PTI - Brock Purdy Proved He Can Carry the 49ers to a Super Bowl This Season

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Pardon the Interruption hosts, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, react to the 49ers victory over the colts and more. Also, the hosts debate coaching decisions and highlight upcoming playoff contenders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbon. Tony, it's our last show before we're a home for the holidays. I'm Tony Kornheiser.

I'm already home for the holidays. I'm in my basement. Oh, yeah, you are. Yeah. I'm gonna be back home for the holiday. You have three homes. Which home will you be back to? Uh, I'm confused.

Yeah, I know. That's what happens when you have three homes. and three gated communities. Welcome to PTI, boys and girls. In today's episode, John Harbaugh gets asked about his future. Draymond beefs with Steve Kerr and then leaves the game. And Jeff Saturday joins us for five good minutes. But we begin today with last night's Monday night game in which the 49ers got five touchdown passes from Brock Purdy and spanked the Colts in Indianapolis 48 to 27. Philip Rivers had another good game for the Colts, but hardly any quarterback, let alone a 44-year-old one, can make up for a defense.

yielding 48 points. Wilbon, where does this result leave both teams? Well, Tony, the Colts are irrelevant now. It was a nice story for a long time with Indiana Jones, Daniel Jones. It really was. It was fascinating, you know, seven, eight weeks in. You could have them as your pick for the best team in the AFC, you know, are nearly halfway through the season.

They're irrelevant now. This is all about San Francisco. San Francisco, which you and I have the, same list of candidates for coach the year. And we have not had the 49ers head coach, and we're wrong to not have him. Because Shanahan's done an incredible job with the injuries. His two best players, Bosa and Warner, out. They're done. They're gone. He can't have any defense. They can't rush the passer. They have fewer sacks than a certain guy on the Cleveland Browns by himself. And yet they're in it. They can be the number one seed in the NFC and they got two home games.

and then they can win two home playoff games and play a third home playoff game called the Super Bowl. Wow. San Francisco, it leaves them in the unenviable, in the enviable position of atop the NFC to me. Yeah, you know, that's all I would have said

about San Francisco as well. I'm going to go back to the Colts for a second because you're right, they're done, they're out of gas at this point. The injury to Daniel Jones doomed them. Philip Rivers coming in to me is a wonderful story. I think it's time to applaud Philip Rivers for what he did. He kept them close in Seattle.

Seattle's a great team. They were right there within striking distance. And then last night, he led them to 27 points, which should be enough to win a game. But I think, Mike, I think we have reached the point now where all the people in Indianapolis get up, they give them a standing ovation, and then they send him on his way back home, and they make sure that the 10 kids in the suite get party favors. You know, because this is a lovely story, but he's 0 and 2. Yes, he has lost to two great teams, either one of which could win the Super Bowl, yes,

but he is 0 and 2. So the feel-good story is gone right now. The Colts have a couple of games left, and, you know, they have quarterbacks on the roster, play those quarterbacks on the roster, and everything you said about San Francisco is right, and I don't think we can stress enough. You always say that the Bears division is a tough. division in football. It's not this year. This division in the West is the toughest by far. Yeah. And Arizona should ask the league to get them out of that division. Just get out.

Go to the NFC South. Yeah, be relegated. Ask for relegation. Relegation homes. Let's turn to Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who faced questions about his future in Baltimore yesterday. He told reporters he's not thinking about it, adding, quote, I try to do the job, not Keep the job. Close quote. The Ravens were among the early Super Bowl faves, but at seven and eight, they need help just to make the playoffs.

Tony Harbaugh won it all 12 years ago, but has just three playoff wins in the past 10 seasons. So does he deserve to be on the hot seat? The simple answer is yes, because the Ravens are seven and eight. John Harbaugh has been there a long time. I believe this is his 18th season. He has had continued success,

And as you said, you know, he won a Super Bowl. His career mirrors Mike Tomlin's career in the same division, same problem, same stuff. A few weeks ago when fans chanted Fire Tomlin in Pittsburgh, a lot of people wondered, does that make any sense? They wondered, has he stayed too long? I didn't wonder about that because I've been in his seat for 25 years. So I'm not wondering about staying too long. I don't think you can pin on Harbaugh the fact that Lamar Jackson is not now,

what he was. There's a lot of running plays, a lot of absorbed hits. He is a multiple MVP in the league who's had trouble in the playoffs. Only three wins in eight seasons in the playoffs. Maybe you can pin the deterioration of the defense on John Harbaugh, but to me, John Harbaugh

has earned at least next year to try and fix the defense, which has now given up, Mike, more yards than all but five teams in the league. Tony, the defense was a stunter to us early on, because that's how they got in the hole they were in that they couldn't dig out of. But let me tell you something. The offense is why

