← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
3 & Out - 49ers UPSET Eagles, Patriots DEFEAT Chargers, Bills EDGE Jaguars on NFL Wild Card Sunday
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This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human the volume. What is going on my people? How are we doing? John Middelkoff three and out podcast brought to you by my friends at Zone Pouches. We have officially gone live and launched on Netflix. Well, I'm recording this on Sunday night, but if you're listening to this on Monday, we're often rocking on Netflix so you can go check that out. Subscribe to our podcast and all of our videos and everything we record here will be up there video wise. So pretty big deal for the show. Hopefully you guys, I know you will check it out and let me know what you think. Nothing changes though. We will do a show tonight based on the craziness obviously. Sirianni and the Eagles lose to the 49ers in just an all timer. Drake May outplays Herbert. Josh Allen just goes Michael Jordan. We know the matchups. The Bills playing the Broncos, the Patriots taking on whoever wins tonight. Niner, Seattle and Rams Chicago. Matt Ryan is officially taking the Falcons job. Is the the Grand Poobah the boss. And I'm gonna have a baby this week so we got a lot going on. Fluid situation. We'll still be recording pods all week, have a couple ideas but the plan I think is to have a baby as of right now on Thursday. We have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. So if something changes and he's flipped around, then we just wait. Maybe you'll find out a little after I do so. But other than that we, I plan on having podcasts all week recording some stuff just if I'm not able to do one on Thursday for Friday. But we will have shows Saturday. Might be a little up in the air. The reaction to the I guess it is the 49 or Seattle game but hopefully we're back home by then. Come on buddy. Other than that, you guys know the drill. If you listen on Collins feed, make sure you subscribe to the the three and out podcast and obviously Netflix. Go check that out. So let's just, let's talk some football. Let's just start right off the bat with a. A man named Nick Sirianni. And I thought about it like this. Let's just pose a question. If I asked you or anyone, they don't even need to work in the NFL. Just a football fan. If Nick Sirianni was fired on Monday, would he get another coaching job this season? And when I say coaching job, would anyone hire him to be their head coach? Since none of you are here, I will answer that question for you. The answer is no. Well, let's take some other guys who were fired. Miami, I think we kind of just assumed that Mike McDaniel was going to come back randomly in the middle of the week. See ya. You're gone. Mike McDaniel is fired. Kevin Stefanski a week ago was not shocking. Also fired. Let's assume those guys realize Stefanski's interviewing for head coaching jobs. Might as well. You know, easily could land 1. Mike McDaniel also he's interviewing for the Cleveland Browns. Who Mike Silver Davis, California resident, former legendary SI writer, wrote a book about like the Shanahan Tree of that crew of guys, the former Washington coaches. Mike McDaniel once famously wrote a 32 page essentially essay to help Kyle Shanahan and himself get out from under the Cleveland Browns leadership at Jimmy Haslam. And they were able to resign and leave and go to Atlanta. Well, Mike McDaniel I think either has or is going to interview for the Cleveland Browns. But if so, Stefanski and McDaniel were not going to be head coaches and don't get head coaching jobs. Both of those guys and definitely Mike McDaniel would be not only lock coordinators, people would think about firing their offensive coordinator to hire those two guys. They would have teams lined up all around the league to hire Mike McDaniel and Kevin Stefanski to call their offense for a ton of head coaches all around the NFL. No one would hire Nick Sirianni to be their offensive coordinator. The Eagles don't let him call place. Let's be real. Let's look at the business world. Some people create. Start things from scratch and dominate that world. Right. Whatever their individual industry is. Jeff Bezos created Amazon from nothing. Elon's created countless companies. Right. Sam Walton created Walmart from thin air. Built the thing up from scratch. Some people hit the lottery and get rich overnight. Where does Nick Sirianni fall under that? I'd argue he hit the lottery. He got Howie Roseman as a general manager. He got an owner that's willing to spend unlimited amounts of money, not just on his own roster. They obviously have been well renowned now for front loading contracts and being able to pay guys more cash up front and how they can manipulate the books. But a couple of years ago, their defense was in shambles. What did Jeffrey Lurie do? What's it going to take to get Vic Fangio? We will pay him the most of any coordinator in the NFL. Most owners aren't willing to do that. Hell, the majority of owners get knocked for being cheap. So Nick Sirianni is in a situation where he plays the 49ers who when Kyle Shanahan addressed the team in the locker room after one of his most historic wins as a head coach, he gave props to the two linebackers, neither of which were on the team a month ago. When it was reported this morning that Lane Johnson, a future hall of Famer, was not going to be able to go, do you know the first thing I thought? Who cares doesn't impact the 49ers. They're dead last in sacks. Nick Bosa is currently third on the team in sacks. He hasn't played in months. The 49ers defense beside their secondary was a bunch of random practice squad free agent off the street guys and somehow the Eagles couldn't do anything when it mattered. The Brock Purdy threw two bad interceptions. The Eagles scored three points off both interceptions. I saw a tweet tonight that the Eagles, if you remove defensive scores, averaged less than 10 points in the second half of games all season long. They have A.J. brown who we can get into here in a second is obviously