Wk 17: Stand by your dude!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Point after show with Kyle Mauer, Marshall heslaw and Ian DeWitt. This is the show where the guys. [00:00:07] Speaker B: Attempt to pick the winners of the weekly NFL games along with some healthy. [00:00:10] Speaker A: Debate about current topics. Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Can I put a smile on your face before we even get started today? [00:00:18] Speaker C: It's already there, but you can make it bigger. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Do you guys know Philip Rivers, 44 years old? I'm gonna name you a handful of quarter just people that are no longer in the NFL that are also 44 years old. [00:00:29] Speaker C: I love this. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Troy Paloma, Clinton Portis, Bob Sanders, Andre Johnson, Wes Welker. [00:00:37] Speaker C: Wow. [00:00:37] Speaker A: Peanut Tillman, Albert Haynesworth. [00:00:40] Speaker C: These are names. [00:00:41] Speaker A: How about Ronnie Brown? [00:00:43] Speaker C: All right. [00:00:43] Speaker A: That put a smile on your face, guys. [00:00:45] Speaker C: It does. [00:00:45] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:00:46] Speaker C: Incredible. [00:00:47] Speaker B: The Palomalo one blew me away for a second there. [00:00:50] Speaker A: The hair. [00:00:50] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:00:51] Speaker A: It's been retired for 14 years. [00:00:53] Speaker C: It's wild. What year. [00:00:54] Speaker B: He's been retired for 14 years. That is insane. [00:00:57] Speaker A: It's crazy. [00:00:58] Speaker B: That really show the wear and tear of respective, like, positions. [00:01:03] Speaker C: For sure. [00:01:04] Speaker B: Comparatively. [00:01:05] Speaker C: Totally. [00:01:05] Speaker A: It's quarterback league. Let's hear about a question. [00:01:07] Speaker C: Have you guys seen the Madden download of him of Philip Rivers? [00:01:12] Speaker A: Tell me about it. [00:01:13] Speaker C: You got. Y' all got to look this up because the images of it are hilarious. They really did him dirty, cuz. He's like the chunkiest Michelin man character. It's amazing. He looks so rotund, to be fair. [00:01:25] Speaker B: To be fair. His. [00:01:27] Speaker C: His. [00:01:29] Speaker B: The first time he like walked out and they were like showing videos of him throwing at practice. He did look a little. [00:01:35] Speaker A: They're like, he's got a rib cage on. I'm like, he doesn't have a rib cage. Yeah. But I will say I. I have enjoyed watching him throw because it is. He's always had an unorthodox throwing motion to him, but now it's legit. Just some of them just look like a shot put. [00:01:51] Speaker C: Yeah, it does. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Really intriguing. [00:01:54] Speaker C: It does. It does. But you got to give him credit for how many end up in his receiver's hands. He's doing okay. [00:02:00] Speaker A: That's the word I would say. Okay. They're eight and eight. They had to sub in the other quarterback to do the Hail Mary. [00:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I wouldn't. [00:02:08] Speaker C: They did. I know, I know. [00:02:10] Speaker B: I wouldn't say those losses are necessarily even his fault, though. That's the crazy thing. No, no. [00:02:15] Speaker A: For sure. I agree. [00:02:17] Speaker B: What a fall from grace the Colts have had. [00:02:21] Speaker A: Woof, woof. Woof. Time to tear it down. Or say lady. Or say lady. [00:02:27] Speaker C: Or say I don't remember her name. [00:02:30] Speaker B: Mrs. [00:02:30] Speaker C: I don't know that a lot's known about her. [00:02:32] Speaker A: Just said she's on the sideline with headphones. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Really? [00:02:36] Speaker A: Yeah, she's got the headset. Fans loved it at the beginning of the year when they were winning and now like get out of there. It's like, yo, you shouldn't be on the sideline. You're in beating with the coaches and players. [00:02:46] Speaker B: This is always how it goes with the owners. You either hate them because your team is bad or you're like generally think they're great because your team is winning and you're like, they must clearly be doing something right. [00:02:58] Speaker A: Yep. Self fulfilling prophecy. Am I right my friend? Let's hear you've had the power out lately, Kyle, at your house. [00:03:06] Speaker C: Yeah. How's that been going again? The saga continues. Well the. The last time back in November was after. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:17] Speaker C: We're renaming the show our personal house problem. Homeowner problems. Right. [00:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:21] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. But we lost only for the afternoon, several hours. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Did that inspire your question of the days? [00:03:31] Speaker C: I was putting those in as options. I was trying to be helpful. [00:03:33] Speaker A: I like this option. [00:03:35] Speaker B: I like this option. [00:03:35] Speaker C: Okay. So when I was. I grew up out in the country and we would lose power now and then. It was much more regular. Once I moved. Once I became an adult, bought house in town and started living in the city, a power outage was much less frequent. But growing up we would lose power pretty regularly. And I was wondering if that was ever a part of your guys's life. Any memories of like power outages for a notable enough time that you had to entertain yourself with no power. I mean and what sort of activities you would enjoy. [00:04:10] Speaker B: I've definitely like have experienced power outages for extended period of times. But I mean I grew up in Summit Township which didn't really have that many issues all the time but. But the best is you get some candles and then you're just like sitting around playing card games. [00:04:29] Speaker C: Oh, I like that. [00:04:30] Speaker B: That's always like a. We would always play like euchre or things like that. [00:04:33] Speaker C: Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would do some of that with some of my siblings. Candlelight games. [00:04:39] Speaker A: I just like making forts. [00:04:42] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [00:04:42] Speaker A: Make a good fort. [00:04:43] Speaker C: Oh man, the time. The amount of time I spent as a youth building forts, I'm not sure any other activity would be snow fort guy too. Big time. Snow forts, sports in the woods, in the bedrooms. [00:04:57] Speaker B: The best part about having Kids is you get to relive the fort making. I've had to make multiple, like, big tents for our girls. Okay. [00:05:05] Speaker C: They love it, my kids. I've been disappointed a little bit, frankly. And they're. And they'll build forts. They will. But. But that was like my thing. And so anytime we look around on our new property, I'm like, there would be a great fort. You can build a fort there. And they're like, yeah, dad, we can build forts. But all the time I'm like, why aren't you building a fort? You got a bunk bed. You could turn that into a fort, you know, and they're not. I don't know. They're into other things than I was back in my day. [00:05:33] Speaker A: Building a fort was the thing in a corner. [00:05:35] Speaker C: Yes. [00:05:37] Speaker B: Back in my day, we had to force for food out in them thunderstorms. [00:05:44] Speaker A: Let's get this upbeat mood and let's turn into something more somber. Justin Matson writes in. Will the Lions fan Jared Goff. Jared Goff. Jared Goff next season or will they take him for granted like they did with Matthew Stafford? [00:05:58] Speaker B: So here's the thing. [00:06:01] Speaker C: Are we that fickle? [00:06:02] Speaker B: No. The thing is, I'm not sure where he's getting his reference for lion fandom, if I'm being honest, because a lot of Lions fans have actually defended Jared Goff and actively have been like, he has not been the issue all year. It's been pretty obvious what the major problems are in a lot of ways. You know, obviously last year was one of his statistical best. He still had a good year. He was leading second in a lot of second or third, like top five categories. [00:06:34] Speaker C: He's second in passing yards in the league. That's. [00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And he was second in touchdowns, I'm pretty sure, behind Stafford. I mean, he's up there in a lot of numbers that, you know, you would identify with top tier QBs. Obviously, the game against the Vikings was bad, but it was not all his fault. The two fumbles were bad snaps. Real bad snaps. [00:06:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:59] Speaker B: And not like nothing he could have done. Like one literally went like wide right. How does a snap go wide right when you're under center? It was crazy. Yeah. [00:07:10] Speaker A: You know, I heard Dan Orlowski talk about The Lions rebuild 2.0 of what it should be. [00:07:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:19] Speaker A: And how they need to evolve as a team. I don't think that they're going to be able to move past a golf contract or past him as a player right now. But I. I do think that he is what's holding them back from being the best version of themselves. [00:07:35] Speaker B: I don't agree with that. [00:07:36] Speaker