NFL Week 15 Reaction: Is The Chiefs Dynasty Over & Does Joe Burrow Want Out Of Cincinnati?

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Boys. Welcome to another episode of Busts with the Boys. Good afternoon. Wherever you're getting your podcast, whether on audio or video, make sure you're subscribed to Bust with the Boys. All of our channels again, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, wherever you get your pods, make sure you're subscribe. We are brought to you by the one and only the FanDuel Sportsbook. Big Game this Thursday, and you already know. We've got specials on the way. We've got a juicy Same Game parlay on the way, We've got yet another live stream on the way, and we've got Fanduels Touchdown Jackpot on the way. Now listen, because I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, I've been tapped in all season. I've been opting into the promo. I've been placing my anytime touchdown score bets. I've been watching it at home with the boys, catching the live streams everything, but I just can't seem to pick the first or the last touchdown score. To you, my friend, I say, don't lose. Hope, this can be your week. It's a shot at a share of two million dollar two million dollars in bonus bets that we're playing for You just got to opt into the promo on FanDuel place your anytime touchdown score bet, and if that player scores the first or the last touchdown of the game, you're getting yourselves a slice of that two million dollar. Head to fansel dot com slash busting to download the app and get started, gentlemen. A lot of storylines, a lot of storyline, a lot of big storylines.

00:01:08
Speaker 2: Big stories, a lot of injuries. Unfortunately, yeah, yeah.

00:01:11
Speaker 1: Dude, we lose the two of the game's best players with Michael Parsons and Patrick Mahomes, which does suck. Like who would have thought we'd be looking in a world where we're looking at playoffs without Patrick Mahomes, a Green Bay Packers team without Michael Parsons. George Yeah, no, George No, Joe Burrow, yep, all these.

00:01:30
Speaker 2: Guys possibly know. Lamar Jackson, I think I think the Raymonds might make it. They're they're they're iffy, they're on they're in the hunt, or they're back.

00:01:37
Speaker 1: In the possibly Philip Rivers playing in the playoffs.

00:01:40
Speaker 2: I don't think that's gonna happen. You never know, bro, I don't think it's gonna happen. I love you know what, Let's get our Let's get our our Monday bro, our Monday interview on here, Greg, Greg, how do you feel about Philip Rivers being forty four years old clearly has a not only a dad bob, but a grandpa bod going out there against one of the saltiest defenses and winning that game for what three quarters? Yeah, three and a half quarters before they kick a field goal at the end of the game to win, Like, how incredible is it for you? Just be like, Yo, look at this man doing his thing who's older than all.

00:02:12
Speaker 3: Yes, he won the game for fifty nine minutes in thirty seconds, is right? I mean, you know, I can't imagine what he feels like this morning. Yeah, he has to feel just I can't even process how bad he feels and sore. But I do think he wakes up this morning, walks out to get the paper or whatever the hell guys do, and he's like that was pretty fucking awesome. Yeah, Like, I just came off the bench cold coaching high school ball. Haven't trained. I mean, he's worked out, but there's a difference between training and working out, And I just went against arguably the best team in the league, arguably the best defense in the league, in one of the hardest places in football to play for a decade, and took my team down on a game winning game to take the lead in what could have been a game winning field goal. Only that and then obviously have your heart broken by giving up a game winning field goal. So I actually think he wakes up this morning physically sore and beat but I think mentally he walks around his house with his twelve kids, and he walks around that high school of those boys that he coaches, and he's like, any more questions, who's the baddest dude around because it's me bro questions.

00:03:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just it's just nuts to see. And you're watching the game and everyone tunes, and I love I love that the Colts they understand like, hey, it's great season, but we're obviously not in a position to go win it all. We're not gonna be able to do that. We also starting quarterback are guy we traded for. He's been hurt, and they're like, hey, let's just let's make something out of nothing here. Let's call this old guy who are head coaches of this outstanding relationship with and is hey, give us your best sixty minutes right now for the next three four weeks and let's just enjoy it. And a game that no one would have tuned into. I'm sure the ratings were out of control about and it's just amazing. Then watching Rivers like kind of go back. He goes to like hitch step up in the pocket and he like slips, realizes, oh shit, they're getting close. It kind of like starts this like baby crawl thing as they kind of just touched him, and he's like, wooh fuck, that was a close one. Stagnanmit that was a bit of a deal there, and he just dude, he just does his thing. See some throws out to the sideline that just kind of die off, and you're like, that's what you're gonna get. That's what you're gonna get with the boy quick decisions. It's awesome.

00:04:33
Speaker 1: He's changing plays. Like I watched that game and I'm like, Colts have a shot to get in the playoffs. I was watch tuned into that game to just enjoy watching Philip Rivers like come back like five years, Like, man, is this forty four year old gonna be able to do it? To Whard. Now I'm towards the end of the game, I'm like, yo, I'm not counting the Colts out yet to make the playoffs.

00:04:54
Speaker 3: Have them next week. I'm so excited. So we have their game against Jacksonville next week. I'm with you, Will, I'm like genuinely excited to call his game. I hope he makes it. Yeah, I hope they It's got to stay alive for at least one more week because I'm doing their game in Indye in two weeks when Jacksonville comes in again. Two teams that are at least theoretically in the playoff picture and in the hunt there in the AFC, and it's a more interesting game, and I'm more excited about the game with the potential of him being the quarterback. For sure, he's.

00:05:24
Speaker 2: Gonna make it through the forty nine ers. Yeah, forty nine ers. They got Jaguars and they got the Texans.

00:05:30
Speaker 3: Yeah he didn't. He didn't exactly come back for a easy defensive stretch.

00:05:35
Speaker 1: No doubt.

00:05:36
Speaker 2: But if you're if you're like looking at that jan fourth game or whatever the last game of the year is for them, you've got to hope that either the Texans have the South kind of wrapped up and they're not really fighting for anything. And if they are, like Will Anderson and Daniel Hunter, they are getting pulled to the side for the game, like hey, yeah.

00:05:53
Speaker 1: Just lay him down, just don't kill the man.

00:05:57
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:05:57
Speaker 2: Have you seen the bit of like Kevin Hart when he was on and I don't know if it was ESPN or foul or wherever he was at h and he was talking about how you have to like put the quarterback down now. Then they pick him up and they lay him down, they get him a pillow, Like that's what I need them to do with Philip Rivers, like, we got to protect this man at all costs.

00:06:11
Speaker 3: Texas are as a country, as a country, we need to protect him.

00:06:17
Speaker 1: The Texans that game, it's probably gonna be a winning in game for the Texans. That sucks that, that's I'm just because the Jaguars are playing good football. Bro. Yeah, right now they're on top. Right now, they're on top. Big game. They both this is uh, this is Texas Jaguars this weekend.

00:06:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, this one's gonna be a decider, yea. They both sitting run the same record right now. You called the Eagles Raiders game just was that the worst game of all time.

00:06:45
Speaker 3: The Raiders are really bad. They're just and we and we felt like we talked about it for three quarters because the game was pretty much decided pretty quickly. Philly played well. Philly did every thing they needed to coming in. Jalen had some nice deep balls, they used him as a design runner, had a couple scrambles. Saquan had a really quiet first half. They got him going there in the third quarter, and then they didn't really need him in the fourth the game was over. Aj Brown had a nice deep touchdown, so they checked. The defense is nasty. Obviously, pitching a shutout in the NFL is not easy to do, so I think from the Eagle standpoint, you check the box, you move on. The Raiders they got they got a lot of problems. They got a lot they got roster problems, They've got decision problems. They got to figure out what they're They've ready fired two of their three coordinators. They didn't make it through their first season. You know who's the quarterback of the future. They traded for Gina, who I love as a guy. He was a teammate of mine and a guy I just I love him. He's everything you'd want in a teammate and a dude. They trade for him, they give him seventy five million. I think they completely misjudged how close that roster was to winning. You know, you trade for Gino, you give up a third round pick for him, you give him seventy five million. I think it was like sixty something guaranteed that you with the sixth overall pick, you take a running back, You put them behind an offensive line that might be the worst in the league. If not, they're in. They're in the running. You don't even know gent D's on the team. And I don't even mean that as an indictment on him. I think he's a good young player. It's just he's it's meaningless to have a running back on a team that's never winning and can't block anybody, so it's just not an impactful position. Brock Bauers is a stud. They're two best players are brock Bauers and Max Crosby, and the problem is neither one of them can truly impact the game because of the chaos going around them. So they're wasting two of the premier players in the league respectively. Really have very little impact, and that's a problem.

00:08:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you do, Like, what do you do in this situation where you invest and you think you're you're closer than you really are and you have all these problems roster wise, coaching staff wise, Like, what do you do, Like, say, Pete Carroll's the guy next year, what do you look at doing first? Is it again, You're you're in a situation where you're always playing from behind. So to your point, you're never really able to use Max Crosby to the best of his ability. Do you look at moving Max Crosby to get some draft equity to just start looking to fill all of these holes everywhere else?

00:09:24
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I think it's a complicated. So if I played like Magic GM for a day, ye, you know what would be my first First off? You need to sit down in a room with the powers to be and you need to have a real honest assessment about where are we and how close are we to our competitive cycle? Right? And I think that was part of the issue a year ago. You hire a guy like Pete Carroll who's not used to losing, he has won ten plus games, it feels like forever. Yeah, obviously from college and then what he did in Seattle. You're hiring a guy who is not a long term in three years, we're going to be good. The expectation is we're going to win now because I only know winning. I only know ten plus wins. I only know playoff games. Like that's all Pete understands. That's his power, that's his eternal optimistic brain that has made him as good of a coach as he's been. So I think there's a little bit of a misalignment there. We're being honest. I think they need to sit down and say, Okay, we need to be good in two years, we need to be good in three years whatever. That realistic approach and every decision needs to be made through that lens. So can you if they get the first or second overall pick that that game against the Giants feels like it's going to decide who you know, the loser actually wins because you'll get the higher pick. Do you love any of these quarterbacks? Right? You need a quarterback. You need to get a young quarterback so you can build around them cheaply. Do you love Fernando Mendoza? Do you love the kid from or what is it Dante Kid from Oregon, Dante Moore? You know, do you love them? That's a question. If you don't, can you trade down? Right? Is one pick gonna change your franchise?

