NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Playoff picture

Episode Date: December 4, 2014

A room full of heroes -- Dan Hanzus, Gregg Rosenthal, Chris Wesseling and Marc Sessler -- react to the latest NFL news including the Cleveland Browns naming Brian Hoyer as the Week 14 starter. Plus, the guys also preview TNF between the Cowboys and Bears and discuss the playoff picture.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Sign up today. The Around the NFL podcast. Are who we thought they were. We let them off the hook. Welcome back to another edition of the Round the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Hansus, and I am joined by a room filled with heroes. Mark Sessler, Chris Wessling, and Greg Rosenthal. What up, boys?

Hey, Dan. Wednesday show. Ow! Go for it. Go for it. How's everything going? It's good. I'm excited. I like that money tag. That was a fun one. That was a good one. I liked it.

I like it when Matt Money Smith, who voices our interest, he flexes his acting muscles a little bit. You know what I mean? Guys, a great talent. Matt Money Smith. Mark Sessler, I've noticed. You told us that your wife watched one of our NFL Now videos and commented. that we looked, almost a vagrant type character. Well, not everyone. And now you come into work with what looks like a brand new collared shirt.

Well, I was appearing on the NFL-owned NFL Now channel this morning, and you're forced to wear stuff that we don't wear on our NFL Now hits, which is which bordered between Dan and a zip-up sweatshirt. You looked like you were ready to rob something. I looked like a complete mess. I had my shirt button. I didn't even realize it was on button. You looked like Elliot Harrison.

I looked ridiculous. He had hair flowing out of them. Not making a comment on Elliot, but I look ridiculous. Wesleyan had it, you were in your beard stage with like a rumpled sweater on. And Greg, Greg looked fine. I said Greg looked fine. No, and I'm serious. No, because Greg was in a pretty lame-looking sweater.

You were just in your normal clothing, but we were all the three of us. You guys look like garbage, boss. Well, I'm including myself in that. We were a mess. The boss looked very good. Simone knows who cuts the chicks. I like that. I do like that Mark wears the same shirt every week on NFL.

nowadays i have one shirt that is fitting for that assignment and i will wear it every time speaking of nfl now i've got our own folder there and we just taped our special nfl now only video every week every things to watch every week every show so like three times a week we're taping now content that you can only see on nfl now which you could find at nfl.com slash now correct yeah yeah and you know that's a pretty nice device sessler's all over that he's taping on it doing news hits In addition to this, so no wonder, we might need to get you more shirts, Mark. You're doing the same amount than I am. Well, I'm just saying you're...

Thank you for... You're highly visible. Dan reads the tea leaves here. One of us, their star is taking off, and that man is Mark Sessler. I got one shirt. Let's start working on that. All right, so we got a nice, nice show today. Before we get into the show, I just want to say, I did...

I was sitting on my couch last night watching Shark Tank with my wife. What a program. by the way, Shark Tank. I don't know. Wes, have you ever seen it? Never heard of it. Oh, my. Zach Dressler behind the glass.

Have you ever seen a shark tank? He's not here today, by the way. I've watched one or two shows with Mark Cuban and all those guys. What a program? What is it? Listen, you could do a little research, but it's basically these four sharks are big, rich investors. Some people pitch ideas to them and they decide why they're doing the best. Wait, it's not actually about ocean-going sharks?

Oh, no, no, no, no. Mark. That's how nearly as exciting then. Just give it a shot. Anyway, so I was watching that, but then I was clicking on iTunes. I wanted to check in on our review section because I know that we had made a passionate, someone called Desperate or Disgusting Call for some, you know, five-star action, some comments. And I'll tell you what, guys, I told you downstairs, you've got to check this out.

We have, our listenership is a very witty bunch. Highly accurate, some very nice things were written about us, but also brought some of the Funny Hammer. And we're banging me on the head of them. Very organic, and I mean, I'm sure those would have showed up whether or not we essentially demanded them. But no, thank you to everyone, because there are people that put a lot of effort into it, and that was really nice to read. I read every one of them, and you guys should too.

We will. Or your bad host. We will. We'll read one of them on the show. Okay, we will. It's not surprising at all that our listeners are witty. I mean, just by the tweets we get, and all these accounts they've created, our listeners are phenomenal. Brilliant people.

All right, so let's get into the show. pandering finished. A lot to get to today. Chris Weston, we're going to get into his latest top 10 list. That will be fun. We have a Thursday night preview. A Thursday night preview, a Thursday night game, I should say. The Dallas Cowboys trying to bounce back from that Thanksgiving struggle against the Eagles.

But before any of that, there is a Zach Dressler behind the glass. T.D. I don't remember the last time we've seen T.D. behind the glass for a full show. it's it's like a senior itis or something but he's not going anywhere uh jack dressler how you doing buddy i'm doing good guys how you doing good good good i would like to do some news can we yes i have to find that first all right we start in cleveland this is the big announcement that was expected on wednesday and it did land early in the morning brian hoyer or johnny mansell it is brian

Hoyer. Mike Patton announces that they are sticking with their veteran passer over the rookie. This was a decision that was cited on Hoyer's ability to lead them to a 7-5 record, and they think that Hoyer deserves to see this out. I think on Twitter, and certainly personally, this was disappointing to me. I was ready for the Johnny Mansell era. But at the same time, gentlemen, I guess you can't really kill Mike Patton for this. It's not. too crazy to leave Hoyer in for another week at least. I don't kill Petten for the decision because what it sounds like to me and even hearing from players like Joe Thomas that he went around the locker room and he spoke to all his

coaches and basically didn't make the decision alone in a room. He used everyone on the team to come to a decision. I also don't think that it's a going forward thing. It's Hoyer's on the tightest leash he's ever been on in Cleveland. If he gets down early in the first quarter, I think He gets yanked. I think he knows that. Yeah, but this is the most meaningful Browns game in at least seven years. You could argue even longer than that. You're a diehard.

