The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Divisional Round Sunday Recap: Patriots handle Texans, Rams outlast Bears in OT

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

And then there were four. The Conference Championship games are set. Joining the Denver Broncos in the AFC are the New England Patriots after taking care of business against the Houston Texans on Sunday. On the NFC side of things, we get the third installment of Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams, with the latter winning a thriller over the Chicago Bears in overtime on Sunday night. Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman recap the Divisional Round Sunday games on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Rundown (timestamps are approximate)4:00 Rams beat Bears to advance to NFC Championship Game37:42 Patriots cruise past Texans to AFC Championship GameHost: Robert MaysCo-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerVideo Producer: Katy DuffyAudio Producer: Michael BellerSocial Producer: Scott KrinchFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Divisional Round weekend is officially in the books. Some really fun games, not a very fun ending. A phenomenal Bears season. This is a game where I'm going to go back and forth a thousand different times about all the little sliding doors moments and the things that could have gone differently.

We dug into all of that. And how frustrating a game like this is, but also trying to celebrate what this year was and how much fun I had and how much fun we had on the show. So a lot of discussion about the bears falling short to the Rams, followed that up with a huge win by the New England Patriots over a Texan team that had an especially ugly day, especially on offense.

So we talked about that, where we're at with C.J. Stroud, what this means, and how the Patriots were ultimately able to get over the hump and get back to the AFC championship game. So let's dig into that with me, Derek Classen, and Dave Hellman right now. Great game. Tough way for a dent. I guess that's what I'll say to start things off. I don't even know how to begin this conversation. Yeah, I mean, either.

It feels surreal that it's wild that the Bears got another just bat shit moment in a year that's been full of them. And I don't know. You do that. You do what Caleb did on the fourth and four. I mean, everything is earned in the NFL. But when that happened and just the gut punch that it must have. bend to the Rams, you kind of, you think the magic is going to last. And it's surreal to get that play and not get the win.

And then you come out and you get the stop on the first possession of overtime. To come out and get the stop right away and you get the ball back. And if you go down, you kick a field goal, you win the game, and you're driving. And it's second and eight. And we can go over whether more stops on that play, which he does and how to divvy up blame. It's a ball, even if he fully runs that route, you probably don't need to throw on second and eight.

that's a contested play no matter what happens, but then he stops the route. So that's a gut punch on its own. And then when the Rams get the ball back in that situation, it's like the defense had been phenomenal all night, and we can dig into that. Like the performance from the Bears defense in this game and the fight that they showed throughout this entire thing,

to get up 17 in regulation is just a remarkable performance by then. But at a certain point, you know they're going to get something going. It is a really good group with really talented players. And then for Stafford to make that throw to Devante Adams, I mean, that's the fact that I'm on the other end of it is the only reason I'm not thinking it's not the best throw of the entire season, maybe other than a couple of the ones that Caleb William has made. So, I mean, just you knew as soon as that interception happened,

you're probably playing with fire, and that's exactly what happened. But top to bottom, there is a lot to be impressed with with this entire game from the Bears. And I think to me, too, like that's why that really critical third down at the end that they convert, I think to Pukunak and Akua, where he hits him over the hash. and the bears bring everybody that they've got. I think in a lot of those situations where a team brings cover zero and the other team converts, it's like, why did we blitz there? But if you watch the entire rest of the game, it's like,

that's how the bears were living and dying. It was load in the line of scrimmage. And there were certain plays where they were dropping guys out and only bringing four. But their whole game plan was we're going to put seven guys on the line of scrimmage. Some of them are going to be DBs and we're going to bring it. And that was the one time kind of like you said, they just got beaten. And earlier before that was the Adams play. Like this was ultimately a game where I think,

both offenses and both quarterbacks were very capable of that go down and do it drive. The Rams quarterback has just done it for what, 16 years now and he did it again with some of the best wide receivers that you could ask for. And that's a play on that third and six cover zero. Like

Byard has to trigger quicker on that. Like that's immediately where the ball is going. Like you have to understand the situation where that outlet's going to be. But I don't want to sit here and nitpick like the play from the Bears defensive backs over the course of this game. For the most part, they were phenomenal. And I mean, Dennis Allen,

kind of toggling back and forth between we talked about it, Derek, coming into the game. I thought that for the most part, if you look at the percentages over the first half, they were mostly blitzing on early downs. And that's what I wanted them to do. You saw a lot of the DBs coming off the edge to help in the run game.

It was really disrupting any of the play action stuff that the Rams wanted to do. You get Kyle or Gordon for the sack at one point. But then they started playing with it where there was one third down where they dropped it and they played man behind it. There was one where they are mugged up, they bluff it, there's a screen, and they kind of coax them into throwing a screen on third and ten.

I just thought that, especially for the first half, really for a good majority of the game, Dennis Allen was really on the front foot and just doing such an incredible job of kind of dictating how that side of the ball would go. And, I mean, McVeigh was kind of out of sorts. Like the fact that they weren't running the ball very much, the fact that they were in 11 personnel on like 31 of their 34 first half plays, when they started to run the ball in the second half,

that's when they started shipping away at it. And eventually they realized that's what they needed to do to consistently move the ball. But the fact that the bears were able to so firmly force them out of their game by the way that they were playing on defense and the way that they were using some of those pressures, it was just a fantastic game plan and performance from those guys. I know they were healthier than they've been at a lot of times this year,

and I'm sure the snow played a factor and slowed the Rams down a little bit. But the secondary was ridiculous. in this game for all the reasons you just detailed but to get the and I remember like I remember when the Bears drafted Jalen Johnson and when they drafted Tyreek Stevenson Chiquan Brisker and Kyler Gordon and

they looked like the idealized version of that that Bears fans dreamed of after those picks where you know all these young guys are going to play on the back end together and just make life hard on on opposing offenses and throw in Kevin Byard and C.J. Gardner Johnson

as well and you would you would have never get, like I said, I know they were healthier, but you would have never guessed the secondary was such a problem for the bears all year. It's nice to have the full collection of guys and you hope to have a good, there's a couple of free agents in there and we'll do the Bears post-mortem on the hangover tomorrow, but there's reason to believe and reason to be excited about what that secondary can be moving forward. This is one of those games where you're just going to sit there and think about all of the what-ifs, just all of those sliding doors moments.

And obviously the interception and overtime is part of that, but you can go back to the first drive of the game. I mean, Rome drops that ball. on the goal line on third down, where if he catches that, the bear's score a touchdown, you know, it's seven and nothing. They start the game as about as well as you possibly could have. That's the only one on that fourth down where Ben Johnson goes for,

where I think you maybe could have made an argument for kicking the field goal. I don't really have any issue with him going for it. Any of the other ones, no problem whatsoever. I honestly think the one thing I might have done differently is he doesn't go for it on the fourth and two deep into the game. And you can make an argument for him maybe going forward on that one. So I don't think he was overly aggressive at any point. I mean, this idea that if you take them individually, the first one, fine.

