The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooley & Kevin Recap NFL Playoffs

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Cooley with Kevin today recapping all five of this weekend's NFL Playoff games. They picked tonight's Dallas-Tampa Bay game as well. Kevin finished up with the Front Office Sports report about Jeff Bezos not being a first-round bidder for the Commanders and the lower than advertised bid prices that were submitted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. That's right around. The eight reasons. That's one.

The Cincinnati kid. The 20. 98-yard fumble return. A 14-point flip on the scoreboard. Baltimore getting ready to go in last night to take a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter. Instead, they were down seven. They lost to the Bengals. 24 to 17. One more, one more wild card game to go tonight, Dallas and Tampa. Kooley is with me.

We're going to go through all of the five games that were played over the weekend, and we will preview the final one tonight. I've got some kind of news, not necessarily news, but I want to comment on some of the news about the sale of the team, including Jeff Bezos, not being one of the initial bidders. story broke yesterday and I'll do that in the final segment of the show. I did want to read Cooley this review that we got on Apple Podcasts from Jay Dunn. He's from Minneapolis, lived in New York for 20 years. Kevin, you've been a part of my life for a while now. Ha! Simply the best for Washington football team, Terps Update, Snyder, drama, et cetera. Tom is amazing. Cooley, fantastic when he joins. Wish you would join more. Thanks for making you. my commute bearable.

Don't forget to rate us and review us. If you've got a chance to do that, wherever you're listening to us, Apple and Spotify in particular, Apple really helps us out. And five stars and a nice one to two sentence review really helps. So I thought we would go kind of in reverse order, like the most recent game, which was last night. And then we will get to the game that preceded it, which is the one I know everybody wants to hear my take on, which.

which is the Vikings Giants game and the final play offensively for Minnesota. We'll get to that. But I thought, let's start with Baltimore, Cincinnati. I thought the Ravens really last night kind of deserved to win the game. And they didn't. I gave them out. I was two and two on the smell test. I had Seattle.

I had Minnesota. And then I had the Ravens plus the number plus the nine and the over 40. I got the over in that one and the Ravens. I was really rooting for them to win. I wanted them to win. I thought they played well enough to win. What did you think? They played well enough to win.

They didn't play well enough to win outright. I thought the Bengals are a good team. But you can't make mistakes against the good team. So they made a big mistake, a critical spot. They made a couple of mistakes throughout the game. I was impressed. You know, you and I had done. the podcast on Friday or Saturday.

And I was sitting with a couple buddies, and with you, I'd convince myself that Baltimore was going to cover, but not only cover, maybe would have a chance to win the game. And they all thought I was crazy. So I was cheering for Baltimore to win the game, which I think is the first time I've ever cheered for Baltimore to win a football game. Golly, Kev. I mean, you want to talk about one play changing everything. And it's a play that I think that's a narrative for a lot of other things,

including some of the Lamar Jackson negotiation. But one play changing everything. And my first question to you is not just the play call, but did Huntley choose to go over the top on a quarterback sneak when maybe it wasn't designed to go over the top? That's a really good question. It sounded like, and I was looking for some of the quotes, that that wasn't what he was supposed to do,

that he wasn't supposed to expose the ball, that he wasn't supposed to leap over the top. It was too far to leap over the top. Too far. The ball was at the yard and a half line. It wasn't at the one or even inside the one. And, you know, the Gus Edwards play on second down, I really thought he was running way too upright.

It looked like there was a chance for him to kind of go, low and duck and get in there. Some of the running plays that Baltimore had in that game, how about the fourth and one on Baltimore's final drive? It was the play right after, I think, the two-minute warning when they ran Huntley behind, like there was a guard, there was a fullback, and there was a tight end, and he was following all three of them. It was like a high school play. I was, I didn't bet the Ravens on the money line. I didn't. I didn't bet the Ravens on the money line. I almost did before the game started because I really thought that this is the kind of game that organization always rises to the level in.

Nobody gave him a chance. They're nasty on defense. God, do they hit on defense. The Kyle Hamilton dude at Notre Dame, that was the guy that I wanted Washington to draft at 11. When they traded back, they didn't have a chance to trade him. Baltimore drafted him. He's turned into a really good player.

He had the hit and the forced fumble at the end of the first half. Baltimore, the opportunity at the end of the first half was butchered a little bit. They just didn't give themselves a chance to score a touchdown there. And then I really thought Harbaugh managed the clock poorly at the end by just huddling up. They probably killed an opportunity at least three to four additional snaps, and they took running the ball completely out of the equation at the end. But back to your question, no, I don't think he should have, I don't think the plan was for him to dive over the top. He was too far out.

But what are the chances that even a fumble there gets picked out of the air and run back 98 yards? Like even if Cincinnati had recovered the ball, it would have been a big play. But Baltimore's defense was so good, I think they would have gotten the ball right back in really good field position. But that's not what happened. They may have. Yeah. They may have. First of all, I don't like to sneak from as far out as they were, especially with the run game that they have.

They went run action on first down. They tried to throw it to the fullback. And it got tipped. The ball got tipped. I don't think he scores anyway. You might be right. You might be right. Maybe get it down to the ones, but the way they were running the ball, it's like if you want to throw at that in that situation on first down,

Mark Andrews are bus. But I would just go ahead and run the ball three downs in a row or four downs in a row and see what you got. But the quarterback sneak, I just hated. And the funny thing is, is what are the chances? Well, the chances are dynamically higher that they pick it up and run it back in on that type of play. Because you have your heavy personnel group. Right, right.

You know what I mean? And you are all just submarining. There was a block in the back on that return. That was a clear. He was trying to make a play. He almost did. He was flying. He was flying.

Great effort. Incredible effort, and he got blocked in the back. I mean, that was, that's pretty clear cut. I know it was a push, but it impacted his ability to catch Hubbard on the return. He was going to catch him if he didn't get chuffed in the back. And that ball, that was at the 20. 25-yard line, I think that ball would have come back to, you know, basically like the 35 or 40. And then they're probably going to kick a field goal, and Baltimore still got a chance.

And at the end of the game, they kick a field goal to die it. Right. Instead of just burn times. No, the chances are higher of a fumble in that situation. I'm assuming it's entirely Huntley, who chose to go over the top. But I would have just put the ball on Dobbins' hands. Yeah. Dobbins was, he was so good.

in the game last night. He was excellent. I'll put the ball in the big fullback's hands and just let him barrel forward. Or run your short yardage that you ran at fourth and one at the two-minute warning and let Huntley. Huntley, you could tell, was a little bit on the run that got him down there, the read option keeper that got him down there. And he, I don't think, I think he did the smart thing by not extending the ball out to try to score because then it could have fumbled out of the end zone. He got knocked out at the yard and a half or two yard line, whatever. It's a hell of a play. It's a hell of a drive that they were in the midst of. He looked a little bit out of breath to run that little play

action, you know, first down throw. They should have just handed the ball off right there to Dobbins or Edwards. I mean, I, that was an unfortunate way to lose a game. They had opportunities. You know, they got the ball back three more times. I mean, Cincinnati's last, three possessions were punt, punt, punt. And the defense did its job. And, you know, they certainly had an opportunity. In fact, on the very last play of the game, that ball got tipped. That receiver, he had a legitimate chance to catch it on the deflection. Yeah, no, it was a slow reaction to the ball coming out. He's got his hand, and he got his hand on it. The ball should have been caught. Should have been caught. It's amazing. But, you know, I'm sitting there watching the broadcast

the very last drive. And they start huddling. The crazy thing is is they have two timeouts in that situation. And you're thinking, okay, look, let's get the play called that we want called. But they ended up not using one of the timeouts

instead of a huddle with a minute left, just reset and call time out. If you really can't get a play or you don't want to run your no huddle or your hurry up, just call time out. Exactly. I mean, there's an element. There's an element. And the other thing, sorry real quick.

Yeah. The huddle took way too long. Oh, my God. It wasn't even a quick huddle. You can huddle, but you can't full huddle. And the reason you can't full huddle is because of exactly what happened. It's a holding penalty, a false start penalty, a sack. Any negative play completely changes the dynamic of a minute left at the 25-yard line.

Now it's 40 seconds at the 35-yard line, and that isn't enough time. Exactly. I mean, you know, I understand the idea of not being rushed at minute 30, minute 10, you know, et cetera. And by the way, if you do score, you don't want to, but they had a first in 10 that they, with the clock running, that they ran with 32 seconds left and still had two timeouts left. Like I would have preferred in that moment at that point that maybe there'd be like 45 seconds left, you know, maybe you don't call the time out immediately after the play before. You let the clock wind down a little bit. But you've got to leave yourself the opportunity for things like a defense of holding

with like 11 seconds to go that gives you a first and goal. These are the kinds of things you've got to. I mean, they didn't manage it well enough at the end to give themselves the best chance. They should have had another. And by the way, when they had the holding penalty, I think there were 22 seconds left I wrote down. Now they are into, even if you pick up a first down, now you've only got, you know, two snaps left, maybe three. You needed more. Right. It was too bad. I'm fully convinced. I am fully convinced at this point. You can run clock and play to end the game or tie the game

in regulation if you need a goal. When you need seven, you go get seven however you can get it and you've got to play defense. definitely. The other thing I think is that in some respect, they were saying, we still have a chance to score here, but we will ensure that they don't get the ball back. Yeah, no, I think there was, no, that was a part of it. We'll make sure they don't get the ball back. That was a part of it. You don't think about that.