You've been going up and down with this team. Who are you talking to? To Mark. To Mark Sessler. Well, Wes has been going up and down, too. Every time the Browns win, he's pissed. And every time they lose, he's dancing in the aisles. But what was your feeling here?

Did you want to see the kid? Listen, as a Browns fan, I wanted Brian Hoyer to get another chance to make right. Now, I understand that my viewpoint is really. more emotional. It's not tied to pro football focus and everything else. And I think actually it's that there's a couple different angles you can come from. But the coaching angle and the team angle also took into account that he's respected as a leader. They're not just going to completely end his season at this point. Joe Thomas said if you go to Mansell right now, it looks like we've cashed in on the season that we're looking towards next year. I think a lot of people disagree with

that. That is not true. But that's your Pro Bowl left tackle talking, not us. I don't understand why he would even say it though because going to manzell is no one would see that as an omission that the season was over maybe joe thomas knows more i mean the more you do hear these little things about the players talking about he doesn't know the play does manzell have a good grasp and is he ready to play i first of all i wasn't nearly as disappointed by this decision as dan was i think manzell outplayed hoyer last week and to me hoyer's been the worst quarterback in the NFL over the last three weeks i see a competitive reason to go with manzell but i also see the locker room issue, as Mark said.

And if Hoyer didn't have all these last-minute victories, he wouldn't be starting this game. It's a reward for him. And it just so happens. There's seven and five instead of six-and-six. Because of those last-minute wins, that's why he's starting. So I can see that. And I would also say that everybody says nice guys don't finish first or finish less.

Hoyer, a major reason he's still the quarterback is because he is so well-liked in that locker room and everyone loves this guy. it's just something about his personality that the team is connected with so they don't want to bail on him so I get it and there was I even saw some tweets of people saying you know Petton should be fired for this

like that's ridiculous yeah I mean that's ridiculous talk but the other thing I will say is like you don't want to have too short a leash with Hoyer because then what's the point? It's like if you're going to stick with him you got to like at least see this game out I wouldn't think it would be fair to bench him

in the second quarter either except that as Greg said if they lose this and that AFC it's so packed right now if you go to seven and six it is essentially over, they may have to pull out all the stops that they feel like Hoyer is completely off as he's been.

Right, if he's tanking, although I do have a thing. I've heard a lot of that this week, that the loser, the Ravens, Dolphins, they're done. Or like the Browns, it's like, it's not like that. Two weeks later, they could be right back in it. Six losses does not put you out.

You lose a seventh game, then you can say you're out. Every game feels like this do or die, but we saw last week in the AFC North, three teams lost. So suddenly it really wasn't that big of a deal. I guess what I'm saying is the season's not over. when you have your six loss.

Six losses in a quarterback controversy, your season is over. Six losses and they'll go to Mansell and we'll find out what happens at that point. It is a turning point for them. In our playoff picture, Cleveland is seven and five and not even on the screen. Because they lose every tiebreaker to every one of those other teams. They need to win, and this is a, this is, they couldn't have drawn the cults at a worst time. Chris thinks the Colts are better now than they were earlier in the season.

Offensively, they are. Yeah. There's no doubt in my mind they're better. I think their past protection is bad. They don't have a mod Bradshaw. Their defense is lame overall. I guess I don't see it. When they played the good teams, they got killed.

All right. So we talked about the Browns quarterback situation. Let's talk about the AFC North. The Steelers quarterback situation, Big Ben, got whacked on the wrist by Curtis Lofton of the Saints on Sunday. There was a report out there that he might have a fracture in that risk, but Ralesberger debunked that on Wednesday, said there is, quote,

absolutely nothing wrong with my wrist so he's going to be on the field i don't think this surprises anyone on sunday you want to talk about must wins the steelers cannot afford to lose they need to basically run the table and it's going to be a tough task going to cincey on sunday your thoughts gentlemen greg picked uh steelers is his confident call that is our new uh pick segment which is a video it's also up on the site our weekly picks you can find it there I took it just because I don't think Big Ben's going to play his two worst games of the season in a row, although knowing that there's talk about a wrist injury, you obviously wonder and worry, was that a big factor in why he kind of sailing passes?

I don't think it was. He was sailing past before he hurt the wrist, but he definitely was off all game. And the one thing also I'll say that he threw 12 touchdowns in those two games. He has not been nearly the same. You cannot be that guy every week. but he has not been as good the last three weeks or so. So I would say that this is going to be very interesting. They need him to carry them right now

and deal with a bad risk potentially. He's not going to make it easier. I look at Cincinnati and they've been strong of late and that to me tells me that that's going to come back around and they're due for a stinker. And Pittsburgh's been the opposite and they're streaky and they're about to get hot. And I've never liked Cincinnati and Andy Dalton

inside his own division. outside of Brandon Whedon, Andy Dalton had the worst Inter-Division record for the past like four or five years or something. He just has not been able to win games in the AFC North. And I look at Pittsburgh as a team that's going to win this thing, convincingly. He's confident too.

