OverDrive - Willson on the Bills' masterful win against Baltimore, Allen and Mahomes' matchup and the Lions' elimination

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

TSN NFL Analyst Luke Willson joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around the NFL Divisional Round, the Commanders' huge win and Lions' elimination, Josh Allen leading the Bills against the Ravens, Mark Andrews' performance, the Conference Championship matchups and more.

Introducing Brian Adams Radio on I Heart Radio. Hosted by Brian Adams himself. Join me for an insider look on a wild ride through 40 years of global rock and roll. Brian Adams Radio. Now available on the free I Heart Radio app. Or ask your smart speaker to play Brian Adams Radio on I Heart Radio. I was ready to rock. You smell what the wind is cooking. All right. Well, let's bring in a longtime Lions fan, right, from southwestern Ontario, a former Lion himself. Proud lion.

Proud lion. Here's our boy, Luke Wilson. Luke, how would you answer that? Are you at all concerned that a window closed here for the Detroit Lions? Yeah, yeah. I don't think it's fully shut by any means, but I think, you know, it's gonna get tougher.

I think it's gonna get much, much tougher. They can still do it. I think next year it's gonna be even more challenging after that year ends. But what I'll say is for Detroit, and I have very first-hand knowledge of how this feels, is let's say they end up doing it next year. And this locker room with this coaching staff, there's always

going to be that, you know, what if we got out of our own way? And obviously, you know, for me, it's a pretty, it's one play that you think about. But for the Lions, I think they'll be kind of right there where you look at last year, I thought they should have won that NMC Championship game, as I think a lot of people did. And then you look at this game against the commanders, they have no business, no business not beating the commanders. And I hit my hat to Jayden Daniels. I'm not trying to get anything away from him.

The guy was incredible. But Detroit across the board is a better team than the commanders. They have no business turning the ball over five times in doing what they did. I felt for Gov because I thought that was uncharacteristic of him. You know, he hasn't had many games like that this year. He's been usually really good. I thought the trick play was an absolute abomination, but as you guys know, I'm not the biggest

trick play guy on planet earth. And you know, Hey, as you talk about windows, what'll happen with this Lions team? And again, I do draw a lot of parallels to Seattle. Now our talent was mainly on the other side of the football on defense. But when you have all these young guys, like Aiden Hutchinson is obviously he's on defense,

but Jameer Gibbs, Laporta, you've already paid Sewell, you got golf locked in, you paid Montgomery, is you're going to pay these guys. And you can. There's this whole myth that you can't pay guys. You can pay your guys when you draft and you can pay the stars when they become those guys. But where you get jammed up is you miss the meat and potatoes then of the rest of your roster. I always laugh because the year we won it, some of our best quote unquote football players

were not household names. Like I remember we had a D Lyman named Red Bryant and I was like, this guy is incredible at football. We are D Tackle, Brandon Mebane, you know, our center, Max Unger. These guys were not perennial all-pro players, but in the same breath, they were phenomenal football guys, great locker room guys, just like everything you dream about probably as a coach to have on your team.

Well now all of a sudden when you pay all the stars, you can't afford that upper tier veteran guy, that kind of lunch pail dude, and you sit there and you got a team full of stars and rookies or vet minimum guys. And I think that it was pretty telling for us, and I think Detroit will go this way, where now all of a sudden you're like,

man, yeah, I still have these guys, but we've got a real weak position group here, or we've got this going on. And then also, you see it firsthand, Ben Johnson just signed, I believe, today with the Bears. Yes, he did, yep. So our OC, who we're all used to, we're used to his lingo, we're used to his calls, we're all used to were used to his lingo or used to his calls or used to everything

He does is now gone. I'm not saying you can't find another OC I'm not saying that but there's gonna be some growing pains there And does that cost you a game or two next year? Maybe and then does that cost you the one seed most likely and Now what I'm saying is tougher is you don't have the bye week. You're not playing every game at home So I that was a bit of a long-winded ramp But I cannot believe that Detroit let this one slip through their hands artsy before we get into specifics of the game Is there anything you've been seeing and the guys that have advanced? buff Casey Philly Washington, I know you've talked in the past about like

The line of scrimmage and the physicality of it, like going to two Super Bowls. Have you seen something in the winners where like, yep, they're doing that and that's why they're moving on? Yes, yes. And I thought Josh Allen did a, was a huge emphasis of this yesterday. And I'm glad you asked that question because in it, this is my era, this is what I was caught in and it worked. But I remember for all the things about Pete Carroll

out there and his energy, whatever, every single day, Part C, every day, he would come in and talk about turnovers. We had a designated day every week and say this is turnover Thursday and it would be a competition between the offense and defense to see who would win. Every week of every year that I was in Seattle,

we had that day. And every week he would come up there and give our rankings as far as where we are on the plus minus. Then he would give historical context and be like, teams that win the turnover margin, win games in this league, it was always somewhere in the 80%. Then again, I'm sure it's similar to that now.

