The Josh Innes Show - NFL Playoffs Pressure Meter

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

It's Divisional Round time in the NFL Playoffs. I start off with a message for the Houston Texans. Go out there and give em hell. Pressure is off. Next, we look at the 8 teams in remaining and gauge who has the most pressure to win this weekend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When planning for life's most important moments, sometimes the hardest part is simply knowing where to start. That's why we're here to help. When you pre-plan and pre-pay a celebration of life with us, every detail will be handled with simplicity and professionalism, giving you the peace of mind that you've done all you can today to remove any burden from your loved ones tomorrow. We are your local Dignity Memorial provider. Find us at DignityMemorial.ca. The Dignity Memorial brand name is used to identify a network of licensed funeral cremation and cemetery providers owned and operated by affiliates of Service Corporation International. Hello, friends. What's going on? It's Josh. Glad you're there today on this Friday.

About 10 till 10 is when I'm recording this episode. And we're ready for football this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Then we get the National Championship game, which probably won't be much of a game. Might be, probably won't be. Who knows? I certainly wouldn't fuck with Notre Dame a lot in that game. But we'll get into that probably more so on Monday. But here we are, back at it again.

It is like 50 degrees in St. Louis today and the sun is out. So maybe this ice and snow will melt some. Maybe not a ton, because it's about to get cold again. It's going to be like in the teens here pretty soon. Now you've got your own problems, but here we go. We're locked. We're loaded. We're ready to go. Four big playoff games, and let's do this. Let's start with the Texans, okay?

Let's do a little Texans conversation here because the Texans are really in a good spot why are the Texans in a good spot the Texans are in a good spot because they are in the um the proverbial house money spot if they lose it's fine everybody expects you to If you win, it's the biggest thing that has ever happened in the history of the franchise. Until the Texans win a divisional round game, they have not experienced that biggest thing in the franchise's history. As of right now, the biggest thing the franchise has ever done, essentially, is win first round playoff games. Wild card round playoff games wild card round playoff games that is the biggest thing they've done they've won 12 regular season games before

that's cool they've beaten the bangles a couple of times in the playoffs that's cool they beat the bills a couple years ago in the playoffs that's cool last year they beat the browns that's cool right the texans are a pretty strong football team as it relates to winning wild card games, particularly home wild card games. That's kind of what they do, but they have never gotten past this point. They had a couple of close ones. Obviously, the biggest one that stands out is, what, five years ago in Kansas City 24-0 blew that game okay and then it set the the franchise in a horrible course that resulted in hiring coaches like David Cully and Lovey Smith and

resulted in the quarterback getting caught getting jerked off forcing chicks to jerk him off like it was a bad run after that that kind of just set everything in a negative motion, basically, for the Texans. That was looking like this is going to be it. This is going to be the moment. This is our time. Finally, to holy shit, Houston football is just cursed. They're cursed to blow these kind of big leads. Houston football is cursed to lose these huge playoff games,

cursed to lose football teams. Houston is cursed, right? They've never gotten past this point. So as far as house money goes, you're talking about nobody thought you'd be at this point because the whole world was picking against you last week to the point that you had major,-unquote reputable television analysts and former coaches saying that the Chargers had a bye week in the first round of the playoffs. We were wondering if teams were trying to lose on purpose or trying to win to fight for the opportunity to play against you in the first round. But you won that game.

And not only did you win that game, you dominated that game. You kicked their ass. And now the whole world is now patting you on the back saying, holy shit, we were wrong about the Texans. We were dead wrong. These guys are, we slept on them. Were they just kind of sleepwalking through the regular season because they knew they had won the division? What happened?

Did CJ Stroud find his mojo? This defense, were they just holding out on us? What happened? Did CJ Stroud find his mojo? This defense, were they just holding out on us? What the hell? Now it's the reverse of everything you dealt with last week. Last Friday, no one in the world was giving you a chance to beat the Chargers. Now everyone's kind of looking at you as, okay, maybe they can. And if they don't think you can win, they're at least playing grab ass with you and slapping you on the back saying, hey, hell of a job. You're better than we thought. So now it's kind of a different vibe going into it.

But the vibe you should have going into this is us against the world. It's house money. Let her rip. If you're D'Amico Ryan's losing this playoff game will not impact you one iota. You've come to Houston. You've won two playoff games in the two years you've already been here. That's pretty impressive. I would imagine that two playoff victories would have you amongst the leaders in Texans franchise history. Not that that's saying much, but guess, would have won. I'm guessing Bill O'Brien has the Texans record for playoff victories because I can think of a couple of them off the top of my head, I believe. They beat Buffalo.

