The Ringer NFL Show - The End of the Jason Garrett Era, the Patriots Get Back on Track, and the Playoffs Round Into Form | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

After a demoralizing Cowboys loss to the Eagles, it looks like we are finally witnessing the end of the Jason Garrett era (0:25). Then, a Stock Up led by the New England Patriots, who look a little closer to the Patriots of old, and a Stock Down led by a Steelers team in desperate need of offense (7:30). We then spotlight Michael Thomas’s record-breaking season (40:20). Host: Kevin Clark Guests: Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Talk to an agent today. It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network. I'm Kevin Clark. Joining us today, Danny Hypoch, Stock Up, Stock Down, Danny Kelly with his one take of the week. We're going to start with Jason Garrett and the Dallas Cowboys. Some choices to find an era through Breeze doesn't go to the dolphins because the dolphins' doctors say the shoulder's not healthy, he goes to the Saints, everything changes.

Belichick walks out after one day with the New York Jets, goes to the Patriots, everything changes for two decades. Jason Garrett, 2008, turned down to Baltimore Ravens. In 2019, the Ravens have built one of the most fun, innovative, creative offenses in NFL history. and Jason Garrett is in year eight of underachieving, taking talent where it doesn't need to go and losing games. He has no business losing. They go into Philadelphia against an equally frustrating team, an equally banged up Eagles team that was without Lane Johnson. It was without receivers really at all. And they lose a frustrating game that really they just looked over

mass chin. There's now a debate over. whether or not Amari Cooper was benched or whether he was taken out of a regular rotation for Tavon Austin. But let me stop you right there, Jason Garrett. If you put Tavon Austin on the field instead of Amari Cooper, you should probably be fired because Amari Cooper saved everybody's job last year with how dynamic he was. And Tavon Austin is the type of player who maybe shouldn't be on the field unless everybody

else is injured. Tavon Austin's kind of player who should play for Philadelphia Eagles when it's their last resort. Okay, he shouldn't be on the field instead of Amari Cooper. So I start to think about it, and I think about the eight years of underachieving in Dallas under Jason Garrett. It's really remarkable. It's really remarkable he was able to do it this long. You look at him, he has 84 games. It's around the same number as Wade Phillips, actually less of a winning percentage of Wade Phillips.

A little better than Jack Del Rio, who had 93. Levy Smith in the neighborhood. over 500 with around 90 games, those are sort of the lifer coaches who are around that Jason Garrett can be compared to. Those coaches didn't have this Cowboys roster. And the fact that they go into Philadelphia and fail so efficiently is really incredible

and an indictment of everything. What exactly is Jason Garrett's marquee coaching moment? He's been there for almost a decade. 2010 is when he got the interim job. And then he basically coached half the season, then he was there the next season. So his Markey coaching moment is what?

Losing a game in Green Bay? Is it beating Detroit when they picked up a flag? Is it beating last year of Brian Schottenheimer offense? Is that where we're at right now? Des Bryant,

who seems to be the number one critic of Jason Garrett right now, said, you've got the number one offense in the NFL, the best defense in the 90s, no more scapegoats. Des Bryant has become inexplicably one of the best

Cowboys observers on the entire internet. And he also had kind of a cutting thing about how many he quote tweeted a fan talking about how many prime careers Jason Garrett is wasted at this point

that seems to be undeniable. Brian Curtis had this incredible points since it was a dozen mistakes to go but don't forget that on Sunday

the Cowboys were called for illegal formation on a punt. This is a talented team that goes and fails all the time. That's what they do. They fail.

You can't even put your finger on why they fail. You can only put your finger on the fact they fail. They're just, I don't know

how he even, the team playing was delayed on Sunday. And I don't even know why Garrett was on the team playing. So Jason, Jerry Jones gives his little, I'm really disappointed things. Same stuff he did after New England.

You never know where he's going to go on that. You never know if he's going to change his mind on Monday or what if the tone's going to be on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. But it seems like this is the end. Because this might be the end of a certain type of Dallas roster. Jason Lock and Four reports that Byron Jones might be the odd man out in Dallas once the contrary. contract negotiations start this

offseason because there's been no progress in the Doc Prescott deal. There's been no progress in the Amari Cooper deal. One of those guys going to get the tag. One of them might get a long-term deal. Obviously, Doc Prescott is not going to leave Dallas. There should be no concern about that. But there's going to be a lot of money spent this off season. And this

team and this core will not get any cheaper. It's $50 million guaranteed that already happened. That deal is signed. You can't get out of it. But if Jerry Jones could possibly get a couple billion dollars together, which he has. He'd get a time machine and figure some of that cap stuff out, maybe get DAC signed a little bit earlier. But you think about a guy like Jim Harbaugh,

who started coaching a year after Garrett got the interim job. And he stopped coaching in the NFL five years ago. Jim Harbaugh has as many playoff games coached as Jason Garrett. He did not have a roster like this Cowboys team. He had creative schemes. He did all of the things that actually his brother is doing now. But that is Jason Garrett's legacy, is that he spent almost a decade with a very talented roster

and didn't do anything with it. And now he goes into Philadelphia, a team with, again, no receivers, no Lane Johnson, who we've talked about being one of the most valuable players in football,

and he just stinks it up. Now, from a Philadelphia perspective, this is a very nice win. I don't think, everyone talks about, oh, you don't want to see these guys in the playoffs. There's a reason

that you actually do want to see these guys in the playoffs. because they're the worst NFC playoff team. So we can just stop that. Now, I've basically heard you don't want to see these guys in the playoffs, but all 12 playoff teams, Philadelphia is the one team you probably want to see because they're the worst one in the NFC. But that's still an admirable win.

