Thanksgiving + Black Friday Recap: Upsets Transform The 2025 Season

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to NFL Daily, where if the season just started at Thanksgiving, we've got a whole lot of Super Bowl favorites who are.

00:00:12
Speaker 2: Having a miserable season.

00:00:14
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm Greg Rosenthal recapping the Black Friday Game, the three Thanksgiving games. I'm doing it from my garage in Santa Monica, and I'm doing it with my friend Ali Connolly of the Read Optional podcast and Substack, who's all the way over in Manchester. Ali, I'm glad you are the one joining me here for this show, because I feel like the NFL is not the same as it was a couple of days ago, that these two days, these four games in the NFL have probably transformed like how this season looks, maybe more than any week that we've had so.

00:00:50
Speaker 3: Far this season.

00:00:51
Speaker 2: I agree with you. Everything feels off its axis, all the super so cool at the backs, essentially seemingly if not out at the playoff punt, right on the bubble of will they make it or no? All of a sudden, you start really buying into the Cowboys going on this run, maybe getting into division contention. And then the Bears, I mean, we talked about them, was it less Saturday? And some of the kryptonites and concerns, and all of a sudden I kind of ticking some of them off week by week like they could really be a probem in the postseason.

00:01:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were gonna start with the game in Philadelphia, But what we have a lot to get to. The Chiefs Cowboys game was to me as fascinating as there was a game all season. The creeping, you know, discomfort with this Ravens team will hit that at the end. But why don't we start, Yes, in Philadelphia and with this NFC North race that the Bears just stubbornly refuse to bow out of.

00:01:44
Speaker 3: They're in first place going into December.

00:01:46
Speaker 2: Paul the twenty eight snap pick.

00:01:48
Speaker 4: Caleb fakes the swift, rolling to his left, being chased, Gonna throw deep.

00:01:52
Speaker 1: He's got comet over the shoulder, hands out, touchdown, Bears touchdown.

00:01:58
Speaker 2: Cole come back, you want to play?

00:02:00
Speaker 4: Called by Ben Johnson, had a throw perfectly timed Caleb to Cole.

00:02:06
Speaker 3: Bears at steadily twenty three to nine.

00:02:09
Speaker 1: Oh on a windy, cold night in Philadelphia. It was the running game for the Chicago Bears, but it was also the play calling. Great call there by Jeff Joniac on w MVP. Caleb Williams to Cole Comet. Wasn't a lot of passing in this game, but man, that was well timed, as was a lot of third down calls from Ben Johnson the Bears. For them end up cruising twenty four to fifteen, and it could have been even worse on the scoreboard. Allie, this was a mollywoppin two hundred and eighty one yards on the ground from the Chicago Bears.

00:02:51
Speaker 3: How did they do it?

00:02:53
Speaker 2: They just manhandled them. I mean they bullied them up front. It was all kind of the creativity of Ben Jonson the run game and he'll get a bunch of those play but they just went manol man a lot of the time and just bullied them. And the score is a really kind reflection. I thought the Eagles response defensely was pretty poll for someone of Fanjo's statua not having the ability to kind of mix up on the fly. Understood some of what he was trying to get away with, but the payoff comes on some of the play action shots they were able to hit. Not a great game for Caleb Williams, probably back to back weeks while he's not being his best, but they just dominated them with the ground game, and the Eagles had no response. Yeah, I think the wind.

00:03:29
Speaker 1: It's hard to know without being there, but the teams that were going into the wind all night struggled to throw the ball, and so I think that had an effect. But you're right, the game could have been a bigger blowout, and we'll get to that part of it. But you look at the running numbers. There were two one hundred yard rushers for the Chicago Bears in this game before the fourth quarter started. That hadn't happened. Two one hundred yard rushers for this team since the eighty five Bears like in an entire game. DeAndre Swift who's been incredible since the bye week at one hundred and twenty five yards, Kyle Manungai, who's been awesome this season, one hundred and thirty yards. And if you add up the total plays that the Eagles defense has been on the field for the last two weeks, it was ninety last week, it was eighty five this week. I don't know if that played into how Ben Jonson called this game in the first half, but they looked like a tired defense and I think the Bears were really confident that we are going to be the tougher team, We're the one built for this sort of atmosphere, and they were absolutely right. Forty seven plays in the first half, and even though the score was close at halftime, it really felt like the rest of the game was set up by that first half, just dominating the time of possession.

00:04:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt the Eagles will gassed by the second quota. I mean they finished with eleven miss tackles. There was two guys with four miss tackles, A Piece Blanco Ship and Na Kobe Dan. I thought Na Kobe Dean had a really brutal game. Meanwhile, Jihad Campbell plays zero defensive snaps, so wow, to try and change the defensive personnel and j Johnson put you in this impossible bund The Eagles want to play with a light box, they get completely mauled whenever they play with the light box. They tried to ever so slightly change the front structure, but the way Ben Johnson calls the running game means you're pretty limited in how many bodies you can actually stick down there, because if someone misses, there's nothing behind you to try and figure out some when you've got all the creativity in misdirection and they lead the league in play action. You're just panicked all the time that something's coming over our head for an explosive, either the playfake or one mistackle, one burst, one kind of bit of trickery in the backfield, and it's a wrap, so it kind of forces you to play a bit more static, be a little lights from the front, and that Bears line is just crushing people at the moment.

00:05:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, Darna Wright has been the breakout from the line, but you have to give the front office and Ben Johnson's vision credit, especially after that first month of the season when it wasn't really working the free agent pickups with Dorman, when Jonah Jackson has been out there and in general just developing the guys that they have in summer backups, like at left tackle. It's just a really great, greater than the son of their Parts team right now, which is really tough. I mean, you don't normally see volume like this, with this efficiency, forty seven percent success rate on the ground, and it's hard not to just think about the differences between where this Bears team is right now and not the Bears from a year ago, because I mean, that's night and eight.

00:06:17
Speaker 3: This is a nine and three Bears team.

00:06:19
Speaker 1: But the Eagles where they were a year ago, they are now eight and four, and all the concern that everyone's saying, yeah, but they're winning games now, they're not winning games against better competition. And the running game stuck out tonight under thirty six success rate in terms of percentage. But Jalen Hurts I thought had a rough go of it for much of the game. Whether it was just missing throws or making rough decisions, is just another game where it didn't seem like they could take advantage of enough mismatches on the outside.

00:06:52
Speaker 5: No.

00:06:53
Speaker 2: I thought the game plan was egregiously bad. I thought Jalen Hoods was egregiously bad. You've kind of bundle the two together and it's just becomes a complete night. Man. I mean, they're getting booed off by the fans on the first three and out of the game, and it felt fair. This is the defending champs coming into the game who have the division lead, and you felt like the foods were valid, the boos were valid. It was like, okay, after they saw what happened with the Cowboys last week, it made a bunch of sense. And Hurts in particularly just I thought his brain was completely scrambled by a really pretty placid static defense on the back end. To be that confused is deeply, deeply troubling to me.

00:07:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was like a lot of blitzing from Dennis Allen and the Bears, but like most of the Bears defensive games lately, there wasn't a ton of pressure still, like the pressure rate was very low even though the blitz rate was high. I'm thinking of, you know, the early slant that they had potentially to DeVante Smith where that could have gone for a touchdown and Jalen Hurts threw it behind him and.

00:07:55
Speaker 2: On that same play, Dallas Gutta is wide open down the sea has two touchdowns the same play. He misreads it and then misses the throw.

00:08:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm not sure if he thought DeVante Smith was gonna stop, but I don't know why he would think that based on like the leverage and where the coverage was.

00:08:11
Speaker 3: And yeah, he miss his throws.

00:08:14
Speaker 1: Like towards the end of the game, he starts having faith in like the one on one matchups to AJ Brown and AJ Brown starts making plays for him. Was actually a great game by AJ Brown. He finishes with ten for one point thirty two and two touchdowns. The second one was sort of garbage time with three minutes left, but he was making it happened. But I just don't know if like the crowd is getting into it, if it's the offensive line, Like it can't feel great going into halftime. And you mentioned the booze are loud. After the first drive of the game, the booze were insanely loud going into half them they have the shots of the kid, you know, going double bird, and then the father, I think, like proud of his young.

00:08:54
Speaker 3: Son, like hugging him after that. That was one of my one of my favorite images of the entire season.

