PTI - NFL Week 8 Reactions

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss the NFL, Brian Kelly, and the World Series. 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, I'm Mike Wilbaugh with no voice. Tony, a man wearing only a speedo tried to barge into a police station in New Hampshire. I'm Tony Cornheiser.

I was not wearing a speedo. It was a bikini bottom. Okay, it wasn't. What happened to your voice? I don't know. It's awful. I was screaming at football games. Are you not going to talk all day?

Do I have to carry the whole show? Yes, you do. All right, I can do that. Although I took a flu shot today. I'm a little fuzzy. Took a flu shot. Welcome to PTI boys and girls in today's episode. Brian Kelly's out.

Kim Scataboo is down and the World Series is back. But we begin today with what was a pretty ordinary day in the NFL yesterday, probably the first time all year. But there were a few extraordinary individual performances that bear discussing. At one point, Jordan Love completed 20 passes in a row as Green Bay went to Pittsburgh and beat Old Packer Aaron Rogers and the Steelers convincingly. Drake May got New England. It's fifth win in a row.

Went 18 to 24 for 282 yards and three touchdowns in an easy victory over Cleveland. Bo Nix threw for four touchdowns led Denver to 44 points against Dallas and Jonathan Taylor rushed for 153 yards and 12 carries, ran for two touchdowns, caught a third touchdown as Indianapolis obliterated Tennessee. Wilbon used your voice sparingly. Which performance were you most impressed by? Jonathan Taylor is my runner up because running backs were forgotten and he is like he could have played in that era where every good team was letting by a great runoff. I'm going there. Don't steal myself. I haven't looked at your notes yet. But I'm going to go with love.

I'm going to go with him. I did something last night. I've, like, done maybe three times in 60 years. I rooted for the cheese heads. Oh, you did? I rooted for the cheese heads. Because I would rather anybody on God's earth win again than Aaron Rogers. So I rooted for love.

And you know what, Tony? At the beginning of the year, it seemed presumptuous at a little sense. silly when a lot of people started mentioning him for a preseason for MVP. You had them in the Super Bowl after week one. I did. Okay? And they looked like they could be. He hadn't done anything to justify that much confidence.

But when you complete 20 in a row, you're down two scores and you play like it. He was so unflappable. And he made every throw. And they seem effortless to his size. He's got to be what, six, five and a half. He's a big. Dude. And I just loved it.

That Aaron Rogers had to settle for a hug and a goodbye. Yeah. So I thought all the quarterbacks were uniformly good. They were terrific. Love did what I expected. He rose to the moment. He is that good. Drake May, this is...

He might be that good. He's getting there. Drake May has done this all year, right? He's done this all year. The combination of Drake May and Mike Vrable has turned that team around. Yeah. The Patriots are turned around. Bo Nix was Sean Payton's specific choice in the draft

to be the quarterback of that team. They are now six and two the same as New England. Bo Nix was the sixth quarterback picked in that draft all in the first round. May was the third. What a draft. Those two, Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels, Michael Pennix, Jr., and J.J. McCarthy, it's a great job.

But I'm old as you are old, and I am old school as you are old school. And so when a running back does that, In a pass-happy era, when a running back has a night like that or a day like that, I concentrate on that. He made that impossibly great 80-yard run where he tight ropes on the sidelines. It's absolutely fabulous. But also, he had 73 other yards in 11 other carries, which means, Mike, that even on his bad carries, he was almost 7 yards per. A couple of stats that you're going to love.

He now has 12 touchdowns in eight games. He has 63 touchdowns in 75 games. Here's the list of the people ahead of that all time. Jim Brown, Emmett Smith, with Damien Tomlinson, and Adrian Peterson. Okay? I mean, and let us be fair here. I know you don't think there's a great team out there. Indianapolis is 7 and 1.

They've got a great offense. Indianapolis with him and Daniel Jones. They have been spectacular. They got receivers. Cut Daniel Jones. How's that working out? Everything. The coach has.

