The Ringer NFL Show - Welcome to Our Favorite Weekend on the Sports Calendar (Ep. 218)

Episode Date: January 11, 2018

The Ringer’s Robert Mays and Kevin Clark get you set for the divisional round, including what the Eagles offense must do to top the Falcons (03:45), the one thing that could happen to give the Titans a win in New England (13:00), how the Jaguars secondary vs. Antonio Brown could be the best matchup of the playoffs (19:30), and why the Vikings defense has to choose between two terrible options against the Saints (27:45). Then, Danny Kelly joins the show with some X factors for each game (37:30), including why the Blake Bortles deep ball is the key to a Jags win in Pittsburgh (42:00). Finally, Robert and Kevin make their picks for the divisional-round games (50:00) and reveal who will likely be playing in the conference championships next weekend (54:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the Ringer NFL show Kevin Clark here with Robert Mays. And Robert, the NFL playoffs are underway. And that means it's really time for fans to get out of their houses and go watch some games in person. I know I will be. It's just better that way. And the simplest way to buy is using Seatgeek. Just two taps on the mobile app and the tickets are yours, Kevin. That's less taps than checking the scores on your phones.

And you can be at the game. There's nothing quite like seeing your favorite team in person in the postseason. And Seat Geek gets you closer to the action for a great value. Seat Geek saves. you time and money by searching multiple ticket sites to compare prices and find amazing deals. Seekekek also has plenty of concert, comedy, and theater tickets available to. And best of all, our listeners get a $20 rebate off their first Seatkeek purchase. To get your $20 rebate on tickets, download the Seatkeek app, go to the Settings tab and click at a promo code, enter promo code,

Ringer NFL, and then Seatkeek will send you $20 after you've made your first ticket purchase. Download the Seatheek app and enter promo. code Ringer NFL today. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined as always by Robert Mays. Robert, we're previewing probably the best weekend of football of the year. I mean, it's my favorite. I know that.

Yeah. It's certainly my favorite. Some people, Mike Lombardi made the case a couple weeks ago for conference championship week. I remember that. But this is the week. Four games. I just love the fact that there's a full slate.

You know, there's four games. There's four time slots. I'll be at the Hurtings game against the Saints. I'm very much looking forward to that. And I'll get to watch the other three games all weekend beforehand. I mean, that's my favorite thing, is being able to watch football all weekend and still have time to travel to a game.

I can't really imagine a better scenario than that. I like the Saturday angle as well, wall-to-wall football. A couple pieces of house cleaning. Someone tweeted at me last night with the news that they tried to buy a Nathan Peterman tank top from the Nathan Peterman. an online store that we documented last week, the prolific store that

it just has everything under the sun branded with Nathan Beterman. Tank tops are sold out. Well, obviously, I mean, it's such a hot item. He's got to get on that. You got to meet the demand. I mean, after the holiday season. Of course.

I read about that on a lot of just, you know, sheik gift lists was the Nathan Peterman tank top. It's what everyone was after. So I feel like this. strategy we talked about where he gets so bad that Nathan Peterman items are a great gag gift. I feel like that's working for Nathan Peterman in the merchandising department. Step one in the right direction.

Yep. Other thing, Norv Turner was hired as offensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers and there were now be four members of that family on the Panther staff. How is that even possible? Does Norv Turner have four family members? Well, he has a brother, Ron. Yeah, I know. Well, he's on the staff, and so is Ron's son, and Norv brought his son.

There are like five industries where that sort of nepotism is still acceptable, coaching being one of them, where we're just like, oh, yeah, you're hired and also bring your son. Trust me, as a man who grew up in Illinois and is a Bears fan, I'm very familiar with Ron Turner. You don't have to tell me. What an industry. Okay, we got a ton to get to. we are going to start previewing the divisional round. We've got Danny Kelly's X factors, plus we'll reveal our predictions for who will face off

in next weekend's championship games. So let's get to it with the divisional matchup on Saturday, Falcons and Eagles. This is just a bizarre game when you consider what the Eagles probably have to do to win it. I mean, you have the MVP league for most of the season, you know, probably when you consider all the factors. and now you come into a game against a team that limped in to the six seed and you pretty much have to just plan on running the ball as often as possible and as well as possible to have a chance.

The fact and the shock that Nick Foles was playing those last couple of games, I think obscured what Nick Foles is. I don't think there's been a lot of really deep analysis of who he is and what he can do. And the answer is not much. Not much is the great answer. I just feel like people looked at it and they said, oh, Nick Full sucks and that's that. But I do think there's a tangible difference in the offense and it goes like this. So Carson Wentz, I talk all the time about how offenses are throwing the ball shorter than ever,

how we're basically in the golden age of quarterbacks throwing short of the sticks, especially on third down. Carson Wentz was the exact opposite of that. I think the two quarterbacks in the NFL who threw deeper, past the sticks this season were than anybody were Carson Wentz and James Winston. And Winston was doing it very poorly and Carson Wentz is doing it very well. Nick Foles is exactly in line with the rest of the NFL. He's throwing short every time he can. He's checking down.

The yards per catch from Wentz to Foles is down three full yards, which when you're talking about one play, that's pretty significant. to go from 12.4 yards per catch to 9.4 yards per catch with basically the same receiving core. Yards per attempt obviously is down 2.2. And so it's, it is more in line with the rest of what the NFL looks like as far as this dink and dunk offense. But they're going to need a lot of help in order for Foles to put up, you know, what, the three touchdowns needed to to beat this Falcons team. I mean, I think this is just a matter of understanding what you do well and what another team does not. And the Falcons, for all of just the chaos they can create on defense, for all the speed they have, this is still a relatively small group. And the Rams ran the ball well last week.