00:08:59
Speaker 2: Just a beautiful holiday moment for everyone to enjoy internationally. I just think it's boarderline unforgivable to have a game plan where the Bears are on their fifth and sixth linebacker right they are blitzing like maniacs because they aren't get any pressure. They don't get any pressure when they blitz, And to not have it built into your plan that everything we do is built around putting those linebackers in conflict. Those are not starting caliber NFL linebackers. We're gonna lead into our old school rpo game. It's gonna be an awful lot of Jalen Hurts designed run stuff, and we're gonna make it. Where is Saquon? Where isn't sake? Or maybe we get Tank Bigsby in there for a bit more juice. If one of those linebacker misses the pill, it's an absolute home run shot. For that not to be the plan, for tempo not to be the plan. They only look competent when there's any degree of tempo. You see it. The one time they get Jalen Hurts in the quarterback run game, he rips off a twenty two yard game on the ground. Then they immediately go tempoor. They take the deep shot to aj Brown and it feels like they're in the game. Why that isn't baked into being automatically part of the offense, particularly against this defense, This makes no sense.

00:10:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that sequence up, because at that point in the game, the Bears are up ten to three. We went over how dominant the numbers looked at halftime, but they didn't fully take advantage. In the first half of that game. There was a fourth and one fail by Kyle Manungai, which was overturned upon review. I think that was the first drive of the game. Caleb Williams missed a very wide open Roma dunze in the end zone when he didn't get his feet set. That was more points that were not really taken advantage of. And then in the second half where Jalen Hurts throws an interception where they have a three and out to start, where Saquon Barkley doesn't even look for the ball on the first play of the second half and you're thinking, Bears have to put it away and they can't move the ball at all. They get, you know, one first down in the first two drives. Then that sets up the drive you're talking about where finally they go tempo. They get five plays ninety two yards. There's a penalty thrown in there. It's ten to nine, and they end up getting the ball back after a Caleb Williams interception on a screen pass where he doesn't give enough loft on the screen pass. So suddenly the Eagles just scored. It's ten to nine, like they're only down one point. They start driving down the field. They are in position to take the lead, and this is where I think the game changed, and I know this must have been fascinating to just from an x's and o's perspective. The game turns on a tush push fail.

00:11:37
Speaker 3: I think that was the.

00:11:37
Speaker 2: Biggest play of the game.

00:11:39
Speaker 1: Our guy Nashan Wright, who's having a great season, like he's bounced around in the NFL, having a great season, comes in on the tush push in the red zone and rips the ball away from Jalen Hurts and that's at ten to nine, and that really does turn the game around.

00:11:53
Speaker 3: The Bears score on the ensuing drive.

00:11:54
Speaker 1: What did you see on that play that Nashan Wright got the ball from Jalen Hurts.

00:12:00
Speaker 2: It goes back to Kelvin Shepard. Kelvin Sheppard having a really rough time of it as the defensive coordinator to Detroit right now, but he figured out the Toush push, which is to have an offset defensive player. He used Nashon Wright. Shepherd used the linebacker, and you basically spit the tushbush. You have someone just completely ignore the sneak element of the Toush push and he just races in from the side to go and grab Jalen Hurts, and you hope you can hold him up and pull him back and it removes the push element of the quarterback sneak. Essentially, they twist it slightly with Dennis Allen, say, does go and rip the ball? If the ball's then Jalen Hurt's going to hold it. Just go attack the football and you get one of the biggest turnovers of the season to swing. I think that the fortune of two fronts and while doing that, maybe put to end the effect of the touchbush. That is the way to stop it. It's been proven not Roy and Flores trying to sacrifice a human at the altar by lying down someone. That one did not work. But Kelvin Sheppard figured it out. Dennis Allen took it, and that is just out there. Now. I've used this spear motion that you can use defensively. You can attack Jalen Hurts before the push comes along.

00:12:59
Speaker 1: And it was interesting to hear Al Michaels and Kirk Kurbstreet talk about Jalen Hurts sounding like he's not even that big of a fan of the touch push. He he would rather just maybe do a quarterback sneak, So maybe that gets back to the Eagles and he helps like just self sabotage, the touch push, the ensuing drive. Again, it would have been a fascinating fourth quarter because I do think the Eagles defense still would have been tired in that situation. But it would have been a fascinating fourth quarter to see the Bears behind in that situation, whether it was by two points because of a field goal, and yes, they were down at one point because of a Jake Elliott missed extra point.

00:13:34
Speaker 2: The wind and just the kicking conditions were not great.

00:13:37
Speaker 3: But then the.

00:13:37
Speaker 1: Bears rip off a really outstanding drive where they basically don't have Caleb Williams throw the ball at all, and it fitted. It finishes in a very fitting way with a Kyle Manunguy touchdown.

00:13:50
Speaker 4: Two tight ends right side of the line, Manunguy, the loan back take from center had the gift manung Guy washed out by Jonah Jackson, clears the path to the end zone for Kyle Manongay right fighty one up guy another touchdown.

00:14:03
Speaker 2: Hun Fish one of four yards.

00:14:05
Speaker 4: Had a sixteen nine fairs lead over the Eagles.

00:14:08
Speaker 1: Oh, I love that, And that was a sweet drive. It was a twelve play march ninety two yards and they follow it up their next drive with a touchdown drive too, And you mentioned on Blue Sky Believe it was a little back and forth with Jordan Rodrigg, which I love to see, and she made the hilarious and true comment that broadcasters love nothing more than the phrase illusion of complexity, and you pointed out, yeah, but in the Bears case, like it really is pretty complex so late in the game, Like, what did you see for what they were doing on those last couple of touchdown drives where it just felt like the Eagles defense gave way.

00:14:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love one of these coaches men when Charlie Weiss went to note to Day and he was like, we have a schematic advantage, then he like completely fell on his face. In college football, I would love one of these guys come on and saying, no, we are actually very complex and better at this than everyone else, which is sensing what Ben Johnson does do. It's just the volume of packages, the volume of concepts within the packages, And I get what they're saying about. They dress things up to look the same way. They also just put guys in such difficult assignments. It's hard to overstate how difficult it must be to play tight end in that system, they have way more on their plate than essentially any other position in the NFL. It sets up all the wrong game all the play action stuff, and on that drive you're talking about it, they just lead all the way into let's go and find our four team best run plays and we'll just pick between them based on the leverage of the defense, acentially where someone's shaded, what it's going to tag the weak point of the defense. It's just classic Ben Johnson. You get some of the payoff stuff. This probably wasn't Caleb's best game. On the payoff plays, they were there to be made. He just couldn't connect on some of that stuff. I'm sure the win played into that, but that was Ben Johnson, deep deep in the bag and I must have it drive for the season.

00:15:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think you do see some of the weaknesses not just of Vic Fangio's scheme, which you mentioned had had a light box for for so much of the game, but also just these guys. Jalen Carter barely left the field last week. That their front in terms of Jalen Phillips, who might have gotten a little banged up at the end of the game, and their defensive line in general did not come off the field much in that ninety snap game against the Chiefs, and it was the same tonight. And by the end of this game, they just look gas and they protected Caleb Williams well. He didn't hit everything, but he hits that touchdown. There was another third and four in the fourth quarter that was important that was impeccably blocked and he ends up hitting Colston Lovelin on the sideline. And then I thought the play calling was great at the end of the game when they're trying to kill clock to use Caleb's legs on a play where he runs to the sideline and man he in a straight line. He's one of the fastest quarterbacks in the NFL.

00:16:48
Speaker 2: I genuinely believe running to the sideline, he's the quickest guy in the league. He's just a smo. He loves doing the show off. Mahomes slow down and it's like, buddy, you're not Mahomes. They're not going to give you the free flag. Please just get out of there and stay safe. That Loveland play is important though for the Eagles too. They've changed defensively what they do on the back end because they're so scared of a Dori Jackson where they play a side defense a cornerback now, which you just never see in the NFL. So one guy set to one side, one guy set to the other, and instead of being left or right, which is often how the legal do it, they're going field boundary. So short side the field is Quinnon Mitchell, far side the field is Dori Jackson. And that's been out there now. That really like discombobulated the Lions a couple of weeks ago, because you don't see it in the league very much. Now that's out there, it's very easy for the office to dictate. We know, based on how we set our formation, exactly where Quinya Mitchell is going to be on the field. If you go and look at that play, they get the matchup they want, which is Colston Loveland in the slot on reblanken Ship. And everyone is hunting at all times for reblanken Ship. That's what everyone wants to do against the Eagles. Everyone else is like an all Pro player other than a Dori. If you can find blanken Ship one on one, so when I must have it down, must have its situation. The Eagles are really tipping themselves on what they're going to be defensively, and so you can always try and cover up in a raise when you feel you've got a sinkhole at KLNA. But now it's open up a different kind of ones for them.

00:18:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's set up I think by being in such favorable situations. I don't know what it ended up on, but I saw late in the first half, like their average third down distance and they were nine for fifteen on third downs tonight was under three and a half yards. So they were just always in a good spot to either run it or give Caleb a favorable look. It continued throughout throughout a What a fascinating season. This is in the NFC North. So the Bears stay on top of the division. Everyone was saying, Okay, the schedule's gonna get hard. Well, got a little harder last week with the Steelers. Took care of that, got much harder this week in Philadelphia. Took care of that. You got the Packers two of the next three weeks. That is really gonna be fascinating. And yeah, the Eagles, they have to worry about the division two. We'll get to the Cowboys in a minute, but let's talk Packers Lions.

