The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Wild Card Weekend Recap: Lions win thriller over Rams, Packers stun Cowboys, C.J. Stroud leads Texans over Browns, Chiefs take care of Dolphins

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love spent the entire regular season announcing their arrival to the league. They both put an exclamation point on that announcement in the Wild Card round. What else? Oh, right, the Lions won the franchise's first playoff game in 32 years. The Chiefs, meanwhile, took care of business against the Dolphins. Robert Mays and Nate Tice dig into the four games we watched, as well as their implications for the rest of the playoffs and next season, on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. The athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me tonight. It's my good friend Nate Tyson. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing well. This feels almost old school in a way.

You know, we're talking about the Rams. We're talking Dan Campbell. And we're kind of doing it Sunday later, you know, almost like when we do year one, like kind of like a later pod. You know, you're on the road, of course. But it's just, it feels just kind of like an old school pod right now. So kind of a fun energy. Maybe that game is kind of just, you know, like turbo, give me a little turbo boost right into this pod.

That's why I wanted to go. I get it. You do 18 weeks of the regular season. And I think we can forget sometimes that these games are actually happening. And so few opportunities these days do I have to actually go to these games. And I had Rams Lions circled. It was the game that we've been talking about for what, six weeks or so. And oh, man, this could happen.

They could play in the first round of the playoffs. And as soon as I saw, it was, Detroit's four and a half hours away, let's do this. So I drove in the ice and the rain and the snow and the awfulness that is Midwest weather to get here yesterday. And I'm so glad that I did. What a game. What a weekend. Even though there's some blowouts, I think there's so much to chew on. But this game was everything we could have wanted it to be.

And this is where we're going to start. Even from the moment I got into the stadium, I was the empty stadium. I got there really, really early and just kind of feeling the end. energy in the building and knowing it was the first time they'd hosted one of those in 30 years. The first time that building has ever hosted a Lions playoff game. I had a Pontiac Silver Dome reference tonight. I was like, oh, man, some memory's got jogged there. Which is funny because I was sitting next to Peter King at the game.

And when I worked for Peter in 2015 into 16, we were doing all these stories on a road trip series throughout the country on the way to the Super Bowl. And Peter made me go to the Pontiac. He asked me. I was on assignment. I went to the Pontiac Soverdome. I went to the site where it was. So just a little bit of weird connections there as I think about tonight. But it being in that place, and even when they announced Jared Gough's name, when he was walking down the tunnel, people were chanting his name. And the crowd in general was just completely electric. Eminem was there. And so they were playing lose yourself as Eminem was on the big on the Jumbotron and the suite. Everything you could want from a Detroit football playoff game. in the atmosphere, in the attitude, in the celebrity appearances. Sam Robinson was there on the sideline before the game, like everything you could want

from a Detroit event in this moment. And the game did not disappoint. The game lived up to that and more. No, it really did. I mean, they did Eminem Aitro before the game on NBC. That was pretty lively. That was pretty. That got you going a little bit.

But I have memories of Ford Field too, good memories too, because the teams I'm, I was usually on one when I was at fourth field. That's all bringing out. I'm not going to rain anything including in 2002 when that stadium open. But no, it was, you could feel it. I mean, even just watching on TV, the first third downs, especially when the Lions were roaring in

the first quarter, those first couple drives were just beautiful. Everything they were about. They're playing feisty on defense and you know it was like, ooh, okay, where's this going, especially how the rest of the weekend went. But man, it's when you have those kind of it's not worth

it like really to wait like 20-ish years 30-ish years for sometimes these droughts to finish. I was a Mariners fan. I had to go through one myself as a Timberwell's fan. I had to go through another one. But it's like, you know, when they have that finally get those games, oh, it is electric no matter what. And on top of it, they get another one. They get one next week, which is so much better.

And I think that's great. Like, congrats to Detroit. Congrats to the lines. Congrats to Jared Gough. Congrats to Dan Campbell. Because it's like since day one, he put his fingerprints on this. And here it is. This is kind of a culmination of it, but also feels like, oh, this can keep going because of where they're at right now as a franchise.

When Goff took the knee at the end, the first knee, he kind of raised the ball above his head and you could just tell that there was a little bit of an exhale. This had to mean so much to him to have his career completely written off and then to be a part of what this lion's rise has looked like. And that's what was so cool about tonight is that a lot of the main characters in this lion's story played the biggest roles tonight. Yeah. Goff just ripping in breakers the same way we've seen him do a million times. The Amon Ross St. Brown, third down, Faye, the way he just cooked Witherspoon off the line of scrimmage on that release. He had a huge night.

And Aidan Hutchinson, Aiden Hutchinson being the number two overall pick last year, somebody who took its step this year, just in terms of how often and effectively he was impacting the game. This is one of the best games I've ever seen him play in the biggest moment of his professional career. He changed the game in the second half how often and how quickly he was affecting the quarterback. And for those guys, the guys who've been at the center of all of this, to have the biggest plays and the biggest moments in the biggest game, along with Dan Campbell, it felt fitting. It felt like a proper way for this Lions team to take the step that their fans were hoping.

And I think a lot of people were anticipating they could this year. It was the natural assent. I always joke, don't just go stu-stu-me-it, which is, you know, just go. ascends and just goes and goes uphill. It's like, no, this is exactly the trajectory you want a rebuilding franchise to go on. The plucky loser first year that gets you a top three-ish pick and you nail that pick. And then it's the, oh, feisty, we might make the playoffs, but don't. Okay, that's all right.

That's a little disappointing. But we actually see signs of life, especially from our young players. And then you actually not only make the playoffs, you win the division and then host a game and win that game. It's like, that's what you usually say in your three to four. four year plan with all the GMs and all the coaches. This is what you usually say. This is the trajectory that you go on. And that's what the Lions did this entire year.

But look at Alie McNeil coming back. And we talked about that and their bet on him ascending. And he did this year when he was healthy. How about Josh Reynolds? Another kind of guy getting a second chance coming alive. We forgot about the Josh Reynolds revenge game. We were talking about it on Thursday. I can't believe we forgot to mention that.

I can't believe that. I can't believe that. I can't believe is a former ram as well. So yeah, there's plenty of that. But the connection of this game, it's just one of those things about the NFL sometimes is they talk about the script writers and everything. It's hilarious about how these things naturally evolve.

And it just especially over this time span were that both of these franchises have gone on. Like the Rams microwaving that year and winning the Super Bowl that one year and then now going through their own rebuilding phase, which has been as interesting as anything. So it's just really cool how this whole thing played out. Gerard golf tonight was just off. I love that the fact that we're going to get probably more into him,

but the fact that he bounced back from missing that third down throw on the fourth quarter and then just nails the last throw out. And it's like, that's so cool. It's like just so cool. They even let him throw that ball. It's so sports. They got one time out left. There's two minute warning.

The fact that they let him throw that ball to ice the game, he has come up when they've needed him to. And that's the story of this Lions team in general is that every single one of these guys has risen to the moment when necessary. And we're in coach season. We're in rebuild season. We're in reimagined your franchise season. And a lot of teams are going to look at what the lions have done over the last three years

and try to use that as a blueprint for how you get from the bottom to closing in on the top. And justifiably so. What they've done with the CEO type head coach, that culture setter type, it's everything you could want from that model and the way that they play and the way that they approach things. And then on the front office side, the patience to go along with that. If you're going to build that way with that CEO type head coach, you need to build a staff that's strong enough to somewhere come out of it with an offensive play caller that changes the game for you. And they did. The fact that Ben Johnson was the tight ends coach on that first staff.

And they've checked every single box you need with this team building philosophy and with this organizational philosophy. And tonight it was fully on display, every single bit of it. And to watch them do it in this way, do it the right way, quote unquote. There's something very cool about that. I think that that's something a lot of other organizations will be chasing here over the next couple years. What I love is they never wavered. It was like, never know. It's nice now we could say that.

Oh, yeah, because they culminated in this, but they did. They did not, I should say. Like first year, second year, second year they went through a rough stretch. Remember in October-ish November? I think they got blasted by the Patriots, if I remember correctly. They got destroyed on the road. They were like one and five. They went for fourth down, like 0 for six on fourth down against the Patriots.

They were banged up that day. I think St. I don't miss that game. Whatever, but that was a low moment. But they just kept betting, kept betting. They finished last year in week 18 knocking the Packers out of the playoff, their own kind of like a little mini Super Bowl. And again, they just bet.

And I just love that they always kept betting on the certain type of personality, a very competitive thing. And we had these certain coaches retired this week, Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll. I'm not saying Dan Campbell's going to be those coaches. But talking about building a franchise and building personality of a franchise and building an identity of a franchise, Dan Campbell has built kind of his own.

I have noticed just references before like little undrafted receivers or even Amman Raus St. Brown that they drafted in the fourth round. They aren't like there are a certain type of player, a lot of gritty, a lot of power slots, which I've liked, a lot of ball winners, a lot of size. But there was always a certain type. You saw some four sixes in there, some four or five, eights, maybe sometimes, you know, those guys get squeezed out for certain reasons. But they kept going after that, even Jameson Williams, who's a speedster,

some of his highlights in college, his best highlights were as a gunner. It's a certain personality, and that's at the receiver position. Now, imagine offensive line. The first picks have been right tackle. Penne Hsuil has been an all pro. And now you got Aidan Hutchison, offense line, defense aligned. It's just always just commitment to that and never, again, never kind of wavering and getting away from that. And here we are.

Here we are. They just, they've earned this all the way, all the way. They've earned this win, division win, everything that the Lions franchise has done since day one. Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes getting there. They deserve a ton of credit. I also think that we should take a somewhat critical eye to some of the decisions that the Rams made in this game, just from a clock management perspective, from a game management perspective.

When they got the ball back with a minute left at the end of the first half, even though they were on the five-yard line, they had three timeouts left. And I was surprised to see them not be more aggressive in that situation. And they had gone for it on fourth and five earlier in the half. So you had this weird collection of Sean McVeigh decisions where there was some aggressiveness and then some not aggressive enough and then burning the two timeouts early in the half. One on the first drive of the second half and then another one, they had a third and nine and they avoided the delay of game to take to the third and 14.

That was that ridiculous puka screen that he took for nine yards that they got the first down. So eventually that five yards did come to matter. But when you get down deeper into the game, you really want that time out in your back pocket. And then they also had some other play calling and just high leverage moment decisions that I didn't really love. We can get into. But this is, again, just kind of a mixed bag that comes with McVeigh in some of these moments where the offense has been phenomenally designed all year. It's one of the best offenses in the league. They're gashing them throughout the game.