A little tease ahead of our Thursday preview show. I mean, this is a Bengals team that was very lucky to get out of Tampa with a win too. I mean, it's played better of late, but I don't think their defense is as good as it used to be. I don't think Andy Dalton is a lot. any good. What was that stat West, speaking to Steelers that you had about

Antonio Brown this season and the Chiefs wide outs? Antonio Brown has more receptions, and I believe yards in touchdown, definitely more touchdowns than the entire Chiefs-wide receiver court put together. Seems like a potential spot for upgrade for the Chiefs in the off-season.

It's going to go out on a limb there. Moving on, this is about the Colts. We were talking about that Colts Browns game. That will be their running back. Trent Richardson will be facing the Browns. first time since Cleveland traded him for a first round pick last October. And Richardson, who we know, and Wes, you wrote a piece on Tuesday about him. We did another piece today.

How bad he's been, especially of late. He's averaging just two yards per carry over the past three weeks, and he's averaged just a touch over three yards of carry his entire Colts career, which is now spanned well over a season, maybe a season and a half. But he came out with some big words on Wednesday during a conference called Cleveland Reporters. He said that they gave up on me, referring to the Browns. I'm going to go into this game like it's my last one.

He also added a lot of people are saying he's a mistake, he's this, he's that. We'll watch these next four weeks because it ain't like I have been playing bad football. He's been playing bad football, right? The worst. Right. I mean, the worst running back in the NFL. Definition of bad football, right? Like, where did Boom Herron come from?

The Bucks practice squad or something? He was a sixth round draft pick. I think originally by the Bengals. But my, I think it was, I think he was from a practice squad. Essentially a guy that they picked up off the street. Off the street is undoubtedly a better player than him. Has more juice, break some tackles. Everyone, everyone they've plugged into that backfield with Richardson

and the year and a half he's been there has been better than him, and it hasn't even been close. He averages 3.1 yards per carry in a Colts uniform. Every other running back who's played for the Colts over that time averages more than 4.7. And I'd say this, if you need, if you need this, Brown's matchup to suddenly light a fire under you and want to prove a point? Well, you should have wanted to prove a point 14 months ago when people were doubting you. Secondly, how about

you ask your own Colts front office? If a team called up and said, hey, we'll give you a first round pick for Trent Richardson. You think that Ryan Grigsden wouldn't do that in a second? Well, I think they'd take a fourth. I mean, hindsight is 2020. At the time, the trade seemed probably in the Brown's favor, but Richardson was... Cleveland was getting absolutely lashed for it. I lashed the Browns, and I was dead wrong. Yeah, so, I mean, at the time, it didn't seem like a bad deal. And, you know, I guess it's just a situation where you said you maybe should have always been like this. I get where he's coming from, though.

I mean, it's a personal motivation thing, and he wants to prove that team wrong. I think he realizes that maybe his career could be getting into a little bit of a danger zone here. He's been bad for a long time. He's getting piled on with criticism. He needs to start playing better. In his defense, he wasn't the slowest player on the field every game this season, but he had a hamstring injury three or four weeks ago, and he hasn't been playing fast through that injury.

So he went from being subpar to being putrid. There is one scenario that any Browns fan is picturing, which is Trent Richardson finally having that big breakout game in Cleveland Stadium to end the Brown season and putting a cap on it when Josh Cribbs runs a kickback 108 yards to absolutely end, send Cleveland into a nuclear winner. That would be some factory of sadness. I want to say this about Josh Cribbs.

The Browns had a chance to sign him He wanted to go back there From what I've seen the last two weeks His first two weeks and in Colch uniform He might be the best returner in the league again Wow He's got juice in his legs All right moving on

We have the Monday night football game That occurred the Jets and Dolphins One of the tougher watches Especially if you're a Jets fan I must say A 16-13 win for the Dolphins Where the Jets blew a 10-0 lead And lost a spite rushing for almost 300 yards I thought it was delightful

I'm not kidding Oh, I bet you did. No, not because I don't like the Jets, just because it was unique and its badness. I mean, you have was a very memorable, close. A lot of crazy things happened. Block punts, you know. You can tell that Greg really loves the sport more than the rest of us

because he's like a mother with a bad child, just making excuses for it, just loving it. It was memorably bad. You love each game of football in a different way. It wasn't even a blocked pun. It was deflecting. Come on, that's not like crazy about the blocks. It was more about the fact that the, as I know you're going to talk

But the Jets refused to pass the ball. But, you know, it was just a crazy game. All right. I liked it. I bet you did, because then you get to, on Sunday, get to cozy up under a blanket and watch the Patriots play precise, beautiful football. This is what I deal with every week. A blanket.

Anyway, so, yes, Gino Smith returned to the starting lineup and had eight pass attempts through 58 minutes, which is pretty hard to fathom in the year 2014. He finished 7 of 13 with 65 yards, and the most obvious, a game-clinching, game-dooming interception you could have ever imagined. I don't think anyone was surprised when that happened. Afterward, I tweeted at U.S., because I wondered if the Jets' at one point they ran 14 consecutive times in the first half, and 23 out of 24 rushes.

And it was working. They gave him the crisp winky treatment. Yeah, it was working. I mean, they ran for over 200 yards in the first half alone, but it made me wonder if, And this is what we heard, the reports that John Idzik had basically threw up the stop sign on Michael Vicks staying in the lineup and basically forced it on Rex to put Gino back in if this was Rex exhibiting whatever control he had left to say, okay, you could pick the quarterback, but I'll decide and pick the plays and essentially not let Gino throw the ball, because that's what it felt like to me. That's what it definitely was. It's Rex is gone, and we all know it. It's his last chance to kind of give a big FU to the GM.

