PTI - Who had the Most Impressive Win in Week 10?

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss the SNF, NFC West, and the Bills. 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, I'm told it's National Vanilla Cupcake Day. I'm Tony Cornheiser, vanilla cupcake.

That was my boxing nickname. Oh, you want to admit to that one? Yeah. That suggests maybe you took a few standing eight counts. I took standing eight counts before they rang the bell to let you go across the ring. That's smart. That's the way to go. It was sort of the Michael Spinks of my division at that point.

Welcome to PTI, boys and girls. In today's episode, the Rams and Seahawks win again. The bills drop one to the dolphins, and Indiana somehow stays unbeaten. But we begin today with some big wins yesterday in the NFL. The Chargers beat the Steelers in the Sunday night game, 25 to 10, limiting Aaron Rogers to just 51.6% completions. The Patriots beat Tampa Bay in Tampa in the game in which the Patriots had a bunch of explosive offensive plays. The Colts beat the Falcons in overtime in Berlin,

as Jonathan Taylor rushed for 244 yards and three touchdowns, and the Bears came back from 10 down in the fourth to beat the Giants leading to Brian Daibals firing earlier today, Wilbon. What was the most impressive win? I'm drawn to Taylor, and the Colts could have lost that game. Perhaps even should have lost that game. I can't figure out Atlanta. Can't figure out Atlanta.

One week Atlanta gives you some win. You go, oh, oh, let me get on to Atlanta and Bejan Robinson. No. And then they just go away. No. But Taylor, see, I don't want to hear he's in the running for MVP. He's the damn MVP. Right now.

And these people who just want to give it to a quarterback, this is not the Heisman. Okay? So Taylor, to have 17 touchdowns already. 15 rush this season. 15 rushing in 10 games. Yeah. So what does he have to do? And when he went down the sideline on that run, you're like, okay, this is now like real football,

which I appreciate from where I. I'm from that a great running back can carry a team, and it doesn't mean his quarterback isn't worthy of praise because he is. It doesn't mean the defense doesn't have to chip in. They have to play complimentary football because they do. He's the MVP. He delivered them in an important game so they don't go down to the ball. You're not talking about the bears yet. You're going to wait for me to talk and then you're going to talk about the bears? Tony, they should have won. They almost lost. They angered me again. No, I understand because we had that conversation. Again, it made me crazy. the cardiac bears are taking years off my life.

And you thought that if Jackson Dart had played the whole game, that they would lock. Yeah, the Giants would have won the game. So I'm going to pick the Patriots here, and I'm glad that we're not going to conflict. Totally reasonable. I'm going to pick the Patriots who are now eight and two last year at this time. They were three and seven, okay?

The Patriots have now won their two toughest games to this point at Buffalo and at Tampa. They won a close game in Tampa against a team that always wins those kinds of close games, right? they are going to win the AFC East. They're actually going to win that. And in the last two years, they've won only eight games in both years combined, eight and 26. This is two people. This is Mike Vrable and Drake May.

And I can't even imagine that Mike Vrable is not going to be coach of the year. Wait. I can't imagine. He's got some competition. Nobody saw this coming. You might have said there'll be an improvement, but not this kind of explosion. I agree with you on Indianapolis. Nobody saw that coming either.

I agree with you that he's the MVP, though. I seem to recall a couple of days last week you were saying you thought Sam Donald was the MVP. If I started listing people behind him, I'm going quarterbacks, one in Los Angeles, one in Seattle. I'm going to get quarterbacks back in it, but it's Taylor. I'll say one other thing because we didn't get to the Chargers. That's a fine win. But I've said on this show when you have agreed that Pittsburgh does not pass the eye test consistently. And the Chargers, they don't.

win in a scintillating way, but I did not know this until this morning. In the last three games, they've only allowed a total of 26 points. The defense has been better. Very good. Let me just ask you this question real quickly. Yeah. Aaron Rogers suddenly looked slightly on the verge of old to you? He has looked on the verge of all because it doesn't look

like you can go down the field, but then he threw that Hail Mary that won 65 yards in the air, so I don't know. But they're not, they don't look like the sum of all of the parts is great enough there. Let's say that way for two more weeks. Oh, you got a visit to soldiers feel.

Okay. I'd have to see them look feeble just a little while longer. Let's move to the top of the NFC West, where the Rams and Seahawks are now tied to 7 and 2. The Rams hopped out to a 21-0-0 lead over the

Ninas, and 1,42.26 is Matthew Stafford, see, one of my MVP runner-ups. Yeah. Threw for four touchdowns. The Seahawks, thanks and far. I got stats on Stafford, for you. Oh, good. Well, thanks to two DeMarcus Lawrence scoop and scores,

and Seahawks jumped out to a 35-0-0 lead against the Cardinals before winning 4422. So which team do you think, Tony? More highly of right now, they meet Sunday, Rams or Hawks? So I feel like I said this the other day on Friday because

I did. I said exactly this. I think Seattle is a very good team. I don't put a whole lot of stock in them destroying Arizona on Sunday because Arizona stinks as anyone can see if you watch that game. The Rams beat a tougher opponent. The Rams beat San Francisco.

