The Ringer NFL Show - Ep. 66: "The Throw," Atlanta's Offense, the Pats' Tactics, and another Andy Reid moment

Episode Date: January 16, 2017

The Ringer's Robert Mays and Kevin Clark discuss the epic Packers-Cowboys showdown (01:34), "The Throw" (10:34), the Falcons' win (15:57), and the future of the Seahawks (20:18). Then, they cover New England's victory over the Texans (27:30), the Chiefs' loss to the Steelers (37:45), and Andy Reid's legacy (40:53). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No team goes into the season without a game plan, and Buffalo Wild Wings knows that football fans need a game plan that's built for game day glory, a game plan that should include 21 signature sauces and seasonings, a great lineup of beer taps, and an arsenal of wall-to-wall TVs. All those details make for a game day plan can't be beat. So, win or lose, if you're a football fan, you still win at having the best game day atmosphere around. Buffalo Wild Wings, Wings, Wings, beer, sports. We do it for you because you're a football fan. Welcome to the Ring and NFL show. My name is Robert Mayes. I'm a writer, the ringer.

Joining me on the other line. It's Kevin Clark. Kevin, how are you? I'm trying to get my life back together after yesterday. I don't know what you do. Oh, boy. I had so much fun. And when you get one of those epic games,

it was so great. How do we go? In three weeks, there's no more football. I love how much it was an overcorrection from what it was last week. And in a way, even with the previous two divisional round games had been. You know, Seattle, Atlanta was not as close as I thought it was going to be. We got an actual game for a lot. little while in New England before the Patriots decided to put Brock Osweiler away.

And then Brock Osweiler decided to put Brock Osweiler away. But we'll get to that. We're going to talk about that. It was something to behold, man. I was there. God, it was horrific. And that game yesterday was everything you could want it to be. And obviously, the green, we're just going to go right there.

That's how we're going to start because I don't know how else we'd start this damn show. Green Bay jumps out to that huge lead. Rogers makes a couple, just Roger. he throws. I wrote this in my recap for the week, which I had a really fun time doing. I mean, my favorite weekend of the year kind of led to my favorite Monday thing that I've written probably. And in my notes, it was that first Jared Cook throw on the right sideline, that third and seven on their second drive. I just wrote, get the fuck out of here. That was my only commentary on the throw, and it remains my only commentary. Yeah, it's amazing. Did you see the statistics of their

side-by-side comparison? Who? It's Dak and Rogers? No, no, no, the Cowboys and the Packers. Oh, no, I actually haven't looked at that. Let me look at it right now. It is insane. It is insane. 6.7 yards per play for Dallas, 6.6 for Green Bay,

both 6 for 11 on third downs, time of possession, almost identical. If you were to go through all of them, I mean, it was, it was, you know, the cliche of it being a heavyweight fight where both teams are exchanging blows, like that has been sort of a bad trope for decades, but this was that. They were just, you know, once the second half got, you know, and became close, they were just going at it in a way I don't remember seeing. I was, I was in awe of how good that game was. And at this point, Rogers, we should know.

Rogers, you know, I wrote this last night. Rogers in a playoff game is the equivalent of Liam Neeson's daughter being kidnapped. Like, that's, you're just like, oh shit, what's going to happen? happen now. He's played in two classic Arizona games. He played in the Seattle NNC championship game. I mean, if you were to rank the top 10

playoff games just from excitement in the last decade, Rogers is four of the top five, four of the top six. I mean, I'd have to look at it, but I mean, he is the tell that things are about to happen as far as excitement goes.

I said that now the rest of the league understands what I go through every single year. I mean, he is, he's the thing you fear when you turn the lights off. And he was that yesterday. But on top of that, just how great he was. And he really was great. It wasn't a blemishless game. And I think in part because he threw that one pick.

And you really saw Jordy Nelson's absence come out in subtle ways. Because the places where they screwed up were when he and Geron Malice just weren't on the same page. And that's the type of stuff that even with a limited Jordy, he's still going to do really well. But what I was really impressed by on top of Rogers being great in that. offense doing a lot of stuff. Just the fact that the Cowboys got punched in the mouth and then just did like the slow head turned back and we're like, okay, that's your best shot?

Let's fucking do this. I'm thrilled that Dak Prescott played as well as he did for a lot of reasons. I'm so, I totally agree. If he had flopped in that second half and we got eight months of Romo talk, I would stop watching football. It would be really difficult to deal with. I'm glad he played so well. And the fun part was, and again, I wrote this this morning, but even though it was a devastating

loss, and to lose like that when you've really owned the season just sting so much, if you're a Cowboys fan and you watch them take the best shot from the best player in the league right now and just keep moving forward, you have to be so encouraged. Just the way that he and Des kind of looked on the same page, how well they used play action in the red zone. The fact that Zeke was just like, I am going to get six yards of carry. I dare you to stop. me. He had a couple runs in that game. I know we talk about the line a lot, that it didn't matter

who was blocking for him. The one where he shook off Matthews in the backfield with that spin, just disgusting. And he was doing it just playing in and play out. He had 12 rushes of five plus yards against a solid but not great run defense. It was just amazing to watch these two teams raise their level of play just side by side with each other, just coinciding in, okay, you do this, I'll do that. I mean, it was everything you wanted in a classic football game. It's interesting. I was in Green Bay last week. I sat down with Aaron Rogers a little bit and talked to him. And what's interesting to me

is that they carried themselves unlike an underdog. You know, you go into a lot of underdog locker rooms this time of year and there's a lot of rah-rah. You know, nobody believes in this type stuff. And really, you know, that stuff can work when there's a true underdog, but they were confident, dude. They were confident.

