The Ringer NFL Show - Super Bowl LV Reaction

Episode Date: February 8, 2021

Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti instantly react to the Buccaneers' lopsided victory over the Chiefs in Super Bowl LV by diving deep into the pressure Tampa Bay was able to put on Patrick Mahomes (01:05). Kevin and Nora also discuss their winners and losers from the game (17:20) and answer some listener questions (32:05). Hosts: Kevin Clark, Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the ringer NFL show, part of the ringer podcast network. I'm Kevin Clark, special Super Bowl edition. We did this live with Nora Prince Yati. The Bucs beat the Chiefs 31 to 9. Story of the game, Todd Bowles, the Bucks defense, front four, and Patrick Mahomes looking mortal behind a bad chiefs offensive line. Let's get to it. It is time for a live ringer NFL show post Super Bowl. The Bucks have defeated the Ken City Chiefs 31 to 9.

Tom Brady wins his seventh Super Bowl. The Bucks win their second as a franchise. Mahomes loses his first game by double digit. since 2016 against Iowa State. We learned a lot. I'm joined by Nora Prince. I mean, Nora, what's going on, buddy? This is crazy, Kevin.

This feels like, feels like Groundhog Day. It's also very, I think what's sinking in for me is that the number one factor that we discussed all week, which was the banged up Kansas City offensive line against the Bucks pass rush, it was the deciding factor. And yet the outcome was what nobody expected. And that's a funny combination. The story is absolutely the Bucks pass rush, their ability to, get home with four players, in some cases, three players.

They blitzed on less than 10% of Mahomes' dropbacks. And when they blitz, that was effective. The four-man rush was effective. The coverage pressure was effective. The blitz was effective. Everything worked for the Bucks front. It's the thing that we, when I say we, I mean, probably the entire NFL punditry, we all hand-waved it.

Well, obviously, this fast Bucks defense against the offensive line that's banged up and they've got replacements there. That'll be fine. Mahomes will solve that. And they couldn't. And we saw the limits of it. And we sat here for two weeks and said, okay, it's all about knockout power. Patrick Mahomes is all the matters, all that stuff.

And we saw the limits of that tonight. I just think that that was as interesting a game as I've seen in a long time. All right. So there's a lot to get to. Number one is that Shaq Barrett had eight pressures. It felt like 50. Like we were talking before. We're done with the producers with the producers.

And we were talking about that number. And I was ready to believe anything with Shaq pressure, shack bear pressure numbers. That goes for the entire team. 23 individual pressures on the Bucks defense against Mahomes. This was an unbelievable performance, not only from the defensive talent, but also Todd Bulls, a defensive coordinator. Let's talk about the Bucks defense, first of all.

What jumps out, Nora. What jumps out to me is that they made, they turned Patrick Mahomes into the anti- Patrick Mahomes, essentially, in that he was completely ineffective on third downs when facing the blitz. and now they started the game blitzing like crazy and then pulled off of that later in the game. But at first it was corner blitzes and pressure coming from everywhere and really, really aggressive play calling. And then downfield throws, throws of 15 or more yards. That's usually where Mahomes is fantastic. And by the way, Mahomes did some incredible things.

That's what was fascinating about it is that they turned some of the most incredible playmaking into incompletions. because I think there is a bit of a misconception with Mahomes about how he plays when he's under pressure. The reason that he is so good against the Blitz and so good against heavy pressure teams is because he avoids the pressure. It's not that his play doesn't suffer when there are guys in his face.

It's just that it's incredibly hard to get there. So what Tampa Bay was able to do was get there. And within that, it's actually not surprising that his play took a hit because he has a negative completion percentage below expectation, I guess, would be the terminology there when there are oncoming rushers that get to him. But they usually don't get there because he can scramble away. But there was just too much with those backup tackles in there.

It was just too much to handle. And hats off. I mean, what an incredible defensive game plan. What incredible execution by those players. One thing that I found myself doing is that I would look at the next gen staff. dots and be confused for a second. One, because similar color schemes, but two, because the Tampa Bay pass rushers would be on the other side of the offensive line.

There'd be five guys. And you're like, it's like turning off sides off and. Right. Where it's just like, how did they get there? How does they get there? What's going on here? Yeah. So I think there's a big distinction.

And you're right. And it's a great point. Because when Mahomes is actually pressured, he is mortal. If you look at the PFF staff during the season, he had 102 rating, I think, against pressure in these playoffs. but over the larger sample size, it was a little different. And tonight, he was at waste of, on his first five throws, no completions against the blitz, including one interception.

