The Ringer NFL Show - Conference Championship Round Recap  | The Ringer NFL Recap Show

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Nora and Steven start by recapping the Chiefs' thrilling win over the Bengals. They discuss the play of Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow, what made the difference for the Chiefs, and more. Then, they move on to the Eagles comfortably beating the Niners. They talk about the Eagles defensive line's impressive performance, the quarterback injuries for the Niners, and more (23:32). Lastly, they wrap up with their preliminary thoughts on an Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl and the Cowboys letting go of offensive coordinator Kellen Moore (43:16). Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, this is Rob Harvilla from 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, the world's greatest loopy and perverse and inaccurately named music nostalgia podcast. We're doing 90 songs now because there's too many songs. Pearl Jam, JZ, Jewel, YouTube, Cher, Hootie. These are just some of the names people yell at me on the internet because we're back. More great songs, more rad special guests, more loopy perversity. Join us once more on 60 Songs That Explain the 90s every Wednesday on Spotify. NFL Sunday recap show championship game weekend edition.

I'm Nora Pinciotti. I am here with Stephen Ruiz. No Benjamin Solek today because he will be on the Philly special because the Eagles who beat the 49ers 31 to 7 are going to the Super Bowl. Their opponent will be the Kansas City Chiefs who defeated the Bengals 23 to 20. And I think we should start there, Stephen, because spoiler alert, There were some quarterback issues in the early game, but Chiefs Bengals came down to the wire. I think actually the very, there's so much to get to from this game, but it was sort of

encapsulated by the ending of the Bengals last drive where Chris Jones gets Burrow on third and eight. And then the Chiefs get the long return to set up. Mahomes just needing a couple of plays to get into field goal range with 44 seconds to go. And spoiler alert, he was able to make that happen. where do you want to start in Chief Spengles? Let's start with Mahomes. It wasn't the most comprehensive performance that we've seen out of him this year or in his playoff career.

But these are the types of games that contribute to the goat legacy. Yeah, it's like a legend game. Yeah, I don't know what his EPA was after the game. I don't know what his stats were. I don't know if they were the best. There weren't like a whole lot of downfield magical throws. A lot of the throws at the end were just like desperate checkdown. where he's getting tackled or getting out of a sack

and he gets it to his back somehow to avoid a loss of yardage. But just a gutsy performance. And then at the end, he needs however many yards. It was the third and four on the bum ankle. Pass rushers chasing him. And like we've said all year long,

his 40 time is 4. minus one, whoever the defender is chasing him. It doesn't matter. Whatever it has to be, it's going to be. It doesn't matter. Even if he has the ankle,

he's just a player that is always going to come through. I mean, I'm running out of superlatives for him. He's the greatest quarterback I've ever seen, the greatest talent, at least. He's unreal. And I do think the, the, he still had the wow moment on that throw to MVS. Yes. I think. Because there's always like, no matter what, bum ankle, whatever.

And it wasn't, you know, it wasn't in the fourth quarter, but still, like, it's not as though Mojomes got through this game without doing anything that just makes you go like, holy, what the heck are we talking about? But I like that you brought up that it's a legacy game, which is like such a stupid term, but whatever. It does mean something people care because this is the type of stuff that people build lore around. Right. Like he was a pretty effective scrambler in this game and he needed to be sometimes and didn't seem limited much by the ankle as a player. But then you saw it when he got rolled up on a little bit.

Like that hurt. he was playing through a lot and just found a way to gut it out. And I do think that people will remember that and people will think of this game, you know, against a Bengals team that's kind of had their number. And clearly that bothered the chiefs, right? Like clearly the, the burrowhead stuff, you know, we heard Kelsey yelling into the, the post game interview microphone about it after the game. Like clearly that bothered them.

And I do feel like with Mahomes, there's absolutely nothing that he needs in terms of being able to put together a highlight reel and show this crazy, crazy, crazy ability. It's just building this legendary stuff. You know, we're starting to hear, even though they're a little, a little forced,

like, it matters that the MJ comps are coming up on the broadcasts, right? Like, we don't need to make this a, look, the Super Bowl's not here yet, right?

Like, we don't need to make this a, uh, what's Patrick Mahomes's legacy podcast. But I'm glad that you went there because I was, thinking about that a lot too during this just how this game fits

into the overall story of Holmes and who he is and how his career develops. Did you think that he was affected by the ankle very much? I mean, you saw it on a few plays where he kind of planted and then he skipped a throw. There was a throw.

He was a sky more. Yeah. And that's always been kind of his signature throw in the pocket is he like starts one way and then kind of just hops the other way and is able to fire off the throw to the other side of the field. And like he has the talent to do that usually. And he did it in this game. So we kind of saw a we saw a pare down version of what he usually is. I don't think he had all of his his moves he could go to. He couldn't hit press all of his typical buttons. But he found the necessary buttons. He could push. Whether it was like going

through his progression, whether it was like moving in the pocket just to buy time or to open up throwing windows, he've just found a way to win. And that's what the great quarterbacks do. And he's finding more ways. What is this here? for him, you're four for him. He's finding new ways to beat the defense when they start to take other things away. Like we saw a lot of those checkdowns that I mentioned earlier. That's because the Bengals were dropping out and that's what they've done against him. And they found success because he wasn't patient enough. Now he's added that layer to his game where he could still be effective while checking the ball down. And it didn't matter who was out there at receiver.