And by the way, if you saw every Rex Ryan Press conference is kind of a bummer now, but after Monday night's game, he was maybe more down. It was because he knew he almost pulled it off. He almost won that game and stuck it to Idzik and everyone else that were going to be on him. And he saw it slipped away. And of course, Gino, when he had to lean on him, had no choice, is the guy that let him down. So you can only imagine the frustration that's boiling in Rex that everything, every button he pushes, it just doesn't work out. this time he did and everything was and he still couldn't win. You know how we know Rex Ryan's a liar?

How? Look at the schism between the front office and Rex Ryan just this week alone. The front office goes out, buys Eric Decker, buys Percy Harvin, drafts Gino Smith, drafts Jason Morrow, gives Jeremy Curley an extension. Five major weapons in the passing game. Rex Ryan just refuses to use any of them. Yeah. And we saw Eric Decker's wife, the country star,

of some kind, a reality star, said Eric has told TMZ that Eric is depressed. I'd be depressed, too, but I'll say it again, that this is a, I tweeted to Jets fans after the game, this is a blessing in disguise, let's get that topic or let's get near that topic, and you get a quarterback, and everything could change, because there's some weapons in place. That would be easy. Just get a quarterback. I saw you tweet that.

And it's like, that's not necessarily going to be a one, two, three thing. You could need to draft seven more quarterbacks before you hit. But my thing would be if you're Eric Decker Yeah, you went out and you tried to make a lot of money And that's what you did But if you're going to go into a quarterback situation That's a complete potential mirage You're going to pay the price

You're not going to have production like you had in Denver Sure, he took the money I can't necessarily blame him But hey, listen through two weeks We all thought he was on a great spot Just the season has spiraled If there's one positive thing going for the Jets these days It's that last night

I turned on a little game rewind Watching a game And my daughter asks She says, where are the Jets? Where's Percy Harvin? She's becoming a Jets fan and her favorite player. Save her. Save her while you can.

Percy Harvin. That's crazy to me. You're not going to direct her in a different. Probably won't be there next year. She's not even four. As soon as she can think critically, you're going to steer her towards New England. We know that. She just wanted to know, where are the Jets?

I want to watch the Jets. She's a big, big, Hershey fan. Well, she has a childlike innocence, and that would take you towards a nice team like the Jets. Yeah, sure they are. All right. So let's move on. Wes, you, every week, those great people, Lenovo, what products they make over there at the Livano, Lenovo headquarters, wherever they are.

They sponsor our position power rankings. And Wes, every week, does a list. Sometimes it's not really a power ranking, but it is a top 10 list. And this week, it is the 2015 top 10 free agents. Wes wonders who will be on the market. And we'll take a quick look at his list. here right off the top. We'll start with Indomacan Su, the Lions' defensive tackle at number one, Justin

Houston, Chief's pass rusher at two, and Des Bryant, Cowboys' wide receiver at three. Thoughtshdowne? If you want one of these players, the only one you're going to get is Indomacan Suu. Because the Chiefs aren't going to let Justin Houston go. The Cowboys aren't going to let Des Bryant go. These teams have a chance at the franchise tag, but it would cost the Lions nearly 27 million to wield the tag on Sue.

NFL media insider Ian Rappaport has reported since going back to the summer that the Lions are perfectly willing to let him test free agency. I look at this list, and these are the 10 best players who will become free agents in theory, but very few of them I think will switch teams. Well, Sue is a good candidate, and that is such an interesting. When have we seen a top five defensive player? hit free agency right in the middle of his prime and i think it's because the lines really have to make a choice can we continue to pay stafford megatron and sue that much you know and and unless

they're going to cut stafford they got to let go on did they mismanage the situation with him he owns every every slice of leverage in this whole thing they they really got jobs by getting their top picks at the time that they did before the new cb a and that they all the ones that they hit on We're right then, Stafford, Megatron, and Sue. They're almost getting punished from making good picks. All right, here's the rest of the list. Demarius Thomas at four, Durel Revis at five, Julius Thomas at six. Mike Upati, is that the first?

Upati. Upati at seven, DeMarco Murray at eight, JPP at nine, and Randall Cobb at 10. I think it's really interesting that there's two sets of teammates here. So Murray and Bryant, you can use the franchise tag on one. You can't use them on both. So that means maybe Murray gets out there. Well, and we've heard that that is what they will do potentially. And you have the two Thomas, Demarius Thomas, Julius Thomas.

I don't know if they can afford to pay both the going rate. I think they will. I don't think there's any chance one of the Thomas's leaves. Murray's the interesting one to me, and here's why. They're using him up this year with the workload. And they know his injury history. And we had the off-season story of Adrian Peterson just dialing up Jerry Jones and saying, I want to finish my career with the Cowboys,

Peterson, good chance he'll be available. Jera is predictable, let's face it. I mean, that's why when we did the sandwich bets before the draft, I went all in on Mansell because I thought it was such a Jerry Jones move, and sure enough, he wanted to do it. But this is a move where it would make sense because they would probably get him on a little bit of a discount, considering everything that's happened,

and he probably can't sign both Murray and Des. So there's some logic to this one. I would imagine he would make a hard push if he was available. I look at Dorel Revis, think we know that from now until the end of days, he will sign one year lucrative contracts with teams and never be on the same team twice. Well, yeah, you mentioned it's going to be tough to get most of these players, and you're right, but he is one that will be available.

