The Ringer NFL Show - MVP Mahomes, Andy Reid’s Legacy, Garoppolo’s Future, and More From Super Bowl LIV | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs delivered Kyle Shanahan his second blown Super Bowl lead in three years and Andy Reid cemented his Hall of Fame legacy as one of the best coaches of all time. We break down our biggest takeaways from the game, including how the Chiefs mounted yet another comeback, standout players on both sides of the ball, Kyle Shanahan becoming the new Andy Reid, San Francisco’s future, and more. Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shopping for a business, you'll find the supplies you need at Zorro.com. At Zorro.com, you can get tools, safety, and office items, cleaning supplies, and more in one stop. And Zorro has great brands like Stanley, Black and Decker, Prestone, 3M and Levermade. Visit ZO.com slash NFL and sign up for Z email to get 15% off. Zorro.com. All you need to make your business go. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Robert May is joined as always by Kevin Clark.

Kevin, how you doing, buddy? We're looking at a lot of confetti. We are looking at a lot of confetti. We are staring right now at, I was going to say, an empty feel at Hard Rock Stadium. Well, there are no players on it. There's no football. But many people. There's a lot of confetti.

There is a stage. We are staring at some screens that are telling us that the Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl champions, which they are. We expected a good game, and a good game is exactly what we got. Well, this was amazing. And it was not a good game for three and a half quarters. I think that for three and a half quarters, we were discussing the fact that, that we were probably going to have to write, maybe both of us, about the Sam's skill 49ers and their ability to give Patrick Mahomes

one of his worst games ever in a huge spot. This is not something we expected. And then we found out there's a reason Patrick Mahomes was here in the first place, which is they can score really quickly. And they had the skill position guys to do this. And Patrick Mahomes is a stone code killer. I think that there's probably a lot of lessons from this. But I think number one is if you want to have an offense like this,

you have to have what the top, the five fastest guys by next-gen stats on the field. Stuff like that. I mean, this team was built to score quickly. And even if you're down 10 points, it doesn't matter because this is a team that can generate offense more quick than any team in football.

And that's what we saw against the Titans, the Texans. I talked to Anthony Sherman a couple of, a couple minutes ago. And he basically said, they don't feel anything when they're down. It does not bother them because they know how quickly things can turn around. And it's not some weird, like,

there's no raw, stuff going on in that sideline. It's just they know how quickly they can score and they execute. I wrote after the NFC championship game that the Niners, in my opinion, had kind of built this perfect football machine to a certain degree.

Their offense looked like it was just a mechanism that was working in a perfect way, in perfect harmony. And the defense seemed to be doing that for the first three quarters tonight. When you look at the roster, this team has built, and when you think about how well they've been coached on both sides of the ball,

all of that stuff, it was close to perfect in a lot of ways. And they had to be perfect to beat Patrick Mahomes, and they just weren't. There are so many tiny marginal moments in this game that if they go a different way, we're celebrating Kyle Shanahan

instead of destroying him. We're thinking about the fact that Andy Reid still hasn't won a Super Bowl. It's so difficult, and it requires so many factors for this to happen. It just becomes that much more crushing when it doesn't. I learned tonight for the three months time

of my life, is not fair. Yes. Because the difference between this game in this game is that one team of Patrick Mahomes, one team didn't. I also learned that it sucks to get sick. Super Bowl weekend after working like 90 hours in a week and they're not having a voice during the game.

But that's neither here norther. I've recovered in time to do this podcast. Well, it helps that you brought a pharmacy with you to the stadium today. I brought a bag of medicine to deliver a podcast to you, the listener. But I have fewer pills in my medicine chest at home than you brought with you to that. I went to Walgreens. I gave me everything you got.

We got a pod to do. So let's go back to the point I was making, which is, you know, the Niners did such a nice job at so many different areas of the field. Mahomes said that for the first interception, the Fred Warner interception, that essentially what happened was he was rolling to his right sprinting. And Fred Warner was supposed to drift because the sprint to the right always makes the linebacker move off the target. And D-4 had set the edge so well that he just stopped. Mahomes just stopped. and that led Warner to just be sitting there waiting for the ball to come. Well, Holmes said basically hit him between the five and the four,

which is a really bad sign for a quarterback, and this is the best quarterback in football. And so all over the field, there were just really nice place. Nick Bosa with that strip didn't end up being a fumble recovery. He was incredible all night too. They had such a hard time dealing with them. The secondary did such a nice job for three quarters.