C: I don't agree with that. [00:07:37] Speaker B: I. I wildly disagree with that. [00:07:39] Speaker A: Watch how Ryan Flores manages a defense compared to your team. He. That is the threshold of if a quarterback is good or not. How much respect does Ryan Flores give your team's quarterback? And he had zero for Jared. No. [00:07:53] Speaker B: So they're zero. So here's the thing. You're oversimplifying something That's. You have to look at the broader scope here. That our O line was atrocious that game. It. Some of those issues that Goff had were because he literally had a. A two, like, Viking sandwich going on him multiple times, very rapidly. That's hard for most quarterbacks. The line for the Lions, the O line has been of an Achilles here for heel for that offense all year. [00:08:33] Speaker A: They've been all year. [00:08:35] Speaker B: So I don't like the notion that we're saying that we're pinning the problem. The offensive woes, though, on Jared Goff when he hasn't really. It's the O line, and everybody's known it's the O line. It's been massively, like, every time they try to run up the middle. Glasgow was bad last year, and now you moved him into center, a position he's not great at. And he's already one of our worst starting O linemen. And he was. He's been awful. And then Mahogany was injured and he's been playing mediocre. And then Deckard is 33. He's beaten. He's old. You know, I just think this is an O line problem more than it is a Jared Goff problem. And so I don't really think. I think it's preposterous to say he's holding that team back. I've watched quarterbacks worse than him win a Super Bowl. Much worse than him. No, no, no. You're saying. No, it's not. Because you're saying he's holding the team back. Back from what? He's the guy that actually was the first Lions quarterback to win a playoff game in, like, 30 plus years. Got them to the NFC championship game, then last year got them to the number one seed, which was, like, one of the first times in, like, forever. [00:09:52] Speaker A: Since they've done that smacked. [00:09:54] Speaker C: Okay. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Like, okay, what is the. [00:09:57] Speaker C: That's just outright dumb. [00:09:58] Speaker B: These are lazy. These are lazy. [00:10:00] Speaker C: Bad take. [00:10:00] Speaker B: Bad take. [00:10:01] Speaker A: What does it have to do with the fact that I've seen worse quarterbacks win? That's such a. [00:10:05] Speaker B: You're saying because you're saying that they're holding him back. When I think everybody who has watched a Lions game as religiously as I have, he is not the problem. The O line and the defense are the problem. Specifically how beat up the secondary has been. Those are their absolute glaring issues. [00:10:26] Speaker A: I just see him moving. He moves their team from. I mean, what were they before Jared Goff, when they were awful? They were what, 50%? I moved. He's moved them up to an 88%. That's not going to get you to the Super Bowl. And, and I just don't think. I think that rolling the dice on something different, I would be much more amped to do that with a team that surrounds him. [00:10:46] Speaker B: I just. [00:10:47] Speaker C: The odds are tremendously in the favor of being worse off. Yeah, tremendously, astronomically more in favor of being worse off. [00:10:55] Speaker B: He is a top. [00:10:56] Speaker C: Way more. And this is, this, this is where you can't make the argument that a quarterback is holding you back. Because every franchise wants a great quarterback. Every single one of them yearns for it. They're desperate for it. They'll do everything for it. They'll pay King's ransoms for a decent quarterback. And the Lions have one. And the majority of the teams in the league are starting quarterbacks who are worse, who would be an objective downgrade from Jared Goff. And so for the Lions to be in the privileged position of having one of the better quarterbacks in the league, even if you just limit it to top 10, that is an extraordinarily privileged position to be in and not something you can take lightly. And to say, oh, we have the 8th best quarterback in the league. I wish we had the fifth best. What? [00:11:39] Speaker A: I just don't see Jared Goff making anyone better. Like he, he's a quarterback that everything needs to be great around him, a great coordinator, a defense that gets turnovers, a running game, an offensive line that blocks skill positions. Laporta's healthy. [00:11:55] Speaker C: This is what you get in the NFL. [00:11:57] Speaker B: This is every. This is every. Okay, we can do the same stupid argument with Mahomes. Mahomes looked awful this year. Awful. He had one good player and then his statistical best years. He's actually only gotten worse statistically since some of those super bowl wins. Oh, it's because he lost all of those people you're talking about. You can do this argument with any quarterback. Oh, Brady's not the goat. He was thrown to Randy Moss. He was thrown to Gronk. He had a top tier defense. You could do this all day with like half of these quarterbacks, I just. [00:12:35] Speaker A: Don'T think golf elevates anyone else's play. I don't see that out there. Like when I watch the games, which I watch his games, like I don't see him making good players. Great. [00:12:46] Speaker C: I would disagree with that. I would disagree with that on the, on the argument that I think he is a veteran quarterback. I think he is able to captain a sophisticated offense which could. [00:12:57] Speaker A: Which could. [00:12:57] Speaker C: A lot of quarters starting quarterbacks could not do. They're. The offense that Detroit has been running for years is not simple, is not straightforward. It's not like point and click kind of dumbed down offensive scheme. It's sophisticated and it's complex and there's a lot of intricate strategies involved and he's able to captain that ship effectively and he's an accurate thrower of the football. He can, he's able to hit all parts of the field. So basically for an, from an offensive coordination perspective, the entire playbook is open because of this guy. There are many players starting under center for other teams where the OC looks at glaring limitations and says maybe for this quarterback the center of the field is off limits or the deep shot is off limits or being mobile is off limits or scrambling out or play auction or this or something is off limits because this quarterback can't do it. Jared Goff can do enough of those things that the whole playbook is basically on the table. He's not going to be like escaping and scrambling for incredible amount of yards. Maybe that's a big part of a lot of players games. But you can't be in the position where you have one of the better quarterbacks in the league and wish you had a slightly better one. That's really, that's asking for too much in the NFL. [00:14:13] Speaker B: Yeah, he's also a pretty good decision maker. I was actually just looking at an article. I even. I'm looking at the graph right in front of me. He is in the top four quarterbacks to be having the highest explosive playwright top four. So it's Sam Darnold, Matt Stafford, Josh Allen and then Jared Goff. And he is second in negative play rate percentage, meaning he has less than 4% negative plays. He is one of the most explosives and one of the least negative play rate passers. [00:14:52] Speaker C: What more do you want? [00:14:53] Speaker B: Which means he is very accurate with what he's doing and he's smart with who he's throwing it to. And so you could all like, anybody can argue, you know, like, well, he's got Jameer Gibbs and things like that. These are how football teams operate. It's never just a one man show, as much as people like it to like to believe. Josh Allen's a really good example of what I think you're talking about where you look at Josh Allen and you're thinking. Or Lamar. Very comparable. Where they look like they make the team better, but they are the team you remove. Like Josh. Josh Allen is a prime example of a quarterback who offensively this year is having a down year because he has nobody. There's nobody out there. You give him Stefan Diggs, though, all of a sudden you're singing a different tune. Right. Because that's what he was just a few years ago. [00:15:51] Speaker A: So can I ask one question then I'll. You can put your finishing touch. I won't say anything. I'm legit when I ask in. I'm totally being prisoner of the moment right now. Do you think this team would have an elevated quarterback play having Trevor Lawrence at quarterback this year. [00:16:13] Speaker B: If they had Trevor Lawrence? Yeah, he had a good year. I don't watch enough Jaguars football to be able to speak on Trevor Lawrence outside of like, what the numbers show. I'll be honest. I feel like I can speak on like Jordan Love. I don't. If you really want to talk about a player that I don't personally think. [00:16:34] Speaker A: Oh, I'm not buying the Kool Aid on Jordan Love. [00:16:36] Speaker B: I've never really thought Jordan Love was anything special. I would, hands down take golf over many of the quarterbacks out there. I see. If you're going to throw, like, would you take him over Mahomes? Like, of course not. Like everyone's going to take Mahomes. You know, everybody knows what he's capable of. We've seen it. You're. I'm going to be hard pressed to find maybe five or six guys above him that I would feel