And I think the Falcons, if you watch that game, there are a couple different things to take into account. One, Atlanta was playing really just a single high for most of that game. You had Devonjo Campbell down near the line of scrimmage. Keanu is playing a little linebacker at times. and they really had a lot of bodies around the line of scrimmage, and they still couldn't do much. That being said, part of the reason for that is that the Rams were doing a lot of bunch stuff with their receivers near the line of scrimmage,

and the Falcons were a nickel for most of that game. So I know that Ty Gurley had 100 yards, and they average about 70 yards of carry or whatever, but the Falcons were a nickel, even if it looked like they had a bunch of guys in the box. I don't see that happening again against the Eagles, just because the Eagles are going to use a lot of two tight-end stuff. I'm not sure they're going to spread it out quite as much.

If they do, maybe that is actually a good answer. Maybe you want to go a little bit more three wide and just kind of put the Falcons and smaller personnel groupings in order to run the ball. I'm not sure what their plan overall is going to be. But I do think the Falcons are going to want to run, or the Eagles are going to want to run first, where I feel like the Rams are trying to run

to set up some play action stuff. So that kind of just a little chess match between personnel choices and how you get bigger, small, in order to run the ball if you're Philadelphia, I think is something I'm going to be watching. from the start. Yeah, I mean, if this doesn't, I was talking to Chris Ryan yesterday of the ringer.com and he was watching Frank Reich's press conference at some point this week.

If this isn't a J.J.I.E. focused game, then I'm not seeing a path to victory for the Eagles. And I actually think, and we'll get to this later, I think the Eagles have a shot and maybe they win this game. I'm not tremendously high. I'm not as high on the Falcons as you are. You wrote this week that we shouldn't be sleeping on their Super Bowl dreams. I'm, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, into that, but not as much as you do. I'm not saying they're the favorite by any stretch. I'm just saying that the path exists to me, especially because the Eagles are now here,

and there's a chance they get to go to New Orleans in week 17, or excuse me, in the title game round. And we've seen what they can do against New Orleans. So I just feel like you can kind of see it happening now in a way that even a couple weeks ago, I would have thought wasn't quite as easy a road because I'm not, I wasn't even sure they could beat the Rams.

I had cousin Salon's one news day this week and we were talking about gambling on football. And we were discussing you and I do not gamble on football. That's well documented. We gamble on other things. Like, I mean, literally everything but football. And one of the reasons is obviously because we would use that and that would tilt our coverage if we were gambling on the people we analyzed and interviewed all the time. But the other thing is it's like, I mean, the NFC right now is just a complete stay away for. me. I have no idea what's

the AFC, a little more predictable, but like the NFC, it's our job to watch game film and analyze right now. And the NFC, I'm ready to believe anything. I'm just up for anything. Nothing would surprise me this weekend. No, I agree. And I just feel like because there are enough elements of each

team that can give another one problems. Nick Foles is the quarterback for the Eagles, but a lot of other factors involved in this game are in the Eagles favor. We talked about the run defense a little bit, running offense a little bit. And I also think that, you know, you look at what Dion Jones did against the Rams. And you look at what he's done down the second half over the second half this season.

He's so fast and just so mobile that in a way, he's just a total mismatch for almost any offensive line. The Eagles have the most mobile center in the league. I remember a play on the first drive for the Rams last week where they tried to run a screen. And, you know, John Sullivan was out on Jones. You know, almost any other linebacker in the league, he was in the right spot. And Jones was just too quick. I mean, just ducked underneath him, blew it up before it even happened. Jason Kelsey is the type of guy that can make those plays.

So I think that's something to watch. I just feel like the Falcons don't have a good run defense, period. And it becomes even worse against a team with as much athleticism up front as the Eagles have. Yeah. So a couple things. Number one, Dion Jones, when we talked about this with the Rams, his ability to completely blow up underneath passes is going to be really important if they put the ball in fulls his hands at all. because he's athletic enough to just wipe out the middle of the field. And if they're going to try to do checkdown stuff,

Dion Jones is just going to wipe that out. I think on the other side of the ball, I saw an interesting number, I think it was from PFF. The Eagles generated a ton of pressure on the Falcons last year. In the regular season in 2016, no one came close to generating as much pressure as the Eagles did on the Falcons, 48%. The only team that got close

actually exceeded them was the Patriots in the Super Bowl. and so I'm intrigued to see Fletcher Cox versus that offensive line. Angela Vitre was put on injured reserve so he's out and they're not going to have the level of health needed to deal with the sort of defensive line that the Eagles have. I mean, yeah, the problem with the Eagles is they have too many guys.

I mean, it's not as if you can just focus on Fletcher Cox and the Eagles defensive line top the bottom is an excellent group. And I think again, if you're trying to build a case for the Eagles here, that's the other side of it. It's the running game on offense. and it's the ability of this front four to really wreck this game up. And that's what they did last year. They really were able to just get in Matt Ryan's face,

bother him the entire game. And this was a defense that when the Eagles or when the Falcons were an unstoppable machine managed to stop them. So I think that we can see that happen again if they're able to get consistent pressure. Matt Ryan and the Falcons offense sustaining last week in the passing game was predicated on Matt Ryan making stuff happen. making plays with his feet,

you know, kind of avoiding pressure. He's going to have to do that again. And I know he was great at it a week ago, but that's not exactly the staple of Matt Ryan's game. And if they can get at him, I feel like Philly absolutely has a path to win this. Yeah, I think people looked at this game and saw it as kind of a joke,

and I wouldn't because the Eagles still have a top three roster in the NFL. Yes, they still have enough to give Atlanta problems in several different ways. one other thing before we move on that I actually thought was kind of interesting. So the Alex numbers came out on football outsiders today, which you mentioned kind of in the quarterback side of it, how often guys throw ahead of the sticks on third down. They also have it on defense.