They, like, Aaron Rogers is not sitting there saying, if we play our game, we're going to, he was just like, yeah. I mean, I I made a comment and I was like, you know, congratulations how well you're playing and he was just like, thank you. And it was just like, he's just such a, he's so confident right now. And he wasn't, you know, you say that to nine out of ten quarterbacks and they're kind of like, oh man, we're so lucky the line, whatever.

No, they know that they're playing awesome right now. They know they're playing awesome. And that's what I think is the real X factor here is just the fact that these guys know how to win. And I know it's a cliche, but I mean, they really, they're going to be a really good playoff team these next two next couple of weeks because i think they're going to win on sunday obviously a couple things late that i feel like we should talk about in terms of the nitty gritty and i agree with you i mean i just feel like that's not surprising at all you know knowing

having been around er rhodgers before and this that team in general and how kind of self-assured they are even in the biggest moments it just feels like that would be his response and that would be the feeling there a couple things i want to talk about just at the end of the game more from a if we're going to nitpick let's nitpick you know it can't just be the greatest game of all time. Did you like how both of those teams handled those final couple drives? Well, I certainly didn't like the way the Cowboys ended with the Dan Bailey field goal with 36 seconds left. Because I think that was the thing. The best game of the year before this was the Pittsburgh Dallas game. And what happened in that game? Well, Zika Elliott ran the ball,

what, 30 or 40 yards of nine seconds to go and won the game. I think when you're facing a short yard of situation like they were, third and three, give the ball to Zicue Elliott and see if he can't score from 30 yards out. And then if he can't, then at least, you know, either the Packers have wasted a time out or the clock has been drained. I mean, maybe I know the Packers are going to try to want to get the ball back

because obviously they're extremely good in latent games and late in halves. But I just feel like you have to put the onus on the Packers to try to stop the clock, basically. it. And I didn't like what Green Bay did either. And I know people were trying to say that they wanted to milk the clock down and leave Dallas with not a lot. But the idea that you're going to have Rogers playing the way that he is. And then you're going to run the ball twice with two minutes left. When Dallas has the timeouts to stop the clock, it just doesn't make sense to me. So they do that. They give it to Montgomery the first time in a pretty reasonable formation. It's like, okay, I could see you trying to catch him off guard a little bit there. But then when they line up in that heavy set and gave it to him and he got dropped in the back. for five yards. It's like, that is not what you guys are. They have three timeouts. Why not try to play to win the game, score a touchdown, and make them go the length of the field even if they have a minute and 30 to do it with three timeouts? I still feel like asking Dallas to do that in that moment is better than trying to bleed the clock out and playing this conservative style that

isn't congruent with the team you've been for the four quarters. I totally agree. I mean, I just think that there's a it is the most obvious thing in the world but when you're in those situations you do what you do best and with the Packers it's Aaron Rogers and with the Cowboys, the Zekyll Elliott and for whatever reason these coaches outthought themselves

by about five steps and we saw what happened. Both teams should have won the game and both teams very easily could have lost the game and so I just I was disappointed in both coaching staffs but obviously when you have Aaron Rogers things work out

A couple guys I want to point out that are not Aaron Rogers and are not Ezekiel Elliott and Dak Prescott and even Art Des Bryant, who was fantastic in this game. Micah Hyde was unconscious. And just all the plays he was making, he makes the sack to kind of short circuit that first drive where it looks like Dallas is just marching toward a touchdown. Quietly a massive play. Cub was almost got that first down after it being like second and 20 or something. But they didn't.

They kicked a long field goal. It's three nothing. And it's the first time they come away with three when they really can't afford to. The inability to substitute also killed that bettrive. Yeah, just kind of crazy the fact that Dallas wasn't able to do that in a way on the same level the Packers were. You figure that these are both pretty professional coaches who've been around for a while. And the fact that Green Bay was just able to pick on them with too many guys on the field was interesting. Another guy I thought was kind of fantastic, or just the two offense alignment in the middle.

I feel like Frederick and Martin watching some of those replays were just monstrous, just flat eating. people and it was fun to watch. Not surprising, but again, just an instance of the best players in this game playing extremely well, which is how you get classic football games. Yep. No, I totally agree with you. Do you want to talk about the throw? Hmm. The cook throw. Yeah. I mean, I think it's just the throw at this point. Well, I mean, Aaron Rogers has a lot of throws. That's a good point. Yeah, you're right. You're right. It's like saying, do you want to talk about Tom Hank's movie. Which one would that be, by the way?

What do you think? The burbs. Yeah. That thing you do. It would be that thing you do. Okay, so listen, I can't remember a more impressive throw. And look, you have a bigger moment. Well, you have the helmet catch.

You have the Immaculate Reception. You have, you know, any number of more dramatic throws, you know, stalback, you know. Those are more dramatic plays, though. They're not saying. No, but it's dramatic isn't even the word.