Like they lose Tony early in the game. Juju goes out at some point during the game. McColl Hardman who just had come back leaves the game. He's throwing an MVS and Skymore and he's moving the ball and he's doing enough to win the game. So against Big Lou, right? Like, against one of the best of the number. I don't think Andy Reid really gave him a lot to work with in the second half.

Like there weren't all of these open throws. It was really Mahomes moving and finding time, finding space, finding the checkdown, being a complete quarterback and he had none of the protection that I don't want to say people have kind of like held against. him the fact that he has Andy Reid and that he's had all these these star talents around him like Tyree Kill in the past Travis Kelsey but in this game he had none of that he didn't have the open throws downfield he didn't have the star studded supporting cast he had Kelsey and that's it he had a bum ankle and Kelsey and Kelsey dealing with back stuff that seemed like it almost kept him out of

the game right so banged up and it didn't matter this offense just gets it done because they have that guy at quarterback yeah I think it's even so easy to to to of just almost not notice how much is on his plate, right? Like, he dropped back 46 times in this game. There was a lot on his plate for, even though he's Mahomes, for a quarterback with a bum ankle, right? And he has to do so much of that just like smart decision making, restraint, dink and dunk, stay away from what the bangles are trying to take away stuff.

and it's almost like they've just set such a high bar offensively for themselves, but losing all that receiver depth early, Kelsey not being 100%, doing that in this offense that, you know, no longer has the, the Tyree Kill sort of safety net of, oh, we can just break one at any time.

And I know the final sort of like, oh, classic left too much time for Mahomes, sequence of plays that got them into field goal range, kind of has an asterisk because of the penalty on Osai that that moved the ball forward, which is its own thing. And it's almost kind of unfortunate, even though it was very clearly a penalty. Like, that's the right call. But you just feel for that guy because it was, he looked so sad.

And it looks like he got hurt too. And it also just feels like they were going to get there. Right. Like you wish it hadn't happened that way because they were going to make it happen. he was going to move the ball. Right. It's Patrick Mahomes. Like, I wouldn't put too much on his side. And I thought he played a good game before that. He was just hustling. Like he, it was a bad decision. Obviously, I don't want to justify it. But it was a mistake via effort, at least. That's one way to frame it. So I don't know. I feel bad for him too. But I don't think that that's where the game was lost. And really, the Bengals were fortunate to be in the spot that they were in. And I know they had some bad calls go against them or some weird calls like the play that didn't. count the third down play they showed the wide replay and the yeah it didn't end up being impactful

it was just sort of strange yeah it was just a strange play but like it was a good football game i hope that like that's not the focus like the the mistake by o sai or even the ref the calls at the end it was a good football game and i thought the chees for the better team throughout and i thought they deserve the result yeah yeah and it's look and there's there's there really for the bengals defense not a lot of shame in holding the chiefs to 23 points when Mahomes has 326 passing guards, two touchdowns and no picks, right? Like that sort of shouldn't compute, and it's actually to their credit. I think it's sort of to both of their credit, right?

That that's how this played out because it means that the Bengals came up with a very good game plan for trying to take the teeth out of, of the Chief's offense in every way that they possibly could. They're helped by some of the secondary receiver depth getting taken away. But Mahomes just, he just didn't take the bait and he just did the right stuff. On the Bengals side, because I think if there was, if there was a disappointment for Cincinnati, I think it's on the offensive side of the ball. One of the biggest stories of the game to me was that the Chief's defensive

line against the Bengals, banged up, full of backups offensive line, wound up looking like a much, much, much, much greater mismatch than that offensive line against the bills pass rush in the snow and the divisional round ended up looking like. Particularly Chris Jones, you know, he got to burrow on that third and eight that set up the long return. He had two sacks, but just was, was getting pressure. I don't know what the final stats are because the game just ended, but it's seemed like he was winning just about every rep. And I thought that Spaggs and that Chief's front made things really, really difficult for Cincinnati. Yeah, they won some things like with their designs, their pre-snap looks where they caught

the Bengals protection unit and they got them in the wrong, the wrong looks. So I thought it was a big game for Spags, especially after that week 13 game where I thought he gave up some stuff. And then we heard Romo during the game kind of hint at that Spags had said maybe we didn't show our full hand because we knew we were going to play them again in the playoffs. And that kind of makes sense. After seeing this game, like, it kind of makes a little sense. Maybe they did do that. I don't know if that was like just cope from Spags, but it was a better game plan, a much better game plan.