During the season against the blitz, he had 17 touchdowns and zero interceptions. He was perfect. He had a 70% completion percentage. So it's not about the act of blitzing. It's about getting home when you're blitzing. I think the biggest change, and this is something that was talked about on the broadcast, but and we'll keep talking about it was the change in philosophy with Todd Bowles with how we treated the safety. So if you aren't familiar with what happened in the first matchup this year,

Tyree Kill had 13 receptions for 269 yards and three touchdowns. Okay. 189 of those yards came against one safety back, okay? Single high safety is the terminology. The Bucks changed that. They went with two high safeties on 21 of the first 29 plays, according to to next gen stats. And Boholmus failed to complete any pass. above 10 yards in that. So they kept everything in front of them. And there were kind of individual performances that we need to,

whether or not that's a safety is or whatever, but we need to talk about the linebackers because they were picked on tonight and Levanti David had 13 targets and he gave up eight receptions, but for only 60 yards. And you saw him against Travis Kelsey. And we thought that if you were to say Kelsey

against a linebacker, the chiefs would have taken that all day. And so some of these individual performances beyond Shaq Barrett and JPP, and Vita V and a little bit of Sue. They need to be highlighted because this was just, whether it's Devin White, whether it's Levanti David, at every level of the defense,

the Bucks had answers. The final tally, according to ESPN via our friend, Mina Kimes, Brady was pressured four times out of 30 dropbacks. It was a different game. It was a literal different game, and Mahomes was pressured on 2956 dropbacks the most of any quarterback in Super Bowl history.

They were playing two different sports tonight. And again, it comes back, to this, which is we kept saying only having Mahomes matters and we learned those limits to that. And to just back up for a second. So Elias Sports tweeted this out. The 2020 chiefs were the first team in Super Bowl history to start two different tackles in the Super Bowl than they did in week one. So that's Remmers and Wiley. Austin Ryder, their center, I think, is the only offensive lineman from last year's Super Bowl winning team playing in the same position, who was playing in the same position during this game. So they were as banged up as they possibly could have been.

It's just, yeah, like to this point, nothing mattered. And then all of a sudden it did. And that's just it. Like that's, that's that is what is fascinating about sports, right? And that is what is fascinating. Actually, I think about the quarterback matchup. Patrick Holmes is a more talented player than Tom Brady. And that is still true.

But it's. just not always how it works out. And sometimes things go from not mattering to mattering. And it's a matter of degree or it's a matter of right place, right time, or it is some X-factor thing that we get to try to figure out. But they had managed remarkably up to this point. And then because of Tampa Bay's personnel, because of their game plan, because of Bowles' play calling, they found a way to exploit a weakness that had been there before for other teams at Kansas City had played in the playoffs. And they just got absolutely everything out of it that they possibly could have. So, you know, I, I know people were hoping for a shootout and a closer game, but I do think that

that's really, really interesting. So at one point in the fourth quarter, Mahomes was averaging a career high, 12, 12 and a half scramble yards per dropback. He was running more than he has really at any point in his career. I'm talking about behind the line of scrimmage. Okay. And he was just, you know, there were a place tonight that were superhuman from him, you know, on that fourth down where he's basically parallel to the ground and threw a perfect pass and it hit a face mask. Okay. Like obviously that would have been quite a feat. The ball was coming out of kind of a weird trajectory. It would have been a strange catch to make, but he was making plays. And I don't think I, I'm worried right now, I'm not going to make excuse for Patrick Mahomes. He's, he's going to be fine.

but I'm worried the narrative is going to get a little bit away from this game. And we're going to talk about the legacy stuff a little bit later. But this was about the pressure. This was about Mike Remmers, unfortunately. I saw a date that it was the fifth year anniversary of him getting worked by Bonn Miller. So if the next time Mike Remmer's is invited to a Super Bowl, I think he might want to decline. And, you know, Brady had, it was the first player ever to inters, in a Super Bowl to have three touchdowns to complete 80% of his passes. So Brady was the better quarterback tonight, but they were just playing a different game.

And, you know, you start to think about Mahomes and how inevitable everything felt around him. Because you saw the stat coming into this game. He was number one in the league when, in every metric when trailing, every metric. And Brady was number two, especially in a winning percentage, okay, the main stat when trailing. And over the past two years, I felt that there was nothing Mahomah. couldn't overcome. And now seeing him not overcome this in the biggest stage, it's partly a failure of a lot of people on the roster. But I wonder now going forward, how we'll view Mahomes now that he's not this sort of untouchable Terminator,

John Wick thing going on in these fourth quarters. And I don't know. I mean, next September, how will you view Patrick Mahomes after this game? Because maybe my opinion changes like 2%. Mine changes one and a half percent maybe. I will still view him the same way that I did going into this game. I will maybe pay a little bit more attention to how some of those injury recoveries for the rest of their linemen go. I will hope that they look at what just happened and take it as a lesson for the rest

of their future with him to, you know, let's not see. hawks it up here. Like let's acknowledge that even phenomenal quarterbacks, even top of the league quarterbacks, even maybe best in a generation potential quarterbacks need to be protected. And not giving him that for the duration of his career would be a mistake, even because of his escapeability of his immense talent, of his playmaking ability of what he, just the fear that he inspires in defensive coordinators. And at least I certainly think that any rational person would believe. will continue to do so. It is so cheesy to say,

but it is the ultimate team game and there's no quarterback on earth who doesn't need that. And they can't help. It's not Kansas City's fault what happened to their offensive line this year. That's not going to happen every year. But hopefully if there is,

if there are a few little silver linings, they can look at this and go, just because we have this guy, it sets the floor pretty high, but the ceiling is going to depend on what we put around him and a big piece of that is the protection. So final numbers, Tom Brady, 29 of 20, 21 of 29, 201 yard, three touchdowns. Mahomes, 26 of 49, 270 yards, zero touchdowns,

two interceptions at 52 pass rating. So we're going to get back to the quarterbacks. I want to talk about the officiating and the mistakes that the chiefs made because those go hand in hand. There were a lot of people at halftime who were talking about the officiating in a less than stellar sense. Darius Leonard said they're making it a little too obvious, which is I think we all know what he means by that.

