The Ringer NFL Show - Bills Survive, 49ers Stun Eagles, and How We Talk About Justin Herbert

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

Sheil is joined by The Ringer’s own Billy Gil to share their instant reactions to and expert analysis on all the big action from Sunday’s NFL wild-card slate. (00:00) NFL wild-card Sunday reactions (1:46) Bills-Jaguars (13:58) 49ers-Eagles (23:51) Chargers-Patriots The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Sheil Kapadia Guest: Billy Gil Producer: Chris Sutton Video Editor: Stefano Sanchez Social: Kiera Givens and Brian Waters Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host. Shield Capadia, three more wildcard games in the book Sunday. Bills beat the Jaguars. 49ers upset the Eagles. And then Patriots take care of business against the Chargers on Sunday night. We're going to talk about all those games. What's the grace period for Nick Siriani in Philadelphia?

How should 49ers fans be feeling? What about Justin Herbert, a big loss once again? And can the Buffalo Bills? finally break through and get to the Super Bowl with Josh Allen. To talk about all that, we've got my friend from the Ringer, Billy Gill. Let's take a break and we'll come back with Billy. The Ringer NFL show is presented by Fanduel. Fan Duel's got it all.

Same game parlay's quick bets for jumping in live and your way so you can build the bet that fits your play. Plus, don't miss out on the NFL playoffs all month long. Download the Fandul app or head to Fandul.com. slash ringer NFL to get started. 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800-G-Hallp.com or visit RG-8-8-8-8-9-7-7-7. Or visit cCPG.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show after three games on Sunday.

Two very good games. Night game wasn't spectacular, but we're going to get to all of it with Billy Gill. Billy, let's just go in order. Let's start with Bill's Jaguars because might have been the best game of the day, probably the best game of the day, one of the best games of the weekend. The bills go up 27, 24. Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars can't come back. The bills are moving on.

So my question to you, because Josh Allen, I mean, what was it? Foot injury, hit his finger, got tested for a concussion. There was a knee thing. Can he survive a playoff run? Do you feel differently about this Bill's team now than maybe. you did at the beginning of the day. Do you think this is the year that they can now actually make a Super Bowl run? Wow. Okay, a lot to unpack here, Shio. Do I think he's going to survive a playoff run? I feel like it depends on how long they go, right, in this playoff run, because

he really was banged up. He was punching his teammates' helmets, hurting his hand, he had the knee thing. He was getting banged up. And he has that streak, and we talked about it last year, or last week on the show, where he has like 135 straight games, whatever, that he snapped the ball. And then they do the cheating thing where he goes in for play or whatever. But we didn't believe in the bills last week, I don't feel like. We thought that the Jaguars were kind of, this was their time. They were going to come. They were going to dethrone the bills. This was going to be Josh Allen's chance with all the good quarterbacks out. And no, it's the first time he was 0.4 headed into this week in road playoff games.

He didn't have during the playoffs a game winning drive. So he did those two things. now they've advanced. And now it seems like he has a decent path to make it to the Super Bowl. Yeah, I think they have a chance. You know, you said, we, listen, I have been, I am the Bills defender. I will just defend them against everyone. They're fine. Don't worry about them.

And every year I'm wrong, because every year, then they lose in the playoffs. And I say, well, all right, they got unlucky here. It wasn't their year. But they're such a weird team because this is not the best version of the Bills. We saw this game was much, like most of their games this year, where it's like, oh, the run game is pretty good. Josh Allen is still maybe the best player in football, so he's going to make some plays and the last two drives, he was incredible. And then they get on defense.

And it's like, oh, another 18-yard run, another 25-yard run. And that happened again in this game. So I just feel like they're going to play a bunch of coin flip games here. And that's been the story with them in the playoffs, even those losses to the Chiefs and the other games they had in previous years. It's like, these are coin-flip games. And they always come out on the wrong end of those. And today they came out on the right end of them, Billy. I'll tell you, there was a point in this game, the end of this game.