Can't know. As fast as we can score, as quick as we can score, we have to go find a way to score. And I think in that situation, when you get into that minute, 20, range? I think it was something like that? Here it is. In a 17? And the Dobbins got a pass, and the next play was around at 35 seconds, 34 seconds? Exactly. That's the spot. They completed the pass, first down, the balls at the 17-yard line of Cincinnati.

It's not at the 7-yard line. Okay, if it's at the 7-yard line, that's different. It's at the 17. You still have a chance to make a first-down and get all. whole new set of downs. Like you have, from the 17-yard line, there are, without penalties, there are eight potential offensive snaps. You know, four to get a first down and another four to get a touchdown. Well, you can't run eight snaps in 34 seconds typically.

I mean, you can, but those are really, really short plays, like too short. And so the ball at the 17 and to let 30-something seconds near. you know, 35 seconds run off the clock when you're sitting there with two timeouts. That was the mistake. Maybe you don't take the timeout at a minute 10. Maybe you take it at 55 seconds. You let it roll down a little bit. But you don't huddle up and you don't come to the line of scrimmage.

And by the time they snapped the ball, it was 34 seconds left when he threw down the seam and had it nearly picked off. And then the next play was a penalty. Now you're really fucked. it was right and well here's the other thing is it true is it really realistic in that situation at the minute 17 if you just call time out is it is it that realistic that you're scoring the next play no of course not no no i'm with you so in that instance if you get a first down there like if that from from that situation where they're at if they get down to inside the seven on the next play then let's let it run down to 40 seconds and call them out then we have four four plays with 40 seconds to give us around 10 seconds to play if anything happens and it gives us that back time extra time. If we had to call time out on first, we got one tackled on third and one or third and goal at the one and we call time out with 20 seconds left. We got two plays. Here's the other thing, Cooley, it did. It totally took run out of the equation. If you

call that time out with a minute 17 left, as you suggested, you can run the football and play hurry up. They still did run the football. They still ran the football another ball. They did. was the holding penalty, right, true. Which was a hold. It was really ticky-jacky in that moment. Yeah. On Zitler. He grabbed, but, I mean,

did that impact the play in any way? Lamar Jackson didn't even make the trip with the team. I don't think he's welcome to make the trip with the team. We talked about this all day yesterday, with the guys I was watching football with, everyone has essentially that I was with has come up with the same conclusion. And I did try to play devil's advocate

to what the money means, but I can't do it enough. If you are, if you are on the Baltimore Ravens, how many opportunities do you get to win a Super Bowl? How many opportunities you get to win a playoff game? And I look back at my career, and I played in three,

and I won one playoff game. and when you're a quarterback who gives you the dynamic opportunity to win a playoff game, besides because he's 90%, that he just isn't going to do it? Oh, my God. And I get it. I get it. And we talked about it throughout the day yesterday. I said, you know, I'm thinking back, Robert Griffin was the back of quarterback there forever.

And same situation, I'm sure he's in his ear. Oh, right. Well, did you see what RG3 tweeted? He texted it to me. That's right, I texted it to you. Hold on. Let me read it to everybody. But they're friends. That's true. He was on the Ravens roster. I didn't even think about it from that perspective. RG3 Instagramed out a picture of himself in the Seattle game, which, by the way, was just over the 10-year anniversary of one of the most infamous games in franchise history was last week.

I don't know why I forgot about it and didn't do something on it, but that was my bad. but RG3 Instagrammed out a picture of him going to the turf in the Seattle playoff game on the ACL and LCL and he wrote this is why you don't just put a brace on it and play

played with no ACL and LCL from my brothers slash team changed the wait hold on for a second I don't for whatever reason I don't have the rest of it here I had it

Can do you have the... Whatever. I mean... The point... No, I don't understand. But the point is, honestly, I understand. I'm not going to get... I'm not mad at Lamar Jackson,

and I'm not going to get into the conversation of what he should or shouldn't do for his money. I'm going to tell you right now that if I was on that team, I'd be furious. Period. I mean, by the way, just real quickly, Robert, did you forget that the NFL films picked up the sound of you telling Trent Williams

on the sideline, you're hurt, but don't tell anybody because I'm telling them that I'm fine. And that in the locker room at halftime, you told your coaching staff that it was just the brace that was making you run that way? I don't want to go back and relitigate that. I personally... I mean, honestly, we don't need to. Philip Rivers played on a torn ACL in the AFC title game one year. Whatever.

But whether he's in his ear or not, here's the net of it. I doubt Lamar Jackson is going to be a Baltimore Raven next year. They're going to franchise him and they're going to trade them. And they're going to get, you know, the two first rounders, and there will be a healthy-sized list of suitors for Lamar Jackson. I've got a couple of teams that I was thinking about that would be perfect for him. The money's going to be really interesting, though. I'm with you.

I could put together a list of teams, and we talked about it on Saturday. But the money's going to be really interesting. And if I'm looking at this as a GM and as a head coach and at someone running down. One, if I haven't built my organization in a way to do what he does, which I want to know if he wouldn't want to do going back to Robert Griffin, if I haven't built my team in that fashion, then I've got to change a bill to my team in that fashion. And two, is he capable after five years of doing what he does or four of still doing that for another four years? Or am I going to get the Lamar Jackson of the last two years,

in which I'm not going to pay him anything? Because he's not available for you at the end of the year, when the games matter. Right. But he's going to be, they're going to be suitors. We didn't talk about this. I don't think we did. Give me the number one team that pops into your mind that makes sense for him. Washington?

No, that's not the one I thought of. The jets? No. The guy that you know and you love as a coach. Head coach now. Atlanta. Miami? Atlanta.

Atlanta would make sense. They've got a coach that will play football that way. They've got a big-time tight end. They've got a big-time wide receiver. They got a big-time running back. You've got a guy like Cordarell Patterson still there. They need to invest more defensively. But that team could turn it around immediately with Lamar Jackson.

I mean, they were competitive this year. They could. They could turn it around immediately. But they need Lamar Jackson to play. I know. And the other thing is when you build your team like this, whatever, I don't know, they built it. Baltimore did build their team the right way because Huntley can run the team.

It's not the same. But they got a chance to win a playoff game with Huntley. They had a chance to win a playoff game with Huntley. I know they did, but they didn't win the playoff game with Huntley. Your backup gave you a chance. You don't have to change everything about what you're doing, and that's the way Baltimore built it. They still operate in the same fashion.

so they did a good job building that they'll talk to bottom and they've you know how they had they had one more receiver last night I know they don't have any receivers I mean like nobody

Mark Andrews was amazing and he only had five or six catches he's right by the way if he catches the one where he trips down the sideline right he tripped on enough strip throw down the sideline or they would have had another first stand

and another opportunity I um I don't know like if I were a Ravens fan and I'm going to move on from Lamar Jackson. I'm looking for a quarterback again. I'm not looking to play football this way. And by the way, I don't mind football this way. I encouraged it back in 2012 in the years that followed.

Tyler Huntley is a solid backup quarterback. But last year, he had a chance when Lamar went out to win games to get him into the postseason. And he didn't play poorly in a lot of. lot of those games, but they didn't get there. And then last night, bottom line is he gave him a chance. The defense gave him more of a chance, but he gave me a chance. He was fine. But on the play that determined the game, he fumbled.

I mean, Huntley would be a backup for me. I would not continue to play football and say Tyler Huntley and Anthony Brown are going to be my quarterbacks. I would go try to get a real quarterback. You just going to ask if it's a sustainable method of playing football? Is it sustainable through an entire season into the playoffs to win games? And is it sustainable if you build a team for three to four to five years? Since the Ravens said by to Joe Flacco and said yes to Lamar Jackson, okay?

That was the 20 going into the 2019 season. They have been to the playoffs three times in what would that be four seasons, and they are one and three in the postseason. They lost at home that first year to Tennessee. Remember, he threw the ball like 59 times because they got behind. They got down early, and he struggled early, but found a way to come back a little bit later. Yeah, they beat Tennessee in the pandemic year and then got, you know, blown out by Buffalo in the divisional round and then lost last night. They didn't go to the playoffs last year because they didn't have him on the field, and they were ousted in the first round this year because he wasn't on the field.

I think, you know, I don't know. Right now, you wouldn't build a team that way. You would adapt to, I think, playing that kind of football, if that's what your talent said you should adapt to. But would you draft a Lamar Jackson and say, we're going to play football the way the Ravens have the last few years? Yeah, I actually, in having this discussion, we've had it multiple times. I actually don't mind.

Being creative in the run game is just as good for me as being creative in the past game. But if I'm building a team this way, I think I told you this on Saturday. I'm going to have a conversation with the quarterback that I draft 30th every fifth year and say, we're going to help you go get the next best deal. But you're not going to be here for more than four years. We will not pay you. the $250 million a year. That's not the system we're building.

We're building the system that dictates that we pay tight-end, receiver, offensive line, and defense. So we're going to find a new guy at the end of year five, and we're plugging play running. You know what I would say to you? I would say, please don't draft me. I mean, why would I want to be drafted by that? Well, Mar Jackson's going to be going to be.

get a $200 million plus contract. Well, he might. He might, but I wouldn't want to hear the pitch from the team that's picking me. I wouldn't want to hear the pitch to say, hey, we're going to use you for four years and maybe the fifth year option year, $22 million or whatever they paid him this year. That's what they do to every player anyway. That's not what you typically look for in the quarterback. Okay.

