The Ringer NFL Show - Wild-Card Weekend Reaction Part 2

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti provide their immediate reactions and analysis to the Cleveland Browns finally ending their playoff wins drought (0:35), the Ravens enacting revenge against the Titans (18:45), and the Nickelodeon madness of the Bears and Saints game (31:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. Wild, wild card weekend, Nora Preciati and I talk about all the Sunday games. The Cleveland Browns upset the Pittsburgh Steelers, Baltimore Ravens, and Lamar Jackson, get their win over the Tennessee Titans and the New Orleans Saints go on Nickelodeon and beat Mitchell Tribeschi. This was recorded live on video form, and it was on all the social media platforms, and it's also in podcast form.

Here it is. Nor Princiotti, that was different. First Brown's win in the playoffs is 1995. and I don't know what just happened. Well, yeah, that was a lot of fun. I got to say, I predicted a Brown's win. I did not predict that it would happen this way. So, okay.

So let's back up here. When you predicted the Browns win and then you saw everything that happened this week, maybe one of the craziest weeks that any team has ever faced in the playoffs ever, this is the first time that a team has had to go without their head coach. There's certainly been injuries in the first week of the playoffs, but it hasn't been like this. Joel Betonio, by the way, their longest tenure to play who got their game ball on Sunday was also ruled out. I mean, the obstacles they had, they did not practice until Friday, and that was sort of bare bones.

There were guys that Alex Van Pelt, the new play caller who was promoted, hadn't even met who were starting on the offensive line, playing on the offensive line. Dunn, one of their guys who was playing tonight was doing drills with his girlfriend in the parking lot of his apartment building. This was different. So when you were predicting the Browns to win, how did that come about? And what did you see from them tonight that impressed you? I will tell you exactly how it went down. And it kind of makes a lot of sense now that, now that we've seen this game in an odd way.

I felt like they had real upset potential. They have a clear identity and a lot of talent going into the game. This was before all the COVID stuff came down. And I felt like, frankly, we'd watched a lot of Steelers football late in the season where they looked like they were playing a game. They could not precisely identify the basic mechanics of. So I was looking at it and going,

you know what? I know the Browns just barely beat this team when they were resting a lot of their starters, but that's one game. Week 17 can be weird in a lot of ways. I think this game has real upset potential. And then get the news about Stefansky and all the other COVID limitations they were going to have. And I thought to myself, okay, I got it. And I was so mad because I was going so chalky with so many predictions. And I was like, okay, this is a good upset.

I think this could really happen. I'm like, ugh, I can't just. testify sticking with this, right? And then I keep thinking about it. And I go, okay, if my logic here is that we've watched this Steelers team literally forget how to play football for a lot of December, then I'm not sure that Kevin Stefansky and Joel Betonio is as great and significant as their contributions normally are. I'm not sure that changes the equation. So I kind of stuck with it just because I felt like it was interesting, but it was based in the fact that if that was why I didn't feel like the Steelers could win this game,

then that should hold up. And let me tell you, the first few drives of this game made me feel not necessarily good about that because it's not fun to watch a unit sort of dissolve and fall apart before your eyes. But it did make me feel like it was logically sound. So the Steelers had every advantage in the world coming into this game. And they played so poorly that none of them mattered. Literally, none of them mattered.

none of them mattered. If you were to take someone who had no prior knowledge of anything that happened in the past week, and you said one team doesn't have its coach, one team has barely practiced all week, they would have a pretty clear guess on who it was, and it wasn't the Cleveland Browns out there. This was an unbelievable series of mistakes. Listen, I want to give full credit to the Browns.

Their offensive line was amazing, and this was a roster win for them. We'll get to that in a second. But the series of mistakes that the Steelers made was almost mind-boggling. And all credit to the Browns for just hanging out while they did that. I mean, you know, the old line that never interrupt your enemy while he's make a mistake, which is one of those things that's been attributed to every good general, but I don't think any of them actually said that, just kind of a thing.

That's what they did. They waited and then they saw Rathusberger and Pouncey had that strange snap that went into the end zone, the three interceptions early. I was looking at the box score and looking at the win probability and seeing which plays had the biggest impact on the game. In the first half,

four out of the five plays that made the biggest impact were just Steelers' turnovers. So all credit to the Browns, but this was about the Steelers just saying, hey, we don't actually value the football. We have no idea what's going on. This was just a complete and total collapse

by Ben Rothesberger and that's dewers' offense. Well, yeah, and so I know everybody watching basically just watch this game, but I think it's worth kind of going through. So the Brown score a defensive touchdown on the first play of this game. Pouncey sends the bad snap over Ben Rathesberger's head. Ben Rotherzberger is like nine feet tall. So that's pretty impressive in its own right. And then Carl Joseph. He, by the way, decided that all of his receivers were nine feet tall and he would just sail the past over their heads.

