The Ringer NFL Show - Playoff Implications With Danny Kelly | The Ringer NFL Show (Ep. 371)

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

The Ringer’s Kevin Clark is joined by Danny Kelly to forecast the playoff picture after an exciting Week 16, discuss home field advantage, and look back on the 2017 draft (0:30). Plus, more love for Nick Foles, the Titans-Colts play-in game, Houston giving New England the no. 2 seed, and Eli Manning’s late-season resurgence (25:30). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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D.K. The Dark Night. Danny. Danny. It's a big day for you. I know. I'm coming in off the bench. You identify as a Seahawks, fam. The Seahawks had a roaring win over Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. Your thoughts are what? I thought it was impressive. I thought it was good. I thought the way that they played down the stretch was really important. Like that drive that they put together. to get back to a 10-point lead, I think was huge. Made a couple of big plays. Russell Wilson looked pretty good. Just say you're pumped and jacked. We're going to get the details in a say.

There we go. Okay, we're going to get to the details in a second. Just chewing my gum hard right now. It was an incredible just Sunday for the playoff machine on ESPN, where you can just plug and play what you want to do and what wins. A couple weeks ago, we could have gotten the Giants and the Redskins in the playoffs. That can't happen now. But we can get a little bit of chaos.

And the reason is that the Steelers are now super on the outside looking in. They're pretty much, I'm looking at the pro football talk playoff scenarios and they say the Steelers are screwed. That's a scientific term. There's just a lot of teams whose fates are a lot different than they were on Sunday morning. So let's start with the Seahawks who essentially are basically now, they could have if they had lost next week to the Cardinals. They could have been out of the playoffs. and they obviously lost tonight against the chiefs. But now that,

not only are they locked in, but we seem to do this every week, they're the team, nobody wants to see in the playoffs. There's a few of those, I'd say, but yeah. Well,

no, here's the problem, Danny, here's the problem, is every time a team wins over the past, like, four weeks, they've been anointed

by a four million people as a team. You just do not want to see in the, they're going to make some noise. Like, everybody's that now. At first it was the bear, ooh,

the bears, you don't want to see them. Then it was the call, Colts. Now it's the Seahawks. I think the Browns were in there at one point when the Browns, they might have an outside chance. I think the general consensus is you don't want to see any team in the NFL in the playoffs. I mean, it's hard to win in the playoffs. It's hard to beat good teams. So yes, what do you think? Are the Seahawks out in front in that group of teams? Oh, you're pinning it on me because you don't want to say it. You're more impartial than I. Okay. Yes, the answer is when tonight was impressive. Now, there's a couple of mitigating factors here. So Andy Reid had a kind of a weird postgame press comments where he said he was trying to play young guys. You see what they would look like.

They were moved. Oh, did you go full homer mode? That's bullshit. They apparently reads that they were limiting Eric Barry snap. So this was a what they were able to do, you know, obviously the chief scored 31 points, but they did not look especially chiefy. I think Aaron Schatz at one point tweeted out that it was going to be their first game under average offensive DVOA on the season,

which is an incredible accomplishment. It speaks to their consistency. By the way, the flip side of that, as I don't think the Cardinals have had an above average offensive game this year. He also tweeted that. So that's where we're at.

It's not yet. But I think that, yeah, when you're able to do that, I understand it's a night game. I understand it's in Seattle. Everything seemed to favor a Seattle win, but still to beat the championship. Chiefs is is pretty impressive. Now, the whole, the separate question of who's the team you don't

want to see in the playoffs. I'm, I mean, listen, this time last year, the damn Titans won a playoff game. Okay. And we were all joking about how bad it was the Titans won a playoff game. The Jaguars went up and scored 45 points against in Pittsburgh against Pittsburgh Steelers. This idea that we have any idea what type of team wins in the playoffs, especially in the modern NFL. We, you know, Robert and I talked about this last week where this, this era is so different, this year, excuse me, is so different even compared to last year, just offensively and all the different trends in the league.

We don't know what matters. We can't really hone in on it because, okay, can the Texans really get that far without a great offensive line? I don't know. We've never seen a season like this. We've never seen a season like this. Can the bear, the bear has scored 14 points on the 49ers today?

Is their defense really going to be that good when they play in a dome against the Saints? I think the answer is I don't know. Yeah. A lot of the, a lot of cliches are going to get tested, I think, in the postseason. Because, I mean, if you look at the team like the Ravens, who are winning with what I think a lot of people would say is postseason style football where you can play in any weather, you run the ball, you play really tight defense and all that.

And they're playing really well right now in both of those areas. Like, I think that, you know, that's going to be a cliche that gets tested. They're definitely one of those teams that, quote, no one wants to face. I mean, the Seahawks are kind of similar to the Ravens in the sense that, you know, they run the ball more than they pass the season, I think, overall. They have a more experienced quarterback, and their passing game, I think, is more refined and, you know, updated or that. But, I mean, they're kind of in the same vein.

And then you look at the Cowboys, too, who are playing really good defense and has sort of this ball control run game with Zeke Elliott. And it's going to be really fun to kind of see how they go, how that all matches up against seems like the Saints and Rams and Chiefs. Yeah, totally. I want to get into the broader playoff picture here in a second, but I want you to give me your 10-second nerdiest thing we should have realized but the Seahawks on Sunday night.

You've heard about Doug Baldwin. Is there something we need to hone in on with the Seahawks that the greater non-Seahawks Twitter world is missing? With just with Doug Baldwin coming back, you know? No, no, no, anything with the Seahawks. I don't know. See, the thing that I think the thing that I think is really important is that Baldwin's finally starting to get a little bit healthy.

Yeah. And because he's had, both knees have been hurt this year. His groin has been injured. He got a little bit banged up. It looked like a little bit tonight. But, I mean, he changes the dynamic of their passing game. Yeah. Because Lockett is a deep threat and he's been really, really, really efficient,

catching deep passes and doing all that. But Baldwin is kind of like that chains moving guy. I mean, he made that one-handed catch that put him at the one-yard line that essentially sealed the game tonight. He had an incredible touchdown earlier in the game. he's just so reliable and so good as a route runner that I think that changes the sort of it just changes the Seahawks offense in general I think it makes them way more dangerous for the playoffs if he's healthy if he can get to 90% Baldwin rather than like 7580 which is what he's

been for a lot of the year and not playing for a lot of the year too I think that changes things and I mean there's obviously years of experience in chemistry with Wilson and in Baldwin he's kind of the first guy that I think Wilson tends to look for and so So that could be a big, big factor kind of that. That's what the Seahawks are, that's how they're different, I guess, from most of the rest of the season, is that like if Baldwin's getting healthier, that could be huge. So let's talk with the broader playoff picture here,

because there's a couple of developments that I think are going to be really important in two weeks in the playoffs. Number one, the Steelers not going to make the playoffs, and the Saints have essentially clinched the number one seat. In fact, they have. Yeah, they might rest their starters next week was the last update I saw. the chargers are barring an insane Oakland Raiders win in week 17 are going to have the five seat. They lost to the Ravens.

