The Ringer NFL Show - What's Next For Brady, Lamar, and Derek Carr? Plus, More Big Takeaways from Super Wild-Card Weekend | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Sheil and Ben get together to share their reactions to the Cowboys' dominant win over the Bucs. They then speculate on Tom Brady's next move, and talk about whether Dak Prescott can build on his dazzling performance through the playoffs (3:23). Next comes the Ravens postmortem, with Sheil detailing Baltimore's complicated personnel issues and Ben looking at future destinations for QB Lamar Jackson (19:00). They end the pod by discussing Derek Carr's offseason outlook, and Doug Pederson's steady coaching hand with the Jaguars (43:33). Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, my name is Kevin Clark. I'm the host of a new football podcast called Slow Newsday. I want to tell you about it. On Mondays, Lindsay Jones and I will recap the weekend in football that was, as well as look ahead to what's next. On Wednesday, the normal Slow Newsday, the thing you've been watching for years, current players, current coaches, current analysts talking about the football world. And on Friday, it's a wild card.

Could be some college football. Could be more pro stuff. It's a video podcast so you can watch it on Spotify or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Follow on Spotify. It's Slow Newsday. Welcome to Extra Point. Taken, I'm Shil Kapari. As always, joined by Ben Solac.

The divisional round is set after the Cowboys take care of business, 31-14 over the bucks. We're going to talk about that game. Then move on to some other topics. If you're a first-time listener, where have you been, we've each got three takes. That's how this works. We'll go back and forth. We don't tell each other. And then I will finish with an extra point.

Obviously, some news there, Ben, Russell Gage. 255 left. We don't know the details of what happened there, but obviously a scary scene once again. He gets carted off the field. So hopefully he's okay. If we get any updates while we're recording this pod, we'll share them, but know that we're recording right after the game. How are you doing this evening? I'm good. Never has this podcast more directly been attacked, assailed than by Brett Maher, who did not make four missed extra points, just spitting in the first. face of extra points. Many extra points were taken. Few were achieved in this game here, Bucks Cowboys. Yeah, there's, you had that feeling that those missed extra points were going to matter at some point.

Thank goodness they didn't. But holy smokes, man. I was like, all right, we got a, we got an extra point podcast after this game. It's all been leading up to this. This is our moment. Seriously, two and a half points, Brad going, like, if you would have told me this morning, hey, Brett Maher is going to miss four extra points and it's not going to factor into the game. I would have been, what are you talking about? I thought, This was going to be a close game. It was not a close game. All right.

Yeah. The total for this game, just real quick, was around like 45 and a half, 46 and a half. And the game ended up 45 points. Seven touchdowns were scored in this game. And the game ended up 45 points. That's tough business, brother. That's a difficult one. Somebody was affected.

If you were impacted, listen, it's a long playoffs. You've got more games. Don't worry about it. All right, I'm going to get us started. And I'm going to take the layup here. I don't think anyone really cares about the Bucks post-mortem, but you probably do, you might care, you might be sick of it, about Tom Brady. They were talking about this on the broadcast.

It was a similar tone to when Aaron Rogers had his last game, last Sunday night, last game of the season, and they're talking about, is this the last time we see him walking off the field? Well, Troy Eickman said, is this the last pass we see from Tom Brady? I don't think it's the last pass we see from Tom Brady, Benjamin. I don't think he's going out like this in this. kind of lifeless 31-14 wild card loss to the Dallas Cowboys. I think he's going to play next year. And so my first take, you got to start firing up these takes earlier.

I feel like we were firing these off in like week nine. But we'll start over. Plan the flag. Tom Brady will be starting for one of the following three teams in week one of the 2023 season. Let's see if you agree with the three I have chosen. The Las Vegas Raiders. Yep, absolutely.

The New York Jets. Did I get you? Were you thinking I was going to say? No, I knew you were going to go Patriots. You and I've talked enough to that. I knew you weren't going to go Patriots. And the last one, the San Francisco 49ers. Those are my three teams.

I think this story is going to dominate the headlines in the weeks ahead. You're probably going to be sick of it at some point. But listen, if you don't know the situation, he's a free agent. I mean, there's nothing the bucks can do here. Tom Brady in March will be a free agent if he wants to keep playing. Like any other free agent you see out there, he will get to pick his team. And so let me give you the case for those three real quick. You can tell me if you like any of them more than the others, you can tell me if you think I missed a team.

Raiders, it's obvious. They need a quarterback badly. They've got very nice weapons. They've got Devante Adams. They've got Josh McDaniels. It's an offense he knows. It's an offense that could be pretty good if he plays well. maybe they upgrade the offensive line a little bit. On the flip side, do you want to go and play in a division with Patrick Mahomes? I don't know. I don't know what's important to Tom Brady at this point in his life. So that's the quick case for the Raiders. All right, the Jets. Jets, supporting cast, sneaky good. We've been saying it all year long. They have resources to even upgrade that offensive line, upgrade that supporting cast. We don't know who the offensive coordinator is going to be as we talk right now. And New York City could be appealing to

Tom Brady for family reasons. Now, would he do that? Would he want to do that? Would he want to be in a division where he's playing the New England Patriots twice a year? I don't know. But from a football standpoint, that's not a bad spot to be. Maybe from a personal life standpoint, that would be appealing to him. And then the last one, Ben, is if Tom Brady says, I just want to win one last Super Bowl. I'm going to get that last ring. And then I'm going to go on my way, whatever would be, his 12th, 17th, whatever I lost track many years ago. The San Francisco 49ers. And I know that sounds wild to say when you're saying the 49ers could win the Super Bowl this year. Absolutely they could.

However, we don't know how their season's going to end. They're going to play the Cowboys next week with Brock Purdy. That's his hometown team. Phenomenal supporting cast. We're seeing it as we watch Purdy. What a great position he's in with the weapons, with the coaching, with even the offensive line this year. Would the 49ers want to go that route? They got a lot of options.

They got Trey Lance. They got Brock Purdy. they could do something else. We don't know, but that is the third team I had in mind. All right. I don't know what you think about this. I'm going in blind here.

What do you think about those? So two points of clarification. It'll be one of these three teams. So percent chance you'd put it that he returns to the bucks. Basically zero for you on that one? I mean, I never, you know me. I never like to say,

I speak in absolutes. So I would say, I'll give it a one. Only a Sith or a Solac on this show deals in absolutes. And then the one. team that I very much expected to be on your list that I was surprised wasn't is the Miami Dolphins. You think that he's just, he and Stephen Ross, they got caught and they're not going to try to go back and see if they can jerry rig this thing. It's not happening. You know what? That's a good one. The Miami Dolphins. Now, I was, I was wondering if there's a spot for him to pair

with Sean Payton. And I don't think that would be Miami. I think they would stick with Mike McDaniel. But you're right, they've got the weapons there. They don't necessarily have the offensive line. but maybe they commit to upgrade there. I don't think I like that better than any of my three, but you're right. I mean, there's been some interest there before, so wouldn't rule that out. And they obviously, depending on Tua's health,

could be in the market for a quarterback. Yeah, so Miami is the one that I would definitely want to get on your list. And if you made me pick between, like, Miami and the Jets, I would probably take the dolphins. The reason why this is difficult, right? Like the case you brought up for the Niners is so important, right? Like, people talk about, you know, like Brady's connection to San Francisco and whatever.

