touch preposterous. Considering what CJ has been able to do,

I think, like, looking at the evidence. What do you think is preposterous, though? I mean, it's a five-year rookie contract as long as you pick up that fifth-year option. I don't think it's preposterous to just be like, okay, go play your sport. I think you're, to get cute with it, you can save the money and go ahead and sign him to a deal

after a bad playoff performance. Right. Versus saying, oh, all right, well, we're going to play hardball here, take this all the way at the end. end and you look at a quarterback circumstance league-wide and you're like, oh, well, this C.J. Stroud guy is pretty effective. And now you're a year behind the sticks and everything where like we saw, you know, Jerry do that with DAC. We've seen that with a couple of

quarterback contract situations where I want to just go ahead and get it done, especially in a situation where late in this game, you have Hutchinson on Spillane and he's opened by four yards. There's nobody around CJ Stroud and he leaves the ball six yards short. like I think you could take like this was especially bad. Yeah. And I think we can just junk this and trash it and not say that this is evidence to the long term viability of C.J. Stroud as a football player. I think if you're going to get that deal done though, you have to do so with the intent

to try to improve the situation around him because we also need to consider the fact that they made Bobby Sloat their scapegoat last year and changed offensive coordinators and didn't, I mean, I guess they acknowledged that their offensive line was bad and they tried to improve it. but I don't think they got any better play call in his first year. Like, that's not enough, right? So if you're going to do that, you got to marry it. And you got to also understand that I think he's dealing with some residual effects from what he went through last year.

And you got to bring him back to like reset and get back to who he is if you're going to give him that contract. But you could buy low coming off of this game, which could help your franchise and salary cap in the long term. That's fair. But he does have two years left to be to be clear. So it's not like they would be taking it down to the wire. We'll probably be hitting on this during the off season.

The crazy thing is, I'm looking at the next gen stats right now. It's like they actually had a slightly higher success rate than the Patriots in this game. Now, obviously, Drake May goes for way more yards for a attempt because he hits, he hits some big ones. But they both were going up against good defenses. I think kind of the takeaway is that like, look, the Patriots also force these these turnovers. They force the field goals. And I do think DeMiko is such a good coach in so many ways, such a great defensive coach. You got to have answers on how to help your offense.

and you got to have better answers in game management. Like they blew, and this is on the entire operation, not necessarily just him. They blew two timeouts in the second half. They did that punt that you mentioned, which was the worst surrender punt I've ever seen. So someone went and checked, you're making a face.

No, I think Shook's right. I think the opportunities for Will Anderson and the L. Stop. might have been. No, no, it's true. It's true. It's just depressing, but it's true. It's fourth and 18,

so the game's over like either way, but you're down 12. points with under four minutes to go. Someone looked for similar punts in a under five minutes to go in a playoff game down to two scores. They found one example actually, which I found hilarious.

Ron Rivera punted with two minutes and six seconds left down 12 in the Super Bowl on fourth and 28. He was just like, yeah, screw it. I'm getting out of here. Like on his own six yard line or something like that. He was just like fourth and 28.

I'm not bothering, which is basically what he did. And you know, of all the moments, though, Like, Marx's fumble, I thought, was maybe the biggest play in the game. Yep. Because Mark's fumbles as they're potentially going in, you know, at that point, they had cut it already to what, five points. It's 21 to, no, it's 21 to 13 at that point.

And they're kind of rolling on offense and Mark's fumbles in the, you know, in the red zone. So let's give some just quick shoutouts. Because I want to say goodbye to this Texan defense. and I just want to give some love to like Will Anderson and DeNeil Hunter and Henry Tooto who is awesome down the stretch this season and Camari Lasseter today with three past breakups he gave up one catch on seven targets

he was that dude Jalen Petrie was really active in this game Togiae you're right I was being a little harsh on the Texans earlier this was a special defense they deserve better thank you thank you Let's listen to one more Texans highlight. Why not? Eric, cut it.

Let's get our money's worth. Texans frothing at the mouth on defense on this third down situation. May calls to the ball. Here's the rush. Here comes Will. The ball is out. And the Texans have it. Aziz falls on it.

A takeaway for the Texans. The Terminator strikes again. I know it doesn't matter now, but in that moment I was like, oh, wait, they might actually come back. Oh, yeah. I thought they were coming back. because that defense is just scary. That was Mark Vandermere for the final time on K-I-L-T. But yeah, on the other side to give some shout-outs there too.

Caleb-on-Chayson, four quarterback hits in this game, forced a turnover. You mentioned that Milton Williams and Christian Barmore, they were living in the backfield. There were a lot of tackles for loss in this game. Christian Gonzalez, 15 targets. He was targeted 15 times in this game, which is outrageous. Only gave up 67 yards on those 15 targets,

eight catches, they were for short. Carlton Davis, who left with a brain injury, two interceptions, four passes, defense, and then how about Zach Kerr? Not a lot of Zach Kerr love, the defensive play caller a good couple of weeks here. You know, wherever Zach Kerr goes, like everyone is just questioning the quarterbacks after the fact, you know, creating controversy. Oh, wow, it's like the Grim Reaper. I don't know. The Carlton Davis game, by the way. Those two picks were low probability and he got both of. That's sort of what I was getting at, too. sometimes it is about making those plays.