John Harbaugh deserves to be on the hot seat. And if he continues to let Todd Monkin, the offensive coordinator, if he continues that tag team of dumbness where you don't give the ball to Mr. Henry, after he scores a touchdown, you don't give it to him for the rest of the game. If you can't figure out that you've got a backup quarterback, I don't care if he fumbled the damn ball, Jim Brown fumbled the ball, Emmett Smith fumbled the ball, Walter Payton fumble the damn football. If your tag team at the top of the offensive flow chart is too dumb to give Henry the ball with a backup quarterback and sometimes one possession games, and this is the second year of questioning this. They don't have to be seven and eight.

Even with the problems, even with Lamar Jackson, reduced. Yes, I said reduced, not injured. If you can't figure that out, you deserve. I love him. He's a great coach. He's a Hall of Fame coach. It's on him that this Ravens team is doing what it's doing at 7 and 8 this year. You can fire coordinators.

If you fire the head coach, John Harbour will have a job in 30 seconds. Yes, he would. As Mike Tomlin would have a job in 30 seconds. He would deserve that. Let's turn to Draymond Green and Steve Kerr from last night. They were arguing with each other during a timeout early in the third quarter at home again. against Orlando. Green got up, walked to the locker room, stayed there until the start of the fourth quarter. Quote, tempers spilled over, and I just thought it was best that I got out of there,

unquote, Green said afterwards. Green came back to the bench, did not play the rest of the game, coach's decision. Curse said later, he did not think this would linger. We'll be on this incident, big deal, little deal, no deal. Tony, this is so a fascinating story. If this was almost any other team, any 28 of the 29 of the teams or 29, it would be a huge deal. It would be an earth-shattering deal. Seven point something on the Richter scale. But it's not, it's these two dudes. This isn't the first time. It isn't the fifth time. Sometimes it's in practice. Sometimes it's in games. I know sometimes it's been in games because I've been sitting there watching it. And then what reduces it even more than the being the two of them,

They talked about it. They handled it as adult-like and as responsibly as you can handle something in that public. Draymond talked to reporters all night afterward. Steve Kerr said, I'm not going to talk about the specifics because it's private, but he addressed it over and over. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, this is the Warriors. This is Kerr and Draymond.

And I think I'm going to reduce it to little deal, if any deal at all. I'm going lower even than little deal. I think it is virtually no deal. And that is because of this circumstance, because Draymond Green has played 13 seasons now for Steve Kerr. Draymond Green knows Steve Kerr. Steve Kerr knows Draymond Green.

You're right. Any other place, it might be chaotic, but they have a long history. They have a history of championships, and they have a history of crazy behavior by Draymond Green. Yes. Walking to the locker room is not like putting a towel over your coach's head, which was done in this league.

It's not like in a playoff game refusing to play because the coach didn't call your play. And you know who did both of those things. I do. Look, Draymond Green and Steve Kerr, they are going to get through this. Draymond Green is a known commodity. Ask Jordan Poole, you know? I mean, we know who the guy is over a long period of time. We know Steve knows and he knows.

Mike, I could tell you it was a more mature action than D.K. Metcalfe, take a going to swing at that fan. I could tell you that it defused the situation. I would actually give Draymond credit for this. You know, I won't. Let's take the break. Everything they did diffused it, Tony. You're right about that. That's what I thought. Let's take a break. They're the odd couple. Great odd couple. Trent Williams praises Brock Prudy's confidence in the huddle. We're going to ask Jeff Saturday about that. Well, also after to break down the bear's crazy trick play near the goal line that went a Ryan made me crazy Saturday night. But if this happens, Mike, if this happens with a nuke.

Part of the Interruption is presented by Gray Goose. Make time wait. Please enjoy responsive. Welcome back to Pardon the Interruption, presented by Gray Goose, part of Happy Hour. Time to dig into the NFL trenches with our great friend ESPN NFL analyst, Jeff Saturday. Jeff, let's start with the 49ers star left tackle Trent Williams, formerly in Washington, saying of Brock Purdy in the huddle, quote, you got 10 grown men staring at you and you can't fool grown men. The confidence he has is a godsend. He's a baller, unquote.

How important is that in huddle communication? Oh, it's incredible. And that you get a guy like Williams who's backing you. I mean, is there, you know, this is a first ballot hall of famer who is made made, you know, just runs people over on the regular. And he's talking about the confidence that this quarterback walks into the huddle with. Like, there's not a, there's not a greater stamp of approval that you can get from your left tackle. And I think it's true. Like, when you look at quarterbacks as a player in the huddle, you can feel whether they believe in what they got going or where they don't. I mean, I don't care what you, you can't hide it, right? You can't hide trepidation.