And then there's two or three things where you step back and say, that really hurt them. That really hurt them in a big moment. And I don't know if that's just going to be how it is with him for the rest of his career, have the play calling brilliance, the play design brilliance and two or three things that make you scratch your head over the course of the game. But it continues to be something that's hard to ignore in these huge, huge moments like this. Yeah. I mean, this is always going to be a thing. I don't think it's ever going to change. I mean, he's had enough games under his belt. Him and Kyle Shanahan. I mean, this is just kind of how they are. They always kind of don't. His fourth down decisions

has gotten better this year. And then you have, just the two or three things happen tonight. Just, God, you're like 72% of the way there. You're so close. He hasn't hit 40 yet. So we still have time. So maybe maybe there is there's time they could do it. The one at the end of the half was interesting because I thought they would get see if they got the first down. But I,

Collinsworth even talked about our Tariko, one of them did was just like, oh, you know, they're in that weird no man's land where both kind of coaches are like, are you going to be in time out? Like that's kind of, it's one of those I get,

I can argue both sides. There was a part of me though going like, you guys are kind of cooking right now. Like you know, this is one of those types of games. where you might need every single point you can get. And every single possession you can get. There's only eight possessions for each team in this game.

Both teams had 50. It was actually kind of funny, the symmetry between the team stats. Both teams have 55 plays. Rams had 22 first downs. Lines at 23. Both went three for nine on third down. Both went one for one on fourth down. Both had eight drives.

But the Rams average 7.7 yards play. Lines average just over six, both very good. But it's just, I don't know. I felt like maybe you just turn up. that aggressiveness, especially with a quarterback that was absolutely throwing every pass and trick shop possible, going to be an all-time highlight reel on all 22 once you see the end zone view because I think he threw at least seven no look passes tonight. And it was like he wanted to put on a show for the home crowd. Like he and he really did, Matthew Stafford did. He was awesome.

He was awesome. He really was. And Stafford had some even greater throws at times. And then there was the holding penalty that pushed them back to the third and 14 in the fourth quarter where the Rams tried to rip all of it off at once and you had that kind of sketchy. Is it DPI? Is it not? I don't think it's worth lingering on. The Lions had that phantom false start penalty that would have given them a free first down. So it's again, one of those games where it all kind of comes out in the wash. But if you're the Rams in that situation, I can understand trying to get half of that and maybe put yourself in a reasonable field goal range when you're only down by one. Instead, like they did pretty often in this game, they tried to get it all back at once

and it didn't work out. I thought the same thing. I was curious that you didn't check it down. That felt like a big seven step drop back, let them all burn down field and get a check down for eight yards. You know, you get to that fourth and six-ish. And it's like, I think that would be like a mid-50 yarder. I thought that was going to be kind of what they went for.

Even that with Maher is a question. And I think that's probably why it's a little bit of a gray area. And aren't you bet on Stafford rather than a long field goal from your kicker, like in his decision making and all that type of thing? That's like exactly what you're trying to get into or not inside. Two plays that stick out to me that end up becoming pretty big in the game. Opening drive of the half, they take a shot to DeMarcus Robinson into double coverage. No motion, no nothing. It was essentially just a straight goal ball to DeMarcus Robinson isolated on the right side.

I'm like, guys, you've used motion on 95% of your. your plays, which we're going to talk about here in a second. You're just going to go static and throw a go ball to DeMarcus Robinson. That one I did not love. And then the other play I did not love was quit counting it on the throw to Cooper Cup on that possession in the fourth quarter when they had them wind up in the backfield on third down. It was third and eight. They put a cup in the backfield and they run a designer play without any motion and quick snap it. It's really the only option on that play is cup on the safety. Cedger Gardner Johnson makes a play on it. And I contrast those two. with what they were doing all game.

It was fascinating to watch the offense live. I've never seen this Rams offense live. And at one point in the second half, deep in the second half, they had used motion on 95% of their plays. And watching it happen was fascinating because they do a shift to get a sense of, okay, what are they in? And then they would do a jet motion back the other way. I'm getting so excited.

I'm slapping my microphone. I know this game. I know this game. Hey, I can empathize here. And watching that live where they're doing. doing every single play. They did such a great job of accruing information and then using that, whether it was a check, whether it was a can, whether it was him going from under center to the shotgun. And for them not to do that on a couple of the biggest third and forkedown moments of the

biggest third down moments of the entire game, it was a little bit surprising because the formula that they had gone with all night was cooking. And to see them go away from it, I think, hurt them. This is the pain of being a play caller sometimes is you can kind of, to get in your own head. I'm not saying good or bad is that all those third downs that you're mentioning or all those plays, all the shifting and motioning is you set that up the entire game and on the big third down, you go, hey, we're going to do something funky and quick snap it. Because usually all those shifts in motions, it's like, okay, they go two by two.

Okay, now Puka, or Puga goes in jet motion. Now Puka breaks outside after that shift, shift emotion. Like you said, there's like three of them before each snap. But it was interesting to me that, like, you bring that up because sometimes that's like, oh, we're going to get them. Now we're going to go on the Cheetah. we're going to go on the quick snap and we're going to get them because they're going to think we're going to do all the shift in motioning. And then it just becomes a dead play because it's just that that's it.

That's a one re thing like you said. It's like, ah, I thought too is I've noticed this maybe it's just a I haven't I don't have the red zone stats up right now. But like the Rams sometimes in these big games like against the Ravens was another one. Their lack of touchdowns in the red zone. Absolutely. Against the stories of the game. Against defenses that can stop their run because that's what that's what McVeigh loves to do. Once they get inside that 10 yard line, he wants.

to pound the rock. I mean, just think of girlie. I mean, anybody who's been back there, remember would be backup running backs in there and they'll still be getting those touchdowns. Kyron Williams now this year. And what going into this week, the Lions defending the runouts subpersonnel out of nickel and five or more DBs, they were a top 10 defense as far as success rate. And I thought that was interesting. It was like, okay, are they still going to try and pound Kyron Williams there?

And they didn't. And you could feel, I love Cooper Cup. I love Puka Nakua. You can feel their lack of speed there. They have size. but they don't have that, you know, jump ballness. They don't have that kind of explosiveness in the red zone. This is where Higby and their Super Bowl run was that kind of red zone threat for them.

They have their phase of Higby sometimes. He was banged up. He took a brutal shot on the low hit. And Colin Williams is banged up too. I think there was some past protection moments in the game where they really could have used him. I know. And as much as like Ronnie Rivers, he's not Karen Williams. But Colesworth has some interesting commentary when Higby took that hit, by the way.

People that listen will know what I'm talking about. But I thought also all the shifting and motioning too, a lot of those timeouts came on third and long, like third nine, third 10. Those are long play calls. So if that thing does not get in like 22 seconds, even if it's just one, two seconds of hesitation, so many times they're snapping ball at one at two at zero. So if there's any hesitation, that's why they had to burn those time out. So it's kind of again, it's like the double side sort of whenever people are like, why don't you shifting emotioning? This is sometimes the negatives and drawbacks of that. I'm just bringing it up.

and sometimes it got them tonight. I was so impressed with how they could continue the operation despite the noise. The fact that they were getting in and out of all these plays with the shifts and motions was incredibly impressive. But in the end, wasn't enough. And I think that red zone failures are the exact thing to point out.

When the Lions got into the Red Zone, especially early in the game, lions, three touchdowns on three Red Zone trips. Rams, zero touchdowns on three Red Zone trips. That's it. That's enough. And again, talking about guys with certain attitudes, CJ Gardner Johnson coming up with that play on Cooper Cup,

one more guy that they've thrown into the mix here. Yes. I wanted to ask you, third and eight, okay, incompletion to cup. You have third and eight from, you now have fourth and eight from the 11. You're down 24 to 20 with 8.13 left. Do you go for it?

I was going for it. And also changing my third down call because of that. I thought that's what they were doing. I thought they went about that a little different, but I would have, especially if you can get half of that on a third down. in the moment I understand kicking it because you think okay now we're one field go away from winning this thing but at the same time giving them the ball back down

this is this is the Rams adjusted in the second half and they did slow down the lines offense it's still the lines offense that can pound the freaking rock grind the clock get a couple first downs on you like they did at the very end of the game that would be the other thing it's like pinning them back isn't the worst thing and you're kind of doing the same thing anyways we kick the field go we still need to get the ball back anyways and to stop anyway. So that's, again, talking on both sides of my mouth, I can argue either, but how the Rams offense was going and seeing both sides, I kind of would have maybe been a little more aggressive. Have you, do you have a, I'm on Ross St. Brownstatt, by the way, because he was freaking shredding

on the outside, targeted six times on the outside, five catches for 83 yards, five first downs, finished with over five yards per route from the outside. And, and, and when he was lined up at the slot, they gamed up poor Michael Hoyt. I love him. But Michael Hoyt was out in space. just not his game. He had such a good day as a pass rusher. He was affecting the game consistently as a pass rusher. And for him, he got cooked as often. But that's, they were, they were playing with those five-man fronts.

Yes. They were playing with those nickel five-man fronts where they got five down with one linebacker off the ball for a good chunk of this game. And Ben Johnson did a very good job of consistently putting out personnel and formations that was going to, they were going to put 97 in space. And I do think overall, he actually had a pretty good game when being asked to do what he does well, but that's a mismatch when he's got to play against Amman Ross St. Brown, David Montgomery in space, all of those guys.

Johnson did a great job. They would, and this is the benefits of Leporter being a good athlete, even if hobbled, was Hoyt has to line up to the tight end side. Like, that's how just the Rams typical alignment is. So, but they would put Lopolder all the way out to the wide spot. And so, and then St. Brow would become in motion into the slot. And it was just, it was game over.

It's like, that's the thing. That's just, that's, that's your, that's the play caller creating a, a nothing, that 99% of the time they're winning that. 95% of the time they're winning out that. That's just, it is what it is. Sometimes when you're a defense coach, he's just go, oh, shoot, they got us. But that's what Ben Johnson does week after week. That's why we kind of go gaga what he does with design stuff. we always want to do a post-mortem for the team that lost these playoff games. I always think that they're worthwhile conversations. And with the Rams, I don't think we have to spend a ton of time on it because a lot of these teams that get to the playoffs and we'll have a conversation about Dallas here in a bit, they get to the playoffs and it feels like this is the end of a certain path. It's the end of a certain era.

It's the end of a certain tenure. The Rams feel like the opposite of that. They're a young team. They spent no money this off season. They have a decent amount of financial flexibility. coming up in 2024. My biggest question for them is mostly, how long is Stafford going to play? Because what I've really come away thinking after this Ram season is just how central he is to their

success. I kind of thought, maybe he'll play a year, maybe he'll play another two years as they're resetting. He'll be a good player, but they won't really be much. So they'll just be playing out the string. And after watching them this year with him and Nakua, and Kiron Williams, I'm thinking, what if he played at this level for three more years? I mean, what could this team be if they were getting this level of play for Matthew Stafford? And now they have a reset of resources where they could try to really make one more run at this thing.

And that's kind of where I'm at. It's like if they can get two or three more years of Matthew Stafford playing at this level, with Pucca on making absolutely nothing and with so many other young guys on the roster that are mid-round picks, they get pretty interesting in a hurry here over the next couple seasons. I think they have a new two-year window. And it's very interesting about that they can get ready to less needs wheelhouse a little bit. Be aggressive. Be be aggressive.

But I do. It's unbelievable how accelerated this all feels. This was, I think, maybe a conversation we might have in a year from now. Like, oh, wow, look this new young Rams team with all these interesting pieces. That top five pick they got because they sucked in 2023, right? No, but they were like one of the best offenses in the entire NFL, gum and toothpicks defense, but has some pieces. Nailed two draft picks. Still have Aaron Donald.