I mean, the Niners outplayed, you know, if there was some weird electoral college thing here, right, the Niners are looking pretty good. But this is, you know, there's a scoreboard here. And Patrick Mahomes is the best in football at figuring out how to get more points to the other team and doing so in a very, very, very quick time. There's no one who specializes in how do that happen in games more than Patrick Mahomes and he did on the biggest stage tonight.

I thought the Niners game plan coming in was exactly right. And they executed it extremely well for the first three-half quarters. They sat back. They played the amount of zone they typically liked to. there were plays where Emmanuel Mosley at the snap was already five, six yards off of Tyree Kill. And then at the snap started running backwards as soon as the play started. They said, we are not going to let you beat us over the top. If you want to complete stuff underneath, any of that, we'll let you do that because consistently,

I think our defense can make enough plays for that to slow you down in a way other teams have not. And it did. It did for the most part. And in the end, it still didn't matter because they made, Kansas City made enough plays because they have Patrick Mahomes. I thought it was amazing talking to the guys in the locker room. I mentioned the raw raw stuff, but I thought it was amazing how calm they all were.

And the fact that this is just normal for them. And the story of Patrick Mahomes is making miracles seem routine. And I think that if you didn't understand that Patrick Mahomes is as special player that's come along in a long time, then you have to today. I mean, this is he, if you have a perfectly, constructed team, but don't have Patrick Mahomes, it was still not be enough. We learned that today. What did you think of Jimmy Garoppel? I thought that he played well for a good portion of the game. And then in the end,

there were just a couple misthroes and then a couple batted balls. And I mean, we're going to talk all the time about, you know, what did Kyle Shanahan do wrong this time? Everything else. I mean, this is the second biggest fourth quarter comeback in the history of the Super Bowl. The first one, he also was the one running the offense on the other team. That's crushing. I mean, that's absolutely. crushing. I think that as much as it was offensive execution, I just think that it was decision making that really held this team back. I still don't understand calling time out at the, or not calling time out at the end of the first half. John Lynch wanted it. I think that it says

so much about how you feel about your quarterback. And then when he comes back and completes that ball to kiddle down the right sideline and it gets called back, it's like, well, if you just come out and try to score points, maybe that doesn't happen. To not kill Patrick Mahomes when you have the chance is something that every team that's played against them in the playoffs has regretted. And I think the Niners should too. Not calling time out at the end of the first half and not trying to score again and not and kicking a field goal on fourth and two. And again, giving Patrick, scoring three when you need seven against this team, you need to be perfect to beat them. Or if he has a chance he's going to take it.

And that's exactly what happened again. Who impressed you? Who stood out in this game that you weren't expecting to stand out? I don't need that it's not that it wasn't expecting him to stand out but I think he had Patrick Mahomes was shocked out of him you doubted him all here the guy that I thought two guys I would say one on each side of the ball for the chiefs and I thought were excellent and and and maybe had an outsized impact compared to what I figured coming in Chris Jones is someone we will not talk about as enough because of Mahomes and Reed and all that stuff Chris Jones

he was wrecking place was fantastic to today. And it was so many little things. He had the pressure on the Jimmy Garoppel interception. He obviously had those batted balls. He had, there was one play right before the Garoppel interception where, and I thought the Chiefs actually did a really good job

at this all night. Any outside screens, they did a fantastic job playing them slow. And Chris Jones was the one that got enough contained to stop a wide receiver screen right before the Garoppel Interception. He was the best player on defense for the Chiefs tonight, and he made so many monster plays for them. And I thought

that Damien Williams was awesome. I mean, just making plays happen that weren't there. You know, typically we talk about running backs in this offense, past catchers as runners, whatever, you know, they're part of this amazing unit and there gets kind of plug and play. But I thought Damien Williams created a lot of things that weren't there tonight. And he had a much bigger impact on the game than I thought. I thought the Chiefs would use a lot of play action because the Niners are so aggressive defensively. And they did that.

I didn't think they'd run the ball this much. or this effectively. What does this do for Andy Reid's legacy? It changes everything. So Patrick Mahomes after the game said, and I agree and you agree, he's one of the best coaches of all time before this game. This game, to people like us

who understand offense football and all this stuff, this game did not matter in that respect. This is a guy who designed offense and implemented it better than almost everybody who's ever done it, and he's one of the best ever. But I think that there's now, you know, look, he's going to go to the Hall of Fame now.

I probably should have regardless, but I think this just adds an extra layer to everything. It changes everything, even though it shouldn't. Yeah. It shouldn't matter that... At least you got it. You should win one.

