The Ringer NFL Show - 'GM Street': Divisional Round Rapid Reactions (Ep. 220)

Episode Date: January 15, 2018

The Ringer's Michael Lombardi and Tate Frazier sit down to discuss the divisional round results starting with the Vikings' miraculous win over the Saints (2:00), followed by the Jaguars' upset win over the Steelers (14:50), the Eagles' win against the Falcons (30:40), and the Patriots' pummeling of the Titans (43:40). They then close by giving out some awards (51:38). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The NFL playoffs are heating up, and the Ringer podcast network has you covered for all of your pro football needs. We're turning out NFL content six days a week during the playoffs, so you'll definitely want to tune in. We kick off our coverage on Sunday nights right after the games with rapid reactions from Mike Lombardi and I on GM Street. On Mondays, we've got guest aligns with Cousin Sall on the Bill Simmons podcast. On the ringer NFL show, you can hear Robert Mays, Kevin Clark, and Danny Kelly react to the previous weekend's games every Tuesday. On Wednesdays, again, GM Street is back to give a midweek look at what is transpired and what to expect in the next round. Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, and Danny Kelly are back at it on Thursdays with a deep dive into the upcoming weekend slate of games. And we wrap up the week with GM Street's Friday focus on the Ringer NFL show feed.

So subscribe to the Ringer NFL show and the Bill Simmons podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Art 19 SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to GM Street part of the Ringer podcast network. It is the divisional weekend. It is Sunday night. I had a beautiful day at the Lombardi household down in Plyivista. How you doing, Mike Lombardi? I'm great, Tate Fraser. We loved having you.

The whole clan, little grandbaby got to see it. It was awesome. I've never gotten treated like that. Yeah, I got all this food thrown at me. You didn't get the full force. You just got, you got breakfast. You know, you're in L.A. time. So you really didn't get the full meal.

Like, the kid, like, there's kids from, like, the guys from Fordham would really appreciate shout out to Corey, you know, that would really appreciate that got it. You got like the breakfast style, you know. I got gray sausages. I got all the water in the world I could ever want. Any drink I could ever want. I got to talk to the great mix. Lombardi.

It was in the house. About everything and anything that had to do with New York Jets, all things that I love to talk about. It was a great day for football. We had the ocean view. We had the ocean view. It was all good. I saw the real Fred Palermo.

We saw a picture of him in your office. It was a great day. But first, we had a lot of good football to talk about. We just wrapped up the final play of the Saints Vikings games. Stefan Diggs, over the top, 61-yard touchdown. Your first thought when that happens. It's a miracle. It's a miracle.

I mean, it's truly, I mean, look, You know, mom's so negative and when it goes like that, I probably would have been in the elevator heading down the, you know, at the end, I would have never seen it. I'd been with one of those teams because I would have said, oh, shit, we can't win this game's over, right? It was amazing. I mean,

look, I don't know how you get over that. You know, like, how does Greg Popovich get over, you know, Ray Allen hitting that three from the corner? I don't know. These are kind of plays that, you know, Mick and I were talking about driving over here. Like, it wasn't like they weren't in the right defense. Like, they were there.

error. They had run that play twice before. They were trying to run three levels. So they saw the play. The kids stumbled one time. But, I mean, look, took your hat off, Minnesota, kept plugging along. I mean, they found a way to do it. I don't know. What would you say? Is it

one in a million? One in five million? Well, the thing is, yeah, it's probably one in a million, but we saw this five years ago with Jacoby Jones and the Baltimore Ravens. We called it the Mile High Miracle at the time. The 70-yard bomb that tied the game and sent it to overtime. The Ravens ended up pulling out that game and then they ended up going to the Super Bowl. So that was five years ago.

That happens. When we saw that happen live, most people would think that was one of the few times we'd ever see a moment like that. Five years later, Case Keenone throws this one. Poor Williams. I mean, a guy who had just a huge pick in that game earlier, had been playing a good game. Everyone was saying it was the Madden hit stick. He came in just trying to level him out to knock the ball out. He completely misses and blows it and Diggs takes it to the house. It's unbelievable. I asked Ozzie Newsom about that play that they caught against Denver. And He was like me. He was waiting for the elevator to go down.

And he saw it on the TV. So I wouldn't have been the only one. But look, look, I don't know. Look, those are things that you just really never can understand how it happens and how you just have those lapses. I mean, Sean Payton, I don't know how he gets over that. I really don't. I mean, I know he's got such a volatile temper and he's kind of always emotional.

Like those are the kind of things. Like, I don't know really what you can do. It's not just one fault, but it is. the kid just, all he has to do is make a tackle. It's all he's going to make the tackle. It's a huge miss tackle, obviously, and it leads to the Vikings going to the championship game. I feel bad for Drew Breeze, Tate Fraser. I feel bad for Drew Breeze.

I mean, Drew Breeze played in the second half. Like, unbelievable, he's down 17. You know, it was a little bit reminiscent of the Super Bowl in the sense that they were down 17, but they turned the ball over. They turned the ball over going down there. On downs, and they turned it on the interception. He gets tipped. They're moving the ball again.

And so, you know. Sendejo gets that pick. Sendejo got a touchdown again down the field that Sendeo makes the pick and if Breece puts it out there that's going to be a touchdown but I feel bad for Breeze because I don't know how many more of these he's going to get a chance to play in

and that was one that was what eight, 10, 12 seconds away from getting? Yeah, absolutely and it was I know everyone's going to say this on every single show it was a tell of two halves. When we started this game out, I mean that Vikings defense that front four that we've seen them but you know they were incredible, they were getting in Breeze

they were you know Harrison Smiths and Dejo. That whole defense, Anthony Barr, they were all making plays. It looked like the Saints couldn't move the ball at all. And then the second half, New Orleans turns things around. Our boy, Tassum Hill guy, we pointed out, third string quarterback comes in, gets that big block punt. The Saints come down, get the lead. Did he block it? He got a hand in there. I don't think he actually blocked it, but he got

close enough. I know they were talking about, well, he avoided contact with the punter, but they blocked the punt, so it wouldn't matter if he had contact with the punter or not. Yeah, he tried to get his stick his hand. I don't even think he got his hand on the ball, but he calls him quickly to move over to his right of the little bit and then he ends up getting blocked. But that led the whole charge down the field for the Saints. The Saints come down. They score the touchdown. Drew Breeze is back at it. They get the lead. Case Keenham comes down. They get a field goal. Two-point lead. Saints again,

answer with Breeze. They get the lead again. And then we had this magical play and this magical run for the Vikings at the end. I mean, it was a game that went. So it was back and forth like a binkball ball the entire time. It was insane. And you know, fortunately for Minnesota, they had that one time out late. You know, they didn't have to use it. So they ran an in-cut. They call timeout with 17 seconds, which got the ball up to the 40-yard line. So they actually had it. I was thinking they were going to have at least one more in-cut to go to at least attempt the field goal, and they go and throw a 61-yarder. I thought the management of that game at the end wasn't as bad as some of the other ones.

Like you could easily say, well, maybe you should have run it here, you know, these fades to the end zone. I think when you look back, Minnesota probably Keenham takes that sack at the start of the second half, takes them out of field goal range. they got a punt. They missed the field goal at the end of the half. That really hurt. That could have been 20.

