The Ringer NFL Show - Championship Round Recap

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

Benjamin Solak joined Kevin and Nora on Spotify Greenroom to discuss the Rams, who are heading to the Super Bowl after defeating the Niners (2:23). Then Kevin and Nora are joined by Steven Ruiz to discuss the Rams’ next opponent, the Bengals, who had a comeback victory over the Chiefs (26:34). Solak rejoins the show and they all briefly discuss the recent rumors about Tom Brady’s potential retirement (50:56). Host: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guests: Benjamin Solak and Steven Ruiz Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely  Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. It's Ariel Hawani of the Ringer MMA show. I'm Chuck Mindenhall. And I'm Pizzie Carroll, and together we are three-pack. Follow and listen to the Ringer MMA feed exclusively on Spotify for all the latest in the world of mixed martial arts. And join us live on Spotify Green Room after every big event. See you then. Love you.

The Super Bowl is set. It will be Rams, Bengals, after the Rams beat the 49ers 20 to 17, and the Bengals beat the Chiefs, 27 to 24 in overtime. We're going to have awesome deep dives of both games. Ben Solac joins Nora and I to talk about the NFC championship game. Well, Stephen Ruiz joins us to talk about the AFC game. Awesome deep dives. Let's get to it.

We also preview the Bengals Rams in two weeks and what that'll look like. Just a first look. Only one person makes a prediction, but we'll get to it. Here it is. It is the Ring Runn-Refel show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark joined on a Sunday night by Nor. Prince Yati or what's going on, bud. Kevin, we're going to the Super Bowl.

We specifically are going to the Super Bowl and so are the Los Angeles Rams Cincinnati Bengals. We're also joined with Ben Solac. Technically are the Los Angeles Rams going to the Super Bowl? Or are they staying home to participate in the Super Bowl? It's a little bit different, I think, in the here to there of it all. They'll have the same percentage of fans at the Super Bowl they had tonight. And we're here with Ben Solac. Hello, Benjamin. Was it a home game for the Rams? Is it going to be a home game for the Super Bowl? Are we going to do this for two weeks? We're like, wow, news is some Bengals fans are flying to the city where the Super Bowl is.

Crazy. I'm interested to see, I'm interested to see seriously, the Bengals fan base and if they travel. Like, my favorite Super Bowl was the Nick Bulls Super Bowl because Eagles fans were just like, I don't care how much of cost I'm going to get in the building. And it changed the calculus of that game because normally in most, in 90% of Super Bowls, it is like 80% like Visa executives, right? in my Pepsi executive. Like, there's not a lot of fans.

And Eagles fans were like, I'm in, I'm in the building. And I wonder if Bengals fans or Rams fans go in mass and spend thousands of dollars to be in there. So speaking of Los Angeles, let's start with Rams 20, 49ers, 17. Hmm. A lot to get to. Ben Solac, you were emotional after this game watching Debo and this Kyle Shanahan offense. Where do you start? Well, that shot of Debo crying with the towel over his head, no Dell coming to talk with them.

is really quite the shot. This has been like a blood, sweat and tears, sort of a run for divot. I think it's appropriate that ends in tears, given the blood and the sweat we saw over the first three games, how integral he was to this offense, how tough he's been, the tough yard,

and she's gotten in critical situations. So that was just a lot. This Niners team really, like the Niners and the Bengals, I thought both got to the conference championship games in very unlikely ways and very unlikely paths. Obviously, the Bengals, as we'll talk about, and it victorious.

The Niners lost was a reminder of how it could have looked for Cincinnati, just like a really young team. bringing together a lot of pieces, improbable run, and then disappointment right there close at the end with a lead late, right? With opportunity late and not being able to get it done,

that's the most crushing way to do it. And so it's a very devastating loss for San Francisco. With that said, you feel really good about the bones there. You feel really good about Devo Kittle and IEuk. You feel really good about Elijah Mitchell. You got to do some changes on the offensive line.

They're a little bit veteran. They're a little bit banged up. Some of the spot starters aren't that great. So we need that. And then defensively, oh, baby, if you keep Dermico Ryan's, in this head coaching cycle.

Whoa, Nelly. Like, we got ourselves a live one. They shouldn't be able to. They shouldn't be able to, but they might because of NFL owners. Yes. And so if they keep Domeco, this is a scary, scary team next season with one massive, gigantic question mark at the single most important position. And that's going to be the most fun thing to cover this off season.

So the bones in San Francisco are really, really, really good. This, this offseason is critical for a Lynch-Shannahan front office pairing. that I've been very critical of that a lot of people have been very critical of. This transition or competition or whatever happens has to be handled very, very, very, very carefully, very, very deftly. And I'm not sure

how that even goes. It's much worse way I would do it if I were in their shoes. That's going to be something to watch. Okay, I want to get to the future of the 49ers and trail and all that stuff, but I want to hone in on this game. Nora, the Rams won this game, how? Well, they won it. It is a little reductive, but Jimmy had the Jimmy drive

at the very end where we all wondered if he was just so desperate to throw a pick and not be able to get it done with the game on the line. And that happened. And Stafford, man, like, when Jaquistkee Tart dropped that, like, would-be interception, that was the first time in this entire game that I felt like I had a sense of who was going to win. Yeah, I said the same thing to Kevin in the pre-show. The second I saw it, I was like, uh-oh, that's it. That was supposed to be it.

That was supposed to be the moment that Stafford threw the pick, and it just didn't happen. And then Jimmy, I mean, there were four or five throws in the fourth quarter where it felt like he is just desperate to toss one. And obviously at the end, just not being able to move the ball forward is really the issue. And that was just the play that made it final. But he didn't put the thing together. And Stafford kind of did. And that would be reductive in a lot of situations. In this one, I kind of think that's what it came down to.

It's kind of what it had to come down to with these two teams. And so that makes sense to me, even though it's a little bit like quarterback narrativey. So producer Isaiah was 30 seconds ahead of me. So like was like 10 seconds ahead of me. And right before the pick, Isaiah said he did the Wents thing. And I didn't know. It was still huddling on my screen. And I was like, oh, my God.

I know exactly what just happened with the Jimmy D. And he did. He did the Wence thing. Ben Soak, these two quarterbacks compare them tonight. Oh, whoa, whoa. Just the thought of that is, is, is, is, is, is all the time. It's confusing and discombobulating. I shared this during the game.

