The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Championship Sunday Recap: 49ers win thriller over Lions, Chiefs shut down Ravens, and we've got a great matchup for Super Bowl LVIII

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Chiefs-49ers...that has a familiar ring to it, doesn't it? That's what we'll all be watching in Las Vegas on February 11 in Super Bowl LVIII. Before we get there, though Robert Mays and Nate Tice recap Championship Sunday on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays, joining me tonight. It's my good friend Nate Tyson. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing well. Great games. Feel oddly prepared for a Sunday night show as we go.

And after only two games going through. It helps them there's only two. Only two. Two good ones. And it's a game of inches. And it's, man, how many plays it came up today, just a game of inches, decisions, just how much gets magnified in these situations. and wow, it ever felt so true today in the NFL with these two games.

My fingers are a wreck right now. I was just chewing them down to the bone during that second game. I can't remember a game like that where the adrenaline has kicked in so hard as I watched the second half because you just feel, I felt the gut-wrenching twist as the second half went along. And you feel it for Lions fans because this is one that will never go away. It doesn't matter if you're young and exciting. are and we'll get to all of that. And there's so much to be proud of for this team reaching this moment and even expecting to win this sort of game after where they were a couple years ago.

But it's so hard to get this close. It's so hard to get this close. And to lose like this, to be up 17 at the half, to have all those self-inflicted mistakes in the second half, this is one of those games. I mean, I know that you're no stranger to heartbreak with some of those moments that the Lions or the Vikings had when you were a kid. The game that I always go back to is remember that 2010 NFC championship game where it caught hurt. Caleb Haney comes in. You have that BJ Raji.

Bhajee Ragi picks six. I mean, you just, those are the moments that you replay over and over and over again in your head because when you get this close, every single thing that goes wrong, every single bounce of the ball hurts just a little bit more. And that is where the lions are sitting right now, no matter who was supposed to win this game coming into it.

The plays in games I remember most vividly are the last. losses. I mean, just even any team I've been a part of. And it's the Mike McDee quote from Rounders. He says, all the hands that you lose about. Those are the ones that you remember more than the hands that you win. But that's what it felt like today. And if just even going to the second half, I started kind of breaking down all these near misses. And it's pretty brutal. They run it on third and four, go for and fourth and two. Just a near miss on a curl. A curl that Josh Reynolds and Jerry Gough have probably run a hundred million times. And they just have that slight miscommunication that happens all the time on curl routes.

And still could have been caught. It still could have been caught. Still catchable, but it's just that near miss and golf moves around the pocket on it. Okay, then you have the Gibbs and golf handoff fumble, which happens because it's a trap play. And trap plays because they're worded differently because you use different numbering. It's screwed up Gibbs on it. I've seen it happen. But again, this near miss that just happens on that fourth down, that near miss that happens on the fumble, where it just goes on the wrong step.

It's just at the worst time. Not week two preseason, not week six, not week 12. where we can iron out these cakes. It's like right now it happens. And then you get another drop by Josh Reynolds. But it's just all these moments, one after another, the punt doesn't get pinned at the one. Yep. The punt gets a flea flicker easily could have been caught for a touchdown.

That was a not a bad ball by golf. J-Mo Samos slows down a little bit. That's absolutely a catchable ball. Game of inches. Game of it just over and over again. And if I were a Lions fan, if I were anybody trying to think about process this game, that's where I would go first. It wouldn't be to the fourth-down decision.

So we can get into those. But it would be the moments. that should have been complete, should have been caught, should have been drive continuers, and instead end up becoming these fatal mistakes that get made over and over and over again down the second half of the game. I don't know about you, and maybe I'm just too modern football thinking pilled at this point. I don't have really any issue with the fourth down decisions and going forth the two times that they did.

You're going against the team that is better than you. You're going against an offense that you could not stop in the second half. half. Your kicker is somebody that wasn't even on the roster for a good chunk of this season, not somebody that you want to rely on, kick an outside of 45-yard field goals with the game on the line. So I really don't have an issue with the fourth and two or the fourth and three. This is more about the other self-inflicted wounds that happened down the back half of the game

that I think loom a little bit larger for them. The fourth downs are going to hang in everyone's head. But yeah, it's all those near other misses or the other turnovers that happen. Those are huge plays too. Those are just the ones, of course. those are the drive enders. So that's what everyone's going to go, oh, you can point to that. Would you have gone forward in both of those situations?

Yeah. I think so too. All the situations you just laid out. And also, like, don't, isn't this kind of what your ethos is? Exactly. This is who you've been. This is it. And honestly, I think this is day one.

This is day one. From the start. This is always what they have done. The only, the two things that I think you can criticize, one, not going forward at the end of the first half. At the half. That was weird to me. All those points are going to matter.

That's what this. You're planning. against this team that can eat, we saw it, that could put up 24 on answer. It's not the fourth quarter. They're getting the ball coming out of half. I get how human nature creeps in there, though. You don't want to give them a win heading into the half. You've owned the first two quarters of the game.

Let's take the three. Let's go to the half. But they needed every point that they could get. And then at the end of the game, when they run the ball, rather than throwing it down near the goal line and have to burn one of those timeouts, it just felt like that was something where they clicked into, we just need to score here. we need to score here. The clock isn't the most important thing, when in reality, the clock is still the most

important thing when you make that decision. So I'm nitpicking on both of those as much or more than the fourth and short decisions in the second half that they didn't get. Yeah, the run play was curious to me. It was kind of, I get that they kind of sometimes lean into the punch. They'll do, they did a couple of times tonight running on third down, third and 12. They did a nice GT counter. Oh, so many notes on the Lions run game that's just like, they were on, they were

unbelievable, especially in the first half. I mean, they were just absolutely slicing. and dicing them. The first two plays were the place we spent five minutes talking about on Thursday. It was the pinpole and then the split zone right away. There was the exact same plays the Packers ran. They did on the first two plays to start their drive. They're like, all right, are you guys stopping this?

No. All right, we're going to keep doing it. And they did throughout the whole night. And then they did all this other stuff throughout the whole night. It kind of stinks. It just kind of flares up on all these fourth downs that everyone's going to remember. Yeah, everyone's going to remember that and not how they kept pace and honestly how they got out to to that huge lead against a really good Niners team.

The Niners, though, deserve a ton of credit for. just never, never slowing down, especially in the second half. Their offensive numbers in the second half of this game, absolutely ridiculous. 62% rushing success rate down the back half of the game. 61.8% offensive success rate. 61.5% rushing success rate in the second half. 8.3 yards per play in the second half. And you need a couple breaks.

Purdy throws one off of Vildor's face. And it becomes one of the most important plays in the entire. game. Yeah. But they made enough big plays. CMC comes through huge. IUC's route on the touchdown after that deflection. Absolutely disgusting.

You have kiddo winning a one-on-one matchup. And Purdy deserves a lot of credit for what he did with his legs in the second half of that game. Scambles. I mean, those four, I think he had four first downs as a scrambler in the second half of that game. And his ability to make something happen when it's not there ends up becoming huge. And two plays off schedule, two plays to use check off schedule.

He had the one where he kind of twirls around in the pocket a little. bit throws it back across to use check for a huge chunk gain and then the one at the sticks to use check on the left sideline when he got out of the melophone loose sack so his ability to pull these little houdini acts and do some stuff with his legs ends up becoming huge in this game but you also just look at what the monstars did in the biggest moments i mean giving the ball to cmc and everything that iuk did that's why it's important to get every single point that you can against this team because there's a very real chance that they can just put up 28 whenever they feel like it because of the way that they're built.

