The Ringer NFL Show - How Good is Baker Mayfield? Plus, Thank the Football Gods, the Jordan Love Year, and More Big Takeaways from Super Wild-Card Weekend | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Sheil and Ben begin the pod by discussing the Bucs' impressive upset win over the Eagles on Monday night and looking forward to the Chiefs-Bills big showdown next weekend. Then, Ben marvels at Jordan Love’s excellent first playoff game as the Packers' starting QB while Sheil breaks down how Sean McVay’s less than perfect game plan versus the Lions prevented the Rams from winning (21:52). They end the pod with some offseason speculations for the Dolphins and Cowboys before shining a light on some of the young stars making a name for themselves in this year’s tournament (44:25). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Social: Kiera Givens and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The ringer gambling feat is your one-stop shop for all things betting throughout the NFL season. From week one all the way through Super Bowl 58 in Las Vegas, we have you covered every which way. We've got our favorite futures. We've got props. We'll discuss the lines. And, of course, we'll throw in a few parlase. That's a given. So whether you're a sharp or square better, we'll be breaking it down in terms.

Hopefully, everybody can understand. We'll try to win some money along the ways. So be sure to subscribe to the ring of gambling feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Extra Point Take It, Sheal Kapadia, joined by Ben Solac. Wildcard weekend is over. We've got eight teams left. The bills are one of those teams.

The Steelers are not one of those teams. The Bucks are one of those teams. The Eagles are not one of those teams. We've got seven job openings, and do we have more coming? Who knows? Jim Harbaugh meet with the Chargers. Bill Belichick interviewing with the Falcons. So much going on.

Benny Souls. How you feel? Yeah. What a wild card weekend. Just five blowouts and then also nail-biting lions, rams, the most drama you've ever seen your entire life. We did this for Jared Duff Bonanza. Super wild-car weekend, man.

It produces some stinkers. Just some 25-point differential, what have you. Fun weekend, though. Good moments. Good times. Playoff football, baby. feels different. Playoff football eight teams left.

All right. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to talk Eagles bucks. We're going to talk Steelers' bills. And then we're going to get to some of the other stuff. It could be takeaways from this weekend. It could be coaching stuff. I don't know.

It could be what we expect to happen in like the next 72 hours because this is going to be a busy week in the NFL with all the coaching stuff and everything else that's happening. So Benjamin Solac, start us off. What do you got? You have an Eagles bucks take for us. Yeah. We do the Philly Special Shield, and so anybody and everybody who wants our Eagles takes, I can go check that out.

That's called promotion right there. I can cross-potting, all right? Go give me those views. Give me those clicks. Though I'm sure we'll bring up something about the Eagles if we want to. My take about the Buccaneers is that I'm really fascinated to see how this Baker-Mayfield contract situation manifests itself here for Tampa Bay. Baker-Mayfield, right, I think they did a nice job there in the fourth quarter,

detailing kind of what his experience was last year. this panther's job and then benched midseason and he ends up with the Rams and Sean McVeigh told him, listen, like, you know, we ain't going to the postseason or nothing. Like, we're going to rebuild you here. Just got down and rip it, dude. Just got down and have fun. Like, like, just go and play some ball. And that was apparently like a big, you know, kind of lighting, a lightning of the shoulders

for Baker, a lifting of the yoke. And so, all right, he has a different perspective now on playing quarterback. He signs with the bucks on a deal that was so small, Sheila, a one-year, $4 million dollar deal that's got void years in the future. It's so small that Kyle Trask, the backup quarterback, it was going to be a camp competition, a serious enough camp competition.

You and I were betting denim jackets on this thing. 25 weeks ago, man. I mean, like, we, we, this, Baker Mayfield just won a postseason game. And in the month of August, we were talking about how likely it was that Kyle Trask we were going to get a crack at this job. So if Baker's on this,

this $4 million deal, it's a tiny deal. He's up, obviously, next season. What he has right now with Dave Canales, who's the offensive coordinator there, who's a guy that I really like. The more and more I watch of Canales's offensive one, I'm like, oh, this is a smart cookie.

This makes sense to me. They do stuff off one another, and they know how to maximize their playmakers. They know how to get a lot of juice out of guys who aren't, you know, known as playmakers. You get the Trey Palmer touch. David Moore touch. Rashad White has improved a lot.

I think that Office of Line has improved a lot. I think Baker has improved a lot. Mike Evans, even. Evans, man, on the left, which offense, he ran three routes. They got Evans with a full route tree now. All right offense. Baker's working nicely with Dave Canales's offense.

It works for him. Makes sense for him. He's got a great receiving core, obviously, with Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. You have two top, solid, rock steady receivers. They confound with each other. Nice. You can push the ball down the field. That office a line, Trist, and works moves to the left.

You have a great setup there. Baker can continue to be successful in this format. Baker's not a top 10 quarterback to me. I don't think he's like a, you know, going to have like a Gino vault where he, like, suddenly goes and starts doing like really high level, complex, high difficulty stuff. Gino has, but this certainly feels like a guy who can be a starting quarterback and hold down a job. And more than a bridge, less than an impact starter, he's an average starter.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Only there's an issue, which is that Dave Canales has taken head coaching interviews. Mike Evans is a free agent, right? This environment works nicely for Baker. But the plan for the bucks was kind of always to say, okay, like, we'll kind of feel out this year. And then we'll see if we want to commit to an offensive Baker Mayfield and commit to this in the future. or if we want to tear down and get younger and enter the future. Are we going to keep Todd Bowles?

We're not going to keep Todd Bowles. This is one of the last eight teams standing. They won the division. They won the division. They won the division. They just beat the Eagles. Eagles are not a good team. They're a fake good team, but they beat them.

So now you're in this tricky spot where you play in the divisional round and you like your guys, you like Todd Bowles and you like Baker. How much do you like him? How much do you like him? How much money do you like Baker made for 40? Do you like it for 32? Do you like him for 34? Like, I don't, I've been impressed with Baker this year.

I don't like that number. And if you're choosing to move off to the Baker-Mayfield of it, then you're choosing a world in which, right, probably makes sense to seriously consider the Mike Evans contract. I think you're bringing back since Mike Evans, and he's the franchise. But, like, you have to have that conversation. If you lose Dave Canales, what's the plan there afterwards?

Like, they're at a very, very tricky crossroads. You don't have to deal with the crossroads yet. If you lost, you would. But you don't deal with it next week and go visit the Lions, probably get beat her out of the yard a little bit, that'll be okay. But this is a, the fur that Baker pushes this.

He performed well against the Eagles. He played well. He plays another good game against the Lions, winner or lose. It becomes a really sticky situation where you have to be honest about how good Baker can possibly be and the ceiling is there,

while also wanting to acknowledge you need to reward a guy for winning the job, holding it down and performing the way he did. He won you the division, he won you a playoff game. Really, really, and this with the Dave Canalis potential move, with the Mike Evans contract going on,

a lot of balls in the air. after the Buccaneers to juggle here as we approached the off season. Yeah, they're in a weird spot as a franchise. We both thought they're going to stink, stink this season. Under six and a half wins better. Ben Solac right here. Yeah, there you go. So now they're in the divisional round of the playoffs.

I mean, so first of all, like, great job by them. This was supposed to be a season where they didn't do anything post-Tom Brady era. You know, they kind of get their cap in order. They figure out their roster, what direction do they want to go in? And here they are. They win the division. They kill the Eagles in the first time. They're well-coached team.

I mean, I'm always going to have issues with some of the game management stuff with Todd Bowles, but he is a terrific defensive coach. You saw what they did today. I mean, they put Jalen Hertz and that Eagles offense in a blender. And then the other thing I like about Todd Bowles, he went outside. This should be like a lesson to coaches. Like he didn't know Dave. This wasn't someone he worked with for eight years.

Like, this was someone he did not know. He did a search. Who do I want to hire as my offensive coordinator? Who's doing good things offensively that I. I like, who will I interview, and he takes a shot on a guy. What a process. What a novel process NFL head coaches to search, you know, cast a wide net and try to find the best person for the job rather than some guy you went to college with 25 years ago. Oh my gosh, it can actually pay dividends. So he absolutely deserves credit for that as well. And their offense, I mean, they're

squeezing everything out of that offense. Like, this is what you want. I always say them more with less stuff. I mean, you can't argue that there are like a bunch of coaches who would be getting more out of this buck's offense. You simply cannot. So Dave Canales deserves credit. Now, I do think the most likely scenario is obviously, and there's surprises all the time. We'll do our preview show on Friday. Most likely the scenarios, they lose to the Lions next week. And then I think they probably just need like a breather. Like, all right, let's, that was a fun year. Let's reset. What do we want to do now? I don't think it's necessarily, let's just, you know, I think you're obviously keeping Todd Bulls. after this, but it's not necessarily, hey, what's the next step we can take in the NFC?

