The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Week 18 recap: Lions lock up the top spot in the NFC, and now we're all playoff-bound

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

The playoff puzzle was mostly put together going into Week 18, but there was still one huge piece that needed to be put in place. The Lions dropped that piece into the puzzle on Sunday night, knocking off the Vikings to lock up the top spot in the NFC. All that's left now is to put a bow on the regular season, and point ourselves toward the playoffs. That's exactly what Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen do on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.RundownLions take care of Vikings, lock up 1-seed in NFCThe NFC South delivers in classic NFC South fashionThe NFC playoff fieldThe AFC playoff field2025 NFL Draft orderPatriots fire Jerod MayoDolphins, Colts not making any head coach or GM changesDid You See That?!?What Did We Learn Today?Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme 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, Week 18, a week 18 that did not have a ton of marquee games on the slate, but I honestly do think delivered in more ways than we could have anticipated. The Lions with one of the best performances of the season on both sides of the ball, and a real testament to what Dan Campbell, Brad Holmes, and that entire group has built in Detroit and what they did against the Vikings with the number one seed in the NFC on the line. Chatted about that with my co-host, Derek Klasten,

also dug into the NFC South and a wild early slate because of what was happening in the NFC South. Chatted about the state of both playoff pictures now that the fields are set, dug into the top 10 in the draft after what happened today, and also some of the early coaching news, including Gerard Mayo being fired by the Patriots. So let's dig into all of that with Derek Classen right now. Joining me tonight is my co-host Derek Classen. Derek, how are you doing, man? I'm doing good, man. This entire year has been a whirlwind, and so to finally be here at the end of the regular season, we're not at the end here, but at the end of the regular season, it's a cool moment.

And so even though it was like a chalky kind of Sunday, chalky end to the season, still a very cool moment to be here. Feels good. I've had a great time with you doing this all year. And I honestly think that Week 18 kind of delivered despite how few meaningful games there actually were. So last yesterday, I mean, the early game, you could do what you want with the early game. I said it in the moment. Like, that game did not need to happen. And some people were pushing back on that, and they were like,

what do you mean that game didn't need to happen? You could say about half the week 18 games. No, no, no. There are teams in week 18 where if they win, it doesn't matter. There are not that many games in week 18 where you have a team actively trying to lose against a team actively trying to win, like the Browns Ravens game yesterday. That's neither here nor there. The Stewart-Bengles game, that was meaningful.

That had some really nice moments. That was a tight game. We come into today, and I think the entire day, dialogue this week was, all right, the Sunday night game is the one that matters. You know, Lions Vikings is week 18. And you look at the early slate, and there are only a couple games that are actually meaningful, but the early slate ended up being wildly entertaining in a way I don't think any of us could have anticipated. We're going to talk about that and how the NFC South really carried that day for us. The afternoon slate, who cares? I mean, I think I half watched most of that

because that didn't matter whatsoever. And then the Sunday night game, even it ended up being a blowout, there is a ton for us to chew on in this game because it was a remarkable performance by the Detroit Lions. It was. And that, we'll dig into the game a little bit more. But that game, too, is, you know, I think we've had a handful of games this season where you look at it by the end of it. And you're like, this game was not as close as the scoreboard indicates. This one, to me, felt like the opposite where the game was actually a lot closer than the end of the scoreboard indicates. So, yeah, it's going to look like a blowout.

and it's going to look like the Lions. Oh, they always deserve the one seed, and they were always the best team. And I think there's a case for that. But this game was considerably closer than it looked like, you know, being a three scored ender here. That's absolutely true. Donald finishes 2 of 11 in the red zone in this game.

All of these stats are with like four minutes left in the game. I just want to say that right now. If they're not totally up to date, the stats are next genus, because I was looking at them as the fourth quarter was winding down. But the last time I looked, he was 2 of 11 in the red zone. He was 1 of 8 in the first half. But the Lions deserve a lot of credit for. that. And we'll talk about the Lions' offensive performance here in a second, but I want to start

with the performance from the Lions defense, who come into this game beat up. We know this. And even this state of the Lions was beat up. You have Meek Robertson playing outside, which I'm sure we'll hit on a corner with Carlton Davis out. You have a bunch of mostly depth pieces along the defensive line now. You know, Josh Pascal and Levi owns Zerike and DJ Reader is obviously a name, guys that are important to the Lions, but we're never supposed to be the most important even on their defensive line. But Aaron Glenn takes this rag-tag bunch and puts together one of the best performances based on like talent on one side of the ball versus talent on the other side of the ball

that I can remember from this season. If you're a team that is in need of a head coach, I would look at what Aaron Glenn just did. And if that's where your organization lands, I think it's not going to take you very long to talk yourself into that choice. This was an awesome game. And this was one of those, I think when you get into really, really high leverage games, and I think this is especially true with, again, some of the injuries that Detroit has had, you end up at a crossroads where it's like, all right, are we going to lean incredibly far into who we are

and just bet that that's going to win? Or are we going to try to diverge and kind of mix it up and try to put them off of their feet? Nope, Aaron Glenn went with the first option and said, we are going to lean all the way into man coverage. We are going to lean all the way into blitzing the hell out of you guys. And I think just turning up those knobs in this game was really, really good because we've kind of said before, like, if you're going to blitz the hell out of a team and you're going to play a ton of man coverage, you're kind of daring the quarterback to make a ton of high leverage throws. You're daring the receivers to get open and you're daring everyone to pick everything up in pass protection. I think the receivers did a pretty decent job getting open. I think the offensive line had a pretty bad night and I think the quarterback had a pretty bad night. And when you get two out of three of those and you're setting up all of these volatile, you know, just modes of defense and you get. two out of those three things to go your way, that's how you end up in a really good day like this. So I just thought some of the knobs they turned were good. And then I thought it was pretty inspired to put Amique Robertson on Justin Jefferson and then give a bunch of the extra coverage help, whether it's a robber or safety over the top, whatever to him. And then just let Terry and Arnold

for as long as he was in the game. I know he went out towards the second half. But for as long as Arnold was in the game, just let him go take away whoever else. It doesn't matter. And so I thought that was a pretty inspired choice as well. If you look at the kind of the kinds of man coverage at the played in this game. So they played almost exclusively man coverage. 67% of their defensive snaps, according to next gen, they play man coverage against Sam Donald tonight. Sam Donald on those plays, 10 of 28 against the Lions man coverage. So if you look at some of the specific layers to this, the next gen stats have it at 31% cover zero. That would be a departure from what the Lions typically do. They're the highest cover one rate in the entire league. They blitzed more. I think some

of that number, if you actually look at the plays down to down, I don't think that's totally right. This is obviously based on tracking data in real time. A lot of that is in the red zone. It looked like cover zero, but they actually had one of the safeties dropping down. A lot of it, and we talked about this coming into the game, they played a lot of robber in this game with the two safeties being the zone players where you'd have a post safety and then you'd have somebody drop down. And I think what that did was twofold. It allowed them to kind of do some de facto double teams in real time when Jefferson was running some vertical routes, and it was taking away a lot of those big crossers that the Vikings want to throw.

So you combine that with the amount of pressure they were getting when they decided to heat darnled up, and then just the amount of stunting they were doing up front when they weren't blitzing. That makes sense, right? You have a defensive line that's full of like pocket pushers, you know, no real stars. So let's make sure we're trying to crush the pocket as much as possible. and make things as difficult as we can on that offensive line. And that's what they were doing the entire day.