00:11:00
Speaker 4: No?

00:11:00
Speaker 3: Can you trade down from one to middle of the pack, get a bunch of picks and accumulate. You know, the Max Crosby thing's real. We talked about it on the broadcast. He's a premier player in the league regardless of position. You have to ask yourself, no different than Miles Garrett. As good as they are individually, our current roster makeup and our current play style for as good as they are, doesn't matter. And the answer is no, it clearly doesn't matter. It clearly doesn't impact wins because what they do great, You're not in position for that to actually have an impact on the outcome of the game, which is essentially that matters. So those are really hard decisions, Those are really complex, long term thinking. But I think if they continue to just patchwork it and just put vand aid band aid, and there's not a real comprehensive plan to say we are going to do all these difficult things now in the moment so that we have the ability to be good in two or three years. I think they're a long way off.

00:11:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you too, Like I don't think Max wants to leave. I don't think that fan base wants them to leave. Like it's going to be a tough breakup, but one that's like just feels like that's why if you want to be a good organization or a good football team in a couple of years or a few years, like that is one of those tough decisions that you would have to make.

00:12:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, the biggest issue that you're dealing with is that the owner is not known for having a lot of patients behind his decision making when it comes to GM's head coaches and.

00:12:22
Speaker 1: That type of thing.

00:12:23
Speaker 2: So we're talking about two three years from now being successful when we know the league is one of the more impatient organizations of all time, And so it's like, is peak care there in two three years? Because foundationally, you're right, like band aid, band aid, band aid, you have to do a complete foundational overload of what's taking place in Las Vegas.

00:12:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, so think about it. They had the sixth overall pick, between a third round pick, a fifth round pick, and a sixth overall pick. They got Geno Kenny pick at the backup quarterback and Ashton Genty a running back.

00:12:54
Speaker 2: Tough.

00:12:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, but now.

00:12:56
Speaker 3: You go back and you say, Okay, you want to trade, you want to accumulate picks, you want to play through the draft. Now they do have a ton of cap I want to stay off the top of my head, it's like maybe the second most cap spending for next year, or they're in the top like three. So there is a lot of opportunity for them to add free agents and to ad guys because they have a ton of money. We saw the Patriots do it and surround a much improved roster with Vrabel they spent the most in free agency, and then obviously they've hit with Drake May. And that's the perfect storm because you take advantage of your really good, young, cheap quarterback. So the problem with doing that is you got to make sure you have your young cheap quarterback right, not only getting one, but is he the guy that I can ride this five year window where I'm not paying him top dollar, I can afford all these other positions and we can ride that all out. What New England's doing now and what you know, the Vikings, they were the second highest spenders. But I say all of that is you can accumulate as many draft picks as you want. Think it wasn't too long ago that they traded Khalil Mack in a blockbuster trade from the Raiders to the Bears. And they accumulate all those first round picks, and that's going to change their future. And I don't I think like one of those first round picks. I think like Colton Miller, who's on the ir the offensive tackle, he might be the only first round pick left and if there isn't nothing, they might have it. No, they have a defensive lineman from like Texas A and M that's a backup. But like they've had all these first round picks and most of them are not even in the league. So you accumulate all this draft capital, but it's only as good as your ability to execute and actually draft good players. That's why Philly's been so good. All these guys that Phillies drafted, especially on defense, have become really good players.

00:14:37
Speaker 1: Right right. Staying in the AFC, last week, we're kind of talking how wide open the AFC is. There's really nobody that you go into the playoffs thinking like I don't want to play against this team after yesterday. Are there any team sticking out to you to where it's like, hey, I don't want to have to face this football team.

00:14:52
Speaker 3: I thought Denver had a really impressive win.

00:14:55
Speaker 1: I agree.

00:14:56
Speaker 3: I thought I thought that was really a really good win. Again, I didn't catch all four quarters. I caught the most of it traveling home. I thought that was really impressive. I thought bo Nicks played as well as he has. You know, they beat a good Packers team. I think that comeback win for Josh Allen and the Bills. Again, is it the roster? Is it the play style that we're accustomed to. No, we We've talked about that throughout the course of the year. It looks a little different. It feels a little different. But I'll tell you what these last two weeks, Josh Allen's been Josh Allen.

00:15:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:15:29
Speaker 3: And he did it in the snow at home against Burrow, bringing them back and pretty much putting the game on his back two weeks ago. And then he's down twenty one to nothing on the road to at the time the number one seed in the in the conference and brings him back for a huge comfort behind wins so you know, I still believe that that AFC is a toss up. I believe I can make an argument that five or six of those teams they go through Texans. Right, Like, we've talked so much about the Texans defense, and it feels like their offense is getting a little bit better. They're a little better.

00:16:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, they put they put a forty burger on the Cardinals, and that's exciting because you want to you want them to do the things they're supposed to do against inferior teams, which they did. But I think I think just looking the weekend, we're looking at yah.

00:16:17
Speaker 1: First part of the year. If I'm being optimistic, I guess for the Texans offense in the first half of the year, I don't think that offense would have put up forty on a team like the I agree, you know what I mean to where it's like you're at least like they were coming along a little bit. Forget whoever the jersey on the other side is if it was the Raiders, maybe we'd have kind of a different too. But I just feel like them being able to put up forty against the Cardinals to kind of at least compare a little bit to that elite defense has got to be if you're a Texas fan, you got to be feeling great going into or being in December.

00:16:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely. I think when it comes to AFC, they've been just sitting there in front of our faces a whole year. But it's the Denver Broncos. Like they have one of the best defenses in the entire league. They have one of the best offense. I think their offensive line has given up the least amount of sacks out of any other offensive line in the entire NFL. And the biggest question mark is is bow Nixy to take that next step because they're putting a lot pressure on this kid going into year two. He goes and plays at home against a great Packers team and you know, gets into a bit of a shootout for four tuddies, and it's like, oh, okay, in my opinion right now as it stands, and this is so weak to week where we all kind of like have these grand gesture opinions, but it's like, oh, it's clearly the Broncos right now. The way the Patriots fell apart after being up twenty one to zero against the Bills, the Houston Texans their question marks on offense. Are they getting better? Are they not? But it's like the NFC people have said for a majority part of the year, like, hey, the Packers seem like the most put together team, and they took that team and plaid to play against their offense their strengths and go and win that game the way they did. It's like, Yo, it's the Broncos And if bo Nix can continue to do what he does, he's got everything around him to be successful. Now they sit in a perfect position of they have all this talent around them and a quarterback that's in his first contract where he's not killing a bunch of cap for you guys. So there is if you're a Broncos fan, buddy, this is like we have to you have to get it now. Now is when you take a hitage of all those things, because in three years you're not gonna be able to have Cooper Benito certain all these guys on your defense, and able to have an on offensive line and you know, wide receivers and running back. So I think right now it is the Broncos, and I think that's probably who looks like they're coming out of the playoffs then when we get to the playoffs, we'll see how bo Nix handles the weather. That we talked about run game defense, it seems like they can they can handle that. Josh Allen seems like he's gonna have the easiest path he's ever had with Patrick Mahomes now being out Lamar Jackson. He's on the fringe with the Ravens. It's going to be very interesting to see what takes place in the AFC.

00:18:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they could get that one seed and then everybody's traveling to the altitude to Denver.

00:18:53
Speaker 2: Right in that cold weather, all that stuff, and it's Denver is an extremely hard place to play. Well, we all are very aware of that. I want to I want to talk about the Bengals with you for a second because before this game where I think they got shut out, correct it was twenty four to zero. Twenty to zero, Yeah, they got shut out. Yeah, before this game. Joe Burrow, he's in a press conference. He goes, I want to play the game. That's fun for me. I'm not. He basically alludes like I'm not having fun. He's having a lot of comments that reflect us looking back on Andrew Luck and being like yo, how are we going to have a sim situation where this guy generational talent which is thrown around all over the place, but truly, Joe Burrow is a generational talent. Does he want to trade his when he retire? What he want to do? Goes into this game, gets goose ech those multiple interceptions, and he got Jamar Chase in the postgame press conference saying I've never had to uplift Joe Burrow in my life. It seems like that's where I kind of have to go. Now He's done that for me, so I need to do that for him. Because Joe Burrow has this crazy body language about him. This is more of an open discussion. I want to put you just like, hey, Greg, what would you do? But like, where do we feel like Joe Burrow's at right now? As far as his career.

00:19:58
Speaker 1: I don't think he wants to be done playing. There's got to be something going on off the field in my opinion, based on just a little clues or nuggets because he alluded to I want to say. A reporter asked him when he said he wasn't having fun and whatever else, and the guy in the audience was like, is there it football stuff. Is it personal stuff? He's like, you know, a little bit of everything. And then for Jamar Chase to he also said a personal I'm not going to say eluded, but he brought up the word personal, like when he said, I've never been in the spots where I've had to uplift Joe Burrow. I don't know what's going on personally, blah blah blah, but I feel like I'm gonna be there for him the same way He's been there for me. There could be something going on and nobody knows about. Yeah, I don't think he wants to be done playing football. I think he just wants to be on a winning football team, you know what I mean?