And when you get him, oh, we turn over the ball in the red zone, you're like, you know this is a touchdown. It's like, you know that like they're in three plays. It's going to go boom, boom, boom. Might be five, but they're going to get this score, which is that's that feeling of that it's going to be an inevitable, not only just field goal, but touchdown you lit up. It's like, oh, that's why those turnovers are so devastating against an offense like this. The first throw of the second half for Purdy, it was that play action to Debo. That was pretty sick.

Yeah, over the lineback, over three linebackers. Yeah. You brought up the running out of the sack. I thought all the moments of him creating it. You remember all the moments with Jimmy G. before. It always felt like when things kind of went askew or the lion's defense at times were they're really bailing. It felt like they're really just pushing out of the pocket, really just trying to take out all those deep throws. And it gave them those avenues to scramble or the man coverage stuff. Was that a lot of surprising to you that they were bringing four a little bit more in the second half after how good of a job they did crushing the pocket while bringing five in the first half? Is that just not your foot off the gas a little bit? Because he had nowhere to scramble in the first half because they were consistently bringing five over and over and over again, crushing the pocket.

And I thought the Deonté made a really good point on Twitter when he was watching the game is that Purdy's size shows up in those moments. When you're really pushing the pocket back into him, he struggles to get balls off. It's kind of that creativity pocket playmaking conversation that we've had before. That's not his strong suit. So when they were giving him avenues to run in the second half, I thought that that actually made a huge, huge. difference compared to their game plan in the first half. It was also funny is that who knew that Justin Fields might be the best indicator for how Purdy could find some success in this game.

Those games against the Lions where Fields is just running all over and was like, oh yeah, oh yeah, you could do that against the Lions. They have issues. It's a really good point. It's always been, it's been an issue for two years. Yeah, I mean, the week one against the Eagles last year, it hurts like just ran all over. I still remember it. But it was also the Niners felt like the pass rush really cranked up in the second half, too,

where they actually were starting to tee off, especially on the left side against Decker. And again, golf is going to have some issues with some pressure. I thought they sorted out some other stuff. Holy crap, Jemir Gibbs has gone from a zero to a hero on pass protection. He had another great one. But I did think that the Niners adjusted too. It was the Niners adjusted. That's what felt like to me.

And also talking about adjusting CMC running zone tonight put on a clinic and just getting everything as far as cutbacks. Any linebackers over pursuing the adjustments to Devo San. me with that bubble route. Remember that catch and run? That puts Jack Campbell in the bind, just because they put you checking a motion on a speed motion and put him out as the blocker outside. But you can see Campbell going like, is this a kickout block? Is this him looping up to get me? Or is this him sprinting all the way to the outside? But you can just see those heads pop, the shannoscope, right? Is that what we're calling it now. But you see those moments and that's all adjustments in the second half where maybe the lines, Ben Johnson's one of the best opening script guys,

Andy Reid as well as we saw in the first game that we'll talk about later. But it's like you see them sometimes the wheels kind of maybe in those middle kind of 20 plays. And then they adjusted to the fourth kind of felt like that a little bit today where Shanahan was adjusting. And Ben Johnson, ah, got caught a couple times and a couple drops as well. Yeah, the drops to me are more important. I thought that they called it fine game. I thought that their approach offensively was really good. I was so impressed with the Lions third down plan throughout the entire game.

Some of the third and long stuff that they hit. they're them converting a third and down a third down handoff i could just imagine you on your couch watching that game just absolutely losing your mind nuts the whole drive they went they ran duo three times in a row i was like that was my drive third 12 run and three duos to start the drive with pennies stool as a tight end moving it was awesome it was like yeah i was all about it i had that note written right down that was straight to the that was the same driver they hit the third and 18 which they do such a great job of their next leading out the middle of the field in a lot of those plays. And even the way that they hit the third and long, but also the way they attacked the middle of the field consistently early on in this game, I thought was really impressive because what they're doing is they're just running verticals from like their number two receivers, bleeding out the safeties and then having no one but the linebackers to cover the middle of the field. And they did such a great job of being able to take shots in that space. And then like you said, the Niners adjusted. That incompletion to Leporta, the play before the drop by Reynolds, instead of taking that.

vertical route down the field. I think it was Tashon Gibson on that play, is sitting on that throw over the middle to Leporta, rocks him incomplete. You get to third down. So just little tiny adjustments, little tiny tweaks in the way that they were handling certain approaches from the Lions end up becoming huge in the second half of this game. Let's talk about adjusting. How about Greg Olson actually finding out the five-man protection rules? I was also going to bring that up. You fired up. Is this a big game for you? It was good. It was great. I know. It's, uh, but no, this is, The Niners defense was actually very disappointing to me in the first half. I was like, come on, guys.

They were getting worked. They were getting absolutely worked. It was like, I was going to get into, this is going to be a thing because the chiefs are going to attack it next week or in a couple of weeks. The pin pole stuff is because how they play defense. The linebackers are off the ball and creates good angles for the pollers. And Bosa and Chase Young can get a little blind. They can get a little upfield like just trying to go make a play and they can get worked on it. So I'm like, man, guys, like you really didn't adjust?

Like you really like didn't, like you're going to just let this happen to you guys throughout the game. They kind of did. But then the other stuff they made so much harder. That's when you could see them getting a feel for like, oh, okay, this is how you guys are doing that play action concept. That's how you guys are working over the middle on this play. But it wasn't just Fred Warner. Like you said, it was Gibson on the other plays. It was like so they're trying to get Warner out of the muck.

And it was the other guys that had to step up and they did. It was, yeah, it was, it was, I was kind of getting disappointed. They swung. They totally redeemed himself in the second half. That fumble helps. The fumble helps a little bit as well. I mean, you need a couple breaks when you're down by 17 points. You have the fumble, you have the throw off of Iyuk's face,

and then when you have the drops on the lion's side of things, I mean, all of those things are necessary for them to do what they ended up doing. And then the Reynolds drop. The one play, I think, talk about adjustment, little tweaks that Niders defense made. That fourth and three, I thought that Olson did a very good job of pointing this out. They're an empty on the fourth and three where they didn't get it. Gibbs is lined up right to the right. He motions, and Greenlaw was with him.

So they think it's man coverage. They run mesh. The Niners drop back into his own. There's nowhere to go. Golf has to start creating. It's not where you want to be. You do not want to be in Jared Gough creation mode. I thought that Jared Gough was really good tonight, though.

I thought that he was really good tonight. Those balls get caught, and I don't think we're having a single conversation. We're having a single comment about the way that Jared Gough played. That flea-figer could have been a touchdown. He had a throw to Amman Ross St. Brown again, talking about owning the middle of the field in the second, in the first half, where he puts it just slightly behind him as Jaseer Brown is flying down. Just a beautiful throw. And there was a lot of that from golf.

A couple of there were, you know, a tiny bit off. They got lucky on one of those catches when that ball probably could have been intercepted by Ambio Thomas that ends up in Jamos hands. But I thought that the lion's offense played just fine and well enough to win today. It was just one of those games where a couple breaks go the other go the other way. And the Niners offense was virtually unstoppable in the second half. And that was always going to be the problem. If you let the Lions defense, if the Niners were in this game for long enough, I think that they were probably always going to figure out how to move the ball consistently.