The rest of all of us can understand we're going to get used for four years. other than if you play really well, we're going to try to play you, but that doesn't always work out. But as long as we're being completely transparent and saying, we will not hold you hostage, we're not going to franchise tag you. Actually, that might be untrue.

If I'm running my team, I might say one franchise tag. I'll promise you. Yeah. By the way, at that point, you may have been injured so many times, that big contract that I told you I was going to help you get. It might not be as big as you think it is. No, I know what you're saying.

You're only going to do it. How long do you get to do it? If you're a coach for a team, other than Mike Tomlin, who's there 10 years? Not very many. So by the time we were to draft our third running quarterback when anybody would really get an

idea of what we're doing, you bought a contract negotiation with the first one after your franchise tag him, and then you've drafted another one, and he's playing. It would take to the end of the second contract negotiation. before anyone's like, is this a strategy they're using?

What do you think? So it is interesting. I mean, there's another time to talk about this because I want to get to the other playoff games. But I do think that the franchise tag trade, the market will be there, but the issue is going to be, will that team come up with a contract

that Lamar Jackson and his mother, who basically is his acting representation, are okay with? because it's not going to be, you know, the big quarterback contracts of the NFL. It's just not going to be, you know, in terms of A.A.V. Aaron Rogers at 50 or Russell Wilson at 49 or Deshawn Watson at 48 or whatever. It's not, it can't be that for him. He's not the same kind of player. But it's probably.

But what's crazy is it can be 40, and he should be so sad at the same 40 or 42. You know what? It can be 40. If you think about what $40 million a year is, you know, geez, Jeff. I know, like, who was it? Like, we're slighted or we're disrespected because we have to take $40 million a year. Right. It's getting to a point where some of the money is like, take it.

Good deal. All right. Let's go to the game before it. This one, the game's all weekend. long, really with the exception of the first one, although Seattle led it half time. But it was a phenomenal weekend of NFL playoff football. This was... Who throws a checkdown on fourth down and long?

This is the end of the game. This is the play right here. We'll play it for you right now. It's down. Fourth and eight, game on the line. Cousinson, Hockinson, here, and the Giants will take over. Yep, T.J. Hawkinson. tackled five yards short of the first down marker,

and Minnesota's 13-win season and three-seed in the NFC playoffs is over. The game that everybody predicted would be the lower-seated team beating the higher-seated team. They were all right. The Giants went in and won the game 31 to 24. I'll let you have that at it first, and then I'll take a swing at the game. and Kirk's final play. Go ahead. I'm not going to go crazy about the final play.

I just knew, I know that you hate it. I mean, we can say that Osborne could have made a catch the play before, and we wouldn't have been in that situation. But again, it's fourth and eight, and he can't throw the ball two yards, and hope he runs to get a first down. Have you looked at the play on the All-22 yet? No, the All-22 is not available.

I know, exactly. I want to look at it. Yep. I'd like to look at it as well. I mean, to say that nothing's there. but here's the other thing. If nothing's there, and you're going to start the checkdown,

who he can see, Kirk's a smart guy, and he's got good vision. He can see that Hawkinson's going to have to break at least one tackle. Then you've got to find a way to extend. Yeah. If he can't,

if the process is the process, and as much as he's done to overcome it, there's still those moments. And that was one of those moments. He didn't hesitate to throw the checkdown. And I think in his mind he knew it, the second it left his hand, like, oh, fuck,

which he wouldn't have said, because he doesn't say that. But seriously, if he would to say it, that would have been the moment. Oh, fuck, I just give it back. Because he knew that was not going to get a first down. It was so obvious. That said, we could move on. Well, go ahead.

What else do you have on that game? So the other side of this game, like, is a really interesting game. You went through a time period where there was no stopping either team. And then I think the Giants did something after the first, well, this was early, but they started doubling and tripling Jefferson. Just took him out of the game. Did Jefferson even have a second half catch? Targeted three times, I think he had one catch. I mean, they didn't have the ball.

They didn't have the ball a lot, but yes. They took him completely out of the game. They said you're going to have to beat this with Hawkinson. Do you want to run the ball, which I don't think Minnesota went to running the ball? as much as they should have wet throughout the game. I think they, in New York's a tough team on defense. Like, we've seen that. They're tough teams to run the ball.

But Dalvin could have, like, what do you have? 15 carries. 15 for 60, yeah. 15 carries for 60. Jefferson, a four-yard to carry. And your run-action team, and especially when you can't get, Jefferson, outside of being blanketed, come on, O'Connell. But get back to some of the roots of Kirk Cousins.

Get back to some of the boot stuff. Get back to some of the run-action stuff. Get away from some of the straight drop-back stuff. Run the ball with Allen Cook. Let Cook, Kurt, get on the edge, run the boot stuff, create opportunities windows for Jefferson, and then you build off of that with Thielen and Parkinson, who played excellent in this game.

But on the flip side of it, we know Minnesota's defense is terrible. The defense is really what loses in the game. And that, Daniel Jones, I thought, did a really good job. And the dude Hodgins was like the pro bowler. But I don't know. I mean, I thought it was a fun game to watch. I thought it was a good ballgame. I thought they were pretty evenly matched.

I just, shoot, Kev. Yeah, I mean, I'm upset for him. But, and I'll just start with this. I mean, you can't make that throw. I mean, obviously, it's fourth and eight. It doesn't matter. You can't, you know, look, there are plenty of throws in the NFL. on fourth down short of the sticks where you're relying on a playmaker in space to make somebody

miss and pick up the first down. That happens all the time. And when it happens, nobody says, oh, my God, they threw short of the sticks. Sometimes that's okay. Like a quick slant sometimes is actually completed short of the sticks, but you know that they're going to cover. But to Hawkinson, who's not a wiggle guy in space guy, that was, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, terrible decision. And unfortunately for him, it's so typical that it kind of ended that way, you know, because there was nothing that led up to that point that if they lost the game had anything to do with him.

In fact, he was one of the reasons they were in the game. He had played fabulously through that game throughout. The Minnesota defense, I told everybody, going back to midseason, the reason I was not as bullish on them as some of you thought I might be, as I told you, they were the worst defensive team in the NFL, which they were. And you saw it yesterday. Daniel Jones and the New York Giants in two games had 870 yards of offense against Minnesota and scored 50, 50, yeah, 55 points. I mean, that's the giants we're talking about. I mean, Daniel Jones is in Daibel.

The whole thing, you and I were talking about Daibel and Martin Dale the other day, and I said, I really like that combination. Let me just mention something. I saw Galdi tweet this out. It was perfect. He said it's criminal that the commanders only scored 17 points against the Vikings. After the Washington game in which Taylor Heineke threw for 149 yards and they only scored 17 points, the rest of the league averaged 315 yards passing and 32 and a half points against the Minnesota defense.

Make no mistake. There was a terrible fourth down decision. They didn't lose the game because of that. They lost the game because they couldn't stop the New York Giants at any point who were eight for their first nine on third down. I mean, it was ridiculous how bad that defense was. why did you give them out on the smell test, Sheand? Well, because everybody was picking the Giants and the public was on New York.

But I've been saying for weeks now, I think Minnesota is a quick one-and-dunner, and I even said, if Washington gets in, even with their offense, they can go to Minnesota and win. By the way, if Washington had just pulled off that Sunday night or against the Giants, you know, forget the Cleveland game,

the Cleveland game would have put them at San Francisco like Seattle was. If they had beaten the Giants, they would have been at Minnesota, which is what everybody wanted because that defense was so horrific. Now, with respect to cousins. By the way, one more note on the defense.

Kevin O'Connell, who has been Mr. Clock Management expertise. I mean, he's been great. They've led the league, I think, in scoring at the end, in the final two minutes of the half and two minutes of the game all season long. And at the end of the half, the Giants had a second down in 10 play that ended at 33 seconds

that went for three yards and were facing third and seven from their own 13-yard line, and Minnesota had two timeouts left, and they didn't call either one of them. They didn't call a timeout. They were fearful from their own 13 that the Giants, if they call the timeout with 32 seconds left, would still go down and score before the end of the half. Everybody's saying that's such a horrible job by Kevin O'Connell. I saw Twitter light up. What is he doing?

Why is he not calling timeouts? Well, because it was only 3rd and 7 from their own 13. They were averaging 12 yards of play. So that's all you need to know. Kevin O'Connell, who's been phenomenal with clock management in timeouts and getting extra possession. they've been one of the best final two minute of the half, final two minute of the game teams in the entire NFL all year, in part because he's been great using timeouts and getting those extra possessions. He decided third and seven, the other team from their own 13 with 32 seconds, to let the clock run out.

That's coolie. That's remarkable. I mean, there isn't any situation with a good coach, and he's a good coach when it comes to that. but he's like, I got to get this, I got to get off the field only down three. If I call time out, Daniel Jones is going to hit Slayton again with 30 yards of cushion and he's going to be out to the 45-yard line in the next play. Now, on Kirk he doesn't, he's going to just take up and run for 25 yards. Yeah.

Now, on Kirk, this is what bothers me. What bothers me is once that play happened, I knew what everybody would say. There's Kirk doing Kirk things again. Captain Checkdown. But that's just not true. Like it was yesterday. It was. Okay?