That's probably one more year, hopefully, maybe two. But also Ernest Jones was, I mean, dominated David Montgomery in pass protection tonight or on blitzing tonight. That's how he was awesome in this game. He had some unbelievable pass rush reps in this game. I love watching him as a blitzer. He's a true weapon as a blitzer, like as well. one of the better ones in the NFL, which is really cool. And so they have some, and they have some interesting D-Bs, but they can really quickly rejuvenate that defense. And the offense-

that's where I want to see them spend. I want to see them go out and get some defensive backs. God bless Leather Spoon. God bless him. But he's got no shot in some of these moments. And we knew that. We knew that going in with the defensive back group, but they could easily free up 50, 60 million in space without even blinking. And that's before any sort of restructures. Stafford is a $31 million-dollar-based salary. And you get into some dicey territory if you start kicking the can down the road with him and pushing money into future years. But it is a lever they could possibly pull if they wanted to. So it's going to be a fascinating offseason for them. But I expect them to be a competitive team again next year because why wouldn't they be as long as number nine is healthy?

Nope. They're going to be definitely I look as a playoff team next year. And they just built like five new paths from themselves where I thought they just maybe had one after this year. So pretty cool. Pretty cool if you're a Rams fan. And watching Nakua do that tonight was phenomenal. And the fact that we have him and St. Brown, these two guys that were drafted in the fourth round or later, showing up like superstars on this stage like they did tonight.

It was really, really cool to watch. We're going to go all the way back to the beginning of the weekend now and then run through these in chronological order. But I had to get that Rams Lions. Because it had just happened. So it's fresh in my mind, got a lot of fresh juice from that one. Let's talk about Texans Browns. And there's really no other place to start other than the guy who plays quarterback for the Texans. I think is just a superstar. Is that overstating it? I mean, what sort of, what sort of takeaways are you having and what sort of thoughts are you having about C.J. Stroud as you've got to marinate on it here for the last day or so. He looks like a future MVP winner.

That's, that's by one liner, which is with the highest compliment you can give a quarterback, perennial MVP candidate. Perennial makes his teammates better, makes the entire offense as high. He hits the high points, the ceiling of whatever. the offense can create on every single play. All the shot plays are unbelievable, but just down to down. It's the lack of mistakes he makes, the pure efficiency, like brutal efficiency where everything is just dead on accurate.

He makes everything better. Even just like stuff like the Nico Collins touchdown on the screen, how like the ball just is, it's just upfield. I know that's stupid. It's the release on it too. He's fading back and the touch. There were two plays in this game. route. People will never, ever, ever talk about them again. Not the big place. He had two throws to number 19

Hutchinson in this game where he's just popping the ball over a free rusher and finding Hutchinson in the flat for like five yards. Just no one's ever going to remember them. And he's turning potential negatives into positives because of how aware he is of where pressure is coming from and some of the arm angle and release stuff that we can consistently talk about. And that's showing up over and over and over again. And we can get into some of the specific plays. But I'm prepared after that game and after going back and rewatching that game to say some potentially rash things about how good I think C.J.

Stroud is and how good I think he can be. I wouldn't put it on you first, though. Right now. Okay. Right now. How many guys would you be comfortable taking over C.J. Stroud for the next three years of quarterback? comfortable.

Yes, definitively. Four. Mahomes, Alan, Lamar. Yeah. And who's the fourth one? Herbert. And that's it. And that's, yeah.

But the fact that he's battling for the four horsemen of the apocalypse, like, is just pretty, it's pretty substantial to me as a rookie that I'm even like thinking about this. I think I'd rather have him than Herbert. Your former number one pick? I think so. Wow. Within the three years he drafted him, too. Wow. I think so.

I know that's crazy, but it's, he's doing stuff that it's an extension of a conversation that you and I were having off Mike a couple weeks ago. And funnily enough, Stephen Ruiz wrote about it for the ringer this week. And he was writing about Jordan Love. And he was talking about some of the fadeaway jumpers that Jordan Love has been hitting and what that sort of skill set means and how important it is for high level quarterback. play in 2023. And I totally agree with him. And the term that I had kind of landed on when I was talking about this was pocket playmaking is how I've kind of deemed it. And that to me is an all encompassing thing of its arm angles, it's off platform throws, its movement in the pocket, its feel for the pocket, it's sliding up and out, its creativity as a thrower from that space.

And when I watched Stroud all season, and especially when I watched him yesterday, that's what his game is. There was a play early in the game, because might have been their second and third drive, where he had Metschie on a little out and up, where he had to slide to the right and then take a step up. And the flick of the wrist to Metchie on that play, it just looks so smooth. And then there was a sluggo to Niko Collins on their second drive where there's a free runner he can't even step in it and he just laces a 40-yard throw to Nico Collins for like a monstrous game. And the way he throws the ball, he's just special. Like there's just something about the collection of the things that he can do from the pocket

that feel different, that feel like superstar sort of material. And I just can't get it out of my head when I think about who he is now and who he can be down the road and just how much all of that in totality stands out about the way that he plays the position. He's wildly good. Yeah, I totally agree. It's when, uh, Keenan was, I said this before, but when Keenan was on the man in cast and he just said he does things with the football I've never seen before, that stood out to me that a guy like Kay's Keenom was a vet was talking about that like as a rookie. But when you think of usually when guys doing talk about that, it's a guy like Josh Allen

or Mahomes that had, are, you know, a little more built or are throwing it 70, yards, 78 yards, but then or a guy like Stroud, who's 6,3, 2, 15, you know, but not overwhelmingly built. But his accuracy is one of the greatest superpowers in the week at any way. I talk about Josh Allen's legs or Lamar's creativity and all those things. His accuracy and be able to create those hidden yards on play after play is just the most exceptional thing that you'll watch on a weekend, watching the NFL. And accuracy off platform too.

Accuracy on the move. Accuracy when he's pushed off his spot. Those are the things that I find super impressive. It's not just as long as I have space to operate, I can put it where I want to. He can put it where he wants to in all of these different situations. And yeah, it really is something to behold. We can get into some of the specifics here in some of those plays. But even the act of watching him right now just feels a little bit different.

Yeah. The ball comes out like a Madden glitch. We're not glad. Yeah. But like the ball always just comes out as like a super spiral. It's just like no matter what, it just. Yeah, the only other guy, I couldn't remember that through like that.

Well, Warren Moon. It's kind of like that. Warren Moon threw it like that exactly. No matter what, it was a perfect tight spiral, no matter what. Chris Leak was another one. Another guy, no matter what, threw it out. But yeah, Chris Leak was not this. But those guys, certain guys just have that where no matter what it's a perfect spiral.

I watched golf throw a frickin' laser beam. That thing wobble like a weevil. I was like that. I was always a wobbler. Stafford's a wobbler. but I do not have the RPMs of those guys. That's why it's unbelievable. But some guys just throw that perfect spiral every time

and Stroud's one of those. But yeah, we'll talk about specific plays in a sec because I just want to throw this out there about the Texans right now. We talk about premium positions, off-season show. We'll talk all about that. But I think generally premium positions, the consensus is quarterback, tackle, receiver, edge, and corner. That's more or less the consensus, right?

The Texans have CJ Stroud, Laramie Tunsell, Nico Collins, Will Anderson, Derek Stingley. I think that's what you want. A rookie, a quarterback, a left tackle three more years, one of the best left tackles in the game. Nicola Collins is about to enter his last year of his rookie deal. Will Anderson's a rookie. And then Derek Stingley is in the second year.

It's corner. So I just thought about that. It's like, ha, that's set up pretty well if you're the Texans that you have answered a lot of the hardest questions in franchise building right now. And they have Tank Dell. And Tank Dell played the way that he did this year.

So you have two reliable pass catching options. And he's not even playing right now. And you combine that with what Bobby Sloick has done as a play caller and as a play designer. He was throwing heat yesterday. Any, any, any standards. Do you think he has my balls on them? Any specific moments, designs kind of approaches by Sloick that particularly stood out to you from yesterday. A lot of movement across the formation as far as after snap, slide actions, slice action, whatever you want to call it, split action.

Nico Collins had a couple. That was the one that was notable to me. That was to really capture the Browns are super aggressive. JOK, their linebackers are super downhill. They want to fly downhill. That gets them to hesitate. Or if they're in man coverage, it gets a guy to run all the way across the formation

and have to go through the muck. And so I thought that was just, I figured that might be part of the attack and they spammed it. Bootlike City and play action city. It was, yeah, shredded up. Six of them in the field, you know, outside the red zone. You had the screen that touchdown to Nico Collins came on a little play action. The Reverend Jordan touchdown was a bootleg, 76 yarder.

That one is great too. Again, affected man coverage. They're in 13 personnel. I think you shouted out the 13 personnel might happen, right? Was that the other side? Yeah, just the Browns really pack the paint and put a lot of guys in the box whenever teams go heavy against them. That's exactly what they were doing, especially early in the game. That was the perfect example of what you're talking about because when you're in goal line situations or in heavy personnel,

I should say goal line, but short yardage looks like that. I know it's first and 10. But is you'll be in man coverage. And when you're man coverage as well, you have to have your run fits and the gap fits. When you have extra tight ends and extra bodies, that's extra gaps to be accounted for. And again, JOK on that play, he has the D gap and the run fit. He looks inside because the action is going in there. And then he just loses Jordan for the touchdown.

It was just, but that's just like classic football right there. That is literally like what like bootlegs were invented to do into the boundary too with a too tight end look. It's like as old school as it looks right there. But I just thought all those types of stuff. And then the Dalton Schultz TD was just a hiccup. It was a shot play in the shot zone. It was also a second and 20 play call, which was awesome really kind of subverting the trope. Oh yeah, second and 20 safe run.

Just get near field go range. This is nope. Don't worry about us. shot by boom i love that uh but also that one also notice some people are really blaming the safety on that one that was actually actually Greg newsom he's supposed to rock all the way back there yep slingshot back to the post yeah so classic cover six-beater thornton hale plays downhill newsom supposed to slingsop back so

and that's a classic fan play the classic they i mean you believe it's called yeah and i think the the first time i can remember seeing it in a big moment was the 2019 season the Niners hit it against the Packers. George Kittle scored it was Sunday night football. And teams have run it a bunch since then. Ben Fennell, who works with CBS, he has an entire threat of them on Twitter of teams running that exact play. The Packers have hit it a bunch, including against the Bears,

and Sloick just dialing up the shots, playing the hits. And that's something that felt very familiar. Until I rewatched this morning, I was like, where have I seen that before? And it's like, oh, yeah, that's a George Kittle play against the Packers that I've seen a million different times. it just took a little something to jog the memory. But that's what you're seeing up the over route. It looks like just everything they run over and over and over.

It's a double move. Yeah. But it's a, it's a beauty. And that's what's so cool about this offense is that you have a lot of Shanahan staples that are now filtered through dynamic quarterback play. Like truly dynamic quarterback play that we have not seen from the guys directly off of the Shanahan tree. you know, the McDaniel, now Bobby Sloick, Shanahan.