00:18:55
Speaker 3: Let's go to Detroit.

00:18:56
Speaker 5: Love steps up, points across in the formation, it drops back.

00:18:59
Speaker 2: Into the shine. Here's a snap and fourth down rushes on Love looking off his back, look at thank catch.

00:19:08
Speaker 4: Have a thirty yard line number, first down, Green Bay. There is your stagger.

00:19:16
Speaker 2: A Turkey Day dagger right through the Lions. Great all there, Love, Wayne Lairvie on W R and W.

00:19:26
Speaker 1: I think that's John Coon in the background yelling yeah, man, what a fitting end to that game because it was a Jordan Love masterpiece. Felt like that was on the short list of like great quarterback performances of the season. It's right there with the Giants game from Jordan Love a couple of weeks ago. Obviously a bigger situation and even tougher opponent, but he had about four or five wow throwers in this game, on top of other great decisions throughout and yes they answered every line scoring drive. I thought Jared Goff was up for the challenge, but ultimately the Packers win thirty one to twenty four. Great offense, beats, good defense. And what did you see out of Jordan Love in this game?

00:20:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're probably being a bit harsh in with four or five I thought they're probably eight tall, nine wild throws in that thing. I mean, it was just like big Boy Superstar put the Capon drive after drive in a way that's you know, he gets almost billed as like this Kel's bomber. I think at times when he is just so unbelievably precise. At all times, he was throwing guys open all the time. The sidelines, the Lions came in and said, we are not letting Jordan Love rip us apart over the middle of the field. That is our entire game. Let me make it muddy and difficult in the middle of the field. Will dat him to beat us to the permitter. And he said, I'm good, boys, I'm good with that. I'll just rip it all over the place. He bombs the ball down the field when he needs to. He's ripping it outside the numbers. It's Christian Watson over and over again. He puts it off the sideline where only his guy can get it with pressure in his face. That those are top three, top four player in the league type throws on big time, big time drives.

00:21:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, the stats are really something. And we'll talk about the defense in this game. When he is not pressured he is the best quarterback in the league. The numbers would would tell you and certainly the eyes would tell you that on Thanksgiving. So you think about that throw, big time play. You had the Dontavian Wicks touchdown. That was a close call whether he got his feet in or not. Ultimately, I think it was the right move. You had the fourth and sixth call where he throws the ball deep, and then you had the Christian Watson touchdown. Let's listen to one of Jordan Love's best throws of the.

00:21:44
Speaker 5: Day under center is Love single back offense Jacobs fron back on second and ten back to the Oh Love best time.

00:21:51
Speaker 2: Initially ring deep down on the right side.

00:21:54
Speaker 4: And clean Bay Packers christ Jed Watson pluzz the top off the Lions defense.

00:22:04
Speaker 2: Be to me, Robertson fifty one yard touchdown.

00:22:10
Speaker 1: Path that gave them a ten point lead early third quarter. And to me, Alliot, it's the variety of the type of throws. And when he gets criticized it's because sometimes he does too much big game hunting, I guess, But like big game hunting is why they won this game.

00:22:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean probably the only floor is when something goes wrong. He wants to chase it back in one play, and that's a real problem with kind of the offense they have this year. But they have kind of reformatted now and accepted took a graft, is not coming back. We're gonna have to build this thing around Christian Watson. We probably will have to be a let's hunt seven explosive plays down the field. If we hit three of them, we feel pretty good about our chances. And I thought this was probably the best evidence of that this season. I did think again the Lions planning, we could see it on the touchdown for that, it's like everyone's congest in the middle of the field. They're kind of allowing him to take a deep shutside of the numbers. I'm not sure my plan woul be Let's allow Jordan to put the game in his hands trying to deep shout to Christian Waltson. It feels like Love would take that every time.

00:23:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I did think the pressure was maybe the biggest difference between these two teams. So this is this is the part where we talk a little Michael Parsons. The Lions did not get a high pressure rate in this game whatsoever. They tried to send pressure, they didn't really get there. The Packers did not have to send extra guys on the blitz nearly as often. And Michael Parsons finishes with ten total pressures, five quick pressures. And maybe it's unfair to just compare him to Aiden Hutchinson, but compared to Aidan Hutchinson zero quick pressures, you know, five pressures on the game, and ultimately they made life tougher on Jared Goff, who I thought played a good game, thought it was one of his better games of the season overall. And it's not like Jordan Love is incredible. When they did get on him, he was three for twelve in this game against pressure. Most of his damage was done when in the offensive line did his job. What did you see out of Hafley's defense and how they got after Jared Goff?

00:24:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, mic it should be noted, was double team on twenty three percent of his pass first steps, so he's putting those kind of numbers up. Plus the three run stuff still like all time run stuffs where it's like helmet cup pop off type stuff, superstar type plays. Halfley. I think what was really impressive was leveraging the threat of Micah Parsons. I thought there was a degree of can we call it arrogance in Dan Campbell's approach to the game of there's an awful lot of leaving Mike a single dub. But in fairness to Dan Campbell, early in the game, Halfley was showing a lot like I will drop Microw, We're gonna use micro really creative ways, all these different creative pressures that Haflee is known for, and so it starts putting doubts in the Lion's mind of whether he's truly coming or not whether it's worth investing a double team. And so you can see that payoff over the course game when we get to the kind of the drive for each just in the backfield every play, then you get the kind of i'd say shaky call to extend the drive for the Lions where he just took over the game for three plays and was like, I'm gonna end on Thanksgiving. That was all set up from the first two quotas where Halflee proved that I will just leverage the threat of having the best player on the field by dropping him out and sending an ovolo pressure the other way, and you get free run as a Jarred Goff all through the first couple of quotes.

00:25:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the like the first drive of the game, you know, like the first third down snap, Goff had two defenders in his face in half a second.

00:25:21
Speaker 2: There was nothing to be done there.

00:25:23
Speaker 1: One of them was Isaiah McDuffie, who, by the way, has played great the last two weeks. Like I don't know if you have an Isaiah McDuffie take, but kway Walker's been injured. I don't even know if we mentioned that in this podcast, but McDuffie's kind of been awesome these two weeks.

00:25:34
Speaker 3: Maybe it's the system, but he's been outstanding.

00:25:37
Speaker 2: He's been good. A Hall of Fame high five player arrives just in times to give everyone else a high five. In the backfield, He's not quite athletic enough to be like a serious difference makeup, but he's in the right spot at the right time, and that's kind of the best you can hope for.

00:25:48
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I was, I wasn't thinking like he's a crazy difference maker, but it does show. I think how Micah is setting up everyone else, and you mentioned how he helps to close the game down. This is why you may the Michael Parsons trade. There's what like a sack that he makes late in the game to set up a third and fifteen essentially kills that drive and then kills the next drive too, because for a while, Goff is fighting back and making some highly difficult plays. Despite the fact that they lost A'manra Saint Brown in the first drive of the game.

00:26:24
Speaker 3: He never returned. He has an ankle sprain.

00:26:27
Speaker 1: Rap sheet says he will not be placed on IR it's a quote unquote low ankle sprain.

00:26:32
Speaker 3: So we'll see.

00:26:34
Speaker 1: But they're without Laporta there, without Amanra Saint Brown. We got the news before the game that fired me up that Frank ragnow is going to return at some point, Like do you think long term because they are out of the playoff picture right now that they have enough let's say they don't have aman Ra for a few games to get it done offensively without him.

00:26:56
Speaker 2: I really don't. I mean, it was a shocking amount of Tom Kennedy, who is being with the team since like twenty nineteen, since he finished playing lacrosse. He's just always on the practice squad. He gets on the active rouss like well, twenty four hours before the game. Then he's getting seven targets in a game against Micah Parson's defense at home. It's that was pretty shocking the reg Now news. I'm so fined up to have Frank RightNow back. I would pull slight that it feels unfed by expectations on him that he's gonna walk off the sofa like Joe Flacco did a couple of years ago as a center in the league. When we've seen how Lineman look when they retired, they shed weight really quickly. To expect to just walk back in as a Hall of Fame caliber play who will kind of like erase and fix all the problems, I think is a little unfair on right now.