The difference throughout the first three quarters in a box score that, that's showing that the Niners could have been in even a more commanding position than 17 to 7 in this game was Matt Stafford on third down. this was early in the fourth quarter on late downs. The Rams had 0.62 EPA per play and a success rate of 67% on 12 total dropbacks. That's 8 of 12 conversion rate on late down passes. They were- Do we know, Ben, I hate to interrupt you.

Do we know how much San Fran was, I can't believe I just said San Fran. That is disgusting. San Francisco was blitzing on those. And so it feels like not very much. The one that sticks out was that Cooper Cup third down. conversion that set up the game winning field goal. Because again, like the Niners are a very low blitz rate team. I didn't see too many blitz is just watching it off live.

I would say it's probably like a middle of the road game for them. Then that third and I think six it wasn't like Cooper Cup conversion, you're looking at them, you know, they're in their basic shell. They're not really showing anything because they like to blitz from depth. And right at the snap, the safety starts to come down. You're like, oh man, that's Cooper Cup's side. Like Stafford's staring right at that. And lo and behold, that ends up being the dagger shot.

So I didn't see too many blitzing, but Stafford was really, really nail on third downmates, a couple of great throws. And I said on the, I think I was the gambling show on Wednesday, this is the game for which you got O'Dell Beckham Jr. And that's, this is the, O'Dell shows up in this game. The ability to win in isolation when Cup is drawing so much attention. The hands, consistent catches on high velocity throws that aren't necessarily really accurate.

That helps Stafford out so much just game this out the way that he typically does. It was an aggressive Stafford game. It was a decisive and at times risk prone Stafford game. But he was able to get away with it. Tard drops that pass. it changes the narrative. And then for Jimmy, it was a good game until we got to the point where you have to throw the ball to score points to win in the fourth quarter, which, you know, he's had a couple

of those drives this year, which have been nice, right? It's been a surprise. That old chestnut. Yeah. It's kind of, you know, what sparked this Jimmy conversation we've had over the last couple of weeks now is like, oh, he's had some nice game winning drives against the Rams of week 18. They were down three scores.

He threw him back into it. Like, that's all been good. But over the breadth of his career, we kind of knew 17 to 17. 17 to 20, Jimmy's dropping back. Kevin, you said it. That penultimate drive that the Niners had there

was a really, really bad one. And it's because Jimmy had dropped back game. I said it before we logged on, I just want to reiterate it for people who are actually listening. It was one of the worst drives given the circumstances

you could possibly put together. It just nothing. Ben's like you said it wasn't great. Kevin's like, no, no, no, no, no. I said it was next level horrible the likes of which had never been seen before. And Ben said, oh, well,

it's the no-debo drive. It was like the no thought drive. It was just the get me out of offense drive. It was the no good plays drive. Yes. Like what Shanahan has better plays than anybody. And he was like, what if I didn't use any of those? He, Shanahan, the degree to which Shanahan actively hates Jimmy is just so funny to watch.

Like, that's like simply what it is. Like, let's not pull punches when the Niners have just lost the competition game. Before the first half ended, they had third and whatever from like the 25. it's 20 seconds left. And Shanehan has a timeout. Call the timeout, run a play, throw it into the end zone. If you get it, sick. If it falls in complete, kick the field goal.

Nope. They let the clock run down and kick the field goal and third and goal. At any opportunity where you're like, all right, if the quarterback makes a really dumb decision here, we're screwed. But he shouldn't. We should be fine. Shane Han elects to take the other path, right? And then also you get to second and one becomes third and two,

becomes fourth and two and two and Shanehan doesn't go. So Shanehan also does his own stupid things in that regard. But either way, like it was a lot. fine Jimmy game. It was what you usually get. Like at some point he was like 70% completion rate two touchdowns, no picks. It's just we got into a one score tie game small deficit fourth quarter.

And while Jimmy has had good performances in that regard recently, over the breadth of his career, we know that's not him. Can we, wait guys, can we do some like dumb sports media quarterback stuff? Sure. Please. My family needs that. We're here for. If Jimmy, if this ends differently, if Jimmy

executes the drive of his life to take the 49ers to the Super Bowl at the end of that game. Does it change the path of the 49ers offseason? Yeah. Yes. I think he's their starting quarterback next year if he takes them

to the Super Bowl. You have to bring him back. Yeah, you. Right then? Yeah. You do. For competition. You do. Because if you trade, here's the thing. It's all about what happens if. If you trade the starting quarterback in the Super Bowl and it goes poorly, you're the biggest idiot in the entire world.

Right. If you trade. a quarterback who lost a conference championship game. Eh, you know, whatever. Like, Jimmy's good. Yeah, you get it. And you got to move forward. You got to improve and, oh, it's the margins, whatever. If you had made the Super Bowl, at that point, you're no longer allowed to trade him because

the fallout if you're wrong is career ending. The sport is so dumb sometimes. Most of the ending of the game was dumb, too. Let's not act like Jimmy Garoppolo was innocent of all charges here. Oh, no. Jimmy was very guilty. He's extremely guilty. Nor, how will you remember this game?

I think I will remember it. So I found this game very hard to get a beat on, which like sometimes that always, that really sticks with me because it's like, who is going to find some little edge? But I think I will remember it for the dropped pick just feeling like such a pivot point to me between these two quarterbacks.

And obviously like there's so much sort of meta-narrative stuff with these two teams. you're looking at the crowd. There's so many 49ers fans there. And it really feels like everybody's tweets about the Rams and the Niners are coming to life. And I think that was that was sort of it for me. I do think that, again, Ben's point about O'Dell Beckham is really significant. I think the secondary part of it and maybe I won't remember it as much because it's less easy to sort of make jokes about and that is what I live for.

but there are a lot of things that Sean McVeigh did wrong in this game, but I do want to give credit. It made sense that this was a game in which Stafford was going to drop back 40 plus times. Like that kind of needed to be, those needed to be the terms on which the Rams were going to win this game. And I did not feel like I had a strong sense of what was going to happen there, just because we are talking about two coaches who are really good coaches, who are really good coaches and can support quarterbacks,

but who seem to have sort of varying and fluid degrees of trust in the guys who are running their offenses. And I think the fact that they just looked at this matchup and went, all right, we have to have guys like Odell, like, you know, Blitzbeater Extraordinary Cup, exposing some of the weaknesses that other teams have not been able to expose in San Francisco. Like the fact that they gave it the old college try,

I think speaks well of McVeigh and should go as a point in his corner because there are some other things that obviously do not look great in how this game was coached. Ben, Cooper Cup had 142 yards, 11 receptions today. Cooper Cup is good at everything. And it was amazing to me.

