The Ringer NFL Show - What Mattered in Week 17? Steelers/Ravens, Brock Purdy, Eagles/Bills, And More!

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Sheil is joined by The Ringer’s own Billy Gil to take a hard look at all of the Week 17 action and determine what will be the most important things to pay attention to in the final week of the NFL season. (00:00) What mattered in week 17?  (1:37) What matters most in next week’s Steelers-Ravens matchup?  (5:27) Does the Myles Garrett sack record controversy matter? (12:05) What mattered most from Eagles-Bills?  (15:52) Does the Tom Brady glove controversy matter? (24:56) What mattered most from Bears-49ers? (29:22) Does Trey McBride’s tight end receptions record matter? The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Sheil Kapadia  Guest: Billy Gil  Producer: Chris Sutton  Social: Alysha Tsuji  Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shield Capadia. Week 17 is in the books. The NFL season is almost over. The regular season's almost over. So what actually mattered this week? That's what we're talking about today. We're talking about that Bears 49ers shootout on Sunday night.

We're talking about Eagles, Bills, and Buffalo's decision to go for two at the end. And of course, we're talking about chaos in the AFC North. The Ravens are somehow. still alive, comes down to week 18 between the Ravens and Steelers. And then maybe a little record talk, Miles Garrett, Trey McBride, some records being chased here at the end of the season. My guest today is the ringers, Billy Gill. We will get into all of those topics and more.

Let's take a break. We'll come back with Billy. This episode of The Ringer NFL show is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting the leadership of a team. captain on the football field, but getting a sea captain? Sure, they're both captains, but who is going to run your offense? You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team, so don't settle for just any insurance. When it comes to getting the help, you need,

State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show with Billy Gilbilly. We got so much to talk about. Let's start with, you know, the NFL told us what the most important thing is, I think, because next Sunday night, Steelers Ravens for the division. So let's start there. What matters here? The Ravens, they win on Saturday night, surprise win with Tyler Huntley and Derek Henry. They're going up and down the field.

They need the Steelers to lose on Sunday. The Steelers do lose on Sunday to the Browns. And so now we have a winner- Takes-All match Sunday night. Does this game have juice? What matters for the AFC North race here? everything matters. What matters? Are you going insane? What matters? Everything matters. We were talking the last time that I was on a couple days ago about these two teams having a fantasy trade where they traded coaches because both fan bases seem to be sick of their coaches. Now you have a situation where it is Harbaugh versus Tomlin. They're playing for the division. Winner moves on. Loser goes home. Loser may never coach their team again. Everything matters. I don't understand how you're not excited about this game.

I am excited, but here's the thing. We're going to try to make this a whole big thing all week, a winner takes all this has never happened. These two coaches that faced each other this many times. And it's so exciting. And I agree. I'm going to be locked in next Sunday night. I'm going to be excited to watch it.

At the same time, we've watched these teams. And I don't think either team is very good. So I actually have an idea for you, Billy, based on you, you have a, had the idea, what was it called, white elephant? Is that what it's called? I think so. The gift swap? Okay. Yeah. You had the idea swap coaches, Harbaugh and Tomlin, both fan bases are sick of their coaches. So I have an idea off of that idea. Okay. What if the losing coach of this game has to resign? What if we get that out there before the, it's like, it's the step sister to your idea last week. The losing coach has to

resign. Now we got real juice. Now we have both fan bases are deciding, well, do I want to want my team to make the playoffs or am I kind of sick of my coach and I want to move on? The coaches are making decisions in game. Are they like, oh, man, you know, I bet I could get so and so from the giants. If I had to resign, I might get a little raise, move out there to North Jersey. What do you think of the idea? Would anyone be up for this? So a loser leaves town match is what you're saying here in this situation.

Yeah. I mean, I could see it. And then you start wondering, are the coaches throwing this game? Like, what exactly is going on here? You kind of are not wrong when you say these teams are not very good, right? To your point, this Ravens and Steelers games, I'm a little bit worried about this one. I think it's going to be a stinker. Lamar's not back out there.