They do. Most surprising team in the league by far. Got to be. Got to be. Most surprising. Let's move then to college football in LSU's firing of your boy, Brian Kelly. My boy. The move came after the Tigers fell by 24 at home to third ranked Texas A&M. LSU is five and three this season, two and three in the SEC. Overall, Kelly with 34 and 14, still has $54 million left on his deal.

Wow. Tony, does this move make sense to you? And what does this say about Kelly, about LSU, and about college football? Does it make sense? It makes sense right now because of all these firings. We are witnessing a 100-year flood. We've never seen anything like this before.

Because it never happened. They fired Mike Gundy after three games. They fired James Franklin after six games. They fired Napier after seven and a win. And also UCLA, Virginia, attack, Arkansas, Oregon State, in a normal year. I think Kelly might survive till the end of the year. Because to be fair, here are the three teams he's lost to

are now ranked number three, number seven, and number nine in the country. Right. But a feeding frenzy has been created in LSU, as you would have expected, has jumped in. This is a failure for Brian Kelly. Objectively, this is a failure. And on a very personal level, it's a significant failure because he was at Notre Dame.

Notre Dame can win a national championship. We've seen them win national championships. And he left specifically to go to LSU to win a national championship because he knew they'd won them before his national championship. That's how he looked at that. And he promised he was going to get his national championship. Well, they have lost three games this year. He has never been in the playoffs.

So this is a real failure. Yeah. Part of this makes me smile a little bit because he was so arrogant about it, about the transition. I'm going to leave Notre Dame. Notre Dame and go someplace that I can win a national championship.

Do you think the rest of us are fools? And he sort of got what was coming. Now, is it the right move? Probably not. Because LSU, like so many other schools, are led by administrators and boosters who are so damn arrogant themselves.

And rich. They think it's their birthright. Not all of them are rich. Let's not make LSU Stanford. They're coming up with this money. They're coming up with the money. They got enough people to come up with the money.

But Tony, don't tell me they can automatically just because everybody else had won a championship in four years, Orsoran, Sabin. Yeah, Orsoran, and Miles. Don't tell me that they are automatically going to find the coach who's going to deliver a championship in a couple of years. Let me tell you this. So is it the right one thing, the 100-year flood? Tony, it's never happened. College football has never been this. So I watched as A&M.

put, was it 35 in a row in the second half? 35 points in row on LSU. In Death Valley, on a Saturday night, right? Which never happens. That that doesn't happen. It's supposed to. Okay? And I went to sleep confident that Brian Kelly would be fired before I woke up in the

morning. You're right. I missed by a few hours. I missed by a few hours because it was early in the afternoon. You were already talking. But they were working on it overnight. Because you know what about LSU? They don't wait long.

They don't wait long. Where does Kelly go next? I'm no idea. Because you know he's not going to not coach. He should coach. He's a good coach. James Franken's a good coach, you know. But this was the arrogance of pride.

Yes. The arrogance of pride. Let's move to the World Series in game three tonight in Los Angeles with the Dodgers starting Tyler Glasnow and the Blue Jay starting the warrior god, Max Scherzer. Series is tied one to one. Toronto, one game one with hitting. The Dodgers won game two with starting pitching.

Wilbon, what have you learned so far? I'm afraid your boy may be reduced to warrior prince. I don't know that he can be warrior god anymore. It's a tough matchup. He's 41 years old. But Tony. Sounds good to me, 41. Okay.

Sounds good to you. Not if we were standing on the rubber. When it was last time you stood out there and tried to reach home plate. It's been a long time. Okay. Can you and I have both thrown out ceremonial? That's right. It's a bit longer time.

All right. So pitching one game one, hitting one game two, as long as the Dodgers can have their starter. No, no, no, no. Pitching one game two, hitting one game. I reversed it. I know. I understand that.

