The Ringer NFL Show - ‘GM Street’ — Saturday Sit-down Week 14 (Ep. 199)

Episode Date: December 9, 2017

The Ringer’s Michael Lombardi and Tate Frazier are joined again by Joel Solomon to review New Orleans Saints at Atlanta Falcons (1:33). Then they run through the five games they are most intrigued by this week: Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs (4:09), Seattle Seahawks at Jacksonville Jaguars (5:26), San Francisco 49ers at Houston Texans (6:55), Philadelphia Eagles at Los Angeles Rams (7:43), and Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants (10:04). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to GM Street, part of the Ringer podcast network. I am Tate Frazier, and I am joined by Mike Lombardi. Yes, hello, Tate Frazier. How are you? And introduce our distinguished guest here, my man. Yes, our repeat guests. First time ever we've had a recurring guest on this podcast. He's going to be a staple on the Saturday sit downs, right?

I mean, he mediates the meeting. He's a little bit like Johnny Sack would come in and mediate the meetings and sit there and say, you know, when they insulted Johnny Sack's wife for having a, you know, like, so they had to, like, have a mediator in that. You can come in and do it. I want to be like Lombardi's hype man. You could be like a ruling. You're like a flavor of Mike Lombardi's career.

I just follow him around. What's two Hofster guys attached to the head? How about the Hofster big win in basketball? Aren't you excited? He did you text a date. Didn't even text me back. Of course not. Yeah.

Tate Fraser's on the millennial program. He only texts you back when he needs something. Exactly. He ignores everything else. No, no, no. No, they name streets after tape Frasier one way. Oh, man. He's going in early.

He's going in early. This is tough start to Saturday sit down. It's week 14. We have a bunch of games coming up. I'm excited. I will text you back about Hofstra later. I actually forgot that that happened. I'm sorry.

That's the classic line. That's the classic line. I forgot what it. I didn't see it. I missed it. Meanwhile, have you ever seen their phone not completely attached to his own?

It's right there. It was the biggest story in college basketball for 10 minutes. I still have 6,000 emails to get to. Oh, yeah. That's another. It's terrible. All right, we have five games. That's the whole point of Saturday sit down.

We pick five games. Lombardi picks five games that are great for us. Wait a minute. We got to talk about last night. or Thursday night, don't we? Yeah, let's get into that. Let's talk about Saints Falcons last night. 2017, it pretty much came down to the end of the game.

Sean Payton and Dan Quinn in a coaching battle to see who could make the worst decision. And somehow the Falcons came out with a win. Can we just talk about the third down, fourth down, late-the-game situation? To me, this is the perfect example of, do you know, did they teach you false duality at Hofstra? I'm not. I don't know what that is. All right? So false duality is you think when you make a decision, it's either A or B, right?

when reality is, if you really analyze a decision, it's A, B, C, D, E, or F. And the really smart people like Warren Buffett figure out what C, D, E, and F are. So Dan Quinn's faced with a third and one. And Sean Payton calls a pass. And all his players hold the fist up and it's incomplete. They think it's fourth down. Well, he was thinking false duality. They're going to kick.

I stop them. They kick. When the reality was, when he called a pass, that told him that he was going to go for it on fourth down, that he should have kept his end. And then he declined. Because then he declined a penalty. It would have been third and 11. It would have been third and 11.

And so everybody's thinking, well, we declined the penalty. We would have pushed them back. Once they went for it on third down, he failed to understand. He's playing one move at a time as opposed to thinking three moves. I think he made a horrible mistake. But they overcame it with the interception in the end zone. Yeah, but the thing about that, too, is if you take that penalty, you still push them further back so it's a tougher field goal opportunity. So I'd understand why they weren't even playing field position at that point.

You could argue that as well. But you were busy writing your show the other night, so you didn't have a great opportunity to see it. Just hang it with DJ Cal. Just hang with us. We'll get you through it. It's okay. I like that you get upset at bad coaching. Like, I get upset with a bad meal.

Like, I want to send it back. That's how upset. I'm a fact guy. I've never set a meal back. No. I'm a fact guy. I know you're in a bad mood on Friday mornings when there was bad coaching. Like that, it's just he didn't sleep well.