I thought it was maybe the most interesting strategy thing in the NFL this weekend. And I need your thought on it because it's the end of this game. They had the ball, you know, they did that tush push, which goes 10 yards, which that had to be just like an all-time high, right? I've never seen a tush push go that far. So they get the tush push. And then they're at the Jaguars one yard line with 104 left, Billy. They're down 24 to 20.

Now, this is when all the, you know, oh, we're armchair quarterbacks were sitting in our cozy recliners at home and we're saying, here's what you should do. Because maybe here's what I would do in Madden or here's what I would do if I was just kind of thinking about this in my head. It's that you shouldn't score right away, you know, there is a thought that rather than scoring right away like the bills did, again, with 104 left, they're at the one yard line, that should they have just taken a knee there? Because here's the thought. You think it's crazy, but Mike Rable did this earlier in the season. So it's not that crazy. If you take a knee, but it's got to be a good knee. It's not to take a step back, taking knee.

It's sort of go forward or stand right where you're standing and take a knee. If you do that, you can knock 40 seconds off the clock. The Jaguars don't have any timeouts. You call timeout with, let's say, 24 seconds left, whatever it might be. And now, guess what? you have three chances from still the one yard line to score a touchdown. And now when they get the ball back, the Jaguars, they're going to have under 20 seconds, no timeouts.

I actually think they should have done that, Billy. Yeah, well, I mean, Trevor did them a favor by throwing an interception first time. He threw the ball after they got the ball back. How did we feel about Trevor's game today? Did you feel like it was okay? I thought for two and a half quarters, he was not great. And then I thought he started playing well there in the second. and he did bring them back and they did score a touchdown.

And they went up 24-20. So I don't know. I'm kind of on the, I thought it was a little up and down, I would say. Back to your initial question, though. Yeah. So you would take a knee right there. I was going to say, I thought you just ignored it. I'm like, why you asked me about Trevor Lawrence?

No, no, no, sorry. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see what your answer is going to be to this. And you're like, how Trevor Lawrence? All right. Go ahead. Now you're going to tell me. So you take a knee on the one yard line. Yeah. The thing is like, I'm trying to remember how many time out, they had like two timeouts left,

right? they had a timeouts. Yeah, the bills had, I think, two or even three timeouts last. So then they could do, they'd have two more runs, three more runs, I guess, in theory, right? And then, you know, but you hope that they don't fumble the ball. I mean, that's kind of the situation there. You hope you don't get a penalty or something. I know. I couldn't decide if it's getting too cute or not, but I actually think it probably gives you the better chance to win the game. I mean, if the Jaguars go down the field and kick a field goal, that's all anyone's talking about today is how the bills handled the end of that game if they end up losing an overtime. Did you like the,

did you like the review with like the old like tennis match graphics that came up to see the spotting of the ball where they did the spotting and it goes and then it showed the yellow line and then everybody saw it. I'm like, oh, first down because it's like a bad spot earlier in the game. I do like the drama of that. Now I have no idea when they use it. It doesn't. It's not spotting the ball like that. It's like the refs spot the ball. And they, then they show you the graphic. But when it does reveal itself, I do find it to be quite exciting. I do like the buildup, like the one or two seconds where you're waiting for it to,

like, actually, like, go exactly where it is and then you figure it out. Yeah. Let's finish with the Jaguars on this game. So we feel better about the bills. Let's see how they look next week. The Jaguars, are you in full like, hey, this was an encouraging season and they're going to build on this and they're going to be a force to reckon with. Or are you kind of like, pump the brakes?

It might not quite go that way. I kind of want to see what they do next year because I feel like we were here with the Jaguars like two or three seasons ago where they had that big comeback against the Chargers in the playoffs, right? And we're like, oh, wow, they won, I think, five straight games to make it to the playoffs.

Like, wow, Trevor Lawrence, this is going to be a thing now. He's going to be a force. And then the next season, they lost five straight games to miss the playoffs. So let's see how it goes. Like Liam Cohen did a great job, obviously, taking over this team,

getting them to the playoffs, getting to a situation where they were, they should have won that game, right? and they were the higher seed. So they had a good year, but let's see what they did or what they do, I guess, next year. Also, I have a question for you. I don't know if you caught this about the Jaguars.