The Ravens are essentially in. And then beyond that, you have the Patriots who are going to be locked into the two seed barring a Jets loss and a Texans win. So of those, Danny, what sticks out to you is something that's going to matter the most in a couple weeks? The team that I'm still the most confused about, I think, are the Patriots. and like just what's going on with that offense because this you know last week obviously Brady had that huge crucial mistake against the Steelers and then this week you know that offense just wasn't clicking

they didn't look good they ran the ball they ran the hell out of the ball I'm talking about the passing offense more though and so I guess I'm just wondering like what what team we're going to get in the playoffs from the Patriots whether it's going to be that ball control thing or whether Brady's going to be a big factor or what's gronk going to do you know losing Josh Gordon changes, I think,

sort of the makeup of their passing game and maybe that changes their strategy or whatever. So I think it's huge that they retook the number two seed. I think that's just like maybe one of the biggest takeaways from the day really is that they moved ahead of Houston for the number two seed. They're going to get the first round by,

probably if they win next week against the Jets, which I guess is not necessarily a gimmie. I mean, Jets have looked pretty solid, you know, with over the last couple weeks. But yeah, I think that, to me, giving them a first round buy and then potentially giving them home field advantage, depending on what happens kind of down the stretch. I think that's just an enormous development for week 16. I think that's one of the biggest things. Yeah. So a couple of things.

Number one, today was one of the best rushing days in the history of the Belichick era. And what's interesting to me is we've seen so many times in 2001 when they won the Super Bowl. Bob Ryan wrote that Tom Brady just paper cuts you to death. He's a game manager. You know, he's not, that doesn't have a big arm. And then six years later, the offense has evolved to the point where it was so downfield and so explosive that it literally changed football forever. And the different wrinkles and iterations of the offense ever since, they've basically changed

the NFL. I mean, they've basically bended their will towards any trend in the NFL. and they've also bended their any train in the NFL towards them. And they're so flexible and so amazing. And so if they're just going to do this thing where they're just incredibly efficient running the ball, that's fascinating to me because, you know, Tom Brady is not what he has been in the past.

And it would be a very funny pivot. Belichick actually kind of said the passing game needs to be better. But here's the thing about the two seats, in my opinion. Number one, we haven't seen the Patriots play on Wild Carder weekend since 2009 when they got paceded by the Ravens, it's not a thing they want to revisit. They've played two games in Denver, aFC championship games over the past, you know, five years.

And six years, yeah. And they've lost both those games. We don't know what this Patriots team really looks like on the road. Right. It was a really interesting story on 538 this week about home field advantage of the NFL and how it works. And, you know, the home team does win 57% of the time in the NFL. That's very impactful. But the last time a team won on the road in title game,

either conference was 2012 when Joe Flacco and Connie Kaepernick did it. And they couldn't really identify because it's just so hard to figure out why the splits are vague. So many variables. Yeah, there's so many variables. The splits are not crazy. But one of the things, Michael Lopez, who actually works for the NFL now, is quoted in the article. And he says that if you look at the 15 most impactful controversial calls in games over the past few years, I think you'd find that 14 of them went for the home team.

And that's really interesting to me. But here's what is as passing becomes just not even just the dominant form of offense, because that's been true for over a decade, but just the default. Passing is the default. The short pass is the new run. Pass interference, legal contact, all of these things are such judgment calls. Yeah. And I'm starting to wonder if the reason that home field advantage is so important.

And this isn't overall. This isn't, you know, if you look at the, look at the flags, I don't think there's a huge difference. This was specifically about high leverage situations. All it takes is one pass interference to change it. I mean, look at the Steelers and the Saints today. Yeah, we saw that several times. One pass interference for the entire game to change.

And I wonder if that's where the home field advantage starts to show up a little bit. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think so definitely. I mean, we saw that in the Seahawks game too, actually. Baldwin like kind of fell down. They got a penalty in the end zone. That was a huge potentially game swinging play. I mean, those plays are so huge.

And so it's going to be really weird to see the Patriots if they have to go on the road. I mean, obviously, things could happen where they end up playing just at home again, like the next couple of games. But yeah, no, that's definitely really kind of a fun wrinkle for the playoffs. And I don't know, I'm just really, I'm getting psyched about this, actually. I think there's going to be. Pumped and jacked. Yeah, there's going to be some really fun, I think. kind of matchups and just storylines in general.

It's kind of fun. So the Chargers are now going to have to go and play three straight road games. Yeah, but they played all their road games. There you go. I believe there's 6-0 on the road. Is that correct? I don't know. I don't know.

Fact-checked that. Yeah, yeah, I think it is. Whatever. But the Wildcard, last time the Wildcard, last time the Super Bowl or won the Super Bowl was the 20s and Packers. It happened four times in the 2000s and it hasn't happened since. I'm just looking the I think the good teams are now better Chargers are six and one away

so yeah but they are again they don't play ever in front of home fans so it's a little hard it's a little hard to suss out what matters and what doesn't let's quickly touch on the Steelers because their playoff scenarios already weren't very good because they had to go

and win in a dome in order to make the playoffs where does this put the Steelers and did you learn anything about the Saints today? If anything, I feel like I learned that the Saints defense is not quite as good as I was propping it up to be. I think, I mean, that obviously says a lot of Patriots or the Steelers. The Steelers. Yeah.

But like, I was starting to think that the Saints defense had been kind of reintroduced into the elite, you know, I guess air or whatever of the top defenses in the NFL. We saw that, you know, this week that wasn't necessarily the case. So they're still a really good defense. They get tons of sacks, tons of turnovers. But, yeah, I mean, the Steelers kind of picked them apart and should have maybe, like, should have won that game or whatever. And so...