And it's only because of injuries. This is a healthy team. I like Carson once. They can do whatever. I, I picked this team to, to make the Super Bowl four months ago. I'm not, I, I, I changed that pick, but I still,

there's still a shred of, of talent there that I think that they can, you know, they can scare some teams, but I definitely don't see them making the Super Bowl here. But this was this game on Sunday for as admirable as it was for Doug Peterson and Carson Wentz and all those guys, this was about Jason Garrett. And this is about the end of the Jason Garrett era. You know, Craig, my producer, brought up Marvin Lewis. We're talking about underachieving coaches.

Marvin Lewis was with the Bengals. Marvin Lewis was with an owner who didn't want to spend any money and who just did the bare minimum and the cheapest organization in football inherited the absolute worst track record of any team. Look at the freaking bangles

where Marvin Lewis took over. Jason Garrett took over the bangles would be lost at sea. So, no, Jason Garrett took over something. He didn't run into the ground because if you ran into the ground, he would have gotten fired

a long time ago. But instead, he just kind of let it drift. And that in some ways is more frustrated. frustrating. And right now the Cowboys are adrift. It's bad, but it looks like the end. Okay, time to bring in the ringers. Danny Hafeits do stock up and stock down. First stock up, Saturday night's surprise. The New England Patriots offense is back. Danny,

what you think? Tom Brady started 10 for 10. Yeah. And I think it is high as completion percentage since like week 11, week 11 of like 2017. Okay. And completion percentage is not usually like a blocking stat, but my actual takeaway from the game was he's not throwing away the ball. And like, it's actually the best protection of the year. And that was actually my takeaway was the Patriots can block again. Right. So the game plan was kind of the identity we thought we could see from the Patriots earlier in the season, which is they were running the ball. Tom Brady never threw the ball more than 20 yards in the air. He threw a lot to his, he thought through a lot to his running backs, Sonia Michelle had most of his 96 yards at for contact per pro football

focus. And so I just think that when you think about two weeks ago, three weeks ago, I was in Foxborough and everybody was panicking because there was no offensive identity. They were just throwing to the receivers. The receivers couldn't catch it. And that was that. All of a sudden, they've got a Landon Roberts playing fullback. They're bullying people.

They're making head away on the ground. I'm with you on this one. Do you think this is a big deal for the playoffs? Yeah, absolutely. I think what it reminded me of was for all the freaking out people are doing about their offense, they have a month to figure this out. Like they have a, like they have a, we're now at their point three weeks plus. But that's a lot of time, especially when Muhammad Sunu isn't great right now because his ankle is still kind of bothering him.

Like, I mean, Tom Brady said six weeks ago when they were just absolute rock bottom that, look, this is going to take time because as much as the Patriots have been around forever, they're like Theseus's ship. This version of the Patriots has not been around very long. and this iteration of Jacobi Myers and Achilleheri and Sineau and Brady, not to mention the shuffling on the line, they barely know each other. Matt LaCoste,

they barely know each other. They've barely gotten to practice. This is, oh, wow, look, what happens when they get another month to practice? And they're going to get another month to do it again. And I think that it's just a reminder that Tom Brady was right when he explained, like, look, they needed more time together and they don't have to be great. They just have to be serviceable.

The bar for being a fine offense is so low with this defense that I think they'll be fine by playoff time. Yeah, I agree with you. And since you made the comment, this version of the Patriots hasn't been around that long because no version of the Patriots is ever around very long because they just keep changing. And I think that that was why we give them the benefit of the doubt every single time. So I do it is because no one corrects mistakes and no one solves problems quite like Josh McDaniels, Bill Bellochek, Tom Brady. And so is Tom Brady ever going to start throwing 20-yard air passes in January? Probably not. But he doesn't need to do that. He doesn't need to do

that. They can win like this. The Buffalo Bill's defense is really good. The only other team in the last two months who have scored 24 points, and it was exactly 24 points on the Buffalo Bills was Lamar Jackson, the Baltimore Ravens. And so I think that

this is a big deal to be able to establish this kind of offensive identity against the Buffalo Bills. Is it enough to go into Baltimore and win a road game? That remains to be seen. Is it enough to beat the Ken City Chiefs?

I have no idea. I need to see a little bit more of it. We're probably not going to see a whole heck of a lot against Miami Dolphins. But do I feel better about the Patriots chances in divisional round in the conference championship game that I did on Friday? Absolutely. Do this change anything for you about the matchups potentially in the divisional round of the conference championships?

Absolutely, because they can block. And I can't emphasize that enough. A huge part of this offense coming back for all to talk about the receivers is the blocking's better. Like Steve Spagnol and the Chiefs, like they blocked, sorry, they blitz so much in that Chief Patriots game because there's actually a Belichickism and kind of this Patriots school thought of you blitz bad offensive lines because you don't want when there's five linemen and four defensive linemen, they can help each other.

And you don't want offensive line to help each other. So you send five and try to have all five guys when they're one-on-one matchups and when it's a bad line they can't. This is a better offensive line now. They're playing better. I think they'll continue to be playing better a month from now because a month of Dantias Garnakia does that. And that's a huge deal because if they're going to be playing the Ravens,

in the championship game, or whenever they would play the Ravens, like, the Ravens splits more than enter the team in football. So it's really important that they're blocking better. So I think it's huge. And the more time you give Brady, like, the more time you give Brady. Like, there's a reason that he, I mean, Brady's thrown away the ball, like almost 40 times this year, which is a lot. So the completion percentage for him is kind of a lie. But I think the games that he has a high completion percentage actually shows that his mental clock of when to get rid of the ball that he's honed over literally two decades is going lower. So I, yeah, no, I think the blocking is a huge deal. Do you think Brady can shred again this season?

I don't know. I want to change the subject very quickly to the fact that among active players, Josh Allen is a top 10. Everyone is just arguing all the time about him and will forever guy on Twitter. Well, Josh Allen, well, I saw this great thing. Josh Allen's never had a 300 yard passing game and the Patriots haven't allowed a 300 yard passing game all season. And 27 teams had allowed 300 yards passing by week four. Yeah, I mean, it was, listen, Josh Allen made some nice throws on Saturday. Is Josh Allen the second best quarterback in the 2018 draft? I don't know.

