Christmas Games Recap and Lamar Jackson's Future

00:00:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to NFL Daily, where we're always ready to celebrate Boxing Day. I'm Greg Rosenthal. I am here in rainy southern California talking to my friend Will Gavitt, who's joining us in the future at night in Boxing Day in the UK. Welcome Will, regular. You know NFL dailians will remember you joined me for a Thanksgiving show last season, so you are the go to holiday guy, and Merry Christmas to you.

00:00:35
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir.

00:00:36
Speaker 3: The man who will do anything to get a mention and the backup Britt gets on the backup quarterback show, so it couldn't be more perfect.

00:00:44
Speaker 1: That's not true. Will is the best, an old friend and you can hear him of course on talkSPORT. He's a viral superstar at this point after this season. We enjoyed calling the games together this season, and we're going to be calling the super Bowl together. Little breaking news here with Ross Tucker, so something to look forward to there. And yes, we're gonna recap the three Christmas games. We're gonna talk a little bit about Lamar Jackson at the end of this show because a lot's going on there and I just thought this would be a good time to do it. And yeah, it wasn't maybe the Christmas slate that the NFL was expecting, But it had some fun moments. It had some bittersweet moments, and why don't we go to one of those. Let's go to Minnesota.

00:01:30
Speaker 4: Second down, Minnesota's got minus six pass yards. Is the motion Addison to the slot left snap handoff, Addison off the motion thirty five to forty outside the numbers, forty five to fifty on the gas pedal down the sideline, fifteen to ten.

00:01:44
Speaker 2: Push to the pylon.

00:01:46
Speaker 4: He is no signal yet.

00:01:50
Speaker 5: Daniel Thomas pushed him in touchdown, a.

00:01:56
Speaker 4: Late signal, but a fruitful one for Minnesota to sleep to the stars Tourdan Addison.

00:02:06
Speaker 1: That was Jason Bennetti on Westwood One. Vikings win twenty three to ten, ending the Lions season. And yes, holidays can be bittersweet because it's a wonderful time with family and sometimes you're thinking about the people you're missing are just like time gone by. They were all getting older, and in this football sense, watching the Lions miss the playoffs, it was kind of a bummer. It felt it felt like the end of something. But that was a great play, a great call there by Jordan Addison during a game will where at that point the Minnesota Vikings had roughly seventy five yards from scrimmage like total yards on offense, and yet they were winning the game, and that one almost doubled the total yards for the game, and it was just enough in one of the best defensive romances of the season by any team by the Vikings, just just ending the Lion season, giving their fans a big lumper call on Christmas.

00:03:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned like Max Brosma sacked seven times.

00:03:11
Speaker 2: I heard Jason Bonde say it there.

00:03:12
Speaker 3: He ended up with three net passing yards in total and his feet so loud in the pocket like they're the two big runs and the big touchdowns. Of course, but the key is they kept getting short fields because of that defensive performance.

00:03:28
Speaker 2: Six Lions turnovers meant they.

00:03:30
Speaker 3: Had scoring drives of sixteen yards, twenty eight yards, four yards, twenty one yards, and that sixty five yard Jets weeep you just heard. But yeah, unbelievable performance from Brian Flores getting absolutely in his bag. And it's just a shame from a Vikings perspective that this is happening so late in the season. Last five weeks They've been sensational on defense.

00:03:50
Speaker 1: It's crazy they're in third place now. The Lions are slated as of right now to play a last place schedule next season. If you're gonna crash out, that's the way to do it. Like you might get a little help. It depends obviously on what happens in Week eighteen here, but yeah, the Vikings have rallied all the way to eight and eight, and it did remind me a little bit of Brian Flores Jared Goff matchups of the past, including a Super Bowl coordinated by Brian Flores where the Rams only scored three points. And if you kind of think about the Lion we'll get to a little bit of the Vikings here, but to me, the story is the Lions to turn the ball over six times for it to end this way, and to kind of think about how this Lions team really entered the national consciousness became I feel like America's team certainly one of NFL dailies teams. It was the twenty two Week eighteen game on Sunday Night Football where they technically had nothing to play for and they knocked Aaron Rodgers in the Packers out of the playoffs and for it to kind of flip all the way around and for them to get knocked out by a team that had really nothing to play for. And you think about how this season started getting mollywopped by the Packers and they lose on another holiday Thanksgiving where they're not competitive, and maybe it was fitting to see Jared Garf just struggling against the blitz again and leaving a lot of questions for this Lion's team heady into the next season.

00:05:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned that struggle against the blitz because it felt like all those Viking pressures were like not only were they throwing all the blitzers at them and he was blitz on fifty five point nine percent of drop back six of sixteen in those situations, but what you saw is every time he were in those blitz situations, he was trying to do the right thing. He was trying to go for the check down, he was trying to replace the blitzer. He was trying to like offer those quick screens as well, which we know with Andrew Van Ginkel on the field, who don't want to be doing at any point. But there seemed to be this coaching point to the vikings of if he's going to try that, get your hands up. And the number of times that, like Jalen Redman's just getting into a lane and sticking his arms up in the air and were sitting baut it down pass time and time and time again. And it's slightly frustrating from a liance perspective that you're just not seeing an adjustment to that, realizing, let you know, they're going to do this. This isn't something new, This isn't some wrinkle that Brian Flores has suddenly turned up with this week, and yet the lines just seem to have absolutely zero answer for it, and Jared Goff just harassed all day long.

00:06:22
Speaker 1: Well, I think it comes down to the personnel. We talked about a little bit in the previous show with Yes the starting brit Ally Connolly, who pointed out the interior line and like, this is not the Lions team that we've come to know and love. Taylor Decker, by the way, wasn't there at left tackle, and then on the interior they had two bad snaps from Kingsley Agu Khan as part of their six turnovers. Their left guard, Christian Mahogany was back, but the right guard is aw Oseka and Tate Ratleis is the rookies just getting beaten up, and yeah, the six turnovers really were the story of the day. Let's actually lett into a man who I spoke with. You did too, I believe. In the locker room after a Vikings win in London, Harrison Smith, who was hearing Hall of Fame chance and said after this game that he said that was the most fun performance he's ever been a part of. He thought it was the single best defensive performance he's ever been a part of it. And he's been a part of a lot of big ones. His interception late in the third quarter was a highlight to me.