I was digging into some of his numbers earlier today. There's like five routes where he just crushes the competition. I mean, it's not just like, most productive on corner routes, most productive on ins. There's an Ocho route that Sean McFey basically invented that he's the best at,

efficient on go routes, all that stuff. He can basically do everything. Use the middle of the field as well as anybody. Most yards after catching the NFL, we know all this. I guess the question is, where do you rank Cooper Cup on the list of weapons in the NFL right now

and what does he allow them to do in a game like this? Two behind Devante Adams. what Cup, so firstly, it's important to remember, because it's fun to talk about Cooper Cup is like, you know, West Walker or whatever. He's like 6-2-200 something, you know what I mean? This is a big guy. Ability to get in and out of the brakes is what counts, right? But both the Shanahan and the McVeigh offense run this whip route, right,

where you look like you're about to run that shallow cross. So you're about to just scream across the middle of the field, breaking it like two yards, right? Just we all know that that little shallow route looks like. Put your foot in the ground and then cut hard to the outside. And that's where Cup lives. He lives on that route. He lives on the option.

He loves on all the stuff that breaks. Troy Aitman was alluding to this when he was speaking on the broadcast saying, every route that Cup runs just like looks the same. He has such a good job disguising his routes. And that's kind of like, well, everybody tries. You know what I mean? That's not like because I cut figured this out. Like what if we don't tell the defense what we're doing.

But he's just so clean in and out of his breaks that at his size to have his catch radius because he just catches everything. I mean, low, high, through contact, you know, fast, touch throw, whatever. He catches everything. For him to break the way he does at his size than have the catch radius he does. is ridiculous. What it's allowed the Rams to do, and this is an important note in terms of

we're moving off of the golf offense and into the Stafford offense, where we live in drop back past. You know, we live in shotgun. We live more in spread. What it's allowed this offense to do is find quick and easy underneath completions that have replaced what the running game used to be.

McVeigh's running game used to be, all right, let's get six yards to get to second and four, and then we'll try to do some cool stuff. Now it's all right. We either A can try to do cool stuff on first and ten and second and ten. If we get to third and seven, we're just going to throw out to cup on third down and expect them to get it. Or we can run this to cup wide receiver screen right now.

We can run this to cup option route right now, get ourselves to second and four, and then try to push the ball further down the field. Right. So his reliability, his consistency in those short areas has allowed them to get away with not having a very good running game. You saw that in this game. Acre started to get banged up. Sonny Michelle was terrible. This is a great Niners run defense you don't want to get into the teeth into. Cup, like you said he had, what, 140 yards?

it felt like a quiet day. Like, you know, do you remember the big explosive cup catch? I don't, right? Like there was the third down conversion, but really it wasn't like, wow, all these big cup fireworks down the field streaking. Nope, it's just the steady consistency, the quick transition of becoming a runner,

break a tackle, and let's just move the sticks down the field. Nora, what is the Stafford, the story of the Rams of 2021, starting with, I mean, like, flying coach had documented this great, being in Cabo, the trade, all that stuff, beating out Kyle Shanahan.

Does this change how you think teams will build going forward when the Rams went out and Godstafford, upgraded that position? When I think it wasn't perfect, Jared Gough was bad, but they at least were settled. They had a long-term contract. They had been to the Super Bowl with them. Do you think this will change how teams build with quarterbacks? I think it's part of a change that's currently happening, where I do think that teams have raised the bar of it's more important than ever to have the quarterback that you want.

But I think where the shift has been is that there's there's sort of an upper middle class of quarterbacks. But I think the league has soured on a little bit. I think there's this idea that, you know, good enough is not really good enough anymore because we do see elite elite, you know, the Mahomes is, the Josh Allen's,

the guys who really, really raise the bar, kind of feeling like you need one of those to win a Super Bowl. So I think having a, maybe it used to be if you, you really needed a top 12 quarterback and now it's you really, really need a top eight quarterback. I don't think that's because of Stafford at all. I think Stafford is a part of that shift. I do think that what Stafford shows is that it's, you have to factor in the type of player that the quarterback is, not just sort of what all the numbers add up to in the whole, right? It's how many of those are you taking more boom or bust, right? Like if it's more explosives but also more mistakes, that's okay because sometimes those gambles, they're going to pay off really big.

And what you're ultimately trying to do is win a Super Bowl. And the reason that it's pushing towards those extremes is because we're seeing the rebuilding cycle get shorter. So whether it's tanking or doing a sort of rebuild on the fly, if teams are saying, okay, if this doesn't work, we can reset, we can swallow more dead money than we used to think that we could

and we can reset the deck faster. It's making them want to take bigger swings. But when it's not just, you know, six Aaron Rogers clones on the market every off season, sometimes the guy that you have to take a swing for is a guy who is going to lose you some games, but is also going to win you some games.

And ultimately you take that. over steady shore, but not really good enough. And I think Stafford is representational of that. Well, it just also pushes everything up, right? Like, if you're the Rams, right, if you're another NFC team and you see the Rams, you say, okay, well, we have to beat this team. We have to go out and get a quarterback. I mean, I'm sure the Trey Lance thing had something to do with that.

The fact they struck out on Stafford. And it's, okay, this is the team we have to compete with. If you're the Cardinals right now, you know what the barrier for entry is. You have Kyler and Murray. You need to build around that and go out. I mean, with the Rams go out and trade a second and third round pick for Von Miller. Like, that is the barrier for entry. That is what good teams do now.

They go all in. They push limits of the cap. The cap is exploding the next three years. The GMs understand this. There is a way to build a good NFL team right now that involves taking a lot of risks and being extremely aggressive and pushing the limit of everything. And somebody in the chat is asking, was Jimmy top 12? I mean, you know, Jimmy is somewhere in that. that middle area, right?

And Jimmy is in an odd way, the ideal data point because it's complicated because a lot of the issue with Jimmy is not actually quality of play. It's health. And if he can stay on the field. And quality of play. It's a little, some from column A, some from column B. But when Jimmy Garoppolo has been healthy, the 49ers have been a very, very competitive football team.

Sure. But everything else is to be perfect. You don't have the shortcut of an elite quarterback can bail you out. but I don't think that they would have traded up for Traylands. Right. If Jimmy Garoppelow had no, you know, significant health history and had been, had played every game since he's been in San Francisco. But that's kind of the, that is the test case, right?