Obviously, what Matthew Stafford has done with, McVeigh is a different sort of thing. But even what McVeigh and LaFleur have done, it's a little bit further removed now from like the true guys that just came from that minor system. So seeing these ideas with a guy like C.J. Stroud attached to them, that's what to me makes this feel so exciting, is that it takes it to a completely different level because of what the quarterback is capable of. That's what's, again, it's cool. when you see these ideas and this offense kind of spread throughout the week and you see how people interpret them. And it's a lot like covering music. And then sometimes you just get fucking Freddie Mercury covering music.

Yes. And it's like, oh, baby. It's like he hits every octave. He gets every note. And it's like, yes. And he just has that star power. So it's, that's sometimes how it works. Sometimes you just get the, you know, the house band to play it.

But sometimes you get Freddie Mercury to sing that music. We knew that the Texans offense is capable of reaching. sorts of heights. And we know that Stroud has played really, really well, including a de facto playoff game last week with the season on the line. Are you still surprised that just the degree to which they sliced and diced what was the best defense in the league by certain metrics over the course of the regular season? I thought they would have some good answers just naturally, but I did not that. Not, not. I knew that they would, I figured the Texans actually would have had some answers because even the first time they played, they did, even if they just ended up getting blown out,

because they were hanging in there. But I just did not think it would just be a shred fest like that. I mean, like right away, it was just right off the bat. I was like, oh, boy, Texans, they got it. They had keys, just even the run game, you know, what can be up and down. But it was like, even the runs they got to, it was like, oh, I understand why you're getting to that pinpole. I understand why you got to that power.

I mean, Devin Singletary's last touchdown was on a classic I formation power. So it's just, you know, it's, they had some good answers, but they, of course, is just like the perfect game script, especially when the pick six is happening with Flacko. It just felt like they had the shannoscope on Ronnie Hickman the entire game. And that was the one real backup in a key spot for the Browns in this game on defense. Obviously, the offense is littered with backups. But Denzel Ward was back in there. The defensive line was mostly healthy, even though Miles Garrett's a little bit banged up. I thought the Texans did a really good job of accounting for him pretty much every single stop of this entire game.

but number 33 and then when Harmon was in there as well, those are the two guys that the Texans, I think, felt like they could consistently pick on over the course of the day. And they did. I mean, that's exactly what happened. I know. That's what they do in that offense. Especially if you have something over the interior of the field,

if you have something between the numbers that they can pick on, outside receivers, they usually can't pick on. But then this team can because they have this guy named CJ Stroud. So they can launch stuff on the outside and attack that. So that's why it feels a little different when you watch this offense. sometimes we feel some other offenses that speaking which the wheel route he had to brevin jordan was pretty nasty because of just how he progressed to it again going against a pass rush then get after him they didn't really have chip help on this play but he went coast to coast with it and i'm

really curious to watch that one on all 22 because it's just it went it was a quick game read to the left and then he extended it to the right and it was just it was like a combo read but the fact that he got to that in that pass rush took the took the blow and hits this wheel route like C.J. Stroud just does that every drive. Even the incompletion to Robert Woods on I think the first drive that was low and away into the end zone that it got batted away. Yeah. Like only one catching that ball is Robert Woods. Like that was never getting picked. It got it was a beautiful play. But it's like again, when he misses his accuracy is just fantastic. Sorry. Every time we talk about Texas is just going to be a C.J. Stroud gosh fast.

I mean, and I think that that's totally fair because I think that he has really announced himself. And we're talking about another guy later who's probably in that same conversation. But the way that Stroud is playing right now in the way that he played against the Browns defense. It's hard to overstate just how exciting this is. And then on the defensive side, it felt like the Browns were going to be able to go blow for blow for them for most of this game. And the Texans defense really locked down in the second half. In the first quarter, they were playing almost exclusively cover three. I mean, it was like 55, 60 percent of snaps that they were in single high because the Browns are coming out in those heavy personnel looks. You know, the Browns, the old version

of how we understand the Browns is, oh, they're going to run the ball. You know, they have this heavy personnel guy, the heavy bodies out there, they're going to run the ball. And from the second quarter on, the Texans shifted to playing a majority to high coverage. There's a mix of everything. Got some cover two in there, got some quarters in there, got some cover six in there. So not giving them easy answers when they were trying to throw the ball combined with the mismatches up front. When he had to hold on to it for a single beat when Flacco did, Will Anderson or Jonathan Grunard are going to win. And that, we know that.

And Grinard had some absolutely nasty pass rush reps against the right tackle. And that's a mismatch. That is a mitch match consistently throughout the game. You can only chip one guy. And at a certain point, those Browns tackles were going to have no shot if they had to keep dropping back. And if Flacco had to hold onto it for an extra half second because he wasn't getting easy answers against those single high looks. And that was enough for their offensive plan to just get completely derailed. Yeah.

Flacco can launch it, but it's when you don't have it. an ace quarterback back there. No offense to old Joe Flacco. It's that when you want to provide chip help, you're knocking all the routes out against the coverages. So then he has to make a hero throw or a guy has to win. And Amari Cooper has played well, but Derek Stingley also played well. And Jokoe working over the middle. We were wondering about that. We were wondering if Stingley was going to shadow him throughout the game. And for the first time this season, Stingley followed a receiver throughout the day. And Amari Cooper did not do much when Derek Stingley was lined up on him. And I'm curious, and that's because it's, I like Sextor Tillman down the road, but you know,

Elijah Moore has some moments. But again, you just don't have that, especially with Flacco is how they're designing everything. It's really like point shoot. Hey, we're designing it to this guy get the ball, throw it there. So it's not much so much as like one to two to three. Maybe if you watch like Stafford with the Rams right now, that's just the offensive system that they have to play. And when you have four string left tackles and your fifth quarterback and all that,

this is what they have to be forced in with the Browns. But again, when the Texans have that. type of pass rush and you can't run the ball. You're forced into a lot of passing situations. You only have so many good plays. And that's what it really felt like, especially once the pick six happened, they were just jumping on the plays that they were gotten with earlier. You know, you felt like in Joku getting peppered over the middle earlier. And then they ran those same plays. And then there was the Texas DBs and just jumping on everything. That's kind of how it goes. Two more Texans things I wanted to hit. One, going back and rewatching that game this morning,

one of the things that really jumped out to me, beyond the designs, beyond how beautifully constructed the offense is, it feels like the Niners offense in one specific way that I think is worth pointing out. The buy-in. The buy-in from every single guy on that offense. Watching Nico Collins on pinpole plays. Watching, again, I'm going to keep going back to number 19, who's like their fourth receiver, watching that guy block so often in that game. And just the level of buy-in across the board, that's how the Niners feel.

The Niners play a certain way. Yeah, are the designs beautiful? Absolutely they are. But one of the reasons that that team is so hard to deal with is because they're playing at a different clip than the defenses that they're facing. And that's what the Texans felt like today. And that is a testament to what DiMiko Ryans is building there and what this team plays like. And I'm sure what this team practices like.

And on the flip side, on the defensive side, it was a testament. Will Anderson playing the run. That was the element of the defense that really stood out to me in the same way, where you have these superstar level players doing this dirty work bullshit with every fiber of their being in some of these big moments. And I think that really speaks to what they're building there and just what's being instilled there and how that building locker room, everything else feels under D'Amico Ryan's this season.

It's kind of nice sometimes when your best. player is like your hardest worker too. That's what everyone talks about with Will Anderson. And that's why they were comfortable making that trade. I guarantee it to you. And that's a culture center. That is. That's easy.

That's easy to get by. And especially when he's good. Everyone just goes, well, if he's doing it, I'm the fifth round. The other guy, I better be doing it too.

No, it's just, again, it's something that it pays dividends down the road. When you have that, it just also helps again when they're the best players. But like you said with the receivers blocking, think of Robert Woods's impact,

probably in that meeting room, probably him. I'm like, hey, you guys better bring it. Nico Collins, Nico Collins has always had size. I've never like kind of question his toughness or anything, but he hasn't, he's flash moments of kind of some of this, but now it's just everyone's playing their best ball.

And Nico Collins, of course, getting some help of stroud, some designs, but then you get to see his best version of himself. And it's like, wow, like he was just off my second team all pro list

because just how overwhelmingly good he was this. He's an awesome player. He's an awesome player, but that's what we're saying about just what Damico Ryan's, is both sides of the ball. all play their best versions of themselves. They don't put guys to fail, set them up to fail. It's only set up to success.

And it's like, that's why again, they're just keep on winning. I mean, it's just every single guy. But it's just, yeah, all their guys, like, even when just John Metchy's in there, or not John Mitchie, I'm sorry, Larry Tunsell's in there. It's just like, now he's getting used perfectly. That screen, he's out in space, knocking on. I'm so glad you mentioned that because it's so true. That's just like a perfect expression of those guys in that moment.

Get Collins the ball in space and let Lermermerernernery Tunso go to work in space. It's such a perfect deployment of those skill sets within that offense. And speaking of that, that last Texan thing I wanted to talk about, what do we think happens with Sloic now? Because a couple of these jobs, whether it's the Panthers job, the Titans job, where there's really no frontrunner, no real understood direction of necessarily how they want to take this. I think everyone knows that the Panthers would prefer offense to pair with Bryce Young. And if Bob Ben Johnson takes the Washington job, which seems more than reasonable that he would, they're starting over with a ton of resources.

There's a lot of enthusiasm about that ownership group. Adam Peters is now there as their president of football operations. So the Panthers are sitting there and they need or want a play calling offensive head coach. There aren't a lot of ready-made options. And he's putting together one hell of a resume for himself right now over the last couple weeks, including what he did yesterday. I know. I had kind of a snarky tweet about it.

I was like, oh, everybody wants an offense player color as their head coach. I go, all right, name them. And it's like, but then it's like,

okay, Ben Johnson, but then it's like, ah, ha, well, Bobby Sloak. And then what at first turned out to be,

it's just kind of like, oh, just a guy, like, you know, a guy for, but then it just became a thing, like,

because of what they've been putting out there. I mean, but none of this, I mean, yes, Straout, of course, makes it sing beautifully.

but it also just the designs again as a neutral watcher I'm watching. I'm not one time. Am I going, why are you doing that? It's like, oh, okay. And again,

there's buy in. And again, there's details. There's been all these injuries. Offensive line, receivers, even running back. All these guys,

there's not those busts. These guys are actually executing wonderfully. And again, that usually goes to the coaching, which is the offensive coordinator under a defensive head coach. So no offense to coach Ryan's, but it's just, you know,

it's not like him, him installing, you know, receiver block. walking and route running on Mondays and Tuesdays. I think what Ben Johnson did this offseason where he said, you know what, I need one more year. Let me go back one more year, work with the quarter, work with this offense, you know, just learn under Dan Campbell for one more year and then we'll see where things are a year from now.

