The Ringer NFL Show - Wild-Card Weekend Winners and Losers

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

We recap the weekend’s slate of wild-card action, starting off with Giants-Vikings and the weekend’s biggest winner: Daniel Jones. In looking at Ravens-Bengals, they discuss why Lamar Jackson wasn’t on the sideline and debate his future in Baltimore. Despite the Bills' win over the Dolphins, the guys explain why Josh Allen is still a loser this week, before going all in on the Chargers after they blew a 27-point lead to the Jaguars. They wrap by discussing the 49ers' win over the Seahawks and how much people are overblowing Brock Purdy’s performance. Email us! [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers from the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's a new year and I have a new podcast here at the Ringer, Offguard, hosted by me and my guide, Pasha Higigi. Austin and I go way back and talk so much hoop already that we figure those time to fire up the mics and let you in on all of these conversations. Every week, Pasha and I will hit on the biggest stories happening in the league.

And get Austin's perspective of someone currently hooping in the NBA. Tap into Offguard every Friday on the Ringer NBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. name is Danny Hypatts. I am joined by Danny Kelly and that's it. Craig Krolley is off today. We are doing our super Wildcard Weekend awards, even though it's Monday and WildCard weekend is not over and also, is it Wild Card Weekend? If it includes the Monday, I don't know. I guess it is a holiday weekend. I don't know. Whatever. We're going to go over all the five games that have happened and guess what, Tika. We're going to start with the Giants because I'm biased as a

Giants fan. Yeah. And oh my God, they looked so good. We're going right into it. Winter of the week, Daniel Jones. Oh, yeah. First of all, we were texting during the game. Hyfitz was just desperately trying not to jinx the giants the whole time. So he was like very even keeled. He refused to have any hot takes. And then once the game was over, once you guys had won, it was all fun.

It was all gravy. Daniel Jones, man, he had like the game of his life in this game. Like, he looked at incredible. This was the best game of Daniel Jones' career. It was obviously the biggest game of his career. Here's the thing. It's not even like he had some throw here or there.

That was incredible. It was he didn't have a bad play. Right. He didn't have one play or maybe there's one, I went back. I don't think even watching Eli Manning, and I'm not saying Daniel Jones is as good as Eli, but I don't even think Eli Manning had a game I watched where I was like, I wouldn't take back two plays.

There were Giantsranes 68 plays. I don't think I'd take back one. Even his incompletions were like throwaways that were smart or drops. Even two of the sacks he took was like that was better than throwing the ball away at that time. It was not a perfect performance, but there were no mistakes. Right. Which is incredible because that defined the first couple of years of his career.

I know. That's what I said after the game was over. It's like the transformation from a toolsy turnover machine, like hyphids, you used to make jokes about how you were worried about him crossing the street just because he had no pocket presence. He kept getting strips act. Like that was the story of the first few years of his career was just incredible, incredible amounts of turnovers constantly.

Just the types of turnovers you cannot win games with. And he was, like you said, he was pretty good and this game almost perfect. 24 out of 35, 301 yards, two touchdowns, plus 78 rushing yards on 17 rushes. 17 rushes. I think seven of those were design rushes, 10 scrambles. And I think,

Nate Seitz pointed to this out on the athletic show, but basically, whenever the Vikings would go into man, he would just drop back. And immediately, if he didn't have his first read, just take off running. And it was, like, so effective, you know, demoralizing to the defense, and he has really good speed.

It was just crazy watching him just in complete command, the whole game. I mean, he had twice as many carries as Sequin. I know a lot of those are scrambles, but he also had a lot of designed runs. The Vikings were weird. where they faced like the fewest or the second fewest amount of designed runs all year. And they seemed like unprepared for Daniel Jones running, which is weird.

Yeah. So, but I mean, they were just straight up running him off tackle. I mean, there was one play. You remember the second drive? He ran like four times in a row. He looked gassed. But like it was unstoppable. And also, Bill's trying to jinx us.

Bill's like, Dimes is the best quarterback in the NFC. I'm like, I can't say that while the game is going on. Yeah. Like that's just begging the guy, the football got for him to throw a pick. But random stat, Daniel Jones' first quarterback in NFL history with 300 or more passing yards, two or more passing touchdowns, and 70 rushing yards in a playoff game. Yeah. I mean, it was that kind of game.

It reminded me of how, like, the Chiefs used to play with Alex Smith where they'd run, like, power with him. There's a couple of places where they ran power and just Daniel Jones is immediately, like, the running back. And they're just exploiting that. It's really fun to see the evolution of Daniel Jones just throughout his career. Like I mentioned before, like, you really, there was a time, at least even during this season where, you know, you were just like, I hope they don't resign him because this is all

Fool's goal. And now it really feels like he has legitimately turned the, like the corner and turned into a real NFL quarterback. No, I think that Daniel Jones, honestly, I think he had an old school quarterback development that's kind of gone away. I think that if you talk to any quarterback, honestly, any quarterback or any quarterback relevant coach that was in their heyday like before 2010, they'll all say that quarterbacking used to be like a developmental curve and you can even grade them until year three. Now, NFL teams literally have to decide on the 15th your option at the end of year three. And it went from quarterbacks were not expected to start the rookie year.

And it was a question whether they'd start year two. They would sit. They'd learn. It's like Jordan Love. Like we're still waiting. Yeah. Patrick Mahomes had a year on the bench. Tom Brady obviously was not a starter to start.

Drew Breeze had a year on the bench. But Aaron Rogers had three years on the bench. Like all, so many of those halls and quarterbacks sat for a long time. And then that just went away with the rookie contract structure where it's like, well, now they're an asset. Now they're cheap. So we've got to get them out immediately. But if they don't perform immediately in a team,

that sucked obviously enough for them to draft them high, then they're like, oh, they're useless, they're garbage. And it's like, I think that with Jones,

my big theme of the Giants, big theme of this weekend, coaching matters with quarterbacks. Look at what happened. When Daniel Jones went from Jason Garrett for two years where they were literally dead lasting touchdowns, dead last in every offensive metric.

They get Brian Dable, Daniel Jones has the best year of his career by far, and the Giants went from like 31st in the red zone to seventh. And then you look at Trevor Lawrence, Urban Meyer, who I do think will go down as easily top three. And I would argue, like, the worst coach of modern NFL history is Urban Meyer. Doug Peterson one season, I know, obviously, Lawrence had the interception in the first half.

But look what happened with Lawrence. Look what happened everywhere with all these quarterbacks, the difference in coaching. But with this team, I could go on forever. But D.K., you and Craig were texting how the Giants are America's team, and I didn't want to acknowledge that during the game. But please, I talk as close as you want about how the Giants. An absentia, basically, is that the Giants are now America's team. Everybody loves an underdog story. Everybody loves the plucky team that's not as talented as the other team, but they just get by on grit.