I mean, we saw this Saturday what Derek Henry did. And what Derek Henry did was he set a career high in carries. He had 216 yards. He had four touchdowns. And they used him, not like they used him the week before, where he didn't play at all in the fourth quarter for whatever reason. right? And this week it was more out of necessity because he had Snoop Huntley playing, which, you know, he's a nice serviceable backup. But it was kind of like,

if our season's on the line, we need to give it to our guy and we need to have him run all over the field all day long. And that's exactly what he did. Now, if Lamar's not out there, he may have to do that again to get him to the playoffs. He looked incredible. They went up and down the field. It was like their best offensive performance of the entire season. And their solution was give the ball to Derek Henry a lot. And that was a very, that was a great. solution for that game against the Packers. But yeah, in this game, we don't know if there's going to be Lamar Jackson.

We don't think there's going to be TJ Watt. They couldn't do anything about the Browns. And in that game, I mean, Bill, are you following this Miles Garrett controversy from that game? So that seemed to be the story of that game, which was a terrible game. I mean, the weather wasn't great, but also you had the people kind of rumbling about it on the internet afterwards. And then Miles Garrett really kind of adds a shoot of the fire where Miles Garrett said,

You know what? It felt like they were doing more to stop me from setting the sack record than they were doing to try to win the game. And now they may end up missing out on the playoffs. So good for them. But it might end up costing him the long run. What a crazy story. How do you feel? Can I ask you something? How do you feel about the single season record? Because this is one of those things where, you know, now that the season's longer and it's more games, if you're Miles Garrett, you kind of want to do it in 16 games, right? because that's the number of games as Strahan did it in. And then he goes and he'll tie straight or he's shortly behind Strayhan and T.J. Watt, who I don't know if you saw this clip. Did you see the clip that came up like in the offseason of Mark Gassano?

So Mark Gassano is the guy that Michael Strayham beat for the single season sack record. And it was like, I guess a documentary crew that was following Brett Fav around for whatever reason. And then Mark Gassano went and he like went up and he snuck up on Brett Favreck. Fav, like at a card show or something, and he just started, like, going after him. And it was because of that. Yeah. And Brett Farrv thought at the time, like, is this like a put on? Like, what's going on here?

It's like, oh, no, Mark Gassano, like, I guess it's kind of like really bitter about this thing still like 15 years later whenever that video was shot. It meant more to Mark Gassano. I don't know where Strayhand is. You know what I don't like about this? And this is something that baseball got right, not to go on a little tangent here since we're not even really talking about this. But do you remember like the home run chase with like Barry Bonds and Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa, all that, where you would see like Roger Maris's family be taken to all of these games?

And then they brought back the Maris's like a year ago when Aaron Judge was going to set the AL Homer record, which is not a thing anyone keeps track of. But they would bring along the Maris's to be there to like congratulate. Where's Strayhan? Like why is Strayhan or T.J. Watt? Like where are they? Why are they not here going to congratulate? Miles Garrett on this award. I don't like this. I don't like what they're doing here. I feel like they're not taking this seriously enough.

I mean, you're the only person who's asked where Strehan in the last five? Like Strayhan's on TV like 400 hours a week. What are you talking about where Strayhan? Get up and get out there. You know what I mean? Go out there and congratulate Miles Garrett. We want to see that. Did you see also?

So maybe giving a little bit of credibility to his comment that they were trying to do more to not have him do it than to win the game. So earlier this week, he said it'd be really cool if I got the record against Aaron Rogers. So he kind of put it out there, which then maybe changes the game plan a little bit, which is dumb because you're fighting and getting the playoffs. But now Miles Garrett's going to have to settle for doing it next week, which, you know, it's against Joe Burrow. So it's not bad to set it against Joe Burrow either, really.

But Aaron Rogers on the way out is kind of like, I don't want him to set this record against me, which I don't even understand. Because I think that they take it as like a pride thing where they're like, oh, I don't want to be the person that the record set against. It's like, no one remembers. We remember Brett Farrb because Brett Farrv took a dive, which is why Mark Gassna was so angry at him and was going after him at that card show

in a sad, poorly lit, like whatever convention center. Cringe, as the kid say. I think that was cringe, right? There you go. So do you remember who the quarterback was when T.J. Watt tied the record? Because I don't. No. Who remembers these things?

What difference does that make? It makes no difference. It's just a hilarious claim. I didn't know anything about this. until you texted me as we were, you know, talking about, hey, what should we talk about? And then when I looked at it, and Miles Garrett said, I mean, to an extent, I feel like they were more worried about keeping me away from Aaron Rogers than getting the win. And I think that's what came back to bite him.