00:27:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were without Graham Glasgow in this game, who had been taking over at center, so you know they've had issues and maybe that helps to explain the drive at the end of the game. But it really reminded me of the drive late against the Eagles where the Lions took a while and it almost felt like they waved the white flag in Philadelphia that night, just making forever in a game that they were only down by a touchdown, and the same thing kind of happened in this game where they take a six minute drive late and kind of just end the game on themselves and ends in a field goal too, because Goff ends up taking a sack. That's, you know, one of the drives where Michael Parsons makes such an impact. It just feels like, man, these are these are not the Lions that I love. These are not the Lions that I had in the Super Bowl. I'm not feeling great about that right now.

00:28:27
Speaker 5: No.

00:28:27
Speaker 2: I think that's part of when you change the play call a mid season, you know you might have some operational issues during the Dann Kemmel's trying to manage the entire game, then he's also calling the plays, and it just feels like there's a bit of friction there. I don't think he's done a great job. I think we all just love Dan Kemberl and respect Dan Kempbell. That's like you just assume he's going to be good at this stuff. I think he's been pretty poor over this month that he's been calling plays. I mean, they had a twenty four percent success rate on twenty five early down runs, and I understand the logic that we lose them on raw. We've not got Lapolle that the line is not playing very well, just get the ball in the hands of Jamie Gibbs. But they're are more creative ways to do it than just slam your head against a brick wall over and over again. Where Evan Williams is having the absolute game of his life, flying down from safety to pin everything he can in sight, and it just it just felt like an ideological game where he's like, no, this is who we are. The fourth down calls, the run game was like, no, this is how we played Detroit Lions football. And it's like, you are losing the game quite handily and your quot back is playing absolutely lights out in a really tough situation where his interior line is terrible. Rattlig is the only one who's supposedly healthy and he's hurt and wincing throughout the game. He's throwing to a lacrosse player. He's playing absolute money, and you don't adjust the game plot at all. I mean, that's fair that.

00:29:37
Speaker 1: By the way, that seamball to Kennedy was a beautiful throw and catch. I mean some of the passes to Jamison Williams was like in just the smallest window and catches him perfectly.

00:29:48
Speaker 3: In stride.

00:29:49
Speaker 1: I'm not saying Goff's game was perfect. And in fact, the time on fourth down where the Packers did a good job flushing GoF out and got him off his spot and he throws on the run, but it's just a little bit behind Williams. Williams could have made that catch, but it maybe just showed the difference between Golf and some of the more mobile quarterbacks in the league. Like, ultimately, he did a good job. And yeah, Dan Campbll's not going to change I think who he is. He talked after the game about the fourth down decisions.

00:30:16
Speaker 6: I didn't like one of those those fourth down calls. You know, it felt like, you know, I don't know how good of an opportunity we really gave our guys on that first one, you know, but but you know, we had an opportunity, and even at the end of the day, we had an opportunity and we couldn't you know, we just couldn't get it done there later in the game. So I wouldn't say necessarily that that's going to have an effect on me. You know, you always want to convert them, and we've had a lot of conversions here. It just didn't work out today.

00:30:50
Speaker 3: Oh man, I read those codes. I hadn't seen it. How is it? Dejected? Dan Campbell hitting you on this Friday.

00:30:57
Speaker 2: Hits me in the goop, I will say, I don't want to upset my friends in the data dorg community. I am all full. Let's go for it. You know, whatever the numbers say, I get it and with it. There is a degree of understanding your own personnel, which is why I like that he took some account was there. Like the play he got them into based on what he's dealing with at the moment, is probably not the smartest play to be in. And just when you know your interior is a disaster, your quarterback can't move off his spot, you do have to change ever so slightly on how you can actually get through and win these games. And when you know you've gotten a run game, it's like, maybe it's a time to go in and take some points. Yeah.

00:31:33
Speaker 1: That Jamison Williams drop was the second fourth down that they failed, and I believe the first one was a Jamir Gibbs run up the middle, which I wait switched.

00:31:41
Speaker 2: To Yeah, yeah, Dank Gmble was giving his square, but he bailed him out there because that was a full check, and it asked for Tim Kennedy, again the five eight lacrosse player, to move inside from a really wide position, to come and try and pin like he's prime Cooper Cup at backside safety. So that was just never ever go into work. And I think that's Dank Campbell throwing himself from the grenade for guff though.

00:32:01
Speaker 1: I love that you shouted out Evan Williams in what he did in the run defense in this game. Obviously Parsons had some great run stuffs. Your guy Edge Cooper also showed up on a few big plays. They stuffed the run ten times, so that's at or behind the line of scrimmage.

00:32:18
Speaker 2: That's a huge number.

00:32:19
Speaker 1: I'm actually surprised the Lion's success rate was as high as it was with just thirty one percent, which is still quite low, but they had so many negative runs. What do you think about this defense and kind of how they are rounding into form for the stretch run and their toughness.

00:32:35
Speaker 2: I still think that they are a bit loose on the back end, I would say, and I do worry about them. Against a really great quote about kho can move slightly, obviously anyone will be concerned about that, but I think you see, if it's not immediate pressure, they can be a bit of a stif all that plays play best top down. Evan Williams is a maniac attack in the line of scrimmage, and I adole him for that. If he's just playing on the hall field, haven't kind of figured out what's going on. He gets lost all the time. I mean he was lost like seven times in this game. Twoffs at the seven unbelievable plays in the rung game. It's just there's no time when that pastor she is getting home. So if Parson's if the other guys can rise to the level as they did in Key Spots on Thursday, then obviously offsets everything Enigbari everyone playing to a higher level. I think Louvin DeVante Wyatt is a huge, huge loss to them. Inside they are pretty falling down the peck and golda now of those interior guys, they really need some kind of upfield rush. When Parson is getting double teamed at this kind of clip of whiles, it's our super Bowl chances are in the hands of Enigbari, and I don't love those odds.

00:33:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, So after the game, DeVante. Whyitet who was carted off. We didn't get a complete report from the insiders yet, but Matt Lafleur said, quote, it doesn't look good in general. When they say that it's it's usually some sort of break, which would be really unfortunate for them one of their most important players up. I want to leave on a positive note though. I mean Christian Watson, his dad knew his dad. People that don't know we're on Twitter, we're saying, first of all, they're not using him right. He can do more than what he's doing. He's a complete receiver. He's a tougher guy. And then number two, he's going to be back from this injury sooner than you think. The rehab is going better than anyone who's ever torn as ACL before, and he's going to be more explosive before, and damned if he hasn't been. Right, Chris Watson looks like like a centerpiece of a passing attack, which I did not expect.

00:34:26
Speaker 3: He really has changed this offense since he came back.

00:34:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so needed with Craft going out. I mean to just have the gravitational pull of someone took a graph with It's like a gravity player where everyone would just kind of pinch around him and it would open up the targets for everyone else. They needed someone who was another three level threat, and Waltson developing is like a middle of the field kind of sneaky demon. I think is really transformed what they can be on offense. Yeah, Matthew Golden was out for this game. I do think if you telled me we're in the playoffs and suddenly that's when Matthew Golden starts breaking out with like a couple big time plays like that would not shock me. I don't think he was lost earlier this year. Maybe maybe you tell me differently, but like they still could have another piece to play in this offense. It's exciting for the people like you are holding the UH. I have the Packers winning the Super Bowl ticket. I feel like, even though the Bears won.

00:35:16
Speaker 1: On Friday, you gotta feel better maybe than you have all season long with the Packers at eight three and one after this one.

00:35:23
Speaker 2: I feel good seeing Jordan Love, who is the quote back I enjoy watching the most round into this kind of form at the stage of the season is very, very exciting.

00:35:32
Speaker 1: So I mentioned they have two games against the Bears in a three week span. It's actually eighteen days because the last of those games is on a Thursday night. Just a banger of a game, But I hate that scheduling, Like two games in eighteen days between these two teams is is weird. And they both have some very challenging games down the stretch, so there's a lot of.

00:35:56
Speaker 3: Game to play.

00:35:57
Speaker 1: And yet I feel like the Packers, if there was any doubt, like eight three and one, there in outstanding shape to not only possibly win the division, but certainly get a wild card at the very least. And now Chicago at nine to three, despite that tough schedule looking very good. A couple of games up on the Detroit Lions. All right, that's the NFC North. Let's take a break, and you know it's been a good couple of days when we save what might have been one of the most fascinating games of the entire season. Four after the break, Yes, Chiefs and Cowboys.

00:36:36
Speaker 4: All right, here we go, preussnout looking that way. Now he runs up out of the pocket, He sprints to the right, He tucks the ball the womens, he steps in from the n touchdown Cowboys, they drew it up for the dirt.

00:36:49
Speaker 3: They drew him up in the dirt. Prescott said I'm here, I'm no here.

00:36:54
Speaker 2: You here, you do something.

00:36:58
Speaker 4: Williams did something.