And that's exactly what happened. Yeah. Lions just don't, they have weaknesses that you could exploit. And if you just keep it somewhat close, they were able to, then they were. Even if it didn't feel that way, they were able to keep it close. And that's when they're still able to bootleg, when they're still able to hit all their shot play stuff and get to any run that they want, it's fully weaponized. this, this, this four in a nurse offense. So you have to put them away because they're just going to keep coming, keep coming.

It's going to be launch ball, launch ball, launch ball. I thought even early on, the lines were doing a bunch of single high. And I was like, ooh, who, who, who that's spicy daring them, huh? And they found out, you know, they, they kind of, that's what happens. It's like, but that's, it's hard. When they weren't winning up front, it was going to be an issue. It was. In the first half, they were winning up front consistently.

McNeil had four wins. McNeil had four wins. The play that the interception, the interception that Malcolm Rodriguez had, Pascal tips that ball, but Hutchinson's winning immediately on that play. And the play before that, that was the one where Kaminsky walked Feliciano back into the quarterback. So that's why I was surprised that they weren't bringing five more consistently in the second half, because the same thing we saw with the Packers, when you're creating those one-on-ones against the 49ers front, you can win.

You have matchups where you probably have an advantage. Even John Kamitsky against Feliciano wasn't matchup that the Lions were winning in the first half. So the fact that they went away from that a little bit, I thought it was a little bit surprising. But again, you have to give a lot of credit to the Niners. You have to. This is one of those where if Shanahan loses this game and if they had gotten just blown out in this game, the discourse about him in the playoffs also would have been completely insufferable. But guess what?

They're there. They're there again. And they get to play against Patrick Mahomes again and try to exercise just one of the post-execorable. season demons that Kyle Shanahan has. Now it's on the other side. Now it's going to be 24 to 7 for the Lions rather than 28 to 3 that Kyle Shanahan's had to walk around with for the last seven years.

Falcons, yeah, just every team have been associated with just has that little stank on them. But with the Shannon stuff, though, I was taking those haymakers. This is what this team has been this entire year. They've been just as good. Remember we're going into last week, the division.

We were like, hey, remember the Niers have been really freaking awesome this year? And there's that feeling of a lot of that, the second half, where it's just wave after wave after wave, even if it's not always perfect, even if there is just one negative play or one thing that happens, it could be second and extra long, could be third an extra one,

it could be any situation. It's like, oh, here comes another explosive play. Oh, here's just another thing. Because they're an explosive play waiting to happen on every single play. They have five guys that could do it any time they touch the ball. You could name them. The stiff arm that CMC put on Gardner Johnson on the left side line to put him down for an explosive play,

Debo shouldn't got dumped for a loss the second drive of the first half. He makes Sutton missing space. They leave Mel Phonwo one on one with George Kittle and man coverage. He runs a little fake over route, breaks it back outside. That's a 40-yard gain. They're just always lurking with those over and over and over again.

And that's why they're so fucking terrifying. Well, it's just I was, what's going to get to is that they're not, like never wavered on them as this freaking elite team. Like, it's like this is a top 10 offense, top 10 defense. They're going to always find an answer. even if it's sometimes just looks like there might have drives or two that's frustrating. But it's like they're playing a team that had offensively all the answers that I thought were good against this 49ers defense and had a perfect game script possible.

This is what you want against the Shannon offense. And the 409 found an answer and Shanahan found an answer against one of the things that it was kind of like, can you do it against this? And he did. And they did. And it's like all credit to them. They've been a fantastic team this whole entire year. and the fact they answered this call. And again, commend the Lions for throwing so many haymakers.

They came up a little bit short, but man, it's just that Niers have just answered all these calls. Hasn them been always pretty, but there's been a lot of pretty. And yeah, here they are. They deserve this all the way. I 100% agree. And I'm with you on that. I think it was really cool to see them answer a lot of those questions.

Can you come back in a playoff game? When you're down big, what does that end up looking like? What does the game script have to look like? And they checked every single one of those boxes. I feel like the ref in the first game. But you're trying to make those calls to be too worse. I had a rough puberty with a lot of voice cracking because I was a late bloomer too. And you're the quarter and I was the quarterback.

So I was a lot of ready hot. I'm just deep into January in Chicago. So I have a constant cold. But they having answering every single one of those questions in the biggest moment, I think is the way that you wanted to see this Snyder's team get here. And they absolutely did. So now they get the chiefs again and we have a lot of time to talk about that in the meantime. Let's do a little lion's postmortem here.

It's so tempting. What I want to do is I want to go straight to what an unbelievable season they had. What an unbelievable run this has been. And I know that's going to be hard for Lions fans to hear in this moment, but I think there is so much solace to take in what the trajectory of this franchise has been, what the feel of watching this team is, what the expectations around them are. This is going to hurt for a long, long time. And it's probably going to take a week, two weeks, three weeks to be able to sit back

can really appreciate everything this team has done in the moment that they've arrived at. But I think it's important to acknowledge that because the fact that the Lions gave the Niners everything they could stand. A Niners team that was really, really, really good all season was arguably the best team in the NFL. It's a pretty cool space for Detroit football to be, even if they ultimately fell short. Yeah, with young talent and an identity at the top with their head coach. And I think that's what's so cool about this Lions team because it's young talent that you're seeing watch develop. especially when you keep an eye on them.

And as they have a very natural and very nice progression as a team in a franchise, oh, you stink the first year. Oh, you get frisky and a little bit better than the second year. Oh, your contenders, the third year. And I thought it was so cool this team that we had question marks about, you know, even going in. It was like, oh, we like them. But, you know, can they do this? Can they do this?

They were another team that answered a lot. Absolutely. And showed even more than I thought they had in their kind of toolbox. And yes, they're most likely almost for sure. losing Ben Johnson and everything. But I just thought, man, I think just the players that they have, how they operate just that team mentality. It's just so cool. Everybody has a wherewithal on this team. And everybody knows each other's roles. When you see the St. Brown stories when he's on his podcast and you see this other stuff where they know another player is getting dialed up,

another touchdown, or this guy's doing this or this guy has this. It's like, wow, that starts at the top. And that starts with Campbell. And he's still going to be there. And I think this is just a huge feather in the cap. It continues the analogy that I have for the similarities to the 2006 Saints where they lose in the NFC championship game, even though they battle through three quarters. But that is again, like, but I really just like where this team is, even if they do lose the OC and everything, I just think I love all these young players that they have and I can't wait to watch them all continue to develop. The losing the offensive coordinator is tough because you never know what it's going to look like after that happens. I think there's a very good chance he gets one of

these two jobs and he's gone. And we've seen other teams in this situation. struggle to replace that guy. The two, because I was thinking about this, because me and Barnwell are going to do our show about lessons you can learn from the final four teams later this week. So I was starting to think about the teams that this Lions group reminded me of. And the two that I went to, just really good teams that made it to a conference championship game or even further that had non-offensive play calling head coaches that lost the play caller and then had to navigate the next few years where the 2016 Falcons and the Titans, as the

Titans lost their two offensive coordinators. I think the Titans are actually a very good comparison because I'd put a lot of what Tannahill did during that stretch as comparable to what we've seen from Jared Gough this year. I think the biggest key difference between those two teams and what the Lions are right now is that the Lions are on a heater in the draft. Both of those teams, the Falcons and the Titans, struggled. They struggled to find cheap difference-making talent in the draft in those couple

years after they made it to the conference championship game in Tennessee's case and the Super Bowl and Atlanta's case. The Lions have so many good young cheap players that even if they were to pay Jared golf, which I assume they will, and as they're navigating some of the financial things they're going to have to, I think they're still in a really, really good spot independent of who's going to be the offensive coordinator and what they're going to get from that specific position. His team has $60 million in cap space heading into next year, and they're not really losing that many guys in free agency. Jonah Jackson is a free agent. Josh Reynolds is a free agent.