comfortable taking. Like Joe Burrow. Would I take Joe Burrow or Jared Goff? Oh, now that's an interesting question. [00:17:12] Speaker A: Now you're gonna say no on that? [00:17:14] Speaker B: I would say they're about the same in man. [00:17:20] Speaker A: Man. [00:17:20] Speaker B: I know. I'm just saying. [00:17:22] Speaker A: I mean, you think I'm getting a hot takeover here? [00:17:24] Speaker B: I would take. [00:17:25] Speaker A: I think that's a hot take. [00:17:26] Speaker B: I would take Stafford over golf, but I don't need. [00:17:30] Speaker A: We don't need you to drop because I feel like you want to a little bit. But. [00:17:33] Speaker B: Well, I'm just saying I just don't like the take that Jared Goff is the reason holding us back when arguably the reasons they have been knocked out of the playoffs the past several years are not his fault. They lost that NFC Championship game because of a Jir Gibbs fumble, because of dropped passes that were on the dime and poor defensive play that gave up 34 points or 31 points in an entire half. [00:18:05] Speaker C: Well, they were going up against one of the better offensive teams in football, too. So it was the biggest challenge it could be given. So you can be forgiven a little bit for a offensive juggernaut running a little bit over that. [00:18:15] Speaker B: And in that NFC Championship game, they were. They went for it probably maybe too many times. I think they. They lived and died by the fourth down on that particular game. And then last year, you know, that defense just completely crumbled, which was like non existent. And obviously it wasn't like a great offensive play either. But people also attributed that to some, like, weird play calling by Ben Johnson trying to get too creative. [00:18:44] Speaker A: And I think G has talked about this on many takes. Ben Johnson wrote in that last playoff appearance he had, yeah, that dude mailed it in if I've ever seen one there. We have a couple other Lions takes here from Tim DeWitt writes in, do the Lions need new coordinators? Do they clean house here? Both coordinators gone. Sayonara. [00:19:04] Speaker B: I've talked to my dad about this. I don't think they're gonna lose Shepherd. I think he's gonna stay. It's hard when your entire secondary is on the ir. I mean, they had at one point their top two safeties and their top two corners were all gone. That's hard for any team to win. [00:19:26] Speaker C: They've had some impressive performances. So it's not hard for Kelvin Shepard to make a case, say, hey, look at what I did with what I had. [00:19:32] Speaker B: He's done enough for people to probably be like, we can probably try one more year. But in the beginning half of the season, I think Johnny Morton definitely, I mean, he had. He literally had the reins taken from him. They. They will find somebody else. You don't take the reins from your offensive coordinator and then come back the next season with the same guy. It's just not going to happen. [00:19:56] Speaker A: I think that they need to scrap that OC and I think they need to go and give the reins. Like, I think Dan Campbell needs to have his hands off and he needs to go be head coach. [00:20:06] Speaker B: I think that's what he wants. [00:20:08] Speaker A: I'm sure he does. [00:20:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:09] Speaker A: But now he needs to go do it like he wants it. Go do it. [00:20:13] Speaker B: The offense did statistically improve when Dan Campbell took over. A lot of people were kind of like mixed bags on whether or not they were better or worse when he did that. A lot of the stats that Johnny Morton racked up were like in like two games where they were blowing people out. [00:20:33] Speaker A: Sure. [00:20:33] Speaker B: So it's like you kind of take those with a grain of salt, you. [00:20:36] Speaker A: Know, I know we're looking at like what the Lions do going forward, but one thing Addison De writes in do they move on from Montgomery? I think that's a huge question to look at David Montgomery. [00:20:46] Speaker B: He barely used him. [00:20:47] Speaker A: The dude who favorited and liked the comment on his Instagram post that the Lions were glazing Jir Gibbs and should give him the ball more and he's liking the comment on his own post. You know, it doesn't really scream somebody that wants to stay as Lion. I mean any he's been somebody who in I just heard an interview with him recently talking about how he's always been an under seen person, whether he was when he was in college he locked himself in the weight room through the summer instead of going home from break. He didn't have a job and he just would go do that. That was his job to like go in at 2 o' clock in the morning and lock himself in the weight room. And has always been the smallest, not the strongest, not the fastest. [00:21:32] Speaker B: It's hard because with Montgomery the his first two seasons he it was a pretty good I'd say the first season it was when they had both of them. He, he was the primary back for most of that and then for sure I would agree then the second year it was definitely a more even split and then obviously this third year it has definitely been more Gibbs favored. I think the plan was probably always to do this if I'm being honest. And I think last year specifically was kind of like ooh, look what we have going on with both of them. You know, it's very rare to have two heavy hitters. [00:22:13] Speaker A: So is Montgomery gone after this year? Is he a free agent? [00:22:16] Speaker B: I don't remember if he's under contract or not, but he is definitely trade bait. [00:22:24] Speaker A: I would agree with that one as well. [00:22:25] Speaker B: I think they could. And if I'm the Lions, I'm thinking Gibbs is my future. I'm not going to pay Montgomery again. I'm not. I'm going to give the money to Gibbs. He's the very he's younger, he's very clearly very explosive. You're going to want him. They're going to put it towards him before Montgomery and if David probably knows. [00:22:44] Speaker C: That, I would think so. [00:22:46] Speaker B: And so he knows. If anything, he's probably going to ask them. I know. [00:22:51] Speaker A: Under contract till the 20, 20, 27. [00:22:54] Speaker B: Okay. So. And I would not be shocked if he is trade bait. Whether they do that in the off season or before the deadline mid season, I wouldn't be shocked. [00:23:08] Speaker A: Wow. Addison also writes in I find Cleveland hilarious. Cleveland beating the Pittsburgh Steelers. Watching Tommy Reese, who's the officer coordinator now for the Browns, scream and punch the table that he is coordinating Shador Sanders during it just reminds me of when he was Notre Dame coordinator. Just punching everything and yelling do your effing job all the time. That's what he is. And I enjoyed watching the Browns beat the Steel. I love watching Aaron Rodgers lose. Come on. [00:23:40] Speaker B: Hello. [00:23:42] Speaker A: But that was just a really weird Steelers game. Talk about needing DK Metcalf. The entire game screamed, I need one wide receiver that can get four inches open somewhere. [00:23:57] Speaker C: Sure. [00:23:58] Speaker A: And he couldn't because of a suspension from punching a fan for calling him by his full name. Allegedly. [00:24:06] Speaker B: There's a lot to that story. Apparently this fan and him got into it when he was with Seattle and he came over with Seattle and apparently there were some words exchanged. [00:24:16] Speaker C: Wow. [00:24:17] Speaker A: How's he remember that? [00:24:20] Speaker B: All I know is they were both major douchebags. Oh, for sure. Because that dude held a press conference. [00:24:31] Speaker A: With this. With this hat on backwards. [00:24:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:33] Speaker C: How does the fan get a press conference? [00:24:35] Speaker B: I probably because DK Backwards. Yeah. People were starting to assume that he said some sort of derogatory comment and he wanted to clear the air that he didn't. [00:24:45] Speaker C: So stupid. [00:24:46] Speaker B: But the problem is, is now he put himself in the spotlight. So now everybody's going back to this original incident, apparently between the two. Apparently the lines were told about this. [00:24:55] Speaker A: Welcome to social media, buddy. [00:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:58] Speaker C: Good grief. [00:24:58] Speaker B: I don't know. No one likes him. And everybody's like. Everybody's like, dk, you shouldn't have hit him. But the dude's a dick either way. [00:25:07] Speaker A: So don't get to hit everybody. That's a dick. Sorry. Adam Silver writes in. No recording today. But our commish writes in. Can you read what our commission wrote in for us today, Kyle? Adam Silver, the one and only commission. [00:25:20] Speaker C: We've got something from Adam Silver. Hot take. I'm with Jerry Rice as he recently came to the defense of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, calling the criticism he faces a crime against football and praising his dedication and resilience. Rice's statement where he expressed his admiration For Purdy's work ethic and leadership, stating that he is one of the greatest quarterbacks in the league has ever seen. Maybe a bit much, but he is on his way. I'm with the 49ers legend in that instead of tearing Purdy down, people should be standing behind him, especially considering his ability to carry the franchise on his shoulders. [00:25:59] Speaker A: Wow. No hashtag. There are, you know, everything okay. [00:26:02] Speaker C: I. It delights me when we get fans like Justin, our Vikings fan, and the Commish, our Niners fan. I'm sure there's other examples writing in standing behind their guy, like, that's great. There's. [00:26:17] Speaker A: There is. That was literally the first. [00:26:21] Speaker C: Yes. We just did that. We just did that on this. I love it. I am delighted about. There are more than enough fans in this world who are going to complain and wish for better. And the grass is greener on the other side. And our guy, he threw an incomplete pass. He sucks. Get him out of here. He's washed. Whatever. He's a bust. I hear a lot of that crap. But for the fans who are willing to go out on a limb and stand behind their guy and say, purdy, I believe in you. J.J. mcCarthy, I believe in you. Jared Goff, I believe in you. We want to keep this guy. Don't get rid of him. Don't try and upgrade to some place, some shiny new thing. [00:26:53] Speaker A: The weird thing. I love that we like, I bet we could probably go 12 weeks ago and find your voice saying, yeah, I don't feel bad for the commission. He needs his time of losing. And they're. They're gonna be in the playoffs, buddy. [00:27:07] Speaker C: Yep. [00:27:08] Speaker A: Like, where did this happen? Like, what. [00:27:14] Speaker C: Help. