The Press Box - The Super Bowl of Super Bowl Story Lines With Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Hello, media consumers! It’s Super Bowl media week, and Bryan is joined by Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly of The Ringer Fantasy Football Show to discuss the biggest story lines heading into this Seahawks-Patriots Super Bowl. They start by talking about the Seattle-related story lines (14:24) and follow that up with the story lines from New England’s side (32:42). They wrap up by discussing Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth’s first Super Bowl together (40:27), Bad Bunny’s halftime show (46:42), and advice for journalists in Santa Clara this week (51:40). Host: Bryan CurtisGuests: Danny Heifetz and Danny KellyProducers: Isaiah Blakely, Bruce Baldwin, and Sarah Reddy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. Welcome to a very special edition of the press box. It's Brian Curtis. It's producers Bruce Baldwin and Isaiah Blakely and joining me here at Ringer headquarters in Los Angeles. It's my two favorite people from the Ringer fantasy football show, who are named Danny. It's Danny Hifetz. It's Danny Kelly. Guys, welcome to the press box.

Thank you. Thank you for having us. Yeah, I thought you were going to just throw Craig under the bus there. but I'm glad you said it was your two favorite people named Danny on the fantasy football show. I had to specify. This is your debut, D.K. Yeah. Highfits came on for at least one contrived segment once upon a time.

Yeah, I think we drafted Super Bowl cliches. Or NFL draft cliches, something like that. You and I have had a lot of phone conversations over the years, and that kind of blends into podcasting for me, so I couldn't quite differentiate. I can never remember what we said on the show versus what we talked about offline. So I'm just like, you know. It's a very 2026 problem to have. Okay, so today we're going to talk Epstein files.

We're going to talk Arctic Security. Talk about the obliteration of the Washington Post Sports. Like, just kidding. We're going to talk about Super Bowl. We're not copy editing all of Epstein's emails? We're not. All the times he had four spaces in a row. Some of those were just tough reads for the typos alone.

No, we're not going to talk about that. We're talking about storylines. Remember when Peter King was writing MMQB? And he would say in a very, here you go, way like someone's serving at McDonald's. Here are the storylines. I always found that so funny because I'm like, if it's a great storyline, shouldn't you just write the story?

Kind of like breaking the fourth wall and looking directly into the camera or something. It was for football writing. Yeah. But Super Bowl time. Reporters are desperate. So I thought we would collect all these things and do what I call the Super Bowl of Super Bowl storylines. Hmm. Well done.

Guys ready? How'd you come up with that? That's SEO gold right there. Well, that was a professional intro. I'm not what you guys doing over on the fantasy show. We do some writing over here on our scripts. All right. Number one on my list.

A good old-fashioned Boston story. Bill Belichick was snubbed by the voters of the pro football Hall of Fame. Where do we start here? If it's... I think hurt people, hurt people. And Bill Pauline is a hurting man. You're not talking about the sports writers now. You're talking about Bill Polaro.

Well, don't we all kind of just believe Bill Pullian kind of convinced the, I mean, the Belichick 11. It's more than just him. Calling it to Belichick 11, though, is pretty great. Like 11 of the 50 writers, 11 of the 50 voters, who are the Belichick 11? I'm not going to lie, it's pretty great. 11 angry men. 11 angry, bitter, old men. Yeah.

It's really funny. So the Pollyam part of it was just hysterical on its own. He, according to the ESPN report, which was a Vanetta Wickersham joint, if I remember correctly, he was speaking out or at least entertaining the idea that maybe Bill Belichick isn't a first ballot Hall of Famer. Then in follow-up reporting said he was 95% sure am I getting that number right that he had voted for Belichick but not 100% sure. When did the vote happen? Like not like a week ago? It was not that long ago.

Well, I mean, maybe the real take here is it's the right call. Does Bill Belichick really deserve to make the Hall of Fame at all? Is this a W-EI segment? Well, go for it. Let's go. Here we go. You know, I'm just saying, you know, I'm just asking questions here, right? You know, talk about Bill Belichick.

No, I mean, he only won under 50% of his games without Tom Brady. Did he hold Tom Brady back? Is that really what we should be talking about? So you're doing sports radio right now. This is what I love because I grew up, we'll hold on you guys. I grew up in the era of should Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame. Right. And if there was a rainy day in sports radio, let me tell you, all across the country.

Just dig in. You didn't have to be in Sancy or Philly or anywhere Pete actually played. You just, you just go. Break glass in case of emergency. It really was. It was the thing. The other one was Michael Jordan or Wilts Chamberlain, who's greatest basketball player of all time

before we got to Michael LeBron taking over every show. That was the other great sports radio segment of our time. That's the wrong take. Take is Kareem Abduljabbar, not Wilt. Oh, you should have called in. Where were you? In 1992.

But this feels like it is kind of a torch passing moment. We lost Pete. And now we have Bill Belichick. Should Bill Belichick have been at first ballot Hall of Famer? the example that I used was it kind of reminds me of the Barry Bond's discourse a little bit where I mean look there's the whole cheating thing and that is also part of the Belichick thing but he was also just a massive asshole that everybody hates in the media not everybody in the world but well maybe but I think there's kind of something similar to that with Belichick where he was

maybe a total jerk to people for the entire course of their careers this is sort of like them finally asserting some sort of control or agency over him. Revenge. Yeah. So to me, that's what it felt. That was the first thing I thought of was like, this reminds me of the Barry Bond's Hall of Fame discourse and baseball where you know, there's the cheating element, but also just he was a jerk to them for 20 years. I saw somebody tweet

that like Bill Belichick was very generous about the history of the game with reporters and I'm like, okay, I'll accept that. But I also watch those press Kyle says. Every once in a while, if you ask him about left-footed punters or something like that, he would go deep into something. 10 minutes on long snapers. I will say on one hand, maybe the voters are right. Maybe, you know, Belichick, he only made 19% of all Super Bowls that had ever been played. So maybe that's not high enough. Yeah. The bottom line is, the bottom line is there is no coach probably more deserving in all time of than him being a first ballot hall. I mean, Bill Belichick as a head coach made, as a head coach and a coordinator made 11 Super Bowls.

Vince Lombardi only was a head coach for 10 seasons, and they named the trophy after him. So I don't think it's a question. You know what I mean? It's kind of, it's funny to even talk about. I personally just think all the cheating stuff, SpyGate is like, come on. Like, it's, I actually, I'm happy we're on the press box

because my question to you, skipping, I'm going to just leapfrog on. unless anyone's particularly interested in it. Oh, should he have to wait a year for SpyGate? I think the gatekeeperism is pathetic. I think this is a lot of, like, it's really pathetic. And I think that it's, frankly, in the voters. I think that you subconsciously can want to be part of football history

and you get to be the person who kept him out of the first ballot, like the guy who kept that Ichero out from being unanimous, Derek Jeter, like voting against these people. It's about you. It's not about them. And I want to ask you, I forget the exact ratio. 30, 40 of the 50 voters are like true, like, journalism people, like me, true.

reporters. I know that there's like former players getting, I think Brady's one of them. Or not Brady. There are like former quarterbacks and stuff. Why should the ballots stay secret? Like, like, I think, I understand you don't want to like a witch hunt for all like votes of all kinds. But I think if, if, when it comes to like Bill Belichick didn't make the whole fame, what do you, Brian Curtis think about? I actually think all the reporters should be transparent. And I think there should absolutely be a push for people to reveal the ballots. 100%. I don't know even the argument against it. Like this retired coach or football player is going to come get you. Yeah.