They need to just kind of chill and figure it all out. I mean, I don't think you go rushing to sign Baker-Mayfield to some monster contract. And the quarterback contracts are tricky. As we know, Gno Smith, you know, he got $25 million a year. Jimmy G. got $24 million a year. That's the low end of a veteran starting quarterback contract. So you have that, and then you have the high end of backup, $8 million. and is there something in between there that would make sense for Baker Mayfield?

I just don't know, you know, Ben, and what are your thoughts on this? Like, let's say they lose next week, Baker Mayfield plays okay. Do you, like, are there teams out there who are going to go be rushing to sign? I mean, teams have had all kinds of chances to take a flyer on Baker Mayfield. And I know it changes from one year to the next, but just given what his market was last offseason to this offseason, I just don't know that there are going to be teams out there who are going to be willing to offer him some kind of. a big deal over $25 million a year that the bucks have to match.

Well, right. So let me flip that question the other direction. Get to the end of the season. Bucks or Baker Mayfield out of contract, you know, a dispute negotiation. They're far apart. What's the buck's alternative? They're picking 25th overall. Go sign to sign Kirk.

Signing Kirk is just signing late Baker, right? I mean, like, go get Tanna Hill. Late, more injured Baker, right? Like, it's iteration. the same thing. You can say what team's going to be out there for Baker. My response is what quarterback's out there for the box. Well, I do think there's a lesson there, though.

What if they just take the exact same strategy that they took last year and say, let's just chill, let's not be aggressive. Let's see which quarterbacks are left when all the seats are taken and what guy we can get to just a short term. We don't want to make a big commitment. They can be competent for us next year. And let's keep taking shots on like a long-term plan.

I actually think that's the right move to make for the box. got to have rock steady job security. You got to know for a fact, right? It's been there for a long time. Yeah, which,

okay, light, sure, if you're, if you're Todd Bowles, right? I mean, like,

you did not walk into this season with job security. And let's be honest, you retain job security because nine and eight was good enough to win the division. That's not going to be the case every year. It might be the case again next year,

for being honest, but it's not going to be the case every year. So if that's what, you know, if it's all right, defense, cheap at quarterback, rotating offensive,

of coordinators, and Mike Evans just never ages, that's tread in water. When you tread water, eventually at some point, you know, the patience runs out from ownership and from the general manager. Like, you need to have direction at quarterback. You need to have a vector, at least in some direction. And I don't think like, all right, you know, let's hang out and then see what Jamis Winston's free agency market looks like.

No, they wouldn't do James. He was in Tampa before. Let's see what was Jacoby Brissette's market looks like. Jacoby Preset, yeah. It's always Jacoby percent. I don't know why I ever thought to try to do a different quarterback besides Jacoby percent, right? Go trade for Sam Howell.

Like, you can only do so many long shots before you have to try to make a commitment somewhere. I don't know. I wouldn't mind a two-year $70 million. No, it's bad. I can't do it. They're in a tough spot, man. Baker Mayfield?

Yeah. No, no, no. I started to say it, and then I was like, no, I can't get there. No, no. I wouldn't want to do it. I will say they are in sort of that middle ground as a franchise. But you know what? If you're a Bucks fan, who cares?

Enjoy this. You don't, you know, there are many fan bases in the NFL that can tell you it's not often. You get to watch your team in the divisional round of the playoffs. And I think if you're a Bucks fan, I always say the best seasons as a fan are the ones that come out of nowhere. And this was a season where you probably had no expectations for your team. And guess what?

They're still playing. They got a playoff win. So nice job. Bye. Jimmy Garoppel, sign with the Raiders, 72 over 3, 24 per. Baker? I would not want to do that personally if I were the bucks. In my head, I'm like, that's fine.

But then I remember how I felt when the Raiders signed Jimmy to that deal. And I was like, this is the worst thing that's ever happened. So it's a difficult reality of the square right now. I don't think he's going to have a monster market even. Listen, if they beat the lions and that's possible, they're only six point underdogs and get to the NFC championship. And he plays really well. We might be having a different conversation. If it's what it is right now, I just don't know that this season totally.

changed his market from what it was last season. All right. My take is a simple one. I'm just, I'm just, you know, I'm looking at this Bill's Steelers and what's ahead. So like, and I'm just saying thank you football guys for giving us Bill's Chiefs, baby. Here we go. Wildcard weekend was about the young bucks. It was about C.J. Stroud and Jordan Love emerging and pulling off upsets and don't get me wrong. I can't wait to watch those guys. We'll talk more about them. But next week to close out, The best weekend of football in the NFL, we get Chief Spills Sunday evening for the third time in four seasons. Two years ago, we got the 13 seconds game. This time, the game is somehow in Buffalo.

Imagine six weeks ago, I told you, the bills will be hosting the cheese in the divisional round, and there'll be favorites. You wouldn't have believed me. Here's what I love about this matchup, So lack. These are imperfect teams. These are great players who are going to be Hall of Famers. who are in the primes of their career. Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, but the teams,

these will not be the best teams these guys play on. They've played on better teams previously. They'll play on better teams in the future. These are not juggernauts. Chiefs looked good against Miami, but we know they've been up and down offensively. Bills got crushed by injuries against the Steelers. I mean, we've got to keep an eye on that all week.

There were guys going out left and right. So we'll see who they have available for that game. But the guy they do have available is Josh Allen. who ran for like 70 yards. And they had a 52, a quarterback having a 52 yard touchdown, run, you know, almost unheard of outside of Colin Kaepernick.

So they've still got him. They can still score offensively. It was just, what, a month ago, week 14, we got a great game in Kansas City, the Cadarius Tony game, Bills win that one, 2017.

So I think, like, these guys got a long way to go, but this will be another chapter in kind of their legacies. I mean, you look at the bills. If they win this game, they will be a game away from reaching the Super Bowl in the most improbable way imaginable.

For the Chiefs, if they go on the... I mean, Patrick Mahomes is going on the roadbed for the first time in his playoff career. Patrick Mahomes is going on the road. We'll be playing a road football game. He has not done this. Will he go there? Will he put this team on his back?

Will he make people like me look incredibly stupid? And he's just saying, I'm dragging this team to the Super Bowl. Bowl. So we will get into this matchup big time in our second show this week, but just my first take, I didn't have anything great off the game in terms of Bill Steelers. It's just a look ahead where we could potentially get a divisional round game that is better than championship weekend, that is better than the Super Bowl, that is just an absolute classic that we're talking about for years to come. So there you go. That's my Bill's take. Yeah, there's one guy the bills do have amongst all the injuries besides Josh Allen that you forgot about. That's every single

at Highmark Stadium. This is a home playoff game, baby. Patrick Mahomes, 14 playoff games in Mahomes' career, three Super Bowl's on a neutral field, 11 AFC playoff games, every single one of them played at Arrowhead,

which I learned this weekend is not actually Arrowhead. It's Geha Field at Arrowhead Stadium, which is made, I don't like that at all, so I don't understand how that works. This would be the first playoff game that Patrick Mahomes plays on the road, straight on the road in his entire career. And if you're at Buffalo,

and the Chiefs have been a bug bear for you in the playoffs, right? You have lost to this team in the playoffs twice now. The second time you did so is the 42 to 36 shenanigans. You've been waiting for this comeuppance, right? Your own two against this team in the postseason, explicitly you have known for years now. You need to be capable of beating 15, beating Kansas City in January in order to go to a Super Bowl.

That's requisite. There's no way around it. You have to plan for that. You now get the game at home. This is the one, especially with what you've been. through to then arrive here, like this is an opportunity. This, I think, I think the, the, the stakes with this being in Buffalo are extremely high.

The moment Patrick Mahomes finds AJ Klein, everything's out the window, right? Kary Elam's out on the field. Everything's out the window. But, but the crowd can do their best to account for that. And that's going to be the hope is that they do. And so for, for Buffalo, again, this game at home is absolutely enormous. The injuries on defense, blow, man, they suck. They are piling up, like, at an unbelievable level.

If they aren't able to get only 20 points out of this Chiefs offense this time around, like they did last time, or 17, excuse me, 17, it will be a heroic performance. And a feather in the cap of the coaching for Sean McDermott, who like, in October, you and I were like, Sean, man, like, what is how? What, this is spiraling is out of control? Here we are, man. I mean, like, that defense has been punching above its weight for months now. And they have to do it again, at an even lower weight, punch even higher above it this Sunday against Mahomes.

What a, what a draw that we ended up getting Kansas City Buffalo. For the Steelers, so like, Tom. So pro football talk was reporting, you know, this week, hey, Mike Tomlin's in the, his last year of his contract is coming up here. What will happen? He was asked about it at the end of his press conference and kind of walked out. Is there any smoke to this? Is I, do you just expect him to be in La Trobe in late July? Like, all right, let's go, let's go finish about 500 and make the playoffs again.

Is it, would you be shocked if later this week? doing an emergency pod because Tomlin's saying, I'm just taking a breather for a year, and then I will come back and coach, like, where are you with some of the smoke around Mike Tomlin and the Steelers? Tomlin is inextricable, right? I mean, like, inextricable.