There's sort of a receptional league that I don't think we should, I think we can we can sort of dig into what happened on the field tonight. When you think about how the way this game was officiated, especially in the first half, you start where, Nora? You start and okay, so let's start with mainly the DPI's. I think we're bothering people. And the debate is about the chasm. between how penalties were called in this game

and how they were called over the course of the season. It is harder to make a letter of the law argument that those flags shouldn't have been thrown, that there wasn't arguably some sort of penalty action on those plays than it is to say that's unfair because teams adjust based on how these things are being called throughout the regular season, throughout the postseason. then coaching staffs talk about it.

It's part of game planning. Like, it's absolutely a thing. And they were just throwing flags at times when they wouldn't have, for the most part, they were not throwing flags with that level of contact throughout the season. Right. Go ahead. No, I was going to say, and that was the point that was made a couple of times on Twitter by former officials or current officials is that I think the Sunday football analyst said

it's unusual to see the Super Bowl called tighter than the regular season. I mean, that just doesn't happen. And one of the interesting things I thought was there was a story last year by some of the Niners beat writers, including Nick Wagner, about how the Niners thought that they were going to get some of these calls because the Chief's defense led the NFL and defensive folding calls last year. And they were, they thought that there was a huge, I guess, competitive advantage in getting those calls in last year's Super Bowl and they never came.

and so now we see maybe they were watching for that this year because they weren't called last year. Maybe the chiefs are just a more aggressive defense. And so I think that that to me was interesting that I think the chiefs having gotten, maybe maybe not having gotten officiated tight last year, maybe tried more aggressive thing. But listen, there were some, there were some borderline calls here, and especially in the passing game, and they happen to go against the chiefs sometimes. the Tyron Matthew interception was borderline, I think, the one that was called back. The holding.

I think that there were some judge, the holding, yeah. I think there were some judgment calls that went against the chiefs. I thought that the Brady Matthew kind of spat that ended in the Matthew flag was very strange to me. It's like, but I also. Kevin, do you watch the crown. I do. I wish I could come up with the exact right scene that I'm thinking of. But you know how sometimes when someone of lower range.

doesn't follow the protocol in how they're addressing royalty in the crown and you see them process that moment of like, you're, you didn't call me your majesty. Like, you're not supposed to be doing this. And there's, it just, that's what Tom Brady in that moment made me think of. He was like, are you finger wagging at me? Like, yes. I mean, it was, there were so many, but it goes, for me, it goes back to the fact that the chiefs were just overwhelmed in this game. Yeah. Whether that's the buck's getting home with four players, whether that's just, the skill guys running over the chief's defensive backs, there was just so much that was just,

this was just dominance. And you look at the stats here. First of all, 95 yards in the first half of penalties, the most with any Chiefs game with Andy Reed. I believe the second quarter of it, the most penalty yards in the history of the Super Bowl. I mean, this is, they were just making mistakes, and those compounded,

and I don't think they were ready to play, and they were shooting themselves in the foot. The off sides on the, on the field goal was there's just no excuse for that. This team was just not prepared. And we can extend that to the entire coaching staff. I think there was a little bit of Steve Spagnola owns Tom Brady narrative earlier in this week. That turned out to not be true.

And I just think that that's there, the bucks outcoach the chiefs today. And I don't know how you can make any other argument. And that's not just scheme. And that's not just knowing how to how to get to Mahomes and all that stuff with the backup tackles. a lot of that's just just preparation. And I thought the defensive penalties were just shocking in the first half.

And the other piece of that that kind of goes hand in hand is the clock management because. Yes. Tampa Bay should not have had the opportunity to score the touchdown before halftime that they did. But because the chiefs didn't take time off the board and opportunities when they could have, they were able to do that.

And now they got stopped at the goal line earlier in the game. So that took away a touchdown. that maybe could have contributed to an even more lopsided final score, but they gifted Tampa Bay a touchdown. Let's get to our winners and losers here. First winner, Nora. So my first winner is, forget what order we said these in, but Todd Bulls.

And for all the reasons that we just discussed, right? But it kind of makes you think about, makes me think about hiring cycles. It makes me think about whether or not that guy, maybe deserves another chance. And sometimes I sort of, I hesitate to make points like this because being a coordinator is a different job than being a head coach. And we've seen Todd Bulls in a head coaching role.

But he just did a really impressive job. And he has a pretty good resume. So at this point, if all we have to go on is recent performance and the ability to scheme to your personnel, to game plan for a really big game and to totally dominate in that moment, then I don't know who else we should be talking about. I mean, like, I think it's, I think it's a bad look and a bad outcome that guys like Eric B. Enemy didn't get jobs or didn't get at least more significant run looking at jobs. But I don't know that Bowles was really talked about in the same kind of way. And maybe he deserves to be.