As long as the Dodgers, can have a starting pitcher out there. That's right. Go 7.8.9. Yeah. They're in it. But if they have to go to a bullpen whose postseason ERA is 5.3,

they're going down. So here's what we have learned collectively. We have learned that the Achilles heel of the Dodgers is their bullpen. Yes. I talked to Buster only today, had him on the podcast today. And Buster, you know,

he used the phrase, the circle of trust. And he said, Dave Roberts, the circle of trust in a bullpen, there's only two guys. It's only Sasaki and Blake Trinen, and I pointed out I watched Blake Trinen in Washington. I don't know that I'd be that presumptuant.

But their starters have to go seven, eight, nine. Blake Snell was over 30 pitches in the first inning, and that was an ominous sign because a bullpen collapsed. And then Yamamoto went nine again, again, and they won games two in a row. Yes, but then he was averaging almost 10 pitches in five, six, seven, eight, or something like that. I think Glasnow has to go seven or eight,

and Glasnow has been hurt this year. That's a tough task to have them do. But, I mean, that's, they have to do that. That's, they cannot go to the bullpen. Don't you think this is a long series because of the small margin of error? I think it's a long series because we are watching two completely opposite teams,

and that's fun. They seem to be. They have different strengths. Yeah. Toronto can hit. Toronto fouls a lot of pitches off. They go deep into, counts. But you don't strike out much.

But you don't strike out much. Where's the top of that order? Who's? Other than Shohay's bombs, where he's the top of the Dodger order? This is the problem. The top of the Dodger order with three Hall of Famers is now batting. I wrote this down. 4.39. 29 in the playoffs. They've got to be better than that.

Yeah. They've got to be better than that. Games at home. So like, you know, you say to yourself, well, they also have three in a row and you can burn out your bullpen three in three days. You say to yourself game three is usually pivotal. I don't think it is here. I think the matchup is such that I'm not sure it's pivotal. Let's take a break. Coming up, the Jets get their first win of the season, yeah, I saw that.

But did the Ravens or Dolphins have an even bigger one? And was Vandis win over Missouri the most compelling on the college football? Do you have tea? Because you really rasped? Tea and honey. What do you think this is from? Tea and honey. Screaming?

Screaming at football. Not at the family. Not at the family. Northwestern beers. Oh, yeah. Screaming. Yeah, I understand. Pardon the Interruption is presented by the refreshing taste of Twisted Tea, hard iced tea.

Please drink responsibly, part of happy hour. Welcome back to Part in the Interruption, presented by Twisted Tea, hard ice tea. Part of Happy Hour. Time to find out what's rankling the riffraff and mail time. Let me see what's first. Put on the glasses. Mail time. Start to read.

Biggest win for a struggling team. Jets, Ravens, or D. Dolphins. Ravens. Ravens are the only team that we're going to talk about beyond like today. All right? So let me just go back to the Jets for a second. You know, I love Justin Fields. I root for Justin Fields no matter what uniform he's in. And I root for him specifically. I couldn't possibly root for their owner who I find loathsome at times. So I'm rooting for Justin Fields despite the owner. But the Ravens is the answer to your questions. The Ravens understood and spoke of it before the game. This is a playoff game.

We have to win it. They went out there and beat the bears to it, and they're back in the mix. You don't want to mention the Dolphins. Not particular. Okay. So this show is based on fundamental disagreement. I have no disagreement. The answer here is the Ravens.

And the reason is because they can actually still make the playoffs in their terrible division, and the other two teams cannot. That's right. Okay. It's nice that the Jets got a win. I watched that. It was the most exciting game on board yesterday. In the fourth quarter, it was wonderful to watch.

And it made me smile that no matter who the Cincinnati quarterback is, they can score 38 and lose. Wow. Joe Flacco deserved to win that game. The defense is terrible. Nice to see the dolphins get a win because we had parked them on the side of the road for a few weeks. Tua had a good game for touchdown passes. It is a great game.