Darned was actually pressured more on non-blitzes in this game than he was when the lions blitzed. And I think that's really indicative of what the plan looked like when they weren't sending extra bodies at the quarterback. And I think some of that, too, is like, one, you mentioned they're all pocket pushers. They're all these stunters. I mean, the big Sedarius Smith sack early in the game, he's like looping inside and then

he has to spin back out. And so that's kind of a lot of what they were doing. And then like you mentioned, the robber stuff, I remember specifically in the second half, there's one where they're trying to get Jefferson from the left side to go run one of those big crossers and they dropped the robber down from the opposite side that Jefferson's on to go cut it off. And Darnold just kind of freezes and ends up bailing to his left and it's a bad play for them. So I thought them doing that was a really good job. And then even the cover zero stuff, Darnold hit one really early in the game. He hits the big crosser to Jefferson on third and ten where he just gets absolutely smoked. took. That was probably his best play of the game, Darnold. And then after that, it just,

every time they called it, they just were not able to get guys open. Or if they did, he was just missing throws. Some of them, again, were in the red zone where whether or not it actually is cover zero, it can be hard to differentiate sometimes. But I just thought overall, they did, they had like a, I thought the lions were above average in coverage tonight and then got helped out by Sam Darnold, probably having like his worst game of the season. I know I've been like the Sam Darnold Panic guy, but he was not this bad at basically any. other point in the season. Like he was much better than this for a lot of the year. I think the biggest issue was just him getting panicky in the pocket in the way that you've talked about. And

that's a good call by you. He had not done that a lot recently. If you look at the past like five, six, seven weeks, we hadn't really seen this version of him. And again, I think some of the stunting does that to him where you're giving him, all right, the defensive ends looping inside. Maybe he sees a little bit of a window where he can try to slide and then that window gets closed immediately. And now you're sending him into a sort of frantic mode. And I think that that was the best thing. thing they did tonight is that even if they weren't sending extra bodies, I think they were forcing him to feel uncomfortable in the pocket. And that was just the feeling over the entire Vikings offense for a vast majority of this game. I don't think he missed that many throws. You know,

there were a couple. The one to Justin Jefferson in the end zone, I think people are going to get on him off for that. That was a cover zero where Brian Branch is coming unblocked on a sluggo. Like, he's got to get rid of that thing really, really quick. I think his pocket, the comfort in the pocket and the lack of comfort in the pocket. That to me was a bigger issue than, you know, the two, three, four throws that he probably missed over the course of the game. I think it was like a couple of things. I think one, he probably, like you said, missed three or four. The one in the Jefferson one, like you're trying to lobby. You're getting it out immediately. That one is kind of, kind of weird, but I thought he missed a couple of other ones. And then this is a team that is usually really, really good

with converting on tight window throws, one because Darnold can make them, but also Jefferson can make those catches. Addison can make those catches. Hawkinson can make those catches. they didn't make like any of those tonight. And so when that kind of doesn't go your way, that is a really big issue. And to me, the other thing in the red zone specifically, this kind of ties back to Sam Donald being, getting a little bit panicky in this game. Like he just, I don't know if he just wasn't ready for the moment, whatever it was, but it seemed like any time they got into the red zone, he was just aborting the play call

and the progression and just like, where's Justin Jefferson, which I get it, man. He's one of the best I've ever seen and he's probably going to catch the ball if you throw it anywhere near him. But there were a couple plays where he had guys open. Like, there's one where they have Jefferson on the right side. They motion him to the left side and they get the man indicator they want. And they have a stack to the right with Addison where they get him, they have a pick play. They get some totally free in the flat to the right.

And Darndle looks at it and just doesn't throw it and turns to Jefferson. And it's like, just throw, do the thing you've been doing all year, which is throw the open route that Kevin O'Connell got for you. And for whatever reason, he just didn't do that a handful of times in this game, especially in the red zone. And there was a second one. I think it was that fourth and goal, the second failed fourth and goal, that they had where they had another pick play with Addison on like a slant that was wide open and he doesn't get to that. So I think that's right where it's just, it's not necessarily misthrows over the course of the

game, but him being a little bit sped up and not seeing things in the way that he has for a vast majority of the season, especially the second half of the season when this offense really felt like it had taken a breath, calm down, found itself. We did not see that version of things tonight. Two guys, I want to shout out in the defense, a few guys actually in the Lions defense. Robertson had help, but there were plenty of plays. where he was one-on-one with Justin Jefferson, I thought he was phenomenal in this game.

And I really liked what he's put on tape most of the year. Every time we've talked about them playing man coverage, the work that he's done from the slot has come up. And so for him to bump outside and have this sort of day against arguably the best receiver on planet Earth, that went a long way in the lion's ability to do what they did on defense. Alex Anzolone being back in this game, I think, was really important. He had one probably PI on Hawkinson and an important third downplay. But I still think that his presence was important.

Campbell had some nice moments in coverage, whether it was getting depth. They tried to get a slot fade, pick play to Hawkinson in the red zone where Campbell stuck with him the entire time. And the guy, game changing play, and I've never heard of this person before this, the pressure that Chris Smith got on the intentional grounding where they're trying to wad things up on play action, that pressure he gets inside. That makes the intentional grounding. and that ends up becoming a huge play in this game. So the two linebackers, Amique Robertson, Brian Branch had his moments, which he always does. Like Mel Phon, who had some nice moments in this game playing downhill. You shout out a ton of guys.

Like the entire performance from that side of the ball again is one of the most important unit-wide performance I think we've seen throughout the entire season, given the state of that lion's defense and given what this Vikings offense has looked like over the past month. Smith making that play, Anzolone making some of the entire season. of his plays with like a pit boy on his left arm. And then Melifanu making some of the plays that he made after just coming back from injury that like speaks to what the lions have done this entire like past two months. It's just like it literally doesn't matter if it's this new guy off the street that you really haven't heard of or off their practice squad or a guy who's finally

coming back from injury and they get him back and he's making a ton of plays. Like it just the fact that Aaron Glenn has been able to do this without a lot of the guys that he had in week one is just an unbelievable testament to what he's been able to put together. And again, this wasn't some, like, random OK team that they're doing this against in Week 18. This is against a top, like, five offense in the NFL that they were able to do this against. On the other side of the ball, golf had a couple bad moments, right? The arm punt, I still don't understand it. Like, I still don't understand it. Typically, when you see something like that, it's like, oh, he thought he had something or, oh, his arm was hit. I went back and I watched the dots and the replay like six times.

and I was like, I still don't know what you're looking at. The other interception that he throws on the tipped ball, it's actually a good play from him in terms of where he's trying to go with it. If you look at that play, they're trying to take a play action shot, and the Vikings are in cover too, and Jamo's running up the left sideline kind of a rail. And if golf wanted that, I thought they protected it well enough for him to try to hit the whole shot to Jamo, but he gets off of it so fast that the checkdown to Reynolds should be there. And I thought Reynolds was good in past protection overall in this game, but that's a play where the timing of him getting out on that, he just hasn't played a lot.

So I think the timing on that is probably a little bit slower than they want it to be. Golf doesn't put the right trajectory on it. It gets tipped and it's intercepted. But other than like those two plays, I thought that Jared Goff was kind of phenomenal in this game. He finished 14 of 18 for 133 yards against the Blitz. When he was pressured today, golf was 9 of 12 for 113 yards. Good Lord. He was, like you said, outside of the two horrendous interceptions that he had, he was actually pretty good.

And this, too, by the way, is without them being able to activate their screen game at all? Like, any time they were trying to. The Vikings were insane against the screen game today. And it wasn't just Van Ginkle. Like, usually it is Van Ginkle and he made two or three plays against the screen game. But like Byron Murphy had a tackle out in the perimeter against the screen. Like, so. Grenard had that play on when they would try to have Sewell.

they tried to do that thing where they sent Sue out into space. And I think they probably would have had that blocked up if Grenard didn't fly out there. Yes. I for two thirds of this game before the damn broke, I actually thought that the Vikings defense was putting up one hell of our performance. I thought they were too. Like I said at the beginning, this game looks really, really bad on the final scoreboard. But for like a majority of it until the damn kind of broke, this was a really good performance I thought by the Vikings defense. I think the only thing that they really struggled with for a majority of the game was the ground game.

Like, I do think the Lions ran the ball pretty well. Like, the first drive was not very good, but then after that, I thought the Lions ran the ball pretty well and did what they wanted. But even that, though, if you look at the first half numbers, the only successful run that Gibbs had in the first half was the touchdown. That was it. He had 13 runs. He had one successful run in the first half. But I think this is kind of the point I keep coming back to with the Lions performance. the damn did break.

Eventually, they found a way. And I think that happened on two different fronts. One, they did a really good job of having answers against pressure in the second half. It came in a bunch of different ways. Whether it was blocking stuff up out of 12 personnel, the Lions averaged nine yards of play out of 12 personnel today. They had 200 of like 380 yards out of 12 personnel. I think the biggest thing with that is getting extra bodies and protection as a way

to find answers against the blitz. So either was wadding stuff up and finding answers, or it was Goff finding quick answers out of the backfield. Obviously, the touchdown to Gibbs against that cover zero look is the best possible example of that. But I think over time, they started to lock into, all right, this is what we need to do when they blitz. And then the other side of it, answers against pressure. And then the second half of it was just being able to pound them into submission on the ground. Those two areas, they weren't necessarily great early on. but as the game wore down, this offense found a way in a manner that you could probably expect

from this sort of offense and what we've seen from them over the last literally two years. Right, exactly. Like that always feels like it's going to come, right? Like where Gibbs finally is able to spring a few or they finally find the right answers in the Blitz, whereas the early just bizarre interceptions that they had, those don't necessarily feel like they are in the lion's DNA anymore. Like every now and then you can get those games from golf. But again, like, the first interception he throws where it's tipped is not really that bad of a play. And then the arm point one almost just feels like, I think Jared Goff is a quarterback who now plays with a lot more autonomy.