There's always a danger in that because you never know what's going to happen. If I'm Bobby Sloick, I'm fine betting on CJ Stroud and how things are going to go over the next couple years. I was going to say, get at least one more. That's like how I would go, I'm just getting warm here. I really like this Houston cooking. We'll see what happens, but I can understand why there's interest in him, but again, this is a guy who's had a very fast rise. One year is a play caller. I can understand if teams were wanting to pump the brakes a little bit, but I think that's going to get harder and harder as he continues to do this. Let's flip this conversation to what's going to happen with the Cleveland Browns moving forward. Kind of feels like the Browns woke up,

on Sunday morning from like a month and a half long bender with Joe Flacco at quarterback. And now responsibilities have arrived. You got to clean up the house a little bit. You got to get stuff in order. Reality has set in. And that's what this is. We all had a good time during the Joe Flacco experience with him slinging it all around, this defense playing well.

But now where does this team go? A majority of their guys are back. most of this roster is going to come back. A lot of the guys that are hitting free agency are mostly their defensive depth pieces. And we can talk about the importance of guys like that, but they got a lot out of a Mo Hearst this year. Rodney McLeod was good for them when he played. Shelby Harris, you know, guys like that are the ones who are going to be hitting free agency. They're $14 million over the cap for next year, but they also have $30 million rolling over.

So they're going to be compliant without doing anything. and I think there's a very good chance, or at least a pretty good chance, that they restructure a good chunk of Deshaun Watson's contract again. He's a $64 million cap hit, $46 million base salary. So this is a team that can free up as much space as it wants if it's willing to keep operating the way that it has over the last couple years. We talked about this last week. They've spent more cash on the roster than any other team in the league this year,

and they are set up to do that again. My question is, to what end? what is the best version of this Brown's roster moving forward? And I think the two big questions that come with that are one, was this a lightning-in-a-bottle sort of situation with the defense? Can you get this again? And if there is a fall-off, which there almost certainly will be, because that's just how defense typically works,

especially when you play this kind of defense, how far is the fall? Do they go from the best defense in the league to the seventh best defense? The third best defense? the 14th best defense. And if it is substantial, if it is back to the pack, is the offense with DeShon Watson and everyone back healthy? Conklin, Wills, Nick Chubb, is that going to be enough to pick up the slack?

Or is what the quarterback has shown over his last couple years, this guy hasn't played well, hasn't played at a high level since 2020. It's going to be four years when we get to the fall from the last time that we're we saw Deshawn Watson play like an elite quarterback. And it was okay to ignore that over the last six weeks or so. Hard to ignore that now. Because that's what you, you sit here and you go, okay, what's next year? Okay, again, Disco's Two, it's going to the moon.

And I actually went knowing that we probably talk about them and you look at their contracts. I was like, man, they can really just kind of bring a lot back. Like actually all of set up. Yeah, they're kind of set up kind of nicely. They're all under wraps, the whole line. It's actually kind of nicely on Spow track. It's like left tackle, left guard center. I'm like, it's actually in order as they go with the cap hit.

So it's kind of nice. But again, it goes back to, and I know I had some Browns fans yell at me about the end of the Ravens game in the second half where he threw a bunch of screens and everything. But if they want this to be valid and everything, that what? No, we can't do this. We can't do he threw some screens at the end of the Ravens game. Oh, but this was going to say, this was going to say they need Deshaun Watson to be more than he was this year if they actually want to be realistic about it.

Look at what this weekend was. Look at the guys that. you have to play against. This is about more than one quarter against the Ravens if he's going to be making $65 million. You traded those picks to, okay, got the Gauphin Stafford trade. You traded all those for, or trade those first round picks to upgrade from Stafford, who by anyone that even hates Stafford said, because he's above average at the very least.

Okay. And you had to give a first round picks to maybe go a tier or two in the quarterback, quarterback, you know, upgrade position. But now we got Deshawn Watson and we're trading away all those first round picks and I just found replacement level play off the street with Joe Flacco. That was just as good as Deshaun Watson was putting out there this year. What does that tell you? And I have watched a lot of Brown's offense this year and I just never saw sustained play.

The Colts game is one that stands out in my mind when he got knocked out of it. But that was one where I just not only just like everyone wants to talk about mechanics and throwing and feet, there is some of that. I would just talk about where his eyes are going on some of the place. And I just don't feel like he was pulling the trigger at a guy. Like there was rust, but there shouldn't be rust. there is, Rust was for last year, for the end of last year, not for now when they're pushing. And again, like you said, I think the defense is lightning in the bottle.

Defense is not just because I don't think they're going to be very good next year. They were a top 10 literally by EPA defense we've seen in 23 years. Like up there with some of those Ravens teams from the early odds, like the 02 bucks team, stuff like that. So now you're, you're not getting that again. It's just no matter what. It's that's too hard to get again, even if you get very good. so that has to come from the offense. And like you said, look at all the monsters in the AFC.

Look at the guy that's coming back in Cincinnati in your own division. You're going to have the MVP winner in your division. Okay, the Steelers might get somebody else to replace picket. They might upgrade. Now you got, you got Josh Allen. You got C.J. Stroud. You got Mahomes. I mean, we can go on and on.

That's not even couldn't guys like Trevor. Like, I mean, Anthony Richardson's coming back. Like, just look at all these guys. They're cropping up throughout your, conference. So you can't be a replacement level play when you're paid to be at the very least good, at the very least a top 10ish quarterback, not a bottom 10ish quarterback. Even if he is average next year, even if that's the play that you get, even if he finishes the year 16th, an EPA per dropback among all quarterbacks in the NFL, which would be an improvement, by the way. A significant improvement. A

significant improvement. Think about how that fits in the grander context of the position right now and the position in the AFC. This isn't going away. We're only adding guys to the equation with Stroud and Jordan Love and some of these guys who've arrived this year. And again, I ask you as a Browns fan, and I've had this conversation with Bears fans over the last day or so, be honest with yourself.

Watch what these guys are doing. And be honest with yourself about what you're doing. your guy is doing and what you need to win in the NFL. And there is a significant gap between the quarterback play we saw from the teams that won this weekend. In case of the Rams, a team that lost and what the Browns have gotten from a guy that they gave up all of that for. And eventually, that is going to become an anchor. It's going to become an anchor that weighs you down and that you cannot get over. And that's what they're going to have to figure out. Not even next year. You just mentioned, okay, they can get this money from Deshaun's contract.

you know from Deshawn's cap it cap it that goes forward so it's going to have an 85 million dollar cap it in two years but it's just paying so even if you exit that you hit this exit button sometime down the down the road it's like this still this hits can be hitting for years on end so every move you make is going to have ramifications but that's just it's just crazy because there's no exit ramp so it's like kind of all right like well there's no ramp you're driving off a cliff what one of these one of these years you're driving off a cliff And you just hope that you can be competitive enough in the intermediate years that when you get to that point, when you get to a place in 2026 and he's making whatever he's making. And at that point, Miles Garrett's deep into his 30s. Amari Cooper's off the roster.

Both of your guards are probably gone. You're hitting the eject button on this whole thing at some point anyway. The hope is just that you could be competitive on the way there. And I think, again, if you're being honest with yourself about what's, you're hitting the end, you're being honest with yourself about what. some of these teams in the AFC you're going to be looking like, it's a little bit harder to feel excited about your ability to compete in that space. Are you saying like contendership competing or just like playoff competing? I think playoff competing is kind of, okay, okay, that's what I mean. Yes, yes, double digit wins. Yeah, but that's okay, that feels a best case

scenario. Exactly. And then just hope for a flacko run. Like that's, that's, that's what you're bet not. Maybe that's okay, but that's not what they traded for. That's not what you make that move for. And it's better when it's like the rest of the division or rest of the conference is a bunch of like, okay, there's only two of those, you know, you know, monsters in this conference. It's like, no, like, look again, how many guys I just listed off. Like those guys had, those teams just have the easier answer. That's what the good quarterbacks do. They just give those teams an easier answer, no matter the makeup of the franchise. So let's continue that sort of conversation and get to Chiefs Dolphins because this is another game where the gap between.

the players at that position was on full display. But I also think the gap between the two teams was on full display throughout the course of this entire game. It never felt like the dolphins had a shot. I'm glad you just said that. Never. Because I was just going to ask you that. Okay.

Yep. Never. It felt like in every aspect of the game, the Chiefs were better positioned than Miami was last night. They won up front on both sides of the ball. On both sides of the ball. That Chief's offensive line, we've dinged it all season. We've been disappointed in the way that they've played.

Even guys who had shown flashes previously, it just didn't feel like they were playing their best. And then Trey Smith comes out after eating so much shit on this show over the last month or so and just comes out and is an ass kicker for four quarters last night. Yeah, good. It's so frustrating because we know he's that. Yes. So good. Good. I know.

I've had people go, like, what do you think the chief's run game needs? I was like, I don't know, just their guys to play well. I don't know what else to tell you. Like Andy Hecks done it before. Like Andy Reid's done it before. Like they've done it before with these guys. There were two plays in the first half that I will point to. One, on the second run of the game, Leo Chanel, who is a linebacker, was lined up as a four-eye over the left guard as the dolphins tried to run the ball.

So head up on the guard as a linebacker. He beats up the left guard at the point of attack on that play, strings it out. It's like a one-yard game. And then on the, I think it was the second drive for the chiefs. Trey Smith and Juan Taylor had a double team on Christian Wilkins where they folded him in half on like a 10-yard run from Isaiah Pacheco. And I don't want to boil the game down to two specific moments because Mahomes had his share of them as well. But that, that's how the game felt, where the chiefs were not influenced by the elements and they were going to come out and they were going to assert themselves. They were going to dominate the football game physically from the get-go,

and that's exactly what they did. Yeah, and then their defense matched it, too, where they just were controlling the whole game in the trenches and just on the back end. But no, this is the 2023 Chiefs formula is they need Mahomes to be Mahomes, of course. They need his defense to be Spags, elite spags with Donnell just his play calling the personnel that he has right now. Then they need some run game. doesn't have to be amazing just enough to keep you know keep it afloat just keep it going that's what this was yeah and they had some explosive runs too and then my homes has to be homes and we need more rishi

rice and that's what we saw today or today oh my god this weekend that we saw that i'm frozen still from that game but no but honestly it was it was good to see finally it was the calmest that offense has felt and they still had a whole bunch of mistakes which is the funniest part they uh okay i had a list going so hopefully this was pretty pretty clean because I was doing it for my phone. Okay. So he had Micoe Hardman losing the ball, at least twice. Yeah, Kelsey had two drops.

Yeah. Big time drops. Joanne Taylor had a block in the back that took away Rishi Rice touchdown. They had a short yardage and around to Mikul Hardman, which was like, what was that? That's my moment where you, you're with the Agnew. For me, it's the short yardage, flip passes and handoffs to the receivers. Enough, enough with the cloud. Enough.

Enough. Enough with this shit in short yardage. I can't deal with it anymore. Every time. And you can hear it at Arrowhead. the whole stadium's just like, what shit are you guys about to do now? Like, what are you guys about to do right now? You can hear the Kansas City crowd do it.