So everybody's height orientation, which is completely off today. It was the high snaps, high throws, the whole deal. Yes. Just a little miscalculation there. Understandable. But so Carl Joseph recovers it in the end zone. That's the first Browns touchdown. Then on the next drive, MJ Stewart intercepts Rathlisberger.

Browns take over. They score a 40 yard touchdown on a pass to Landry. Then the Steelers go three and out. The Browns score a touchdown. It's Hunt. The Steelers gained one yard on their next drive before Rothsberger got picked again. And then the Browns got the ball and scored again. and that's how they go up 28-0.

By the way, at that point, they were not, like, a lot of people were talking before this game about, okay, well, they have their first 15 that Stavansky can contribute to, and that can be sort of his impact on the game, and he can try to get Baker in a rhythm and talk to those guys before he has to go down in his basement

and shut his phone off and be totally isolated for this game. They were not out of the first 15. They were up 28 to nothing. This is absurd. This is just an absurd situation. And then the Steelers were able to come back because the Browns were just playing like weird prevent defense, which I hate. But it happens and every team does it and whatever. Like I'm not going to complain about clock management when you're down half your coaching staff and everything's a disaster.

And overall, the Browns did a great job. But yeah. Right. Right. This is not the pod. We're going to pick Nits. I think that there were things that the Browns really well. I want to focus on those for a second.

in first half, according to next gen stats, Baker Mayfield was not pressured on his 15 dropbacks. The narrative about Baker is the can't play under pressure. That narrative has sort of been reversed in the second half of the season. He's gone from abysmal in the beginning of the season to okay under pressure as the season's gone along. But not being pressured at all, we know what Baker Mayfield can do in those situations. And so the steers generated that. Go ahead.

They were still, they were blitzing the crap out of it. Yeah. But it just, they had a quick passing game that was really effective. And he, I would go for it. I think he's been really good.

in the later half of the season when he's not pressured, but also, you know, it's not just the clean pocket stuff. He's been a really, really good quarterback. It's not that he's gone from flawed to okay. Absolutely. And in the first half, 2.4 seconds to throw the season low for him. And this is a Steelers team that has someone like T.J. Watt, who Mike Tomlin said a couple weeks ago was visiting from another planet, the highest pressure rate in football for the

entire season. This is a team where if you're, if you were to draw this up, up, you would see that this going significantly different. I think that Bill Callahan, we've talked about him so much on this show. I think you gave him an assistant coach of the year half season award at one point. He needs to get back in the spotlight because he was one of the reasons that the Browns were able to play bully ball today. And so I just think that there's, there were so many things that the Browns did well.

And I don't want that to be necessarily overlooked. The fact that they, there are 28 points with the most of any team in the first quarter, every playoff game since the merger that has a little bit more to do with the Steelers. But when you look at their line, you look at their defense, I mean, just the fact, I loved, loved that nugget from Collinsworth where he said that Stafansky told them that Rathesburg gets the ball out so quickly you're going to tip these passes. And they did that and that turned out to be, I think it was a third interception at one point. That's just good coaching.

And that's one of the things that's funny to me because I've heard from coaches over the past seven, eight years, whether that's tempo, whether that's just getting the ball out quickly, that there's essentially one and a half seconds where everything happens in a play. And I think that if you know that Rathusberger is going to get that ball out, where you should game plan for that. And I think that's just smart coaching. And I was hugely impressed by that. Anything else on the Brown side, obviously the run game was working,

anything else in the Brown side that really impressed, you know, are? Well, what do you think about them going forward? Did this make you reevaluate the ceiling on them at all? I mean, next week? No. I mean, it's the chiefs. And I don't. Yeah, I hate to be a bummer.

Listen, I'm a moron. I thought that they had no chance today just because of the competitive disadvantage and just the fact that they didn't have whether or not that was, you know, four coaches, four offensive coaches during the week, the fact they didn't practice. By the way, practice is, I thought practice was useful until today. Do we need to stop practicing? Bucky Brooks and Ryan Clark were talking about this on Twitter earlier today. They were saying maybe there's a case be made about having,

being rested and healthy and all this stuff. And that maybe teams do practice a little bit too much. I think that's totally valid. Now, I think when you look at some of the performances from teams this year where they've skipped practices because of COVID tracing and contact tracing, that is a really small sample size. I don't draw a whole ton from that. But late in the year, these guys' bodies hurt.