So vibes seemed to be good in Duval. Even though they'd lost, it seemed like things were very positive. People were just happy with the fact that there is a season. What you're asking me, do I think that this team is ready to turn it around? They seem to think so in Jacksonville, right? So much so that in Liam Cohen's post-game press conference,

we had a reporter who just started by giving him a pep talk and just essentially saying, we're so proud of you, keep your head up, you're doing great, we made the right decision by hiring you, like, good job, kid. And it's kind of like, everybody was putting out the clip, and like, oh, this is so nice, this is so great. I'm wondering from your perspective how you receive that because you've been in those situations.

They're only out there for like 10 minutes. Not everybody gets all of their questions answered. And in that position where you're credentialed, how did you feel about that? All right. See, now I have to walk the line between not being uppity reporter guy. You know, this is a disgrace. When you get the credential, you know, you're there to be objective.

So I don't want to go too far with it. But also, I haven't seen anything like that where a reporter just at a press conference is like, keep your head up. You're doing great. Now, I do believe you got a huge. humanize the coaches and the athletes and build relationships with them. And maybe you're having a conversation on the side. And maybe you're having some conversation like,

but in a press conference setting, I did find it to be a little odd. And I was actually when I saw that, I was trying to think, would I ever be in a situation where I would be like telling the, you know, telling the coach, keep your head up.

And I had a hard time thinking of, Billy. What did you think? What did you think about it as a astute media observer? So I, I used to intern at a local TV station so I would have to go and we'd have to do those things and sometimes I'd have to go into the locker room

because we were the channel that was like the official channel of the team so we had like more access to some of the other channels. So I've been in those and I've never seen anyone do that because it's usually like the gruff former player who works for the local station now and he's asking the questions

and he's kind of like when I was on this team we didn't put up with any of this stuff we wouldn't have gone out like that Like, it's very, like, you know, grumpy almost kind of. And the report is, you know, when the season ends, in typical situation, when the season ends, you're critical of like play calling or, you know, how the players did in the game or whatever. It's not normally like a, hey, you got this.

And the funny thing is that Liam seemed confused by it at the beginning of it, too, right? Where he was kind of like, where is this going? I thought he liked it. See, I was analyzing his special expressions. Yeah, I think he was like, thank you. I think at the beginning he's like, I don't quite understand what's going. going on. And then he's like, you know what? I appreciate that. But he's not like a guy that's going to lose his job or anything. So it's a nice gesture, but it didn't seem super necessary.

Yeah. I think that's right. Maybe the only time I would have done it, remember the Saints had that interim coach, Darren Rizzy. He clocked the toilet in the morning. I don't remember him clocking the toilet. Yeah. He won a game as an interim coach. And he was like, he was like, man, this day started. I thought it was going to be bad because I clocked the toilet before the game. And like that's how we started his press conference. And I, you know, we do the thing for the ringer where we write about our favorite sports moments of the year. And sometimes I do moments that touched me. But that year, I just did that one because I'll never forget that Darren Rizzi clogged the toilet.

So maybe if I was in that Saints press room, I would have been like, don't be embarrassed, you know, proper gut health. And it happens to everybody. And if you need, you know, some recommendations on a plunger, keep your head up. You got this, Darren Rizzi. Other than that, I don't know that I would ever do it. You have young kids, and we've talked off air about some of the things they think it's funny, and you can do the dad jokes. The Jaguar's running back who had a very nice day, some big runs.

Would they think it's funny that his last name is Tootin, Basial Tootin? They're big right now. I'm not going to lie. They're big on farts. Okay. They're big on the word fart. They think farts hilarious. Yeah.