I mean, there's some opportunities where Minnesota could have put it away, and they never did. Yeah, and I just want to talk about the Sean Payton situation and some of the coaching stuff that went wrong with him. We have the two challenges on that one drive where he goes back and forth where I don't know who is doing his replay review up in the booth who's telling him the challenge. Fox doesn't give you great replays anyway.

I mean, we were laid on the replays. Like the one replay, the one where the knee was down, Mick and I were talking about, like, that was a little tight. you know, and then he reacted to the sideline on the one on the right one. With the catch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we never saw it until they went to replay, and then they were kind of late with it, you know. And I think he went with the reaction on the sideline.

And whenever you do that, you're never right. Well, the thing that kind of tipped this whole game a little bit, and it sort of showed how impressive this front four was for the Vikings was the trick play on third and one. When they get Willie Sneed in there, a guy that he's gotten back in shape, so he's getting more reps now and more snaps for the Saints. a guy that used to be a guy that relied on an offense. They third one, they throw him the ball. He has Camaro wide open down the sideline on a willer out.

He misses the throw. But for them to do a trick play on that third and one goes to show you how impressive they are up front. And they had confidence in their defense at that point. So right, they knew if they didn't make it, they were going to have to punt, which they did. The Vikings came back and they got the ball back and they were able to get the lead. But that was such a great design play by Sean Peyton. I mean, Camaro was behind the quarterback.

and then he went to run the wheel. He wasn't out as a slot receiver. That was a really good design. And I think that's the one thing we didn't see on Saturday, particularly, and we'll get to this later, is in the Atlanta game, is how good of a designed offense that Sean Payton is able to run. And some of the stuff that Drew Brees was doing in the second half,

I think the tail of two halves is always about the crowd noise tends to windle down a little bit. And when that game starts out, because New Orleans wants to run so much check with me at the line, it's hard to get stuff communicated. They were late with a snap. I think they put up there. Sean Payton had three things he wanted to accomplish,

get Breeze to line quickly, let them do. Because that's their offense. Their offense is motion, set, audible, run the play, and then get going. And like they did on the wheel route, that's, that wasn't a call. The wheel route touched down to Camaro. That's never, that's a call that Breeze makes when he's in that spot based on what he reads in the coverage. So I think that helped him a little bit. But, I mean, I don't know how you get over this one.

This one of those where you had such a magical year ago and you're this close. to going into Philadelphia with a good team, with a quarterback who's really hot, and now basically we're going to see Minnesota play Philadelphia. And the question I asked Mick driving over here was, is Jeff Fisher going to do the coin toss? Jeff Fisher is a guy that I think he complained about his quarterbacks, his lack of quarterbacks when he was with the Rams. And now both those guys will be facing each other, Nick Foles and Case Keenham

and the NFC title game. I don't think we could have predicted that in 2015, but here we are. Yeah, I mean, I thought Case Keenom wasn't bad today. I thought, you know, he made a couple bad throws, made a couple of bad decisions. You know, these Vikings receivers get open. I think their offensive line plays better, you know, and they got the lead. I think that was so important because I think when you saw later in the game, when Minnesota has to pass protect, like they're going to have a hard time pass protect in Philadelphia next week.

But if they get the lead and they can kind of do their thing, I thought Shermer called a good game. I really did. I thought he was really good in terms of keeping them off balance and had good mix. and I thought Keenham played good, not the second best quarterback in the league like his QBR rating is, but I thought he played good enough. And we saw that first drive,

that opening drive, which you pointed out in the first matchup against the Saints, the Vikings' offense looked like the juggernaut when they came out. And we saw McKinnon get on the outside. Riley Reef is making blocks on Marshawn Latimore. They're downhill.

Everything's working in the running game. And when that offense shows up for the Vikings, they're a scary team to face. Yeah, and I think when you go up 17-0-0-1-half time, you have to come out in the second half, and you've got to find a way to put, you know, look, I think, like I said this before on this podcast, whenever you build a lead, okay, it's 21 to 7, they go in a halftime in Jacksonville with the lead. You've got to say to yourself, we're going to need

to get this to 35 to win, right? And if you're, if you're Minnesota, you're thinking for us to beat the Saints, even though we're up 17, we've got to get to 27. We've got to find a way to score 10 more points. And that became a challenge. I thought 27 would win it when I look, when it was at halftime. And we should say for all the gamblers out there, they kicked the extra point. The line ended up being five and a half, and they come out on the kick to kick the extra points. So there's a lot of people that had the Saints plus five and a half

that were very upset about them. Really? Is that what it was? Even Joe Buck even said at the game, he said, I bet. This was a pointless PAT. And then I think everyone in Vegas just threw their arms up. Well, you know, I mean, Troy kept saying, you know, they're in field goal range.

I mean, like, there was so many times where, you know, you could just like, when he compared Case Keenham to Brett Farv, I think he might have broke Twitter. At least 10 times. He kept bringing up Brett Farv in some way somehow. I just never saw it. Did you say it? I never saw it.

Well, he is a gunslinger. We saw at the end of the game. He just threw it deep and it all worked out. Brett Farr's sitting on his couch and had it down in Mississippi. I wonder if he enjoyed that comparison. Like, you know, what's he talking about? Like, how can he compare me to Case Keenham? I don't think Brett Farrv likes anyone being compared to Brett Farrb.

I would say that's right. I would say that right. I thought the thing that was interesting about the game that Keenum that they were able to do to Minnesota, Minnesota was able to early in the game, keeping them off balance. They protected well. And then when they had to run the ball, they actually looked like they could run it pretty well against the Orleans which you know I mean the Orleans's defense should be able to handle that

I thought it was I thought they played pretty well as a complete game they got fortunate to win the game though there's no doubt about that yeah the last thing image of this one is probably digs in the end zone just having his hands up saying look what I did I can't believe it and he's happy for Millie though I mean Millie though the 100 year old lady sitting there oh yeah it's all she wanted was a win I don't know if she survived this one I was going to say I think somebody better check on her because you know I bet her heart was racing yeah there were 25 year olds who in good health and their heart almost exploded. So I don't know what it would have happened with

Millie. But I'm happy for her. And you're Millie as well for having a great day of football. I think she was rooting for. I don't know. It's never, it's always hard to tell who Millie's rooting for in a game. She's just rooting for a good game. No, no. There's always, there's an agenda. There's this agenda. It all depends on who, you know, all that's going on. So I don't know. I would say Minnesota, you know, I don't know. That would be a hard one. But look, let's face it, that was a great game. I know this. Sean Payton has notorious for following the Bill Parcell motivational thing. And I promise you, he left a note in that locker room in Minnesota, telling his team, we're going to be back and we'll read this note, you know. And now, you know,

he was, what, 10 seconds away from it? Yeah, and watch out for Michael Thomas next year, because that guy, I don't know how you stop him. I'm still trying to figure it out. No one's told me how to stop Michael Thomas. If you throw him the ball, he catches it. Well, I think with, really, at the end, this is something we needed to talk about. I think really what New Orleans did it, they won the game. I think Alexander number 20. I think that's his name, right? They just basically went after him no matter where it was on the field. I mean, Minnesota, that was the guy that they were going to go after. And Breeze on fourth and 11, you know, we throws the out to Willie Sneed.

I mean, he went right after the next play. They're moving the ball. They found who they wanted to attack, and they did a really good job of it. And they made enough plays to just get there. I mean, it's just, I just don't know how you. You ain't sleeping for three nights with that. Yeah, and if you're an Eagles fan and if you're Doug Peterson and the Eagles, I mean, Sean Payton said it before the game.