I agree. I think this was a resume building performance for a guy who already had an incredible resume. And we've already talked about how they changed to too high and all that stuff. And they took advantage. And they knew, they knew what it took advantage. And again, a lot of that was talent, but also they were able to plug the run gaps. You thought early on that Mahomes was going to be able to scramble for 11 yards every time. And they were able to at least plug those gaps to the point where those lanes disappeared as the game went on. I was impressed by that. Yeah, I mean, this is. I think everybody, you know, we had a reader question we're not actually going to get to, but the question was, what coordinator were you most impressed with, Byron Left,

which are Todd Bowles? And listen, the answer could be both. I mean, Brady changed his style a little bit. I saw that he was getting rid of the ball quicker than he had at any point this year. But Todd Bowles was just, was just awesome. And we're going to talk about this for a long, long time. And I think there's probably an element of wishing we could have seen Mahomes behind a healthy offensive line. But listen, they've been out with, they've been out, with Mitchell Swartz almost all year. They've been out, you know, DuVernay Tardeeff opted out.

Like this is not, that's football sometimes. And so being adaptable and all that stuff. And also we can't sit here and say nothing except Mahomes matters and then say, oh, I wish Mahomes had been behind healthy offensive line. Todd Bowles knew how to take advantage of it. JPP and Vita Vaya and Shaq Barrett and all those guys had the talent to do it. I mean, just this was, we're going to be talking about this defensive performance for a long, long time.

All right. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. We got to acknowledge this.

Vita Vea edge rusher. Like, if the Chiefs had won this game and done a bunch of cool shit, we would be giving Andy Reid a ton of credit for doing cool shit because he does it all the time. Todd Bowles did some cool shit. That's all I wanted to say. I agree with that.

All right. Our second winner, it's Rob Gronk. We've talked about this. We joked about it. We joked about it. We joked about it for like, for 20 weeks that Gronk was just going to plot along for 20 weeks and then you,

oh, I'm in the Super Bowl. Time to win. Time to win the Super Bowl. It's not a joke. It's literally the meme. It's like Gronk when it's time to win the Super Bowl comes alive. Yes. Yes.

So the final number is for Crunk, two touchdowns, six reception, 67 yards. Obviously in the first half, we knew it was going to be a pretty dominant performance from him. I believe he was, yes, he was the Bucks leading receiver. Was, were you, you were around Grunk a lot. You around Brady a lot. When you, when you heard last summer, then Gronk was coming back. What did you expect?

And how did his performance this year change your expectations at all, I guess? I'm so glad you just asked this and phrased it that way. because when I heard that Gronk was joining Brady and Tampa, I was, it's not that I wasn't excited to see it, but it gave me a knot in my stomach because I watched that guy basically cry over how much his body hurt from playing football and how the dispiriting elements of the physical slog that he was going through were weighing on him both physically and mentally at a certain point. And he was not a happy camper. And then he retired and it just seemed to, like his body changed and he could just live a normal life and a happy gronk is the gronk that everybody wants to see. I actually think that some of the sort of frat star lifestyle stuff with him is overblown. And that's his own doing. But he's a sweet, smart guy in a lot of ways that I don't think people really understand.

And football did a number on him at least at that point when when it was time for him to go. And so he comes back and it just, it, it, you know, it's not, it's not my life and he's an adult, but it scared the crap out of me because I don't think anybody really wanted to see him in, in that place again. And then watching him today, the thing that I kept thinking about is, holy crap, this guy has never been this healthy at this point in the year, ever. And that's a matter of even that Rams catch, that Rams catch was completely against everything that he had been doing for a cut.

Like he was not supposed to make that Super Bowl Ram. sketch all he had left like that was it he just needed to do that one thing in that moment and he did it and they won the super bowl but that was all he had to give i don't think this was all he had to give you know and i did not to say that he should have done more in this game he had an incredible game he tied the bucks franchise postseason touchdown record in the first half um and that probably says more about the bucks than gronk, but, uh, he had a great game. I think he's, he's because of the other skill position players that they have because it's a little bit of a looser environment where you can take better and stays off. Maybe because he's in a, in, you know, sunny warm Tampa,

whatever. It was better for him. I don't know what the factors were. A weather take, a weather take. I hate that. I'd say that through gritted teeth, maybe, maybe the weather helped him. And I think that I'm with you and obviously you know him better than I do but I'm an agreement in that I don't think that the national perception of Grunk knows factors in how beaten up he was for years and the fact that when he retired he'd been talked about as someone who was going to retire two years prior I mean there's a reason that when he was going to be traded to alliance he was like I'm done deal me out right and that was what three years ago and so I'm not I think for him to come back like this and take a year off and to play with Brady and to actually have fun playing football.

That's not a Patriot's take. That's more of just a his body was breaking down take. I thought it was, I thought it was amazing. And I just think that this is, you know, there's a reason Tom Brady came to Tampa and you see this defense, see these skill guys, you see Gronk. I mean, all, all the pieces fit. And I think that was, that was cool to see. All right. Jason Light, Buck's GM, definite winner. Definite winner and kind of a good segue from Gronk because, okay, so they got touchdowns from Gronk from playoff Lenny. I'm not a huge fan of the Antonio Brown acquisition, but he was an acquisition.

Sure. And you start looking at the contributors in this game and there are two paths, right? There were a lot of those defensive pieces that he was involved in drafting. and then what put them over the edge were those offseason moves. And the thing that it made me think about sort of as a takeaway from this and it's something that actually you've said a few times.

