The Ringer NFL Show - The Steelers' Struggles Continue in Third Consecutive Loss and Best Wagers in Week 16

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

On a special holiday episode, Warren Sharp and Joe House recap the Steelers' loss to the Bengals and attempt to make sense of the New England Patriots. Later, they look at some of the best bets in Week 16. Hosts: Warren Sharp and Joe House Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. On today's special holiday edition of The Ringer NFL show, we recap the Steelers loss to the Bengals and discuss where you should be putting your money on week 16's action. Stick around. Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast Network is brought to you by State Farm, getting great car and home insurance from State Farm at a surprisingly great rate. That is like drafting a player that becomes an all pro. The Real Deal. State Farm agents provide personalized service so you,

You can customize your insurance to fit your needs, like a GM putting together their very own roster. You need a team that supports you, and State Farm's got a great one. In addition to agents, the award-winning mobile app helps manage coverage, pay bills, file claims, and more. With a great price and even greater service, State Farm goes from strength to strength. Choose insurance that always brings it to a game. When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show Holiday Special. This is Warren Sharp, joined as always by Joe House,

and we are recording this show after Monday night football, where we saw the Pittsburgh Steelers drop a game to the Cincinnati Bengals, and we're going to get you guys covered with all things you need to know heading into this weekend's holiday NFL betting action. Mr. House, what did you make of the Pittsburgh Steelers, seemingly unable to do anything offensively against Ryan Finley and the Cincinnati Bengals. Sharpie, it's holiday season.

I've got to sing. It's the most wonderful time for a tease. Unless you teased the crappy Pittsburgh Steelers. And I don't think we can use any other word to describe these Pittsburgh Steelers. other than crappy, you asked me a question. I'm going to answer your question with my own question, Warren Sharp. My question to you, under what circumstances are the Pittsburgh Steelers going to win another football game this year? Oh, wow, that's a loaded one.

That is a loaded one. Can we get rid of the offense coordinator? Could we dial in from the ringer show straight to the headset of Ben Rothsburger, or perhaps a quarterback sneak on fourth and an inch when there's no defensive lineman right across from your center. You can just fall forward. I don't know. It's not looking great for this team,

certainly spiraling out of control. The one thing that I'm going to just, this has nothing to do with football, okay? But it pissed me off, and it relates to opponent motivation, is why is Mike Tomlin allowing Juju Smith-Schuster to do his TikTok dances on the other team's logo when clearly that motivates their opponent and provide zero edge for the Steelers themselves. Do you honestly think that any of the other Steelers are happy

that Juju is going out there by himself and doing this TikTok dance to be posted on social when they're sitting in the locker room or they're doing their warm-up routines or what have you and Juju's trying to gain his own clout by doing this? And it's actually rallying the opponents around them and pissing them off. I'm shocked that the coach has allowed this to continue for as long as it has. I really don't understand it. It's very out of character for the Steelers and for a Mike Tomlin team. I mean, they were emphatic and had a rapid response unit in place with Antonio back,

you know, a couple of years ago when he was doing his silly. social media stuff. But here, you know, we see this on a recurring basis, and your point is exactly the correct one. They get absolutely nothing out of it. And it's also like,

it's not the kind of a gesture, not the kind of move by a team that's in Pittsburgh position, right? Like they start off the season 11 and O, they're going into, up against a divisional opponent. They need to write the ship. Now,

I guess there is an argument that it is a kind of motivation for the Steelers. It is a reflection of their swag, perhaps. But that's the thing. That's my whole focus. If it was a team thing, then I understand it, right? Like the whole Titans going and standing on the Ravens logo before that game. It's a unifying team thing that they're gaining an edge from it. Here, the rest of the Steelers aren't part of it.

It's a totally selfish act by one individual of that team that ends up pissing off the entire opposite team. And I typically, you know, having played competitive sports myself and a lot of the listeners out there, a lot of them probably have played competitive sports at well at varying different levels. Like, I understand the concept that if you're 10 out of 10 is really hard to get 11 out of 10, like you're either all in or you're or you're not. Like there are sometimes a guy might show up nine out of 10, eight out of 10. He's not totally ready, but 10 out of 10 is 10 out of 10. But I will say is there are certain games that I showed up to where I had a little bit of extra spice in my step, right? Like I had a little bit of extra motivation in this particular spot. And that is something that

exists. And the Steelers aren't getting any extra motivation from it. And if that opponent gets a little bit of extra motivation against you, my issue then becomes if it carries over into the game and starts to impact your own, in other words, the Steelers' level of confidence because the other team is so jacked out of their minds and hitting you that then all of a sudden your own in-game confidence drops a little bit, then that becomes a problem. And it needs to end. And there's no room for it. I'd like to get this back to talking about actual on-field football, but I had to get that out of my system. Well, you know what? The on-field football for the Pittsburgh Steelers isn't really, doesn't give us much to talk about because they've been bad in all phases.

And Cincinnati showed up last night and maybe it was with extra motivation. Certainly the football gods looked down and saw what happened and they had an answer for Juju. They gave him the answer that he deserved with the hit the bell put on him. And, you know, the Cincinnati, to me, the interesting thing is this version of the Cincinnati Bengals, because I want to see them next season with J.B., with Joey Covers at the helm, playing with that level of intensity and that level of physicality. Like Cincinnati brought the kind of physical play that we've come to grow accustomed to when we see Cincinnati play Pittsburgh, and they showed up with that level of intensity

and that physicality. The Steelers did not. Yeah, the problem, though, with that is the Cincinnati Bengals don't show up like that, you know, 14 games out of the year. So I can't count on that type of type of physicality except in this spot. It's prime time. It's against the Steelers. And, you know, they're playing at home and they got the swag and they're pissed off that somebody's dancing on their logo. Like, that what, that is what elicits, rather, that level of response from them. I wrote a book, as I do every offseason that previews the upcoming season. I,

study the NFL for months from February until May, then I start writing it and I publish it in June. And in the final page of the Steelers chapter, I wrote this house. I said, quote, the Steelers offense needs more creativity, less predictability, and a stronger desire to take advantage of the free efficiency that exists in today's offensive game. And I wrote that discussing what I was anticipating from Randy Fickner's offense because having studied it, even despite the fact that they're sticking Ben in there this season and they didn't have him last season, there were things about this offense that I did not love.

And part of it is the lack of creativity and the too much predictability. And we're seeing that right now where, yes, they have lots of weapons at wide receiver, but the defense is jumping routes. That's how Juju got blown up on that play. at the corner who was defending Chase Claypool in the slot when Claypool was running across the field dropped off of him. The safety rolled over the top, but did not get there anywhere in time. Ben could have thrown a second level throw over the top to a wide open clay pool, but instead went with his first read, which was Juju Smith-Schuster and who had two D.Bs

converging upon him because they're jumping the short routes, and that's where Ben is throwing the football too much. This team also has come out multiple first plays of the game and just thrown a deep Hail Mary down the right side of the field on the first play of the game. They did that against the Washington football team a few weeks ago. I don't know if they did it against the bills, but they very well might have. They did it against the Bengals. It's the most ridiculous opening play of the game when you're doing it multiple times in consecutive weeks. This team does not have any type of identity right now on offense.