And they beat them on the road and they put 42 on them, and San Francisco had not allowed more than 30 all year. Matthew Stafford threw four touchdown passes again, and here are the stats, and they are amazing. Matthew Stafford in his last six games, has 20 touchdown passes and count them no interceptions. Flawless. For the year, he has 25 and 2 in his last three games, 13 and 0. He is on pace for 47 touchdown passes and four interceptions. In that Kurt Wonderland.

These are video game. and Rogers. Numbers. And I think I know how good Sam Donald has become, and he ain't this good. But he doesn't have to be this good by himself. I like what I'm taking Seattle. I know you are. So going into Sunday's game, which is a marquee game.

That is the marquee game of the weekend. And I'm looking at Seattle because, one, they've got just places where that offense can explode. It doesn't have to be all on Sam Darnel. The defenses are comparable. they're both really good. The Rams are in like second and points allowed, 11th in yards, so you can move it, but you're not scored against them.

But Seattle's defense is not the Legion of Boom, but it's really good as well. I'm going to take Seattle. And Tony, Sam Donald has something that Matthew Stafford doesn't have. He still has something to prove. Okay. Because Minnesota let him go.

Magic Stafford's going to the whole fight. He is. He's going to the whole fight. And he's the runner up right now for MVP for me this year. But Sam Donald is still. still got to be, when you are a professional athlete of that stature and a second team after you were great for, 16 of 18 games says, we're going to wave by, bye to you for an unproven rookie. None. You still have something to prove that I like what he's got in front of.

Do you want to hear a set of numbers that is very impressive about Seattle? Seattle, in the last 45 years since 1980, Seattle is only the second team to score at least 30 points in the first half in 30. That's right. In the first half in three games. Yeah. They were up 35-0 yesterday. And if that was Little League, it would have been the mercy rule. They would have called that game.

But you ask me, who am I most impressed with? It's Sean McVey and Matthew Stafford by a small margin. Let's conclude our NFL segment with a straight-up question. Yesterday, as we both predicted, Baltimore went into Minnesota, and they won 2719. In a game marred by eight full-start penalties by the home team. And in a game that neither of us would have predicted, Buffalo got soundly beaten in Miami, 30 to 13 by the previously

woe-be-gone dolphins. Wilbon, which was the bigger deal? Baltimore. Going on the road and winning, because they had to. Baltimore still had to win. Lamar Jackson, he wasn't exaggerating a couple of weeks ago when he said, we have to treat this every week now, like it's the playoffs, we have to win every week. He's right

now. At some point, he won't have to. We're getting close to that point. That's Pittsburgh losing. But it wasn't yesterday. No. Yesterday, they had to go to Minnesota and beat the volleyball. Vikings. Now, I'm not going to sit here and say the Vikings are top three or four. They're coming off a good win, though. Coming off a good win at Detroit. Yeah, good win.

So that was a game that Baltimore had to win they did. And by the way, it's interesting that the Vikings are blaming Baltimore for sort of what seems to me to be a penalty situation, calling out signals opposite their own signal caller, which there's a rule against that. But nonetheless, I think that was the more important. But Buffalo, I've never been convinced, as some people are, that Buffalo, the Super Bowl runs through Buffalo. No, it doesn't actually. It hasn't. And it hasn't. All right. So my immediate inclination is to say Buffalo. Because they lost badly to a terrible team, a team that fired its general manager last week after losing.

And could have fired its coach as well. Okay? Buffalo was down 16 to nothing in the first half. It's the first time since 2007 that they haven't scored in the first half. It is a devastating loss to me. Indivision. But last week, I thought Green Bay suffered a similar devastating loss. They lost to Carolina, a bad team.

At home. At home, right? So maybe I have to revise my thinking. Maybe I have to say that a pretty good team or a very good team is entitled to one really terrible loss, and it's just a bump in the road. It's not a complete crater. And I agree with you that it's Baltimore. And the reason to me it's Baltimore, they go on the road and they win the game.

It is their third win in a row. And it feels almost prophetic. It feels like they are uniting around their best player, Lamar Jackson, who said, we got to win them all. Everything is a playoff game. Everything is a must game. And then they go and they deliver that game. Do you know who their next three are? Yeah.

Here's their next three. Cleveland, the Jets, in Cincinnati. You're going to be surprised if they win all of them? They should. No. Run the table. as they want to say in college football. For the next three.