And then he'd go like, if you're plus two, it bumps to this. If you're plus three, it bumps to this. If you're plus three, it bumps to 90 something. On and on and on and on. And he'd be like, listen, we can coach all this stuff up, but if we turn the ball over, it does not matter. And I look at these games and let's go with the Bills,

Ravens, and the Ravens sit here and lose by two, and you're negative three in the turnover battle and Again, you're if you're negative two you probably win which is you know, they outplayed him. Let's put it that way I did think that the end of the day the Ravens, you know shot themselves in the foot and I do tip my cap to Josh Allen because he did everything he needed to do and I go to the Chiefs and the Chiefs obviously didn't have the quote unquote turnover. So that was the thing they'll say,

like oh, the Texas didn't turn the ball over. Well what's the difference between turning the ball over and missing a 55 yard field goal? You know, if you would have thrown a pick on fourth down, it's the same thing. So you sit there and it's like hey, the Chiefs came out here,

played very, very well situationally. They gave up 12 points points 14 was the final number But that was because of the safety they gave up 12 points. They got crucial third down sacks. They were able to At least create a long field goal that miss you got a mistake by the kicker on the extra point and the next thing You know you win by nine. So again at this point Part C it's not about first it's not about stats it's not about anything it's about winning football games and the best way to win football games is to not turn the ball over find a way to get some and do the simple things right and I think you

saw that this weekend. All right something to chew on brought to you by Boston Pizza Canada's favorite sports bar this January at BP get delicious mouth-watering pasta starting at $11.99 every single day enjoy the pastas you love at prices you can't miss hustle in your local bp tonight asking online luke who's to blame for the ravens defeat against the bills yesterday lamar jackson mark andrews Mark Andrews or simply the Bills were a better team how would you answer that? Oh gosh I would say to me that's tough. That's a great question. Doogie nailed this one. Yeah if I had to pick I would say none of the above but if I had to pick out of those three, I would go Lamar. I agree. You know.

I agree. It's not good enough? Well, listen. You're basically playing from behind. You're playing from behind the whole game. Because of him. And that's important. Sorry to cut you off here, but like listen.

It's a 60-minute game for a reason. The second half was Mark Andrews' fault. No question. That fumble was inexcusable and he's got to catch that ball but the first half was all the mark awful pick awful fumble when they it was seven nothing after the pick and then seven number nothing at our seven seven after the pick seven seven after the fumble he had two opportunities to keep the lead for Baltimore and he threw it away twice as fumble looks horrible It was purposely dropped it well

He got careless. He got careless and yes the second half that's on that's on Andrews undoubtedly But you're not in a position where you're chasing the game if Lamar plays better in the first half. I I am definitely on exactly on board with that and oh dog what you said about the fumble, too You know, he just dropped it like that. I'm the thing And I don't want to be that guy, but one thing that's getting annoying with the Bills or like if Damar Hamlin makes a play, people are like, it was Damar.

Like it's supposed to be better than anyone else given the circumstance. I'm like, Lamar dropped the football. Like I'm glad Damar was there, but anyways, he basically, and you said he's careless with the ball, the corner route, that was shocking to me, the interception. I don't know who's wrong there, I'm assuming it's Lamar, but they're off by 15 yards, that's not even close.

