NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Wild Card Weekend Recap

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

A room filled with heroes- Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler, Chris Wesseling and Gregg Rosenthal recap everything you need to know and more about wild card weekend including Wess attempting to say "lock apocalypse" (2:29). The Eagles win in an upset over the team of ATL (2:45), the Ravens face some adversity for their QB choice (15:06) and Zeke Elliot put this Cowboys team on his back. (29:10). Andrew Luck and the Colts march forward, but do they have what it takes to beat the Chiefs? (42:32).Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everybody. This podcast is brought to you by Skittles. It's football time, and you know what that means? I have to read whatever they write on this piece of paper because corporate money matters more than my dignity. Ouch. Skittles going in for the kill.

So here it goes. Nothing is better than watching football with a bowl of Skittles while in my grandmother's vintage, well, my grandmother's dead. In fact, both of them are. So good bit. Wedding dress that I keep. buried in the back of my closet, is this still part of the Skittles' paid advertisement? Or am I confessing the secret that has been building up subconsciously for years?

It's the second one. Whoa, brought to you by Skittles. Force read the rainbow. Taste the rainbow. That was cute. The Around the NFL podcast. Loves NFL kickers. Mmm.

That's time. Welcome to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Higgins. I'm joined in a room filled with heroes, Mark Sessler, Chris Wessling, and Greg Rosenthal. What is up, boys? Hey, dude. Wild Card Weekend is in the books. And as is often the case, when we assume we something, something, something ass.

I don't remember the full, what is the saying. Make an ass out of you and me. There it is. Because a lot of unexpected things happen today and this weekend, Wildcard Sunday. Saturday and Sunday games we're going to get to all of them in terms of like a big picture takeway Mark Sessler. How you doing by buddy?

Doing fine. My dog, Mark with a C. No team had more than 24 points on Wild Card weekend. So there was no in the year of offense. There was not a single team that said, I'm going to heat things up or we. What about in the year of offense

defense has adjusted late in the season making us wrong about everything we sit? And it's funny you say that West because but the best defense has all got knocked out on sunday the ravens and bears the two best defenses in the NFL wiped away in eight hours so football dot dot dot it's unpredictable i'd blame the weather the elements sometimes can be rough colder weather also also this weekend uh for the heroes windy it was windy rainy a lock apocalypse which we're going to get into not for everybody though a lock up try it west

Try it. Lock a lips? Oof. Almost. Lock a lips. But what's what we're going to do? We're going to go through the games and we're going to go and reverse chronological order. Counterclockwise. So let's get it going. Starting with what happened at Soldier Field.

Take a deep breath. This is the season. This is it right here. Ball. It snapped. placed, kick, and it is no good, no good. It is no good, and the Eagles win. He missed it.

He missed it. And the Eagles were heading to New Orleans. They are headed to New Orleans. And who knows where Cody Parky is headed next place. Oh, Merrill Reese with a dagger with Mike Quick on the call, WIP. Yes, Cody Parky's 43-yard field goal. and they didn't say it on the radio broadcast so I'll explain it to the audience

struck the left upright and clanked against the crossbar before falling to the end zone a crushing miss by Parky that allowed the Eagles to escape Soldier Field with a 1615 win this was the best game of wildcard weekend

the six seed Eagles will face the top seed Saints at the Superdome and next week's divisional round Chris Wessling the Eagles they're the defending champ for a reason they got talent, resiliency, and yes, A little bit of luck.

You need that, too. Kickers create legacies. The way we view Mitch Trubisky is going to be different after Cody Parkies' miss. And the storybook of Nick Foles' career keeps getting another chapter written because of that miss. I don't think we'd be talking about the Eagles and Nick Ful is quite the same without that miss. But you're right, they are the Super Bowl champions. You never underestimate their heart. And Foles play great down the stretch.

And their defense is better than they were. say a month or two ago. I think you give them all a lot of credit. And in their pass protection, I thought was really good. I mean, you're right. These two teams, I think one thing you can take away from, they were very evenly matched. There wasn't a lot separating them. Like Trubisky, Foles played his best at the end of the game. The offense has kind of turned it up in the fourth quarter. But getting the ball down five points with 446 to go and needing to score a touchdown on the best defense in the league and delivering that touchdown, which included great plays, not just by Foles.

How about Zackertz jumping up in a crowd and picking that out of the sky? How about Alshan Jeffrey just kind of owning this entire game? How about Nick Foles on the fourth down play, season on the line, changing his arm angle and making a tricky throw? He goes Fulma Holmes. That golden tape thing. How about Dallas Goddard forcing a miss tackle on third down? Right.

That's what I mean. So it takes so many different players to make an epic drive like that. And Foles ultimately did play his best down the stretch. you got to give them credit. And we always talk about Nick Foles and Nick Foles, but it's the Eagles defense that dominated this stretches of this game as well. I mean, they're playing as well on defense as they have all year. And it's funny that even one play can make a trade that looks sort of lost for the Eagles,

the Golden Tate touchdown suddenly, because it's all about what you just did. Like Golden Tate's touchdown, everyone says, oh, Howie Roseman won that trade. I mean, bottom line, he kind of did because they just won another playoff game because of it. That was, to me, the story of the game was, you know, I had the feeling that the bears weren't going to score a lot of points. But you also knew that Chicago's defense was going to come to play in this game with the home field advantage and the fact that the week after week have been showing it. So that's what surprised me the most about the game is that once they finally got over the hump, Chicago on offense, and they score the touchdown to take the 15 to 10 lead. the fact that the defense couldn't close the game out that to me is the biggest surprise of this game

and of course Cody Parkey could have wiped all that away if he hits a 43 yarder in fact he did hit a 43 yarder but he was iced by Doug Peterson and we don't have to talk about it anymore that is it that's it you always ice the kicker we don't have to have this discussion anymore it's been proven Chris Wessling right there

first time since 2004 in a playoff game by the way that it worked and you remember that game Danny it was probably Doug Bryan blowing something. Yeah, so it's the Steelers. Greg hates icing, but if you ask me if I'm coaching against a guy who's missed 10 kicks this year, I'm definitely icing that guy and making him think about it. And getting back to my point, because Parky, by the way, that is six times he hit the upright or crossbar.