So I understand, you know, process-oriented, all the stuff that all of you guys were tweeting me, all the texts from, you know Steve, who I'm talking to. Like, the whole Captain Checkdown thing, which is this completely false narrative. He's been the opposite of that. pretty much throughout his entire career, especially in Minnesota. But, and not one time with the game on the line in his record setting eight NFL comebacks this year in the fourth quarter. Let me repeat that because I think a lot of people don't know that he set the NFL record

for the most fourth quarter comebacks in a season by one quarterback in NFL history with eight. he also set the record as a quarterback with 11 and 0 in one score games. How did he do that? Not by checking down on 4th and 8, I promise you. Do you remember the throat of Justin Jefferson in Buffalo? The 4th and 18? Did he check that down? Did he check the 4th and 9 against Indianapolis when they came from behind by 33-0 at halftime?

He hadn't done it all year long. That's the frustration of it. Of course, if you weren't paying it, attention, you'll say, there he goes again, choking, checking down, can't win the big one, and he set the NFL record all season. Yeah, but Chean, that's the regular season. Okay, but you told me that when he lost to Philadelphia on Monday night and when they got blown out by Dallas 40 to 3, that that was a big time spot that he choked in.

So that's a regular season game, too. No, it was awful the way it ended for him. I feel terrible for him. And I do think, I listened to his explanation, he said, there was immediate pressure. There was. Dexter Lawrence, who was in his face in a one-beat count. I'll explain it all for you. I'm watching it on a conduct. Yeah. Tell me what he said.

He said, there was pressure, and Jefferson was, I looked at Jefferson. He wasn't an option. I guess he was tripled. I haven't seen that. And I didn't want to take the sack. I wanted to put the ball in play. I had to put the ball in play. I couldn't take a set. back there, but of course, you know, I would have, you know, I looked for, I looked at the field first. There's immediate pressure. I don't think this is actually a checkout. I think this is maybe an option route by Hawkinson, and if it is an option route, Hawkinson should have broke into the middle of the field. I was going to ask you about that.

I can't tell if it is or isn't, if it's a chip, check release. He could be chipping Tibedo and then just checking out in the flat, if it is that, and they'll answer that, then it's all right. But even if it is an option route, like if it's just an option route, he's running this at two and a half yards. Right. And with immediate pressure, do I really know if Kirk can sense that right now Hawkinson's at two yards instead of seven or six or five? But if he's at five, the separation's different, there actually is a chance there.

But if it is an option route, which I don't see Hawkinson as a great option route runner, because I've said multiple times. I don't think he's got that, like, quick-twitch savvy to separate at the top. He's got runaway speed, and he can use the stem, but if it is an option around and he breaks in, there's a real champ there. The middle of the field is going to be wide open. I see that. They did bracket Jefferson, and then there's a safety, one safety over the top.

They brought their other safety down and bracketed Jefferson. So there's, it's a bracket look. Now, that means the other two receivers on the other side, which is Osborne, who just dropped a pass for him, is single covered in running the post to the middle of the field or a dig to the middle of the field wide open. The bracket on Jefferson was there all game. So in Kirk discussing that he could take a look at Jefferson

and he wasn't there so he had to put the ball. The bracket was shown pre-play. The bracket existed throughout the play. And Jefferson was never going to be available on this play unless you wanted to say, go get a ball, Jefferson. So he should have never worked Jefferson's side. He should have worked the other side. Yeah. Well, it doesn't look like he'll leave.

But I get where he's at. Like, where he's out in the game is Jefferson's his guy. And right now in this spot in the game, Hawkinson's been the guy that's come through for him for the last half. So he's working the side with his two dudes. Hawkinson runs a bad route, and Jefferson's blanketed. and the de-tackle's hitting him in the face as he lets this go a second and a half in, which, by the way, he got hit every freaking time he dropped back. He has all year long.

He goes to Kevin O'Connell, could you please run the ball a little bit more and get him out in some of the boot stuff and try to create some more look. Like, again, this didn't matter in this situation with him in a 47 or 48, but. I still look. You know the other interesting thing, if Hawkinson breaks just one tackle, just one tackle. He's gone. We're not giving enough credit right now to whoever this is 29 McKinney for making an unbelievable open field tackle on the tight end who's bigger than that.

Yeah, but it's not an open-off. And I'm just going to tell you right now. I'm going to promise you one. Here's another thing. I would have broke that tackle. Not even a fucking question ever. Like, I would have even, like, I would have picked him up and carried him to the first down and tell somebody else fit me. He didn't get me down.

Hawkinson choked, too. You're defending him more than I am. No, I mean, again, I'm saying there were options to work the other side of the field. He could have worked the Thielen and Osborne side. They were one-on-one. But once he worked this side that he's working, and it looks like Hawkinson's running an option out short, I mean, there were opportunities. I'm looking at it more and more, but Hawkinson has to break that tackle. fourth and whatever season on the line, at least make the next guy get you down.

He got tackled by one, and that one has got to be 40 pounds lighter than he is. Come on. Yeah, but... That's weak. It's one thing if he throws it a yard short of the sticks and somebody comes up to make the tackle. I can't. I... I'm just suggesting to you if this option route is supposed to be run at five yards,

and he's under immediate pressure. He was under immediate pressure. Lawrence is in his lap. I know. Lawrence is in his lap. Contact McKinney at two. Does Kirk feel the difference between two and five in the option? He might say yes.

I haven't thrown that ball. And by the way, Lawrence is in his lap because he has not left or moved out of the pocket. He could have immediately tried to evade the pocket, knowing his left guard got beat. Yeah. I mean, lots of things could have happened. Yeah.

I don't love this. I hate this for Kirk as well because I know exactly what the narrative is. It's a checkdown. And here's the other thing. Like anyone that's going to watch this thing is going to say, I'll defend him even more, is going to say that Hawkinson is chipping the De Antibodeo, and then he's going to go out into his route and run whatever route. Well, you want the option route delayed.

Like you purposely delayed the option route. That's the way Joe Gibbs taught it. That's the way I ran it through my. entire career is that it delays just a second. So you could delay it with a chip. It's still an option route. Supposed to get five yards. Why in a spot like that is, okay, let's just say that he didn't run the right route. What should the route have been? Did the sticks? I mean, Kirk would have never had time to get it to him at the sticks. Well, if you, like, here's, I don't know if it's an option out or if it's just a chip in and out. They'll have to answer that. If it was an

option out. The option if you break in is not a dead in break. Everyone runs that option or choice job as an in is a post, quick post. The play Cousins... The inside, he'll run a quick post. Yeah. The I...

Which would get him to the stick. The play that Cousins said he was as frustrated with, he said the third down and eight, you know, he put it on himself. I mean, I thought Osborne could have caught that ball. I mean, it hit his He said he wasn't as accurate.

He said he should have given him a little bit more of a lead there, and it would have kept the DB from making the play. Yeah, he threw it a little behind him. But that's the, like, DB on your back, you don't body catch that. Get your hands out. Yeah. Whatever. I mean, the Giants, I thought the Giants did a really good job.

I like Daniel Jones. Flaten got hurt in this game for a while. Yeah. Do you ever come back? By the way, yeah. What do you mean he came back? Of course he came back. He dropped the third and 15 that gave Minnesota the ball.

Because he was hurt. You know, as sick and twisted as I am when it comes to cousins, after the game, I was almost wishing that Slate and had just caught that, and then they never would have gotten the ball back. I mean, he was so wide open, and Minnesota needed to win that game realistically, They beat the Giants the first time they were plus two in the turnover margin. A friend of mine who also kind of roots for cousins said after the Giants' second drive, he's like, Minnesota is going to need two turnovers and like five drop passes to win this game.

They have no chance because the Giants are not going to punt once. Now, what did they punt? They ended up punting three times, I guess, in the game. But they didn't punt for the first time until the second half. three drives in the first half, 17 points. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's not good enough. I think clearly at that point, from my standpoint, you just throw it to Jefferson.

You just throw it to Jefferson, and if it gets intercepted, it gets intercepted. If it's incomplete, it gets incomplete. But the guy has bailed you out so many times on plays in which you've given him a chance. Now, Jefferson has said all year, I love how Kirk's throwing me the 50-50 balls. Maybe that wouldn't have been a 50-50 ball. Maybe that would have been a 20-80 ball. But design something where you know you can get him a 50-50 ball. It's hard to fully bracket and cover him if you're cross.

I don't know. Design something else for him. Whatever. Let me end with this. The Giants are well-coached. They have a quarterback that they now are going to be in a negotiation. with. I mean, Daniel Jones playing essentially as an unrestricted free agent.

Obviously, they can franchise him. We know that that's not the path they want to go down. Daniel Jones became just the third quarterback in NFL postseason to throw for more than 300 and rush for 75 or more in a game. Imagine him

with just another good, one good receiver and one average receiver because Barclay is special. There's no doubt about it. He is really, really good. And they have talent when they're healthy defensively. I mean, Dexter Lawrence made second team all pro. So just for Washington fans, Jonathan Allen finished sixth in the voting. Dexter Lawrence finished fourth. He's been a spectacular player all season long. And he made second team all pro. That team is on, I mean, I give him a chance at Philly next week.

Not a good chance, but I give them a chance. But look out with them in the cap space they have. I think they have like the third most cap space in the NFL. Let me look that up. I think the Giants are third or second. Second. Right now, overall cap space. Second behind the bears.