00:07:28
Speaker 4: He's a long setback on first OUN's that play action to him. GoF loads up and saints it over the middle man are accepted by Harrison Smith. He's down in Lion's territory. It's the thirty ninth of his career, just the second of his season. What can Notre Dane do for you?

00:07:50
Speaker 6: Harrison Smith baiting Jared Goff into throwing this football. Watching the film, you know that when they do play action past, Jared Goff loves to throw it to his r to am and Ross Saint Brown but Harrison Smith took a step back at the snap, giving a fake read to Golf that he was dropping, and as soon as Golf turned around, he drove on the football caught it.

00:08:09
Speaker 2: With both hands.

00:08:10
Speaker 6: Baby meet the baby carriage.

00:08:14
Speaker 1: Great call there, That was Ryan Harris, who I believe that Notre Dame grad on Westwood one and yeah, just a cool moment for Harrison Smith. Maybe the end of his career. Who knows, they maybe it won't be. And that was part of a sequence will where there were two straight turnover, two straight interceptions on two straight passes. That one was more on Golf I think, getting a little jumpy. You mentioned the blitz struggles. Yeah, he took three sacks, had two interceptions and a fumble all on blitzes, and he ended up having three turnovers in a four dropback sequence because he fumbled the ball two when Dallas Turner sacked him a few plays later on the next drive. Just like a rough day here for Jared Goff. And it's not like they're going to do anything different at quarterback, but I do think the Lions kind of lost their way. This was a team that couldn't like Black and they couldn't run the ball either by the end of this season.

00:09:08
Speaker 2: No, And look, you mentioned the offensive line struggles.

00:09:10
Speaker 3: Penne Saw went out of this game briefly as well, to just really compound all of that, and you've got a third string right guard coming in and playing right tackle on top of everything else. I think the difference for me is you say, I don't think they're going to make a change at quarterback.

00:09:24
Speaker 2: I expect that.

00:09:25
Speaker 3: Line to look steah and I expect that line to look healthier next season. And on the other side of the ball, I think despite the fact that over the past five weeks or so they have had a little bit of a drop off, Kelvin Sheppard really does look like the future. They generated a season high pressure rate in this game. You know, Alcade Mohammad had an excellent game. He had six pressures in this one. You know Max Brosmus struggled I mentioned earlier, sacked seven times as well. So there's a lot to like about this Lion's team going into next year. It feels like a season that you just you carry the ball, you right it off, you burn the tape, you do whatever cliche you need to do, and then you get to righting some of these wrongs in the off season. For the Viking side of it, though, I really want to feel like the fact that over I think it's they're now fifth in weighted DVOA on defense, right and they haven't allowed a passing success rate over forty percent since Week twelve of the season, and they've not played a bunch of Hammon Eggers.

00:10:24
Speaker 2: That's like playing the Cowboys and the Lions. But yet with you mentioned Harrison Smith's future unclear, Eric Wilson's future unclear, they're massively over the cap for next season, despite the fact that they're playing a rookie quarterback. Like, I don't know, I feel like a tea. Yeah, it feels like this was an opportunity and they just threw it away.

00:10:45
Speaker 1: They'll feel better about it because of how it finished in December, but ultimately JJ McCarthy and the quarterback decisions and the quarterback play hurt them on a team that could have been competing to win games in the playoffs, because we don't know this defense is going to be together next year, whether they're going to be able to keep it together as well as as it's been. And yeah, if nothing else, they just feel better that Brian Flores got to break them at the very end, and Dan Campbell did sound a little broken after the game, which always bumms me out.

00:11:18
Speaker 7: Brad, now have a lot of decisions to make, you know, a lot of things. You look at the watch, the wise the how do we improve because we need to improve And even if you have the core which you believe in, whin we've got them is that? Man, It's a new it's always a new team. You got to find your own way, man. So it's disappointing, you know, it's disappointing. So but it is what it is.

00:11:47
Speaker 1: Oh man, that was I don't like seeing Dan Campbell sad sad as one since the one where he said we may never get back to this place in the NFC Championship game.

00:12:01
Speaker 3: You know, maybe he was right after what we saw today, But I really feel like they will come back and they will bounce back. But it is now just agree just a much more difficult division now. I'm sure you know, there'll be a lot of talk going into this weekend of the fact the Bears can still get the one seed, the Packers can still win the NFC North and despite a weird season, when they get my cap Parsons back when everything comes back around next year, like this is going to be a tough out in any season for the next five plus years.

00:12:31
Speaker 2: It feels like I just I feel like the lines are much better positioned than the Vikings to bounce back.

00:12:36
Speaker 1: It is incredible how loaded this division is. It really is, and I know things change from year to year. Like sometimes you'll think of division is going to be great, But I like the coaches so much in this division, and other than the Vikings, I like the quarterbacks, And you're absolutely right. It's gonna be a bloodbath every single season. And I do think the Lions can get back. They have a great nucleus. They have a lot of great young players sign long term, but it will be a different team. David Montgomery, for instance, I noticed how he got in some hot water in Detroit about you know, he like liked some posts where they were saying they were giving the ball to Jamir gives too much. There was some other comments that were like deleted. He seems like someone who might have you might be coming to the end of his Detroit time. And that's fine. They are just reaching that point in the team build where some favorites are gonna have to be cast aside because they really need better play on both lines. That's the number one thing. And you mentioned the Packers. I should have led with that. The Packers are in the playoffs. The Lions loss clinches it. Green Bay is in the playoffs. They're playing on Saturday night. They are still trying to win the NFC North, So no reason to think that they're gonna rest starters or anything like that. You know, they could help seeding. They could win the NFC North with a little help from Chicago. But a massive turn of events here with the Lions getting passed in this division. All right, let's go to our next game. It's the other one on Christmas Day that we knew had some playoff implications. Ken Denver avoid slipping on a banana peel at aarhad.

00:14:17
Speaker 8: Fourth and eight at the Denver twenty six, Holidokin in the gun running back, hunt off his right, three receivers right the snap, Holy Dookin back to throwing a clean pocket all day, throwing deep down the middle into the end.