So I don't think it's the worst thing in the world. I mean, Alvin Camero was fine today too, right? I don't think, especially for veteran players, that skipping a Wednesday and a Thursday is as big of a deal as it sometimes gets made out to be. All right. So let's talk about this duo here for a second. So Mark Kavalee covers the team, does a great job. Had a tweet, I think sums this whole thing up, which is this would be hard to explain if we haven't seen this many times before. And I think that's a good way of putting it because we've seen the Steelers lay a lot of eggs.

And I was amazed to realize, I was like Bruce Willis in the sixth sense, just kind of going back in my head, I was amazed to realize, spoiler alert for a 20 year old movie. I was, I was amazed to realize that that Jaguars game was the last time they'd played the playoffs. And that was obviously among their biggest eggs that they laid. And I guess I look at this. And if we're going to question the concept of football practice and all that and having a head coach on the sidelines and all that stuff, we have to question everything but the Stewards organization right now after that game. because that just changed my opinion on a lot of things. Big picture takeaways on the Steelers, you start where?

Well, you start with Ben, right? Yes, you do. He doesn't look like he has a lot of great quarterbacking left in him. And the likelihood is that he will still. Only, only costs $41.5 million next year. So we're all set. Yeah. So he will probably be on the Steelers next year.

That unless he decides that he's done. but I think Adam Schaeftor reported a while back that he would like to see the contract through. So that's not great. The thing that I go back to is that when the Steelers got to 11 and O and everything was going right for them, it wasn't because of Ben. It wasn't as though he was having a great ear and then he trailed off and maybe you think, okay, get him some more rest days, whatever. Like they were winning in spite of him or at least because they had designed a system that didn't require him to go down field that didn't require really anything besides just short, quick passing.

And that's a tough place to be when that is your upper limit. So I don't know what exactly they can do other than try to bring a young guy in there to be ready. But this is a team that's been so relevant for so long and it's a great franchise. but they are headed for a lot of change because Ben is not the only. They have a lot of free agents. And that thing's going to change. 25 million dollars over the cap at this point. Yeah, a lot of red flags.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln. Other than that, it's fine. You know, they do have some good pieces. And, you know, listen, it's very strange to me that Mason Rudolph almost beat this, this Browns team in a must win game last week. And I think that there's probably talent there. And obviously, Mason Rudolph is not the answer. And he probably shouldn't be on the team next year.

but I think that there's we've seen this is just not where I thought you were going to go what it's amazing rudolph no no I was saying that I think that last week was evidence in the fact that there are pieces there where okay obviously their their front seven this year was really really good and I think you just kind of need some stability at the quarterback position and I think that for so long this organization viewed ben rathesberger as the this stabilizing force even if he wasn't, you know, a classic leader or whatever. They, they, the organization, the coaching staff in the front office, loved Ben Rothesburg.

I mean, that's, that is when I was visiting to their training camp or during the season or whatever, they used to say, you know, I remember asking about the, you know, if I asked but the offense, they go, well, Ben Rothert makes it all go. They, they just really liked having him around. And I don't think if, if the argument is stability, then I don't think you can go back to Ben Rathsberg. I think that he, right now, his mistake prone play and the fact that over the the last, what, six, seven weeks of the season, he had no idea what to do with the football.

I don't think you can build a franchise around that. And this is a team that should be in competition all year, every year, rather. And I think that there's just, I think you have to assess the court recognition starting tomorrow, quite frankly. The last, the last pick, the one to Taki Taki was just someone who doesn't, I mean, he threw it right to him. I have no idea what the intention on that play was. I haven't.

There were probably 15 throws this year where I had no idea what he was doing, what he was planning, what the thought process was behind it. And part of that, you know, we've talked about his press conferences and all that stuff. In fact, he just keeps saying he's not very good. Well, at some point, I think we have to believe Ben Rothesberger. And he can do this. I'm an old cowboy routine or whatever. But it's like, dude, the guy just, he throws a bunch of crappy passes. Then he gets up to a podium after every game and is like, man, I suck.

And at some point, we need to stop looking beyond that and just realize. that this might be what this is. I'm so glad people get to watch this live because they are going to get to see what happens every week, but it's just not live or on videos. So it's not visible, which is just you say things like, I'm an old cowboy routine.

And I have very, I have a lot of trouble like not cracking up. But that was good. I liked that one. He does do like the, I'm a cowboy. So does Bruce Arias. I was looking for something earlier today.

And I saw that like in 2014 errands is doing the, I'm going to, I'm a cowboy and ride out into the sunset thing which is what Rathsburger does. They're friends and they just probably sit around being old cowboys together.