It's like, you can have a Jimmy Garoppel. And right now, a lot of NFL teams are saying, sorry, it's nice, but it's not good enough, sort of funny, because they're just in the NFC championship game. but it's those guys who, I mean, I think back to when Kurt Cousins went to Minnesota, and so much of that conversation was just like, yeah,

no, I mean, he's not amazing, amazing, but think of how crappy it is to not have a quality starter. And I just, I don't think the league thinks like that anymore.

Okay. Clay asks, and thank God, we have a question so we can get angry about this. McVeigh, the worst clock man. of all time. So I think that he means game manager overall, and I'm just going to take it as that because I want to get angry about this. Ben, get angry. Sean McVeigh, man, he's got to get better

at timeouts. He's got to get better. I mean, I just, I can't do this anymore. He's so forward thinking in so many things that he does on offense, in sports science, in player acquisition. It doesn't matter. He knows, he sees the future in everything, but he challenges. terrible plays. He throws his timeouts away. Troy Aikwin was saying he's chasing it a little bit. He was basically saying our guy, Sean McVeigh was on tilt. Sean McVeigh was on tilt. Sean McVeigh has to find the Sean McVeigh of game management. Hire him, let him make decisions. A bunch of other teams had this. I don't know if the Rams have it and McVeigh is just not listening to him, but they've got to fix this. Okay, so firstly, I don't really think he needs to find

the Sean McVeigh of time management. He just used to find like the average The Zach Taylor. The Zach Taylor of the game management would be. absolutely an upgrade for the ramps. All right, I'm going to make a bold metaphor, which I compare myself to Sean McBay. Okay. So when I, like, when I'm, when I'm writing, right, when I'm like, like building out for a piece,

I like, I tend to get very like headphones on, like 25 tabs open. I'm in the space. I'm in the zone. And I like to, I really get frustrated and, and lose momentum when I get disturbed. Like somebody says something like, you know, my wife knocks on the door and asks me a question about something we're doing in two

weeks and I get like all up in a tizzy, right? these play calling coaches and most especially these quarterbacks excuse me these coaches who are so good at series oriented play calling right McVeigh and Chainhammer where they just build off of what they're doing they get into the pocket they get into the zone they get into the flow

they're in a flow state they're in the space and then somebody shows up on their headset and is like maybe you should challenge this and they're like fine fine whatever they just kind of tuck the flag you know what I mean like there's like a disruption to where they are I think like in terms of mentally in terms of

they're going, that they just throw the flag. Like third and two, the look isn't perfect. They didn't get exactly what they want. Just call the time out. There's, when you have a play-calling head coach, I really just don't think there's enough mental bandwidth. I don't think there's enough space in the active, prefrontal, low processing computer of the brain to have them also be making true judgments on clock management.

It just doesn't happen. Look at Andy Reid. Andy has been a great head coach for 10 billion years and has known that his Achilles here, Achilles' heel has been time management and situational play calling for 10 billion years and what does he do on second and goal when he has the field goal in the pocket and he just needs to take as much time away from the bangles

as possible, he calls a pass and you end up losing, you know, you take the sack and you lose the time and whatever. And so I just think you got to take, if you're going to get a play calling head coach, you have to take clock management completely out of their hands and give it to somebody else assistant head coach

who is responsible for making those decisions. Nora, this is from Charlie. who's saddest this weekend. Shanahan, Josh Allen. Josh Allen tweeted pain, period. He did? This afternoon, yeah, just pain. It was right when the Chiefs won the coin flip. He was like, oh, that one hurts.

Seeing that one. Shanahan started this season by reminding us of our collective mortality and his inability to know if any of us were going to be here on this earth tomorrow. He did make it. He survived the season. That's a W. I were yeah that's true every every new day in in this life is a W but I do worry what a person in that mindset does when plunged into despair can I give one last shout out yes Rahim Morris

defense coordinator Los Angeles Rams we got a note like Stafford play well couple of well Beck and played well rams scored 20 points and historically for the Rams that has not been enough to beat the Niners as Stephen himself noted during the week the Rams are averaging in those six losses to the Niners about 21, 22 points on offense. Rahim Morris, negative 4, negative 0.45 EPA per play on rushing attempts of the Niners, holds them to 17 points. This team could not stop the Niners run in the first two games of this meeting, and a third game, hold it together in a big way.

Kudos to Rahim. Ben Solac, give us your first, and we will get to much more, your first Super Bowl preview take. Vaughn Miller, two sacks, three sacks. Von Miller six sacks. It's Bon Miller 18. Aaron Donald, 25 sacks.

It's Akeem of Deney, the right guard, got bench for Jackson, Carmen in this game, and nothing was solved. Donald Ramsey, Donald Miller, and Rahim Morris's pressure packages

with two weeks to prepare. Whoa, Nelly. Going to be a long one. All right. Thanks, buddy. Bye, friends. Have a good pod. Hi, Stephen.

Hey, how's it going? Bengals 27, Chiefs 24. The Bengals shocked the world. I mean, I'm as pro Bengals as anybody. We've gone over this. I did not have it.

Someone tagged me. They were like, Clark picked them to win the Super Bowl. I did not pick them to win the Super Bowl. I said they could maybe win 11 games, which by the way, they haven't even done yet. But anyway, they were 10-1 team this year. I guess with the playoff wins. But no, I didn't see this coming. Stephen, you start where?

I start with the defense in the second half. If you had told me that they were going to hold the chiefs, are the chiefs were going to hold the Bengals under 30 points. I thought the chiefs would have to won in a blowout. And that clearly did not happen. And I have to give credit to the defense court. I still don't know how to pronounce his name. That's how little respect.

Big Lou. Anorumo. Big Lou. Big Lou. I'll call him Big Lou. Big Lou, people were clowning him for the three-man rushes at the beginning of the half, but they worked. Yeah.

And they eventually got Patrick Mahomes out of this rhythm. We've seen them in for the last like month or so, two months. And I think people were raving about. Patrick Mahomes taking his checkdowns and taking the layups in the first half, but then he just stopped taking those layups in the second half. And I think Big Lou deserves the credit for that. And they, the runs became RPO's.

The Chiefs made some interesting decisions. But Big Lou's adjustments, as you said, were perfect. So they basically doubled from halftime on. They doubled their usage of dropping eight defenders into coverage. Okay. On those throws, Patrick Mahomes was completely, winning 35% of his past plays. I believe for 59 yards and interception according next gen stats.