It's about patience and weathering the storm and trying to stay in the game and keep it competitive and hopefully you can strike at the end. They did all they could, but Case Keenom had the last saying this one. Just one tackle. Just one tackle. I mean, I don't even know if you say, well, they got to practice that situation. I don't even know. Like the Denver one, okay, that's different because Denver's, the safety got beat deep. I mean, like he wasn't deep as the deepest, right? This safety was as deep as the, you know, all he had do was make the tackle. The Jacoby Jones play, I remember just looking at all the deep backs that were back there didn't think that Flacco could throw it that deep. Right. I mean, it's a 70-yard bomb. I mean, he froze it straight up in the tackle.

It was freezing cold too that day. That was a tough catch. And it was a, in terms of the weather and the other, it wasn't a tough catch, but the ball and all that and how to throw it down the field that far. But, you know, but that safety, you know, that was, he got beat deep. I mean, he didn't get on top. And, you know, so tough one. That's a hard one.

It's a hard one. Let's talk about a hard one to understand. And that is our boy Blake Portals. And he is going to the AFC championship game to take on Tom Brady. and the New England Patriots in Foxborough. The Jacksonville Jaguars today, we've given them a lot of gripe over the year. And by they, I mean, mainly Blake Portles, but they go in. Leonard Fortnet has a great day, 25 carries, 109 yards, three touchdowns.

And most of it all in the first quarter until he got hurt, right? Absolutely. And he got hurt when to the locker room came back, toughed it out. T.J. Yeldon was great. I don't think he's going to get enough credit for what he did out of the backfield, catching the ball. Some great, you know, Blake Portals, classic, you know, throw it and dump it to to T. J. Eldon for easy first downs.

The defense was incredible. a great Telvin Smith return for a touchdown to get him up 21 to zero. They kept fighting back, though. The whole game we kept saying the Steelers aren't out of this. The Steelers aren't out of this. But Blake Bortles and the Jaguars, they outlast the Steelers today. You know, I think we've said it on this podcast before. Jacksonville is a different team when they get the lead.

And boy, do they get the lead in this game. Go up 14-0, you know, go up 21-7. They kept extending the lead. And look, Bortles played, you know, Bortles played well. I didn't turn the ball over. I thought Nathaniel Hackett's the – I think two things in this game that were really the difference in the game.

Nathaniel Hackett called a really good game. I thought he did a really good job of how to attack the Steelers' defense, and he gave Bordals a lot of easy throws that really high school throws. They were really high school throws you could make. Now, I mean, he makes the great throw down at the end of the game. And then I think the third factor, Terry Bradshaw took a lot of grief about saying that Tomlin wasn't a great coach. I think today Tomlin showed that Bradshaw might be right. Like that was a really poor.

Like you got two weeks to prepare your team to play against Jacksonville, a team you've played before. right and you come out with that effort and you come out like like they're going to this first team that did this to you at home earlier in the season so it's not like they surprise you you're a defensive head coach and you can't stop the run like at some point you got to be sitting in your office saying on monday or tuesday i'm going to play five defensive linemen i'm going to play man-to-man on the outside and i'm going to make blake boarders have to make tight window throws because when blake boarders had to make a tight window throw on those in cuts he was you know he was 33% let's say on those stuff. To me, this is a, this is really, and then he goes the onside kick, which to me was

another blunder. Like, there's just things stacking up on Mike Tomlin in this game that were bad. I thought Todd Haley was bad in this game. Like fourth and one, you have a fast defense, you run a toss play. That could cost them the game at the end of the day. That's a field goal. You know, they make some poor decisions on fourth down. They got one of the best players in the world, Levyon Bell, and they don't get to put the ball in his hands on short yardage. I think Pittsburgh has no one to blame but themselves for this. And it starts with Mike. I think Mike did a horrible job.

But pair on his team, he didn't play a pace of a game. He never forced Blake Bortles to play left-handed. He never forced Blake Bortals to ever get any pressure. Jacksonville's offensive line, to me, was tremendous. Yeah, they had an incredible game. I mean, everybody about-bordals will sit back there not getting touched. He went to the fifth. Remember the throw he makes to yell them when they come back before he throws a deep pass?

I mean, he went off to his fifth read. I mean, look, to me, they did nothing when the two weeks off to really give any problems to Jacksonville. None. They didn't give any problems to them. I mean, Jacksonville had an easy time with it. They protected. They did nothing unique. I mean, and you could say what you want about James Harrison, but, I mean, if you had put James Harrison on the field, he might have been able to rush a little bit better.

Like, they didn't get near Blake Bortles. They never really gave them any trouble. And every blitz they dialed up wasn't any good and they couldn't tackle. I mean, that was really, that was a bad loss. Somebody tweeted out, Julia Sharp, our man, he tweeted out this would be one of the worst wins in the history. Like, it would have been most embarrassing wins for Pittsburgh if they won it. He was right. I mean, like, this is, if they would have stole that game, it still would have been a bad win.

Yeah, we had 14 points that they scored in this game that were fourth down just basically unbelievable plays where Ben Rothesberger heaves a D. But one to Martavis Bryant, that was his first catch of the game. A great throw, but to the back of the end zone scores the touchdown. I think that was what, fourth and 11 or fourth to nine, something like that? It was the fourth and a long show. And then we had the Antonio Brown one. Same thing. It was fourth and five.

Rathesberger Lillick he could have stumbled and ran for it. Maybe Miles Jack could have stopped him. But he throws it deep to Antonio Brown and gets another touchdown. So those are two touchdown plays that are the best case scenario that those worked out in the first place. And they were like your best players made great plays. So when you go in the playoffs, it's about your best players, right? And they made plays and you still lose. You give up 45 points to Blake Bortles at home.

I mean, the Buffalo Bills gave up 10 points to him in Jacksonville. And you've had two weeks to prepare for it. And Buffalo's defense is, I would not say Buffalo's defense is by any means a top 10 defense. They turned the ball over, but they gave Blake Bortles all sorts of problems. Now, maybe Blake played better today than he did last week. Yeah, that's probably true. He did play better. He completed some checkdowns.

He completed some outs. I'm not sitting here by no means and I'm on the Blake Bortles train at all. Okay, no means. I mean, if they go to the Super Bowl, they're going to the Super Bowl because their defense is winning games, even though they gave up 42 points today. but he made enough plays. I thought Nathaniel did a great job. Hackett did a great job. A call in the game, keeping the pace of the game, and then also understanding that we need to keep, not get too conservative. They got conservative in the third quarter.

They wouldn't let them do anything but screens and stuff like that. They protected the ball and they kept trying to score points and they made enough plays. I mean, if you're Pittsburgh, this is a tough pill to swallow. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you're talking about the defense. I mean, T.J. Watt was in my A.A. today. We didn't see him force any pressure. Hayward wasn't doing anything up front for them either. It was just a complete struggle across the board for that Steelers defense. You know, and I give the clapper crap about, you know, like game plan.

Like to me, Tomlin, like at some point when you're a top five head coach, top 10, you got to play a game. You got to show people why you're making $6, $7, $8 million. Like the scheme's got to be different to where you can say, okay, wow, they did a really good job. That's a really good game plan. Like Mike Zimmer, like he earned his money. Sean Payton, unfortunately one of them had to lose today.