And they like, MacGyver their way to wins. And I think that's absolutely the Giants. Also, you know, and I've been guilty of this in the past. Like, Daniel Jones was trod upon basically for the first three years of his career. We made fun of him a lot. Like, we all thought he was way overdrafted. And for a long time, it looked like he was. but he's absolutely storming back.

It looks like the future is bright for him. So I think people can appreciate that too. So yes, they're America's team. The other thing I think that's part of that, like, whole sort of sarcastic take is that, like, who else in the playoffs now do you, like, feel really, really strongly about, I guess? Well, the bills were the easiest team to root for, like,

of all time in maybe any sport and entering this playoffs. And then they just kind of had a meltdown. I mean, I don't know if we want to get to that game already, but like the bills were the team. I remember who was reading for. But the Giants, I mean, here's the crazy thing. I think the Giants during the season were like a shoestring and bubblegum team. I like what you said, MacGyvering.

They were. They were kind of pulling shit out of their ass. This game, they just looked great. Right. They just looked like the most competent team, which is nuts. That's what I wanted to get to also before we move on from the Giants is like, anytime you have a team like this, I think you have to have several elements coming to play.

You mentioned the coaching. Obviously, the coaching's been massive. Dave All has been really, really masterful in the ways that he's like gotten the most out of not only Daniel Jones, but just like the talent, the lack of talent they have on the team. But it's also like the front office, like bringing in Isaiah Hodgins midway through the year. They got him on waivers from the bills. Obviously, DeBall and Joe Shane knew him from their days in Buffalo. But like having him come in and all of a sudden he's looking like.

The bills cut him from their practice squad. No, they cut him trying to get him to the practice squad is what I understand. And basically the Giants were the only team that put a waiver wire request in on Hodgins. He was the sixth rounder. Like, you know, he'd basically been back up his entire career with the bills. I think it was like one year. And so like that to me just looks like a stroke of genius. And he's been legitimately good.

It no longer feels like he's just some sort of flashing fan, like the only guy on the team that is like playing anymore. Like so he's therefore going to get targets. But he actually looks good. You know what I mean? And so it's this combination of coaching, development, belief, and a little bit of just like the gritty magic, I guess, that you add in. And the Giants are just a lot of fun to watch all of a sudden.

And plus Sequin. Sequin is awesome. Well, I want to wax poetic about Hodgins for a second because Daniel Jones is going to get paid. He's going to get a huge contract. Obviously, Sequin is extremely famous. Hodgins, I want to spend a second on because this is a six-round pick three years ago, who had literally four snaps on offense entering the season. Not four catches.

He had four snaps on offense entering this year. What year is he in his career? 2020? He was six-round pick in 2020. So this was like a not even a special team. He was really a practice squad slash special teamer. And now he's as eight catches for 100 plus yards and a touchdown in a playoff game. And the one thing I love about him is he kind of represents the team because Brian Dable,

the whole thing is smart, tough, dependable. Hodgins has not the most talented player on the field. He might be like one of the least talented. He just does everything correctly in extremely not sexy ways. But the one I think about all the time, which I think Craig, if you were here and he appreciate, is Isaiah Hodgins, there was a play. The Giants are like a third and eight or third and seven. And Hodgins runs down and goes a button hook.

and just kind of runs six yards downfield, turns it, and gets the ball. And he's short of the sticks. But he knows that, and two defendants close again. And he makes sure to, like, fall very powerfully backward to get the first. And it's one of those things. When Deonti Johnson does that, he steps back two yards and tries to run around and then gets tackled, like, shorter the first downs. And it's like how many more talented receivers screw that up?

Knock on what the Giants don't. And that's this team in a nutshell is they know where they are, they know what they do, and it's fantastic. Yeah. I mean, I will say, Hodgins, he might be underreact. ratedly talented. I know that you, like, he, when you look back at his, he played at Oregon State in college, he put up 2,300 yards, 20 touchdowns. He was really good. He put up a ton of production. He probably was underdraft. He went in the sixth round, but maybe it was just because he was slow. It's like, one of those guys who, he didn't have the elite speed profile, so teams pass him up, but he's like really productive, really good hands, really savvy route runner. There might be something here. I don't know. I'm just kind of like, I'm leaving room for the idea that he's actually really good, you know. Well, the hands. the bills are missing that. I mean, to think that Cole Beasley's on that

Bulls team at Hodgins is not. He's dropping it. I will say this. I think Mike Kafka, everyone just thinks gives credit to Daibald. Mike Kafka's their offensive coordinator. He plays calls the plays. That was the Patrick Mom's quarterback coach.

We all loves to talk about Shanahan. It's like the best play caller in Andy Reed. Mike Kafka's become like the second tier. Like Mike Kafka's, to me like the third or fourth best play caller in the NFL at this moment. While we're here, though, the Vikings, everyone's going to pile on Kirk Cousins.

So we've been calling them frauds all year. I mean, we don't have to do victory. The Vikings were the, That were, everybody was falling in fraud. They went 11 at 0 in one score games. It's like sitting in a roulette table and putting money on red and you win 11 times in a row. It's like the casino's going to ask you to stay.

Like, we'll comp your room. We don't care. They want the money back. And that was just the Giants were honestly lucky enough to get the Vikings in this round. I just feel like, I'm curious if you think about Kirk Cousins, everyone's piling on him for the checkdown and fourth and eight. Right. I had mixed feelings about it. Here's the problem.

Like, he has the combination of his like sort of reputation as like not as good as the numbers ever, like, whatever. or him shrinking in primetime games, all this stuff, like his reputation preceded him in this game. And then that fourth down play, where it was a fourth and eight, and he literally threw the ball like two yards downfield. And that to me is just going to be the lasting impression from this game.

Even though the fact, like he probably, he played pretty well in this game, 31 or 39. Yeah, he touchdowns. Like he was fine. It wasn't like he was the problem. The defense actually was like the much bigger problem for the Vikings, in my opinion. But unfortunately, because of his reputation, and just because he's Kirk cousins,

I think people are going to look at that play and basically be like, this is the best you can get in the decisive game of the season, you just throw a two-yard checkdown, like, what are we doing here? I think that's going to be the reaction. In some ways, it's pretty valid, honestly, I think. Obviously, he came out afterwards,

he said he didn't have the play deep to Jefferson. He just didn't think he could complete it. And then he thought he was going to get sacked, so he just wanted to put the ball in play and not get sacked and forth down and give, you know, Hockinson a chance. it just didn't work out. But like, I don't know.

Like, to me, that was just emblematic of, of, I guess, his reputation coming into the game, too, like shrinking under pressure. So, I don't know. It's tough. My first reaction when people were criticizing cousins was like, one, Hawkinson broke so many tackles in that game. And two, like, dude, the defense, the Giants don't get explosive plays

except against the Vikings. And it's like blaming anyone but the defense. And also, blaming Kirk, it felt weird. He was like, I was going to get sacked through it. I was like, it's fine. Yeah. And then I will say, even the head coach though, Kevin O'Connell, he did not defend Kirk.

cousins. He didn't. After the game. What he said was they asked, he acknowledged one, that O'Connell went up to Kirk after the throw and asked him why he did that. And then, Kevin O'Connell, what do you expect? Do you expect the coach to say, I trust Kirk? Why did you do that?