But there definitely used to be moments in L.A. and early on in Detroit where he felt a little bit like just a trebuechet where it's like we're going to set it here. You're going to throw it. And this is what's going to happen. Set it and forget it. It's his personality. He's a people pleaser. Right. And so that play a little bit felt like Ben was in his ear like, hey, man, we're going to throw it.

You got to throw deep on this play. just do it no matter what. And he probably shouldn't have on that play, but he did. There were two drives, two straight drives in the second half. There was like 720 left in the third quarter. Golf had that nasty throw to Leporta. And then I think on the next play, maybe the same drive. The Vikings brought like a double A gap blitz with a dropper.

And golf slid and found Leporta. On the same drive, he hits St. Brown against man coverage where Byron Murphy was trailing St. Brown, and it was the thrower, the play where Gernard dropped into space. That was a beautiful tight window throw to St. Brown. And then it was a sim pressure with Gernard and Van Ginkle dropping. So that was one drive. And then later on, like, another drive in that half, he finds Gibbs on an outward against the blitz when Gibbs, like, release to the left.

He comes back with St. Brown, where he beats the blitz to that side when pace is coming. He gets to that backside dig to Jameson Williams on his third read, where he's sliding in the pocket gets all the way back to it and then Gibbs finishes it off with a touchdown. So those two drives, it's like, that's when it started to feel to me of like, they're locked in now. Like they know exactly what they need to be doing. And now this is going to be a problem over the course of the rest of the game. And you mentioned like on all of those places, it felt like you said he was sliding.

And I actually thought that was the part of the Blitz stuff that was most impressive to me in this game. Because like the Vikings were getting guys to where they were going to be in Jared Goss face and give him some pressure and give him some problems. and Jared Goff, in years past, had had moments where he could get to the right guy, but he wouldn't move off his spot enough. His arm slots wouldn't be malleable enough to where he could make those throws. I thought this game was like a pretty good testament where he's,

what he's done all season for the most part is like make those one or two drifts steps backwards or make that little slide to the left and then still be able to throw it to your right. Like I remember, I think he hit, I think it was on the Jamison Williams maybe fourth down where he's actually sliding to his left against the free rush and whips it back to his right on the drag route. Like two years ago. Cover zero on the first drive of the game. Yeah.

Like he couldn't do that two years ago. Like it's just not a consistent thing that he had in his bag. And so just to make those little plays where it feels a little bit more like he's an athlete playing quarterback than kind of just like a robot playing quarterback. Those are really important moments for him. And for the development of what this team has done the past, you know, year, two years, three years. It's a team win overall.

It is an expression of who the Lions have been for a good majority of this season. And the ability to do it on the defensive side of the play. all considering how banked up they are is absolutely remarkable. And Greg Rosenthal said this as the game was winding down. And I agree with Greg. And I feel like this is worth mentioning. We did our award show last week before week 18. Most of the season is sewn up.

Like I'm fine with my MVP conversation. I'm fine with my defense player of the year conversation. All of that. The one that was probably close and probably should be weighed in week 18 here. If I had a vote given how that game went, given how much of a team win that feels like, given what the Lions have overcome this year, I have no problem. Penciling in Dan Campbell's name for coach of the year. Like, it was close enough that I think what happened tonight should probably weigh on the minds

of voters. I have no issue with that at all. I don't either. Like, we kind of talked about it, even though I think we both picked O'Connell, this was a race that was incredibly close between a handful of guys. And if you can go beat the guy that I gave the vote to before and also do it again with this defense that you didn't have any of your, you didn't have half of your starting defense. and you gave up nine points to maybe the best,

a top three offense in the league. That's an incredible performance fan. To win 15 games with this roster, and especially, too, it just, there is part of it that it is a little bit of a lifetime achievement. Or it's not only that, right? They won 15 games this year, but it would be a little bit of like a crowning achievement

for what they've done for the past four years now. I think with how banged up they were on defense, to be able to put something like this together in the most important game of the season that deserves a lot of credit. The Vikings had a 28% offensive success. accessory today. Like 28% against the Lions defense in this state. So a wildly impressive win for Detroit and a very important one. They now have home field advantage throughout the playoffs. And as somebody who was in at four field last year for the Wildcar rounder game against the Rams,

it is awesome that the playoffs go through Detroit and the NFC because that franchise in the way that it's been reinvigorated and then a fan base and kind of what they've gotten to enjoy watching this rise. The fact that now they get to watch these games at home as this team tries to win a Super Bowl, that place is going to be absolutely rocking. And now the Vikings will have to go on the road to play against the Rams, which is a team that gave them problems the first time around. So the NFC playoffs, we said this coming into it. We'll talk about it here in a second. It's pretty wide open considering the state of the field and some of the matchups that we're going to be getting. And I am very, very excited to watch essentially every single game that we're going

to get on that side of the bracket. All right, before we move on, let's take a quick break. What the fuck? The NFC South and everything the NFC South did in that early slate of games, all we needed was the Bucks to just take care of business against the Saints team that they were like double-digit two touchdown favorites over, and none of the rest of this would have mattered. But instead, the Bucks decided to drag that game along as long as they possibly could, which made the Falcons Panthers game, which was also wildly energetic.

live for pretty much the entire early slate. So now you're sitting there watching both of those games and having to pay attention. There was a chance at one point that both of those teams were going to lose and that the bucks were going to get in. So every permutation of how the NFC South could have played out was on display today. There is no better division to just do some stupid, stupid shit in week 18 that ended up becoming entertaining for the wrong reasons, then the NFC South. So I should be disappointed in them because of some of the performances that we saw today, but I actually appreciated the division

being the best truest version of itself with everything on the line at the end of the season. Yes, it was so true to form. And like, I didn't, I don't need either of these teams to look like the Super Bowl winner anyway. So, like, I didn't need them to both go out and win these games by 30 points and look amazing and do whatever. I think the fact that both of these teams kind of of strung this out to the end. I think at some point, probably in the middle of the second quarter of these games, when I realized that Panthers Falcons was going to be an insane shootout and that at that point, the Bucks were losing by multiple scores. I was like, all right, at this point, I'm kind of rooting for the double loss just because I think that that is the ending that this

division deserves. Ultimately, we didn't get there. But the fact that was on the table into the fourth quarter of the Bucks game was just, it was perfect. Spencer Rattle was 21 of 26 to start this game. I was very ready to just unleash on this Bucks team for what they were about to do against the Saints team that I was going to say they gave up 10 weeks ago. They did for a little bit. Yeah, they gave up 10 weeks ago and then they stopped giving up, but not to the extent that you should be worried about them in week 18 with your season on the line. And this is one of those games where I actually thought that sometimes we can get a wild version. of Baker that's a negative for the Bucks.

I actually thought the wild version of Baker was a positive for the Bucks and huge chunks of this game. I thought some of their issues were play calling, situational, like a quarterback sweep to Baker Mayfield on a key third down where he gets negative seven yards, or they try to run like a gimmicky screen at one point that gets blown up for like a five yard loss to Bucky Irving. Liam Cohen has had an amazing season. He did not shower himself in glory for a majority of this game, but Baker did

incredible work with his legs in this game. I looked up the numbers on NextGen after it was over. 6.8 EPA for Baker as a scrambler in this game. He added a touchdown with his legs, which was necessary considering how close things were. And then the two huge chunks, the McMillan, the one where McMillan gets the absolute nonsense celebration penalty, and then comes back with another one that's a beautiful throw. And then you had a few Mike Evans moments, a couple chunk buck-eufing runs. And that was enough with the Saints' offense predictably running out of gas for the bucks to get this thing over the finish line. The wild version of Baker, the scrambling version of Baker particular, they needed because

towards the end of the game, middle of the fourth quarter, they're already up by one, so they're technically winning the game. But third and 14 on their own 12, Baker scrambles for 28 yards. That was the one where he just took off of the middle. And he like, instead of sliding at the end, he tries to bounce off a defender for like two more yards at the end, which that, again, is peak Baker Mayfield. so I very much appreciate that that's what he tried to do instead of sliding. But yeah, I actually thought Baker was completely fine in this game.