I'm saying impressive. I mean, just to know you have to, A, you have to get the guy out of bounds. I mean, they still had a time one time out. Is that correct? Believe so, yeah. But still, there was three seconds left, so they needed to get, you know, you needed to throw the ball immediately.

Right by the sideline and possibly tight window, an angle that fooled not only the Fox broadcast crew fooled me and fooled one referee and fooled the Cowboys team. And maybe Jared Cook for God's sakes, okay? That's how impressive that throw was. And so I am racking my brain to figure out a more impressive throw considering the stakes, considering the stage. I was blown away. I mean, what a damn throw. You know, the only thing, and this is just a fan question for you, Robert Mays, would you have rather seen that or would you rather see those two teams go to an epic

overtime. That's a really good question. I thought you were going to throw in, would you have rather see a Hail Mary in that moment? That's another wrinkle that I was considering as it was going down. I love just the greatness of it. I think that an overtime would have been fun as hell, but again, just having a fantastic game with two teams loaded with talent playing at the highest level, ending with a all-time great play from the best player on the field. I'm not sure you can really ask for more than that. I just wanted more of that game because I knew Chief Steelers was next. I just wanted more.

Good for Jared Cook because there are two balls in that game, one that hit him in the face on the right sideline and one that he dropped. So the fact that he was the one who made the play of the game is amazing. And also, I think we have to discuss the fact that it was not a play. Rogers was drawing shit with a stick in the dirt. Everything about it is amazing. Every detail about it is so great. It's amazing.

First of all, you know, I had a long talk with Jared Cook last week about about Aaron Rogers and his ball placement. Basically, you know, getting to be able to read Rogers' passes is kind of an art because they're thrown differently. Some of the guys are saying, even the nose dips differently. And so

Jared Cook had a really firm handle on that. And I'm not surprised he was able to make such an incredible catch because he understood the intricacies of Rogers passing pretty well. And you can read that Hail Mary story at the Ringer. they ran on Friday

but I mean Jared Cook what a signing I mean I think that I think a lot of people looked at the Packers off season last year and they said oh my God they brought in Jared Cook

who's maybe an overrated tight end and that's Ted's big splurge but look we have anyone who said that and I was sort of on that on that side I didn't care that much but we look like idiots now I thought that it was

the type of swing you make if you have Aaron Rogers a big fast guy that has played with mostly terrible quarterbacks his entire career. Those are the type of guys you can get at a relative discount. You know, he didn't, it wasn't a cheap signing by any means, but I feel like in the open market, if Jared Cook had played with good quarterbacks for 10 years,

he would have been more expensive than what the Packers signed him for this offseason. Yeah, totally, totally. But you could say that about a lot of guys. Yeah, of course, absolutely. And those guys often don't work out when they've flamed out of their places. But I trust Rogers to get the most out of people. And he absolutely did. I mean, I don't know what else there is to say about it.

Yeah, no. I don't know. Anything else in that game? Not that I can think of. I mean, that's most of the stuff I would have wanted to hit on. There were just so many moments stacked on top of each other. I feel like we're not talking about the kickers enough. I mean, those guys.

Mason Crosby. Just bang and shit through. I iced. Iced and made it and then after the ice made it. I mean, I love that. I am very excited for that as a championship game. I tweeted the speech. I tweeted today.

The over under is 60 points. And I feel like the scoreboard is just going to, the wattage is not even there. Hey, did you see the weird Super Bowl lines that the Patriots would be favored by the Falcons against the Falcons and Packers by nine? What? Yeah,

that was out there this morning. By nine? Yeah, that was out there. It's what the, it's what the, Vegas is saying. All right,

well, I guess we'll get there when that game starts to happen, but I feel like that's insane. insane considering how the Patriots looked and how those other two teams look. But we'll chat about that when we talk about the Pats. We're going to go in a chronological order here from now on after getting to the best game first. Let's go to Seattle at Wants actually. In a way, a game that I felt played out how I figured it might.

Atlanta really moving the ball like it wanted to. I feel like the huge hold on the Devin Hester penalty kind of swung things back in the Falcons direction. But I also think Seattle had trouble making stops when they needed to. Yeah. No, I mean, I saw, if you were to say the Falcons scored 36 points, I would have said that sounds about right. Yeah. And then it came down to Seattle, and I just didn't think that Seattle had that sort of explosion at this point in the year. To where they were going to get over 30 points to make this sort of a Packers Cowboy style slugfest.

It was never going to happen. You're right. This game ended up exactly, you know, what, 422 total yards for the Falcons. I mean, it just sounds about right. The post-Earl Thomas Seahawks never had much of a run in them, and this is a fitting end. I literally liked this the Falcons game plan offensively, which I could probably say any week. You could take a clip of me doing that in week four, and it's pretty much the same tone. What they did with Julio against Sherman, I just felt was really smart.

They played him on the outside a decent amount, but pretty much every time he was on the outside in the first half, except for one comeback route he ran on the right sideline. he was running a lot of in-breaking stuff. And I feel like taking Sherman away from the sideline as often as you can when they're playing as much man as they seem to be is a really good game plan. And they also moved him into the slot a couple times. And that was where Sherman got the defensive holding

was when Julio was inside. So I just thought that by moving Julio around and taking advantage of the wide variety of skills he has that most receivers don't that are built like that, it was just a solid game plan in terms of their passing game overall. Yeah, I mean, I was actually surprised how many chances Seattle had to get vaguely back into it.