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:16] Speaker A: Do we. Was this happening this entire time? Was the commission sending these every week? Just. Oh, they just churned a 14 to 12 win. They had a 21 to 18 win. [00:27:26] Speaker C: We kind of wrote them off early in the season. And I wasn't mad. I never. I never want to talk about the Niners. I want to hear from the commish and do that little thing, But I never want to talk about the Niners. And they didn't give us a lot of reason to do so early in the season. They had some bad losses. They had a ton of bad injuries, and it looked like, oh, maybe we don't need to worry about this team. Let's talk about the others. Fine. And then a lot of time passed. I'm sorry. The Niners are still there somehow. This is very impressive. Kyle Shanahan probably should be in the coach of the year conversation quietly. For taking this mess and turning it into a serviceable team that is competing at this stage. [00:28:00] Speaker A: Even. No IUK either. That's the craziest part. [00:28:04] Speaker B: They're even. They control their destiny for the number one seed right now. They just got to win out. That's crazy. That's all they got to do. I. The Niners are. They're a confusing team. [00:28:17] Speaker A: And. [00:28:17] Speaker B: And I think part of that confusion is it's so easy to track a team that's good or bad the more you watch them. And they have not been on primetime. [00:28:27] Speaker A: Like in their west coast team. [00:28:28] Speaker B: Right. So I barely see them play. I've seen a lot of Rams games. I've obviously seen a lot of Lions games. [00:28:35] Speaker A: Jared Goff or Brock Purdy? [00:28:36] Speaker B: Jared, come on. [00:28:38] Speaker A: I'm just checking. Just keeping the polls. [00:28:40] Speaker B: Jared Goff. Okay. [00:28:41] Speaker C: To me, the Niners right now are like the Chiefs of the NFC in that I feel like there are other teams who should feel like we should have. We should have killed them when we had the chance. We let them into the playoffs. We can't let this happen because the Niners just exist to eliminate teams like the packers and Lions from the playoffs. That's what they do. That's what the Niners are in the NFL for, is just to crush our NFC north dreams. And I am furious, actually, that they've been allowed to enter the playoffs when they could have been stopped. And all these NF NFC teams. You dropped the ball. You let the Niners in. Now they're going to crush our dreams. They're probably going to go in the playoffs and knock out the packers again, and I'm going to hate them even more. [00:29:22] Speaker B: To be fair, that's not going to be. Yeah, go ahead. [00:29:25] Speaker C: Still, I'm sick of it, Ian. I'm sick of it. [00:29:28] Speaker B: I mean, you could be sick of it. This is. This is fair. This is totally. [00:29:32] Speaker C: I don't want to watch that again. I've seen this. This is a bad rerun. [00:29:37] Speaker B: Well, they're going to be. [00:29:37] Speaker C: The AFC teams they successfully squashed got the Chiefs out of the playoffs. The Chiefs will not win the super bowl this year. The other teams get to play the playoffs against each other, not worry about the Chiefs. [00:29:46] Speaker B: Here's the good news for you. The packers won't play the Packers. [00:29:51] Speaker C: How do you know that? [00:29:53] Speaker B: Because whoever wins the NFC west is going to be the number one seed. That's pretty much how that's going to roll. And so then the packers would play the number two seed because they are Locked in at seven. And that's going to be either the Eagles or the Bears. [00:30:08] Speaker C: Packers could maybe be one of those two teams. [00:30:12] Speaker B: Okay, shut up. [00:30:14] Speaker C: Shut up. [00:30:16] Speaker B: Here they are the definition of a team limping into the playoffs right now. They look so bad. [00:30:23] Speaker C: I know. I hate. [00:30:24] Speaker A: Did not look good against Baltimore. I think that was part of the reason why Cleveland was so funny that Baltimore is rooting for Cleveland to beat Pittsburgh. Baltimore beats Green Bay, keeps their playoff hopes alive. And now next week, winner take all. Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Winner take all. And Carolina, Tampa, another winner. [00:30:47] Speaker C: I love that we've got two, folks, where the winner is in and the loser is out and the winner gets. [00:30:53] Speaker B: To get in and get immediately knocked out. [00:30:55] Speaker C: But you still got there. You still got there. Are we going to see the Ravens in the playoffs or the Steelers? Are we going to see the Panthers or the Buccaneers? Wow, this is interesting. [00:31:04] Speaker A: America's team Carolina. [00:31:06] Speaker B: If the Ravens make it in, is Lamar going to be back by then? [00:31:10] Speaker A: I. I just saw a report that he was just out for this week. And they're reevaluating. [00:31:14] Speaker C: Right. [00:31:15] Speaker A: There's a back. [00:31:16] Speaker C: Like a back issue, I think. [00:31:17] Speaker A: Yep. [00:31:18] Speaker C: Yep. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Our last, by the way, commission. Thank you. That the question this week came from me. I reached out to the commission. Normally it comes from Kyle. [00:31:27] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [00:31:27] Speaker B: Off the record. Yeah. And the reason why we don't have the commission report recording is because they are playing right now against the Bears. [00:31:36] Speaker A: For those of us, those of our listeners that listen to the show while we're recording and then they're watching the show, what time is left in the Sunday Night Football? They can sink their game up. Just so we're in the same. [00:31:48] Speaker B: They are in the first quarter. Niners look like they just scored. [00:31:52] Speaker A: How much time is 4? [00:31:54] Speaker B: 52? [00:31:54] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:31:55] Speaker B: Perfect. [00:31:55] Speaker A: Sink your watches up, people. Our last question comes in from Jamie Hessel, and it's what's your favorite football number and what player do you associate with that number? There's something about a good 88 just looks good on the back of a number. [00:32:09] Speaker C: Right. [00:32:11] Speaker A: Love a good OJ I do love Ocho Sink. I do like an Ocho Cinco because, I mean, it's literally I'm saying the numbers. [00:32:18] Speaker C: Right. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Right. But 88 just looks like the shapes should be a bigger person. But then it's Michael Irvin. [00:32:27] Speaker B: I'm partial to 81. [00:32:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:31] Speaker B: It's a good number. I see a lot of Calvin Johnson. [00:32:35] Speaker A: Oh, him too. [00:32:36] Speaker B: A lot of good, like receivers generally are in the 80 range. [00:32:40] Speaker C: Right. The classics that we grew up with. [00:32:42] Speaker A: It's weird that now is like a one. [00:32:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Ones and zeros. [00:32:47] Speaker C: Yeah. When we were growing up wide receivers. Yeah. Back in my day. [00:32:51] Speaker A: So I don't know what about a 44 running back? [00:32:54] Speaker C: I'm a Raz. 14. [00:32:55] Speaker A: 44. There's a running back for Cleveland. That's 44. [00:32:58] Speaker C: Oh, that's good. [00:32:58] Speaker B: That's Skettaboo too, isn't it? [00:33:00] Speaker A: He's 34. [00:33:01] Speaker B: Oh, are you sure? [00:33:02] Speaker A: I think 44 is pretty sick. Something about, like, toe in the rock, shoulder pads. [00:33:08] Speaker B: Little Lewis Hamilton right there. [00:33:11] Speaker A: Whoa. I watched F1. [00:33:13] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:33:15] Speaker C: Did you? [00:33:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:17] Speaker C: Okay. I like some of those big numbers. [00:33:19] Speaker A: It was pretty awesome. [00:33:20] Speaker C: Okay. [00:33:22] Speaker A: That would be