But when you talked to when you brought the Niners, you said right away, if he wants to win another Super Bowl, I don't know if he does or not. Like, I really, really don't. When I try to understand why this 45-year-old man is still playing football, I arrive at a lot of spots.

I think that given the competitive that we know Brady to be, and given the image-obsessed person that he is, he just cares a lot about how he's perceived and how he's remembered, I think that like career achievements are really big for Brady. I think that most passing yards, most passing completions, most passing touchdowns. I think those things for a career are landmarks, are pillars that Brady does not want other people to be able to pass. So I can see, Brady.

You think so? You think that's a fact, because I don't know that I agree with that. You think those are factors in why he would continue to keep playing. See, I just look at it and go like, he seems to me, and this is, you know, psychoanalyzing a person that I don't know, but it just seems like I don't know that he has anything else that he would want to do right now. He feels like in the right situation he can still play at a high level, even if that wasn't the case this year. But I've never thought that those records, I mean, what else does he have to prove? Like, I mean, he's done almost everything.

I don't think he has anything to prove. I do think that in a, I don't know which is going to be 17 games per season for the foreseeable future, there's probably going to be 18 games for season for, you know, at some point upcoming. But I think that Brady wants, realizes he has an opportunity to set career milestones that won't be forgotten. Like I think that Brady wants to be a 60-year-old guy, 65-year-old guy,

catting around NFL circles, joking with, you know, Patrick Mahomes the second. Like, oh, babe, you pay, play for 25 years, maybe you'll catch my 95,000 career passing yards. Because that's where we're at, right? As a reminder, like, just passing yards right now. Tom Brady's at 89,214 right now in Pro Football Reference. I don't know if that's,

updated from his 350 passing hours that he had in this game, but that's where Brady's at. Next closest is Drew Breeze at 80,000, excuse me. 9,000 what a cap. 9,000 yards of difference, right? Multiple seasons worth. We do passing touchdowns

over the course of your career. Brady's got 649 next close to Drew Bree's 571. This is just about distance at this point, right? If he wants to just keep on building out the gap, then you can keep doing that, to which I could see him going to a team like the Raiders with McDaniel. Daniels, who he knows, Devante Adams, a great receiver, and basically just saying, Josh,

like, I'll come play for you. We're throwing the ball 48 times a game, though. Like, you know, we're not, there's none of the number of this Josh Jacobs nonsense. I'm not interested in. I'm here to throw the football around. So, like, he could be interested in that. I don't think so. I think that is against everything we know about Tom Brady. I don't think that's going to be a driving factor for what he does. I do think you're on to something, like, I don't know that it's going to be about winning titles. I think it would be, but maybe it's about, hey, I just want to show I can still do it and enjoy the day to day, enjoy the process of it, be around people I know, people who can help me. You're talking about enjoy the day to day, enjoy the process. How does that sound anything like

the Tom Brady we know? Tom Brady doing this for the joy of it? When is Tom Brady got anything for the joy of it? No, but this was miserable. His joy doesn't come out like it does for me and you where we might smile or you can see it on our face. His joy comes from the winning or the excelling or the playing well, but I don't think it comes from the records. But anyway, he's got a lot of things available to him in all those different spots. So I think people are going to be sick of this story and sick of the speculation in the months ahead of it. And so we got out ahead of it. We probably don't need to revisit it too many times until we actually get to something where we know what he's going to do. All right,

what is your first point, my friend, unless you had something else on that? If we're right, we're still talking this Cowboys Buccaneers game. I think it's important. Now Cowboys go to the second round. They get the same. Cisco 49ers this upcoming Saturday, which is a tough ask, by the way. They're on a short week, which really sucks relative to the Niners who get a full week of rest. But Niners Cowboys coming up,

the take is very simple. Dak Prescott plays like this for the next three weeks. The Cowboys will win a Super Bowl. Holy Moses, right? I mean, that was, it's important to contextualize just how good of a performance we just saw. DAC had 0.79 EPA per dropback off of RBSDM's numbers.

If that's the accurate number that like true media will have, so the numbers aren't in just yet, that's the 11th best quarterbacking game in the playoffs since the 2000s by EPA for dropback. By success rate, he was at right around 69% before we got to garbage time. That would have been seventh best of any playoff game for a quarterback since 2000. That was one of the best playoff quarterback performances we've seen.

And DAC did it doing the same things that like Dak has been getting in trouble for over the last several weeks, right? Like, he's just ripping some contested throws. He's trusting, like, you know, C.D. Lamb diving over the middle of the field. Michael Gallup to win in isolation. Dalton Schultz, who I was like, man, I forgot how much of a safety blanket Schultz would be for Prescott right back in that 2021 season. He's, so he's throwing the middle of the field.

He's, like, buying the time in the pocket. He's just dropping back standard dropback and just ripping stuff up. Like, this is what, this is the double-edged sword that DAC plays with a little bit. And you see that, like, arguably career worst game. that he played against Washington last week. And it was like, well, what does this mean? Like, Cowboys haven't been crazy good the last few weeks. Yeah, they have this real big stinker against Washington.

Like, are they, are they pretenders? And it's like, no, they were caught looking ahead. They were caught looking ahead of Wildcarb. Yeah. Happens. And Dak walks out and shows you, this is what I can be. Dallas enter the playoffs with unfortunate injury attrition, right? Injuries are in the defensive secondary, right?

Doran's armstrong got banged up in this game. They've had a couple injuries on the defensive line over the course. of the season. It's frustrating stuff for a team that looked really, really strong kind of in November. But if Dak's able to erase problems like this, man, I mean, good night. Like, I don't think the Cowboys beat the Niners. I think the Niners and Eagles are both a cut above the Cowboys. If Dak plays like this, nobody, nobody's stopping Dallas. So, you know, Prescott's got a lot of detractors. There was a drama during the contract dispute. There's still drama about whether or not they should have paid him and how much they paid him. You want to shut

people up. I mean, just keep playing like this against, against playoff defense is you're going to be all right. He was incredible in this game. I mean, they had the first two possessions where they go three and out and you're going, oh my gosh, what is going to happen in this game? And then after that, four straight touchdown drives in the heart of the game, each of them, they're going 80 yards or more. And yeah, he was on fire. He was ripping throws. The offensive line, I thought, was outstanding. I mean, when he's got time back there and he knew what was coming, I mean, you weren't fooling him with pre-snap disguise or different coverages. Aikman was talking about it all night long.

He knew what was coming. He knew where to go with the football. He was accurate. He was fantastic in this game. To your point, statistically, I just brought it up. True Media updated just for this season, Ben. There have been 535 quarterback starts that qualified. That was the 10th best performance in the NFL out of 535 this year.

So I'm with you. It felt like it watching it. I mean, they were just picking up 19 yards and it felt like nothing. You know, it felt like I've just tossing a ball to you five feet away. If they had to care late or if the Bucksie kept it close enough that they had to keep, you know, keep playing, the numbers would have been higher, right? Like his last like three or four passes were like incompletions, right? Third down throws, they had a punt.