I mean, that's an amazing quote by Miles Garrett. Then Mike Tomlin's being asked about, he said, we didn't do anything against Miles that we don't normally do against Miles. So he's all fired up. And it's just a ludicrous thing to say. And hear me out, for those of you who think that maybe there is some. credibility to this. What if the Steelers just feel like taking sacks is not like a good thing to do? Like it's not, if you're trying to win the game, you don't want to take a lot of sacks because

you lose yards on those and you might, the drives might end and you actually don't want to do that. Yeah, and you don't want your 40, your 44 year old quarterback getting hit unnecessarily also. Do you have a prediction headed into who takes the north here? Yeah, my gut says this is sort of built for Steelers are going to be home underdogs. Right now they're three point underdogs in this game. And I don't think either team is very good. And so I feel like it's almost built

for the Steelers to pull off some upset where they get like a kickoff return or force a fumble that's in the red zone. One of those games. That's where I'm leaning. I'm not totally there yet, but that's where I'm leaning. How about you? I feel like we've had I think we had the Derek Henry game this week.

It's going to be hard to do that again next week. So if Lamar is still out, I feel like we may have the Steelers, may get to the playoffs and then just have an early exit the next week, you know? Okay. Yeah. So one of these teams is going to be in the playoffs, you know? And the other coach has to quit their job. And the other coach has to quit.

So there you go. All right. Take a break. We come back. We got some other stuff to talk about. What mattered here when we come back? The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by Fandul. Fanduil is changing the way you live bet football and it starts with NextDrive SGPs.

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They don't get the two at the end, and they lose to the Eagles 13 to 12. Now, I can give you like the background on what actually matters. The bills now cannot win the division. The Patriots win the division. The bills are a wildcard team while the Eagles can be either the two or the three seed. What did you make of that game, that decision, the rain pouring down, Nick Siriani making faces to the camera both during the game after the game

Josh Allen frustrated with himself where are you with what happened in that football game? So it was I'm not someone who comes out and loves the low scoring games and says this wow what a game I love a defensive battle here yeah like thank you exactly right the hipsters like I don't look at what the Eagles did

in the second half getting 17 yards and say wow what a defensive performance I love this one. Let's put this on the highlight. You're like, no, I didn't like that. I wanted Eagles and Bills to be what we ended up kind of seeing on Sunday night football. Like, I love a good shootout, you know? So it wasn't that until about six minutes left in the fourth quarter. Because the Eagles seemed to have that game in hand, right?

You were winning 13 to nothing. It looked like it was fine. And then all of a sudden the Bills scored touchdown. Okay, what's going to happen here if the bills scored two touchdowns? They're going to win 14, 13. No, no, no, not till past, my friend, because the Eagles block an extra. point. So now if you get a touchdown, all you can do is tie the game here, unless they block another one, which is unlikely, but you never know, right? So why not just tie it, get the ball back, or give

them the ball, everybody gets a chance of the body waste in overtime and try to win in an overtime, but they said, no, we're going to do the thing, we're going to go out there. My name is Sean McDermott. I'm going to show you that I'm a tough guy. So he tosses up the two, Josh Allen tosses up the two. And then he seemingly had it. And he just had a bad throw. He just kind of was rolling. off to the side and he just kind of sailed it a little bit, which was kind of surprising by Josh, but he was frustrated. He was wanted to slam his helmet on the ground. So in hindsight, you say, you know what, they should have played for overtime, right? But they had it. I mean, they had to play there. They could have won that game. You are right about there's something

gratifying about throwing up the two. You know, I'm not one of these wimp coaches who's, we're not going overtime. We're winning this now. I'm sending a message to my team. You know, that. And I, because you know how you can tell that, Billy's because he was already doing the two when he thought they got the earlier touchdown where then they reviewed and said, no, he wasn't in. But I'm with you. Can we really second guess it when they had a play that looked good? I mean, they got the guy open. It was a good play. And Josh Allen just missed the throw. He's going crazy there. Also, Josh Allen was injured here. You know, he had a foot injury. He's getting x-rays after the game. It's raining. No way. I listen, I was walking. around New York City with wet socks this weekend. We did a little family trip and I just wore my sneakers and it looks like ice, but no, it's a puddle. It's like a slushy puddle. And now all of a sudden I'm walking.

