The Kevin Sheehan Show - Cooley & Kevin's Super Bowl Recap

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

Cooley and Kevin together today recapped a memorable Super Bowl 58 with the Chiefs beating the 49ers 25-22 in overtime. Did Patrick Mahomes prove beyond a shadow of a doubt he's the greatest ever? Did Kyle Shanahan blow it? Every big play, moment, and strategic decision was analyzed by the boys. Additionally, Kevin finished up with some Commanders' news.  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. Back first down and goal to go. Play action fake. Right side draw. Touchdown.

Kansas City. McCall Hardman. McColl Hardman with the catch on the right side. 25, 22 Chiefs in overtime. Super Bowl 58 winners. Back to back for Kansas City. Guess who's with me today to break down the Super Bowl? Chris Cooleys here.

The show is always presented by Window Nation. Call them at 86690 Nation or head to Windonation.com for a great deal right now that features 50% off all style windows, plus no money down, no payments, and no interest for two full years. So you were pumped up last night because you called me right after the game, and we basically did the show that we're about to do on the phone last night. And I finally said, enough, enough, just come on tomorrow and we can do this tomorrow. So I thought we would start with what we used to start with, like after Skins games, which is just kind of an overarching reaction to the game,

like trying to describe it to somebody who maybe didn't see it. So you start, the game was what to you? Hold on. I start. You don't want to flip a coin. You don't want to flip a coin here and see who goes first? You go second. All right. I'll flip the coin.

Call it heads or tails. Head. It's tails, I defer. Which is what Kyle should have done. All right. I just deferred. Go. Oh, my God.

We came in with a touchdown. I love McCull Hardman. It's like, sweet touchdown. Oh, my God. I just won the Super. He didn't know. He did know, but I don't think he hadn't felt the gravity of it. The game went forever, which was awesome.

But it was like, I think it hit him a little bit later, maybe 10 seconds later. He said he blacked out. He said it was, he said he wasn't entirely sure. He goes, I blacked out, and then Patrick told me the game was over. Look, it was a little bit confusing for people, you know, that overtime in the new rules. and Nansen and Romo didn't do the best of job of explaining it early in the overtime. In fact, I didn't catch this, but a lot of people told me that Romo didn't really know what the new overtime rules were, because he suggested that if they had thrown a touchdown pass to Jennings on the first San Francisco drive and OT,

the game would have been over. I didn't hear that, but if he did, obviously, you know, he didn't know the rules. But anyway, proceed. The overarching theme. Okay. Overarching theme, that's one of the best football games I've watched in a long time. Start to finish, top to bottom. I understand there were mistakes.

I actually didn't watch first half. I was doing stuff with my family. I told you I'm going to go back and watch it. Like, dude, there's going to be, like, there's a ton of mistakes. I mean, I've seen the highlights. I understand what happened. And then I had to watch the second half on my phone because I'm such an idiot. and I bought YouTube the YouTube package this year, and I don't have TV.

I don't know how to get it. And I didn't want to do the Paramount, like you subscribe and you can cancel. I'm like, whatever. I'll watch it on my phone. So I sat on the couch, which didn't matter. And I watch it on my phone, the second half. So wait a minute. Hold on.

Hold on. Maybe I just changed my overarching reaction. My overarching reaction is I've got you on the show with me today to recap the Super Bowl, and you didn't watch the first half. Oh, my God. I knew that last night. I did know that last night. It was 10-3 with two fubbles.

I told you I was going to watch the first half. I've been busy morning. I haven't got to watch the first half. I actually want to watch the entire game again because the overarching theme is it's a wonderful game. I mean, incredibly well-coached. scheme. Okay, everyone, we're clear that there are going to be some mistakes made any football game. There's going to be some coach mistakes. But as far as the chess match, the scheme, the strategy, field positions, like, it was just so well coached. It was really well played. It was hard hitting. Big plays in critical situations. I told you last night, it's so great to watch a game where the officials let the guys just go play.

They did for the most part, right? The calls that were made, like the holding call on the chiefs, on Jennings is a defined and clear holding call. The holding call laid on the 49ers or the call number nine, the tight end on the hold is like, you have to call. The calls they made are calls you have to make. I thought they let a ton of stuff go.

I mean, I saw five or six times where you could see hold. But they let them play, which means you let me watch the game and enjoy the game without 50 fucking breaks. Sorry, I'm actually going to stop Sammy effort on your podcast because kids listen. With a bunch of breaks.

It's like, oh, my God. Now it's first and 20. Here we go, and we got to walk it back and you miss big plays. Man, it was just really a pleasure to sit and watch three quarters of football because you've got to watch 15 minutes

to overtime. Yeah, you were really really pumped up when you called. me after the game. You were fired up. I mean, who wasn't at the end of that game, of course? But go ahead. I mean, we can do it

together, too, and we can start to get throughout the game together. But that's my overarching theme to the game. The overtime stuff's wild to me. I don't quite understand how we don't understand the rules to the overtime.

It's explained fairly well with Romo and Nance. But then the official comes out on the field, and he explains the overtime rules before the coin toss. Like a defined explanation by the official in between the two captains. You have the coin toss. It was pretty clear, in my opinion, how that went. I thought it was fascinating.

And you agreed to some extent with Romo, like, just so we're clear, like, they don't have to run a player. The game doesn't end. Right. Yeah, no, it doesn't end. It's the Super Bowl. I get an end in a tie. Well, no, it wasn't it.

Like, they're not going to end up. Well, it wasn't a tie. It was San Francisco was up three. I know. They were up three, but like, they're not going to kick a field goal and go into a tie here at the end of the game. Like, this one play on first down or whatever, the McCle-Hardman, was it second down? Yeah, it was second down. It doesn't end the game.

So I, for some reason, I grasped all of that. I grasped the two possessions, just much like college football. Also, so did the Kansas City Chiefs. And in fact, you listen to Mahomes in this press conference. We went through this over and over at a point where I didn't want to hear about some of the stuff anymore. I can't imagine that Kyle Shanahan didn't at some point explain the playoff overtime. Maybe it was two weeks ago or three weeks ago. A lot of players said they did not know the new rules.

A lot of players. A lot of players said they didn't know the new rules. And I mean, I will tell you this. Like, you don't send your guy out to the coin toss to just make whatever decision he wants to make in overtime. Right. Like, it's on the coach to make that decision to take the ball. There's a lot of stuff with that. And the defense tire, we'll talk about that, but I think it's a huge mistake. God, Mahomes is amazing.

I got tired to the playoffs listening to things like this is a legacy game for Josh Allen. This is a legacy game for Lamar Jackson. This was a legacy game for Mahomes. He's the Michael Jordan. But to some extent, maybe it was. Maybe he had to have that game when he tried. But there was never a doubt for me about Patrick Mahomes. there hasn't been a doubt for the last two years about who the dude is,

the last three years probably, who the dude is, but he is the dude. That guy is just so adept at winning a football game and understanding every aspect of a football game. He throws the one pick, but other than that, every situation, the way he protects the ball, the way he handles himself, the way he knows. I can go run here. It's Super Bowl. I'll go run, take a hit. I want six extra yards. They don't care.

What a great competitor. Kelsey, what a great competitor. I know it's not overlooked at this point, but, geez, what a, I mean, well-called defensive team. The Chiefs are with Spagnolo. Yeah, no doubt. And then I know I told you this last night, but this is my other thought of this game, which to me makes it so much fun, is that,

I sat with my daughter who watched it for about an hour. She ended up falling asleep. She's nine. She doesn't care. But I think I said to her six or seven different times, and see that guy right there, 15, he's the best in the game at his position. And see, that guy, 87, because she's like, oh, that's Taylor Swift. I'm like, well, here's her boyfriend. And actually, he's the best at his position in football. And then you're like, well, Trent Williams is the best in his position. Joey Boas is probably the best in his position.

Christian McCaffrey. God, Kev, like, you want to win a Super Bowl. Have five or six guys on your team that are the best in the league. Both those teams had it. It was just a great battle. It was smart throughout. I'm going to let you go through a ton of the situations, and we'll go back and forth, I'm sure on that.

But for me, I was excited. It excited me. It made me love football. It was one of the better Super Bowls I can remember. I loved it. So in preparation for what you just said, I just went through the all-pro first and second team list. In that game last night, first-team all-pros, McCaffrey, Eusecheck, Kittle, Trent Williams, Joe Thuney, Warner, McDuffie, Chris Jones. All right. So in that game last night, eight of the starters are first team all pros. Ayuk and Ward were second team all pros. All right.

