The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Mailbag: OT rule change, Mitchell Schwartz on Chiefs final drive, getting over losses, how to feel if your team lacks a QB & more

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

Who better to chime in on the most chaotic 2 minutes of football in maybe ever than a man who was in that huddle recently? Mitchell Schwartz returns with Robert Mays to gush over Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce's backyard football skills, ease some pain of some hurting fanbases, give some player perspective on the controversial overtime rules, and answer tons more of your voicemails and emails as the Athletic Football Show Mailbag is opened again following the Divisional round. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome. It's the Athletic Football Show. Today's Tuesday, January 25th. I'm Robert Mays. I'm joining me today. It's about good friend Mitchell Schwartz. Mitch, how you doing, buddy?

I'm doing good. We're only a few feet apart here. We are both in Kansas City. I was at the game last night. I was thinking, you know what? I might as well stick around. We're recording on Monday anyway. You live 10 minutes from where my hotel was, and we never get a chance to do this.

Yeah, this is fun. I was a little bit surprised. I didn't know you still traveled for games. Hey, you know, sometimes I like to. When that game happened, I was like, I'm circling this, we're going. It was funny last night, so I'm in the press box, and I got to my seat a little bit late just because I was watching the end of Rams bucks. It was still going on as the game was about to start.

And you're in the box, and it's hard. You don't necessarily understand everything that's happening pregame. There are a lot of rituals, and you can't hear everything because the box is closed. And in KC, they have a pregame ritual where they have someone bang a large drum. and I saw someone swinging the mallet or drumstick, whatever you were going to call it to bang the drum, and he was wearing a 71 jersey. He was like, oh, that's interesting.

The guy's wearing a Mitchell Schwartz jersey who's banging that drum. And then I realized later that night that it was you. Yeah, that was me. So there are actually two drum bangings. I did the one in the third quarter. So the one... Oh, that was it. Maybe that was it.

So the one before the game was Neil Smith, former defense alignment who played for the chiefs for a while. And apparently I didn't see it because we, just got there but apparently he went nuts and bang the crap out of the drum stadium was going nuts like the best hype man ever and so they were like all right well you got to follow that good luck and i think he broke the thing you banged the drum with and so they only had like one more drum banging utensil what would you call that the drum bang utensil's good i've been trying to think of that because i've been describing this to people today and i haven't been able to figure out

what to call it drum banging thing and the other one was basically broken in half i think someone else had broken it earlier in the year and this was now the backup. And so they gave it to me, they're like, hey, just so you know, this is broken. If it's going to start like splintering or you feel it, you know, falling apart, just stop banging the drum and we'll just continue cheering and it'll be fine. And so I was figuring out the exact way to like hold it. And then I also figured out the right angle to hit it because if I hit it basically 180 degrees opposite, it would keep fracturing.

And so I tried to do it. But as I was banging it. It's the most Mitchell Schwartz angle-based bullshit in the history of the world. Yeah, for sure. This is how you thought about playing football. This is that people should understand that. Yeah. And so I didn't want to get impaled.

And they were like, if it starts falling off, like just let us know and stop. And I'm thinking like, yeah, they don't want me to like fling up behind me and the drums at the very top of the stadium. And this sawed off drum or stick falls three stories and impale somebody. So I was going to do everything I needed. So my drum banging was a little bit pared down because I couldn't go full war. I had to protect myself. I'm sure you did a great job. Everyone seemed to enjoy the drum.

banging. It's okay. You don't have to be self-conscious about you. You don't have to defend your drum banging to everyone. I saw a clip or two and it didn't look like the smoothest form. So I feel a little self-sconscious about it. So we're just going to dig into Milback questions today. I appreciate everyone who sent them in. It was such a wild weekend that even a day later, it was hard for me to know what to dig into. And I figured we would take the lead from the people and take some questions and see what people wanted to hear about. Again, you guys came through the way that you always do. It's always sincerely appreciated. I wanted to start. start with an email that we got that wasn't really a question.

It was from Don Crehan. I just thought it was the purest thing and such a great way to think about what happened this weekend. He said, guys, in 1958, I saw the game, the NFL championship Colts Giants. I was 11 and was wondering what the hell of first down was. But the intensity was unmistakable and unforgettable. Now I'm 74 and just saw it again. It was the weekend.

No one knew we had just seen the game until years later, looking back on it. We may well come to look back on these four games as the weekend. The weekend we lost Brady Rogers or both. The weekend the torch was passed through a new generation of quarterbacks. The weekend Alan and Baham's both grew even past their previous own peaks. The weekend Stafford and Cup put a stake in the heart of Brady's last comeback. The weekend the Rams justified their all-in moves. The weekend, Shanahan closed in on his dad.

The weekend Cincinnati won a second playoff game despite taking nine sacks. The weekend of four walk-off field goals or touchdowns. You may well live a long life, but you'll not see the likes of this again. I thought that was, again, the purest. way to describe what just happened and good perspective because I want to just bask in this for at least 24 more hours about how incredible and rare and special it was to go through and watch all of those games this weekend. Yeah, we have the time to do it. This is a week that we only have two games coming up. Exactly.

And they're big games, but we saw the Chiefs and the Bengals play a few weeks ago. So it's not necessarily the most fresh matchup. We can kind of rehash it. And then we've got the third matchup of week 18. Yeah, the Rams and the 49ers. So this is a perfect week to reflect on these four perfect football games. And last week we were talking about, eh, is the six games maybe too much and all these non-competitive games?

And then, of course, the NFL delivers. They come back with their best weekend. You know, I can't wait to see the ratings on what that Chief Bill's game ended up. But just spectacular football from all parts. The emailer kind of hit it over the head. When you look at each individual game, there was a major storyline or two. And then you look at the all four games combined, ending on the last play. three road wins in the divisional weekend.

Really just a spectacular week of football. So we dug into so much of what happened last night when I talked to Nate after the game, but it's easy to miss stuff. There's so many things that happened near the end. We didn't talk a lot about the chief side of that last drive. And looking at what Pat and Travis Kelsey said afterward about how they saw what happened after the timeout with 13 seconds left, or the last play is with eight seconds left. They saw what happened after the timeout,

the way the defense was aligned. And Travis essentially told Patrick, if they do that again, screw what we had called. I'm doing this exact thing. I want you to just walk me through what it was like to watch that moment as somebody who cares about this team, who knows those guys, who really cares about the way they're talked about and seen and their overall legacy and things of that nature. Just talk me through what that final drive was like as someone emotionally invested in everything about the chiefs and what they do.

Well, it goes without saying it was, you know, beyond special and cool to see. And I like that they were able to describe that and that people are starting to realize how special what they do on the field is. And I've tried to explain it. And we've talked about it in the past. And it's like they just see the game the same and they communicate it to themselves in this special way. Sometimes it's verbal. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's during the cadence.

You know, we Traff said that. And then we've got the audio today of Pat saying, hey, Trav, just do it. I haven't seen that. That's amazing. Yeah. Oh my God. I have to see. I have to watch that.