That's not comfortable. So it could be Sean McDermott's just being like, man, my socks are soaked. I'm getting out of here one way or the other. I like that. I like that take because we hear when we were sitting very comfortably in our home down in Miami, Florida and the frigid like 70s that it was today or 80s. We were looking at it and we were debating, like me, my wife, my parents were over here. Like, is it snowing? Is it raining? Is that slush? The camera's all blurry.

Like, it's not hail. We know it's not hail. We get hail down here sometime. You've seen hail. Yeah. What I did find interesting about this game, Billy, not to transition as quickly as I am here, but the Tom Brady Glove controversy was the most interesting thing about this game. How up to date are you on this? How much background do you need on this? You need to catch me up on this because I was having people text me about the glove. I then was trying to do a deep dive on the glove. And I'm not fully caught up on what's going on with this glove. I know he was wearing one glove and people were criticizing that.

And then it's like a situation. Is this back to his playing days where he says, you know what, his throwing hand, which I guess is now his microphone hand needs to not have the glove on. Then some people were taking into a dark place, especially when he was in Buffalo. You know, we don't need to go into that situation with O.J. Simpson. Well, we might need to. I mean, if we're going to cover all angles of this, we can see where the, but here's what happened. So Tom Brady, during the game, he has this theory, which I thought it was actually great.

I'm not even being insincere about this. He was analyzing the game. And when the players would drop passes, he would be like, they're wearing the plastic gloves. I always felt like you should wear the leather gloves because if you wear the leather gloves, he was saying something about friction. I don't know if it's some TB12 method or what, but he seemed to have done the research on this, where the leather gloves, you're going to be able to hold on to the football better than the plastic gloves. Billy, he's mentioning this.

He must have mentioned it 35 times during the game. He's obsessed with this. And, you know, me being just watching it, I can't get enough of it. I want to know every detail about what he's talking about. So then they go to the on-camera shot and they show Tom Brady and he has one glove on. And it's actually, from my analysis, on his mic can. So he's got the glove. And so there's all these, now it's like, well, why are they doing that?

So I'm like, all right, maybe that was just one weird camera shot. He just took it off real quickly. And no, he's on camera all throughout the game with one glove on his left hand. It's the elephant in the room and it never gets dressed. I don't know how they don't talk about it at all. So now all these theories are floating around. Like one theory, you know, maybe it's the whole Philip River thing. He's telling teams, you know, I never wore a glove on my throwing hands.

when I played, and I'm not wearing one now because I'm ready. If you need me for the playoff run, I'm ready to go right now. So that's one theory that's out there. You kind of alluded to the other theory out there. I don't know how much, but is there some type of troll job? He's in Buffalo. There's a glove involved. He said Bill's fans were flipping him the bird.

The Patriots are now back on top. Again, we don't need to do any kind of deep dive there. I think you understand what I'm saying there. And last one, I'll throw your way, is there some type of TB12 business venture here? We're now all of a sudden during the week. Oh, get your TB12 leather gloves. They keep your hands warm, whether you're calling a game in Buffalo or playing in a game, whatever. Is this going to be some type of financial benefit to Tom Brady?

It was one of the most, it was the most bizarre thing I saw all day. Yeah. I mean, he seems to be somewhat obsessive-compulsive, right? Everything that we know about him. I mean, he's very particular. So the idea that he wears just one glove is not all that surprising when you remember back to his playing days and it's deflake late and all that stuff. Everything with him is like very has to be exactly as it is that he's comfortable. There's a reason for it.