If you want to kick a field goal there, I'm not going to bitch and moan about it. If you, the second one that they score a touchdown on, obviously that's the right move, the fourth and one from the back half of field goal range from the 32-yard line, you go for that every single time. And then the fourth and two, he doesn't go for later on. So those decisions in terms of going forward on those four downs I have no problem with, the play calls on some of them. The fourth and one, to condense it that much

and to just try to run the ball in that manner, that's one where I think you probably want it back. And if you look at it all game, I want to say the Bears had like a 33% success rate out of 13 personnel today. They were doing it more than I thought they would because the Rams were playing base to 12 on early downs, and that's where the Bears were getting some of their explosives early on.

And so I'm surprised they kept going back and trying to run the ball out of 13 personnel when it wasn't working. and on that fourth and one, I think that's obviously the worst possible example of it not working in this game. I don't like the bully ball on fourth and one and on the fourth and goal

before they forced the punt, the one that Omar Spates tipped away, phenomenal play on his part, almost broke up the first one. I'd like to get Caleb on the move in a situation like that because his mobility is so useful. I don't have the problem with that call at all. I just think that's a great play by Omar Spates.

It was a phenomenal play. And he, so the two guys on that defense, I mean, they reverse had several really nice plays against the run. Laman had multiple really nice plays against the run. But the two guys I'm going to think about when I look back at the performance the Rams defense had in this game, one of them is Omar Spates. He, on that play, if you watch it happen, they send DJ Moore on a little shallow. And the whole hope is you're yanking Spate's out of there for Burden, who is lined up as an H-back to kind of come back there with the angle route. Spate's does a great job of bumping that thing and passing it off. So he's just sitting there to get that PBA.

And then the fourth and one that they don't get on the Monongai run, we're talking about that big set where they got stuff. On third and one, Spate's comes flying downhill to make that play. He doesn't get the tackle, but he breaks that play up to stop it. So he has multiple game swinging plays. There was a screen in the first half where Menangai had a ton of space. It looked like it was going to be a huge game. It looked like it was going to be a massive play.

And Space makes that play in space. and then Cam Curl had just a handful of plays in this game. He gets the fourth and one stop on the third and one where they ultimately kick, where they punt when you, I didn't want them to. He's the one that forces that thing back inside from the line of scrimmage, and he's got the fantastic pass breakup on that throw down the left sideline. So those two guys for the Rams defense today, which also just as a unit played such a good game.

Those are the two guys, Derek, that I'll just think about over and over and over again and what they contributed to this thing. I thought they were phenomenal. And like for Cam Curl, I think what makes the Cam Curl thing so interesting is when they brought him in, the idea was that he's kind of more of a top down play everything in front of you, play a little bit more in the box guy. Obviously, they've used Quentin Lake a lot more for that.

What he did in this game was really as like a deep defender, really in terms of coverage. Like obviously he has the breakup that you just talked about where he gets to the sideline. The recognition and like squeezing that all the way they're flying over, making contact there. I mean, that ball is obviously caught by DJ Moore if he doesn't. make that hit, I don't think. And then on the interception, uh, at the end in overtime, he, his discipline on that play was incredible. He's kind of in the middle of the field there. And they have, I think the inside receiver to the left is Roma Dune's day. He's running up the field and he stutters over the field as if he's going to run this deep over route. And then he cuts back up the field and that that's supposed to

like kind of hold curl in the middle of the field so that then DJ Moore on his over route running right under that is able to spring free. Caleb assumes that that's how that's going to work. Cam Curl has like incredible discipline there and just drives on it. So I just thought he played a phenomenal game and did a really good job of making sure that he could take away a couple of the explosives that the Bears wanted because we know that that's how they're passing offense lived. We talked about it coming into the game is that if they can hit eight to nine of those downfield shots instead of four or five, that's how they win the game.

And because of Cam Curl, they weren't able to hit as many of them as they needed. Again, just so many like, man, if that goes slightly different moments. And for the Bears receivers, there have been a lot of 50, 50 balls. tested catches this season that they just haven't come down with. I mean, it is a young, exciting group, but Dunez, specifically, it has been a tough season for him when you look at those situations specifically. And in this game, Loveland had a couple that glanced off his hands, Burton had a couple that glanced off his hands. It's cold. It happens. But again, you just kind of revisit those moments. And then this is a team that just had phenomenal turnover luck the entire year.

And in this game, you have multiple strip sacks that you don't end up falling on. And then turn the ball over three times, it's just all these little tiny things over the course of the game. Not only do you not get the turnover luck, but it really felt like the Rams had magnets drawing the ball back to them. Like to have the strip sack that Stafford punches, again, it's a freezing cold game, so the ball's hard. It theoretically should go anywhere. And he managed to direct it right to Kyron Williams, which I believe is who he was targeting anyway. And then on the second one, Dominique Robinson hits the shit out of him. and it just bounces right back up into his rib cage,

like just brutal bounces for a team that got so many good ones over the course of the year. The other situational thing for the Rams outside of the fact that they weren't running the ball as often as they should have in this game, the two moments where I was like, man, I can't believe they're doing this. The third and 10, where they run the ball with 207 left

and just kind of concede possession, when the Bears still had a timeout left, That's one where, I don't know, man, like, you got a chance to win the game here potentially. You only give up seven seconds. They're going to have two-ohs, they're going to have the two-minute warning and a time-out. Like, I just feel like the risk-reward there is in your favor. And for them to kneel it with 13 seconds left when they had two timeouts, like, those are two moments.

As somebody who obviously desperately wanted the Bears to win this game, I was cheering when each of those things happened. I thought it was really surprising. I would go as far as to say I was furious at Sean McVeigh and like not because I have a rooting interest in this game but it just felt so obviously

poor and particularly like the way the situation was set up on the third and 10 there's two minutes and seven seconds left on the clock the bears have a timeout and the two minute obviously the two minute warning is right there so a run like if you could conceivably burn

40 seconds by running the ball I still don't agree but I can at least understand the math of killing off 25% of the remaining game clock. When you're doing that to kill seven seconds and you know unless you pop an explosive, they're getting the ball at midfield. Like even the best punt ever would put them at like the 38 yard line. And then they didn't get the best punt ever. They got the ball at midfield.