We may overestimate the length of windows, of Super Bowl windows in football. And this is a really good example of going for it while you can. And of striking while the iron is hot. And he did an incredible job. I mean, he just took swings that all connected, right? So I think you give a lot of process credit in terms of clearly they're looking for things in their draft picks that are paying off.

But I also think you give him credit for going for it because there is no way that when he signed Tom Brady, he knew for certain that he wasn't going to fall off the proverbial cliff. but I think we should commend ring chasing, honestly. Like, I think that's what it comes down to. I mean, Jason, like, just went for it and it all worked out. So I thought that his work was very much on display in this game. So I'm in total agreement with you. I think that as we talked about two weeks ago, they called it Operation Shoeless Joe,

because if you build it, Brady will come. And the plan worked. And I think that you see now, I mean, let's not re-legislate the Jamis-Winston era. But to come in, for Tom Brady to come in to Bruce Aaron's offense and have this much success in an offense that lends itself to mistakes very often early in a player's tenure. It's something we talked about with Carson Palmer this week where Palmer made all those mistakes early on with turnovers. Andrew Luck did. Ben Rothensburg did.

James certainly did. And for him to take the risk, for Brady to take the risk out of Ariens' offense is actually amazing to me. And it shows you. and I know this is going to sound so simplistic, but it shows you why you try to get Tom Brady is because he's the, there's like four guys who can do that, right? One of them was on the chiefs tonight. But there's,

there's so many guys who would come in and make a, take a risky offense and make risky throws. And Brady doesn't do that. And that's what's amazing to me. And let's make our transition out to our first loser. It's the chief's coaching staff. Yeah. Well, and we touched on that with the clock management.

I assign penalties. a certain degree to coaching and just not a lot of. Well, I want to address that. I just want to address one thing on that, okay? So according to ESPN, the Carl Chaffer's crew gave out the most penalties in the NFL this year, 16 per game. Okay. And I do think you have to give out.

I think you have to scout the referee sometimes, okay? And know if they're going to throw those border. on flags. This is something, and I don't want to make this a Patriots point, but this is something the Patriots do all the time, right? When I talk to Mike Pereira, I talk to any of these guys who have been in the room, Phil Belichick, their whole thing is like asking a million questions about how they're going to call a certain thing and then telling their team about it. And I've talked to players about it who say the same thing where they'll say, hey, this back judge, he will call pass interference over and over and over again. They know this stuff. So if you know, if you knew

that they were going to be a little tighter on this stuff, I do think you always have to make that point. Again, I think the officiating was kind of bad in this game, but I do think that's a point you have to make to your players. Officiating is bad a lot of the time. Like, sorry, I don't mean to ref hate. They have a tough job. But officiating is bad a lot of the time. And it's an eventuality that seems to be consistent for.

Well, right. But then you also have, so the two, the two DPIs before the Antonio Brown touchdown. The first one was on Breeland and then the one that set up the touchdown, I think, was on Tyrom Matthew. Is that right? Let's just go with it. I'm pretty sure that's right. Yes, yes, yes.

there's that to me is also about coaching, right? Because penalties have a way of spiraling because you get frustrated. And so then rather than go, okay, they're calling this kind of tight. I got to back off. You, you keep playing too aggressively because you're tensing up and you're sensing, oh, God, we're going to lose. This is horrible. What am I going to do?

That's when you need a coach. That's when coaching matters. So, yeah, you know, sometimes you look at a play and, go, okay, it's kind of on the player. Like he really mugged the guy. But to a degree, coaching shares those screw ups. So Marlon Humphrey,

the great Ravens defensive back had. Analysts. What I think is probably the most succinct way to put the Chiefs Knight in perspective, which is, quote, where was this Kansas City team when we played them the last three years? And I think that there's a lot of

AFC players who are asking that question because this was a steamroller for the past three years. And Tom Brady is the only quarterback who's beating Patrick Holmes in the playoffs. That remains true. But I think that there's just something where a lot of teams are probably looking at this and saying, where was that team? Where was that mistake-prone team? All right.

Next loser. We already talked about it, but it's Mike Remmers. He will get the, he will get the run of the criticism here. I don't think anyone could have stepped in. hold like that who's available. I mean, this is a tough time for everybody. Okay. Like this is, it is a tough job to come in. And by the way, there's no guarantee that a normal chiefs offensive line could have handled this, this really fast defense. We talked to Chase Daniel this week on the podcast. It's one of the fastest defense he's ever seen. And so I think that there's,

you know, he'll probably get some criticism that he doesn't deserve, but he deserves a lot of criticism because he played really, really badly tonight. And there was that one call. Romo was like, it's kind of a soft call. And they showed the replay. He had the defensive end in like a UFC rear naked choke or something. Like this was some of those calls. Can't be doing that. We're interesting.

But Mike Remmer's tough night, got owned by Von Miller five years ago, gets owned by the Bucks defensive line tonight. Again, next time someone asked you playing in the Super Bowl, say, I'm good. I'm not piling on here. I feel bad for Mike Remmers. Don't check Twitter, Mike Remmers. That's just general life advice.

I would say that that's, that's, yeah, for anybody, including us. Twitter had to come off my phone this weekend, just sort of incidentally got a technical problem, and I've never felt happier. This is great. Well, excuse me, we have viewer questions here. I call them reader questions. We have them viewer questions or actually listener questions. All right.