I mean, because in the fourth quarter, they had something they made some dumb, dumb mistakes. But there's a couple, there's a scenario there where they get some lucky breaks in the fourth quarter and that's a tie game. I was surprised at, I mean, all credit goes to the Falcons for putting them away.

But the Seahawks made some dumb, dumb mistakes in the fourth quarter. But no, I agree with you. The game plan was fantastic. You know, look, they had like 100 yards rushing total, which is, you know, fine, decent for them. But this was Matt Ryan's game. This is going to be Matt Ryan's playoffs.

I mean, he was, Kyle Shanahan, I think, is going to take the 49ers job, and it's well deserved at this point because they are running on all cylinders and offense. 100%. And against that Seattle defense right now, why would you run it? When you have the Falcons passing game, why would you run into the teeth of a defense that's still pretty dang good against the run? And they use their backs. I mean, they used everybody.

every single person was involved. On the other side of the ball, I mean, pretty much the last thing that could happen for the Seahawks offense did, when your offensive line is already bad, having to put in Reese, whose last name I will not try to pronounce for Jemena Fetty, it was the death blow.

I mean, that ended everything. To me, when I saw that, that was the end of the game. Yeah, it really was. And because the biggest moments were as a result of him being in there. Him stepping on Wilson's foot for the safety. The fact that Brooks Reed got a really easy sack, just so many times where

you would backup linemen come in, you're like, you don't really notice it. You did notice it in this case. And when you do, it's usually because catastrophic stuff is happening. First of all, I can't believe it was the Brooks Reed game. Like,

I didn't see that coming. He's quietly been okay this year. I mean, the guys on that defense that you thought would have decent seasons, a dude that seemed like he was on his way out, it's nice for him. I'm happy for him.

Okay. All right. The Seahawks don't have five good offensive linemen so they sure as hell don't have six. And that was my reasoning when I saw the Effetti injury and I said, this is over. And you know how bad they needed him and how much they didn't want to play, number 70, which is what I will call him, because they tried to put him back in. When you don't play for like three series and they try to put you back in, that's when you know,

one, you're hurt and two, man, are they desperate? And he was in for like two plays, then he came back out. I mean, that was not a smart idea. No, that was bad. I mean, again, the Seahawks just didn't have enough bullets in that gun. There was nothing they could do. It just wasn't their year. And I think that Saturday was emblematic of that.

Where do you think the Seahawks go from here? I mean, if you're Seattle, what are your first three tenants of your offseason plan? Offensive line, offensive line, offensive line. That makes sense to me. Get healthy on defense. Yeah, Earl Thomas healing. you know, it doesn't seem, it's just a broken leg, which means he should be fine for training camp, right?

I mean, it's not ligament damage or anything like that. So I think that he'll be fine for training camp, then that changes the complexion of everything. And then it's just shoring up the offensive line. They have the pieces. It's just a few minor changes they have to make. There aren't a lot of good free agent tackles available. I mean, it's like Matt Khalil is like one of the best ones.

I guess you consider Luke Jokal a tackle, but it's not a good group. At Guard, it becomes kind of interesting. Larry Warford is an unrestricted free agent. Ooh, I kind of like that. Kevin Zitler is an unrestricted free agent. Ron Leary is an unrestricted free agent. T.J. Lang is an unrestricted free agent. I can't imagine Lang would leave Green Bay.

But even a guy like Chance Warmac is available. So what's interesting about the Seahawks is that when you think about a team that has as many stars as they do and as many stars no longer on rookie contracts, and the list is kind of startling. Wilson, Baldwin, Jimmy Graham, Earl Thomas, James Chancellor, Bobby Wagner, Richard Sherman, KJ Wright, Michael Bennett, Cliff Averill. All these guys have gotten paid, and the Seahawks are still looking at about $37 million in cap room, and that's if they don't cut Jimmy Graham, which would save them $10 million. So they have some money to work with, and you would assume they can try to go out and get one of these guards. The tackle situation is a little more problematic. what they could have happened to them

is that there are dudes that are likely to get cut just based on their contract structure and one of them that would kind of be pretty funny if he ended up back in Seattle is if the Broncos cut Russell O'Cung. Oh my God. That would be so good. I was thinking about it yesterday.

I was like, that makes a lot of sense. Does Russell O'Cung have an agent yet? I don't know. If he doesn't, that's maybe one of the reasons he would end up back with the Seahawks. So there are moves to, make and you know they obviously in years prior to last year before I mean pretty much since who was drafted earlier the center whose name max Unger or Okung who was drafted earlier do we know I think it was Okung was the first rounder in 2010 is that correct so I was going to say you know they haven't

drafted on offensive lineman high since one of those two guys so okung was drafted this is great radio in 2010 umger was drafted in 2009 so those three two years back to back, they went with highly priced offensive linemen. Since then, before they drafted a FETI, they've been going bottom of the barrel. So the fact that they did draft a Fettie, Justin Britt was a second round pick, I guess, but the fact

they drafted Britt and a Fettie, but they've really gone, you know, as cheap as you can elsewhere. They're 28th at offensive line spending. So it seems like with a FETI, they showed a willingness to spend to make that position better, and we'll see if they do it in both the draft and free agency this year.