So to think that that is the right way to do this when you have a guy who might win MVP is baffling to me. And I don't know, it reeked of fear. Maybe McVeigh was worried about the, you know, the blitzes, the way that the Bears had been contesting throws all night. It could theoretically go really, really south on you. But I don't know, man. You got a potential MVP and a potential offensive player of the year on your team.

Go win the game. Go win the game. And then with 13 seconds left and they still had, they had two timeouts, right? They had it. Yeah, the Rams had two timeouts. The Rams had two timeouts. Yeah. 13 seconds.

Like, look at the play Devante made an overtime. Yeah. When you, when Matthew Stafford. is your quarterback. I mean, you, you can run two plays. You can run two plays in 13 seconds and you can get a chunk in those 13 seconds. I found it really surprising. It worked out and the Rams won the game.

But man, I was I was flabbergasted and disappointed in Sean McVeigh because I think so, so highly of him. And yeah, I just, I didn't think that those, I didn't think he met those moments, but the Rams, the Rams got out of it, so I guess it worked out. The one, the Caleb and Williams interception we haven't really talked about, the one he throws to Durant, that's a really nice play by Kobe Durant, but it's also one where like, that one's like, you have to feel him sinking there. And like that of the three interceptions, that's the one where I'm like.

And you don't have a flat controller. Yeah, exactly. That's kind of the issue. They're running like a, the player on the outside is running like a little five in-rout, so the flat player passes him off and there's nothing to do. And Durant, like you said, incredible job of immediately passes that guy off. He's got nobody else. He flies up to get under that.

And he goes and attacks that. I did think one like small thing from Caleb Williams in terms of battling back, there was a play later on in the game where he throws basically that exact same route on a third and 10 to convert to Romadunzee. In that case, they had a flat controller. So obviously there's a little bit more help there. But like that to me was a cool moment of like, okay, you battle back from a mistake that you made later in the game. Obviously, then he goes on to throw another interception. But I did just think that the way that a lot of the Rams DBs were really closing on stuff.

because even to go back to his first interception, I think that one looks worse on the stat sheet than like it is in reality. It's already for it down. And incompletion gets you in the same spot anyway. But if you watch it, obviously Caleb throws it a little bit high and that's why it gets tipped up. The Rams DB, I forget which safety was, is already driving on that. It was Quinn Lake.

Again, they were excellent on the back end tonight. Incredible. Like they were excellent. The way that they were consistently closing windows. And so Quentin Lake slamming down on that thing. In the moment, I think it's the right read by Caleb Williams, it's the right decision. It's a little wide, but Quinn Lake is slamming down on that thing. The only, again, the only of the three picks, the one where I'm just like, ah, is the one to Duran,

where that he just doesn't feel that. Durant sinks into it and it's an interception. But overall, and I guess we can get into this part of the conversation, anything else, like specifically gameplay guys, I mean, Jaquant Brisker, I think is worth mentioning, like, Jaquant Brisker had the game of his season, like, unquestionably. He had that drive where he just kills an entire drive. And so the performance by him, he's about to hit free agency. And so that's going to be a conversation and a question that either him or the bears or

somebody else is going to have to answer. But I thought he had the best game of his entire season tonight. I think in a game where we thought all of the back seven, like both sides might get picked on, like they were all great. Like all the dbs in this game rose to the occasion. I think that's the last thing. I want to shout out to like Brisker obviously had an incredible game overall. He had that three play sequence where he basically does everything by himself.

There was one earlier on in the game where they try to hit him. He's playing as like the deep half safety. They try to run like an out and up doesn't bite on the out at all and stays on top of the vertical route, breaks that up. And then the other guy I wanted to shout out. Kyler Gordon had a couple of incredible moments. And there was there was a third and 10 where he just blanks Pukinakua on the out route and gives Stafford no window.

And it was like some of what the Bears were. were doing in coverage was the scheme stuff, you know, dropping coverage guys and making these weird windows for Stafford kind of scaring with Mick Vey and Stafford into checking into some of these screens. But there really were too, like three or four occasions where it's like the Bears dbs that coming into the season I think we were excited about and didn't get to see for a lot of the season, played about as well as they could have in this game. That the Kyler Gordon sack is the last play I wanted to mention because I thought the other guy that it's not going to show up on the stat sheet and literally it's just me watching the dots back in some of these plays. The Kyler

Gordon's sack. The Bears looks like a man look pre-snap. They blitz. They actually rotate back in a cover two from a mugged up look. And DeMarco Jackson was at the line of scrimmage and he gets all the way under like a big dig from Devante Adams, which is where Stafford wanted to go with the ball. And so because he has to double clutch it, as Kyler kind of dips around

Parkinson, that's why he has the time to make that play and to get the sack. And so there was just so many things about the Bears defense working in concert with one another tonight. And so to give up, to allow a 35 and a half percent success rate to that offense and to lose the game is it's tough like it's just a really tough thing to stomach even if you can understand again based on those five six small little moments how it gets there that's going to be one that is i think it's difficult to get over it's easy to say this in hindsight now but we had a good chat about it while they were driving

would you would you consider going for two and just avoiding overtime altogether i thought about it but the The short yardage stuff has been so bad all game. That's why I was a little bit spooked by that. I try to act tough and brave. Like I would be willing to do that. But the way it was going for the Bears all night in short yardage, I don't think I would have had the guts. And the thing is, it's not hindsight here.

You get the stop at the beginning of overtime. You have an opportunity to win the game. It's not as if you, we got lucky all game. And then as soon as they got the ball in overtime, they turned into the offense that they were. You got the stop you needed. The offense could not score. And if this had been a 35, 38 game where, yeah, you give it back to them and it's like,

they're probably going to score again. If we give them a chance to, that's not how this game was playing. Like we have talked about the Bears defense was playing incredibly well. They were getting stops. They were in McVeigh's head, I thought. And so I think for them to, I think just in terms of pure TV product, we obviously all would have wanted them to go for two. But again, with some of the short yardage issues they had, especially near the goal line,

and especially very recently in some of their other possessions, I totally understand why they wanted to just extend the game and hope that they could get a couple of plays. And then again, they were driving on their overtime possession and just kind of throw that that funky pick at the end. Yeah, well, I'm not criticizing. I don't blame them for kicking the extra point. But there is something romantic about somebody's going to win, somebody's going to lose on one snap. But I don't have an issue with the way they played it.

I guess one more thing I wanted to say. And I don't, I don't care about Caleb's completion percentage. I'm not interested in that conversation. but, you know, the pick that gets the Rams, the ball, and sets them up for the game-winning drive, it is fitting the right word? I don't know, but like the bears have such a tendency for head-scratching moments.