00:14:28
Speaker 1: Zone, overthrows them all. It's incomplete.

00:14:32
Speaker 5: It's a clean field.

00:14:33
Speaker 8: No penalty flags intended for Hollywood Brown. Jae Kwon McMillan in on the coverage and the Broncos defense turns away Kansas City on fourth down and they'll move to thirteen and three. The Broncos the number one seed at the moment in the AFC playoff race.

00:14:50
Speaker 1: Oh, they held on to that one seed just barely. That was JP Shagik on Westwood One. Came down to the final Kansas City snap under thirty seconds to go. They still have a chance to tie it up. It's twenty to thirteen the Broncos win. They will be watching the Chargers Texans on Saturday here in Los Angeles and rooting for a Texans victory that would clinch the AFC West for the Broncos. If not, it'll come down to Week eighteen. Chargers Broncos for the division, possibly for the one seed. Denver will have to keep playing almost certainly into Week eighteen if they want to get that one seed. The takeaway when I'm driving home, I watched the movie last night. I know you're asleep by now. You were working. By the way, why were you working Vikings Lions up until one thirty in the morning. You didn't have to do that. You're the boss. People don't know that, but you're the boss. You could have assigned someone else to that. You could have just not even taken that game. I wasn't even watching this game live. I'm like, I'm gonna go see a Korean vengeful comedy, no other choice with my buddy Anthony Justin, and we had a good time. I didn't watch this game way, but I got to admit.

00:16:04
Speaker 3: Look, we're gonna talk obviously about the game flow of this game and what a wild game flow it was. But the first half was so short because of those long Broncost drives that you chose to go see a career movie. I was on my way home from work at one am yesterday. You had this choice between obviously you should go to bed, probably if you're in the UK, but you either had you could watch the Broncos game, or you could start the new second half of the season of Stranger Things, which is.

00:16:29
Speaker 2: What Netflix was pushing. Oh okay, Yeah, the first half.

00:16:32
Speaker 3: Of this game was so short that you could have watched the entire first episode of that game of Strange Things.

00:16:39
Speaker 2: Flipped over and you were in a halftime.

00:16:41
Speaker 3: Like it was shorter than an episode of a TV It was that just quick and It was that ridiculous, how just this Bonix and this Broncos offense that this dink and duncan slow like four possessions of fourteen plus yards that took thirty two minutes in this game. This was a dream for people who were staying to one in the morning to watch this game, because it meant it was over by about three am and you could all go to bed.

00:17:05
Speaker 1: Fairpoint, it was mid second quarter before I even left, so I did end up watching this first half, and it was ridiculous. My hottest take from this game, because I don't think there's a ton moving forward to draw from this game, is that I'm impressed by the Broncos winning how they did. I don't care how it came down to the end. When you really watch the flow of this game, it was a dominant performance. They had over three hundred yards, the Chiefs had under one hundred and forty. They like you mentioned, if there's only seven offensive drives and four of them go for fourteen plays or more and you're scoring touchdowns on two of them, I mean, it was a good offensive performance. And the thing that I will be impressed by is that ultimately the Broncos get the ball back, like mid third quarter, they're losing, they go on a long touchdown drive. They make it happen. Bo Nick's with his legs makes it happen. And then they get another ball back again in a position they probably didn't expect. Tied late fourth quarter, and what do they do. They go on another long touchdown drive and Steve Spagnola had a clear game plan here will they just they decided not to blitz and Bonex did not get pressured much and they just made them dinking dunk down the field. And a couple times, you know, the Broncos make some mistakes. Cortland Sutton dropped two nice passes in the red zone. They probably would have scored a touchdown on a different drive where they had to sell for a field goal. Bo Nicks missed the pass or two early, but I thought he played pretty well. It just was one of those nights. It's a short week, it's it's Christmas. The crowd's going crazy. This is kind of what even for one seeds games look like in Week seventeen. Sometimes even when you're playing an underman team.

00:18:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like you say, short week, going on the road against a team who, yes, they are falling apart at the seams.

00:18:50
Speaker 2: But you know, Travis Kelce, probably his last game, which.

00:18:53
Speaker 3: I'm sure we'll get onto, there was a lot of emotion on the day that the inception right, Christian Fulton gets across and just makes an unbelievable play on the ball and Nick Bolton in full tip drill mode like that can't be on Bonicks. The throw is placed exactly where it needs to be to pick up that first down, particularly when he's scrambling outside the pocket to his left. It's interest what you said about the blitzing, because what I thought about this game watching those long, dinky donkey drives that we're talking about, is that actually Bonix twenty five of thirty four one hundred and seventy six yards in a touchdown when playing in structure, and I think he was only three of ten on passes over ten yards, but they had a fifty five percent offensive success rate, and this was you know, this is kind of what Sean Payton wants if he thinks this Boncos team are going to go and win games in the playoffs, because he wants them to be able to go.

00:19:42
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what you throw of us.

00:19:43
Speaker 3: We'll just be able to pick it apart in the most Sean Payton way possible. We don't need to go and take those deep shots necessarily.

00:19:51
Speaker 1: I mean, you did your work here. I mean it's Boxing Day, you're working on Christmas, and you got like a lot of status. That's also what I mean, by the way, why I'm relatively impressed by the Broncos here, because like it shouldn't have been this close. It was, like you mentioned success rate, that the Chiefs offense didn't really do anything. They were set up on some short fields and took advantage, and Chris Oladukan actually made a couple plays where you're like, Okay, I think he's going to stay in the NFL, like he can be a second or third quarterback. But they were still very limited. Their success rate was twenty eight percent, so that the profile of this game was that of a blowout but a couple times and you mentioned that Fulton tip that interception was one of the best interceptions of the year. A third and twelve where Nicks is throwing it and just a total diving incredible play by Fulton, who's played a little better. He's starting to play the last couple weeks and it might mean something for him. He signed a pretty big free agency contract and I figured he would get cut this offseason. But he's looked good the last couple of weeks and Nick Bolton ends up diving to make that interception, and there's some this is a little wild here, and well there's some talk in Kansas City they got their own salary cap stuff. Would Trent McDuffie ever be on the trade block kind of like to Lagerious Sneed was back in the day, because he's not. He's coming off like a kind of not a great season, And then you look tonight and or on Christmas and it was like, Noel Williams is playing, well, you have Fulton, you have some young guys. It just might be the type of move that they do to get some draft picks back like they once did with Lagerious Need.