That is the one spot coming into the season that I thought could they use one more kind of possession-based outside pass catcher as part of this overall equation? I was completely wrong about thinking that would hold back the ceiling for what this lion's passing game was. But in the end, that is the one part of this offense when you got into this game. Could they use one more of those guys that would be reliable in those situations? And I think you could find that anywhere. You could pay for a guy. you could draft someone, whatever. But other than that, I think you have to feel very good about the baseline core of talent

that they have on offense specifically. And then they'll have a lot of shots to add some difference makers up front and the secondary or whatever they want to do. Yep. And yeah, the cap stuff is great. The young players, great. Offensive line, great. Keep Hank Freilly, offensive line coach.

That's a huge thing. He's going to be also just an interesting guy if he follows Johnson or if he stays. This is one of those things you run into, though, man. When you start being good and then the brain drain begins, how do you navigate that? You never know who's wearing the blood oath to. Is it to the OCs? It's a head coach? You don't know.

You just don't know sometimes. So that's very interesting because his name got rumored as well, keeping Aaron Glenn because even if the defense wasn't perfect, you did see guys start to ascend. Check him on some nice moments again. Like, guys, young guys there get better, even if it's not always perfect. And that's always good. They could definitely use a corner right where they're drafting is right in a nice little sweet spot for a bunch of corners in this draft.

You'll see a bunch of in the senior bowl, which you'll hear more me and Dane talked about in this week's prospects of pros about the senior bowl in the shrine game. But no, but I think they're set up so nicely. Of course, I think I agree with you that I think they're all in golf. Like, I think that's their eye. And I think that's fine. I think that's fine. Where they're at, I totally get it.

This is one of those moves that I think that if paying Jared Gough market rate at quarterback where let's say it's $50 million a year. I personally believe it is going to be hard to win that contract if you're the Lions, to get excess value from that deal that you're handing to Jared Goff. But I don't think as a football organization, you have to make every single decision about whether or not you're going to win it on a spreadsheet. He has been so important to what that team has been, to what the organization has been. There's really so much belief in him.

I think that rolling with him and having him be the guy there is almost more important for just what that organization and locker room feels like, that it is like, well, he's kind of a $30 million quarterback. So if we pay him 50, like what's that going to do to our overall ceiling? Those are all legitimate questions.

And I think in another time in my life, I probably would have been fixated on them. I'm not really going to be worried about it in this specific case. I think just where they're at because they have other young talent, they don't need like the young Spark QB to rejuvenate them. You're not really paying anybody else yet. If you keep that cap it down in the first couple years, which I assume they will.

I think they can absolutely navigate this space as a contender with Jared Goff on a market rate extension. And I think that's exactly what they're going to try to do. I think so too. I think to get a little more past Rochelp, I think draft a corner thing. Baby, we got a stew going. It's Detroit style. It is hard not to feel really optimistic about where this team is headed. And I think that, again, I want to admit one more time that I did not think the moves they made this off season would be enough to bring them to this place and to give them a shot.

They did. Everything that they built where, all right, we're going to have these explosives on the ground with Gibbs. And even the first touchdown, the end around to Jameson, Williamson, like, where he gives them in certain elements of their game, what Penteesoul is and just the weapon he was in this game. You talked about the drive where they're motioning him over and over and over again to run to his side. I mean, they have so many guys where this formula they've created with the personnel that they have is really potent and really dangerous. I think now the question's going to become, can they maintain? that when Ben Johnson leaves, but this is what you always face when you have a run of success. This is not anything new.

No. And I think when it comes down to it, I just put a bow on it. It's like they always bet on themselves and they have show belief in themselves. That's what Dan Campbell has been since day one. That is the Rams example from year one when he was head coach and they were getting throttled and he had the undrafted free agent off the street that just got dunked on by somebody. And he was like, he was pointing. I'm like, we need you.

Ever since then, all they do is bet on themselves. They bet on their players. They bet themselves on fourth down. And so far, it's paid dividends. And I don't think it's going to change at all. They believe in a way of life, a way of to do this franchise that starts from offseason stuff. And it emulated on the field as well. It extends to Brad Holmes as well.

I think that their patience and their self-belief in just the way that they've built this thing has been justified at every single step. And hopefully for Lions fans, that continues. Exactly the year. Yeah. Second of the year. How about that? Yeah. Let's get to our next one here.

the Kansas City Chiefs just are unkillable man 17 to 10 they knock off the Ravens four Super Bowls in six years as a starter for Patrick Mahomes after going to six straight AFC championship games

I know the defense deserves a ton of credit for lifting them in this game but the way that they played in the first half him and Kelsey went such a long way and then eventually winning this game he starts 11 for 11 the touchdown to Kelsey against Kyle Hamilton on the first drive.

I mean, just absolutely gorgeous. Same design as the touchdown, the first touchdown against the Eagles in the Super Bowl. It was a similar play, not the exact same design. I'm similar with concept, though. But I was right in front of us in that Super Bowl last year, right in our corner of the end zone. So, yeah, I was like, oh, there's a little we were out. 20 of 25 in the first half from Mahomes. Yep.

I was, yeah, that's a pretty good start. I thought that the game plan in the first half from them was fantastic. Them just getting rid of the ball very, very, very quick. I mean, his A dot on completions in the first half, I want to say was like 3.9 yards. I mean, he was getting rid of the ball so quickly. And that was clearly what they wanted to do against a zone heavy team. It's like, let's just make sure that we're controlling the game. And so I know in the second half that they needed to clamp down defensively, but that approach over the first two quarters where we're just going to let him play point guard, get the ball out of his hands, run the ball a little bit, ask him to make one or two hero plays.

That was enough. I mean, that that got them enough points to end up winning this game because of what Steve Spagnol and the defense did on the other side. Yeah. Real quick, one more on the offense is he had the perfect, like just had a nice answer for everything. Like you said, for his pressure, simulate everything. Boom, dink and dunk. Oh, I'm going to scramble against man. They put Kelsey in the slot a whole bunch today.

Kelsey had seven catches out of the slot today for 74 yards. Tied second most receptions. He's ever had. Sorry, I know it ruined your transition. Just totally. Tide second most receptions had. the game of a career from the slot. Most routes he's ever had on third down from there with nine and most he's ever been targeted from the slot. And I thought that was just real interesting because

it was to make Hamilton declare and just kind of get him. Okay, now we can get a little more declaration. If we do pressure, we can get him kind of some in and out stuff, some bubble stuff as well. So, but man, the defense, just getting on to that end, Spags and the DBs just had themselves a day. They were the all stars today. Spags in that DB room were just fantastic. They had absolutely no answer throwing the ball. Absolutely no answer throwing the ball and they had no idea where pressure was coming from the entire day. I mean, it was just, and that's why it was so different.

We talked about this coming in. We knew that there would be a lot of heat, but it would be different than playing against the Texans where they're vacating the middle of the field. You have some of those quick answers. You have consistent matchup advantages with your receivers against their DBs. That was not a matchup advantage in this game. Those guys going against Sneed and

McDuffey throughout this entire game. I mean, those, that is a decided advantage on the chief side of things? And that's really the first time, I would say, all year that the Ravens have probably been in that situation and it made a huge difference today. It was. The first third down, McDuffie just volleyball spikes that first one. It's like, ooh, they were playing.

