2025 Mega Conference Championships Preview with Tom Curran and J.J. Jansen

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to NFL Daily, where we're down to three games left to preview on the season two of them. Today, I'm Greg Rosenthal. We're here in the Chris Westling podcast studio. It's me, it's Jordan rod Riege, it's Patrick Clayboy, and we are Nobody's safety school. Patrick Patrick pointed out in terms of the reporting surrounding Mike McDaniel just a few minutes ago that it sounds like the Chargers OC job is his safety school.

00:00:35
Speaker 2: It's clearly what it sounds like, which opens up an entire new apparatus where it's like, well, I don't know if I want this job. Yes, I will take this job, but I might take another job, and so it makes it makes the hiring cycle that.

00:00:49
Speaker 1: Much Well, I didn't what, how is this even possible? I was informed of this briefly right before we came and started to tape today, because I just thought we were going to talk about that the Chargers are planning to hire Mike Daniel Quickley to start the show, and we're not going to because the third line in the article about him agreeing to sign is no deal has been signed, as he's still a candidate for head coaching jobs with the Ravens and the Raiders.

00:01:13
Speaker 3: I love it. Greg, you sound like you're disappointed by this.

00:01:15
Speaker 1: It is funny.

00:01:16
Speaker 2: I love that we have conditional guarantees in this league, which is a sentence that doesn't make any sense to me, So why not have this?

00:01:23
Speaker 1: But we're just reporting things too early. We reported John Harbaugh as accepted the Giants job sixty hours before. He's going crazy because the Giants are making him not want to take the job.

00:01:36
Speaker 4: He still took the job. We still signed the contract.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: Yes, so in that case, but it was still premature.

00:01:42
Speaker 4: The Raiders have a chance to the funniest thing ever.

00:01:43
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it's a good point. It makes me think, like, would he take those head coaching jobs. We'll see, maybe he would take the Ravens one and not the Raiders.

00:01:53
Speaker 2: They should reach out to the people who are reporting his conditional acceptance of this job to rank the jobs that he would run conditionally.

00:02:03
Speaker 1: The job the Browns are out. The Browns feel the worst about this because he actually won't even conditionally consider that job. He's not even shown up. I want to move off, Mike quick. Daniel, we'll talk about it if and when we know for sure it's happening, because you know it's to the side.

00:02:20
Speaker 4: Your dream is still alive.

00:02:21
Speaker 5: Though to that point of McDaniel to the Ravens, it's still very briefly like there's a tiny.

00:02:26
Speaker 1: Little winn ouy. Yeah, they would you were trying to manifest. I was trying to make that happen. He hasn't been reported as going back for a second interview. They've had a couple others, including Jesse Minter and Anthony Weaver, but those are teams that are losers because there's only one team that's a winner. There's thirty two teams every year. One of them gets to be happy. Everyone else they're losers. That's the kind of takeaway that I took from the Bills press conference on Thursday, which would er on Wednesday, which would be worth a whole podcast on its own, but again we don't have time. This is the show we preview the AFC in the NFC, but it's a little different after each preview between you know, between the three of us, we're gonna welcome in a special guest with a little extra context for that matchup. It's gonna be my old friend Tom Curran from Comcast Sports New England in Boston, who talk a little bit about the Patriots in their journey, and then after Seahawks Rams a little later, we're gonna talk to JJ Janssen. You might have remembered him from a show with with Jordan in the offseason. He's the long snapper of the Panthers. He's gone against either are these teams this season, and so he's gonna give us a little perspective on the Seahawks in the RAMS. But let's let's start with the AFC. Let's go in order and in order of I think quality of game. I'm not, I'm gonna be right. I'm just saying that the Patriots and the Broncos, whoever makes it to the Super Bowl, it's gonna be a nobody believes in us type of thing. They're gonna be the underdogs to whoever win.

00:04:00
Speaker 6: Chip Watch already, well, I think all four teams were able to activate the chips decisively, which is why this is such a great weekend for football. To New England, Patriots five and a half point favorites at the Denver Broncos the over unders forty two and a half. It is on CBS, so it's Jim, Tony and Tracy and Evan on the call looking forward to it.

00:04:19
Speaker 3: Greg ken Stidy pull this off too.

00:04:23
Speaker 1: We didn't even talk about this ahead of time, and I'm so glad you started there. I think he is. I think he's the biggest story. I mean, right, yeah, we're not overdoing it.

00:04:32
Speaker 4: Oh it's perfect.

00:04:33
Speaker 3: We can do two hours off the city today.

00:04:35
Speaker 1: It's never freaking happened. I mean, there is a case which is kind of similar that Roger Staubach didn't start his first game that season. I think it was seventy two until the NFC Championship game, so that's a little similar. But the stat I really loved about how bizarre this is is that Stidham has gone the most amount of days between snaps in the NFL to then start a playoff game, over seven hundred something days, because you know, he just hasn't gotten even a single snap. The current record holder for that stat was mister Joe Webb from the twenty twelve Viking. If you know, you know, I think Jared Stidham has a much better chance to perform at a high level than Joe Webb unfortunately did in that game. Well we'll talk to Tom Kurrn a little bit about it, and I have I have more from watching him again on tape with Stidham, But I think my log line is the ceiling is high, and I disagree. Like you mentioned, the Patriots are five and a half point favorites. I got to assume the line moved five or six points just based on Jared's Didham. I disagree with that notion. I see this as basically a toss up game. The Stidham unpredictability maybe makes the Patriots a slight favorite, but I think the ceiling is quite high for Jarrett Stidham to play very well. And I think he's in a perfect situation in a system that he knows well, behind an offensive line that he knows well, and for a coach who has done this again and again and again with much less talented backup.

00:06:11
Speaker 5: Quarterbacks the way that the Broncos a lot of teams do it this way, but the way that the Broncos are running some of their live periods in practices and have for since Sean Payton took back over and made that entire operation creditable again, is he is either running the scout, running against the scout, team, or they're getting him in the mix involved in some of these especially those live scrimmages that they hold against other teams in training camp. The floor is actually high too, I think, because yes, he has a streaky side, I think most backups would do in the NFL. But when you combine him with Sean Payton, when you combine him with these skill players that are around him, that have also lifted the floor for b Nix, by the way, and when you actually come to a run game behind an offensive line that is the best in football.

00:07:04
Speaker 4: They have a real shot.

00:07:05
Speaker 5: They have a much much greater shot than I think this line would have you believe.

00:07:09
Speaker 2: The problem for me because I understand, I understand everything else. I want to believe about the floor and I want to believe. But it's tough for me to talk about what Jared Stidham brings when I can't talk about what bow Knicks could have brought to this game. Because we talk about the loot box that could be a backup quarterback. The what about the loot box that has turned up as money for bow Knicks, who, again, by the way, almost through a two touchdown passes on a broken freaking leg right at the end of this game against the Buffalo Bills, where it makes it so much harder to game plan. I think for a quarterback like bow Knicks, who can do so much in so many different ways, to go to you know where Jared Stidham is going to be.

00:07:48
Speaker 1: I don't. What do you mean from I don't.

00:07:50
Speaker 2: In terms of the release, I think there's I think next place is the ball is going to come out versus bo Nicks. You're honestly going sideline.

00:07:58
Speaker 1: Oh, I think I disagree. I think there's a reason why he was the number one dual threat quarterback in the country back in the day twenty fifteen. I did not think that the graphic that Juwan Jennings. Remember a few weeks ago we brought out the graphic Juwan Jennings was the number five dual threat quarterback of twenty fifteen. We thought it was funny. Drew Christensen shout out to him, sent it to me on a Sunday. They've been talking about because Darnold was sixth, Burrow was seventh, and Lamar was ninth, you know, and Kyler Murray, by the way, number two that year. What a what a year? You know, who was number one? On this entire list. It was Jared Stidham and his tape. I hate to say it is electric, and of.

00:08:41
Speaker 5: Course you don't hate to say it.

00:08:46
Speaker 1: Well, I hate to say it as a Patriots fan. Here's what I just disagree with you in terms of you know where it's gonna come. I don't know what's gonna happen. But in terms of just like building a QB in a lab of big strong, fast in a monster arm. He's got that all over bo Nicks. I mean, he's got that over most of the league. Of course, because he is. He is kind of that guy that you think is gonna be That's why, why why do you have a look on your face. Let's let's show a clip actually of Jared Stidham throw it to Devanta Adams in twenty twelve. I just thought it.

00:09:19
Speaker 3: I thought it.

00:09:20
Speaker 1: I thought'd be fun. I mean twenty twenty two, twenty two, Waller fake's motion to the right, now back to the left, shotguns snapped to Stidham Lobb's near corner for Adams makes the grab of the corner touchdown Raiders. That's absolutely perfect pass and Adams dragged his feet in the back left corner for the Raiders lead with ten seconds to great plays in that game, just like incredibly athletic on the run getting hit. But no, I'm actually not joking about the fact that like the ceilings high because when I went when you watch the preseason tape from this year, which I think is like the most useful thing, like just in terms of like a skill set, like he is showing all that, like the ros that Peyton has him throwing, which are you know, fifty yards down the field on the run boot action like it is. It is the same offense as bon Nicks, and I think he can activate. I don't know if they're gonna ask him to do all that stuff. I think he's just much more likely to make huge mistakes or else he would be like a starting quarterback. He's twenty nine years old right now.

00:10:19
Speaker 4: You there is some logic in what you're saying.

00:10:21
Speaker 5: I also, you know, internally, I'm thinking, is Greg's lack of esteem for bon Nicks dragging down that and.

00:10:29
Speaker 4: And up Jared's his esteem for.

00:10:32
Speaker 1: No, you just watch it. It's obvious that's why he was number one on that list. No, he's just skills that.

00:10:37
Speaker 2: This is an indictment of the people who made the list. Yes, Like these recruiting recings are consistently wrong.

00:10:42
Speaker 1: All I mean is like he's toolsy, right, They like it's the stuff that no I get. Plain Gabbert drafted way.

00:10:48
Speaker 5: Too Okay, So it's like, okay, who multiple things to give me true here, folks. So like, yes, he is traitzy and he's toolsy. He's also a number two quarterback. Yes, Sean Payton's preferred number two quarterback. That bear saying Sean Payton went out and went after him hard to bring him in to the building to make him the number two. It's also like you're just you're not going to get the same offense, Like you're not going to get the same production. You're going to see Sean Payton most likely do some different things to mitigate the risk that we're talking about here. That is very very clear for Jared's Sidham versus we saw, especially in the latter part of the season, the training wheels completely come off for Bonis and Bonick started dealing. And so I really think that the variance is high to your point, but I don't think we should pretend that this offense has the same potential as it would withality.

00:11:48
Speaker 1: Bonett of course, and but you just have the surprise factor that the trick is he hasn't really played in the regular season. So we're counting this now for what it's worth. The light of the four times you know in Vegas and then in Denver, like he's averaging almost eight yards per tempt. So those are regular season NFL games in which he moved the ball and had like one magical game with the Raiders where he put like four you know, like four big time throws, and then you know, three pretty blog games. My question, and what looked like maybe improved this preseason where he really lit it up was like his biggest issues before. And this is a Josh McDaniel's guy. They they drafted him in New England, they traded for him in Las Vegas. That's why he was there. So there's a lot of cross pollination and they'll they'll kind of know maybe where his weaknesses were. It was like his decision making is not fast, and that's where Bonicks has everything over him. And if I was going to say one thing looked improved from this preseason where he had like forty great dropbacks, I mean, he had like a perfect preseason was it did seem like maybe being in the Sean Payton school of quarterbacking helped a little bit with like his pocket awareness and like dealing with pressure and all that, because he's gonna have to deal with so much in this game in terms of the Patriots defense, which is blitzing at like such a higher rate, and that's where you saw him kind of moving up in the pocket. You saw him kind of making the plays where you make the first defenders miss and then that opens up like a second level throw, and he's hitting those types of throws in this particular preseason. That's against you know, the Cardinals backups, in the forty nine Ers backups. This is going to be a whole other challenge against Zach Kerr and this defense which has really changed personalities in the playoffs. Yeah, like quite a bit.