I don't know if I'm saying that correctly. He's hard to riddle out, Tomlin is. It's just the Steelers have a unique culture, right? Like when I was doing research, I wrote a Tomlin piece a few weeks ago. I was doing research for all the office of coordinators, and none of these guys got fired. they all had their contract expire, right?

This is just how the Steelers do it. They keep you in the building even when I like Canada is the only one who got for Matt Canada. Yeah, act, which you know, this podcast appreciates all that Canada's contributions to the 2020-NFL season. So I fully expect me to be back next year and be coaching next year.

There have obviously been rumblings that oh, maybe he's going to leave his contract year early. And like if Tomlin said, hey, like I'm out of here because like we haven't had postseason success, then like I'll get it. That's justifiable on on his, perspective. It's justifiable in the Steelers perspective if they push that envelope.

It's not going to change my tune though. And the fact that I think Tom was an extremely good coach. Like I'll get it. They're like, we just need a, we need a mutual parting of the ways and start a new era and culture. And we wish you all the best. Like if it's that, then it's that and whatever. Like go for it. You need something new. Sure. I'm going to, I'm going to say on this mic and be waxing poetic about Mike Tom and being a top eight, top five coach until I am presented with multiple years worth of evidence otherwise. Because I just watched Mason Rudolph. playing the wild card round of the playoffs. I watched Miles Jack and Alandon Roberts.

I watched Michael Walker. I saw Eric Roe out there trying to make tackles. Nick Herbig's chasing down Josh Allen, fourth round rookie. What are we talking about? Tom is a very, very, very good coach. If he wants to come back, and if he doesn't, I'm sure we'll learn more about it.

I don't have any unique insight into the inner workings of Pittsburgh. All I know is Tomlin's good at his job. Yeah, I would have him as my number one candidate in this... crowded pool if he were to hit the job market. My Tomlin, Philadelphia's head coach is a nice ring to issue. A nice ring. I think with Tomlin, I mean, you have to, he sets the floor, you know, like the program to call all

the intangible stuff's going to be great. If you can just, you know, find the offensive coordinator. You're in a great spot. Now, I do just wonder if sometimes guys just need a break. We like, we'd never really consider that. He's been coaching for 17 years. He's been coaching the Pittsburgh Steelers. Like, that's a long time.

Maybe it's just like, I want to breathe there. You know, we're not going to like compete for a Super Bowl next year. I'm going to take a year off and then we'll see what I feel like doing after that. I mean, I don't think that's like out of the realm of possibilities. And I know Steelers fans probably listen to it. Like there is a difference between how people like me and you view Tomlin and then as people like your dad and other Steelers fans, you know, view Tomlin. They're looking at this saying, yeah, we're always above 500 and we don't have horrible seasons. But it's been seven years, I think, since they've won a playoff game.

So I get that too. and it's, you know, they have a quarterback question. They have stuff to figure out there as well. So that's just something to keep an eye on. I thought I throw that question your way as, again, this is going to be an active week. I feel like there's going to be some surprises. And if you're wondering why we didn't mention Nick Siriani or the Eagles as one of those

surprises as well, as Solek said, go listen to the ringers, Philly special. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to some other stuff around the league. All right. We are back on Extra Point. Take and all right. So like, I'm very curious where you're going with the rest of your takes here. Are you going to have had coaching stuff or is there, is there specific stuff you want to get to from Wild Card Weekend? What do you got? Hit me with your second take.

Oh, yeah. With the cheese head on with the part of it nibbled away because my dog started eating it earlier today. Jordan loves the 2024 league MVP, right? We're in on this. You would say? You didn't it? Well, I decided between him and CJ Stroud. Yeah. Yep. I, so I was thinking about that. When I go to remember, this 2024, 2023, excuse me, NFL season,

I'm going to remember it as the Jordan love year. I think that's how I'm going to contextualize this year, which like, and I love Stroud.

I'm obsessed to Stroud. Stroud's incredible. Stroud's amazing. Straussman and a better than love. The fact that we're getting this preview of what the playoffs is going to look like for the next 10 years between these two guys,

give me a Packers, Texas, Super Bowl every single season for the next six seasons. Like, they're both unbelievable to watch. But I'll tell you why it's love for me in terms of why it's this season. Firstly,

the vibe shift, the tone change, the key change in Green Bay. If you sit back, I sat back to like, like you write a little timeline in the notes and whatever, and it was just astonishing.

Three years ago, Sheel, like the COVID year, even before the COVID year, Adam Schefter reporting a 2021 NFL draft, but that was after the COVID year. But Aaron Rogers might, leave and he wants to take over the front office and he's making demands.

If Rogers comes to camp, I'm not making demands. I just think that all these players should be here in the front office is bad, and I miss Ted Thompson and just hard. They're winning a ton of games and nobody's happy. Devante Adams is traded away, and Rogers is becoming more and more belligerent, but he's also winning MVP's and does he hate Jordan Love? Does he like Jordan Love?

Was the Jordan Love Pick a waste? He's talking openly about the Jordan Love Pick on the Kyle Brant podcast, that why wasn't it a wide receiver? Like, it was so hostile, so unbelievably contentious within Green Bay. And they just went from that to not just we have a good quarterback, but we have like what might be like a truly great quarterback. I, for the first time in my career, in my life, I did what I promised I would never do. And I said, this guy's kind of like Mahomes when I was watching Love playing against Dallas last week.

just in terms of watching love move and just the looseness, the athleticism, the twitch, right? Just the way in the pocket, he's just like, and I'm dropping back, go, where am I going? I can throw this. It's young Bahams. It's not a wonder-to-one comparison. He's not as good instructor, timing, accuracy. There's a bunch of other stuff. But just the freedom of movement, the looseness in the athleticism, it evokes 15.

And I promise I would never do it, but it does. And then there's the joy. There's the complete. total and utter joy. He is so, so happy to be the quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, playing well, playing better week over week with his teammates. And like that might not be true forever. You know, we might get, I guess 10 years down the road

and Jordan Love's made a trillion dollars and he's got problems with how Brian Good can sit X, Y, and Z, and we have to do this whole cycle again. But for right now, the changed experience from the Packers to, we are a team that is committed to Aaron Rogers, and we're trying to make a postseason run out of this, the Super Bowl run out of this. As a fact, we've been doing it for 15 years and the vibe is horrendous. To we're just the youngest team in the league shooting.

We might drop 48 on Jerry in Dallas. Everybody cool at that? Who's next? The Niners? Let's do it. 90 total points in the game. Let's live a little. It is so healthy for the team.

It's so healthy for the players, shield. Think about how good this postseason experience is for them. Think about how precious this is. They have now experienced a home, excuse me, a road playoff game in Dallas, which was unbelievable home field advantage all year, right? and they've experienced that, that win, that uproarious win. They know what it feels like now. Jane Reed, Dontavian Wick, Zach Tom,

Carrington, Valentine, Azam McDuffie, Lucas Van Ness, Rishon-Garie, they know what it feels like to go into a way stadium like that and win that game, and now they're going to face the Niners. And if they get the breaks beaten off them by the Niners, if they get absolutely waxed by the Niners, which is very possible, then they'll know what it feels like to go up against a true contender, and they'll know what that is. They'll know the character of it.

They'll felt it against their pads. That's what it feels like when you're truly an elite team, when you are a Super Bowl team. Those lessons are amazing. And they're being shepherded through those lessons by Jordan Love, who just is getting better week over week and is loving playing week over week. And the culture is unbelievable. It is so pure. It's so good. They are fast and they're physical and they hustle and they tackle and they try and they effort and they love the place.

They're running over to their teammates. They score touchdowns. And Jordan loves throwing sidearm trick shots through three. It's just, it's so cool. I love these Packers so much. Extra point taking team of the season, baby. We told you they made the playoffs. We won a playoff game.

We didn't tell you they were going to do that. We didn't think they were going to do that either. They did that. I didn't think they were going to do that until they did it, man. It was unbelievable game. But the tone shift is incredible and the caliber of play. Love looks unbelievable. And he might not keep getting better and better just like he has the season.

Like a development's never linear. But man, man, the Packers nailed this. They just nailed it. Kudos to them. When I think of the 2020 three season, I'll think of the 20-20-Bad Packers. So there were multiple times in there I thought about interjecting, interrupting you, but for those who can't see the video, and maybe this will be the video for social. So like put on the cheesehead, but then he's got these headphones on that would not stay on with the cheesehead. So he has been holding like the padding of the headphones on his ears the whole time. So I'm like, I'm not, I just want to see how long he can do this. I have notes and I wanted to scroll, but I couldn't really put a hand down. And now I was just going off the dome. Yeah. So that, I mean, first of all, Jordan Love is a wildly entertaining quarterback, and that was wildly entertaining for me to watch you have to do that at 1.30 in the morning. Yeah, I've had a lot of bad takes on this pod. The one maybe I'm most proud of this year is like a month ago when you asked me if I would sign Jordan Love to the Daniel Jones contract. And I said, if I'm his agent, I'm not taking the Daniel Jones contract. Yes, sir. Because we deserve more. And now he's legitimately should be paid.