Yeah, I mean, they came very, very, very close to doing so. Here's what interesting. I saw a tweet from one of the really good Stewart's beatwriters, Chris Sadamski. And he said, and I agree with this, and I've been thinking about it for a little bit since I saw it, and since I saw the game, the irony here is that if you're in a vacuum,

if you'd seen this game and even certainly last week, you'd feel great about the Steelers postseason chances. Right. Because just the way they played the Steelers, sorry, excuse me, the Saints, and then the way they beat the Patriots, obviously. But the problem is, dude, you can't lose to the Raiders and the Broncos. Sorry, guys.

Sorry, you picked a bad time to be bad. And I think that's what's interesting is they're not, they're playing in a way that you would normally be confident. they're just not going to make the playoffs. Sorry, dude, you're going to get on the outside looking into the Titans. Yeah, I mean, they're going to look back on those two games, man, and just freaking kick themselves. But, I mean, that's the story of their season is, like,

they've been really, really good at moments and look unstoppable, and their offense just like... And they usually get better as the season goes along, and they're just not. Yeah, and then, like, half the time, they just look like garbage. And, you know, the home road splits are always talked about, like, Rossesburg are not playing well on the road. He played, you know, pretty well in this game. Made some huge throws.

Antonio Brown made some huge catches. You know, if Juju Smith-Schuster doesn't fumble that ball, we don't, like, what happens from there? You don't really know. So, yeah, I mean, you have to look at it. Like, the Steelers really kind of just had a good opportunity to be one of those teams that you don't want to meet in the playoffs because they really were just like such a juggernaut offense when they're really clicking. And so, yeah, that's, it's brutal. But, I mean, that's how it goes. Speaking of teams, you don't want to meet in the playoffs.

The list of 135 teams, you don't want to meet in the playoffs. I think Baltimore right now is the AFC pick de jure. Yeah. They're going to probably get the four seed at this point. In which case, they would play, would they play San Diego again? We have in the notes. We have San Diego in the notes, and then I independently said San Diego. It's completely possible.

It's completely possible that we have. we've been calling them San Diego for the entire podcast. I don't think anyone. Again, I want to revisit this because I said it before. It's on them. It's not on us. So yes, according to the playoff generator,

the Chargers and the Ravens are in line to play. What happens when they play in Baltimore in two weeks? Well, I mean, based on, based on Saturday's game, I mean, it's going to be,

you know, just a slug fest. I, you know, I mean, that game came down. to a couple turnovers

and both teams looked really good. You know, they're both balanced, they both have defense. They both can run

the ball. I think Philip Rivers gives the Chargers a distinct advantage just in the sense that he's such a more refined passer.

It's just a, you know, a better passer at this point. Sure. I mean, Lamar Jackson is just a crazy wildcard just because of the fact

that they can run the ball so well. And, you know, I, you know, it's the, the Ravens have

this thing where they're kind of like playing keep away from their opponents and like you don't give your opponents as many opportunities to possess football and so that kind of you know can change things and that's why those turnovers are so huge in this game but uh i mean i imagine it's it's another closely fought game where it comes down to you know that's that's another cliche but it's going to come down to like who takes care of the football and who scores last so mike renner from provable focus had a great

piece in the washington post on friday um where we talked about lamar jackson and just just sort of how the Ravens create an offense around him. I thought there were a couple interesting things. The first one is that they've dialed up 109 option runs, which is 50 more than the next closest team. Nice.

Since Jackson took over a starter in week 11. Now, they're averaging 5.5 guards per carry, which is a yard more than the league average on that. So you're having a lot of success with it. And I think that it's a jumping off point for something that I've been thinking about a lot, which is the lesson of Mahomes, the lesson of golf, the lesson of all these guys, it's not to steal from Texas Tech, but maybe it is.

It's not to, you know, the splits, you know, whatever it is, you know, whether or not you're stacking receivers, whether or not your running play action, all of these things, you know, tiled up can matter a lot. But I think that the lesson of all of these little offensive success, successes is just to think is that good ideas win when you when you tailor your offense to to your players and I think the Ravens right now are doing as good a job as anybody with that and I know it sounds simple but there's so many coaches around the league who want to do the square peg round hole thing yeah and and so I just think you know if if they try to do the mohomes or

golf offense with Jackson they that that would not work right now but what they're doing is the best version of Lamar Jackson offense Lamar Jackson. 200 yards passing for the first time in his career on Sunday. He's growing as an NFL passer and he's, excuse me, on Saturday. He's getting really, he's going to be a really good NFL quarterback. And right now he's good enough to win games. So I'm excited to see what the Ravens are doing with him. It's, again, good ideas are the future of football, not any, not any specific idea,

just the good ideas. And that's why I was so energized to see that they're going to be able to put up. I mean, obviously, they didn't put up 50 points. on Saturday night, but they were able to score with the defensive touchdown 22 points, hold the charters of 10. If we're looking for the actual can make noise in the playoffs team, it's Baltimore. It's funny to me that because I was kind of on them about just the amount of tight ends that they took, you know, they took two, they took two tight ends in the draft.

You know, they took a tight end before they took Jackson. And it turns out those guys are actually really important for their passing game, and it marries really, really well with the fact that they want to run the ball. They play a lot of heavy personnel looks and use those guys in the blocking game. And then they let them kind of leak out in the passing game and throw downfield. They had a couple of big explosive pass plays using those guys. And so it's just one of those things where I kind of thought I thought it was kind of silly coming into the season. And they redesigned their offense and made that a big functional part of their passing game.

It's really working out for them. So I think that's cool. I mean, you got to credit them for completely changing the identity and sort of just style of their offense, almost 180, you know, from the time that Jackson came in for Flacco. So, yeah, total credit there. And I think that's, it's fun to watch, even though, you know, it's a slower kind of grind them out offense. Oh, it's fine. Hey, you know, he's a badass, Marlon Humphrey. He is.