And the miscommunication there, the fumble, I sit there and I'm like, man, Lamar's doing it again. And what's weird to me is that across the board, and I'm sure Bill's fans will be mad about this, but that's the best team in the NFL. And that's including the Lions, that's including the Eagles, that's including the Chiefs. On paper, the Ravens are the best team in the NFL. You don't need anything else than what they have. They got Lamar, who can clearly do it all. Derrick Henry, when they finally got him loose,

looked, and that second half, I'm like, oh god, he's gonna break a big one. It's a matter of time, he's gonna break a big one. You got the best run defense in the NFL. Now, they got pushed around a little bit in the first half yesterday, but they did a better job in the second half. In the past, defense got astronomically better down the stretch. And again, you sit there and you

don't need to be Superman. Like you just don't. Look at Josh Allen. Didn't need to do it. And I didn't think Lamar had to until the fourth quarter. And that's that. And the reason I don't put it on Andrews is because I will say that I did feel like Josh played the game efficiently. Well, like he didn't he knew exactly the task at hand He knew exactly what they needed to do. He got a window with this early lead What about the final play birdsy was that like? Yeah, that ball was that you got to catch you have all of the thrown need to be better i think you've got to catch it that i think ninety ninety percent i catch it

the ten percent the broken elton but my point with josh is that he would have the ball back with timeout right that's getting lost here would have been tied in the bills at a minute thirty three with two timeouts at home there's no way that josh doesn't in my opinion josh alan as much i love to rag on the bills it's that's that's like giving Patty Mahomes the ball. Josh is going right down the field. Now if Bassman makes the kick is a different story. Okay. But there's no way in my head that Josh Allen doesn't take that ball and get them in the field goal range. Yeah, I agree. I thought I think the Ravens did more to lose that game

than the Bills did to win it. But that I don't mean that disparagingly against the Bills. In a way, that's a compliment because I think when they needed to do what they needed to do, it happened every single time. The first the first drive of the game Baltimore goes right down the field punches in six. I think it was imperative that the Bills came right back out and matched it. They did that. They come out in the second half they're up 21 to 10 a little bit conservative three and out then they give up a field goal then they go like six and out they move the chains once then they give up that touchdown where they where Henry and Hill just absolutely shredded their defense and at at that point, we were in the group chat

and I said, it is imperative the Bills put up points here. They have to stop the bleeding and they did. They put up points when they had to. And that was a perfect example of that. Like Josh Allen, Sean McDermott, the Bills, they looked at it and said, these guys, they're turning the ball over, we've got the lead, we can put ourselves

in a position to win. And they did. And it wasn't overly flashy or sexy, but who cares, man? That's what Mahomes and the Chiefs have been doing all year. And those are the two teams standing in the ESC. I agree. And speaking of that group chat, I

think the toughest part is for me, I'm sitting there. And when Andrews caught that first down, and I believe the score was 21-16 at that point and this was after the 6-0, I'm like, open the floodgates, this thing's going to be 45-30 by the end of this. Like Derek's going to break a big one, sort of like Saquon did in the other game, we're live right now and I'm getting my fingers warm up. Just run my mouth.

When he fumbled that ball, I was devastated. I'm like, there's no way. There's no way being minus three, you beat Josh Allen the Bills. No, well, and listen, the fumbles, you know how it is, sometimes it's just luck too, like where it fumbles, where it who's around and not only did the bills Recovered they took off

You know they picked up yardage like it just it broke their way and into their credit now they got Kansas City waiting for them and You know, I guess what we'll do an early look ahead here. You've got Kansas City versus the Bills Washington versus the Eagles Kansas City favored Eagles Bills, Washington versus the Eagles, Kansas City favorite, Eagles favorite, both teams at home. How do you, like how do we set up the week here? Where does your head go first? So I'll start with the tougher matchup, which I'm going to assume we're going to have to

pick Part C, which is the Bills versus the Chiefs. And I think they're very evenly matched. And this is, if I want to cross the board I think you give Mahomes and Josh Allen a wash, you know to 1a 1b These are the two best guys you want in this situation. Why don't we possibly ahead? We're leading No, because it's a regular season man. It's pick the game consistent throughout the playoffs We get to choose that's embarrassed. We get to choose you guys's embarrassing. We get to choose. You guys did it last year. The rampage has started though, Part C. Don't worry. It's 6-5, man. It's 6-5. We feel great about where we're at. We're seeing the board again. Pais, I'm

going to go back in the NFC AFC Championship, but I have a couple questions before you kick me off about the situation, because Dougie right now is trying to jam us and I'll explain but back to the the AFC championship I think that the Bills have a better offensive line in a better run game than the Chiefs But I would give the Chiefs a slight edge as far as their pass catchers I like the combination of D hop Travis Kelsey in Hollywood Brown a lot more than I would say King Cage to Keir and Amari Cooper. And then on the other side, I like as a whole, by a lot, the Chiefs defense,