I mean, Baker Mayfield is having such a strange season that there's at least a discussion. I don't even, listen, Lamar Jackson is so much better than everybody else right now. Would you rather have, as someone who obviously watches a lot of, even though you're a Giants fan, some Jets football, would you rather have Donald or Josh Allen right now? Well, so to answer your question, I think the 2018 drafts is kind of like Game of Thrones. It's like the War of the Five Kings. Like you think that Baker Mayfield's the main character. And then it turns out, nope, Lamar Jackson.

Like, this is the main character. Baker kind of got Ned Stark this year. Sam Donald, I don't really know who he is. He might be like Renly Barathean. I don't know if he's wrong for this world. I'm in agreement with you. We have to wait like five years. And even then, we might not know.

I mean, it's going to be. You don't know what the show's about. It's going to keep changing forever because this time. last year was undoubtedly Baker Mayfield. And now Baker Mayfield looks quite bad. So I think that that will be, that will change every single time. It's interesting to me because the 2016

draft class a little bit like that where okay, in 2017 it was absolutely once. And then it was, there were weird patches where it was golf, then all of a sudden it was DAC and then golf makes a Super Bowl and it's golf. And now I think we're all in agreement that it is DAC and it

will be for the foreseeable future. But I don't know. I mean, there's Wence wins the game today. Maybe the conversation starts to shift and all of a sudden we're talking about something different in 2020. And then maybe Sean McVeyer figures out something new to do with Jared golf and all of a sudden he's doing something. So I agree with you. It's really funny how those things evolve and the 2018 class will be like that. Lamar is so much better than everybody else right now. I think that will continue for the foreseeable future. But I think that Josh Allen has the capability to play so well in spurts. He's always going to be in the conversation to be kind of out there.

Well, I will say people have kind of been thrown around, oh, Josh, John's the best, second best person in his quarterback class, which I get, but I also kind of don't like because it implies he's close to Lamar. In reality, what matters is tiers, like, Mahomes and Watson are MVP caliber tier from 17, and Trubisky is like four tiers below them. It doesn't matter if Trubisky is the third or fourth best quarterback in the draft. The same thing is with Lamar is going to have a Heisman trophy in an MVP by 23. 2017, I feel like we're pretty good on the tiers there. But I just, I don't want people to like get like, oh, Alan's the second to score up in the class. It's Lamar and then there's like four gaps right now. Yeah. I mean, also the the running of Allen, I think is is quite good.

I mean, it's obviously not anywhere close to Lamar. I mean, what he has 43 yards yesterday, 28 before that. I mean, it's, it's a nice little thing. The touchdowns are nice every couple weeks, but it's not it's not anywhere close to. I mean, I don't think Josh Allen is ever going to be an elite elite quarterback. But he's a nice pick and he's the right quarterback for guess what they're trying to do in Buffalo right now.

I was impressed. Dietrich Wise, defensive tackle for the Patriots last week said, quote, our goal is not to be the best defense. Our goal is to dominate a single play. There you go.

Is that the most awesome Patriots? Well, it's like the Nick, the Nick Sabin thing, just all you have to do is run for five seconds or whatever, 6.5 seconds, whatever it was.

I don't know. That's all you got to do. Just keep running for five seconds. Stock up. Sam, A completely baffling performance in the first half, a completely baffling, quite frankly, performance by the Rams in the second half. This was a very strange game, but it's a 49ers win. One that I think is going to be really important because that's Sean McVeigh reaction at the end of the game, that was a thousand-yard stare.

Like, I've never seen any. That was, that was, that was something, that was something special. And so I think that now we know what's going to happen. Now I think there's going to be huge changes reportedly on the defensive coaching staff. That seems to include Wade Phillips. There were some reports. Maybe the personnel department has a few changes. Obviously, no one at the top of any of the departments is in danger of losing the jobs after a Super Bowl.

Maybe some shakeups lower on the totem pole. I don't know, but there's going to be changes in Los Angeles and the Niners inflicted it. dude the Rams are in such a crazy situation. Their last first run pick was Jared Goff in 2016. They don't have another one until 2022 because of the Jalen Ramsey trade. That's nuts. I mean, and then you've also got this weird situation where they have committed. So the cap next year is like $195, 196 million.

They have $95 million of cap committed to Jared Goff, Todd Gurley, Aaron Donald, and Brandon Cooks. And right now this season, the only person who's pulling their weight in like, worth their money is Aaron Donald. 48% of their cap. If you throw in Rob Havenstein, who's their right tackle, who's, I mean, $7 million, but more than half of,

I mean, he's been awful, like their offensive line got better when Rob Havenstein went out, actually, and Bobby Evan stepped in. More than half of their money is committed to, what is that,

six guys, and five of them are not pulling their weight. That is absurd, the definition of unsustainable. And then on top of that, you got Jalen Ramsey's going to knock on the door this off season, be like,

hey, you traded two first round pick, for me. I'm Dionne Sanders 2.0. You got to make me the most richest cornerback in the history of of cornerbacks. So it will be interesting. What the hell does Lesneed do? He's the GM of the Rams. What do you do right now? It will be interesting to see what Ramsey gets or if Tunsell signs before that because I feel like even though they play different positions, even though they're completely from players and different kind of ranges of skills as far as just eliteness. But I feel like the fact that both them are traded first round picks without a deal agreed to beforehand.

is interesting to me to see. I want to see how much inflation there is on those deals. I'm going to watch that kind of closely. Now, back to the matter at hand. I actually did like that it was kind of an Aaron Donald reminder game on Saturday, just in the sense that it was really cool to see him take over a game, especially in the first half. Jimmy Garoppolo, this was not a vintage game.