00:20:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think it's a lot of that. And again, we never know. It's it's so easy to judge these guys and say, oh man, how good do they have it? You don't know what's going on behind the scenes. I think that's all real guys are still living lives outside of the world of professional football, and it certainly takes a toll. But my I guess without having any real intimate knowledge into the situation, my experience of just being around guys and hearing the way they talk and whatnot. This feels to me like a guy who's saying, I know I'm really good. I didn't play good yesterday. I think he was very honest about his assessment yesterday, and that's okay. It felt like an outlier, felt like kind of a one off game. But I sense a guy that is tired of losing, right, I'm tired of scoring thirty plus points and losing. Everybody else around the league scores twenty and they win twenty five, they win thirty, and it's a foregone conclusion. You win. How Come I'm on this team that over the last two years, I've scored thirty four points six times in a loss. That's not fun. It does people like, oh, but you're making so much money. You're making this we all know, like the money and all that after you signed that contract and that rush is gone. The football is still what matters. Coming into a locker room of a winner is very different coming into the locker room of a winner of a loser, regardless of how much money you make. And I think these last couple of years, really, since the Super Bowl, it's been a steady decrease, especially on the defensive side of the ball. They can't get that right. They're firing coaches. Hendrickson's not playing. He's their best player, Like they're not good on defense. He feels like he carries the entire weight of the organization, which he does on his back offensively and quarterback. And obviously he's been through some injuries and he's battling and he's rehabbing, and he's rushing back to a four and eight team, trying to claw his way back into the playoffs. Every single season they're in the same boat. They're four and eight, they're three and seven, and it's like, hey, win every game. Well he did it last year. They won every game down the stretch. They don't make the playoffs. He comes back, he gets him to four and eight. It's got to win every game. He loses a heartbreaker to Josh Allen to get shut out, and now the season's over. I think he's mentally worn out. I feel like he's a guy that's saying, I'm in the prime of my career when I'm healthy, I'm arguably the best quarterback in the league, and I'm tired of losing. And I don't blame him.

00:22:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's like too being a part of a tough organization or a bad culture, like going into work, Like anybody who goes into work and like, let's say you have a bad day or you have a bad week, right, you have a bad moment. If you've got a lot of good people around you and you're around a good organization with a good culture, you'll get out of that pretty quick. Like we've been in locker rooms to where you're winning football team, you have a bad day or you have a bad game, and just to feel when you go in the locker room or going to the building the next day, it's it's completely different than when you have a bad day or have a bad game and you lose and you go into a locker room where it's just it's quiet, like everybody knows there's stuff going on, even the culture. When you go into the facility of the next day, whether organizationally from the top down, you just feel like you're in a bad situation. Having to do that day in and day out. It absolutely wears on you to the point where it's like, yeah, the dude's just beat down, he's tired of being he does know, Like this is one of the best players in the NFL, and he's just been on this he's just been on this shit team for the last year.

00:23:54
Speaker 2: It's not even day in and day out, month and a month out. This has been a year in and year round job for Joe Burrow.

00:23:59
Speaker 1: And it's like if you.

00:24:01
Speaker 2: Go into multiple off seasons and the issues that you've had have not been addressed. And I know I know the issues that they have. We've all talked about. We talked about it earlier with the Broncos, Like Broncos are in a great spot because they have all the pieces and a quarterback in the first in his first contract. Now you have Joe burwho's making half a billion dollars or whatever his contract is, and it's like every year it's like, Okay, their defense sucks and their offensive line gives up sex and every year we're having the same conversation. Now we're here three years later saying twenty twenty five, it's December, the defense sucks and the offensive line gives up sacks. So if I'm Joe Burrow, yeah, I'm pretty fed up with the situation and just wondering, like, like, if it's not gonna get fixed in three years, maybe I need to go somewhere else where it is fixed. But the argument can also be made is it's not I was good. On the other side, no other team has t Higgins and Jamar Chase and that Tindan was it giseki is how you say it? Like those type of weapons, they're just they grow on trees, like maybe the Vikings. You can find yourself in that Si Stafford's Stafford, those rams, Like those pastures are greener, those pastors are pretty damn green those But it's like that has to be the fit. Like if it's like Doe Burrow's going to go to the Raiders or he's going to go to the Jets, or he's going a Steelers, He's like, no, bro, Like you're not going to be happier there because you're not going to have the weapons that you have that are even comparable anywhere else other than probably two teams.

00:25:18
Speaker 1: Joe smart enough, he would know he's end up with the Raiders or the Jets.

00:25:22
Speaker 3: Well, you know, brings up the question everybody always asks, and I'm not sure there's a clear cut answer. You know, they're paying fifty plus million, it might maybe more than that. Off the top of my head how much they're paying to t Higgins and Jamar Chase. Right, So you're paying all that money there, would you rather have a fifty million dollar offensive line or fifty million dollar wide receivers? It's a tough I can make an argument each way, Right, what kind of system am I running? What's the you know, where's the load? Where's the stress? So I think there's a lot of nuance to it, but I think it's a fair question. And you look at what they're doing with the Rams. Yeah, oh Pooking Akua, the pat Pooking a coup is a fifth round pick making no money. DeVante Adams is on is a veteran who last year couldn't do a thing in Jets. Not because he's not amazing. He's incredible. It's a better fit, but he's not making thirty five million dollars. He's not making tough to your wide receiver money. So you can't pay everyone, right, and the second you start paying a quarterback sixty and a wide receiver thirty and better draft incredible it's and we see it time and time again. There's great rosters with good young quarterbacks making no money. They're highly competitive and then there's the couple quarterbacks that can mask the problems of a bad roster. But even they can't do it anymore, even Mahomes and Josh Allen and Burrow. I mean, these guys are as good as it gets, and the roster holes right now. Of the group, the only one that's still holding on is Josh Allen. Yeah, and he's doing it without literally without a receiver. Right. It's a great after catch and right. Yeah, but I'm talking about traditional compared to Justin Jefferson, who can I'm talking like a traditional x Z receiver. It's this, it's a really hard balance with how much money certain guys take and if you're gonna allocate a certain amount of percentage, such a high percentage of your cap to certain players, which of course you have to, they have to be able to hold. They better be able to fill the holes that are inevitably gonna come, and you better draft incredibly well around them.

00:27:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, now, playing now that we have more information, playing hindsight, armchair quarterback, it's one thousand percent. You want a fifty million dollars line when you got a quarterback like Joe Burrow.

00:27:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, but if you have a fifty million dollar O line. He's not throwing at Jamar Chasen t exactly.

00:27:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm thinking Joe Burrow is so good. Like, yeah, Jamar Chase and T Higgins they're they're animals. But I'm thinking you got to you gotta keep be like Joey b Like again, you see it with Josh Allen. He doesn't have a whole lot of wide receivers to work with, and he, you know, he's out there making it happen. You can make a you know, an average wide receiver look good. You can make a good wide receiver look great. You can go out there and grab you know, if you fortunately could draft like a Pooka Nakou in the fifth round. Obviously I'm talking on my ass saying that. But if you do draft well and then you go out and have find somebody a receiver that's got a higher ceiling than what he showed the previous year with Devonte Adams when he was with the Jets, you'd be able to. You'd be able to, you'd be able to figure it out. I believe in free agency, if you had a foundational piece of the offensive line protecting your best asset on the team, the.

00:28:33
Speaker 2: Thing that I'm thinking of right now is the viewer watching the show who is working their ass off, working paycheck to paycheck, and not just saying to us three guys who play in the NFL, Well, if Joe Burrow wants this so bad, why wouldn't he take less money?

00:28:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's.

00:28:52
Speaker 2: What you got sixty?

00:28:55
Speaker 1: Hey, I thought you follow follow up.

00:28:57
Speaker 2: That's what I'm like. People who don't play in the NFL. People who don't like understand like, hey, it's not for long, this doesn't last forever. You want to accumulate as much wealth as you possibly can for generational stuff. They're sitting there and theyre saying, well, the answer seems like it's pretty simple to me. Take less money so you can get a better offensive line and a defense.

00:29:12
Speaker 1: Fair.

00:29:12
Speaker 3: Well, So there's two there's two arguments, one on each side, like normal, Right, you make the one argument that, yeah, instead of making sixty, can you make fifty? Is your life really going to be different?

00:29:24
Speaker 1: Right?

00:29:24
Speaker 3: That's a valid argument. You can spread that ten million around your roster, and you do that over multiple years, and all of a sudden you have a better team. That's fair. Right. Brady did that a lot and been heavily talked about. There's also the side that those top tier guys, there is an obligation that it's your job to raise the ceiling. Right, it's your job because once Joe Burrow, I'm just gonna make up that he's you know, let's say he's the highest paid quarterback. Well, when it's Jordan loves turn, or it's Drake May's turn, right, these next young guys, when it's Drake May's turn, If Drake May doesn't jump, whoever the highest paid guy now is. You never reset the market. And you're not only resetting the market for the top guy. As the top quarterback makes sixty, the second tier now makes thirty five. If the top quarterback's only making fifty, the middle tier is only making twenty five. So you're bringing everybody up with you when you continually reset the market. So the other to the counter, and this is what every agent in the world of course is selling his client. You owe it to the league, You owe it to the other quarterbacks to elevate the market and to reset it if you have the ability to reset it. So there's a very double edged sword there, right, like, do you owe it to the league, do you owe it to the market and of course yourself or is your obligation to balancing the books on behalf of your front office and doing their job for them, right, because the Eagles certainly don't have a talent problem, right. And the Eagles are paying aj Brown and they're Lane Johnson, and they're paying my Alotta, and they're paying Jalen Hurts and they're paying Saquon Barkley. And I mean, but why can't you pay all them because you drafted Jalen Carter, and you drafted Jordan Davis, and you signed Zach Bond. I know they've given him an extension since, but he's not a top tier they sign him in a one year veteran deal two years ago, or last year, you draft Cooper Dejen you got, you draft Quinon Mitchell.

00:31:27
Speaker 1: Like yeah, Nikobe Dean, Yeah yeah.

00:31:29
Speaker 3: N Kobe Dean. And we can go on and on and on about the guys that they've drafted who make no relatively, they don't make big money in the scope scope of the NFL. That's how you keep that roster looking the way it does. If they miss on all those picks, and those guys stink and they now need to go out and free agency and fill those gaps. You only get a j Brown or DeVante Smith. You either get Lane Johnson or Jordan Mylotta. You don't get Saquon And it has a Yeah, it's just the nature the game. So like the argument the quarterback would be draft better.