I don't buy it. I wouldn't buy it either. Like, you're not giving up. Like, that was a game for home field advantage. I don't think they're like not trying their best to win it. I don't know. also there were like three different linemen in like what are we doing here i think that was a little bit of bluster but also i still love it i'm very much here for it but it's i'm glad you brought that up

because i thought that was funny like the two things that i thought that changed were one they got the pressure like you said and they made tackles on the perimeter and we kind of talked about this last week how teams have tried to make the chiefs cornerbacks tackle and in the the past games against the Bengals, that strategy has been very effective. We've seen Jamar Chase catch the ball and make big plays after the catch. And we didn't really see that in this game. Yeah. The cornerbacks tackled, the safety's tackle.

I thought that was a big reason why they replaced Tyron Matthew with Reed this in the off season because he's a better tackler. Matthew really fell off as a tackler. We saw that in this game. So they did everything they needed to win on defense. They handled the checkdowns. They forced Burrow to hold onto the ball and take a hitch or two extra. And when that happened, that gave time for the defensive line to beat a bang

up Bengals' offensive line and we saw what happened. They couldn't get that to happen in the other games. They finally got it to happen. Yeah, he had a lot. I believe I don't have this in front of me, but he had above average time to throw in those other games. And I think it certainly felt like that went away. And I think a big consequence of that,

plus the tackling point that you just mentioned, I think, is so key. They couldn't put together long drives. Like, there are two touchdown drives. One was six plays. One was eight plays. But they each, you know, one of them was the short field that had the fourth and six deep ball to Jamar, which was a great throw, great catch, great play that set up. I forget who scored on it, but I think it was a rushing touchdown.

That's how they tied it at 20. That and then the other touchdown drive had the Higgins deep ball. They just needed those. they needed those shot plays, which is part of their style. But I thought that, you know, the chiefs did such a good job of taking away the other stuff. So it was just sort of like, okay, yeah, sometimes you're going to give up a 37-yard throw or whatever it was to Jamar when you have him double cupboard. And he might have the right amount of leverage and he's great.

And you can live with that. But if that's all it was and that's kind of all they had was just when they could make those 50, 50 balls work, great. You'll get into scoring position. But other than that, they were really, really limited. And look, it's a testament to the strength of both teams that that adds up to a last second, you know, three point game here. But I do think that Cincinnati probably feels like they wish they could have found a few

more offensive adjustments in the second half of this one. And I think, you know, Spax is probably feeling pretty good. Yeah. It kind of feels like they fell back into, I don't want to say bad habits because it worked for them last year, but there was talk during the offseason and Burrow talked about this himself that they needed to evolve. They couldn't be so relying on those goat balls, those explosive plays. And we saw the chiefs were able to make them that same offense they were last year, that same one dimensional. Flawed offense, I guess, is the way to put it. It was obviously good enough to get them to the Super Bowl, but you don't want to live like that.

And we saw in this game, like there was. the chase play where they throw it up into double coverage, he makes a play. But the margins are so thin on those plays. We saw it the next time when they threw it to Higgins deep, the ball gets tipped and it turns into an interception. Right. Exactly. That's why those plays. You live by a, you die by it. Yeah. Right. So, and that's the key difference. And they couldn't find like a mid-range game. And that's what the Chiefs, I thought, that's how they evolved over the last year and a half because we talked so much last year about the fact that defenses had sold out to take away the explosives. And Mahomes had this hard time adjusting to it.

and throwing the checkdown. He figured out how to do that this year. We saw Burrow do it at times. I thought Burrow made the proper adjustments. And he, you know, he started getting rid of the ball a little quicker. He wasn't taking as many sacks. He was throwing his checkdowns a little quicker. I don't know if he got the same support from his coaching staff.

And I think, like, the offense, the scheme needs to evolve next year. And we saw getting this game, they couldn't run the football. And that's always kind of been the thing with them. When they can run the football, they can put up points with anybody. They can score 40 points a game. when they can't run the football and they become one dimensional and they become too reliant on those go balls, this offense, it's a 50-50 proposition. Either they catch the 50-50 balls or they don't. And that usually decides whether they win or lose.

And I also feel like it does seem like Burrow, who in the grand scheme of things is incredibly calm, cool, and collected, but he knows when that's working and when that's not working. And I do think that he reverts to some of those bad habits and bad decision-making when he feels like that's the case. because all of that seems to fit together with them when, you know, because that's when when he's searching for those 50, 50 balls, that's when he hangs onto the ball too long. Because if it's not there, he's still hoping that it's, it's, you know, Jamar's going to get open.

Jamar's going to get into a position where I at least feel like I can contest it downfield. And sometimes that works and sometimes that doesn't. And it felt like they probably just had one more of the plays where it doesn't work out and the ones where it does it in this, but when you don't have, when you don't have, have the safety valves and the backup options,

it's just a hard, it's a hard way to beat a good team. Do you look at Kansas City at this point, you know, we'll talk about, we'll have so much time to talk about the Super Bowl matchup. But I do think it's interesting to look at the path through the AFC

being, the degree of difficulty. at least in terms of the quarterbacks that you face being higher than certainly what happened to the NFC championship game today. Do you think that the chiefs come out of this and, you know, come after facing Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow sort of battle tested in a way that's at all meaningful going forward? I mean, I think it probably matters, but you could make the argument the other way where not having to be in these intense physical games is to the benefit of Philadelphia. They were kind of able to cruise in that first game, obviously.

