The Ringer NFL Show - Ron Rivera Fired, Who’s Next? Plus, Brady vs. Mahomes, and a Stacked Week 14. | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: December 5, 2019

Ron Rivera is the first coach to be fired in the 2019 season. We analyze why he wasn't the right fit in Panthers owner David Tepper’s plans for the team (1:45). Then, a Take Shop about the Titans' potential (25:00) before we get into a stacked slate of games, highlighted by the Patriots hosting the Chiefs, and our quick pick for 'Thursday Night Football' (33:15). Host: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the NFL show is brought to you by State Farm. When you need a game plan for protection, state farm agents are here to help. With personalized service, agents are available to talk in person over text or through the State Farm app. So go with the one with coverage and agents you can count on. Find an agent in your neighborhood today. State Farm. Talk to an agent today. Zorro.com is where you'll find everything you need for businesses of any size in almost any industry. They have tools, equipment, and supplies for everything you need.

Whether you need stuff for industries like electrical, plumbing, manufacturing, or more, Zorro's got it from brands you know and trust. And Zorro.com offers amazing customer service from real people based in the U.S. Visit ZORO.com slash NFL in all lowercase letters to sign up for Z-mail and get 15% off your first order. This is the ringer NFL show. I'm Robert Mays, joined as always by Kevin Clark. Kevin, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. I am really excited about this week.

football. The three games of the week are pretty damn good. I mean, we're talking about most of the best teams in the NFL squaring off against each other, which if you can't get excited about that, I'm not sure why you'd want to cover this sport. Yeah, I mean, this is the schedule got to bless us the last couple of weeks. And I'm just, this is, even the matchups, okay, the bills are not one of the tippy top best teams in football. But they're nine and three. But it's also just a really interesting matchup against Lamar Jackson. I mean, that defense, I really like the talent they have. there, Josh Allen, there have been all sorts of strange tweets about how Josh Allen's rushing numbers compared to Lamar Jackson's that I've ignored. But it's, it's, it's just an interesting

matchup. Yeah, I think so too. I think the one I'm looking, I'm looking forward to that because I want to learn a little bit more about the bills. Yeah. They've only really had one signature win. They destroyed the Cowboys last week. We'll get into that. But I want to see them up against better teams. And that's what we're going to get over the last three, four weeks of the season. And it starts right now. So before we get into that, before we get into the games of the week, let's talk about the biggest news of the week. You wrote about this. We discussed it a little bit on Sunday and what might happen in Carolina. I think both of us thought that Ron Rivera would be back there and maybe Marty Herney would be out. That's not what ended up happening. Ron Rivera fired

as the Panthers head coach. And I want to hit this on a few different levels. I want to get to the coaching carousel and how it might start rotating. But let's get to what seemed like the Panthers thought process and what's and David Teper. comments about that thought process because I thought there was a lot of interesting stuff in there. So it was shocking in the context of a normal decision-making process, right? Like Ron Rivera has been a good coach. Marty Herney has running some trouble as GM. That's why he was fired already once.

I think when you start to listen to David Tepper and figure out what they're trying to do, everything else makes a little more sense. So Marty Herney, who David Tepper identified as a good evaluator of college talent, and he is, will be a part of a new front office that maybe has more executives, probably more kind of, David Tepper used the word modern a lot. I think there's going to be more front office executives to the point that there'll be more analytics, maybe different sort of cap philosophies, that kind of thing. And maybe Marty Herney just gets to scout the guys.

And that's a good idea. So from Rivera's standpoint, listen, I've talked to Rivera a lot about analytics, a lot. Like probably once, at least once a year for the past five years. We've talked about it. We actually talked about it at the Super Bowl a couple of months ago. and we could pass to other on the street and we started talking about analytics because I think he was interested in it

but he wasn't just quite there yet you know I mean I think that the first story I ever wrote for the ringer he got in the phone with me and basically told me that he doesn't want to he doesn't really want sideline technology at all because he thinks that that's an unfair advantage if you have live video on the side on the sideline

that you can you know you can negate good coaching by technological advancements I don't necessarily agree with that, but that was his viewpoint. So if David Tepper's trying to build an ultra-modern front office and coaching staff and all this stuff, it's possible that Ron Rivera was just not the guy to do that. And Tepper said that he was, Rivera was open to it to a certain extent, but he's had 35 years of doing something one way and now he's asking to change. And Tepper understands that was going to take time.

So my general point here is that Ron Rivera is a good coach. He will be a good coach for another team, but I don't think that team was the Panthers. I think this is the rare divorce where it's going to benefit both parties. I tend to agree with you. And it's so clear that David Teper has a plan. And Ron Rivera probably isn't the guy to execute that plan. Even if he's the guy that can execute a good plan, it's not the one that Panthers want. I'll be curious to see what their front office structure ends up looking like.

Tepper said he wanted a C-O-O-type that was kind of a vice president and personnel. I assume that will be someone with some sort of analytics lean to them just because they're going to need that sort of voice. at a high level if they want to execute that plan. So we'll see what happens. We'll see how this all shakes out. I'm surprised that Marty Herney is going to stay. But like you said, it makes sense if this is going to be the structure and they're going to make some significant changes even while keeping him.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's that's what Tepper's trying to do. And I think that it's admirable. If he thinks Marty Herney is the best evaluative of college talent he's going to get for that role and that's the role, just literally picking the players, then that's a good idea. Tepper has a firm handle on this. I think that there's a real big difference between saying you understand the process and actually understanding the process. So it's hard for us to say, okay, David Tepper is clearly a good owner because he gave good press conference. Lots of people have given good press conferences. But I think that Tepper's patience since taking over the team, his evaluation of everything, his clear grasp on where things are going. Remember, David Tepper was talking a lot about passing on first down. I mean, he sounds like a member of NFL Twitter sometimes. Okay. He really does. And so I think that he kind of, he kind of, he kind of, understands where the sport is going. Now, Albert Brear had this tweet, I thought, was really fascinating.