Now I've got to see. It doesn't matter. Point being, D'Amico Ryans has already done things that have made him look far more impressive than the guys that came before him in a shorter period of time out of a worse situation than a lot of those guys were in right so D'Amico Ryans isn't out here playing for his life he's not in a

situation right now where if he loses this game people turn on him he's not in a situation where if he loses this game the front office says what were the what were we thinking hiring D'Amico Ryans the fact that the Texans won double-digit games in back-to-back seasons, but more importantly have won two playoff games in that stretch, particularly after how poorly they played for the last two and a half months of the season to bounce back as a home underdog and throttle the Chargers. This is house money for the coach. You have two playoff wins in two years.

That doesn't happen for the Texans all that often. So he's house money. That's good. I hope he coaches that way. I hope he and his coaches go out there and just let her fucking rip. Why not? And you got the quarterback that can let her rip. You got the defense that can let her rip. Why the fuck not, man? Let her rip. Don't go into this tight. Don't go into this thinking, oh my God, we're facing the mighty Kansas City Chiefs back-to-back Super Bowl champions. Go into it thinking, fuck right. Back-to-back Super Bowl champions. We're coming off a win.

Everyone's written us off. Biggest underdog of the weekend. We're on the road. They say we can't play in the cold. It's going to be like 15 degrees. Fuck them. Go out there and just fucking do it. There's nobody in this city that's going to judge you if you lose the game.

No one in Houston is going to judge you and shit on you if you lose. Now you go out and lose by 50, though. That's iffy. But you go out there and play your balls off. By the way, you played them to an eight-point game last time you played them. Go to Kansas City. Play your balls off. This city has a history of showing

that they'll support you when you do that. They still love D'Amico. They love C.J. Stroud. The people are now re-engaged because of that playoff win. Go out and let your hair down and just fucking go. Unload.

Don't be afraid of these guys. Fuck them, man. You just rattled the shit out of the Chargers. Your defense was vicious. And yeah, man. You just rattled the shit out of the Chargers. Your defense was vicious. And yeah, Patrick Mahomes is different than Herbert. But go out there and just do what you did last week and just get after them. It does not matter if you lose.

Do we want you to win? Yes, we want the Texans to win. I'd love to see a Houston team in the AFC Championship game. I'd love to see this franchise in its first ever AFC championship game, which would set a new mark for the farthest they've ever gone. That would kick ass. I'd love to see it. But if you go out there and just play your dicks off for 60 minutes and leave it all out there and play a good football game, if you come home with an L, guess what? It sucks, but you had a hell of a fucking season, and no one's going to hold it against you. Back-to-back 10-win seasons, playoff victory.

Now, if you wouldn't have won that Chargers game, people view this a whole lot differently. They would have said, oh, you sucked for two and a half months. Has D'Amico kind of lost it? Is he really a good head coach? CJ Stroud's crying on the sideline over Tank Dell. Can he handle the moments? Blah, blah, blah. But when C.J. Stroud fumbled that snap on third and 16, then picked it up and heaved it 40 some odd yards down the field to convert a

first down to get the Texans in position for their first score last week, things turned around. And I think we're going to look at that moment. We're going to say, holy shit, that moment changed the trajectory of the franchise. It clearly changed the trajectory of that game. It clearly changed the trajectory of the season and the belief about what this season can be. And it changed the people's perception of how the season turned out. Because again, for two and a half months, this team was mediocre to bad, and no one believed they could do shit. But then that throw changed everything.

Now people started to believe you could win that game, and you did. Now people believe that you can go to Kansas City and play ball with the two-time defending champions. So go out and play ball with the two-time defending champions. C.J. Stroud, what do you have to lose? Stroud has nothing to lose here. He's the young quarterback of the future. He had a middling season for most of it, kind of ho-hum, but then last week came out and balled out. If you lose this game, no one in Houston is going to hold it against you. No one's going to say you're a choker. No one's going to say, oh, he can't get it done. He's in year two and he's got two playoff victories.