I think we've seen Gardner Minshu in both games so far. So they're going to be well rested. And I would say like, I mean, it's been what, like a 20 game season so far? They've been battle tested. They've played all these games. They've played some good teams. They got a good look at a good defense this last week. So I don't know if that matters.

I would rather have the rest at this point. So I don't know, especially at this time of the year when everyone's banged up. The chiefs, I guarantee you they would rather trade the path that the Eagles had for the one that they have where they could have rested all these guys. And now their offense is, their offense is just totally banged up. If they don't have their skill players, we know what's on the other side of that matchup. Yeah. And it's, it's powerful. Get Mahomes some, some rest on that ankle, even though next 10 stats just tweeted this. Patrick Mahomes completed every pass he threw from outside the tackle box on the run and went holding on for longer than four seconds. Every

single pass. He's 100%. So six for six. throwing from outside the box. Six for six, throwing on the run. Six for six on dropbacks where he had to extend the plane. Ankle hurts, man,

still fine. There were some other stat, like from the week, the middle of the week where apparently last time he suffered a high ankle sprain. He, he,

like, threw for three touchdowns at three other yards. Maybe they should just, like, have him suffer a high ankle sprain every week. It's part of the offense.

I saw somebody do the, got that dog in a meme with the ankle. the ankle yeah i enjoyed that i thought it was pretty good uh all right anything else from the a fc championship game before we get to the the earlier game not really i just think like isaiah pacheco what a player to watch i look i know running backs don't matter but i think like having that type of running back does matter like having for this team in particular just being able to pick up those extra two or three yards that keep you ahead of the chains in ways that like i don't know jerick mckinin is not going to pick up those those extra two or three yards and it just

adds another element. It just makes them harder, a little harder to tackle. And that's a big thing when you have a team like with Patrick Mahomes at quarterback. I mean, and particularly,

I think the more that he proves himself, the more that Andy Reid is, is a little bit forced to know that he exists and behave accordingly. Not that he as a runner was a massive part of this game. I mean, he had 10 carries. He just didn't go very far on them for 26 yards. But the return.

the return might have won them this game, right? Like, there's an argument. There's an argument that that was the play of the game in some ways. So I totally agree with you. I mean, you know, running backs don't matter as a funny little quip. But he has mattered immensely for them this season and definitely did, especially on special teams this game, which has been, I always thought Kansas City was more likely to lose a game on special teams than win it.

And you could make an argument that that happened. Yeah. And that play that he made where it was like a little checkdown and he broke a tackle and they get across midfield. Those were the types of plays that the Bengals made in the previous matchups. Like last time they played week 13, Somagio pre-round on third in like four or seven, gets a checkdown, breaks the tackle. The Bengals go on to get the game winning score, I think, on that drive.

That's the difference of the game. The Bengals didn't make the tackle when they had to. The Chiefs made the tackles this time. Totally. Get a piece of $10 million and bonus bets with Fandul's kick of destiny. All you have to do is bet $5. on Super Bowl 57, and if Gronk kicks a field goal live during the game, you will get a piece of $10 million in bonus bets.

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Call 1,800-778, Hope & Y, or text Hope & Y to 467-369 in New York. All right, Eagles 319 or 7. What a game. What a game over in the NFC today. We had Stephen. So obviously, look, let's give credit to the Eagles. their defensive line absolutely won them this game.

They had a 61.9% pressure rate, which is the third highest, according to next gen stats by any defense, like in any game this entire season. Part of that, one such play was the Hassan Reddick strip sack of Brock Purdy in the first quarter that Purdy got hurt on, which was the first thing that really changed this game. Josh Johnson comes in. he then gets a concussion and then San Francisco goes back to

Purdy who can't throw and a little bit of McCaffrey in the wildcat what do you think Steven where to where to begin with the NFC championship game that was I mean obviously I'm a little disappointed this was hyped up as a game of like

two of the best rosters in the NFL and just goes to show what happens when you don't when you literally can't throw the football. Like at one point in the second half, the 49ers were no longer able to throw a football. I think Purdy said after the game that he couldn't get it more than 10 yards downfield if he wanted to.

They didn't even treat him like that. Like it was only screen passes. I think they were giving him in the second half after he came back from the injury. Or after it, it wasn't really even him coming back from the injury. He just forced to play. I mean, I'm kind of disappointed that Kyle Shanahan

didn't have something else up his sleeve because there's no way your best option is putting Brock Purdy on there. When everyone in the building knows, he can't throw, getting under center and just running like outside zone over and over again. There has to be a better way. And like every now and then they sprinkle them like a reverse play that never worked. And like it just goes to showing the stats.

Once the Eagles realized they couldn't throw, the 49ers couldn't run the football anymore. They averaged six yards per carry in the first half. In the second half, it was 1.43. That was the difference in the game. They couldn't move the ball. They had no way to move the ball. And it's a bummer. I mean, I don't want to take anything away from the Eagles.