So it worked. And that was the adjustment and the chief didn't make one. In my opinion today was a disaster for the chiefs. I cannot believe they didn't make, they didn't give, they were so good last week at taking what the defense gave them. They were not good as the game went along. The end of half sequence, they should have put that game away, frankly. Trey Hendrickson is a game wrecker, a legitimate game wrecker.

If there's one thing I was wrong about with the Bengals, it was the Trey Hendrickson for Carl Lawson, basically straight swap. Totally wrong on that hand up. 33% pass rush win rate, according to PFF. Sam Hubbard got the job done when he needed to. B.J. Hill had a pass rush win rate, by the way, over 10%. Hendrickson was just a menace. And I think the Broome at one point made the point that some of those weird Mahomes throws

weren't just Mahomes saying, hey, I'm going to make a weird throw. It was a Hendrickson was up and had his hand up, and Mahomes didn't want to throw it into his hand or throw an interception or whatever it was. This was a, and part of the reason, again, I don't mean to pick on Zach Taylor. But you compared him to, you compared Burrow to Andrew Luck last week.

He did not, Burrow did not take a lot of hits this week, by the way. But what I'm saying is that there's a lot of talent on his Bengals team. And to say it's just Burrow or it's just Chase or it's just Joe Mixon, like there are guys, they hit on every, thing. Duke Tobin crushed this rebuild. Nora, where do we start? Well, just to that point, I mean, Jesse Bates getting his hand on that ball at the end. Like, Jesse Bates, I don't have

the stat in front of me, but I think it's next gen stats tracks like ball hawk rate. And he has done that all season. Right? Like, they have put these pieces together and their defense is not, is not, like, led by a couple of superstars, but there are solid guys doing what they're, supposed to be doing being in the right positions, doing their jobs. And it's a really impressive personnel job and it's a really impressive coaching job. They took away the middle of the field in the second half. And Mahomes, I mean, Kansas City, I think it was touchdowns on their first four drives and then three points the rest of the game.

Part of it, too, I thought this was a really effective adjustment by the Bengals is I think they realized that the game was being called fairly lightly and just said, all right, let's get a little bit more physical here. Like, let's make this hurt a little bit more. And particularly when you all of a sudden are dropping 8 plus into coverage on a, on close to half of your snaps, it's good to be a little handsy there. And I think that was a big part of why Mahomes who'd been patient just seemed like he couldn't really adjust to it is because I think they were just guys were in his face.

They were knocking receivers out of their routes. I think everybody was just a little frazzled. And noticing that, paying attention to how a game is being officiated and adjusting and sort of calibrating that the right way. Like, that's coaching too. And I thought that was very effective. Steven, Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow was good. And I thought he was good.

I'm not going to go like off the team 10. This is to bring around about show, ladies and gentlemen. He averaged 3.7 air yards for completion. I know the next two weeks we're going to be celebrating him like he's a god. But let's keep that in perspective. I'm just going to point that out. I think this was like a game where the Bengals kind of earn their playoff stripes. That was a terror that wasn't meant to be a pun.

Wow. But like Norris said, they kind of realized like the officials were not calling defensive holding, which is a thing that happens in the playoffs every year. That's not like a new development. But they're a young team. and I think they realized that, one, they wouldn't get flagged for that on defense. And two, the chiefs weren't going to get flagged for that on offense. And I thought the Bengals' receivers were more physical in the second half.

And they started winning those jump balls. You saw it on the chase touchdown pass when the back shoulder fade. And I think that's what's been cool about watching this team throughout the playoffs is they've kind of learned as they've gone along as the playoffs have gone along. And like I think I have no qualms about picking them in the Super Bowl. I don't know if I'm going to pick them yet, but I don't think an experience or them being young is going to be a problem. What should the chiefs have done?

If you took over the chiefs watching them in the second half and said, they need to make one change, where do you start? I go under center and I operate from under center, whether it's the run game, play action pass game. I think them dropping eight was a challenge to the chiefs to play a different way and the chief just didn't do it. And I think them dropping eight and how they were doing it attacked the specific way the chiefs really adjusted in the second half of the season.

Like in years past, their go-to route would be Kelsey underneath and then Hill over the top on the deep cross. But then as teams adjusted these last couple of years, they started playing too high because of Brandon Staley. Give them credit. They started running Kelsey on up the middle and they would run Tyree Kill under him. So the Bengals had that dropper, that extra dropper, drop into that area and they kind of shut that area down. And the chiefs just didn't have an answer. They couldn't go deep. They couldn't go short.

and we saw what it did to Mahomes. Ben Zolak in the chat, listener Ben Zolak, in all caps, said, pick on Zach Taylor, pick on him. No thanks. Wait, can I say something else nice about Zach Taylor? Sure. I actually don't know if this is nice about Zach Taylor, but somebody did a good job here. It's nice for whoever it applies to. Joe Burrow, so Burrow wasn't like scrambling every other play here, right?

But Joe Burrow had one scramble for a, first down in a third and six plus situation in his entire career going into this game. I ended up doing it multiple times. There was the play where he escaped Chris Jones on third and long twice. That was amazing. Next Gen stats tracked it that Jones was within two yards of him for 4.3 seconds. And Burroughs still got away and scrambled for the first. I really want to know if there was somewhat.

It made me think of this because Stephen was talking about how the Bengals have made good adjustments throughout this postseason, I really want to know if somebody watched Chiefs, Bills, and watched Josh Allen and went, all right, hear me out. Should we have Joe try it a little? Yeah.

Like just a little? And it kind of worked. It really helped their offensive line out, which was really, really struggling. But I think that was a big reason why they didn't get quite as much pressure on him in the second half. And maybe that was.

just how the game played out. Maybe that's just borough being borough. But I would love to know if somebody in that building didn't think about how much trouble Kansas City had with Josh Allen's legs, obviously hugely different player, hugely different athletic capability, hugely different physical size, hugely different situation. But I just wonder if there was a kernel there and I would be fascinated to know. And if that was Zach Taylor's little brainchild, well done. I honestly think it's like a testament to how well-built this offense is and what they've put around Joe Burrow and what type of quarterback he is. With those two guys on the outside, T. Higgins and Jammar Chase,

and T. Higgins had a huge game. He deserves a lot of credit for them winning this game. It's hard to play single high coverage because those guys are just going to win jump balls on the perimeter. And then it's hard to play man coverage because they have Boyd and then they have Chase and they have Higgins and you know Joe Burroughs going to find the open guy. So you have to play man coverage. you have to play two high man coverage. And two high man coverage is basically asking the offense, please scramble your quarterback.