They listen to on Spotify. They listen to an artist called Mr. Fart. and it's basically just like royalty-free songs. But the whole tune is just fart sounds. Oh, I'm not familiar with his game, but I will be soon. Yeah, you can probably skip this one, but they love fart jokes. So, Tudin, I'd have to explain to them that Tudan meant fart, but if I explain to them that Tudan's like, you know, a synonym for fart,

they're going to be saying Tudan a lot. And I'm not going to lie. I kind of laugh when they say fart too. So they're very fart-humor-centric right now. Okay. Just wanted to make sure I got that in in case, you know, this week. Yeah. When does, like, the fart jokes, like, go away for children?

Well, I don't think I've gotten there yet. Okay. You know, they're 13 and 9, and, yeah, we're still going strong. Nice. You got a lot of time. Don't worry about it. All right. Jaguars, Bill's, Jaguars, nice season.

We'll talk more about what they can potentially do in the offseason to upgrade, but certainly a nice start to the Liam Cohen. era there in Jacksonville and Bill's Super Bowl hopes are still alive. All right. Next game here, Billy, 49ers at Eagles. I thought the Eagles were going to win this game. And I thought, you know, I always, when I talk about coaching, I always say, can you do more with less, you know, or are you actually doing less with more?

I thought this game, which is such a great example of that, it's like Kyle Shanahan with just this team that has been decimated by injuries. They're on the road. They lost a one seat to the Seahawks. George Kittle goes down with an Achilles injury and they still find a way to create explosive plays and win the game. And then on the other side of it,

you have Nick Siriani and the offensive coordinator, Kevin Petullo, and they've got 10 of 11 starters on offense available, and they can't score more than 19 points against this 49ers defense. So I thought, great coaching job by Kyle Shanahan. I know we've talked about him before. Now, Summer say, hey, is this the best coaching job he's ever had?

It might be when you look at all the circumstances, And then the Eagles aspect of this, I wanted to ask you, what's the grace period for a fan base to be like, I don't want this guy to be my coach anymore, even though he just won the Super Bowl the previous year? Do you have to wait two years? Three years, five years? Is there zero years? What do you think on this? With Sirion? Well, with Sirion, I feel like this is like you're asking like this is a personal question because you're trying to talk this through.

I'm on a lot of group chats. Yeah. Yeah. So based on your team alone, it seems like you have three years, right? So Doug Peterson wins the Super Bowl 2018, and then they fire him, I think, January 2021, which was pretty short.

He didn't have a very long grace period. Siriani's interesting, right? Because I feel like, and you would know better than me, I feel like if he didn't win the Super Bowl last year, his job might have been in jeopardy anyway. So then if he wins the Super Bowl, how much time do you give him? It can't be this year.

They can't fire him this year, right? No, I don't think so. But do you give him one more year? Do you like him? Like, do you, I guess not like on a personal level, but do you like the job that he's doing as a coach? I mostly think that, well, it's hard to, it's always hard to argue against Nick Siriani

because then someone just says, look at his pro football reference, look at his pro football reference page. He has the fifth best winning percentage in NFL history. But you know what I was saying last year? was that show me where he gives the team an edge. And people will be like, well, he's the culture CEO coach, like X, Y, and Z. And then they won the Super Bowl.

So I'm like, all right, I have to shut up because they just won the Super Bowl. But now I'm kind of back on that. Show me where he gives the team an edge. Because it's not what the offensive scheming. I mean, is the culture? Is it really that great? Or is that just a product of your team wins a lot? So then everyone says, hey, the culture is really good.

And they're really talented. He didn't pick the defensive coordinator and Vic Fangio, Howie Roseman picks all the players. They have an analytics staff already in place. So there's like all these things that I'm like, I don't know what he's actually responsible for. And just between you and me, like if we're just talking about here.

In my heart of hearts, just my reaction, hours after that game, I kind of think this might be the beginning of the end of the Nick Siriani era in Philadelphia. I just don't know that they're going to get back soon enough where he will still be the coach and they'll get back to the super. But I could be wrong.

Can I ask you a question? And I mean this to be, like, connected to Siriani also and not to, like, change us in a different direction. Okay. What's going on with A.J. Brown? Because, like, if the culture is great, AJ Brown does not seem like he wants to be there. So how great is the culture with A.J. Brown? And also, is it a good culture that he's, you know, set up there?