Four in one game. Including four and one game. The booze, when he left the field, I happened to see this, you know, were deafening from the home. Being a kicker is terrible. But to me, that is ultimately the biggest surprise that the Bears didn't get off the field and win that game and that defensive line led by Khalil Mack, who was pretty quiet in this game, had one sack in the whole game, quiet, and they just did not get the job done. He was a force in the run game, Cleo Mac was.

He owned Darren Sprouls in this game. But very quiet as a pass rusher, and Jason Peters played well. I mean, next-gen stats points out that Foles had his quickest release of any game all year tonight, and I think it attempted to counteract what they knew would be a really ferocious pass rush with getting the ball at it. It did not work perfectly. Foles threw a bad pick. He threw a terrible pick in the end zone as well.

I mean, this was not a great Nick Folls game until the end, and he delivered as he has every time. I think it was similar to the games he's put together, other than the Texans game where he just was awesome. I think this was kind of what you've gotten from Foles over the last month, which is a couple Aaron throws. He also missed the third and nine that killed the drive in the second half that looked like it might be big.

A really terrible interception. He's been intercepted now five times in the last four games, some of them have been pretty ghastly, but some big-time money throws. But to Wes's point, the rest of the team, the protection, I think the play calling, maybe he's, Doug Peterson's more comfortable with Foles who's been with him the whole time. And certainly the defense getting more production out of Rosal Douglas and Avanti Maddoch and Cray-Sullivan and all these guys that you never heard of about six weeks ago who have played well against some limited passing games.

We'll see if it continues next week, but the secondary has played pretty well. If you throw short-armed jump balls, 50-50 balls, you're going to throw your fair share of interceptions, too. I mean, that's just the way he plays with that kind of shooter's confidence. I'm throwing it up and letting somebody make a play. I was, the other thing about the Eagles attack, and they converted on the fourth and goal, the two-yard pass to Tate, and that was a game.

Major onions ended up being the margin of victory. But on first and second down, I was surprised how often we saw Darren Sproul, touch the ball in this game. Do they not have a thumper near the goal line? They did not have somebody else. They could turn to. Theory it'd be Josh Adams who had one carry and that was it. I didn't love scrolls having such a huge part in the game plan,

but ultimately it worked out. I mean, the two teams combined for 107 yards. And at rushing, the Eagles had 42 yards rushing. I think it was a disappointment probably for both teams. If either one could have gotten a ground game going, they would feel better. But this game to me was so similar from Chubisky, who ends up with good stats.

and certainly had two or three interceptable balls and missed some throws. Whereas ultimately, if they kicked that ball, you're right, Wes. We're talking about that he made a lot of really good throws down the stretch. It's just a fact. In the fourth quarter, they scored 10 points, and they should have scored 13 points. And he didn't play a good game. This is kind of the typical Mitchell Chubisky game. He'll show you enough to get excited.

He'll have a few head scratchers. But he had some beauties, including what should have set up the game winner. I mean, it was a beautiful throw to set up the game. It's funny because Collinsworth thought Trubisky played well. And Mark Sessler could not have been more annoyed, by the way. Well, all right. So hold on. So some of that came before what was a beautiful drive

where he made two or three elegant throws. I get it. It's just that I feel sometimes with Mitch Trubisky, he is treated with kid gloves where it's like, we point out a few things that he does well. Overall, this was a roller coaster ride. He's not a quarterback you feel confident in. And too many of their drives were utterly blown up and unwatchable.

And it's not just Trubisky. They played a great defense in the Eagles. But, I mean, he's lucky he didn't come out of this with a couple turnovers of his own. Right. They lost the game. And I lost my lock despite winning the turnover battle, two to nothing. I lost mine as well. And that ended what was a historic streak by you, Mark.

You had 10 locks in a row, which I'm sure that made you a little more angry at Michigan. It's my fault. And I'll tell you one. The winning locks in general feels basically lucky. But one thing that I, when I enjoy doing it, it's when I enjoy picking a team that I truly believe in. And I picked against a team with the DNA like the Eagles that I can get behind for what I thought would be

a nice little easy defensive victory. I found them, it was a pain to watch them today. I'm sorry, I know that the team of the ATL. They ain't my team today. They drove me nuts. And you know what? The better team is going on in my book. I'm not saying that they're better in all their parts,

but I would much rather see this journey continue for Nick Foles and the Eagles than Mitch Trubisky go up and produce nine points against the Saints. The biggest surprise for me of the week when you look at the box score as a wildcard weekend is Mitch Trubisky threw for 300 yards, which you didn't, you wouldn't think that he would even add up to that many yards. And the other part of his game, which maybe we'll learn more in the upcoming days or even as soon as tonight when we hear some of the sound bites, is I wonder if that he pulled up lame in the first half.

And then you look at his running stats, three rushes for nine yards. That's a big part of his game. His ability to just scramble, get out of the pocket, make guys miss. And once he hurt his leg and he went into the tent, you didn't see Mitchell Trubisky move anymore. Twice on scrambles, he was stopped shy of the sticks on third down. And I don't know if he's healthy if he goes for that, but you'd like to see him in a playoff game,

throw caution to the win with his body a little bit. Right. In a game like this where I really do think these teams were so even, despite, you know, the turnover battle, you know, going to the Bears. You know, like the Adrian Amos penalty. One of the two touchdown drives by the Eagles was entirely penalties.