one of the most talented wide receivers in the NFL. Terrible game tonight, but dude's big time player so over the course of the season at any moment he should dominate. Devonte Smith is a top 15 pick who's not only lived up to it is a stud sake one Barkley last year ran for 2,000 yards. Dallas Godard I think Tom Brace said tonight like that's his 12th touchdown of the year. He's one of the more productive pass catching tight ends in the NFL. They have a quarterback who is a true dual threat guy. He might not have the high end speed like Lamar Jackson or Kyler Murray, but he is a runner and I thought listen I got it wrong. I'd never thought when he came out of Oklahoma and I'm a big Oklahoma guy because the guy that before I got into this world I worked in football. The guy that hired me when I first started out of college at Fresno State, he works at Oklahoma. So I I've been dialed into that program for a long time and watched all Lincoln Rileys, the Baker Mayfields, the Kyler Murray's and Jalen Hurts and I thought Jalen was probably gonna have to play running back in the pros. I I thought that was the craziest pick I'd ever seen when how he took him in the second round I was wrong. And then he became more than a productive passer but one thing early on in his career Jay why I thought he'd be a running back because I Thought he could be like Frank Gore. He's not some blazing speed guy up the sideline. His instincts as a runner are actually much more natural than even some running backs. You know what the Chargers would have done to have him just taking carries. He's patient. He has great vision. He's just. He's natural instincts with the ball in his hands when he's moving. He even had a couple runs a day. One was called back. It's like, why didn't Jalen have 10 plus runs? Say this about Lamar. Since Lamar became MVP caliber, he'll do whatever it takes to win. You need me to run, need me to pass, I don't give a damn. I'll do what it takes to help the Ravens get a victory. Jayla's like, no, I want to play like Russell Wilson, dominate from the pocket. You're not a pocket quarterback, man. You're a dual threat player. So watching the Eagles just completely crumble. I worked there for a couple years. I worked for Howie. The pressure in that building is immense. Hell, I still get nightmares about it sometimes, which honestly keeps me on my toes because the world I live in now, still, there's a ton of pressure. I got a growing family. It's not like I don't have pressure to produce and to do well financially and professionally for my, my wife and my future child. But it's a little different. I don't walk into that office on pins and needles. And that's what happens in Philadelphia, which is part of football culture. It was like that at Alabama. It's like that in Philadelphia. It was like that in Belichick forever. Like, it's a natural environment in the football world and it's very healthy, but they don't tolerate getting embarrassed. And tonight watching, or, you know, this afternoon watching the Eagles get embarrassed by Brock purdy throwing to DeMarcus Robinson, who looked like he was Jerry Rice. I was like, this is not going to go over well. George Kittle, who is not just one of my favorite players in the NFL, he's truly one of the great tight ends I've ever seen in my life. He is going to have his number retired one time as a 49er. He's. He's a complete badass. And as Christian McCaffrey said after the game, he's the heart and soul of our team. Let me repeat, the heart and soul of their team, who is already missing Fred Warner, who'd argue from some people that he was the heart and soul of the team. He's been gone forever. Nick Bosa long gone. They're missing players left and right and it didn't matter because it turned out the Eagles aren't very well coached and they're just not a very good team. And the 49ers shouldn't be that good of a team. They're missing way too many players. But there's like a character to them where they didn't fracture when it would have been easy to. When George Kittle is getting carted off the field where it's pretty clear, yeah, his Achilles ripped. Yet the the Eagles are forcing the ball to A.J. brown. I don't blame them. He's a really talented player, but it was pretty clear he didn't really want to be there. And I think a big mistake the Eagles made was not trading AJ Brown during the middle of the season when they could have and they're going to trade him in two months. But when you go into these playoff games, you need to have people who are all in. And did A.J. brown today look like a guy that was all in? And I'm not just saying that because he had a bad game, like Randy Moss. Jerry Rice had some drops, probably not as many as he did in an individual game. But it happens like it's football. Like people fumble, people throw interceptions. Obviously there are better and worse times to do certain things, but like it happens. And watching that game today, I went, I don't know. I. How does Sirianni survive the next 48 hours? Because the offensive coordinator was probably going to get fired no matter what, whether they. Unless they won the super bowl again, he was a dead man walking. That's the way Philly works. They fire coordinators all the time. But I think this outcome against Kyle Shanahan, that when I asked, when I posed that question, who would hire Sirianni tomorrow if he was fired? What if I flipped it to the 49ers? Who would hire Kyle Shanahan tomorrow if he was fired? I think your answer would be 29 teams, 30 teams. Hell, more people would hire the 49ers defensive coordinator who was just fired last year from the Jets. It's actually age much better because that organization is an all time clown show than Nick Sirianni. And the crazy part is Nick Sirianni's been to two of the last three Super Bowls. But I think if we're all being honest, how much did he really have to do with that? Hey, lead some team meetings. You know, he's good, like with personalities, but like it feels like he does nothing in the game and he can't help the offensive coordinator who is clearly over his head. His quarterback has got to this