Do you agree? And these three already would give them six in a row, and they'd be back as Pittsburgh's. I hope. They're fading. They're fading. Yeah, I hope they're taking. Let's take a break.

Coming up was Indiana's late win over Penn State, the most compelling result of the college football weekend. And two guardians' pitchers get indicted in connection with sports betting. What's up with that? Do I have this number right that Buffalo allowed 197 yards rushing to Miami? Do you know what? Come on. There's no great team. There's no great team. Unless this may be... Pardon the Interruption is presented by Bullet Frontier Whiskey. Please drink responsibly.

Part of Happy Hour. Welcome back to Pardon the Interruption. Presented by Bullet Frontier Whiskey. Part up Happy Hour. Time to find out what's vexing our viewers in Mail Time. Let me see what's first here. Go to the glasses for the nail time. Here we go. What was the most compelling result to the college football? weekend. That's easy. That's easy. There were a lot of games on. There were some fun games. You know, LSU and Alabama. You hit the kid at Texas

Tech. Jacob Rodriguez, who's just a beast on defense. I want to see what it'll be like at the next level. No, no, no, no. Indiana Penn State. That was the most compelling game. The catch by Omar Cooper.

Tony, that's the greatest catch I've ever seen in college. football because of what was at stake in part. First of all, just the catch, the balletic nature of the catch and getting the foot down and holding one up and getting one down inside the line to make it qualify as a game-winning catch. But also, you've got the ranking at stake, an undefeated season at stake, a seeding at stake, Indiana's national thing at stake.

And he makes this catch, greatest college catch I've ever seen. I don't want to track over everything you've said, and I know they pay us occasionally to disagree. Yes. But I'll tell the story because it's inside baseball. I'm playing golf. I get home. The phone rings. It's you.

And you say, are you watching? And I go, am I watching what? You said, are you watching Penn State Indiana? Because there's four minutes to go, and Penn State is winning. So I turn it on. And then we're watching it together, in a sense, although we're in separate places. And your TV is getting the feed 10 seconds ahead of mind, and you keep telling you. me what happened. And I finally say, shut up and let me watch it in real time. And at that point,

Mendoza is going down the field, essentially filming his own Heisman tape. And he finds this kid in the ends on the kid makes the greatest catch. I agree in college. So I would love to say Texas Tech. I'd love to say Alabama. I might even say North Carolina. No. It's Indiana. And it's that Indiana. That catch is forever. Indiana. Come on. Come on. It's Indiana. For a basketball school. Huh? Indiana to have that catch? gambling major league baseball what do the indictments of emmanuel class say and louise say to you okay so you're always innocent until proven guilty yes but i read stories about this i read these charges and it seems like the chargers are rock solid and totally wired right i don't

know that i believe that for this action somebody should go to jail but there's a possibility of a 20-year prison sentence in this, right? Yes. I mean, and you think to yourself, what's going on here? I read the accounts of the lawyers for the defendants saying they are totally innocent. But I got to say, Mike, as I sit here now, I don't think either of them is ever going to pitch in the major leagues again. And I think that Rob Manfred has to come out and he has to say, this is what we are doing to prevent this from happening in the future. That's happening.

Because, Mike, these prop bets, they are the poor. poison apple. They are. They are, Tony. And there's now this effort to limit a small element of the prop bets. But going back to what does it say to you? I'm not going to disagree with anything you said. And if guilty and there's punishment, so be it. I mean, you know the rules. It's explained over and over to you. You're defrauding the game. Yes. And you know what, Tom, I don't care. Really? Because at the highest levels of pyramids in this country, in this culture. Everybody's betting now. It's on every phone except yours and mine. Don't you want it to be honest? Don't you want it to be honest? Does that affect the game? Does it tilted in any way that matters

to me? I know what you're going to say, that it's very small and it's not throwing the game. Right. But the more these things happen, it's water that's leaking on something. There's a suddenly slope. There's a sudden there's a flood. But you know what? Enough email. Let's take one last break. Still to come, the Eagles take on the team that led the effort to. to ban the tush push and some thoughts on the lives and times of Paul Tagliaboo and and Lenny Wilkins. It's a thousand cuts Mike. It's a thousand cuts. You can't have it. I just can't get worked up. Pardon the Interruption is presented by Bullet Frontier Whiskey. Please drink responsibly.

Part of Happy Hour. Happy time people. Happy 53rd birthday Isaac Bruce, the Hall of Fame receiver for the Rams. Bruce led the NFL in receiving yards in 1996. For his career, Bruce had 1,024 receptions and 91 receiving touchdowns, both of which are 15th all time. Bruce had 15,208 receiving yards, which is fifth all time. Bruce was on the greatest show on turf rams in St. Louis and was on the 1999 Super Bowl Rams, who won when the Tennessee Titans were stopped at the one-yard line as time expired.