Like a top five quarterback. I'm sorry. That's not hyperbole. I mean, this guy is incredible. I honestly don't know how many quarterbacks I would take over him. It's everything you say, you know what else I love about it? You can tell, like, he is not the finished product. He will miss throws.

There's footwork stuff. Like, there are things in his game where you say, oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, you remind yourself, this is the first time starting quarterback. But holy cow, the smarts, the guts on this guy, the types of throws he's, willing to attempt the athletic. The arm is so loose. Oh, my guy.

He's wildly entertaining to watch. I mean, you said Mahomes, and I don't want to fall into the trap, but just saying it looks like the guy he replaced. But I think it was Dan Pezuda, who was tweeting out clips. And there's one clip of him where it's just the end zone angle. And I'm just like, this looks exactly like Aaron Rogers. Like, I just, I'm supposed to be doing other work, and I just watched it 12 times in a row. You can see moments where, because he watched,

so much Rogers film, he does a Rogers thing. Right. Right. That's what he's... Yeah, it's like an impression of Rogers. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's an impersonation, but it's a very honorable one.

It's a good one. Next five years, Lover Stroud. Pick. Well, you know me because I will be nerdy and incorporate the contract, and I will say Stroud because I'm getting more on the rookie deal, and Jordan Lov's going to have to get paid sooner. Next five years, Loverboro, same deal. Oh, God.

That's your boy. But he's had two season ending injuries. Yeah, I will still go burrow. He's shown it to me longer, but I did have to think about it for a little bit. Next five years, love or hurts? Love. Yes. I just wanted a clip.

I just needed one social clip to get you in someone's bad graces. Now I got it. I actually said that last week, but I said you would have to get maybe, you know, maybe you get a couple of drinks in me and I would do it. But then after what I watched this weekend, I can just drink this water and be Are you a hot take artist when you're buzzed? I got to get shield a little tips here. No, but I mean, I don't know.

Sometimes you get a little looser, you know? You're thinking about something and then you just say it. Yeah, that could potentially be the case. So I'm with you. And by the way, we have not mentioned Matt LaFleur, who I just, I don't understand. And I don't like, I feel like when I say this, it comes off like I am, you know, some people in the media. I have never met. I know Matt LaFleur.

I've never met the man. I could be walking down the street. How does he not get more credit? I mean, the guy has won 60, what, 8% of his games, okay? He got Aaron Rogers, they won, what, 13 games, three years in a row? Guess what we've learned since Aaron Rogers' time in Green Bay ended? It's probably not that easy to spend that much time with Aaron Rogers and get that type of performance out of him while still keeping everyone else on the team and in the organization together. That's not easy.

Then in the first year post-Aaron Rogers, you take a first-time starter, you take the youngest supporting cast in the NFL, you go through, ups and downs. You start two and five. And guess what? Now you look like the most dangerous team in the NFL. That was by EPA per pass play, the most efficient quarterback performance in the NFL this season that's on the road against the Dallas Cowboys as seven point underdogs. And a ton of it was schemed. Tone of it was teamed up. Yes. Some of those throw, I mean, like credit, he got the ball there. But yeah, he's throwing it. He's just like, all right, I'm throwing it up. Wait, what happened to all the Cowboys defenders? They're not on my screen. This guy is completely wide open.

So Lefleur, love, it's just like, there are a lot of winners from Wild Card Weekend. But if you're a Packers fan, like you said, they could lose 38 to 7 against the 49ers. And it doesn't matter. You're going to be feeling great this offseason. It would be honestly, like that loss, again, you have to see the character of it. It could be a huge springboard for them long term because it reminds you what you don't look like yet. It exposes you. When you go up against a truly elite team and you get beat around, it could be a really good.

experience for you on the floor man i i when i wrote about love in like october and i was basically just like hey like on every play someone makes a mistake like like you know i i uh rscied walkers making a mistake exact i was like christian watson romeo dobbs jane reid someone's screwing up like they're just so young and then loves making his own mistakes and so there it was just so hard to see what what the floor was cooking right it was just tough because every all the details were were missed they were failed right and so it would just everything would be a near miss near miss And if you go back and you read those Matt LaFloor press conferences, he was so frustrated.

You could tell how pissed he was. He hated losing. He was not used to it. He would tell he was, and like, ever just making dumb mistakes that he was like, he'd been telling all these young players, like, don't make this dumb mistake.

And they would do it. You could tell he was pissed. But you could also tell that he saw it. Like, on the outside, you couldn't see what he was cooking. You could tell he was like, if we just like can get three more weeks under our belt

without imploding and without like you guys, like the media ruining this. Like, if I could just get another month, I promise we'll get it. You would tell he knew he could get it around the corner. And that's so many coaches would get frustrated. And then now guys are benched and they wouldn't know how to get to their guys. This guy needs this sort of criticism.

That guy needs that sort of building up confidence, whatever, you know, tough love, easy love. He got whatever alchemy it was, whatever concoction he got it right. And that's just, there's no way to quantify that and put it on a stat and put it on a graph and share it on Twitter and get him coach of the year votes. But man, like, that arc, this arc for the Packers is just. been a joy to watch. And then he just waxed Dan Quinn for four quarters. And what a crowning achievement? So fun to see.

Touchdowns on six of seven. Yeah, they really are a joy to watch. I'm with you. I mean, now I will say this. You mentioned if they get waxed, it could be the good thing for them. Packers fans, no, like, don't take the seasons for granted when you have a chance to do something special.

I don't know. They're performing like a top five offense. I don't know who I'm going to pick in that game and we'll save 49ers. are big favorites, but you never know when these seasons come around. Weird things happen. You had a great call last week where you were saying, maybe the CJ Stroud Texans will be this version of the Joe Burrow Bengals from a couple of years ago.

You know what other team could potentially be that? Packers. My two wildcard teams are still alive and kicking baby, lions and Texans. Listen, Packers Lions, NFC championship game, Ford Field. Come on, come on. It'd be fun. There you come. All right. My second take, all right. So that was, that was very, take this off now. My shoulder is so tired. You can take that off now. You're probably sweating.

You can, your headphones will stay on. He's got the hat on. Give him play by play here. See, I thought of myself, I was like, I was like just pull the shield, show on, show up with the AirPods. But then I was like, he'll know that I'm coming with the cheesehead. I don't want to spoil the surprise. You would have. I like this. This was like the great clip, the ringer clip that was circulating about whether, you know, Sean Fennacy could hold the two. What was it, dumbbells out? and how long. So that was kind of like your version of that. How long can you hold the headphones up on your head? So there you go. All right. My next one is not as fun.

I have to be a little critical. Take two. Sean McVeigh's blind spot cost the Rams in Wild Card Weekend. I knew you were coming with this. The second you said you had Rams, I was like, we're doing clock management, baby. Listen, McVeigh is a great coach. He has been in the playoffs five to seven seasons.

He's had a winning record. in six of seven seasons. He's been to the Super Bowl twice. He's won one. But he has a blind spot. And it's been obvious through all those seasons. And I'm sure it's something he tries to work on here and there. But he has not fixed it.

And it is his in-game management. He builds these brilliant, efficient, versatile offenses. And then he doesn't trust them in big spots. And in Sundays lost to the Lions, it cost him in a big way. What am I talking about? First half, 59 seconds left. Rams are down 2117.

They've got three timeouts. Yes, they're backed up inside their own 10. But you know what? The offense is on fire. The defense looks terrible. And so what do they? And they've got a veteran quarterback. It's a close game.

And what do they do? They run the ball once and then they take a knee. You cannot afford to waste a possession there. I know they're backed up. You can't just think what's the worst case scenario. We're backed up. We're going to turn the phone. They turn the football over on 8% of their possessions.

Okay, that's what we're talking about here. I would argue that percentage is even lower because you have a veteran quarterback and you know that you can't turn the football there. So I would say it's even lower. That's the percentage we're talking about. You can't coach against the worst case scenario. I also know that their kicking situation isn't great. Guess what?

You still try. You don't get penalized if you try a 48-yard field. If you get to the drive the ball, get a 48-yard field goal and you miss it. You don't like end the game and say, game is over. you tried that and it failed. And guess what? Maybe the guy makes one. I think the guy made a 54-yarder later in the game.

Again, so he had eight offensive possessions. You had a quarterback who was dealing. You had a defense that was not playing well. You had a wide receiver that was out of his freaking mind. Talk about young players who are just like taking over the NFL Puka Nakua. Couldn't have making catches in traffic. Could not be tackled. And you waste a possession.

So that annoyed me. because you lost the game by one freaking point. Think about it at the end of the game. If they would have said, hey, McVeigh, we got the special rule. We're going to give you 59 seconds. You have to drive like 65 yards with three timeouts. And if you score a field goal, you take the lead. Would they want that opportunity?