And the Eagles and the Falcons are one and two in how short teams throw compared to the sticks on third down. And the reasons for that I think are kind of fascinating. With Philly, you know exactly why that is. Teams don't have enough time to extend throws. With Atlanta, it's because they want them to do that. because they like to choose stuff up in front of them. So it's two very different ways of getting there,

but the result ends up being the same. It's really interesting, actually. Fascinating. That is interesting. Okay, Titans of Patriots, the game that I think we're most certain of, the result, I think by we, I mean, all of America. It's the one game where I didn't have to spend more than three seconds thinking about it,

but let's get to it. What are your initial impressions, Robert? I mean, the Patriots are just a much, much better, team in the Titans. I mean, that's the simplest way to do it. When you have a 13 and a half point spread in the playoffs, the overall opinion of the game is not very complicated. I don't know how realistic it is for the Titans to win this game outside of a couple, you know, very weird, you know, swing plays, turnovers. It would have to be very wonky in my opinion. I just think that, you know, the Titans don't even have a good secondary. It's not even like they can say, oh, we can shut them down and everything else. It's just,

There aren't enough factors here. It would have to be self-inflicted. It would have to be a Brady somehow melts down and has three interceptions game. And you can kind of imagine a world where, you know, the Titans defensive line has some players on it. If they can knock Brady around a little bit, those are the games that the Patriots end up losing. You think about what happened with Houston last year, you know, if we're trying to paint similar Patriots possible upset pictures, you know, look at how bad the Texans were a year ago, how much they didn't deserve to be in the playoffs and how close. close they came to be in New England. The answer is not that close. You know, we remember that game is this narrow escape by the Patriots. In reality, it was close for a little while than the Patriots

pulled away. So we can see something similar this week. Joe Casey's a good player. If he can take advantage of Joe Thuny a couple times, or if they line him up over David Andrews and kind of let him go to work in a package like that, if Derek Morgan can make something happen against the right tackle, the backup right tackle for the Patriots, those are the things that starts coming to play. But you're grasping at straws in my mind. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because the Titans caught a break in that DeMarco Murray is still hurt so that Mike Mularky randomly can't give DeMarco Murray like 20 carries,

which he would love to do. He would love to do it. So Derek Henry will be the feature back. Derek Henry, we saw, even though he's mostly a runner, we saw his ability to break off a big play in the receiving game. and the Patriots have given up. I saw this in Evan Silva's column this morning. I think 900 yards in the season to running backs out of the backfield,

which is a lot. Having said that, it took me 45 minutes to come up with an edge that the Titans may have had, which is a bad sign. I was just looking for something and I found it that's that Derek Henry may be able to have a big play in the receiving game. And maybe on the ground, too. Derek Henry is really, really good.

But again, you use the term grasping at straws. And what I'm describing here is the definition of that. The Patriots have trouble stopping the run. I mean, that's the one thing. You can imagine the Titans doing something similar to what they did last week. You know, you have New England or running the ball consistently. You know, a big game for Henry, not just a couple huge runs, but, you know, an eight-yard run, a seven-yard run. Being able to get consistent chunks of yardage, maintain the clock in the ball,

and have Mario to make a couple plays with this feat that can be a little bit frustrating. I think the key here is they're going to need to control the ball for a huge portion of this game if they're going to win. And whether that ends in five field goals because the Patriots have a very good red zone defense and then the Patriots scored 35 points and none of this matters, that wouldn't surprise me.

I think that Mariotta being, I don't know. I mean, first of all, he's mobile and Belichick has struggled in the past with mobile quarterback just because it's a little harder to game plan for them. It always is. Yeah, anybody does. Belichick is the game plan master. And to me, it's a situation where, you know, Marietta is almost, I said this on slow news day,

he's almost too unpredictable and bad to come up with a cohesive game plan for. You know what I'm saying? I mean, like, the reason he won against the chiefs was that he caught his own pass and threw a block. And obviously, he's not an elite quarterback, but I'm interested to see what Belichick does to see for obviously probably forces him to make throws, um, tries to certainly get him on the outside, um, and get him to throw

to the outside rather. And I just think there's a couple things you can do with them, but I'm intrigued to see how Belichick approaches this because aside from taking away Derek Henry, I'm not sure how you, uh, do anything, but, but force the Titans to, to make their own mistakes. Yeah, I feel like that's a good point. I mean, you try to funnel those throws out. outside. And then two guys, two other things I'm looking for here, guys returning for New England and how that impact made kind of manifest.

One, Ellen Branch is coming back after missing the last three games, the regular season. That's a run defense booster. So if the Titans are going to try to run it 35 times, at least the Patriots have a very large nose tackle who we've seen make an impact for them in the past. Two,

Rex Burkhead is coming back, meaning the Patriots will have their full stable of past catching running backs. And guess who ranks dead last and, TV away against past catching running backs. That would be your Tennessee Titans. I don't think they would win this game. I mean, the Patriots could just make this

the Dion Lewis game and Rex Burkhead game if they wanted to and just kind of give Tom Brady another week off. Just have Rex Burkett throw to Dionne Lewis. They could switch off. Yeah, yeah, that's what I meant. I meant just take Brady completely out of it and just have, no, I mean,

Brady throwing like 15 times and jogging off the middle of the third quarter. be like some sort of wheel or angle route to a running back. And then maybe occasionally we'll sprinkle a little bit of grok down the seam, but nothing down the field because why not? Why play with fire at all? No high, you know, difficulty throws or plays. Just little pitches and catches and let your guys do the work.

Basically the Bortles game plan, but Tom Brady. Sure, why not? We'll save the Tom Brady game plans for the games that matter. They can lift him in the third quarter and play Hoyer and make everybody feel better about the Garoppolo trade when they see Hoyer. Why would that make them feel better about the Gropolo trade? It was a joke.

Oh, I was like, what? All right, Jaguars and Steelers. We saw this game in October, and again, going back to Evan Silva's column this morning, I think he called it one of the worst coached games of the 2017 NFL season, and I'm inclined to agree. Ben Rothesberger dropped back on every single play,

and we got to find out how good the Jaguar's secondary was. That probably won't happen this time. I can't imagine that it does. I mean, even if you're trying to make a case for the Jaguars run defense, which has been much better, obviously, that's still where they're not very good and they're not very good at stopping past catching running backs. I mean, think about what some of these guys were able to do to them recently.