If you voted against him. Right, right. Like a safety thing. Like what would possibly be the argument? And I understand like there's a whole like, you know, it's like your vote for president, except it's not like your vote for president. It's not important. Right.

It's just the Hall of Fame. So surely you can. I saw Vahe Grigorian from Kansas City coming out and explaining why he voted against Belichick. And it was more of a rules thing because he wanted to vote for some of those players. he was afraid they were going to fall off the ballot. Right. So he was worried that this was their final chance to get in or whatever.

Essentially, but what it meant is he was voting for Ken Anderson, the old Bengals quarterback and not Bill Belichick, which is, again, it's at least a rules conversation. What I love about this as a storyline, even this is the dumbest thing of all time. What I love about it as a storyline is it then feeds into a second sports radio conversation, which is Belichick versus Brady versus Kraft, who gets credit for the pets,

dynasty. And I do feel the way Bill Belichick almost said dismounted, not sure that's word I want to use right now. He did have Jordan Hudson high up in the air on those beach photos. See, that's why I stayed away. That's why you go there, but I stayed away. The way

he ended things in New England did leave this weird taste. I remember as a kid, like Tom Landry was the only coach of the Dallas Cowboys when I was kid. They had never had another coach. How weird was that? And then he was terrible at the end. And everybody in Dallas was like, ooh, this is weird.

Yeah. And they're going to have to fire this guy. And Jerry Jones had to come in and fire this guy. And I do feel the Bill Belichick thing ended a weird way. And then that colors that conversation, whether that's valid or not. It feels like they were all important when the Super Bowl, all those Super Bowels anyway. Can I just one note on that? Yeah. How long was Tom Landry bad?

Like half a decade. Okay. Because Bell Belichick, two seasons before he was fired was like three seasons before he's fired. They did win the Super Bowl like four years earlier. Yeah, maybe three years, something like that for Delandri. just wanted to know. Number two, we touched on this a little bit. Bill Pollyan is a character in our national discourse.

We really shouldn't know that much about Bill Polly. He's really of the Peter King generation of football writers. Yeah. But he just comes out of the bullpen. I'm mixing metaphors here. It comes off the bench at the weirdest times to insert himself into our discourse. Right. I just look at this very simply.

It's not just this. skeletons of the cult's patriot stuff in the 2000s that he's really angry about. It's that Bill Paulian was the GM of the Bills in the 90s. Like, can you imagine the pain? I wasn't kidding when I was like, hurt people, hurt people. He was fired. The four straight super bowl. He was fired.

He was fired after they lost the third straight. And so three was too many. No, no. He built that team. But like, let's be honest, you don't ever get over that. No. Like he lost three Super Bowls in a row and then he was the fall guy and then they lost the fourth. And I just genuinely think that anger carried over into the 2000s cults.

And apparently now. And so, I don't know, this, like, men will literally keep Bill Belichick out of the Hall of Fame instead of going to therapy. So, yeah. All right, here's number three. And I was thinking about this when we learned that the Super Bowl is going to be Seahawks, Pats. What will Normies think about the Super Bowl? How will they sink their teeth into a matchup like this? I ask you, D.K.

Well, it is an interesting one because there's not many superstar caliber players or, I guess, coaches either. Vray Bulls may be on that path to be one. But my initial impression of this game, and this is coming, you know, full disclosure, I'm a Seahawks fan, so there's that bias there. But I think Haifis probably would confirm this. Like everyone's going to be voting or rooting for the Seahawks, right? No one's going to be actually, no neutral person will be rooting for the Patriots. Does that sound correct? Yeah, the nice plucky underdog Patriots.

Right. Like, no, everyone's kind of sick of the Patriots at this point, even though this is a totally new iteration of their team. Yeah. This is not like the Miami Hurricanes. It's not like the U is back. You need some time before you are officially back. The fake adversity that Boston fans have been able to put on it. Like, you know, we had a tough few years there, but we're back.

And I'm like, it was like four years ago. I don't really want to hear about it. You mentioned the low wattage of the Super Bowl, which is also fascinating to me again thinking about it as a media story. Like, who's the most famous person playing or coaching in this game? If it's? Nobody. It's Drake May.

There are no famous people in this. game. I don't think Drake May is the most famous. But there's nobody. I mean, Stefan Diggs is probably just solely because he's with Cardi B. And like, that's even a, not by the great media story. I mean, if you, I mean, last year's Super Bowl, Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, Sequin Barclay. Jalen Hertz is actually famous. Like, there are no, by that metric, there are no famous people that in, in, in this game. And by that, I mean, forget whether any of these players are famous enough to cross into the realm of non-football fans who, even people who like don't follow football even know who jalen hurts is but you look at

look at this game i don't even know how many football fans know what jackton smith and jigbo looks like i i mean ken walker how many people who know what ken walker looks like who didn't have them in fantasy football i i think we're in between eras in the nflb and the old one has the old order is kind of gone but the new one hasn't happened yet so it's like kelsey and mahomes and lamar and john harbaugh or uh josh allen and shaw mcdermit like that era of the nfl is over those stars are like Super Contenters right now. This game is kind of the first of what the next generation of like stars will be. But the stars will be created from this game.

But there's no star power in this game. I don't think what's like. I think using the term star power, I would agree with that. I would say the most famous person in this game is probably Sam Darnold. Don't you think? Just because of his history. And it's not necessarily for the right, like for good things.

It's because he's a pretty notorious draft bus out of the jets. He was in New York. That helps. So, yeah, like nationally recognized at USC. obviously he was a top what i was a top three pick in the nfl draft the seeing ghost game was very famous all that stuff that happened in new york he's now been this is his fifth team so he's kind of been around the country a little bit like fans know about him a little bit more i i would say darnald probably for name recognition might be the most famous which is not saying not saying a lot

yeah so maybe stephan digs maybe darnal or the answer to the question yeah god i'm like if sam darnell rang my doorbell and I went and I went open the door and I had no idea he or any NFL player was coming. How long would it take me standing there staring at Sam Darnell? You are Sam Darnold. Like the Chad Powers thing or whatever where they take the player and they put them all his makeup.

Like you don't have to put Sam Darnold in a wig for him to not get recognized. He can just kind of put on a hat. Is Cooper Cup more famous? Maybe just a triple crowd wear? He's a scraggly caveman beard, but that's the point. No, but no one, like you can make up who's the most famous. But none of these people are actually. famous. Right. All right. So this is number four. If both these teams are somewhat

unformed in the national consciousness, even in the media's consciousness, what do we make of the Seahawks? How do you explain the Seahawks to somebody who hasn't paid much attention in the NFL all year? I would say second coming of the Legion of Boom. This is like, you know, a really, really good defense, hard hitting, you know, rally to the football, a really fun, almost like primal watch. It's just so much fun to watch them because the way they tackle the way they hit. I would say that's like how I would describe this team

as like the Seahawks defense. It's the second coming of the Legion of Boom. Different stylistically and like personality-wise. It's different. But, you know, you could look at some numbers. DVOA. They're actually a better defense than any of those Legion of Boom defenses were.