But I thought that was a really good game between two. two really good chess players. Like, I didn't think Mike Tomlin was a good chess player at all today. He had chances and, you know, and they didn't take, they didn't make Jacksonville play left-handed. They knew Fournette was going to be a problem to tackle and he kept, every time he got the ball, it was six yards. They could have kept handing him the ball off all the time. And we saw that with the touchdown when they took the lead 42 to 28. Bowen comes downhill, like he's going to be blocking and it's going to be a handoff to yelled in the backfield.

He just stays straight and Blake Bortles just throws it up and it's right there, easy touchdown. It's a high school play. Yeah. H-2 pass. It's a high school play. It's a West Coast high school play day one and stall. I mean, you know, everybody plays cover two. They sneak the back through there and oh, my, we got to play. They just didn't look prepared. They never looked like they understood that they didn't take away what they wanted them to do. And it wasn't like they were sitting there running some great offensive scheme. Like, look, I give them the Thanahawka credit called a great game, but it isn't like they're that complex. That was pretty impressive by Jacksonville to go in there and keep putting the foot to the pedal and putting the pressure on Pittsburgh. And I'll tell you, if you're a Steelers fan, Steelers didn't handle it.

the pressure very well. They really didn't have, they never got control of the game. Like, even when they were making a comeback, they never got control of the game. Like, they never really felt like, okay, we got this game under control. We can win it. Whereas the Saints, when they went for that trick play, they actually thought they had control the game and they got the ball back again. Pittsburgh never really felt like that, even when they made it, what, when they got to within seven? That was what I was talking about. It was 218 left in the game. We've got the game to, I think it was 42 to 35 at this point. The Steelers are about to kick the ball off. We're saying, we're there at your house. We're going to watch this whole moment happen. We're saying, I don't think you need

on side. You have three timeouts at this point, and you have the two-minute warning, or maybe two-timeouts in the two-minute warning, whatever it was. But you go for the on-side. And it's one thing. If you're going to go for the on-side, go for it. But it was so poorly executed that they had zero chance to kick it right into one of their players. And it was just a throwaway play. Jacksonville comes down, kicks a field goal. We have a 10-point game, two-possession game. So you have the head coach of the Steelers, you say, okay, you had a score. Okay, when they're driving, and I kept saying this to it, we got a score before two-minute, the two-minute, warning because you need that two minute warning for your timeout.

They blew a timeout earlier in the drive, which they'd have been better off just spike in the ball. It was a long Rothlisberger run, I think, and they called the timeout to whether a friend to catch his breath or whatever. But they would have been better off just spike in the ball. Like save your timeouts. Nonetheless, they score before two minute warning, which is perfect, right? And they have two timeouts. So why not kick it deep, right? And know that if they're going to run three runs, I mean, they're not going to put the ball on Blake Bortle's hands at this point, right? And then you're going to punt it. back and look you've been hitting home runs from

midfield the whole time you've been actually better in fourth and 11 than you've been on fourth and one you know and that you on site kick up with that kick like that's not being smart like that's actually at home and it's one thing if you're the road team like let's say they were in jacksville maybe you're just being aggressive because you're the road team but when you're at home you're down seven you got the two minute warning on your side and the other thing is so jacksville gets the ball back they run a play and they let it go down to the two minute warning a lot of times i mean a coach will take a time out right before the two minute warning he didn't tell time out there he let he let he let

that he let those seven seconds go and people say, oh, it was only seven seconds. No, whenever you're watching a two-minute drill, three things have to happen. A, checkdowns don't work. Like, they're the dumbest thing you can throw. Checkdowns stink. Okay, that's really bad. All right. And every six seconds is a play. So you take six and divide it into whatever the number is. And that's how many plays you have left in a game assuming you get the ball out of bounds. So you do those things, those numbers don't add up. Like, what's Mike doing on the sideline? Like, what is he going to do? To me, it was a horrible, horrible day for Mike. I mean, he's got to live with that one. Todd Haley's got live with that fourth and one. Some of those calls on fourth and one. But you got Ben Rodney. He's

six feet seven. Sneak the damn thing. Yeah, there's a lot of comments about Ralthusberger. Even when he was running down the field, I mean, he was trying not to take hits actively. So there could be something behind that where he didn't want to be a part of the QB's knee. You've got the best running back. You're going to pay him $14 million next year. You've already said you're going to franchise him. He's not going anywhere, right? Give him the ball. Don't give him the ball to toss play. You got a really good offensive line. I got one of the best line coaches in football, Mike Munchek. You can. you can actually push a little bit.

And the one thing about Leveon, even if it's not blocked perfectly, he can siver and get three or four, you know, four inches. I mean, they had a half a ball. Like to me, we've talked about this on the podcast. Third and short matters in playoff games. In big games, if you don't have an extensive third down package

on third and short and you don't have a lot of variations within it, you're going to get caught and you're going to get busted. You're going to lose games. And the Leveon number is a little bit fudged. I mean, he has him a 16-carry, 67 yards in the touchdown. But the touchdown was not a rushing touchdown. It was by semantics. I mean, that was when Rothesberger runs across the line and then throws the lateral back, which was an amazing play. So Lavian's touchdown was a reception. It wasn't even him

rushing the football. But like situational football, Pittsburgh was horrendous. Every time this jugger nut offense of the Jacksonville Jaguars came down to the red zone, they scored a touchdown. Like, what matters? Short yardage matters in playoff games. Red zone third downs matter. Red zone matters in third. If you hold them to field goals, right, you've got a better chance to win the game, but you can't even hold them to field goals. I mean, to me, it was a horrible, like,

look, he fired Dick LeBoe. He wanted to change this whole defense. They've changed the defense. They've changed the players. It's no better. Like, it's no better right now. And to me, you know, I think they got to examine themselves and see what they really want to do. I think Pittsburgh, that

to me was a humiliating loss. Yeah. And they obviously... And I don't want to take anything away from Jacksonville because Jacksonville earned it. I mean, Jacksonville was the better team. You beat somebody in their field twice, okay? You're the better team, right? And they beat them convincingly the first time. And this game was a little bit more convincing than we think it was.

I know it was a three-point score, but Pittsburgh never got control of it. You beat them twice. You're the better team. And Pittsburgh better face reality of that. Yeah, and one quick thing, when they were making the drive down to end of the game, down 10 points, I mean, Pittsburgh still could have gotten back in this game if they had managed a clock right. I mean. It would manage it to the end.

Maybe if they kicked the field goal early or, I mean, they had the intentional grounding with a 10-second runoff. I mean, there were so many moments that they had down the stretch where maybe you can still make it a competitive game, but they just threw it all away. I mean, I think if there was a situational football class that some head coaches need to go to, Mike would have to enroll this offseason. Like, you know how you get a drunk driving ticket, right? And you've got to go to class to get your ticket back, to get your license back.

With all the other degenerates in the room. You got to sit there and you got take it. You got to go through all of it. To me, there ought to be like a class for head coaches that do some stupid things. Like, they ought to go learn that. Like, and Mike, really, he would have to go do that. My name is Andy Reid, and I'm bad at play calling. I'm bad.

Andy Reid's sitting there saying, Andy Reid's sitting there in Kansas City. He got a nice fire going. He said, why are people picking on me? I mean, look at this thing going on. Yeah, he's finally gotten away and gotten away from that. Final thought on this one, Doug Marone. Just give him a little bit of credit this time. Look, I love Doug Maroon.