He's played really well. So I want to talk about the 2017 draft. let's do it. It's really, really, really change to support because you have Mahomes, you have Watson, you have the unfortunate sort of two through three

Trubisky, Solomon Thomas, Leonard Fournett, which I think all three probably wish they could have taken somebody else. Right. Corey Davis is Corey Davis. But then, so, so, Malik Hooker is taken

who's okay. I think he's in the 30s as far as as safeties go on football focus rank. But Marlon Humphrey was the 16th pick in that draft. If you redrafted him, he goes a hell of a lot higher. He doesn't, he hasn't really, no one's

like paying attention to him that much, I think. It's like, Lattimore was like a big star last year. You know, and he's been overlooked. He's definitely really underrated. And so you're not going to want John Ross in that spot. Who I think has Disney have 7.

touchdowns and 20 receptions. Yeah. Something like that. Very, very efficient touchdown scoring. He's the new, he's the new Tyler Ifer. Yeah. Seriously. So, yeah, and he had like the, he had the game changing or the game

ceiling play, right? The other night. Humphrey? Yeah. That's what that's, that's, that's why I bring him up. I mean, he is a really, really good cornerback in a really stacked draft. And we've seen this before. You know, the JJ Watt draft was like this where there's talent everywhere.

and if you got somebody, you're set, but if you missed, it is a bad freaking year to miss, dude. Oh, yeah. It is a bad year to miss. I mean, the Panthers are probably happy with Christian McCaffrey, but then you get,

you get into the Mahomes, Latimore, Deshawn Watson, you know, Marlon Humphrey territory. And, man, those are some game changers. Yeah. And the defense,

I mean, their defense, too, has also been a little bit. I feel like it's just kind of underrated. That whole team has been overlooked. a little bit all season. The Ravens? Yeah, the Ravens. Yeah, they have like two famous guys and one of them's like Eric Weddle.

Justin Tucker is more famous than almost anybody on the defense. Yeah. I mean, you can name like Suggs or whatever, but they're getting past rush productivity from so many different guys. And yeah, it's, I mean, they're just like a typical Ravens, a defense like really,

really tough nose. I forgot. I forgot about Suggs. Even though I shouldn't forget about Suggs, but what I did. He's the 61. He's a 61st ranked edge defender in the NFL. There you go. Number 16 as far as coverage in edge defenders. I'm sure that seems like a,

I'm sure edge defender coverage is a small sample size in general. So I'm going to kind of go ahead and throw that one out. But yeah, no, I mean, I guess, I guess Suggs hanging around is fun. All right, before we move on, let's hear a quick break. What do you wish for most this holiday? If you're like me,

you want all Ws for your favorite NFL team. Unfortunately, even Santa can't make that happen. But the Yahoo Sports Mobile, app can make it so you can watch those games and more right on your phone. In fact, with the Yahoo Sports Mobile app, you can watch live local and primetime NFL games during the holidays and all season long. Never miss big matchups or your favorite team in action. What are you waiting for? Download the Yahoo Sports Mobile app and may all your football wishes come true unless, of course, your team is playing against mine. Okay, let's move on. Danny. What's up? Nick Foles. What the hell is going on?

That's my question to lead this in. What the hell is going on? The full storyline, it just won't go away. This is like, it's like deja vu all over again. He just, I don't know. I don't know, you know, it's funny because you see like, Eagles Twitter already starting to like a little bit argue about whether he's the answer now. I think it's probably mostly sarcasm.

But I think there's probably, I mean, maybe. I don't. I feel like there's a lot more people who are getting. angry at the thought of that there's an argument and there are people making the argument. Does that make sense? Right. Like we have a lot of people being like, if you think Nick Foles is the answer, you're a moron.

And it's like I actually haven't seen that many people saying Nick Foles is the answer. Like it might be, especially with the feel like it might be like a kind of a deeper into the fan Twitter or maybe like a talk radio thing. But I actually haven't seen anyone saying, you know, trade. Like truthfully. Yeah, truthfully. Yeah. Yeah.

Crayed Carson Wentz to Miami for Xavier and Howard in a second. Which is a fake trade I just made up. That should happen. No, I think you're right. I think so it's more, I think it's less that, you know, Foles is better than Wence, obviously. And it's more like the fact that the Eagles are getting back to, I think they're getting back to their roots more in terms of what they want to do on

offense. I haven't looked at the numbers today, but just over the last few weeks, they've gotten a lot more into like two tight-end sets. that kind of balance like Zach Earts has been a huge part of it they've gotten Goddard more involved they aren't they're trying to force feed Golden Tate like they were for a stretch

there and that was kind of throwing things off they were trying to run 11 personnel too much and it just wasn't really working for what they want to do and so I think a big part of it is like they're just rediscovering what they want to be on offense it took them a little bit to get there but I think that's part of it

and then I guess the other part of it is just Nick Foles gets into this weird zone where he can all of a sudden see the field like he's like Michael Jordan. He gets into this weird zone where he accidentally wins his Super Bowl every year. Yeah, it's like what the hell what the hell was happening?

But yeah, I mean, again, he made some huge, huge throws in this game. He set a freaking franchise record, 471 passing yards. Did you hear about this? That's a franchise record for the Eagles. Who held the franchise record before? McNabb.

Oh, I was going to guess like Jeff Garcia or something. Like one of those weird, weird Eagles teams. Yeah. Okay. So Scott Casmar tweeted this out.

Throws 40 plus air yards for the Eagles. Nick Folls, 11 touchdowns, four interceptions. Carson Wentz, two touchdowns,

seven interceptions. There's your answer right there. Trade Wentz. I just think it's really, I just, I don't, I can't explain it. Maybe there's some

lessons to be learned from a play-going perspective about why Foles succeeds where Wence doesn't. Maybe, I mean, one of the core concepts of the full success, aside from essentially using the buy week as a pseudo training

camp, was they just sat Nick Foles down and they said, what routes do you want to run? And those were the routes they really focused on it. They ran about 10% more RPO's, but it wasn't a huge percentage more. And then they just ran the routes he was really, really comfortable with.

And I've written this before, but it actually is if you want to learn a lot about it, it's actually kind of documented quite well in Doug Peterson's book. I've talked to Doug Pearson separately about this. And you can either read me or Doug Peterson. It's fine. I don't care.