You know, Shady had a couple nice plays last week. Kuzcheck had that nice game. where had the one wheel, but that wasn't all he did. Henry had a solid afternoon. He had that one really long screen pass touchdown, I think, in week 17. So, I mean, they have a lot of guys. That's how they can be affected, even if it's not just running the ball. You're taking Marcel Darius out of that equation.

This team is built to stop passing games as they traditionally exist. So I would expect to see a lot of Levyon Bell if the Steelers know what they're doing, both on the ground and as a receiver, because any other route just isn't the smartest way to go about trying to beat this team. The big difference, aside from the fact that maybe Mike Tomlin knows how to avoid the game plan from October. I mean, that being the most important thing. The biggest difference between October and now is that the Jaguars in October had vintage Leonard Fournet, and he has not been that lately.

And if you can't have Leonard Fournette having a 90-yard-time, touchdown. If he doesn't have the capability to go for 200 yards, then I don't see a real path to victory for the Jaguars. That's it. The path to victory is a combination of Jalen Ramsey interceptions, AJ Boy A.J. Boy, A. Turner, you know, that kind of thing, the defensive line just swarming all day. And then on offense, Leonard Fournett over and over and over again. I think Bortles through 14 times in that first game against Pittsburgh, that is the way you win and you win on the ground. And if you have the four net that we've seen the last month or so, that's just, that's a

non-starter. I totally agree with you. And if you look at this COS team as it currently exists compared to what it was last time these two teams played, they're more set up to get gashed on the ground. I mean, their run defense is kind of falling off here down the stretch just because they've really missed Ryan Shazier. I mean, you look at what happened over the last six games of the season. 130 to the Bengals, 152 to the Ravens, 77 to New England, whatever, 176 to Houston, and 102 to the Browns.

Part of that 176 to Houston is that the Texans had 51 yards passing. But the point stands. Teams have been able to run the ball reasonably well against the Steelers over the second half of the season. And that's exactly what the Jaguar would have to do. But if Fernette isn't that guy, then you're making a play that isn't always efficient, less efficient. by using just a running back that's hampered. So you're running out of ways in which the Jaguars are a better team here.

There really aren't that many. Fournett has had, and he's been, listen, Fournett's been banged up. So this isn't all the fault of a lack of production. But when he's been on the field, there's been a lack of production. I mean, there's no other way to say that. Since November 19th,

he has gone for 100 yards once. and the most of the time he's been in the 60s or 40s or even 20s. He had 57 yards against Buffalo. I mean, this is, you know, the Tennessee game was a little different because he had 67 yards in the air. But this is not, this is not who they need him to be in order to have a huge upset on the road like this. No. And so, I mean, we'll see what they try to do if that stuff doesn't work. You know, Artie Burns got dinged up a little bit in practice this week.

Yeah. You know, is there a chance that just the secondary in general for the Steelers is a couple spots where you can take advantage? I maybe not. I mean, again, it's, I think the best way still, even if Fernette is not that guy, is to try to run the balls off as you can. Maybe it's ivory then. I mean, just whatever you can do to kind of try to control this game in that way, I just

think that's still what you have to do. Honestly, I agree with you. The best path is just to just keep handing it to Fournette until he becomes that guy, quite frankly, because I'd rather see Fournett flail and go for three yards of carry than Blake Bortle's miss wide open screen passes. Yeah. I think the other way, I agree kind of the same thing on the other side of the ball. I just think that Bell should touch the ball all the time.

Jaguars ran zone coverage in 85% of their plays, first time these two teams played. You have to run the ball. You have to run it. It just doesn't make any sense to look at this defense, even with, Daris and just say, yeah, we're still going to come back and sling it when you're going to sit back there in zone all game. I would much rather see, you know, a Steelers team that leans on Bell kind of gives Antonio Brown another week to not be the focal point of the offense and, you know, wins an ugly game and is comfortable doing that. The Antonio Brown thing. I'm intrigued to see how that goes. I wish in a way as a football nerd, this is going to be a more competitive game to see. and the reports are

that Antonio Brown is full health, no limitations. That's obviously reports that are coming from Brown's camp are getting more optimistic than anything else. But it seems to be that everyone is an agreement who's reported on this, that Brown looks pretty good. I would love

to see a game where Antonio Brown actually has to match up with the Jaguar secondary and try to win some battles and in big spots. I would be, that is like the ultimate matchup of the, it could be the ultimate match with these playoffs if it in any way matters.

That's sort of why I'm rooting. I'm rooting for the Jaguars offense in a way because I'd love to see that battle. The Jags are not a good team to do this necessarily because they don't, they're not going to run a lot of dedicated double teams to Antonio Brown just because that's not what they really do in their secondary because they don't have to.

But this is a perfect type of game to me where I would just feed Antonio Brown to the Jaguars corners and let my other guys beat you. I mean, give as much attention. attention to Antonio Brown as you possibly want to. He's out there. He's number 84. It's one of the best players in the world. And I'm going to give the ball to all my other dudes every single time.

I mean, that's to me what I would probably try to come into this game saying. But the Jags aren't the best team to do that with. Again, just because they're not going to dedicate a disproportionate amount of resources to Brown because they don't have to. Totally agree. I mean, that's Juju Smith-Schuster, um, is said that he's, he's going to be even better because he wasn't offensive rookie of the year, which I kind of like weird,

guys who find really weird reasons to get pissed off, kind of like the Steve Smith model. Yeah, that's fine with me. I don't. I'm into it. Yeah, I'm good. I just like juju period. I'm excited to watch him in the playoffs.

I think that that's another factor here. The fact that he's kind of come on recently. I mean, there are only so many guys you can defend. And if he's going to line up in a slot a decent amount, And that's where the Jags are definitely weakest in their secondary. I mean, it's not any knock on Aaron Colvin. He's just not A.J. Boye and Jailen Ramsey. Sure.

I mean, I think what's interesting, I saw a stat from the NFL network that Juju and Antonio Brown combined for the most receiving yards of any wide receiver duo. And Jalen Ramsey and AJ Boyer combined for the best season out of any cornerback duo. And so the more this becomes a passing game, more exciting it is to see that matchup. And that's one thing I'm following. And unfortunately, I just, again, don't know how much that particular battle will matter.