Of course they would. But they threw that opportunity away earlier in the game. All right. Then second thing here, Solac. Second half, they use these two timeouts early in the half. There's 13 minutes left in the game. and they have one timeout left. They were trying to avoid delay of games.

I understand it happens. You're on the road. It's loud. You were there. But this consistently happens with the Rams. And I know Stafford called the timeouts. I don't care. It's an operational thing.

Michael Lopez does data and analytics for the NFL tweeted out this graphic. Sean McVeigh waste more timeouts than any coach in the NFL. They needed those timeouts in the end where the lions are chewing up the clock. Maybe the Lions would have, you know, made them waste those timeouts and it wouldn't have mattered anyway. But you know what? You need those down the stretch of a close game. So, McVeigh, he does many things well. One of the best coaching jobs in the NFL this season, no doubt about it.

But in these close games, this was a one-point game. The little things matter. It's a combination of being too conservative, ignoring like the data, the analytics, and not being buttoned up with the operational stuff. This has been going on for years with McVeigh. Not only McVeigh, there are other coaches too. He often overcomes it. But the man owes it to himself, to the players, to the organizations, to everyone, try to improve here.

A couple different decisions in that game. I'm telling you, we could be talking about a different outcome and a Rams upset. So there you go. I had to do it. Again, I try to pick my spots with this kind of thing. That one really irked me. In the playoffs, it's in the spotlight. Sean McVey, got to do better there.

It's, oh, you know, the Packers lose to the Niners. They get blown out. It'll show you what you don't have. McVey loses the Dan Campbell. I'll tell you, Dan Campbell, manager clock. He'll manage the end of a game. He'll go for a fourth down. He is very good at it.

He does not coach scared. And when you go and you look up at that scoreboard, a second half, and your lines held only three points in the entire second half. Rams have been chipping away at that lead. You're looking up at it and you feel like, man, like the Rams are catching up. The scoreboard should be telling me the Rams of the better team, why am I looking up at this and feeling queasy? It's because I can see the three timeouts on Detroit's side

and I can see the one timeout on the ram side, right? Detroit got the ball back, four minutes left. I'm in the stadium and I started doing the math. Okay, two clock stoppages. They need eight plays. They just need eight plays to salt us away. Four minutes left, they should eight plays. And they took them like seven, right?

Because they got the first down, then they just kind of kneeled it. You can't be in that spot. You really can't. Now, I will say there's a little bit, like, okay, Sean McVey takes the most, wasted timeouts. Some of this is structural, right?

It just sounds weird. When you run this sort of offense, where the Rams shifted and motioned on 90% of their play shield. I love going to games live because you just, you just experience things differently. It's one thing to watch it on film and be like, yep, shift motion. Okay, shift motion, shift motion. I got my tunes going.

My brain's kind of turned off. Watching it live, I'm like, will you stop? Every play with this. Shift motion, shift motion. And the poor, lion's safety. Oh my gosh. You deep, me, go and I run across everything. And you see the chaos that it causes. But when you shift in motion that much, you use a ton of the play clock and Stafford, Stafford is collecting defensive tells as you shift all those players around.

So if all of a sudden Stafford feels like they're not in a good call for what he's learned from the defense, he doesn't go up to get to the line and try to change a play. He's doing it. The first time out they took in the second half, he was at six seconds on the clock. He was trying to move Kyron Williams up and then take him back and then, okay, shoot, we got a call a timeout. So so much of the shifts in the motion Helps Pook and Nakua go nine for nine for 180 yards of the score And then the cost is you run the risk

Of some of these delayed games, some of these timeouts That's the unfortunate thing It's like I wish you could just be like Alright Sean Stop taking that timeout and then go But some of it is like in the structure Of what it makes his offense so good With that said

It should probably be okay Taking a delay a game, right? I was going to say that in the second half And I haven't read anything like definitive On this whether you should be doing that or not, but that's how I feel with you, especially in the second half, right? Honestly, it's such an interesting conversation about the edges that make up success and failure in an NFL game. You and I talk about a scheme and personnel and clock and time management,

quarterback play and matchups and all this nonsense. You know what the Rams are going to be working on this offseason? You know what Sean's going to assign to one of his coaching assistants? How do we improve our process for getting play calls in and for signaling motions on the road? Like that, no one thinks about that. No one writes about that. that. I wrote 3,000 words about this game. I don't write a single thing about that. That's what it's going to be. When Sean looks back on this game, he's going to like, if we were just a little bit better getting our calls inexpediently in that environment and then signaling our motions a little bit earlier, getting lined up and hustling, I wouldn't have

wasted those timeouts. We would have gotten the ballback. We were like, that's how he's going to think about things. And so that being the weakness of Sean, like tells a lot more of a story about his offense and about his system that I think you realize. But to go up against Dan Campbell, who, you know, who motions the second motion in the league? I think, well, I think it's one is the Rams like two is the Niners or whatever. The lines are right up there. And lines had the home stadium and they had the advantage and they don't have as many those procedural issues. And Dan Campbell tends to have his timeouts when he needs them. And so it's an area for McVeigh to improve absolutely. And it's right to be highlighted because they lost

and they lost a one point game and very thin margins. And the timeouts were pretty much the deciding factor for the last four minutes. Yeah, the end of the first half thing, honestly, for me personally, annoys me more because that's just in your control. Like trust, come on, trust yourself, trust your players, trust the quarterback, and go and try and score. Don't be thinking about, well, if we turn the ball over here, it's a disaster. Like, you should not be thinking that way. You're losing. You're losing by four points in this game.

The lines had gone up and down the field because, I mean, you gave a great explanation for why the timeouts, why that would happen. I'm sure that would probably be his explanation. And I can say you just take the delay a game, but I think both of those were on third down. So now all of a sudden, you're going third and even longer. Well, you don't want that either. It's like a high leverage spot. It's not first in 10

where you have multiple chances to make up for those five yards. So that's harder. But the, you know, and this is like a continuation again with McVeigh. So he does all the big stuff like so, so well at an elite level.

It's just the little things in these games, these close games that can be the difference with the game management. So I wanted to bring it up there. All right. What do you got? You got your third take. Okay.

Two wildcard losers, Sheel, are teetering on precipices of mass destruction and freakout. The Dallas Cowboys and the Miami Dolphins. One of them should walk away from the ledge. They're fine. The other one, it's probably the mass destruction time, and the freak out would be justified, understandable,

and I think it makes sense. Do you have a guess as to which is which? All right. So my third take is actually about the Dallas Cowboys. All right, so one you're saying, don't panic. when you're saying you're absolutely right to panic I think you would probably

you now I'm getting inside your head get inside my head the dolphins have to panic you would say and the cowboys don't have to panic I don't know I'm very disappointed

I thought we knew each other No let's say dolphins don't have to panic I don't think the dolphins need to panic I'll tell you why firstly to contextualize dolphins did their exit interviews today right my McDaniel Chris Greer speaking

some big highlights, right, asked about Christian Wilkins, who they were trying to negotiate a contract with, defensive tackle, and Chris Greer said, you know, he wanted to prove a year, he played unbelievable,

he's earned the right to be a free agent. It's like, wait, what did you just say? He's earned a right to be the free agent, so he's not, you let him walk, okay,

like, all right, we're just, we're just saying it in January, I guess. Mike McDaniel was asked during this press conference, did you think at all about giving up

offensive play calling? Which I'm, I'm qualifying that as the sign of like, okay, they're close enough to the precipice that I can put them in this conversation. Asking Mike McDaniel, have you thought about giving an offensive play calling? Once you hit the office of play call or change, you're kind of in a tricky spot. Asking you to Mike McDaniel is astonishing to me. I'm starting the next show by asking you if you're thinking about giving a podcast.

All I do, every time, hey, pops, how you been, family doing good, dogs are you good? You've been thinking about giving up play calling at all? Just checking and interesting. I think there's a warranted conversation between separating Mike McDaniel, the schemer, designer who is, in my opinion, unparalleled even amongst Kyle Shanahan and the rest of the league, relative to Mike McDaniel, the guy who says plays

into a Mike on a Sunday, because he should have just up paralleled even amongst Kyle Shanahan? Yeah. Woo! Yeah. No, in terms of in terms of stuff, X's and O's stuff done, I mean, like Kyle's offense has been dramatically affected by what

Mike's been doing in Miami the last two years. Like, Mike has become... Well, the best coach is steal. Yes, I'm just saying, I'm saying, in terms of Again, in terms of the scheme or the designer, the innovator, like Mike is there. This is the offense that completely sucked on Saturday. We're talking about the same team. Yeah, well, they're planning.

Go ahead. I'm interrupting you. That was not supposed to be the feature part of this day, shield. Mike, the play caller, I think there's some warranted criticism. I think he got away from running the ball too much too often this year. I do think that's fair. With that said, the number one reason why the dolphins don't need to walk away from the precipice, in my opinion.

or excuse me, they don't need to fall for Christmas. They can walk away. They don't need to panic. It's because of the absence of the absence of Jalen Phillips and Andrew Van Ginkle and Bradley Chubb. Because of the absence of Xavier and Howard, the absence of Javan Holland. This was an extremely banged up team in the second half of the season, especially on defense. Offensive line, they had injuries. They lost Robert Hunt.