Look, I love Doug Maron. I think Doug Maron's a really good coach. When I was at NFL Network and I was talking about going to the Browns, I was enlisted to help the Browns try to vet coaches and went through a bunch of guys, talk to them because, you know, when you're there, you know, you can talk to him without it. And one of the guys that I spent a lot of time with a couple times was Doug Maron.

He was in Syracuse at the time. He was in Syracuse at the time. I went up and spent time with him at the pinstripe bowl. We played in that. I met him at the airport in Philadelphia. We spent a lot of time. We bonded. Really good coach.

He's got that Coughlin background. He's got that, you know, that toughness to him. He's been at the Saints so he understands it. He's an old offensive line coach, a really good one that has grown into becoming a head coach. He had a chance to choose between Buffalo and Cleveland at that time. I wasn't hired at Cleveland, and he wasn't sure where to go, and he picked Buffalo over Cleveland. And I think the guys are really good coach, and I think he proved it out to be. I think they hired him in Cleveland before I got there.

I think we probably all still be there. And this is a guy that when he left to go to Jacksonville, a lot of people kind of turned on him and said, you know, he was running away from the situation in Buffalo. and all this sort of stuff. And here's what happened. Okay, so there was a change of the ownership, right? He had it in his contract. That's why I thought Cleveland, I wasn't involved in negotiation.

I wasn't involved with any of it. Basically, Jimmy Haslam and Joe Banner were handling this out, the Phoenix. They were out in Scottsdale. They were interviewing Chip Kelly at the time, too. And so basically it came town to he was going to take his chances with Ralph Wilson and Russ Brandon as opposed to coming to Cleveland with a new owner, and he had it in his contract that he could get out. Well, you know, he had Doug Whaley there.

He wasn't happy with Doug Whaley as his general manager. He wasn't happy with Russ Brandon as his president trying to run the team. He wasn't happy with anything in the front office. And he felt like, look, I've done a really good job. And Doug Whaley's picking players for me, it doesn't work. I'm just going to opt out. And he went to Jacksonville, brought Nathaniel Hackett down there with him. And life goes on.

Now he's probably coach of the year. Yeah. And Tom Cloughlin's got to be happy, man. We heard that Coughlin was in the box trying to keep everyone calm. No, I heard he was going nuts in the box. He was trying to make sure that 21 to zero lead didn't go sour. What did Bill Simmons tweet that this game will get

Blake Bortles $125 million contract? There's no doubt. I mean, that game is sure that Blake Bortals will be your starting quarterback for your Jacksonville Jaguars next year. And if they go to the Super Bowl, if they beat New England this week, you've got a five-year deal,

$20 million a year. Bordo's, he's doing the Flacco thing where you have this one magical run to the Super Bowl. I mean, we don't know if, you know, Bortles will make it to the Super Bowl or even win a Super Bowl. But, you know, you do it one time, and then you guarantee all the millions of dollars, and you just get to hang out and throw checkdowns for the rest of your career.

It's so perfect. I mean, it's so perfect. And you know, the thing that cracks me up, when they flash to Bordles on the sideline, he's so happy. He just can't stop smiling. Every single time he doesn't have to throw the football. He's the anti- Tom Brady.

Like, there's nothing. Like, he's like, it's almost like, they're not going to blame me for this. They're not going to blame me for this. It's going to be okay. I can't wait for the Blake Bordle facts this week on Twitter. Blake Bortals definitely likes playing checkers, you know, where you can get the instant satisfaction.

He's not a chess player. He likes to celebrate his kings and all that sort of stuff. That's a good point, Dave Fraser. Yep. Let's talk about the Saturday games, the first games of the weekend. Let's move first to the first game of the day, and that was the Atlanta Falcons going into Philadelphia. The Falcons were favored in this one.

There was a lot of talk about the Eagles being the number one seed but weren't quite the number one seed with Foles at quarterback. But Jim Schwartz and that Eagles defense really locked in, and they got a big win over the Falcons. And look, nobody's been harder on Doug Peterson and I have. I called the guy. I called the guy. I wasn't believe he was ready to go.

And look, I admit, I have great respect for coaching in the NFL. And you win a playoff game, even if you win it some way with a backup quarterback, I admit, I'm wrong. Okay, Doug Peterson was way better than I thought he was going to be in terms of his ability. To lead that team, I think Jim Schwartz is a tremendous defensive quarter. I think he deserves a lot of credit here. But I thought he did a really good job with Nick Foles yesterday. So all you Philly fans give me all this crap about, you know, give Doug Peterson his due.

Yep. Okay, I was wrong. He's a better coach. Now he's going to have to do it again this week, and we'll see how that is. But for me, I think when you win a playoff game and you beat a team that you're an underdog to and you beat Matt Ryan and you play and Nick Foles played well enough, I think you deserve it. I think I got to admit, hey, look, the one thing about football that you can do, especially if you have an opinion of something, right? So a lot of people that have no opinion, nobody ever hates them because they always just say, you know, everybody gets along with them, right? Whereas if you have an opinion, you piss people off one way or the other.

But the one thing is, by having an opinion, you can figure out if you're right or wrong. And to me, I'm not sure that I think I was wrong in terms of how far I went with Doug. I'm not sure how great of a coach Doug is, but I was wrong in terms of how far I went with it. And I think the guy's proven it out. I think Philly's done a really good job of helping him become a better coach too with the guys up in the box and all that stuff. That being said, the guy won a playoff game. You win a playoff game in the NFL. I think you deserve it.

I was wrong. And I think when you, you know, to me, I don't mind being wrong. I really don't. It's the only way you're going to learn. It's like scouts. If you ever meet a scout tells he's never wrong, he's a bad scout. I can promise you that, right? I think Clinton Eastwood in trouble with the curve.

I think he said he's never been wrong. Yeah. But, you know, that was just Clinton Eastwood. I can imagine. I'm sure he's probably never been wrong. But look, I got no problem. Mitten I'm wrong. And I think Carson Wince is great.

I think they developed Carson Wins and beaten Atlanta. like Atlanta, I think was really a heck of a win. That being said, that being said, I thought Steve Sarkozy and the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons really was almost malpractice, coaching malpractice. I mean, here's why I think it's really bad, because you go to the game, like what makes you a great coach and what makes you an average coach, right? What makes you a great coach is your ability to spend those extra hours on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

is dig into details to see how the game's going to go and make sure you've covered every situation and have something unique that you prepared for that you think you're going to get that you have an answer for. So that being said, when it's fourth down and you call Q8 Sprint Right option, and that's the only play you call basically, and don't anybody take this the wrong way,

you're a high school coach. You're a high school coach. Because that's what they do in high school. They don't have enough time to teach the players everything, right? They don't have meetings with the players. They don't have enough time to install. They have their playbook, right? They do their thing, and they run their play.

This game, to me, if you're the Falcons fan and the Eagles knew when they broke the formation, Jim Schwartz had his team ready to play, when they broke the formation, they knew it was Q8. They knew the play. They cover the play. That, to me, is really bad. That means you're not being, you have no attention to detail. You border on being lazy because you really didn't do anything new or unique. You just ran your plays.

And if you want to do that at USC or the University of Washington, that's great. You want to do that at St. Augustine Prep and New Jersey. That's great, too. But you're talking about high-level poker here. You're talking about high stakes. You're talking about people's jobs matter, right? And if you convert that third and nine from the nine or you convert the first and goal with the nine, you're going on and make a lot of money.