Yeah. It's great to win one. I think no differently of Andy Reid in this moment than I did this morning. I still, I respected him as much as I possibly could before this game even started. And you watch what happened today, and it's a distillation of what makes him great.

The option plays in the low red zone as a way to take advantage of Mahomes. his mobility and again use their aggressiveness against them. Things like that. He ran a single wing play for a touchdown. Stuff like that is inspired and fascinating. But I think it says so much that this is only the second time Andy Reid, who we both agree is one of the greatest coaches of all time has ever been here.

It's so, so hard to do it. And I think that that's kind of what I'm thinking about Kyle Shanahan right now is that I think Kyle Shanahan is a great coach. I think that he has the ability. as a coach to get back here all of the time. But that doesn't, it doesn't always happen that way. It just doesn't. The margins are, again, so small that who knows?

Who knows if you'll ever do it again or get here again? And that's why when your team is this good, it's crushing to get this close and loose. So here's what I think. We used to do a thing on this show during the regular season we still do called tomorrow's headlines or Monday's headlines. If we're spinning this forward, Kyle Shanahan now from a narrative perspective, becomes what Andy Reid used to be. Exactly right.

Which is offensive guru who kind of hot take artists say can't win the big one. And it might take a while for this team to get back here. The NFC, just by, you know, there's just a lot of talent in the NFC. And there's a lot of talent in both conferences,

but I kind of feel like it's a pretty big way deep conference. I think the path is harder in the NFC for sure. Yes. And so I think that it's, it'll be really interesting to see how that develops. But what he's got going for him, is the same thing Reed had going for.

which is he designs plays better than almost anybody, and over time that will win out. With the Niners, because they don't have the greatest quarterback in the world, you have to have so many things break right for you. Think about how healthy the Niners were. I mean, you lose West and Richburg, but for the most part, everyone was back. All their major pieces were back.

They were a healthy football team. Yep. All the pieces that fit together so well, and they needed them all, it's so hard to get those breaks year and year out. It really is. You know, you're going to lose guys. They don't have much cap space this offseason.

They have some financial flexibility. They're very good at understanding how to be fungible. The Niners are. They built that their salary cap in a very smart way because they're a smart organization. But it still is just one of those things where who knows if you're going to have the dominoes fall again in a way they can get you back. And no one knows. Yeah. And I think that, you know, the best predictor of success is past performance.

and this team has been built in a very smart way. And they'll continue to do that. It's not Kyle Shanehan and John Lynch trying to get dumber. No. And so if anyone can build a good team going forward with some limitations, I would bet on it being them. And so we'll see. I mean, I think that Garoppolo at $25 million a year is,

it's not what you want, but you can also do worse. I think it's fine. I think it's okay. I mean, I think that the worst thing to be, have is, you know, a cheap quarterback who throws an interception all the time. you don't want Nathan Peterman there. But I understand the impulse to spend $25 million to sort of have certainty of that position. But it's certainly, you know, you can get rookie quarterbacks for that money.

I'm just saying I understand why it happened. But it'll be interesting sort of team building rank over the next couple of years. I honestly think that more than Garoppolo's performance, the thing that worries me is how much Kyle Shanahan's decisions and honestly game planning in recent weeks. has been reflective of perhaps a lack of faith in him. That's the more troubling thing to me than how good Jimmy Garapolo is. It's the choices that were made as a reflection. We were talking about this in the press box, whether or not the lack of timeout was because of lack of faith.

That's exactly what I'm saying. And I don't, even if, I'm sure that Kyle Shannon would not say, I don't have faith in Jimmy Garapolo, but is there in any possible world where even a conservative coach is sitting on the ball with a minute and 50 seconds left at the end of the first half? If someone who is well aware of that he designs very good players. They need, and their offense was cruising. I mean, they were getting whatever they wanted on offense.

And to not try to score there, I think it is a reflection of a lack of faith in your quarterback to some degree. So, I mean, that's, that part is maybe worse than how good or bad Jimmy Garoppolo actually is. It's how do you build around Jimmy Garaplo? And if you don't think that he's a great quarterback and that's going to affect your decision making, then maybe the price. tag becomes an issue. What was the key to this game we're not thinking about? You know, it's interesting to me. Tron Matthew was talking about how many missed tackles they had at the beginning and how they

clamped down on that by the end. I thought that was an interesting thing that we don't talk about. You know, I think Eric Fisher was getting beat a lot early and obviously Mahomes was able to get more time as the game went on. It was, there were a lot of little things that, again, because Mahomes was Mahomes, we were going to go unnoticed about this game. I'm trying to think. I think the running game with Williams is definitely something that I already mentioned that.