So, yeah, I would say that would be kind of just the overall foundation of the team and then, you know, an offense led by the comeback story of Sam Darnel would be the other side of the coin. Yeah, that's the Seahawks on a business card, essentially. Yes, definitely. I mean, the Darnold thing, I don't know how much you want to go to Darnold or I can nerd out of the defense or whatever you want,

but I agree that that, I think those are by far the two biggest things on the Seahawks side. Donald's number five on my list. How many times do you think we're going to hear the word journey when Sam Donald's name is invoked? It's the polite word when you were like, you were a joke until like 20 months ago, kid. And it's, it was a journey. America loves a comeback. America says they love a comeback.

They do. But people actually like the tearing down more. Let's be honest. No, I mean, both are cool. But the tearing down is more fun. They're fun. But the, no, I mean, it's an incredible story, Donald. I've been saying this for years.

I'm just a big believer in nature versus nurture with quarterbacks. And it's like nurture lends out. Like, we're this idea that like draft prospects, we cover the draft, The Ringer Fantasy Football Show, which, shameless plug. We go all off season. DK, our draft expert here at the ringer. on the fantasy football show, we talk all the time about these draft prospects are considered,

like it's, you know, a player, as if a 22-year-old anything is just going to be yes or no good. Like fully formed. Yeah. But in reality, half of an evaluation is how good a player could be.

The other half is where do you go work? And the idea that like quarterbacks are different is very funny to me. It's a team sport. It's like if you took the best business graduate student in America and sent them to like the worst business in America and then didn't turn it around in the year. And you were like, that guy must have sucked. It's like, that's pretty stupid.

And we do that with quarterbacks all the time. It's like, you look at Darnold. It's like, guess what? Shocking. The Jets sucked, not Darnold. And you see this over and over where Gino Smith, after 10 years, revives his career, Seattle. Baker Mayfield, incredibly, the Cleveland Browns were the problem, not Baker. So I think that is the defining story to me of this Super Bowl.

It's what Kevin O'Connell, the Vikings coach said last year, but Darnold, which is organizations feel young quarterbacks before young quarterbacks feel organizations. That is my, like, two-second pitch on the same. Super Bowl is Sam Donald revived his career because the Searocks are a great team and they saw that. The comp for him is just so funny because he's on his fifth team. Now he played well for the fourth team. So he really shouldn't be on his fifth team. He should still be with his fourth team.

I was looking back and trying to like at Super Bowls. I mean, there went a lot of random quarterbacks that won Super Bowls. Also a lot of quarterbacks had just a great game or season and won a Super Bowl. He's not quite like that. Right. But he's just hard to get your mind around. And like to your point, we do like to go, okay, you're a bust. The end, goodbye.

We understand you were a bust, but now you're not a bust. I think we can process that as football fans. But like, you're on your fifth team and you're a quarterback. Yeah. In a league that is just hunting for quarterbacks, it's so desperate to find these guys. That's just, that's funny to me. Yeah.

There aren't that many or maybe any examples in sort of the modern game, I think of what Donald has done. There's obviously if you go back far enough. Brad Johnson is a famous one, which I feel like anonymous Super Bowl winning quarterback. I feel like that kind of undersells what Donald is and what he can do. Like the higher end version of that would be someone like Steve Young who didn't really, you know, he flamed out early on in his career with Tampa Bay and then ended up in San Francisco.

He's back up in San Francisco for like five seasons. The USFL. Yeah. And then by age 30, he becomes a starter. It turns into a Hall of Famer won Super Bowls, all that stuff. So that's kind of like the higher end version of what Donald could be eventually, potentially. Kurt Warner, I guess, would be another. That's pretty good.

version of that, you know, the whole, if you're talking a journey, like him, you know, with the groceries. He was uncelebrated and then came out of nowhere, whereas Sam Donald's, we said, is a high draft there. That's fair. I think the lesson is you don't give up on talented quarterbacks and the odds are that the team probably screwed. If a guy is talented enough to get taken, it's closer to two thirds. The chances are that the team will be. Basically, good teams are soil. Things can grow.

Bad teams are dirt. Like the jets, the browns. The dust bowl. Yeah, no, really. It's the dust bowl. It's like you can't grow. anything there. You could not grow things during the dust bowl.

No. This is the history portion of the press box. It's why people listen to the press box. I appreciate you. The dust bowl is the opposite. A dustball note. I love that. Awesome.

We're setting this up as a great Cinderella story. That's how it's going to be written by sports writers this week. What if he has three interceptions during the game? And it's just like, oh my God. It was a Sam Darnold game. Yeah. Which he has had many of, including last year in the playoffs to the Vikings. Like, it would be horrible.

It'll be sad. It won't be fun to throw dirt in his grave. And the people who come out of the woodwork, to be like, I can't believe you trusted Donald. I'm not going to trust them. Yeah, obviously, look, that is part of this whole story. And it's something I've been kind of harping on all season is he did lead the NFL in turnovers, which is, you know, as a Seahawks fan, it drove me nuts all season,

but he was also making some incredible throws. He was a huge reason why they won 14 games in the regular season and, you know, I've gotten to the Super Bowl. So I think you can, like, you can see both sides of this argument, like why the Vikings were willing to let him go into free agency versus like why, you know, DeSioch signed him in free agency. Like that is so rare for a quarterback of his. For not that much money.

He made $10 million more. He means making $11 million more in free agency than Justin Fields was signed. Yeah. We made, we made this argument on our show. And I think this is a fun discussion. But it was genuinely maybe one of the best moves all time in terms of in the NFL. Moving on from Geno Smith, they traded away their starter. Geno Smith and signed Sam Darnold.

And they traded away Dekka. Yeah. Well, that one's like, that one is, I think, a different. different discussion, but like the fact that they traded away their starter and signed Sam Darnold, who had, you know, obviously done really well the year before, but had major concerns, especially with the way the season ended. Like, that could go down as one of the best decisions any team has ever made. It's crazy.

The definitiveness is pretty insane when you consider the fact that the Seahawks fired, promoted Pete Carroll into retirement, and then traded P. Gino Smith, the quarterback, to the Raiders, so that the old coach and the old quarterback with the Raiders end up with the number one pick. And then the Seahawks with the new coach and the new quarterback might end up with the Super Bowl. It's truly the contrast is crazy. Geno Smith and they trade him to Pete Carroll.

And look, the whole Pete Carroll succession has been an interesting storyline too. Like when Pete Carroll was, as you put it, retired out of Seattle, basically when they fired him, I don't obviously know exactly how they worded it at the time. I was like, whatever. But they fired him. He had a going away press conference,

which is something I don't know. know if I've ever seen from anyone who's been fired. And I remember in that presser, he, he was, like, talking to John Schneider, who was kind of out in the crowd. He was like, I've been kind of, you know, the, I've gotten the brunt of the criticism. It's your show now. Essentially, he said something like that, moved on. Schneider goes on to hire Mike McDonald, and they're in the Super Bowl within two years. So, like, adding that storyline in, basically, look, they moved on from Pete Carroll, and now they're back in the Super Bowl within two years. and then now they traded Gino Smith to the to the Raiders,

and they're the worst team in the NFL, and the Seahawks are arguably the best team in the NFL. I will say, I think I just realized the answer to the question you were trying to ask about, like, what is with the Seahawks? Or maybe that's not what you're, I don't know. But I think Mike McDonald, though, does explain the Seahawks. Like the Darnold part's easy. It's like this is an unlikely story, and it's cool,

and I hope he doesn't wet his pants in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks firing Pete Carroll and then hiring Mike McDonald is the under the hood story of what's happening in football, right? now and the actual moving on from Pete Carroll into what Mike McDonald does in defense is the game within the game of modern football. All right, let's do McDonald next. Yeah. I had not heard this gentleman speak.