I mean, it was an unforced error by the Bears defense. That drive ended up being, I think, 53 yards out of 70 plus penalties on that one. I believe there was the 15-yard helmet and then a pass interference, which was a good call. Right. I'm not saying they were back calls. I just mean, I don't know,

there's just so many. It's tough, and you're right, Dan. You're always on this corner for Parky because that is how the game's going to be remembered. And there were every play. And that's why the playoffs are so fun that every play feels like it can change the game. And speaking of Parkie, before we move on,

I guess, and this is the part if you are a Bears fan and you're listening, and God bless you, if you are, because this cannot be easy. And we empathize with you. You could fast forward the next 30 seconds or so because we're going to play the Chicago Bears radio call from Jeff Johnnyack, WBBM. Parky lines it up.

O'Donado on one. knee gives him a look extends his right arm scale sends it back placement made kicked by parkey from 43 and it hit the upright it is no good on the crossby and the eagles are celebrating here at soldier field i don't even know how to respond to that the crowd sounds as brutal awful loss well they've waited forever for the home playoff game that will stick to the ribs of chicago fans for a long time We made it through the whole thing without mentioning Alan Robinson, who I thought was probably the best player on the field. And his double moves on Avanti Maddox worked throughout the game.

He's been playing really well, and I think not great numbers this year, but they have to look forward to him next year. They have things to build around, including their head coach. I watched Matt and Aggie's post-game press governance. I think he should be coach of the year. I think he did a great job in this game, including with the play calls staying aggressive late in the game

after it really wasn't happening for them, and yet he stayed so aggressive. The way he handled that press conference, and I think what he said to the team, he just, he strikes me as a leader and a mature guy that players are going to stand behind and he's bringing that offensive acumen. I think they've got the right coach.

All right. Let's continue to go backwards in time with the early kickoff game. This one on Sunday took place in Baltimore. Let's go there. Shotgun snap, looking middle of the field, under pressure, ball is stripped. Cheninuosu diving for it.

There is a scrum. It looks like the Chargers may have it. We'll see. Charger ball! Charger ball! The bolts are going to win in Baltimore. Woo-hoo! That is the voice of the NFL podcast, Matt Money Smith, with the call for KFI.

The Chargers gave Lamar Jackson fits all day, making the game's final play, decisive play, a strip sack recovery by L.A. a fitting way to wrap up a 23-17 win over the Ravens in Baltimore. The Chargers win up next for the bolts. A divisional round matchup against the Patriots in Foxborough. Phil Rivers was pumped after the game. Rivers and Wilson talking it out. We're going to fly back home and then we're going to fly back out here for another 10 a.m.

West Coast kick. We really don't care. What's the saying? In the squad any place. We bought whatever. How we've gone all year long and we'll be there next Sunday. And that was Melvin Ingram, who had a monster game. Mark Sessler, for 55 minutes, the Chargers made Lamar Jackson look like an AAF clipboard holder.

It was the story of this game, wasn't it? I think Melvin Ingram, and we just talked about Alan Robertson being the best player in the field in the prior game. Melvin Ingram was the best football player we saw all day today, in my opinion. He, in a game where the Chargers, the narrative coming in, was how physically dominated they were. and how would they respond not only from that angle but strategically and it came out after the game and we saw this right away that they were using

six and seven defensive backs up at the line all over the place to handle Baltimore's tangle of runners with Lamar Jackson, the rest of them. They out of 59 snaps to use seven defensive backs on 58 and it was by Gus Bradley who was jettisoned

as Jacksonville's coach, he's back in Los Angeles as their defensive coordinator an excellent game plan that Really up until the very end, the floor never fell out on any level. They put such a clamp on Lamar Jackson. And they basically also asked Lamar Jackson to play a mistake-free game, which he is not able to do. Their first eight snaps, there were three fumbles by the Ravens.

Lamar Jackson was lucky not to lose two of them right away. And then Kenneth Dixon lost on the second possession, a game-changing fumble that set up a field goal. The Chargers had to deal with essentially settle for field goals over and over. because of Baltimore's defense. But then Baltimore's defense, it's too much to ask them to do this all game long too and finally gave up points

and they built a 23 to 3 lead and then the Ravens hung on, came back a little bit. But this to me was one of the more incredible coaching efforts by the Chargers defensive staff that we've seen all year. Well, it's counterintuitive, right? You're facing the greatest running team

that we've seen in years, let's get way lighter. Let's put seven defensive backs on the field, it doesn't sort of make sense, but they know their players, they know that the Ravens running attack, you know, is at its best going to the outside? They have ballers. I mean, Derwin James was everywhere, where Adrian Phillips had a monster game at safety. And that kind of strategy counts on Ingram and Bosa and the guys up front to create pressure on their own. And Ingram got it done. And how about Ucheno Nuoosu, kind of the forgotten draft pick on that

team ends up making the game ceiling play, the second round pick that they had a behind Durwin James. It's the forgotten unit in this game was the Chargers defense coming in and they're the ones that did. The Ravens in the first half had 69 yards, just 11 through the air, two turnovers, zero points, not a single play

in enemy territory and had 12 minutes of possession. That is anti-ravens from what we've seen the last six weeks. You, Greg, had it right. You said in the lead-up to this game that it could benefit the Chargers to have played Baltimore so recently.

They got beat handily three weeks ago. I was skeptical of that because I thought it would carry more weight. But what ended up working out was, is what we're hearing about the game plan. They studied that tape and they said, Lamar Jackson, we know how to make this guy miserable. And that could flip the entire game on its ear. And that's what they pulled off. Their defense had the best game of the season for them. And Belvin Ingram had his best game of the season.