00:32:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because the meat you do, you know, balance the books of the organization. You now give power to the owners. Like when you're in this battle of player versus ownership and getting paid what the market says, you now give owners leverage too. Now they're they're saying that with all the other deals they're trying to sign with their quarterbacks that they're trying to keep, it's like, well, the Bengals over here, Joe Burrow did this, like we need you to kind of be a selfless person here, right, take less money so that way we can make a better roster.

00:32:29
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.

00:32:30
Speaker 3: And then the left tackle wants to negotiate a new deal, and they go, well, Joe Burrow just took a hometown discount, so if he can do it, why don't you.

00:32:36
Speaker 2: Right now the negotiating, the leverage goes towards the team, right.

00:32:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's just so many there's just so many layers to it. It sounds so easy, you know, and I save you ten million a year. Is there a guarantee that you're not going to blow that? Yeah, you give it to some guy who stinks you're better off giving it to me.

00:32:55
Speaker 1: Right right, I'm approving.

00:32:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there's a lot of there's a lot of nuance to a lot of those things. But yeah, i'm the surface. Not being the highest paid player certainly helps keep your team better in theory, but now there's an execution component.

00:33:11
Speaker 2: It makes me think about Kirk Cousins and what he was trying to start when he left Washington, which is do you take less money but it's all fully guaranteed. And now you're starting to work through the process again of hey, you know when you sign these ninety million dollar deals in sixty if it's guaranteed, well, willia's just a sixty million dollar deal and you're hoping to get the other thirty Like why not? Like maybe that's the process now where these top tier quarterbacks you're taking five, ten million less dollars, but thirty more is guaranteed on the back end, Like that's a win. Yeah, possibly for everybody there now there's a new fight taking place where these fully guaranteed contracts are happening, which you know depends on what side of the fence you sit on when it comes to that stuff.

00:33:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was always the approach that I took. Right Like, again, this is a fun kind of higher level like approach standpoint that I think is interesting to dive into. But like me personally, my approach was always it didn't matter to me that I was ever the highest paid, the third highest paid, the fifth highest paid, the tent that never really mattered to me, right Like, I always took extensions in advance just because I knew I played a position where at any moment it could be done. Yeah, but then I also always bet on myself and saying I might sign on an annual basis a less contract than a guy that I might feel like I'm better then, But because I took an extension, I didn't make free agency. He's going to make more on an annualized basis. But I'm gonna make the entire contract, right like I'm gonna play the entire I'm gonna get the max value of that contract, which might be a little bit less over fixed number of years. I'm gonna make it all you. I make five million and you make seven. But you only made two years of it, and then you got hurt, you stopped training, you got cut. You weren't as good as me. But I made it for five years. Who signed the better contract?

00:34:52
Speaker 1: You did?

00:34:54
Speaker 3: I signed the better contract because you got two of the five years at seven, so you made fourteen. I got five of the for twenty five. I did better than you. That was always personally my approach, where I didn't need to make the most per year. I was gonna make every single year of it for fourteen years and just play the long game. That was always my approach.

00:35:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was sitting in the position to have make get a second contract, I was sat down by Tom Condon and Pat Collins at CAA and they're like, hey, everyone's looking at Apy like everyone wants to know your average pay per year. Really the move is we're trying to set the record for the guarantee. That's what we want to get for you. And it's when they were able to break that down for me because I was a little more great. I'm like, well, this guy's making this much per year. I want to make X y and z more per year. And then really when they turned my focus to, hey, what you're really focused on over here is the guarantee, that's when it's like, oh shit, you're right, because then things go to hell like it kind of did towards the end of my career where it was like shit's just falling apart and left and right. It's like, oh, I get to lean on this guarantee that I have to be a little more safe.

00:35:59
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm just wonder if i'd get a signing bonus.

00:36:02
Speaker 2: No doubt, you know what I mean, that signed yeah, and it's it's yeah.

00:36:05
Speaker 1: I get I can get one hundred and twenty and that in that signing bonus with this contract.

00:36:09
Speaker 2: It's so interesting.

00:36:09
Speaker 1: Don't get that.

00:36:10
Speaker 2: It's so interesting with the money thing because when you get into the league and you're drafted, even being drafted in the first round, and everything's like it was the new CPA, so like everyone's kind of slotted. You get drafted, you get your signing bonus, but then you're working through your rookie car like minimums every single year because there's all frontloaded that signing bonus, which is great, forty eight hours. It's like Okay, that was awesome. Bank account looks great. But now I gotta worry about actually putting a product in the field that's not disgusting and people hate me for. And you're looking at these eight, nine, ten year vets that are making ten, eleven, twelve per year and you're like, bro, what are they bitching about when they're making that much money? And then you become the guy that's making that and you realize quickly like, yeah, that goes away, and it's you know, it's it might sound selfish to the casual person, but like once the money is the contract sign, it's like you're only thinking about football from then on. If you truly care about the game.

00:37:02
Speaker 3: It's psychousing, stinks, dropping the game winning pass, giving up three sacks in a game you don't wake up Monday ago. Well, it's not that bad because they make a lot of money. It's probably worse.

00:37:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely, it's probably worse.

00:37:17
Speaker 3: You feel shittier, right.

00:37:19
Speaker 2: If if you're a guy that loves the team and use ball like chandles.

00:37:23
Speaker 3: Are, if you don't give a shit, you're probably not that like it typically is all hand in hand.

00:37:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, voice.

00:37:30
Speaker 1: Quick break from the episode to shout out our sponsors, a bust with the boys the first one. First up, Dude Wipes, Are you fumbling the ball when it comes to getting a confident clean in the back of your end zone? Make the right play calling audible and switch from dry toilet paper uh to wet extra large dude wipes. Why it's simple, Wetter just cleans better. Dude wipes are wet and extra large so they clear never smear your rear. So when you got to go number two, be sure to bring the number one product and clean Dude wipes the goat of cleaning your keyster available on Amazon and that Walmart Nation. Why dude wipes best clean pants down. And if you are getting a little bit of the bubble gut so you're having a bad digestive issue, look no further to the best soda in the game right now, Ollipop. There is an Ollipop SpongeBob collaboration happening. The Pineapple a soda from Bikini Bottom Pineapple Paradise, Juicy Pineapple, the splash of Mandarin pure Liquidjoy. Just like SpongeBob himself, you can there are five limited editions SpongeBob can designs hidden in each four pack. You can collect them all in Unlock Sweet Rewards at drinkolipop dot com slash sponge SpongeBob. The reason Ollipop in this soda is the best alternative to pure soda itself is because Ollipop has they support gut health with nine grams of prebotic fiber and there's only two to five grams of sugar per can, so it tastes like soda, but it's actually good for you. They have a big time all star flavor lineup with Vintage Cola, Classic Root Beer, Cream Soda, Range Squeeze, Doctor Goodwin, Lemon Lime, my favorites, Classic Grape and Crisp Apple. You can get two dollars off of a four pack at Olipop at drinkollipop dot com slash bussing. Olipop is sold online at drinkollipop dot com or on Amazon and available in almost fifty thousand retailers nationwide, including Costco, Walmart, Target, Public's, Whole Foods, Kroger, and HGB. Drink Olipop Boys, And to round this thing off, shout out Lucy No Free shout outs to Lucy. Let's level up your nicotine routine with Lucygoto Lucy dot Co slash bussing and use promo code busting to get twenty percent off your first order. Lucy has a thirty day refund policy. If you change your mind again, that's Lucy dot Co. Use code busting and you get twenty percent off all of these nicotine flavored pouches. And here comes the fine print, boys, Lucy products are only for adults of legal age and every customer's age verified. Warning this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Let's get back to this football weekend recap with Greg Olsen on Busting with the Boys. You know, everybody's waking up this morning in New England just feeling like dog shit.

00:40:02
Speaker 2: Dog shit. But that's also we talked about when you walk into a locker room with a team that's like, you know, there's a bunch of issues. If you're the Patriots, you're coming off of bye Mike Rabel up until yesterday was undefeated off of a bye week. They lose this game, I'm sure there's a level of like, oh no, no, no, no, no, we messed it up. We were up twenty one zero, twenty four to seven. We should have put that game away in the second half and we got lazy and there's a new fire that's taking place in a province.

00:40:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was probably the best thing to happen to the Patriots, no doubt, dude.

00:40:34
Speaker 3: So I got a question though, for Will When when did the momentum of that game switch.

00:40:42
Speaker 1: Right out of the second half? Yeah, right out of the second half when they kickoff back and it's like they win that.

00:40:50
Speaker 3: Explain that to me. How you are You're up twenty one and you have all the momentum and then you lose. I don't get it.

00:41:00
Speaker 1: God, handle yourself, bro, there's nothing. Gregg's right, No, he's not. And tell them what you're talking about. When the Buffalo Bills came.

00:41:08
Speaker 2: Out coming out of halftime, yah, coming out half after adjustments were made, understanding that the momentum is on the patriotside, we need to string plays together.

00:41:16
Speaker 1: Rallying light fire. Hey, we're going to come off, so we're.

00:41:19
Speaker 2: Getting this ball.

00:41:20
Speaker 3: We're getting this ball.

00:41:21
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. The game plan we walked in with is clearly not the game plan we needed to win. We've seen the plays. This is how we make our adjustments. They're also making adjustments. The good thing about being down at halftime is you understand your game plan needs to change when you're up by as much as the Patriots are, they're not looking with a critical eye, being like we need to change X, Y and Z because everything they have is working. Bills made changes. Momentum is a series by serious case by case. You can break down all of it.

00:41:47
Speaker 1: It's like a fighter. When the bell rings, you make it to the end of the round, you can recreate some momentum in that corner.

00:41:52
Speaker 3: Right sounds and to me, it sounds like you guys are talking execution, right game plan and plays and the ability. That's what it sounds like to me, not emotion and vibes and feel That's what I'm hearing. Am I wrong?