But like, we didn't really get to. to see the game. And even still, it kind of felt like the 49ers defense did what it had to do to get a win if everything else was equal and they had their full strength offense. They had a quarterback. Like they, they survived those, those deep balls down the, on the perimeter. I know Devante Smith had the one that wasn't really a catch. They kind of held up in the run game. Like, I know the Eagles had like a couple of good runs up the tackles, up the middle of the tackles. But all things consider, they did a good job there. Jailen Hurd. didn't have his best game.

It's kind of inaccurate on the day. But it didn't matter when you can't throw the football and then you can't run the football in the second half. I mean, there's nothing you can do. Well, it felt like it did feel strangely like San Francisco missed a lot of chances. And that's a silly thing to be sitting here talking about when Brock Purdy, already their third string quarterback goes out in the fourth, in the first quarter, Josh Johnson gets concussed everything that we just talked about, he couldn't throw the ball.

Like, it's very silly to be like, oh, they almost had him, right? That said, the first touchdown drive for Philadelphia was when, um, the officials missed the, what should have been a drop on that fourth down catch. And Kyle didn't challenge it, which, uh, really, that's actually, I don't totally put that on Kyle Shanahan because he was on the opposite sideline and, and couldn't really see it. but whatever their operation is with the people in the booth, that's a miss. Then Purdy gets hurt. Then on the Eagles second touchdown drive, San Francisco committed three penalties.

One negated a third down stop. Another negated a sack on second down. The third Philadelphia touchdown drive, that was off the short field after the fumble, which was part of the just absolutely awful last couple of minutes for them before half time, sort of when the game got out of hand. And then the fourth touchdown drive was the roughing the punter call that kept Philadelphia on the field. So there are literally, I mean, the third one, you have to say you don't, if you don't fumble, you don't set them up with that short field. Other than that, you have three touchdown drives where just this one little thing

goes differently and it doesn't happen. Now, they probably would have had to find a way to keep, to get some scoring going. And I don't know how that was going to happen. And I'm glad that you brought up, like, just sort of wishing that they'd done a little bit more because I don't quite, I'm going back and forth on what's fair to expect in an in-game situation. And I, as I think people know, absolutely adore and admire Kyle Shanhan. I think he's a great coach and, you know, very smart, amazing scheme, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, voted for coach of the year. Great. Whatever. I was a little disappointed, and I do think that it fits into for all of his schematic brilliance and, you know, brilliance as a designer and in devising game plans and thinking about how to take away opponent strengths. It's not as though the first line of what makes him good has to do with in-game coaching.

Right. And, you know, they have the miss of challenging, um, the catch, which was unfortunate. But I also found myself wondering a lot, should he be able to come up with something else to do on the fly better than this? And I mean, that's hard, right? Like you're in the moment, you're playing a really good team. You are playing with one hand tied behind your back.

But it did feel like, I don't know, try. How much fun would it have been, first of all, to just, see what happens if Kyle Shanhan was like, can I try the triple option with McCaffrey and Debo, right? Like, just do something. And he said that, you know, Pertie couldn't throw and he said it was either

just having him in there and screens and dump-offs are the absolute most that you can do. It was that or we were going to have Wildcat, but he said we didn't have long enough drives to show that either. Which I don't totally get what that means. So if they'd been able to

matriculate the ball down the field a little bit better, They would have gotten into some stuff and then then thrown a little bit more wildcat at him. I guess that makes sense. I don't know. Why can't you just try it on first down? Like, throw some stuff against the wall. You're probably not going to win the game. I don't know if I'm saying that just from the perspective of someone who would have liked to see something a little bit more interesting.

Or if that's a really realistic thing to expect from a coach in the middle of that situation. But I wonder. I just, you know, we'll never know. but I wonder what would have happened. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's really, like you said, it's hard to fault Shanahan. Like, you're down to your, what, your fifth quarterback of the season at that point. There's no way you plan for that.

There's, like, this famous anecdote about Tom Moore. Someone was asking about why, like, Tom Moore used to be the offense coordinator for the Colts during, like, the paid man of years. And they, someone asked them why that, like, the backup doesn't get any practice reps. And he's like, well, if 18 goes down, we're fucked and we don't practice fucked. So I'm pretty sure the 14. Niners weren't practicing in case like they're down to their fifth quarterback. They have to do Wildcat.

So it's like a trade off there. Like you go with the unfamiliar or do you go with like a thing that you actually can control and you know. And that's pretty being out there. But this is just like a sick game at this point with Kyle Shannon. It's like, okay, let's see you do with Jimmy G. Oh, okay. You make Jimmy G into one of like the most efficient quarterbacks ever. Oh, impressive.