All right. Let's get to the one I'll be at this weekend, man. It is a, yeah. I'm staring out my window in Minneapolis right now. It's a beautiful site. What is it? Tell me what you're looking at. I am looking at an office building on the other side of a light rail track

around some very dead trees and some light dusting of snow. It's pretty grim. I'm not going to lie. All right. Well, I'm excited that you enjoy your surroundings in Minnesota. This is probably the most unpredictable game of the week. I think that what, there's a couple of interesting things that that stick out to me. Number one is, I think I saw a stat the other day.

You know, the last team to score more than I think 19 points in Minnesota was the 2016 Colts? Jesus. I remember that game. weird game. That was one that was near the end of the season, right? When the Colts or the Vikings are starting to kind of fall apart a little bit. Yeah. That's all you need to know about how dominant

this team has been at home. I think that, you know, for them, the biggest thing is what's going to go on in Philadelphia because if they get, if they win this game and they get a home NFC championship game, then the road to a home Super Bowl, which I'm not sure if the home,

the home field defense and all that extends to the Super Bowl when it's half you know, Visa executives and not Vikings fans, but we'll get to that later. It's more about, to me,

being able to stay in your bed and being able to be in your facility, which they'll practice in their facility if they, if they do this. So I think that stuff helps. You know, the game,

not necessarily home field advantage, but the comforts of home, those are real. Yeah, I agree with that. And the routine. I mean, I remember talking to,

uh, some of the Patriots guys a couple years ago about, you know, they have, they do everything in Foxborough. They practice in Foxborough. They have, they have camp in Foxborough.

They have this sort of fortress. And the reason they think is that routine matters. Yes. And so if the Vikings get to stay home, again, routine matters. And they have the practice facility and all that stuff. But getting back to this specific game, I'm curious, your impressions of what the Vikings need to do. Because last week, essentially the panther said, hey, Drew Brees beat us. And Drew Brees said, okay, I'm going to beat you.

And that's what happened. And Drew Brie's was flawless. So I'm curious, if you're the Vikings defense, you attack this Saints offense, how? That's a really good question. I don't know the answer to that question. That's my issue is that there's no good way to do it. Minnesota, just based on who they were all season, they were number one in DVOA against running backs. This team defended running back passes better than anyone else in the league.

And that is a good sign when you're playing against Alvin Kamara. And Mark Ingram can do some stuff in the passing game as well. So this is a team built to do that. kind of stuff. So each team, both the Vikings defense and the Saints offense, it's very hard to find like the exhaust port on the Death Star. And like where is the sole vulnerability of this ridiculous monstrosity? So right now, you know, the Saints will have a backup left guard.

I mean, that's like as far down as I'm going here. Like so maybe, you know, you have some, if Lindvald Joseph and Tom Johns could take advantage of the interior of that line a little bit, you know, I don't, outside of that, I don't know what it's really picking between two terrible options. I mean, do you want Breeze to slinging around or do you want to folks mocas to your attention on the running game? I still think that you line up in nickel for most of the game. You know, you kind of sit there and say, you know,

we're going to stop the pass. And if they run the ball on us a little bit, then they do. I feel like stopping Kamara down as a receiver is more of a priority to me than stopping him down as a runner. And I just think that this Minnesota defense, the reason I like them so much is because they're never out of sorts. They often dictate to you

because they're so comfortable. So you have guys like Harrison Smith, guys like Terrence Newman, you know, Xavier Rhodes by this point. This unit has been together for long enough now. They've been in Mike Zimmer's defense for long enough now that they're just 100% at ease all of the time. And their ability to kind of make the choice

of how are you going to beat us is kind of what makes them so good. That's why it's difficult for me to answer that question. I mean, if you watch Harrison Smith, before plays. It looks like he's a maniac. I mean, the guy is just all over the place and only he knows where he's going. And I think that's what the Saints do so well or the Vikings do so well. They disguise, they influence. They're deceitful. I mean, it's that, it's going to be a fascinating choice to see how much Drew Breeze can diagnose pre-snap and how much the Saints defense offense

can dictate to the Vikings defense. Drew Breeze, when blitzed last week, guess is pass a rating. 158.3? 122. Okay. It's interesting. I mean, what Zimmer is going to do is fastened in me

because aside from Belichick, there's no one I'd rather see game plan for the Saints offense than Mike Zimmer. Totally. I mean, they're my favorite defense to watch right now just in terms of the different stuff

they can do schematically. Jacksonville personnel-wise is more fun just because top the bottom. Those guys are new. They're exciting. You know, we've seen these Vikings guys around, but just all the different shit that the Vikings do on defense is just amazing.

Yeah. And if Zimmer brings some crazy blitz, it's Drew Breeze and his ability to just carve up and step up into the pocket and just dominate him versus a team that has incredible athletes, knows how to disguise things, just as you said. I mean, it's,

this is going to be an awesome game. In my opinion, it's the game of the weekend. Did you see the stat about Breeze and Keenham and the disparity in playoff starts? No, but I would love to hear it because it sounds amazing. Breeze has started 12 playoff games and Case Kinem has started none, obviously. There is the last quarterback who beat another quarterback who had 10 plus playoff starts more than them was who?

I don't know. It was Tim Tebow beating Ben Rothesberger. Oh my God. Tim Tebow beating Ben Rothesberger in 2011. Well, the Saints offense, Case Keenham is a real quarterback and the Saints offense is a real. No, I know. I think that's the difference.

He's not a phenomenon like Tebow. Yeah, no, and of course not. I wrote about the Saints offense today, or excuse me, I wrote about the Vikings offense today for the ringer.com. And I was up here talking to a couple of guys last week, just kind of about how they managed to maintain being a real NFL offense when Bradford and Dalvin Cook got hurt. And you can make all the San Bradford jokes you watch or you want to.