Yeah, I'm intrigued to see where they go. I mean, I trust Schneider and Carol to do something. But on the other hand, you know, look, they knew what the offensive line situation was last year. I mean, they knew they were spending less than anybody.

There were articles in free agency saying, what are the Seahawks going to do at offensive line? And their answer was to draft an ultra-athletic guy, Fetty, who maybe would need a little time to develop. And I think that... I think he was okay by the end of the season.

Oh, no, no, of course. And we saw what happened when he was out on Saturday. I think he's good. What I'm saying is if you know you're a Super Bowl contender and you know you're spending the least amount of money by far on the offensive line in the NFL, maybe you try to bring in a swing guy, something like that where it would just sure up the offensive line. All I'm saying is we're sitting here and saying, okay, they're going to fix it,

but they knew they had something to fix last year and they still. sort of stuck to their process, which by the way, works all the time. I don't, I'm not saying I know they're going to fix it. They very, well, may not try to fix it. I'm just saying that it's clearly the biggest problem with the team and they have surprisingly the resources

to get it done. They really have done a good job. Can you imagine if all those guys I listed off had been allowed to get close to the open market and Seattle tried to retain them? They would have 65% of them. The fact that they do all these years all year early I think has really put them in a good spot

to retain these guys and also have some flexibility as we get into the second and third years of those contracts. Yeah. I mean, they're they're catmasters. That's the, and that's the reason they're still winning. Yeah, and that's the thing. As bad as that game looked and as kind of horrendous as the Seahawks have looked at times this year, they still made the playoffs.

They still won their division. This is a team that just marches on every single year to a certain extent. Obviously, the DVOA run ends. You know, their defense fells apart at the end of the season. But the bad Seahawks season still includes a playoff win. So I think that we need to kind of retemper our expectations here. Well, it reminds me almost of the Patriots in the mid-2000s, where the sort of 06, 05 teams, we're still pretty good Patriots teams,

but we're judging them against previous Patriot teams. And that's sort of what I'm looking at with the Seahawks. When they're not good, they're still in the playoffs. And that's the mark of an amazing program. Absolutely. All right, but before we get to the next two games, Let's hear from a couple of our sponsors. No team goes into the season without a game plan.

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Visit Simplysafe.com slash ringer to get 10% off your system today. That's S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E dot com slash ringer. All right, bud, let's get to the blowout that wasn't a blowout and then was a blowout and that everything that we thought may happen kind of did by the end. I like the All Patriots games. I like the All Patriots games are now graded on a curve. Like the Boston Globe had a headline that was Texans nearly pull upset.

Not really. They covered an 18-point line. Not really. I mean, it was just, it's crazy that how, how, what are expectations of are the Patriots and the expectations of Brock Osweiler, to the point they're covering 18-point spread. Yeah, yeah, what's okay. That's okay. I would say what I took from this game, if I learned anything, and I was at this game,

is that the Texans defense is better than we thought they were. It's not as if I feel like the Patriots have these structural problems that are going to really affect them going forward, especially when you consider the defense is still remaining in the playoffs, which Danny Kelly wrote about today, honestly, and you guys should go check it out. I think it's a really good point. Houston has a lot of playmakers on that side of the ball. You're A.J. Bouilliers. The guys in the secondary kind of all over the place, even with Quentin Demp's not playing.

But the dudes in the front seven can flat out play, and they did. Whitney Merciless was a man on fire on Saturday night. I thought Brady was pretty clearly rattled for long stretches of the game. I think the Merciless, I think Clowning being in his face. I mean, you could tell, you know, there was that whole thing Ray Lewis came out. It's called football, Brady. Like, I don't, I think Brady has every right to complain about hits and, you know, especially hits he feels are out of bounds. But you don't necessarily see Brady react like that a lot.

And I think that was a little bit of the front seven getting to him, both physically and mentally. And I thought that was interesting. I don't think that's going to happen necessarily with the Pittsburgh AFC championship game. So things are going to be okay there. But yeah, I was super impressed with Houston's ability to get to the quarterback. I like the game plan, and I feel like they really tried to, the Patriots tackles have really played well this season. Solders have been fantastic, and Marcus Cannon's overall development and improvement has been

staggering. So what the Texans tried to do is they said, okay, who's your worst past protector? Because we're going to use our best pass rusher, who in my opinion is still Whitney Merciless. No, Cloudy is a monster and he affects the game in 17 different ways. but I feel like in terms of nuanced pass rushing and understanding of how to get to the quarterback from a lot of different spots, Merciless is still better.

So by putting him over David Andrews and letting him kind of go to work, it's a really interesting game plan. Overall, I just think that Romeo Cronel's had a fantastic season. He's done a really good job schematically with that defense, especially without Watt and kind of having to figure that out on the fly. And that was just another instance to me. You know, Mercilus putting that spin move on Andrews.

And then did you see that play where he was covering Dionne, Lewis 30 yards down the field? Yeah. That dude is ridiculous. I mean, I am disappointed as a football fan that A, Watt wasn't healthy and B, they didn't have a competent quarterback because I think this team

could have done a lot of damage. I don't think there's a scenario in which they would have beaten the Patriots, but I think they could have gotten a higher seed to the point they're not playing the Patriots this weekend. I think that there's a, there's so much fun talent on the Houston Texans.

there's so many athletes or so many great players. I'm both excited for the future and sort of disappointed the way it's currently constructed. There are just so many throws in that game where I watch him. It's like how did this happen? How did we get here? The one where he threw it in between like three guys, four yards away from the line of scrimmage, straight into the ground. That was probably number one.