So that's 10 players. But the list of players that we would all say are one of the either the best or in the top two or three at their position. Of course, Mahomes is the best. But Kelsey, Debo, Armstead, Bosa, Sneed. How about Butker? I mean, he's one of the best. Their punter. Townsend's one of the best.

To your point last night, and I didn't talk about this leading up to the game, is remember when we used to do the exercise about, you know, A players and, you know, or the colored chip players that you went through, the blue chips. And Washington really only had one during those years, which was Trent Williams. I mean, there were so many on the field. And then you've got two of the best coaches in the league, and certainly one of the best big game defensive coordinators in the league. But real quickly, before I get to kind of my overarching theme, which kind of mirrors yours

with maybe one exception, the overtime rules, I did know what the overtime rules were, because I've talked about it in the past in the postseason that, you know, it's not over with a touchdown on the first drive. You know, both teams are going to be allowed a possession. I've even talked, you know, in the distant past when this rule came about, which was after the Buffalo Chiefs playoff game at Arrowhead, the 42 to 36 thriller where Buffalo never touched the ball after they threw the touchdown pass in regulation with 13 seconds.

That was when they came out with the rule no longer does a touchdown mean it's over. The other team's going to get a chance to touch the football. And I remember at least a couple times talking about it'll change how you decide what to do at the beginning of overtime on a coin flip. But anyway, we'll save that for some of the situational stuff. I did think that people had to be confused at the end of the first overtime thinking, why isn't Andy Reid calling timeouts? What's he doing? The clock's running out. No, it was just the end of the first overtime, which mirrors in the postseason the end of the first quarter. They just would have switched ends of the field.

So the game was just amazing. The final 60 to 90 minutes of a very long night were so compelling, so dramatic, so kind of on the edge of your seat. Now, the first hour and a half to two hours that you missed were kind of me. But it was an interesting met. Like, first of all, this is going to go down as one of the all-time memorable Super Bowls. It was close. It went to overtime. There were great individual performances.

There were great plays. There were tons of mistakes. But even the mistakes, many of which came in the first half, were like these kind of stunning, exciting mistakes. Like, you don't expect Christian McCaffrey to fumble. They're on a drive. They're going down the field and he fumbles. And then in the red zone, Pacheco fumbles. In the second half, even a botched punt return is kind of an exciting, it's an exciting mistake.

You had a coaching blunder, in my opinion, to start overtime with Kyle taking the ball first. The game was such a physical long, one of those wars of attrition games with injuries, important injuries, and weird injuries. Drake Greenlaw tears his Achilles just running onto the field from the sideline. But there were important injuries. I mean, no Kittle in overtime. You mentioned the holding on that final drive before the field goal that gave him the 22 to 19 lead in overtime. That was Kittles' replacement. There were dramatic fourth down conversions.

There were dramatic third down conversions. There were missed calls. There were bad calls, although I agree with you. And we talked about this last night. I thought they really let them play for the most part, which is my preference, which is one of the reasons games can get physical, overly physical, and even chippy at times, which to me adds to the drama. There were trick plays. There was a double-digit lead that was overcome. It wasn't the prettiest or the cleanest to start, but the weight for the final 60 to 90 minutes was so worth it.

And it's mostly because of Mahomes, who just, I mean, I mean, I love to go back to my guys like Elway and Marino and then even talk about, you know, in this generation, you know, Brady Manning Rogers. I really, I don't have a hard time saying that to me it is totally fair if just with the eye test alone that Patrick Mahomes is the greatest we've ever seen. I mean, this is third Super Bowl in four tries. He's gone to six straight AFC championship games. It's a third Super Bowl victory in which his team was down by 10 points. And in all of those, they won games with him playing his best football during the biggest moments of the games. I mean, they're down 19 to 16.

Over the final minute 53 of regulation and the seven minute plus drive in overtime, he was 14. of 17. He was three for three on third down throws. He was one for one on a fourth down run. Third and one, he had a run in overtime. And overall, over those final two drives, down three and down three, five times they were on the verge of being in big trouble and they were five for five. Four for four on thirds, one for one on fourth down with the Super Bowl on the line. At one point, I never thought once. No. I don't think they can get this done.

Every single time, you're like, how does San Francisco possibly come up with a stop here? They can't. I wrote down as a call segment at some point for the radio show this week. Exactly that. Like, what other quarterbacks can I think of in the history of watching the NFL as long as I've been watching, where I'm as confident when the chiefs have the ball with Mahomes and they need something that they're going to get it? There are some guys. Elway used to be that guy for me. Elway came through all the time in spots like that. Brady and Manning have done it, you know, over and over again. But anyway, the dude at one point looked like he was going to have one of the worst nights of his career and he finished 34, 46 for 33 yards, two touchdowns, a pick. He was his team's leading rusher with 66 yards on nine carries. It's not too early. It's not too much of a hit. He was his team's leading rusher with 66 yards on nine carries. It's not too early. It's not too much of a pick. He was. He was his team's not too much of a an exaggeration at 28 years old to say we are watching the greatest quarterback that's ever

lived. And I get it. Brady's the greatest winner of all time. But at this point, what seemed totally unreachable at 28 is reachable. He could get to seven Super Bowls. He's already got three in six seasons as a starter, along with three Super Bowl MVP's. All right. Here's the list of three Super Bowl MVP.

at least three. Brady, Montana, Mahomes. He is 15 and three in the postseason. And by the way, this was the postseason where they weren't supposed to do it. They didn't have a number one wide receiver. They were riding a defense. The Christmas Day game against the Raiders in which Aiden O'Connell threw for like 58 yards and beat the Chiefs, it's, certainly seemed in that moment that the Chiefs had no chance to win the Super Bowl, but instead, they go on the road after beating Miami and win at Buffalo. They win at Baltimore, which I did not think could happen. And I said that would be an absolute, you know, moment for Mahomes if he can go into M&T Bank and win. And look, he played great in the first quarter of that game. They scored

twice or first quarter and a half. They didn't do much after that, but he didn't make any mistakes. He never makes any mistakes. He made one or two last night, but overcame it. And then they come back last night and beat San Francisco. Barring injury, this guy, we're watching, we are, we're watching Jordan maybe approaching the halfway mark of his career, maybe. But with respect to the game, I think for me, I would describe it as this, an amazing final hour and hour and a half of pure football drama like you read about. It was incredible. The game itself, though, the 49ers are going to be kicking themselves. I felt like they dominated the first half. They dominated the line of scrimmage. They had Mahomes completely baffled and rattled,

and they just couldn't do it. They couldn't finish. They had a fumble by McCaffrey. They had the two penalties back-to-back by Trent Williams that cost him a drive. And then Kyle Shanahan had a bad night with clock management and with game decisions. He didn't call time out on defense at the end of the first half. They should have had the ball back with 50 some seconds left. Instead, they got it back with 20 seconds something left, and they didn't have a final drive of the first half when they should have. And they were up 10 to 3, and it felt like watching the game.

they should have been up 17 to 3, 16 to 3. It should have been a double digit plus lead. And I think that, you know, they made mistakes in the second half too with the botched fumble and, you know, a few third downs that they could have ended the game and the decision to take the ball in overtime. But it's the first half where somehow Kansas City got to the break and they had been completely outplayed and they were only downed. down 10 to 3, and then it started in the second half. Their defense was awesome. But it was just a,

it was just such a memorable game. And I think that there are older fans that don't want to admit this about Mahomes, although I don't know if that's really even true. It's just a sense that I have. But forget the winning numbers and the accomplishments, which already he's, you know, at 28 years old, he's, you know, in the lead, you know, in the lead, you know, compared to most who's ever played. Just watching him, the strongest arm, the most accurate arm, the best creator, the best competitor, the best clutch performer. I mean, he just, I mean, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, there's some really good quarterbacks in this game. They're not Mahomes.

he's in a category by himself. So anyway. Which is why it's just unbelievably crazy to me. To admit, our defense is tired. We've got to have a blow, which essentially is giving him four downs every single time they move the chain. Yeah, so let's...