The first drive of the second half was a clinic of tackling. Yeah, Justin Reed on Gus Edwards. He was just, oh, man, it was like corralling a feral hog. He was just, oh, man, he was, oh, my God, he had just pull him down. He was trying to, he was trying to, like, all his might. But there it is. Just limits of tackle that. I've seen that Gus Edwards run 20, 30, 40 times a year where that DV has to come down and crash down on him, bounces off Gus Edwards.

And that's a game of eight yards. That's what he does. That's his Gus bus. And I'm pretty sure on the next play, McDuffie had a tackle in space. Mike Edwards. That's what I was good. It was a clinics. But yeah, it was Mike Edwards.

It was a jet sweep. And also, it might have been in McDuffie. But it was Mike Edwards. But it was jet sweep. And he just comes screaming down. sweeps the leg, tackles. And then when Jerry Sneed has the tackle layer of that drive at the one yard line that caused the fumble. So it's just the, I mean, that's what they did.

That's put in the story of this whole year, the Dolphins game, other games that we watch in these big moments, one after another, these guys are bringing them down. So they've limited it to six-yard gains instead of 60-yard gains, and they make you work for it. And there's times Lamar was a total hero and had some incredible plays. But, I mean, even his most incredible plays were compliments to the chiefs. The touchdown to Zay Flowers was because the chiefs, was because the chiefs, ran the routes for the Ravens. They ran this divide concept, which is a post in the corner. And the Chiefs DBs ran the routes for him.

So Lamar had to do some of Lamar things and create the touchdowns Zayflower. So even the Ravens' good plays were still Chiefs good plays technically. And that was just them the whole day. Yeah, there was, I think the only real bust was on that huge Zayflowers completion. I think it was like a weird inverted cover two. Look where they have Sneed bailing back as the safety. He's not used to being in that situation. He takes the baby.

His eyes were in the field. And it's just the bust because you're trying to do something funky. But again, totally redeems himself by making that play at the goal line. And that was just one of the many, many, many misuse from the Ravens in this game because there were plenty of them. I thought that the two guys that did not perform as well as they had all season, and it was disappointing to see what they put out there today were Lamar and Todd Monkin. I just did not necessarily, I didn't understand the approach. approach, especially in the first half with the run-in game.

In the second half, people are going to look at the total number of runs from the Ravens in this game. It's like, I can't believe they didn't run the ball more. In the second half, the Ravens' offense was fine. They shot themselves in the foot a bunch of times, fumbles, penalties, et cetera. But I think for the most part, the issue with running the ball or the lack of running the ball was in the first half. They had, I think, four running back runs in the entire first half.

Three of them were to Justice Hill, two of them coming in short yardage. One was to Gus Edwards on just a neutral. rolled down a distance situation, and it was a 15-yard game. That was it. Those are your four running back runs from the Ravens in the first half, and again, most of them, the majority of them, came in short-yardage, none within the normal rhythm of the offense. And we just saw the bills get after this Chiefs team over and over and over again.

You're the best running team in the league, and it's a way to just calm yourself down against all of these pressure looks. So to see them go away from them that quickly when the game script is inconsequential. It doesn't matter if you're down. by 10 in the first half. You can consistently lean on that and they chose not to. And it was kind of baffling, honestly. It was almost like they watched the chiefs do that 16 play drive.

And they're like, okay, we got to get it back. We can't go, we can't go 12 plays. We got to get this in two. We got to get in three. Yeah, even the fact that you go out, the short yardage plays with Justice Hill getting the run, not Gus Edwards, who is literally the best short yardage back in the, recent memory, really the last fiveish years. that's an interesting use of personnel.

That doesn't really make a lot of sense. They didn't just have a lot of plays. I think they had 22 plays in the first half. And it just really just felt like it was a lot of, you know, Lamar, Lamar tipping the ball to himself. He was like the leading receiver for most of the game. There was nothing consistent.

There was nothing reliable. Everything was an out of structure play or something wild happening for their offense in a bad way. And the interception was because they went tempo. And Lamar thought he was going to have a guy wide open because they went tempo. And again, it felt like they were trying to create.

an ad lib that's part of the play, if that makes sense. They're hoping that extra half second is like going to create that big play for them as opposed to maybe within the first two seconds. And also just, I mean, the blitzes were, I mean, 13 of the blitz, they putts 20 times, 20 dropbacks, 13 of them are successful in the chiefs. The average time to pressure was 1.84 seconds. And that you can't win. And I knew there would be some of those moments where they maybe go empty protection or

five-man protection. Lamar has to do something. But it just felt so many. times, Justice Hill got picked at. I'm just curious why he was in so many reps for him. I thought Gus Edwards is decent protection. He's a big body as well. So why was he not in short yards? Why was he not in third down? It's the running back rotation. It didn't make sense to me. I know that sounds minor, but it mattered. It mattered big time in this game. Because Justice Hill time after time, there was a blitz, him going the wrong way or him can beat one-on-one.

And who knew? Drew Tranquil of all people is this super specific role player that gets unlocked and like a spaggs defense. Like he's going to have a role. He's going to be like one of those hockey players that all he can do is win faceoffs. It's like this guy, just giving him in a defense that's just like he blitzes and he like, he mirrors the quarterback. And it's like, that's it. That's all he asks him to do.

And that's why this defense is so cool to watch because they've unlocked so many guys with those hyper specific roles that they've been able to put them in this year. I mean, Steve Spagnolo is making a very serious case for himself. It's like one of the greatest defensive coordinators of all time. If you think about some of the things that he's done in the playoffs and, you know, you said this all season, you deserve a lot of credit for it. when you get a Spaggs defense in these super game planning situations and you have Patrick Mahomes on the other side and he can make four or five fuck you plays and then Spaggs is able to just

sit there. Do this. This is always possible and that's exactly what it was. The one miss I wanted to bring up for Justice Hill and this again gets into these kind of self-inflicted wounds by the Ravens. There was a third and nine after I think it was a holding penalty got them into like a second and 16. Lamar gets, it completes to Andrews, it's third and nine. They're on the edge of field goal range. It probably would have been the 41 or so yard line. It would have been like a 55-yard

field goal. Instead of trying to chunk off half of it on third and nine, the chiefs brought either six or seven and every single Ravens route was past the sticks. Lamar eats a sack from Justin Reed, gets them out of field goal range. So again, instead of just trying to get to a fourth and five where you can kick a field goal or a fourth and three where you could potentially go for it, they get sacked, gets them out of field goal range. And those were happening over and over and over again in this game. The end of the first half,

the chiefs are ready to go to the half. They handed off on first down with like a minute and 30 left from their own 10 yard line. They were going to go to the half. Van Noy gets that personal foul when they were jawed and shoving each other and then there's another personal foul on that drive and then the chiefs end up getting a field goal.

It's a small thing, but that kept crumbing up over and over and over again in this game. And then you combine that with the fumble at the goal line and all of those self-inflicted Ravens wounds, similar to the lions, end up blooming huge in what was a very tight game at the end. Every time the Ravens try to rear back and make a big play on offense, it ended up being negative for them. A sack, a strip sack where it was Lamar about the launch one to, I think Nelson Aguilar. I want to say it was Bateman. It was like, it was really, really deep. And again, he had somebody underneath if he wanted to. And he hung out of that ball just one tick too long.