Maybe it was. I don't know, but Jimmy Grappolo, I think, is a better quarterback than we saw on Saturday night. This was the kind of game I wanted to see the next. Niners play, just kind of winning differently, winning from behind. This game's totally different if Taylor Rap doesn't blow the coverage there at the end. And Jalen Ramsey obviously was extremely mindful of that at the end. But it was George Kettle came alive right at the end. He had a nice little George Kettle drive and obviously the touchdown at the end.

Emmanuel Sanders, that's why you trade for him. I thought it was a nice Niners performance. I think that Fred Warner, if you didn't know who was a stud already, that pick six should tell you that. That was kind of classic Jared golf, but it was. also a classic vintage Fred Warner. So I think that this was not, you know, they didn't win by 50, but I like the win out of the Niners. Yeah, the Niners defense, I think, I mean, whether it was the Bears last year or whenever

there's an elite defense, it's like a defense can fall from elite to like merely top five just by losing things at the margins. And the Niners have had injuries like Kwan Alexander, who's the inside linebacker, who plays along with Fred Warner, Richard Sherman's a little hobbled. And then also they've had these injuries. Along the defensive line like Ronald Blair, DJ Jones, DeMontry, Moore, the guys you haven't heard of. Like there's the five first rounders they have alone the D line. And then there's the three guys that they had behind those guys who got hurt.

And what changed actually is they're not rotating in fresh guys. So it's amazing to have five first round picks in your D line. It's, I don't know if this has ever happened where you have five first rounders who are all playing fresh. Like even at Ohio State, Nick Bosa was a rotational D-end. I don't think most people know that. This season, most of the year, Nick Bost, was rotational defensive end. He was playing like 75%, 80% of snaps.

These three guys go out, Ronald Blair, DJ Jones, De Montremore get hurt. And now Nick Bose is up to like 95% of snaps. He's like a regular full-time player. And suddenly all, that defensive line isn't all fresh. And then voila, they can't just get pressure

with four men anymore. So the Niners start blitzing more. And then they're a little bit more like everyone else when you can't just get pressure because you're not like eight deep at D line. You're like four or five deep at D line because D4's hurt too. And I think that you just saw that manifest outside of their defense and they're a little worse.

So instead of like getting the lead, rushing the passer, controlling the ball and just bleeding teams out, now they're having to play from the lead. But it's nice to see Jimmy G actually can play in that different kind of game script where, all right, you don't start with the lead. The defense actually did give up some points. But you can come from behind and at least take advantage when they make a huge mistake like Taylor Rap did. Right. So the Taylor Rap thing changes the entire narrative because Jimmy Groplo, it's the most amazing example of that. good was not good 248 yards one touchdown two picks 70 rating that was he really struggled there at one point he was on track for his worst game ever obviously the kiddle drive and then obviously

the manuel sanders tailor rap incident uh led to led to not only a long way to pass but at the win at the unpleasantness as we would call it um tail a rap uh it was it was it was yeah i mean this is this is the kind of strangely inconsistent team like the Rams I would not have been surprised at 49ers lost this game the Rams are in this huge big middle of teams. Cowboys are in there

a few of these guys are in there where I'm just not, they're mediocre but I'm not surprised if they beat anybody. Apparently we have to throw the New York Jets in that category as well because they've beaten the Cowboys and now the Steelers. But it's yeah, it's fine. The game

next week is all that matters. And we saw that with the Seahawks basically tanking today's game. Next thing, Ravens clinching home field advantage. This is nice. This is 341 total yards from Lamar Jackson. He now has either 100 yards or 100 rating or both. Excuse me. He now has 100 rushing yards or 100 rating or both in every game since early October.

That's good. That's good. And home field advantage is good. You know, could Lamar have won on the road? probably, but the one thing you'd rather not go to New England even though Joe Flacco did it. Flacco went into New England and won the ASU championship game.

It's a nice thing to not have to go to that. The Ravens actually kind of remind me the Niners in that they just have been so good most of the year that they usually just get a lead and punch teams in the mouth and then their defense takes over and their running game is so good. I think the Niners and the Ravens are won two and rushing attempts by a lot and they clock time of possession

by a lot. And this was, I believe the only two games the Ravens haven't scored in the first three drives all year are the two games against the Browns? I thought at first that maybe they were tanking to get Freddie Kitchens to keep his job. Maybe they were playing 4D chess because they're going to get home field anyway.

They win next week against the Steelers. They knew they could do it. So why don't we keep Freddie Kitchens employed? But that was what the Eagles should have done. I mean, I know you spent 10 minutes talking about. Obviously, they should have lost and kept Jason Garrett's job. But, you know, you know, short-term thinking.

Yeah. So, I mean, this is nice to have New England's going to have to go on the road or Kansas City or whoever comes out of that. And Baltimore is a cool place to play. Baltimore can get really loud. Baltimore is one of these downtown stadiums where the atmosphere is really cool. I enjoy from personal standpoint going to Baltimore. So this is, you know, it's a nice situation for them.

Lamar Jackson is the runway MVP that continues to be true. I think that any chance of Russell Wilson closing the gap is over. He is obviously going to sit next week. So the MVP race is over, the home field races over. everything is over and they don't do anything meaningful until what January 10th now. There's another race that's over, which is Lamar Jackson is now the number one quarterback Tony Romer fawns over when he announces again. Yeah.

Because there was a stretch in the two minute warning where Tony Roma was just talking about the sequence that Lamar had on that touchdown past the Mark Andrews where there were no timeouts left. And he was, he literally was like, no quarterback should do that. Like you can't do that. But like he can do that. that's a nice race. That's a good, that's a good race to call. Tony Romo is now has a favorite question. Is Tony Romo kind of going to be this generation's John Madden in the sense that he just gets players he's in love with and it never stops?