00:42:09
Speaker 2: You are? You are absolutely right, and you'll know this. It all goes completely hand in hand. When you have a game plan and you execute that game plan, that momentum rises, and so do the vibes. Believe starts to take place. When you're getting that asked bet by three touchdowns and you've got people tweeting the Patriots week schedule, the haters are sick right now type of stuff. You you feel a little more confident now the bills coming like sh okay, it really is just a two score game. Then they go three and out. Now you're feeling momentum built. Hey, they're not as good as we think they are.

00:42:39
Speaker 1: We're all making No I'm trolling.

00:42:43
Speaker 3: Can I ask one more questions?

00:42:44
Speaker 1: Ahead?

00:42:44
Speaker 3: Sorry?

00:42:44
Speaker 1: Go ahead?

00:42:45
Speaker 3: Well no, go ahead? Well, sorry, go ahead.

00:42:46
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, when greg'sitting there talking about feeling vibes emotion, that's what I always feeling when I put that tweet out, And I didn't see it flipping on me like that whatsoever. I truly did. It's not like I'm with you. There's been so much what you treat. So it went twenty one to nothing.

00:43:03
Speaker 3: And as you said, I didn't see it.

00:43:04
Speaker 2: I said, I here, Uh this is this is twenty one hours ago. So we are right around the right about halftime the Patriots quote week's schedule. Haters are sick watching this ass beating on the Buffalo Bills.

00:43:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they turn it around come back. I end up having to make a thread of a posting the Simba running from the stampede as the Buffalo Bills were coming back and momentums everything. Yeah.

00:43:33
Speaker 3: Hey, Can I ask another question though? And I'm genuinely. This is a genuine question. So the Thursday night game, Atlanta's down fourteen, they score, they go for two. They fail. Yeah, they get the interception, they get the ball, they go back down and score again. So they've scored back to back touchdowns. Had all the momentum failed the second point after try. I was told the second point after try, especially after scoring two touchdowns, everyone's feeling so much better, you're more likely to get it. Obviously didn't happen. They missed them both. The fifteen conversation after the Philly game, I was told that you should go for two after the second touchdown because after scoring two touchdowns in a row, you've got all the momentum, you're more likely to convert. The two point. Didn't happen. I was also told that after not tying the game like they would have without with the two kicks, they would have tied the game, the defense was not going to play as motivated and was not going to be as the urgency was not going to be there because instead of being tied on losing, they went out, got the ball right back, and they went down to kick the field goal. So I guess I'm just trying to understand why they kept playing hard despite not tying the game, despite having all the momentum. They failed the two point try. I'm just trying to keep try. When the emotions mattered, when the execution mattered, when the vibes were good bad, It's hard for me to keep track of it.

00:45:08
Speaker 1: Here's what I'll say, Greg, you won this week, you won this battle. The war continues. There will be situations now or we'll be right back here and I'll get to do the same type of trolling you're doing to me right now. I will win this week. I win this week.

00:45:26
Speaker 3: The outcome no, no, no, See here's the difference. I'm not saying that I'm right because they won the game. I'm laying in bed and like you, I'm getting fired on Twitter because people like, where's Olsen now going for two? They're gonna lose, and I'm sitting there like I would still go for two down fourteen. They didn't and they're probably gonna lose. And this definitely is on the other camp side, anecdotally seat because again we want to judge the result instead of what's actually happened. Here's the reality of all this. If you're down fourteen fifteen thirteen. Any you're probably gonna lose more times than not anyway, so yes, more chances than not you're gonna lose the game. And then you guys see, it was a stupid decision. Being down fourteen is not a great strategy. Being down fifteen is not a great strategy. They happened to win the game. And that's my entire point, the mote to put to say that teams are trying less hard more hard. I scored two touchdowns, so I'm gonna get the two versus my first touchdown. The defense is no longer tired. But I thought they were so tired. They're on their heels, they're reelings their sucking wind. We talk all these cliches. All I'm simply saying is I'm not debating that we all haven't felt these things. We all do as humans. I'm just saying they don't matter.

00:46:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, gosh, can I just say, Greg, having you on the show, that was a masterclass, That was a master class. Any vondas at the end of it too, I don't know what that means. Vince fun Vince FONND wedding crashers are they're sucking win, They're not sucking win the defensive sign, but are they really tired? Now we're sitting here and we're thinking, is everybody actually just tired? And it's actually a sequelized.

00:47:09
Speaker 1: He got me to say he won, but he's like, that's that, that doesn't even matter. He got me focused on something else. No, No, I'm not even talking about that. Yeah, and then goes on and you know, finishes it off by putting me at your and buckling me in right.

00:47:20
Speaker 2: And give you a little kiss on the cheek.

00:47:21
Speaker 1: You want some snatch it again? Hey, hey, you did it, and you did a great job of it.

00:47:29
Speaker 2: And I will say, like what I was going to say before we jumped into all that was is having you on Mondays has like changed the way I've watched end of games to where I'm I'm leaning on the side of Olsen camp, Like, hey, does motivate, does motivation, momentum? All these things doesn't really matter. When it's like you're down by fourteen, you score a touchdown, you go for two because you're much more likely to get fifty percent than one hundred percent, so you might as well try to go for it once. Question of the game, right thirty, we're talking about the Buffalo Bills and the Patriots. It's thirty five thirty one. Literally took a photo of this and I was like, I gotta ask what he would do in the situation.

00:48:02
Speaker 3: Wait, catch that game, so.

00:48:04
Speaker 2: You know what pisses me off to and we got to figure this out. I don't have your number. I've multiple times have been like, great.

00:48:10
Speaker 1: Need to be Hey, we'll get it. Let's get a group going.

00:48:13
Speaker 2: And I've honestly won asket but a place's embarss. So we've gone this wrong.

00:48:17
Speaker 3: I bench press last week. Boys woke up very sore, no shit for reps.

00:48:22
Speaker 2: No hoo many.

00:48:24
Speaker 3: Not enough.

00:48:27
Speaker 2: Brother may as that I've worked out three times. Okay, thirty five thirty one. Now the Patriots, this is the Bills are now beating the Patriots. So the Patriots are up at one point momentum, the whole thing we're still talking about.

00:48:40
Speaker 3: That got it.

00:48:40
Speaker 2: It's thirty five thirty one. The Patriots are on let's say the thirty yard line, the Bills thirty yard line. So if they don't get a first down here, it's essentially the game is over. There's five minutes and nineteen seconds left. It's fourth and twelve. Are you going to go for it in this situation and define the game? Or is that way out of hand?

00:48:58
Speaker 3: At this point, you're the plus, you're on the plus thirty.

00:49:02
Speaker 2: You're in a tree, You're you're on the minus side. So the Patriots if they turned the ball over, yeah, If the Patriots turn the ball over, god, yeah.

00:49:10
Speaker 3: So they turned it over on downs on the minus thirty down four, right, they went for fourth and twelve and failed.

00:49:16
Speaker 2: They did not go for it. They ended up punting it away and while and when they're punting it away, I'm thinking, Okay, the Bills at this point and this half have scored so much over you and.

00:49:26
Speaker 3: Have come and what did the Bills do when they got The Bills.

00:49:29
Speaker 2: End up going They end up not scoring, and the Patriots get get the ball again. They get the ball again, they have a two minute, they fail, they end up losing the game. Anyway, I think the result of the game was the same score, thirty five thirty one. I have to look at it.

00:49:41
Speaker 3: So was this I'm trying to put Yeah, so this was the punt. So they punted fourth and twenty trioits punted fourth and twelve.

00:49:52
Speaker 2: I think they're on like the thirty yard line, but they're not going in. They're coming out right, soah, fourth and twelve at the twenty five and it's five to nineteen left the Bills of nineteen. The Bills have scored like, you know, thirty five to or whatever, twenty eight to three in the second half. So you're saying, by punting this ball away, we're I think they're taking a knee based on your logic, because they're gonna go down and score again, or they're gonna be able to keep kind of doing what they've been doing to you with the score this.

00:50:24
Speaker 3: High, or at the very least, they don't score, but they just get you under the two minute warning. They bleed you out the run game. So by being only up four there now fourth and twelve sucks.

00:50:35
Speaker 2: That's a shitty one.

00:50:36
Speaker 3: It's a shitty one, right, So like that's probably the one asterisk. I'm probably still going for it. And here's why I'm gonna speed up you scoring on me, right, I haven't stopped you. You've got thirty five points. I can't stop a soul. You've scored thirty five damn near unanswered. I'm being down four. I'm not afraid I'll give my chances to go for fourth down to maintain possession. If I fail, you're probably gonna go run, run, run, kick a field goal to go up seven. So obviously I can't let you score a touchdown of the game's over. But I'm saying, okay, short field, we narrow it down. You're trying to bleed clock. You're trying to at least say I gotta come away here with three points. How aggressive are you gonna be? Are you really gonna go for the death shot? Are you gonna be okay kicking a field goal? I'm probably okay taking my chances because I can still keep it a one possession game at seven. If I'm trailing there by six, now the math turns into okay, I let you score. Now it turns into a two possession game. But if I punt it back to you and you bleed too much clock and still kick a field goal, now I really don't have a chance. So all those situations, my brain says, you gotta maintain possession. Even if you give New England the ball on the short field, then you've got to hold them to a field goals, maintown seven and give the ball back to Drake. May you punt it away? Did they go three and out and get the ball right back?

00:52:02
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was three and out, but they had the ball I think either right before.

00:52:08
Speaker 3: They got they.

00:52:10
Speaker 1: Got the ball back.

00:52:10
Speaker 2: But okay, does it?

00:52:11
Speaker 1: Does it?

00:52:12
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't mention this would be unfair to you to not bring it up. They have Patriots have all their time out, all their time outs, have all their timeouts rabels. Yeah, so they have all their timeouts. It's fourth and twelve. You're backed up on like your twenty five.

00:52:25
Speaker 3: You're not giving the ball back to Josh Allen at all?

00:52:29
Speaker 2: Right, you don't want to, so you want to go for the fourth score on me.

00:52:33
Speaker 3: I'm going to do everything in my power to maintain possession of the ball.