If you watch that week one game, The Vikings offense is going to be pretty damn good with Sam Bradford. So, the fact, they have a backup quarterback and a backup running back, and they're a top five unit by DVOA is fascinating. And one of the reasons is just based on the overall infrastructure and how stable it is elsewhere. Thielen and Diggs and what they can do with them, you know, moving them in and out of the slot, everything else. And we're talking about this Marshawn Lattimore, Adam Thielen matchup. Thielen lines up inside half the time. And part of the reason is to avoid guys like Marshawn Lattimore.

And maybe Lattimore will follow him. I don't know what the Saints plan will be there. But that's what the Vikings have been able to do. You know, they've been able to do so much just with the concepts of their offense and the interchangeability of the players that they become a little hard to predict. They become a little harder to defend. And they just have so much elsewhere that they've been able to kind of buoy keen him in that running game. And I think that could happen again. I know the Saints defense is great, but I still think the Vikings have enough to move the ball on this team.

And I know their run defense is their worst part of what they do. the Saints run or offense the Saints run defense is the worst part of what they do that should be what Minnesota goes toward but I still think there will be plays to be had in the passing game Totally agree with you By the way the 10 plus starts more than the other guy thing

The last 10 meetings between guys with zero starts And 10 plus starts The guys with zero starts are 2 and 8 But that's obviously skewed because the guys with 10 plus starts Are like obviously guys like Rogers, Brady their teams are better. Yeah. And if you're making 10 plus

playoffs starts, chances are you're insanely good to playing quarterback. And if you're a zero start guy, you're probably Case Keenom. Yeah. That's how it works. That's the problem there,

is that for the most part, the best teams are the ones of the best quarterbacks and the Vikings roster is such that they become an interesting entity. Coming up, Danny Kelly will help us dive

even deeper into these matchups with his X factors for each game. Plus, we will give you our picks. It's the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. As we said, we'll be offering our picks for these games in a bit. And Robert, people can cash in on the NFL playoffs on MyBooky. Yep. And when you win, you get to enjoy a super fast payout,

no asking for your money or waiting for it to show up in your account. They have hookups for all your betting needs. And you can even pay using Bitcoin, Robert. Finally, betting with Bitcoin. Can't say I didn't see that coming. That's just one reason. They're the only site we recommend. Join now and My Bookie will.

match your deposit with up to a 50% bonus. Use promo code Ringer NFL to activate offer. If you're going to bet, the only place to do it is it MyBooky. Visit mybooky.orgie.orgie today. You play, you win, you get paid. We now welcome in our X Factor specialist Danny Kelly. Danny, how are you, bud? Rumor has it you watched all Blake Bortles yesterday.

Yeah, so like the last two days I've been watching Blake Bortles. So we'll get to talk about him a little bit in this segment. So I'm excited about that. That makes one of us, buddy. Good for you. I'm glad you're still here. I can barely contain myself. It was a roller coaster ride.

That's one word for it. A broken roller coaster where you're suspended upside down for six hours and get on the local news. Yeah, something like that. Danny, we're looking at the X factors. These are the guys

that could swing the divisional rounds this weekend. We're going to start with Falcons Eagles. Hit us. Yeah, so this is kind of similar to what we talked about last week in terms of the Falcons interior line. I'm looking at Alex Mack. I know that Mays is a big Mac fanboy,

and for good reason. He's one of the best centers in the NFL. I think what he's able to do, both in the passing game and in the run game against the Eagles, you know, they have one of the best interior defensive lines in the NFL, Fletcher Cox, Timmy Jernigan. You know, they move their guys around in nickel packages,

so they've got so much depth on that defensive line. I think what Max is able to do, you know, just in getting his reach blocks and keeping, you know, the pocket clean for Matt Ryan. I think it's just going to be really key for what that offense is going to be doing this week. So he could be a guy to really watch.

I'll be curious to see where they move him. You know, are they going to slide the protection Cox's way and kind of let Mack double him, you know, single the other guy up on Jernigan. If Jernigan is the one technique. I mean, those are the choices you're going to have to make. Yeah. And they're important choices.

I think that that's probably the move. I think Jern, I think Cox can make the most do the most damage in this game. I think he can have the biggest effect. I think he's the one that could really swing it for Philly just because that's what Matt Ryan really struck. It's when the interior of the pocket crumbles. We saw that last year when these two teams play. So, you know, we'll see.

I think those choices are important. Reach blocks are interesting because I do think that's a good route for Atlanta if they kind of want to be a little safer. Can they run the ball consistently? The Eagles have a good run defense, but I think that is less able to wreck the game than if the Eagles pass rush can involved. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Eagles, if they can get turnovers, that'll be huge for them

and getting pressure, like you said, is key. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of the matchup I'm going to be watching really, really closely in this one. Titans of Patriots. All right, so in this game, I mean, I think you guys already talked about Derek Henry a little bit in the show.

You know, I think it's going to be key whether or not the Patriots can kind of stop him and take him out of the game. You know, obviously the early game score, I think it's going to be kind of important in terms of if the Titans are trying to come back because then that might, you know, they might not be able to ride Henry. But the Pat's defense is kind of hit and miss this year. You know, I think they finished 30th and DVOA against the run.

So, you know, obviously they weren't super efficient against the run. But in the second half of the year, they only did give up one rushing touchdown, which is the best in the NFL. So they're kind of hit and miss. You know, the key guys to watch here, Malcolm Brown, Lawrence guy, you know, James Harrison potentially. Landon Roberts kind of in the middle there along with Kyle Van Nuys in there and all this

I think those guys are going to be really important to limit you know because Henry is kind of a breakaway guy and if he gets an angle on you you know it's kind of over so those those second level guys are going to be really important to watch those guys have to you know be in their fits you know make tackles it's going to be I think that's going to be a really big you know

key for for the Patriots kind of you know take the Titans off inside of the game I totally agree I mean, I think he's the biggest factor for the Titans period. You can talk about whatever they have of their defensive line. Can they make a couple plays? But I just believe that if they can run the ball consistently and somehow just maintain the game,

control it in the best way they can, then that's the beginning of their chance. I mean, I don't know if it is going to matter, but that's the first kind of pillar in whatever argument you're building for this team. Yeah, I don't think they're built. The Titans aren't really built to make a comeback. I think they have to control the clock and do what they're doing. Obviously, they came back last week, but that's not against Brady.