Every single time they move the chains. give him four, you're going to get Patrick Mahomes four downs. Oh my God. You've got control of the game at that point. I mean, you're, it's not like you just gave it up, but like you lose total control of the game. Like, you're giving the Chiefs control of the game. They get all the decisions on the second, all the decisions on the second driver are

easy decisions. Third down in eight, man, if we can get five, four, five, we still have. a chance of fort down. So let's start. We can do whatever we want to do here. Let's start there. Well, we might as well, because, you know, it's what we love to debate in addition to all the other stuff. But the reason I want to start there is that, look, I think the biggest play for the 49ers

in the game was the third and five at the 35 of Casey at the two-minute warning. And they clearly did not, as they didn't on multiple occasions. whether it was purdy or whatever, they just didn't see the pressure coming and the blitz coming. And they threw incomplete. And a first down there, which you know if it had been on the other side, Mahomes would have gotten the first down, would have ended the, essentially put them in a really good position to potentially end the game on a walk-off field goal in regulation.

But the decision to defer, so for those of you that either don't really understand, what happened or know what happened but aren't exactly sure why or what the stuff is around it. So the overtime rule is really simple now in the postseason. Each team gets a shot at the ball. So if you go down and you score a touchdown, the other team's going to line up for a kickoff return and they're going to get a chance with the ball and then if they don't score, it's over. So the strategy is different than it is in the regular season in a 10-minute overtime where touchdown wins it on the first possession, etc. you can consider deferring and kicking off and starting on defense first.

In college, the overtime rule is different the way they play it out, but they always defer. And the reason you defer and you let the other team take the ball first are for two primary reasons in terms of like strategy. There's context around everything, obviously. The strategy is, A, when you get the ball back for your turn, you're going to know exactly what you need. You're going to be in a tie game still. You're going to be down three. You're going to be down seven.

But you're going to know what you need. And then as Cooley said, the most important part of that is you now have fourth down. You have four downs, not because you're deciding it because it's out of necessity. You can't you can't punt on fourth down if you're down by three in overtime because the game ends. So you're going to go for every fourth down. So that's the strategic advantage of kicking off and getting the ball second. Now, the analytics of this, Cooley, they surprised me, and I think they're going to surprise you a little bit. Because I had a caller today, and his name was Colin.

I remember. Colin said, check out some of the analytic discussion around it. It's much more of a coin flip. Here's, so the guy from, there are several people that do this, but the guy from ESPN, Brian Burke has it in a big thread. Anyway, the bottom line is this. The reason it's a closer call analytically is that the team that starts with the ball ends up more possessions in an odd possession overtime, meaning if you kick a field goal,

Kansas City comes down and kicks a field goal, you get a ball for the third possession, and they may never get the ball again. I would never play it that way. It's kind of a coin flip. It's a slight advantage to actually taking the ball, like 50.19% because of that, unless the other team goes for two on their touchdown. A long story short, analytically, it's a coin flip.

There's always context around that. Last night, there's no way, no way, if I'm Kyle Shanahan. I am going to think about a third possession in an overtime game, which by the way, you know, there was struggles to score, but then the last few drives, everybody's moving the football and teams are tiring. I am not giving Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs four downs, period. And as it turned out, right, Kansas City got the ball back, they knew what they needed, a field goal to tie to force the overtime to continue, a touchdown to win,

and they had four downs. they didn't have to consider punt on fourth down, and they had a fourth and one that they went for that they got. Now, they may have gone for that fourth and one anyway, but if it had been a fourth and four or whatever, they would have gone for it instead of punting, and they ultimately knew that they needed a touchdown to win the game, a field goal to tie.

And I think a lot of the conversation about the 49er players not understanding the overtime rules, I actually first questioned whether or not Kyle knew the rule. I've seen Kyle do a bad job with the clock at times. He did a bad job at the end of the first half. I mean, you can't let 30 seconds run off the clock when they're down getting ready to score, and you've got three timeouts left. He took two timeouts with him to the halftime and ran out the clock on the final play of the first half with 20 seconds to go.

But anyway, that's where it was. I think he should have deferred and taken the ball second. Well, I promise you he'll do it next time. So the question of, did he understand the rule? I think it's still an open debate. What's wild on the analytics is, if you go down and score, it's really, really interesting, and then the Chiefs have that decision of it,

if they go for two. I mean, if you go down and score a touchdown. But you're almost wild. Okay. The defense-tired thing in the Super Bowl, it doesn't work for me. Well, nobody used that as an excuse. I know, but it's been talked about.

Romo talked about it. It's been talked about it as a reason why you would take the ball. Our defense is exhausted. We've got to get them a break, so they can go out and get a stop. It's just super full. Like, suck it up and let's find a way to get a stop. Let's try to get them off in three downs and whatever we can do. The other, when you go to the other side of that,

You have to understand, like, if the defense is exhausted, the offense has been around in a ton of plays, you have to understand. The offense is tired too. You've always said that before, yeah. Right. I'm telling you that as an offensive player. Like, if I just ran 13 plays in a drive to go down and put it into overtime and then we get the ball first, I'm tired as well. Like, it's not easier to play offense. the defense doesn't get stops, so you can get a real long breather.

Yeah. Seriously. They have the long commercial timeout. The defense being tired is really, to me, not an excuse. I mean, it's the – Can I tell you? Everyone on the field is – Everybody looked tired, actually, at the end of that game.

Everybody did. They need to run some goddamn windspreads. Yeah, well, I – I'm glad that I – because I did. not assume that the analytics of that decision would be that close. But I do understand the idea of a third possession and the advantage of one team potentially could end up with two possessions, the other team just one. I understand that. I do. But I still would, I still think that the strategic advantage of knowing what you need to do and having the fourth down when you get the ball for the first time overtakes the other. And last night in particular,

when you're considering it's Mahomes and that, you know, fourth time opportunity. Yeah. Whatever it is, it's still, the analytics are completely flipped with Patrick Mahomes, when Mahomes gets an extra down. He's,

I mean. Lay those analytics, like put those into analytic. Yeah. Like, there's context to everything. Yes, for sure. Yeah, if Joe Flacco's on the other side, we're all right. Flacco would definitely deliver

and fourth down. But yeah, no, I... So it's just a wrong decision. Yeah. And I will guarantee you whether or not he knew the rules, and I'm sure he knew the rules, did he really dive deep into what the right decision is? I'm not sure, but I'll bet you almost anything the next time that comes up for Kyle. And it's going to, because they'll be in the playoffs again,

and there's potential they'll go to overtime. They'll go defense first. Let me ask. They'll never take the ball first. Let me ask you this. What if they're just protecting, what was it, Fred Warner out there? By the way, who played awesome. Oh, so good.

Protecting Fred Warner. And Warner just botched it. And I just stand hands on the side by, I'm like, no. Can you imagine? In that first overtime drive for the 49ers, fourth and four at the Kansas City nine, and they took the field goal. The analytics were pretty close on this.

Would you have gone for it? It's a long drive. They've eaten seven and a half minutes. They're on their 13th play. So here's, there's even more context to this. Because if you go for it and don't get it, Kansas City's on the nine. Yeah, exactly.

But Kansas City is then going to punt on fourth down. Yeah, but they also only need a field goal to beat you if you miss. I understand that they only need. the field will to beat you, but you have to make, but they're all, that's why I think the antelantics are really, really close. If you can get them off the field in three downs, they will punt on fourth down. Yes. Sure. So your percentage of getting the first down is 25% lower. You're whatever percent lower you want to factor it. You have a one less down.

I thought about it in the moment. I would have kicked it. I would have kicked it. If I had taking the ball first the way they did, yeah, I would have kicked. I would... In as much, like, you've held them to field goals. I mean, they scored, what, twice? But you've held them to field goals on drives. And if you held them once, if you held Kansas City once they got into the red zone, that's where it's even more interesting is if you held Kansas City once they got into the

red zone, would Kansas City have kicked? Or would they have went for a fourth and four? You mean if they had had the ball first? No, no, no, sorry. Sorry. Like, if... Well, let me tell... I literally do.

I know you did. I could tell you. But no, you're thinking, okay, so you're thinking about the fourth floor. You stopped them all day. So if you hold them down in the red zone to a fourth down, you're assuming they would kick, but would they kick? They're down three. Would they kick on fourth down?

Oh, coming back the other way. Which would give them their odd possession? Yeah, well, I mean, by the way, that first, the McColle Hardman touchdown was first in goal, because Kelsey had had that little inside middle screen that he took down to the three-hard line. So sweet. God, you don't know how many times I begged every single offensive coordinator for a tight-end middle screen. Did you get them? Never, never once in my entire NFL career did I run a middle screen.

Did you get a shovel pass? No. But the middle screen is dirty. I always wanted that. We ran it in college a lot. So let me tell you why I think in that position, and I was thinking in the moment, kicked the field goal.