And did not insult any of his teammates. But they're still parked there. But it's, yes, it is the Baltimore Ravens. To win a game without Lamar to beat a pretty good team. The Bears are a pretty good team. Now, they're home. They're home in Baltimore. They should win that game.

They should. Coming off a buy. They should. Eight and one in their last nine games. To win without Lamar Jackson is a huge boost to the team. And had they lost that game, even in their lousy division, I would have said they were done. So I do. I mean, I agree with you.

Huntley just to point out something. The last time, the Bears and Ravens played in 2021. Hunley, not Lamar, beat them. Is that right? So this is habitual. Just four years ago. college football beyond Texas A&M

beating LSU which we already talked about what was the most compelling result of the college football weekend Okay so number one to me is Alabama Alabama wins late in South Carolina on the road they score a touchdown they have a fabulous two point conversion on an option

play to tie the game which I then think is then going into overtime but they get the ball back with under two minutes to go where they go 38 yards down the field and they won that's a big win for them number two for me is Indiana. Indiana destroyed UCLA. They beat him by 50 points. Indiana does not

take its foot off the gas with Cignetti. You kind of raise your eyebrows at that. I did it earlier in Illinois. Well, yeah, he's out there. He wants a lot of points. He obviously said to this team, there's going to be no letdown here, kids. And if you don't think

coaching matters, coaching matters with Cigney. I'm going to go off-road a bit. And first of all, let me give a big hug to Vandy and Georgia Tech. Oh, yeah, yeah. Every week when they keep up historic wins, Vandy, beating Mizzou, gotten to this record 7-1 for the first time.

It was like, it was no points in the first half. And Georgia Tech 80-0 for the first time since the 1966. Yeah. But I'm going further off-road than that. Where are you going? BYU over Utah. Okay. BYU is undefeated.

Yep. They're ranked eight. But they're going to play at Texas Tech in two weeks. And Texas Tech is ranked right behind him. Come on. That's a big game. and it's off of the Big Ten SEC beaten path. I like to see this.

I want to see whether or not BYU or Texas Tech has a chance at or in the playoffs. So I believe this is true that the Big 12, which we think of as a non-conference most of the time, has a lot of ranked teams this year. Yeah, they have a lot of ranked teams. So you didn't mention any Big Ten stuff. Indiana?

Well, you took Indiana from me. Would you have taken it? That was the only one. That was the only one. Enough email. Let's try. one last break or take one last break if I could read, but still to come, the Chiefs try to make it three wins in a row tonight. Will the Lakers be okay without Luka Northwestern got hosed

at Nebraska by the Bigton officiating crew, which was too gutless to make a call? Really? Gutless to make a call late. A holding call on a would-be touchdown pass. They didn't make it. People should be suspended. Now I just mentioned... Is that how your voice got like this? Yes. Okay. Screaming. I didn't even scream at Mike Gleeson, though. I did not scream at our favorite hustle. Pardon the interruption is presented by the refreshing taste of twisted tea, hard iced tea. Please drink responsibly. Part of Happy Hour.

Happy time, people. Happy 66th birthday, Rick Carly. We go back a long way with Carlisle. So when he played for Terry Holland and UVA, back to when all three of us had hair. Carlyle was a nice player at Virginia playing with Ralph Samson, but Carlisle's basketball acclaim comes from coaching, not playing. playing, though he was on the 1986 world champion Boston Celtics. Carlisle coaches the Pacers, who he guided to the NBA finals last season and might have won

at Tyrese Halliburton not torn his Achilles. Carlisle won an NBA title coaching Dallas and Dirk Novitsky in 2011. Previously, Carlisle had been coached the year in Detroit in 2002. Before he left Dallas, Carlis was the third longest tenured coach in the league behind Greg Popovich in San Antonio and Eric Spolster in Miami. Quick story. Back when I was doing the line. lion chair of Curving University of Virginia and Ralph and Rick Carlisle.