Well, that was against Andy Reid. That's barely a comeback. Right, right. So I think that's going to be key. I mean, they just have to limit what Henry can do. And, you know, that gives them the chance to really just kind of, I think, take the Titans' offense out of it, really. So just to give the listener a peek behind the curtain, so we're all looking at a very rough outline. on the Google Doc.

And so like 99.9% of what we say is in our heads, but we do have sort of a path that we follow when we're looking at the Google Doc. And there's just sort of little notes thrown in there about what people are going to talk about. The reason I bring this up is because I've never been more excited to say something in the Google Doc than I'm about to say right now

because Danny Kelly has informed us in the Google Doc that he's about Blake Bortle's deep ball. Yes. Let's do this. I'm excited. Danny. All right, well, first of all. With the deep passing analysis. Yeah, so first of all, I'm not going to, I'm, I just want to get this out there.

Bortles is not a very good deep ball passer. This is probably not a novel thing for you guys. Just 11.3% of his throws this year were deep balls. He's, you know, he's, the way they use him is essentially, uh, throw a deep ball every now and again and then have him dump it off pretty much the rest of the game. And so he finished only with two deep ball touchdowns all year, which was dead last among 29 qualifying quarterback. So I understand that this is probably asking a lot of him.

But after I went and watched, you know, the last five or six of his games yesterday. And he was really, really good in a few games, obviously against the Seahawks and against the Texans and Colts. He made some really, really nice deep touch throws that, you know, against the CX particularly, he kind of shredded them through the air. So I think, you know, the way that the Jaguars have kind of built their offense all year is take Bordals out of it. But if they can't get sort of like, you know, last time I think they picked off Ben Rossberger five times, last time these two teams played, you know, if that kind of thing doesn't happen where the defense isn't getting turnovers, I think Bortles is going to need to make a few big throws. And I know after watching last week, that's kind of asking a lot. But, I mean, this is kind of what's come down to. the one

I think the way that they can do that Bortles actually was pretty good on play action this year here's a few stats for Bordle's on play action He averaged 2.8 more yards per attempt on play action throws than on non-play action He was actually He had 9.2 yards per attempt on play action

Which is fifth best 106 rating 7th best He had eight touchdowns of two picks on those plays So I think I mean Just run play action Throw a couple of deep bombs in this game and I think that could be enough to kind of get the spark that the Jags need if they're not going to get five you know five turnovers this week I think

they actually do need Bortles to hit a few of those deep shots it's actually probably a good point and we talk about all the time of being the underdog and kind of using some more volatile methods you know things that are a little more high variance just to give yourself a shot and taking just deep shot after deep shot try to get a pass interference here there I mean maybe that is the best chance ready, sustained offense for Jacksonville. I hadn't thought of that, but it actually doesn't make sense. I mean, especially if Artie Burns can't go.

You know, the Jags do have some really talented, you know, wide receivers. So I don't know, it could surprise some people. He looked awful last week. I mean, there were some throws there where it legitimately looked like he had the yips. Like he couldn't hit his guy on like a little tiny dump off even. So I recognize that this is a little bit of a long shot for the Jags. but I don't know, that's just kind of how I was looking at. Like, when he can hit those deep shots,

the Jags kind of really turn into like a buzzsaw because they can beat you in other ways. But I mean, the Steelers battle hard and playoff team, it's just going to be tough for them. You heard it here first. The Jaguars are a buzzsaw, according to Danny Kelly. You know, that was interesting. Sean Fantasy, our boss here at Thrunner.com,

he was saying something during the game that I found interesting during the Bill's game, which is if Bortles can, can't hit these three yard screens or, you know, anything, really, why not just go down the sideline to Keel and Cole or G.D. Westbrook? I mean, like, why not just take a bigger risk? Because he's clearly not going to, to be effective with four-yard checkdown. So just let it rip, baby. That's kind of what I was saying. I mean, if you can't be consistent an offense and you can't string drives together,

then maybe you just try to get a drive in a single play. I mean, that might be the best route. Exactly. I mean, there are not a lot of quarterbacks who cannot effectively throw a three-yard pass, but Bortles is one of them. Bortles can succeed in spurts, but the easy things for Bortles

are not the easy things for other people and vice versa. Bortles was, he's really bad when he tries to put too much touch on the football. Like his mechanics fall apart in front of pressure. His mechanics were terrible when he was trying to hit those just, you know, little three-yard screens and dump

off boot action and stuff like that last week. So the times when he looks like the most comfortable throwing the ball is, like I said, coming off of play action, hitting his back foot, stepping up and throwing it. Like, he doesn't have to think about that. He doesn't have to try and put a lot of touch on it. He just throws it down field.

And that was kind of when he actually looked comfortable throwing the ball. Yeah, I agree. So we'll see. We'll see. All right, Saints and Vikings, this game of the week. The one matchup that I'm really looking at here, and I think it's going to be really important throughout this game,

is the Xavier Rhodes versus Michael Thomas matchup. Last week, and this is kind of becoming the thing. Like, the Saints run game has not been as prolific as it was early in the year. I mean, they've kind of fallen off the map a little bit, you know, over the last month and relied on Drew Brees a lot more. and we saw it last week Michael Thomas was huge it came up huge a few times had some crazy good catches and he was kind of tearing up the secondary

and so I think this week it's going to be really tough sledding for Thomas I mean Rhodes apart from one game versus Marvin Jones this year when he gave up two touchdowns he's basically been a shutdown corner for the Vikings and so I think to me that's that's the matchup to watch like if they can't get Thomas going you know who's it going to be I guess Ted Ginn could have a big game which would be really good for my brand,

but I don't know if that's kind of his role. Yes. I've been waiting to come back to the Ted Ginn breakout prediction. I'm not predicting it. I'm not predicting it. I think the Michael Thomas is going to be key, but they're going to have to do something else if Rhodes shuts down Thomas. Well, I mean, Rhodes didn't follow Thomas the first game.