Their identity is will replace the right. run game, which isn't very good with the short passing attack, but you have to be multiple and diverse. You have to just do what Kyle Shanahan does, right? Kyle Shanahan makes a lot of things look the same, but there's a lot of variance off of those. There's no variance here. There's not like the second move. There's no prestige. Like, what's the trick in this play? What, what am I not expecting this going to happen? There's no prestige that comes about. It's just, you know, there's no slight of hand. It is what you get. There's no play action. It's very frustrating to watch. And I was hoping that Matt Canada's influence. The Steelers, Mike Tomlin goes out, gets Matt Canada, says in the

offseason, we like the motions and all the different things that Matt Canada brings to this, brings to our team. And I thought, interesting. This is going to be kind of cool. However, as I wrote in the book, I had my concerns because this is Fickner's offense and he is the OC. How much is he going to acquiesce to a quarterback's coach who gets involved during the midst of a pandemic and wants to introduce a bunch of new things. I had my reservations that enough creativity was going to get incorporated by Matt Canada. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing not nearly enough creativity to many predictable things going on with this offense. No second levels, no prestige. It's, it's very frustrating. Well, it's, you hit on the key point to me. What really resonated

is this is a one-dimensional offense. They only have one bread and butter, and that is the short passing game. I don't know if it's scheme. I don't know if it's talent. They cannot rush the ball. I don't know if it's because of an offensive line play, the talent of the running back.

It's important O line. Yeah. So right. Or scheme, some combination of all three probably, right? But the only way the Steelers this season over the last five or six games can advance the ball at all is,

by way of that short passing game. And you made the point in talking about what we saw out of the Bengals. They jump those roots. They see it coming. I mean, and here's the thing. I'll go back to the question I asked you a bit ago. The Steelers now have to play the Indianapolis Colts and the Cleveland Browns. And those, as we sit here today, those look like two losses to me.

And that means Pittsburgh is going on the road as a wild card in the first round of the playoffs because I think the Browns are going to end up winning the AFC North. Well, the game against the Browns is going to be fascinating. The way that the Steelers beat them the last time, we know the recipe to beat Baker Mayfield. Somebody in the playoffs, when they run into the right defense, is going to be able to do it. And let's just get pressure on him. Baker Mayfield struggles under pressure. Now, the Giants weren't able to do that.

You have, the Browns have lost a couple offensive linemen. Now, I don't know if what Teller is going to be back or when he's going to be back, but he missed last week's game. and then their backup to him who was like a jack of all trades performed really well. He got injured and now he's done for the season, I believe. So their offensive line is not where it was before. The problem with Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh had its guys. It had its linebackers, its pass rushers, it had Bud Dupree,

and all the guys up there at the beginning of the season that they needed to be productive on that side of the ball and really impose their force on opposing offenses, get after Baker during that game that they played earlier this season and harass him and really limit him. Right now, the Steelers are struggling to get that pass rush. And it's going to cripple their defense because their offense isn't scoring enough points to have an adequate or average defense. This has to be like a Saints level production type defense to be able to offset a predictable below average type offense. I'm not going to rule out the Steelers from winning that game. I do think they could beat, look, this line against the Indianapolis Colts this week, the Steelers were laying two

and a half points before that game. And I was actually rubbing my hands together, getting ready to grab the Colts when this line reopened. Because a lot of people talk about, well, we could bet this thing early at like look ahead lines and stuff. You can't get down. And it's just worthless, in my opinion, unless you are a small limit guy to bet look ahead. So I wanted to see when this thing opened, when the limits rose, what the number was going to be, what we could get. And I was hoping to maybe get the Colts and buy them to three. But once the final ended with the Steelers losing outright to the Bengals and looking the way that they did, this line actually opened at some books, a soft three in favor of the Indianapolis Colts. So it moved all the way. The Colts are on the road in Pittsburgh.

Colts opened a soft three-point favorite. Now, that line got bet down. And right now, it's like two and a half at, sorry, two at some spots, one and a half at others. So money has come in on Pittsburgh. Like, dude, this is way too much of an overreaction to that one game. But the Colts have the style of offense with an offensive line that should be able to pass protect rivers a little bit and should be able to take advantage of where the Steelers are weak in their defense, which is running back passes, which is tight end passes. is like attacking the linebacking core of the Steelers, which has been decimated by injury, the interesting part's going to be on that other side of the ball. And all I can tell you is this, seeing the way that the Steelers are throwing a lot of short passes, that allows all, and they're not using play action to get the linebackers out of position, that allows a studly, absolutely beastly linebacking core of the Indianapolis Colts with Darius Leonard and, and all of his cohorts to really influence, not just the run game of the Steelers, but the past game as well. If you're not throwing over top of those guys, if you're not getting them out of position in some

capacity, it's hard to beat a defense like the Colts. And I think the Colts have a slightly overrated defense, but it's hard to beat a guy, a team like that with linebackers like those throwing short. Well, and the Colts have been susceptible to guys that can get vertical, going down the field. That's where they've been beat in the passing game. That's not what the Steelers do. You said overreaction to one game by Pittsburgh, bro, this is a three game

losing streak. And out of the teams, you know, losses to Washington and Cincinnati, those are not two offenses that you would present formidable challenges. The Colts are better on both sides of the ball. And that one and a half

points, I mean, I think I'm going to lay it. we have a whole slate to talk about this this holiday weekend coming up. What a, what a beautiful array of games. I mean, the football gods really love Christmas because they hook this up. Before we get to the week 16 slate, let's do a real quick recap, as is our way. Typically on the Friday Ringer NFL show, we look at the week in review and go through a couple highlights. And one of the things that we have been on the last several weeks have been road underdogs because they are cashing tickets out there left and right. It was another good week for road underdogs.

They went five and four against the spread. We had three outright road underdog winners in the form of the chargers, in the form of the Bears. and in the form of the New York Jets, Warren Sharp, I can't believe it. Actually, I can believe it. I wagered on it. And that ticket for me, I bet several weeks ago that the Jets would win a game. And as the season went on, I grew more and more concerned about cashing that ticket. But lo and behold, it is a real reminder of variance in the NFL when there's only six.

16 games over the course of a season, you know, the circumstances under which these teams meet each other and what kind of preparation they put into it can produce these outlier results. I think some I saw a stat somewhere of this combination of Cincinnati as 12 and a half dogs and the Jets as 17 point dogs. Both of those cashing was an incredibly, incredibly rare scenario with both of them as outright. winners. The one thing that we've been paying attention to, especially is this sub-angle. We've been calling it the TA Cleveland Corollary, the road dog rewards, which is looking for games. We're hunting these games where we can find road underdogs of six points or less, where the

total is less than 45 points. That angle had produced 16 and 1 against the spread with 10 outright winners. There was only one game that fit that category last week. And that was New England going into Miami. New England was getting a point and a half or two. It was, it started off at three and then people bet on New England pretty heavily. It got all the way down to one and a half. And the total at that might end up at like, I don't know, 43 and a half or 44. But New England, here's the thing that that little angle now is 16 and two against the spread. and the two losses are both New England. And I just want to hit pause for a second and talk about New England.

The reason that this angle has been poor for New England, it did not cash in connection with New England going out to the L.A. Rams and getting their ass handed to them on Thursday night a couple weeks ago. And it didn't cash with New England going down to Miami. And in both instances, I think the reason it didn't cash is because of an overindulgence for the Patriots and over genuflecting to Bill Belichick.

The lines in both of those games could have and should have been at least six, maybe higher, especially for the Rams, but there is, you know, this disinclination

to take the Patriots for what they are, which is really a bad football team this season. I wanted to get your take. One thing that I know hurt you and me, we both had the Patriots

in a teaser, action and they had an opportunity. They gave up a touchdown late to Tua. Miami had success rushing the ball all day long and they gave up a late touchdown. New England was down two scores. They came down. They had an opportunity to kick a field goal, which would have saved our

teaser butts. But for whatever reason, Belichick was disinclined to do it and they basically just ended the game without, they scored no more points. We'd seen the night before. the Panthers in a similar situation and Rule went ahead and kicked the field goal with as much time as possible. What's going on with this Patriots team?

I don't know. It seemed like it was a clear decision to me that when you're down 10 points in that situation, I want to say it was like 4th and 3 or 4th and 4 from like the 27-yard line or something that you get the points and then you keep the game alive rather than converting that.