Like, you know, things that like the numbers are just like, oh, like failed third down. That's a bad play. No, I mean, if you just stopped the game after the CD Lamb, fourth down touchdown, I mean, this, this was a, this was a truly elite quarterback performance, which like, people who listen to the show every week know that that adjective means a lot to me. I don't like throwing that adjective around. This like, you know, like that list I brought up, like Prescott's 11th and EPA. Yeah, Brock Purdy's game against the Seahawks is 14th.

That's different, right? Like, we know what Brock is. We know how that works. Watching Prescott work this, this Buccaneers defense that had their secondary healthy, right, that was generating a pass rush. finding the reeds, dropping it down, you know, managing the entire game pre-snap to post-snap, armed talent to extending to scrambling to just every,

like it's the full gamut with Prescott. When he's on, he does every single thing. It's total, complete, consummate, holistic quarterbacking. It's really cool. Yeah, the DAC conversation, as you alluded to, gets out of control. Oh, like every quarterback conversation, like every conversation. But certainly the DAC one, because they're the Cowboys,

gets out of control. You know, if you isolate just their plays with Dak Prescott this year, they had the sixth best offense in the NFL in the regular season. That's counting that week 18 game that was really one of the worst offensive performances, you know, since he's been there. So, yeah, listen, they have a real shot. I know it's the cowboy. So in the back of your head, you're going, we've seen this for the, you know, since 1995.

They have not gotten past the next weekend, the division around. 1995, Ben, what were you doing in 1995? were you on this earth? My older sister was being born in January of 1995. Yes. Since you've been alive. How nice for you. I have not seen a Cowboys NFC Championship game in my lifetime.

And brother, I'd like for that to continue. That does make me happy. I was raising like a mixed team family, right? But everybody hated the Cowboys. That's what we did. My dad was a Steelers fan. Grew up in the 80s and 90s, hated the Cowboys. My mom was a Jets fan.

Had no reason to hate the Cowboys, still hated them. very clear what we did in our household. This upcoming game for the Cowboys, though, Dan Quinn's done an amazing job. He's done a tremendous job as the DC of the Cowboys so much better than I anticipated when they hired him.

Two seasons ago, I want to say this is now, two off seasons ago. He's changed what he does. He's not as simple. They've done a good job filling the covers with players that make sense for him. It's been a good defensive turnaround for Dallas. He's got Kyle Shanahan. Kyle knows his blood. Kyle coached for him in Atlanta.

Kyle knows his DNA, right? Richard Sherman told the story on Slow Newsday with Kevin Clark about how, like, Kyle knows this defense so well that he would just install plays the week before they played him specifically to break like named rules on this defense. Like, yeah, when we get into this set, they will say these words and it means this

and we will run that to beat it. Like it down, again, down to the bones, you know, Stan Quinn. So Dan's got to come with something, right? I mean, Kyle will put 40 on him if Dan's running in, you know, their basic stuff, especially the way the secondary is banged up. I would like to believe in the Cowboys. I'd like to see a Cowboys run, especially like I said,

Dak plays this well, Super Bowl, absolutely. But if Dak gives an inch, I'm not sure the defense is going to pick it back up for him. This is a tough matchup for Quinn. Yeah, it's a rematch, of course, last year. 49ers won that game, 2317. But the Cowboys have a real shot. I mean, they have a real shot to not only get to the NFC championship, like you said, to get to the Super Bowl, really to win the Super Bowl.

You know, they have that ceiling. I felt that way for a long time. They have played really well when Prescott's been healthy. I don't know that it's going to happen, but they're four-point underdogs going to San Francisco. They've got the pass rush with Mike Parsons. They've got the balanced offense. They can win in different ways.

And so that's going to be a fun game with a lot of star power in San Francisco next week, which, of course, we'll talk more about on this feed as the week continues. All right. My second take, Benjamin. We're going to move off of Cowboys' Bucks. We're going to move off of the teams that are still in the playoffs, and we're going to look to a team that's doing a little post-mortem. The Baltimore Ravens, Benjamin, have suddenly become the most interesting

off-season team in the NFL. I also have a Ravens take. This is good. Oh, you do? Okay. All right. So let's get into it. I mean, the last six weeks here of the Raven season have been. pretty incredible. You know, there's national reports that, hey, Lamar's targeted to come back Christmas Eve. That obviously didn't happen. Then it's, you know, week to week. And I don't guess sources. I don't let, you know, that's not the point of this. But I think we can say

Lamar is a private person. You ask anybody around Baltimore, he doesn't have an agent. He has a close circle. I don't think there are really signs that he or, you know, anyone close to him is like leaking stuff into the media. And so, you know, I think. think you can take a mini leap that the Ravens' expectation was that he was, you know, probably had a chance to come back Christmas Eve. So that doesn't happen. Then we have Lamar last week tweeting out the specifics of his knee injury. John Harbaugh basically offers a no comment. No, I didn't see that. No, yeah, yeah, you didn't see the tweet. I mean, Harbaugh, the way Harbaugh has handled this has been very interesting to me because, like, I felt for a while that he really had

like Lamar's back and was like, you know, yeah, we're going to get that contract on. That's one aspect of it, but no issues. Harbaugh could have shut down any speculation that any of this was contract related. And he has not done that, you know, and then Lamar Jackson does not travel with the team. And so all of that happening and you're wondering, all right, Harpa is still not going to kind of come out and defend Lamar Jackson and just come out and say, listen, he's injured, players get injured. He's not ready. We believe in him. When he's ready, he'll play. He doesn't do that. And then you have players kind of sticking up for Lamar Jackson. You know, Jeff's reback of the

athletic had a good rundown on this. But Marlon Humphrey coming out and saying, I don't even know if I should be saying this, but Lamar is limping around the practice facility. All right. So it sounds like by his teammate standard, the guy is legitimately injured. And so this all leads to the offseason here. Lamar Jackson is not under contract for 2023, the Ravens can go in a number of different directions. They can agree to a new deal with him, maybe, hasn't happened so far. They can use the non-exclusive franchise tag on him, which means if he signs with another team, the Ravens have the ability to match, or they can let him walk and they get two first-round picks. They can do that.

They can use the exclusive franchise tag, which means he can't go anywhere, but you're paying him on a one-year $45 million deal. And so these are the different things that are in play. Reports throughout the season have said Lamar is looking at the Deshaun Watson deal and saying he gets a fully guaranteed deal. I should get a fully guaranteed deal. You had Ravens owner, Steve Boshadhi, last offseason saying, yeah, I wasn't really that pleased about the structure of that Deshaun Watson, fully guaranteed deal with the

Brown. So you have all these, I mean, balls juggling in the air. You got J.K. Dobbins popping off again, a credit to the athletics. Jeff Reback after the games and how am I not getting these carries in the red zone? I'm kind of sick of it. You wonder, are they going to make a move with Greg Roman? And it just feels to me like something has to give in the months ahead. I could be wrong. Cooler heads might prevail. They might just run it back next year. But at this point in time, and again, this could be some recency bias. You had one playoff win in five years with Lamar. He's missed 10. games over the past two seasons. You have this squabble over his contract. Is there some I think John Harbaugh is a great coach? Is there some staleness there? If you're the care, I'm going to throw this in a total, give you a complete curveball here, Ben. If you're the Carolina Panthers, do you call Steve Bichotty and say, just in case you're thinking of moving on, you know, coach trades, not everybody does them, but John Harbaugh is a guy who we might be interested

in like all these things. I know I'm rambling here, but there's so many things going on with that franchise, which for years. felt like just a stable, you know, you know what you're getting with the Ravens, you know what you're getting when you walk into that building, when you walk into that city, when you face them.