Yeah. Yeah. Leather gloves in a wet situation. I mean, those are one-time used gloves. Once you get your leather gloves wet, like you're tossing that out. And I guess, let's be real. Professional sports are very wasteful, you know? Like I'm sure that Tom is going through five pairs of those leather gloves easily in that.

game, right? Well, guess what, Tom? Guess what? We don't all make $30 million a year for calling football games. We don't all have disposable leather gloves. And by the way, and I don't mean to invoke their name and bring people into this that we don't want involved in this. But if PETA was

watching that game and he's out there and he's saying we need everyone to be wearing leather gloves as opposed to pleather or plastic gloves, you're stepping into something you don't want to step into, Tom Brady. I'm telling you that right now. Like, you do not. The scare it She'll, I will tell you right now, the scariest email I've ever gotten in my entire life was an email

that I got when I was at ESPN. And it was something that I said. I don't remember exactly what I said or what it was, but the sender was at pita.org. And then it was a subject was we heard you talking about this. We wanted to send you more information to educate you further on this thing. And I was like, I am never talking about whatever that was ever again. I don't remember what it was. I didn't. like the men and black thing where I just like erase my memory. I'm like, never again am I going down that path because the last thing that I want to do is be walking down the street and have people throwing faux blood at me for some sort of joke I made about leather furs or whatever, right? So Tom, listen to me, drop the glove situation, drop the leather situation. You don't want to be

involved in a battle with PETA. I'm telling you right now. It's not one that you're going to win. I think that's well said. I was thinking since we are on YouTube here, Billy, I thought, you know what? What if I get a prop here and I show Billy what it looked like? But my glove collection is so weak and embarrassing and they got holes in them and they don't even keep my hands warm and my wife's telling me I got rain eyes. I don't even know if you know what that is. The fingertips, they lose blood and my hands get all cold. What?

I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, I'm not even getting into this. Now, so Peter, you come to my home. You will find no leather gloves. in my home. Do you use the hand warmers in your gloves in the cold? I don't, but I should. I like the idea of it. I always think I should do this and I never do it. I have a rule that I came up with on this game, not to get back to the game too much because we want to be talking about gloves and Tom Brady and such. But I have a rule when it comes to two-point conversions, okay? And I came up with

it now while we were recording. I didn't have any notes before. I saw you jotting something down there. Yeah, I'm interested. I just wrote it down. Okay. So, when determining whether or not you should go for a two-point conversion to win a game as time has expired, I have one rule that I think you should follow moving forward. Has a hook and lateral been successfully executed in that game? And if so, you do not go for the two-point conversion. Because I feel like when you start whipping out that play, it's a desperate times call for desperate measure situation.

They had one on fourth down. It ends up being a huge conversion for them, leads in the game winning, or a game losing drive, I guess. But the drive at the end of the game that they end up scoring the touchdown to potentially win the game, and they pulled it off successfully. Now, if you successfully pull it off

and you get in a position, I feel like you don't tempt fate twice in one game and you don't get cute. You know what I'm saying? That's really a cute play. Don't double-kewed it up because you're going to end up losing that game. We saw the rare double-hook and lateral

on one Sunday because we saw one in Sunday night football also. Now, this one was pulled later in the game. But there wasn't a double cute situation there. So we didn't have to, we didn't have to figure it out, you know. You're right. Yeah, because they had to go for it. I'm with you. And the other rule, and now I don't want to step on your toes, your rule is better. But also, if you just think, what does the other team want me to do here? You know, if you can get into their heads there, the Eagles had gone three and out on four consecutive possessions. They literally had not picked up a first down. So I would imagine Eagles fans,

would be like, if this goes to overtime, I don't really like our chances of moving the football. And while I like our defense, now all it takes, they just got to drive for a field goal or something. And they might win. I think Eagles fans would say, I'd rather take our chances with our defense stopping Josh Allen on one play. Now, they didn't necessarily, like, it wasn't them stopping them necessarily. They got some pressure on them, but it was more Josh Allen missing there. So, yeah, I like your rules better. Yeah, as I was talking it out, my rule wasn't really doing it.

Listen, we're a team here, okay? We're team here on Sunday nights, and I'm going to buy into your theory here. McDermott just wanted to get out of the rain. Like, that's what was going on. That's what I was going on. That's what that. You may have rain odds. I don't know.

We can Google that. Maybe. If we know what that is. All right. Probably has the wrinkly toes in his boots too after you take. Oh, it's the worst. What's worse? No, terrible.

All right. You mentioned the other hookin. Is it hookin ladder or hook and lateral? I've never gotten an answer on this. I'm the same. And I was going to ask you. And I went with. I'm with lateral because I feel like it's like an actual literal lateral.