And this is, trust me, because I thought Brock Purdy played well in this game. And I think Brock Purdy's proved a lot in the latter portions of the Green Bay playoff game, the Detroit playoff game. And I thought that he looked totally comfortable for much of the night last night. but I think there's still something missing.

And I think it's partly because in Romo talked about this a couple of times last night, I think he's just not advanced enough yet as a second year player. There was the third and five at the end of regulation when they could have walked off Kansas City or had a chance to walk him off where he was confused by the pressure. And that was not the first time. He was two for six versus the blitz last night on third down. I saw that actually during the show

somebody sent that to me because I felt like he had been confused a lot on third down in the game last night. And the third and five at the end of regulation was a crushing play. I mean, he's been really strong against the blitz most of the year, but I think it was an outmatched situation in the second half between Spagnulu and the offense for San Francisco going probably for Purdy specifically. So they didn't get that third and five at the end of regulation.

There were other third downs they had missed on. And fourth and four, tight condensed field, no way. I'm kicking the field goal. No. And your defense has played well. It is Mahomes, and you know he's going down the field to get at least three. But still, I'm kicking the field goal there rather than going for it. But I know that I think there was a slight analytic edge to going for it.

but I think the context was, I didn't think Purdy on third down was seeing it. Look, they were three for 12 on third down in the game. That was a big part of the game, is that they could not, you know, they had some penalties that created some third and longs early in the game. But the play, again, not to beat it to death, but you get a first down on that third and five at the two-minute warning. It's pretty much game over, and you're in 19 to 6. I mean, they did block an extra point that was rather big, so it could have been blocked.

but you're going to more likely than not win the Super Bowl. So I would not have done that. If it had been Kansas City on the opening drive, fourth and four, yeah, I'm going for it. Sure. Why not? Although on the flip side, I'm thinking Butker's not going to miss, and we've confused Purdy a couple of times on third down. He had three balls batted. You know, he's had a lot of balls batted all year long.

It's been one of the things. But let me just say as long as we're on Purdy, because we've been. already, you know, waxed poetic on Mahomes. I thought Purdy was solid. And I think that he's proven a lot to me in the postseason. And I think he's, I think people have gotten carried away with this. Oh, he's a seventh round pick. He can't play. He's not that good. He's a product of the system, Kyle's system. Or, oh, my God, what are you not watching? He's great. I mean, he's Joe Montana. I think the answer is definitely in the middle. I think he's a solid NFL starting quarterback and probably a top half of the league quarterback because he's proven to me that

he's better off schedule than I thought he ever was. And I think he's also a significant beneficiary of playing in Kyle's system. I think both things are true. I continue to think of the Mike Shanahan comment that we can win a Super Bowl, Kurt Cousin. Right. I don't know if we'll win a ton of them, but we can build a team around a guy like Kirk Cousins. Now, at the cost of Kirk was, you can't. Like, if Purdy's top six in salary, then you can't build that team around Purdy. But as far as the way Kyle organizes offense and the way they put together pieces around Purdy, you can win a Super Bowl with Brock Bertie.

No doubt. Can you win three? Like, I don't know. The other thing with Purdy is, can you displace him and put him into another offense? It does he have the same success? You could displace Mahomes to anywhere, and he's going to go win a Super Bowl. He's just different. But Purdy, I don't know.

He has a product of the system. The system's terrific. The entire organization built around him is a successful build. Yeah, but that's football. All right. I want to talk about just a couple of some things that we like, some things that we didn't like from the game, and then I've got a couple of other situations that I thought were really interesting.

I think one in particular that nobody has really talked about. We'll get to those right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Juan Jennings to Christian McCaffrey for the first touchdown of the game, which gave San Francisco a 10 to nothing lead. This segment of the show is brought to you by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.orgie. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C., and they'll give you a cash bonus on your initial deposit.

Yeah, football season's over, but basketball season now into full swing. College, NBA, they've got an online casino that's first rate. You can use MyBooky for everything. Just go to my bookie.ag. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. Real quickly, the game, coolly, my smell test pick on Friday was under 47 and a half. Bring it back. You knew it.

Yeah, but I also, and many of you, you know, let me know how clairvoyant, I guess I was. I predicted the Chiefs would win in overtime. What's funny is I predicted the Chiefs would win in overtime 24 to 17, and I laid out the scenario in which they had the ball first, scored a touchdown, and then San Francisco, because I reminded everybody of the postseason rules, got the ball back, but got stopped in four downs, and the game was over.

And it ended sort of anticlimatically with a fourth down stop, you know, versus like last night it ended in a touchdown. So I didn't have the score right or the ending right, but I had the Chiefs in overtime under the total. I did emphasize the first half under, and I almost gave that out. I played that personally. But let me just say the 47 and a half, I know a lot of you got it at 47 and pushed, and some of you probably got it at 46 and a half because it went down, as did the point spread, went down to about a point and a half before kickoff.

I take the Friday numbers. Sometimes it works for me. it doesn't, but that was a winner. I thought I was completely, you know, what it, completely effed at the beginning of overtime. Because all I could see was, as the 49ers were moving the ball down the field, 2619, then the Chiefs come down, 26, 26, maybe they go for two, who knows. But I saw that thing going over. But once they held them to a field goal, I thought, this thing's going to end 25, 22.

Either the Chiefs are going to win it here, or they'll kick a field goal, or, and then the next. possession will be just for a field goal to win. So it came in under. Did you bet the game? No. Okay. Surprising. I would have taken the Chiefs and I would have taken the under. Okay. Well, easy to say now. But I mean, think about if San Francisco defers the toss and you win 2516. I mean, that's basically calling the score. What do you mean 2516? The game went into overtime at 1919. I know if San Francisco defers. Right.

So it's 1919. Well, I guess it would have made it 20. It would have made it 26. Yeah, 2619. Exactly. And so. Yeah, that's basically your score. I mean, yeah, maybe.

That's what it should have happened. That's what should have happened. Put it this way. There was no threat of the game going to, going over the total until it went to overtime. And then there was the threat of the game going over the total. I mean, if you just have the under, like you're a dead winner at halftime. Oh, yeah. There's only 13 points.

Yeah, the first half total was 23 and a half. I had that and that was easy. I was still, I was still like, you know, these homes could heat up, you know, McCaffrey. You never know. But the way the game was being played certainly seemed like an under all day. By the way, my conversation, so coolly, one of the things I thought about playing, I did not play it, was to play some of the alternate lines. with the thought that Vegas isn't going to get blown out and lose on teasers,

they lost on every teaser yesterday because 47 was the total. It went off at 46.5 to 47 and a half. The point spread was San Francisco minus 1.5 and it ended up a three-point game, which, you know, you get six and a half, six, whatever it is, on your two-team teasers. But anyway, all right. I wanted to start with Joanne Jennings and what I liked from the 49ers standpoint. During this game, you know, I'm sure people maybe think about it the same way. You're thinking in a low-scoring game like that, like, who's the MVP of this game?

Like, if the 49ers win and it's Chiefs, because nobody has wrong. Joanne Jennings would have been the MVP had San Francisco won the game. He threw a touchdown pass. He had four big-time catches and another touchdown offensively. He was the star of the 49er game offensively, not to mention. he's such a good blocker. All of their receivers are excellent blockers. So for the 49ers to me, Jennings stood out.

Look, McCaffrey had 30 touches for 160 yards. It's hard to say that he wasn't outstanding in the game. But he had that fumble. And in the second half, they shut him down. I mean, 13 carries 47 yards. People were complaining about Kyle not running the ball enough. I thought they were going to, I thought they were struggling at that point to run it a little bit. Purdy was solid, but defensively, I mean, where do you want to start? Fred Warner, awesome. Eric

Armstead, awesome. Joey Bosa, awesome. Chase Young had a sack and had a forced intentional grounding. I mean, it's the most impactful Chase Young's been in a game in a long, long time. Randy Gregory, I mean, you got Chase Young and Randy Gregory added to that roster this year during the season. He had a near sack and had a big time tackle. Ward, their corner is outstanding. They're just really, they just have so many good players on that team. It's amazing how many good players they have on the team. For the Chiefs on the list of things that I loved, Mahomes, we've already talked about, Chris Jones was a monster, an absolute disruptor the entire game.