So even if you lose this game, they're not going to hold it against you. So don't go in there with that mindset of, oh shit, asshole's puckered up. Don't worry about it. Just go. And that's the kind of message D'Amico Ryans needs to be giving to the team. I don't know what he does. He seems like a cool kind of loose guy like that that knows how to get guys motivated. That would be my mindset for the Texans going in. For me, it's got to be, fuck them. The whole world thinks they're going to win,

but the whole world thought we were going to lose last week. So what do we have to lose, guys? The whole world thinks we're going to lose, so let's go out there and give them a damn show. Let's play our balls off and let's see what happens. And I believe that I hope that that's what happens. And I know it sounds kind of pussified. Let me play a couple of commercials here, actually, and then we'll continue. All right. If you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you got to check

out pick six from DraftKings. When it comes to basketball payouts, DraftKings Pick 6 posterizes the competition, including prize picks. It's a very simple concept. Hit all your picks and score higher minimum payouts on Pick 6, plus even more cash if you outscore the competition. Pick six is available in most states, including Missouri, California, Texas, Georgia, and more. And I absolutely love it. Look, every night we're going to be having playoff basketball. Every night. So when you're sitting around and you might not have interest in a particular game,

let's say you're a fan of a particular team, they're not playing that night, here's how you make it a little bit more fun for the other games. Build a little lineup there with Pick 6. It's really great. Me and my wife do it all the time, so make sure you do it. And new players get 50 in Pick 6 credits instantly on just a $5 entry. Download the DraftKings Pick 6 app now and use code INNES, that's my name, I-N-N-E-S, for new customers to play. $5, get 50 in pick six

credits, better payouts, bigger wins, only with pick six from DraftKings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org in Connecticut. Must be 18 plus. Age and eligibility restrictions vary by jurisdiction. Pick six not available everywhere, including New York and Ontario. Voidware prohibited. One per new customer. Bonus award.

It is non-withdrawable pick six credits that expire in 14 days. Limited time offer. See terms at pick6. dot draftkings.com slash promos i know it sounds kind of pussified to say that people would be fine if you lost but every team and every franchise is in a different situation right if the buffalo bills lose to the ravens josh allen is under the microscope. Coach can't get the job done. Are they ever going to be the Chiefs? Are they ever going to be the Ravens?

Is Josh Allen really the MVP? Or is it pretty obvious that Lamar is the GOAT? Like, there's a lot more at stake in that game. I'd argue there's really nothing at stake for the Chiefs in this game either. They've won back-to-back championships. They kind of have house money. It's not really house money, but they've won back-to-back championships. They kind of have house money. It's not really house money, but they've won back-to-back championships. So the only thing you'd have against you is that you're blowing a home playoff game as an eight and a half point favorite when you're the back-to-back champs. So there's always pressure. I guess that's not fair to say. There's

always pressure when you're the Chiefs, but the Chiefs have two Super Bowl titles back-to-back in the bag. No one wins three in a row anyway. So yes, they'd get dumped on if they lost to the Texans, particularly a franchise that sucked for two and a half months, a franchise that's never been to the conference championship. So yeah, there'd be some negative. But it wouldn't nearly be the negative that you'd get if Josh Allen goes. I think both Lamar and Josh Allen are playing with major pressure. Josh Allen more so because people aren't going to shit on Lamar as much as they're going to shit on Josh Allen. Josh Allen's kind of the poster boy for getting shit on. That's kind of the thing. That's why we have this argument every day about who's the MVP. Is it Josh Allen? And you can see by the demographics who thinks

who is better. It's just the way the fucking world works. The world sucks sometimes. But Josh Allen, and I think rightfully so, is compared with these other good, great AFC quarterbacks. Will Josh Allen be the guy that can finally get there and maybe overtake Mahomes and get himself a Super Bowl? There's a ton of pressure. You start gauging where the pressure exists in these last four games. Zero pressure on the Redskins. Like if you look at just the pressure meter here, okay? If we're gauging teams based on how much pressure, if we seeded them based on how much pressure the team, the coach, the quarterback has to win, the commanders are at the very bottom. Rookie quarterback, hadn't won a playoff game in a million years. Coach hasn't believed in the city again and the team and the franchise. New vibes.

There is zero. You talk about house money again, zero pressure on the commanders. And in fact, I'd argue the team with the second most pressure in the postseason right now is the Lions because the Lions, everybody keeps waiting for them to make that one next step and the whole world's loved them and they want a ton of regular season games the lions are getting to that point where they're dangerously close to going from being that kind of cute team they're detroit and the whole world kind of roots for you because you haven't been there to the point where they're sick of hearing about you and they're annoyed by you and i think a lot of people are tilting that way anyway so there's

super pressure and in detroit i think even the city's gotten to that point, and whether it's right or wrong, after all those years of shitty football, three or four years of good football, the perception and the expectation more so changes about your team. Look at the Astros. Astros are a good example. The Astros were a tanking team forever.