You know what he said, actually after game? What O'Connell said was, looking back on it, maybe I could have been a little bit more, hey, this is what you want, where you want the ball to go, which is not defending him. No. That's not what you're supposed to say about your 34-year-old, cool. quarterback that you pay 40 million years. Just say that about Justin Fields. I mean, that's throwing him under the bus.

Yeah, it is. So anyway, that changed my mind. That's tough. Kevin O'Connell's willing to be like, yeah, I guess I should have told him where to throw. Like, holy shit. I should have told him not to check it down two yards on fourth and eight. Like, do we need to tell a, like, a veteran quarterback who's making whatever he's making,

that kind of thing? Yeah. I don't know. I think it's, again, it's a combination of, like, his reputation and that particular play just looked really, really bad. So it's tough. Tough situation. The other person I want to shout out here as a potential bonus loser,

what's the deal with Justin Jefferson lately? I understand that opposing teams are working really, really hard to take him out of the game. But he finished with seven catches for 47 yards. He had three catches after the first drive, including one. Two catches for 10 yards in the final three quarters. Yeah, he had one catch for four yards in the second half. Like, what happened? I don't like this narrative.

and I think that it's not an accurate representation what happened in the game. The first drive, Justin Jefferson torched the Giants. And then the middle of the second drive, they're like, you know what? We're just not dealing with Justin Jefferson. But every time the Vikings moved the ball, it was because someone was open because of Jefferson.

The second touchdown, the Viking scored where K.J. Osborne was wide open. Justin Jefferson was double. The third touchdown, the Viking scored, was because Justin Jefferson lined up in the backfield and the Giants were so confused. Three people covered Justin Jefferson and Irv Smith was literally uncovered.

The Vikings converted a fourth down because the Giants double Justin Jefferson and the guy left T.G. Hawkinson to cover Jefferson and Hawkinson was wide open. So it's like, just give those... What if Justin Jefferson had like nine catches for 80 yards and two touchdowns because that's basically what he did?

They should have assists in football. Yeah, honestly, that's actually a good idea because Justin Jefferson would have had the hockey assist. That's actually, we should... We got to remember that. It's like the gravity... stat or whatever. Yeah, and that's why you see Hawkinson have 10 catches for 129 yards.

It's basically. Exactly. You know, we're not going to pass it to Jefferson because you guys are bracketing and we're just going to take what the defense is giving us and Hawkinson can go off. So, yeah, that's good context. I like that. All right. So Giants, America's team.

I didn't even have to say it. All right. Next game here. The Bengals, Ravens. Yes. What a bizarre game. So the Bengals, they won 2417. I feel like the first three quarters just washed away.

and that the whole game is basically, like what we'll all remember is Sam Hubbard. Like the Tyler Huntley trying to space jam to dunk into the goal line from two yards away. He didn't even get close. He did not even get remotely close. No, he wasn't close to close. I think John Harbath also low-key threw him under the bus

and was like, yeah, he was supposed to go low there. Yeah. Serious question. If Trevor Lawrence doesn't, the previous night, do the one-yard out dunk two-point. conversion. Right. Do you think Tyler Huntley,

like Tyler Huntley had to have seen that. There's the sliding doors moment for you. Absolutely. Yeah, this is tough one. Honestly, because I don't want to come down too hard on Huntley because honestly, he played pretty well in this game. Like, he brought them back. He made a couple really big plays.

Like, he's a backup. You can't really expect him to, like, be perfect throughout the whole game. And the Ravens had a great chance of winning this game. Like, if they would have scored that touchdown there, they were just given the ball to J.K. Dombins or actually executed that sneak, you know, on the two yard line or whatever it was, then maybe we're talking about the Ravens being the winners and Tyler Huntley being like this low-key hero because he just did so well as the backup coming in and taken over for Lamar. But that play, it did remind me of like me trying to dunk the ball.

Like I'm just going to come up like three inches short of the rim. I should just lay it up. You know what I mean? It was so far. It was so far away. He did not get remotely close. Think of it this way. Trevor Lawrence dunked it because the Bosa went offside so they were at the one-yard line. So Lawrence was three feet closer, and he's six inches taller. I was going to say Lawrence is like 6.5, and Tyler Huntley is 6.1, maybe. So, yeah, I mean, everything about this sucks because, again, it's like you could, they're going to second guess this the whole offseason. Jake Adomance comes out after the game and is like basically throwing Harbaugh under the bus saying,

or whoever, Roman, Greg Roman, their offense coordinator, basically saying, like, why did I not get the ball in this situation? Like, I'm one of the better red zone runners in the NFL. well, why are you, like, getting cute and not giving me the football? And I think that there's a lot of validity to that. But again, if Tyler Huntley had just, like, executed what apparently the play call was, which is to go low, basically submarine in and have, like, two guys push him into the end zone. I'm torn.

I'm torn. Because on one hand, Collinsworth nailed it. His memory serves when Lawrence did the dunk, it was more spread out. The Ravens were like, we're going to jump over the line, but we're going to put everyone in the backfield. So all the Bengals defenders are there too, which doesn't make sense because then you have two linebackers can do exactly what they did is go up and meet him because they don't have any responsibilities. Right.

And so like that doesn't make sense. It's like if you're going to jump, spread it out. But the other thing is if you have people in the backfield, do what the Bengals did midway through the year. Now the Eagles have perfected, which is the have two guys each grab an ass cheek and shove Tyler Huntley into the end zone, which isn't really supposed to be allowed, but the NFL is just like we're allowing it.

Just shove your quarterback in. This is like a revelation that the NFL isn't enforcing this. Just like, it's unstoppable. You have two people pushing. I was going to ask you about this. Did the NFL just decide we're not going to care about this anywhere? We're looking the other way. Dude, they have Patrick Ricard, who is like 300 pounds as a fullback.

I think that Patrick Ricard probably could like pull a school bus. Like, you know those old like Iron Man strength competitions these to have on like ESPN2? He could win that. Have him throw Tyler Huntley over the goal. Like push. I don't know. It's weird. But I don't want to blow.

I'm all Tyler Huntley because they're also, the Ravens game management, when they got the ball back was insane. They had the chance still to tie the game, right? I would say the simplest way to explain it, because I get kind of nauseous when people try to explain, like, how the clock works without me being able to see it. So basically, after the two-minute warning, the Ravens based, like, they had two timeouts, and they just let, like, a full minute go off the clock. They literally, the quarterback sneak, fourth and one, after the two-minute warning.