I put it in the piece that the last five new owners before David Tepper. Steve Ross, first hire Joe Philbin. Stan Cronkey, first hire, Jeff Fisher. Shad Khan, first hire Mike Malarkey. Jimmy Haslam first hire Rob Judinsky. Terry Pugula first hire Rex Ryan. Those are the five previous new owners before David Tepper. So do we learn that Tepper is going to rush into something?

make a mistake, I don't think we did. I think we learned that David Tepper is trying to understand the process before he makes a decision like a Jeff Fisher or a Joe Philbin or a Mike Malarkey. So I think that that's, it is, this is a really interesting hiring cycle for the Carolina Pandas because everything is on the table. So if you look at that list of the new owners and the guys they've hired, there's a lot of retreads in there. There's a lot of safe choices. Can you believe Joe Philbin wasn't a retread? No. He just seemed like a retread.

He seemed like he came fired from somewhere else. So Rex Ryan, obviously. And then Mike Markey was a head coach at one point and Jeff Fisher. I think that there is an option like that for the Panthers. And it's Mike McCarthy. I wouldn't hire Mike McCarthy as my head coach if I were David Tepper. But he is the type of guy who has made analytics friendly choices in the past, even if he's not outwardly in favor of them.

And he will be available. And then I think the other guy whose name I said, yesterday that pretty much fits every single box checks, every single box that David Tepper wants to check is Kevin Stefansky. Because I've talked to him in the spring about some of these numbers, especially in regard to play action. He's very aware of them. I think he's cognizant of them and wants to rely on them to a certain degree.

And if you remember, when the Browns were looking to hire their head coach, the report was that Deepedesta and the analytics side of things wanted Stafansky and ownership wanted to bring in Freddie Kitchens. So I think that he's just somebody that makes a lot of sense when he said I want an offensive coach and he said someone I want is open and accepting of analytics and just that type of approach. So that's the first name that came to mind for me. I think Greg Roman, you could throw in there as sort of a forward-thinking coach from a forward-thinking organization that basically sees fourth down as an offensive down at this point, which I think is a huge

part of analytics. I think one of the problems for both the front office is something I've talked about a lot, not recently, but the front office and coaching staff. the analytics part of it is a struggle right now because there's just not a lot in the pipeline. What ended up happening in 2005, 2005, 2006, 2007 and baseball was a bunch of GMs got hired who were like 29 or 35 or 32. And the reason that kept happening was because there weren't 50-year-olds with a ton of managerial experience who understood analytics. And that's what ownership wanted. Ownership is almost always going to drive analytics.

When I wrote a couple weeks ago that feature about fourth down in the Patriots and the Colts, Brian Burke, who's consulted for NFL teams, said that whenever he was brought in to a team, it was almost always because ownership came from, you know, like David Tepper was a hedge fund manager, okay? He understands the numbers. That's what he goes off of. Yep. And he's going to come in and say, wait, why aren't we going off the numbers here?

And that's going to keep happening. And that's what happened in baseball. It's what's going to happen in football. There are certain reasons why it's never going to become exactly what it was in baseball. but it's just going to become more analytical inclined. My point being here is that if you're going out and trying to hire an executive for analytics, there actually aren't as many as you think. Teams don't have a lot of guys who have managerial experience who love analytics in the NFL

because analytics has only been, unfortunately, because NFL teams were so conservative, it took a long time for them to start hiring these guys. So there's not a ton of options in the pipeline if you wanted to hire a number two in your organization right now, who is a died-in-the-wall analytics guy. Same with coaching. These guys get in because they're old-school guys because they impress old-school John Fox types. And if you're 37, 38, 39 now,

it means you came in as an old-school person pretty typically, and you have to have a kind of an adaptable brain in order to embrace analytics now. The people, in 10, 15 years, you will have no trouble finding analytically inclined brains in the NFL. But right now, you'd have to do a lot of digging. And that's why I'm really fascinated with this particular thing. Yeah, I think especially finding a number one would be hard.

So if you're trying to have this piecemeal front office where you want to have that message coming from someone up high, but you understand you still have to run a personnel department, I think the way they're doing this actually makes sense. What you said about Tepper, I think is right in the sense that he sounds really good and he says all the right things. But we've seen often people say the right things and still do this wrong. do this wrong. They make the wrong decisions eventually. But I do think it's a step in the right direction because think about the difference. I was thinking about this yesterday.

Think about the difference in the aftermath of the Panthers firing their head coach and the aftermath of the Redskins firing their head coach. Where the Redskins trot Bruce Allen out. He says everything is fine. Nothing. The culture is great. We don't need to make any changes. And David Tepper comes out and gives like a 10 minute just diagnostic of why he made the decision he made and where the difference. franchise has to go. I just think there's a right and a wrong way to do these things.

He did it the right way. So it's the correct step one. We'll see if step two, three, four, and five are also correct. Yeah. I mean, listen, it is, you and I have had this many, many times. We talked to a lot of people in this league and we come away from it saying, man, I guys are really smart. And then they, if they're coordinator, they score 14 points a game or if they're GM, they go four and 12 for a DC. They allow 35 points a game. It's a lot of people who can talk really, really well and can't do things really well. And so I think that judging someone off of a press conference, I think it's a good first step. But I'm going to be judging David Tepper on the process and the results. All I can say right now is that it's a good first step. I think so too.

If you had to pick a team where you think Ron Rivera would make the most sense in 2020, what team would it be? So that's a great question. I've thought about it a little bit. Do you think? So I think Ron Rivera is an adult in the room, right? And I know what you're going to say, and I feel the same way.

I don't think we're going to say the same thing. What are you going to say? You don't? I was going to say Cleveland. Okay. Well, so I think, so the report now is that we think Freddie Kitchen is, excuse me, Freddie Kitchen is coming back.