Third behind the bears and the falcons. Now, they're going to have to pay their... Either way, they've got enough cash rates to go get the two receivers. Yep. They're going to have to pay their quarterback, you know? You would pay him, right? Like, that's not even a question. No question.

Yeah. Coaching. It does help. No question. Helps a lot. Giants are seven-point underdogs at Philadelphia in the Saturday night game. That line seems right to me. I bet the action ultimately will be kind of split on this one. Actually, you know what?

I bet more people play the Giants. Let me see if there's an early... It'll be interesting. I mean, you know what? Maybe just didn't that be the natural thing because the last couple weeks, Philly... Right. They didn't have a quarterback, and you're like,

I don't know how I feel about Philly. By the way, that's how I feel about Philly this week going into it. It's like, have they got the rhythm back? I know. They had the bi-week. Did they establish whatever rhythm? Or now are they going to play a buzz on

in the New York Giants? and get pithounded. Philly, though, can really rush the passer, and they can really get after you. And it's going to, for the Giants, yesterday was just easy. And you could tell they knew it was going to be easy. I mean, they got everything they want whenever they wanted. And some of those passes, it was like Richie James caught a ball, I think it was,

or Hodgins or somebody, and they're, like, looking around like they're expecting to get hit, and no one was within 15 yards of them. that's not going to be the case at Philadelphia. It's not going to be the case at Philadelphia. They're not going to have, they're not going to have 450 yards and 31 points, right? Not against Phillies, D. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see you.

I guess the overarching theme here on the Giants is they're going to be a factor in the division in the coming years. They were a surprise factor this year. They've had all these, you know, disastrous coaching situations. It looks like they have an answer. Looks like they do have their answer at quarterback. They have a running back that is a game changer when he's healthy. They've got good defensive players. They need more good defensive players.

They clearly need a better secondary, better linebackers. But, you know, the division, you know, even with Washington looking better than we thought they'd look before the year started, the Giants, Philly, and Dallas are all better. I know. We'll see how that stays. I know. Lamar Jackson posted on his Instagram this morning. What did he post? When you have something good, you don't play with it.

You don't take chances losing it. You don't neglect it. When you have something good, you pour into it. You appreciate it. Because when you take care of something good, that good thing takes care of you, too. Boy, he really feels like the narrative on him is very negative, and he's now gone public twice in the last four days. He's getting very defensive.

I'm not saying he's wrong. Baltimore can be a pretty cut-throat organization. I think it's in a good way, you know. I mean, they'll move on from you, you know. They'll do that. Really, Hollywood, you know, you don't love. the number of targets you're getting fine. We'll trade you for a first round pick.

What did they get? What did they get for Hollywood Brown? Didn't they get it? I don't remember. Was it a first? I don't remember. I'll tell you what, though. If you wanted to play with it, if they want to play... First round pick.

Have they really disclosed any of the terms they've offered, Tullamar Jackson, have been? They don't disclose anything. The reason we don't know about anything until... But if they want to put... If they want to play, disclosed that they offered them $40 million a year.

That's play with it. What if they don't want to? I mean, they might not want to. But at some point, there's a lot of people that look at that franchise and say, you pay him whatever. He's our guy. It's your fault. Cardinals sent the Ravens a first-round pick for Hollywood Brown.

Hollywood Brown. Yeah. I think it's interesting. Tommy mentioned this the other day. When you don't have an agent and you also are a very tight-lipped organization, you don't learn anything. There are no leaks. The only people we've heard from in this matter now, the only person is Lamar Jackson and a couple of his teammates, including Sammy Watkins the other day.

But anyway, all right, let's go to the first game yesterday. What would you say? I said, yeah, let's move on. Yeah, he's gone. Right, done, over. Well, I said, let's move on. I don't know if he's done over. I think it's closer,

because I think a lot of people there would be frustrated with him right now. All right, let's go to the first game yesterday, Miami at Buffalo. First and ten for the end zone. Oh, is Gabe Davis. Did he get the feet down? Yes, he did. Big game, game. You said it.

The game game. Somewhere James Worthy is smiling. That gave Buffalo a 34-24 lead over Miami late third quarter. They won the game 34-31. Cooley, I tweeted this out when Miami took the lead on that fumble return in the third quarter. That I doubt that they will win, but if they do win, it'll be one of the most improbable playoff upsets of all time. and I may have been slightly exaggerating it, but they were a two touchdown underdog.

They were on their third string quarterback. They were without offensive linemen. They were without their running back. They were at Buffalo. There was the Hamlin emotion. And they were down 17 to nothing on top of that, you know, early. And then they were down their second running back in the third quarter. Right.

When Jeff Wilson went out. I thought that, People can complain about Mike McDaniel at the end and the delay a game on the fourth and one. I think what he did yesterday to have that team ready to actually have a legitimate chance to win that game in Buffalo is, I mean, it's amazing. It was an amazing effort by Miami, an amazing effort. And I think a lot of what happened there at the end was, you know, he explained it. he said, they told us that it was a first down on the third down play. And that's why before the fourth down, he had different personnel and ended up changing it

late and they ended up having the five-yard penalty, whatever. I thought it was, by the way, the longest NFL game of the year that wasn't an overtime game, the game lasted nearly, I think it was three hours and 52 minutes was the exact time of the game. Well, they postponed the Vikings Giants game. They pushed it back. Yeah, they pushed it back. 20 minutes.

First half lasted two hours. What did you think of this one? So, as far as the, you know I love McDaniel. Yep. Like on the Miami set of the ball, here's what I love the very month. They were fearless the entire game.

They went in, gunslinging. And you could look at Thompson's completion percentage. Like, he was 18 of 45. I know. Yeah. He only threw for 220 yards. He very well could have been 24 of 45 for 400 yards. Six, five or six drops in that game, no doubt.

Some of them big plays. I mean, the dude Waddle had three big drops early in the game in the first half, like three big drops. He'll have one. He'll did. Giseki had one, I think. But when you look at Thompson, if you look at the stats, you're like, this is garbage.

That dude played with no fear. He looked like an NFL quarterback, and under unbelievable circumstances, I thought played exceptionally well for Miami. And I thought, when you look at, here, this is a fun one, the commanders had a chance to play a rookie quarterback in week 18. This is what I would want to see. And they would have never done it in a playoff game with the rookie quarterback.

They would have clammed up. and ran the ball a hundred times. Like it was Bill Callahan's great-grandfather coaching football. I mean, seriously. Yeah, Henry Callaghan. The fearlessness in McDaniel, and the ability to show that as a young coach to a young team that we have no fear of these guys

and will come out and attack them, breed so much confidence in his group. And they had a chance to truly win that game. They battled throughout the entire game. It was impressive what Miami did. And I would have loved to see it with Tua, but honestly, it was a lot of fun to watch Thompson. And I think really true, too, if they would have had Wilson more in the second half, they would have had opportunities to run the ball more.

They would have had some more play action stuff to dial up. But Buffalo basically said, we know you're not going to run it. They couldn't run it. I mean, they had no chance of running it. I agree with everything you said. I mean, from the very first drive of the game when they took the deep shot, and was it Hill or Waddle that dropped that one? That was Waddle on that one?

I think so. Yeah, it was Waddle. I just looked it up. It was Waddle. I mean, it was, they had no fear with this guy, none. Now, part of the 45 attempts is because they got down 17 to nothing, and then they were down 10. But it was also their only chance to really move the football. I actually thought I had one criticism of Thompson, because I watched them a lot in college at K.

he's a pretty big he's a he's a decent sized dude and he can really run and I thought that there were many more opportunities for him to take off and make more plays with his legs but he was intent on you know and clearly every it seemed like every single snap offensive snap the play clock was turning zero as the ball was snapped or you know was that one beat afterwards but I thought that there were opportunities for him to run more and he didn't threw some balls away way when he was on the run, when he instead could have turned it up field for four or five yards, and he really didn't do that at all. But other than that, I mean, I could not believe what I was watching as I was watching this shorthanded team in one of the most difficult environments in the NFL as a two touchdown underdog, and then down 17, nothing. I mean, that's the other part of this. They were down 17 to nothing. There were two interesting situations. there was an interesting situation in the first half where Buffalo called a timeout, and McDaniel changed his mind and kicked a field goal.

And then on a fourth down in like nine, the Buffalo called a timeout again, and then he sent his punt team out there. And I thought both times he – Fourth and six. I thought on both occasions he ultimately arrived at the right decision, courtesy of the Buffalo timeouts. That was the problem when I was like, what is he doing? What is he doing? Exactly.

What is he doing that? It's funny. The other thing with Thompson, they'll go back and I'll go back and watch this off. This is a fun. This is going to be a fun one to watch what Miami did on office in Buffalo. They'll go back and watch it. The other thing he didn't do ever was just throw the short path. Like he had underneath receivers. So they didn't have to be in third and 10 plus every single time, which is also why I had 45 attempts. It's because incomplete on first down, incomplete on second down, complete on third. Incomplete on first down. Right.

Like, there will be, this will be such a great teaching tape for Thompson because you can go back and look at, wow. I'm sure there was a lot more available. And they really opened up Buffalo. It's funny, they would, go ahead. I was going to say, you know, people are wondering on Twitter anyway, why the game took so long. Well, here's one reason. There were 43 incompletions in the game. There are 43 incompletions.

by the way, you had a lot of scores and a lot of turnovers. So, anyway, what were you going to say? Because I did want to ask you about Josh Allen. Oh, well, I got it funny throughout the game. And I wonder when did Tony Romo lose his play prediction stuff and his real insightfulness and just transition into just his idiotic personality? Actually, I have been very critical of Tony Roma in the last year, year and a half. To me, it really appears as if he doesn't prepare at all.