But, you know, I don't know what exactly New England is, their motivating factors are anymore here. I don't know if they care to make the most optimal decisions. This is a team, look, they go down there. The first drive of the game, they lose three yards. They have a net of three yard loss. And every single other drive, they're going down there, they're gaining 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. yards, 69 yards on all these drives. They don't have a single drive where they're not gaining less than, I think they had one where they fumbled it, where they're gaining 34 plus yards. They're getting

into Miami territory every single drive. The problem for them in that game house, if you were watching, you saw they settled for a field goal from the 24. They settle for a field goal from the 27. They settle for a field goal from the 18. They settle for another field goal from the 27. And so all these field goals add up. So when you look and say, oh, well, their red zone numbers weren't that bad. They only had one red zone trip and they kicked a field goal. Yeah, but they were having a lot of other trips to 24, 27, 27, where they were kicking field goals earlier on in the day. They got down. It was at the 32-yard line is where they ended up having another situation where they just went for it and ended the game right there, as opposed to live to fight another day. They just ended the game right there. It's going to be

really interesting now that the Patriots have no shot at making the playoffs. They're completely eliminated what their strategy and mentality is going to be for this week 16 game against the Buffalo Bills on Monday night football. Well, I have that game on the card. We will we will touch on it. I share your view. You know, you're you're wondering aloud here what the motivation is for New England. I absolutely have no questions whatsoever about the Buffalo Bills motivation for Monday night football and it could damn well be a coronation and and a lot more of what we've seen out of this very, very exciting Josh Allen run. But we'll get to that in good time. I want to touch on very quickly. We'll get to the whole slate. One of the games on the slate, unfortunately for my

rooting interests, fits the road dog rewards, fits the TA Cleveland Corollary. And that is the Carolina Panthers getting one and a half coming here into the wide. in D.C. area. The total in that game is around 44, I believe, and not only does it fit, you know, a good angle for Carolina, a good position for Carolina, but Teddy Bridgewater

is incredible as a road underdog. I had to check this stat. I encountered this in a quick bit of research. He's 19 and 2 against the spread as a road underdog. I mean, that's, just unbelievable. Do you have any way of explaining that? It's the same thing I wrote in the book last year. He's completely underrated. As a quarterback in the NFL, what you think about Teddy

is often not what you're going to get. He's a competitive dude. He is able to get his team into games. He absolutely does not like, I don't think enough, hit his ceiling as to where, like, and the execution at all times. But a lot of quarterbacks don't. But, But for whatever the case is, he seems to be get, he seems to get disrespected just enough to provide that slight margin. But 19 and 2 is absolutely absurd. But I was writing about this, that people were going to overlook his ability and that the Carolina Panthers would be a team that we'd be able to get some value on when they are an underdog. Well, they're one and eight in their last nine games. And so, you know, going up against this Washington team where it seems like it's going to be Alex Smith at quarterback, I'm certainly rooting for it to be Alex Smith at quarterback.

It doesn't seem like Haskins. Haskins put himself in harm's way a couple different ways. First of all, he sucked at quarterback for three quarters of that game last week. Now, you know, to his credit, and this has been a recurring theme and pattern with him. he has rallied the team and put the Washington's inside of a potential score at the end of a football game that could change the outcome. He did that again against the Seahawks this week

and they were legitimately, until he took three consecutive sacks, they were around the 20-yard line with plenty of time left to score a game-winning touchdown, but he did take three consecutive sacks and then apparently went to the strip club and violated all the protocols and violated everybody else.

This guy has sat on the bench for most of this NFL season because in large part it seems to me, based on all the commentary and what we've seen in the press and what Ron Rivera himself has said, the guy has an immaturity problem. And the immaturity, at least in terms of the way Rivera and his coaching staff expressed it, was in the form of a commitment to his craft, his ability to grasp the game plan that this team. wanted to install and run this season. And to the credit of Rivera, they just said, look, our best chance at being successful in this 2020, 2020, 2021 football season is to replace Haskins a quarterback.

And they did that. And, you know, we're in an instance here where Smith gets hurt. Haskins comes in on the fly. So he was not prepared to go into the game against the 49. and he managed to just, you know, keep the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the same kind of, uh, you know, uh, you know, um, mistakes and, and misjudgments out of him in the first

half. But this thing with going to the strip club and breaking the COVID protocol, I mean, you got to get out of of your own way at some point. I think Scott Turner was coaching him up to push the ball deeper down the field, going with the slogan, make it rain. And he took that literally after the game went to the club, made it rain. I don't really, I don't really know what enters the guy's mind to make him want to do that. Because we know it's, it's COVID. So you actually cannot do, like, it's against all the protocols, as you said.

So it's frustrating to see that. And I'm sure that there's nobody more frustrated than that Washington coaching staff because you're absolutely right. Some of the vibes that I was getting was some of the lack of focus and preparation and studying up and knowing all the reads and knowing responsibilities and understanding progressions. And, you know, there's ways to work on that type of stuff. Like, if you want to go the extra mile, if you really want to like prepare your, oh,

this is something that they're saying, I can't. can't do. Let me try to figure out how I can get better at that. And, you know, there's a VR technology that Carson Palmer used a ton in Arizona that can enable you to process things mentally on your own, in your own time, from the freedom of your own house. You could stand in your backyard. You could sit on your couch. You can go through some of this stuff. You can take those extra steps. If you really care about trying to perfect your craft, if nothing is going to be ever good enough for you, you refuse to settle for any type of criticism ever being valid. Somebody says something, you're going to prove them wrong five times over. And then you get the sense, I mean,

this, I don't think there's any excuse for that type of behavior, even if you, unless it's the Super Bowl, and then you're no longer having to do anything with your team. You know, if you're the quarterback of this team, I don't care if you're the wide receiver, you're the running back, you're the left tackle. They're counting on you. This is a, this is a family. type thing. And when you do that and you put yourself over the other guys who are going home and have to stay, you know, to themselves in adherence of the protocols and your take it, it's probably sending vibes, like I said, the coaching staff, I'm sure is very disappointed. I bet his teammates are also extremely frustrated. So we from the outside, we can,

we can say whatever we want to. It's going to mean more to his peers in his own locker room, as well as the coaching staff showing their disappointment. I don't know who's going to be up. You know, I really don't know who is going to be the quarterback this week because I know Alex Smith wants to come back as quickly as humanly possible. And this is a huge game for Washington. Forget even if this team was 1 and 13, or if this team was 13 and 1,

entering this game against the Carolina Panthers, Ron Rivera's first game up. You know Matt Rule is going to be. like they made the right move in hiring me. Let's show them what we're about. And Ron Rivera's like, these are the guys that got rid of me. And the coaching staff, there's a lot of guys from Carolina. Like, I guarantee you there's something to this game. But the fact that there's like playoffs on the line here as well, it's going to be fun to watch.

And I'm glad that they moved this game to the four o'clock window house so that we get to see the Philadelphia Dallas game occur simultaneously because the way the schedule was originally planned, the Washington. Carolina game was at one o'clock, rendering the Philadelphia, Dallas game, potentially meaningless were Washington to win that game, they lock up the NFC East. And that Eagles game against the Cowboys would be irrelevant. Now we don't have that problem. Yeah, and I'm going to, I want to say this as politely as possible. If Alex Smith can't go, Haskins is not eligible, I don't believe, because of the COVID violation, the protocol violation.