Derwin James has been good all year. Adrian Phillips has been good all year. That play that Derwin James made in the open field on Lamar Jackson to force the fourth down, and then instead of going for the fourth down, the Ravens attempted the field goal. To me, a 50-yard field goal, by the way. To me, that was right up there, like, one of their two most important plays of the game right there. And I think the difference was field position. Philip Rivers didn't do any more than Lamar Jackson did, but he didn't give the ball to his defense

and say, here, defend only 15 yards. Well, Jackson's got a fumbling problem. He led the league in fumbles despite starting only seven games, and he fumbled a few times. And a lot of times it's been unforced errors on these fumbles. It also got a passing problem. Right. Well, the accuracy to the outside certainly isn't there.

But I love the fact that in that moment, Harbaugh blinked on the fourth and one. So this is the greatest running team we've seen. And in that moment, fourth and one, the Ravens have gone for it every single time. And I know Justin Tucker's the best, and it was to make it a one-score game. It was totally understandable why he did it,

but it was sort of a moment that he blinked and he was saying, we don't trust ourselves to get a yard against you guys, which was giving the charges all the credit they deserve and kind of saying, hey, you're beating us. I think that also is that the game that Lamar Jackson was playing under center was discombobulated. I mean, they were completely out of sorts.

Good word for it. They had three first downs and negative two yards passing in the first 50 minutes of the game. And you factor all that in, And that's why it became a major subplot, both on Twitter amongst the football Cagnoscenti, and also in that stadium, M&T Bank Stadium, which was, there were booze raining down and chance of Joe Flacco. The idea should Flacco enter this game and give them a shot to juice the offense?

Let's hear what John Harbaugh had to say about that possibility after the game. We were just talking about possibly all those possibilities. I'm not going to probably get into all that, Peter, in terms of what was said or not said. but I can assure you we were considering, you know, putting Joe in the game and all that kind of stuff. That was part of the conversation. Certainly thought about it. Certainly talked about it with everybody. And I can tell you this, it was everybody was on the same page with what we did, everybody, including Joe.

Midway through the fourth quarter, and Wes, you just hit on it before. Jackson was three for ten. Fourth quarter, three for ten for 25 yards, an interception and two fumbles. His quarterback rating zero and two touchdown passes at the end of the game. Does that justify sticking with him? I don't think it does. I don't think so. I think that was lipstick on a pig, Greg.

Just because you could say now the fact that they had the ball with 47. I guess when would have you done at a half time? 47 seconds with a chance to score at the end of the game with no timeouts. I don't think that was some great opportunity for the team. I thought if they got, I thought you should keep them in obviously through the first half and then give them a look as the second half begins. After that first or second possession, I have to make a move if I'm the head coach. I thought John Harbaugh blew this.

And I know a lot of people who think they know so much about football will say, oh, well, Joe Flacco stinks. There's nothing he could have done. Well, everybody thinks they know so much on their keyboards. But it's like, how about you give them a shot? Because crazy stuff happens in the playoffs. Flacco could have gotten hot. It could have been Johnny United us going in for Earl Morrow and Super Bowl 3

and get a team back in a game. We'll never know because at the end of the day, Harbaugh obviously had turned the page on this Ravens franchise and said Joe Flacko, and he said as much after the game. I wish him well. He's a great guy. He said, he's going to have a market. He said, not in Baltimore. He said, this is over, and that is how he played this game, that Joe Flackle was already

essentially off the team. I didn't like how he played this. Didn't it make you think if the Ravens don't release that statement a week ago saying that John Harbaugh is back for 2019, Harbaugh might play this thing differently? It certainly seemed like he was looking forward to next year when he stayed with Lamont Jackson. Well, it's interesting, too, because they asked him about whether he thought there was any chance that he wouldn't be back. and he had an interesting non-answer to that.

And I don't know if he's just like angling. He said he wants to be. Yeah, of course he's going to say that he wants to be back. But his quote of the Bible, I believe. His quote was there's a Bible verse that says, make no oath. No one can say what tomorrow is going to bring other than God willing. We'll see what God has in store. I have every expectation, every plan to be here.

I think this might be just, you know, maneuvering to get a contract extension. Pro football talk has reported very strongly that the Broncos and Dolphins are both interested in Harbaugh. So that's a whole other story. I don't know if he would have changed his decision based on that. I was just saying, I guess, when would have you made the change? At halftime, I guess it would have been the time to do it. Because he did get two fourth quarter touchdowns, that's all my point. Yeah, I get what you're saying.

I would say after the first fruitless possession or even two in the third quarter, get him in there. Because at a certain point, what is the point? And he did make it a close, he made it interesting, but by that point, it was just desperate streets. Can I just counter you real quick? I was not in favor of making the switch just because I think the illusion. to Lamar Jackson is you're going to get the mistakes. You're not going to be able to count on necessarily steady passing effort, but he's going to bring explosiveness and much more so than Joe Flacco.

And the one thing that was happening was L.A. was getting heat on Lamar Jackson. They were getting heat on the backfield. And that is not something that I would have trusted Joe Flacco to alter. Just to counterpoint, go on. Allow me to counterpoint that. We heard that exact same, I would say, guesswork about Tyrod Taylor and Baker Mayfield in the game against the Jets. Oh, no, you can't put Baker

Mayfield in because Tyrod's under pressure the whole game. As soon as you put the other quarterback in, he gets rid of the ball faster. They start lining up on defense differently. The pass rush isn't there. I don't think you can say that. That's possible, but I just don't really see Joe Flacco that way in 2018. And everything's different. I agree, Wes, it could have given them a different look. But I think ultimately, to Mark's point, the Chargers' defensive line was winning the battle. consistently, whether it was in the running game or the passing game.