spot where it's like, what are we do? Why aren't we utilizing your talents? Look at Brock Purdy. What does it take to win the game? You need me to run, you need me to dive forward, you need me to scramble and make a play. Obviously I'm a quarterback so you're going to need me to pass and make the play. But we're going to need my legs in big spots. And I'm not just talking about quarterback sneaks. I'm talking about taking off and running. And Brock had one of the dumbest plays you'll ever see because it was one of the truly great six or seven second at the end of a half play call because I was like, what are they going to do here to try to get six, seven more yards? They don't have any timeouts. You can't throw it over the middle of the field. The Eagles are playing like against the sideline and they just ran a quarterback like power and Brock kind of froze and then he fumbled the ball and it was a complete disaster. But listen, Purdy by no means was perfect tonight. That play, multiple interceptions. I, I, I'm a little baffled that during the prep when all else fails, do not throw a 27 throw at the other guy. And listen, he tested him twice and got picked off twice. But what it mattered the most for a game winning drive. It didn't matter what the play call was or what was needed. They just did whatever they had to do. Do you need me to run it? Do you need me to pass it? Do you need my pro bowl fullback to make crazy catches? Do you need Christian McCaffrey to make a catch? And that's what happened. And that's why the 49ers drove down the field. Purdy had a huge first down run on that, on that drive. Because it never comes down to I'm just a pocket quarterback or I'm just a Shanahan quarterback. No, I'm just a quarterback that will do whatever it takes on a given week to help us win the game. And yet when you watch the Eagles, they're the complete opposite. Jaylen's like, I just want to pass. I don't want to run. And clearly doesn't because you would call more quarterback runs. I'm watching Josh Allen, I'm watching the two quarterbacks Sunday night. I'll do what you need me to take off, I'll take off. That is not the way Jalen plays anymore. Maybe he doesn't want to get hit. Maybe he just doesn't want to run. He got a Super bowl, he's made a bunch of money. And I. I have re a lot of respect for Jalen, what he stands for, how hard he works, how serious he is. But in terms of as a player, he. You can't maximize your abilities as a player when you won't do. Like, one of the things you are best at when you also have some clear deficiencies and you try to lean into them. Like part of life to be successful at something is to double down on what you're good at and do things you struggle at. I don't give a what you do avoid. Don't do that. Stay away from it. Like, I'll just be a pocket quarterback. This isn't really working, man. Like, this is. This is get run and get moving. That's your look at Drake May look at Justin Herbert, who didn't play well but throws on the. Look at Purdy. Get out and move. Get out and make some plays. You're a great athlete. Not a good athlete, a great athlete. But this comes back to coaching and this comes back to the situation. The Eagles are ruthless. They really are. And to get embarrassed like that at home by, you know, you got to remove the brand in Kyle Shanahan and put the players that he was rolling out. They threw a ball today. I've been watching the 49ers for three plus decades to number 81. I've never heard of this player. And then Kevin Burkhart said, well, he hasn't played an NFL game or caught a pass since 2021. He's been on practice squads and bounced around. I'm like, yeah, no shit. I couldn't point this guy out of a lineup. But that's what the 49ers had to do today because of injuries, because of just the uphill battle they had to fight against a team loaded with players defensively, too. And listen, the Eagles defense is bad at all. You could win a Super bowl with that defense. You cannot win a Super Bowl. Hell, it's proven you can't win a playoff game with that offense, which just as a fan of football, as someone that just would be sitting on my couch and watching it if I sold insurance or had to dig ditches Monday morning, they would be one of the last teams in the league I want to watch. I got so many texts from people like, the Eagles are a terrible watch. Like, yeah, they really are. They're boring. There's no creativity. Like the 49ers ran a trick play. For those of you that don't watch every 49er game, 49ers are not a trick play team. They actually have one. Go to trick play and it's a wide receiver pass. Now part of it is Juwan Jennings was once a huge high school recruited quarterback. It kind of went viral today on Twitter that he was ranked ahead of guys like Sam Darnold, Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson coming out of high school. Then he got to Tennessee, changed positions, and I, I don't think it went great toward the end because when he gets introduced in games, he doesn't even acknowledge Tennessee. It happened with desean Jackson back in the day because him and Jeff Tedford butted heads. It happens sometimes. Whenever you hear a player on TV say, like Davis Senior High School, you're like, something went bad with the coach and that program, right? Because usually the guys are excited. Like, went to the University of Texas, went to the University of Oregon. Go Ducks. Whenever you hear the high school or their hometown, you're like, oh, something bad went down. Which shouldn't happen as much now because guys are getting paid so much money. I'd have a huge smile on my face. I'd be like $7 million. University of Oregon. But I do think when Kyle busted out that trick play. I've been saying this forever with coordinators, I don't pretend. Like even the shittiest coordinators in the NFL, if you got them on a whiteboard or you got them in front of the room with high school coaches and just talked football, their knowledge and understanding of ball would blow us all away. All of us would be like, what is this guy talking about? From splits to depths to route concepts to against. All