I do not believe until after the NFC championship game. So that was new for me. It's the whole, come to my front door. By the way, I would definitely not recognize him if I came to my front door. How do we read him? I mean, he just seemed to be like a, he seemed to be an interesting dude as coaches go. Very analytical. you'd be maybe shocked to hear this.

He's actually loosened up quite a bit since the early days of Seahawks when they hired him. I think early on he didn't have a lot of media polish. He was in the interviews, he was very to the point, very analytical, sort of like you'd imagine an engineer getting interviewed about this building he designed

or something like that. It was kind of in that vein. I think he's opened up quite a bit more. In fact, he said something after the CS won the NSC Championship game. I think in the trophy ceremony, they were like, you know. He smiled. Yeah, he was like having a good time. He's shown personality.

But they asked him, they basically were like, look, before the season, everybody thought it was going to be the Rams. Everybody thought it was going to be the 49ers. Even the Cardinals had a bunch of people that were believing in them. And essentially the question was like, what did you guys think of that? And he was just like, we did not care. And they made these t-shirts this week with that, like, slogan on the t-shirts. Yeah, that was a big groan for me by the time.

I heard that. I was like, that felt like the line the politician has in the debate that they're just waiting to get out there, the set piece.

I was like, Mark and Rivio just repeating himself. Yeah. He traded it. He traded Mark there. The, oh my God.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know how he nerdy you want to get about like the actual reason the defense is good. But I mean, look,

he's 30, he's 38 years old. I mean, he's pretty young, yeah. I mean, he's one of the youngest coaches in the NFL.

I mean, it's still weird that Sean McVease now the second longest. Tenured coaching the NFL, but also like the fifth. He's 38. I mean, yeah, it's a pretty remarkable thing that he's been done to get to the Super Bowl. Two more about the Hawks.

Usually we have to look into the past to find a comp for the Super Bowl. In fact, these teams just played each other a little over a decade ago. 2015. Remember the game. Malcolm Butler. I'm trying to think about it, yeah. Boom. Cause it right there.

Game over, Pat's win. Oh, God. That was actually Malcolm Butler just intercept. That was crazy. That's like, it was, sorry, said is literally falling apart. That's why you run the ball. That's a bad old man. You're used to your fancy fantasy football set.

We're doing this from a shed out behind Ringer headquarters here. 2015 game. Was that really that sad as a Seahawks fan? How dare you ask me that question? Because they'd won a Super Bowl. Right. So you had one in the bag. Was it really that crushing?

I know it was crushing a lose in that fashion when they called the wrong play, et cetera, but come on. I mean, yes. First of all, yes, it was that crushing. I mean, every Super Bowl matters, especially when you get to that point, you're on the whatever. Every Super Bowl matters. It does. Okay.

To me, here, let me, because I'm actually like very. You're the one who asked whether losing sucks. I said, no, I did. I said, was it really that sad? To me, it's about the legacy of this, that era of Seahawks football. That play in particular ended what could have been known as a like a dynasty. The Seahawks would have beaten Peyton Manning, who put together the greatest offense of all time, literally the highest scoring offensive all time.

He had 55 touchdowns that season, and the Seahawks defense absolutely dominated him. From the beginning of the game. And then the next year, they go right back to the Super Bowl. They would have beaten Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. Obviously, it was a different style of game, but that would have been the legacy, and I think the Seahawks honestly could have gone further.

You never know what would happen, but they were a young enough team. They could have kept things together, and they could have tried to get three in a row, whatever. That play in that game, it sabotaged the future of that team. Everybody turned on each other. Basically, you know, people are blaming Pete Carroll.

People are blaming Russell Wilson. Marshaun Lynch famously blamed Pete Carroll because he didn't think that Pete Carroll wanted him to be like the face of that team. There was all this stuff. You know, basically the team never got over it. The defense hated the offense, vice versa. And so that was kind of the end of that.

So to me, it's a question about legacy. Do you look back at that Seahawks team and think they're a dynasty? But I think they could have been, they could have been up there with, you know, the 49ers, the Cowboys in history where you're looking at these teams as one of the greatest eras of football. To me, that's what I lost in that game. So, yeah, that was, to me, when I, when I, that play happened, I was just, like, crushed, absolutely crushed. That play is properly rated in football history. There's a reason we talk about it all the time.

To D.K.'s point, you don't hear much about the 86 bears or the 2001 Ravens. And so you would have had the, that Seahawks defense would have been locked in as, like, they would have had a case as the best defense of all time because of the back-to-back nature versus Peyton and Brady, the two best quarterbacks of the era. But to his point, it is also the ultimate sliding doors because I don't think it's the most under-discuous part of the Malcolm Butler play is what happens to Belichick's legacy

if they just run the ball and get a touchdown. Because then it's like Belichick let 40 seconds run off the clock and Brady can't, doesn't have time to go down and win. And now it's been 10 years since, like, does Bellet now? It's like Brady's lost three Super Bowls in a row. and like is Belichick like is he losing his marbles like I can't and then the Falcons Patriots Super Bowl same thing he trades Jamie Collins away Patriot Falcons go up 28 to 3 because they don't Jamie Collins on the team and like I Belichick his whole legacy and maybe Brady's two gets

like that that play changes frankly like how we look at football history I have two memories that game I was at the game in the press box the auxiliary press box because I was writing for Grantland at the time and I don't think the NFL knew what that was I was sitting next to Robert maze and we were actually above the end zone where that play happened and i think i was standing up because it was just one of those things you're like oh my god you gotta go this this is this is great we were just freaking out because as you say belcher doesn't call time out the clock's running what's going to happen and as soon as that ball got intercepted i remember the whole press box going oh i've never heard that sound before everybody was just stunned that was memory number one

number two is i went down the patriots locker room malcolm butler sitting in front of his locker Malcolm Butler did not have a podium because nobody knew who Malcolm Butler was. And he was sitting there, happy as can be, telling his life story to every reporter that walked out because everybody's question was, Who are you? I've never seen it that direct.

Often there's a surprise player and you have to write that story, but people were going up to him one after another being like, excuse me, sir, who are you? You've just won the Super Bowl for the New England Patriots. Unbelievable. for people, spoiler alert, if you haven't watched Game of Thrones, but that play was so reminiscent of the Mountain versus the Viper.

One of the most horrific sort of about faces at the end of an episode I've ever seen is just, it absolutely just rips your freaking heart out. And the other thing I think that, I mean, obviously, Seahawks fans, and this is me just speaking to Seahawks fans that are listening right now, but like there was so many little moments earlier in the game. And even on that drive, there was a play. the play before the pick, Marshawn Lynch got outside the line,

had a lane to the end zone, and just got barely... He, like, got his foot, just barely. And so that would have been like... And so it's like, man, stuff like that is just so crazy to think about. Marshall Lynch probably... He probably scores on that 85% of, like,

eight out of ten times other plays, but that he just made an incredible play. And also, like, look, credit to the Patriots who practiced that actual play. I don't know how they had the foresight to know that they were going to run that. But they actually practiced that play that week. So it was like they kind of, that's incredible coaching, incredible execution. Yeah.