00:13:32
Speaker 2: The forty nine ers backups were in the divisional round, So yeah, you know, he's playing against the playoff defense. I do think it's just, like Jordan pointed out, the full extent of what Sean Payton would like to do is probably not available here, and so I don't think Jared Stidham is ever going to be the feature point of what they're trying to do. Of course he's going to be the guy distributing in the football to the folks that they would like to get the football too. But in terms of all right, Jared, go out there and make a play, I don't think it gets to the.

00:14:00
Speaker 1: Well, it's it's a highly schemed up offense, even with bon Nick, So I don't think it'll be that different because in a way, I just don't trust them to run the ball effectively. And maybe that that's kind of like the hinge point there that like in a lot of these games, he's almost given up on the running game pretty quickly, including last week, and counted on the highly schemed up, controlled, really well coached up passing game and getting the ball out quickly to get it done. Can stit them do that? Like, he's not going to be anywhere near the level of bon Nicks, I think running that type of offense.

00:14:30
Speaker 5: Well, and you kind of mentioned it in your in your comments, Greg, where he's slower to process. So this can't be the same type of offense, and especially when you bring in the fact that they're going to have pressure coming from every different direction. It was something like eleven different defenders for Next Gen had at least a pressure in last week's game, and you mentioned the blitz. It's literally coming from all over the line of scrimmage, so it really can't be the the same layers developed, and it's got to be a really much quicker point and shoot where you know, to your point about Bonix getting the ball out quickly and having places to go with it, like he's also getting through his reads and he's also getting you know, making those decisions very quickly, where in this case, we just don't know.

00:15:16
Speaker 1: Right, I was gotta say, like, I don't even know. It's just don't know. It's such a it's such a fascinating mystery box. I think he's a you.

00:15:24
Speaker 4: You didn't mean to take the wind down of your sand.

00:15:25
Speaker 1: No, I'm not. I'm more excited to see it because I like hit, like we actually have a I found this while looking for things we know. Well, this is just one thing I found that was funny, which was a tweet from twenty nineteen when I was just like a writer at you know, at NFL dot com, where it was like preseason week leaders and losers. Are you ready to catch Jarrett's Stidham fever. That was me back in in twenty nine, Are you well? I was that week because he did the same thing with the Patriots. He lit up the preseason and he's just one of those guys. I'm trying to think of a of a similar guys. It's a bad comparison because he's obviously a much better player. But Jordan Love in those for in a couple of his preseasons before they let him actually start, was like, oh my god, this guy is toolsy. Stidham is a weird one because he's twenty nine years old and he's almost never play It's not like he's a young man here like he's been in the end. He's been in this system for three full seasons. And Zach Kerr, who to me should be getting some love like for other defensive coordinator jobs, maybe as a play caller, and has been on it, you know, with this defense is going to throw a lot out of it. I wonder like, do they keep sending the pressure like crazy because they just weren't that team in the in the regular season and they've come up with these game plans and for two weeks and it's just two weeks, and they rank in terms of you know, yards per play allowed, you know, points allowed, everything, like with the greatest playoff defenses in the history of football. Because these two games have basically left both these quarterbacks and teams broken. I don't think they're that level of defense, but I do think they're playing their best right now, and they're going up against an offensive line that's freaking awesome that dominated Buffalo in terms of the pass protection, I thought last week, and I don't think it's going to be easy for New England to get a four man pass rush against this team necessarily, but I.

00:17:22
Speaker 2: Don't think you can spend that much time and energy planning on blitzing and blitzing this Jared Stidham offense with Sean Payton calling the plays. They call a lot of screens with bow knicks playing yeah, And so I think the way that you lose this game is sending the house at Jared Stidham and him navigating and using that big, incredible, physically imposing art five star recruit are I mean, just the livest arm in football on the shoulders of Jared Stidham.

00:17:47
Speaker 3: And also, you know, quick ball out to R. J.

00:17:49
Speaker 2: Harvey and he's able to make a couple of guys miss and go thirty to forty yards. I think that's the only recipe, honestly, where the Patriots lose this game. Not that they need to pull back on their aggressiveness, but say.

00:17:59
Speaker 1: You're way more confident in the Patriots. If that's the only way, I feel like there's a lot of Well, I think.

00:18:06
Speaker 5: I really like what you're saying on this because if I'm Mike Rabel, I try to just make it as cloudy and confusing on the back end as possible for a quarterback who again yay preseason, but has not taken live reps right against non regulated, non base defenses in many years at this point, and so I I their coaches talk all the time about they don't even.

00:18:29
Speaker 4: Know year to year what the hell they're looking at with coverages.

00:18:32
Speaker 5: They have to get into it, they have to have to see it multiple times to actually understand it, and imagine being a quarterback coming in cold against that. I just think they just make it, keep it simple upfront, make it as cloudy as possible in the back. And I think Mike Rabel and incur to your point. They do have the tools and the I know we use this word a lot, but the ability to make like a bespoke game plan in that regard.

00:18:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, they they just got to get carried. The running game, I think needs to be better, and the Patriots have really defended the run well in the playoffs and towards the end of the season. Since Blaine came back and since Milton Williams, you know, came back, it's really been huge and kind of all these depth pieces are playing their part. They really look like I think Mike Brable wanted them to look all year finally at the end of the year. So I think they can do a good job. We don't know if Carlton Davis is going to be available. I think they can do a good job defensively. The reason why I don't just you know, think this is anything more than a coin flip game, is like, the best unit in this game should be, or at least could be, the Denver Broncos defense, and they they have to go out there and they have to be that team. They've been together for a while.

00:19:43
Speaker 3: It is.

00:19:43
Speaker 1: It is a veteran Broncos defense under Vance Joseph that you know, to my I maybe peaked last year. They're still very very good, but they have had five games this year where they gave up at least twenty six first downs. It's kind of like a hand pick number on. You know, I'm clearly doing that because the Patriots, for instance, they didn't have one game where they gave up that many. But that's like five different games where teams went up and down the field. So you think about the Packers and the Jaguars and the commanders of all teams, and then the Bills laughed last week. They are such a strange team because they also don't turn the ball over almost at all, which is surprising. I think that's a little fluky. So how are they so good? And this is where the matchup against the Patriots seems to really go in their favor. They're one of the all time teams in sacking the quarterback and hitting the quarterback. Zach Allen led the team, it led the league in quarterback hits, and Drake May takes tons of sacks. That two times this year that they've gone up against heavy sacked teams, which was I think the Falcons and Bucks. He took a ton of sacks. And then they also are the best red zone defense in the entire NFL. And the Patriots have struggled all season in the red zone. So can you, you know, make Drake May make mistakes, fumble the ball, Patrick sack them, and then just make them kick field goals Like that seems like a reasonable ask for this Broncos defense to keep them in the game and maybe win like a lower scoring, ugly game.

00:21:13
Speaker 2: And that's the question, right, how aggressive are the Patriots going to be considering that being aggressive both on offense and defense maybe the recipe for losing the game. I like playing into those strengths where I think this is a pass rush much like the Texans pass rush in the secondary that's going to be trying to create and force these turnovers because they know they're probably going to need them. And so I could see Drake May's legs being a huge part of this game. If the edges get too deep, if the corners are in man where it's one guy to beat, Drake May gets twenty to thirty yards, they make five or six of those plays, that may be enough to win the game.

00:21:51
Speaker 4: I think.

00:21:52
Speaker 5: And I would say not to go all Galaxy brain here with it, but I would say maybe you try to bait that a little bit. If you're the Broncos defense, maybe you try to bait the quarterback into kind of rushing through the front of the cup, as they say, when you're rushing around the pocket. Because when you have a guy like Nick Bonito who's chasing quarterbacks down and making these splash plays forcing turnovers very importantly, and you have Drake May who yes has had issues with ball security, with protecting the football. I do think that there's a potential variance there that could be very very significant in this game. And I wonder if you, if you try it a couple of times, try to bait him into rushing to see how how well he is protecting the ball in those moments.

00:22:36
Speaker 1: I mean, he's fumbled six times in two weeks. It's a little bit of a fiasco for him. And it's unlike how he's been the rest of the season, which is if he makes a big mistake, he very quickly tends to kind of you almost can see it. It's like, Okay, I'm going to go to school and I'm not going to make that mistake again the next week that we've worked on it, and the fact that that the Texans game and that the weather was a factor and Obviously the pass rush was a factor in a couple of them, but a couple other times, you know, I think him holding onto the ball and running a little loosely was a bigger factor. The fact that he didn't kind of take that lesson of ball security away from the first playoff game is really concerning. And that's why, like, the run game, to me, is so important. I think you're right about the scramble because you think about Josh Allen and I went back to watch like last week, and like they're hitting him with those zone runs. And one of the reasons the Bills didn't end up winning is I think they they fell behind enough where they had to go away from the run, not completely. The Broncos never really got James Cook in the running game under control. They didn't, and a lot of it was these zone runs where they take advantage of Zach Allen, you know, going upfield and the rushers going up field, and they had huge holes in terms of their running game. And so Remandre is not Sames Cook, but maybe Travon Henderson can pop a big one. And the Patriots, I think all talked about how much they loved that one drive at the end of the Texans game where they got the ball deep in their end zone and they ran four straight first downs almost all over the side of Morgan Moses and mic O nu And I think like, if they can do that, that would be the same side of the field that the Bills was running against last week. Like that to me is calms everything down so that Drake may isn't in all these third and longs last week. You know, they were in third and nine. They averaged nine point seven yards on third down for most of the games. So it's like, yeah, that's when turnovers happened, and so they need to avoid that because they couldn't run for most of the game last week.

00:24:42
Speaker 5: I love that point because we've talked since the preseason really about there's there was gonna be a lot of work to do for Travon Henderson in terms of just it's really tough for a young running back in the first place. And then you know, we had heard really positive commentary about his past, we didn't actually really see it until late in the season. One of the most gorgeous plays he's made, by the way in this his rookie season, not an explosive play, but a blitz pick up last week. This good cause this is a potential for him because of what we know about him to be true versus some of the other backs on that roster is that he is a home run hitter. He's not a guy that's going to rip you off a bunch of doubles or triples. He is a home run hitter player. And so if he has the right zone, the right crease, and there's a vulnerability there, there is a potential that the Broncos defense that is among the best in the league at limiting explosive plays and absolutely truncates most teams down in the run game, they are still susceptible to that based on what James Cook was able to do.

00:25:46
Speaker 2: The lowest success rate allowed in terms of at least in terms of success rate, which I know, guy, you're a fan of now I am. The Jags had the advantage of them total run defense, but this Broncos defense thirty five percent success rate on the ball against them.

00:25:59
Speaker 1: They are a very hard team to run against. Despite what we saw last week from the Bills, there have been the games that pop up. They really are a team that beat up badly on bad opponents, and like I mentioned, those those five to eight games where they kind of let teams go up and down the field. They haven't. They're an interesting defense. They're a very good defense, but they're eighth right now and waited dvoa on defense. That sounds about right to me. Like that that you know that the Rams are ahead of them, that the Patriots are pretty pretty close. That they're a defense that has such clear strengths, and that's where the Patriots can lose this game. Like Benito and Cooper and Allen and Franklin Myers who have somehow all had at least what seven sacks for two straight seasons, Like that's an outrageous combination going up against you know, Will Campbell is coming off the two worst games of his career. Jared Wilson is a rookie. Garrett Bradberry's not given me up a lot of confidence. I actually feel pretty good about the right side of the Patriots line. But uh, like that that could be where they get you, because even against the best, you know, offensive lines, they can just dominate.