That one stuck out to me. But the weirdest part is for the most, for the most part tonight, the game went how I thought it was going to go in a lot of ways. Just sped up. Yeah. It's just the game, the game looked like how I thought it might look. It's, you know, the Niners really leaned on what we, what they do well. They were running the ball well. It was a lot of outside zone runs.

They were destroying Kansas City on the perimeter in the first half. They were getting those play action, it wrinkles off of it. They had that play to use check twice almost for two touchdowns. So I think those, that those elements are what I expected. I think the Niners defense played how I thought they were going to play. I think that the Niners pass rush showed up in a way I thought it was going to.

So there wasn't that much that surprised me about this game that I think we're understanding just because I think that, you know, I don't know, I thought I had a pretty good handle of it going in. And it looked like the game I thought it was going to look like in a moment. Well, exactly. And if the comeback started with six minutes ago in the third quarter, it would have seen much more normal.

Yes. It just happened to be that they can score so quickly that it was like, eh, this is fine. Yeah, it's just like, but what would, at the end of the game, in my opinion, the Niners' mistakes were the timeout and the field goal. I don't look at those last couple drives and think, how can you not hold on to the ball more or any of that stuff?

I mean, it's a mispass. It's a overthrow here. It's a tip pass there. I don't think there's anything to really shit on with the collapse in the moment. I think it was more so not scoring the points you could have in leaving them on the table earlier in the game. TurboTax is here to help this tax season by making tax filing easier for you. They've made it their mission to give you all the tools and advice you need to get your taxes done with confidence. Like making uploading your W2 as easy as just taking a picture.

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about Kansas City because for how great we think, how great I think Kyle Shannon and is for how good that well this team has been built, having the quarterback is the most important thing. Having the quarterback is what makes you relevant every single year because you have to rely on less fewer things have to go your way for you to get back to this game. And I think that there's a reason that in Patrick, in Andy Reid's two years with Patrick Mahomes,

he's been to an ASE championship game that he almost won and he won a Super Bowl when he's only been to one of them in his entire career before this. So you have to think that, you have to feel better about the Chiefs solely for that reason. you know, for the most part, the chiefs bring back the most important pieces on their team. They, the entire offense, all the stars on offense and all the building blocks on offense will be back. Tyree Kill has been extended.

Travis Kelsey has been extended. The running backs are, they'll figure that out as they always do. Mahomes will be there. Mitchell Schwartz is there. Eric Fisher's on an extension. The interior of the line, those are pieces that are possibly flexible anyway. So that's not really an issue. On defense, Chris Jones is going to be the question.

Can they, what do they do with Chris Jones? Do they franchise Chris Jones? I would assume he will be on the team next year no matter what, but I wouldn't be surprised if we're on the tag. So here's the interesting wrinkle is Mahomes is going to get around $40 million. Correct. They have a plan for this. I talked to Veach in August.

He basically said that every deal they did that was a luxury item was structured, knowing that Mahomes is going to be expensive. And this was before Mahomes is even a starter. So they knew this and then they sort of mapped it. out. So Mahomes gets 40 million and someone like Sammy Watkins can go. That was a deal that was structured because they knew they weren't going to pay a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes in 2020. And so, excuse me, 2019. And so I think that those kind of luxury items go. But what I'll also say is that the reason that you pay quarterbacks is to pay a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes. There is no

overpaying Patrick Mahomes. And I think that's most important thing. Patrick Mahomes, I have $45 million, which I don't think will get, is still a bargain because he solves all of your franchise's problems. Yeah, absolutely. And that's the whole point. It doesn't matter how much you have to pay him. He's going to be worth it because the rest of your roster doesn't need to be as good. And with the Niners, you know, George Kittle said something so interesting after the game.

You know, they asked him, you know, how good do you feel about you guys getting back here? And he said, I think, I want to say good. I want to say we will. but everyone says that. And they're, I get this, their roster, they have a lot of guys

in early parts of free agent deals. Joe Bois or Nick Boas is a rookie. D. Ford signed an extension this year after getting traded. Richard Sherman will be here. Jimmy Ward is somebody that they're going to have to figure out what his future looks like. He's looked like a lot different.

He's looked like a different player this year as they've, as their offense has been healthy as he's been healthy. So we'll see what ends up happening with that. He's somebody that's on a one year deal. Yeah. But this core is young in San Francisco. The one guy that we'll see about is Joe Staley because it wouldn't surprise me if this was it for him. I mean, you're looking at year 13.