We know that. He plays for money. That's it. And he's been great this year. I mean, he's a top five cornerback. I think it's Ian Sherman. Sure. Those two are the best.

And then your boy Xavier Rhodes over the last month. I like it. We hit one on making the leap. That was Kevin Patches. One pick. By the way, at the Honorable Mention, this is the biggest shock on the list. Brian Hoyer makes an appearance in the last name. Good job by you, Wes.

Jabal Sheard's like right next to him, too, throwing Browns fans of bone. The number one guy on that honorable mention list is very interesting. Greg Hardy, who we haven't talked about in forever because of his legal problems. But if you're just talking about pure talent and with the impact he could have, I mean... He'd be in the top five or six ones. Get him too, Jerry Jones. Bring everyone with the legal issue in. and get stronger.

My favorite aspect of this article is that the sentence written with a Chris Wesleyan byline says every week Chris Wesleyan will roll out his power rankings. Goes third person right off the bat. Chris Wesley. For the record, I didn't do that. Where is that? Why is that? It's the first sentence.

I stopped using this as an intro and the desk put it in there. It needs to be italicized. I'm going to, you know, I should have seen this already. I mean. Can't believe Mark Ingram's not higher on your list, Wes. And here's the guy that I have a bit of a cessler about C.J. Spiller bouncing back next year in a better situation than Buffalo. I agree on both of those. Mark Ingram, running backs don't get paid. We did an offseason article that they get paid like punters and kickers now. C.J. Spiller, though, is interesting to me. I could see him going to a team that knows how to use him and having a dynamite season next year.

You know, people don't use dynamite enough anymore. Dynamite! Gangbusters. Kudos. At gangbusters, Damashx really brought that back into a. the culture a little bit, but dynamite under the radar. Damasek alone brought that word into our culture. I noticed I didn't say mainstream, because that would be pushing a little bit, but he nudged it back in. It's just JJ Walker and I with the dynamite.

You know what? I can always count on West to drop in a 1970s pop culture reference. Got it out of the way. Hey, someone's got to appeal to our 50 and 60-year-olds. Whoever's out there. You got your dynamite reference. All right, so that is Wes's list. Mark, did you have anything else you wanted to add there?

No, just a pristine list. Excellent job, as always, Chris Wesleying. Thank you, Mark. All right, let's talk about, I failed to mention this at the top of the show, but we wanted to touch on the playoff pictures because, by the way, the only thing Greg Rosenthal loves more than bad football and then saying it's good football is he loves talking playoff pictures. Oh, yeah.

This guy's a junkie for, you know, in the Christmas story, when the old man was the turkey junkie, Greg is the old playoff picture junkie. He loves permutations and who's moving up, who's moving down, who's got the tiebreakers? You got a jones in for it, don't you, Greg? I do. We're still a little far out here four weeks.

I mean, we can talk big picture, but I really like it when it gets two weeks left, and you can start breaking it out. By the way, nobody's a scientist on this podcast more than Greg Rosenz's all talking playoff pictures. I love the playoff pictures. I wish I loved anything in my life the way that Greg loves the playoff picture. As much as Matthew Stafford loves a sidearm pass.

Let's start with the AFC. You'll take a look at it Because this is the wild Really wild setup here Much like in our picks We have a four-way tie For first place And Wes is just watching it

You know, from the outside I gave up I threw in the tail I'm ready to turn to Johnny Mansell Oh, you're talking about our picks Or just the football season in general You're watching from the outside Well that too because he doesn't have a team

He's an outsider He's a bad boy You're like a Bruce Banner I'm a bad man You need a motorcycle your daughters and wives away from me. So it's very tightly packed in the AFC, like it is in our picks. That was the analogy I was drawing there in a very skilled manner.

The Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Cleveland Browns are all seven and five right now. So let's just start with those five, seven, and five teams. Greg, why don't you dig in right now and tell me which one of these teams is in the worst position right now? bills because they play the three best teams in the league. The Packers, the Patriots, and the Broncos. And I just don't see Buffalo winning any of those. And even if they won one of those, I mean, they would still not have that much wiggle room. You have to count on Kyle Orton to beat Aaron Rogers, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning.

Be two out of three for them to have a legitimate chance. So that's, I would say they're in the worst position. And sadly, I think the Browns are in the next worst position. And Mark, you alluded to it. they don't have any tiebreaker help so they almost have to win out right yeah they're not in a great spot there's no question that they they can't you know gregg mentioned before that it's okay if they lose this week and maybe the next well it's not i know you're not saying that with cleveland it's not everyone's saying do or die seven losses is do or die they could if they win let's say they

just lost and then they won three straight they'd have a decent chance of making the playoffs the team i look at real quick that i'd be concerned with a because of the way they played over the last two weeks you drop a game to Oakland and you get bombed by the Broncos is Kansas City. You have to go on the road and beat the Cardinals, which is another up and down team, no question. But if you ever lost that, you've got a comeback game against the Raiders, and then you have the Steelers and Chargers to close the season. And on the road in Pittsburgh, I just don't look at the Chiefs right now as a team that's getting better. I think they've started to become exposed week to week, and I don't love their schedule.