It gets that. So that's a strip sack. His interception is, again, him trying to go for the big shot play, get the touchdown. They also, the other plays that you're just bringing up with all the other guys. It felt like that's what the blessing can do is, Lamar can be just up and down against it because he's a big game hunter. So sometimes you lose seven coin flips in a row. And it sucks. And he's just like, what the hell?

And that's what happened today. It was less than 40%. It's hard to win that way unless you create one or two gigantic gashes. And they created three explosive plays against 20 blitzes. You need that to be like six. You need it to be, it has to be up there. Otherwise, they're just going to keep doing it too because they can just create those kind of plays. Having said that too is that I thought the below punched by Spags and this is why he's so evil.

Then all of a sudden I was third and one or third and two. And they drop back to pass. The Ravens do. and the chiefs just go cover two. They just show a blitz and they just, after we're just blitzing you over and over, we're just kind of run cover two and next play. They show another blitz. Cover two again.

Third play in a row. Show cover two again or show bliss again. Cover two again. But it was just funny because they're just like, like we know what you think we're about to do. But no, no, I'm just going to keep hitting. I'm going to slow it down a little bit. But that's what he does. This guy has seen it all.

Both of these guys. I mean, and for this back. And I think that is so important to point out. And I don't, I'm not super into the playoff experience is a difference. maker and a differentiator in these moments. But when you, I thought the Ravens were a little bit keyed up today. When you thought how emotional they were consistently, all the plays we're talking about, Lamar trying to bite it off at once, you know, flowers, I don't, the taunting penalties,

whatever. I think if you get a first down in a playoff game, you should be able to throw a ball and a guy. I don't give a shit about that. But him fumbling and then putting his hand on the bench, like it just, that was, I mean, that's, that's, that creeped up for the Ravens today. And I think that that slight difference in, the Chiefs just having. that steady heartbeat, haven't been here before a million times. Mahom is being completely unfazed by anything they threw at him in the first half.

I mean, that ends up mattering in a game like this. Talk about being on phase. The last play to win it, the one to NVS. NVS just also is Mr. January. Is that what he is? He's, you know, like Derek Jeter's Mr. November, Rich Jackson's Mr. October.

NvS is Mr. January. He's just catching these. Even Mahomes said in the post-game interview, he goes, they brought the house. He thought it was covered zero all the way. They didn't blitz, but what they did was a cover zero double on Kelsey. And the thing was, Kelsey chip helped. So he wasted two guys just by chip helping. And so there's Marcus Williams in No Man's Land.

He has eyes on Kelsey. He's like, uh, you know, what the fuck? Like he's like, what am I supposed to do now? And then there's the ball. He looked like a, you know, like a pitcher that just gave up a home run. Like, you know, just like, just going all the way over his head. But that's that, it just, it stunk. But that was a big third down.

I would double Travis Kelsey too. I totally understand that play call, but it was damn if you do, damn if you don't. We're going to let MVS beat us. Well, he beat us. Like, that's what Patrick Mahomes does. I guess he just beats us with MVS on a third long launch play. That play, I'm curious about the decision to take the time out when the Ravens did. Because when they took it, they took it at 219, was their second timeout.

And when they did that, yeah. My first reaction is, okay, now you're saying, Worst case scenario, if it's an incompletion, we would have lost 18 seconds, right? So now I think you incentivize them to throw on that third down by taking the time out when they did, and that's the completion of NVS and the game is over. Rather than letting it tick down to the two-minute warning

where they say, okay, now do we just run it because the incompletion makes a huge difference with the time? I have no idea how they would have played it out. But in that moment, my initial thought, as soon as they took the time out of 219 was, well, now you throw it. because the worst thing that can happen now is, you know, you gave them 18 seconds they wouldn't have had otherwise. So I thought that that decision in that moment was interesting.

Yeah. Maybe it was just because to get to that. Make MVSBSBs as opposed to three run plays, bleed us out or three bootleg Mahomes safer plays. It was third and nine, though. It was third and nine. So I think getting them to run the ball. Yeah. I don't know.

It's not a huge issue. I don't think it's like a game swing decision. But when it happened, I was like, now you give them a chance to throw. throw it here if they want to. Yeah, because that's always the thing, too, is like, you don't want to call time out, like, under 206, too, because, like, you give the option too. And that's why it's right on the border. I can understand you don't want to lose 20 seconds in that situation. And then, you know, who knows what happens at the two minute warning. But I thought that at that moment where it's only 19, you give read at least the option to say, we can throw it here. Or they're just maybe new.

They're like, hey, they're chucking it anyways. So like, let's get them on the other side of the two minutes. Certainly not the worst mistake that the Ravens made or the worst decision the Ravens made in this It was not. It was not. I thought that talking about adjustments, you know, people just responding as the game went along, I thought what the Ravens did in the second half defensively was really, really impressive. I mean, the Chiefs had three first downs in the second half before they had that completion to MVS. And you saw a lot of them getting to third down and then blitzing a ton with droppers from the line of scrimmage.

And the Chiefs didn't really have an answer to that on those third downs in the second half. I mean, the Ravens defense gave them a chance in this game, especially down the line of scrimmage. the back after the game. They had a couple of junk ball blitzes. I'm excited to rewatch them because I'm a nerd. And it was they really got, they got Trace Smith on one. And I think they got the backup left guard on another. But they first I thought they got the back.

And they messed with the point. It's some mess. They somehow, they somehow manipulate the slide. Washington unblocked pressure, I think. Yeah. Yeah. They had a couple real good ones. So I'm curious what they did.

Because I thought early on, one of my first notes I had was that the Chiefs, We're doing a fantastic job of sorting out the protections, of just keeping the... They were unbelievable in past protection in the first half. They were getting rid of the ball quickly, but when they weren't, they were holding up extremely well. And then there was the one third and five play where Mahomes just made the most ridiculous superhero bullshit play ever to Kelsey. Because that's what he does. Yeah. But that's, well, I thought today the lines did a good job as well.

It's when you have that protection, when you just notice that the offense aligned is the guys blocking the blitzers, that's usually what I'm looking at when I'm like, oh, this. offense knows what they're doing. This offense line knows what they're doing. And it just felt like today it was just like, oh, just time and again, Andy Heck, knows what he's doing. He knows how to find a run game that somehow works, even with a hobbled Isaiah Pacheco, even with a backup left guard in there, enough to do some damage, especially early on. But then also, they sort out the protections. I thought they did a good job. I've seen this Ravens defense manipulate past protections this entire year. They got the chiefs a couple times, but the fact to do that for an entire game where it's close where you have to drop back over and over, That's pretty impressive as well because Ravens make it as tough as anybody.

The lack of answers in the first half made a huge difference. I mean, and the third down conversions in the first half too. They had four of them, four big ones for the chiefs in the first half. The fourth and two completion to Kelsey against Brandon Stevens on the first drive. They had a mesh completion to Kelsey on third and four on the second drive. They had the third and five is insane escape by Mahomes where he rose up in the pocket, gets absolutely lit up and somehow finds Kelsey. and then there was a third and three

in the first half where he scrambled for a first down on a drive where they scored a touchdown. So their ability to pick up those third and shorts and third mediums in the first half rather than the third and longs where the Ravens could do some funkier stuff to them in the second half, that's the difference. That third and three was like,

I can't believe he got there. I know it's third and three, but I couldn't believe he got the angle. He is the fastest 4-8-5 I've ever seen. He's a devastating scrambler. I mean, just like his understanding of when to take off, how to find those lanes, situational, just the awareness and feel in those moments is ridiculous. When he knows, yeah, just when he knows that to plant his foot, just like a running back.