Like, I think typically when we've gotten these weird games from the Bucks, it has been Baker taking some sacks he didn't need to take, throwing some interceptions, all that stuff. But like you mentioned, a lot of it was they took away the Bucks fastball, particularly in the passing game. Like Mike Evans took a long time to get going and then a lot of their screen game, which again, has been, they've been one of the best screen games, screen game teams in the NFL for a majority of the season, And today it really didn't get going until really at all. And then in the second half, Baker kind of unleashed himself.

And they were able to get a couple of those plays to McMillan who, like, quietly has been one of the, like, better rookie receivers. Because for the first eight weeks of the season, he didn't really do anything. But then since then, he's been really one of the best guys. And so the fact that he's broken out for them has really gone a long way to help them get to this final push to make this division run. Him and Bucky Irving, both of them, neither physically imposing, neither one. is going to jump out to you with measurable, just ballplayers. Just ball players that have become very central to their success. The other thing outside of the blown up screens is a great, great crawl.

There are buttons that they've been able to press for the entire season that they just couldn't today. Some of it was run games. Some of it was screens. The other thing that consistently was just shooting them in the foot, 12 penalties for 90 yards in this game. Even the touchdown to McMillan comes after a Luke Goddekie hold that makes it first than 18. There are just so many spots in this game where it's,

second in 18, it's second and 20, and they had to constantly overcome those. Thankfully, they did. Yeah, that is the other thing too. You get the penalties, all your easy buttons are taken away. I honestly did not think that this was a team that would have that in their bag to win a game like that. I mean, again, this Saints team beating the Saints team isn't that impressive, but this has been a buck team where I have felt like when they get things taken away from them or when they have a weird day, they are just not going to overcome it. So the fact that with the season on the line, they were actually able to overcome it was like mildly impressive to me and gave me a little bit of confidence confidence going into the playoffs here. I have to mention the DeBario Davis play where he absolutely erased Bucky Irving from the face of the planet on that play action screen.

And then the other one where Davis was featured was on the negative side of things. It wasn't necessarily a bad play by him. But the throw from Baker to Colp number 82 never had no was unaware of this person before. He was one of the million Washington players last year. So there you go. Another Washington receiver coming up big for Tampa in a big moment. He had a huge third down conversion after Baker had a screen that put them into a third and manageable situation.

Again, a hold on Bredesen to start that drive. Baker gives them a scramble to put it in third and achievable. And then he hits Colt for a big conversion. So there was a lot of that from the bucks in this game. On the other side of it in the NFC South, we had a game that was, again, wildly entertaining between Michael Pennix and Bryce Young. And the fact that these two defenses were involved in a game that actually mattered, I think is all you need to know about why both of those teams are in the state that they're in. The Falcons did not make the playoffs.

One, because they probably didn't go to Pennix earlier enough. And two, because their defense is an absolute mess. The Panthers broke the NFL record for most points allowed in NFL history, which given what they came into the season with should not necessarily be surprising. But even in a game where they couldn't stop anybody, again, Bryce Young was good enough to give this Panthers. team, a very, very fun win in week 18. And just leave a very nice taste in your mouth. If you're a Panthers fan, if you're Dave Canellis, if you're anybody as you head into the offseason. This game looked like both defenses were ready for their season to be over while both offenses were like, we kind of believe in our young quarterback right now. We need to do everything

we can to foster more confidence and make sure that these guys have really good tape to go into next season and like they were all excited in playing. So you had both offenses super ammed up, making incredible plays. Like Drake London today was unbelievable. Bryce Young made a number of great throws on that side of the ball. Penix had like the dig route he threw to London for the touchdown. Absolute missile, dude. He threw that like 110 miles an hour. So like both quarterbacks, the fact that they were just slinging it against defenses that were, they were given up a lot of air in the coverage. Like a lot of these were not tight window throws. But the fact that they were still making them and playing with confidence, I thought was really impressive. Pettick, it was a very Michael Penick's day.

I mean, he had some unbelievable splash moments. He started 12 of 24 in this game. It was bad at first, yes. Like, that's how it's just going to be right now. And I think that the point you made after the Washington game is such a good one about what type of thrower he is. When he can really just let it rip on some of these first level throws, these line drive throws where he's driving the ball to certain spaces, he looks incredible. And that one where he's rolling out and the throw he makes, I think to McLeod, move. moving to his left is an incredible play.

And then that series of like pretty much three straight throws where London moses a guy in the back of the end zone lands with one foot in bounds. And then the next play, they hit a back shoulder throw to London. Like that sequence from Pennix, even if they're inconsistencies, even if they're in perfections with what his arm talent actually is, when you see throws like that, you can talk yourself into what he can be, even if there are some things he might run into down the road that give you a little bit of pause. Absolutely. There are still throws that he's really good at. And if you can build the offense out of most of those, and it is a credit to him that he doesn't take a lot of sacks.

He only took one for two yards in this game and he typically hasn't been a guy who's taking sacks in the NFL. So if that's going to be a part of your game where you're stripping out volatility that way. And so maybe you get a little volatility in terms of accuracy. Well, with the Falcons, the way that they were constructed this year, and I assume will be for the next handful of years, you get a lot of consistency from your run game. It's okay if the passing game is a little bit more... Unbelievable today.

He's the most beautiful runner. If we want to say Barclay is more... It really is true. Like, Barclay is more athletically talented. Derek Henry is just like a force of nature in the way that he's built, but just in terms of the footwork, the vision, the pacing. So smooth. It's just

unbelievable, man. It's just he's just so light on his feet. But then when he, that snap moment when he decides to go, he's three yards like gone, like just the way ahead of where he started. Like he's just, it's such a joy that we get to watch him. And now if the offense can be a little bit more exciting and explosive with Pennix, obviously going into next season, and we can maybe really get that like, you know, offensive player of the year type of season from Bichon Robinson, that's the part of this I'm most excited for. Yeah, there was that sequence. I think it was on the same drive where he just had that nasty cut in space to get them like down. inside the five. And then he scores a touchdown on that run to the left. And the little bit of

hesitation where he allows the blocks to get set up, it's just, it's so beautiful. Like the pacing, aesthetically, I do think he is the prettiest runner in the NFL right now. And that was very much on display. It's, you know how it's like we talk about with with quarterbacks like Josh Allen or Justin Herbert or like Peyton Manning where it's like they make their offensive line better by virtue of the way that they move and getting the ball out. That is exactly what Bejohn does for this Falcons offensive line. They're a solid offensive line, but he makes them so much better by allowing the blocks to be easier. He's really, really special in that way. Putting a pin or just putting a period at the end of the Falcon season here, obviously the cost, the opportunity cost in

what you're going to have to spend on the quarterback, there's no, there's no way around this. Like, if they end up having to cut Cousins and it's $60 million, and whether they split into two years, like the Russell Wilson move or a lot of the way that these teams have done it, where you chop it into two years, whatever. Eventually, they're probably going to have to pay out that $60 million guaranteed to Kirk Cousins. And that eats into the benefit of having a rookie quarterback.

But even when you consider that, the all in cost of what they're going to have to give the quarterback position next year, it's still hard to watch this game and not feel decent about the 2025 Falcons offense and the potential of that team. The Panthers defense does some lifting here, but I still feel like some of the flashes from that young core, there's a lot to be excited about. The same thing is true, I think, on the other side of the ball. Like what Bryce Young is doing right now, we have gone from him getting benched early

in the year, and I'll say it, I was throwing dirt on it. I was like, man, he's just too small. This is not going to work. I understand why they did it, but this is clearly a mistake. And now it's just time to eat your vegetables, move on and figure out how you pivot from here. They do a great job of understanding how do I think maintain his confidence. You put him down, you bring him back. And the way, that's to me the biggest difference between watching what he was doing early in the season and last year, the way that he played today. Obviously, people are going to

clip out the play where he turns around. He does the Steph Curry thing on the touchdown. That's a little bit of swagger and confidence. But how quickly, how quick he's triggering on stuff, that to me is the biggest difference. The touchdown on the slant to, I think David Moore, that's a very good example. but he had a whole shot to Adam Thie one. The first of 25? Immediately. Like immediately after catching the ball. And the authority that he is playing with and how quickly these decisions are coming,

that's really, really encouraging. This idea of him as like a point guard quarterback, that was the selling point. And to be that, I think you have to play with a certain urgency and a certain quickness from the pocket. And I think we're starting to see that now. So that plan with him and Canales and what this was supposed to be, all caveats about the Falcons off defense considered here,

I think you're starting to see what that plan was supposed to look like. And I think it's easy to get excited about that as a Panthers fan, especially considering, I don't know, two months ago you could have made an argument that they were the most hopeless franchise in the NFL. And it certainly does not feel that way anymore. Even if his ceiling is limited, Canella said it, we've got our guy.