But I thought he made up, I thought he made such, he did make a, he was very sort of prescient with the following situation. When Miami had the lead 24 to 20, third quarter, they were deep in their own territory. there was a third and 19 and he said you've got to run the ball or throw something underneath and pun it. You cannot put it on this

quarterback because he's going to throw an interception here and it's going to turn the game. He basically, I'm not spelling it out verbatim, but he basically laid it out that way and sure enough McDaniel as... He throws a pick. He threw the pick right into

and it turned the game. I mean, it went from 24, 20 to 3424-24-4-24 Buffalo. So I actually thought in listening to... But here's my problem. Yeah. It's 17-0, and everybody knows this is going to be a blowout in the bills of the bills. And oh, my God, they're amazing. And then it's whatever, 2017, would Miami get up?

24-20. And then all of a sudden, now he's like, man, Josh Allen's forcing things. You know, he's really feeling pressure. He's like, this is Josh Allen in the third quarter. Shut up. and then it's all of a sudden he's Mr. January. The ebb and flow and the up and down of how he's calling this game, and you're like, what I'm talking about?

But you know what, Coley, in fairness, that's the way that game went. There were so many for me as a fan, it's like the game's over. And then it's like, wait a minute, they just tied it. And by the way, got the two-point conversion, and it's going to be tied at halftime. And oh, my God, here's a fumble return. They have a lead. When he said there was a possession there in the third, third quarter and he said, this is a possession, which I don't think they thought they were going

to have in this game, but this feels like it could be tightening up on Buffalo. Like the pressure, and I felt the same way. I'm like, I was looking, by the way, at the in-game live point spread. Buffalo was still like an eight and a half point favorite at one point when they were down for, you know, for the game. Like everybody was still expecting Buffalo to win, as was I. But I did feel like, there were some pressure moments there in that game. Look, Miami got the ball back down three and had the ball out to the 48-yard line with still three minutes to go. I mean, the game...

I know it's an up and down game, but Tony was so up and down. And I guess even more so I'm... It's his feelings on Allen throughout the game. Well, what did you think of Allen? My thought process was that Allen doesn't feel that way. I don't think he feels that type of pressure in that situation. Right. I think that you could put Allen in any situation at any point.

He's going to go get a chance to give you scores. Like the end of the half. Like I thought Miami had a chance at the end of the half to potentially run it and protect and protect Alan from getting the ball. And that's when they turned it over. Right? What did they do at the end of the half? Miami had two possessions, and Buffalo had two possessions out of the end of that.

Buffalo turned it over. Miami had a chance. I thought to run the clock down a little bit, but didn't. Buffalo got the ball back. What am I missing here? Well, there were back-to-back interceptions. Allen threw two interceptions on three drives, and one of them got returned. The one by Howard got returned big time, which set up, I think, the second field goal.

And then his last interception, Miami went down, scored, got the two-point conversion. You thought, Mike? It was the one that set of the field goes like, you could run this down. You keep Allen from getting the ball. Then he throws another pick. Miami scores have been all of a sudden 33 seconds and Alan takes him down the field. Right. That's why you, but Alan Mahomes, a couple of these guys, it doesn't matter.

30 seconds. Maybe he's projecting how he'd feel because he felt the pressure in a lot of those games. That's actually true. Maybe he said I would have felt the pressure in the situation. But honestly, like, Alan is so special. And the thing I love about him is he can miss a couple throws. Doesn't matter. But then he makes that throw to Gabe Davis in the end zone.

And it's just that a couple of throws he does make you like, oh, my God. And those are not easy throws. They're on the move throws. They're to the field throws. They're big-time throws. And then it's not just that. It's out of nowhere. Here comes quarterback counter or quarterback draw for 13 yards.

It's a critical situation, which you actually treat as a run play as a defense, because he's truly a running back. It's not a quarterback off-script or scramble, or they're going to mix one in here and there. Like, he's going to have seven or eight of those if Buffalo wants to have seven or eight of those. He's so freaking hard to stop. Yeah. He's so hard to stop.

And I think he's such a special player, and I think he's so much fun to watch. And he's really developed. He turns it over a lot, though. He's a unbelievable, he turns it over a lot. He's got to stop fumbling. Like, his fumbling issue, he throws picks, but its fumbling issue exaggerates the turnover. Yeah. Got to protect the ball.

What's funny is we talk about him running, he does protect the ball better as a runner. Yeah, when he's running quarterback counter, he protects the ball as a runner. And he lowers his shoulder and he's the highest yards after contact running quarterback in the league. Has to be. All right. Let's throw that out there. Yeah, I just did. Let's just quickly recap the two Saturday night games right after these words from a few of our sponsors.

Here we go for the win. But there's a flag down. There's a flag down as everybody's running out onto the field. But there's a penalty marking. And with that field goal by Riley Patterson, which barely got inside the right-upright, Jacksonville was a winner, 31 to 30, down 27 to nothing, midway through the second quarter, late in the second quarter. They rally, third biggest rally in playoff history, down 27 to win a game. And, you know, because we left off with Romo criticism, let me just start with this real quickly. I tweeted this out.

I don't think, and I've said this about Al Michaels now for about two straight years that he's lost as fastball as the way I describe it. Al Michaels shouldn't be calling a football game anymore. And Tony Dungey should never call a football game. I don't think I've ever heard a lower energy broadcast with less enthusiasm from the broadcast team than the game in which the opposite of that was required for the incredible things that we were watching in one of the all-time great comebacks in NFL playoff history. At one point, I actually thought, are they like putting on, is this like for a goof? Like they want to see

Twitter light up with their least enthusiastic calls of all time. Al Michael's all also used to be so good at like score and clock and the whole thing. He had no clue, no clue at all, why Jacksonville was going for two after Bosa got the 15-yard penalty and the ball had been stopped at the one when it was 30 to 26. He actually thought they were about to go for like a fourth downplay. He was completely confused, didn't understand what was going on. But other than that, this loss was for a Charger fan, really, really tough to take. If you were a Brandon Staley, you know, fire Brandon Staley guy, after this game, you

want him fired and you didn't want him on the team playing coming back. They ran the ball seven times in the second half, threw it, dropped back 23 times in the second half with a 27 to 7 lead. be fair, they weren't gaining many yards on any of their runs. They couldn't run the football at all against Jacksonville. What did you think of the game? First of all, to start with the end of the game. Jelly Bosa's got to control himself.

Joey Bosa should have been ejected from the game in the moment that he threw the helmet. He got the penalty for yelling at the official. That was bullshit, though. I hated that. Did you see Sean Smith, the referee, come over? Bosa got held. He was not showing up the referee, and the referee, Sean Smith came over, got into Bosa's face. Bosa wasn't showing him up.

I don't know what he said. He said something. Okay, but the ref made it. Was it the complaint on what looked like an early jump by the right tackle, a Morgan Moses type jump? Yeah, well, there was that. That was the off sides on, no, that may have been that play too. But whatever, the bottom line is, Sean Smith, the referee, came over and made it a much bigger deal than it needed to be made. It depends on what Boas has.

It depends on what Boza had to say to him because it looked like Sean Smith came over and was trying to be calm and having a conversation with Boza. The point isn't whether or not that's a botch. Joey Boza cannot go over the sideline and plan his helmet three yards up. And did you see how fast daily trying to pick the helmet up? And then he handed the company slamed again. It was like a newly hired equipment manager trying to get that thing out. Yeah, right. Oh, my God.

The funny thing about the Bosa thing, I meant to mention this when we talked about the Baltimore game, that penalty not only cost them potentially the game, it cost Baltimore the game, because Huntley thought he could do exactly what Trevor Lawrence did, and I promise he watched that play. I almost guarantee he saw Lawrence just, pooh, put it over the top and back, and said,

okay, well, I'll do that in that situation. By the way, would you have done that? Would you have gone for the two there? Yeah, I mean, the way they were rolling, they're saying if we don't get it, we got to go score a touchdown if we get the ball back. I mean, keep in mind that the Chargers also missed a field goal. Dickens or whatever missed a field goal late in the game to get the chance. I know, and it was a short one.

It was like a 40-yarder. But the crazy thing is, is like Lawrence, in the situation, that's something Lawrence's practiced and worked on. And that's something they've worked on. And that was a clearly planned play. If there's any penalty on a PAT or on a last second play, and we get the ball moved all the way up to here, this is what we'll do. That was a practice in plan play.

That was very obvious. So I did like to go for two. As far as Staley goes, yeah, it's, first of all, before we do Staley, how awesome just to see Trevor Lawrence throw four picks. what a great moment for teaching a young athlete. Yeah. And they were bad picks. You're never out.

You're never out. You threw four picks in your first playoff game. You felt a ton of pressure. You found a way to calm down, and you battled back, and you got your team win. And by the way, Christian Kirk was unbelievable in that game. He's a heck of a player. Dave Jones is a really good player. Travis E.T.N. is a really good player.

Yeah, they're a good group. How about Angram? He was phenomenal. Ingram. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the staley deal is back to Kyle Shanahan in the Super Bowl a couple years ago. At some point, you just got to think about the clock.