That was the Breer report. I would like Ron Rivera in Cleveland. I think that would be a good hire. It just might not be in the cards. Yeah, I think Freddie Kitchens will be back. But I think if you're a. building the perfect scenario of where Ron Rivera would fit best. A team like that.

Yes. The only complicating factor of that is they do want somebody a little bit of analytics and client because DeBadesta is still there. He still has a voice. So is Rivera who just kind of got fired because he's not willing to accept some of these things is a front office that has that sort of motivation to a certain degree going to want to bring him in? I do think that what they saw this year, it's worth overreacting because they do

need an adult in the room and that's exactly what he is. Where are we on Dallas? That's a good question. I don't... I think Ron Rivera is a better coach than Jason Garrett. Is Ron Rivera the best they can get? I don't know the answer to that. I think if they fired Jason Garrett and hired Ron Rivera,

I would say that's an upgrade. But would I say that's an upgrade over every available coaching candidate? I actually don't know. I had to see a little bit more. I agree with you. That's pretty much exactly how I think about it. That's why I'm inclined to say yes, And I'm inclined to say, yeah, they should do that.

But then it's like, really? Is that, that's going to be your drastic move? It is going to get Ron Rivera, who I like. But it still feels like you really want to canvas the entire available pool before you land on a guy like Rod Rivera. That is my viewpoint. So let's go through the coaching carousel, shall we? Sure. Let's do it.

So the open jobs right now are Washington and Carolina. If you're Washington, who do you look for and also who can they get? I don't know what I think they would. I think that with Washington, I would be inclined to say they should go with somebody offensive-minded just because the quarterback is young and they really need to do something with that. And are you going to be able to get a head coach

and a quality offensive coordinator? And then you can do that. I mean, we've seen teams do that. Look at Baltimore right now. I just feel like bringing in a defensive head coach and then finding another quality guy on top of that when you're probably going to have a hard time convincing a head coach to come,

maybe asking a little bit too much, if that makes sense. Yeah, you know, it was interesting. There were a lot of columns around the time of the firing of Gruden that kind of illustrated that the last time this happened, he panicked and threw a bunch of money at Mike Shanahan, which ended up being a great idea. It's a really good idea. They should have stuck with it. They should just bring Max Chanham back. Who cares? But I think that he might go out and just try to Godfather offer an established coach or or he could throw a ton of money at a spurious type.

Like he did 15 years ago, 17 years ago. and just try to kind of bring new schemes to the game. I don't know the answer to that. I don't think someone like Lincoln Riley's going to come. I definitely don't think someone like Matt Ruhle is going to come. I think maybe you have to hire. I think they might end up hiring like a Mike McCarthy type.

That's what I was going to say. I think he makes sense for them. They would give him a lot of money and he would take the job. Right? I think that's the name that would throw first. I'm speculating. I'm just saying that that's the, I think he wants to get back into the

coaching game. He took a year off last year. And I think he wanted to coach last year. He just got kind of, uh, the cycle just wasn't kind to him. I think that that's, that's the type of place he should end up. Yeah. It wouldn't surprise me if he ended up there. If you were a team right now, so which teams do we think might fire their coaches? I don't want to cost any, I don't want to, you know, write everyone on anyone off here and say they should lose their jobs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Dallas. Yes. So apparently not New York. The Jets. Not, not, not, not, not the, the Jets. Not the Jets. Not the Jets. Not the Jets. Where are we on the Chargers? I think it's tough to fire him after one year. I agree with that. I would not, I would not fire Anthony

Lynn. I would not fire Anthony Lynn. I think he's a pretty good head coach. Okay. AFC North, Browns, I guess we're, we're keeping Freddie here in this, in this slot. And then Zach Taylor keeps his job for beating the Jets. One year is tough. I think Zach Taylor keeps his job. Also, that's just roster. There's just no What are you supposed to do? Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. Doug Marone.

I think he's gone. Okay. So where does Jacksonville go in this scenario? I don't know. I mean, it's so hard to know what these teams will want to do. Right. Like it's usually an overcorrection from your previous coach, right? So what's the overcorrection from Doug Marone?

Well, okay. So here's where I'm landing, okay? So Matt Rule, Ron Rivera, Robert Sale, those are the guys who I think are the tippy top. Greg Roman is right there as well, okay? I think there's some other sort of outside the box candidates, especially from the college game, but like Matt Ruhl from Baylor is an awesome coach.

And he was in the mix for the Jets job. We didn't want it last year, as was the Iowa State coach, I believe. I think that we- He just got an extension. Matt Campbell did. Well, I mean, that's, I forgive me for not respecting the sanctity of college football extension.

So if he left, if he left after the season, I'd be surprised, considering you just got a five-year extension, like yesterday. I would, it could be a hundred-year extension, and I do not respect. I do not respect in any way college coaching extensions. That's fair. Anyway, so I think that there's probably, I think I would throw a bunch of money in that rule if I were someone like Dan Snyder or eventually the Jaguars, if they make that move. I think that's where I'd go with that.

Someone like Ron Rivera and Jacksonville wouldn't work, I think he's too moronish. So, I don't know. Maybe do you... If you were a team, would you consider hiring Mike Shanahan? Would you call Mike Shanahan? So I would call Mike Shanahan. I would too. Mike Shanahan is 67 years old.

I just like that up as well. I would... It depends where you are, right? Does Mike Shanahan want to do a jet style rebuild? I don't think he does. Would he take over Dallas? and become a really good Dallas coach? Absolutely.