Let's see you do with Nick Mullins. Oh, you break records with Nick Mullins. Let's see you do it with Brock Birdie. And then now finally they're like, okay, let's see you do without a quarterback who literally. can't throw. But he doesn't have an arm. Like he literally cannot throw the football. We've done like weeks of discourse of is it possible for Kyle Shanahan to do this with Brock

Purdy? Like full strength, healthy Brock Purdy, just Brock Purdy. Now Brock Purdy's elbow doesn't work. Let's see what happens. Let's see what you got. Genius boy. Like that's the football gods. They're tired of him being called the genius.

And they're like, let's see him do it without a quarterback who can throw. Yeah. Like, no Kyle Shanahan criticism. How about that? This, I know he made some bad decisions. Blocking Reddick with Tyler Croft and or no one deserves his criticism.

I mean, it happens, though. Like, I feel like it happens when you run, like the play action stuff. You have to do that. Like,

you have to leave the guy unblocked. I don't know. I think it's part of the- Well, it went badly. Yeah, it went badly. Like,

that's a good point. But, I mean, I can't fault him for what happened in the second half. Like, let's not connect this to his other. other playoff failures. Like criticizing the Super Bowl,

time management, all that stuff. Yeah, sure. But being down to Josh Johnson and then he gets hurt and then you have a quarterback that can't throw out. Like, you're never going to win that game.

You're never going to win that game. Let the record show that the 49ers defense, Domeka Ryads, I think they made Jalen Hurts pretty uncomfortable in this game. He was 15 of 25. I did not have a particularly accurate game as a passer.

they were certainly able to run the ball in the 49ers more than most. And I thought we're basically pretty effective in doing that. But Hertz did not look awesome in this game. So again, if we could play alternate universe and know what it was like if Purdy hadn't gotten hurt or maybe even if they'd just gone for it and done something sort of high risk, high reward with changing what they were doing offensively once they were down the quarterbacks. I'm at least a little bit curious because I do think that they had a good defensive game

plan and succeeded at least in rattling the quarterback. Yeah, we saw Hertz kind of play in ways that we've seen him play in the past, but not this year. Like he kind of looked like last year's Jalen Hertz where there were times when he got outside of the pocket. The 49ers didn't seem to be really trying their hardest to rush him. It looked like it was more of a like a mush rush to kind of keep him in the pocket. and he missed throws.

And, like, that's the two things he can't do. He's got to be confident in the pocket. Like, the offense line is very good and it was giving him time. And then he's got to make the throws when they're there. Luckily, everything that happened on the other side of the ball happened. And he had a big margin for error in this game. And even, like, some of the big throws and some of the big catches for the Eagles, they weren't great throws.

Like, there was a third down where A.J. Brown, like, catches it off the grass. Basically, there's the fourth down we talked about with Smith, where it wasn't actually a catch, but it was still a great effort by him to make the one-handed. attempt. And there were some other throws that where the receivers had to make adjustments. And like he needs to be better going forward because this next seat, they're playing, especially if Patrick Holmes has two weeks to heal up and that offensive core gets a little healthier and he has his full complement of receivers, the margin for error is going to be smaller. And like this chief's defense obviously isn't what the 49ers is, but they have a very good

pass rush. And they can kind of get pressure on you in the same ways. And they have a defensive coordinator that's not going to make things easy on you. Like he knows how to blitz. He knows how to change a picture after the snap. He has the tools, the coverage tools that I think can really bother a quarterback who's at this point in his development like Jalen Hertz is. Totally. He's been one of the most blitz sensitive quarterbacks in football this year. And spags in January and February, we've seen it. And for the way that that defensive line for the chiefs looked today, I would be worried about that. On the other hand, you mentioned, you know, if you're, in a situation where you have to keep pace with Mahomes and the Chiefs after they get two weeks

to rest up. I'm seeing James Palmer tweeting that Juju Smith-Schuster could barely get up the stairs to the locker rooms. That doesn't seem great, but we'll have to keep an eye on that. Any preliminary thoughts on the Super Bowl matchup? Yeah, I think it's a game that comes down to the trenches, and that's such a cliche thing. But we've seen that in the Super Bowls that the 49ers have played in. or not the 49ers, the Chiefs.

Against the 49ers in that first one, they really struggled with the pass rush. In the second one, they really struggled with the pass rush against Tampa Bay. This team basically, I think they set a record in the Super Bowl era for sacks

if you include the playoffs, like the Eagles, they have the firepower to put Mahomes under that same fire. I think the game comes down to the Chief's capacity, their offensive lines capacity to prevent that from happening.

Mahomes is running for his life. I think the Eagles have too much firepower on both sides of the ball. If Mahomes just has a relatively, normal game in terms of protection, I think the Chiefs have the advantage because they have the best player on the field. Yeah, I think that's right. It's,

it's, it's a little hard not to, to get distorted by the Eagles looking relatively dominant today, but they were, I don't think, can't really count it. Stephen, you are now, you've been

appointed the czar of getting to delete games, uh, delete games from mattering. we're deleting the NFC championship game? No, yeah, the game didn't happen. The canon is the Eagles won last week, and they won so convincingly that the NFL decided that that was enough to go straight to the Super Bowl.