Well, they can also stack a lot more people in the defensive line when you don't have to worry about the guy, throw him beyond 10 yards. And when, if, if Gus Edwards and Kenneth Dixon are running 14 for 36, it's like, I don't think they're going to win this game unless Philip Rivers has a meltdown. And it's not like the Chargers offense played well. I mean, the Ravens defense did. They were frustrating. I also have one more aside related to the Flacco situation.

At one point, Tracy Wolfson of CBS, reported that Jimmy Smith, chastised some Ravens fans behind the bench for Channing for Flacko. And he told them not to be fair weather fans. And that is another thing I was seeing popping up on Twitter. It's like calling a fan fair weather because they think they need to make a switch a quarterback in a one done elimination. It doesn't make you a bad fan. If you leave the stadium at halftime, you're a fair weather fan.

So that got on my radar too, this idea that you have to protect Lamar Jackson's dignity or, you know, get Joe Flacco out of the mix totally. I just had an issue with how the whole thing was handled. I do agree with West, though, that the whole element of Harbaugh's contract and the fact that you're dealing with a rookie quarterback who's had a great story up till now, and the minute he hits troubled waters, the one thing is you have to deal with whatever happens now, the same way with the Patriots last year in the Super Bowl, you have to deal with this storyline for the rest of the offseason.

And you have to wonder if that factored in. I just, I'm amazed, it is fun to know that this Chargers team is moving on. Yes, it is. Chargers aren't going on the Chargers. I mean, you were a huge Ravens fan about nine hours ago, but outside of that. I was rooting on the Chargers a ton. Are you kidding me?

You were watching this game with me? No, both. You're both. I enjoy, like, watching football teams. We don't need to like... That is well understood. But I love this Chargers team. The fact that Ingram's the heartbeat of this team, he had a monster game.

Antonio Gates made a huge play in this game, which I think Chargers fans had to just, like, that was delightful to have him make one of the key plays of the game. And how about the Chargers special teams ends up being maybe the key of the game. Money Badger. I know they had a punt block and a kick block,

but Desmond King and then the field goal kicker. Nothing says that this team. Badgley. I'm not going to call him Penn Badgley. I was about to call him Penn. And I was like he deserves. Mike Badgley, he is the Money Badger. And he set a franchise record with five field goals.

He scores 15 points in this game. And yeah, because Chargers fans are going to get mad at us for focusing on the Ravens. The Ravens, it's a fun soap opera angle to it. But the Chargers, And I'll say this, Greg, because as you may know, I do not like the Patriots. After back-to-back years where they just got tomato cans, when they beat up the Titans, the Titans and the Texans, 69 to 30 the last two years in the division round,

this is a battle-tested, gritty, tough Philip Rivers-led Chargers team going up to Foxborough and you're going to see the stat over and over again, that they have not lost a game this year when they got on a plane that includes a trip to London. They're 9-0, I believe, in games. The only road game they lost is against the Rands of the Coliseum. So this is... Including four playoff teams.

Seattle, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and then today. With a competent kicker. So totally new DNA. Totally. And the Patriots, they're undefeated at home. So this is a great division round game. Hey, you want to get an AFC title game this year, Greg? You're going to have to earn it, bro.

Here's another step. I can't lose at both my teams. One of the other stands to see. This would be the oldest combined matchup for quarterbacks in a playoff game. How about that? For old dudes. Oh, you old dudes out there. Oh, who got banged on this one?

I did. Hmm. Hey, go. Here you go. Let's move on. I'm third and long. Prescott runs it up the middle. Fifty, ten, five.

Diving to the wrong. Oh, they spotted him short. They spotted him at the fall. Oh, they've moved it to the one. It is a first and goal. And I quit watching that judge on that sideline. The sham god. but KRLD with the call.

Dak Prescott shot through an opening a third and long and took it to the goal line. It was a game-changing play for the Cowboys and a 24-22 win over the Seahawks at Jero World. The fourth-seed Cowboys move on. To face the Rams, the number two-seed Rams, here in L.A. next weekend. Greg, the Seahawks had a game plan that worked all year.

Well, until they got to Dallas. Right. Everyone is killing Brian Schottenheimer. for this game plan. And they should. And we'll get, we'll, I'm sure, talk about that. But it's been basically the same game plan all year. This isn't a new thing. And so I think the Seahawks fans that are upset about that have to recognize that they lost to a team that very much won in the similar way that the Seahawks have won a lot of playoff games under Pete Carroll. They had the superior defense. They had the superior defensive playmakers in Jalen Smith and Leighton Van derrash and

DeMarcus Lawrence stopping the run, and they were the team that, even though they were a little too conservative on offense, their quarterback is the one that was rushing for key first downs, just like Russell Wilson did, that didn't need to do a heck of a lot except hit like one red zone throw, which he did to Michael Gallup, and they watched their running game pop off a few big ones to close it out in a game that the opponent eventually think, gosh, we should have won that. It's like, that's how the Seahawks have won a lot of games this century. all credit to the, to the Cowboys, who had the best group in this game, and that was the Cowboys defense. I thought Wes diagnosed this many, many days ahead, not just on our Thursday

show, the strength of the Cowboys would be their linebacking core, and it would be the fact that their defense is very well coached. And when you, if you want to blame Brian Schottenheimer for the fact that Seattle had six three and outs, there's a huge reason that that happened. It's the opponent they were playing. Now, you can look at Schottenheimer's decision to do things like throw a little rinky-dink screen on third and long in a massive situation and say, come on, we've seen that from you before and we thought you had broken out of that cycle.