Both corners, McDuffie and Sneed are outstanding. McDuffie should have had a pick on that third and ten, on that throw to Debo. His blitz pressure on that third and five was what made a purdy hurry, and he deflected the ball force, the field goal with a minute 53 to go. Defensively, Spagnullo was brilliant throughout in the second half. Karloftus is a star in the making, if you don't think he's there already. Kelsey was brilliant. Nine catches, 93 yards.

McColl Hardman had the only offensive play of the first half, then had the game winner. And, you know, like McCaffrey and all the players on San Francisco that are so hard to get to the ground, I love how hard Pacheco plays and runs. I don't think I missed anything from the things that I liked list. What about you for both teams? All right. The Chief Side. I love the Kelsey and Andy Reed interaction.

I love it. Okay. Tell everybody why. I think it's benign in terms of what they are. But I love it in the aspect of that's what sports are. That's what football is. That's a locker room mentality. Can you imagine walking into an office room?

or somewhere where you're, or a school or somewhere of hospital where you're working, and you want something done until you slam shoulders and you start yelling right in the face, like, that's an immediate HR visit and a fire. I know, I know. You know what I mean? Yeah. And on a football field, that's a normal situation where those two guys do get along. And Travis Kelsey had just come off because Noah Gray misses a block,

which is why Pacheco really fumbles. He fumbled, but no grade misses a block. Kelsey's after he, he's got one catch at the point, and he bumps him and catches a ball balance. But that is a 10 seconds later, yo, but let's hug it out. We're all right here. Like, we get it. But there's emotions, and there's adrenaline, and there's two dudes that just, let's just hugged it out. It's, to me, so normal.

And I love that that happens. and it gets made into more than what it is, but why I love it is Travis Kelsey is a massive impact on this game, and he ends up becoming one, and at the point, maybe Andy needed to know. And for some reason,

that's just a normal way to do it in a football environment. It's different if you don't, if there's actual conflict with your head coach, or there's something weird going on, but there's not between those two. And I just thought it was great, and Kelsey ends up having 93 yards,

and it becomes a huge impact in the game. He just wants on the field. I love that a star like that wants to be heard and wants it to be understood. I've got to be a part of this game, coach. Give me the ball. Go score. Give me the ball.

Get a first down. Give me the ball. Get it done. Put me in a block. We won't miss a block. And Travis Kelsey is such a stud. So is Andy Reed. Spagnon.

I love the way he drew up and created pressure, and he escalated it throughout the game. Like, he didn't bring a ton of pressure on Purdy early. He just slowly implemented it more and more. Like, to some extent, I don't think he's even thinking we'll try to get there to four-man rush or, you know, even maybe a five-man pressure early. It was more like, in my opinion, I'm going to let him feel like he's starting to get flow of the game, and then I'm going to slowly start building and come after

him to where he has no idea what we're doing. And I thought that was a brilliantly called defensive game. It was the long con. He just let it ride. Andy Reed, phenomenal. You know, I told you this last night, and I've watched

all the highlights, and I've watched a bunch of stuff, and I haven't watched the entirety of the first game. But the Chiefs, to me, are a team that came out and tried to go some two-tied stuff and tried to be a little bit physical early and run the ball probably more they should have. And in my opinion, watching the chiefs over the last five years, the run game for them is a compliment game.

I wouldn't call it like nuisance runs, but they're compliment runs. And they're key teams on us runs. And they're, hey, we'll get to screens. We'll get to some of the stuff. And we're going to give you run. And in those compliment runs, that back is physical. So it comes across us physical. But they're not a counter between the tackles team early and pound it down your throat,

especially against San Francisco. And I don't think that that was the long con. I think what I loved is Andy Reid said, yeah, Detroit had great success against this, against this defense, and we thought that there's some things we could do and we can't. So we're going to come back and spread it out. We're going to put Kelsey on one side with Tchenko. We're going to go three on the other side, and we're going to get back to what we do. And I thought Andy Reid did a brilliant job in doing that.

that. So I was, I was super impressed. I love the physicality of a game. You know, it's just an unbelievably physical game. On the 49er side, I really thought what Kyle was doing early in terms of running the ball and being physical is what they should have stuck to. You didn't watch it early. I've watched the, like, you could, I watched a 29-minute YouTube video of it. So, yeah, I mean, I'm telling you, because it was funny that I didn't watch the first half of Super Bowl, but I've ended up seeing a lot of it. What's wild, as you, you know, as you're watching in the third quarter, it's like, well, they went three and out, and they've thrown six passes.

Well, some of the bootleg stuff to them is almost run. I know that, because I was with Kyle, but they'll treat it as almost run, and it just, the Chiefs had a great plan for boot. They really did, didn't? I mean. Yeah, they're bringing you off the edge, and they're putting a ton of the edge, and they're putting a ton of pressure in the quarterback immediately so he can't get the down-the-down-

Jones never fell. I mean, he's not even the key to it. It's the ends that are key to it, and he wasn't fooled, and he ended up being disruptive to the boot plays. No, he knew exactly what he was doing, but the other part of that is,

at least one of them I'm thinking of, Jennings is coming across, and if you're bringing double pressure off that side or bringing Jones looping outside, if the DM Jones or whoever does loops out and he brings another pressure, that makes Juan James a hot throw. He's got to turn and get a 10 around really quick. Will the Chiefs bang through him?

They run through him. And so it makes it almost impossible for him to become a hot throw. Like all of a sudden, you're like, well, I can't even get it to him, and now Jones is in the quarterback's face. But, I mean, Kyle's not truly trying to, he's not truly abandoning the run. It's a true compliment to the run. and I don't know if he really understood, man,

the Chiefs have an excellent plan for this. But I love the physicality of the 49ers defense. Fred Warner was great. I mean, Kelsey made some plays, but covering Kelsey throughout the game, he was absolutely awesome. They made Mahomes work throughout the game. It was a game they absolutely could want.

It's a game that you go into start overtime, and it can go both ways. still at this point. I think it was crushing that they missed the field goal. I mean, in terms of just not not missed the field goal, but the extra point, I one day will stop calling them field goals.

The extra point block is completely a kicker mistake. Yeah. You can't kick that extra point. That's a ball you've got to put up in the air. And that changes the game dynamically. One of the things, we haven't talked about this just yet

that I disliked. First of all, Tony Romo, it just guys, you think he called a good game? No, I, let me be clear on this. Some of the things I just like that. Let me be clear. I think for him, he was the most prepared I've heard him in a long time. You should be for the Super Bowl.

And I thought he got some things right, and they were proven out to be right. And I thought it was not his worst day by a long shot. But I also missed the beginning of overtime, him saying that if Purdy hadn't been pressured by Chris Jones and throwing a touchdown to Joanne Jennings, the game would have been over. I didn't realize that, so there you go. I mean, there's multiple situations with the Romo thing.

You have nine seconds left in regulation. There's a chance you can get two plays here. And they put another second. Man, that's huge. I thought it was. Sort of. If you could run a play in three seconds. Well, they ran one in four.

And there were six seconds left. I am not, but I am not running to play with six seconds because if anything happens on that. What if there had been interference in the end zone? You had the ball at the one yard line because that was borderline D.P. defensive pass interference. I think that was Warner too. How did the game get called out? No, you're right.

No, I would have been disappointed how to flag been called. What if the ball snapped at Mahomes knees? He falls on it. They call timeout. They kick the field goal. Maybe. No, look, no, six seconds to go from the 10-yard line? I'm not risking the game in a six-section.

Not from the 9-yard line. I didn't say the 9-yard line. I said, what if their 10-second play with 10 seconds to go had been a play that they got down to, say, the 3-yard line and, you know, on a quick out that went out of bounds, and now there's six seconds to go. I would definitely run another play with 6 seconds from the 3-yard line. Not from the 9. not from the nine because at that point you're just what you said. I mean, it's plays that take up that much yardage can take six seconds. I'm not risking it.

The thing is, is in rethinking that situation, because I actually think Andy thought there was a possibility we get two plays there. Yeah. Let's take a shot. But in rethinking the situation, I'm going to run a play to score. I'm not just going to throw a quick fade to Kelsey just to see if we can get another play. like we might get that one but let's see if we can get another play. I'm going to run a play score. Well, didn't they do that? It was back shoulder, Kelsey, end zone, covered, incomplete.

Yeah, but I mean, I'm running, like, that's your three-second play or your four-second play. I see what you're saying. I'm running my seven-second play. I'm going to run my best red zone play to score. Got it. And I'm going to plan on, yeah, if it's six, seven seconds, and my home has to extend a little bit, I'm going to make sure that we know, like, if you're extending, this can't be a 10-th, can play, but you can extend it. Let's see if we go get one here. We'll kick after this. I'm just going to make it known. We're kicking after this. Let's go see what we can do.