I haven't seen that yet. Yeah. So Pat's, Pat's doing his cadence. It's almost like, I mean, there's been other cool ones. The one that sticks out cadence wise is when Brady is like, Gronk, stand up. And Gronk just like stands up out of a stance.

I don't remember if it was stand up or get down. But I remember Brady barking at Gronk during a cadence either stand up or go down. And yeah, Trav gets there. He kind of shuffles in from his original spot. And Pat's like, Trav, do it, do it. Why did he said, and gets the ball and snaps it. And I weirdly in the moment, I was tweeting as I was watching.

And I couldn't believe that Buffalo was taking timeouts in that spot. I just don't understand. I get that you want to see the formation. But these end of game plays... They can change it. They can change the formation. Well, that too. And these end of game plays are relatively static.

And you scout them. And yeah, we ran the Tyreek play, the play before where he gets the ball. There's some blockers for him. We ran that in 2017. the end of the first half against Dallas and he scored the touchdown. Well, they weren't necessarily prepared for that. So, yeah, they probably have that somewhere in their database,

that end-of-game situation this might happen, but they weren't prepared for it. So I don't know what they're really looking for in terms of calling a timeout. But in the moment, I was thinking this would actually be a great scenario for a double move because the chiefs were at, what, like the minus 45 or minus 40 or something, they needed probably 10, 15 yards to get into fringe field goal range. And I figured Buffalo is going to put a huge emphasis on that 20-yard. patch of grass, primarily from midfield to about the 40, maybe 38-yard line.

And they basically just played soft coverage to that spot and had two safety super deep. Now, obviously, that's a reaction to just getting burned by Tyreek the drive before and the speed and all that. But I was thinking in my head, okay, well, they're going to play probably this 25-yard area. What if the chiefs had an awesome double move, a deep, you know, 18-yard, come back and go or something of that nature? They probably would have had the opportunity to score. and then Buffalo takes the field.

They're super soft. They call timeout. They stay in the same exact defense. It gives the chiefs a chance to see and adjust. And again, it's those two guys seeing in the moment and just you don't want to say overcome coaching because the call was probably right. But Coach Reid always talks about putting your personality on it and letting your personality shine. Like those two guys saw something.

They understood the situation. They knew what could be done. And even travel with the situational awareness, he goes down, he pops up. He's calling time out immediately. It's just a really cool moment. and I'm glad that people are starting to see how special their individual connection is. You tweeted about this last night, just that in that situation, we've discussed this last week, how end of scenarios go and how you practice them.

Walk me through for the Chief specifically what that segment looks like. Who are the voices, who kind of handles the organizational aspects of it? Who takes the lead for you guys in those situations when you practice them? So typically it's the offensive coordinator. So currently it's E.B. Eric B. enemy. And so I think Friday mornings is the first. first time he goes over those end of game situations. Fridays practice, the very first, like, kind of team offensive period where you're just going on air, going against like the coaches

and backups and stuff on scout team. You go through a few of those end of game situations. And then Saturday, you kind of hit him again in the morning, both meeting and then on the field for the walkthrough or mock game or whatever you call it. You run a few end of game situations in that one. And so you get like a half speed one on Friday when you do it against air and maybe against a scout team that's out there. But again, the scout team is like your own offense. So it's just guys lining up to be lined up. And then Saturday, it's super pared down. It's literally a walkthrough.

Now you're going against your own defense. And so there's a little bit of like they're doing their end of game scenarios. You're doing your end of game scenarios. So it's not like competitive per se, but there is a certain play that teams usually have like one play that they'll run for the absolute end of game scenario. and the defense doesn't want to give that touchdown. The offense wants to score. So it can get a little bit competitive in a weird way. But yeah, it's cool.

It's fun. Again, we talked about this. Like someone brought up, the Chiefs didn't have this scenario the entire season, but you have to be ready for it because in that situation, it's win or go home. Like, if you lose, the game's over, your season's over. So being prepared for that, it's boring.

It gets annoying to hear the same, yeah, on this play, we're going to do this, and this is your landmark. can get the ball out and with eight seconds left do this. But it's what you got to do. And, you know, Eby does a really good job with that. Speaking of it, I'm guilty of it as anybody. You watch what the Chiefs did last night.

And for me, there's an attractiveness to the newness. Like if Buffalo had won and maybe they're going to win their first Super Bowl, and this is the moment for Josh Allen. Instead, the Chiefs win that game. And I think it's so, so easy to take this team and the future Hall of Fame players on this team for granted. at this point of their trajectory, right? Like, we know what Pat is. We know that Travis Kelsey is the greatest past catching tight end of all time.

We know what Tyree Kill is. But those moments for them to do that and understand exactly how to bend the rules to their will with the season on the line. Even the final touchdown. The final touchdown is so beautiful where Travis runs that double move. It's a little out and up near the pylon. And to be able to do that and just sell that so subtly in that moment and then catch a back shoulder ball so easily and smoothly for a touchdown that sends you to the aFC championship game you just expect it at this point and I honestly have to just drill

it into my own head when that stuff happens like don't take this for granted like don't just let this wash over you and think well it's the chiefs of course they did this because that just spectacular knack for those sorts of things is so rare that I feel like I have to like take a step back and make myself appreciate it more often than I do. We definitely need to. He pads to what, 25 or 26? And I think undoubtedly has the best resume of any quarterback to this point in his career. I mean, he started four years and he's hosted for AFC championship games.

He's gone to three or two Super Bowls out of the three eligible years. We'll see what happens this weekend. It's just, it's unprecedented. It's absolutely unprecedented. And of course, we lost like that during the year. I think kind of what I was saying at the time and also looking at it, Now, he has such mastery of everything around him that I think when he goes through those lulls, I mean, that is the first quote unquote lull he's had in his career.

But like he's built up enough equity and what he does is so crazy that you have to believe that there's other stuff going on. And yeah, maybe he took those chances because he knew the defense was given up a bunch of points and they needed a touchdown. And on third and 12, it didn't really matter if they punted. Maybe he wanted to make an incredible play. And he was fine with interception because it was going to be seven for the other team anyway. So he does all these calculations in his head.

He's, as we've seen, an brilliant mind on the field, off the field. And I do hope that we're not losing the appreciation of it because it's incredibly special. And Kelsey, he was, to my eye, exhausted in the two-minute drill. You know, we talked last week again about what guys are being taught. I know after he catches a pass, what he's supposed to do the first two-minute drive. Like, he was too tired to go do the right thing. And then he like literally walked across the field to the opposite side to line up a tight end because he was so tired that like he wasn't really able. He was just conserving energy to get to the next play.

And they score that drive and they score the next one. And then they score an overtime. And I know we're going to talk about overtime rules at some point. I'm sure we are. But like those guys were exhausted. So yeah, to do that double move and to catch it so effortlessly when you had this mentally stressful game, emotionally stressful game, physically taxing for sure. And to just make it look like it's the easiest thing. in the world, it's pretty incredible.