But you know, the quarterback sneak, and you go, and then all the guys are lying on top of of you on purpose. It takes forever to get set. They'll have 35 seconds go off the clock. And then three plays later, they did it again. A minute and five seconds of the two-minute warning was just them sitting around while they had two timeouts. Like, it's insane.

Yeah. And it wasn't just hindsight, like, analysis to say that the clock management was weird because the announcers even were like, they're huddling again. They're huddling. Why are they huddling? Like, do they not realize there's under two minutes? Like, what the hell are they doing? I was like, yeah, it's hard to second guess because I think the plan was,

and the way that John Harborough explained it after the game, like logically, I can understand what he was talking about. They just did not execute whatsoever. And he basically said, look, we wanted to save the timeouts because we were going to be passing and we're going to get completions. And then when we get those completions, we're going to use those timeouts to matriculate down and get close to the end zone. They just could not complete the pass.

Like, they couldn't complete the passes. So it ends up with like they had one extra timeout at the end of the game or two or whatever. and they just didn't use it. And so that looks terrible. But like, I guess like logically I can see, logically I can see what he's talking about. But at the end of the day, like the execution was just atrocious. So I have to get on them about the execution of this plan. It just, they couldn't do it.

And also the other thing is, I think the overall vibe, like their clock management, it reminded me of when I was like a senior in college and I was trying to go to class. And I was like, hey, it's like classes in 15 minutes. It's a 15 minute walk away. Should we leave for class? Like, give me five. Don't cut it that close, man. Like, I just, you know, it's like, okay.

So that was ridiculous. But honestly, other things in this game happened, like Chimar Chase, he was good. We can get to all that stuff. You know, Bengals are playing. Right. I think, honestly, the bigger story from this game, Lamar didn't come. I think this is crazy.

Did we ever get a report that it was like, because he's worried about swelling or something to do with traveling? The injury was six weeks ago. Like, we can't sit there and that. Dude, here's the thing. There is no explanation for this that will satisfy me. Like unless he was like a funeral or something, he just chose to not come.

It's kind of wild. I think when you combine the fact that he wasn't at the game with all the basically re-between the lines comments from everyone this past week and then after the game, because there was like a... Yeah, let me summarize. So basically, Lamar Jackson post this tweet where he...

It's weird. It's funny. We're so used to having a player's eight. agent talked to Adam Schaefter and then Schaefter just vaguely characterized an injury. It was weird to hear from Lamar himself. But Lamar basically says, here's what's wrong with my knee. It's not stable. I'm not going to play.

The Ravens had no idea that was coming. So already like huge rift where it's like, maybe they're not like communicating with him. Right. Exactly. Then Sammy Watkins like calls out Lamar for not playing the game. And again, Sammy Washington kind of like a wild person. Yeah, Sammy Watkins.

Yeah. Pot call on the kettle injury prone. Sammy Watkins bitching about injuries. Okay. Continue. But regardless, that just doesn't happen. Like players calling out their quarterback for not playing. Like, that just doesn't happen.

Then Lamar doesn't come. And then Lamar posted an Instagram story this morning where he says, when you have something good, you don't play with it. You don't say chances losing it. You don't neglect it. When you have something good, you pour into it. You appreciate it because when you take care of something good, that the good thing takes care of you too.

I think Lamar not coming. I have a lot of thoughts on this deke. I'm curious. I haven't changed my mind on whether he would be a raven one second for the last few years. I was like he's going to stay, the Ravens are going to want him to stay, he will stay. I changed my mind this week.

I'm curious if you did. You think he's gone? Well, the problem is, they can franchise him for like two years, which makes this a little less, I guess, like important or whatever. Like, obviously we're going to talk about

this all last season until they figure something out or if or when they figure something out. But like at the end of the day, the Ravens have a lot of leverage because they can franchise tag him and then just keep him around. So this is just, very bizarre to me. I think at the end of the day, Lamar was doing what he thought was best for

his long-term career, which is not to rush back from knee injury and potentially have a severe injury. We saw RG3 talking about this on Twitter after the game. Basically, he posted a picture of his knee being at like a 90-degree angle from that game against the Seahawks, actually. In 2012, I believe it was. And, you know, essentially there was pressure to come back for RG3. And even though he had no stability on his knee, he ended up, like, totally messing up his knee and more or less ruined his career. And also his, he was willing to play.

Right. And the team and the doctor should have helped stop. Like, their job is to protect him from himself. So I have a very hard time basically being like Lamar should have played. He should have got it out. I don't, I don't feel that way at all. Like, I think if he doesn't feel that his knee is stable, he should not be playing, regardless of the fact it's the playoffs.

Like, you shouldn't risk your entire career over one game. And that's how I feel. And so I think there's probably a bunch of teammates that feel that way for him. And then, of course, Sammy Watkins was sort of the opposite, which is weird because he's like came to the team like halfway through the season. And there's just a lot of layers there. I don't really, you know, whatever. But it did become pretty apparent like throughout the last week or so that there's more here than just like he's hurt. You know what I mean?

And it's like there's the team. There's like weirdness with the team too. There's two things here. One, what Lamar posted on Twitter medically is very vague. Like, knee instability could be something catastrophic. It could also be like my knee hurts. Like, that doesn't actually mean anything specific. The flip side is, Marlon Humphrey, who's like, you know, all poor cornerback for the Ravens said after the game, I just don't, he said he said, he has said Lamar was like 50, 60% healthy, obviously it's a guess.

He says, I just don't think he was really healthy enough to really go out there. There was a lot of speculation with him not having the contract. I don't even know if I should say this, but Lamar's limping around the facility. Which we heard. That's kind of the crazy thing that people don't see. Yeah. I think that's very informative

from Marlon Humphrey. Overall with this situation, and we're going to talk about this a lot this off season, I think this is very different than any other contract that we've ever had to deal with. Every other quarterback has an agent

and they go through it and we're hearing both sides. This is Lamar and like Lamar's mom are negotiating this deal. NT apparently wants fully guaranteed. And he wants, yeah, he wants the Watson deal.

I think Bill is right. Bill always says that the Sean Watson deal kind of broke the market. Everything in the NFL contractually is based on precedent. And then Watson's went so far beyond precedent that teams are like, nope, we're not doing it. And they're trying to draw a line in the sand with Lamar, who's just him and his mom. And here's the thing. Adam Schaefter, all the information we get, everything you get, they're sourced with teams, they're source with agents.