You can't hide nerves. Like, when the guy looks at it and he goes, hey, we're going to run this, we're going to get open, we're going to score. Let's go make this happen. You know if it's just lip service or if it's real. Basically what Trent's saying is, hey, it's real. When he gets in the huddle, he believes we can do it. He's going to drive us down and make it happen. That's a massive compliment coming from that cat. Jeff, we're going to ask you to put your offensive coordinator hat on for a second and go back to the Bears Packers game Saturday night. The Bears have been running the ball down their Packers' throat, and yet on fourth and goal, a fourth and one, and they line up in what looks to be a wildcat player was botched,

so we don't know exactly what it was. But you've been in that position where something's working, and then you go to something else. Ben Johnson is known to have both of them working masterfully. But when you were watching in live time, what were you thinking? It hurt me, right? Don't be too cute, right? When it gets to playoff time, and, you know, we talk about this, like fourth and four,

or something like that, you want to bring that in, and hey, we're going for it. We want to kind of trigger them. But, you know, you're talking about less than a yard or right at a yard, right? And to your point, they're very physical. That guard center guard box that they got, they bring those tackles down. They can move bodies. You know, you've got the tight end coming up underneath the fake and it's going between his legs. It's just high risk to me as opposed to tush push, whatever you want to call it,

QB sneak, let's try to go get the half yard or run a regular play, and let's see if we can go run for it. Now, if it works, it's the coolest play ever, right? So it's always hard to balance those things. So I get it. You know, you run it 50 times in practice throughout the season. You want to work it. Unfortunately, it's a bad snap that costs you in an inopportune time.

But look, I'm not going to question much about Ben Johnson. The dude's an absolute boss. But right there, you know, as an old lineman, especially now 2020, right? Rearview, I say, let's try to go get that touch push and go make it happen. In real time, I was sitting there screaming, run the damn ball! So I didn't even need 2020 on that one, Jeff. In that same game, in overtime, the Packers botched in exchange on fourth and one. Malik Willis took the blame saying that he changed his cadence with the play clock running down.

I mean, how significant is that? Is cadence that huge where you could have that kind of miscommunication and- and the stake there. Absolutely. It's the timing of the play, right? And then you get into a rhythm as a center, as guards, as tackles. Like, we listen for inflection. You can feel, you know, when his hut's going to come, when the ball is going to be snapped. Everybody kind of times it up. And it really does happen. And again, you're talking about Willis, who's the backup anyway. So he's probably getting maybe 10 snaps with the starting group anyway. And so when you either are quick with it or hesitate. You know, most of the time when it happens, it's typically the

quarterback's in the middle of a cadence and he tips off a blitz, so he wants to slow it down so the defense can't time it and it ends up being bad. Here, he's trying to hurry it. And instead, you're trying to hurry the mechanics as well. Get the snap, get the play going, try to get the timing right. And again, inches matter in this point. All of a sudden, the snap is short or the quarterback doesn't ride you the way he's supposed to his hands, you know, through the snap and bad things happen. And listen, he owned it. I appreciate that he owned it. It's both of us, right? It's both and, but it's the quarterback's responsibility. The ball comes up. He's got to, he's got to receive it. He should have just gone to Omaha. Omaha. We'll get you out of here on this. This is, we're off until the new year, so we won't have the benefit of talking to you next week. Tell us right now, if you can, which team in the NFC, which team in the AFC looks the best to you? Oh, that's tough. I'm going to go, I'm going to go Rams NFC. And I get they just had a bad loss against Seattle and had a big lead and blew the lead and all that.

It was a weird, you know, two point convert. The whole thing. I mean, when you look at the Rams, how they've lost a couple games, it's perplexing, right? They're such a good team and they lost a Carolina a couple weeks ago. But they're a complete football team and I trust the QB. I trust the coach. So I'm going to stick with the Rams at this point. And then ASC is a little tougher for me. I'll probably lean Patriots. And look, I love what Bo Nix and the Broncos are doing because of their defense.

But there's something about the Patriots and Drake May and being able to come back like he did. Like there's just something about these guys. And Vrable kind of has this rhythm going. Now, they got to get healthy. I want to see Campbell back. I want to see Milton Williams, I think is on the other side. They got to get help or one of the D-Lyman. So they got to get a little healthier, but I like both those.

I will say this, though. This is the greatest year of football that I've either played or seen, like, as far as, like, how many teams? There's a legitimate eight teams, in my opinion, that could win the Super Bowl. And that's crazy. I mean, I can literally remember when I'm playing maybe three or four, you felt like really had a chance. There are eight legitimate. They get hot. They can win this thing.