When you don't and you say, we just didn't make a play, to me, that's malpractice. Especially when you have a guy like Julio Jones, I mean, who had made some, outstanding plays that get him in the situation. The Falcons are making this long drive. They have a chance there at the end of the game. It goes through his hands. Obviously, the Falcons, it looked like they had a chance. But let's go back to the first down call, right?

Like, what's the laziest call you can make as a coach in the Red Zone? Alley, you, okay? Look, Josh McDaniel is who I love and think he's going to be a great head coach. They throw the, they throw the state, the stop fate over there to Grom. So I'm not saying that that's a bad play. It's a 50-50 play. What made that play malpractice was the, the Eagles had one time out.

And if you run the ball there, you've got four cracks at the end zone, right? So just say you run it there and you get three yards or you get two yards. Even if you get a yard, they got to use their last timeout. So now you got second and goal with the eight. They have no more timeouts left. So if you want to run one of your inside, you know, what's that guy at LSU that was running all a tight end shovel passes going in there? You want to run one of those?

Great. Go ahead. Keep the ball in bounds. Throw a screen. Do something. Do something unique. Show people that you were in the office until 12. o'clock, one o'clock in the morning, trying to come up with something to beat Jim

Schwartz's defense. And something he hasn't seen before, at least. You got to show him something he hasn't seen. This guy's been studying tape all week. He knows what you're going to do. You got to sit there and say, well, if we show him this look, he's going to think we're going to do that, but we're really going to do this. Like, to me, that's coaching.

Like, that, to me, you just let your whole organization down. And, you know, and then on second down, he throws a guy, he throws this horrible screen that hits the ground. So now Doug, who's sitting there, you know, the game's on the line. it's down to two plays. It's that he throws a slant to Julio, who beats inside man coverage, which he shouldn't even have thrown the slant,

and he gets the ball down to the three-yard line, and his best play, this is what he's worked his life for. Q8, are you kidding me? I mean, Dan Quinn is like, Dan Quinn has to stop being in charge of the assistance, and Dan Quinn has to start being a head coach. That's the only way the Falcons.

This is two years in a row. The Falcons have led an assistant coach dominate what they want to do. It's really bad. Bill, and it's funny, on Twitter I posted this thing about Bill Walsh, about game management, and it's so damn true because he talks about how, you know, head coaches just allow assistant coaches to kind of like take them off the hook, so they don't really have to worry about it.

So here you are, you're a hundred, so what are the Falcons worth? A billion and a half, two billion? Basically, you've got a $2 billion. You've hired a head coach, you're paying him $5 million a year, and you're letting your offensive coordinator dictate everything you do on the field. to me that's like there just doesn't make any sense it makes no sense at all and you're letting this guy run the fortunes of all you i know you want to come down to the field early with your wife and sit there it's like it's bizarre like to me that was the most aggravated and people say well lombardi you're just pissed off because you think dougeterson's not a great coach look i apologize for that right i'm wrong i have great respect for the game of football i have even more respect for the understanding of game management like if my son did that and he was calling plays for the jets or he was calling plays for the jets or he was calling play for Baylor and he did that he would have like there's no chance he knows he would I would have been screaming at him in the phone like no doubt like to me you can't do that that's what you get paid to

do you get paid to figure out what they think you're going to do and then just do it you think a guy who plays grandmaster chess you think he goes to the chess match and says I'm just going to run my same moves I ran last week yeah Bobby fisher's not doing that I don't think he is why do you think they go home and study all those ex-gain why do you think they spend 40 hours every goddamn they stay awake for 40 hours straight just studying chest scratches. Like to me, if you're a Falcon fan, you've been let down two years in a row. And people say, well, Kyle Shanahan did that. You love

Kyle Shanahan. Yep. Kyle Shanahan had one job to do. Okay. Kyle Shanahan has a job to do. His job is to score points, okay, and get first down. And be aggressive. That's what he said at the end of the game. Even when they were down to. Dan Quinch's job is to tell him, no, Kyle, the clock's our opponent. Time management once again.

All right. This game was, okay, Steve, here we got. We have first to go with the night. I tweeted it. Like, I wasn't second guessing it. I tweeted it. You got to start to drive off with a run. Why? Because you want him to use his timeouts and you want to reduce the game because this kicker made a 53-yard field go at the end of the half. You know what I mean? And so now the Patriots win the Super Bowl against Atlanta. Why? Because they practiced on Thursday and Friday before the Super Bowl, they had two five-minute periods to go over two-point plays. Okay.

Not the same two-point plays that they ran all year. Two-point plays that they knew for that game, game-specific. They practiced them on Thursday. They practiced them on Thursday. on Friday. The reason they did that is because they felt like the game would get extended. They would get a lead. They might be up three touchdowns. They might have to make it a three-score game by going for two. So they prepared for that situation.

It didn't happen. It reversed happened. They had to catch up. They had to do two-point plays to close the 16-point lead. They were prepared. They were ready. Where's the Falcons? You're going up to play Philly, the best defense in football. You don't think you're going to need like a unique two-point play?

You don't think you're going to need something. You think you're just going to go waltz in there with Julio? Hey, buddy, we're just going to throw out the Julio here. Like, come on, man. And you're making, and you're making, and you've been a head coach of Washington, been a head coach at USC? Like, come on, that's ridiculous. That's really bad ball.

Yeah, there's no way Sarkeesian. I mean, I don't see him surviving and coming back. I mean, I could tell Matt Ryan was a bit frustrated after the game when discussing the whole situation. He's obviously let down. I think the Falcons had a good, they had a good road to the Super Bowl again for a second year with the way all things played out with, you know, taking on a backup quarterback. in Philadelphia, be in the six seed, and they had a chance, and it just didn't quite work out.

I mean, I think the rule of thumb for the Atlanta fans is Arthur Blink, you can't go down to the field. No, no more on the field, please. Just stay up in the box, wherever you are. Don't come down there. We love Home Depot and all the tools that you have. We don't need you down on the field ever. And it's just a curse at this point. I think Dan Quinn's a really good coach. I think Dan Quinn's a good guy. I think Dan Quinn's got, his players play hard. I think Dan Quinn should spend this offseason trying to figure out how to become a head coach

and stop just being in charge of the assistance, right? So when you're a head coach, everything runs through you. You do everything. You know, it is like you think in New England, they decide they're going to go for an on-site kick. Oh, hey, by the way, you know, we're going to go for an on-side kick. You know, it's like you think something happened in Oakland that Al Davis didn't want to have that. People say, Lombardi, you drafted your Marcus Russell. A, I wasn't in the room B.

Yeah, I just turned the card in and Al wasn't there. You know, no problem. He didn't care. Like, really? Are you kidding me? Like, Dan. You can play Notre Dame for that. They just got blown out in that game.

Dan has to become a head coach. I mean, that's the problem. He's sitting there letting coordinators make his life miserable. He's got to spend this whole offseason trying to defend those four plays. Now, thank God Mike Tomlin came back on Sunday to kind of take away from it. But he just lost to Nick Foles with the ball first and goal at the nine, and they didn't even run four of their best place. I mean, if Al Davis were alive, God rest of the same, he would, I mean, he would, I mean,

you think I'm mad? Oh, my God. To me, that's what football is about. That's why you're in this league. That's why you do that stuff. That's why you get up in the morning and you want to be able to figure out to put yourself in that situation.

To me, I was never more pissed off in all my life than watching that. To me, that just violated everything I believe in as a football person. Yep, and we should say the resiliency of the Eagles for them to stay in that game. I mean, J. J. Jai had a great game for them. He opens the game up with a bad fumble.