Is that official? Is that, are we sure? I don't know. I mean, it's like the news is today news. And so I haven't read, all I've seen is is the version of the story that says it's definitely a violation. And I don't know whether what the mechanism is for whether it's a team suspension or a league suspension that that's coming. There was some speculation that was quickly dismissed that Washington might, just release Haskins immediately. But I've seen that, you know, sort of walked, walked back. But if I'm looking at the quarterback depth chart,

I have never seen Taylor Heineke do his thing. And I hope I'm pronouncing his name right. Oh, you are. And he's an ODU grad. So, you know, he's from your home state, Sharpie. He was with Scott and Ron down in Carolina, and he got a little bit of action. They have hopes that he was going to be able to do a little bit more than what he actually was able to do on the field. So there's no doubt.

I mean, he's a massive, massive downgrade over even Haskins, in my view. But let's spend another 10 seconds. America, look, we're looking for great angles for you here. I know we're talking about the third string Washington quarterback, but you just reminded me of something. Is there an advantage for Rivera, this coaching staff, and maybe even Taylor H himself going up against this Panther team, you know, familiarity?

There's an advantage. There's a one-way advantage, absolutely. I mean, in some cases, you got a coach who is familiar with guys and some other guys. So there's a little bit of dual familiarity. Here, it's pretty much one way. Ron Rivera knows a lot of the guys on the team. Now, let's be clear, Matt Rule overhauled a lot of that group, especially on the defensive side of the football.

But on the offensive side of the football, there certainly are wide receivers that are there, and there are offensive linemen that are there. And, of course, a totally different quarterback. Mike Davis, the running back. Christian McCaffrey may play. But, like, those types of things, I mean, it's minor, right? Like, maybe having coached DJ Moore, you could say, well, if he was standing like this, this was the type of route that he was going to run.

And you could kind of, maybe you did have a tell on him or something that you could help your defense coordinator out with a little bit. I don't know. I mean, that's just a total coin flip shot in the dark if there would be something like that. But it doesn't hurt Washington at all, right? If anything it's going to help them, does it help them the most minuscule amount or a tiny bit? It's hard to say, but it doesn't hurt for sure. Washington needs every advantage you can get under these circumstances.

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We have this Washington Panthers game. Now let's get to the meat of the matter. This week 16. Now, we have a game on Christmas, and we will talk about that game. But let's start with the marquee game of the week. And there really was a little bit of head scratching on which one we wanted to call the marquee game. I believe it's Ram C Hawks, but Titans Packers, you could have talked me into it. And we're going to talk about both of those games.

But let's go ahead and hit Ram Cawks. Seahawks. Now, that to me has the most intrigue, the most sort of playoff implication because it is going to decide the NFC and it's going to decide, you know, some home field opportunity here. So the Seahawks are minus one and a half at home against the Rams. My first question to you is, does that line feel right?

And the second part of that is, is there any kind of overreaction occurring in connection with the Rams lost to the Jets? I actually don't think that there is. I was hoping that this line would open closer to three. It opened at two and a half favoring Seattle, got bet down very quickly. I was hoping that it would not get bet down quite as quickly with Seattle winning and the Rams getting out absolutely embarrassed. But I will tell you, the look ahead on this game, opened Seattle laying,

only one point and was bet down towards the Rams. So the game was a pick-a-m more or less at the spots that had this game up from a look-ahead perspective prior to the week 15 games kicking off. So the fact that Seattle opened as a two and a half point favorite, not quite the full three, and then has been bet back down to where we sit right now, which is the Seattle Seahawks laying one and a half points across the board. I don't think that there's any type of overreaction to it at all. Yeah.

So let's try and break it down a little bit. I want to start with Seattle because I really don't have much to say about the Rams. Those games happen in the NFL, and I'm interested in your sense of how McVeigh will get the Rams, you know, refocus. I don't think for the Rams it's going to be that hard. I think, honestly, they got caught looking forward. to this very game, and it bit them in the ass because they're now an enormous disadvantage. If they lose this game, then they're not going to win the NFC. But the Seattle defense is an interesting story.

And some of it for sure has to do with the Washington offense. But that defense put good pressure on Haskins. They got two interceptions. They had four sacks. It felt like more sacks. They had a lot of good pressures. I think there was at least six. quarterback hits, is this Seattle defense rounding into form? They have, they no longer bear the distinction

of being the worst past defense in the history of the NFL. They're improving. There's no doubt about it. And it's the right time of year to be doing that. And we know the blueprint on Jared Gough. It's very similar to that of Baker Mayfield. If you get pressure on these guys, you're going to have some success. And we saw that happen with the jets, dialing up pressure and disrefer. And disrefer his dropback game. You know, they're still without their left tackle, Andrew Whitworth. They're optimistic he's going to be returning for the postseason,

but he's not going to be there for this game. So it doesn't really help him in this sense. Now, the Rams and Sean McVeigh have more or less owned the Seattle Seahawks of the last two and a half years. The Rams are four and one against the Seahawks. The one loss was a come from behind. Thursday night game in Seattle in 2019 week five that the Rams were leading the game entering the fourth quarter before the Cioxx were able to rally and win that game by one point.

I think it's going to be a chess match because you have two, you have a team in the Ciox that seemingly refuses to put the gas pedal down and extend leads. They're not extending any of these leads. They're keeping the games close. They're turning a little bit more to the run late. And you have a Rams team that has a history of having success against Seattle. And in some cases, it was a Seattle defense that was garbage. And in some cases, it was a Seattle defense that was a little bit better. And this Rams team has seemingly figured out ways to put up points almost all the time. They put up 17 in the first half against the Rams. in the earlier meeting this year,

tacked on another six in the third quarter before going silent the rest of the way and winning that game 23 to 16. So the Seahawks are absolutely going to have to bring some pressure to disrupt what Sean McVeigh's been able to do to this defense for the last two and a half years. I don't have a feel for a side on this. The only angle I have is I bet the Seahawks on a preseason ticket

to win the Seahawks. the NFC West at plus 175, which felt like decent value because that NFC West before the season started, looked like it was kind of a jump ball situation. And so I'm rooting for Seattle this weekend, but I really don't want to underestimate the Rams. I hate going against Sean McVay when this much is on the line. Yeah, and that's one thing when you do have some tickets. And boy, do we have some nice juicy tickets? Maybe next week's show we can talk about the Kevin Siffansky to win coach of the year ticket that I got as the only coach that I put in that bucket.

I have some 33 to 1 on him. And I may end up hedging a little bit back after this weekend's games. But I still think he deserves it and should win it. But there's a chance he doesn't. And you want to make sure that you get some profit on that. So you will want to factor in some futures when you're looking at betting games, like a game, like this, instead of, let's pretend that you like the Seahawks, you really think that they should win, but you already have their future. And this will more or less decide that. You may just decide

to sit it out, right? Like, I feel really strongly. Or if you feel less strong, then you can look at a hedge by taking the RAMs. So, like, factor in futures as you're betting these next couple of weeks. The one thing I just wanted to add pulling up some numbers here is that it is going to be very vital when you're watching this game to see if the LA Rams are capable of getting past third down, avoid third down, get first downs on first and second down because the Seattle Seahawks over the last five or so games have merely league average to below average pressure rates on first and second down. They're about average just a little bit, but they're really good on third down pressures.

So if you can get them to avoid those third downs, if you can convert first thing down, and we know Cam Acres is not there. And so some of this is like, okay, can the run game be as punchy without Cam Acres in there? All these things are going to be factored in and recording this on a Tuesday,

we don't yet know even. We haven't even seen the first practice report of the week for most of these teams. So we know Akers is not going to be in for this game, however, which it was a little bit, odd that McVeigh had him come out if he's already dealing with an injured ankle in the last week's game and run him in the second half there when he could have been resting him.