these guys are great backup quarterbacks as well. But when you get them on the field as a backup quarterback, as a player or as a position coach as a coordinator, and they got to start calling the plays and the bullets start flying. Separates the men's from the boys. The highest level speaks for college. No different in the pros. And some people, and I was saying this the other day about Tony the little wide receiver from Miami, who's a true freshman. Obviously our experiences when we're young shape our capabilities and our future talents in certain things. You know, obviously playing football, there are God given metrics that you're going to need to play college or in the NFL, right? That there are certain, you're going to have to have certain, you know, intellectual capacity to be a doctor or to Be an engineer when it comes to math or biology. Right? But once you get to that level and you're surrounded by a bunch of other people at that level, they're going to be separating factors. And I remember watching Tony in that the last game thinking like, this guy was born to play football. Like, his instincts and his feel for the game are just elite. I remember hearing a story when I was a kid. I grew up in Northern California, right by Sacramento. My dad was a huge cow fan. Cow football and cow basketball. And I remember being pretty young. It's probably like 10, 12 years old. When Jason Kidd was at Cal and there was all these rumors, you know, it's like, took him like, five times to pass the minimum level of sat. Like, it. It's very academically challenging to get in Cal. And I don't think anyone would consider Jason Kidd like, you know, some intellectual genius. But in terms of basketball iq, he's like Albert Einstein. And in sports, one thing I learned, actually, Howie Roseman taught me this. I remember scouting a guy and talking about their. Their gpa. I was like, this guy's not that smart. He's like, was he football smart? I'm like, yes. Coach said the guy picks it up after one try, no problem. Like, we don't care about his gpa. We're not doing GPA here. We're doing football. Right? And that's like, in life, like, your GPA doesn't always translate. Do your instincts at whatever you're doing translate? And you watch Kyle Shanahan and Brock Purdy, the symbiotic relationship they had. Colin plays, obviously, the timing of that trick play, and then you watch the Eagles offensive operation, and all you could say is, like, what the is going on here? And the answer is, no one knows. Because if they knew, they would change it and fix it, but they don't have the ability to because they're not good enough. It's really that simple. At the highest level of the NFL, the separating factor is, like, pretty small. And the difference of Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh compared to the Sirianni Patola combination was a mile wide. And the sad part is, like, Vic Fangio's big time. He ain't the problem. And that's why I ask, like, if you fire Sirianni, why wouldn't you immediately go after John Harbaugh? He already has a defensive coordinator in place. Vic is close with the Harbaugh family, worked for Jim for years. You could brig Todd Munkin, who worked with Lamar Jackson and help you know, a couple years ago, had one of the best seasons, like NFL history, and boom, you're off and running. Here's the other thing. Jeffrey Lurie knows John Harbaugh well. He worked there from 1998 to 2007 before he got the Raven job. So when I know that the Miami thing, and listen, I thought, like, John Harbaugh, go to Miami. Miami job's terrible. They have no quarterback. They actually do. He's under contract for like $50 million. To me, the Eagles, you're having a long conversation all day tomorrow of like, not only do we move on, but if we do, do we just put all of our chips on the table and just hire the guy down the road who can basically just be a way better version of what we just had? Because our great advantage is working for us is awesome. We spend a bunch of money, we pick good players, we're extremely talented. We just need the coaching on the field, something that only a small percentage of people know what they're doing. We got the defensive coordinator and staff in place. We just need a massive upgrade in terms of our head coach and our offensive capability because we just saw a guy who is elite. You don't go nine and four with Jimmy Garoppolo and Brock Purdy over the course of seven years and not be a lead at your job. And obviously Purdy's better player than Jimmy Garoppolo, but no one's getting Purdy confused with Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen. And it looked like, I thought when he threw the second half interception that was going to doom them. But he didn't. Because One thing the 49ers have going for them is mental toughness. And they're pretty unfazed. And they might go down, but they're going to go down swinging. And it felt like the Eagles, you know, the A.J. brown situation was like there's a disconnect. And that to me starts like you're either coaching or allowed to happen. Back to the Belichick old saying, and it is true. And they got major problems. So the Eagles is definitely something to keep a tight eye on. And the 49ers move on to play Seattle, which I, I think the Niners and the Bears just had all time, like, validation season wins. Like the 49ers with their injuries, had no business going 12 and 5 and definitely no business winning a playoff game on the road as a big underdog. The Chicago Bears, who've had one of the crazier seasons you'll ever see at down 21 to 3 at home. Just I honestly had no business winning that game and winning those two games. There's almost a freedom like what do we got to lose moving forward? Now I do think that the Bears are healthier, especially after Kittle's gone. Moving forward, they got more offensive firepower, but both defenses have major question marks, made some individual plays, but at any given moment you were just kind of on your heels. Like I don't know if this is going to work, but just pretty incredible moments. Which shows you the power of coaching, shows you the power of offensive, innovative coaching. And I think the Eagles were a great example of the opposite. 