I think also because he knows football and everyone's like, oh, wow. No, my dream AFC championship game is Ravens Chiefs with Tony Romo announcing and he just talks about Mahomes and Lamar all the time. I think that's going to happen. It's a pretty safe. I don't know if the page, I don't know if the Patriots are going to lose. I'm just, if it's got about 50% chance of happening, so get ready for that. It's all I want in the world. All right, stocked down.

The Pittsburgh Steelers. I want to read this out. The Oakland Raiders now have a path to the playoffs. They lost last week to the Jaguars. Here's what needs to happen. The Raiders win at the Broncos. Titans lose at Texans. Steelers lose at Ravens.

Colts win at Jacks. That's not crazy, but it shows you how strange the Steelers loss was to the New York Jets. Now, Doug Hodges, cornerback, the Steelers comes out and says, I'm not a bad player, I'm just playing badly, which sounds suspiciously like something a bad player would say. This is just, listen, the Steelers have overachieved this year. It's remarkable they got this far. The offense was terrible. It was 16 to 10 to a very bad Jets team. What did you think?

again, like the Steelers were dragged to the playoff. Like, the fact that Steelers even in the playoff race is incredible. And I think that it needs to be remembered that this is just a defense dragging like the limp corpse of its offense that Juju Smith-Schuster's hurt. Vince McDonor, Vince McDonald's hobbled. James Connor seems to leave every game banged up. Like, this team is, Dante Moncrief was originally like the number two receiver of this team. He got cut like a zillion years ago. Like they're relying on Deontay Johnson, who is a.

rookie, like, fifth or six-rounder. They're relying on James Washington, who was getting shit-tucked by Ben Rothesberger, like publicly last year. Like, this is such a young team. And then you've got an undrafted free agent quarterback in Duck Hodges running this team. And you've got Mason Rudolph, again, bless both of their hearts. Honestly, Mason and Duck. This is about a defense dragging them over. And Tomlin has truncated the offense and the whole offenses don't mess up and let our defense win the game. And what happens? They lose the turnover battle today because they threw two, because Duck Hodges threw two picks. and they also lost the sack battle.

And the Steelers, and Steelers quietly have the most sacks like over the last three years, over the last two years. Like, the Steelers are the sack team. They have a monster front seven. It shouldn't be that quiet. I don't know why it's quiet,

but it is quiet. Stephen, no one's ever heard of like Stephen Toot, but he's amazing. Right. But like, the Steelers, like, the Steelers are only going to win

by being playing ugly. I will say, I will dunk in you for a second. The reason they haven't heard of Stephen Toe it is but his name is Stefan Tuet. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. I apologize to Stefan.

It's to fall into it. See, there you go. Even I'm messing up. You know what I mean? But like the Steelers offense, they have one job, which is don't blow it. And when they throw two picks and they take a bunch of sacks, that's blowing it. So I'm not surprised that they lost because this offense is abysmal. And I think that people kind of have way too high expectations for Duck Hodges.

It's also out. But that's fine. It's the thought that counts. It's the thought that counts. I'm talking about a three-year period, man. No, no, no, no, no. I know what you mean. I know what you mean.

All right. So Alex Cizorah on Twitter said it's been exactly one year, week 16 of last year, since the Steelers scored 28 points in a game. Have all the Monster Front Sevens. It's been one year, week 16, since the Steelers scored at least 28 points. So have all the monster Front Sevens you want, have all the good culture and all the things that I believe the Steelers have, stability in the organization, all that. at some point we're going to need more than 28 points from you. That's that's that's a long time. That's a really long time.

But again, it's like the Steelers defense is, I mean, the only way this is going to happen. Mike and Fitzpatrick can't have a pick six every week. Yeah. I mean, that was that seemed sustainable at one point. Was it make of Fitzpatrick, which was going to take over the game. But obviously, you know, listen, he's still a really good player. He's still the kind of player who's dunked on us for making point of that trade. But I'm looking now.

They've scored 10 points, 23 points, 20, 16, 7, 17. The most they've scored is 27 points against the damn Bengals. They've also scored 27 against the Dolphins. So they did a very good job against some of the worst teams of football. Can we speak honestly? All of this will be more fun if the Titans make the playoffs. Will it not? Do we want Duck Hodges in the playoffs?

Do we want Ryan Tannahill? Who are we kidding? You're tempting the gods with the Titans in the playoffs. playoffs here. I know, but I'm just like being real. Like, I apologize to Steelers fans deeply from my heart. Many of my friends are Steelers fans. However, Craig, dearest Craig producing this podcast, Steelers fan, but step outside of your fandom. I would rather watch Ryan Tannahill than Duck Hodges on Wild Card Weekend. I apologize. Um, yeah, I'm fine with it. I honestly, dude, to be totally honest with you, I just care about

maintaining the three top AFC teams in the divisional round in the conference championship. Like from a viewing standpoint, the only thing I care about of the Patriots playing the Chiefs and then one of those teams

playing the Ravens. And you're worried the Titans will mess it up. I don't care about the Titans. I'm just saying I have no thoughts either way. I would like to see the Bills have a nice little playoff from, but not if it, I wish the Bills could somehow

play a home playoff game. this is my wish it's it cannot happen with new england but i that is my wish i hope it happens at some point in the future i would go i would be there but the next best thing is then playing a road playoff game and a billion bills fans traveling will the bills win the afccc first or will the shorelines recede so far that new england is under underwater i don't know i mean tom brady is 42 years old bill bellichick's up there some at some point it's something's got to happen all right let's move on the Seattle Seahawks.

So they lose. So this is not actually a huge problem as far as standing still. If they beat the Sam's Go 49ers next week, everything is fine from a standing standpoint. They will host a playoff game, all that. Having said that, Pete Carroll says Chris Carson and CJ proceeds are out next Sunday, and Dwayne Brown need surgery.