But, and I will say one thing Seattle did do well, uh, offensively is they protected Russell Wilson. And they protected him through a combination of runs. They ran for 185 yards or so. But they, um, had a lot of quick passes. And so that had the effect of, uh, of only three quarterback hits on on Russell and no sacks. And, you know, coming into that game, the storyline was the formidable Washington front four. And they really couldn't get a hand on Russell. I imagine the Seahawks have to, you know, attempt another version of that this week because the Rams, you know, they have a front and a secondary that, you know, is every bit the equal of the Washington's. I can't wait to see Jalen Ramsey matching up against these guys

when Russ drops back to pass the football. That was fun. The first meeting, it's going to be a lot of fun this next meeting as well. Yeah. So let's get to Christmas. I mean, this is,

we talked about it last week. We are both very psyched. I am a big NBA guy. So as a hoops head, I'll be all over that NBA slate. But it's, it's terrific to have a football game in that prime time. It's like 4.30 in the afternoon.

Is that the slide? that we have this game. Oh, so good. It's dinner time. And we've got the Vikings and the Saints. And we have, you know, a legit Super Bowl contender on one side of the football and a team that is, you know, terrible in prime time. Their quarterback hates playing anytime other than 1 o'clock on Sunday. On the other side of the football, New Orleans is only laying seven points after a pretty competitive game. Now, it was a little bit of a false outcome in the sense that. that they ended up losing only by a field goal. The game really was never in doubt.

It was really a two-score game for most of that game. But we had the return of Drew Breeze. And in some respects, that Saints' offense picked up where it left off, which was not getting the ball downfield very far, because it doesn't seem like Drew Breeze can really get the ball down field very far. The Saints defense, even though they gave up 32 points, didn't look terrible to me. But I think that they're in a great position for a bounceback week to sort of re-acquaint themselves with top of the NFC kind of swagger. What do you like about this Christmas game?

Well, it's a rematch game right for these teams. It's going to be interesting to see what Minnesota. decides to come out with. If they get really aggressive, they're going to probably struggle to run the football here. So you're going to have to turn to the air. How quickly do they decide to abandon the run to some extent and do that? We'll probably make a big difference. The Saints absolutely dominated that game from limiting Patrick Mahomes being affected. I think his yards per temp was a career low. But at the same time, it's funny because the chiefs were like coast and easy in the second half of the game, even without that. And looking back at the stats, you know, you said Breeze picked up

where he left off before the injury. He's actually substantially worse. The three games prior to his injury, when you look at Breeze passing the football at least five yards down the field, right? We're not, it's not a high bar house. It's not a high threshold. We're saying like five yards or more down the field. Breeze was 38 to 49, 67% success. 10.1 yards per attempt and a plus 0.60 EPA per attempt. Those are really solid numbers. Now, he's probably not throwing in the deep bucket that far. He's not going 30 plus, 25 plus, but we're just talking about 5 plus. But those same numbers this past game, he completed just 5 of 15 for 33% success and a negative EPA. So massively different from what he was doing before.

I honestly did not understand why they weren't getting Alvin Kamara involved a little bit more, especially in the passing game. When you know Breeze is not really throwing the football down the field, it looked like this team was just off from the jump in terms of their game plan. I don't know. Like, it felt like Sean Payton wasn't optimizing his strategy here. They were just, they were targeting so many different guys like John, Johnson, Juan Johnson got four targets.

Didn't he catch a single one of them? I mean, you're targeting Lil Jordan Humphrey with four balls. Now, I know like he catches a touchdown, right? And everybody gets to say, Little Jordan Humphrey. And it's funny because his name really is Little Jordan. His name is, that really is his name. But, you know, you're targeting Kaysam Hill a couple. You're just spreading the ball around Mike Burton's getting catches.

But meanwhile, Alvin Kamar just has six targets. I mean, it just didn't make a whole lot of. sense the way that they were deploying their offense here. They weren't really, the weakness of the chiefs is to run the football on these guys. And I know you're down in the game, but you're still within one score at halftime. It's not like you're getting absolutely destroyed, and you're still within one score entering the fourth quarter. And yet you have only 17 run plays here, 17 carries. Alvin Kamara has 11.

I couldn't believe that Latavius Murray had just four carries. I just, bottom line, I just didn't like the game plan that Sean McVeigh entered this one with. I am optimistic that Drew Brees is going to look better. There's an element of getting the rust out of your system. There's an element of how is this guy even going to be able to throw the football? He can't be close to 100%. I didn't think entering this game. I wanted to money line the chiefs.

I didn't end up doing that. And in this game, I don't know. I don't love Mike Zimmer in general. And a lot of people are massive, you know, Mike Zimmer fans. Don't take me as saying I hate Mike Zimmer at all. He's a very good football coach. But I just, I don't have the same level of belief in him as some other people out there do. And it'll be interesting to see what his defense tries.

to do because this is a game where Sean Payton, if he really wants to, could be able to design an optimal way to beat a very bad Vikings defense. Will that defense get Eric Kendrick's back? I don't know. He's a big difference maker for them. He's missed the last couple of games. And if he's back, that's going to help them tremendously both on the ground and in the air defending Drew Brees and Sean Payton. If we're being generous, if we're being gracious, and it is this season, in the spirit of the season, the Vikings through a combination of COVID opt-outs

and injury, that defense is in the top tier of most impacted in the 2020 football season, right? We're in agreement about that. So, you know,

if we're going to be gracious and generous to Zimmer, he was, you know, playing with a stack deck or what's the opposite? No, he wasn't playing. The, deck was stacked against them. I got to get my metaphors worked out here. The thing I want to pose to you is on offense. And of course, you know, I'm not going to let a discussion about the Vikings go without calling to America's attention. Your tweet from last Sunday where Justin Jefferson gets himself open in the end zone. And Kirk sees him a beat too late.

and throws it high, and Justin Jefferson, he had a reaction. And because there's nobody at the football games right now, the microphones surrounding the field give us this wonderful, deep experience of hearing guys on the football field in the moment, the heat of the moment, share their views on what's going down. Now, JJ had a reaction. And I think we have the e-label on this show. Actually, I know we have the e-label because you've come on this podcast and talked about, you know, you've F-bombed the Los Angeles Chargers more than anybody in America.

But just share what you saw. I mean, share what you put on the tweet. Yeah, I mean, it was pretty clear at least every single word until the final one of this, which there's some people who think they heard something a little bit different. That part is the less relevant part anyways. but he gets up. And before he even gets up, like he's jumping for this ball.

It's clearly thrown a little bit late as Kirk is scrambling out of the pocket. And Jefferson goes, fuck, Kirk, come on, throw the ball. And it sounded to some people like, I might have said throw the flag, which didn't make a whole lot of sense. I have a feeling.

He said, throw the ball. The interesting part was so, of course, like, because like you said, the audio is so pristine, and by the way, the Derek Henry head slap heard around the world was the best sounding head slap I have ever heard in my life. That's going to get mounted up in Canton at some point.

But this comment was heard and picked up, and so I tweeted it. And I think it's been like two million video plays of this, and it got a ton of tweets and retweets and likes and that sort of thing. And so Justin Jefferson himself obviously was informed about it or saw it in his timeline. So then he quote tweets me and he says, y'all love blowing stuff up out of proportion and I ain't no diva.

Don't get it twisted. Which the great part about my tweet was, and I retweeted him, by the way, do respect because this guy is the rookie. In my opinion, like the offense of rookie of the year, this guy's produced a great season. I don't know why they're not throwing him to football more. I love Justin Jefferson. In no way, shape, or form did my tweet call him anything?

You're right. was just stating the news, like the pure undistorted, this is what he said. And you know, when he quote tweeted me, he did not say a single time, and he mentioned, you're wrong. That's not what I said. And he basically took ownership and just said, I'm not a diva. He said, you're spinning out of control. I'm not a diva because of all the replies. People are like, look at the mistake they made here. They need to get rid of this guy. He's a diva calling out his quarterback like this. And he's just like, I'm not a divy. and he's a freaking stud is what he is.