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But there was a stretch where the Patriots were basically trying to say, take the game from us. And a lot like the 49ers, Jim Harbaugh was going into this game, let's just make this thing weird. Let's muddy this thing up and make it weird. And it was. They just needed a couple plays from their $50 million quarterback, who physically is as gifted as anyone in the NFL. But I thought tonight in the. In the meat of the game, when it was there to be like, hey, couple touchdown drives, all of a sudden you'd be up 14 to 6, 14 to 9, like, you would take a commanding lead in this thing. And clearly they are struggling. It's cold weather, they lose their best corner, and he just didn't play very well. Now, I. I'm not out on him. I'm. I don't. You know, it's one of those situations where you're like, this is not nothing. He's 0 and 3 in the playoffs, and he clearly has not looked good. And tonight he did not look good. Now, I also think there's two parts to, like, the statement. He did not look good. And, well, okay, we just got to figure it out. We got to just play through it. He's not going anywhere. What do you want to do? Get rid of him. What are your other options? There aren't any. So, I mean, you're all in on this. Help. I saw your backup quarterback play Denver in week 18. Never do that again. So you just got to figure this out. And I think the best way to figure this out, I think it's fair to say you're not Josh Allen, right? I mean, there's. There's a level in which he is not peaking in the playoffs. And listen, he's missing some offensive linemen to star offensive linemen. Their running back situation, the run, their rookie running back from North Carolina, pretty big question mark right now. Looks pretty slow to me. Like, I. I would be a little nervous if I was those guys. Big picture about that selection for the next six months, I'm sending that guy to speed training. We're going to work on explosion, short area quickness. I'm going to need a little more burst, big boy, because the speed in which you're running is just not good enough. But, like, as stories like this grow, when you're as talented as Herbert and you're viewed as one of the 6,7567 best quarterbacks in the NFL, your standard in the playoffs is way higher and, and right now he's on three. And obviously last year he played one of the worst games in the history of the league. Right? Five interceptions. It was atrocious tonight wasn't that bad, but it was not good. And you're playing a guy who's playing his first playoff start in Drake May, who honestly throughout the game wasn't playing that well either. Started heating up in the second half, making some runs, made a couple big throws and kind of just settled down. You'd be like, well, his team's a little bit better and definitely healthier. Kind of like his, his number four overall pick left tackle is getting picked up by Khalil Mack, who's probably one of the stronger guys in, in league history and just driven back into him constantly. But like Drake May outplayed him. Not that he played great. I'm not compared to Drake May to Josh Allen on Sunday, but he definitely outplayed Justin Herbert and Drake Mays played one real year of football because I definitely don't count last year in his college career at North Carolina, did he ever play in a big game in college? Not trying to on the ACC here, but definitely that program. It's not like they're playing, you know, Alabama and LSU in the playoffs. So, like this is a big game, bright lights game. Herbert's been there, done that, played in Rose Bowls, started now in multiple playoff games. It should have been a huge advantage for him. He's got Jim Harbaugh on his side, right? The coaching, the Patriot coaching is elite. Vrabel, Joshua Daniels, so Jim Harbaugh staff Jesse Minter probably could be a head coach here in two weeks. Jim Harbaugh's one. How many playoff games guys won? How many games the guy won in his career? Greg Roman takes a lot of. I saw Greg Roman win a lot of games with Alex Smith and Colin Kaepernick. Lamar Jackson, like, his resume is not as bad as the way he gets discussed. I think sometimes people talk about him like he's Raiders Chip Kelly. Like, no, guys, he's. He's not bad. Kind of knows what he's doing. Is he perfect? No. Could. Would you ideally want a little better? Of course. But he's not that bad. And you see tonight, like, I don't know, something's just off. I. I don't know even I don't really have like some strong opinion. I don't know why, but oh, and three. And it's just one of those stories that is just not going to go away. It happens sometimes. I love Barry Bonds as a kid for a lot of his career. Might have been pretty juice. He didn't play very well in the playoffs. It was Alex Rodriguez had that happen. Baseball is a little different just because you only get so many at bats. You have five game series. It can be a little skewed, but like it was nothing after a while. And that's what I would say about this Justin Herbert thing. It's like it's going to be a massive story. And until he wins a playoff game, people that want to kind of go counterculture and hang a left when everyone's hanging a right kind of always can hang that above everyone's head. Wake me when he wins a playoff game. Don't wake me when Josh Allen wins a playoff game because he wins a lot of them. He just happens to not be able to beat the Kansas City Chiefs. Well, I, I took out my binoculars today and I looked. The Kansas City Chiefs are nowhere to be found. They don't exist in this playoff run. Patrick Mahomes obviously has torn ACL and his, his team's not represented. So he's playing the Jags who were as hot as any team in the NFL. They're really, really good. Liam Cohen has done a great job and he went in and kicked the out of him. Josh Allen was incredible today. He was a one man wrecking crew. He's really more like something you would see in basketball. He did it all. There was nothing he couldn't do. On top of slamming his hand