Just when they know how to plant their foot and do it, he knows just when to take that breath and go, I'm going right now or to manipulate the past. The one that Kelsey was just insane too. Also, talking about brilliance, even though he got called for the personal foul on it, the Roquant Smith jumping off sides on the first. Oh, my God. The person of five. Because he's the green dot, so I'm sure they went, jump off sides, hit him.

Like they said something like that. The personal file is fine for me there because the off sides, couldn't they have declined it? They could decline the off sides. Can they decline a personal foul? I don't think they can. I don't think they can because it's personal foul. In that situation, the time is way more important than the 15 yards. So everyone was like, oh, I can't, well, he shouldn't have gotten the personal file.

Who cares? They could have declined. Any yards. And the yards doesn't really matter. The yards do not matter. Yeah, it's the time. So getting a penalty that I don't think that they can't decline a personal file, I don't think.

So getting that penalty and actually stopping the clock and Getting them to the first in 10 was brilliant. I thought that was awesome. Because like you could tell Olson, like his brain popped a little bit. He's like, why did he jump? It was Robo first of all. Oh, Romo. It was.

It was. And that's why his brain popped. Brain popped. Did you hear? Yes. Did you hear? So Romo in that moment was like, well, it's second and one. He got there.

Why would you take the penalty? It's like, well, because you want the extra. He got there. It took him a while to get there. Because it's another play that they have to run. I know. He got there. He got there.

It's, I still, see, that's the thing. I actually enjoy that broadcast because it's like schlock. And so it's just, it's right up,

it's right up there for me. So, um, that's funny. I actually botched that. I actually, that's funny. It's a protein slip.

The, um, also another botch. The people that drove the line and gave Mahomes five points in the playoffs. You're telling me that Patrick Mahomes is seven and a half point underdog on a neutral field. You guys kidding me? It ended up being about seven, four and a half. But it's like, oh, man, so thank you for that one.

I just want to say that. Sorry, I have to get that out there. I will say, though, I think that whatever the lion ended up being, this was the formula for why this chief's team would be extremely dangerous. And it's a different feel to a chief's team than we've had in the playoffs up to this point in his career. And I don't, people are going to say, like, this is the worst chiefs team that Mahomes has played on.

It's just a different flavor of chiefs team that he's playing on. So then winning this game, 17 to 10, because Steve Spagnolo put Lamar Jackson in the walls of Jericho and Mahomes had to make like four crazy plays over the course of the game. That's exactly the type of formula I would expect from a Ravens or Chiefs win over the Ravens in these playoffs. It just didn't necessarily happen in the order I expected it to. Like the way they moved the ball in the first half so efficiently and then they did nothing

in the second half, I figured it would be a little bit more mixed than that. But in the end, all of the inputs and outputs are about. what you'd expect that they were going to win this game. But really, this is why this team, even though Kelsey was very iffy for a lot of this year, and then now just looks phenomenal. And it's like, oh, do do, do, do, do. Playoff Kelsey is the thing. Yeah, turn it on.

I know. They could just do that. Apparently you could do that when you're the chief. So you just NBA team it. But that it was this formula, the offensive line, even if it was, I thought, a step down from last year, I still think it's above average offensive line. Even if the run game wasn't there. the playoffs. They have played their best footballer the playoffs 100%. You still had Mahomes. They still

were moving the ball, even with the drops, even with the most being the most penalized offense. So it's like, they have to get better. Rishie Rice, they were figuring out his role. He was improving. So even just the use of Noah Gray, that that was working, like just using their personnel better. They started using beefier personnel in the playoffs and once it got cold. But just understanding all that with Spagnola, who it wasn't like last year where it was like, hey, this defense is improving. They're actually like 12th in EPA since their biweek. They're like eighth in success rate.

Since week one, this defense has been a top eight unit. Elite, which is like elite. Elite. As far as past defense and in terms of the game plan stuff that they can do in a situation like this, elite, like up there with the best defenses in the lake. When they're nearly fully powered, when they had some linebacker stuff and just other stuff, but it's like when they're near it, they have been one of the best defenses. They've taken it to some of the best offenses and have had game plans that others have copied.

that that's what they just some of the stuff that they do. But Spagnol, this defense has given everybody issues. The players, usually it's just spagnol just funkinging it up and the, you know, Chris Jones, okay, gets that big sack. Now it's players making place. They make the scheme even better and they take it over the top. That's why it was like, we're betting against this? Like, this is all this.

This is Spagnol who's going to get better as it goes along. So to me, that always just seemed like a formula. Again, I also thought this Ravens team was awesome. So I thought this was going to be a great matchup. But it just surprised me that, you know, it did look ugly. But when it came down to it, this team was still winning double digit games. This team was still winning their division. There still had impressive wins.

We just have maybe gotten a little spoiled with sometimes how it looks like. They're always going to be there because they have a homes. They have Reed and they have this freaking defense that can do this. Just because it felt different doesn't mean it was any less potent when we got to this point in the calendar. And I think that the Ravens found that out the hard way today. Two individual performances I wanted to point out before we get to the what looks what's next for the Ravens. on back-to-back drives, I want to say, either on back-to-back drives or separated by one in the first half of this game, Chris Jones and Kyle Hamilton single-handedly erased drives on their own.

Chris Jones walks a defensive lineman back into the quarterback and then has a deflection, I think, on third down. Yeah. And just completely erase. I have five people tweet at me all it was. Completely erases a drive. And on the next drive, Kyle Hamilton erases a drive on his own. He has deep coverage. John Rishi Rice, like 35 yards down the field for an incompletion.

On the next play, he shoves off a block on a screen and makes a tackle, I think, either at the line of scrimmage or behind it. And then he had a blitz and a pressure on third down that forced a throw away on three straight plays. We just completely torpedoed an entire series. He's awesome. He had tackles into flat. He was everywhere.

He looked. He's an star. He's so, he's incredible. The Chris Jones one was funny because I forgot to mention, I think, on Thursday show, he has an incentive to make the Super Bowl. So he made a million dollars a day. Million bucks a million bucks today. So if you're wondering why he was cranked up in the first quarter,

he's always brought against the quarterback. It's just the rundouts. But no, Hamilton, man, this is what he's been this whole year. And it was cool because all those examples you just brought up, coverage against the run. Coverage short and tackling.

In every way imaginable. Football player. And he had the fourth downstop. The fourth down stop that they had, he made the tackle coming around the end. And he had another TFL as a blitzer earlier in this. game. So magnificent player, like absolutely incredible player. As we look forward for the Ravens, that's what matters here, is that they still have a lot of talented guys, but this is a different

situation than what we just talked about with the Lions, just because of where the Ravens were at in their team building process. I mean, we know this. This is the best team in the NFL, according to every single advance metric. It's one of the best teams ever by DVOA. And to lose this game and to fall short of the Super Bowl, to not even get there when you have Lamar and an MVP, season, the best defense in the league, a defensive coordinator that is at the top of the game. I mean, truly one of the best defensive coaches in the NFL now very possibly will get one of these head coaching jobs and is more likely to get one of these head coaching jobs because he can start interviewing for them tomorrow again.