Things didn't look like they were going to go their way at first. But they held out. They get a huge win. They're in the NFC championship game. and that's big stuff. And they never really, I mean, look, the Falcons, give credit to the Eagles, the Eagles offense. I mean, I think this is where Peterson won me over in the second half of this game.

They converted third down in the second half. I mean, they kept the ball away from them, and they didn't really have an answer. I mean, Atlanta had played defense really good against, but they didn't play good enough defense against Philly when it mattered. They played good in the red zone. Pass rush wasn't there. They couldn't get near the quarterback. The Eagles' offensive line was great in that game.

So to me, look, I just think to me, Atlanta. You got Matt Ryan, who's a really good player. You got Julio Jones is one of the best players in league. I know he doesn't practice. But if I'm going down, I'm going down. I'm going to throw the ball four times to Julio in the red zone, but it isn't going to be fade routes. Like, I'm going to do something where I know they're going to double him, right? Do you think if you would have given Josh McDaniels the ball first and goal at the nine with four chances and he has Julio Jones and all those guys? Come on. Sanoo Jones. I mean, it's not just, it's not just Julio either. I mean, they have a lot of talent on the outside. If you really want to play this game, like this game should be, if Belichick came in and coached the team right now, who would win? So if Belichick decided to take over the Falcons at the first and goal at the nine with a minute 30 to go in the game, what would the outcome of the game be? I'd say it ended up being a win.

All right. I would too. I would have too. Well, let's talk about Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. They had a rough first quarter, but then they had a complete blowout after that. The Tennessee Titans came out in this game, and they looked good at first. people were excited. They were doing what we said they could do,

which is rushing up the middle. Casey, Williams, all those guys for the Titans. A great catch by Corey Davis on the outside, one-handed grab, old Malcolm Butler. All things looked like they could be fun. We could have a real game. And then New England just wears them down and blows them out. I thought it would be a 50-minute game.

I thought it would win. I thought it would be a 15-minute game. I thought it was like a 13-minute game. Yeah, it was about 15-minute game. I mean, first of all, you're going to play Tom Brady, right? and you're getting ready to make you're an active list. Okay. And you're only going to dress four offense defense alignment.

Like they see that. Like they're pretty smart over there. Like they're only dressed in four defensive alignment. Let's go no huddle. Let's play tempo. And they've played Dick LeBow so much that when they go tempo, they know he has two or three calls. They make it easy on them.

And they go. You know, like that's why you go tempo. You don't go tempo because you want to try to imitate Chip Kelly. You go tempo to create a situation that's beneficial for you. Okay. and that situation is you know he only has two or three checks. So you make those checks, you get Brady the ball. He makes the plays.

I mean, to me, I was really impressed with, when the Patriots can get three sacks in a row on you, you've got to reevaluate your offensive line if you're Tennessee. If you're John Robinson, you're the general manager, the Tennessee Titans, you think your line's good. Now, I know Dennis Kelly had to come in and play right tackle because the right tackle got hurt. No, they were beating everybody else in the line.

They put the center Jones couldn't block anybody. They put a guy over him. I mean, the one thing when you play New England, what you should do as a personnel director or as a coach is basically watch the game again from New England standpoint, and they'll basically give you the rundown of what they think of your team. They think your center stinks. They think your right tackles this. They think your receiver's no good. They'll tell you. You just got to pay attention.

To me, Marriott, I thought was horrible in the game. He had a couple of in the first quarter when actually they had a chance. He was doing what we said he had to do, which is the third and six, third and seven. play under center and if all if all progressions don't work all all checks don't work out run the ball just sprint out to the right you know get upfield try to get a first down did that a couple of times then after that he just sat in the pocket and then just started taking sack after sack after sack and the titans just look hopeless at that point and the Patriots just warm down yeah and I think that you know what was bothering me in that game tay fraser was that mariotta couldn't wait to get his coat on yeah like he couldn't wait to get over there and get his coat on like at some point like like I know you're from

Hawaii, dude, but like, like, it's not that bad. Like, just you're going to have to play in this. Like, this is the national football. Like, it's December, January. It's going to be cold. Like, like, don't know. Like, don't know. To me, Tennessee, if I'm Tennessee, I'm John Robertson,

he's got to look at that offensive scheme and he's got to look at what he's, what they're trying to do there. And Malarkey's coming back as the head coach. You've got to change a lot of things there because they, they're not, Decker can't play anymore. They got no speed at receiver. They can't separate. I mean, we said it in the podcast.

They can't get old. unless Mariotta could move around to get him open. Yep. And that's what happened. Yeah, Corey Davis showed some signs. He had the two touchdowns of that one, but he was either, you know, really relevant early in the game and then he had the late touchdowns. He's like Trebole for Minnesota.

Like you can't draft a jump ball receiver in the fifth pick in the draft. I'm sorry. Like is he better, would you rather have Kamara or would you rather have Kamara or Corey Davis? Yeah, let's be honest. Let's take Kamara. Yeah. It's easy. It's easy.

But a big win. And now we're going to look at championship weekend. first up on Sunday, January 21st. So we finally made it here. The Jacksonville Jaguars are going to go to Foxborough to take on the new... Is that the first game? That's the first game. 305 p.m. Sunday, January 21st.

Jacksonville Jaguars, New England Patriots in Foxborough. The number three seed, it was a pretty chalked playoffs when it comes down to it. Number three seed, Jaguars going into the number one seed. The Patriots right now are favored by eight points. We watch this game. You can give this out. If Bill Simmons listen to this, then he's going to know what the line is. I don't think he's here.

I don't think he's hearing this. We don't think. We're not sure. I mean, Cousin Sal on him, they got to figure it out. Yeah, well, we'll tell them to put the ear muscle on right now. But the Patriots are favored by 8. We watched that Jaguars team, and we said there's going to be some matchup problems. I mean, you got Miles Jack, you got Telvin Smith, some guys that can match up with Gronk.

That front four, they're going to try to hit Brady, try to get up the middle, rush them up the middle. And then on the back end, I mean, Bouillet, Ramsey, there's a lot of talent on that Jaguar's defense, so this should be a fun game. Yeah, the game. And, you know, Coughlin knows the formula, right? Cofflin knows rush four, play, break on the ball. you've got to pack the middle of the field and the question's going to be can the Patriots play good enough defense to force

Blake Bortles into some negative plays? You know, Pittsburgh never got Bortles into a second in 18, a second in 20. They never created a negative play. I thought that game was poorly officiated. They just let them play in that game. Like to me, you know, so like God only knows when you watch the tape tomorrow

how many holding calls there were that could they missed. And then on the opposite, and we saw in the Viking Saints game, they were calling every, yeah, every knitneck found. You know, so it's going to be interesting to see, I know this. Belichick will play a run defense that will force them to have to, Bortles is going to have to prove that he can beat him. Yeah, they may put all 11 guys up in goal line sets against him. I told you that a long time ago.

Like if I was playing Blake Bortals, I play five defense alignment all the time. I don't give a shit if he went to nickel. I don't care if he put five receivers on the field. I'm going to force him to have to throw the ball to beat me. And we saw Bortle's had one play today where he fumbled the football, but he recovered it right and just fell on top of the ball. That was the only time was the second down. And it was the only time that he had a little slip, a little Bordel's moment. They look like the Blake Bordals that we know. But other than that, they kept it together, no turnovers. And if they do that again against New England... Weather's going to be a factor this weekend.