He is also out. This is bad. Now, at some point, Russell Wilson is not going to be able to overcome everything around him. I have never seen that point. That point actually may just be him playing 11 people by himself. It may be him playing 12 people by himself. I'm not sure.

At some point, Russell Wilson stops making miracles happen, but I actually believe in his ability to create miracles even after this. What do you think about the Seattle Seahawks? I still love Russell Wilson, and I believe that he can win a playoff game with you and I playing offensive line and that's it. I mean, we've seen this movie before. Like a couple of years ago, the year that Wence went down and Tom Brady won MVP, like I really believe that Russell Wilson should have been the MVP like through like 12 or 13 weeks of the season because he finished that year leading the Seahawks and rushing yards.

Only like six quarterbacks have done that, I think. And then he also went through that year accounting for some ludicrous mark that. I believe set an NFL record for like 88 or 90% of the team's total yardage. It was nuts. And again, like, I think Chris Carson got hurt that year in 2017 as well. So they were down to CJ Procise. They were down to J.D. McKissick was no longer on the team. But this is kind of back to where the Seahawks have usually been.

Unable to block. Unable to run. Like, this is the post-Marshaled Lynch Seahawks. Like, this is kind of where they've been for three years. And, like, in a way, Seahawks fans are weirdly, like, this is the team they've become used to after post Super Bowls. So I don't know. I think even when they were healthy,

the Seahawks team was not as good as their record. Like, I'm sorry. They were 11 and 2. Well, the point differential is 28. Like, they were 11 and 1 in 1 score games. Like, this team, it wasn't as good as they were when they're healthy. Now they're not healthy. I'm not surprised they lost to the Cardinals.

I don't think Seahawks fans are surprised at lost to the Cardinals in this game, even without these injuries because they went into the game without Shaq Griffin. He's their best quarterback. They lost Tedrick Thompson in their safety midseason. They're banged up in the secondary. and the secondary wasn't elite to start. So I don't think Seahawks fans would have been shocked if they lost this game if none of these injuries happen. And I also don't think it's shocking that the Seahawks are falling back to Earth.

And the injuries are really unfortunate because, you know, I mean, there happened to huge contributors. And also Chris Carson just has been a great guy, quite honestly, this year, like the way he shared touchdowns with Shod Penny. Well, okay. So the running back thing, from my perspective, you can take relief. The Dwayne Brown thing, I think, is a really big deal. And I think Russell Wilson for all of his incredible skill set, I think he's a top three quarterback, top two, I don't know. But he has been banged up in his career. And he has suffered behind a really bad offensive line at parts in his career.

That has been, you know, Tom Cable has gone. A lot of that has been solved. The running, the offensive line is significantly better than it has been. But you lose Wayne Brown and tackles are important. tackles are at worst, I don't know, third, fourth, most important position in the field. And you cannot lose a player like Twain Brown. They give up a lot for Dwayne Brown for a reason. So it worries me from just as a Russell Wilson stand.

But it's, I generally believe in Russell Wilson's miracle making powers. My favorite play in football, well, that's not that true. My favorite play in football is Patrick Mahomes won second and 20 because the chiefs always getting holding penalties. But my favorite play after that is when Russell Wilson just barely. on the pocket immediately and just runs around like 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage, which will be happening a lot more now without Dwayne Brown. So on that front, it's good because Russell Wilson is going to do some like school yard nonsense.

So the next stock down is very near and dear to your heart. It is the tanking teams who won today. Daniel Dimes. Dude. I don't want to talk about this, man. Okay. So Danny Dimes leads the red hot New York Giants down the field and over it. time. They get the win.

They now have four wins, according to tankathon.com slash NFL, which I was in the Dolphins press box and there was a lot of checking of tankathon. According to them, they will pick fourth now. Could have had Chase Young. They do not have Chase Young. The Dolphins pick five. So Detroit goes to three. Who the hell knows what they're going to do?

and Cincinnati obviously stays at one. So the dolphins lose an opportunity to get a higher pick, the Giants lose an opportunity, what happens? I mean, as an unhinged Giants fan, he's about to give you an unhinged Giants rant, this is a disaster.

The Giants need two things. They either need a pass rush or like Chase Young. I mean, to be honest, I shut this game off because I was like, oh, yeah, like this was fine. Like, I have a job. I have to watch the other game. that matter. And then they both went to overtime at 35 to 35. And I realized, oh my God, if the

Giants lose and the Bengals win, there is a chance that Giants could get the number one pick, get Joe Burrow, replace Danny Dimes with Joe Burrow. And everything's fixed and the David Gettleman era has been solved. It's all wonderful. And then we have Evan Engram and Sequin Barkley and Joe Burrow on one team and we're going to win the Super Bowl. And then none of that happened. And other giants might fall out of the top five or at least going to be fifth. It's, like, it's funny to think, among other things, the Giants, it's a disaster.

For the dolphins, I think it's a reminder that none of the teams we think will go on 16 ever go on 16, and that the Browns and lines did it are the exceptions that prove the rule. Like, it never happens. And honestly,

the dolphins have been kind of great on offense the last two months. Like, Devonte Parker, one of the best receivers in all of football in the last six weeks. Fitzpatrick has just been mostly good Fitzpatrick. Like, the offense has been incredible, especially with,

I mean, the offense set in NFL record. They played 80 players through 16 weeks. That's an NFL record for a whole season. And the consistency has actually been pretty good, considering they could probably replace five starters on offensive line. The Bengals do what they needed to do. They played an exciting game. They get the first overall pick. And Washington, I don't think they were trying to do anything. I think they're just Washington. You mentioned the lines, though. The one thing I do want to say is that quietly three, 10, and one. Jim Caldwell deserves some head coaching opportunities. Jim Caldwell got fired after

going to go nine and seven twice in a row. And Matt Patricia is probably not going to get to nine wins in two years and keeping his job. That's just really frustrating, to be honest. I had just, after the Stafford injury, they just completely fell apart. And even before the Stafford injury, that they weren't that good. Yeah, they obviously screwed up. The game in Arizona that led to the tie. I mean, it was, it was a very strange season even before that. Now, Jim Caldwell was supposed to be on the Dolphin staff and took a step back due to some health things. The report recently was that he's healthy. If I'm an owner looking for

someone to bring instant credibility, I'm looking to the guy who brought instant credibility to the Detroit Lions left, and then the new guy Matt Patricia made it a total tire fire. Call what was the first Lions coach with a winning record, and I believe like a half century? A career record.