They weren't really a good baseball team after 2005. It took them 11 years to get a good example. The Astros were a tanking team forever. They weren't really a good baseball team after 2005. It took them 11 years to get to good again. That's with a five-year stretch of tanking in the middle of it. And what happens? Now you get to a point where just making the playoffs can't even fill up the ballpark. Like, that's the way the world works. The expectations of your franchise change.

And I think in Detroit, the expectations now have gone from, hey, it's cute that we make the playoffs. Oh, it's cute that we can now beat teams like Green Bay. Neat. To, you might want to get the fucking job done. So I think if you look at just a game where one team has zero pressure and one team has all the pressure, I'd say the most pressure-packed one in this one would be the Detroit game. Just looking at that angle of no pressure versus all the pressure.

So let's rank these. Washington has zero pressure going into this, right? You got rookie quarterback. We explained all that. So they're out of the eight teams that are remaining. Number eight on how much pressure they have would be Washington number seven would be the Texans because you still have second year head coach winning that game last year bought you a last week rather bought you a ton of equity CJ Stroud in his second year already has two playoff wins

I don't believe any other Texans quarterback has two playoff wins. So C.J. Stroud, not a ton of pressure on him. You'd like to win, but you're playing the two-time defending champs. C.J. Stroud and the Texans are number seven on that pressure gauge. Number six is the Rams. And again, I get that there is like an obvious correlation between the point spread and everything else. I'm trying not to make it that way. But two months ago, the Rams were looking to sell everybody off.

Now they're back in the playoffs. They have to go on the road, face the Eagles. Sean McVay ain't feeling pressure. He ain't going to get fired if they lose. Matt Stafford's not going to be considered a bum if they lose. They got their big playoff win. They dismantled Minnesota. They're not, again, house money is not the term I would use for them,

but they're in position where no one thought they'd be here. They've won a playoff game. There's a little bit more pressure than the other places than Washington and Houston because you've got a veteran quarterback and who knows how many more chances he's got to do it. Coach that's been to the Super Bowl and won it before, more pressure there. So the Rams then have the third. They're third from the bottom on the pressure scale. So that would be Washington, Houston, LA. Then I think we go with the Chiefs. Back-to-back Super Bowl championships. There's always pressure because you're the Chiefs,

but at the end of the day, no one wins three championships in a row. I don't think Patrick Mahomes this week has more pressure on him than Josh Allen. He doesn't have more pressure on him than Lamar Jackson. He doesn't have more pressure on him than Detroit. So I would go commanders, Texans, Rams, Chiefs, Detroit would be the next because there is pressure. But if Dan Campbell loses this playoff game, yes, it sucks. But again, it's Detroit and three years ago you were in the doghouse.

So I would put Detroit there. Then I would put the Eagles next because there's always pressure in Philadelphia, but you bounce back from last year's horrible playoff exit and into the season. You've already won a playoff game. You are at home and losing a home playoff game as a six and a half point favorite will get you destroyed in Philadelphia. But on a national level, I don't believe the pressure is greater on Sirianni and Jalen Hurts than it is on the two guys playing the last game of the weekend.

And I would say that number two on the list of there's pressure is the Ravens. I mean, the Ravens aren't going to fire their coach. The Ravens aren't going to dump Lamar. Lamar is always going to get the benefit of the doubt over guys like Josh Allen. That's obvious. And then number one, the pressure, the most pressure this weekend is on the Buffalo Bills. Coach, not on the hot seat, but they're iffy on him. Will they ever get over the hump?

Will they ever overtake Kansas City? Can Josh Allen ever beat Mahomes at a highest level? Is Josh Allen truly an MVP? All of those things. So ranking the pressure, number one, Buffalo has the most pressure on on this weekend. Number two, it's the Ravens. Number three, it's the Eagles. Number four, it's Detroit number five it's Kansas City number six it's LA number seven it's the Texans and number eight it's Washington and again a lot of that correlates with the money line I understand that was not my intention but not everything's based on money line some of it's based on just the overall situations with these franchises.

Detroit was a cute franchise that finally started winning again. Now when the expectation, they're currently, I believe, the favorite to go to the Super Bowl. You lose, there's pressure on you. They're not going to fire Dan Campbell, but there's more pressure than there used to be. And we know that fans can turn real fast and change the expectations. We talk about Texas football all the time, right? Texas football has basically since 2009 been a waste, especially with all the talent and money poured into the program. They have a guy like Quinn Ewers come out and ball out and have one of the best careers in the history of the school.

People couldn't wait to get rid of him. So expectations do change very quickly. All right, more to come.