Just like, oh my God. And then the pick he threw on the throw to Hopkins over the middle, don't you learn in quarterback 101 not to go home? high over the middle of the field. But can't we learn anything from Donovan McNabb where he's either going to complete the ball or hit his guy in the shin every single time a throw is between the tackles? And then the one that McCordy picked off. I think Charlie Pierce tweeted this, like McCordy picked that off in his car six hours ago.

That's how early he saw that throw. The wind up on passes down the field, that's why he can't make those throws outside the numbers because he, I mean, it's like, I said this before. It's like Hadeo Nomo's playing quarterback. Yeah. There's just no way those balls have a chance. Robert, that was the fourth time this season, regular season and playoffs, that Brock Osweller has 40 or more pass attempts and his less than 200 yards in the game.

That seems impossible to do once. I can't do it anymore. That seems impossible to do once. He's done it four times. And it's almost worse that he had that throw that got dropped by Will Fuller. because you kind of just wish that even wasn't on the table. Because it's the one shot from a dude who shoots a 140. It's like, I got this.

It's all right. It's all a matter of time. That's me. Oh, God. It was rough. You're describing me. Oh, come on, buddy. I'm guessing you're shooting at least in the 110s.

I was 300 off the tee a couple weeks ago and shot like a 110. I've heard about it and I'm very proud of you. The same way that you watched me stumble through the live read, we just did off air and you gave me your support. That's what you have for me and your support. your golf game. I've only played for six months. I'm already 300 off the tee.

I'll be on the tour by. I'll probably play the Masters. I'll probably play this year. Yeah, as long as you qualify for that, but stay with the site, that's what I want. I don't want you to go be a professional golf. Short games for nerds. I'm a, no short game.

All right. This is the Shackhouse 2 podcast, but moving on to, back to the football game. I don't really know what else to say. I feel like watching the Patriots and kind of, I watched a lot of Patriots tape last week and digging into them a little more than I have at other points in the season. They still are just this absurdly well-coached team. I love so many of the things they do on offense. They did this thing early in the game against Houston where they were going with a lot of

heavy packages where they would bring in that backup tight end. I think Matt Engel, Matt Vengel is his name. Langel, Matt Langel. Langel, Matt Langel, excuse me. They bring in him and they bring in Devlin. You'd have Ben it in or you'd bring in Cam Fleming. So they'd have these heavy packages with either Edelman

or Chris Hogan is the sole receiver, and they would throw out of them, and they would be, they're after two different things when they do that. One, play action is especially effective out of the heavy sets, which New England is a better play action team than anyone else in the league

and has been for 10 years. You know, they're not the most effective every season, but they consistently use it and they get a lot out of it. And two, that keeps the guys that are the pass rushers, that are the terrors, off, out of the spots where they want to be.

Because Belichick was talking about this, this week. This is a very long point, but he has such a good handle of where guys are going to be based on the personnel packages you put out there that it makes both him and McDaniels particularly adept at being able to define the spaces

on the field where defenders are by who they put out there. And it just really puts them at advantage all the time. Yeah, no, I totally agree. That's my very long point. Did you see Josh McDaniels is pulled out of the 49ers?

I saw that he decided at this time it's best for me to stay in New England with my family, which is best for the Patriots too. I can tell you that much. It's best for Josh McDaniels. He's not lying. I mean, do you really want to go take over San Francisco right now? No, I definitely do not. I cannot play Josh McDaniels at all.

Could you imagine game for the divisional game with the Patriots, with Tom Brady, and then like four weeks later you're trying to figure out how to win with the 49ers offensive line? Or offense rather? playing quarterback for the 40-9. I meant the entire team. The entire team. It's bad. One other point I want to make before we move on from this game, which I don't have much much else to say about it. Dionne Lewis, yeah, I mean, it's huge. Getting him back and him being a part of that offense and special teams, apparently, is pretty huge. I know he fumbled a couple times, but just the punch he can give you returning kicks and how much of a mismatch he is in the

passing game while also being a threat to run. It just, they don't have anybody like that. James White's a receiver and blounce a hammer, but the idea that they can kind of combine between the tackle's runner and a dude that they can use to exploit Bernarge McKinney for a 13-year-a-touchdown pass, it's just a constant weapon. Danny wrote about it last week. I thought it was a great point. He is the mismatch creator now.

He is a mini version of Rob Grownkowski. They do clearly different things, but the end goal is the same. And I just feel like having one of those guys on the field is one reason they've been able to stay afloat and still be potent without grott. You know, the last thing I want to say about this game is we talk about the mismatches. The Texans defense is very athletic. Even McKinney, you know, the broadcasts him, oh, McKinney's not fast enough to hang with those guys. If you look at his compound data, he's incredibly athletic. You know, I did a thing.

And he was actually okay in coverage this year. Yeah. No, I did a thing last week about just how a lot of the good teams this year. really honed in on explosion and sort of sparky stuff. It was great. Spark with a cue, by the way, since you can't see the word. And so you look at those sort of athletes in the playoffs, the Texans had a lot of them.