Like there is something to work with here. The urgency is the biggest point because him being small and not having the greatest arm and being a fine but not great athlete. All of that wasn't to say that he was immediately going to be bad or obviously not going to work out. It was that if he is going to work, he really has to like get into this fine needle of you have to play incredibly fast. You have to play incredibly confident and your ball placement has to be really, really,

really good. I still think he's not perfect, but he is playing. Yeah, all of that is happening. Like he's actually starting to play like that now. And again, there are still limitations like you said. Like, there are still moments where he gets, if you get a hand on him in the pocket, he immediately goes down because he's not very big. There are still moments where the, there's still like throws that he struggles to make

sometimes because the armed strength can't quite get him all the way there. But he is accessing more of those throws now because of how quickly he's triggering. It's a little bit of like, Joe Burrow does not have the greatest arm, but it's just by virtue of how well and how confidently he triggers and how well he understands how to make his arm work, that every throw is still on the table for him for the most part. And so I think that's where Bryce Young has to get to. And I think it was just going to be a very small percentage chance that he could really unlock that in the right way.

This season, the back half of this season was a good step towards like, okay, maybe he can actually figure that up. The last thing I wanted to mention that Miles Sanders touchdown on that release off play action where he runs the wheeled on the left side is a beautiful play call. It's just a beautiful design. And I'm excited to see what the Dave Canales, Bryce Young partnership looks like heading into 2025 when they have another offseason, some of these young receivers, what that looks like, they should have a lot of resources this off season. A lot of that's going to be

spent on the defense and rightfully so. But act two of this, I'm intrigued. I am ready to pay attention in a way that I did not anticipate on like September 20th. Canales is really who I came away impressed with. Like Bryce Young made the throws, but a lot of those were wide ass open, man. And Canales was especially like inside the 30, canales was just, he was frying today. All right, let's get to the real story here, and that is what the playoff field looks like. It's time for you of my attention. Gentlemen, you have my curiosity.

Now you have my attention. Nothing complicated here. The playoff field, you have my attention. We have the games, we have the seeds. The NFC, 1 through 7, lions, eagles, bucks, rams, Vikings, Washington, and the Packers. The Wildcar round is set. We had Packers at Eagles, Washington at bucks,

Vikings at Rams. we discussed this on Friday on our preview show what we wanted the NFC field to look like. I'm pretty sure this was one of my iterations of this, wasn't it? Because I wanted to see Washington and the Bucks again, and Packers Eagles would be a rematch. And we've seen Packers Eagles in the playoffs before years and years and years ago when you were still in the womb or like in kindergarten. And then Vikings Rams is another very good game that we already got to see this year. So this is good. It's not the exact field that we wanted, but I think that you can.

can absolutely talk yourself into this set of three games. Yeah, it's not the exact one I wanted, but with the NFC, I was think, I think I was going to be happy with almost any way that this shake out. Like, I feel the same way. Like Packers, Eagles, especially that we get a rematch from week one because like, it was so early in the season. It feels like these are both such different teams now, especially the Eagles on defense, right? That like, this is a matchup that I'm really, really excited to see.

And then Washington at Buck's, man, Buck's offensive line versus like Washington's front. Washington doesn't have like the best defense or the best front, but they play insane and they will go hit people. Like I think that matchup is going to be an absolute bloodbath. And then I kind of talked about it on a preview show, Sean McVeigh versus one of his old coaches in Kevin O'Connell. I think it's a very compelling matchup. And like you said, the Rams gave them a really impressive game the first time around. So I'm pretty happy with the way that this is shaking out for the NFC. We'll see what happens with Jordan Love.

Obviously, he comes out of this game today with an elbow injury. he said he lost feeling in his arm and still doesn't feel 100%. That doesn't make me feel great. Lafleur said he probably could have gone back into the game if needed. So hopefully this is something that does get better with a little bit of time because I really just don't want to see Malik Willis play against the Seekal's defense. I want to see these teams at full strength. Unfortunately, Packers don't have a chance to be at full strength.

It does seem like Christian Watson is probably going to miss this game and potentially the rest of the season with a non-contact knee injury. and we have seen the impact that has on the Packers offense. I wouldn't say he's the most important piece of the Packers receiving core, but because they rely on that group to be more than the sum of the parts, the individual skill sets are really important and not having him as a field stretcher and as that guy with that downfield juice. It does alter the makeup of what the Packers offense is.

And so that's a pretty big thing to lose on the eve of the playoffs when you're about to play one of the five best defenses in the week. Yeah, this is very much a receiving core when you lose one of the links, the entire like foundation and everything starts to fall apart a little bit. And again, especially we've talked about this before, he's their explosive player. Like you like Romeo Dobbs has a really important role in this offense. But without him, there's probably still ways that you could get by

because you could still stretch the field if you had a guy like Christian Watson. But now that they just are kind of putting a ceiling on themselves by not having Christian Watson, and that is going to hurt them a lot. Washington played the Bucks earlier this year, but it was in week one. I'm pretty sure it was September 8th. So the Bucks have 37 points, and I do think that there is a chance. This is just a firework show.

Because what we've seen with Washington is when you play a little bit of man against them, you can slow things down just because the receiving talent leaves something to be desired. The Bucks are the worst man coverage team in the NFL. So I really hope that that's one where there's just a ton of back and forth, then we see the best version of both of those offenses. And like we said, Vikings Rams, that doesn't need a lot for you to talk yourself into that one. In the AFC, we also have that field set.

Chiefs of the one seed, Bill's the two, Ravens the three, Texans the four, Chargers the five, Steelers are the six. Week 18 takeaways, good on the Broncos for taking care of business. We just talked about the NFC South and those teams being unable to take care of business when they probably should. And now the Steelers, after losing that game to the Bengals,

now have to go on the road to Baltimore instead of going on the road to Houston. And it's a pretty big deal, man. I mean, this Baltimore team, you can make an argument, it might be the best team in the entire league. The Texans have been a mess for most of this season. And so there is a chance that the Steelers,

instead of potentially winning a divisional or a wild card round game where, I don't know what the line would be in that game, I'm sure it'd be pretty close. Now you're going to be, I think, pretty heavy underdogs on the road against Baltimore. There's like, there's kind of a cope argument you could make for the Steelers of like, oh, we know the Ravens

really well. And so maybe that's better than playing an opponent that we don't know all that well. False. When the drop off is just so stark from how good the Ravens are to how not good the Houston, Texas are that I would much, much rather have played the Houston Texans team. And so, yeah, even though like you can, Steelers fans will probably try to make that argument that, you know, common opponent, it'll be fine. I don't think it's going to be fine. I think the Ravens are much better now than especially they were the first time that these two teams played. So yeah, I think the Steelers are going to, or the Steelers are going to have a lot of issues.

And then I kind of think just in terms of like a matchup, the most interesting one is Broncos and Bill's actually. I 100% agree with that. The Broncos offense, I think is going to make this a really interesting game. I think Sean Payton is on it right now. And if Cortland Sutton is going to play in the playoffs the way that he played today, yeah, man, they can go toe to toe. So Bellard just sent me the info. I probably should have known this going into it. The Steelers are nine point dogs in Baltimore.

The Chargers are favored by three on the road in Houston. So that's a pretty big swing if you're the Steelers and who you wanted to play next week. On the Broncos front, I 100% agree with that. I think that, and today was another example of it, the screen game they've tapped into with Mims is legit. That is a gear for this offense that I think took them a little while to figure out in terms of how they wanted to deploy him. Now that they have that with the ball in his hands, and I was looking at the numbers yesterday, they have been the best wide receiver screen team in the NFL. So what they did today shouldn't surprise anybody.

And Cortland Sutton just continued the season that we've seen from him. So a really, really nice like one, two punch. And I think what they want to be on offense has really started to settle in. And on the other side of the ball, I mean, this Broncos defense is really good. And I think this Broncos defense playing a ton of man coverage. We've seen teams give the bills issues with those sorts of looks. It's an area up and down the bill's performance against man coverage over the course of the season. I'm pretty sure that's right.

I'll struggle to look at the numbers this week. But obviously that Houston game sticks out. But even after that, you can get after them. Like they don't have separators necessarily. A lot of their man coverage tendencies and what they try to tap into on offense is trying to manufacture separation. So if the Broncos really lean into it, I do think that's something that could potentially give the bill's problems. We'll have six hours to talk about that over the course of the next one. week. It's going to be a good matchup, man. And two, Broncos run defense pretty good.