And he's not the first guy to say that about Kirk Cousins. You should go back and read your buddy Jay Gruden from D.C. comments on Kirk Cousin when Jay left town, not really a pat on the back to old Kirk. I'll just put it like that. Now, the reason that I wanted to call that to everybody's attention, I mean, in addition to the fact that you put this out there and you had a nice exchange with the guy involved with the play. And it is fun.

It really requires some tortured logic. This is the 2020, you know, tortured logic Olympics where you say, oh, yeah, it's Justin Jefferson is in the wrong here. Get the fuck out of here. That guy, it was in the second half. He tried to make a football play and in the heat of the moment he had a reaction. That's a ridiculous. You really have to go through some mind-bending gymnastics to get to where you have any

criticism of him for that. moment. But what I really wanted to get to is this Vikings offense because it's so goddamn run heavy. And I appreciate and understand when you have Dalman cook, you got to let him cook to so to speak. But they, they are the fourth most run heavy team in the NFL. And it just, it's not a recipe for success. Now, I don't know if they run to minimize their, their distrust of Kirk Cousins. I don't know if that that's part of the scheme, but they run the ball and against the bears, especially, they ran themselves out of that game. They have a passing attack in the form of Thielen and Jefferson that could be formidable. And Cousins does throw a nice deep ball. Like,

they can get vertical. Kirk Cousins is capable of getting vertical. They just don't do it for whatever reason. Is it because they don't trust him? I think it's the head coach's philosophy. I don't, how can you pay Kirk all this guaranteed money and not trust him to throw the football 35 or 40 times in a game? I mean, it's absolutely absurd. The funny part about it, though, is that you have to, as a play caller

and as a head coach, stop caring so much about your side of the ball, the defense's side. and start carrying about the fact that it's a lot easy for your defense in the second half when you're playing with a lead to call a defense to get pressure on opposing team when you know they're going to be dropping back in so many different situations. And so I just never understood the philosophy that like old conservative defensive coach, let's make sure that we bleed into the offense and make sure that they stay conservative too so that they control time of possession.

Like I know they also love it's not just they. They don't trust Kirk. I think they love Dalvin Cook. Mike Zimmer loves to run the football. It doesn't matter who it is. Then they got Dalvin Cook. They think he's his stud. He's putting up great numbers.

Yes, yes, he is. He is putting up good numbers. The problem is this. You have to adjust to your opponent. When you're playing a great run defense, you have to be able to say, let's try to pass the ball more. And against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers,

I mean, look, the Minnesota Vikings finished playing in weeks 11, 12, and 13, three run defenses that ranked 27, 19, and 24 in consecutive order. They end up losing to the Cowboys, and then they beat the Panthers, and they beat the Jaguars. Then all of a sudden, they go up for playing these below average run defenses to the number two run defense in Tampa. Then last week, the number five run defense in the Chicago Bears, who have Akeem Hicksback, who wasn't there in their prior matchup in week 10.

And then to week 16, now they're playing the number one run defense in the NFL of the Saints. You have to adapt and adjust and say, this is a great run defense. We're going to go away from what we would prefer to still utilize two stud receivers like Adam Thieland and Justin Jefferson and let Kirk Cousins, who gave millions and millions of guaranteed money to throw the football down the field and maybe we'll balance in some runs, but we're not going to rely on a run-heavy approach. Do you also know that I'm looking at it here, four, five, six, seven? They've played seven run defenses on the season that rank average or above.

And you know what the Minnesota Vikings are against those seven run defenses? They've won one game and they've lost six games. And that one game was a week 10 game, I believe, was Thursday Night Football against the Chicago Bears that they narrowly won 19 to 13. And Nick Falls basically did everything he could to lose that game for the Bears. But the Vikings won that game decidedly. Otherwise, they lost every single game that they played against a run defense that's better than average. Now they're going up against the number one run defense in the NFL. So as you're sitting there eating your Christmas ham, smoking your Christmas cigar, whatever your Christmas holiday traditions are, playing with your new toys you got, playing with your kids' new toys that they got.

You got the game on. Pay attention, especially in the first half, how often the Vikings are running the ball on early downs and how successful it is. hopefully they find the simplest path to victory quickly. And that would be to let Kirk Cousins throw the football a little bit to Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen. So I'm playing the Saints, both the money line, which I think is like minus 325 right now, and I'm going to go ahead and put them in a teaser leg at the minus seven they're available at right now. I'll tease them down to minus one because they cannot lose this game. They are in the mix for that number one seed in the NFC to win the entire NFC conference.

The Packers have a very tough game this weekend, Sunday night against the Titans, and then the Packers are going to Chicago. So those are, you know, the Sunday game would put those two teams in a tie if the Saints, you know, take care of business against the Vikings. I think they're going to do that. And the Packers have that tiebreaker going into week 17. but I just think the Saints go out on Christmas and take care of business. So that's the play for me.

It's a teaser leg and it's the Saints money line. Yeah. I mean, the Packers have a sickness that the Chiefs have as well this year, apparently. Too gooditis. They're a little bit too good and they come out early in the games and get leads and then they don't know what to do with them and that the other teams come back into games. So you can never suggest that the Packers are going to crush anybody. with the way they let teams back in.

So I think the Saints obviously are going to be very focused here for this win. It's going to be a great game. Let's just put it that way. So I have two more games for you to sort of walk through quickly and then a teaser. It's a holiday teaser. It's a teaser for America. It's a four-legged teaser. It's a seven-point teaser.

We want to give out some goodies. We want to give out some presents. You're not giving out four-legged furry critters for Christmas. under the tree, you're giving out four-legged teasers. Yes, that's what we do here on the Ringer NFL show. This is how we get down with this portion of the Ringer. So quickly on this very intriguing, all of a sudden, Philadelphia, Dallas game, Philadelphia is going to Dallas.

Philadelphia is a road favorite. Philadelphia road favorite minus two and a half going into Dallas. I think Philadelphia in the second, at halftime, announced that Jalen Hertz was going to be the quarterback again for this game during the halftime of the Arizona game. I mean, they wasted no time whatsoever and making it a thousand percent clear that Jailen Hertz is going to be the quarterback in this game.

I, at some point, we'll be interested in your thoughts on what Philadelphia ultimately does with Carson Wentz. And it is an endlessly fascinating topic, but we ain't going to see him this week unless Jalen gets nicked. And I'm not rooting for that because the multi-dimensional Philadelphia Eagles offense that all of a sudden has come to life is really, really fun to watch. That Arizona Philly game was super exciting. I really enjoyed it. I almost wish they could have flexed that into the Sunday night game instead of the moribund giants going up against the Browns.

But look, Philadelphia has got a resurgence. They found something. This guy is absolutely a pro level. Imagine him. Imagine the conversation we might be having about offensive rookie of the year. If Jalen Hertz, no, I mean, it didn't make any sense for Philly to be playing him at the beginning of the season. But he's a revelation. It's been enjoyable.

What's your thoughts on this Philly Dallas matchup? Well, first, everybody's going to look at that final score from the Cowboys last game and say, holy cow, they went in there and they completely whipped up on the 49. And if you were betting that 49ers game, I mean, I took the 49ers team total over figuring they were going to have some success running the football. And they obviously did. And the team total was able to come through for us. But if you bet the 49ers, which a lot of the sharp guys did, they just bet the I didn't want to do that. I wanted to bet the team total. But they laid the 49ers. And this thing moved a ton. I mean, the the giant, the cowboys rather were favorite. This moves to 49ers. minus one, minus two, minus three, goes through the three. And the 49ers took an incredible amount of game day money against the Cowboys. Look at how faulty this final score was. I just want to walk through it because this is why, I mean, up it, up at sharp football stats.