my favorite number is 88. Just phonetically, just to like, look at the shape of it. But I always think when I think of a football jersey, I think of Mike Vic. Seven. [00:33:30] Speaker C: Okay. [00:33:31] Speaker B: Seven. [00:33:31] Speaker A: The number I think of, the first. [00:33:33] Speaker B: Number I immediately thought of was 12. [00:33:36] Speaker A: Brady. [00:33:37] Speaker B: Brady Rogers. Those are like. I feel like I've seen that number a lot. 81 I also like. Because then it's also 18. Peyton Manning. [00:33:46] Speaker C: Oh, sure. [00:33:48] Speaker B: 20. I like a good eight. LT20. Barry. [00:33:55] Speaker C: There you go. [00:33:55] Speaker A: Can now this go ahead. This segment upcoming is not actually mine. It's. It's yours. But I have a couple things I wanted to. I wanted to bring up a question that wasn't on here. It's just a personal. Like, if I wasn't. I'm been under the weather guys. Influenza V and influenza B. Actually, it didn't create a new one. I was gonna write this question and then steal it I found online if I couldn't record tonight. So this year, the greatest wide receiver in NFL is jsn. Okay. A wide receiver. Which wide receiver will take a leap in the stardom in their next year in the second or third round? And some of those wide receivers that people are mentioning to make that next big step that JSN has done this year, I'm going to give you, between these four, choice. I just want you to pick Chris Alave. Drake London Malik Neighbors. Garrett Wilson. [00:34:55] Speaker C: Oh, interesting. [00:34:57] Speaker A: Honorable mentions. Ted McMillan. Romeo and Duze. And Marvin Harrison Jr. A Mecca. [00:35:09] Speaker B: A Buka would be the one that I would probably go with. [00:35:12] Speaker C: I feel like a Buka. And. And the first one you said. No, no, no, no. Of the new class of the jet McMillan. [00:35:21] Speaker B: No. [00:35:21] Speaker C: Yeah. I feel like those have already made their ascension. They're. They're wide receiver ones. [00:35:29] Speaker A: I'm not saying being a wide receiver one. I'm saying the wide receiver one. Jsn is the number one statistical wide receiver in the NFL right now. [00:35:36] Speaker B: Yeah. He's talking like a Jabar chase. [00:35:38] Speaker C: That's a great. That's a great leap. But for like a TMAC to go. [00:35:41] Speaker A: From that to the next level, that's what I'm talking about. [00:35:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:35:45] Speaker C: I suppose. [00:35:46] Speaker A: Who would. [00:35:46] Speaker C: That. [00:35:46] Speaker A: Who would be. Of those picks that I just gave you, who would you feel like is the most likely to make that step? [00:35:52] Speaker B: Depends on what team is neighbors on. Is he a giant? [00:35:55] Speaker C: He's a giant. [00:35:56] Speaker A: Giant. I I next year, new coach. [00:35:58] Speaker C: I could see them with a new coach having some competent play. [00:36:02] Speaker B: Dart has shown some big splashes and they're going to have scatter. [00:36:07] Speaker A: Boom. [00:36:08] Speaker C: Neighbors pick. [00:36:09] Speaker B: That would be probably my first. [00:36:10] Speaker C: Did Crystal have a move? [00:36:11] Speaker A: Nope. [00:36:12] Speaker B: He's still the Saints. [00:36:13] Speaker A: Still great, too. [00:36:14] Speaker C: He was. Guys. I thought he was a great trade somehow. [00:36:17] Speaker A: He's still getting open. [00:36:18] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. [00:36:20] Speaker B: Is this the first year that Mike Evans isn't going to hit his 1000 first year. [00:36:25] Speaker A: It's crazy. [00:36:26] Speaker B: Bummer, dude. [00:36:27] Speaker C: I know. [00:36:27] Speaker A: So our next segment before we get to. I want to also say Max Crosby. [00:36:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:34] Speaker A: Dude. Stormed out of the facility after being shut down for the rest of the season. Obviously there's a disagreement in his physicals of whether he should or should not be playing. I'm not sure about contract incentives and things like that, but I'm just going to throw it out there. I'm sick of teams. I. Sorry. This is the first time in a while I'm going to go probe team instead of pro player, and that's very not like me. I am very sick of players choosing the money and then having situations like this come up. [00:37:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:37:08] Speaker A: I'm. I'm sick of it. You took the money. You didn't want to take a discount and. And go to another team that's competing. You signed up. This is what happens. Miles Garrett, do not come to the sideline screaming when. When the Browns don't do right by you in the off season when you. [00:37:26] Speaker C: Could have left, what did you think was gonna happen? [00:37:29] Speaker B: These are notorious. [00:37:30] Speaker A: That drove me bonkers, and I hate seeing all these. [00:37:33] Speaker C: Oh, well. [00:37:34] Speaker A: People like sketching him on, like, a Carolina Panthers uniform. Like, oh, we got our edge rusher. We have our future. Micah Parsons. Like, no, stop, Stop. [00:37:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:37:46] Speaker A: And I just. Yeah, I was over it. [00:37:49] Speaker C: Okay. [00:37:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I agree. I do think it's like you're trying to have your cake and eat it, too, but you're doing this at an organization that has been butts for A long time. [00:38:03] Speaker C: The Raiders plan going into this season was very clearly flawed. [00:38:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:09] Speaker C: And. [00:38:12] Speaker B: He'S shut down any sort of trade rumor with any team because he's like, no, no, I'm gonna stay Raider for life. And it's like, okay, well, then don't be complaining when you're your team. [00:38:22] Speaker A: I was over it. I just needed to get that out. [00:38:24] Speaker B: Maybe that's going to be the. The thing that pushes him, though, and is like, I don't want to be a part of this team anymore. But that would be silly because you've tolerated. Yeah, you've tolerated this team up to this point. It's not like they're very impressive. Not like they're going to be. [00:38:39] Speaker A: You've been eating crappy jello pudding your entire life. [00:38:43] Speaker B: You probably going to have a new head coach next year. [00:38:46] Speaker A: Why you complain about jello pudding now? All right, our weekly segment comes from Ian. We're going to talk a little Coaches. [00:38:51] Speaker B: Of the Year, speaking of the year. [00:38:53] Speaker A: Sorry, not coaches. [00:38:54] Speaker B: Coach, coach. So I initially was thinking about doing a little, you know, go through and like, let's go through the awards. Let's pick our mvp, pick offensive player, things like that. But then I was kind of looking at it. I'm like, there's. Some of these are pretty easy picks. They're not really going to be much to debate, like, who's going to be the mvp? [00:39:14] Speaker A: Jared Goff? [00:39:16] Speaker B: Matt Stafford's most likely going to be the mvp. Right. So, like, those are not a lot of conversation. But when I was looking at Coach of the Year, this is the first year in a while where I feel like there is a legitimate debate. There's been years where there's like, oh, yeah, you could have, you know, this person has a good, good argument, but they're going to give it to this guy. Everybody knows they're going to give it to this guy. And I feel like this year there's. I could think of five head coaches that are all deserving of the Coach of the year pick. Now, here's the thing that people need to understand when it comes to Coach of the Year, they don't always give it to the Coach of the Year. They give it to the coach that is overperformed. [00:40:02] Speaker C: True. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:40:03] Speaker B: Because quite frankly, Andy Reid and Bill Belichick, probably in their prime, should have had way more recognition for this. But their expectations were way too high, and they were always meeting those things. Like, they were always doing the expected thing. They were winning Super Bowls. So it generally doesn't go to a Super bowl coach, but it will go to the teams that generally have a coach that is overperforming. And so there are five coaches that I, I feel like are pretty good candidates and have a good case. Liam Cohen, Mike with. So I'll say the team names too, in case people are unaware. Liam Cohen for the Jags, Mike Vrabel for the Patriots, Ben Johnson for the Bears, Mike McDonald for their Seattle and Sean Payton for the Broncos. Now what I'm going to do or what we're going to do is we are going to each take one of these players. Coaches, sorry. And we're going to debate or come up with a debate of why that person should be coach of the year. Now, there's only three of us and I have five here, so I'm going to eliminate two right out of the gate. [00:41:22] Speaker A: Get him out of here. [00:41:24] Speaker B: Sean Payton's out. Gone. Only because he's not a first year head coach. He's got tons of experience. The Broncos were, you know, decent last year. They have clearly taken a step up this year. I don't think anybody's denying that, but I just, I don't think he's really going to be in the conversation because I think he is. He has his team performing at a level that is conducive to Sean Payton's level of success that he's