And they're going to have some awesome highlights. And I was part of some of them. And I won't be part of a lot of them because they're going to make a lot more. So I want to get to just the appreciation for Mahomes and what he is and what Alan was last night. And we touched on this a little bit during the show I did with Nate. But Will Casey sent us an email that I feel like we can expand on a little bit further. He said, as a Browns fan, I look at the AFC and I see Mahomes, Alan, Herbert, Burrow, and

Lamar. I feel if you don't have an elite quarterback, then you're just not going to win anything for the next blank years, however many years. And he went out to talk about some options that Cleveland might have, but I want to sit in this idea for a second because I remember thinking it early in the year, watching what Justin Herbert looked like in year two and understanding what Allen and Mahomes were the year before and Rogers and Brady and understanding that and seeing how different it feels when you have one of the guys and when you don't.

And at times that ebbs and flows during the season. We've seen offenses like San Francisco where they can be used. really effective even with Jimmy Garoppolo. We've seen other examples of it over time. You know, Mack Jones had some moments this year as the Patriots quarterback. But you come to that moment last night and you watch what that weekend felt like. And I know the Niners won, but they almost didn't win. Without the defense, they don't win that game.

And Jimmy did not play well. And then you see the game that Ryan Tannehill had. And you can do it. You can do it for four games even, maybe. You can win a Super Bowl one time maybe. But when the playoffs come, the game is so hard and so many things need to go your way. And when your quarterback is just a cog in that machine and he's just one more thing that needs

to go right and he's not erasing mistakes, you're going to see it. And that to me is the takeaway from what this weekend was, what this final four looks like, everything. Unless you go get one of those guys. And I think the Rams are a perfect example of this, right? McVeigh is one of those people that you think, oh, we'll plug a guy in and it'll work because it did until it doesn't. And they knew they needed to go get an upgrade in order to compete with these teams.

They played the bills last year. They played the Chiefs before. Shanahan played the Bills last year. They played the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. They went to get Trey Lance. No machine can overcome a quarterback shortcomings when the game gets hard at this point in the season. And I don't understand how you can watch that game last night as one of these teams facing a quarterback dilemma or without one and think, we can make our guy.

work. We're going to be the exception here. Yeah, it's extremely tough to do that. And looking at Cleveland specifically, they are an example of a pretty awesome infrastructure around them in terms of a good offensive mind, an excellent offensive line, got some playmakers. Turned out they ship their best guy off. And that didn't work for whatever reason. Defensively, they probably didn't have the success they wanted. But in terms of talent and guys on that roster, they've got a pretty good ability to get to the quarterback and to do some good things on defense. And so you look at a team like that and you say, okay, maybe this is a team that can overcome it. Well, we've seen for two straight years they haven't been able to. Clearly, they need an upgraded quarterback to get to this type of level.

And it's just, it's so much more difficult to win in that way to not have these guys, as you say, that can erase mistakes that can overcome these other things. And I think that's what, you know, don't want to make this into people who look at advanced data and people who don't. But the guys who are watching film and just seeing things happen. Like, who gives a fuck that Jimmy has the third highest EPA since 2017? Like, you can't watch football this weekend and come away thinking, oh, yeah, that's one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Like, you just, you can't do that.

And so you see what Alan does. You see what Mahomes does. And they've done it in high leverage situations. They've done it over and over now, Alan for two years, Mahomes for four years. And just like, yeah, there's something to these guys. And these are the guys. It's kind of becoming the NBA. You need one of the top seven guys to get.

get to the championship and to compete. And we're realizing in the NFL, like, yeah, that's what you need to do. And as you said, two of the top minds in McVeigh and Shanahan, who have been able to plug in guys who were less talented and less able and get to the Super Bowl and almost win, they both independently or together, I mean, probably independently came to the conclusion, like, hey, this guy's not good enough for us to be consistently in the spot that we want to be and to be, you know, the best team in the NFL every single year. So they made it their mission to upgrade to that position and to get a guy who they believe is a top five guy.

I know that's a different debate on Stafford. He has top five talent. What he can do expands your offense enough to give you more answers on the field. Like the fact that you can get to some of those backside things, the fact that just the overall aggressiveness of the offense changes. I think the scope of what you can do changes enough with Matthew Stafford that he falls in the category that we're talking about and isn't an also-ran plug-and-play quarterback. Right, because as we've heard, the Patriots, apparently that was the most confident they've ever been going into a Super Bowl, just being like, yeah, we have the answer. We know how to defeat golf. This is going to be an easy game.

Now, offensively, they had to turn it on in 22 percent in the fourth quarter and start chucking bombs to Grong. But, yeah, they held the Rams to three points, and it was pretty easy because the Rams offense was pretty one-dimensional. And so, as you're saying, Stafford may or may not be a top-five guy. As of two games into the playoffs, he sure seems like he's in the top-five category for right now. but yeah he unlocks this other element of offense and that's what all these guys want is again we get back to balance and it's not 50 50 run pass it's being able to run the ball play action throw short throw deep throw a screen do whatever in any situation at any time and that's what these top quarterbacks do and i know that it's easy to say this you need one of these seven eight guys whatever the final number ends up being they're only seven or eight of them so what do you do if you're one of these teams that doesn't have one how does your thinking need to change. I think that's the thing we really need to look at moving forward and kind of project moving forward. It's how quickly you move on when you know you don't have one. What avenues can you pursue to try to go find one? How often should you draft a quarterback in the

first round? How much should you commit to this quarterback? Can you pay him a certain amount and still win with him? What's that number? These are all the questions that we're going to have to ask, but I still feel like the league overall hasn't drifted far enough to the side of, we got to move on, we got to change this out. The Rams realized that two years later than they should have. Some of these other teams have realized it later than they should have. So I feel like that's the mindset that has to change. If we don't have one of these guys, we have to constantly be figuring out how to find one.

And sometimes that just means moving on from someone, moving on from a guy you drafted number one overall when his contract expires. that's hard to do because when you've seen your team be competent, when you've seen your team be a playoff team and win some games, it's so, so easy to convince yourself this can work. We can win with him. Let's not wait into the unknown because that's scary. I just don't think that line of thinking and that way of operating can dictate the decision

making in the NFL anymore when you watch guys that were on the field last night. Yeah, it's going to be interesting because, you know, Holmes isn't leaving Kansas City, Alan isn't leaving Buffalo, Herbert staying, Burrow staying. So you look at these guys and you're, to get an established star quarterback, for the most part, it's going to have to be a guy in his mid to late 30s or Brady in his 40s who is disgruntled, wants to move on. Okay, we caught the last two years of Brady or however much longer he plays. We're going to catch the last two or three years of Rogers.

Wilson's a little bit different. He's in his earlier, maybe he's 33 or something. And so you're looking at still in his 30s and injury for the first time this past year and declined play for the last season and a half. But how else are you going to find these guys? Because we talked about trading for Carr a bunch. And, yeah, he's a number eight to 12 quarterback, but he's not one of these guys. And so you're trading for him.