We have the box score, advanced box score, and you can filter different things and look at things for every single game that's played after the fact and look at success rates, look at early downs, look at all the types of stuff that you want. But just look at this information here. Number one stat that determines wins and losses the most is turnovers. The 49ers had four. The Cowboys had zero. So your minus four in turnover margin already, boom, you're going to have a very difficult time

winning this game. The Cowboys scored 41 points. He scored five touchdowns and made two field goals. One of those touchdowns was an onsides kick return. Two of those touchdowns came on drives that started at the 49ers, 22, and 24-yard line. one of those two field goals came on a drive that started at the 49ers 28 yard line one touchdown came off an interception and the 49ers and sorry the Cowboys started at the 49ers 46 yard line we're talking about four touchdowns in a field goal that were either scored when the offense wasn't out on the field or drives that were starting deep inside Cowboys 49ers territory for the most part requiring very short fields the Cowboys had not nine drives that started in their own territory, six of those drives were punts. One drive was a field goal, one miss field goal, and one nice long touchdown drive.

The 49ers start all 14 of their drives in their own territory, and they punt just four times. That's less than the Cowboys punted. They start all 14 in their own territory. The 49ers gained 461 yards. Dallas only gained 291. The 49ers higher yards per play. better success rate, more yards per attempt, more yards per carry, 28 first downs. Dallas only

had 15. Now, this is a crazy stat house. Despite all the turnovers and the great field position that Dallas got as a result, you would probably not be able to bet this in a million years, that the 49ers had more red zone trips than Dallas did. Despite all those turnovers and the Dallas Cowboys started with great field position, I didn't understand what Dallas was doing. for some of this game as well. I was getting Tony Pollard in there instead of Zeke Elliott was actually an upgrade. When I saw the total, I was like,

okay, this is an upgrade because Zeke has not been doing anything here, but you end up throwing the football more to Tony Pollard than you do to C.D. Lamb, to Michael Gallup, to Amari Cooper. I mean, Tony Pollard is leading them in targets and catches. Noah Brown, their wide receiver, Noah Brown, has more.

more targets than Amari Cooper or Michael Gallup. He only catches one of six targets. I mean, I just didn't understand again some of their personal deployment decisions. This is a Cowboys defense that is struggling, allowed a lot to the 49ers, despite the 49ers, not winning that game, looking like a blowout for some of the game because of this field position. The Eagles are healthier offense that they've been earlier than they were earlier in the season when these teams met. of course, that was the Nucci game. So it's not to say the Cowboys aren't healthier themselves.

It's going to be a great battle. I mean, these games tend to be great battles, but I just needed to point out how you might not watch a game and then just look at the final score and be like, oh, man, Dallas is rolling. They just beat Cincinnati, who beat Pittsburgh. Then Dallas just beat the 49ers, who had a good team for a while.

And you can't look at like the final scores and really use that to help handicap the future weeks. You've got to dig into these games. I strongly recommend re-watching them on Game Pass, but the next best thing is to just walk through the box scores and some of the stats and digest them a little bit. There's your sharp point for this week. We do that.

That's our Friday trademark is a sharp point, but that's a good one for this midweek show. The thing that I'm deathly afraid of, and I think this is what's going to happen, is the Philadelphia Eagles handle their business against Dallas this week that that offense continues to gel,

continues to coalesce, continues to come together around Hertz. The Eagles defense is improving as well, even with all that injury, that had cluster injuries in the secondary last week, which while we were doing our conversation on the Friday Ringer NFL show,

I basically talked myself out of taking the Eagles and instead playing a team, I teased Arizona down to a pick-em, and Arizona ended up both covering and winning, and that teaser leg was successful. But, you know, it was just because of all those injuries in that Philadelphia secondary. For all the reasons you just mentioned in connection with Dallas's passing offense, that's not going to be an issue for this Philadelphia team. So the thing that I'm deathly afraid of is the Eagles are going to win this week. They go, they're five, nine, and one. Washington loses to the Panthers and are six and nine.

And it comes down to Washington against Philadelphia. Washington has to go to Philadelphia for the NFC East Crown. And I'm discounting the Giants because they're going into Baltimore this week. And what we've seen out of the Giants the last two weeks does not suggest to me a team that's capable of beating the New York, I mean the beating the Baltimore Ravens. Yeah, I think it's crazy that all these teams are still in it. It's actually kind of fun. You know what? Like every year we should have this where one division gets to be the laughing stock of the league the entire season and yet come down to like week 16 games where every single team still has a playoff lifeline available to them and they still are in it. I mean, it's actually a lot of fun. I will be honest with you. But I would like for this to continue, I would like nothing more than what you do. just said to actually come to fruition. I hope that Washington, not for your sake, but for the sake of a great football game in week 17, drops to Carolina and then comes out and plays Philadelphia with all the chips on the line. I think that's going to be a great game, but I absolutely do not think

that either team, Philadelphia or Dallas, has a decided edge here. I could see why the line flipped towards Philadelphia now being favored. But I think this is going to be. a great, a great battle, a great game. In the past, Jason Garrett, say what you want, like, obviously a flawed coach, but he's come up with some good game plans to understand how to attack the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm curious to see how Mike McCarthy gets his fingerprints on this, and if he's able to do anything, I mean, Philadelphia's secondary is a mess right now. They may get Darius Slayback, but he hasn't been playing at his peak anyways. So that matchup on that side of the ball. I'm curious from a strategic standpoint. I'm curious how they get the ground game going. I think

this is going to be musty TV. And I'm glad it is sitting as the lone game in the 425 slate. And I'm super thankful that they moved Washington back to the four o'clock kick. So they do kick off a little bit earlier. But you now actually have four games at 4 p.m. and only six games at 1 p.m. So it's not only do we get Football House on Christmas Friday, a triple header on Saturday. But on Sunday, you have a nice six and four staggering. The Sunday night game is going to be impeccable that we're going to talk about right now. And then Monday night, we get to see Josh Allen and the bills. I think this is the fourth straight game that they are on prime time.

The bills deserve it. But speaking of prime time, let's go ahead and talk about this Tennessee Green Bay game. and these are the two most impressive offenses over the course of the season. The Bill's offense has been impressive lately, and I love what the bills have been doing. But the Packers in Tennessee, they bring the firepower. The Packers are averaging 31 points a game and have scored 30 or more in 10 of their 14 games. The Titans are first at 31.1 points per game and have scored 30 or more in 9 of 14 games. this is a couple stats from my homies over at the Action Network.

Grebe is favored by three and a half. What I'm really interested in is the total. Right now it looks like it's sitting there at 56. It feels like we could get to 56 by the third quarter in this game because these two passing attacks are formidable. And, you know, Tennessee absolutely loves to gouge with my main man, Derek Henry. and the Green Bay Packers are bad at defending the run. So let's talk about this game.

I'm concerned a little bit by what we saw at Green Bay in the second half of that Panthers game. And that would be a reason to tap the brakes on this exuberant over with the 56 points. They had 49 yards in the second half. I have no idea what in the hell they were doing on offense in the second half against the Panthers. but I'm geared up. You can tell the excitement in my voice

for the offense in this football game. As you should be, all I could say is I just wish this game was in a dome because we have been very fortunate house to get very little impact from weather since those ridiculous Cleveland Browns came for three straight weeks where it was windy and rainy couldn't do anything offensively.

And all I can tell you is early reports, and granted this a lot can change, but early reports are indicating we're seeing wind speeds of 17 to 18 to 20 miles per hour with gusts in the 24 to 29 mile per hour range. That is on top of the fact that the temperature is going to be below freezing at around 27 to 28 degrees, which puts a feels like temperature of 15 to 17 degrees for this game. Now, that is fun football weather to watch. It's absolutely going to be outstanding. There's a chance that there could be a little bit of snow flurries in the forecast.