If you think about the plays on the ball, like Stefan Diggs, booty, Carlton Davis, they made the plays on the ball in a difficult situation. Stefan Diggs with a great quote, he was asked, how did he catch that missile from Drake May? And he said, with my hands.

He also credited May for the past, but he's worked on the hands a lot. It was an incredible catch. First thoughts. very quickly, Patriots playing at Denver in the AFC championship game next week. That's going to be the earlier game. It's the same schedule as this Sunday in terms of timing. So it's a 3 p.m. Eastern noon best coast Patriots at Broncos, bringing back some bad

memories of the Broncos taken down New England and the AFC championship a couple times in the Tom Brady-Paton-Manning era. I think they're 0 and 3 in Denver all time in the playoffs. And then the trilogy will be completed. I feel like, no offense to the AFC, but it feels right that the Rams and the Seahawks are finishing the day. Because I think these have been the best two teams in the NFL all season. It almost didn't happen,

but I think we've been leading here all season, and they will face off for probably the right to be the favorites, for whatever that's worth, in the Super Bowl in Santa Clara. in a couple weeks. I'll give you the floor shook of just like just some quick thoughts. We'll obviously be talking about during the week. Well, my takeaway was going to be shout out to the schedule makers. Mike North, everybody else in the NFL office at 3, 4, 5 Park, because you got it right. You put the better game of the two in the later window. So thank you to you.

Well, they don't have a choice. They go back and forth every year. So it's like, it'll be AFLE next year. Well, all right. Then we're going to throw all that aside. I'll have another take. Yeah. The take is I can't wait to see Ram Ceawks part three. just because if you look at the way they played the season, I feel like the Rams stole the first one, the Seahawks stole the second one. We're going back to Seattle.

Place is going to be raucous. Can Matthew Stafford find a way to continue to slinging it against this great defense that seems to be peaking? The Seahawks look like the best team in football. Are they going to complete their run of the Super Bowl? Or is Stafford going to play the foil? We'll find out. Yeah, a lot of attention being paid,

understandably, to Sam's oblique, where I think that will be a factor. I think he will need to play better. I think it'll actually need to play. Didn't even really need to play against the 49ers. And, you know, we'll see what Stiddy has. What Stiddy has in store for us because it feels like the universe kind of robbed of an opportunity to see the high variance version of Bo Nix, who could absolutely beat this Patriot team.

He could absolutely lose this Patriot team. But, man, it would be fun to watch. Yeah, Nick Foles, you know, still enjoying that Super Bowl victory, as he should, did send out a note for the Broncos in their fans that it's been an emotional 24 hours. He feels for Bo and the team and he's sending prayers for a strong recovery. But a positive note going into the game versus the Patriots is that they struggle against backup quarterbacks in championship type games. Good job there, Nick Foles.

It brings it all back to the old Nick. I mean, why not just twist it in? Why not? No, it's a good job. And look, I'm higher on Jarrett Stidham than consensus. I have always been for what it's worth. it was that one game against the Raiders like four years,

three years ago now that's good. Good sense doesn't even care about Jaredston. He hasn't played a too much. Well, everyone thinks he's just a total joke. It feels like you're positioning yourself for, I told you I was right situation. No. No.

I think the Patriots should be favored by a little or whatever, you know, because of that. But as backup quarterbacks go, I'm trusting Sean Payton. He gave this man two contracts. He's a day one signing. and I'm going back to that preseason tape

because I remember it, Chuck. I don't know if you remember. We were hitting some preseason recap. He was the preseason quarterback of the year for us. We called them preseason MVP this year. Yeah. That's why you tune in in August, Patrick.

I love it. I'm dialed up. Summon that Jared Stidtham sitting on the throne wearing his Patriots jersey picture that we'll be looking at all week. I'm going to love it. I can't wait. Go watch that tape against the Niners.

By the way, that's where the Super Bowl is going to be played. Maybe he'll be back there. Yeah, and if you think Bo Nix is a high variance quarterback, wait until you see Jared's that's a big arm athlete who's, uh, I think he's going to go down swinging. It's either going to go great or go terrible. I mean, what Auburn transfer quarterback's available? Nick Marshall out there? Another Auburn transfer quarterback.

Why not? Just stack them all up. Cam, what's doing? Man, uh, not the game, uh, that we expected, but I feel somehow like the game that this version of the AFC in this just totally weird, wide open season. kind of deserved. So the Patriots, the Broncos, the top two seeds. Yeah, the committee got it right.

Get to the end this year. We will be back. Not on Monday night. Back in the feed, actually, I think the next thing you'll hear from us is a 40s and free agents episode where we go through all the AFC teams and what they need to do this offseason. I'm enjoying this exercise and kind of just a quick look at the free agents, all that sort of stuff.

And then back in this studio with the CUN. next Tuesday crew, Colleen Wolf and Jordan Roderick on Tuesday. Big week ahead. Championship week. Coaches are getting hired. Shook's got to go right. Patrick's taking his tie off.

We're getting out of here. We're down to four teams, three games. See you Monday. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.