You forgot the point that you made to me last night, which was an excellent point. So Romo was screaming for... Well, that's where I want to go next. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Well, let me explain it. So after Mahomes had scrambled for like three yards on a first and 10 at the San Francisco 36, Romo's like he he's scrambled to the sideline out in the flat, got three yards, and Romo's like, you got to go, you got to spike it, you got to spike it. And if they had spiked it, they would have saved sometime the time that it took to run an incomplete pass to set up third and seven. Cooley's point was there was a receiver all the way down in the end zone. They had to wait for

the receiver to get all the way back to spike it anyway, so you might as well run the play. Well, and really my point is Call time out You have I understand they have one time out in that situation But you have you have a fucker And you have an assumed three points You're in Philgo range with fucker

And you have time to continue to work down the field But you have an issue Like You could manage the clock to get an out of bounds Or get a spike to have enough time to kick a field goal Yeah, I agree If you're not able to score But if you're Andy Reid

I can't remember it again, I'd want to watch you. Skymore or McColl, it's one of those three receivers is all the way in the end zone. And when Robles' yelling spike it, like, sure, but homie sprinting 35 yards from the end zone back to the line of scrimmage, and it took him six seconds.

Back to the line of scrimmage. So as Andy Reid evaluates the field at that point. He's like, well, we got two dudes, like even if we want to spike this thing. Like, you weren't saving 15 seconds. You might say seven or eight. Right. But I think you, but if you,

But if you immediately call time out after the scramble, you're saving 25. And a field goes tying it. And so that gives you like 40 seconds with no time out from the 36-shot-bine and Mojones. I just want more time. And I know my quarterback can manage if something happens and we're in bounds. We can get on the ball and spike it with six, seven seconds left. Right. So I think that that wasn't a situation where you really think about spiking it. I think it's really a situation where you think about saving the most possible.

amount of time to go score and win the game. Let me ask you this. With 10 seconds to go at the San Francisco 10-yard line, whatever it was after that pass to Kelsey, if they've got five DBs plus in the game, do you think about a quick draw to Pacheco? Is that your best play to score from there against a defense that's expecting pass? Condensed field? No, your best play to score from there is. your best red zone pass package and

and then you know that your quarterback's got what two to three seconds to go off script and he can work something where he gets outside of the pocket and maybe someone comes open or he finds someone your best play is to let my home score I think without question I'll tell you I mean

I'm going to say this for the third time the play of the game is that Spagnulu's blitz and the way they blitzed on the third and five on the previous possession gave Mahomes a chance to have the ball again because it's third and five. And Purdy's capable, although again, he wasn't great on third down versus the blitz. And he knew it at that point. And if they get a first down, I don't see, we may not see Mahomes back on the field. So let me.

I agree, but I don't even think if he completes the pass to get a first down. Well, okay. They're throwing a slant, then it looks like he's going to get tackled at about four. Yeah, but you do, so what are you going to do after that? Maybe go for it. Maybe.

I'll tell you one, two, another mistake I think Kyle made, and it was Kyle that called the timeout before the fourth and one, right? Before the, which fourth and one? The Mahomes read option. Yeah, he did. He called that timeout, right? He called the timeout. He called the time out because they'd went all-out. I want to talk about one of the other all-out pressures, too, but he called the time out, and they're at a fourth in one situation.

No. Kansas City called the time out. You just pointed something else in my notes that I have not touched on today in radio or here. Kansas City called the time out, and I was screaming, try to draw them off sides first, and then call the time out, and they didn't. They called it immediately. Kansas City called that time out. Positive. Okay, so the fourth and one, here's the, who knows if you're going to end up stopping it or not.

But let's play out this fourth and one situation. First of all, the start of zone, of the zone read or the read option, whatever it is, was with the 49ers and the Washington Redskins and Kyle Shanahan. The play design, the creation is Kyle Chanahe. Now, it's evolved where

your lead blocker is now running a flat route, which becomes an available option, which is... Triple option. It's like triple option, almost. It's like a triple option. So, I like that instead of having that lead guy be a blocker, because that makes the quarterback, it's

not a triple option. And now Kelsey's your available receiver, who you trust. But in my mind, in anyone's mind watching the game, and anyone involved, are they handing the ball off to the running back. No. I mean, I don't even know. Not right at Armstead and Hargrave with the way they've been playing. No, you're right. You're right. So you take your backside defense, like, and you know that Mahomes can run this, right? Like, everyone, it's very clear that

they could run Zodry. He had already had a big zone read run in the game. And what's that? He had already had a big zone run read in the game. He'd already had one in the game. you take your backside defensive end and you do not crash run. It makes it hard because if you're making a bet on not giving to the back, there's still a way to stop it, but if you don't crash, there's a cutback available. Then you take your backside linebacker and you hold him and say, you will define, you will not crash run until you are sure that quarterback doesn't have the ball. And now in doing that, you have basically given two gaps.

You're probably, if you do that, you're probably going to give run as a first down. Unless you get great penetration up front from your de-tackles and put that in. You're probably going to give it up. But I'm going to bet on 100% in the Super Bowl and fourth and one in a critical situation. They're not handing them off to the running back. You then add two players to the zone read side with the quarterback. You're able to cover Kelsey and he has nowhere to go. I will not allow your best player to beat me when I know your best player is going to have the ball.

I thought that was a bad mistake by their defensive front. By the defensive call, Kyle had time to think about it. He understands that there could have been a lot of prep into that. And that's an even easier one because you're going into a game and you're talking with your staff. You're like, what are they going to go to in a critical situation on fourth and one? Well, Zone reads a really viable option. Yeah, he's not. He's keeping the ball.

in his hands until there's no other option not to. I think that that would have been really smart on their part. Here's a question for you. Well, first of all, I hated the spot. I thought spots were a problem all day long, and I thought Pacheco was close enough on the play. And I thought the spot, even if he didn't have a first down, was actually closer than what they ended up spotting it.

But here's a question for you. So, you know, you put it in, you fake to Pacheco, and let's just say everything's open, including Kelsey's wide open to throw the football to him. Would you ever as the quarterback on the play that will decide your fate in the game? The game's over. Would you ever just throw it to Kelsey even if it was a potential much bigger play? No. If I am the quarterback and I know I can get the first down.

You have to run it. You have to get the first down because just imagine, you know, you have a flu. drop. By the way, Kansas City led the league in drops this year. Right. Yeah. Interesting. So, go ahead. Here's another thought on that same drive that I had. I know we talked about it last time. It was another real thing. So the 49ers are trying to disguise stuff and they're trying to hide stuff. They're playing that five across the board and then sometimes they're coming all out and sometimes they're not coming all out. And they play that five across the board and it's a third and six. And they're almost like, you cannot do that.

You cannot all out. Patrick Wellum's. He's going to understand it. You have to all out of them, my opinion. Why? You have to find a way to get pressure, bat a ball, because they're going for it on fourth and six. It doesn't matter, and a drop back, let them have fourth and six. No, no, you're trying to create a situation where you get a sack, you get a batted ball, you get a bad throw,

you get a bad throw, you're betting on if we play straight defense. For me, I'm betting on if I play straight defense against Mahomes on third and six and fourth and six, what are the odds that they do not get that first time? That's fair. Really low in my opinion. He is going to get it. But what were the odds he was going to pick up zero coverage blitz and find Rishie Rice on a beautiful throw? Well, and here's the thing.

Cover Rashid Rice man to man. Like walk him down at the line. Don't let him run at a free-release shallow cross. Yeah. Like jam him up and cover Rashid Ross at the same. the line of scrimmage. Like we talked about in practice. You can't allow a free runner across the middle of the field on a shallow

cross and man to man. Like make him work from outside in. So you should have somewhat inside leverage. You know you're all out in it. The far outside throw takes longer, it's harder to get to with all out pressure. And all that pressure means one's free. You have a free runner. So I don't, like my bet is analytically, what's the home?

I give him two downs here. What's going to happen? I could have beat me. So I've got to get a third and fourth and ten. That's a good reason. So it's a good reason to have disagreed with Romo. For everybody just because we're bouncing around here, they've already picked up the fourth and one in overtime,

and this is third and six at midfield when they came with seven. It was all out zero coverage blitz. And third and six, and I mean, Mahalph is just so smooth. That was the difference. San Francisco's quarterback couldn't get the third and five. and Mahomes delivered on third and six. And Romo said right before the snap, you cannot come after him on this play.