especially when you have a guy like Chris Jones, but what I'll say is the equalizer here, is that the Bills defense is number one in the league right now, taking the ball away. I think this is a very, very tight game game and i think it comes down to one simple stat that i've been harping on turnover margin because whoever can steal that possession

if the chiefs are plus one in the turnover they win if they're minus one in the bill of the plus one the bills went one i think it's going to be that close what about the reps if you're in buffalo are you not terrified right now? I'm sorry, man. The homes is risking like you can't flop like that. It's so embarrassing the way he flops. That's not football That's embarrassing. He's won three Super Bowls all these MVPs You start flopping looking for calls when it's not a situation earlier in the season where he asked the ref to give him

a heads up if a guy was coming earlier in the season? Yeah, he was miked. He was miked on that one. Like this call where it was like the Texans helmet to helmet, that's not unnecessary, Ruff. That's an embarrassing call. Credit to Aikman because Aikman called it out immediately. Aikman's the man.

I agree. It was a brilliant analysis. All the calls were ridiculous. The first one on Will Anderson, what I think happened is the guy who throws it, and this is a thing, this is, and Pete would talk to us about this, is nowhere the guy calling penalties stands at.

So if you look at it, when we get the view of the TVs, okay, that's one thing where it's like, oh yeah, it wasn't really had to hand, it was mortars chest. The guy who calls it is behind him he doesn't see the original thing so that one I still don't think I want to be very clear I do not think should have been a penalty but I get I was closer the the slide earlier was a thousand percent I think that was when Akeman was disgusted about it was not a

penalty but what I was annoyed with, with the Texans, is I could not believe the narrative of the referees. They scored 12 points. The 14 they got was because of the safety. There is not a team in the NFL right now, I can tell you this right now, that can sit here and and say we're gonna score 12 and beat Patrick Mahomes. It will not happen So again as much as you want to blame those two plays as the game outcome The Texans went out here and their kicker was an abomination the 55 yarder missed by 45 yards

They're barn like walking back to houston yes i'm not an extra point dj strout took some very very bad sex and they scored one touchdown and it got a couple field goals like that back in a cut it so as much as i i i do think those are bad calls it was a nine point win which if they point actually is an eleven point win it's not again i'd just she's so so that i think he's executed but

unquestionably but the bills are not going to do what houston did and if it comes down to a flag late it's just going to lead the heads exploding if it's a right noodles i mean you know it's not what i was about narrative that they think that the league is rigged that's all you see on twitter is like i here we go and all the means of the homes like hugging and kissing the wraps it all sorts of things that are really good

there are there are so funny but look before we get you out here i i had a question for you what did you make of dan campbell Campbell laying all the blame and then all the tears and all that type of performance at that podium? I think he's an emotional guy. He's kind of been that way. And I respect him laying the blame. You guys have heard me gripe about this a million times, and it's the trick plays. And when they work, all these, you know, and I'm going to be a bit annoying, but the novice

fans think they're the coolest things on planet Earth. These are sick. And I'm going to tell you exactly, for the dawn of time and for the continuance of the dawn of time, teams that use trick trick plays these are the general scenarios there's two different times you use a trick play one is you've got some sort of tell on film in college this happens a lot in the pros it's very very rare where you're like hey this guy over commits or they're coaching them here and it's a hundred percenter.

And we're going to run this trick play. We read trick play in the NFC championship game. There's a fake field goal against Hayes Packers. That was a hundred percenter. We probably watched 55 snaps and was all in where AJ Hawk was lined up on. It was either coming to me or going to Gary Gilliam, depending on where AJ Hawk was. So in John Ryan, shadow Saskatchewan was throwing it, we thought it was gonna go to me,

so we called to play Pam Anderson because it was a Canadian to a Canadian. We all said that at the line. That's option one. Option two, when you run a trick play, is generally when you're not good enough. Because you sit there and you say, if we're in this game, we're gonna need that spark,

we're gonna need that big play, and we probably can't hang with these guys, then we're gonna draw up a trick play and gamble and hope it works. When you're as good as the Detroit Lions, you don't need them. And I get that they had some successes here with trick plays. When you're up 20 and teams are all hands on deck

and you're like, man, we gotta find a way, we're getting gashed right now now and you do a trick play one I think it's just stupid that you burned it off your card because you can't rerun that trick play in two It's like oh congrats. It looks sweet. It's gonna make everybody's highlight reel but when you're down 10 to a Defense that is Ben not break that you're g, you are gashing outside of turning the ball over. Why? Why do we give the ball to Jameson Williams to throw it?