And now you're saying, okay, well, he's a pretty good quarterback, but is he going to be one of these top, for sure, top five guys? And that's a tough situation. This year's draft, when we talked about this year's draft, not having the stud guys. I mean, we just don't know. It seems like there's not going to have an Allen or my homes or whatever. We don't know. And so it's tough as a GM to move on from this okay thing that you know is going to have a decent amount of success to go to this unknown or to, or to quote unquote, mortgage the future for a Rogers who you have no idea what he's going to think week to week even, let alone,

is he going to be here for more than a year or two. And I know there's been some Eli and Roger stuff on the internet from what people have put out. I actually had a different thought. And I was thinking about this kind of independently. I think you take Rogers' career over Eli's every time because the greatness of Rogers is that your team always wins 12, 13, 14 games. You get to the playoffs every year. That's the more sustainable thing. It's Peyton Manning.

It's Aaron Rogers. It's these guys who win the division every year. They get to the playoffs, you know, 33% of the time they have a buy. The number is going to change a little bit now with the new buy rules. But they're always in the top of their division. They're always looking for chances to get to the Super Bowl. or you've got the Eli thing, which is they had two incredible runs. They went two Super Bowl, but for the most part, they weren't as successful as some of these other teams.

And I think you take the top five quarterback who's going to win 12 games a year and roll the dice on what happens in the playoffs, and we know that can be variable. And yeah, to your point, teams, that's the strategy. That's the best way to ensure long-term success. I don't know how feasible it is every time to go to your boss and say, hey, the first rounder, he's not good enough. and then two years later, hey, that first rounder, he's not good enough. Hey, that first, like, no, you're not good enough anymore. You're out of here. That's 100% that's right.

Right. So if you gave these guys, hey, yeah, you'll be the jam for 10 years and you can screw up four times to find the right guy on the fifth time. Like, that's just not reality. And so that's why I think teams are reticent to move on because they know 10 and 7 and making the playoffs and having some projection for the future. And maybe if we can get a little better here, we can upgrade there. We can turn to 11 or 12 win team in a, you know, Super Bowl,

contender, that's the allure. That's the question. That is, what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to win one Super Bowl one time? Or are you trying to win 10 games a year every single year? I think that's the question that teams have to sit back and ask themselves. It's not easy. It's not easy to think about.

And beyond trying to go find one of the established guys, I think it's understanding and being willing to make the sort of move that the Bills and the Chiefs made. They both did the same thing. They had playoff teams. The Bills was obviously a weird situation. Tyrone Taylor was an acceptable quarterback, and they made the moves necessary to trade up in the draft to get Josh Allen. The Chiefs had a playoff team. They were a very good offense with Alex Smith, and they said, we need to go get somebody that will raise our ceiling.

And they traded up in the draft to go get one of those guys. Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen were not sure things. Justin Herbert was drafted sixth overall. A lot of teams could have potentially traded up into the top five if they really wanted to and gone and got Justin Herbert. He was the third quarterback taken in that draft. So is it worth it to make a gamble on someone with super high-level traits and try to figure out the rest later? I don't want to be a prisoner of the moment and let what happened last night make me

automatically say yes. But I think if you look at where the league is headed and what the landscape of it looks like, it is worth it. It is worth it to just take a gamble and see if you can find one of those guys because it changes everything about what type of team you can be. Right. And again, it kind of gets down to what the GM wants, whether he's in it to win Super Bowls

or whether he's in it to put a good enough team on the field to preserve his job. It's a great point. To keep running. So there's going to be different philosophies on job security and all those things there. Yeah, it's one of those things. You look at other sports and baseball in particular,

and you say, okay, well, there's ownerships who are only willing to spend $60 million when you're allowed to spend $180 million. So do you just not care about winning it at all? Now, this is kind of the GM version of it is, are you willing to mortgage a few years and not like purposely tank or anything like that, but make a risk it could pan out, it could not pan out, but trying to upgrade your quarterback to get one of these top five guys.

And I think it's something you should do. And it's very easy for us to say that on the whole. We're not sitting in that guy's, you know, apartment. And there's, I mean, if he's the GM, he's got better than an apartment. You hope so. We're not sitting in his mansion, you know, smoking a cigar and asking him how he's going to keep the bills paid. So, yeah, it's a tough situation. I'm with you on the whole.

I think the goal is to win the Super Bowl number one. The best way to do that is to get the best quarterback that you can. The best quarterback also gives you year-to-year success and a certain floor to what your season is going to look like. And that's what you should be chasing. There are going to be horrendous mistakes in this vein. people are going to look at the Josh Allen thing and they're going to be huge missteps about how you make it work. So the thing is the people that are looking at it and they're going to make the missteps because of it,

we're probably going to make a misstep based on some other dumb thing anyway. Probably. I just think that even if it's not a misstep, even if the calculation is correct, where you look at everything that's happened and you say, we need one of those guys, let's go get somebody with super high-level traits. We'll figure out the rest later. There are going to be flameouts. They're going to be guys that aren't as smart as Josh Allen, aren't as

dedicated to this as Josh Allen. So many different things go into this. Both Patrick and Josh Allen have this combination of qualities and attributes beyond the physical that has allowed them to do this. Justin Herber is the same way. There are going to be mistakes, but are those mistakes worth making? Is it okay to make that mistake if the mindset driving it is correct? I think that's the question you have to ask.

I think we know the answer is yes. Again, it's just whether that GM is willing to take on that kind of risk. And for the most part, you're only able to fail on quarterback so much. And especially when you're moving on, again, from the number 14 quarterback chasing the number five quarterback. And you've got a 10-win team. So you're a fringe 10-win team. And now you say, all right, we're going to blow it up to find this guy who's going to make us a 13-win team and a Super Bowl contender every year. And you fail.

And now you're a five-win team and it looks really bad. that's tough to stomach in real life and that really is the issue. I don't like real life. I like talking about the stuff in a vacuum where I get to pretend that it doesn't actually have consequences. Hey, I'm with you too. All right. Let's get something that we have to talk about.

All right. Our first voice mail here. Hi, Mitch and Robert. This is Broncos fan Alaric calling in. A very exciting game of weekends. Weekend of games, of course. I'm going up to say, I'm really excited telling all my friends these are coin flip games. They're all 50-50 games, basically.

You flip the coin, that's who wins. Well, we get to the bill keeps the game and flip the coin in overtime to figure out who wins the game. Why are we okay with football games being decided by a coin flip? I think there are so many better ways to do this, and that's my question for you, is what is a better way of deciding who gets to start overtime? I was thinking there could be, you know, you could continue exactly where you left off in the fourth quarter. You could have a field goal competition to determine who gets the ball first. There's so many football ways to decide who gets to go first.

I think we should just toss the coin flip and come up with something better. Thanks. You went on to suggest a couple of things. I wanted to ask you this because I haven't talked to you about this. And you always bring me back to Earth with some of this stuff. This is why it's unrealistic. This is why it wouldn't work. So what is your thought about NFL overtime and how it could improve?