This is from Daniel. Does this game mean that Mahomes will never pass Brady on the all-time list? I'm going to say something that I know to be wrong. Yes. I love it. The best, the best type of preface. I don't know what the future holds, man. I kind of feel like,

oh wow. I kind of feel like 20 years from now, we're going to be like Patrick Mahomes couldn't beat Tom Brady. So we're going to talk about this forever. By the way, by the way, by the way, there is no guarantee these two teams don't play next year.

Or the year after that. Brady's going to come back at the next 10 years. For the entirety of Patrick Wilms' 10-year extension, Tom Brady will be there, right? Do you stopping at 10? Yeah. Playing till he's 53. So I think that this will be a legacy shaper. I think we're always going to consider this in the context of Mahomes' career, whether that's

fair or unfair. I do think there will be some charitable interpretations in a few years, and hopefully all of the media can remember what kind of offensive line he was playing behind. But I think this kind of thing matters. And I think that when we had this debate, this will be the first thing. people talk about. And again, a lot of that has to do with how many Super Bowls Mahomes wins. I'm of the theory, listen, Mahomes, it's going to be really freaking hard for Mahomes to win seven Super Bowls. Right. This is insane. I mean, this is a, it reminds me a little bit of like

the Tiger Woods, Jack Nichols debate where it's like, oh, Tiger is definitely going to pass Jack. And it's like, wait a second, it's really hard. Like the sport keeps changing. The sports keeps getting more competitive. Quarterbacks keep getting better. He's not going to be paired with, you know, an incredible roster like the early the dinah the first patriots dynasty like the sport keeps changing and i don't think that it i think it's kind of reductive to just sit here and say oh well when mohomes wins seven we'll look back and compare it to brady seven wait a second that's pretty we're jumping to a lot of conclusions here about mohomes so homes can be the the best player we've ever seen we doesn't have to win seven super bowls for that conversation and people say that

Aaron Rogers is the most talented quarterback I've ever seen. And he's played in, he's played in and won one Super Bowl. So I just think that debates, I think it's, it's hard right now to sit here and say that this will shape a debate X, Y, and C. But I do think when we're comparing these two players is the first thing we'll talk about. I just realized something horrible. There's going to be a point. What's that?

There's going to be a point in our lives where we're going to be like, you young kids don't understand Tom Brady. always beat Patrick Mahomes. Oh, I hate that future. Wow. This is a bummer. Get used to it. All right. Get used to it. That's a good question. I'm in my 30s. You make me feel old. And now you're imagining a situation where you're hosting a pod in eight years with with someone younger than you who's just talking about Trevor Lawrence. This is horrible. And you're like, you should have seen Mahomes in 2018. Oh, I hated here. Welcome to the club. Welcome to the club. All right. Um, next reader question or listener question. We're just going to keep doing this. Um, is related. It's from MJ.

There's lots of go talk about Brady versus Mahomes for the game. What about Gruncowski versus Kelsey and that conversation? Great question because there was a lot of can Kelsey bridge the gap. Can he is, is there a chance with Mahomes that Kelsey could be the all time great? And I think similar to the Brady conversation, a little bit of a door closing here tonight. Okay. So another question. that I'm thrilled to have. I'm going to dunk on myself a little bit here.

I, so I wrote about Grank and Kelsey and the tight end position earlier in the week. And it was a story that I was really interested in doing once we had the Super Bowl matchup and like thinking forward, thinking if that's the Super Bowl matchup, I want to look into that. And one of the reasons that I wanted to do it is because I was thinking about both of those players as kind of as prototypes for exactly what you want at sort of two different

points along the evolutionary track of that position. And then I started talking to people. And I had a couple conversations with smart NFL personnel people. And they were like, yeah, so you're thinking about this the wrong way. They are part of the same evolutionary branch, basically. And the speciation event happens right around the time that Gronk has drafted in 2010. And that's when you have a lot of these. really good pass catching tight ends starting to be used in different ways going out of the slot,

splitting out wide, just not only the traditional wide tight end position that had been the staple for a really long time. And a couple years after that is when Kelsey enters the league. But really what's happening there is that Grong, Jimmy Graham, those guys are succeeding. And the rest of the league is going, oh, I want a piece of that. Like I want to do that too. That looks like it's really working. And it's working schematically because teams like the Patriots realized that you can't,

like Wes Welker is not the only guy that you can put in the slot. You can put a bigger body there. And then all of a sudden you're working the middle of the field with a guy who barely needs to separate to be able to beat a guy one on one because he's just bigger. And as long as he's fast enough, like Gronk obviously was and maybe is, that was going to be the ultimate mismatch opportunity. then the Kelsey's start getting drafted. They start getting paid more.

They start just entering the league and having job opportunities. They're more athletic so they can contribute on special teams, which means teams carry more of them on their rosters. And there's just all this stuff that starts happening that starts encouraging better and better athletes to play tight end. So really what's happening is that they're part of the same wave. It's just that Gronk, Gronk is truly the once in a generation athlete.

Granc still, I think the thing that I had wrong is that maybe like, however many years ago, Gronk is absolutely who you would have wanted. And then maybe now you want the more pure, like big wide receiver, pass catching guy like Kelsey. No, Gronk, you still want Gronk. Because Gronk can do everything, right? Like he can bulldoze people.