You know, the team that jumps out to me is the Dolphins. I got a feeling a bit of a sessor that we're going to see. that similar Dolphins swoon in December. I know Tann Hills better, but I really hated the way they played on Monday. I hated that. That was a game they needed, and they only won because the Jets were the Jets in the most Jetsy way possible. They had no

right winning that game. I know they played well against Denver the week before, but I'm not really too excited about them. I'm very confident that the Bengals will probably win that North Division. I'm ultra-confident that the Ravens will get one of those wild card spots. So to me, it's really

You know, the Dolphins Steelers I have a Sessler That the Bengals are not winning that division Up one and a half With four to play They would definitely have to go one and three To blow it I have a Sessler

They get swept by the Steelers They have to play the Steelers Twessler missing a lot of opportunities To drop some Sesslers Almost too many I don't know where these things exist If you look at this board It's a mess

I don't know what I'm looking at That's his fault. He gets dropped in here at the last second. I like it because T.D., if you read between the lines, read those T. Lee's, T.D. is not putting Dressler in the place where he could succeed. Well, T.D. walked in. He put on the headphones, said, hey, fellas, I've got to go to the doctor. And he walked right out.

And he just leaves poor Zach sitting there. You're doing the best you can. I feel like E.J. Manuel, the bills. I feel like. Well, you don't want to be him. No, but I feel like someone's going to put Kyle Orton in for me. You know, nowhere. Coming out of retirement.

There is right behind you. There he is. Rob Crowder. Rob Crowder pointing to himself. I like that. Anyway, so just if you're a listener, imagine the Cessler music in the background. Also, to watch in this AFC is the battle for the buys.

I mean, we figure the Bengals are going to drop out. You think the Broncos and Patriots are just going to win the rest of the way. They're a lock. They're a lot to win for the game. You know what? They're a lack to get to buy. Nice try, Greg. Every show.

Stop it with this. I'm not talking about the, I don't know which team or whatever. You guys all think, I hate it when people are, by the way, say, oh, well, now they don't control their destiny. They're in trouble. Yeah, like any of these teams are going to win four straight. We just could come up with reasons why the dolphins are going to lose a lot. The Chargers will, the Chiefs will, the Bills will.

You know, the Raiders. Some teams have tough schedules. So let's come up with some reasons why the Broncos and Patriots are going to go in the tank. They're not. They're going to take those Csies. I'm not saying they're going to go in the tank, but they're only one game up here on the Colts. All right. There's so much better, though, than those teams.

I don't know. I guess I'm really, I was poisoned with the Colts. Yeah, that Patriots game, by the way, when the Patriots went to Indy and wiped out the Colts to me, I was like, oh, the Colts beat up on bad teams, and they're going to get smacked in the mouth in January. I don't know. I don't see it. Colts are 33 and 62 against teams under 500, and I believe, or no, teams they've beaten

have gone 33 and 62 this year. Teams that beat the Colts have gone 34 and 14. All right, before we go to the NFC, then why don't we all pick who are the final two playoff teams. Nice, Greg, I like that. Or, you know, or I guess you got to pick your AFC North winner and you pick the final two wild cards. I'll go first.

Since I'm going to stick with my preseason, which had the Ravens and the Steelers going in, I'll stick with the Steelers as a division winner since that's what I had before. And then I'll have, I guess, the Dolphins and Bengals as Bullitt as my last two. Wait, that doesn't make sense. That's too many teams.

I guess three. You just picked four teams. This is your domain. Greg, come on. Three AFC North teams go in then. Wow. Wow. So, Steelers, Bengals, and Ravens.

By the way, whoever hits this doesn't have to pay for dinner next time we all go out together. If you hit all three. Oh, look at that. Yeah, there is. Dressler. The bounce back. See, Drizzle. Sessler.

Now there's steaks involved. All right, well, I pick the Steelers to go to the Super Bowl. You have to eat a steak if you lose this. Not happening. I picked the Steelers to go to. to the Super Bowl, so I'm sticking with them as my AFC North winner. Okay. And I'm going to go with two other

AFC North teams, the Ravens and the Browns. All right. No, sorry, sorry. No, no, that's outrageous. The Bengals and the Browns. Ah. Bengals and the Browns. Good for you. I am going with heart, not logic. That did not come from football focus. I like that you did that. I'll just get mine out of the way since we're all just waiting for West. Look at that brain. You can see it all. It's

permutating. There's numbers ahead of him. We didn't plan this ahead of that. Ted. I got the Bengals winning that North Division. I got the Ravens taking a wild card, the five seed, and... Jeez. Screw the Dolphins. The Chiefs get the sixth seed, and away we go. I like it. No faith in the Steelers there. No, forget the Steelers.

Well, I've already predicted on this show that the Steelers are going to sweep the Bengals the rest of the way. So give the Steelers the AOC North. The Ravens are the next best team in the conference, so putting them in... in, and I agree with Dan, the chiefs have the easiest schedule the rest of the way. You guys are amazing to me. We've all talked about just on Sunday how the Steelers cannot be trusted, and three you guys, all three of you pick the Steelers to win that division. I can't trust them, but Sesslers involve just an intuition.

Very true, very true. So, yeah, so I'll hold on to these in summation. West Steelers, Ravens Chiefs. I had Bengals, Ravens Chiefs. Mark, you had Steelers, Bengals, Browns, and Greg, you had Steelers, Bengals, Ravens. Let's move to the NFC. Let's do it.