Would he do great things with the Cleveland Browns? Absolutely. I just think that you have to... It depends what he wants, but he left Washington under pretty tough terms. And I don't think he wants a lot of BS. And I think that he wants a lot of control,

which he had at the beginning there in Washington. I think that, listen, hindsight has made Mike Shannon look like a very... his Washington tenure looked much more successful than it did when he left. And that's not just because of Sean McVey and Kyle Shanahan and Matt Lerner and those guys who were on that staff. It's because the job he did building around RG3 pre-injury and the injury is a different discussion. We're not going to get into here unless you want to. But the Baylor offense stuff and just importing that college playbook, that's all anybody does now, man.

Mike Shanahan saw the future. He's not Andy Reid. He's not, you know, the greatest, one of the greatest offense of innovators. you know, over a 20-year period because he hasn't brought it every single year like Andy Reid. But he's a cut below that, just as far as seeing the future and implementing it. I feel like he would be a decent fit in Cleveland, but that would never happen based on how Kyle Shanahan's tenure in Cleveland ended. I'm also, my concern about Mike Shanahan, and I agree with you to a certain extent, my concern is we have not seen Mike Shanahan without Kyle

Shanahan since Denver. We can attribute that forward-thinking stuff to Mike Shanahan, but I know that Kyle Shanahan had a huge hand in building that offense for Robert Griffin. That was not just Mike's plan. So if he has a lesser offensive coordinator, is he going to be able to do that sort of innovative stuff when Kyle is no longer there? We know how I feel about Kyle as an offensive coach. We do. So that's a question. I don't know the answer to that question. I feel like he'd be somebody worth calling, but I can understand the apprehension from some people.

Did you know that when Jimmy Gropolo was hurt, he sat around watching tape with Mike Shanahan? I did not know that. He told me that. Jimmy Garoppolo told me that. I don't know. It's one of those things where I have no idea if anybody's reported that. I wrote it, but nobody cared

because I wrote it in like July. I'm going to tell the reader a little secret. If you write something on July 10th, no one, no one cares. There's just no one's in NFL mode and I wrote it. And I just, so there it is. We should just take six months off.

I'm sure, I'm sure he said it. I'm sure he said it publicly. I'm sure he did not. I'm sure Jim McRop would not give me the exclusive on this particular bit of information. But yeah, Mike Shanahan and Jimmy Grappolo

sat around watching offenses. And what I think is interesting is something Greg Olson told me too. When he went into the broadcast booth to do his Fox games, he told me that the really exciting thing when you're doing that is you get to watch other offenses because you never actually do. And when Jimmy Garoppolo was watching other offenses

with Mike Shanahan, he said he learned a ton because you sit there every week and you're watching Blitz Concepts, whatever. You're not just sitting around and watching Patrick Mahomes. I thought that was interesting. You're really just game planning. I think that's the biggest thing is you don't have time to really step back.

And that's what Gary Kubiak told me, actually. He said that he learned more about football in the last two years when he was an advisor than he did in five years as a head coach, just because you're getting to watch everything and you're not doing game plan specific stuff from Monday through Friday. And I think that's why you see kind of the wrinkles that that exist in that Minnesota offense is because not only is Stefanski coming from a different background and a different point of view, but Kubiak has been able to kind of modernize things because he's been able to watch other things for the last two years. I don't want to get this wrong. I think that I remember a David Grodd. Did David Grod come back to the NFL?

Hold on one second. Yeah, he played for the 2013 Jets after being away. He did not, I think he was hurt or something in 2012. And he came back in 2013. And I remember him saying in the locker room, I don't even know why I was there. He said that just sitting around and watching Red Zone was just hugely important for him

because he just never sat around and just watched football. You're just sitting there and just, learning different machinations of everything and the defense of the secondary, whatever. And you don't just take in the entire game because these guys are busy. And so I thought obviously David Garard did not light it up for the 2013 Jets,

but it's just an interesting thing to think about. And now it's time for the State Farm Safe Byte of the Week. The player you can count on. When you need a game plan for protection, State Farm agents are here to help. With personalized service, agents are available to talk in person over text or through the State Farm app.

So go with the one with coverage and agents you can count on. Find an agent in your neighborhood today. we want to talk about a guy who's been a safe bet for a long time, Mr. Aaron Rogers. And somebody who knows a little something about State Farm as well. So this works on a couple different levels. I think he's, there's multiple Aaron Rogers things behind me right now. You cannot see that, but he's everywhere in this room. Synergy, baby. And he's going to be everywhere on the field on Sunday against the Washington Redskins who are not a good team.

The throws can be everywhere. I'll tell you that. I mean, any spot on the field is open to him. We watched that game against the Giants last week. Obviously, the Giants are a bad pass defense, you know, you can concede that before we get into this. There's something to learn from that. Four touchdown passes against a bad team. Well, he gets another bad team this week. Yes, he does. We can just take that to a logical conclusion, and he's going to have touchdown passes. He has torched bad teams this season. He destroyed the Raiders. He had a big game against the Chiefs. So the competition level has mattered for him. He gets another bad team this weekend. And even with the snow coming down last week in New York, in New Jersey,

he still is just firing rockets. The one to Lazard, obviously, he's wide open. I mean, that's something that most quarterbacks can make, but it's still a really deep throw. And the other one, the one he was making while falling over on that fourth down, you just shouldn't be able to put that much juice on the ball. So I understand that his rate stats and everything else aren't what they were in years past,

but this is still a guy who can make throws that very few people on earth can in the biggest moments. I know this is a cliche to say, but he is the type of quarterback, again, very cliche, but you really don't want to face him in the playoffs. And that Green Bay team looks like it's going to get very dangerous come January. I think so too. And we've talked about this.

I think their defense is going to crystallize a little bit. But that's what I've always said about him. Even this season when there's been some lows, you think about the 49ers game, everything else. He didn't play well against the Chargers. But if your team is playing against him in January, I don't think you're going to sleep very well the night before.