Right, but someone told me it's ladder, which I wouldn't understand. Yeah, I don't understand why it would be hook and ladder too, but I've said it both ways going back and forth and I felt like lateral was a safer one. And if I'm going to be honest, I didn't want to embarrass myself on this show, but now here we are, you know, and we're both saying, here's safe space and I'm sure the listeners are probably in a similar spot. Which one is it? Can it be both?

It might be a both situation. Let's say lateral because I'm with you. at least it makes sense that you are actually latter. We saw that in the Bears 49ers game. You mentioned that. That was a barn burner on Sunday night. Both teams going up and down the field. The 49ers winning 42, 38.

So now we have a situation, Billy, where the 49ers play the Seahawks. You mentioned it. Saturday night next week, winner gets the one seat. And the Bears now cannot get the one seat, but they did win their division here. what do you think matters the most from this game?

Like, does your opinion of these teams change after this game? Are you like, man, the Niners, if they get that one seed, they can actually win the Super Bowl? Are you like, oh, the Bears needed that one seed? Now I don't take them seriously. Where are you with your biggest takeaway from this game? I think my coolest takeaway and maybe shame on me, but Brock Purdy's looked really good the last three weeks.

Like, ever since coming back, he seems to be on another level and he had a five touchdown performance tonight. he takes on the bears, which we've kind of been going back and forth, and the bears actually, for real, are they not for real? Is Caleb good? Is he not good? That was one of the better games we've seen this season, where you see both teams are actually legit,

or at least comparable to each other, right? It could be a situation where they go, the Seahawks didn't have a great game today, if we're going to be honest. So the Seahawks and the NFC are not, you know, heads above everyone else. So it was good to see a nice competitive game, and it was good to see Brock Purdy do a lot. He did it with his legs. he extended plays.

He had that nice touchdown run, and then he had a touchdown pass where he went, he juke people out like three different times and he went and threw it into the end zone. Like, I was really impressed with Brock Purdy that we saw tonight and that we've seen the last couple weeks. I agree.

Brock Purdy is good at football. I don't think that should be controversial anymore. I feel like we have enough of a sample size. We see their offense. We see him playing now. This might be the best he's ever played. I mean, he came back from the injury. He was a little bit, you know,

it took him about one game. to shake some of the rust off. They had that Monday night game where he's throwing interceptions. Since then, they look unstoppable on offense. I mean, it is a shock when they have a possession that doesn't end in like at least a field goal.

Most of the time, a touchdown, it's been here the last two weeks against the Colts and now against the Bears. They've gone up and down the field. So I actually think the one seed is more important to them than any other team in the NFC because I feel like that defense

kind of stinks. And so to ask that defense to get through three games and now one, one on the road, two on the road potentially. Because if they don't get the one seed, remember, it's not like they just go to the two seed. No, they go to the wild card if they don't get the one seat. So if they have to go on the road three times in the NFC and that defense has to keep them in the game, I don't feel great about that. But you know what? If they get the buy in the first round and now they just have to win two games at home to get to the Super Bowl.

With that offense, I feel like maybe they can just outscore. teams like they did in this game. It also gives them time to get healthy, right? Like killed him play tonight, they haven't, they've been, like everyone, they've been by the entry bug. Yeah. Yeah. But it gives them an extra week to kind of just heal up should they win next week. So I think you're right. I think it might mean the most to the four unites. Yeah. And you know what? I'm with you you on the Bears. If you're a Bears fan, you're not coming out of this being like, oh my, no, you're like, wow, we went toe to toe to with them. It came down to one play at the end. Yeah, our defense isn't very good, but we kind of knew that before.

And the 49ers are scoring on everyone. We're going to have to create turnovers. But man, they were short-handed. They had guys getting illnesses. I thought Caleb Williams played really well. Ben Johnson. I mean, any new, like, I would be so excited if I was a Bears fan. I'm like, wait, we get Ben Johnson for how many years here?

This guy's incredible. He's already doing this in year one. So they're the two-seat. They're in great shape. They're going to potentially, you know, if they win next week, they get to host the first two rounds if they win those games. So even if they end up. up losing, you know, in the first run of the players. I think that this was a great year for the

Bears. And by the way, like, looking back, what a coaching cycle, huh? Like, look at all the new coaches this season and what they're doing. You have Liam Cohen who's doing great. Ben Johnson, who's doing great. I mean, Vrable, we kind of, he's not a first time coach, but look at what Vrable's done. Like, what a year for offseason hires in the NFL. And I think this year could be a rude awakening, because as we've discussed, I don't really like these candidates as much. All right. Last thing, Billy, we got to end on. Does it matter that Trey McBride set the receptions record for tight ends today?