00:27:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, and and vance Joseph.

00:27:13
Speaker 5: You know, there are times when we've seen him really like the five man fronts, and then you know it's just mathematical, you can load up three plus two over on the over on that left side, and that's spells uh worst case scenario I think for that side of the Patriots offensive line, and inclusive to the center, who is gonna have to help Drake may understand and diagnose what he's seeing because I don't know.

00:27:34
Speaker 4: There's something about this group.

00:27:35
Speaker 5: You you've touched on it a couple times, like eye test and film like, not as dominant as we saw last season, but they, to me, this is a we know exactly when to turn it on type of defense, and that is a championship caliber defense if you saw it in the with the twenty twenty one rams for example, with an Aaron Donald with a Von Miller, like not totally through some of that season, really showing up in full strength, but in these key moments to make a splash play, that's when they're setting up their own shots like a run stop on second down, are third down leading to the sack on fourth down, and some of the pass rush. Like they this is a really veteran group that understands like how heavily to turn it on and how to turn it on in a moment like this.

00:28:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, they like you can as easily see Hufunga being a problem in a couple big plays for the Patriots as you could see him forcing a couple of turnovers, like he is a boomer Bus guy. You do you think it's Patrick Certan traveling with Stefan Diggs.

00:28:44
Speaker 2: No, I think between Digs and Booty, it's going to be Sertan over on the right side. Riley Moss and the officials are going to have their particular opportunities. Where I think this game hinges is Hufanga and the Broncos back like the back part of the of the linebacker corps.

00:29:04
Speaker 3: I'm blanking on my favorite Broncos.

00:29:05
Speaker 1: Linebacker, Singleton, Alex Singleton.

00:29:08
Speaker 2: Alex Singleton, where Hunter Henry was so good on play action passes all season, you kind of have to throw the Texans game out because, like Hunter Henry was just not involved in the proceedings a lot there. Because the Texans defense presented such a unique problem there. I think run game play action. I know it's tough to have Drake may take his medicine against this, but it's like I see nothing but a very boring Patriots offense doing just what it needs, yeah to make this.

00:29:36
Speaker 1: I tend to agree. I think it'll be interesting. I think the Broncos have a real good chance to win this game because I can just see the gate afterwards, like the defense like being the story, that's his defense, it's been around for three years, really veteran, and that they're like this, this is their moment Drake May. Last week, their plan against the Texans makes me wonder though, if they'll go the opposite wa. I think they were ultra aggressive, almost because they didn't respect the Texans offense, and I think actually was a smart approach because they had so many disastrous drives, yet they were really kind of going for home runs and they hit like three of them, which is as much as an offense has scored against the Texans literally all year. Is three touchdowns. And Drake May when they went man last week and this is a great man team Houston, he was eight for twelve for one hundred and six yards and three touchdowns, had his scrambles. The Broncos are one of the highest man coverage rate teams in the league, I think their second, and so I think they're gonna take their shots because that's just as you like to say, that's what Drake May likes to do is go get buckets. He's got to go down swing and maybe they'll think, like if we you know, if we have some three and outs and whatnot, like they're not gonna score a million points with Stidham.

00:30:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think if you're gonna go man against Drake May, your pressure better get there. And even the heaviest man teams are still zoning defenses for the most part. To you could still make things cloudy and pick your spots to maybe press a little bit tighter. But this is one of those where getting him to turn the ball over is like written on the whiteboard in every single defensive meeting room, the entire everything, every you know, the most important thing, you know, We've said it all year is Drake May.

00:31:19
Speaker 4: He is the most important thing.

00:31:20
Speaker 5: Two years now, two years now, He's the only thing that most still.

00:31:24
Speaker 1: Matters this game.

00:31:25
Speaker 4: Matter in the Broncos building.

00:31:27
Speaker 5: The only thing that matters is getting him the fritz out and turn the ball over, as he has been in big fits and spurts this season.

00:31:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, any and he keeps swinging. If he can get through this game, he'll do a few things that are unique. He'll be it'll be the second youngest quarterback to ever make the Super Bowl, Dan Marino being the youngest. I was like, wasn't it Roethlisberger? But Roethlisberger was like ten months older or something like.

00:31:51
Speaker 4: It was never young.

00:31:51
Speaker 1: Let's be he was. He was something like ten ten years older or ten months older than May would be. He'd also be the first Patriots quarterback to win Denver in the playoffs. They're zero to four. There was that that Jake Plumber game which ended the three peat bid, where he got a big, big victory and then a couple Peyton Manning wins, including the last time the Broncos were in the AFC Championship, the game where he came up a two point conversion short to Rob Gronkowski. I can't wait.

00:32:23
Speaker 4: Ye yes, where's Jake Plumber right now? These days?

00:32:27
Speaker 1: He's doing I don't know, Arizona.

00:32:30
Speaker 4: No, he is in Colorado running a mushroom farm.

00:32:33
Speaker 6: Oh wow, congratulations to Jake Plumber, all trying to ease people's pain.

00:32:38
Speaker 2: I want to shout out our resource department. There have been ninety two quarterbacks, twenty six wide receivers, eleven punters, seven running backs, three tight ends, one defensive back and one kicker who have attempted to pass since the last time Jared.

00:32:48
Speaker 1: Stid absolutely outrageous justice for the preseason.

00:32:56
Speaker 4: Put his recruiting stats up again.

00:32:59
Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna take a break and we'll come back. We're gonna talk to Tom Curran a little bit about these Patriots back in a minute, back on NFL Daily and welcoming in a man who has covered the Patriots for a long long time and a man who has impacted my career in a very positive manner. Tom Curran over at Comcast NBC in Boston. He's got the Patriots Talk podcast. It's rising the charts. Business is booming in New England. And yes, Tom, you showed me around my first Super Bowl. I ever went to the first Patriots Giants Super Bowl for an outfit called nbcsports dot Com, which no longer exists.

00:33:56
Speaker 7: What's Up Everybody?

00:33:58
Speaker 1: That was the you start every show. What's Up Everybody? Thanks for clicking. I'm Tom Curran. Uh, and you actually introduced me to the term honking, which I've stolen from you. And Uh, it's it's still a big part of my lexicon. Sou For all that you do, Tom, I applaud you. What has it been like covering Mike Rabel coming back as a player, I mean as a coach after after cover him as a player all those days ago.

00:34:30
Speaker 7: You know, it's interesting, it's it is. It's interesting because you cover him as a player and you're more not a here to shouldn't I need him when you need him? And he and I had a good relationship. Then there was an awful lot of ball bust and that went on back then. Every question posed he was always would sit. Now, so there were times you'd go to with locker and you'd get questions answered. There were times you'd go to with Locker and just you know, grab us around. But now covering him as a coach, she's still hardwired to whatever you're asking him. It's kind of wow. So it's a different relationship. But he's been an unbelievable asset, and I think it really starts with him. When you look at these teams. That starts. And I'm looking at the great turnarounds this week, the eighty one Niners, the two thousand and one Patriots, I believe it was the Colts in ninety eight they went thirteen to three. It's another team in there too that I'm forgetting, which I shouldn't be forgetting because it's one of the great ones. Oh, the Rams ninety nine, A lot of them had to do with a coach, quarterback comba and in the instances that it did, that coach, whether it be Dick for Meal or Bill Belichick or Bill Walsh, really carried the message and the imprint in those first years. Now they had unbelievable quarterbacks Warner and Manning and Montana and Brady, those guys are elevated, but early on it is the coach the coach, the coach, and the cultural rebuilds and.

00:36:06
Speaker 2: A part of building the culture and the team is at least from my point of view, in trying to figure out how they to explain how all of this happened, Tom is being able to assign the credit of who is taking part in making what decisions and how those decisions get made. And I wonder in the transition from the era where you were in week five, six and seven, and it was difficult for you folks in Foxborough or US here nationally to determine who was calling defensive plays for the Patriots to an area where the coach is so much more willing to be open about certain aspects. But it's still kind of difficult to figure out where the Wolf portion of the roster construction, where the verbal portion of roster construction. Is it easier nowadays or harder to figure out where that decision making is made in terms of ilitant and this roster that's been able to be a part of this curtain round?

00:37:04
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's harder. I mean because you know, when when Elliot Wolf was retained, and I wasn't necessarily that he would be, because he was part of some absolutely disastrous, horrendous decisions. Really since he rose to the level of being a collaborator with Bill now, Bill usually got everything, you know, dropped at his feet. But in twenty twenty one, the Patriots had a good draft. They got mac Jones and Christian Barmore and then they they got christ Gonzales, but there was just a litany of first and second round picks who didn't work out. And then after Bill left, the last year's draft was horrible. The free agent class was nothing to write home about. This year had been with the additional rancout and Mike and Elliott Wolf more or less say look, I'm going to serve Mike. I'm the general manager, but what he wants is what I'll provide. He's provided them with an incredible one of the all time great in terms of contributions free agent classes. You look at four fits of the offensive line. So I to answer your question, I don't know who pulled the trigger on Morgan Moses and Garrett Bradbury and ultimately Jared Wilson who was responsible for those things. Mike's not doing all the scouting on Jared Wilson, a lot on Will Campbell. I would think who decided Mac Hollins. It's been a collaboration. Mac Collins was with Josh McDaniels. Carlton Davis was with Terrell Williams, the defensive coordinator who's been laid low by illness throughout the season. But all of these little links helped to bring people in. So it's really been a collaboration. And I think the Mike bringing in a staff that included Marone on the offensive line as a former head coach, really close with Brabel, who you know. Meanwhile, having Josh McDaniels the offensive coordinator, giving him the latitude to run the offense. I mean, when you really come up to it. It's unfortunate that McDaniels has those two failed coaching stints because he could arguably be the greatest officer coordinator in the history of the league. He certainly has the greatest resume when you look at the number of games that he's coached in the prolific nature of the offense and the way he's changed it. So there's a lot of there's a lot of credit to dice up, but I think Frabele should get the lion's share here. In twenty twenty five.

00:39:19
Speaker 1: We talked, you know, you talk about McDaniels, and so I do want to ask because he brought Jared Stidham with him to Vegas that he traded for jarededs Didham. We talked at length about Stidham earlier, just our view of him. But you are a rare person that watched Jared Stidham practice in training camp for what three seasons and and and got a better feel of him. Obviously didn't play a lot for the Patriots. Like what did you think of Stidham back back then? Like how are you taking that forward? I know it's been a minute, but what was he Like, what did you think of him back then.