Because when I come away from that game yesterday, it's just, it sucks to me that the second team doesn't get to touch the ball. I don't know what the best solution is, but I want to feel better about the outcome of arguably the greatest football game I've ever seen. It's the one thing that taints it in my mind. I know they have a ton of opportunities over the course of the entire game, but it just feels like there's a solution out there that gets closer to what we want that allows both teams to at least touch the ball at the end of the game. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I think

there is a good solution. There's probably not a best solution or a perfect solution. I get back, and it's not the NFL caring about player safety or whatever. But again, those guys were exhausted. The reason that we say, oh, they get the coin flip, they're going to win is because for the most part, the defenses are probably on their heels a little bit. They're tired. It's 10 and 1, by the way, Since the new overtime rules were established in the playoffs. In the playoffs. In the regular season, it's like 52%. So you're looking at small sample size a little bit there.

Now the playoffs have the better offenses and that rule favors the offense. So you could say on the whole it's relatively equitable, but in the playoffs it's not. So we need to fix it. So if you say, okay, well, Buffalo gets the ball next, how many more drives do we think both teams would have scored touchdowns? Because now you're looking at a six, seven quarter game theoretically that both defenses are gas. They can't pass rush anymore. or Alan and Mahomes can sling it around. I don't love the idea of now you have to go for two-point conversions.

I think that's altering the structure of the game. And so you could look at a game like that and just say like, okay, they're just going to keep trading touchdowns. Well, at some point, like, that's not fair. That's physically just not okay to me to have that as a possible scenario. Realistically, are they going to play six quarters? You know, who knows, probably not. But I don't think that there's a solution that that should be on the table.

So that's my thing with, yeah, let's just let both teams get a chance at it and score touchdowns because it's 10 and 1 because that team goes down and scores a touchdown the majority of the time. And the majority of the time, they're really close games at the end. And I think both teams, whoever gets the ball is going to go and score. So I don't necessarily love just that aspect of both teams get the ball no matter what. And then we play. I know there's some good things and some kind of game theory ones where you choose to get the ball, but you got to spot it at a certain point or they get to spot it. bought it for you if you choose the ball. Some of the proposals have brought that forward.

The teams have suggested. Yeah. So some of those are interesting. You know, everyone's kind of got their spin on it. There's some interesting ones floating around Twitter and all this stuff. And I think there's a better solution. I don't think that this is a bad thing right now.

I think people are thinking of it like it's the worst thing ever and whatever. I just don't see it that way. Like I didn't leave the ASE championship game four years ago thinking like, man, we got screwed by the overtime rules. again, as players, you take responsibility for what you didn't do correctly. And so the bills are taking responsibility for allowing the chiefs to get in the field goal range with 13 freaking seconds left. Yeah.

That's what they're doing. They're like, we had this game one. We let it up. This is our fault. That a. F.C championship game, we scored, I think, zero points in the first half. Like, it's our fault. We didn't have more points and we didn't win the game cleanly.

Like, it's that simple. I don't blame D. Ford. I don't blame the rules. I don't blame anything else. Our offense sucked in the first half. And we had to fight and claw our way back to even tie it. And so we could have done better. So I think from the player perspective, there's a lot of former players on there that, you know, tweet stuff and like the engagement and like the following.

But how often do you really hear current players go off on it? You don't really hear that. Like I didn't, obviously guys are trying to, you know, say the right thing and everything. But there's enough people now who just speak their mind regardless. You don't really hear the current players and the guys who lose those games saying like, man, this rule sucks and we should have got the ball. It's like, no, we should have done these other things to not put ourselves in that situation. That's always how I feel. I don't have strong opinions about it either way.

It's the same thing is when you see a call at the end of a game that goes the wrong way. In the aggregate, that's going to come out in the wash. The game is comprised of 100 moments. One moment, even if it occurred at the end of the game, did not determine the outcome of the game. So I've always been that way. And that's kind of how I feel here. It's like I don't get worked up over it because even if there is a better solution out there, I'm not so dissatisfied with this one that I'm going to waste a lot of time and energy on it.

Right. And I mean, at the end of the day, we're playing a game. And, you know, it's going to happen. It doesn't be what deters us from caring. No, no, no. I know. I know. I'm not saying don't care. I'm not saying care less or whatever.

But like, we're not talking about nuclear codes or all these things that have like real importance on worldly things and whatever. Like, yeah, we're all fans and it affects our mood and we're pissed off on our team. loses and stuff and we feel slighted by the rules of the rest or whatever. But like it's just, it's not that important in the grand scheme of things. And some things work out. Some things don't. Like because of some bad stuff, like you got to live one of the greatest moments with the Cubs one in the World Series. Like I got to live through the 50 years between Super Bowls with the Chiefs. Like, it was probably more special to do it on the 50th anniversary and the 60th year of the team and the

hundredth year of the NFL than it would have been to win the year before. And so sometimes these things just worked themselves out and it just kind of like you said evens itself out in the end. All right. Let's get to our next one here. Hey Robert. A devastated Bill's fan here. One strategy prior to Sunday night that I was using to protect myself from disappointment was the idea that Josh Allen appearing in a Super Bowl was just a matter of time. If you go back through some recent NFL history, you can only find.

a couple of examples, Philip Rivers, Michael Vick, of quarterbacks who are even as remotely as talented as Josh Allen who never appeared in the Super Bowl. I'm curious if you would agree, admitting that the AFC is increasingly a difficult place to play, that Josh Allen and the Bills making a Super Bowl in our lifetimes is just a matter of time. Thanks. I want to talk about this because, and we got a couple other questions about, we talk about the bills broadly.

We got another voicemail about looking at what Sean McDermen has done and the way the team has been built and just how much faith we should have moving forward. You know, so many teams go through this process of saying, you know, we were so close. And if this thing happens and this thing happens, we're right there. And it's, you delude yourself a little bit. But with the bills, it does feel true. It does feel like they're so set up to be. really good year after year because they've done this in a smart way they have the right coaching

staff they have the right infrastructure all of that stuff i just think we have to remember like philip rivers is a great name to bring up philip rivers isn't as talented as josh allen but i think philip rivers is a really fucking good quarterback we know and he he never played to super bowl and it's really and you watch that game like in oh seven right or o six when they lose to the colts and you think about that Chargers team and how good they seemed and how young Philip Rivers was

at that point. I think it's dangerous to think this way. As tempting as it might be in the moment, I think Josh Allen will eventually get there. I think they will eventually one day break through. But Patrick Mahomes is 26 years old, right? There is no guarantee that this will happen.

And that's why, in my opinion, the ending of that game last night is just so devastating because there's no guarantee that it's ever going to be this good again. even if it seems like they're going to be good for a while. I'm with you on that. There's no guarantee.

I would say if you give Josh Allen 15 more seasons, he's going to have a few cracks in aFC championship games and abilities to get to the Super Bowl. I think he will play in one. To answer the question directly, I think he will play. I think he will too. I mean, Brady has the best percentage of ever doing it, and there was still over half the time that he wasn't in it.

And I think Pat is on a, as we talked about, insane trajectory. but I think even to say that he's going to play in 50% of the Super Bowls is probably pushing it. Like that's just insane. There's only been one guy to ever be that close and it just happened. So it could happen. I'd love to see it happen. But realistically, over the next 15 years, you say Pat makes six of them.