And now all of a sudden, it feels like chaos has kind of taken over here in the final six weeks. So I think they are going to be, you know, maybe the story when you look at one team of the NFL in the months ahead.

So you can either respond to that or just hit me with what your take is on the race. I'll respond to that because my take is kind of an extension. I said, divergence. What I, what I, what I, the first thing that comes to mind is this. You ever, uh, you ever have like a piece that you're struggling to write. You don't know exactly where you're going to write.

And so you just like procrastinate on it. And you're like, I'll be able to like do this. I would describe every piece like that. And you know, you're like, all right. Well, like this like, you know, Tuesday afternoon. Like I'm not doing anything from like noon to six. So I'll just like sit down. I'll write it then.

And then when you get to Tuesday at noon, it turns out that your wife calls you and she needs you to run this area because you forgot something. And then your mom calls you and she needs to talk to you about this going on the family and everything. And all of a sudden, Tuesday afternoon wasn't as neat and as tighty and as free as we thought Tuesday afternoon was going to be, that's extending a first round quarterback. That's extending a franchise quarterback right there.

The moment he hits year three, if he's the guy, blank check, what do you want? And if he's holding you a little bit, right? If he's holding you up and he's Lamar with no agent, he's saying, this is what I want, I want all these guarantees and say everything, tough luck buttercup, sign them. Because this is the exact outcome that you want to. avoid the outcome and and let's let's also like circle exactly what happened here too in terms of like the football of things when lamar was on the field this team is a top five offense by dvua they did this after trading marquis brown away and then having first round wide receiver

rashad bateman getting hurt like the plan didn't work in terms of like making the change at receiver and they were still a top five offense by dvuey when lamar was on the field lamar was saving this team right like orlando brown like trade orlando brown away and there's a guy they got veterans in there and totally fine, right? Like, it's just the offense was working because of Lamar more evidently than the offense had ever worked because of Lamar. And the office has always worked because of Lamar's. Like, football-wise, that's what was going on. And then defensively, they were a good defense under Wink Martindale for years.

And then this Joe Burrow cat came in the division and they couldn't blitz him. They kept trying to blitz him and they kept losing to him. He was ripping it up. They made a change of defensive coordinator, got Mike McDonald into the building. not for the sole purpose of beating the Bengals, but because they needed a guy who could bring them into the next kind of step of defensive football, such that they could handle the Bengals.

And they've gotten good defensive performance against the Bengals. They, that defense beat the Bengals on Sunday night. They absolutely did. They gave up a score out of the pregame locker room, out of the halftime locker room, off of a turnover. That's all they gave up defensively, right? And then the Bengals scored 7 on 98-yard fumble return. The football of it all was so nice,

set up and they even like endured the stupid like wide receiver injury. They endure what could have been crippling for the offense. They had it. This, they, the dominoes that Harbaugh lined up were there. And then Lamar gets a knee sprain. And the Roe Quant Tray. I didn't even bring up the Roe Quintrade. The Roe Quant Trade like saved the defense. It was like the final piece. They brought everything together. And then the Lamar gets the knee injury. And not only does it tanked your season. Because it tanked your season, you're now in the weirdest place with Lamar. Like, like, I don't know grade, nearly a grade three, PCL strain, minor tear,

yada, yada, I don't know how tendons and ligaments work. I will never claim to. But what I do know is that for as hard line as Lamar might have been about his demands for his contracts previously, he's got every reason to be 10 times harder now. And he's going to be negotiating

against a pissed front office and a pissed general manager and a pissed Ravens brass because why wouldn't you be pissed? You had it. You had it in hand. And Lamar didn't play in the Bengals game because he couldn't. And that sucks. That really totally sucks. And because of the Watson contract,

because of the nature of quarterback contracts changing and the landscape changing, it's going to be a worse deal than you could have signed a year ago. And that's why you just sign the guy. You just do it. It's the most important thing. From a Ravens perspective. Yes, from a Ravens perspective,

just check it off the list. If you have to sign them to the biggest quarterback contract in the league at the time, you have to. You're going to look dumb for six weeks. And then somebody else is going to sign, A bigger deal, man. You just got, you have to do it. You have to do it.

So now what? I mean, they didn't do it. So you explained why they, was that your take, that they should have done it earlier? My take is about the offenses, the five offenses in the league I'd like to see Lamar Jackson play it in 2023. None of which are of Baltimore Ravens. I'll say this. So let's talk future options. Just franchise tag him.

Okay. when Lamar Jackson shows up the training camp and practices on the franchise tag, I'll fly. I'll eat my hat if that happens. If we see 2023 Lamar Jackson August just warming up with the boys on the tag, I'd be stunned.

With the way this is gone, it'd be shocking to me. You can non-exclusive tag him, and then other teams have the ability to negotiate with him and you get two first-round picks if they sign him to a bigger contract, but Lamar's worth more than two first-round picks on the open market, in my opinion. I think you'd get more for that

if you had them on a big deal and you traded him. So I don't even think the non-exclusive, like, gives you the out that you're looking for. So I think if they tag him, I think Lamar holds in, and I think that this thing gets gnarly, right, in that regard. I would, like, I would sign him to the major extension. I would sign them to the Dejohn-Watson deal, and you got to take your medicine. You should have to sign them to a deal previously. You didn't do it, and now you have to sign them to a bigger contract. I think you do that.

You do it, and you also have to hope he comes fully back from what seems to be a pretty major knee injury, too, now. So you're inviting uncertainty there because of the banged up. But I think you have to sign him to the deal. And I think the fact that he's got insane leverage over Baltimore Ravens contract books right now is just that's the fact of the matter. It's what happened. He was running the offense. He got hurt. And the offense stopped.

Sign him to a deal. Yeah. If you look at it, you know, I was just looking up the numbers here quickly as you were speaking there. And if you look at it with Lamar Jackson over the last two years, they've had the 10th best office. in terms of EPA per play on the snaps without Lamar Jackson on the field, they have had the 30th, it would translate to the 30th best offense in terms of EPA per play. So it is, you know, it's funny because he will get ripped about, hey, you know, he doesn't have an agent. And if you add an agent, he'd be fine. Like, kind of what you're saying is going to be fascinating here,

because, yeah, he probably does have the leverage. Now, in terms of the franchise tag, you can say you're not going to play on it, at some point, like, you don't have a lot, like, what are your options? If you don't sign the franchise tag, you're sitting there, you're going to sit out, sit out the season. You're not going to get any game checks. And so that is a step that most players are not willing to take. That's sort of the reason for the franchise tag. It takes that leverage away from the players. But at that point, if you're the Ravens, are you going to let it get to that situation with your franchise quarterback in a season where next year, I would expect they would think that, hey, we can be competitive this year? I mean, what are you really doing there if that's

your course of action? Listen, it's it's tough. It's tough to get no game checks. Absolutely, I agree with you. And like, you know, I don't know how Lamar wants to handle that and handle his money. And, you know, it's all that situation. You know what else is tough? Put in Tyler Hunley back out there and watching all that money you pay to Mark Andrews translate to no wins, all that money that you pay into Marlon Humphrey translate to no wins, the highest Bowser to Rochuan Smith. translate to no wins, right? Because, I mean, this, the AFC is too good. You cannot play Huntley.