00:21:32
Speaker 3: I guess the difficulty as well is when you made that Lagarious Sneed decision. Part of that decision was that you were going to pay Chris Jones and pay him big and keep him right. And he has the penalty last night, which I thought Bonix on his cadence, we've been hearing a lot of like the center mic over recent days with the phil Rivers against the forty nine ers last week on Monday, Like, they've been really amping that thing up, and I thought he did a really great job in that situation. But you've if they're gonna let Trump McDuffie go, as much as he's not had a great year this year, they need to be putting more into the front. They need to be getting more pass rushed because George garg.

00:22:09
Speaker 2: Isn't a one.

00:22:10
Speaker 3: Chris Jones has flashed in two or three games this year, but hasn't been the dominant guy we've seen in January of recent seasons. Like, I just I don't know letting a piece that good go, even if he's had a down year.

00:22:22
Speaker 2: Oh, that's kind of wild. I've got a question for you, though, Greg.

00:22:25
Speaker 3: You mentioned about like that you thought that, you know, the Chiefs still managed to put some stuff together.

00:22:32
Speaker 2: I mean the Chiefs.

00:22:34
Speaker 3: The Chiefs are playing like third string tackles, and they've got a quarterback that basically like even the most ardent NFL fan probably hadn't.

00:22:42
Speaker 2: Heard of until two weeks ago.

00:22:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the Broncos get one sack in this game and really don't get a lot of pressure on him. Otherwise, this is meant to be a much vaunted, absolutely top tier defense, and I don't know if they're just holding back it, they're saving themselves a little bit.

00:22:57
Speaker 2: But I look back over the last few games.

00:22:58
Speaker 3: I look back over the performance particularly ainst the Jags, but even the Packers game, the Commander's game, where they gave him.

00:23:04
Speaker 2: A lot of lot yardage a lot of points.

00:23:06
Speaker 3: So I just think it's clearly a good defense. But am I feeling the same way I felt about it for the first ten weeks the season. I feeling like I feel about the Texans, where I'm like, that's a defense that can carry a game for you.

00:23:18
Speaker 2: I'm less convinced all of a sudden.

00:23:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, Traditionally they also load up on these under you know, powered quarterbacks and destroy them. And I look, if you give up one hundred and forty yards, it's tough to kill the defense. But I'm with you that you do wonder if a little bit of Vance Joseph's play Colleen magic is starting to run out in terms of the league catching up with them, and they're gonna have to go. But again, some really good offenses depending on the matchups and That's why it's so important in the AFC what the matchup is, because I think they're they're going to be more vulnerable to a team that I think has a loaded offense than the vice versa, then being able to like play a team like let's say the Chargers are Texans who are you know, not as good on offense. So if they play the Bills and the Patriots, can they keep up in a shootout? That's a fair point. Yeah, the casey was playing two tackles that did not play tack high school football, which is interesting. It was their fifth and six tackles as a pole and another gentleman that now is escaping me that I wasn't familiar with. You mentioned Kelsey could be his last game. Was pretty interesting that Patrick Sartan was on him for most of the game and so he was quiet relatively at a couple of catches early. He ends up with the most targets, the most catches on the team, but that's only five for thirty six. He spoke after the game, you know about a night where you know, they introduced him last and it's getting emotional and if it was the last night, it kind of felt like it.

00:24:55
Speaker 9: No The only time it ever crossed my mind is I was driving in the other day and I saw how much the power ball was and I was like, Man, if I could just win, I wouldn't have to work another day in my life. Oh no, man, Honestly, I've been just focused on trying.

00:25:14
Speaker 7: To win football games.

00:25:15
Speaker 9: Man, I'll let that be a decision that I make with my family, friends, the Chiefs organization.

00:25:21
Speaker 1: When the time comes, we'll see. I don't know, by the way, I think they've got enough money in the Kelsey.

00:25:31
Speaker 3: That documentary has played in my house over the recent week or so, and yeah, watching it back, I'm like, I think he's gonna be fine. I do question though, Like, as much as he's obviously like a walking Hall of Famer, I don't think anyone's questioning his place in NFL history and what they've achieved. But how much does it say about this Chief's offense right now that Patsatown was matched up on Travis Kelcey, Yeah a lot last night. I think seven occasions he was targeted twice of those one reception eleven year. Like, I know that Travis kelce has been their best receiver for a long time, but they just doesn't feel like I don't know.

00:26:08
Speaker 2: It feels like there's a lot with this Chiefs team that has to happen.

00:26:11
Speaker 3: We were just talking about with lines and vikings, which of those teams you think is set up to bounce back quickly next year? I really like I think it was Ollie said this on I can't remember it's on your show, on his own show. But they need a new voice in the room. They need somebody there who's going to try and shake things up a little bit, actually help with the run game.

00:26:29
Speaker 2: And I don't know this Chief's team right now.

00:26:31
Speaker 3: As much as this was a fun performance last night, we've just picked apart why the defense is gonna be great next year without major investment. They're losing Travis Kelce. Like, outside of Mahomes, what are we excited about about this team next season?

00:26:44
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, Xavier Worthy has not really stepped up. They had put Racie Rice on injured reserve. Like the biggest play they had on offense was a pass interference to Worthy. They actually did not complete an air yard pass over ten yards, only the tenth time that that's happened all season long. The tackle. I feel bad when I don't name a man. So it was Chuldwabuca Godrich for the Chiefs playing in his first game, and yeah, you're right, the pass pro wasn't really a problem. Nick Benito's been pretty quiet. He was very hard on himself after last week's game, saying that he thought he did not play well, and they have been relatively quiet. Shout out to the crowd in this game. I just want to give a little bit of love that, like they were live, they were in it. They just found out that they're moving the team. You know, I know it's only twenty miles away, but there's a lot of Chiefs fans that are not happy about that. It's Christmas night, this team is out of it, and I think the home team gave him a good show. They're like showing mahomes up in the in the booth and he's cheering after the first touchdown. I just give them some credit as good fans on the end of a tough season.