Adam Schaefter is not sourced with Lamar Jackson's mom. No one has any idea what's going on really with this situation. Nobody really has a great idea of it. And so this whole thing is a black box. And so here's the thing. I don't know that I also have no idea, but my gut is if Lamar, based on this Instagram we just put up, if Lamar's mother believes the Ravens didn't take care of my son's knee and then tried to have him play and then blamed him out for it, yeah, he might just never

play for them again. That's more on the table than it is for like any other quarterback that I've seen this happen with. Yeah. I mean, added the variables that like the offenses felt pretty. stale, like they're going into a situation where they're having receivers that are coming in and off their couch

and playing for them, right? Like, these are street free agents are like the top receivers on the team right now. Like, there's a lot of layers here, the offensive coordinator, the lack of talent. It just very, it seems like a very unstable situation and maybe

like Lamar is just like, I'm done with this franchise. It would be very, like, it's going to be it's rot with potential drama this offseason. I agree. Yeah, hell hath no fury like a mother scored. Okay, so we'll see what happens to that. But it's realer than I ever thought it was.

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Fandle, make every moment more. All right, Dolphins bills. Very weird game. I know the bill's won, but my loser's Josh Allen, because I feel like the bills, I don't know if it's like some emotional come down from like the emotions of like them playing after the DeMarne Hamblin thing

and being okay but you know how I felt watching Josh Allen, D.K. You know, I feel like everyone had something like this. You know the Little League Baseball pitcher who was like either on your team or like you saw him play? And he was like the best player on the team but when he had anything go wrong

he like had a meltdown. And so like even though he's the best player, now he's like walking guys in four pitches. He's hitting people. He's crying on the mound. like, that was Josh Allen to me in this game. Like he just, like, he was shoving Christian Wilkins because he threw a pick and he just never seen. Like, he hit that first deep bomb to digs.

It was kind of like when you make your first three and pick up basketball, but then you miss your next seven and you're actually hurting the team. Like, you just want to throw deep balls. I like that analogy. Yeah, I like that analogy a lot. It's basically like trying to get hot again, but like it's just really detrimental to the team. Another great staff from Nate, uh, Tice from the athletic show, he had 12. of 20 plus yards this game, 12. And he only completed five of them.

Obviously, he did hit that one, two seven Diggs for a touchdown. Obviously, that's a big play in the game. But he had another pick. He got, how many fumbles did he have in this game? He had a couple fumbles. So he had seven sacks and three turnovers, which is tied for the most,

if you just add sacks and turnovers together, it's the tied for the most ever in a playoff win. It's just him and Joe Burrow last year when he got sacked by the Titans nine times. So, I mean, it's a pretty crazy way to win. the game. Yes. Obviously, people are getting, the first reaction is going to be like, look, they put up 30 plus points. They put up 34 points. And that's true. And like, they put up a bunch of yards. Like, all that stuff is true, but like it's such high variance style football. It's hero

ball. It's like James Winston-esque almost. It was the only way they could have lost this game is the way they played. I mean, just, again, it wasn't just Josh Allen to, too. I don't want to put this all on him. All the bills mentally were not there. I do think there's something to sometimes being so emotional at the top, you come down and there's a flatness. and Sean McDermott, one, burning the timeout to argue with the refs because he was looking at the Jumbotron when Diggs clearly did not catch the ball.

He used another time. Sean McDermott, who's usually great, calm, cool, like, he's a good coach. McDermott using the timeout when the dolphins were going for a fourth and one

and they were going to get a delay of game and they got the delay of game and then the bills bailed them out with a timeout. That's when the teams, the offense always calls the timeout. I've never seen a defense bailed an offense out from a delay of game. like Colby's they couldn't catch anything

the bills fumbled a punt when they were getting one and then covering a punt the bills like were all there and could have down a punt at the one and they let it go in the end zone like mentally the bills were just not there they let the dolphins got like a screen on second 18 with like Salvan Ahmed like it just

this team wasn't ready to go yeah it was and it was a perfect matchup from that point of view because the dolphins were just like begging Alan to chuck it deep. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, it was an interesting matchup from that point of view. I had a lot of respect

for the dolphins for hanging in there, particularly from the point of view that they had a bunch of mistakes. They had a bunch of drops. There's a couple of big plays that they messed up, and they still managed to kind of like hang tough in that game, create some turnovers, basically try and variance their way into a win, which, you know, I think if you're that under,

If you're that big of like a underdog from the top point of view, particularly at quarterback, this is exactly like the type of game plan you want. You basically want to ask Josh Allen to like chuck it deep and hope to make mistakes. He had seven big time throws in this game. What's the definition of a big time throw again? It's basically like, I don't know the exact definition. It's essentially like passes deep down the field that have a low probability of being completed.

And they're just like you drop them into the like into tight coverage, whatever. Like incredibly high difficulty throws. He had seven of those in this game. So he was definitely letting it rip. But at the same time, like he said, the turnovers are the reason that the dolphins were able to, like, stay in this game.

And so a little bit of, like, you got to take the bad with the good with Josh Allen, but, like, he's just been so kind of wild lately in terms of, like, his discipline. Like, he could have just checked down to running backs and check down, like, guys in the slot and matriculated down the field, but he said he's just like hucking it deep,

like every other play. It was just a, it was a very bizarre game. I don't know. I told you before the show, I'm like, I don't know what to say about this game. It was just a really weird game.

Yeah. Well, speaking of really weird games, but ones we have a lot to say. The Chargers Jaguars game. That was, oh my God. That was a journey.

A journey indeed. So as everyone knows, charges blew it, 313. Shameless plug, I wrote for the ringer. I wrote an entire history of Chargering

with all the, are just leads that they've blown. It's since like 2006. It's kind of insane. As much as you're like, oh, you're the Chargers, they're like the Falcons. It's actually worse than you think.

It's in their DNA. It's kind of stunning. I mean, even just for one example, like the Chargers had a thing a few years ago where they had the biggest blown lead in the third biggest blown lead in the history of money at football. And the two ahead of them

were also the Chargers. Like, it's crazy. And so to say that with that history, this was the biggest collapse in Chargers' history is crazy. there are so many things. Obviously, Brandon Staley's the big loser here. D.K., what was your reaction watching this game?

I honestly got to the point where I started to feel bad for the Chargers. I'm just like, I just feel bad for Staley. I know what the narratives are going to be this week. I feel bad for Herbert. I feel bad for Echler. I don't know. I was genuinely starting to feel bad.

Obviously, it was very exciting and cool to watch Trevor Lawrence do that in the Jags. That was an incredible, incredible comeback. And all credit goes to them. But honestly, I was just being in the game. I was like, I still got a bad for Staley and like the shit, the heat he's going to take for this. I just could just picture it. You know, obviously, we were hard on him for playing Mike Williams in the meaningless game in Week 18. I think still look at that and say that's just like a really illogical decision for him to run a guy who's been hurt most of the year out there in a meaningless game and have him like literally break his back in the game.