had previously. And then I am going to take out, maybe surprisingly, Mike McDonald from Seattle. Biggest reason is he's not a first year head coach. This is what his second year or third second year. And while what he is doing is impressive with Seattle, I mean he still has the opportunity. He controls the number one seed and could win his division. Seattle was actually not half bad last year with Geno Smith and so I think a lot of people are maybe attributing a lot of their success to Sam Darnold right now, which is fair. So I'm going to take him out. The three remaining would be Liam Cohen, Mike Vrabel and Ben Johnson. They are all first year coaches at their respective teams. Obviously Mike Vrabel is not a rookie in this position, but I do believe he's the betting odds favorite. [00:42:49] Speaker A: I have been told you are correct. [00:42:51] Speaker B: So we have to have him in the conversation. And then obviously Liam Cohen and Ben Johnson are rookie head coaches and they are having quite a lot of success. So Marshall is going to argue for Liam Cohen. Kyle is going to take Vrabel and I'm going to take my former offensive coordinator of Ben Johnson. We're going to take a brief Pause. But when I snap my fingers, we're going to be back in a jiffy. You're not even going to know that we were even gone. [00:43:23] Speaker C: Wow. [00:43:25] Speaker B: And we're. We're there. We're ready to go. I. I tried to do the snap on time for you listeners, for you guys watching the pod right now. We're back. We did a little bit of a hiatus. [00:43:38] Speaker C: It is now December 31st. [00:43:41] Speaker B: All right, we're gonna talk. We're gonna go through. You guys already know. We just. For you, we just outlined everything, so we're just gonna get right into it. [00:43:48] Speaker A: Liam Cohen is coach of the year. Guys, it's not even close. He had the second overall draft pick last year. He came into the press conference and went duvall. The bar was set low. [00:44:01] Speaker B: Okay. [00:44:01] Speaker A: They. They don't even have their second overall draft pick. [00:44:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:04] Speaker A: Travis Hunter isn't even there. [00:44:06] Speaker C: That's cool. [00:44:06] Speaker A: And he has taken an elevated. Not just his team, specifically his quarterback. [00:44:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:13] Speaker A: I think majority of the time quarterback and coach of the year. Coach of the year usually gets taken to the team that we don't have an explanation for. I don't have an explanation for the Jacks because they are spread throughout. I couldn't name you a player on their defense, could you? Could any of you? [00:44:31] Speaker B: Travis Hunter. [00:44:32] Speaker A: He's injured. [00:44:33] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, I got nothing. Oh, wait, no. [00:44:35] Speaker C: Oh, the number one. Trayvon Walker. [00:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah, he was the guy that. [00:44:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:39] Speaker A: All right. How about it? I'll tell you. To me, looking at what the Jags did in that division that last year, and I think for probably the last few years, everyone has just said CJ Stroud and them have it locked down. It's over. Sure. [00:44:52] Speaker C: Yeah. Right. [00:44:53] Speaker A: And they still have. I mean, Texas still have a really good defense, and Stroud was injured on and off throughout the year. So I know they had that going for them. But to go from the second overall draft pick to this, that's huge. That is huge. And I look at it and say they have not only elevated as a quarterback, but they've changed culture around there. They've had sustainable wins. They just. They haven't just beat a crappy. A bunch of crappy teams like the Patriots have. Sorry, Kyle. But they have the easiest schedule in the NFL. And to look at it and say they just beat up on really bad teams. And then when they play the Bills, they're only good team of recent memory, they lose to them. The Jags are pretty consistently winning games in a Met in the same method against the Broncos as they are against the Colts as they are against the Texans. So I see that as a team, they're winning without being a super team. And yeah, that's why I think Liam Cohn will be Duvall's coach of the year. [00:45:59] Speaker B: I'll go next. Ben Johnson, look, he just won the NFC north as a first year head coach, it's pretty impressive to do and what a lot of people were considering going to be one of the tougher divisions to do that in. They had strength of schedule, one of the top five hardest schedules of the entire year, and they have some pretty impressive wins within that mix. So just for, just for reference of some of like the primary teams that they won against that I think is relevant to note. They started the year off rough. I will say it was not a smooth start, but different from years past with the Bears is that they finished strong and they beat the packers to kind of close down the division. Like really get a hold on there. I will say a surprise win against the Eagles. I was really surprised. That was probably their first win where I was like, oh, you're like not a joke. You're not like just coasting on getting some easy wins because I had put them as like, you're just getting some easy wins against some of these bottom feeder teams. Oh, no, you beat a pretty good defense and actually down the stretch they've played really well against some top tier defenses. Packers and Eagles both have really good defenses and they, you wouldn't have known that when they were playing those games. And so I thought that was, you know, pretty impressive. And yeah, I just think they got, they beat Pittsburgh, but Pittsburgh's kind of like, you know me. Yeah, they're kind of mid, but I. [00:47:51] Speaker A: Mean, you know, they're the definition of mid. [00:47:53] Speaker B: They're out of these, out of these three teams, the Bears did have the hardest schedule and I do think that does show as a result, they're playing pretty well down the stretch here. I really like what they've done. This is like Caleb Williams first time getting over 3,000 passing yards or something like this. [00:48:14] Speaker A: It's got to be like a crazy Bear stat, isn't it? Of like there hasn't been a Bears quarterback that's thrown over 3,000 yards too. Isn't that it? [00:48:22] Speaker B: It was like 4,000, I think. Okay, okay. [00:48:25] Speaker A: I'm like. [00:48:25] Speaker B: Which I don't think he's gonna get there yet. [00:48:30] Speaker A: Let's hear about Braves. [00:48:31] Speaker B: All right, well, just closing with with Ben Johnson. He did take his shirt off and got a bunch of people some Free hot dogs. [00:48:38] Speaker A: Free hot dogs that shook off or something that does. [00:48:42] Speaker C: It's not nothing. [00:48:43] Speaker B: Yeah, they got the Pope. [00:48:45] Speaker C: So I think one of the interesting, like, underappreciated things when teams get a new OC is there's always, like, the looking for the flashy passing game impact for, like, coming to fix a quarterback or something. When I think in reality, like, in a lot of cases, it plays out where a very effective OC change starts with a innovative and newly functional run game. And Ben Johnson has done that because the Bears did not have an effective run game for a lot of time. Yeah, he's done a pretty good job setting them up with one of the better run games in the league. It's just guys, it's. It's forgotten. We see the new OC and we expect, like, the passing game to improve. Kind of forget that good ocs have good, effective, high leverage run games. [00:49:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:49:29] Speaker C: Anyway, for. [00:49:30] Speaker B: He put a lot into their O line, too. [00:49:33] Speaker C: Yeah. And that pays off because that, like, translates to, like, a lot more space for the. For the passing game. When it comes to variable, I think there's this really strong case to be made, and I like the arguments that both of you are making. This is an interesting competition. Even we could. We could go on with the other guys. But as far as Rabel goes, as. As reluctant as I am to, like, sing the praises of a Buckeye, that was a really, really long time ago. But Braves is, I think, a unique and interesting character in his. His history as a. As a head coach. I want to give him points for being the one that we want to hear Ian pronounce all the time. The last name Rabel. Yeah, he's special. He's special for that. Like, we want his name to come up more. Did you guys know that he got in trouble for stealing beer at a casino in 2011? Yeah, it was like a class D felony because he stole some beer. But, yeah, he's moved on to better things. He's a. He's already won this award once. So, I mean, you know, voters. Voters kind of like him, but I think if they don't want to vote for him, that's. That's. That's fair. That's fair. I would. I would respect that. The Pats have gone through multiple coaches recently, so this is. This is in contrast to some of the other options. They're not replacing somebody who finally was shown the door, like, two straight years. The Patriots, under two different coaches, finished with the same record, 4 and 13. So Belichick and Gerard Mayo both finished with a 4 and 13 record and not radically overhauled rosters. You know, we had the same