Bill's want to run the ball. I'm telling you, this game is just going to be good. I'm excited for that one. That is absolutely the game I'm most looking forward to. And I just think it's because the Steelers have really run out of gas. You know, our experience with the Steelers team, there were moments early in the season. And I was like, man, it really does feel like they have another level offensively with Arthur Smith, with Russell Wilson. I feel like that's tailed off a little bit. Like, we've talked about this a lot. high variance things that were going their way when they were hot at points in this season are no longer going their way. And it's partially because it feels like George Pickens has just

checked out from the year. Yeah, he went from being their best player to, dude, on Saturday, he was actively the worst player on the field by like a wide margin, just not bringing catches. Like, it just, yeah, so the fact that basically one player's variance completely swinging the other way, kind of tanked their season and took all the venom out of what we thought this team could be predictable a little bit because of the player in particular, but still very frustrating. Yeah, and their defense, I think their defense is, you know, falling off a little bit. Yeah. I think they'll be better with their secondary healthier and Joey Porter Jr. being back, but I'm not surprised at all that Baltimore is that sort of favorite. The last point I want to

make about the AFC, some weird stuff has been said over the course of today about how the a FC field fell into place. I'm shedding no tears for the Bengals. Is it a bummer that Joe Burrow is not going to be in the playoffs based on the way that he's played this year. Absolutely it is. He's been phenomenal. He's played the best football of his career. I would love to see a playoff field with Joe Burrow in it. That's not how this works.

Win your games. If you didn't want another team to have to win a game or you didn't want to leave your fate in someone else's hands with heading into week 18, beat the Patriots. Beat a team in week one that fired its coach 18 seconds after their final game ended. That's all you have to do. Like that's not how this works. The teams that win the most games get in. It doesn't matter if you have a good quarterback or the idea of who you are is more exciting.

None of that matters here. And so some of that. And then some of the discourse around what the Chiefs did today is very funny to me. Like the idea that there was something dishonorable about the Chiefs laying down when they already have the number one seed. Like they're the first team to ever do it? Blaine Gabbard went 15 of 30 in Week 18 last year because the Chiefs couldn't do anything about their seed. The only reason that this didn't happen is because they were playing East and Stick and a Chargers team that lost to the Raiders by like 40 the week before. I just have no issue with it whatsoever.

And people that do have an issue with the Chiefs approaching it this way, it's a violent game. Like some weird sense of honor is more important than Patrick Mahomes hurting his knee in week 18. Like, what are we doing here? And a Chiefs team that has played extra games compared to everybody else for like the past six years now. Like, yeah, it's okay. Give them a little bit of a rest. They need a little bit more time than everyone else. Yeah, I just, I truly do not understand it.

Like, the entire point is to win a championship. The entire point is to put yourself in a position to be able to do this in week 18. And even if the chiefs had a little bit of luck along the way to get here, I still don't understand people looking at this and having any issue with their approach. It's like the, you know, when people get mad, like if a defense gives up to touchdown and they get mad that the other team is celebrating. It's like, okay, well, don't give up the touchdown, and this is not a problem. Don't let the Bengals have the one seed, and none of this is an issue.

Speaking of the Patriots and the Bengals losing to the Patriots, the NFL draft order is now set. Because the Patriots won that game against the bills today, because Joe Milton is the greatest player who's ever lived, the Titans now have the number one pick in the draft. The Browns, who were actively trying to get the number one pick in the draft, will be picking second overall. The Giants are third. the Patriots are now fourth, the Jags are picking fifth, the Raiders sixth, the Jets seventh, the Panthers eighth, the Saints ninth, and the Bears who decided they had to win today, now have the 10th pick in the draft. So that is your top 10 as we get toward draft season.

What about that sticks out to you the most? Essentially what the Titans will do at number one? I just feel bad for the Giants still, or not necessarily feel bad, but I don't even know what the word for it is. But if we're painting this as a two quarterback class and the top two teams very, obviously need quarterbacks in the Titans and the Browns. And so we don't know, we have no idea if those, it's actually who's going to go off the board. But as we're sitting now, those two teams need one into two quarterback class. Tough spot to be if you're the Giants who also very obviously

need a quarterback. And then the Patriots like, I think for most other teams, I would feel pretty bad about having the first overall pick and then dropping to fourth. But you have Drake May. And if the other teams are taking quarterbacks ahead of you, like you're probably not really even missing out on who you want anyway. So they drop all these spots and it feels bad, but I honestly couldn't care about them dropping. This is more about if you have the number one pick and you already have a quarterback, you can trade it for a king's ransom. Right. You can get a ton of resources. And considering the state of the Patriots roster, the fact that they can no longer do that, and we'll see what the price might have been, right? The fact that you have the Browns and the Giants both needing

quarterbacks or the Titans needing quarterbacks, you would have gone from four to one potentially. And what could you have gotten for that? enough to make it worth it, enough that it's better to pick first overall than it is to pick fourth overall. So if I were a Patriots fan, I would probably be pretty bummed that this happened. But it's not a year where I think there's going to be somebody coming from like the middle of the first round to do this just because the teams that need quarterbacks are either at the top or they're picking in the top five and they just had not as far to go. There are too many quarterback needy teams for them to have been able to do something crazy with it in my opinion. Right, exactly. Like it feels like we were almost kind of walking into a set play almost no matter what here.

Speaking of the New England Patriots, the Patriots fired Gerard Mayo about two minutes after that game ends. And I'm sure we'll hear more about this as the next few weeks unfold. But it really did feel like there was just like a level of an aptitude that was coursing through this entire thing. Like if you look at the performance that they had on defense, even with the talent. deficiencies they had on that side of the ball. I think it would be hard to talk yourself into things being pointed in the right direction for this team organizationally. And I think behind the scenes, there was probably enough stuff going on where they felt

like they needed to make a change. Yeah, I can't speak to obviously any of what is happening behind the scenes. And I don't even necessarily think that Mayo did enough to hold his job. So that is not the argument that I'm making. But it just felt a little bizarre to me that they seemed very excited. to get him out of there, like to do it so quickly and the fact that pretty much over the course of the entire- After they were so excited to get him in there. Right, exactly. And like Mayo, who they know does not have a lot of coaching experience. He's only been a coach since like 2019 because remember,

he was a player not very long ago. Yeah. And so he's just a guy who has not done this for a very long time. And he's just very young to begin with. And it just seemed like he got almost no grace in trying to figure this out with what is a very bad roster. And I know, again, I know that his side of the ball was not very good. But the offense, I think, overperformed what it was supposed to be. And some of that we can go, oh, well, they hit on Drake May. Of course it did. But I actually thought, like, the way that the offense was designed and some of the way that they found roles for guys like Pop Douglas and, like, Henry and at some of these points, reviving Ramandra Stevenson at certain points. Like, it actually felt like they found something on that side of the ball. And so to me,

for him to get fired so quickly when I go and look at Tennessee, it feels like the same level of inept in a lot of ways. And it's almost like a mere situation where Tennessee's offense, to me, felt very just could not get off the ground the way that they were supposed to. And it seemed a lot of their ideas weren't working. The offensive line didn't get kicked up a notch the way it was supposed to. But then funny enough, kind of like Mayo, the other side of the ball actually works out. Like they go and hire a really good defensive coordinator. They're playing better on that side of the ball for a lot of the years. So I just found it odd that like Mayo, they were so quick to push him out. And again, maybe some of it is behind the scene stuff, where some other coaches are still getting.

a little bit more, longer leashed than I thought they were going to. Here's what I would say about that. I think that in Tennessee, there's probably some faith that we think this group can pull us out of this. We think that we have the right people in place to potentially do it. You're probably having to tell yourself a little bit of a story to believe that, but I get landing there and that being the difference with this situation. Who wanted Gerard Mayo to succeed more than Robert Kraft?

No one. He talked him up for years. He was his handpicked successor. So how bad did things have to be for Robert Kraft who had more reason to want this to work than anybody else on planet Earth to say, we don't have any faith that this is going to change? I just think that the underlying feeling in the building and what things probably looked like day to day, there had to be such a confirmed understanding that he was in over his head for you to do something like this and pull the plug after year one, considering how much like just equity with the fan base you had put into this. The fact that this is your handpicked successor for Belichick and the fact that you completely usurped and went around the process of hiring a coach and going through research because you believed in this guy, it had to be so, so bad for you to decide after one year that that process was no longer worth it. That's a good point. The fact that he had already kind of had the built up equity instead of just being random ex-coach who was given the franchise first year in a row or for the first time.

and that does make a lot of sense. I still think, again, like when I just pair, like, what it looks like from the outside is just very jarring to me. But that is a good point that on the inside it might have just been so corroded that they didn't really have another choice. Two regimes that will be sticking around per statements and just things that were leaked out over the course of today. Mike McDaniel and Chris Greer will be back in Miami. Sounds like Tyree Kill might not be after the game. He was talking to reporters and says, he said, I'm out. And I don't really have any response to that.