But that's where I am at this point, two weeks before the playoffs. start. Thank you, Jeff, as always. Thanks for being on with us. Thank you, Jeff, man. Appreciate you. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Have a great one, fellas. Yep, yep. Let's take one last break still to come. UFC and Notre Dame let their rival relapse. Who is to blame for that? You know who to blame. You don't want to blame it, but you know who's to blame. I'll point it out if you don't. Cavaliers Thomas Bryant takes the tumble while taunting. Good for him. You know who You would blame Notre Dame, you would blame Notre Dame for inflation if you could. Climate, you'd blame Notre Dame for snow.

Climate change. I blame Notre Dame. Yeah, I understand that. That's, you know, that's why it's impossible to do a Notre Dame story with you because you hate Notre Dame. Good. You did? Listen. Pardon the interruption is presented by Great Goose.

Make Time Wait. Please enjoy responsibly. Part of Happy Hour. Happy time. And people, happy 62nd birthday, Jim Harbaugh. Let's wish him happy birthday with his favorite phrase and enthusiasm previously unknown to mankind. Harbaugh is currently coaching the Los Angeles Chargers. He has them 11 and 4, guaranteed to be in the playoffs.

They won seven in the last eight games. They currently sit fifth in the AFC playoff races. A win over Houston this weekend may not move them up, but will surely enhance them. Harbaugh came to the Chargers from Michigan, where he won the national championship in 2023, but had been suspended three games for violating the Big Ten's sportsmanship policy. Harbault moves around a lot, and he wins a lot, 115 and 46 in college, 66, 29, and 1 in the NFL. Tony, if Harbaugh's Chargers were to win the Super Bowl this year, a couple of years after winning the college football championship at Michigan, and so you drop the mic, you walk away, tell people, I don't even want to hear from anybody for like the next,

Five years, bow your heads when you say my name. If he wins, if, big if, but he could. He's that good. Happy anniversary Shamanad on this day, 43 years ago, the tiny NAA school in Honolulu defeated number one ranked Virginia 77, 72, in what was considered the biggest upset in college basketball history to that point. Virginia was led by Ralph Samson. They had just beaten Georgetown with Patrick Ewing and the Houston Five Slamma Jamma team.

When the story went over the wires, as many newspapers checked several times to make sure it was correct. Almost four decades later, another Virginia team became the first number one seed to lose to a number 16 seed in the tournament when the Cavaliers were beaten by UMBC in 2018. Just two years ago, number one seed Purdue

with Zach Edie lost to a number 16 seed, Fairley Dickinson. The story went over to wires. They got the wire stories from Mike Wilbon's story because there weren't no wire service reporters there. I was there. That's it. End of list. So they got the story from The Washington Post

with a young reporter's byline on a 23 years old with hair at the time. Thank you very much. Whatever happened to Mike Wilbon, he disappeared. Happy Trails Thomas Bryant. The Cabs Center scored a first quarter bucket against the Hornets, taunted defender Concanipal

with the two small celebration, then stumbled over himself onto the floor. It's a year out, but get ready to make. to 2026 turkeys list, Thomas. As for C Cinnipple, the rookie guard set an NBA record in Charlotte's loss becoming the fastest player

to sink 100 career threes. In fact, Cinepple has the second most made threes in the league this season. Just seven behind Donovan Mitchell, one more than Steph Curry. Anybody who gives the too small should be suspended. Mandatory suspension.

One game. One omission, Brooks Keppka leaving the live golf tour. The split is amicable. Kepka apparently wants to prioritize his family and be closer to home. you got any comment or can we get quick to the big finish? Let's go.

Let's do it. NBA reportedly considering new ways to keep teams from tanking. Is that necessary, Washington? Yeah, but it won't work. It doesn't matter what they do. It ain't going to work. Southern Cal and Notre Dame called off their rivalry for the next two years. Who's to blame for that?

Well, you blame Notre Dame even if I take the other side, but USC wants to move the game. Quarterback, Linaris Sellers, will return to South Carolina rather than turn pro. Does that make sense? It does. He has all the physical talent in the world, some seasoning and some coaching. That kick could be great. The CFP quarterfinals take place on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day while we're off.

Which four will still be alive and we're back. Upset, Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon, upset, Ole Miss. Last one, Thunder and Spurs tonight, will the Spurs win again? No. No, the Spurs are coming, but the Thunder's going to flex a little and be chance tonight. On the road. We're out of time. We will try to do better the next time. I'm Tony Cornhide.

I'm Mike Wilbon. We're off to Monday, January 5, knuckleheads. And by the way, moving a game ain't the same as canceling the rival.