They lost Connor Williams. Toronto Arms that was in and out. They lost Rahim Moster. They lost Jalen Waddle. They had a lot of injuries. That happens. It does. And the good coaches coach around it,

I think they generally, like, Vic Fangio kept this defense afloat with some bad personnel, some personnel gaps, I think for quite some time. I don't think they failed to clear that bar. I just think the injuries really, really counted up on them as late, which made it hard for them to hold the bills off from the division, and then counted against them as well in that loss of the Chiefs. You also lost a game in 30-degree weather.

You're going to, like, you're the dolphins. You're going to be bad in cold weather. You've lived in Miami. I strongly disagree with this. this day. I don't want to interrupt you again, but yeah, finish your. Go ahead. What you got? I mean, they were one in six with a minus one 10 point differential against playoff teams this year. They had one win against the Dallas Cowboys. Their offense on their final 16 possessions of the season, one game with the AFC East on the line, the other game with their season on the line, the playoffs. They scored one touchdown on 16 possessions. And then the biggest reason why I would be,

panicking if I were a Miami Dolphins fan and they're not going to want to hear it. We just talked about Jordan Love and C.J. Strout and Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes, can your guy, I mean, to a tongue of high law, can he match them on a playoff run for three games to get to the Super Bowl? I don't think so. I'll tell you to take I was workshopping that I didn't include the show was that the dolphins cannot pay to a tug of my law. This off season. The reason why I strongly disagree. The reason why I wanted to let you go is I figured that you would land there.

And that's because I haven't said the name yet. I haven't named the quarterback yet. I've been talking around him. I think there's a lot of mitigating factors for why the dolphins lost in the margins and they had a lot of personal deficiencies late in the season. Now, the absolute number one reason why the dolphins were losing games late in the season and against playoff teams is Tua. Tua is not good enough to consistently go up against playoff defenses and beat them.

He doesn't have the talent. And that's been evident on Tua for a while. Tua has been a system quarterback. He's been a limited quarterback. He's been elevated by the personnel, has been elevated by the scheme. It's been my number on Tua since day one. He played that game against the charges in week one.

And I was like, holy smokes, this might be new Tua. And then kind of by week six, week seven, new Tua was gone. And we were back with what we had. You said they absolutely can't pay them. I wouldn't pay them. Right. If I run another show, I wouldn't pay him. I'd be looking for quarterback alternatives this year. I would try to get them into the building. You're approaching. He's on his fifth year option to be clear. So he's under contract for 2024.

The fifth year option on Tua. What I will say is, I have some evidence that you can pay him because the Niners paid Jimmy and kept that thing chugging for years and then stumbled on a seventh round rookie who could do much of the same stuff, plug and chucked him in there. Hey, it turns out he was even better than the old guy. And they kept it stepping. The Ram, paid golf. And then a year later, we're trying to trade that contract. And they found Matthew Stafford, and they sent multiple first round picks, got Stafford in the building, and won a Super Bowl. There are,

the mistake of paying the quarterback is not the same death knell that it used to be, especially in an offense like this, where you can plug a lot of guys in and be successful. Slash, if you plug a high-impact guy in, it really

wants the system up to the next level, you can do an insane amount of stuff. And so I don't think they should pay to it. But if you're a Dolphins fan listening being like, they pay to it, like, I'm going to freak out, they're going to ruin the team. I don't think they are. I think we've seen this system get away with it and paying a guy that overpaying him, they probably shouldn't pay, and then being able to scroll their way out of it.

Now, you have to scroll your way and you have to be really good at the skill positions, right? And like, Tyreeks not getting any younger, right? So you have a really good system of guys right now. don't want to be wasting what you just got from Rahim Moster, like actually a healthy season from Rahim, that's down the drain. Like, that was a big waste. Tyreeks approaching 30, like, that hamstring's

going to go. Tariq's getting nicked up, like every other game at this point. Like, you do have to acknowledge that this is, this is a good window for your skill positions. You shouldn't just be wasting. It's being like, oh, if we pay to it, we'll recover. Don't worry about it. But I think Mike and this offense is so potent right now across

the league that they can roll to a bag out there next year and still be very successful, and they can pay to a, and even if I think it's a huge mistake, once they figure out it's a huge mistake, I think we'll be able to get out of it and be just fine. And so I don't think you need to panic as much in Miami about the Tua situation as it would initially appear. I mean, I'm just looking at the way they ended their season. I mean, 22 points against the, now I don't have all the advanced numbers, but 22 points against the Cowboys, 19 points against the Ravens, 14 points against the Bills, and then seven points against

the Chiefs. I mean, like the offense didn't have answers. down the stretch. It's the second year in a row. They were much better in the beginning of the season than they were at the end of the season. Can you get out of bad quarterback contracts? Yes, that's not the goal. Like, you don't want to be in a situation where you do that. You mentioned it. Tyree Kill's going to be what 30 next year? Israeli Most are going to be healthy next year? Jailen Ramsey is another year older next year? Like, what is their path to competing for a Super Bowl next year? Is it just that the defense stays healthier and lifts them? Like the offense, do you think, like, like, Like the offense is not going to be better next year than it was this year unless Mike McDaniel now has a plan C. But again, down the stretch of this year, you know, he wasn't really coming up with answers that were stifling these great offenses. And they built a lot of their resume against teams that were not great this season. I still like Mike McDaniel. I agree that he's a bright offensive mind. But I just see a ceiling on this version of the dolphins.

And I don't see a path next year for them getting better. I see them as more likely a team that's. going to take a step back. Like they, like they really should be looking for who is the quarter. I mean, too, yes,

the weather was horrible. I understand it. I mean, there were like three, like throws behind the line of scrimmage in the first half of that game in short yardage where if he makes those, we might be talking about a different game. It wasn't just,

it's not. And then, yeah, I mean, the physical, I think he's a good quarterback. He's accurate. There's stuff he does well.

Absolutely. He's better than I thought he was going to be when he came into the league. He had a very good. regular season. But there are just aspects of, you mentioned, you said talent, which, yes, there are just limitations physically to what he can do compared to what other people can do that would have me, like, I think it puts a little bit of a cap on your, unless you, unless you land one of these years where, you know, like, like you said, Jimmy Garoppolo got to a Super Bowl. It's not like you can't do it, but is that what you're going for?

Jared Goff got to the Super Bowl in 2018, right? He got there. He was, that was the year. He got punked by Fangio. He got punked by the Eagles. And then obviously, we also have the Super Bowl, and then they extended him in 2019, and then they won a Super Bowl in 2021 with Matthew Stafford, right? I think that I can't stress this enough. I think it would be a mistake to pay to it, and I've been of that opinion for a couple years. I think it's a lot easier to recover from that mistake than we realize. Five or six years ago, like the whence $30 million dead sounded like like absolute hell on earth, right? It was like they can't escape. Now it's like, yeah, swallow it and go. You know what I'm saying? The teams have gone a lot better at

working around that. The other thing is, okay, if they make the mistake, I think that they can recover a lot better. Let's say they don't make the mistake. And it becomes known league-wide that the Mike McDaniel Dolphins-Tyke-Hill quarterback job is open. Let's say Kirk Cousins get word that that job might be open. Is Kirk going anywhere else? Not a chance, right? And so it's a good job to land a guy if and when they decide to pull the trigger. So I think, I think there are a lot more capable of a, a recovery from a two of a mistake than I think it. I think it's, the national perception would have it be. And B, they're probably also just more capable of winning with two

than we expect them to be. They were really unhealthy this year. And that, I think, has to go acknowledged as they now exit the postseason. That's why my dolphins panic is not as close to the precipice as I think it is for a lot of people. Okay. Mine is much higher. Let's take a break. And then let's get to your Cowboys one.

And then I'll finish with my Cowboys take. All right. We're back on extra point taking. Last thing all that, just Tehran Armstead is old. Like, they got some premium. Toronto Armstead. Jail and Rams. Tyree killed. These are all guys over 30.

This timeline is like supposed to be now. So I don't know if they do anything this offseason or just run it back. But we'll talk more about the dolphins throughout the offseason. So you think the Cowboys should be panicking then, I guess. The Cowboys went 12 and 5 in 2021. And then they went 12 and 5 in 2022. And then they went 12 and 5 in 2023. And they have not, yes, they have not yet to appear in a conference championship game.

And I think that's highly problematic. It's the only time it's happened, right? I think I saw that status somewhere. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I was supposed to be the kicker of that. I forgot to say, it's like two in the morning. It's okay. This era last late Monday night pod.

All right, we're getting through it. Yes. The Dallas Cowboys, what's the hallmark win of the Mike McCarthy era with the Cowboys? What was that one win where you were like, man, they really overperformed my expectations in this game against a good opponent? I mean, the Lions game this year was a great game, but I wouldn't qualify it as that.