Stay farm. Talk to an agent today. All right. Let's move on. Let's get today's week to take Shapp. Why don't you kick us off? So I actually think, I thought it was funny at first

that David Teper was like, well, out of deep respect for Ron Rivera, I'm firing him now. Out of deep respect for the guy we're firing, we're doing it now, right now. We respect Ron Rivera so much, we are instantly firing him. I thought that was funny at first,

but the more I thought about it and the more I listened to David Deppar talk, he wanted to start a coaching search right now and he didn't want to do it behind Ron Rivera's back. He wanted to elevate North Turner's son and make Norv Turner assistant head coach sort of an advisor and C. Perrifuel. And I don't, I think he's just an evaluation mode. And I, you know, you start to get a head start on the front office and what that's going to look like and all that.

I actually do think that there's some real value in what the Panthers are doing as far as just getting into evaluation mode and seeing what they have on the coaching staff internally, all that stuff. You know, I think that, listen, I remember when Dabo Swinney got promoted to Clemson and he did not seem like all that. By the way, you're strangely angry at dab with Swinney a lot. I just think he's an asshole. Okay. It's funny if you don't. It's funny if you don't, explain that.

So I'm just saying that I just sometimes when you promote guys, you learn a little bit more about your organization what you have, especially if you're going to make a move going forward. So this is a long way of saying that I actually think that more teams should do this. And as soon as they know what needs to happen, just do it. and just see what you have. Yeah. All right.

I do want to let you rant about Debuts 20 for a second. All right. I just think that, first of all, the I'm going to retire if the players get paid. Good. I hope you walk away. Congratulations. That's a wonderful stance from you. And two, I just, the guy is complaining constantly about everything.

You play in the ACC, man. The teams you play aren't as good as the teams that Ohio State and LSU plays. I just don't, I don't grasp this. He's constantly. complaining about everything. The guy manufactures these slights in his mind, and he doesn't do it in a way that's cool like Michael Jordan would. He does it in a way that just makes him seem really, really petty.

That's it. I do not like him. Ladies and gentlemen, you just witnessed Robert Mays, I'm a fine bomb caller. I guess so. I very rarely does a sports figure from afar incite this type of annoyance for me, but he really has.

I don't know how I can follow that. Why don't you get your take shop? All right. I think the Titans can beat the Chiefs in the playoffs. Are you expecting me to bail you out of this take? No. Okay, go ahead. Does you have a reaction?

No, I just blacked out. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. The Titans look very good. I'm just, I'm having some fun with you. I don't think this is totally crazy. We just saw them beat the Titans in a shootout.

I think that would be their best chance. Because the Titans defense, for all the cool stuff they do on third down, which they do a lot of it, I love watching their third down packages. Dean Pease is a really smart, creative, offensive coordinator. They did some awesome stuff against the Colts, just slot blitzes with Logan Ryan,

and they really do a lot of muddled fronts, and it's hard to know who's coming and who's not. And I just like that approach, but they get torched on first and second down a little bit too often. They're a bottom third past defense in DVOA. But their offense right now, I went back and watched the last couple games yesterday, and I'm just so impressed by how much,

how cogent of a plan they have. Everything is working together in this cool way. They run the ball more than I would want a team to run the ball. But when you have Derek Henry and it's working to the degree that it is, that's okay. And they have such cool compliments in the play action game, in the screen game. I mean, there are a lot of plays where it's a play action run and they're throwing a screen to Dionne Lewis in the flat or they're faking a toss and they're throwing a screen back to A.J. Brown, who's been great. And they, their play action approach right now, Tana Hill has used play action on 43.4 percent. of his dropbacks in the last four weeks.

That is the second highest rate in the league after only Lamar Jackson. He has completed 88% of his passes on play action. He is 22 of 25 in their past three games. I just love what they're doing. And I think that they can absolutely take advantage of a Chief's team that does not defend the run well. And I think you can hurt them in the middle of the field because I don't think their linebackers cover very well.

So I know it's hard to beat that team in Arrowhead going in there. in that environment in a playoff game is going to be very difficult. But I just think the way the Titans are playing right now and the way that they're constructed, I think it's possible for them to beat Patrick Mahomes in his house. Okay, so I'm really, really, really intrigued to see how Kansas City plays New England on Sunday. And that will go a long way in me, kind of shaping my opinion of Kansas City's danger in the playoffs.

I think it's too early to say what the AFC looks like right now. I think that Baltimore looks really freaking good, and I think that's going to continue barring some sort of injury or some, you know, I don't even know. It would have to be injury at this point because I don't think, I have such a complete team that they look like the best team in the AFC and will remain so until further notice. The Titans are really intriguing to me.

I think that, you know, Aaron Schatz made this point a couple weeks ago, and I've been thinking about it a lot, how important the one seat is not just for home field, but because if the Patriots got the one seat, and it doesn't think they are, they wouldn't have to play the Chiefs and the Ravens. You would want one of those teams to be knocked out and then just play a worst team

and then get to the AFC championship, right? Like that's a really important thing, is not having to play two of the three top AFC teams. Anyway, let's put that aside. what do I think about the Titans? I think they're a really good team. I think Mike Brable is a good coach. I think Ryan Tannahill, again,

I'll repeat what I said on Sunday. He is a... The question with him was always health. I think that he was an above average quarterback the entire time. He was in Miami. He just never really was able to stay on the field. So I believe in the Titans.

They can win a playoff game. That infrastructure is pretty good. They've drafted well. I'm in on the Titans as a sleeper a FC contender who doesn't win a playoff game. I do think they'll lose, but I think they can win. And that is just not something I would have thought a month ago or a month, two months ago. They've really tapped into something offensively that works for them, even if I don't think it's the best approach in a vacuum.