And like when it isn't incredibly good and explosive, shit like that can happen. That's when I was saying the other week that Caleb is arguably the most entertaining player in the league. It's because there's such high variance when the ball goes downfield. And so to get the commencement, touchdown and then an interception where you're just like, what, what just happened here?

I think it's very fitting. I'm going to pull back even further. The play before the commit touchdown, he has roam in the flat for an easy completion that would have gotten them a first down and he sails it. And so it's- Oh my God, I forgot about that. You don't even have to go to multiple drives. You can just go two plays in a row to kind of talk about that. And what was frustrating, too, I thought with Caleb in this game, is that post-snap,

some of his decision-making and some of the accuracy was really frustrating. but I thought pre-snap he was nails like getting them into into in and out of some of these plays The check into the second into the gun run on third and third down is like that's a moment where you're just like man that just that that is some really nice command from a guy and you're one of this

offense and like to the left where they had really not been running for most of that game there was even a little bit earlier in the second quarter with like six and a half minutes to go where it's a first and 10 under center the Rams are like showing pressure off the right side the open side and he sees it right before the snap and throws that little swing to, I think it was DeAndre Swift.

Just like the little stuff like that where pre-snap he was seeing it, I think it was like once he got off one or two post-snap that he started to speed himself up at times and make some of those mistakes. I think that's a good jumping off point for this conversation. We'll talk about what the Bears off-season will look like tomorrow. Talking about what the Bears' season looked like, this is fun of shit, man. I mean, it just, to have it end like this is unbelievably frustrating. And when you have a chance to win, multiple chances to win a divisional round game,

there are no moral victories to that. But I think it's really hard not to be satisfied with the season overall and what this year was for the Bears. On an emotional level, I think this is the most fun I've ever had being a Bears fan. I think this is the most fun season I think I've ever been a part of. The 2010 season, the 2006 season is probably in that conversation when they went to the Super Bowl. Yeah, but the way they won those games. I think 06 in this is what I would say. Because you look back at that 06 season,

you have that Monday night Cardinals game that was just, I guess since that year, since the year they went to the Super Bowl, I think this is the most fun I've had watching this team. 2010 year was incredibly fun. I loved watching Julius Peppers on that team, the defense, kind of the resurgence that they had that year. But this season and just,

I think it's just because everything they wanted it to be kind of came into focus. Like the entire argument for what this year could have been when you hire Ben Johnson is. You had this guy who's fantastically talented who was completely drowning as a rookie. You hire an offensive coach that is supposed to be one of these guys

who creates an ecosystem that is consistently putting you in the right spots. And that has just never been. I said this a million times before they hired him. The Bears have never hired a play-calling offensive coordinator to be their head coach, one that has had consistent success,

a model that we've seen work for how many other teams, the Bears had never even done it. The offensive coaches they hired were Matt Nagy and Mark Trussman. And so, again, I've made this joke a thousand times, but the head coaching issues for the Bears, it was very much a, we haven't tried anything and were a lot of ideas.

And so to have them seek out this archetype and to watch it happen this way, where even when they were, the way they were installing the offense in camp and everything you heard about that, and the fact that they were really overloading them, and it was going to take a pairing back process over the course of the year,

the first four weeks of the season are very sloppy. they're all over the place. They win that game against the Raiders, but they didn't play well. They come out of the buy. The run game starts clicking. You start seeing the progress happen. Then as the season goes,

it's incredibly up and down and incredibly volatile because it's a young team that, again, is just kind of figuring out what the offense is even supposed to be. And then you really start to see it down the stretch. And you start to see the flashes from the young weapons and what Colson Loveland can potentially be. And you watch these moments from Luther Burden

and the way that he moves. and then with Caleb Williams specifically, he's not there yet. He's not there yet. There is some smoothing out around the edges that still needs to happen. I think that how quickly, I said this before, there are times where he's playing a little bit too fast

and there are times where he's playing a little bit too slow. But you see the undeniable progress. And I think they feel it in the building too. I think they, when they say he is a different player now than he was the beginning of the season or he was an OTA specifically. I think they truly mean that. And so the overall trajectory,

and we do this all the time with young teams, it can be dicey to do this all the time with young teams, but to walk out of this season and feel so good and so positive and optimistic about the ecosystem and environment that your coach is going to create an offense, the supporting cast of offensive talent, and what the quarterback, what the trend line looks like from the quarterback,

and to watch him consistently have these moments at the end of these games and to be really unbothered in a lot of these moments at the end of these games. It just there is so much to be really, really excited about moving forward, even if tonight fucking sucks. The Bears have been a factory of sadness caliber franchise for quite some time. They won the division and the quarterback they drafted number one overall who had the fourth best rookie season

of his draft class last year? Like, Jaden, Beau and Drake all looked more promising than Caleb. I think that's

undeniable. And so to come out of this season, having won the division, the relationship between your head coach and your quarterback looks like it's going to work

moving forward, which was another thing. Not everybody was sold about heading into the year. Which I never understood. Fair, but it was still there. Your rookie class looks encouraging.

and Caleb Williams looks like a quarterback that you can build a contender around over the next few years. I mean, it's an unmitigated success. Even knowing, you know, if I had to guess, this team's going to be a candidate for regression. Of course. The fluky bullshit that they got away with this year just screams regression.

But even still, this can be a good team that factors into the NFC North and the NFC race for the next few years. And that is, that's, it's wild to think about because even all but the most optimistic Bears fans weren't sold that that was realistic as recently as September. They won 11 games.

I think the hope is you win 11 games, but you're a much better football team. I think that's the hope for what next season looks like. The turnovers are obviously never going to be in the same stratosphere of what they were this year. You had really good offensive line health for most of the season. So there are so many factors that are going to be pulling you down as you hope the progress and the development and the improvement from a very young

offense can kind of pull you in the other direction. You never know, and Dan Campbell very famously said it after the Lions lost that game in the NFC championship. You never know when you're going to get back. But we've seen teams that kind of have this steady progress from year one to year two. And if I'm trying to point out the one where I find the most hope and excitement, the 2017 Rams when McVeigh got there, they losing the wildcard round. to Atlanta. They were in a very similar situation where you had the number one pick. And talk about Factory of Sadness, that was a moribund franchise before McVeigh got there.

They were so lost in the wilderness. They got to L.A., and they were in the Jeff Fisher era, and it just felt dead. It was lifeless. He gets there. They have that huge jump. The offense is good right away. They're a top five offense that year. They losing the divisional round, and then next year they go to the Super Bowl.

I'm not saying that's going to happen. But we've seen this where you kind of build incrementally and you can take these steps. And the fact that the Bears, by the end of the season, they finish fifth and weighted offensive DVOA. It's herky jerky, it's up and down, it's inconsistent. But I do think that there is a nugget of something there that you can truly believe in.