00:39:54
Speaker 7: No, it's he's got a weapon. I mean he can really really throw. And that was what was said about him when he was coming out of colleges. If you put everybody in shorts and T shirts and just said throw the football, Jarrett did him jumps off the page. His arm talent is next level. So you have an opportunity when you are a backup quarterback or a team facing a backup quarterback, you might get somebody who is a stand in and you know he can't play, and we've seen him over the years. I don't need to smirch the names of all the backups we've seen who just had no shot. You might get a backup who's like a Jacobi Presat or Josh Dobbs. I would say that Jarrett's did him is the least preferable option of a backup quarterback that you would want to deal with because he can get hot. And that's what he would do during training camp practices. He'd sit there and go, oh, rap, nice throw. That's another nice throw, and then go pick pick, ridiculous throw pick, and you're like okay. So that was really in twenty twenty when he had the opportunity to beat out Cam Newton. The Patriots decided with Boyer, Stidham, and Newton on their roster. It was just Hoyer and Steadham after Brady, and then at the end of June, Bill said, you know what, Kim Newton's still sitting there. He's a former MVP. Should we bring him in. Brought him in. Stidham missed some time during that training camp early on with a hip slash knee situation, and Kim just took the job, flat took it, which you know, I thought that Stidham really just I thought it was going to be more competitive. It was not, and then soon there after he was gone. But the arm talent. I was talking to Michael Winner, who played with Stidham during that period of time, said, you know, it's he's got moxie and that's what you don't want to deal with. An offensive line that note williamstead in the locker room just a few minutes ago, is the best offensive line they will see. A head coach in Sean Payton who understands how to get a quarterback ready for a game, and then a guy who has a lot of talent. So it's not a I still understand why the Patriots are favored, and they ought to be because it's a backup quarterback, but it is not going to be. I don't think Jared Stidham's going to be confused by the moment.

00:42:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I uh, I think he's dangerous and I made the case for that earlier. I am curious, you know, I am a regular listener to the Patriots Dog podcast. You and you and the Senator do a great job. There's a lot of talk about dinks. Uh that Rabel's gotten rid of the dinks on the on the roster, which is another Tom current colloquialism that I like. But the one bone I have to pick for you, Tom is you kind of made your name back in the day by planting your flag on Mount tom Brady before anyone else. You were writing in the paper, this guy needs to be the guy. It's not gonna be bledsoe, bledsoe. You called them a hood ornament, that his contract was a hood ornament. And this is at a time before anyone was making this case early on, and I think it I think it helped your career out. It must have helped your relationship with Tom Brady out for a while now we get to the Drake May era, and it feels like you were a little slow to warm up to the fact that this guy could be a capital d Like, dude, what about him this year and just in his development has kind of taken you by surprise.

00:43:25
Speaker 7: Well, you know, when the Patriots were so bad in twenty twenty three, I could not watch the ineptitude on the offensive line anymore. I was sick of looking at it. You can't even begin to start a team, I thought, without having the ability to protect a quarterback. So my thought was, look, you got the opportunity here at number three. You can trade down, You can get yourself a tackle, you can get yourself a JJ McCarthy, a bow Nix of Michael Pennix's quarterbacks there. But if you're going to try and walk out with a straight face and put a project quarterback, which may in many people's minds, was kind of The talent was unquestioned, but the fundamentals, the ability to improve those fundamentals, his accuracy, those were all issues at North Carolina. So I said, why don't you kill two birds with one stone, trade down, JJ McCarthy, take a tackle. What May has done though, and it isn't just this year what May did. Alex van Pel came in last April or May and started working with May and stripped him back down to zero in terms of how he wanted him to play the position, how he wanted him to throw. May was vastly different. By the end of training camp in twenty twenty four. He looked robotic during mini camp. By the time he came back, he was really smooth and really accurate. So I was slow in terms of okay, well, his fundamentals just clicked like that. Now, how will his decision making be Because toward the end of twenty twenty four when he was in there, there were occasions when he would get a little bit to wild with the ball in terms of situations, and he would have picks. At the beginning of the season. Excuse me, during training camp he was doing that a little bit too. He went for a long term with no picks, and then they had in stadium scrimmage and he threw picks at the beginning and picks at the end. And then they had a preseason game and he had a strip sack, embarrassing looking thing, that was no reason for it. And then at the beginning of this year, same thing. Week one against Oakland, he has a picket coming out a halftime when they had the lead. They lose that game. They have a game against Pittsburgh, they have five turnovers. May get strip sacked, make some bad decisions. So I'm like, Okay, well this is gonna take some time. And he's clearly an improving player. How he has flipped guys from that guy to this guy, who is one of the most remarkable arcs of improvement I've ever seen. Brady didn't improve like that. I mean, Brady was really smart, took good care of the ball. He didn't have all these other abilities that May has to tap into. So Brady was just incredibly accurate, incredibly organized, incredibly competitive. May has so many skills, and he harnessed them and fixed things so quickly. It's it's really it's remarkable. So yeah, I thought it was going to take a lot longer. I didn't think he was going to be an outright stiff. I thought he would be an upper tier quarterback, a top ten quarterback. But now by this time next year, excuse by August of next year, we're going to be with this year, We're gonna be talking about what was Drake made the best quarterback in football?

00:46:37
Speaker 3: And that's.

00:46:39
Speaker 1: No, no, yeah, I think I think you're right out. I mean, the next couple weeks, hopefully for the Patriots three weeks, well we'll have something to.

00:46:46
Speaker 3: Say about that.

00:46:47
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, that's definitely the conversation for us to have. But you know, on the pod, Tom, you're giving Drake an f in ball security, and we saw, we saw them all come out. Uh and we just saw the for the folks watching on YouTube, a full couple of minute highlight package of Drake May. There are only four plays in that highlight package where the ball wasn't an immediate risk.

00:47:08
Speaker 3: But also there's all of.

00:47:09
Speaker 2: These I'm only counting four because two of them were against the Jets, and to get highlights against the twenty twenty five Jets, we're just not going to count at this point. Tom, I'm sure you're on the same page with that. But to get those highlights, you also get the ball being put in risk. And I wonder at what point are you comfortable trading those big plays, especially in the playoffs, for the quarterback who, to his credit, is able to make those plays, but he doesn't have that spatial awareness, and nobody does out of eight billion people on the planet that Tom Brady did in knowing when to be able to take those shots when the pressure's coming. Drake May's out there trying to get buckets. How much do you think Josh McDaniels has to pull him back from trying to acquire those buckets.

00:47:54
Speaker 7: I think it's time score game situation. What are you behind? Do you need a play? Is it first down or is it third down? You know these first down mistakes that quarterbacks sometimes make. It's mind knowing you don't need to try and stand there and haunt a big play. And if you look at the mistakes or not the mistakes. I mean May with stripsack last week. Anybody would have lost the ball when they had their arm pulled as he did by Will Anderson. It's the fact that he looks like he's throwing a freaking javelin. It's clear he's thinking he's got more time than he does. He's going against one of the best pass rushers in the league. You might not have the opportunity to javel in the ball, So he's going to get better at that. I think more disturbing was the ball security on the sneak. I mean, not the sneak, the scramble where it got punched out on the way down. But these guys are so good and people here, you know, we have a show that we do every night on NBC Sports Boston, and they're like, wells Grake may been figured out the last two weeks by these defenses. I'm just no, the defenses are better. They make guys look bad. They He's not been figured out. He's not coming back to Earth. It's like going from seeing the Jets and the Dolphins at the end of the year, or the Giants, and again those teams have good players, but seeing those games in which he had one hundred and twenty five passer rating, those are seventy five mile one hour VP pitchers. This is ninety with a fleet of pitches hitting on the black. So it's it's gonna be harder for a guy to go three for four.

00:49:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like it's why in general, playoff quarterback numbers go down because you're played, Yeah, you're playing better teams. And why Patriots fans got too upset about the whole schedule thing. It wasn't that he's not playing at a high level. Like Matthew Stafford's numbers are all down. Everyone's numbers are down. By the way, the entire league of quarterbacks completion percentage in the playoffs right now is under sixty percent. It's whether it's great defenses. They'll have to go through a gatlet you're about to go talk to that man, Drake May. So we got to let you go do your actual job, Tom Currn. But look, I was just getting it. I was getting I was gonna say. You know, back in the day, I could count on seeing you for a full week at the super Bowl almost every every other year or so. So you know, for my own self interest, I hope to see in San Francisco in a couple of weeks.

00:50:16
Speaker 7: You will see me in San Francisco. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me on today, guys, all.

00:50:21
Speaker 1: Right, see it, Tom. That was a great Tom Curran. And yes he would always I just like took took little words from Tom. I just like the way that that that he speaks. But he was always talking about you know, people are honking too much at me, and that's that's where honk it comes from.

00:50:37
Speaker 3: And and that's the beautiful thing about language.

00:50:39
Speaker 2: We take well what we can for people we appreciate and respect, and we apply it and it goes on, it goes forth, it changes and grows.

00:50:46
Speaker 3: And we love it.

00:50:47
Speaker 1: I tried to. I tried to make Chowderhead more of a thing that was like another tom one that kind of led, that kind of was left in in Massachusetts.

00:50:56
Speaker 3: I guess it seems York.

00:50:58
Speaker 1: It does. But just like a you know, if someone's an idiots, he's ahead. All right, let's take a break. We're going to be back on the other side. We got a whole conference to preview, and some, if they were being disrespectful, could even call this kind of the real Super Bowl rams Seahawks winner, our favorites for the championship. That that's a safe statement disrespect. Back on NFL Daily, the game we've been leading to all season long, the third in a trilogy, rams Seahawks. Will this game Patrick be as good as the third Star Wars?

00:51:50
Speaker 4: See?

00:51:50
Speaker 1: Look, I know I know about your interest to No, you're into Star Trek.

00:51:54
Speaker 2: No, I I can say multitudes. You know, I'm glad you're with me. You were rocking with us back.

00:52:00
Speaker 3: Then, so I understand.

00:52:02
Speaker 1: Bring it back around.

00:52:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Los Angeles Rams are a very good football team.

00:52:08
Speaker 2: I don't know if we are comparing any of these to the second rendition of the Galactic Rebellion against the Empire, but we do have a chance to see the third rendition.

00:52:20
Speaker 3: Of this game.

00:52:20
Speaker 2: Two points separating these teams from two solid games one a rock fight, want to score fest Sean McVay, after getting coached up by Jordan roberdrieg on the road at the Seattle Seahawks, who are a two and a half point favorite, were under his forty six and a half.

00:52:35
Speaker 3: It's Kevin, it's Tom, it's Aaron, it's the other Tom on the call.

00:52:39
Speaker 2: Does he take what you provided, Jordan and use that to power his way back to another Super Bowl?

00:52:45
Speaker 4: Run the ball?

00:52:46
Speaker 3: Sean?

00:52:47
Speaker 5: Also, this is my super Bowl, this is our super Bowl. This is the super Bowl. The Super Bowl is going to be great. But this is the two best teams in football going at it right now, and I am so stoked for this. This is a Rams team that has looked really outside of its personality, especially through the playoffs, had issues where there doesn't need to be any issues in terms of playflow and the way the game is called. And you know, Sean McVeigh has been very open about that. There's been a lot of really interesting moves and counter moves. Defenses have thrown a lot at Matthew Stafford and it has looked every bit of it. And on the other side, the Seahawks made such a statement of strength over yes, a decimated forty nine Ers team and are rolling with I would say, probably the highest level of confidence possible into this matchup.

00:53:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, that fourth quarter changed so much, and if I wanted to give the Rams like the largest grace possible, it's almost been like they they haven't been that team. You said the two best teams in the league, Like that's talking about resume and the team that we see in all season and when we look at the roster and the numbers, like I agree with all that I've said that these are far and away the best two teams. Since that ten minutes stretch started basically with Sam Darnold getting pick picked off going in for a touchdown with under ten minutes to go down by sixteen points, like that game is over over at that point. Since that moment forward, the Rams haven't been that good. They've just been They've been okay, they've been good enough to win a couple close playoff games, but they haven't been excellent offensively, certainly, and they've been resourceful, but they've they've been playing iving down to their competition and lucky, frankly to get past Carolina and Chicago. Now, when I'm talking about extending grace, it's almost like they had to just get through all that just to get back to where they were at that moment, to correct everything and where I actually think that they might feel comfortable. I think this is the game they wanted Patrick, for whatever that's worth. I know they know it's like an extremely difficult challenge, but it's one that they're familiar with and that they've gone against twice. They put up a lot of yardage obviously on Seattle, and I think they welcome this. And for some reason, I do believe in this ridiculous psychological trick that I just played that like, now we're going to see the real Rams. Will that be enough? I don't know.