Either way, two great scholars of our time, me and Doug Peterson. But so I guess what I'm saying is that maybe they've focused so much on making Nick Ful's work that when they start again with Carson Winsne, year they need to do whatever they're doing with foals with wents yeah just like

simplify and yeah simplify focus I mean these are always things that you know we as like outsiders talk about like teams it's so freaking obvious but yet teams don't always do this is just suit like designing an offense that that actually like works with your skill set like the players and what they want to do and you know I think that was a big thing that like Freddie Kitchens has done it in Cleveland and I think, you know, players have talked about this and it's kind of come out that when he first took over, he just asked the players what plays they like running the most. And I don't know if, I mean, I'm not a, I haven't been in an NFL locker

room during the season. Maybe maybe a lot of coaches don't actually do that. You know, I think, I think that's probably the case. And so, yeah, I think. Danny, can we send you to a locker in this week. Yeah, can we get on a, can I get on a team? Oh, no, I was just going to send you into a locker room as a reporter. Can we do that? We'll see. Yeah. Let's go. Let's do this. Let's send you into Seattle. Do you think Schottenheimer asks his players what he likes? I bet he does. I bet he does. I bet he does. I bet you that's why he's having a lot of success this year. Well, relative to what I thought he would anyway. Okay. Before we get into a Schottenheimer success conversation.

The next stock up. Yeah. Titans Colts, Week 17 playing game. Yeah. Sunday night, right? Sunday night. Got flexed and in.

They got flex because this is the ultimate flex because the NFL is going to put a Titans Colts game on and it's going to get about 35 million viewers. What is it? What is like a Cowboys Patriots game or something? What I don't know? Patriots are. Oh,

they all get. I mean, Saturday football is the highest rated show. on television. Yeah. And so, I mean, like, for a non-super Bowl, the Peyton Manning Tom Brady AFC title game in 2015 season before the, before the Panther Super Bowl, got like 60 million viewers.

Okay. Yeah. So, got it. You know. The, damn, the, I saw this other day, John Arand from SBJ had this, that there was a Steelers playoff, Steelers, Patriots, just regular season replay from last week's game. on the NFL network, they got a million viewers, which is almost as much as the Rockets game on TNT that night.

Oh, man, the replay. The replay. Oh, no, no, yeah. The regular game was gangbusters. But they replay almost did better than the Rockets game on TNT. Okay, let's talk by this game. What are we, I was just going to ask you, what, who are the Titans? How do you feel about the Titans?

I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I'm kind of excited about the cults. I want, the listener probably heard my desperation. I have nothing to say about the Titans. That's why I said, what do we think about this game? I told me you could offer any, any glimmer of analysis because I've got nothing for you.

I think Derek Henry being a thing lately is definitely kind of fun and new and interesting. I don't know what to take it. The Titans to me are kind of like the Steelers and in the sense that nothing would surprise me in terms of what they do. I wish I had something a lot more in-depth in like X's and O.

to say to you about this, but like, I just don't know what to expect from them on any given day. So Andrew Luck has never lost the Titans in his career. Interesting. The game is in Nashville. The Colts are going on the road. The Titans defense is, can be nasty. Yeah. So, I mean, this is, I got to tell you, this is kind of a, on the low end of inspiring winning in games.

But I can see the drama a little bit. I think the Colts win maybe a six or seven point game. I think the the Colts feel to me more like the story in this game. I know that. Yeah, I guess, but the Colts just lost to Cody Kessler a couple weeks ago in a 6-0-0 game. Like I just

this is one of those things where the Colts are going to win and we're going to make again, we're going to do the whole they're going to make some noise in the playoffs. But like if they were actually, even though they started one in five, they did have the opportunity to have shut the door

long before week 17. Yeah, that game is concerning, to say the least. But then, I mean, they shut out the Cowboys, so they kind of got it back. And I don't know what you take from today's game, that they played really ugly,

you know, against the Giants in the first half, ended up kind of gutting it out and coming back in the second half. They have a lot of injuries. I mean, they're in the same boat as the Titans. It's a strange year. I mean, they lost to the damn Jets. They got 42 points of the Jets and then turned around in stats. But it's now,

like they've had, I mean, so the, the hardest game they've played, they beat the Texans, which is commendable, and they showed out the Cowboys. But really, it's, it's Raiders, Jaguars, Titans, Dolphins, Jaguars, Giants, and those are the wins. And then obviously, the Cowboys and Texans were already named. So, they beat the Titans 38 to 10 in week 11. Yeah, but the Titans, I have no, I have no idea what to expect from that. They might, this game might be 12 to 9. Is Marioo even going to start? So that's the question.

That's the question. That's a big deal. I mean, I guess. Is it a big deal? I mean, yeah. Is it a big deal? In theory.

Because I've, I mean, in theory, yes, but I keep, I keep hearing that it's a big deal that Marcus Mariotta might play. And then every time I see the Titans play, it looks like Marcus Marita may,

playing may not be a big deal. Right. I mean, I don't, in the same way we, I think that it might be related. that we don't know if Marcus Mariotta is good and we don't know if the Titans are good.

I mean, it's definitely up in the air that if he's going to even play or not. Blaine Gabbart, I mean, my God, yeah. I'm definitely putting my chips into the Indianapolis thing here. I really, I mean, just in general, I think they're more interesting. I mean, they've got really exciting rookie linebacker

that has potential to win the defensive rookie of the year, the defensive rookie of the year, Darius Leonard. The up and down life of air. Eric Ebron. I don't know if you've listened to the Dynasty podcast, but Ebron has been a big,

big topic over there just because he's having such an insanely weird year. Ebron is one of these fantasy guys where that when you check in on fantasy Twitter, they're talking about Eric Ebron

in the same way that normal NFL Twitter is talking about like Dan Marino. Just like constant discussion, just constant discussion about Eric Ebron. I've never seen it. like it. Who else is like that?

Who's in the, who's in, what is the biggest disconnect between NFL fantasy Twitter, NFL Twitter as far as just people who are just discussed constantly? I feel like Christine Michael was like that. Oh yeah. Evron is taking over the Kristen Michael thing. Wow. Maybe Amari Cooper. Oh no, Cooper's discussed all the time in in regular NFL, in regular NFL

Twitter. He has 52 yards the last two weeks. I haven't heard from a cowboy fan in a while. Yeah. It makes me sad that he's kind of falling off. I was really in the market-cuburner. You know who it doesn't make sad? The person who publicly made fun of the Cowboys for trading for him for a number of weeks.

Doesn't make me that sad. Okay. Stock down. Texans lost the buy. Thoughts. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's huge for them. The Texans have, it feels to me like they've kind of just MacGivered their way.

You know, in a good way. like it, it's commendable because they just have a lot of injuries. They don't have an offensive line. And yet they've managed to work their way into the situation where they are actually almost having the two seat or whatever. You know, clearly could have. Clearly they lost it. So they've lost it.