And he can split out wide and do that too. Like you still want Gronk. It's just that, I mean, Travis Kelsey's don't grow on trees, but Gronks just really don't grow on trees. You're just not going to get that. But what you do have is a lot more really good athletes that can play the position and their past catching ability is being valued more than their blocking ability. But they are taking over the league because they exist.

It's the supply chain that's influencing how the teams are using them. it's not that the Gronk generation was somehow distinct. It's just that there are so few of those guys that teams have been like, well, we'll have the more past catching skill set, but we need somebody who can do this. So to me, Gronk is the goat tight end. I don't think that Travis Kelsey has as complete a skill set and is as much of a mismatch nightmare ultimately as Gronk was at his peak.

But they're both incredibly, good players at a position that I do believe we're seeing take on greater and greater importance. Their pay is starting to catch up to wide receivers. Again, teams are carrying more of them on their rosters. And I think, you know, last year was the first time in a long time that one didn't go in the first round of the draft and Cole Komet was the first guy that was taken. Really curious to see what happens this year because those guys are super, super valuable to teams. I agree.

And I also think that I'm going to spend the entire offseason wondering how they're the same age. That's the mind-blowing thing. Right. Is that they're like- They're both 31 years old. Very different 31-year-olds is what is my take on that. Yeah. No, I mean, I think the, the tight end thing. And also having the ability, let's flip this a second, because we gave props Levante, David,

earlier to have eight receptions on 13 targets for only 60 yards. But the ability to cover those guys from a lineback position and not have to change your entire defense around is. is amazing. And I think that, you know, we've seen Belichick, sorry, Patriots Alert, we've seen Belichick put cornerbacks on, like, Jimmy Graham and stuff. Like famously, I think it was a key, I think he put a corner on, on Jimmy Graham for an entire game and held him catchless for the first time. And basically, Jimmy Graham's historic season in 2013, I want to say. It may have been to leave. But I just think that there's interesting defensive adjustments. for that.

And Todd Bowles knew how to do it. He kept everything in front of them. And Kelsey got bottled up. All right. Next question, last question is from Jakey. With all of the Bucks offensive touchdowns coming from acquired talent and not drafted players, what does this game say about team building in the NFL going forward? So it's exactly what we talked about.

We were talking about Jason Light. Right? It's go for it. Like, carpe window. So. The classic. I think we have to look at both these things, right, at both the draft and free agency. Because if you can get a JPP for relatively cheap, if you can get a Shaq Barrett, who's on a,

who's going to be a free agent soon, but who came relatively cheap before the franchise tag and ended up being, I think you had the most sacks last two years and most pressures the last two years. Yeah, they have not overpaid for Shaq Barrett. If you can get a Tom Brady and free agency, I recommend you get a Tom Brady and free to see? That's my, that's my professional GM advice. Well, well, advice from me to you if you're a GM right now. We should start a consulting firm. Our recommendation to every team is to sign Tom Brady. Yeah. But I also think that when you think about, you know, what is the offensive line, some of the skill guys, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin.

I mean, like, there are guys who are just not going to become free agents. And I think that you have to have both and you have to understand the cap and you have to understand what your team needs. And, you know, I spent a long time talking to Brett Veach eight days ago. And he said something that was so fascinating to me. Maybe it's an obvious point, but I thought about it tonight where he said, I said, how do you view the next 10 years?

You have Mahomes and Andy Ree locked in. And he said, we have the ultimate in stability for a franchise. And we have the cornerstones for success. But the beauty of this game is that that's not enough. And when I was watching this game tonight, I kept thinking about the second part of that quote, the beauty of this game is that that's not enough. And I wonder, first of all,

I bet he wishes it was enough. But I also think that you saw, you know, I said this on Thursday's episode, this was going to be a depth Super Bowl. And I think the Chiefs to win because of Mahomes, but I also, when I looked at the rosters tonight and I looked at the stats,

I feel bad not having seen this coming. And I feel bad that we didn't give enough, we didn't think enough, about what was going to happen when the bucks got four home against Patrick Mahomes. So the answer is it's always going to be a mixture. And it didn't used to be. You know, like the Ted Thompson Packers were able,

with the exception of Charles Woodson, to go out there. I remember the 2014 or 2015 Packers that the Deskawed team. I think they only had two guys that weren't drafted. And weren't drafted by the Packers. And I think that the sort of in-house drafting style and just keeping everything in house is working its way out because of the way that the cap has exploded because it's just really easy to sign a guy to a $10 million deal or whatever.