And I cannot remember leaving a bear season feeling that way about that side of the ball the way I do right now. And at least offensively, like that Rams team, I do feel like this is closer to that than I know the two teams everyone is going to probably bring up, especially over the offseason, are what we felt about Houston after Stroud's rookie year and Washington after Jayden Daniels rookie year.

But so much of that was guided by just the rookie quarterback is sensational. Whereas I think even if you just look back at Washington, like Cliff had a decent year, they got away with some stuff on the offensive line. But it was an aging roster and they still had a lot to fix and we knew that. You look at the stability of, I know some of the offensive line pieces have had injuries, issues before with the Bears,

but this is a really, really good offensive line similar to what the Rams had when 2017, the way that they built that. thing. And then you just look at some of the young talent here. You look at bringing in an offensive coordinator who was really good now being your head your head coach, which that was really not the case with these two other teams in Houston and Washington.

Like it just, the foundation to me feels more similar to that Rams team than the two other teams I just mentioned. Speaking of which, did we shout out Joe Tuny kicking out to left tackle on two days notice? I still hate it. You can hate it all you want. The man bald.

What a dog. Hall of Famer. I really hope. Next gen credits him with five pressures allowed on 45 pass blocks and no sacks. Playing against Jared Verse for you. Playing against Jared Verse and finding out he was going to be doing it on Wednesday or Thursday. And I think, Derek, the last point I'll make

when you talk about that regression for those specific teams, and again, it can come for everybody for a whole host of reasons. Ben Johnson for the last three years, at least, at least three years, maybe four years. I'd have to look at the numbers. So 2025, definitely. 24 or 225, 2025, 2024, 2020,

and then in 2022, yes. The end of 2022, they were really good. So for the last four years, Ben Johnson has been the architect of an offense that has finished top five and weighted offensive DVOA for the last four years. That is the stuff that can have staying power. That's it.

And so that is what you were betting on. And it, again, will take more progress from the quarterback because I'll keep saying it. Now that the season's over, I think it's safer to say it. He's not there. yet. He is not there yet. He is exciting, but the calibration is still not where it needs to be in a lot of these moments. And I absolutely think he can get there. And I think that the progress and

the line and the trajectory of it, I think shows you that he's potentially on his way there, but he's not there yet. And so, but you have that sort of offense with a quarterback that still has some margins to fill in. I just think that there's a lot to be excited about. It's been really fun and exciting going on this ride with you and Beller and Scott and Katie and most of the people that work on this show are Bears fans and just being in Chicago for it. What an incredible right. Having said all that kumbaya shit, which I do mean, but can I just say something? And I find my, I found myself like wanting the Bears to succeed for y'all. Ram Seahawks three is what this season needed to finish with. Like this, I'm totally fine with that. I said this week. I said if that's

the consolation to the Bears losing is that I get Ram Seahawks 3 that I can live with that reality. I said this to a friend of mine. We were texting back and forth like during a commercial break at the end of the game and he was like, man, Bears, Bears getting to Seattle would be, it would be such a cool story. And I was like, it would be. Ram Seahawks, NFC title game is the better game. Like, you can't convince me otherwise. And so it was really fun to watch this. I'm pumped about this and I'm not upset that the Rams found a way to get it over the finish line because of what that means for next weekend. Give me 24 hours.

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Give me 24 hours and I will be really, really excited. You are allowed to be there. That is totally fair. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. Get to the next one here. The Patriots knock off the Texans, 28 to 16.

They will be heading to Denver for the AFC championship game. what a weird, weird football game. Like, it's just on so many different levels. This was a bizarre game. I think my favorite part of this watching this entire broadcast was with, I think it was five minutes left in the third quarter. They flashed a graphic that said this was the most turnovers in a playoff game, which at that point it was eight in a decade since Panthers Cardinals in 2015.

And that was with three minutes left or five minutes left in the third quarter. I don't actually, I don't think there was another turnover. after that, but just like a ridiculous, ridiculous game. The one stat, I want to talk, we can talk about both sides of the ball, but the Patriots offense in this game scores 21 points against the Texans defense. But it's not a bad day, right?

Like, the Texans defense has been blanking people recently. The Patriots finished this game, scoring 21 points on offense, with a 30.6% offensive success rate. The stat that really jumped out to me and just how strange the rhythm of the game felt on that, side of the ball. The Patriots, True Media, has a stat called drive conversion rate, which is essentially how, what percentage of your sets of downs lead to a new set of downs? It was 52%

for the Patriots. It's very low, right? It was the second lowest of the entire weekend, only the Texans were worse. Here's how strange this sort of game was. Since 2010, there have only been 10 games where there was a drive conversion success rate of 52% or less, and the team scored at least 28 points. For the most part, when you're not continuing drives and getting first downs, you're not scoring at the rate the Patriots were. One is a defensive touchdown, but there's only been one of those games with 52% or less and 28 points that's happened since 2013.

It's how strange for a performance it was for the Patriots. But beyond the defensive touchdown, their three touchdown drives were incredibly impressive. They just did absolutely nothing outside of those three touchdown drives. So beyond the disaster show that the Texans offense was, Even the Patriots offense was incredibly bizarre in this game in terms of how things went. Well, and think of the margins for at least two of those touchdowns, if not all three. The first one, they run that little slant to the Mario Douglas.

They're trying to run cover zero. And Kalen Bullock, I think, is the safety drives down on it. He gets fingertips on it. It just like has enough juice on it that it goes through. Douglas is able to catch it. The next touchdown, Drake May rips a slant route in between two defenders. to Stefan Dixon, he hangs on to it through a shot that he takes. And so that's one where it's like, okay, incredible play by the receiver.

And then the third one, Kishon Booty over Derek Stingley catches a ridiculous, one-handed catch, which like, that was an insane play as is, but so many people pointed this out that I didn't actually remember. The first touchdown Drake May ever threw as a pro was a go ball to Kisham Booty over Derek Stingley. And so for them to like get that in that game in that moment for Booty to do it like that against like Stingley up until that drive Stingley was basically pitching a perfect game like he had They weren't throwing at him

They were just choosing not to throw at him He was targeted one time before that drive And then on that drive they had They threw a booty once and it was a DPI And then after like two plays after that they hit the touchdown But he was basically perfect up until that moment This is from field Yeats who does great work for ESPN Since the start of 2024

Derek Stingley has allowed two catches for 86 yards And a touchdown on 34 targets of 20 plus air yards versus all receivers who are not named Kishon Booty. Against Kisham Booty since 2024, two catches on two targets for 72 yards and two touchdowns. That first touchdown drive, and even like a lot of the stuff

that the Patriots were doing early in the game, you could just tell they were trying to kind of poke and prod to figure out what would work and what wouldn't. They had that chunk run on an outside run to Stevenson. It was a little like Y, Y look to the right side where they condensed it and he bounced it for 20 and that jumpstarts the first touchdown drive. And like you mentioned, Derek, they hit the cover zero slant to fantastic play.