00:27:59
Speaker 3: They got a little of stick few weeks ago as well for that Chargers game where there were a lot of people who left early in a three point game, And so yeah, they deserve a little bit of praise because generally I've been there before. It's a pretty great crowd, but may think they've rested on their laurels a bit.

00:28:16
Speaker 1: One of one. Maybe it's I mean, Lambeau is its own thing, but Arrowhead is such a unique, great atmosphere and they're going to have it for what four or five more years here, But there just aren't other places like that. And ultimately, Broncos fans you're listing bo Nicks is playing well. I think he's playing his best part his best football this season. Right now, you did what you needed to do, and who cares about style points. Let's take a break. On the other side. We are going to talk about the Cowboys Washington game, but I'm even more interested to talk about this Lamar Jackson John Harvar Raven situation. We will wrap with that.

00:28:58
Speaker 4: Just shot gun stat Prescott steps up into the pocket, fires down the middle of the field.

00:29:08
Speaker 5: It's turpenen stright at the forty running away from the defense, turp into the twenty to ten touchdown.

00:29:14
Speaker 1: Dallas Covan Date Chirpin.

00:29:18
Speaker 5: If it stands an eighty six yard touchdown grab, but there is a flag down back at the eleven yard.

00:29:26
Speaker 2: Line, tie defense number four. That penalty has declined.

00:29:29
Speaker 9: Results of the play touchdown.

00:29:32
Speaker 5: It stands in Cavant date Chirpin with an eighty six yard touchdown, grab breaking away from the defense and breaking open this game.

00:29:43
Speaker 1: It's twenty to three.

00:29:44
Speaker 5: Dallas with seven minutes to go in the second.

00:29:46
Speaker 1: Woof that Cowboys offense, I will miss watching them. That's JP Shadduck on Westwood One. Rather, that's Jason Horowitz, our friend on Westwood one.

00:29:55
Speaker 5: Uh.

00:29:56
Speaker 1: They scored three touchdowns, three possessions to start the game. Cavante Turpin, I've always wanted, you know, let's build a little more of the offense around one of the fastest players in the league. But whenever they try, it doesn't quite work. So maybe one catch one to eighty six yard touchdown is the perfect way to use them. The Cowboys hold on in the second half to win thirty to twenty three. This is what I want out of a meaningless game in terms of playoff you know, scenarios to start off Christmas date. If we're gonna have no playoff scenarios, just give me a lot of offense early and that's what we got from the Cowboys.

00:30:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, Cowboys get out twenty one three lead early Doors and Dak Prescott's looking absolutely sensational through this game. They converted six fourth downs successfully, they round eighty seven offensive plays to Washington's forty one, and they beat them INtime posestion by seventeen minutes. Like, how is this game a one score game?

00:30:55
Speaker 2: At the end of it is? What is beyond me?

00:30:56
Speaker 1: Because dan Quinn always finds a way to like make it look closer than it really was. He kicked that field goal at the end and then kicked it off, which wasn't a crazy decision over two minutes to go. It was probably his best chance to win. Was hope to get a three and out, and of course they could not get a three and out, and the Cowboys finished the game with the ball. Yeah, you know what I was thinking about during this game. You know we think about on these holidays, like the past and generations before us and stuff. Let just think about Marty Schottneimer. This was a Marty Schottenheimer game. The first two drives had thirty plays, but for the Cowboys, that's the longest any first two drives have been all season in the NFL. They finished with forty four rushing attempts for two hundred and eleven yards. Just outrageous. They lose Javonte Williams to a neck injury at halftime, and yet it didn't really matter. Malik Davis, who was getting the ball in the first half quite a bit, goes over one hundred yards on twenty carries. They're giving the ball the Hunter Lipke, their full back as a real tailback. They didn't have anyone else will and they picked up a third and eight run. At one point to Lipkey, it was like a give up play or a setup the fourth down play, but they just got the first down anyways. And they only punted one time the Cowboys, and that was because George Pickens dropped like an easy throw from Dak Prescott on third and eight, which had Ceedee Lamb reacting like either he was mad that George Pickens dropped it, or this is on my raider a little bit. Maybe it was mad that the ball didn't go to him. I'm just kind of watching that as George Pickens continues to outproduce CD Lamb. But yeah, they completely dominated this commander's defense all day.

00:32:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's personally on the commander's defense, which we'll get onto the shout out. So you mentioned Marty Brian Schottenheimer has been as surprising and impressive as a head coach performance. I think of people that were appointed last season as I think we've really seen this year, and him and Clayton Adams between them, they got in their bag. They recognized that you were able to run on this commandity defense and all this interior stuff as well, and they basically just went like, draw trap power. Are we going to throw absolutely everything at you We've got in our bag and it's just gonna just crush you, just completely batter those doors down. Malik Davis, I saw he had one hundred and three rushing yards. Of that, ninety three of them came on inside carries. It was just, you know, it's meant to be the inside carries set up the big outside place and that's where we'll get our big plays from. And Nope, they just ran it up the gut time and time again. And Washington don't bring a lot of guys to the line of scrimmage. That's part of like how that how that dan Quinn defense is set up. But I mean, we just talked about with Kansas City them needing a new voice in the room desperately.

00:33:36
Speaker 2: Yes, we were in Madrid.

00:33:38
Speaker 3: When dan Quinn took over the play calling from Joett Junior, and I was watching back the last few games, it kind of preparing for, right, what could dan Quinn throw differently at this defense that Joe it hasn't been and Joe It was basically calling dan Quinn's defense like to the letter. None of the play calling has changed at all. It's still a throwback to the early twenty tens. Dan Quinn defenses of that kind of Seahawks, Mold, etc.

00:34:07
Speaker 2: And I don't know. They just when you're that predictable, you've got.

00:34:12
Speaker 3: To have great players, and instead they're mostly slow and old at this point.

00:34:16
Speaker 2: And I don't know.