I believe he's meeting with Washington's brass tomorrow. And then I think he's meeting with the Seahawks brass as soon as that becomes possible. So seeing Ben Johnson get the Washington job and seeing Mike McDonald get the Seattle job, I don't think would surprise anybody. So now you're potentially losing your defensive coordinator of the best defense in football. And you got a lot of guys who are in there on one-year deals. You know, this is not a team that was necessarily built like the Lions. Genevian Clowney was on a one-year deal.

Kyle Van Nuoy was on a one-year deal. Patrick Queen is UDFA, is a UFA. Justin Matabike is a UFA. This team doesn't have a ton of financial flexibility. I mean, so this is a missed opportunity that's a lot harder to process and a lot harder to stomach than what happened with the Lions for obvious reasons. Especially because they're playing at home. So you don't even get that kind of like a little like,

playing on the road is tough. Playing at home. This is supposed to be their year. There's no way around it. Yeah. The defense, like you said, they've won the best metrics of DVOA,

all the underlying numbers. They had a defense that gives the biggest issues to good quarterbacks, which is what you want in the playoffs. You want a defense that can be that kind of chameleon defense, be that roll of decks coverage stuff. That's literally what you want to do. I mean, this is what you want from your defense.

They can get after the quarterback. Their offense can run the ball or throw the ball. They have what we thought were some man answers. They may be, okay, weren't perfect, but very good. By all metrics, top 10. Like you said, it's a missed opportunity because you don't get this. You don't get the stars a line where they did have some health concerns, but they overcame so many and they found different answers and they proved themselves again and again.

And it's just like, oh, just that what, they don't get the turnover. They get the turnover. overs. Like, they turned the ball over. They turned the ball over on the times that they thought they were about to have a big play. And it's like, just like, right, that's it. Like, really on our biggest moments, but we're just not going to not only not get there. We turn the ball over. Like that, that's just where you're at. It's just, yeah, total, total missed opportunity. It's kind of stinks because really felt like this Ravens team had so many answers. And what you get a quote unquote down year from Patrick Mahomes in this chief's team, you don't always get that either because it's just always,

they're going to be the beast there at the end. They're always going to be the monster at the end. He's always going to be the monster at the end, especially in this AFC. That's just how it's going to go. And you had plenty of answers this year, plenty of weapons this year, and just, ah, it's frustrating. And you had other things go your way this year. You know, Burrow gets hurt, so the Bengals are a little bit less dangerous.

You know, Mahomes has not have the type of offense that he typically has, even if the defense is great. I don't know if they. Injuries, yeah. I don't know if there's going to be a better opportunity for them in the AFC with the way that this team played with the advantage that McDonald gave them. And that's not to say they can't get back because I think there's a lot to be excited about.

The way that their offense was able to evolve and mature, kind of step into this new version of who they are, that all for the most part is coming back. Lamar is 26 years old. It's going to be 27 next season. He's played at an MVP level this year. He's a two-time MVP. Despite some tough moments for him today, I think Zay Flowers is going to be a really, really good player.

The whole drive was him. He's fantastic. I love watching him play. He is a dynamic presence. You know, their offensive line, most of those pieces are going to come back. Morgan Moses is going to be a little bit older. But you have a lot of the core pieces on offense coming back. Defensively, you're going to have to replace some contributors and potentially your defensive coordinator.

But there are still a huge pocket and underlying level of young talent on this team that will make them relevant for a really long time. But like you said, it all aligned this year. It all fell into place. The stars were aligned for this to be the year that they did it. And for Mahomes to come out on the other side again. Again, this is just what he is, man. This is what he is and what they are. And I think that two other names that you mentioned with Andy Reid, again,

just every single time rising to this occasion, what Spagnolo has done, and playoff Travis Kelsey at the stage of his career. I mean, 11 catches on 11 targets, including some incredible high leverage moments. Big plus. they are still a force to be reckoned with. They are still the monster at the end of the road. And now it's the Niners. Now the Niners get to see if they can slay, the dragon, slay, the monster, whatever

mixed metaphor you want to use and try to exercise those demons. And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of ruminating on that here over the next couple weeks. A little repeat matchup. I know. It's just even think, just talk about characters. That's perfect for this next one. That was the Nick Bosa. Oh, my God.

We got to give Chip Hull. game that turned into WASP. There's so many big moments. That was Fred Warner had a great moments. I want to say one last thing with the Ravens. I hope, and I don't think he will. Todd Munkin won't go anywhere. I'm really excited to see another year with Lamar and Todd Munkin together.

Same. Working together and seeing this next step. Usually you see the second year kind of launched with an O.C. and quarterback as they go, ah, we tried that in week 14 didn't work. Well, man, we really, remember we experimented with that? Divisional round, we checked into that. Let's lean it at. So, really, that's one.

thing that I'm kind of glad Monct didn't get a head job. I think he interviewed with a couple spots, but I'm glad he didn't because I want to see these two work even more because there's been some cool things these two have done even when they got their brains together this year. I think that's such a great point because we just because they were so good and Lamar won the MVP, there's an expectation that when they get to this moment, there'll be a fully finished product. They'll have an answer to every single problem. They'll know exactly how to combat this kind of stuff. It's year one. It's really hard to have all of that terrain covered with what sort of pivot points you have as an offense, what sort of answers you have, teams exploiting your weaknesses.

So going into year two, I think that there should be more of those answers. And if they can do the type of retooling that we've seen them do personnel-wise in the past, this is going to be a really good team again. But they let this one still do their fingers. There's no way around that. Now we got Niners Chiefs all over again here in Las Vegas. I'm hosted. I am pumped.

Early line, Niners minus two. So, I mean, we're looking at a very good football game, I think. Yeah. A lot of things are going to be fun to break down. So I'm excited to see you guys. I'm excited to get out there. I will be there a week from today. So we'll be out there all week.

We made it. And we'll have tons of fun stuff coming to your guys as way as Super Bowl week. I think we'll have a show pretty much every single day. We'll have some conversations, hopefully, with our beat writers that week. You know, just all the fun Super Bowl stuff that we've done over the last couple years will be coming your way again. I will be paying off the wins league bet during Super Bowl week. So we will, you guys will get a indication of what that is. It's terrible.

And I'm already not looking forward to it at all. So that'll be coming your guys's way. This week got some fun stuff. We're going to do instead of our preview show, because there's nothing to preview. Like I mentioned earlier on the show, Barnwell is going to be coming on and we'll be breaking down the lessons that we can learn. Team building wise, how these teams were put together, how they spent their money, just what we can learn from the Final Four and what stuff we can potentially take moving forward. One of our favorite shows that we do every single year.

Other than that, regularly scheduled programming in the pocket. Actually, excuse me, that's wrong. Yeah. In the pocket is becoming your way on Wednesday this week. Prospects to Prospects will be coming your way on Thursday. A little switcheroo because of the Senior Bowl. So that is the one thing to keep in mind. But that's it.

Dane's down there. We got our man on the spot. Dane Bruehler would be there. So we'll be coming off fresh off practice, I think, from the Mobil, Alabama. So we'll have day in. So it'll be a fun episode. I can't wait to hear what he's seen down there. And I got, I got some tape to grind, some one-on-ones that I'm sure I'm going to see on Twitter that people are not going to make a big deal about, but I can't wait to break it down. I'll let you guys take care of that. My draft schedule here is still about two and a half months away.

All right. You're getting up. That's all we got, guys. A fantastic day of football. Sincerely appreciate you guys hanging out with us. We will be back a little bit later this week. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you soon. Football Show.