That leaves nine others. I would like to think Alan would make one or two of those. I think this loss is particularly tough because last year seemed like, okay, we got further than maybe we expected to. We got to the championship game. It was close. We know these few areas we need to address. We dropped a couple pass rushers. We upgraded a receiver.

We did these other little things. The cap's in a good spot. Our OC stayed. Quarterback's still cheap. Yeah. And it didn't work. And they lost in the worst fashion possible in terms of devastating heartbreak. And it's tough.

And basically none of the moves really mattered because the past rush was non-existent. And you can say, yeah, they're still young and they're going to grow over time and stuff. but like this whole year was about tooling yourself up to beat the chiefs and it didn't work and this was the worst chiefs year we've seen of the last four and it just didn't work and so I think it's going to be really difficult because I don't know that there's a minor tweak or a little adjustment it does seem like day ball is going to leave and we talk about how important that guy is to not him specifically but like the offense of coordinator the guy who's designing play is the guy who creates the offense for the quarterback we talk about how important that is for a team and that's

why, as we've discussed a bunch, you'd love to have your coach be that offensive mind with the way things are going, and they don't have that. And so if Dave Ball leaves, maybe something bad happens to the offense, they don't get a guy quite as good. Now they're 90% of the offense, and that's just not enough to go up against these guys every single year in the AFC. Josh Allen today, it seemed like he was hinting at the fact that he would want Ken Dorsey to get that job if Dave will got hired away. I think you said it directly. I think so. I don't know if it was hinting or if it was direct, but I would imagine that that was put out there for a very specific reason.

I wanted to ask you this. This is not in our questions, but you mentioning the 2018 game you guys lost and losing in horrible fashion, even on that field, do those things linger? Like, how does a loss like that hang in the air when you know that you had a Super Bowl caliber team? Because in 2018, you guys were the team of the season. It was your year. Pat won the MVP.

It was the best thing about the NFL that year was watching. you guys you had to feel that in the moment so when you fall short in a season like that how do you stop it from lingering you compartmentalize you this is me talking as just me you get i get over stuff relatively easily like i tried my best i didn't have any regrets about my preparation or what i did on the field or whatever like i tried hard i prepared i studied i played as hard as i could it didn't work out for us i don't think a healthy mindset i'm i'm I'm envious of you. Yeah.

I mean, it's not like I wasn't under insane stress all the time. We've talked about that a bunch, but just in the sense of like, I control what I can control. Again, I came from the worst situation in Cleveland where the best left tackle, potentially of all time, didn't get to go to the playoffs. And it wasn't any doing of his own. He was the best player on the field every time except on the field. And it just didn't matter. And he had to figure out how to come to grips with that.

As an offense alignment, you're one part of a five-man group of an 11-man unit of a 53 man team. I've never talked to someone who had a better mindset and a better perspective about that stuff than him. When you talk to Joe Thomas about that and what it was like to endure that every single year, I was just so I remember sitting in the cafeteria in Cleveland. I wrote a story about him and sitting here having that conversation with him and him just having like the most enviable and impressive perspective on what it was like to have his career.

I was like, man. What a content man. I really appreciate it. So there are those types of players. I would put myself into that category. Other guys, it's the thing that they think about the entire off season, and it's the thing that fuels them. And we see guys either create these slites or feel disrespected or this last thing,

the thing happened last year. I need to fix it. So I'm going to work out every day with thinking of the ASE championship game. Some guys are wired that way. I don't know if it's like an ultra-competitive thing that you just always have to, like, win in that specific thing. And then it drives you until you can accomplish it. I'm not wired in that specific way.

so it's tough for me to say like that's what guys do, but it sure seems like that. I think it's the dumbest thing. One guy's like creates lights or like, personally, I can't believe that Brady is still fueled by the fact that he was drafted in the sixth round. Like so many people bring that up all the time. It's like,

okay, maybe after the third Super Bowl he got over it. Like, yeah, maybe then it was deflake eight or maybe it was this other thing. And he found the motivation. And we've talked about before in terms of guys on second contracts or these other things that like once you get to that level, it's a whole different level of pressure because now you're expected to be that good. The reason we look so poorly again on the early start to the chiefs is because we expected 14 and 3 at a minimum.

We expected Pat to be this pat every single time. Expectations suck and they're really difficult. And what you do with those expectations and how you let it drive you is a huge thing for motivation for the long term. And so that's how some guys are wired. So to answer your question, everyone handles it a little bit differently. I think my guess as coaches and kind of front office people probably take that more top-down view. I think as players you don't quite understand it in the moment. You look at a guy like Joe Tunney, he's in what year six and he's played in like five Super Bowls or something.

Yeah. Like he's had an amazing season and like all he knows is Super Bowls and playoffs. Do you think that shit is real? To have been through that and to experience it and what it does for you? In terms of like just not being phased by the moments. you know I don't know I don't think so because we see all these things happen and it doesn't necessarily matter for guys like that was our first Super Bowl and we were able to come back and win like I saw it's more just how you're naturally wired I think so and this is kind of the clutch gene right like you would imagine that if you were able to handle those situations it would have got weeded out a long time ago if you weren't and so you'd have to imagine that these teams and these guys who make it to these points now I'm not going to sit here and say you're not going to sit here and say the two weeks preparing for the 49ers wasn't the most nerve-wracking two weeks of my professional life. Like going up against that defensive line every single day, all you're

doing is watching the same film with them destroying everyone they face. Like, yeah, it sucks and it gets to you. And like, you go on the field and you're really nervous. And then the game starts and you kind of settle back in. But like Nick Allegretti, all he knows is going to Super Bowl. So his first year we won a Super Bowl and second year we went to a Super Bowl. He got to play. And then this year there's a very good chance that choose you're going to go to the Super Bowl. Like some guys get drafted into situations and it's like, oh, this is cool. This is pretty easy. And other guys have the Joe Thomas situation where you just never really sniff it. Except you go to the playoffs your first year and they never go back.

No, they didn't. I thought they meant, they were like 11 and 5, but they didn't go. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's the best part of that story is that was his best season. And they didn't make the playoffs with a record that normally should have made the playoffs. And then he never came close to it again. So yeah, it's, I'm less likely to think that like, oh, now we've played enough

playoff games to make us ready for the next one. I know there's some element of being in the situation. You know, we go back to Mike McCarthy saying the Cowboys aren't ready for it. It's like, okay, so next year they're going to be ready for the playoffs because they've been in the situation. I know there's a human element of that and teams sometimes who aren't used to playing Monday Night Football or prime time or whatever. There probably is a mental component to it. I guess I just never really felt like that existed for me personally, so I probably have some bias there. All right.

one more Bill's question real quick, because I thought that Connor from Philadelphia phrased this in a way that we don't, I wasn't necessarily thinking about this soon after the game because it did feel like the bills were so close. Hey, Robert, this is Connor from Philadelphia. I'm calling as what I'll call a transplanted bills fan. Just curious after watching that game, I feel like a lot of teams after a tough playoff loss will sort of assume that everything. would have gone differently with just a bounce of the ball in their direction.