I think he's done it maybe a little bit more often later in the season. But, you know, there's a chance they move him around, try to get him away from Rhodes. I'll be curious to see what they do if he lines up with Train Wayne's because Thomas is really physical. He's big, he uses that body. I think he's not a burner.

Wayne's occasionally struggles downfield with guys. If Thomas can get into Wayne's body a little bit if those two go together, it's going to be some flags. I mean, Thomas will be a part of this game just because he's so good now he has to be. But I just think that the Vikings are well positioned to slow him down in a way other teams aren't. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, that's a great point is like, number one, do they even shadow him? Yeah, that's definitely something to watch. I think like we've seen in last few weeks, last month or so, you know, Breeze is probably going to have to do some stuff. I don't know if the Saints run game is going to be able to do much against this really, really good Vikings front. So that's kind of the key for me.

Sounds good to me, buddy. Danny, thank you, buddy. We can't wait to talk to you next week. Thanks, bud. Talk to you next week. Enjoy the games. All right, thanks. All right, Robert. Moment of truth. It's time to offer our picks for these games. and tell everyone who will be playing for the conference championship.

Start us out with Eagles Falcons. I'm going to Falcons. Yeah, I think it'll be a closer game than other people do. It's Falcons minus three. I'm still picking them to cover, but it wouldn't be much more than that. I think there's a chance it's low scoring. I just really like what Atlanta's defense is doing right now.

And I think that, you know, in a certain degree, we're picking Matt Ryan and Nick Foles. Ryan won them that game last week in subtle ways. And I think he has a chance to do that again. You know, he hasn't been great all year. but Matt Ryan's still a pretty solid quarterback. I just feel like right now, Atlanta's a better team in my mind.

I just want everyone to know I initially picked the Eagles and I'm switching to the Falcons because I'm a coward. It's okay, buddy. We still love you. Patriots Titans. I'm going to pick the Titans with the points. I think winning by two touchdowns in the playoffs is a lot. And I could see the Titans bleeding out this game a little bit like we talked about. But the Patriots are going to.

to win this game barring an absolute disaster. I'm sorry, speaking of absolute disasters, Ian Rappaport is reporting that Brian Schottenheimer is going to interview for the Seahawks offensive coordinator job. This is the best. This is the absolute best. I cannot believe these are real things. Norv Turner, Brian Schottenheimer, at least my team is hiring weird people. I'm into weird. The idea of doing this all over again for no reason is my least favorite thing. Joe Philbin back in the league, baby. Oh, my God. All of this, like, just let's please stop. Okay. I assume you're picking the Patriots. Yeah, yeah. That was my way of not picking because I'm just bored by this game. Steelers, Jaguars. I'm going with the Steelers. I, you know, we talked about this a lot. I think that the Jags have a hard road.

You know, I don't know if they'll be able to run the ball as well as they need to. The Steelers offense is playing so much better. I assume Bell will be more involved. Seven and a half is a lot of points. I'd probably lean toward the Jags on that because I think it can still be decently low scoring because you're playing against the best offense or the best defense in football for most of the season. But I think the Steelers win outright. Yeah. Yep. I agree. I think the Jaguars keep it close for most of the day. I could see them covering. I mean, the spread of seven and a half. I'm not, I'm only picking who's going to win the game here. That's going to be the Steelers. But I think it has the possibility to be within one touchdown. Yeah. I think if I had to guess, I'd say 2014.

Jaguars. That's kind of what I'm thinking. Which was the Jaguars cover. I'm not sure the Jaguar score three or two touchdowns. Maybe 20 to 12. Or no, that doesn't count. Maybe 17 to 12. There you go.

Yeah, I could see a defensive touchdown or like something similar. Like they get a pick and they go down at the four yard line and then Bortles. Bortle scrambles for four yards as the best runner in the history of football. Viking Saints. I'm picking the Vikings. I just think that defense is playing so well. I have enough faith in their offense. Again, I think that defense is the most complete unit right now on any team.

And they're fun to sell to watch. I mean, it's going to be a good game. I think it's a be close, though. You know, five points is a lot. It seems impossible to me to go into Minneapolis and have that high octane of an offense as the Saints do. And I just think that once they start struggling, I haven't seen them grind anything out in the last couple of weeks. And so I just, it's very possible they can. And as we discuss, it's very possible that they say, hey, Drew Breeze beat us again, just like the Panthers did last week.

And Drew Breeze does so. Or it's very possible that they let, they somehow let Alvin Kumar run wild or whatever. But I just, I can't envision what this Saints team looks like against the Vikings in any positive way. I just, I just feel like the Vikings win this game. And I guess, I don't know, 24. 20, something like that. I think it's going to be a good game. But right now, I just think the Minnesota is a better team.

Totally agree. Okay. So if these picks hold up, it would be Steelers at Patriots, Falcons, at Vikings. That'd be a nice little championship weekend. I'm good with that, man. I'll be at Tennessee Championship game. I'm down to watch that. I mean, I couldn't be more excited for Steelers, Patriots.

I mean, it's going to be great. This is a fun time of the year. I like my job and I like doing it with you. right around this time of year. It's a good time. Are you just going to get an apartment in Minnesota? I might. I mean, flights from Minnesota to Chicago are like $118. So it's not that big of a deal. What do you do in Minnesota? Do you go out to dinner or anything? Yeah, pretty much. Not every night. I mean, there's some decent food in this hotel. So I chill sometimes. But yeah, I see the sites a little

bit at times. It's good to kind of explore the area. It's a good, it's a good music city for you, Mr. Music. 100%. Yeah. There's some bars that I'd be. been here to you here before that I enjoy. Just go get a beer, watch a game. You know, enjoy life. All right. That does it for us. Enjoy the best weekend of the year of the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. We'll be back on Tuesday to break down all the action. As always, thanks for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network.