And then of course, in the infamous words of every OC when they run a trick play, it was not open throw it out of bounds. But you know what wide receivers will never do? Throw it out of bounds. And I thought that was a huge play in the game because the way the Lions can score, they're never out of a football game,

but they just give another turnover and Jane Daniels made him pay. That's the end of my trick play rant. That's exactly it. It's one thing to pull off a trick play where flea flicker, back to golf, oh, it didn't work. You put the ball in Jameson Williams' hands, down 10. And now the guy who I guess you know came up with the trick plays is Ben Johnson now

He's head coach of the Bears Like will he just carry that over in Chicago Luke or like whatever he gets there And he's like no trick plays Dan Campbell was forcing that upon me. We're not doing that type of behavior here It's funny because I would actually argue that Chicago would need the trick plays based on Detroit. Possibly, yeah. Casing teams. But it would be fascinating to know who called that.

So there's two ways this can go. And you got to know the relationship between Ben and Dan Campbell. But is that one thing where Ben Johnson was like, hey, I've got this on the card and I think it'll work here. and then Dan says do it. Or is that Dan going, hey, I want to spark here, run the trick play? Because that is generally how it goes. It generally goes where the head coach will bring up,

I want to run this trick play, let's do it. I'm glad you clarified that because like everyone, I tweeted out Dan Campbell, just Dan Campbell, then people like, it was Ben Johnson. I'm I'm like guys the head coach like makes the call on the pulse of the game plan right like in other words so Ben will draw the play of this Ben will definitely draw that like the creation of the play is bad right but the idea of whether we're calling it and when to call it on every team I've played on generally is driven by the head coach.

Yeah. And sometimes it's even before the drive, like he'll say on the headset, hey, if we get to the 40 here, I want to hit the trick play, whatever the, you know, whatever the name of it is. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that, and again, it's unfair to dan campbell but i just put bill bella check in his shoes and there's just no way

josh mcdaniels would be like a bill i'm gonna run this trick play in the idea like a trick play in a massive moment though don't forget the uh... the full strict play eagles yeah the philly to a little super bowl that was a great play. The Philly special. Philly special, it works. And it worked.

If it doesn't work, you look like a dumb ass. That's the conundrum. If it doesn't work, you're a meatball. If it works, you're a genius. I mean that's pro sports in a nutshell. So again, in that Philly special, I would love to know, but again, from my experience with the trick plays I've ran, I would love to know why they had that in.

And why I say that is I'm guessing they're like, hey, this guy or whoever's supposed to fall back gets wildly nosy or there's a 90% chance they're in this coverage and Nick Foles will be wide open, yada, yada, yada, yada. When you run 15 trick plays a year, you're not doing that anymore. You're just simply making stuff up. Like we would have, I'm not joking, we would have trick plays that would live for 12 weeks sometimes, 14 weeks.

Hey, this is our trick play and we love it. And we're gonna practice it once a week, maybe once every other week, but like we're not actually gonna call it until we need to execute it. So that's another thing with these trick plays is it's like you're not you don't roll into a game with 15 trick plays. These are a weekly thing that you might have practiced twice in a walkthrough and twice in practice. They're very high risk I guess that would be my point. Well

we've got ourselves a barn burner here, ladies and gentlemen. 6-5 Owen Wilson currently leading Hazenboro. These totals are jamming us, man, but we saw the board beautifully. All four of us, complete redemption on behalf of the show. Last week was an absolute embarrassment, an absolute embarrassment last week. We went 0-4-6 on the spread. This week we went 4-0. So everything's coming together now and we're gonna have ourselves quite the weekend next week i buddy will catch up later in the week and we'll get to those pecs and and set the scene more for the uh...

conference championships party the red page will continue were gone full steam ad this weekend we're seeing the board clearly you better hope he's the make the right pick we we might clenched and side of the possible and i think that's made us a rampaging capital letters and kagawa but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but but