I just wasn't sure what you meant by old cowboy, but I'm going to ride off now and get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Context for the old cowboy line. All right, anything else in this game? Well, should we talk about punts? Because speaking of,

I guess if we're saying that this is close to the end of Ben Rathosberger, I just want to once more for old times sake, say I do not understand and why they don't run sneaks with him, he's 100 feet tall.

Or just do anything other than punt. Just do anything other than punt. I did a story a couple of years ago. I've said this before, but it bears repeating on a day like today because we're also going to talk about Rabel's unfortunate punt later. And I was talking to some analytics guys and I was like,

what are we going to look back on as the bunt of 20, of 2018, 2019? Like, why are we giving this stuff up? And it was, the answer was, it was giving up possession for no reason, right? And this is the example. And I think that in 10 years when hopefully everything has changed, we realize how just careless and stupid is to punt on fourth and one or fourth and two when it's not, you know, you're not backed up against your own goal line. We're going to look back at these sort of decisions to go. I can't believe this. And by the way, even in the context of 2020 and 2021, we couldn't believe this because the Vrable punt was literally unprecedented. Like this is just, these are bad punts and teams should stop doing it. I don't understand

why I don't understand why ownership and GMs aren't like, hey, guys, we're going to have, we're going to have a timeout and punt guy in the booth and we have to listen to him. What we're talking about, by the way, is that Tomlin punted down 12 with a fourth and one at their own 46 in the fourth quarter. But we can talk about it tomorrow when we get to Braybel because, yes, that was not the worst punt of the day. It was definitely not the worst point of the day. All right, so let's move on to the second game. The playoffs are my favorite time of year.

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That's Fanduals sportsbook promo code Ringer NFL. Gambling problem? Call 100 Gambler. 20 to 13. more Ravens over the Tennessee Titans. Lamar Jackson gets his first playoff win. 17 to 2479 yards, one interception, 15 carries for 1336 yards. The big stat line was Derek Henry, 18 carries 40 yards, totally bottled up. Lamar Jackson is now one and two in the playoffs. I thought it was a little weird how much it was talked about. So obviously, no one is a bigger Lamar Jackson fan than me

outside of the Ravens locker room. I thought the marketing around the, this is his first playoff win and making a big deal throughout the television thing. It wasn't like he was Marvin Lewis here. He'd lost two games. Like, he's going to be fine. He's going to win a lot of playoff games.

It wasn't like he got some, you know, some huge weight off him. But anyway, a lot to talk about with Lamar here, but what did you? He's 24. He's like not old enough to have like a history of a specific issue with anything.

I know. It was that, that's why I thought it was so always like Lamar Jackson gets that playoff win. He'd lost two games. We're going to be fine, guys. He is now one and two. Yeah.

Like, how long? I was thinking about this. And one of those seasons, one of those seasons he'd taken over in midseason for Joe Flacco. Like, come on. Yikes. Been a full starter. When did playoff Andy Reed become a thing? How long did it take before people were like, you can't manage the clock?

That's a great question. So I think that there were hints in the regular season, obviously. But then once he starts getting to the United States of the championship game and not getting to the Super Bowl, that's when it starts. I would say the Tampa Bay, the Tampa Bay won. And then the big one would be Carolina because everyone thought the Eagles should have won that. game and then obviously they made it the next year so everything was fine and they lost that game just some questionable clock management he came by that honestly in a way that i don't think lamar did but even but and you read earned the clock management questions think about that

Andy read at however old and after however many games can get his playoff monkey op is back or whatever and like everybody's out here with lamar it's just very silly we don't need to dwell on it but it was She's very silly. We can dwell on it, but there's a lot to get to with the Ravens. Yeah. I think that the story of the game for me was their ability to bottle Derek Henry. And a lot of that is the fact that Clay's Camel and Brandon Williams didn't play that first game. We saw the depth that they had with, you know, Derek Wolf with Pernel McPhee.

I mean, there's a reason I picked this team to win the Super Bowl. When I looked at it on paper at the end season, I said, okay, this is, this is talent. Like 153, this might be the best talent. the league. We're starting to see that a little bit. A lot of that's been interrupted, whether that's the COVID, the injury, or whatever. But I, when I saw today's, this game play out, it made me think a little bit that maybe this could be a dangerous team. I'm really interested to see next week against Buffalo. We'll get to that in a second. The stat from me is that Derek Henry against loaded boxes on Sunday had a 1.8 yard per carry. Last year in the same game,

the one that made everybody question everything about the Ravens, he had 6.5 yards per carry running into loaded boxes. And so when the Ravens were around him, they got him down to the ground. And that was so important. And I think that one thing about the tackling in this game and the physicality in this game is that when I was around the Ravens the week before they played this game last year, and their identity was they were the bullies.