They didn't even, that game didn't happen. Josh Johnson didn't play. Brock Purdy didn't get hurt. None of that happened. Excellent. All right, got it. It's good to catch up on that. We'll have to figure out we should go over at some point

the other games that we need to delete from the record. But I'm sure the NFL would be thrilled. that one of its two championship games should should just be stricken from memory. But that's what happens. That's what happens when Brock Purdy, when you don't have Brock Purdy anymore. It's a very, very teetering tower without. Where are we? Did you see the tweets?

There was tweets, a lot of tweets about like the third quarterback, the emergency quarterback situation, the rule. Yes. People really care about this. I mean, like I get it, but it's like, how are you supposed to predict this happening? It's just bad luck. can't make a rule every time like a bad situation happens. And honestly, I feel like this should be a possibility that a game gets weird and you have to play, you might, you might have to put Christian

McCaffrey at quarterback. They never had to do that in this game, but it would have been kind of fun to watch that. I have to admit that I did not hate this game. Like, I saw a lot of people saying, what a disappointment. You know, it's, it's the NFC championship game. We were expecting this great matchup. And I felt a certain amount of, of that because it was such a, cool game to predict and a lot of that stuff ended up not mattering. That said, it was just weird, right? Like, there's something about watching something and going just, what are they going to do?

Like, what must this? What must Kyle Shanahan be thinking right now? Like, what is his mind just going expletive, expletive? I can't believe this is happening to me again. Like, I'm totally freaking out. I'm totally overwhelmed. Again, I'm sad that they didn't do it, but you're sitting there going, what if they just like, you know, break out the wishbone?

Like, what can we do here? Do something crazy. And it felt like we had the potential for that. So I was kind of riveted the whole time, even though it was a completely non-competitive game. No one was like, or maybe I guess people were like this, but like Brian Hoyer wasn't going to save the entertainment value of that game. And honestly, like the Eagles defensive line was. so dominant that I don't even know if it makes a difference.

They got pressure on 62% of their dropbacks. And that includes pass rushes where they're just assuming that they're not passing the ball, so they're not necessarily pinning their ears back and getting out to the quarterback. They're like defending the run first. They were getting pressure on both of the normal quarterbacks in the first half. So I don't know if things even really change that much if they do have a third quarterback. Brian Hoyer was not your savior or whoever would have been that who was Nate Sudfeld.

Right. Exactly. What I think would be better is if you could make, if we keep, you know, sometimes there's, there's, there's all this talk. We did an episode of the island about it with Lindsay Jones this year about, um, the trade deadline. And if there would be a way to make the trade deadline more exciting and maybe if you should move it back so that more teams sort of figure out if their contenders or not. My idea is keep the trade deadline where it is, except in games you can trade while the game is going on within, you know, The four quarters plus overtime if that happens, trades are allowed. So let's see what people do when their backs are against the wall. Let's see what what people do when they're desperate.

Let's see if the, you know, okay, San Francisco, if you're willing to pay up, go get Gardner Minchu. He's over there. He's available to you. He's going to have all of this insights. Nothing about this makes sense. It's completely impractical. But I think that would be more fun than some random third quarterback who's not

good at all just, you know, going in and getting sacked a bunch and being really boring. Let's say this was a rule. Like, obviously it's impractable. It's never going to happen. But what would Kyle give up for Gardner Minshu in that game? In like the second quarter of that game once Johnson goes out. I mean, he's made some bad trades before. So I, I could see him getting talked into like a day two pick, like a round two pick just for Gardner Manchu for 40 minutes. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. A second round pick. A lot of adrenaline. just like really ready to be upset and acting out. Get people to make some mistakes.

Mistakes in the heat of the moment are what good television is all about. I would make that trade too. Now, now, if you're minchew, do you throw the game? I guess you're a 49er now. Like it's not like just after the game.

Yeah. Can't be doing that. And the Eagles didn't want you. They just traded you in the middle of the game. You're not even going to be able to take the, take the flight home. Yeah. Or stay home.

You're going to have to fly home to San Francisco. You don't even, they've relocated you just in the heat of the moment. Like the potential is limitless. This is really how I feel. No, it's a good. It's a good idea. All right. I have one last thing for you before we go.

But before we get to that, any, anything we haven't hit? No, well, just like the dominance of the Eagles offensive line. Very impressive. when you know they're going to run the ball. It doesn't matter. And like, shout out to Nick Siriani and this coaching staff. Like this offensive coaching staff, the run game is so creative in the way that they use their tight ends.

And they, the way that they like use their offensive linemen. They pull their offensive linemen. They use Kelsey in a way that I don't think any other team uses their center in that same way in the run game. They really take advantage of his athleticism. I don't think the Eagles coaching staff has gotten, they've gotten a lot of credit this year.

But I feel like, they deserve more credit for how crafty they are with their scheme. Because it's not always apparent because they do have so much talent on both sides of the ball. But like the offense is really well designed. So shout out to the coaching staff. Yeah, totally. Speaking of offensive coaching before we go, Kellyn Moore out in Dallas, uh, chargers have some potential interest there.