Let's be clear on loss it. If the Patriots lose next week to the Jets and the Texans win, they could regain it. But that obviously is unlikely. I mean, man. And they were so, like, they were so close to, I should say the offense was so close to winning that game because Sean Watson just went off late in the game

I mean he gives I look at him he gives them a chance to win pretty much any game and I think he's obviously a big part of why they're so good Andre Hopkins had a couple of incredible catches late in the game yeah but the defense really you know crap the bet at the end there gave up a couple of big plays generally speaking that in that that big hit that actually swung, you know, I think it swung that final drive quite a bit

was more than questionable. The one where he hit Foles and knocked him out for a play, David and Clowny. I think that was, it looked like a pretty clean hit. I don't know exactly what the explanation was for that. Did you hear anything about that? Because it looked to me like a pretty good hit. Yeah, I mean, just

just kind of feel referees. Yeah. You know, so first of all, this this swings the Texans Patriots game. which is inevitably going to be played in the second round. And the Patriots will, the Patriots will host now. And they obviously played the first week at the season.

The Patriots won 27 to 20. I think that those two teams are so evenly matched. I understand the Patriots are the Patriots and we joke all the time about not wanting to count them out. I would have anticipated the Texans beating the Patriots if that game was in Houston. I agree. I agree. I think, you know, and they're banged up

and they've got some injuries and so like that, the Texans, but again, like they've got superstar power on both sides of the ball. Yep. You know, they've got JJ Watt.

J.J. Watt is having, like, his quietly greatest season. Not his best season, but it's the quietest, the quietest, great season. Typically Robert Mays is healthier

and can be on this podcast. And he was the number one J.G. O'Watt guy for a number of years. I just, I feel like he's letting down his guard a little bit, not pumping him up. I feel like he's got this

is played full with Trubisky and those guys. So it's, it's tough for him. So Robert, we know you're listening. We got to get you back on the watch train. All right. Next dock down. Last dock down. NFL teams looking for coaches.

Now, Robert and I had a philosophical discussion about the Steve Wilkes situation a couple weeks ago. He thought that the Cardinals should move on from him. I thought they should not. It sounds like per many people, they are moving on from him. Congratulations to Robert. on calling it. But, you know, in the story where Adam Schaefter talked about this, he discussed it, this is going

to be the 2013 coaching carousel, where there were eight openings. And here's my problem. And this is the whole problem with the Wilkes thing. Okay. That coaching carousel gave us some pretty good coaches. Okay. Andy Reid of the Chiefs was one of them. Bruce Ariens to the Cardinals, even though, you know, whatever.

But Reed is the only guy who's still with his team. Doug Morrow went to Buffalo. And separately, that gave us, that carousel gave us Mark Trussman, Rob Zoszinski, Gus Bradley, and Mike McCoy. Oh, yeah, McCoy. The bench for hires is pretty shallow, pretty thin, pretty thin bench. So who the hell were the Cardinals going to hire? That's my question.

I don't under, I don't think Steve Volks is a good coach. at all. It seems to me like they're underachieving a lot. So yeah. What? What?

Did anyone think that they were going to they, what were they like? Mays took them in the wins league. What were they like picked 27?

I would say maybe not underachieving from like a win necessarily a wins perspective. I mean, yeah,

they are clearly, but they beat the Packers. They're just so, they're completely non-competitive. Yeah, I don't think they, I don't know

if they had the roster to be competitive. I mean, I think they had a good defense last year, and then you hire a defensive coach to come in, and that, you know, that hasn't been a strength for them. Mike, Mike, this is a firing that is just the sequel to the Mike McCoy firing, because Mike McCoy had no idea. Mike McCoy should have Googled who the Cardinals were before he took this job. And he could have seen that David Johnson catches past out of the backfield, and he's

pretty good. The problem was you only watched 2017 where Johnson was out all year. It was like Mike McCoy had no idea how to do any of this stuff. It was almost fascinating to watch. And it didn't get much better with Johnson under Leftwich.

No. And Fitz is fits. He's fine. But I mean, I just think it was an offensive problem. And I think that you could go out there and if you want the GM to mandate, you change coaches or whatever. You can do that. You can bring in some better offensive minds. But I just think that there might be a lot of coaching changes this year,

and you're a lot more likely to end up with a Mark Trussman, Rob Chesensky, Auguste Bradley, than... I guess... And Andy Reid, for instance. I get that. Although, Andy, you know, Andy Reid almost much of the Cardinals out of you. I don't even remember that. My question would be, though, like,

what have you seen from Wilkes that makes you think it's worth sticking around? I don't know. I've seen the abyss. I've stared into the abyss. And it stared right back at me. What if they could get McDaniels to go over there? Why would... I mean, I don't think he would.

Why would McDaniels do that? To get, I mean, yeah, he wouldn't. McDaniels pulled out of a job coaching Andrew Luck 11 months ago. No, that's true. He wouldn't. Now he's going to go do Josh Rosen, who's not as good as Andrew Luck? No, he won't. I don't, yeah, no, I mean, I don't know the answer is.

He probably will. Probably will by the time this podcast ends. I'll just read that report. All right. Challenge flags. only going to do one. Mays is really, really, even though we did Steve Wilkes in last segment, he really wanted to do first year defensive coordinators getting head coaching job.

So that that challenge flag will just be a ghost ship and you listener will know that it exists and Mays is still mad about it. But what we're going to discuss is Eli Manning. Yes. I love this. Just enough. Who did just enough on Sunday to lock up that 2019 starting. gig. Am I wrong? Is he going to, though? Really?

I mean, I think I think Oh my God. I love I think it's hilarious watching Giants, Twitter, in general, talk about Eli Manning. There's such a divide because there's a segment of the population that just thinks it's the stupidest idea ever to like continue with this

QB purgatory that they're in. And then there's this other segment that thinks he's a legend and you can't smirch his good name. it's not his fault. There's all these other issues going on. And, man, I just think it would be such a mistake if they don't move on from him next year. Can we talk?

So quarterback rating is not a good metric. Not a good metric. Okay. Not a, I mean, it's a good guideline. It's a good guideline. Yeah. To what a player is playing like. Eli went 155 against Tampa on November 18th.