quarterback last year. We had a generally fairly similar roster. Like there were no splashy trades, there were no huge free agent signings. I mean we've got some players, we've got some role players for sure who have made a difference. So you could credit some GM moves but it's not like there's you know, some standout player. They don't have a Booka or they don't have tmac. They don't have like some kind of high impact offensive contributor or defensive contributor that you know, they drafted. That's making the difference question because I. [00:51:58] Speaker B: Don'T want to interrupt because I'm not totally disagreeing, but where would you put. [00:52:01] Speaker C: Stefan Diggs in there as a very productive role player? Impressive to be making the impact that he still has at this age. I don't think he's not carrying a team, but it was, I think it was a good signing. The kind of difference maker. But most teams across the league have made moves in that of that stature. So when you look at the history preceding this two different coaches, similar scenario, same exact outcome, 4 and 13 record, then you change mainly one variable. One variable. [00:52:37] Speaker A: There it is. [00:52:39] Speaker B: I'm so proud of you. [00:52:40] Speaker C: I wanted to try, I had to try it. [00:52:42] Speaker A: I didn't want you Coach of the year variable. [00:52:45] Speaker B: We don't got anything. [00:52:47] Speaker C: Okay, you change that one thing. It's really the best example of these three of like one significant change with a very marked difference. And the difference is striking the this team ranked 30th and 22nd in points per game last season respectively for offense and defense. And this year they're fifth and sixth in offensive defense like both sides of the ball have leaped dramatically. You could credit a lot of the quarterbacks growth to the offensive side, but both sides of the ball have moved up considerably. The run game is working, the pass game is working, the defensive working all around, all of it. That when that is the scenario credit goes largely to the one steering the ship and that's the head coach. So when I see like every measurable improving across the board, going from one of the worst in the league to one of the best in the league, both sides of the ball, you can't credit just an OC or a single player head coach should get a lot of that shining credit. When I see two preceding coaches, including one of the all time greats, getting the same result multiple years in a row and then changing just the Head coach to get suddenly a 12 going on 13 win season. Lot of credit going straight to that coach. And one of the key things, the Delta in record from last year to this year is going to be greatest for Radel compared to the other two. So when they go on and they beat the Dolphins next week, they're going to have a nine game. [00:54:26] Speaker A: Are you sure about that? [00:54:28] Speaker B: Dolphins are on a hot streak. [00:54:29] Speaker C: Dolphins are on hot streak. [00:54:30] Speaker B: Quinn Ewers, but actually Quinn yours not half bad today. [00:54:36] Speaker C: That's cute. [00:54:37] Speaker B: Mike McDaniels has saved his job. Maybe he should be coach of the year because no one has done more to prove that they can still coach. What are we doing? [00:54:46] Speaker C: That's what I kind of want to keep him around. I don't want to see him go. [00:54:49] Speaker B: I do like him. [00:54:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Although I mean the head coach market right now in the off season doesn't look that that exciting. So for the teams in need of a new head coach. I don't know where you're going with this, but anyway, that's a discussion for another pod. Maybe the next episode actually would be interesting to talk about. The coaching carousel is there probably after. [00:55:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it'll probably start. [00:55:08] Speaker C: What? Red Monday. Is that it? [00:55:10] Speaker B: Black Monday. [00:55:10] Speaker C: Black Monday. That's what we call it. [00:55:15] Speaker A: Red Monday. [00:55:16] Speaker B: I could Red wedding here, right? [00:55:18] Speaker C: Yeah, it's black. Okay. It's black. Whatever. Black Monday's coming up. Noir a week from tomorrow and we find out which coaches got the sack, which would be maybe a follow up discussion to this. The greatest delta between last year's record and this is going to be the New England Patriots who are going to have a nine game difference going from 4 and 13 to 13 and 4 if they successfully win next week. [00:55:44] Speaker A: Crazy. [00:55:44] Speaker C: The Liam Cohen's team, the Jaguars are going to have an eight game difference, most likely finishing from like 4 and 13 to 12 and 4, I think. And then the Bears are going to have a likely seven game difference going from like 5 and 12 to 12 and 5. Is that right? So the greatest difference between last year and this year. Credit Patriots. And I think that Ian predicting that they would make the playoffs in the off season was a certified hot take. And I liked it. [00:56:18] Speaker B: I've been living on that. I feel like I want to go back and listen to exactly what I said because I do think I remember saying they're going to get in because they're going to have a real easy schedule. No, please don't. No. [00:56:32] Speaker A: I did find a tweet this weekend that came from John Francella. Who is one of the NFL insiders for espn, he said, and I want you guys to hear this so you can really, because I think this relates to coach of the year and this is after the Lions loss. So put this into perspective in terms of what's going on in the world in sports, I'm a believer in you get punished for bad management in the long run. The Tampa Bay Bucks, they should have fired Todd Bowles and promoted Liam Cohen to head coach. The Lions, they probably should have made Dan Campbell team president and promoted Ben Johnson to head coach. Baltimore Ravens probably should have fired John Harbaugh and promoted Mike McDonald to head coach. You cannot let the only good, young, smart coach get away from you. Bucks also let Dave Canales go to their division rival. Now the Panthers have bypassed them in the division. Ravens have fallen off. Things have gotten way too stale with Harbaugh. The Lions have fallen off. You have to be proactive in management, not reactive. What's your take on that? [00:57:39] Speaker B: My only issue is some of this is hinged on very like the sample size, I guess, a little bit. For me, we got one year with some of these guys. We have no idea how the long term is going to go. Matt Nagy is a great example of this. His, I think his first year as a head coach won the NFC north for the Bears and then predominantly got bumped out. And then we all know how that ended up terrible. [00:58:09] Speaker A: People are saying him for the Tennessee Titans coach job. [00:58:13] Speaker B: I don't even know why he's the offensive coordinator for the Chiefs. Right? Please. [00:58:18] Speaker C: What? [00:58:19] Speaker B: Tell me. Tell me what? Which is hilarious because you're the offensive coordinator for a team where it's pretty well known that the head coach is the one doing that job. And on top of that, the, if he is involved, that offense got worse over the last like the two years that Matt Nagy has been there. If Matt Nagy gets hired as a head coach, that's a crime against humanity as far as I'm concerned. That's awful. So I, I, I get the idea of like you want to keep all of this. I just, that's not how it will ever work, though. It's not a realistic thing. You're never going to take a head coach and be like, oh, wow, man, you're great. We're going to promote you to the president like that. I don't know if that translates the roles that they fill. [00:59:07] Speaker A: You've made the same comp though, about how the Tomlin, they should move past Tomlin because they're. But I Didn't say around, but I. [00:59:15] Speaker B: Didn'T say promote Tomlin. I said get rid of him. [00:59:19] Speaker A: It could be the same reason you could take Dan Campbell and say maybe the same reason that I'm saying earlier about golf getting you to an 88% is if you're happy with 88%, is that going to lead you to The Super Bowl 100? [00:59:32] Speaker B: I don't know. I just feel like he's making these. This case based on a pretty small sample size, that's fair. If we. If this was like, two years down the road and we find out, like, oh, yeah, Ben Johnson just keeps winning. Okay, fine. [00:59:49] Speaker A: So who do you think really will be coach of the year? And it's your segment. Who's your pick? Who won? [00:59:53] Speaker B: I. I feel like Johnson should probably win. I feel like his task, that was. I, I do hate it because. But I feel like he should win because of the. What he did against some of the teams that he had to play. I think is pretty impressive in what was considered a pretty tough division. But I don't know if I could pick a winner. This is why I did this, because I, I legitimately Variable might be the betting favorite, but I don't actually think Variable's gonna get it. I think it. I. Yeah, I'll think. I think it's gonna be Ben Johnson. [01:00:34] Speaker A: There we go. How about our picks this week? We're not going to talk fantasy. We're gonna wait till next week because that game is still, still going on, Kyle, and it's not over yet. [01:00:43] Speaker C: It's over. [01:00:44] Speaker A: Don't do that. I hate when you do that. You're doing this whole reverse jinx. I hate it. [01:00:49] Speaker B: I'm gonna get fourth place, so. [01:00:52] Speaker C: Oh, dang. Rick's gonna beat you. [01:00:53] Speaker B: Oh, my team is ferocious right now. [01:00:56] Speaker A: I would have said my place. [01:00:57] Speaker B: I was. I was falling off pretty hard down the stretch. I was really falling off. I. I was really having some issues. Part of it is because Devonte Adams got injured, and he was a major point getter for me. Josh Jacobs had been kind of waffling on the injury report, and so he's getting. Getting less touches along. Blake Corum was getting more touches than Kyren Williams. Yeah, I was. [01:01:27] Speaker A: Me and Kyle right now are in the fantasy championship, and I have Bijan and the Rams defense, and Kyle has Stafford and Drake London, and He's currently down 48 points. 