Like, even if, like, they go get Jacoby Reset, this team cannot put a Jacoby Reset out there and win enough games to be not embarrassing while Lamar is not playing for them. Lamar is so integral to the offense. Like, what does Greg Roman do? Call first and goal from the two fullback flats to Patrick Ricard, run two minute drills

where they don't take time out. It's like, I don't, nobody elevates. They're like, even Andrews for as good of a titan as he is, like he has his drops. Like, you know, he's got like warts to his game. Like this, this offense, it's so apparent this year. They scored more than two touchdowns for the first time since Lamar got hurt against the Bengals. Like, this is, the offense needs Lamar that like he has better hold in leverage,

better hold in potential than a lot of players do because it's going to be so ugly without him. And on the other hand, it's also not like, I'm not convinced basically that he wouldn't sign it because if the plan is to go the Kirk Cousins route and say, all right, you're not giving me what I want. You can take the tag and that's $45 million next year. Like, that's not nothing. And then they can tag you one more time. And then guess what? You can hit free agency at an unprecedented age for a league MVP that the NFL has literally never seen a player with an MVP under their belt hitting free agency in their late 20. So that could be the other option for him. I mean, you're pocketing close to $100 million over the next two years

and then hitting free agency if you don't get what you want. But all right, I want to hear what you say. So let's operate under the assumption. The Ravens tag him, but they say, all right, you know, this is a tag and trade situation. This has run its course here. The Ravens go in a different direction at quarterback and the teams that call the Ravens are,

or the teams you want to see called the Ravens are. The context of the take is this. this is apropos of nothing. This is dreaming. This is, you know, I'm going to be laying in bed at 1.30 after this podcast thinking about cool things that might happen this NFL offseason.

I'm like, you know, it would be crazy if Lamar went to blank. Like, that's just where we are. You and I've talked a lot about Lamar on this pod. Everybody knows I'm the resident Lamar stand on this podcast. So the offenses in which I would like to see Lamar Jackson played ranked from five to one. In order to qualify for this,

you have to like be generally, decently, potentially likely to want to get a franchise quarterback, a veteran franchise quarterback. Okay, that's what I was going to ask. All right. Like, Houston is not on this list. Despite the fact, like, Houston would be like, we will do anything for Lamar Jackson to come here, right?

This is kind of like more fun than that. Five is Vegas. Vegas doesn't make a ton of sense. It'd be fun to watch and play with Devonte, be the best receiver you played with. But like the passing game is not like the passing games that he's super used to. They do like the crossing stuff.

They do like the full field stuff. He did some of that at Louisville. I don't want to see Josh McDaniels kicking field goals on third and one with Lamar Jackson. With Lamar Jackson. But like if they resign Josh Jacobs, that's a really cool running game, whatever. Four is the Jets. The Jets can be sick, right? Because they have great, like, space and isolation players, right?

You get Garrett Wilson involved. You get Corey Davis involved, right? You get Elijah Moore and you start to really like operate with speed and, and stress in space. Part of this conversation is going to be like a referendum on the Greg Roman offense. is kind of what Lamar's offense has been over the course of his career. One of the issues with the Roman offense in Baltimore is that they go heavy and condensed to run, which doesn't maximize a player like Jackson.

By pulling people into the box, you're not creating space for Lamar to really, like, thrive. What you want to do is you want to spread, right? Lamar inherently is going to be better in a system where you're pulling guys out of the box, and you're making such that if Lamar makes one guy miss, there's room to operate, as opposed to all these extra tight ends,

these extra fullbacks. So with the Jets, you would see like a spread team. We don't really know the Jets OC is going to be. But with their wide receiver talent, you spread the field out. You get Garrett Wilson and Elijah more like one-on-one matchups. That feels great. And then when Lamar keeps it, he's more dangerous. So Jets are at four.

Okay, hold on. Hold on. So this is what I was going to ask you, because Greg Roman gets killed. I understand it. So the Jets, they don't have an offensive coordinator. And I'm putting you on the spot here. So maybe you haven't thought about this. You want to get back to me.

That's fine. But Robert Sala calls you up. He says, Ben, you know, I love extra point taking you and shield. I've been listening to it every week this season. You know what? I kind of liked your Lamar idea. We're going to make some calls to the Ravens, but I want to make sure I get the right OC.

I don't want people to be ripping me for my Greg Roman hire three years from now that I'm not maximizing Lamar Jackson. It doesn't have to be an OC. It can be an O.C. What type, but you know, you just mentioned kind of what type of scheme, but are there people out there? It could be people who already have jobs or whatever that you would say. say, I want to see Lamar Jackson play for Coach X if he's on a team like the New York Jets.

I want somebody who has experienced coaching and working with mobile quarterbacks, right? That's number one. So you look at somebody who's on the Eagles coaching staff in terms of like Brian Johnson, who's their quarterback coach, was previously a college guy in Florida. I think that he makes sense. Joe Brady hasn't done too much with mobile quarterbacks, but they used Burrow in like the RPO game and sometimes in the run game when he was in LSU. He's another guy who's got college background.

I think that you can bring him up and that's interesting. I have a question. If the Jets traded for Lamar Jackson and hired Jeff Stoutland, Eagles offensive line coach to be their offensive coordinator, would you officially become a Jets fan with your mom? Your mom, right? Not a Jets fan, but I'm pretty stinking close. I'll tell you that. I also think that somebody that could be good for Lamar is somebody from the Rams' Shanahan coaching tree.

And here's why. The number one most misunderstood thing about Lamar as a player is that he's extremely good throwing to the middle of the field. Right? Like the grown-up area, he's awesome. Since 2018, throws between the hashes, five to 20 yards down the field. He's seventh in the league in E-Paper play. It's like Rogers, Burrow, Breeze, Stafford, LeWar, with like Ryan, Daniel and Jimmy Groplo in there because of the offense that they play in.

Right? Like, this is, like, he's a grown-up. Like, there was always this theory that he couldn't process, like, he doesn't know how to, like, make mature throws. And, like, all over, like, the Louisville film. He's just, like, layering throws over linebackers. It's where he's best. He's not as good outside of the numbers. And that's what Roman would, like, ask him to do, like, throw these nine balls,

throw these outbreakers. Throwing middle of the field is really nice for him. So third, I have Detroit. And, like, Detroit's full-throated support for golf. I understand it. I get it, 100%. However, if a Lamar becomes available, you have to reassess. And then do we really want to go this route or maybe we go a different route?

And I think that, like, that offense that works that middle of the field with play action, I think would benefit Lamar greatly. Number two. No, hold on. Now, that would be fun. That got me a little tingle. That got me a little excited. With that line?

Yeah. Lamar, the line is there. You already have the weapons. Jameson? You can even add to the weapons with Dan Campbell. They want to run the football. He's going to be able to run the football. Division up for grabs.

You're going to the NFC. NFC needs some of this quarterback talent. Move some of these guys to the NFC. We're all NFC for the next couple of picks. That was thought out. A team with a team that knows it probably wants to take a big swing here at some point. As we've talked about, again, Lions fans don't get man.