He'll pick it up and he'll burn it. And Cooley's saying, that's your only chance because two chances on third and six and fourth and six, they're going to get it anyway. But you also, I think, here's the other thing I would say. Zero coverage blitz in that spot

opens up the possibility of a touchdown and a loss. too. Did you consider that? Well, okay. I'm going to consider that right now, and so does giving Mahomes four downs. It's the time. I understand, but I'm talking about on one play, on one play. No, I do understand it. But just so everybody understands the zero blitz, and what you're saying, he'll pick it up and they'll pick it up.

The premise of zero blitz is it's not available to just pick up. We're bringing one more than you can block. There's one word that you're not going to be able to count. We are bringing one more than you can block, and so it's on our defense to get that free runner free as fast as we get them free. So there's immediate unblocked pressure. That is what zero blitz is.

Against Mahomes. They're lucky Rice didn't break a tackle and take it to distance. Because they're only four on defense, and there were four eligibles? What did they use as protection? Six, so they had five. So they had four eligible.

Yeah. So, but you're still, if, you know, if your back checks and stays in protection, then you're adding the seventh element into your bliss. If you're backed out, then it becomes a six-man pressure against five offensive linemen. You have one more because the quarterback's in the pocket. He can't block anybody. I want to mention, because we're getting along here, and I want to get to a couple of other things. First of all, I'm so glad you addressed the Kelsey Reed thing. Did you see the reaction from the swifties on this?

They want her to leave Kelsey because of this. Let me just read a couple of the tweets. It lit up Twitter. This thing. Do we need to be scared for Taylor's safety? Red flag, absolute reason to run from him. Any man that acts like that likes to yell at anyone and everyone needs to go. I speak for most of the fan base when I say Taylor needs to leave this man.

He's assaulting a man for no reason. It's so good. It was so perfect. I saw a lot of reactions from people that I was surprised that they were so pissed off and like, oh my God, this can't be good. Here's my answer to it. First of all, like I've said in many of these instances, I always feel like the overreaction comes from the people who have never competed in

anything in their life. But to your point, even if they've competed at work really hard and they're really good competitors, you go right to HR for that reaction. But I think what really is true in this instance is, look, and their relationship, you know, neither one of them had any issue. Of course, they won the game. Who knows what it would have been like how they lost, but I think it would have been fine. Nothing. But in many, Travis, hug it out, bitch, as Michael Scott said about, you know, making Dwight do his dry cleaning. After he went to Jan, to try to get the regional manager position.

When, what was I going to say? Travis Kelsey's earned it. Like there are certain players that have reached a status and have been with their coach long enough where you just have to assume that it's not the worst. He has earned it. They've been in these situations so many times that we've never seen before.

for. It was just, it looked bad because Reed wasn't expecting it and he's an older guy and he got knocked off balance a little bit. But I mean, come on, people. So real quickly, like I wanted to real quickly talk about some things that I didn't like and then I want to mention a play or two that I don't think I talked about enough. San Francisco's missed opportunities really, they're going to look back at Super Bowl 58 and they're going to say, we fumbled going in for a touchdown on the opening drive. Our best left tackle in franchise history and one of the greatest ever play goes false start and holding back to back to derail another drive. We don't create a chance for another possession using defensive timeouts at the end of the first half.

Our star linebacker tears as Achilles on the way out. Well, the injuries, we've mentioned Kittle and Debo playing hurt. We botch... Well, that's still a big missed opportunity. I know. We botch a punt return. We miss an extra point. We have a chance to put the game away on a third and five, and we don't pick up a blitz. I thought, and we haven't mentioned this one, I want to go back and look at it a little bit more, because I know they came with extra man pressure at least once or twice. I thought the 49ers, coverage-wise, on the last Kansas City drive, got a little too soft. And they're up three and you don't want to give up a touchdown and you kind of have to assume it's Mahomes. He's going to at least get him into Butker Range, which by the way,

apparently was 70 yards yesterday in Vegas. But I thought that they gave up too much stuff on that last drive. And then, you know, not blocking Chris Jones on the third and four and overtime is going to hurt them. Yeah. San Francisco is going to look back and they're going to say, we kind of did it to ourselves, although that would be kind of a delusional stance because of how great Mahomes was down the stretch. But still, this game had a chance, Coley,

to be a 17-20 to three kind of game at halftime. From Kansas City standpoint, one thing we haven't talked about is, hold on really quick. Hold on really quick before we go to Kansas City. because I think he made a really, really good point on that last drive. And I think even Romo said something as they progressed down the field. And he started with, you don't want to give them anything. I play defense until they get into Bucker Range.

I play legit. We have to stop them here defense. Yeah. And then when they get into field goal range, play soft, make them two-clock, make them eat stuff up. I mean, I understand, like, they're trying to, ensure that they don't give up the big play to give Kansas City a lot more time on the clock to then go in and score. They did eat some clock with some of those short plays.

But I would have played defense. Where did they start? You know, the 35, something like that? No, they started at the 25 because San Francisco kicked the field. They were at the 50 and they were at the 50 and three plays. Yeah, but the third and two, San Francisco came after him with the Blitz and he dumped it off to McKinnon, which was another, you know. yeah, that was a big play.

But yeah, I think those couple easy throws were, they probably should have been playing tighter. Maybe. From a Chief's standpoint, look, they had five penalties for 53 yards. The Sneed penalty was terrible in the first half. I thought Andy Reid made a mistake. He called a timeout with a minute three to go

at the end of the first half, minute three or minute nine. Hold on, I'm checking. before Kyle didn't use his timeouts, Reed calls a timeout with a minute nine left. It's like they're at the 14 first and 10. You don't want to have San Francisco get another possession. You know, that clock should have been running there. How about the fact that the snaps from Creed Humphrey were just so consistently low? It may have been that way the last couple weeks.

I've been in the Baltimore game, they were the same way. and Mahomes did a great job fielding everything, but two weeks in a row at least. And then here's what I wanted to mention. I already talked about the spots. I thought there were a lot of bad spots in the game. But I don't know if you notice this, watching the condensed version of the first half. There's a play on Kansas City's third drive of the game.

It's scoreless at that point, I'm pretty sure. Third and one, and Rice gets the ball and he gets a first down. And then if you're watching the game, you think he fumbled the ball and Watson number 84 recovers. But what he actually did, and Nance picked up on this, he actually tried to pitch the ball to Watson on the third and one. Okay, Rice gets a fly sweep. He's got the first down, and he pitches it. He pitched the ball. But here's the issue.

It was a forward lateral. Right. Kansas City should have, I'm sorry, San Francisco should have challenged the play as a forward lateral. I don't know if it would have been called that, but I think that's a loss of down penalty, and they would have had to punt. And so it was three to nothing. San Francisco had kicked a field goal in the previous drive. So it was weird.

You thought it was a fumble, and then Nance picked up on, did he pitch that ball? And then the replay was, oh, my God, he was trying to pitch it to him. And he pitched it forward. So, you know, is it possible? They would have said, well, the call on the field was a fumble. And we don't see it as an intentional pitch. And therefore, since it's a fumble, then there's no lateral. There's no break.

There's no illegal play. But I thought that that was a forward lateral and could have been challenged by San Francisco. And then here's one other thing. and I don't know if you've noticed it in football this year. I have not mentioned this, I don't think at all. When there is a team facing a fourth down in either field goal range or, you know, punt, either field goal or go for it or punt or go for it, when they are not decisive and the play clock is ticking down,

when they decide on punt, they reset the play clock to 25. They did it last night twice. and I that can't that that that's wrong first of all it's great when you have the under to get you know more than 40 seconds to elapse between plays but it makes no sense because and it's it's an advantage to the offense like they should be penalized if that play clock runs out regardless of the decision they made to punt the ball but you'll see it that when they decide not I think it's because you have to allow the substitution that's okay but that's that's on that's on that's on that's on the referee to if they make the decision to kick the field goal or to punt with let's say 15 seconds left on the play clock okay they come out and now you've got to give ample time for the defense to come out and switch what they are doing when you decide to kick field goal or punt is they're just resetting the play clock to 25 right no that should be force, that should force the offensive team to call a timeout or take a five-yard penalty.