38 points. [01:01:42] Speaker C: I'm sorry, you want to make a trade, Ian or something? [01:01:45] Speaker B: It's too late. [01:01:48] Speaker A: But instead, our picks. Let's talk about something good. Let's end our show right here on something good. Ian is going to win the pick them, we think. [01:01:56] Speaker C: Where's the applause? This is great. [01:01:58] Speaker B: It's the first time. It's the first time for everyone. Five years. I really locked in this year. [01:02:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I knew. I knew there was a chance. [01:02:10] Speaker B: No, I believed in you. The biggest difference is this is the first time where about halfway through I was still reasonably in it or leaving at some point. [01:02:21] Speaker A: You just gave up at a couple years. [01:02:22] Speaker B: You're like. Some of those years I was down like 5 to 10 picks with like 5 weeks left. And so to try to make a splash, I would do some unconventional picks because it's like I'm going to. I got nothing to lose. [01:02:39] Speaker C: Throw in some Hail Marys. [01:02:40] Speaker A: Right. [01:02:40] Speaker B: That's really all I was comparatively to this year. I didn't really have to do that and I hit a lot more on my upsets. [01:02:47] Speaker C: Those are. Those are the. [01:02:48] Speaker A: We're excited to hear Kyle's breakdown of the spreadsheet that we do every year. [01:02:53] Speaker C: Now that we've had some difference. Like, I'm really curious to see what the outcome is. I want to try and analyze and see. See if your strategy changed at all this year. [01:03:00] Speaker B: I don't know if it did because. [01:03:01] Speaker C: We'Ve got all these years of data and see like, did Ian approach this differently? [01:03:05] Speaker B: I'm excited. [01:03:06] Speaker A: Better at picking the Dolphins. I've always been bad at picking. [01:03:11] Speaker B: Now caveat on our picks this week is we are reserving the right to change things around till Thursday only because a lot of teams are going to announce if certain people are not going to be starting, which is going to kind of change the dynamic of some of these matchups. There's only two games this weekend that actually have any real meaningful. You're in or out. So the AFC north and the NFC South. [01:03:38] Speaker A: I believe it's going to be a fun weekend, but there's a lot of. [01:03:42] Speaker B: Divisional champ games that are still up for grabs. [01:03:46] Speaker A: The game that I guarantee it's a lock will win, the Lions are going to lose to the Bears. I put that as a lock during when I realized that Ben Johnson is going to be coaching for his coach of the year against Dan Campbell and they ran it up against him and he's going to run it up against them. [01:04:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:05] Speaker A: So I'm going to say 42 points. 42 points. At least 42 points they'll put up. [01:04:13] Speaker B: Don't. Don't shirk the Lions on this too much. They have proven and These kinds of games where they got nothing to lose. They will. [01:04:22] Speaker C: They love playing spoiler. [01:04:24] Speaker B: They. They do now. They're not playing much spoiler for much outside of seating. [01:04:27] Speaker C: I think that's something. [01:04:29] Speaker B: And it might not even matter if the Bears lose tonight because their seating is probably going to be stuck at three. [01:04:35] Speaker A: Correct. [01:04:36] Speaker B: So there might be a lot of people sitting that game. [01:04:40] Speaker A: I. I don't think the Bears are going to sit. I don't think. [01:04:43] Speaker B: You think they're going to be like. [01:04:44] Speaker A: Ben Johnson is going to want to put up some points and I know you're probably open. That's not the case. Who do you guarantee is going to win this week? [01:04:51] Speaker B: Jacksonville is still looking to win the division. They still have the opportunity if Houston loses to win the division. Actually, I believe they are currently in the lead regardless. But if they lose and the Texans win, which is also decently likely, they could lose out on the division. So they're going to be starting everybody and so. And they're playing the Titans. So I'm taking Jacksonville. [01:05:17] Speaker A: Who's your guaranteed W? Right here, Kyle. [01:05:20] Speaker C: I'm gonna go. I'm gonna ride those Patriots. They're gonna beat the Dolphins and still got me weak. [01:05:25] Speaker A: That's one variable that you know that I can control. [01:05:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:05:31] Speaker A: Correct. How about your upset, Ian? [01:05:35] Speaker B: I was about to do. I initially I changed this. I don't know if anybody noticed. I changed this very last second because I forgot Pittsburgh did not have DK Metcalf. And so I put them as my upset against the Ravens. But I don't know if I like that anymore. Once I realized that they don't actually have their best receiver and their only receiver, so I switched it to Carolina. [01:06:03] Speaker A: Do you know what they're leading wide receiver on their team is? It's Kenneth Gainwell. [01:06:08] Speaker B: Oh, they're running. [01:06:09] Speaker A: Running back. Yeah. [01:06:10] Speaker B: Wow. [01:06:10] Speaker A: Second string running back. [01:06:11] Speaker C: Yeah. You know who leads the league and catches right now? [01:06:18] Speaker A: Is it the guy from. [01:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:06:24] Speaker C: You're thinking of the right Titans. No. [01:06:26] Speaker A: Oh. [01:06:27] Speaker B: What? [01:06:27] Speaker A: There's a guy that just broke the rookie all around yards as a wide receiver. [01:06:32] Speaker B: Oh. [01:06:33] Speaker A: His name's DK D I K E. I thought that's what you were gonna say. [01:06:38] Speaker C: So you learn so much listening to the point or participating. [01:06:42] Speaker A: Is it Jason? [01:06:43] Speaker C: No. The lead league leader in catches is Trey McBride. Arizona Cardinals tight end. A tight end has the most catches in the NFL at week 17, baby. [01:06:52] Speaker B: Gronk, do you think they're gonna move on from Kyler over there? [01:06:55] Speaker C: By the way, I could see Kyler Being the biggest. [01:06:59] Speaker A: The. [01:07:00] Speaker C: The kind of big move of this off season. [01:07:03] Speaker A: He's gonna look great in a Miami Dolphins unit. [01:07:05] Speaker C: I was thinking Kyler for Tua Tua 2.0. I could see it. I could definitely see that being negotiated. Both of them could work around the cap hit situation for those very expensive players and talk them ourselves into it. [01:07:21] Speaker A: How about your upset, Kyle? [01:07:24] Speaker C: I haven't checked the betting market for any. [01:07:27] Speaker B: Some of them. Some of them. [01:07:29] Speaker A: It's spicy. We're already losing. I picked New Orleans over Atlanta. [01:07:33] Speaker C: New Orleans over Atlanta. [01:07:34] Speaker A: In shock. [01:07:35] Speaker B: I trust he had Minnesota first, but I had to tell him Green Bay is resting a lot of their starters, so Minnesota's. [01:07:44] Speaker A: I wanted to ride with you, Justin. [01:07:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:07:47] Speaker C: So Green Bay is, as a. Is the underdog. [01:07:49] Speaker B: They are the underdog. [01:07:51] Speaker C: I'll ride the Packers. Packers are my upset. I think Malik Willis is playing great. [01:07:56] Speaker B: Actually agree with that statement. Looks better than Jordan. [01:08:01] Speaker C: Ouch. [01:08:03] Speaker B: I thought. Not joking. [01:08:11] Speaker A: Well, thank you for listening to the point after. Send it to your friends. Send it to the people that you don't like at work. Send it to, I don't know, send it to that exit you've been afraid to send the message to be like, hey, I know we're not gonna have coffee together, but listen to this 7 out of 10 podcast. [01:08:32] Speaker C: You know, this means one. You or I are gonna finish last place and then pick them for the first time. Not only is Ian winning for the first time, but it's the first time he wasn't last. Wow. [01:08:42] Speaker B: Hey, hey, hey, ho. [01:08:44] Speaker A: First or worst, huh? [01:08:45] Speaker B: Really? [01:08:45] Speaker C: So one of us is gonna, for the first time, experience last place. [01:08:48] Speaker B: I've always had to buy a steak, so we can't hear Ian anymore. Unbelievable. Take it. My mic. [01:08:58] Speaker A: All right, guys, have a good rest of your day. Take care. Happy holidays. We love you. Bye.