00:37:00
Speaker 1: That was brad Sham on k RLD and that was the end of a beautiful drive by Dak Prescott to take the lead, a lead they would not relinquish. Cowboys win thirty one to twenty eight. And I wanted to start there, Ali because I did feel like that drive, that moment where they are trailing in the fourth quarter was a fascinating moment in this game. And after that, we get a whole lot of George Pickens, we get a decent amount of CD LAMB, and we get Dak Prescott doing the stuff before the snap, after the snap and occasionally like that with his legs improvising. To me, it was like the full Dak experience and it was beautiful.

00:37:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was just rolling around the floor with Lead. I said, Jentlemen is my favorite wode, but the watch doc is like my daily beloved seeing him have that kind of performance against Spags on what maybe the most watch game in history when the numbers come in, very very very thrilling.

00:38:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, the closing of this game to me was so telling, So Chiefs take the lead and we'll back it up. Because Mahomes played very well in this game. There was so much to go to in this game. This is gonna be a challenge for us. Frankly, Ali, you said, how many.

00:38:17
Speaker 3: Words did he write of notes this week?

00:38:19
Speaker 2: Oh, three thousand, three thousand?

00:38:21
Speaker 3: Okay?

00:38:21
Speaker 1: And how many was on this game? Because I do feel like I have just more on this game. There was like a lot going on in this game, probably two and a half thousand, right, So trying to boil it down is tough. But I do think how they closed the game offensively was was fascinating and telling. You essentially have the George Pickens drive where you know he has to play where he gets the big hurdle on the third down, but he also draws pass interference. He has a couple other catches and it ends. I believe that's the drive. You also have an incredible two point conversion play. Thought of going with that for the highlight right after that where Dak puts it in a tiny wind to Pickens following drive after they get the ball back, that's where you hit the fifty one yarder to ceed lamb. You know, Spagnolo sends pressure with McDuffie, and you get a one on one Chamari Connor against Ceedee Lamb beauty dime down the field. You get a field goal there to go up two scores, and then you finish the game by getting the ball back with three twenty two left. And there were so many parts and I'm combining them all together, just wanting to take the big picture here Ali where because the Chiefs took the lead and then the Chiefs you know, got it to one score and there's three twenty two left. There were so many points where I thought, Okay, this is where the Chiefs do get that stop, this is where the Chiefs get the ball back and then win. But it just kept not happening. And they closed it out by throwing the ball two times in a row on second down, which I think was so important. On one, they get a pass interference that was to Pickens. On another they complete the ball to Lamb. He goes out of bounds. But whatever, they end up finishing out the game and just never give the ball back. Kind of walk me through what you think of just Brian Schottenheimer and how Dak approached this fourth quarter and finishing out what was a great game plan.

00:40:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Schottenheimer is so dialed in. I think that's probably just the best all around offense in the league, just design wise. I think it's almost streaks ahead of everyone else at the moment. And then where I feel like Schottenheimer's just like taking himself to a whole different level. We talked about some of like the organizational arrogance to Dan Campbell being able to step back and understand that we need probably three first downs to win the games and maybe end the chief season. It's players, not plays in those moments, and we can find ways to get Cede lamp in the slot one on one. That's just what we want. Design is irrelevant. We're just gonna go man to man get our best play of the ball. We'll have the Pickings drive you mentioned. Let's just find a way to get George Pickens isolated. We think he's the best athlete on the field. He was playing like the best athlete on the field. He's the smoothest athlete maybe in the league right now, and so that's just how we're going to go down swinging. We've done all the fun stuff, all the creativity, all the game on stuff and when we've got to have a drive, when it's come from behind territory, what it's going to go to our two best plays, That's how we're going to go down.

00:41:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ceedey Lamb finishes with seven for one to twelve and a touchdown. Pickins has six catches on thirteen targets. When when I looked at it in the end, I was like, oh, McDuffie got his share of wins. It was especially him in coverage, but ultimately there were a ton of penalties. And when you really go through all the numbers, and the Cowboys numbers are great. I mean they finished with four hundred and fifty seven yards, they're over fifty percent on third down, like their numbers are great. But the Chiefs numbers are pretty great too. And the biggest difference you can really see is that it's the one hundred and and ten yards of penalties. That the Chiefs have ten penalties for one hundred and nineteen yards. And it did put them in difficult situations on offense, and it did help sustain some of these Cowboy drives or it was just a desperation ploy because their players aren't as good as the Cowboys, And I know Chiefs fans are mad at Andy Reid right now, that's there could be some reason to be fair. But I also watched this game just thinking like the Cowboys offense is more talented than the Chiefs defense.

00:42:07
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they had speck Noelin in a blender at times, I felt like where he just didn't know what to do, where he's got no pass rush. And yeah, another primetime game was George Kyle Lofts is just Mia every single primetime game, every big game, every time you needed to do something to help you season out, he had him that ridiculous contract. He's but some donut every single time, completely irrelevant in a big game. And to be fair to the Chiefs, they kind of sold out to try and force the Cowboys into third and medium, third and long, and then Dak was just money on third and fourth downs. They had a six two percent success rate on third and fourth downs. That's just a ridiculous number to have it the best of times. It's even crazy to have when that is like the money spags down. That's when he does all the cool spagsy stuff, and the Cowboys just a step ahead the entire evening.

00:42:50
Speaker 3: So I think the game.

00:42:52
Speaker 1: We just talked about Packers Lions, and then this one had some similarities that it meant to you know, mention it with the Packers Lions is like the Lions blitz rate was more than double the Packers, and the pressure rate was around the same was actually better for the Packers. It was kind of a similar dynamic here. It wasn't quite as you know, severe, but ultimately the Chiefs blitzed almost half the time, and yet they only had a pressure rate of thirty percent, which was lower than the Cowboys. That's an amazing stat because it's also a Cowboys pass rush stat, which is awesome, Like they had a totally respectable good pass rush overall without having a blitz like crazy. But Spagnolo hits that blitz early in the game. It's the first third down and they heat up Dak Prescott and he throws an interception and you're thinking, oh man, this might be a long day. And it was almost like that success early got Spags to cocky or something, because he just kept sending stuff the rest of the game and after that, like Dak seemed to really have an answer for what they were doing.

00:43:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. Specs has gone Dak Abun when they've played in their career like he has had man he really does come after him in a way that no one ever goes after Dak Prescott that where he is a blitz killer. He's so intelligent, so smart, he can identify everything so quickly, and he's old school. Brady squ replaced the blitz, quarts back wherever the blitz comes from. You just throw the ball behind the guy's head. You move on with the game. And so Specks tried to get him with more zone pressure stuff what you call a hot pressure, which is where the blitz guy goes from. We dropped someone from the defensive line into where the blitz guy came from. So if he replaces the blitzer, Chris Jones or someone stood there. That's how they tried to get him. With that first third down, they get the free runner through Chris Jones drops into that spot. Dak looks the other side of the field, thinks it's a blitz when it's spags Usually to man blitz, it's his zone blitz. Instead throws it into a cover two hole and gets picked off. They start trying to toggle back and forth between all that man pressure, which is kind of vintage spags and more of these zone pressures, And I gotta say to me, it's all credit to the offensive line more than Dak. It's not a Dak stat if you look at four of them, which are really cool designs, fan spag and no difficult to pick up stuff. Dak is not even looking at the side feel where the pressure is coming from. And the Cowboys guys just clean all that stuff up. How well they've become tied together when they've got a new left tackle. Booker is playing completely out of his mind the last few weeks as a rookie. It was a really really impressive Cowboys oh line performance when Specks tried to get really creative.

00:45:15
Speaker 1: I'm glad he pointed that out because that was something we talked about throughout the offseason. This young offensive line, how do they come together for the Cowboys because there was a ceiling there, a lot of high draft picks and I know Tyler got in. Their left tackle is out right now. Nate Thomas filled in for him, and he did give up the most pressure of anyone on the offensive line, but it still was under control. Like he did not stand out the rest of the group. Booker Terrence Steele on the right side, and then you have Cooper Beebe and Tyler Smith like they've played a lot of games together in a row and they're playing well. And to your carlaftis vicious takedown earlier thirty one pass rushes in this game won pressure and it wasn't quick, so fair, it's fair. I was worried because you put you know, you put NFL Daily Ali in your profile now on on social media, which I love seeing.

00:46:07
Speaker 3: Feel feel proud, But I was worried.

00:46:09
Speaker 1: You know now that that's there are we're gonna get like a softer version of Ali, and George Coloftus knows that.

00:46:18
Speaker 3: Uh, let's listen to CD LAMB after the game.

00:46:21
Speaker 1: I loved just hearing the cowboys and seeing the cowboys loving this moment.

00:46:26
Speaker 5: Message to the whole leading as boys, you're a national masspect and that you can actually do this.

00:46:30
Speaker 3: Keep talking. I see that's my message. I see it.