00:55:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I think we've been seeing the real Rams the whole time.

00:55:28
Speaker 2: Resourceful enough to get two road playoff wins over a team that had previously beat them and one of the hottest teams in the NFL, with Caleb Williams occasionally player out of his mind to.

00:55:37
Speaker 3: Say, oh, yeah, that's it.

00:55:39
Speaker 2: That's the guy and this team the secondary that I was highly critical love made the plays necessary to make them not look like the team and the guy in those circumstances were Yeah. I think the high variance version of the Rams we've got late DC this season are the Rams, and I think that's fine. I think they're perfectly capable of beating the Seattle Seahawks in terms of the comeback and the late aspects of that game.

00:56:04
Speaker 3: I don't know that this version and I know Sam.

00:56:07
Speaker 2: He was twelve of seventeen, I believe against the forty nine ers and in a home playoff win.

00:56:11
Speaker 3: Where he played through a lot, he didn't have to do much.

00:56:15
Speaker 2: And I think that this Rams team can force more out of him, much in the way that they force more out of Chicago and Carolina, and I know we don't think is highly of I think more highly of the Bears offense than I do of the Seahawks, especially with Sam playing this way and having his body be in the condition it is, And so yeah, I think II leen Rams in this matchup.

00:56:39
Speaker 1: Let's focus on Donald and the Seahawks offense first, then like that matchup, because I do think like Stiddy had to lead that preview. I do think that's the number one question is can Donald avoid the big mistake, avoid catastrophy, because when you say these two teams were separated by two points in those two games, it's really fascinating that it was that close when they were minus six Yeah in turnovers? How are you minus six and turnovers and you're right there with the other best team in the NFL and three touchdowns in those games, so that's you know, they would have been about twenty five points apart come directly off Sam donald turnovers. One was nearly a pick six, the other two were extremely short fields that the Rams cash in. So if they just take care of the ball, they've kind of have looked like the better team. And so how do you think Donald will look Jordan? And what do you think kind of the Rams are gonna do? Because I think if he plays a B plus game, they're heavy favorites.

00:57:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're ceiling both heavy favorites.

00:57:45
Speaker 1: As dramatic. I can already hear JB Long like texting me about it. Sorry, JB, I can't wait for his call.

00:57:51
Speaker 5: By the way, too, that'll be good. It's interesting because the thing that Chrishula like butters his defensive bread on just so happens to be the thing that truly does give Sam Darnold legitimate problems. And it's okay to say it like it's facts right. It's not even necessarily pure pressure. It's not necessarily real pressure. It's not necessarily even sacks. It's the fact that Chris Shula does not blitz yet is leading in pressure rate or throws affected by pressure because of the simulated pressure looks that he shows. And what that means is he is sending his defensive backs and or linebackers up to the line of scrimmage to make it look like they are going to rush the quarterback, but then dropping them more often than not, way more often than not into coverage and cloudying up the back end. Says the quarterback who is preparing for a pressure, to deal with pressure and to mitigate that, all of a sudden sees the answers that he's already decided he's going to use to solve said pressure covered up by defenders. And when we talk about cloudying up the defensive backfield, that's what we mean. They want to keep as many secondary and interior middlefield defenders on the field as possible, and you absolutely want to do that against the Seahawks offense. That is when it's at its best, the most explosive attack in the league, not just from the pass where it started out the season with JSN but now and charbon Ay you know, being hurts them, but also in the run, the way that they've come along with the run game.

00:59:22
Speaker 3: Yep.

00:59:23
Speaker 1: Like he's owned this matchup, Chris Shula, Yeah, I mean, Darnold has. You know, I did go back to watch that Week sixteen game because it just it just felt like it's so recent. This is a trilogy where they've played almost exactly like once a month for three months, and so this is the third one and there's so much in common between those two matchups. He never really got out of it. He made a couple great throws to help them win the game, but he always makes a couple great throws even within that like comeback, Like he threw exactly one pass from scrimmage. There was a couple two point conversions, which are really important obviously, and he executed them beautifully. He threw one pass to get them from thirty to fourteen to thirty all and then they had two three and outs at the end of the fourth quarter. So he never really got over it. And last week, even against the forty nine ers, he was two of five for fifteen yards against pressure. There was there was one play which got me thinking of what you were just talking about, and this is why Donald is good and why he's risky, where you could just tell he does not see the underneath defender dropping back and he throws it kind of blind and he gets it there and it was a completion last week, but he's kind of got to go take those chances. He has the most turnovers versus pressure of any quarterback in the league. It was him and Joe Flacco, and despite Flacco not having nearly the amount of attempts as Donald, but Donald also didn't have nearly the amount of attempts as a lot of other quarterbacks, so they just weren't under pressure that much. He actually hasn't thrown that many passes under pressure and they haven't had to count on him volume wise. So can they stay in a game where it's not about his instincts, because that's the number one thing I worry about is his instincts when to leave the pocket, when not to when to throw the ball, like where to go. We know he can throw it, we know he'll hit some nice throws as long as he's healthy. It's everything else that I think in this matchup you got to worry about.

01:01:19
Speaker 3: It's the health.

01:01:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that too. Like if you turn the clock back and you looked pretty good last week. I thought he did.

01:01:26
Speaker 5: And Kyle say, I thought of you because Kyle made a toward wal reference. Oh yeah, I said, well, yeah, it takes a minute.

01:01:31
Speaker 4: For the shot to kick in, and you're always on shot.

01:01:33
Speaker 1: Watch.

01:01:34
Speaker 2: Yeah there, and late in the season, you know, in Sam's defense, a lot of guys are going in intent and coming out feeling significantly better, you know, if you know, as Kyle points out, probably thirty to forty five minutes later. But it go back earlier in the season where Sam is making these timing throws, he's stepping up, climbing the pocket, he's doing all of these things, and and pain is obviously, like you know, we had this conversation offline where people is.

01:02:01
Speaker 3: Like, pain is weakness, leaving the body and all these other things, and you got to be tough.

01:02:05
Speaker 2: It's detrimental to your performance to be hurting, and I think we've seen that late from saying in terms of what Kubiak and company are asking him to do and not necessarily to play. But I just hate that the total view of Sam Darnold may be impacted by what he's able to do here where you know, the game keeps going, Stafford's gonna throw for six hundred yards in week sixteen, and like, are are they going to be able to keep up if that score fest does break out? If the Rams offense is on schedule and everything is operating and the fingers not an issue and the weather is also not an issue for the for the aging quarterbacks as we all do, we're all older than we were yesterday, but Matthew Stafford probably feeling in a little more than some of the twenty four to twenty five year olds he's playing against at this point. Will A not one hundred percent Sam be able to do all the things that it takes to score twenty.

01:03:01
Speaker 1: And can they just run? And Charbonnay is a is a big loss. I don't think it's gonna kill them because they have Kenneth Walker as long as as long as he stays healthy. The matchup that the Seahawks have clearly lost in these games, which really stood out on tape where the interior line of the Seahawks getting bodied by Kobe Turner and Poonifford, and it was Jake Sundell specifically and Anthony Bradford specifically. When I went back to watch it this week, They're getting beat over and over and he Sundell also got beat a couple of times pretty quickly last week, like again like CJ. West had a quick pressure sack on Darnold. And so that that's a matchup where, man if the Rams can win the interior offensive line and and just keep applying pressure the on off splits. Next Gen Stats had some great numbers of Kobe Turner crazy. It's crazy. They're like, by far the best defense in the league in the best pressure eight with Kobe Turner off the field, and they're not good within these off the field, and I think in this matchup like that, that's something I'm watching for because that could be a weakness. Sundell is a guy they like a lot, and I think has played well in general this year, but maybe since he's come back from injury, he hasn't quite been the same.

01:04:17
Speaker 5: One of the things that really brought the Rams defense to life against Chicago was activating Poona Ford a little bit more in the path rush once they realized that the bears entire running strategy was developing into run around Poona Ford and Caleb Williams is going to drop back to pass. You mitigate some of those stretch runs in the zone runs that the Bears were using, and obviously Poona is not going to be, you know, defending the run in space like that. But then they opened him up in the pass rush. He was getting into the backfield on multiple occasions almost untouched. That's something that you have to think Seattle's coaching staff is looking at on tape because they weren't necessarily doing that. Through the course of the season, you saw more attention paid to Kobe and in that in that regard, they started activating Puna. It's specifically in those pass rush opportunities a little bit more.

01:05:07
Speaker 1: I'm curious too if they can get Rashid Shahed involved in the offense, because he's obviously been a great pickup for what they've gotten special teams just last week alone, but he has you want to guess how many yards he has over the last four games as a receiver Patrick, it's a wild number. Thirty six, ten, ten. He's not part of the offense. Cooper Cup is coming off one of his best games of the year.

01:05:34
Speaker 4: Oh, you know, he's hungry for this one too.

01:05:36
Speaker 3: I try extra hard.

01:05:38
Speaker 1: He he's you know, he's playing more routes certainly than Shaheed. He is the two and look they he was the first read on a number of plays last week and he made those plays. It was really one of his best games of the season. So that's good because I do think of the Rams weakness, as we've talked about, are the outside corners Shaheed in theory and Cup in theory, like are there to help expose that. But are the Seahawks the team to expose it? You know, like, do we need a little Shaheat in our life? I feel like for them to like have the depth of options. They are not a team that relies on depth of options. They rely on their unreal and short yarded situations and they're unreal. Obviously getting into Smith and Jigba Barner's a big factor, but they could really use Shahea and Cup especially to have.

01:06:22
Speaker 3: A big game.

01:06:23
Speaker 2: I think to facilitate the usage of Rashichia heat, you're gonna need to not have a Kobe Turner problem. You're gonna need to have Sam be able to deliver the ball deep downfield where you know, the Rashichia heat fifty plus yard touchdown stat only gets more crazy after the playoffs, where it's can you utilize like because after the deadline you get Donald worn down a little bit and you don't get they gotta try maximum Donald to truly take advantage of what rashichi.

01:06:52
Speaker 1: Here's a stat. I won't make it a quiz, but it amazed me when I looked Sam Donald's only attempted four throws over twenty the yards in the last three games combined, hasn't hit any So this was the best deep team in the league for about three months them in the Patriots. Patriots have kept it going and the Seahawks have stopped even trying to do it. So I think that's that's a big one.

01:07:15
Speaker 5: Well, what's helped is their run game activating the way that it has, and then I wonder if the injury factors in a little bit to that recently anyway, But the funny thing about that to me is like, we're just hoping you forgot about this. You know, they've played them three times and they're they're sitting there like, oh no, we lost this piece of our playbook. We're super hoping you don't remember. But in all seriousness, where they still are very very rams are still very very susceptible is versus play action passing in part because their corners are a little bit of a liability. Now that said, yes, Kobe Turner or excuse me, Kobe Durant had two interceptions on Caleb km Kurl had the clutch most clutch interception of his life, essentially against Caleb will as well. But on the perimeter, they do not have size or in terms of length, and that could be a real problem because even you know, they're like even their small receivers are still big in Seattle, and their tight ends are a mismatch against all of these secondary.

01:08:18
Speaker 1: Convinced aj Barner is actually like seven foot four, four hundred and sixty pounds. There is this something about him that seems extremely imposing.