From there, he went 91, 65, 135, 132, 54 and then on Sunday 101 yeah so I guess what I'm telling you is he's playing a little bit inconsistently

so the idea and I saw some New York Giants writers New York Giants writers tweet out it was going to have a complete career high and complete super percentage of all this stuff but I don't think he's going to win you a lot of games

no I mean well they've gotten to the point now where they're not going to have have a top, I don't know what, do you know where they're slated for right now? They're going to have a top three pick. And so it makes it a little bit more difficult to figure out like where they're going to get a replacement for Ely Manning. And there's obviously a question of like, who's it going to be to replace him? You know, there's, there's shades to this argument that we don't know the

answer to. So to me, yeah, I'm sorry. I was just going to say, but like it, to me it's a no brainer. Like they got to move on at this point. Like, you're just, you're barely like, like, staying afloat at this point. It's not good. And you have two of the, you have literally the two most explosive offensive players in the NFL in O'Dow Beckham and Seekoine Barkley.

So, and you're getting this out of it. They're going to have the eighth pick. Yeah. If everything ended this way. And so there's so many, there's so much time still to figure out, like, is Dwayne Haskins going to be the guy or, you know, whoever. Yeah.

And will he be? be available at eight. Right. Probably not, but who knows at this point. And so, you know, there's a lot of questions

that have to be answered before we really get to like a solution for the Giants. But I think it's just funny and kind of sad that, you know, what he's done over the second half is going to be enough

to potentially get him another season there. I just think it doesn't make any, they're just not going in the right direction. They need to start a new era. Draft to order Oakland. Excuse me. Arizona, Oakland, San Francisco, Jets, Lions. Yeah.

You don't want those top teams accidentally winning games. I bet Oakland wishes they hadn't gone and beaten the damn Steelers. That's why the Jets lost today was the best, the best possible scenario, because they played well. Then they would have gotten, here's the thing, is there's so many teams with five wins. the Jaguars are currently aligned for for the ninth pick at 5 and 10. You don't want to get five wins. That's why the Jets can't possibly beat

the Patriots on Sunday. The Packers are going to get the 14th pick. What are we doing here? They were so stoked about it, too. The Packers are going to get the 14th pick, and the damn dolphins are going to get a 15, and we thought the Dolphins that made the playoffs a couple weeks ago. Yeah.

So I guess my question for the Giants would be, and this is probably a bad example, but like how different are the, how different are the giants if they have like a Case Keenom, like level quarterback on them? You know what I mean? Like versus Manning, which they're going to be paying, you know, a big cap hit.

So you're, okay, okay. So you're saying a guy who's a low investment. Right. Quarterback. Case Keenum, I think is, we just did the Case Keenham thing. Oh, okay. two-year $36 million deal with $25 million guarantee, right?

So, hmm, I think for one year, it'd be a little hard. I mean, the Giants have some expensive players, dude. They've Olivier Vernon,

they've DeNorris Jenkins, not like they've, you know, they've built entirely through the draft. I mean, I think from the Jerry Reese era, it's not like they would be NFC East contenders,

I don't think, because they just, they just don't have enough of a, of a, of a, don't have no depth on the roster. His, Eli Manning's cap hit next year is supposed to be $23.2 million. Hell yeah.

Well, so is Derek Carr's. Yeah. Derrick Car is 22.5. Quarterback salaries don't make any sense. Speaking of the abyss, don't, don't look too closely into that stuff. That will drive you crazy.

Over the last few weeks where Eli Manning is, you know, apparently played himself into another year in that offense, how do you feel about the Giants in general? Like, do you think they're going in the right direction? They need another year of getting good players. They need a better offensive line. But, you know, there have been a lot of games this year

where Eli Manning's clean pocket rating was really bad. Yeah. Ryan Tannhill has 26 million dollar cap it next year. Woof. Can they get out of that, though? Yeah, I'm sure they can. Yeah. Derek Carr 22, Case Keenham 21, Bortles 21.

Bortles. Gropolo 20, even though Nick Mullins is the New Dame Marino. Okay, put Nick Mullins on the giant. Yes, yes. Well, no, that's what we need to do. That's what we need to do. It's all Kyle Shanahan. Yeah, but he's made some, I mean, I, you know, I didn't watch the game closely today. I didn't watch him closely today, but I mean, he's made some pretty damn impressive throws too. I mean, I definitely agree that Shanahan is scheming the hell out of that offense, but Mullins is like standing in and pressure. I'm asking you the wrong, we're asking the wrong

question. We're asking the wrong question. We're asking if Nick Mullins was in New York, how would he look? What would Elon Manning look like under Kyle Shanahan? Oh, that's interesting. I still think... Do you have an answer? Did you short circuit? No, my, well, my impression is he would look a lot better. Okay. But not... Play action God, Eli Manning. Yeah. I guess he would look a lot. He probably would look a lot better. I mean, coaching, is it really the only way we can find out is if they execute that Nick Mullins, Eli Manning Trade, we all want to say.

Let's do this. Let's do this. All right. Tomorrow's headlines, Seahawks fever. You tell me. It's going to be here. That's for sure. That's a huge win. It was a big time win, even though Andy Reed was apparently resting his veterans, secretly resting his veterans. God damn it. Why do you have to keep bringing that up?

No, I think that's you know, that's a big one because I don't think a lot of people probably expected the Seahawks to be able to hang with them that way. Especially, you know, the Seahawks offense has been pretty hit or miss, but, I mean, over the last two weeks, I'd say, but I mean, they looked pretty sharp at times. Russell Wilson was really, really good. Is there going to be talk of Russell Wilson potentially sneaking into the MVP race? MVP race is really growing by the week. It is getting heated. think what do you think happen to take is breeze had a better game?

Patrick Mahomes going to win the MVP. This is pretty damn good. You know what I think actually a little bit? And this is completely separate from what we're talking about. This is me just basically ignoring the conversation we're currently having. I kind of think we're doing this thing where we talk about who's making it, who's going to make noise in the playoffs because the top teams have been so established for two months or maybe even three months.

Because we know the Saints and the Chiefs, the Patriots, you know, and Rams are going to be there at the end. So we've had to just manufacture this conversation about like who's the best of the rest. And that's why we're going to do this with the Seahawks again. So I guess the point I'm making is that tomorrow's headlines is going to be Seahawks mania because we just keep doing this because we've talked so much about. I mean, Mahomes had another amazing, amazing throw today that was just would have broken the internet. If if fucking Ryan Tannahill did it, it would break the internet just because we haven't talked about

Ryan Tanahill. No one's talked about Ryan Tano in two and a half years. But because it's Mahomes, this is normal. This is not normal. No. Danny Kelly. Let's not normalize this. Don't normalize Patrick Mahomes.