Kurt Warner was the Rams quarterback then. The Rams trend of great passers and great receivers continues now in L.A., where Matthew Stafford has thrown to Cooper Cup, and now Puka Nakua and Devante Adams. Doesn't this seem like that team was not celebrated enough, is not celebrated enough? Kurt Warner had great years.

He's in the Hall of Fame. He is in Hall of Fame. They both are. By the way, I love listening to Kurt Warner, calling games in studio or calling games, but particularly on games. Happy anniversary, Johnny Mansell. On this day, 13 years ago, Johnny Football immediately became the Heisman Trophy frontrunner

after personally accounting for 345 of number 15 Texas A&M's 418 yards of offense in a stunning upset at number one Alabama. Mansell is lightning in a bottle in this highlight reel, avoiding, evading, and destroying Alabama. The Cleveland Browns drafted Mansell at number 22 in the 2014 draft, watched him fail, then selected essentially the same type of quarterback, Baker Mayfield, another Heisman winner who also failed there. The Mansell's story turned dark over time with reports of drug and alcohol addiction and bipolar disorder.

But in college, Johnny Mansell was magic. There's actually a doc on the story of Manzell untold Johnny Football. I live with a teenager who's obsessed with Johnny Manzell. He just can't get enough of Johnny Manzell. We were doing this show then. It was great. He was great college football player. A melancholy trails Paul Tagliabu. The former commissioner of the NFL died Sunday at the age of 84.

Tagliabu succeeded Pete Roselle in the role and spent 17 years as a great steward. The most important thing about Tagliabu's tenure was the cultivation of labor peace. His relationship with Gene Upshaw prevented season-stopping labor issues that had plagued the NFL in other leagues. Tagliabu kept the Saints in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. That was a big deal. Also, he had the second most rebounds ever at Georgetown when he finished his basketball career there. Mike, I know that you were close with Tackley, Bo. Tony, it became that way over time, first covering him when I was covering the league and was there for the day he was sort of selected, elected, to be the commissioner of the NFL following Pete Roselle, who just sort of left quickly, and it took a while to install Tagliaboo.

But then, you know, they lived, he and his wife, Chan, who I adore. They live in Washington and sort of neighbors, and we have known Paul Tagliabu, but we knew him. For many, many years, you mentioned the labor piece, the partnership with Gene Upshaw, just the way he handled the Rooney Rule. I know the whole concussion thing confounded him at times as the NFL grappled with that at the beginning stages. But Paul Tagliabu was a great commissioner, a great man, and it's just, you know, it is sad that we are now without him. He seemed, for a person in that role, he seemed a very progressive man. You don't often get in that. And another melancholy trail is Lenny Wilkins.

The legendary NBA player and coach died Sunday at the age of 88. Wilkins was a New York City kid, left-handed, barely six feet tall, who didn't even play on his high school team until he was a senior. He went to Providence College and was the first in a long line of great guards there. In the NBA, he was a nine-time All-Star, spent four seasons as a player coach before moving to coaching full-time. In all, he spent 32 seasons in coaching, retiring as the leader, and wins, losses. and games coach. He's in the Hall of Fame as a player and a coach, one of only five men to do that.

You know what else? He was the only guy to do, Tony, to coach and never coach a Hall of Famer in his prime. The only one he coached in his prime was himself because he was a player coach, as you mentioned. And speaking of this, and there's a thread to me with Lenny Wilkins and Paul Taggley-Boo. They were both eloquent.

You know what I mean? You mean, these were learned, you know, literate men who made their living in sports, but they were so much more than that, so many dimensions, and to lose them on the same day, I'm trying to figure out what to make of that. Let's go to the big finish,

if we could. Joe Burrow returned to limited practice for the Bengals. He can be activated within the next 21 days. Is that a big deal? A huge deal if they can get him back. Dan Campbell took over play-calling duties as the Lions crushed the commanders. Your thoughts.

It worked. Keep doing it. Don't worry about the brain drain anymore. Former LSU coach Brian, Kelly has reportedly turned down two settlement offers. He wants the full $54 million remaining on his contract. Does that make sense? Not a penny less. What do they think?

You got to get a discount. You fired me and now you want a discount? Nathan McKinnon, Avalanche, has nine points in the last two games. I know you're impressed. I think he's leading league in scoring, and second is who? Is it one of your guys? Mr. Badar. He's coming.

Last one, Monday night football, Eagles and Packers. Who got in this one? I'm obsessed with this game. I can't wait for this game. It's at Lambo. I think the snow moved through. We should have yesterday's weather. You're not rooting for the Packers, are you?

Oh, no. Oh, no, no. I know. We are out of time. We will try to do better the next time, and I am Tony Corny. I'm Mike Wilbon. Same time tomorrow, local heads.