Yeah. I mean, you've got a 3 o'clock kick in New England. It's going to be cold. You got a 630 kick in Philly. It's going to be freezing. I think weather's going to really be a factor here. When you look at that matchup of quarterbacks, Bordels, Brady, did you ever think that could happen?

No, I never did. I mean, I don't think anyone did. What Joel Solomon is going to put me up to this week, I have no idea. I'm not wearing a Bortle's jersey ever again. I can tell you that right now. I'm not doing that. What are you going to do if Blake Bortle's beats Tom Brady?

I mean, there's no talent. I mean, look, I think that's great. You know, people say that. Blake Bortles did this. If they win, it's because they're defense won. Blake Bortals ain't beat New England. Now, the defense could win the game. Don't get me wrong.

But Blake Bortles is not going to go beat New England. I'm sorry. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not that's... I do enjoy that we're so quarterback-centric in the way that everything is covered in the NFL that it has to be kind of changed a little bit because when you look at the weekend, we got Nick Foles, right? A backup quarterback. We have Case Keenham, a guy that's made a career off being a backup

quarterback. You've got Blake Borels, which, I mean, he might be a third string quarterback nine times out of ten, but now he's been a starter for a while. And then we have, you know, possibly the greatest quarterback of all the time in Tom Brady. That's not a bad draw if you're Tom Brady. I still think Jeff Fisher needs to do the coin toss in Philadelphia. I mean, he's played for the Eagles. He was there, coach there. I think he should do the coin toss. It'd be ideal. Yeah, full mustache, too. That's what he's got to do for the weekend. Yeah, it'll be good. But anything else on that Jaguars Patriots match up to watch out for it? You can think we'll analyze it on Tuesday and Friday, but I think, look, everybody says, well, you know, look, the Patriots are going to try.

The Patriots win by throwing the ball inside. I think Dionne Lewis is the X factor in the Patriots offense. I think it proved out to be the case against Tennessee. I think that's going to be the guy that makes the difference in the game and how New England attacks them would be fun. It'll be a great chess match to watch. I think that'll be really the chess match. And then this next weekend, I think how Zimmer attacks Nick Foles will be fun to see, how they do that, and then how Schwartz attacks Case Keenum, you know,

and how that all comes out. And can these receivers make enough plays and, you know, two backup quarterbacks at the Rams, you know, who makes the best plays? I mean, look, I'll say this. You know, if you're New England looks like, I don't know what the odds are for New England to win this thing, but I would say they're pretty good right now. I mean, the four teams that are remaining, New England looks like they're the best team. But, look, did I think Jacksonville could go into Pittsburgh and win?

No, but man, they won. And so that's all that matters. Yep. Before we get out of here, let's do some awards. First up, time to go on the land this week. Oh, Mike Tomlin's got to go, man. I mean, Terry Bradshaw should hold center court, and he should say, look, like Mike Tomlin, I think is a good coach. I think we had them on our top five polls. I've always liked Mike Tomlin.

I've always heard a lot of people bitch about him, but I watch him. I love his motivation. I love how he talks to the media. I love all that stuff. But to me, the product on the field resonates more. And this was a big game, and they didn't play like a big game. Yeah, it's more motivation instead of time. management.

Horrible time management. It was horrendous. It was horrendous. Again, he's in that class. He's got to serve three. He's got to do class, two hour classes. Yeah, we'll get them drawn up. Next up, we got the Fred Palermo Award this week for the best game plan.

I thought the Schwartz had the best game. I think Florida had the best game plan. Schwartz and Peterson, I think they both did. I think offensively and defensively, they handled it. We said this week, if the Eagles could win the game if the game was in the teens, and that's the way the game was. The game was in the teens. And they won it.

You know, do I think they could, if they played it five times, do I think they would win it. No, I think they probably won the one of the five that they're going to win, but they won it. Yep. Next up, we have the KGB Award, a team that wasn't quite prepared for what they were going to see. I think it's Pittsburgh by far, don't you? And Tennessee was. I mean, like, you think Tennessee's just walking into New England and not going. They're not going to change what they do. I thought three, four defensive linemen, those guys are hanging. They barely could feel it because when Iraq Poe was healthy and he was humming and Casey was not healthy. When they were fresh and going, there were some problems, but they couldn't last. So I think those two areas. Yep. And then I can't tell my courage from my desperation. We've got to give it

Case Keenham, yeah. I mean, who would have thunk it, right? That plays, well, it would be all-time work. We'll see it. How many times you think we're going to see that play? If you live in Minnesota, you're probably going to see it for the next 50 years. No, I mean, like the next week. Like, ESPN's going to cover it like 50-10.

We didn't even talk about the narratives. Like, what do you think your narratives are this week? That play is going to be a narrative, right? I think Big Ben is going to be one of my big narratives. I think the retirement question with him, I think a lot of people, I mean, we heard at the beginning of the season that Big Ben was thinking about retiring. This is a bad loss for him. I think all those questions will come out again.

What about you? You know, I think Stan Quinn's going to have to answer some questions. I know it's Atlanta, so the narrative isn't as strong because it isn't as, you know, like people don't really have that. It's not as poppy to talk about it. Yeah, it's not as poppy to talk about. But I think the narrative of what happens in New Orleans, I think that's going to be said. The aftershocks of New Orleans is going to be hard. And look, the job that Mike Zimmer is done with the defense there.

I think that's another narrative. And Belichick never gets any credit for I doing a really good coach job. but what they've been able to accomplish. I think the Chiefs had to watch that game against against tennis of Patriots and say, like, where are, like, how are we not there? Yeah, especially a team that has fared well against the Patriots, you know, historically, they seem to match up with them well and play

at that level every single time they go against that. Yeah, and I think the other narrative is going to be, look, Patricia's going to be the head coach of Detroit. McDonald's probably going to be the head coach in Indianapolis. So that narrative is going to lose both coordinators where they're going to go. You know, their special team coach Joe Judge, his contract's up as well. So there's a lot of turnover going to happen in New England. I think that will still be the,

the narrative as well. And I think the big narrative, too, will just be these quarterbacks. Those four quarterbacks all being in the championship games this weekend. A lot of people were talking about that. Finally, if you don't know, now you know, what do we know, Michael Lombardi? It's going to be cold next Sunday in those games. I think we know that. And I think that

for the first time in the long time in my life, that if Brady, that the quarterback play, is it really going to be the determining factor of the team that goes to the Super Bowl? I think that's pretty clear. I think, you know, Case Keenham, Do I think he's played poorly?

No, I've been a Case Keenham guy all year, but it isn't like, oh my gosh. I think coaching matters now more than ever in the National Football League and game management and situation matters more. And if you can get your quarterback to play like Frit Schumer's done, Pat Schumer has done in Minnesota, take Case Keenham and done a good job, and your defense is good and you can do all that. You've got a chance.

Yeah, for all those people out there that believe defense wins championships, this has been a good run in the playoffs for them. Right. Look, what, the first and second defense in the I-OVL, Minnesota, they're going to play there. So, look, let's face it. I mean, and Jacksonville's a good defense, I think so. New England's defense over the last eight games.

They've played itself after the start of the season. They don't give up points. They give up yards. They don't give up points. So it does matter. Don't break. Demand don't break. Yep.

This has been another edition of GM Street part of the Ringer Podcast Network. We're excited for championship weekend and we'll see you then. Thanks, Dave Fraser.