So anyways, it did suck though. Yeah. All right. Number eight on my list of storylines. This is also for D.K. Yeah. Can I have your all-time Seahawks power rankings? Of course.

Of course. Top five favorite players. Yeah. I think I'm going to skew towards recent. So all you old head Seahawk fans, sorry. I would put in terms of the most beloved Seahawks, I think Walter Jones goes up there for Seahawk fans, maybe the greatest tackle of all time. Just a, you know, and just a great guy. Like every time he gets interviewed, he's just awesome.

I would say number one, him. I would say Largent, Steve Largent, is up there on Mount Rushmore. Congressman Steve Largent? Yeah. Just great player of that era. I think of Steve Largent. I'm going to say, and this is probably going different from one. what like older Seahawk fans would say

because like Cortez Kennedy would be in there. Like Kenny Easley. But I would say Marshawn Lynch. To me, if I was actually going to make a ranking, Marshawn Lynch would be number one on my list. So put him above those other two guys. And then that's where it gets really difficult because you have guys like Russell Wilson, complicated history with the Seahawks.

What a weird one, yeah. Richard Sherman, also complicated history with the Seahawks. He went to the 49ers after he was released from the Seahawks. And then I think there was like tension between him and Siak fans. He felt that we didn't appreciate him enough, which I can understand that. Camp Chancellor, Bobby Wagner,

basically all these players on that defense. I'm going to say, for me personally, Michael Bennett, just because he was a hilarious character, just really fun to cover, really good player for that Super Bowl team. And then,

so I got Marshawn, Bennett. I'm going to say Bobby Wagner, one of the all-time great Seahawks. defenders and i think the russell wilson thing will just put him a little bit below that i can imagine that a super bowl winning quarterback and went to two outplayed aaron rodgers an fc championship game well that's that's that's that's a longer list i think he would be he would be on a lot of seahawk fans number one like he would probably be just a weird again it's a weird end up being very

strange uh storyline number nine let's again think of the normies out there how would you describe high if it's this Patriots team that people haven't seen them play very much. I mean, if it was the Rams who had made the Super Bowl instead of the Seahawks, it would just be Rams Patriots all over again. Time is a flat circle. I think the way I described, I mean, Mike, I think Mike Vrabel is the new Bill Parcells.

You know, it's easy to say he's the Belichic disciple, but he's the new part Bill Parcells. And I mean, honestly, this Patriots team sucks. And by the stand, it does. I'm saying, by the stand, like, they made the Super Bowl in the school. but if you break down the individual players and like the Patriots offense,

they're horrific. And I mean that as a compliment to the coaching staff, because Patriots fans can be mad. But the truth is, it has taken an incredible amount of coaching and teamwork to get this team here because one year ago, if you had asked about the Patriots, the concerns were that New England

had the worst offensive line in the NFL maybe. The solution of that was two rookies at left tackle and left guard, which has somehow worked. The receiving corps is Stefan Diggs on his third team in three years, coming off a torn ACL at 32 years old and a snap count. Matt Collins, who was not welcome back to the Buffalo Bills Receiving Corps.

The Buffalo Bills Receiving Corps did not want Matt Collins back for the coaching staff. And then Kishon Booty is like a six-round pick who has frankly done very little in his entire career until this season. Like that was the pay. And then Drake May is a second year quarterback who won one game coming into this season. Drake May had one win. So I don't feel uncomfortable saying, yeah, on paper before the season, the argument for the Patriots making the Super Bowl was, sorry, making the playoffs

was New England schedule sucked? And this isn't a new conversation about the New England schedule. Like, their opponents sucked so much that the idea was they could overcome a horrible roster that's still a rebuild. And they, through coaching, have on the verge of one of the most unlikely Super Bowls,

probably since the Giants won, or, you know, the Eagles with Nick Foles and all the stuff. But, I mean, they're one of the least talented teams to maybe win a Super Bowl. long time. The Bowenix thing. Well, yeah, it's like everybody who comes across. It's like I just kept waiting for, you know, what are the, you know.

I mean, Sal on Bill's show the other day was making the, he did the bit like four or five different times after the AFC championship game ended. He was like, oh, look, it looks like Kenneth Walker got run over by a golf cart. It's like he's out. It's unbelievable. Oh, Sam Darnold. He slipped and fell in the snow. He broke his leg.

He can't play. They are an under talented roster who's gotten a lucky schedule, but they've made the most, Belichick would say luck is preparation meets opportunity. They were really prepared for what ended up being an easier path to the Super Bowl, but you have to have an absurd level week-to-week preparation to do what they've done. And so I would give Mike Vrable and Drake made, and Josh McDaniels, the coordinator, a lion's share incredible amount of credit for what they've done. Number 11.

Is Mike Vrable the coach most likely to win the NFL Insiders Slobber all over this guy award? AKA the Sean McVeigh Award. I mean, I think, so that's a good question. It depends on the type of reporter or analyst you're talking about. I think the nerds are going to love Mike McDonald. Yeah. For obvious reasons. And I remember when he got signed by the Seahawks to be their new coach hired,

people were like, he's going to be the Sean McVeigh of defense. He's kind of turned into that, like legitimately. That is this, it's not like sometimes the Sean McVeigh of this or the whatever of this is like lazy. It is absolutely the correct shorthand to just feel like Mike McDonald is the Sean McFeyer defense. That is accurate. That's what's happening. You know, and obviously in the second year, the Seahawks coach, he's come out of the NFC West. This is why he was hired.

He needed to be the guy who could beat Shanahan McFay. I mean, the Cardinals are also in the division. But that was kind of why he was hired or a big part of it is so he can get beat those guys in division. I will say Sean McVeigh has kind of had his number this year. Like the two worst games by far, the Seahawks defense played, we're getting. Sean McBay. But that being said, I think, you know, you see guys in his zone like Jesse Mentor just got hired. They're basically like we let McDonald out of the building. We're not going to make that one sick again. We're bringing the mentor back in. This style of defense, this type of defense that

he runs is sort of the new thing that's in vogue. The, the rabble, rable is the last of a dying greed of like a player turned coach who's like elite at clock management, week to week game preparation, motivation, all these things. Tough guyness. Tough guy. The old school reporters are going to like. Yeah, the old school reporters like will, you know, the Brian Curtis's of the world. I think Mike Vrable is the draw. He's the last of the time. Over here, smoking my cigars and drinking my beer.

Well, I think the thing is, like, what you're hitting on is you don't have to know anything about football to appreciate Mike Brayble. Yeah. And he just, even if you just looked at him. He's the biggest, he says the broadest chest of any human being I've ever seen. We were at a bar in Indianapolis this is years ago and someone just bodies me and I turn around and I'm like, hey, and I just look up and it's Mike Brayble. So it's like, oh. It looks like he could suit up and play. He does.

There's no coaching the NFL. I don't think that like gets into the practices and hits players at pads more than Vrable. But McDonald, the football nerds rightfully are going to go into it. We can go in. If you want what he does, we can go into that. But it is he's on the cutting edge of modern defense. What I want to know is will we get to the level we got to with McVeigh, when someone who knows Sean McVeigh gets insulted, it's like a wrestling faction.

Everyone has to get pissed off. Yeah. That was really a moment this year. It's like, oh, you insulted my friend. You insult my friend. You insult my whole coaching tree. We have a lot of coaching beef now. We have a lot of good beefs now coming up, especially next season.