Because the cornerbacks turn their back to the pocket. You have two safeties deep. So you only have four rushers with their eyes on the pocket. So if Burrow gets outside, he's going to have a good scramble opportunity. I think that's what happened in the second half. They had to play two men, and we saw Burrow take advantage of it.

The conversation about the chiefs over the next eight months is what? I think it's similar to the conversation we had last off season. after that Super Bowl. I remember Patrick Mahomes, I think he talked to you about it, taking those checkdowns, taking those layups, and he was doing it

over the second half of the season, but when it came down to the biggest game of the season in the second half, he stopped doing it. He went back to that player we saw in the Super Bowl that we saw early on in the year.

And I think Mahomes working on that during the off season and kind of having it in his tool bag from week one on, I think that will help him as a quarterback.

But is that not a coaching point? Like couldn't Andy have They said, hey, man, settle down a little bit. I mean, he's on the sideline. Patrick Malmonds is playing in front of 80,000 people with a million-dollar pass rush are coming after him. So I don't know. Hey, uh, listener Chandler in the chat here says, imagine, what would happen?

It was a question. What would happen if Urban Meyer had Joe Burrow? He did. He did. And he didn't play him. So there goes that hypothetical. Um, okay. So, Stephen, same question I asked Ben earlier.

Let's start previewing this. Super Bowl here. The Bengals win the Super Bowl, how? I think the defensive performance has to be even better than it was against this team. And I know that sounds crazy to say because they just played the Chiefs, but I think the type of defense, the Bengals play is the type of defense that Sean McVeigh wants to see. He wants to see a lot of two-high zone. He's going to be able to figure out route combinations. He has two weeks now to design plays, to attack that type of defense.

So I think you've got to see what you saw against the Chiefs in the second half. You have to see creative pass rush plan. You have to see coverage that's tight to receivers in making Matthew Safford hold the ball. I think Matthew Saffert has to throw a couple picks. I don't know. It's going to be hard for that defense against the Shaw McVeigh offense. I don't know if it's going to be as successful as it was in the second half of the Chiefs game. Norah, what do you want to learn?

Like, in Super Bowl, we have more access than normal. We get to report stuff, all that stuff. What do you want to learn about these two teams the next two weeks? I think with the Bengals, it's how much buy-in has borough, like how far has that sort of seeped into the organization, right? Because I do think that it's this fascinating exercise and culture, which is something that we talk about a lot in football, but it's very nebulous. And it's something that owners and teams all over the place, you know, they will pay a lot.

lot of money and invest a lot in a head coach who promises to be a culture changer. And sometimes that's absolutely right and that works. Sometimes the guy just asks players to run a bunch of laps and gets fired after three years. And the Bengals who were in very recent memory, a very bad team, seemed to have just imported it basically overnight with a player leader who has this just unflappable quality to him. And that's amazing. And it's a fascinating case study in how you team build. But I'm curious to see sort of how much that has seeped into everybody else. Right. Like we're sort of joking about Zach Taylor. But I do want to know like how much of part of that is he. Right. Like is everybody following Burroughs lead or is this something that has kind of had a has been contagious, I guess. And then. With the Rams, it's just like, the Rams are automatically a very binary team, right? Like, they're in the Super Bowl.

So I think you kind of say that the experiment and going all in, quote unquote, was a success. But it's just this very fun, volatile thing to watch because they have to get the results. Otherwise, it feels like it was all for not. And it's kind of a coin flip. And I think it's almost a mistake to make it overly intellectual. the Rams are just fun because anybody can show up on any given day and it matters so much

because they're not going to have a first round pick for like six presidential administrations so the stakes are pretty high and I think that's just like that's entertainment baby. Don't you think at this point the Rams their process has been vindicated like just making the Super Bowl

I think vindicates everything they've done to go all in. 100%. 100%. And that was the thing when they were in the Super Bowl a couple years ago against the Patriots I talked to Lestine and Kevin Demoff and some of those people.

And they said that, and I agree with this for a while there. Maybe it was a Sixers thing that was that was what they pointed to. Maybe it was even the Browns thing that was kind of left unsaid because it was a team in their league. But there became this fascination with playing the long game. And there was maybe a four or five year period where teams weren't saying, hey, this is happening a little faster than we thought. Maybe we'll just push our chips in the middle of the table. And the Rams thought there was an efficiency there of saying,

okay, this is worth something now. Like Jimmy Johnson used to talk about how, you know, he would put different values on picks relative to when they were because the closer the pick is to now, the better, right? Like playing the, being good next year is the thing coaches really like. That sounds simplistic, but it's true. And the Rams built a franchise around that. You know, I want to talk about the Bengals here.

I want to go to a bit of a Bengals rant. Because we're as, you know, we are slaves to the narrative as much as anybody, everybody who covers this league is. You cannot, the way the league is covered, something happens on Sunday, we remark about it on Monday morning, and it can feel completely divorce from the week after it and the week before, right?

And that's just how the league goes. But so much of the media coverage of the past couple of weeks and years was how are you going to play in the AFC with Mahomes? Or even last week, how are you going to win the AFC if you don't have Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes? Or kind of smugly,

talking about AFC West teams and saying, good luck if you don't have Mahomes, buddy. Why would Josh McDaniel or why would the Broncos, you know, why would you go work for them when they got Mahomes and Herbert and the division? The Bengals retooled their entire franchise in two years in a remarkable way. And again, we have to give props to Zach Taylor for not getting in the way of that. Brian Callahan, I think is a very good offensive coordinator. I don't think he's gotten his due because Zach Taylor calls plays. There's a reason Bro runs his offensive beatings.

it's because they want him to. And again, a worst coach could have screwed this whole thing up. Jamar Chase, the freedom that those guys have to play a two-man game. T. Higgins is great. But I think that we as a media probably have not given enough credit to a team like the Bengals who have showed so many of the things that we've talked about. And the barrier for entry to play in this league is completely wrong. You can topple Mahomes in basically a year and a half when you consider that he had his knee

injury and was basically removed from it. They didn't have really have a full training camp. It's unbelievable. So I just want to give kudos to the Bengals because they busts a lot of narratives over the past couple of months and it's a good thing. It's a real good thing. But is that a thing you can say already? Like if we were saying it just went into Arrowhead and beat the chiefs. What's the point of the, are we going to do the, are we going to award process of the

year again to Brandon Staley? Like what's the point of everything you do from OTAs until the end of training camp is to start a season that ends here. Like, yes, whatever questions the Bengals had have been answered by Sunday. No, but you could have said the same thing about Eli Manning after he went into Green Bay and beat Brett Farve to go to the Super Bowl. Yeah. I don't think anyone was.