00:34:17
Speaker 1: It's it's difficult to watch, it really is, And they're two years into this. So the fact that dan Quinn's defense is stunk both years, because they basically stunk last year despite making the NFC Championship, is concerning because they don't have schematic answers. They certainly don't have answers on personnel. Everyone's old on that defense except for Gierson Newton. Johnny Newton was the nickname as a draft pick who I was really high on at the time. Three and a half sacks in this game and another few quarterback hits. The crazy thing is Dak Prescott took six sacks in this game, a lot of sacks considering their pressure rate wasn't that high. But he was trying to make the big play. And you asked and TJ. Batt they had They had some replacements on the offensive line downs. You asked, how is the game close when you know the Cowboys were so dominant offensive? Well, it was because the Cowboys defense was on the field and Washington did pop a couple good runs and Josh Johnson looked pretty good. Let's actually listen to probably what will be our last Bill Krofsky Merritt call of the year.

00:35:17
Speaker 5: Miss Johnson under center for a first and ten with a handoff over the right side prosty Marrit brick Spray. He's at the fifteen on the first timeline. They won't touch him. It's at the ten, bangling, It's all touchdown Bill. His second touchdown today. He just rolled the slave seventy two yard here on Christmas Day.

00:35:43
Speaker 1: That laughter, by the way, is our friend Ross Tucker, who joining us on the super Bowl call. They got something in Bill. Both his touchdown runs were awesome, Like Bill is who people think Isaiah Piccheco is. He's gotta be a role player. But here's a young player that you can have and it might be twelve carries a game like maybe he's not playing every down or whatever, but he makes people miss watching the prime vision. By the way, for that Chiefs game, I mean Pacheco cannot find the whole like he has the worst vision of like any starting running back. They actually did a great job, that's beside the point blowing open horse, but so did the Commanders. A couple of nice runs there by the Commanders. That's how they kept it close as the Cowboys enter an offseason where they got to figure out a lot undefensed.

00:36:28
Speaker 3: I thought Quinn Williams and Kenny Clark flashed in this game. I mean, Kenny Clark cap it next season is ridiculous, so there'll need to be some reworking there. It was the Jadavian Clowney game, a guy who I know you've had the back of for a very long time. Six pressures, one and a half sacks. He did well in the run game as well, so like he had a decent game. But yeah, they I don't know, not Ben don't break quite, but they just they seemed to once they were up twenty one to three, maybe a little foot off the gas ped No, they.

00:36:58
Speaker 1: Were at the whole time. This is actually one of the worst EBERFLUS games of the season because the Commanders only had eight possessions. Even at halftime, Will like, the Commanders had only had the ball three times and they had driven. You know, they had ten points, which points per drive. That's excellent, that's leading the league. You know, Josh Johnson averaged over eight yards pert tempt. They averaged eight yards per play on the Cowboys. I know it wasn't perfect, like they had a couple punts, but they they weren't making mistakes. Josh Johnson, I thought if he wanted to earn another year in the NFL, I mean, he's certainly nubby. Yeah, I mean he's thirty nine to forty years old. He's been in the NFL. They have been in professional football like seventeen years. But yeah, he could come in. The reason I called for that highlight I totally forgot was that was a funny moment in the game because I don't know if you had this you had a different situation on Netflix but Clinton Portis was like part of the broadcast at that moment, and Netflix was popping in old stars throughout the day, giving it kind of a preseason vibe. They had bad connections. It was a bad idea, but the best moment of the day in terms of the guests where Clinton Portis popped in. First of all, you know, just love hearing him, and literally one play in, you know, Bill pops that run, so it was like it was like the vibes of Clinton Portis led them to a touchdown.

00:38:16
Speaker 3: We got the ones where they were on the call, so like Chris Carter popping up in the Vikings game randomly for example, we did get a few of those, but nothing.

00:38:24
Speaker 2: Nothing.

00:38:25
Speaker 3: In the interim, we got our little Scott Hansen Kyle Long showing us tweets from all around the world and telling us how football works, which.

00:38:32
Speaker 1: Was okay, okay, well you're an expert.

00:38:34
Speaker 3: But no, no, I tell you I was I was listening to the great man Ross Tucker, That's what I was doing, and listening to the West, So I.

00:38:42
Speaker 1: Guess that was you know, that was the difference is you don't get the commercial. So yeah, rough game, and like Washington didn't have two of their offensive line, and Piatash got hurt in this game. Tunsel was out for this game, and so that's why I think it was even worse by the Cowboys deference Week eighteen. You know they're they're going to be in the mix for draft positioning. I'm in the mix to at least save myself and get to that eight eight and one that I say. I've been saying since the day they had that tie. I said, this team, I don't know how they're gonna get there, but they're gonna get to a eight and one. It's gonna be annoying, but it will happen, and they have I believe. I believe the Giants next week, so they got a chance to do it. Jake Ferguson Andevante Williams got hurt in this game, so it'll be a little higher. If not, I think I have to do something for Nick right like put up his signage of his show in the background of our show, something like that. So I need them to get that eighth win for me. I think they can do it.

00:39:37
Speaker 3: You say that you did obviously this is from your over under draft with me. We did a similar thing on talkSPORT where we were looking through those records, and I very famously, for amongst my friends, went on a earlier in the year and went, are you really telling me that fifteen win team are going to drop down to eight and a half wins because they lost? Sam Donald banged the over on eight and a half on the bar if they beat the Pacas in the last week of the season, scriping into the last second.

00:40:06
Speaker 1: That was one of my draft picks too. I had my worst year ever doing that, so that was disappointing. All right, that's the Cowboys win. They're up to seven eight and one. Now it is time for Quarterback Keeper, presented by Snapdragon. I said, we'd finished the show talking a little Lamar Jackson. He's doubtful for Saturday night, so very unlikely he plays that game, you know, very unlikely. I think that they win that game with Tyler Huntley, and so then you kind of think Lamar Jackson's season is probably over. We've been talking about the possible, you know, Sayonara for John Harbaugh this show now for a couple of weeks. I think it's time. Mike Preston, who has been writing columns for the Baltimore Sun for a couple of decades wrote a fascinatingly timed one after Lamar Jackson was already missing practice that he thinks Lamar Jackson and John Harbaugh could be headed for a breakup and posited it as a potential opportunity right now to trade Lamar Jackson. When the columnist in town writes this piece, it doesn't happen in a vacuum. The timing is purposeful. I want to get into some of the specifics of it, but that plus what I already was thinking about, the situation to me is really fascinating. And I expect the Ravens season to end on Saturday Night, and they really are the most fascinating team to watch this offseason. The Chiefs are pretty close, the Lions are in the mix. Like it's some of the good teams this year that are really interesting watch, but the Ravens are at the top of my list. What were your takeaways from this article and just the Lamar Jackson story right now?