They had a lot of those guys. And so the fact that the Patriots were able to exploit a lot of those mismatches with guys who were already athletic, that's what's impressive as well. It wasn't just the typical stiff linebacker. You know, I mean, we all love Sean Lee here, but like Sean Lee in coverage against Richard Rogers yesterday didn't exactly work out whereas the Texans

the Texans maybe had the athletes who could stay with those guys and the Patriots still boss them around. Yeah, absolutely. And again, that's just them showing they can take advantage of any defense over time. Over 60 minutes,

they're going to find ways to chip away it you no matter what you do because they'll find the one thing you don't do well enough and they will just hammer it over and over and over again. Yep. One guy, kind of sticking on the combine stuff, this is a kind of clunky transition, but he stood out to me a lot during that Chiefs, 49, or excuse me, that Chief Steelers game

yesterday. Have you seen Bud Dupree's broad jump and his everything else? Yes. Yes, I have. Holy shit. I did not know it. I didn't realize that. Did you write about him in your piece?

I don't know what I would have missed him if you did. Watching the game yesterday, hearing Collins were to talk about it, I was like, oh, really? And he's that bunch of an athlete. I looked at it. I was like, oh, my, good God. his broad jump is like in the 100 percentile his verticals right there, his 40 was great, and he wasn't the most

important player on the field last night for Pittsburgh but it is kind of indicative of where Pittsburgh is with their overall roster right now. You think about Pittsburgh the last few years, I know much we talked about the fact that Bell Brown and Rosberg last week is two weeks ago was our first playoff game together, no Martavis Bryant, all this stuff.

Overall, this is an incredibly healthy football team that got everybody back at the exact right time. You know, one One thing I want to say about Dupree and the overall Steelers' philosophy is one of the people, you know, I talked to John Dorsey for that story. I talked to, you know, four or five people inside the league, but I thought it was fascinating talking with Zach Whitman, who people may know from football Twitter. You know, he runs a website that tracks spark scores, and he also has consulted for NFL

teams, okay? And so I spoke to him, and he was talking about Pittsburgh, and he was saying there's always a moment when things change for teams. that they have to sort of enact this philosophy. And what happened with Pittsburgh, Zach, was saying, was that they drafted Jarvis Jones in the first round. And Jarvis Jones is a terrible athlete. And look, everything is relative, right?

Like, he's a better athlete than me. He could probably be 300 off the T, just like me. But in everything else, he's a much better athlete. He probably dunk a basketball on me, right? But for the NFL, he is not a great athlete. And so they get burned on that. Jones was benched this year. He lost his job.

They carved out a little bit. He was on the kickoff team yesterday. He's doing some different stuff here. And once you have that, then you're like, how do I avoid this? And that's when you start going on explosion. That's when he start going with the guys who can jump. And that's how you get to Bud Dupre. And that's what I think is an interesting journey.

If you just take a map from Jarvis Jones to Bud Dupree, it's pretty obvious what happened. Yeah, 100%. I remember you mentioning Jarvis Jones the way you did. I forgot that you kind of contrasted him with Dupre. That makes total sense. And that's right. And it's Dupree.

It's them getting to it back. the fact that Shazir is fully healthy. Timence is playing well. They just have a bunch of athletes in that part of their defense. And I think that's going to come into play. Something I wrote about today that I thought it was kind of interesting when you think about the way the COS play and the way that Houston attacked Pittsburgh. Both Timmons and Shazir were in the top five for inside linebackers and pass rushing snaps this season.

So you could see them trying to attack New England a lot in the way that Houston did with Mercilus. I just think it makes sense. It kind of lines up. But just in terms of this game, in of itself, not looking forward, I felt like we got a lot of, I would have expected. You know, the Chief's defense really stealing up in the red zone, Bell having a monster game because that's just what he does right now, and Andy Reid doing some really cool shit as a play designer in color,

and then doing things that just boggle the mind in every other way about being a professional football coach. I have to say something. I was not offended that he was treating the eight-point deficit as sort of a one. score game. There were a lot of people. I wrote about today. I was offended. I was not because I think it's a higher percentage

chance for you to just get the two point conversion than make a stop and then get the ball back. Right? Doesn't that make sense? It's two yards out. It's only two yards out, but it's to me what I'm worried about

is that you're not going to tick down enough time to prevent the Steelers from scoring if they need to score. again. They milked off seven minutes in that drive, which is the most they were going to milk off, and they still gave Steelers the ball back with two minutes and 38 seconds left. So if you tie the game, the Steelers still have two minutes and 38 seconds, and guess what? Their fucking timeouts to try to go score again. So the idea that you're going to try to milk it all the way down to prevent that from having another shot isn't even possible. So why wouldn't you try to score with

enough time to give yourself a chance to stop them again if you don't get the two-point inverted. Maybe Andy Reid knew that if you went for it as quickly as possible, he'd get the ball back with a minute left and it would make everything even worse. He would just be like, oh my God, I have a minute left. What am I going to do? And then they just throw the ball backwards or something. The two things that really offended me, one, they didn't play with any urgency on that drive. I looked at it again this morning. They had, I think, nine snaps where the clock was running because it was a ball stopped inside, not out of bounds, and there was not an incomplete pass. They got the ball a snap off with more than 10 seconds left on the play clock one time

on those nine snaps. And on the other eight, it was at seven seconds or less. And it's the opposite of the Suns seven seconds or less. This is the bad type of seven seconds or less. Phoenix Suns. Hey, why is it, why does it like Alex Smith just be like, I'm the captain now? We're going to, here's what we're going to do. Oh, God.