into a helmet, getting his knee twisted on a touchdown run, he took a quarterback sneak like 12 yards. I honestly, I don't think I've ever seen that. He was just had the game where sometimes people like used to write about this type stuff back when newspapers existed and we had sports columnists and I grew up reading them all of like this was a man that just wouldn't be denied. And that's what it felt like today because if you flip the quarterbacks in that game, Jacksonville would have won by 25 points. They would have killed the Bills. I've come around on Trevor Lawrence over the last couple years. Like anyone that watched football is like, I'm out. I don't see it. There was no denying down the stretch of this season he did look really good. Today was not that day. Made a couple good passes, obviously threw a couple touchdowns. But overall he was all over the map. And sometimes these young coaches and listen, Kyle Shanahan's probably the only guy in 2026 that will just keep calling runs and have no problem even when it's not working. Even Ben Johnson, like, he's like, okay, I just got to pass. Most young coaches are pass guys. Sh. Sean McVeigh is the skinny jacked version of Andy Reid, wants to pass it non stop. You see that game against Carolina, it's like, Sean, why are you passing so much? You know what, they love to pass. Kevin o' Connell loves calling pass plays. Liam Cohen clearly likes calling pass plays. Watching this game, it's like you're running at will against these guys. Have you watched the Bills in the playoffs over the last couple years? They're not that big. You can lean on them. ETN should had 25 carries, but he just kept calling down the field passes and it wasn't really working. And then at the end of the game, listen, I, I disagreed with McDermott when he just scored on the essentially Josh push. I would have knelt it, ran it down to like high 20s, called a timeout and ran that play three times because I wouldn't have wanted to risk the way the kickoff rule is. I mean their kicker can hit it from like 70 yards. I, I would have done that, but obviously it worked. Couple plays later they pick it off and the game's over. I, I thought, and listen, I also understand you don't want to tempt fate. A fumble, something weird happens, I get it. But that was a massive win and I think sometimes it's cool. And I've said this forever, I watch sports for the best players. I was lucky, right? I was, grew up in the 90s. Like, like most kids idolized Michael Jordan. I love golf, love Tiger Woods. Like those are my two favorite athletes by far. And then my favorite baseball team had Barry Bonds from like when I was 10 years old up until I was graduating college. So like I watch it. And then when I worked in radio with Steph Curry, I went to a ton of warriors games in his heyday when he was winning MVPs. That's why I'm not a huge, like, watch it for the little guy that could, like, that doesn't do it for me. I want to watch Peyton Manning, I want to watch Tom Brady, I want to watch Steph Curry. I want to watch the best of the best. And I pay to watch Josh Allen. I, I really would. And listen, Trevor Lawrence, good player, but kind of like, you know, Jordan love, they're like middle of the pack when they're on. They can be have top 10 games, but they're not top 10 quarterbacks. Especially Trevor Lawrence, he's on the low end of that. He got hot there for a stretch at the end of the season, but we saw at home in a very conducive environment at 75 degrees. It's funny also, like, I love the playoffs because you'll just go to Chicago and it's like a, it's like a snow globe. You watch Philly, it's like, this thing is freezing. Like, Dom, I know you're a big boy, but how do you not have an extra jacket on? How did some of these guys not have beanies on? And then you go to Jacksonville, it's like, yeah, we got no taxes. We're all in the pool. Sun's out December 10th. We're sweating like, yeah, hard to beat that, man. I'm not gonna lie. I'm a warm weather guy. I'm like, I like that. But that didn't benefit them because Josh got loose and he got it. He worked in the day. He really did. And I, I thought Trevor Lawrence, just, his numbers don't look that bad. I think it was 18 to 30. But I, I, I don't know, man. I, I think it was closer to the guy that I remember than the guy that we thought he had become the last couple months. And some of it's on his coach, like, run the ball. Other than that, you know, we got, we know the games now. We got Bills, Denver, we got New England playing whoever wins tomorrow. We got the Niners playing Seattle and we got the Rams playing Chicago. That's, that's a pretty good slate. And I think a quick look ahead to this tomorrow game, and I mentioned this to Coward when we were recording is if this was a Disney movie, right? If this was. I just watched F1 the other day and like, the legendary guy got to win the last race. You would be like, Aaron Rodgers going to throw a bunch of touchdowns. The record on Monday Night Football is going to continue. It's going to be awesome. But this is the NFL. This is not reality television. I know people think they script this. They don't. And more than likely, like, this is not going to end well. Right? He's playing a team as an underdog with an elite defense. And I was, I was flipping the channels this morning at the gym when I was trying to get a little sweat before the games. And Aiden Hutchinson was at the, in the studio with the ESPN guys and he was talking about his experience playing Rogers, and he's like, it's not really fun because he's going to get rid of the Ball so fast that however many plays you have on offense, they're going to be passes, let's say 40 to 45, you know, maybe less. You're going to have two or three chances over that entire time because of how quick he's going to get rid of it to sack him. And when you get that opportunity, you just better not. You better not miss. And the thing is, these Texan guys don't miss. Daniel Hunter and Will and Will Anderson are just not going to miss. So if they get in the position where they are down, they would be in major trouble. And