And they liked it. And they liked beating people up. And then they themselves got bullied against Tennessee. And they got out hit and outtuffed and all those things. that we don't talk enough about, but in locker rooms, those guys just talk about it all the time. And I think that there was a toll it took all offseason, where these guys had their identity ripped away from them by Tennessee,

by kind of a badass Tennessee team who not only tackle guys, but on offense break tackles and hit hard as hell on both sides of the ball. And I think that a lot of the emotion of Sunday was them getting that back, because they were the bullies again, and I think they had thought a lot over these past 12 months, about that and about identity and all that stuff with Tennessee. So I think that that's part of the reason this felt a little more emotional, just from having talked to a handful of Ravens and Titans people.

That was even though they got down 10-0 early in this game, which was another thing that was partially a narrative, but also partially something that says something about what they like to do on offense, especially, which gives them a little bit more trouble coming from behind normally, but they were able to do that. Some of that has to do with the Titans defense that, they were playing against last year being a sort of middle of the pack, sometimes opportunistic unit.

This one is just flat out bad. The thing with Henry and how the Ravens were defending, they did a great job. But what stood out to me was that the Titans just didn't adjust to it. And they kept on early downs just running him into a wall. And I don't think Ryan Tannehill was particularly great in this game, certainly. But I don't think that he had the greatest opportunity. because if you look at how they got up 10 to nothing in the first place, they were getting some favorable individual matchups.

They had Brown on Humphrey a lot and were taking advantage of that. Anthony Furkser was getting good matchups on linebackers, especially Patrick Queen. And it seemed like they were going to that and it was working and they were moving the ball. And on those drives where they were passing on early downs, they were so effective. And then I just didn't really understand how as the game went on, they seemed so committed to, okay, first and 10,

we're just going to run Derek Henry into an eight-man box when he was averaging 1.8 yards per carry on those plays. So that was a little bit, the punt is certainly the most inexplicable decision in this game, but that one was second to me. The thing with the Ravens, and by the way, I'm psyched for us that we both got our flexes in here early with me saying that I picture the Browns

and you saying that you picked the Raiders to go to the Super Bowl. I don't get that much of a flex. I'm going to be wrong probably. Your flex was much more effective. All right. That's why I wanted to just throw in a call back to it. But I like it for you. You just flexed.

You just flexed by comparing our flexes and just subtly suggesting that your flex was better. Yeah. Okay. I flex on your flex. I was trying to couch it. I was trying to couch it in being a co-flex. But can I tell you, can I tell you why I like? like, can I tell you I like your alleged flex?

Sure. It's not about, it's not so much about, uh, the Ravens friend defense in this game as it is about Jackson. And I felt like his performance in this was super encouraging because the Ravens had played so well down the stretch since he came off the COVID list and, and, uh, that rescheduled game, um, or after that rescheduled game against the Steelers. and the biggest thing that had happened was that he started being able to take advantage of man defense,

which they were seeing a lot more of this year and had been struggling with earlier in the year, a lot by just taking off and scrambling more effectively and more willingly. And so that 48-yard touchdown scramble that he had to tie the game, I think, was the biggest play of this game. And that to me was just exactly why they've gotten back on track and exactly why I have a lot of confidence in this offense going forward,

which is just that the Titans are, they're in solid man coverage, but Jackson sees it and he has a hole and he takes off, and he's running 20 miles per hour, and Kevin Byard is just not going to not going to be able to do it. And that's the Ravens when they are a catch 22, a math problem for opposing defenses, because they're just not going to be able to match the athleticism. But if they try to counter it by playing zone,

then all of a sudden those tight windows, throws, well, those windows aren't quite so tight anymore. So it gets a lot easier. So this is the Ravens offense that I think has inspired so much confidence in at the beginning of the regular season this year and then last year. And it's really cool to see them playing it. Now, that does not mean that the Titans are a juggernaut defense, certainly. And the Ravens were playing some other bad ones toward the end of the regular season. But I still think that that is something they can carry through. And I think that is more meaningful than the quality of opponent that they're facing on the defensive side is just getting back to what they're so good at. Totally agree.

And Lamar was doing enough in the passing game. He was 12, 15, 412 yards on outbreaking routes according next gen stats. I think that, you know, I want to go back for a second to the Baltimore defense because I think that having Marcus Peters back there and Marlon Humphrey, I'm really intrigued to see how. how they match up against Buffalo because I think that there's going to be I think it's going to be pretty close quite frankly.