Golf played well. We're talking about future several years, sustained success. So I like that one. All right. We got two and one. Detroit is extremely fun. It gets funner. The Giants are at two.

And again, like, what are the Giants going to do with Daniel Jones? I do and I don't know. But holy smokes, man. If you think that Daniel Jones Russian quarterback experience has been good with how well Brian Davel has called that up with how well he creates scrambling opportunities for his quarterbacks, like it's a coached thing. You can tell if they work on it, when to scramble, how to scramble, how to find the space. Yeah.

Lamar Jackson with the Giants is a ton of fun. Obviously, they need to get better at wide receiver. Right? You don't want to just stick Lamar from one bad wide receiver room to another bad wide receiver room. You get Wondell Robinson healthy. Yeah, you know, get a good free agent in the building. Resign Seqwan. Get Sequan and Lamar in the same backfield?

That's a tall order, baby. I think with how well Dave has been at coaches. of these mobile quarterbacks. I think him with Lamar would be so much fun. Okay. And number one? Number one, to me by like a mile. Oh. Is the Atlanta Falcons.

Lamar with Atlanta. Firstly, just like the vibes would be great. Like Vic, like part two. Just that experience would be incredible. That's number one. Number two, the work that Arthur Smith does in terms of opening that middle of the field, finding creative ways to run the football,

changing guys in the backfield, creating interesting running lanes. Like, Arthur Smith's one of the great run game designers in the league right now, period. That, and he has such like a smash mouth mentality to him, but it's modern. It's still like uses spread ideas. They get guys moving horizontally. They get speed on the field. They get the ball to speed easily. Like, it just fits so well with Lamar.

And then he throws so well to the areas of the field that they rely on where they hit their play action passes. And the weapons are already there. Kyle Pitts and Drake London, just sitting, waiting for some good quarterback to cash in on what they could be with the potential is for two top 10 picks. Catch radius guys. Lamar loves the trust catch radius dudes.

It just, everything just fits. Lamar and Atlanta would be perfect. And the Falcons, you know, the Falcons have the eighth overall pick here in the draft. They've got some stuff. They could give up. They've got to get a, you know,

whether they're like Desmond Ritter or not. I think that is a great number one. You mentioned it, the Falcons third in rushing. DVOA this year. First was the Eagles with Jalen Hertz. Second was the Ravens with Lamar Jackson. And then third was the Atlanta Falcons. So I like the Falcons. So the Falcons giving up number eight and probably multiple other high picks in the years ahead. But I can see it. I can picture it in my head, him playing in Atlanta, him playing indoors. Like you mentioned, they have some very young

weapons there. The run game has been very good there. The line is good. Re-sign Caleb McGarry. We're good. We're cooking. We don't need defense. Don't worry about no Dean Peas. Remember about none of this depth chart. We're scoring 40 every week. We're chilling. The two I liked best there from you were the Falcons and the Lions. We're the two that got me excited that. We'll see. Again, maybe. So Barnwell asked me this on the scramble last week. He said, what percentage would you give that Lamar and Harbaugh are both like on the sideline for the Ravens in week one of the 2023 season. I'm curious to hear what you say to this.

Does on the sideline imply Lamar's playing? Lamar's play. Lamar is the starting quarterback. John Harbaugh is the head coach, Baltimore Ravens, Week 1, 2023. 42%. What? That's under 50%. Oh my gosh.

This is bad. This is very bad. Okay. This is very, very bad. I had it at 80 and I might go a little bit lower than that now because like the weekend, I'm just watching that going. Yeah, you guys talked before this game. You guys talked before Lamar is not on the sideline for the wildcard game.

You guys talked before J.K. Dobbins was like, well, if Lamar played, we would have won. Like, stuff's going down, man. I'm not going that far. I think I still have the most likely scenario is that cooler heads prevail. They figure something out and they stick to it. I mean, they've been, they've kind of gone through stuff together. or maybe they make an OC change, I don't know. But I think that's more likely.

But, man, I think it wouldn't shock me as much as it would have. If you would have told me this six weeks ago, I would have said, no way, they'll figure something out. It's all good. But the way this season has ended, they are a very interesting team. That was fun. You know, we're in the playoffs. I feel like that hasn't happened a lot where we both have a take on the same team,

like fewer than five times all season, right? You had to do the ratings off this week, man. Come on. Take number three. I tease this one. Last week, since then, Derek Carr said his goodbyes to the Raiders fans. His agent came out and kind of speculated on what his future might be. My take is no team should get suckered into a Derek Carr trade.

And this is not a, listen, I'm not ripping Derek Carr. That's not what this is about. This is about the circumstances of what's going on with Derek Carr, what the most likely scenarios are. So one of my rules for the offseason, Benjamin, don't overpay. for competency at quarterback. You're going to be sick of hearing me say this in the months ahead. It's also, you know, the addendum to that is just don't fall in love NFL teams in the offseason. Don't fall in love. That applies to the draft. Coach's free agency. What a dreary way of putting that. Don't fall in love.

So don't overpay for competency at quarterback. So here's the situation with Derek Clarks. I'm not sure everybody understands it. He is due $38.8 million per year over the next three seasons. he has a no trade clause. And so why would he waive that no trade clause? His only motivation would be if he thinks that a team is trading for his current contract and he thinks, hey, if I'm a free agent, I'm not going to get as much money as a free agent. And so I want to stay on this current contract until I will accept the trade. I don't think he's going to be motivated to do that because think about what you're doing there.

You're limiting where you can go. It has to be a team willing to trade for you, a team willing to trade for you, a team willing to give up the compensation, all those things. You're making that team worse. They have to give up draft pick compensation that could be an offensive lineman that puts you in position to succeed or a wide receiver that puts you in position to succeed. So I think it's unlikely, given the leverage that he has, that he waives that no trade clause unless it's just like the perfect ideal situation.

And so if he doesn't do that, he's a free agent or I think he will be a free agent. the Raiders will release him within three days of the Super Bowl. That's the other big thing here. If he's on their roster three days after the Super Bowl, over $40 million of his contract becomes guaranteed over the next two years. I don't think the Raiders are going to do that. I wrote a piece about Derek Carr after the Stidham News, and it wasn't yet clear at the time.

When I wrote it, I thought it was injury. It was going to guarantee for injury if they hit that moment. That's why they were benching him. Then rap came out last week after cars sent out between and was like, yeah, no, that day after the Super Bowl, like that money is guaranteed if they hit that day, which like, yeah, they have to cut a car. You cannot fall into that contract trap.