But this had all to do with Dallas dominating on defense in a way that gives them a chance to play with anyone next week. As someone that's in Brian Schottenheimer recovery still from his ears of jets, I could tell you what was getting on my radar and brought back a lot of memories of the Rex Ryan years was running on first down over and over and over again. It wasn't working.

It was not working on Saturday. And he never deviated out of that, it seemed. So every time you got to second and third down, it's third and seven. And it was just like, sometimes I know the game plan has worked all year. They led the world in rushing and all that. But it wasn't working.

And Schottonhyber showed no flexibility. I don't think any Seahawks fans will fault the game plan. Like the plan... You don't follow enough of my Twitter. The plan that you created during the week and the script that you wrote, okay, I get it. You're obviously going to run.

The fault is why do you not switch away from that at any point in the game? Yeah. In the second half, to your point, Dan, they had six runs and one pass on first down. And that's after it wasn't working until that last drive. Wilson had 27 throws for 8.3 yards per attempt. And their runs average 2.8 yards per attempt. So it's just like, it's kind of simple math.

And they had a bunch of plus 20 plays in the passing game. You know, Lockett made a couple big catches. Baldwin made one great catch. And you're thinking like, hey, is this going to ring any alarm bells that when you allow these great players Wilson Lockett and Baldwin to try for something that you can make some plays. They had the same number of first downs as the Ravens did.

The Cowboys had twice as many first downs as the Seahawks. They just didn't move the ball. It's very typical of the, this was a typical Cowboys game for this season where it felt like they should have been leading by more than they really were. I mean, I heard a lot of people saying like, we really need one good game this week and it's been a do

and it's been a snoozer. I thought this was a really good game. Four lead changes and it was totally up in the air until the third and four. It wasn't a classic, Dan, but it was third and 14 when Dak Prescott in the red zone picked up that first down. At that point, you were looking at

Russell Wilson in a game that had four lead changes, getting the ball to go try to win the game. It didn't have like a stink coming from it. Yeah. It was a good game. It also, you know, this thing, when these things happen, it sometimes colors your own Duke while game. I locked up the CLC Hawks. But I guess I'm

looking more from the factor that you know, I thought this game was going to come down to the last minutes. And it was, it was a close game. But the Cowboys, to their credit, there's nothing kind of sexy about this Cowboys team. Unless you love linebacker play. Okay.

If you're a type of fan that loves linebacker play, and that's good, this is a... There's millions of you out there. They are exciting to watch. No, I'm just saying, like, if you're seeing the field like that, it's an erotic team. But I'm just saying, like,

from a standpoint of what most fans are into, the word, how are you? When you go, you go home west on sunday nights i know you like to fire up game pass you lock that door when you watch the cowboy's lineback i've already watched i've already rewatched this game and i did not lock the door were you wearing pants yes wasn't like the first play the first third i don't believe it the first third down of the game to your point did we was go there was like jim shorts watching job it best i mean you should you could have lit a candle before that first third down of the game

they take latent vanderash off the field it's just jalen smith at middle linebacker And there's Russell Wilson kind of running to the edge, like looking for someone open. And Jalen Smith is just running and mirroring him. And I don't know if any other linebacker in the league would have been able to do that as well as he didn't just swat down Russell Wilson's pass. Like he was like a point guard shooting the ball. It was kind of amazing. And they made plays like that the whole night. The one, and I often will not sit.

Like I'll just watch the game and not try to predict what's going to happen. But in my mind, I vow to you that when Sebastian Janikowski was lining up for that. 52-yard field goal before the half. Embarrassing. That all I saw, because for weeks, I've been telling you, I feel like C-Bass is ready to say, I'm out. And, like, but he goes and attempts that kick, and it's just like any totally out-of-shaped dad

trying to do something. They probably should not have attempted the last 15 years. Right. And he was just wincing in pain. That was a factor. They did not have a field goal kicker. It was a big moment. When they lost the kicker,

and things the way it worked out, they ended up getting two-point conversions. and so it doesn't look that bad and they didn't have any like obvious field goal situation. They might have got an extra touchdown out of it because they're playing four down territory. You could spin it that way and it's true. It worked out ending up like helping them on a weird way.

But in reality, it was a crushing situation. And I will say the onside kick, which maybe is a rule they have to revisit because they change the rule and there's no drama onside kicks anymore. Nobody recovers them. But they have the drop kicking punter everybody loves. Michael Dixon.

Michael Dixon. Who by the way keeps it up to. the game, like Wayne Tollison, batting 2.14 for the Yankees. Like, just pop up to short. He was trying to hit like a soft pitchy wedge and he hit like a five iron. Like that was what he was going for. It was like a flop wedge and it just didn't work. Two kind of a game experiences watching this from home.

One, I apologize to Seahawks fans because I tweeted like 40 minutes before Janikowski blew his hamstring, Seabash ruling field goals in 2019, go figure. And then he blew his hamstring. So I take accountability. The other thing is I had to do some grilling outside some chicken and some steak. I had to do some work helping out the wife, prepare some meals. So I paused the game, which I'll do occasionally like on Thursday nights and stuff. I don't like to do it for playoff games typically, but I did it in this case.

It's doing some husband work. It's a good story so far. What happens? What happens? I get a text. I get a text from my father-in-law. Ooh, that was ugly. I get a text from my dad.

And it's like, ooh, that was an ugly injury. It was a legitimately bizarre unsettling feeling then to then hit play and just wonder who just got injured. How bad was the injury? What happened? So when we see Alan Hurons' leg flop in the wrong direction, it was not a great feeling. And Alan Hurons probably a much worse feeling. I had my children in the room for that. And they've never seen an injury like that on television or in real life.