And I think that this is going to come down to a handful of plays and it's kind of like we talk about Lamar. It's going to be he gets open and what is the tackle discipline. What is the how disciplined is the defense? The gap discipline. I remember everybody talked about that

with the Tennessee thing last year. I think that this is one of the most intriguing matchups of the season. at any point. And to see Josh Allen against that secondary and how long when they extend plays that the Baltimore defense can hang with them, then obviously the defensive line, which can be nasty in spots,

what the run game looks like. I think that this has the capability to be maybe one of the best playoff games we've seen in a couple years. It's really interesting because both of those offenses are very different, right? The Ravens are more built around the run. The bills are very much built around the past. But one thing that they do have in common is that the quarterback moving is so important. Like the bills, what run game the bills don't have, do have, doesn't really work unless they have

involved in it to some degree. That is when their run game works is when the quarterback is also a threat to run. And schematically, it's completely different with the Ravens. But Lamar's scrambling ability, ability to keep defenses so honest with. how fast he is, that's the key for them. So it's just a very, very, very cool game to think about, say it were five years ago, 10 years ago, like the influx of athletic quarterbacks is just not in the same place that it is now.

This game wouldn't really make sense. We would have a hard time understanding it. So it is if you go 30,000 foot view, it's a very cool thing that we're going to get to watch. It's an aggressively favor the bills. Me too, but only slightly. It's an aggressively 2020 one game when you think of everything that's trended towards this game happening. Two more things.

Number one, are you for or against dancing on the logo? So I was thinking about this. I'm for it. Like I just, anytime you're getting into an argument that's based on like the sanctity of paint on grass, I don't care. And I think pettiness is fun. the only thing that I will say is that I was interrogating my own sort of belief system with this. Like, why do I like this so much? What's wrong with, you know, chivalry and sportsmanship?

And by the way, those players are good sports. It's not evidence of bad sportsmanship that they wanted to have some fun. But here's the thing is that I would love it if there was a team or a player or a group of players or whatever that could find a way to do the other thing, do the sort of, gentlemanly, ah, good game in a way that's as demonstrative as dancing on a logo. Because that's why it's fun, right? Is because the absence of it, we can't make jokes about, we can't think about, we can't sort of prognosticate about and laugh about and think of as part of the story of these teams and this rivalry.

But I would love a player to, I don't know, send out thank you notes. I guess maybe that's a little bit of the old Andrew Lusfing of like thanking defenders for a good hit. but I would like some performative sportsmanship, I think is what I'm saying. The sport you're describing is golf and it's not fun to watch. I think I'm describing tennis, maybe, which is more. I think you're talking a bunch of sports that are significantly less popular than football. And there's probably a reason for that. So I'm okay with it.

I think that these two teams hate each other, which I'm totally okay with. I do think, I don't know what happened. The punt is emblematic of something. I don't know what happened to Mike Frable. He starts out the day telling Diana Rossini he'll fight anybody. He'll fight any coach if that's what it came down to or something like that. He's been doing the, you know, he's kind of a badass. He's kind of been cutting that figure for a long time.

And as a player he certainly was, as a coach, he seemed like it. And then he just, coached a little scared today. I was just a little surprised by that. 21 to 3, Saints over the Bears. Drew Bree is 28 to 39, 265 yards. Two touchdowns. Mitchell Trubisky, the Nickelodeon MVP, the MVP, 19 to 29 for 199 yards. Alvin Kumar in his return, 99 yards and 17 receiving yards.

Pretty much what we expected. Where do we start? The MVP is now on Mitchell Trubisky's Pro Football Reference page. It's listed along where a pro ball would be. It's fantastic. He has made a Pro Bowl, if I'm not mistaken. That was the end of the Pro Bowl

when Mitch Chubesky made it. I forgot about that. I'm an All Pro. Yeah. Yeah. It was a tough one. What a relic. What a time. It was a tough time for the Pro Bowl.

The Pro Bowl took a step back that day. So what did we learn? I mean, for me, I didn't, you know, the Saints allowed nine points in 239 yards, the best defensive performance in history. But like, I don't mean to be. like, flip in here. But if you're not having the best defensive performance in playoff history against the Chicago Bears and Mitch

Chubisky, like that's the red flag. Anything from the Saints that changed your opinion either way? Not really. The Bears have one bootleg that works sometimes. And that's basically the offense. So I'm not. The St. Stevens is really good. But I'm with you in that there's not a lot that they could have done here to shock me or change my opinion of them.