Career record. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's it's incredibly strange that they fired him and incredibly strange that Matt Patricia is given a very, very long, he's being given a third season here. That is not,

I've seen nothing to suggest Matt Patricia should get a third season. And by the way, if he was fired, what kind of job Matt Patricia get? Who wants to hire Matt Patricia as a defensive coordinator? Give up 51 points in the Super Bowl. Belichick basically took over when that happened. The same group of players almost. Same group of players.

No, but Belichick took over even within the season at some points. But I think everyone, even when that season was happening, we should talk about how bad Patricia was. And then Belichick eventually turns, improves that defense a little bit and turns him into one of the best defenses the league has ever seen. And Matt Patricia goes to the Lions and makes them a tire fire. It is, I've not been impressed with the Matt Patricia career arc. Okay.

All right. That's it, Danny. stock market's closed. Stock market is closed. You've been working on that one all week, buddy? Oh, yeah. Farewell from Stratt and Oakmont. Thanks, buddy.

Peace, Kevin. Okay, time to bring in the ringers. Dark night, Danny, how are you, buddy? You know, I'm doing pretty well. Pretty well. The Seahawks did not look super great today, but... We just talked about that. We just talked about that, and I want to loop around with you.

First of all, there's some Marshawn Lynch rumors. Yes, I love this. So I actually heard this rumor. a few months ago that the Seahawks tried to bring in Lynch, you know, before the season, because they wanted to pair him with Carson and, like, have a really physical tough backfield. But as the rumor states,

Lynch didn't want to be, you know, like a 1B or a two, like a backup type guy, so he said no. But Bob Condota of the Seattle Times actually just said, and he doesn't just like- He wouldn't rule it out. He wouldn't rule it out. He doesn't just make stuff up. He said he would not rule out Marshawn Lynch getting signed for the Seahawks.

So that will be interesting. I'll say that. Look at DK. Work on the rumor mill. Ears the ground. All right. I'll just say I believe, I think that there's some validity to it.

I'll just put it that way. Okay. So Danny, Seahawks did not play very well. Are you worried about their game next Sunday? Yes. That has now been flexed. So now you have to sit around for 12 hours

and watch other people play football. Yeah, I'm definitely worried. I think, you know, number one, they're just not playing well right now. Like, their offense did not click at all today against not a good defense. And they're really, really banged up. You know, they're missing a lot of their key defensive players, Deavian Clowny and Condray Diggs are both out.

And corner, Shaquim Griffin, or I should say, Shaquille Griffin is out. And so, yeah, they're missing some really key guys on defense. Offense is banged up. Now Chris Carson's out for the year, you know, as the whole Lynch thing goes. We'll see how that kind of works out. But, yeah, it's not looking so good. They're just really not playing well right now. the 49ers are, so yikes.

Classic problem. We'll see. We'll see. You want to talk about the New Orleans Saints who beat a team in the Tennessee Titans who had literally nothing to play for. This game did not count for them. There was nothing. Their loss was completely meaningless. So they have a, I think they have a 66% chance of making the playoffs if they win next week.

I'm sorry, 66% chance overall if they win the playoffs and obviously would make it if they won next week. But the Saints put up 38 points on a pretty talented Titans team. What impressed you? Well, I mean, first of all, Michael Thomas is just an absolute beast, and he set the new single season catches record in this game.

It was previously owned by Marvin Harrison, who had 143 catches back in 2002. So that's like a pretty long, long-held record that he broke. So that's super impressive. You know, kind of weirdly enough, he tied the record on a drop-back pass from Taysom Hill, which just, like, why did, why do they keep doing that? It was like a normal

dropback. In general, why do they keep doing it? I think it's to annoy NFL Twitter specifically. I think, yeah, he's probably right. Actually, wouldn't put that past Sean Payton. The problem with Taysam Hill is that he just does just enough. He does just enough. I remember a meeting with a soccer analytics guy and he was talking about a player who famously took. really long shots like, you know, I don't know, 20 yards out. And they looked ridiculous. But the

problem was, is that to be an efficient shot, it would need to go in one of every eight times and he did that exactly. So he was just just, just, just, yeah, he was right on the border of being inefficient versus efficient. And so you couldn't actually dunk on the guy, right? And that's, I

don't have any evidence for the Tassam Hill thing. I just feel anecdotally. like he does just enough for us to not just form a protest group. I think that's absolutely correct. But anyways, back to Thomas. So after today, I think he had 12 catches today. He has 145 on the year, new record, 1680 yards, 9 touchdowns. I saw this for NFL Game Day.

He's set some incredible records this season. So he has the most games with 10 plus receptions in his season 9, 90 plus receptions in the team's first 10 games, which is a new record. Fastest player in NFL history to 400 catches. Most catches through his first four seasons, which he's completely smashing. He's actually 66 ahead of Jarvis Landry right now. And then the most yards through his first four seasons.

And that's that old record was owned by Randy Moss, who is a Hall of Famer. So, yeah, I mean, what he's doing is really, really incredible. You know, obviously he has kind of, there's like this narrative that he's not a deep threat. And generally speaking, that's not how he's being used. but he's, I think, established himself or cemented himself as one of, if not the best receiver in the NFL. Just he's big, fast, explosive.