No. Yeah. Has there been one? They killed the Eagles this year. Yeah, that beat the Eagles. But again, like that. Yeah, that game felt like a big deal. It's kind of cheapened afterward.

Honestly, I'm looking back on it, kind of the most impressive thing was the Cooper Rush Rod to start 2022. Oh, hey, win with the backup. Nice. Like, they haven't really done, had some wins where you're like, wow. Like, what a, what a, a defining win

for the Miami McCarthy era? What a feather in the cap for the Mike McCarthy era. McCarthy and hired Dan Quinn, right? Dan Quinn's going to be our DC, and Dan Quinn's largely been a good DC, and they've been successful, and they've had a ton of turnovers, and they've been a top-rank defense.

Yet they keep running into Sheal the most common system in the league, in the Shanahan system, and getting deleted, right? And they just continue to field lighter and lighter defensive tackles and lighter linebackers, and I wonder why they can't. stop the run. The Dan Quinn, like, defense, it's been solved for a bit. It's been solved since 2016.

They're just trying to kind of live on the talent of players offensively. Kellan Moore for the first two years. Then Kellynne Moore's out of the building. Mike McCarthy's in the building. Dak Prescott had a ton of interceptions. Oh, now he's really good. Kudos to Mike McCarthy. Are we sure?

Because it feels like it's just Dak making great throws, right? They went and they got Brandon Cook. Like, that was the big addition to the wide receiver room. I think overall that was like it didn't hit the way that they really wanted it to hit. They sent Amari Cooper out, expecting Michael Gallup to kind of pick up a lot of that slack. I don't really think that hit the way they wanted it to hit. Jake Ferguson for Dalton Schultz was nice. Zeke Elliott out of the building and Tony Pollard, he's going to be our bell cow back. I don't really think that was as successful as they wanted it to be. The Tyva Smith

draft pick, left tackle to guard was nice. But overall, like, I haven't seen really McCarthy elevated this offense over three years. I'm not sure what, what McCarthy's doing besides winning regular season games he should win. And certainly winning them by a lot of points and very big home winning margins and okay that's great whatever but with with dallas you've paid a quarterback in dac and he's very good and you had a coach and jason garrett who was producing winning seasons like you already established that good in the regular season not successful in the postseason doesn't cut it i i am a dac apologist i tend to think that's very good uh i don't feel like i've seen him with a great coach right between jason garret and mike mccarthy a guy who can really

prepare and shepherd a team through like critical regular season games and end of the postseason but also I'm getting kind of sick and tired of bad DAC performances in the postseason. And what's going to get his head right? Does it need to be a new head coach? Doesn't need to be a new voice in him in his headset. Like overall, if you look at the numbers, he's not bad in the postseason at all. But his last two multi-interception games have been the Niners loss and now the Packers lost, right? Like there's just been tough DAC performances in the postseason that are eventually that

becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It becomes something that you're aware of as a team, aware of as a building. why haven't we had postseason success with the guy? What? Besides the Bill Belichick big swing, there was like all they were going to get Belichick in there. Okay, well, like, Belichick is clearly an elevation on McCarthy. Clearly a liftover McCarthy.

Besides that, like, what are you going to fire McCarthy and it's a higher? Ben Johnson? And you're just like, we're going to get a young offensive innovator. We're going to try to McVeigh this. Like, I guess like, if you hit, you hit, and that's incredible. But they've been up against it for so long. They've been up against the ceiling for so long. you start to get exasperated.

You start to just get flummoxed. You reach the end of your rope and you're just holding on, trying, hoping something's going to come for you. Like, Dan Quinn keeps being an issue for you in the postseason. But can you move on from Dan Quinn? The defense has been good. Dak Prescott's been an issue for you in big games.

You've been an issue for you against the Niners from multiple seasons. But you can move on from Dak? Dak's certificate. He was an MVP candidate two months ago. Something in the alchemy isn't working here in Dallas. And there's one name I haven't mentioned the same way. didn't mention Tua and the Dolphins thing. It's Jerry Jones, right?

This is the football czar here in Dallas. And the football czar has not gotten to a conference championship game, Sheel. And that's why if I were a Cowboys fan, I've been panicking a little bit because I have now seen a lot of combinations of a lot of very good players make it to the postseason. And the Cowboys continue to underperform and be underprepared, under different coaches against different opponents. It's very frustrating. and it's not an easy thing to diagnose.

You just kind of chalk it up to, okay, the postseason's hard, this sucks. But I was born in 97. You know that one Dallas Cowboys Conference Championship game I watched? Me neither. It didn't exist. It wasn't real, right? It's not in my lifetime.

And so if you're Dallas, you kind of feel like you've got an empty deck. So what are we supposed to do about this? Where we just, every year, follow of ourselves in the postseason. It's very frustrating stuff for Dallas. So I think DAC is good. I don't think Mike McCarthy's that great

a coach. I think if they made a change, then that could possibly bring, possibly bring good things. I think if they made a defensive scheme change, a year for making an offensive scheme change, and maybe there's some positives out of that. Michael Parsons, Trayvon Diggs comes back. They have some stars, but I don't know. I don't have a nice, happy, satisfactory answer for why they keep suffering in the postseason and what they need to do. And that brings me to panic. That brings me to a part where I'm like, all right, they're just a team that is underprepared and not ready for January football. And they do it perennially. And I don't know what to do with that. All right. Well, we eventually arrived, I think, at the same place with the Cowboys Solock,

because my take for the Cowboys is the Cowboys face the trickiest offseason in the NFL. And it's for what you said. A good way of framing it. Yeah, yeah. Because usually I'll name a team and I'll say, well, as you do X, Y, and Z, and then I'm proven wrong months later. But whatever, I come out with a strong take. I think I know it all. And I give you that. I don't really know what the Cowboys should do. I think, I don't want to, I can't believe you have put me in the position to be a Mike McCarthy defender, but I do think you were a little unfair there with your assessment of Mike McCarthy. Jason Garrett did, did not have the sustained success in the regular season that Mike McCarthy has had. They've won the second most regular season, regular season games in the last three years in the NFL, which I think I said on the last pot. I don't remember or not, but second to only the Kansas City Chiefs. So they have been an excellent regular season team. Who cares? When it's been 28 years, when you haven't gotten past the divisional round.

And so here's what I can't get past. This should have been the Cowboys here. Like other years we could put all right there. Dak played the best football of his career in the regular season, played like an MVP. C.D. Lamb elevated to a wide receiver one, like all pro status, unguardable, line him up in different places, yards after the catch. monster. Micah Parsons is in his prime. They held on to Dan Quinn. Remember last year? He's always going to go coached it. No, they held on to him. They kept in. They had the two seed.

They were eight no at home and they had the two seed. You were supposed to be able to play two home games and be in the NFC championship, which you have not been in in 28 years. And what happened? You completely choked. You came out as seven point favorites. And you didn't even look like you believe. It wasn't a fluky like, oh, the call didn't go your way, a weird turn. No, you came out and you got completely hammered by a seven point underdog Green Bay Packers team. So you take all that into account. And I don't know what you do if you're the Dallas Cowboys.

That Prescott's not going anywhere. But so like this Prescott thing, I don't know what people realize. He's going to the final year of his contract. He has a no tag clause. It's not one of the, he's his last. contract he signed no tag no trade you get Zach Prescott for 2024

and if he decides and he built it that way on purpose yeah if he might say hey Mike McDaniel your offense looks pretty good you guys got I did I did mudder the words solved those problems I did mudd of the words Dak Prescott Miami Dolph's quarterback to somebody this past weekend just as an indulgence as a treat

for Ben uh that doesn't sound like a bad idea for anybody that may have up imagine great idea for everybody So you got that. So your options here are to extend Dak Prescott this offseason. You know what that's going to take? Top, top, top of the market. We're talking about between $55 and $60 million per year.

Are you doing with that with the quarterback who has not gotten you out of the divisional round in the last eight seasons? Does Dak Prescott want to do that? Those are very tricky questions. If you don't do it, you've got a quarterback entering the final year of his deal and he could just leave after 2024 and you've got no succession plan. That sucks. At coach, like I said, you got McCarthy's winning all these games in the regular season.

It has not gotten done in the playoffs. You might lose Dan Quinn, your defensive coordinator this offseason. Like you said, maybe you get better. Maybe you don't. Do you take a big swing at Bill Belichick? Is that going to solve your problems? Is that going to be a marriage that's going to work? Bill Belichick with Jerry Jones and your personnel department?

It doesn't seem like it's going to. I mean, it seems like Robert Kraft and Jonathan Kraft want to have more of like a Jerry, like not be Jerry Jones, but they want more of a say in their team. And that's part of the reason probably why they're moving on from Bill Belichick. So I don't know that that's going to work. So we're like, you know, we're what, a little more than 24 hours, maybe 36 hours, something like that out of the Cowboys losing to the Green Bay Packers. And I really have no idea what they're supposed to do. Like you could just convince me the best thing to do is just run it back with everybody.