It's not upset. It's disturbing because I think what you see is, unfortunately, you see that coaching is so vital. Like, do you realize? that Matt Ryan would have to throw 21 touchdown passes in the next three games to the matches total from last year. Is Cleveland on the schedule? No, Cleveland's not on the schedule. So my point being is, it's like, look, I said at the beginning of the season, Steve Sarkeesian is not near the coach that Kyle Shanahan was, and you can't replace it.

Coaching is so much a part of the game. The players play it, but the coaching makes a huge difference, and the gap in coaching is really becoming greater and greater. Can we just talk about the guy that made the pick to win the game, Dion Jones, a linebacker? His nickname's Debo. I knew you liked that. Is there a better nickname at football than Debo? No.

It's good. It's pretty good. Everyone needs a Debo. Everyone needs a Debo. And it's Friday, even though technically it's Saturday for all the listeners out there. All right, let's get to these games. First game, we have the Oakland Raiders going to the Kansas City Chiefs. This is going to be the Chiefs could lose back-to-back home games.

And if you had told someone that five weeks ago, they had laughed in your face. But it looks like the Raiders can make a run here. I'm going to go all in here, Joel, on the Chiefs here. I don't think they could lose two at home. I think the Raiders are going to have a hard time handle. They don't have Armani Cooper. I know they don't have Peters. I don't like the Chief's defense whatsoever,

but I think the snap count, I think that Justin Houston can rush a little bit. Tomahili is back this week. Yeah, you just, I think this is a moment where the Chiefs are going to really dominate the game. I don't think the Raiders are very good. Your thoughts? First of all, I love that this is like an elimination game pretty much

because for these two teams, they see the Chargers coming. It's an elimination game. And I like that the Raiders are going to come in and they know the Chiefs are scared. They know the Chiefs, this is it for them. They're basically imploding. and I think the Raiders are going to intimidate them and win this. We should say the Chargers are playing the Washington Redskins,

so they will be... It'll be another one. It'll be a bunch of Redskin fans out here as well. It could be a tough game for them. I think it's going to be a really hard game. I know we don't talk about it, but I think it's going to be really hard game. Look, I think if the Redskins losing Chris Thompson hurts them, but they still can throw the football and the Chargers,

unless Bosa and Ingram get there, I think you can throw it on them. And the best case scenario for Washington right now is try to wreck other seasons, other playoff potential. That's right. They could do that for the Chargers this week. Next up, we have the Seahawks going down. at Jacksonville. Seahawks, obviously had the huge win against the Eagles. People got on the Russell Wilson as the MVP bandwagon. Now they're going to go down to Jacksonville and face the real

MVP, Blake Bortles. Well, that's right, because Joel's been pushing him as the MVP of the league. This is one of the reasons he's on the podcast to give us balance because he's such a Blake Bortles fan. He has to balance me off, you know, so I think it's important. We do that. Look, this is a game. Seattle's really good in the month of December, and everybody seems to peg that Jacksonville is going to win this game. I think Seattle's offensive lines got to prove that they can stand up to the front. And if they can play from in front, Jacksonville's a different. kind of team. Jacksonville's going to have trouble moving the football on Seattle. This is both teams that favor the turnover. I think it'll be a really close game. Jacksonville could sneak out a win,

but I would suspect that Seattle would rise above the challenge and win the game. I like Seattle. I think Seattle has a kind of mentality that they relish these moments when they're underdogs in games. I love watching Russell Wilson play. And it's kind of like watching Tate Frazier as a young boy in the backyard when you throw the ball. Joe was always at my house when I was a kid. The Seattle offense is is Tate growing up, throwing the ball and catching it yourself? Like that's Russell Wilson at this point. That's their offense. And this game might be too much for an underman Seattle to overcome.

The Jaguars and the MVP, Blake Bordles, keep rolling. That's your guy. I'm going to get you a Blake Bordels autographed jersey for Christmas. I'm not going to tell you. I don't know why I'm going to get him to dress up as Santa Claus and come to your house or something. He's got to keep the seat warm for Eli. Someone has to keep the seat warm for it. That's right.