It just seems like there's someone on the chief sideline who's going to be, can we stopped doing this again again with this and it wasn't even just that when they throw that incomplete pass on third and two the clock is stopped with about 243 left and Andy in all his all his wonderful wisdom calls time out if you throw it again you know what the third down call is Eddie you sent it in so if you know it's a pass and that it can be incomplete you must know what your next play call is Because under no circumstances, can you call a time out with two minutes and 38 seconds of a game you're trailing with the clock stopped? You can't do it. And if you do and don't get the two-point conversion, you cannot kick the ball off.

Do you remember earlier this year when we decided that Andy Reid was the ultimate millennial because he has no concept of time? I do remember that. I mean, that was a Kevin Clark special. That was not me. No, I was just saying we because it was funny and I wanted to give you a little bit of credit. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not that good. I think that it is going to be forever a bummer that Andy Reid couldn't figure out game management because he is such a good coach. He's such a good coach. He can do 99% of things very, very well.

I am so sad that this is Achilles'il because it is going to ruin his legacy and it just bums me out because when we look back on him in 15 or 20 years, people are going to laugh at him and it's not something I'm going to enjoy. It sucks. It legitimately sucks. It's part of the reason why I'm so frustrated. I'm not trying to make fun of Andy Reid. I'm seriously not. Watching that game yesterday, I was legitimately just, it's maddening. It is so, it drives me crazy because you watch some of the shit he did yesterday. That dude is running wing T plays with Alex Smith and Tyree Kill that are perfect against a Steelers defense with a ton of speed in the middle of the field. He knows exactly how to attack teams, even with limited talent on that side.

And the fact that he's able to just churn out good offenses and 10-win seasons and really the players love him. I mean, that's another part of it. He's not just this weird genius. Guys love playing for him. They do play for him. And the fact that it all ends with shit like we saw last night, I can't imagine being a fan of those teams.

And it just sucks as a football fan who appreciates just his kind of singular genius in so many other ways. It's like a TV. Every season is like a TV show that just ends with the shitty finale. Yep. That's exactly right. It's exactly right. I don't know.

What's a good example? Like Andy Reid is the lost of football coaches. I was thinking lost, but I never watched lost. So I didn't have a firm enough handle to go there. I mean, Seinfeld is the classic one. Yeah. Andy Reid is the Seinfeld of the football coaches works for me. Yeah, there's probably better ones.

I mean, it also goes, you know, a homeland. had some bad fineries. Andy Reed is homeland. I'll go there. Hey, real quick, what was with Antonio Brown Facebook living Mike Tomlin's speech?

Oh, I did not know that happened. Oh, God, yes. I was already on my way to bed by the time that went out. It's a thing. It's a thing. It's dominated the news cycle this morning. Antonio Brown, Facebook live,

Tomlin's speech, and Mike Tomlin called the Patriots assholes. And it was, it is a thing. Oh, God. It's a thing. That's great.

You know, it's interesting. And also it was up for like 12 hours, interestingly enough. Maybe it was purposeful. Maybe Mike Tomlin's going to come out this week and be like, ah, I didn't mean it, da, da, da, da, da, da, but he wanted it out there. No, of course he did. He was trying to play games. Ed Bouchette tweeted out that Tomlin had told the Steelers in the postgame speech

to lay low on social media, and that very line was being broadcast on Antonio Brown's Facebook account. That's incredible. We live in an amazing time. I mean, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it was a hell of a tactic by AB. But he's probably got a lot more Facebook followers. I might follow him. That's what he's after.

Antonio Brown, always in search of followers. All right, man, that's all I got to say. This was fun. It was a fun weekend. It's my favorite weekend of the year in the NFL, and I feel like it did not disappoint. Obviously, mostly that Dallas Green Bay game, but I think we got some moments elsewhere,

and I cannot wait for next weekend. I feel like the scoreboard is, is going to explode the Georgia dump. They're not ready for that. And it's going to be a fun one. And also, that game is the one I'm most looking forward to in terms of entertainment value. The other one is Steelers, Patriots.

Like, we're doing okay. Yeah, I don't have as high a hopes for that game. As far as just fireworks and all that. I can see the Patriots turn in that game by two scores. Maybe, but it still is Ben Rathesberger, Antonio Brown, Lavian Bell against Tom Brady. It's a nice combination of stuff. I just want to point.

out, I cannot get enough of this. The last 15 years of Super Bowl quarterbacks have been nothing but Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Ben Rothesberger, and Joe Flacco. Joe Flacco. Joe Flacco. I am so into this. I just want to, like, we need to appreciate how weird that Joe Flacco season was. It's so good.

He beat Manning and Brady that year. I was trying to think of the last time in reference to Rogers, a quarterback just got super hot and carried his team to a hell yeah it might have been Joe Fleckho in 2012 Jolten Joe Joe and that is officially the last time I will ever mention Joe Flako and Aaron Rogers in the same sentence guys thank you again always for listening we sincerely appreciate it Danny and I'll be back with the Friday show previewing the championship games

and enjoy the week