And when you're at 27-0, I mean, there's no way, shape, or form a 27-0, you really thought, wow, Jacksonville is just going to be able to score on four straight possession. I mean, you didn't really think that. No. But if you just eat more time and all of those, I mean, you could eat in two more minutes of possession. The touchdown at the end of the half was so big. Mm-hmm. Because it just gave them, like, 27 to 7, you're only one score away from a score that looks like it's not a blowout.

You know? Like, if you can just get it to 2714, and hell, they got it to 30 to 20 at the end of the third quarter. quarter, there was still time left. I don't think they should have gone for two on that one. I thought it was too early, even though they were down 16. There was just too much game left for me, but whatever. They got it back on the other one and were where they were supposed to be. It was a fun game. We were actually at a birthday party at an ice skating rink where they thought they had to have the temperature at 32 degrees, so I froze for two hours watching it on my phone with three or four guys at the birthday party. I was cold and grumpy when I got back. I barely put

the game on. Honestly, I left, I left and went. Too bad I don't have a game to watch tonight. That's the way it probably should have ended up. A couple of quick things. You're right about Bosa. Okay. I mean, he really, really hurt them in the game. They also didn't, he didn't get booted from the game because they were not, they were not unnecessary roughness or, or 15-yard penalties that included Terry McCauley explained. The helmet penalty is, they didn't call, they didn't Paul and he spiked the helmet. They should have called two penalties on both the same place. Yeah, so anyway, there were a couple of things that I wanted to mention. Number one, the fourth and one on the game-winning drive when they had it at the Chargers,

when they went full-house backfield. Oh, great call. To ETIN was a really, I've seen that a couple times this year, and I'm trying to think, I think maybe Baltimore, maybe somebody ran it against Washington. It could have been Jacksonville in the opener. like that. It's almost like what we talked about when Washington was trying to run the quick pitch or trying to get to the edge. It's like you're showing quarterback sneak and you want to the edge, but they get up there quick. They don't let them see the NPS set almost a half yard back of the other two back. And you get a chance to get to the

edge real quick. But it's got to go fast. Yeah. All right, let's finish up with the first game of the weekend, which was San Francisco's 41 to 23 win over Seattle. They'll let him throw again. Wide open, Debo Samuel, got a block from George Kettle. Debo Samuel, there he goes. Foot on the touchdown, San Francisco. A 74-yarder. I don't know in recent NFL, my memory, that there's ever been a better skill position

supporting cast on offense than what San Francisco has. Christian McCaffrey, Debo Samuel, George Kittle. I think Brandon Ayuk's turning into a really good receiver. I mean, we're not even mentioning guys like Jennings or what Ray Ray McLeod did when he came in when Debo Samuel was out. This team is so loaded at every skill position spot. And you did say the McCaffrey trade would totally change, make it totally easy for the quarterbacks

and San Francisco would take off and they really have. They've got a third string quarterback in there. There were a couple of plays where he extended, he extended, whatever. I mean, he looks sharp to me, but how easy would it be to plug in almost any quarterback with what they have? And by the way, Trent Williams and that offensive line?

The offensive line is really good too. And that's the other thing is they top to bottom by far the best roster. Oh, my God. Am I right, though, about skill position players? Who matches what they have? You didn't mention the other running back who's also a really good player. Well, Mitchell plays, but Mason's the guy they really like. He's the guy that didn't play against Washington and was hurt. I mean, they're in a position where Purdy just doesn't have to lose them games.

And, like, he won the game. He was excellent in the game. He was. And, like, you talk about extending and moving, and who was it? It was later in the game where he's all the way to the left out of the field, and then he runs, and then IEub drops one in the back corner. That's a perfect dime. I know.

I know. I know. I know. I know. It's like, that's a highlight level play for a rookie quarterback. And like, you could see, he was like, ugh. I know we won, but gosh, dang, if you'd have got that one. What are we going to say if San Francisco wins the Super Bowl with Brock Purdy, a seventh round pick?

That Kyle Shanan. Big Kyle Shanan. by far the best football coach in the NFL right now. I know. And credit him, credit Lynch, credit the way they've built that team. And maybe we're going to say that Purdy's really good. I mean, do you think people are going to say, well, that's how we have to do it? We've got to just draft quarterbacks late and find the right one and just,

because Washington's about to embark on an offseason where I have a feeling, they're going to say, oh, we got Sam Hal. If Taylor wants to sign here to be the backup, great. If not, we'll find another backup. And we're just going to invest heavily into our offensive line and the linebacker and beefing up our depth and we'll be fine. No, you won't because, first of all, you probably won't find somebody as good as Brock Purdy. Secondly, you're not Kyle Shanahan. Yeah, I mean, you could say that's the way you have to do it. But even in saying that, Kyle Shanahan would have paid Kirk Cousins, the contract that he got in Minnesota.

And Kyle Shanahan went and drafted Tray Lamb number three overall two years ago. So they still think, even with that roster, they still think they need a quarterback. Right. By the way, Brian... I mean, you just credit people for building an unbelievable roster. Brian Greasy is the quarterbacks coach. Kyle hired him last offseason. And apparently it was him.

We talked about this maybe several weeks ago. It was Greasy who said, you've got to draft. this kid, he can start in the NFL. Like his first gig in the NFL as a coach, you know, with, I mean, he's kind of like, you know, a Shanahan almost because he played for Mike and kind of grew up with Kyle. But apparently it was greasy who pinpointed Purdy before the draft and that they had his eyes on him the whole time. And then I saw Matt Hasselbeck talking about this yesterday.

He said early in training camp, like during the preseason, he was. was, you know, doing some stuff with the 49ers for ESPN, and he kept getting told over and over again. This seventh rounder, this kid we drafted, he's really good. And he said he just kind of blew it off and he's like, you know, people talk about their draft choices all the time. Cool. Cool.

But they really liked them. Were you being sarcastic? Yeah, like people would say, yeah, cool, cool. Like, neat. You're talking about your seventh round quarterback. You got Trey Lance. What are you going to do with Gropolo? What are you going to do with Groplo if he takes you to a Super Bowl this year?

Yeah. Tonight, real quickly, who do you like Tampa or Dallas? Maybe we answered this on Saturday, but I forget. Let's answer it again. I like Tampa. I like Tampa. I like Tom Brady. I like the extra day of preparation for Bulls as far as what they're going to do on defense.

And I like Tampa in this game. I don't trust Dallas. I don't either. I feel the same way. I can tell you this. The winner goes to San Francisco next Sunday. And I think in some ways, Dallas's pass rush might be the better matchup for San Francisco. But I don't know.

Here's the one thing about playing San Francisco. Somehow you've got to keep the ball on offense. Seattle actually did a decent job with that. You know, after like the first two drives of the game, they ended up moving the ball pretty much on every drive until Gino Smith fumbled and then the game got sideways after that. But this offense, even with Purdy, it's like you don't know what's coming next. Debo Samuel refuses to be tackled.

He's unbelievable. He's such a physical player. And their receivers the way they block too. Everything about it is, I mean, I've seen that offense coached. I've been firsthand a part of watching exactly what it is. And it's in what it would be if it ran at a high level and they're at a high level. All right. Thanks for doing this.

We'll talk later in the week before the divisional round games. All right. Let's get to the story yesterday from front office sports about the bidding on the commanders and who was a notable non-bitter for the commanders. We'll get to that right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Final segment of the show today, presented by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.orgie. Go to MyBooky.orgie.

Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. They'll match your first deposit, dollar for dollar, all the way up to a thousand bucks. Two and a half is the number at My Bookie for tonight's game. Dallas is a two and a half point favorite. I don't love the game, really, either way. I'll probably play Tampa. plus the three by the half point, but it's not a smell test selection. Two and two smell test this weekend.

Lost on Seattle, lost on Minnesota, one on the Ravens, and then the Ravens Bengals over as well. My bookie's got the lines for next week out right now. Jacksonville, Kansas City's an eight and a half point favorite over Jacksonville. That is the first game on Saturday. at 4.30. And then 8.15 Saturday night is Eagles Giants. And the Eagles at my bookie are a seven and a half point favorite. Total in that one, 48. Total in the Jacksonville, Kansas City game is 51.5. And then the other game that has been decided, it's the Sunday early game at 3 p.m. next Sunday is 3 p.m. and 6.30 for start times. Buffalo is a

four-point favorite over Cincinnati. The total is 50. By the way, every single NFL game this weekend went over the total. The only one that was even close was last night, 24 to 17. The total was 40. But every other game sailed over the total. Can the over go six for six? The total tonight's 45 and a half. I don't know. That's unusual. especially considering the public usually loves overs, but it was such an under year this year in the NFL, that maybe there were a lot of unders, including there were a lot of unders on the Baltimore Cincinnati game,

which is why I went over. But there you go. Those are the spreads for next week at my bookie. Again, use my promo code, Kevin D.C. So I want to finish up with this. So there was this story yesterday, front office sports, A.J. Perez. He's had a lot of stories in the last year or so last year and a half. I'm not keeping score of how often he's right, how often he's wrong. My gut is that he's had a couple of things right,

a couple of things wrong. I think, you know, he was the guy that really broke a lot of the information that came out of the testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee about sort of the cooking of the books situation. But anyway, the story that he had out yesterday titled, Jeff Bezos has yet to officially bid on Washington commanders. He wrote, Jeff Bezos did not place a bid for the Washington commanders ahead of last month's deadline, sources with knowledge of the process told front office sports. But that doesn't mean the Amazon founder is out of the running from Battle Dan Snyder's

franchise. So there's a second part of the story, which I'll mention here in a moment. So with respect to Jeff Bezos, not being a bidder. I guess it doesn't mean that he can't come in at some point and say, whatever you've been offered, I'll offer a billion dollars more. But I think what is very much in play here is something I have talked about. And I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago when I found out information about kind of the bids and about what the sales price would finally go at,

that it wasn't going to be closer to $8 billion, that it would be closer to $7 billion, more on that in a second. But I mentioned also that, you know, Bezos as kind of the default owner is not, you know, it's like 50-50. And here's why. There are two reasons potentially. One, the easy answer, which is Dan Snyder is not going to sell his team to Jeff Bezos, who owns the newspaper, who Snyder blames for being in this predicament in the first place. I'm not saying he blames them, but we know he hates them.