But then there's just Mahomes that just keeps making plays. And then they just have enough. Like, they just have enough juice. The offensive line played better, which is what they need. And yeah, the defense is just awesome. And just took it to them and they did some funky stuff and did some great coverages. So this is their formula. And like, yeah, it's like how the offense looked, even if it wasn't perfect,

It's improvement from the mess that's been for a while now. The run game was, they got enough in the run game. And Rishi Rice, they figured out what they need out of Rishie Rice. Death by a thousand crossers, man. That's it. You get that guy. I'm really sorry. He had a really nice zone uncoverment.

I have this in my notes. He's, I think it was on their third drive. I think it was third down. Zone coverage by the dolphins. He's sitting over the ball. and he drifts just a little bit into the void and Mahomes finds him. I thought the exact same play because this is growth.

So that combined with how well they were getting the ball in his hands in space, I think is a very good recipe. And the one play that really sticks out is there was a zero blitz at the end of the first half where Mahomes hits him without stepping into it. Similar type of stuff we've been talking about with Stroud, which is very funny that now I'm comparing Patrick Mahomes to C.J. Stroud but he it's a it's a free runner mohomes can't step into it and just leases like laces a ball and rice for a 40-yard game and that's the type of stuff that the chief's quarterback was doing in this game that the dolphin's quarterback is not capable of

when the pocket is getting muddy when the pocket is getting crowded when you've got to drift back a little tiny bit what can you do and that's what we saw from the real guys this weekend the ability to operate in those circumstances And that is something that on the other side of the ball, they have not shown a capacity to do. And I think that that's going to lead to a pretty important conversation here moving forward. Oh, my God, a messy one. It's going to be interesting, especially with another team that had an ill performance this weekend. But the watching, okay, so Mahomes against Fangio, there's a stat that's relevant to this, going into this weekend, had a 50% passing success rate.

Dropbacks to six, right, I should say. He bested that in sub-zero temperatures today. God, I keep saying today, this weekend. He bested that. Over 50% and it was negative 30 wind chill. Why I'm saying that was exactly last week. We watched Josh Allen and we watched Josh Allen to go against Tua. And again, we watched Josh Allen make these, yes, some turnovers,

but then some bonkers plays with his legs on third and forever. On plays that are, you watch other offenses, throw a screen. You watch other offenses run the ball. You watch other offenses throws short of the sticks. And you hear a lot of frustrated fans going, why did you call the receiver screen play again? Sometimes that's a nice change up. But why I'm bringing that all up is because then you get a guy like Mahomes or an Allen or all these guys that are the top, top dudes.

They're creating positive plays in these negative situations. And then you watch the other side of the ball where if it's not perfect, and I can talk about two his first interception, the whole thing comes unraveled. and you can feel it come unraveled when everything is not perfect and not idealized. We talked about the Browns franchise being like that. That's how just this offense with Tua at quarterback with this dolphin offense feels at times. The first interception, a lot of people were tweeting about the coverage on that play. It was a funky, funky look from Spags where it was too high and then it was one high and then it was too high.

He's open. Waddle is open on that play. The only thing that happens is that A Menahoo, who had a very nice game yesterday, A meta who pushes the left. No, I didn't. Badass. He was like, I signed here to win championships. He was just like, basically, that's why I picked here.

He's like, because I know I want to play in these types of games. He's like, that's why I'm here. I'm going here. I was like, yeah. He played very well yesterday. And he walks the left guard back. It wasn't ridiculous, but just enough for two and a half to drift back half a yard in the pocket. It's in your depth, your depth reception.

And that was it. And that was enough. That little tiny drift in the pocket was enough for him to sail that throw and get picked off. And again, you contrast that with all the other guys that were watching. I know it was a sub-zero game, but watch what Mahomes did in that game in sub-zero temperatures. You don't want to draw sweeping conclusions because of the circumstances, but I think it's important to at least draw some conclusions independent of the circumstances. You're going to have to play in these games at times.

Not every year, but sometimes you are. And you can't just say, oh, the weather. So you're going to just say, oh, the weather every time you get into the playoffs and you have to play in cold weather. You know what I mean? Like, you have to have. We talk about ability to pivot. That's what these, this is ability to pivot. And I know people want to complain about the weather.

The chiefs looked like a normal offense. They did. They chucked it like, trucked around like normal. I think they had 40 something dropbacks. Yeah. But that, but that first, that first interception. And I know a lot of, yeah, the wonkiness of the one high, too high. But I just want to even get to the pre snap post snap stuff real quick as quick as I can.

But on that play, everybody's around this in the NFL right now. It's four to one side with a little swing and the guy's blocking in front of it. And then there's a one-on-one route. So it's a four-by-one. The one-on-one route, but this one is Tyrake Hill.

So on that read on this is, if I have man coverage, I'm taking my one-on-one. If I have zone or anything else, don't know what I'm getting. I read the four-man side. That's just the basic core read of this play. There's the two-high look.

Okay. All right, it gets into the one-high look. I know a lot of people are making, it is kind of cool to look at when you watch it. It's kind of like a cyclone and the guys are switching who is in which spot, but it still ends up too high. I just don't think of the numbers on those guys' jerseys. Think of them as X's on the chalkboard.

And why I'm bringing this all up is two us should know better. The X's do all that. The Xs still end up in too high, which doesn't matter. You see that. You can see two as I see that. He goes to the one-on-one read. that that no like you don't even start on tyreek hill you start to the zone side so he gets off

tyreek he's like oh that's not one-on-one okay i think it's okay what is it's one robber okay okay now it's actually it's two man one robber and two man one robber the help is on the outside or the leverage on the outside two-man the leverage is on the inside so that changes everything of what do you want to read the play so he doesn't know exactly what he's getting to so now he's breaking throw the end breaker against inside leverage help so and then he sails that throw so it was just like got a trickle down effect. But again, when you don't have that post snap operation, that's what the best guys can do. We talk about all the freaky stuff they can do.

But with their minds sometimes, they can still just go one to two to three. Just brought that up with Strahle. Yes. Hang in there to pocket with the pastures coming in him, he hits a whole shot. That's the difference of these guys that make these plays when stuff gets a skill. And there was another play. It was a fourth and two deep in the second half. And Tyree Kill was open on the play.

Tyree Kill runs a little, like flashes to the flat and then comes back underneath. And McDuffie was late. to it. And he was open, even though he was getting doubled on that play. And the only reason that that ball gets broken up is because Tua comes back to it so late. He comes back to it so late that he didn't find him when he was open. And again, this just becomes more and more of a problem as you watch them get pushed slightly off schedule. And the lack of trust in him in those circumstances and in those conditions, I think, was really telling. In the first half, they threw four passes of 10 plus area arts.

Four. Okay. One was the deeply underthrown ball to Tyree Kill that turned into a touchdown. Touchdown. One was the interception and then two in the final 30 seconds. That's it. That's it. They did it 12 times all game.

And most of them were in the fourth quarter when the game was completely out of reach. Yeah. He threw the ball behind the line of scrimmage in this game 11 times. They know those were safe. They were 7 of 11 for 18 yards. Seven for 11 on behind the line of scrimmage. Think about how many third and one screens they botched in this game. They're just in front of them.

Oh, my, no. They're just miscommunications. Seven of 11 on throws behind the line of scrimmage for 18 yards in this game. Man, you can't win like that. So let's talk about this. Because now we get to a question with the dolphins of, what do you do now? Yeah. You're $40 million over the cap next year.

This is not a Brown situation where you're rolling over 30. Tyree Kill is making $30 million against the cap. Jalen Ramsey's making 27. Bradley Chubbs is making 27. Zavian Howard's making 25. Christian Wilkins, Connor Williams, and Robert Hunt, two of your starting offensive linemen and one of your best defensive players are all hitting free agency.

You have, I asked Barnwell to look this up today, the fifth oldest team in the league by Snapweighted age. So what happens now? Because this was supposed to be the year, where all the reinforcements came. And I know that they were banged up. I know. I know how hurt they were,

especially on the defensive side of the ball. The offense wasn't that hurt. Those guys are banged up a little bit and nicked up a little bit, but a lot of guys are playing hurt right now. The offense was decently close to full strength, and they got blanked in this game. So what happens now? Do you just kind of run it back with Tua and with the same supporting cast

and think, uh, we'll figure it out. you know, we were really good for most of the year. This is the second straight season where they've played their worst football at the end. And I think that's because as teams catch up to what they're trying to do, they do not have a quarterback who can step outside of that. You wonder, well, why do other teams, how can they transcend teams figuring them out over the course of the season? It's because these teams, these really good teams, have quarterbacks that are right solely by virtue of existing. And that is not what the dolphins have. And now the dolphins have to ask themselves a very hard question about whether they're going to tie themselves to that level of quarterback play moving forward because they need to make a decision on his contract at some point.

Yes. And really for them, it's just that do they branch off into an unknown or they branch off to a known that they've known before? I mean, I'm not trying to be confusing here. I promise I wasn't going into that like that. But they also, okay, meaning do they go with Tua? do they go with somebody that one of these coaches has worked with before? Do they go with somebody that they don't haven't worked with before that they try to bring in? But then you have to get creative with cap stuff.

To me, even if it's not the one that you want to hear or the one that would be like, oh, this is the new new start or everything. It seems just how they're set. It's like bringing them back, doesn't it? Just kind of how their path is. I don't know what the other option is in the short term. I don't either because they don't have a lot of resources. Like you said, this was kind of the all in year.

they were hoping to get hot with injury-wise, maybe some teams are at a crossroad in this conference right now, and all our guys that are kind of flaky with injuries, they can stay healthy. And it's hilarious that Tua and Armstead are the ones playing. And then it's like Bradley Trubb gets hurt and all these other guys that like they were the defensive guys were the ones that kind of dropped out as opposed to the offense. So I think I've been trying to find like a best path because I kind of figure we talk about

this. And it just still is like it kind of seems like the kicking the can is the one that ends up being the path. But I'm very curious how they navigate it is because it's very, very, very, very naughty. I think you have to just kind of let him play out the season. And in worst case scenario, you franchise him if he plays better. Because is there a contract right now? Is there an extension this off season that you would feel comfortable giving him?

No. I don't know how you could. No. You got to keep yourself open after the year. I wouldn't be tying anything down. Okay. What was the love deal maybe? you know, like maybe that.

Well, the love deal was a restructuring of his fifth year option. The Dolphins have picked up to his fifth year option. He's making $23 million against the cap next year fully guaranteed. They've made that decision. They have tied themselves to him. Because better answers would be more because, yeah, no, this is going to be the answer for him. I just, unless they just got creative, of course, it's the NFL. There's plenty of ways you can figure it out.

But to me, that just seems like the simplest answer. Very Occam's razor right now. I mean, they can free up a decent amount of space by, you know, June 1st cuts, whatever. Like, they can move some money around. They can restructure some guys if they want to. But if, let's say you let him play out the next year and you get to the end of the 20, 24 season, and we're having a similar conversation. Terry Kill's going to be 30 next year.

Jalen Ramsey's going to be 30 next year. Geron Armsett's 33 next year. Zavine Howard's probably not going to be on the roster next year. He's 31. Can you afford? to just say, let's run it back. Let's just see what we can do.