00:52:36
Speaker 2: Okay, let's und I know you are, but let's go fourth and twelve. Fourth and twelve, they don't get it. Okay, So now you're the Bills. You're essentially in your red zone fringe area, and I hate that. I can't remember the exact yard line they were on. If you yeah, I'm saying, do you say we're either going to be up by four or up by eleven or is it we're going to take the three because in my mind, based on your law, if I'm picking up everything, is this is not a kick of field goal situation even though we're in it, because the amount of touchdowns or the amount of scores it takes is still the same regardless.

00:53:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great point, right. Anticipating what is the track record of your opponent is a huge element of how they build all these models, and I think it's a really important nuance. So when each team sets these scenarios up in these big books that these guys have upstairs, where this is all planned out what we do in every scenario each week, the math does change a little bit. Everyone has this oh with it's just blanket mathematics that it doesn't apply to you because your right guard is out, or your left tackle is not good, or your quarterback is hurt. It absolutely takes all that into account. It takes into account the team you're playing against. If I'm playing against Dan Campbell, I have to really sit down all week and say, Okay, he's going to really be aggressive on fourth down, He's not going to settle for field goals. He's going to play a certain way. How am I willing to alter my strategy that I don't fall too far behind and I lose too many possessions. So a big evaluation there for Varibel has to be Okay, I fail here and I give the ball back to McDermott and Joe Brady aside from them wanting to bleed clock make me start burning through my timeouts. If I'm McDermott, I don't love the idea being up seven because more often than not, if you do go down and score, you're probably going to go for two. Now with the new overtime rules, I'll be curious to see how this plays out over long periods of time. In the old days, you went for two and you just said I got a chance to win the game. I'm either going to win or lose in regulation. Now there is an argument with the new each team possessing the ball, maybe that does shift the decision making. I don't think we've seen enough quantity of attempts for it to really flush out how teams handle end of regulation go for two or kick an extra point. But yes, if it's me, I'm in four down mode unless it's fourth and fifteen and I'm saying I'm scoring a touchdown at all costs to an sence, make this a two score game, and you don't have enough time to have the ball twice. So there's a lot of my decisions and the anticipation of what you have to do. That's a really unique situation. The fourth and twelve is what gives me a little pause.

00:55:14
Speaker 2: That's what when I saw the fourth and drowls are really curious to see.

00:55:18
Speaker 3: Hodds are just not great converting that. So fourth and seven are under I'm saying all day, I'm going to try to maintain possession fourth and twelve. I could probably make a great argument that punting might be the right move. Do I think McDermott's thinking four down mode? Or do I think he feels better going from four to seven? Probably? I think Again, we talk about this a lot. There's a psychology there where let's say McDermott gets the ball. This is a this is a fun kind of exercise because you talk about the postgame press conference. You guys know how I feel about that shaping a lot of decisions. Let's say that scenario plays out. They go for it, fail, give the ball back to Buffalo. Buffalo gets the fourth and four and goes for it and fails, and they go the length of the field and Drake May walk you off and they win. What's an easy what's an easier postgame press conference that? Or you kick a field goal, Drake May goes down, scores a touchdown, gets the two point conversion and beat you, or forces overtime and beat you.

00:56:28
Speaker 1: The easier on's the heart the hardest.

00:56:31
Speaker 3: Those are easier. Those are easier. Hey, we got to get better. Or two minute drive. We gave ourselves a chance. We competed right till the end. We came right down to the last play of the game. We're right there, right, there's this false notion that that way of losing feels better. Then I passed up a field goal, and now I open myself up to just losing flat out. That's a harder explanation for a coach to face, which is why a lot of these coaches are going to error towards kick the field goal, go up seven, and you know what, if we don't win, our players need to be better. This is on the We got to be better on defense. We got to be better in two minutes, right Like that's that's the human nature. Of all of this. So I think that's a great scenario because both teams theoretically could have had really interesting decisions based on what the other team did. So very good decision, very good example, Taylor.

00:57:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate that. I think, uh, but this is also where I understand your mindset and everything when it comes to you know, play calling and all that. But momentum doesn't matter. If you look at the second.

00:57:38
Speaker 3: Half, I say it doesn't matter. I'm not saying it's you.

00:57:40
Speaker 1: I say it's not much much.

00:57:41
Speaker 2: Of a factor. But if I'm vable, and I have not stopped the Bills at all the entire second half, and my only score in the second half was an explosive run play by Hendrick Hendrickson or Henderson Henderson thank you well supposed to be answering. So essentially my offense has been non exists in the second half. I'm based on all of our conversations that we had, I'm thinking fourth and twelve, you got to go for it because regardless you would think when they I don't think everybody's at this new way of thinking it where they're they're gonna run, run, run, kick the three. And now nothing's changed about the game. It's still a one score game.

00:58:18
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, here's their second half possessions for the Patriots. Three plays minus six yards, seven plays, interception, one sixty five yard touchdown, three plays minus seven punt, four plays five yards downs. That was their that was their second half possessions. Go.

00:58:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's where and here and here was Buffalo touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, punt Neil god.

00:58:53
Speaker 2: So that's where momentum, in my mind is is a huge is a big factor. It's like the.

00:59:00
Speaker 3: How do I want to give the team to the better offense, give the ball to the offense with the best player in the league who I can't stop.

00:59:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I have a new scenario for you.

00:59:10
Speaker 3: Love it now.

00:59:11
Speaker 1: This is I'm very curious. Let's say there's less than four minutes left or you're getting toward the end of the game. I want to say this happened in a situation yesterday. I can't recall which game it was, but the team scores to go up their six points now gives them a seven point lead before the extra point. Extra point gives them an eight point lead. My question is, in that situation, why would you not think about going for two to make it a nine point game. So that way you're getting a true two possession game. Saw which game was that?

00:59:47
Speaker 3: I saw somebody sent me on on Twitter.

00:59:50
Speaker 1: I want to say. I want to say, I see somebody else walking or post about it too. I want to say, because I want to shout out the boy. I think it's a I saw somebody asking this, Gosh damn it. Jake Maliseak, Jake Malisek with John Gruden. Yeah, over at barstool, he was asking the same thing. And I've been curious about that as well.

01:00:07
Speaker 3: All right, so here's my approach on that. And it's a valid point, right, being up eight versus being up nine. Once you go up nine, it's a must two possession game, right, you have to score twice. And an eight point game is a one score game. Call it half the time, right, So chance of it being a one score game, it's not a guaranteed one score game. You could need two possessions. At nine points, you obviously need two possessions. I want to say, there was like eight or nine minutes to go in that game when they kicked the extra point. If I'm not mistaken, you can fact check me there, Okay, So my typical perspective is at eight or nine, with eight or nine minutes, you're gonna give your opponent at least two possessions, so just the score. At this point of the game, you start talking about how many possessions in a regular game, no on side kick and all that. How many possessions is your opponent.

01:01:07
Speaker 1: Going to get?

01:01:08
Speaker 3: If there's if it's at a point of a game where say you're under the two minute warning and I'm the underdog and it's Josh Allen and he's my opponent, do I want to give the ball to Josh Allen with down eight or do I want to just make this nine and say he could be Josh Allen and he can go down there and score on me. He has to score on sidekick, get it score again the odds of me, I feel a lot more comfortable defending that lead in those situations. But there's a time element, right putting Josh Allen down by nine with the risk of only being.

01:01:42
Speaker 1: Trying to put him down by nine, because again, if the offense gets the ball back, they could just go to at the end and then they could get you because again you're only up by seven.

01:01:50
Speaker 3: So correct, So where that's where the time element comes in and changes a lot of these factors. Right, you go back to our thing that started all this craziness was the down fifteen of Philadelphia. I would make an argument if you're down fifteen and you're at a point of a game where you have to onside kick anyway, right because there's a minute thirty left when you score, I'm kicking an extra point because no matter what, I'm still taking the on side kick after that scores, even if I'm down eight, i still have to on side kick to get the ball back because there's only a minute thirty. I'm not gonna be able to get the ball back with any meaningful time to go down to score. Now that scenario there was like just under four minutes. If I get the two point conversion, I don't have to onside kick, right because I'm only down seven. I have my three timeouts plus the two minute warning, I'm gonna kick it deep. So a lot of these decision making in those scenarios are very time dependent. The less time, right, it's teams when to go for two to win the game and when to kick the extra point to tie the game. So it was the Panthers game yesterday, they're up seven team ten. New Orleans goes down to score a touchdown, but they only kicked the extra point to make it seventeen seventeen. If there was thirty seconds left in that game, that's a much different conversation. Now, if I go for two, I win in regulation and virtually the game is over because you got thirty seconds in no timeouts. But there was a lot of time left. It was on the plus side of the two minute warning. I want to say they gave the ball back to Carolina with like two thirty on the clock. You're better off being tied with two thirty on the clock than even being up one. Because now, what does being up one do? It puts Bryce Young into four down mode, hyper aggressive to go down to beat you. What did Caroline do? It was tied, they went incomplete, incomplete, He was able to scramble for a first down. Long story short, they took a sack, they could, they punted it back to you. Now you now New Orleans went down on the game winning drive. So all of these situations, whether it's going up eight verse nine, whether it's going for two early, whether it's going for two to win the game in regulation, take a lead or tie it. Time is a critical element. Come the back half of the fourth quarter got you?

01:04:14
Speaker 1: So is there a cutoff in your brain when there was eight nine minutes left and this again, I forget which game it was, but this team kicks up to go up eight instead of thinking about going for two to make it nine points. Is there a cutoff to where it's like, hey, I'm going to try and get nine points in this situation risk?

01:04:33
Speaker 3: I don't think you have the timeouts, the two minute warning timeouts. How many times can you stop the clock two minute warning timeouts?

01:04:40
Speaker 1: Okay?