I would quote this young guy all the time, Rick Carlisle, who wasn't even starting. And you and our dear boss, George Solomon, would say, don't you know there's a guy named Ralph Samson on that team? Talk to him. Why are you quoting this Carlisle kid all the time? Well, it turns out. Worked out pretty good scouting by me, right? Very good. Very good. He's a great coach, Rick Carlisle.

Happy anniversary, David Fries. On this day, 14 years ago, in game six of the World Series, the Cardinal third baseman, hit a game tying two-run triple with two out in the ninth against Texas. Two innings later, Fries hit a walk-off home run, which sent the World Series to game seven, which the Cardinals would win. In that 2011 postseason, Fries batted 397, 25 hits, five home runs, eight doubles in that triple, and drove in 21 runs in 18 games. Think about that.

Crazy. Freeze had an OPS of 1.258. For all this, Freese won MVP awards in both the NLCS and the World Series. And he won the Babe Ruth Award as MVP of the entire postseason. Ruth's career postseason OPS was 1.24. So that year, David Freeze was actually better than the Bambino. And he was better for what amount to his hometown team. Missouri.

Is he a Missouri kid? He went to high school there. And he's been out of baseball for six years of totality. That one period where he was doing that for the car. It was tremendous. That's a tremendous run. Happy Trails, Cam Scataboo. The Giants rookie running back dislocated his ankle

and Sunday's loss to the Eagles and is out indefinitely, likely for the season. Scataboo's relentless running style has won him big fans, and the Philly crowd even gave him a standing O as he was carted off the field. Brian Daibol has now lost Scatibu and Malik Neighbors in what could be a make-or-break season for him. I don't know that you can get beyond losing both those guys, because neighbors just as a football player is on a rocket ship. And Scatible gave them a certain energy and presence. That was undeniable.

Absolutely. He didn't see him get hurt. And he sort of teamed with Jackson Dart. I mean, people think of on the same way. No doubt. No doubt. We would like to note the passing of Nick Mangold. The longtime Jets Center has died of complications from kidney disease at the age of just 41.

Mangold made seven Pro Bowls with the Jets. He was an Iron Man who played five seasons before missing his first game and missed just four games over his first 10 years. Mangles suffered from a rare genetic disorder and recently made a public appeal for kidney transplant. A couple of things to clean up on BYU. They beat Iowa State this week. They beat Utah the week before and they are now ranked number 10, not number eight. Let's go to the big finish if we could. Luca out at least a week with a finger sprain and leg contusion. Anthony Edwards out two weeks with a right hamstring strain, bigger loss. Well, the Lakers are already missing abroad. I know Austin Reeves were crazy. 51. But it's still the

answer I think is Luca, I think it is. The Orioles have hired Craig Albinaz as their new manager. You like this hiring. Okay. He was a minor league catcher. Every single catcher becomes a manager. If parents want their kids to have a long career in baseball,

make them a catcher because then you go on to being a manager. Cambooser had 24 points and 23 rebounds against Tennessee and another Duke exhibition. Is something or nothing? Is this different to Cooper Flag? No.

Is he as good as Cooper Flann? These numbers, this production, Leonel Messi scored two goals in Inter-Miamys 3-1 win over Nashville. You're impressed, right? So forget if I'm impressed. I got text today from Taylor's welcome. Oh, wow. He's angry at you because you said you didn't care about watching this. He wants you to go to game two.

I'd love to go. He'll take you to game two. He wants me to go. What if there isn't a game? Can't go to game two. Last one, Commanders and Chiefs tonight. Who you got Big Boards? There's no Jane Daniel.

You've got to go with Kansas City at home. And they're pulling out of it so, you know, not a trap pick for me. No, no. I got one thing to say you before we go. Baby girl, put it on me. Oh, yeah, that's good. You're on it's fine. No.

We will try to do better than, we will try to do better than next time. And Stephen Michael Fader, shout out. You're familiar with John Morant's work. I'm Mike Welbock. John Wood. Time tomorrow, knucklehead. Wait.