Same thing. offense really. Breeze was pretty good, especially when he was really in his wheelhouse with short passes, passes that got out really quickly. Outbreaking routes, he was particularly effective on all that's pretty standard for him. Under 10 air yards. I was looking at some of that under 10 air yards. Drew Breeze just keeps throwing the same pass over and over again. It's delightful to watch. Literally, it's, it is the, uh, Ben Rathesberger did the JV version of what Drew Brise has done. but the thing is with Drewbies, it's just still working. But the under 10 air yards king of the NFL keeps rolling through the playoffs.

Ben Roslbiger throws the same pass over and over again and that it's a terrible duck that goes to the deep. And it's intercepted. Yeah, they're both doing the same thing over and over again. One of them is a completed pass and one of them is just a tipped pass that goes into a Brown's defender's hands. Speaking of doing the same thing over and over again, can we talk about CJGJ, Florida man? We can't. So he gets Anthony Miller thrown out of the game. This is the second time that's happened.

Matt Nagy said that the bears coached not taking the bait from C.J. Gardner Johnson because he's a quote, a huge instigator. They showed clips this week. And it didn't matter. Gardner Johnson is an elite instigator. I just spilled seltzer on myself on this live show. Just want to clear everybody else on clear everyone. want up on what happened.

My flex is successfully taking a sip of water without spilling it on myself. All right. I'm sticking with my flex. I think this is incredible. And I hope that now I don't want anybody to actually get punched or hurt or anything bad to happen. But I hope he keeps this going forever. And we've already dissected the distinct Florida energy of this behavior.

But this was my favorite part of this game. was just that it happened again. And this is so Michael Thomas also punched him in practice. And I know, again, we already did this in week eight or whenever that was. But the fact that three people have wanted to punch CJ Gardner Johnson at various points this season. Like, I would like to know if that's a record. I just, I would like to know a lot more about that whole situation. I think that instigator in football is harder to do.

Again, probably in hockey. in hockey some of these other sports because I think that like we said with Negi the teams are coached not to take the bait and that a mistake in instigation is like it's 15 yards

in a you know one of 17 games and I think that it's just more a team's more cognizant of not taking the bait and so the fact that he's an effective one is unbelievable to me I really enjoy this he probably has a future on some sort of business speech making circuit.

Well, that, oh, what company would pay for him to come in and instigate things? I think a lot of deal making, I can see, I can see law firms bringing him in. Like, how do you just get someone super riled up? That was always, uh, frankly, I would, if he had a, um, what's that, what's that app or that service where you can take classes? I think you have it. Masterclass? Yeah.

If he had a masterclass on just how to, like, get under people's skin, I would totally take that. I do have a masterclass. I tell you that. Yeah, I think we've talked about it before. We meant to talk about it offline, but we've talked about it. I truly enjoy it. I feel like a more well-rounded person. Early Connor McGregor-

All right. If CJ Gardner Johnson had a class on it, would you do it? No. I don't need to instigate anything. Early Connor McGregor's whole schick was getting people so mad that they were just on tilt when they started fighting and then he would just take advantage of that which i think it's i think there's probably something to that just just getting people on an emotional state and then take advantage of it like it just as far as they start making mistakes they get sloppy they they they

get too aggressive and then you can just do your basic technique all that stuff it's the bill walsh thing right and the score takes care of itself the whole thing is that there's no such thing as rising to the moment there's such thing as playing keeping your head and being normal while everybody else just kind of freaks out in the moment. Kind of like the Regard Kipling poem. Yeah, I'm familiar with it. Just don't lose your head. That's the Saints lesson here.

Okay, so let's talk about the Bears here for a second. There was a report on Sunday morning that from Ian Raffport, I believe, that Trubisky needed a long playoff run to save his, his bear's career. What was left of it? We've gone back and forth on this Trubisky thing. There were some weeks where he was going to get an extension, some weeks where it wasn't. You saw the Bears today.

What do we do? It's a no. He's not with the Bears next year. That feel, everybody needs a fresh start. He will go out the MVP. And I think it's time to leave it at that. I agree with you.

I don't know what the Bears do. Do they try to bring, do they have like a foals in somebody else competition, do they, they try to draft somebody with a mid first round pick? I just don't, I don't understand. The Trubisky thing presented itself, Nora, because it seemed like a good scenario for them to say, oh, Trubisky's good enough. Well, we're going to give him $8 million.

He's going to compete for the job next year. That doesn't seem like it's a possibility. So I just don't know what their plan is right now. It's tough. They're stuck in the, they are the seventh seed in like the most, they're the most, they're the most seven seed of all time. And I don't think they have much of it. I'm out on the seventh seed.

Just after watching this weekend, it was fun to have three games a day, but I'm out on the seven seed. What about the Colts yesterday? Are you offended by that? So I'm split on that because I felt like the Colts, I just thought the Rivers thing looking back on it.