Like, good for you, Tyree Kill. Like, I, the only thing that my only thought about that is like from a team building and roster timeline perspective, it does feel like 2025 is kind of a do or die thing for the dolphins. And so keeping this entire core together and just seeing what you could accomplish with one more year of, to a being healthy and just kind of everything potentially coming together all at the right time. He probably was a necessary part of that. But I don't know. I can't really muster up any like strong feelings either way about it. I'll start with the Tiger Kill because I think it's the funnier part. We have to remember he's never been on a bad team or like a team that hasn't made the

play out. He started with the Chiefs and then even when he got here with the first couple of years with the Dolphins, they've always been in the playoffs. Didn't always end the best way, but they were always a really good team with the most explosive offenses. So I just find it funny that the first time it, the Dolphins team wasn't even bad. Like they were just okay. And the first time that he experienced is okay, he's like, I got to go, bro.

Like it's time it's time for me to go. get out of here. I just find that a little bit funny. But then with the dolphins, they're keeping kind of the front office intact and keeping Mike McDaniel there. I'm fine with it. Like, I still have some issues with the way that this thing has built, but kind of like we talked about before, the way that all of this is headed is like they're kind of stuck in this build for 2025 anyway. So you might as well keep them around, right? Like, what is the point of getting in a new regime where they're stuck in this mode of the team anyway? It just feels a little bit like mismatched. Like, you might as well just see it through with these guys.

If you look at the timeline, if you look at the resources, if you look at the guys that they've committed to the way that their finances are, I just feel like this was all headed to 2025 being a durodisi's. You either do it next year or you get way closer than you've gotten and you can talk yourself into the path forward with this group or after next year you pull the plug. Because after next year, whatever new GM were to come in, you can move on from essentially everybody,

including the quarterback if you want to. So there is a very clear path to a hard reset after 2025. And I think that's why it probably makes sense for them to continue down this path. One more statement put out by a team where those guys will be back. Shane Steichen and Chris Ballard will be back in Indianapolis, which I am not surprised by. I think that Steichen did a pretty decent job in year one. Year two is disappointing. I don't think the totality of the body of work would warrant him getting fired,

even with this year being a little bit uglier than you wanted it to be. With Boward, I think the biggest question is how much faith does ownership have or how much belief does ownership still have in the Anthony Richardson decision? Because if you have no faith in that, going back to the GM that made that decision, I think is probably pretty tough considering the lack of high-level success that they've had. But again, I think this is a scenario where they have faith in the people in charge being the right people to see you through what has been a tough situation and to see you through what is an important offseason.

I think ultimately that's probably why Ursae landed in the place that he did. The on-field results and the roster talent, you can take issue with any of that stuff. But the GM specifically in some of these situations, switching things up just to switch things up, it causes a lot of chaos and potentially unnecessary dysfunction, especially when you have somebody that you feel like has a steady hand potentially on the wheel. Like, we've seen this happen before. The example I keep going back to is Jason like keeping that job in Tampa through multiple head coach regimes. And that ultimately being a good thing for the Bucks because you have some sense of stability.

Sometimes you can go too far with that. Like what's happened with bulky to me is just ridiculous. And I think that's something where there's no relationship with the coaching staff in the front office. There's active animosity between the coaching staff and the front office. I don't understand how you can talk yourself into why that's beneficial for your organization. I don't think that's what's happening in Indianapolis. So I feel like they probably think that it's worth just sticking this through a little bit longer for continuity, stability, all those things. I think you make a good point with like this being a critical off season, specifically for Richardson.

It was like, okay, we spent all this time with Ballard saying we're pushing off the quarterback decision. We're pushing off the quarterback decision. We're pushing it off. And they finally take the swing on a guy you know is going to take a lot of time. And it's been up and down. You had the injuries year one. year two is not what you wanted. It's like, okay, I understand giving you year three with both the head coach and the GM.

Let's go figure it out. I still do think it's funny that this to me has been an organization that has consistently made very conservative decisions in the way that they've built things in the way that it's run. And running this duo back again does feel a little bit conservative. And again, for all the stuff you laid out, I understand why it actually still might be the right move, the right move anyway, but it just again feels another notch on that on that belt where it's like they're just doing the conservative easy thing again. And it's a little bit disappointing. What other path is there, though? Like, are you going to pivot away from Richardson now?

I would keep Stuyck and try Richardson again. I would be more inclined to see what's going on with the GM. But again, I guess he goes back to like inserting a new GM in year three of Richardson where, like, he might have an incentive to not keep Richardson around. That's where it gets complicated. But, but it is like a weird, they're out of weird crossroads with it that, again, I'm not confident that this is the right duo for them long term, but I understand why they want to keep it around for this year specifically with the whole Richardson development timeline. I want to look this up just because I'm curious.

I'm curious what, like, the financial situation is with the Colts compared to like a team like the, like the dolphins, right? So in 2026, like where you would be. So essentially, it's going to be a similar sort of thing where a lot of the big time financial investments that the Colts have made are investments that they can move off of after next year. So if you look at just some of the contracts that they've signed, Quentin Nelson, Michael Pittman, Braden Smith, they can move off after this year. I think they actually might. Jonathan Taylor, Grover Stewart, a lot of these guys who have signed these big contracts with the Colts. after 2025, you can essentially move on from every single one of those guys for very little penalty, right?

Nelson, who I think they would probably keep, but like Michael Pittman saved $24 million against the cap with $5 million in dead money. Grover Stewart, you save $12 million in cap against $2 million in dead money. Kenny Moore, you save $10 million in cap against $2 million of dead money. So if you get to a place after next season where you think, all right, we need to kind of have a shift, year and who we're committing to what sort of roster we want to build, there would be a pretty clean break after next year that you wouldn't have after this year. So I think it's a similar conversation to Miami where one more year with this vision of the roster, if you can do it, great.

If you can't that we're going to find somebody else. I think that's kind of the place of the culture in as well. That's a good point. If they're that tied up financially, it does make sense. And again, with Richardson, you always knew this was going to be a long haul with him. It still feels like the conservative thing. But again, it still might be the right option, even if it does feel a little bit conservative and safe. The last thing I want to say about the Patriots, you mentioned the offense.

If Mike Vrable doesn't end being in the gather, one of the biggest questions is going to be who's going to be the offensive coordinator. And that was the thing that really plagued him at the end in Tennessee. The fact that he had Matt Lafleur and Arthur Smith back to back, but then couldn't figure it out afterward. I think that was an issue for the Titans. We see this with defensive coordinators a lot, where an offensive-minded head coach will come in. And just because there's some stability, there's a known quantity. they keep them. You can have, there's a dozen examples of this. It doesn't always happen with an offensive coordinator. It's much rarer because we have more offensive-minded play calling head coaches.

This would be one where I would want to have a conversation with Drake May and Alex Van Pelt about what that relationship looked like and whether or not it would be worth committing to. Because I think that the biggest issue with the Patriots offense is a talent deficiency, not a structural deficiency. So one of the issues with drafting a quarterback first overall and then firing the staff is you now throw that guy into dysfunction immediately. I have a lot of personal history with this. So at least giving a slight nod to not doing that would probably be worth a conversation

if you're going to be bringing in a defensive-minded head coach or a CEO type like Rable. That's a great point. I would at least, again, you don't necessarily have to keep Alex Van Pelt, but at least, yeah, have the conversation. a better job on that side of the ball than they had any right to this year. All right, before we get to a few more things that jumped out to some week 18, let's take a quick break. You see that?