You know, that just looks really terrible. Guess what they could have used in the second half? last week. Mike Williams on the weekend. So, I don't know. It's stuff. It sounds like he's going to survive this, which is, I think, good for the team. I think it's probably going to be Staley out, or sorry, Staley in and then Lombardi out, which ultimately

might be the best thing for this franchise. But yeah, it got to the point where I was just like starting to feel a little bit bad for this team. I mean, there are so many things about this game. I actually think maybe I'm insane. I kind of think Ren's Daly staying. I kind of want

buy all the brandon's daily stock. It's at its absolute low, and I'm like, yeah, let me just pick this up in case it bounces back. But I think that, you know what the weirdest thing about this game to me was? Not the weirdest. There were a shitload of weird things. The actual thing that as it was developing was, like, bizarre, was any time a team goes and run like that, whether it's mounting a huge lead or mounting a huge comeback.

It's usually almost always turnovers. Yeah. Like, the charges went up 27-0 because they had a bunch of turnovers. They picked off Lawrence, like, what, four times? And then the Jaggers went three now. The Jaguars came back. without any turnovers. That just doesn't happen.

Every time you see, like, the Patriots Super Bowl, there's always turnovers. There's always picks or fumbles or mistakes. The Jaguars just stopped the Chargers and got the ball back and scored, like, conventionally, which is so weird. Like, teams, because here's the Chargers lost, they had five takeaways and zero turnovers.

Teams with that, five or more takeaways without a single turnover on their own, were 313 and 3 in NFL history coming into the- weekend. No, it's literally more than a one in 100 event to get five takeaways and then not turn the ball over yourself and lose. It's like impossible.

Which is, yeah, and it's like, that's part of the reason it just was so depressing watching the charges in the second half. They just couldn't put a drive together to save their life. They could not run the ball whatsoever. They've got this dink and dunk offense. They couldn't get any explosive plays. It just felt like they were like every time they'd get the ball. I was like, oh, this is going to be another punt in like a few plays.

And then, you know, they're just going to let the Jags back into this. slowly and surely. It's like slowly suffocating to death. It was just so, it's like they're in quicksand and they're just slowly like sinking down. I'm like, it's just watching it. It's like hard to watch.

That's the thing. You mentioned Joe Lombardi getting fired. It did remind me the Falcon Super Bowl a little bit because other than the obvious, but they, so once they went 27-0, it didn't count this in the box score, but if you count they didn't end around of Michael Bandy,

which this is the fireable offense to me. Basically, they had to play that's like an end-around to D'anj Carter. But he got hurt. So they had Michael Bandy do it. Oh, my God. No offense to him. But he didn't know that that was the play.

They'd installed that week. He'd never done it. He didn't know he was supposed to get the ball. Joe Lombardi calling a play for a player doesn't know he's supposed to get the ball and never practiced it. Is insane. And so they fumbled it. They lost 10 yards.

If you count those 10 yards as negative plays in rushing, the charges once they went up 27 to 0 had negative two rushing yards. Yeah. Terrible. I think I saw somewhere. Don't quote me on this, but it was like, Echler had like five rushes for zero yards in the second half.

Like they literally couldn't run. They had seven carries, seven designed carries for seven yards. Oh my God. But then lost a yard on a kneel down and lost like, and then lost the 10 on that. It's crazy, man. So I,

it's also on the flips. So yeah, the charges, honestly they might keep staley, which is wild, but the flip side, the Jaguars. What a game.

What a game for the Jaguels. Doug Peterson deciding to just like, also have any player, has any individual player had the tale of two halves like Lawrence did and also Asante Samuel Gilles? I know, I was going to say, yeah. They were like most picks ever in a playoff debut and I'm like, he did that in like a quarter and a half. He had three picks and a quarter and a half. In the first half, the second half, the Jaguars running game play

and was just going to run it Asante Samuel and make him tackle. And he's so small. Yeah. Absolutely it was the tail of two halves for him. It was cool. There was, uh, someone did a mashup of Al Michaels calling Asante Samuel senior picking off a pass like 17 years ago or something like that

and then Asante, it's like he does it the exact same inflection too. Sati Samuel! Oh, I know. It's just so, like he's just been the exact same intonation for the last 40 years. It's burned in my brain because as every

Giants fan knows and every Patriots fan knows but doesn't like to talk about. The play directly before the David Tyree helmet catch is Sante Samuel Jr. Just dropping. Senior? Yeah, sorry, Sante Samuel Senior. Eli Manning threw a pass

that was just to Asante Samuel Senior and it was like he was the best cornerback in the world at the time and he just dropped it. And Al Michaels goes and Samuel drops it without the points crack. And then so I actually am deeply familiar with how he says that. Yeah. But anyways, getting back to this game, yeah, like you said,

Asante Samuel Jr. had three picks in the first half. And then in the second half, especially on the biggest play of the game, which was a fourth and inches situation. for the Jags, basically going down the field, they can win, they can hit the game-winning field goal if they just convert this first down.

They decided to do basically a stretch run to the outside instead of a sneak. So they got everybody in the middle. They blocked everybody but Assante Samuel Jr. And then they just had ETA and outrun him to the corner and gained like 30 yards on the player or something. So that was a really ballsy play, but also very genius like play calling.

Basically just making the cornerback tackle. And it's very tough when you're out in space like that. for any corner, for any player really, it's hard to do that. But that's part of, that's like a look into the strategy of the game. It's two years in a row, the charges were eliminated

because they just couldn't stop basic runs for more than, they couldn't even get runs to be limited to five yards at a time. Two years in a row, which is tough for Staley's entire philosophy. However, as a big win, I got to say,

Trevor Lawrence, one, did you see that he tweeted after the game, that meme of the guy saying, they had us in the first half, not going to lie. Yeah. Which was incredible.

and then he also went to Waffle House after the game, which I also loved. What a man of the people. Lawrence, this was another game where you started to see some of the emotion from Lawrence. You know what I mean? The junk. He's audibles.

I don't think Peterson called that. Like, Trevor Lawrence kind of, if he thinks something's going to work, he just does it. Oh, when he reached over the goal line or whatever? Yeah, that was so cool. So obviously, four first half picks, which is, I think, the worst performance in, like,

playoff history for any quarterback just his first half. But then he went 18 out of 23 for 219 yards and three touchdowns in the second half. basically they scored four straight touchdowns on their possessions to open the second half and then hit the game winning field goal to win the game. Per Sheel, Fabia from the ringer, the Jags had the best second half EPA per drive

in the last 20 years. So this is the best second half any playoff team that's put together in 20 years. Or the worst half by a charge depending on you look at it. You can tell me what you thought of this, but basically I remember when they were going into the half, They interviewed Doug Peterson.

Basically, like, this was the most disastrous first half. You could possibly imagine. You couldn't dream up a worst first half for the Jags, like four picks, and they were all, like, depressingly bad. There was, I think one got tipped or something, but, like, they were pretty bad. And then I just remember Doug Peterson was basically like, I mean, look, we just got to take care of the football. We got to come out here, got to chip away because they scored a touchdown before the half. And that was like, that was really, I think, crucial for them.