00:46:36
Speaker 1: I just love like the cockiness too, and how they were. You know, they get the turkey leg afterwards and they're sharing the turkey leg like two guys biting the same one, which was a little.

00:46:46
Speaker 2: It's good fateen chemistry. I don't think the Jaellen Hoods and A J. Brown are sharing turkey legs. Yeah, not great.

00:46:52
Speaker 1: Okay, let's let's talk a little bit about the Chiefs offense because it was a great My Homes game.

00:46:56
Speaker 3: Would you w you go that far and say great?

00:46:59
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe like a very good Patrick Mahomes game, like Jared goff in the losing effort.

00:47:05
Speaker 2: I do think he was very much up for the challenge.

00:47:07
Speaker 1: And we don't have to do the QB wins last thing, because I can think of four or five outstanding plays by Mahomes and maybe he didn't hit every improv play, but he hit a lot of.

00:47:19
Speaker 3: Them, and I think did enough to win this game.

00:47:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's doing it with all those miscues you mentioned on offense too, all the penalties backing them up there down three linemen right midway through the game, this note. Smith Simmons goes out with an injury. Looks like that's gonna send him to Aya the right tackle. Juon Taylor goes out too, so doing it under a ton of fire. I gotta say, I'm worried about Andy Reid, and I don't want a blaspheme against the football gouts, but it is just so strange to watching Andy Reid team become one of the most predictable offenses in the NFL have some of the most almost laughable tendencies at this point where the good coaches just know everything they're trying to do and so much to the game. Every week just feels like Mahome is running for his life and if it's not magic, nothing is gonna happen. We get the play where he almost falls over twice and he throws back down the field and that just feels like a micro cousin for the season where it's just feels such hard whoop for them all the time.

00:48:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, think about how this game could have been a blowout the other way. Not a blowout, but a comfortable win for the Cowboys. They hit the fourth down to take the lead to Rashi Rice, which is a miracle play by Mahomes and a great catch by Rashi Rice, who did have a pretty big drop on third down at another point in the game that killed the drive, but for the most part has come to play the last couple weeks and made big plays. You hit the first touchdown on a fourth down to Travis Kelcey. That was not an easy play at all. That's fourteen points right there. You mentioned the play where he is absolutely stumbling before hitting Xavier Worthy, or they're facing a fourth and long and the game is essentially over and the touchdown to Marquise Brown. I mean, that's just like a talented play. Patrick Mahomes is awesome, but these were not easy plays by Mahomes, and it is striking that there's like hasn't been a lot of easy buttons. There is something to me that I don't know if this team is tired or Andy Reid's tired. I mean, the man is sixty seven years old, They've played a lot of football games, and the weight of being the Kansas City Chiefs, It's not like it went away from losing that Super Bowl. I think it's still there and there does seem to be some sort of fatigue factor, maybe mentally as well as physically with this team.

00:49:37
Speaker 2: There's certainly a lack of ideas. There is still a stunning amount of Kareem Hunt. So much is still built around Travis Kelsey, who I think is moving way better than he did do last year. But I just don't know if that's what you want to send to the offense around at this point, I just go back to a couple of weeks ago they played Denver. There's two plays where they motion and Vince Joseph is basically running onto the field to point out to his corner a corner out is coming. It comes twice when he runs out on the field to do that. They face the Cults when they get into a certain formation with the certain emotion. It's the exact same target point of the rung game, the same side reaction six for six times in that game. They get to the same look against the Cowboys on their third drive. They have the two really good drives and they have nothing for success drives. And the Cowboys linebackers, hardly you know, a Hall of Fame group, are almost laughing, getting to the line of screams, are you kidding me? Are they going to do this again? And there's no payoff play building with these actions. Are going to run the ball with the same action at the same point over and over again and nothing pays off. That's just not Andy Reid. He's usually falling over with all these different ideas. He used to have Mike Kafker on steph digging through like Chinese and Japanese and Lithuanian film to go and find cool plays that they would hit over the head of the Las Vegas Raiders and now it just feels so fatigued.

00:50:48
Speaker 1: And you mentioned the Josh Simmons injury. It's a dislocated risk. We don't know when he'll be back, but he's going to be out indefinitely and that's a huge loss for them. I mean, they do have a well paid, a good backup in left tackle, Jalen Moore, but that that's a big loss for them. And yeah, you mentioned the four successive punts that they had. Three of those ended in Dallas territories. So in one hand, like the the Chiefs were in this game because they kept hitting fourth downs. On the other hand, they punted from plus territory from like a fourth and four I believe it was, and that ended up setting up that George Pickens drive. It's like there is still a level of conservatism from Andy Reid that that I find frustrating.

00:51:38
Speaker 2: I believe the surrender index, but that in the ninety eight, ninety eighth percentile of cowardness from Andy Reid and the Cowboys got the ottage back in full place. So it was very well and Patrick Mahomes, did you quote the back, you would feel if ever there was a time to be ultrogressives. Though when now stacking up that they have two of that key offensive pieces old then the more predictable nave of a been and then he's being more concerned if then he has before. So I think that and around all that they play really well offensively. All the advanced stats still love them that better this season than they will less season, but the margin for error is so thin because of injuries, because the defenses really regress them. Being league average is a testament to spags. Given what's happening on the back end and lack of a true pass rush, the only way to impact the quotback is pray and hope that a five man zone pressure forces a turnover. It's not even gonna get home. It's just well the quarts back panic with a flash of kula and throw the bolt. Was all Chris Jones goes ham for full snaps a game.

00:52:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you want to go down to just the basic stats, but I do think they're telling sometimes nine quarterback hits for the Cowboys, three sacks, a couple of them just when Mahomes is just holding it, holding it, trying to make a play. And then on the other side, the Chiefs do not sack Dak Prescott. They do get six quarterback hits in the game, but couldn't get him down. Let's listen to Patrick Mahomes after the game. Now, six and sex just.

00:53:00
Speaker 2: Just missed opportunities. I mean, just like all the losses we've had this year.

00:53:03
Speaker 4: We can beat anybody, but I mean we're showing that we can lose to anybody, and so we got to be more consistent.

00:53:08
Speaker 2: Hmm.

00:53:10
Speaker 1: He was kind of like dejected. I would say, like again when they played the Broncos and lost that game, like that was a humbling game. This one when I when I watched them, I'm not saying it was like acceptance, but it was just like, yeah, this is where we are.

00:53:25
Speaker 3: Like we're six and six. I don't think their season is over.

00:53:29
Speaker 1: Certainly, if any team could run the table, it could be them and they could even maybe afford a seventh loss. But we have reached that point now with these teams that were Super Bowl favorites coming in like the Lions, like the Chiefs, where it's it's legit they might not make the.

00:53:45
Speaker 2: Playoffs, yes, it's wild we credit the Mahomes that answer, I guess, but he was majorly responsible for losing the Broncos game, so he played really well in this game. But it's kind of like he gives one back to the defense, having I think cost them the Broncos game. It just makes it now a Texans and charges double head to which is certainly winnable but becomes must win, and with the injuries on the offensive line going against the most ferocious passers in the NFL, it becomes once again Patrick put the cape on. We're out of ideas. You got to go figure this out on your own.

00:54:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, Chiefs fans have had a lot of fun over the years. I do like how it sets up this stretch run between these two teams. So yes, now the Cowboys are only a game and a half back of the Eagles. There's a path certainly for the Cowboys to make it as a wildcard. They if they only lost one more game and they have the Lions next Thursday night. Finally, Shookie and I get like a real banger of a Thursday night game, such a big game for both teams, even if they lost that Lions game. If you look at their last four, they're probably favored in all of them. They could possibly even lose the Lions game, win out get a wildcard, but one and a half back of the Eagles, they have a chance to maybe win the division. The Eagles, though, do have the command twice and the Raiders in there, and so the margin is it's gonna be tough to try to pass the Eagles. On the other hand, the Chiefs like they're rooting for everyone in the AFC to keep losing, which is why when they were watching Baltimore and Cincinnati, if they were watching or checking their phones later that night, they were loving the result.

00:55:21
Speaker 3: Let's go to Cincinnati throwing.

00:55:23
Speaker 4: The shotgun p Ryan two is right shotgun staff Joe under pressure, clings it down the middle of the phone Yo C bosh leave shit the three. He takes it into the end zone a twenty eight yard touchdown to and Gray Yo si Bosh, and the Bengals lead is back to eleven with a pat coming up.

00:55:45
Speaker 6: Ah.

00:55:45
Speaker 1: I love that throw, and I love the satisfaction that Joe Burrow had after the game talking about that throw, like everything that he had done to get back was to be in position to set up his guy Yoshi. The Bengals upset the Ravens thirty two to fourteen. That was Dan Horde and Dave Lapham on wc K why it felt like Burrow needed the first half just to warm up a little. I mean, he still was good, but he missed a few throws. They settled for a lot of field goals, and they had a lead at halftime. But in terms of ball location and decision making, the second half of that game, to me, Ali was like Joe Burrow had never left.