We'll add a couple more pieces and, you know, maybe we'll take a step. Because I think that there is risk in that, even if it feels like a quote unquote safe decision because of the rest of your roster makeup and how important this window actually is. I think no,

for them, is almost a lame duck year. I'm not saying like everyone's going to get fired or anything like that, but I think they're just built for that year as far as like, I don't know how they can get off of that. that train. Like I like,

like otherwise, because they don't have the research. It's not like they have a bunch of picks next year where it's like, okay, we could just pivot to that and then we sell this and we reconfigure this and we do all that. I feel like that's the next year if they want to do that. Like I feel like no matter what that this was kind of like a two year window for this

kind of 30-ish roster. But that's, I'm just saying it's not great. But I just, that's, I know. I'm with you. I don't know.

I don't know. Because it's, it's tempting to say, whoever you want to throw in there. Is this team better with Kirk Cousins? right? Probably, but can you afford that? Can you afford $40 million worth of Kirk Cousins next year? Is that worth, and is that worth $20 million more, you know, than the $20 million that you'd pay to a? I don't think you can think of it that way. I don't think you should think of it is, is he going to be $20 million? Can he get the most out of the rest of the roster? That that's what I'm thinking. Like, I would pay the premium. It wouldn't have to be like a direct ROI. It would be can this guy play, can he?

he'd be hot enough for a stretch for us to make good on the rest of this roster? If the answer is a yes, two out of ten times, I think you have to make that bet because I think the answer is definitively no with the guy that you have right now. Does that make sense? You would say even with like a healthy roster and everything, like two has no chance to carry you. Do you think he does? No, I'm asking you. I'm not when you answer a question with a question. I'm putting you on the spot. You have to answer first on this one. No.

Okay. I was going to say it's no as well. I just don't think so. And again, I think that it's laid out in front of you this weekend. And I don't want to have this be the end all be all in the way that we talk about this, but it's laid out in front of you this weekend. I know. I think Dolphins fans are there.

I think so, too. I think it's the same way. I think so too. I don't feel we're going to get yelled at about this. So I, it's just, I'm trying to just think who are possible candidates. It's like, DAC, but it's,

well, that's, that you'd have to get creative with that stuff. And eventually you'd have to think, okay. And can we move the money around enough? That's kind of,

that's kind of, that would put you over the top. And a Kirk Cousins, I think would, but it is off the Achilles. And again, it's kind of like, probably Peter to pay Paul,

it feels like to me. As far as DAC, it gives you a kind of a pivot point, you know, kind of like, okay, well, if we revamped the roster,

at least he can kind of be that above average good play for us in some ways. I know I'm saying this after, what just happened today. But it is just one of those things that is an improvement, I think. But I'm trying to just think of paths. I think that that's a good place to be.

And what I was trying to say before is don't be afraid of making sure that we got this guy for the right price. You know, like this is going to be a savvy move in terms of what we've invested into the position. I don't think you should get bogged down. And is this the right price to pay? Because I think that you need to be pretty aggressive in thinking about how you can maximize the roster and the window that you currently have.

That's what I was saying before. I totally get that. It's just that it's got to be for sure. It can't be the Andy Dalton, the Derrick car experience. No, no, no,

no, no, I'm with you on that. You have to make it sure it's definitive. Like, this guy is definitely a tier above. That's kind of what I was saying too. And I know we just went long on this one,

but I got a couple scheme things. Let's do it. Spags, loving the zero double stuff. If you're really feeling like, Jelen Waddle and Tyrie Hill, who were also, LaJerry Sneed, also should get a shout out, who was my second team all pro. And, yeah, he was a big game hunter this year, big performances from Jerry Sneed deserve that.

But they're doing the zero double coverage, which is just the both safeties are double teaming the top two targets, which with the dolphins, anyone that knows the dolphins know who those are going to be, Tyrake Hill and Jalen Waddle. So that's why you felt a little tight on those third and fourth downs. There was a lot of like just that. But also just some of the, this is the frustration with me of the dolphins is this. there's that cap sometimes with the offense, but then you see the run game stuff. And some of the stuff they're still doing it, even at this kind of last hurrah of this offense,

like this one that we were calling a nickname kind of offense, just like some of the motion stuff and all stuff, it's like still worth studying. But that's why I want them to get the right guy, because I have so much faith in the staff. And I have so much faith in the staff. I really do. And I think a lot of people,

just to put a bow on this, I think a lot of people would listen to this and be like, man, you're coming to this conclusion after one game and minus 30 degrees. It's not one game. I've been trying to say this for two years. And everyone yells at us. I know. No, I know.

And I just, and this is the difference. And again, I keep coming back to this. When the games get hard, when the game plans on defense become so hyper-specific, when teams take away what you do best, do you have a guy who can rise above that?

Do you have a guy that can account for that? And if you do, we see the difference that it makes. And they don't. What he has been really good at is playing on time when everything in front of him unfolds the way it's supposed to unfold. You can call it anticipation, whatever, accuracy. When all of that stuff is on the tracks and the way that they want it to be, it looks great. But when you get into December, things are going to get derailed. It's going to get cold.

It's going to get ugly, and you need to have a guy who can really lift you out of the muck, and they don't. And I think that that really, really does matter. Isn't it funny? Because both these teams, it's dolphins with the quarterback and the chiefs with their run game. And sometimes we get away from it during the season, even myself in the week to weeks of the NFL. It always comes back to the same old freaking adage. I know. Can you run the ball and do you have a quarterback?

That's what it is. That's winning playoff football. And for me, it was past rushers too this week. It's like what William Anderson was doing, what Aid Hutchinson was doing, like the past rush aspect of it. It's completely, like that is another example. We get up and down. We get up and down. It always comes back to the same stuff.

Well, I think it's so fascinating on the quarterback side because I think that this year specifically, and we'll get to Jordan Love in a second. I think this year specifically, there were a lot of examples of people trying to talk themselves into, well, if you just build up everything around the quarterback, how good can you be? And I think that during the regular season, sure, like that sounds great. Like what, and I think the Niners are potentially a different sort of beast because of Kyle Shanahan, and we can talk about that. But I think most teams, it's, yeah, and I think that they're, they're probably an outlier

to this. But I think most teams, that that's a fool's errand, thinking, okay, we'll just, we'll trade down, we'll get all these picks and we'll build the, you think this is coming from my personal experience, we'll trade down and we'll get all these picks and we'll build up around the quarterback. I think that when you get to the end of that road and you realize that Jordan Love is in your fucking division, you were going to be really sad with the path that you chose. I thought you pivoted it to that. But I think it's emblematic. It's the same thing. It's emblematic of larger conversations, in my opinion. Let's get to Jordan Love and those Green Bay Packers.

Good Lord. Huh. I mean, it's pretty good. I don't think. there were many people outside of the greater Wisconsin area who were more enthusiastic about how Jordan Love was playing and how this Packers offense was playing over the last month and coming into this game than we were on our show last week. Even I couldn't have expected anything like this. No, no, no. Because we've seen some of this and good trucks of this, but not just time after time, after time.

throw after throw after throw on third downs and with pressure. This was an unreal performance on a road on the road against a team that hasn't lost the game at home this entire year in your first playoff experience as a quarterback as a starter, I should say, but you know, they've been around there. But unbelievable. The youngest team in the NFL, by the way. Youngest team in the NFL doing this with the first year starting quarterback. Just exceptional stuff.

That was a career, potentially career defining. will say career defining moment for Jordan Love. And it just felt like that as the game was going. I was like, wow, it's one of those types of games. Defining where he's going from here, right? Like announcing himself about how things go from here. And you know who else I felt that way about today? Matt Lefleur.

Watching them just go to work against that Cowboys defense throughout the entire game. And it didn't matter. Cowboys are in man. Okay, we're going to run a bunch of return routes, like fake overs. You have absolutely no shot. The Don Tavian Wicks play. It's a fast motion. They're playing with the leverage.

He's got an inched inside just enough where Stefan Gilmore has no shot. Love matches that with an absolutely ridiculous throw. That's what it was. It was just a coach putting his guys in the best possible positions throughout the entire game. Would that be throwing the ball, Aaron Jones on the ground, and a quarterback who was putting an exclamation point at the end of every single one of those play calls? Yes, that's it. and drives that were just eloquent, just play call after play call,

fish and play, explosive play, everything kind of fitting and working. Oh, there's Luke Musgrave who, you know, he's long-legged. So let's get him on the move. Oh, let's have him catch a flat route. Let's have Tucker Craft be the blocker. Let's have Aaron Jones getting these outside runs. Everybody used in the right ways. And again, we get buy-in.

The use of tempo, I thought was really great from this Packers offense going. Again, another team that was going to shift motion, shift motion. And then they go, nope, line up, snap, ready to go. And you saw the Cowboys multiple times in this game. Like, just they're not even lined up. No, it happened, what, three times? I think at least in the first half. Yes.

That's it. And the formation they're using and you were talking about it just putting these guys in the right spots is the two by two formation out of 12 personnel. This is what it is. It's the two tight ends. We're on either side off the ball. And then you got the two receivers in close splits. So, you know, an offense love this formation. The 2016 Falcons.

You knew who was on that staff, Matt LaFleure and Dan Quinn. So I was a little bit of a, hey, remember this? I called this formation doc, but people in the Shanahan offense, they call it snug. But what's great about this offense, you can use out of tempo. You can get to a lot of plays out of it, run game and pass game. And they were just dominating out of this. And they're motioning into it sometimes to get the Cowboys to set their defensive the formation a certain way.

But it was perfect because the two main runs they ran out of it was outside zone, which is two one of the tight end side or split zone, which is to a tight end split end split across the formation. What's great is Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft can both block at the point of attack, especially against the Cowboys defense because they're a little lighter body. No matter what, it was great. It was Cowboys wanted to defend it one way. They just checked into the different run.

The Cowboys want to defend it differently. They checked into that run. One technique, three technique. I won't get into the specifics there, but it was no matter what the Cowboys were one page behind. And it started right on the first drive. And it was just, I thought those tight ends dictated the game because they dictate a lot of personnel.

But then the receivers got in the game, they did the exact same thing. It was, it was clinic. That first quarter from the Packers, those first two drives were just gorgeous, just every play working. And then they got the quarterback.

That was the maestro. That was just every big shot play he was getting there or extending the play to create two, three first downs at a time. It's the moment that, okay, they're in zone. you know, nobody's open right away. Let me hang back a second. Let me drift.

Let me step up in the pocket. Let me buy a little bit extra time. And that's what he's done over the last six weeks. That's what he's done over the last month when he's really been cooking is just consistently buying that one extra second and being able to make a throw with a weird arm angle a little bit off platform, drifting back in the pocket a little bit. The exact type of stuff that we're talking about, the exact type of stuff that is tying all these guys together, he has it whatever that thing is that pocket playmaking trait that i just i cannot get out of my mind he has it and it was on full display throughout this entire game that's great uh stephen ruis

called the fade away you know the fade away throw and again it was even last week against the cow or the cow was the bears um he had the touchdown where again he's buying space in the pocket it looks like a trick shot but there's uses for the trick shot there it's actually because he has to do it or it's because it's helping the play out. Stafford does his trick shots or Lamar does his trick shots in the sidearm throws, but they're doing it to accomplish their mission. It's like, yes, it's stylish and all that, but sometimes the basketball behind the back pass is the best pass to make.