And if something's working for you and you're able to hammer that over and over again, just keep going to it. And that's what they're doing. And I think it's a really good idea. Before we move on, let's see a quick break. The Ringar NFL show is brought you by Fan Dual Sportsbook, now available in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Westford, Virginia and Indiana. FanDuel Sportsbook wants to know what you'd bet if you knew you couldn't lose. Saints versus 49ers? Chief versus Pats? But here's the thing. This isn't a thought experiment. This is for real. That's right. Right now, Fandual is giving new users their first

bet risk-free. That means you can place any bet and Fandul refund you up to 500 bucks in site credit if you don't win. When was the last time your bookie gave you a do-over? Didn't think so. To claim your risk-free bet, just download the Fandul Sportsbook app from the iOS App Store or visit fandul.com slash Android, and be sure to use promo code Ringer NFL so they know we send you. That's promo code Ringer NFL to get your first bet risk-free on Fandul Sportsbook. And now the legal stuff. Must be 21 plus and physically present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, or West Virginia applies to first wager only. First wager must be placed within seven days of sign-up, max refund, $500,

refund issued as non-withdrawable site credit and expires 14 days after a seat. Terms apply. Gambling problem, call 100 Gambler. Or in West Virginia, visit www. www.1-800 gambler.net or an Indiana call 109 with it.

Let's get to our biggest three games of the week. Let us start with that Chiefs-Pats game. I went back and I re-watch that AFC championship game this morning. And I think there's a lot of stuff that's still very applicable. One of those things that's not is that the Patriots absolutely destroyed this team on the ground. And even though the Chiefs run defense is very bad, like we talked about last week,

I'm not sure the Patriots have that gear right now to their offense. Yeah. So the big change last year from the game where Patrick Mahomes looked really good, even though he had some, probably a strangest interception of the season last year, was against New England because they were able to disguise some looks. The big difference was how they played Tyree Kill. Tyree Kill went from a guy who had a ton of yards in the regular season, and they put Jonathan Jones on him.

in the AFC championship game and Tyree Kill was no longer the threat he was during the regular season. I'm intrigued to see how Belichick evolves that because I think that Belichick game planning for an elite quarterback

as the years go on is so fun. It is the most pure kind of football nerd stuff you can get. And it's almost like a pitcher seeing a batter for the third time through the lineup, right? How does he change his approach?

How does he know, okay Mahomes now knows that Belichick will throw this at him whatever and so I cannot wait to see this from a scheme standpoint I'd like to see how Mahomes has grown since last year's AFC championship game I mean listen

I think that I don't want to speak for everybody but I think that because I think sometimes Patriots I think sometimes Patriots Super Bowl wins seem or Super Bowl appearances seem preordained right and we don't realize how close they came to losing to all these things

so we don't talk about it enough. And the Chiefs would have won the ASE champion game last year, if not for D Ford. And or if not for a couple, you know, if not for Rob Womkowski's, you know, catch or whatever. There were a couple of breaks that they got. And I think that Chiefs fans talked about this a lot,

but the greater NFL punit retreat is not, that the Chiefs were really right there with them last year with the Patriots. And I think that to see Sunday what the Gulf is, or if there's a golf between the Patriots and the Chiefs is one of the most fascinating things. It'll go a long way in me determining how the AFC will play out. How New England goes about attacking Mahomes, I think, is the most interesting part of this game. I mean, what they've done all year, I guess it would make sense, right? You have Gilmore on Hill.

You have help over the top. You bracket him on every single play, and you kind of dare those other receivers to beat you. And last week, we saw that the Texans had those guys. You know, Kenny Stills had the long touchdown. Will Fuller was one step away from a touchdown the previous play. They have the secondary receivers to take advantage of the second and third corners

on the Patriots. I don't know if the Chiefs do right now. Sammy Watkins has been pretty much a non-factor for most of the second half of the season and who else really scares you on that team. The other side of it, though, is that I thought the Chief's best chance last year. You look at all their big plays in that game.

Most of them, whether they were completed or not completed, were to Damien Williams. There was that one overthrow in the first half. There was a touchdown, but there was a little bit of pressure. And then he had two more touchdowns in that game. One of them was on a virtually identical route to the right flat that Duke Johnson scored on last week. And another one was a little bit of a swing pass back to the left against the Blitz. So Patriots are vulnerable when you have a pass-catching running back.

Damian Williams is limited in practice this week. We'll see if he can play. But I do think right now that's probably the chief's best plan in terms of attacking this defense. Is there anything that the chiefs go out and just destroy the Patriots this week? Or if it even looks like last week's Houston game where they kind of open it up a little bit on them and then the Patriots come back, is there anything that Chiefs can do Sunday to make you think that they are the clear-cut second-best team in the UFC? Or are we just, are we in the mode now that the Patriots are just going to figure it out and we'll just give them the benefit of the doubt forever? I'm not sure.

I mean, if they win 35 to 10, maybe, if the Chiefs looked excellent last week, maybe. But I still think the Patriots defense is so good that it's hard for me to just use one game as a reason to get off of that. Yeah, I agree. I just, I am not, I'm going to be the last person to bury the Patriots. In the same way, in the same way that we will never, I keep joking about how we're never going to consider the Titans good, even after they win the Super Bowl. I will never consider the Patriots bad even after everybody involved this current team is retired. Yeah, I'm right there with you. Throwing dirt on Tom Brady can be someone else's job.

I'll also be curious to see what the paths do in terms of blitzing. Holmes has only been blitzed on 22% of his dropbacks this year. He's averaging over nine yards per attempt to when blitzed. Do the Patriots think that they should go after him? Do they think they should play a little bit more covers than they typically do? That's something that I'm really curious to see. And then again, what are the Patriots going to do offensively? If they can't turn to the running game, this Chief's past defense has actually been pretty good this season.

And I really like kind of the same way I like the way the bills built their offensive line where they use a lot of low cost resources to just throw, like they threw a lot of low cross resources at the problem and just hoped it would work out. That's kind of what's happened in Kansas City. I mean, Juan Thornhill had a great pick six last week. Ward has played really well for them on one side. It just seems like they've piecemeal this thing together in a way that works. Their past defense is no longer a terrifying weakness in the way it was last year. but their run defense is still a significant problem, and we'll see if the Patriots can take advantage of that.