01:08:26
Speaker 5: And Quentin Lake is back, which in theory should help. He's sick this week. But Sean McVay says, he'll be ready to go this weekend. In theory, that should help you defend and cloud up the middle of the field a little bit more against really really good tight ends. But they still struggle defending tight ends. So even if your secondary perimeter receivers are not a factor here, really watch if you know you're you're looking ahead to this game, what the Rams have done and do against tight ends, because it has been real feast or famine against those players.

01:08:58
Speaker 1: So like the first run for the Rams and the McVay era that that ended in a championship, not his first run to the Super Bowl, but the twenty twenty one run, the defense is really stepping up and getting them through these games. I think they've stayed at a pretty consistent level and they are maybe even peaking for the playoff. They're playing well. The offense is where it feels like the team is different, but they found a way to get through these games. Sean McVay spoke on Wednesday about the adversity that they've overcome.

01:09:29
Speaker 8: I think what's been reflected in is that we've been, you know, strengthened through our scars. I mean, I think you look at it and you guys have asked me about it. There was a handful of games that we had, or a few games that we had where you maintain a lead and then they come back and then you're not able to kind of make the plays that are necessary to be able to finish it. Well, that hasn't been the narrative in each of our first two playoff games, and so don't know exactly how this game is going to unfold. But I do think our guys have become more resilient. I think there's a resolve. I think there's a mental toughness in a fortitude that's necessary. And I've been really proud of the those guys because it is about how you finish. You can't win the game until the fourth quarter and last week since this until overtime, and so you know, I love this group.

01:10:08
Speaker 9: I think they've used these scars the right way.

01:10:09
Speaker 5: I know we laugh about like the play calling and then the I know you guys referenced the fourth down decision making that I wrote about a lot.

01:10:16
Speaker 4: A couple of years ago and all of that.

01:10:18
Speaker 5: But Sean I think has gotten really good as a play caller in pulling himself out of a funk in game. I remember huge leads that they squandered taking their foot off the gas, and they certainly have taken their foot off the gas at times all this season. But you watch like that last scoring drive that they needed to have, and the way that they drove the ball down the field to set them up for the game winning field goal and overtime as well, and the balance that they finally finally started using. There was a time where I think he was too proud to like actually understand his hand in some of the funks that they had gotten into. And I think he's gotten a lot more. He's talking about resilience here, I think they reflect him. I think he's gotten a lot more resilient. The interesting thing about this to me is that Mike McDonald is never not like he's a robot, Like he's You would not know if he's in a funk because his defense does not get into a funk. They keep coming at you and almost like gain strength, like a wave crashing onto the shore.

01:11:25
Speaker 4: He never dips, he never pauses.

01:11:28
Speaker 5: And this is something where I think this is a fantastic matchup because it is too play callers on either side of the ball who are perfect foils of each other they're also kind of the same person, and they've gone through different things in their coaching career, and they are kind of showing you like who they are with how they call these games. I think his comments, yes, we're about his team, but I also think they're a little bit about himself too.

01:11:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I think he will, he will love, not that he wouldn't have loved Kim Curl forever, regardless for everything Kim Curl's done for him in putting a big turnover against the Seahawks earlier this season too, but that helped him get out of that funk because that game could have ended differently, and my lasting image would have been him completely frozen and stunned after that Caleb Williams touchdown. Just that image makes me think, oh man, it would have been interesting if they went for two, just because I don't know if the coach would have if they would have called any play, they just would have been frozen and been like, oh, just score, We're too stunned. Right now, we all have regrets, And I love how he self scouted himself immediately after the game of what play calls were good, what wasn't. The regrets that he had and one regret I had driving home on Sunday night after well, I think was a great show overall, is we didn't really give the DeVante Adams catch and grow in overtime from Matthew Stafford the love that it deserved. So I'm all about fixing our mistakes. Let's actually listen, I haven't heard this yet. Let's listen to our friend JB Long call that play, because I do think there's a way to push this forward into this week and have it apply for what they're going to need. Out of Matthew Stafford and DeVante Stafford to the air.

01:13:06
Speaker 9: Again, back to pass climbs, the pocket sits one and it is caught at the left sideline. Dfonte made the.

01:13:12
Speaker 1: Catch, yes he did, fars thought he.

01:13:14
Speaker 7: Was out of bounds, but Adams brings it in across midfield.

01:13:18
Speaker 1: Oh, only his second grab of the game after clearing the concussion protocol.

01:13:24
Speaker 3: Will it withstand further reviews?

01:13:27
Speaker 1: So that's day be long last week on KSPN and apologizes to who put this out because it's so true. Matthew Stafford makes so many throws that look, you know, great on TV copy, but then when you see them the next day on the all twenty two are just like, oh, that was impossible, Like you did not have a total appreciation of that was a one hundred out of one hundred throw. Jordan wrote beautifully about it on The Athletic. Everyone should should check that out. And when I think about this week, obviously DeVante Adams is really important, I think he can't be all huko like it was in Week sixteen. But I do think it might just come down to, like, you know, Stafford's just got to his best has to be better than their coverage, Like he's just gonna have to break a good plan with a throw that there is no defense for, because that's what Matthew Stafford can do when he's at his best. So like we need, I think he's gonna have to have more than one of like those types of special throws in moments to get past this.

01:14:26
Speaker 2: And I think that's what gets you in the funk as a play caller is the fact that you have a quarterback that can do that on any particular pass player that you call, where he's gonna make a no look throw, where he's gonna not be able to square his shoulders to the sideline and throw a seeing eyeball to DeVante Adams who comes back into the game after he takes a massive shot where he's sitting up right on the field for like thirty seconds. We didn't even know if DeVante was gonna come back into that game. Where you have two players like that who can do that, Yeah, you know what, why not? Why not completely abandoned the run game on the road in the driving snow against the defense that's forced more toneovers than any other defense in football, Like, I think that capacity is something. Yeah, when it doesn't go right, that's how the Rams can lose. But to highlight because you know, as much as I love coach McVeigh as well as the two thousand and five Papa Roach song scars, it makes me think of a physical ailment that's a mistake, like to when you don't feel great about the players. Yeah, you could call them scars because there's evidence of them, but it's something that's easily fixed, not like a quarterback having a hand issue or any sort of accumulation of hits on him, where you know, Matthew Stafford's not going to run all over this defense, well nobody is.

01:15:45
Speaker 3: But being able to make those throws, it's.

01:15:48
Speaker 2: Why he's so special and why the criticism where if Aaron Donald doesn't get through and Burrow's able to get that ball to Jamar Chase and they don't win the super Bowl somehow, Oh, Matthew Stafford's not good because he can't win the big game. We don't have the word worry about that anymore. We can just appreciate how good he is at what he does, and that plays a great.

01:16:04
Speaker 1: I want you to sing Scars, Uh if you were before the show, just do it right now now? No, Okay.

01:16:12
Speaker 4: Famously Greg does not know that song.

01:16:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's a big gap musical four in two thousand and five.

01:16:20
Speaker 1: I would I would say, Yeah, my post college, the early aughts, you know, Spotify wasn't on. You know, you didn't have a phone that Spotify is on. Yeah, it was like it was a dark time. You're taking a while to get the your napster to load, but you have to work hard.

01:16:35
Speaker 3: The entire Lighter Flick mixtape era of Lil Wayne.

01:16:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was where you were.

01:16:39
Speaker 4: I was there.

01:16:40
Speaker 1: I missed.

01:16:40
Speaker 4: Papa wrote, I think you're okay. I think it's okay, okay.

01:16:45
Speaker 5: So the thing about Matthew Stafford I love that you brought that point up, Patrick, because that's exactly what it is. Matthew Stafford is the type of quarterback and this is why they went out and got him all those years ago, and he's addicted to the postseason now. And this is the quarter who makes you believe that you can fly on the surface of the sun and wax on your wings will not melt like He makes you believe in the impossible. That throw against a six foot four with double the wingspan and then some cornerback and a Sean Wright. It had to go through the eye of a needle to stay inbounds against that corner to that receiver who then had to drag like his feet and both ankles on the frozen ground in order to actually make this catch. It's impossible. It's impossible, it's improbable, and because he keeps doing it, you think it's gonna happen again.

01:17:38
Speaker 4: It can happen again.

01:17:39
Speaker 5: And that's where you walk this incredibly thin line against a defense as monstrously ferocious, as fundamentally sound, as aggressive, as physical, as long as they are similar, it's a field full and a Sean Wright, so it's like long long players and in the past rush and in the coverage, and it's why you walk that really impossible line of saying, we can replicate these the impossible. We can ask our quarterback to replicate the impossible. And when it works, this is a team that will win the Super Bowl. And if it doesn't work, Matthew Stafford, who got really lucky and didn't turn the ball over when he could have a couple of times in that game and had a couple of drops by receivers, if he's at his best, this team cannot be stopped.

01:18:21
Speaker 1: Right and and he just hasn't been at his best for a while right now. Again, like we mentioned this in the interview with Tom, like most of the quarterbacks, numbers are down, but it is interesting that the two MVP candidates, for instance, I would say there they're most difficult. Worst two game stretches of the season are these last two the playoff games. Like Stafford's you know numbers while pressured in the playoffs are the worst in the league, Like you even worse than CJ's numbers. Where in terms of his pass rate and that's been the case all year, but even his completion percentage and how it's been going for about a month now, if you go back to the Falcons game hasn't been at his level, and you think about, like, Okay, I think I think that was a near death experience and somehow they're going to play better and and I just think you're going to get a better experience. Will we get it?

01:19:11
Speaker 7: Though?

01:19:12
Speaker 1: Like how we saw for most of the season and in that Week sixteen game with all the thirteen personnel, sixty one percent of three tight ends on the field last time these two teams played, including all four touchdowns by the Rams, and then the last two weeks in the playoffs they've used it almost at the lowest rate that they have all seasons.

01:19:30
Speaker 4: We lost the page of our playbook right to mix the effects.

01:19:34
Speaker 1: You think, do you think they'll go back to it. It's going to be. It's going to be all the way back and cranked up this week. I love it.

01:19:42
Speaker 5: What they do say about Scars is that they remind us that the past is real. The edge I give the Seahawks in spades here is on special teams, especially with Rashid Shaheed being able to return hunted kicks the way that he has been. The Rams special teams unit came through in the clutch. What's the opposite of a near death experience. I guess just staying alive and not being fright.

01:20:09
Speaker 1: They've been great either great, but maybe this is a hero. But that's the thing we'll talk to Jake.

01:20:12
Speaker 5: I don't trust the Rams special teams, as you know, I would say as far as I could throw them. But I'm not making any sort of snide joke or anything like that.

01:20:19
Speaker 1: And look, Seattle's got to get a better pass rush on Stafford. He had forty nine attempts in that game just a month ago, no sacks, only four quarterback hits. Not a high pressure rate. Their secret sauce all season is they blitz in the bottom seven rate of the league and yet their pressure rates in the top five of the league. I mean that, So you have all these talented guys in the back end, and you always have a lot of them, and they're big, and they're great tacklers. Like it's really hard to beat that. And you've seen that, Like I can't tell you how many different plays in that game, and then the forty nine Ers game last week, the where Byron Murphy doesn't get the credit on the play, but his pressure directly impacts everyone around him, where someone else gets the pressure or the hit or the quarterback has to move because of him, and that defensive tackle duo is just lights out. But they they got to be better, like not just in the run game where they've been money. They're the best short yardage defense I was looking up like in the NFL by a lot, Like it is really hard to run on them on second and two, third and two, fourth and two, like all that sort of stuff like that could be a hinge point. But they need their If we're going to talk about them as one of the best defense we've seen in a long time, they need to get more pressure on Stafford, not give up four hundred yards you know, through the air to them.

01:21:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they have to get to them quick because I think the volume of thirteen personnel.