There's a lot of beef. Is there just ridiculous? Which beef? Well, the whole thing of you insult me, you insult my friend. Like really other people are really really pissed off of Ben Johnson for that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yes, absolutely. Like the Loft floors.

You think that's not a dude. Mike and Daniel. Maybe it's real, but they need to get over themselves. The 70 to nothing Dolphins Broncos game was because Sean Payton insulted Nate Hackett. And they hackett and Mike and Daniel friends. It's like that's a thing. You've never been petty after a game, Mr. Head Coach. Come on.

Number 12, this is the idea of Bostonite empowerment generally, but we could also narrow it down to the Boston media people because we basically a generation of sports media people owe their careers in whole or in part to the rise of the Patriots. They are all out there. So now we have a second generation. I'm not sure the media even exists anymore. So if it does great, we get some new.

people into this into this business but to me just this idea of not only boston being the main subject of our lives which it feels like it has been for the last decade but the fact that boston media people once again empowered that to me is a storyline of the superman like that i just more of a speech i can't think of any can you a boston people yeah i'm trying to think of some boston people who um i don't know i'm rappapapaport i think of yeah i'm trying to think of yeah over brier a couple more we'll come up with a whole list yeah we'll brainstorm Number 13, who is the true nobody believes in us team in this game? I mean, Patriots.

Yeah. I haven't seen anybody. I haven't seen anybody pick the Patriots. I just got done telling you about how crappy they are. They are. Hyvids analysis was excellent, but just like as a point of, just as a point of order, Boston, nobody believed in us. That's just so fine. It's infuriating, but that's the truth.

But that is also Boston, right? Like everybody, it's always nobody believed them. You think you better than me? And it's like, yeah, there's like 27 teams that on paper were better than them. They got a few. Anyone could have had their players. I guess that's my point, except outside of Drake May, who a bunch of teams wanted to trade up for a game,

if you just go down the roster, it's just a bunch of other players that other teams could have had in like free agency and just didn't want. I got a few more for you here. Number 14 is the gentleman who will be calling the Super Bowl. Mike Tariko and Chris Collinsworth. Now we talk a lot about announcers, but I want to hear you guys.

What do you think of Tariko and Collinsworth? you know my dad's name was Abe Lincoln. That was my favorite moment of our show. Oh, the fantasy football show this year was Craig and D.K. And I joking. Craig is a great Collinsworth impression. Maybe not as good as Bill and how Sal's. But when Collinsworth, it was a DC game and Collinsworth is like, my dad's name is Abe Lincoln.

And Torrico was like, what? Did you hear this? So great. So that's it. That's the analysis. I will say from a football point of view, I appreciate Collinsworth. I think he's, I think he's really good. And the way that I would sort of, I guess, frame it or how I would measure that is I feel like he, many or maybe at least three or four times a game, will, a play will happen.

They'll immediately go to the replay and he'll already be breaking down. Why that was unique. Why that was interesting. What happened from a football point of view? I think he's actually very good at that. He's underrated about that because people will say he's constantly like, there's a guy that does this or whatever. And he kind of does lean on sort of cliche narratives sometimes, but I do think he can break down ball. He knows what's going on in the game.

They're the best tandem. I don't think it's close. I think Tariko is by far the best play-by-play guy right now. It's like no disrespect. I mean, we love Gus Johnson. We love Eric Collins for the Hornets. But like, Torrico, the Steelers Ravens game that ended the regular season was one of the best announced games.

I think it was probably the best thing I've ever seen Toriko do. Like the theater of it, they make it the drama. Collinsworth has a great way of like, you know, leans toward positivity and like he builds up moments. But he just has, I just think Collinsworth honestly does do a great job of selling games. but having insight and it's a team game right it's like you have a hundred people in that sunday and football broadcast every week it is hard to actually like you know talk to 20 million people at the same time and colonsworth i think he does a great job you know how the joke is that

romo says six or seven times a game oh we're going to look back at that moment as one i think colonsworth actually does a good job of identifying those and he doesn't it's not like fake you know he like he'll see in the flow of a game something big will happen and he'll be like oh and and and the weight of that miss or the weight of that play that happened. I think he kind of, he's got to like capturing that. The Odell catch in part became so big because Collinsworth immediately was like,

that's the best catch I've ever seen. And then Tarika was like, what? And then you do the replay? And you're like, oh, yep, that's probably the best catch ever. I mean, my favorite Collinsworth moment, again, this is being a Cogt Homer, but the Bsquist, the second beastquake. Yes.

When halfway through the run, you can just hear Collinsworth, it's like gutterily going, like, you know, like you knew in that moment that this was like a rare thing. or Caleb Williams, you know, that throw the other night where he just starts laughing. I mean, like it's just like...

That's what I'm talking about. I know what I've just seen. Yeah. Yeah, it's he's, I think he's great at it. It's interesting because there's a little bit of hamminess too. We talk about this guy, Mike. But I think he understands that Sunday Night Football is a standalone game

and he is speaking to just a lot of people that are just watching TV. Yeah, yeah. And that are football fans that are also just people watching TV. And there's probably a slightly different approach to it. What you say about, like, recognizing the moment, that's the fascinating thing to me about TV when you watch a game is those guys are trying, if they're doing their jobs well, to tell the story of a game in real time. And that's a really hard task.

And when you see people screw it up when they're just, you know, fish tailing with a car through the broadcast and putting way, freaking out over things and going way up here in the first quarter and then they don't have anywhere to go. They do it really badly. Those guys, but Collinsworth and Torrico, they have this way of doing it where you just have to figure it out in real time. And again, you were just speaking it out loud. And you can tell the difference between, and again, all these people have people in their ears and everything. I mean, Kirk Herb Street and Amazon, it's a little different because he has like two other jobs he does within. He has three jobs that all happen within 72 hours. You know what I mean?

Thursday and football, calling game Saturday, college game day in the morning. And so sometimes, you know, they have people in there helping them sometimes. I think with Tariko, he still does. To Rico, I'm impressed with because I think he by far is the best grasp of rules for a play-by-play guy. Terrico knows the rules incredibly well. Mike knows everything. It's impressive. I was in a booth with him last year, and this random guy, and it's so random, I can't

even remember his name, the defense attack for the Bengals made a play. He was not a starter. He was not much of a rotation player. And Tariko pulls up his iPad. He's calling the game. It goes down to his participation data. Yeah. And to see how many plays that guy had played the week before and then just puts it into

the broadcast. And like, try doing that during a ringer podcast, much less a national NFL broadcast. to your point about the replays this is also fascinating to me I couldn't swear this to Collinsworth I've seen Troy Aikman do this in person Here's what happens Play's happening Oh my goodness he broke run Before the play ends

Analyst is already back at beginning On their body so they're looking at that Yeah so by the time the replay comes out They've already seen it probably two or three times That's always a great trick They don't watch the end of the play typically Unless it's something amazing They're just like Troy I know it does with a touchscreen

So he's like And then by the time he's supposed to talk He's ready to talk. Yeah. See, I think that kind of stuff is so cool because you don't really realize it in the moment that they're doing four or five different things that once. It kind of just feels like you're sitting there with them on the couch and they're just like, whoa, that was crazy. But they are working really hard. It's probably really stressful to go through and do all that stuff.