He's somebody that's dealt with injuries during his career. He missed a good chunk of this season. He seemed really broken up after the game. He essentially kind of stopped his interview and was like, I apologize. I hope you guys understand what this feels like. And so, but that, there's a, there's a genre of extremely emotional alignment after every. Yeah. And I think a lot of just emotional guys because we had Whitworth last year.

Yeah. That was telling me about the nature of mortality. But yeah, it's, you know, you like to think that the Niners will have the pieces to contend every single year. But who knows, man? Things move so quick in this game, dude. Yes. Injuries, contract stuff. The windows are so short.

The windows are so short, and the brakes have to go your way in such a definitive way. And that's why it's nice to see Andy Reid get one. And it's nice to understand that he's been this great all the time. He continues to be great and will continue to be great. But the difference is he has the quarterback now and he never did before. He was a guy that, like Kyle Shanahan now, built a system to maximize his players, consistently did that. but fell short in the biggest moments. And Andy Reid now will never be that guy again.

We will never talk about Andy Reid and bring up his failures. We will only talk about the totality of his greatness. And that's what winning one of these does. That's it. It changes everything. How will you remember this season? Overall, is this Mahomes' year? It's Lamar Jackson's here.

It's the Mahalms coordination. Because I think Lamar Jackson was the rightful unanimous MVP. P 100%. But Patrick Mahomes is the best player in the sport. Right. And both those things

can be true because Mahomes was banged up. He had a wall in the middle of season because of that. He basically had three separate injuries. Yep.

And both those things can track. Yep. And they're true to me. But that's what I thought coming into this game. If the Chiefs won, that's how we would think about.

This is the moment where Patrick Mahomes took his next step in what is going to be a brilliant and fascinating an all-time great career. I will remember this season and tonight and this moment as this step in Patrick Mahomes' career.

That's what the 2019 NFL season will be when it all comes down to it. It will be the year that Andy Reid culminated his legacy, and it will be the year that Andy Reid, or that Patrick Mahomes really started building his. I think more broadly, it's also just the passing of the torch

between a forever quarterback generation that ruled the game for 15 years, and the younger generation that is significantly different and, you know, plays different, you know, they came through a completely different college game that is so much more exciting and dynamic. And, you know, listen, I'm sure there's a place for Eli Manning in this game, you know, in theory. The next Eli Manning was born in 2000 or over the hell. But I like this NFL, a hell of a lot more than I like. 2006 is NFL.

And there was still a lot of 2006 in the NFL at the beginning of this year. I think that there's all, I mean, even beyond the players, the fact that we saw option plays in the red zone and all these college concepts. And the sport is just in such a good place right now. It's in such an open-minded and progressive, awful place when we get Joe Burrow next year. I mean, and, you know, we get too tall Justin Herbert. And that's, it's the funny part is that's what is so maddening about the Shanahan decisions is that there's so many times this year where. you realized how important it was to do the smart thing.

If the chiefs don't go for it on those fourth downs and score touchdowns, this game is, they lose. They lose. They went for it on fourth downs and they won the game.

The Niners did not go forward on fourth and two and didn't call time out and they lost the game. It's more than that, but it's, again, their margins are so,

so small. And if you make one decision the wrong way against the guy like that, It is probably going to come back to bite you. Anything else, buddy? That's it, man. It's been a fun year.

We'll be back in September. I don't know if the night as we'll be back, but we will. We'll be back to the Combine. We will be back. I guess we have to do a pod before September. We will be back at the Combine. And so then, as always, guys. That's this month.

Huh? That's this month. That's this month. It's 23. It's three weeks from Tuesday. Getty up. Back in the saddle. Three weeks from Tuesday.

So we'll be back. All right, guys, as always, thank you so much for everything this season. Thank you for listening. We love doing this show. We appreciate the fact that you guys make it possible. And I can't wait to keep doing it. And as always,

thank you so much for listen to the ringer NFL show. I would give a speech as well, but I'm going to be, this is my Jordan Flu game. I'm going to be carried out of this pod. We have three security guards waiting to just lift me out of the chair. You're just leaning on me right now. I'm Scotty.

Yeah, yeah. All right. As always, guys, thank you so much for listening to the ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. Thank you for a great season, and we'll talk to you later. Shopping for a business, you can find the supplies you need at Zorro.com. That's ZORO.com.

At Zorro, you can get tools, safety, and office items, cleaning supplies, and more in one-stop. And Zoro has great brands like Stanley Black and Decker, Prestone, 3M, and Rubberman. Visit ZO.com slash NFL and sign up for Z-mail to get 15% off. Zorro.com. All you need to make your business go.