He has going on around him? Or is it a good culture because they won the Super Bowl last year? Great questions. We might have to have you on the Ringer's Philly Special. because I think these are all valid questions. Yeah, the AJ Brown thing, he's been unhappy pretty much the entire season. And, you know, he got into the little shouting match with Nick Siriani on the sidelines. I don't know if it's a big deal or not.

Nick Seriani was trying to get him off the field. But, yeah, I can't tell you with certainty that A.J. Brown's going to be on the Eagles to start the 2026 season. He might not be, you know, they might decide, hey, we don't even throw the football that much. You're unhappy here. Our offense was broken. maybe we all, we find some trade where we get draft capital in return. You get to go somewhere you like. And we all move on after what has been a nice situation here.

So yeah, I don't know. Ever since he went on with the guy, the Twitch streamer, the guy's name was Janky Rondo. I don't know if you remember that or not. You know? I missed that. Yeah, you missed that. That was a big story in Philadelphia. And the guy was asking him like, how's it going?

He's like, how's it going? Haven't you been paying attention? And that was like the middle of the season. So he was, you know, honest about it. So I don't think the Eagles are going to move on from Siriani. I think that they're going to make a change at offensive coordinator and basically Howie Roseman and ownership are going to tell Nick Siriani. Here's the guy we're picking to be your offensive coordinator.

He's going to take over the offense. It didn't work last year when you picked your guy. And I just don't know who that guy is going to be. You mentioned, is it Mike McDaniel? Is it Cliff Kingsbury? Is it Todd Monkin? Our other coach is going to get fired. We're all of a sudden back, oh, this guy's available to be an offensive coordinator.

he didn't get ahead coaching jobs. So I think that's the thing to watch here with the Eagles and the weeks ahead. All right. Last thing I had to get your opinion on here of this game, Billy. Did you see George Kittle, of course, Torres Achilles? Hopefully he has an offseason of recovery and can get back playing for the 49ers. But Diana Rossini tweeted out during the game. She's covering the game.

She said a San Francisco 49ers employee just walked into the locker room carrying what appeared to be a bottle of tequila. Best guess, it's, George Kittle. But then she didn't stop there. She'd followed up after the game. And she said, here's what I found out. It was patroned tequila. The bottle was sent from the owner from his suite to Kittle after Kittle requested it. The bottle is now empty. And so here's what I wanted to ask you, because when I watch these games, I think about, man, these football players are just so different than regular humans.

You know, like Josh Allen took, you know, maybe 10 hits in that game where if I took one of those, I would literally be in the hospital for like at least a year, maybe more than that. And then I thought of this kiddle thing. And I'm like, I thought the same thing.

I was like, if I tore my Achilles and you brought me a glass of tequila and said, here you go. This will cheer you up. And you, by the way, you have to go on a cross-country flight in a few hours here

because you're going from Philadelphia to see him. I would think that you're punishing me. Like that is a nightmare at my age to do that if I tear my Achilles. But Billy, maybe you're wrong. What do you think? He's younger than you and I. You know, he's 32.

And it sounds like, oh, I thought you were saying you were 32. I was like, no, she'll come on. I mean, that's a little mean. All right. Go ahead. Continue. So I guess he requested some tequila and the owner said, you know what? I'm going to send you some, but I mean, I like it, I guess.

You're just kind of like, well, well, season's over, you know, and I'm 32. This is going to be a lengthy recovery. I mean, it'll take like a year. So he may miss all of, I don't mean, I don't want to speculate here, but he may miss all of next season, if not a substantial portion of next season. Then you come back for year 34 of your life. Like, it's, you know, let's not get ahead of ourselves, Sheila here. But it seems like we're speculating. This might be the end for George Kittle.

Not me. I didn't say that. It seems like that's where you're headed here. No, I think he'll come back. I think he'll have the tequila. he'll go back to San Francisco. He'll have the surgery. I think I'll come back at some point next year.