Now, I know this was on your radar, but you didn't tell me what your actual take was on this. So Trey McBride gets his 117th catch most ever for a tight end in a season. Yeah. Oh, history. So we all woke up today and we were thinking that we were going to witness history, but we were thinking that it was Miles Garrett. And while no one was paying attention to this game because it was Cardinals and Bengals

who both do not have any chances in the playoffs, history was achieved. And it was by Trey McBride who said, as you mentioned, the record for receptions in a season by a tight end, which I'm sure you remember where you were when the last record was set. Do you not remember where you were? All right.

This is funny. I actually do, Billy, because I was covering that Eagles team at the time. So, yes. Yeah, so I actually do, but otherwise, point-taking, because it was Zacherts in 2018. I was an Eagles beatwriter. So, yes, I do remember. I don't remember where I was.

I don't know what game it was, but I actually do remember that. He also broke the record by D'Andre Hopkins for receptions in a season by an Arizona Cardinal, which was set by D'Andre Hopkins in 2020. So two records were set today. Also, he set a record by being the first tie-end with. multiple 110 reception seasons. So we're watching now a historic season by Trey McBride, which by the way, next week is setting up for Trey McBride

to potentially set the records for yards by a tight end in a season as he's only 33 yards short of Hall of Famer Jackie Smith, who has the record for 1,205 yards in 1967. You know, I was just thinking, I don't have grandkids. I'm going to find someone else as grandkids and just tell them, let me tell you a little story about Trey McBride. You know, because this, this is just so ingress.

Listen, Trey McBride, wonderful player. You mentioned fantasy. Everybody, Trey McBride, what's better than having a guy with 117 catches on your fantasy team? But this may be, I was thinking, Billy, the saddest record in NFL history. Like the saddest actual record in NFL history. You know, not like a losing streak or anything. Like an actual record that is being celebrated. because if you read the coverage of this,

this is actual coverage of this. It came with 441 left in the fourth quarter. Do you know what the final score of this game was, Billy? It wasn't close. It was 3714. He did get a touchdown in this game. He did get a touchdown. Yeah.

Yeah, they were losing. So they lose 3714. There's 441 in this blowout game. Do you know what the Cardinals record is right now? The Cardinals record right now, who you're putting me on the spot. They have like five wins, right? Minus two.

Three and thirteen. So a three and thirteen that's losing 3714 and then I was reading the coverage. I did see the actual cutaway to the McBride catch, but I couldn't remember what the play was like. A five-yard hitchh route for ESPN. A five-yard hitcherout in a 37-14 blowout in a three-and-13 season and a receptions record going back to. the Zach Kurtz thing. I remember thinking then, shouldn't we just care about yards? Like if you're

getting, if you're getting, if two people have the same amount of yards and one of them does it on fewer catches than the other person, isn't that good that they're not, that they don't need as many catches to get that many yards? The funniest thing about this, though, is what you mentioned earlier. And you didn't laugh when you've said it. The first tight end with 110 catches in consecutive season spilling. Why do we care about 110? Who cares? Honestly, I'm shocked that he's only the first tight end.

Because like, think about the tight ends that we've seen in our life. We've had a run of tight ends. Like, we've had some great tight ends. We had gronk. We have Kelsey. We have kiddle. The three of them are kind of going back. Like, which is the greatest tight end of all times?

Like, this is the golden era of tight ends. Some are saying, me, just me. But some are saying the golden air of tight ends. that here we are, Tray McBride tossing his hat in the ring, you know? There you go. Congratulations to Tray McBride. What a way to end, week 17, and the Arizona Cardinals still get to play one more game, as Billy alluded to.

All right. Those are some of our takeaways from week 17. Don't worry, we got a whole week to get to the big matchups in week 18, the final week of the regular season. So thank you very much to Billy Gill. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ram Gopal. And thank you to Alicia Suji on social.

I'm Shield Capadia. We'll be back tomorrow on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. Call 1-888-78-9-77-7-7-7-7. or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here.

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