And shameless plug, if you go. If you read the thing I wrote about all the charges collapses, that is the thing they all have in common. Every single chargers collapse, they go up insanely in the middle of the second quarter, and they give up a touchdown right before halftime. Tom Brady's done it, him, Drew Brees is done it to them, fucking Drew Locke has done it to him.

That's how they lose games. Big second quarter leads, they give up a touchdown before halftime, and they're like, uh-oh, it's going to happen us again, and then it does. Yeah. So they get that touchdown. So basically, I just remember thinking at the time,

Peterson's really cold. I'm like, I remember thinking I think they're going to claw their way back into this. I really do because that last touchdown, there's 24 seconds up and a half, Evan Ingraham got a touchdown. That to me was like, thank God they got that.

And then they come out in the third quarter, they score a touchdown. All of a sudden, it's a two-possession game. And they just kind of chipped away, you know, chipped away at this lead, ultimately played well on defense and just took it back. And so credit to not only,

obviously, Lawrence, for not completely melting down after throwing four first half picks. That takes a lot of mental fortitude. But I think Peterson had a lot to do with it too. He stayed really calm. He was basically just like, yeah, we got to take care of the football. Obviously, we got to, you know,

start moving the football down the field, blah, blah, blah. And he's just like very calm and stoic. And I think that definitely like, you know, rubs off on the players that they can still believe that they are in this game. It's a good trait in a leader. Yeah. All right, pity the Chargers.

Next one here. No, Seahawks. Sorry, Dick. We're going to bring in Jesse, our producer Jesse Lopez here, who's a Niners fan. Yeah. Uh,

there we go. Look at you. Uh, so, Jesse, you can help me here. We have our first award here, which is the first loser of this game is Danny Kelly.

DK. Niners won 41. 23. Uh, I'm sorry. Wasn't even that. How are you doing? Let's be honest.

It wasn't even that close. I feel it was a bummer. I'll be honest. Like, it was a big bummer to see them, especially because they got my hopes up. They had them in the first half. You know what I mean?

Like they actually took a lead into the half. I think it was 17 to 16. Yeah. And then from there, they scored a garbage time touchdown and basically just got their asses kicked in the second half by the 49ers, which is much closer to what I expected this game to look like.

But yes, I would say they got my hopes up. And that was the reason that was probably more depressing in the second half just to see them get slowly just annihilated that, you know, this game went on. It's funny because that was the opposite it for me.

I mean, I already came out and you can tell he was nervous and scared. And the moment that was happening, I was like, oh, crap,

it's going to be one of those games again, especially how, like, the first half ended on that, on the four, on the foul, where it put the C-ROT's

field goal position. I was like, are you kidding? Everything is going wrong. And then the third quarter started and they, they basically, I was like,

all right, let's go back to what we know how to do, which is running the ball, milking the clock. That first drive was like, minutes long in the third quarter, it's like, there you go. Now you're on to something. And now all it

was was a turnover. If they got a turnover, that would have changed everything. And sure enough, it was a fumble right in the red zone. Oh my God. Yeah, that was, that kind of turned it over. That series, because I don't remember exactly where they were. They were deep in the red zone, though, I think. Yeah, they were. And they had a play where they got down to like the eight or five yard line or something like that. It got called black because of fucking illegal man downfield. Yeah. It ended up being the bade of my existence in this game. They had three illegal man downfield penalties, which I've never

fucking seen in my life other than like a heavy RPO team. This was just CIO guys just wandering down the field for no reason. These are not RPO plays. Like it made no sense whatsoever. Anyways, yeah, so they got like a play that was, it was going to be like second and two from like the

five yard line or something like that. And then the legal man downfield backed him up and then Gino fumbled, turned it over. And that was like, I think honestly, from that point on, all CF fans were like, oh, we're fucked. Like, that was, that was the final straw. We're not going to come back to that. And then the 49ers took over and just

absolutely dominated the rest of the game. And credit to Brock Pretty. I mean, he played really well in the second half. Hold on. No, no, no, no. I'll stop you so you don't have to sound like your sour grapes. I want to take away some credit from Brock Bernie. We have a Seoff fan of Sauergives. We have a 90s fan here. Everyone's like, Brock Purdy played incredible. 330 yards, two

touchdowns. I don't care. He played horribly. He is some, it's like he was weaving in and out of traffic. You know what cars driving with road rage? And you're like, we didn't get in an accident. You must be a good drive.

That's if, like, no. Like, I thought there were at least four throws in the first half alone that Brock Purdy was a, a millisecond or inches from throwing a pick. And he just didn't.

But like, Jesse, when you're watching him, like, do you look at Brock Purdy? I'm like, wow, incredible.

It's like, he was, all the passes he completed were wide. Oh, And he was screwed up everything that was not wide open. Yeah, and there were a couple that should have been or were wide open and that he completely missed. The one throw that gets me, and I thought that was the pick, was a throw to Joanne Jennings, where he caught it, like, at the two. Like, he put that on a needle.

And it's, I guess, kind of what I told you guys last week, that Purdy is making these throws that Jimmy would just never do because he knows he can't do. He's making the throws that Trey, I don't think, has the confidence level to make because I don't think he's, he has fully control of his arm strength, because that's like the one thing he always shares, he throws really hard. So I don't think he can, he has that control yet. Rock Birdie just doesn't care.

Like, he's like, nah, I got this. And like, it's, it's wild because they didn't occur to any picks. Or he didn't get sacked because, like,

he was running on the sideline. Like, all the second half, every time he ran out of the pocket, he would just run left. Run left straight to the sideline. And then just duke it out. And I'm like,

no, don't, but he was like, also like Derek Zulander. You know how Zulander can't turn left. He has to like spin right to go left. That was Brock Purdy, the entire game. There was one particular play where he literally,

so he got, there was, he stepped up in the pocket, it wasn't there, he legitimately ran straight backwards. Like he ran straight backwards. Like he was, he got disoriented and was running for the wrong end zone. And then he like hooked it around. He managed to evade Bruce Irvin and then he made like a big play out of it. But it's just like so weird. Yeah, like I want to say the first half he looked bad.

I know for a fact, 49er fans were like, okay, here's when it all comes crashing down. He turns back into a pumpkin and our playoff hopes are dashed. At halftime, you all know you were thinking that,

you 49er fans out there. He did come back and play really on the second half. I will say almost all the big plays were like wide the fuck open. Like Devo Sandel. Absolutely wide open in the flats. And then he runs 74 yards.

No sea hawks get even close to tackling him. Dude, yeah, that's the thing. I would like, you know how in court? you can like strike that from the record. You're like, Your Honor, I want that stricken for the record. I want that with stats.

I would like to be like, Your Honor, I would like that 75-yard touchdown, quote-unquote, pass to Debo Samuel that was a fucking screen, stricken. Like, why does Brock Pretty get credit for throwing a wide open Debo Samuel? And then Debo just no one touches him. Like, that's not Brock Bertie. And like, again, I think we like Brock, but the thing's gone too far. It came in.