Did you see that? Did you see that Devandre Sweat wore a sweatshirt with his face on it and with him on it walking into the game today for the Titans from his pick that he had the other day? This was so amazing, dude. Like, this, the internet has done a wonderful job of appreciating big men getting interceptions and running with the ball. And so the fact that Tevondra Sweat, his. himself has gone so far as to make like a custom sweatshirt with him having what is going to be

one of those memorable moments of his career. Like he could go on and be Vince Wilfork for the next 10 years and this will still be one of the most memorable moments he'll ever have for him to immortalize it on this shirt and come into this week 18 game with it. I just thought it was for a week 18, especially the first couple of slates that were just a lot of weird sloppy games and stuff for to have this like very funny celebratory moment in a way I thought was cool. We had a big day or a big week for big man moments because the other thing I wanted

to point out, did you see the Michael Pierce interception? Just one of the best plays of the entire season. And the reaction to it was unbelievable. Like the fact that everyone was so happy. After that during his press conference, John Harbaugh called it the greatest play in NFL history. That's all you need to know about how happy people were about that play. The part of this that I actually appreciated the most was in almost every other

scenario and you saw this with Devondre Sweat. The defensive linemen are like, oh my God, I have the ball. I get to run with the ball for the first time ever. Michael Pierce got like four yards and he was like, dude, I do not want to do this. I'm done. I'm going down. Listen, the game was over. It's just good coaching.

It's good situational awareness. Yeah, yeah. We'll say it's good situational awareness and not that he was decided he didn't want to run for 80 yards. On a more serious now, did you see that Zayflowers got hurt in this stupid game. It didn't matter. This is, this is probably. the week 18 injury that is going to have the most bearing on the playoffs? Like it's that or Watson getting, you know, it kind of banged up again or I guess I'm in love for like. I think Flowers is way

more important to the Ravens offense. Yeah. Watson is to the Packers offense. And the Ravens just have a more legitimate shot at the Super Bowl. So like it feels like more damaging in that sense. If they don't have him. And again, we even kind of talked about this with Watson. The Ravens have other ways to get explosives. Obviously Henry can do it and Bateman's been better in that sense. But Zay Flowers is their most explosive player. And so if they lose that and he's been their screen guy for a lot of this season, if they lose that, it really does start to pick away at some of their options that they have on that side of the ball. Yeah, I think that he's been key to what that offense has felt like.

We talked about the separation numbers and just kind of the space created within their passing game when we had our MVP discussion last week. And he is a huge part of that. So losing him would be a very, very big deal for a Ravens team that I do think has legitimate championship. So that is something to keep an eye on. Did you see that Joe Milton is like one of the 10 most exciting players in the NFL, apparently? I was just, I could not stop laughing at the touchdown he had rolling to his right, throwing back across his body. And then the missile he threw rolling out to his left that didn't count is like one of the 10 most impressive plays of quarterback made this year. I have no idea if he's actually good at football, but he was very fun to watch today to the point that he ruined the Patriots chance to have the number one pick.

that is Joe Milton in a nutshell and he's been this way for six years. I don't know if he's good at football, but he's very fun to watch. And that's, this was for him to have this game where there was such like a dichotomy between college football people who were like, this is one of the most exciting and frustrating players ever and draft people being like, he can't play football. He's like just purely a bundle of tools. And so for him to have this week 18 game where you kind of see both sides of it and you see why you would want to chase the dragon with him, in a, the game that doesn't mean anything and loses them picks. Like, all of this was the most perfect Joe Milton outcome.

It was beautiful. Guess what, though? A little bit easier to stomach losing the number one pick and the draft capital that come with it. Now that you've dangled Joe Milton out there and can get whatever mid-round pick you want from a desperate team. I like that. I see the Patriots vision.

There you go. If you spend, I think they want to spend the seventh round on him, you can go trade that for maybe a fourth or fifth now. You know, just winning on the margins. That's all it takes. Before we get out of here, two more things I wanted to hit. I'm going to allow you to talk about Tanner McKee for like 90 seconds because you seemed more interested in what Tanner McKee did today than any other person in America outside of

the greater Philadelphia area. Listen, man, I really liked Tanner McKee coming out of Stanford, just the guy who will, it cannot move, but he will stand there and he will make the throws and he will throw the ball relatively accurately and it'll be to the receiver it's supposed to go to. And he did a good job of that today. He had a sick corner throw on. I think they got backed up into a third and 15 after like a penalty or, oh, no, it was a botch snap. First of all, somehow they snapped the ball over Tanner McKee, who was like 6-6, which I thought was crazy.

And so they end up in a third and 15, and he throws a nasty corner out to the right side. And I was like, I don't, Kenny Pickett doesn't do that. I would like this guy to start over Kenny Pickett. So I was very excited to get my favorite quarterback three in the league some snaps today. Last one here. Did you see that the bearer scored a punt return touchdown on a. a fake punt return that they also used in a game in 2011 where Johnny Knox scored a touchdown that did not count. I can't even tell you how satisfying it was for this loop to get closed,

even if it was 13 years later in a game that did not matter. I think a lot of Bears fans held on to that moment and the fact that it didn't count and it's a real sore spot and the fact that now we finally put that to bed against the Packers, that one felt very good. Again, it's a small victories when you're dealing with a team like this. I was going to ask, does it have to be against the Packers or was this just like the multiplier to it? I was going to say something and I decided I'm not. The Packers thing is like, it's only a rivalry if you like occasionally beat the other

team and like beating the other team when the starting quarterback got hurt in a week 18 game that doesn't really matter. Like even if they snapped an 11 game losing streak against the Packers, like the Bears need to like be a functional football organization before I try. to like make it a thing when they play the Packers. I don't care about that. Be a team that plays a meaningful December game before I start worrying about like what you're doing against your arch rival.

We have, we need to like, in terms of like the hierarchy of needs for an NFL organization, I'm more worried about like the bears feeding themselves before finally actualization against the Green Bay Packers. Yeah, they have to beat the bad version out of themselves for. first before they could go and actually take on the Packers seriously. Don't take 10 sacks against the Patriots. And when you stop doing that, then I'll care about the Bears Packers or thing again. Seems fair.

All right. Let's talk about what we learned today and let's get out of here. You know, I think I've learned something today. What did you learn in week 18? I don't know if like what I learned is necessarily the right framing, but football is a beautiful game. And in a lot of ways, there's, uh, there's like an artistic. just value that we can get from appreciating it in a certain way. And to me,

Alex Anzolone coming back from injury, playing with a cast on his arm and the Lions defense playing the way that they did in the most important game, maybe in their franchise's history, is such a like beautiful encapsulation and like final pin on what this season and what the last four years have been for the Lions. And so I just thought for him to have that moment, for them to have that moment because of him. It was just like a truly like this stuff, if you wrote that, it would be a little cheesy. And the fact that it happened naturally is kind of beautiful. And so I just, I really appreciated them getting to have that.

Mine is also Lions centric because I 100% agree with that. I just think that like we've talked about it for at times this season, like the lions are what you should aspire to. Like the lions are the path that most teams should try to be on. And I know they haven't won a Super Bowl or anything, but they've done this with, a guy that was cast aside as a quarterback. And what they did on defense today with guys that are second, third stringers, without the stars that they're supposed to have on that side of the ball, like, that's how you want

your team to play. The game plans on both sides of the ball, how put together everything feels, what you've gotten from both of your coordinators, the way that they've assembled that staff from the get-go, everything about who the Detroit Lions are is, I think, what you should be trying to be. And I think for them to be able to cap this off in the way that they did, it's to cap off this regular season the way that they did, have home field advantage in a season where a lot of stuff has not gone their way over the last six, eight weeks is a testament to them.

And guess what? It's a really nice thing to have for the fans. Like, as somebody who grew up watching the NFC Central to have a game like this with the Vikings and the Lions in week 18 for the number one seed in the NFC, this is everything that you could want. Like, I've done this for like 15 years now. You definitely see football through a different lens when you've been doing it so long. And if you can't get up for that, then you can't get up for anything.

And for the Packers or excuse me, for the Lions to meet that moment to really bring their best when everything was on the line like that. That's the type of team you should try to be. And so I'm curious to see what they can do over the next month or so. And like whether they can actually finish this thing off because the process up to this point has been. been fun as hell. You usually, like you said, you usually, the stability is not there. You usually get something picked away. A coach gets taken away. Ben Johnson should have been gone two years ago. Glenn should have been gone a year ago. You almost never get to build it up this way and to build the offensive line, even the way they put it together. To build the defense and that

finally come into vision, you just, it never goes according to plan. And over the course of the four years, it's finally gone according to plan. This season specifically didn't because of some of the defensive injuries. But for them, again, to get to this point and to have it, yeah, it's how you draw it up. And in the league that things usually don't go the way you draw it up, it's pretty dang cool. All right. That is all we've got. We will be back on Wednesday with a midweek show looking at the coaching carousel. We're going to chat a little bit about Black Monday. Try to scoop up all of that news. Can be doing that with Mike Sando, very much looking forward to that. And then we'll be back on Friday with our playoff preview. Until then, sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you

very soon.