And that's what they do with these types of shots and these types of throws. And we've seen it now for, what, 10 weeks that he's now doing this against good defenses. And he's answering over and over and making these throws. and doing it within the structure as well to create these plays. It's not just ad-libbing. His eyes are great, and he's been like that the entire season. Even when he gets a little bit sped up, it doesn't matter. Like on that first drive, he probably bailed from a pocket he didn't need to bail from,

but he resets, and I think he found Dobbs over the middle on third down. It's like, okay, we're just back on track. Even in moments where he gets a little bit skittish and a little bit jittery back there, he's physically talented enough and resets quickly enough that it ends up not matter. He had a throw to his left to craft on a naked. And I, was Olson the commentator? Yeah. On that game. Olson, there's a, I don't want, I got to find a better term, but an orgasmic noise that also made. He's like, oh, oh, throw and catch there. But I'll come up with a better term than that, but it's a better

phrase, but it's, that's what it was like just the throws on the left. And again, it's a simple naked, a simple bootleg. Not a lot of guys are 10, 12 guys are making that throw. Okay, even right there, 12 of the 32 starters or can make that throw. So we have that. That's awesome. He can go left and create this 15-yard throw that only 12 other guys can make. It's, I don't even think of the number's that big. Oh, man.

Well, I don't want to, I don't want to get ahead of myself because there are some guys that could throw bootlegs to the left. I'm not talking about some of the other throws are like three or four guys or five guys. Like, yeah, I'm talking about just that particular throw. But I'm just saying, like, again, it's a bootleg, which is day one install. everyone in Shanahan offense is going to run it 500 million times everyone in every offense is going to run it but not a lot of guys are going to try that throw and not a lot of guys are going to accomplish that throw and that's what's really cool about love he's getting to the

right read and making those throws and it's just yeah it's what it looks like when it's accomplished like that this is a team that we've said house money a lot this year and there's really it's true this is the youngest team in the NFL they're going to have a bunch of cap space next year they're going to a bunch of financial flexibility they found all of these control beating pieces, what Jane Reed has been for them, what Don Tadavian Wix is, what the tight ends are. They've got some pieces along the offensive line, and they've got an extra second round pick because of Roger's trade. There's so many different things you could stack up for why there's a lot of good stuff on the horizon for this team. I'm very excited to see them play against the Niners.

I don't know if they're going to have the horses to hold up on defense. I think that this is just a matchup that's going to be really, really hard to deal with with the way that San Francisco. go is built. But I still think that that those two teams playing again and Matt LaFleur having to kind of face the monster again in the postseason. I really like that. It was, I know, it's like, here we go again. Packers are on defense against the four and Iers run game. Here we go again. But I'm totally with you. I'm very excited to watch this offense against Fred Warner and just see that kind of match up and see how love is going to use his eyes to create the space. but the other end, it's Tony Powell,

it's a little different than Christian McCaffrey. And, you know, Kyle Shanahan is a little different than Mike McCarthy. I think there's something to call the plays. Those run games from league average maybe to, oh, yeah, every year top three. Yeah, big difference in the run games. Speaking of Mike McCarthy. Ah, you like that? I try to, I try to give you an alley up there.

Feels like they can't survive this, right? No, no. You see the messaging? You see what Schefter said? It's like, cannot survive like an embarrassing loss or something like that, depending how the last game went. I think that's what it said. If they had lost this game by one on a field goal, as time expired, I think you could

have made an argument that he might have gotten fired. To lose it this way, to get your doors blown off against the team that probably, that no one expected to be in the playoffs. Again, it was just the team that kind of stumbled in as a bunch of these 24-year-old kids who don't really know what they're doing. No idea. This was supposed to be the year. This was supposed to be the year where everything came together.

Mike McCarthy takes over. He's the play caller. It's my show now. We got all these pieces. We got all this talent. We go trade for Brandon Cooks. We go trade for Stefan Gilmore. Let's see if we can push this thing over the top.

And what was supposed to be a watered down NFC. And guess what? It kind of is. It kind of is a watered down NFC aside from what the Niners are. And they got blown out in the wild. a car route at home. We were always like, oh, what happens if they play the 49ers again? They get blown out.

Not the youngest team in the NFL, the great paybackers at home. Yeah. I went as soon as you saw CD Lam's frustration right away, I was like, oh, this game is not going to go well. That was already first quarter, already getting to that point. It was like in McCarthy's, you don't read too much, you don't want to cycle analyze, but you can just, there's a lot of feel when you're watching these guys on the sideline.

And looking at McCarthy, I was like, oh, no, oh, no, this is this is what we're at. But that's what it feels like right now. So now what happens? Who is it? You see Belichick got rumored? I think that that is a connection. A lot of people are going to be making here. That's interesting.

I'd be fascinated to see what he could do with the defense of personnel. Oh, I know, right? Still may have coverage. Yeah, no, I'm also just, also just the personality, you know, because I think the Cowboys are most penalized team. So I'll say, get into a Belich. I mean, I don't hate that. It's interesting.

And he also wants wins. I don't know. I also just behind the scene stuff, I'm sure, like, kind of, kind of juicy as far as as ownership stuff. But they'll save that for another time. Absolutely, it is. I mean, you have the Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft stuff and the little rivalry that exists there, Robert Kraft desperately wants to be in the Hall of Fame.

Jerry Jones is. I think that that dynamic is really interesting to chew on. Every owner wants to be Jerry. every single one. And so, and Jerry potentially being able to be like, oh, look at me. You know, like, we moved on from our guy because he wasn't enough. Look who I brought in. And I think that there's going to be, I think that Atlanta is going to make a push for him just for that exact same reason. It's like, all right, we moved on from Arthur Smith because we think that we need to take a big swing here and we think this is our big swing. I don't know if it's going to work out for any of these teams.

But I do think that there's going to be plenty of intrigue as a result of this. And I would not be surprised at all if we heard the rumblings begin here over the next four. 48 hours about that pairing making sense for both sides, even though I have my reservations about it working out. Yeah, I think justifiably. I agree with you on that. Although I'm very interested to see whatever plays out, of course. It's Bill Belichick, and I'm also interested.

But these landing spots are, the teams you're mentioning are the ones that always just seem like they're ducks on a pond. So that's what I'm very curious. Beyond the scenes, a little turmoil or under the water. So I'm very curious where Belichick does end up because it does seem like no matter what everyone, like, wants that, like, discipline imprint that he would bring. And I don't know what's going to happen with Dan Quinn now. It was just an assumption that he'd probably be in the mix for one of these head coaching

jobs. And I think that's a hard sell. I think that's a hard sell to your fan base. I think it's a hard message to send after their season ended like this. So now that becomes a big question mark. What happens with DAC this offseason becomes a big question mark? I think that the way he played this season and what he was for that offense, I think that it shouldn't be a big question as to whether or not he should be their quarterback moving forward.

But if they're going to hit the reset button on some of this stuff, I assume a whole lot of these things are going to come back onto the table. Yes. That's what's especially the head coach, what he wants at that position. That's also an interesting thing. I know my answer on what I would do with deck, but I understand, especially after this type of game,

especially after he had zero yards of the first quarter, why these questions exist, have another early flame out in the playoffs to a Shanahan offense, but not to the Shanahan offense that I thought it would happen to in this year's playoffs. That is the problem, though. The last thing I want to ask you this when we're talking about the guys, the guys that just feel different when you watch them play this weekend, Stroud, love, Mahomes. We know Josh Allen's coming in a certain point, what Stafford did today.

Where does Dak sit in that conversation to you? He's the next tier. He's good to very good is where I've sat with him. I think it's like what I say, the four guys plus Stroud, maybe I'm thinking of. And then there's that next tier. And it's like he's at the low end of that next tier. So it's like either that high tier three or low tier two. I still think that's good to very good.

But the thing is I'm watching these other guys at times and also just. And that's kind of hard. And Dak is maxed out, I think. And this was this best year. I have liked that. like but I even had him a third of my MVP voting. A lot of people are like, oh, what was this? And it's like, well, I remember some of these games where he's having his deck moments where

he's having, he's straining. He's trying to make the perfect play and he does it. And I think sometimes Josh Allen, when he has his strain moments, they're better. They're better strain moments because he overcomes them with his legs or he overcomes them with the five first downs created with his arm. That's hell that we're talking about. I mean, that there's, that puts you over the top, man. And I know people want all these guys, the six round pick and the fourth round pick.

They want these guys to be there. And it's like, but sometimes you watch these other guys on what they do and what they can accomplish. And it's like, that's what you're chasing. That's what puts you over top. And I love that guy. I think, again, I think he's good to very good. I think a lot of teams would be very happy to have him as their starting quarterback. But as like I said, as the four horsemen of the apocalypse, no, I don't think he's up to that.

Yeah. I think Maxed out is a good way to put it. And there is a reason that he was a fourth round pick and all of these other guys that we're talking about first round picks. I mean, like all of them. One overall. Two men. All of them.

Yeah. And I know. I hate to sound like that, but it's true. It's just the, I think it's an important thing to untangle a little bit because he played an MVP level for large chunks of this season. But again, when you watch everything that unfolded this weekend, I think it's a completely reasonable conclusion to say, hey, he's just not there with those other guys.

And what does that mean for you in how you spend resources, how. how you build a team, what your window looks like. Those are all very real questions. And I think they're all very real questions that very well may be posed to a new head coach here moving forward in Dallas. I always use DAC as, and I've said this line many of times, he is my teaching tape because I think, but there's a reason he has to be a teaching tape because he is maxed out. Because that's why I appreciate his play. Every ounce of talent that he has, he is good, like he is talented, don't go to be wrong, but he is squeezed it out mentally and physically.

But that's where we're at. It's like there's maybe room for growth there. I don't see much even with this offense and stuff. But again, that's the difference. These other guys, you see them do things where you're like, I never thought that was possible. Remember what I was talking about was Stroud and Case Keenham? And that's what I'll remember from this weekend.

When I sit back and I think about Wild Card weekend, 2024, I will remember what it felt like to watch those quarterbacks and how different it feels when you're watching one of those. guys and what it means for you when you get to this point in the calendar. And I think that that's what a lot of people should take forward from these games, from those guys and their place in the pecking order as we keep going here. That is all we got for very interesting, if not competitive wildcard games. Lots to chew on from this weekend.

Guess what? We got two more tomorrow. Two more on Monday. We will be back here Tuesday morning with another show. breaking down both wild card games. We've also got some coach and GM chatter. We're going to do kind of a mini maze in the beats on top of our wild card, Super Wildcard Monday recap.

So come back, stick around for those conversations, talking about some of the coaching moves, talking about some of the machinations in some of these front offices, because there's some stuff that we have not talked about that I definitely want to. For now, though, that is all we got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. was the Athletic Football Show.