The Rams process has been dictated by them making the Super Bowl. I think you have to say the same thing for the Bengals. He won two Super Bowls, but no one's looking at those Giants teams and going, hey, that's the blueprint we're trying to follow. No, but you know what else? You know what else is no one saying? But no one in New York is saying, oh, man. And we had a great time watching that Super Bowl,

watching the team I love win the Super Bowl, but it was a bad process. So I feel a real pit. But they won the Super Bowl. The Bengals haven't won the Super Bowl. That's what I'm saying. They're getting to, they've gotten to the Super Bowl.

I'm saying that that's something, I don't understand why they've not, they've not been vindicated. I don't understand why you can say they haven't been vindicated. No, I'm saying this isn't like a, we don't know if this is a sustainable model yet or something that other team should be trying to follow. But the model is just draft Joe Burrow and let him do his thing.

I mean, he was unbelievable. I mean, like, I know that he had the air yards were low and all that, like the scrambles he had today. It was funny because I was watching, I was rewatching the LSU Alabama game midweek. And on the final drive of the game, of the game clenching drive, he had like a third down, eight yard type scramble. And it was the most like, it was pretty standard scrambling. And Brad Nessler just freaked out and goes, is that a Heisman moment? And it's like, no, it's just, it's just him scrambling at yards. Like, it's fine.

But you see it. Like, he's got this weight forward kind of gate that he just, he just knows how to make plays, whether it's with his leg or this arm, and it's unbelievable. I don't, I don't think that you can poke holes right now in the Bengals process or, or their franchise. I also don't think that if you're the Miami Dolphins right now, you can say, oh, we can do this because you can't. You didn't draft your burrow.

Yeah, that's, that's my point. Like, yeah, simply draft like a franchise changing player, just how often do those guys come around? And how often do we recognize it before the draft? It happens, doesn't happen often. Right, exactly. But you can also screw it up. And again, if we're giving Zach Taylor credit for anything, it's that.

Anything. All right. Let's do Super Bowl preview. Nora, where do you start? I think I start. Ben was talking about it. The Bengals still have a significant issue. on the right side of their offensive line in particular.

And that is scary. That is scary against the Rams. That is very much weakness on strength. And I think that seeing the Adok come down for Burroughs, seeing him scramble a little bit, some of that is the product of what they were seeing from the Chiefs, and they're not going to see the same thing with L.A. But I think there's also a possibility

that they were trying to manufacture things that were just a little bit quicker. And that's smart, right? Like, he took nine sacks in a game. And so I wonder if with a couple weeks, they can try to figure out something that will neutralize to a degree because you're not going to, you're not going to completely do it.

You're not going to do it most of the way with Rams. But that can put a dent in what L.A.'s past rushers can do because that's got to be your biggest fear if you're the Bengals right now It's just those guys can blow up play after play. Stephen, I actually forgot to ask Soak this question. So I'm going to ask you. What is the Niners, the opposite of the Super Bowl preview? What does the Niners next to eight months look like?

Oh, man. I think you have to trade Jimmy at this point. If he would have won this game, you keep him. I don't know how you could trade him. But I think it starts with that. And shedding 20 million off of your salary cap allows you to do a lot of things. And I think it starts with building up that secondary because as good as Damiquo Rines is

and he might leave, he was still hiding that secondary all his season long. And you have to have a plan B or a plan C on defense and they just didn't have it. And we saw it burn them at the end. The Rams knew what coverages they were going to be at the end and they couldn't do anything about it. And the one time they tried to blitz,

Stafford immediately found a mismatch and threw it to Cooper Cup for the biggest play of the game. It's going to be great. Super Bowl picks. Are they in yet? I'm going to pick the Rams. I'll say this. for Zach Taylor. If he spends the next two weeks figuring out a way to slow down Aaron Donald and

Von Miller from sacking Joe Burrow nine times, then he will have earned his Super Bowl ring. And I think the Bengals will win the game. I don't think that's going to happen. I think the Rams defensive line is going to dominate. And it's going to be too much for Joe Burrow to overcome. I think it'll be close, but I think the Rams win in the end. Nora, listener, for Charlotte who will pick, Nora? I'm going to have to think on that one. I'm not ready to say, can we talk about the early game halftime show for just like 30 seconds. Listener Brian Curtis says, I can't hear you guys. Is there a halftime show nearby?

That was just spectacular. Wait, is the Applebee's song like a real song? I don't know what anybody's talking about. There's an Applebee's song? Yeah. It was like in the Applebee's commercial with like people doing TikToks. It's a song by country artist named Walker Hayes. I believe it's called Fancy Like.

I've got to think that there's a musical version of product placement going on in this. I will tell you I taught with my friend Sammy a large group of post-wedding goers

how to do the TikTok dance that went along with the song outside of an Applebee's in Rhode Island this fall and that's all I can tell you about that story. What? This is insane.

It has a TikTok dance. It's a real song. It has TikTok. Wait, did you say you taught these people how to do it? Yeah. Yeah. You're like Joe Burrow of... Culture change. I'm the Joe Burrow of standing outside of Rhode Island Applebee's

after a wedding. You change the culture. Listener, Stuart Byke, asks Jimmy G. to Tampa Bay? Probably not. No, I don't... Tom Brady to Tampa Bay. I want Jimmy G. to Tampa Bay just for the Bruce Arients of press conferences. All right. Anything else in this game, guys?

which game the super bowl anything anything anything in your notes about it can i say this about we're going to do some great pause say this about the bangles offensive line they benched a den jay who had a 24 pass blocking grade for the game via pff and jackson carman came in and had a zero point zero pass blocking grade for the rest of the game those are early pf well then he got unbenched thuritobins got his work cut out for him in that in that department the next couple of days um all right So what's going to happen is we're going to end the green room. Thanks for stopping by. And then So lax's going to hop on.

And then we're going to talk about Tom Brady for five minutes. All right. Now it's a four person. We've never done this before. Hopefully. Hopefully it's not just an explosion of takes here at the Red Cross show. Me and Steven on the same podcast is dangerous. Tune in every Friday, baby.