00:56:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with you. I mean that throw is so sad, and I feel for Roquan Smith. You can see in his eyes that that is an incredible play for Roquan Smith. He goes from a mugged up spot to kind of matching the route vitually all the way down the field and he looks over like, are you kidding me? That Joe Burrows returned only like fall guys could make that throw on time absurd pay I I thought he took some time to get warmed up, and they just tried defeat to Jama Chase going into the second half, and obviously that's where the wing wing connection between those guys come in and you can get more explosive down the field. I mean, this was a game going to the third quote to given how many tonovers the Ravens had in their row and half the Bengals really struggled to convert in the red zone. I thought that was where you really saw kind of like a Christmas and Fluidity show for Burrow, where it's like has to be done instantaneously at the snap and you're going from practice speed to game speed. And then he'd really sped things up in the second half.

00:57:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, their running game has been better lately. I thought their offensive line had a good game, maybe pointed out the Ravens lack of a pass rush. And then there were a number of throws to Chase that were just huge. A third and seven helped set up a touchdown, just one of those outs, perfect timing that just Joe Burrow makes look easy. He had a bomb to Chase in this game that he put everything into and it worked out, and that set up points. I believe that was a field goal drive. And it's kind of like you're getting all the good stuff from Joe Flacco but without like the crippling interceptions.

00:57:50
Speaker 2: So that's a big upgrade.

00:57:51
Speaker 1: But I guess the biggest difference is the Cincinnati Bengals are forcing five turnovers against the Ravens, Like, how much of it do you think is the Bengals defense and how much much of it was Lamar Jackson and this Ravens offense just having a brutal performance.

00:58:05
Speaker 2: I thought a mix of both, which I know is a cop out. But then the Bengals pass first looked significantly improved, I think in barb because we're just underrating how poor the Ravens offensive line is. Lamar I just thought, I don't know what was happening during that game. Maybe he had two big Thanksgiving dinner or something. It was just not feeling it. I mean, the fumbles where the balls was coming out. Every single fumble was avoidable, not only from the fact the ball slips out of his hands or he makes a poor decision, but there were wide open throws all over the field that he just turned down, which then meant the play was extended, which then caused the fumbles. He was just so out of rhythm, and throughout this run where they've been winning the games, their office just looked so disjointed and disheveled. I felt throughout the run there's just no rhythm and they've kind of got away with it through turnover. Look that they have not turned the ball over during that run. They turned the ball over on Thursday, more than they have done at any point during the winning streak.

00:58:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was both a cursed game and like a terrible game. You had the Za Flowers offensive pass interference, kind of a shaky call that would have been seven points just taken off the board. You had Isaiah Likely on a catch and run going in for a long score and DJ Turner knocks it out right at the goal line and the Bengals get the ball back on a touchdown. That's fourteen points. Then again, it's also three points with Lamar just dropping the ball for Cincinnati to kick a field goal before the end of the first half. And maybe the biggest play, or certainly one of the biggest plays the entire game to me because it set the tone, was him fumbling the ball kind of running into pressure early in the first quarter on his own goal line and setting up the Bengals. It only ends up being three points, but there was just something about it that it set a spooky mood that they never really got.

00:59:54
Speaker 2: Out of I mean that crowd was dead.

00:59:56
Speaker 3: Ali.

00:59:57
Speaker 1: They not only did they leave with seven minutes to go, they were silent the whole game. I think they think this Ravens team doesn't have it, and based on the eye test, like I think they're right now.

01:00:07
Speaker 2: The home crowd always knows, and everyone's talking about putting this run together, and it's really just a knock on the Steelers kind of stinking, and that's not accepting that the Steelers kind of sting. They know they've not got the juice. You know, this was just to me the most bizarre Lamar game because he looked healthy finally, despite being on the injury report constantly. He was moving pretty well when he had to take off of his legs. He looked more spry than he has done throughout the wind streak. But just from the pocket, some of the decisions were pretty poor. Yeah, no touch or actually down the field, miss some wide open throws, a bunch of turndowns against the flakiest defense you could hope to find that isn't in Vegas, and just choosing not to let the ball go was really quite a bizarre performance. And the weird thing is he had a number of great throws.

01:00:49
Speaker 1: So I know the weather was not good, but I don't think it was like a crazy windy night. But it was cold there didn't seem to hurt Burrow too much. And Lamar also had like a number of good throws. If you just isolated the good throws, yea, you were like, Okay, he's fine.

01:01:05
Speaker 2: The throw to likely you mentioned where he gets Jordan Battel punches the ball out on the goal line as an unbelievble three, he has another one to likely move into his leg. He somehow has does that with Lamar things where he just goes into slow motion. Everyone else is moving a double speed and he's able to throw the ball back for a diamond to the middle of the field. So it was just a real rollercoaster ride with him. And it's being like that for the offense as a whole, but a lot of it I think is being at tribute to He's just not moved that well even within the pocket. He just seems really sludgy, and yet it looked like he had the legs all the way back last night, but them was like kind of the explosive twitch movements within the pocket. Then being able to break out and then the actually just vanished on him.

01:01:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, he had to pick up a few first downs with his legs, but yeah, there were just throws he had that he missed. There was a play action shot that Andrews was open, just missed it. He had a third and nine, I believe to Zay Flowers killed the drive. Just missed it like a Rashad Bateman seam ball, which was a tough throw to make, but he missed it by Tonny like one hop. Keaton Mitchell at one point, and he just hasn't been on the same page and sometimes he needs, you know, Dantes Walker to make a play for him the last couple of weeks, and tedes Walker just refuses to make that play. Let's actually listen to the interception that Lamar Jackson threw late in the game, because for all of these turnovers, the Bengals were kicking field goals early and even though they played better late, the Ravens were still in this game, and they did put together a couple of touchdown drives, including some big Derrick Henry plays. Keaton Mitchell also had a touchdown to close the gap in the third quarter, so it wasn't really over until this Lamar interception.

01:02:42
Speaker 4: Huge play here, third and nine at the Cincinnati fifteen, the Bengals showing pressure, They've got seven guys up on the line. Lamar drops back. Lamar throws downfield into the end zone. Pip fan intercepted Atrius Night running it back. He's at the thirty thirty five forty spin move there and tackled around the forty five yard line. A tip of the line results in a pick for de Matrious Night and the Bengals get their fourth taken.

01:03:08
Speaker 1: And yeah, that was more of bad luck for Lamar, maybe not being as aware or moving in the pockets as you would like. But it was a night where Joseph Asai and Miles Murphy were making some plays in the backfield. That's It's all Bengals fans have wanted. It's just some signs of life out of their pass rush. And Osai had a at a monster game, two sacks, t quarterback hits for hurries. And I thought Murphy was back there too. It didn't quite show up on the stat sheep. I just thought he was active giving them something where I don't know this This division's pretty rough, Ali, Like, do you have any faith maybe that that this defense could turn turn around a little bit.

01:03:45
Speaker 2: No, I think they uh just disaster spots everywhere. That's so funny because it's a disaster zone in every single position. Then dj Ton is just an all pro play. It's just DJ does his own thing. Everyone else is a complete mess. Aside, did play well. I thought Murphy was really active. I'm surprised he didn't show more in the statue he felt hurries. But yeah, and I think it was some run stuffs and everything. But like, I was surprised he didn't hit Labar. But you're right, it did show up a little bit too. And grading on that typical curve, I guess that would be a plus plus UPO. Yeah.

01:04:14
Speaker 1: Okay, we've gone a long as we'll often do. Let's actually wrap up the show, take one last break on the other side. I don't want to just move past the burrow stuff, because late in this game it did make me think. And I know they're four and eight, and I listened to Paul Dayaner's podcast it's called The Growler. He has one of the best postgame podcasts. It's tight, which maybe I could we should learn from Molly. I don't know one of the reasons. I like, it's like always just it's just thirty minutes. It gives me that Bengals postgame heat, and he always says great perspective. And after last week they were just talking, Okay, the season's over, the scene's over. And then after this one it's like, I don't know, the Ravens are pretty bad.

01:04:52
Speaker 3: They get to play them again in a couple of weeks.

01:04:55
Speaker 1: I don't trust the Bengals to rip off a ton of wins, including playing in Buffalo next week.

01:04:59
Speaker 2: That's that's the problem.

01:05:01
Speaker 1: But you could see a scenario where the Steelers and the Ravens lose enough that couldn't eight wins be enough to make the playoffs in this division? Could nine wins be enough? If Joe Burrow keeps playing like this, he's got a chance. Let's actually listen to his first touchdown back from injury.