And they're so fast. I love that I came on the press box of my cutting edge analysis. I think the broadcast are pretty good. Well, they're good. It's a hard job. Honestly, they're good. With Collinsworth, I think you almost have to. to say that because like what was it now 10 15 years ago he just would win the sports

Emmy every single year that was not a great time for troy was still coming up in the world believe phil sims was our guy on cbs and there was a whole thing of like chris collins worst the best and then we started getting eggman's great romo had his moment uh you know Brady's in now and Brady's doing a better job and all of a sudden i think people just kind of forgot olson that chris collins was really good at television or started just trying to bump him down and it's like, actually, maybe he's still the best guy doing this. He's into PFF. He just thinks a lot about football, too, in the off season.

So anyway, number 15, bad bunny in the halftime show. High Fitz, I know you've been ready to let a rip. I was going to sing, yeah. Do you want me to him? No, I mean, there's a lot to this. I mean, obviously, it's a tremendous cultural moment. I mean, he's the biggest, the most streamed artist on Spotify in the entire world. And obviously, there's a cultural aspect.

You know, the Grammys on Sunday, he literally took the first of many Grammys, he won, at least the first televised Grammy won, and obviously, you know, he starts it with, like, ice out. So, you know, I mean, I thought Kendrick's performance last year was extremely political. We'll see what Bad Bunny ends up doing. I think, you know, merely doing that Super Bowl halftime show

in Spanish is itself like a cultural moment. I, you know, I, the general vibe of, like, people are, a lot of people are going to be like, oh, like, this guy isn't for me. I don't speak Spanish. I think, yeah, that's the point. Like, the NFL makes half a billion dollars. The NFL makes half a billion dollars a week.

And the reality is that the domestic game as a business is nearing totality and perfection. Like they're nearing about as, you know, grow or die with any business. And they basically can't grow the domestic game much more. They're going to go to an 18 game season. It'll start labor after Labor Day weekend. It's going to end on President's Day. They're going to have 18 games, two by weeks of playoffs. Super Bowl on a three-day weekend.

You're going to make the Super Bowl like basically winter, 4th of July where there's a holiday the day after. and it's going to get as big as you can. It's going to be awesome, by the way. It's going to be sick. They're doing great. NFL's great at making money. But they're the NFL.

So, you know, making half a billion dollars a week is not enough. So how do you get to a billion dollars a week? And the answer is, well, you need to go outside the 380, 400 million people, whatever, in this country. And the easiest way to do that is there's like another 400 million Spanish, 4,000 million people who speak Spanish south of the border between Central America, South America, even if you take up Brazil. You've got a half a billion people in this hemisphere on the, roughly the same time zones. And that's the business. So eventually this is all going is an

international package of, you know, a game a week in the morning getting a 14-hour television window. So you have an international game every week. They'll probably not do it the last two weeks of the year for fairness. But they'll have 16 games. Each team plays one international game, 16 times for 32 teams. And then you do that each of the first 16 games of the year. And you have every single Sunday starts at 6 a.m. Pacific or 9 a.m. Eastern. And that's the thing. So all that to say, they need to grow the international game. So when people are like, you know, white guys who look like podcasters, like the three of us, they're like, I don't know bad buddy.

I know. You're already watching the Super Bowl. So the short version of, why is bad bunny doing this? It's because there's like hundreds of millions of people where the Venn diagram, there is no, it's not, oh, Venn diagram is a circle. The Vend diagram people watch football and don't know bad money is a circle. They want the Venn diagram of people who know bad bunny to turn on the game. And they're like, maybe we could get 200.

million people to watch the Super Bowl instead of like 115 or 120. Bad Bunny is how they get to 200 plus million people concurrently. So the answer is they know you're not going to watch Bad Bunny. They want all the other people who aren't watching the Super Bowl to turn the game on. If I remember correctly, the Super Bowl audience peaked last year

during halftime. The second half was terrible. The game was over. I'm pretty sure. But you do have people that are like, I want to watch the cool musical. This is my thing, right? This is why I'm here. How great was this athletic survey where they just asked about players, do you like Bad Bunny? That was just like the funniest thing I have ever seen.

Like, well, we will print your responses anonymously, of course. You're the media expert. What do you make in the survey? I don't, I mean, it's kind of, it's interesting, like, in terms of like, I will read your poll quote, but I don't, I don't totally understand why that's interesting

or why that's important to know. Right. Does the NFL? Why do we need to know these anonymous opinions of players? about Bad Bunny. This is one NFC offensive player from the survey that I loved. I don't know who he is

and never listened to his music, but I saw on the year in data, he's the global leader in music streams. It makes sense, wanting to make this a global performance good for ratings. It's a lot of semicolones in that answer. And I'm just like,

how was this delivered? It's delivered. But I like, it sounds like a media podcaster, really. Number 14B, Donald Trump went to the last year, but he's not going on the super. It's good for.

graphic. Without even getting into politics, God, when the president's at the Super Bowl, it's a freaking nightmare for security. Imagine you don't getting in the elevator, how hard it is? Yeah, that's the tough one. You know, I'm just thinking about myself. Number 15, here I thought we'd do some advice for our reporter friends who are in San Francisco and Santa Clara. First of all, it's going to be a lot of fudging between those things this week. Just say the bay. It's like the, wait, you know that meme of David Beckham and Victoria Beckham where he's like, She's like, my dad drove a hot or whatever.

And he's like, tell the truth. She's like, okay, it was a Porsche. And it's just like the, where's the Super Bowl? San Francisco, tell the truth. Santa Clara. What is the hackiest story to write this week? If we already say that Malcolm Butler is off the board. Everybody's written Malcolm Buller.

We're all good there. What is, if you go to Santa Clara or San Francisco and you don't have an idea, what are you writing? Well, I don't want to get in trouble. Do you like that? Asking you to anonymous. I'm like at the athletic. Can you just drill some sports? No, we're going to go and then we're going to have anonymous voice changes.

The first thing that came to my mind was doing some oral history on the seeing ghosts game with Sam Darnold and the Patriots. Although I probably wouldn't read that. I want to read that. That's a good idea. Yeah. Well, I don't know what you mean by hackiest. I think it's like the most cliche, the most cliche story. Let me take some of the journalist hate off the table here.

What is the easiest story to write from Santa Clara? The most basic unit of Super Bowl. coverage you think you'd write this week? The same Donald. Sam Donald comeback because it's the, it's easy to do without trying, but if you, but it's also the highest ceiling story,

because that is like the story of the game is how that, how did this happen? And so it's like, but you also could probably, like frankly chat GPT could probably give you a pretty good version. But it's also the most singularly most interesting thing to the widest array of people. 24 draft.

Are we there yet when we're going to do Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels, and Drake May? And isn't that going to be just something? that we read about for the next 15 years. Yeah. Jane Daniels got to a in a conference championship game for a straight, May too got to a Super Bowl first.

Caleb Williams is in many ways about just spectacular player in terms of makes Chris Collinsworth laugh mid-play. Among other things. Among other things, yeah, so he's there. Best thing that no one else that you know of is writing. Oh, like a story that I want to sign people? Yeah.

That's a better way of it. I mean, I, if football, you know, X's and O's, I still think the story of what the CX do. I guess I'll give you this. I would say if you want to do X as a nose of the game, I don't think it's been explained enough some of the things Mike McDonald does on defense, which basically it's not complicated. Like the worst thing about football analysis last year's is the whole thing of, oh, the two high safeties, you know? And they go, oh, what a change with defense? Two high safeties. No, no.