It's not normal. That's our big mission right now. He's really freaking fun to watch plate. By the way, so the thing actually that I was just thinking of, that's going to be a big headline tomorrow. And I'm interested to get your take on this is, is refereeing ruining the season? like how many big, huge game-changing plays have there been?

And do you think it's any different than other years, number one? And number two... I think that... I'm sorry, go ahead. So, yeah, the first part is, do you think it's any different or if it's just recency bias? And number two, do you think, like, there's a fix for it, I guess, is like, do you have to make everything reviewable or do you just kind of deal with it?

You know, it's just what it is what it is. Great question. So, a couple of things. Number one, I think that it is slightly different because there's more passing and there's different types of passing. I think referees are, you know, the game keeps getting faster. I heard a story a couple of years ago. I interviewed a couple of referees. And basically, the point they made was that refereeing was not supposed to be this hard.

You know, it's just really fast now. And the sport keeps getting faster. I think you just get to a point where, you know, the game is officiated maybe more poorly because, the referees are adapting a little bit to the style of the pace, the play of the game, whatever it is. I think the referees are a little worse. I also think that, you know, when I wrote that piece about Pereira and Blondino a couple weeks ago,

on the ringer, the guys can go all read, is, you know, one of the things that social media has changed everything. And there's more time. And it went from, I was to Terry McCulley about this. And he basically said that replay in social media when they converge, because replay came into 1999.

Social media came in, what? six, seven years later. Yeah. The difference when the shift was from something bad just happened to my team. And I don't know what's going on, but the next snap just happened. So I'm going to move on to something bad just happened to my team. And I can look at 50 replays of it. I can complain about it.

I can talk about it. I can put it up. I can get angry about it. I can tweet at my prayer. Yeah, my prayer. This is a prudering of everything. Exactly what you said. And so that is sort of, I think,

is one of the biggest changes. I just think that it's a different time for that. And it's, it's probably pretty hard. There's probably too many rules, probably too many exceptions.

I think, again, you can read the, I go into more detail on the story. But that's, that's generally the way that I view it is. It's,

the referees are probably worse than ever, but I also think that it's probably harder than ever to, to referee an NFL game. Yeah. And I wonder how much the NFL's, I guess,

focuses and things that happened over the offseason and the rules like, emphases. They didn't necessarily change a ton of rules, but they're just emphasizing it differently.

I wonder how much that's played into it too because I know that it's just way harder to play defense than it ever has been, I think, in the past. Because there's so many rules.

The rules all of us. So many rules protecting quarterbacks. There's a lot of rules protecting receivers. And you were joking about it in Slack today. And it was hilarious. But it's true. It's just there's no offensive pass interference calls. It just doesn't happen.

It's the best loophole for the offense in the world. And so I think it's all that combined. I think that the social media point is really, really important too. Because it's just one of those things that's so much easier to. We just sit there. We watch everything over and over until we all get angry. angry. Whip ourselves

up into a frenzy. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I can't remember it was like Kevin C for a couple weeks ago tweeted something. I think it was him or Dan Graziano.

I can't remember which one, ESPN guy. And he said, your life would just be a lot better if you just accept that. Games in every sport, every week are going to be decided by calls and just be better if you just accept that.

I kind of actually subscribe to that because I'm like, Are you a UFC fan at all? A little bit, like really casual. So let me tell you what happened tonight, okay? So they're moving the big pay-per-view from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on a week's notice because Las Vegas would not certify the guy in the main event,

John Bones-Jones, because his drug test came back with basically traces of the same thing he tested positive for two years ago, which led to his banish. from the sport. So instead of dealing with the fact that the state won't license them, they're literally just moving the fight to a state that will license them.

And the reason I bring this up is that we sit here and we talk about corruption in the NFL and like, oh, they're clearly favoring the Patriots, whatever the hell it is. And it's like, no, dude, it's actually not that shady. You know what, shady? This damn UFC thing. Like, you want to see shadiness? Look

at that. Look at like some of this NBA stuff that's that, you know, Tim Donnie. Like, there's actual scandals. Dick Bavetta, which is an extension of Tim Donnie thing. There are actual scandals in sports, but like, you know, someone calling illegal contact on Byron Jones is not one of them.

Right. So. Yeah, I'm with you. It's a very, in the grand scheme of things, the steward's being called for an obvious past interference is not, does not need a congressional investigation.

Yeah. I see, this UFC thing actually might, though. I'm, I'm very agnostic when it comes to the referee, just being outraged. I try to be at least, try not to be outraged about calls. I'm just like, man, it happens. And it's going to happen in really obvious moments.

And it's going to be bad sometimes. And it's going to be frustrating. But at the same time, the NFL is not against your team. I'm sorry. And so, yeah. I agree. Well, also, also, and this is the point I've always come back to and people get upset about this.

if let's say there's a pro-patriots bias in the NFL, okay? Well, the Patriots aren't the most popular team by any stretch of the imagination. So why wouldn't they fix it for the Cowboys? Why wouldn't they fix it for the Steelers? Why wouldn't they fix it for the giants? Those are the most popular teams. Why, why?

I mean, the Patriots and the Grands human things weren't even that popular 20 years ago. I mean, they were going to move to Hartford. Like, it wasn't like they had some national, they had national fan base now because they won so much, but it's revisionist history. So why would the NFL fix it for sort of a mid-tier popularity team

when they could fix it for the damn Dallas Cowboys and the most popular team in the world? Yeah, that's a good question. The Seahawks fan in me would say, well, the NFL did fix the Super Bowl for the Steelers back in 2005. But they were already in the Super Bowl. I know.

No need to keep fixing it. Yeah, I'm not going to go. I'm not going to go into it anymore, but I'm just kidding anyway. You can have your own podcast if you complain about this. All right, we got to get out of here. I do want to point out that I'm in my dad's home office in Orlando. And I just, I had flashbacks to watching a million football games here, except I would also be playing roller coaster tycoon the entire time.

I was like 13 years old. And I'm having like super flashbacks because it's the same TV that I watched, you know, like, you know, the damn Rayroads Packers on when I was 10 years old. But then also just just crushing roller coaster tycoon. My God. I love it. That's a wrap. Okay. Anyway, Danny, thank you for pinch hitting. Yeah, that's fun. Thanks for having me on. All right. Thanks, guys.