Yep. Who wins? I don't know, man. You can just throw, you could flip a coin for this one and the next one. I have no idea. I guess the Patriots? I'll go Patriots because they're at home.

Yeah, that's probably, I would give them the nod for that reason. I think it's a very even matchup. Jason Gallagher hit me with the Chiefs who won the AFC take yesterday. I mean, that's not a crazy take. Why would that be weird? He doesn't watch football, so he's kind of making it up. Oh, okay.

Okay, well, that's fair. I think he watches the Cowboys. But he hit me with that yesterday, and I was surprised by it. The time that Ron Rivera stopped me on the street, we weren't talking about analytics. He introduced me to his wife, and I didn't know what to do. So I just introduced them to Jason Gallagher, who was with me because my wife wasn't there. And so we just hung out for a while. Okay.

Let's move on here. Niners Saints. I want to talk about Michael Thomas for a quick second. Okay. I was looking at some of the stats for Tyler Lockett yesterday. And it's really incredible. He has the second highest catch rate in the league, even though his average depth of target is 11.7 yards.

Russell Wilson has like a 135 rating when he's throwing it to him. But you know how every time you list off a career wide receiver stat, you always have to say, except for Jerry Rice? Yeah. It's like, da, da, da, da, duh, except for Jerry Rice. That's how Michael Thomas is this year. Every single wide receiver stat that probably shows efficiency, he's leading in it.

He leads the league in yards per route run. He leads the league in catch rate. And it's not as if he's wide open all the time. He also leads the league, I believe, in contested catch rate. It's just absolutely insane how he's playing right now. And one of my favorite things to watch with this offense over the last couple years has been the way those two attack, Breeze and Thomas, attack zone defenses. Seeing him kind of settle and manipulate the Eagles last year in that playoff game was fascinating. And I'll be really curious to see if the Niners play as much zone as they typically do.

knowing that Breeze and Thomas are so good at dicing it up. Who is the better offensive coach? Sean Payton or Kyle Shanahan? I think Sean Payton just because of the track record and how long he's done it. I think I agree with that. I'm excited about this game, and we touched this earlier in the show,

but we're going to find out a lot about football this week. And I think that we're going to find out a lot about the NFC with this game. And I think that, you know, it's really amazing to me. A lot of people made this point that the Niners are like a juggernaut. And they dropped one game to, and they lost two games this year, but they dropped one game in the rain to Lamar Jackson, who doesn't lose to anybody right now. And they might be playing on a wild card weekend. That's amazing to me.

And it speaks to the top heaviness of the NFC West. But they lose one more game to Seattle without George Kittle or Emmanuel Sanders for most of the game. Yeah. So, I mean, it's the margins are very slim. in the NFC. It is really hard. I don't know who needs to hear this. It is really hard to get a buy.

It is really hard. But here's the deal, okay? So the Niners have the Saints, the Falcons, the Rams. They kind of have to win this game because then they had the Seahawks in week 17. And that is essential. I'm not even sure how that tiebreaker would work.

The Seahawks have the Rams, Panthers, Cardinals. It goes to division record after that, correct? Right, which would be the same, right? It depends on what the Seahawks do in their other game against the Rams. But they, no, they would both have one loss to each other. Oh, yeah, if they both went out two weeks 17. So then it would go to common opponent, I think, or conference record.

I can never remember how it goes. The Seahawks lost to the Saints. So it was the fact that they, that the, I think it's a, if it's a common, if it's conference, the Niners would get it. Because they're one of their losses is two in AFC team. I can never remember what the tiebreakers are. I know it's different for the wild card than it is for division because it's, they have to make it as convoluted as possible.

Yeah, speaking of convoluted, we need to get out of the discussion and move on. Anything else specific you're thinking about with this game? Yeah, no, I mean, I'm intrigued to see again. I mean, this is, this is football game plan porn. We're talking about the 49ers defense against Michael Thomas, most efficient receiver in this era of football, Drew Breeze, all this stuff. So I'm excited to see this. I'm excited to see just the different versions of the 49ers defense

having played such a different team last week in the Baltimore Ravens. And I think that, I don't know, who wins? I think the Saints win. I wrote about this today, the teams that have a chance that if they get the wild card, what can they do? in the playoffs. And it's funny that I had to write about the Niners and the Seahawks because either of them could get the wild card.

But if I'm looking at the Niners, they don't have many weaknesses. For the most part, this is a stacked roster playing well on both sides of the ball, but I just don't know how I feel about Jimmy Garapolo against a really good defense. And the Saints have a really good defense. So this is a test for him, and I really want to see how well he plays against this team. Jimmy Garoplo, to me, is in a weird place because we know how much better Kyle Shanahan makes quarterback. So I guess I've spent this entire season wondering how good Jim McArapolo is.

And I think that's just the curse of any Kyle Shanahan quarterback from now on, right? Yeah, to a degree, I think Jimmy Garaplo doesn't help himself because I feel like Jimmy Garapolo tries to extend plays a lot. There's a lot of just head scratching decisions that he makes. That's why it was interesting watching Nick Mollins playing this offense last year because it's just throw the ball where I tell you to throw the ball. And it worked out very well. But Garapolo has such a playmaking mindset.

It's kind of built into his DNA. I think sometimes it works to his detriment. He's trying to make throws that occasionally aren't there. And every once in a while, you watch him make one. It's like, what the hell just happened? So I don't know. I think that Jimmy Groplow is a fine quarterback, but I think there's variance there that would lend me to be a little bit worried.