01:21:43
Speaker 3: Where you know you are able to get every everybody as.

01:21:48
Speaker 2: In the past, rush can be accounted for, and Matthew Stafford is able to handle a lot of and I think your strength and being one of those good third and fourth, especially in the red zone areas kind of gets nerved when Davante Adams is available and the goal on fade to the chagrin of the anti goal on fade community when two Hall of Famers evolved in the process, is still very effective.

01:22:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think too.

01:22:12
Speaker 5: One of my theories is that he obviously you want Davante and Puka both on the field as much as possible. But one of my theories about why some of that went away, that thirteen went away, is because defenses were playing them differently. Dennis Allen threw the kitchen sink of blitz packages against Matthew Stafford, Matthew Coleman Shelton, the center. Both talk to me about a postgame how confusing it was for them, how they were just toying with them. In Coleman Shelton's words, he saw a lot of pre snap struggles to communicate skill players not picking up pressure the way that they would have liked them to. And I don't know that they trust all of those tight ends to do that. Tyler Higby and Kolbe Parkinson have experienced. I don't know that they trust all those tight ends should you need them in those types of scenarios when you want to run thirteen. Not sure you actually trust them against some of the pressure that you're seeing so you can get them out of it.

01:22:58
Speaker 4: If you throw stuff like.

01:22:59
Speaker 9: That at them.

01:23:00
Speaker 1: That raises an interesting question, one that I could try to answer, but I wouldn't be as good at it as our guest who's coming up. Let's take a break, and then I will ask said question to JJ Janssen, the longtime long snapper of the Panthers, who was on the field against each of these teams this year. Friend of the Show, back on NFL Daily, It's been a journey to get to the end of this preview, to the end of the season in the National Football Conference. Our next guest was playing in these very playoffs against one of these very teams just a few weeks ago. Let's welcome in, Friend of the Show, friend of Jordan rod Rieg. It's JJ Jansen, long snapper of the Airlina Panthers, coming off a noteworthy birthday. So happy belated birthday and congratulations that Mike Gundy officially recognizes you as a man moving forward. That's right, that's right, You've been a man to us all along, JJ, So I said, before the before the break, I had a like something popped in me, had a question I would decided, I'll just ask you. I'm gonna dive into the deep end here. One thing I noticed last week and that Bears Rams matchup and you guys obviously just went against the Rams, was they they did confuse Stafford and their protection plans more than once where he seemed to like not either it was the skill position players that were off or he had the count wrong, like Dennis Allen had a really good day I think against McVeigh and Stafford, And I guess I'm curious, like why you think that would have happened to such a veteran quarterback in the scenario and then specifically for this matchup, Like what kind of you know, problems you think that Mike McDonald. I know they're not a heavy blitz team, but when they've done it, they've been really effective at doing it. And what kind of things that they could throw at Stafford to maybe pick up on that weakness from a week ago.

01:25:13
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think one of the advantages that Seattle has, and I think you saw it a little bit last week with the Rams game versus Chicago, is in order to confuse veteran quarterbacks, which happens so infrequently, you really have to have a lot of people in your coverage, right. The ability for Seattle to get a ton of pressure with just their front four. Bring only five allows you to play with six or seven guys in the secondary, change up coverages, you know, whether it's cover two and inverting it or playing man. You can just complicate things a lot. And we're watching it right now, like they're only rushing party with four. Seattle's doing this and it just complicates what someone can see.

01:25:53
Speaker 3: You know.

01:25:53
Speaker 9: One of the things that we even.

01:25:54
Speaker 10: Had in our game we played Stafford twice, is veteran quarterbacks can figure stuff out over the course of the game, so you have to keep them guessing. But even the best ones eventually kind of figure out your plan because there's only so much in a game plan. So the advantage for Seattle is they can get to the pastor with their front four and hopefully confuse Stafford from their perspective.

01:26:17
Speaker 9: The weather's not going to.

01:26:18
Speaker 10: Be nearly as bad in Seattle as it was last week in Chicago. That's an advantage because sometimes it's how do I feel gripping the ball, what's happening in front of me? You're thinking about how cold you are, as much as no one wants to talk about it. So I think the passing game can always be affected a little bit in cold weather football. It's hard to keep confusing veteran quarterbacks like Stafford over.

01:26:40
Speaker 9: And over again.

01:26:41
Speaker 10: But if you're going to do it, you have to do it with a really unbelievable pass rush. And again, Seattle gets as much pressure on anybody or on quarterbacks as any other team in the league, and they don't blitz that much. So that's the recipe to really get after a quarterback.

01:26:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, with Stafford, one of the things that was so interesting saying about what Dunnett Salin decided to do JJ to me was was Stafford is really good against the blitz. But I think they capitalized on some of the noise too that that was coming from the fans and not being able to hear some of the checks and the protection changes that Stafford made. And I think some of the skill guys let him down a little bit too in terms of being where they were supposed to be dictated by what he was seeing with the with the protection, and he admitted he didn't pick up things as well as he could have either. But when you have a team that can drop everybody and make everything super cloudy the way the Seahawks can because they do get pressure with their front, their base front, Like, how do you get have you seen it often this year? And how would you how do you get a quarterback like Stafford? How do you bait him into making a throw he shouldn't make?

01:27:45
Speaker 10: Essentially, yeah, I think you have to keep things complicated.

01:27:52
Speaker 9: Where's the rush coming from? Who's you know?

01:27:55
Speaker 10: Like, for instance, if you're running cover two, there's five underneath players. They're on the kind of the flip side. I don't mean to get ahead, but like one of the interceptions Sam Darnold had on the flip when they played in Seattle versus the Rams, he thinks it's man coverage, all of a sudden it falls into zone, like changing the early presentation. And I do think on the road it gets a little bit more complicated because the crowd noise, which you know it's gonna Seattle is the loudest place in the league. So much of the stuff really needs to be called in the huddle because audibling and checking things is so complicated. Hand signals all of those things. But then as the volume goes up and Stafford starts using hand signals, well, now that's one more thing for the defense to pick up on and disguise if they know what a certain hand signal, what route you know if he clasps his knuckles together and that is a hitch route. Let's say, Well, all of a sudden, you start showing that time and time again, dbs.

01:28:52
Speaker 9: Can start sitting on things.

01:28:53
Speaker 10: So volume always helps the defense because it allows for nonverbal communication, which coaches and players can see.

01:29:02
Speaker 9: So that's that's an added piece.

01:29:03
Speaker 10: It's not just how it's just not the struggle to communicate, but it's also all the other nonverbal ways that have to come into how you present a plan to the defense.

01:29:14
Speaker 1: So JJ, you know, he's a friend of the show. We're so comfortable with JJ as a guest that we're actually going to throw at the sound while JJ's on because it's germane to this conversation. It's Mike McDonald talking about the home atmosphere in Seattle.

01:29:28
Speaker 6: What an atmosphere, Holy smokes, twelves, you know, just our organization putting on a great, a great setting.

01:29:34
Speaker 9: It was just hey, you do try you do, actually try to take.

01:29:37
Speaker 8: Some time and look around and just understand how incredibly blessed we are and with the best fans in the world, and and uh, it definitely made an impact, definitely to start the game, and.

01:29:47
Speaker 9: So just want to appreciate this. That was awesome. It's freaking.

01:29:52
Speaker 2: Mike Mack in his feelings about great fan base, and I'm sure he will take jj, you know, three seconds to take a look around and then get the hyper focused on confusing Matt Stafford and whatever he can do in this game, because I think Stafford well acquainted with playing in that particular venue, did it recently and we all of this conversation about being hard to play a team this volume of times when you come back into this particular matchup, is it really more is it McVeigh and Mike Mack or is it these guys executing at a high level that's going to determine this game.

01:30:29
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a great question.

01:30:30
Speaker 10: I think it starts with the offensive play caller getting the proper types of plays and sequencing into early parts of the game so that you can begin to acquire information. The fourth quarter I've always thought is about the quarterbacks. Can we get into the right plays, make the right checks, find the one on ones. But early in the game, we've talked about it in the past, like the first fifteen. What's going on right there, Well, it's the beginning of the understanding one code to the other of how things are being played so that you know what to call later in the game. You know, Like they were talking about volume there and in the crowd noise, Like, if I'm the Rams this week, I'm deferring the opening kickoff because I don't want the ball when the volume is that whatever the decibel level is in Seattle. I'd rather get the ball to start the second half. I want to be able to get as much information without The first drive is always going to be hard, but you know what, the first half or the second half drive always starts really quiet because everyone's still getting pretzels and hot nogs and stuff, so it's always quieter. So if I'm the Rams, I don't want the ball to start the game. I want it in the second half. But I also want to be able to use the first half to begin to gain some information. We saw when they played in week sixteen. Early in the game they went forward a few times. They were not overly proficient in the first half. Effective, they scored, but it weren't dynamic. Second half is when you started seeing all the big crossing routes from Puka Nakua, the big shots and Stafford started figuring out the defense that Seattle was presenting on that particular night. They obviously scored thirty seven. It wasn't like Seattle stopped them really at all. I mean, if anything, they kind of stopped themselves so until the fourth quarter. But again, that's the chess match, so you know, I think there's a lot of layers. The coaches are certainly going to be dueling at the end of the day. It's going to be Stafford, Nakua, DeVante Adams going up against that secondary. They can they stop Lawrence? Can they stop anybody on the inside? That's going to be the players are still going to determine kind of the final outcome of the game. But it's a great test. It's a great chess match, you know.

01:32:37
Speaker 1: What, JJ.

01:32:38
Speaker 5: I love what you said about information gathering because against the Bears, the Rams did it more. In their opening script their first fifteen they changed personnels more than I've seen them do in a long time. They were throwing in there. I call them, I'm not the I didn't come up with this. The coaching staff did. But the half personnels so they're throwing like their full back receipt hybrids in to run like eleven and a half personnel or to show a twelve look, but it's really eleven concepts.

01:33:05
Speaker 4: And they rotated. They subbed and subbed and subbed and subbed.

01:33:09
Speaker 5: Over more than I've seen, and they were trying to figure out what Dennis Allen was going to do to them, essentially, but against Seattle, Seattle doesn't really sub they don't need to, and they just show you the same damn thing at every single snap. And so I'm kind of like, how much information can you get if you are the rams and follow up question to that it's like, how good is Seattle at not showing its hand and how much of an advantage is that for their defense?

01:33:41
Speaker 10: Well, it reminds me of back in thirteen fourteen to fifteen with the Panthers when we were going up against the Legion A boom, Right. It's a different style of defense, but the similarities of you've got these really talented pass rushers, these really talented guys in the secondary safeties corners do everything well and they don't need a lot of different personnel packages so that they can be more you know, Nick em and Worry coming down the He can play linebacker, he can play nickel, he can play safety, he can do anything you want. So you're not getting as much information. It's harder to find the individual matchups. And I think it was kind of interesting in the first matchup we had seen this sort of proliferation of thirteen personnel and then Step and then McVeigh went to eleven and just played in eleven. Well round two because DeVante Adams was out, he just stayed in thirteen, even after all the information gathering, So at the end of the day, you're looking for one or two matchups. I don't think enough is made of how impressive Puka Nakua is in the run game, Like we talk about it, you hear people mention it. But even one of the touchdowns in week sixteen, em and Worry is looking right at him because he thinks he's going to get blocked, and all of a sudden, Ferguson.

01:34:55
Speaker 9: Gets slipped to the corner.

01:34:57
Speaker 10: So it's a really cool matchup in that both teams have guys that can play big and little simultaneously, so you're probably gonna see good on good really the whole game.