01:04:41
Speaker 3: And what is the likelihood of you possessing the ball and without getting an onside kick, without something crazy happening? What is the chances in a normal flow game of you possessing the ball two more times? If the likelihood is that you're going to possess the ball two more times, it's not as valuable. I'm better off being up eight. Kick disra point to be up eight. Where at least you can't beat me in a one possession game. You can only at best time me and fifty percent of the time you're gonna still lose to me. Yeah, Yeah, but if I can make it nine, you have to touch the ball twice? Yeah, do you have enough time for that to happen without a five percent chance of an on side kick? That's where my head goes making those decisions.

01:05:26
Speaker 1: Gotcha?

01:05:27
Speaker 3: And who am I.

01:05:28
Speaker 1: Kicking the ball back to right a lot of area?

01:05:30
Speaker 3: Am my kicking the ball? Am I kicking the ball back to a team that can't score? Worth the shit? Or am I kicking the ball back to a team that scored four touchdowns in a row? On me? Like Buffalo?

01:05:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really these conversations show Like as I've gotten more and more out of the league, I've realized how important coaching is. And I know it's a weird thing to say, but like, as a player, I think we live in this world of like brainwashing, like we're gonna get it done for the boys, especially in college, Like you're like, hey, we can win every single game because a grit and spit in the whole thing. And then as you get farther farther remove, do you realize how these little moments in games, how critically important they are. And it's just it's, dude, it's so fascinating to like be thirty four years old, three years out of the league, and like still like being like, yo, this is insane. I didn't even know this when I was playing. How important this was.

01:06:16
Speaker 3: Did you see the Mike McDonald interview after the game. Everyone's talking a lot about it, about him using those timeouts. Indianapolis had the ball before they went down to take the go ahead field goal. They asked Mike McDonald about, how did you squeeze out another possession and you ended up giving yourself another opportunity to go answer the field goal which eventually walked off Indy, And he talked about his analytics guy and how they build these and mentioned the guy by name, and the guy's like, hey, and we've said this a thousand times on broadcast, so it's nice to now hear these coaches say it in postgame interviews. For now everybody to cover it. You always use your timeouts on defense. You always use your timeouts on defense because I can't stop the clock on defense like I can on offense. And by doing that, you hear these coaches all the time say, oh, save one for the kick, save one for your offense. You're better off having more time with no timeouts than less time with more timeouts as an offense, so they burn time out, time out, time out, they end up kicking a field goal. You get the ball back with no timeouts. But I can stop the clock, I can clock it, I can throw it out of bounds, I can get you know, there's a million ways for me to do it. If they would have said, oh, we've got to save a time out for the field goal, we've got to save a timeout for the offense, that time is way more valuable to your offense than that one timeout. And Mike McDonald played it perfectly, called all of his timeouts on the minus side of the two minute warning, all on defense, gave his offense a chance and they won. Yeah, that wasn't a that was not an emotional in the moment decision. That shit was decided four months ago.

01:08:00
Speaker 1: And you have to have a supreme operation offensively because again defensively, you're trying to protect a sideline. More so, of course, can't get started, it can't get the opposite.

01:08:09
Speaker 3: They could have easily. But here's what's funny. He could have done everything the exact same and they don't get in field goal range, or Myers misses the kick and no one after the game is saying, Mike McDonald, you did a great job with your timeouts. Right. The story is you lost to a forty four year old quarterback who retired five years ago. Yeah, so again, we only reward the really good coaches when the outcome benefits them, right, But he still did a great job managing the game. The only reason we're talking about it is because they won the game.

01:08:44
Speaker 2: Righteah, and because Philip Rivers was playing. That's just absolutely incredible, dude. Chargers Chiefs sixteen thirteen. It's the first time since nineteen ninety eight that the playoffs will not feature Tom Brady, Peyton Manning or Patrick Mahomes since nineteen ninety eight. And I know, like Will, like we've played this game before, of like Will being a hater of the Chiefs, but you like watching the season Week one in Brazil, they play the Chargers, they lose, everyone's like, oh, they'll get back on track, and then as the season's gotten going, they've kind of gone from this. Like anytime the Chiefs lose, it's like, oh, their offensive line was kind of overpowered and Patrick Mahomes didn't have time to do as much magic. And then later in the season in late November early December. It turned into, Hey, these guys that were so used to making incredible plays aren't making those plays, whether it's drops, miscues, all these types of things. And then yesterday happens where Patrick Mahomes rolls out to the right his left leg hyper extents. It looks like an ACL. I think it was confirmed by Patrick himself that it is an ACL, and we are potentially looking at the last time Kelsey and Mahomes are together this Chiefs run. You know, there's a lot of question marks taking place, and I don't really know where this conversation is going on than like this is fucking wild, tough ta take place.

01:10:01
Speaker 1: As as a guy who's been like a Chiefs troll, Chiefs hater, I didn't even feel good feeling celebratory in the Chiefs losing and officially being out of playoffs because the Bills won two against New England that's what knocked them out. Yeah, to see Mahomes go down, bro, it's heartbreaking. And again it's like another bizarre stat was I want to say Tom Brady in his ninth season towards ACL, they didn't make New England, didn't make the playoffs. Patrick Mahomes ninth season in the NFL tears his ACL. Chiefs didn't make the playoffs. Just a lot of these weird dots getting connected. Is the Chiefs dynasty over? Is that the last time we're ever going to see Travis Kelce on the football field? Patrick Mahomes Just tearing your ACL in fucking December two. It's just brutal, especially when you're trying to save the season. It's not likely that you're gonna make the playoffs, and they see it happen that way, is you know, shitty man. So, yeah, you're gonna you're gonna be training all off season, You're gonna be getting you know, you're gonna be dialed in and locked in. You have to be if you're going to make what week one of next year?

01:10:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have of essentially like these next Like Greg, you've ever you've never an ACL?

01:11:05
Speaker 3: No?

01:11:05
Speaker 2: Okay, well, the ACL game is this Like when you tear your ACL. A lot of times guys can go get surgery twenty four forty eight hours later, or some times it takes guys multiple weeks. You'll get the surgery and they have to actually exercise the leg to pump out the swelling because the knee based on how much swelling. If you have a lot of it, then you have to take time to get that swelling up before you can go. And so every day week that takes place. Like right now, we're on that fringe area, where can Patrick Mahomes make it eight months from now to week one? And that's gonna be the storyline heading into July with the Chiefs with their revamped offensive, whether Kelsey is there or not, what kind of new pieces they've they've added to it. It's a it's gonna be a very interesting offseason for Patrick Mahomes cause.

01:11:45
Speaker 1: Is this a player you feel like you're up against the clock every day, up against.

01:11:47
Speaker 2: The clock every single day. And if you could just grab Mahomes and be like, bro, week one does not matter next year. I'm just letting you know, like what matters is making like go to latrosh head over to la get the job done the way it's supposed to do correctly, and then just listen to your body all the way through it. Don't let's not rush the game to week one because we all know how long of a season it is. It just sucks to you because you see all these like distractions coming out of the Mahomes camp the last seven or eight years, and all of the distractions have never been Patrick. It's never been him. It's been this or that or all these other things, and for it to happen to him just absolutely sucks because he is one of he's the baby goat right now, and you kind of want them, You kind of want them to like you go from being like kind of relieved that we're seeing a new group of logos in the playoffs too, I'm kind of sitting here being like, I can't wait for this comeback story about Patrick Mahomes, like going in next year and like winning the division and all that, like can he do the storybook type of thing.

01:12:44
Speaker 3: It's just there's such an appreciation for what they've done that even as a competitor, right like even as someone who's you know, granted none of us are still playing, but like even when you're playing and you didn't want New England to win, or you didn't want Indie and you didn't want you know, we didn't want Denver, there was always those teams. But as it just understanding how hard all of this is, you can't help but to have an appreciation for what these guys have done for this long, knowing firsthand how hard it is to get there once, let alone time and time again, you just develop an appreciation where you're like, you know what, Like we're not Chiefs fans, we're not, but like, man, you can't not be a Chiefs fan or a Homes fan, or a Kelsey fan and Andy Reid fan more out of just respect for how hard it is to do what they've done for as long as they have when the league is entirely designed to prevent that from happening. The way the schedule, the way the draft order, the way teams get poached talent, coaching staff, cap the way it's capped. You can't pay everyone. Guys get big contracts off winning teams that they're not even that good, But all of a sudden, it's like I need a piece of the Chiefs. I need a piece of the Patriots. And coaches get jobs they wouldn't otherwise get, players get contracts they wouldn't otherwise get. Winning is the greatest preventor of future winning, and it's by design in the NFL. So it's more of that for me, Like to see what Travis has done to see what Kelsey's done, I mean, Mahomes and these guys Like I just as a guy who loves football and appreciates how hard it is. I just have a lot of respect for what these guys have done over the last you know, ever many years. Yeah.

01:14:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, just the sickening work ethic and mentality and mentality that goes into showing up year and and you're out, Especially when you've been at the top for so long, you can easily like lose that edge, you know, drink your own kool aid all that stuff. And for them to maintain that dominance for so long. Uh Yeah, it's definitely an appreciation and respect just for what that kind of success takes. It's weird. It's it is weird knowing that I've been rooting for the Chiefs downfall and they're actually not in it this year, actually not in it in the way they're not in it too. Yeah. Yeah, it's almost like not as fun either years ago. Part of me that like, they're not they're not in the playoffs. No, they're not gonna make They've been out of it. Even though this week was the last final domino. In my head, they've been out of it. They're not gonna make it, but the fact that they're not out of it, there's almost this little part of me that was hopeful that would they that they would go on this winning streak and then somehow they make it in the playoffs and the boogey Man made it to the playoffs. It's kind of all that error just feels like it's gone.

01:15:22
Speaker 2: You've won, but at what cost?

01:15:23
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know, like I'm sure, uh, wheat goes by, I I'll start to find my energy again, my juice about it again. But yesterday the way it went down and then the buff the Bills come back, because it's like the Chiefs could lose, but as long as the Patriots win, they still have this little like percent yeah, yeah, something where you can still kind of kind of just throw salt in the wound. But now that it's officially over them, like, this wasn't near as fun as I thought it would.