It's the front sevens like a front six. Okay. They just took the seventh defender and put it toward the person. pass. And I think that the way that you do that is the way Mike McDonald has done that and is can it can be explained to fans better. And I guess it's like the Greg Maddoxification of defense. And it's like the old guys, Tom and Pete Carroll, it was like Randy Johnson.

And was like, we're going to throw 100. Randy Johnson actually tipped his pitches for like 20 years. And he still struck out 400 people during the steroid era. And it's because he was so funny. God, he's the best. Oh, my God. He's the man. big unit big unit big unit but like

the idea was if randy johns give up a home run it's like oh it doesn't matter your tip of your pitches you got to throw better pitches that was tomlin that was piquary that was the idea is there's no deception we just have to out-execute you and what might what sean mcvay and kyle shanhan did is they're like gregg maddox which is Greg maddox could throw a complete game shutout without hitting 90 miles an hour and it's because he reverse engineered all of his pitches

to look identical from the release point and he made everything look exactly the same the entire time. So you get the best pitcher of all time. And he's winning with his brain because it's like, why would you tip your pitches? And it's like he didn't have the best stuff. And so what Shanahan and McVeigh did on offense, without getting too nerdy into it is, it all looks the same the whole time. And like whoever's on the field is not a tell. If someone, like the formation is not a tell. Like even when the play starts, you still don't know what the play is. So it's like a Greg Maddox thing. By the time you find out with the pitches, you already had, it's already a strike. And that's what Sean McVeigh and Shannon did.

McDonald, what he's done is the Greg Maddoxification of defense where the players on the field doesn't tell you what the defense is going to be. Even when a receiver goes in motion, it's like all dime at this point. It's all nickel. It's all dime. It's all like a bunch of defensive backs. Even when they trail a receiver, that means man coverage. Not necessarily. It could be zone still. And it's like the play starts. You still might not know what the defense is. And so that is the thing, I think, I still just feel like it just hasn't been explained to people enough. I don't think that's what you wanted to know at all. It's probably more interesting people. No, I love, no, see, that was a great normie Super Bowl storyline because you picked the most normie athlete of all

time, Greg Maddox. That's what I'm saying. Everybody understands that. If you want an older person story, I said, Mike Vrable is the mix of Bill Parsall's and Belichick. That's the other story that I think needs to be written this week is that Belichick is an introvert and he's got the best aspects of both. Bill Parcells, it's like this master of the clock and stuff, but also like confrontation. And I think Mike Vrable has the confrontation of Bill Parsall's. The game management and weekly weekly game to game stuff of Belichick, but his flair is like as an actual, like successful player that like there's he's loved and feared at the same time, ironically. All right. This is the last one I have for you guys. Let's say you are a local NFL reporter.

So you're not from Seattle, not from Boston, and you are going to Santa Clara. Now, your your sports section may have been closed by the time the ball kicks off on Sunday. That's actually a thing that's going to happen this week. But let's say you are. What's the best local angle? that you could report from the Super Bowl. Ooh. I have a lot, but I'm taking a box. What do you got? No, you got it.

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I did a bad thing, I, the, the, G, well, they have other things they're covering right now, but the, but the, but the, but you got the GM fired, and then the combination of GM getting fired, and, you know, I understand there's, like, issues that I'm like, I did a bad job, and a lot of the players he drafted aren't on the team anymore. So the, um, um, um, Sam Donald being in the Super Bowl is incredible. If you're Dallas to market, the Cowboys trading Michael Parsons away because they want to get better run defense

and DeMarcus Lawrence maybe winning a Super Bowl for the Seahawks because his run defense is so good. We didn't even mention Lawrence. I mean, he's been a massive, massive piece of this for the Seahawks. Because he's the best run to the defensive end in the league. It was sort of an underrated signing in the offseason too. I remember when they signed him, I was like, oh, that's cool. Like another veteran to add to their mix.

I didn't realize he was going to be a truly foundational piece. And by the way, he had a play that basically won the, Seahawks the game on fourth and four in the NFC championship game. He peeled off. And this was him just from what he said. And from what I've heard before he even said it was it was he saw Karen Williams coming out of the backfield. He saw him running a route and realized that Julian Love wasn't going to be able to keep

up with him. So he peeled off like. And after the game, Sean McVeigh was like, it was the most fortuitous bust. I don't know how. He was like they couldn't have planned that. I don't know how they did that. and it was just DeMarcus Lawrence realizing in the moment that he was going to give up a touchdown. So he peeled off, you know, Stafford couldn't go to him.

And then they got to stop. That was fourth down in the end zone. And that was like the game. That's a good local angle. I mean, Minnesota and Dallas are covered. I could give you 31 local angles. The Jets should be like, I can't believe we let Sam Donald go. The Panthers should be like, how do we let Donald do?

What about the Titans letting Vrabel or firing Vable? The Titans firing Vrabel because they were mad that Matt Lufler went to the the Packers so they fired Raymond to get Brian Callahan. Yeah. Because they wanted Callahan to be like Lefleur, but then they fire Callahan and then they see Vrable go to the Super Bowl. So they hire Robert Sala be like Vrable. That's the Tennessee angle.

Yeah. There's a lot. So there's a lot of this should have been us. There's a lot of, I mean, dude, people could have had. I mean, it's incredible. I mean, and that's what you get for a low water in Super Bowl, right? Because there's not a lot. I guess maybe with Mahomes you could have been like, well, he lasted a couple of picks

into the draft. What was it, where did he go? I can't remember we went. We could have had him and imagine that. But this one, you're like, we could have had these players for free, basically, except Drake May, maybe, you know, J.S.N. I'm trying to think of other guys. I'm just like coveted.

Hara Landry was on Roberts Blaine. They played for variable in Tennessee. No, there's a ton. I mean, yeah. But I was going to say it's fun, but it's only fun if the Seahawks win. If the Patriots win, this sucks. And the local angles were once again under the yoke of the Boston rule. Let us pray.

Boys, thank you so much for doing this. What are you doing this week? We've got a lot of plans over on the fantasy show here in L.A. We got a couple pods. We're live streaming the Pro Bowl on the Ring of Fantasy Football Show. I've never watched the Pro Bowl before. That's a skip for me, guys. Sorry about that.

What else you got? Now, you guys are recording after the Super Bowl so people can hear your post-game analysis? Ringer Fantasy Football show, yeah, after the Super Bowl. But we do the whole year. So, I mean, I don't know if you liked or hated this, but I will say, I don't think our show is like other shows. So it's different at the very least. So Sunday after the Super Bowl, but we do the DKs are draft expert here at the

ringer. So he does a draft guide that is live at NFL draft.com. Hell yeah. So we cover free agency trades, the draft, the whole offseason. So, I mean, everything that happens with football in the off season through the draft, and then even after the draft, we're still going once a week. So we are. And then if you do fantasy football, we got you prep for July, August, September, and everything.

So four times a week during the season. So there you go. I'm imagining this press box listener right now who's listening to all this. I'm like, wow, Ringer cover sports. I'll have to check these guys out. That person might exist, but they probably don't exist. Anyway, that's the press box. Thanks to the dandies. I'm Brian Curtis. Products by Bruce Baldwin and Isaiah Blakely. We got a lot coming up on the press box this week.

We will, of course, have more lukewarm takes.