00:41:54
Speaker 3: So I did a potentially slightly you know, I don't know anyone on Boxing Day who's making such a wild decision as this. I went to Raven's reddit because I really wanted to get an impression of what the fans thought of Mike Preston as a writer, of the timing of this piece. Like you say it, you get guys like whether it's Grant Cone with the forty nine ers or Omar Kelly with the Dolphins, who like they might sometimes write good stuff in Grant Cone's case, probably not, but like they are divisive to say the least. And I did find a piece that somebody posted from two thousand and five where Mike Preston absolutely buries Brian Billick because of his treatment of ray Lewis and holding him up too highly and letting him get away with whatever he wanted to and not having him be a leader. And essentially it reads very similarly to this Lamar Jackson piece, slightly differently in terms of it's a different age and we're not getting video games and late for practice and things like that with ray Lewis. But I don't know, it felt like a hit piece, Like it felt like it was targeted, and it felt like it was something that was designed to make a change happen. The problem is it's really interesting, like, as you know, I've been doing this Channel five stuff here in the UK recently, which you've done previously on the Monday Night Football, but they do for the one pm Eastern games. The show is very much designed to be a bit more of a layman show. It's designed for like new fans and trying to track people in and they bring in celebrity guests to quite often aren't big NFL fans or kind of follow it like semi closely. And the guy who was on this week's a comedian called Sean Walsh, and he was asking me, I head coach firings in the NFL like manager firings in football, where guys last like six months and just disappear, And I'm like, no, if anything, quite a lot of the time in the NFL it's the opposite. It's you know, we get these situations like Mike Tommlin, like John Harbor, where we're all questioning are they really the future of the franchise several times over the course of the last few years, and either consistently get proven wrong or you just get that back of look at what they've achieved, look at what they've achieved, look at what they've achieved.

00:44:04
Speaker 2: Over and over.

00:44:05
Speaker 3: I just my feeling on this is always there is only one goal in the NFL. There's only one team that win at thirty two, there is only one trophy to lift. And if you really don't feel like if you feel like I've got a generational quarterback, which what Lamar Jackson is, and you don't feel like what's happening in the building is working to get that guy to that place, then maybe it is time to make a change.

00:44:28
Speaker 1: I mean, trading Lamar Jackson's insane. I have so many thoughts about this, and I quote tweeted it and I got a lot of people misinterpreting what I was saying. And what I said was that after reading this, i'man even more convinced that Lamar and John Harbor are not going to be together next year, and it would be insane to trade Lamar Jackson. That's my main takeaway. It's not that everything in the piece is true. It's that the existence of the piece speaks to an incredible fracture between John Harbaugh and Lamar Jackson, and it reads from the outside to someone's airing of grievances of Lamar Jackson that it's desperation time, it's fourth down. John Harbaugh's career might be at the forty seven yard line and his hail Mary is letting this thing out because it doesn't come out in a total vacuum, and there was like no sourcing here. And some of the bigger accusations in the piece, which we're interesting to see, was that you know, Lamar Jackson sometimes is a sleep at meetings, that Harbaugh is kind of sick of him, and how he I think maybe approaches the game that he shouldn't be up late at night, like playing video games. That was the most ridiculous one that they've moved move practices to the afternoon, I think in training camp, I believe, or because of Lamar Jackson. Oh, like some of those are probably they all probably have varying degrees of truth, and there's probably some truth to a lot of it. And frankly, it's stuff that has been buzzed around that building and outside of the building since Lamar's contract negotiation a few years ago. You would hear that almost the exact same stuff coming out kind of from the Ravens side of things. So it might not all be coaching stuff, and maybe front office it might who even knows. There's I'm sure there's elements of truth to all of it. My bigger thing was the fact that this is all coming out right now, is like, oh, come on, because Lamar's going to see that. Everyone in the organization's going to see that. John Harbaugh goes up on the podium the next day and says he has an A plus plus relationship with Lamar Jackson. And I'm just thinking everyone inside that building knows the truth, and now everyone outside the building is starting to realize the truth because me doth protests too much. And I don't care how many picks you're going to get for Lamar Jackson. I think it'd be crazy to trade him. And if you even considered trading him, will I think it'd be even crazier to trade him and keep John Harbaugh. Like like if if for some reason you want to entertain this, you still are making the coaching change, and you're and you're and you're making a full scale, like huge change, And I don't even want to get into what they would need to come back, Like none of that makes sense to me, because I think the obvious thing here to do is find the right coach for Lamar Jackson. Yeah, what are we talking?

00:47:42
Speaker 3: We don't need to sit here in the least, we don't need to sit here and list it off right. The two time MVP should have potentially won it again last year, very close in the voting apparently like, yes, there is this knock against all of these guys, whether it's him, where there's Josh Allen, where it's obviously Joe barro has made it's a super Bowl, but all these other AFC calls backs who haven't got there. But as we've talked about a lot in the last few weeks, as the Chiefs went out of the playoffs, it's like, oh, wow, this is gonna be the first time.

00:48:08
Speaker 2: In however many years it's not Brady or Mahomes.

00:48:10
Speaker 3: It's so like it's been so dominated by certain teams that I don't think that means that the Ravens have necessarily failed. I think this year they will see as a failure because they went into the year very high hopes. You know, you think about the continuity coordinator, you think about the continuity on the defense, like they really thought that this year could be a year they can tend and they're going to look at it from the outside if they don't make it in and go yeah, no, mahomes there. This could have been the year that we stormed the castle and you know, turned up in Santa Clara in four or five weeks time, and instead they're going to be sitting and you know, attending Pro Bowl games, etc.

00:48:49
Speaker 2: On that week.

00:48:50
Speaker 3: So there will be a huge amount of frustration. But to trade Lamar Jackson would be insanity.