I mean, the placement on that ball from Drake May is excellent. They could only put that in one spot for that to be a touchdown. But other than that, like, they were just having trouble stringing drives together. The drive that ends with the booty touchdown, PI is the biggest play they got on that drive. They had a 27-yard PI on that drive. The one that was really impressive was the one that ended with the Diggs touchdown. You mentioned, Derek, that obviously the way that that thing ends is an incredibly tight throw to Stefan Diggs. but if you watch what they were doing,

it was the only time all game where they felt like they were kind of tapping into one thing that they could pick on the Texans defense a little bit. They had three specific, they had three different completions on that drive where it was just like a slant, where slant flat or like glance flat to that side where they were clearing out,

middle of the field defender, running to the flat, and they were just throwing right behind it. The first one, they get booty running out there and then Petrie kind of like peaks the guy going to the flat as well. and so May throws it right behind Petri's head on a little glance to booty for like 25 yards. Very similar thing on another 18-yard chunk to booty

where it's digs clearing out the space and then on the touchdown, they motion digs over, they establish the fact that it's man coverage, and then again they flash the back to the flat as digs runs a little slant behind it for a touchdown. So three different chunks on that drive, they were tapping into like the exact same idea.

But for the most part, that's like the only drive you can do that with for the Patriots even though they scored 21 points. And so down to down, the Texans defense was, again, just so, so good. But this offense is of a quality where if you're going to give them

enough opportunities, they are probably going to find those little slivers of light, and that's exactly what happened today. Here are the stats I came up with. That was the third lowest EPA per play in a win by a team this entire season. I mean, that's not surprising. The other two were the week 18

Raiders beating the week 18 Chiefs and the Jets beating the Browns. Dave, I've got something similar because I think that that's a great shout. I looked at playoff wins over the last decade. Oh, yeah. I did that too, but you go ahead. And it's third worst, which I thought that that's where you were

going. The only two below it, or I did by EPA per drive, which was negative 1.001, and the only two below it are, remember the Lamar Jackson's first playoff game against the Chargers? It was that game. The Chargers also weren't very good on that side of the ball. And then the horrible Packers 49ers snow game in the, I think,

the divisional, like three or four years ago. And again, how many points were there in those games? Like, the fact that... That one was 13 to 10, I think? Yeah, the fact that the Patriot scored 21 points on offense, despite that being their production per drive, speaks to how strange the game was. No element of the game was stranger than whatever the hell was going on with C.J. Stroud.

This is a tough thing to even, like, dig into based on how he looked today. this is something where there's something going on with how he is seeing things and how he's playing. And we can talk about, I've got like a small theory that like I went back and watched like some other games in the second half of that one of the game that was happening today just because I was like,

I just want to refresh about what he looked like at some other points in this season, especially against pressure and compare it to what he looked like in this game because I think some people are going to look at this performance and what he did last week. against the Steelers as just kind of an end point of like an overall downward slope from what he was as a rookie. And I don't necessarily think that's accurate. I think there have been stretches of this year where he hasn't really looked like this. But Derek, I mean, watching him play today,

there was a point where I was wondering, like, could they continue to trot him out there based on like how this was going? That's how bad it got today. When he threw the interception coming out of the two minute where they run like, a little boot to the left hand side and he throws the flat late and behind his guy. I did think I was like, I don't know if you can continue playing him and asking him to win this game. Because to me, I think what has been the issue for Stroud at times over the last two years, and I think more increasingly as they've played some really good defenses down the stretch

or even earlier this year against the Seahawks, I think he clearly feels the offense is not going to be able to get explosive or consistent gains if he's not doing something. something insane, which the problem then is you go too far the other end and you just start kind of throwing the ball up almost no matter what. Like the one where he clearly, it was a different boot where I think Chase on is in his face and he knows he has to dirt that and he just chucks it up like 30 feet into the air. Those are mistakes that he never made in college and really didn't as a rookie. Like I thought he was so much more calculated at just letting drives go on and okay, we can

pass it off to the defense. Next drive will be fine. He was okay with letting plays die. He will not let anything. die anymore. And I think that's, especially in this game where I think there was one point where they had like 12 runs for 10 yards. So they're obviously not moving the ball there. And then even in the passing game, like, I thought that they were largely struggling to protect him. And then they just like weren't scheming up that many explosives. And then to, you know, that sounds like I'm

taking some of it off on him. In the handful of instances where they did have a guy open, he missed what, three or four pretty bad throws, especially in the first half. Like it just, he feels like he is continually spiraling in a way that is really bizarre to watch given what he was again in college and his rookie season. If I'm trying to point to a moment this season, and again, this is like me,

a conjecture and just like trying to like figure out like what is going on. I went back and I watched what he looked like in the pocket before the concussion and what he looked like in the pocket after the concussion. And when you watch him in some of those games, the Chiefs game, the Chargers game, it's closer to what we saw today and against the Steelers

than it looked like early in the season. Like early in the season, you back and watch how he played against the Rams and pocket movement is fine. He doesn't seem unsettled. Like he's dealing with pressure really well. I haven't watched that game in a while, but I remember him looking really good for a team that only scored nine points. Again, I was like, I just want to like make sure that I'm not crazy,

that like this is not how things have looked. And again, it's not even that this is a just a further extension of how things have looked. and early in the season, Derek, you and I talked about this a lot. I felt like he had such good answers and good responses to pressure for two different reasons. One, he was still standing in and making throws from the pocket the way that C.J. Strat is capable of doing, like that flat-footed stuff where you see his talent as a thrower and the touch and the accuracy, that stuff was showing up. But what he was really doing a lot of this year,

what he was doing outside of the pocket and as a scrambler is stuff that he had never really been doing for most of his career. He was picking stuff up with his legs. He was making plays as a play extender outside of the pocket. If you go back and watch the four or five games after that concussion, he was not running or looking to extend plays outside of the pocket nearly as often. And so it almost feels like without that sort of option, there was just a discomfort for when things would start to become a little bit dirty,

what he was supposed to do. And so, again, I have no idea if that's actually what's happening, but just trying to figure out like how we've arrived in this moment with the way that he's looked over the past couple weeks, it feels like there might be something to that. There really might be because I think, again, when he was playing really well earlier in the season, was making plays outside of the pocket, he was very, he was a lot more comfortable kind of leaking out of the backside of the pocket and then like getting out to his right or his left wherever and then scooting back up and rolling back up to the line of scrimmage. Now when he gets pressure, especially over the last like six weeks or so, he kind of just starts to drop his shoulder. and eyes and start sprinting around in the pocket.