You know, it's different now, these injuries. Well, Aaron tried to come back. Aaron tried to come back in like five minutes. He tried to come back in the same season, like three weeks after. By the way, I love Diana Rusini. Yeah. What a guess by her, huh? Because, like, that's a situation where you go in there and you're like,

oh, my best guess is that that's probably for George Kittle. You're leaving yourself out there if you're wrong on that. And I feel like she knew more than she was kind of leading on that. I think that's a little reporter tool where, you know, we were talking about it earlier with the press conference. But this is one where you actually know the answer, but it's not confirmed. It's not on the record. But you're able to go with it. Yeah.

Because I don't think you're just not just making a blind guess, you know, bottle of tequila is going to a certain person. So I think your antennae is on the right thing there with that one. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We talk a little Chargers, Patriots. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by Fandul. In the playoffs, the first half tells a story, but the second half is where legends are made.

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I would say Patriots beat the Chargers, 16 to 3. Patriots move on. But I think I know what the big talking point is going to be from this game, Billy. It's going to be about Justin Herbert. So if you're out there, call your favorite football hipster. Check on them because after that, Herbert performance, they're probably, I don't know if they're drinking the patron with George Kittle, but they're having a little bit of a rough night here. And I thought, Bill, I don't know

what your thoughts are on Justin Herbert. So what do you think after this performance, they only score three points? Obviously, he's not the only player there. What is a fair assessment, a fair criticism, a fair analysis of why the Charger season ended and what we should make of the season from Justin Herbert. I just, I don't know what it is about Justin Herbert because like regular season, you were saying call all your football hipster friends because he is like one of their patron saints, right, is Justin Herbert. And down here, yeah.

Yeah, down here in Miami, it was always like it became like Herbert versus Tua thing because they were, you know, same draft class, same drafts. Like which one's actually better than the other one? Because, you know, obviously two was probably going to not because a quarterback of the dolphin's next year anyways. But it seems like maybe both of them were not. answer for their teams, right? This was a weird one because it wasn't particularly exciting. It was a field goal game for most of the game. There was one touchdown in the game, Hunter Henry receiving

touchdown. You know what was interesting about his shield? So you're saying Justin Herbert's not the only guy, but he kind of was the only guy because not only was he the quarterback, he was also leading rusher for his team. And by the way, so was Drake May on the other team. So both teams leading Russia was the quarterback in this one. And it wasn't because they were pulling off these electric runs and this was like a fun game. It was kind of like out of necessity. They were just running the ball. And then there was a lot of turnovers, a lot of fumbles, interceptions.

It was definitely a come down from the high that we had the rest of the week. Herbert now is 0 and 3 in the playoffs. He's lost every time he's gotten the wild card, every time it's been a road game. He had that collapse against the Jaguars a few years ago. Last year, they were in Texas, 242 yards. which just looks good. And then you keep looking like, oh, touchdown, okay, that's good. And then you keep looking like, oh, four interceptions like that, that's not good.

So I don't know. I mean, I don't think that there's like a thing where you're only good in the regular season, right? And that you have this thing. But I guess maybe it's like a mental thing. He was also getting hit a lot. And he's had a bad offensive line all season. But that wasn't necessarily the case today. He was getting hit, though.

Yeah, it wasn't as bad. Like during the regular season, no doubt about it, I think he had 25 different. offensive line combinations. And I thought most weeks he was just doing as much as anyone could be expected of any quarterback in those circumstances. But I, so let me be clear. I like Herbert. It's not all on Herbert.

I think Herbert's good at football. If I was, you know, starting a franchise and you're like, hey, you can have Justin Herbert as your quarterback. But I can't go for it. But it does feel like he's in the spot where when he plays well, it's like, oh, Justin Herbert's sick. Look at that. Throw.