Agree. All right, let's move on. Okay. Ravens Bills. Ted Winn, who does a fantastic job for the athletic, he was writing about how the Niners played the Ravens last week. and it was a lot of scrape replaced defense where you have the defensive end crash down and then the inside linebacker comes over the top, essentially waiting for Lamar Jackson. And they screw it up a lot because that's really what this Ravens defense asked you to be.

They make you be disciplined. You have to do everything by the book or you're screwed. And then every once in a while, when you do everything by the book, Lamar Jackson still gets away because he's the best athlete on the field. And that's why I really want to watch this Bill's defense against the Ravens offense because they're very well coached. and they're disciplined and they're often in the right places. Their run defense was really good last week against Dallas. They haven't been for most of the season, but when they're committing resources to that side of things,

I do think they can be pretty good. So that's the thing I'm watching for. Can the bills be in the right places at the right time against an offense that really tests you in that area? You know, Lamar Mahomes, and Watson. This is via the NFL. Lamar Mahomes and Watson could become the first trio of quarterbacks in one conference under the age of 25 to have 100,

pass the rating. We are seeing historically good young quarterbacks in the AFC. And it's really, I'm, this is just really an exciting time to be watching football. That's, that's the overarching point before I get into any gritty here.

I think that there have been a lot of unfair comparisons between Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson this week. It's been really, uh, I understand why you would want to prop up your guy if you're a Bill's fan, but I seen a lot of discussions about the statistics there.

And I kind of get it. But Lamar Jackson is unlike anything we've ever seen at the NFL level. I believe that this is the biggest, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson's combined rushing guards, make it the most combined rushing guards in the history of any NFL matchup. Did you see that stat? Yeah, I did see that, which is awesome. Yeah, it's cool to see.

Having said that, Lamar Jackson's a lot better than Josh Allen, and we're going to see that golf on Sunday. Yeah, I don't understand that comparison, really, because so much of Lamar Jackson's rushing ability is planned. I mean, these are design runs. It's part of their offense. Josh Allen is able to create things in high leverage situations a decent amount, which is helpful for a team that's not very consistent throwing the ball all the time.

There are similarities that I see, though. I feel like both of those guys, one of the things about Lamar Jackson, beyond just the accuracy improvement, which Josh Allen has also done this year, I've really liked watching him be able to throw the ball from different platforms and at different angles, kind of in the same way that Matthew Stafford can. And I think Josh Allen has that ability as well. On the move, being able to kind of get throws off that you might not think a guy could get off the one he threw last week, kind of moving up in the pocket, just that rope against the Cowboys, that to Beasley that I thought was really great. And so those kinds of throws,

I think they do similar things. But I think Lamar Jackson has been much better down the field this year than Josh Allen has. Yep. And listen, Josh Allen's made real improvements. And I've been really impressed to them. We've we've sort of made our apologies for making fun of the Josh Allen pick so much. But I think that this is probably a Ravens win. Yeah, I think so too. I would, I just want to see how well the bills can hold up. We've said this a bunch. The bills are a year away. This is not the year where they were supposed to compete. So it's it's all found money to them right now. And can they give this Ravens team a game? As they sit in this kind of part of their plan, what do they look like against the best teams? So we're going to find that out.

over the last four weeks because they get the Ravens and they get the Patriots. Yeah, this is what you want. And this is why the schedule God, to bless us so much is that all of the doubts we've had about teams and scheduling matches, remember the first six weeks, seven weeks of this entire season,

we sat around saying, kind of going at the people who were saying, well, you can't say the Patriots defense is good or the Niners defense is good because they haven't played these quarterbacks. Well, we're getting to see all of the things we didn't get to see in September and October. We're starting to see it now.

So we get Lamar Jackson against what I consider to be a really talented Bill's team, Bill's defense. And then we get Josh Allen against a team that's just going to send a blitz at him on every single play. And we're going to see some interesting stuff here. It's going to be great. I think we're going to see some interesting mistakes by Josh Allen. I agree with that. This is the type of game.

He's taken care of the ball very well over the last month or so, the last two months, really. It's been a while. But I just think that he might have some issues against the team that does a lot of interesting stuff. All right. let's get to the Thursday night game, which I will not be watching live. Congratulations, quite frankly. I know. It's my buddy's rehearsal dinner.

So I don't have a DVR. I'm going to the cable place today to get a DVR box just so I can tape the game and watch it when I get home. Are you speaking at this? Are you speaking at the wedding? I'm officiating the wedding on Saturday. Oh, that's exciting. Yeah. Do you have it all down?

I have it all down. I'm still in the process of kind of memorizing it all. so I don't have to read much of it, but I'm ready. Did you watch other people's, did you go on YouTube and stuff and watch other people's I've been to enough weddings where I feel like I've, I have a decent backlog of experience with it. Okay. I think it's going to be okay.

I'm rooting for you. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. I'm going to be watching this game at midnight and I'm going to try not to find out anything about it before that. I don't know how well that's going to go. You're going to be on the streets of Chicago? Yeah.

I won't be on the streets. I'll be in a restaurant. Well, I know, I understand that the rehearsal is not literally on the streets. I just mean if you're. operating outside of at any point, if you're going to be outdoors in Chicago, I'm going to take the under on you finding out about this game before midnight. What I'm going to do is I'm going to have somebody walk me out of the restaurant and just put me in a car. And I'm just going to have my eyes covered the whole time just so I get right in the car and then it just drives me straight home.

Let me tell you what's going to happen. Someone at the dinner is going to say this. I really, I'm going to try to say, I'm going to try to be very open about the fact that I don't want to know. I don't know how many people are going to be at the dinner. Joe Neeson is going to be there. and she's already told me that she's going to ruin it for me on purpose. Yep. So congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. All of this is going to be for naught, but I'm definitely going to try. That being said, I think the Cowboys win. Yeah, me too. All right. That's all we got, guys. As always, thank you so much for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. We'll be back on Sunday night.