obviously DK is going to have fresh legs. But is he out of rhythm? They're missing Darnell Washington with a broken army. Face it, they are extremely lucky to be playing in this game. If John Harbaugh 1 with 12 seconds left in a timeout, if he got a little more aggressive, that field goal should have been closer. And it's a tough place to kick, but how often is the guy missing that kick? I know he's a rookie, but less than 25% of the time. So if he kicks it 10 times, he's hitting seven or eight of them. So the Steelers are very, very fortunate to be here, but part of the reason they're fortunate is because their defense isn't that good. Like they've moved Jalen Ramsey to safety. He blew multiple things in that game that cost him. So he is an all time great player. I mean, Jalen in his prime was just elite. His versatility, his size, his physicality as a tackler. I'm a big Jalen Ramsey fan, but like at certain positions when you get old, you kind of fall off a cliff. He's just not quite the same guy. And their pass rush isn't that great. And while Cam Hayward played like the game of his, definitely over the last several years, he's been an older player. It was awesome. It was like watching John Randall or something. In his prime, he was dominating that Raven. Can you do that again? And I'm a Cam Heyward. Guys, come on this podcast before TJ Watt, a lot of respect for him, but that, that injury, like, did you really notice his presence last week? I just have a hard time seeing this go well for the Pittsburgh Steelers. And if they lose that game. Listen, I know we had kind of talked about it, but we've been talking about Tomlin forever. He never gets fired. I never expected them to fire John Harbaugh, not in a million years. It was honestly one of the more shocking NFL news over the course of the last, I don't know, six plus months where you just see it in your jaw drops, you can't convince me. If the Houston Texans beat him by seven at 10, 14 points, the last two playoff games they played, they've been blown out by the Ravens and the Bills. If that happens again, you got all these older players, the conversation is going to only get louder. And now there are all these jobs open. Like, would it be time to pivot? Is now the time? So I listen. I think it would be cool if the Steelers were to win this game with my heart. I would enjoy watching a throwback Rogers game. It was awesome watching that fourth quarter against the Ravens. But I'm not betting on it. I'm actually betting against it. I'm going to take the Houston Texans in this game. I actually love the Houston Texans in this game. I think they could smother them and absolutely destroy them. And those runs that were going against the Ravens, where Jalen Warren is breaking tackles like he's Walter Payton or Earl Campbell, I don't envision that happening on Monday night. And then, you know, I think this, you lose at home, all of a sudden, it's not looking well. You get some booze. Like, you saw it today in Philly. When it doesn't go well at home, it can just get weird. And it can get weird really quick. It wasn't that we're not that far removed from them, like, chanting, fire, Tomlin. That wasn't, you know, six months ago. That was like two weeks ago against. So it's like, guys, I just think that. I think we're seeing the end of it all. I really do. And I'm more convinced now than ever this league, there's a lot of moving parts. We're going to learn more about LaFleur over the next couple days. Obviously have thoughts, however that thing shakes out. This John Harbaugh situation, the Sirianni situation, we got a lot going on and it's just a crazy time in the NFL. A lot like college football, but even on a much higher level, you can fire anyone at any moment. Because paying someone 20, 30, $50 million to these NFL owners now is like change that I could find in my desk drawer. It means nothing to them. Imagine paying someone to go away and owing them and the staff 60, $70 million and not even blinking, not even thinking twice. Hell, the Raiders a couple years ago, before Brady and the money got involved, they paid Josh McDaniels and Dave Ziegler combined, like $70 million to leave to pack your and go. Mark Davis is not, you know, Steve Ballmer, but he has that much money because of. That's what the league generates from the media deals. So all these coaches at all times, unless you're Andy Reid, you just Never know Sean McVay and like Kyle Shane. It's a very short list of guys that are truly totally safe. Any other guy, like, if people have some conversations, you piss the wrong guy off, you. You don't manage up well enough, put your stuff in a cardboard box and get the hell out of there. That's how fast it changes. And that's. It makes the league a little more unpredictable. You know, the guys aren't just going to hold jobs for as long just because I like you. Look at Raheem Morris. People love the guy. He tied for first place. Now, granted, it was 8, 9. They given the owner a hug, is like his wife, his family's hugs, like, after every game. And like, Raheem, you gotta go. We love you, but you're not coaching this team, buddy. And I give Raheem props because if someone paid me, the American dream is not a white picket fence, a dog, couple kids. It's to be paid millions of dollars to not work. That's. I can't even. And, you know, I saw Raheem, basically, the guy, like, if you don't hire me to be head coach, I'm just gonna go tv. Like, I would too do that. Enjoy your life. That smart man. Land on this. It's official now that Matt Ryan will be the boss in Atlanta. They created some title. He's above the GM and the coach. Matt Ryan made hundreds of millions of dollars playing football. Because when you're a professional athlete, especially, I mean, Matt Ryan played longer than most professional athletes. If you're at the top of your field as a quarterback, at whatever position, as a baseball player, basketball player, when you retire in your late 30s, you have accumulated an ungodly amount of money. Yet, especially a guy like Matt Ryan. You're healthy. You got another 40, 50 years ahead of you. You probably