Like he's looking to get out through the A gap or the B gap, which is not... It's very frantic. It's extremely frantic. It's not how he's ever played. That's the most confusing part of all of it to me. The not giving up plays, the sprinting in the pocket, the drop in the eyes. It's not how he's ever played. And so that's the part of it to me that is the most confusing when I watch some of these

mistakes that he's making. It's just wild knowing that the Texans defense is this. and the situational awareness is so poor. Like the pick six, I mean, Derek already walked us through it, but dirt that ball, do something with it other than throw it up for grabs. And I think it was Cades over,

tripped, got pushed off of his route. He was supposed to be like the easy outlet on that play and it didn't work out, but live to fight another down when you have a defense that's capable of doing this. The Patriots didn't score any points on offense off of turnovers. The pick six was insane. It's nuts. The only thing you can't do to give yourself a chance to win a game is throw a pick six is to just make it that easy on the other team that their offense doesn't even have to take the field.

And you can't do that. The first pick to Carlton Davis, he had time in the pocket on that throw. And it was never there. Carlton Davis was on top of that route to Christian Kirk from the get-go. And like I said, and you're driving in, you're crossing midfield right there. it's not a situation where you need to be desperate. And yeah, it seems like he's just hardwired to think that if he doesn't do something, nothing's going to happen.

And I'm like, CJ, that's not true. You have a defense that can swing the game for you at any given moment. Here's the problem, though. He obviously wasn't throwing the ball to the other team last week when they played against the Steelers, but you could feel the discomfort and just how lost he was in the pocket last week, even if it was fumbles and not interceptions. The difference was last week they could run the ball. They could just lean on the running game consistently throughout that win over the Steelers.

And today, they had 22 carries for 48 yards. Like, they had absolutely no running game the entire day. And so you take that away. You take away your two most reliable receivers, arguably, with Collins and then Schultz missing most of this game. And then you have a quarterback who looked as lost and uncomfortable this week as he did last week. And that against the defense playing very, well, that's when things start to just completely unravel because you have nowhere to turn

if you're Nick Cayley. Like, you'd love to be able to just like, all right, we're just going to keep her on the ball, we're going to keep chipping away at it. But when you can't do that, you're left with zero options. And that's how you get the bottoming out that we saw today. Exactly. I think that's the most frustrating part of him having thrown four interceptions is that he threw every kind of interception.

Like the Davis one, he like throws it up. That's never really there. and he's kind of just hoping maybe he can lay that up the sideline and it gets there. So that's like a weird interception. Obviously the one out of the two minute where he's just, it's the right throw to make that throw in the flat off the boot. Like you're designing it for that. He's just late and throws it behind.

So that's like an accuracy error. Also kind of like a late decision making thing. Obviously the pick six is an insane decision that he makes and probably his most egregious. Definitely his most egregious. And then even the one that tips off of, I think it was Jaden Higgins's hands. That's not a very good ball. Like it's not like the worst throw. in the world, it's catchable, but that's not a good

ball and you leave it high and things are going to happen like that over the middle of the field. And so I thought he just looked a little bit frantic and I will this all sounds like we're just doing a lot of like, oh, the Texans played really poorly. The Patriots defense was called really well again. We're about to transition there. Because

I think they deserve a lot of credit. And also, I said this after the wildcard round. I said the Patriots defense and what they did to the Chargers offense in that game is the unit that reframe the way I think about them the most or kind of changed what my expectations around them and by extension the team

were because of the way they played in the wild card round. And so for the Patriots to take that performance and then build on it to do what they did today and now you go to Denver, playing a backup quarterback. They opened as what, Bellar, four and a half point favorites, five point favorites? Yes, that is right, four and a half.

So it's, and I think part of that, Derek, is driven by the fact that the defense right now is playing the best it's played all season. It's playing the best has played all season. and I think last week we spent a lot of time talking about the pressure plan. And I think the pressure plan was still pretty good in this game. They were kind of throwing everything. Like there was, I think, on the first stop inside the goal line or inside like the 10 that they had,

they like show that they're going to bring a little bit of pressure. And then they drop out into drop eight. And C.J. Stroud holds onto the ball. He ends up overthrowing, I think Woody Marks a little bit late in the play. And so they get the stop there. And then it was just kind of a lot of DB pressures again. It was a lot of situations where it looks like they're bringing seven and then they bring four. I think they brought like every.

kind of rusher they can bring. They brought a lot of five and six in this game. Like I just thought that they did a really good job of again mixing up their pressures. And then the corners played really well last week too. The corners were phenomenal in this game. Chris Gonzalez was incredible. Carlton Davis obviously had the pick and a handful of other plays. I thought Marcus Jones made a number of really good plays on the ball.

Like if their corners are going to play even 85% as well as they did today and they're going to start being one of the really interesting pressure teams and kind of get home with some of these blitzers. Like I just, they are a much scarier team in defense than they felt, even as recently as like Thanksgiving or something like that. I mean, you talk about not targeting Stingley.

If I know, Gonzo was a, finally targeted at some point, but it felt like the Texans weren't even willing to look his way for at least the first quarter and a half, maybe even the first half of this game. And Carlton Davis obviously very up to the challenge with the amount that they tried him.

Yeah, this, I mean, with the good health that they're getting, with the guys that they've got back in the lineup and the way they're calling this thing, Patriots defense looks nasty. And I mean, it's, it's, the Texans offense has been a mess all years.

But this is two weeks in a row where they have undressed NFL offense during a playoff game. And that is not, even if you're playing against a team that the quarterback is imploding and then the week before, they just fired the offensive coordinator,

like, that shit doesn't matter. You dominated two straight weeks on that side of the ball. And it's kind of what we said about the, Patriots all year, right? It's like, oh, you're playing, you know, maybe these units are teams that aren't so great. But if you're going to do that, beat the bricks out of them, like really make them look like they are, they do not belong on the same field as you. And again, these two offenses that they've played have a lot of their flaws. The offensive lines are not great. You can pick them apart. In Stroud's case, obviously, he's been falling apart lately. But you made them look like they did not belong on the field with you for most of this game. That's how it should look if you really want to prove that you're like one of these units going into the championship round. Last thing I'll say about this game, the fact that the work that both Texans edge players did over those four quarters ends up not mattering as a football travesty and stuff. They were phenomenal men. Like they're so good.