I think. I don't know why you'd give the indecisive party a benefit of 25 seconds on the play clock. But it's happened all year long, and I've noticed it, and it happened last night before a field goal and before a punt, I'm pretty sure. If you go back and find them, I didn't. It's that or you stop the play clock. I mean, if you get your entire punt team on the field, you stop the game and play clock with a defense substitutes and then start the play clock once you blow it live. I don't know.

It's a good call. It's a good question. Well, the other thing, too, that happened last night, which was interesting, is, you know, this was the first half, I think. I think it was the first half where the streak. Oh, yeah. With the kids. The streaker came on the field. Oh, and they didn't show it.

They didn't. Well, they never show it. But they stopped. They stopped the clock. They stopped the clock, and then they reset the play clock. And instead of just picking it up where it left off. And, you know, when you're rooting for the under, you want them to do that, but then you want the team to use it all, but they didn't.

They snapped it with like 28 seconds left on the play clock. Anyway, it was such a memorable game. It was just a phenomenal, certainly the last hour to hour and a half was, that was a Super Bowl, we will not forget. And Mahomes is just absurd. He's just, I was looking at his playoff stats. He's 15 and 3 as a starter in the playoffs. All right.

In the playoffs alone, he's thrown for 5,100 yards. His completion percentage is 68%. He's got 41 touchdowns in eight interstances. receptions in the postseason. His sack totals, in total, in 18 games, he's only been sacked 35 times, but in the last six, seven playoff games, he's only been sacked eight times. His set percentage is ridiculously low. He did have, you know, he threw an interception. It was a bad interception there at the beginning of the first half. He had a pitch to Pacheco that Pacheco fumbled on that first play of the second half that was kind of a little bit off. But man, he just

knows what he needs to do for his team to win. And if it's due a lot, he does that. If it's not make any mistakes like it was against Baltimore for three quarters, he does that. He's just really special as a player. Incredibly special. Did you like the halftime show or did you even watch the halftime show. Didn't watch it. Okay. I enjoyed it. I thought it was really good.

I thought Usher was... Well, I'll tell you what I enjoyed this conversation with you. You know what? This was pretty good. This was a good job by you. You're pretty good at this. You are the best ever. Can we get you on

certainly to do film breakdown of the three quarterbacks that they're going to have potentially the choice of? Yeah, I want to actually, yes. going to watch some film on the draft stuff. Yep. Okay. All right, we will do that. Maybe some free agency stuff too. After they, not pre-free agency,

but maybe when they sign people in free agency, cool, you can do some film breakdowns and let us know how that player. Oh, I wanted to read this to you real quickly. This was an Apple review. Please rate us and review us, especially on Apple and Spotify. Subscribe, follow us. I read this last week, but I thought it was funny.

This came from Browski Bro. It gave us five stars. Love the show, but very preachy. on Dan Quinn feels very get on board with Dan Quinn or get out, you know, with a smiley face because I always tell people that are lecturing us on Taylor Heineke and Carson Wentz and Sam Howell and other people. Stop lecturing. We can have our opinion. But then he says this, you keep talking about how successful Quinn was in Atlanta, but I, but at the time, you and Cooley had repeated discussions on if Atlanta should be the first team to swathe

fire the head coach and the offensive coordinator, attributing most of Atlanta's success to Kyle. I remember the Sean McVeigh, a Gruden suggestion by you. I did not remember you saying Kyle should be the head coach, Dan Quinn, shouldn't be. I probably did. I mean, I would have felt, I would have feel that way now.

Are you a Dan Quinn fan or not? I honestly don't recall. Okay. Are you a Dan Quinn fan? Do you like him being the new head coach or not? I'm indifferent. Okay. I guess we'll see how it plays out.

I'm indifferent. I thought he's, I think he's a great defensive coordinator. I don't know if he's a great head coach. He wasn't Atlanta. There were times when they were really good, but I'm just, I don't have a lot of feelings one way or another towards Dan Quinn, but the other side of that is, I don't know, I've never even met Dan Quinn. Do you have an opinion on Cliff Kingsbury?

He's the offensive coordinator, if you didn't know that. He better be able to develop a quarterback. We'll leave it there. All right, thanks for doing this. It didn't work out. It did not work out for him at his last stop. Kyle Murray. In terms of developing a quarterback.

It might have been the quarterback. It might have. And think of who you're drafting next because it might be the quarterback again. All right. Be good. Appreciate you doing this. All right. I'll finish up with some Skins coaching news right after these words from a few of our sponsors.

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For more, go to do south, DC.com. So Super Bowl weekend is typically, you know, 60% about the game itself and 40% about the other 30 teams that aren't playing in it until you get to about an hour and a half before kickoff. But man, there was a lot of reporting on the draft in particular from over the weekend. I'm going to wait until tomorrow's show to get into with Tommy what Doug Williams said,

what Ian Rappaport and Mike Garifolo from the NFL Network said. But needless to say, it's all just a lot of talk right now. There are going to be so many reports, and it's going to be actually fun and exciting to hear what is reported, to try to decipher what's true and what isn't, between now and the end of April, because we're a part of it. You know, Washington with number two overall, with three quarterbacks being considered worthy of the top five, top three. It's going to be a big part of the conversation. Washington's number two pick and whether or not they're interested

in moving up, whether or not they're interested in picking it too, whether or not they're interested in moving back. I'm going to save some of that for tomorrow. I'm also going to save this big story from earlier today about a Virginia state legislator that said the move of the wizards and the caps to northern Virginia is dead. Louise Lucas is the chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee.

committee. She suggested today that Glenn Yonkin, the governor of Virginia, made a series of mistakes in trying to advance the deal through the General Assembly and said that it ain't going to happen. Others on behalf of monumental sports are saying it's proceeding as they thought. Meantime, Mayor Bowser's threatening to sue if they were to leave early. So there's a lot of stuff there. I'm going to save a lot of that for tomorrow with Tommy as well. did want to close the show with just a couple of pieces of news related to Dan Quinn's coaching staff. When we last talked on Friday, Larry Izzo, the former special teams coach or coordinator in Seattle, was reportedly leaving to become the same here in D.C.

For four straight seasons in Seattle is either the interim special teams coach or the actual special teams coach. The Seahawks Special Teams units finished third, fifth, fourth, and eighth per the DVOA metric. Now, he has had an outstanding punter for the last several seasons in Michael Dixon and a really good kicker, solid kicker in Jason Myers, but they've been good on coverage, et cetera. So Larry Izzo and of course Cliff Kingsbury and Joe Whit Jr., the three big hires the offensive, defensive, and special teams coaches. We know that last week they added Brian Johnson to a big-time role in offense. They added Jason Simmons to the defensive staff as a DB's coach.

They said that Tevita Pritchard was staying. We learned over the weekend that Randy Jordan, longtime running backs coach, and a big part of some of the clock management and some of that decision, as it relates to helping Ron Rivera out on that front. Now, they had an analytics guy in the booth that had a straight shot to Ron's headset during games as well. But he's gone. He's going to Tennessee. Interesting.

He had been here. And I went to look this up because I'm like, man, he's been here for a long time. Ten years he had been here. And then we had reports today that Ryan Kerrigan is staying on to be. be the assistant linebackers and pass rush specialist, and that they've hired Bobby Johnson as the O-line coach. Johnson was the Giants O-line coach this past season. Why is that significant? Well, I'll tell you why. We followed the situation with respect to Sacks here in Washington all season long and how Sam Hal was on this record-setting pace in terms of sacks.

But the Giants as a team actually led the league in sacks taken. Now, they had so many different quarterbacks, as you recall, playing, including that Tommy DeVito, who I think took 10 sacks in the Washington game. It was something like that. But the Giants ended up taking as a team with Bobby Johnson. as the offensive line coach. 85 sacks on the season, 20 more than Washington.

Now, again, many different quarterbacks played in New York this year. Washington only had one quarterback take 65 sacks. But between Tyrod Taylor, Tommy DeVito, and Daniel Jones, 85 sacks. But I have to tell you that Tommy DeVito in playing in nine games, Now, he started, let me figure this out, how many games he started.

He started in, it looks like, five games, came off the bench in four others. Maybe started six came off the bench and three others. But he took 37 of the 85 sacks. Tyrod Taylor took 17, Daniel Jones took 30. But that's who the new offensive line coach is. Bobby Johnson, who was most recently. in Seattle. On radio, I'm supposed to have Dan Quinn on the show later in the week.

So I will try to give you a heads up on the podcast when that's going to be. All right, we are done for the day. Incredible Super Bowl. Back tomorrow with Tommy.