the Post, and I'm sure in his mind, the Post is responsible with all of the stories that they've written and all of the allegations that have been uncovered that he blames the Post. So he's not going to sell the team to Bezos, and maybe he's already told Jeff Bezos, F you, I'm not selling the team to you. I don't care what you offer. That's a possibility. That may be why Bezos did not make an initial bid. The other reason would be, potentially, that he wouldn't get three quarters of the vote from the other owners. I mean, he's polarizing. He's way wealthier than any of them. And maybe they don't want him to be an owner of an NFL team. We'll see. But, you know, I've felt this way going back a few weeks ago that Bezos should not be considered the default guy that

he's going to end up owning the team, that it could be somebody else that the NFL prefers people who have run teams before, who have owned teams before. Josh Harris owns the 76ers, owns the Devils. The guy Todd Bowley's involved in Chelsea. And so both of those guys, local guys, by the way, Harris, Chevy Chase guy went to the field school, Todd Bowley. A Potomac guy went to Landon in Bethesda. The other part of the front office story went like this. None of the half dozen submitted bids for the commanders before the deadline on December 23rd or at the deadline.

exceeded 6.3 billion. So that means the highest bid was 6.3 billion. That's not a surprise to me. I told Tommy that and you guys that a few weeks ago that that source had told me that the sale price ultimately is not going to be $8 billion or $7.5 billion. It's going to be between $6.5.

And $7 billion more likely than not when all is said and done. Now, I wanted to add a little bit of thought to this. Yes, some of it is based on some conversations. that I had in the wake of this story that came out yesterday. So as I think I've been at 90% confident, or maybe it's 95% that Snyder is going to sell the team, that the process has been moving forward, which it has been. And that's, you know, obvious in that they accepted bids.

I mean, that's been now pretty much reported by multiple sources that they took, you know, a half dozen or so bids, initial round of bidding for the team. in its entirety, $6.3 billion isn't for 40%. Okay, so the process is moving forward. I was told by somebody yesterday that the Snyders are resigned for now to sell the team.

However, they're impulsive. He's impulsive. And right now, they have resigned, they are resigned to the fact that for a lot of reasons, one of which is just financial. They can't get anybody to help them with a stadium here. They have a big loan to pay back, the money that they borrowed to buy out their previous minority shareholders,

that it's just not practical economically for them perhaps to hold on to the team. I mean, we've heard about this now going on for a year and a half, two years, cash flow issues, et cetera. I mean, I was told at one point one of the reasons that Terry McCorn extension took so long is they wanted to wait until the last second to put the money into escrow because you've got to put on those long-term deals contract extensions that guaranteed money into escrow. So if you're looking for a big Derek car deal, maybe not. But resigned for now was the way it was described to me. And I said, well, what does that mean? And they said, well, they're impulsive.

He's impulsive. And, you know, he shouldn't be provoked. I've used that word before myself. Like, let's not provoke him. Let's just let him sell the team. Let's stop with all the lawsuits. Let's stop with all the investigations, et cetera. Because he is impulsive.

And he does feel like his name has been smeared over the last two years in particular, as if it wasn't mud before the last two years. I mean, that's the delusional part. But to be fair to him, there was a concerted effort with this smear campaign run through this India-media-based company with those internet rumors about Jeffrey Epstein, et cetera, et cetera, prior to those first post stories that came out in July of 2020 that were totally false. I mean, we'd all want to protect our name and defend ourselves against those allegations. And apparently he has done so.

You know, Dwight Schar is, according to many reports now, never allowed to own one penny of NFL equity in a team. So they're essentially saying this guy was behind all of it. Those minority shareholders thought that by running his name through the mud, he'd be forced to sell, and they could sell their stake with the whole enchilada. and therefore it wouldn't be at what they ended up being bought out for, it would have been 40% of the $6 billion, or maybe two years ago, $5 billion, whatever would have been paid for Washington at that point,

instead of what turned out to be $875 million for their 40% stake. You know, the Mary Joe White investigation is still hanging out there. There's also this D.C. Attorney General lawsuit, the Carl Racine stuff. He's not the D.C. Attorney General anymore. The guy that's replacing him, somebody mentioned to me that he may want to turn this over to federal courts,

which would potentially be another big news story. You still have, you know, I can't keep track of all the investigations. Tommy's good at that. Mary Joe White, though, is the big one because there are allegations in there that she's investigating that the team cooked the books and that he sexually harassed

Tiffany Johnson. And he, if that report comes out and that report has nothing conclusive, he's going to feel vindicated. He's going to feel vindicated and he's going to be able to say in the moment, potentially, I'm just extrapolating out here. See, I'm not the horrible person you think I am. And oh, by the way, I didn't get the price I wanted from the bidding. I was looking for something much higher. I thought we would be able to get a lot more than what we got, so I'm not selling the team.

Again, practically speaking, he may not have a choice. I don't think the owners will ever vote him out. I have felt that way from the jump. I still don't think they'll vote him out. I think him voluntarily selling the team is what they wanted, and as of now, that's what they're getting. But be careful, you know, everybody out there, not talking to you guys in particular, But, you know, if the ultimate goal for everybody is for him to sell the team, don't push him into a corner with things that either piss them off or vindicate them. Either way.

I would also say this, because I've said this many times in the past. The Mary Joe White investigation, the D.C. Attorney General's lawsuits, the whatever from whatever district in East. Eastern Virginia, it's all missing the big picture point. If anybody thinks, and that's why I got upset when Goodell held that presser and he kept talking about we'll wait for the investigation to conclude, the Mary Joe White investigation, look, other than the people that were impacted, and I'm not minimizing that, as far as him selling the team, that shouldn't mean anything. The only thing that should matter is that him continuing to own the team,

isn't viable in this market anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. This market as an NFL market cannot succeed to the level in which the other NFL owners want it to, to the level which a lot of us would like to see it succeed, as long as he owns the team. It doesn't matter what the results of the Mary Joe White investigation are. That's a missing the force for the trees situation.

If people put so much emphasis on that investigation or another investigation or this lawsuit or that lawsuit, you're missing the point. He can't own this team if the goal is for this market to be, a winning market eventually, be financially viable. It is the worst performing market in the NFL with respect to attendance, with respect to ancillary revenue, with respect to not television ratings.

I think they were 24th in the, what they put out, 24th in the league in local television ratings. Like the average was like a, they did like a 13 point something. That number was like 28, 10 years ago, 40, 15 years ago. Nobody's watching, nobody's going, and nobody's going to say if Mary Joe White's investigation proves nothing, oh, Dan's a good guy. He should own the team. No one will say that. He might think that there will be some level of vindication with any of this stuff if he keeps fighting it.

But that is not the point. The point is it doesn't matter anymore. This product was eroding long before the post stories and all of the allegations and the Beth Wilkinson report and the Mary Joe White investigation. This thing was dead on arrival two years before that. This thing's been dying a slow death for a quarter century, but really for 10 years, and yes, accelerated in the last two years. I mean, I would hate to see, like next week, the Mary Joe White investigation came out,

and the findings were, you know, there was some untoward activity, but nothing on Dan specifically was found through all of their investigations. And oh, by the way, the cooking the books thing isn't what, you know, everybody thought it was. And then all of a sudden people say, oh, well, you know, maybe he had a point all along. No, that's not the point. That's not the point. He can't own the team if this market as an NFL market is to be healthy and viable moving forward. That's the only thing that matters is he's gone and there's a new owner.

Everybody knows that here. I wonder if the league office knows it. I wonder if all of the other owners understand that. I think they do. I think they do. Does he understand it? I don't know. Will he feel vindicated if things start to break his way with some of these lawsuits and investigations?

Of course he will. Will that, you know, make him rethink his decision right now? to sell the team? Maybe. I was at, you know, whatever percent I was at before, 90 percent, 95 percent that he's going to sell the team. I'm still really high, but I'm just going to drop it to 85 percent. I just still think there's a chance, a chance, that he, you know, either gets pissed off with something that gets reported that he doesn't think is true or something is released that vindicates him in some way, shape, and form in his own mind. So anyway, I'm still at 85%. I still think that

this is going to proceed. Ultimately, I don't think the family wants to own the team, and I think it's not really financially healthy for them to continue to own this team moving forward. So take the 6.3, 6.5 billion and, you know, move on, hopefully. That's it for the day. Back tomorrow with Tommy.