It was not easy to explain off. But at that point, Colt. That was a good story too. That was, I thought it was concise. Didn't want to take up too much of anyone's time with that. Didn't delve into what I cook or ate for dinner at that point. But Cole Beasley was also banged up. They overcame that.

Did we get through this whole recap without mentioning the best player on the field? It's not over. K.J. right. Ezekiel Elliott. Oh, Zee. Give Zeeke some love, Wes. He carries this team every week. And he carries.

the team in this game and Chris Carson probably has some numbers that make people argue sometimes he's just as good as Ezek. No, no, no, no, no, no. They're in totally different classes. The 44-yard run in that drive in general at the end of the first half that Elliott basically set up DAC to throw it to Gallup, that to me was the key sequence

of the game and it was pretty telling like immediately after both Seahawks touchdowns, the Cowboys responded with the touchdown. Which I think is telling And even though Zeke wasn't piling up huge yards, the whole game, the Seahawks kept having these negative runs, a ton of negative runs that would give them second and 13, second and 14. The Cowboys were the better offensive line, the better running game. All right.

And, yeah, Cowboys, sexy, maybe in some sectors. But you want to kind of write them off and say they can't beat the Rams next week, but they can't say that. No one's going to say that. Ugly it up in L.A. and have a game in the point of water. Got to be a lot of Cowboys fans in that state. him, by the way, no doubt.

Listen, Rams fans, this is your stadium. This is your city. Protect it. Well, there's only so many of them. Cowboys play with a different energy level in their own building, like most teams, but I think when you're a defense team, that really matters. My daughter and wife are heading down the old Coliseum. Your daughter's become quite the football fan. What was the voice inflection you did there during Coliseum?

It's like you were grunting air. That was a good family story as well. Yeah, thank you. Wes, your turn. You're up. I'm just saying they need to. Wes had his film session with the Cowboys linebacker. They need to bring the noise.

All right. There you go. That takes us through three of the four games. And you'll notice we are 0 for three on locks. O for four now, actually. So we, none of us lock. We all got banged, except for one person. Ricky Hollywood.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The Eagles. Wow. Nice up. So you and Shooker now. leading the competition. Ouch.

Yeah. Yeah. Mark's going to kill you, you know. Well, this is already been joking. I don't mean this. I know this got a lot of serious responses on Twitter, not to mention Mark. It's like, no, I'm just joking. People are tired of the injustice.

By the way, Erica, you said you're two and oh, right? Yeah. Well, if you count my pick for Mark's Miami, the dolphins that time. Yeah. If you count that. He took that, though. You can't both have it. You could share it.

Well, yeah. So I'm one and a half, I guess. We're at the lower we did nine and a half. Even though I picked it for you. I thought the way you worked out, you picked it. And in good faith, I stuck with it, despite it being Brock Osweiler starting as I believed in your powers. And I was correct to. And she just picked the biggest underdog of the weekend on the road.

She's hot. She's hot. We're going to ride you through the playoffs, all right? Ricky. Okay. All right. Hey, by the way, before we get to, okay. Before we get to Houston and the final game, we're going to talk about stand out at your event.

for the right reasons with the black tucks.com. Stand down, Wes. The black tucks offers the kinds of suits and tuxedo styles that would normally be wildly expensive to buy and you might wear only once. With the black tux, simply rent them online. I like this model. So you can blow it out for your big one-time event.

I feel like millennials would like this too because they like to get dressed up for their little parties. They also like it when you generalize about their entire generation. They love that. They're like, oh, oh, you're wearing a tux today? That's ironic. Anyway, with the Black Tux's free home try-on, you can see the fit and feel the quality of your suit months before the event.

Wes, you've got a big event coming up. After ordering your suit will arrive 14 days before you. And we're in the wedding party. So we're going to need to maybe hook up with the Black Tux. Well, unless West goes casual, which would be nice. It's up to you. I've been outvoted on casual. Oh, to get $20 off your purchase, visit the Black Tux.

dot com and enter code around that's the blacktucks.com code around for $20 off your purchase the black tucks premium rental suits and tuxedos delivered the running back offset to the left of luck is mac it is back to passive fires with pylon left side it is caught for the touchdown by don trow inman oh you know that voice that's mikey tarrico on westwood one andrew luck led the indianapolis cults on three first half scoring drives, all the offense they would need, and a 21-7 win over the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium. The six-seat cults advance to the division playoffs. They will meet the top-seated chiefs at Arrowhead.

Gidey up, as Cosmo Kramer would say. Wes, 90s, right? Luck is the big story around the surging cults this season, but Indies' defense deserves a huge nod for what they were able to do to Deshaun Watson and company. Shut them down. And this defense, Greg and I were talking about this earlier today, they haven't really played anyone this year.

They don't play top 10 offenses because they haven't been on the schedule. But statistically, over the past 10 to 11 weeks, they are the lowest, they allow the fewest points. So their defense is for real. I don't know that they're dominant, but they're moving on. And I thought one of the big factors in this game, maybe the biggest factor was that Mark's who do you trust pick, Frank Reich, put on a play calling clinic in the first half.