They were just, it's so many different times. They instantly nuked plays. And some of these like a couple of the May fumbles are his fault. Like the one where he's running and it gets punched out like that's on him. but some of these are just like the one on the screen right now. Will Anderson just beats Will Campbell immediately. May is throwing that ball as quickly as it can come out. And he's just there.

Like what can you do? What can you do against these two guys? On so many of those types of plays, like when you strip a guy in the pocket while he's looking to throw like that, it's like there's an element of striving and like feeling like you're killing yourself to get there. And on both of those plays where they just came around Campbell, it almost felt nonchalant the way that they were just like, all right, like I've got the corner on you and I'm just going to boop.

Like it felt way too easy, the ease with which they got to May on those plays. I'll say this though. Drake May's got a hold on in the football. No, yeah. It's two weeks in a row. Drake May's got to hold on to the football. He does not get a pass for how many times the ball has been on the turf over the last

couple weeks because if they play an offense with a pulse at some point during the playoffs and guess what? If they get to the Super Bowl, independent of what the Rams look like today, they will play an offense that likely has a pulse. And so if you're going to put the ball on the ground multiple times against the Broncos even with a backup quarterback and either the teams you're going to play in the Super Bowl,

it's going to come back to get you in a way that it has not over the last couple games. That's the thing. That's like he's obviously a phenomenal player. His one Achilles heel is he's going to hold onto the ball and he's going to hang in the pocket and you might be able to, he has kind of smaller hands. and if you can knock his arm, knock his wrist, he's probably going to give up the ball.

And so, again, playing against, you're either going to get the Seahawks of the Rams, both incredible past rushes, and then, yeah, even this week you're playing. Like, Nick Benito can have the play that Will Anderson just had against Will Campbell

in terms of shot out of the cannon. He can have two of them. He can have two of them. Like, I just, this is, if there's anything that feels like it's going to give the Patriots issues, maybe it's that, but you at least feel a little bit better

as a Patriots fang, knowing that the defense now is holding up their end of the bargain for you. It is funny, though, that we had this conversation about the Patriots this year. It was like, oh, they haven't really had played that many good defenses. And if you look at the slate of defenses they played, and again, this is not a criticism.

It's just objective fact, if you look at their schedule. The Brown's defense is a very good defense, but it's a specific kind of man-heavy defense. And so when they were playing the Chargers last week, it's like this is the first time they've had this sort of real challenge. It's like a top-10 defense that makes things money for you on the back end and it's really going to make Drake may have to work. They win that game.

And they play against the Texans defense that is, depending on what metric you want to look at. They're number one, a knee paper dropback, their second and DVO way. They are a 1B defense in a season with a 1B and a 1A with the Seattle. They beat the Texans,

and now they potentially have to play against the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. So to not have to play against any really good defenses for most of the season and then have to play against the Chargers, the Texans, the Broncos, and the Seahawks potentially

over four straight weeks. It's not bad. Even if it's test. Go earn it. Even if it's the Rams. That means that their entire run two and through the Super Bowl will have been top 10 defenses after like playing basically just Cleveland this entire year. I mean, it's funny because the reason I was saying that is we were so

excited about the Texans Patriots matchup on that side of the ball is like a unit on unit kind of square off. And it's like, what are we going to do it again? We have the exact same conversation when we preview the AFC championship game on Thursday about how much fun that specific unit on unit matchup is. I will say it is where you just you jogged my memory. But for as weird and rough as it was at times, and like the stats are very funny. The Patriots scored more than 20 offensive points on the Texans, which I think makes them the fifth team to do that all year. Like Seattle did it.

The Jags did it one time. The Colts did it in the season finale when the Texans like pulled their starters and when they realized they weren't going to win the division and then the weird Raiders game. But even on a rough day and rough weather to have those drives against, against the Texans is not something very many opponents have been able to do. 100%. To be able to string those drives together, those three, they were three impressive drives.

And in a game like this, they were more than enough. I do just want to shout out a few things. And rightfully so, it's so easy to fixate on Anderson and Hunter and Stingley and Petrie. Henry Toa Toa was freaking awesome in this game for Houston. And then Tommy Togi, I obviously, he had the fumble, the strip and the fumble recovery, but was just fantastic as well in general. And then our guy, Big Play, Bob Spillane, breaking up that final throw to Xavier Hutchinson,

like 45 yards downfield, was really fun. It was a fun day. It was a fun divisional round weekend, even if I'm about to spend the next two hours kind of replaying everything that just happened. But we enjoyed it. It was great. I hope you guys did as well.

Hope you enjoyed this season from like a bear's perspective. I enjoyed having that experience with you guys, right? Like having to get it, getting to do it on the show. This is the first time we've done the show and been doing this podcast since the Bears have had this type of year. And so to do that with everybody in the audience and to have so many Bears fans at the live show a couple weeks ago, that that has really made it an even better experience. What was already a fun season, I think, was enhanced by the fact that we've really started to build a community here in a way that I appreciate it and it's been really enjoyable.

And so thank you to everybody who followed along on what was a pretty freaking crazy ride. It's so cool that we got this year out of the Bears, the year that we opened a studio in Chicago and the show's kind of based here. It's been so fun. And I actually, I had a moment during the fourth quarter where I was like, I was like, how does Robert juggle doing his job the way that it needs to be done with this? and then I was like, oh, right, like this never happens. Like, he's never, it's the first time I've ever had to do it. Maybe like once in his pro career doing this

as he had to worry about the Bears as a playoff team. Well, hopefully it's the first of many. I mean, you can attest to it. You can tell the people I was going through it. Oh, the last two weeks have been incredible. And it's a shame. And I'm so glad Scott, Scott's been at these games. Yeah.

And I'm happy for that. But I wish we had a camera on you for these last. two weeks because I think the people would love to see it. But I'm really glad we don't. I was going to say, we'll just keep that between the three of us. I guess that's all we've got for today. Tomorrow we're going to be doing some post-mortems and just some look-aheads for the four teams that lost this weekend.

So we'll chat about the near-term futures for the Bears, the Texans, the Niners. Who else lost yesterday? The Bills? The Bills. Oh, my God. I'm looking forward to that conversation. And then we'll also chat a little bit about some of the coaching news, just not really a natural spot to talk about the Kevin Sophansky higher in Atlanta, which we think pointed to

potentially happening when we did the coaching roundup in the middle of last week. So we'll hit that and then some of the other coaching nuggets that have happened and then also dig into what it looks like heading into the spring for the four teams that unfortunately fell short on divisional round weekend. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.