And in a lot of cases, it feels like they miss kind of key things that they need to fix with the team structure and strategy and everything. After watching that game, though, it really does feel like the bills might be the one exception. So I'm curious if you guys see it the same way, and they really should just kind of run everything back as is next year, or if there's something structurally you think might be. to improve. Thanks. So I never think that a team should just run it back the next year because you always need to think

about, like for the bill is a perfect example. Defensive regression will come. You are the best defense in football this year. You're not going to be next year. Even if you're a top five defense, there are things you need to do to make sure you're a little bit better and create small edges on that side of the ball specifically. When you look at this Bill's team, we'll spend 90 seconds on this. What do you think they need to do this off season to make sure that, all right,

is the tiny little ways we're tweaking this and getting better. Maybe it's not obvious. It's not obvious to me. I think it starts and ends with both lines, both offense and defense. I think that's fair. We've seen, I'm starting to think, and I mean, this is again, me and Joe talked about it a bunch, but Joe is much more, hey, get the stud receiver over the stud offensive alignment because the stud offense alignment can only do so much. But I think now in terms of building a roster, quarterback's number one, your offensive line unit is number two, your pass catching unit is number three. and then defense align is fourth most important.

And with the bills, the quarterback is awesome. The offensive line, you just keep strengthening that. You make that as good as possible. Protect them as much as you can. And you wanted another kind of point in that argument is they're willing to put their best five out there. They don't care about continuity. And I think in a way that has strengthened them because they're just saying, we're

going to see what the combinations are that are going to work. So if you're willing to live like that, making more changes and trying to more talent all the time, you're more able to kind of incorporate those players than a team that says, we like our five, we're going to stick with our five. Right. And one of the criticisms is, oh, they don't run the ball enough or as efficiently. It's like, okay, we know that that doesn't matter. So just focus on protecting Allen and then they need a pass rush. Like, I know they draft the guys, they got young guys. They don't have anyone up the middle that can pass rush. They really are stacked with edge guys and they didn't

do much of anything yesterday. And I just think that is an area that. they need to develop, whether it's finding guys in free agency, draft some more, get another hand in there to develop those guys. I understand they're young, a couple of rookies, they're going to get better. It's a second year guy as well. So I get that there's a progression there. But offensive line, defense aligned, make them as good as possible. Alan has a couple receivers already.

He'll be fine with decent enough guys if he has time. And if they can get to the other quarterback, they'll win 12 plus games every year. All right. Let's get to our next one here. Hey, Robert Mitch. Crazy weekend. But I mainly had a question about the Bengals. So I know that you've always had a trouble, you know, diverging what is Matt

Flore and what is Aaron Rogers. I'm not so sure. It's that hard with the Bengals. It seems like it's mostly Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase and, you know, not. that much the coaching, how much of the issue with the Bengals offense is really Zach Taylor in the scheme and how much of the issue is maybe the players or the OL. So anyway, thanks. Curious about your take on this.

When you watch the Bengals, especially this weekend, or just in general, where do you think their major failings are maybe outside of their offensive line talent and their ability to protect their quarterback? No, you can't put that qualification on that. Obviously, the offensive line is just bad. Well, so what are you supposed to do as a coordinator? Like get conservative. We talk about this.

You don't trust your guys. You turn into what the chargers turn into earlier this year where you stop trusting your guys. You severely limit what your quarterback's going to do. He starts handing it off and now you're on third aid all the time. How do you best protect better? Outside of having better players. Yeah. Yeah.

Just let's talk about the coordinator. Aside from this four guys that suck. But no, it's a bad offensive line. Like it's that simple. They obviously played well enough to beat the team. the Titans. They played well enough to beat the Chiefs, even though Chris Jones is in the backfield all day. But yeah, it just seems like Burroughs making incredible plays. He's clearly more than willing to get hit. He's got a stud receiver. He's got a couple other good receivers. And it's working for

them. And they're playing that brand of ball right now. They've rattled off some good runs occasionally. Again, you're not going to be super consistent with out a great offensive line. And so I don't think you can properly evaluate the scheme or what they're asking of Burrow until the offensive line gets fixed. And we really only been talking about the offense line for the last few weeks. I feel like it's been magnified over these playoffs. I think for the majority of the season, we kind of would have said like, oh, Cincinnati's playing well. The offense looks good. Burrow looks better. Since the reef injury, it's become much worse. Right. Yeah. Right. So this is more of a new development. I think for the majority of the season, we liked what we saw from that offense as a whole,

both player wise and schematics. All right. One more voicemail here. We don't have to spend a ton of time on this one, but I thought it was a really interesting question. Hey, Robert. Love the show. My name's Mitch. I'm a very, very depressed with young Bill fan at the moment, but also a University of Wisconsin grad, go badgers. So I'm familiar with the Packer struggles as well. I wanted to ask you this for a while, but it seems more topical now. Which of these you think is worse as a fan? Going through what I had to my whole childhood, where I have no memory of the bills making the goddamn playoff until my sophomore year of college, or what's happened to the Packers of the last 10 years,

now the bills of the last couple, where you know, you're so much better than most teams, but they always come up short in January. I think it's at least better to be relevant year over year, but I definitely understand how Redress the regular season pretty meaningless. So not sure about this. Thanks and take care. It's a great question, because I, even if you're a Packer fan, if you're a Packer fan right now and you've watched Aaron Rogers every single year,

you've watched him be one of, I don't know, the five to seven greatest quarterbacks of all time, and you've won one goddamn Super Bowl. can understand how that's frustrating. You could also live the life that I lead, where I've never gotten to watch a good quarterback in 34 years of being on this planet. So I understand both sides of it. I think I'd still rather have the good team every single year, but it does make it a little bit sweeter if you've never had the good team, then you finally break through. But I guess you could say the same thing about the Packers. What do you think about this? I was going to say this is much more your alley is a lifelong suffering fan than mine.

I think you'd rather have the good team and the good quarterback and just look back after and be like, oh, that's a great run. I wish we did a little more. The staunching of all hope and just the beat down that fan bases get when they just have no hope you every year. You are familiar with that. That I am. Luckily, I only had to go through it for so long.

I don't have to live through it and be a fan for 30 plus years. That just sucks. And we hear these voicemails. There's been a couple already of people that are just. just utterly defeated by their team and their fans and they're so excited and it's just like, oh man, this happened again. And for the most part, the most depression is from the fan bases that are just, we don't have hope.

There's nothing to look for in the future. We've been bad for 10 years. I just want some glimmer of hope. And so I would take the good quarterback and just looking back, being like, oh, man, we only won one Super Bowl in 15 years. That's a much better outcome than being miserable for 30. And I feel like those two fan bases that we've gotten a lot of familiar. with over the last season, the last couple weeks even, what the bills now feel like having

Josh Allen and what the Bengals now feel like having Joe Burrow. Yeah. That's all I want in the world. It's all I want. I have faith in what Justin Fields can become, right? But that feeling and just knowing we could be relevant every single year because this guy's in the building is amazing. So here's the other thing, the Packers for the past 15, I mean, really for the past 35 years,

but let's just say the Rogers era. My lifetime. 15 years. For the past 15 years. Dave said, okay, we've got a great quarterback. This is, for the most part, been an awesome season. 75% of the time you're going to be happy after regular season game. You're going to get excited for playoff games.