Like, I just thought everyone was wide open all the time. He was feeling it. That's the thing. I hear a lot of, like, Andrew Luck's throwing a nobody's, and that's true, but he's throwing a wide open nobody's, you know, or guys you don't know. And that's partly Reich. To go from the first drive where I thought the key play of the game

was maybe the first third and 12, where they protect, they get absolutely no pressure on Andrew Luck, and he connects to T.Y. Hilton, and they move on, and they end up extending the. drive off of JJ Watt penalty, which was another big one, to go from that drive, which was all throws, and then run it six or seven straight times on the second drive in a ton of different creative runs. It's like the Texans had no idea what was coming next. This was one of those playoff games. You know, if you go through the Bears, Eagles experience,

win or lose, it was a playoff experience, and it drained everything from you, and there's a lot to remember. This is one of those games where if you're a Texans fan, you've had this nice winning streak during the year you've got a franchise quarterback finally you believe in bill o'brien and then bang you've been hitting the side ahead and your season's over it was over by half time i hated this game yeah it was a bad game i kind of loved it well no i loved it i hated the game that houston played what i'm saying they were they opened up with a punt an interception a punt downs punt punt punt punt this is bill o'brien they call like a third and twenty run on the first or second series and i'm thinking this guy's coaching like marvin louis i think they were under the

inspired on defense. They were unable to ever have any, make any noise on defense with all those talented players. I thought Honey Badger looked bad in multiple spots in this game. We didn't hear Watt made some impact plays, but Watt and Clowney weren't able to take the game over. And then on offense, Deshawn Watson was the only guy could run the ball in this game.

And that was laid bare, 76 yards. He couldn't pass it in this game. And Deshawn Watson missed so many throws, including a shot to the tight end in the first. half that could, I think Ryan Griffin was, had a shot to get him back in the game. He was a liability at times in this game. They just didn't show up. It was very much, we talk about Textivis, how they've essentially unseated the Bengals.

And this was such a Cincinnati-esque Saturday playoff performance. It was. It felt like that. Kind of like, like, I thought this was going to be a great game. It's these two young quarterbacks. And it felt like, it felt closer to Brian Hoyer versus, you know, a 30 to nothing loss against the Chiefs than it should have. That's not supposed to happen anymore.

Big game from Pierre Desir, who's a free agent coming up, probably made a lot of money shutting down DeAndre Hopkins, who played injured for much of the game. But DeCier shut him down early even before he was injured. And I thought T.Y. Hilton, he's having his, like, Larry Fitzgerald playoff run over the past two months, playing through an ankle injury and averaging about 120, I believe, yards per week. And he had a badass opening drive.

Yeah. That was incredible. He even set the pick on Ebron's TD. It felt like every one of his catches was a key third down conversion, like a third and like. It's because it almost was. I mean, four of his five catches were third and long, just like great catches to keep a drive going. Marlon Mack, Quentin Nelson, these are all Chris Ballard draft picks. The one thing about T.Y. Hilton, and I know that T.Y. Hilton made the opening comment about the Texan

stadium as his home stadium. And then in reverse, though, the Texans, who are a few years removed from rolling into, was it Foxborough wearing their letterman jackets? That was a mistake. Come on, guys. Like, why, you then set up this whole infamous, like, back and forth where you call T.Y. Hilton a clown, and here comes T.Y. Hilton, who's owned your team, statistically, the last couple of times he's played you, and his clown mask.

You knew right then that there was something, the Texans, did that got on my radar? Because the Texans just needed to not create dramas that were going to motivate the team. Well, and it was Kareem Jackson who had an awful game trying to cover T.Y. Hilton. Which is a shame because he's had a great year. He's had a great year, but he's a free agent, and this game's going to cause some tough questions by the Texans. Because you're right, Watson played his worst game in a long time. But what group on the Texans after this game is going to look back and say, well, we did our job.

I don't think there was one single group. The offensive line actually protected Watson fairly well. That wasn't the problem for once. They were an experience at wide receivers show quite a bit. They have a lot of issues for a team that won a lot of games. Their secondary needs to be totally rebuilt. Jackson and Anne Honeybadger, who are the best two guys in the second. secondary, are free agents.

The offensive line needs to be rebuilt, and they're so thin at receiver, and they don't really have a running back that they trust, which was obvious when they only ran about what, seven, eight times in this game. I think that Frank Reich, that his beard, there are magical powers attached to it. I'm not kidding about that. And it helps when DeAndre Hopkins is playing through a shoulder injury, too. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Andrew Luck is a badass.

Yes, he is. I mean, same thing. We were talking about on the NFC side. The AFC side, I think the chiefs are probably going to be the favorite. they will be the favorite next week. But luck is a guy who is playing with such confidence. And he inspires such confidence in his teammates and they're a well-coached team. They will not be an easy out next week.

This team is flying West. You're in. Okay. And you're locking them up, aren't you? Next week against the Chiefs in Arrowhead. The Chiefs in Arrowhead, that is a tough, tough ass. Shootout, baby. That is a great home field venue.

But the Chiefs have a weakness. Their secondary has been deplorable all year. What's the Colts weakness right now? They've won 10 of 11. I don't think they have one. I think a pass rush. I don't think they have a great natural pass rush. Okay, that's fair.

They don't have an edge rusher. But like they find guys who make plays. I mean, Kenny Moore blitzing. Margus Hunt had a great takedown of Watson on one scramble. Like, they play such great team defense that, you know, Mark's team had to go talk to Matt Aberflus on Sunday and say, hey, what's going on? Fluse? Would you like to maybe coach Archie? That's how that went?

That's exactly how it went. So there you go. That is the recap of Wild Card Weekend. We will be back on Tuesday with our Twitter show at 1.30 Pacific, 430 Eastern, a different time

elsewhere in the world. That's up to you to figure out based on the context clues. And we will have our next podcast on Wednesday. And then another one on Thursday, which will acts as our divisional playoff show. And then, of course, we meet back here one week from today to recap all the action.

That's what we do. That's the circle of life here at the Around the NFL podcast. Anything else, Greg? No. I mean, I'm excited. It's a big, big time of year. It sure is. It sure is.

Stan Hanz is signing off for Quiet Storm. The mailman. The old boss in Ricky Hollywood. Behind the glass, locking it up. Until Tuesday. Thank you.