Yeah, you're not taking that risk and guaranteeing it and then saying we'll trade him down the line. So be patient if you are a team like the New York Jets or whoever else that wants a shot at Derek Carr, do not get suckered in. into a trade here. Do not give up draft capital for the right to pay $30.5 million per year for Derek Carr. If another team wants to do that, that's fine. Chill out. There will be other options at quarterback. But I think the most likely scenario is the Raiders release him. And remember,

he gets released three days after the Super Bowl. He doesn't have to wait like a Tom Brady does for free agency. I mean, he can go on his free agency tour right after that. If you're a team looking for a quarterback, you can have this wrapped up by the end of February before free agency even opens and start addressing the other areas of your roster. So I think there's going to be a market for him. I think teams will look at him as a viable, competent veteran who can succeed in the right situation with a good offensive line with good weapons, good intangibles, work ethic, leadership, all those things. But do not get suckered into trading for him because I don't think you're going to need to. Just be patient. Do you know,

agree or disagree. I would do my homework on where a car wants to go, talk with his agent, do my homework with the Raiders and see, you know, are they, are they like interested in doing business, interested in being a part of this, and like, you know,

giving Derek Carr the trade that he wants. I'm sure they will be, so they get something back for him. I don't think, it's important to know, the Raiders don't get compics for Carr because they're going to have to cut them. You only get conflicts for a player

if their contract expires, naturally. It would terminate. And so they don't get compact. So they'll take pretty much anything back. So I'm going to do my homework. And I'm going to poke around and see what other teams are looking around car and sit around a car or not.

And if I feel like I can secure car for like a late round pick, which I don't think is out of the question that like somebody trades like a fourth for them. I'm happy doing that. Other than that, yeah, you let him get to the free agency. So if we get to a spot where like Washington and the Jets are the only two teams interested in him and the Jets are just like, hey, we'll send you a 2025 fourth. That won't bother me.

If a team trades any more than that for the car contract, they're out of their minds. Because I don't think, like, even with the fact that it's mostly based salary that's left on his deal and you could get some of those figures down by guaranteeing him to money, I don't think he'll demand much more in the free agent market than his contract would look in a restructure. I don't think the difference in money is enough, such that I feel like I really want to trade for this existing Derek car deal. Yeah, I think that's right.

Yeah, so when you compare like the compensation, this isn't going to be like, you know, you look at, hey, how could he get less than Carson Wentz? It's just a different situation because he has that no trade clause because of when the guarantees kick in. It's a different situation from some of the other quarterback traits you have to look at. Would the acquiring team be responsible for the 40 million in guarantees? Yeah, if he plays under the current contract, now there could he obviously be a restructure there. Right, because he has to be traded after the new league year, March 15th, whatever the heck it is. Yeah, so if he's traded, then the team will.

would be on the hook for that. So I wouldn't expect that. You don't want to make that trade. You don't have to get stuck with the guaranteed money. Because then you're committed to car for two years. It'll be interesting to see what kind of contract he gets if he is released and what his market is. All right.

Hit us with your third take. What do you got? Weirdly off seasony for all for right off of wildcar weekend. You and I are like the Lamar future. We're burning all the good stuff. We got a whole of this for a month. We got a week's worth a podcast to do on this feed. And we don't get to the games.

Don't worry. Yeah, true. I was on the Sunday show. We talked about all the Sunday games. Okay, I'm going to do what you don't like it when I do this. I'm going to put my Roblo NFL hat on and root for the league overall. Oh, gosh, here we go. Propaganda begins.

The third of final take is this. Super Wildcar Weekend is good. I'm into it. I like it. This is the bomb. This is cool. We've had three seasons now of six total wildcard games, the titular Super World Cup.

Wild Card Weekend. Now the seventh team has been introduced to both conferences and only the first seat gets the first round by changing the playoff structure that have been around for a while. There was a concern that introducing seventh seeds was going to result in like totally non-interesting games, right? There was a thought like, all right, like, you know, we're going to get just a team that doesn't belong and they're going to get deleted by the second seed, how uninteresting, how un-unexciting. And there have been moments of that, right? Last year, the seven-seat Eagles played the second-seat Buccaneers. The game ended 31-50. wasn't as competitive as even that looks, right?

There was a 42 to 21 win Chiefs over the Steelers, seven seed versus a two seed. You know, Mitch Trubisky played as a seven seed on Nickelodeon. I'm not here to tell you it's been perfect. But as a reminder, the fourth seed Tom Brady Buccaneers just got deleted by the Cowboys. Like, there's a way that bad teams to make to the playoffs that's not just the seven seed.

We've also gone from the seven seats of pretty good games. Like even for the massive point differential that we saw ended up, Seahawks-Niner, Seahawks-Niners was good and close for a while. And then the other seven-two-seat game was an incredible game. Dolphins are the third-string quarterback. Skyler Thompson going toe-to-to-to-with-the-bills. Divisional rematch.

Like, those seven-seed games have not been any more or less reliable, more or less competitive than previous Wild Card Round weekend games we've seen. So now we get the extra week of, the extra two games of football, which is great. The other part of it that's great is I like having this last hurrah from Monday Night Football. I know people complain and they want three-seeing. Saturday games and three Sunday games. I get that. I think that would be good too.

But the fact that I get to do Wild Card weekend and just sit my focus on the couch for pretty much all Saturday, all of Sunday, and then still get to do the Monday night thing and enjoy like one final last ESPN broadcast for Monday night and like the music and this that and everything. Oh, to me that's great. I love it. I think it's worked extremely well. So I enjoy Super Wild Card weekend.

I'm glad we have all this going on. And we don't have a ton of data just yet on like how well this treats first seed teams, but it's still, as the NFL first intended, it did change the competitiveness of the buy week. Ask the AFC, they know they had a whole series of meetings about it when they had to figure out how that one-member-one team is going to be decided. So I think Super Bowl Wildcard weekend's been a huge success. And I sit here having watched generally like five and a quarter games of really good football over the course this weekend. So a ton of fun. Every once in a while, Roger just breaks into your home.

He threatens you. He says, listen, I know it's a big audience for this podcast. Here's what I need you to say this week. Here's it, like you said, here's the Rob Blow Hat. It's hard to find these online. They're sold out. I'll hook you up with one of these if you just get my messaging out there. I actually don't have a big issue with this one.

It's fine. I mean, I don't like, my only concern, like, if the dolphins won that game, that would have sucked. I mean, I don't need to see Skyler Thompson in the divisional route. But other times it could be very good. Like if the Lions got in this year, that would have been very fun. They could have been a dangerous team in the NFC. I think if Skyler had won, there was a good chance we would have seen two of the following week. Right?

And I just think, I don't know. Like, to me, and like, yes, I agree. But also if they won, it means they beat the bills. Like, that's sick. They won. Yeah, they won. That's cool, right? You know what I mean?

Divisor round games are good. Jack's chief setting is going to be a little like older brother, younger brother Nuggy potential. But I think the Jacks can hang. We'll talk about the Jazz. What a perfect segue Benjamin to my extra point. Taken. Little brother.

My extra point. Let's put some respect on Doug Peterson's name. I mean, everyone during the, and I don't tell you this, but during the weekend it's like people were discovering Doug Peterson like he was a first time head coach. Can I tell you this? Doug Peterson has been a underdog in the playoffs six times. His teams are five and one straight up as underdogs in the playoffs. Do you know how ridiculous that is? And so this speak, you know, I want to talk about Peterson not only to

give him props for the way he coached that game on Saturday night against the Chargers, but to also speak about the luck involved in head coach hiring. And so if you, you're somebody listening, then your team is looking for a head coach and you have strong feelings about one or the other. If you look at headlines, Ben, from this time last year, you will find some that point to how the Denver Broncos, quote, unquote, scooped up Nathaniel Hackett before he could have a second interview with the Jacksonville Jaguars. That is well reported all over the place. The Jaguars had to pivot. There were nine head coach openings. There weren't many. I think, think was the Jaguars and the Saints were the only two that even took a look at Doug Peterson.