You're going to lose half of your playoff games. It's going to end poorly because you have these expectations. You're really excited. You want to see your team in the Super Bowl. It's going to sting a little bit more than going five and 12 and being really miserable throughout the course of the year. And then after a month or two, you're going to get over it. You're going to look to free agency and be, oh, what,

We just need this one receiver. We need this. Now, the Packers, of course, aren't the best example to look forward to free agency for, but everyone else. You look forward to free agency. Things start to happen. You look forward to the draft. Oh, we drafted that one lineman that we need.

This is great. The season starts. You win another 75% of your games. You go to the playoffs. You win one game. You lose one. You're bummed. It lasts a month or two.

And the cycle starts over and over. There's always hope. There's always the next year. It's always exciting. For the most part, at the course of the season, you're always excited and you're in a good mood. The flip side, as you well know, is going four and 12 every year. And the season ends and it's like, oh, this sucks.

And we have so many holes to fill. And there's no light of the end of the tunnel. And we don't have a quarterback. And then every eight years, you find a quarterback that you, you trick yourself into thinking could be the guy. And, of course, he comes nowhere near it. And you're just constantly miserable. The season sucks.

Your team constantly sucks. There's no hope in the off season. You put way too much stock into the draft and then it becomes this perpetual cycle of misery. So which of those two would you prefer? I'm going to take the good quarterback. You've made a good argument and made me sad all at once. All right. Sticking with the Packers, one last question here.

Peter Saunders. It's a big fan of the show. I've been reading and listening since your grant one days. I appreciate that, Peter. It's a depressed Packer fan from the UK trying to unpack Saturday night's game. I have a question for Mitch on the way the Packers approached the offensive line. We didn't talk about this at all last night and I really wanted to dig into it. We saw Billy Turner give up Saxon Pressures playing left tackle in the NITTERC championship game last year.

The Packers again chose to play him at left tackle against the Niners, leaving Dennis Kelly at right tackle. Lefleur said his preference is to go with the best five guys. But whilst I try to process losing again in the playoffs, I can't help but wonder whether they should have gone with Yash Nyman, who played well when called upon this year at left tackle and left turn at right tackle deal with Nick Bosa. Kelly's obviously more experienced than Nyman, but my question for Mitch is whether in his experience

he'd rather go with the best five guys, even if some are playing out of position, a way the complications of playing out of position just aren't worth that risk, and you're better off going with arguably lesser players in their preferred spots. This is a great question, because when I turned on that game on Saturday or Sunday morning,

and I saw that Bokhtari was not in there, I was like, what happened? What is happening here? Be it Billy Turner and Dennis Kelly again. And remember a few weeks ago when we were like, man, we should probably be worried about the Packers' offensive line in a big moment, huh? And it came up in a big moment. So how do you feel about the way they approached that in that moment, in that game?

So when you talk about Best Five, they still have to perform while. You can, we're using Bill Turner as an example. He's not like the example. We're not picking on him. But if you're saying he's, you know, an 80% player at his best, he's moving to left tackle and now he's not going to be quite as good and he's a 63% player. We've got this other guy who's all the time a 70% player, but he's the left tackle. Well, both of those guys left tackle, the 70% player is better. So on the whole, your 80% player is in there, but at the position he's playing, he's now worse than the backup.

So that's not your best five. Like that's a poor argument for best five. it's the best five at each spot. And there's a little bit of shifting going on. We just talked about this with the bills and them trying to find their best five and the guys who fit the spots the best. But essentially you had two right tackles or right side guys in Kelly and in Billy Turner and you had a guy at left tackle.

Both those guys are better at right tackle than he is at left tackle. But once you move one of them, now that guy probably becomes just as good, if not worse, at left tackle. So to me, that's not getting your best five guys on the field because he's no longer one of your best five at that position. And so I think that's the critical thing. We've talked about this a bunch. It's one of the things in the offensive line community.

Like you can't just switch guys left and right. You can make a right guard or right tackle a right tackle, a right guard, much easier than you can make a right guard a left tackle. Well, that's the worst case scenario, but right tackle, a left tackle, or right guard a left guard. And switching sides is completely different. And if any of you have ever had an injury to your dominant hand and you've had to use your other hand, now imagine doing that against Nick Bosa.

So that's what you're asking the guy to do if you're asking them to switch positions. And also, that left side hadn't played together at all. And there was a sack in that game. EBCOM's sack is a perfect example where they're running a game. And there's just absolutely no chemistry or understanding of where they're supposed to be and how they're supposed to pass it off. And they think about that. Bakhtiari practiced this week. So they didn't even practice together.

And now you're playing a left side you've never played in a game against one of the best defensive fronts in the NFL. And it looked like it. So my thing would probably be, it's not necessarily this sparks something in my head that I probably should have thought about earlier. So going into the week, they probably said, okay, Bogari's left tackle, Kelly is it right tackle, or maybe Billy Turner took all the reps right tackle. We don't know. Kelly is the swing tackle. So those three guys are your three tackles. Bogtiari at left tackle, Turner or Kelly a right tackle.

And the other of them is your swing tackle. So the four string now tackle isn't getting any reps at all throughout the week at tackle. So maybe in the moment they're just like, man, Bachteri can't play. This other guy, he hasn't practiced all week. I'd rather go with the guy who's at least practice and gotten some reps. It might not be quite as good, but he's had the week of practice. That's a really good point. And that probably is the answer. If we actually boil it down and think about the progression and how guys practice, that's my best guess on what ended up happening. I think if they went into the week and they knew that Bogtiari was more likely not going to play, they probably would have left the dude to left tackle.

and then just figured out whichever guy they prefer to right tackle. But because he practiced, I probably threw things off. And then you go into a Sunday. And now you're asking a young guy who hasn't played playoff ball to go be a starter against the 49ers defensive ends when he hasn't practiced in that spot all week. All right. That's all we got. We should do this every week.

Maybe I'll just fly down every single Monday and come to Kansas City. Yeah, the athletics got that money. Yeah. See if they'll put that bill. I mean, it's a real casual thing. Really enjoyed it. Always good to see you, buddy. As always with you guys, thank you so much for the questions.

This show has been so fun to do all year in large part because you guys are so engaged and so thoughtful in the questions that you ask. So really appreciate that. Tomorrow, be on the lookout for Dane and Lance doing the second episode of their draft show. Cannot wait for that to be with you guys every single Wednesday through your draft season. Please go check that out. In the meantime, please rate and review the show on your podcast platform of choice. Please subscribe to The Athletic. The Affedic.com slash football show.

I highly encourage you guys to do that at this stage of the season. You can read Nate Taylor on last night's game. You can read Jordan Rodriguez, wonderful piece on the Rams game and just everything they had to kind of work through to win that game. Now as they move on to the NFC Championship, I'm sure we'll have some fantastic previews of the conference championship games. If you don't have enough of subscription, it is time to get one. As always, guys, appreciate the time.

We'll talk to you later. This was the Athletic Football Show.