You know, he's agile, incredibly automatic hands. And I don't know, it's just really, really fun to watch him play. Like, what he's doing is just, you know, historic and incredible. So that was really kind of the first thing that really stood out about this game. Alvin Kamara. Yeah. He's back. So that's huge.

Are we? Okay, so that has been, that's been the question. He was banged up earlier this season, worried about maybe his explosiveness a little bit. He has 80 yards, two touchdowns today. Six receptions. So I think that's big because, sorry, Craig. So I think that's big because for the, you know, first of all, obviously the offense, basically, the passing game, especially runs through Michael Thomas. So the passing game is a little bit one dimensional in that sense.

Obviously, they have like trick plays. at Taysam Hill or, you know, one-off Ted Ginn catch or, you know, Treyquant Smith here and there. But for the most part, the passing game is very one-dimensional through Michael Thomas or Jared Cook. And then, you know, in the run game, they just have not been explosive at all.

Like, Camara has had knee and ankle injuries. He just really hasn't looked like himself over the last, like, month, plus. But for the first time, yeah, and I'd say, like, since his injury, he looked like the Camaro that we kind of know. He ripped off a 40-yard touchdown. You know, he looked really explosive, smooth.

And getting that back in the Saints' offense just feels like a really nice cherry on top, you know, in addition to them just being a very good balanced team. So getting Camara back to peak form could be, you know, potentially really massive for this team, especially since they lost a couple key guys on defense recently, Sheldon Rankin's and Marcus Davenport. So that's huge for them, I think, potentially.

And going into the playoffs, having a guy like Camara, who is a true mismatched threat and having him play like he can play, you know, that could be the type of thing that puts him over the edge. So I thought those are the two things that really stood out to me for the Saints today. Yeah. Is every defensive lineman hurt in the football? There's been an incredible amount of injuries the last couple weeks, it feels like. Like every team is banged up.

But because a lot of the skill guys are, just totally fine. There actually isn't that much of a chatter about it. Like the Niners, the Niners are a good example. Like, High Fitzna was talking about some of the other injuries around the league. Like,

when the D-lines are banged up, just nobody can, or O lines, for that matter, except playing Johnson. Yeah. Like, no one's,

no one's going to ever mention that Dwayne Brown is out for, like, the next three weeks. We, it's up to us to keep talking about it. Does the Saints win today change anything about how you view the NFC and how do you view the NFC right now, as to, in terms of the elite teams.

It doesn't really change anything. I think it just, to me, more strengthens the thought that the Saints are one of the elite teams in the NFC. And they still, this win gives them a chance to still potentially get

the number one seed. I think right now, you know, they're slated to be the number three seed. And it just depends on what happens with the Packers and went to Seahawks 49ers game next week. But I think keeping them in that race.

And we've seen how good they are, you know, in the dome, in New Orleans. If they can get home field, I think that could be massive for them in the playoffs. And so I think,

you know, despite the fact that this was totally meaningless for the Titans, just giving them a chance to have that home field advantage to all the playoffs is going to be massive for them.

Plus a buy, obviously, is huge too. So, yeah, I think, to me, it just kind of cements them as one of the elite teams. I already feel like they're one of the elite teams in the NFC before today,

but now they just feel like they're kind of, you know, if not as good, they're getting strong. as like the season goes on. Yep. I'm in agreement with you. I don't actually don't know

how the NFC is going to turn out. I think it's, I don't, I think it's much more bunched together. I think even a team like the Vikings, I'm just not ready to count out anything right now. I don't think it's like the AFC. I think it's going to come down to seating

and home field and all that stuff. So I'm not ready to call anything at this point in the NFC. Who do you think is better at this point? The Vikings or the Seahawks? Like, who do you have more confidence in right now? Oh, boy. Confidence right now, I would say the Seahawks. Really?

Yeah, I think so. This is such performative Seahawks' Twitter BS from you, Danny Kelly. What are you talking about? They just lost to the freaking Cardinals at home. Yeah, fine, fine. They lost to Hundley or whatever. No, but next you're going to ask me if, like, if you have more confidence in the Bengals of the Seahawks.

Oh, man. I mean, it's definitely not performative, but I see your point. Danny Kelly, any, at the end of this segment every single week is you getting upset about the Seahawks. Last week, I asked you who's going to win the Seahawks Niners game and he said, how should I know? And now you're asking me to ask if they're worse than the six seed in the NFC. Do you want to ask me again? I think they're not going to win. We're doing the almost famous thing.

Ask you again. All right. I heard what you said, but let's do it again. Danny. Keep his all in, Craig. Who's going to win between the Seahawks and the 49ers on Sunday night and NBC? I think the 49ers are going to win. I think, yeah, I think the Seahks are just too banged up at this point.

And I think the 49ers are probably a better team overall anyway. There it is. There it is. There it is. That's what I'm going to get. I'm going to get 20 million traitor tweets. Everybody, a bunch of Seahawks fans were mad. I don't know who they were mad at because George Kittle in my profile of them said,

that he's, that the other person's going to get got and everybody got mad at me. So are we never supposed to use the term like beast mode either? I also think that, I also think, and I did not clarify this with George, but I also think that the get got thing is an homage and not a, he's not, yeah. Everyone at this point knows that Marchand said get got. Right. We're good on that.

I agree with you. I agree with you. I think he was probably just like, you know, Paying his respects to the original beast mode. Kittle is absolutely the beast mode in the NFL right now. It's going to be a problem if Marchand comes back on Sunday. Yeah. Yeah, actually that'll be a good little storyline right there.

Yeah. Kittle, payed his respects. Danny Kellogg, thank you so much. Thanks, man. All right, thanks to Danny Hype. It's Danny Kellogg for coming on, and thanks for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. We'll be back on Thursday.