Curious what you think about that. But, but more so. Kellmore's out because Mike McCarthy is going to be calling plays. I'm not sure this is good news. No. Did Jerry sign off on this? Like Jerry's washed up, man. It's over for Jerry.

He's resign or like he's putting that much confidence in Mike McCarthy. He like got, he got like, I thought he lost the Zeech contract negotiations. The last time they signed a deal. Now they're stuck with this bad contract. He lost the DAC. Prescott standoff, the contract standoff, he ended up paying Dak Prescott way more than he would have had to pay him. It hasn't been a great few years for Jerry Jones. Hasn't been a great two decades, actually.

So this is, I'm not surprised. More of the same. There's no way this ends up, like, working out for them. Yeah. The interesting thing is how wherever more goes, I mean, I don't think that this is good because I think that offense was stale and ineffective and put way too much on the quarterback and just didn't have the right answer. We've talked about this at length. We talked about this after the Cowboys exit the playoffs. I'm interested to get a sense,

and maybe this will happen now that they're not on the same staff anymore. You know, Callmore had to have been a part of that too, right? Like it certainly seems like it might have been more McCarthy just because of the similarities between what it looked like in Green Bay with Rogers and what it looked like with DAC and Dallas and just some of the commonalities between like you are just asking this quarterback to be a perfect decision maker at every single time and be a genius back there. And that's just not a great way to win a lot of football games.

But again, this was still Kellyn Moore's offense too. How much of a hit in your esteem has he taken and how would that relate to a potential partnership with Justin Herbert, who I believe Stephen is a quarterback who you're rather fond of. Yeah, I think he's pretty good. I'm on record saying he's pretty good. I don't know if it's much of it. I think it's an upgrade from Joe Lombardi, but some of the issues you have with that

offense or some of the issues you had with Joe Lombardi's offense. A lot of stop routes, a lot of timing routes, a lot of putting a lot on the quarterback's plate. So I don't know like how much of an upgraded it would be for Los Angeles. But I do think it's a downgrade. Let's say they don't replace Kellyn Moore with someone who has their own system, like someone who's going to come in and really change the offense. And it's more of the same with Mike McCarthy kind of running more of what he ran in Green Bay.

I think that's a downgrade for Dallas. But I don't know if getting Kellyn Moore is necessarily the upgrade that the Chargers were looking for this offseason because I think it's the same style of offense. I do think Kellynne Moore is better at generating downfield shots. Now the question comes into personnel. Do the Chargers have the dudes to run that type of offense? They have Mike Williams, who is, I mean, he makes plays downfield, but he's not a burner. Like, he's not someone that defenses are scared of.

He's a contested catch guy. They need a burner to take the top off of the defense. Otherwise, those stop routes that we saw a lot of in Dallas, defenses sit on those. And I think it's hard to run an offense like that. And that's kind of what the Chargers problem was with Joe Lombardi. And a like jump ball contested catch winner type Mike Williams type of guy. feeds into, and look, I don't want to be complaining about rostering Mike Williams, right? Like, that's a net positive.

But it does still, it doesn't mitigate some of the concerns about the way that he thinks about certain play designs and just by going, oh, well, all, you know, all the quarterback needs is just this little sliver, sliver. and he'll play with leverage and it'll all work out and he'll make a perfect throw every time and make a perfect decision every time. Mike Williams is not lending himself very well to getting out of that mindset and into what if we just tried to get the receivers open. Right. So we'll see.

But I agree with you and it's probably a step in the right direction. If he went to L.A., not in Dallas. That seems bad. Yeah. I'll have to see it. I want to see it because I do want to know like what the offense would look like now that you don't have. I don't want to say an overbearing head coach because I don't think Mike McCarthy is that. But you have a coach, a head coach above you whose background is his offense.

He doesn't have to deal with that in Los Angeles. Like you would think that he would have more ownership of what the offense looks like as a whole with a defensive-minded head coach. Totally. All right. Well, we'll have plenty of time in the off-season. reason to talk about what what happens there and what comes of all of that. But for now, Stephen, we've got a Super Bowl to get ready for. That's going to be awesome.

And there will be a lot to cover there, both from us and on the Philly special and on the ringer.com and just all over the place. You got anything you want to plug coming up? No. I don't know how I'm going to do quarterback rankings now that there are only two. Spoiler alert, Patrick Bowles is the best quarterback. I don't know. So I've got to figure.

out a way to get those that interesting. But I'm looking forward to this matchup. Two best teams in the NFL, two best teams all year long. Not a surprise that they're playing. Not a surprise given the circumstances surrounding the 49ers game on Sunday that this was the result. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a fun game to break down.

Awesome stuff. All right. This has been the Ringer NFL Sunday recap show covering championship weekend. I'm Norprinciade. He's Stephen Ruiz. Sheal and Ben will have you covered with extra point taken on this feed. on Monday and there will be tons of great Super Bowl coverage all over the site, all over, all of the various pod feeds in the coming couple of weeks. Thank you as always to Isaiah

Blakely for production on this episode and to Arjuna Ramgapal and Connor Evans for additional production supervision.