No one had heard of this guy. It was Mr. Relevant. It was a good bit. And Kyle Shannon, this offense. It's like, oh, he's operating this Death Star, good job, but he hasn't screwed it up. And somewhere along the way, and then your dad found out,

and everyone's dad was like, oh, this Brock Party kid, I think it could be real good. And then, like, somewhere along the way it became Brock Party is actually a great quarterback. He's Tom Brady. He is just throwing to why,

but he's Tom Brady 2001, but with Kyle Shannon's offense. His job is to get the ball. No, I know. This is what I'm saying. People are saying he's like the second coming of Christ or something. Yeah. His job is to get the ball. to the Niners players who are literally

have four of the best 12 athletes on offense in the entire league. And his job is to find the one that's wide the fuck open and give it to them. Which, he's doing it. I give him credit. I give him credit for being the good point guard. Absolutely.

But this game, I feel like, I guess what I'm saying is, Jesse, going forward, if you lose, how confident are you that if you're going to lose a game, it's because Brock Brady through two picks? It's probably going to be something along the lines of that. Because it's, like I said, at some point, like those wild throws that he makes

with like sheer confidence is going to go awry. Like there's going to be one point where you're not going to get it right where that window and there were a couple of times where he tried to fit in that window and he missed that, but a very, very well easy, led to an interception or a turnover or whatever.

So like he said, just do more screens to Dibo. That's all you do. People can run straight through, score touchdown. Brandon, I, you had a clean block that kind of led him the rest of the way. So that's all you have to do.

I love the fact that he's trying to, like, show off his skill set and, like, yeah, I can make these throws if I need to. But you did all that in the regular season. This is the playoffs. This is where if you make mistakes and you give the team more opportunities to scoring you, it's going to come back to haunch you at some point. Wait, on that note, D.K has a note here that, so this is from, you know, our old friend Bobby Mays.

the Niners on average had 10.3 yards per completion on that game. After the catch, as an average, after they had 185 receiving yards after the catch. So Brock at 332, what's 332 minus 185? Brock had 147 yards that he threw the ball. And then the Niners receivers ran the other 185. That's what I'm trying to say. I think so. I want to be careful to, like, note that I'm not trying to be a hater.

I actually think he's been very impressive. Like, there's something to be said about just assuring the football to your players. Like, I've been saying it all year long. Pass it to your best players. Like, that is by far the best thing that you can possibly do in the NFL, give the ball to your best players. And he does that. Like, I actually really respect that.

He's the garnish on this drink. He's not, like, the liquor or even the mixer. Right. But where I start to struggle is when people are, like, comparing him to, like, the greats of all time. You know what I mean? Like, pump the brakes a little bit. But not even that.

He's doing a good job. He deserves credit. He's running a team that might win the Super Bowl. But like, I don't think he would be even competent on any other team. That's my point. If Mike White was in this job, I think Mike White could also do this. That's the point. This is the stat that I saw that was really telling.

And it's not like, again, I'm not indicting Purdy. This is Shanahan designing an incredible scheme and he's running it really well. According to Next Chan stats, Purdy on passes to players that were deemed wide open. Nine out of 10 for 179 yards and three touchdowns, 158 pass rating. On all is out of their throws, in other words, if a receiver wasn't wide open,

nine out of 20, 153 yards. And again, the key stat to me, the key stat to me and the part of that that I am trying to make my point is, and those throws that were not wide open. Nine of 20 with four passes that could have been picked off if they went differently. The ironic thing, too,

about this all thing is his best play in a game was that past to Brandon Iuk in the back to the end zone and he dropped it. That was his best throw. If that would have been completed, Jesus Christ, people would have been insane

if he didn't drop that. People would be talking about how he's literally like Josh Mahomes. Josh Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. Brock Mahomes. There you go.

That's the truth. It's because like all offseason I'm like, I think the Niners are going to sign Tom Brady but the Niners already have the greatest quarterback ever. I know. Well,

I have the two greatest quarterback ever. I mean, come on. Yeah, that's true. Bottom line, the 49ers are a really good team. Like, they showed exactly what I thought was kind of going to be like the game. In the second half, they just ground the Seahawks into dust.

And, you know, like, good luck to you ever ask to play them next. If Brockford can continue to distribute the football, they have such a good defense, such a good run game. The best, like, honestly, I think this is maybe the best collection of skill player talent on any team ever. Like, McCaffrey, Debo, Kittle,

Ayyuk. Even, like, Elijah Mitchell is really good. Like, they've got so many good players. They have the best left tackle in the game. If Rothleticism, if you ranked all the players in offense, like skill players, you know, Kittle, McCaffrey are very easily toward the top of their positions. Debo obviously is. And like, the thing is also Brandon Ayuk is.

Brandon Ayukes, one of the, yes. If I had to rank every player just in terms of how confidently could they just hurdle anybody, Brandon Ayuk's top four. My buddy Jackson, my buddy Jackson tweeted this. This is the hardest team's tackle baby ever. It is true. And that's, again, we're not trying to take anything away from Brock Party. Let's take some of the credit from Brock Party.

We're trying to give it to the skill players and Shannon. That's right. Sure. With that said, we're going to get out of here before more 49ers fans get mad. Okay. Thank you, D.K., thank you. Jesse for production help and for honestly being very kind to D.K. You could have not been so nice.

But I think you were very... Once Russell Wilson left the Seahawks, I was just like, you know what? I hate for the Seahawks just kind of evaporated. I don't like the Denver Broncos very much. It's kind of annoying me. It's a theme. I don't think Broncos fans like them either. I don't know what the players do.

All right. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you, Lauren. Lauren and corn. Jesse, you big corn guy? Not a huge corn fan, but, you know, I did listen to them, you know, like in whenever I was a young, youngster. You're glad.

And there's this one random viral video that comes to mind where a teacher remixed the alphabet song into a corn song, like the same beat. It is great. Yes. I can't remember the name of the corn song, but I'll look for it and I'll send it to you guys, but it's funny. You think we can drop it? Or will Mariah Carey's lawyer Suez?

Corn Alphabet. I have no idea. But yeah, it was like a teacher. He just remixed the theme of what's corn song. I did the ABCs to it. And it's really good. And ever since I heard that, it's like that's how I'm singing my ABCs now.

Love it. I don't actually, I can't picture one corn song. My buddy and I were talking about corn. I'm just trying to think so I'm trying to get the Korean alphabet. so I can't pull up this court alphabet song. Oh, no, I did it. Nope, I got it.

Okay, here we go. Oh, my God. Wait, you guys got to see it. This is so funny. Clicking on it. Yeah, this one. Oh, my God. This slaps.

Right? He's so into it, too. Wow. I can't wait for Craig to come back. We're just going to be talking about the corn alphabet, and he's going to be like, oh, my God. All right.

Shout out to that teacher too. Goodbye, everyone.