The Jaguars settle on Doug Peterson after they can't get Nathaniel Hackett. And now we're one year in and all Peterson does is he wins the division. He wins more than six games. They had won more than six games one time in the previous 10 seasons. I mean, think about that. One time in the previous 10 seasons, they win the division the first time with Peterson. He gives you a memorable playoff game. I mean, I thought he called one of the great timeouts in recent NFL history.

I felt it kind of went under the radar, fourth and one. They're lining up. He doesn't like the look. He gets the timeout. They come back. They line up in the QB sneak formation. You had the great video on it. Check out Ben's Twitter about how they flip it to Travis E.TN, 25 yards.

ETN stays inbound. It sets up the game-in field goal. I may or may not have called that a touchdown multiple times in the video. I was like, this game-winning touchdown by E-TN, I said it like three times, but whatever. Yeah, it felt like that's what was happening. It was a game-winning play. The Bosa penalty, Peterson doesn't hesitate. He goes for two instead of one.

I mean, that's one of those that if it fails, he's probably getting crushed for because it's 30 to 26 at the time. And if you don't get that, you're saying, oh, my gosh, they could have, you know, kicked the field goal to tie it. And now they don't have that available to him. But he's aggressive. That's how he's always been. And they score there.

And then they're able to kick the field goal to win it. So, like, you listen to Doug Peterson. You talk to Doug Peterson. You don't think this is like an analytically driven coach. His game management has been really outstanding throughout the course of his career, and he always airs on the side of aggressiveness, which makes it really fun if you're a fan of a team that he coaches.

So that's second half performance in terms of EPA per drive fan, best offensive performance in the second half of a playoff game in the last 20 years. I mean, they had no margin for error there offensively, four touchdowns and a field goal. Want to know what's like bananas? I watched that film today, that offensive film. They ran the same stuff. They circle the wagons in the locker room, and they said, okay, when we give them this,

they're going to give you that. And when we motion this guy, they're trying to, you know, they see the short motion, they're going to take this away, and they're going to play off on number two. So when we, you know, run this concept, usually we go first read here, second read there, now we're going to change it because they're giving us this. And they just just, just sat down and said, tweet this, tweet this. tweet that and don't throw any more picks. Just,

they behaved like late, like early 2010's Brady McDaniels, Belichick. Like down 20. They were like, yeah, we execute.

We're just going to walk out and run our stuff. Just zero panic from a second year quarterback in his first career start, playing with like all new receivers against a team that absolutely had them on the ropes. Shocking poise. And I was so extremely impressed.

at the time and then afterwards after the win with Peterson's half-half-time interview, right? I was just going to say that. When you were describing that, you could tell that from the halftime interview, but go ahead. They stop him running into the locker room, and you're just like, what's this guy going to be like?

Is resignation, frustration, you know, like a shrug of like, oh, unlucky four picks? Like, what do you do? And Peterson, like, takes the question, like, what do you tell your guys? And he's like, we're just going to keep chipping. He said, we're just going to keep chipping away.

This is like what we do. You know what I'm saying? We're going to, he said that exact phrase that we're going to keep chipping away. We're just going to keep on the going to go. Like, we've been down before. We've been losing games before. We've been losing games at home before. We've been down on the season before.

We're just going to keep chipping away. We're going to just completely level, not frustrated, not despairing, not Ra Rostis-Humbah, not here comes the movie moment. Just this is what we do. And so I'm writing the gamer, right? I'm writing the post game blog after that, that comeback. And I see, okay, Peterson chipping away. And I go to search for things that he said previously throughout the season.

Like they're three and seven. You know, they're losing the division. whatever. Cowboys game, they're down multiple scores. They come back and they win the game. Peterson gives a post game quote, you know what he says?

I told the guys, we're just going to keep chipping away. We're down multiple scores. We've had some turnovers. We know we're good. We know that we can handle us. We're just going to keep chipping away. It's the same messaging.

It's the fact that they were 3 and 7 and Peterson told them. They said this on the Titans game in week 18 when they won the division. He told them at 3 and 7, they're like, yeah, we have a shot to win this division. The Titans at the time were like 7 and 1 or something.

Yeah, we have a chance to win this division. We just got to keep on chip in away. It's just the just regular, plain, unassuming, not bloated, not inflated confidence to say, I've coached football before. I've won a Super Bowl before. I know what a good team looks like. We're it. Let's go win some games.

This is how we play. And if we throw four picks in the first half, we're going to walk out in the second half, throw three touchdowns and win it. And anybody have any questions? Yeah. When they hired Urban Meyer, they tried to hire a championship coach, and instead they got what a championship coach looks like. got what a championship coach behaves like. They got the caricature, right? The drawn out, you know, fact symbol of a championship coach. That was terrible. They fired him. And then Doug Peterson, they hired the actual real thing. They hired the authentic thing. That is a championship coach.

Maybe not this year. But yeah, they got the right guy. Yeah, no, that's, uh, that that's very well, well said that comparison with Meyer and Peterson. And that halftime interview, same thing struck me. It was like, yeah, we got one ball, uh, tip there. It wasn't like we're getting just outplayed in every aspect of this. When he was the Eagles coach, I remember I did a story where I interviewed all the assistants and said, what is, you know, Doug Peterson's best quality? And those can be, you know, like, all right, they're going to say something nice. But they all said the same thing.

And it's what you kind of spoke to that. Monday morning, he comes in and you don't know if he won or lost on Sunday. He's the same guy. Players like that. Players know, like that they know what to expect. Every team meeting, every week. It's not going to be too high or too low there. And so I think that's that really helped them.

You know who he got that from? The guy on the other sideline. it's Andy. Yeah, this weekend, yeah. Right, it's Andy. It's just never as good as you are. It's never as good as you think and never as bad as you think. And you can say that, but can you live it?

Yeah, and so I think he has done that. I forgot, this is Doug like going up against Andy, right? Old, old, uh, he's the OC there. This is a, yeah. I like I said, I think when I said Jags Chiefs get a little big brother, little brothery, I didn't, I don't think the Jags will get like colossally blown out. I just think they'll get a little bit outgunned. That being said, like, the reason I get concerned about the Jags is because the

Jags have now won the Super Bowl in back-to-back weeks, right? They beat the Titans for the Division, and then they had 20-point comeback because the Chargers. At some point, you stop winning the Super Bowl a little bit, you know? So there's a little bit borrowed time, and that's a tough thing to buy against the Chief team coming off of the Buy week. But yeah, it was cool to see the Jaggs win that game. Jags are building it right. The Jags are the Lions, man.

They're building it right. Fun, fun matchouts for the divisional round. I'm glad the results turned out the way they did because I think we have four really good games. All right, that will do it. Thank you to everyone for listening. I guess this will be the last time we're like ending a recording around 1 a.m. Eastern time. No more Monday night football games.

So the show will continue. But next week we'll be talking about the championship round. It'll be down to four games at that time. All right. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor and Arjuna Ramgapal. Nora will have the island next on this feed. I'll be back Thursday with the scramble. Ben will be back with Danny Hafeitz and Stephen Ruiz Friday to preview this weekend's game. Have a great week, everybody, and we will talk to you next Monday on Extra Point Big.