Where the situation there isn't quite as dramatic, but we have the Eagles at 9 and 3, the Cowboys at 8 and 4, the Packers at 9 and 3, the Lions at 8 and 4. Forget about the NFC South. And then in the West, it's very interesting. Obviously, you have the Cardinals 9 and 3, Seahawks 8 and 4, 9, or 7, and 5.

Gentlemen, of those teams I just named, who is most likely to fall by the wayside? I'm going Arizona. They are the first seed right now. I think within a week or two, they are not even in that top two seed scenario. And then a week or two after that, they're not the NFC West champion, and they won't even be a wildcard. Wow. That would be painful. Wait, you're saying nine and seven?

It's going to be painful. Free fall out. Free fall out into nothing? Or it could be 10 and 6 and lose a tiebreaker or two. The thing is they did beat. Dallas and Detroit. So it is tough. They almost need to go nine and seven, but I'm going bold. I think they missed the playoffs. Wow. What do you guys think? Who's dropping out of that list of teams? I've been saying Cowboys and 49ers for a while now, and now it's looking good after that

Thanksgiving meltdown. I haven't thought that the 49ers were quite a playoff team and their schedule the rest of the way is rough. And I don't think Dallas wins any of their tough games left. That's at Philly. They have Indianapolis that would put them at six losses. This team, This team's a lot. I mean, it's not a bad team, but it's not a team that I think is going to beat any other good teams. The Cowboys? They have one decent win all year. Against the Seahawks.

Yeah, that's it. Everyone else they've beaten has been an also-ran. Basically. Or a tomato can. Rams was probably their next best way. What do they have? That was when Austin Davis, their schedule isn't that. We can't laugh at the Rams.

The Rams are the best five and seven team ever. It was a while. It was early in the season where their defense was great. The Cowboys have a fairly favorable schedule. They have the Thursday night game we're about to talk about, then they have the Redskins later. Wait, let's play win-loss. I'll be the win-loss guy because I'm the Cowboys. All right, go ahead.

Chicago, at Chicago on Thursday. Nine and six. At Philly. Nine and seven. Excuse me. Wait, what's the record now? Eight and four, sorry. So they're nine and five after that game.

I should have noticed some of that. Well, no, if they won in Chicago, they would have a ninth win, and then they would be, right, nine and five. Versus Indianapolis. 10 and 5. Oh, just give them a loss there. They're at home. I got them getting swept by the Eagles already. At Washington.

They're going to go 11 to 5. They'll be okay. There you go. And then they bump the Cardinals out. Dan and I in perfect unison. I've got the Cowboys losing to the Bears. Whoa. Losing to the Colts.

Losing to the Eagles. And then beating the Redskins. Yeah, I like that kind of party. All right, all right. Okay, so you got, all right. Based on Wes's picks this year, they'll go three and one. That's there. Bulsom burner blow torch.

I think the Lions are going to do the Lion thing. I think they're going to... They've got such an easy schedule. I know, but that doesn't matter with this franchise. They're one of those teams that they'll just... They'll play down to their competition and get beat a couple times. They've got a whole new regime in there. This is the era of unbridled Golden Tate.

They do need to avoid... If they can just avoid a real stinker of a loss, they can totally afford to lose in Green Bay in weeks of 17. Once the last time they have a boy... I know it's a different regime, but when's the last time they lost, They avoided a stinker loss in December when it mattered. Wait, this is their schedule. I'm just not ready to get in yet.

It's Bucks, Vikings, Bears. At Chicago, maybe you lose one of those division games. When's the last time the Cowboys didn't choke away their season at the end of? I know. It's fair. You've got a double standard working here. A little bit. Not everything that happened tells us what's going to happen.

No, I mean, I guess maybe I like the Cowboys a lot better as a team. I like Romo better than I like Stafford. It'd be more fun. I'd rather see the Cowboys in than a lot. Lions I think that'd be awesome. All right, so you want to do the same thing again? Pick who doesn't make it? Yeah, let's pick it.

So, all right, Mark, you go with your two wildcard teams. Is there a division? Are we going to get excited about the North being wide open? Well, I'll say, you know, I think we're all going to take the Packers. Okay, so let's talk about who's your NFC West winner. We're all taking all four of the same teams, aren't we to win the divisions? I'm taking the Seahawks to win. Pick your NFC West winner and then the two wildcards.

Everybody's picking the Seahawks. Really? We're all picking the Saints. We're all picking the Packers, and we're all picking the Eagles, aren't we? That's true. And then my final two teams, I do think the Cardinals get in, and I think the Lions are the last team to get in with them. I go Cowboys and Lions as my wildcard teams.

All right, hang on a second. Greg, you said. By the way, you were mocking me for putting the Cardinals in the playoffs in the top five in the preseason Powerball. That one's looking good. The Cardinals? Who are you talking to? Have you watched the team?

Greg is pointing to West, for those of you listening. Are they going to make it just because you put them in? Well, they're doing well. Mark has them losing every game the rest of the year. Mark, what was your pick? Your picks for Seahawks. Who else? Seahawks win that division,

and I have Cowboys and Lions edging the Cardinals to get into the Wild Cardinals. Okay, Wes, who are your two wild cards? I've got the Lions, and I guess the Cardinals built such a lead that they'll probably get in. Cowboys don't make it, 49ers don't make it. You know what?