Okay. So Tom Brady, it was reported that he retired. And then Solac and I recorded a podcast. And as the podcast was being recorded, we kept getting updates that maybe he wasn't retired. Ben and I smugly dismissed them until Tom Brady Sr. Very, very, very smuggly. Very, very smuggly dismissed these reports until Tom Brady Senior was like, it's pure conjecture. And then there were a handful of reports that Tom Brady contacted the Bucks to say no decision has been made.

there's some salary stuff here where he was in Spotrack. He needs to wait till February 4th to get a bonus. Maybe that's something to do with it. Maybe he wants to announce it in some slickly produced video. I don't know. But we seem to be in a holding pattern here. Nora, when you first saw all of this unfold, you went where? So when I first saw the Schefter report, I was really surprised, honestly,

because it was within the realm of possibility, obviously, that he would think about retiring this off season. The thing that I believed more than anything else that Tom Brady has ever said about his retirement plans was that he would retire when he sucked. And he was an MVP candidate this season. He got tired of waiting to suck? That was my first thought, right?

Was that he set this bar. He really wanted to do it. He kept sort of waiting for it to happen, and it just hadn't happened yet, and his wife would like for him to be home a little bit more. Although I do think at that point, There's a little bit of an irony in that him being able to be around his kids more and just have more free time was such a big part of how he thought about football and what he wanted to be putting into it and how he wanted to structure this portion of his career when this portion of his late career began several years ago because his kids were really little then. they are a little bit more self-sufficient at this point.

Like I think he has, and I'm really speculating here, right? Like, I don't know about the dudes family. But he can sort of be there for them in a way that's, you know, setting examples of hard work and competition and talking to them when they're home, but they're running off to practices and activities and all sorts of stuff. It's a little bit less of the like early, early childhood you want your dad around all the time kind of thing. And it's just funny how many elements of his end career and the things that would factor into something like this that he really has weighted out. And they have become

different. Like the sort of playing field has become different just because of how long this has lasted. So my initial thought was that I was just really surprised. And then my thought on kind of how it all came out, I was very surprised that he wasn't the person to make the announcement. I will say that that did immediately strike me as just a little bit strange because you would really think that he would want to be in control of the messaging and the packaging of the messaging. Yes. He is long wanted to control the message. I agree with you. I think that he will still retire, but it will be kind of what people have been talking about where it'll just be some big Brady driven production, not via Adam Schepter and Jeff

Arlington and Jason Locken for the night before report. Ben, what did you think? Right. I think that it's funny. I was about to say, you know, off of what we said on the first podcast, nobody heard that. Nobody heard it. Nobody heard it. Yeah.

I very much like Nora. It was pretty good. It was pretty good. It was pretty good. I thought he would retire when there was just no chance he could ever look like Tom Brady again. Meanwhile, he led the league in passing attempts and passing yards and passing touchdowns. He had a single season record for passing completions in this past season.

He doesn't just look like. like Tom Brady. He looks like Brady 2.0. It looks like Brady Part 2, Electric Bugaloo, new arm. Like, it's bananas, how good he looks. So the idea that he retires based off of quality of play is not only foreign to me right now. It, to me, doesn't even exist in like a two-year and a three-year horizon, which lends credence to the idea that, you know, it's a family thing. And like, because he's showing no signs of deteriorating, it's like, all right, you know, if we continue to just wait until you get bad, we might be waiting for a long, long time. Just with the arc in which he's progressing.

I will say that what I know of Brady is that the competitiveness is nuts, right? Kevin, you told the anecdote on our forsaken podcast about how he races his backup quarterbacks because he thinks he can beat them, right? He thinks he's fast enough to outrun these, like 20-year-olds, and he just can't. With that, so with that considered, if Brady was absolutely going to guarantee, or excuse me, it was guaranteed to retire. and then it came out before he wanted it to, and he saw the reaction,

he saw, you know, all the nonsense or whatever. I earnestly would 100% of my heart of hearts believe that reopens the conversation for him. Maybe it takes from 100% to 98% or whatever, but I do not think we rule out the, oh, Schifter thinks I'm retiring aspect of this, which to me is absolutely hilarious. So I think Brady could play next year

and dominate and win a Super Bowl with the Bucks. I think he could retire and functionally go out on top of the division round. and I think everything between is possible as well. Stephen, if Brady's going to retire, the Bucks go where? I think he is going to retire. And I think the Bucks future outlook is a reason why they had to make some deals with the devil to keep that team together last offseason.

I think their salary cap is not in the best shape and it's going to be hard to keep a veteran team together. Like Chris Codwin is a free agent. I don't know if they're going to be able to keep them. And we saw what happened to that offense once he went down. I think this is a competitive thing. I think Brady realizes that it's going to be hard to win a Super Bowl in Tampa Bay next year in the same way that I think we heard Aaron Rogers talk about the Packers after they lost their playoff game.

And I don't know. I mean, obviously he can't go to another team and start over. I think he realizes maybe seven Super Bowls is enough and I'm not going to win another one. So I might as well stop taking these hits. Anything else, guys, on Tom Brady? I think Tom Brady is held up every draft as this, like, attainable franchise quarterback you can get. We see the combine picture. We see him running the 40.

We hear about him getting picked 199th. But I don't think Tom Brady is attainable. I think what he was able to do after the snap and how his mind worked and how it processed is a superpower in and of itself. It's like Mahomes' arm. I think it's even different from what Peyton Manning was doing. Because a lot of what Peyton Manning was doing was before the snap. Brady was more reacting to, like, stimuli and, like, reading the defense after the snap. Peyton wasn't really doing that.

He knew the answers to the test before he got it. So I don't know. I don't think that's an archetype people should be chasing, and I don't think it's going to be one we see again. So this is our short Brady update. If he retires at the beginning of this week, I still think so like and I can put that pot out. Just put some flowers around it and spruce it out. But if he retires, we'll probably have, like, five more pods. he actually retires.

So stay tuned on that. We just wanted to give you a quick update on that. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for a production help with additional production supervision by Arjuna Ramkapal. We will be back all week. Players show on Tuesday. I'm back on Wednesday. Norrin Mal on Thursday.

Ben and Stephen, the magic you just heard is on a podcast every single week. It's on a Friday with Kaelin Jones and then Super Bowl week. We'll have a lot of cool episodes. There's been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network.