00:48:56
Speaker 1: Like, honestly, he's about to turn thirty. I do think it's a to recognize that there are elements of the column that are worth talking about, including most importantly about his body potentially breaking down. And that was what Preston said. He didn't think he thinks Lamar is as tough a competitor as there is, Like he wants to be out there, but the injuries are starting to pile up the running nobility in two of the last three years, because I think people kind of forget that he didn't look quite the same running the ball in twenty three either before he looked incredible in twenty four. That like Mike Vick talked to Lamar Jackson at some point, like you do have to protect your body run a little bit less. Lamar has always been great about that, Like there are things to think about in terms of maximizing the rest of his career, of course, and if approach to the game as part of it, of course, Like I think about another quarterback in the division, Ben Roethlisberger, who to me famously adjusted his approach mentally, physically everything when he got into his thirties and was better, like very much relied less on his physical ability. And Lamar's always been great mentally in the game. So that's not a question. He's a great pocket quarterback. He should age well, but finding the right coach for him to do that is really important. And Chris is in the in the commons saying I should mention that it's a Baltimore Sun columnist, not a reporter, And to that, I would say, when you're that columnist. And I know Preston, I have thoughts about I think he's ultimately like it's good to have one of those guys in town. And he might be serving a lot of different sources and stuff, but he knows the truth, he knows what's going on. And I know a lot of Ravens fans kind of don't like him, and because he's he stirs it up a little bit. But these things don't happen in a vacuum, so honestly, it coming from him even as a columnist. That's what a columnist is there for, is actually a column like this, even if you don't like totally love it, because it does it does say something about it. We don't have to wrap up here, but I do want to remember. That was Quarterback Keeper, presented by Snapdragon Learning more at snapdragon dot com slash laptops. Just just fascinating. Snapdragon getting their money's worth here with a meaty Lamar Jackson segment.

00:51:15
Speaker 3: I just to finalize the point you were making, because I think the Ben Roethlisberger comparison is fascinating. What this isn't is Russell Wilson. What this isn't is early career success with a brilliant run game, great scrambler, great deep all throw. But did he have the capacity to be a pure.

00:51:31
Speaker 1: Pocket or Mike Vick is a good example.

00:51:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, another one, Like what.

00:51:35
Speaker 1: Are we talking about here? Lamar is like one of the all time greats who's had like even this season which was you know, not great for him. It was like, of course, you're betting on that guy to have a good you know, sorry to cut you.

00:51:49
Speaker 3: No.

00:51:49
Speaker 7: No.

00:51:49
Speaker 3: I think at some point a full story of this season might come out where we find out about like just how healthy was he when he was playing, because there was that six week stretch where he just wasn't running the ball at all. I think over six weeks he had fewer yards total than his average per game in his career up until that point. And you just you were surprised he wasn't using that part of his game because it clearly wasn't necessarily designed that way. But get in one of these kind of young offensive genius types who can whether that's as a coordinator or as the head coach.

00:52:20
Speaker 1: And we've seen Daniel to Baltimore. I've been speaking it.

00:52:24
Speaker 3: I was speaking Mike McDaniel to Kansas City as a run game coordinator for quite a while. But actually, I sure I'd rather take a head coaching job with Lamar Jackson in a heartbeat, Like I that's the kind of guy that if you getting them in there and they can they're younger, they can connect with Lamar better, and they can design an offense that is more suited to his skills.

00:52:44
Speaker 2: At thirty maybe than twenty four.

00:52:47
Speaker 3: I still think this is a team that can go on and win, not just a super Bowl, potentially multiple over the next.

00:52:51
Speaker 1: DAYLD Okay, let's no. I mean yeah, I mean I think he could, but so much needs to go into it.

00:53:00
Speaker 3: We are in the post Drake May world, of course, so you know we're not going to get It's now going to be Mahomes May.

00:53:06
Speaker 2: Mahome that May.

00:53:07
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite damashek bits, Like there's always so many super Bowls to go, right, everyone says, Oh, he's gonna get one, He's gonna get one. It's like if Mahomes has taken so many and you got the Eagles who are getting back, but this year it is wide open. Josh Allen, by the way, is going to play this weekend. We learned that from Bill's coach Sean McDermott. Some other injury news sas Gardner is going to return for the Colts this weekend, but they lost to Forrest Buckner for the rest of the season after he reinjured his neck. That that's not great. Tristan Wurf's is out for the Buccaneers. So that was just something I was keeping an eye on because I picked the Dolphins in that game. I kind of feel like the Buccaneers have a little bit of a death witch at least at the very least I think they're going to cover five and a half points there. This was a pleasure. Will If we were casting the NFL Daily you know, Christmas play, you're playing Santa. I mean, you're just you know, I'm not trying to type cast, but you're just a jolly pleasant guy to see over the holidays, and I do love talking football with you, and I'm looking forward to that Super Bowl too.

00:54:18
Speaker 3: So what many people won't know is, as a twenty year old student living in Leicester in the Midlands, I got off the opportunity to be Santa not only at like a local like the kind of council run local free visit Santa thing, but I also ended up being the one that went on the float at the big turning on of the Christmas lights and everything else. In I did have to still wear a suit, despite the fact that I'm a man of substantial carriage and.

00:54:44
Speaker 2: With the big beard and everything else.

00:54:46
Speaker 3: And so I have been publicly in front of a crowd of quite literally hundreds of people as Santa Claus.

00:54:53
Speaker 2: So I've been welcome.

00:54:55
Speaker 1: It's the Beard. It's wonderful and yeah, no, Will's Will's the best and I'm glad he's been recognized this year as a great play by play man for talkSPORT. You can check him out on talkSPORT. You can also check out a new podcast he is doing called Across the Formation, So everyone go and like and subscribe to that. That's on podcast apps, that's on YouTube, and you can check out talkSPORT there as well. It was a pleasure. We will be back on Sunday. It's a little bit lighter of a Sunday slate, but we have those two big Saturday games. Jordan Rodrigue's gonna the boots on the ground give us an in person update because she's going to Texans Chargers. We also have that pack of Ravens game Eagles bills is a fun one on Sunday. I cannot wait. Merry Christmas to everyone to see that