01:05:18
Speaker 4: Now, p Ryan moves back a few steps and lines up to Burrow's left. Joe is ready, catches the shotgun, snap begins scrambling right, Burrow throwing downfield for Hudson.

01:05:27
Speaker 2: Oh he's got it.

01:05:28
Speaker 4: Wow, touchdown, Bengals. What an adjustment to the ball by Hudson and the not so ober the back right pylon for a fourteen yard touchdown Joe Burrows first since returning from the Joe.

01:05:43
Speaker 1: You can pick on the Tanner Hudson versus Kyle Hamilton in great coverage matchup and actually get a completion like you're cooking with gas.

01:05:52
Speaker 2: That was an incredible play, unbelievable play. I want to say too, I think that their offensive line, who takes a ton of flat understandably, has actually been pretty good now for a couple of months. Again, grading on the Bengals curve with trying to figure out how could they put some kind of run together. I think it's gonna go through how the offensive line can hold them. I thought they really handled all the different looks and pressures and fake outs the Bengals tried to send their way. And if you just give Borrow even a split second of extra timey he's used to having, that's when you can do stuff like dice people ball move slightly and be able to have enough time to get the throw and they'd be mashing people with the run. I mean that third and success right since week six, and so you go into the Bills game next week, that is a perfect profile to have like a fifty burger fifty burger off between these two teams.

01:06:37
Speaker 1: Man, I hate to give you know, Zach Taylor too much credit. First of all, this is setting up, not that I thought Zach Taylor or there was gonna be some regime change necessarily anyways, but this is absolutely setting up for them to play well down the stretch and Mike Brown just to run everything back.

01:06:53
Speaker 2: That's a big picture look. But together, I don't know. And that I think that the Bird he's a tweet in that Joe Brady and Joe Burrow I have a little rendezvous back in Cincinnati. I think that's very much still on the table. The thing with Tailor that's funny is everyone always says, what does he do? And that's a totally fair question. I got no idea what this guy does monate the Friday. What he does do every time Burrow goes down is completely over all the offense, but it's delayed by like three weeks. He like runs on a leg. He can't accept that. He just mourns that the Burrow is out, even though he's used to it at this point. So they over all it. That stuff usually works pretty well. Then Joe comes back, and Joe's like runs it for a half and is like, I'm good with all that crap. Let's get to throw all that stuff out. Let's go back to the Joe Burrow offense. I would like them to keep as much of the rung game elements that have really been singing over the past month, keeping in there with Burrow, although I think the tail is a bit of a pushover and Borrow will get to do his thing.

01:07:42
Speaker 3: Well that's the thing.

01:07:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, Burrow just feels like he's running this organization, and you know why not. I trust him over probably anyone else in the building. I guess that's talk about singing. I like those Ali birds singing. And I was gonna I was gonna give Taylor credit because I almost feel like with these tight ends, it's Drew Sample, it's Noah Fant, it's Tanner Hudson, who, by the way, the very play before, made an incredible play as a cornerback to I think get the ball away. It was the same matchup from Kyle Hamilton on what could have been an interception. So shout out to Tanner, Hudson and GASICKI like they're almost rams light a little bit with these like four tight ends that it's like not huge production, but they just seem like they're effective in adding layers to the offense. And the offense has been pretty good, more than pretty good.

01:08:31
Speaker 2: And Burrow will cast them aside within two minutes when he gets back to playing how he wants to play.

01:08:35
Speaker 3: It's fair.

01:08:37
Speaker 1: Okay, we've done it. I don't know if we got through all of your notes.

01:08:42
Speaker 2: We have to give this one last note. The best announcer of a two beautiful, glorious football days was Jason Garrett. To come out to Jason Garrett, what a come out. And I know people thinking, wait, I heard him on note today at NBC where it sounded like he was throwing up on himself. Was panic the entire time. Last yet pretty good on Thanksgiving this year. Absolutely elite. Now this is coming from a guy who loves Treyigman. I know Treigman is device, so I think Aikman is by far the best in the business. I thought Garrett was exceptional in having the innate ability to understand every single thing that happened on the play in real time. It is so impossibly tough to do that. We've been at games and cold games. It is so odd to be able to see both the coverage and the rush and the protection and the route concept. Somehow he can internalize it instantly and points to fout that is proven when they go back to replay. Oh, he's exactly right on how the play unfolded. I mean to defend us on talkSPORT.

01:09:33
Speaker 1: You know they got the like replay monitors right away, they got the spotters and everything, so you know, step up, well, Gavin, let's let's up the budget here and we could be giving you that level analysis.

01:09:45
Speaker 2: I love that.

01:09:46
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'll go back to check that out. The Ravens Bengals game was the one I did not watch live until the fourth quarter, and even then my family, you know, we had them all over last night. We sat down for dinner right about as that game started, and so I watched that back this morning.

01:10:05
Speaker 3: But that's great to hear. I did think he was good.

01:10:07
Speaker 1: Some guys are better doing the game by far, even though it's a harder job on some level than the studio, which I get the studio is sterile and the job kind of sucks. You're just saying fifteen seconds, like, if you're good in studio, it's like, a it's hard to do that. And Jason Garrett, you're right, like he never says anything in the studio. But I know for a fact some hires up at NBC listen to this show.

01:10:30
Speaker 2: So maybe, oh, that's that's good. Yeah, take the Chruis Millis men out of that. You read it, that asks him to have charisma and let the bull coach Cold Bowl place in real time. That seems pretty sensible to me.

01:10:39
Speaker 3: I do think that makes sense.

01:10:40
Speaker 1: Although Chris Collins, where I do think, is great at seeing the whole picture in the moment.

01:10:47
Speaker 2: Aikman is so streaks ahead of everyone else.

01:10:50
Speaker 1: It's no he's a quarterback, unfair advantage. Okay, I don't know if we got to all four thousand pages of your notes andired up, I'm gonna listen to one last thing about Joe Burrow. By the way, I wanted to hear him post scheme. Uh, he was about as close to emotional as I would say.

01:11:09
Speaker 3: Joe Burrow.

01:11:10
Speaker 5: Ever, again, certainly hasn't been easy on me through through six years from a lot of different angles. But you know, I've worked really hard to put myself in position to be back out there and a lot of people around me have done the same. There's there's no there's no better feeling than that, you know, putting in, putting in work for for a long time and going out and in it paying off. It's uh, there's just just there's just no feeling like going out in front of the world with a group of guys that work really hard to go try to win games, and and going out and putting on a good performance and winning that game.

01:11:53
Speaker 1: It was reflective and like it was, it was a lot he's he mentioned the last six years have been tough with the for a competitor like that to have to miss so many times, so much time, like this season has not been the same without him for all of us, but I'm sure has been absolutely brutal for him.

01:12:09
Speaker 3: So it was a it was a cool moment.

01:12:11
Speaker 2: I don't know how you can't love a guy with that flow and that coat. Just getting emotional, throwing dods to ton of hoodson non ky Lamet full polls the best.

01:12:21
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, Eric, lets us know your reaction to the coat off camera because we were showing it was just fantastic. It is amazing for that that big of a badass to be wearing that badass of a coat. I mean, he's our Joe Namath. He just hasked to stay healthy, you know, like when when he had when he hit that first touchdown. Oh no, it was actually the yos of us touchdown. And I think if you're watching us on YouTube, we love you, subscribe, like we'll be back on Sunday night. You can actually see his reaction after showing hitting that touchdown of him just slamming himself in the chest and uh in the head, saying you're gonna send a six man pressure on me, I'm.

01:12:59
Speaker 3: Gonna make you pay.

01:13:01
Speaker 1: And he said after the game how they've been repping that exact play over and over all season, even when he was.

01:13:06
Speaker 3: Not in a lineup.

01:13:08
Speaker 1: Everyone check out the read Optional, Ali, I saw you got a Black Friday special, so this is the time to do it.

01:13:15
Speaker 2: Fifty dollars. Come come now, come on, that's fifty dollars for a year the read Optional. Amazing.

01:13:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the whole year. And that's Ali's great writing. And so he'll be using about maybe thirty five hundred of those four thousand words of notes.

01:13:32
Speaker 3: In terms of his writing.

01:13:33
Speaker 1: And then you can also check out his great podcast with John Leedard if you subscribe there too. If you subscribe to this podcast feed, you will hear us again on Sunday night. So normally Ali and I are going to be doing Saturdays moving forward, but it was a pleasure Ali to have you recapping I think the biggest two days of the NFL season so far.

01:13:51
Speaker 3: So hopefully Sunday can top it.

01:13:53
Speaker 2: A lot of pressure.

01:13:54
Speaker 1: I'll be back in the studio with Jordan Rodrive and Patrick Clayban. Your guys, Shook will be I from Cleveland.

01:14:00
Speaker 3: We will see you that

01:14:07
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.