It's not that he lit the world on fire this season or anything. But when they signed him, I just looked at that and went, this is an older quarterback coming off the worst year of his career. That doesn't go in a good direction a lot of the time. So I think the fact that that worked out for them,

their draft worked out, the number of just sort of seismic events with luck and with the Josh McDaniels thing that they've gone through in the last couple of years, I found myself towards the end of the season looking at them as they were trying to squeak into the playoffs. and going, it is actually kind of unbelievable how many big decisions this organization has gotten right.

And the fact that they could have ended up being the third 11 and 5 team in history to miss the playoffs in this year where there's an extra seed, that bugged me because I felt like they deserved it, even though deserve is such a funny word to use in this context. So I liked it in that sense. But then when you really look at them, were the cults a great team?

They were pretty good. Yeah. But I don't think that the quality of product that we had in the wild card round would have been diminished, really, without them, even though I'd rather have the Colts than not, I guess. And certainly you can't have it both ways. But the Bears had no business being in the playoffs. It's not a playoff team. So I'm officially out on the seventh seed. We got the Nickelodeon game.

That's true. I did like the Nickelodeon game. That was really fun. All right. Last thing is going to be a reader question. Kevin doesn't want to admit that he didn't watch the Nickelodeon game because he's a very serious football analyst. I'm not going to flip back and forth between those things. I was already doing that for the ESPN game because I was watching every single one because there was one with like Laura Rutledge and Mina.

And then there was the film room one with Rex Ryan and Teddy Bruske and Kishan Johnson and Booker McBrough on those guys. And then there was the Steve Levy one. And so I was already doing that. I had channel fatigue. And so for the second game, I was like, I'm locked in. I'm just going, I'm going CBS the whole way. I can't do the Nickelodeon thing. It's fine.

You're not a goofy goober. I am, I am a goofy goober. I am. And there's a track record on that, okay? All right. The only thing I cared about on this podcast was making Kevin say, I'm a goofy goober. Before we get to the reader question, because we're moving off from that point extremely quickly.

before we get to the reader question, I want to remind everybody that Ryan Rissau and I did a podcast on Saturday night. If you need a recap of those games, it's on A, the video is going to be on Twitter and on the social media feeds because it was posted live. And it's also going to be in the podcast feed as well. So check out Ryan and I from Saturday.

All right, here's the question. It is so important. So we got this actually from four or five people. And I don't mean to single anybody out, but I think that we have the, we have the question at the, here. It's from a racquetball. What is the best non-sports channel for the NFL to broadcast on next?

Theme graphics and audience specific commentary included. Nora? So I think the traditional or the real answer that follows the rules of the question is HGTV. But I will throw out there that what I would love to see is, you know, how Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper. did that live show that they took on tour. I would like to let those guys give it a whirl. I did not know they had a live show that's on tour. I know that they've done shows together on TV. I didn't know that they took it places.

I think they took it on the road. Wow. Okay. That's interesting. So two-man booth, Cohen and Cooper. That's interesting. I think it would be electric. It would be electric.

But HDTV could do a lot of good sort of branded content with renovating, I think I just can visualize a lot of like the different components of a team are pieces of this house. I think it would be fruitful territory. Okay, so I'm going to I'm going to zag here a little bit. BBC America. And

you just have a bunch of British people. As many British people as you can possibly get. If you want sports people, we can like Gary Lineker, who does a lot of that stuff with soccer, most of the cast of Doctor Who could come. Any of the doctors, I've been binge watching Doctor Who the last couple weeks, would love a couple of the doctors, whether it's Jody Whitaker or anybody else in the past. We get them in the booth.

I just think that the BBC, you know, you could extend it. Maybe some peeky blinders, cast members are in there. Just jam them all in one booth. None of them are going to know what to say so they can all, I mean, listen, we have three and a half hours to kill. there's not going to be a lot of actual commentary. So you can just jam as many people in there. They'll all get, you know, five minutes to talk.

I love this. This is a solid idea. All right. Anything else? I think that's it. This is fun. I also, really my main concern,

and I can't stress enough to people how often this happens when we're doing the show normally. My main concern with the live thing is just that I do usually like laugh so hard that I cry during tapings. And I will say that the goofy goober moment that you tried to move so quickly past, I was very close to shedding a tear. But I think we've gotten through it pretty nicely. We did it. So this has been great.

Thank you for watching, listening, whatever you're doing, listener or viewer. This has been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringar Podcast Network. Next up on the feed, Chris Vernon and Warren Sharp on Tuesday, breaking down all the action.