01:35:09
Speaker 1: That's awesome, and I saw staff from our next gen stats of how you know, Puoka has the most yardage of any wide receiver this season by a lot when matched up on non cornerbacks, so safeties and linebackers, and that specific game was the most by far any wide out has had in any game all season because McVeigh helped to dictate those matchups and and Puka obviously is gonna win them over and over. So we know about Pooka. You you face these teams, you face the Rams twice in pretty short order. I'm I want you to tell me someone that stands out to you on the rams, maybe a little unsung, like a like a football player's football player that that you know, like the guy that has the respect. You know that that you see that has your respects certainly, but but maybe isn't like a huge star.

01:36:00
Speaker 9: Well he's kind of a star.

01:36:02
Speaker 10: Braden Fisk I had to go long one against in special teams h NonStop. It was me versus him, and so that was sort of a that was like bear wrestling, and I didn't do very good at it, but.

01:36:14
Speaker 7: You know, I went up.

01:36:15
Speaker 1: He's a great answer.

01:36:16
Speaker 10: I love it. He was sort of he was sort of pass rushing me on on on punt for me personally. I went over to Austin Corbett, who was a long time RAM and kind of knew all that. I said, Hey, what's the pass rush plan from Fisk? Because he's swim moving me. He's ripped it through like I don't usually have to deal with that, and he and Corbett kind of laughed at me. He's like, well, he's gonna try hard, he's going to use all the swim moves and you're just gonna have to hang on for dear life. I said, fair enough. I was like, this is what me kind of laughed at me, goes, this is what we have to deal with on the O line.

01:36:45
Speaker 5: So fantastic turn it into a lesson for you, JJ that these guys have to deal with.

01:36:53
Speaker 10: Eighteen years, I'm still learning stuff. But you know, Nate Landman hit me right in the side out of the head as hard as it has ever hit me.

01:37:03
Speaker 1: Wow.

01:37:04
Speaker 10: So so in Carolina we do a lot of kind of funky alternative formations on punts. So what teams basically started doing was just playing their defense. So these guys on defense don't know the intricacies of special teams, but they're there because they they can mess some stuff up in a in a big in a big hurry. And so as I'm bare wrestling Fisk, Nate Laman comes out of the post and hits me dead in the side of the head, and I was like, I didn't sign up for this guy.

01:37:30
Speaker 9: Like it's fourth down, like just but.

01:37:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it took two good ramps to handle you, j So credit to you. Yeah, trust me, I didn't make the play, so they did.

01:37:45
Speaker 9: They more than did their job.

01:37:48
Speaker 5: What about like who sticks out to you on tape? When you I know you've watched a lot of Seattle this year. You and Greg Olsen have been fascinated by the Seattle Seahawks team and kind of all the different ways they're doing things on offense, but also the way they're sort of neutralizing personnels on defense too. But who sticks out to that could really be an edge in this game? You and I have talked about special teams in Rashid Shi being a factor potentially here, But who, I wonder like in your study, who really sticks out as a possible like swing point for this game that maybe we aren't talking about.

01:38:22
Speaker 10: Well, I would say Rashid Shahid, Like we've played against him in New Orleans for the last four years. When he got traded, I was thrilled because we still had the Saints on the schedule two more times. Then I found out he was traded at Seahawks, and I was like, Oh, we're gonna have to play him, because what they're really doing is they're utilizing him not only in the return game, and we could talk about that for a long, long period of time, but they're using him in the past game, right Like so, Jackson Smith and Jigba got all the highlights, all the notoriety, and rightfully so. But what makes a team like Seattle the way they want to play so explosive is the middle part of the field gets exposed because you're simultaneously playing the run and if you have a guy like Shahed that can take the top off run by you, well, there naturally becomes these voids in the middle of the field, and that's where Jackson Smith and Jigba can light it up. Right, It's where you know the rams, that's where Puka Nakua does all of his damage. So even as you're seeing it right here, all of a sudden, you're getting your best player running through the middle of the field with a lot of freedom.

01:39:26
Speaker 9: But that really works when you have your run game.

01:39:29
Speaker 10: With like Kenneth Walker going and someone like Shahed running past everybody.

01:39:33
Speaker 9: You have to honor that speed.

01:39:35
Speaker 10: And certainly when Shahed was in New Orleans with Clint Kubiak last year before Derek Carr got hurt, that they were hitting everybody on bombs and throwing the ball over the head. They did it to us in Week one in twenty twenty four, So you know, that was I thought at the time that was the best trade of the trade deadline.

01:39:53
Speaker 9: A fourth and a fifth from a team that was rebuilding in New Orleans.

01:39:58
Speaker 10: They send Shaheed to a team that's go to be in the playoffs, and that fits their style run play action, and they really want to hurt you on the play action pass.

01:40:07
Speaker 9: That's the way they're designed.

01:40:08
Speaker 10: That's the way Kubiak had it in New Orleans again before before Car got hurt.

01:40:13
Speaker 9: You could just see it coming.

01:40:15
Speaker 10: And I mean that's not even talking about Shaheed and the thing he does best, which is return kicks. And we saw it last week versus versus San Francisco and my old buddy Eddie Pinera tried to slide kick him.

01:40:28
Speaker 9: Didn't work. He's gonna run right past everybody.

01:40:32
Speaker 10: He's he's the best in the game, and so they also have an offensive role for him, which makes him a perfect fit there in Seattle.

01:40:39
Speaker 2: Jaj, I need to ask you this because it's been a long held belief of mine that special teams coaches can get scapegoaded and head coaches sometimes rage quit on them. You played the Rams in the Chase, in the Chase Blackburn era, and then after the Chase Blackburn era, you were you were, you were there. You know with coach Rivera when he parted ways with the Special teams coordinator, does it do anything other than alter your life as a Special Times player?

01:41:10
Speaker 3: And what are we to take?

01:41:13
Speaker 2: Was there a difference in the Rams on special Teams with them without their Special Teams coordinator?

01:41:18
Speaker 10: Yeah, we didn't see a dramatic difference in how they played. Certainly there was not a huge difference from Week sixteen to effectively week nineteen. You can only do so much as a coach, right you have basically the same players. Strategically, it looked like they were playing more defensive safe, putting their big eyes on the field in terms of punt return so much of special teams also comes down to the specialists. A lot was made obviously of Josh Carty missing a bunch of kicks. Is that the special teams coach is that the kicker? Is that just a stroke of bad luck? I think that happens more than we care to admit. Like I've known Chase Blackburn in particular for fourteen I played with him. He was a personal protector. I played next to him. He's been my coach, he's been in a he's done everything. I think he's one of the best teachers of football that I've ever been around. But the Rams have struggled on special teams, and they've really struggled for quite a while, in large part because their team is built with a ton of really good football players, and sometimes special teams kind of requires the athletic freaks that don't have natural positions, and the Rams prioritize on their team really good football players. They might not be the most athletic team at every position, but a ton of really smart guys that know their role, and that's how the team's built. And it's also kind of built around don't mess it. Up, like you can just tell on tape there get the ball back to Stafford right after. That's kind of how they're built, right, and so philosophically that is always going to be a little bit of a problem.

01:42:54
Speaker 1: Now.

01:42:54
Speaker 10: Harrison Nevis, who was here in Carolina last year as an undrafted rookie, he's calmed down a ton of the stuff on the field goal side. I think he's missed one time. He obviously hit the game winner last week. That's that sort of calmed some stuff down. Jake McQuaid and another long snapper, old Head has calmed everything down and they're playing more conservative. You're not going to see a ball in play this week from the Rams to Shaheed. They're just going to hit a touch back on every time.

01:43:19
Speaker 4: And scared to compete.

01:43:22
Speaker 10: Yeah, not exactly the dynamic kickoff that everyone had in mind. But again, I think a lot of teams are kicking away from Shaheed after last week. But you know, he has three I think he has three returns since he got to Seattle. But yeah, that's Seattle's different. They've built a lot around their special teams, and I think that's also a little bit of the difference between an offensive head coach and a defensive head coach. Defensive head coaches are just naturally a little bit more aggressive on teams. Offensive coaches are going to be a little bit more conservative because most of the big plays are we're trying to get the ball back, and so you see that across all of all the teams. I think you're just seeing a little bit more on display with McVeigh versus you know, McDonald.

01:44:07
Speaker 1: I love the perspective. JJ Janssen has been in the NFL long enough that his rookie season, his quarterback was Jake DeLoone. He was with the Jake delom era, Jimmy class and era through the Cam Newton heydays. He was there for the Donald Baker year. I sort of memory hold that there was a Teddy Bridgewater year which was very near and dear to my heart. I thought he played better that yours.

01:44:32
Speaker 9: A Kyle Allen here, there was.

01:44:34
Speaker 1: A Kyle Allen. I was there watching you in person in a seven interception game in London with Kyle Allen and Jamis Winston. A lot of good time.

01:44:43
Speaker 10: Jamis Jamis through touchdowns to everybody both teams that day.

01:44:49
Speaker 1: It was an exciting day for the for the fans overseas. I'm gonna put you on the spot. You're again, We're comfortable. JJ's part of the team here. We're going to end the show with you. But before we do that, I'm going to go around and get everyone's picks, because we didn't earlier and Jordan doesn't like to make picks. I don't famous, So I'm going to start with you and not even let you marinate on them. You have to make your picks great.

01:45:08
Speaker 5: You love hurting you love hurting me. Greg No that I have to pick the Rams. I picked the Rams All Year Team, near and dear to my heart.

01:45:16
Speaker 1: Right, okay, and the and the AFC too. We skipped the AFS.

01:45:19
Speaker 5: Oh, I'm picking the Broncos. I picked the Broncos. If the Broncos defense scores a touchdown, well, what is that I learned from the best. That's not the best hedging.

01:45:30
Speaker 1: I would say that of every team that's playing this weekend, you know, give me a touchdown off the bat.

01:45:36
Speaker 5: No, the Broncos defense specifically has to make up for Jared Stidham, your hero on this So if the so your Broncos defense scores a touchdown, I am picking.

01:45:46
Speaker 1: The bro okay. So and if they don't score a touchdown, you're picking the Patriots. Yes, I am okay, I'll accept that that specific.

01:45:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, no conditions. Uh, super rematch Rams Patriots.

01:45:55
Speaker 1: Okay, we're getting We're getting a potential Super Bowl rematch almost in any scenario.

01:45:59
Speaker 10: And then, JJ, I you if the Rams offense scores five touchdowns, I'm picking the Rams.

01:46:06
Speaker 1: Can I do that? That's good because it makes fun of Jordan's and that is what I'm looking for.

01:46:12
Speaker 9: I like the Rams. I like the Rams and the Patriots.

01:46:16
Speaker 10: I think I think Stidham's actually going to play well, but I think the Patriots are the more complete teams.

01:46:22
Speaker 9: So I got Rams Patriots.

01:46:24
Speaker 1: I don't feel confident in the Patriots. And yet, because you're I'm never going to pick against them in this spot. And I took the Rams before the playoffs started. It my head says Seahawks. And and yet I do think they're that somehow we're going to get the best effort out of the Rams in this game. That the effort we really haven't seen since the first three quarters in Seattle. But who knows. These are great, great games. Thank you so much JJ for joining us.

01:46:49
Speaker 9: We thanks so much for having me.

01:46:51
Speaker 1: We'll release you into the Carolina Night to celebrate your birthday, and we'll release Sarah our listeners too. It's been a long one. We appreciate it's been a great week of shows, but we're not done yet. We will be back. I'm trying to do the days in my head. Friday morning, we're gonna get the picks for myself and Cynthia Freeland, and knowing how this coaching carousel has been going, we might do some coaching news as well. We'll see that