However, it is absolutely the type of temperature and wind speed that you have to start accounting for in your prognostication. So it does become a factor if you're trying to throw the ball down the field deep. Some guys are more adept at catching a freezing cold ball. Other guys we see they catch too much they like to use their pads and it just bounces off of that. The ball becomes a little bit more slick. The field surface up there, thankfully in Lambo. They have a heated field so it's not going to like freeze over. The frozen tundra really isn't as frozen anymore.

But the footing still could become a little bit of a problem. You got this beast, Derek Henry. running the football, I think this game is kind of be fascinating because I truly believe that there are multiple paths to victory for each team. I do think that the Packers, they need to come out quickly here. Here's my concern for this game. I'll just lay it out on the line here. Tennessee first downs in the first quarter,

pay attention to how often this team runs the football because I can guarantee you, as much as I, don't like pet in the defense quarter day for the Packers, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the Tennessee Titans have an extremely high run rate on first downs in the first quarter with Derek Henry. And if you can punch the Tennessee Titans in the mouth on these predictable run plays, then you stand a chance to build a lead. And what do the Packers do almost better than most teams in the NFL is get out quickly. They get leads. What they do with those leads is subject to our criticism, but they've been very good at getting leads quickly

in games and forcing you out from your game plan a little bit. And the one thing that you don't want to be for Tennessee is in the third quarter and the fourth quarter, not able to run Derek Henry as much as you would like to and pound them into this Green Bay defense and run over guys. He's going to be hard to tackle all those great things because you're down too much on the scoreboard so you can't run as much as you would like to. And you have to get a quarterback who's not a cold weather quarterback up there throwing the ball a lot all over the football field. What you would rather have is to be able to stay balanced throughout the course of this game. And in order to do that, you have to weather the storm of an Aaron Rogers explosion in the first and second quarters,

as well as like keep fighting on the offensive side of the ball and stay efficient and keep the ball. Don't punt it back to Aaron Rogers so quickly. Move it down the field and score points. And the way you're going to do that is to be efficient on early downs. So if the Packers are coming out with a loaded box and ready to play the run, don't just freaking run the ball because it's Derek Henry when we run and run the football and that's what we do. Use your play action on first down and pass the football every single first down of the first quarter. Catch these guys by surprise. I guarantee you Petton's not going to be expecting that. Use your tight ends across the middle of the field. Then balance Derek Henry in a little bit. Derek Henry destroys dudes in the third and fourth quarter, no matter if you,

He has 15 attempts by halftime, 20 attempts by halftime, or seven attempts by halftime. You don't want to completely lose your identity, but you can play intelligent football and slug it out with the Green Bay Packers, jump on them early, make Green Bay play from behind. A lot can happen in this game. I really think it's going to be one of the games of the year house. Oh, I love it when you talk that talk. That's that kind of football talk. That at holiday time, it feels like an extra special present to us.

us NFL fans. Now, it sounds like the weather is going to have a dampening effect on the over. Maybe we stay away from that because there's just too much unpredictability, a lack of predictability around game plan in blowy weather like that, blowing cold weather like that. There is a contingent, not to interrupt, but there is a contingent of people that sit around and they've got a projection in the model that shows that over the last 20 years, if the wind speed is above 16 miles an hour, then the under hits it 56% of the time.

And so they're just going to bang that thing every single time. There's also contingent that believes if the temperature is below X, I'm banging the under. So like there are people that are going to get involved in this game probably. I wouldn't be shocked who are going to hit this under based on a couple of conditions, which one could be wind and one could be temperature. I personally factor a lot more than just that into something. If I'm going to bet the under, it's going to be for other reasons as well. But, I mean, this is absolutely not a game, in my opinion, that is going to be decided by one singular factor.

A lot's going to play into it, including how much Derek Henry runs the ball early, how much that clock is ticking, how efficient those runs are. All of these things are going to be major factors into whether or not that. that game goes way under the total or goes over the total? All right, it is Christmas time, Sharpie, and we want everybody to have a wonderful holiday weekend. We've got games all across the weekend. You mentioned it Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Here is a four-legged America's holiday weekend teaser.

It's a seven-point tease because I want to grab a couple of these games that are sitting right now. in the nine and a half range, and I want to bring them down. We're always trying to cross the seven and a three. This four-legged teaser will get us plus 200 if it hits, and we want everybody, we want to put some money back in everybody's pocket after they went out and did all their holiday spending. So here are the legs. I like Tampa minus nine and a half at Detroit.

I like the Bears minus seven and a half at the Jaguars. I like Cleveland minus nine and a half. at the Jets and I like the Bills minus seven at the Patriots. So where that puts us this seven point tease, that would be Tampa from nine and a half down to two and a half. Is Tampa going to beat Detroit by a field goal? I believe the answer to that is yes. I'm grabbing the bears.

I'm taking them from seven and a half down to half a point with the seven point teas. Are the bears going to beat the Jaguars outright this weekend? I believe the answer to that is yes. The Jaguars like Trevor Lawrence. I think Trevor Lawrence might like it in Jacksonville. I like the Bears to win that game outright. And that's what that tease produces. Cleveland minus nine and a half at the New York Jets.

I'm teasing them down to two and a half. Will the Cleveland Browns beat the New York Jets by a field goal? We saw a miracle happen last week with the New York Jets going out and taking care of business against the L.A. Rams. I don't think we're going to have a double holiday miracle. I think Cleveland takes care of business, wins by a fuel goal. That's the third leg. The fourth leg is the Buffalo Bills minus seven.

You tease them down to a pick-em against the New England Patriots. This is Luke, I am your father. And this is the Buffalo Bills going to New England and declaring a new sheriff is in town, Bill Belichick. They go out, they hammer the Patriots. They pants the Patriots. They've had 20 years of built up frustration around what the Patriots have been doing in the AFC East.

The bills as a pick-in outright go and take care of business against the Patriots. Those are the four legs. Which one of those legs is weakest? Oh, gosh. That's tough. I will say that this is a time when sportsbooks tend to overinflate teams in must-win spots, week 16 and week 17. So there's typically a little bit of line value the other way.

But on a seven point teaser where you're crossing some of those numbers, you're getting a reasonable payoff here. I think the Jacksonville Jaguars obviously have incentive to lose this game. So you would think that Chicago could be okay there. But asking the Mitchell-Tribisky magic to continue on the road is, I think it's a gamble, right? there is a little bit of a gamble element to it, but truthfully,

I think that the Chicago Bears should be able to get that done and the Jags would be very stupid to give back the Christmas present that the Jets just bestowed upon them. Overall, like I put out a video earlier today, just hating on what the bucks are doing early in the game. I can't really see them losing this game to the Lions. But, yeah, overall house, I could see your angle in going with this,

four-legged teaser for plus 200 odds. And I hope it brings you nothing but an extra Christmas present by the time this Monday night game concludes. I would love to see for all those years that the father patted the head of the little son and said, go to your room. It's past your bedtime that the Buffalo Bill has come back and stomp on the New England Patriots. But I think in my mind that that is.

what is going to happen. I just, I just really hope and believe it will happen once I actually see it out on the football field. Well, everybody is looking for some holiday reverie. The Buffalo Bills are more than any other team on this list, perhaps, entitled to this Christmas celebration, the fans, the good people of Buffalo. Sharpie, I hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas lineup, my friend. Same to you, House. We are going to enjoy. joy as best as possible, as hopefully all the other lovely listeners of this great show will be doing as well. Everybody stay safe and be with those that you love as best you can, whether that's via phone call, zooms, or visiting with those that are safe to do so.