I think Frank Clark was the first, was the highest paid player ever last year to win a Super Bowl. So the cheats understand how you can carry those sort of numbers. But with the cap being, I saw this report today, what, $180 million something next year, that's going to, the free agent thing might dissipate a little bit. But I always think you're going to be able to find values in the open market, especially, and this is a big point I want to make. there's going to be middle class players available on the free agent market this year because teams get capped out whether that's the saints or whomever they're going to have to make

some of these teams are going to be 6070 million dollars over the cap although the saints freed up 24 million dollars in cap space with true breeze yesterday but there's going to be guys who become available because of the cap crunch and those guys are going to determine in large part who competes and who does it next year for the teams on the fringes so to answer your question how does it change i don't think any team is going to say i'm changing my entire philosophy based on this game. What I will say, it's kind of a lesson for everybody to, to blend the two together. The bucks, by the way, are under the cap. I mean, they're losing, um, or baritading free agencies. So some pass rush obviously is expensive and they just saw how

important it is to them. So they probably will end up spending a little bit there and, and cap space can get used up quickly. But they're not in a terrible position by any means. And that is including Brady's still under contract. So they've got resources to play around with. Like they're in no way super hamstrung by this. And to your point, there will be bargains in terms of veterans that are available. I mean, some of those guys might end up weighing sitting out a year if the money is not there for them. If it's a certain type of player who's made a certain amount of money and doesn't want to, you know, take a beating for a year to earn a veteran's minimum salary. but somewhere between that guy

and the guy that teams are still going to go all out for with whatever cap space they do have, yeah, there's going to be deals and smart teams are going to find them. And smart teams may even be able to make to get those guys on contracts that are longer term if they have the cap space to do it in the short term. And then those guys are bargains down the road.

So every situation that presents itself ends up being an opportunity for somebody. And Tampa is not in a position where they're going to be unable to try to use that. Totally agree. Totally agree. I think Tampa is going to be good next year. I think the chiefs are going to be good next year. And again, all of this legacy talk is very funny to me as far as Brady closed the door or whatever, because there's no rule against them playing in this game next year. Okay. And you look at the deep passing numbers and all this stuff. I just don't see much of a decline in Tom Brady. The wheels are not falling. off here. There's a lot of Super Bowl's Tom Brady's one where I've said, okay, this might be the last

one. Like he's kind of declining whatever. And a lot of that apparently was just system and skill guys around him. There was also, so you just reminded me of a point that I wanted to make about light and just the team building there. The defense, which is more the side where I think you look at those guys and there's so many young guys that they drafted, particularly like we've talked a bunch about that 2019 draft. Just they went so heavy on. coverage players so heavy on fast players and it philosophically just seems like something that really has paid off for them. Those guys, when they are in a position where the quarterback's going to throw 30 interceptions a season, they don't get to be themselves. They're constantly

playing in crappy situations. So it's not as if, you know, these things are not unrelated. So you get a quarterback like Brady who can operate the Ariens offense and not make a bunch of mistakes. Well, guess what? Your young defense, it's better this year because it's young and it's learning and it's getting more experience. It's also better this year because it's not being put immediately back out on the field left and right a couple times a game. So I think it's giving an unreasonable amount of credit, not to Jason Light, not to the books, but just to anyone because no one is like divinely inspired to make every football roster building move correctly. At least I don't think so.

But those two things happened to go together in a way that worked really perfectly. All right. So next year's odds, according to Fandul, the chiefs are plus 490. The bucks are tied for second best with plus 1100. The Packers are also plus 1100. The bills are also plus 1100. So between the Packers and the Bucks, this Super Bowl. matchup is kind of a favorite next year. So,

what happens? I'm intrigued. As you said, as you started this podcast with, we can't predict the future. But I can predict that I think Brady probably is going to have the, I think it's be really hard for Mahomes to get the goat label now. That's, that's my hot take. I agree with that. Do you? Just because this will be the first thing we talk about when we, and he would have to win more Super Bowls and a more dominant fashion. I agree with that. I, I feel like Brady has it locked up. I feel like he's had it locked up, but this is just where I'm trying to visualize people who didn't watch his entire career. I mean, I didn't really watch his entire career, but enough of it where

it just, it's clear to me that he's accomplished more than. I'm a millennial. I'm not in Gen Z. So I saw the whole career. I don't want to do this. It's clear to me that he is, he has a larger need for a larger trophy room at home than anybody else. But if you don't see it and Mahomes wins, I don't know, five. And he does have physical skills that Tom Brady never has and never will possess. Then I don't know. I don't know how people's minds work. Maybe it starts to creep in.

But I am inclined to agree with you that this does actually a very significant amount just because it's math, right? Like he could have had back to back, which brings. Brady did. And it's one, one fewer for Brady and Mahomes is one closer to Brady's total. He's the chiefs are one closer to the Patriots total. Like it's, it's really significant. And that stuff's not going to go away. But I don't know. I just, I just, I don't know how people's minds work. All right. Brady's your MVP? Anything else? This was fun. This was really fun. I agree with you. This was fun. We'll be back on Friday. We'll record on Thursday. Ryan Chaser will join us. House, Verno, and Warren Sharp will be with us earlier in the week to recap all of this. And I do want to talk briefly about Chris Wessling, our friend who passed away over the weekend on Saturday, his wife announced. And I just want to say he was an amazing person and all the tributes that that you've heard on Twitter elsewhere.

are true. And, and, you know, I think on Saturday night, if you were in the NFL community, you were texting about Chris and you were talking to people with Chris and their memories of Chris. And I just think that he is, he's one of the very few people in our industry who were exactly what they came across as on, you know, just as far as genuine passion for the game, genuine passion for life, his family, all that stuff. And he was an amazing person. And I was thinking about all the times that I ran into Chris at events and on the road. And he just made every, every situation brighter, every room brighter. And we love, we love Chris Wessling, and we're going to miss him. And we are thinking about his family. So, all right, this has been

a live ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. We'll see you later this week. Thanks, guys.