Go try to win 12 games again next season. Try to, you know, figure it out in the playoffs. and maybe you get lucky next year, but they've been saying this for so long. Like, think of when, where they drafted, Dak Prescott. And to not have gotten out of the divisional round,

when you got that guy in the fourth round, think about where they got Micah Parsons, where they were drafting in that draft, and they ended up with a guy who was going to be a Hall of Fame defensive player, and you still can't get out of the divisional round. Like, I don't know what the answer is, but it's like nothing would surprise me with the,

I feel like you, Did you maybe just make a move at coach and say a different coach will make the difference? I think that's what you do, but you have to splash it. I feel like it's got to, in order for you to generate belief, you got to be like, all right, Belochuk. I think if you go like, all right, like, we're bringing in. Yeah, it's got to be a huge swing. Yeah, exactly.

We're bringing in Steve Wilkes. It's just like, all right, you're just hanging out. Like, you're just going 12 and 5. Sorry to Steve. It was the first name who came to mind. It was like an establishment guy. I just, I don't buy it. That's why, again, like, it's a precipice thing for me.

It's like, I can see the Cowboys this offseason going total snowball, madness, insanity. Like, that, that to me is very possible. Just because when you are this close for this long and you don't get it, the amount of frustration that boils up in you leads to some crazy decisions. And good for content, might be bad for Cowboys. Cowboys first round pick for Sean Payton on his existing deal, who says no? The Broncos, right? Because they have to just trade a picks for them?

I mean, you get out of Sean Payton's expensive contract. Maybe it wasn't exactly what you hope it was going to be in year one. I don't remember exactly what it was. You get a first round pickback. Your roster is kind of, it's not a good roster. Like maybe you just, now there's this great coaching pool. I mean, I don't know. I might think about that if I'm the Broncos.

You traded a first and a second and you got a third and Sean Payton, which means you'll have traded a second for a one year. rental of Sean Payton. Listen, they're used to dead cat with Russell Wilson. I don't know. But isn't it weird? For years we talked about, like, this was Jerry Jones's white whale with Sean Payton. And now it probably didn't line up by one year, Sean Payton back, coming back in the NFL

and Jerry Jones potentially needing a new coach. So we'll see what happens with, is there going to be, all right, this is just me. It's now past 2 a.m. Easter time. Could there be a Cowboys Eagles competition to get Bill Ballard? Could that be the story of the offseason? The coordinated collapse of Dallas and Philadelphia really has set up the next couple of weeks nicely. For like, all right, which one of these, we thought you were legit contenders, NFC, East Race, how incredible. Who's blinking first?

Who's doing the most bananas thing first? Lane Johnson, like, Eagles players, after the buck's loss, we're referencing the Cowboys lost. An example of, like, see, like stuff just happens in the league, man. Like, it's great. Like, Lane Johnson was like, that Dallas loss, man. It's just like unbelievable stuff. Is it? You guys know Dallas.

pretty well. It's surprising. Is it unbelievable? There you go. All right. So that was my third take. All right. What's the extra point take? And what do you got? I have three things. No, I'm kidding. I'm sorry. I'm so excited. There's not enough future things happening to like actually...

That's true. We got a long off season. No, I wanted to make one remark that like I encapsulates that we've talked about several of these players, but it's okay. extra point taken this week coming off wildcard weekend feels like the state of quality young talent in the league is at like the peak of the last

four or five years this feels like really a special spot I can't help but watch wildcard weekend and we go from just record setting most rookie receiving yards Pooka in a playoff game C.J. Stroud is the youngest player youngest quarterback to win his first

postseason start. He's the fourth youngest quarterback to ever start a postseason game. He's doing that with Nico Collins, right? Who's just emerged as this young receiver, Rishie Rice, is the only guy of the Chiefs who can catch a pass, brought around with it. Isaiah Pacheco is the running back. The Chiefs were looking for for for so long.

Pacheco, also late round pick, Puccauca, a late round pick. You watch those lions, and it's just all, it's everybody that they brought into the building. Brad Holmes is brought into the building. It's Amon-Ross, St. Brown, and it's Peney Sewell, and it's Jemir Gibbs, and it's Brian Branch. They have so much good young

talent. Five years ago, we were still doing like, okay, and it's the end of Brady. And it's the end of like, even like Rivers still and Matt Ryan still. And it's the end of Rogers, right? They go 30, Rogers is 35, 36. We were really still at an old guard of players. And then they were making the young guys around them good. They were elevating those young guys.

But they had veterans around them because you were trying to build veteran teams. You're trying to win with these guys on their last legs. And as those quarterbacks have phased out, really, like, the only old guy left who's killing it is Stafford, right? Like, Stafford's 35 and it's just no look passes. He's like a hip old dude, right? He's thriving. He's down with the teens, the youth. You know, he knows the lingo.

Altogether, I think you've really seen youth step up in the league overall. And then in particular pockets, you're just seeing some of these young players really like emerge of stars from the most surprising of places. And that, to me, is such a fun. narrative of this entire season and then particularly of this postseason, right? Like it's Khalil Shakir stuff, man. It's Jalen Warren stuff, man. It's some of these young players right now, I feel like we, in the last four or five years, this feels like the best.

It's been offensive. Offensive skill positions. It feels like the best it's been. It feels like a new guard, right? We all decided like, all right, you know, it's going to be Mahomes, Alan and Lamar. And now Stroud and Love are challenging our ideas of that. We decided it was going to be Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, and now Pook and Akua is challenging our ideas of that.

Like we are at a unbelievable spot for young talent in the league. And how much richer that makes the postseason, I'm really enjoying it. I was definitely feeling that with the quarterbacks this weekend. I was like, we needed this. We needed like these new guys. I love this that we have now Jordan Love and CJ's shirt. And this stuff changes year to year. A year from now, a couple of these guys who we think are great, we'll be saying,

are we sure? You know, like this time last year we were said, Jalen Hertz, like, oh, my gosh. Look at that Super Bowl performance. And then we're said, oh, you know, like, okay, that wasn't great. We're saying, oh, I picked Trevor Lawrence to win MVP this last season before the season. And, like, you did not have a great year. We don't need to get into a big conversation about how much that was on him. Justin Herbert is now just, like, totally like under the radar with these new guys coming up.

But that's the thing is, like, Herbert's second contract guy, Joe Bro's second contract guy, right? Now it's like, all right, you're in the establishment. They're always going to be in the conversation, right? It's the fact that we didn't estimate Shroud to be what we estimated Lawrence to be coming out. or loved to be after he was cooking an incubator there for three years. I really started first thinking about this when I was looking at the old pro list, right? And like, there were a few spots for like, okay, Trent Williams, Jason Kelsey, right? Like, Zach Martin.

Okay, there's some spots where like no one's ever leaving. Christian McCaffrey, right? The guy's got the guys. But Amon Ross St. Brown made a first team, man. And like, Penn-Ee-Soole beat out lane for right tackle, right? Cornerback was Sauce Gardner and Doron Bland. Slot was Trent McDuffie. Safety was Kyle Hamilton, Antoine Winfield.

Kids are here, man. the kids are here, they are right now, and they are laughing, not laughing, but they are clearing some of the guys that two or three years ago, we thought, oh, these guys will handle it for forever. And maybe two or three years from now, down the road, when we talk about some kid in college,

and, you know, it'll be Ben had a short-term take or whatever. But the all-prolistened watching the Wild Card weekend, man. Seeing Pook alive was really the thing for me, I was like, this guy went the fifth round, and he just dropped 180. What a game. Yeah, unbelievable performance. The state of youth in league right now was awesome.

And that's good sign and good news for everybody. Just like an epic game for Puka. I mean, there's team loss, but my good. Takeover stuff in a playoff game. He had nine catches on nine targets. It was the first game all season that a player was nine for nine. It's 100% success rate as a target, right? And then on the 10th target, the Lions finally break up the past.

And that's the game winning play for them. It took them 10 targets to stop him once. And it was the one that they needed. What a, what a moment. That one in the middle of the field where he just rose up. It was getting crunched and just fearless. Oh my God. That was a lot of fun.

All right. That will do it. This episode of Extra Point Tick, and this is our last Monday night show of the season. But my goodness. Oh, yeah. I think so, right? Like late Monday night.

This is late late late Monday night. You don't want to get on and record at 11 next week? No games. Just do it for fun? We'll do much earlier. Oh, yeah, So lack and I will be back on Friday for the next episode in this feed where we will talk about the divisional round matchups. Eight teams, four games for a chance to advance to championship weekend. And hey, if there's breaking news between now and then, obviously we will have that covered here as well.

Okay. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Thank you to Eduardo Ocampo for the video production. Additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and our. Juna Ram Gopal. We will talk to you later this week on extra point taken. Thanks for listening and have a great week. Must be 21 plus and present in Slack States.

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