got a young family. You got literally the world by the balls. And then you take some kush CBS job, which probably paying you a million bucks. Just go in the studio, hang out, talk some ball. You do not need to sign up to go get back into the world of grinding, because that's what football is. If you're gonna go into the office every day, it is a grind. It's not a place where people are smiling and having a great time every day. It's a Very serious, stressful, kind of angry environment which a lot of people like. Honestly, a lot of these guys are addicted to that environment. You know, they, they said in the movie Heat, the action is the juice. I think a lot of these guys, you know what the juice is. It's not just Sunday running out there to play in front of 70,000. It's like the grind of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. It's like the grind of showing up at the office to get a workout at 6:00am and being there till 10:00 clock at night. It's the grind of just having to figure it out on the fly on a Wednesday with some injuries and just everyone on their fifth cup of coffee, third can of the week of Copenhagen, and just seventh pill of Adderall and just grinding in the office. And some people are just addicted to it. And Matt Ryan did not need to do this. Now, I'm not acting like Arthur blank's paying him 200 grand to accept this gig. He's making millions of dollars, but like, not enough to change his life. His life's already been changed by the money he made playing. So when you signed back up to go grind like this and you saw the clip of John lynch on the sideline, another guy did not need to be doing this. Anyone that watched the Elway documentary was like, I missed it. I just wanted to do it. He became the GM of the Broncos. Like, these guys can go play golf, hang out, do whatever they want, get involved in businesses, do some tv. I respect the hell out of these guys to just go, you know what? I miss the juice. I miss it. I miss the misery. And I do admire and respect that from these guys that are worth just so much damn money and don't need the misery in their life, but it kind of fulfills them because that's kind of what football is in. Working in football is not the games. Like the three hour game day that you and I watch on our couch is such a small sliver of the actual job. It's, it's probably over the course of a season, I don't know, 2, 3% of the gig. So props to Matt Ryan and I. I talked about this on a podcast a couple weeks ago because Pelissaro on the NFL Network had reported that he was going to try to do both jobs. And he's, he shot that down. He said, I'm done with cbs. I was, I was watching him today when he talked about it. Like, he thanked everyone. You can tell he's kind of getting emotional and just saying, like, they gave him this opportunity and he was appreciative. And I would say the other thing, you know, thing with quarterbacks, I thought I'd say this with Philip Rivers, you know, Drew Brees, a guy I got respect for, Drew Brees, who I thought was terrible on tv, who's gotten much better. Like, they just happen to be. Especially Matt Ryan, 6 5, with a good arm. If Matt Ryan couldn't throw the ball five yards and just would have had to go work in economics, right? He would have ran a bank, he would have started a business, have been really like, Matt Ryan was destined to be a very, very successful guy. So I would tell you this, it would not shock me at all if he was a better GM than he was a quarterback. He was a good quarterback. Obviously had the one MVP season that was the outlier. Mostly it was just like a consistent somewhere between like 7 to 12 guy. Guy you could win with if you had a good team. If he didn't, it could go sour fast. But he was always really, really impressive and really, really sharp. Felt like he was smarter than he was talented. And if he really goes all in on this and leans on the people he knows, he's been lucky. He's been around a lot of coaches in his career in Atlanta. And if LaFleur became available because Green Bay fired him, he was his quarterback coach when he won the mvp working for Kyle. Wouldn't shock me at all if they hired him immediately. So, you know, he's going to need to lean on people for the GM scouting aspect. Obviously, he's never done that. But the thing when you're Matt Ryan and you want to get some intel and you pick up the phone and you call Lane Kiffin or Pete Golding or Ryan Day, guess what? They call you right back. Text him. I guarantee you get a text back in five minutes. So he will have no problem gaining a network. And I think it's fair to say he's smart enough if he's willing to do this. Because you can't be willing to, like, kind of go half in, half out. Like, that was the knock. Like Magic Johnson always kind of want to do it, but then not really because he wanted the normal life, which I don't blame him at all, right? I would do Dan Marino, same thing. I would be like them. I'd be like, I'm worth hundreds of millions. I'm going to go kick it. I'm going to go hang out. I'm going to go enjoy my life. I've already done this. But Matt wants to put his feet to the fire. So if I was Atlanta Falcon fan, which I haven't had many good things to say about the franchise over the years, I would say this is. This is exciting. Tbd. See how it goes. But it's. It's exciting when you get a guy of. Of his stature to say, yeah, I want this. And then I listen to his comments today, like, I'm doing this because we deserve to be in the playoffs and we've been shitty for too long. So exciting times. And we'll be back again tomorrow and we'll see. We'll see how. Hey, listen, there are gonna be some curveballs coming, I would imagine, Monday or Tuesday. And by curveballs, hopefully I don't mean my son. Say, I'm ready. I'm kind of got my mindset on Thursday. But listen, can't play God here, but when it comes to football, I. I think some interesting stuff's about to happen. The next couple days, I think we're. We're gonna enter the season where we start getting really weird. See you later. The Volume. This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human.