Next up, we have the 49ers going to He's. Houston, Jimmy Garoppolo on the road. That's my man. I'm going with Jimmy. I'm all in on Jimmy. I'm going all in. Jimmy's great. First road game. First row.

One matter. He's already played. Here's the thing. So Jimmy's going to go into his little notebook, right? He took all his stuff with him, and he's going to open it up. And he's got everything that they did when they played Houston in week three of the season up in New England. And he knows Bill O'Brien. He knows Bill O'Brien.

He knows the defense. He knows what they ran there. He understands it. So now he's playing Houston for the second time. I think he's going to have a great game. I like when they talk about. quarterback matchups and defensive matchups. To me, 49ers and

Texans, this is a kicker matchup. Like, who has the better kicker? Being that I don't even know the Texans kicker, to me, this is a Robbie Gold game again, 49ers' role. There you go. Robbie Gold, good for you. Next up, we have the Eagles. They're coming to L.A. and they're taking on the Rams.

Oh, and they're coming. This will be a big game to see what the Eagles are up to. And obviously, everyone's talking about all the Philly fans out of back out of the Coliseum. The guy I always say is organizing the parade back in Philadelphia is this WIP radio morning host called, his name's Angelo Cotaldi. He's organized in the parade. That is a beautiful Philadelphia name.

Angelo Cotaldi's got it all. He flew out here on a plane. He's out here in Los Angeles, came out to see the game, and he tweeted out this morning. I had 220 seats on the plane. 218 of them were all, all Eagle fans coming out here to the game.

I mean, it's going to be a zoo out there. That's a guy that sounds like he only carries cash. Just a big lot of cash. Like, oh, you need the tickets? I'm meant to call. How many 20? he's got them all. Always asks if you have a whiz.

Can you put some cheese with on that? This is a great game. These are two teams I think are really similar. And I think both teams' defensive lines going to win the game. I just think Philadelphia's defensive front will create some problems for the Rams. And I think Carson Wins will have a bounceback game.

I like the Eagles here. I think they're the better team. I think they're close, though. I think it's really a close game. It's going to be fascinated to see the Coliseum with all those Eagle people there and how the Rams handle it. The Rams practice the silent count this week.

They're going to need it. The game is really going to come down to Can the Rams handle a good defensive front? They didn't do it in Minnesota. They didn't do it early in the year in Washington. They didn't do it against Seattle. This is the best defensive front they're going to play against. I want to see how they handle it.

It's got to be awkward for Shaw McVey to walk in the room to his offense and say, all right, guys, we need to practice a silent count. They're like, no, we're at home this week. Exactly, we need to learn this thing. But Sean McBae has an advantage here. He's played the Eagles twice last year from his experience at the Redskins, plus the Redskins played him. So he understands how to attack their defense.

I think this is going to be a fairly high score in game. I think both teams will move the ball. it's just going to come down to what front creates a turnover. See, this is when I should listen to you, but I want to believe in the Rams so much. And I love their offense, and I love what they're doing. It's like, what's it going to take for people to believe in the Rams? And I think this is finally maybe their statement game because it is.

It's the two potential NFC championship teams, and I want to go Rams, despite all the education you teach me. I don't think you can go wrong. I think this is going to be on those games. It's going to be really close. And they could potentially play again in jazz. anywhere. I know. And if I'm the Rams, I'd rather take the loss here and save it for the playoffs, get revenge. Yeah, and go back and play a real-away game instead of having to play a home-away game.

Exactly. Yeah, go to Philadelphia and make it happen. All right, final game, the biggest game of the week. We get to see the rejuvenated giants under the Eli Manning, the new Eli Manning. He's back, and the cowboys are coming in town, and they look like they have a real team now with Alfred Morris actually running the football. What do you expect to see in this game, Lombardi? Well, this is the first game after Ben McAdoo. My friend, the writer over here, I want him to create. We're post-Macadoo. Post-McCadoo.

There should be like initials. Like, you know, when the Roman Empire ended, it was, you know, AD, B, C, you know, all that. I think there should be like a post-macadu form. I'm working on it. I don't think a quarterback has ever had such a triumphant return after a one-week benching. They should have get them a ticker-tap array down in New York when MacArthur came back. It's like they're playing the Patriots again this week. It was more happy, Gino Smith or Eli-Manying.