Oh, my God. No one can do this. good and everybody gets all excited. But then any time he doesn't play well, it immediately goes to it's everybody else's fine. It's the offensive line, which is, again, valid for most of the season. But now

it's Greg Roman, the offensive coordinator. I can already tell you this whole week has been Greg Roman stinks. Oh my gosh, look at this on film. He had nobody open. And I'm not saying that's wrong. There is truth to that. But Billy, they've had two playoff games. You mentioned it. The last two seasons, they've

scored one touchdown. on 22 offensive possessions in two playoff losses where they got outscored 48 to 15. And I actually think part of this is a study in how NFL coverage has changed. You know, when I was a kid and first got, oh, the sports are cool. Let me turn on sports talk radio. It was all like, this guy's a winner. No, this guy's a loser. And then it was like, all right, let's get a little more nuanced than that.

You know, there's 11 players on the field for the offense at a given time. and now we have the film and the analytics. But hasn't swung too far, is my question. Like, should it be okay to just come on here and go, Justin Herbert, if you're considered one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, you've got to score at least one touchdown in a playoff game against the defense that really hasn't been that great. I don't care what the circumstances are.

Like, if I came on and just led the podcast with that, would I be a hot take artist? Or would you be like, Sheel? I'm with you. That's rational. I was about to say to calm down because you're getting excited. You have to just accept, we live in a world now where, you know, if you lose a game, members of the media will coddle you and they'll tell you, good job, you know, your great game.

You know, what, go get them next to your Tiger. Like, that's just where we're at right now. Just accept this. And would you have done that? Like, if you were there, you're covering Herbert. Would you have like that's, you would have come in hot and you're saying, hey, Justin, what are we doing? What are we doing? One touchdown.

22 possessions. What are you doing, man? Get it together. I don't think I would have done either. No. You know, I would ask some questions, tried to get a sense. of what actually happened in the game, you know, do a little reporting and then offer my opinion.

That's a good new one. But you don't always have to, you know, a player that you like, you don't always have to defend them with everything they do. And then a player that you think is overrated, you don't have to rip them, even when things are going well for that. You know, that doesn't seem like too much to ask.

So what do they do? Like, what do the chargers do? They make changes? They're probably not going to make, like, big changes, right? They're not going to get rid of Herbert. They're not going to get rid of Harbaugh. they just got him. They could make an OC change like the Eagles.

That wouldn't shock me. Okay. Yeah. Different play caller. And then just come back and hope your offensive line is healthier next year and you try again. But yeah, that's tough. You know, there are different ways you lose when you score three points in a playoff game. That's tough.

They were in it too, right? Like at any point they could. And it wasn't, they had turnovers like the Patriots had a turnover inside the 10-yard line. And then it ended up. they went for it on fourth down. They could have gotten points there in a game where points are so important. They decided to go for it, which I mean, granted, a touchdown would have been huge in this game. But when you're struggling to get points, it was earlier in the game.

But when it's a game that you're going to struggle to get points, I would just take points. I don't know about you. I almost never take points. No, go for it. Always. I would say go for it. Huh. Now, do you always go for it because that's what next-gen stats says?

Or do you always go for it because your big grit guy like Dan Campbell? Because the thing that I found funny is, like, in the Venn diagram of, like, the macho tough guy, and then, like, the analytics guy is, like, the middle slice where they overlap, which is go for it on fourth and short. And if you're, like, the nerdy football guy, it's like, well, the numbers say to do it. And if you're Dan Campbell, it's like, I'm a man, I'm going to go for it. I'm fourth and two. Like, I should every time, you know?

I think, you know me a little bit better now. We've been doing this for, I don't know how. long. Yeah, Dan Campbell's side. You would probably agree that I fit both of those. You know? You're closer to Dan Campbell. You know, just a macho guy, kind of just the epitome of what a man's supposed to be,

but also the analytics side, right? Yeah. Yeah, you would agree with that. Yeah. You're right in the middle. You are like the center piece of the event diagram shield. Bring them all together, you know? There you go.

All right, here are the matchups, Billy. It's finished with this. So we got Broncos hosting the bills. We got Seahawks hosting the. the 49ers. We have bears hosting the Rams and then the Patriots will host the winner of Steelers

Texans. My name is Billy Gill. My name is Sheel Capadia. Thanks to everybody for listening. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing Stefano Sanchez on video care givens on social. An additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ramgobal.

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