Those are mine, too. I am going to say, I got to pick the Cardinals to make it. I think they'll sneak in as a wild card, and put in the Cowboys and the Cowboys So there you go Dan goes hero division pick So here we go

It's true All right All right So we all Yeah so for wild card Of the NFC I have cards Cowboys

Wes is Lions Cards Mark has Cowboys Lions And Greg has Cardinals Lions So that'll be For another steak dinner

Potentially Mm A lot of meat A lot of meat for the Mark Meat for the Mark What That's not gonna catch on That could be a whole new segment

Try to convince vegetarian Mark Sessler. Meat market, but you spell it with a C. Meet Marseille. Ooh, let's see. All right. Thursday night preview our last thing we'll get to before we get out of here. The Dallas Cowboys and Chicago Bears play at Soldier Field

in prime time. The Cowboys stanker on Thanksgiving, which really, I think, shook a lot of people's faith whether this is a team that's going to make the playoffs are do another Cowboys thing. So predictably, this week has been all about what is going to happen to the Cowboys. Is it going to happen to them again? And they're going to go 8-and-8 or missed playoff something bad.

Judy Batista has a big feature up where she writes about Tony Romo. What was it, the five faces of Tony Romo? Oh, yeah. Huba, hubba. So let's talk about this game. West, we'll start with you because I think you already made your pick. You think the Chicago Bears are going to knock off the Cowboys and send Big D into panic mode. Let me defend this hero.

Do we know it's going to be a hero pick? Well, Mark, are you going to take the Cowboys or the Bears? I don't know yet. I'll take the Cowboys for sure. I know I'm taking it. You know, well, I'm taking. All right, Wes, let's assume it's a hero. It's been your hero.

But we just talked about this. The Cowboys have beaten one good team all year, the Seahawks. They've just beat up on tomato cans. The Bears are tomato cans, but surprisingly, have not allowed a 100-yard rusher all year. They defend the runs fairly well. That's because you can just throw on them all day or something. Well, what do the Cowboys like to do? sure run they also the Cowboys have a defense that over the last six games is giving up 50 more points

or five more points and 50 more yards their defense is not nearly what it was early in the season I think the bears pull off this upset Tony Romo for all the attention Peyton Manning gets about cold weather Romo a bad cold weather quarterback yeah I'm looking at our preview on the site written by Connor or this week Romo is two and five with a 60% completion rate in games played under degrees. Well, that's also been on different Cowboys teams that have not had the line this team has. I love everyone selling Dallas down the river at this point, and that's fine. You know, the Bears a year ago, this was the Josh McCown game, if I recall, where he went off and everyone thought Tressman could take anyone and turn them into a starting quarterback,

and he did. He got Josh McCown a big free agent deal, and we've seen where that's gone. Now, the Bears one year later are a complete mess. I think they are a team that's not responding to coaching, and they've gotten very little to play for. There's discord in the locker room. Dallas, you want to look at one Thanksgiving game and say it's over for them? That's fine. I'll tell you what. They're going to win this game, and they're going to win it easy.

Yeah, I agree. We've talked about the Rams as the best, the 5 and 7 team. The Bears are the worst 5 and 7 team in the NFL. How did this team win five games? I mean, when you watch it, they're just terrible. Everything about them is terrible. I feel like they're 0 and 13. I feel like they lose every week.

They just have that they're a loser team. team right now. But there's a pressing. Their wins are also very not impressive. If you look at the teams they've beaten the way that they've beaten them, they're lucky that they even got to five wins. Their defense is so bad. And they wake up every Monday morning with a Jay Cutler hangover.

They lose every week. Very bad. By the way, back to the Cowboys, I wrote a post on Des Bryant yesterday. They asked them because he says, he says this season is different for the Cowboys. And then someone asks a smart question, well, do you have any actual, like, reason why this season will be different for Dallas? His quote was kind of interesting. Our approach, everybody wants to get better just by the little things,

not making the cold weather a big issue. Just go out there and understand what's important. That's the opportunity that we have to go out and make the playoffs. It's like a bunch of cliches and then out of nowhere, don't be afraid of cold weather. It's like, what? That's not good. Easily impressed by the coach's message.

I just, I didn't realize that cold weather was something that was holding this franchise back. Maybe it is. And maybe that's trouble on Thursday. Maybe I'll change my pick here. week. Go ahead, do it. I'd love for you to do that. You can't change into a hero.

Can we give Matt Forte the ball here a little bit, too? This Cowboys run defense? It's like Matt Forte never gets the ball. He's one of the greatest running backs of the last 10 years. Well, they tried to. Give him the ball. They tried to last game, and they can't run the ball very well. But they're not a good team this year on offense.

I found it very troubling when the Cowboys had to get into a mode where they had to throw last week. It's just like, they're not that team. We don't know what to do. we're just built to do one thing. It's troubling a loss. There's something to that. We are robots.

All year, I think from training camp on, they're training to be a running team, and the only thing that works in the passing game is throwing the ball up for grabs to Des Bryant. If they're trained to do one thing, that's one thing more than the Bears. Ow! Go for it! All right. Give Mark the final word there. So that's our preview, and that's our podcast. That's Wednesday's edition of the Around the NFL podcast.

We'll be back on Thursday night. We're going to recap this game that we'll do. just talked about and also do a preview of all our Sunday content and you know man I got a little tease something a little fun on Thursday coming up oh little tease I don't even know what this is get ready get excited all right so that's it for the show Zach Dressler Zee drizzle great job as always uh is Dan Hansis signing off for the mailman the sizzler the boss like I said Z drizzle until Thursday Ew, I just look my background.