I would probably say Gino. Yeah. Because, I mean, why would you want to go into this spot? Yeah. Look, Dallas has. Sean Leeback this week, which is huge for the Clapper, right? So this, he sets their defense. This is Steve Spagnola's return to being a head coach. Not that they played great on defense, but they had to get McAdoo out of there. I like Dallas. I think, I think Dak Prescott,

they've had 10 days off. The Giants have had a lot of confusion when the substitute teacher comes in. It's always a little bit chaotic. But I don't know. I think Dallas is the better team, playing better. What is the game plan, though, for the Giants? Like, do they let Eli throw 40 times? If they do, they lose. That's a good point. If they do, they lose. As much as it's great to have Eli back there. He's still Eli. He's still going to underthrow the deep balls. You know, the receivers are still limited. You can't really run the football. After the first quarter and he gets the introduction and things settle down, that's when the clapper's got to take over the game. But I want them to carry Eli off the field.

Like Rudy. It could be a great moment. It could be a great moment. You're picking the cowboys, aren't you? No, I want the Giants. I want to... Pick the Giants. Yeah. Do it. Cousin Sal on his predictions. Pick the Browns. He went out on the limb. He has literally picked the Browns, at least five times a season. And every single time, it's either you're going to be a genius or everyone's going to be like, why did you pick the Browns? So far it hasn't hit.

And he said that, and I have a friend in London who's a bit of a gambler and likes to gamble and a very smart person. Prince Harry? No, it's not Prince Harry. He sends me information constantly all the time. And one of the most remarkable things outside of that Hugh Jackson's 1 and 27, outside of that and got an endorsement from the owner at the John Dorsey Press Conference. say outside of that, he said that the Browns are 7-21 against the spread in the last 28 games. How is that possible? How is it possible that it's seven?

But I can't believe that I can't believe Cousin Sal went for it. He always goes for it. I told him of me he's going to die on that hill. But one day when it hits, he's going to be a hero. And you couldn't stop them. Any thoughts? What about your Steelers this week? The Steelers, I can't believe they have to play in prime time again.

Another, as Ben would say, you know, big division, AFC. where just smash mouth football. It's basically just a brawl at this point. It's not even a football game. I just want them to leave healthy. But yeah, I mean, now because of Mike Tomlin, everyone's looking forward to next week. Yeah, it's all on Joe Flacco, right?

It really is kind of. It is on DB Flacco. Yeah, against the Steelers defense. He won't show up. Quickly on the Browns. I got rid of Shashi Brown, one of your favorites. So goodbye Sashi. We appreciate all your time there.

And they get a new GM already put in place. I mean, the Browns are just moving quickly. Right. No time to think or plan. Right. They got a new GM who now has to take on a coach that he doesn't know or has never worked with before, which is usually the formula for great success. I like John Dorsey. I think John Dorsey's a really good personnel man. I'm sure

they'll pick really good players. Building a team is going to still come down to the coach. And we'll see what the Browns do. They apparently the owner says DiPodesto, the analytical man still works exclusively just for the owner. You talk about really like this doesn't ever work. It's amazing that Jimmy Haslam. He came out and said he had nothing to do with the Tennessee debacle with the Tennessee football job, even though everyone knows he at his hand. It was the Adam Smith the invisible hand over the whole Tennessee program the entire time. And now he's coming back on the Browns and he's like, you know,

we'll see what happens here. You know, I'm just staying out of things. He's involved in all of it. This is where I asked Michael this morning, what is the difference between everyone says, oh, the Browns missed out on Wentz, they missed out on Watson. Had they just taken one of these quarterbacks, what it have even made a difference?

Is it on the organization? How many more wins would they have had? Oh, they would have saved careers. Peyton Manning has made careers and saved careers. And those guys would have saved careers. A deodorant quarterback. Deodorant quarterback. Absolutely. The old spice of QBs. All right. Well, this has been Saturday Sitdown. This has been GM Street, part of the Ringer podcast network. That is Mike Lombardi. That is Joel Solomon. I'm T. Frazier, and we will be back Sunday night.