01:15:47
Speaker 2: Right, you're the Yeah, it's one of those you you can't celebrate until there's the tweet that comes out by Adam Schefter saying that Pat Mahomes has had a successful surgery and everything's all good, And then that's when you can begin your trolling yet again.

01:16:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:16:04
Speaker 2: I was a rookie in the NFL twenty fourteen.

01:16:09
Speaker 3: I was in my eighth year.

01:16:13
Speaker 2: Eighth year in the NFL. That's crazy, dude. We got anything else for mister Olson, I.

01:16:19
Speaker 1: Don't think so let me check it and make sure that make sure. Let's see here you have Broncos.

01:16:24
Speaker 2: I see you got a baseball shirt on.

01:16:26
Speaker 1: Is that weird?

01:16:27
Speaker 2: New season? Now?

01:16:29
Speaker 3: No? I just this was the first. I had a bad flight coming home from Philly. I had like a four and a half hour delay, so I got home late, woke up early. This was the first T shirt. Just chucked it onto the kid's school.

01:16:42
Speaker 2: How how much longer is your contract with Fox?

01:16:45
Speaker 1: Like?

01:16:45
Speaker 2: How many more years?

01:16:46
Speaker 3: Next year is my last year?

01:16:48
Speaker 2: Perfect? Perfect negotiations? Do you do an incredible job? There's no doubt that fought. You have all the leverage in the world when you negotiate. When you negotiate, it's going to be, hey, that's great, we'll take this money. That sounds awesome. Last thing, before we do anything, I need a private jet to all these things. That would be a that's the move, dude. That means the ultimate game changer man, It's either allocate a certain amount of money in your funds and be like this does like the way our brains work is we take some allocation, we're like, it's like we've never even made that because we're able to get back to our families faster.

01:17:19
Speaker 1: And if you can do.

01:17:20
Speaker 2: Something, we can do it.

01:17:21
Speaker 3: Eighteen eighteen weeks in a row. That shit adds up if you flew private, if my schedule, I'm just making this up. If I flew private both ways for nineteen weeks, because I got a playoff game this year, so eighteen plus the playoffs, So if I did it nineteen weekends, it's probably a million bucks.

01:17:42
Speaker 1: You gotta find that number. And if you need us too, if you need us to kind of lift, like, hey, I got it off on the table right now, busting with the Yeah, that's the leverage.

01:17:49
Speaker 3: That's fair.

01:17:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, just let us know.

01:17:52
Speaker 3: How do you guys pay?

01:17:53
Speaker 2: Well, we were more of helping leverage, where so if like if Fox is like, hey, we'll pay you five dollars, we'll be like, hey, we're gonna pay you ten dollars, and they'll be like, funk, we'll pay you seven. Boom, you got them.

01:18:02
Speaker 3: You know we could you pay ten dollars? Yes, you have ten? Could you afford ten? I got it? That's good for ten dollars.

01:18:09
Speaker 2: You keep saying ten.

01:18:10
Speaker 1: That's what I means.

01:18:11
Speaker 3: If there's a five and ten, I was speaking dollars.

01:18:14
Speaker 2: Yes, if you want to come to ten million a year like you guys will, Yeah, if you want to come more for bust one of the boys, I can guarantee you ten dollars and I you know what, dude, I'll I'll beget a lifting something.

01:18:26
Speaker 3: I'm wide enough for an extra seat, there's one.

01:18:28
Speaker 1: We're here, tell you what we get you full time. We could talk shop.

01:18:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh we can talk shop. We don't. We're not evenna have the cameras on. We're just gonna talk shop.

01:18:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can just talk shop.

01:18:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you if there's a world where Greg Olsen wants to be with the boys.

01:18:44
Speaker 3: I wish you guys lived I wish you guys lived close, because once a week I got like a group of buddies, more so in the off season because some of them are still playing. And the club we live on here, the Men's Grill, is like my favorite place. I always joke like it's It's literally my favorite place outside of my house in the world is the men's Grill at our club bartenders. You're sitting there, there's games on TVs. Food, it's just a great vibe. There's it's it's a great group of guys. So we have like a weekly offseason. We're like a handful of the guys. We go there and we're like, all we're gonna beet there at eleven, and next thing you know, it's like three p thirty. I'm like texting my wife, Hey, I'm not gonna be able to get the kids from Carpoola. Meanwhile, we're talking about complete nonsense, like hiring cycles of the NFL, the new salary. I mean just we are covering pretty much the ship we talk about on here. It is my favorite thing in the world to go hang with the boys and just talk whatever.

01:19:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it sounds like a podcast in the making.

01:19:43
Speaker 3: I know, the fucking best.

01:19:45
Speaker 1: He g got to your left. We got to start great.

01:19:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, your left to just keep in mind busting what the boys. We're gonna throw a hat in the ring.

01:19:52
Speaker 3: Dude, Hey, I appreciate you guys.

01:19:54
Speaker 1: My last question, what do you make of the emotion going into Josh Allen potentially being the the the MVP front runner for the NFL. I feel like that that obviously he's gonna be in the conversation. But I'm sitting here like I saw Danny would be, like Josh Allen's the MVP right now after the couple weeks that he's had this eb I get playing late like he's the guy that's got it all on his shoulders, doing less, are doing more with less? Yeah, yeada YadA. But I'm sitting here, It's like, are we really going to get this close to one of the better years that Matt Stafford's ever had where he's got what thirty five touchdowns in one game? Five or seven?

01:20:25
Speaker 3: A lot's going to be? How I think A lots? Now, remind me when does the voting end?

01:20:30
Speaker 2: It's before the super Bowl but.

01:20:34
Speaker 1: Count right, Yes, yeah that's what I thought, But it does. Yeah, the super Bowl super Bowl does not count.

01:20:40
Speaker 3: I think it's gonna all depend on right. I think it's it literally could come down to and again, I think the Rams are nasty. I'm speaking hypotheticals. I'm a huge Stafford guy. You guys know that hypothetically they lost in the Divisional round two. Whoever, and Josh Allen gets over the hump and he makes the super Bowl.

01:21:04
Speaker 1: Yeah that's fair.

01:21:05
Speaker 2: Yeah that's over.

01:21:06
Speaker 3: So I again, I think the team element come playoffs is going to be a huge differentiating factor because outside of Josh and I guess Stafford, but as far as like the usual suspects that are in that MVP race, no La Mar, no Mahomes, like the usual suspects, the only one left of those names is Josh Allen, and then you got Stafford, and then Drake may is like the new kid on the block who's kind of lingering and maybe he's an AFC Championship win away from him winning it. So I do think the playoff team result is going to be a factor. But if you told me that Josh Allen's getting ready to play in the super Bowl and those other guys who had amazing seasons are done and he's getting ready to play the Seahawk. If he's getting ready to play the Seahawks, I'm probably making the argument that Josh Allen's the MVP as well because he got that roster, he got that team to the super Bowl. It's probably more impressive than what he did last year.

01:22:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I understand what you're saying. It would be hard to argue that. I'm just as we start to and again, Josh Allen's definitely closing the gap. And I know stats are not everything. I do think Josh Allen is he is one of the best players, if not the best player in the NFL. But I'm sitting here and I'm looking at how much kool aid we're drinking with this MVP race, with Josh Allen making all like closing the gap this much, and I'm sitting here, I'm like, dude, we just can't Like Stafford has thrown for thirty seven out of yards, he's the MVP right now. Yeah, thirty seven touchdowns, five interceptions. Josh Allen's got twenty five to ten. I know stats are not everything. I'm just man, we cannot like I feel like sta is so close all these years, and the fact that he's this far above, not like that far above, like the gap is not insanely wide, but where he's kind of sitting compared to everybody else who's in the conversation, I'm like, I would hate to just see Stafford get cuked when he's right there, he could easily have the MVP trophy.

01:22:59
Speaker 3: Ye win one playoff game, I think you will, and I think he wins it. So again, it couldn't. That could mean an NFC championship right because he could get the bye. Thursday is going to be huge. He could get the bye if he wins the divisional round. He's in the conference championship. I think win or lose, he's the m v P.

01:23:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm.

01:23:20
Speaker 3: Not I'm not saying Stafford right now, if I had a vote, he'd be my vote. I'm just saying we all know how this works. An early exit by by the Rams, even if Stafford plays well, an early exit by the Rams, and a super Bowl run by the Bills, Yeah, it's going to factor in right or wrong, right or wrong.

01:23:43
Speaker 2: Rams Bills super Bowl would be that'd be sick, sick, that would be awesome. All right, Greg, you're the man, bro appreciate thank you very much, brother, great show.

01:23:56
Speaker 1: What a show man goes to Mahomes, Dude, Hard goes out to Mahomes. It's like I'm sitting there, you know, like I see Mahomes posts. I'm like, I just seeing cheese fans coming, Like fuck, you wanted this, blah blah. I'm like, dude, like I'm here for the entertainment side. I enjoy it, like I you know, this back and forth and the anti chiefs, I absolutely enjoyed to pour salt on the womb. But something that's real like this, like I never want anybody to get.

01:24:26
Speaker 2: And I think that the logical human beings out there understand that the people that have followed TOMP for a long time. Yeah, I hate on the internet comes Yeah, you know you see this Michigan stuff. I'm just catching strays everywhere. I'm getting bullets everywhere. You're the problem to whoa fucking what are we doing here? It's like, holy shit, man, if you're.

01:24:52
Speaker 1: Listening right now to the NFL Talk, make sure you're subscribe leaving comments wherever you're watching the boys right now. College football, we were going to mix it into the intro busting with the Boys of up tomorrow with Dion Dawkins, left tackle of the Buffalo Bills, an absolutely stud phenomenal energy throughout that episode. Yeah, we'll be covering our college football talk tomorrow and there. Because not a lot happened over the weekend in college football, well headlines with Michigan, with coaching searches with Who's Heisman? Yeah, Michigan. But as far as games go and everything else, we had Army Navy barn Burner. We will get into that tomorrow with our Bus with the Boys episode, so again, stay tuned for that. We love you, big hugs, tiny kisses, See you tomorrow